Richard's Animorphs Forum

General Category => General Fan Fiction & Art => Topic started by: Cloak on January 18, 2012, 09:04:51 AM

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2012, 09:04:51 AM

This is a fic idea that I've been sitting on for some time.  It may become my primary project, if this SOPA thing turns out to be detrimental to the parodies.  If not, it will becomes my primary project when I'm outta parody ideas, or waiting for someone to post.

Book One: A RAFian Falls
Chapter One:
The Deal

The Howler fired that ray gun that appeared to be a dracon, but the two cloaked figures easily dodged it.  One was larger, bulkier and wearing a black cloak.  The other was smaller, leaner and wearing a pinkish cloak.

Suddenly, a large boulder was hurled at the Howler's head, but missed my mere inches!  The Howler pulled out a knife, which seemed unable to touch the figures in the cloaks.  Suddenly it was ensnared in the branches of a yew tree that wasn't there a second before.

A loud roar, from some distance away, and the Pootang ate the seal, again.  But the cloaked figures, known as Cloak and his elder neice Shadow, concentrated on the Howler.  The other RAFians were dealing with the Pootang.  But battling the Pootang was little more than a game for the RAFians, although Horse might disagree as she gets eaten in nearly every encounter.

Cloak fell on his back but rolled back to his feet with practiced ease.  Then Howler decided to use the one weapon that Cloak and Shadow had no defense against.  It howled.

***

Meanwhile, at the Banned HQ, Queen was in her usual rages.  Aloth, wide-eyed and with somewhat vacant expression, and Yorick, who wore a disinterested, aloof expression.  This was an usual experience.

But something happened to jolt Queen out of her rant.  A low, malicious chuckle.  All three stared in the direction of the sound.  Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then, with a swishing swagger, a figure in a coal black cloak stepped from the shadows.

He was much too wide to be Dagger, too hornless to be Brute, too big to be Shadow, and too bulky to be Cloak.  He was a new Realm Walker.

"You three are absolutely pathetic." he spoke in a low, silky voice.

"HOW DARE YOU!  HOW DARE YOU COME HERE --" Queen started.

"Silence, fool!" the Realm Walker snarled.  "You've tried to get that forum -- that RAF -- countless times, but never succeeded.  Have you?"

Queen gulped like a goldfish.  Aloth, however, said, innocently, "How do you know that?" which cause Queen to slap the backside of his head.

"I have my sources," the Realm Walker replied repressively.  "Now, I can give you RAF."

"How?" Yorick said, sincerely surprised.

"That's immaterial.  I can do it.  All I ask is one thing in return."

"What?" Queen said, filling the word with as much contempt and hatred as she could.

"Cloak." he stated with a broad smile.  "That is my price.  Cloak is mine to kill.  It must be me, and it must be public -- in front of his precious RAFians!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blocky97 on February 07, 2012, 05:38:42 PM

Very cool, Cloak. Hope this clears up some of that realm-walking backstory!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2012, 02:23:53 PM

Well, it clears up more of my backstory than Realm Walkers.  But I'll bear that in mind. . . . I will probably post another chapter sometime this weekend.

(I confess, I forgotten about this thread, but saved my notes.)

Chapter Two:
The Stone

The Howler tensed.  All its weapons seemed useless against these strange beings it had never encountered before -- and, indeed, no Howler has battled before, as their genetic memory was devoid of knowledge of Realm Walkers.

It occured to Cloak that it might decide it had to resort to --

"KERRRRROWWW!"

Yeah, that.

Realm Walkers, like Olympians, have golden blood called ichor.  And after that howl, ichor streamed from Cloak's ears.  It was nothing truly serious, but it was enough to get Cloak severely ticked off.  Golden-scarlet energy started to build up in Cloak's, a small amount leaking out.  This cause the Howler to back off a distance away to assess this odd new development.

"Oh no . . ." Shadow's voice was small and faint.

Cloak blasted a giant beach ball-sized Hadouken at the Howler, but it escaped very narrowly.  The Howler apparently thought this new twist was exciting and fun, because it seemed to be smiling.  It began to howl again, but it never got to finish, because then Cloak, fuelled by anger, terrakinetically lifted some very large boulders up and smashed them down on the Howler with the force of a hydralic press.

After the dust settled, Cloak shut his eyes and took a couple of deep, slow breaths.  Then he took a few more.

"Uncle . . ."

"I'm fine, Shadow." Cloak said, although that wasn't entirely true.  And Shadow knew it.  But before she could call him on it, Cloak said, "You're mom's probably worried about you.  Why don't you go back?"

Shadow took the hint -- he didn't want to talk about it.  She swished her cloak and was gone.  Then Cloak opened his eyes, which returned to their normal state.  The truth of the matter is Cloak was scared -- scared of his own emotions, of his own rage and anger.  This is why he tried to keep it under lock and key.

Horse, having just came out of Pootang in a way she didn't care to discuss, meandered over, still covered in Pootang yuck.  Gaz, Guy, Blocky, and Parker were with her.  Parker was using some odd device to siphon off the Pootang yuck.  The Pootang had returned to the cage where it would inevitably escape again.  But then, that was supposed to be half the fun.

"Hey, Cloak." Gaz said.  "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Cloak said repressively.

Gaz took the hint that he didn't want to talk about that topic, and so turned to the boulders Cloak used to kill off the Howler.  Then she said, "Hey . . . this looks like writing."

"What?" Guy asked, bewildered.  "How can that be?  Cloak?"

"I cannot terrakinetically write. I don't know any Elements Master or terrakinetic that can."

Guy nodded at this, then studied the scratchings etched on the boulder, "But this is definitely a language -- but not one I know.  This doesn't look Terran."

"And I can't translate it, either," Parker put in.  "Cloak, can you?"

Cloak glanced at the stone, and his eyes narrowed with every line.

"You can read it, can you?" Horse said.  "What does it say?"

A brief moment where Cloak said nothing.

"It's nothing." Cloak said in an unscrutable tone. "It says nothing."

This was a lie.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 10, 2012, 06:59:12 PM

Thanks for bringing this to my attention! Can't wait to read more. ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2012, 02:10:22 PM

Thanks, Gazzy.  I'll try to update as frequently as I do with the parodies.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Coup

The border between the Bannedlands and RAF was a visable line of lush vegetation and barren, desolate wasteland.  And it was usually devoid of life.

But not today.  There was a rather large, and motley, collection of trolls, always uglier than the next.  At the fore of the regiment was the three most known Banned -- dimwitted Aloth, snide Yorick and dictatorial Queen.  All hovering over the precipice, still in no-man's-land of the border.

"There it is," Queen stated with a hungry voice.  "Let's go."

But just then a large, beefy hand with sausage-like fingers wrapped around her neck.  Then it lifted her up a foot or two.  It was the new Realm Walker.

"What do you think you're doing?!" the Realm Walker snarled.

"Attacking that fool Richard!" Queen gasped.  It was remarkable that she lost none of her arrogance when the Realm Walker was quite capable of smashing her without a second thought.

"And why," the Realm Walker said, voice low and silky, "would you want to do that?  Especially since I said we would go when the time is right? When their defenses are low?  When their guard is low?  WHEN THE ELEMENTS MASTER COULDN'T SENSE US COMING?! He's a terrakinetic, you fool! He'd be able to feel the vibrations coming a mile off! Do you think of such things? No, of course not. You just shoot your mouth off without thinking, act when it would be unwise to do so -- it is little wonder why you have never succeeded in overthrowing this Richard guy and his mods!"

Queen's face turned red, but whether that's from the lack of blood or rage or embarrassment, it was hard to say.  But Queen said no more, and the Realm Walker dropped her roughly.

"Your impatience has no harmed the plan," the Realm Walker continued, looking into the lush paradise that is RAF.  "Fortunately for you.  As dawn approaches, so does the time for the attack.  We shall be there before the one known as Cloak has time to stop us.  And then . . . I'll have him."

***

Cloak was drafting another RAFparody -- "Dig A Little Deeper" -- when he felt something.  It was not a vibration through the ground, but rather one that went to his soul.  Feline Realm Walkers always could sense the presence of malicious beings, and Cloak never questioned this ability.

Cloak stood right away, holding his body quite stiff, looking around -- that was the problem with this sense, it never pinpointed anything.  Cloak was still on high alert when he walked out of his thread -- he stayed in RAF more often than he stayed in the Nexus, his species home world, which is where all universes (ALL universes) intersect, and holds the Gate of Oblivion.  Anyone goes through the Veil of Oblivion, located on the other side of the Gate, and they shan't ever return.  This is the fate of the most dangerous Realm Walker criminals, as it is the only thing, other than another Realm Walker, that can kill a Realm Walker.

Cloak was nearly shocked because he saw a troll horde coming towards RAF -- within mere minutes, seconds really, they would be here.  They would overrun -- there were like fifty trolls to a RAFian.  But they were clearly outmatched.  A newbie takes out that many trolls before lunch.

But there was something different about this that Cloak couldn't put his finger on.  He brushed that thought aside and raised the alarm.  The RAFians rushed out of the threads, clearly posting or working on some projects -- ND had paint on her fingers, Demos was unaware that he was still holding a test tube filled with some vile-smelling concoction, and Horse, Parker, Yunyun, Rad, and Blaze had just come from the training pavilion.

Then the trolls and RAFians stared at each other, glaring implied insults.  Then the two lines clashed.  Cloak attempted to fight them, but they seemed to have no interest in him.  Cloak, though he wouldn't openly admit it, felt a little aggrieved at this.  He was not a weakling! They surely weren't afraid of his power -- he never used his full power, because as stated, he himself was afraid of it.

But the cause of it was evident soon enough, because when Cloak turned around, he saw someone he had thought he would never see again. Someone he liked less than Laura Mallory and that Phelps church.

He said accusingly, "YOU!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 11, 2012, 04:53:24 PM

This is really cool. Keep up the good work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2012, 05:47:36 PM

Thanks, Parker, I shall!  Now, warning! This chapter contains a partial plot dump.  And not that this book takes place BEFORE the recent events in the Intro Randomness RP.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Realm Walker Battle Royal

"Yes, me." the Realm Walker said, sedately walking up to Cloak, stopping ten feet away. "You were expecting some line-dancing vampires?"

Cloak didn't speak.  He was revolted by the newcomer's appearance.  He was a mishmash of hippo, rat, ox, tiger, dragon, horse, ram, dog, boar, rooster, monkey, rabbit, and snake forms.

"You . . . you didn't. . . ." Cloak said, disgust and revulsion in his tone.  "You didn't absorb -- no, you stole the powers of the Twelve! No wonder they weren't as hard to defeat as they should have been."

"The Twelve?" Gaz had detached himself momentarily from battle.  It was then that Cloak noticed that the trolls were no longer fighting back but shrinking to the shadows fearfully, leaving the other RAFians to look around, wondering.

Cloak thought about how he should word his response.

"The Twelve were twelve Realm Walkers --"

"Yeah, I got that part."

"-- ancient Realm Walkers, far older than Malice.  They each had a unique ability -- Karma had yin-yang vision, Speedy had super speed, Imitator could shapeshift, Ghost could turn intangible, and so forth."

Cloak glared daggers at this new Realm Walker.

"And, as it turns out, some time before they went through the veil, this -- this -- this ABOMINATION absorbed their powers.  How I do not know."

"And you shan't know," Abomination replied, "as I have no interest in yours.  Call me Doomsday* or Armaggedon.  Ragnarok would be fine, too."

"How about 'Egotrip'?" Faerie muttered.

Abomination scowled and glowered at her, then suddenly Faerie's right wing bore burnt streak on it, and she fell to the ground.  Abomination may have moved to fast for mundane eyes to see, but Cloak saw -- just barely, though.

"Faerie!" Cloak heard Horse, Block, and Guy shriek.

Goom, however scuttled up, and, even though Cloak had locked his eyes on Abomination and hadn't moved his head a nanometer, he knew she'd be okay.

"No," Cloaky said, his voice colder than Pluto's surface, "you're an Abomination, so Abomination you will be!"

Abomination now scowled at Cloak, who wasn't so easily intimidated.

"You were a schoolyard bully," Cloak continued, "you were always a bully. But you didn't like it when somebody stood up to you, did you, you little punk?"

Cloak's eyes were starting to build up with golden-scarlet energy once again.  Then the energy started to leak off his eyes in fiery tendrils.  Cloak roard his feline roar, a definite warning sign.

"I am the ultimate being, you worthless piece of [Realm Walker cussing]!  I am the premier creation!  I am the strongest of the strong!"

"You are wrong. You always were." Cloak said with gritted teeth, trying to control his emotions.

But it was too late.  Abomination's mere presence brought up painful memories, and a rage that Cloak thought he had long suppressed. It was just too much.  Too much to handle.

"Oh shi--" Parker began.

"Run!" Blue shouted, realizing was was gonna happen.  "Get away! Cloak's goin' into berserker mode!"

Cloak lost control of himself, but he was dimly aware of the RAFians evacuation to the Animorphs board -- it was furthest away.  A ball of air engulfed Cloak like a shield.  The water in the nearby lake swished, sloshed and whirled violently.  The earth begun to shake with minor tremors. Trees sprouted up randomly only to burst into flame. Metal objects just shattered as if they were frozen in liquid nitrogen and then hit with a hammer.

And try as he might, Cloak could not regain control over himself!  Abomination didn't seem concerned, as he used his stolen powers of superspeed and levitation to evade Cloak.

"You're losing yourself! Get control! Now!!"

"G-grandfather . . . ?"

"NOW!!!"

SNAP!  Cloak found that he was mastering his emotions, calming himself down.  Regaining control of himself . . . he would have thought that he had mastered this by now.

"Pathetic display," Abomination sneered.

"I didn't ask for your critique," Cloak said shortly, trying not to flare up like that again.

"Well, I suppose it's my turn now."

Suddenly, Cloak felt punches and kicks but could not react from them.  There wasn't enough time to react. Cloak could not defend himself, he could barely form a single thought. It was no time before his ichor started flowing, burning the ground black.  His clothing was being stained dark gold.

He was unaware that the RAFians were trickling back.  He was unaware of many things at that point. At one point, he fell, but stubbornly returned to his feet.  This happened five more times.  On the seventh fall, Cloak did not rise again.  He remained on the ground, cloak nearly all stained gold.

Abomination, who was breathing heavily, gave a loud whoop and cackled madly.  "I finally did it! I finally did it!  CLOAK IS DEAD!!"

"No . . ." Parker muttered horrified.

----------
*[spoiler]Reference to what this storyline is loosely parodying.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2012, 06:22:21 PM

Sorry for the double-post, but I want to add another chapter.  Forgive me.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Evacuation

"RAFian fools," Abomination shouted, still clearly full of glee, "your mightest warrior has fallen."

It wasn't true, Cloak was no better a warrior than any other RAFian, but Abomination carried an old Realm Walker prejudice, where they think of Realm Dwellers as lesser beings.

"He's gone!  He won't come back.  Take his remains and go.  If you continue to fight . . . you will be annihilated."

Richard's face was a mask, his face was inscrutable, his thoughts a mystery.  But he was clearly thinking hard about this, weighing his options, and . . . finally coming to a decision.  A hard decision that he knew would not be popular.

"Ash.  Demos.  Take Cloak's . . . take Cloak, and let's go."

"We can't just give up RAF!" SuperNate declared.

Richard didn't say anything for a moment, then said, "What other option do we have?  Cloak died trying to defeat Abomination.  What chance to we have against him?"

Blue looked conflicted and . . . confused.  But he stayed quiet because, if he was right, he didn't want to alert Abomination.  Blue had remembered something Cloak had once told him about Realm Walkers.

Ash and Demos lifted Cloak up, their regenative abilities healing any damage that Cloak's ichor inflicted on them -- exactly why Richard had assigned them to the task.  There was a cheer from the Banned and the trolls as the RAFians pulled out of RAF.

They found refuge in a makeshift village, not that unlike Knothole Village from the comic Sonic universe, only entirely underground.  Cloak's remains were placed in an isolated spot -- a makeshift morgue-slash-infirmary.

While Cloak was the only one thought slain, a few more were injured.  Fairie was having Goom repair her wing.  Noelle's left stalk eye had a burn salve on it.  Horse was cut up, but she would live.  Gaz had several lacerations, and a minor concussion.  Block had his arm in a sling.

"This would be easier if I had arms!" Goom had lamented.

The other RAFians were milling around, looking miserable at losing the site . . . and friend, they cared for so much.  Parker took off his helmet -- he was unhurt, but his armor looked like hell.  Esplin struck the wall with his tail-blade in fury.  Guy was attempting to console Horse.

It seemed very bad, that they've become refugees.  But it could have been worse, they said, they could have been . . .

Blue still looked conflicted, but he was relatively unscathed.

"Blue, what's on your mind?" Terenia said, but he gaze was that of a teacher who caught a student passing notes in her class.

". . . Nothing," Blue said repressively.

"Don't be that way," she replied, "tell me."

"I . . . I don't think Cloak's dead."

Terenia took on a more gentle, consoling tone, "Blue, we'd all love that to be true, but the circumstances indicate --"

"I know what it looks like." Blue snapped.  "Cloak told me once that Realm Walkers were born of energy, and they die as energy."

"He also said that Realm Walkers can only be killed by another Realm Walker." Terenia said, resuming her teacher-tone.  "Abomination was another Realm Walker.  Maybe he knew of a way to kill him without Cloak turning into energy."

"Perhaps," Blue conceded.  "But my gut tells me otherwise."

"Your gut, or your hope?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 13, 2012, 07:54:10 PM

Killing the hero in the first act? Bold. I can't wait for more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2012, 08:03:28 PM

But am I really dead?

*Sly smile.*

Well, we'll find out more in upcoming chapters.  Which I'll post tomorrow.  Kinda feeling tapped creatively for now.

Er, never mind that, I lied.

CHAPTER SIX:
Epiphany Road

Cloak blinked and looked around.  Where was he?  There was nothing familiar about this place.  There was nothing but swirling gray mist all around.  Cloak felt a hard smooth surface beneath his feet.

It was sometime before he realized the hood of his cloak was down, but nothing was happening.  Cloak tried to remember what happened to land him in this strange place.  Then he recalled being beaten by Abomination. . . .

Did Abomination kill him?  Was he really . . . dead?  His stomach plummeted as he realized that . . . that he must be . . . .

"Cloak," a voice said.

Cloak's head snapped to up, in attention.  He recognized that voice.  A voice he had not heard for several years.  A voice he never thought he would hear again.

"Cloak," the voice said again.

Cloak daren't believe it.  He could not.  His hands begun to tremble incredibly with sheer anticipation and excitement.  He may see him again after all.

"G-grandfather . . . ?" Cloak called out tentatively.

Then, from the mist, another figure appeared.  He had a sharp, curled beak with a white feathered head, black feathered wings, powerful black feathered hands.  Round, golden eyes.  His feet had curled black talons.  But he was smiling benignly.

Cloak, unable to restrain himself any longer, launched himself to the figure and gave him a bone-crunching hug, which Sage, Cloak's grandfather, father of Ursa, returned.

"I . . . I . . ." Cloak spluttered.

"I know," Sage replied.

Then Cloak pulled away when he realized he failed to defeat Abomination.  And in doing so, he let his grandfather down.  That he would never be as worthy as his heroic, mighty grandfather.

"No, Cloak.  Don't think that way."

"How did you know --"

"You are feeling the things that we Elements Masters are usually cursed with feeling." Sage said succinctly.  "But you mustn't blame yourself."

Cloak heard his words but wasn't sure he could stop himself from that.  Sage seemed to recognize this, and sighed deeply.  He placed one of his feathered hands on Cloak's shoulders.

"I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy for you.  It wasn't for me.  We Elements Masters tend to run from our feelings, hide from them, even fear them.  But there is only one course for you now.  You must go onto the Epiphany Road."

"The . . . the epiphany road."

"Yes, only then you can make your very important decision."

"My -- what decision?"

"I believe you know."

"Tell me." Cloak said, who wasn't sure he knew.

"You know, Cloak.  The decision of whether to go back or go on."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 13, 2012, 08:51:58 PM

Wow. Totally can't wait to see what happens next!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2012, 09:01:21 PM

Whoa, I wasn't aware you were postin' Gazzy.  The next chapter is in my previous post.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 13, 2012, 10:29:40 PM

Lol! I'm sneaky that way?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 14, 2012, 12:57:55 AM

ooo... Self-reflecting, Life flash time!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2012, 03:30:23 PM

Let's just say I'm gonna "open the chakras".

[spoiler](Get the Avatar: The Last Airbender reference?)[/spoiler]

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Shadow Flight

Cloak's body had stopped bleeding ichor, but the ground beneath him still bore the burn marks of it.  His hands were folded over his chest, and he looked positively serene in death.

The injured RAFians were healing, and not exerting themselves, while the veteran RAFians, RAFians that had a RAFyear or more under ther belts, were having what could only be described as a council of war.

Richard was growing to dread the roundabout conversations that usually ensued.  They were in a very sour-tasting pickle.  And an easy solution would not fall out of the sky.  Victory at this point seemed to be futile.  Everything seemed hopeless, although no one seemed to want to accept that.

Estelore was on one of her intergalactic sojourns, and, as she's the only RAFian to really exceed Cloak in power, and they could not count on her timely appearance (as she was roughly 67 light-years away at the moment, and not even a star could span that distance in a few seconds).

"Whoa, why's everybody so down?" a bright, cheeky voice said from the ceiling.  It was Shadow hanging from her tail from a protruding tree root.  "And why's no one at the forum?  I go away for a few hours, and everything changes.  Anyway, where's Uncle?"

The council members looked anxious.  Shadow didn't know.  They had to tell her.  But how to break it gently to this eleven-year-old?  But Shadow was always more perceptive than people credited her for.

She dropped down and landed on her feet.  She looked at each member of the council in turn.  Richard.  Esplin.  Dameg.  Nate.  Phoenix.  Goom (who was on break for the moment).  Estrid.  Ash.  Broken.  Horse.  Block.  Guy.  Gaz.  Faerie with a bandaged wing.  Rad.  Parker, face obscured by his helmet.  AniDragon.  Kelly.  And Marie. . . .

"What's going on?  What aren't you telling me?"

More silence.  Then Kelly strode awkwardly and hesitately forward.  "Shadow . . . Cloak is . . . Cloak is . . ."

Kelly didn't need to finish.  Shadow got the gist.  And she wasn't too happy.

"HE'S NOT!!" she raged.  Her eyes were building her mauve and lavender energy, which leaked out as if they were tears.  "HE'S NOT!!!"

She ran and ran and ran.  She ran to the spot were he lay.  Where her dear uncle, and Elements teacher lay.  She sank to her knees, head bowed.  She seemed to be shaking with silent sobs.

"Shadow . . ." Horse said, voice as gentle and comforting as she could make it, "Shadow . . . I'm so sorry.  He's --"

Shadow interrupted with an unusually steely voice.  "He's not dead."

"Shadow, denial won't make it any easier --" Jess began, in a soft voice.

"He's not dead."

And with a swish of her lurid pink cloak, she was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2012, 05:06:22 PM

Wanted to up another chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Phoban Cliffs

Cloak walked forward, the same gray mist hanging around.  His grandfather stayed right by his side.  Apparently, to go on the Epiphany Road, you required "a predeceased guide of emotional significance".  In laymen's terms, a loved one that had already gone "on".

Cloak noticed the ground taking on a cold, stony feel.  The mist around them went from gray to a brilliant yellow.

"And now we're on Venus," Cloak muttered.

"Nice try," Sage said, "We're at the Phoban Cliffs."

"Phoban?  As in, phobos?"

"Well, I certainly didn't mean a Martian moon," Sage quipped.

"Great," Cloak grumbled, "I'm in an existential crisis, and you're cracking wise."

"Where'd you think you got it from?"

"Never mind that," Cloak said, bit irrably, "why are we here?"

"You must confront the deepest fears you possess."

"Uh, do I have to?" Cloak said, instantly feeling like a cub again.

Sage looked at Cloak, very seriously, and said, "We all must confront what frightens us.  You'll have to do this, sooner or later.  There's no point in denying it.  You must conquer your fear, not let your fear conquer you."

That was, word-for-word, Cloak's first instruction by Sage.  Cloak was anxious, afraid of what he'd see.  He was unsure if he was strong enough to overcome whatever lay ahead.

"Cloak, my dear grandson," Sage said, speaking in a very paternal way, "I cannot sugarcoat this for you.  You must go forward, you ARE strong enough.  You are stronger than you give yourself credit for.  Now . . . let's go."

Sage's words had a solidifying effect on Cloak's resolution.  He stood to his full height, and walked onward.  The yellow mist parted to reveal a horrid creature.  A creature that was large enough to snack on Ankylotyranni.

"A megaloscorpius." Cloak sighed.  It was a creature of a realm where Earth had roughly 92.129% more oxygen than in the Prime Universe.  It was a poisonous yellow color with beady violet eyes -- whereas actual megaloscorpi were midnight black with eyes to match -- though they take on an opaque, milky white with age.  It's claws were like scapels, it's venom could bring instant death to creatures Cloak's size.  Although he knew the venom would be eviserated before it even touched him, Cloak still found them foul.

Cloak knew why it would appear here at the Phoban Cliffs.  Cloak had always suffered from scorpiophobia.  He never liked the creatures.  Cloak had froze upon seeing it, and Sage looked concerned.  But not from the creature, which he could see, but from his grandson.  If he froze up here . . .

Then Cloak took a deep breath, and leaped to the side when it fired its left claw forward.  Cloak knew they wouldn't waste their venom unless they had prey in it's claws.  Cloak realized that this thing wasn't a real megaloscorpius, just a manifestation of everything he's ever feared.

Cloak leaped onto it's back, but was slightly distracted when he saw his other fears reflected in the creatures unnaturally shiny shell.  Cloak saw himself losing control of himself, as he did with Abomination, the death of his RAFian friends, the destructive power of fire (the element that he was most reluctant to learn), the death of his sisters, scorpions, the death of his mother, being unable to prevent disasters that he was quite capable of preventing (and some cases, could not logically prevent), the death of Shadow . . .

The overlarge scorpion nearly stung him, but Cloak realized that he was dawdling.  So he dived to the left, grabbed the tail, and, with all the force of will that he could dredge up, forced the tail into piercing its own shell.  Now, real megascorpius is immune to it's own venom, but this one collapsed into yellow mist and was absorbed into the surrounding yellow mist.  Then the mist dulled into a dreary gray.

"Good, Cloak.  Very good."

"Well, that was fun.  Can I go home now?"

"Surely, you didn't think this journey would be that easy?"

No, Cloak did not do the "Don't call me Shirley" joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blocky97 on February 16, 2012, 04:52:49 PM

Man, you put these out fast my friend!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2012, 05:13:48 PM

Yep.  I did mention I was sitting on this story for a long time.  So, it's been kicking around in the back of my mind for that length of time.

CHAPTER NINE:
Mother Knows Best

<It's been three days,> ND said, like she was forcing herself to, <shouldn't we bury . . . bury him?>

No one said anything about this.  It had been a full three days since Cloak fell, and just over a half hour when Shadow stormed away.  Cloaky looked so weak, broken and beaten, so utterly defeated.  It clawed at the hearts of the RAFians who knew him.

"That would be his family's decision," Gaz said, her voice was dull with the emotional stress of the last few days.

"Yes, well, that would be fine and all," Parker said, arms folded, looking intently at his feet.  "But how exactly do we contact them?"

Blue nodded, face expressionless.  "Right, only a Realm Walker can get to the Nexus.  He was the only RAFian Realm Walker."

"They may not even know," Horse put in.

"Not likely, I'm sure Shadow told them." Guy said.

"Then they will come here?"

"I don't see why not." Nate said.

"Then what's taking them so long?" Darth Poseidon inquired.

"Don't forget," Richard spoke for the first time in a long while, "they are Realm Walkers as he is.  They may not be in the Nexus."

Richard heaved a heavy sigh, then continued, "And who knows how many realms there are out there."

"Cloak inferred to me that there are more realms than stars in the sky," Dino recalled.

But, before the conversation could continue further, then the door burst open, and an ursine Realm Walker in a scrubs-green cloak burst in.  All at once, you could tell that this was NOT a person to trifle with.  She was very intimidating and frightening when riled.  She was Cloak's mother, Ursa.

She was followed by a vulpine Realm Walker in a royal blue cloak, and Shadow, who wore a deep violet cloak.  The vulpine Realm Walker was Shadow's mother, Ursa's firstborn, and Cloak's elder sister -- Faith.

"Where is he?  Where is my son?" Ursa demanded without so much as a hello.

"Who --" Richard said, who looked genuinely flummoxed at this interruption.

"My meemaw, Ursa," Shadow explained.  "And my mom, Faith."

"Never mind that," she said, uttering a growl which the RAFians took to be Shadow's true name, "I won't say this again, WHERE IS HE?  We need to take him back to the Nexus, I doubt your medical staff could cope with his needs!"

The RAFians tried not to look offended (some of them not succeeding very well).  But Ursa seemed oblvious that she even said anything offensive.  But such is her way.

"He's right over there." Genies said, as gently as she could.

Ursa strode over to him, and checked out his injuries.  She seemed very agitated, but let a small sigh of relief leave her.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Ursa, for your loss," AniDragon said, sweetly.

"What are you on about, child?" Ursa said imperiously.

"Huh?"

Faith intervened to explain, "Realm Walkers are born from energy, and, when we die, we return to energy.  Cloak is still corporeal.  He's not dead."

Before anyone could really take this in, Ursa finished her diagnosis.  "He cannot be moved.  His CSI is barely stable.  To move him would be to destablize it."

"His CSI?" Aquilai queried.  "His crime scene investigation?"

Ursa glared at him.

"Are you trying to be stupid?" It was a quite sincere question -- she wasn't sure if he was joking.  "Everyone knows that 'CSI' doesn't stand for 'crime scene investigation'.  It stands for 'corporeal structural integrity'.  It means that he hasn't translated to energy yet."

"Point is, he's alive." Blue said, mostly for the other RAFians' benefit.  And he was trying not to be smug about the fact that he was right.

"I will stay here and give him the medical attention he needs." Ursa said.

"And I'll serve as his replacement in any meetings you have. . . . Er, can I, Mom?"

Faith was concealing a small smile at her daughter's forwardness.  "Yes, you may."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 16, 2012, 09:50:16 PM

Gives new meaning to the term "mama bear". ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2012, 02:20:29 PM

Exactly why I chose a bear for her -- that, and her basically preventing Brute from killing me that one time when he was drunk.

CHAPTER TEN:
Rivers of Culpam

Cloak and his grandfather stode onward in silence.  Sage knew what Cloak was going through.  He had gone on the Epiphany Road once in his youth, and became a stronger person because of it.  He knew the same would happen for Cloak, he hoped the same would happen.

Suddenly, the mist took on a lurid pink color, and the ground beneath their feet became unstable.  Violently rocking back and forth, then forward.  It was like riding atop a bullet train, and, yet, like riding on a raft.  Sage acclimated to this change long before Cloak.

"What's . . . what's going on?!"

"Calm yourself, Cloak," Sage chided.

"Easy for you to say." Cloak grumbled.  "Where are we?"

"This is a River of Culpam," Sage stated, but did not explain further.  This irrated Cloak a bit, but he kept his feelings to himself.  Cloak had no idea what to expect here, and, while Cloak enjoyed RAFing, he did not enjoy rafting.

Suddenly, the ride smoothed out and appeared to be stationary, but that was only because they could not see what they were passing, if indeed they were passing anything.

"Prepare yourself, Cloak, it begins."

"What begins --"

But it became obvious when a sheet of water rose up exactly perpendicular to the river, which seemed to have become a very large stream or brook.  From the raised water, images began to form.

The images of Cloak losing his temper with Shadow, losing control of himself with Abomination, and more . . . Cloak felt struck, quite literally, with guilt.  Horrible things that he blamed himself for.

"Cloak," Sage said, his voice a light in darkness, "you must confront these images.  You must look!  I know this is hard, but you haven't a choice, Cloak!"

Cloak did, albeit reluctantly.  Sage looked at the images, as well.  More images surfaced, things that Cloak should not have felt guilt about at all, but still he blamed himself.

"You must accept the fact that these things happen." Sage intoned.  "You must forgive yourself."

"I . . . I can't."

"These things were not your fault," Sage said, a return to his grandfatherly tone, "you cannot always bear the weight of the world on your shoulders.  You have a heavy heart, and I know that means it's difficult to forgive yourself for these things, but you must.  You CAN."

Upon hearing this, Cloak resolutely looked at the images.  Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.  He actually felt lighter, and better.  Then the stone raft thing began to move to the right as the risen water splashed back down into river.  And the mist took on the gray color again.

They were on their ways to . . . well, somewhere else.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2012, 05:47:31 PM

Gonna go ahead and put up another chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Translate This

Back at the council of war, Shadow was awkwardly taking her uncle's usual place.  She was seated between Horse and Faerie (whose wings were mended).  They were discussing tactics for getting the forum back.  Shadow was a little unnerved when the others told her that Abomination had stolen the powers of the Twelve, as their actions were bad enough to warrant entry into Realm Walker history books, much like Pearl Harbor and 9/11.*

"Does that mean he's impossible to beat?" Gaz asked Shadow.

"I think so. . . . If Uncle could beat him . . ." Shadow said, still thoroughly shaken at this news.

"But that's impossible!  No one's all powerful!" Blue protested.

"True," Richard offered, "but until Abomination has a weakness we can exploit, that we can capitialize on, there is little we can do about it."

"There has to be some venue, some strategy, that we're overlooking," Broken put in.

"Yes, but the question is, what is that strategy?  I'm drawing blanks, and I don't like it." Faerie said with a bit of a pout.

"Well, we mustn't expect a solution to fall out of the sky." Nate stated.

Gaz's expression brightened a bit.  "Wait a minute, perhaps one has."

"What?" Nate blinked bewilderedly.

Parker got the gist.  "That boulder with the writing on it."

"What boulder was this?" Phoenix inquired interestedly.

"Well, three days ago -- or maybe four -- when we were battling the Pootang and Shadow and Cloak took on that Howler --"

"Oh, that's what that thing was called?" Shadow said quietly.

"Anyway," Guy said, taking up the story, "a boulder was unearthed that had strange writing on it.  I couldn't read it, nor could anyone else.  Including Cloak."

"But Cloak was lying," Horse put in, "you could see it in his eyes."

"Could I see this boulder?" Shadow asked.

"No, it was back at . . . at the forum."

"But I happen to have taken a pic of it." Guy said, immediately setting up a projector.  Then he displayed it on the right hand wall, which was flat enough.  Shadow walked up to it, eyes darting back and forth, reading it.

"It's Realm Walker." she said.  "It's one of Prophet's old predictions.  No, several actually.  No wonder Uncle didn't tell you what it said, he didn't put much faith in prophecies."

"Prophecies?" Marie asked.

"Could you translate them for us, Shadow?" Richard asked.

Shadow nodded, and begun to recite the few lines visible.

"The Son of the Elements shall fall to the Abomination.
     Rings seal his destruction.
The site of creativity will submerge.
     And only the faerie can purge.
A revenant's deadly obsession
     Only one can stop the horrid possession.
Time crime goes forth
     And proves a man's worth.
Techno-organic beings will assimilate
    A cure they will create.
Darkness shall befall upon a few
    Healing will prove a big to-do.
A ball of destruction hangs in the air
    The youngest will bounce it out of there.
The band of trolls will be led by Malice
     Their actions will be cruelly callous.
A gender schism will banish one
     The smallest will have it undone.
The machinations will convert
     Others to the ideals they assert.
The heroes will find themselves violated
     Creatures of which they are closely related."
An unholy union will unleash
     The horse-eating beast.

Silence greeted these words, as Shadow turned to see their reactions.  Shadow knew they were thinking of the first line.  The Son of the Elements.  Abomination.  Cloak was the Son of the Elements and he had named his would-be murderer Abomination.

"Cloak knew this." AniDragon said.  "He knew this, and he still fought Abomination."

"Shadow said it," Faerie replied, "he didn't put much stock into prophecies."

"But it didn't tell us how to defeat Abomination." Phoenix said.

"Yes, it did.  'Rings seal his destruction.'" Parker said.

"Yes, but what does that mean exactly?" Phoenix countered.

Silence.

----
*I hope this isn't in bad taste.  If so, I'm sorry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 17, 2012, 08:28:22 PM

Ooo... riddles are fun!

Don't worry about the 9/11 reference; it happened 11 years ago, we'll be fine.

This is shaping up nicely. I like the chapter titles, they're like episode titles. It's fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 18, 2012, 12:07:51 AM

I'm all caught up! Really enjoying this and can't wait to see what happens next! ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2012, 12:37:17 PM

Quote from: Darth Revan on February 17, 2012, 08:28:22 PM

[...] I like the chapter titles, they're like episode titles. It's fun.

Well, about that, I actually changed the title of the second chapter -- it was originally called "The Prophecy Stone".  But I thought that gave away too much.

Anyway, I'll post another chapter a little later.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Island of Ignominia

Their little stone raft on which Cloak and Sage were floating bumped into land.  Cloak strode off the raft beside his grandfather, onto sandy soil.  Then the gray mist changed into an awful psychedelic violet.

"Did a hippy get vaporized?" Cloak grumbled.

Sage said nothing, and did not even crack a smile.  But Cloak was sure that he heard him.  Sage's hearing was even better than Cloak's, as was his eyesight.  Perhaps he saw more than Cloak did.

Soon the sandy terrain changed into mossy vegetation and overgrown undergrowth of a still-wild forest.  Cloak sensed trees, mostly due to his mastery over the Wood element . . . of course he never said that he mastered that element without mentioning the five others, because then the jokes never stopped. . . .

Cloak knew that he would have to confront something here, but hadn't a clue what.  He was so involved in his own thoughts, he didn't even see the sign.  He walked head long into it, and both toppled over.

"Where'd that come from?"

"I didn't jump out of nowhere, Cloak.  Do try to pay more attention."

Of course, Sage knew perfectly well he did the exact same thing when he was here last.  But he didn't relate this to Cloak, although he did smile inwardly.  Cloak picked up the wooden sign, it was quite worn and erroded.  But he could just make out what it said: "The Island of Ignominia".

"What's 'Ignominia'?  Is it related to 'ignominous'?" Cloak asked.

"I've never thought to ask."

"What do you mean 'you've never thought --'?"

"That's not really the point," Sage said, "look there."

Then, on a trunk what looked like a morbidly obese baobob tree, images started to appear, as if carved in the bark.  It showed Cloak trying hard but always failing.  Cloak being, what he felt, a utter failure, a humiliating loser.  And all the things Cloak found shameful.  Cloak actually felt tears on this one.  He could not overcome this one.

"Cloak, you must." Sage prodded.

"Grandfather, I --"

"You MUST."

Cloak looked at the images, shifting in the bark.  He couldn't bear it.  He couldn't bear the burden of these memories.  He felt like he wanted to run . . . then he remembered he was on an island.

"Cloak," Sage said, resuming his grandfatherly tone, "you are not as you see yourself in these images.  You are not a loser.  You are not a failure."

"I wish I could believe that. . . ." Cloak said, arms crossed, head bowed, shoulders arched.

"Cloak, look at what you've accomplished!  You are an Elements Master!  You have friends.  You are not alone. . . . You . . . are not . . . alone."

He spoke those last four words with the most emphasis.  Cloak was starting to believe it.  He did.  He did believe it.  He was not worthless.  He had meaning.  Cloak relaxed his shoulders, took a deep breath, and exhaled.  Then he looked up, feeling lighter, better, than he had before.

"Good, Cloak.  Very good."

Suddenly, the terrain changed of its own accord.  Becoming as flat and smooth, like glass.  It was also quite cool to the touch.  The mist had become gray again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2012, 11:36:56 AM

Time for another chapter.  Probably a short chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The War Council

Back in the makeshift RAF HQ, the council of war -- which was broaded to include RAFians up to a RAFmonth old -- was getting underway again.  They were making decisions on how to get back into RAF, and take it back.

"It's our site," Blaze was saying, "we should take it back and give it to its rightful owners.  Us!"

"Good idea!  Any idea how?" Rad replied with the vaguest hint of sarcasm.

"I'm open to suggestions," Richard said more wearily than he had ever sounded.

"The problem isn't the Banned or the trolls," Sakki said, "they're pushovers.  Abomination is the main problem here."

"Yes, but I don't anyone short of Estelore can stand up to him." Blue said mulishly.

"Can we contact Estelore?" Aquilai asked.

"No, she's probably at the farthest edge of the galaxy by now." Gumby said.  "Even if we could establish communication with her, it'd probably take several years to reach her, and more years to reach us again."

"Then there is no hope," Faerie said bluntly.

"No, we mustn't give up hope." AniDragon asserted.

"Not another friendship speech."*

"Hey!"

"Enough, you two." Richard said.

It was amazing on how aged they all seemed to be.  They had never lost the site before, not this severely.  Cloak may have been alive, but according to Ursa, he was on the brink of death.  And they were all well aware of the fact that Abomination had enough power to outright kill anyone of them.

"Abomination." Goom said.  "Anyway to get rid of him without getting killed?"

"Or stomped into putty?" Parker said, with an exhausted tone.  It was clear that this meeting had been going on for a few hours.  Goom gave him a scandalized look -- apparently Goombas have strong feelings about being stomped.**

"There is nothing more that we can do, I fear," Gaz said.

"But that cannot be true," Horse said emphatically, "there has to be something we have not yet tried!  Some path not seen!  Some stragedy unapplied!"

"Don't break out into song, Horse.  We just don't have the time." Mr. Guy groaned.

"Besides that's a different thread," Shadow muttered.

"What was that, Shadow?" Kelly asked.

"Oh, nothing."***

"Now, the business at hand, people!" Phoenix insisted.  "We need to find out how to defeat Abomination.  He's just too competent when compared to the Banned and the trolls.  There has to be some way to defeat him.  Some weakness to exploit.  Everyone has a weakness.  Even . . . even Cloak had a weakness." Phoenix finished, deliberately not looking at Shadow.

"Cloak said something about Abomination stealing the powers of the Twelve****, right?" Parker asked.

There was general sounds of ascent.

"Wouldn't there be some way to strip them from him?  Take them away?"

"What, energy-bending?" Blue asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No," Shadow said.  "I know of no way to bind his powers."

But, then again, Shadow was eleven.

-----
*Yes, I've made AniDragon into the RAF's version of the YGOTAS (Yu-Gi-Oh! the Abridged Series)'s Tea.  Sorry, couldn't resist.

** ;D

*** Yes, we Realm Walkers can break the Fourth Wall.  But it's proper etiquette we don't.

**** No relation to the One or the Five.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2012, 04:09:20 PM

'Nother chapter, 'bout seven more left.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Mists of Luctus

Cloak looked around wearily.  He wondered what fresh emotional hell this would be.  Would this road ever be over?

"It's nearly over," Sage said, as if he read Cloak's thoughts.  "Just one more trial to go through.  And it's probably your hardest one."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll find out momentarily." Sage replied repressively.

So, that's where I get it from, Cloak thought aimlessly.

Suddenly the gray mist seemed to percipitate, to rain.  Only this was more like the mist was . . . crying?  No, that's not possible. . . . Althought, he's a member of a forum that has Andalites, Yeerks, dragons, Time Lords, a demon, and even a sentient star.  He shouldn't be surprised by things like this.

"We're in the Mists of Luctus, Cloak," Sage said, voice calm.  Then when he spoke again, the calmness faltered.  "The images will appear soon . . . be ready."

Suddenly the mist itself convorted into three-dimensional images. . . . Cloak saw his grandfather's death.  Sage had died of old age, even by Realm Walker's long standards -- Realm Walkers can live for centuries, millienia in Dweller's conception of time.  Cloak felt the horrid grief well up in him.  He was not there when Sage had passed, Sage was with his wife.  Cloak was alone, having finished babysitting young Shadow, when Faith had contacted him . . . he knew immediately something was wrong.  He knew by her tone.

Cloak had never felt such grief in his life.  He never realized how much that he would miss Sage when he was gone.  How much he took for granted that Sage would always be there.  That his humor would uplift him.  How much more that Sage could have taught him, but Cloak never thought to ask.

He constantly would ask himself later if he was letting Sage down, as Sage had always been more of a father to him than Brute, his biological father.  Cloak looked to him as Zuko would look to Iroh.  He felt lost when he passed on.  He . . .

"Cloak," a voice said.  It was Sage.  "Cloak, I know my passing away from this life had caused you grief.  I know it had caused you pain.  But that's the order of things, when our time's done, we move on to the next life."

Cloak said nothing, but sniffled a bit.  He felt like a cub again.  He . . . didn't know how to feel.  He didn't know what to think. . . .

"Cloak, the love I had for you, your mother, your aunts, your grandmother, your sister, Shadow . . . none of it went away.  It remains with you, as you do with me.  It will never end or fade.  But it was my time to go, and I went. . . ."

Cloak acknowledged this.  "But . . . I still miss you."

"Yes, and you will still, if . . . well, love is a form of energy, you know.  It can be used for the most powerful good or used for the vilest of evil.  But it cannot be destroyed.  Voldemort in Realm, well you know what happened to him."

Cloak heard these words, accepted them with some difficulty, and took a deep breath.  He strangely felt stronger, lighter, and clear-headed.

"It is done.  You're at the end of the Road."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 20, 2012, 09:45:25 PM

:'(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2012, 03:18:42 PM

*nods*

Next chapter.  Probably short.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Here We Come!

Back at what was once RAF, the Banned and trolls were still singing "We're the Banned", much to the irritation of Abomination.  Abomination had cobbled together a throne of sorts from the rubble.

The grounds had turned dingy, all trees leafless, and soil bare, without a single blade of grass.  The threads were horribly crumbling, looking like stale pastry.  It was a horrid sight to those who would love the forum.  It was painfully corrupted.  The air smelled smoky, the waters moved more like oil, the metal heavily corroded, and there were burn marks everywhere.

Back at Abomination's throne, Abomination apparently had enough of the singing.

"SILENCE!!!!" he roared.  "Four days!  Four days, you've done nothing but singing that STUPID song!"

Sudden silence greeted this outburst.  Abomination smirked at the abject "respect" (if you can call it that) that his power granted him.  His ill-begotten powers.  His STOLEN powers.  He was so sure that no one could take them away from him.  So sure no one knew how he stole them to begin with.

He was still feeling elated that he killed Cloak, or so he believed.  Killed the most powerful RAFian, or so he believed, as he never met Estelore.  He felt that no one could best him.  That no one could ruin him.

A cricket started to chirp, but was barbequed by Abomination's flame-breath.

***

The RAFians were preparing to retake RAF.  They were wearing more armor than they usually wore.  Parker's usual armor looked somehow thicker, bulkier.  Although he looked like he didn't think it would matter.  The mods wore plate armor of an unknown, alien metal, that were highlighted in gold.  The other RAFians were also looking bulky, serious and uncomfortable.

Only Shadow wore no armor.  It wasn't in the Realm Walker's nature to wear such things, although occasionally they would take on corporeal forms with natural armor, like Tomekeeper -- the ancient (even by Realm Walker standards) Nexus librarian, who is a turtle-form Realm Walker.

Goom was also not armored.  He was staying behind to act as medic, while Cerulean would deliver the injured back here, using his super-speed.*  So, he wore light-weight armor, that wouldn't impede his movements.

Shadow was surrounded by the armored RAFians, as they looked up to a raised platform.  Richard was standing upon the platform -- which Shadow made terrakinetically -- preparing to address the gathered RAFians.

There was a low rumble of anticipatory chatter among the RAFians, though Shadow remained silent and unusually focused.  This was a way to release pre-battle nerves, especially when everyone essentially knew that this was a suicide mission.

Richard cleared his throat, and the chatter died down in an instant.  Then Richard took a deep breath, and began.

"My fellow RAFians, today we take back our forum.  I will not lie to you.  There is a chance that we may not survive.  A great chance.  But we must do this, or die trying, because RAF is ours.  It's what we made it to be.  And it's been taken, stolen from us.  We cannot allow this.  We must fight for it. . . . And I don't what else to say on the matter.  Let's go."

----
*Yes, I know, Cerulean hasn't confirmed this ability himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2012, 03:07:37 PM

Yet another chapter -- catch me if you can. ;)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Cloak's Choice

The mists had turned back to their wispy gray.  Sage stood before Cloak, hands clapped on his shoulders.  He was looking with paternal pride.

"You did it, Cloak.  You made it to the end of the Road.  But," Sage took his hands off Cloak's shoulders, and looked at him in the eye, quite seriously.  "You must make a choice, now that you are no longer weighted down by emotional baggage."

"What choice?"

"You know what choice."

Cloak did.  Whether he would go on, with Sage at his side, or . . . go back.  Back to a world where pain and emotional cluttering would be certain to ensue.  Back to where he was needed, where he had responsibilities, where everything was hard and difficult, where the choices were heavy and wearing.

Cloak knew that he would want to go on with his grandfather.  Go and see the other Element Masters that preceded the both of them, right up to Avatar*, the fabled first Elements Master, and Cloak's distant ancestor.

Cloak knew that this choice was a Hobson's choice, that is, a choice that is no choice.  Cloak knew that he would go back.  He knew he had to.  The RAFians, short of Estelore, had no hope of defeating Abomination in his current state.  He was just too powerful.

But Cloak had no hopes in defeating him, either.  Abomination very nearly killed him.  Cloak, of course, was aware now of Abomination's rather glaring weakness.  And how he stole those powers to begin with.

"But, Grandfather . . ." Cloak said, hesitantly.  "How can I defeat Abomination?  How can I strip him of his stolen abilities?"

Sage was silent for a few moments.

"Cloak, you know I'm not permitted to tell you."

Cloak's heart plunged to somewhere around his knees.

"But, I will advise you, that you could look to the stars to give the rings of truth."

"Huh?  What are you . . . oh.  Great."

Cloak got the hint.  It would not be easy to obtain them . . . or even find them.  But Cloak had a shrewd idea how to procure them.  Cloak stood a bit taller, which Sage beamed at with his cruel-looking, yellow eagle beak.

"I will go back now, Grandfather," Cloak said, voice stronger than it had been in years, "and I will miss you."

"I shall miss you, as well, but we will meet again, but when, I cannot say."

Cloak raised an eyebrow.

"That is to say, I do not know."

---
*Yes, yes, yes.  A shameless "Avatar: the Last Airbender" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2012, 03:53:54 PM

Another chapter, I think.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Clash of the Cyber-Titans

At the site that once was RAF, Abomination was forcing Queen, Aloth, and Yorick to do a humilating form of "Stupid Pet Tricks".  They dare not question him, or risk their own destruction.  But it was clear that he was starting to get bored from it, and the three were starting to sweat.

"Enough!" Abomination snarled.  "Get outta my sight."

They did not hesitate, although Queen threw Abomination a look of deepest loathing, before hastily retreating to their . . . barracks, if you can call it that.  Abomination stood up from his throne, and began pacing around.  He was clearly itching for a fight, but he didn't want to attack his own forces, whatever he made them think that he would.  He halfway hoped that the RAFians would organize a coup, that'll make things far more interesting.

RAF was a derelict mess, as the RAFians noticed as they stealthily approached from the south.  Some RAFians were silently shedding tears at the sight of it.  It was a horrible sight to behold, even to the gruffest of RAFveterans, who have seen many a battle.  Granted, they'd never lost the forum, like now . . . .

Abomination sensed the approach of the RAFians, as he climbed up to the top of the Bored Board, the tallest thread in the forum, whereas the Member Threads were the longest.  He climbed up there to survey the forum, and then he levitated, using the stolen powers of Galloflight, He smiled that horrid smile of his, a more sinister form of the one he used when Cloak "died".

Back at the RAFian encampment, Richard was whispering in hushed tones.  "Good, we don't appear to have been spotted.  As long as we can keep the element of surprise, we might have a chance.  So, no unnecessary sounds.  No unnecessary movements.  Do not make yourself stand out.  Stay inconspicous."

But Abomination saw all this, albeit not hearing it.  He was thoroughly amused.  He would not enter the battle.  Not at first.  He would string them along a bit, as a slaughter wouldn't be that entertaining for him to watch.

The RAFians walked slowly, cautiously back into the forum that was rightfully theirs.  The ground seemed to rejoice quietly at their return.  But the grass dare not poke up from their subterranean slumber, and the trees were seemingly terrified to open their leaves.  The very site itself seemed aware that this was a suicide mission.

Abomination waited about thirty minutes to an hour, using Silentslither's stolen ability of invisibility to keep the RAFians unaware of his presence.  But some seemed to sense his evil, although could not pinpoint the location, and assumed it was from the site itself.  Abomination smiled again.

"NOW!  My trollish minions!  Attack the loser RAFians!"

"Loser" was kinda harsh label, and most RAFian facial expressions reflected this.  The RAFians expertly began dispatching the trolls, which seemed to have multiplied tenfold.  But they seemed to be holding their own.

Of course, this was because Abomination hadn't joined the battle yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 22, 2012, 04:56:55 PM

This is exciting!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2012, 05:19:51 PM

It's about to really kick in, Gaz.  Wait for Chapter Nineteen or Twenty.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
DeCloaked

The battle was not looking good.  There were far too many trolls, and the ones slain seemed to divide into another two trolls.  There were too many!  Too many!  Did they breed like rabbits?

But the RAFians fought on valiantly.  Abomination was thoroughly amused.  But soon he would get bored.  And when he got bored, the RAFians would be doomed.

***

Back at the "RAFbunker", Goom was running himself ragged.  Dino and Gaz were seriously injured by the troll horde.  Nate, Aquilai, Shanker, and Estrid were knocked unconscious.  It was looking worse and worse, because Cerulean seemed to just keep bringing RAFians in every few hours.

Ursa, however, was still looking after her son, who still hadn't awakened.  Although his condition was improving.  But just not fast enough.  His cloak was tattered, and his mother had replaced it with a dark green one with black accents.  She bandaged his body, left lower arm, right upper arm, right lower leg, and tail with a white linen cloth very similar to the material that made up their cloaks.

Then she went to get more medicine, and returned to find only Cloak's tattered cloak.

"NO!" she roared, which was very much an ursine roar.  "He was doing better!  He was . . . wait . . . there's not residue . . . his CSI didn't unstablize.  He must have reached consciousness . . . but where did he go?!

***

Abomination was starting to find the one-sided fight tedious.  He was getting bored.  Within minutes, he would join the battle.  Then RAFians wouldn't be injured.  They would be killed.

"Well," Abomination muttered, "time to end this futile exercise."

And Abomination dropped his invisibility.  The battle halted, the trolls hesitated, wondering what Abomination's command would be.  Afraid to go against him.  None wanting to take any intiative.

"Continue the assault, peons!"

And so they did.  Abomination walked, strolled really, through the chaos of battle, unafraid, undettered.  He was looking for a specific RAFian.  One whose death would devestate the RAFians even more than Cloak.

He was looking for Richard.  He would make him yield to him, then kill him in cold blood.

***

Cloak was in the Nexus.  The devices to destroy Abomination's hold on power were here somewhere.  He knew he must locate all twelve, and only one RAFian could help him.

"Hello, Tomekeeper.  Can we talk?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 22, 2012, 05:23:32 PM

Oh ****'s goin' DOWN!!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2012, 06:01:19 PM

Yep.  And it's almost over . . . we'll see what happens in this chapter (I haven't decided to end this "Book" at twenty or twenty-one chapters.)

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Rings Around the Abomination

Richard was looking pretty battered after the confrontation with Abomination, who seemed to be deliberately prolonging this beating.  "Yield to me, you foolish . . . whatever-you-are."

Abomination kicked Richard in the gut, half-force, with each exclamation.  "Yield!  Yield!  Yield!"

Suddenly, a hula hoop-like ring ensnared Abomination in the middle of it, who exclaimed, "What the deuce?"

Then a dark figure atop the Bored Bored was visable.  "By the power of the Sagittarius Ring, I bind the powers of Reanimator."

Abomination screamed and he lost all rat features.  Then the ring returned to the figure who fired another, which preceded to do the same as the first.

"By the power of the Capricorn Ring, I bind the powers of Oxhorn."

Abomination screamed again, losing ox features.  Again, the ring returned to the figure, and he sent out another ring.

"By the power of the Aquarius Ring, I bind the powers of Karma."

The same happened, with Abomination losing his tiger features.  Only before the fourth ring captured Abomination, he fired laser beams from his eyes, that the figure only had to jerk his head slightly to the left to dodge.

"By the power of the Pisces Ring, I bind the powers of Speedy.

"STOP!" Abomination screamed, losing his lapin features.

But the figure ignored him, and threw out the fifth ring.

"By the power of the Aries Ring, I bind the powers of Wargon."

"How are you doing this?!" Abomination demanded, losing his dragon features.

The figure ignored him again, and threw out the sixth ring.

"By the power of the Tauros Ring, I bind the powers of Silentslither."

"AAAH!  IT HURTS! STOP!!" Abomination wailed, losing his serpentine features.

The figure, again, paid him no mind, as he callously threw out the seventh ring.

"By the power of the Gemini Ring, I bind the powers of Immortal."

"No!  I cannot heal myself without that!" Abomination said urgently, losing his equine features.

The figure's eyes flashed with scarlet and gold energy, as he threw out the eighth ring.

"By the power of the Cancer Ring, I bind the powers of Ghost."

"No!!!  You have no right to do this to me!!!" he sobbed, losing his ram features.

The figure's eyes seemed to roll with disgust, as he threw out the ninth ring.

"By the power of the Leo Ring, I bind the powers of Imitator."

"What?!  No!!  PLEASE!!  PLEASE STOP!!" the monster begged, losing his simian features.

The figure just threw out the tenth ring.

"By the power of the Virgo Ring, I bind the powers of Galloflight."

Abomination collapsed to his knees in the dirt, losing his fowl features, while Richard was pulled to his RAFians.  The figure threw out the eleventh ring.

"By the power of the Libra Ring, I bind the powers of Ageless."

"No . . . stop . . . I beg of you . . ." he grovelled as he lose his canine features.

The figure jumped down from the Bored Board, cracking the ground.  Grass growing at his feet.  Trees regaining there leaves and the lake's water being purified.  The site itself could see that the balance of power was shifting.  Then the figure through the final ring, as Abomination could finally see who this figure was.

"By the power of the Scorpio Ring, I . . . bind the powers . . . of . . . Gazer."

Then the final stolen power was leeched from Abomination, who loses his porcine features, and Cloak, yes Cloak, told the rings, "Go to the Gate.  Go beyond the Veil, and never return."

"You . . . you're dead . . ." Abomination said, regaining his energy.  But now, he wasn't nearly as powerful as he was with his.  But Cloak wasn't exactly fighting ready, he was already breathless.  "My powers . . ."

"They were never yours to begin with, Abomination." Cloak scolded.

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!!!  It doesn't matter!  I'll just steal more powers, and this time I'll make SURE you're dead!!!"

"You will do nothing of the sort," Cloak said, extending his open hand, palm up.  Then he shut his eyes in focus and concentration as he slowly closed that hand into a fist.  A shattering sound was heard, and shards of an opaque glass showered the ground.  "You no longer possess a klepto stone.  You cannot take what is not yours to take anymore."

"I'LL KILL YOU!!!" he screamed.

Cloak was forced onto his knee, he used up most of his power just binding the stolen powers and destroying the klepto stone.  He could not put up a fight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 22, 2012, 06:21:19 PM

That's why he's surrounded by his RAFian friends! Make it rain 'nades!!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2012, 06:35:15 PM

I guess, Parker.  Gonna finish this book today.  Just two more chapters.  And now Abomination will get . . . humiliated.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Shadow Show Her Stuff

"I hoped you liked dying the first time," Abomination snarled, "because you're gonna do it again!"

"NO!" shouted a voice.  "Uncle!"

Shadow appeared at her uncle's side.  She was very concerned for his health, but that wasn't the only reason she was there.

"You won't hurt him again!!" she screamed at Abomination.

"Go run along, hatchling, the grown-ups have some business to attend to." Abomination said, cold and condescending.

Shadow swung her right arm, and a mauve-lavender hand appeared next to Abomination's face and slaps him full-force.  She ****ed her hand back again to do it again.

"Shadow . . . no." Cloak said, startled by how weak his voice sounded, even to his own ears.  "It's . . . my battle."

Shadow glared at her uncle.  Her normally twinkling, mischievus eyes were alight, and full of fire.  She was angry.  And an angry female of his family can be a VERY dangerous thing.

"Shadow, no." Cloak said, attempting to insert firmness in his voice.  "I cannot . . . ask you . . . to fight my battles . . . for me."

"Uncle, you are too weak to fight him!"

"Shadow, NO!"

"You have no faith in me!"

Cloak's mouth dropped open.  Not because of Shadow's tone.  But because he said the exact thing to his mother many years ago.  It was then that he realized that he was being as overprotective as Ursa was to him for many years.  And it was true that he was nowhere near his usual strength.  He could barely hold up his body, much less battle Abomination.  Cloak had weakened Abomination, it's true.  But he did not just come from the brink of death as Cloak had.

Cloak shut his eyes.  Faith and Ursa would never forgive him if he let Shadow battle this monster.  For allowing her to be in so much danger.  But he had trained her, as Sage trained him.  Shadow was strong -- and she was smart.  Abomination may be strong, but he didn't have much in the way of intelligence.

What should he say?

"Go, Shadow. . . . Show me . . . what you . . . have learned."

Shadow smiled warmly at her dear old uncle, and then turned to glare at Abomination, who was laughing.  "Oh, the mighty Cloak has a little girl doing his battles for him!"

"I knew you were scared." Cloak said in a wheezy manner.

Abomination's face hardened with hatred.  "Okay, I'll kill your beloved pupil and then I'll kill you."

"You have to get through me first, lard-butt."

Cloak wasn't aware that Shadow could trash-talk.

Abomination fired a pure black energy pulse that Shadow easily sidestepped.  Her simian agility a blessing.  Then she made some sweeping movements, and caused the area to be surrounded a cloud of dust.  The other RAFians took advantage of this to chase the trolls, all cowards at heart, out of the forum which brightened to its usual state.  Even the threads seemed to repair themselves.

"You coward," Abomination fumed.  He was not an Elements Master, he could not see through the ground, as Cloak and Shadow could.  Shadow climbed up the threads, making full use of her simian form, and she could cling to the thread due to her mastery over Earth.

"Hark who's talking!" Cloak countered.

Abomination began firing blind.  But Shadow easily dodged them.  Then she landed on Abomination's shoulders, causing him to lose balance and topple to the ground.  Then she leaped off in a simian somersault, and landed a few feet away.  Abomination stumbled to his feet.

Then she made a stomping motion and drove him into the ground like a tent spike.  He roared in frustration.  Then Shadow crossed her arms, and flung them out.  Causing the sandy dust to fall.  Clearing vision for all.  Abomination had freed himself.  He fired another bolt of black energy at Shadow, who easily countered with a fire blast.

Abomination stood still for a moment, weighing his options.  He deliberately address Cloak, ignoring Shadow.  "Fine.  Cloak, you win this time.  But I will kill you.  I vow this."

"Well, you got beat up by a little girl!" Shadow taunted, sticking out her tongue.

Then he was gone.  It was over.  It was done . . .

Cloak then laid down, exhausted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2012, 07:06:19 PM

Now, last chapter of Book One . . . okay, it's more of an epilogue.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Same Old, Same Old

After this whole mess, RAF was starting to go back to normal, although several RAFians were still quite injured but were getting better all the time.  Some RAFians still bore evidence of the battle.  But the threads were alive with posts, discussion being discussed, and such.

One night's rest wasn't enough to bring Cloak up to full strength.  That would take time.  One cannot be on the verge of death, and bounce back immediately, at full-strength.  Unless one's a Looney Tunes character.

Shadow had done Cloak proud, and he was sure to tell her that.  She beamed more often these days.  Shadow didn't earn the title of Elements Master, and notably being the youngest one to obtain such a title, for nothing.

A month later, the Pootang had escaped from it's cage and the RAFians went after it, to recapture it.  It ate Horse.

All was well, all was normal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 22, 2012, 11:49:49 PM

Very cool


We need a better security system for Pootang.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 23, 2012, 08:18:11 AM

That was great! *sigh* That Pootang.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2012, 02:25:27 PM

Are you kidding?  Putting it back is half the fun!

*looks at Horse.*

Don't give me that look, Horse.  Anyway, that book was loosely based on the "Death of Superman" comic books.  Very loosely.

This next book should be obvious what its based off of, if you follow the parodies.

BOOK TWO:
The Ooze

CHAPTER ONE:
Celebrate Good Times

It's been roughly six, seven months since Cloak nearly died.  Cloak had been gain back his strength steadily, but still wasn't up to his old standard yet.  He had taken to walking with a wooden walking stick, which made him look far older than he actually was.

RAF was back to its normally lively state.  Only more so now, because Richard declared a celebration, one that was held on hold until RAF, the actual site, healed itself from the post-apocalyptic state it was in during the Banned occupation.

Many RAFians was looking forward to this, except Faerie.  When pressed, Faerie just stated that she had business elsewhere on the celebration's date, and she'd be leaving soon.  She also noted that she could not change the date and it was exceedingly important.  But she wouldn't give anymore details, and got hostile when people tried to wheedle more information out of her.

Cloak, despite his weakness, was well enough to organize a live parody for the occasion.  He was often seen at reads and rehearsals to direct the parody he had written.  It had Blocky, Shadow, Kelly, Horse, and Broken in it.

ND was decorating the site with streamers and bobbles, with Aquilai, Rad, Gymn, and Yunyun's assistance.  Soon, due to their efforts, the site looked very cheery and festive.  There was a lot of smiles and laughter.

Blue was MC'ing the festivals events, something which he wasn't taking lightly.

Gaz and Parker were preparing fireworks, Gaz keeping Parker from going overboard.  They were bickering good-naturedly.

The mods were supervising everything, giving suggestions and lending a hand where they could.

Someone, somehow, even put a party hat on the Pootang, who wasn't too happy about that, but could not seem to remove the offensive item.

Karma was being spent like there was no tomorrow, and the vigor of this spirit began to permeate every orifice of the forum.

They had no idea that these festivities were working the ire of a virus, who dwelled up the mountain to the west of RAF with its two minions.  This virus hated the RAFians, the whole lot.  It stood there on the edge of the road that led to its cave home, hating the RAFians.  Staring down, with a sour, horrid frown at the warm, brillant colors in RAF.

"I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!"

It dashed inside, and found its two minions brawling with each other.  "Knock it off!  Fools!"

Then it took them by their ears and dashed down deeper into the cave, making plans on how to destroy the bright, cheery colors in RAF.  Making it dingy and dank again, as it was under the Banned's rule.

She orders her two minions to make it so, and do not fail it.  Or it would do . . . unspeakable things to them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 23, 2012, 11:14:15 PM

Fireworks! I make things go BOOM! ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 24, 2012, 01:56:05 AM

Combinations of plasma and incendiary grenades! Ooohh... Pretty colors in the sky!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 24, 2012, 01:51:07 PM

Yes, but will get to use them?

CHAPTER TWO:
I'll Go It Alone

It was the time for the live parody production.  It went off flawlessly at first.  Then Shadow made one little mistake.  Cloak lost his temper, and yelled at her backstage that she ruin the whole number, causing her to run off in tears.

"Overreact much, Cloak?" Estrid chided.

Cloak didn't need her to say that.  He felt horrible for saying the things that he had already.  He hobbled off after Shadow.

"Well . . ." Blue said, attempting to salvage the ceremonies, "uh, Gaz, Parker! Fireworks!"

"It's daylight, no one would see them!" Gaz protested, but Parker cried, "BANZAI!"*

***

Blocky had already dashed after Shadow, but he wasn't nearly beaten to death six months ago, so he was able to catch up with Shadow easier than her uncle.  "Wait!  You can’t do this!  Running away isn’t the answer!"

But then music arbitrarily begans playing, and Shadow sings:

"Why does he always have to tell me I’m wrong?!
Why does he make me feel like I just don’t belong?
If he doesn’t like the way I sing my own song,
I’ll go it alone!
I’ll go it alone!

How come the word I hear most often is “no”?
The way I’m treated, it’s all a no-go.
It’s very clear I’m not wanted here, so
I’ll go it alone!
I’ll go it alone!"

But Blocky tried to disseude her:

"I know that you’re upset,
But don’t rush off just yet!
You can’t take on the universes single-handed.
What if you end up lost and stranded?"

Shadow retorted:

"Better that than being reprimanded!
No matter how I try, I can’t seem to please.
Look I’m down on my knees.
If all he knows how to do is holler and tease!
I’ll go it alone!

Why must he criticize everything I do?
My days of taking all those insults are through.
Goodbye, so long, , toodle-loo!
I’ll strike out on my own!
I’ll brave the unknown!
And go it alone!"

"Don’t go it alone!"

"I’ll go it alone!"

"Don’t go it alone!"

There was small pause as the music faded, then Blocky said, "I’ll go with you."

"No!  I don’t need you!  I don’t need anyone!" Shadow snarled.

Blocky quickly scrawled a hasty PM, and left it on a nearby tree.

"Wait for me!"

***

Back at the mountain, the virus's twin minions -- a short, frumpy one wearing blue and and a tall, lanky one in red, both bearing a superficial resemblance to Sora from Kingdom Hearts, only with hideous, pockmarked faces.

They stagger and stumble to a river nearby RAF, which Horse was swimming around in (for she the celebration had ending an hour before hand).  Horse was underwater when she saw these two trollish brutes.

They were attempting to dingy up RAF, but they were being horribly inept and clumsy with it.  Eventually, it ended with Horse using the very river to wash them back to the mountain.  They, having no real work-ethic or stubbornness, give up and return to the virus.

-----
*Yes, that was a Jack Fenton reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 24, 2012, 09:31:58 PM

Haha, nice! Though I'd normally yell "Fire in the hole!", "BANZAI" is by far funnier.  ;D

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 24, 2012, 09:44:37 PM

I hope all that work put into the display was still appreciated. Lol

That sounds like something I would say, yep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2012, 09:36:40 AM

Glad you liked that bit, guys.  And I'll be referencing the parodies now, instead of inserting them into the chapters . . . its just I don't wanna go through the work of finding them and figuring out how to embed them into the chapters.

Speaking of which, several chapters'll probably be posted today.

CHAPTER THREE:
Viral Infection

The virus's minion were loafing around in their -- well, barracks is the only word that can halfway accurately describe it, only very dingy and scummy.  The one in blue was picking a bat's wing* from her teeth, while the other was, as sickening as it sounds, having an earthworm sandwich.

The virus, in the form of a stooped, hooked-nose, warty witch, strides into the "room", for want of an accurate term.  She sees her two minions lazin' about and doing nothing.

"WHAT'S THIS?!" she shrieked. "Why aren't you down there taking away the bright, vibrate colors of that stupid forum?!"

"Hard work made us quit," the tall one in red said.  This was quite a foolhardy thing to say, as the virus then boxed them both by the ears.  Then it dragged them to the open pit behind their cave, which lava pooled.

Music started up, and the Virus sang "We're Wicked" while smacking her two dim-whitted proteges.  Ending by laughing maliciously.

"Now, go do something USEFUL, you stupid louts!" it scolded.  Then it took down a thick, leather-bound book (suspiciously bound in what appears to be human skin).  It started to pour through the tome, searching for something unknown.

"I want to make them writhe," it muttered, "I want make them suffer.  I want to make them sorry for bringing color back to the 'Net.  I want to make them ooze. . . . Wait a minute . . ."

It started to flip the pages harder and harder, until it seemed that it would tear every page.  Then it jabbed one of its stubby fingers with claw-like fingernails down upon the ancient page.

"Ah, yes . . . this'll do.  This'll do nicely.  Azul!  Rojo!" it snapped, and those two minions stumbled forward.  Then the virus jolted down several items into quite a lengthy grocery list.  "Go and gather these items.  Go and do it now!!  And do NOT fail me, you worthless peons!!"

The minions stumbled out of the cave to gather the materials, as the virus looked at them leaving.  "How do I know that they're not gonna get the Pootang's flume?"

What it means is Pootang mucus.

---
*Hope that wasn't anyone you knew, Gaz.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2012, 11:11:09 AM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
I'll Do the Dirty Work

The minions stumble about, singing "I'll Do the Dirty Work", collecting several items.  They argue about getting the Pootang's "flume", Pootang's mucus.  They go to writing.com and take the dirtest, flithiest story to be used in this oozing concoction.

Then they headed to the gates of Hell and manage to collect a minute amount of hellfire in a small jar with a black lid before being chased away by Demos and Asmos.

Then they headed to a dead lake, to collect the deadened water, where no fish could no longer survive.  Whether because of the turbidity, dissolved oxygen, or pH, it was immaterial.

Then they headed to a horribly deforested forest and collect some emaciated, bleached-white twigs.  They had a great number of choices of that here.

Then they try to bottle lightning, resorting to using a magic-computer-code to wrangle it into another unbreakable jar.  Even that took them six tries.

Then they headed to an irratiated site.  There, they gathered up some of the soil that still carried residual radiation, then scampered away.

Then they raided a pharmacy site for six bottles of some chemical.  The pharmacy site wouldn't report the theft until much later.

Then they procured the webs of six spiders, while the spiders themselves were eaten by Azul and Rojo.

"Needs salt," Azul said.

"You think everything needs salt." Rojo snipped.

Then they collected the sweat of a champion fighter, who simply thought that they were weird fanboys -- because actual fanboys and fangirls had actually shaved him bald.  Completely bald.

Then they sucked up some residual ectoplasm from a ghostly sneeze.  While others would think this gross beyond all belief, these two relished it.  They even . . . ate some of it.

Then they collected some iceberg ice from the iceberg that sank some famous ship, one that no seems to remember.

Then they steal one of Shock's scales while he was arguing with Jess.  While already possessing the scale, they were spotted by Gymn and Parker, who chased them away, unaware of their loot.

Then they stumble upon a geode, which Rojo state was "pretty" in an awestrucked voice before he was harshly elbowed in the gut by Azul.

Then they collected carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen gas in five seperate vaccuum bags.  It almost sounded like the gases were complaining about the confinement.

Then they collect rubble from old RAF, only to be chased away by Duff and Blue, who were on an archeology trip, so to speak.  "And don't come back, dorks!" Duff shouted after them.  They didn't register what he said, didn't care, or didn't understand what a "dork" was.

Then they collected the shadows from the Bannedland wasteland, but the Banned and trolls didn't care about their presence.  But, as the duo resembled trolls, they probably just assumed that they were trolls.

Then they broke into Aquilai's thread and collected the rare Zoodeitium metal alloy, whose properties are still widely unknown and not understood.  Aquilai was attempting to understand the properties and understand them himself, but he had barely begun.

Then they collected some interesting muck on a tree trunk.  Little did they know that Horse wiped off Pootang phlegm after she was eaten for the thousandth time, a few hours ago.

Then the two returned to virus's cave. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2012, 03:38:35 PM

Yes, I realize that the previous chapter was probably a bit dry, but here's another chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Regrets and Slime

Cloak finally hobbled to the thread that Shadow was a few moments before, fully intending to apologize for his lost temper.

"Shadow, I didn't mean what I said.  I --" he stopped as he realized she wasn't there.  Then he noticed Blocky's PM.  He picked it up read it, gasped, and looked toward the mountains.  Dark clouds were gathering there.

His fur began to stand on end, sensing an evil's approaching presence (an ability that is relegated to cats, not just feline Realm Walkers).  He could almost see something begin to ooze down from the mountain . . .

***

"It's about time, dolts." the virus said, gathering up the incredients her minions got for it.  The virus was still in the form of the squat witch (and will be here after be referred to as a female), and waddled off to the lava lake out back.

She threw several items indescriminately into the lava, which turned into something not-quite-lava, but lava-looking.  Then she would proceed with the remaining items, slowly, seemingly savoring this.

She took out the page from writing.com and muttered something inaudiably, then tossed the page into the lava, which turned into a Pepto-Bismol pink, plain liquid which bubbled thickly.

Then she took out the bottle of hellfire, muttered "Ignis," and dropped it, bottle and all, into the pink concoction.  It frothed violently, and turned scarlet red.  It was bubbling violently and angrily.  The virus laughed at this.

Then she took out the dead water, muttered "Aqua Mortis," and dropped the entire bottle into the scarlett eyesore, which turned sapphire blue and became the consistency of water, with considerable steam issuing from it.  Virus smile became broader at this.

Then she took the bleached twigs, muttered "Faenum", and dropped every twig into the froth.  It unleashed a green flash of light, turned moldy green, and became the consistency of rotted wood -- partially liquefied.  Virus smirked at this, though it seemed odd.

Then she took the soil jar, muttered "Terram," and dropped the whole jar into the nearly solidified mass, which somehow liquefied into a quicksand like consistency, taking a sandy color as well.

Then she took out the lightning bottle, muttered "Electricum," and dropped the whole jar into the mess, which swallowed it up hungrily.  It turned watery, and electric yellow.  The virus beamed at this, as two bolts of lightning were fired upward, starting dark clouds hovering over the concoction.  And they were expanding.

Then she took out the spider webs, muttered "Entomos," and dropped the whole thing into the concoction, which ate it with a single sucking sound.  Then it turned to the ropey consistency of spidersilk, and became olive green.

Then she took out the sweat -- "smells so sweet", she commented -- then muttered "Pugna," and dropped the jar into the swirling, ropey concoction.  Then it became orange with the consistency of sweat.  And quite smelly as well, which the three seemed to find the odor absolutely lovely.

Then she took out the ectoplasm jar, muttered "Phantos," then she threw the jar into the smelly mess, which turned nearly insubstantial with an eerie indigo color.

Then she took out the jar with the iceberg ice, which should have melted by now, but strangely had not.  Then she muttered "Glacie," then she pitched the jar into the concoction which took on a dirty white color, with the consistency of shaved ice.

Then she dug out the dragon scale, muttered "Draconis," and dropped it in.  It turned into what appeared to be tan magma.

Then she dug out the geode, muttered "Saxum," and pitched it in.  The concoction turned into gray magma.

Then she dug out the bags of gas, muttered "Volans," and tossed them in carelessly.  The concoction turned gold with consistency of a Pensieve.

Then she dug out the rubble from old RAF, muttered "Psychicae," and tossed them into the potion.  The stuff turned violently violet with the same consistency.

Then she got out the jar of shadows, muttered "Umbra," and tossed them into the potion.  The concoction turned black with the same consistency.

Then she got the Zoodeitium out, muttered "Ferrum," and tossed it into the potion, which hissed and screeched loudly.  Then the concoction turned silvery gray with the consistency of liquid steel.

Then she took out the pharmacy chemicals, muttered "Venenum," and tossed the whole lot into the potion.  It frothed, turned venomously purple with a sludgy, oozy consistency.

Then she took out the last ingredient . . . "Pootang flume.  I didn't think you would be smart enough to get this.  Without this, the ooze is nothing.  It supplies it with a killer instinct to smother everything."

She muttered, "Animus," and then tossed it in.  Then the whole concoction began to froth and bubble, and flow downhill.  To RAF.

"Go, fools," the virus ordered to her minions, "ride on the Oozy Scab, bring it to that site."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on February 25, 2012, 03:47:28 PM

This seems interesting :) I can't wait to get some free time and sink into it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2012, 04:05:09 PM

Thanks, Ash.  You'll actually have a bigger part 'round Chapter Twelve.  And remember this is Book Two, there is a whole 'nother book earlier in the thread.

I'll probably post another chapter shortly.  Maybe I can get to Chapter Ten today . . . *looks at time* okay, maybe not.  New chapter anyway . . . might be a long one . . .

CHAPTER SIX:
Nothing Can Stop the Viral Ooze

Cloak hobbled closer, to get a closer look.  He found that Genies, Azzy, Gaz, Parker and ND were already noticing it.  Even Estelore herself was there -- she had come for the celebration, Cloak remembered.  And more RAFians were rushing to the area, including the mods.

"What is that?" Genies asked.

"Bad news," Cloak said, morbidly.

***

Meanwhile, riding on a boat, the Oozy Scab, the minions were jubilantly singing "Nothing Can Stop the Viral Ooze", while the virus watched from her cauldron pot.  They were all very joyous at their monsterous creation.

Forest animals, forest Pokemon, forest Digimon, birds, flying Digimon, and Flying Pokemon fled in abject terror of the purple stuff.  The ooze gurgled as it barrelled over and submerged and entombed the brush.  Smothering it all beneath a congealed purple shell.  But there was no where they could hide.

***

<What do we do?> ND asked, with a rather twitchy tail, and stalk eyes seemed almost epileptic, jerking from here to there.

"Evacuate RAF," Richard said.

"No!" Broken protested.  "Not again!"

"We haven't a choice!" Richard snarled.  "I, and the other mods, will activate the security measures and attempt to stop it."

"I will remain," Esty said, "to help."

"As will I," Cloak said, well aware that he was still not up to par.

"You're up for it, Cloak?" Phoenix said with genuine concern.  "You're not exactly at full power."

"I will do what I must." Cloak countered.  "Besides Estelore is here.  That will make things expotentially easier."

"Okay.  Aquilai, Rad, Gymn, Yunyun.  You're in charge of the evacuation.  Make sure everyone gets out and to a safe distance." Richard commanded.

***

The ooze was at the gates of RAF, and the mods, Esty, and Cloak when to work.  Esty, due to her species, floated above the ooze using all her stellar might.  The mods, the ones that couldn't fly, were using floatation rings to fly.  Cloak was using energy discs, much like Susan Storm or Gwen Tennyson, to stay above the ooze.  All of them attacked with all their might.

It wasn't enough.

One by one, the mods felt into the mire, and struggled to free themselves, but it was like a tar pit.  It pulled down all the mods except Phoenix and Richard, both of which cursed very audiably.

Then Richard's floatation ring failed, and Phoenix and Esty tried to pull him up.  But both were too far away, and Cloaky was even further away.  The ooze pulled the RAFfather under without a word.

Then a slimy tentacle wrapped around both Phoenix and Estelore, and one nabbed Cloak's tail and left leg.  The grip was far stronger than that of an andaconda's.  It would not let go.  Soon, Phoenix was engulfed into the mire.  And, as ludicrous as it might sound, so . . . so was Esty.

"This is impossible!" she screamed before her voice was snuffed out.

Cloak attempted to continue to fight it, but he was already waist-deep in the mire.  But if Estelore couldn't escape . . . what chance had he?  He was still weakened from Abomination's assault.

The last thing he saw before he was engulfed was the other RAFians, standing a distance away, from high ground, watching all of this.  The last thought he had was, "This has been a very bad year for me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on February 25, 2012, 04:40:36 PM

"Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

:XD: Nah, I didn't think the last chapter was dry. (I got a mention! :P though...) Someone discovered the use for zoodeitium before me! :o 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2012, 06:14:26 PM

And you were gonna use it to beef up the security weaponry too.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Always Another Rainbow

The RAFians stood on their little hilltop in shock.  The mods . . . Cloak . . . Estelore . . . all gone.  All gone!

<What . . . what are we supposed to do now?> ND asked hesitantly.

"They're gone . . ." Gaz said, breathlessly.  Clearly in shock.

"Why can't we just dig them out?" Jack asked.  He had been with his mother for the celebration.

"I'm afraid that's impossible." Yarin said.  "The concealed ooze has left an impenetrable shell.  I'm afraid we're stuck with it."

"No!  We can't give up hope!" Horse proclaimed.

"Horse is right.  We will find some way to get rid of this." Mr. Guy said firmly, then added, wistfully, "somehow."

Kelly attempted to lift everyone's spirits up by sining "Always Another Rainbow".  Then the RAFians moved away from the sight of what used to be RAF.  They rallied and decided to come up with a plan.

"How do we get that thing off RAF?" Yunyun ask.

"Who says we can?" DP countered.  "You heard what they were singing, right?  'Nothing can stop the viral ooze'."

"Have you learned nothing from the Abomination thing?" RYTX argued.  "NOTHING is without a weakness.  All that matters is finding it, and exploiting it."

"And what, exactly, would the weakness to that stuff be?" Alic asked.

"Soapy water?" Jack guessed.

"Doubt it, Jack." Horse replied.

"Brad might know." Guy offered.

"Yeah, but where is he?  He hasn't been in RAF for God knows how long." AniDragon replied.

"He moved to the other side of the forest." Gaz said.  "I visited him once."

"Okay," Jess said, "Gaz, you take Horse, Aquilai, Alic, Jack, and AniDragon to go to Brad.  The rest of us, we'll go to the bunker and protect that as well as we can.  Is this plan agreeable?"

It was.  And so they went on their separate ways.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 25, 2012, 09:36:27 PM

Dang ooze, makin us evacuate all over again. Right after that killer firework show.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 26, 2012, 01:05:28 AM

I like the soapy water idea. Soap can clean anything! ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on February 26, 2012, 09:58:38 AM

Probably not too much of a stretch to assume this blob will have the characteristics of the items stolen from the RAFians.

It's not really a spoiler in the sense that these are just some random thoughts on the items.
[spoiler]
writing.com page -> Pepto-Bismol pink effect???
hellfire -> more lavaness? lava's pretty fire proof anyway what extra mythical properties are there? it doesn't seem to have burned anyone yet.
dead water -> more sludgy so hard to get out of? (hampers propellers of boats at sea)
bleached twigs -> moldy green..consistency of rotted wood -> decays living matter? O.o
soil jar -> quicksand property -> You wouldn't deliberately step into quicksand if you could see it would you?
bottled lightning -> non-electrical conductivity or just giving it life?
These above references may have been to the "elements" (fire, water, air/wind, earth) though generalising the blob's immunity to most types of attacks. Apart from swallowing people, it's not shown any offensive capabilities like throwing lightning or fire blasts (yet).

spider webs -> glue or tensile capabilities? probably glue.
sweat -> well...stinky to everyone else, perfume for the virus? depending on how repugnant it becomes it may even be able to knock out Pootang! (probably not, though rendering things unconscious is always useful)
ectoplasm -> ghost proof? strange idea, does that mean this vacuum cleaner won't work either?
iceberg ice -> freeze proof
dragon scale -> the blob may be able to harden to become as tough as dragon scale?
geode -> crystalline structure reinforcement?
separated gases -> classical air element? some ability to create a living atmosphere within itself? (we can probably safely assume the RAFians caught in it aren't dead but still need to breath. Carbon monoxide/dioxide if it wants to kill them? Filling the lungs with the goo would probably work just as well...)
rubble from old RAF -> "That's olde magick!" incorporates RAF's mystical properties?
jar of shadows -> Probably not the same as Psylocke's ability to teleport through shadows(as cool as that is)! Damn tempting to add all of Psylocke's abilities to my character's abilities on "What is your species"...sorry off-topic ^^ Can anyone spell overpowered? Course, "overpowered" is dependent on the abilities of everyone else. We'll see. There are some pretty powerful RAFians here anyway! And tbh, high level long distance telepathy is problematic for interesting plot lines.
zoodeitium -> Have I worked out what properties this has yet? Metamaterials are a fascinating subject if this element is one. You could almost say anything really lol cloaking, electromagnetic absorption etc...
pharmacy chemicals -> Probably not going to be able to give this blob a "cold". Saying that...anti-virus.
pootang flume -> well it's explained, killer instinct. Begs the question how it's controlled...
[/spoiler]

Half the fun of a book is guessing! (Or maybe that's just me ^^)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 10:32:03 AM

Lol, Parker.  Nope, Aquilai, just invincibility.  Although, what you have posted, has occured to me.  But, if does gain those abilities, it won't appear in this book.  Maybe a future one.  And I just used the types of Pokemon to come up with those ingredients, to be honest.  But . . . well, maybe I will go into that in a future book. . . .

Now, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Viral Wrath

Back up at the mountain, the virus was feeling elated.  The bright and colorful site was smothered in dreary purple.  The festive, bustling, active sight was gone.  Again the RAFians had to evacuate.  Again, they had to fall back to the RAFbunker.

But there was still something that unnerved her.  She kept wondering what this feeling of unease was about.  There was something.  Some facet that she overlooked?  Not possible.  Some mild indigestion?  Possibly, except she didn't eat.

Azul and Rojo, her two dim-witted minions "sailed" the Oozy Scab back to the cave, and they appeared kneeling in what appeared to be a most uncomfortable way.  Utterly loyal and servile, because they just were not smart enough nor brave enough to be any other way.

"You haven't told me something," she accused.

"Yes we have!  We told you every thing, Mama!"

This was a very big mistake.  The virus could no more sire or birth children as a rock could.  This slip of the tongue would carry a very dangerous spark.

"WHAT . . . did . . . you . . . call . . . me?!"

"Uh, nothing!  Nothing!"

"That's what I thought." she said, making a mental note to put some arsenic in their food.  It wouldn't kill them, as it would a normal human, but make it very unpleasant when it comes out the other end.  "Now . . . what haven't you told me?  Perhaps a missing prude?"

"Prude" was her term for RAFian.  As no RAFian ever heard her utter this at them, no one knows whether they consider it derogatory or not.

"I know we got several of the powerful prudes in the ooze.  And that many have escaped -- WHICH I BLAME YOU TWO FOR!  Perhaps what you're not telling me is that one of those prudes happened to be one of those vile, filthy faeries?"

***

"What if Brad doesn't know?" Jack asked as the team tranversed the forest.

"He must know.  He has to know." Horse insisted.  "Or else we're royally --"

"C'mon, guys," Gaz urged, "stay positive."

"Is that a mushroom?" Jack asked abruptly.  He was looking at giant fly amanita mushroom which had two black boulders at its base, making it look like an accidental goomba.

"Yes, it means we're getting closer."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 26, 2012, 12:52:21 PM

Well the soap would at least clean the smell... maybe. :D


Hmmm... will the day be saved by Fae and Brad the Brit? Perhaps Brad the Brit and Gumby should combine their British Beam and Canadian Beams!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 12:55:38 PM

Hmmm . . . I said a faerie, but it doesn't necessarily mean our faerie. ;)

Oh, more chapters are coming, I'm just doing a million things right now.  Here's another shortish one.

CHAPTER NINE:
Shadow Travels

"Shadow, you can't do this!  I tell you, running away isn't the answer!"

"Go away." Shadow snarled.  "Go chase your tail, or whatever it is you do."

"Shadow --!"

But Shadow leaped up into a tree, and started brachiating away.  Blocky had a difficult time keeping up, until Shadow misstepped and tumbled into a ravine.  Blocky, concerned, jumped down after her.  When he put his hand on her shoulder, she pulled away, standing up with her back to him.

"I'm fine!  Go away!"

"Shadow," Blocky said, in a valiantly attempt at a consoling tone, but irritation was creeping in, "don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit?"

Shadow didn't answer, but continued walking along the deep ravine.  Blocky heaved a heavy sigh and followed.  Shadow's family were famed for their ostinate behavior -- all inherited maternally.

Shadow turned back, and saw Block following her.  She was about to yell at him, but instead turned her attention beyond him, toward the ridge.  "What is that stuff?"

"Huh?"

Some purple gunk was flowing forward, tumbling down the ravine banks.  It was the ooze.  It was closing in on them.

"I'll tell you what it is," Blocky said, "bad news!!!"

"In here," Shadow said, pulling Blocky into a cave, climbing a steep incline, to a plateau area inside.  The ooze flooded in but stopped, a mere foot away from engulfing them.  Solidifying into that impenetrable shell.

Shadow terrakinetically makes a tunnel, and both she and Blocky proceeded onward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 02:18:35 PM

Now, another chapter, the tenth chapter.  'Bout ten, eleven, more to come before we get to D-- er, Phoenix's starring book, Book three.  Might be a bit on the short side.  Or, as my aunt says, "vertically-challenged".

CHAPTER TEN:
Brad's Pad

The group, which consisted of Gaz, Aquilai, Alic, Jack, and AniDragon, eventually came to a clearing with some tree-like mushrooms, and some chintz sofa-like mushroom growths.

A little ways down was a small, colonial two-story painted yellow.  Brad was playing three-layered chess with what appeared to be a Lopunny.  They heard Brad bemoan that he never wins. (((;))))

"Brad!  Brad!  BRAD!" Gaz hollared.

"Hey, you in the top hat!!!" Jack helped.

"What?  Oh," Brad said, seeing his fellow RAFians, "something really bad's happened hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Horse confirmed, then added, "if could can call the entire forum submerged in congealed ooze 'very bad'."

"Yes, I would say that qualifies." Brad replied, deliberately not noticing Horse's sarcasm.

"We have no HQ anymore." Alic added.

"That's ridiculous.  Absurd.  Everyone needs a home -- er, HQ." Brad said, then proceeded to sing "HQ", where he offered other places to replace RAF.  All rejected by the other five RAFians.

"You know we don't want replacement, Brad." Alic chided.  "Just away to get rid of the stuff."

"Get rid of the ooze?  But that's impossible, impossible, impossible." he said, blustering.  Then he noticed the Lopunny glared at him and stamping her foot.  "Oh!  Right!  Thanks, Lola.*"

"'Lola'?" Horse critiqued.

"We all have our role models."

"How is Lola Bunny a --"

"This mystic map!" Brad interupted.  "It shall lead you to the Sealie Court of the Faeries . . . although couldn't you just as Fae to go there for you?"

"She had business elsewhere," AniDragon explained.  "We haven't seen here since before the celebration."

"Celebration?  Oh, yes.  That," Brad said, flustered.  "Just follow the map then."

"Why?" Jack asked, looking thoroughly confused.

"What?  You don't know?  Why, my dear boy, faeries are the only beings able to purge the ooze from anywhere.  They are the only ones who have that power. . . ."

Brad looked pensive.

"Or was it the glowworms from Dimension X?  Or the Hoovervacs from Hoover Dam?"

"We'll take the map, Brad." Gaz said, resigned.

----
*Okay, I don't know if Brad really has a Lopunny named Lola, or a Lopunny at all, just bear with me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 02:42:04 PM

Time for another short chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Forest Follies

The quartet continued on, and walked on into an eerie, dark part of the forest.  It gave all of them the creeps.  Jack clinged to his mother closely, and she was obviously being quite protective of him.

"Um, Gaz?  What are those squiggly lines on the map?" AniDragon asked.

Gaz could have made a joke, but decided against it, thinking it too mean.  "I don't know what they mean.  Could be stray marks, or signs of neglect of this map.  I mean, we don't exactly know how long --"

Suddenly, a crudely-fashioned wooden stake rips the upper left corner of the map.  Gaz screamed.  Vampires aren't too comfortable with wooden stakes being thrown at them.

"I think we just found out!" AniDragon exclaimed.

"Yeah, no kidding!" Horse shouted, firing ice shards back.

"Wait, there's no need to panic." Aquilai said, level-headedly.  Then he was suddenly in a "cage" of crude wooden stakes.  "Okay -- START PANICKING!"

"Dendrosapiens!  Where's an Elements Master where you need 'em?!" Gaz screamed as she turned into a bat, rolled up map in her feet, and she flew for all she was worth.

Alic scooped up Jack and ran for her life, and her son's as well.  AniDragon wasn't fair behind.  Aquilai climbed out of the roofless "cage", and dashed, dodging the volleys.  But he still got scratched up.

Horse took a nearby waterway, as she was faster in her element.  And she was quite literally in her element.

It took about an hour for all five to escape the forest.  All were quite scrapped up, but no one was as unnerved as Gaz -- after a wooden stake to the heart . . .

"Well, that was fun." Horse said, drily.  "LET'S NEVER DO IT AGAIN."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 03:24:38 PM

'Nother chapter, methinks.  It might be short again.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Tunnelrats

Shadow took a fighting stance, and in a flowing movement, blasted stones out of the way.  Blocky poked his head inside, and declared, "Another cave."

They entered the cave apprehensively, cautiously, and wearily.  They weren't willing to deal with any more surprises like that goo.  But then they heard a commotion up ahead, so they took defensive stances.

"I'm tellin' you, Bear, we're going around in circles!!" a female voice chided.

"And I'm tellin' you, Marie, that I know where we're going!" a male voice answered.

"Will you two stop arguing?  It won't make us get to RAF any sooner." another female voice replied wearily.

Then they appeared in the faint mauve-lavender glow that Shadow was giving off.  There were seven of them.  It took Blocky a moment to recognize them, but he gave them a warm smile.  They were Bear, Marie, Dameg, Demos, Asmo, Damien, and Ash.

"Guys!  I wondered where you were.  You weren't at the festival."

"We all had business at home," Dameg said.

"Why aren't you at RAF?" Bear asked, quizzically.

Blocky looked at Shadow, who resolutely turned her back to them, and crossed her arms.  Then Blocky spoke the others in a lower, more conspiratorial tone, "Shadow and Cloak had a little tiff."

"Oh," Ash said, "maybe I can talk to her."

"Good luck, I've been trying to for the past few hours."

"Perhaps a situation such as this takes a woman's touch."

And Ash went over to talk to Shadow, while Block told the other six of the strange goo, and how it blocked off this way.  He also told them that they only got this far due to Shadow's terrakinesis.

Shadow unfolded her arms as she listened to Ash, and she felt better.  Then the nine of them proceeded onward, to a destination unknown.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 04:01:28 PM

Might be the last chapter today.  Or I might post another.  Looks like it might be another short one.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Oozy Flowers

"And now there's a field of sunflowers." Horse muttered.  "If I see a green ogre talking to a donkey, I'm so outta here."

"Really?" Jack asked.

"No, not really." Horse said tersely.

But there was a wide field of wild giant sunflowers.  It was another type of forest really.  They made their was through it, and Aquilai was holding a normal-sized, felled sunflower.  He was idly picking of one yellow petal after another.

But that was the only visable sign of the tension that everyone was feeling.  Gaz climbed a particularly tall sunflower, and looked around.  She stifled a scream, and yelled, "The ooze is coming!  The ooze is coming!"

"How close?" AniDragon yelled back.

"Too close!!"

Then they ran, with Gaz going bat to give them an aerial view, and thereby, directing them from there.  They ran and ran.  Horse going so far to produce an ice wall, which appeared to be five-foot thick, to slow the ooze down.

It didn't stop it by much.  It just split into three "river" like extensions that went to the  left, the right, and right up over the wall, to meet on the otherside.  "Well, that was useless," Horse muttered bitterly.

Eventually, they came to a sizeable chasm, which Gaz could easily fly over, but the others could not fly, nor could Gaz carry them.  So, Horse, drawing upon a sudden inspiration, made an ice bridge across, a la Iceman.  When everybody was across, she shattered the bridge.

"Well, that's bought us some breathing room." Alic said.

"But it won't stay there forever." Jack observed.

"Then let's haul butt," Aquilai suggested.

"You heard him, let's go!" Gaz agreed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 07:18:51 PM

Now, the final chapter of the night.  Maybe.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Groggi

Gaz's group approached what seemed to be a bowl depression, a natural coliseum-like formation.  The rocky, craggy sides arced up high were a meter or two from touching.  On the other side of this massive arena area was an opening, presumably the exit in which they needed to proceed further.

One problem though.  It was was blocked by a spider's web.  A very large spider's web.  The strands of the webbing were about the size of extra-large cables -- cables the size of a grown man's thigh.

"Ooookay," Aquilai said, "I don't like the looks of that."

"Big, big, big, big, big spider." Jack said, with a quiver in his voice.

"Yes, obviously," Gaz blustered.  "A spider weaving that would have to be bigger than Dino."

"Big, big, big, big, big spider." Jack repeated.

"Yes, you've made that point, Jack." Alic said, weariness in her tone.

"No, there!" he pointed.

It was indeed a big, big, big, big, big spider.  But it wasn't exactly a spider, as a spider at that scale and size would be impossible -- normally, there wouldn't be enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support an arthropod that size.  The larger an arthropod is, their "breathing tubes", so to speak, would have to be expotentially larger.  This was a monoptis gigantarachnis named Groggi, pronunciated as "groggy".

It had eight legs, two of which were held up as arms, including two fleshy fingers.  It had fur, but this was rough and shaggy, like that of a gorilla.  It had a mammalian mouth, with fangs longer than any of the RAFian's bodies put together.  It also possessed a large, bulbous, fleshy nose.  But most notable was its polychromatic, cyclopean eye.

"One eye," AniDragon said, "must have lousy depth perception."

"I don't know, you wanna ask?" Aquilai snipped.

"We don't have to worry about it," Gaz said, "we just have to get by it.  Those holes in the web are large enough for us to walk through."

"That seems like a design flaw," Alic mused.

"But we'll need . . ." Aquilai stated, "bait."

They all looked at Horse.

"Oh, no!" Horse countered immediately.  "I'm ALWAYS the bait!  One of you be the bait!!  Aquilai can do it, he's the new guy here!!"

"Would you do it for a RAFian snack?" AniDragon asked, sweetly.

Horse glared at her.  "I will not dignify that with an answer."

Gaz, who was barely paying attention to this and was watching Groggi.  It apparently hadn't seen them.  Kinda odd considering that it had an eyeball the size of Epcot Center.

"AniDragon, pick up Horse and go.  I'll go bat and keep it busy."

The others dashed for the exit, and Gaz flitted here and there, infuriating the monstrous insect wanna-be.  Its roar sounded like a tyrannosaur, bear, and tiger all at the same time.

When the others were through, Gaz dashed through.  She was unwillingly assisted by Groggi, who intended to strike her.

"Ouch." Gaz said, having returned to her human form.  "Remind me to keep my insane plans to myself next time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 26, 2012, 07:29:16 PM

Sweet! I can fly. ^_^

Still very much enjoying these. I owe you some more Beast Wars recaps tonight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2012, 07:33:12 PM

Believe me, Gaz, I enjoy writing them.  But, more chapters will hafta come tomorrow, kinda drained right now.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Bunker Bummer

Back at the RAF Bunker, the RAFians were piling up sand bags, digging ditches, and other strategies to deter the ooze from engulfing the bunker.  Parker and Jess were de facto leaders here.  Parker oversaw the external defenses and armaments, while Jess saw to the internal defenses and an contingency escape plan.

DinoNothlit, however, had what was possibly the most important job.  She was reared up to her full and considerable height, serving as a land-based lookout.  Blaze and Yunyun were flying aerial support and lookouts in their own rights, as well.

"No, no, no!" Parker shouted to the RAFians building a tower of sandbags that had a miniaturized Dracon cannon atop it.  "That Dracon cannon needs to be angled bit to the right.  How are those trenches coming?"

"Thirty feet!" a voice shouted up.

"How is a Dracon cannon supposed to stop it?" Azguard asked Parker, while he checked the supply of dracon array angles.

"Dracons are supposed to vaporize things, it should vaporize the ooze.  If not . . . well, then there may not be anything that we can do about it."

"Wonder what's taking Gaz and the others so long."

"Oh, didn't Jess brief you guys?  They're off to the Sealie Court . . . or whatever that faerie home place is called."

"Why get Faerie's kind? . . . They're the only ones that can stop the ooze?"

"It's nothing but conjecture," Parker said, folded arms, "but it would seem that the entire fate of us, RAF, and everything, rests on Faerie's shoulders."

"But no pressure, right?"

"Oh, perish the thought."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2012, 04:43:33 PM

Don't know how many chapters I can post today, but here's another.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Well

Shadow's group had emerged into sunlight, elated at the sight of it, and they savored it.  Bear even rolled around in the grass.  They all laughed heartily at finally being above ground.  Although, Asmo and Demos were more reserved.

But Shadow did not share their levity, she was still feeling some self-pity.  She was, in many ways, behaving like her uncle.  Cloak was prone to bouts of self-pity himself, although he usually tried to hide it.

Then there was the slightest rumble.  The others seemed unaware of it.  But Shadow, being a master of the Earth element, was more observant of such things.  She glanced to the right, and saw nothing.  But she was clearly unnerved.

"Shadow, relax a little!" Marie chided.

Shadow did not.  She was not a foolish child, as she thought her uncle thought.  She knew that slight vibration was not nothing.  She watched the righthand horizon carefully, intentively.  Not knowing what to expect.  She even held her tail rigidly still.

Then she saw what she sensed through the earth, what appeared to be a small trickle of purple stuff.  But that was because it was far away.  And it was growing.

"WE HAVE COMPANY!!!!"

The others saw what Shadow meant, and they all ran for it.  Eventually falling into a overlarge, conviently-placed raft on a wild, raging river.

"Lucky that this was here, really." Bear said.

"Isn't it a bit too convient?" Ash asked.

Just then the raft crumbled into nothing.

"You had to say something!!" Marie yelled.

But Ash shapeshifted into a makeshift boat, large enough to carry the others.  "There.  Is that any better?"

"I'll tell you when my stomach catches up with me," Bear muttered, sopping wet.

Then the river's rapids started to become much more dangerous.

"AHHHHH!" Ash screamed.

"Just go with the flow," Asmo said.

"That's what worries me!"

Eventually they were flung from the rapids onto a charming, lovely meadow with dappled light.  Prominently featured a red-bricked well -- an ideallic wishing well.  Shadow strolled up to it, blaming herself for running away, believing that was the cause of everything wrong.

"Why don't you make a wish," Blocky said, in comforting tones.

"That's not a wishing well," Shadow countered, "it won't work."

"Couldn't hurt."

Then Shadow started to sing "The Wishing Well Song", and Blocky realized that there was someone down there.  So, he pulled the crank on the well's bucket, and pulled up one ticked-off faerie.

"It's about TIME, guys! It's been a week already!  I fell down there and got my wings too wet to fly -- what has happened?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2012, 05:19:31 PM

'Nother chapter, per chance?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Closed Court

Gaz's group made it to what looked like golden, sparkling buildings surrounded in an overlarge soap bubble.  They took this to be the home of the faeries, even though it appeared abandoned.

"Is that it?" Jack said, from his tone, it was clear he thought it looked girly.

"I would think so, Jack." his mother answered

"Finally," Horse said, looking quite perplexed.  "But . . ."

"What are we waiting for?" AniDragon said.  "Let's get going.  We don't know how long it would take to convince them."

She walked towards the barrier, seemingly unaware of it.

"It may take age---"

ZZZZZZZZZAP!!

AniDragon was zapped by the barrier!  She flew in an arc to a spot about ten feet away, her body still smoking at the shoulders.

"Ouch."

***

". . . and that's when we landed here."

"Yes, but what were you running from."

"Some filthy purple stuff," Shadow said.

Faerie's eyes widened.  "Surely not viral ooze . . ."

"I suppose that's what it is.  And don't call--" Horse started.

"Don't do that joke.  It's an antique."

"What do we do about this ooze thing?" Dameg asked.

"I could get rid of some of it myself, faeries have that power."

"Great! So lets --" Shadow began.

"But, I can only do so much." Faerie interupted.  "From what you described, it must be a massive amount.  More then I could do alone."

"Do . . . do you think . . . you could ask other faeries to help?"

"It won't be that easy, I'm afraid." Faerie conceded.  "C'mon, lets go.  I show you the way to the Sealie Court.  But you will not be able to get past the barrier -- only true faeries can penetrate it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2012, 06:36:56 PM

Now, another chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Regrouping

Faerie tried to fly, but her wings were still too wet, she walked on, flapping them quickly, to dry them.  Shadow and the others followed her.  They were actually remarkably close to the Court.  Just about eight, ten miles.

There they saw Gaz, Horse, Alic, Aquilai, and Jack.  Jack was standing off to the side a bit, while the others were fussing over AniDragon, who was still smoking.  Faerie sighed.

"Tried to get through the barrier, didn't you, AniDragon?  Only faeries can penetrate that barrier."

"So I gathered." AniDragon said, flatly.

"So, why are you here?"

Gaz's group looked suddenly stricken.  They looked at each other, with wide eyes.

"They don't know . . ." Alic said.

"Know what?" Dameg asked.

"RAF is . . ." AniDragon began, but then her voice trailed off, as if she couldn't find the words.

"Gone." Aquilai supplied.

"What do you mean RAF is gone?!" Bear said, angrily.

"Bunch of ooze stuff came and . . ." Gaz started.

"It didn't cover the site, did it?" Faerie asked, with an almost professional tone.

"Yes." Jack put it.

"But that's not the worst of it.  The mods . . . Estelore . . ." Horse shot an apologetic look at Shadow, ". . . Cloak . . . they're gone too."

"They're dead?" Ash said, in a strained voice.

"Were they engulfed by the ooze?" Faerie said, retaining the tone with a little waver in it.

"Yes." Alic nodded slightly.

"Then they're not dead.  They're more like a suspended animation I suppose." Faerie said, stroking her chin pensively.  "They can be saved."

"How come you know so much about this?" Gaz asked.

"Faeries have dealt with this before.  It's in the archives."

"What do you mean --" AniDragon said.

"Faeries are sort of the antiviral.  They can get rid of it." said Marie.

"Great!  Faerie, come with us back --"

"I am only one faerie!" Faerie nearly shrieked.  "I can only do so much.  I must . . . I must convince the others.  I'm not looking forward to it.  It won't be easy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2012, 07:51:05 PM

Now, possibly the final chapter of the night, a shortish one.  Altough it's two or three chapters away from completion . . .

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Waiting

"You guys might as well go back to the other RAFians," Faerie instructed, "chances are you'll reach the fallback bunker -- that's where they are, right?  Okay, thought so -- anyway, you'll probably reach their faster than the other faeries make a decision."

"So, slow adminstrative procedures are an universal norm, I see." Marie quipped.

"You know it." Faerie said with the slightest hint of a smile.

***

A full three days later, the group arrives back at the bunker.  Once there, Parker and Jess call up a council of war, which the whole group sat in on.  Newbies remained on duty.

"So, what's the deal?" Parker said.  He had removed his helmet in a gesture of anxiety and nerves.  He was also constantly switching which hand held it.

"Faerie's gonna try to convince the other faeries to come and get rid of the ooze." Alic said -- Jack had gone to his dad's shortly after they arrived.

"That's great!  We're saved."

"Alic said she was gonna try to convince the other faeries.  Try.  She hasn't succeeded yet." Gaz pointed out.

"We should come up with a contingency plan," Aquilai offered, "in case Faerie's powers of persuation fall, uh, short."

"Well," Jess said.  "if the ooze comes here, we'll fall back to the south.  Then we would double back on higher ground.  Back toward Brad's Pad -- and I really cannot believe he named that place that."

Aquilai nodded.  "Well, that's something.  But if we don't get the fairies --"

"'Faeries'." Horse corrected.

"What's the difference?"

"The 'e'." Gaz quipped wearily.

"Let me rephrase, why does it matter whether I use the 'e' or the 'i'?"

"You say 'fairies', and there's a good chance that Faerie will show you your kidneys."

"Ooookay.  You make your point quite vividly."

"Back to the task at hand," Marie urged, "what do we do now?"

"Nothing we can do." Dameg said with a sigh.  "Faeries are the only ones that remove the blasted thing."

"Well, they'd better hurry," Dino said, having heard everything, but remaining on lookout.

"Why?" Shadow asked, speaking for the first time in three days.

"Here it comes!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2012, 02:49:43 PM

Now, to finish this book.  This'll probably be the last chapter . . . let's see how it plays out.  Okay, one more chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Purge

The purple goop proceeded forward, like an angry cheetah.  The RAFians rushed to their positions for what they knew was to be a losing battle.  Shadow terrakinetically widened the ditches into chasms.  But it was no good.

"ARTILLERY!  FIRE!  FIRE!!  FIRE ALREADY!!!" Parker roared.

The artillery was a mix of projectile and beam weaponry.  But neither was effective against this gooey onslaught.  Fire didn't deter it.  Wind just made ripples on it.  It just overran plants.

There was nothing they could do.  Their defenses were pityingly useless!  They were helpless.

"No!" Shadow snarled uncharacteristicall y.  "NOT THIS TIME!!!"

With a roar of effort, she pulled the entire ground upon which the bunker stood into the air.  It wasn't nearly as high as her uncle could do when he was in a fit state, but it was sufficient just the same.

But, the RAFians were not fools -- they knew Shadow couldn't keep this up forever.  Just after two hours, she was starting to slip.  She struggled to maintain, but, at the end of the day, she's still eleven.  She was not full grown, so her power was not as strong.

"FAERIE, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!" Parker roared.

"Right here, chill out."

So she was.  She was not alone.  She was with what appear to be like 650 thousand other faeries.  They started to release what appeared to be sparkling wind from their wings.  The ooze didn't seem to like this, as it began to roll back as if a layer of leaves with a leafblower.

They were beginning to drive it back.  Shadow set down the bunker roughly, then passed out from the effort.  Dino kindly lifted her onto her back, and the RAFians followed, at a suitable distance, the faerie battle line.  It seemed quite easy for them to remove the ooze.

"So much for 'nothing can stop the ooze'." Gaz smirked.

Then they came upon where the ooze congealed over RAF.  Would they be able to . . . the answer was yes.  The ooze quickly uncongealed, and receded from the beautiful sight of the forum.  But as a bonus . . .

The ticked-off mods, Estelore, and Cloak were finally freed.

"If he says 'with you powers combined, I am Cloaked Figure, I'll kill him," Shadow said groggily.

It went quite quickly after that.  The ooze was scoured and purged from the site, and deposited back at the mountain, entombing the virus and Azul and Rojo.  Then it was atomized into nothingness by the magic of the faeries.

It was over.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2012, 03:14:43 PM

Last chapter of Book Two . . . or epilogue.  Take your choice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Back to the Forum

With the ooze gone, purged from the forum, the RAFians rejoiced at having their forum back.  Inside Pootang's cage, where one might assume it'd be terribly rageful, it was just perplexed about what happened.  It did not try to escape, which was fine.  The game would persist at another time.

The threads and boards were live with the electricity of posts.  Posts counts climbing all the time.  Discussions were being handled civilly . . . er, mostly.  But Shadow and her uncle, Cloaky, were standing on a hill overlooking the site.  Cloak had progressed in strength enough not to need the walking stick, which was hung over his back, deciding to use it to focus his abilities until he's finally back up to scratch.

"How come I get the feeling that we'll have to evacuate RAF in the next book, uncle?" Shadow said in an aside to her uncle.

"Don't break the fourth wall, Shadow.  Most people don't like it."

Yes.  Realm Walkers have the power to break the fourth wall.

Estelore bid her goodbyes, then set off on another interstellar journey.  Something about checking out some nebula shaped like a horse's head or simply shaped like the RAFian Horse's head, she wasn't very clear on that point.

Az, Faerie, and Cloak revisited some old threads, reminicing.  Gaz was critiquing some more "Beast Wars" episodes, and Parker was in the training room, the RAFian version of the Danger Room.

Late one night, Goom, Gaz, Shadow and Cloak headed to the archives.  They had written the history of everything that happened with the ooze, its properties, and how to defeat it.  They entered it into the archives, for future use.

Then Goom said softly, "I do pray that we never have to use this information again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2012, 04:00:21 PM

New book!

BOOK THREE:
Dark Phoenix
CHAPTER ONE:
Ooze Psychology

Cloak continued to get stronger this past year since the ooze incident.  He had since done away with his walking stick.  Cloak was feeling near 90%-95%.  In a few more days, he should be back to full strength.

In the intervening year, the Pootang escaped six or seven times.  Eating Horse each time -- but I wouldn't talk to her about it, as that's still a very sore point with her*.  One occasion, the RAFians got the Pootang drunk to spit up Horse, and on another a simple gut punch was sufficient.

Cloak, Goom and Parker were maintaining the Species Database, eventually issuing watch-like devices that contained the Database, referred to as Encartas, to every RAFians.  Lurkers however were not permitted the device.

Yarin, Aquilai and Goom updated the communicators into a handheld, holographic device, much like the communicators in the Star Wars movies, only full-color.  These, too, were issued among the RAFians.

Yarin had snuck a bit of the ooze, and spent much of his time analyzing it, but coming up with nothing.  Other RAFians thought it was moot research, but he was undeterred, and continued his experimentation.

"There seems to be a technological boom goin' on," Nate observed.

"Yes," Phoenix agreed.

Then he said nothing more, deep in thought.  He, like Cloak, was encased in the ooze.  Cloak tried not to think about it, about the utter powerlessness, the abject helplessness that the mods, Esty, and he had endured.  While entombed in the ooze, there was only nothingness.  No sounds, no smells, just mind-numbing blackness.  The sheer boredom, the unrelenting monotony, the horrid sensory depreviation.  But even those words cannot truly describe it.

One does not forget that easily, though they might want to.  None of the mods, nor Esty or Cloak, told anyone about it.  All of them wanted to forget.

Little did they realize something would happen that would make them all forget.

----
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2012, 05:00:15 PM

Now . . . last chapter for a while.  Gotta let ya catch up.  It's gonna be a shortish one.

CHAPTER TWO:
Malevolence

Cloak's eyes snapped open, and he sat upright in his bed.  He was in his thread.  He just had a nightmare.  It wasn't about the ooze this time, it was Abomination nearly killing him again.  He thought he was OVER this!

Then, suddenly, a chill went down his spine to the tip of his tail.  He knew what that meant.  Something evil was nearby . . . all felines (feline Realm Walkers included) can sense evil.

Cloak leaped from his bed, ears attentively scouring sounds.  Eyes peering through the night's gloom.  He stalked to his thread's door looked outside.  He didn't know why he was trying to find this -- this malevolence.

Soon enough he was joined by Bladeh and FuBar.  They looked at each other, and knew that each one of them sensed the same thing.  But none of them knew of what this malevolent entity was.

They stalked carefully towards the Bored Board, where Cloak realized this malevolence had a slightly familiar feel . . . but from where?  From what?  Who?  Too many questions.

They went round the lake, sniffed the air, smelled nothing out of the ordinary and saw nothing out of the ordinary.  Then they cautious prowled up to the Animorphs Board, then the General FanFiction Board.  Still nothing.

'Round the Introductions and Departures thread, Cloak briefly caught sight of a bit of moving shadow, but nothing clearer then that.  Then they followed it back to the Member Profile Threads -- RAFian quarters.  Then it was gone.  Just . . . gone.  It was perplexing to say the least.

"What . . . what WAS that thing?" Bladeh asked, thoroughly confused.

"I have no idea." FuBar replied.

Cloak said nothing, but still looked skyward.

"Cloak?" Bladeh pressed.

"I do not know," Cloak replied quietly.  "But I think I've met that thing before, but I do not know or recall how."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 28, 2012, 06:17:00 PM

I've been keeping up with these, enjoying every bit!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2012, 07:50:42 PM

Intend to Gazzy!  One more chapter before I retire for the night. . . .

CHAPTER THREE:
Brutality

The next day, RAF began buzzing with posts and new threads, and such.  But Cloak was at the lake, staring at the water pensively.  He wore a very serious, brooding expression upon his face.  His thoughts were still on the mysterious malevolence, the strange shadow thing.

What could it be?  Why was it so familiar?  The information was hiding tantalizingly in his memories, but he couldn't seem to access it for some reason.  He absently and idly scratched his claws on his left hand into the bark of the nearest tree.

Suddenly, an alarm blared.  Cloak knew what this alarm was alerting to.  It wasn't anything real special, only the Pootang had escaped again.  The other RAFians could capture it again -- although Cloak noticed that Horse was nowhere in sight.  Well, maybe she wouldn't -- oh, never mind.  There she was, being dropped into its maw.

"NO!  Not again!  NOT AGAIN!!!!" she wailed.

But the Pootang dropped Horse, who scooted away as fast as her little flippers could carry her.  It was Phoenix.  He had gave the Pootang a gutbusting punch.  Cloak noticed that Phoenix was carrying a fiery aura, which he usually did in battle, but the coloring was off somehow.  Cloak could not put his finger on it.

Then Phoenix jumped up and delivered a fiery elbow to Pootang's skull, then he went for a crotch kick, then a shoulder hit, and then a strike to Pootang's back.  It was then that Cloak started to suspect.  Phoenix never fought this brutally, this viciously, this callously, this ruthlessly.

"Phoenix, STOP!!!" Nate cried out.

Phoenix seemed to come out of a revrie, or a trance.  "Huh?  Wha?"

Pootang slinked away, crawled back into its cage, and shut the door.  All the while it was wimpering.  Cloak could feel it shivering and shaking, terrakinetically-speaking.

"Phoenix, what's the matter with you?"

"I --" Phoenix begun to stutter and babble, "I don't -- don't know . . ."

Cloak hid his suspicions, but he resolved to keep a close eye on things.  Something was going on, and Cloak was going to get to the bottom of it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on February 28, 2012, 08:57:30 PM

Last line made me think of a classic black and white PI show with fitting jazz music :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on February 28, 2012, 09:17:56 PM

Oh ****, Mike's been corrupted by the ooze!!!

Awesome ending to book two by the way. Though it did seem rather rushed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2012, 02:41:58 PM

Call it poor planing, Parker . . . oops, accidental alliteration.  And it was an assumption that they were destroyed . . . perhaps it was just a comic-book death, if you catch my meaning.

Was it the ooze that corrupted Mike, or . . . something else? *smirks slyly.*

Probably the only chapter today.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Tensions

Cloak kept to the background, but kept tabs on Phoenix's actions.  No brutality seemed to have occured, although he seemed more preoccupied than normal.  But the others just had assumed that was due to being submerged in the ooze.  The other mods have been feeling the same.  But Cloak, having gone down the Epiphany Road, seemed less affected.

It was a lie, of course, but one which Cloak fostered and encouraged.  The truth was Cloak threw himself into projects to forget about it, trying to dwell on it as little as possible.  And this thing with Phoenix was just another excuse to forget it.

Then the Banned staged another coup, and Phoenix . . . well, he lost it again, causing the Banned to flee in terror, and many trollish casualities.  The RAFians were shocked at this behavior, as it was SO unlike the Phoenix that they knew and cared for.

"Phoenix -- MIKE!" Nate shouted, attempting to get his attention.  "MIKE!! CONTROL YOURSELF!!"

"YOU'LL DIE!!  YOU'LL ALL DIE!!!"

"MIKE!!!!"

Nate was shaking him roughly, and suddenly he shook his head.  "Wha . . . what happened?"

"You went off your nut, that's what happened!!" Nate replied angrily.

"I -- what?"

"Mike, there is something exceedingly wrong with you." Richard said.  "I'm ordering you to medical custody to find out what."

"YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!! . . . I'm sorry, Richard, I don't know where that came from."

Cloak saw this from afar, with narrowed eyes.  He was in disbelief.  His suspicions could NOT be right.  He did not want them to be proven correct . . . because it was supposed to be . . .

He needed time to think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2012, 03:23:18 PM

Now, I'll see if I can sneak in this chapter before I have get offline.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Results and Rage

Phoenix complied with Richard's orders.  At first.  Goom took blood, tissue and hair samples and tested them.  But found nothing wrong.  Then he took a power level reading . . .

That's when he saw something off.  Phoenix's power level was growing expotentially.  Goom theorized that was simply an effect of the ooze, but Yarin's findings don't mesh with that hypothesis.  Goom speculates it could be something like having an allergy, and Phoenix's power level is growing too fast for him to cope, and his levels of aggression are hightening to compensate . . .

Cloak heard all this, and thought it all highly unlikely.  But they wouldn't know.  Well, Faerie and Az might, but Cloak still said nothing.  This could possibly of been his biggest mistake, but Cloak didn't realize that until much later.

Back at the medical facility, Phoenix's body was starting to be engulfed in flame.  But it was clear from his body language that he was trying to stop it.  And that pained look on his face made it clear that he wasn't succeeding.  Suddenly, this flame aura turned into a firebird form, before dying down to nothing as Phoenix gained control over himself.

"No, it cannot be," Cloak said.  He had felt that presence before.  This was about to get very bad.  Yet, Cloak had to go.  Go to the Nexus and check somethings out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2012, 03:51:33 PM

Sorry about the short chapter, hopefully I can make this one a bit longer.

CHAPTER SIX:
Corruption Complete

Cloak swished his cloak and entered the Nexus.  He immediately went over to the Nexus Library.  He walked up to an ancient-looking (even by Realm Walker standards) turtle-form Realm Walker.

"Hello, Tomekeeper."

"Oh no.  Not you again."

"Yes, me.  Now, I need some information . . ."

***

Back in the Prime Universe, at RAF, Phoenix's brow had broken out into a sweat.  He was scared.  He was terrified at what was happening to him.  He was sure that he hadn't brutalized the Pootang.  He was sure that wasn't him who terrified the Banned and killed all those trolls.

But if it wasn't him . . . why was he there?  Why did he have limited memory of everything?

Oh no!  It's starting again!  Phoenix attempted to squash this nauseating feeling, which sloshed around his navel, and push this horrid . . . THING down.  But he was losing.  He could not stop it from surfacing.  He tried, though, he gave it his all.

But Phoenix was rising into the air in a fiery yellow aura.  The form of a firebird flickered in and out of existance.  But it was starting to flicker less and less.  And the attention of other RAFians were being drawn to the spectacle.

Phoenix felt a horrid desire to reach out and attack them.  He resisted for several minutes, but then he fired a fireball at Genies, who crumpled, only slightly burned, but in severe pain.

No!  No!!  NO!!!  Stop!!!!  STOP!!!!! Phoenix mentally pleaded his body.  But it seemed to have a mind of it's own.

Block attempted to knock Phoenix out of the sky by throughing a tree, but Phoenix turned the tree to gold and slammed it back down on Block, who was knock out.  Phoenix felt truly frightened then as he knew he hadn't the power to transmute matter.

But struggle as he might, he could not longer control himself.  He could no longer reach his own body.  It was like it had a mind of its own.

"Phoenix!  Stop!"

I'm trying!  I'm trying!! Phoenix tried to shout.

The RAFians were preparing to attack, to take down their old friend.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2012, 04:20:19 PM

Now, Phoenix will do something against his will in this shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Struggles

Phoenix continued to struggle against whatever this thing, whether it was his own powers achieving sentience or something else, and reclaim his body.

Aquilai and Horse waterbended the lake's water which Phoenix easily evaporated, and then burned both severely, but not fatally.

Faerie attempted to use the same sparkling wind that freed RAF of the ooze, but it was completely ineffective.  She recieved the same treatment of Aquilai and Horse.

NOOOOO!!! Phoenix wailed.

Nate yelled, "Phoenix, no!  Phoenix stop! Please!!"

Phoenix's body ignored him, but his mind responded tearfully, I can't stop!  I really CAN'T!!

Yunyun and Blaze charged from the air, and Yunyun would have been incinerated if Blaze hadn't absorbed the attack, which only did marginal damage to him.  But the he was turned into solid gold and plummeted to the ground.

"Blaze!"

Then yunyun was turned into solid silver.  Then Shock was turned into solid crystal, Yarin into solid platinium, Jess into a mass of rubies, Gotcheye into a mass of sapphires, Gaz into a mass of emeralds, Stalker into a mass of diamonds, and Parker's armor into pearls.

"Now that was just uncalled for," an armorless Parker snarled.

"Phoenix!" Nate pleaded, but it fell on what appeared to be deaf ears.

Suddenly, Phoenix turned ND into a toy Andalite, Rad into a mass of string, and Gym into an empty latex suit.  How much more was Phoenix going to do?  Could Phoenix ever regain control over himself?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2012, 04:45:30 PM

Now, the last chapter today (unless I change my mind).

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Gone

Phoenix's mind folded in on itself, and was silent.

"Phoenix, stop this right now!" Richard ordered.

Suddenly, Dino was nothing but fossilized bones, a lurker was a mere puddle of nothing and Broken really was broken.

"Phoenix, please!  Listen to us!" Nate pleaded.

Suddenly, another lurker was turned to solid ice, Sakki was turned to solid rock, and Aila was turned to solid steel.

"Phoenix!"

"SILENCE!" Phoenix's mouth said.  There was a mild fiery explosion around him.  "Phoenix004 is dead!  Behold power incarnate!  Behold fire made flesh!  Behold Dark Phoenix004!!"

"Oh, **** --" Parker begain.

Phoenix's firebird aura grew ten times its original size, he cackling all the while.  It was large enough to be seen all the way to Serebii.  Suddenly, SkyMorpher was a fly, Estrid was a human, and DP was now a guppy.

Nate, however, was not deterred.

"Phoenix -- Mike!  Fight it, Mike!  Use the power of your mind!"

"Phoenix is gone, little man." the creature that used to be Phoenix said, then it idly turned the Pootang from a giant rabid Pikachu to a giant rabid Pichu.  Then a giant rabid Magikarp.  Then a giant rabid Caterpie.

"Mike, no!  Fight it!  You can do it!"

"He's gone, you dim-witted dolt!" he snarled as Marie, Dameg, and Tyler suddenly became incontient puppies.  "You RAFians provide me no entertainment anymore.  You're just an irritation."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 29, 2012, 05:43:11 PM

Oh no! Mike has joined the dark side.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 01, 2012, 07:12:54 PM

Haha, Cloak, that's exactly what I would've said! :rofl2:

Who ever will save us?!?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2012, 10:47:15 AM

There's an 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference in here, but it won't become obvious until Chapter 19.  And I'll start the next chapter shortly.

CHAPTER NINE:
Interstellar

"I am out of here," the being who used to be Phoenix said.  Then his firebird aura grew to gigantic mass, and he shot out of the atmosphere.  He bypassed Mars, blew threw the astroids would never quite made it to planetary status, then he circled Jupiter gaily.

Then he skimmed Saturns rings, flew through Uranus, corkscrewed around Neptune, blasted through Pluto and headed out into the universe.  He was heading to a star in the Perseus constellation, Omega Persi*.

***

Estelore had taken on her usual avatar of a lovely woman in a sundress, and she was exploring a planet that she suspected to harbor life.  She had done this for nothing but her enjoyment before, but she was asked by Cloak to catalogue entries into the database, due to her usual interstellar sojourns.  She took up the task, and did not disappoint.

She had catalogued 649 new species, although none sentient, since she left Earth after the ooze incident.  Just think about it caused her usual light to dim a bit, and her avatar's eyes to darken just a bit.

But this task allowed her to keep busy, to forget about that ordeal.  So, she took it with a zeal that only Estelore could have.  Only . . . she found this planet to be a bit of a disappointment.  It was a dead world.  It didn't have the seeds of creation upon it.

This would be a good thing, as what she would witness next would be painfully etched into her memory for all time, completely throwing the ooze ordeal out of her mind.

***

Back at RAF, the RAFians gathered up what . . . what was left of their friends.  They were taken to the infirmary.  Goom was distraught, for obvious reasons.

"I don't know what you want me to do about it," he complained, "I cannot do anything to them in this state."

<No one's blaming you, little goomba,> Noelle said, with comforting tones.  Odd for an Andalite.

"They don't have to.  I've done it already."

<And what could you have done?  We could not stand up to that kind of power.  I doubt that Cloak or Estelore -->

"I should be stomped," Goom sulked.

***

In the Nexus, at the library, Cloak was furious.

"YOU WHAT?!"

"She . . . she was so kind . . . so pretty . . . she needed . . ." the old Realm Walker babbled.

"'She', was it?" Cloak said, rage suddenly forgotten.  "Who?"

"She . . ." the old coot blubbered.

"Who is it then?  Who took the Eye of Sarnoth Odin?  And the . . . the other item?"

"Malice . . ."

"Do you take me for a fool?!  Everyone knows Malice is dead!"

-----
*I'm aware that there is a great chance this star does not exist.  You'll soon learn why.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2012, 12:48:45 PM

'Nother chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER TEN:
Star Crossed

Estelore completed her findings on the planet, having scouring it a second and third time to be sure that it was actually lifeless (and it was, not two bacteria to rub together).  So, she ascended from the planet, still maintain her avatar form.

She is cut off by a soundless streak of flame, which, admittingly, she thought was rather odd.  Defenseless against her curious nature, Estelore followed it to the nearest star.  She was perplexed at what this creature was, as she hasn't ever seen anything like it in the vastness of space, even with all her long journeys.

The creature stopped in front of the star, and it took a firebird form with something at the center.  It seemed to eye the star, longingly and lovingly.  It was then that Estelore recognized the speck.  It was Dark Phoenix, although Estelore was unaware of this.

Estelore was still perplexed as to how and why he had come out here.  She was so consumed with curiosity that she didn't even notice the Dome ship Aximili observing from a distance away.

Then Dark Phoenix plunged into the star, much to the shock of Estelore and the Aximili's crew.  They all thought that Dark Phoenix had destroyed himself, without any clear reason to.  But they were all wrong.

Dark Phoenix was absorbing the star's energy into himself.  He was . . . feeding.

"Phoenix, what are you doing?!  Stop this!!" Estelore screamed, completely forgetting that her voice would not be heard in the vacuum of space.

Then the star was completely gone.  Estelore wore a look of shock.  It's planets doomed to wander aimlessly in the vast cold expanse of space.  Fortunately, they all were lifeless, but it did not lessen the magnitude of such an act.

The speck in the spot where the star once stood grew his firebird aura again, as if giving a mighty screech.  The head of the aura seemed to scanned the cosmos, possibly looking for another meal.  And looked it's "eyes" on Estelore.

And Estelore happened to be a star.

"Oh, bother," Estelore muttered to herself, although no sound carried it.  She fled, feeling something she had possibly never felt before.  Abject terror.  And Dark Phoenix followed her like a cheetah following an antelope.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2012, 01:44:41 PM

Now, another chapter, for my 4000^th post.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Sanctuary

Estelore quickly assumed her human avatar within light-years of approaching Earth, and she controlled her trajectory enough to make sure she landed near RAF.  She landed daintly, then ran for dear life.

"Estelore, wha --" Richard began.

"HE'S GONNA EAT ME!!!" Esty practically screamed, shaking Richard by his collar.

"What?"

Then Dark Phoenix appeared behind them.  All humanity that Phoenix had once possessed was gone from his face, making it look somehow more sinister, even though the expression was perpetually blank.

"He's ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack!" RYTX yelled to the other RAFians.

The RAFians didn't look very enthused at this prospect.  But they filed out just the same.  Dark Phoenix landed, extinguished his fiery aura -- a deliberate insult -- and strode sedately forward.

"Phoenix, please.  Fight it.  You can!  You can't let this darkness win!" Nate pleaded to deaf ears again.  Suddenly, a blue blur streaked by and planted a technologically-crammed metal headband onto Dark Phoenix's head, catching him unawares.

<Yarin, turn it on!> Esplin yelled.

"Patience is a virtue." Yarin said, tensed.

"Not now, it's not!" Parker countered.

But, too late, as the Dark Phoenix's fiery aura emerged explosively again, melting the device into nothingness.  Dark Phoenix laughed harshly and evilly, although his face remained expressionless.

"My, my, my, Yarin.  I seemed to have broke your little toy."

Yarin scowled, then his jaw dropped.  He had telepathically probed Dark Phoenix's mind, and saw that he wasn't kidding when he said he wasn't Phoenix.  He literally wasn't Phoenix, Phoenix's true mind was deeply unconscious.  There was another mind, the mind in charge, was the dominent one, and one that was NOT originally there.  But Dark Phoenix became aware of the probe and forced Yarin out easily.

"Phoenix . . . Mike, please, listen to me.  You can fight this.  It does not own you.  It cannot own you.  You are stronger than this darkness. . . ."

Yarin took this opportunity to strike.  He telepathically managed to stun Dark Phoenix's mind into unconsciousness.

"Sorry, Nate, I had to take the opportunity to strike."

"He's . . . back?"

"No, I only stunned him.  We need to take care of him before he --"

"Recovers?" Dark Phoenix said, standing up again, and with the same creepy expressionless face.  "Too late, Nyac."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2012, 02:16:34 PM

Now another chapter . . . hmmm, 1000 more posts to go.  Oh, never mind that, uh, this'll probably be a short chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Mind Games

Yarin knew what he had to do.  He had to bind the powers and the mind of the intruding essense in Phoenix, or at least "wake" Phoenix's mind up.  But the question of how was the hardest --

Sudden fireball!  Yarin dodged to the right.  His six eyes reflecting the glow,  but his lower left hand was burned.  Yarin winced but it did not soften his resolve.  He kept trying to probe Dark Phoenix's mind.  Of course, this had the rather nasty side effect of royally ticking him off.

"YOU DARE TO PROBE MY MIND, INSECT?!" it roared.  "I WILL MAKE YOU REGRET THIS, VERMIN!!"

***

Meanwhile, in the bowls of an Egyptian underworld, Demos was standing, looking uncomfortable.  He was on a quest assigned to him by Cloak, shortly before the latter's departure for the Nexus, and he was addressing a jackal-headed man.

"Anubis, you know what I require."

"Demon, you overstep your boundaries."

"Anubis, it is the only way to advert all-out disaster."

"I thought your kind reveled in disaster."

"Don't be prejudged."

"You may not have the feather.  Your kind could never be entirely truthful."

"And what do I have to do to convince you otherwise?"

***

The fight at RAF was not very pretty.  A lot of newbies were severely burned.  Some lurkers were incinerated into a pile of ashes without a second look.  But Yarin, still managed to evade, still trying to probe Dark Phoenix's mind to get to the REAL Phoenix.

After six or seven tries, Yarin managed to connect with the real Phoenix's mind.  Yarin urged him to awaken.  Begged, pleaded, threatened, anything to awaken him.  One or more of these things must have succeeded, because Phoenix awakened.  Dark Phoenix's aura flickered, like static on an old television.

Yarin was tired, but he knew it wasn't over.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 02, 2012, 02:49:43 PM

After a hectic morning of herding around 4 year olds, coming back home to read a few new chapters of this is just what I needed. ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on March 02, 2012, 03:45:06 PM

We find it thoroughly engrossing. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2012, 08:04:11 AM

Glad to hear it (and I hope the next book can live up to it . . . I still have to plan those chapters.  I've been lazy on that front).  'Nother chapter will come, soonish.  Oh, and let's face it . . . Lurkers are just cannon fodder.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Submission

Phoenix and Dark Phoenix began struggling for control, causing the firebird aura to flicker out when Phoenix managed to wrangle control away from the malevolence, and flaring back to life when he failed.  This left him, as you can imagine, quite distracted.

Yarin attempted to captialize on this, and bind the malevolence, to make it inert.  But he wasn't strong enough.  He was borderline exhausted, and such a taxing demand on his abilities were also causing him to weaken.

<EVERYONE!> he shouted to all the surviving RAFians. <You must revive.  Focus your thoughts on me.  Use me as a conduit to give a might telepathic scream.  I will try to use my telepathic powers to bind this malevolence.  But I require your assistance!!!>

Suddenly, Yarin felt the other RAFians' thoughts.  They filled him, and he focused them at Phoenix/Dark Phoenix.  He screamed at the psychic force slammed into his mind.  Yarin used this to enter Phoenix's mind . . . seeing two entities.  One was the Phoenix they all knew and loved, and the other was a malevolent, shadowed silhouette in Phoenix's form with glowing red eyes.  It held what appeared to be three fused gems (one red, one blue, and one yellow) on it's forehead.

Phoenix looked battered, bruised, and hurt, while the Dark Phoenix malevolent did not show any injury, but that could be just because of his appearance.  The two were wrestling and fighting and biting.

"Phoenix, disentangle yourself!" Yarin spoke in a strange echoey way.  "Phoenix, withdraw.  Help me bind this thing!"

Phoenix, battered and beaten, withdrew.

"The arrogance of you Nyac," the entity spoke directly to Yarin.  It did not have Phoenix's voice.  It spoke with the stereotypical demonic voice.  "You think you can just bottle me up and toss me into a shelf?  Or maybe you think you'd suck me into a thermos?"

Then the real Phoenix combined his powers and energies with Yarin.

"Thermos?  Thanks for the idea, malevolence."

And, suddenly, the Fenton thermos appears in Yarin's hand.

"I, Yarin, bind the Dark Phoenix with the powers of my mind and the mind of Phoenix004!"

The malevolence was forcibly sucked into the mental thermos, with rushing white energy, concentrated with energy rings.  Yarin capped it, and dropped it, which sunk through the "ground".  Phoenix and Yarin separated and Yarin left Phoenix's mind.

Back in the real world, Phoenix was on his knees, shaking horribly.  I defy anyone who has gone through the same not to react the same.  Nate was attempting to comfort Phoenix, when it landed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2012, 10:24:40 AM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
They Come

The Aximili landed, and the crew began disembarking, their tails raised.

<Ardnalil!> Noelle said with a start.  The RAFians assumed that she was referring to the head Andalite.

"You know this guy?" Richard asked.

<We . . . um, dated,> Noelle said.  Had she been human she'd probably be blushing.

<It is the decision of the Andalite Council that he being known as Dark Phoenix must be destroyed.>

"Say what?" Duff said.

"And what exactly makes you think that you have the right to make such a decision?" Wild said.

<Be silent, ignorant worm.>

"I see why you dumped him, Noelle."

If looks could kill, Duff would be dead a thousand times over.

<That thing, whatever it is, just destroyed an entire star system.  We must destroy it before it feeds again!>

"I'm afraid you'll need to explain yourself more thoroughly." Richard said, maintaining his unshakable calm.

<Capture the Dark Phoenix.>

"Don't let them." Richard ordered.

"Got that right," Parker said.  He somehow managed to salvage a weapon from who knows where.  When pressed, he'd state, "I rather not say."

<Do not resist.> the snooty Andalite captain said.

"They don't know us very well, do they?" Cerulean asked rhetorically.

"Listen, pal, if you don't want us to rip off all your tails and give you mouths the painful way, you'd better explain yourself!!"

Clearly these Andalites didn't think anything of these pronouncements.  Clearly they thought RAFians were lesser species.  Estelore didn't take too kindly to that, and used her stellar powers to incinerate the Andalite weapons, handheld and also the ones in their dome ships.

"No, TALK.  Or you will be next!" Estelore said, though she couldn't keep the tireness out of her voice.

<That being is too powerful for you to handle.>

"Strike one, blue boy." Estelore snarled.

<The star system he destroyed was fortunately uninhabited.  But what of next time?  Before lone, single stars will not satiate that creature.  It will consume galaxies.  It could destroy all that is!  There is no choice.>

"That's . . . true.  I did see him eat a star myself." Esty conceded.

"But Yarin has cured her!" Nate argued.

"Nate, the malevolence may be contained, but it is still within me."

"To kill an innocent being to get at another," Wild spat uncharacteristicall y with a wrinkled nose, "it's barbarous."

Yarin quickly telepathically probe the head Andalite's mind at this distraction.  "I issue a challenge of honor in all of our names.  You cannot refuse such a challenge."

<Take no solace in your resourcefulness.  You've compounded the tragedy.> he said, but with no softness or sympathic tones, just hard indifference.

<You guys are making being an Andalite embarrising . . .> Noelle complained.

The Andalites turned their backs on the RAFians.  <Select six of your number.  We'll meet in three Earth hours.  The star is ineligible.>

"I have a name, you know.  Stupid, sack of --"

"ESTELORE!" the rest of the RAFians said, unaccustomed to seeing this kind of temper and vulgarity from their own sentient star.  This Andalite must have REALLY irked her.  But she did not fight the ineligiblity claim.

<And Noelle, you need to remember where your loyalties lie.>

<I know where my loyalties lie, you arrogant prick.>

Apparently, he didn't know what a "prick" was.  The Andalites boarded the dome ship to prepare for the duel of honor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2012, 11:30:20 AM

'Nother chapter.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Preparation

It was decided that Nate, Parker (who just did not look the same without his armor), Hunter, and Ash would take the challenge.  That left two RAFians.  Two that were fit enough to fight.  That . . . did not leave a lot of choices.

<I'm in.> Noelle said, straight away.

"Are you sure?  This is your own people we're talking about." Richard said.

<No, arrogant sacks of kafit bird droppings like that are not my people.> Noelle said, quite forcefully.

"Then I'm in." Sakki said.

"No, it's me." Phoenix said.

"Phoenix, I don't think that's a good idea." Yarin said.  "The containment might fail under the rigors and pressures of battle."

"There's always gonna be rigors and pressures.  It might get out at any time.  But I cannot spend my days trying to keep it down.  Maybe it would be better --"

"Don't talk that way," Nate said.  "You're alive.  And, God as my witness, we're gonna make sure it stays that way."

"Well, best you start training for it then.  You have another two and a half hours.  But nothing to grueling." Richard suggested, who seemed to have many qualms about this.  "Noelle, if you can fill everyone in on their possible weaknesses."

<You've already seen one.  He's horribly arrogant and full of himself.  But I guarantee he won't be one of the six.  He's "too important".> She put heavy sarcasm on the last two words.

Soon enough, however, it was time for the challenge.  And the six saw their foes -- six of the largest male Andalites.  But the RAFians were not frightened.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2012, 02:22:32 PM

Might be the last chapter -- possibly another shortish one -- of the night.  We'll have to see where my energy level is, creatively-speaking.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Battle

The battle began with all six Andalite stampeding forward, tails ****ed in striking position.  The RAFians dispersed strategically, and Ash shapeshifted into a large creature that terrorified the warriors.

Hunter gave one a good slash upon his flank, only now, Hunter was tailless.  But he was alive.

Parker was standing a ten foot distances trading shots with on Andalite who had been wielding a state-of-the-art shredder, and Parker's weapon was clearly time worn.

Nate was fighting like a mad man, RAFian training and frequent battles with the Banned, trolls, and the Pootang proving to be superior to the experiences of his foe.  It was a pity, really.  Nate was not holding back, and he was kind of making this Andalite look bad.

Phoenix seemed to have his dark side under control as he fought the Andalite, nearly incinerating the Andalite's tail when he attempted a strike.  Andalite decided not to try that again.

Noelle used her smaller size, and greater manueverability to advantage, blocking the larger male's blade at key moments, before hacking and cutting the muscle at the base of his tail.  He attempted to kick at her with his back legs, but she saw this coming a mile away.

<Traitor!> he screamed.

<One could say the same of you!>

The battle continued in this vein for a while.  But, unlike the RAFians, there was no variety to the Andalite ranks.  They didn't have the advantages of the RAFians, nor the sheer amount of battle experience.  They didn't have to fight the Banned, trolls, and the Pootang fairly frequently.  The RAFians fought the occasional Howler, too.

But, so involved with the battle as they were, they missed the warning signs.  The fact that Phoenix's body was starting to get a faint glowing aura. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 03, 2012, 06:41:51 PM

Awesome chapter. My pale body probably blinded my opponent. ;D Seriously though, after 11 years of being in that armor, there's not a whole lot of melanin in my skin.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2012, 09:34:07 AM

Lol, Parker.  Another chapter soonish, which more than likely will contain your, ah, "catchphrase".  Probably another short one.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Monster Reborn

The combatants eventually take notice that Phoenix is straining to control Dark Phoenix.  The firebird aura began to flicker in and out, like a satellite dish's signal in a storm.  All who saw knew that this was not a good turn of events.

"Oh, ****." Parker said, which was fast becoming his catchphrase.

The firebird aura was starting to flicker less and less.  That could only mean one thing.  Phoenix -- the real Phoenix -- was losing his mental battle with this darkness, this malevolence.

<Forget this duel!> Ardnalil roared.  <To the Dome Ship!>

The six Andalites shuffled, some quite injured, to the Dome ship, while their stalk eyes were locked on Phoenix and his mental duel.  The RAFians weren't sure what they could do, if, in fact, they could do anything.  Dark Phoenix has proven to be too powerful.  His onslaught* would know no boundaries, acknowledge no laws, and only live to destroy.

Suddenly, Phoenix stood upright, face expressionless.  But his eyes now glowed white hot.  He was Phoenix no longer, but the evil Dark Phoenix.  And Dark Phoenix was, uh, quite ticked.  The firebird aura' left foot grasped the Dome Ship Aximili very tightly.

<Oh my, what's happening?> Ardnalil cowered.

<YOU TOTALLY PISSED HIM OFF, THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING!!!> Noelle roared.  It was a sign of the seriousness of the situation, as Noelle isn't prone to cursing like a sailor.**

Dark Phoenix, though his face did not show it, seemed to be relishing the destruction of the Andalites.  He burned them slowly, until there was nothing left of the ship but the tiniest vapor.

<No . . .> Noelle said, shocked.

"They're . . ." Parker said, unable to complete the sentence at the horrid deaths of these arrogant Andalites.  It is a fate that no one would wish upon their worst enemy.

Dark Phoenix looked at each RAFian in turn, which incensed them greatly.  Then he spotted Estelore, who muttered, "Oh dear", and then attempted to flee.  Dark Phoenix attempted to go after her, but a commanding voice rang out through the forum, "STOP."
----
*Get the reference? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onslaught_(comics))

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2012, 11:07:20 AM

Now, hopefully this chapter will be a bit longer.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Revelations

The RAFians and Dark Phoenix gazed in the direction of the voice.  It was Cloak, standing atop an earthen spire.  Cloak's cloak was blowing to his right, giving the whole thing a dramic flair.

Then Cloak sunk the spire into the ground.  Then walked sedately to Dark Phoenix, pausing to tell Parker to get some sun, with a cheeky smirk.  Then he strode right up to Dark Phoenix.

"Stop this, Mummudrai Eville."

Dark Phoenix looked taken aback.  Whether it was this pronouncement or Cloak's sudden appearance.  Cloak took note of this.

"Yes, I know who you are.  We met many years ago."  Cloak glanced casually to Az, then back at Eville.  "Only then, you were under the moniker 'Mr. E'."

Az gasped.  Mummudrai Eville had possessed Az on that occasion, but he did not take full control, nor did he exhibit matter transmutation powers.  But Cloak had an answer for that.

"Somehow," Cloak continued in that maddeningly calm tone, "you had merged with the Eye of Sarnoth Odin, there by giving you the power to manipulate this reality."

"You . . ." it growled, yet keeping Phoenix's face emotionless.  "Now, I will finish what I began with you three years ago!"

"I think not." Cloak said, though he was actually playing for time.  He was hoping Demos succeeded in getting the Feather.  "Death comes for us all, Mummudrai Eville.  But something much worse awaits for you.  When you die," Cloak shows his feline acrobatic skill while dodging fireballs, "when you die, it will be without honor."

"What do I care about honor, fool?" Eville said, still keeping Phoenix's face emotionless, though it was clear that it was feeling rage.  "Only the weak believe in such moronic morals."

Any time now, Demos, Cloak thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2012, 12:38:25 PM

'Nother chapter.  Time to start wrappin' this one up.  Gonna be a LONG chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Feather of Truth

"WHERE is he?" Cloak muttered, as he used his feline agility and speed to dodge Phoenix's attacks.  He could not free Phoenix without that Feather.  Well, he could, but it wouldn't be effective.  Or even if it was, it wouldn't be permanent.

Cloak redirected the fire, back at Phoenix, having just remembered he was a master of the Fire element.  It was his least favorite element out of the Six, so he regularly forgot about it.

Then, suddenly, and explosion of energy to his left, and he saw Demos, on fire.  But his natural regeneration ability was healing up every bit of damage.  Cloak did not know if this ability of Demos could burn out, although it was perfectly logical that it could.

"Demos, HAVE YOU GOT IT?!" Cloak said.

"What?  No 'hi'?  No 'how have you been'?"

"Demos, this isn't the time --"

"No 'thank you'?"

"DEMOS -- wait, does that mean you got it?"

Demos opened his hand to reveal a white feather with the slightest rainbow aura.  It was the Feather of Truth, against what mortal's hearts were weighed in Ancient Egypt.  It was essential here.  Demos tossed it to Cloak, who caught it, just barely.  Then Cloak held it up and it stuck in solid air.  Then Cloak jabbed his hand (which was open palmed, with fingers closed, pointing upward) at the Feather, with his palm just barely making contact.

"With this Feather of Truth, feather of an Egyptian phoenix, I call you by your true name Mummudrai Eville.  Leave Phoenix004.  EXPELLICORPUS!!!!"

Golden-scarlet energy streamed from Cloak's hand into the Feather.  The feather focused the energy, and caused it to hit exactly where Phoenix's heart was.  Eville was screaming as he was forced out.  Phoenix fell to the ground, caught by Nate.

Eville was that black shadowy mass that FuBar, Bladeh and he had sensed all those nights ago.  But now it was bodiless again.  Cloak turned on the power through the Feather, still acting as it's focal point.  And the Eye of Sarnoth Odin fell out of the black mass.

It attempted to reabsorb it, but Cloak terrakinetically caused it to fly to his other hand.  Then he dropped his right hand, and the Feather was gone used up.  The other RAFians were getting the injured out of the way, and to the infirmary.  Cloak's energy reserves were draining while trying to do this, but he was aware there was still more to do.

From his cloak, he started pulling jar after jar and throwing them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_On_Funkotron) at Mummudrai Eville.  But it kept shattering them into dust.  Then Cloak brought out a larger jar, one that emitted a faint blue glow and was occasionally licked with lightning.  He tossed this at Eville . . .

And missed.

But, fortunately, Parker caught it, loaded it into a rocket launcher he just happened to have lying around.  Then he fired it, and it hit Eville.  But it did not shatter this jar.  It was trapped.

"Thanks, Parker." Cloak said, exhaustion evident and obvious in his voice.  "I will do what I should have done with this thing those many years ago.  Throw it beyond the Veil."

Then Cloak looked around.  "But first, I will fix what this creature wrought.  It is my responsibility."

"How do you figure that?"

"I did not take care of this monster all those years ago, like I should have.  If I had, Phoenix would not have been possessed.  My fellow RAFians would not have suffered."

"You can't put that on yourself."

"Unfortunately, I can."

Cloak raised the Eye high, charged his hand with his golden-scarlet energy and engulfed the Eye in that energy.  It unleashed powerful waves of red and gold, the effects of which were immediately obvious as Parker was now in full SPARTAN armor once again.  The RAFians that were transmogrified were returned to their former selves, and those injured were healed.

After this was over, Cloak stumbled a bit, but stood resolutely.  Then he glared at the Eye, and terrakinetically shattered it into translucent dust.  It's powers to transmute matter gone forever.

"Now, I'll be back in a bit."  And he went to throw the revanent through the veil.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2012, 01:22:05 PM

Now, the last chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Not Forgotten

Cloak did return after he pitched the jar beyond the Oblivion Veil.  Phoenix was undergoing some psychological counseling -- and no one could blame him, after the ordeal that he went through.  If you can go on after being possessed by an egomaniacal wrath carrying supercharged bling that forced you to basically terrorize a forum that's so dear to you without needing a little therapy, you're absolutely crazy.

Cloak had gone to his thread and slept, as that battle was hard and draining on him, as well.  Then he had a little something to eat, and gone to see that the infirmary was empty, and Goom was closing up shop, so to speak, for the night.

"Nice that you finally showed up in the end," Goom said, uncharacteristicall y snide.

"What's that suppose to mean?"

"You abandoned us when we needed you!" Goom accused, eyes boring through Cloak.

"No, I didn't.  I had to go to the Nexus and be sure that my suspicions were true."

"Did you tell anyone about your suspicions?  Did you let anyone, other than Demos, in on your master plan?  Hmmm?"

Cloak didn't say anything.

"I thought so."

"It's not like that, Goom.  I --"

"And you're still hiding something from us.  I may be a simple Goomba, Cloak, but it does not mean I'm not perceptive.  You clearly found out something at the Nexus that's disturbed you.  And you won't tell us, even though it'll probably directly affect us."

A momentary pause.

"Malice is alive."

"Who's Malice?"

***

A month or two later, Cloak was standing on the hill overlooking the site with his neice Shadow.

"Why didn't I get a bigger part?"

"There wasn't room."

"Yes, there was!  How about Chapter --"

"Shadow, don't harp on about that."

"Okay, what about the ending?  Wasn't that a little too easy?"

"Go to your room."

"Hey!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 04, 2012, 08:52:02 PM

Haha, very nice. Great job Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2012, 01:15:10 PM

Thanks, Parker.  Don't know how many chapters I can post this week -- hafta prepare for Faith and Shadow's visit -- they're gonna go to some ceremony thing about Dagger's daughter and her church (my mom had suggested I not attend on the off-chance that Brute will be there -- apparently Dagger has forgiven him, but, then again, he didn't steal her identity).

Oh, and I decided to change the title of this "book".  And this chapter, the introduction chapter, probably will be on the short side.  Oh, yeah!  Hundredth reply!

BOOK FOUR:
One RAFian's Worth
CHAPTER ONE:
The RAFian Picnic

It was quite a lovely day out, so the RAFians decided to have a picnic.  Upon the ground there were numerous blankets with picnic baskets -- and no Yogi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Bear) in sight.  It was really quite a wonderful time.

Cloak and Shadow were back on the hill, only not breaking the fourth wall to smithereens this time.  They were surveying the ambient joyous feeling that RAF was submerged in.

Estelore was taking this time to for much-required relaxation after the stress of nearly being eaten by a possessed-Phoenix.  Phoenix was still reeling from the under violation of it, and would not talk about it.  The other RAFians took his lead on this, and did not interrogate him about it.

There were civil discussions about this and that.  Mostly animorphs.  The Andalites grazed well, the humans sunbathed, the dragons curled around trees, and Bear, Gaz, Horse and Guy were all splashing each other playfully, with screams of laughter.

Cloak blinked, and saw, with a start, that the Pootang was free.  But it was not attacking or being murderous or even attempting to consume Horse.  It was curled up upon a flannel blanket, snoozing in the sun.  Cloak found this amusing and unexpected.

Cloak predicted that soon enough, it will attack, eat Horse, destroy some threads, eat Horse, battle the RAFians, and eat Horse.  Why does it like eating Horse?  Only the Pootang itself knows that answer.

Parker, however, was with Aila and Aquilai in his TARDIS.  Aila's TARDIS had been stolen and was missing.  Parker inquired on how that could happen, and Aila confessed that she did not know.  Parker states that that response is none too reassuring.  Suddenly, the TARDIS was tossed about a bit.

"What the -- What happened?!" Parker roared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on March 05, 2012, 02:27:43 PM

Yay! First mention of my TARDIS! :D

(Switching signatures to represent the Time Lord revival ^^)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2012, 04:04:33 PM

Get used to it, Aquilai -- it'll play a role in the next chapter and towards the end.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on March 05, 2012, 04:16:09 PM

This is a good read, I hope you write often.  ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2012, 04:20:11 PM

Thanks, Noelle.  But I think I've posted the only chapter I will today -- but don't hold me to this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 05, 2012, 06:49:53 PM

I'm excited to see what'll happen this time around. These are fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 12:08:33 PM

Thanks, Gazzy, I'll try to add another chapter soon.

CHAPTER TWO:
Alterations

Cloak and Shadow made their way to Aquilai's TARDIS, and were intending to walk by it, when, quite suddenly a wave of energy was sweeping closer.

"What is that?!"

"I have no idea!" Cloak shouted.

"Really?" Shadow said skeptically, breaking the fourth wall, as Realm Walkers do.

"Now's not the time, Shadow."

Suddenly, the wave swept over them, and Cloak feel to his knees.  With a shout of alarm, Shadow rushed to her uncle's side, only to have Cloak to toss his cookies all over the ground.

"Well . . . that settles it." Cloak said, with a paler face.  "I know what that was."

"What's going on out here?" Aquilai asked, opening his TARDIS's door.  Then he saw Cloak's sick, which was quickly dissolving into nothingness, and stated, "Ew."

"Time disruption, or alteration." Cloak said, leaning against a tree, trying to get better.  "It always makes me physically ill.  That's why I never time travel."

"What do you mean?" Parker said, coming out of the TARDIS, seeing the wasteland.  "Oh."

"It would seem that the five of us were unaffected." Aila summed up.  "The TARDIS obviously shielded us from it, but why aren't you two affected."

"We're Realm Walkers," Shadow said, "we aren't from this realm, and we're not affected with any time changes or reality alterations."

"Well said," Cloak praised her.

"Well, we best find the RAF of this new timeline," Aquilai said.

"What makes you think it still even exists?" Parker pointed out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 12:53:26 PM

'Nother chapter.  Short chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
No More

After Aquilai secured his TARDIS, they walked slowly cautious, unaware of what had changed.  Could be something quite minute, but Cloak doubted this, personally.  It would have to be something more substantial to warrant such a large change.

The vegetation seemed thinner than before, the ground seemed grayer, the grass browner.  The very sky had a rust color to it.  The very clouds seemed dirty white, forlorn and thin.  All in all, it was a very ominous atmosphere.

Cloak felt that this was a foreshadowing of something that he could not determine.  He had a very bad feeling about this.  Then they came upon the site.  Or, rather, what would have been the site.  It appeared to have been rubbed out of existance.

The ramifications of this reeled in the five's minds.  Gaz was no longer a vampire, as she'd never been sired.  Pootang never existed as the people responsible for its creation never met*.  Blocky was still locked in an ice block somewhere. . . .

Animorph fans went . . . who knows where to discuss Animorphs.  If even Animorphs existed in this timeline, that is.

"No way," Aquilai said, a look of horror upon his face.  Aila looked on the verge of tears.  Shadow stared at the absence of the threads and posts and boards with an open jaw.  Parker looked as if someone struck him with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animaniacs]Wakko's[/url] mallet.  Cloak was feeling much the same, but he concealed his emotions, and buried them.  He knew he oughtn't do that, but it's become a bit of a habit with him.

"We cannot stay here," Cloak said, his voice a bit thick.  "We must find out what happened and correct it.  If at all possible."

---
*I assume they met on RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 01:29:56 PM

'Nother chapter -- hope this all tides you over, 'coz I won't be on Friday or the weekend.  Unless Faith and Shadow can't get a flight out.  I was tempted to call this chapter "Aila, the Explorer", a reference to a certain show that Shadow loved as a young child, but decided against it.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Adventurin'

The five eventually move away from the horrid sight, the chronial abomination.  They had to explore this new world, this new timeline.  But there was no telling what they would find, or who they'll find.  They headed north of RAF.

"Wait, isn't that the virus's cave?  Where that ooze came from?"

"Yeah," Cloak agreed, "but, in this timeline, RAF doesn't exist.  So, there was no ooze.  The virus and her two minions may have never lodged in there."

"Or they could still be in there." Shadow muttered.

"True," Aquilai concurred, "and one could argue it might not be a cave at all, just a recess in a mountain.  There's a lot we can construe from the lack of vertifiable, provable evidence and information."

"Thank you, Mr. Hawking," Parker muttered.

But they cautiously checked out the cave.  It was abandoned, but it was clearly a dwelling at one time.  But the objects within were coated with a half-inch accumulation of dust, and thick cobwebs which seemed to have been made by spiders the size of laptop computers.

"Ooookay, no one's been here in a while.  Can we go now?" Parker said, irritatedly, for he had to remove cobwebs from his visor no less then six or seven times.

"Yeah, I don't think we can get more information than this." Cloak agreed.

Then the exited and made their way to the west of the mountain, when Aila noticed something in the distance.  She blinked and queried about it.

"What's that?"

The other four glanced into the distance where only a small prinprick of red light could be seen.  It was no more detailed than that.

"Dunno," Parker said.

"Might as well see if there's answers there," Aquilai said.

"Alright, then," Cloak said, "let's go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 03:39:18 PM

Yeah, I'll be focusin' on this thread more than the parody threads (because I have a lot more creative ideas on this venue).  'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Viral Citadel

The five strode to the location of the red light to find a post-apocalyptic city, which appeared very blocky, as if computer generated from ten, fifteen years ago.  It was very eerie, as it was completely deserted, with tumbleweeds blowing here and there.

"I miss Horse attacking those," Cloak muttered.

"What?" Aquilai asked.

"Never mind."

The red glow persisted everywhere in the city.  Cloak's fur started to stand up beneath his cloak and he knew why.  Everywhere, he could sense evil.  It was like diving into a dark sea where you can easily feel the water pressure increasing as you go further down.  Cloak could feel the evil coming closer, becoming more oppressive, as they walked further to the citadel.

"Stop!" Cloak said, who couldn't take it anymore.  "We need to get out of here."

"Why?" Aila asked.

"Don't you feel it?  There's the presence of evil everywhere!"

"How do you know that?" Aquilai asked.

"It's a cat thing," Cloak said repressively, "are we going or not?"

But then he felt someone arm bar him to the ground, to what was a concealed ditch.  No, it was more of a dugout or fox hole.  When he got his bearings back, Cloak looked and saw a nonvampiric Gaz, non-seal Horse, Mr. Guy, a human Bear, and a still-Andalite Noelle.

"Are you fools crazy?!?!" Gaz hissed.

"Gaz!" Parker exclaimed, a bit too loudly.

<Keep it down!> Noelle snarled.

"How'd you know my name?"

"You . . . you don't remember us?" Shadow asked.

"Why should I?"

"It would be because of the chronial shift, guys," Cloak said.  "Without the existance of RAF, we would have never met any of them."

"Chronial shift?" Guy asked.  "What do you mean by that, alien?"

"I am not an alien, per se -- but that's not the point."

Suddenly, a dark shadow fell over them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 04:27:16 PM

Yet another chapter . . . yes, this should do nicely . . .

CHAPTER SIX:
Blood-Red Vans

The long shadow caused abject silence among the ten.  When it passed, Cloak folded back his ears, and poked his head ever so slightly out.  The shadow was caused by a strange, van-like vehicle.  It had six muddy, gray Press Tires -- tires like the ones you get when you beat Guts Man in that Mega Man racing game.  It appeared to be heavily armored, and driverless.  Cloak's ears easily picked up sounds coming from the hold.  There were people in there, but unable to get out.  It did not seem to be made of metal, but not plastic or wood either.

"Would you get in here?!" Horse hissed.

Cloak withdrew into the tunnel-like ditch.

"What was that?"

"A Blood-Red Van," Guy said, skeptical look on his face.  "Why don't you know that?  The Blood-Red Vans collect people for unknown nefarious purposes."

"How do you know they're nefarious?" Aquilai asked.

"They take you against your will," Bear spoke as if Aquilai was quite obtuse.  "What else could it be?  Daycare with free milk and cookies?"

"I didn't mean that it would --"

"Enough, you two." Gaz said.  "We cannot stay here.  We have to move."

"What about them?" Horse said.  Cloak did not like the accusatory tone.

"Leave them to their own devices, they aren't the Queen's spies."  Gaz gestured to a bracelet thing on her left arm much like the one that Leela (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_(Futurama)) wears.

"The WHAT?" Parker and Cloak said in unision.

"The Queen . . ." Gaz said, actually looking perplexed.  "You must know that the Queen has control of the whole of the 'Net here, right?"

"You're kidding." Cloak said without thinking.  "You must be kidding."

"You should know that I'm not . . . what is WRONG with you guys?"

"We've . . . we've come from a different timeline.  In our timeline --" And Aquilai went off and explained the situation on the whole.

"You actually expect us to believe this," Bear said with a scoff.

"You can believe it or not, it's the truth." Aquilai countered smoothly.

"Wait, you mean someone did something in the past, and alterred the future?" Guy said.

"Possibly.  We don't know." Parker said, not really paying attention to that.  His eyes were locked on the lip of the opening, worried if the van comes back.  "We can't really go back in time to find out."

Aila and Aquilai squirmed nervously.

"You can?"

"Yeah, the TARDIS has that power." Aila said in a small voice.

"And Aila's was stolen," Cloak said, facepalming.  "God, it's so obvious."

"What?" Shadow asked.

Parker answered, "Someone stole Aila's TARDIS and went back through time.  Then they did something to result in this timeline where we are persecuted, for some unknown reason."

"Can we use your TARDIS, Aquilai, to fix this mess?" Cloak asked, completely dreading the time travel.

"Yes . . . and no.  I need to repair the circuitry -- the chronial shift damaged some them.  The chameleon circuit was still active, so it should be safe.  But I do need some more parts . . ."

"Will you help us save a friend of ours in exchange for parts?  Our leader?" Gaz asked, very formally.

"Richard?" Aquilai queried quickly.

"Who's Richard?"

"Okay, that answers that question."

"Yes, we'll go." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on March 06, 2012, 06:00:18 PM

Keeping me hooked!  Good job Cloak ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 06:09:02 PM

Thanks, Aquilai.  Eh, probably the last chapter of the night.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Fading Star

They walked in silence for quite some time.  Cloak held his emotions in check as well as his suspicions.  He loved his fellow RAFians as he would a sibling, but this chronial shift may have done many things that would have affected their morality, their temperments, among thousands of millions of billions of trillions of other things that he hadn't the time or patience to consider.

But they followed the five chronial-Dwellers to what appeared to be a smaller open-air area.  It had a structure that appeared very much like a stargate, only more massive than any Cloak has seen before.  He could tell that it was made of metal and stone, by his mastery over those elements.

There didn't look to be any guards, but the other five did not run out toward the thing, so the two Time Lords, SPARTAN, and two Realm Walkers stayed put as well.

"Something's not right," Guy said.  "There should be guards.  They couldn't be wearing those camo suits.  We destroyed their supply of them."

Cloak spread his toes and had his hind claws just touching the surface of the earth.  He was "listening" for any vibrations.  Shadow saw this and mimicked her uncle.

"What are you two doing?" Horse said.  He did not like the tone.  But assumed living in a post-apocalyptic world would do that to someone.

"Seeing if there are guards." Cloaky said, focusing his mind on the task.

"You're crazy.  You can't possibly think that you'll be able to --" Bear began.

"There.  On the left.  'Bout twelve feet from us." Shadow said, suddenly.

"And on the right, ten feet away." Cloak concluded.

"Oh, yeah," Parker said, a bit smug, "they've mastered the Six Elements."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, wood, fire, water, air, earth, and metal.  Let's get this done." Cloak said, irritably.  "Two guards.  That hardly seems . . . enough."

<They don't think very well of us.> Noelle said.

"And who's 'they'?" Aquilai asked, with a heavy-lidded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons) look at Bear.  "Queen?"

"The Queen and her Hounds, yes." Bear sneered.

"Enough you two." Gaz and Cloak said at the same time.

"Let's go out," Parker suggested, "free that friend of yours.  Uh, where is he?"

"She's in the middle of that stone stargate thing." Guy said.

Cloak looked again, and noticed that their was a woman in a yellow, tattered sundress with frayed-looking hair.  She looked horribly pale, emaciated and sickly.  She was fading fast.  Cloak was shocked at the sight, because he never thought he'd see such a thing.  He was sure that she was too strong for such a fate.

"Estelore!" he cried.

Gaz eyed him, "Okay, maybe this chronial shift thing isn't a load of Taxxon manure."

A silent communication went through all ten of them.  They surged forward, toward the fading star.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 06, 2012, 06:39:30 PM

Alternate-timeline me is kind of a bad-ass. Cool. X-D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2012, 07:16:22 PM

 :XD: Yeah, to think, if you hadn't been sired . . .  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on March 07, 2012, 08:11:14 AM

Haha Cloaky, I love your writing style so much! Your text just.. flows. The ending of chapter 14 (book 3) also had me in splits :P

Great work! I might PM you some aspects of my personality so you have a better idea of me xD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2012, 12:33:38 PM

Well, you're not in this book, Ash, but I might take that into account for future books.(This is only book four.  I have about twenty ideas now, and only used four.)

'Nother chapter soonish.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Hounds

The ten rushed into the area, easily taking out the two guards, and their ten guard backup.  Then they rush to the stargate-thing.

"How do we get her out?" Horse asked.

"I . . . don't know." Gaz confessed.

"Don't you think that's kinda important?" Guy reprimanded.

"Hey!  If you have --"

But fissured had appeared along the stone structures and large cracks and flaking metal shrapnel appeared on the thing.  They grew until the entire device was reduced to dust and metal shavings.

"Elements Master, 'member?" Cloak said.

Esty was encapsulated in a mauve and lavender energy orb that Shadow had created.  She lowered Esty to Cloak, who held her up when it was clear that she could not stand by herself.  Parker rushed over to help.

"Who are you?" Estelore's voice was harshly rough and coarse, but Cloak could hear the weariness in it.

"Cloak.  A friend." Cloak said, feeling a little hurt by not being remembered.  Sure, there was a chronial shift and all, but feelings are hardly ever rational.

Suddenly, a red light flashed ominously and an alarm blared.

"That ain't good," Parker commented immediately.

"No kidding!" Aila shrieked.

Then several wolfish people appeared, although, after a moment, it was obvious that it was some sort of uniform of blood red fur.  Their mouths and chins were uncovered by the hide, but everything else seemed to be.  Cloak noticed the wristband things that the five had were activating, showing thirteen little red dots.  Queen's allies, apparently.

"The Hounds!" Bear exclaimed.

"The Queen will be delighted," the head Hound spoke with a voice like a teenage Howler, which was odd, because there are NO teenage Howlers.  "Ten more souls for the Collector."

"The what?  What the hell is a 'Collector'?"

"Silence, vermin."

"I'm not the one wearing a bograt's fur."

"The Queen will have your souls.  She will reward our loyalty."

"The Queen uses you!  She poisons your minds to obtain that which she desires." Esty roared as best as she could.  It came out a bit wheezy and weak.  She stopped to take a few breaths.  "She cares nothing for you, or the people you hurt!"

There was brief silence from the Hounds, then one of the twelve follower Hounds muttered, "Duh."

"I don't think that had the desired effect, my stellar friend." Aquilai said to Estelore.

"Beside, you ten are too late.  Her soul is already on its way to the collector." the head Hound said.

Cloak looked back with a start to see a white glow leave Esty and head to the red light.  Then her body collapsed into energy, but might brighter and powerful than any Realm Walker would have.

"NO!" all ten shouted.

"Surrender to us now," the head Hound stated very formally, as if he'd memorized it as part of a procedure.

"Oh, yeah, that's gonna happen." Aquilai and Bear said at the same time, and gave each other evil looks after realizing this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2012, 01:49:28 PM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Capture

The ten battle the Hounds with all of their strength . . . except Cloak, who pulled punches, afraid of causing extensive damage to the environment and, yes, the Hounds themselves.

Cloak fought them all until he made sure the others made their way out.  Then he easily escaped by boring through the rock beneath their feet, sealing the entrace terrakinetically, of course.

The group reconvined at a delapidated house.  They all were inside the basement, where they could still hear the Hounds hunting them.  That and hearing those Blood-Red Vans all over the place.  Cloak could even feel their vibrations beneath his feet.  It was a very ominous feeling.

"Estelore . . . gone . . ." Horse was practically sobbing.  It was perfectly understandable as this Queen took her soul for means unknown.  Cloak was starting to doubt whether this "Queen" was the Banned Queen that he knew.  Estelore and Queen were friends, and he was sure the Banned Queen would never steal her soul. . . .

"All this work, all for nothing!" Gaz raged quietly.

"There is a way this can all be undone," Aila inserted.

"How?" Bear asked, looking thoroughly miserable.

"The TARDIS," Aquilai said immediately.  "We could repair it and travel back and fix it."

"Wasn't that the plan all along?" Shadow asked, the others ignored her.

"Yes," Cloak said.  "Let's go and get the parts."

"Wait.  How do we know we can trust you?"

"You don't." Cloak said, thoroughly tired of this introspection.

Suddenly, metallic-looking tentacles(Cloak knew immediately that they weren't metal) plowed into the basement roof and snared all ten of them.  They must have had some thermal radar or something.

The ten were dumped unceremoniously into the hull.  They all were hopeless entangled with each other.  Their shouts of protest overlapped each other.

"Get your elbow out of my ear!"
"As soon as you get your flipper outta my nose!"
"Don't touch that!"
"Aaaah-choo!  Your fur is tickling my nose!"
"Stop touching me!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2012, 02:40:15 PM

To think, that before Block posted the first reply in this thread, I was gonna delete it.  :-]  Warning: Long chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Soul Reason

They did not quit arguing and fighting and protesting until they were dumped unceremoniously dumped onto a large conveyor belt where they finally managed to disentangle themselves from each other.

"What happens now?" Horse said, fearfully.

This did not make Aquilai, Aila, Parker, Shadow or Cloak feel any better.  If these five former-RAFians had no idea what was in store, how could the time-lost ones?

The conveyor belt dumped them in what looked like a room full of those surrogate robots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates_(film)) dealies, or the last episode of "First Wave" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Wave_(series)).  Only Cloak's gut feeling told him that these weren't robots at all, but actual bodies.  Shells.  Husks.

Cloak's heart fell when he saw that there were more than just adults in this macabre mausoleum, when he saw kids.  Human kids of both genders, of every ethnicity, every eye and hair color combination and length, every age and height.  Alien kids of similar varitation.  There to seem very few adults, but a butt load of kids . . . Cloak closed his eyes rather than look.

Suddenly, a black door at the end of the "body shelves" opened.

"This looks like trouble." Gaz said shrewdly.

"Indeed, it does.  But if you want to find out more, you'll have to come in." said a harsh female voice from somewhere.

The ten did as they were instructed, with Cloak muttering, "It's gotta be a trap."

"I hate it when he says that," Parker moaned.

They entered a room just like the previous one, only with far more "shelf vacancies".  In the center of the room, a spire came down from the ceiling, attached to a suit that bore a very familiar resemblance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm_Jim).  It was black with fluorescent orange trim, with claw-tipped fingers.  It was evidently being charged up, as if it were a cell phone.

At the far end of the room was what appeared to be a small, squat step pyramid-like structure with a high-backed, red velvet, gold throne upon it.  And the Banned Queen sat upon it.

Cloak was sure she couldn't . . . wait.  Something was off here.  Cloak could feel evil emanating from her, but this was geniune evil.  Queen's evil is more like misguided hatred.

"Oh, you've finally arrived." she said.  She looked like Queen, she sounded like Queen . . . but something was certainly off.  Cloak could not put his finger on it, but something was certainly off.  "Ten new souls to power my suit."

"WHAT?!" Parker and Cloak yelled at the same time, voices intermingling.

"Oh, you know how much power this suit has?  You know the kind of power demand it has?"

"But using people's souls?  That's a bit extreme, even for you, Queen!" Parker argued.

"Oh, you think -- eh, never mind." she strolled down from her throne, and stopped a few feet from her suit.  "Allow me to change into something a bit more comfortable."

None of the ten knew what to say to this, but knew that she could not be allowed to put on the suit.  But what happened next caused them to be frozen in horror.  Queen closed her eyes, and a red orb dislodged itself from her chest and hovered were the head would be on the suit.  It disconnected itself from the spire, which was being retracted into the ceiling, as Queen's body was removed and placed in one of the vacant spaces on the wall.  Queen's soul must have already be removed, and these empty shells, these horrid husks, were nothing more than costumes for this monstrocity to try on, and discard as it sees fit.

"That's better," the virus said, its voice now neither male or female, neither old or young, but yet all of those things as well.  "Now, to store your souls in the Anima Battery.  If you don't fight me, you won't be hurt."

They all tensed, ready for a fight.

"Oh, come now, it doesn't hurt. Much."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2012, 05:47:25 PM

Well, I completed the chapter planning for the next book, and I hope you'll like it -- Shadow, Horse, Gaz, Ash, Aquilai, Yarin, Demos, Sakki, and I will have confirmed parts, but things are apt to change for the good or not.  Anyway, let's get back to this book, with this relatively short chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Escape

"Now, now.  It doesn't hurt much," the abomination before them said.  She -- it held something that looked very much like a Spark Extractor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_Machines).  It was very obvious what it's function was, and they were not about to let this, this THING, use it.  They spread out, Cloak attempted to manipulate it ferrokinetically, but it was not made of metal . . . or wood.

"Run," Gaz said.  They fled down the passage way, until Aquilai looked around feverishly.  Cloak noticed that he had grabbed some parts, but could not imagine how he got them.  Perhaps he got them from the spire while we all were too busy being horrified.  But his arms were full, until Cloak put them into his cloak -- which could also double as storage devices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pajama_Sam).

"Where's Aila?!" he shouted.

They looked behind them, and, with a pang, saw that the creature had used the Soul Extractor on Aila.  Her soul was being funneled to the Anima Battery, and her body was being . . . stored.

"Aquilai, there's nothing we can do about her now.  Go!" Parker said.

"But --"

"NOW, AQUILAI!" Cloak roared.  "We need you to fix the blasted TARDIS!!"

And off they went.  It seemed like no time before they made it to the TARDIS, with Horse, Gaz, Bear, Guy, and Noelle standing guard.  They didn't really have reason to trust the chronial-shifted ones, but apparently seeing one of their own taken to be a "trophy" had garnered some limited trust.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 08, 2012, 07:00:04 AM

Aw, no confirmed part for me? :pwease:

This is going awesomely by the way. I hope if they fix the past, that Aila's soul will have never been taken. Fingers crossed! :>_<:

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 08, 2012, 08:41:53 AM

I'm loving this and I'm sure the next book will be just as snazztastic (that's snazzy plus fantastic).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 10:02:20 AM

Yes, let's just say, pay attention to the end of Book Three -- something in the ending there will come into play in about Chapter Six of the next book.  But let's finish up this one, I'm not sure how many chapters I can post today, but I'll give it a go.  Naturally, this'll probably be a short one.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
TARDIS Trouble

They -- "they" being Parker, Shadow, Aquilai, and Cloak -- were inside the TARDIS, which Aquilai was feverishly working on.  Parker had taken his helmet on, making him look more human, rather than a robot*.

"How much longer?" Cloak said.  He had gotten a lot more surly since entering the TARDIS.  He was reeling from losing Aila, but he was NOT looking forward to traveling through time.  He never had the stomach for time travel, which is why he tended to avoid it at all costs.

"Patience is a virtue," Aquilai said, only half paying attention to him.

"Not now, it's not," Parker said, although he seemed a bit deflated.  Losing one of your own can do that to a person.

Cloak had a time trying to console Shadow after seeing such horrors.  She was only eleven, after all, and that was a horror that no eleven-year-old should see.  Correction: No one of any age should have seen that.

Aquilai continued his feverish work for what seemed to be hours, but was probably just a half an hour to an hour.  Finally, Aquilai claimed it to be fixed, blustering about the specifics that the others really just didn't care about.

"Enough of that," Parker said, "will it work?"

"I believe so," Aquilai said with a certain tremble to his voice.

"Start it up." Cloak said, bracing himself.

---
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 10:37:12 AM

'Nother chapter.  Might be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Blast Into the Past

The TARDIS began to rocket backward in time.  Cloak slumped over, leaning against an exterior wall.  He was feeling quite nauseated.

"Um, any idea what we do when we get back in time?" Shadow asked tentatively.

They all looked at her.  None of them considered this.

"Or what time to go to?"

Silence.

"Or who exactly caused this chronial time shift?"

Silent stares.

"Don't you think that this would have been kinda important to know?"

Aquilai, Parker and Cloak squirmed a bit.  There was an uncomfortable silence that spanned a few minutes.

"Aquilai, couldn't you lock-on to a disturbance in the time continuum?"

"What is this, Star Wars, time edition?" Parker muttered.  Apparently, he forgot that Cloak's feline hearing is quite keen.

Aquilai, however, smacked his forehead and facepalmed.  "Of course!  I just have to --"
And he went into a long technical spiel as he performed the actions.

"But that doesn't answer what exactly what we will be there to stop," Parker pointed out, "our own actions could very well lead to the present we just left."

It was a very real possiblity.  And a frightening one at that.

"Richard," Cloak said.

"You must be sicker that I thought.  I'm Parker, remember?"

"No, Parker," Cloak said.  "I mean, the others didn't know who Richard was.  That's our starting point.  Aquilai, do you have any information on that?"

"No . . ." he started, then an LCD screen appeared to life.  "I mean, yes.  Apparently, sometime in the nineties, twenty years or so from the present, Richard was killed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 10:59:59 AM

'Nother shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Brief History Lesson

"What?!" Parker and Cloak exclaimed at the same moment.

"I thought Richard was immune to aging.  I assumed he was immortal, as well." Cloak said.

"Clearly not," Aquilai answered swiftly, "as this hellish future -- er, present, was a result of his death."

"All that misery, all that suffering, was due to the absence of one man?" Parker said, aghast.

"Richard founded RAF, remember."

"Well, as that's what the 'R' in RAF stands for, I don't think we knew that." Cloak said, sarcastically.  It was very nearly a mistake as he almost hurled upon the TARDIS floor.

"Anyway," Aquilai said, clearly a stab to move on, "by making the forum, and making the forum so free-willed and, admittingly, insane, he forged a strong team of users.  Our meeting and joining this forum served to preserve this area of the 'Net, apparently without our knowledge.  And, by RAF's existence, that virus was never synthesized, never created to do . . . to do that."

"That makes no sense," Shadow said.

"Shadow, be quiet." Cloak scolded.

There was a rough bumping and tumbling within the TARDIS.  It was not helping Cloak's stomach.  Aquilai picked himself up from the floor, and dusted himself off.

"We're there, I take it?" Parker said, donning his helmet again.

"We're when it happened . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 11:28:25 AM

I know I probably should take a "Doctor Who" route on time travel . . . but I decided that I'll take a "Back to the Future" take on it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Terminator

They stepped out into the brisk air, and overhead the sky was blue with little fluffy clouds.  The air was fragrent with flowers.  It was very lovely.

"I almost forgotten the sky was blue," Parker commented.  It was true, the sky in that future was not as pleasant as this.

"Who is the assassin?"

"Time Lords cannot see the absolute futures, but the best possible good ones . . ." Aquilai said.

"And you're just telling us this now, because . . ."

"Never mind."

"Go on, Aquilai." Cloak said, finally getting over his nausia.

"There is an assassin . . . sent by the Banned Queen . . . to kill Richard."

"It's metallic, isn't it?  Liquid metal?" Cloak said suddenly.

"I . . . think so.  How do you know?"

"You got a chronial sense.  I can sense elements."  Shadow looked a little downtrodden.  "Don't worry, Shadow, you'll learn it sooner or later."

"Liquid metal?  That sounds a bit little like --"

Suddenly, a being of liquid metal formed from the ground, formed it's left hand into a knife and attempted to stab Parker.  It was a molecule's length of hitting him under his right armpit.

Naturally, Parker didn't sit still for it to come around again.  Cloak was in NO MOOD for this thing.  He stepped up, took a stance, and made a few gestures.  The assassin was shredded to pieces.

"Excellent!  Can we go home now?" Parker asked.

But then he noticed that it was regenerating, clumping back together.  Reforming into its faceless, vaguely male, humanoid form.

"I should have known it wouldn't be so easy.  Great, a T-1000."

"Wrong.  This thing reforms far faster."

"How do you know -- oh."

But then the assassin slinked away, taking the form of a metallic bird.  They were not its targets.  It had no interest in them anymore.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 11:53:28 AM

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Masks

*

The four follow the bird, Cloak in the lead.  He could sense it's presence due to its metallic form.  After awhile the others lost sight of it, but Cloak kept barreling forward toward its direction.  Then they come to stop at the edge of the forest, which a street was bisected into a "T" intersection.  The street in line with their position let into what appeared to be a cul-de-sac.

The street was crowded with humans.  It could have taken the appearance and coloration of any of them, and Shadow and Cloak would probably be lynched for looking different . . . humans can be odd like that.

"Parker and I can go --" Aquilai offered.

"No need." Cloak handed Shadow an ID mask (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben10:_Alien_Force), and he took one out himself.  Then he put it on and took on a human appearance, as did his niece.  He wore glasses, while Shadow lacked any.  But they still appeared to be wearing cloaks and their own clothing.

"C'mon, then." Cloak said.

"How is those things not, I don't know, melting?" Parker said, curiously.

"Made by Itemsmith, Parker," Cloak said.  "They're commonplace items for realms with possibly hostile Dwellers.  For Realm Walkers who want to live amicably, and don't have grandoise, megalomaniacal dreams of world conquest."

However, Aquilai would have attracted less attention still, as he was dressed as what was considered "normal".  Parker had his armor still on, and the two Realm Walkers still had cloaks.  They kind of looked out of place as there was no Comic Con here taking place.

But they pressed forward, getting unwelcomed stares.  And suspicious stares from police officers.

"So much for being inconspicuous." Aquilai sighed.

---
*Just note, I do not know Richard IRL nor do I know where he lives or grew up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 12:23:15 PM

'Nother possibly short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Basket Boy

The four made their way to the cul-de-sac, Cloak was unable to sense the metal assassin, which eventually became the groups name for the creature.  Cloak scanned the cul-de-sac for it.

"Is that Richard?  He looks so young," Parker pointed out.

Cloak said nothing.  He noticed a small, sandy-haired boy on a red tricycle.  He was sensing Assassin in that direction.  He couldn't have been more than five . . . but it was odd that this cul-de-sac was so deserted.  Richard and the boy were the only one around.

"You can't possibly mean that little boy is --" Shadow said, watching her uncle.

"It is," Cloak said with narrowed eyes.

"But that's far smaller than the size of Assassin." Aquilai pointed out.

"I never said it was the T-1000.  In fact, I recall saying that it wasn't."

Suddenly, Cloak was proven right when the "boy" absorbed the tricycle into his body when Richard had his back to "him".  He formed the boy's right hand into a claymore-like blade when Richard paid him no mind.

"We have to be quick, before Richard notices." Aquilai said as rapidly as Blurr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blurr_(Transformers)).  "We're already
possibly polluting the time stream."

"And if we succeed?  What then?" Parker asked.

Cloak reached out his hand, forcing Assassin out of the shape of a young boy, and into the shape of a metallic basketball.  Which just so "happened" to roll their way.  But Cloak could feel the robotic assassin struggling against his control.

"One of two things -- we'll just go to the TARDIS and go back to the present, or we'll just snap back to the present, fixing this place in time."

"Will you two stop chatting and get to a more inconspicuous place?!" Cloak said with gritted teeth, uncharacteristicall y course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 12:40:03 PM

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-POINT-FIVE:
Breakin' Balls and Walls

"Wait -- what happened to Chapter Eighteen?" Shadow asked.

"Would you believe I losted it?"

"No," Shadow replied.

"Would you believe I got sloppy and spilt a soft drink on it?"

"No," Shadow retorted.

"Would you believe that I got lazy?"

"Yes, actually."

"Would you believe that I wanted to insert schtick somewhere in this book to offset the dark feel to it?"

"Yeah . . ."

"You'll believe anything."

BACK TO THE STORY, the four carryed the obviously struggling orb to the nearest forest behind the houses.  They had successfully succeeded in preventing Richard's murder, but they had to make sure this assassin could not do it again.  They were in a heavily sheltered spot.  There was a small creek nearby.  Cloak selected this location deliberately for that reason.

They set the orb down on the ground, and Cloak relaxed his control over it.  The strain was gone and it immediately assumed a humanoid form . . . then immediately took on the form of the boy again.

"What the --" Aquilai began.

"Oh, that's really nice, really pathetic," Parker snarled.

He had seen what Cloak saw.  It had assumed that by taking on the form of a child, that the four would not destroy him.  They all knew that it was not a true child, just mimicking the appearance of one.  One that it probably "terminated" in order to impersonate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 01:05:39 PM

Sorry about that schticky chapter, I couldn't resist a little humor.  Probably another short chapter.  I will finish this today.  Maybe.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Assassin Assassinated

Cloak had had enough of this.  He forced it out of its boy disguise basically forced it into the shape of a large cube.

"Shadow, heat it up!!" Cloak instructed.

Shadow blasted two concussive blasts of fire from her hands, both directed at the same spot on the cube.  Superheating it.  Melting it a bit.

"Enough, Shadow.  Now switch to water -- you too, Aquilai!"

Aquilai bent the water from the stream while Shadow produced the water from nowhere.  The metal that made up the assassin was no longer liquid, but blackened, brittle metal.  It was dead.  But that wasn't enough.

"Parker, fire all artilery you have at it," Cloak said, setting it down, relinquishing control over it.

Parker aimed and fired numerous amount of times.  Cloak caught the shrapnel in a golden-scarlet energy orb, and using the last of his strength sent it off to the nearest volcano.  That said, his energy was spent, and he collapsed in exhaustion.  Parker and Aquilai settled Cloak onto the mauve and lavender platform that Shadow had created for him.

"Sheesh, Uncle!  Lay off the sweets!" she muttered.  With that, they all went back to the TARDIS and travelled home . . . hoping that they were right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2012, 01:26:31 PM

Last chapter, another short one.  You'll notice a "running gag".

Chapter Twenty:
Time Will Tell

As it turns out, it was the right action.  RAF was back into existence, with all the RAFians restored to normal.  Gaz was back to being a vampire.  Horse was a seal who happened to be the favorite food of the Pootang, which was also back in existance.  Aila and Estelore's souls were back firmly within their bodies and niether held any memory of the alternate timeline.  It was fortunate, because Cloak, Shadow, Parker, and Aquilai would much rather forget it.

The forum was alive with threads and posts.  Everything was as it should be.  Yet, Cloak went to Goom, who was in the infirmiry.  There were no injured parties, so it was very empty.

"Goom . . ."

"I know what you seek, Cloak.  It's up, and it's effects should be felt by all of the RAFians.  Why do you think this should be secret."

"The less that know, the better.  For now.  We'll just have to hope that it'll be good enough for whatever she throws at us."

***

Cloak and Shadow had returned to their favorite hill, the one that overlooks the forum.

"Not your best work, Uncle.  It got a little conviluted and contrived at the end."

"I didn't think you knew those words."

"And don't you think you tend to use deus ex machina a bit too much?  Like Captain Planet?"

"Who taught you those ugly words?!"

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 09, 2012, 12:02:39 AM

The power is yours! Also; what sort of power is heart anyway?

That was exciting stuff. And, yay I'm a vampire pirate person thing again! Whee!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2012, 08:40:57 AM

Yeah, and I'll be posting a new chapter shortly -- I'm tryin' to multitask.  RAF and clean.  Shadow and Faith will be coming late tonight and, therefore, I won't be on at all tomorrow or Sunday.  Gonna be a relatively short introduction chapter.

BOOK V:
MARK OF A RAFIAN
CHAPTER ONE:
Evening Pursuits

It was nighttime.  The RAFians were doing their nightly rituals.  Gaz was dutifully brushing her fangs, humming "My Shiny Fangs and Me".  Parker was meticulously polishing his armor as so to be presentable.  Aquilai and Aila were doing something with each of their respective TARDISes. (Or is that TARDI?  Never mind, it's immaterial.)  Ash and Broken, as well as Esplin and Dameg, were having a nightly rendevous.  Horse was singing along to her favorite musical.  Guy was computing something on his computer.  Yarin was still playing with his ooze -- wait, that came out wrong.

Shadow had toddled off home, to the Nexus, while her uncle remained, staying in his thread, rereading the first Kane Chronicles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kane_Chronicles) book upon the wrought iron bed.  His thread was sparsely decorated, Cloak preferring function over fashion.

Suddenly, he marked his place at the thirty-third chapter, and looked at his palm.  It was still there.  It was still strong.  He hoped it would be enough for whatever she'd have planned.  Cloak questioned himself about keeping it a secret . . . was it really necessary to be all "Cloak and Dagger" about this?

Cloak wondered idly if he should tell the others about this, maybe starting a new thread.  But, Cloak was frightened of negative reaction.  This thing was meant to empower the others, and protect them . . . they may not see it that way, though . . .

Goom didn't raise any concern about it, but was a supporter of this . . . thing.  Goom was actually pushing for full disclosure, but Cloak wasn't sure the RAFians were ready . . . Cloak was sure Goom told Richard, and that was okay.  That was a must . . .

Meanwhile, while Cloak was wallowing in indecision, a mysterious figure in a cloak the color of dried blood appeared on the same hill that Cloak and Shadow regularly look down on RAF from.  She was a lean figure, but also a bit stooped, and seemingly lopsided.  Her eyes glowed bloodred and black.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2012, 09:52:44 AM

'Nother chapter -- gonna post all I can.  Probably a longer one.

CHAPTER TWO:
It's Heeeeeeeere!

The figure pulled out an inert lump of black stuff with gold markings.   She whispered, "Warlock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlock_(comics))" and the substance sprang to life, taking the shape of a generic songbird.  Then it flew to RAF.

***

Yarin was examining a beaker of inert ooze, rubbing his chin.  No one exactly knew what experiments he was doing, but apparently it was sufficient to monopolize Yarin's time and energy.

When, suddenly, his bunsen burner turned black with gold trim, which spread throughout his table.  It then formed a roughly human form with a robotic voice.

"Designate: Yarin, you will be assimilated," it droned.

"Perhaps," Yarin said, pulling on an emergency backpack he had stashed, pulling out several egg-like devices as he made a beeline for the door.  "But not today."

He threw the egg devices, which the being assimilated.  Or tried to, as they exploded before they could be.  Yarin ran for it.

Gaz, Guy, Horse, Ash, Broken, and Parker heard this, and came running.  Parker was still wearing his armor, and he was preparing for a battle.

"What was it?!" Broken asked.

"Dunno, but I think running would be a good idea."

Suddenly, the database flaired to life.  "Phalanx (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_(comics)), Realm #031-616."  Then it went onto quote the Wikipedia article verbatum.

They came across Aquilai and Aila, both of the TARDIS were about to be assimilated and absorbed into this creature.  Both self-destructed them, rather than allow the Phalanx time travel.  Time travel, after all, is the most DANGEROUS power possible.

Aquilai and Aila ran with the others, until they were outside.  The starry they could see the constellation Orion and Perseus.  It held no meaning for them at the moment, as they did not care to be assimilated.

***

Cloak had his back to the wall, which suddenly took on Technarch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technarchy) coloring and Cloak, who was familiar with Technarchy and Phalanx, immediately went on guard.  Using his mastery over metal, he forced the wall away, and leaped out into the night's air.

"Designate: CloakedFigure, you will be assimilated."

"You don't know much about Realm Walker physiology, then, do you?" Cloak quipped as he forced the entity away.

He had to get to the others.  He ran, and ran, and ran -- until he collided directly and painfully with Parker.

"Hey!"

"No time to talk, Phalanx is here!" Cloak said urgently.

"Yeah, we know!  We had to detonate our TARDIS because of that stuff!!" Aquilai said irritably.  But, really, could you blame him?

"Designates: Aila, Aquilai, Ash, Broken McLoser, CloakedFigure, Gaz, Horsefan1023, Mr. Guy 36, SPARTAN-281 (Parker).  You will be assimilated."

"Who do these guys think they are, the Borg?" Ash complained.

"Who are the Borg?  Oh, never mind -- it's not important just now." Cloak said.  "No, run.  I will attempt to keep them away from us."

"How?" Gaz asked.

"They are metal.  In part.  I can repel them.  Not as well as Magneto could but --"

Then two cylindrical tentacles surged forward and wrapped around Guy's arm and Broken's leg!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2012, 10:29:08 AM

Now, a dreadful albeit short chapter -- Ash, Parker, Horse, and Gaz, prepare yourselves.

CHAPTER THREE:
Overrun

"NO!" the group yelled as a whole.

"GUY!" Gaz and Horse screamed.

"BROKEN!" Ash screeched.

Suddenly, more tentacles appeared and Cloak attempted to fend them all off.  But he was only one ferrokinetic, and he was not all-powerful.  He saw with a pang that Guy and Broken were now encapsulated in a blue egg-like sac where they were shown in fetal positions.  The blue sacs . . . it worked.  The Mark worked. . . .

"We can't just let Cloak battle these things!!" Parker said with a false bravado.

"Parker . . . don't . . . wait . . ." And that's was all Cloak could manage with the effort of keeping the tentacles at bay.

"Okay," Parker nodded, "I won't wait."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. . . ."

Too late, Parker dashed toward the tentacles firing his artillery.  It had absolutely no effect, and he was overrun with the tentacles.  He realized how foolhardy he had been.  The tenacle covered him, leaving him in a blue bubble, without his armor, which they had absorbed and assimilated.  Which means they would have his artillery, too.

Great.

This was not good.  They could do no more here.  But how to escape?  There had have been a way.  But he was not seeing it.

"Did I just write myself into a corner?" Cloak muttered, breaking the fourth wall.

"What?" Aquilai snapped.  He seemed to have died a little from his TARDIS's destruction.

"Nothing," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2012, 11:10:15 AM

Anyone up for more chapters?  Ten pages, woot.

CHAPTER FOUR:
On the Run

Yarin pulled out a purple box with a green button and pressed it.  His ship decended and the others got into it.  Cloak held off the Phalanx long enough to board himself, and Yarin put the ship into near synchronous orbit.  It was the only place that they could be safe.  For the moment.

From the window they could see that RAF in its entirety was taken over and assimilated.  The other RAFians . . . they'd be in blue sacs like Parker, Guy, and Broken.  The Mark was doing its work.  But would it hold up?

"What do we do now?" Aquilai said.  He was a whole lot more prone to bouts of anger now.  Cloak surmised that the destruction of his TARDIS had more of a psychological effect on him than he once suspected.  Perhaps likening it to losing a beloved pet . . .

"What do you mean 'what do we do now'?" Gaz said, just as irritably while Horse just sobbed in the corner.

"That Phalanx stuff is still out there!"

"I know that." Gaz snarled.

"So, what do we do about it?"

"What can we do?" Ash interceded.  "We don't know this Phalanx thing's weaknesses or vulnerabilities."

"Wrong," Yarin said, while piloting the ship, "Cloak was able to stave it off.  If he hadn't . . . well, I don't want to think about it."

"Great.  We'll just take Cloak back and he can get rid of that --"

"Can you pull the red out of an apple with just a gesture, Aquilai?" Cloak snapped.

"What?"

"Can you pull the red out of an apple with nothing but a gesture?"  Cloak repeated.  "Because that's what we're dealing with here.  This thing absorbs and assimilates matter.  I believe it has to do with the electroconductivity of a substance that influences the rate of assimilation.  At least, that's what I heard Hank and Forge say."

"That makes sense." Yarin commented.  "And it seems unable to assimilate organic tissue."

"Wrong, it can.  It did in Realm #031-616, known to you as the Marvel Earth-616.  I think."

"But then . . . why didn't it assimilate Guy, Broken and Parker."

"Because of Goom . . . and me." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2012, 11:36:33 AM

Probably the final chapter of the night.  Short one at that, sorry.  But don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Mark

"How did you and Goom do that?" Aila asked, flabberghasted.

To answer her, Cloak just raised his right hand, palm out, to show the blue, stylized RAFian "R" inscribed there in glowing energy.  The others receive a shock because they have it on their right hands (flipper in Horse's case, and the upper right hand in Yarin's case) as well.

"What the -- ?"

"We called it 'the Mark of the RAFian'.  It's supposed to immunize RAFians from hypnosis, assimilation, possession, and mind control.  Taken from my own innate immunity from those things.  But we were unsure if it would work.  I didn't want RAFians to take reckless chances because of this Mark, especially if it didn't work.  Goom and I were actually preparing to make a public disclosure some time next week, once testing was through."

Silence met these words.

"You . . . you KNEW this was coming, didn't you?" Horse said.  Cloak didn't appreciate the accusatory tone, but let it slide as she was grieving, and prone to lash out at anyone.

"Not this, exactly.  But I suspected that something like this would occur.  After the Dark Phoenix incident," Cloak's eyes darkened, "I knew messures would have to be taken to prevent that kind of thing from happening again."

"But why would you think this would happen again?" Aquilai asked somewhat aggressively.  He was possibly blaming Cloak for the lost of his TARDIS.

"Because . . . she's alive.  Malice is alive."

The tense silence he expected after this pronouncement did not come.  It was like the Dursley's reaction to the name of Voldemort.  But after all, the others were Dwellers, and did not know of this maliciously criminal devil (she was, actually, a Tasmanian devil).  It is how she got her nome de plume, her "Dweller name", so to speak.  Long since thought dead, she somehow managed to survive.  Not only survive, but under the nose of the Council.  Cloak tried his best to relay this to the others.

"You think that she brought the Phalanx here." Gaz said shrewdly.

"Yes," Cloak said sincerely.  "Yes, I sincerely do."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 09, 2012, 09:48:16 PM

Oh no! It got Guy! And interrupted my fang cleaning. How rude.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 10, 2012, 07:15:38 AM

Is it wrong that I now route for the being using my armor and weapons? Haha! You shall not escape the MJOLNIR-clad Phalanx!!!! >:D

Oh, Cloak, I know it's been a while, but my designation was/is SPARTAN-281. SPARTAN-II is the name of the project that created me; and became the name that describes what I am.

I wonder if my A.I. Tyr survived the assimilation and is trying to battle the A.I. of the Phalanx. GO TYR GO!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2012, 09:08:22 AM

Ack!  I knew it was something like that, Parker, but I forgotten.  I'll see if I can get another chapter up . . . but it's gonna have to satiate you for the week.  That is, if Shadow can come out (Faith's window to come out here has closed).

And if it/he/she (I never know the appropriate pronoun for artificial intelligence, they don't exactly have genders, do they?) did survive . . . well, it/he/she would probably be rendered mute.  Or corrupted to evil. . . . Hmmm . . . . Or intelligence severely reduced, perhaps.  Or maybe I can just be vague about it.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Real Work Begins

"Is there anyway we can get rid of this Phalanx thing?" Gaz asked.

"In one of the many, many Realm #031 universe, the one called Hank McCoy came up with a 'cure' of sorts with the help of one Nathaniel Essex and, uh, Forge."

"Great!  We can get it from --" Horse said, hopefully.

"They used it all."

Horse looked crestfallen.  Gaz looked absolutely crushed.  Aquilai just leaned on the hull with narrowed eyes.  Yarin deliberately kept all six of his eyes out the ****pit window.

"That doesn't mean that Aquilai and Yarin cannot synthesize their own variation."

"Yeah," Aquilai spat.  "'Coz that'll be so easy."

"We would need a sample first." Yarin said.  "We could come up with millions of concoctions, and none may have an effect."

"I considered that.  And I have an idea." Cloak said, standing up straight.  He pulled out a beaker from his cloak.  An empty beaker.

"Don't tell me you have a sample in there," Aila said.

"No, I don't.  But this beaker was crafted with Nexus materials -- the one thing other than Realm Walkers, and those who bear the Mark, that it cannot assimilate."

"What if it assimilates this ship if we drop it or something?" Yarin said, geniunely concerned.  His ship was to him as Aquilai and Aila's TARDISes were to them.

"I will have to be on hand twenty-four hours," Cloak said, "my ferrokinesis can prevent it from doing that.  Yarin, drop us into the atmosphere for a moment."

"What?  Why?!"

"You know why."

"Cloak, have you gone off the deep end?!" Horse screamed.  "You can't fly!"

"True, perfectly, true." Cloak said with the faintest trace of a smile as he headed for an airlock and opened it.  The he walked in.  "I can't truly fly."

Then he shut it, and the other side opened.  He blew out into the air, a thin golden-scarlet disc of energy appeared beneath his feet, and it supported his considerable weight.  This was actually a technique invented by Shadow.

***

It was easy getting back to the site.  Cloak still felt his heart bleed at the site of the Technarchy monstrocity, the abomination of abominations. . . . Cloak ferrokinetically scooped some of the substance into the beaker, and put the top on securely.

"Intruder.  Intruder.  Intruder.  Intruder.  Intruder.  Intruder."

"Oh," Cloak said, muttering a Realm Walker curse that sounded like a repressed snarl to Dwellers.

"Intruder identified.  Designate CloakedFigure.  Species: Realm Walker.  Assimilation cannot be performed.  Termination protocols activated.  Sonic artillery activated."

Cloak said a string of words that should not be spoken in polite company as he fled.  Unbeknowst to him, the Phalanx was using the data from Parker's A.I. -- Tyr? -- against him.  Cloak had never paid much attention to that facet of Parker's armor.  And Parker was there when Cloak's sonic weakness was made known . . .

Cloak escaped before the sonic weaponry could be formed by burrowing through solid rock, sealing the entrance.  Earth had always been Cloak's favorite element, thus his primary one.

Cloak eventually made it back to Yarin's ship with no other nasty surprises.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2012, 09:55:53 AM

See if I can post another chapter.  This one introduces a brand new character!  Which I'll probably never use again. ;)

EDIT: OOPS!  That's the NEXT chapter, sorry.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Results

It was a week's worth of hard work, but Aquilai and Yarin, with Cloak's assistance managed to synthesize a solution that seems to affect the Phalanx.  But not cure it.

"But wasn't that the whole point?!" Gaz shouted.

"Yes, but this solution isn't useless." Yarin said evenly.  "It makes the Phalanx prone.  Listless.  Like a narcotic."

"Great, techno-organic drugs!" Gaz said, throwing up her hands in frustration.

"Yeah, how exactly is putting the Phalanx into a drug-induced stupor supposed to help us?" Horse asked, rather aggressively.  Uncharacteristic for her, but then again, she lost her brother . . . she was entitled to be aggressive.

"We didn't say it was finished!" Aquilai protested defensively.

"You really should say things like that upfront," Aila commented passively.

"It will transmute matter back to its original state," Yarin said.

"But it will require radiation from five very special stones." Cloak said.

"You mean like Leaf, Fire, Water, Thunder, Moon, Sun, Shiny, Dawn, and Dusk Stones?" Horse said, rolling her eyes.  Cloak didn't know seals could roll their eyes.

"No," Cloak replied, keeping his voice pleasant, "The Gi Sapphire, the Heart of Mati Suchi, the Kwame Diamond, the Linka Pearl, and the Wheeler Ruby."

"And, with their powers combined, the Phalanx is finished?" Gaz said, voice saturated with sarcasm.

"Yes," Yarin said, very seriously."

"You're serious?" Horse said.

"Deadly." Cloak said, with a grim face.

"Problem is, they've been scattered across the 'Net.  We have to find them.  And quickly." Aquilai said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2012, 10:23:59 AM

Now, for that character I told you about.  Yes, I put in her all the bigoted things that I absolutely detest and loathe.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Enter the Witch

Meanwhile, back at the Phalanx-assimilated forum, a lone techno-organic being strode.  This being was once a woman called Mallory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mallory)Falwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell).  She was a troll living in the Bannedlands, and one of the worst kind of people.  She felt assured that her religion made her better than anyone who wasn't of this cult-like religion, and she treated them like such.  She tried to force lawmakers to obey the rules and scriptures of this religion making her infamously hated by the non-fundamentalists and less extreme members.  And, if that wasn't enough, she was a devout racist and a staunch homophobe.

She allowed herself to be assimilated, believing that she would achieve true biological "purity", as if there was such a thing.  She took on a monstrous, Gorgon form upon being assimilated, but, so deluded was she, she saw herself more beautiful than Helen of Troy or Aphrodite.  Her ego outsized Jupiter.

"Tyr!" she shouted.

"Yes, Mistress?"

Tyr appeared as techno-organic Pantheon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_Zero) head on a techno-organic stalk.  Tyr's A.I. had been severely distorted, thinking of Falwell as its "Mistress" and becoming overly and overtly servile to her.

"Is he ready for interrogation?"

"Yes, Mistress."  Tyr replied, in an oiled, sycophant tone.  "The demon is in the inner-most chamber."

The chamber used to be the Board Board, specifically the Quotable Quotes thread.  It was a horribly irony . . .

She strolled, or perhaps "slither" is a more accurate term, to the center of the room where a weary Demos was bound arms bound by tentacles from the ceiling and legs bound by tentacles to the floor.

"Demos," Falwell said, "the demon RAFian."

"I see my reputation precedes me."

"Silence, filth." she said.  She was religious to extremes.  "You would resist assimilation even more than others who bear the 'R' Mark."

Demos looked perplexed at this, he didn't know what Mark she was talking about*.

"But your precious little sweethart -- stupid robot, consorting with demons and other lesser beings -- is made of metal," she continued, pointing out Sakki the VOLCAROID who was bound, in a similar way to Demos.

"What does that have to do with anything?" But Demos looked very concerned about Sakki's safety.

"We can assimilate metals rather quickly, demonic dunce."

"No!  Leave her alone!"

"Tell us how to break the Mark!"

"I don't know!  Even if I did I wouldn't tell you!"

"Fine, be that way." she said, continuing with her haughty, holier-than-thou tone.  "But we will break that Mark eventually.  And will take your powers for our own . . . and we'll purify you."

Demos could not hide his look of utter disdain and disgust.

---
*Don't forget, while Aquilai, Aila, Gaz, Ash (sorry I forgot you were there), and Horse know, Demos and the other RAFians do not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 11, 2012, 11:46:22 AM

Love it! The sarcasm is spot on. lol ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2012, 07:25:56 AM

Thanks, Gazzy. . . . As I explained in the Random Thoughts thread, Shadow was unable to get a flight out yesterday, so I'll post a couple of chapters, probably on the short side.  And I think my next book might be my weakest one, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

CHAPTER NINE:
Subterranean Subtleties

It turned out that the Kwame Diamond was the closest.  It was supposedly buried somewhere in a savannah cave.  They followed the detector that Yarin had thrown together, which bore an irresistible likeness to the Dragonball Detector in the Dragonball universe.  However, Yarin would be taking the ship back up into orbit, coming down when we summoned him.

They found it, looking quite harmless, perhaps denning a pack of wild dogs and such in the past.  But when the RAFians stepped into it, they found it quite abandoned.  Deeper in, it expanded to accomadate all of them quite comfortably.  This was very odd, but they didn't have time to worry about it.

However, they did have worry about it when the earthen walls started rushing in like those of a trash compactor or a car crusher.  They would be in severe danger . . . except Cloak was a master of Earth, and he was in NO MOOD to be crushed.  He held the flat stone walls back long enough for all of them to make it through.  Then the ceiling decided to decend on them.   Cloak did the Atlas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(mythology)) thing until the others were safe, then he rolled into the safety of the forward corridor.

"Uh, we should have known there would be booby traps." Aquilai stated.

"That's why I came along," Cloak said, dusting off his clock.

Suddenly, stalagtite and stalacmites appeared.  Normally, such things would not be even considered, even ignored and unnoticed.  But, as suspected, they started shooting up and down so quickly it was exceedingly difficult to tell which was a stalactites or stalagmites -- er, that is, stalagtites and stalacmites . . . or is it the other way around.  Never mind, it's not important.

Cloak deflected them, carving a slow, but eventual path to the goal.  Suddenly, they saw it.  A brillantly green, spherical gem upon an earthen pedestal, just waiting for them.  But Cloak was suspicious.  Surely, there would be another trap here. . . .

Gaz strode forward.

"Gaz, look out!!" someone screamed.  Turned out to be Aila.

The ground fell away from Gaz's feet, but she transmogrified herself into a bat -- although she probably could have also turned into mist -- and flew back to the others.

"Well, I don't care to repeat that again." Gaz commented, a bit breathless.

"Let's hope we don't have to," Horse muttered.

Cloak stood at the edge of the chasm, said nothing, but took a stance, jumped, slammed his feet down on the earth.  A bridge shot out from this side of the chasm to the other.  It was seven, ten feet wide, so they could all walk comfortably across.  They still walked single-file, however.

Aquilai made to touch the gem, when Cloak cautioned him against it.  Think that another trap may be triggered if the gem was not touched by a terrakinetic.  Cloak, instead, was the one who picked up the gem, which glowed brightly in his hand, confirming his suspicion.

Then an opening to the outside came, and they call Yarin down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2012, 08:43:47 AM

This is the last chapter I really feel up to posting.  Sorry, that I didn't give you more, but I feel drained creatively for some reason.

CHAPTER TEN:
Hot!  Hot!  Hot!

With the Kwame Diamond's radiation added to the cure, which turned into a muddy concoction the color of granite, they were off to find the Wheeler Ruby, while they secured the Kwame Diamond.  It may come in handy later¹.

Then they went to the fiery place where the Ruby was rumored to be.  It looked like hell.  Literally.  Though Cloak wouldn't know.  When the RAFians had to enter Hell that one time², Cloak was unable to enter, indeed, that was the one place in all the universes that Realm Walkers cannot penetrate, though few Realm Walkers would care.  Something about incapable energies and such.

But that was not the case here, Cloak could enter and walk freely.  It was inexpliably dark here with flames of every color -- red, blue, green, yellow, pink, black, etc.  It was kind of fascinating to see flames of those colors.  And they would have, had they not remembered that they were here on a mission.

"That's ingenius," Gaz mused.  "If someone was here for no reason other than greed, they'd be stuck there looking at the flames."

"Some never left," Cloak stated quietly.

"What?" Aquilai said, completely flummoxed.

"You didn't see them standing there?  There were stationary ghosts of every color, just standing there.  Watching the pretty colors."

"No, I didn't see that."

Cloak's face was hard, and it didn't soften.  "Must be a cat thing then, let's move on."

This gem was a lot easier to procure than the Kwame Diamond, apparently whoever came up with these booby traps thought that their pretty dancing fireworks over there were sufficient protection.  Pity that they didn't think of anything better, a fire maze perhaps.  A false jewel . . .

There were six.  Lined up in a row.   They all looked ever so slightly different.  Most of the others couldn't tell.  But Cloak could, with Gaz just barely.  But Cloak, as a reluctant pyrokinetic, took the gem.  Made sure it was the right one, as it seemed to be obvious to him (but, then, he was the pyrokinetic of the group).

Then they called Yarin, and went after the Linka Pearl.

---
¹Translation: Future books.
²See the Introduction Randomness thread . . . which I since probably have been written out of.  Which is okay!  It was intentional on my part.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 12, 2012, 05:45:06 PM

Great progression so far. You haven't been written out of Intro Randomness; it hasn't really progressed much anyhow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2012, 08:51:47 AM

Ah, well, I'll be focusing on this fic from now on, although I might post a parody or two in the future.  Now, I think I may only be able to post one chapter today (don't hold me to that).  Got lot of stuff to do later on.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Phalanx Frustration

The Falwell entity was horribly fustrated.  She (although "it" is probably more accurate a term now) had tried to assimilate Sakki, using her metallic body's natural electroconductivity .  But the Mark stopped it at every turn.  It could not figure out how such a thing could happen, how such a barrier could exist that it could not overcome.  Then it thought and came up with an idea.  If the demon did not know, maybe a more scientifically-inclined race would know.

"Tyr, has she been secured."

"Yes, Mistress.  But I must relay my misgivings.  They are a metamorphic race, not by natural means, but technological.  But there are limitations --"

"Yes, yes, yes, I know all about that!" Falwell snapped.  "Go about your other duties!  Wait -- how comes the work on the Spire?"

Back in their home realm, the Phalanx would use the Spire to signal the Technarchy, their "father race", if you will.  The Technarchy, however, consider them abominations.  Meeting between the two usually ends up with the Technarchy sucking the life energy out of the Phalanx and destroying it, along with whatever planet it's assimilated.  But there was no Technarchy in this realm to contact.  But they cannot fight their . . . programming?  Instinct?  Aren't they pretty much the same?

"Fifty percent completion."

"Well, hurry up with it!"

Falwell had been sitting in what had once been the D-Lounge, which was now a makeshift throne.  It would seem that she had egomaniacal tendacies and delusions of world conquest.  She slithered sedately to what was once the Quotable Quotes thread.  Demos and Sakki were back in the blue sacs, in the fetal position.  Apparently, after the interrogation, it tried to assimilate them, and, again, could not.

But in the corner, with her hooves bound to the ground, tail bound to the wall, and arms painfully pinioned to her side, was Noelle.  And she looked quite uncomfortable, and quite furious.  Then she saw Falwell and recoiled with revulsion.

<What ARE you?>

"Beauty incarnate," Falwell said in honeyed tones.

<You are one seriously crazed-up fruit loop.>

"Enough banter.  You know escape is quite impossible.  If you attempt shapechanging, you will be immoblized again.  I know of your two-hour limit.  Your SPARTAN friend's lovely servant has relayed that to me already."

<What do you want?> Noelle said, the anger had not vanished from her tone.

"What I want, you freak of nature," Falwell began

<Look who's calling who a freak.> Noelle shot.

"What I want is to know how to disable this stupid little mark all you RAFians have!" Falwell said, matching Noelle's anger.

<What mark?> Then Noelle looked at her palm and noticed the RAF-stylized "R" on it, glowing blue faintly.  <What's this?  How'd . . .>

"You don't know, either?!" Falwell roared.  She was quickly losing all semblence to rational thought.  "BAH!  I have no further need of you!!"

Falwell turned, flicked her oil-black hand with gold highlights (making it looke rather like a circuitboard, and Noelle was suddenly wrapped up tighty.  Then she appeared in a blue sac, in the Andalite fetal position.  Then Falwell stormed out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on March 13, 2012, 10:02:13 AM

This is awesome.  :)  *patiently waits for more*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2012, 08:13:47 AM

Here's another chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Blowhard

They decended to cloud level, unaware of Demos, Sakki, and Noelle's suffering.

"Stop there.  That's where it is." Cloak said.

"Are you bonkers, Cloak?" Aila cried.  "We cannot walk on cloud!"

"Enough with the 'can'ts', if you please.  Let's get on with this."

"Cloak, this is suicide!  None of us can fly without a ship . . . except Ash and Gaz."

Cloak payed her no mind, and stepped upon the cloud.  It supported his weight easily.  It defied physics, he knew, but he looked back waiting for the others.  They seemed unnerved . . . well, who could blame them.  Gaz decided to take bat form, and fly out of the ship.

"Are you coming?  Ash?  Horse?  Aquilai?  Aila?" Cloak said, turning to each of his compatriots in turn.  Per usual, Yarin would stay with the ship.

Ash decided to shapeshift into an avian form and come out.  The other three were far more hesitant.  Cloak was starting to get very impatient with them.

"Come out here now, or we're leaving you behind!!" he roared.

That did it.  They cautiously moved from the ship onto the solid cloud.  True, it felt like walking on marshmallows, but it would have to do.  They walked for about twenty minutes before Cloak stopped.  Cloak made a few sweeping movements and extended his right arm, with only his middle and index finger extended.

A mighty wing blew, but parted when it came within an inch of Cloak's fingers, creating an island, a bubble of wind-free safety.  They proceeded this way for another forty minutes before they came upon a pedestial with the round, white pearl on it.  It was up to Cloak to touch it, being the only aerokinetic in the group.  Cloak snatched it up, while Aquilai summoned Yarin and the ship.

Now, they were off to find the Gi Sapphire.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2012, 09:03:11 AM

Now . . . another chapter.  Probably short.  Probably the only one today.  Depends on how I feel.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Flickering

They landed on a watery area, wondering where the next necessary gem was.  Ash mentioned that she feared this treasure hunt might be a waste of time.  They didn't know if the cure would even work.

"We have to try," Gaz said.  "We can do no less."

Suddenly, they all felt pain from their Marks.  They were beginning to flicker like a static television.  This was very much not good news.

"They're trying to break the Mark," Cloak commented, concealing his own fear and anxiety.  "Or they are trying force their way through the Mark's protective aura . . ."

"But they can't," Gaz said, "can they?"

Cloak said nothing for a very pregnant pause, then answered, "Gaz . . . I really don't know.  I don't know the permancy of it.  We just implemented this just a few months ago.  This is the real test of it . . ."

"Well, that's comforting." Horse said dryly.

***

Falwell did not realize any of this however.

"Bah!  This abomination knows nothing about it either!!" she snarled, as Estrid was put back into the sac.  Falwell had been questioning all the Andalite RAFians, which were only second to humans as the most numerous RAFspecies, and was furious that none of them had any answers.

"That was the last Andalite, Mistress."

Falwell said a word that really shouldn't be used in polite company.

"Mistress, your blood pressure."

"I HAVE NO BLOOD!" she screamed like a banshee.  "Let's see if any of the parasitic vermin know anything about this.  Go fetch a Yeerk RAFian to inquiry!!"

"Right away, Mistress."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 15, 2012, 02:29:34 PM

Love the updates! Had a crazy morning and a new chapter is just what I needed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2012, 07:57:27 AM

Glad to oblige, Gaz.  I don't know how many chapters I can post today, but I will try.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
What a Dive

"There.  We must go there." Cloak said.  Aquilai and Horse muttered agreement.  After all, they were hydrokinetics, as well.

The ship submerged into the water, which slowed it down considerably.  It was designed for deep space and atmosphere, not oceanic sojourns.  Yarin was fretting about this, and Aquilai was a little hard on him.  Yarin scolded Aquilai that the loss of his TARDIS wasn't Yarin's fault.

"We can go no further." Yarin said.  "The ship cannot survive the pressure of that depth."

"Aquilai, don't." Cloak said swiftly, as Aquilai opened his mouth.

"I think that only Cloak, Aquilai and I should proceed from here," Horse said.  "We'd the easiest time."

"I concur." Cloak said, nodding.

"Whatever," Aquilai grumbled.

So the three went.  Cloak and Aquilai bending water around them to create individual bubbles, and Horse, holding her breath, like the seal she was.  This seemed to be a matter of pinniped pride for her.

They swam into an undersea cave, although Horse was a little apprehensive about it.  She snuck a breath from Cloak's bubble, and then proceeded with the other two.  The cave quickly became a winding labyrinth.  The three attempted to navigated their way through, coming to six deadends, having to backtrack many different times.

Eventually, they come to the gem.  Horse snuck a breath from Aquilai's bubble and shot forward and snagged the gem, the Gi Sapphire.  Then an exterior hole, a tunnel really, opened up.  They swam out and Yarin quickly picked them up.

"Only the Heart of Mati Suchi now. . . ." Ash said.

"And who knows how difficult that one would be." Aquilai stated bitterly.

"Don't be so pessimistic," Aila chided.

Cloak remained silent, and his face inscrutable.  His thoughts were on the Mark, and fearing that it would break.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2012, 08:41:19 AM

Second chapter, methinks.  Please forgive any language used.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Mushroom-Man

"BAH!" Falwell roared.  "These moronic parasites know nothing useful!  NOTHING!!!"

With that, Myitt was slammed into the wall, covered again, and back in the fetal position of her host.  Falwell appeared to take on a red coloring.  This was unusual for Phalanx.  She must be truly frustrated and infuriated.

"Mistress, you'll blow something if you don't calm down." Tyr, ever servile, said.

"I'll calm down if I damn well feel like it!" Falwell snarled.  Then she thought a moment.  "Get the mushroom-man."

Within minutes, Goom was freed, his feet completely submerged in techno-organic material, preventing his escape.  Falwell slithered up to him, and Goom recoiled visibly.  Falwal, if anything, had become more horrid to look at.  It is surprising that Goom wasn't turned to stone due to her hideousness.

Goom intended to say, "Who are you?", but instead he said, voice full of revulsion, "What ARE you?"

"None of your business, mushroom-man."

Goom looked vaguely offended at this, and replied, with dignity, "I'm a Goomba. Get it right, please."

"Whatever, mushroom-man.  Tell me about the Mark."

Goom hesitated for a moment, then put on an air of obliviousness, "What mark?"

But Falwell smiled, which contorted her face into a state of hideousness more horrid than before.  She knew that Goom was feigning ignorance.  She knew she had her information locked up in his mushroomy head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2012, 08:48:35 AM

Another chapter -- actually was gonna be the fifteenth chapter, before I came up with that other interlude . . . probably gonna be a long one, or not.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Broken

The RAFsurvivors, as they now thought of themselves, circled the planet from obit.  They were attempting to locate the final gem, which was proving to be the most difficult to locate.  And it was only a matter of time before the Phalanx realized what they were up to.

"Okay, why is this so difficult?" Gaz sighed wearily.

"The Heart of Mati Suchi doesn't give out an elemental vibe," Cloak suggested, "so I can't sense it."

Suddenly, Cloak had a feeling of dread unassociated with anything he was thinking or speaking of.  Cloak had no idea why.

"What is it?" Horse inquired.

"I . . . I don't know exactly.  Something bad is happening . . . somewhere."

"Thank you so much, Cloak.  That tells us everything." Aquilai said, flatly.

"Get over yourself, Aquilai." Aila scolded Aquilai like a child.  Aquilai took offense.

"Come on, now," Gaz said, mediating.  "We have to stick together.  We cannot be fighting like this."

"Gaz is right.  Wait -- there." Cloak said, eyes widening.

"That's where the gem is," Horse said, awed.  She must have sensed it, too.

"I sense it, too," Gaz said, curious.  "Could everyone else . . . ?"

The others nodded.

"It must appeal to good hearts," Yarin postulated.

"Well, let's go get . . ."

There were several shattering sounds, and they looked at their palms with shock.  The Mark was broken.  It was gone.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 16, 2012, 01:57:54 PM

Thanks for the new chapters! Just what I needed after this morning. It was the crazy of yesterday times 5 plus sugar.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2012, 09:27:59 PM

Anytime Gazzy, I enjoy writing them, even if they seem to fall a little short, length-wise, of my expectations.  I'll post another chapter shortly.  Check back in a few minutes . . .

Here we go.  I'll try to finish off this book . . . but I don't know if I can tonight.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Pure of Heart

"What . . . what just happened?" Gaz asked.

"It . . . it broke." Cloak said, anxiety welling up in him.  He was safe from the Phalanx, he always was.  But now his RAFian friends . . . unless they possessed magnetokinetic or ferrokinetic abilities, and, to his knowledge, he himself was the only RAFian ferrokinetic.

"Broke?!" Aquilai practically screamed.  "What do you mean it broke?!"

"Just what I said," Cloak replied cooly, hiding his true anxiety.

"We're vulnerable, then," Ash concluded.

"We need to get the Heart of Mati Suchi," Cloak responded.

"How can you worry about that now?!" Aquilai scolded Cloak.  "We are in big trouble."

"Trust me," Cloak replied with maddeningly calm.

"We're doomed," Horse commented dryly.

They decended into the dense jungle.  Cloak and the others charged forward, sensing the jewel.  They all could sense it, so no words were wasted.  They proceeded along at a brisk pace at first.  Then it culminated into a grueling pace, until they entered a massive cave devoid of stalactites and stalagmites.  There it was, shaped like a heart, floating above a granite pedestal.

Cloak strode up to it with the others behind him.  Cloak stared at the jewel for a bit, bit his lip, and thought, I really hope this works.

Then he graps the jewel in his left hand, and all of the RAF survivors felt a surge of power.  Then they looked at their right hand or flipper, and saw, with tremendous relief that the jewel had revitalized and revigored the Mark!

Then they summoned Yarin, and boarded the ship.  Now the HARD work begun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2012, 10:19:08 PM

'Nother chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Fury and Testing

Yarin and Aquilai took the gems and began working to synthesize a cure for the techno-organic abominations plaguing their beloved forum.  The RAFians were worn and weary, but they could not let their guard down.

Naturally, the ship was back in orbit, on autopilot.  Cloak did not like this one bit, he never trusted such things.  But he was mentally wiped to argue the point.  The others were nodding off, every now and then.  Yarin and Aquilai, however, were consumed with their work.

"Will it be enough?" Aila asked.

"Will what be enough?  The cure?" Cloak inquired.

"It had better," Gaz put in, grimly, "or we just squandered five days.  Or was it six?  I think I lost count."

"Your votes of confidence are most reassuring," Aquilai replied dryly.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Falwell elated when the Mark broke.  Poor Goomy . . . she wasted no time in assimilating him to the collective hive mind of the Phalanx.  His memories, his knowledge . . . all of it stolen from him.  Forced to be shared.

"Excellent!  We can now assimilate RAFians!" Falwell declared.

"True, Mistress," Tyr said, with air of breaking bad news.  "But we can only do assimilate one-at-a-time."

"Small detail," Falwell said, waving the concern away.  "We have time."

"There are over --"

"I said, we have time!" she snapped.  "Get the Andalite.  The one known as Noelle.  She will be next."

"Right away, Mistress."

Noelle was still in the sac, when Cloak and the Heart of Mati Suchi reactivated the Mark, disabling assimilation.  Falwell screamed in rage and fury when she realized this.  Goom's knowledge and memories would not help her here, as Goom had no knowledge of these five gems.

***

"There," Yarin said, "this should be it."

Then they tried it on the sample, which turned to dust and concrete from which it was transformed.  It was a successful cure, as it didn't just neutralize the Phalanx, but reversed whatever it turned back to normal.  It was a dream cure.

"But there's a problem," Aquilai cautioned, "we've only sixteen ampules.  We must find the Phalanx core, and infect it there."

"'Infect'?" Ash asked.

"The cure is basically a virus," Aquilai explained.

"Part biological virus, part computer virus." Yarin put in.

"How does --" Gaz began.

"Don't," Cloak said, hold his hand up.  "We'd be here all night."

"Okay.  We need a way in," Horse pointed out.

To this, Gaz smirked mischievously, then said, "Oh, I think I have an idea how to get in."

"You're gonna Amelia Voght (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Voght) our way in," Cloak said dully, "aren't you?"

Gaz just smirked in response.

"Great."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2012, 10:51:56 PM

Now, it will start wrapping up.  Hopefully, not fall apart . . .  Oh, I could not resist the Darkwing Duck reference, and forgive the language.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Farewell to Falwell, We Hope

"Yarin, you must do it." Gaz said.

"No!  I will not sacrifice --"

"You know it is really hard for me to sympathize with you," Aquilai sniped.

"Yarin, you must crash this spacecraft," Cloak said plainly, "we will need the distraction."

"Or just land it in the mire," Aila suggested.

"It will take time to assimilate it," Gaz said, "then we can vap in, and get to work."

Yarin became very surly.  "FINE!  Fine.  I'll program autopilot to land.  There is no onboard computer . . . we are very lucky that I hadn't repaired it.  Let's get this over with."

Gaz swept her arms up and all the survivors became a black-gray mist.  They all swept into the forum that was once their stronghold.  Gaz was in complete control of the direction.  She navigated to the D-Lounge, where she suspected the core was.

Unfortunately, she was right.  Suddenly, Gaz started to reform their bodies.  Then they all spoke at once, when they noticed Falwell fuming in her a throne.

"We are the terror that haunts the night!"

"We are the TARDISes you have to self-destruct." Aquilai said.

"We are the coagulant that neutralizes shapeshifting," Ash said.

"We are the Cyber-Men that ruin your day," Aila said.

"We are the trolls that flame you all day," Horse said.

"We are the line that you have crossed," Cloak said.

"We are the wooden stakes you have stashed," Gaz said.

"We are the RAFians you royally pissed off!" they said in unison.

Falwell clapped blythely, with an uninterested look.

"What's next?  Card tricks?"

"Eh, shaddup!!" Aquilai snarled as he forced the first two ampules into her body.  The cure began to work already.  Turned out, Falwell WAS the core.

"The rest of the ampules!  Now!" Cloak shouted.

It was over quite quickly after that.  Falwell became human again, which caused her to curse the RAFians with words that should not be used in polite company.  Then she was thrown next to the Pootang until the 'Net security picked her up.  She was tried and convicted.

"That still seemed too easy," Cloak muttered.  Then he noticed a figure behind the General RP board.  It vanished in an instant.

"Malice." he muttered.  "Was this just a test?  What was your plan?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2012, 11:15:40 PM

Okay, finishing this book. . . . Sorry if it was rushed.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Plans

Cloak stood from his usual lookout, the hill overlooking RAF.  He was not smiling or enjoying the frivolity that the others were.  The forum was pristine again, and not a trace of the Phalanx remained.  Aquilai and Yarin made another cure batch -- just in case.  But the light in the gems was dimmed as a result.  A necessary result.

Goom had to have psychological evaluations done on him, from being the only RAFian to be successfully assimilated.  It was a very dubious distinction, one that he'd probably never live down.

Cloak stood there, thinking about Malice.  Defeating the Phalanx was just a little too easy.  Was all this just a test from her?  What were her plans?  Did she know who he was?  Did she know that he was a RAFian?  If so, what did she want from him?  Was she just playing with him?  Did she like mind games?

So many questions, and no answers yielded.  Something was going on here.  But what?  He didn't know.  And he did not like not knowing.

***

Malice was flicking through a book, as if researching.  She was also thinking smugly to herself.

So pathetic, these Dwellers. she thought.  It begs the question, why does the Son of the Elements protect them?  Why does he treat them as equals?  Realm Walkers are clearly the superior species.  We can dominate any Dweller civilization we chose.  Why does he not conquer?  He certainly has the power to do as he likes.  Why does he hold back his power?  Is his afraid of his own power?  How ludicrous!  If you've the power, you should use it!  Such a pathetic waste.  But still . . . tormenting him and that precious little forum of his is quite entertaining.  So delightful and amusing.  Hopefully he won't be able to stop this next obstacle I send his way so easily.

She stopped reading, scribbled something down, and vanished, leaving the book behind.  It was a course, leather-bound book with faded letters.  But it was clear that it was a book on vampires. . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 17, 2012, 11:53:02 PM

A book on vampires? *gasp* great chapters! I can hardly wit to read what happens next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 18, 2012, 06:36:29 PM

This is fantistic, can't wait for the next one which I have heard I am in. *little bit of happiness leaks out of ear*

So vampires eh...time to go "I am legend" all over 'em.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 18, 2012, 07:30:16 PM

Not so fast there, I'm a vampire! A vampire pirate to be exact. Don't kill me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 18, 2012, 07:45:34 PM

Not you of course. You're reformed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2012, 09:22:29 PM

It'll get complicated, I admit.  Naturally, Gaz will be taking center stage, and Malice's machinations will become clear . . . eventually.

Now, let's begin this thing.

BOOK VI:
What About Gaz?

CHAPTER ONE:
Inauspicious Beginning

Deep in an underground cavern with black writhing masses of robed figures in pew-like structures.  Before them was a very ancient-looking court room.  Nine figures sat where a judge's podium would be.  The centermost figure was the leader of the council, and he appeared to look rather Godly.

Behind to desks perpendicular to the judges and audience were two dark figures in cloaks, one massive and bulky, the other lean and small.  Suspended above them, within a cage, was another, more familiar cloaked figure.

". . . It's obvious Cloak should go to me!" the thick figure said.

"Oh, please," the thinner figure on the other side of the court sneered, "I'm the only sensible choice!"

Then the larger figure, who was obviously Abomination, attempted to appeal to the court at large, and sang,

"Please vote me
The keeper of the Walker.
I wanna be
The keeper of the Walker!
This condemning tone
Is mine to own,
To do with as I see fit!
Give him to me,
And I promise my torture won't quit!"

Then the thin figure, Malice, stood up and addressed the court by singing,

"I disagree about
The keeper of the Walker!
It should be me that's
The keeper of the Walker.
He's not a toy
For an idiot boy
Who can even lace his shoes!
If he wins, we all surely lose!"

Then the prisoner, Cloak himself, spoke up, singing,

"Do I get a say in
The keeper of the Walker?!
I'll make you all pay for
The keeper of the Walker!!
All my rage is bound up
By this stupid cage!
Held back by these tylee bars!
I'll never get rid of the mental scars."

Then the God-like councilman began singing himself,

"I don't care about
The keeper of the Walker!
A mountain of stress
Is compressing my chest!
I'm goin' blind in one eye!
And it's all because of that stupid guy!!"

Then he pointed an accusatory finger at Jerry Falwell, who really had no business being in the Nexus, eating the most disgusting, revolting form of nachos.

Cloak awoke suddenly from this nightmare with a start.  He ran his hand through his fur -- he had since lined his thread with the same fabric that Realm Walker cloaks are woven from, which allowed him some freedom from having to wear it as he slept.  It also allowed other RAFians to enter and see him in his full anthropomorphic tiger form.

"That dream again . . ." he muttered.

***

Meanwhile, in a cemetary deep underground, in a strange catacomb, Malice was strolling serenely, as if she had gone for a brisk walk in the moonlight.  She came to a coffin, an ornately decorated coffin.  It had writing on it in some long-forgotten script.

Malice, bearing no fear, opened it to find a skeletally-thin woman with corpse-gray skin, long flowing white hair, empty white eyes, and claw-like fingers.  And she had two long fangs that protruded from her lips slightly.  She was loveningly swaddled in black fabric.

"There you are," Malice muttered.  "Let's see Sage's protege and his entourage overcome this."

Then she spoke with full voice and commanding tones, "Madre de Vampyra, awaken.  Awaken!  Rise . . . and . . . serve me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 18, 2012, 09:27:07 PM

You're the writer and you don't even know.

We're in for hell.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2012, 10:01:46 PM

Well, check the post above.  I posted the first chapter.  I hope it's suitable.

CHAPTER TWO:
Mother and Malice

The corpse's eyes fluttered.  She gained flesh defination, but still retaining the gray tone, claws, fangs and soulless eyes.  Her ears remained pointed, and hissed softly as she sat up, and slowly gazed around.

Then she saw Malice, and attempted to lunge at Malice.  But a force stopped her, and it made her shriek, as if she had been electrocuted.

"You cannot attack me, Madre de Vampyra." Malice said with scorn in her voice.  "I would have thought that you've that much sense.  It was I who awoke you from your eternal slumber."

"W . . ." the old vampire's voice was raspy and thick, as if it had not been used for millienia and was cobwebbed close.  "What did you summon for . . . whatever-you-are?"

"That's better, Fangs-For-Brains." Malice said, clearly with contempt.  "You will serve me.  And you had better do it well."

The vampire glared at her with fury.  She did not like be tethered, she always claimed to call no one master.  This was very humilating for her.

"You can sense all vampires, yes?"

The vampress glared at Malice.

"I asked you a question, servant."

"Yes." she snarled.  "I am Madre de Vampyra, Mother of Vampires."

"Good.  There's a certain little vampire that I want you awaken the dormant darkness in. . . ."

"That's all?" she scoffed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 18, 2012, 10:57:39 PM

Sweet, and I love the "Keeper of the reaper" Parody

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2012, 10:59:02 PM

It is incredibly fun to sing.  'Nother chapter . . . tomorrow or Tuesday.  I'm wiped just now.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 19, 2012, 09:26:32 AM

Uh-oh. This doesn't look good for me. Can't wait to see what happens!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2012, 08:52:02 AM

No.  No, it doesn't.  Probably gonna be a long chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Something Something Dark Side*

Gaz was sitting her thread watching an episode of Beast Wars.  "Possession", to be specific.  One could consider this quite ironic, in a way.

Then a faint whisp of a voice said, "Gaaaaaaaz . . . ."

Gaz looked around, but saw no one.  She put it out of her mind.  Until she heard it again.

"Gaaaaaaaz . . ."

This time it was accompanied by a chilling chuckle.  Gaz herself was clearly spooked.  She didn't know what was happening, but tried to convince herself that it was all in her mind.

Problem was, it WAS in her head.  And it wasn't a good voice.

"Gaaaaaz . . ."

"WHO ARE YOU?!?" Gaz shouted, trying to suppress the fear that was creeping up.

"Gaaaaaz . . ."

"What do you want?!?!"

"Gaaaaaz . . . you know. . . ."

"No, I don't!  I know anything!"

"Gaaaaaz . . .  you know who I am. . . ."

"No, I don't!" Gaz protested, but she was lying to herself.  She knew that voice now.  She feared that voice.  It was starting to awaken a part of herself she tried so ardently to suppress.  An inner darkness inherit in being a vampire.

"Gaaaaz . . . serve me . . ."

"No . . ."

It was becoming harder to suppress.  Harder and harder and even harder.

"Gaaaaz . . . hear me. . . ."

"No!  I won't!  You're not real!"

"But I am real . . . serve me, Daughter."

Now, all vampresses are the Mother's daughters, as all vampires are her sons.  It does not mean a biological bond.

"I won't!  I . . . won't!!  I . . ."

"You know what you must do for me, Daughter."

Gaz was expressionless, haunched over on her bed.  But a radical change was happening.  Her fangs were getting ever slightly larger.  Her sking was becoming a more greenish-gray hue.  The sclera of her eyes took on the subtlest of yellowish hues.  Even her clothes seemed to have been bleached all-black.

She didn't speak for a tense moment.  Then she said, "Yes . . . Mother."

---
*Yes, that would be a Family Guy reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2012, 09:28:37 AM

'Nother chapter.  Probably only gonna write one more after this.  But don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Turnin' Heads

Gaz exited her thread in a black, Batman-styled cape, with a wide-brimmed, black hat.  She was also wearing sunglasses.  The sun was still out, but Gaz never should vulnerability to it.  But that's because she resisted the darkness.  Now, it had overcomed her, so she could bare contact with pure sunlight.

Cloak passed her, and was about to say why she was stealing his cloaked schtick, but he said nothing.  He sensed something different.  Something dark.  Looking back, Cloak could have stopped everything right there.  He could have acted -- he was the master of the Wood element after all . . . this thought would torture him for some time afterward.

Gaz met up with Guy, Horse and Faerie, who only noticed her odd dress and nothing else.  She lured them into the dark, as they tried to engaged her in conversation, but she looked around to see if they were alone.  They were . . . or so she thought.  She swiftly bit all three of them.

Within minutes, the three became cursed.  Curved fangs protruded from their mouths.  Their skin took on a deathly palor.  Their sclera became pools of oily black.  Horse's fur became matted, wild and coarse, and she became roughly humanoid.  All three were vampires now, subserviant to Gaz.

But this did not go unseen.  Sakki saw the whole thing.  Being a VOLCAROID, thereby being a being of no blood, she was immune to the curse.  But that didn't mean she could not be harmed.  Sakki went to warn the others, but the sun was starting its downard decent and RAF was virtually abandoned except for the four vampires and Cloaky, and he was nowhere in sight!

Sakki, hating herself for it, ran to the hills.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2012, 10:16:50 AM

Last chapter today -- oh, Blaze, you'll appear in the next one.  Sorry, you may have to wait until tomorrow for that.  But don't hold me to that.

Hmmm . . . short chapter . . .

CHAPTER FIVE:
Curses Again

Cloak suddenly felt a chill that he could not explain.  Feline Realm Walkers, as well as felines in general, could sense evil.  FuBar and Bladeh were away on family matters, and would be for some time.  The sun was beginning to set, and RAFians were returning to RAF from various other places -- Cloak did not know all the individual stories.

The Gaz and the newly-minted vampires were on the prowl.  They attacked and fed on Aquilai and Aila, adding the two Time Lords to their ranks.  The two grew long, white fangs, skin became corpse gray, and their eyes became solidly black.  Hopes that this would be enough for them to regenerate, as their kind do when fatally injured, were futile.  They were now undead.  But fortunately they were still without their TARDISes, so time itself was safe.

Then Yarin and Goom were the next victims added to their ranks.  Goom simply had his coloring inverted, his eyes glowed red, and two long, thin fangs snaked from his mouth.  Yarin's toes and fingers gained rough claws, his six eyes glowed red, and his rather weak-looking jaw strengthened as two strong, long, white fangs snaked down his face.  His skin became blacker than night.

The vampires then targeted Nate and Noelle, and turned them.  Nate's skin had gone chalk-white as his upper jaw wielded two sharp fangs.  Noelle's change was a bit more drastic.  Her tail-blade bloated a little and sharpened it's tip to become like a syringe, and her hooves gained fang-like "claws".  Her fur fell out to reveal a body rapidly becoming chalk white.

Then they targeted Demos and Phoenix, and turned them.  Or so they thought.  Demos's inherit regenerative ability would not allow it, and cured him immediately.  Phoenix's body just burst into flame, renewing his body and mind in the flame.  They were severely outnumbered by the twelve vamps before them, so they fled to the hills where, unbeknowst to them, Sakki hid.

Noelle and Goom made to go after them, when Evil Gaz held them back.  "Let them go.  They cannot be turned.  They are useless to our mission."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 20, 2012, 01:21:24 PM

I'm going to suck your RAFblood! Bleh bleh!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on March 20, 2012, 05:21:03 PM

Andalite vampires are epic.  Muahahaha!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 20, 2012, 06:46:44 PM

My fire is purer than even the sun! BURN YOU UNHOLY ABOMINATIONS! BURN!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 20, 2012, 07:53:53 PM

Good thing I'm completely covered in a titanium alloy. Try to bite me, and you'll need a dentist. >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2012, 09:35:15 AM

Hubris isn't a good thing, Parker. ;)  Check out the "Shadow of the Bat!" episode of "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" (the very inspiration of this book), and pay very close attention to the Blue Beetle.

Sorry, no chapters today.  Barely enough time today to post this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 21, 2012, 10:11:17 AM

It occurs to me that being turned to pure gold, a medal soft enough that you can bend it with your fingers, and then falling out of the sky would lead to some major dents.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2012, 07:28:20 AM

Eh, tell that to the kid in middle school who wouldn't get outta my face until I ripped that gold necklace off him.  I usually don't like conflict -- first instinct is to run and hide (my RAFsona here is what I wish I could be IRL).  He probably still expects me to pay for it. . . .

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Bloody Marie and Dark Designs

The new vampires were, again, on the prowl.  They stalked every corner of RAF, turning Esplin, Dameg and Broken.  Within minutes, they were three newly-minted vampiric monsters.

The chill went up Cloak's spine again, as he was engaging Richard in conversation.  He could not place it.  He looked in the shadows of the forum, and noticed that they seemed longer, deeper.  Cloak couldn't figure out why.

Meanwhile, the vampire horde turned Bear, Genies, Jess, and Shock.  Bear became what appeared to be a saber-toothed bear, Genies became pale and grew two long fangs, Jess had become a saber-toothed Tyclairecorn (or however you spell it), and Shock became a saber-toothed dragon, his scales losing all their pigment, his tail becoming horridly barbed.

Ash and Blaze were talking just outside the General Fan Fiction board, oblivious as Cloak and Richard to what's going on.  Ash was in her base form, and Blaze had his sword* sheathed.  They were calm, relaxed.  After all, how could they possibly suspect?

Meanwhile, Marie fell to Evil Gaz, becoming a silver-furred, saber-toothed fox.  Parker saw this, and aimed his gun at the horde.  He hesitated, not wanting to hurt any of his former comrades.  This nobility would prove to be his downfall.

"Stay where you are, Parker," Evil Gaz said, with a haunting, echoing tone.  She held back her horde.

Parker did what she wanted without realizing that she was putting him under her spell.  Her hypnotic abilities, inherent on all vampires, was grossly magnified by the Madre de Vampyra.  Parker's internal systems on his armor were struggling to compensate.

"Take off your helmet, Parker," Evil Gaz said in the same haunting tone with the same unblinking eye contact.

Parker fought it, but found that his helmet had been taken off.  Parker blinked, but he was still in Evil Gaz's thrall.  His body was moving of its own accord.

"Neck, please, Parker," Evil Gaz intoned.

Against his will, Parker's head bent to the left, exposing his neck.  He only had time to think, "Oh, ****," before Evil Gaz bit, and turned him.  The helmet remained on the ground, discarded and forgotten.

Blaze and Ash happened to notice this.  They were, as would be expected, more than a little perturbed at this.  Blaze had his hand on the hilt of his sword prepared to slay them all -- they were no longer RAFians, and could not be saved, in his opinion -- but Ash managed to convince him otherwise.  They fled to the hills with the other Immunities.

---
*Sorry, Blaze, I just can't picture you without a sword for some reason.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 22, 2012, 09:35:37 AM

This is my sword. (http://www.kingofswords.com/images/46CS88RLG.jpg) The scholar's sword, a lightweight blade carried by gentleman, scholars, and Sun Tzu. Good for thrusting, enough to go through an unarmored body like it's butter.


I watch too much deadliest warrior.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 22, 2012, 02:31:40 PM

Wow, we are some busy, busy little vampire bees, aren't we?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 23, 2012, 12:57:39 AM

Aw, fine, be that way. :P

Good chapter, keep 'em coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2012, 07:40:33 AM

Well, Parker, you'll get a Gen 1 Megatron (robot mode) blaster, if that's any consolation.  And Blaze, that's the exact sword I imagined you with . . . only coated in fire.

Possibly a shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Cloak and Swagger

Cloak broke off his conversation with Richard as now the chill had become an all-consuming cold.  Richard seemed to recognize that Cloak sense something was wrong.

"What is it?"

"I -- I don't know."

The Mark should have protected the RAFians from anything . . . but little did he realize there was a way to circumvent that little hurdle.  If someone else bore the Mark had a parasitic nature, the Mark would not stop it from doing what it does.  Hence why the Yeerk RAFians were not immediately ejected from their hosts after the Mark was initiated.

Unfortunately, this allowed Evil Gaz to turn RAFians into vampires, RAFians whose physiologies would support it.  There were RAFians whose physiologies would reject the vampire virus: Sakki was a robotic lifeform, thereby having no blood to spill; Ash, Demos, and Phoenix own regenerative abilities would heal the virus; Richard simply because he was Richard; Blaze and Cloak's natural physiologies made it impossible to support the curse.

While Cloak was comtiplating this, Gaz and her horde turned Gotchaye, Terenia, RYTX, AniDragon, Tyler, and ND.  Adding six more vampires to her horde, all under her beck and call.

"Does it seem somehow darker to you?" Richard asked, uncertainly, looking around.

Cloak was slightly disappointed, he had hoped he was imagining it, "You notice it, too, huh?"

Ever the busy vampiric bees, the horde then turned ND, DP, Yunyun, Rad, Alic, Whammy, and Blocky.  Another twelve vampiric drones for Evil Gaz, the Madre de Vampyra, and for Malice's evil mechinations.

Cloak and Richard actually encounter a vampiric Parker, Blocky, and Evil Gaz.  They glared at each other and Cloak immediately knew with that cold sensation was coming from.

"Cloak . . . show me you neck . . ."

"You're kidding, right, Gaz?"

"Cloak . . ."

"Gaz, or whoever you've become now, you should remember that hypnosis is a form of mind control," Cloak lectured.

"Cloooooak. . . ."

"And," Cloak continued to lectured, "REALM WALKERS ARE IMMUNE TO MIND CONTROL!!!"

Gaz looked taken aback.  "Fine then, Cloak, then I'll turn you the hard way."

"You really have forgotten yourself, Gaz.  You have forgotten that if you attempt to bite me, your fangs will be melted, disintergrated from existence."  Cloak said.  "I have been very open about this facet of my biology, haven't I?  But, something's taken you over, hasn't it?"

"Wait -- I thought you killed Mr. E." Richard interjected.

"I did.  This isn't his work.  He was a brute, and had little mind for this subterfuge . . ." Cloak said.  Something then clicked, but he didn't say anything.  Time for plot dumping was over, although, this was an admittingly small plot dump . . .

"Richard, we cannot stay here.  We must flee."

"Oh my word," Richard said, seeing Evil Gaz's horde.

"I feared as much," Cloak commented.

"Flee?  We're are you gonna go?" Gaz taunted.

"Oh, somewhere nice, I think," Cloak bantered, "the Bahamas, perhaps."

Then Cloak used fire to inscribe crosses above and in every doorjam of every thread.  Then the horde hissed, and Cloak and Richard dashed to the boundary of RAF's land.  Then Cloak told Richard to wait a minute.  With a stomp, and a reaching gesture, wooden crosses lined the borders of RAF.

"There.  The sun's nearly up," Cloak stated.  He knew what would happen to them in the sun, but preferred not to think of it as they dashed for the hills.

Unfortunately, Cloak's efforts were all for naught.  There was plenty of shadow for the horde to survive the daylight hours.  And Cloak neglected to remember that vampires could transmogrify themselves into bats . . .

"A futile effort," Evil Gaz mused.

"Should we go after them?" Rad asked, voice more husky.

"No point, they cannot be turned.  We will finish off RAF.  There are more RAFians that need . . . persuading."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 23, 2012, 03:56:27 PM

Lol! You used the line! That totally made my day. I'm loving this, Cloaky! You rock. Now, time to get more Beast Wars recaps ready.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 24, 2012, 12:12:19 AM

Explenation for my bizarre biological makeup: This is based off of two obsure books series that I never got into, but are great for a back story.


Blaze is a mix of an Angel and a Genie. Humans are made of earth. Carbon to be precise. Angels are made of light. Genies or "Dajin" are made of fire. The crossbreed made him somewhat of a holy flame, with the wild unpredictability of the Dajin, and the moral compass of an angel. Could be a Paladin.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2012, 07:29:22 AM

Then the weapon "upgrade" I have in mind for you Blaze would totally fit . . . but that will probably be a different book.

Gaz, what line was that?

*sigh* 900 more posts and I become a RAF God . . . anyway, a shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Reluctant Refugees

Richard, Cloak, Blaze, Ash, Phoenix, Demos, and Sakki met up in a forest clearing in dappled light.  Cloak and Blaze stood, both looking quite surly.  Richard and Phoenix stat on stumps, looking thoroughly woebegone.  Ash looked uncertain and anxious.  Demos looked thoughtful and introspective.  Sakki just plain looked angry at having become a refugee . . . for the fourth or fifth time.  They all lost count by now.

"What do we do now?" Blaze asked Richard, rather harshly.

"What do you mean 'what do we do now'?" Richard countered, weary.

"We're refugees!  How do you propose that we get the forum back?"

"Blaze, this isn't the place for hostility." Cloak scolded with narrowed eyes.

"We need to exterminate all the vampiric scum from the site," Blaze replied coldly.

"That would mean killing RAFians," Sakki pointed out.

"They are gone.  They cannot come back."

"You don't know that," Cloak and Ash countered at the same time.

"So, you would have killed me without a second thought when . . . when he took over me?"

Phoenix hadn't referred what had become known as the "Dark Phoenix Incident" in quite some time.  All RAFians knew it was a sensitive point, so they never brought it up until he did.  Blaze faultered, and said nothing.

"You see, it isn't so easy." Cloak elaborated.  "The sun's up now, and the wooden crosses I put at RAF's boundaries should contain the turned, while allowing any other RAFians to escape."

"But what about nightfall?" Demos said, quietly.

"What?"

"Nightfall.  They could turn into bats and come after us."

Cloak looked crestfallen.  How could he overlook this?  How could he fail to consider this eventuality?

"The mighty Realm Walker forgot something?" Blaze said, snidely.

Cloak wanted to attack him, but restrained himself.  Not a lot of Realm Walkers would be able to restrain their anger -- but, as an Elements Master, Cloak was adept at concealing and burying his emotions.  It was not healthy, however.

"This bickering is getting us nowhere!" Richard exclaimed, standing up.  "We need a plan!  We need a stragedy.  We need . . . a stragedy."

"Phoenix.  Demos.  Didn't you get bit?  But you're regenerative abilities healed you?" Ash asked.

Cloak nursed an idea at this, but said nothing.  He probably should have, but he wasn't really in a receptive mood.  Besides, the others would have vetoed it.  He would do what must be done.

"Yes, what're getting at, Ash?"

"Couldn't we synthesize a cure?  Using your antibodies and such?"

"Goom, Yarin and Aquilai are the only ones with such technical expertise.  And they're vampires now." Sakki pointed out.

"Ah." Ash said, looking somewhat deflated.

"What we really need," Cloak said, in a silkily soft voice, "is Estelore."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 26, 2012, 08:31:36 AM

The busy vampire bees. Unless that was coincidence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2012, 08:45:58 AM

Ah, I was thinking you meant a quote, that is to say, dialog.

'Nother rather stubby, short chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
RAFian Gothic

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Evil Gaz and her horde had succeeded turning the rest of the RAFians, and imprisioning the ones that could not be turned.  After this, RAF became more gothic in architecture, and virtually unrecognizable.  It emitted a creepy feeling like plutonium emits radiation.

It was heartbreaking to the RAFians that retained their faculties, and whose mind was not distorted by the vampirism disease.  The cry went up from the imprisioned RAFians, basically singing "Deliver Us".

"RAF is now under your control, Mistress Gaz," the vampiric Goom said, whose fangs seemed to be more of a burden than anything else.

"Yes, and no, little Goomba sire."

"No?"

"There is one left to turn."

Goom's eyes went wide, and uncharacteristicall y greedy.  That sinister smile didn't suit him at all, either.  "You don't mean . . ."

"Yes, I do." Evil Gaz as she swept off to a staircase that led deep into the bowels of RAF.  They paid no mind to the pitch darkness.  "And it must be turned before Mother comes."

If Goom knew who this Mother was, his face didn't show it.  Goom kept it expressionless as he tottled down the stairs behind Evil Gaz.  Eventually, they came before a locked trapdoor.  Glowing, round red eyes were peering out, and a piercing snarl filled the air.

"How are you going to do it?"

"I haven't figured that out yet." Evil Gaz confessed.  "But it will be one of us before too long."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 26, 2012, 09:20:13 AM

I feel bad for acting like an angry prick in a fanfiction. This is illogical.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 26, 2012, 11:05:06 PM

Oh snap, Pootang's gonna get bit!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2012, 07:07:23 AM

Well, Blaze, something important (RAF) has been taken from you.  You have a bit of a right to be a little bit prickish.  We're all goin' through stress, so such things are to be expected.  Of course, you wouldn't react in such a way if we weren't under such stress.  Eh, just wait until battle . . . but that will be soonish.

And, yes, the Pootang getting bit would be very bad for the immune RAFian side . . . we have enough trouble with a nonvampiric Pootang.

Shortish chapter

CHAPTER TEN:
Mother's Day

Gaz prepared her horde for the coming of Madre de Vampyra.  Madre had fed previously, and took on a more fleshy physique.  Her skin was still somewhere between chalk-white and corpse gray.  Her hair wasn't so limp anymore, but silky, shiny and long.  Her eyes now possessed black irises and visible pupils.  She had claw-like fingernails painted black, and had an air of being venomous.  She kept her fangs pristine and bone-white.  She wore a floor-length black formal silk gown.

When the sun set, and the shadows were long, she appeared a few feet from the boundaries of RAF.  She hissed at the wooden crosses that barred her from just strolling in.  She transmogrified herself into a German Shepard-sized bat, and flew in.  It took all of two seconds.  Of course, she was well aware that she was being watched.  Watched by the one who awoke her.  The one that she must cater to.  The one that her most fervent desire is to rend to shreds of flesh -- unaware that Realm Walkers do not die in such a way.

"Mother," Gaz said, on her knees, bowing profusely.  Her horde did the same . . . well, the ones that could bow profusely.  "We are at your beck and call.  We await your command."

Madre looked impassively over the horde.  Which happend to include a pale yellow, pink-cheeked, fanged Pootang.  Gaz had managed to turn it without any harm to herself.  Although it took two hours.

"Report, my Sigma Daughter," she said in haughty tones.  The "sigma" ranking depicted Evil Gaz's order of siring.  "You did well to convert all these . . . what were they called?  RAFians?"

"Yes, Mother," Evil Gaz said.

"But there is much more work to be done.  Some have escaped from here, have they not?"

"They were incapable of being turned," Evil Gaz said, but it sounded like an excuse.

"Incapable or not, they could have been food." Madre's tone never changed from this hardened tone.

"With all due respect, Mother," Evil Gaz said, bowing even lower than should have been possible, "no, they couldn't.  Several of them had toxic blood -- the Realm Walker, the angel/genie hybrid --"

"Then they should have been destroyed." Madre said, harshly yet passively.

"Begging your pardon, Mother, but it isn't that easy.  They don't die easily."

"Still you should have been able to do it.  You bungled this mission, Daughter."

"But --"

"Never mind your past blunder.  Who put the wooden crosses at the boundaries?"

"The Realm Walker."

"What?!  You allowed him enough time to carve those crosses and place them around this site?!"

"He has control over the wood element, Mother.  He took all of two seconds."

Madre was unnerved, but she did not show it.  She looked at the horde, and wondered if it was not enough.  She actually worried.  She hadn't done that in centuries.

"We must continue with the mission.  Expand outward.  There," she pointed to the Bannedland.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2012, 08:18:07 AM

Probably gonna be a stub of a chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Refugee Camp Iwannahurtthem

The refugees were arguing amongst themselves.  Except Cloak and Blaze.  They stood apart, aloof.  They looked very angry at the predicament.

"Cloak, I'm sorry about my prickish comment before," Blaze said, and he, as was Cloak, leaning against a tree.

"Don't be," Cloak replied, "we've lost RAF again, it's natural for stress levels to run high, natural for people to say things that they'd regret later."

Blaze nodded and fell silent for a moment, before stating, "It's just a matter of time before they find us, you know.  We're gonna have to fight them sooner or later."

Cloak's voice was hard as he said, "I'm aware, Blaze.  Believe me, I'm well aware."

"They'll be trying to kill us," Blaze said, using Cloak as a bouncing board, "if we hold back, if we pull punches, if we relent at all, they just might very well succeed."

The note of concern and reluctance in Blaze's voice did not go unnoticed by the Realm Walker.  Cloak continued to think.  The only solution he could come up with is Estelore.  But she had decided to go an explore the Andromeda galaxy . . .

But perhaps there was a way to get her attention. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 27, 2012, 09:15:32 AM

Like a 40 mile long fire spelling out "HELP US!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 28, 2012, 04:39:53 AM

Doubt that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2012, 06:49:28 AM

Doubt she'd see that, Blaze.  Perhaps replace "miles" with "light years", but never mind that now.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Array

The refugees decided to signal Estelore, but it would be difficult.  The array would pretty much give away their hiding place.  That would be quite undesirable, naturally.  And then there was the problem of building it.  None of the refugees, with possible exclusion of Richard and Sakki, were technologically competent enough to build such and array.  But it was the only option, lest they enter RAF and just indiscriminately kill their former colleagues.

Cloak could do it easily -- as one of the Six Elements served as the weakness of the vampires.  Worst yet, night would be approaching in a few hours.  They had to cobble this thing together quickly, and activate it during the day.  It was a tall order, and who knows what the vampiric peons at the forum were doing.

They decided to move underground, so they would not be visible to aerial foes.  But that means that they would still have to move into the open to use the accursed device.

"What if they turn the Pootang?" Ash asked suddenly, as the refugees began to cobble together the parts for the array.

"What?" Richard asked, securing a makeshift bolt.

"The Pootang.  It was still caged up when Blaze and I fled." Ash explained as she attempted to secure another bolt.

Silence met these words, as the refugees exchanged glance.  If it had been turned, that means their work would have become all that much harder.  The Pootang was a handle when it was normal, if it had its strength and speed augmented by vampirism . . .

"We'll deal with that later," Cloak said, heavily, "if it comes up.  What we need to focus on now is this array.  And we need to finish it."

"But I don't think we'd be able to use it." Blaze said.  "Not until tomorrow, anyway.  We do it at night and we might as well as just send them a map to us."

It was true.  They finished the array over the night, and the next day, at first light, they prepared to use it.  Cloak fired off his golden scarlet energy at the array and it magnified it and sent it into space.  Then the array promptly fell apart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 28, 2012, 09:13:58 AM

And Blaze fell onto the ground, curled into a ball, and began to suck his thumb while gently sobbing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2012, 09:17:49 AM

Okay, Blaze, that was the LAST thing I expected you to say.  LOL'd so hard my eyes started to tear up . . . XD

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Bloody Banned

Meanwhile, back at the forum, night had fallen.  The vampires were growing restless, feeding on the animals -- feeding, as in killing them, not turning them.  But soon they would run out of food.

Evil Gaz was not feeding, but looking off to the Bannedlands.  She was staring with such intensity, one would think the Bannedlands would suddenly burst into flame.

"Sigma Daughter," Madre had said, "you must go and turn the trolls.  Turn the -- (what do you call them?) -- the Banned.  Bend them to your will.  Bend them to MY will.  Go now.  Do not fail me."

And, with that, the vampire queen had left to return to her cemetary home.  It was only arriving at her home that Madre was realizing her control was beginning to slip.  She redoubled the control over Gaz, as well as Shanker and Nate -- who were already vampires before this* -- to makes sure that her slave master, the Realm Walker Malice, was appeased.  The Madre dreamt of slaying Malice, being free.

She was the queen, the mother of all vampires after all!  She should not be controlled.  She HATED being controlled.  SHE was the one that was supposed to do the controlling.  SHE was supposed to be the top dog, no one over her.  SHE was the one that was supposed to be calling the shots.  She couldn't believe the indignity that she was forced to suffer.

But she would get her revenge sooner than later.  She would soon have an armada of vampires.  An armada!  That stupid cloaked woman couldn't possibly fight off every vampire then.  She'd be destroyed!

Unfortunately, Madre de Vampyra was unaware that Malice knew of this plan, and was completely unconcerned.  It takes an awful lot to overpower a Realm Walker, much less one of her caliber.  And killing Realm Walkers at a Realm Dweller's hand is very much impossible.  Everyone knows that only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker.

Meanwhile, Gaz, Shanker, Nate, Goom, Alic, and AniDragon took off, in bat form, to the Bannedlands to turn everyone there. . . .

-----
*Yes, I looked up the RAFSpecies registry.  And I'm well aware that this could change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 28, 2012, 11:24:23 PM

I don't know why but something about biting the banned feels...unclean.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2012, 07:13:00 AM

Actually, biting the trolls would be worse.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Stellar Visit

"Oh, Blaze, stop that*," Richard chided.  Blaze did immediately and stood up, removed his thumb and wiped off his cheeks.

"What if the signal didn't reach her?" Ash asked.  It had been three whole days since they sent the signal.  The general feeling around the refugee camp was that of foreboding.

"We can't know," Cloak said.  They were back in the clearing, all feeling very anxious and antsy.  "But we can only hope.  Hope that she did get it, and now she's on her way."

"But it's been three days! Seventy-two hours!  That's 4,320 minutes!  That's 259,200 seconds! --" Sakki began.

"Enough, Sakki, you made your point." Phoenix said.  "You bored or something?"

Sakki said nothing -- it was obvious that all of them were getting a little bored and apprehensive.  One of the reasons the came back to the clearing was because they all were getting cabin fever, and Estelore may not have been able to find them.

Cloak attempted to convince himself the signal, the message, the SOS was recieved by their resident sentient star.  He had sent the message at 40 light-years per second -- a feat, even by Realm Walker standards, and Cloak doubt very much that he would be able to such a thing again.  In any case, the array was a pile of scrap anyway.  They would have to find more parts to repair it, if at all possible.

And they could not really save RAF without Estelore.  They were severely outnumbered.  But they were well aware that they were not the only RAFians that were immune to the vampiric virus, they realized during the second day after the signal was sent.  Rocklobster, a ghost you know, Taco, Marvin, Aluminator, Morfowt, BaronConall, Emperor Goose, Oceanspray . . . they all lacked blood, or had inhospitable blood to the vampiric virus.  They were probably either incarcerated . . . or killed.

"Where is Esty?" Cloak muttered.

"Right behind you," a calm voice replied.

----
*

Quote from: newBlazingAngel on March 28, 2012, 09:13:58 AM

And Blaze fell onto the ground, curled into a ball, and began to suck his thumb while gently sobbing.

Yes, now it's in the story. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2012, 08:53:11 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks.  Gonna probably be a long one.  Or not, don't know.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Man with the Plan

"Esty!" the refugees exclaimed.  Esty was standing there in her yellow sundress-wearing avatar.  She wore a kindly smile with sparkling eyes -- although her eyes are alway sparkling.

"Why are you he--" she stopped midthought, and then added, "something's happened to RAF again, hasn't there?"

"Yes.  It is currently overrun with a slight vampire problem," Blaze said dully.

"Vampires?  You're not kidding?"

Then the refugees gave Estelore a full briefing on what had happened, with each one adding a little from what they saw.  And they added in the speculation at the capture of the non-turnable RAFians.

"Whoa . . . anyone got a plan how to stop it?"

"Yes," Cloak said, "now that you're here."

"And?"

"Well, it would seem to me that someone or something took control of Gaz, used her to turn all the RAFians." Cloak said.  "Some sort of vampire queen or vampire mother or something."

Blaze blinked a bit, and said, "Yeah, that makes sense.  Why didn't you say this before, Cloak?"

"I did," Cloak replied, then, with small smile, he added, "It's not my fault that you didn't hear it."

"Cloak, continue.  Please." Estelore said, business-like.

"Well, this mother or queen took control of Gaz's mind, being the mother or queen of vampires, she probably has that ability."

"Then why is this occuring just now?" Ash asked.

"Perhaps she's been in a deep sleep," Richard postulated, "a sleep so deep that she was oblvious to even time passing her by."

"I think that's the most plausible scenario," Sakki concurred.

"Yes," Demos added, "my kind has been known to periodically go into lulls.  Perhaps vampires work in a similar way."

"But then who woke her up?  That's a question here." Phoenix pointed out.

"That's a question we can answer later, though," Estelore countered.  "The plan, Cloak?"

"Well, Blaze, Demos, and I . . ."

And so on it went, until they had a rather coherent plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2012, 09:26:48 AM

Now, time to kick it into gear. . . . I probably should start finishing the chapter-planning for the next book as well . . . shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
No Wrong Turn at Albuquerque

The refugees had decided that they'd be unable to truly get in by air or on the ground.  So, they decide the best way would be to Bugs Bunny their way into the forum.  Cloak, being the only terrakinectic, was instrumental in this endeavor.  Estelore was not with them.  She went off to find the mother vampire, the vampire queen.  They postulated that she'd be hanging out somewhere dark, dank, and . . . well, generally creepy.

The rest of the refugees knew what they had to do.  Cloak, Demos, and Blaze would create a distraction.  Phoenix, Richard, Sakki, and Ash would locate and free the unturnable RAFians to bolster their numbers.  Cloak had another idea to bolster their numbers that he didn't tell the others about.*  He didn't want to see their reaction, and, besides, he may not be able to put his, uh, side-plan to work.

They burst forth from their tunnel, right in the center of the forum.  But the sun was just setting, and as such the vampiric RAFians were not milling around yet.  The place was deserted.  It was a very ominious feeling.

"Go to the threads, guys," Blaze said, "we've got this."

Suddenly, they stumbled upon the two vampiric Time Lords.  Cloak was prepared, he prevented the other two from attacking.  Cloak stomped his foot, and four wooden stakes shot up from the ground.  They rose quickly to shoulder height, and Cloak made a sweeping movement with his right arm.  Then he performed the Hadouken movements, only leaving his fingers splayed at the end.  The stakes sped to the two vampiric Time Lords and impaled them both, one impaling each of their hearts -- Time Lords have two.  Aquilai and Aila fell.

"Cloak!" Blaze shouted.  "I thought we weren't gonna kill 'em!!"

"I didn't." Cloak said.

"But --"

Then that's when the lightshow began.  Then Aila, now a redhead with fair skin, resembling Jean Grey a bit stood.  Aquilai, now wearing a khaki trench coat, three-piece suit, fedora, with a blue scarf with the RAFian "R"s on both ends.  Both smiled and both were cured.

"What the hell?"

"They're Time Lords, Blaze." Cloak explained.  "They can regenerate twelve times.  This is the Second Aquilai and, I presume, the Second Aila."

---
*I am starting to wonder if I'm not taking a more Batman-ish role. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on March 29, 2012, 09:43:49 AM

Batman with almost omnipotent powers ^^

Woo! Back and in an imaginative outfit!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 29, 2012, 09:56:24 AM

"I REALLY need to watch Dr. Who." Blaze said. "One of the only nerd hobbies I don't have is watching sci-fi."




Another great chapter. I'm going to spend my bring break watching stargate so that I can at least get the origins of "Kree"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2012, 10:08:26 AM

What I meant is how Batman seems to always know the weaknesses of his friends and such.  And the fact that he doesn't say it to them.  Like what I did in the Dark Phoenix book.

Sorry, the only Kree I'm familiar with are from the Marvel Comics universe.  Anyway, I'll post more chapters tomorrow.  I'm kinda tapped out now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 29, 2012, 10:10:41 AM

It seems to be a commonly used RAF slng. WHen I enquired about it, they said it was from Stargate. It can be used in sentences like "Oh kree." And "WHAT THE KREE!?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on March 29, 2012, 01:56:59 PM

Aquilai is lookin' classy.   :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2012, 07:21:59 AM

Okay, Blaze, I only watched a couple of episodes of that show.

Yes, Noelle, and Aquilai is gonna gain a new power with it -- but lose another one.

In the next chapter, in fact.  Oh, and aside from the next book, I'm gonna have to come up with some more ideas . . . okay, I do have one, but I need to figure out how to make it work . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Aquilai's New Powers

But this reunion was sort-lived as more of the vampiric RAFians were waking up.  Apparently, Aquilai and Aila were early-risers this night.  But the regenerated Time Lords had inexplicably gain the ability to be immune to the vampirism.  It was a passive ability, true, but it was incrediably useful.  Cloak thought that must have been one facet that made them unique from other Time Lords, but he could have just as easily been mistaken.

"Remember not to hurt them," Cloak reminded, "they don't regenerate like Aquilai and Aila.  I think."

There was a brief sound of Blaze unsheathing his sword, Demos took on a fiery aura, Cloak shifted his shoulders slightly which was amplified through his cloak, Aila struck a Jean Grey pose, and Aquilai looked good-naturedly at the oncoming horde.

"We have to hope that Estelore has already found the vampire queen," Blaze muttered.

"Oh, c'mon," Demos chided, "this could be fun!"

"Demos -- you MUST NOT hurt them!!" Cloak scolded.

"Killjoy."

"Oh, go possess a cow."*

Cloak drove six RAFians into the ground like tent spikes, and saw upon closer inspection that they were Yarin, Goom, Faerie, Horse, Guy, and RYTX.  Cloak had a mad desire to apologize to them . . . but they weren't themselves at the moment.

Blaze took on the vampiric Parker, who had somehow a Generation 1 Megatron plasma cannon attached below his left arm and a Generation 1 Galvatron plasma cannon attached above his left arm.  Blaze was slashing his energy projectiles back at him, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_X7) which he somehow managed to dodge everytime.

Demos saw several vampiric trolls . . . apparently they were sent here to strengthen the horde.  Demos smiled, as he knew these trolls were nothing more than cannon fodder. . . .

Alia somehow managed to defeat the RAFians through a mix of gymnastics and martial arts she inexplixably obtained mastery of.  Cloak saw this and, for some reason, was irresistibly reminded of Gwen Tennyson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben10), only without the energy projectiles.

Aquilai, however, was calmly strolling through the horde, deftly dodging every attack without so much as a sweat.  Eventually, Aquilai engaged in battle and he did not waterbend.  He couldn't waterbend anymore.  Instead, he firebent at the vampiric RAFians and they backed away.  The flames were actually blue, and he lightningbent, but deliberately missing.  But it caused them to back off quite a ways.

This was just until Estelore killed the mother vampire.  If Estelore killed the mother vampire. . . .

----
*Reference to a chat schtick that Demos used to do . . . newer RAFians would probably be unfamiliar with it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2012, 08:42:09 AM

Probably the last chapter today -- but don't hold me to that.  Geez . . . this chapter is writing itself . . .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Star Meets the Mother

Estelore started to scour the globe for the vampire queen.  It was a daunting task, but if she could cross space in the time that she did, she most certainly can accomplish this.  Her determination and will at this task was as unbreakable as admantium.  But it did take her longer than she had anticipated.

But eventually she found her.  But it took her six and half hours to do so.  She could only hope that the others were faring well, she thought she would be able to feel it if any of them perished.  But she pushed those thoughts from her mind.  The vampire queen might want to use them against her.

She assumed her avatar, which wore the yellow sundress and had the sparkling eyes.  She walked into the cemetary, looking perfectly human, but only a fool or dolt would not feel her power, her strength, her resolve.

The queen was one of these such fools.  One would think being humbled repeatedly by Malice would have curbed that pesky arrogance streak of hers.  But a person's most fundamental nature is not so easily changed.

"Who dares to intrude upon my slumbering grounds?!?!" she roared with maximum outrage.

"I do," Esty said quietly.  Estelore's dress and wide-brimmed hat buffeted a bit in the chilly wind.  Estelore paid it no mind.  She was focused on what she saw as a very important duty.

"And who are you to come here?" the vampire queen never lost her haughtiness.

"Who are you to turn RAF into a brothel of vampires?  A crackhouse of hematophages?  How dare you defile the forum with such wickedness?" Esty countered, as she strode closer with a steady, confident gait.

"I can do what I like, human," the vampire queen snarled.  "You are nothing to me."

This is what happens when you only use visual cues to make your judgements.  You become a humonguous fool, a pitiful idiot, and a contemptable person.  Estelore, however, said nothing, but gave a pitying smile.

"Don't you smirk at me, human," the vampire queen spat.  "I should turn you, the horde could always be bolstered.  Now that wasteland next to your precious forum has been annexed to my land."

Estelore blinked, and her smile faded.  She knew immediately what this meant.  The vampiric plague had extended to the Bannedlands.  This could mean that Yorick, Aloth, and even Queen were turned as well.  Estelore was too slow to hide her shock.

"Now do realize who you're dealing with?" the vampire queen said smugly.  "Now do you understand that you are nothing?  Now do you understand I am invincible?"

"Pathetic." Estelore muttered.

"What was that?!"

"Pathetic," Estelore repeated.  "All this posturing of yours.  All this self-indulgent, ego-boosting garbage."

"You don't speak to me like that, human!!"

"That's another thing," Estelore said, and no one has ever heard Estelore this angry.  "I'm not a human.  I'm a sentient star."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 30, 2012, 09:19:30 AM

Wpw, I'm fighting parker and not being brutally murdered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2012, 09:56:26 AM

Yeah, well, Blaze just hope that sword of yours holds out.

[spoiler=SPOILERS!!! MAJOR HONKIN' SPOILERS concerning Blaze]You'll be getting a new sword anyway, between the end of this book and the beginning of the next, I think.  A very special sword . . .[/spoiler]

Chapters'll come tomorrow.  I'll probably finish up this book tomorrow.  But don't hold me to that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on March 30, 2012, 12:15:02 PM

*cracks knuckles, loosens shoulders, and generally gets ready to throw down like Yip Man*

>:-}

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 30, 2012, 02:50:28 PM

Good stuff! This is exciting!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on March 30, 2012, 05:32:51 PM

Must resist urge to not look in spoiler.....nah.


IM GONNA GET THE MASTER SWORD!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2012, 02:08:53 PM

Actually, you'll get something far superior, in my opinion, Blaze. . . . *smiles mysteriously.*  Shortish chapter.  'Bout one or two more chapters to go.  Unless I decide on more.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Oh, Bloody Hell

Meanwhile, back at the forum, the distraction team was having a bit of a problem.  They were pulling their punches, not wanting to harm their vampirically-brainwashed friends and former comrades-in-arms.

"Is it me," Blaze said, still deflecting Parker's shots with his sword, which was starting to look more and more worn with every succeeding volley, "or are we in some deep --"

"There's the others," Aila pointed out, but having no projectile abilities, she was not able to much more than she had already done.

Sure enough, the liberation team had succeeded in freeing the imprisioned, and they were joining the fight.  But it was still a one-sided fight.  The "revolutionary refugees" were still quite outnumbered.

"It's still not enough," Cloak muttered.

"But that's half the fun!" Demos cried with excess bravado.

"Demos, shut up." Phoenix sighed.

"We're still holding our own," Aquilai noticed, firebending expertly.  "That's something."

"But for how long?" Aila intoned.

Suddenly, the entirety of the refugee forces were encircled, and they were completely surrounded from every above ground direction.  There was no escape.  They were at the horde's mercy.  And they didn't really look to be in a merciful mood.

"Uh, not very long, I guess," Blaze commented.

"We have to keep them at bay," Richard commanded.

"Estelore, what's taking you so long?!" Cloak muttered tersely, unheard by anyone but himself.

"Really, Richy?" Evil Gaz said.  "You will continue with this futile exercise?  You would continue to delude yourself to believe you can achieve victory this night?"

"Gaz, this isn't you.  You must fight this evil which has taken you." Phoenix said.

"Alas, dear Phoenix, you don't know me.  Not as well as you believe you do.  No evil has taken me."

"Yes, there has.  It's twisted your mind.  It's bleached your soul black." Cloak said, clearly playing for time.  "You can overcome it, though.  You have the strength.  C'mon back to us, Gaz!"

Something in Gaz's eyes changed for a fraction of a second, before it returned to the previous state.  This proved it to Cloak.  The REAL Gaz was in there, but this evil that had seized her, wrested it from her own mind and body.  But Cloak, for once, had absolutely no idea how to disspell it from her -- only Estelore was in a position to do that. . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 31, 2012, 05:06:56 PM

I'm still in there! Get me out!

Good stuff, Cloak!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on March 31, 2012, 05:14:31 PM

Believe me blaze, you're surviving only because plot demands it. ;D

Great stuff Cloak. I have to say though, the Esty fight probably won't last long. Being a star, she can just shine on her and fry her in an instant. >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2012, 07:46:55 AM

Well, yes, true.  That's why Estelore is to confront her, and not me.  No Realm Walker can simluate a star's stellar power.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Starlight, Star Bright

Estelore, meanwhile, was waiting for Madre de Vampyra to make her first move.  The vampire queen, however, saw Estelore as no challenge, so she wasn't about to make a move.

"So," Estelore said, with faux casuality, "make your move, fang breath."

"You dare to presume to fight me?!" she snarled, indignant.

"I do." Esty replied with her voice calm.  But make no mistake, Estelore was quite angry.  But she was able to set aside such emotions for battle, for she was wise enough to know that anger tends to make you make hasty decisions, which can often be detrimental to your side.

"Filthy human.  But, alas, I am getting hungry."

"For the last time, I may LOOK human.  But I am not." This time Estelore's impatient tone betrayed some of her anger.

"Fine.  Whatever.  Have it your way."

"Now you're still fast food slogans?" Estelore taunted jauntily.

Madre said nothing, but extended her fangs.  Estelore stood up, because she had been leaning nonchalantly against an old gnarled yew tree.  Estelore also showed no fear or anxiety of this fight.  She could easy destroy the Madre, but Estelore's curiosity rivaled Cloak's.  A fatal flaw?  Possibly.

She wanted to see what this vampire mother had in her.

The vampire queen lunged forward, and Estelore made the slightest adjustments to her position, and the queen ran headlong into a tombstone of someone who had the initals "SOPA", but the grave was empty.

"Really?" Estelore asked, with a skeptical tone.  One had to wonder if she was breaking the fourth wall.

"You --" the queen uttered a stream of words in several dead and unknown languages.

"Quite the mouth, don't you?"

The vampire queen was riled up, and Estelore was pitying.  It could be easier but this was pathetic.

"I told you I wasn't a human.  You want to know what I really am?"

"I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S --"

"Such language, queenie!" Estelore scolded the vampire queen as if she were a naughty child.  Well, comparing the ages of the two, it could be seen as apropriate.  Everyone knows that stars such as Estelore are long lived as Realm Walkers.  "I just happen to be . . . a sentient star."

The look on the queen's face was quite priceless.  From a near-berserker rage to incredulity to shock to abject terror.  She knew what Esty was about to do before she did it.

Estelore used her stellar power to shine as bright as day.  With a strangled hiss, the madre turned gray as ashes, frozen like a statue.  Then suddenly, a wind came and blew her away.

"Pathetic," Estelore said, posthumously, shaking her head.  Her voice was sad and pitying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 03, 2012, 09:48:37 AM

That was way too easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2012, 10:07:25 AM

Estelore is a star, Blaze -- it was always an unequal fight before either stepped onto the battlefield.  It is common knowledge that Estelore is the most powerful RAFian -- more powerful than myself.

And I'm thinking of adding a poll to this thread . . . seeing the favorite book (but I won't vote, naturally).

But more chapters'll come tomorrow.  I'm running very short on time, just now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 03, 2012, 10:16:24 AM

Well I wwas aware that she ws a star I just thought the fight might have been a little more dramatic. It's still another good chapter though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on April 03, 2012, 03:43:19 PM

*dusts grey ashen-schmutz off our sundress*

^_^;

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2012, 07:06:22 AM

Thanks.  Hmmm . . . maybe I can stretch this out to another two or three chapters. . . . I think it would make it my longest book.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Curse is Lifted, Somewhat

Back at RAF, the refugees were completely encircled.  Blaze's sword had finally broken, after being required to being used so arduously against projectiles.  This cause Blaze to have a bit of a break-down -- the sword was quite important to him.

Then a large figure loomed up out of the crowd.  A vampiric Pootang.

"They got the Pootang," Phoenix muttered, "perfect.  Just bloody perfect."

The refugees were severely outnumbered, ten-to-one, and they were prepared to make their last stand.  All the horde had to do was press their attack, swarm over them like army ants over a forest floor.  But they seemed to hesitate, or wait for something.  This sowed confusion among the refugees.

Then, quite suddenly and rather rapidly, they all turned ashy-gray.  Then the shadows seemed to recede from the forum, and it brightened to its natural luster and brillance.  Then the ashy gray color flaked away from the horde, revealing the RAFians, whole and cured again.  But with no memory of the past week or so.

All except Gaz.  She was burdened, cursed really, with knowing everything that happened.  What she had done under the Madre's macrabe influence.  She wore a look of horror on her face, and seemed to be on the verge of furious tears -- self-hating tears.

She ran to her thread, unable to look at anyone, to talk to anyone.  Cloak, Guy, and the other RAFians looked after her, greatly concerned.  Of course, only Gaz herself and the refugees held any memory of these events, so they knew why she was so upset.

"We should not speak of this to anyone," Richard whispered to the refugees, "if only for Gaz's sake."

"No one would believe us," Ash interjected.  "It sounds like a bad fic."

"Speak for yourself," Cloak said, a bit indignant.

Ash looked puzzled at this reaction.  Cloak realized that he had broken the fourth wall again, and apologized.  Phoenix, however, was looking at where Gaz had gone.  He wore a very serious look on his face.

"I am going to have a talk with her," he decided.

"Phoenix --"

"Let him go," Aila advised.

Cloak, however, turned to Blaze, who was cradling his broken sword.  It was then that Cloak realized that the sword had not been broken -- it had been shattered beyond repair.  Even for a ferrokinetic.  The only part that wasn't shattered was the hilt.  Blaze was completely woebegone.

"Blaze, please," Cloak said, kneeling, holding out his hand, "let me see that."

Blaze looked at Cloak, but did nothing more.

"Please,  I have a friend.  In the Nexus.  His name is Itemsmith . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 04, 2012, 11:08:11 AM

Gonna do the the master sword dance *starts shuffling*

It occurs to me that regular pootang is still out of his cage.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2012, 04:04:25 PM

Now you know what the rest of us will be doing while Phoenix and Gaz have their little heart-to-heart.  And, no, you won't be getting a Master Sword, whatever that is.  You'll get something far superior.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 04, 2012, 04:37:47 PM

(http://fiberglassblades.com/images/TP-Master-Sword-1.jpg)


(http://www.zeldainformer.com/images/articleimages/master-sword.jpg)


(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090421234832/zelda/images/thumb/3/32/Master_Sword_in_the_Lost_Woods.png/185px-Master_Sword_in_the_Lost_Woods.png)



The master sword: a legendary blade used byl ink in the legend of zelda series.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 04, 2012, 07:16:29 PM

I am back to normal! But so sad. :-(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on April 04, 2012, 09:36:48 PM

I don't think being an awesome pirate = normal! But yeah, hopefully you'll get more development. ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 04, 2012, 11:40:50 PM

Great ending so far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 04, 2012, 11:53:55 PM

It isn't over yet. I have yet to pull it from the pedestal of time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2012, 05:30:36 AM

I thought that's what you meant Blaze.  But you won't be getting it.  Hate to burst your bubble.  But, like I said, you'll get something superior, in my opinion.  And Parker will get an, heh, upgrade.  Or should I say his armor systems will get an, uh, "accessory".

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
The Powwow

"Uh, guys?" Blaze said, standing up slowly, after Cloak had Walked back to the Nexus.  "It occurs to me that the Pootang is still free and on the loose."

The others blinked.  It was a good thing that Pootang was still disoriented from being a vampire.  Disoriented and a bit confused.

"Uh, yeah.  A little bit of an oversight." Brad confessed.

"Well, let's have a little fun, then," Faerie said, smiling that devil-may-care smile of hers.

***

Meanwhile, in Gaz's thread, she felt it was safe enough to allow tears to fall.  She was going through her closet, and taking out items of clothing.  Then she folded them somewhat haphazardly and placed them, almost absent-mindedly, into a suitcase.  She was leaving RAF, she decided.  She thought after what she'd done, she no longer deserved to be a RAFian, no longer deserved to bear the Mark.

There was a soft knock on the door, but she said nothing.  After a few minutes, there was a soft, but somehow firmer knock on the door.  Still Gaz remained voiceless.  With a long creak, the door opened gently, and Phoenix entered the room.  He wore a look of concerned understanding as he shut the door.

"Leaving, Gaz?" he said, gently.

Gaz froze in place for a moment, and told Phoenix that yes, she was leaving.  Phoenix nodded seriously, then sighed heavily as he said, "I know what you're going through, you know."

Gaz looked up at him, tears still very much present, but she was confrontational.  "Do you?"

"Yes." Phoenix answered simply.

"You know what it's like to almost single-handedly destroy something you love?" Gaz countered.

"Did you forget that I had involuntarily been possessed by that Revenant, becoming Dark Phoenix?"

Gaz had.

"Lucky you," Phoenix said.  For the first time, his voice held a hint of bitterness.  "I almost destroyed RAF.  But I had no control over my actions.  I fought it with all my strength, but failed to gain control over myself.  I know it was the same with you."

Gaz hesitated, thinking how to answer that.  Phoenix waited patiently and politely for her rebuttal.

"It's . . . it wasn't . . ." Gaz stammered.

Phoenix waited for her to find the words.

"It wasn't like she possessed me.  It's like . . . there was this darkness deep within me that seemed to multiply and gain strength with each turn. . . . Even when you and Demos cured yourselves with your regenerative abilities, I -- er, this darkness, gained more and more strength."

"That's similar to how it was when the Revenant possessed me."

"But . . . I think . . . I think I . . . I liked it.  And that scares me, Phoenix.  It terrorifies me."

"Cloak once said that there's darkness in everyone, just as there is light.  It is the duality of existence.  One cannot exist without the other.  Good cannot exist without evil, and vice versa."

"That sounds all fancy and whatnot," Gaz said, tossing a virus plushie into a bookbag, "but what if I give into this darkness again?  I cannot risk putting RAF into this kind of peril again.  Aquilai and Aila can only regenerate eleven more times now.  I think.  And we won't always have you, the ones who were -- who are immune to the vampire virus to save us.  And I would be lost to the darkness."

"But we will be," Phoenix said.

"How do you know that for sure?"

"I don't.  But have faith, Gaz.  It will always turn out alright in the end."

"I just don't know, Phoenix."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 05, 2012, 08:45:51 AM

Aw, pep talk time! ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 05, 2012, 09:17:13 AM

D'aww.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2012, 09:31:18 AM

Yes -- *adopts his best "announcer-guy" voice, which is actually pretty pathetic* Will Gaz stay in RAF?  Will the Pootang be returned to its cell?  Will Blaze give up the idea of having the Master Sword? (Oh, you know I kid. ;))  Tune in, same RAFy place, same RAFy time!

. . .

RIGHT NOW!!  Oh, yeah, this IS my longest "book" here.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
All According to the Plan

Gaz had decided to put the plan of leaving RAF on hold for a few days.  She thought it was against her better judgement though.  Cloak had returned to RAF after a weak and a half.  He immediately sought out Blaze.  He and Parker were teasing each other about the fight, when Parker was all "vamped up".

"Blaze, I have your replacement weapon," Cloak said, withdrawing a sword from his cloak.  It looked pretty identical to the old one.  Cloak saw Blaze's face and reaction.  "Were you expecting something different?"

"Well --"

"That Master Sword thing, right?" Cloak said, shaking his head a bit, as Blaze took hold of the sword's handle.  The blade immediately started to glow orange and pink mixed together.  Then he looked at Cloak with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry, Itemsmith is still on this emotional spectrum thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_spectrum).  Red for angry and hatred.  Orange for avarice and greed." Cloak stopped briefly, then continued.  "Pink for love."  Cloak stopped again, glancing at the blade, which suddenly became red.  Blaze was embarrased a bit, and it was apparently making him a little angry.  Then green and blue intermingled with the red.  "Green for will.  Blue for hope.  Violet for . . . um . . . compassion.  White for when you're feeling no emotion at all."

"Isn't that like the sword you gave to Yunyun?" Parker asked.  He still retained the arm-mounted duel fusion cannons on his left arm.  It gave that arm quite a bulky appearance.

"Yes," Cloak answered, "that was also made by Itemsmith.  But his one is quite different.  For instance, Blaze, if you think of, say, tonfa --"

Suddenly, Blaze wasn't holding a sword anymore, but a single tonfa with white glowing tip.  Blaze was so surprised he nearly dropped it.

"Or perhaps, a glaive," Cloak said casually as though nothing interesting just happened, as the weapon became a long staff tipped with a blade glowing white.  "Or a boomerang, a shield, a chain whip, a bo staff, a war hammer, a war fan . . . well, I think you get the point.  Any melee weapon, at your disposal."

Blaze said nothing, he was too shocked.  But Cloak knew he would be pleased.  He had a vertiable arsenal in one weapon.  Parker looked almost envious, but not much.  Parker was always more into armor and firearms . . .

"Oh, Parker, I have an upgrade for you to." Cloak tossed him what appeared to be a minisule Escafil device.  When it he caught it, it melted into his armor, fusing with it easily.

"What did you do?"

"Advancing your armor a bit.  Giving a secondary armor, so to speak.  It was one of Itemsmith's side projects.  It gives you access to Ride Armor."

"Ride . . . Ride what?"

Suddenly, Parker was several feet taller, inside of Ride Armor like that in Sting Chameleon's stage.

"That would be what Itemsmith called the Chameleon Ride Armor.  There is Penguin, Dash, Chimera, Kangaroo, Frog, Hawk, Slash, and Spider Ride Armors.  Each has its own usefulness, and each doubles your physical strength, doubles your top speed, drastically increases your defensive strength.  But be careful.  If you destroy one, I don't know if it would be able to be repaired."

Then Cloak left the two boys with their new toys.

***

Malice, however, was reading another leather-bound book, one without at title.  She smirked as she read.  If the Madre de Vampyra's death affected her or her plans at all, she didn't show it.  Although she was a little disappointed that it was the star that eliminated her, and not Cloak.

Her interest in Claok was an odd thing.  She was three or four generations older than him, so it was nothing romantically involved.  Indeed, Malice herself seemed not to understand her fascination with Cloak and his RAFian allies.  But she was really enjoying throwing obstacle after obstacle after him.  It was like a sick video game to her, or something.

Then a thought occured to the malicious Realm Walker.  What would Cloak do if his RAFians, all of them, were gone?  Oh, what fun!!  But this would take time and study to find the objects.  She would give him a year of breathing room . . . yes, that's what she'd do.

Malice was elated at this prospect to torment Cloak, grandson of Sage, decedant of Avatar, the first Elements Master of existence.  Avatar, bane of the Twelve -- which were the Thirteen then. . . .

Malice shut the book, set it down upon her glass coffee table.  Then she walked away, to some destination known only to her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 05, 2012, 09:48:50 AM

I was using the term master sword to kind of refer to it once you said I was't getting the actual master sword. But still COOL!

The term meelee weapon is very vague. An eighteen wheeler could be considered a meelee weapon...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2012, 09:53:17 AM

Yeah, if you're Superman.  Melee weapons, like close-range weapons, like the examples given. . . . Besides, it requires you to hold the weapon, otherwise it reverts to being just a sword.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 05, 2012, 10:13:39 AM

I can hold an eighteen wheeler...if I try....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2012, 11:30:49 AM

Sorry.  Doesn't work that way.  Any non-projectile weapon, not an eighteen-wheeler.

New book's gonna begin tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 06, 2012, 04:36:55 AM

Those are interesting forms Cloak. It'd be cool to see how they worked in Intro Randomness. Alas, I've already made the change to Jedi for Parker. But Shaft may very well return. >:D

I like the cliffhanger too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2012, 07:27:55 AM

And here I was, afraid that I made it too obvious. ;D  Gonna be a bit lengthy, perhaps.

BOOK VII:
MALICE'S STONES
CHAPTER ONE:
Underground Malice

Cloak stood on his usual hill above RAF, which looked oddly Egyptian for some reason.  A mysterious chorus was singing something, but Cloak was paying no mind to it, as he looked as fire rained down on his beloved RAF.

Cloak, in an aside, sang:

"Once I called you brother,
Once I though the chance
To make you laugh
Was all I ever wanted.
And, even now,
I wish that fate had chose another,
Serving as your foe on destiny's behalf
Is the last thing I ever wanted.
This was my home.
All this pain and devestation,
How it tortures me inside!
All the innocent who suffer
From your arrogance and pride!
You who I called brother,
Why must you call down another blow?
Let the RAFians go!!"

Then, from that hill, the view swoops down to reveal the Abomination in his form merged with the Twelve.  He wore an ugly, obstinate look on his face.  He was sitting on the throne he crafted, but when viewed he stood up and walked away from the throne with a haughty gait.

Then he sang:

"You who I called brother,
How could you have
Come to hate me so?
Is this what you wanted?
Then let my heart be hardened,
And never mind how high
The cost may grow.
This will still be so.
I will never let the RAFians go!
I will not let the RAFians go!"

Suddenly, the dream ended.  Cloak sat up in the bed in his thread.  He sighed heavily, it was the same dream he'd been having over a year now.  Ever since the vampire incident at RAF.  Every time it's come up, Gaz (who remained a RAFian) suddenly was struck mute and deaf.

It was true, as young children, Abomination and Cloak were friendly.  Friends, even.  But, come adolescence, Abomination turned on Cloak.  Abomination always knew that Cloak was always destined to be Elements Master.  Cloak had always operated on the assumption that Abomination was jealous, and that jealosy congealed into hatred.

Cloak ran his fingers through his fur, breathing a little heavily.  The dream was always quite vivid.  But he would not tell the other RAFians of this dream.  He kept it from them for a year, and he would rather not put Gaz through scrutiny again.  She's really had enough of that, especially from the various skirmishes with the Banned and trolls.

But, he gave up trying to get more sleep, and decided to read a book on his Kindle. . . .

***

Malice, however, was deep within a long-forgotten area of the Nexus, underground.  She was digging, which she had been doing for the past year.  But she didn't mind, she had almost all of what she wanted.  She just had to uncover the last one.

And there it was.

"Now, Cloak," she muttered to herself, "you and your precious RAFians will bid a fond adieu."

Then she cackled with shrieking laughs.  Which caused a cave-in.

"Oh, for the love of -- !"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 06, 2012, 09:57:49 AM

And Malice was crushed to death by the falling rocks, and never found again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2012, 10:16:21 AM

Now, now, Blaze!  You don't honestly think that that would be enough to finish her off? ;)  That would make this a very short book, otherwise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 06, 2012, 10:41:25 AM

Of course notr! It's only on the rare occasion when my ancedotes slip through the fourth wall.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 06, 2012, 02:51:56 PM

That was great! Loved it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2012, 07:21:11 AM

Thanks, Gazzy.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Greatest Divide

Malice appeared a few miles north of RAF, having survived the cave-in.  She had to dig herself and her loot out of the cave, and she managed it with all the dignity and decorum that she could muster.

She set a smooth, egg-shaped, puke green stone the size of an overlarge coconut down, but it hovered a few inches above the marking she made below it.  She smiled sinisterly.  Then she whispered one word to the stone, in breathless tones.

"Activate."

Suddenly, there was a brilliant green flash as the stone took on a near-transparency.  The shockwave rushed around in all directions.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Parker was using his Spider Ride Armor to change a light bulb.  Blaze was testing out all the forms his new weapon could take.  Although he seemed disappointed that it couldn't turn into an eighteen-wheeler.  Dameg and Esplin were agruing, like a married couple.  Ash and Broken were having a bit of a picnic.  Estelore had left to explore more of the Virgo costellation.

Cloak and Shadow were training in the elements.  Shadow sent an orb of air toward her uncle, which he deftly deflected.  He sent a wave stones along the ground, in a fissure*, toward her.  Shadow simply jumped atop the wave, and rode it, giggling like a maniac.

"Shadow!  Get serious about this!!" Cloak scolded.

"Sorry, Uncle."

Then she fired a ball of fire that burst into many upon contact with Cloak's earth wall.  It was the Burst Shot technique, and it was actually skillfully performed.  Cloak's smile told Shadow this, and she smiled back.

But then she had to stand back when two seconds later, Cloak performed a fiery Shoryuken-like uppercut.  She had JUST dodged it.

"Shadow, don't forget: never let your guard down in battle.  Never.  Not even for a moment."

Shadow took her opportunity during this lecture to wrap Cloak's leg with wooden vines.  Cloak was impressed, she caught him with his attention diverted.  She was always a smart little girl, after all.  Although, sometimes, too smart for her own good.

Cloak fired an Hadouken-like fireball, and Shadow was "knocked-out".

"Aw, man!" she complained.

"Do not be saddened by this, Shadow," Cloak said, "you've come a long way.  Your skills have improved a great deal."

"Yeah, I guess --"

Suddenly, a green flash passed over them.  Cloak was gone.

"Uncle!" Shadow cried.  "Uncle!  Where are you?!"

It was then that Shadow realized that Cloak wasn't the only one that had gone.  Blaze was missing too.  So was Parker.  And Esplin.  And every other RAFguy.

They, every single RAFguy, were all gone.

----
*To clarify, like the Ground-Group Pokemon in Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 09, 2012, 09:08:41 AM

According to what I know about being the last person on earth, you should go insane at least once, and then try to kill all of the vampires.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2012, 10:18:10 AM

The RAFgirls are still there, Blaze.  Just all of the guys have vanished.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 09, 2012, 04:15:03 PM

Where'd the dudes go? Cant wait to read more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 09, 2012, 05:44:23 PM

I have no idea. Playboy mansion, for the love of the good lord please let it be the playboy mansion!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2012, 06:59:15 AM

No such luck, Blaze.  Besides, remember some RAFguys are RAFmarried.  I don't want to see what would happen to 'em.

CHAPTER THREE:
Where's All the Guys?

The RAFgirls conduct a search of RAF and surrounding areas.  But not a single RAFguy could be seen.  Even the male Banned and male trolls were gone.  Queen, however, didn't care.  She was last seen ranting to a couple of female trolls, which really didn't look any different from male trolls.

"You find anything?" Gaz asked the others, tired from the search.

"Nope." Aila replied.

"Nothing." Dameg sighed.

"Nada." Ash put in.

"Zip." Alic said.  She was worried about her Jack, who was taken away as well.

<Zero.> Noelle said dolefully.

Shadow remained silent.  Her uncle had always been there when she needed him.  She wasn't used to his absence, not like this.  She also secretly wondered if it was something she did, but Shadow did not possess the power to remove all males from a realm -- no Realm Walker possessed that power.

But where were they?  How could the be brought back?

<Hey,> ND said, looking through a stalk eye, <what's that?>

She pointed just north of RAF, where a deep-throated roar could be heard with earth-shattering steps.  It wasn't approaching, but something was there.  Could have been guarding something.  They went to check it out.

***

Meanwhile, in a white void of nothingness, the RAFguys floated.  Blaze was looking petulant, Parker was looking slightly ticked, but the most of the rest of the RAFguys were looking perplexed and confused.

"Were we wished out of existance by the Dragonballs or something?" Blue asked, drily.

"Dragonballs don't exist.  Not in this realm, anyway." Cloak said.  He looked like his was going to toss his cookies.  Which was odd, because he didn't have a cookies for a long time.

"Speak for yourself!!" Shock exclaimed.

After a beat, Cloak replied, "Shock, get your mind out of the proverbial gutter."

"Where the devil are we?!" Blaze demanded.

"It would appear to be a limbo," Goom noted, "a void filled with nothing -- nothing but us."

"Of course!" Blaze said, tossing his hands up.  "Why can't it ever be the playboy mansion?"

They ignored that, and were deliberating on whether to call this place "Dimension M" or "M-limbo", when Blaze pointed out that they really should be deciding on how to get the hell out of here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 10, 2012, 09:12:49 AM

Quote

They ignored that, and were deliberating on whether to call this place "Dimension M" or "M-limbo", when Blaze pointed out that they really should be deciding on how to get the hell out of here.

At least I have some amount of sense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 10, 2012, 07:32:52 PM

You just have to find the door... the white door. This reminds me of a small series on YouTube called The Last Scene by Olan Rodgers. (http://youtu.be/VzE4Mhn7pgI)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on April 10, 2012, 07:37:46 PM

Hah! We love that series. Have you seen New Prime yet?
/off-topic


Loving how the story's going, Cloaky. :]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 10, 2012, 07:45:10 PM

Yeah, new prime is awesome. He put a Megaman X video up too. It's sick.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 10, 2012, 08:06:13 PM

What did I just watch?  :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 10, 2012, 11:19:49 PM

Pure awesome. There are three other episodes. However it's probably better to discuss it elsewhere.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2012, 06:41:16 AM

Thanks.  I actually based this . . . this plot on an episode of Danny Phantom, but I forget what it's called.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Turtle Power

"Get me out of this white hell!" Blaze shouted, attempting to slash his way out.  His sword was glowing banana-yellow.  He was afraid.

"Will you calm down?!" Cloak roared.  He was still feeling quite nauseous.  He felt like he was holding his own molecules together by sheer force of will.  It wasn't truly happening, but he felt that way nonetheless.  "Slashing at nothingness will not get us out of here any sooner!"

"But the question remains," Yarin pointed out, "how do we get free, if, indeed, we CAN be freed."

"Just a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Blue said drolly.

The conversation began going in circles from here.  No one came up with a viable solution, and Cloak just floated at a slant, his nausea not going away quickly enough.  Usually time travel would make Cloak feel like this, but not as bad.  So, they didn't travel through time.  But what . . . the green flash.  That obviously did it.  But how?  And why?

Malice, Cloak thought.

***

Meanwhile, in reality, the RAFgirls and Shadow were heading north of RAF.  They saw an overlarge, midnight black tortoise.  Its beaked mouth was sharper than the sharpest blade, its shell was unnaturally smooth, and gem-like.

"What IS that thing?" Gaz asked.

"It's a turtle," Shadow commented.

Gaz narrowed her eyes at Shadow, "I know that."

"What's that it's guarding?" Faerie asked.

"Some sort of stone, I think," Horse suggested.

<That must be the thing that sent the RAFguys away,> Noelle guessed.

"What makes you say that?" Gaz said.  "It could have been anything."

"That stone, nor the turtle, wasn't their yesterday." Ash said.  "Broken and I picnicked just under that banyan tree over there."

"Well, I guess that means we must defeat or destroy the turtle, then destroy the stone."

"Yeah, 'coz that'll be so easy." Shadow muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 11, 2012, 09:13:25 AM

The tortoise sounds like a legend of zelda boss.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2012, 07:08:54 AM

It's actually based on those directional creature things in Asian mythology - Black Tortoise, Vermillion Bird, White Tiger, Azure Dragon, Yellow Dragon, etc.

Oh, that Danny Phantom episode I based this part on was "Girls Night Out".

CHAPTER FIVE:
Fallen and Shattered

"Okay . . . how do we beat that thing?" Gaz asked.

"Hope we get lucky?" Horse replied brightly.

"Anyone else?"

But Sakki had charged forward and attempted to punch and kick and basically melee-attack it, but it would not penetrate the shell.  She backed off as it knicked her metallic body.*

"Well, that beak mouth of it is sure sharp," Sakki said, with false bravado.

"I think we need to aim for the shell.  Penetrate that first, then we can consider what to do next." Aila said.

Faerie attempted to get through the shell with that huge honkin' battleaxe of hers.  But it didn't even make the smallest nick.  Faerie looked to be offended by this turtles superior defensive abilities.

"Well!" she said.

The RAFgirls were debating and deliberating on another means of attacking the turtle, each of which failed or were incredibly unlikely to work.  Shadow, however, was gazing around, taking in the turtle and the semi-transparent green stone.  She had a startling notion.

"The guardian isn't important," Shadow said suddenly.

"The what?" Ash asked, as the RAFgirls broke off the debate.

"The turtle is guarding that gem.  We don't need to destroy that turtle.  We need to shatter the stone."

"Good idea!" Faerie declared.  "Any idea how?"

"Nope."

"Swell."

But the turtle wouldn't let them anywhere near it.  Shadow got so frustrated, that she used the earth element to lift the turtle's legs on earthen columns, the left side being much higher than the right.  The left side was continuing to be higher, until the turtle tumbled off, landing on its back.  Unable to right itself.

"There!  Now, stay there, you black-shelled . . . uh, ragamuffin!"

"'Ragamuffin'?" Alic asked, teasingly.

"Okay, so my battle banter needs work." Shadow sniped.  "Just destroy that stone."

<But HOW?> Noelle asked.

"Perhaps simultaneous energy blasts?" Aila asked.

"But Shadow is the only one here with energy blasts.**" Gaz pointed out.

<Wait -- what if we use the Mark?> ND said.

"The Mark . . ." Horse said, looking at her flipper.

"We've got nothing to lose," Dameg said, and she aimed her mark at the stone.  The rest of the RAFgirls did the same.  Shadow did nothing, as she did not carry the Mark.

The stone seemed impervious to it at first.  Then it fissured, then fractured.  After several tense moments, it shattered into powder, into dust.  It was gone, and seconds later, there was a green flash.  And the RAFgirls dashed back to RAF as the large turtle petrified, then dissolved into dirt.

---
*Yes, Sakki is a VOLCAROID in this, which I noticed that she changed on the Registry.
**If I'm mistaken, sorry!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2012, 01:05:27 PM

Okay, a new chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Normalcy Returns . . . Somewhat

The RAFguys were standing right where they vanished, looking very dazed, and Cloak looking very much like he was going to be sick.  He was never very good at time travel, although the RAFguys did not travel through time, Cloak found the experience very similar.

Shadow, naturally, went to attend to her uncle, while the RAFgirls reunited with their RAFguys, and Blaze was absent-mindedly holding his sword out, the glow was transparent, personifying his dazed state.  He blinked, and the sword glowed white as he sheathed it.

Then the other RAFians launched into a lively discussion about what happened on both sides, but Cloak sat down, leaning against a tree.  His nausea was slowly fading, and he was becoming in a fitter state.

***

Meanwhile, back at the side of the shattered green stone, Malice was looking on, with a small smile playing around her face.  She held two small blue stone shards in her hand, about the size of a pack of playing cards.  She kept rotating them in her hand, then she held each one in both her hands, looking through them, delighting in how they captured the light.

Then she quickly pocketed them, and entered the shadows, entering another Realm for a bit.  Laughing maliciously all the while.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Cloak was reflecting on the events.  It was really over -- a lot quicker than usual, Cloak noted.  The the other RAFians were sending up and alarm.  Cloak woozily got to his feet and went over to ask what was up now.

"It's Esplin and Dameg," Parker reported, "they're gone, and no one can find them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 13, 2012, 06:14:38 PM

Oh things are heating up!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2012, 06:32:32 PM

It's funny that you word it that way, Blaze . . . but you'll find out why soon enough.  Short, stubby chapter.  Sorry.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Red Stone

Malice appeared a good distance south of RAF, without the blue shard stones in her possession.  She had left them elsewhere, at some unknown destination.  She still wore a very satisfied smile, as she produced a red stone, identical to the green one except its coloring.

She set it down, and it hovered an inch or two above the ground, rotating clockwise slowly.  She watched it for a few moments, then bent over it, and whispered, almost lovingly, "Activate."

The red one did as the green one had, and turned nearly-translucent (while still remaining red), and unleashed a red shockwave that hurtled recklessly towards RAF.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Cloak, Shadow and Aquilai were talking about the "Legend of Korra" series that was to debut soon.  Aquilai causally mentioned that he too could lightningbend, something Cloak himself was unable to do.  Although Cloak found that he could redirect it and other forms of energy, but it was incredibly draining for him to do so.  As such, he preferred not to do it.  Shadow confessed she did not know how to do this -- with her uncle saying that she would learn, in time.

Then the red flash came, and Shadow, Jack, Horse, Blocky -- everyone under 18 biologically -- were suddenly gone!  Vanished, without a trace.  Every underage RAFian . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 13, 2012, 06:40:46 PM

You know, if they ever wanted to keep us in a prison, make it nice. Free wifi and infinite cheeseburgers and I would never, ever leave.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2012, 06:43:06 PM

Be sure to check the above post -- I started typing up the next chapter.  Then I opened a tab to check sumthin'.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on April 13, 2012, 07:09:21 PM

Cool lightning :P
[spoiler]

Quote from: Iroh

Lightning is a pure expression of firebending, without aggression. It is not fueled by rage or emotion, the way other firebending is. Some call lightning "the cold-blooded fire." It is precise and deadly, like Azula. To perform the technique requires peace of mind.

[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2012, 07:39:44 PM

One reason why I cannot do it.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Parallel Panic

<Where . . . where'd they go?> Noelle was heard to say.

"Not again." Gaz muttered.

Cloak said nothing, but began looking everywhere for his niece.  She had to be here somewhere!!  She just could NOT have been gone.  He would never allow her to be slain in such a way.  Faith had charged him with her care, something he NEVER took too lightly.

But his efforts were futile, as he could not find her.  His concern for his neice and protege caused him not to notice the new sense that the realm had somehow been fractured.  Right down the middle.

"Horse, Block, Jack -- all the under-eighteens." Parker reported.  "All gone . . ."

"But to where?" Aquilai said.  "The RAFguys were shunted to a white void last time."

"I don't have interdimensional sensors," Parker retorted.  "I cannot tell you that.  Perhaps Cloak can, though.  Cloak!  Hey, Cloak!"

Cloak came over, looking thoroughly woe-begone. "What?"

"Do you know where the other went?" Aquilai said.

Cloak narroed his eyes dangerously.  He was very protective of his neice, so naturally he would be in a very, very foul mood just now.  When he spoke, the anger was unmistakeable.

"No.  I don't.  If I did, Shadow would be standing right here with me."

"But could you Realm Walk there?" Parker interjected.

"Do you trying walking around with your eyes closed?" Cloak snapped.

"No, but --"

"That's what Realm Walking aimlessly, without an definite destination, is like.  I rather not do it -- it won't be precise, and I could end up worse off then when I left."

Then Cloak turned his back and began to search again.

"Whoa -- losing Shadow is a sore point with him." Aquilai noted.

"But, really, Aquilai, can you blame him?"

Then they notice a faint red glow in the distance, to the south.

***

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fissure, the under-eighteens were confused and looking for the elder RAFians, as there was fewer of them then the adult RAFians, though between fifty or sixty still.  They searched to no avail.

Shadow was concerned for her uncle, but knew faster than him that the Realm had been fractured down the middle.  She just didn't know what could have caused it, though she suspected that it was another one of those stones.

"ANOTHER one?" Horse exclaimed.  "How many more of these stupid stones are there?!"

"I don't know." Shadow answered honestly.  "But I do know that this stone has broken the Realm down the middle.  I assume the young ones are on this side, and the older ones are on the other.  I guess."

"But why can't we see the fracture?" Yunyun asked.

"Because it's not a spatial or chronial tear, I suppose," VisserZer0 postulated.

"But how do we fix it?" Mythgirl asked.

"I guess we go over to where that red glow is," Shadow pointed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2012, 10:42:26 AM

'Nother chapter, maybe?

CHAPTER NINE:
For the Birds

The youngster RAFians darted south and saw the faintly-red, near-transparent stone slowly revolving on the spot.  It's right half was simply not present, but even though it was revolving, it looked stationary.  Shadow looked at it, ****ed her head, and stroked her chin.  She was wonder how to destroy it.

"That's it, then." Yunyun said.  "And -- what do we do now?  What do we know about it?"

"All good questions," Horse confessed, "but we must destroy it quickly before --"

"BRA-A-A-A-A-A-K!!"

"Oh, great."

***

Gaz, Parker and Aquilai led the other RAFians to the red glow, along with an usually cold Cloak, which turned out to be another stone.  Cloak looked at it wearily, as he seemed to recall a legend about four stones placed at the four cardinal directions -- north, south, east, and west.  Each with it's own guardian.

The northern stone was a black tortoise.  He couldn't remember the other three, and he was sure there was one in the center . . . a yellow dragon.  Cloak's eyes widened as he realized that could be referencing the Pootang . . . but a Pikachu, even a Pikachu as rabid and overlarge as the Pootang, was hardly a dragon. . . .

"How do we destory it?" Parker pressed.

"Don't know," Gaz stated.

"Wait, wouldn't there be some sort of --" Aila said.

"BRA-A-A-A-A-A-Ak!!!!"

Aila facepalmed as she finished, "Guardian . . ."

It was the right side of a huge, overlarge, vermillion bird.  By all logic, a bird that size could not be airborne with a single wing, but it was obvious the other side was in the half of the Realm that the youngsters currently inhabited.

Cloak cracked his knuckles, which was uncharacteristicall y violent of him.  "Let's get this over with."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2012, 06:32:46 PM

'Nother chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Lightningbending

Cloak dashed towards the birds, not really caring it he had to battle it alone.  He had become dangerously reckless.  The others however were not as foolhardy, though they followed Cloak's lead.  Cloak stamped his feet and a spire of earth launched him into the sky.  He somersaulted once and landed on the birds back.

<Okay, now he's just showing off.> Noelle commented dryly.

Cloak knew he could not access the other side of the bird, but found that he cared very little about it.  Nor did he realize that Shadow had just done the same on the other side of the Realm divide, and was closely mirroring his actions.

The RAFians that could fly were charging the bird, but its slipstream was murder for them to deal with.  Cloak attempted to strike it down with fire, but failed miserably at this, and found out why a few seconds later when it fired a stream of fire at Jess and Gaz, and at Yunyun and Mythgirl in the other half of the Realm.

So fire was it's element, which meant that fire could not harm it.  But surely, water would be enough to qwell this beast.  But before Cloak and Shadow (still mirroring each other's movements) could attempt it, the bird began bucking violently.  It was all they could do to remain atop it.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Gaz, Jess, and Aquilai had decided to focus on the stone itself.  But all of their attacks wound up rebounding upon them.  They proceed more cautiously.

Aquilai took a deep breath, and began the motions to begin lightningbend.  He fired yellow lightning from his left index and middle fingers.  It hit the stone, sparked along its surface.

For a second, it appeared to have done nothing.  But there was the smallest of lateral fissures going from the top to the bottom.  It had worked, partially.

Back atop the beast, the bird did a sort of barrel roll, and both Cloak and Shadow fell off.  Cloak managed to right himself and land on his feet, as all cats are prone to do without even thinking.  Shadow, however, landed squarely on her rear end.

Cloak glared at the bird, stomped his feet, and beachball-sized boulders of earth levitated at chest level, and Cloak fired one after the other at the bird, but only with marginal success.

"Hey!  Watch it, Cloak!" Faerie roared.

Shadow, however, did not mirror this in the young-half of the Realm.  She attempted to aerokinetically slow it down, but she did not have the adequate power to accomplish such a feat.

Meanwhile, Aquilai attempted to lightningbend at the stone once more.  This time he used his right arm.  It made another fissure in the stone.  But it was still in tact!

"One more time, Aquilai!" Jess egged him on.

Aquilai did so, only using both arms this time.  And this time, it was sufficient enough to shatter the stone.  The fractured Realm was reunited into one.  The vermillion bird vanished into flame.

There were tearful reunions with the adult and young RAFians alike.  There was much  rejoicing.  Only Cloak knew that there possibly too more stones that would be in the east and/or west . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 14, 2012, 06:41:31 PM

All kid land might have been fun. Pity.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2012, 07:11:30 PM

Doubt it, truthfully, Blaze.  Things like that ALWAYS end bad.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
MIA RAFians

The celebrations at being reunited with the young ones could be heard all over the 'net.  The jubiliant, joyous jocularity was quite raucous and deafening.  Cloak, however, was not celebrating, was not jubiliant.  Shadow had returned to the Nexus, as she had an event with her father planned.  But this was not why.

There were still two more stone to be accounted for.  They were either to the east or west or both.  This information he could not keep to himself with a good conscience.  But he had trouble getting heard over the noise.

But the noise volume was suddenly silenced upon a startling realization.  There were four that were not celebrating.  They weren't even there.  Gaz, Mr. Guy, Ash, and Broken were missing, just like Dameg and Esplin.

This drove the thought of the other stones from Cloak's mind momentarily.  The mods were beginning to organize a search, when Cloak strode over to them.

"May I have a word?"

***

Meanwhile, to the east of RAF, Malice lurked in the shadows, watching the RAFian search effort.  Her black cloak blended into the shadows, and the RAFians were so focused on finding their comrades, they did not see her.

She waited until they cleared out, which took a while.  She watched the whole effort with detatched amusement.  She knew what happened to them, all right.  Four more for her . . . "collection".  She looked at the four blue stone shards in her possession, like a card collector marveling at rare holographic cards.

"All according to my plan," she smirked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on April 14, 2012, 07:38:45 PM

lol Cloak.

Quote from: CloakedFigure on April 14, 2012, 07:11:30 PM

...
"All according to my plan," she smirked.

Always famous last words :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2012, 06:16:17 AM

Usually, Aquilai, usually.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
That Shrinking Feeling

Malice swooped into the open, sure that the RAFians had gone.  She prowled to a clearing, her cloak billowing around her.  She stood still for a moment, as the wind picked up, causing her cloak to blow around her dramatically.  She waited for it to die down.

Then she produced a green stone, very much identical to the other two, from her cloak.  She set it down, and it began revolving counterclockwise in a rather sedate manner.  Malice smiled grandly, as she muttered for the stone to activate.  It, like its predecessors, turned nearly-transparent as a green flash speed towards RAF.

***

Back at the forum, Cloak was still feeling aggrieved, and torn.  He knew he must search for his allies, but he also searched for more stones.  He found nothing in the ease -- of course, unbeknowst to him, that was before Malice had even showed up.  Finding nothing, Cloak had gone to search the west of RAF.  There he found nothing as well.

Then a thought occured to him.  When in the pocket universe and the fractured realm he couldn't just Realm Walk out of them.  He didn't realize how odd it was at the time, due to other, more pressing thoughts.  But now that he thought about it, there could only be one reason -- these stones must have come from the Nexus.

Duh, you idiot, Cloak berated himself, the legend was a Realm Walker legend, and, as such, they would come from the Nexus, if true.  Which it appears they are.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a green flash.  He only had time to think, oh, not again! when he felt an odd falling feeling.  Yet his feet never left the ground.  He looked around and suddenly realized that he was little more than an inch tall . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2012, 07:12:28 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Bottom of the Food Chain

Cloak was soon to realize that he wasn't the only one at a miniscule scale.  Horse was bearly any larger than a flea, Dino was two or three inches tall at her maximum height, and the rest was between an inch and a half-inch in height.  And, at this height, one thing was quite clear -- the lawns needed to be mowed more often.

It took basically a two and half days to assemble all the mini-RAFians together.  They were none too happy with this situation.  Hostility was really just a stone's throw away.  All the RAFian's powers seemed deminished and began to function unreliably, although physical strength and flight were relatively boosted.  And Parker's armor retained no such limitations.  He could easily summon all the Ride Armors that Cloak had given him with no lag time or diminished power, relatively speaking.

"It's another stupid stone, isn't it?" Aquilai squeaked.  It would almost be comical if the situation was so dire.

"I would hazard a guess to say that's logical," Yarin concurred.

"Thanks, Spock." Shock sneered.

"Hostility won't help, Shock," Cloak said, reproachfully.

"How do we get to the Stone, much less destroy it, when we're less than an inch tall?" Marie queried.

"It is either to the east or west of here." Cloak commented thoughtfully.

"Which one, though?"

<The green flash came from the . . . east, I think.> Noelle put in.

"Great, we'll go there based on a hunch." Jess sniped.

"We don't have any other information," Richard pointed out, "and if we don't try this would become the norm.  And I don't like being this size anymore than any of you."

"But what about the guardian?  There's surely to be a guardian." Blaze said practically.

"We'll have to wait until we cross that bridge," Dino said.

So that was it.  They would journey east of RAF, and it would take a long time.  They had to avoid and battle normal songbirds and other predators who thought that they all looked like lovely little snacks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 15, 2012, 02:42:52 PM

All caught up! Love the new parts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2012, 07:45:46 AM

Thanks Gazzy -- and I bet you're wondering where you are, unless I made it a bit too obvious . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Small Problem

The RAFians managed to maked it far enough east to find the stone -- and all it took them was a week or two.  The flying RAFians could cover far more distance, far easier.  Cloak was among those that walked, but he was used to walking such a distance -- there were no cars or other vechicles in the Nexus, Realm Walkers walked everywhere.

What Cloak wasn't used to was his new stature.  He found that he really didn't like being little more than an inch tall.  He still retained his elemental abilities, but he really didn't like their diminished strength.  Cloak postulated if he whipped his cloak off he'd nothing more than an overly bright firefly.  But he didn't care to test out this hypothesis.

Cloak noticed that Aquilai seemed preoccupied with his pockets for some reason.  Cloak's knowledge of Time Lords was limited, so he didn't know what Aquilai seemed to be worried about -- everything seemed fine, though Aquilai seemed uncertain -- except that he was barely an inch tall.

"Wait, I can't see the guardian," Phoenix said.

"Good," Goom said grudgingly bright, who was roughly the size of a flea.  "Let's destroy that thing before it shows up."

A roar sounded that buffeted the RAFians around.  Before them was a sinewy, monstrously colossal, azure dragon.  DinoNothlit, Blocky and Shock was smaller than its smallest claw, and they were the largest RAFians.

Every RAFian uttered a curse in their native tongues.  They they were forced to run for their lives.  Cloak looked over to the stone.  He had an idea, but it was pure speculation.  But he knew he wasn't strong enought to do it alone in this diminished state.

Cloak saw that Parker decided to activate the Hawk Ride Armor -- it allowed him to fly and fire homing missiles.  It was a good strategy -- had he been normal-sized.  But clearly Parker was tire of running away.

"Demos!  Aquilai!  Blaze!  With me!" Cloak roared.  Normally, when he roared at top volume like that, it could be heard for quite a distance -- something his tiger form afforded him -- but at this size it would be extremely lucky, not to mention stupidly optimistic, if he could be heard more than ten feet.

But the other three got the gist, and came to his side.  Then they charged up to the stone, and went beneath it.

"What now, Cloak?" Blaze asked.

"All of us are pyrokinetics," Cloak said, "granted that I'm a reluctant one.  So, fire upwards!!!"

They understood and focused their fire above.  Pouring all their strength into it.  Every last ounce of power they possessed.  The stone began to crack.  Slowly, more cracks began to appear.  It was so horribly slow, so horribly, horribly slow!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 16, 2012, 01:41:30 PM

Damn straight I ain't runnin' again! In Final Fantasy VII I took down Ruby Weapon even though it cast Mini on me and each attack I made only did 1 damage. I sat there for HOURS chipping that huge monster away. I'm not runnin' from the cure to my miniaturization.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 16, 2012, 05:44:34 PM

Did it ever occur to you that you could have started over once or twice so that you could get a few more hits in.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 16, 2012, 06:41:27 PM

Did it occur to you that with an epic level monster like Ruby Weapon, it wouldn't make a difference? I never said he made me small right off the bat.

Either way, good stuff so far Cloak. I'll have to mount my new weapon on the armor and fire everything I have.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 16, 2012, 07:43:07 PM

Jeeze. That's beyond stretching the game.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2012, 07:18:34 AM

Blaze, Parker, please be civil.  And Parker, don't forget, you still have the Megatron/Galvatron fusion blasters mounted to your arm.  The Megatron one above, the Galvatron one is below.  Probably be another short chapter.

Oh, yeah, the shrinking was down to 1/67^th of your normal size.  Why that number?  I have my reasons.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Cue Super Mushroom Music

Parker had decided to jump onto its back and started using the Kangroo Ride Armor -- which was an odd name because it looked nothing like a kangaroo.  This Ride Armor had no hands but a vertical plateform with four sharp spikes on each arm.  What's more, these spike plateforms can be sent out much like grapping hooks.

But Cloak, Aquilai, Blaze, and Demos -- their focus remained on the stone.  They were still pouring everything they had into destroying the stone.  It was slow, bitter work . . . but it was working.  They were succeeding, albeit in a very slow manner.  Eventually, what seemed like a milennia, the stone shattered into nothingness.

With dizzyingly rapidity, the RAFians shot up to their full, true height.  Many RAFians fell over.  Fortunately for Parker, he was in a Ride Armor and they don't tip easily.  Cloak just fell onto his butt, exhausted, but back at eight feet tall again.

The other four were just as exhausted -- Aquilai was actually laying on his back.  Cloak supposed it was because it was quite more physical for him to use his pyrokinesis then it was for the other three.  Cloak turned his gaze away from him for two minutes, then back again.

But he was gone.

"Where'd --"

But then a scream of alarm came from the RAFian crowd.

"Great," Blaze muttered, "what now?"

The disappearances of Noelle, Blocky, Aila, Genies, Marie and, yes, Aquilai were the "what now".  They were gone.

"We must go to the west," Cloak said, "we must search for them in the west."

"Why?" Shanker asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Goom said.  "Stones were already found in the north, south and east.  The west is the only logical explanation."

And so they did.  But they found nothing.

It turns out that Malice was watching them, and Cloak was too tired to sense her malicious presence -- something ALL cats can do, sensing presences of evil.  She had a satisfied smile on her face.

"Six more for my collection," she said quietly to herself.  "More to come . . . soon.  Very soon."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 17, 2012, 08:58:11 AM

Aw, they keep taking everyone! That ain't cool!

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 17, 2012, 01:17:25 PM

Great update! Can't wait to see what happens next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2012, 07:40:11 AM

Thanks, guys!  And Blaze, it's just gonna get worse before it gets better.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Outage

Malice was west of RAF, and she remained stationary for more than a minute savoring what she was doing to the RAFians.  But it was time for her to further plans once more. She walked into the clearing, and she pulled out a sickly yellow stone from her cloak.  She smirked in a very irritating way, as she set it down, and as all the others it hovered a few inches off the ground.  It rotated vertically, still at a slow and lava-lamp-like pace.

"They'll love this," she cackled.  Then she muttered, "Activate," to the stone.  And, as with its predecessors, it turned near-translucent as it sent out a yellow shockwave, which raced, ever forward, towards RAF.

***

Back at RAF was not the frivolity and jocularity that it normally was.  Twelve of their number were gone.  Gone to who knows where.  The RAFians didn't even know if they were alright or injured or dead.

Dameg, Esplin, Ash, Broken, Gaz, Mr. Guy, Noelle, Blocky, Aila, Aquilai, Genies, Marie . . . all vanished.  All gone.  And this wasn't an effect of the stones, because they destoryed three of them into powder.

Suddenly, the RAFians' brooding thoughts over their missing comrades was broken, when the yellow shockwave came.  It washed over all of them.

"Everyone still here?!" Blaze shouted immediately after the shockwave had passed.

"I'm here," Parker said, looking himself over, seeing just what the shockwave had done to him, "it didn't seem to affect me."

Cloak, however, felt like someone decided to try and chi-block him, as his body felt a minor numbness.  He tried but he could not manipulate the elements.  His powers had been suppressed.  He still maintained his feline form, and he still had to wear his cloak, but the elements were lost to him.

Horse was unaffected -- she had to go away briefly for some school thing, and she got back just after the shockwave had infected the others.  She seemed to grasp that another shockwave took place.*

The other RAFians seem to realize that their powers have been shorted out, even Blaze's sword was only a sword -- it couldn't change form or glow anymore.  Blaze looked deeply disappointed at this.

"Well, this will be difficult." Parker commented.

"Easy for you to say," Cloak snarled, "you have your weaponry."

Parker tossed Cloak a gun, which landed in the dirt at his feet.  Cloak curled his lip at it, and turned away.  "We need to go to the west.  The stone is certainly there.  We must destroy it, now."

----
*Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's highly convient, I know.  But she has a very special role she needs to play.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 18, 2012, 09:26:39 AM

It's actually highly believable considering how busy Seal has been.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 18, 2012, 02:41:28 PM

Oh snap! Though this has happened so many times in Intro Randomness. Though how they'll destroy the stone is the question. Unless a plasma grenade'll do the job. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2012, 05:34:20 AM

Nope, Parker.  Heat isn't gonna be the answer.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Tiger Violence

The RAFians headed out to the west.  They could see the stone quite easily.  But they saw the Guardian as well.  Cloak's eyes narrowed.  It was a white tiger.  The tiger and Cloak glared at each other.

The white tiger growled, and Cloak looked highly offended.  Cloak could speak the tiger language, and knew exactly what this thing had said.  His bared his feline fangs slightly.

Parker moved so to be in a position to attack, only to be barred by Cloak's arm.  Cloak glanced over his shoulder and said, "No.  It's MINE.  Figure out how do destroy the stone."

Without a second thought, wasting no word, Cloak charged the beast, and the beast charged him.  Granted, Cloak wasn't as experienced with his claws and teeth as he was with the elements and this beast was slightly bigger than him, he didn't care.  Cloak slashed and slashed, not yet close enough for a bite.

Cloak was a lightning-speed beast of claws and slash, but the white tiger was no slouch in this, either.  But neither were close enough, neither's guard was down enough, to manage that finishing bite.

The beast snarled, and Cloak yelled, "Leave my mother out of this, you --" but the curse just sounded like a snarl to the other RAFians.

Back at the stones, Parker tried a plasma grenade . . . only to have it bounce back at him.  He uttered "Oh ****" as it exploded, but its damage was reduced, and it only singed his armor black.

Blaze tried to strike it with his sword, but it didn't even chip the stone.  But this didn't stop Blaze from hacking it an even forty times.

Each RAFian stepped up to individually attack the stone to the best of their ability, only to have all their projectile attacks rebound upon themselves, or have their melee attacks to fail miserably.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2012, 11:12:41 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks, before I go for the day . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Stone is Seal'd

Cloak's battle with Guardian tiger was becoming very viscious.  Granted, Cloak was bipedal and his foe was a quadruped, Cloak was managing to hold his own.  But neither managed a neck bite.

Yet the RAFians were continuing to take turns destroying the stone, but without their powers it was neigh-on impossible.  Even the mods were unable to destroy it.  It seemed to resist all of their efforts.

Meanwhile, back in the tiger vs. tiger fight, Cloak had wrapped his cloak around his foe's eyes.  It would have been quite a cool manuever . . . if it wasn't only by pure accident that this happened.  Cloak yanked his cloak, forcing the white tiger to do a midair pirouette.  It would have been funny, but Cloak wasn't in the ha-ha kind of mood.  He had a rip in his cloak, and it was made by his own efforts.

"This was my favorite cloak." Cloak growled.  He wasn't aware that he spoke in the tiger language.

"Now maybe you can get a man's cloak," the white tiger replied back in the tiger language.

Cloak glared at his foe for a moment, then hissed, "Let me ask you a question."

"What?"

"A simple question."

"What is it then?"

Cloak sped toward it, and gave it a swift kick in the right flank, as he said, "Die!!"*

Meanwhile, back at the stone, Goom called out to Horse.

"Horse!  You still have your powers, right?"

"Yeah.  I'll give it a shot. . . ."

Horse tried using her hydrokinesis, but that failed.  Then she froze the stone solid.  It was actually kind of pretty like that.  Then Horse drew her Pinniped Dagger, a weapon given to her long ago by Cloak (he had found it discarded in one of the Realms when he was Walking).

Then she struck!  And struck!  And struck!  And struck again!!

The stone shattered to nothing.

Meanwhile, Cloak was still giving the other tiger a viscious beating.  Although it managed to bite his left leg.  He was savaging its side though.  Until the point where it collapsed into nothingness.  Into vapor.

"Well done, guys," Cloak said to the others, "I must admit, I never thought --"

No one was there.  Cloak was alone.

"Where'd you . . ."

His eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Malice . . ." he growled.

-----
*Yes, an obligate TeamFourStar, DBZ Abridged, reference. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 19, 2012, 06:50:42 PM

They stole EVERYONE?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 20, 2012, 02:12:19 AM

She's sneaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2012, 07:32:03 AM

Yep, she's captured everyone.  And you'll find out how in Chapter Nineteen, I think.  I may change my mind.  My cat slashed my fingers severely yesterday, so it's a little hard to type.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Last RAFian

Cloak walked sedately, yet fuming, to RAF to be sure that his suspicions were true, and not just his imagination.  But, upon approaching the site, he found that he was right in his assumption.  They were gone.  All his RAFbrothers and sisters* were gone.

Cloak knew not whether this thing was temporary or . . . or permanent.  Cloak did not want to think the latter.  He was afraid of the latter.  Without the RAFians, RAF would truly be dead.  Without the RAFians . . .

Cloak milled broodingly around the General Board, then the personal Threads, and finally, the Bored Board.  It was true.  They were not there.  They were all gone.  Denial of that fact would not help him.

He must save the others, if, indeed, it was possible to save them, Cloak decided firmly.  But the question was how.  He did not even know where they were being kept if they were . . . if they were still . . .

"Uncle!" a voice shouted, although it was not necessary.  The air was oh-so-woefully devoid of shouts of laughter, jokes, and friendly revelry.  It was not how RAF should be.  Cloak swore the site looked a little more decrepit, like a house that had long since been abandoned.

Shadow dashed up to her uncle, looking around, clearly unnerved.  "Uncle, WHERE is everyone?  Where have they gone?"

"I don't know, Shadow," Cloak said differentially.

Shadow seemed to take that into account, then looked over the horizon, lost in thought.  She, naturally, was confused about all this.

"Uncle?"

"What?"

Cloak didn't mean the irritated tone.  Shadow hesitated a moment, then decided to follow through with her question.

"What's that over there?"

"What's what?"

Cloak turned to see where his niece was seeing.  It was a dark spike reaching up to the sky.  It had a castle-like motif.  It was a citadel.  It wasn't there before this whole stone mess.  The others had to be incarcerated in there.  There was no other explanation!

Of course, it could be a trap.  But Cloak waved that voice of caution away and began running full-tilt to the citadel.

"Hey!  Wait up!  Wait for me!" Shadow protested.

----
*Make RAf sound like a bit of a cult, doesn't it?  :-\

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2012, 08:41:38 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks.  This'll start wrapping up soon.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Citadel's Matron

Cloak easily broke through the citadel's defenses, and annihilated any opposition on the inside.  He didn't restrain himself as he normally would have.  However, it never occured to him that the citadel's defenses could have been flimsy on purpose.  Shadow followed behind him like Tails would follow Sonic, except she didn't make the hits before Cloak.

Soon enough he came upon what appeared to be a grotesquely grandoise throne room.  If Cloak hadn't had so many conflicting emotions, he might have just thrown up over the decor.  There were two flowing waterfalls two the side of the room, torches in imperial gold holders, earthen walls, watery plants in a trench around the throne, and even a metal sculpture so abstract that no one could tell what it was supposed to be of.

And there she was.  Sitting on the throne, all relaxed, almost bored, even.  Malice was aware of the intrusion, but in an irritatingly benign way.

"Cloak," she said as a form of greeting, "you're right on cue.  You like my collection?"

It was then that Cloak noticed that surrounding them were shards of a blue stone looking much like evolutionary stone, but each had encapsulated a single RAFian.  Some, like Parker, Faerie, Blaze, and Faerie, just looked really, really, really ticked off.  Some, like Gaz, Horse, Dameg, and Noelle, just looked puzzled and confused.  The majority however looked shocked or frightened.  But Cloak could not tell whether they were alive or . . . or . . .

"LET THEM GO." Cloak snarled.  It wasn't a request.

Malice sat up straight on her throne and snarled back, "Not a chance, Cloak, they're mine now!"

Cloak clenched his teeth and glared at Malice.

"But, if you were to, say, give up your soul, life and power . . ." she donned sinister smile upon her face.  "I might reconsider."

She might reconsider.  But Cloak couldn't have made a selfish decision, he must think about the others and their fate.

"No 'might'." Cloak said.  "Do it, and . . . and . . ."

"No, Uncle!"

"Be silent, you stupid pup!!" Malice shrieked as she struck Shadow down.  This was a very stupid move on Malice's part.

Cloak's body started to radiate energy in first scarlet, then gold waves, alternating one after the other.  Golden-scarlet energy began to leak profusely from his eyes.  Cloak's feelings of rage and anger were reaching a fever pitch.  Cloak was feeling far more rage and anger than he had ever felt before, than he ever was aware that one being COULD feel.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 20, 2012, 09:08:10 AM

Quote

*Make RAf sound like a bit of a cult, doesn't it?  :-\

An RAFian cult would be so much fun!

AND EPIC FINAL SHOWDOWN!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 21, 2012, 12:14:28 AM

The whole religion idea was put forth; and then promptly... put down.


I don't think Malice is going to recover from this one. >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2012, 06:31:46 AM

Maybe, maybe not, Parker.  She's a slick one.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Unchecked Emotion

The water started to churn, as if it was uncertain what it should do.  The earthen walls shattered, except for small columns that held the torches (whose flame blasted up into the heavens), and the earthen debris began orbiting the place.  The metal sculpture shattered into strapnel and began orbiting Cloak benignly.  The air itself was quickly whipping up into hurricane gale winds (Shadow did not seem to be buffeted at this at all, but whether this was due to her own ability, her uncles refusal to harm her, or both was hard to say).

Cloak's fists were clenched, but his head was bowed a little.  Then he snapped his head up, and for the first time in a very, very, very long while, Malice was afraid.

"Oh dear," she claimed, a valiant attempt at her usual nonchalance.  She failed that attempt, as her voice quivered at just the wrong moment, "what's happening?"

"What's happening?!" Shadow shouted at her.  "YOU TOTALLY PEEVED HIM OFF, THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING!!"

Shadow did not lose control over herself with that burst of emotion, but she was concerned for her uncle.  She knew that killing Malice would not be good for her uncle, and she knew this is the EXACT reason that he kept such a tight control over his emotions.  Why he always impressed this upon her during training.  This is what he was afraid of -- losing control of his powers . . . and of himself.

There was several shattering sounds as Cloak pulled his hand back, and all the elements began to collect there into a ball of energy and substance.  The other RAFians had been absentmindedly released from their prisions due to Cloak's paramount wrath, looking somewhat dazed, confused or ticked.  Cloak was so far gone he hadn't even noticed.

Shadow grasp and clasped his hand tightly and firmly, begging him to remember himself.  Pleading with him to let his emotions go.  Cloak gave a moment's hesitation, which was enough for Malice to Walk out of the realm.

Cloak closed his eyes.  Took a deep breath.  The elements returned to their innert state.  Cloak had control of himself, but all of the other RAFians saw him lose control.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 23, 2012, 08:03:35 PM

*Parker stands, nodding his head with impressed approval. *

Very cool.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 23, 2012, 09:14:46 PM

Blaze is shocked at the break in Cloak's normally calm demeanor. "AWESOME!" he cries.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2012, 07:04:39 AM

Okay, those posts are now canon.

I'll announced the title of the next book in the Random thoughts thread.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Reprecussions

RAF returned to its normal zany and wild self.  The posts were flying, not literally of course.  The discussions were being held civilly, with trolls booted back to the Bannedlands.  The Pootang escaped no less than six times -- the RAFians had a ball trying to subdue it and recage it.

Cloak however was not part of these usual celebrations.  He took to the hill overlooking the forum, and he would stand there, sometimes pacing a little, like a tiger in a substandard zoo.  He was thinking, thinking about how he lost control of himself, and his power.  It was the very thing that terrified him ever since he discovered just how much power he wielded.  Ever since his Elements teacher, his beloved grandfather, impressed upon him the danger of losing control, just as Cloak had done with Shadow.

He remembered the reactions of Parker and Blaze.  He wondered if he knew that he had lost control.  His approval unnerved him a bit.  It was quite serious, he could have killed Malice.  Granted that might have been for the better, but would he be able to live with himself afterward?  What would his mother, Ursa, say about it?  What would Faith think of him?

These thoughts circled his mind, as he fretted about his decisions and indecisions.

***

Meanwhile, Malice was in the darkest part of some unknown realm.  She was fuming, and absolutely livid.

"I miscalculated, that's all." she muttered to herself.  "Miscalculation and underestimating the power of Sage's pupil.  I must be smarter next time.  And there WILL be a next time.  I must find another plan.  Another method.  I will destroy that BOY.  What's this?"

She picked up what looked like a meteor.  She examined it carefully, with such scrutiny, that it seemed to be very important.

"Could this be . . ." she murmured, then her tone changed to a cooing one, "oh, it is!  It is!  I could use this exoporon . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 24, 2012, 09:21:09 AM

Yay, nother chapter coming!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2012, 07:27:04 AM

'Nother book.  Soonish -- oh, yeah, I need to get my chapter-by-chapter notes (I'm actually working on Book IX on there). . . .

BOOK VIII:
ATTACK OF THE RADIOACTIVE SEAL FROM A FORUM CALLED RAF

Chapter One:
Past Reflections

RAF was bustling and as busy as ever.  The frivolity and free-wheeling was as common as ever.  Threads and posts being made, karma being exchanged.  Pootang escaping and causing havoc, which was easily quashed and dealt with.

But Cloak remained, standing stock still, upon his little hill, overlooking the forum.  His thoughts on his past . . .

He was raised in the Nexus as a child, as most Realm Walker children were at the time.  When he was a young child, before Dagger's Egg was even formed -- uh, Realm Walkers are born from when a male and female Realm Walker's mix energies, occasionally forming a small egg of energy called a Life-Light Egg (sometimes abbreviated to LLE, but that's not often). Then after a few months, the egg hatches into a Realm Walker whose form matches their identity.  Cloak was born a tiger cub, Shadow was born a monkey.  Faith, a fox.  Ursa, a bear.  Sage, an eagle.  Brute, somehow became a demonic creature.

Soon enough, Sage discovered his elemental abilities at that young age, and waited only a few more years before he began to train him in the elements.  Cloak knew that he wasn't exactly a disiplined student, but Sage understood him better than Brute, and Cloak saw Sage as more of a father.

Anyway, when Cloak was in early adolescence, his parents began fighting.  Dagger was a comfort then.  Then his father, Brute, ran away, but still managed to fawn over Dagger, and neglect Cloak -- not only his only son, but his firstborn!!  For years, Cloak wrongfully blamed Dagger for this treatment.  It was only relatively recently that he realized the wrongfulness in that assumption.

Of course, with Brute gone, he realizeds just how domineering and overprotective his mother Ursa could be.  He had to escape, be free from the trapped feeling that his mother so kindly gave him.  Cloak Realm Walked to many different Realms spending a limited time there.

Then Sage passed away, shortly after Cloak had succeeded in mastering the elements.  This left Cloak bereft and feeling hollow inside.  He still misses his grandfather, his mother's father, to this day.  He couldn't help but wonder what his life would be like had his grandfather not passed.

But he eventually came to RAF, but he did not become RAFian immediately.  He noticed the forum once, but then Realm Walked elsewhere, before coming back in a few years and finally joining.  That was nearly four Earth years ago.

Cloak looked up into the now-starry sky.  Night had fallen without Cloak even realizing it, so wrapped up in his thoughts.  Cloak noticed a strange comet . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 25, 2012, 09:16:49 AM

The title itself deserves an award.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2012, 09:36:22 AM

It's a name of a previous RAFparody, Blaze.  Obviously based off the Weird Al song "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters From a Planet Near Mars".  'Nother chapter, methinks.  May not be on tomorrow at all (don't hold me to that).

CHAPTER TWO:
The Meteorite

As Cloak continued to watch it, he gradually realized that it wasn't a comet at all, but a meteor.  Cloak watched idly as it fell through the planet's atmosphere.  Cloak assumed that it would evaporate into nothingness soon.  He was wrong as any terrakinetic could feel the slight tremor of the impact not that far away from RAF.  But he ignored it.  It couldn't POSSIBLY be anything important -- meteorites fell all the time, right?  Granted not all of them make it to the ground . . .

Damn this innate feline curosity of his.  He had to go to check it out.  But when he got there, all was left was an impact crater roughly the size of a bowling ball, if a bowling ball had the shape of a cigar.

Then Cloak realized there was a fresh scent here.  A familar one at that.  It was definately Nyac.  So Cloak immediately headed out to the laboratory that Demos and Yarin had come to share uneasily.

Demos was absent, but Yarin was present.  His four arms working feverishly over what Cloak assumed to be some sort of diagnostic machine.  Then he noticed the cigar-shaped rock in the opening of the machine.  It must have been the meteorite.

"You know, that could be very dangerous," Cloak commented quietly.

Yarin jumped, then looked over his shoulder, "Don't do that!"

Cloak chuckled, then said with a smirk, "What do you mean?"

"You know precisely what I mean!" Yarin said, still working the consol of the machine.  "Sneaking and stalking around here like that!"

"I wasn't sneaking," Cloak replied, and added, coyly, "what? Couldn't you sense me coming?"

"You know very well that I can NOT do that," Yarin said primly.  "Not for Realm Walkers, anyway."

Then Cloak lost the blythe manner, and got serious.  "Still, it's dangerous bring a meteorite like that from its impact site.  It could have lifeforms in it.  Perhaps of a parasitic nature."

"There are no life forms in it," Yarin stated, "that's a B movie cliche."

"You'd be surprised how often that can happen," Cloak said, remember a particularly nasty visit to one Realm.  "All we need now is to have a plague of Starros.  Or RAFian DNAliens, or something."

"There's nothing on this meteorite, though," Yarin insisted.  "It's exporon."

"Meaning it's hollow." Cloak countered.

"It's FINE." Yarin asserted.

"Fine, okay, whatever you say," Cloak said, raising his hands in mock defeat, "but, mark my words, something very bad will come of this. . . ."

With that, Cloak left.  Yarin continued his work without even noticing.  Yarin could always be a little testy when questioned with his new projects.  But Yarin seemed to be right.  There was not one evil presence in that room, but Cloak didn't like the fact that he was meddling with exoporon.  That could cause rather . . . large . . . problems.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 25, 2012, 08:53:04 PM

Still following these. Love 'em!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2012, 07:01:40 AM

Thanks Gazzy, although you may change your mind in the next book.  It's where we will see the Eleventh Aquilai and the Eleventh Aila. . . . But we're like eighteen chapters away from the end of THIS book, so . . .

CHAPTER THREE:
FYI

Cloak stood back on his usual hill overlooking the forum, pondering if he should go back to Yarin's lab.  Should he impress again the dangers of meddling with an unknown substance?  He could blow the blasted forum to kingdom come for all Cloak knew.  Or rather . . . larger . . . dangers. . . .

Yes, he must go back.  He must make Yarin see reason.  Exoporon is not something to be trifled with.  Granted it's not radioactive like uranium, or poisonous like chlorine.  It's inert in water, unlike sodium . . .

But when Cloak returned, Yarin had crystallized the exoporon and . . . built a microwave?  But it was rather larger than a microwave, 'bout 67% bigger.  And Yarin was fiddling with some wires or something in back of it.

Cloak suddenly realized that he and Yarin weren't alone in the lab.  Horse, Gaz, Parker, and Blaze were there, as well.  Apparently, Yarin had called them down to show off his overlarge microwave.

"There," he muttered, as he shut a panel in the back of the microwave.  Then he stepped out from behind his machine, rubbing his four hands on what appeared to be an oily rag.

"Oh, Cloak!  Glad to see you here.  I'm just about to unveil my newest invention."

"Yarin, microwaves have already been invented," Cloak replied dully.

"It's not a microwave," Yarin countered, "it's a food-yield increaser."

"An FYI?" Gaz asked, sounding skeptical.

"No, a food-yield increaser," Yarin said, forcing some of the testy tone out of his voice.

Horse was sitting right next to it, licking some sort of ice cream cone.  Cloak could not tell the flavor of it, but it appeared to be gray as a stormy cloud.  Cloak marveled at how she could even hold it -- then again, Horse was not an ordinary seal.

Suddenly, there was an electrical snap, followed by two quick pops, and a greenish-blue flash.  Cloak swept his cloak in front of his eyes in a very Batman maneuver.  When the flash had gone, Cloak lowered his cloak, and saw Yarin yelp, then dash to his machine.

"Just a malfunction.  Just a minor malfunction," he said quickly.  Cloak wondered if he was trying to convince them or himself.

"Horse!" Blaze cried.

Apparently, Horse was exposed to a strange ray, which was the source of the brillant flash.

"Horsie, are you alright?" Gaz asked, her tone gentle and calm.

"No!"

"What's wrong?" Parker asked, alarmed.

"My ice cream's melted!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 26, 2012, 07:43:10 PM

Nooooo!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on April 27, 2012, 12:19:18 AM

Oh no, not her ice cream. :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2012, 07:30:05 AM

Oh, it gets worse.  ;)  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Green Horse and Damn

"Horse, forget the ice cream," Cloak pointed out, "you're glowing green.  Like you're . . . radioactive."

It couldn't have been the exoporon by itself, it must have been Yarin's tampering with it.  He may have altered it in some way.  In Realm -- well, in its original universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles) it was just used to make things roughly forty or so times their own height.  But never caused anyone to glow like a stick of plutonium or whatever.  Cloak however said nothing about this, although he probably should have.

"What? Oh," Horse said, distractedly.

"Horse, you need to see Goom in the infirmiry." Gaz agreed.

"She doesn't seem to be radioactive," Parker commented.

"That doesn't mean there couldn't be something wrong," Cloak interjected.  "Horse needs a full physical, a full diagnostic.  There may be something going on that we are not aware of."

"Hey!  I'm right here!  Stop talking about me like I'm not!" Horse protested.

"Come along, Horse," Blaze said, and the group travelled to the infirmary quickly.  But it was several long hours before the test came back.  Goom walked out -- Cloak noticed that he seemed to be sporting a lab coat.  Looked a bit awkward, as Goom lacked arms.

"From what I can tell, and what these test tell me," Goom said, "she's perfectly fine."

"She's glowing green!!" Mr. Guy exclaimed.  "How's that 'perfectly fine'?!"

"Sorry, Guy, but I can't find anything medically wrong with her.  All are instruments are state of the art, and the error margin is effectively nil."

"And that's the nail in the coffin right there," Cloak muttered.

"Goom, how come I get the feeling that we all are going to be regretting those words?" Blaze lamented.

Meanwhile, Horse was tossing and turning in her sleep.  She was dreaming that Guy was singing:

"Eat, Horse, eat.
Eat with all your might.
Eat that pasta.
Eat it fasta
'Til it's outta sight.
('Til it's outta sight.)
Munch, Horse, munch.
Come on, let's do lunch.
Make your belly
Mozzarelli.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
(Crunch, crunch, crunch.)
Cheese, salami, ham and Swiss,
Whole-wheat, rye, and white.
Slices tomatoes,
Tons of mayo.
Love at first bite.
Horse, you're an awesome eater.
Yes, you are the top.
Butter betters, bitter batter.
You don't have to stop.
Double-stack it.
You can hack it.
Yum, Horse, yum.
Don't you miss a crumb.
Add a dinner.
You're the winner.
Don't you pause or you'll get thinner.
More, Horse, more!
Till you can't fit through the door!
EAT, HORSE, EAT!!
CHA, CHA, CHA!!!"

Horse awoke feeling quite famished.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on April 27, 2012, 09:32:45 AM

0_0  ...Oh this can't be good at all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2012, 06:29:34 AM

Well, as I've mentioned in the Random Thoughts thread, I've lost my chapter by chapter notes.  I should have had them in a notebook.  Oh, well.  I'll just have to wing it.  I'll make sure I don't do this for the next book.

Shortish chapter, I'm afraid.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Growing Pains

Mr. Guy was leading Horse back to her thread.  He was being the concerned brother, and fretting over her.

"Guy, I've never felt better," Horse said, entering her thread.  "Or hungrier."

Guy chuckled, but it betrayed his uneasiness.  But he, albeit reluctantly, left her to rest in her thread, maybe getting something to snack on.

Back in her thread, Horse looked at her flippers, and heaved a sigh.  "Great.  I'm my own night-light."

She snacked on some goldfish crackers, which had a rather fishy taste.  No, literally fishy taste.  But it didn't satiate her hunger -- not even by a fraction of an inch.

Then there was an odd stretching sound.  Horse, startled looked around, and then at her own flipper.  It looked slightly bigger, but Horse assumed it was her imagination.  But the the stretching sound happened again, and again, and again.  A crashing noise was heard.

Gaz, Parker, Blaze, Cloak and Guy were nearby, and so they dashed to Horse's thread, where there was a strange ten-foot hole in the back wall.

"Oh no!" Guy gasped.

"Horse must've been kidnapped by a monster!" Gaz shrieked.

Cloak frowned gravely, sighed, and then said, "I don't know how to say this, but that monster just may be Horse."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 02, 2012, 09:00:24 AM

Oh no...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2012, 01:20:26 PM

Yeah, "oh no".

Shortish chapter.  Last one today.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Larger Problem

"What do you mean by that?" Guy asked.

"I tried to warn Yarin agains using exoporon for his microwave." Cloak muttered.

"Cloak!" Blaze said.  "A little exposition please!  I mean, EXPLANATION!"

Cloak looked up, as if he just realized the others had said something.  He sighed deeply.  "Exoporon is a substance, that when crystalized, has a property being used in a mist or ray that can dramatically increase the size of organic tissue."

"You mean a growth ray?!" Parker said, alarmed.

"Usually it would only be forty times or so the subject's normal size," Cloak said.  "At least, that's what I heard Krang say --"

"Who's Krang?" Gaz asked.

"Good question.  Not remotely the point, though."  Cloak adopted a thoughtful look, and plowed onward.  "I thought that the green glow would have completely retarded the growth.  Clearly, Yarin mixed the exoporon with other chemicals, whether accidentally or purposefully, I can't hazard a guess.  She might just stop growing at forty-times her natural size."

"'Might'?" Guy asked.

"She could just as easily grow to forty million times her own size," Cloak said.  Silence fell to the others.  It spanned a good long time.

"We must go and get Horse," Cloak said abruptly, "I don't think she'd be to hard to find."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 02, 2012, 05:50:28 PM

But imagine how adorable a 400,000 story seal would be.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2012, 07:31:20 AM

It would more dangerous then you might think -- think of a Taxxon-sized appetite!!  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Presidential Panic

"Let's take the assault vehicle." Parker said.  "I'm driving."

"The one that looks like the TMNT party wagon?" Cloak scoffed.

"It does not!" Parker protested.  "I've updated it.  It has alll the weaponry we should need --"

"You're not shooting at my sister!" Guy exclaimed.

"It doesn't matter, Guy, the weaponry would probably be nothing but pinpricks if she's grown to any considerable size." Cloak said.  "But, Blaze, find Yarin.  Tell him to work on an antidote.  Keep communications open."

"Hey!  Who made you --"

Cloak's eyes begin to flash golden-scarlet, energy of the same color leaking out a bit.

"Okay!  Okay!  I'm goin'!  I'm goin!"

***

Meanwhile, the President of whatever, sat in his office, doing paperwork and whatever presidents do when they're in their offices.  Then he got a phone call.  His eyes narrowed with contempt as he heard "a massive forty-story-tall seal was heading through a small city.  Then he saw the pictures.

Then he was in a panic of what to do, and the pentagon was in shock.*  So, naturally, they find some inept research scientists, and have them start working around the clock.

----
*Yes, that was a reference to Weird Al's song.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 03, 2012, 09:26:18 AM

Perhaps we could make peace with her, and then Seal could be the united states secret weapon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on May 03, 2012, 10:48:57 AM

Weapon. Tut. She's a person too! Ignoring the hunger or the loneliness I doubt she'd want to stay Godzilla sized.

Side note: Probably got amped up cryo+hydrokinesis now so you can probably see why it's dangerous to leave her in that state too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 03, 2012, 06:40:56 PM

She's become Nessy! The loch ness monster is real!!! And it's named SEAL!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2012, 07:27:00 AM

Hmmm . . . a little bigger than Nessie, I think.  This may be a shortish book, I am drawing from two resources on this (once blatantly obvious, and one may be a bit subtler).

And I must warn you, the next book will be dark -- RAFians will die . . .

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Whale of a Tail

Blaze arrived at Yarin, who was still fiddling around with that accursed microwave of his.  Blaze had to yell at him to get Yarin to focus on him instead of that machine.

"Leave that blasted microwave alone --"

"THE FOOD YIELD INCREASER!" Yarin snarled.

"Yeah, whatever.  Leave it alone, and listen to me.  Seal's accident didn't just make her glow in the dark.  She's growing -- she's at least ten feet tall now."

"Yeah, that's nice." Yarin said, not really paying attention, and returning to repairing his microwave.

"Did you hear me?  She's gonna rampage through the 'Net!"

"That's nice," Yarin said distractedly.

"LISTEN TO ME!!" Blaze roared.

"That's nice," Yarin repeated.

Blaze unsheathed his sword, which was glowing red, and it instantaneously transformed into a war hammer with a glowing red head.  Then he launched it backward and slammed it down on the microwave.  Damaging it enough to get Yarin to pay attention.

"NOW will you LISTEN to me?!?!"

***

Meanwhile, Cloak and the others were around the harbor.  Cloak was desperately trying to use Earthsight to find Horse.  But he wasn't seeing anything.  It was impossible!  If Seal was moving, she would have bound to make vibrations through the ground.  It was impossible to move upon the ground without making a single vibration!

"There!" Parker pointed.

In the harbor, their was a floating, radioactive-looking, lumpy thing.  It was approximately the size of a full-grown orca.  It was motionless. . . .

"There's not movement . . ." Gaz said cautiously.

Suddenly, there was movement and a head lifted up from the water, and it was Horse.  She was faced away from her RAFian allies.  They shouted but Horse apparently couldn't hear them.

Cloak decided to improvise a bullhorn using his voice and his aerokinesis.  He shouted, using his aerokinesis to carry his voice effectively, "HORSE!"

"HUH?"

"HORSE, IT'S US!! GUY, PARKER, GAZ, AND CLOAK!!"

"YOU'RE SO TINY."

"Uh, thanks.  Uh, DON'T MOVE, WE'LL FIND A WAY TO GET YOU BACK TO NORMAL!!"

She gave Cloak a disbelieving look.  "HOW?"

"Oh, good question.  Uh, WE'RE STILL WORKING THAT OUT!"

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 04, 2012, 01:36:39 PM

Good stuff! Ooh...dark, sounds fun. Can't wait.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 04, 2012, 05:25:36 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 04, 2012, 07:27:00 AM

And I must warn you, the next book will be dark -- RAFians will die . . .

I believe that in case of my death, I am incapable of being resurrected, because my life essence would fuse with the essence of good itself, which flows through all strong and pure being.

That actually sounds pretty awesome. Don't even try bringing me back to life.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 05, 2012, 02:43:43 PM

*Blaze strikes a dark deal and becomes Blazing Fallen Angel* :P


Good stuff so far Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 05, 2012, 03:49:19 PM

That's an awesome name, changing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 06, 2012, 06:26:00 AM

Haha, nice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2012, 07:16:45 AM

I was actually a more negetative reaction.  I am pleased it is not so.  Oh, and no one will be resurrected -- a couple, due to their natural regenerative abilities, will survive due to that.

If you want a hint of what it would be like, take a peek at the Transformers Movie -- no, not the Michael Bay ones, the original, I mean.  The one with Orson Welles, Leornard Nimoy, Eric Idle, and Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid".  I know it's on YouTube, 90 minutes or so.

But that's still eleven chapters away.  And I won't be coming on at all during next month.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Bad News Everyone*

Suddenly, the communicator crackled to life.

"Cloak?  It's Blaze and Yarin." Blaze spoke through the device.

"Yeah," Cloak said, "what's going on?  How's that antidote coming?"

"It isn't," Blaze replied grimly.

Cloak tried not to let his temper and impatience show, "Well, then, what are you doing over there?  Havin' a tea party?"

Clearly he wasn't very successful.

"We need another sample of the exo-boron --"

"Exoporon," Cloak corrected absentmindedly.

"Whatever," Blaze said, "anyway, we'll need another sample of it."

"And just where are we gonna get another sample of that thing?" Parker asked, tersely.

"The government warehousing?" Blaze suggested.

"Of course," Gaz said wearily.

"Send in Ash." Cloak suggested.  "She's available to my knowledge, and she could get by in there far easier than the rest of us.  Shapeshifting and all."

"Oh, by the way," Blaze said, with a slight hitch in his voice, "uh . . ."

"Spit it out!"

"Pootang has escaped.  And we don't know where it is."

---
*Who gets this reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2012, 09:38:15 AM

'Nother quick chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER TEN:
General Luis Cannon

"Uh, guys," Guy said, looking to the horizon, "we have a new little wrinkle. . . ."

They looked in general direction he was indictating and saw what appeared to be a caravan of vehicles.  Military vehicles.  Parker seemed to recognize this particular unit.

"Oh god," he moaned, "not him.  Not General Loose Cannon."

"How do you --" Gaz began.

"Later!  HORSE, YOU MUST DIVE!!" Cloak shouted.  Horse did so, leaving Guy, Parker, Gaz and Cloak on the shore.  "Huddle around, we're gonna go down too.  Then Parker can have the obligatory explanation monologue."

"You make it sound so dirty," Parker teased as he and the others crowded around Cloak who hydrokinetically made a bubble of air around the four.  They dived down to the bottom of the harbor, and slowly walked into deeper water.

Parker explained, "His name is Luis Cannon.  A complete xenophobe.  Follows the philosophy of shoot first, ask questions never.  I still wonder how he rose to the rank of general.  He's a complete loose cannon, which is why I call him as such.  He hates the nickname, though."

"But how'd you meet?"

"A girl." Parker said.  He didn't elaborate more than that.

***

Meanwhile, Ash was looking for the warehouse, easily penetrating the defenses.  After all, who expects a red-tail hawk to be dangerous? (;))  Shapeshifters, by nature, tend to be slippery and hard to hold on to, as well.  Yet another reason why Ash was the perfect canidate for this mission.

And she wasn't taking it lightly.

However, she didn't count on a trollish horde finding out about the exoporon.  But they thought it "pretty".  No one accused trolls of being mineralogy scholars -- and exceedingly rare to find one with two IQ points to rub together.

Ash cursed quietly, as this could complicate things.  And Ash wasn't someone who curses easily.  But this could just as easily work in her advantage.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 08, 2012, 06:00:33 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 07, 2012, 07:16:45 AM

CHAPTER NINE:
Bad News Everyone*

---
*Who gets this reference?

Futurama FTW!!! Farnsworth style.

Quote

"But how'd you meet?"

"A girl." Parker said.  He didn't elaborate more than that.

His little girl to be precise; though she wasn't so little. ;D
Bow Chicka Bow Wow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86ReVJhJCA#)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2012, 07:12:42 AM

:)

'Nother shortish chapter shortly. . . .

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 04, 2012, 05:25:36 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 04, 2012, 07:27:00 AM

And I must warn you, the next book will be dark -- RAFians will die . . .

That actually sounds pretty awesome. Don't even try bringing me back to life.

Oh, thought I might give out a spoiler on this --

[spoiler]No one gets resurrected in the next book.  It's not even set in present day.[/spoiler]

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Role Reversal, Anyone?

They eventually surfaced at a quiet, tranquil, bay shoreline.  It was relaxing, songbirds of various species and coloration were chirping out relaxing songs of threats to their rivals.  Cloak was thankful he didn't speak Songbird.

"Okay, what do we do now?" Guy asked.

"What do you mean what do we do now?  We have to wait for the antidote to be synthesized and administered."

"Great plan.  Meanwhile, Horse is a big sitting duck."

"Could be worse," Parker said, airily.

"How?"

Suddenly, the Pootang burst from the trees with a ravaging roar -- and Pikachus can't learn Roar -- and saw the massive white shape that was Horse.  She was still getting bigger.  She was roughly the size of a Goodyear blimp.  It was just fortunate that that this was a fairly concealed, deep bay.  The shore didn't slope off into the water, except at one point, it was a drop off.

Pootang got a greedy look in its eye as it leapt upon Horse.  Or, rather, that was it's intention.

Horse just opened her maw up, and swallowed the Pootang whole.  The others watched her with jaws open in shock.

"WHAT?  IT'S WAS ABOUT TIME FOR SOME ROLE REVERSAL!!"

"You're disgusting." Guy said, voice monotone.*

----
*Reference to Beast Wars, "Double Dinobot".

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 08, 2012, 08:37:18 AM

Yay for Beast Wars reference. Speaking of...I'm finally going to work on the final season 1 two parter today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2012, 08:53:51 AM

Excellent, Gazzy.  'Nother shortish chapter methinks -- let's see what Ash is doing in that government warehouse, shall we?

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Mission: Ash-Possible

Ash swept cautiously and silently through the complex.  There were really too many guards to be necessary.  Some with very unnecessarily loud voices, and some with rather vulgar vocabulary.  Ash expertly shapeshifted her way past them.  A mouse here, a ****roach there.

The trolls hadn't made it very far in, because their brutish instincts only allowed for a frontal assault.  They hadn't the finesse or piece of mind to consider stealth as a viable option.  It was a pity, really.

But Ash was not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, she was using the chaos that the trolls were generating to her advantage.  No one would suspect her infiltration as she was not associated to any of those rampaging monsters with unusually high-pitched and nasally voices.

That last little bit shocked Ash a bit, but the distraction was not enough to deter her from her goal.  She was selected for this mission specially, and she bound and determined that she was NOT gonna let Horse down.

She shifted from mouse to fly, allowing a brief moment of adjustment.  Then she buzzed several warehouse windows.  Realized that she needed more astute vision, she shifted into the form of a modest pigeon.  Then she flitted from warehouse to warehouse, looking for the cigar-shaped stone that Yarin had described.

She found the correct warehouse after an hour or two.  But it was sealed up tight.  Not even a flea could inch its way in.  She pressed herself against the wall, disguised as some homely weeds, thinking of a way in, and hoping that no one comes along with a weedwhacker.

She was so close, only to be foiled by this!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2012, 08:15:37 AM

'Nother shortish chapter, chaps. . . . That was a lame joke. . . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Slumber and Finesse

Meanwhile, back at the sheltered bay, Guy, Gaz, Parker, and Cloak were watching over a slumbering Horse.  She was now the size of Central Park.  She actually used a huge tree to pick her teeth.

"What if a cure can't be found?  What if this is permanent?" Guy fretted.

Parker postulated, "Well, then she'd continue to grow without check until she became so large that she couldn't respirate and probably asphixiate -- OW!"

Gaz had slapped him upside his head.

"Hey!  What was that for!"

"Lack of tact," Cloak explained.  Cloak was mostly silent, leaning against a tree with his arms folded.  But it was true Horse was growing at a rate that was geniunely unnerving.  And when she snored . . . well, you'd best run for cover.  Their only hope was that Ash obtain the exoporon sample.  Then Yarin, Aquilai, and Goom can synthesize the cure.

Cloak had called, via the communicators, to makes sure that the three were actually devising a cure.  As much as they could without the sample.  But Cloak got a little careless.  He wasn't far enough away from their little camp, and he assumed all RAFian channels were free from being tracked.

But he forgot that this was the same country who tried to foist SOPA upon their citizens.

The group settled down for what they thought and intended to be a long stay.

***

Back at the warehouse, Ash was starting to become impatient.  The doors never seemed to open.  But when they opened JUST enough, Ash shapeshifted into a little garter snake, and slipped in, unnoticed.  Once inside, she shapeshifted into a little green anole-like gecko.

From there, she walked along the walls, and along the ceiling to see her prize: the exoporon sample.  But there were three research scientist still inside.  She couldn't risk harming them -- it wasn't their fault that they were in this situation.  But a solution wouldn't fall from the sky to help her dilemma.

This would take some thought and finesse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 09, 2012, 08:18:25 AM

She's not going to run up on of the scientists legs is she? :p

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 09, 2012, 12:05:09 PM

Lol! That seems like something I would do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 09, 2012, 03:51:04 PM

Point of order: if Gaz smacked the back of my head, she'd say "ow" from hitting her hand on my helmet; and there'd be no reason to take off my helmet in the situation we're in.


Other than that, good stuff so far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2012, 07:16:58 AM

Parker, it didn't hurt.  Just the gesture smarted a little.  I suppose I should have put "Hey", but well, there you go.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Hunger

Back at the bay, Horse stirred.  She suddenly dived in the bay and swam out to sea!  Her last words were "sooo hungry . . . food . . . need food . . ."

"No, Horse!" Guy called.

Then a sudden noise, and Cloak leapt up and deflected tank missile into the bay causing a considerable geyser.  Cloak could not see their threat through his eyes, but turning to his Earthsight, he "saw" a massive machine that only vaguely resembled a tank, but it "appeared" to have six large ATV wheels.  But Cloak had a very strong sense that it was a military vehicle.

Parker readied himself, straightened out his helmet, and aimed his Megatron/Galvatron fusion cannons in the direction that Cloak was staring with quiet intestity.

"Wait -- we have a significantly bigger problem!" Gaz pointed out.

"Well, at least you recognize the situation, subhuman." a deep, condensendingly haughty voice said.

"Ol' Loose Cannon," Parker said.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT, YOU TRAITOR!" General Cannon said, stomping out of the brush.

"I'm no traitor, Cannon," Parker said, clearly incensed.

"No?  You're rubbing shoulders with monsters, aliens, and . . ." he glares at Cloak and Gaz.  "subhumans."

Cloak bared his teeth in a feline snarl.  Gaz, however, had far more decorum than to be offended at the slur.

"Forget him, guys.  We have more PRESSING matters to attend to," Gaz attempted to remind them.

"You and Guy go after her," Cloak said, barely repressing a growl.  His tail was thrashing agitatedly, and he was haunched over as if prepared to pounce and rend the general with his own claws.

"Yeah, Cloak and I've got this," Parker agreed, his helmet's visor flashing dangerously.

Gaz heaved a deep sigh, and exclaimed quietly, "Boys!"

"Hey!  I'm a boy too, you know!" Guy protested.

"Yeah, I know," Gaz said as they left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2012, 08:51:47 AM

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Trolls and Misnomers

Ash sat atop the ceiling, considering her options.  She could crawl up one of the scientists' pants leg . . . but decided against it, deciding it was far too gross.

She could shapeshift into something massive and either knock them out or scare them away.  But the later could raise an alarm, and she really didn't want to hurt them.  But it was still a viable option, but she decided to save it as a last retort, er, resort.

She could shapeshift into something super-swift, like a Garatron or XLR8, and snatch the exoporon, then flee.  But the door was shut, so that would be a no-go.

The other options?  She couldn't think of any.  She knew that she would have to make her decision soon.  Horse was getting bigger and bigger, as she knew from her last briefing.

But the choice was eventually taken out of her hands.  Three large, hairy and quite smelly trolls broke down the western-most wall of the warehouse.  They terrorified the scientists out of the room.  Ash had to act now!!

"Where pretty rock?" one said in a deep, gutteral voice.

"Wow, a two-syllable word, you must be tired." Ash said, quickly shapeshifting into a Triceratops.  Holding the sample in her mouth, she plowed through the trolls as if they were traffic cones.

Then she shapeshifted into a golden eagle, transferring the exoporon to her newly forming talons.  Then she took to the sky, leaving the trolls screaming and roaring in rage.

"Ash to RAF, Ash to RAF!" Ash said to her communicator.  "Mission accomplished."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 10, 2012, 09:08:30 AM

Sweet. We got it!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2012, 12:27:08 PM

That was the easy part, Blaze. ;)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 10, 2012, 02:33:03 PM

Great stuff! This is fun to read.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2012, 07:29:58 AM

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Rockin' Out

Cloak and Parker stood steadfast.  Loose Cannon was yelling at his men to fire, but Parker's armor was sufficient enough to deflect the bullets.  Cloak's energy shield was more than sufficient.

"Pathetic, General." Cloak snarled.

"Don't you DARE to speak to me, you subhuman Fido!!"

Calling any cat a "Fido" . . . well, this is pretty much the ultimate insult.  This is what drove Cloak into his spiel, "You holier-than-thou dolt.  You have no idea with the powers in which you're meddling.  The elements themselves are nothing more than mere playthings to me!"

Beneath his helmet, Parker smirked.  He knew that Cloak was just blowing smoke, trying to intimidate this arrogant general.

"My question is how you ever rose to the rank of general," Parker said, rather more coolly than Cloak, "when your crimes against other species -- hell, other RACES -- is quite well-known.  Or at least I thought they were."

General Cannon's face became the color of drywall.

"Oh, don't they know?" Parker said.  "That farm couple, that young boy, and those tax collectors that you slaughtered under the pretenses of them being -- what was it?  Oh, yeah, 'home-grown terrorists'.  Using the war to justify your slaughter of innocent people of Middle Eastern decent.  Tsk tsk tsk!"

"You will be silent!  They were terrorists!" he raged.

"How is an eighteen-month-old a terrorist?" Parker asked, pleasantly.

"KILL THEM!!  KILL THEM BOTH!!"

"Fool," Cloak sniped, "only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker, everybody knows that."

"Shut your snout, subhuman filth."

That's when the tank-ATV hybrid fired again.

***

Ash had arrived at RAF and delivered the sample to the four hands of Yarin, who lead Goom and Aquilai to his lab.  They began to fire off multiple questions and statements, so their voices tended to overlap each other.

But they agreed that they shouldn't use all the sample, just in case their first valiant attempt at an antidote failed miserably.  So they have backup sample, so to speak, because Ash made it perfectly clear that this was the only sample in the military warehouse.  There wasn't anymore.  Not even in Yarin's farfetched microwave.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!!!"

Okay, okay, sorry Yarin.

Not even in Yarin's Food Yield Increaser.

***

"There she is!" Gaz pointed.

Horse was somehow moving through a city street, she seemed to be riding small glacier of ice and water.  However, this tended to cause tremendous property damage.

"FOOD . . . NEED FOOD . . ."

"She's growing taller by the minute!" Guy gasped.  "That's why she's so hungry!"

"Not to mention what a PR nightmare this is gonna be," Gaz said, a valiant attempt at a joke.

"That's not funny, Gaz," Guy said, quite seriously.

Suddenly, powerful strums of a large guitar was heard quite audibly.  The two turned toward Seal, and blinked furiously.

"Where'd she get an electric guitar?!" Guy exclaimed.

"Never mind that!  How is she playing it?!" Gaz commented.

Then Horse dropped the neon guitar, saying, "FOOD . . . NEED FOOD . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 11, 2012, 09:16:48 AM

That's a kuttle bit awesome 0_0

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 11, 2012, 05:47:20 PM

I'm trying to imagine a giant seal playing a giant guitar....that's an interesting image. Lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 11, 2012, 11:58:09 PM

She'd more than likely just be slappin' a bass. Bow chicka-wicka wicka-wicka. 8)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2012, 07:50:54 AM

But it was one of those Hard Rock neon guitar things, like in "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid".  Of course, this is more "Honey, I Blew Up the Seal".  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Blaze's Mistake

Back at the forum, Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin were feverishly working on a cure for the unstable growth of Horse.  Blaze had dragged a television into the lab, so they could see if the news media caught wind of Horse's, uh, rampage.  They had nothing yet -- although Fox News apparently were focusing on some nonsense thing in an obviously biased way.  Blaze quickly changed the channel, then went down to the cafeteria.

"-- maybe a couple ccs of methyl zoodeitite?"

"No, that would just make her break out into purple and black polkadots!"

"Okay, that wouldn't be good."

"How about crushed fireflower petals?"

"No, that would inflame her . . . her . . . her everything."

"I withdraw the question."

"Perhaps, an infusion of anima ether?"

"That should work."

Soon, Blaze returned with an overlarge ice cream sundae.  The other three didn't look up, so intent they were on their work.  They didn't even notice when Blaze started to hover behind them.

"There.  The cure is complete." Goom declared.  Then added hastily, "We think."

But Blaze, jarred by this sudden pronouncement, accidentally sloshed some of his melted ice cream into the cure solution.

"Oopsie."

"BLAZE!!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 14, 2012, 09:10:15 AM

How is that a mistake? We can give seal the cure in a delicous nutricous sunday rather than an overly large needle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2012, 09:34:37 AM

Who said anything about a needle?  Oh, it seems to be a mistake for now -- because it altered the cure's chemical formula -- it wasn't capsulated yet.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Even Bigger Problems

"She's as big as Central Park now!" Gaz exclaimed as she and Guy continued to give chase to Horse.  It's amazing how much ground she could cover at this size.

"And she's still growing." Guy noted.  "They better have made that cure, and fast."

Horse slowed, picked up a telephone pole, and . . . and . . . and . . . used it to pick her teeth.

"HORSE!" Guy shouted reproachfully.  Horse appeared not to hear her brother.  But now a great deal of people will be without landlines.  But how many would notice with the prevalence of cell phones and whatnot?  Then Horse began to toddle onward.

"HORSE!"

"Guy, she can't hear you.  She's too big.  You're gonna make yourself hoarse." Gaz said, trying to soothe Guy.  She failed.

***

Meanwhile, Parker and Cloak failed to maintain Loose Cannon's attention.  He started taking his envoy back into the city.  Cloak and Parker attempted to intercept, but it was remarkable how quick they were.

"Parker!  Activate the Spider Ride Armor!!" Cloak instructed.

Suddenly, a shell of ammunition or something came their way, and Cloak just barely had time to use his ferrokinesis to deflect it.  But that sycamore will never look the same again.

Parker activated it, and the eight metallic legs nimbly covered the ground.  Cloak hitched a ride at the back -- ferrokinetically adhering himself to it.  Parker and Cloak wasted no word as they hurried back.

***

The three managed to synthesize more cure and encapsulate it, after they sent Blaze to the training room.  Blaze didn't see what the big deal was -- he thought the ice cream-laced cure looked better than the awful gray concoction the three made.

But they encapsulated the ice cream-laced cure, anyway.  But they did it absent-mindedly, without realizing what it was.  Then they take both pills (which were the size of sinks) with them to go to the city were Gaz and Guy were.  But it would take them little more than an hour, hour and a half to get there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2012, 07:37:28 AM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Two Cures and a Loose Cannon

Cloak and Parker were having difficulty keeping up with the General and his military envoy.  That didn't mean that they didn't try.

"Hurry, Parker!" Cloak urged.

"Don't be a backseat driver!"

"I can't be one -- you don't have a backseat."

"Hardy har har."

They were at the city limits now, but the envoy had long since past this.  But they were clear of the trees now.  Using the Spider Ride Armor was no longer really useful.  Parker noticed this and hesitated for a moment before switching to the Hawk Ride Armor, and then flew the rest of the way.

***

Meanwhile, Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin had just barely made it to Guy, Horse, and Gaz.  Yarin was hefting both pills himself, holding them like footballs.

"Thank God," Gaz said, "hurry up and spray her with the cure!!"

"I'm afraid," Goom stated, "that ingestion is the only way."

A beat of silence.

"You mean she has to eat it?" Guy asked.

"Yes," Aquilai said.

"Why couldn't you synthesize it in a spray?" Gaz asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, perhaps we should run ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE LAB and resynthesize the cure into a form adequate for a spraybottle!" Yarin snapped.

"Okay, okay, geesh." Gaz said.

"Whatever do, you guys had better do it quick!" a voice shouted from above.

It was Cloak, Parker, and, coming in from the other direction, Blaze.  Cloak was the one who spoke.

"Yeah, Loose Cannon is coming closer!" Parker agreed.

The trio landed, and Parker deactivated his Hawk Ride Armor.  They saw the other five dash to Horse, who was starting to tottle off again.  They were attempting to coax her to look at them.

Meanwhile, Parker, Cloak and Blaze began battle with the General Loose Cannon.  It was here that Parker started to suspect that the General may have been acting outside the law . . . taking matters into his own hands without the government's okay. . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 15, 2012, 08:33:55 AM

Great chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2012, 09:20:11 AM

Thanks, Gazzy, I'll probably wrap up this book tomorrow -- and I admit, I'm eager for the next one.  Although . . . beyond the next one, I'm out of ideas . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 15, 2012, 09:34:45 AM

Two words Cloaky my boy. Time. Travel. Perhaps back to the fight between vikings and inidians, (Yes this totally happned)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2012, 07:31:20 AM

Nope.  Already did the time travel thing.  No more time travel in the books.  Now, books set in the future, however . . .

Actually have two ideas, but I doubt I'd pull off the musical one, and the other will feature crossoverfan's Memoirs debut as well as the other RAFian Green Lantern, methinks . . .

Anyway --

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Pootang Get Traumatized

Cloak deflected a shell launched at them, but it was traveling at such a velocity, he was only able to slightly alter the shell's trajectory.  Blaze's sword was instantaneously now a war hammer, whose head was glowing yellow -- he was as worried and fearful of Horse's fate as everyone else.  Of course, he downplayed this as he smacked another shell back, and it fell just short of the tank. . . .

The other five were attempting to coax Horse to open her mouth, but she was now at such a size, that she could literally not hear their pleas.  They did not have a megaphone, so this complicated matters even more.

The battle with the military forces were not fairing much better either.  Blaze, Parker, and Blaze had enough power to overwhelm the soldiers, but they could tell the soldiers didn't want to do this anymore than they did.  But they had orders.  From a psychotic general.  This is the problem when you get the wrong kind of people -- that corruptable, xenophobic, arrogant, hateful sort -- in power.

Then Horse gave a massive yawn, and Yarin wasted no word.  He telekinetically* lifted the pill up and stuffed it into Horse's mouth.  After a few minutes, nothing happened.  After a few more minutes, nothing happened.  Then suddenly Horse's nose started to twitch.  She wiggled it vigorously.  Then . . .

"WAH . . . CHOOO!"

She had sneezed the Pootang out, who seemed to be trembling greatly, rolling over into the fetal position, sucking its thumb.  It would seem that being eaten wasn't good for it.

But Horse wasn't shrinking.  If anything she was growing faster!!

"What?  This is supposed to work!!" Goom protested.

"Well, it clearly didn't!  We have to do something fast or she'll be the size of the moon!!" Guy shouted.

"There is a second pill," Gaz pointed out.

"We can't use that," Aquilai said, quite seriously, "the formula was contaminated."

"Oh, you have a better idea?!" Guy snarled.

"No, but, it wouldn't work!"

And so they continued to argue, before Blaze abandoned the fight -- which Cloak and Parker (who was now wearing the Owl Ride Armor) had under their control.  He scooped up the pill while Guy and Aquilai argued.  Then he made an amazing toss into Horse's open maw, and she swallowed it.

Blaze landed, and, for a few seconds, nothing appeared to be happening.  Then, all at once, Horse's excess mass was converted into light energy and she shrunk back to her normal, playful, seal size.

Yarin, Goom, and Aquilai were silent.  They had been wrong.

Meanwhile, a loud voice yelled from a megaphone on the other side of the army's line.  Apparently, General Luis Cannon was in some very BIG trouble . . .

---
*Okay, technically Yarin doesn't have telekinesis, but it makes him a more offensive and less passive fighter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2012, 08:39:37 AM

Last chapter!  Short one, I think.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
PR Nightmare

Things slowly returned to normal after that, although, public relations were strained.  But RAF still managed to survive the incident, as did the city.  Loose Cannon did far more damage than the RAFians or even Horse incurred.

General Luis Cannon was no more.  He was busted down to the rank of Private and soon there after (like two or three months*) he was dishonorably discharged.  His name basically became Mudd.  Literally -- he changed his name to Elroy Mudd.  Parker found this extremely entertaining.

As such, he was . . . uh, "asked" by the courts to seek psychological and psychiatric help.  And he had to pay for the repairs to the city out of his own pocket.  His xenophobic hatred had left him virtually penniless and an horribly embittered man.  Cloak took this as a lesson about allowing hatred to consume your soul.

RAF, as said before, returned to its state of zany insane-ness.  Even the Pootang soon became itself again, with a craving for seal meat again.  But Horse was not remotely afraid of the Pootang anymore.

All was well.

***

Meanwhile, watching all this, Malice stood in a pose remarkably similar to Maleficient, if she had been a Tasmanian devil.

"They handled that better than I expected," Malice muttered.  "I just had to seed the forest and the government with a little exoporon, and yet they are still unaware of my hand in this."

It wasn't true, a small part of Cloak suspected Malice, but he chose to ignore that part.

"They will soon fall," Malice hissed.  "Even if I have to wait twenty years, I do so.  I'll even wait two milienia -- once I have the perfect plan . . . hmmmm . . ."

She turns and walks slowly and menacingly away from the forum where Cloak had found a new home in.  It would be the epitome of fun, in Malice's eyes, to take that away from him. . . .

---
*Hey, after I was discharged I had to wait a month in order to go home.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 16, 2012, 08:49:25 AM

Yay, happy ending with foreshadowing! *thunder crash*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2012, 09:08:26 AM

Yep. . . . Hmmm . . . oh, what the heck?  I'll start the next book right now!!  A shortish chapter.

BOOK IX:
PASSING THE TORCH

CHAPTER ONE:
4532AD

Two small figures were running down a deserted corridor.  Huffing and puffing quite loudly.  The small figures bore Marks.  The Mark of the RAFian.  Yet, they did not know how they came to possess these Marks.

But they made the two targets of the High Empress.  And her Babistarro drones were searching everywhere for them.  They did not know who they could trust.  These drones could look like anyone.  That's why the Empress uses them as a Secret Police.  Her Genedrones look pretty much like ugly DNAliens, and that's saying something.

The two were soon caught in a corner, between three Genedrones and a brick wall.  The boy and girl turned to the their would-be captors, and the boy opened his mouth wide.  Then he unleashed a sonic scream of which Banshee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee_(comics)) would be proud.

This caused the Genedrones to drop like sacks of potatoes, and the two used this to escape them.  Then two ragged-clothed preteens were blocked by a chain link fence.  They weren't having much luck in escape.  But the girl florakinetically generated a tree to lift the two over the fence.

"Screamer, we can't do this forever!" the girl said, out-of-breath.

"I know, Flores!  But what other choice do we have?" Screamer said, equally out of breath.

They were tiring.  Tiring so much they would not be able to use their powers much more longer.

"What do you think happened to Ventus, Sonica, and Wiz?" Flores asked, as they risked a momentary rest.

"I rather not think about that," Screamer said.

They knew what happened to those captured.  And Ventus, Sonica, and Wiz didn't have any powers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2012, 09:28:42 AM

'Nother shortish chapter.  Fourth one I written today . . .

CHAPTER TWO:
Trapped

"We've rested enough," Screamer said to Flores.  "We've gotta go."

"But where?  The Empress controls everywhere!!"

"We cannot stay in one place for too long, Flores.  Especially not out in the open like this."

With that they fled, running until their legs felt wobbly and they were light-headed.  Before long, they had to rest again, or risk collapsing from exhausion.  But it was no good.

"God!" Flores cursed quietly.  "Just how many Genedrones does she have?!"

They were soon spotted by six Genedrones, and as they wobbly stood (trembling as much from fear as from exhaustion).  They prepared to run but then one of the Genedrones spat a adhesive substance from its mouth, which bound Flores's right hand to a brick wall.  Then another adhesive substance glob binded her left hand to the wall, then Screamer's left leg, then Screamer's right arm.  Soon, both were covered from their lips down in that awful glop.

It seemed like they didn't have a prayer in the world.  The Genedrones begin to crowd them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 16, 2012, 09:44:33 AM

Awe, they're taking the future RAFians!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2012, 09:47:25 AM

You think that we'd let that stand?  Oh, this'll be final chapter I'll be writing today, though shortish.  Five chapters ought keep you satisfied until tomorrow, right?

CHAPTER THREE:
Invasion Evasion

From the six Genedrones, stepped a pimply, scrawny teenager in a white shirt with red horizontal stripes, jean overalls, black socks, brown boots and horn-rimmed glasses.  Of course, this body was no longer his.  A Babistarro entered his body and stole it from him.  It is unknown if the original proprietor of that body was still present or if he'd died a long time ago.

"When will you RAFians learn," he began.  Flores and Screamer had time to think, RAF-what?, before the teenager continued, "that your time has come to an end?"

But suddenly, a slab of earth slammed out of the ground and flung him to the side, before sliding back into the ground.  Then six more sent the Genedrones into walls, before returning to the ground, which smooth over them.

"Oh, I wouldn't count us out just yet," said a shadowy, lean figure in a cloak.  "Ghost, get 'em to the Zeta Base!  I'll cover you."

Ghost came over, freed the two newbie RAFians, and began to help them along.  They were still quite exhausted, and they weren't really registering anything.  When they were gone, the cloaked figure took held a fighting stance, as if waiting.  But they were completely out of it.  So this figure followed Ghost to the base.

Once safely inside of the protected headquarters, Ghost set the two newbies down, and turned to the figure.

"You did your uncle proud, Shadow.  I know he would have approved," Ghost said in a comforting tone.

Shadow did not look at him, but remembered her uncle and what had happened that fateful day . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 16, 2012, 10:01:13 AM

Five chapters ism ore than adequate.  :)

Man I love this fic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2012, 11:58:10 AM

Thanks, Blaze.  To think I once considered deleting this thread . . . and now look.  It was the same deal with the parody thread. . . . :)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 16, 2012, 08:58:42 PM

I'm glad you kept going. This is great!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 16, 2012, 11:26:03 PM

Your a project starter cloak.   :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2012, 07:16:00 AM

Well, this thread and the parody thread are the only "successful", if you will, threads I've made.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Q and A

The two newbies awoke in rather comfortable beds -- a far cry from the sleeping places they always had to improvise.  They could have enjoyed this, but it made them suspicious.

They opened a door at the far side of the room.  Slowly, and cautiously.  Aware of the rumble of noise coming from the right. . . . and the left . . . and directly in front.  The room was rather full of people.  Richard, Shadow, Ghost, Demos, Marvin, Nate, Phoenix, Mythica, Empress Goose, Shanker, EvilPinkDragon, and Gymn.

They slowly and carefully slinked out of the room.

"Oh, good, you're up," a calm voice said.  It was Shadow.  She hadn't even turned around.

"How'd you . . ."

"I can see through the Earth," she explained, sipping a coffee-like beverage.  She looked up seeing the confused looks on their faces.  "I'm a master of the Six Elements.  The youngest to ever master them.  Trained by my late uncle Cloak, who was trained in turn by his grandfather, Sage."

They still looked perplexed at this, then an battered-looking man with graying hair -- Richard -- spoke, "Shadow is a Realm Walker, young ones.  They live a long time."

"And the only living Elements Master." Shadow added.  "And only RAFian Realm Walker."

"What . . . is a . . . RAFian?" Flores asked timidly.

"A RAFian simply put," a rather younger figure who had old eyes -- Phoenix -- spoke as he consulted a sheet of hard light, "is a member of Richard's Animorph Forum -- RAF, for short."

"Each RAFian bears a Mark," Empress Goose said.

Screamer and Flores looked at their hands and saw the Mark there, glowing blue faintly.

"But we're not Ruffians!" Screamer protested.

"That's RAFians," Nate corrected patiently.

"Whatever!  We're not part of your little group."

"You bear the Marks, you're RAFians." Shadow said, bluntly.  "Otherwise, you're Banned -- which turns the R-shaped Mark into a B-shaped mark.  It would glow red and not blue."

"But Banned are extinct," Demos said, wearing a powder blue, silk suit.  He smirked a little as his spoke.  Demons will be demons.

Screamer opened his mouth to protest, but Flores pressed her fingers over his mouth, and spoke herself, "But why do we bear the Marks?  We hadn't been in any sort of initation or anything."

"That was our question," Richard replied, "we do not know how you came to bear the Mark.  But it does mean you're RAFians.  The Mark affords all RAFians immunity from mind control, memory manipulation and tampering, seduction, and possession."

"Why does it do that?"

"I don't know.  My uncle and a goomba created the Mark millenia ago."

"Screamer, don't you see?" Flores said.  "That's why the Babistarro parasites and the Genome Xenocytes couldn't infect us.  It's because these Marks saved us!!"

"I don't care, Flores!" Screamer snarled.  "Ventus, Wiz, and Sonica may still be out there.  They need our help.  We can't hole up here and HIDE from the world."

"Who said we were hiding?" Nate asked, much like a teacher asking a question of math.

"You're clearly not doing anything!  If you were, the Empress would have never been able to take power!"

"True, we were there," Phoenix said.  "But you seem to think that we have more numbers than we do."

"Wha . . ."

"That's right, Screamer," Mythgirl said, "What you see is what we got."

"The rest of the RAFians are dead." Gymn added solumnly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2012, 08:34:51 AM

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Rescuers Down Under

"Dead?  All dead?" Flores said, flabberghasted.

"Oh, really, Gymn," Nate chatised, "we don't know if the Lost RAFians are dead."

The Lost RAFians were Rad, Dino, crossoverfan, Noelle, Cerulean, Alic, Yunyun, Azzy, RYTX, ND, SkyeMorpher, Asmo, Horse, and Genies.  Their fates were never known to the rest of the RAFians.

"It's been over two thousand years, Nate!" Gymn argued.  "They couldn't have lived that long without making at least partial contact with us!!"

"Aquilai and Aila are in the Alpha HQ," Shadow put in, taking another sip of her beverage.

"Oh, okay," Gymn conceded, "perhaps I was being a bit melodramatic."

"Screamer, Flores.  If Demos and I help you find your friends, in a gesture of good faith, would you be able to trust us then?" Shadow offered, quite calmly, as if she were suggesting going on a shopping trip.

"Well . . ." Screamer was hesitant.  But he could not deny the power that he saw Shadow demonstrate.  "If it's okay with Flores, it's okay with me."

"Let's go."

***

Finding the pens was the easy part, it was all underground.  These pens are the ones where hosts-to-be are held, and determined whether they should be Genedrones or Babistarro hosts, called Host Potential Processing.  All would be subservient to the Empress.

Shadow used Earthsight to find an opening, and all four snuck inside the complex.  They made their way through to the processing center.  Then they saw Ventus, Sonica, and Wiz in line.  They were in chains -- TYLEE chains.  The tylee material is supposed to be a rare material that can even bind Olympians, Asguardians, Incorporeals, and, yes, Realm Walkers.

"We have to save them!" Screamer said, not troubling to keep his voice down.

"We won't if you don't keep your voice down!!" Flores snarled.

Shadow's eyes widened, then sighed.  "It's too late.  We've been made."

"What?  How do you --" Screamer began, again not troubling to keep his voice down.

"Earthsight."

"Great." Flores muttered.

There was a great fight, but the four were taken off-guard, and sorely outnumbered.  In the end, all four were captured, and placed in tylee chains.  The chains also suppress a being's powers.  But Shadow suddenly realized why there was apparently so much of this supposedly rare material.

"We probably should have brought some more of the others," Demos noted, yet his tone was at odds with his smile.

"Shut up," Shadow said, as Screamer and Flores witnessed their friends become hosts to the Babistarro xenocyte parasites.  Their bodies no longer their own, their minds no longer their own.  Their will nonexistant.

"Why in the hell did we ever trust you?" Screamer accused.

"It would have went just find if you ever learned to lower your voice!!" Flores snarled at Screamer.  "Or learned when a good time to shut up is!!  But NOOOOOOO you had to keep talking!!"

Screamer looked stricken and then bowed his head.  Then they were taken out of the processing center.

"Why are they taking us out of there?" Flores asked.

"Isn't it obvious?  Apparently the Empress wants a word with us," Shadow said grimly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 17, 2012, 08:55:16 AM

Man this is awesome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2012, 09:07:57 AM

Geesh, I didn't realize these chapters would be so long!  I suppose I got a little carried away -- this story is starting to write itself.  Too right, Blaze.  Now you know why I thought that this could be RAFian movie material.

CHAPTER SIX:
Intent of Malice

The four were marched up to a horrid citadel covered with what appeared to be stone briars.  The citadel itself was little more then a thorn raking the sky with insectoid appendages exploding out from its midway point and its base.

"Looks like a cartoonist's nightmare," Shadow sniffed.

"I heard that!"

It was a small child speaking.  The Empress was obviously speaking through this little one.  And soon it became clear that the Empress had sent this child down to escort them up the citadel.  The sight of it made Shadow queasy, to see this young child treated as nothing more than a mere stringless puppet.

As soon as they made to the throne room, the child stood off to one side.  The small eyes shut, and then snapped open.  The little body stood motionless, not appearing to even breathe.  But it was clear, the child now was just a shell.  This idea sickened three of the RAFians.  Demos didn't seem too bothered -- but he was a demon, he must have seen this kind of thing all the time.

Then they went into the throne room and saw who the Empress really was.  Shadow and Demos wasn't really surprised.  But Screamer and Flores were because they had never seen the Empress.

She was dressed in a cloak reminescent of Maleficient.  She even a staff smiliar to hers.  But the face was shrouded in darkness, but there was no mistaking who it could be.

"Well, Hatchling, what do you think of my empire?" the Empress asked of Shadow.

"I think Disney's gonna sue, Malice," Shadow replied.

"Who's Malice?" Screamer asked, again not bothering to lower his voice.

"Gone." Malice said swiftly.  "Malice is gone, I'm the Empress of Worlds now!!"

"You are a slave-maker, a depraved individual, the Bane of Existance." Shadow corrected.

"Uppity Hatchling!" Malice growled.  "Keep that up, and you'll end up like your uncle!  DEAD!"

"DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT HIM!"

"Cloak died at my request, child," Malice intoned.

"LIAR!" Shadow screamed.  The tylee chains exploded, taking out all the guards in the room.  Shadow's eyes were leaking energy . . . just like her uncle's did during the stones incident.  She was allowing her emotions to get the better of her.

"Oh, yes, that's right.  You've inherited his power." Malice said, trying to regain her composure.  She wasn't too brave when Cloak had confronted her just like Shadow was now.

"Yes, I did."  Shadow said, the timber of her voice dangerous.  "And you'd do well to REMEMBER IT."

But Shadow did not attack Malice, but blasted the side out of her citadel.  She made a large, paper-thin energy disc for the others to get onto.  Shadow turned to Malice.

"I will be the one to take you down." she said.  "But now's not the time.  Just know, I will make you pay for all the evil you've done."

"Your uncle couldn't stop me.  Your great-grandfather couldn't stop me." Malice stated.  "What makes you so arrogant to think that you can?"

"It wasn't their destiny," Shadow said, stepping on the disc.  "But it's mine."

And with that they left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2012, 09:28:07 AM

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Avalon-1

"Where do we go now?" Flores asked, after they landed in an alleyway.

Shadow didn't answer at first.  She was allowing the anger to flow out of her system, something she's been more adept at than her uncle.  She took a couple of calming breaths, then she looked at the two new charges.

"It's time you learned," Shadow said.

"Learned?  Learn what?" Screamer said.  He finally figured out what a hushed tone was.

"About . . ." Shadow's voice was clogged with emotion.  She cleared her throat, and finsihed, "About RAF's past.  You need to know what happened.  You have a RIGHT to know what happened."

"Are you going to tell us?" Flores asked.

"Probably, but we need to go to the Alpha HQ.  The mausoleum and history tracks are stored there."

And, with that, off they went to the Alpha HQ.  It was at the ruins of the old forum.  But, beneath it, several miles underground.  Carved out by Shadow herself.  Impenetrable to anyone but a terrakinetic.

When they arrive in the tunnel, they go through a series of six traps and puzzles inside the labryinth that came after the tunnel.  Shadow mentioned there is a path with no traps and puzzles -- in ended in an open drop beneath a cliff.

Soon they came upon a door with a keypad.  Shadow quickly and deftly input "2-8-2-5-6-6-1-1" -- "Avalon-1".  The door opened, and lights clicked on, one after another.

"What is this?" Flores asked in an awed voice.

"The mausoleum." Demos answered.  "Where all the remains of the RAFians who lost their lives are interred."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2012, 09:46:21 AM

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Lord and Lady

"WHO GOES THERE?!" a voice boomed out.  Male.

"BEGONE, BEGONE, BEGONE!!" another voice belted out.  This one was female.

Shadow and Demos stood passively, almost unimpressed and bored.  Flores and Screamer were scared out of their wits.  Then they saw the other two's reactions.

"You know those voices, don't you?" Flores asked.

"Yep," Demos said.

Suddenly, a tall man with a floor-length silver beard and butt-length silver hair stepped out.  He was wearing a dark blue robe and a navy blue wizard's hat.  Then the equally tall woman stepped out behind him.  She resembled an elderly Katara.

"Drop the disguises, Aquilai.  Aila." Shadow said, with folded arms.

The man dropped his etheral tone, and said, "Aw, how'd you see through our disguises."

"Aquilai, you and Aila are the only ones down here."

"Touche." Aila piped in, removing her disguise.

"Scream, Flores, this the Eleventh Aquilai and the Tenth Aila." Demos introduced.

"Huh?" Screamer said, perplexed.

"Aquilai and Aila are Time Lords, guys." Shadow said warmly.  "They can regenerate -- what was it?  Thirteen times?"

Both nodded, and Shadow continued, "As such, they can be as long-lived as Realm Walkers."

Aquilai and Aila seemed to really take notice of Screamer and Flores at this moment.  Aila smiled, "Two new RAFians?  We haven't had new members since 2040!"

"What?  Why?"

"It's a long story --" Aquilai began.

"We've got time," Shadow interjected.

Aquilai nodded and went to a circular console in the middle of the circular room.  He touched the orb in the middle and buzzed to life.

"Let's begin with the Banned massacre and Malice's usurption of the trolls. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 17, 2012, 10:08:56 AM

Wow. Heavy stuff *pounds chest*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2012, 10:20:23 AM

It'll get darker -- this chapter will make it seem a bit light-hearted, but . . .

CHAPTER NINE:
The Usurper and the Banned

Malice had come to the Bannedlands, and confronted Queen, Aloth, Yorick, and the rest of the Banned.  She ordered them to submit to her will.  They refused to so. . . . So, Malice killed them all in a single blast each.  It was a forbidden technique among Realm Walkers -- Cloak and Sage didn't even know about it, it was SO forbidden.  Unfortunately, it only worked on Realm Dwellers -- it just causes discomfort in Realm Walkers.

Then Malice turns to the trolls, who witnessed all this.  And Malice . . . began to sing.

"I remember a time
When forum crime was sublime.
There was plenty of loot in your lair.
You'd plunder and pillage
And ransack a RAFian village
With nary a worry or care!
Then along came this queen
With her obsessive dream.
But she got killed in the end!
So rally the troops!
You were meant to re-group
And return to your roots once again!
Are you in or out?
Gotta know without a doubt
I'm the one you need for a dirty deed
I'm the best!  Success is guaranteed.
Are you trolls or mice?
Take a slice of my advice!
You want a fearless leader, one that's strong and stout,
Better vote for me.
Are you in or out?"

Then the trolls seemed to be attracted to this, and sang:

"We used to be smart.
Yes, horrendously heartless.
In ravaging raids, we were rough!
We knew what we had
To be blissfully bad
Then she brought this obsessive stuff!
And we strayed from the path
Of our rigorous wrath
Now we're taking a bath in the dust!
But we'll reclaim our winnings,
Our humble beginnings,
In turmoil and torture, we trust!"

Malice, then in full flow with her devious plottings, sang:

"Are you in or out?
Double-crossers or devout?
Put your faith in me
Pretty soon you'll see
I'm the empress of generosity!
Are you foe or friend?
Here's the path I recommend
You want a ride to fame?
I've got the fastest route;
What's it gonna be?"

The trolls began drooling and dreaming as they sang:

"We'll go robbing in all the right places,
From RAF dunes to Serebii.
Imagine the fear on their faces
When we drop by for cookies and tea!"

Malice crowed:

"Come along, trolls!
Follow me!
Are you in or out?
If you're with me, give a shout!"

The trolls cheered loudly.

"I'll lead you all the way
Into the glory days
We'll begin a life of power that pays!"

The trolls intoned:

"Are you out or in?
Make your choice now, sink or swim!"

Then Malice made her last verse:

"You can stick with me, or stay behind and pout!
What's it gonna be?
Consider carefully.
Are you in or out?"

***

"Are you kidding me?  They broke out into song?" Screamer sneered.

Aquilai shrugged his shoulders, "It was a different time.  Anyway, Malice apparently got wind of a RAFian shuttle that was carrying cargo that was, at the time, unknown to us.  Then that's . . . well, here's the footage. . . ."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 17, 2012, 12:04:20 PM

Awesome! Today was such a crazy morning, I'm glad there were new chapters to come home to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 17, 2012, 05:31:33 PM

Quote

"Are you kidding me?  They broke out into song?

I always thought you were paraphrasing when you wrote out the songs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 17, 2012, 08:44:11 PM

Great stuff so far Cloak. This is definitely an interesting story. My Force ghost should be there some place, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 17, 2012, 09:50:16 PM

I still need to write "rules for my death." I feel like angel and genies aren't the kind to truly die. Perhaps a pheonix style resurection. Reincarnation with no memory of past lives? Reincarnation with memory of EVERY past life? Strike an Angel down and he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine? Or just become something like a force ghost that can appear near any open flame?

I'm going with fire ghost until I can write a more original afterlife.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 18, 2012, 01:45:26 AM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 17, 2012, 09:50:16 PM

Strike an Angel down and he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine? Or just become something like a force ghost that can appear near any open flame?

I'm going with fire ghost until I can write a more original afterlife.

Can't think so copying Star Wars lore? Since you're an angel, you could've ascended.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 07:10:40 AM

Actually, Blaze, your death and mine will be connected.  In a way.  And, Parker, you're a SPARTAN here.  Although, that Force ghost thing could come into play . . . hmmm . . .

CHAPTER TEN:
The Shuttle Incident

The seven RAFians on the shuttle checked their monitors and piloted it with such bored ease.  It was 2032, and this was nothing but a routine mission, bringing a cargo of an as-of-yet-unnamed zoodeitium isotope for Aquilai and Yarin to study.  And name.  Aquilai was pushing for aquilaite and Yarin was preferring yarinium.

But, unfortunately, this was the shuttle that Malice heard about.  This was the shuttle that Malice planned to attack.  She easily intercepted the shuttle, atmosphere but beyond RAFian sensors, and blew a hole in the side of the hull.

Jess was the first to react, only managing to fire a single shot, before she got shot from Malice.  She collapsed on the ground, lifeless.  Goom, somehow not quite clear, was holding a Dracon Beam and only managing to fire off a shot that caught a troll in the shoulder, but is stomped flat by the selfsame troll.

Malice manages to blast Parker, incapacitating him.  Fortunately his armor absorbed a sufficient amount of the energy so that it wasn't lethal.  But Parker was still severely injured.

Faerie took out her double-headed battleax, but this was not the place for melee combat, and she was blasted into oblivion.  Gumby's weapon was out of juice and he threw it at the horde entering the shuttle, like flies on a wildebeest carcuss.  Gumby was actually melted into nothingness.

Hunter was killed and his body mutilated by a cannibal troll, before Malice smacked the troll upside his head.  "Work first!  You'll get your pleasings later!!"

Blaze charged forward, his blade glowing the vividest red that it had ever glowed.  He was madder than he had ever been -- having seen six of his comrades, six of his friends, slaughtered!  Of course, he didn't realize that Parker had survived barely.

Malice looked at Blaze with contempt.  She easily snapped his blade from it's hilt with such force that it shattered to dust.  The shards of the blade that stuck stubborning with the hilt started to glow the sickest shade of yellow.

Then Malice slowly slayed Blaze, taking a sociopathic, masochistic enjoyment of it.  His screams would be forever etched into the hull of that ship.  It was because of his RAFspecies, Malice enjoyed this, that Malice did this slowly.

Then Malice and her troll horde took control over the shuttle, elating at the fact that they can bypass the RAFian security with this shuttle.

"But why couldn't we just charge into RAF?" a troll asked.

Malice smacked him upside his head, for no other reason than she felt like it.  "Because this was more fun, fool."

She looked at the cargo.

"And that could be useful to my plans," she added quietly.

But then she felt a hand grip her leg.  It was Parker, no longer able to stand or move his right arm.  His helmet hat been knocked askew.

In a stuttering, hoarse, weakened voice, he said, "No . . ."

Malice looked down at him, with distain and indifference.  "Such heroic nonsense, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatron_(Generation_1))" she snarled.  Then she blasted Parker point-blank.  Parker was gone.

***

"She killed seven RAFians in cold blood?" Tores gasped.

"It wasn't over yet," Shadow said, darkly.  "The massacre was still to come."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 08:29:14 AM

Okay, I've decided to divide this chapter up into several.  One, to give the RAFians who are about to be massacred their own little moment.  Two, because it would just be too long otherwise -- maybe.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Crash and Burn

Meanwhile, Cloak and Shadow were in a nearby field, training and honing their elemental skill.  Cloak was feeling proud of the prowess, strength and skill his neice was showing.  He knew that she had EARNED the master title.  But then . . .

"Shadow, hold up."

"What?  Afraid that I'll beat you again?" she said, cheekily.

Cloak said nothing.  He did not smile.  He felt the presence of evil -- something only feline and avian Realm Walkers seem to be able to sense.  Suddenly, he felt a horrid tinge of pain . . .

Blaze . . . the Mark . . . Blaze . . . dead . . . yet he somehow Blaze had strengthened the Mark . . . but how?  How was that possible?

Then Cloak looked up, and saw the shuttle heading for the forum . . . it wasn't slowing down.  It . . . it had a hold in its hull!  It was hard to make out, but it was definitely there!  The shuttle was gonna crash into the forum!  Cloak shelved his worry about the RAFian crew -- he'll worry about it when there was time to do so.

"Shadow, we have to get to RAF!!"

"What?  Why?"

"Talk later, run now!"

And they did so, while Cloak attempted to contact the forum.  "Cloak to RAF!  Cloak to RAF!  Pick up [Realm Walker curse] you!!"

"This is Genies," a voice crackled on the communicator, "what's got your cloak in a bunch?"

"Try a rogue shuttle about to crash into the forum, Genies!!"

That got her attention.  Cloak used his feline hearing to hear Genies over the loudspeaker in the forum to announce the impending crash.

"Uncle, energy discs!!"

Of course, why hadn't he thought of that?  The two Realm Walkers formed energy discs, just as Shadow would in the citadel two and a half millenia from now.  This was a technique that Shadow herself invented.

They zoomed along, hoping that they'd make it in time.

***

"Arm the anti-air cannon!" Richard commanded.

"But what about the RAFians onboard?" Yunyun asked.  "You can't just sacrifice them!"

Richard look haggard and distraught at the idea.  But what choice did he have?  They were probably already dead.  But he would take the responsibility, he would have to.

"Do it."

The cannon was being primed when Rad stumbled upon the security camera feed.  "They're dead.  They're all dead!!"

Horrid silence met this pronouncement.  No one wanted to believe it.  But they could not mourn now.

"Cannon is primed," Phoenix acknowledged thickly.

Richard only hesitated for a moment, before he said, "Fire."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 09:36:24 AM

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Morose Combat

The shockwave from the annihilated shuttle rocked not only the forum, but half of the tristate area.  The RAFians stood in a line, prepared to fight, with Cloak and Shadow only just arriving to take their place in the line, next to Gaz.

And, just as expected, the trolls, Malice, and, for a bit of a surprise, Abomination, dropped to the ground, and lined up just as the RAFians did.  Only there was far MORE trolls than RAFians.  And THAT'S saying something.

Abomination glared at Cloak with the utmost loathing, which Cloak returned.  However, Malice stood off to the side, and then vanished.  The coward.

Then the two sides met!  Dracon beams fired.  Shredders flared.  Bone and flesh met claw and fang.  It was a very, very, very vicious struggle.

Yarin levitated crates over trolls and dropped them on one-at-a-time, squashing them like bugs.  Until he was skewered by a troll who resembled Frieza in his second form -- only uglier.

Sakki fought like a madwoman, managing to find and use Faerie's battle-ax -- the only real item to survive the shuttle explosion.  Unfortunately, it was brittle, which Sakki found out to her costs.  She was slashed and her VOLCAROID body ripped to shreds by a trollish Slash Man impersonator.

Blue used a variety of weapons against his foes.  Taking out ten at once, then more with his Keltran ninjitsu.  But . . . there were still too many!  He fell due to sheer numbers.

Gaz was using all her vampiric wiles and powers to manage to defeat ten, twenty, twenty-five trolls.  But one was a Buffy buff, and managed to stake her, killing her instantly.

Ash used her shapeshifting skill to elude and attack.  Any damage she incurred was just a form change away from healing.  Until a trollish MIB buff freezes her and shatters her to pieces.  And while she reformed into her base form, she was attack repeatedly until even a shapeshifter couldn't cope with the injuries.

Rocklobster could not fight, but hide the injured.  He managed to succeed to hide a severely-injured Aquilai and near-fatally wounded Phoenix.  But Rocklobster was found out and ripped to shreds.  Aquilai had already regenerated into the Fourth Aquilai*, and Phoenix was engulfed in flame, being healed from them.

Broken fought with all his might, but a sniper troll shot him in the back, and he lay crumpled where he stood, trampled by the escaped Pootang.  The Pootang was looking for some seal meat, but Horse could not be found.  It did find and attack DP, however, and slayed him.  But not before DP actually killed Pootang.  Both were gone.

It was madness!  A blood bath.  A charge of the light brigade. . . .

Then there was Cloak and his embittered rival, Abomination. . . .

---
*What happened to the Third Aquilai -- well, twenty years is a long time. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 09:58:37 AM

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Rivalry Dies

Cloak and Abomination stood across from each other, staring each other down.  Cloak remembered all too clearly being in this position twenty years ago.  But this time . . . this time Abomination doesn't have the stolen powers of the Twelve.  However, Abomination didn't look exactly like some pushover.

"Today, Cloak," he announced, "you will fall to me.  And this time, you won't come back!"

Cloak said nothing, but narrowed his eyes, not breaking his gaze.  Abomination took this as a sign of weakness.

"What's the matter, scared?"

Cloak spoke in a low voice that nevertheless carried.  "You wish."

Then they were locked into a vicious, brutal battle.  Cloak was still holding back his power, still afraid of losing control.  But managed to knock Abomination onto his backside after a few hours battling.

"Please!  Have mercy!" Abomination suddenly cried.

Cloak strode toward Abomination, distain spoken in his body language with every step.  "You, who are without mercy, now demand it?  You're pathetic.  As a boy and now.  You're pathetic."

"Perhaps," he said, with a sly smile.  Then he lashed out with a blade of energy that sliced into Cloak's side, but he deflected the rest of it before it could penetrate too far.  But there was no mistaking this . . . this was a severe wound.  His ichor, his golden blood, was leaking out copiously from the wound.

Abomination hovered above Cloak, who had fell to his knees.  "I've waited eons for this moment."

"UNCLE, NO!!"

Shadow tackles Abomination bodily away from her uncle, but then Abomination uses Shadow's momentary dazing to take her hostage as Cloak yells, "Shadow, no!"

"Perhaps I'll make you see you're precious little protege die first," Abomination said.  "For the humilation I suffered all those years ago."

"LET . . . HER . . . GO!!!!!!!"

Cloak's roar was so loud that the battle momentarily stopped, and the trolls, being too stupid to realize that they still have the advantage, flee like lemmings before this sight.  The earth trembled.  The air agitated.

Cloak pulled his hand back, and the elemental energy gathered there into an elemental tentacle of sorts.  Then he slammed it down on Abomination, which freed Shadow and she wisely fled.

There was a massive explosion, and it was clear.  The Abomination was dead.  Cloak collapsed to the ground.

"Uncle!  Uncle!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on May 18, 2012, 11:15:13 AM

Ok, dying to see the green lantern themed book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 18, 2012, 11:57:00 AM

At least I went down fighting.

Alternate completely impraubible ending to that:

The shards of his broken blade fell Blazes his feet. He stares dumbfounded at the hilt. "You broke my sword*."

Abomination sneers and replies, "Yes I did now prepare to-"

"Your broke my sword." Blaze interrupted.

Abomination was already annoyed. "Yes now-"

"YOU BROKE," Blaze Yelled as he grabbed onto the scruff of abominations neck.

"MY SWORD!" He screamed as he hurled him into the control panel.

"Oh sh-" Abomination had time to say that much before the metal panel crumpled beneath him.

*Points if you get this reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 05:03:23 PM

It's up next, crossoverfan, I've decided.  And Blaze, Abomination wasn't fighting you.  He doesn't have a beef with you.  Me and Shadow however . . .

It was Malice -- and she's FAR more dangerous than Abomination.  Maybe it's me, but that seems like a Dragonball Z Abridged reference.

Anyway, this shortish chapter:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Cloak's Shadow

The RAFians had withdrew into the forum to mourn the dead.  And the knowledge that some of the RAFians had vanished with little reason or expectation.  These were the ones that would eventually get known as the Lost RAFians.  The remaining RAFians were reeling from such a loss.

Shadow was at her uncle's right side.  Cloak was dying.  He knew it, and she knew it.

"Uncle . . ."

"Shadow, don't." Cloak said, gently.  "Don't blame yourself.  These things happen for a reason.  I haven't anything more to teach you.  You are and always been an Elements Master."

Cloak coughed, but pressed on.

"Soon, I will rejoin with your great-grandpa Sage."

"Please, no, Uncle!  I'll get Meemaw . . . she'll . . . she'll fix you up!"

"No, Shadow.  It's too late.  In a few minutes my C.S.I will cease, and I will go beyond the Veil." Cloak's breathing was very labored.  "Take my Mark, Shadow."

"Wha . . . what?"

"Take my RAFian Mark," Cloak repeated.  "With Blaze's death, it strengthened a great deal.  With mine . . . it will be unbreakable."

Shadow held out her hand out hesitatingly and nervously.  Cloak gently clasped it.  Then, in a flash of blue light, the Mark left Cloak and etched itself upon his neice.  Cloak beamed at her, when he turned to a golden scarlet all over.  Then his body collapsed into energy which dispersed in a most amazing and beautiful way.

Cloak, the first RAFian Realm Walker, had died leaving nothing but his frayed-edged cloak behind, and his neice became the last Realm Walker Elements Master in existance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on May 18, 2012, 05:22:57 PM

Ok and I dont know if this is even possible but, could you call him Sam? After all his full name is Samuel Johnathan Graystone, crossoverfan is more like an alias.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 05:27:47 PM

Naturally, crossoverfan, naturally.  But it won't be for a while, but I always draw up chapter-by-chapter notes first.  But it will be the next book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 18, 2012, 08:02:32 PM

Such a sad ending.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 18, 2012, 09:05:53 PM

Yikes, I was staked! What a way to go.

Well done!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 18, 2012, 09:49:22 PM

Quote from: Gaz Latte on May 18, 2012, 09:05:53 PM

Yikes, I was staked! What a way to go.

...I WAS PERSONALLY TORTURED TO DEATH BY MALICE!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2012, 09:58:12 PM

That's an awful way to go, it's true, Blaze.

Anyway . . . I'm debating on whether posting another chapter or not, just now.  This chapter will probably be the only direct mentioning and involvement of Estelore. . . . Oh, what the hell?  One more chapter . . . whoa, Chapter 15 already?  This book seemed to fly by . . . Well, this will be a short chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Star Cometh

It was approximately six months after the battle.  The RAFians attempted to move on from the incident.  Shadow took her uncle's place in RAFian meetings, but she still felt uncomfortable, almost like an intruder.  This feeling seemed to wear away during the six months, but it still stubbornly remained like a cancerous cyst.

Malice had not seemed to gather her troll forces for another attack.  Not a single one in the intervening six months.  But why?  No one could come up with a satisfactory answer.  Turns out the answer was that she was experimenting with some of that zoodeitium isotope that she managed to scavenge from the site while RAFians were dying, but the RAFians didn't find that out until 2082.

But the pain from all this was renewed when Estelore returned to the forum, obliviious to the RAFians lost.  Her sorrow was palpable when they informed her of these incidents.  And how now their remains -- or what was left of them -- were interred in the mausoleum located a small distance beneath the forum.

But there tribulations were not over.  Unbeknowst to them, in another three months or so, a new threat would reach them.  A global one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on May 19, 2012, 02:12:44 AM

I suppose Esty's sundress is a tad darker shade after all that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 09:20:52 AM

I was actually thinking that it turned into a kevlar bodysuit -- warrior Esty cometh!  Now . . . a villian that only Esty is powerful enough to defeat. . . .

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Galacta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactus)cron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicron)

The RAFians noticed that since news of the massacre, Estelore no longer donned the sundress, but wore a kevlar bodysuit and wore her hair in a bun -- like a superpowered April O'Neil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMNT_Smash-Up).  Uh, just don't tell her that.

She seemed more serious, but that was true of all of the surviving RAFians.  The jocularity and craziness that used to fuel the forum was almost gone.  RAF was much subdued, and more focused on protecting the world from Malice, who wasn't gone, as Shadow was quick to remind everyone.

They went so far reestablish atmospheric and orbit sensors, which took a while.  Estelore no longer went on her intergalactic sojourns.  But then . . . HE came.  And HE destroyed all the RAFian sensors that they worked to hard to reestablish.  Estelore sensed him before he showed himself.  He looked like the outcome if Unicron and Galactus had a baby.  Not very attractive.

"What IS that thing?" Phoenix cried.

"Galactacron," Estelore muttered.

"Who?" Richard inquired urgently.

"Galactacron," Esty repeated, then elaborated, "Eater of Planets, Devourer of Life, Destroyer of Worlds.  Bane of Existence."

"How do we stop him?"

"You don't," Esty replied.  "That responsibility falls squarely on my shoulders.  And mine alone."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 19, 2012, 09:52:25 AM

And their shall be hell to pay.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 12:50:48 PM

I just finished reading this entire thread!  :D  Those were two of the best days of my life (I was sad when I had to sleep last night, because it meant I had to stop reading).

I have to say: Wow.  Just . . . just WOW.  I love the sense of intense drama mixed with zany humor that pervades your stories, it honestly feels like you've captured the general atmosphere of RAF just perfectly.  And how have you been managing to churn out so many chapters each DAY?!  It's insane!

And another thing.  *hugs Cloaky*  THANK YOU.  Something within your stories has awakened my own muse!  I don't know what it was, but ideas have been pouring out of my brain like never before.  So, if you see another RAF-related fic pop up on the forum at some indefinite point in the future, know that you're the one who helped to inspire it.  :)

Anyway, I love the new development.  It's nice to see a darker side to your writing.  *crosses fingers that the Lost RAFians aren't dead*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on May 19, 2012, 01:16:01 PM

Haha, this is gonna' be sweeeeet. *rubs hands together in anticipation*

Also, Blaze- reference in your top post on this page is from Order of the Stick.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 19, 2012, 04:12:26 PM

Good catch, +1

Yes, this is an amazing fic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 06:34:48 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 12:50:48 PM

I just finished reading this entire thread!  :D  Those were two of the best days of my life (I was sad when I had to sleep last night, because it meant I had to stop reading).

I have to say: Wow.  Just . . . just WOW.  I love the sense of intense drama mixed with zany humor that pervades your stories, it honestly feels like you've captured the general atmosphere of RAF just perfectly.

You flatter me, Dino.  ;D :-] 8)

I did notice that you were on this thread a couple of times.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 12:50:48 PM

And how have you been managing to churn out so many chapters each DAY?!  It's insane!

I've actually been planning these books for a while.  This current book is the last of the original ones I planned when I didn't have access to a computer.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 12:50:48 PM

And another thing.  *hugs Cloaky*  THANK YOU.  Something within your stories has awakened my own muse!  I don't know what it was, but ideas have been pouring out of my brain like never before.  So, if you see another RAF-related fic pop up on the forum at some indefinite point in the future, know that you're the one who helped to inspire it.  :)

Don't be surprise if I may just reference it here!!  8)

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 12:50:48 PM

Anyway, I love the new development.  It's nice to see a darker side to your writing.  *crosses fingers that the Lost RAFians aren't dead*

*smiles noncommittedly*

And I just want to mention that my writing has improved ever since becoming a RAFian.  It's far better than anything I wrote before, and I think I personally have all of you to thank for it.

Now, I promised a chapter -- I was gonna title this "Clash of the Titans", but after Blaze's post . . . well, I've changed my mind.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Hell To Pay

Estelore rose up to the same height as Galactacron.  She grew to match his size, and it was very clear she was not intimidated of him at all.

"Stand aside, star," he spoke with a voice somewhere between Orson Welles and Tony Jay.

"No," Estelore replied.

"You must do as I say," he said in a ringing tone.

"Do I?" Esty asked with a pseudo-coy tone.

"You will not stop me, little star!"

"Oh, I'll give the ol' college try, though, little man."

Galactacron attempted to strike Estelore with a single punch.  But he missed.  By a wide margin.

"Not really used to people standing up to you, are you?"

"That's it, star," he snarled, "prepare to die!!"

"Nah," Esty quipped, "don't thinks so."

Then the banter stopped, and the battle became vicious.  But Estelore was at a disadvantage.  She didn't want to harm the planet below, but Galactacron didn't really care about the planet's denizens.

Estelore soon realized that Galactacron was more of a match for her than she previously understood.  She tackled him in the gut until they were on the edge of the galaxy.  With nothing but dead planets.

Now she didn't have to hold back.  She unleashed her full stellar fury on Galactacron, but he was able to withstand it, as she was able to withstand his planetavorious fury.  There could not be two more equally-matched beings in the universe.

Estelore seemed to realize this.  And she was prepared to use a star's last-ditch move.  The ability a star can only pull off once . . . that is known of.  She grabbed Galactacron's shoulders, enveloped herself in a red aura.  Which increased rapidly in intensity until both forms were unable to be seen beyond the aura.

Then she went supernova, taking the planet-eating monster with her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 07:44:58 PM

Just one more chapter, as I'm not sure if I'll have time to come on tomorrow.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Fall of the Forum

"Wow.  Just . . . wow.*" Flores said.

"It was an awful time in RAFian history, it's true," Aquilai said.

"Yes," Aila continued, "the Malice started to infect the populace with those Babistarro parasites and using the Genedrome xenocytes to convert beings she considered useless into Genedromes."

"Took a matter of months." Aquilai sighed.

"We had to go underground," Aila said.

"Our Marks protected us from infection from either, but we were too few in numbers." Aquilai stated.  "We set up multiple headquarters, in case of raids.  This is the Alpha one, as you know."

"Right," Aila added, "and no one joined up with us since that incident.  You two are the first new RAFians since the incidents."

"Gee, that makes me feel all fuzzy inside," Screamer said sardonically.

"But why?" Flores pressed.  "Why us?  Why were we chosen to bear these Marks?"

"We don't know," Aquilai asked.  "But things happen for a reason.  There must be a reasoning behind it."

"I still wish I knew why we were so special," Flores sighed.

"All things in due time, young one," Aila said, gently and softly.  "It probrably will be made clear soon enough."

"Are we done with storytime?" Shadow snarled.  She did not like having to relive her uncle's death.  She still, in part, blamed herself for it.

Aquilai and Aila were aware of the internal struggle that was going on within Shadow, so they offered no hostility to this statement.

"Yes, Shadow," Aquilai confirmed.

"Good," Shadow replied.  "Someone wake Demos.  I think we may need to break into the Archives."

"The Archives?  Why on earth do you want to do that?" Aila looked shocked

"A gut feeling."

Silence.

Shadow explained further, "That's the place that chronicles the history of the 'Net.  Malice hasn't got her greedy little paws** on it.  Yet.  There's something we need to check out."

"Like what?"

"Like just how Malice created those parasites."

---
*Yeah, I stole that little statement from you, Dino.  :P Sorry!

**Malice is a Tasmanian devil-form Realm Walker -- have I mentioned that?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 19, 2012, 07:53:36 PM

Why am I not suprised she is a Tasmanian Devil?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on May 19, 2012, 08:06:17 PM

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

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


^ debris from nova ^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 08:08:39 PM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 19, 2012, 07:53:36 PM

Why am I not suprised she is a Tasmanian Devil?

This is the reaction I hoped for.  I had to hope to make it obvious that she was.

What happened to the Lost Lan -- er, Lost RAFians (;))?  Find out in about three more chapters.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Tome Raider

"You think you can discover that at the Archives?" Aquilai asked.

"Yep," Shadow said, a flicker of her youthful self shining through.

"Will you be coming back here, Shadow?  Should we be expecting you?" Aila asked.

"Oh, you misunderstood me," Shadow said, her cheeky smile faltering.  "YOU'RE coming with."

"What?"

"You heard me.  'Bout time you got out of this stuffy tomb."

"But . . . who will guard the history of RAF?  And the remains of our former comrades?"

"Who said they needed guarding?  What interest could Malice possibly have in them?"

Suddenly, Demos snores stopped abruptly as his startled cry echoed slightly.

"Butter biscuits!!"

***

There was no arguing with Shadow once her mind was made up.  It was that stubborn streak that was the hallmark of her family.  Aquilai and Aila came along, and fortunately Aquilai had practiced his earthbending, so he wasn't rusty at it.

They snuck past the Genedrone guards by going underground, Bugs Bunny-style.  When they surfaced, it was dark out.  Unfortunately, Shadow's night vision wasn't nearly as good as her uncle's -- she was a monkey, and Cloak was a tiger.  But, fortunately, Cloak taught her earthsight.  She could see with her feet as easily as with her eyes.  Aquilai never mentioned if he had learned this technique, but it would seem that he could.

They easily bypassed the Archive's security, and it was at this point that Shadow became uneasy.  The security was TOO easily bypassed. . . . But she didn't say anything, put it off as mere mission jitters.

Flores noticed a red, blue, and yellow stone over to the side of the computer console.  She picked them up, and pocketed them, without knowing really why she was doing this.

They had brought a disc with them, to download any pertinent information.  They quickly made their way to the computer console, and began to access it.  But they were soon vastly disappointed.

"Nothing!  The whole mainframe's been wiped!" Aquilai cried.

"I knew the security was too easy." Shadow hissed.  "We have to get out of here."

"May I kill some Genedrones on the way?" Demos asked.

"No, Demos!!  MOVE IT!! NOW!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 08:34:24 PM

Poor Esty.  At least she died awesomely.

Yeah, I seem to remember hearing before that Malice was a Tasmanian Devil, and yeah it fits.

And yay I contributed a teeny bit to the story!  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 08:43:40 PM

Oh, you'll contribute a bit more before the book is done . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 19, 2012, 08:55:46 PM

Please tell me the second last panel of http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0449.html (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0449.html) this comic will happen in this book?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 09:00:54 PM

Now, Blaze, that would be telling!!  So I'm neither gonna confirm or deny that.

Gonna be a shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Escape from Malice

The RAFians fled, running as fast as they could.  Stopping outside the perimeter of the Malice's stronghold.  But Shadow knew they still weren't safe.  They weren't safe until they got to the nearest HQ spot.  It wasn't the Alpha HQ, but the Gamma HQ.  So they went there instead.

It was located beneath a dying holly tree, but when they discover six strange stones.  Orange, green, indigo, violet, gold and silver.  They took them with them as they decended the steps into the Gamma HQ.

"I should have known that Malice would have deleted the files," Shadow raged. "Uncle would have."

"You're being way too hard on yourself," Aquilai said, "Cloak would have been the first to admit that he's not perfect.  And he's made his share of mistakes, too, you know."

Shadow folded her arms, broodingly.

"And what about these strange stones?" Screamer asked.

"Oh, and I found these three in the Archives," Flores said.

"What could it mean?" Aila asked.

"I don't know," Demos said, serious for the first time, "but these stones . . . they have a familiar energy, I don't . . . I don't know why."

"Somehow, that's not comforting, Demos," Shadow said, bluntly.

Then Shadow approached the table where the stones were gathered, and she was surprised, too.  She felt a familiar energy that she couldn't put her finger on.

"Wait . . . are these all of them?" Aquilai asked, hesitantingly.

"Yeah, I think so," Screamer put in, "why?"

"I can't describe it, but it feels like six or so more are missing . . . this is beyond strange."

"And for us," Aquilai added, "that's saying something."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 19, 2012, 09:23:56 PM

My powers of deduction tell me your writing that in as I type.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 09:27:47 PM

Nope.  I actually came up with the ending a week or so ago, and I ain't changing it.  This is gonna be the longest book yet.

Wondering about those Lost RAFians?  Well, let's find out what happened!!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Lost RAFians

Over the next four months, the RAFians managed to collect a diamond, a pearl, a violet stone, a black stone, a white stone, and a gray stone.  There were now fifteen stones in all.  Aquilai, Shadow, Alia, and Demos now agreed that they now had all of these special stones.

"But why are they so special?" Screamer questioned.

"I still don't know," Shadow said pensively.

Flores, however, was thinking hard about the history that Aquilai and Alia related to them months ago.  "Wait a minute, weren't there fifteen Lost RAFians?"

"Yeah, considering we managed to recover Ken and Anna's bodies." Aquilai said, surprised at the question.  Then he realized what Flores was getting at.  "You think these stones are somehow related?"

"Yes."

"That's a sound theory," Aila commented.

"If it's true, what do we do about it?" Shadow asked.  "Find a Keyblade* and wave it at them?"

"What's a Keyblade?" Screamer asked.

"Never mind," Shadow said repressively.  Then she realized, as did the other RAFians, that their Marks were growing brighter.  They were beginning to glow much like a flashlight embedded in the RAFians hands.

Then Alia shined hers on the stones, and the others followed suit.  Soon enough, the Mark appeared on all the stones themselves.  After a few seconds, the "flashlight effect" ended.  But the stones did not lose their own marks.

In fact, the stones were growing bigger.  And bigger.  And bigger still!

"Nice," Screamer said, "we collected those stones so they can crush us to death!!"

"No, wait!  Look!" Flores shouted.

The stones had stopped growing larger.  But silhouettes begun to appear within them, before the stones eventually shattered, and fifteen beings stood dazed.

From the red stone, Rad was burst forth.  From the orange, Dino in her compact size was brought forth.  From the green, Green Lantern Sam AKA crossoverfan with a fully-charged ring burst forth.  From the indigo, a weary Noelle burst forth.  From the blue, Cerulan burst forth.  From the violet, Alic burst forth.  From the yellow, Yunyun fluttered forth.  From the gold, Azzy came forth.  From the silver, RYTX burst forth.  From the diamond, ND tumbled forth.  From the pearl, SkyeMorpher flew forth.  From the black, Asmo came forth, shaking his head to clear it.  From the white, Horse tumbled out.  From the gray, Genies stepped forth.

It was the Lost RAFians!

"Wha . . . what happened?" Azzy said.

"You . . . you're alive!" Alia, Aquilai, Demos, and Shadow exclaimed happily.

<Of course we're alive . . .> Noelle said, then she eyed Shadow.  <Cloak, you look different.>

"Noelle, I'm not Cloak.  I'm Shadow," she replied.  "Uncle is . . . is . . ."

Noelle got the gist.

"But how?" RYTX blurted.  "He was alive yesterday!"

"No . . . he wasn't." Shadow said quietly.

"Guys," Aquilai said, "It's 4532 AD."

"WHAT?!" the fifteen said in unison.

"You were somehow trapped in some strange stones," Demos explained.  "We don't know how."

"You must have been in a suspended animation sort of deal," Flore said.

"Who're you?" Alic asked.

"This is Screamer and Flores -- they're new." Aquilai said.

"Two and half thousand years . . ." Green Lantern Sam said.  "And my ring's still fully charged!"

"Perhaps your ring was also in suspended animation?" Screamer suggested.

"Perhaps."

Shadow sighed.  "There is much we need to fill you in on."

---
*Referencing where I got this idea.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 19, 2012, 10:05:02 PM

Says the writer who added my sobbing hysterically and complaining that my weapon couldn't become a truck into the story. I'm afraid I just don't buy it. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2012, 10:08:18 PM

Think what you like, Blaze.

We've seen one kind of Lantern in this book, soon we'll see another kind . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 19, 2012, 10:16:08 PM

Wow, interesting development.  Heh, at least I'm kinda used to being randomly thrown thousands of years through time.  Compared to being 65 million years out of place, a couple thousand years is not so bad.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2012, 08:59:53 AM

Which is why you're adjusting the best of the fifteen, Dino.

And I'm sorry, no new chapters today.

EDIT: I lied.  Here's a new, albeit short, chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
The Neverending Struggle

The six filled in the newly revived Lost RAFians, who still reeled from the sheer amount of events that they missed.  Even Dino, who adapted to the time shift much better than the others, was astonded at the lost of so many RAFians. . . .

But then they recieved a SOS.  The other RAFians were embroiled in a battle with Malice's forces outside the perimeter of the Zeta HQ.  Then the Lost RAFians, the two newbies, and the four other RAFians dashed from the Gamma HQ to join their comrades in battle.

***

Richard and the others were sorely outnumbered.  Malice's Genedrone forces were just too numerous.  They were being battered and there really wasn't much that they could do.

Then Shadow, Aquilai, Alia, Demos, Flores, and Screamer entered the fray.  Shadow using all her elemental might to subdue many of the genetic abnormalities.  Demos getting very close to killing many, just remember Shadow forbidding him from slaying them.  Aquilai using his earthbending much in the same way Shadow used her terrakinetic power.  Alia was fighting in expert hand-to-hand combat.  Flores was entangling their foes in trees and vines.  Screamer was using his sonic scream to subdue the armada.

But it was still too much.  Too many Genedromes.  As Malice used a rail thin twenty-something to gloat about.

"You really think a mere addition of six will help you any against my forces of thousands?!"

"Six?" Screamer asked in mock confusion.

"Someone needs a math lesson!" Flores taunted.

It was then that Rad discharged her weapon, subduing five Genedrones at once.  Then followed with a series of four more additional zaps.

Then Dino's deafening, bellowing roar was heard above all the clamor and yells.  She easily headbutted fifteen out of her way, and smacked twice that with her tail.  She unleashed another terrifying roar.

Noelle and ND pranced into battle with their tailblades snapping.  Their eye stalks swiveling constantly.  They covered each other's backs.

Cerulean speeded around, taking about a quarter of all the Genedrones weapons from them.  He easily zipped around the force's attacks with the ease and grace of a gazelle.

Yunyun flew it and slashed at the force with a special, mystical sword.  She showed her aerial expertise in attacking.

The Green Lantern, Sam, flew around, making constructs made of green light.  A hand to slap the forces silly, but also a shield to protect the wounded RAFians.

Azzy arrived upon an ice bridge, mimicking Iceman, with Horse riding shotgun behind him.  The two landed and began to cryokinetically attacking the forces with amazing skill and technique.

All seemed to be turning in the RAFians favor.  The armada was breaking up and fleeing.  But the RAFians were too weary to celebrate this early.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2012, 12:29:00 PM

Shortish chapter -- we're nearing the end of the book.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
A Short-Lived Victory

Alas, this victory was not to be.  Soon enough, the Genedrome forces began to regroup and then savagely began to attack the newcomers, viciously and without mercy.

Dino was tied down as if on Lilliput.  The rest were horribly slashed, crushed and beaten.  Sam managed to use his ring to hold the horde off from the wounded.  He poured all his willpower into it.  But he knew . . . he knew this wasn't gonna last forever.  Either he would give out or his ring would.

Shadow, however, stubbornly refused to get behind the shield.  She fought using all her elemental might.  But there was just too many!!  Malice's forces had the advantage of numbers, and she knew that the RAFians would be reluctant and hesitant to kill any of them, because they knew that the Genedrones were just victims of a parasite.

Shadow wasn't as big as fool as she would seem.  She knew that not even a Realm Walker can battle forever.  She was well aware that this battle could outlast her.  But she would not give up.

"That was your calvary?  That was your final battle?  You don't even have an exit stragedy, do you?" Malice crowed through her puppet.  "You must submit!  You must yield!  The battle is lost!  You cannot win against my mighty forces!  You will be destroyed ruthlessly and without mer-- what the deuce?"

As she spoke, the brightest and purest shade of white light appeared in a flash, and remained blinding.

"A ball of light attempts to save these RAFians?!" Malice said through her puppet, with a raucous laugh.  "How pathetic!  How ludicrous!  How --"

"Hey, Malice," a familiar voice said, as several footsteps could be heard landing.  "Shut up."

"No way . . ." Shadow gasped.

"It can't be . . ." Richard, bloodied and bruised, whispered.

Sam was so shocked, he nearly dropped his shield.  "They're . . . they're WHITE Lanterns. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2012, 12:58:59 PM

Yep, longest book ever.  I was actually considering putting up a poll to see everyone's favorite book, but then that'd clutter up the thread should I get to Book 200 or something (not bloody likely, I guess).

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
The White Lanterns

"Actually we've powers beyond normal White Lanterns," a different voice said, this one a bit more cheekier and female.

When the light cleared away enough to see that there was many of them, all in White Lantern uniforms.  One also wore a snow white cloak, another's uniform was more like armor.

They stepped forward, unafraid of Malice's minion force.  The RAFians were struck dumb.  These weren't just new beings.  They were old friends. . . .

"I see you've been busy when I was away, Malice," the cloaked Lantern said.

"CLOAK!  No, this cannot be.  You're dead!"

"Yes, we all were.  But we were allowed to come back briefly to see that you get what you deserve." White Lantern Blaze said coldly.  His wings were now the purest white, but his fury at his torture remained white-hot.

"Yeah," White Lantern Gaz said, holding up a fist where a white ring was worn.  "Now let's get this done."

"Wait -- let's not forget something." White Lantern Shorty said.  He held his hand were a where his ring and Mark reacted in a strange, yet mesmorizing way.  Then he fired a beam of white energy over to the wound RAFians.  The other White Lantern RAFians did the same.  The wounds were healed.  Energy replenished.  Green Lantern Sam's ring recharged.

"Wait . . . White Lanterns can't do that," Sam said, "can they?"

"We told you," White Lantern Blue said, "we're beyond normal White Lanterns."

"Yes," said a White Lantern of considerable size and power -- Estelore.  "Now that that's done.  We need to complete our task here, guys."

Now, that RAF was whole, for now, they lined up in and prepared to attack.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 20, 2012, 04:21:22 PM

I BLOODY KNEW IT!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2012, 04:22:48 PM

It wasn't because of that comic thing, Blaze.  I had this planned from the begging . . . partially to ease into what will happen in the next book -- "Corps Feelings".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 20, 2012, 04:29:18 PM

I was still right though. ANd that;s all that matters. :P

That comic is the order of the stick, the best webcomic ever, in my opinion.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2012, 04:38:24 PM

Besides, it's a trope, isn't it?

I probably should mention that the next book is gonna be set back in present-day.  Or is that obvious?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on May 20, 2012, 05:11:30 PM

*all the happy glowing* ^_^

This turnaround pleases us much.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2012, 05:14:30 PM

Now that I think of it . . . Esty, you're kind of the RAFian equivalent of Mogo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogo) . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on May 20, 2012, 06:05:31 PM

He seems like a nice fellow. ^_^
Thanks for the comparison.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 20, 2012, 07:15:22 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 20, 2012, 05:14:30 PM

Now that I think of it . . . Esty, you're kind of the RAFian equivalent of Mogo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogo) . . .

0_0 you're right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 20, 2012, 09:46:27 PM

Whoa, epic twist.  This is going to be a suh-weet battle!

Kinda glad that the next book will be set in present-day, though.  While I do enjoy the dystopian feel of this book, there's just generally something about the idea of RAFians dying, that always begs to be retconned. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 20, 2012, 10:02:50 PM

Whoo! White Lantern! No clue what that's about....but it sounds cool.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 20, 2012, 10:11:27 PM

Quote from: Gaz Latte on May 20, 2012, 10:02:50 PM

Whoo! White Lantern! No clue what that's about....but it sounds cool.

In the green lantern universe, theirs another group of lanterns for every color of the rainbow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2012, 10:23:24 AM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 20, 2012, 10:11:27 PM

Quote from: Gaz Latte on May 20, 2012, 10:02:50 PM

Whoo! White Lantern! No clue what that's about....but it sounds cool.

In the green lantern universe, theirs another group of lanterns for every color of the rainbow.

WHICH will be elaborated further in the next book.  Anyway, Gazzy, here's the link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Lantern_Corps) to the wikipedia article.

It's where the whole emotion spectrum thing comes from.

I'm not sure if I've the time to add another chapter.  But I'll try to sneak a short one in.  BTW, the next book probably won't be this long.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
A Brief Mistake

Horse saw one of the White Lanterns, shrieked, and hid behind Dino.  Why? Well, one of the White Lanterns happened to be Pootang.

Parker heaved a sigh, I knew that was a mistake, giving it a ring.

Cloak walked up to the Pootang, made a white newpaper-like light construct, and wapped Pootang smartly on the nose.  "No, Pootang!  Bad, Pootang!  Baaaaad, Pootang!"

Pootang whimpered a bit.

"You know that if you so much as even think about eating Horse, you'll lose that ring." Goom said, stomping Pootangs head a bit.  Goom, having no fingers to bear a ring, wore his around his middle.  It was rather entertaining seeing a goomba atop a large, rabid Pikachu, making skipping movements with his little goomba feet.

"You guys made the Pootang a White Lantern," Dino said, "and you thought that this might be a good idea?"

"It was a good idea at the time," White Lantern Broken said at the same time as White Lantern Ash.

"It was a good idea on paper," White Lantern Ash said at the same time as White Lantern Broken.

"Guys, focus!!" Blaze shouted.  He was still quite miffed about the torture thing.  But, really, can you blame him?  "There's still a battle to go!  Then . . . you know."

"What??" Shadow said immediately.  "Uncle, what does he mean by that?!"

"All in due time, my dear Shadow," her uncle said evasively.  "But there's a task that needs to be done.  And you've long since known your role."

"To finish Malice," Shadow said, but she wasn't so easily deterred, "but don't try to change the subject!  What did Blaze mean?!"

"Prepare youself for the battle ahead," Cloak said, gently, deliberately not answering her.

Malice had remained silent through out all this.  She apparently was in shocked that she was now at a disadvantage.  Because, while normal White Lantern rings are powered with the love of life and such, that wasn't precisely the case here.

Their rings were fuelled, powered, by these RAFians desire to save and protect their fellow RAFians and the denizens of this world, as well as topple Malice and allow Shadow do what destiny required of her.

But there was a small little string attached with this. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 21, 2012, 02:50:11 PM

I don't even want to think of what that'll do to Dino's pootang. Sakki ish scared D:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2012, 03:28:46 PM

. . . Oh.  It took me a moment before realizing what you meant, Sakki.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Shadow and Malice

And so it went.  It was discovered that the white light from the White Lanterns had a very interesting the effect on the Genedrone xenocytes and the Babistarro parasites.  Upon exposure to this light, they decide to abandon their hosts, unable to bear the light.  Of course, this just made them meat for the RAFians to destroy.  Even with this new wrinkle, it would take them hours to finish.

Then there were the ones that got reinfected when the light passed -- so naturally the White Lanterns made multiple sweeps.

Shadow, however, headed to Malice's citadel, after failing to convince her uncle to come with her.  Cloak insisted that Shadow no longer need him to hold her hand.  And that she could do this.  He had faith in her ability and skill.  He also mentioned that Shadow had better control of her emotions than he ever had.

Shadow found the citadel appearing to be deserted.  She waited for a moment, expecting that Malice was expecting her.  After a while, Shadow got impatient.  She decided that she needed to get Malice's attention.

So, Shadow made a few gestures that caused the stone-metal almalgation of the base of citadel to appear as if she sliced it with a sword.  The citadel slid to the left slightly, before falling over with a deafening "WHUMPF".

But Malice had leaped out and landed rather less gracefully than she imagined.  She still had her Maleficient cloak and staff, which had snapped in two.  Shadow had the irresistable image of Blaze giving Malice the Nelson Muntz "HA HA".

"Ah, Malice," Shadow said blithely, "so you ARE home.  I believe we have unfinished business?"

"You destroyed my citadel, you little punk!" Malice screamed.

"'Punk'?  You really can't do better than 'punk'?"

"I will kill you!"

"You can try," Shadow said, drolly, "but you will fail."

Suddenly, Malice fired a fiery blast of black and maroon energy.  Shadow easily deflected it.

"Was it something I said?" Shadow taunted, knowing that by causing Malice to focus on her rather than her armada, that her concentration on them will fracture and dissipate.

Malice roared, but Shadow wasn't remotely afraid of Malice.  "You impudent . . . arrogant . . ."

"Do you require a dictionary to finish that sentence, Malice?"

Another wild shot.  Shadow easily avoided it using her simian mobility.  Shadow still appeared not to take it seriously.  Which caused Malice to shoot hundreds of wild shots.

"Puh-thetic." Shadow said tonelessly.

Two more wild shots.

"Oh, is it my turn?" Shadow said with mock surprise.  Then Shadow proceeded to demonstrate her elemental might.  And Malice was afraid, truly afraid.

Shadow's eyes leaked out energy as she proceeded to summon her elemental powers to the very zenith of her power.  Something Cloak would be EXTREMELY reluctant to do himself.

Malice saw this and ran, apparently forgetting she could just swirl her cloak and leave right then and there.  But Shadow followed in a whirlwind sphere, and she was still in full control of herself.

Then Malice looked up, and Shadow struck. . . . And Malice was no more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 21, 2012, 03:39:02 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 21, 2012, 10:23:24 AM

"You guys made the Pootang a White Lantern," Dino said, "and you thought that this might be a good idea?"

:dull:  You better not have done that just to mess with my story.

And Sakki?  THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.  :XD:

Anyway, nice new chapter, Cloaky.  I like the idea of Shadow finally stepping out of Cloaky's, heh, shadow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2012, 03:42:36 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 21, 2012, 03:39:02 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 21, 2012, 10:23:24 AM

"You guys made the Pootang a White Lantern," Dino said, "and you thought that this might be a good idea?"

:dull:  You better not have done that just to mess with my story.

Nope, I did that because I thought it was comedic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 21, 2012, 03:49:59 PM

Ah, sorry for jumping to conclusions, then.  What Sakki said probably biased me a bit.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 21, 2012, 03:54:18 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 21, 2012, 03:49:59 PM

Ah, sorry for jumping to conclusions, then.  What Sakki said probably biased me a bit.  :P

I was just trying to be funny >_< god i should just stop posting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on May 21, 2012, 03:56:43 PM

No, no, sorry, Sakki, I wasn't trying to be rude or anything.  Just . . . gah, my posts did come out rude, didn't they?  I'm the one who should stop posting.  :-X

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2012, 03:57:44 PM

It's alright, Sakki, Dino.  Don't worry about it.

Anyway, I'll post the last chapter of this book soon.  Like now.  I'm gonna tell ya right now -- ain't gonna be a HAPPY ending . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
A Bittersweet Victory

The White Lanterns landed next to their RAFian brethren.  The armada was no more, the victims freed.  Flores and Screamer had a touching reunion with Ventus, Wiz and Sonica.  The living RAFians were celebrating, but the White Lanterns were not joining in.

Shadow arrived a few moments later, confirming that Malice was finally dead.  This caused the jubilation to escalate.  But throughout all this rowdiness, the White Lanterns seemed sad, bereft.

"What's wrong with you guys?" Dino said.  "We've won!"

"Yes, we have." Goom said, not looking at her.

"We have freed all these innocents," Parker said, also not meeting her eyes.

"We have fulfilled the need," Gaz said with a morose tone.

"We have fulfilled our . . . our purpose here." Cloak said, deliberately keeping his back to Shadow.

"WHAT?!" she screamed -- a monkey screech intermingling with the word.

"Shadow, we're dead," Blaze said, rather cooly.

"I know that!  But --"

"Shadow," Cloak said, gently but firmly, turning to face her.  "There's an order to things.  You know this.  You know we no longer belong here.  Our time, albeit brief, is over."

"NO!"

This time the voice was all of the RAFians.

"I'm afraid it's true," Blue said.  "We were allowed to come back -- but . . ."

"But only for this one battle." Sakki finished.

Suddenly, a bright light appeared.  Shadow ran forward, determined not to let her uncle go.  But her hands clasped on nothing.

"I love you, Shadow," Cloak faint voice was heard.  "But you don't need me anymore.  You've proven that this day.  This isn't forever -- we shall meet again . . . someday, long from now . . ."

And they were gone.  Shadow stood, still with tears, but with a renewed sense of individuality and strength.  She was Shadow, Elements Master.  Shadow, the RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 21, 2012, 04:05:29 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on May 21, 2012, 03:39:02 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 21, 2012, 10:23:24 AM

"You guys made the Pootang a White Lantern," Dino said, "and you thought that this might be a good idea?"

:dull:  You better not have done that just to mess with my story.

And Sakki?  THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.  :XD:
Anyway, nice new chapter, Cloaky.  I like the idea of Shadow finally stepping out of Cloaky's, heh, shadow.

0-o mother of god, what did I just type...
To qq!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: radgeek on May 21, 2012, 04:47:40 PM

Dino and Sakki keep posting.

Anyway...



No i don't wanna die... again...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 21, 2012, 07:21:16 PM

At least I went out by of BADASS!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2012, 07:59:21 AM

Yes, but let's reset the time back to the present, and . . . I'll post a chapter later.  Maybe.

EDIT: It's later.  Shortish chapter.  May be the last one today.  But don't hold me to that.

BOOK X:
CORPS FEELINGS

CHAPTER ONE:
A RAFy Feeling

Cloak strolled and milled around the threads.  He welcomed new RAFians, those that actually posted and weren't regulated to the subpar rank of "Lurker", an Untouchable-type of rank.

Cloak walked by Dino, who was apparently having storytime with the younger RAFians.  The sight was enough to bring a smile to even the most sour of sourpusses.  Since the Horse incident, everything has returned to normal.  Horse even joked about losing five thousand pounds.

Cloak went to his favorite hill overlooking the forum.  There, he began to hone his elemental abilities, as well as his innate energy projection abilities.

***

Meanwhile, Malice watched him impassively.

Yes, she thought, continue to practice that horrid impurity of yours.  Continue on, obviously.  Unaware of the little gift I left your pathetic Dweller friends.  You are the very example of what is wrong with youth today.  Associating with those below you.

She glared at him, and Cloak stopped practicing.  He looked around slowly and suspiciously.  He sensed her innate maleviolence, her in-born cruelty, her natural evil.  Cloak felt off-set.  But he cannot place, could not pinpoint, the location of this evil.  But he was aware of the familiarity to it.

"Malice, I know you're near," Cloak said calmly, "and I know you're planning something.  Give it up.  It won't work.  All of your other plans have failed.  Whatever you are scheming will too.  Save us both the time and energy."

Fool, Malice thought as she left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 22, 2012, 09:12:27 AM

Om-in-ouuuuuuus.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2012, 08:40:53 AM

I was gonna post another chapter.  But something's come up to cause me to question my place here.  So I'm not gonna.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on May 23, 2012, 09:00:38 AM

WHAT?! You're serious man?
Your giving up this (amazing) fic for some discussion? There are tons more RAFian that love your work! You can't let 'em down! Haters gonna hate but don't get mad, get even!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2012, 09:04:18 AM

By here, I meant the forum as a whole.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 23, 2012, 09:58:54 AM

If anything you've earned your place here. thousands of posts. Parodies, fanfictions and every roleplay you've ever participated in!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2012, 10:03:21 AM

Thanks, Blaze.  I've been talking to Noelle, and she's convinced me to stay.  But . . . I can't post a new chapter just yet.  Not up to it, just now (and I'm neglecting some housework that needs to be done).  Maybe tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on May 23, 2012, 11:15:10 AM

There's nothing wrong with taking a bit of a break.  :)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 23, 2012, 02:13:58 PM

I would miss you muchly, just sayin. And you've earned a break, been working hard on this. Waiting will be hard. Lol. But we totally understand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 23, 2012, 02:33:02 PM

If you ever leave us, I will hunt you down and personally beg you not to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 23, 2012, 05:32:48 PM

And if you refuse Sakki, we will release the Ko Ko.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: radgeek on May 23, 2012, 05:49:00 PM

Cloaky, you are a RAFian and, therefore belong on RAF. There is nothing wrong with brakes (we all have lives) but in the end we all end up back here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2012, 07:16:28 AM

*chuckles.*

Okay, alright.  I will be posting another chapter . . . just as soon as I run and get my notes.  One moment.

BTW, I've planned out the next book, which proves to be more political, in a way, to the others.  Take a look at Marvel universe's "Friends of Humanity" to take a hint.  And I'm also planning Book XII, which may be more of a horror genre . . .

Ah, anyway, here we go.

CHAPTE TWO:
Boom Goes the STB

Cloak was on the edge of Pride Rock-esque cliff.  He was scrambling to get up, while Malice leaned over him.   She smirked.

"Oh, this looks familiar.  Hmmm . . . oh, yes, I remember."

She did not elaborate.  She lashed out, put her claws into Cloak's flesh.  Then she leaned right down close to his ear.

"And now my little secret," she taunted malicously.  "I . . . banned . . . Littlekuriboh and TeamFourStar!*"

"NO!"

Cloak had awoken very suddenly.  The two authors of his favorite YouTube series . . . banned.  What a nightmare.

Cloak stood up, and in a flourishing swirl, donned his cloak.**  He noticed that RAF's birthday was a couple of months away.  Hard to believe that RAF would be only a decade old, and he was here for half that time.  It seemed like RAF was always here.

Cloak went out to the grounds, and noticed a group of twenty or so RAFians clustered around something.  Horse and Faerie were there, and quite alarmed.  Even from this distance, Cloak could hear their complaints.

"Get away from it!  Before it detonates and sends us to different worlds!" Horse warned strenously.

"That doesn't sound too bad," Empress Goose said.

"It IS bad!!" Faerie said, working herself into a state.  "I DON'T WANNA GO BACK TO THE CARE BEARS UNIVERSE!!"

The others looked curiously at her.  Parker looked on stoically though -- although it was difficult to know just what he was feeling as his helmet didn't readily show his face.  Faerie was shuttering.  She nearly lost her sanity -- even though RAFians would joke that they're insane, this was a serious application of the term.  Faerie shuttered at the very thought of it.

Cloak wandered over, his feline curiosity not allowing him to leave.  He saw the group consisted of Horse, Faerie, Parker, Empress Goose, Cornson (a new guy), Blaze, Oceanspray, Blocky, Sakki, Demos, Dino, Blue, Parker, Rocklobster, Terenia, Phoenix, Goku, and Green Lantern Sam also known as crossoverfan.  In the center was black orb, rather like a Bob-omb.

It was at this point Cloak got really concerned.  Not only because he knew what it was, but because it about to blow.

"It's not an interdimensional depth charge," Cloak said quickly, "it's a subspace translocation bomb.  And it's about to -- !"

BOOM!

". . . blow. . . ." Cloak muttered as he faded to unconsciousness.

---
* Makers of the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged and Dragonball Z Abridged series respectively.

** Remember that Cloak's thread is lined with the same fabric that makes up his cloaks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2012, 08:42:34 AM

Now, remember, everything I know about the other Lantern Corps comes from Wikipedia.  PM me if I make a mistake, please.  Yes, I forgot about the Star Sapphires.  Oh, well.

CHAPTER THREE:
Seeing Red

Cornson, Blaze and Oceanspray awoke on a dark world.  There seemed to be red light everywhere.  They stood rather shakily, and looked around.  The smell of blood seemed to come from the very soil.  Little did they realize just how much danger they were in.

"Where are we?" Cornson asked.

"Dunno," Blaze said looking around.  Apparently he felt threatened enough to unsheath his sword, absently transforming it into a bo staff, Captain America-esque shield, chain weapon, tonfa, and back again.

"How do you do that?" Cornson asked.

"Oh, it's a property of the sword," Blaze said, distractedly.

"How?"

"Dunno exactly, it was a gift from Cloak."

"Apparently we're in someplace called . . . the Forgotten Zone." Oceanspray said, consulting the RAFian database, adding sarcastically, "That's not forboding, is it?"

Suddenly, they were set upon by beings in red.  The red beings roared and snarled like animals.  It appeared that they were not sentient. . . .* But Blaze could easily sense that they were full of hatred, anger and vile bloodlust.

An energy weapon popped out from Oceanspray's arms, and he opened fire at their attackers.** Blaze fired flaming crescents at their opponents, by slashing with his sword (glowing sunny yellow -- fear) while it was engulfed with flame.  Cornson had no projectile capability, so he dodged their blasts with apparently ease.

But this was all for naught.  They were outnumbered.  No matter how much they fought, they were captured and brought forth to the evil Atrocius, the hideous being and leader of these Red Lanterns.  He stripped Blaze of his sword, and an black box-type device was attached to the back of Oceanspray's head, effectively reprogramming him into a Red Lantern.

"That ain't good," Cornson muttered.

"No kidding," Blaze said.

---
* Wikipedia describes Red Lanterns in the comics as being like little more than feral beasts.

**Oceanspray's species is android, but no specifics, so I'm embelishing this a little.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 24, 2012, 09:04:27 AM

Two great chapters.

Quote

Remember that Cloak's thread is lined with the same fabric that makes up his cloaks.

...I hope this was a typo.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2012, 09:10:34 AM

Blaze, "threads" also mean the user's living quarters.  It's a term I picked up from Horse.

Now, this one might be tricky -- I don't know the home planet of these corps (or the Reds, either -- I went by the animated series for that).

CHAPTER FOUR:
Mine!  It's Mine!

Blocky, Empress Goose, and Sakki awoke on a strange world.  The sky seemed to be an oppressive sort of orange.  The three checked themselves out to see if they were harmed.  Strangely enough, they were perfectly fine.  They stood up, brushed the dust from themselves, and looked around.

"Uh, where are we?" Sakki asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Empress Goose said dully.

"Looks like a desert of some sort . . ." Blocky commented.

Then they saw a bunch of orange light constructs flying around, then surrounding them.  Blocky and Empress Goose only looked mildly surprised, Sakki however was in NO MOOD for this.

"Scram, you transparent transients!" Sakki snarled.

"'Transparent transients'?" Empress Goose mocked coyly.

"Okay, so my banter needs a little work," Sakki snapped, "so sue me."

The orange light constructs attempted to kill the three, but killing three RAFians isn't an easy chore.  It was essentially a battle of attrition, and, as such, a very long battle.  But the reaction to the Marks led to a very interesting effect.

The orange light constructs spawned three blobs of orange light-matter.  Soon the globs of orange light-matter took the shapes of Sakki, Blocky, and Empress Goose!!  Then they flew off to Larfleeze, the head and only biological Orange Lantern.

"Hey!  You can't just steal our identities like that!!" Sakki roared.

"I've heard of identity theft," Block commented, "but this is ridiculous."

"Get your rear in gear, you two," Sakki said.  "I am not gonna let that facisimile ruin my reputation!!"

And she stalked off in the direction that they headed.  Block and Empress Goose looked at each other.  Sakki turned and glared at them.  "ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?!"

Empress Goose began walking towards her, while Blocky hesitated a bit.

"You want to argue with her?" Empress Goose asked.

"Good point," Blocky said, then shouted to Sakki, "Coming!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 24, 2012, 09:55:25 AM

Oh, that makes sense now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 24, 2012, 10:48:07 AM

XD I am such a slave driver. I love it :D

I love how this includes so many worlds and not just RAF itself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: TobiasMasonPark on May 24, 2012, 11:16:09 AM

     Awesome story So far Cloak :p

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2012, 07:53:10 AM

Thanks, all.  I finished planning the Book XII last night, and I have ideas for Book XIII, which will delve into Realm Walker mythos, I think.  And explain why Malice was so powerful in "Passing the Torch".  New chapters are coming . . . soonish.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on May 25, 2012, 07:59:09 AM

What do you think about a book based in the "Tower of babel" DC comics arch?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2012, 08:03:12 AM

Point me to a wikipedia link, crossoverfan.  I may consider it -- I have done books based on comic arcs before. (Death of Superman, Phalanx Covenant, etc.)

Even if I do, it won't be until Book XIV.

Anyway -- I'm gonna take one liberty with this one . . . gonna be a bit short.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Fear Me, If You Dare

Demos and Dino woke up on a frightening-looking planet.  Faerie had awoken but kept her eyes closed.  Demos and Dino stood up but Faerie stayed down, and spoke from that position, "PLEASE tell that there are no saccherine bears around and that we're not on clouds."

"If THIS is the Care Bear univers, Faerie," Dino said, "then it's the Care Bears as created by Steven King."

With this Faerie's eyes snapped open, and she was in the air faster than you could say -- oh, never mind, that's a cliche.

"Where ARE we then?"

"Ain't Hell."

"'Ain't' isnt' a word, Demos." Dino scolded absently.

"So?"

"Enough," Dino said firmly.  "We should try and find a civilization or something, right?"

"What makes you think this lifeless rock even has people on it?" Demos asked earnestly.

"Just a hunch," Dino replied.

"Great, our lives depend on a hunch."

"Not a hunch, guys." Faerie said, landing with her hands up.  "It's fact."

Then the other two realized they were surrounded by people in what appeared to be yellow spandex suits with black trim.

"You think it was something I said?" Demos asked.

And the three were taken to see Sinestro. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on May 25, 2012, 08:18:06 AM

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JLA:_Tower_of_Babel (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JLA:_Tower_of_Babel)

So basically batman has contigency plans in case member of the JLA are ever brainwashed or go rouge, these plans are stolen and used by Ra's Al Ghul. The JLA is seemingly defeated but...

So I assume that (if you picked this idea) the plans would be cloak's and the rest would be, well us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2012, 08:25:58 AM

*winces*

One problem with that.  The Mark immunizes RAFians from being brainwa . . . except I did that with Oceanspray, didn't I?  Hmmmm . . . well, I'll consider it.  But I don't think it should be me -- because I could always hide in the Nexus, and no Dweller can enter the Nexus without a Realm Walker . . . or . . . hmmm . . .

Oh, more storylines at the bottom of the page!  Hmmm . . . well, I suppose that means there are potential more storylines I can incorporate, but first things first, let's finish the books I've already planned out.

As such -- another shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Hope Lost

Blue, Parker, and Rocklobster awoke on a planet that was soothing somehow.  The atmosphere seemed charged with some uplifting feeling.  Rocklobster was sedately working out a burr in his arm rotator, or some other such thing.  Blue and Parker stood up and looked around.

"What is this place?" Blue said.  He could not hide the awe in his voice.

"I dunno," Parker confessed, "but it's real . . . real peaceful here."

"I wonder why?" Rocklober said, diagnosing his body for any more errors.  He was naked -- that is, he wasn't wearing his hologram.  He was pure Pemalite automaton.

"Why are you naked, Rock?" Blue said.

"Huh?" he said, and then looked down.  "Oh."

His human avatar hologram shimmered into place.

"Oh, there's no need for subterfuge," a calm voice said.  "You should be comfortable with whatever form you want."

The voice belonged to a decidedly alien creature.  He, assuming he was a he as he had a male voice, was bipedal with gray skin and a dulap structure at the back of his head.

"Who are you?" Parker said, with no hostility.

"Oh?  I'm Saint Walker," he said, genially.  "And you three are new to this place, I believe?"

"No kidding," Blue said.

"Not to mention with no real way back home," Parker mentioned.

"Oh, my new friends," Saint Walker said, "have hope.  You wil get where you need to be."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 25, 2012, 09:45:30 AM

We get captured by various color themed bad guys, and Blue Parker and Rock all end up on a planet where the species has the word saint in it's name. *jumps off bridge*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2012, 09:55:38 AM

Oh, who says that you can't get uncaptured just as easily? *ambiguous-yet-telling smile*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on May 25, 2012, 11:08:21 AM

Loved catching up :) Good stuff!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2012, 04:35:20 PM

It's on hiatus now.  Found out that Shadow's coming Tuesday or Wednesday.  THIS Tuesday or Wednesday.  Got to do housecleaning.

Sorry about the short notice.  If I have some time in the next month, I may post a chapter or two.  But I want to spend my time with Shadow, as I don't get to see her often enough (she just lives too far away, although she and Faith are moving closer -- we'll be in the same time zone, at least).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 29, 2012, 10:30:00 PM

Don't worry, have fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2012, 07:52:15 PM

Well, I might be on more than I expected.  (Shadow wants to see parodies she's in.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on May 30, 2012, 08:25:35 PM

Just caught up, great stuff.  :)  Can't wait to see more, but no rush, enjoy your hiatus. ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2012, 07:47:22 AM

I cannot resist but add another chapter.  I feel I also should remind everyone, the Lanterns of the Prime Universe are different slightly from the DC-verse.  Shortish chapter, now.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Tribal Compassion

Horse, Terenia, and Phoenix groggily woke, got up, and looked around.  Peering blearily around, they saw they were on a world with a slightly lavender color.  They could see a faint indigo light.  They did not feel threatened in any way.  But the feeling of calmness somehow felt alien to them after what just happened.

"Oh, I wonder what realm we're in," Horse said, giving a little seal yawn.

"But didn't Cloaky say it wasn't a interdimensional depth charge?" Terenia asked.  She was a Yeerk nothlit with a human host.  "Didn't he say it was a subspace something-or-other?"

"Subspace displacement bomb, maybe?" Phoenix suggested idly.  "Okay -- that light is getting closer."

It was true.  The indigo light was approaching, but at a rather sedate rate.

"We could hide." Horse suggested.  She was adept at hiding from the Pootang.  Not always succeeding though.

"No . . . I don't think . . ." Terenia said, but she sounded more confused and perplexed than fearful.  "I dunno . . . they don't FEEL like a threat, do they?"

"'They'?" Phoenix asked.

"They're people, that indigo light," Terenia said, matter-of-factly.

"How do you know this, Terenia?" Phoenix asked, flummoxed.

"A hunch," she replied.

After what felt to be an hour, they saw that she was right.  A bunch of beings surrounded them, but their intent did not seem hostile.  But it did not help that none of the trio understood a word the weilders of this indigo light of compassion spoke.  Apparently their staffs -- they did not seem to have rings -- did not have a translation function.

"Uh . . . we come in peace?" Horse said, hopefully.

"That's so cliche," Phoenix muttered.

"You have anything better?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2012, 08:18:38 AM

'Nother chapter. (Shadow wants to read her Hunger Games -- she keeps this up, she'll have no books to read on the way to Washington! . . . She is so much like me. . . .)

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Oa, A Minor Problem*

Cloak, Goku, and Sam (aka crossoverfan) landed on a strange world with strange technological buildings.  Cloak was right on his feet within minutes.  You'd think that by being a Realm Walker that he'd be accustomed to walking in foreign lands.  That's not always necessarily true.  But Cloak could feel a certain frosty feeling that he could place.

"What hap --" Sam started, then saw where they were.  "Why are we on Oa?"

Oa, Cloak already knew, was the headquarters of the Green Lanterns and home of the Guardians of the Universe.  Though the claims of immortality the Guardians have Cloak didn't believe for an instant.  He thought that they were like Realm Walkers, just extremely long-lived.  But Cloak was unaware that he was not the first Realm Walker to step foot here.  He was not the first Realm Walker that the Guardians ever met.

It was at this moment that Cloak noticed some of the mechanical-appearing planet was severely damaged, but slowly being repaired by some other Green Lanterns.  Ones that he didn't know.

"That subspace translocation bomb!" Cloak exclaimed quietly.

"And what would that be?" Goku said, surly.

"Unlike the interdimensional depth charges, which blow anyone in their vicinity to other realms (depending on it's explosive yield and craftmanship), the subspace translocation bomb basically blows us into various directions, speeding through space and subspace, and there's no telling where you'd end up!!"

"So, we're still in our universe?" Sam asked.

"Yeah.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a subspace expert," Cloaky said.

Suddenly, Sam and Goku were addressed by their sectors, and a whole group of Green Lanterns surrounded Cloak.  There rings were glowing green, and they looked quite angry.  Sam and Goku were, needlessly to say, quite taken aback.

One of the Green Lanterns spoke directly to Cloak, "Malice, you're under arrest."**

---
*Supposed to be read as "Oh, uh, a minor problem".

**They apparently think all Realm Walkers look alike. . . . ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 31, 2012, 09:17:02 AM

I was always under the impresson you're face was covered the majority of the time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2012, 12:55:36 PM

I understand that misconception, but Realm Walkers have different builds, based on the animal/mythological form they take on. . . . For instance Malice is a bit more burly and stout than I am, being a Tasmanian devil (and I'm talking a real Tasmanian devil, not the Looney Tunes one).

Oh, if I could only find that picture that Damien once did of me . . . it was absolutely perfect. . .

Anyway, more chapters will probably come tomorrow . . . after this one.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Brief Interrogation

Cloak was deeply offended.

"I am NOT Malice," Cloak said with a dangerous tone.  He was unconcerned about the power rings directed at him.  Energy is energy, and he knew it well, as he and all Realm Walkers were born from it.  Granted, it wasn't this particular type, but still Cloak had no fear.  "First of all, Malice is female.  I'm male.  Second of all, I'm taller and a tiger.  She's stout and a Tasmanian devil.  She's pretty much evil incarnate, and I'm just the elements incarnate."

"You will come with us," another one of the Green Lanterns ordered.  Sam and Goku looked confused, but did not train their rings on him.  Cloak did not the arrogant timbre of this being's voice.  With all his powers, Cloak could easily snap him in half.  But that would not be very PR-friendly, Cloak thought.

"And if I refuse," Cloak said with narrowed eyes, "what then?"

"You will not refuse."

"Willful thing, aren't you?" Cloak said, with a weary tone to his voice.  "Oh, of course, you're Green Lanterns.  Those little trickets you wear are powered by it.  I forgot."

This Lantern shot a venomous look at Goku and Sam, who looked thoroughly mollified.  Cloak interceded on their behalf, "Oh, don't give them that 'You-Are-So-Dead-Meat' look.  They told me nothing.  Do you honestly think that you are the only Green Lanterns in all the realms?  Really?"

Silence.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Come with us." he said.

"Ask nicely."

"You have no authority to give me orders!"

"What makes you think you have the authority to give me orders?"

"You came here," he snarled.  "Of your own accord, no less --"

"You know very little." Cloak countered.

"Well, then, these two must have apprehended you."

"Still you know very little," Cloak said, matching his snarl.  "I did not come here of my own volation.  Neither did they."

"You must come with us," he repeated.  He sounded less sure about being able to force Cloak do anything he didn't want to.  Of course, he still thought Cloak was Malice.

"To be tried, indicted for something I had no part of?  To be punished for the actions of someone my grandfather's peer?" Cloak said.  "I think not.  But I want to speak to your Blue Boy bosses." Cloak said, heading toward where the Guardians are located.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 31, 2012, 02:37:35 PM

I had to look up so much to understand what is going on.

Everything makes so much more sense now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 31, 2012, 05:34:40 PM

Is it sad that I havn't had to wiki anything for this particular story?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 31, 2012, 06:18:21 PM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 31, 2012, 05:34:40 PM

Is it sad that I havn't had to wiki anything for this particular story?

Well most dc comics, save batman, never really appealed to me. I was just about to get into green lantern, but DC pissed me off.

I am more of a Marvel girl.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 31, 2012, 07:58:10 PM

Ah. I creep people out with my knowledge. Of things like My little pony, comic books, dr who, games, ect.

I actually know next to nothing about Dr. Who but simply knowing the word tardis wil lget you an odd look.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on May 31, 2012, 10:06:52 PM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 31, 2012, 07:58:10 PM

Ah. I creep people out with my knowledge. Of things like My little pony, comic books, dr who, games, ect.

I actually know next to nothing about Dr. Who but simply knowing the word tardis wil lget you an odd look.

- scratches your name off of datable rafian list-

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on May 31, 2012, 10:12:58 PM

Hey, I have other RAFians to blame for the dr who and my little pony.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2012, 07:26:28 AM

Quote from: Sakki on May 31, 2012, 06:18:21 PM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on May 31, 2012, 05:34:40 PM

Is it sad that I havn't had to wiki anything for this particular story?

Well most dc comics, save batman, never really appealed to me. I was just about to get into green lantern, but DC pissed me off.

I am more of a Marvel girl.

I am more of a Marvel guy, myself.  But I do watch DC shows, but I would turn to a Marvel show when I could.  But this isn't the first time I've adapted a DC comics storyline -- the first book, "A RAFian Falls", was based off the death of Superman.  Loosely based on the death of Superman.

And I'd say this is all probably be off-topic, but I don't want to be smited for "backseat moderatoring" again.  ::)

Remember, this isn't gonna be EXACTLY like the comics.  That's because the comics take place in another realm.  I wasn't sure I made this clear.

CHAPTER TEN:
Guardian Gamble

Cloak stormed into the Guardian's hangout, helped out by following the faint smell of Malice.  And their they were, the pachycephalic floating Smurfs*.  Cloak not help but see that they seemed quite smug.  It irritated the Realm Walker, as it reminded him irresistably of Malice and Abomination.  He did not like the way that they seemed to look down their noses at him.

"Why have you returned?" one called out in ringing tones.

"I have never stepped foot here before." Cloak said, anger beginning to flare.  "Don't you DARE mistake me for that rogue Realm Walker like your stupid cronies have!!"

"If you are not the Abomination, then who are you?" one spoke, this time with a calmer tone and feminine voice.  The tone was tinged with what Cloak perceived to be kindness, which kind of took an edge of his anger.

"Abomination is another Realm Walker, one I've dealt with in the past," Cloak said, "the one you faced previously, from what I've gathered, is Malice.  A female Realm Walker.  I am Cloak, son of Ursa, grandson of Sage, brother of Dagger and Faith, uncle of Shadow." Then added, "Oh, and Master of the Six Elements."

"Is this supposed to impress us?" said a rather grizzled Guardian with a permenant frown etched on his face.

"I really don't care if it impresses you or not." Cloak replied.  "And you are --?"

A silence before this Guardian snarled, "Appa Ali Apsa."

Cloak snorted, "Appa?  You're a six-legged wind buffalo?"

This was not taken very well by Appa.  This wasn't a very auspicious meeting, Cloak decided.

"Abomination, Malice, Cloak, whatever.  It doesn't matter.  You're under arrest!"

But the other Guardians seemed to want to argue with that decision, although one with a scar on her head seemed to argue in favor of Appa.  Cloak was unimpressed, and, frankly, getting bored.  He never did like political debates.  Once he had enough, he turned to leave.

"Where do you think you're going?!" one raged, Cloak suspected it was Appa.  But it was Scarface the Guardian.

"I'm leaving," Cloak replied, turning to continue on his way.

"You're not leaving."

"Oh?  You gonna stop me?"

Apparently so, because the scarred Guardian and Appa summoned some Green Lanterns with their stupid cereal box rings.

"Oh, Appa, you disappoint me."

---
*Okay, so it isn't politically-correct.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on June 01, 2012, 07:59:10 AM

Just out of curiosity, could Cloak/Shadow defeat a green lantern?How badly? From what I read they stomp, but I wanted a confirmation. What about a Guardian?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2012, 08:05:36 AM

Shadow's not in this book.  Cloak has energy manipulation abilities of his own -- and it's notoriously difficult to incarcerate a Realm Walker (unless it's by another Realm Walker in the Oblivion Gate).  And some, like me, can redirect energy -- but it's not an enjoyable sensation, it's downright unpleasant.  Then again, we can just take off our cloak . . . which has the nasty effect of slowly incinerating and deatomizing every around them, growing outward.  And Realm Walkers are much older than the Guardians, so we tend to know more although we're not immortal.  We just live for a very LONG time.  Hence why Shadow was still around in 4532 in the last book.

But this is something that I generally, in-character, try to avoid.  Especially since I tend to try control all my emotions lest my powers run amok.

This may not be a suitable explaination, but Estelore has greater strength, power-wise, than me.  And believe me, she'll turn up in this book.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
War of Light

Cloak was bound in green light, but he had enveloped himself in his own golden-scarlet energy and explanded it, until the would-be bindings snapped and melted into nonexistance.  Then he batted away a green rope construct, when he realized he had protential for Airsight as well as Earthsight. . . . Whoops, more pressing concerns.  Another blasted numerous energy orbs at him, and he could not help but notices the likeness (in appearance, that is) of this Lantern to Vegeta.

"You related to a Saiyan named Vegeta?" Cloak asked.

He blasted a green fist construct at Cloak, which he dodged by tunnelling underground, bursting out a few feet over.

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed!" Cloak scolded.  "Touchy, touchy.  Sensitive subject, or something?"

But, suddenly, it would seem that Cloak was forgotten.  The Green Lanterns went up into Oan space, including Sam and Goku.  Cloak couldn't help but feel like nothing more than an afterthought, which was a bit damaging to his ego.  But why look a gift horse in the mouth?  But he really had no means to escape except travelling back to the Nexus and returning.  But would just bring him back to the forum -- that would not help the others, if they were still alive.  He did not want to think of the alternative.

"Cloak?" a familiar voice spoke.

Cloak was filled with relief.  "Esty?"

"In the flesh -- well, so to speak."

She was in her avatar form -- a lovely lady with a bright sundress and some wide-brimmed hat.  Suffice it to say, it looke rather out of place on Oa.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"I didn't," Estelore explained.  "Came to this region of space to examine some interesting lifeforms, when I saw the light show."

"Light show?"

"Yeah, streaking yellow, red, orange, green, blue, and indigo lights."

Cloak took this in.  But it didn't make sense.  Why would the Corps be fighting each other?  And what of the Star Sapphires?  . . . Were there even Star Sapphires in this realm?  Still Cloak had a sinking feeling of something of great danger was going to happen.

"Estelore, I need a lift, we need to gather up the other RAFians," Cloak told her.

"What do you mean 'other RAFians'?" Esty said, quite alarmed.

"There was a subspace translocation bomb planted near RAF," Cloak explained.  "It blew us across space.  Goku, Sam and I landed here.  The others . . . I don't know."

"Cloak, I cannot give anyone a ride without incinerating them," Esty said.

"I'll be fine," Cloak said, waving the concern away, "only another Realm Walker can kill me.  It'd be a bit uncomfortable, it's true, but --"

"But what about the others, Cloak?" Esty interceded.  "They couldn't survive . . ."

Good point.  Cloak was so concerned with FINDING them, he didn't stop to consider this.

"Go get Yarin.  Have him follow you in his ship." Cloak suggested.

"On it." Esty said, and she was off.

Cloak looked up and saw Estelore disappear among the other stars.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 01, 2012, 09:14:45 AM

Why WOULDN'T, the corps be fighting?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2012, 12:45:06 PM

Touche.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 01, 2012, 03:34:29 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 01, 2012, 12:45:06 PM

Touche.

:P

Essentially their polar opposites, and in no way-no how get along.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2012, 08:26:10 AM

I see I have a fic competition now . . . ;) Bumpin' me off the top slot. XD

Oh, crossoverfan, I WILL do that story you suggested . . . only I've expanded it into a three-book arc.

Well, let's see here.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Time to Regroup

Cloak unearthed something that caused him great discomfort in the intervening time between sending Estelore to get Yarin, and his arrival on his ship.  But Cloak didn't see Estelore.  When he inquired about it to Yarin, he replied that Estelore got caught up in that War of Light thing.  She ordered Yarin to go on, to gather the others.  Except Goku and Sam, who were engrossed with the War of Light with their willful Green Lantern brethren.  Cloak wondered quietly who they would put first, RAF or the Corps.  Siding with RAF could lead to their expulsion from the Corps.

"Ahh!" Yarin yelped.

"What is it?" Cloak asked, alarmed.

"Didn't you hear that psychic roar?"  Yarin breathed.  "No, sorry, no, of course not.  I forgot Realm Walker minds are different from Dwellers. . . ."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"WHAT DID IT SAY!!"

"Oh, it was Estelore saying some not-too-nice words at a Red Lantern," Yarin replied, then asked. "Okay, where to first?"

"I would have to say," Cloak said, thoughtfully, "the home planet of the Red Lanterns."

***

Back to Blaze, Oceanspray, and Cornson, still trussed up a bit.  But Blaze had had quite enough at this point.  He incinerated his bonds, flared his wings so they smacked in his guards faces, disorientating them.  Cornson seemed to anticipate this, and coordinated his movements accordingly.  Then he rolled, snatched up his multi-purpose weapon, which glowed a similar red color as the animalistic Red Lanterns' power rings.

"Get them you fools!" Atrocius roared.

Oceanspray, too, had had enough.  He smacked off the device on his head, which did not have a very long battery-life apparently, and jumped into the fray.  They battled with bravery and valor . . . until the Red Lanterns flew into the sky, losing all interest in them.  This made Blaze a little angry -- angry enough that a free Red Lantern ring appealed to him to be its bearer.  He slashed it in two.

After a few hours, Cloak and Yarin showed up and collected the three.

***

Sakki, followed by Empress Goose and Blocky, were storming Larfleeze's headquarters.  Sakki found the light construct that stole her identity and . . . well, it wasn't pretty, but she destroyed it.  But she wasn't done yet.

"Wow . . . she can be quite . . . frightening." Empress Goose commented.

"Yes," Blocky said.

"HEY!  YOU TWO!  GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE AND HELP ME BEAT THIS THING WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE!!"

The two's eyes widened.

"Okay, she's really pissed." Empress Goose said, feeling truely intimidated."

Larfleeze had enough of this and flew away, getting mixed up in the War of Light.

"HEY!  ORANGE BOY!!  GET YOUR GREEDY BUTT BACK HERE!!!"

But then a yellow ring flew towards Sakki, but she smashed it pieces.  She eventually calmed down, but this was still a sore point with her.  It was then that Yarin's ship landed.

"Oh, NOW they come!"

***

Back on this realm's version of Qward, Dino was fighting a Sinestro Corps member that looked like the third form of Frieza, Demos was battling one that resembled the second form of Frieza, and Faerie had just sliced off the tails of two that resembled the first form and final form of Frieza.  They were going all out, though it seemed futile.  But, still, they fought on.

Then the yellow spandex-wearing creatures seemed to lose interest in them, as did the Greens, Reds and Larfleeze with the other RAFians.  Faerie was heard to loudly complain, "Awwww . . . no more?"

Then Yarin's ship landed peacefully, and the three -- with Dino in her more compact form, of course.

"Dino, wipe your feet!" Yarin complained.

***

Getting Blue, Parker, Rocklobster, Horse, Terenia, and Phoenix was a great deal easier.  They did not have to battle, but they were essentially calm and relaxed compared to the others.  They boarded with no hassle.  Blaze was a bit chafed at this, but it quickly abaited when Cloak voiced his concerns.

"I fear the Entities have been released."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2012, 12:42:41 PM

Can't resist another chapter.  Again, remember, this realm is different than the DC realm.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Entities

"The what?" Blaze asked.

"The Entities," Cloak repeated, "the Emotional Entities.  Incoporeal beings that embody a singular emotion, and, presumably,gain strength from it."

"Oh, great," Sakki snarled, "as if it wasn't enough that we had to put up with that idiot who literally steals identities to do who knows what with?  Now we have to put up with these emotional entitie bull?"

"I didn't chose it," Cloak said.  "And I may not have the strongest evidence --"

"Uh, you kinda have NO evidence." Blaze pointed out.

"That doesn't mean it ain't happening," Phoenix said, arms crossed, brow furrowed in thought.

"But what exactly do we do about this?" Horse asked.  "We've got this information, but we have no way to act upon it."

"What information?" Empress Goose said.  "No offense, Cloak, but all we have is just some gut feeling of yours --"

"I trust those gut feelings," Cloak interrupted.  "But if any of you want to bow out of this, fine.  Yarin can take you back to RAF.  Just steer clear of anymore subspace translocation bombs."

Brief silence met these words.

"Cloak, I think you've got their attention," Yarin said, piloting the ship without looking back.  "Best to tell us how many of these entities there are."

"I'm a little fuzzy on the particulars, but I know there are about eight." Cloak said, rubbing his chin.  Then he counted them off on his fingers, "The Butcher, the red, bovine Entity of Rage.  Ophidian, the orange, serpentine Entity of Avarice.  Parrallax, the insectoid Entity of Fear.  Ion, the cetacean Entity of Will.  Adara, the avian Entity of Hope.  Proselyte, the cephalopoid Entity of Compassion.  And . . . uh . . . what was it?  Uh . . . oh yeah, the Predator, the saurian Entity of Love."

Silence met these words.  Perhaps everyone was considering it.  Perhaps they thought Cloak was a loon.  It didn't matter.

"So, are you still in, or do you wanna go running back to RAF?" Yarin asked, apparently accepting his role as, essentially, the bus driver.

Fortunately none of the RAFians aboard had heat vision.

"Uh, just how do we capture these creatures?" Terenia asked.

"I can use my energy abilities to lasso them, and I'll hold on . . ."

"And?" Demos asked with narrowed eyes.

"And we have to get a member of each Corps to say their oath, the one they use to charge their rings.  One at a time, though.  I doubt even I could wrangle all eight entities all by myself.  Even if Shadow was here."

"Great.  That'll be easy!" Sakki snorted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on June 02, 2012, 08:49:50 PM

This sounds like it's going to be an interesting show-down, for sure.

Wait, seriously, the entity of love is called 'the Predator'?  Wha?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: radgeek on June 02, 2012, 11:34:00 PM

^ What she said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2012, 08:39:20 AM

Hey, don't blame me, blame DC!!  That's what they call the Entity for Love, accordin' to Wikipedia!!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Time to Meet the Butcher

"Which one first, then?" Blue asked.

"I'd say we go after butcher first," Cloak said decisively, "I doubt that it would be hard to find."

"No kidding," Yarin said, without turning around, "I'm playing chicken against my will.  With a very angry, red, bull thing."*

"Oh, it's so cute!" Demos replied.

Cloak looked at it, and could feel the anger coming off it.  It was quite powerful.  "Everyone you mustn't get angry.  Let's not make it stronger that it needs to be.  The Mark should protect any of us from hosting it."

"'Should'?" Terenia asked quickly.

"'Hosting it'?" Faerie queried just as quickly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Blaze said, holding up his hands.  "You sped by us there.  How 'bout rewindin' that a bit?"

"These entities are made of energy," Cloak explained, though he thought it obvious, "they're incorporeal.  As in 'bodiless'.  They need hosts," he looked directly at Terenia, "like Yeerks do."

"And what do you mean the Mark SHOULD protect us?" Sakki intoned.

"Well, like with the Technarchy incident," Cloak attempted to explain, "it would prevent foreign organisms from possessing or controlling you.  It's how Goom and I designed it, after all, I have those innate abilities and we had the Mark transfer it to all of you, as well."

Brief silence met this explaination.  Cloak, however, was getting antsy.  He was ready for this to be over.  Both the Butcher and Yarin's ship was in the atmosphere of the Red Lanterns' base world.  An objective view may see this as pure, unadulterated insanity.  But, for the RAFians, this was just any other Tuesday.

Cloak leaped from the ship, and fired a lasso of golden-scarlet energy, and wrapped it around the bull's throat.  It looked as if Cloak was flying a violent, angry, full-bodied kite.

***

Meanwhile, the others decided, as the other Red Lanterns were completely, and quite literally, beasts and monsters (sentience basically lost with the wearing of the red ring), they decided to go after Atrocius.  After several failed plans, Yarin had to implant a mental illusion in the head Red Lantern's mind about his battery being near Cloak and his ring nearly out of juice.

Yarin hated having to do things like that.  But time was of the essence.

Atrocius landed mere yards away from Cloak, with his battery, not noticing the large bull creature being flown above his head like a rowdy, killer kite.  He pointed his ring towards the battery and said:

With blood and rage of crimson red,
Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,
Together with our hellish hate,
We'll burn you all -- that is your fate!

And Cloak managed, as Atrocius's battery glowed, to throw the Butcher towards it, which sucked it up like an apple in front of Kirby.  Cloak panted, as he reentered Yarin's ship.  His arms were sore, and his back ached, but he said nothing about it.  But he wasn't good at hiding it from his colleagues.

"Now, to get Ophidian," Cloak said through heavy breaths.
 
---
* This.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/GLRedEntity01.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 03, 2012, 06:40:48 PM

Heh, me and Sakki almost got drafted. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2012, 08:15:17 AM

It actually took me a moment to realize what you were saying, Blaze. :facepalm:

Anyway, I think I'll disclose the next few tentative titles of future books -- hopefully they won't give away too much.

[spoiler=Future Book Titles]

• Book XI: "Knights of Humanity"
• Book XII: "Alien Trap"
• Book XIII: "The Forbidden Arts"
• Book XIV: "Forum of Cards"
• Book XV: "The Book of Very Bad Things"
• Book XVI: "Who's Who"

[/spoiler]

And I'm considering making a poll with just the excuse of using it like a Table of Contents . . . well, if that's allowed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Greedy, Greedy Snake

While they travelled over to where Ophidian was supposed to be, Cloak rested and pooled as much energy as he could.  He had not anticipated the strength of the Butcher.  Yes, it was stupid on his part, but he kept that part quiet.  The others didn't need to know that.  It might make them question this plan, and this needed to be done.  These entities could not be destroyed or controlled, just as emotions are notoriously difficult to control -- as Cloak knew first hand.

"Ophidian would be a snake*, right?" Yarin asked.

"Yeah," Cloak said, cursing himself for the weariness in his voice.  The others took note of it, but said nothing.  But it was against their better judgement.

Demos looked at it, "Oh, cool!"

"Demos, so help me . . ." Faerie threatened, then conceded it did look kinda cool.

"What is that you have, Sakki?" Cloak asked.

"A catalogue, why?" she replied, as she thumbed through it.  Cloak fired an ember from each of the fingers on his left hand.  The catalogue was ash.

"HEY!  I was LOOKING at that!"

"THAT IS THE SNAKE OF AVARICE!" Cloak said, temper flaring.  Butcher was dealt with, he could allow it to flare a little.  "The embodiment of greed!  It feeds on it."

"Uh, then why is it running away?" Yarin asked.

"What the deuce**?"

"Yeah -- look!" Parker pointed through the ****pit window.

It was true Ophidian was fleeing from them.  It was as if it knew what Cloak intended.  Of course, Larfleeze himself trapped it in his power battery once, and it does not want to go back in again.

Well, that's just too bloody bad, Cloak thought, as Yarin's masterful flying tricked and connived the snake down into the atmosphere of Larfleeze's planet, to his base of operations.  Okaara, it was called. It was quite elegantly and skillfully done.

"Great, back here again." Sakki grumbled.

Cloak said nothing but leaped once more out of the ship.  Feeling earth beneath his feet again was good.  He fired a golden-scarlet whip from his right hand which wrapped around Ophidian's neck.  Of course, it began thrashing.  Far more violently than Cloak had anticipated.  Cloak had to form and fire another golden-scarlet whip from his other hand, which wrapped around the tail.  This offered him better control, but did not stop the greed snake from thrashing, which seemed to become more and more violent.  Cloak fired blasts of golden-scarlet energy and flame from his mouth.  This lightened up the thrashing but only for mere seconds.

WILL YOU GUYS HURRY UP AND GET LARFLEEZE'S OATH AND HIS BATTERY?! Cloak thought angrily.

***

Yarin was about to do the same trick that he did before, and hated himself for doing, when Dino stopped him.  She spoke directly to Larfleeze, "Hey, Orange Guy.  Do you mind if we borrow your battery?"

"MINE!"

"Oh, okay then," Dino conceded with a sly smile unseen by Larfleeze, "then will just have to use your Central Battery."

"No!  It's MINE!  MIIIIINE!"

He dove down towards the planet's surface.  Yarin followed, complimenting Dino, "Nicely played."

***

Cloak saw Larfleeze, who glared at him.  "Who are you?"

"Someone who comes with a gift." Cloak said, not bothering to hide the strain his voice.  "You want this snaky?"

"MINE!"

"But you have to say your oath first," Cloak said, pandering to his greed.  "That's the only way it won't go away."

Larfleeze complied immediately, though Cloak could not hear the oath, but new it worked when Ophidian, ragefully indignant was sucked into the Central Battery.  Cloak nearly collapsed, but fought it as Yarin's ship approached.

"Where's the snake??  Where's Ophidian??" Larfleeze demanded.

"Oh, it's in your battery, go ahead look for it." Then Cloak boarded the ship, and once on board, replied, "That should keep him occupied for a while."

---
*This is Ophidian.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/GLOrangeEntity01.jpg)

**Obligatory Stewie Griffin reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 04, 2012, 09:52:08 AM

A corp dedicated entirely to the aquisition of more posessions...Why was I not recruited to this one?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on June 04, 2012, 10:00:21 AM

Quote from: Blazing Fallen Angel on June 04, 2012, 09:52:08 AM

A corp dedicated entirely to the aquisition of more posessions...Why was I not recruited to this one?

Because there is only one actual member, Larfleeze, the greediest thing in the universe. All of the other "members" are just constructs created after Larfleeze killed the real guys and stole their identities. Lex Luthor and Hal Jordan were briefly the orange lantern, I don´t remember if Larfleeze was dead or the ring decided they were greedier than him.

(http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/40/2060769-1186440_luthorinarmorcover_cmyk_super.jpeg)

(http://images.wikia.com/greenlantern/images/0/07/Hal_Jordan_as_a_Orange_Lantern.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2012, 10:57:25 AM

I've been wanting to see pictures of those.  I only read about this stuff on Wikipedia, mind you.  And I think it was because the Guardians made duplicate Orange Lantern rings.  Of course, in this realm, it's not always necessarily "kill" them to take their identity -- but that could be because Sakki is unique in that way.

I may post another chapter later.  Depends if I feel up to it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Fear Itself

"Cloak, are you okay?" Horse asked.

"I'm fine," he replied firmly.

"Cloak, are you --" Phoenix said, concerned.

"I said, I'M FINE." Cloak said, very firmly.  "Now, go to Qward.  Parallax should be nearby."

"What is he the entity of again?" Blaze asked, scratching his head.

"The Entity of Fear.  So, you all best recognize yours and control it."

"And you?" Parker inquired.

"I've been on the Epiphany Road," Cloak replied.  "First step on that journey dealt with survival.  I had to confront and conquer my fears.  I suggest you do the same before facing Parrallax."

"Yeah, I can see why.*"  Yarin said.  "A particularly ugly beast.  Approaching Qward now, it appears to be deserted."

"Worry about that after I take on the fear bug." Cloak said, realizing the alternative meaning of what he just said a second later.

"Awww, it's ADORABLE!" Demos proclaimed.  Faerie smacked him upside the head.  "OW!  Hey!"

"Try to find a Sinestro Corpsmen quickly -- preferably a stupid, arrogant one." Cloak said, ignoring the two.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Dino replied drily.

Once they were in atmosphere, Cloak leaped out once more and he was followed by what seemed to be a dangerously inquistive Parralax.  Cloak felt no fear, but a fiery determination.  When the entity was close enough, Cloak fired the golden scarlet energy whip constructs from both hands.  One wraps around its neck and the other wrapped around it's midsection.

It was close enough that Cloak could feel it's fear and paranoia-inducing powers.  But Cloak, with force of mind and will, ignored it and focused solely on his task at hand.

***

"How do we get one of these Sinestro Corpsmen to go to the surface?" Rocklobster asked.  "Much less say their oath?"

"Oh, simple," Empress Goose said, "we appeal to their ego."

Yarin piloted the ship to intercept the one.  One that appeared to be a cross between a Predator and Knuckles the Echidna.  Empress Goose spoke to this one.  Rather, he blew a loud raspberry at him.  THIS really got his attention, and he began to fly after Yarin's ship.

"Brillant!" Yarin said sarcastically.  "Now, how do we get him to say his oath?"

"Oh, yeah.  Forgot about that," Empress Goose confessed.

"Great."

"Here's an idea," Oceanspray said, "hey, deadlock-guy" -- the other cringed at the "dead"lock pun -- "I bet you don't know the Sinestro Corps oath!"

"Oh yeah?!" he snarled.  Then he turned to the Central Battery on the ground.

"In blackest day, in brightest night,
Beware your fears made into light
Let those who try to stop what's right,
Burn like my power... Sinestro's might!"

***

Cloak was struggling with Parallax, not physically this time, that part was relatively easy.  But with the waves of fear-inducement (which failed) and paranoia-inducement (which greatly annoyed Cloak).

"Will you STOP that?!" he finally roared, but Parallax was gone.  Sucked into the Central Battery, with a dumbfounded Sinestro Corpsmen.  "Who are you?"

"Your worst nightmare, if you follow us." Cloak replied wearily.
---
*This is Parallax.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/GLParallax01.jpg)(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/Parallax_rebirth.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2012, 08:27:15 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Battle of Wills

Cloak breathed a bit, steadying himself and preparing himself for the next entity.

"Who's next?" Phoenix asked, eyeing Cloak uncertainly.

"The Entity of Will," Cloak said without hesitation.  "Ion.*"

"Who names these things?" Sakki asked.

Cloaky ignored her.

"Oh, I see, you don't know."

"No, I don't," Cloak admitted brusquely.

"Wait, how do you face Ion without showing willpower?" Blaze pointed out.

"Ion isn't like Parallax, Orphidian, or the Butcher," Cloak said, "it tries to support those with willpower.  I don't know why."

"So, we got to just ask it to get in the Central Battery?" Dino said, with a huff of disbelief.

"Not necessarily, but it's the most gentle of the eight, I think."

"But we still need a Green Lantern, don't we?" Blue said.

"So, just get Goku or Sam," Cloak said simply.  "But first things first, I've got to restrain Ion.  To Oa, Yarin."

"But Estelore told me how you're kind of a wanted man on Oa," Yarin blurted.

"No," Cloak disagreed.  "Malice is a wanted woman on Oa.  They just, somehow, mistook me for her."

"How?" Faerie asked.  "We can tell you apart."

Blaze shifted slightly at this.  Faerie ignored it.

"Don't ask me, but they seem to think all Realm Walkers look alike." Cloak said, as the ship set down.  Cloak wondered if the Oan defenses were far more concerned with the other Lantern Corps to worry about a "minor" threat like Yarin's ship.  Cloak stepped foot back onto Oan terra firma again, and lassoed a nearby Ion.  But it didn't thrash about like Ophidian, or violently tug on the energy lasso like the Butcher, or try to intimidate Cloak like Parallax.  It was more of an inquistive dog on a leash type of pulling.  This surprised Cloak so much he almost let go.  He hadn't expected it to be this gentle.

***

"Sam, come in." Yarin attempted to hail.  "Goku, Sam, either one of you, come in!!"

"I'm sorta busy here, Yarin." Sam said, sounding rather crackly over the communications.

"Well, we need you and your ring on Oa, at the Central Battery." Faerie said, with a blunt tone that one could only associate with her.

"I can't.  I'll get discharged from the Green Lanterns. . . ."

"Well, what about the universe getting destroyed, would it matter, then?!" Sakki shouted, having lost her patience.

"Oh . . . oh, okay!!"

***

Cloak felt like he was walking a floating, flying dog.  He was thankful for this little respite from the vicious tangoing with the other three.  Then he saw Sam at the Central Battery.  Ion seemed to know what's coming, but did not fear it.  Much like a large but overly gentle and docile dog going into a kennel.

"Go ahead and recite the oath, Sam," Cloak prodded.

He nodded, and said:

"In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power . . . Green Lantern's light!"

Ion went willingly into the Central Battery, and Cloak thought it was some underhanded tactic, but somehow that didn't seem plausible.  It was done, but Sam didn't stay to chat.  He went right back up to reenter the fight, using the excuse "I had to recharge my ring," to explain his absence.

Cloak reboarded the ship, "We're halfway there."

"This is gonna get old fast," Oceanspray noted.

---
* Ion.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/GLIon01.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on June 05, 2012, 12:38:58 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 05, 2012, 08:27:15 AM

"Who names these things?" Sakki asked.

Cloaky, love, stay out of my head. I was thinking this about a chapter ago. >_>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on June 05, 2012, 01:12:42 PM

Exciting installments, can't wait to see more.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 06, 2012, 04:27:17 AM

Holy crap this book is amazing! How dare you even think of leaving us before posting this creation!

Awesomeness so far. Pure awesomeness!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2012, 07:19:42 AM

Thanks, Parker.  I will be working on this and the RAFparodies jointly now (I just got back in the flow of writing them again).  But, first, a shortish chapter I think.  Oh, and I miscounted the Entities.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Aimless Hope

Cloak stretched, preparing himself for the next Entity that he had to restrain.  He was gonna sleep for a week when this was done, he decided.

"Well, who and what is next?" Parker asked.

"That would be Adara*," Cloak said, pointed to the planet known as Odym, home of the Blue Lanterns.  About it was a blue entity spiralling slowly and sedately toward the surface.  It would reach the atmosphere before them.

For once, Demos was silent about it's appearance, meaning he didn't know if he approved of the incorporeal beast or not.  Faerie seemed disappointed slightly that she wouldn't get to slap him upside his head.

"Well, it seems bored.  Or drunk," Sakki commented.

"I suppose this means that hope is nothing without the will to act on it," Cloak replied.

"Thank you, Socrates."

Soon enought, it was time for Cloak to leap out.  So, he did, and lassoed Adara, half-expecting a fight, a vicious struggle.  Cloak should have known better.  It was like he was flying a really sedate kite.  Cloak didn't really need to exert himself.

Meanwhile, the others managed to convince a Blue Lantern (who turned out was a buddy of Goku) quite easily, and he lands at the Central Battery.  Cloak simply walks over, pulling Adara with marginal strength.  The Blue Lantern, who resembled an orange-skinned Namekian with blue antennae, spoke his oath:

"In fearful day, in raging night,
 With strong hearts full, our souls ignite,
 When all seems lost in the War of Light,
 Look to the stars -- for hope burns bright!"

Adara, looking very much uninterested, was sucked inside the Central Battery.

"Thanks for your help," Cloak said, dashing to the ship.  Once back inside the ship, Cloak said, "Two more to go."

"But that's seven not eight," Faerie pointed out.

"I miscounted, okay?"

"On something this important?" Sakki asked.

"Just because I'm a Realm Walker, I am not immune to mistakes, okay?!"

---
* Here's Adara.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/GLBlueEntity01.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2012, 08:20:14 AM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Compassionate Hugs

Cloaky was managing to keep his exhaustion and emotions under control.

"Cloaky," Parker said, in an aside, "I'm worried that you might overextend and exhaust your abilities.  And I'm concerned that it might destroy you in the long run."

"I appreciate the compassion, Parker," Cloak said, "but this needs to be done.  And I'm the only one who can.  There's only the Predator and Proselyte* now.

"But what if --"

"Parker, let's not deal in 'what if's just now." Cloak said.  He was probably too blunt, but Cloak didn't need his resolve and determination to erode.  Although Parker meant well, that's what it would have done.  He wondered faintly if Proselyte, the next entity they were going after, was going to be as easy and passive as Ion and Adara were.  In recalling what he remembered about the Indigo Tribe . . . he doubted it.

"When you seek out an Indigo Tribesmen, be careful." Cloak warned.  "Without their rings, some of the Tribesmen are without compassion at all, some without any emotion at all."

"Huh?  But I thought these rings were fueled by emotion." Dino said.

"Apparently, if I'm recalling this correctly from my time in the other realm, the indigo and orange rings are a parasitic sort.  They force their wearers to feel the emotion even if their is none." Cloak said, thoughtfully.  "And they can channel the energy from other Corps, if I recall correctly."

"Great," Blue said, " this is just . . . great."

Yarin lowered the ship down into the atmosphere, and Cloak jumped out goin' after Proselyte.  But it turns out, that Proselyte liked Cloak.  REALLY liked Cloak.  So much so that the indigo, incomporeal cephaloid just wanted to hug with it's many tentacles.  Naturally, Cloak wanted none of this.  So he had to use all his feline agility (which was numbed some by sheer exhaustion).  He was hit once or twice by a tentacle, but in the end he managed to hogtie the energy squid.  But he was still breathing heavily afterward, and he could see the thing still struggling to free itself so it could give Cloak a little hug . . .

***

Meanwhile, the other RAFians manage to speak to a Indigo Tribesman who knew English.

"Sir, could you please help us?" Horse, who the others thought the Tribesman would respond the best to, being the youngest there.

"Of course, young one," he said.

"We need you to recharge your 'wing'," Horse said, deliberately putting on the cutesy-wutesy act.

"Why, young one, whatever for?"

There was silence as the RAFians debated on the best way to handle this that was unheard by the Tribesman.  In the end, they settled on, "It will help us get rid of a monster."

The Tribesman agreed and flew back down to the planet, with Yarin's ship hovering slightly behind.

***

"Uh-uh," Cloak snarled.  "No huggies, Proselyte."

Then he saw the Tribesman land, and he used his energy projection abilities to lift Proselyte up as the Tribesman spoke his oath:

"Tor lorek san, bor nakka mur,
Natromo faan tornek wot ur.
Ter Lantern ker lo Abin Sur,
Taan lek lek nok -- Formorrow Sur!"

Cloak didn't understand a word of the oath (except the name of Abin Sur, which he didn't know personally), but he threw Proselyte at the battery, and it was sucked in with a whimper of regret.  It never got to hug Cloak.  Cloak boarded the ship as the confused Tribesman returned to the Indigo Tribe.

"Now, potentially the most dangerous one," Cloak told the others.

---
*This would be Proselyte.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/GLIndigoEntity01.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on June 06, 2012, 08:37:55 AM

Ok, I like this fic, I really do. Then only REAL problem that I've got with it is that, COME ON! Restraining multiversal warpers just like every day of the week and twice on Sundays?! Is cloak and his magical lasso really that powerful?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2012, 09:25:44 AM

Crossoverfan, it's not a magical lasso, it's a construct of my own energy, that's the first "element" that any Realm Walker can master (Shadow and me are the only living Realm Walker Elements Masters).  And it's established that Estelore is more powerful than me -- but she's busy at the moment, being targeted by Red Lanterns.  Something she would not take lightly.  Perhaps she's also meeting Mogo.  And what do you mean "multiversal warpers"?  Is it Malice?  She's the same species as me, in fact she's tangoed with my grandfather, Sage.

Sorry, perhaps I took that comment a little too personally.  Shortish chapter.  This may be my weakest book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Tangoing with the Predator

Cloak was mentally and physically preparing himself for the final entity, and the prospectively most dangerous.  "Love conquers all" and all that jazz.  The Predator* . . . Cloak knew this would be far more difficult than anything else.  Not only his part, but the RAFians never had any contact with the Star Sapphires.  He had no idea how'd they react to a request for assistance.

But first things first, he had to restrain the Predator.  He was sure the thing would be bigger than he was.  But he had to be confident that he could handle it.  Then they saw it heading to Zamaron.  Cloak was hesitant, as he was sure of an attack from the Star Sapphires.  But they seemed far more concerned with the presence of the Predator.  Talk about presence of mind.

Cloak dropped out of the ship and landed on the surface of Zamaron, but it was a rather rough landing.  He noticed some scarring on the ground, and realized he was bleeding ichor.  It was a minor wound, but he made a makeshift bandage from the bottom of his cloak, and proceeded to fire an energy whip construct again in an attempt to restrain the Predator.

Of course, that alerted the preoccupied Star Sapphires to the RAFian presence.  A few turned their rings on him and Yarin's ship, which greatly annoyed the Realm Walker.

"Hey!  We're on your side!!" he shouted.  He wanted to call them a very impolite name, but he decided against it.  It was here that the Predator's violent thrashing snapped the energy whip Cloak was using.  He uttered a Realm Walker curse which sounded like a simple snarl to the Dwellers.  The Star Sapphire rings began to glow.

"Oh, great.  Like we don't have more PRESSING PROBLEMS?!" Parker roared from the ship's external speakers.

One Star Sapphire faltered, looked at the ship and blushed.  Looked like she was smitten by the sound of Parker's voice . . . which just made her all the more powerful.  Perfect.

"HOLD UP!!" both Cloak and everyone on the ship shouted at the same time.

The Star Sapphires didn't seem too keen to listen, but relented at a signal from someone who could only be a queen, who appeared to be human.  But Cloak was no expert at these things, and shouldn't assume.  The Star Sapphires went back to fighting it, some taking Cloak's energy lasso idea, some just blasting it.  It seemed like it was just getting annoyed.

"What do you want here?"

"To imprison the Predator, over there."

"How do you know of it?"

"You think this is the only realm that has an Entity of Love?"

". . . Touche.  I guess." she replied coldly.  "You said you wanted to imprison the beast.  Where?"

"Your Central Battery, or similar."

"That's impossible."

"We've done it six times already.  For the other emotional entities."

"What you say . . . it cannot be done."

"Humor me."

Silence, where only the sounds of the Star Sapphire rings being used was heard.

"Fine.  How do you propose we do this, strange one?"

"Realm Walker, please." Cloak said, preferring not to give her his chosen name.  "And all you need to do is recite your oath.  Then your Star Sapphires and I can throw it in."

"Preposterous."

"It's worked six times before."

"It's ludicrous!"

"What have you got to lose?"

She didn't have an answer to that.  She took a sharp inhalation, and a slow, aggravated exhalation.  "FINE.  Get that blasted this over here."

Cloak shut his eyes, focused on his breathing, and accessed the little power he saved up.  Which wasn't much, now he thought about it.  He fired the energy whip again, and the Star Sapphires did the same.  Even Yarin's ship fired an energy whip that lassoed it as well.

"Why didn't you do that before?" Dino demanded of Yarin.

"I didn't realize it at the time."

"Nice," Cornson said, rolling his eyes.

All together, they forced the strongest entity down to the battery.  The queen Star Sapphire began to recite the oath:

"For hearts long lost and full of fright,
For those alone in blackest night,
Accept our ring and join our fight,
Love conquers all -- with violet light!"

With that, despite all of its vicious thrashing and brutish struggling, the Predator was sucked in.  All the Star Sapphire rings glowed brillantly for a few minutes.  They looked at the RAFians, who disembarked from the ship.  Then they turned their backs and walked away.

"Some gratitude, for you," Parker grumbled.  And that same Star Sapphire looked back at him and smiled.  Parker's face was hidden, but his body language said quite clearly he was blushing.  Especially after the Star Sapphire blew him a kiss.

"Ooooh, Parker's got a girlfriend!" Sakki teased in a singsongy voice.

"Shut up," Parker said in a strangled voice.

But at this point, Cloak collapsed into an exhausted heap.

"Don't worry, I got him," Dino said, using her jaws to daintly lift him up and took him back to the ship.

Parker, however, looked back at that one Star Sapphire.  It was her . . . the girl that caused the friction between him and General Luis Cannon. . . . Then he boarded with the others and headed home, to RAF.

---
*This is the Predator.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/GLPredator02.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Pyrrhian on June 06, 2012, 09:49:48 AM

Well from what I've read, Realm Walkers are pretty damn powerful! They can travel to other universes so they're "multiversal" and it's been noted somewhere that Realm Walkers restrain their true powers by wearing their cloak so in a sense their true power can warp universes too.

The only issue I have with the whole the series of books is that they're a little...repetitive . From collecting stones to, cardinal direction, hunting entities. You should try to avoid having such a shopping list like storyline in your books. It almost makes people want to skip chapters just to get on with the story.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on June 06, 2012, 09:53:07 AM

Got a little gift for you. If you want you can edit your first ever Memoirs of a RAFian post to include a Contents section using the code below

---

[spoiler=List of Books]
Book One: A RAFian Falls (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg700168#msg700168)
Book Two: The Ooze (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg707811#msg707811)
Book Three: Dark Phoenix (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg708790#msg708790)
Book Four: One RAFian's Worth (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg709743#msg709743)
Book Five: Mark of a RAFian (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg710487#msg710487)
Book Six: What About Gaz? (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg712025#msg712025)
Book Seven: Malice's Stones (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg715054#msg715054)
Book Eight: Attack of the Radioactive Seal from a forum called RAF (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg717998#msg717998)
Book Nine: Passing the Torch (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg720623#msg720623)
Book Ten: Corps Feelings (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg721549#msg721549)
Book Eleven: Knights of Humanity
Book Twelve: Alien Trap
Book Thirteen: The Forbidden Arts
Book Fourteen: Forum of Cards
Book Fifteen: The Book of Very Bad Things
Book Sixteen: Who's Who?
[/spoiler]

---

Code: [Select]

[spoiler=List of Books][url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg700168#msg700168]Book One: A RAFian Falls[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg707811#msg707811]Book Two: The Ooze[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg708790#msg708790]Book Three: Dark Phoenix[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg709743#msg709743]Book Four: One RAFian's Worth[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg710487#msg710487]Book Five: Mark of a RAFian[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg712025#msg712025]Book Six: What About Gaz?[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg715054#msg715054]Book Seven: Malice's Stones[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg717998#msg717998]Book Eight: Attack of the Radioactive Seal from a forum called RAF[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg720623#msg720623]Book Nine: Passing the Torch[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg721549#msg721549]Book Ten: Corps Feelings[/url]
Book Eleven: Knights of Humanity
Book Twelve: Alien Trap
Book Thirteen: The Forbidden Arts
Book Fourteen: Forum of Cards
Book Fifteen: The Book of Very Bad Things
Book Sixteen: Who's Who?
[/spoiler]

What do you think? I was going to go chapter by chapter but that would have taken too long!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2012, 10:03:52 AM

Quote from: Aquilai on June 06, 2012, 09:53:07 AM

Got a little gift for you. If you want you can edit your first ever Memoirs of a RAFian post to include a Contents section using the code below

---

[spoiler=List of Books]
Book One: A RAFian Falls (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg700168#msg700168)
Book Two: The Ooze (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg707811#msg707811)
Book Three: Dark Phoenix (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg708790#msg708790)
Book Four: One RAFian's Worth (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg709743#msg709743)
Book Five: Mark of a RAFian (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg710487#msg710487)
Book Six: What About Gaz? (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg712025#msg712025)
Book Seven: Malice's Stones (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg715054#msg715054)
Book Eight: Attack of the Radioactive Seal from a forum called RAF (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg717998#msg717998)
Book Nine: Passing the Torch (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg720623#msg720623)
Book Ten: Corps Feelings (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg721549#msg721549)
Book Eleven: Knights of Humanity
Book Twelve: Alien Trap
Book Thirteen: The Forbidden Arts
Book Fourteen: Forum of Cards
Book Fifteen: The Book of Very Bad Things
Book Sixteen: Who's Who?
[/spoiler]

---

Code: [Select]

[spoiler=List of Books][url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg700168#msg700168]Book One: A RAFian Falls[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg707811#msg707811]Book Two: The Ooze[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg708790#msg708790]Book Three: Dark Phoenix[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg709743#msg709743]Book Four: One RAFian's Worth[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg710487#msg710487]Book Five: Mark of a RAFian[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg712025#msg712025]Book Six: What About Gaz?[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg715054#msg715054]Book Seven: Malice's Stones[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg717998#msg717998]Book Eight: Attack of the Radioactive Seal from a forum called RAF[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg720623#msg720623]Book Nine: Passing the Torch[/url]
[url=http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg721549#msg721549]Book Ten: Corps Feelings[/url]
Book Eleven: Knights of Humanity
Book Twelve: Alien Trap
Book Thirteen: The Forbidden Arts
Book Fourteen: Forum of Cards
Book Fifteen: The Book of Very Bad Things
Book Sixteen: Who's Who?
[/spoiler]

What do you think? I was going to go chapter by chapter but that would have taken too long!

I would love to do that Aquilai, in fact, I did the same thing when for the RAFparodies.  But then it got so long it wasn't feasible (50,000 character limit, I think).  Then again, probably won't be 767 books . . .

'Nother chapter, methinks.  The last chapter of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Rest For Weary RAFians

Within a few hours, the RAFians made it home.  The others were eager to hear what happened, but Richard forbade them from asking until the weary RAFians had had some rest.  Cloak was moved to his thread where he slept straight through eight or nine days.  He had used up a lot of his energy, and Parker was right, he nearly destroyed himself in order to do it.  But Cloak told the others nothing of the sort.  He didn't want them labeling him as obstinate, which he knew full well that he was, as his mother before him.  Let the others tell the story, Cloak decided.

When Cloak was rested enough, he went out onto the grounds.  He took in the beautiful sight of RAF.  He knew how often they had fought to stay here, but it was well worth the fights.  During his leisurely stroll, he noticed Parker beneath an old, gnarled yew tree.  His arms were around his knees, and his helmet was off.  His face showed that he was deep in thought.  So much so, that he did not notice Cloak's approach nor presence.  Not initially.

"Oh, you're up." he said, standing up, brushing off his armor.  He held his helment loosely in his left hand.

"Yes," Cloak said, then he narrowed his eyes shrewdly.  "You've been here for the last few days."

"Who told you?"

"You did.  Just now."

Parker sighed, looking just very awkward now.

"Does this have something to do with that Star Sapphire?"

Parker heaved another sigh, "You're perceptive."

Cloak said nothing, waiting for Parker to continue.

"Remember when I said a girl got between me and Loose Cannon?" Parker asked.

Cloak nodded, and replied, "That was her, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Parker answered.

"You still have feelings for her."

Parker looked shocked at this.  "Uh, n-no!  Not at all!"

"I can tell you're lying."

"Damn Earthsight." Parker cursed.

"That, and the fact you've been here for the last eight days."

***

Meanwhile, in some unknown shadowy place, a figure emerges.  She was Malice and she looked very amused.

"Amazing . . ." she said in a quiet voice but a dangerous tone.  "You're very much like your grandfather, Cloak.  It's a pity, really.  You Elements Masters and your insufferable morals.  But that's the fun of it, I suppose, to yank and twist and manipulate and irritate you.  Heroes always fall, at least once.  Later, dear little cat, I will cause you to suffer, to rip you away from that which you devote your time with.  But not now.  I have another little test and fun for you. . . ."

Then she vanished with a wicked laugh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 06, 2012, 10:49:49 AM

Happy ending WHEEEEEE!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on June 06, 2012, 11:05:31 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 06, 2012, 10:03:52 AM

Then she vanished with a wicked laugh.

Why is it when I read that I pictured her doing:

(http://alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/large/worried-omg-run-male-l.png)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 06, 2012, 08:26:27 PM

Ooo... an opening for another plot line. Haha, I get to date a Violet Lantern.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2012, 06:49:51 AM

Oh, Parker . . . did you honestly think it would be so easy? ;)

I post the first chapter of Book XI soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 07, 2012, 07:46:02 AM

Hell no; but the courting sessions, I'm sure, will be life threatening and hot. :P Each dodging each other's shots until out of ammo/juice then insane make out session follows! Mr & Mrs Smith-style! I get to be Brad Pitt. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2012, 07:51:34 AM

Well I was gonna put in the first chapter, but APPARENTLY my computer decided it would be funnier to make me go back a page!!

BOOK XI:
The Knights of Humanity
Chapter One:
RAFAwards Night

The RAFians were gathering into the Bored Board's auditorium, who had their brownish-red curtains curtains closed.  Richard wore a suit that accented his features perfectly, Goom wore a simple bowtie (although how he tied it without hands was a mystery), Cloak and Shadow wore their very best cloaks (Cloak's was black and Shadow's was a royal purple color), Parker's armor was polished to a lusterous degree, Gaz's fangs were glistening, Sakki's VOLCAROID body was so shiny it was reflective, Ash had the form of a fashion diva, Rad was dressed in a modest regal manner, Aquilai looked very much like David Tennent for some reason, Dino had some how sharpened her claws and spikes, Blaze looked just plain formal in his suit, Blocky had plucked any scales that stuck out, and Noelle's tail was immaculate and her hooves sharpened.  Even Estelore was there, though in a sunshine yellow evening dress with hair falling over her in curls.

Blue and Demos were standing up there, and like the others they were dressed in their RAFian finest.  Blue was in a powder blue suit, and Demos was in a violently fiery red silk suit.

When the ceremony began, Blue and Demos prepared their song --

"We’ve got mega-hits unlike that lame Fred the Show.
Just a little boy from Nebraska who made us all say “Wow”.
With a voice that makes you just want to go out and kill a cow.

Here’s the plain situation.
A simple declaration.
If you want it you can find it on RAF!

We’ve got the RAFparodies on number sevenhundred and a half,
Featuring the antics of everybody on RAF.
Who reminds us that a parody doesn’t have to make you laugh.

You can try to deny it.
But we can certify it.
If you want it, you can find it on RAF!

And if you’re starting to crave a brand-new thread thrill . . .
Demos is always brewing up some monster swill!
Like the guy from "Cavemen".
Totally Random Thoughts was once a network that was irreverent and clean,
But, today, they got some chapters that are remarkably obscene.
Like the post with the little boy who lives with Almighty Queen.

Oh, there ain’t nothing to it.
You can sit down and do it.
If you want it, you can find it on RAF!

GESP has a lineup that’s refreshing and alive.
With its thread just continuing to thrive.
And those RPers look sensational for being sixty-five!

No, we’re not trying to oversell ya.
We really want to tell ya.
If you want it, you can find it on RAF!

Now, Intro Randomness is having trouble staying in the race.
So I hear they’re bringing it back to save a little face.
And I hear Isiah Washington is takin’ Cloak’s place?

Oh, you may not adore it,
But you can’t ignore it.
If you want it, you can find it on RAF!

Now, 'Enter RAF' is a fanfic I’d recommend.
Because you never know just how it’s gonna end.

So, up with the curtain,
It’s absolutely certain.
If you want it, you can find it on TV"

The RAFians stood and applauded, as Phoenix took his place at a podium and as Blue and Demos took their seats.  Phoenix went through the RAFAward in very much the same fashion as any award show.*

"Now, the Most Missed RAFian . . ."

---
*Not done.  Just posting so that it doesn't mess me up again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 07, 2012, 09:53:21 AM

For my suit you can simply look to descriptions of Peeta during the hunger games. Simple with some flame accents.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2012, 04:26:27 PM

Yes, that's gonna be the happiest that this book'll probably be, Blaze.

CHAPTER TWO:
Behind Closed Doors

A man stood in shadow, looking at a small screen from what appeared to be a smart phone.  On it, it showed the jubilation of the RAFians and their RAFAwards.  His face was so immersed in shadow, his features were impossible to make out.  But it was clear that his eyes were narrowed.

"Laugh it up, you fiendish freaks," he growled, hatred soaked into every syllable.  "Go ahead, celebrate your imperfections and your fraternizations with monsters and aliens."

Silence greeted these words, because, after all, he was alone.

"Because soon,"  He looked up as he turned the phone off and pocketed it, "soon the Purge will come.  This world will be pure again.  With all those genetic abnormalities and afronts of nature will be gone.  My knights will see to it.  My dream will finally be realized . . . and this world would be safe again."

Then a rectactle of yellow light filled the room from a doorway in back.  The man turned, revealed to be Fmr. General Luis Cannon.  The person standing in the doorway was a gangly kid of sixteen or fifteen, who bore the appearance of a skinhead.  He had the letters "KoH" tattooed on him, like a branding.  He wore it proudly, as if a badge of honor.

"Sire?"

"What is it, Squire Perkins?"

"Sir, we're ready for you."

"Very well," Cannon said, "you may go.  Tell them I'm on my way."

The boy left.  Cannon smiled at the thought of this alien armaggedon, this nonhuman apocalypse.  Then he walked to the door, exited and shut the door with a silent WHOOSH.  Cannon walked out to his "generals" of the militant, xenophobic hate group he had founded -- the "Knights of Humanity".  He had sunk every dime he had into it, and he was quite pleased to find and recruit like-minded others to his cause.  He did not call himself king however, although it was very clear he was the one in charge.

***

Aquilai became aware of the formation of the Knights of Humanity when he came upon a person in the street passing out pamphlets.  Aquilai was quick to notice that he wore all white so much so that he somewhat resembled a hoodless Klansman . . .  Aquilai hid his disgust and displeasure and asked the twenty-something for a flyer, intending to show the other RAFians.  He was very careful not to show his Mark, because that would surely give his intentions away.

The "Knight" eyed Aquilai very carefully and severely.  Fortunately, Time Lords resemble humans on the outside, so the Knight couldn't distinguish any "impurities".  So, he handed Aquilai the flyer, and Aquilai speed off to RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 07, 2012, 04:44:23 PM

Racists. Why did it have to be racists?

Also, I do not buy a suit unless it doubles as a giant fightin robot. *prays he'll accept this*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2012, 04:50:08 PM

Nope, sorry, Blaze.  That's Parker's schtick.  Besides, that sword I gave you is more than enough weaponry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on June 07, 2012, 05:07:50 PM

This looks like it's going to be a really interesting book.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on June 07, 2012, 05:32:20 PM

Oooh, interesting.  This kinda reminds me of X-men, with the 'anti-mutant' sentiment.  Can't wait to read more.

P.S. Thanks for the plug!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 07, 2012, 07:54:03 PM

It's funny, when I read "KoH", I immediately thought of Kingdom of Hearts. ;D


Interesting storyline Cloak. This will prove to be fun I'm sure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2012, 07:09:21 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on June 07, 2012, 05:32:20 PM

Oooh, interesting.  This kinda reminds me of X-men, with the 'anti-mutant' sentiment.  Can't wait to read more.

Well, I did get the idea while watching a special on those demented white supremacists that call themselves the KKK.  The Equalists and the Friends of Humanity were further inspiration.  Because let's face it, no matter what we do, there aways be that sludge of prejudicial hatred within a population.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on June 07, 2012, 05:32:20 PM

P.S. Thanks for the plug!

Anytime! ;)

Quote from: Darth Revan on June 07, 2012, 07:54:03 PM

It's funny, when I read "KoH", I immediately thought of Kingdom of Hearts. ;D

I should have realized that . . . maybe Squire Perkins didn't have to hide the tattoo, just say that he's REALLY into Kingdom Hearts . . . hmmm . . . now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Assembly

"There's another assembly tomorrow at six," Aquilai explained, as he attended the first in secret.  He had elaborated that this group, the Knights of Humanity, was a xenophobic hate group.  Aquilai mentioned he didn't have proof but believed that they had weapons and means to further this goal.  Which means every sentient nonhuman was in danger.  "Luis 'Loose Cannon' Cannon was the head.  The guy who wanted to annihilate half the city to get Horse when she was, ah, going through those FYI-assisted growth spurts."

He had called a meeting to discuss this new wrinkle.  Most of them sat, but Cloak, who was feeling on edge, stood and paced a little.  He didn't know why he did this, but assumed it was just the tiger in him.  Cloak frowned, head slightly bowed, and had his arms folded.  Dino's face was inscrutable.  Ash seemed extremely concerned by this news.  Blaze was fingering his sword in a very agitated way, as if anxious to us it on some Knight skulls.  Noelle, who stood beside Cloak, was flicking her eye stalks in a most distracting way.  Gaz had her brow furrowed and held her hands in her lap, head bowed slightly, thinking of the ramifications of this.  Estelore's form actually flickered a few times.  Rad's scowl looked as if it was deeply etched into her face.  Sam looked over to one side, with crossed arms.

Parker sat with his helmet off, beside a new RAFian, Helen.  She was that Star Sapphire that was smitten with him, and the one that caused the rift between him and Loose Cannon, except she was in "street clothes" now.*  Parker and her have been in contact but only recently entered a romantic relationship.  His body language was surly and Helen's was concerned.

"Well, what do we do with this information?" Parker said, loudly enough that the other RAFians could hear him as well.

"It's obvious.  We infiltrate that assembly." Cloak said, matching Parker's surliness.

"I agree," Dino said, "but not too many of us.  These people are looking for a war.  Let's not give them one."

"But only human RAFians can go." Aquilai said.  "They use a Gleet Biofilter device, although they refused to call it as such.  They call it a . . ." Aquilai couldn't resist rolling his eyes, "a 'purification arch'."

"But how'd you get in?" Gaz asked, then pointed out, "you're a Time Lord, your DNA -- or whatever Time Lords use as genetic material -- isn't human."

"Oh," Aquilai said, taking out his sonic screwdriver, "it happened to have a little, ah, malfunction before I entered.  They were none the wiser."

"Then why can't you do that again?" Sam asked.

"If he does it once, it's a mistake," Blaze said, tracing a finger over the hilt of his sword, "if it happens twice, they'll get suspicious."

"Yes, but the 'malfunction' was enough that it wouldn't work against those who looked human." Aquilai said.  Then he turned to Dino, Blocky and the other RAFians that were so clearly NOT human.  "But you guys won't be able to come along."

"What if I shapeshifted into something and found another way in?" Ash asked.

"Could work, if you don't blow your cover." Cloak said, quite seriously.

"Don't worry so much, Cloak.  I can do it."

<What about the morph-capable?> Noelle asked.  <We could morph a human and -->

"The assembly is more than two hours long." Aquilai countered.  "Unless you're willing to be a human nothlit, I don't think that is a viable option."

Noelle was silent, looking somewhat downcast and abashed.

"What about the Mark?" Goom said.  "It marks us as being members of RAF, and Loose Cannon surely knows about that."

"He may, he may not," Parker said.  "I don't know if he ever saw the Marks went Cloak and I battled him."

"Then it would be best to operate under assumption that he does," Cloak noted.

Parker nodded.

"We'll just have to wear gloves or hats, whatever, to conceal it.  It's gonna be a cool night," Myitt said, "so it would be plausible."

"Point is," Richard said, standing up, "who's going?"

"I'll go," Parker said, nearly immediately.

"Parker, Loose Cannon, knows who you are, you and Helen," Cloak reminded him.  "Even if you get by security, he could recognize either you."

"It would be a big room," Parker replied petulantly.

"Too much of a risk," Richard said.  "I'm sorry, Parker, but it is."

So, at the end of it, Green Lantern Sam, Myitt (wearing a stylish hat), Aquilai, Phoenix, Wild, and Aila would go, with Ash finding another way in.  Then the meeting broke up while the seven prepared for their mission.
---
*Get it?  Helen, as in Helen of Troy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_of_Troy).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2012, 09:51:30 AM

Now, the crap is about to hit the fan. . . . Now for that chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Demonstration

Green Lantern Sam, Myitt, Aquilai, Wild, Phoenix, and Aila were all bundled up for the cold weather, although Phoenix's inherent phoenician pyrokinesis rendered cold a moot point for him, but he had to look the part.  They approached the venue, which was literally underground.

"Oh, wonderful," Sam muttered.

"Okay, guys," Phoenix said, in a whisper.  "Spread out, but we'll use the buddy system."

"You know that never works, right?" Wild intoned.

"Buddy . . . system." Phoenix said with clenched teeth.  "Sam, you go with Aquilai.  Wild and Aila, you're together.  Myitt, you're with me."

They moved to together, but allowed several people getting between them and the others, other than their buddy, of course.  The undercover RAFians moved into the assembly hallway en masse with the other people.  Phoenix wondered how many of these people were innocent, if curious, bystanders or if all these people were really xenophobic bigots.  Although it occured to him that some of these people can be nonhuman aliens in a variety of human disguises: skinsuits, shapeshifting, and whatnot.

Then they came upon an arch, and Phoenix remembered about the 'purification arch'.  All the RAFians managed to step through without incident, but a few moments later, something happened.  An oddly inhuman shriek in three part harmony, and Myitt turned back to see three smoking skins of a beefy woman, a chunky man, and an obese boy, confused about what happened.  Although Aquilai and Aila were well aware that those were skins used by Slitheen, but as Slitheen tried to kill either one of them at least once, they were not so disposed to be sympathetic.  Clearly, they wanted to see just how much danger nonhumans, such as they, were in.

Eventually they reached the auditorium, and saw Loose Cannon on the stage.  Each RAFian tried to hide and suppress their anger, their disgust, for this man.  Because to show such negative emotion at this man would have been practically suicidal.  They all took their seats in the red felt, flipping theater chairs with the shared, wooden armrests.

Meanwhile, Ash easily penetrated this auditorium by burrowing down into the house -- that is to say, the audience area of the auditorum as a bug, but in order to see, she needed better sight.  So she shapeshifted into a very small gecko that blended in with the ceiling and wall.  But she did that as the house lights began to dim into nothingness, and the lights came up on the stage.

Loose Cannon strolled onto the stage looking as if he was the long lost son of Magneto and Amon*.  The cape was a bit much, Ash thought.  Especially since he did not shave off that "General Thunderbolt Ross" moustache, and the knight suit of armor was over the top.  The overall effect, in the opinion of the RAFians present, was that he looked generally goofy.

"Welcome," he said in a thunderous voice.  "Welcome, my brothers and sisters.  And some new faces as well . . ."

Wild shifted uncomfortably, something seemed off, he thought.  But he didn't know what.

"By coming here, you have chosen the righteous course of action, for no more will we have to put up with those monsters on our planet.  No longer will we have to serve these lesser beings.  No longer will we be relagated to the sidelines, while these monstrous filth pretend to be heroes.  No more will we humans --rightful, the superior species -- have to hear about xeno-equality codswallop!  We will rise from this war -- and it is a war, my brothers and sisters -- the victors, crushing all the worthless mistakes of nature beneath our heels.  We will be victorious!  Pure-blooded humans will be only species that flourishes, once we remove the weeds from the galaxy!  We were the first, the ones that God chose to make in his image!  This means we have the right to have dominion over all!  Everything in this universe and beyond belongs to us, to the humans!!"

There was actually a cheer at this speech.  Each RAFian present felt themselves die a little inside, but still tried to conceal it.  Even though they probably wouldn't be noticed, the crowd was too into this.  Myitt felt real concern -- if this many humans thought aliens were monsters and need to be destroyed . . . well, what exactly could they do without proving them exactly right?

"Now, my brothers and sisters," Loose Cannon continued, "I've called this assembly for quite another reason."

The seven RAFians were starting to become nervous.  Had he made them?  Should they flee?  Should they fight their way out?  While they were contemplating this, the curtain behind Loose Cannon whooshed open with the sound of tugging ropes.  There, trussed up and looking very indignant, was the Virus, Rojo, and Azul.  The RAFians were shocked, and needn't have hid it, as the crowd was also surprised, but for a different reason.  See the three LOOKED human, very ugly and hideous humans, but they appeared human.

"Don't confuse these monsters with humans, my brothers and sisters!" Loose Cannon called out.  "They are no more human that this podium or that curtain.  They are viral data made real."

He unsheath an abnormally long sword, one Sephiroth would have been proud.  But something strange about this sword was that its design was different based on who was viewing it.  It was called the Beholder.  Cannon approached the three who got the gist of what he was planning on doing, and screamed muffled screams and pleading.

All it took was one swing.

The RAFians said revolted and disgusted in to speechlessness.  Unfortunately, they were a little too slow to cover this, and Cannon saw, but didn't call them out on it immediately.

"Three less impurities in the world," he announced, as the last of the three's data evaporated.  "More will come with your support, my brothers and sisters.  The Knights will clean and purify the world, they're starting even now at a well-known nest of this filth. . . ."

The RAFians stared wide-eyed, could he have meant --

"But there are few of your number right now, today, in this very room that are consorts of these evil demons."

Then he proceeded to point out each of the RAFians from the crowd.

"Prove your mettle!  Capture them!"

"Oh, bloody hell," Phoenix cursed.

---
*Amon from Legend of Korra, naturally.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 08, 2012, 10:12:37 AM

We're seriously dealing with a mix of Amond's group and the Kuhn Klux Clan?

Why does everything happen to us?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2012, 10:39:17 AM

Just lucky, I guess.  8)  Relatively shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Raid

The seven RAFians managed to meet up with each other, but were failing dodge some blows from the bigots.

"Any ideas, guys?!" Phoenix shouted.

"I'm open to suggestions," Wild put in.

Aquilai reached down his shirt and pulled up a pendant with a TARDIS-like charm at the end.  He plucked the charm off and threw it to the ground.  Aquilai's full-sized TARDIS grew from the charm, and the RAFians escaped into it.  Then it vanished from the scene.

"Fear not, brothers and sisters," Loose Cannon said from the stage, "we'll get them in the end.  The good guys always win in the end."

***

Cloak stood on his favorite hill overlooking the site.  He came out to this spot more frequently during the last month, just simply to think.  Suddenly, he felt a slight tremor through his feet.  He spread his toes and extended his claws to be just touching the ground.  And he listened intently.  He was hoping that he misread the vibration, perhaps he misinterpreted a pouncing bobcat or something.

But there was very little mistaking that steady marching beat.  Cloak knew at once that this must be those Knights of Humanity nutcases.  He flew down to the forum -- not literally, of course, as Cloak cannot truly fly.  But he raised the alarm and the first RAFians he saw were Helen and Parker (who wasn't wearing his armor and looked like his shirt was on backwards) stumbling out of his thread.

"Wh-what is it?" Parker asked, somewhat sheepishly.

"Them."

"'Them'?" Helen asked, eyes widening.

"The Knights of Stupidity," Cloak said, going to alert the others.

***

The Knights arrived to see the forum deserted.  They seemed almost disappointed.  But then, Goom, seemingly oblivious, walks out and almost deliberately crosses their path.

"Stop right there, monster!" the head raider shouted.

"And what if I don't?" Goom said, feigning disinterest.

"You'll be killed slowly," the raider replied to stupid guffaws of his fellows.

"Nah, I don't think you will," Goom said, with a pleasant tone.

"And why not, mushroom-face?"

"'Mushroom-face'?  Really?  That's the epitaph you're goin' with?" Goom said with a raised eyebrow.  "Pathetic."

The demeanor of this would-be raider changed considerably, his hatred was not masked anymore.  Rage ruined his features as he snarled, "Oh, is it, filth?"

"Yes, and," Goom said, quite calmly considering the circumstances, "I must ask you to vacate the premises."

"Oh, really?  And what if we don't, shorty?"

"Shorty's the other guy." Goom commented, before somehow pulling out a massive Dracon cannon fifty times his own size from nowhere, and training it on this raider.  The guy quickly lost all composure, as all the other RAFians came out of their hiding places, with Dino being full-sized.  But it turns out there was really no that many of them -- no more than twenty! -- and so they lost all nerve and ran away.  Didn't help that none were older than eighteen and all were complete cowards.

When they were a suitable distance away, Goom somehow put the cannon away.  Then turned to the others, saying, "Guess Blaze was right.  They would try to raid RAF during the assembly."

"Told ya," Blaze said, with a smug expression.

"Yeah, yeah, go have a cookie, then." Cloak said, still surly.

Then Aquilai's TARDIS appeared on Cloak's hill.  The seven RAFians filed out, sweaty and bruised, but alive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 08, 2012, 11:15:12 AM

That should be apart of RAF, if you do something good, you get a cookie.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2012, 12:23:22 PM

Last chapter today, I think. Shortish one, too.

CHAPTER SIX:
Domestic Terrorism

The RAFians managed to escape the clutches of the Knights of Humanity, but they were the lucky ones.

The following three days, they heard that the Knights had taken responsibility for the deaths of a Pyronite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Heatblast), a Nyac relative of Yarin, a Kineceleran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#XLR8), a Toydarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_species_(P%E2%80%93T)#Toydarian), a Vulcan, and a Tetramand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Fourarms).  The RAFians felt aggrieved at this, but they were not targeted -- they wouldn't be targeted so soon, especially now that the Knights of Humanity realized just how prepared that the RAFians are for them.  That RAF may very well have more firepower at their disposal.

But that wasn't good enough for Goom, as he was seen for the last three days, fortifying the forum's defenses, and improving the security.  In a way, the Knights had managed to complete their first goal.  There was an atmosphere of fear on both sides.  Fear is the soil from which hatred can blossom.  By inspiring fear in humans, Loose Cannon has insured a high recruitment rate, and a lack of resistance in some of his prey.  Because that's all aliens were to him -- prey.  They weren't thinking, feeling beings with hopes and dreams.  They were just meat.

***

Over the next week, they claimed the lives of a Arburian Pelarota (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Cannonbolt), a Thanagarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanagar), a Florauna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Wildvine), and a Skrull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrulls) ("accidently" killing 3 humans who conviently had benevolent ties to alien species, trying to find this Skrull).  Cloak knew that the slaying of the Skrull could have disasterous reprecussions from their empire . . . it wasn't a question of where, but when.

Cloak was getting antsy.  How many more are they gonna kill before they feel their point is made?  Just because their blood isn't human doesn't make them any less of a person, does it?  Cloak had been spending more time at his hill these days, though dangerous because it was outside the forums main defenses.  But Realm Walkers aren't used to be constrained by anything.  In retrospect, it was probably a very foolish desire just to go that hill, a compromise in security.

***

The deaths wouldn't stop.  By the end of the month, the deaths included a Methanosian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Swampfire), a lesser Kymellian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kymellian), a Vaxasaurian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Humongousaur), a couple of Hork-Bajir , a Necrofriggian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Big_Chill), a Tamaranian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamaranian), a Amperi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#AmpFibian), and an Ixion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black:_The_Animated_Series#Characters).

This was really too much to bear.  The RAFians were wondering whether they should do something or not.  But the debate was more of a behind-close-doors thing, rather than an upfront conversation.  Cloak noticed that Parker and Helen's relationship had cooled somewhat.  He wanted to do something about these Knights of Humanity, and Helen didn't want him to be hurt or killed in the struggle, so she opposed it.

Cloak was much on Parker's side about this, he was getting tired of this waiting game that they were playing.  It was just a mere matter of time before they made their move on RAF.  And no defense is foolproof.  There is no such thing as an impenetrable city, and those who believe there is are ignorant of the truth.  Cloak realized if they didn't step in and do something, anything, more aliens on Earth will die at the hands of these bigots.  And each of these aliens may have a family out there that might declare war on Earth due to this . . . isn't that how World War I started?  Due to the death of Duke Francis whatever?  The world's governments attempted, Cloak assumed, but he could not figure out why they had not made much if any progress.  The thought of a potential "why" frightened him a great deal.

In an all-out, interstellar war, Earth would not survive.  Estelore could help out, it's true, but there's only so much someone of even her power can do.  We did not need to be reviled, no one does.  This would take place if action was not taken to restrain these monsters.  If they killed all their viewed monsters, what would happen next?  These hate-filled creatures would undoubtly turn upon themselves.  And this world, this wonderful, marvelous world would become nothing but a wasteland.

Cloak had seen this happen in another realm.  A now lifeless realm.  A dead realm.  Hatred had destroyed it, bigotry had sapped it of his vitality, hate groups had formed within like unsightly lesions or cancerous tumors.  Now the same thing was about to happen here.

Cloak reentered RAF, and decided to call a meeting in RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 08, 2012, 12:40:22 PM

Oh God they killed a Vulcan! Those bastards!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 09, 2012, 01:49:37 AM

KAAAAHHHHHHNNNNNN!!!!!!! ;D

Edit:

Oh yeah,

Quote from: New Blazing Angel on June 08, 2012, 11:15:12 AM

That should be apart of RAF, if you do something good, you get a cookie.

That's what :cookie: is for. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Pyrrhian on June 09, 2012, 07:43:58 AM

This is really one sided! Humans aren't all bad, you hear on the news all the time about protesters and rioters objecting to these extremists. Virtually the whole world was against SOPA and that's just for the internet. We're talking about sentient life here! RAF has a LOT of non-humans but it's like you want to paint humans all black. This is terribly skewed where in this universe, the knights are Nazis and the rest of the entire world of humans are Germans in WW2 just letting it happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 09, 2012, 04:44:25 PM

Dude, it's a work of fiction. Just like the movie X-Men III. They didn't do a very good job of showing mutant support that would be there.

The point is that this is a fictional story about a worst case scenario involving a charismatic Armu General who goes on a personal crusade against any type of alien.

This story has Goomba with telekinesis, a mutant giant Pikachu, and a sentient STAR! How realistic do you expect the story to be?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2012, 07:32:08 PM

I'm glad you expressed your opinion Pyrrhian, but, like Parker said, don't take it so seriously!

Anyway, everyone else, new chapters are coming.  I'm just tapped out today.  And Wednesday I'll be goin' on a trip, so there'll be a brief hiatus.  I try to fill the void as much as I can (as well as new RAFparodies).

Quote from: Darth Revan on June 09, 2012, 01:49:37 AM

That's what :cookie: is for. ;D

Oh, I forgot about that one!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 09, 2012, 08:27:35 PM

By standards of update occurence, you are a god among fanfiction writers.

So it's official, if you do good in RAF, you are given a cookie as large you are in your original form.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on June 09, 2012, 09:54:24 PM

Pyrrhian: I don't even get that from the story at all.  The rest of humanity doesn't really get a chance to intervene in this, because it's just General Loose Cannon's extremist group vs. the RAFians.  If the story had a bunch of bystander-humans who were being all 'yeah, down with the freaks!' then I'd be more inclined to side with you, mostly because that's one of the things I wish X-men hadn't done, but as it stands, I agree with the general sentiment that you're taking this a tad too seriously.

Parker: don't even compare Cloaky's story to X-men III.  :P

Cloaky: I'm sure Parker didn't mean to diss your story as badly as he just did.  :-X

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 09, 2012, 10:43:52 PM

Hey, I liked X-Men III. ;P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2012, 10:51:52 AM

Quote from: New Blazing Angel on June 09, 2012, 08:27:35 PM

By standards of update occurence, you are a god among fanfiction writers.

Actually I'm about 500 posts away from being a god. ;)  But thank you.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on June 09, 2012, 09:54:24 PM

Cloaky: I'm sure Parker didn't mean to diss your story as badly as he just did.  :-X

Dino, I didn't mind X-Men III (I mean, consider all they had to do to squash into an appropriate length movie -- and didn't do the same travesty that M. Night did to The Last Airbender.  THEY didn't change the pronunciations of the main characters (like M. Night decided to Aang, Sokka, and Iroh, I think).  And my idea of crap, obviously, is Fred the Show.  But that's beside the point and off-topic, right?

Sorry, no chapters or parodies today.  Gonna be rather busy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 10, 2012, 02:00:33 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 10, 2012, 10:51:52 AM

Sorry, no chapters or parodies today.  Gonna be rather busy.

Aww... shame.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2012, 02:01:31 PM

I may change my mind, though.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
To Act or Not to Act

Soon the other RAFians had gathered.  Cloak stood at the center, looking around at the stragglers coming in.  Horse, who's been very busy of late, as have Blue and Gymn.  Cloak waited, looking patient on the outside, but in reality he was feeling impatient and nervous.  He did not know how his fellows would take the news, and his urging to act upon this.  Many of them seemed happy being safe and secure within the site.

But Cloak knew better.  He had seen what could happen if this persisted.  Both he and Shadow had saw the horrible aftermath, the . . . Cloak shuttered and shook his head.  He did not want to relive it, though he knew he would have to, to get his point across.

"Everyone's here, Cloak," Richard said, just as Parker and Helen were sneaking in.  Parker wasn't wearing his armor again.  Humans could be such strange creatures, at times.  Richard stepped up, and placed his hand on Cloak's shoulder, and said, "Best not keep them waiting."

Cloak nodded, and addressed the gathered mass of RAFians.

"My friends, my comrades, lend me your ears!"

"I cannot believe he just said that," Blaze whispered to Genies, who stifled a snicker.

"I heard that, Blaze!" Cloak snapped, before continuing, "We've come to a crossroads, of sorts.  All around us, aliens are falling to Loose Cannon's forces.  Innocents.  Being targeted simply because they are not human.  They have done nothing to deserve this treatment.  Need I remind you of the recent slaying of Kilgor, the ultimate Sonorosian?"

There was a brief murmur that swept around the RAFians like a slight breeze.  Cloak held up his hand, and the murmuring stopped.

"How many more of these senseless murders will happen in the following days?  Following months?  Years, even?" Cloak paused briefly, for effect, before plowing on.  "Yet, RAF remains safe.  Due to the hard work by our resident Goomba friend."

Cloak gestured over to Goom, who had involuntarily fallen asleep.  He jerked awake, blushing -- if a goomba could blush -- fiercely.  He waved his left foot faintly, hoping that the spotlight would be off him soon.  Cloak relieved him of it quickly, by continuing.

"But eventually even RAF could fall to these bigots.  Their bigotry will not sizzle out, but grow and grow until there's NOTHING for it to feed upon, like a blazing inferno consuming everything in its path.  Until everything is a DEAD wasteland.  These Knights, as they like to be called, will not rest, will not stop, until all sentient nonhumans are gone.  And not all aliens will lay down and allow themselves to be executed in such a manner.  They'll fight back.  And in the end . . . there'll be nothing left." Cloak waited for that to sink in, but a hand was raised somewhat hesitantly.  It was Cornson, which some RAFians had started shortening to Corn or Corny. . . .

"What makes you so sure?" he asked.

"What makes me so sure?" Cloak repeated, then answered, "Because I've SEEN it Cornson.  Not in this realm, but another.  Another that was virtually identical to this one . . . at one time."

"What do you --"

"What do I mean by 'at one time'?" Cloak interrupted.  "What I mean is that it was like this realm up until another ground, similar to Loose Cannon's Knights -- only calling themselves the Church of Purifiers or Temple of Muckrakers or some other such stupid nomenclature.  Point is, they succeeded in eliminating all nonterran species on this planet.  Then they turned their bigotry onto all nonhuman species.  Then they turned on each other, each killing another, until there was nothing left.  Nothing but an irradiated wasteland, barren of life.  They, in their own hatred and bigotry, not only killed their planet, but themselves."

Silence, accompanied by horrified looks, met these words.

"Which is why I must urge us to act now!!  If we do not, this will be the fate of this world.  And I CANNOT let that happen."

"But . . ." Aquilai asked, perplexed look his face, "HOW do we stop them?"

To this, Cloak had no answer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2012, 05:23:30 PM

Not so busy anymore.  So here's another, rather shortish chapter.  Remember, make 'em last!!  Two days until my trip.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Abject Corruption

The meeting broke up soon after that.  They didn't have a plan of attack, and one may argue that nothing got done, but that was wrong.  They, at the very least, made the decision to do something.  But what exactly?  That wasn't known.  They would decide in due course.  And it was progress.  Very little progress, but progress nonetheless.

But they did not know just to the extent the Knights had infiltrated human society.  Cannon had thought of this, knew he had to get a few Knights in positions of real power.  Doctors, nurses, politicians, police, firefighters . . . judges.  The RAFians knew this as a mere possibility, without any certifiable hard proof.  But there were instances . . . several real damning instances . . .

Doctor Gerald Ivo Tempest was a high-profile doctor who was under suspicion of turning away and denying medical care to anyone he considered alien sympathizers.  Yet he retained his license to practice medicine and not so much as an inquiry had been filed against him.  It could be incompetence on the part of the medical authorities, or something far sinister.  This doctor wore a silver ring with the letters of K-O-H barely decipherable, and a few of his nurses were hardly any better. . . .

Police Chief Taylor "Tar" Locke* tended overlook and just outright ignore cases of HIS officers (two named Lt. Merope Thomas and Sgt. Ian Riddle* being the most prevalent offenders) beating and harassing people who they suspected of being aliens in disguise or being sympathizers.  And, again, no charges were brought up against them, none that STUCK anyway.  And conveniently the three were always missing every Friday -- when Knights were speculated to congregate on.

Firefighters Azula Allerdyce and Isaac Haynard would ignore fires at suspected alien dwellings and sympathizers.  Yet, as with others, they are never brought up on charges that stick.  They are also heard boasting of it, behind closed doors, or if either partakes of too much drink.  The two are eventually brought up on charges of arson, but not willful negligence -- though they were labelled as pyromaniacs.

The main reason that all these people kept getting off is because of one judge, a judge by the name of Judge Kevin Keagan Kos.  He flagrantly ignored all evidence to whatever anti-alien bigot was on the stand, and let them off.  Or if a jury finds them guilty, he sentences them to the most lienant sentencing.  There were calls for his resignation, but they were mostly ignored.

The RAFians gathered all this information by subterfuge and spying.  Hardly able to put any of that into evidence.  This mere fact irritated Cloak more than anything else.  Cloak thought savagely, Politics!  And I thought the politics in the Nexus was bad!!  We cannot do anything more . . . no.  No, there's got to be another way.  Something else.

"Cloak," a voice said behind him.  It was Gaz.  She was accompanied by Parker, Aquilai and Phoenix.  Cloak said nothing, but clearly, they were not here to report happy news.  Cloak let out a deep sigh, and prepared himself for the worst.

It was Aquilai to break the silence, with a little quiver in his voice, he said, "They were let out."

"They" being a lynch mob of about sixteen people.  Just the other day they lynched a Time Lord friend of Aquilai -- thirteen times.  Each one being more traumatic than the one preceding.  There were about twenty or so witnesses, but apparently all of that was discounted as heresay and whatnot.  Apparently, that made all other evidence against them pretty much nil or worthless.

No wonder that Aquilai was upset.  He had spent hours to days trying to convince him to come to RAF, to join even.  For added protection.  His friend felt that it would tie him down, and he preferred his freedom.  And this happened to him.  Getting jumped and getting that sonic screwdriver of his stolen.  Cannon probably had it now.

"I'm sorry, Aquilai." Cloak said, in as soothing a voice as he could manage.

"How could they let them out?!" he raged.  "Couldn't they see that they were guilty?  They were bragging about it an hour later in a bar!"

Cloak looked at Parker, and he nodded.  Parker was there apparently, on a date with Helen.  Gaz had seen the aftermath of the lynching three hours afterward -- the mob hadn't even bothered trying to hide their crime.  Phoenix was the one who suggested to the two to see Cloak.  He could see them looking expectedly at him.

"What am I supposed to do about it?"

"Well, we thought that this was Cannon's doing," Phoenix mentioned.

"Of course it is!  We didn't have these problems before he came along and formed those stupid 'Knights' of his!" Cloak exclaimed.  "But I DON'T know what we can do about it."

"I think you have an idea," Gaz said quietly.  "I could tell you were thinking about it before we came here."

"And?"

"Don't, Cloak." Aquilai said.  "He'll just lynch you too."

"Only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker." Cloak said in a monotone voice.  He was getting tired of reminding them of this.

"I used to think the same about Time Lords," Aquilai said, quietly.

---
* Get the reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 10, 2012, 06:20:30 PM

Very cool chapter. Yeah, no killing of Cannon. You'd only make a martyr of him anyhow. This is starting to turn into Gotham of Batman. We gotta take care of the higher-ups that keep the foot soldiers out of lock up!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 10, 2012, 07:28:41 PM

I can appreciate a good hero speech, as long as you pull it off with the right drama and not too much cliche.

I have a sense for the dramatic pulled from Elan, the dashing swordsman and bard. He gives constant warnings to only jump right when the explosion happens, or to never announce your retirement.

Anyway, 2 great chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on June 10, 2012, 07:31:40 PM

Like Darth Revan said this was a nice chapter. Keep up the good work Cloak!

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 10, 2012, 10:28:13 PM

Great chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2012, 08:46:59 AM

Thanks guys.

CHAPTER NINE:
Fearmongering

Cannon's plan to infiltrate the highest positions of power was working, but he wasn't done.  Before long, he got control of a television station.  It was a few weeks after this acquistion that he decided to run subtle yet still outrageous "public service announcements" about the "threat" of domestic alien species.  Of course, it didn't help that this television station was well known for attacking certain individuals and groups -- being well-known for its xenophobic/homophobic programming and its failed Falwellian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell)/Mallorian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mallory) logic.  This station was so disputed due to obviously being nothing more or less than a forum to criticize and demean and demonize other opposing groups, and pushing a fundamentalist/extremist line, it was a wonder just why it had not been shut down.

But it wasn't just the station, Cannon started to print out pamphlets that had little basis in fact, depicting all sentient nonhumans as monsters and demons.  One even showed a giant foot stepping on one, which looked like a Xenomorph or a Brood.  The sad thing was, a small percentage of the normal populace was buying into these lies.  The gulliable believing anything in print.

And, still, there was nothing the RAFians could DO ABOUT IT!!  Cannon with his blasted fearmongering, turning the neutral humans against them.  There had to be a way to stop them.  There just HAD to be a way!  But WHAT?!  WHAT could it be?  Cloak had no ideas, and he was getting angry about it.  He became more withdrawn and began to keep to himself more.  This concerned the other RAFians greatly.  Noelle had been able to talk some sense into Cloak before, but her repeated attempts met with nothing.  Cloak didn't even open his thread door these days.

Noelle gathered Gaz, Dino (in her compact form, of course), Blaze, Aquilai and Parker (who had finally detached himself from Helen, who had to go to Zamaron for a few days) when her concern reached it's peak.

<I fear,> she confessed in an aside to the others, <that Cloak may do something he would regret.>

"I've been concerned about that too," Gaz admitted.

"He's so used to being able to solve anything with sheer power or subterfuge." Dino said.  "I think not having an answer is really getting to him."

"There's not much he or any of us can do," Blaze noted, "without starting an all-out war between aliens and humans."

<That's what's gotten him so . . .>

"Uptight?" Parker suggested.

<I would have picked a word with not so much of a negative connotation,> Noelle replied dryly.  <Point is, how do we prevent Cloak from making one of the biggest mistakes of his life?>

"I don't know what we can do," Gaz put in, "he can be very willful.  Obstinate and inflexible."

"Yeah," Parker agreed, "I remember him saying it's a family trait."

Aquilai said, thoughfully, "I think it's just him trying to live up to his grandfather's reputation."

"But he knows we've never met Sage," Dino pointed out.

"I'm not saying it's a conscious thing," Aquilai explained, "I believe it's in his subconscious.  He sees his grandfather as being this big hero, and he feels like he's still in his shadow."

"That may be true, and he could be trying to get his parents approval," Parker said, rubbing his chin.

"But he HATES Brute," Gaz interjected.

"Does he?" Parker said.  "I know he's resentful of Brute's favoring Dagger, and maybe even a tinge jealous, but can a son really hate his father so much?"

<Better not let him hear you say that,> Noelle commented.

"Sorry to sound like a complete newbie, but who is Brute?" Blaze asked.  "Who's Dagger?"

"Brute is Cloak's biological father.  Dagger is his younger sister who he's recentally reconnected with." Parker elaborated.

"Okay," Blaze nodded, "but we're getting off-track here.  We were discussing on how to keep Cloak from crossing a line."

And so it went, thoughout the day, they talked and planned, but nothing came out of it. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Pyrrhian on June 11, 2012, 12:04:18 PM

Revan! Did I get smited for actually trying to show a human side to humans?!

Ok! I think you're confusing my "!" for SHOUTING! I'm not. I'm not a human fanatic. Just like how you mistook it in the Species thread. I was just pointing out that we should see humans opposing this cult rather than just letting it happen. People protest for human rights all the time and killings are big things even today a racist hate crime will stir up opposing sides. Here non-xenophobe humans seem perfectly content to let these things go on.

Were you just trying to get extra karma Revan or did you take my reply that seriously? If you ignite a smiting war then the popular side gets karma for ordinary comments because some people want to show their support anonymously. Of course, I don't expect real world realism from super powered characters but the world should resemble real life in small ways and expecting protests or riots against the Knights isn't asking for too much. Yet you still smited me for it. I'll apologize if I was overly harsh but I don't think was. You just jumped the gun and wanted to hate me.

Anyway, want to say thanks DinosaurNothlit for unsmiting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2012, 12:46:57 PM

 :facepalm:  :explode: :dull:
[spoiler=Rant]:mad: :mad: :mad:

Pyrrhian, honestly, please shut up!!  I was considering smiting you myself!

The way I see it, you're the one who started it -- you could have simply not post.  You're posts are nothing but negative criticisms, typical of a YouTube troll (from where I'm sitting).  At least when Aquilai made a suggestion to me via PM, he did in a constructive manner which I did not take personally -- whereas the way you word things, it's impossible not to take it personally!

If you don't have anything constructive to say, here's a novel idea -- DON'T POST.  I'm not mistaking you for shouting, you just word things in a very adversarial way, and are surprised when anyone takes issue with it.  You and your meager three post just suck the fun out of this thread for me.  You make me not even want to bother anymore.  I won't smite you, if only because I can tell it would be an absolutely pointless gesture.

Your actions are what caused the negative reaction, not ours.  Do not bother trying to turn this into a flame war, and do not bother trying to explain your actions further or attack me for what I'm saying here.  I sick of your trollish complaints.  You burned this bridge, not me.

:mad: :mad: :mad:[/spoiler]

Don't be surprised if I don't post another chapter tomorrow.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 11, 2012, 01:11:26 PM

Cloak, by all means, don't let this one user ruin it for the rest of us who adore your story. If you need a break, then you have more than earned it. But please don't leave this story. Just for you I'm going to do my best to get more recaps posted. I'm nearly done with the first episode of season 2.

The lack of a supportive human side never crossed my mind while reading this. I think, and feel free to correct me Cloaky, that just maybe that side doesn't fit into the story right now. It seems to be just the RAFians dealing with the negative threat. But I must say, if you feel so strongly about the story, then feel free not to read it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Pyrrhian on June 11, 2012, 01:22:05 PM

Fine! I was just explaining anyway! I won't post here again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on June 11, 2012, 03:32:29 PM

*looking around, a bit baffled*

We can see how Pyrrhian's wording could be interpreted more strongly than it was originally intended, the same way a completely sincere statement can be mistaken for sarcasm when in text-only format, but... we genuinely didn't read anything into it other than a potentially constructive critical remark on the seeming lack of realistic human mass reaction to the goings-on of the story. We don't see why people are getting so worked up about it, and if anybody is "burning bridges," it's everybody who overreacted.

That said, it's not our story, and we're not emotionally invested in it. Perhaps it's a writer's prerogative to overreact, but it's hardly realistic to expect everybody to automatically find a story realistic, especially if the story is derivative science fiction.

We respectfully ask that everybody please calm down and take a step back from however it was you first read the critical statements given by Pyrrhian, and re-read them with the thought in mind that they could in fact be kindly meant, or at the very least, not intended to give offense.

Thank you.
*bowing out*

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 11, 2012, 04:03:27 PM

Estelore is right and I apologize if I took the tone of the comments the wrong way. They seemed to be coming on strong, but I could have interpreted that incorrectly. And I probably did. Sorry about that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2012, 04:10:23 PM

Well, Estelore, I appreciate you mediating, but as far as I'm concerned the matter is settled.  I don't mean that to sound huffy in any way.  Let's just forget the unpleasantness with a new chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Escalating War

Cloak remained shut up in his thread, not seeing any of his comrades.  It was almost as if he was on a RAF hiatus again.  Cloak was on his wrought iron beds (while all threads had a bed, they were all in various styles, mostly influenced by the RAFian's RAFspecies*).  Cloak's bed was covered in similar material as his cloaks, as was his room lined with it, so he didn't have to wear his cloak in in here.  He said on the bed with crossed legs, arms supporting his head.  He had a sort of glazed look on his face, due to the fact that he was deep in thought.

Could he kill Cannon?  Should he do it?  Would it be the right thing to do?  The Council would have his arm in a sling.  He might get sentenced to the Oblivion Wall, the wall that separated the rest of the Nexus from the Oblivion Veil, where all souls past through to go on.  From which there is no return, no hope.  As such, no one, not even the eldest Realm Walkers, knows what's beyond it.  Cloak didn't care to know.

Cloak was getting antsy, so he leaped off the bed, landing daintily, and he began to pace.  Fortunately, the fabric that prevents him from incinerating the floor was beneath a rather plain looking rug, obtained from the Nexus.  A gift from Faith. . . .

Perhaps he should seek her council.  She was always one of his family member he knew without a single doubt that he could trust wholeheartedly.  Maybe she could help him make sense of this whole ordeal. . . .

He was to the point of latching on his black cloak and pulling on the hood, when he heard a commotion outside.  Naturally, he dashed outside, his worries pushed to the back of his mind.

"What happened?"

"They took them!" Genies exclaimed.  There was no question who the "they" were.

"Who are 'them'?" Cloak asked, urgently.

"Demos, Terenia, Gaz, Sakki, and . . . Parker!"

"WHAT?!" Helen screamed.  "I told him not to go!  I told him . . ."

"We must go save them," Cloak said, secretly pleased to be doing something.

Noelle came galloping up, seeing Cloak, and shrewdly put together everything that went on.  <You're going to rescue them?>

"Yes," Cloak said, wondering why she had to ask.

<Then I'm coming with you.> she said firmly.

Cloak wasn't expecting this reaction.

Seeing the look on his face, she said, in a low voice, <You didn't think I'd let you do this alone?>

"Noelle, I --"

<I'll have no of this "martyring yourself".  I'm going and that's that.>

"And so am I," Helen said, in full Star Sapphire regalia.  Her ring was like a geyer of violent energy.

Whoa, Cloak thought absently, Parker had better not forget their anniversary. . . .

---
*Must give credit where it is due -- thanks, Dino, for that idea!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 11, 2012, 07:08:53 PM

Theirs hell to pay when you piss off a being of love.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 12, 2012, 04:44:46 AM

Hey, as a SPARTAN, I have great recall. No way would I dare forget an awesome date as the date of our reconnection. Good to see that I was wearing my armor when I was "taken". 'Cause she might've blamed herself had I been taken after being with her. That is the only reason I would remove my armor anyhow. 8)

Very cool chapter Cloak. I hope this is a ruse, and I'm not actually a hostage here. *Fingers crossed*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2012, 07:13:49 AM

Sorry, Parker, you are.  And to think, Helen wasn't at all in my original chapter by chapter planning of the last book.  I added her as some on-the-spot inspiration. . . . And now look what happened!  Oh, and I have your armor in tact so you and Tyr can have a . . . a "Young Justice Blue Beetle" moment, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, I finished the chapter planning for Book XVI ("Who's Who"), and begun planning the chapters of Book XVII (tentatively called, "The Last RAFian", which will take place a few years from now. . . . I think.)  And I will be taking my notes with me on the trip -- in case I come up with an idea.

And Shadow's drawing a picture of her Realm Walker self, just now.

A chapter, I think.  One where a lot will happen.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Bait and Twitch

So, Cloak went with Noelle, Helen, Blaze (who was itching for action as much as Cloak was), and Azzy.  They had a general idea of where the captives were, but they had a conflict about tactics -- Cloak, Blaze, and Helen were pushing for a guns-ablazing frontal attack, while Noelle insisted that was nothing more or less than a way to get all of them killed, or possibly hurting some innocent humans.

"Ironic," Cloak snarled scathingly, "coming from an Andalite."

Noelle was not abashed, as she freely admitted, <Yes, my people were responsible for the near-extinction of the Hork-Bajir, and nearly exterminated humans.  But I was not one who supported that decision.  I would have expected you, of all people, Cloak, to have more concern about the lives of innocents.>

At this, Cloak was silent.  He could not believe he minimized the value of life.  The fact he did scared him far more than the others knew. . . .  He was becoming as callous as Malice.  Something he did not want to be.  He remained silent, terrified that he might revert to that callous way of thinking.

But he didn't fool Noelle, who noticed Cloak's silence, but she didn't gloat about it -- that wouldn't be Noelle if she did.  It was as if she could see the terror within Cloak at the thought of being like Malice.  Instead, she turned to the task at hand, <Frontal attack is out, they'd probably be prepared for that.>

"Let them be prepared," Helen snapped.  "We should blast in, take back what's ours, and leave!"

"Calm yourself, Helen," Az said, "working yourself into a state won't save Parker.  No matter how much it powers up your ring."

Cloak hesitated before speaking, "They might just go ahead and kill the hostages if we attack from the front."

Noelle swung a stalk eye at Cloak, and shut her main eyes in agreement.  She got what Cloak was getting at.  <There diffences would be at the front, expecting an attack from there.  There may be a vulnerability at the rear.>

"But just how are we supposed to do that?" Helen demanded, although she seemed to be getting control over her emotions.  "It's in a valley, surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides."

"Didn't you get the memo?" Cloak said, at a valiant attempt at his old bravado.  "Get your feet on the ground, and allow me to show you."

She landed, but it looked like she was itching to get back into the sky.  Cloak shut his eyes and took a deep breath.  He stopped his foot, and the group sunk ten feet into the ground.  Then he raised his arms and made a flicking movement with his hands, and a six-inch slab of earth covered them sealing them inside.

"Why you burying us in the cold, cold ground*?" Helen asked, whose violet aura provided a dim source of light.  "You think we're already dead meat, don't you?"

"Will you be patient?" Az asked.

Then Cloak stood aside from the others and then stopped again.  They sunk another fifty feet or so.  Then Cloak started swinging his arms.

"What is this?  Jazzercise?" Helen complained.

"You don't feel it, do you?" Blaze said.  "Cloak is moving us beneath the compound."

"Then why don't we just come at them from underneath their compound?" she asked.

The others were silent, looking at each other.

"She has a valid point. . . ." Blaze said.

***

Meanwhile, Parker was trussed up, and bound to the chair.  He was thoroughly put out and miffed.  Tyr didn't help matters, as Parker continually was arguing with it.

"Mobility disabled.  Suggesting a total system reboot." Tyr said.

"I'm tied down, you moron!"

"Define 'moron'."

Parker groaned.  Then he saw shadowy people moving around, just outside the door.

"Hostiles detected.  Activate fusion cannons."

"THEY REMOVED THEM, YOU DOLT!" Parker hissed in a low voice.

"Define 'dolt'."

Parker groaned, decided to give Tyr a severely-needed update if he ever made it out of this.

***

The raid went off without a hitch, and they managed to find the warehouse that was housing the others.  It was a corrugated metal door that stood in their way.  No other security seemed to be around it, other than the guards, which the five had dispatched with disturbing ease.  One of the guards was down, but still conscious.  And laughing.

"That door is solid platinum," he said, wheezily, "you cannot manipulate any earth in it!"

Cloak gave him a disparaging look, then rapped his knuckles on the door, as the man continued to laugh gurglingly.  Cloak placed his hands on the door, closing hands, grabbing the door as if it were mere tin foil.  Then he popped the corrugated garage door replicant off, like popping off a can of Chef Boyardee.  It was simple, and surprisingly easy.

Cloak saw the look of shock on the man's face.

"While I am a Master of the Earth element, I am also a Master of the Metal element as well."  The others proceeded to enter, while Cloak stood steadfast, and elaborated.  "You confused me with an Earthbender.  Technically -- I am not a bender."

Then he entered the warehouse and saw Demos, Terenia, Gaz, and Sakki, shackled by their wrists and ankles.  They looked horribly emaciated and beaten up.  It was painful to look at them.  But as Cloak drew closer he saw something that chilled his ichor to the bone.  The shackles . . . they were . . .

"Tylee metal . . ." Cloak said aghast.

"What?" Blaze asked.

"Those shackles . . . they're tylee metal."

"They're . . . what?"

"Tylee metal is an extremely rare metal," Cloak said.  "It blocks the powers of those that it restrains.  It's the only thing that can bind an Olympian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_pantheon), an Asgardian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_pantheon), and . . . and . . ."

<Realm Walkers,> Noelle supplied.

Cloak's mind was so full of this revelation that he barely registered taking the four hostages back to RAF, barely noticing Helen's furious search for Parker in the warehouse and not finding him.  The four were now being looked at by Goom, and Cloak went to his lookout (which had changed to being behind RAF's north wall), as he contemplated how these bigots got their grubby little hands on this rare metal.  He thought that it only existed in the Nexus. . . .

---
* Taz reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 12, 2012, 12:50:56 PM

Technically earthbenders can move metal anyway. In the legend of korra theirs a whole group of policemen that rely on that ability.

I need a ranged weapon. I'm thinking a six shooter pistol fits me and my Clint Eastwood poster.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2012, 01:06:29 PM

Technically, your pyrokinesis turns your sword into a ranged weapon, Blaze.  And they cannot bend PURE metal, Blaze.  They bend the earth imperfections in the metal.  As shown in episode seven, I think, of The Legend of Korra.

Okay, I think I can crank out one more chapter (or two) before I have to prepare for this trip.  It should be faster, I'm dry of RAFparodies. . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Cloak's Plea

In a secluded room with long, spidery shadows, lit by a brick fireplace where a raging fire was blazing, sat Cannon in a high-backed, leather chair with a plush, comfortable cushion.  Velvet curtains billowed in the night's breeze to the right.  It was actually a warm night, so one would wonder why Cannon had started a fire.  Perhaps for mere ambiance.

Cannon had steeped his calloused hands beneath his nose, as he sat haunched over.  His smile was sinister, deranged, and disturbing.  He hadn't heard about his hostages escape, or if he had, he didn't care.  He only really cared about one hostage, and he was certain that he hadn't escaped.  He had the one person he blamed for the love of his life leaving him.*  He did not know that Helen had became a Star Sapphire, and he was determined to have her, even if he had to force her to love him.

But, suddenly, Cannon got a chill.  He had heard someone snap their fingers, and the fire was snuffed out immediately.  He looked around, feeling fear for the first time in days.

"Well, well, well," said voice in the darkness.

"Malice?" he whispered.

So, Malice had something to do with this mess.

"No," the voice said.  "I am the one you'd feared would be coming."

"I fear no one!"

"We both know that's a lie," the voice, Cloak, said.  "Or else, why have this pointless crusade against those who have never harmed you?  Or is it because your master Malice wishes it to be so?"

"I call no one master!"

"Sure you do."

"Who are you?!" he demanded.  "Show yourself!"

"I could ask you to do the same," Cloak said, "show yourself to the world at large for the scummy parasite you are."

"You will do as I say, filth!"

"You do not order me around, human," Cloak said.  "I am not one of your pitiful underlings.  You have no clout over me."

"You'll regret this," he warned.

"As will you," Cloak countered.

Cannon hesitated for a minute.  "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, I think your followers might be interested to know that you've been working with an alien.  You see, I know Malice.  I've fought her before."

Cannon lost a little color in his face.  Then he snarled, "What do you want?"

"Several things," Cloak said, stayingin the shadows.  Let Cannon feel a little fear for once.  "One, release Parker."

"NEVER!"

"Then I'll settle for knowing his location," Cloak said, reasonably.

"I will never tell you that, filthy monster!"

"You call me a monster, when you're responsible for the murder of no less then twenty people?"

"They WEREN'T people.  They were aliens."

"Where's Parker?"

"I told you, I'll never say!  He's finally gonna pay for taking Helen from me!" Cannon ranted.  "He's gonna finally gonna get what's coming to him!"

"He's in this building, isn't he?"

"No, he isn't!!" Cannon yelled, but his voice hitched a little higher this time.

Cloak nodded from the shadows.  "Thank you for that information, and now the other thing, just one other thing."

"NO!  I owe nothing to you, you . . . you . . . you . . ."

"I'll wait for you to find an appropriate adjective later," Cloak snarled back, "you must stop this crusade of yours.  If you don't, the world which you live and thrive will become a wasteland in, what I estimate to be, a century or two."

"NO!" he screamed.  "I WILL NOT HAVE THESE LESIONS INFECTING THIS WORLD ANY LONGER!!  NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!!"

But it was too late, Cloak had already gone.

---
*Wow . . . I just realized I practically made Cannon into Vlad Masters from Danny Phantom. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2012, 05:28:03 PM

Probably the last chapter I can post today (I know I KEEP saying that, but I keep managing to find time).  Here we go.

Anyway, I have finished the planning for Book XVIII.  And ideas for Books XIX and XX.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Political Unrest

Cannon would be right in telling Cloak that he would regret his actions.  Cannon was smart enough to know that Cloak had this dirt on him, so he decided to use the event to his favor, and distort the facts just enough.

It was several days later when the RAFians learned that Cannon's decided to come out of hiding, announcing his political ambitions. . . . Announcing his candidacy for President in November.  Several civil rights groups were outraged, because their work extended to the extraterrestrial community.  But somehow their claims of his bigotry and hate crimes fell by the wayside.

Somehow, Cannon managed to convince the public of his "attack" by Cloak, discrediting the Realm Walker to the eyes of the gullible and easily-swayed.  Furthermore, he used this "attack" to discredit all extraterrestrials -- even though, technically, Cloak wasn't an extraterrestrial, but an interdimensional alien.  This little fact was easily covered up, as no one other than the RAFians knew the true nature of a Realm Walker.

Some RAFians opinions of Cloak had changed as well, except his stalwart and loyal friends like Gaz and Parker, who resolutely refused to believe that Cloak's actions made everything worse.  Cloak himself, however, was unsure about this part.  Could he have just played into Cannon's hands?  Could he, as powerful as he was, just be a pawn, like everyone else?

These self-doubts caused Cloak to lock himself in thread again.  He needed time to think.  He needed to be alone.  Gaz, Noelle, Parker and all of his other supporters came round trying to convince him, but he found it hard to believe himself.  He always had copious self-doubts, but he didn't know what to do about it.

A few days earlier, Cloak tried to tell the press that Cannon was in league with an alien, and that he was the head of the Knights of Humanity.  But he had no proof. . . . Only what he heard and what he saw.  And, sadly, that carried little clout with the public.  Cloak cursed himself for not thinking of this beforehand.  He was lost.  He was confused.  He didn't know what the bloody hell he could do.  He realized now that he couldn't kill Cannon no matter how evil he was.  It just wasn't a part of him.  He didn't have a killer instinct.  He had a conscience.  This is what separated him from people like Malice and Cannon.

Then it came to Cloak.  There is only one person he could trust enough to council him.  She always listened to him, and she gave excellent advice.

He swirled his cloak and was gone.

***

Outside his thread, gossip was flying around RAF as if it were a high school.

"Can you believe him?  He accosted that man!"

"What are you stupid?  Why would he accost that worm?"

"It's all over the news."

"Yeah, Fox News."

Meanwhile, Gaz was hanging upside-down from a large, gnarly tree, while Noelle stood beside it, in the shade.  Some obnoxious little brat who was usually a Lurker sat on the otherside.

<He's hiding from the world again, isn't he?> Noelle said resignly to Gaz.

"Yeah, but can you really blame him?" she replied.  "The things the media is saying about him.  Demonizing him.  It's enough to demoralize anyone."

"He should just ignore it," said an uppity newbie, as if he held all the answers in the world.

"You shouldn't assume you know everything." Gaz snapped.  "Especially because you know very little."

Gaz jumped down with a practiced flip and the two strolled away from the stricken-looking newbie.

"Maybe we should go and talk to him," Gaz suggested.

<I've tried.  Phoenix has tried.  Dino has tried.  Everyone that knows him has tried.  He shut them all out.> Noelle said.

"Maybe this time will get through."

Noelle was silent for a moment, then her eyes glittered a sad smile, <Yes, maybe this time will be he charm.>

They knocked and the door creaked open ominously.

<He's gone!>

"Oh, I hope he hasn't done something awful . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 29, 2012, 07:25:07 PM

How long is/was your trip? Where are you Cloaky?!?!?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 29, 2012, 09:58:59 PM

I'm getting deprivation man...need more fanfiction!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2012, 10:08:31 PM

There's a reason I haven't been posting.

That sounded snappish -- sorry, for that.  You may have missed it on Totally Random Thoughts, considering how fast the posts there go.

I've been having family problems.  Particularly with my mother.

As such, it's the kind of thing that just SUCKS the creative juices out of a person.  I do intend to finish up this book (I actually planned up to Book XXIX, which involved you two getting into a Rattrap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattrap)/Dinobot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinobot) type of relationship -- Gaz'll know what I'm talkin' about).

I'll see if I can do better tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 29, 2012, 10:25:02 PM

I just hope I'm not the one that goes bad. :dull: Blaze. :eyebrow:

No, I don't go in the Bored Board anymore. Time sort of just wastes away there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2012, 10:29:35 PM

No, no one goes bad -- I was talking about the original Dinobot.  The bickering-yet-deep-respect-for-one-another thing.  I forget the episode, but like when they are dragging an unconscious Tarantulas behind them . . .

Tentative book titles:

Book XII: Alien Brood
Book XIII: The Forbidden Arts
Book XIV: Forum of Cards
Book XV: The Book of Very Bad Things
Book XVI: Who's Who?
Book XVII: The Last RAFian
Book XVIII: Unlikely Hostages
Book XIX: The Clone Wars
Book XX: The Darwin Gun
Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
Book XXII: The Pits of Terror
Book XXIII: RAFComix
Book XXIV: The First Master
Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
Book XXVIII: The Dark Ring Plague
Book XXIX: Soul-Sucking
Book XXX: The Music Meister (still in progress)
Book XXXI: Slave-Maker*
Book XXXII: A Long Horse Tale*
Book XXXIII: Feeling Feeder*
Book XXXIV: Transformer Nonconformers*

[spoiler]In Book XXIV, no RAFians other than myself appear, and even then, it's a minor role.[/spoiler]

*Chapters are not yet planned.
(Book titles are subject to be changed.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 29, 2012, 10:34:38 PM

Gotcha.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2012, 11:20:07 PM

Don't know how long this chapter is gonna be . . . but just this one, before I turn in for the night.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Faithful Advice

"I think I may have made everything worse," Cloak was saying, wringing his hands.  He was alternatively pacing and sitting down.  "It's a real mess there, Faith."

His elder sister was silent as she thought about this -- Shadow was off at some sporting event with her father.  Shadow lucked out there -- Cloak knew that his father didn't really care for him.  And his mother was very critical, highly domineering.  But Cloak knew that he could trust his sister.  She has never led him wrong before.  That's why Cloak approached her so desperately for her sage council.

"Little brother," she said at last, "you know every action has a consequence."

Cloak felt a little crestfallen.  He thought his sister might scold him as his mother wouldn't hesistate to do in such a situation.  He braced for the hurtful words that were inevitable to come.  Cloak felt close to tears, which he was not afraid to shed in Faith's presence as he would have with his RAFian friends or even with his mother.

"Baby brother," Faith begain, and her tone was not at all what he had anticipated, "I think you're making it out to be worse than what it really is.  I don't mean this as a criticism now, but you do have a habit of assuming the worst of a situation.  It may not be as bad as you believe."

"But . . . but . . ." Cloak couldn't come out with a more coherrant thought than that.  Faith smiled benignly, and continued cooking herself some dinner.

"You're being rather harsh on yourself, dear brother," she intoned.  "You cannot control every eventuality.  You cannot KNOW every eventuality -- that would take a form of omnipotence that no Realm Walker possesses.  We know, perhaps most of all, that realms and timelines are always changing, always shifting.  Your actions could be necessary for a greater purpose."

Cloak thought on that, but still the guilt festered within him.  It would not go away, but congeal and caulk and gum up his soul with grief.  He was responsible!  If he had not tried to intimidate Cannon, these events may not have unfolded in such a way. . . . But no . . . Cannon could have declared a run for presidency with or without the incident.  He just used it to accelerate his goals.  Cloak was a patsy!!

"Baby brother, you must stop blaming yourself for things outside your control." Faith said, eyeing him very carefully.

But . . .

No, she was right.  He had to stop blaming himself for the actions of others.  Yes, his actions had consequences, but so did Cannon's.  Everyone is responsible for their own action or inaction.  But what's done is done, and there's no point in whining about it. . . .

Brave postures, Cloak, you fool, the critic in his head chided him with it's usual annoyingly grating voice, but how long before you fall into this routine again?  You're a creature of habit, and self-blame is your habit!

Cloak shook his head, as if to shake away his doubts.  It didn't work, but he ignored that fact.

"Feeling better?" Faith asked.

"Yeah," Cloak lied.

"You want some dinner?  Mom's coming over --"

"No-thank-you." Cloak said quickly.

Faith gave him a long, stern look.  "You two -- you're a lot alike, you know."

Cloak said nothing for a moment, with his back to her.  Then he looked over his left shoulder and made eye contact with his elder sister.

He uttered, "You're wrong.  We're nothing alike."

Then he swirled his cloak and vanished.  He appeared in the middle of RAF, and headed to his thread.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 29, 2012, 11:29:22 PM

You've really planned ahead. Great chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 08:55:58 AM

Yeah, it was a helpful sedative for the treatment my mother gave me.  She still won't talk to me.  I'm really tired of everything bad happening somehow being my fault. ::)  Geesh, no wonder Brute ran off . . . and turned to alcoholism. . . .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Hell Hath No Fury

Parker was still in his forced incarceration, looking horribly thin and malnourished.  This part was deliberate on Cannon's part, though he would disavow any knowledge of it, if the press came calling.  Parker barely had any energy to talk to Tyr.  Although he managed one or two quips, he was quickly losing all hope of being rescued.  Cannon would view security tapes of this, and laugh raucously.  He was getting a sadistic joy out of watching his former rival suffer.

Of course, Cannon didn't count on one thing -- Helen.  She had never stopped looking for Parker.  She basically dropped out of RAF just to continue her search.  She felt a love so deep and so powerful for him, that she could not stop her search.  She barely slept, nearly never ate.  She was consumed with this one important mission.

She approached the prospective sight in her full Star Sapphire regalia.  She looked very intently at one building in particular.  She eyed it hungrily, feeling that she finally had found her beloved.  Using her ring, she blasted through a wall.  Then she dived down and through the hole she had made.  She looked around, and saw some Knight guards looking shellshocked -- it appeared that they had been playing cards instead of taking their duties seriously.  But the surprise only lasted for so long before they came to their senses and begun to charge forward.

Helen dealt with them easily.  She left all four moaning over the table with its newly-broken legs, although the Knights weren't severely harmed themselves, just bruised up a bit.

"Stay down, and you'll recieve no worse," she snarled.  "Now tell me . . . WHERE . . . IS . . . PARKER?"

One of the guards shakingly pointed the way.  But whether he was shaking from his injuries or sheer fear from this powerful female was unclear.

"You had BETTER not be lying to me, you scum," she snarled again.

She followed the Knight guard's direction, and found a wall in her way.  She blasted through it, using her ring.  But what she saw through the wall caused her heart to cry out in pain.  Parker was there, but sickly.  His armor clung loosely to him, his helmet had been removed.  He had a slight beard, due to the few days without a shave.  His hair was at least a quarter inch to a half inch longer than the last she saw of him.

"H-H-Helen . . . ?" his voice sounded faint, as if from sheer boredom.  But she could hear the surprise in it.

"Of course, my little SPARTAN," she said, sweetly, using her ring to free him from his bindings.  Then she gave him a small peck on the cheek.  "You didn't actually think that I would let you rot in here, did you?  I just had to FIND the blasted place first."

"Stop right there," said a loud, booming, commanding voice.

It was Cannon.  He had his hands behind his back, and his resemblance to General Thaddeus Ross from Marvel was irresistable.  Helen's mouth curled into a snarl, Parker looked unsurprised.

"Put him down, woman," Cannon commanded forcefully.  "You have no right to take him out from here."

"WHAT?!" she practically screamed.  "You haven't a right to keep him here!!"

"He's a threat to national security," Cannon said smoothly.

"Oh, now you BELIEVE your own diatribe?"

"He's in contact with hostile aliens." Cannon said, and pressed on over her protests, "AND, as such, must be detained."

"You have no authority to do that!  You are not a military general anymore.  You were dishonorably discharged!!"

"You dare to speak about that?!" Cannon's tone changed to one of anger.  "You have no idea what was detailed in that.  It was politics!  Politics that gave me that blemish on my record!"

"You nearly destroyed a town . . ." Parker said suddenly.

"It was necessary to destroy that menace!  War isn't pretty.  But I did what I had to in order --"

"War?  What war?  You've never seen battle." Parker noted, strong enough now to stand on his own two feet.

"Lies!" Cannon roared, completely losing his cool.  "This fool used lies to get you, Helen!"

Helen stared at Louis Cannon long and hard.  Then she said, "I never loved you, Cannon.  And I never will."

With that, she took Parker's hand and flew them out of the building, leaving a stunned Cannon behind.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 30, 2012, 10:19:22 AM

Great chapters, cloak! Hope everything is ok on your end.

I have part 1 of the fuzor episode up. Still have to take care of part 2.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 12:15:15 PM

Damn, didn't post the chapter.  I don't have it in me right now to rewrite the whole thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 30, 2012, 01:00:22 PM

Yay, we got Parker back!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on June 30, 2012, 03:20:18 PM

Yay! I got Helen back! And Louis got a sweet burn!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 07:14:37 PM

But that burn won't be forgotten by him . . .

Anyway -- Book XXXV will be tentatively called "Richard's Horn".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 30, 2012, 07:34:56 PM

My filthy mind is filthy and made me raise an eyebrow at that title.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 07:48:27 PM

:facepalm:
I knew that would happen.

Think "All Dogs Go To Heaven 2", Blaze.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 30, 2012, 08:00:27 PM

Haven't seen the movie but the plots given away with the title.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 08:27:21 PM

Not necessarily, Blaze.  Sometimes these books take a twist that I don't foresee. . . .

I'll post another chapter soon.  I'll try for two, as I do not know when I'm forced to hiatus. . . .

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Necessary Piracy

A few days passed, and Parker was soon back on his feet -- though that was mostly due to Helen's endeavors.  Parker had started wearing his armor again, and even bantering with Tyr.  He was laughing and generally being his lovable, RAFian self.

However, Cloak remained within his thread, brooding.  Wondering about the weight of his actions and inactions.  He paced his thread, sitting occasionally.  But whenever he sat down, he inevitably stood again to pace around his thread once more.  He did not know why he felt so restless, nor did not know why he should be burdened with such guilt.

The other RAFians were concerned about Cannon and his political dream.  Who knows what he'd do in the most powerful office in the states?  Who knows what unconstitutional laws he'd try to force through?  What's to stop him from putting aliens into concentration camps?  What was the right thing to do?  Richard thought he knew.  He sent Ash on a brief recon mission, and she returned a few days later, handing Richard what appeared to be a solidly-black Rubik's cube.  It was metal, yet warm to the touch.

"Thanks, Ash.  You're espionage skills are unsurpassed." he said.

Ash said nothing, but grinned a Cheshire cat smile.  A smile literally too big for her head.

"You know it's remarkably creepy when you do that, Ash."

The smile returned to natural dimensions, and Ash said, "Yeah, I know."

A few hours later, Richard was standing behind a podium, flanked by the other mods.  He ordered his papers rather stiffly, waiting for Aquilai to signal that the camera was rolling.  They were going out live, pirating the television signals -- all of them.  This was a necessary evil.

"Good evening, everyone." Richard said, voice crisp and clear.  "Sorry to interrupt your prime time programs, but we have something very important to disclose to the citizens of this country.  Over the last few months, there have been alien deaths, some of which may have still been 'closeted'.  They did not commit suicide, they were murdered."

Richard paused briefly to reshuffle his papers to allow this point to sink in.

"They were murdered by a notorious hate group known by the nomenclature of, ugh, the 'Knights of Humanity'.  Now, these so-called Knights are nothing to be admired or imitated.  They are just another extension of prejudge, like the KKK or Nazis.  No matter the name, their function is the same -- genocide.  Now, this isn't just a ragtag group of xenophobic extremists.  They've been organized, organized under a singular ruler.  A commander, a general."

Richard paused to take a deep breath.

"We have proof of the identity of this leader, of this man who fancies himself a king.  This man's name is Louis Cannon, former general of the Armed Forces, or some rank similar."

Richard and the mods picture shifted to the images and video that Ash had recorded on her recon trip.  It showed Cannon, without a doubt, in Knight regalia, ordering the deaths of more innocent aliens.  It was damning evidence.

"This was for your own knowledge.  Now that you know his, ah, extracurricular activities, you must make your choice -- a now fully-informed choice -- in November.  Thank you, and good night."

With that the camera shut off, and Richard took a sight of relief.  While, miles away, a roar of fury could be heard from the Knights of Humanity compound.  It was then that Cannon withdrew from the race, but he wouldn't stand for this indignity.  He would make Richard PAY for DARING to do such a thing.  But first, he would kill Parker.  Then, if she would still not have him, Cannon would kill Helen as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 30, 2012, 09:06:31 PM

I meant the movie, not the book cloak.

Looking forward to another chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 09:11:49 PM

Oh, okay.

The next chapter will be in my previous post.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Cannon Fires Back

At the Knights of Humanity compound, Cannon was attempting to whip up the Knights into a genocidal rage.
"The RAFians will make off with your children!  They'll come after them in the night!  Forget the Potter boy, I say we kill these beasts! "

The mob roared, "Kill 'em!"

Then they erupted into song:

"We're not safe until they're dead!
They'll come stalking us at night!
Set to sacrifice our children to their monstrous appetite!
They'll wreak havoc on our village if we let them wander free!

"

Then Cannon, in full Knight regalia, belted out:

"So, it's time to take some action!
It's time . . . to follow . . . me!
Through the mist, through the woods!
Through the darkness and the shadows!
It's a nightmare but it's one exciting ride.
Say a prayer, then we're there,
At the threshold of a forum!
And there's somethings truly terrible inside!
They're aliens! They've got fangs,
Razor sharp ones!
Massive paws, killer claws for the feast!
Hear them roar! See them foam!
But we're not coming home 'til they're dead--
Good and dead!
Kill the RAFians!

The Knightly mob declared:

"Light your torch! Mount your horse!"

Then Cannon roared:

"Screw your courage to the sticking place!"

The Knights continued:

"We're counting on Cannon to lead the way!
Through a mist, through a wood
Where within a haunted forum
Something's lurking that you don't see ev'ry day!
They're RAFians! One as tall as a mountain.
We won't rest 'til they're good and deceased
Sally forth! Tally ho!
Grab your sword! Grab your bow!
Praise the Lord and here we go!
We don't like
What we don't understand.
In fact, it scares us
And these monsters are mysterious at least!
Bring your guns!
Bring your knives!
Save your children, our village and our lives!
We'll kill the RAFians!"

Cannon commanded, "Cut down a tree, and make it a big one! Take whatever booty you can find. But remember, Parker is MINE!  As is the head honcho and the idiot in the cape."

Quick cut to RAF, where the RAFians sense the oncoming horde, and begin to sing in earnest:

"Hearts ablaze!
Banners high!
We go marching into battle,
Unafraid although the danger just increased!"

Meanwhile, the Knight still sang:

"Raise the flag!
Sing the song!
Here we come, we're mighty strong
And Knights can't be wrong
Let's kill the RAFians!
Kill the RAFians!
Kill the RAFians!!
Kill the RAFians!!!"

And the Knights kept singing "Kill the RAFians" until they managed to penetrate RAF.  But while they were still trying, Noelle galloped to Cloak's thread.  Cloak felt her vibrations, and said, "Leave me in peace."

<But Cloak!  They come!!>

Fire suddenly appeared in Cloak's eyes (albeit NOT literally), and he whipped open his thread door, suddenly sure of what he had to do.  Noelle strode at a moderately fast pace (she could outrun Cloak if she wanted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2012, 10:27:17 PM

Now, I may very well finish up this book tonight.  Shortish chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Final Battle Begins

Noelle, Cloak, Estelore, Aquilai, Goom, Richard, Blaze and Gaz stood at the threshold into the forum.  Dino loomed, full-sized, behind them, beside Shock, Evilpinkdragon and Blocky.  The other RAFians were hidden in strategic spots within the forum.  They saw the outer wall give, and were prepared.  But they did not move -- the lights on the forum were out and only dimmest light was available.

Being a tiger-form Realm Walker, darkness meant very little to Cloak.  He could see quite clearly, and, if need be, he could generate his own light, as could Estelore, Blaze, the RAFian Lanterns and probably more.  The Knights were at a clear disadvantage, consisting of all humans.  They didn't seem to have the common sense to bring night vision goggles, but then again, if they had common sense, they wouldn't be here or even a Knight of Humanity in the first place.

Cloak could tell that his fellow RAFians were itching to fight, to get the anticipation over with.  Cloak hoped that they would hold back a little longer . . . the Knights might even think RAF is deserted.  Cloak wasn't banking on such luck, but was it wrong to hope?

Cloak narrowed his eyes as he realized that Cannon was there with his cronies, his minions.  It almost felt like sacrilege, for him to dare to step foot in this, the sacred of all forums.  His only purpose was to destroy the RAFians because of what they were, Cloak knew this, and was thinking that they could possibly use that against him.

"Remember, the caped idiot, their boss, and Parker are mine," Cloak heard Cannon mutter to his "troops".  Cloak felt offended at the "caped idiot" remark, not because he was being called an idiot, but because he wore a cloak, not a cape.  But Cloak realized the greater import of the sentence.  Cannon thought he could kill him.  Clearly, Cannon knew nothing about Realm Walkers.

The Knights looked around intently.  Surely they noticed the looming figures inches in front of them?

"Sire, I don't think anyone is here." said a surprisingly young-sounding voice.  The voice's owner couldn't have been any older than fifteen, sixteen.  Cloak felt a stab of pity for the young stooge.

"Don't be stupid, Perkins!" Cannon snarled quietly.  "They would never evacuate their precious forum!*"

But then Cannon's eyes fixed on Cloak's rustling cloak, and his ears fixed on the sounds of Dino's heavy breathing.  Suddenly, the lights came up and the RAFians ripped into the Knights.  Well, not literally ripped into them.  With the possible exception of Demos, and maybe even Faerie, the RAFians can be a merciful lot.  The Knights, however, felt no such compunction.

This was, by far, the RAFians most bloody and gory fight.  They would worry about the bad PR that was bound to happen afterwards.

Cannon fought with no one, keeping his sword sheathed, even ignoring Cloak and Richard, just to find Parker and Helen.  Parker was well aware of this, and was remaining stationary so that Cannon could find him.  Helen was trying to convince him otherwise.

"You think he will succeed?"

"No, I -- I -- I just don't want you hurt!"

"Nor do I want you hurt," Parker said.  "If he doesn't come after me, he'll be after you."

---
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on June 30, 2012, 10:40:33 PM

It would have been a good time to sing 'savages'

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 01, 2012, 01:19:28 AM

Oh he'd never find me, as I dial my sniper scope and take him out for good. But, as the story demands, I doubt I'll be using my sniper. :'( Besides, what does he think he can do against a titanium alloy?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2012, 06:34:01 AM

Parker, he's a hair away from psychotic.

Blaze, I know, but I thought the mob song was better.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
It Ends Here

Parker waited for Cannon.  He knew he could use a sniper scope to take him out, but that'd be too easy.  He wanted the chance to have some words with him, to try to talk sense into him, though he realized the reality of that ideal.  Helen was worried a great deal about him, naturally.  The Star Sapphire decided to watch his back -- just in case.

Cannon found them, and he unsheathed his energy-charged sword, which crackled ominously.

"Well," Parker said, in a low voice, "THAT'S new."

Cannon charged forward with a roar that clearly said that this man had lost all sanity.  Parker blocked the blow with his armored forearm, but, with a crackling sound, the energy -- almost electrical in its properties, but somehow different -- passed through the titanium alloy armor as if it was toilet paper.  Parker was not expecting such a weapon.

"You got a new toy, Cannon," Parker said.

"No banter this time, Parker." Cannon said, gnashing his teeth with every word.  "Now, do me a favor and die!!"

"Don't think so, Cannon," Parker said.

Sure, he could have summoned up a Ride Armor from the Ride Armor Matrix that Cloak gave him so long ago.  But it was a matter of personal pride not to do so.  Of course, Parker's pride was gonna get him killed this day . . .

Suddenly, his armored glowed violet.  It felt stronger, yet lighter than before.  Parker was momentarily confused until he realized what had happened.  Helen had reinforced his armor with her ring, as well as giving herself her own SPARTAN-style armor with her ring.  She winked at Parker, who couldn't resist a small smile.

They took battle stances, and Cannon looked thoroughly deranged.  He raised his sword, and the energy coming off it seemed to increase with his demented rage.  Parker and Helen were undeterred.  Cannon swung, swung, and swung.  He was vicious with his attack, though lacking any finesse.  His blade's energy could not penetrate the reinforced armor.

Parker kept blasting him with his fusion cannons, all be it not troubling himself to hit Cannon directly.  Despite any postures Parker may have made to the contrary, he didn't want to be a murderer.  Nor a murder victim, for that matter.

Meanwhile, the other RAFians were faring slightly better.  Dino was able to scare a few of the Knights of lesser courage away by taking one and gently worry him, like a dog with a bone.  Sure, the knight fainted from fear, but, hey, that wasn't Dino's fault.

Cloak was using mainly the Air and Water Elements, as he found them the most not lethal elements he had in his repertoire.  His reluctance to use the more dangerous elements was proving quite detrimental.  Then Cloak realized something.  He pressed his hand against one Knight's armor, and, using his mastery over the Metal Element, caused it to melt and fragment off his body -- revealing a much too thin man in a purple undershirt and white boxers with red hearts on them.

"Really?" Cloak said.

Gaz had taken to the air in bat form, screeching and divebombing the Knights.  Some of which screamed like schoolgirls . . . some actually were schoolgirls.  Gaz continued this schtick before delivering a glide kick by reverting to her humanoid vampiric form.

Ash had a ball sowing confusion within the ranks of the Knights, using her shapeshifting prowess.

Blaze had turned the whole fight to something of a game.  He'd attack the horde with his sword as a sword one minute, then switch it to a war hammer and attack again.  Then he'd switch it to a bladed staff, and attack again.  Then he'd switch it to a simple bo staff, and attack again.  Then it changed into a pair of tonfa, and he'd go at it again.  Then he'd -- you get the point.

Meanwhile, Parker managed to get the best of Cannon.  He was on the ground his sword feet away, and Parker's fusion cannons in point-blank distance from his face.

"Go ahead and do it, Parker." he goaded.  "Be a man!"

"Parker, he's not worth tearing your soul apart.  Don't do it," Helen pleaded.

Parker, whose face was obscured by his helmet, said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2012, 07:47:40 AM

Now, what very may be the ending to all my books (I certainly hope not myself).  Gonna be a shortish chapter.  For real this time.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Battle Aftermath

The Knights withdrew.  Cannon was found with his own sword in his chest.  When questioned about it, Parker became surly and silent while Helen insisted that he didn't do it.  But the incontrovertable truth was that Cannon was dead.  He was now a martyr for his Knights.  Although not nearly as numerous when Cannon was alive, they would persist to exist.  Now, they would blacklist anyone bearing the Mark, and be terrorists, as all hate groups essentially are.

But the RAFians weren't worried, they knew and had just proven that they can take on such bigots.  And they were sure that they had not seen the last of them.

Soon enough, however, the threads were alive with the sound of posting again.  There was, astonishingly enough, no severe damage to the thread buildings.  Sure, a little cosmetic damage, but that was all.

Meanwhile, all this was being watched by a figure on a hillside..

"I underestimated them," said the figure.  "I never expected them to be so ruthless to protect their little community.  But that's what you get for using a Grade-A stooge in your plans."

A sliver of light passed over the figure revealing it to be Malice.

"It makes no difference, though." she monologued.  Then she pulled a clear vial from her cloak, with a greenish-black thing suspended in liquid.  She eyed it with a sinister smile on her face.  "A certain alien brood will keep them busy -- and give them considerable nightmares, I believe."

She laughed evilly at this thought.

"Now, to find a local to put this plan into action. . . ."

Then she vanished from view.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 01, 2012, 10:02:00 AM

Great chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 01, 2012, 02:06:12 PM

It's great to see you posting again!  Loved the new chapters.

Very cool ending.  I really liked the fact that it's left ambiguous whether or not Parker killed Cannon.  Kind of reminds me of the ending to book #16, where Fenestre's house is set on fire and Jake says he didn't know who did it (although he still lists himself as one of the suspects).  Very nice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2012, 07:02:04 AM

Thanks.  Now, here's -- *waits for drumroll, then realizes that one isn't coming, so plows on anyway.*

Anyway, shortish chapter.

BOOK XII:
ALIEN BROOD
Chapter One:
R & R

Soon enough, the Knight hysteria died down.  Although RAFians like Cloak didn't think that they were eradicated, not by a long shot.  He was sure that they'd just chose another leader and become yet another thorn in RAF's side, like Malice and the Banned.  But that wasn't for a long time, so the RAFians continued about their merry, zany lives.

Cloak remained watchful from his hillside perch.  He used to do this periodically, but now he comes here a minimum of once a day, simply to think.  He would look out, beyond RAF.  He saw the bluish-purple hue that marked the beginning of the Bannedlands, which was beyond RAF's borders, and the beginning limits of the nearby town which lay at about a 120-degree angle from the Bannedlands, if you take RAF as a vertix.

So much has happened, yet, Cloak still would much rather be here, live here, then return to his Nexus birthplace.  Cloak's felt a happiness, an unbridled joy being within the forum, and felt a real sense of community within the forum.  Something he had not really, truly felt in the Nexus neighborhood which he used to call home.

Yet, Cloak had a feeling of dread.  As if he could sense something absolutely horrible was primed to happened.  He did not know why.  He did not know how.  He just knew that something awful was bound to happen.

***

Meanwhile, Malice stood upon a ship or space station of some kind.  She glanced around appraisingly.  Then smiled so maliciously that it sent chills up Cloak's spine a million or so miles away.  Her hand dove into her cloak and brought out her vial with the creature . . . the embryo . . . inside, suspended in some sort of liquid that put it in suspended animation.

She went over to a computer console, confirming their destination, and then she went to some sort of light control.  She turned off the lights and made sure that they could not be turned on until it was too late . . .

Then there was a scream as she nabbed one of this shuttle's crew . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 02, 2012, 10:41:37 AM

Oh god, this is turning into alien...

Still a great chapter, and the ending was fantastic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2012, 10:57:36 AM

Quote from: New Blazing Angel on July 02, 2012, 10:41:37 AM

Oh god, this is turning into alien...

Well . . . yes and no . . .

*smiles noncommittally.*

CHAPTER TWO:
SOS Scouting

Yarin eventually calls to a meeting of all RAFians.  When the RAFians are settled and after a few lurkers are kicked out -- you must post a minimum of once to be considered a proper RAFian.  Anyway, the light conversation permeated the room as if it was flooding.

Cloak stood toward the back of the room, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, head bowed.  Blaze was in the fourth row down, fingering his sword will conversing idly with Dino, who looked frankly bored and impatient, standing still, but politely conversing back with Blaze.  Parker and Helen were sitting, side-by-side, in the sixth row, whispering sweet nothings to each other.  Ash and Broken also said together, holding hands.  Noelle, being an Andalite, didn't sit anywhere, but stood with her arms crossed against her chest, stalk eyes constantly scanning the area -- a sign of unease.  Gaz and Guy sat next to each other, and Horse sat on her own seat next to him.  Aquilai was seated, but seemed to be nodding off every so often.

Yarin approached to podium.  The RAFians gave him their undivided attention.  Yarin tapped the podium with a finger on his upper right arm.

"Uh, yes," he began.  "The reason I called you all here is that I just received a SOS."

There was a slight rustling and minor movement at this.

"It was labelled as urgent --"

"It's a trap!" someone shouted.

Yarin looked a bit flustered, before Cloak snarled, gnashing his fangs, "Thank you, General Ackbar."  Then he turned to Yarin, "Please continue Yarin."

"Huh?  Oh, uh, yes.  I was going to scout this SOS signal." he said, still quite flustered.  "And I need a crew."

"I'll go," Cloak said immediately.  Cloak was well aware that his primary element, Earth, would be unavailable to him on this mission.  He didn't care.

<As will I,> Noelle said, who had stopped scanning the room with her stalk eyes, but stared at Cloak with them for a moment.

"I'll go, too." Parker said, standing up.

"Then you had better come back to me in one piece," Helen said, in a mock threatening tone.  Several of the younger RAFians snickered.

Blaze stood up, still fingering his sword as if itching to use it again, "I'm in."

Gaz, too, stood up.  "As am I."

"I think that would be enough," Richard suggested from his first row seat.

"Oh, uh, yes.  Yeah, it is." Yarin said, leaving the stage soon after.

***

Soon after the meeting, the six boarded Yarin's ship.  Yarin, naturally, would pilot it -- Cloak certainly couldn't*.  And take off was far smoother than Cloak had expected.  Clearly Yarin had his ship upgraded since the last time they used it.

And with that, they were off, past the Earth's atmosphere, beyond aid from their friends.  They were on their own now.

---
*Yeah, that's right.  I can't pilot anything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2012, 08:46:17 AM

Okay -- I've decided to axe one book, but I came up with another tentatively called "Richard Is Missing", partially inspired by the first two episodes of Beast Wars Season 2, and another tentatively called "Feral Scream", which looks like it will star wildwethel.

CHAPTER THREE:
Space Drift

The six travelled to the signal, and Cloak sat down, legs crossed, meditating.  Blaze took out his sword and was practicing.  Parker and Noelle stood beside Yarin, looking out of the ****pit.  Gaz was in bat form, roosting up on the ceiling, taking a pre-mission snooze.

Cloak's eyes snapped open.  He did not know how he could sense it, but he knew that they were approaching an area of great evil.  He jumped to his feet, startling Gaz from her roost, squeaking furiously.  Cloak was glad that he wasn't a chiropteralingual . . . er, that he couldn't talk to bats.  He supposed that Gaz wasn't saying anything remotely nice.

Cloak strode to the ****pit, while Blaze wiped his brow and sheathed his sword.  Gaz resumed her human form, and she ran up alongside Cloak, asking, "WHAT was that about?"

Cloak said nothing, but stared at the empty expanse before the ship.  Cloak couldn't see the source of the evil he had sensed . . . could it have been a residual thing?  Had he sensed the presence of evil that had happened years or even millennia before?  No.  It was just too powerful to be residual . . . at least, that's what he told himself.

"There's evil here," Cloak muttered.

<What do you mean, Cloak?> Noelle asked, perplexed, while Gaz raised an eyebrow.

"There's evil here," Cloak repeated.  "Cats of all types can sense evil."

"He's . . . right . . ." Blaze said, uncertainly.  Clearly, angel hybrids could sense evil of this kind as well.

"Well, that's reassuring." Parker sighed, shaking his head.  "How much father, Yarin?"

"The signal strength is increasing . . ." Yarin started.  "But, yet, seemingly getting weaker as well."

"Let's not talk in circles, please." Gaz requested.

<It could be because we're getting closer,> Noelle said thoughtfully, <but the signal is somehow losing power.>

"Oh, perfect.  Wonderful." Gaz said as she threw her hands up.

"There's an object . . ." Yarin said absently, then to his computer.  "Onscreen."

It showed some vaguely rectangular piece of what appeared to be space debris.

"Computer, magnify.  Fullest extent." Yarin ordered.

It now show what was definitely a ship, which looked like an amalgam of the Enterprise, the Nemesis, and the Axalon.  It appeared that it was a dead ship . . .

"Should we prepare to board?" Yarin asked.

"Of course," Parker said.

Blaze and Cloak shared a look, but said nothing.  Quietly accepting this is the way it has to be.  Yarin managed to marry the airlocks, secure the pathway, and equalized the pressures.  The other five RAFians prepared themselves for what they might encounter in the massive ship -- the size differential was like the male and female anglerfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angler_fish#Reproduction).

"In case there's anything dangerous in there," Cloak addressed Yarin, "after we're in, break off from the ship.  But stay nearby.  And everyone stay in communication."

With this, they boarded the strange ship. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 03, 2012, 10:12:11 AM

Quote from: New Blazing Angel on July 02, 2012, 10:41:37 AM

Oh god, this is turning into alien...

I hate it when I'm right.

Great chapters

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 03, 2012, 10:43:49 AM

Love the new chapters! I gotta work on more beast wars recaps.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2012, 01:42:40 PM

Thanks, Gazzy -- I'll have to see if I can post this next chapter before the forecasted storm hits. . . .  Probably gonna be a short chapter.

CAHPTER FOUR:
Something Wicked This Way Comes

The five entered the ship, shut the airlock, and watched Yarin fly a prudent distance away.  Gaz was checking communications, while Parker was checking out readings.  After a few minutes, Gaz established that the communications link was suffiently strong and stable, while Parker seemed quite puzzled.

"No radiation to speak of.  No hull breaches at all." he muttered, more to himself and Tyr than anyone else.  "By all accounts, this ship should still be functional . . . except the engines seemed to have been turned off.  But I can't get more data other than that. . . ."

Cloak stayed close to the metal wall of the hull, attempted to use Metalsight, a variation of Earthsight.  But, as he had never tried it before, it didn't pan out.  But Cloak's olfactory sense and hearing were more acute than that of a human's.  And he did smell something he couldn't place . . . but it had a strange familiar scent to it.  Cloak's ears picked up nothing but the eerie sound of silence.  But his feline intuition told him that there was something evil here, so much so that it was stifling.

Cloak looked at Blaze, and saw that he shared much of Cloak's unease.  So much so that he saw fit to unsheath his sword, which was glowing with a mixture of yellow and green.  He was afraid yet willful at the same time.  Parker look around, then activated his Ride Armor Matrix, and chose the Chimera Ride Armor.  Then he discovered there wasn't enough maneuvering space, so he deactivated it.

<Uh, shall we proceed?> Noelle said, feeling a little skittish herself.

"Which way?" Gaz inquired.

"South," Cloak and Blaze said in unison.  Then they looked at each other, because that was not planned.

"Okay . . . which way is south?" Gaz asked.

"That way," Parker pointed.  He was the one who had the schematic of the ship, after all.  "That'll take us to the engine room, unless I'm reading this thing upside down.  Why the makers of this ship decided to have Daedalus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus) as a designer is beyond me!"

"What?" Blaze asked, absently.

"Never mind, he's saying that this ship is a labyrinth," Cloak said, in a harsher tone than he intended.

"What's that?!" Gaz cried suddenly, a few minutes later.

"What's what?" Blaze said, his sword more yellow than green now.

"I saw something streak by!" Gaz practically screamed.

"There's nothing there," Parker said calmly.

"I'm telling you, I saw something!!"

"And I felt vibrations from something, as well," Cloak confirmed.  Then he suddenly spat angrily, "But I can't do Metalsight!  So I couldn't see what it was!!"

"Probably an illegal Alien," Blaze said nervously.

No one laughed.  Or got the real reference Blaze was making.

They continued to inspect the ship.  But even Cloak's ears missed the screams that issued from the interior of the ship. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 03, 2012, 02:26:06 PM

looney tunes, back in action. Nice.

Technically, can their be a south in space?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on July 03, 2012, 02:31:21 PM

Ehem, as you may have noticed I decided to overhaul my profile. Hope this doesn´t interfere with your story too much. Which is still awesome by the way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2012, 02:45:42 PM

Well, I suppose "port" and such nautical terminology would be more accurate for this, Blaze.  That's a good point.

Crossoverfan, right?  Don't worry about it -- notice how Parker's still a SPARTAN in this story, yet outside it, he's Darth Revan.

One more chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Dead Men Do Tell Tales

The five moved quickly but cautiously.  They didn't know what that thing was, but it was large.  Large enough to warrant such caution.  Parker was armed and he held the front position, and Cloak held the rear position.  All five were on edge.

They came upon a T-shaped intersection.  They all lined up on the opposite wall, Cloak touching it with his hands, trying to force himself how to learn Metalsight.  Naturally, that doesn't work.

Parker signaled that it was safe, and all five filed into the corridor -- only it wasn't a corridor.  It was a confined room.  There were white silk-like substance where two silhouetted grooves in them.  Clearly someone was bound here . . . then let go.

<There's another one in the closet thing, over there.> Noelle said, pointing.

"What's going on here?" Parker said, genuinely spooked.

"I think I know, but I hope I'm wrong," Gaz said earnestly.

"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Cloak asked.

<Yeerks?> Noelle asked.

"You know better than that, Noelle," Blaze said, his sword was still out, but it was now more green than yellow.  "Yeerks can't -- Yeerks don't do this kind of thing."

<Then what?>

Blaze and Cloak spoke at the same time.

"Xenomorphs." Blaze said.

"The Brood," Cloak said.

The two glanced at each other in disbelief, sure the other was mistaken.

"The Brood?  The Brood cannot leave silk like that." Blaze argued.

"They'd be skeletons if it were Xenomorphs, Blaze," Cloak countered.  "Brood don't leave skeletons behind."

<Um, what are you talking about?> Noelle asked.

Cloak chose to explain, "The Brood are endoparasites that implant a host with an egg, and that egg takes over the host, modifying the body into a pseudo-insectoid one.  Xenomorphs, in constrast, are endoparasitoids that implant a host with an embryo via a creature called a facehugger, then when the embryo is ready, it burst through host's chest, taking along a few traits of the host as well."

<They sound real similar,> Noelle said thoughtfully.  <Are they related?>

"No, they live in two completely different realms," Cloak said repressively.

With that, they completed the investigation of this room, and continued onward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 03, 2012, 04:51:05 PM

You know the 'chest burst scene in alien? The reason the actors looked so scared is because it was very real. The script only said 'the alien emerges,' being intentionally vague. Then whne it actually happened, a very tiny decoy popped out of his chest. After the sigh of relief the acutal one came out, showering them with blood and guts. Oh hollywood.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2012, 08:09:51 AM

I didn't know that, Blaze.  The only source of information I have on the subject is Wikipedia.  Oh, and I stopped planning ahead on chapters.  I'm too far ahead.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Split Up

They stalked toward an opening in the corridor, with heightened tensions and stress levels.  Before them was a small round room, where it branched out in five directions.  They paused before it, almost unsure of what to do.

"I think it's clear what we must do now," Parker said.

"Don't EVEN suggest it," Cloak warned.

"Do you even watch horror movies?" Blaze queried pressingly.

"We must split up."

"And you just signed our death warrants." Blaze sighed.

"Don't be so melodramatic," Parker chided.

"Easy for the guy in armor to say," Blaze shot back.

"There's nothing here we cannot handle," Parker countered.

It continued in this vein for some time.  Cloak, Noelle, and Gaz stood back and let them bicker, while commenting on their situation.

<It does seem rather ominous,> Noelle noted, over the bickering of Blaze and Parker.  It irresistibly reminded Cloak of Rattrap and the original Dinobot.  <I will admit that I'm rather unnerved.>

"Join the club, Noelle," Gaz said, patting her blue-furred shoulder.  "But I can't see any other way to do it than to split up, like Parker suggested."

"We're better off at as a group," Cloak countered.  "If we go it alone, we'll just get picked off, one-by-one.  And I don't know if the Mark can protect us from Brood eggs or Xenomorph embryos."

<He has a point, Gaz,> Noelle noted passively.

"Yes," Gaz conceded, then heaved a heavy sigh, "but if we don't, this'll take forever."

There it was.  The question of safety or expediency.  Total safety was an impossibility, and expedient solutions tended to lead to very serious mistakes.  Either path would undoubtedly lead to screaming and exclaiming profanities.  To their potential meet n' greets with the Grim Reaper, or Angel of Death, whichever you prefer.  What was the right way to do this?

"Okay . . . we should split up," Cloak concided.

Blaze looked at Cloak as if questioning his sanity, but relented.

"Okay, then," Parker said.  "Let's get this done."

Parker took the path straight ahead, Blaze took the one to the immediate right of Parker's corridor, Cloak took the one to the immediate left of Parker's corridor, Noelle took the leftmost corridor, and Gaz took the rightmost corridor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2012, 08:56:49 AM

STUPID COMPUTER WENT BACK TO PREVIOUS PAGE AND I LOST THE NEW CHAPTER.  Let's try this AGAIN.  Short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Here's the Skinny

Blaze strode the corridor cautiously, with trepidation.  His wings rustled a little, itching to expand to their full span.  But the corridor wasn't quite large enough to do so.  Blaze held his sword out in front of him, glowing mostly yellow, with some green, red, and blue.  He was nervous to be sure.  He was quite sure that something was gonna pop out and attack him.  He listened harder than he had ever done.  He was far more alert than he had ever been in his life.

Then his foot touched something.  He nearly hit the ceiling, he was startled so severely.  He prodded the object with his sword and it seemed to be inert.  He held a ball of fire, which he produced himself, in his left hand to illuminate the mysterious object.  It was a shed skin, of a brownish-black hue.  It wasn't a small skin either.

Then Blaze jumped again -- he had heard the sound of claws on metal.  From the ceiling.  He knew it could been the others -- Cloak was the only one with claws, and he kept them sheathed.  Then Blaze felt a whoosh of air by his left ear, and he whirled around and saw two luminous eyes.  Now he knew it wasn't a Xenomorph.  They do not possess visible eyes, but Brood do.  The creature was even wearing remnants of red clothing with yellow highlights.  Then the creature opened its mouth, and the pharyngeal jaws shot out.

Now Blaze was confused -- Brood did not have pharyngeal jaws.  But Blaze shifted his sword (whose yellow color was quickly being replaced by green and blue) into a bow.  This bow, other than the flame motif, was identical to Pit's.  He pulled back on the bow, and an arrow of flame materialized.  He aimed it at the creature, who seemed to be content to just stare at Blaze.  This puzzled Blaze, but he quickly came to the conclusion that there must be more than one.  He would have to make his move quickly.

Seconds passed as Blaze waited for the opportune moment to come.

Suddenly, the smallest twitch of the Brood Xenomorph thing in front of Blaze stirred him into action.  He fired the arrow into where the heart would be on a normal human, and then he whipped around, loaded another arrow of flame.  Then he shot the second one that was sneaking up upon him.  Then he dashed down the corridor, not knowing and not caring if the two were really dead.

Blaze accessed communications, breathlessly relaying what happened, and describing the creature as neither Brood nor Xenomorph and yet both.  Then he ran backwards as he fired off two more shots behind him, never knowing if they hit their target.  But he stopped momentarily when he noticed acid splatters behind him.  He did not go investigate, but assumed that one or more arrows got at least one of them.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 04, 2012, 09:15:37 AM

Oh no! I hate it when stuff like that happens.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2012, 09:20:24 AM

Well, I'm modifying that post with it.  Apparently, today is gonna be a bad day for chapters . . . I'm tapped out.  Energy usually reserved for this, gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 04, 2012, 10:13:50 AM

You NEVER EVER SPLIT THE PARTY!

And I finally got the bow...sweet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 04, 2012, 03:03:50 PM

Aw, poor scaredy angel too afraid to go it alone? >:D

Although, to be fair, I'm never alone. I've got an AI that helps me out. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 04, 2012, 03:16:33 PM

Your a roleplayer darth, I thought you would understand. Have you ever seen an episode of scooby doo? Seriously, any of them would suffice.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSplitTheParty (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSplitTheParty)

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/neversplittheparty/index.asp (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/neversplittheparty/index.asp)

Never Split The Party (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ#)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 04, 2012, 05:26:44 PM

Funny stuff Blaze.

Cloak, you may want to type out your chapters on a Word processor and then pasting it on the site. That way you don't accidentally delete them. Or if the site goes down or glitches, you don't lose the chapter. When posting from my Droid, I use the word processor because most of my posts are so long I can't see what I'm typing in the text box.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2012, 07:37:31 AM

That's what I used to do with the parodies, Parker.  But this computer, in addition to not having speakers, doesn't have a word processor that I can find.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Facehuggies

Parker wandered down his corridor, looking for . . . well, looking for something.  He spoke to Tyr for a bit, and bickered with the AI a bit.  When the corridor spread out a bit, he saw something strange.  Several large object that looked like . . . looked like eggs?  That couldn't be good.

Just then, one egg rippled, and opened up like a flower.  Then one of the strangest creatures emerged.  The head looked identical to that of a facehugger, but unlike purebred facehuggers, it had a larger body -- an insectoid body -- extending from it.  It also possessed bat-like wings, and a tail similar to Cell, from Dragonball Z Kai.  It was a mixture of red and green with black spots in a similar pattern of Cell.

Free of it's shell, it was gooey and disgusting.  Within minutes, it sheds its skin in a very graphic way, and discards the empty chitin skin.  Then apparently it finally appears to notice Parker.  With an earsplitting, soul-leadening screech, it charged forward.

But Parker simply shot the abomination point blank.  The creature disintegrated into an acid green substance that hissed like acid.  Parker was covered in the substance, but it apparently was not a strong enough acid to eat through his armor. . . . Which proved that it wasn't a Xenomorph.  Not entirely.

"Gross," Parker commented.  Then argued with Tyr about it.

Suddenly, another egg rippled.  Parker's eyes narrowed at it.

"Don't think so, pal."

So Parker shot that egg, killing the biological abomination within.  Then he turned his sights on the other eggs.  He fired long enough at each one to be absolutely sure that each monster within them were slain.  The goo bubbled around his feet with smoke curling out from it.  It wasn't acidic enough to eat through Parker's armor, but he wasn't too sure about the floor upon which he stood.  So he dashed away, to a safe distance, and watched.

Nothing happened.

Parker continued to watch as he wiped off the goo from his armor.  Smoke was curling from the substance, even though it wasn't eating through his armor.  While he did this, he opened communications with the other four, briefing them on the events.

"What could those things be?" Blaze wondered out loud, though his voice crackled over the communication line.

"Dunno," Parker said.  "All I know was that they were DISGUSTING."

"And their bodily fluids weren't acidic?" Cloak asked, voice crackling, ignoring Parker's comments.  "They didn't do any damage to your armor?"

"No," Parker confirmed, "but there's smoke steaming from the compound."

Cloak was silent for a minute.  "I have a sneaking suspicion."

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Gaz said, snappishly.

"Not yet," Cloak said.

"Cloak," Noelle said -- the device translated thought-speak into spoken words.  "If you have any information, we really should know it."

Cloak was silent for a pronounced bit of time.

"Okay, fine.  We're not dealing with Xenomorphs or Brood."

"I beg to differ," Blaze interjected.

"Let me finish, Blaze." Cloak countered.  "What we're dealing with is, somehow, a hybridization of the two."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2012, 09:18:55 AM

Oh, I just realize the next three books will have an arc, a trilogy if you will.  And it's really because of crossoverfan (or balrog now, I think) that I got the idea.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Uninvited Guests

Yarin kept his ship in a steady orbit around the massive ship the others were on.  He got snatches of their communication, but he wasn't really in any position to help them out.  Anything he did now, other than pilot his ship, would probably exacerbate problems.  Yarin hated it, but he wasn't the most offensively armed species.  His telepathy was his only real weapon, and there were those species out there that are immune to telepaths, Realm Walkers, for instance.

A blip on Yarin's screen alerted him.  He glanced outside the ****pit, but saw nothing.  But the sensor insisted there was something there.  Yarin used his telepathy to scan, but couldn't detect anything.  Could it be just space debris?  He tried to extrapolate the information.  And he was having difficulty succeeding.

Suddenly, he saw another ship loom overhead.  It wasn't nearly as large as the ship where the others were dealing with Xenomorph/Brood hybrids.  It was more comparible to the size of Yarin's own ship.  Yarin wasn't sure of the ships firepower, and wasn't yet ready to engage upon it.  They could be innocent beings that had recieved the same SOS that Yarin recieved and were coming to investigate . . .

But then why not hail Yarin?  Surely, they had to see him.  Surely their sensors could pick him up?  But then again the ship looked like was cobbled together . . . hmmmm . . . could they be interstellar pirates?  They did exist.

Yarin tried another telepathic sweep, but couldn't get anything.  Yarin almost facepalmed -- if they were pirates, they would naturally have an external telepathic jamming device -- a rare device, but known to exist.  That, in and of itself, was suspect.  Yarin called up communications with the others, as he suddenly realized that the suspected pirates were preparing to board the ship.

"Guys, you have uninvited guests!"

"No kidding!" Blaze's voice crackled with sarcasm.

"Being that I suspect may be interstellar pirates are boarding the vessel," Yarin elaborated.

"Great," Parker spat.  "As if we didn't have ENOUGH problems already!"

***

The pirates boarding the ship were burly, quasi-bipedal reptilian creatures known for venomous bites and claws so strong they can rend metal.  They didn't speak, so no one knew their numbers, the name of their home planet (or indeed if it even exists anymore) or the name of their species.  They finished boarding, but they kept their ship attached, as all of the crew, including the pilot, were boarded.  They all carried laser weapons, but depended on their claws and poisonous chompers for close combat.

They foolishly split up -- treating this like any other piracy mission.  But they left in groups of two or three.  They remained blissfully unaware of the true horrors that are within this little warship of horrors. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2012, 10:09:58 AM

Last chapter today, I'm afraid.

CHAPTER TEN:
Skirmish with Sleazoids

Cloak heard the exchange over the communicator, but he couldn't help but be unsurprised at this.  Pirates, while stealing from living people and whatnot, are universally scavengers.  Cloak mused that they saw this ship and assumed that they could make a profit of it.  Or possibly take the ship for their own, not knowing that hive-mind parasites lurked within.  Some occupational hazards of being a pirate, Cloak supposed.

Cloak looked up and he could see two tiny silhouettes behind him.  Cloak could tell that they were the pirates as they moved rather slowly and with an unjustified swagger.  Cloak stopped, leaned against an interior wall, and waited for them to draw even with him.  They made hissing and snapping noise which apparently consisted of their language.  The meaning was quite clear.

Give us all your valuables and you might live.

Cloak was not intimidated in the least.  RAFians dealt with far more frightening creatures on a bi-daily basis than the two pitiful specimens before him.  Not to mention, Cloak was confident in his abilities and powers.  So, naturally, Cloak ignored the demands.

NOW, alien!  Or we shall incinerate you!

They pulled out their guns, and Cloak could sense the metal in it.  He snapped his fingers and they felt apart.  Now, you think that would have mollified the two at least a bit.  Nope -- just made them angrier.  Cloak could see that the message needed to be felt more.  Cloak stood in a wide stance, facing them.  Then he powered a concussive funnel of air at the two.

They were knocked off their feet, but they weren't giving in.

"Granted, you get points for persistence," Cloak said, not having even broken a sweat, but getting annoyed.  He didn't want to murder these creatures.  "But here's a novel idea -- STAY DOWN!!"

Cloak fired a fireball that burned their shoulders.  They cried out in pain.

"Be glad I didn't kill you," Cloak said.  "Now, if you Sleazoids don't mind, I've business to attend to."

It occurred to Cloak that they may not have understood what he said, but his body language said it all.  Of course, Sleazoids weren't their race's true name, but it would do for now.

***

Meanwhile, Gaz had given up walking along the corridor, and decided that flight would be far easier.  So, she morphed into bat form and was fluttering down the corridor.  Then she saw two of the "Sleazoids", as Cloak called them, walk down the same hallway, weapons out, looking this way and that.  She was completely ignored by them.  Gaz decided to use this to her advantage.

When they stopped, Gaz found a place to perch on the ceiling, planning on ambushing them.  But she never got the chance.

The two Sleazoids were firing wildly at something they saw, but Gaz couldn't from her vantage point.  But it soon became very clear what it was as the Xenomorphic Brood, as she began to think of them, bowled both over.  Then Gaz watched, with horror, frozen by fear, as the Xenomorphic Brood implanted both dazed Sleazoids with embryonic eggs.

They were done for -- none of the RAFians knew how to get rid of one of those embryonic eggs without major surgery.  And they knew nothing of the Sleazoid's physiology. . . . Gaz fluttered away, wishing very badly she could unsee what she saw.  But, so awash in her misery, she failed to realize a second later that the two Xenomorphic Brood had spotted her.

They leaped at her, and missed due to what could only be interpreted as divine intervention.  She managed to use her echolocation to dodge and evade them, hoping that they'd eventually lose interest.  But this was a vain hope, and she knew it.  Then she found a vent -- and shifted back to her humanoid form and dissolved herself into mist -- another vampiric power -- and flowed into the vent, eventually exiting and runnin' into Cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 05, 2012, 12:03:33 PM

You know when the sleazoids were first mentioned I thought this would turn into aliens vs predator. Now my own imagination has yet again disappointed me.

Still great chapters cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2012, 12:09:03 PM

Sorry, no Predators in this book.  Although, perhaps for a different one . . . hmmm . . .

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Blast and the Mark

Parker listened unconcernedly to both Cloak and Gaz's accounts.  If there were pirates here, they would most certainly regret it.  These creatures, these Xenomorphic Brood, as Gaz had been starting to call them, are creatures without mercy.  They would be deaf to pleas of mercy and begging not to impant their embryonic eggs in them.  According to what Parker knew, these monsters would actually take great joy, a sadistic joy, in the terror that this would inflict.  These creatures were the basest level of evil.

Parker was fully expecting to encounter one or two of the creatures before now.  Tyr was keeping him appraised of the statistics, which annoyed him, but he had other concerns than to silence the AI.  Besides the sound of hearing someone speak was oddly comforting in this lonely, dead warship.  But he couldn't let his guard down.  Everything he heard from the others was that these creatures were fast, feral, and fatal.

Parker idly checked his weaponry, including his Megatronian and Galvatronian fusion cannons.  He knew that he wouldn't be able to use the Ride Armor Matrix given to him by Cloak oh-so-long ago.  Parker felt that he was prepared to take on anything.  Their acidic blood couldn't be stronger than the facehugger-faced Firstborn, though Parker didn't know the term.

However, Parker never saw a Xenomorphic Brood in this corridor.  But he did see two Sleazoids passed out in the middle of the corridor.  Parker dashed to them, and scanned their vitals.  Tyr announced they still lived and suggested vacating the area.  When Parker queried, Tyr didn't have to answer.  The Sleazoid eyes opened, and they didn't looke the same.  They were changing.  Their eyes become more like insect eyes, and their skin was taking on an exoskeletal sheen.

Parker was taken aback with both pity and disgust.  He aimed his rifle and fired.  Both fatal shots normal, but it just fragmented the strong exoskeletons that had formed.  Clothing ripped, their weapons clattered noisily to the floor.  Parker fired again, and both fell.  But their shifting, altering flesh -- who knows if they'll stay dead?

Wait -- the queen.  There's always a queen.  Destroy her, and the rest will die off.  It must work -- Parker hoped.

***

Blaze continued down the corridor.  He had reverted his bow back to its baseline sword form.  It still glowed yellow, and bit of red, green, and blue.  He was on high alert.  He walked in a very cautious manner, expecting to see one of those Sleazoids, or worse, a Xenomorphic Brood.  Blaze did not like this tension, this expectation, this anticipation, or being unable to spread his wings to their full span!

Blaze was looking around him, when he saw two Xenomorphic Brood aliens climbing upon the ceiling.  Blaze immediately shifted his sword into his bow and fired as many arrows of flame, at them as he could.  There were plenty of misses, but one caught one of the "XB"s in the shoulder, tail and head crest and the other in thigh, back, and throat.  The second one somehow survived.

Blaze continued to fire the fire arrows, but gave up as it didn't seem to be working to his liking.  All he did was slow them down!  He shifted his bow, which was glowing more and more green, into a war hammer and slammed it upon the second one.  All it seemed to do was knock him out, but the first was behind Blaze.  It tried to implant one of those embryonic eggs into Blaze!

But his Mark burned and the creature was launched several feet away by a blue energy feedback.  The embryonic egg quickly died.  Blaze blinked, and looked at his hand, where the Mark was etched.  Then he looked at the blackened, smoking remains of the XB, in shock.  It was dead.  It was actually dead.  Blaze didn't know that the Mark could kill. . . . He wondered if even Cloak and Goom was aware of this.

However, the second one was coming round, and was approaching Blaze from behind -- only to be ran through with Blaze's sword without him even turning around.  His sword's glow now had not evidence of yellow, but was predominately with green, with a little red, blue, and the smallest bit of indigo.  He knew these were two of the Sleazoids -- due to the clothing.  The first one he ever encountered was completely naked.

Blaze looked up from his musings, and ran down the corridor, hoping to meet up with the others.  But relaying this over communications.  Cloak didn't seem too surprise.

"Naturally, even without the Mark, your body would have probably rejected the egg." Cloak speculated.  "It wouldn't be able to survive in mine, being disintegrated within seconds."

"Yeah, and what about the rest of us?" Gaz asked.

Cloak said, "So, what did you say about a queen, Parker?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2012, 09:35:08 AM

*Sigh* Only 490 more posts to go.  Why did I put the "RAFize Songs" thread in the Bored Board?

Anyway, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Explanations

Cloak prowled his corridor, still in a thoroughly bad mood.  He came upon a computer consol, it was blinking a bit and flickering rather badly.  But it was really no more difficult to access then that of a Terran computer.  Cloak blundered around it, eventually finding some security tapes.  He accessed them, but they were really grainy, it was irritating just trying to make out what was going on.

The race that this ship belonged to had humanish faces, long platinum blonde hair, elfish ears, hairy gorilla-like arms, blonde simian tails, and yet delicate-looking, two-clawed legs.  All male, it would seem.  Cloak couldn't decipher their language, but called them Contraries.  It seemed that this wasn't a warship as all five assumed, it was a colony ship.  These Contraries appeared to be a nomadic race after their sun went supernova on them.

Cloak had a sneaking suspicion that these Contraries might be the last of their kind . . .

Anyway, the footage shows a particularly weak-looking one being forcibly impregnated with an embryo --

"MALICE!" Cloak snarled as he recognized the figure in a cloak on screen.

That made it so clear.  Malice had infected these poor people with the virus, the monsters that she more than like hybridized herself.  Cloak felt anger course through him.  He knew suddenly who made sure the SOS reached RAF.  He knew immediately that Malice was also doing this as some PERVERSE test for him.  But for what?!  FOR WHAT?!

It was then that Cloak noticed the heavy breathing over his shoulder.  He didn't need to turn around to know. . . . He shifted his feet slightly, the whipped around and rolled up the XB into a metal roll.  Cloak noticed a discoloration at the shoulder . . . it was the Sleazoid that he had burned.  He was obviously implanted with an embryonic egg.  And, logic would dictate, so must his fellow.  As proven when Cloak looked to his right.

Cloak ripped a jagged piece of metal from an internal wall of the ship.  And he levitated in front of him, and fired it forward.  It caught within the creature's chest.  Cloak dashed forward and pushed it further into its chest.  The creature attempted to let out its pharyngeal jaws to chomp Cloak, but he seized them right above the jaws themselves.  Then he engulfed his hand with fire.

The creature fell, and moved no more.  Cloak glared at it for a minute or two to see if this was some clever deception on its part.  But, after a few minutes, he was confidant that there was no more life in it, he yanked the jagged metal shard out of the inert form.  Then he turned to the other one, who Cloak swore he heard wimper.

Cloak looked at the jagged piece of metal in his hand and the poor multilated creature before him.  Was mercy weakness?  Even to a creature such as this?  Was there any honor in killing a defenseless beast such as this?  What would his grandfather think of him if he did?

Cloak had to be honest with himself, he couldn't kill anyone in cold blood.  Especially the vilest of creatures, such as this.  Cloak released the creature, half-expecting it to run away.  But it didn't, and Cloak wasn't surprised.  Instinct is something that's near impossible to fight.

It attempted to stab Cloak with it's tail, but he deflected into the interior wall.  He had a suspicion that the floor was the hull, so he avoided using metal from there.  The creature had it's tail stuck in the wall, but Cloak remained unaware of this until he stabbed the jagged metal shard all the way through the beast until it breathed no more.

Cloak prayed that he would be forgiven for such a thing, until he heard a thought-speak plea, and ripped through the interior wall, then ran toward the direction it came.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 06, 2012, 12:17:51 PM

The mark is an anti alien rape defense. Nice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 06, 2012, 03:53:00 PM

C'mon cloak, those things are far from helpless. Good chapter though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2012, 07:56:13 PM

Perhaps, Parker, but I, opposed Malice, is predisposed to be sympathetic than indifferent.

Disclaimer: Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Let's Get Dangerous*

Noelle walked slowly and studiously down her corridor.  One of the benefits of being an Andalite, short of the morphing tech and the tail-blades, is being able to see in all directions.  No known Realm Walker possesses this ability, although Cloak's Earthsight is similar, but ineffective against anything in the air.  Noelle has actually seen him try to Airsight -- seeing by feeling air.  Naturally, he's made as much progress as he has with Metalsight.

Anyway, Noelle had her Shredder out, but she hadn't faced anything yet.  This struck her as being quite ominous.  There should have been the creatures the others described.  She hadn't had to fire her Shredder once or whip her tail a single time.  The anticipation, the horrid anticipation of danger was starting to creep on her.  She still carefully proceeded further down the corridor.

Was her or were the clip-clops of her hooves unbearably loud?  Surely that would have given her away by now. . . . But, yet, the corridor remained deserted.  According to what she ascertained from Blaze, the Mark prevented them from implanting those embryonic eggs in them.  It was a comforting thought until you realize that the Mark didn't prevent them from killing you outright.  So, Noelle had cause to be a little nervous and tad bit jumpy.

Suddenly, the corridor opened up into a vastness full of Firstborn, Firstborn eggs, and a monstrous beast which could only be the Xenomorphic Brood Queen.  She was primarily a brownish-black with some hints of red, with brillant gold highlights on the sharp edges of her exoskeleton and around the joints.  The Firstborn were attending her, while sending out more of the soldier-impregnators -- which must have been the ones that the others had encountered.  Although, the Firstborn looked like the facehugger things that Parker had described.

Noelle's first instinct was to hide, to morph something invisible to these monsters before they caught on to her presence.  She'd have to lose her Shredder, she couldn't morph that with her.  And she'd probably be too small or too conspicuous if she carried it with her when she morphed.  So, she would have to set it down --

Too late!  She was made, they knew she was here!

The air soon became hot with her Shredder fire.  But it seemed to do little to the creatures.  She struck with her tail, slicing open one's exoskeleton!  But it was a minor wound, and it kept coming for her.  Fortunately, Noelle was able to outrun all of them, but they had blocked off the corridor, the only way out she knew!  She couldn't see any other corridors out.

What was worst, her Shredder's charge was weakening!  Not that it was doing much, but Noelle was no fool.  She knew eventually she would tire, and they would catch up with her.  They also were not affording her an opportunity to morph, which took time, no matter how experienced the morpher.  Noelle felt like poor Sisyphus and his blasted boulder.

She attempted to contact the others via the communicator, but had to dodge a strike that would have been fatal had she remained motionless.  But the movement caused the device to slip out of her hands and clatter to the floor where a Firstborn stomped it, shattering it into trash.  She had no way to contact the others!!

She did not know how to do that mirrorwave call to the others -- they couldn't morph.  But she let out a strangled thought-speak plea of help.  Then she attempted it again, with a stronger thought-speak voice.  But the Firstborn loomed and stalked towards her.  She ****ed her tail, ready to slash through them if she had to.  But she knew it was a futile effort. . . .

---
*Anyone know who's catchphrase this was? Hmmm?  Anyone?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2012, 09:16:12 PM

:wow: 600 replies in this thread!  That went by quickly.  But as this is the what, twelfth book?  I suppose it's unsurprising.

Anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Royal Audience with Queen Death

Noelle prepared herself for the expectant strike of the creatures.  She could almost feel their tails in her flesh, she winced shutting all four of her eyes.  Her tail quivered in the torturous anticipation.  But what she didn't not expect is the shriek of the creature.  For it to fall, dead, with a jagged metal strip poking through its sternum.  For the other XBs to lose interest in her, and turn their backs to her.

"I don't thinks so, abominations!" a familiar voice rang throughout the vast expense.  There was cold fury in that voice.  "You will not harm her, you biological abnormalities!"

It was Cloak.  He had been the closest when she sent out her thought-speak, and he dashed to her defense.  Cloak, who had been prone to feel pity for the creatures, had none now.  He stared daggers at the creatures, and saw the immobile queen in the center.  At least, she seemed to be immobile, as she hadn't moved at all since Cloak's or Noelle's appearance.

Cloak leaped and landed in front of Noelle, facing the creatures.  Of course, had he been a puma-form Realm Walker the leap would have been higher, but the landing wouldn't have been any smoother.

"Are you okay?" Cloak said out of the corners of his mouth, not taking his eyes off the beasts before him.

<I'll manage,> Noelle said, primly, while righting herself.

"You got a morph for this?" he asked.

<Hold on, let me think -->

"We may not have the time."  Cloak warned, then, before he forgot, he activated his communicator, "Parker!  Gaz!  Blaze!  Get your butts over to these coordinates!!  NOW!!"

<I think,> Noelle said, beginning the transition to a bull elephant, <this might suffice?>

"Will you be able to get traction on this floor?" Cloak asked concernedly.

<Yes . . . for now.>  Noelle said.  <Should the floor become drenched with blood . . .>

"These things don't bleed . . ." Cloak began, "they spray a diluted acid."

<Oh, wonderful.>

"The others must be on the other side of the ship or something." Cloak noted.  "I guess we get to have all the fun."

<You have a warped sense of fun,> Noelle replied drily.

"Let's get to the queen."

<Yeah, and also call Faerie a fairy.>

"Funny." Cloak said, drolly, having metal shards orbit him like in Kid Icarus's Pit in the final stage.  "Now, let's charge 'em!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 08, 2012, 09:29:23 PM

Stealing all Blaze's fun will ya? He won't like that, no he won't.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2012, 06:52:02 AM

I suppose, Blaze.

I'm feeling a little off today, so hopefull this chapter'll be up to my usual standard.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Ignore and Flee

Parker was blasting away at two XBs with his rifle, before turning to his pistols.  When that didn't work, he turned to his Megatronian and Galvatronian fusion cannons.  This seemed to work as it blew one XB apart.  Granted the slightly acidic, smoking goo was noxious.  Fortunately, Parker's helmet prevented the olfactory-offensive goo's fumes from reaching his nose.  Parker was thankful for this.

You'd think that this would make the second one flee.  Or even be more cautious.  But these things weren't particularly well-stocked in the smarts department.  Just another shot from the fusion cannons, stopped it in its tracks.  Granted, more of that goo flung everywhere.  Parker's helmet would be able to protect him from the smell forever, so he charged on, casually wiping the goo off his armor.

Then Cloak's voice crackled onto his communicator, ""Parker!  Gaz!  Blaze!  Get your butts over to these coordinates!!  NOW!!"

Sounded like there was trouble, and it would seem that Cloak and Noelle were together.  Parker examined the schematics of the ship, dropped a grenade by a carefully-chosen area of wall, taped in place.  It exploded violently enough that one did not need to be a Master of the Metal element to interpret that Parker's plan had succeeded.

Parker stepped through the hole, and was startled by a screeching bat, fleeing two XBs.  Parker suspected that the bat was Gaz, and the two XBs were giving her problems.  He aimed the fusion cannons at the two XBs, but the two XBs stopped, not even looking at the two (although with those two bug-like compound eyes, who could tell what they were looking at?).  Then they turned tail and ran, through a nonmanufactured door . . . a mark of Cloak's handiwork.

They weren't leaving because they feared destruction at Parker's hands.  No, they were going to aid their queen!

***

Blaze was battling two Sleazoids-turned-XBs and they were being both relentless and ruthless and reckless.  Blaze could only attack in two dimensions, something he is generally not accustomed to.  He didn't like it.  But he had his metamorphic sword, and his pyrokinesis, and that will do.

Blaze's communicator fired to life, as Cloak's voice crackled, "Parker!  Gaz!  Blaze!  Get your butts over to these coordinates!!  NOW!!"

Then the ground beneath Blaze's feet vibrated grandly, and he had to fight the instinct to fly into the air.  Recovering from the surprise vibrational shockwave, Blaze prepared to pounce on one, but instand looked as the two stood stock-still, as if statues.  Then they galloped away, on all-fours, as if Blaze was of no real concern to them.  Blaze was a bit miffed about this, though he realized that they're going off to protect their queen.

Blaze turned to the wall where he felt the explosion shockwaves originated.  He stabbed his sword (now glowing solidly green) into the wall, managing to cut an improvised doorway into the wall.  He pulled his sword out, changed it into a war hammer, and slammed it onto the makeshift door, knocking it down.  Then he dashed through the hole that Parker had made.

He saw Parker and Gaz, in her vampiric human form.  Parker looked over his shoulder and saw that who the newcomer was.

"'Bout time, Blaze." Parker said, haughtily.  "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

Blaze bit back his retort, and followed the other two through the Cloak-made hole.  Then Gaz went into bat mode, while the other two ran after her, down the corridor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 09, 2012, 10:57:46 AM

Good job, you wasted an hour of my day... ;D

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 09, 2012, 12:26:25 PM

Great update!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2012, 01:41:07 PM

Thanks, Gaz.  And sorry, I guess, Underseen.

Suffered a disappointment (which I don't care to discuss) but, hopefully, it won't suck any energy out of this chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Queen of Mean

Gaz, screeching her chiropteran screeches, led the way, while Parker and Blaze followed her lead down the corridor.  Blaze felt a little envious at Gaz for being able to stretch her wings to their full span.  His wings were aching to be opened, and he was itching to fly.  Little did he realize that he would be given ample opportunity soon.

Soon enough, they arrived in the cavernous expanse that the Queen XB had chosen for her lair.  Blaze immediately, and without thinking, stretched his wings to their maximum span as the trio saw the scene before them.  A bull elephant lay crumpled on its side -- quickly shrinking down into a familiar Andalite form.  Cloak was thrown in midair, but managed to twist his body in such a way that he eventually landed daintily on his feet.  Being a cat has its advantages.

"Cloak," Gaz shouted, back in human mode, "we're here!"

"And there goes the element of surprise," Parker remarked.

"Oh, they'd see us eventually," Blaze remarked, fluttering in the air.

"Whatever, Birdman," Parker shot back with mock antagonism.

Blaze whacked Parker smartly on his helmet with his sword, and replied, "You might want to consider all the vile things I could drop on you from up here."

Parker began to respond, but Gaz erupted, "GUYS!  Is this the place for that kind of bickering?!  FOCUS HERE!!"

Blaze flew up high, to attempt to attack the Queen, quite forgetting that these XBs can scale walls, not unlike Spider-Man.  But he began to cut through them, dropping the smoking, slightly-acidic, gooey blood onto the floor's surface, which was already none too clean to begin with.  Of course, Parker had some land on him.

"HEY!" he shouted.  Blaze chuckled, as Parker then proceeded to yell at Tyr for something that no one else could hear over the guttural roar of the Queen and the shrieking snarls of her progeny.  Parker had since given up on his other weapons, and now relied on his dual fusion cannons.  But, when this didn't do enough damage to the XBs as he wanted, he activated his Ride Armor Matrix.  Specifically the Chimera Armor.

Gaz used her vampiric power of self-sublimation -- that is to say, her ability to transition herself into a mist-like state and back again -- to evade attacks, and punched and kicked for offensive abilities -- with little success with that.  Although, when she was in bat mode, her sonar seemed to irritate the XBs, so she stuck with that as an offensive maneuver.

Cloak kept reusing the metal shards -- because he deduced that fire would only have a minute if limited effect on their tough exoskeletal exterior.  Water would have little effect, as he would need a torrent required for a tsunami to have much of an effect.  There was no wood or earth to use, so those weren't available options.  Air could work, but it couldn't selectively kill his foes without harming his RAFian friends and allies.  So, Metal was the best element to use, although he could have probably used his energy to battle them, he didn't think of it at the time.

Noelle was regaining her Andalite form quickly, and wondering if she had the energy to more anything else.  When she decided she didn't, she went into battle as an Andalite.  No one accused RAFians of lacking courage -- well, except for a few Banned and Malice.

But Cloak wasn't really satisfied -- there were so many.  At this rate, they'd never get to the Queen.  They needed a contingency plan.

"Yarin," Cloak said, via his communicator, in a momentary pause in battle. "Come in.  Yarin!"

"Yes, Cloak, I'm here!"

"I need you to get the RAFian Lanterns and Helen."

"What?"

"JUST DO IT!"

Cloak just really hoped that this contingency plan that he concocted wouldn't be necessary. . . . But they could not risk an outbreak of these parasites upon an unsuspecting galaxy. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 09, 2012, 02:21:20 PM

No my comment was a complement, I really enjoy this, i read from chapter one to fifteen

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2012, 02:24:52 PM

Ah, well, I kind of knew that -- I just posted that when I was in a bit of a funk.  Chapter Sixteen'll be in that post too.  You do know there are eleven more books preceding this, too, right?

. . . Maybe Aquilai is right, and I need to put up some sort of book directory. . . . Maybe using a poll as an excuse to do that . . . I mean, I don't want to make another thread and ask the mods to sticky it to the top of the thread, like I did with the parody thread . . . hmmm . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 09, 2012, 02:57:49 PM

Being a vampire is awesome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 07:28:46 AM

I suppose, Gazzy.

Bit nervous, free clinic appointment at five.

Anyway, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Off With Her Head!

The RAFians were grouped together, panting and tiring.

"Any plans?" Gaz asked.

"I'm open to suggestions," Parker remarked.

"That's new," Blaze grumbled.

Before Parker could open his mouth to retort, Cloak said, "We have to get to the Queen.  Without her, the XBs will have no organization."

<But they'd get a Queen before long again,> Noelle pointed out.  <They lured us here with that false SOS.  They'd do it again.  If we didn't have the mark protecting us . . . >

She did not need to finish the sentence.

"I have a contingency plan in effect," Cloak said swiftly.

The other four waited briefly for Cloak to elaborate.  When he didn't, Gaz prompted, "Which is?"

"You'll find out only if we need to truly implement it," Cloak answered repressively.  He knew full well that they would need to implement it, but he needed the others to be focused on the Queen.  Once she's truly dead. . . .

<Wonderful,> Noelle commented bitterly.

"Blaze, come at the Queen from above.  Parker, come at the Queen from below." Cloak commanded.  "The rest of us will keep her progeny off your backs."

"How?" Blaze queried.

"That'll be our concern," Cloak said quickly.  "Now go!"

Cloak started off things by doing a Moses, so to speak -- ripping up the floor metal and parting the sea of XBs and Firstborn.  There seemed to be far more Firstborn than XBs now.  But Cloak knew that this wouldn't hold them for very long.

Noelle, having morphed into a bat slightly larger that Gaz in bat mode, and Gaz, in bat mode obviously, flew around the group and used their sonar to distract them.  It seemed to be working, but Cloak refused to jump to conclusions just yet.  Parker dashes in the pathway Cloak had created, and Blaze flapped to get altitude, enough so that his wingtips brushed the ceiling with every upstroke.

Both drew swords -- Cloak didn't even know that Parker had an energy sword, but assumed that he would go to one of his ride armors.  Blaze's sword was glowing mostly bloodred, with a bit of green thrown in.  Parker reached her first, and she attempted to strike, but only left an obvious scratch in his armor.
But Parker leaped up and sliced only halfway through her throat!

Meanwhile, her progeny were getting really feisty, and struggling hard against Cloak's barrier.  It was getting really difficult to contain them.  But Cloak was using all his might to hold them down, and against the wall, with the sheet metal.  It looked as if melted over them, as if cheese on a burger patty.  In retrospect, Noelle and Gaz's attacks might just be riling them.

But Blaze came down, in a descending slash, and hacked through the rest of the Queen's through, and her head fell to the floor with a sickeningly, and unusually loud, THUD.  The other XBs stopped struggling as hard, confused and uncertain.

"Okay . . ." Gaz said, human again, as Noelle demorphed, "now what?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 10, 2012, 07:54:42 AM

Last time I went to a free clinic a got a free shot. The nurses were not good at that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 07:59:54 AM

When I was in BT (uh, basic training -- didn't last for more than four days, but I did find out that I have a pervasive development disorder, anxiety disorder, and "atypical autism"), the nurse couldn't find a vein for an IV (which she didn't even use).

In BT, I suffered from heat exhaustions, a coughing fit, and conjunctivitis.

Of course, all the drill seargeants thought I was malingering. . . . ::) :dull:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 10, 2012, 08:46:36 AM

That must suck.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 08:49:53 AM

It was a year ago.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 10, 2012, 09:23:31 AM

That changes everything  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 11:06:36 AM

Yeah, here's the next chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
More Good News

"Now," Cloak said, with a heavy sigh, "Yarin destroys the ship."

"He what now?" Blaze said quickly.

"I must not have heard you right, Cloak." Gaz said.  "It sounded like you said 'Yarin destroys the ship'."

Cloak looked directly into her eyes.  After a pregnant pause, where he pulled five curious black disk-shaped devices with red centers from his cloak, said, "I did."

<Wouldn't that, oh, I don't know, KILL US?!> Noelle pointed out.

Cloak said nothing but slapped one of the device to her chest.  A form-fitting, dark tan suit with black accents oozed out, wrapping itself around her body, including little glass spheres for each of her stalk eyes.  Noelle looked at her own space suit with sincere surprise.  Her eyes kept blinking in a most distracting way.

"This was Plumber-issue," Cloak explained, as he handed another to Gaz, which she activated when she attached it to her own chest.  "I didn't think they would miss five."

Then he slapped one of the devices onto Blaze, which he didn't really like because it felt weird on his wings.  Then, ignoring any protests, Cloak slapped on onto Parker's chest and then the last on onto his own.  They were prepared for the vaccuum of space -- but then Cloak saw the XBs moving vigorously, as if they knew something was going on.

"Cloak, Goku, Sam and Helen are here." Yarin reported.  "What now?"

"Is Parker okay?!" Helen demanded.

"Not if this doesn't work," Cloak replied drily.  "Yarin, I'm gonna try to crack this thing open like an egg."

"Cloak, wouldn't --"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! We've been through the whole survivability thing!  You need to destroy this ship, Yarin!  And the pirate's one, too!"

"You want to strand them --"

"They're no longer what they were when they disembarked." Parker said flatly.

"Parker!"

"Not the time, Helen!" Parker said, his helmet beneath his space suit hiding his blushing face.

"Guys, watch those XBs!  Yarin, get the Lanturns and Helen out of the ship!  They're gonna need to play 'catch-the-RAFian'." Cloak commanded.  "I'm gonna rip this thing apart now."

<Cloak, I know you're powerful, but even you may not have the str-->

Cloak's glare was venomous, as his bent down, wedged his fingers into the the floor, and used all his mastery over metal to pull the floor appart -- standing on a red energy disc with golden highlights and used his mastery over Metal to push the sides further away.  He was, little-by-little succeeding.  Eventually, he breached the outer hull, and the vaccuum suched him and his compatriots out, while he used his mastery over Metal to seal the hull again, when the five were free of the ship.

"YARIN!!  FIRE!!!" Cloak roared through the communications.  "DESTROY THE SHIP!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 11:38:30 AM

Two more to go.  Then the, well, trilogy, I suppose.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
No Regrets

Yarin fired his ship's weapons, but it seemed to do nothing to the warship.  It couldn't have been the XBs -- they seemed to possess rudimentary intelligence.  The Lanterns and Helen caught the RAFians who were starting to spiral out of control.  Then they returned to Yarin's ship.  Sam was low on power, so he pulled his lantern out of his pocket dimension and charged his ring.

Gaz was struggling getting the suit off.  "HOW DO YOU GET THIS THING OFF?!"

Noelle calmed her down, and showed her that all she had to do was press the center button.  The suit raced back into the device like a tape measure retreating within it's housing.

Helen was fawning over her "brave, brave Parker", which Parker's face was burning from embarrisment.  He was pleading with her to stop the baby talk and pet names -- the whole "not in front of the guys" scenario.  It would be pretty funny, if not for the given situation.

Cloak was standing right by Yarin, far more concerned with preventing those monsters from being unleashed on the galaxy.  He was shrewdly observing that Yarin's lasers were only doing minute damage.  At this rate, it would take forever.

"Aim for the seam I made." Cloak suggested.  Perhaps it would ignite something, or do something.  But nothing happened.

It so happens that Parker managed to extricate himself from Helen and saunter over to the Walker and the Nyac.  "Nothing is working?"

"Does it LOOK like it's working?!" Cloak snapped.

"Well, then," Parker said, small smile playing around his face, "it's a good thing that I planted that bomb in that engine room."

"You what?" Yarin asked.

"You knew we'd be blowing up the ship," Cloak replied shrewdly.

"Not 'knew', just . . . suspected."

"That's a large risk to take." Cloak said through narrowed eyes.

"So is ripping a hole in a warship." Parker countered.

"Touche." Cloak conceded.  "Detonate it."

Several explosions took place, that shook Yarin's ship.

"I thought you said you placed one bomb," Cloak said.

"Okay, so twenty," Parker admited, "but all in strategic spots.  Right after my first encounter with that first born."

"There were mor -- you know what?  Never mind.  I don't want to know."

The ship was nothing but shrapnel now, and the parasites were just bits of atoms.  They were done.

"Okay, Yarin," Cloak said, "what do you say about goin' home?"

"Aye aye, captain," Yarin said warily, with a wry smile on his Nyac face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 10, 2012, 11:41:46 AM

Those chapters was great (as always) how many RAFians are you planning on mentioning, I am waiting for a chapter with Richard (That was a joke btw).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 11:48:13 AM

Acknowledged.

Probably won't be able to get on at all tomorrow -- gonna be busy.  But Wednesday, if I can get on, I start the new book -- Book XIII: The Forbidden Arts.

Warning: Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Breath of Relief

The battle-worn RAFians return to the forum for some much needed R and R.  The other RAFians were breathing a sigh of relief, and regaling the others with their tale of adventure and horror.  All but Cloak.

Cloak was in his thread, feeling unbearably restless and anxious.  He did not know why.  He was malcontent with sitting, laying or standing.  He wish he knew why he felt so antsy, it's not like he and the others hadn't came from hell and back.  But there was something . . . something deep down in his soul that told him that something was wrong, or going to go wrong.

Little did he know, his instincts were right on the money. . . .

***

Meanwhile, in the Nexus, homeland of all Realm Walkers, Malice had stole into the largest, and most ancient, Realm Walker library.  This was the reason that she had nearly unleashed a parasitic plague upon the Prime Universe.  She needed time to sneak into this library without alerting that infernal Elements Master.  His neice was too busy with other things to bother her, and she wasn't nearly as paranoid and suspicious as her uncle.

She needed this map, this manuscript.  The one that could lead her to ultimate power!

Those fools at the council did not even know what they had!  And they were so kindly ignoring her continued existence, even though Cloak had appealed to them to believe him.  Those doddering old fools were sealing their own destruction!!  She could help but elate, excite with her newfound path.  The spawn of the spawn of Sage couldn't stop her -- he didn't know that she even had the manuscript!

The Arts . . . the Arts were hers to take!!

With that joyous thought, she proceeded to clutch the manuscript to her breast, and creep outside, where she vanished into the night.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 10, 2012, 11:51:26 AM

And I will read the chapter once it comes out...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2012, 12:06:46 PM

It's in the previous post.

Now, next book Wednesday -- unless I get busy again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 10, 2012, 12:15:02 PM

No need to get ahead of yourself though...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 10, 2012, 05:38:24 PM

Ah, I could never dislike a story that personifies me as a badass.  ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on July 11, 2012, 04:48:24 PM

That was awesome!  ^_^  Can't wait for the next book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2012, 07:13:33 AM

Thanks, Noelle, Blaze.  And that's a good point, Underseen.

I'll start the next book momentarily -- but just a warning: it's gonna be mostly me and Malice . . .

Hope this chapter is up to my usual standard.  Probably gonna be a short one.

BOOK XIII:
The Forbidden Arts

CHAPTER ONE:
Reflections

Cloak stood on his favorite hill, thinking over his history with RAF.  He was a RAFian during the Banning of Queen and Aloth.  He heard Queen's threats to sue RAF if she got banned.  He remembered his forced exhiles from RAF when the realms were in flux -- a random event.  I doesn't affect him while still in-universe, but still.

Cloak crossed his arms, and bowed his head as he remembered how he came to RAF those four Dweller years ago. . . .

He remembered getting to a large fight with his mother, who he had been with that day.  She blew up on him, over a very small incident.  He could not find an item she wanted to cook with dinner for that night.  She flew off the handle and Cloak ran from her, ran from her blaming him constantly, and deliberately dove into a nearby realm, he didn't care which.  Just to get away from his mother's fury.

It turned out that realm was the Prime Universe, the home of RAF, though he did not realize that until much later.  It was when he met Myitt, that she gave him his "in-universe name" of Cloak, and showed him RAF.  And it was in the forum that he found friends, a community, a place where he belonged.  It was precious to him.

He eventually reconciled with his mother, but that did not make her any easier to get along with, being such a dominating, controlling personality to Cloak's innate timid, anxious personality.  Strange that that part of his personality disappears when he's among his RAFian friends.  Even Cloak himself doesn't know why he feels more confident, more relaxed, and just plain happier in RAF.

***

Malice was pouring over her notes and the manuscript.  She had to be sure, absolutely sure.  The Fractured Realms were an easy place to get lost in.  No one knew just how they got fractured or if they were, ah, "born" that way.  But Malice didn't care.  Surely the six times she was after was in one of those eighteen realms . . .

She ruled out the Fractured Nexus (a different nexus from the one Realm Walker homeland, this one was nothing but an empty void) and the realm called Aruten.  But one of the other seventeen realms (the Fractured Nexus doesn't count as a realm), surely they are in there.  She knew that they'd have been spread out through those realms.  And she was more than ready to fight for them, kill as necessary.

As long as that infernal Elements Master doesn't catch wind of her plans, she'll be able to obtain them and obtain the ultimate power. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2012, 11:07:42 AM

'Nother chapter while my legs rest and heal (I walked 14.8 miles yesterday -- and, of course, it was rainy :mad: :facepalm: :dull:)  Might be another short chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Evil Ambitions

Cloak felt a wave of nausea, and chill that ran down the length of his spine to the tip of his feline tail.  Something of immense evil was coming . . . but the strange thing was, only he seemed to feel it.  The other feline RAFians sensed nothing.  This alarmed Cloak a great deal, but he hid that emotion from the others.  This feeling must have something to do with Realm Walker artifacts, or this sense of dread within him could really be nothing at all.  But his gut told him otherwise.

He had to find out for sure, but he hadn't an idea of where to start.  There were so many possibilities of what could be causing this feeling of dread in him.  But Cloak had to know . . . he'd check the Nexus.  Perhaps something has transpired there that he wasn't privy to.  He swirled his cloak and returned to his birthland.  It was perpetually dark. The only light coming from the roads, buildings, and the citizens.  Cloak pulled down the hood of his cloak, and walked toward an older Realm Walker, a chiropteran-form Realm Walker, and inquired what had happened.

"The Rothbart Manuscript was stolen from the Library," she replied in a manner-of-fact tone.

Cloak took this information far more seriously than this old bat, "The Rothbart Manuscript?"

"That's what I said, sonny!" she said, irritatedly.  Then she moseyed on forward, her knit cloak pronouncing her wizened gait.

Cloak did not react to the waspish comment of an old Realm Walker -- as with all species, not every individual is gonna be pleasant all the time.  But he was still in shock from what she said, and how she said it.  The Rothbart Manuscript!  Stolen!  Pilfered!  Unguarded!  How could they not be getting more worked up over that?!

He remembered his grandfather telling him the story of Cloak's ancestor how he defeated the Realm Walker who styled himself as Rothbart, and banished his weapon, his power, to what was known as the Fractured Realms.  It was warned to every Walker that they must never go there, it was dangerous.  But, Cloak knew, Malice would have no such compunction to such tales, tales to scare the youngsters.

The Fractured Realms . . . that's where Malice, yes Malice, must be going.  Only Malice could have seen the true significance of that book, and yet, the others wanted to display it, as a mere ancient artifact, with no real power.  Fools!  The lot of them!  Fools!

Cloak could see his path now.  He could see what he must do, what he had to do.  He would need to prepare.  He went back to the realms, and dove back into the Prime Universe.  He would have to tell his RAFian comrades, his brethren, some unfortunate news.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 12, 2012, 03:31:49 PM

Wow...that is a really long walk.

Nice update!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 12, 2012, 03:39:43 PM

Wow that's a long walk. Is it wrong that we profit from your sore, sore legs?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 12, 2012, 11:07:39 PM

Great ending to the book Cloak. You know me well. ;D Though you do take the occasional creative license. :P

Good book so far as well. I found something interesting though, Myitt was the first to call you "Cloaky". You said it sounded like being called a Pokemon. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2012, 06:53:06 AM

I'll post another chapter shorty.  I just have to run up to the mailbox (it's a quarter of a mile away, and raining, but it's something I have to do).

Quote from: Gaz Latte on July 12, 2012, 03:31:49 PM

Wow...that is a really long walk.

Quote from: New Blazing Angel on July 12, 2012, 03:39:43 PM

Wow that's a long walk.

Tell me about it.  But it's the price to pay when you don't have a car (can't afford one just now) and you live in the boonies.  There wasn't sidewalks for about 75% of that trip.

Quote from: New Blazing Angel on July 12, 2012, 03:39:43 PM

Is it wrong that we profit from your sore, sore legs?

As it's something I enjoy doing, I don't think so.

Quote from: Darth Revan on July 12, 2012, 11:07:39 PM

Myitt was the first to call you "Cloaky". You said it sounded like being called a Pokemon. :XD:

Okay, I fixed it.

Now, another shortish chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Cloak Leaves RAF

"I don't understand," Dino was saying.

"Neither do I," Gaz added, "why are you going?"

"There's something I need to do," Cloak said, with his back to them.  "Something I need to do . . . ALONE."

"But why?" Parker pressed.  "It's not like we can't handle ourselves!  You know this!"

"We were with you on that ship a week ago, too, you know." Blaze pointed out.

"Yes," Cloak agreed quietly.  "But one has nothing to do with the other."

<Does Richard know about this?> Noelle demanded.

"Yes, he does," Cloak said, looking at her, deciding to look into her main eyes.  "It's not forever, but I must go.  I haven't any idea how long this'll take, or if --" Cloak didn't finished the sentence.  He was going to mention that he wasn't sure that he'd even live through it, but he didn't think that that would go over so well.

"Look, a Realm Walker has to do what a Realm Walker has to do," he said, paraphrasing an old cliche.

"Why do you feel that you need to do this alone?" Aquilai queried.

"I have my reasons, Aquilai." Cloak said.  He needn't be responsible for the death of a friend.  Cloak wasn't even sure that he himself would survive the Fractured Realms.  It's warned against going there for a reason, the Fractured Realms* are ones of extremes, according to the few reports of Realm Walkers who've actually journeyed there.

"And they would be . . ." Horse pressed.

"Will be clear after I return," Cloak said, repressively.  "Sorry, little seal, but I cannot say."

Cloak turned, and looked at all his RAFian friends assembled together, looking very concerned, but he must keep it secret, he felt.  He turned and swirled his cloak, then he was gone.

The other RAFians held their line of sight, until, one-by-one, they trickled away.  Estelore remained, wind pulling at her sundress and hat, and said something to the effect of "May God have mercy on your soul, Cloak.  Come back to us."

---
*Just a heads-up, the Fractured Realms are based on a book of a long series I developed in high school . . . nine years ago.  I eventually lost interest.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2012, 08:45:17 AM

'Nother chapter.  I'll try to make it somewhat longer.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Some Like It Hot

Cloak appeared in the Fractured Nexus, which was nothing more then an empty void -- much like the content of any of those Fred productions by Lucas Cruikshank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_Cruikshank).

Empty, except for the eighteen realms dancing about in ovalish "windows".  Cloak realized that Malice may have already been here ahead of him.  Then he noticed a rippling in one of the "windows", a red-hued one.  He cursed loudly, and leaped into it.

It took him a moment to adjust to the environment.  It was blisteringly hot.  There were wild lava flows and lava geysers about everywhere.  Even the ground upon which he stood was black, like week-cooled lava.  The sky was, quite literally a blistering red.  The heat was barely tolerable, even for a Realm Walker.  Cloak tried to remember the name of this realm as he proceeded on.

Oh, that's right, it was called Pyrosun.

Cloak continued to try to follow Malice, but this heat messed up the way things smelled, and there were other newer smells that Cloak had never smelled before.  Cloak, as he took off after Malice, realized that there were humans here, Pyrosunnurite humans!  They all had the same variety of skin colors as the Prime Universe humans, but their eyes' irises, while a single color, the color of different individuals seemed to span every color imaginable . . . one seemed to have white irises.  All that possessed hair had red hair.  No matter the skin color.  Everyone had red hair.

What was more bizarre was that they had children and adults bathing and playing around in liquid lava!  As if it were water to them!  How the bloody hell was that possible?!  There skin looked like that of Prime Universe humans!  And that isn't very thick hide.  Perhaps they only looked like humans from an exterior point of view. . . .

Cloak shook his head violently.  He should get caught up in the interesting xenobiological creatures!  He had to stop Malice from obtaining . . . whatever it was she was after.  He's never read the Rothbart Manuscripts, so he hadn't the foggiest what she was after.  Was it reckless for him to come right after her with very little, if any, information at all?  Perhaps.

Cloak picked up on Malice's scent, and it was stronger here . . . at the base . . . of the . . . largest volcano in the realm.  Lovely.  Well, Cloak knew he could scale it easier that Malice, so he's got that.  He formed an energy disc, and stepped on it.  Then he "flew" to the upper lip of the volcano within minutes.  But, once there, Cloak realized how much of a headstart that Malice had had.

There she was on the opposite side, hand over the active pool of magma inside.  She had fired off her energy into an energy tentacle or hand, and it was submerged in the lava.  Cloak stepped of his energy disc, and could feel, via Earthsight, that she was groping inside of the volcano for something.  It took Cloak a few minutes to realize she was groping for a strange-looking jewel.

She just managed to nab it and begin to reel in her energy, when she realized that Cloak was standing their watching her.

"WHAT?!" she snarled, still reeling her energy.  "HOW'D, IN THE NAME OF THE VEIL, DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT THIS?!"

"Let's just say," Cloak said, more coolly than he truly felt, "that you got careless."

"Well, you're too late, boy!" she snarled.

"Am I?" Cloak said silkily.  "Jewels are Earth, you know."

To this, Malice actually laughed, seizing the fiery red jewel, which appeared to have an internal flame as well, in her hand.  "So you don't know as much as I thought!"

Cloak realized a moment too late, what Malice was going to do.  She seized the hem of her cloak and swished it, before Cloak could complete his leap at her.  Then Cloak followed suit, and swished his cloak as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 13, 2012, 11:05:45 AM

You split the dream team!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 13, 2012, 02:50:44 PM

Quote

which was nothing more then an empty void -- much like the content of any of those Fred productions by Lucas Cruikshank.

BEST SENTENCE EVER!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2012, 07:06:34 AM

Quote from: Underseen on July 13, 2012, 02:50:44 PM

Quote

which was nothing more then an empty void -- much like the content of any of those Fred productions by Lucas Cruikshank.

BEST SENTENCE EVER!

Yes, I think so, too.  Even though Shadow said she likes his stuff -- but she could have just said that to be contrary.  Other than that, I have NEVER met a fan of his work.  I did see a Nostalgia Critic video where the NC shoots him.  That I like a great deal.

Anyway, a new chapter.  Probably gonna be short. . . . Sorry.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Under the Sea

Cloak arrived in the Nexus void, still as devoid of anything as ever.  He saw a nearby poral or window ripple, and he dived in, believing Malice to have entered that world.

The first sensation Cloak had was his wet feet.  He realized, looking around, that this was a world of water.  The only dry land was a few islands sticking up outta nowhere.  They were, for the most part, without vegetation, except for one that the local Atlanhydrians (that's the name of this realm Atlanhydrias) called "Nareel Island".  But that was immaterial now.  Malice clearly wasn't on any of the islands.

But this presented Cloak a problem.  While tigers are strong swimmers, he, himself, was not.  He could form a bubble and bob merrily on the bottom of this beautiful briny sea* -- although it was an ocean.  But that wouldn't be nearly fast enough!!

Then he got an idea.  He hydrokinetically pulled the water around him and he performed a form of the "water snake**" and then, taking a leaf of Lugia's book (the one from the second movie), he essentially  created a whirlpool drill and drilled below the surface of the ocean and meandered a bit before getting his bearings.

There he noticed what passed for humans in this realm -- merfolk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merfolk).  They had iracadecent tails of solid colors that varied from individual to individual -- but the colors were everyone imaginable, as were the eye colors.  Their hair was blue, every single one of them, which sometimes it blended in with water.  They were singing what sounded to be a lively and somewhat chaotic song with loud musical accompaniment.  This is what lead Cloak's attention to be diverted to them.

It was distracting, Cloak almost lost his concentration, and undid his underwater whirling dervish.  But Cloak forced himself to focus on the task at hand.  Malice, Cloak's gut said, would be heading for that trench to his left, in the aphotic zone of the ocean.  But fortunately Realm Walkers can function as their own nightlights.

This was gonna take a while, Cloak realized.  And he couldn't mantain this riptide spinning schtick forever.  The pressure down here wouldn't be enough to kill him, but it would make him severely uncomfortable and tight.  He had to wrap this up quickly!  Cloak used his energy as a flashlight, searching for Malice.  It was a few seconds before he realized that she'd probably be doing the same thing.

Within an hour or two, Cloak managed to locate Malice, in an energy bubble, casually and sedately bobbing along.  As if she were merely a tourist out for a day trip.  She stopped here and there, as if she were sniffing the local blooms.

Then, in an abrupt change of pace, she was already ascending!  And she was doing it faster and faster!  Cloak was still much too far away!!  Cloak poured on the power to catch her, but apparently she was far more adept at underwater maneuvering that he was.  Cloak was having difficulty controlling his trajectory -- and who could blame him.  This is the first time he attempted this technique.

But eventually both reached the surface, and Malice glared at Cloak, who erupted into the water snake technique.  It would have intimidated some, but Malice wasn't so easily awed.

"Too late, Cloaky boy," she taunted.  "Maybe you'd be faster if I walk instead of run to my next destination?"

The she swirled her cloak and vanished immediately afterward.  Cloak never even knew what she took, if indeed, she took anything at all.  He roared a Realm Walker profanity so loud that the nearby Nareels (disgusting creatures that appear to be a cross of frogs and eels with thin, slimy purple skin and googly eyes) were alarmed and retreated to the safety of the their burrows in the lake bed on the island.  Cloak didn't care.

He swirled his cloak and went after her again.

---
*Get the Bedknobs and Broomsticks reference?

**A waterbender reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2012, 08:35:17 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks.  Probably gonna be another short one.

CHAPTER SIX:
Back to the Forest

Cloak arrived back in the Nexus, as mind-numbingly empty as the contents of -- oh, well you know.  Cloak wasn't wet, although he supposed he should be, but that was of no never mind to him.  He glanced at the portals or windows, however you want to look at it.  No was rippling in an obvious way.  But Cloak caught the slightest movement to his right and dived into the world.

First thing Cloak noticed was that this world had gigantic trees.  Redwoods were a small species compared to some of these behemoths, and there was redwoods here.  Must be the realm called Florest.  Cloak looked around . . . he was on the outskirts of a village of green-haired Florester humans, young and old.  He quickly stalked away, when he was startled a few yards away when a firabbit (a brown rabbit with crinkled leaf-like ears) dashed out in front of his path.  Cloak shoved his surprise away, and proceeded onward, at an increased pace.

Cloak strode for what seemed like forever, only to be taken by surprise again by a flock of scared birdodendron (small brownish-green bird with rhododendron leaves for wings), squawking in a quite disconcertingly way.  Cloak came to realize that in this realm, the line between plant and animal has been blurred.  It happened again from his left after a few feet.

Suddenly, another creature leaped out at him -- a vineleone, a leonine creature with a mass of vines instead of a mane.  Cloak was roughly the same size as the creature -- which meant nothing, as Cloak was confident that he could dispatch the vineleone with little trouble.  But it was still an obstacle that gave Malice more time!!  More time to get . . . whatever she's getting!!

"I haven't any time to deal with you!!" Cloak snapped at the creature.  "Shoo!!"

To his surprise, the vineleone did run away from him.  But it did not take Cloak long to realize just why he did run from him.  It was not because of Cloak, as his Earthsight was detecting impact tremors . . . footsteps.  Footsteps from a very large creature.  Just a bit larger than Dino when she's in her full size.  He turned to see what could have been a tyrannosaurus rex, except its arms were green and definitely vegetable, and it had thorn-like spikes from the crest of its head, down it's back, over the haunches of it's rear legs, and down to its tail tip.  It was known as a fernnosaurus rex, a rare Florester creature.

"Oh, I really don't have time for this schtick," Cloak snarled.

The fernnosaurus roared -- a roar sounding exactly like the roar of the T. rex in "Jurassic Park".  Cloak wasn't impressed.  But when it shot one of it's arm down, nearly catching his cloak, then he was grudgingly impressed, as the fernnosaurus "reeled" in its arm, which had become rather vine-ish.

"Nice trick, beast," Cloak said, "I'll give you that.  But I have more serious matters to contend with."

Using his mastery over the Wood element, Cloak bent two of the large trees across the fernnosaurus's path.  Then he entangled them in two more trees.  He was confident the beast could not jump over it -- weighing seven tons can be a drawback in that department.  Elephants are the largest land animals in the Prime Universe -- and they cannot jump at all.  Granted that's because how their feet are . . .  Cloak ran to catch up with Malice, hearing the fernnosaurs roaring and screaming in rage.

Hey, pal, Cloak thought bitterly, I did you a favor.  I'd just go to your hips . . . or just blast my way out of your belly.  Now . . . where's . . . oh, there she is!

Cloak had used Earthsight to locate her.  But the fernnosaurus delayed him too much!  Malice had unearthed . . . another jewel?  It was green with leaf imprints in it.  What on Earth was she going to use those for?

"'Bout time, Elements Master," she said, exchanging the taunting tone for one of deepest disgust and loathing, "you're really bad at this, you know."

"I'll stop you." Cloak said, hating the cliched nature of it.

"Oh, really?" she said, then swirled her cloak and vanished.  Cloak was only a second behind her this time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 16, 2012, 10:55:39 AM

She's visiting all the sonic realms for some reason...CHAOS CONTROL!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2012, 11:24:02 AM

Actually all of them are ones I created while in high school, based off the types in Pokemon, so . . . wait, were you referencing something I missed?

Anyway, I'd thought I do this, just for clarification, if any is needed.

Pyrosun = Pyro + sun
Atlanhydrias = Atlantis + -hydrias
Florest = Flora + Forest

Probably a bit obvious.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Don't Bug Me!

Cloak arrived back in the Fractured Nexus, noting again its vast emptiness.  Briefly wondering just why Malice wants all these jewels -- before reminding himself she's after the Forbidden Power.  He saw a ripple in one of the portals, and leaped into it without a second thought or glance.

When he landed, first thing Cloak noticed was the muggy humity.  He was in some sort of worldwide jungle.  The trees, abnormally tall, but not as much as in Florest, were burned with thick, green, furry-looking vines.  This must be the jungle realm of Hyvect*.  Cloak found he did not like the humity much here, but he would brave it, just to get to Malice.  Surely, being a Tazmanian devil-form Realm Walker, she would have a problem or two with this place.

Cloak stalked around the jungle floor, which he noticed felt oddly dry and firm beneath his feet.  He looked up and to his right where he noticed a Hyvectoid human village, where they possess a dazzling array of eye colors and all sported olive green hair.  There was a young child giggling and playing with a six-legged dog with ant antennae, eyes and mandibles -- a poochant.  This village was also notable because it only had adults and prepubescent children.  This puzzled Cloak for a minute, before he saw a couple pale white coccoons through a window of a habitation.  Cloak postulated, as he moved on, that the children of this realm don't go through puberty, they pupate.  They must emerged from the coccoons as young adults . . . possibly five or so years later.

Cloak moved onwards, taking an inwardly interested view.  It was so distracting, so many different creatures!  In addition to the normal-sized ones, there were even giant flytraps and pitcher plants!  Big enough to easily eat a human or two.  It would be an awful way to go, but still fascinating.  Strange birds with butterfly wings -- lepidoavia, he thought.

Cloak shook his head violently, focusing on his mission.  He climbed up a large tree, which he didn't do very well, even using his mastery over the Wood element to assist him.  Tigers aren't particularly skillful climbers, and he was no exception.  But he managed it, and found, that the branches were large and sturdy enough to support his weight, but he decided to be lazy.  He formed an energy disc beneath his feet and glided, with some difficulty through the jungle.

He occasionally noticed some scorpioraptors (velocioraptor-like creatures with three pairs of foreclaws, raptor jaws, and a scorpion tail) that appeared to be following him.  They seemed to be able to adhere to surfaces rather unlike Spider-Man.  Perhaps Hyvectoid humans considered scorpioraptors a threat, Cloak did not.  He kept proceeding further, hoping to locate Malice.

Then one of the scorpioraptors, which Cloak was tempted to name Rachel**, jumped out right in front of him, and he executed a barrel roll on his disc.  Afterwards, Cloak blinked in shock.  Not because of the ambush, but because he didn't think that he could do a barrel roll on these energy discs.

"Well, enough of that foolishness," Cloak muttered to himself.

Then he accidentally breaks the disc, and falls, landing on his backside.

"I should expect such a pathetic entrance from you, boy," a voice said, snidely.  Cloak turned and realized that Malice was right behind him, she was holding a translucent jewel in her hand.  Cloak made to take it from her, and he successfully obtained it.

"Oh no.  Now what ever will I do." Malice said, blandly, with a monotone voice.

"What?"

She laughed, "It's useless to me, fool."

Then she swirled her cloak and vanished.  Cloak cursed a Realm Walker curse, as the scorpioraptors were catching up with him.  But then he just swirled his cloak and left Hyvect.

---
*Hyvect = Hyve (hive) + insect

**After the Animorph, obviously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2012, 09:20:23 AM

I know some of you don't go to the Bored Board, where I've already announced this, but this thread may go on hiatus and I may disappear for a while, due to family drama.

I don't know when I can post the next chapter, the one after this short one.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
And The Thunder Rolls . . .

Cloak appeared in the Fractured Nexus void.  He was starting to get really irked by Malice.  He scanned the portals, discounting the portals to Pyrosun, Hyvect, Atlanhydrias, and Florest.  He saw a fraction of a cloak whip into one, and follows it without a question.

He glanced around this realm, and saw high mountains, and electrical storms predominated the sky.  This must be Thundelectro.  Of course, he realized that he was in a Thundelectroan human city.  Like the other realms, they possessed a vast array of eye colors, and everyone possessed blonde hair.  He noticed that a group of preadolescent kids were literally playing with electricity.  Then he remembered that electrokinetics here were called electromagi, and it was somewhat magical in nature.  Not all Thundelectroan humans were electromagi, though they all had potential to be.

Cloak sneaked out into the forest, as he saw minute thunderbirds nestling beneath the eaves of a house.  He dashed around the forests behind the city, stopping occasionally to sniff the air.  He had Malice's scent, and he was afraid of letting it go cold.  He received a shock when an large ampiguanodon (an iguandonoid creature with electrified "thumb" spikes, glowing eyes, and a livewire tail) crosses his path, but he knew well enough that ampiguanodons are herbivorous.  He leaped over the lumbering beast, which startled it enough to swing it's tail, just missing Cloak.  Then it charged at Cloak, who thought, oh, perfect, THIS I have time for.

But, after a few yards, the ampiguanodon gave up or lost interest.  Cloak wasn't entirely sure which, but it mattered very little.  Cloak was quickly becoming accustom to the rolling thunder and the striking lightning, but that didn't mean he liked it.  Cloak looked to his right, and saw an unusually pale girl with wispy hair, and her head bowed, limbs limp.  Cloak, quite forgetting his mission, thought this was highly odd.

Cloak began to slowly approach the girl, who's head snapped up and began to motion and gesture in a beckoning manner.  Cloak, being a cat, was curious about this.  He approached but even more cautiously.  If he had used Earthsight, he might have realized what was going on . . . but it was like he was mesmerized, mesmerized with sheer curiosity.  Cloak approached closer . . . and closer . . . and closer still . . .

The girl's face briefly took on a supernatural grin before going slack, and being flung aside as a monstrous beast lunged forward, which Cloak easily sidestepped.  But his cloak had brushed against the creature.  The creature appeared to be like a rhinoceros beetle, but it's horns possessed six flailing, wire-like tentacles.  Cloak cursed himself for being so stupid.  It was a wire-horn beetle -- they would take a poor victim, impale those wire tentacles, tie into their nervous systems, and then are able to control and even speak with the freshly-dead victim.  They have to change these grotesque lures every so often, but Thundelectroan humans make up a bulk of their diet.

Cloak blasted the beast with a powerful pulse of air.  It just knocked the beast off its feet and onto it's back.  It was having trouble righting itself, but Cloak would be long gone then.  Cloak glanced at the girl it used as lure, she must have just been made into a lure, because she didn't seem all that deteriorated.  Cloak could not help but feel a twinge of sympathy and grief for the girl, though he had never truly met her.

As if to put the thought out of his head, he plowed onward.  He was striving to forget that, but, in the end, he never would.  He stormed onward, looking for Malice, discovering her nearly at the peak of one of the tallest mountains.  Cloak, using his energy disc, easily scaled the mountain, and found that the air wasn't as thin as he'd thought it would be at the top.

But he found that, once again, he was too late.  Malice was clutching a jewel that had lightning bolt-shape within it.  Malice was smirking, as if she were merely waiting for him to show up simply so she could gloat some more.

"Poor widdle kitty cat," she sneered.

Suddenly, lighting hit the area between the two.  Malice didn't look alarmed or concerned at all.  Must be nice have such complete and total confidence.  Cloak wouldn't know -- every decision he's ever made he always had serious doubts about.  Lightning struck the same spot again -- so much for that addage . . . okay, so it was a millimeter off.

"Give it up, child," she laughed gaily, "you'll never beat me."

"I've done it before," Cloak countered menacingly.  Suddenly, lightning struck at Cloak, but he stuck his right index and middle fingers at it, forced it down to his arm, down to his stomach, across his stomach, and out the other arm, via the same two fingers, at Malice.  But Malice had already swirled her cloak and had vanished.  Cloak cursed loudly, and swirled his cloak as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 17, 2012, 11:03:59 AM

That's sad to hear.  I hope the situation gets resolved quickly.  Family drama is never fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2012, 11:06:06 AM

No, it's not.  And I've had far more than my fair share of it.

And I'm posting a chapter in the previous post.  Maybe it will prove to be cathartic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 17, 2012, 12:48:30 PM

Thunderelectroan... .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2012, 03:37:30 PM

What?

Yeah, it's Thunder+ electro-.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 17, 2012, 04:28:59 PM

Love the new chapters. Good luck with the crazy stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2012, 12:22:25 PM

Thanks, Gazzy.  I love writing this as much as you reading it . . . hence why I have ideas up to Book XLII (that's 42, in Roman numerals, I think).

I'll try to post another chapter -- I had to go out walking today, and my feet still hurt.  Although there's an amusing "band" situation, where the sun tanned part of them, and didn't touch the other, the parts that were covered from the binding bands on my sandals.  But that's off-topic.

So, another chapter . . .

CHAPTER NINE:
Sand, It's Everywhere, Get Used to It*

Cloak tried to curb his frustration, but it was getting harder and harder to do that.  He looked for the portal that Malice would have leaped into.  But, of course, Cloak was a fraction too late to catch her.  He just HAD to redirect that lightning.  That gave her a lead . . . just then Cloak noticed a ripple to his right, so, without thinking or hesitating, he jumped into it.

He blinked for just a moment or two, then he looked around.  This realm appeared to be nothing but cliffs, canyons, crevices and desert sands.  This must be the realm Terraseismo.  Cloak saw that there appeared to be large birds in the distance.  They appeared to be ostrich-like in terms of size, shape and mentality.  But their feet looked ill-formed and grainy, as if caked with sand.  Cloak did not approach them, these sostriches.  If they're anything like ostriches, and they are, they can become very . . . ornery.  Cloak formed his energy disc, and stood on it.  This alerted one of the sostriches, but all it did was **** its head at an angle, as if trying to figure out how close Cloak was or what Cloak was doing.  Eventually, it lost interest and went about it's own business.

Cloak descended quietly and stealthily into the crevice, where he noticed that some brown-haired Terraseismoan humans had made a little village.  The appeared very much like humans in the Prime Universe, in terms of dress and mannerisms.  But Cloak strayed away from the village . . . as the crevice was larger than it appeared atop the sandy desert.

There was a loud crash and suddenly a large creature burst into Cloak's path!  It was the size of a badger-mole**, only bearing a resemblance to an ordinary mole from the Prime Universe, except for a drill bit-like nasal horn and forepaws like an excavator.  This molearth glared blearily at Cloak with its rather disproportionate, minute eyes.  Molearths are fundamentally blind.  It took a quick sniff, while Cloak stood motionless with detached interest, and then the molearth burrowed back into the wall, back on it's merry subterranean way.

Cloak pressed onward, following Malice's putrid scent.  He came upon a large crater area were the razorback ankylosaurs were feeding on scruffy-looking plant life.  While bearing an uncanny resemblance to Prime Universe's extinct ankylosaurs, these creatures' armor did not consist merely spike on the side and a club-tipped tail.  The tips of their tail resembled a flail or a mace, while they had six or seven rows of razor-sharp spikes on their back -- they moved and jostled themselves too much for Cloak to get an accurate count.

But then a most mournful sound reached his ears.  He saw one . . . and Cloak was horrified.  It was severely injured, that was for sure.  The gore and mess were too much to describe accurately.  Not that Cloak would ever want to.  But one thing was clear, this poor beast was dying, and the injuries were definitely Realm Walker-inflicted.  Cloak knew that it had to be Malice.  Perhaps it was because the backs of the creatures gave rise to memories of his friend, Dino, (though she's vastly different from these creatures) Cloak felt much aggrieved.

No more, Cloak decided. This insanity has to stop.

Cloak charged forward, and, similarly the molearth he saw previous, burrowed into the rock wall, using his mastery of Earth to basically swim through it.  Any earthbender would have been proud of the technique.  He was covering major ground, he thought, though he could not smell Malice's scent anymore.  So, he burst out of the wall, with a dramatic and flourishing exit.

He was surprised when he saw Malice right before him.  She was shocked, too, but only for a moment.  With a sinister smirk and a playful "Good-bye!", she vanished.  Cloak snarled a feline growl, then he noticed that she had dropped the jewel.  But it was transparent, as if just glass.  Cloak swirled his cloak and followed her.


---
*Know what this is a reference to?  Watch the third Aladdin movie if you don't know.

**Yep, that's an "Avatar: the Last Airbender" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 18, 2012, 05:19:52 PM

Great chapters Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2012, 05:30:32 AM

Thanks, Parker.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Watch Your Step!

Cloak reappeared into the Fractured Nexus void.  He was severely tiring of this, although he could not hide his xenozoological interests in the creatures of these Fractured Realms.  They were so varied, so different, from what he's seen before in his life -- he was about 27 years old, if you used a Realm Dweller calendar, if you used a Dweller Earth one, he was roughly 270.  Cloak looked around and noticed a bright portal wiggling just the slightest bit.  He jumped into that portal.

Normally, he would have taken a moment to look around and acclimate to his surroundings.  But he could really do that at them moment.  Why?  Simply because he was falling.  Falling to a black void below where glowing red eyes of various sizes seemed to glare out of it.  Cloak quickly rolled over to his front, and formed his energy disc beneath his feet.  He managed to slow, and eventually stop, his descent.  Then he ascended back to being level with his entry point.

He was breathing a little hard after that crisis.  He had thought that he had gotten over his acrophobia . . . apparently, some lingered within him, like a stubborn vermin infestation.  Cloak wanted to wait a second to calm himself down, but he knew he hadn't the time to do as such.  Especially as he was having difficulty locating Malice's scent.

Cloak meandered about, looking for the set, and also looking around this realm, this realm called Floafly.  It's a place were the land, all of the land, is suspended in the air, as if some strange, spaced-out archipelago.  Cloak could see the Floaflier human, which appear to be quite similar to Blaze, with broad wings of every color and pattern imaginable.  Only all Floaflier humans possess golden hair.  This sky was also full of dragons, pegasi, hippogriffs, and whatnot.  Such a lively place.

Cloak proceeded to the nearest island . . . only stopping when he caught the scent of malice coming from the right of the island.  Cloak, using Toucan Sam's advice, followed his nose.  He landed daintily on the floating island.  It was one of the smaller ones . . . couldn't be more than fourteen, fifteen miles in diameter.  There was not much places for her to hide, although this island wasn't barren, it was quite overgrown.  Cloak pushed forward, but he wasn't going as fast as he would have liked.  So Cloak used his energy to slice through the dense vegetation and discovered another path was created, though hidden.  Malice was here alright.

Cloak dashed down the path, the scent becoming all that stronger.  Then he came upon Malice reaching for a gold-colored jewel, and Cloak had an image of this island plummeting down to that void with the monstrous creatures.  Cloak felt a stab of fear like a rusty dagger to the heart.

"MALICE!" he roared.  "STOP!"

She smirked, but didn't even bother to turn around, only saying, "You'd like that wouldn't you!"

Then she snatched the jewel, and swirled her cloak, vanishing, while Cloak flinched, expecting the island to fall.  But nothing happened.  Cloak glanced around and then he cursed loudly to himself.  And he swirled his cloak, going after her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 19, 2012, 07:02:41 PM

Now you can't deny that Sonic & Knuckles didn't inspire that one. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 19, 2012, 07:40:49 PM

I don't want to live.

In this universe anymore.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2012, 07:32:24 AM

Quote from: Darth Revan on July 19, 2012, 07:02:41 PM

Now you can't deny that Sonic & Knuckles didn't inspire that one. ;D

Yes, Parker, but only in part . . . I remembered another show that flying islands on it . . . I can't remember the name of the program just now though.  Anyway, I'll post another chapter soon enough.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Cold Start

This is getting SERIOUSLY OLD, Cloak fumed silently, as he reappeared in the Fractured Nexus, in a serious huff.  But, at least, the realms in which she could run are being narrowed down, as Cloak had long realized.  She wouldn't want to return to old realms, especially if she got what she wanted.  Cloak scanned the eight or nine other realms that they hadn't transversed yet.  He saw nary a wrinkle or ripple in any of them.

Cloak said a word in the Realm Walker language that would have made his mother slap him had she heard him.  Then he got wind of an extremely faint and horrid stench, Malice's scent.  Cloak wasn't aware that he could smell anything in this void, and Cloak followed it to the nearest portal.  Then he entered it without a second thought.

Cloak blinked as he landed in this realm.  His feet crunched, and he shielded his eyes against a noonday sun.  He soon realized his feet had crunched snow.  He looked around and saw a vast expanse of white.  It was the realm of Cryolacier* with chilling, howling winds.  Cloak didn't seem too terribly bothered by it, but he knew that it would come to annoy him (but not kill him) soon enough.  Horse may fit in very well here, but Cloak found the cold rather distasteful.

Cloak looked down and saw footprints in the snow, along with light drag lines.  Malice's tracks . . . excellent.  He could just follow these, as this stupid howling wind has made him lose the scent trail.

Following the trail of tracks, Cloak looked to his right, and saw the Cryolacite human males (all with snow white hair) on the ice, playing the Cryolacite version of hockey (which was essentially Prime Universe's hockey, but used with cryokinesis -- or, as it was called her, cryomagic).  But what was most astonishing was, though they looked identical to Prime Universe humans externally, but they wore clothing that was not appropriate for the weather.  Some were even shirtless and sweating.  How anyone could sweat in this cold, Cloak didn't know.

Cloak turned his attention back to his mission, as a bunch of arterns (tern-like birds that appear to be made out of snow -- their feathers even possess snowflake patterns, and no two patterns are identical) flew overhead, making quite a racket.  It was distracting as the cutting wind, but Cloak ignored it.  Well, he ignored it to the best of his ability.

He turned to his left and saw a huge herd of icamposaurus (camposaurus-like creatures that actually possessed white hair-like scales that made them seem to be living snow) crossed his path.  He had to yield, and waiting for a minute or two before just using his energy disc to float over the meandering beasts.  He continued onward, coming to a large, icy ocean at two o'clock.  There he saw a nolar (a polar bear-like creature which have icicle claws that can regenerate) pounding on the ice, trying to get at a seal.  Cloak hurriedly pressed on, not wanting to see.  The seal would probably remind him of Horse, and he doesn't want the image of the seal . . . torn apart . . . to surface in his mind any time he sees Horse.  Sure, the Pootang eats her from time to -- okay, okay, okay, it eats her FREQUENTLY -- but it swallows her whole.  It doesn't rip her apart . . .

With his feet crunching in the snow he pressed onward . . . then stopped.  He was plowing through snow.  The trail had ended about a yard back!  There was no marks that indictated that she swirled her cloak . . .  IT WAS A FALSE TRAIL!!  He'd been duped!  How could he have been such a condemnable, lamentable fool?!  He wasted so much time!  He should have taken the time and effort to get the scent trail back.

Cloak shook his head.  No time for beating himself up -- there'll be time for that later.  Should he backtrack?  No, that'd take too long.  She'd reach the jewel here before he could even get a quarter of the way back.  Should he go ahead and return to the Fractured Nexus?  Yes.  Yes, he'd do that.

Cloak swirled his cloak and left the frozen world, the icy realm, of Cryolacier.

---
*Cryolacier = Cryo- + glacier

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2012, 03:57:41 PM

I'll see if I can post a second chapter today. . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Little D&D: Dinosaurs and Dragons

Cloak appeared in the Fractured Nexus, and saw Malice's back.  He said nothing, in hopes of catching her, making her relinquish the jewels. . . . Wow, that didn't come out right.  But Malice, on a sudden suspicion, turned around and saw Cloak coming for her.

"Ah, you didn't fall for my false trail?" she guessed completely wrongly.  Cloak didn't correct her on this.  "But you were still too late, boy!" she said, adding "Although the jewel was a worthless . . ." with a mutter.

Then she lifted her head and smiled broadly, "Well, never mind that.  Catch me if you can, pretty boy!"

Cloak blinked.  Was she . . . flirting with him?  She was old enough to be his grandmother!!  Cloak shook his head.  He was probably reading too much into that.  She was probably just being coy.  Or stupid.  Whatever.  Cloak followed Malice into a portal, being just a minute or two too late.

Cloak landed, and promptly fell onto his butt.  He jumped to his feet, expecting to see Malice no more that few feet away.  But a large, black tail was blocking his view.  Cloak looked to the left, and saw the creatures long head, fringed with golden horns.  It was snoozing in a deep slumber, and Cloak knew that it was a dragon.  Albeit a tad smaller than the RAFian dragons.

Cloak used his mastery over earth to basically give him a springboard to somersault over the sleeping reptile, and landed a bit roughly on the other side.  He stumbled a bit, but managed to not fall over.  Cloak stood a few feet from an overhanging cliff, and saw . . . saw the view.  Jurassic Park had nothing -- nothing -- on Drise, the name of this realm.

The view showed several pterosaurs flitting through the sky with what appeared to be Pernese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders of Pern) dragons, which were chasing the smaller pterosaurs.  On the ground below was a herd of triceratops, a lone stegosaur, and a sauropod battling an outraged tyrannosaur.  The land looked quite lush and tropical.  Cloak could not help but wonder if this was life was like during the Prime Universe's Earth's primordial age.  Cloak smiled a little ruefully when he considered how Dino would easily fit into this Realm.  It might be kinder not to tell her about it.

But enough of this sightseeing.  He had to find Malice, and stop her from recreating the Forbidden Power. . . . He moved get back onto the forest path, when he heard a very nasty hiss . . . he turned to see what appeared to be a swan rushing at him.  Then he noticed the swan's lower body was rather like a gargoyle beast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Clan#Bronx) -- it wasn't a swan at all, but a dracygnus!  They had the temperment of a swan protecting a nest and a komodo dragon.  It must have a nest nearby.  Great.

Cloak formed his energy disc again, and soared from the cliff.  He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he evaded the creature.  Of course, he had forgotten that the dracygnis had wings.  And soon realized that it was giving chase, by flying after him.  But, unlike true swans, dracygni are awkward fliers, and not that fast.  So Cloak just turned on the speed, and the dracygnus just gave up the chase, returning to its nest.

Cloak realized soon enough that the sky wasn't exactly a safe place to be, as Driser dragons are not all intelligent and capable of speech.  He dropped to the ground, and saw that there was a town of Driser humans -- who, unlike Prime Universe humans, must occassionally shed their skin all in one piece.  Cloak could see remenants of that.  All the humans possessed tan hair and wore clothing that seemed to be a hybridization of "The Flintstones" and weyrfolk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders of Pern).  Cloak looked around, and caught Malice's scent.

But it was strange.  It wasn't fading.  If anything, it was getting stronger and stronger.  That could only mean one thing.  She was getting closer to him!  He confirmed it with his Earthsight.  Finally, a break!  He stood resolutely in her way.  But Malice saw him standing in her path, said nothing, consulted a page, and then smirked.

"Pity, pretty boy," she sneered, "there's nothing here that I need!"

Cloak narrowed his eyes, well aware that she could be lying.  But then she swirled her cloak and vanished!  Cloak, startled, took a moment to react.  He swirled his cloak as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2012, 06:15:54 PM

Want another chapter?  Sorry, it's gonna be a bit short.

(Don't worry, more RAFians will appear in the next book, but . . . *deliberately leaves the sentence hanging  >:D*)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Cough, Cough, Sputter, Sputter

Cloak arrived into the Fractured Nexus.  He was getting swiftly annoyed.  He saw Malice's cloak ripple as she leaped into a nearby portal.  Cloak followed suit, within seconds.

Cloak should have been prepared for this realm, the realm called Venoxica*.  He coughed and sputtered.  The air was poisonous.  The ground was poisonous.  Everything was horribly polluted.  The sky glowed a heavy purple.  There was no way he could track Malice by scent in this poisoned world.  Had he been a different species, it would have surely killed him within minutes.

With such a wasteland of a realm, you'd think that it would be devoid and barren of life.  But, to Cloak's astonishment, there were Venoxican humans (all purple-haired) running, yelling, and frolicking around their village.  They did not seem too bothered by the air or the ground.  They seemed to be revelling in their environment!  Amazing!

Cloak shook his head to clear it.  He had to get out of this world as soon as possible, as uncomfortable as it was.  As he trudged onward and forward, he couldn't help but thinking that this just may be what happens to the Prime Universe's Earth if some measures are not taken . . . except the only difference would be that nothing would survive.  It's just not how the physics of life in that universe works.  Granted, Cloak knew nothing of the physics of life in this realm, and he's not a bio-physicist.

Cloak hobbled his way forward, having no idea whether or not he was proceeding in the right direction, to whatever Malice was after.  After a few moments, Cloak cursed himself for being so stupid, for not having thought of it sooner.  He formed and bubble of wind around him to get the noxious vapors away from him.  It helped, but not as much as Cloak had expected.

Well, it'll have to do for now, Cloak thought to himself savagely, as he maintained the wind bubble with sheer force of will.  He forced himself to proceed forward, toward that stupid jewel, toward Malice.  He bypassed a lake of horrible looking sludge.  It bubbled and squished in a most disgusting way.  Cloak didn't like it.  It reminded him of that viral ooze.

Cloak couldn't maintain the bubble anymore, so he desisted, preparing for the horrid air and all the horrendous stenches that it contained.  Cloak tried to ignore this and trudge onward, only stopping when he realized that he was walking in circles and he may not even be going in the right direction.  Cloak wasn't sure where to go, what to do, and he was getting disorientated.

Cloak's body tensed with sheer willpower, he swirled his cloak and vanished from the realm, deciding to deal with the ramifications later . . .

---
*Venoxica = Venom + toxic + -a

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 20, 2012, 06:27:49 PM

But I'm going to die being personally tortured...again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2012, 06:29:31 PM

Well, actually -- oh, silly me.  I nearly gave it away. ;)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Land of the Machines

Cloak, still coughing and sputtering, entered the Fractured Nexus.  It was few minutes when he realized that he wasn't the only one coughing and puttering.  He looked up and saw Malice, looking like she was hacking up a lung.  She breathed in deeply, and exhaled in one long breath.  Then she snapped her head up and saw Cloak.

"Found that realm irritatingly inhospitable as well, boy?" She spat the last word as if an insult.  Cloak glared at her, and said nothing.  Malice, however, found this amusing.  "Still amusingly mute, boy?"

Cloak continued to say nothing, but slowly and carefully approach her while her head was turned when she was gloating.  But he couldn't get close enough, as she dived into another portal.  Sighing with resignation, Cloak followed after her.

Landing upon the ground, Cloak blinked and shielded his eyes as he looked around.  Everything apparently was of techno-organic nature, even the ground had a strange luster and smoothness.  This must be Ferrormor*, the realm of metal and machines.  Cloak knew that he had nothing to fear from the creatures here.  But he remembered something, a story, about the humans in this realm . . .

Ferrormor humans used to be flesh and blood, with silver-colored hair (regardless of the age).  But then a possibly-fatal disease with such potent virality became a global pandemic.  The specifics of this disease were lost in time.  Ferrormor humans were dying left and right.  There was a Ferrormor man who came up with the idea to escape the disease by transferring their minds into robotic substitutes, becoming androids.  Now the entire race of Ferrormor humans reside within these surrogate bodies, which had come to resemble their old bodies identically, but only after many years.  The original models resembled that of the Puttermans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puttermans), with new upgrades being released every few years.

That's the story.  Interesting story, but, as Cloak shook his head, had nothing to do with him or his mission.  He couldn't allow himself to get so wrapped up in these worlds!  His own curosity, the bane of all felines and feline-form Realm Walkers, was why Malice had such a big lead!  Cloak dashed forward, attempting to focus on his goal, but this world keep throwing distractions in his path!

Like, there!  A crane or condor-like bird covered in what appeared to be armored plating, with six pairs of metal wings similar to those of Archangel.  It stood facing Cloak, with it's feet in a marshy, dark pond, surrounded by techno-organic trees.  It regarded Cloak imperially, and then calmly, confidently strode away from him, as if Cloak was beneath it's regal notice.  Cloak had stopped to watch it, but he attempted to quash this xenozoological interest he's always had, and proceed toward Malice.

It was easy to catch her scent, as the scent of these Ferrormor creatures were far more muted -- the humans didn't even possess a personalized scent anymore.  Cloak wasn't sure that they could even smell.

Cloak came across a group of metallic-armored triceratops heard that Cloak didn't know their proper names for.  They were in his way.  Sure, he could use his mastery of Metal to lift and throw them out of his way.  But that would be harsh and may cause undue harm or even kill these beasts whose only fault would have been being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That's something Malice would do.  And it would amuse her.  Cloak was not Malice . . . so he just hopped over and dived under and so on, until he had bypassed the herd.  He looked over his shoulder and was amused that the herd seemed to simply not care or were blissfully obvious to his attempts to bypass them.  Cloak then snapped his attention onward, and ran towards the scent trail.

He saw Malice lending against a strange smooth, yet rocky wall, tapping her foot.  As if she was waiting for him to catch up.  Cloak narrowed his eyes as he well realized that Malice was toying with him.  She was tossing up a glass jewel up and down, carelessly.  Then she realized that he had arrived.

"Geez," she said, in a sneering, conversational tone.  "What in the name of the Void took you so long?"

Cloak glared at her, folded his arms, and said nothing.

"You givin' me the silent treatment, now?" she snickered.

Cloak remained impassive.

"Here," she said, tossing the jewel at Cloak's feet.  "I don't need it."

Then she vanished by swirling her cloak, and Cloak, ignoring the jewel, followed suit.

---
*Ferrormor = Ferro- + armor

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2012, 10:08:03 AM

Okay, another chapter.  Another short one.  Really short.  Sorry.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Eternal Night

Cloak appeared into the Fractured Nexus, but Malice wasn't there.  He saw her cloak whip into a nearby portal.  He reached out to seize it, forgetting that if he were to grip it and tug, he might cause it to flitter off . . . and everyone knows that a Realm Walker cannot be in-universe without their cloak . . . if they want that universe to remain in one piece.  But no matter.  The cloak slipped from his grasp.  But Cloak pulled himself into the universe.

The first thing Cloak saw was a bright moon, that looked far too big to be real.  Everywhere else was dark, but Cloak's feline eyes easily penetrated the gloom.  Cloak momentarily worried that he had accidentally transferred himself into the Twilight universe*, possibly a fate worse than death.  Then his rational mind caught up with him.  Cloak knew that this must be the realm of Noctumbra, a realm of eternal night.  Cloak, having lost Malice yet again, turned back to her scent.  He prowled the Noctumbran forest, feeling irrestistably like a tiger in the Asian forests.

Cloak looked to his right and saw what appeared to be a Poe-era town, complete with streetlights -- which seemed to have some other purpose here.  He saw all the inhabitants possessed jet black hair, although their eyes were of a great variety, as usual for the inhabitants of the Fractured Realms.  Cloak had paused too long, he feared.  He ran along the forest path, ignoring the strange creatures which evolved in this permanent darkness.  It was easier to do here, with this dark making it difficult for even him to make out.

Cloak nearly fell into a chasm that he wasn't paying any attention to.  Cloak cursed this lapse of inattention on his part.  He created an energy footbridge and dashed across.  He saw a whip of a cloak . . . he was getting close!  He ran full tilt now, and he tackled Malice, but rolled too far away, and nearly down another cliff.  He held on to a jutting rock, he was at her mercy.

And Malice had no mercy.

"I underestimated you," she snarled.  "I would kill you were you stand -- and you'd stay dead this time -- but I have far more pressing concerns.  However . . ."

She didn't elaborate, but swirled her cloak and vanished.  Cloak dropped and followed suit.

---
*Just note, I've never read any of the books or saw any of the movies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2012, 01:19:07 PM

'Nother chapter -- oh, and even though I haven't mentioned it yet, in-story, but you guys are dealing with a problem of your own will I'm dealing with this Malice thing.  That'll be addressed in Chapter Twenty or so, I think.  And I'll introduce another fictional RAFian (like Helen).  I hope I haven't given TOO much away.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Rocky Journey

"Oh, you didn't plummet!" Malice moaned petulantly and sneeringly, as Cloak emerged into the Fractured Nexus.  Cloak glared at the cloaked figure of Malice, and allowed a deep growl to emit from his throat.  She remarked with mock scolding, "Oh, now, now!  Where's your sense of fun?"

Cloak glowered at her, and said nothing for a few minutes.  "I tire of this cat-and-mouse game with you, Malice.  You need to be stopped.  The Forbidden Power is forbidden for a reason."

"And what reason would that be?  Hmmm?" Malice taunted gaily.  She waited for Cloak's reply but it didn't come.  "Ah, I see.  You don't know.  You don't know why it was forbidden.  Then allow me to enlighten you on the particulars --"

But she said nothing but vanished through a portal.  Cloak cursed himself not not seeing that one trick coming a mile away, but leaped into the portal after her.

He blinked and looked around.  It was a world of tall mountains and deep valleys.  This was Geolith, a world were no area was flat and the sky was gray, rain or shine.  Cloak felt a bit disconcerted as he took a moment or two to acclimate to this new geography.  After that, Cloak took off, carefully and cautiously, lest he fall down several hundred stories.  That would not be any fun.

Cloak saw that the Geolithling humans, all possessing gray hair, had built there cities and towns insided of the mountains.  It was only in these places that nearly-flat ground could be found.  Cloak ignored this and proceeded further, until he discovered that he would have to climb up or down.  He, after catching a whiff of Malice's scent, decided that he would have to scale this mountain.  But, instead of actually mountian climbing, he formed his energy disc and began scaling it that way.

He had to stop because he was cut-off by a drill roc, a woodpecker-like bird with a large wingspan, feathers colored like slabs of granite and drill-like beak.  They feet by drilling into rock for rock-boring insects and their grubs.  It would be interesting, but Cloak had more pressing matters to think off.  So, he blasted upward as fast as he could.

But then, something burst out from the rock face from his right that caused him to rocket and nearly tumble down to his left.  Cloak looked at the beast and found that it was a snakale, a serpentine creature whose scales were like slabs of stone.  It was trying to eat him.  Cloak cursed aloud.  HE DIDN'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!!  Cloak could sense that there was actual stone in the snakale, so he forced it to back off, by manipulating the earth in the snakale.  And he made it shove itself back into its own hidey-hole.  Cloak hated having to do things like that.  It made him feel like a bloodbender.

After this, Cloak continued to charge upward, ignoring everything -- including more snakales of varying sizes.  He just dodged their strikes -- it was easier that you may think -- and blasted upward, as fast as he could possibly do such.  When he arrived at the top, he glanced around and saw . . . there was a trail for the way up.  And several styrockosaurs -- styracosaurs with stone horns -- were done grazing there and were making their way back down.  Cloak landed, saw Malice, and dashed toward her . . .

But she was already gone.  Cloak swirled his cloak and vanished while he ran.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2012, 05:13:41 PM

Okay, let's get this goin' again.  Who knows?  I might finish this book today.  Or I might not.  Depends on how I'm feeling.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Savage Brawlers

Cloak appeared back at the Fracture Nexus, saw Malice, and made to seize her.  She coyly batted his hand away, and Cloak made to grab her wrist.  But she was slicker than oil, and she managed to slip into the next portal.  Cloak let out a stream of Realm Walker swears, getting really frustrated.  So much so that he wanted to throw something.  Malice, for instance.

Cloak dived into the selfsame portal, and blinked at his new environment.  The sky was a dark orange color and every thing here seemed rather unnecessarily muscular and aggressive.  Ah, the savage world of Savawl*.  Cloak looked to his left, 'bout at ten o'clock, and saw a simple vision of Savawler humans.  All with orange hair, some more vivid than others.  He could help but notice that it had what appeared to be a wrestling ring in the middle of the village.  With two wrestlers already occupying it.  If Cloak was remembering correctly, this was the Savawler human version of an election, and the weakest Savawler humans were physically stronger to or equal to the strongest Prime Universe humans.  While interesting, in a xenozoological way, it was not important to Cloak's mission.

Cloak moved on, hearing a sickening thud and crunch about fifteen seconds after he passed by the village.  Cloak flinched at the sound, but moved on.  He hadn't any right to interfere with their, ah, electoral process.  Cloak pressed on, through a oppressive-feeling forest.  Cloak could swear some of the trees had fists and boxing gloves and whatnot.  He even thought he saw a Whomping Willow, a Bashing Birch, a Mangling Maple, a Judo Juniper, a Ranged Rowan, an Equalizer Elm, an Offensive Oak or two.  All fighting trees. . . .

Cloak decided it would be best to watch his step . . . and his arms, legs, head, tail, and torso.  While they couldn't kill him, it wouldn't be pleasant at all to be pummelled perfectly to a pretty little pulp by a pugilist tree.  Cloak shuttered a bit at this thought, but pressed on before the trees could decide to beat him up and find something or someone else to punch into submission.

Cloak had a sudden image of Malice finally getting her comeuppance from these trees or other pugilist creatures.  The image gave Cloak a comfort that Malice will get what's she's really earned.  He could even hear her yelps and curses.

Wait a minute . . .

He was really hearing something.  It was Malice.  She was shouting, screaming, and basically making a big scene.  She was obviously trying to get at something, presumably to the jewel, but was dodging the swinging branches of the Mangling Maple before her.  Cloak smiled inwardly, as he watched.  He could feel the jewel through the earth.  And using his mastery over the Earth Element, he slowly and cautiously brought jewel through the earth, though not breaking the surface once, and had pulled it to being just behind him.  He made the smallest stomping gesture and the jewel popped out.  He caught it with his hand behind his back.  He smirked.

"Getting beaten up by a tree, Malice?" Cloak said, scathingly.

"YOU!" Malice said, nearly missing a strike.  "Go away!"

"Oh, I don't think so."  Cloak said.  "Hand over the other jewels and I will help you."

"Never!" Malice said, forming an energy shield and dug at the tree's roots.  But she was finding nothing.  Cloak casually tossed the jewel up and down, humming a Weird Al song.  "Everything You Know is Wrong" specifically.

"YOU!" she roared.  "GIVE IT TO --"

Then she got a good look at it, and laughed raucously and obnoxiously.  Cloak looked surprised for a moment, but easily recognized what this meant.  This wasn't the jewel she was looking for.  She swirled her cloak and vanished.  Cloak dropped the jewel and followed suit.

---
*Savawl = Savage + brawl

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2012, 08:35:51 PM

Bit more . . . well, I've planned about 24 chapters for this book. . . . Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Mostly Ghostly

Cloak arrived in the Fractured Nexus, and this time Malice didn't stop to goad or taunt Cloak.  Cloak knew why -- there were only two of the Fractured Realms not visited now.  The jewel Malice was looking for was in one of them.  Cloak didn't know which one, but it was a 50-50 percent chance that it would be the one that she just entered.  They were closing in on the final gem . . . with no trepidation, Cloak leaped into the portal.

Cloak quickly realized something wasn't right here, as he nearly fell through the ground here.  Cloak instinctively formed his energy disc to stand on, and floated back up to his previous position giving him a chance of looking around.

Everything was spectral.  The ground, the plantlife, the wildlife, the indigo-haired Necrectopolian humans -- yes, that's what this realm is called Necrectopolis*, the realm of ghosts.  The creatures seemed completely uninterested in Cloak, and Malice, wherever she got to.  It took Cloak a minute to realize that they couldn't see either of them.  Whether it was do to their immaterial state or something else, Cloak didn't know.  Really didn't matter.  He had to find Malice.  He had to stop her.  But he had to find her -- again -- first.

He leaned forward and really turned on the speed to catch her.  He passed through any Necrectopolian object, whether animate or inanimate, and he charged full-tilt.  There were no elements here for him to use against her, because his mastery over the elements did not grant him control over the spectral variations of those things.  So, he had no advantages over Malice here, other than his own energy.  But Malice can fling energy too, and she was older, thereby more experienced.  And Cloak had come to rely on the Elements, especially the Earth Element.

Cloak saw her, using a far slower mode of transportation -- an energy bubble.  She apparently hadn't mastered the energy disc technique.  Cloak easily outstripped her, and struck her in the flyby by actually using his claws -- yes, he has claws.  He just doesn't really use them.

"Ah!" Malice cried out, but having suffered no real damage as Cloak's attack only scratched her energy bubble.  "You again!  Why can't insufferable fools like you leave me alone?  Why must fools stand in the way of my greatness?!"

"You just want to rule the Prime Universe . . ." Cloak said, drily, giving her a heavy-lidded look**.  "And the Nexus, the land of our birth, as well."

"Of course!***" She shouted.  "Now get out of my way!"

"Sorry, Malice," Cloak said.  "I cannot do that."

"Then you will SUFFER!!" she roared, lashing out.  Cloak realized he knew that she knew that he hadn't the advantage here.  "Die, Cloak, spawn of the spawn of Sage!"

"I'd rather not," Cloak muttered as he dodged her energy tentacles.  "And I seriously doubt that you can kill me, you despot."

Malice was starting to lose all composure when she seemed to realize something as her eyes bugged out.  She took out a ripped page, and was mouthing words.  She muttered, very quietly, "It's the wrong one. . . ."

She was apparently oblivious that Cloak heard her, but seemed to come to this conclusion when Cloak broke off battle and swirled his cloak.  She screamed "NO!" as she did the same.

---
*Necrectopolis = Necro- + ectoplasm + metropolis

** This  --> :dull:

*** Get the Nostalgia Critic reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 21, 2012, 10:55:12 PM

Finally caught up. Lots and lots of world hopping. When you mentioned twilight universe, I assumed you were talking about the twilight zone, which would have been awesome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 22, 2012, 01:56:15 AM

Or it is the Universe of Bella Swan, which would suck

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2012, 06:54:47 AM

Quote from: Underseen on July 22, 2012, 01:56:15 AM

Or it is the Universe of Bella Swan, which would suck

Of course, I have no idea who that is.

Feeling a little down -- depression often creeps up on me like that.  Hopefully posting a chapter or two will help me feel better. . . . Writing ususally does. . . . Warning: This chapter'll be a little dark. . . .

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Final Fractured Realm

Cloak arrived in the Fractured Nexus, and looked around for the final portal.  If he can procure that last jewel, and deny it from Malice, this whole mission would not be for naught.  There it was.  Cloak made to charge towards it when he felt a blast from his left, which knocked him off-course.

"It's not gonna be that easy, boy!" Malice snarled, making her own way to the portal.  Cloak fired off a golden-scarlett energy ring which bound Malice, pinioning her arms to her sides as she screamed obscenities.  Cloak charged forward, bypassing Malice, who shrieked like a madwoman -- which, in many ways, she was.

Cloak was mere feet away from the portal when Malice broke the energy ring (Cloak had let his concentration slip), and viciously blasted him with her energy.  Then she formed the energy tentacles, one from each of her hands, and pounded him anywhere from five to ten times with the two tentacles.  Cloak was a little dazed, but snapped out of it long enough to see Malice just enter the realm -- Psychesp*, where the violet-haired Psychespian humans all possess psychic abilities, which they refer to as psychemagic and practitioners as psychemagi.  Some possessed stone jewels within their foreheads and some didn't. . . .

Cloak dashed through the portal as a thought occurred to him.  A horrible thought.  And Malice was just ruthless enough to do it . . . by the Veil**, no!  On his grandfather's memory, he could not let this come to pass.  The Psychespian people were in grave danger.  Cloak was already behind Malice, but perhaps she wouldn't figure it out.  But Cloak's underestimated the Tasmanian devil Realm Walker before.

Cloak ran and saw Malice approaching Psychespian township.  Malice turned, and blasted Cloak, which he dodged by taking a leaf out of an Airbender's book, and blasted Malice with a blast of air.  She attempted to strike again, but Cloak somersaulted over it, using all his feline agility.  Malice was not backing down and fighting as viciously and ruthlessly as she could, as all Tasmanian devil Realm Walkers would.  Although, granted, not all Tasmanian devil Realm Walkers are evil, as Malice is.

Then she decided to change her mark and began to aim at Cloak's feet, which Cloak made sure not to stand on too long, although it made it harder to use his favored element, but he still managed to dodge her attacks.  Cloak's plan was to get Malice so worked up with him that she'd forget all about her own plan.  But this scheme of Cloak's had holes the size of an aircraft carrier -- as Malice would never forget about her plan to procure the ultimate power.  But little did Cloak know, she also had a backup plan*** should she fail to procure it or should she fail to hold on to it.

She managed to strike Cloak in the gut, then the head.  This left Cloak in a momentary daze, and when he came to, she was gone.  Cloak cursed obscenities to himself as he tracked Malice to a village who were very distraught -- five children were missing.  They were the few that had jeweled-foreheads.  Cloak pressed himself into the shadows, eavesdropping to hear more.  But there was really no more to be said, no trace of them, and they had no idea what or who could have taken their children.  Cloak quickly left the township and continued to track Malice, but now with exceedingly more intensity and urgency.

Those children . . . those poor children . . . Cloak was well aware of just why Malice wanted them . . . and they didn't have to be alive for her to get what she wanted. . . . Had to hurry . . . had to get there before she could harm them. . . .

Cloak arrived as Malice was setting an energy orb containing the children, mouthing furiously and pounding the orb's sides, tears pouring furiously from their eyes.  They didn't look any older than ten, eleven.  They reminded Cloak irresistibly of Shadow.  One had a ruby in her forehead, another had a sapphire in his forehead, yet another had an emerald in his forehead, another had a diamond in his forehead, and the last one had a pearl in his forhead.  All their eye colors matched there forehead-jewels.  They seemed to know what Malice was planning, and were, naturally, terrified.

"MALICE, STOP!!" Cloak roared so loudly that Psychespian humans two miles away were bound to hear.  Of course, Cloak hadn't such luck, as this place was too remote, which is what Malice planned.

"No, I will not, fool!" she said, with a crazy, insane smile on her face.

"Malice, leave the young ones!  They've done nothing to you!" Cloak pleaded.  For the first time in a long time, Cloak felt genuinely afraid.  But not for himself, but these five young innocents, who've done nothing to warrant such a dramatic and tragic end.  "Malice, please.  If you've any decency in you at all --"

"They've something I want," Malice said, as if this was all the explanation in the world that she needed.  It was.  "And I've come to take them."

"Malice." Cloak's voice sounding more authoritive now.  "Your fight is with me.  Leave them out of it."

Malice looked at Cloak, and he could see that insane glint in her eye.  "You?  My, my, my.  The world doesn't revolve around you, dear."

Cloak felt major creeps being called "dear" from such a psychopath.

"I cannot allow you to do this."

"What makes you think I care about what you allow?"

"Malice, you WILL NOT do this."

"Who's gonna stop me?  You?  Look at you!  You're exhausted!  You haven't the energy to put up a decent fight with Abomination!"

Wait . . . how'd she know about him?

"Now," Malice said, using the same energy ring trick he used on her on him, "let's begin."

Cloak struggled against his binding ring, but found that Malice was right.  He expended far too much of his energy without even realizing it.  Malice knew that the other realms held jewels she wouldn't need, but acted as if she did.  Just to exhaust Cloak, and prevent him from being a threat!  He was a fool to think that he could do this alone. . . .

Malice approached the bubble and ran lightning-like energy across the surface, as Cloak turned away, still struggling aganst his binding rings -- Malice had formed another one around his ankles and knees, pinioning his legs and tail together.  Cloak could hear the screams, then the eerie silence that fell after. . . . Cloak would never forgive himself for this, for allowing this to happen.  His tears would never touch Psychespian soil.

---
*Psychesp = Psyche + ESP

**The Oblivion Veil, first revealed in the Intro Randomness RP.  All those that pass through the Veil cannot ever return, a la Order of Phoenix.  The Oblivion Gate was built in front of it, which houses Realm Walker criminals.

***Which you'll find out about in the next book.  Probably.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2012, 10:18:16 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks.  Let's just lighten things up a bit, considering just how dark the last chapter was. . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Well, That's Just Prime*

Malice had formed a staff with a transparent orb atop it.  Such was a signature weapon of those with the Forbidden Power.  Malice laughed as she took Cloak back to the Fractured Nexus, and back to what he had considered his home, the Prime Universe.  She continued laughing that annoying laugh, of which Jafar would have been proud.

Malice elated, "It’s mine!  It’s finally mine!  The power to create . . ."

Cloak managed to spit as she created the ugliest unicorn you could ever see, "You wretched crook!"

Malice, ignoring Cloak, continued, "The power to change . . ."

Cloak snarled as she change the unicorn in a bright, cartoony puppy, "You despicable --"

Malice, with a smile of upmost triumph upon her face, gleefully said, "The power to destroy. . . ."

Cloak roared, "Oh, you horrid woman!"

"The power of the Forbidden Arts is mine.  All mine!" Malice shouted with full elation.  Then she turned to Cloak, and did the worst possible thing she could have done.  She began to sing.

"You may not like my newfound power,
But I think it’s totally hot.
You may hate the way I use it,
But am I concerned?  I’m not!"

She began to attack Cloak, and he felt a whole new definition of the word "pain".  Then she stopped and began to sing again.

"It’s the power to create this ban and strife,
And the power to change, oh joy!
The power to rearrange your life,
And the power to destroy!

Now I’ll be givin’ the orders,
And you’re goin’ to take them!
Things are goin’ to be the way I’m make ‘em!
I’m gonna be the one that gets every break.
You gotta love it!  Yeah!
You gotta love it!

Every day is goin’ be a vacation.
Now I’m the queen of gratification.
I do whatever I want, every day,
You gotta love it!  Whoo-hoo!
You gotta love it!

I’ll take aim at any target,
I’ll stake claim to any wealth.
I think I’ll fill the cup of power.
And drink it to my health!

You gotta love it! Hey-ey-ey yeah!
You gotta love it!
You gotta love this power of mine!
Oh, yeah!
Oh, yeah!
Uh-huh!

Oh, yeah!
Aw yeah!
I’ll take aim at every target,
I’ll stake claim to everywhere!
And I think I’ll the cup with power,
And drink to my health!
You gotta love it.
You gotta love it!
Yeah!
You gotta love it!
You gotta love this power of mine!

Then she laughs maliciously, as RAFians began to pour out of RAF to see just what was going on. . . . Cloak's friends and comrades were coming. . . . The thought seemed to galvanize Cloak. . . .

---
*Obligatory Beast Wars reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 22, 2012, 10:53:07 AM

Excellent chapters, as usual.  I loved the twist where Malice was running through all the universes for no other reason than to wear Cloak out, that was brilliant, I never saw that coming.

Bella Swan is the female character from the Twilight books, by the way.  She's half the reason those books are so terrible (Edward obviously being the other half).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2012, 10:58:09 AM

Thanks, Dino.  I actually came up with that on the fly.  And ah, I had small idea of who she was after I remembered the Nostalgia Critic's Top 11 Dumb@sses in Distress video.

Third chapter today . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Ends of the Earth

Cloak felt the others come closer, and felt his strength returning.  He knew the kind of power that Malice now wielded, and the RAFians weren't prepared for it.  He had to stop Malice, or at least relay to the others the fundamental weakness she now possessed.  Cloak righted himself, his Mark on his right hand shining very noticeably.  Cloak summoned all the strength he could muster and broke his bindings with a moment of supreme effort.

He faltered on his feet for a moment, and nearly stumbled, but he continued to glare at Malice, who witnessed it.

"Bravo, boy," she said in cold tones.  "Those Dwellers mean a great deal to you, don't they?"

Cloak said nothing, but his hateful glare never left Malice.

"Pity that they'll turn on you soon enough," she taunted.

"Liar," Cloak said, surprised of the haggard sound of his voice.

"Am I?" Malice said, smiling maliciously.

When the RAFians had all gathered, Malice . . . started singing again.

"Cloaked figure, yes, it's he,
But not as you know him!
Read my lips,
And come to grips
With reality.
Yes, here's a blast from the past,
Who's lies were too good to last.
Say hello, to your
Precious - cloaked - figure!"

She took this moment to blast Cloak several times.  But what he didn't know was that she was causing the others to see different things that were untrue about him, but what exactly varied from person to person.  Noelle, Aquilai, Dino, Gaz, Blaze, Parker and Yarin were prominent in vehemently and vocally refused to believing such things.  But others, like Rotiart, a fairly new RAFian, gullibly believed.

"So he turns out to be
Merely as cowardly as sin,
Just a con,
Need I go on?
Listen to me.
His personality flaws
Give me adequate cause
To send him packing
On a one-way trip
So his prospect take a terminal dip!
His karma frozen,
The destination chosen
Is the ends of the Earth,
Whoo-whee!
So long!
Ex-RAFian!

She did send Cloak to the ends of the Earth, with a blast of her new staff.  Cloak was limp as a ragdoll when she did this.  So much pain.  Too much pain.  Cloak lost consciousness.

Back at RAF, Parker turned to Yarin, who needn't read his mind to know what he was thinking.  Parker, Blaze, Gaz, Noelle, Phoenix, and Yarin boarded his ship and followed after Cloak, who was going faster than Yarin's ship could follow, atmosphere.

"Good riddance, liar," Rotiart was heard to say.  Faerie smacked him upside his head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2012, 12:28:16 PM

Let's see if I have energy to do this. . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Rescue RAFians

Cloak couldn't feel much of anything anymore.  The knowledge that he failed to protect those five youngsters, failed to prevent Malice from procuring all she needed to take the Forbidden Power for herself, failed to stand against her when it really counted.  All these failures, they weighed heavily against his conscience.  How could he ever be forgiven for them?  How could he ever forgive himself?

WHUMF!

Cloak landed hard on what felt like snow.  He could hear the howling wind, feel the icy bite of cold.  Cloak lay there motionless, reflecting on his past mistakes and failures.  Sure, it wasn't the most proactive thing to do, but Cloak had used up the last of his energy.  It took energy just holding his form together in one piece.  Cloak wondered idly if this would be the place where he finally died.  It would be so easy to just lay there . . . lay there and wait for the Grim Reaper with his spectral scythe to come.

"Get up," a voice sounded from his left.  He ignored it, sure that he was imagining things that probably was just wind.

"GET UP," the voice said again, more insistingly.  Cloak ignored it again.  Perhaps it was just the pain causing him to hear things.  It couldn't possibly have been him.

"GET UP!" the voice said again, more forcibly.

"Leave me alone!" Cloak moaned.  In his rather delirious state, he was thinking that the voice was his grandfather.

"Young one, you haven't failed yet!  You mustn't give up!  You cannot blame the actions of others on yourself!"

Cloak opened his eyes to blurry vision.  He said in a groggy and stupid way, "Gr-grandpa?"

"Get up!"

Cloak tried, but he couldn't get the energy.

"You must.  Your friends need you!"

This galvantized Cloak, he managed to force himself to sit up.  He forced himself to his feet, though he was still wobbly.  He was still in a great deal of pain.  But most of the pain wasn't physical.  The knowlege that he could fail in such a colossal way was the biggest blow that he had ever suffered.  Then Cloak looked around, and, had he not known better, he would have thought that he was back in Cryolacier.  He had no idea what direction would be back to RAF. . . .

He did not see any ghost of his grandfather.  Perhaps his delirious mind conjured up that voice to keep him alive.  But that didn't matter.  Now that he was up and on his feet, the burden of his mistakes were again upon him, like the world upon the titan, Altas.  Cloak winced but started to hobble away from the spot where he landed.  It was extremely slow-going.

***

In Yarin's ship, the six were plastered to the windows.  The had made it to Antartica -- the so-called "Ends of the Earth" -- and now were scouring it for any sign of Cloak.  Gaz voiced what they were all thinking.

"Wh-what if there's nothing to find?"

Gaz knew that when a Realm Walker dies they are translated to energy, and dissipate.

Phoenix sighed heavily.  "If we find an empty cloak, well . . . then we'll assume that, Gaz."

Realm Walkers usually leave their cloaks behind when they die.

"Antartica is a big continent . . ." Blaze said, brow furrowed with concern. "We could easily overlook something."

"There!" Parker said, pointing.  "He's on the move . . . but . . ."

<He appears injured.> Noelle noted worryingly.

"After the journey he's had, I'd be surprised if he weren't," Yarin said, taking the ship down.

***

Cloak just looked up numbly, seeing Yarin's ship, but he wasn't sure if it were real or another delusion.  Cloak toppled to his knees, still quite tired.  Parker and Phoenix dashed out of the ship, picked an exhausted Cloak up and brought him back within the ship, where he promptly collapsed on the floor.
"Cloak?" Gaz asked, gently.  "Are you alright?"

Cloak breathed heavily, barely having sufficient energy to stay conscious.  "The staff.  You must destroy the orb atop the staff.  Then the Forbidden Power will leave her.  And nevermore be obtainable to anyone. . . ."

Then he collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 23, 2012, 12:09:57 AM

I still say the twilight zone universe would be awesome.

Anyway, these stories are pretty incredible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2012, 07:38:48 AM

Thanks, Blaze.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
A Game Plan

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Malice was having the time in her bicentennial life.  She delighted at blasting at the RAFians, changing some of them in various things, and back again.  She laughed screeching laughs as if she were a child playing with a favored toy.  The RAFians had no defense against Malice with this Forbidden Power.  She was even more powerful than Cloak.

Yarin's ship approached, but cloaked, and slowly, cautiously.  He set his ship down a prudent distance away.  The six (Cloak was still unconscious) watched Malice's rampage.  Such pain she caused.  Such fear.  And she was not only enjoying it, she was revelling in it!

She tauntingly sang "Rubber Ducky", that old Seseme Street song, as she turned Unseen into a rubber ducky, and then she, done singing, blasted him, causing him to fly up and a considerable distance away.

"Don't toy around with me!" Malice said, as Dino, full-sized, charged at her, roaring her full fury.  Malice turned her into an ankylotyrannus toy, and gavea hearty laugh of which Jafar would be secretly jealous.

Blocky charged Malice from behind, but she was fully aware of this.  "Down, boy!" she said, whipping around, reverting him back to an egg, laughing heartily about it afterward.

***

Meanwhile, back at the ship, the six were making a gameplan.

"Noelle, can you take Cloak to the infirmary?" Phoenix asked.

<Can do.> Noelle said, affirmatively.  Thus, Cloak was drapped across her back, and she left the ship, galloping full-tilt to the infirmary, easily passing the notice of Malice, who was turning Ash into a tub of goo, whilst making a horrible pun about it.

"That's done," Phoenix said, heavily.  "Now, the only matter that remains is getting the staff away from Malice and destroying that orb on it."

"Yeah, 'coz that'll be so easy." Blaze said, snidely.  "She'll never let that thing go.  She'll know our intentions immediately after we make an attempt to take it from her."

"Perhaps a distraction," Gaz suggested.  "People don't like bats in their face.  I could go into bat mode and get in her face.  Literally."

"That could work," Parker said.  "But we really should have a continency plan.  As a backup."

"Right," Phoenix concurred.  "Yarin, we need you to sneak into the communications.  Contact Estelore.  We may need her."

"But she was exploring another sector of the galaxy," Yarin pointed out, "it could take her days, months, or even years to return.  And time is one thing that we're not blessed with!"

"True," Phoenix said, "a valid point.  But we'll need her just the same."

"Okay.  Just don't bank on her comin' to the rescue."

"The rest of us . . . well, we know what we must do." Phoenix said, standing straight and tall. "Let's go."

***

Malice could not remember a time when she laughed so much, had so much fun, or felt so powerful.  She had just turned poparena into a box of movie popcorn, as well as making the obligatorily lame pun.  Naturally, she threw her head back and let out a ghastly guffaw.

But then, suddenly, she had a face full of bat wings and angry screeches.  Her good mood instantly evaporated.  She was annoyed.  Irritated.  But not harmed at all.  She swatted the bat away with her staff -- or tried to.  She used her own energy to blast the bat -- Gaz -- away, to discover Parker, Phoenix, and Blaze attempting to pull the staff from her.  She felt a wave a rage, a feeling she was most accustomed to feeling.  She blasted the three away with bolts of red lightning.

"YOU . . . DARE . . . TO . . . TAKE . . . WHAT'S RIGHTFULLY MINE?!" she roared.  She waved the staff, and, in the sky, hundreds of sharp daggers appeared.  Then it began to rain down on the four. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 23, 2012, 05:29:07 PM

(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/030/e/5/knife_storm_by_ayior-d4o3dsr.png)

Knife storm.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 23, 2012, 05:45:35 PM

Finally all caught up! I was out of town last week so I wasn't able to do a beast wars recap update. I am do get one up tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2012, 06:42:47 AM

Excellent, Gaz.

Quote from: Belkar Bitterleaf on July 23, 2012, 05:29:07 PM

(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/030/e/5/knife_storm_by_ayior-d4o3dsr.png)

Knife storm.

Yeah, pretty much like that Blaze.  Only they're stationary right now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Malice's Shattered Dreams

Malice was prepared to send the knives down on the three, where she eyed Parker's armor.  With a quick zap, she turned the armor into green gelatin dessert.  What this did to Tyr was unknown.  Then she made a snatching movement with her staff, and the knave knives began to descend. . . .

ZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIP!  ZZZZZZZIIIIIP!

Cerulean had shown up and collected the knives, tossing them aside harmlessly.

"Nice timing," Blaze said, wearily.

"I'm all about timing," Cerulean quipped.

"Bravo, RAFian," Malice said, with a heavy-lidded look.  "But it's all for naught!"

She tried to zap Cerulean again and again.  But he easily zipped out of her way.  Malice was undeterred, however.  She stomped her staff upon the ground, and the ground beneath Cerulean's feet began to liquefy, and become like quicksand.  Cerulean uttered a cry of surprise as he sunk down to his neck with the ground began to become firmer again.

"Don't trifle with my power, boy," Malice snarled at Cerulean.

"What about me, then?" said a voice behind Malice.

Malice whipped around to see a lovely-looking woman in a bright yellow sundress and long-brimmed hat to match.  Estelore had arrived.  Malice blinked a bit, then regained her composure nearly instantaneously.

"The star," she growled.  "Even you cannot stand up to my power."

"Perhaps," Estelore said, conversationally.  "But, dear woman, you know I'll try."

"No!  Just die!"

She zapped Estelore . . . but all she seemed to manage to do is make Estelore's hat and dress into a royal purple and her hair was now more wintry*.  Estelore looked at her clothing with feigned interest.  Suddenly the dress became a form-fitting Kevlar bodysuit, the hat gone completely, and her hair -- summer again -- was drawn up into a tight bun.  Hellooooo, Warrior Estelore.**

"A costume change?" Malice snorted.  "You think that will save you?"

Estelore smiled benignly at Malice's barb, giving her a coy look, but said nothing.  This incensed Malice, and she tried to zap Estelore again, who leaned ever-so-slightly to the left.  The bolt missed Estelore completely and turned the thread behind her into a hamburger.

"A hamburger?  Really?" Estelore said, brightly.

Malice seemed to take Estelore's refusal to take this seriously as a personal insult, and, in her rage, started blasting things left and right.  Several threads were turned into a duck, a moai head, a clock, a candelabra, among others.

Meanwhile, Parker, Blaze, and Phoenix were gathering their senses.  Gaz was still knocked out cold, although still in bat mode.  In an instant, though still unconscious, she resumed her human form.

"Parker, shoot it now!" Phoenix commanded.

"Don't look a me!  Blaze is the one with a weapon!" Parker said, indicating his gelatin armor***, which felt cold and strange against his skin.

"Oh," Blaze exclaimed.  "Right.

He held up his sword which was glowing mostly green with a bit of red tossed in.  He changed it into a javelin, which surprised him a little -- Cloak had told him that it could turn into only melee weapons.  Apparently, Cloak was wrong.  The tip of the javelin still glowed green with that bit of red.  Blaze ****ed his arm back, and the threw it with all his might.

SMASH!

The sound of tinkling glass was heard after the impact.  Blaze whooped with exhilaration.  Parker was relishing in the fact that all that changed was being reverted to normal, and, as such, his armor was back -- cleaner than it was when it was changed, Parker noticed.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Malice roared loudly.  "I'll have my revenge upon you, star.  Mark my words!"

Then she vanished, as RAF was returning to normal.  The RAFians were celebrating . . . but in the infirmary, Cloak still slept on.

---
*Something I remembered from "Fairly Oddparents", actually.

**Animaniacs reference.

***I don't think that this'll be a fashion statement that'll catch on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2012, 08:33:37 AM

Last chapter of Book XIII.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Hidden Distrust

Cloak awoke nearly two days later.  His body still felt a little stiff and sore.  He saw Goom nearby, sitting on a stool, gazing intently at some sort of computer diagnostic.  Cloak raised himself into a sitting position with a small groan.  Goom heard this, and turned.

"Ah, Cloak.  You're awake!"

Suddenly, Cloak remembered everything that happened.  Goom saw the reaction, and made a calm-down gesture -- which for goombas involved their feet, and looked quite odd.

"Relax, Cloak.  The staff's orb was shattered by Blaze two days ago.  It's gone."

Cloak let out a deep sigh, and relaxed a little.

"Okay," Goom said, hopping off the stool -- which probably took a bit of effort getting onto -- and looked up at Cloak, "how do you feel?"

"A bit sore," Cloak said, his voice a bit muddied due to lack of use.  "But that'll go away in a couple of days."

"Okay," Goom affirmed.  "I'm afraid that I won't be much help to you medically.  Realm Walker physiology is still an unknown.  Maybe if I can converse with your mother --"

"That's a bad idea," Cloak said roughly.

"Oh, okay." Goom said, noticing Cloak's reaction.

"It's not you.  It's her.  She can be . . ." Cloak fished around for an appropriate term or phrase, "difficult to be around."

"Right," Goom said, still eyeing Cloak carefully.  "You're discharged from the infirmary.  Please, do be careful."

***

Cloak became aware over the next few days of quiet whispering by RAFians who did not know him and he did not interact with often.  They were questioning where he went and why he had to go alone.  Cloak would not tell any of them.  He did not want to remember.  RAFian friends of his -- Blaze, Gaz, Noelle, Parker, Aquilai, Dino, and Esty among them -- honored this and left it alone.

But things were exacerbated by the hopped-up little despot, Rotiart, seemed to want to stir up trouble by opening questioning Cloak's motives, actions, and inactions.  He did it subtly and carefully.  Cloak quickly found himself not liking the little upstart.  Little did Cloak or the others know the truth about Rotiart. . . .

***

"I had it all!" Malice raged in her hideout in the Nexus.  "The Power was mine!!  That star . . . she distracted me while one of her stupid little minions destroyed the orb . . ."

Then her eyes narrowed to the minutest of slits.

"Cloak . . . he's the one who caused me to lose all of my Power." she decided.  "Cloak was the one who told them the weakness . . . how else could they have known?"

Then she smiled sinisterly.  "And I think I have a way of making him fall out of favor with his beloved RAFians. . . ."

Then she laughed loudly and raucously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 24, 2012, 09:26:00 AM

Another awesome book.  And, I'm already intrigued by the next one!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2012, 09:53:46 AM

Thanks Dino.  We really have crossoverfan . . . er, balrog, to thank for giving me the idea for the next book.

BOOK XIV:
A FORUM OF CARDS
CHAPTER ONE:
Distrust and Suspicions

Four months had passed without incident from Malice.  But Cloak was well aware that the same RAFians that expressed distrust in him were now getting more open about their positions, led by the upstart Rotiart*.  Cloak had found himself to not only dislike the guy, but downright loathe him nearly as much as Malice, Jerry Falwell, Laura Mallory, the Butler Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Act), and anything by Lucas Cruikshank.

Cloak attempted to keep his feelings to himself, still refusing to relate anything of what happened all those months ago in the Fractured Realms.  He still felt those five younglings on his conscience.  He would never relieve that burden from his soul.

Cloak tended to spend a lot of time within his thread these days.  Some could say that it was a self-imposed isolation, but Cloak didn't know or care.  He spent his time in there trying to exorcise the guilt from his mind and soul.  But still . . . he would hear the whispers . . . doubting his motives, demonizing his actions and inactions, speculating on his positions.

Cloak was tired of it all.  Tired of the covert suspicions, the overt distrust, the glaring stares.  Time and time again, he considered that he would leave RAF.  This time permanently.  But, his RAFian friends, who vehemently denies and refuted all the subtle accusations, the lingering misconceptions, kept coming 'round to convince him otherwise.  So, Cloak put it on the back of his mind, but still considered it worth contemplation.

<Cloak?> a thought-speak voice said behind him.

"Hello, Noelle." Cloak said.  His voice had taken on a woebegone tone over the past few months.

<What are you doing?> she asked gently.

"Nothing," Cloak lied repressively.

<Cloak,> she said, her tone uncertain, <Cloak, you shouldn't listen to the dissenters.>

"Easier said than done," Cloak replied.

<Cloak, listen to me -->

"I have, Noelle," Cloak snapped uncharacteristicall y, "and I've listened to Phoenix, Gaz, Parker, Aquilai, Goom, Blaze, Rad, Yarin, Estelore, Dino, Horse, AniDragon, Faerie, and even Richard himself!  Their words do nothing to change the stares.  The talking behind my back -- don't think I don't hear it! -- all I've done for this forum, and they still doubt me."

Cloak took a breath, and continued in a calmer tone, "Noelle, it's just too hard to put up with right now.  I'd love to say that Malice is behind this somehow, somehow manipulating the other RAFians, but I know it cannot be true.  She cannot control minds."

<But she can manipulate people.  You just said yourself.>

"Doesn't mean she has a hand in it," Cloak said, feeling hollow and empty as he often did nowadays, prone to depression.

***

Meanwhile, in the Nexus, Malice was well aware of what happened to Cloak's relationship with the RAFians he did not have day-to-day interactions with.  She was elated, but not too much.  She was still smarting over losing the Forbidden Power forever.

"They turn on him," she mutters, "such foolish creatures these RAFians be.  The smallest imperfection, the minutest inconsistency, and they turn on each other.  That was far too easy!"

"Yes, my love," said another Realm Walker, hidden in shadow.

"Now, go!" she said to this hidden Realm Walker.  "Go and lure him away from the forum.  Let's make dear Cloak's predicament worse."

---
*Has anyone guessed the truth about this guy yet?  Answer this in PM!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2012, 09:09:46 AM

I think there'll only be one new chapter today.  Not feeling my best creatively now.  But don't hold me to this.

CHAPTER TWO:
Old School Chums

Cloak stood upon his favorite hill overlooking the forum.  He recalled that had once relocated the entire forum, using his mastery of the Earth Element, to this precise spot.  He had done it initially to prevent an invasion of the forum -- and you all know how well that worked out.*  Cloak stood there, arms folded tight against his body, tail swishing agitatedly beneath his cloak, and his head bowed.

Those were happier times for Cloak.  They weren't exactly easy, and Gaz has never forgotten how the vampire queen took her mind over, although she tries to downplay it.  Cloak, Esty and the mods haven't forgotten the state of suspended animation they were in when encapsulated by the ooze.  Cloak could still remember when the forum was overrun with the Technarch Phalanx, and there haven't been any relapses in that department.  No one would forget the battles with the Knights of Humanity.  Phoenix would never forget the ultimate invasiveness of being possessed by a revenant toting the eye of Sarnoth Odin.  No veteran RAFian or yearling RAFian present would forget the four stones Malice used against them, nor would they forget Malice with the Forbidden Arts.  Cloak remembered nearly losing control over his emotions that first time Malice struck Shadow.  Mr. Guy and Horse will never forget when she grew to monstrous proportions.  The battles with the Xenomorphic Brood would never be forgotten from the team who had to endure the horrors of that warship.  The subspace translocation bomb -- the STB -- that introduced the RAFians to the other Lanterns. . . .

Cloak looked at his right palm, and saw the blue stylized "R" mark glowing faintly.  The Mark of a RAFian.  He remembered how he and Goom had come to make it, under the auspices of Richard.  He remembered giving Parker the Ride Armor Matrix and Blaze that sword of his, which Cloak could see that he was polishing right now.  He loves that thing, and it amuses Cloak for some reason.

"So, how do you like it that your buddies are turnin' on you?" a voice behind Cloak said.

Cloak did not dignify the speaker by turning around.  "What do you want Abomination?"

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"Did you come to get beaten up by a little girl again?" Cloak said, smirking, still with his back to Abomination, who was incandescent with rage.  "Sorry, Shadow's not here to do such.  Perhaps I can find a hatchling to beat you up?"

"YOU BLOODY WELL KNOW THAT FIGHT WAS UNFAIR!"

Cloak smirked still, but turned to face the uppity would-be despot.

"Unfair?  She was a little girl."

"She was an Elements Master as you very bloody well know!  You trained her!!"

Cloak was starting to get bored with annoying Abomination.  It was too easy to do.  "So what do you want?"

"For you to follow me."

Cloak gave him a heavy-lidded look and said, tonelessly, "And just why would I do that?"

"Don't you trust me, Cloak?  We're school chums!"

"We were never chums," Cloak said flatly.  "perhaps, once, there could have been a chance of friendship.  But then you turned into an oversensitive bully."

Now Abomination returned Cloak's heavy-lidded look with one of his own.  "Granted.  Are you coming or not?"

"I think not," Cloak said, conversationally.

"Even if the lives of the RAFians known as Ken and Anna are on the line?"

---
*Referencing both "Intro Randomness" thread and previous books.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 25, 2012, 09:57:14 AM

Great book Cloak!   :kitty:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2012, 11:47:17 AM

Thanks, Underseen.  No new chapters today, I'm afraid.  I don't have the energy today.  Sorry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 25, 2012, 01:11:36 PM

Sweet ending. And wait, my sword can turn into ranged weapons? What else have you lied to me about? *crosses fingers* Eighteen Wheeler, Eighteen Wheeler, Eighteen Wheeler...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2012, 01:14:36 PM

No, not the eighteen wheeler, Blaze.  I don't consider that a melee or ranged weapon.  I consider that transportation.  The bow and arrow thing works because of your inherent pyrokinesis.  No guns or anything of that nature (that's pretty much Parker's schtick).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 25, 2012, 01:29:11 PM

I consider my persona to be proficient with most weapons, but only master of swordplay. I can handle myself competently with most weapons except for something unique or exotic, but the single handed sword is my weapon of choice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2012, 02:30:40 PM

*nods.*

Noted.

Pity that it won't help you out any during the next chapter -- which I'll probably post on Friday.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on July 26, 2012, 01:27:24 PM

Looking forward to the next segment. :] This has been good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2012, 07:28:10 AM

Thanks, Esty.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Better RAFTrap

Eventually Cloak, reluctantly, followed Abomination to find two of the first, if not forgotten, RAFians.  Cloak was very careful not to make jabs and sarcastic comments that may make Abomination change his mind -- he held no fear of Abomination attacking him.  Without the powers of the Twelve, his abilities were pretty much laughable.

While Cloak was doing that, Rotiart was making a big deal over his absence, really demonizing him.  He continued this until Faerie popped him upside his head.

"HEY!" he protested.

"Shaddup, n00b." she said, disconsolately.

"You have no right to do that to -- OW!" he said as she popped him upside the head again.

"You want me to stop?  Then it's simple.  Shut UP about things, matters that you know very little about."

"What?  That caped destroyer abandoning us again?" Rotiart retorted, but was slapped upside his head again.  This time by Parker.

"He's NOT 'abandoning' us, you little twit." Parker snarled.  "He has his reasons for going off.  And besides, we can handle ourselves just fine."

"Like when those Knights of Humanity were goin' to assassinate and replace the president and his cabinet?" Rotiart countered, sounding very much like a pouty, bratty four-year-old.  This event had occurred when Cloak was bouncing through the realms, going after Malice and preventing her from getting the secret Forbidden Arts.  Rotiart pressed this point, "Was this 'all-powerful' Realm Dancer there?"

<It's Realm Walker, Rotiart.> Noelle said, very formally.  She didn't like this little monster anymore than Cloak did.  <And he would be the first to tell you that he's not all powerful.>

"Semantics!" Rotiart shouted.  "How much longer before he betrays us?"

"You," Dino said, silkily, looming over the group, "are more likely to betray us, Rotiart."

"What do you mean by that?!"

"You know what I mean," she countered.  "I know that you know."

"Care to share, Dino?" Parker asked.

But, before any could speak, then that's when all hell started to break loose.

Noelle was captured and put in a strange, Ramonite-zoodeitium polymer box.  She checked herself out, and found that she was uninjured.  But the natural Andalite claustrophobia was burdening her.  She did not like being in this enclosed place.  What's more, the walls of the box shifted.  It was getting smaller.  Losing all pretext, she screamed and screamed.

Gaz was seized and put in an area of land where she was surrounded by crosses -- preventing her from walking out.  Garlic dangled from the tops of those, preventing her from flying out or misting out.  Then she looked up.  There was a piledriver-like device with wooden stakes made from a variety types of wood.  Every minute, it decided half an inch towards her.  Gaz knew she was screwed -- she would be staked!!

Ash and Unseen were flash frozen by a Mr. Freeze-styled gun.  Dino, Parker, Faerie, and Sakki had devices planted on the back of their heads which projected a villain for them to fight -- one that they cannot defeat.  Tyr's systems were hijacked so that he could not tell Parker otherwise.  Horse had a device planted on the back of her head that made her aquaphobic (fear of water), psychrophobic (fear of cold), and cryophobic (fear of ice) -- effectively removing her usefullness as a battler, considering that she's a hydrokinectic and cryokinetic.  Blaze was given the same treatment as Noelle.

"Where's you beloved Cloak now?!" Rotiart shouted.  He had nothing done to him, it would seem.  But he's basically the RAFian incarnation of Peter Pettigrew, only more outspoken.  "Where's he to save us?!"

"US?!?!" Gaz roared.  "YOUR FREE, YOU LITTLE WORM!  SAVE US, YOU COWARD!!"

But he did nothing but shake in paroxysms of fear.  The other RAFians were doomed . . . that is, until Richard showed up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 27, 2012, 10:42:15 AM

We don't seem to be in any particular danger beyond the inconvenience. And me being unable to stretch my wings...in a tight box...with the air supply getting smaller...GET ME THE HELL OUT CLOAK!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2012, 10:44:30 AM

You do know the box is getting smaller, right, Blaze?

And I'm nowhere near you guys to help. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on July 28, 2012, 08:25:26 PM

Can't wait to read the next installment.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on July 29, 2012, 04:03:07 AM

Nice wrap up; and great start. One point of order: Tyr is a guy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2012, 08:24:00 AM

Fixed it, Parker.  Well, I'll probably post another chapter tomorrow.

Well . . . the tentative titles (hopefully not giving too much away) for the next books are:


• XV: The Book of Very Bad Things
• XVI: Who's Who?
• XVII: The Last RAFian
• XVIII: The Intergalactic Collector
• XIX: The Clone Wars
• XX: The Darwin Gun
• XXI: The Other Side of the Tracks
• XXII: Pits of Terror
• XXIII: RAFComix
• XXIV: The First Master -- no RAFian (other than brief cameos of me in the beginning and end) appears in this book
• XXV: The Musical
• XXVI: Outage Outrage
• XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• XXVIII: The Deadly Rings
• XXIX:RAF Demented
• XXX: The Music Miser
• XXXI: The Metal Maker
• XXXII: Richard Is Missing
• XXXIII: Wild Emotions
• XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• XXXV: Richard's Horn -- probably the last book of a certain "RAFian" . . . ;)
• XXXVI: Feral Scream -- Gaz might already be able to guess this book's plot.
• XXXVII: Predators & Prey -- Thanks to Blaze for this idea -- though he probably doesn't know that he gave me this idea . . .
• XXXVIII: Protean Problem
• XXXIX: The Horsemen
• XL: Royal Pains in the Neck
• XLII: RAF's Nightmare*
• XLIII: Unlucky Charms*
• XLIV: The Piper*
• XLV: The Wishing Star* -- Oh, Estelore will have a good reveal in this story, I think.
• XLVI: An Armor War* -- Yes, Parker'll definitely be in this one.
• XLVII: The Very Worst Plague*
• XLVIII: Tiny Alien War*

Yeah, I've been busy outside of RAF.  But it was either this or depression (due to my, uh, finicial situation).  The ones marked with the asterisk (*) I haven't done the chapter-by-chapter planning for.

Maybe if I've more time, I'll post another chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 29, 2012, 08:28:42 AM

You really plan ahead cloak. Oh God, I accidentally gave Cloak an idea. Knowing all the crazy s*** that flies out of my mouth, it could be anything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2012, 08:34:30 AM

What can I say?  I do prefer to plan ahead.

And you know eventually, I may very well run out of ideas.  Of course, by then, there'll be more books than Pokemon. . . . Speaking of which -- when I get my copy of Black 2, this thread'll be on a hiatus.  It should give Phoenix plenty of time to catch up.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Cloak's Curiosity Weakness

Cloak travelled behind Abomination for several moments in abject silence.  One could literally feel the friction between the two.  Once they were friends, when they were young.  But they grew apart when Cloak lost all in Abomination's arrogance and imporportionate ego.  Whatever deflated his ego had to go.  Cloak had done this several times, unaware of his former friend's decent into bullying.  Cloak could not abide by that, but he also couldn't help but to pity the poor, foolish creature before him.  His sheer arrogance and constant need to have his ego stroked had left him with very few, if any, friends.  He was never as powerful as he thought he should be, and he was, Cloak guessed, jealous of Cloak's mastery over the elements.  Abomination's lust for power is another thing that makes him so pitifully weak.

Cloak knew he wasn't without faults of his own, but supposed his biggest weakness was his feline curiosity, a trait all feline creatures, be them Realm Walker or Realm Dweller, possessed.  That's the thing with Realm Walkers -- they have weaknesses, but they are always intangible -- that is to say, not physical.  Sure, Cloak had freely expressed a dislike of loud sounds or extremely odoriferous things, but those weren't his true weakness.

With all this introspection, Cloak and Abomination walked on.  And on.  And on.  Cloak was starting to become suspicious, his gut telling him that something was very wrong.

"You don't know where June and Alan are, do you?" Cloak said, voice like shattered ice.

"Yes, I do!" Abomination protested, with mock offense.  "Their there.  Just beyond --"

Cloak stopped walking and glared at Abomination with feelings of the deepest loathing.  Cloak hated himself for falling into such a clumsy trap.  Abomination clearly had wanted Cloak to arrive at a particular location.  But why?

"You lied to me," Cloak said, voice colder than Pluto.

"Nuh-huh!" Abomination protested stupidly.

"And I was fool enough to think you trustworthy with any information," Cloak said, tone not changing.  Sage would have rebuked Cloak severely had he been alive.

"What I said is true!  June and, uh, Ellen are just, uh," he stammered.

"You can't even keep the names straight," Cloak noted, giving Abomination that heavy-lidded look.  "There is no June, Ellen, or Alan."

"Wha -- yes, there are!  And if you don't follow me --"

"Oh, shut up, you jabbering knave.  I see now you just said 'Ken' and 'Anna' at random.  And I trusted that you were being truthful." Cloak snarled.  "I have done foolish things before, but --"

Cloak facepalmed as he shook his head.

"You're going over there whether you want to or not." Abomination said, his voice threatening now.  But Cloak wasn't feeling fear, at all.  Abomination, at his core, was a bully.  And a bully is virtually powerless if one doesn't feed him fear.

"And just who's gonna make me?  You, Abomination?  You, who could not defeat an eleven-year-old girl?  What chance can you have against me without the stolen powers of the Twelve?"

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!! AND THAT PUNK KID HAD AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE!!"

"Oh, stop your whining." Cloak snapped.

"That's far enough, though, dear," a voice said.  Cloak needn't turn around.  He knew who it was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2012, 09:37:49 PM

One more chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Wrath of the RAFians

Richard unlocks the boxes holding Noelle and Blaze, after he deactivates it's shrinking mechanism.  Noelle is shaking in paralyzing fear and Blaze, as his name describes, was blazing mad.  Tongues of flame dripped down each feather of his wings.  His body was shaking with rage, only his sword hand remained calm and steady.

"WHO'S . . ." Blaze began, before gaining control over his emotions, "who's bright idea . . . who's responsible for this?!"

"Blaze," Richard said, mind still on the task at hand, having freed Cerulean from an evil tread mill.  Cerulean had noticed that Ash and Underseen were smashed once frozen.  He used all his super speed had to offer to reassemble the two. "We need your pyrokinesis.  Free Ash and Unseen from their icy prisions."

Blaze blinked.  "Oh, okay.  But we're gonna come back to this."

Yarin, having just arrived after a prolonged trip to Nya, managed to free Horse from the aquaphobia and cryophobia that were foisted upon her, and she blinked bewilderedly.  She glanced around, and asked, "what happened?"

Aquilai showed up in his TARDIS, looked around, and sighed, "Go for a vacation in the twenty-first and a half century*, and when I come back, everything goes to pot."

And without a second thought, he undoes the devices condemning Parker, Sakki, and Dino to eternally battle foes that they would never be able to defeat.  They were stunned, and Parker was demanding Tyr have an explanation, but he had none. . . .

Soon enough, all the trapped RAFians were freed.  But none too happy.

"How'd -- whoever it is that did this -- know our weaknesses?" Gaz asked.

"That realm-walking dolt's files, probably," Rotiart said.

"Cloak didn't have any user files." Blaze snarled.

"He did make a species index." a RAFian piped up from nowhere.

"It's not like he encrypted those!" Parker snapped.  "They were public -- I know.  I helped write some."

"Well, I suppose the vampiric weaknesses were well-documented." Gaz mused.

<And everyone knows Andalites, as a species, are claustrophobic.> Noelle thought aloud.

"And what makes you think he didn't have files on how to defeat all of you?" Rotiart insisted.

"That's enough, Rotiart!" Dino roared.  It sounded like a tyrannosaur roar intermingling with the words.

"Geez, Rotiart!  What's your beef with Cloak?" Phoenix said, eyeing the newbie wearily.

But still some of the RAFians, ones that don't have regular contact with Cloak and are themselves fairly new, seemed convinced of Rotiart's arguments.

---
*Duck Dodgers reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 29, 2012, 09:55:48 PM

Why has this guy not been banned by now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 29, 2012, 11:12:58 PM

I just realized that Unseen is a nickname for me... WHY AM I SO SLOW

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2012, 06:45:24 AM

Actually it's because of my limited memory. :facepalm:

I keep thinking that IS your username. :facepalm: :-[

And there's a reason that Rotiart hasn't been Banned just yet. . . . although admittingly he'll fade away from the story until Book XXXV. . . .

CHAPTER SIX:
Pity for the Abomination

Abomination circled around Cloak and stood beside the newcomer.  Cloak could almost feel Abomination's gloating smile.  Stupid fool.

Cloak shut his eyes in a silent prayer for patience, and he managed to control his rage, but only just.  He knew that voice.  It was the voice that taunted him throughout the Fractured Realms.  The person who slain innocent Psychespian children to obtain that which she desired.  Cloak wore a look of deepest loathing and narrowed his eyes.

"Malice," he said.  "I should have known that this would have been your plan.  Abomination has had, like, one good plan in his entire lifespan."

"HEY!"

"Calm yourself, my love," Malice said.  "We can tend to this later."

These words are what caused Cloak to turn around, and looked around at Malice and Abomination.  They were arm in arm, almost like . . . like they were dating.  Abomination dating someone old enough to be his grandmother?  Well, it wasn't unheard of.

But Malice?  Really?  Malice has never known love.  She's never felt love for anyone but herself.  She was a narcissist to the core, and Abomination didn't seem to be aware of this fact.

"You're . . . together?" Cloak said with a raised eyebrow.

"What of it, Stripes?" Abomination said aggressively -- reminding Cloak irresistibly of Tom Wilson's portrayal of Biff Tennan.  But then, why not?  Abomination had about the same number of smarts as the said character.

"Abomination, even you can't be so blind." Cloak retorted.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" he roared.  Really, it was interesting how easily provoked he could be.  He wasn't this way before Shadow kicked his butt -- perhaps he never lived it down.  "And I'm NOT blind, you --" and he ended that sentence with a Realm Walker expletive.

"Language, dear," Malice cooed.  "You needn't resort to childish namecalling."

"Oh, but that's a major part of his predictable stragedies," Cloak intoned.

"Why you little --"

"CALM yourself -- dear," Malice said, almost losing her cool.

"Abomination -- oh shut up for a minute and listen! -- Malice cannot love anyone.  She doesn't know how.  She's never felt love once in her life.  She is using you."

"Liar!"

"And what do you want me for, Malice?  Surely, you need not have gone through all this trouble?" Cloak said, with a business-like tone and his arms folded against his chest.

"Oh, I just wanted to get you out of the way for a little while," Malice said, unable to resist the supervillian-monologuing cliche.  "Long enough while I put my REAL plan in action."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2012, 02:22:40 PM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Malice Monologues

"What plan?" Cloak snarled, hoping to appeal to her cliche supervillian ego.  She had a great weakness for the theatrical and long-winded speeches.  "Wasn't getting me here enough of you plan?"

"Foolish boy!" Malice said with a scream of laughter.  "Surely you jest!  What made you ever think that we were interested in bring you here?"

"But you said --" Abomination began.

"Hush, now, my love." Malice said, without any sentiment.  Abomination seemed to have missed this distinction.

Cloak remained motionless and kept his face deliberately emotionless.  He knew her inner need to gloat about her machinations would reveal all that was necessary.  Eventually, she could no longer resist explaining and gloating about her newest scheme.

"Your RAFian allies give you strength, no?  Bolster your resolve, enable you to perform braver feats than if you were alone, right?"

Cloak did not answer.  He waited for Malice to continue.  She was merely goading him right now.  To what ends, Cloak didn't know.  Yet.

"Oh, you don't want to play?" she said in a mockingly sweet voice.  "Oh, okay.  Well, you know the answer, anyway.  We all do."

"I don't." Abomination whined.

"Quiet, love.  I'm talking." Malice said in voice like poisoned honey.  She turned back to Cloak, who was still standing stock still.  "Anyway, dear boy, don't you wonder what's going on in RAF with your absence?"

Cloak hid his surprise.  He had not.  His feline curiosity had gotten the better of him.  He had not paused to consider whether his fellow RAFians could be in need of his assistance.  He suppressed his alarm and kept his face resolutely blank, and said nothing.

Malice continued, "No, of course not.  You are easily lead astray, boy.  Your grandfather wouldn't have so easily fallen for that ploy."

Malice was goading him again, he knew.  So he ignored it . . . as best as he could.  Then he noticed that Abomination had gone.  How could he be so foolish?  But where had he gone?

"Oh, he's not here," Malice said, conversationally.  "He's gone to plant the bombs."

"Bombs?" Cloak demanded, dropping all pretense.  "What bombs?"

"Oh, the viral nanite kind." Malice said, suddenly sipping from a Realm Walker version of a martini.  "Once activated they will alter the neural pathways of all sentient Dwellers."

"Alter?!" Cloak said, rage bubbling its way forcibly to the surface.

"Well, yes," Malice said in a coy tone.  "At first, it will just alter there speaking and language pathways.  Like that Babble Tower story that those humans are so fond of."

Cloak stared at her.  That was her plan?  To create a Tower of Babel scenario on Earth?  There had to be something more to it than that.

"And, after twelve hours or so after activation, the brain becomes a degenerated mass of slushy gray stuff." Malice said, fishing a berry out of her glass.

"You're a monster," Cloak choked out, fighting his anger and rage -- a lifelong struggle with him.

"I'm glad you noticed! . . . It took you long enough." Malice replied.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 30, 2012, 05:14:35 PM

We talked about the Tower of Babel at church yesterday....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 30, 2012, 05:19:29 PM

We should destroy them with our own bigger bombs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2012, 05:40:36 PM

I'd rather not have a crescent-moon planet, Blaze.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 30, 2012, 05:41:30 PM

At least he didn't say "We should destroy their bombs with our bombs."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2012, 06:00:44 PM

What reference is that, Underseen?

BTW, no new chapters tomorrow, probably.  Got business to attend to. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 30, 2012, 06:19:56 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on July 30, 2012, 05:40:36 PM

I'd rather not have a crescent-moon planet, Blaze.

Imagine the scientific potential as we were thrown off the course of rotation and eventually rocketed into the sun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 30, 2012, 07:34:29 PM

It wasn't a reference to anything, just an ironic joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2012, 08:03:08 AM

Ah.  Well, it looks like my business today had to be postpone due to weather.  So, I may post another chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 31, 2012, 08:36:25 AM

My weather is 110 degrees out here, so if it is rain you are lucky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2012, 08:58:49 AM

Not with a house that's falling apart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 31, 2012, 09:37:25 AM

That is happening to my grandma in Florida. She doesn't even care about it. The joys of being old...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2012, 12:35:34 PM

A joy that I'll probably never experience.  Right now, I'll feel lucky to make it to 28.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 31, 2012, 03:59:22 PM

No need to be so hard on yourself...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on July 31, 2012, 04:42:16 PM

Sorry Cloak, hope things will get better.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2012, 05:35:59 PM

Probably won't.  But never mind that, I'll post another chapter soon.  I . . . I just don't feel up to it at the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 01, 2012, 08:32:55 PM

It's not like you are timed, no need to hurry.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 02, 2012, 08:23:58 AM

Take your time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2012, 08:34:31 PM

Thanks, guys.

Got two new ideas:

• Book XLVII: Go Away! -- *whistles "TMZ"*
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales -- *whistles "You A Mean One, Mr. Grinch"*

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Wrath of the Master

"You're too late, boy," Malice intoned.  "The bombs are already set to go off.  Abomination just activated them.  In less then three or four Dweller Earth hours, they'll go off."

It was then Cloak's rage got the better of him, his anger got away from him, he didn't register why Malice had given such a wide time limit, considering her plans.  It had not occurred to Cloak that Malice might be lying to him as much as she lied to the deluded fool Abomination.

His eyes began to leak golden-scarlet energy.  The ground beneath his feet began to tremble.  The air rush around into jets and gales of furious wind.  The trees cracked, creaked and moaned eerily and ominously.  All metal nearby shattered into deadly shrapnel, which took to orbit around Cloak in a loose ring.  Rain started to fall, but did not touch the ground upon where Cloak stood.  He sent out pulsating auras of gold and then scarlet, alternating them.  He snapped his bowed head up, and Malice realized that she probably goaded Cloak too far.

"Oh, dear," she muttered in a tone that could misconstrued as fearful.

Cloak roared a purely bestial roar and raised his arms with his fingers in a pinch gesture, and a cascade of jagged earth-spikes jutted up from the ground on either side of him.  Then his opened his hands, splayed his fingers, curved them, and brought both arms forward.  Then he stamped his right foot and punched his fist out, causing a bunch of the earthen spikes to emerge in a straight line at Malice.  All this in a few minutes, but Malice managed to evade this powered attack.

Cloak opened his mouth, and fired a beam of golden scarlett energy in the form of a monstrous roar -- a technique he just made up on the fly.  Malice was fortunate enough that this only frayed her cloak.

"This was my favorite cloak," she grumbled, as she nearly got squash by an earthen rock fashioned into a sixteen-ton weight.

Cloak tried his hand at a Focus Blast-type of attack, which missed her narrowly.

"Perhaps I went too far," she muttered as she sidestepped a barrage of metal shrapnel sent by Cloak.  She panted heavily, as she reflected in an aside, "so what if I did.  The guy is far to hopped up on his own power. . . ."

Cloak was not only fighting Malice, but fighting his own emotions.  This was the kind of thing he usually feared about his powers, losing control of his emotions, of himself.  Cloak did not like the kind of damage, the kind of horror, that this state causes him to wreak.  With a might surge of will, Cloak clenched his fists and gritted his teeth as he firmly regained control over his sensibilities.  He turned his back to Malice and began to walk away from her.

"You're running out of time," Malice snarled.  "The bombs will go off simoutaneously, you know.  Even you can't be in five places at once!"

Cloak smiled inwardly.  Malice had just slipped, she revealed that there were only five bombs.  Though, it occured to Cloak, it could just be another lie, a deliberate statement to manipulate him, as she's proven apt to do.  Cloak's brow furrowed momentarily as his slowed his pace considerably.

"You'll never succeed." she added smugly.

Cloak replied over his shoulder, without even breaking stride, "And you'll never learn."

With that he picked up the pace, heading back to RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 02, 2012, 10:12:43 PM

Focus Blast... Cloak is fighting type?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2012, 10:14:07 PM

Nope.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on August 03, 2012, 12:26:31 PM

Very cool chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2012, 07:11:40 PM

Thanks.  Just wait, Parker, you'll make an appearance in this chapter, and I'll define a little bit about the Nexus government.

CHAPTER NINE:
Nanite Nuisance

Cloak arrives back in RAF, and sees RAFians milling about.  But they weren't any RAFians that Cloak familiar with -- he only knew very few of them by face and name: Gulliver (a rather gullible and easily-decieved human boy), Skeeter (an annoying braggart of an unknown insectoid species), Itellsya (a rampant conspiracy theorist), and, of course, Rotiart, who had changed from being overtly hateful towards the Realm Walker to being subtly hateful of Cloak.

Not Cloak's first choice for help.  But beggars could not be choosers.  So, he attempted to garner their attention, but to no avail.  He was getting irritated.  The plan must be initiated now!  Now, or else, all Dwellers were doomed.  Cloak knew that Malice was drawing this out for the simple reason of watching him struggle.  Watching him be shunned by those that he counted as friends.  Cloak knew that if she really had any desire to really destroy the realm, she could just remove her cloak.

But then again, the removal of the Prime Universe -- the crux of many other universes* -- would certainly land the attention of the Realm Walker High Council, who are so kindly believing Malice to be dead.  Cloak had tried to appeal and show them proof, but they are more stubborn than Cornelius Fudge.  Doddering old fools.  All eight of them.  Deluding themselves into thinking that a villainous monster is firmly dead.  All of them covet their positions then the lives of innocents lost.

Cloak knew that had he not came to them, they would have believed that he died at Abomination's hands so long ago.  They are so willing to believe anything!  Not even the Nexus is free from the machinations of politicians.  Not even Realm Walkers are free of the taint of incompetence . . . or, as it pained Cloak to believe, corruption.  Cloak was so ashamed of this Council and its Dweller-indifferent politics, he didn't tell his RAFian comrades about it.

It is one reason he made his home among Dwellers, but now they seemed to distrust him for some reason.  Some even seemed to hate.  Some of the ones he would call friends looked confused, for whatever reason.  Demos was holding an empty waterbender waterskin, and Cloak could not imagine why.

"Demos!" Cloak called out to his friend.  "Demos!  I have some bad news!"

Demos didn't look at Cloak, but continued to eye the skin dangerously.  But he said nothing.

"Demos," Cloak repeated when he caught up to him.  "I need your --"

"Did you do it?" he said abruptly, tonelessly.  His body language didn't read friendly.

"What?"

"Did you do it?" he repeated, voice rising.

"What are you --"

Demos held up the skin, and had a very ugly look on his face.

"This was filled with water.  Water which binded me.  Holy water."  His teeth gritted on the last two words.  Cloak couldn't understand where this hostility was coming from.  Demos looked very angry, and his body was giving off subtle waves of heat, causing a slight distortion around his body, which Cloak noticed were covered in serpentine burns -- his regenerative abilities were powerless against holy item damage caused to him it would appear.  "So did you do it?  Is this skin yours?!"

"No, Demos -- I don't need a waterbending skin to --"

"Whatever!"

And he stormed away.  Cloak stood there for many minutes, shocked at what just occured.  He counted Demos among his friends, and now it would seem that Demos hated him. . . . Was all RAF like this?  Was he now an outcast?

Never mind that, Cloak thought furiously, deal with that later.  Focus on the bombs now.  You know what you must do.

And with that Cloak strode swiftly from RAF, unaware that Noelle, Parker, Blaze, Aquilai, Gaz, and Helen were following him.  Cloak plucked a small spherical item from his pocket, pressed the white button on it so that it swelled to the size of a softball.

"Well, I guess we're alone in this, Aximili." Cloak muttered to the ball in his hand.

---
*Universes like Pokemon, Halo, Ben10, etc.  depend on the Prime Universe because this universe spun them off.  While there are other universes that exist independent of this Universe -- if it was created universe by mankind in the real world, it's been spun off by this Universe.  I hope I made myself clear.  Or I probably just made it needlessly complicated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2012, 07:55:22 PM

'Nother chapter.  Because I'm in a good writing mood now.

CHAPTER TEN:
Bomb Voyage

Cloak strode until he was far enough away, and then he shut his eyes and attempted to use Earthsight to detect the bombs.  He was shocked at the fact that he was able to do so.  Even more shocked that the five bombs were within fourteen miles of each other, radiating out from RAF like a bicycle wheel.  At first, he wondered why they'd be so close . . . did Abomination just get lazy?  Did he just carelessly plant them wherever?

No . . . they were too evenly-spaced.  Too planned to be just random. . . .

Of course.  They wanted RAF to receive the brunt of the bacterial nanite infection.  Cloak's eyes widened as he realized that it would spread from RAF, and the RAFians would receive all the blame!  The bombs probably were programmed and designed not to leave any shrapnel.  It is just what Malice would do. . . .

Cloak cursed aloud, but in the Realm Walker language which sounded like an angry snarl.

<Well, that's no attitude to take,> Noelle said behind him.  Cloak suddenly felt surly and obstinate.  His hand clutched the ball tighter.

"What do you want?  Gonna blame me for something I didn't do?  Like Demos?" Cloak snapped.  He was aware how petulant it sounded, but didn't care.

"No, Cloak," Gaz said, behind him.  Cloak kept his back to him.  "Demos was emotional, he was hurt.  He's not accustomed to that kind of pain. . . ."

"Well, if I don't succeed in disabling Malice's nanite bombs, he'll be in much worse pain," Cloak said, brusquely to her.

"What?!" Parker exclaimed.

Cloak told them quickly what the story was, and he ended with he could not waste anymore time.

"Come on out, Aximili." Cloak said, and the ball he had opened up and a male Quagsire stood there staring blankly and vacantly.

<What device is that?!> Noelle cried, alarmed.

"It's a PokeBall, Noelle," Parker said, then explained the specifics to her quickly before turning to Cloak.  "How's a Quagsire gonna help you with these bombs?"

"It has the Damp ability," Cloak said, as if this was all the explanation in the world.

"Oh," Parker said with a nod.

"What?  How does that help?" Gaz queried.

"There's something about that ability, right?" Aquilai asked.  "I can't remember what it does."

"It prevents self-destructs and explosions," Cloak said.  "Now, I really must be going. . . ."

"Cloak, you don't really think we're gonna abandon you at a time like this, right?" Helen asked.

"Well, I --"

"Cloak!" Blaze said reprovingly, wagging his finger at him.  "You should know better than that!"

"Fine, okay.  But if you're gonna help me disable these bombs, you'll need to be armed."

"We can fight fine." Blaze said, haughtily.

"No, you misunderstand me." Cloak said, bringing out another four PokeBalls.

<There's seven of us,> Noelle pointed out.

"You can only carry six Pokemon at a time," Cloak explained.  "And besides, there's only five bombs."

Cloak pointed out the vague directions that he picked up from Earthsight.  Then he handed "Daisy" the Golduck to Gaz and "Skippy" the Swampert* to Noelle.  Helen and Parker shared "Katara" the Poliwrath, while Aquilai and Blaze shared "Kermit" the Politoed.  Cloak kept Aximili to himself.

"Now, let's get going.  Time's of the essence!" Cloak commanded authoritatively.

---
*Damp is Swampert's Hidden Ability.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 03, 2012, 09:48:29 PM

Wow, Pokemon are in this chapter... I should have saw this coming!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on August 04, 2012, 11:53:55 AM

All caught up, great chapters.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 04, 2012, 04:34:27 PM

You have four hours, and their all within fourteen miles of RAF. Seems like a cakewalk. But things are never that easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on August 04, 2012, 05:36:43 PM

Especially since you, Gaz, and Helen can fly. I can run extremely fast, as can Noelle. You may have to carry Aquilai. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2012, 05:47:11 PM

Right, I'll be posting another chapter soon enough.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Debunked Detonations

Cloak, having sent the others on their way, dashed forward . . . briefly returning Axilimili to his PokeBall after Cloak remembered Quagsire were not all that fast to begin with.  Cloak looked around as he dashed forward.  He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but the impression he got was that it was a large, roughly cylindrical device . . .

There!

It looked like one of those Gigaremo devices used by Dim Sun criminals in Almia, only with a counter atop it and colored the vilest shade of green.  It read "3:30" Realm Walker script, which means that he had plenty of time to try and disarm the thing.  Which was good, he realized as he sent Aximili back out, because he didn't know anything about disarming bombs.

"Quaaag?"

"You don't know anything about disarming bombs, either, huh?" Cloak said to the Quagsire, with a small, rueful smirk.

"Sire?"

"Ah, that's right," Cloak said, setting to work, "you have no idea what I'm talking about."

"Quagsire!"

"Don't get uppity, I'm just teasing."

Eventually Cloak got nowhere with his work, and got so frustrated he fired flames around the accursed thing.  He blinked in surprise and shock at the effectiveness that this had.

"Quag sire sire Quag!"

"Oh, stop gloating," Cloak snapped, "you didn't know that was going to work any more than I did."

***

Gaz had gone batty, carrying the Pokeball in her feet.  She didn't think she'd be able to, but it turned out to be lighter than she thought.  So, she flapped relentlessly and resolutely to the location Cloak indicated.  She set down for a minute, reverting to her human form, because she needed to rest a bit.  She held the PokeBall up, and dropped it accidentally.

Daisy came out full of vim and vigor.  Then she looked around, but did not see Cloak, and she worried that maybe she was abandoned.  Then she saw Gaz with her PokeBall.  She tried to impress Gaz with her strength and ability -- which amused Gaz to no end.  Daisy was always bit of an attention-hog, so she ate this up.  But then she looked off into the distance, suddenly concerned.

"What?  What is it -- hey, hold up!" Gaz said as Daisy started sprinting towards the source of her disquiet.  Daisy would look over her shoulder to see if Gaz was keeping up.  She was.  Then, before them, was a bloodred Gigaremo bomb.

"There it is," Gaz said, "but here's the important question, how do I destroy it?"

Daisy looked at Gaz for instruction, but Gaz still puzzled.  She noticed that area seemed quite arid, and wondered about that aloud.  Daisy took this as a signal, a subtle command, to spray the device with water.

"What?  What are you doing?" Gaz said confused.

Daisy stopped, looking somewhat ashamed, as if she let down Gaz.  But there was an angry puff of smoke and the thing fell apart.

"Well, that was convenient."

***

"I can run, you know, Helen," Parker said, petulantly.

"This is faster, hon," Helen replied.

"Are you implying something?"

"Don't take it so personally!"

And they continued to happily bicker until they came upon the Gigaremo bomb, colored school bus yellow.

"It's kinda pretty," Helen commented.

"Pity it's purpose is sinister," Parker said, brusquely.  Then he set to work disarming the thing, as Helen fawned over Katara the Poliwrath.  Katara seemed to like the attention, but took it more stoically than Daisy.  It took him an hour and a half, but he accomplished it, and saw the structures basically evaporate into nothingness.

"Hmm . . . Cloak was right about the 'leave-no-trace' thing." Parker mused.  Helen sneaked a kiss while he said this, and Parker blushed beneath his helmet.

***

"If we get outta this thing alive, you really got to go on a diet!" Blaze complained.

"Oh, shut up and keep flying." Aquilai snapped.  Then added, "don't you dare drop me."

"Don't tempt me!"

Then, when Blaze could not fly anymore, he landed and unceremoniously dropped Aquilai three feet to the ground, where he landed on his posterior.

"Gee, thanks." Aquilai grumbled.

"Just find that stupid bomb and be done with it," Blaze snarled.  Then he sent out Kermit, who seemed to believe Blaze to be some unknown Pokemon.  This annoyed Blaze greatly.

"Stop attacking me, you stupid toad!" Blaze roared the the Politoed, who was playfully spraying Blaze with a jet of water.

They found the Gigaremo bomb, colored a rather nauseatingly shade of blue.  Aquilai set to work at once with his trusty sonic screwdriver while Blaze "played" with Kermit -- and by "playing", he was constantly getting attacked and annoyed by the green menace.

"Aquilai, hurry up!!"

"Patience is a virtue . . ."

"Screw patience!  Hurry up!"

"There . . . that should . . ." Aquilai said, before a plume of black smoke deposited soot on his face, which Blaze snickered at.  "Oh, enough of this!"

Then Aquilai fired a blast of lightning into the bomb which burped a small streak of black smoke, then dissolving into nothingness.

"Oh, that's it!" Blaze said, seizing Kermit's PokeBall, "return to your PokeBall!"

Kermit did, allowing Blaze to breath a sigh of relief.  Then Kermit popped out of the PokeBall five minutes later.

"This is so not funny," Blaze grumbled.

***

Noelle galloped toward the location described to her, she used her stalk eyes to see, one to pay attention to where she's going and one to watch her back, while her main eyes were gazing at the strange device she was carrying.  Such an odd creation.  Why did they capture these unusual creatures?  These pokey-men?  Cloak and Parker seemed sure that they would prevent the detonation of these devices.

Noelle came upon a Gigaremo bomb -- one blacker than night.  Noelle set to work after letting Skippy stretch his legs.  Skippy stood beside Noelle, curiously looking at her, as if he could help.

<Such a sweet thing,> Noelle commented affectionately.

Within a hour or two, the bomb was disarmed and disintegrated.

<That's done,> Noelle said, heaving a deep sigh.  <Come on, Skippy, let's go.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 04, 2012, 06:21:53 PM

It hopefully will be up after my basketball game...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2012, 07:16:13 PM

Yep, and it's a rather lengthy one.  I was gonna post another one . . . but I just don't have the energy right now. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 04, 2012, 08:28:06 PM

I could totally be a pokemon. Perfectly willing to engage in battle if I can get some burn heals first.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on August 04, 2012, 10:01:25 PM

Have to say one thing since it was rather unceremonious... I have a TARDIS and newB wants to fly me O.o? Ah well. At least I got to throw lightning! (And watch newB vs Politoed :XD:)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on August 05, 2012, 06:16:03 PM

That'd be hilarious to see. Politoed blasting Blaze with Hydro Cannon. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2012, 06:17:17 PM

You mean Hydro Pump, right?  Politoed can't learn Hydro Cannon . . . for that matter, I don't know if it can learn Hydro Pump!

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Malice Moment

The five met up a mile or two from RAF, and the others prepared to return Cloak's Pokemon.

"Daisy was funny," Gaz commented to Cloak, handing him Daisy's PokeBall, which disappeared into his pocket.  "She was full of vim and vigor."

"She was always an attention seeker.  Even as a Psyduck." Cloak said.  "I trust you succeeded as I have?"

"Yep."

<As did I, with this wonderfully astute creature's assistance.  Such a curious fellow, that Skippy.> Noelle said, handing cloak his PokeBall.

"Yes, he was always calm-natured." Cloak acknowledged.

"Katara was so muscly and tough," Helen commented reverently, handing Cloak her PokeBall.  "So stoic."

"We succeeded too, Cloak," Parker grumbled a bit.

"Oh, you know I love you, too, Parker," Helen said, kissing his helmet.  He blushed again.  Cloak smirked.

"Don't smirk like that, Cloak," Parker said reproachfully.

Blaze looked around jumpily.  He was still soaked.  He thrust the PokeBall at Cloak.  "HERE, TAKE IT!!"

"Why are you . . ."

But suddenly Kermit popped out of his PokeBall, and chased Blaze around, blasting him with water.  Aquilai couldn't resist a laugh.  Cloak suppressed a smile, and shouted in a clear, crisp voice.  "Kermit!  You naughty boy!  Return!"

Kermit complied reluctantly, disappointed he couldn't play with Blaze anymore.

"Little monster!" Blaze cursed.

The rest of them couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"It's not funny!" Blaze protested profusely.

***

"My love," Abomination was saying.  "They've destroyed the bombs!"

"Oh," Malice said, not seeming terribly bothered by this turn of events, "that's not important, my love."

"Wh-what?" Abomination said.  He could not fathom why she wasn't more upset by this setback.  Her plan had failed again!  Her scheming was all for naught!  Why wasn't she more angry or hateful or anything?

"It doesn't matter," Malice said, running her finger seductively under his chin.  "They wouldn't blow anyway.  They were too clunky, too obvious targets."

"They were heavy!" Abomination protested.  "And you're saying that I hauled them there for nothing?!"

"Calm yourself," Malice said, still in that calm, sultry tone.  "It was necessary.  It was a diversionary tactic."

It took Abomination a minute to figure out what that meant.

"A . . . a diversion?  From what?"

"Until I could get everything to fall into place."

"For?"

"Why, Cloak's Banning, of course!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2012, 11:47:41 AM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Indictment

Cloak, Gaz, Noelle, Parker, Helen, Aquilai, and Blaze walked toward RAF, with Blaze shaking the water out of his hair, looking thoroughly put out.  But it was a jocular, lighthearted scene with the seven of them crossing the threshold into the utopian forum.  But, sadly, this happy, pleasant atmosphere would not last.  For, as the seven entered the forum, Cloak was accosted by several new RAFians, and a few veteran RAFians.  He managed to defend himself, pulling all his defensive techniques, so they did not kill anyone.

"What's going on here?!" Gaz demanded.

<Have you taken leave of your senses!> Noelle roared.  <Stop it!  Stop it, I say!>

"What gives you savage N00bs the right?!" Parker shouted with righteous indignation.  "You have no right to do this!  Cloak has done nothing wrong!"

"That's up for debate," a shadowy figure said.

Helen identified him easily.  "Rotiart!  Still on this, are you?"

Aquilai facepalmed, and then massaged his temples with two fingers on each side, as if praying for patience.  "You . . . have . . . no . . . PROOF!"

"Yeah," Blaze put in, "don't go on about things that you know nothing about!"

"Oh, I have proof of this one's underhanded dealings," Rotiart retorted.  Cloak wondered where the mods were.  Surely they'd never let Rotiart's efforts into turning RAF into a tyranny come to pass.

"What are you talking about?" Gaz said skeptically, eyebrow raised.

"Oh, I see.  I see that you haven't told them your little secret," Rotiart said, directly addressing Cloak.  Then his tone changed from a fiendish whisper into ringing tones.  "Well, here's your chance.  Tell them -- tell them all -- what this is!!"

He produced a rather primitive-looking floppy disk.  Cloak had though they were obsolete by now.

"I dunno.  Conspiracy theories to forward to Weird Al? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpocalypse#Stop_Forwarding_That_Crap_To_Me)" Cloak joked.  Then he realized that this joke didn't go over so well.

"Don't feign ignorance," Rotiart said, dramatically.  "Don't dare to try and claim innocence when this was found in your thread!"

"You searched my thread?  Without permission?" Cloak said, calmer than he felt.  He felt that his privacy had been severely compromised.  He imagined that the fabric that he deliberately lined his thread with was probably in tatters.  But that was but a minor inconvience.  What Rotiart claimed was not only impossible, as Cloak didn't have any outdated floppy disks like that.  And no one knew what could be on it -- no one had anything to read such a thing anymore, although Cloak noted that he could be mistaken.

"That's against the rules, Rotiart!  Unlawful search and seizure, and all that," Parker pointed out.

"That doesn't matter --"

"The HELL it doesn't!" Parker shot.

"I got a warrant from Richard himself." Rotiart offered.

"What?!" Gaz said aghast.

"You're lying." Helen hissed.  "You must have forged his name or something."

"I assure you, I didn't." Rotiart said calmly.  "Now, Cloak's been indicted, and he is confined to his thread until the trial."

<You haven't the authority to --> Noelle protested.

"Oh, don't I?" Rotiart whipped out a document signed by the mods, but whipped it back into his coat pocket before anyone could read so much as word one.

"That's a forgery!" Aquilai claimed.

"You have no proof of that."

"And you have no proof against Cloak!" Helen shouted.

"Guys," Cloak said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Rotiart.  "Let's go through with this 'trial'.  Let's see what he really has."

<Cloak, you cannot be serious.> Noelle said, aghast.

"Rotiart has broken more rules than I have," Cloak said, lowering his voice enough for Rotiart to be unable to hear, "and I'll make sure that he's on trial as much as I am."

"Hey!  Stop conspiring with the enemy!" he shouted.

Cloak gave Rotiart such an icy stare, it seemed almost as if Rotiart would be frozen stiff.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 06, 2012, 03:35:51 PM

Good update!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on August 06, 2012, 04:29:08 PM

That guy's a douche.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2012, 04:44:40 PM

Yeah, he is.  But there are douches everywhere.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on August 06, 2012, 04:47:22 PM

I'd like to soak him in ballistic lead right now. Starting with his third eye.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 06, 2012, 05:59:11 PM

I will make him feel the pain that Jesus felt. But with more fire.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2012, 07:20:30 PM

We'll find out more about him, I think, in the next chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Pre-Trial Jitters

The day before the trial, Cloak was restless.  Too restless to sleep, too restless to dream.  Anticipation of the worst is horrible.  Expecting the worst doesn't do anyone any favors.

He couldn't help but remember. . . . Remember what happened on the day of Queen's Banning. . . .

***

"You can't Ban me.  If you Ban me, I'll inform Scholastic of the E-Books," Queen threatened.

"How dare you.  You are as arrogant as you are hateful." Cloak said, quietly to himself as he watched the proceedings.  He stood, arms crossed, glaring at a RAFian he'd come to despise.  Azguard, ever the mediator, had tried to curb this aggressive streak of Queen.  Meanwhile, Estelore was looking remorseful and pityingly at her friend.  Estrid looked just about the same as Cloak felt.

"It's the decision of this council," Richard said calmly, though his voice rang around the square room, "that you be Banned from this forum and exhiled to the Bannedlands."

"No!" she screamed.

Then the music started and the assemblage of RAFians sang as Queen was driven out:

"Deception!
Disgrace!
Evil as plain as the sneer on her face!
Deception!
(An outrage!)
Disgrace!
(For shame!)
She asked for trouble the moment she posted.
(See you later, agitator!)
Deception!
(An outrage!)
(Just leave us alone!)
Disgrace!
(For shame!)
She asked for trouble the moment she posted
(See you later, agitator!)

Born in grief.
Raised in hate.
Helpless to defy her fate.
Let her run.
Let her live.
But do not forget
What we cannot forgive!

And she is not one of us!
She has never been one of us.
She is not part of us --
Not our kind!

You've used and abused us,
Now we're not so blind!
For we should have known what she'd do,
And we know that she'll never be one of us!
She is not one of us!"

She was brusquely dropped into the wasteland that was the Bannedlands.  The RAFians returned to the forum, singing:

Deception.
Disgrace.
Mmmm . . . Deception.
Disgrace.
Deception."

Only Estelore lingered, seeing Queen wonder away.  A little moan escaped from her lips, as she covered her eyes morosely, and then she followed the other RAFians away.

***

It was then that he made his decision.  The decision if the mods were to, somehow, side with Roliart.

"Oh . . . I hope it doesn't come to that," Cloak muttered to himself, as the time for the trial was drawing nearer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2012, 01:29:11 PM

Whoo, fifty pages.

'Nother chapter.  Hopefully, it'll be up to the usual standard.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Trial of Cloak

"-- I must object to this.  He needs to be restrained, like any other criminal." Rotiart was complaining.  He had self-appointed himself as the prosecution, and Cloak couldn't help but wonder why the mods are allowing him to get away with this, and taking all the liberties that he has.  He's barely been a RAFian for six months, and now he has far more power and clout than he ought.  But Cloak assumed that they'd find out all in due time -- and they would, but just not as soon as Cloak would have liked.

"May I remind you," Kelly said, primly, "that, first and foremost, Cloak is NOT a criminal, nor has any sufficient and impartial evidence been presented to prove otherwise.  Secondly, Realm Walkers are notoriously difficult to restrain.  But you would not know this, being a newbie."

"I object!  I'm not a newbie, I've been hear for six months."

"Which makes you a newbie, for after the first year, you'd be a yearling.  After the second, you'd be considered a veteran." Kelly replied, losing none of her composure.

Kelly had elected to act as the defense, and she was dressed very prim and proper, though no one could mistake a certain delightful fierceness in her eyes, nor the Mark on her hand.  She carried what appeared to be a worn briefcase, full of notes.  Cloak was quite impressed with Kelly's skill and prowess, though he said nothing of it and kept his face deliberately emotionless so that Rotiart couldn't use that against him.  She did not allow Rotiart to rile her, though, glancing back in the courtroom, Cloak could see the little tinhorn dictator was really rubbing Blaze and Parker the wrong way by the way Blaze's wings looked a little ruffled and harried and by Parker's folded arms and posture -- and the look on his face. (No one was permitted to be armed here, much like the Senate in Camp Jupiter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Olympus).  Never know when an undesired comment can lead to a sword or energy blast through the heart.)

While Kelly looked neat and professional, Rotiart, on the other hand, looked like he was a human Argit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_villains#Argit) with well-worn sneakers.  But, somehow, no one seemed to notice or take this into account.  It was then that Cloak became suspicious of something else about Rotiart, in terms of his abilities. . . . Could he have super-persuation or something?  But then why would Kelly, Horse, Mr. Guy, Faerie, Parker, Empress Goose, Blaze, Blocky, Gaz, Rad, Noelle, Green Lantern Sam, Helen, Sakki, Aquilai, Estelore, Unseen, Ash, Dino, Broken and so forth . . . why would all of them be unaffected?  Lurkers -- people who pop up every now and then but don't post -- seemed to be unusually susceptible . . . and, as such, ally with Rotiart. . . .

But would it work on the presiding mods?

Cloak couldn't figure out if they were being affected or not.  He wasn't even sure his hypothesis was right.  But Cloak became concerned just the same, losing track of what was going on in the trial.  Eventually, it came time for the end, and both Kelly and Rotiart gave closing comments, both certain of victory.  Cloak had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He stood to address everyone.

"For four years, I have lived, joked, and fought beside my fellow RAFians," he began to a hushed room, only Rotiart had a conceited look on his face.  Cloak glanced at him, without any fear.  Rotiart was at least a century his junior.  "And now . . . now my loyalty has been called into question.  Every action I've ever took is being over-analyzed and contorted by that traitorous little wart.  I should say --"

Cloak closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.  Then he opened his eyes and continued.

"That this trial was pointless." he resumed.  "I shall not be Banned.  I shall leave the forum.  I've already packed my belongings."

"Cloak, no!" Parker protested.

"Too late, Parker, my decision is made." Cloak said, with quiet finality.  Even Rotiart looked shocked -- this wasn't the victory that he wanted.  He wanted to see Cloak Banned.  But to have Cloak completely deter that, altogether . . .

Cloak strode resolutely from the room, and to his thread.  Then he took off for a place of his own, not wanting to return to the nexus, feeling safe from her judgements in the Prime Universe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 08, 2012, 04:49:41 PM

Wha- wait what? You have some sort of clever plan I know, but we could have just smother Rotiart in his sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2012, 05:54:23 PM

I don't know about clever.  But I do have a plan, although it doesn't have anything to do with Rotiart at the moment. . . . But I'll post the chapter tomorrow, if I'm feeling okay.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Kelly on August 08, 2012, 05:59:36 PM

Wow, drama :) Cloaky should have stayed, Kelly totally kicked ass ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 08, 2012, 06:11:33 PM

We don't even need to smother him, just put a pillow over his head and shoot him through it. Inspiration: The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 08, 2012, 06:40:38 PM

I hope it isn't a over-thought plan like in Justice League...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2012, 12:18:41 PM

Probably not, Unseen.

. . .

Looks like this book may be one of the shortest, if not THE shortest, books in this series.

Oh, and (I'm gonna eventually have to give up the Roman numerials thing, but L=50):

• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Wish Fulfillment
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Departure

Cloak strode until he was far enough away from RAF that it could only be seen in the distance, but then he stopped.  A few minutes later, it was obvious why.  Noelle, Aquilai, Gaz, Parker, Ash, Broken, Kelly, AniDragon, and Blaze followed him to this spot.  Cloak knew that they were here to persuade and convince him to return.  They would not understand his reasoning, perhaps, but Cloak did feel that he owed them an explanation.  And a warning, as well.

"Cloak!" Kelly shouted.  "You can't do this!"

"Running away isn't the answer!" AniDragon added.

"I am not running away," Cloak said, quietly.  "I am walking."

No one laughed.  He didn't believe for a second that they would.

<That's not funny, Cloak.> Noelle said sternly.  <You're unbelievable.  I cannot believe you're turning your back on us.>

"I'm not," Cloak said simply, but did not elaborate more.

"I'm sure this is all part of some clever plan of Cloak's," Blaze declared.  "R-right?"

Cloak thought a moment, and replied, "I don't know about 'clever', but I do have a plan."

"See?  I told you!"

"But it has nothing to do with Rotiart," Cloak pointed out.

"What?" Parker snapped.  "You need to boil that little douche in some hydrofluoric acid or something, Cloak!"

"That's a bit extreme, Parker." Ash said.  "But, Parker does make a point, Cloak, albeit too vividly."

"There's a reason behind my departure," Cloak said, looking at each one in turn.  "I must go after Malice.  I must find a way to conive and outwit her to get her to give up some evidence that she's behind this."

"What?" Aquilai said, eyebrows rising so high that they were in danger of getting lost in his hair.  "What about Rotiart?"

"I have no proof," Cloak said, "but I have reason to believe that he's a minion of hers."

There was a smattering of exclaimations at this.

"Again, I have no proof.  Just a gut feeling.  I could be completely mistaken, and Rotiart is nothing but an arrogant upstart.  I could mention that his name is 'traitor' backwards, but that doesn't really mean anything -- could just be a coincidence."

The others looked at each other from this reveal.

"But you need to watch him closely," Cloak warned.  "I suspect he has some persuation powers of his own.  As far as I can determine, it has no effect on veterans, a marginal effect on yearlings, a moderate effect on newbies, and a significant effect on lurkers."

Lurkers -- users in RAF that most often go unnoticed.  But they outnumber a great number of veterans.

"I will return when I got the evidence that I require to disprove Rotiart's assertions." Cloak said, succinently, his tone a grave finality. "Until then, this is good-bye."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Kelly on August 09, 2012, 05:39:04 PM

You're a great writer Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 09, 2012, 05:51:19 PM

I could deal with rotaiart, in a number of ways...

The Good The Bad and The Ugly killcount (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NKejkZRheE#ws)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2012, 08:50:30 PM

Oh, I think SuperNate can put him in place . . . but more on that tomorrow.  Maybe.

Quote from: Kelly on August 09, 2012, 05:39:04 PM

You're a great writer Cloak.

You flatter me, Kelly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
It's Malice Season!

Cloak, having departed his stunned friends, began hopping from realm to realm, looking for his foe, his quarry.  But, as always, she was proving remarkably elusive.  Cloak felt that he'd have an easier time trying to find a Mew or Deoxys than this.  But while he was searching, his mind couldn't resist singing silently:

There is something wicked out there
I feel it in the air
It whispers, "Come and find me if you dare."

I sense disaster lurking
Must save the RAF neighborhood
Malice must be stopped for good.

I'm a Walker on a mission.
We'll keeping on searchin'
Walker on a mission
Whether by day or moonlight
Walker on a mission
I'll keep on workin'
Walker on a mission
Makin' it safe out at night.

I see the moon rising
I hear the howls at night
But you remain out of my sight.

I know I'm getting closer
I don't know what's in store
But clues are leading to your door

I'm a Walker on a mission.
I'll keeping on searchin'
Walker on a mission
Whether by day or moonlight
Walker on a mission
I'll keep on workin'
Walker on a mission
Makin' it safe out at night.

I'm a Walker on a mission.
I'll keeping on searchin'
I'm a Walker on a mission
Whether by day or moonlight
Walker on a mission
I'll keep on workin'
Walker on a mission
Makin' it safe out at night.

He managed to hum the last few bars before he came upon Abomination being absolutely servile towards Malice, but he seemed to be none the wiser about his slave status.  Cloak realized that he needed to isolate Abomination away from Malice -- it'll be easier to wheedle the information out of him.  He wasn't as nearly as smart nor guarded as Malice was.

But it wasn't gonna be easy. . . . He'd just have to be patient, as they both seemed perfectly unaware of his presence, but he could keep track of them through Earthsight.  Cloak had an idea what to do, but he had to wait for the most opportune moment. . . .

***

Meanwhile, back at the forum, Rotiart was gloating.  It may not have been HOW he wanted to win, but he won just the same.

"Oh, let me at him," Blaze growled.

"Now you know that won't be good PR, Blaze," AniDragon said, in a rather uncharacteristic sour tone.  She was looking daggers at Rotiart.

"Screw PR, AniDragon!" Blaze fumed.

"As much as I hate to admit it, I'm with Blaze on this one." Parker said.

"Oh, shut up." Blaze snapped.

"We must trust that Cloak knows what he's doing." Aquilai replied, although he too was restraining his anger.  "He must be able to obtain that which he requires in order to return."

"Thank you, Mr. Time Lord," Kelly said.  They couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or sincere.  She looked quite worn.  The group retired to their threads, for a night's sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 09, 2012, 11:43:57 PM

I'm still going to sleep with an extra pillow under my gun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2012, 10:10:46 AM

I think you transposed two nouns there, Blaze.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Silly Boy, Tricks Are For Ids!*

Cloak waited, alternating from waiting patiently to waiting impatiently and back again.  Finally, after about two and half hours, Dweller Earth time, Malice sent Abomination on some demeaning, menial task which the poor deluded fool gladly and happily accepted.  Cloak couldn't help but pity the hippopotamus-form Realm Walker.  Such a lumbering, lustful loser.

Cloak immediately regreted using thinking that word.  He tried not to used the word 'loser' ever since his mother, quite obvious to just how much her words can hurt, used it to describe him.  It wasn't a pleasant moment, and he rather think of other things.

Cloak maneuvered himself between Abomination and his destination, but at a prudent enough distance away from Malice that they wouldn't be overheard.  Cloak activated his RAFian communicator -- which he still had in his possession -- to record what goes down.

"Oh, hey, Abomination," Cloak said, casually.  "Whatcha doin'?"

"You!  I better go tell honeybuns!" he said, alarmed.  "And DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

'Honeybuns'? Cloak thought incredulously. And you want people to take you seriously?

Abomination actually made to turn, before Cloak had a though on how to keep him there, but continuing to play it cooly.

"Running off to Malice, are you?  Can't take me alone, can you?"

They were subtle words, but they seemed to have a powerful effect on Abomination.  He gave Cloak a very ugly look, which Cloak felt no intimidation at.  Abomination snarled, "I don't need nobody's help to deal with you?"

"Then why go running to your master?"

"She ain't my master!  She's my girl!"

"You say tahmahto, I say tomato. . . ." Cloak replied, airily.  Abomination didn't seem to get the metaphor.  "But perhaps I should see her.  I mean, it's not like she's confided into you any master plan or anything."

"Yeah, she has!" he protested.

"Yeah, right." Cloak replied with a bored infliction.

"I do so know what it is!"

Cloak just raised his eyebrow unbelievingly in response, continuing to lean casually against his tree.

"I do!"

Cloak didn't reply, but rolled his eyes just a bit.  In an outrage, Abomination spilled his guts.  Telling Cloak of the false bombs, the plan to isolate and Ban him from RAF, and of the mole inside RAF itself.  Cloak fed this into a live feed to RAF (helped along by Aquilai's sonic screwdriver).

Cloak smiled, and said, "Thank you, Abomination.  Your dull-witted ego has given me all that I need."

He turned and walked away from the puzzled hippo, spluttering and speaking gibberish.  He still hadn't realized that RAF had watched everything he had said.  Well, Malice will not be too happy. . . .

Cloak smiled even broader and he made the sojourn back to the forum, back to home.

---
*Surely everyone'll get this reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 10, 2012, 10:19:26 AM

No, no I did not.

Yay, new chapters to read while high on laughing gas.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2012, 10:20:40 AM

It'll be in my previous post.

*Choses not to address the laughing gas thing.*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 10, 2012, 10:34:03 AM

Quote

Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas,[1] is a chemical compound with the formula N2O. It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless, non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic effects. It is known as "laughing gas" due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it, a property that has led to its recreational use as a dissociative anesthetic. It is also used as an oxidizer in rocketry and in motor racing to increase the power output of engines. At elevated temperatures, nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidizer similar to molecular oxygen.

Before laughing gas was discovered as a pain killer, it was a recreational drug. What would you do if you discovered a slightly sweet gas, that when inhaled causes euphoria and laughter? Sell it in bags of course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2012, 10:41:52 AM

K, well, I didn't read the Totally Random Thoughts thread before this one.

Anyway, it's up.  More to come.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Clean Up Your Act

Back at RAF, the RAFians were receiving the video that Cloak was sending them.  It exonerated him, but some of the newer RAFians seemed to be dubious and doubtful about it.  The veterans took it as proof of Cloak's innocence, and took it to the mods -- who related that they were never gonna Ban Cloak.  He just assumed the worst.

Rotiart was still refuting it, and Parker and Blaze openly threatened him to quiet down.  They really have had enough of this tinhorn dictator-to-be.  They weren't the only ones to lay down the law, the mods, veterans and most yearlings (not all were present) did as well.

Rotiart continued to complain, and SuperNate then strode into view.  Music started to play as he sung:

"It's . . . show time.
Look what you done,
You've been a very bad RAFian, son!
Packing seven months of evil into every one!
Greed and vice --
A pack of cards and a pair of dice
Ain't goin' get you into RAFparadise!"

The song momentarily halted, while SuperNate said, "Get it?  'Pair of dice', 'paradise'."

Then he chuckled heartily as Rotiart grunted, "Huh?", after which the music picked up again.

"You're in a sad, sad, so sad
Really bad, makes me mad state,
Young friend.  Is this the end?
Oooooh-ooh!
I think it's time!"

Then the rest of the RAFians, the ones who supported Cloak, chimed in as a chorus:

"High time!
To clean up your act!"

Then SuperNate took center stage again, and really belted it out:

"If you don't, you're Banned,
And that's a fact!
Take a look and you'll see
The kind of RAFian you were born to be!"

The RAFian chorus piped up:

"Hey, hey, hey!
Clean up your act!"

SuperNate continued:

"You can be a leader, you can't be a saint,
You could a million things that obviously you ain't!
You're slipping and sliding, and soon you're gonna fall.
Being a jerk and outta luck, the writing's on the wall.
Now's the time!"

The RAFian chorus echoed:

"High time!
To clean up your act!"

Gaz stood up, and sang:

"Make amends for all those liberties you jacked."

SuperNate, continuing to make a musical scene out of this, continued:

"Listen close to what I say,
Every guy has his judgement day!"

The RAFian chorus felt a need to keep up with their say:

"Hey, hey, hey!
Clean up your act!"

SuperNate continued, swinging what appeared to be a pocket watch.

"When the music's over, when the show's through
You'll still have time to spend with Malice, that's who!
You're writing your own ticket, the script's in your hands!
Time to shine."

The RAFian Chorus added:

"Be divine!"

SuperNate continued:

"Work for those fans!
I think it's time."

The RAFian chorus added:

"High time!
To clean up your act!"

SuperNate proceeded:

"Search for that integrity you've lacked.
Change your ways, get a clue!
Those dirty, rotten things you do."

The RAFian Chorus emphasized this:

"P.U., P.U., P.U.!"

SuperNate stated:

"Now, it's time."

The RAFian Chorus added:

"High time."

Then SuperNate joined with the chorus and sang:

"To clean up your act."

SuperNate resumed the song solo:

"If you don't, you're banned
And that's a fact!
Have a heart, that's the key.
You'll be saved, you'll be free.
Take a look and you'll see
The kind of RAFian you were born to be!
Oooooh-weeee-oooooh-weeee!"

Then everyone sang:

"Clean . . . up . . . your . . .
Clean up your act!"

"Alright!  Alright!" Rotiart said.  "I will!  Just don't SING at me again!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2012, 12:01:27 PM

FINAL chapter . . . of this book.  Probably a bit of a short one.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Rejoicing and the Library

Cloak returned, feeling foolish that he ever assumed the worst of the people who he's come to be friends with.  The reasons that he feels that RAF is more his home than the Nexus.  Cloak rejoiced at the return to the fold, and noticed that his return that his mark returned as well.  He was unaware that he lost it or that it broke.

Despite this happy greeting and joyous celebrations, Cloak was reserved.  Rotiart may have repented but Cloak was suspicious.  Abomination had mentioned a mole, and it was obvious that it was him.  It had to be.  Cloak didn't realized the possibility that he might be being narrow-minded, but he would learn the truth much, much later.

But he didn't want to put a damper on the party, nor cause anymore strife than Rotiart had.  But he could not let go the suspicion.  The link was severed before Abomination managed to ramble on about the mole.  Cloak would have to watch him. . . .

And Cloak could not help but wonder . . . wonder what Malice had planned next. . . . Cloak had no doubt that she was on to a new scheme.

***

Malice found something in this library that caused her great elation, even after Abomination blundered in, and started blubbering about ruining her plan, about Cloak tricking him into foiling it.  She looked up, thoroughly uninterested in what Abomination was going on about.

"What?" she queried.  Then she remembered.  "Oh, that.  Well, it happens.  In any case, I've conjured up a contingency plan.  I just need to find a book . . ."

". . . Don't . . . dontcha already have a book?"

"Not this book, silly boy!" Malice said, with a girlish giggle.  "A very special one."

"A . . . a special one, dear?"

"Yes, very much so." Malice said, closing the book she was browsing through, and stood up.  "The Book of the Bibliophaetos."

"Bib . . . bib-leo-fae-toes?" Abomination said, and looked like the effort cost him.

"Very good, dear!" Malice said, though Abomination missed the condescending tone.  He smiled stupidly, as Malice proceeded.  "That book has something in it that I require.  Things should get very . . . interesting, to say the least."

"Interesting?" Abomination said, as Malice gathered the few items she brought with her, and began to walk sedately to the exit.  He had to run to catch up with her when he realized that she was leaving.  "Interesting how?"

"Oh, you don't want me to ruin the surprise, now, do you?" she said, in a sultry tone that was condescending at the same time.  This was sufficient to confuse Abomination.  But he didn't say anything about it.

"Where is the book?" he asked.  Malice didn't answer.  "C'mon, where is it?"

"Follow me," she said.  It took a strength of will not to end that sentence with genius.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2012, 01:21:41 PM

Now, onto . . . what book is this?  Oh, yes . . .

BOOK XV:
The Book of Very Bad Things
Chapter One:
The Book of Grim*

Malice and Abomination had taken every book in the place down.  They weren't fool enough to look for it when there were other people in the store.  Abomination had trouble handling these books as swiftly or as delicately as Malice was capable of doing, because of his large, clumsy hands.  It didn't help that he was about as bright as a blown light bulb.

"Where is it . . . it's gotta be here somewhere. . . . Somewhere . . ." Malice was muttering as she searched, paying absolutely no mind to Abomination except when he dropped something to make a very audible THUD or CLUNK or WHUMPH, in which case she scolded and berrated him to be quiet, and he would apologize, afraid of losing his "girlfriend", whereas it was clear to everyone else, Abomination was just a henchman to her, though she strung him along because she found it amusing -- and Realm Walkers don't have television or radio programs.

Abomination accidently dropped a trunk and it's lid flew open.  Malice strode towards Abomination with liquid percision, fully intending on berrating the guy some more, when something caught her eye.  She lost all interest in Abomination, and seized at the trunk.  She burrowed through it like a mole or a Pokemon using Dig.  Then she let out a stifled whoop of laugher as she had the very book in her possession that she desired so much.

***

Later, at their hideout, Malice was placing a device on the book's cover.  It looked like a mechanical fusion of a tick and a spider, if it was pounded flat.  When it was secured firmly on it, Malice opened the book.  Right in the center a face with a pointed chin pushed itself out, as if the book was it's neck.  The face was female, with a passing resemblence to Asajj Ventress from Star Wars, and it was Maleficient green with bluish highlights.  Her eyes were closed, but within seconds of opening the book, she opened her eyes to reveal that they were the most putrid shade of purple imaginable.

"Wha . . . what's hap-pen-ing?" the spirit in the book said in stumbling tones.

"You're now under my control, Bibliophaetos," Malice said crisply.

"I serve . . . no . . . one!"

"That was then," Malice said, face devoid of expression, "this is now.  You shall obey my every command.  You shall do as I say."

The spirit struggled against herself, but in the end, fell to Malice's control device.  In a subdued, vaguely monotone voice, she said, "Yes, Mistress."

"Good, now, I'll shut the book --"

"No!" the spirit managed to shout before the control device squashed any and all rebellion.

"I'll shut the book and plant you in the Prime Universe.  You are to manipulate whoever finds you and opens you up." Malice said.  "You are to guide him or her to making a potion that will cause utter chaos, making the inhabitants of Earth act like complete jackanapes."

"Y-yes, Mistress."

Malice closed the book, and, with utmost elation, broke into song:

"I've been exiled, persucuted!
Left alone with no defense!
When I think of what that Cloak did,
I get a little TENSE.

But I dream a dream so pretty,
That I don't feel so depressed.
'Cause it soothes me uniquely,
And it helps me get some rest.

The sound of Cloak's dying gasp . . .
His neice squealing in my grasp . . .
The RAFians' mournful cry!
That's my lullaby!

Now, the past I've tried forgetting.
And my foe I could forgive.
Trouble is I know it's petty,
But I hate to let him LIVE!"

Then Abomination chimed in sycophantically:

"So, you found yourself somebody who'd chase Cloak up a tree?"

Malice continued, unclear of whether she heard Abomination or not.

"Oh, the battle may be bloody, but that kind of works for me.
The melody of angry growls . . .
A counterpoint of painful howls . . .
A symphony of death, oh my!
That's my lullaby!
The pounding of the drums of war!
The thrill of chaos's mighty roar!"

Abomination joined in, clearly trying to get on Malice's good side:

"The joy of vengeance!
Testify!"

Malice continued:

"I can hear the cheering.
Me-oh-my!
Payback time is nearing
And then my flag will fly
Against a blood-red sky!
That's my lullaby!"

Then she cracked up into laughing like Jafar on nitrous oxide.  Abomination half-heartedly joined in, unsure of whether he was supposed to or not.  It never occured to him that this might not be a healthy relationship.

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Cloak awoke from his thread with a chill going up and down his spine.  But he did not know why.

---
*Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know.  Lame, pathetic stab at a pun for the Brothers Grimm or whatever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 10, 2012, 03:52:23 PM

I liked the pun :3

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 10, 2012, 05:20:56 PM

I'm gonna need a lot more pillows.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2012, 09:21:31 PM

Oooookay . . . Blaze . . .

Anyway, I was gonna post another chapter, but I'm tired, and, as such, it probably won't be up to my personal standard.  So, guess you'll have to wait until tomorrow.

*shakes his head*

Fifty-one pages, and 7,438 views?  And to think, I had thought of deleting this thread the week after I posted it. . . . (Blocky actually was the second post, and as such, spurred me on into not giving up on this thread, without even realizing it.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 10, 2012, 09:29:39 PM

Unfortunately, I seem to be naturally tolerant to narcotics*, and was unable to read fanfiction while 'loopy.' Now I'm sad.

*Resistant to the point that a girl who was done with her surgery before I even started only woke up ten minutes before me, and could barely stand while I was only a little wobbly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2012, 11:06:58 AM

Well, surely now there's been enough time for you to read it.

CHAPTER TWO:
Innocence Lost

Back at the Malice hideout, she was placing the slumbering book atop a trunk filled with broken clutter, separated by a white sheet.  She did this assuming that some innocent person would get curious about the book and open it.  Then her plan would flow from there, and she was sure that the Bibliophaetos would not, could not, betray her or her intentions.

"There," she said, dusting off her hands.  "Now, Ab--er, dear," she said turning to Abomination, who seemed to miss what she nearly said, "I have a task for you."

"What is it, m'lady?" Abomination asked, stupidly, thinking it sounded chivalrous.

"I need you to lug this trunk to the Prime Universe." Malice said, noticing the slightest sag in Abomination's shoulders.  "Now, now.  Don't give me that.  It's just a small task."

Abomination give just the slightest hint of doubt at that statement.

"Just take it to the Prime Universe, it's not heavy," she continued, feigning ignorance at Abomination's tick of doubt on his face.  "Drop it off at a place where an innocent -- presumably a child -- would find it.  Then the book can manipulate that innocent into causing chaos.  Trust me, it'll be a gas!"

Abomination said nothing for a beat, then replied, "Yes, dear."

The Abomination realized that Malice was wrong (actually, she outright lied about the weight), and hoisted it onto his back.  Then he dived into the Prime Universe, and appeared beside what appeared to be some rundown, low-budget circus or amusement park.  He hefted the heavy trunk unto his back and walked, in a stooped way, towards the nearest dilapidated wagon-trailer thing.

It was there that he dropped the heavy object with a quite audible THUMPH and a bellowed oath, as a corner landed on his foot.  Subtlety was never Abomination's strong suit.  But he had Walked back to the Nexus before someone could see who was out here.  And someone did check.

He was a baggy-eyed, gangly, gaunt boy of fourteen or fifteen with a pointed nose and round ears, dressed in black slacks, black suspenders, and a white pinstriped shirt.  He saw the trunk, and called back into the trailer.

"Well, bring it, then, boy," a wheezy yet haughty voice said from within the trailer.

The boy struggled as he tried to carry the heavy thing in, but he managed with no outside help.  Inside, the haughty, wheezy voice is revealed to be long to a dumpy man with brown hair, a pencil-long nose, watery sunken eyes, tiny hands and feet, a wide waist, and a Wario moustache.  He was decked out as this place's resident magician.  The boy heaved and hoisted the trunk and headed for the back, but couldn't manage the entire way.  He tripped and fell, causing the trunk to fall open.

"Oh, look at what you've done, Harry!" the man said, reprovingly.  "There could have been nice things in there -- now it's all broken!"

"Sorry, Mr. Linguine."

That's right, the guy's name was Luigi Linguine -- but that was his ADOPTED name, his stage name, if you will.  His real name was Morton Ronalds, but that was a name he never liked for some reason.  He was, at best, a C-rank magician, but with an ego that far outweighed Dino at her true height and compacted height combined.

"Oh -- just clean up this mess," he said, waving his cartoony, white-gloved hands in an irritated manner.  "I'll be back when my show ends.  Have it done by then!"

Then he left.  Harry wore a very sour look on his face as he did what he was told.  He grumbled that he, Harry Nicolai, would make a far better magician than Linguine.  Then he spied the book . . . it was glowing a sickly yellowish-green for some reason.  His curiosity peaked, and he moved towards it.  Then he heard the book softly and enticingly saying his name, "Haaarrrrrry. . . . Haaarrrrrry. . . . Haaarrrrrry. . . ."

Feeling more curious than scared, he . . . opened the the book.  The Bibliophaetos relished being opened for a minute or two before opening her eyes.  She saw Harry, and she started to come up with a plan that the control unit on the book didn't prevent her from conjuring.  She sized and assessed how easy that Harry would be to manipulate and how tasty his soul would be to feed off of.

Harry, beaten down with feelings of worthlessness . . . yes, he would be a prime target, indeed. . . . And so, she begins to corrupt the boy, telling him things that he desperately desires to hear, and tells him that if he takes out Linguine that he, Harry, will take his place as magician. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 11, 2012, 02:44:11 PM

A magician named Harry, why does that sound so familiar...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 11, 2012, 04:04:50 PM

Perhaps the character from the mildly successful book, Harry Pothead?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2012, 04:33:28 PM

I was actually goin' for a Houdini reference, but . . .

I actually didn't base the story on this at all from Harry Potter . . . though I confess there might be some elements. . . . I based a majority of the plot off a movie that really drove the Nostalgia Critic batty . . .

CHAPTER THREE:
Tranquility Shattered

Cloak stood, once again atop his hill overlooking the form, but he had his hands balled into fists point at each other with his head bowed and eyes shut.  Then, in an instant, he stomped his foot, a ball of earth shot from the ground, and he punched so it flew forward.  Then he condensed it and extricated some metallic trash in it as the rest fell harmlessly into clumps of dirt a few feet away, but Cloak wasn't done practicing.  He condensed the metallic refuse into a mini-pie plate.  He turned and fired as stream of fire that dissipated without ill effect.  Then Cloak did a hand stand with one hand, and made sweeping movements with his legs, causing scimitars of air to fly from him, while still supporting his weight on that one hand.  Then he leaped down to his two feet, and pulled water from the air.  Then he caused it to circle around him, then he propelled it forward until it actually formed a cloud of it's own volition.  Then he grew an oak, an elm, a birch, a rowan and a juniper tree at the base of his hill, causing it to adjoin the nearby forest.

<Nice work,> Noelle commented quietly.

Cloak had Earthsighted her coming.  But he said nothing, he was just merely practicing his abilities, although he didn't really seem to use his energy offensively anymore.  He was really reliant on the elements, as he was not only their master but they were part of himself.

<Cloak,> Noelle said, voice of concern.  <You've been acting strangely.  You've become withdrawn, isolating yourself from everyone.>

Cloak still said nothing.

<Cloak, listen to me.  Not everyone believed Rotiart,> Noelle said, trying to talk sense into him.

"I know that, Noelle." Cloak said, voice hoarse due to lack of use recently.  "It . . . it has nothing to do with him."

<Then what does it have to do with, Cloak?>

"I felt something just last night.  A grave evil," Cloak explained, as he watched Russell train the new RAFians to the tune of "I'll Make a RAFian Outta You".  "I do not know what it is.  It isn't Malice, doesn't have the same vibe.  I had hoped I imagined it."

<How . . . how do you know you haven't?>

"FuBar, Bladeh, and even the new guy, Kern," Cloak said, looking very woebegone.  "They all felt it, too."

<They . . .>

"They're all cats, like me." Cloak said.  "We can feel evil's presence.  We're sensitive to it."

<I think I understand,> Noelle said delicately.  <But Cloak has any of these precognitive sensings be wrong?  Could it be just a bit too much gravy or something?>

Cloak didn't speak right away, he was thinking of how to word his next statement adequately.  "No, Noelle.  They've never been wrong."

<Sorry, I had to ask.> she said.  <But what good is being up here, sulking about it, gonna do?>

"Nothing," Cloak said, honestly. "But it's gonna happen, and when it happens I need to be prepared.  All of us need to be prepared.  I don't know what it is, but it's gonna be . . . really bad. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 11, 2012, 08:40:11 PM

Cats sensing evil... In my life Cats are evil.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 11, 2012, 11:01:24 PM

You can practically hear the BUM BUM BUM coming

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2012, 08:53:11 AM

Right.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Magical Fail

Harry was up in front of a meager crowd (barely any of the seats were filled, approximately six or seven percent, and that's being generous), all expecting to see the "Great Linguine"*, but instead see this nervously unsure kid wearing a black cape and top hat.  There was a small flurry of whispers of discontent.  Harry didn't care, he was living his dream.

What had happened to the "Great Linguine"?  No, Harry didn't kill him.  That would have let to a lot of awkward question and possible jail time for the youth.  No, Harry used the incantation that the Bibliophaetos gave him to put the rotund magician into an everlasting sleep.  Only, unlike Sleeping Beauty, it was very unlikely that someone would kiss the guy to wake him up.  he wasn't exactly a looker.

Anyway, Harry attempted a few magic tricks fumbling them all.  Which caused the assembled audience to laugh and jeer and sneer at him.  He was embarrassed and filled with rage.  This is exactly what the spirit of the book wanted.  She could feel his frustration, his embarrassment, his anger.  They were all so nourishing to her, so that she fed on them.  Becoming stronger.  She secretly hoped that it would make her strong enough to overcome Malice's control.  Maybe even strong enough to leave the paper prison which that fool trapped her in . . .

She cackled as a red energy pulsated from the book, and the people in audience sat frozen and silent for a moment, before turning on each other.  Yelling and fighting and acting like complete savages . . . she had turned them into MSN commenters (or, as the Nostalgia Critic would say, YouTube commenters).  At first, this was only regulated to this room, but soon it spread, like an airborne pandemic, with this practically abandoned amusement park or circus being ground zero.

It accelerated around globe, but RAF proves to be sufficiently shielded from it.  For the time being.

***

FuBar, Kern, and Blade passed out when the evil of uncaring and hatred swept around RAF.  It brought Cloak to his knees, which felt like jelly for a moment.  Even Faerie felt it, who dropped her axe.

"Cloak!" Aquilai cried, alarmed.  "What has happened?!"

"A great evil has spread across the land."  Cloak said.  "The worst plague to ever infect a sentient heart. . . ."

"What?" Underseen asked.

"He's talking about that magical red wave that passed us by," Faerie said, breathless from the strain.

"What was it?" Blaze asked confused.

"As I said, the worst plague," Cloak insisted.  "Hatred."

"Hatred?" Parker said, ever the skeptic.  "How can that be possible?"

"I don't have the answers," Faerie said, righting herself enough to secure her axe and check on FuBar, Bladeh, and Kern.  "But my guess is that red wave came from a very powerful magical source."

<Cloak, your premonitions.> Noelle pointed out.

"FuBar, Kern, and Bladeh have had them, too, Noelle," Cloak pointed out.

"What premonitions?" Parker said.  Then he remembered what Cloak had once told him about cats.  "You KNEW this was coming?"

"No," Cloak replied calmly.  "Just something bad was going to occur.  Why do you think I've been practicing so arduously?"

---
*That sounds like a Garfield joke, doesn't it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 12, 2012, 10:01:43 AM

Wait, so we went from one room in a run down circus, to the entire world? How angry was that kid?

(http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/that-escalated-quickly.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2012, 10:08:26 AM

This was hours and hours we're talking about, Blaze, though it hasn't reach the whole world yet.  And it was only a fraction of his hatred and anger that was amplified a millionfold.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Rending RAF

Cloak looked around, at the almost magical bubble around there little forum began to crack under the pressure of hatred energy.  This alarmed the gathered RAFians.

"It's not gonna last much longer," Faerie said, voice full of concern.

"It wasn't built to handle such emotional energy," Helen said, who had sneaked her arm into Parker's.  "I'm . . . I'm actually scared."

"No defense is impregnable." Cloak said, solemnly.  "We must find out what is causing this mess."

He looked over to Kern, FuBar, and Bladeh, and, with a pang, saw that they were still unconscious.

<Yes, I'll get AniDragon, Aquilai, Aila, Sam and Gaz.> Noelle said, turning.  <Oh, and Yarin, too.  We'll probably have need of his ship.>

"Yes, Helen and I will get these three to Goom's infirmary right away," Parker said.  "We'll meet you by his ship."

***

About an hour later, Cloak looked at their team.  Noelle.  Parker.  Helen.  Blaze.  AniDragon.  Gaz.  Sam, the Green Lantern.  Aila.  Aquilai.  Underseen.  Faerie.  Himself.  And, of course, Yarin.  A motley group, but Cloak thought this group would do the job easily.  Even though they had no idea what they were looking for.  They boarded the ship, sought off by Ash, Broken, Mr. Guy, and Horse, who waved at them until they were out of sight.

Then, with a resounding CRACK and a shriek of fear from somewhere within the forum, the barrier broke and the waves of hatred were able to get into the forum.

"The Mark'll protect us, right?"

"Not necessarily," a strong, rough voice said behind them.

"Richard!" Horse proclaimed.

"What do you mean, 'not necessarily'?" Broken said.  "The Mark was supposed to protect us from stuff like this."

"Hatred is an emotion," Richard said.  "As I have it, the Mark only protects us from assimilation, mind control, and the like.  Emotions aren't one of the criteria."

"Oh, great." Mr. Guy said.

"We can only hope that the away team can find the source and stop it . . ." he looked at a newbie succumbing to the magical hatred waves.  "Before it's too late."

***

"Hang on, everyone!" Yarin shouted.  "It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

Yarin ship, while it's interior was protected from the waves, they still caused moderate to severe turbulance, buffeting the ship harder as it tried to approach the source.

"And I heard that Parker!"

"I didn't say anything!"

"But you thought it loudly!"

"Don't start, you two." Cloak said, far more calmly than he truly felt.  He was sitting on the ship's floor with his legs crossed, and his eyes were closed and his hands balled into fist pointing at each other as if he were meditating.  He barely moved, whereas the others were bumping all around -- Gaz reduced to going batty and finding a comfortable roost on the ceiling.  "We can't let situations and circumstance we cannot control turn us against each other, or else the shield on this ship is useless, as we'll already be at each other's throats."

"Cloak is right," AniDragon added, "besides that, RAF is depending on our success in this endeavor!"

That pretty much shut up all arguing.  AniDragon seemed to have a Cassie-like knack for that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 12, 2012, 09:24:35 PM

Good updates! I'm enjoying this. I owe you a beast wars recap.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2012, 09:29:16 PM

Eh, you don't owe me anything, Gazzy.  I'm actually planning chapters for "Book XLIII: The Piper" as we speak (I'm on Chapter 11) and, yes, I do plan on posting it at some point.  I may very well post another chapter a bit later on!

EDIT:  And now is later!  Might be a short chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Freedom Recipes

Harry had taken the book and his magical supplies back to the wagon-trailer, looking somewhat paler, his face appearing somewhat more lined.  The Bibliophaetos was still feeding on Harry's rage, frustration, and hatred, and, in turn, synthesizing and amplifying them into those waves of magically-inducing anger and hatred.  She was delighting in this, and Harry seemed none the wiser to this.  He remained in blissful obviousness, until he realized that he was feeling a little drained.

It was then that she stopped the waves of anger and hatred.  While the effects would wear off the strong-minded, in the weak-minded people the effects were irreversible -- but, then again, they behaved with anger and hatred before Bibliophaetos's book was ever opened, so it was hard to tell even if it wore off.  It was a shame that such hatred and intolerance could exist in the world without a creature like Bibliophaetos to blame that on.

"Haaarrrrrry . . ." the spirit of the book said, "you need to gather up these ingredients . . ."

Words literally began to float to the surface of the book, a list of what appeared to be forty or fifty ingredients that were small, sometimes gross, innocuous items.  Harry looked at them blearily.  He stifled a yawn, and said, "I'm too tired for that now."

The Bibliophaetos looked stricken and taken aback.  But she masked her anger with a simpering tone, "Oh, okay, then.  Go, get your rest.  You can gather these items tomorrow."

And the teen retired to his bed, where he fell, full-clothed.  He was asleep before his body even made contact with the mattress.  Meanwhile, the Bibliophaetos sat their stewing in her own apprehensions and eagerness.  She hadn't told the boy what the potion was for.  She needed the potion so she could leave her texted prison.

It was this time that she reflected on how she got into this predicament.  She used to work for a character called Cataclysm, an odd fellow who kept to the shadows.  From what she knew this happened when Prime Universe was still in its infancy.  She lived at the Nexus, but she wasn't a Realm Walker, she was always a spirit.  But she had no idea how she came into being, but she didn't care.

She wished that she wasn't so arrogant in those days.  Cataclysm was the only one that she feared, which is why she worked for him, to get on his good side.  It turns out, that she should have feared another.  One who the Six Elements bent to her every whim.  Her chosen name was Guardian -- much like Cloak was the RAFian Realm Walker's chosen name.  Guardian, though the Bibliophaetos had no idea of Cloak's existence, was Cloak's ancestor.

Guardian defeated the Bibliophaetos, known then just as Phaetos, and sealed her in to the book with a lock that wore away after time.  Guardian, as legends go, went on to defeat Cataclysm, and his fate was left unknown.  How she wished to get her hands on Guardian . . . but she would have passed on long ago. . . .

***

Back in Yarin's ship, the turbulence was becoming nigh-on impossible to cope with.  Even Cloak broke his meditative stance.

"We're gonna die," Blaze said in perfect imitation of Rattrap.

"Yep." Aquilai said, calmly*.  Of course, he would just regenerate into the Third Aquilai.  Blaze didn't find this quite as comforting.

Suddenly and miraculously, the ride smoothed out.  The assembled RAFians got to their feet, except Yarin, who somehow managed to remain on his feet, resolutely piloting the ship with a dedication that should've earned him a metal.

"What happened?" AniDragon asked, shaking her head a little to clear it.

"The waves . . ." Cloak said.
<What about them?> Noelle said, stumbling a little.

"They're gone." Yarin finished.

"Oh, great," Parker complained.  "That'll make finding the source harder."

"Be glad you're in one piece, Parker!" Helen chided.

---
*Anyone get where that little exchange was ripped from?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 12, 2012, 10:42:05 PM

Sadly, I don't get what that conversation was from. I am not up to the same type as media as most people.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2012, 10:47:16 PM

I'll wait to see if Gaz gets it . . . aw, the heck with it.

[spoiler]In Beast Wars, Rattraps catchphrase is "We're all gonna die" or some variation of that, and once, Rhinox says, "Yep."  Sorry, half-asleep while posting can be a hazard.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 12, 2012, 10:55:53 PM

I need to read Beast Wars.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2012, 10:57:52 PM

WATCH, Blaze, you need to WATCH Beast Wars . . . I'm referring to a show that can only be seen on either YouTube or DVD. . . . Unless some channel still carries it, but I don't think they do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 12, 2012, 11:18:07 PM

I always hear the term and think it's some sort of animal vs animal book series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 12, 2012, 11:51:52 PM

So do I, like that one show on Animal Planet where they use science to see how will win in a fight an elephant or a gorilla. I always thought that show was called Beast Wars, but it wasn't

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2012, 07:53:31 AM

Nope, it's based on the Transformers line Beast Wars, where they go from beast modes to robot modes.

Anyway, on-topic, I'm not sure if I can post another chapter today.  For some reason, my energy's really been drained.  Don't ask me why, it happens sometimes.

EDIT: I managed to find some energy to write one chapter, but don't hold me to that.  I may be able to post another -- depending on how I'm feeling.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Dendrosapients

Back at RAF, the next day, everything was finally starting to calm down.  Only the veterans and the yearlings seemed to resist the effects of the hate waves.  The newbies succumbed after a mild resistance whilst the lurkers fell to it easily.  The veterans had their hands full just trying to maintain peace.

"I hope this means they've found the source," Terenia breathed.

"Can't say if they did or didn't," Blue commented, looking a bit frazzled.  "Communications are still down.  Genies is still working on it."

Dino reared to her full height, looking around.  "Well, it could have been far worse that what it was."

"But it was bad enough as is," Sakki said, carrying some damaged wood, carrying it in a way that was similar to a Timburr.  "But, I suppose we can be thankful for small favors."

Ash and Broken were seen helping put RAF back together, but they were curiously silent.  Had the red waves and seeing the hatred spread spooked them?  It would be understandable, although nothing before seemed to spook them.  Perhaps it affected them in a very different way?  Or were they simply focused at the task at hand?

Turned out to be the latter.

"Well, that's done." Broken said, wiping his brow.

"Fortunately RAF survived this." Ash said.  "It's such a resilient forum."

"A forum's power, its strength, comes from it's users." Broken said, deciding to wax philosophical.

Goom came strolling out peacefully, saw Broken and Ash, and approached them.

"Hi, Goom." Ash replied brightly.  "How are Kern, FuBar, and Bladeh!"

"They started coming 'round at dawn," Goom replied.  "They're a bit groggy, but, after a bit of breakfast, they're free to go."

"That's excellent, Goom." Broken remarked.

Suddenly, the shadows on the ground seemed to be alive!  They pooled into nearly circular pools on the earth, and swirled their momentarily.  Then, with Blue uttering the exclaimation "What the deuce?!", monstrously twisted forms erupted from the ground!  They bore a slight resemblance to various kinds of trees, each bearing an evilly, sinister face with bulging eyes on their trunks, just above their lowest branches that turned out to be arms with hands that ended five clawed fingers.

"Oh, come and get some, Woody!" Sakki snarled as one attempted to strike her.  She was gonna make him regret that!  She snapped off one of the arms . . . only to have it grow back.  No . . . THREE took its place!

"Well," Terenia said, "THAT'S not a good sign!"

"Thanks for the assessment, Teach, now, let's rip 'em to shreds!" Sakki said.  This living tree was really starting to tick her off.

One of the trees was giving Dino one of those hugs that would cause the Nostalgia Critic to scream "Bad touch!"
"LET GO OF ME, YOU MALEVOLENT MAPLE!" Dino roared, but the tree's strength was surprising, and it's grip could not, would not, break.  So Dino ripped it from the ground, and wriggled out of it's loosened hold.  But then its roots stabbed back down in the earth and it righted itself!  But another one did not grow from it's initial rooting spot.

Goom had easily dodged every strike against him by the possessed wood, with far more agility and skill than the layman would think of his goomba body.  Ash was demonstrating the same level of evasive skill.  Broken, however . . .

"What, in the name of the old site, ARE these things?!" Broken shouted as he stood up again, only to narrowly dodge a swinging branch arm.  That's when a sound, like a muffled ringtone, sounded.  Broken, dodging these things, saw it was the RAFian species index.  He vaguely remembered Cloak deciding to update it.

"Dendrosapient(s). (DEN-droh-say-pee-ent/ents)  As myth would hold, they are trees that have been animated by the demirevenants, servants of the ancient and evil Phaetos.  They cannot be slain with brute force, as their strength and grip are unsurmountable by such means.  They must be tricked into tying up all their branch arms, usually by a super-speeder. Of course, they are myth and, in all honesty, probably don't exist.  See the entry for 'DEMIREVENANTS' for more information on the spirits possessing these trees."

"Oh, they exist alright!" Broken said, loudly.  Then he flicked on his communicator, unaware that the Mark on all the RAFians was starting to grow brighter.  "Cerulean, we need your assistance here . . . GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE NOW!"

Cerulean speeded over to their direction the minute he got their message, and he easily tied up the dendrosapients so they could no longer move their arms.  Then the demirevenants abandoned their hosts, which collapsed into piles of wood -- not clean wood either, but the rotted-away kind.  Broken was prepared to look up the demirevenants on the database, the index, of species.  But what he was not prepared for -- the demirevenants running away like a bully who couldn't pick on kids anymore because they stood up to him and stood their ground.

"Cowards!" Sakki snarled.

They kept flying away.  Broken looked up the entry anyway.

"Demirevenants: (deh-me-rev-en-nant/nants).  Strange, mythically-spectral creatures under the service of Phaetos.  They have no mind, no will of their own.  Their sole purpose, their sole reason for being is the service of Phaetos.  They are able to shapeshift into an aquilan form or possess wood to become dendrosapients.  (See 'DENDROSAPIENTS' for more information.)  They can only be slain with a Unity Pulse."

"Unity Pulse?  What on earth's a Unity Pulse?" Ash said aloud.

Goom shifted his feet slightly.

"You know what it is?" Broken said shrewdly.

Goom sighed, "Yes, we must gather everyone.  It's time -- time for you to know."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 13, 2012, 11:54:43 AM

Just got caught up again, and as usual, this is excellent!  I'm glad that Cloak didn't get banned, although I agree with everyone who said that there was no real threat of that.

Oh, geez, waves of anger?  My character is going to be of absolutely no use whatsoever during any of this.  Anger has always been one of my deepest fears.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2012, 12:00:24 PM

You're not the only one, Dino.  I actually run from my emotions.  In this fic and IRL.  But you're a vetern (not a lurker or a newbie), so your resistence to such things are somewhat higher.

The new chapter'll will be in my previous post.  I'm still working on it, and you're in it, Dino.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 13, 2012, 01:13:50 PM

Oh good, today is a lazy day for me. I was going to take a nap, but then I saw what you posted so I read it. Time for the nap now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2012, 07:42:24 PM

O . . . kay, Underseen.

Well, I was gonna post another chapter, but then I lost all my energy (it doesn't help that I have to sit in an uncomfortable chair to use this computer).  Hopefully, I'll be able to scrounge some energy up . . . and I think I ate something that didn't agree with me. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: AniDragon on August 13, 2012, 08:01:36 PM

I totally knew which episode of BW that exchange was from! XD (It was such a big moment. Rattrap's "We're all gonna die!" was so often followed by "Shut up Rattrap", that hearing someone agree with him was jaw dropping. [/geek])

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2012, 08:06:06 PM

Somehow, I knew you or Gaz would, AniDragon. ;D  Sometimes quotes from Beast Wars just stick in my head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 13, 2012, 08:35:40 PM

Hey, cool, I'm in the story!  :D  Interesting chapter, by the way, I liked the dendrosapients (that name sounds familiar, did you allude to them in a previous chapter?).

As far as my phobia of anger goes, fear of my own emotions wasn't actually what I was talking about.  I very seldom get anywhere near being angry.  I get frustrated, sure, but I can't even recall a time that I've ever been truly angry.  The thing that scares me is other people getting angry at me.  Which is why I thought I'd have been so utterly useless while any of this was going on.  People get angry and I tend to go 'meep' and hide in a corner.  :-X

Never mind me, I'm just thinking out loud.  Please ignore me and carry on.  I like your story too much to tell you how to write it, I'm just randomly providing unasked-for information that probably isn't relevant anymore anyway, lol.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2012, 08:32:14 AM

I wouldn't call it "irrelevant", Dino.  *rubs chin*  I could come in handy for future books. . . .

And I don't think I alluded to them, Dino.  Originally, I just called them "Dendrosapiens", I just added the "T" which changed the meaning somewhat.

Just if anyone's interested --

"Dendro" = "tree"

"Sapient" = "an organism that can act with judgement"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 14, 2012, 08:35:35 AM

I love the words I learn by reading this... I will probably forget them in a month though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2012, 08:39:25 AM

Right.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Not Your Average Aquilan Form

The ride was smoother, but the problem of not knowing the source of the hate waves was paramount.  But they did know the general direction in which to look.  That was something.  Cloak sat back down, crossed his legs, balled his fists and pointed them at each other again.  Then he shut his eyes again to calm his mind, to focus it.

"Cloak, should you really be doing that right now?" Aquilai asked.

"Probably not," came Cloak's sardonic reply.

"Are we there yet?" Sam asked.

"Don't start that joke," Blaze input, "please."

Then a horrible, terrible screech was heard.  Cloak was the only one that didn't flinch.  Noelle suspected that he was asleep.

"Wha . . . what was that?!" Underseen exclaimed.

"Don't look at me, I don't know." Aquilai said.

"Guys, there's an entry in it on your species databases. . . ." Gaz said.  "Apparently it's the, uh, 'aquilan form' of somethings called 'demirevenants'."

"Great," AniDragon said, "does it say anyway to beat it?"

"Something called a Unity Pulse," Gaz said.  "But I have no idea what that means --"

"It's a concussive beam of energy projected through the Mark," Cloak said unexpectedly, tone flat.  "It can only be used when the users have a sufficient sense of unity."

"You knew about this?" Parker demanded.

"Richard's idea, actually."

"Well, the ship is having a hard time maneuvering to fight this thing," Yarin announced.  "Fliers, your assistance would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!"

"Fine, just open the door, then." Faerie said, pulling her axe from hammerspace.

Yarin did -- only it just so happened that was the side of the hull that Cloak was mediating on.  So, he fell out of the ship when it opened with an alarmed scream.  Then he managed to project an air sphere around himself that allowed him to "fly".

"THAT WAS NOT FUNNY!" he snarled.

"I dunno," Faerie said, floating, in a dignified way, out of the ship, "looked pretty funny to me."

Cloak gave Faerie an ugly glare.

"Enough with the comedy, let's go!" Parker said, leaping out of the ship.  Then, while somersaulting, activated his Hawk Ride Armor, and blasted up beside Faerie and Cloak.  Then the Lanterns activated their rings and flew out.  Gaz went all batty and flew out, not really sure of her scope to harm the huge beast in this form.  Blaze, somewhat reluctantly, flew out, too.  Noelle, Aila, Aquilai, Underseen, and, of course, Yarin, would have to remain on the ship.

Then they went into battle, Aquilai holding fast to the entrance of the door, somehow managing the suction, and managing to bend lighting at the bird.  But no matter how many strikes it took, it would not go down.

"Geez, it's like the Simpsons," Cloak muttered, "no matter how many strikes it takes, it doesn't go down!"

"Uh, something really strange is goin' on here. . . ." Helen said.  But she wasn't looking at the bird, but her hand.  It was glowing so brightly that you couldn't make out the individual digits on the hand.  Cloak looked around, and noticed that everyone's hand, including his own, was doing that.

"It is time!" he shouted.  "Point your hand at the beast, and focus all your energy, all your will, all your heart at destroying the evil beasts!"

They did as he instructed.  A blue beam projected from their Marks at a remarkable speed and power.  It missed initially, but after two more tries it struck the bird.  It screamed and dissolved into angry wisps which eventually dissipated of their own accord.  It was gone.

The RAFians quickly boarded Yarin's ship, because the use of such a powerful beam, much like Hyper Beam of the Pokemon universe, left them feeling sluggish and drained.  Yarin was the only one that seemed to resist these aftereffects enough to land the ship.  Then, like the rest, collapse into slumber.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 14, 2012, 10:53:21 AM

Where did you get Aquilan from? Sounds like something I have heard in a movie before...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2012, 10:54:37 AM

"Aquila" = "eagle"

Then I just tacked on the "n".

Perhaps you were thinking of Arquilian? I think it's spelled that way.  They're tiny aliens from "Men in Black".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 14, 2012, 11:14:26 AM

Yeah! That was what I was thinking. Also the Aquilan from Riddick.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 14, 2012, 11:27:58 AM

"While the other flight capable RAFians leaped to battle the beast, Blaze sat in the corner, forgotten, eating ice cream."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 14, 2012, 11:28:54 AM

I was going to say the same thing, but I wanted you to point it out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2012, 11:30:17 AM

Quote from: Angel Eyes on August 14, 2012, 11:27:58 AM

"While the other flight capable RAFians leaped to battle the beast, Blaze sat in the corner, forgotten, eating ice cream."

The problem with that is Yarin doesn't have ice cream on his ship.

Anyway, I fixed that omission.  I thought I had included you, Blaze -- it was an oversight, I'm sorry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 14, 2012, 11:36:45 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 14, 2012, 11:30:17 AM

1) The problem with that is Yarin doesn't have ice cream on his ship.

2) Anyway, I fixed that omission.  I thought I had included you, Blaze -- it was an oversight, I'm sorry.

1) Why ever not?

2) It's no problem, just a simple oversight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2012, 11:43:06 AM

The interior of his ship, I imagine, is basically just like a starship version of the X-Men's Blackbird.

Oh, and here's the line up (tentative titles):

• Book XVI: Who's Who?
• Book XVII: The Last RAFian -- another possible future book, if that's not too revealing
• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix -- which I don't understand why RAF comic books don't already exist.
• Book XXIV: The First Master -- this is the book where no RAFians make a major appearance, I only make a marginal appearance at the beginning and end . . . think Tobias and the Hork-Bajir Chronicles.
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing -- Phoenix will take a major role here, I think.
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream -- another Beast Wars reference.
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey -- the book that Blaze gave me the idea for. . . .
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor* -- Parker'll stand out in this book. . . .
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague*
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons*
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!*
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales* -- this one will be kind of different from a regular book.
• Book L: Maul*
• Book LI: Erised Orbs*
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!* -- another book that takes place in a slightly different continuity.
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever* -- thank you Nostalgia Critic for this idea (like he comes to this forum ::))
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils* -- hopefully this'll delve a bit into Aquilai and Aila's pasts
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time*
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth* -- Richard, Esty and I are gonna have our hands full. . . .
• Book LX: The Replacements* -- What will Aquilai and I do when the rest of the forum's attending some intergalactic treaty signing? . . . Okay, I'll think of a more clever plot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's a lot and the (*) denotes books I have yet to do chapter-by-chapter planning on.  But it's either this or seeping into depression.  Naturally, the former is preferable.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 14, 2012, 05:36:11 PM

OH MY LAWD! You planned 60 books, that is more than 80 chapters (don't feel like doing math)! I thought that chapter XXX would be called "50 shades of RAF" (if you know what I mean XD). All dirty jokes aside, this is one of the best and might become the longest running Fanfic (RAFfic?) on RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2012, 06:23:51 PM

Probably gonna be a minimum of 100 chapters, Unseen.  I like including a minimum of twenty chapters per book.

And believe me, as long as I can, I'll keep postin' 'em.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Tenebrarevenants

When everyone was gathered, veteran and yearlings mostly, Goom stood in front of them.  His mark glowing slightly on his forehead, as he hadn't any arms or hands for the Mark to be etched.  Dino's Mark too was on her head because she had rather less substantial forearms.

"I've asked you together tonight for the simple expedient of telling you about the Unity Pulse," he said, pacing nervously.  He waited for the smattering of murmuring to die down before continuing.  "As you know, Cloak and I made the Marks a long time ago, before the Technarchy invaded."

More murmuring broke out.  It was one of those events not forgotten lightly.

"You know the Mark is supposed to protect the bearers from possession, mind control --"

"Then why could Gaz turn us into vampires?" a newbie shouted.

"The Mark has its limitations," Goom said.  "Gaz bore the Mark before the Madre de Vampyra, or whatever her name was, turned her to the dark side."

"Dark side?  What is this? Star Wars?" Horse muttered.  Goom heard her, however, and glared at her for a moment.

"Anyway," Goom continued, "there is another function to the Marks."

Pure silence.

"That is the offensive capability known as the Unity Pulse." Goom said.  "Richard's idea."

"You make it sound as if it was a bad one," Richard commented affably with a chuckle.

"Anyway, the Unity Pulse cannot be used when alone, which is good, because after use it leaves the user completely drained of energy."

"Isn't that kind of a gaping flaw?" Blue asked.

"I didn't say it was perfect," Goom countered.  Addressing everyone, he continued, "it requires sufficient unity in order to function.  When such unity exists -- in theory, mind you, we haven't done any testing -- the Mark will glow brightly, and you must focus with all your will, with all your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your energy and then aim your blast at your foe.  But it isn't to be taken lightly, because, once again, it will leave you with your energy drained.  There may be a way to circumvent this limitation, but we, as of this time, do not know what or how to do so."

CRASH!

The sound of a whirling hurricane seemed to be coming from behind the group.  It was a swirling mass of vaguely humanoid shadows, there were about thirty or so of them, floating and undulating above RAF.  They were faceless except for the hellish glow of their abnormally large red eyes.  They did not speak -- perhaps they couldn't or hadn't sufficient enough intellect to be capable of speech.

"Uh, what are those things?" Rad asked.

A slight buzzing noised, and the database stated:

"Tenebrarevenant(s). (teh-neh-brah-rev-en-ant/s) Shadow creatures of myth.  They appear to be living shadow in humanoid form with overlarge, glowing red eyes, said to stand anywhere between five to eight feet tall.  These high-level minions of Phaetos cannot speak unless they inhabit the form of animate or inanimate object.  They have no known powers other than possession, and, as such, aren't much of a threat outside that.  They can command dendrosapients and demirevenants.  The only available option against tenebrarevenants, where they to exist, would be the Unity Pulse."

"Well, they definitely DO exist," Kelly commented.

"Remember what I said about the Unity Pulse!" Goom shouted.  "Everyone, take aim!"

The tenebrarevenants suddenly shot down at them.  The RAFians charged up their Marks . . . and blasted the tenebrarevenants into oblivion.  Then they collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

***

Meanwhile, it would seem that Bibliophaetos was watching this somehow, as well as the aquilan form and dendrosapients fight.  She smiled inwardly, as she sent Harry off to collect the items she needed to leave these pages forever!  But she didn't tell him that -- he was laboring under the impression that it would make him a better magician.

The time was so close she could taste it. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2012, 07:42:56 AM

Now --

CHAPTER TEN:
The Source Goads

After awakening, somewhat refreshed, the away team exited Yarin's ship, which he immediately camouflaged.

"I didn't know it could do that yet," Parker commented.

"Yeah," Yarin said, nodding.  "I've been tinkering with it."

"If we've done with the tech talk part of this assignment," Blaze said grumpily, "let's get a move on."

Cloak stood a little ahead of everyone else, eyes slammed shut, and his toes spread, with the claws on his feet JUST barely touching the ground.  He was attempting to Earthsee their surroundings.  He didn't "see" any danger, but he did "see" that they were just beyond the threshold to a small amusement park or circus -- it had a Ferris wheel, in any case.  He relayed this to the others.

"A circus?  Really?  Here?" AniDragon said, genuinely surprised.  "This is the middle of nowhere!"

"We're about 60 miles from RAF," Cloak estimated.

"Seems farther," Gaz noted.

<Cloak, are you sure that there's any human habitations over there?  It just seems like -- > Noelle said, uncertain.  Then she caught a glimpse at the ugly look Cloak was giving her.  <I mean no offense, Cloak!  It just that it doesn't seem very likely -->

Cloak snapped his fingers and two trees bent over, each to one side, revealing the amusement park/circus.

"You weren't kidding about the 'run-down' part." Sam commented.  "It's a regular rat jamboree."

"Could the source of the waves be in there?" Underseen queried.  "It may be a small circus, but whatever generated those waves could be big or could be small.  We don't know what it could be."

"I'm not registering anything -- my scans are all coming back as normal data," Parker said.

"This does not bode well," Cloak muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

"It couldn't hurt to continue the investigation, right?" Aila asked rhetorically.

"I can't see why not," Aquilai replied.  "After all, we came all this way.  We can't just give up now, because it's the easiest thing to do."

"Why?" Blaze asked.

"It's just not done."

"Why?"

"Blaze, should we call you 'Mindy'* from now on?" Cloak said, getting irritated.

"Huh?"

"Look it up." Cloak said snappishly.  "Let's get a move on."

They searched the place, but found nothing.  Cloak was stubbornly refusing to admit that there was nothing here.  He could feel the evil, but he could not pinpoint it.  In the end, they decided to come back with a larger group.  This sated Cloak for the moment, but he could not help but wonder what this evil could be. . . .

Could the book have been found?  Could Bibliophaetos been freed? . . . No. . . . She'll never be strong enough to exist outside those pages on her own.  It must be another artifact of evil.  It had to be. . . .

---
*Obligate Animaniacs reference.  "Buttons and Mindy".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2012, 12:25:02 PM

I probably should wait until everyone catches up . . .

Oh, okay one more chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Situation Harry

After the RAFians left, the Bibliophaetos wasn't so guarded with her energy.  She did not know how long it would before they came back, if they came back.  She would have to get her little puppet boy to hurry up.  She carefully manipulated him to get the last ingredients, deliberately keeping the urgency that she felt out of her voice.

"And this'll make me a better magician?" Harry asked, unsure.

"The best," the Bibliophaetos intoned.  "Now, go get those ingredients!!"

Harry left the room, never questioning Bibliophaetos's intentions.  Such a foolish, overly-trusting boy.  He would live to regret this naive nature of his, but it would be too late . . .

Harry gathered up all the ingredients, the final items -- viridian earth, pewter stones, cerulean muck, vermilion minerals, celadon bulbs, saffron flowers, fuchsia mold, lavender flowers, cinnabar minerals, indigo flowers, fresh elm bark, cherry wood, violently violet powder, azalea leaves, goldenrod powder, ecru-jaundiced teak wood, cyan wood, olive-colored olivine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine), mahogany roots, black thorns, and silver with sentimental value.  Then he deposited one after the other into a smoking cauldron.  Each sparked a different color with each additional item.

"It's done," Harry said, shielding his eyes from the steam, which was now pouring copiously from the cauldron, causing the room to darken.  The only light coming from the cauldron.  "What do I do now?  How does this help me become the greatest magician?"

The Bibliophaetos cackled,"It DOESN'T, you fool!  It grants me leave of this worded imprisonment!  At last, I can be FREE of this book!  HA HA HA!  You deluded fool!"

Bibliophaetos was no longer Bibliophaetos, but back to her true form as Phaetos, as the book dropped with a clunk to the floor, and she revealed her spectral form to Harry, appearing very much like if Wuya from "Xiaolin Showdown" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xiaolin_Showdown_characters#Wuya) and Asajj Ventress were merged into one spectral being.  Harry was terrified, and Phaetos was looking at him, deciding his fate.  She thought she no longer needed him, and she could easily do away with Harry.  He was expendable to her now.

Then the cauldron's steam stopped abruptly, leaving an empty cauldron, causing the dim lighting to click on.  But Phaetos didn't even flinch, as if she expected that to happen.  Then she clutched at her chest, where one's heart would be.  She gasped in raspy breaths.  It was then that she came to the realization that she could not maintain her form.  She would have either die or return to her bookish prison!

Then she looked at Harry, who was trembling and cowering with the greatest of paralyzing fear, and got a sinister smile.  Perhaps there was another way to be free . . .

"What are you . . ." Harry said, then gasped and grunted once or twice.  Then he stopped trembling at once, stood up, and looked at his hands, as if he had never seen them before.  Then he began to caress his body, saying, almost moaning, in his own voice, "Not what I anticipated, but a prison of flesh beats that hardcover internment."

He was Harry no longer -- he was Phaetos's host.  She saw it as the next best thing, she still had freedom of movement and magical ability restored to her in this body.  And she was no longer under the control of --

"Took you long enough, Phaetos," a voice said from the shadows.

She whipped to the sound of the voice, looking desperately for the source.  But human night vision is one of the weakest of known species.  Her stolen eyes could not penetrate the dark.

"Who's there?!" shouted Phaetos, apparently haven't lost her true voice, as she continued to speak with Harry's.

"Take . .  a wild . . . guess."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 15, 2012, 01:02:05 PM

Quote

viridian earth, pewter stones, cerulean muck, vermilion minerals, celadon bulbs, saffron flowers, fuchsia mold, lavender flowers, cinnabar minerals, indigo flowers, fresh elm bark, cherry wood, violently violet powder, azalea leaves, goldenrod powder, ecru-jaundiced teak wood, cyan wood, olive-colored olivine, mahogany roots, black thorns, and silver with sentimental value

Did you just name all the cities in Pokemon Silver, and then name the title of the game. I have to admit it was a very clever thing to do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2012, 01:04:24 PM

Actually, I ripped the "silver" one from Mt. Silver.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 15, 2012, 01:22:23 PM

That also makes sense.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 15, 2012, 03:05:51 PM

Good updates!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 15, 2012, 04:38:29 PM

Reminiscing about Shaolin Showdown now. Man that show was awesome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2012, 09:51:27 AM

I'm sure it has episodes on YouTube, Blaze.

Now, a new chapter. . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Her Pet Monster*

"You're too late, Malice!" Phaetos announced triumphantly in Harry's voice.  "I'm free of the book!  You have no power over me?"

Malice stepped into the partial light, with silkily calculated movements.  "Really?  Are you so sure that you're out of my power?"

"Yes, you foolish braggart!  I may be stuck, ensconced in this trusting boy's flesh, but I am now free to do as I please!" Phaetos elated.  "You cannot make me do anything!"

"Sure about that?" Malice said, coyly.

"I told you, yes!"

"How about attacking me then?  Prove you're outside my control?" Malice said delicately.

"You think me a fool?  I know you're far stronger than this boy.  And I know if this boy so much gets anywhere near you under your cloak, whatever body part is close with disintegrate in a most unpleasantly painful way." Phaetos shot.

"Oh, I see," Malice said, with faux compassion.  "You're afraid.  Your power doesn't translate to your host.  It's bottled up within him, and you don't want to risk destroying your new prison."

Phaetos, perhaps influenced by the fifteen-year-old's teenaged hormones, grew red-faced.  She yelled as she charged Malice, unaware that this is exactly what Malice wanted.  Why Malice so carefully goaded her.

With a quick movement, Malice held up a gem -- the Necrectopolian gem, only their seems to be a reddish counterclockwise swirl within it.  She must have pocketed when she was there.  Phaetos stopped her (his?) charge, and doubled over in pain.  She groaned and yelled in pain.

"Now, what was that about you being free from my whims?" Malice taunted.  "Interesting the baubles you pick up in the Fractured Realms."

"Stop . . . please . . . stop it . . ." Phaetos pleaded, Harry's voice hoarse.

"Very well," Malice said, pocketing the Gem.  "But you better tow the line, Phaetos.  Or else, next time I'll make it REALLY hurt!"

"Yes . . ." she said, making Harry's voice sound very resentful, " . . . Master."

"Very good," Malice said, smirking evilly.  "Now rest your newly-obtained bones, tomorrow night we take the fight to the RAFians."

"Why?"

"Did you just question my orders?" Malice said, suddenly having the Gem in her hand.

"No!  No!  I'm sorry!  I didn't mean to question you, Master!" Phaetos pleaded.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, the away team was filling everyone in.

" -- and then we blasted that eagle to kingdom come." Blaze finished.

"So," Richard said, "to recape, we confronted dendrosapients, demirevenants, tenebrarevenants, and shadow eagle."

"Yes, that seems the long and short of it." Cloak said, arms folded, head bowed, standing rather stiffly.  "We tracked the source to a small, run-down amusement park."

"I thought it was a circus." Blaze said.

"Don't contradict me." Cloak said with mock warning.

"Clearly they do enough business to stay open, whatever they are," Aquilai said.  "Because it wasn't completely abandoned."

"It was there." Cloak said.  "There somewhere."

"How can you be sure?"

Cloak didn't answer for a moment.  "Just a gut feeling.  It's . . . just a hunch."

"We're gonna wade into possible danger on a hunch?" Broken said.  "I'm sorry, Cloak, but --"

"You don't have to go.  None of you do.  But I will go back, and find this thing."

<You have an idea what it could be, don't you, Cloak?> Noelle asked.

"And it's more than a hunch." AniDragon added shrewdly.

Someone in the crowd said, "And that's how they became the RAFian Bunch!" apparently looking for a laugh.  They didn't get it, and they hid in the crowd.

Cloak hesitated.  Then relented, "I believe the Book of Bibliophaetos has been found and opened."

Phoenix said, rather diplomatically, "Cloak, I believe we're gonna need more information."

---
*Anyone get this reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2012, 11:49:49 AM

Blahity, blahity, blah.

Sorry, but I always like including a "header" of sorts before a chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Malice's Boy Toy

Malice slumbered, snoring rather audibly, on what appeared to be an puffy, chintzy easy chair.  Her right hand rested on an ornate chair-side circular table, with the Gem dangling precariously out and onto the table.  Yet, she continued to snore rather easily from her chair.  Abomination was out on another errand, most likely furthering another scheme.

The door creaked open carefully and slowly.  Phaetos appeared in the dim light, and Malice continued to snore.*  Phaetos tiptoed over to the table, and reached out Harry's right hand toward the Gem . . . slowly . . . carefully . . .

"ARGH!!"

Malice's eyes had shot open, and she grasped the Gem tightly, causing Phaetos to writhe on the floor in Harry's body.  All in a manner of a few seconds.  Malice's face was hard, yet . . . disappointed.

"Did you really think you could catch me unawares?" Malice scolded, as if Phaetos had been a very naughty puppy.  "Really, Phaetos?  Really?"

Phaetos continued to writhe on the floor, Malice watched with mild interest.

"Phaetos, how could you disappoint me so much?" Malice continued, as Phaetos began to scream a bit in Harry's voice.  "It's really a letdown, you know.  I always thought you would be cunning, clever, and intelligent."

Phaetos closed Harry's eyes tightly, as the pain built up.

"Imagine my dismay on how EASILY you are to outwit." Malice said, much like a child dissatisfied with their new toy.  "How little EFFORT it took to control you."

"Please . . . stop the . . . pain . . ." Phaetos choked out in Harry's voice.  It appeared that only Phaetos was being harmed, as Harry's body had no mark upon it -- well, none that weren't there before yesterday.

"I can tolerate your treachery," Malice snarled.  "I CAN'T tolerate your INCOMPETENCE!"

Ironic, coming from her minion in Abomination.

"Please . . . Master . . . stop . . ." Phaetos pleaded, realizing major consequence of being trapped in a flesh-and-blood body.  She may be able to where she wishes, but pain is all the more tangible to her now.  Although the flesh of Harry's wasn't being harmed, she felt the pain as if it was.

Malice relented and withdrew the Gem into a fold of her cloak.  Malice could practically feel Phaetos's hatred and resentment at her.  But such power was nothing compared with the little Gem she had in her possession.

"Get that boy out of those rags and into something more presentable," Malice said, back to Phaetos, and speaking over her shoulder.  "We have a forum to overrun."

***

Cloak had told the others the story, story of his ancestor Guardian, an Elements Master, and her beau Noble.  Cloak also mentioned that to most Realm Walkers that this was more fable than history, much like Arthurian legend in human history.  Richard suggested taking a rest then setting out the very next day.  Cloak resisted, but eventually relented.

But he found that he had difficulty getting to sleep that night, and when he did, he dreamt.  Dreamt of the past . . .

It was in the middle of a vicious battlefield in the nexus.  There was only one realm in this time . . . the primordial beginnings of the Prime Universe.  A swan-form Realm Walker was battling with Phaetos at full power whilst an equine-form Realm Walker was feverishly looking something up in a book.  The book looked familiar.

"Any time now, Noble!" the female swan-form Realm Walker addressed the equine one.

"Patience is a virtue!"

"Not now it's n-- oh, never mind!  Just hurry up!!"

"Your boyfriend will never be able to help you," came the rather tinny voice of Phaetos, then her tone turned sneering, "Guardian."

"I have faith him." Guardian countered, and blasted Phaetos in the gut.  She didn't use any elemental abilities, because they would have only a marginal to nil effect on Phaetos.  But energy could affect her, so it was the best way.

"Gnieb fo erup live," Noble began casting, "I won ruoy rewop!  I pirts ti morf ruoy gnieb!  Brosba otni siht koob!  I part rouy luos otni siht koob sa llew!"

Noble continually repeated this as his girlfriend, the Elements Master, battled Phaetos.  Eventually, Noble's book began to glow, and he pointed it outward, towards the Nexus anomaly called Phaetos.  A being that very well may not have come from the Nexus, but may have hailed from Necrectopolis.  But no one knew or cared.  Eventually, the book fired what appeared to be a vortex at Phaetos, who was ensnared in it.

"NO!" she screamed.  "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!  I'VE DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE THIS!"

Guardian regarded her coldly, and said, "You were instrumental in the slayings of twelve Hatchlings.  My father.  My mother.  My brothers."

"My grandfather." Noble put in.

"And you still think yourself innocent?" Guardian continue.  "Consider yourself lucky we don't shred you."

And, with that, Phaetos was drawn into the book and became Bibliophaetos.  Then . . .

Cloak awoke with a start.

---
*Gaz or AniDragon probably know what's coming next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 16, 2012, 06:25:06 PM

Great chapters cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on August 16, 2012, 08:12:09 PM

I adore your writing style, Cloakster :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2012, 09:35:05 PM

Thanks, Ash, Blaze.

More chapters tomorrow -- I should have PLENTY of free time for them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 16, 2012, 09:59:40 PM

Also

Quote

"If we've done with the tech talk part of this assignment," Blaze said grumpily, "let's get a move on."

I'm into tech talk. In fact if I were to start a band right now, I would pitch the name 'techno babble.'

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2012, 09:24:49 AM

I'll bear that in mind, Blaze.  Probably gonna be a long chapter. . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Five Degrees of Separation

The RAFians awoke, yawned, stretched rested muscles, and milled about the peaceful forum.  Cloak exited his thread, fully prepared to go to back to the run-down circus-amusement park.  It turns out that he needn't have to.  Malice had come to him, to the forum.  Cloak stood before the rest of the RAFians, cloak billowing dramatically in the wind.

"What do you want here, Malice?" Cloak said coldly.

"Oh, the usual," she replied, in a casual way, "You're head on a plate, your neice squealing in my grasp, your RAFians' mournful cries . . . you know, the works."

"You think it's gonna be just that easy, don't you?"

"Well, yes," Malice said, with Abomination -- as loyal to Malice as Inferno was to Megatron* -- and a reluctant, resentful Phaetos-possessed Harry.  Phaetos now wore a loose polo shirt, dirt brown slacks, a black cape with a bloodred underside, a jaunty top hat, and some uncomfortable-looking back shoes.  Cloak took careful note of the kid, he could feel a familiar malevolent energy coming from him, but did not want to believe that this boy, this lanky, frail-looking boy was the source of all those hatred waves.  There had to be another force, another factor at work here.

"Getting into the kidnapping biz, Malice?  Or are you picking up some extra change as a babysitter?" Cloak shot.

"Oh, clever quip, Elements Master." Malice sneered.  "This boy isn't what she appears."

"'She'?" Cloak said, trying to hide his confusion.

"Yes, 'she'." Malice intoned.  "She manipulated this boy, and she took him over."

"Enough with the suspense, Malice.  What are you getting at?"

"Oh, you'll find out in due course, I'm sure," Malice said with a girlish giggle.  Then she turned to Phaetos and said, "Do it.  Do it now!"

"You presume to order me!" Phaetos said, outraged.

Malice's face fell, and, in a venomous whisper that Cloak nonetheless heard, said, "I don't like your tone, Phaetos."

Then she brought out the Gem to cause the spirit pain, while Cloak's eyes widened.  "PHAETOS?!  You released Phaetos from her prison?!"

"No, I didn't," Malice said.  "Scout's honor."

"You've never been a scout, and you don't have any honor."

"Right on both accounts!" Malice smirked.

"Again, I must ask, WHAT DO YOU WANT HERE, MALICE?!"

This time, Malice ignored Cloak, and said to Phaetos, "Do it.  Or I will subject you to levels of pain that you did not know could exist!"

Phaetos swallowed her pride, and raised Harry's arms to the sky.  Then she said, "Esir ssenkrad!"

Suddenly, the surrounding were dark, lit very dimly.  Cloak looked around, and saw no one else but Abomination and Malice.  He'd been separated from his RAFian friends.

***

Rad, Dino, Blocky, Green Lantern Sam, Aquilai, and Blaze looked around, but everything was but woodless, dimly lit darkness.

"Okay . . ." Rad said, voice betraying her as unnerved.

"That was surreal," Dino said, "where are we?"

"I'm open to suggestions." Aquilai said.  "My TARDIS won't activate . . . that's bad . . . nothing should have the power to do that. . . ."

"That Phaetos kid," Blocky said.  "She did something do make everything like this."

"Don't look now, guys," Sam said, as the dark shadowy forms of demirevenants appeared, "but we have company!"

"There's at least a hundred of them," Rad said.

"Good," Blaze said, cracking his knuckles.

***

Ash, Broken, Dameg, Russell, Goom, and Empress Goose gaze around to find that they were all quite alone.  They were confused and perplexed.

"Wha . . . how . . . who . . . when . . . where?" Broken sputtered.

"Exactly," Ash agreed.

<Where the devil are we?> Russell demanded.

"Dunno," Dameg offered.

"It would to be some kind of a void," Goom thought aloud, "but there are object of RAF that are lit, albeit dimly."

"Thanks the analysis, Spock." Empress Goose sighed.  Then suddenly a horde of tenebrarevenants began appearing from the shadows.  Empress Goose gave an embarrased chuckle and said, "Was it something I said?"

***

Noelle, AniDragon, Kelly, Yunyun, Skymorpher, and Horse appear dazed and confused in a different void.

<Wha . . .> Noelle said, disorientated, <What happened?  Where are we?>

"In darkness," a voice replied.

"Wha -- who are you?" Kelly asked.

"I am Phaetos.  An all-powerful spirit forcibly esconced in this boy's flesh." she said, revealing herself in light.

"What do you want from us?" Yunyun asked.

"Yeah, why don't you leave us alone.  Why don't you leave RAF alone?"

"Fool," she snarled.  "I am bound by the Gem that Realm Walker carries.  It causes all ghosts and spirits great pain.  I have to do her will.  And her will is to destroy you!"

Suddenly, before they had any rational thought about they were running.  They had no memory of telling their muscles to run.

"A chase would be far more entertaining for me," she said, "and a little music . . ."

"Run for cover,
Don't stop to look around.
Nothing to do
But hide some place
We won't be found.

Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Look out! Be careful! Here it comes! Whoa! Whoa! Run away!

Look out, it's after you!
No idea where we should go.
It's a nightmare coming true!
The fear and panic are starting to grow.
Your friends are doing all that they can do.
What about you?
Running and running from this unfortunate soul.
How can we stop it before we go out-of-control?
Look out!
Keep running and stay out of sight.
Look out!
Keep running and it doesn't seem right.
Hurry, get away!
Look out!
Running and running and running again.
Running and running, oh, please make it end!
Is there some way of make it a friend?!
Malice has a hold over it.
He's long forgetten about friends.
Look out, he's after you!
He's just like Phaetos.
It's a nightmare coming true!
When will this bad dream ever end?
Look out!
He's not himself!
She's being cruelly mean!
And on a path
Of terrible wrath!
Like no RAFian's ever seen.
The RAFians will help you out,
Because they dare and there is no doubt
They'll lend a hand,
But are prepared to make a stand!
It's powers are wrong, but incredibly strong!
If only we could make it understand!
Look out! Look out!
Watch out!
What can you do if there's only a few of you?
What can you do if there's only a few of you?
What can you do if there's only a few of you?"

Then Phaetos, in Harry's voice, cackled loudly and heartily.

***

What of the other RAFians?

Well, they fell into idyllic illusions of their deepest, most desparate desires of their hearts.  It would take true strength of character to break free . . . will they ever be able to free themselves?

---
*Again, another Beast Wars reference.  You'd have to watch season two or three to really get it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 17, 2012, 11:40:55 AM

I'm blaming you and Gaz on this, but I started reading the Beast Wars manga.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2012, 11:45:51 AM

I haven't read the manga, just seen the show.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: AniDragon on August 17, 2012, 11:54:40 AM

I wasn't aware there was a manga. O_O

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2012, 11:55:35 AM

I think it's were they show characters that weren't in the show, like Razorbeast and Torca and such.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 17, 2012, 12:38:30 PM

The manga is good so far, I was going to get some of the episodes on my phone after I finish the manga.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2012, 12:42:23 PM

Season Two and three are the better ones.  For the season one episodes . . . just go read Gaz's recaps of them.  Just a suggestion.  And a plug.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
You Shall Not Pass!

"What are they doing, exactly?" Blocky said, uncertain, as every demirevenant was going into a sort of circular dance around each other.

"Either the hokey poky or the Transyvanian twist." Rad said, dryly.

"I am starting to get a very bad feeling about this," Aquilai said, watching the "dance" with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"There's the kiss of death." Blaze muttered.

"My gut's tellin' me that they're gonna burst out in song any moment now," Sam said, blandly.

"They've no mouth to speak with," Aquilai said.

"Doesn't stop Andalites."

"Touche."

The RAFians waited for an attack . . . an attack that never came.

"C'mon, attack already!!" Blaze snarled impatiently, having his sword -- which was glowing bloodred -- at the ready.

"If they're not gonna attack, why don't we just ignore them and figure out how to lift this darkness," Aquilai said, practically.

"Guess we should," Dino said, shifting back to her compact form with ease and swiftness of an Animorph.  "Any ideas how, Doctor?"

"That's the other guy," Aquilai said quickly.

"I was making a joke." she said, turning around, as the other four followed suit.  Then the demirevenants swarmed around them, then wound up right in front of them again, doing that creepy dance again.

"That was odd." Rad commented.

"It's like they always have to be the center of our attention." Blaze said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"That can't be, though," Blocky contradicted, "because our attention was on Aquilai before."

"Then what could it be?" Sam asked.  He still had that subtle Green Lantern glow.

Aquilai's eye widened.  "They're trying to block us.  Impede our path.  Keep us here!"

"But why?" Dino asked, her shock causing her to balloon up to her true height.

"I . . . I . . . I can't say," Aquilai stuttered.

"You don't know." Rad offered sagely.  Aquilai gave her a dirty look, and if looks could kill . . .

"Or they are trying to delay us," Blaze postulated.  "Delay us from . . . something."

"The others!" Dino proclaimed.  "The others must be in dire circumstances, and these THINGS are preventing us from helping them!"

"We can't do an Unity Pulse, though!" Rad reminded them.  "The Marks aren't all glowy!"

"Besides, a Pulse wipes out the users energy, and in that time they could just re-multiply, and it would be all for naught!" Aquilai put in.

"So we sit here and do nothing?!" Blaze demanded.

"You have a better idea?" Sam asked.

"Yeah!" Blaze said, taking his sword and charging forward, "ATTACK!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 17, 2012, 01:43:49 PM

I laughed more than I should have

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2012, 07:36:56 PM

It was intended for some levity, Underseen.

(My blood is still boiling over that Action Replay business . . . maybe a chapter or two will cool it).

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Realm Walker Caged Match

Cloak folded his arms and glared at the two who seemed to enjoy making his life, as well as the lives of his friends, hell.  He spoke not a word, but held that icy-cold stare.

"So, what now?" Abomination asked.  "A throw-down, my lovely?"

Cloak hoped he was addressing Malice.

"Yes, I think so," Malice said, grinning a sinister smirk.  "He can't take the both of us."

"Please.  Abomination can't take on a prepubescent girl." Cloak snorted.  "He's not even a contender.  And you barely qualify yourself, Malice."

"Oh, please, boy," Malice said, waving his words away.  "You think such feeble words would ruffle my --"

"YOU KNOW THAT SHE WAS AN ELEMENTS MASTER!" Abomination exploded in uncontainable outrage.  "YOU KNOW THAT IF SHE HADN'T HAD SUCH POWERS SHE WOULD HAVE NEVER STOOD A CHANCE!!  I AM THE STRONGEST NON-MASTER THERE IS!!"

"Silence, love," Malice said, very firmly.  She knew that she was far stronger than Abomination, but not in Cloak's league, in terms of brute strength.  But she had more experience, and she had a certain irritating finesse.  "He's just trying to goad you into acting without thinking."

"He's . . . oh, right, right."

"By the Void, Abomination --"

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"-- if you were any slower you'd have continental drift outpacing you."

"How dare you --"

"Yes, I dare.  You've brought us into this position, now just shut up and fight!" Cloak said, with uncharacteristicall y bloodthirsty tone.  Truth was, he was trying to hold back his emotions, to restrain them, but it was becoming more and more difficult just then.  He was barely preventing the energy from leaking out his eyes.  Malice seemed suspicious of this behavior, and eyed him wearily.

However, Abomination was painfully oblivous to this, and he charged forward, his dangerous hippo maw flashing.  But Cloak easily sidestepped the charge, and placed his hand on Abomination's back, and began to mirror his every change in direction.  Cloak found that this movement and action was lessening the pressure of his emotions.  It was because he was doing something to burn off that emotional energy -- or something.

"Where are you?" Abomination roared.  "Come here and fight like a man!"

"How 'bout you stop fighting like a mindless drone first?" Cloak said, deliberately giving away his position.

"Get over here!" Abomination snarled, when found that he couldn't reach Cloak.

"Nope, don't thinks so."

Malice was watching all this, but her face was blank and emotionless.  It was unclear whether she was amused or annoyed.  But in a few seconds it became clear when she irritatedly threw a blast of energy at Cloak, which missed.

"Enough of this," Malice said.

"Oh, you're gonna sully your own hands?"

"Oh, perish the thought." Malice said, seizing Abomination and Walking out of the universe.  Cloak realized what she was upto only mere seconds before she succeeded in escape.  Cloak's roar of anger and hatred reverberated throughout the very forum itself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 17, 2012, 08:34:09 PM

Fight scene, fight scene, really awesome fight scenes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2012, 11:14:34 AM

. . . I can't tell if you're commenting or requesting, Blaze. . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Phantoms of Darkness

"It's inexplicable," Ash was saying, touching the darkness.  "Some of these shadows seem to be intangible, like normal, while others . . ."

"Are as hard as a rock." Broken said, punching the shadow walls in anger, and immediately regretting such an action.

"The others could need us," Dameg said, concernedly.

<Well, looks like they'll have to make do without,> Russell said roughly.

"This doesn't make sense, though," Goom splurted.  "Shadows aren't supposed to be hard like that."

"So says the living, walking fungus," Empress Goose muttered.

"Goomba," Goom corrected, absently.  "But what's the purpose of dividing us like this?"

"Ever heard the phrase, 'divide and conquer'?" Broken posed rhetorically.  "That's what that kid did."

"He's not a kid," Ash reminded.  "There was something said about something possessing him.

"Never mind that now, guys." Empress Goose said, looking at their rear.  "We've got guests."

They all looked to were he indicated and saw a buttload of tenebrarevenants stare at them with their disproportionately large glowing red eyes.  The tenebrarevenants were eyeing them in a most discomforting way.

<I really don't like that look they're giving us,> Russell commented.

"Gives me the heebie jeebies," Empress Goose agreed.

Then six of the tenebrarevenants broke off from the others and began to circle a RAFian each, with movements rather akin to that of sharks finding prey.  The RAFians found themselves feeling quite ill.  But then a blinding blue flash illuminated the area briefly as the tenebrarevenants were flung a good distance away, starting to disintegrate.

"Oooh," Ash shivered.  "I just feel colder than the vacuum of space for a second there."

"What happened?" Broken asked.

"The Mark," Goom said, shivering himself.  "It sent them away."

"But why?" Dameg insisted.

"Can only think of one thing . . ." Goom said, now his shivering had nothing to do with cold.  "They tried to possess us."

<But . . .> Russell stuttered, <but . . . why would they want to possess us?  What purpose would it serve them?  We cannot escape from this shadow-lined cage.>

"I dunno, I don't have all the answers." Goom said, Mark glowing quite prominently on his head.  "But we best prepare ourselves, I doubt that this'll be the last attempt."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2012, 09:01:11 AM

'Nother chapter, methinks?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
AniDragon's Power

"Why are we still running?" Yunyun asked.

"I don't even know why we ran in the first place." Horse commented.

"It's because of that . . . that thing," Skymorpher said, "and you perfectly well know it."

Kelly pondered, "Is there any way to defeat him -- her, whatever?"

"I supposed if his, her, powers were stripped," AniDragon though aloud.

<But none of us have that power.> Noelle said.  <Andalites don't possess that kind of technology.  Nor do any species that I'm aware of.>

"It doesn't have to be tech," AniDragon replied quietly.  This lead to a small silence.

"AniDragon, what are you not telling us?" Kelly asked.

AniDragon said nothing, looking rather mollified.

"Stop holding out on us!" Horse said irritably.  "Talk, AniDragon.  Please."

AniDragon acted as if she was afraid to answer, but Noelle caught the gist of it.

<You have the power, don't you?  The power to take away Phaetos's influence?"

AniDragon sighed.

<That's it, isn't it?  I know that you've the power to boost pre-existing powers or jumpstart latent powers.  It's only natural that you'd also possess the ability to take them away.>

"It's not an ability I like using." AniDragon said, in a wary tone.  "And it doesn't always work, just like my boosting powers never work on Estelore or Cloak."

"They wouldn't want a boost," Horse commented.  "They both feel that they're sufficiently powerful as is."

Kelly spoke in a soften tone, "AniDragon, it's either use that ability on Phaetos, or be his, her, playthings for . . . well, I don't know exactly, but a long time, I'm sure."

AniDragon heaved a deep sigh, resigned to doing what she must, and steeling herself against what she knew must be a powerful will.  She didn't have to like it though.  "Okay, I'll give it my best shot."

In order for this to be successful, AniDragon's will, her mind and heart, must be unbendable and unbreakable.  So she continued to steel herself, when Phaetos came.

"What?  You don't run?" he, she, taunted.  "Where's the fun of that?"

<Fun?> Noelle taunted back on a sudden inspiration.  <I didn't think spirits knew of fun. . . . Perhaps your host-body is influencing your behavior more than you might like to think.>

With that, all levity faded quickly away from Harry's face.  "Mock me, will you?  You will pay for that, centauroid."

He, she, held out Harry's hand, and shadows began to swirl into the center of his palm, forming a basketball-sized ball of shadow.  But AniDragon took advantage of this momentary shift of attention, and pressed her right hand to his forehead, and her left to his chest.  Phaetos, oblivious to the nature of AniDragon's powers, looked amused.

"This body isn't old enough for that kind of behavior, girl," he, she, sneered.

But AniDragon ignored this, took a deep breath to steel herself some more.  Then her eyes glowed white, and white light appeared around both her palms.  There was a surge of energy, and Harry collapsed, unconscious to the ground.  But AniDragon didn't release her grip, as she no longer was touching Harry but Phaetos herself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: AniDragon on August 19, 2012, 10:59:15 AM

Oh hey, you made it like spirit-bending in Avatar: The Last Airbender! XD Awesome!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2012, 11:21:34 AM

Yep, AniDragon, that was my intent.  Oh, and apparently, the official term is "energy-bending".

Book's nearly done.  Just two more chapters to go.  Might be a long one, Chapter Nineteen.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Unity Prevails

AniDragon held fast to Phaetos who finally realized that AniDragon's powers were somehow sapping her strength.  She was able to leave the incarceration that was Harry's flesh, but she was not getting stronger, she knew.  She was getting weaker.

"Hold on, AniDragon!" Kelly encouraged.

<You can do this,> Noelle intoned.  <You MUST do this!>

"Go, AniDragon!" Horse cheered with Skymorpher and Yunyun.

***

Meanwhile, the demirevenants that were diverting Aquilai, Blaze, Blocky, Dino, Sam, and Rad simply vanished to the six's bewilderment.

"Wha . . ." Blaze said, mouth ajar.

"That was improbable," Aquilai said, equally aghast.

"Thanks for that, Spock," Sam replied, "but what just happened here?"

"Don't look at me," Dino replied.  "I'm in the dark, if you excuse the pun, as much as you all are."

Rad looked contemplative.  "Perhaps something happened to that spirit. . . . Perhaps, just perhaps, he, she, whatever, is losing her powers or her strength."

"Or both," Blaze interjected.

Then the six looked and saw that the shadow "walls" were weakening, liquefying.

"Well, I think that just supports your hypothesis, Rad," Aquilai commented benignly.

***

Cloak felt furious.

Yes, he felt anger and hatred towards Malice and Abomination, it's true.  But this fury was turned inward, towards himself.  He berated himself mentally for not seeing, not conceiving that they would Walk out of this trap.  Simply Walk out!!  He could follow them, sure.  But unlike the Fractured Realms, there are millions if not trillions of universes out there.  It would take a Dweller millennium just to check 'em all!  Another millennium just to be thorough!

But his self-loathing would not get him out of this bind.  He could not just leave his friends trapped in these tangible shadows.  However, he had no idea how to soften them, how to remove them.  He --

What's this?  The entire structure seemed to be melting into a molten, shadowy goo?  No, it was . . . vaporizing.  Somehow it was vaporizing!  But that could only mean that Phaetos was getting weaker, and Cloak could not imagine how that was occuring.  Unless . . .

"AniDragon . . . you can take away powers too." he muttered aloud.

He felt foolish for not realizing that.  He knew of her power-boosting abilities, naturally the reverse should be true.

***

The tenebrarevenants were still trying to possess Ash, Broken, Dameg, Russell, Goom, and Empress Goose, and failing due to the Mark's everlasting protection.  The six were actually kind of bored of the tenebrarevenants attempts now.

"You'd think they'd give up after the sixty-seventh time." Broken said, sitting, hand supporting his head.

<Sixty-seventh?> Russell said.  <I counted thirty-six.  I must have miscounted.>

"You know, at first, it was creepy.  After a while, it just got . . . pathetic." Empress Goose commented, airly.

"More irritating than pathetic, from my viewpoint," Ash muttered.

"Wish they'd just go away," Dameg said.

Suddenly, they were gone.  The six blinked in shock and surprise.  Then Broken, in one fluid motion, flew to his knees and clasped his hands together and said, very quickly, "I wish I had a million bucks.  I wish I had a million bucks.  I wish I had a million bucks."

Nothing happened.

"Well, it was worth a try!" Broken told the others defensively, as the walls began to congeal and vaporize.

***

The other RAFians found that their idyllic realities were beginning to become frail and collapse around them.  They started to remember what was true and what was fiction, and some of the weaker-willed just cried, missing their illusions.

***

Then the shadows that walled them in, collapsed into black, sooty smoke.  Then it was gone altogether, without leaving a single trace.  Only Cloak seemed to be undazed by the showy effect.  He saw AniDragon draining Phaetos, sealing her powers.  He knew this had to be putting a terrible strain on AniDragons heart, mind, and soul.

"Guys!  Focus!  AniDragon needs our support!  Our unity!" Cloak announced without taking his eyes of Phaetos, much like a skilled tiger would not take his eyes off of prey.  At Cloak's call, all the RAFians stood up in near unison, and stared at the two with an intensity matching Cloak's.  Their Marks started to glow . . . the Unity Beam was functional.

AniDragon finally released Phaetos, and stumbled away.  Her Mark too was glowing.  She could join in the Unity Beam, and by the determined, focused look she wore upon her face, she fully intended to.

Phaetos saw Harry's inert, unconscious form laying nearby, and she slowly, stumblingly, made her way to the flesh, hoping that it would rejuvenate her.  But Cloak, wordlessly, denied her this by projecting a golden-scarlet barrier that she could not pass through.

"Enough of this, Phaetos." Cloak said.  "We're gonna do what my ancestors, Guardian and Noble, should have done milennia ago."

"What?  You're their . . . of course . . . you're an Elements Master. . . ."

"Everyone," Cloak addressed the others, "together!"

And all the RAFians fired a massive Unity Beam at Phaetos, with a corkscrewing motion.  Then she shattered into nothingness, and the RAFians only NEARLY collapsed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2012, 12:25:36 PM

Last chapter!  And probably the last chapter of the day.  Probably gonna be a short chapter.

Next book's gonna be Book XVI: Who's Who.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Back to the Normal Grind

After Phaetos was shattered, RAF returned to the normal insanity of which its inhabitants had became accustomed.  The post count rose in the threads, naturally.
The bored were playing games in the Bored Board.  RAFians were being greeted or being bid farewell in the Introductions & Departures thread.  Wild discussions and speculations and debates were going on all over the board.  This was how it should be, Cloak felt.

He had found a home here, whereas he didn't feel at home in the Nexus.  He felt isolated there, a freak of nature, shunned for what he was.  He never knew how his grandfather dealt with such things, but his grandfather was always a stronger Elements Master than he . . . and a much stronger person.  Cloak knew he could never measure up to the long shadow that Sage cast.

So he ran away.  Ran away from his problems, from his emotions, from his family.  He had always desired freedom . . . freedom from pain, from judgement, from neglect.  Then he found this forum, where he found good, supportive friends.  One could make the argument that they were every last bit as freakish as he was, but Cloak did not care.  For the first time since the Hatching of his neice, Shadow, impetuous little monkey that she is, he found happiness at RAF.  Contentment.  This is why he works so strenously to prevent it from being overrun from the likes of Malice, Abomination and the Banned.

He does not tell the others this, though.  He thought it might sound a little pathetic, although some do wonder why he almost never visits the Nexus, but for some, they suspect the truth, however.

Done with his musing, Cloak strode over to the Bored Board, to the word chain thread, seeing if he can come up with a word to stump Aquilai, who always uses element names in his posts.  Perhaps "maw", Cloak thought. I can't think of any element known to Realm Dwellers that starts with a "W".

***

Meanwhile, Malice and Abomination were striding about in a dimly lit room.  Abomination apparently was bring Malice information about Phaetos.

"She's gone," he was saying, "they fire that strange beam of light and killed her."

"Too bad," Malice said, without any sympathy.  "She was an entertaining one."

"What now, Malice?"

"We, ah, invent a . . ." she leaned and whispered into his small hippo ear, which Abomination had to bend over to do."

"Really?  How do we do that?"

"Oh, let me worry about writing it, dear." Malice said, with a dismissing wave of her hand.

"But how will it affect --"

"Oh, it'll be a very entertaining treat to watch, I should say," Malice said, not quite answering his question.  "Fanatics, especially this brand of fanatics, are so easily manipulated.  Once you've the right materials . . ."

Malice smirked and begun writing in a strange language. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on August 19, 2012, 01:54:47 PM

That's not a secret to others who have played :P There aren't any ... yet. Just keeping in line with the contemporary elements discovered by humans at this stage of their development ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 19, 2012, 02:35:36 PM

First Last person to post, then word chain. Aquilai, are you planning on doing this with all of the games in the bored board?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2012, 05:01:06 PM

*tempted to quote Slappy Squirrel, but resists*

BOOK XVI:
Who's Who?
Chapter One:
The Bloodbender

Estelore, Cloak, Oceanspray, and Sakki were having a discussion near the entrance of RAF -- which was located near the Introductions & Departures thread.  In fact, Cloak was leaning up against the building, having a morose look on his face.  He was trying to use this discussion to get him to forget about the familial problems he's been having.

"Cloak, relax a little," Esty coaxed.  "You're being so serious."

"Sorry," came his muted reply.

"You want to talk about it?" Sakki asked.

"Not particularly," Cloak answered evasively.

This conversation was then interrupted by a human boy -- sixteen by the look of him.  Thin and wiry, with hair like Scot McNeil's, only braided badly.  He had a ****y swagger about him, and he walked in a very deliberate way, a way that reeked of overconfidence, hubris, and an overinflated ego.  The boy wasn't a RAFian, and did not ever bear the Mark.

Sakki eyed him warily, wearing a look of deep disgust and distaste, "Oh, this should be good."

"Bow down to your new ruler, peons!" he said, with an arrogant, haughty tone.

The four didn't even flinch, just glanced at each other in a casual, unintimidated way.  A tinhorn would-be dictator?  Why did they seem to attract them all of a sudden?

"Didn't you hear me?!" he demanded.  "I, Karat, told you to BOW!"

He raised his hands as if he were bending.  Nothing happened.  He tried again.  Nothing happened.  He was starting to lose his cool as he tried a third time.  Nothing happened once again.

"What are you doing?" Estelore said with a raised eyebrow.

He tried again, failed, and started to sweat.

"If you're trying to attack us," Sakki said, examining her fingers in a haughty, bored way, "you'll have to do better.  By a large margin."

But Cloak seemed to understand what little Karat was trying to do, and he couldn't stop himself from laughing out loud heartily -- something that he isn't known for doing.

"I don't believe this!  You're trying to bloodbend us?" Cloak said behind belts of laughter.

"DON'T LAUGH AT ME!!" Karat whined.

"Little boy," Cloak said, wiping his eyes, "I must thank you -- I needed a good laugh today."

"STOP IT!"

"Look, Karat boy, you apparently need a few new lessons," Cloak said, winding down, returning to his serious disposition.  "One, you can't bloodbend without the full moon unless you're related to Yukone, apparently.  Two, you can't bloodbend being without blood to bend."

Yes, Cloak knew that bloodbending manipulated the water inside a victims body, not really just blood.  But he had a point to make.

"Oceanspray is an android, Sakki is a VOLCAROID, and the Estelore you see there is really just an avatar form." Cloak elaborated, shaking his head at the kid.  "While I do have a life-fluid, it is not blood.  It's ichor.  And you cannot bloodbend ichor.  Even if you could. . . ."

Suddenly, Cloak pulled water out of the air, and wrapped around Karat, binding him thoroughly.  He tried to use his bending to break free of this grip but found that he could not.  He tried to prevent the tears in his eyes from welling up, and Cloak released him.

"Perhaps you should go and rethink your choices in life," Cloak said, turing his back on him.  Perhaps, if he was smart, he would go on his way and rethink what he's become.  Sadly, all people with dictatorial asperations tend not to think very well over their mistakes in life.  He attempted to use the water that Cloak culled out of the air to attack him.  But Cloak forsaw this with Earth sight, and he pinioned his arms against his body with earth, much like Aang did to Yakone.

"You . . . you gonna take my bending away now?" he asked in a quavery voice.

"I'd consider it," Cloak said.  "If I had that power.  Now, get lost." Cloak said, and the earth turned like a vertical turnstile, and the bloodbender found himself at the far end of town.

"Excellent," Oceanspray smirked.  "One more bloodbender and we can get a free shake!"

Cloak did not share in his levity.  He hated feeling like a bully.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 20, 2012, 09:19:18 AM

Finally got caught up. Great updates and thanks for the plug back there!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2012, 09:20:12 AM

Anytime, and I think I may have put up the first chapter of Book XVI while you were posting.

CHAPTER TWO:
The SOS

Yarin was idly monitoring all emergency networks and communications that RAF boasted.  It was pitifully dull work, but he managed it far easier due to his technical knowledge and tetramand physiology -- that is to say, his four-armed physiology, not that he was a Tetramand.  He managed to uncover a small, flickering, orange blip.

Yarin stared at the blip for a moment, apparently it's flickering sending a discreet Morse code, and then he said, over a RAFian intercom, "RAFians, assemble! . . . In the auditorium.  Assemble in the auditorium."

***

"I've located another SOS signal," Yarin explained once every one was seated and settled.

"You mean like last time?" Blaze shouted.  He was remembering the Xenomorphic Brood incident.  He would never forget that -- neither would Gaz, Cloak, Noelle, or Parker.  "You haven't forgotten what happened then, did you, Yarin?"

Yarin stayed in the ship, manning the controls, while the others had gone inside to investigate.  At this mere thought, Cloak's body language became far more surly.

"No, not like last time, Blaze.  And no, I haven't forgotten what happened on that occasion." Yarin said, all six eyes darkening.  "I do realize that this could quite easily be a trap. . . ."

"We should investigate," said Parker.  "There could still be someone who needs our help."

<We weren't exactly a help onboard that ship,> Noelle said darkly.

"Parker's right," Cloak said, who always stood at the back of the room, stepped closer.  "We've got to do something.  It would be really callous and . . . crass . . . of us to ignore this."

"We'll have to take my ship again," Yarin said, "but no one's obligated to go."

"I'm going." Parker said, standing tall, while Helen whispered, "Then you better come back in one piece, Parker."

She had a Star Sapphire thing, and couldn't go herself.

"As am I." Cloak said, in a ringing tone.

***

In the end, it was agreed that Cloak, Parker, Blue, Phoenix, Faerie, Dino (in her compacted form, of course), and FuBar would go to check out the signal.  Blaze refused to go himself because he still had bad memories of that previous trip, and Gaz and Noelle agreed with him.

The exit of Earth's atmosphere went without a hitch.  Cloak and Parker seemed to be the surliest of the bunch.  Preparing themselves for the possible horrors that they may very well witness.  Yarin told them it would take them about a day, day and a half to get to the coordinates.

"Oh joy," Faerie said, already getting a little cabin fever.

The ride was pretty much uneventful.  Until they were attacked . . .

***

Yarin's ship returned a day later, and the eight disembarked.  The ship maintained a marginal amount of damage.

"So, how'd it go?" Blaze asked, with his sardonic smirk absent.

"Just fine," Parker said, a little wooden, "just a false alarm."

Helen rushed up to Parker, then backed away.  She looked long and hard at him, causing him to reply irritatedly, "What?"

Helen looked a little crushed, but said nothing.  This caused Ash to run her chin and narrow her eyes.

Cloak walked straight to his threat, claiming to find his "light self".

Ash was now in full suspicion of what truly happened.

"Something's just not right here," she muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2012, 08:57:00 AM

Now . . . a new chapter.  A short chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Something's Off

The eight reintegrated back into RAF fairly easily, but Ash's suspicions of something wrong were not hers alone.  Other RAFians began to suspect something had happened that the eight aren't relating.  Gaz and Noelle were as suspicious of this as Ash was, but they concealed it.  There were small inconsistencies in the eight's behavior.* . . .

Cloak was speaking like and acting like Sepiroth -- the one in Kingdom Hearts -- for apparently no reason at all.  There didn't seem to be the slightest levity in him at all.  Some of the RAFians that didn't have contact with him on a regular basis were easily fooled.  Gaz, Ash, Noelle, among others, spotted this inconsistency immediately.

Blue was being overly and overtly obnoxious and uncharacteristicall y vain.  Which turned heads because Blue, in reality, are nither of those two things.  This Blue began to grind on the nerves of many of those which he would call friends.

Phoenix was uncharacteristicall y high-strung and demanding.  As a mod, Phoenix never abused his power or authority, and many RAFians turn to him in the absence of Richard for leadership.  But not this Phoenix -- he happily abused his authority and was uncharacteristicall y slovenly.

Parker was unusually and unnecessarily surly.  He was extremely cold and hard against Helen, which she noticed immediately.  She would insist to any who would listen that he was NOT Parker.  She would not hear anyone who tried to reason with her against this, but stubbornly stuck to her guns.

Faerie usually was a kick-butt, ask-questions-later girl.  But after this SOS trip, she became somewhat more cowardly and timid.  Those who knew her were immediately alarmed.  Horse and Mr. Guy were worried about her state of mind, and tried to coax her to tell them what happened in space.  She acted like she didn't know what they were talking about and insisted nothing happened, the SOS was a false alarm.

FuBar was loud, rowdy and rude.  This was the complete polar opposite to his reserved, dignified nature.  This new change of personality was greeted with either concern or annoyance.

Dino spent most of her time in her enlarged form, barring entering the threads.  And when she did, her switch to her compact form somehow looked . . . different.  This warranted suspicion from the more intellectual RAFians.  But in all this time back, she said not a single word.  It was as if she had lost her voice.

Yarin was apathetic and lazy, not stepping foot into the lab he shared with Demos once.  Demos found this very odd, and disconcerting in a way.

***

Gaz, Noelle and Ash got together in secret on the Thursday night after the eight had returned.

<There is something definitely off about those eight,> Noelle said in private thought-speak.

"Yes, but what?" Gaz queried.

"Could they have been affected with those aliens you dealt with?" Ash asked.

Gaz shook her head, "No, they don't affect their hosts like this.  It's like they're completely different people."

Noelle started to scan harder with her stalk eyes.  <Perhaps . . .>

"What is it, Noelle?" Ash pressed.

<Perhaps that's it, right there.> Noelle said.  <Perhaps, just perhaps, they ARE different people.>

"What clones?"

"It's not too farfetched," Gaz commented thoughtfully.  "There was that situation where Az found a lab cloning clones of him."

<What?>

"Oh, sorry, Noelle.  I forgot.  That was before your time as a RAFian.  I think."

"So they may be imperfect clones?" Ash pressed onward.

"It's a possibility as good as any other," Gaz sighed.  "They could as easily be shapeshifters with very nominal information -- or shapeshifters that are TERRIBLE actors."

<We must be sure to keep an eye on those eight,> Noelle said.

"Agreed." Gaz said.

"Agreed," Ash said.

---
*Trust me, there's gonna be a reason behind this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2012, 10:42:39 AM

Yeah.  Um . . . here's the second chapter of today.  Probably gonna be short.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Case of the Pointed-Earred Shadows

The trio kept true to their word -- even humming their own version of "RAFians On A Mission".  They watched the eight quite closely, but in a cautious, covert and courteous manner, lest their quarry figures out their intent.  They would report their findings to each other in a discreet manner and always on an unset timetable.

Eventually, they managed to compile a mental list of the goings on of the eight.

• Cloak hadn't posted a new parody in months -- which was unusual, because he wrote 90% of the 787 RAFparodies there are.
• Blue was spamming up the boards -- again something very out of character.
• Phoenix was ignoring his administrative duties and was being rather abusive towards the newbies, yearlings and veterans alike, threatening Banning -- something Phoenix would not do, he simply WOULD NOT.
• Faerie was crimping and wearing frilly dresses . . . there is no words to explain just how out of character this was.
• Parker never removing his helmet at all -- Parker would occasionally remove it to eat and the like, but it seems that he may have gone off food, until Gaz -- in bat form -- realized he'd just been eating in his thread.  Parker isn't usually so furtive.
• FuBar just WRECKED all the furniture in the forum.  There wasn't a couch or chair who hasn't met with the bite of his claws.  FuBar has much better self-control than that, so that was another suspicious act.
• Yarin was allowing his ship to fall in disrepair -- which lead Phoenix to scold him an whisper, discounting the newt listening in.
• Dino still continued with this mute act -- she grunted, snarled and such, but did not speak.

Ash was the best at sneaking around, due to her shapeshifting prowness, and Gaz, in bat form, was often overlooked, because how often do you pay attention to a small, black bat?  Noelle was the best at alerting them from danger and allowed them to keep their cover.  This was an efficient little team, but even they were prone to error.

On one of the outings, where Ash was gonna try to sneak into one of the eight's Threads, she found that she would have done better by staying away.  She managed to make it to the Member Profiles building, as an anole, but she was unaware that she was being followed as Noelle was being distracted . . . by some shadowy figure trying to hack off her tail, but not quite succeeded.  She was acting on instinct, as she could morph and demorph and be whole again.  But then the figure, who had prominent pointed ears, vanished from her view.  From all four eyes.

<Impossible!>

***

Gaz was spying on one of the eight from the eaves of a nearby board, when she felt something swipe at her!  It was shadowed figure with prominent, pointed ears trying to ensnare her in an overlarge butterfly net.  She flew out and high, silhouetted by the big, full moon.  She was tempted to say, "Gaz, Maximize" as she resumed her human form to fight, to divebomb this attacker.  But he or she dodged, and fired what looked to be a heavily modified taser, which caused voltage to stream into her body, knocking the vampire out.

***

Meanwhile, Ash was against the brick wall, looking into the doorway.  Then she felt the jolt of a million volts or so flying into her body, and she passed out.  As she did, she returned to her base form, as the wires of the modified taser retracted into the hand of a shadowed figure with pointed ears.  Then she is placed inside a stasis capsule that would keep her in a state of suspended animation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 21, 2012, 11:33:15 AM

lol! Yeah...I would be tempted to say that. I think Optimus was originally going to be a bat, actually. But they changed it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2012, 11:37:30 AM

Yes, that was his first figure -- and Megatron was a croc.  No, seriously, he was a crocodile.  I know this because I have both their figures -- or at least, did.  They're fairly broken by now, but still in storage.

Might post another chapter later.  But I'm also gonna be working on the RAFize Songs thread as well.  We're a little over 200 parodies away from 1000!  Of course I won't forget this thread.  But I think two chapters a day will be sufficient, unless I'm busy doing other things.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
RAF-aca!  RAF-aca!

Richard was aware of the strangeness of the scene.

A still-unconscious Gaz was laying next to the encapsulated Ash, who was still in suspended animation.  Loosely placed in her hand was one of the strange tasers.  It was an obvious frame-up -- someone was trying to set up Gaz as the one responsible for Ash's capsule incarceration.  But Richard said nothing about it.

"Goom," he said.  Goom waddled over, the short little Goomba he was.  He examined Ash first, and proclaimed her fine physically, as he could not assess her mental well-being.  He also mentioned that the capsule was impossible to open with conventional means.  "Okay.  Now, Gaze? -- I mean, Gaz?"

Goom looked her over, and gave her a clean bill of health, although he comments that she was very, very, very lucky that it was not worse.  He called a couple of yearlings who worked under him, after they finished training with Russell.  They began to pick up Gaz to take her to the infirmary.

"Wait," Parker said.  His voice was unusually monotone, as if he was a child reading a script.  "She obviously put that tank around Ash.  She needs to be punished."

Again, some eyes narrowed at him, including Blaze's own.  Blaze, who hide his suspicions, turned to Cloak and said, "Hey, Cloak, why don't you metalbend the thing open?"

This was a test.  Blaze knew that Cloak, while a master of the elements, was NOT a bender.  Cloak just shut his eyes tightly and opened them, without any other movement whatsoever.  Then he opened them up again, almost instantaneously, and said, "I can't."

"I see," said Blaze, as he backed a bit away from "Cloak", eyes slits and face deliberately blank.  He had failed Blaze's subtle test.  Blaze knew that Cloak could have easily popped that thing open, only this "Cloak" didn't.  Possibly because he couldn't.  Because he wasn't Cloak.  It may look like a duck, or talk like a duck, but that doesn't mean it's a duck.  Blaze was absolutely sure of this, as sure as Helen was that Parker wasn't her Parker.

"She still needs punishment," said the script-reading Parker.  "She has done wrong, a grave disjustice."

"You've no proof of that, Parker!" Kelly said fiercely.  She was another RAFian who suspected something was going on here.  Something deeper that she was not yet aware of.  "RAFian security isn't foolproof.  No security is!"

Yarin looked bored, not even caring about the jab at his work not being perfectly adequate.  This was obviously not Yarin.

Dino normally would speak out against an unjust accusation just as that, but she remained as mute as she has for the past few days.

"Quiet down, peon!" "Phoenix berated Kelly, who didn't back down.  If Parker wasn't the real Parker, than niether was Phoenix.  "You will do as I say!"

"You're not the boss here, pal," she retorted just as fiercely, "Richard's the head honcho.  But, of course, you already knew that, right?"

Juding by the look this pseudo-Phoenix wore, he didn't.  His face returned to twist Phoenix's face into one of contempt and arrogance.  "Don't cross me, girly.  You wouldn't like it."

They glared at each other, with "Phoenix" eventually backing down and walking away.

What could these things possibly be?  They aren't do very good imitations of who they're trying to impersonate.  A few RAFians thought to look it up in the species index, only to find that the whole species database was down.  It was oddly convenient.  Too convenient.  RAF had been breached -- but by whom and by what?

And what happened to the REAL Blue, Cloaky, Dino, Faerie, FuBar, Parker, Phoenix and Yarin?  Were they lost in space?  Were they on their way back here?  Where were they?  Were they even alive?

Some RAFians believed this now, but still more persisted in thinking nothing was wrong -- those would be the lurkers mostly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on August 21, 2012, 03:32:58 PM

Oh dear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Kelly on August 21, 2012, 07:42:04 PM

Ohh, something wacky going on here!

I had a lot of catching up to do - enjoyable reading as always. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 21, 2012, 08:47:15 PM

Subtle subtle tests, we must root out the imposters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 22, 2012, 12:54:35 AM

*finishes reading*

*nods approvingly*  :D

. . . *doesn't say anything*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2012, 09:24:17 AM

LOL, Dino.  Now it'll start to kick in, I hope.

CHAPTER SIX:
Inspection Diversion

Richard went and checked on Yarin's ship.  When he arrived, he saw that Yarin's ship had a number of malformities, which showed that Yarin's ship wasn't all that it appeared to be.  Richard went over to touch the rough inconsistencies to the form.  It appeared as if the ship was not Yarin's after all.  It appeared that it was merely shapeshifted, cloaked to look like Yarin's ship.  Though at first it was identical to the ship, now it was losing coherence as that ship.

Richard pursed his lips angrily, but said nothing.  He continued to run his fingers over the ship's hull as if looking for something.  Suddenly, with startling rapidity, the ship started to change shape.  But not to its base form, oh no.  But back to the simulation of Yarin's ship.

"What are you doing here?!" "Yarin" shouted, dropping what appeared to be a doughnut.

"Don't you DARE to take that tone with me, Mron!" Richard snarled.  But he spoke in a different, unknown language.

"Wha --" the false Yarin looked so taken aback that his secondary arms glooped back into his sides, his toes became black boots, his body became a lurid, putrid lavender spandex suit and his skin became pebbly green and his ears extended into points.  He had just revealed himself as a Skrull.  "Lord B'nt?!"

"KEEP IT DOWN, fool!  And get back into your disguise!" he said disgusted.  "Unlike you I managed to subdue and replace my double.  And I've been able to impersonate him believably.  While the eight of you, due to your incompetence and laziness, refused to read the data tracks provided!  You've all blown your cover the intelligent species at this compound.  But this is why the Empress sent me, to make sure that you eight screw-ups don't blow this mission.  I suppose I should have taken one of the eight's forms first . . . but this Richard has more power, power necessary for our goals."

Mron retook Yarin's form, quivering and bowing sycophantically.

"Now," B'nt said in tones of deteremined calm, "what did you do with the eight on the ship again?"

"Put them in hyperstasis, Lord B'nt."

"Hyperstasis?" he scowled.  "It'll have to do.  Who's guarding them?"

Apparently, B'nt was napping while the other eight were doing this or something.

"Lanker, J'strom, Trut, sir."

B'nt's face clearly showed that he thought them ill-suited for the task.

"Very well.  BE SURE that Th'r, H'keye, Pak, Satr'k, Wap, Pim, and Bl'pa get the message."

Th'r was Cloak's impersonator, H'keye was disguised as Blue, Pak was posing as Phoenix, Satr'k was pretending to be Parker, Wap was unconvincing as Faerie, Pim was too mute to be Dino, and Bl'pa was giving a disasterous performance as FuBar.  All considered to be fools and morons by B'nt.  The dregs of the Empire.  Why the dregs?  Because the Skrull Empire really didn't think much of Earth.*

"We took care of the shapeshifter and vampire, though," Mron quibbled.

"Enough of your whimpering!  The vampire will be swiftly dealt with as soon as she recovers, as will the shapeshifter" B'nt snarled.  "Go tell the others that they better start acting like their disguises a WHOLE LOT BETTER or I'll take them out myself!"

Mron shuttered horribly at the thought.

"Now, you and the others will READ THE DATA TRACKS.  And you will MEMORIZE THEM." he growled.  "And, finally, you WILL do better to DECIEVE THESE SAVAGES."

Unlike the eight, B'nt had a rather personal reason to be here.  This is why he volunteered for this invasion, and the experiments. . . .

---
*Different continuity than Marvel. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2012, 11:06:18 AM

Oh, and here's the line up again (remember, these are tentative titles):

• Book XVII: The Last RAFian
• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons*
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!*
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales*
• Book L: Maul*
• Book LI: Erised Orbs*
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!*
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time*
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon* -- there'll be a little bit of "sneak peak" I suppose in tomorrow's "RAFize Songs" parody.

A (*) indicates I haven't done the chapter-by-chapter of this book yet.

'Kay.  Now . . . a bit of a plot dump, I suppose.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Awakening

Cloak was in a blank void of nothingness.  He felt himself curled into a ball, but he saw nothing.  Heard nothing . . .

Wait . . . what was that?  A sloshing noise?  Water?  Was he in water?

Yes. . . . Yes, he could feel it around him, he could feel it want to bow to his whim . . . he felt around using the water dynamics to figure out that he was in some sort of cylindrical tube.  He could hear snatches of voices, a language which he didn't know. . . . He waited a moment for the Realm Walker innate trick of learning a language by hearing a few words to kick in -- strangely this didn't work with any but one of the Earth languages.

"Why do they need us to guard a bunch of these tubes?" came a breathy sort of voice, like that motorcycle on Beast Machines.

"Boss told us to watch," came a thick, deep, rough voice.  "Don't think too much.  Makes head hurt."

"You're an idiot, Lankor." came a haughty, arrogant tone from a different voice.

"Don't call me names, J'strom!"

"Oh, will you both stop acting like babies!"

"But Trut --"

"Shut up the both of you," Trut snarled.  "It's bad enough that I got stuck on this backwater guarding project.  Guarding eight tube-tanks with lower lifeforms in it.  Ugh."

Cloak's mind raced.  He was being guarded . . . that must have meant he was a prisoner. . . . Then Cloak's mind registered another thing -- lower lifeform?  That Trut was calling him a lower lifeform?!

Cloak's eyes snapped open, slightly leaking energy.  Suddenly, water pressure in his tube increased expotentially until it shattered.  Then Cloak tumbled out, landing on his feet, as all cats do.  Then, before the water even touched the ground, Cloak hydrokinetic pulled into a crescent blade, paper thin, and slashed it at the other tanks which exploded in a blast of steam and water.  Cloak took the water from those tanks and created a torrent at the barred-in hallway.  This took the guards by surprise, although they intially dismissed the sounds.

The others coughed and sputtered.  But, one by one, stood up, looking rather as ticked off as Cloak himself felt.

"Some lower lifeforms, huh?" Cloak snarled.

"How'd . . ." J'Strom choked.

"What's he saying?" Phoenix asked.

"I'll translate telepathically," Yarin said, doing a Miss Martian* thing.

"Looks like you're not as high and mighty as you thought." Cloak said.  "You ambushed us, took us unawares.  That's not gonna happen this time."

The truth was the SOS was planted by these Skrulls.  They shapeshifted into beings that looked like they geniunely needed help.  The RAFians, being altruistic beings fundamentally, attempted to help -- only to be suckerpunched and gassed into unconsciousness.  Cloak was given far more because of his ability to blow the gas away, until he tired and succumbed to exhaustion.

"Security!  Security needed at Gate --"

But the communication was interrupted . . . when Parker blasted the communicators to bits.  The three fled like cowards -- although it seemed to take Lankor a moment more to realize that running would be a good option.  Cloak easily bent the metal bars out of the way so all the RAFians could walk through comfortably.  But they all felt very angry at these Skrulls, and they intended on doing something about it.

"Lemme at them, lemme at them," Faerie was muttering savagely.  "I get you all for trying to turn me into a science experiment!"

"Wait . . ." Dino said, having a thought, "what if they were keeping us here for another reason?"

"What?" Phoenix asked.

But FuBar caught Dino's line of thought, "What if they were just keeping us here to keep us out of the way?"

"Out of the way of what?" Parker asked.

Cloak facepalmed.  "They're Skrulls.  Shapeshifters.  What if they are impersonating us back at RAF?"

"Great, and we're already in such good standing with the nearby populace." Yarin commented darkly.

"We need to get back to my ship." Yarin said.

"If it's destroyed?" Blue asked logically and innocently.

"DON'T SAY THAT!" Yarin practically screamed.  His ship was to him what a TARDIS was to Aquilai or Aila.

---
*As seen on "Young Justice".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2012, 05:23:14 PM

Last chapter today, methinks.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Ship!  A Ship!

Yarin was the most intent on finding his ship again, his "baby".  Cloak made a mental note that if he was gonna fall into using baby talk when talking about his ship, he'd slap him.  So intent was Yarin, that he literally lead the group, his feet slapping on the metallic floor.  Parker took up the rear with Dino to watch their backs.

"It has to be somewhere . . ." Yarin was muttering.

"Yarin, you had better not be leading us in circles!" Faerie threatened.  "I'm not going to axe you nicely!"

They all winced at the pun, which led Faerie to query, "What?"

Yarin apparently didn't hear her, but they ran into a small problem of a group of no less than twenty Skrull soliders or so that were blocking their path.  All six of Yarin's eyes narrowed, and he snarled, "OUTTA MY WAY!!"  Then charged straight through the needlessly shocked Skrulls, but it didn't last for long.  Cloak jumped in a spiraling motion and blasted them to the ground with a blast of air.

"Phoenix, we'll have to limit the use of fire," Cloak warned, having gone through this problem before.  "We may be in a spacecraft, so the air is a precious commodity that we cannot waste."

"Right," Phoenix acknowledged.  "Better find Yarin."

"He's not too far," Cloak said.

"How'd you know that, Cloak?" Dino asked, as they proceeded quickly along the corridor.

"You've been working on your Metalsight, haven't you?" Parker asked smartly.

"On the nose, Parker." Cloak said, panting a little.  It felt as if he hadn't stretched his legs for days.  And, of course, he hadn't.  "I thought it would come in handy eventually."

"What's Metalsight?" Blue asked.

"Like seeing through the Earth, a la Toph," Cloak replied.  "Only through Metal."

"You can do that?"

"Yep," Cloak said.  "I plan to learn how to Airsight next."

"What?" FuBar asked, easily padding along.

"Able to 'see' by sensing air currents and such," Cloak said.  "It may very well not even be possible."

"There he is!" Faerie declared, then her tone turned angry and rageful.  "YARIN, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!  LEAVING US BEHIND!!  I OUGHTA CHOP YOU IN HALF!!"

"It's in here . . . IT'S IN HERE!!!"

"How do you know that it's in there?"

"I scanned the minds of those Skrulls." Yarin said quickly.  "It's locked!  I can't get in."

Cloak used Metalsight to see into the room, through the walls.  He wasn't even sure he could.  "I don't 'see' it, Yarin".

"It wouldn't be touching the ground!  Remember?  It hovers a few inches off the ground!!"

"Okay, okay, calm down." Cloak said, as he easily removed the door due to his mastery of Metal.  The ship was there.  But something tugged at Cloak's mind . . . it was too easy.  Way too easy.  He didn't say anything, but Dino did.  Yarin ignored her as he climbed into the ship, and caused the scarring on the hull to "heal" itself.

Then Skrulls began to swarm into the hangar area.

"Well, Faerie," Cloak said with an ironic smirk, "I hope you weren't getting to bored."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2012, 10:50:13 AM

*wonders if this post will be on a new page.*

Now, to stave off depression, here's a new chapter.  Short one.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Less Than Auspicious Landing

"How're you doing, Yarin?!  Fix those controls yet?!" Blue said, taking out a ninja sword -- a ninjato, specifically -- and was beginning to hack through the forces.  Faerie was doing the same thing, but finding it more irritating than fun.

"Patience, Blue . . ." Yarin muttered.

"Easy for you to say!" Blue said, then turning and slamming the bottom of the hilt onto his opponent, shouting, "Outta my face, jerk!"

They seemed to give Dino and Cloak the widest birth, but the two RAFians weren't gonna just slaughter them, but they weren't gonna let them get away either.  Due to their shapeshifting nature, Blue and Faerie assumed that they could regrow limbs and such.  And they could to a degree.  Dino just had to roar, and some of the weaker-willed ones fainted on the spot.  Others just morphed into shapes of similar size.

"Oh, dear," Dino said.  But then charged forward, knocking them aside like bowling pins.

"Repairs are complete," Yarin announced.  And the RAFians filed in, though Dino had to become more compact first.

Yarin maneuvered for to leave, when a Skrull shouted, "Close the doors, idiots!  Close them!  Close them, already!"

"Uh-oh." Parker said.

"Maximum Burn or the equivalent, Yarin!" FuBar shouted.

"But we could serious damage the --" Yarin warned.

"JUST DO IT!!"

He did, and they took the doors with them, eventually falling off just outside Saturn's rings.

***

"Shut the auxiliary doors, fools!" the same Skrull roared, holding on to a wall pipe thing for dear life.  The vacuum of space was attempting to suck them in.  But the pressure differential died as the auxiliary doors slid into place.

"The Empress'll have your heads!  You fools let them escape!" the same Skrull said, he seemed to be the commander of this base.  He was furious, this was a definite blemish on his spotless and squeaky-clean record.  There was fair bit of grumbling at this.  "SILENCE!  Alert the Earth team.  We have to contain this as much as possible.  Talk to B'nt directly.  The other foul fools would screw it up, according to the last report he sent."

"Yes, sir!"

"Oh, Lee'nent?" a sultry, female Skrull voice (which means that it was raspy and grating as well) called from hallway threshold, "What's this I hear about prisoners escaping?"

Lee'nent reluctantly turned around, stiff as a board.  "E-E-Empress!  Wha-wha-what are you doing here?"

"Don't question me," she snapped.  "I drop by for a routine inspection, and see everything meeting my expectations, then I not only hear but SEE that you allowed the prisoners to escape!  You were given this assignment because you were competent, or so I thought!  This may cost us our promised land!  Explain yourself!"

"Well, I--I--I--"

***

"Entering Earth's atmosphere in two Earth minutes." Yarin called out.

"Location?" Cloak asked, he was feeling some anxiety for some unknown reason, even to him.

"Just beside the hangar," Yarin elaborated.

"Good," Blue said.  "Then maybe we can go and stop those Skrulls from ruining our reputations."

"If they hadn't already," Parker said, somberly.

"You should write Christmas cards, Parker," Dino jested.

***

Sakki was standing right outside the RAF Hangar, where Yarin's ship was usually housed, thinking to herself and humming a tune that she alone knew.  Then she looked up and was . . . confused.  That object looked like Yarin's ship, but it couldn't be.  His ship landed three days ago!

What was going on here?

She watched as it landed daintily before her.  It was Yarin's ship . . . or a Nyac ship, at least.  What the . . .?

Then the door opened to the silhouette of eight figures. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Blazing Angel on August 23, 2012, 06:06:35 PM

Got to love a good prison break.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2012, 12:40:32 PM

On hiatus until further notice.

I might post another chapter -- things seemed to have cooled down, and I could have misinterpreted a couple of things.  Anyway, this might be a short chapters.

CHAPTER TEN:
RAFian Showdown

As the eight dismounted the ship, the eight faux RAFians (faux Richard -- B'nt -- didn't want to reveal himself just yet, as he was the best actor of the group) rushed out to battled, all (except the faux-Dino, who wouldn't speak at all, because he assumed that's how she actually was) crying out that these eight were Skrull imposters.

And the battle was begun.  Each testing their duplicate's strength, agility, stamina, skill, and evasion.  They appeared to be evently matched when no powers were used, but this as merely a ruse on the real RAFian's part.  They wanted to see if their imposters could seriously measure up to their fighting prowness.  And one by one the real RAFians seemed sorely disappointed.

Sakki, however, as an impartial third-party to this, was unable to decide which RAFian was real and which was fake due to the flurry of movements.  She easily lost track as she tried ever so hard to divine which was real and which was false.

"God," she grumbled, "it was easier extricating Horse from Pootang's bowels."

Yarin and Mron were engaged with all four arms pressing against the four arms of the other.  Both pushing for all they're worth, but not quite succeeding.  Nyacs are a race of brains not brawn like the Tetramands of Khoros.

FuBar was hissing at Bl'Pa, who mimicked it right back at him.  Both hand claws unsheathed and were pouncing on to one another, shredding fur, but not even biting skin yet.

Dino and Pim were roaring and snarling each other as they circled each other ominously.  Both tails were rather stiff, only waving very briefly.  They were both at their maximum height.

Parker and Satr'k were standing motionless.  Both with weapons aimed at each other, neither not daring to move a single inch.  One would think that the two were SPARTAN statues.

Faerie and cowardly Wap had locked axes, one wore a look of rage and the other a look of pure fear and terror that Sakki could not see or make out from her position on the ground.

Phoenix and Pak were just staring at each other, as each through punches that never connected.  Phoenix wasn't putting his all into his punches, conserving his energy, while Pak was stupid and arrogant enough to put everything he had into every punch.

Blue and H'keye were locked into a battle with long, sharp ninjabos.  Neither would yield at all and both faces were hidden beneath ninja cowls, but it was clear one was enjoying this battle and one was taking it very seriously.

Cloak and Th'r were battling, but Th'r was throwing all the punches, while Cloak deftly dodged them, much like an airbender.  With each missed blow, Cloak was becoming increasingly disappointed with the Skrull who though himself good enough to impersonate him.

These battles soon attracted the others, including a visiting Estelore, who could do nothing without harming her RAFian friends.  This put her in a dilemma of sorts, being the most powerful RAFian.  But she changed into her "warrior Estelore" getup anyway.

"Sakki!" the faux Richard exclaimed, feigning ignorance.  "What's going on here?"

"We have imposters," she said, "but I don't know which one's which.  There's too much movement!"

"What do we do?" Kelly asked.

"We wait." Estelore said.  "We wait and have faith that our friends and comrades can defeat their duplicates."

Not likely, thought B'nt, smiling inwardly, but showing none of it on his Richard-disguised face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2012, 08:39:18 PM

Now, another chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Dead Giveaways

The real eight gave the others fleeting glances, and subtle nods.  Playtime was over.

Yarin continued to try to wrestle Mron with all four of his arms.  But now . . . now he unleashed the full might of his telepathic power.  Something which Mron had no defense against as he, himself, is not a telepath, especially not at Yarin's caliber.

"I hate doing this," Yarin said, grunting with minimal telepathic effort, "but you leave me no choice, clown!"

Yarin's foe released his grip with a vacant look upon his face.  His eyes merged into two, which were wide and dilated.  His flesh congealed into bumpy green skin in a pinkish-lavender spandex with similar looking hood.  He was a Skrull again, and drool was starting to dribbled down from his mouth as he fell to the left.  Yarin shut all six of his eyes, regretting having to do this.

Meanwhile, FuBar cleverly lured Bl'pa towards a cliff.  He backed toward it so his back paws were just touching the edge.  FuBar feigned a terrified look, and Bl'pa smirked and cackled at this.  FuBar said nothing and hoped this gamble would pay off.  Bl'pa did just as FuBar predicted and leaped at him, which lead to FuBar rolling underneath him, and batting Bl'pa's paws in such a way that it screwed up his trajectory enough for Bl'pa to faceplant.  Then slide, due to momentum, off the cliff.  His Skrull fingers clasps the edge as he shifted out of FuBar's form, but he couldn't hold it for long, and he fell.  It would have been a better idea to remain in FuBar's lighter form or even shapeshift into a flying creature, but Bl'pa wasn't very smart or coordinated.

Dino glared at her subpar copy, gravely disappointed, and she told him so.  "You're not very good at this are you?"  In retaliation, Pim attempted to bite her neck, but Dino deflected that with a punishing tail blow.  "I'm not done," Dino scolded the mute.  Pim then attempted to chew off her tail, when she bit him in the neck, worrying him like a dog with a bone.  He hung lifeless, shifting down, down, down, back to his bulky, Skrull frame and form.  She replied pityingly, "You weren't very bright, were you?"

Parker and Pak were still motionless, but then Pak got impatient and shouted at Parker to attack.  When Parker didn't even reply, Pak fired his full weaponry at Parker . . . only to have it not even scratch his armor.  Parker "tsk"-ed and said, "That's what you get with cheap, knockoff weaponry!"

"Cheap!?  Do you have any idea how much that cost?!"

"Buck ninety?" Parker quipped as two large orbs appeared in front of each of his fusion cannons.  "Now, hold still.  This won't hurt.  Much."

Then the two orbs merged and Parker used Hyper Beam . . . er, no, no, sorry, he fired his arm-mounted cannons.  Pak was atomized without much effort.  "Huh.  The armor must've been a knockoff, too."

Faerie was taking her duplicate's personality as a personal insult.  "They got a COWARD to TRY to IMPERSONATE ME?!" she raged.

SNAP!!  Wap's axe snapped in two, and she tried to run away.  But Faerie would have none of that.  She caught up easily to Wap . . . well, it's kinder NOT to say what happened, but no part of Wap ever touched the earth again.

Phoenix and Pak traded punches but neither landing.  Phoenix looked rather relaxed, as if he was just exercising, while Pak looked genuinely looked worried.  He attempted to solicit help from the other RAFians, who did not do anything, as Phoenix requested it of them -- which pretty much made them sure that Phoenix was the real McCoy.  Phoenix decided at that moment to "Flame On" and incinerate his foe, putting him out of his misery.

Blue and H'Keye had their ninjabos crossed and they weren't backing down.  Until H'Keye's sword shatters, and he backs off considerably.  Blue gave him a cold look that clearly said in big bold letters, "PATHETIC".  H'Keye naturally takes this personally.  So he takes out shurrikens and begins throwing them at Blue whose movements were too fast and being little more than blurs.  After H'Keye runs out of shurrikens, Blue reveals that he caught all of them, and gives him a look about these shurrikens -- clearly thinking that they were very crudely made.

"Wha -- that's impossible!" H'Keye proclaimed.

"Not for me, pal." Blue said, incredibly coldly.  Then he throws his sword and it catches in H'Keye's chest.

Finally, Cloak was refusing to deign to actually battle with Th'r.  He kept evading and avoiding the attacks much to Th'r's annoyance.

"Fight back!" Th'r roared.

"Give me a reason to attack such a pathetically weak specimen." Cloak sneered.  "You're not worthy to pretend to be a RAFian.  Rotiart does a better job than you!  You humiliate me by trying to impersonate me in such a pathetic way."

Cloak glared at Th'r.

"Enough of this.  I gave you a chance, and you gave me nothing." Cloak snarled.  Cloak's eyes started leaking out energy.  He was going into full "Avatar" mode and he knew it.  He sent out a shock wave of air.  Then a shock wave of fire.  Then a shock wave of earth.  Then, finally a shock wave of water.  This was overkill, as the first shock wave slayed Th'r.  Cloak managed to calm himself down a few minutes later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on August 27, 2012, 12:38:39 AM

Ka-pow!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2012, 11:00:54 AM

Right.  I'll try to get three chapters up today.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
One More Thing

"Ka-pow." Ash commented afterward.*

"Indeed," Broken concurred, wearing a monocle on his right eye for some reason.

Cloak stood up tall and surveyed the damage.  It was purely cosmetic.  No structures were damaged, but the ground was a mess.  With  a wave of his hand the earth was normal again -- although there was no returning the grass to the same state as it was before.  Cloak had command over the Wood element, and grass isn't made of wood.

Still, Cloak felt uneasy.  He glanced at FuBar, who met his gaze and nodded.  He felt the malevolence as well.

"Well, it's over now," Blue was saying.

"No, it's not," Cloak said.

"What do you mean?" Parker inquired.

"This is only the twelfth chapter -- there's bound to be more." Cloak muttered before backpedalling and saying, "I mean, FuBar and I sense a malevolence."

"Good, I'm not the only one." Kern said, apparently ignoring the chapter bit.

"I too feel it," Bladeh popped up from the crowd -- she literally popped up, as if this was something out of a Butch Hartman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Hartman) production.

B'nt, still disguised as Richard, showed no outward signs of discomfort.  But he knew that he wouldn't be able to maintain this cover forever.  He needed to step up the invasion plan.  The dregs did their part -- although they didn't know they came here for a suicide mission.  By now more Skrulls have infiltrated the city populace.  The invasion continued but far more quietly and with more competent members of the race.  This entire exercise was nothing more than a diversion so that the Skrulls could get sufficient foothold.

But still, that's not the reason, the real, true reason, that B'nt had come.  That B'nt had subjected himself to humiliating experimentations.  He had come for revenge.

"One of the Skrulls is still here," Cloak declared quietly.

"What proof have you of this?" B'nt asked, with precise Richard intonation.

"I don't," Cloak said, eyeing Richard rather suspiciously.  "No proof other than a gut feeling."

"Well, that hardly classifies as hard proof," Rotiart said.

"I think it does!" Itellsya said.  No one listened to him.  Nobody listens to the constant conspiracy theorist -- especially one who thinks that the government wants to collect people's toenail clippings to clone them and that they're putting controlling messages into Sesame Street.

"It ain't me," Broken denied vehemently.

"I dunno," Ash said, rather playfully, "you've never worn that monocle before. . . ."

"It was a joke!"

***

In the city, unknown to the population, their mayor, chief of police, many teachers and school administrators, and other community leaders were already replaced with Oscar-worthy Skrull impersonators.  Even the head of the Knights of Humanity (which went underground after Cannon's death) was replaced, and the other Knights were none the wiser, even when he had the "defective" DNA scanners removed.

And more and more powerful citizens were being replaced by the day . . . even influential children in the schoolyard were being replace by Skrull children.  Only legal Skrulls living on Earth were aware of this, but too afraid to speak up or reveal themselves to their invading race.  They were also afraid of being rounded up like animals and put into concentration camps. . . .

However, some were captured and either forced to serve the Empress's agenda or trussed up and tossed into a hostage alcove with the others, where they feared aggression from the other human captives.  Some humans have a nasty habit of generalizing race -- apparently it's easier to think of opposition that way, not to see them as thinking individuals with feelings but an evil conglomerate hellbent on corrupting their way of life.

No wonder the innocent Skrulls are terrorified.

---
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2012, 12:17:02 PM

Second of the three today . . . hopefully.  Might be a bit of a short chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Suspicions and Pretense

Within the next few weeks, Cloak regretted speaking up about the possible impostor in their midst.  Left and right, whenever someone was wronged, came the inevitable declaration or accusation that the transgressor was the Skrull infiltrator.  It happened with so much frequency amongst the newbies and yearlings, that it became a regular irritation for all veterans, who thought that they'd be able to easily figure out who the impersonator was, due to their status as veterans.

Cloak found himself most of the time, on the hill overlooking the site, introspecting and reflecting.  But this was sufficient enough that some of the newbies were clamoring that he was the impostor, which was soundly shut down by the other seven that were already impersonated and the veterans -- as Cloak was often seen doing this.

Cloak knew that this uncertainty was basically making RAF a powderkeg with a long fuse lit.  It was inevitable before something or someone blew up.  Cloak hoped it was the impostor that blew -- blew his cover, that is.  Cloak had a suspicion about who the impostor was, but he had no proof.  The impostor was too good an actor and his gut told him his instincts were right on the money.  But if he was wrong . . .

If he was wrong, it could very well lead to his Banning and dismissal from RAF.  So, he couldn't take any chances, had to consider and weight every potential risk.  If done poorly, this could very well backfire on him, and he could not take rejection from a place he loved so dearly -- one reason he hasn't returned to the Nexus in quite a while.

Then a thought occurred to him.  What if the Skrull here was just a diversion?  He looked over to the city.  What if more had infiltrated that city?  What if more Skrulls had infiltrated more cities?  What if the whole of the human populace were now Skrull pretenders?

This very thought rocked Cloak to his core.  If any of that was true, than this Skrull invasion plan just became even more difficult to repel than he had initially imagined.  It would make sense though . . . why only have a crew of nine infiltrate a place without a contingency plan in place should any of the nine perish?  Or as even a diversionary tactic to shift their attention away from the real focus of the invasion?

If that was true, though, that would mean that they've just wasted nearly thirty days while the Skrulls had pulled "bait-and-switch" tactic on the denizens of the city.  IF that was true.  Cloak had no more evidence to this then he had that there even was an impostor in RAF.  Without any evidence, hard or circumstantial, it was nigh on impossible to prove anything.

But just one slip-up, just one small indiscretion on their part . . . only . . . they've been careful, it would seem.  No reports of odd bodies or whatnot.  Although . . . they could be in control over the media.  That would give them a large amount of power to cover things up.  Granted that would pull the media monetary value down to Fox News standards, but still . . .

They cannot maintain this forever . . . cracks in the facade . . . that's what they needed. . . . cracks in the facade.

***

Meanwhile, in the city, a young five-year-old redhead girl and a young six-year-old blonde hair boy are not what they seem to be.  They became green with pebbly skin and their ears elongated into pointed ears . . .*

Then they were scooped up quickly by a teacher and taken to an empty class room.

"You are shifting back to your default forms," she said, in the Skrull language, translated for the reader's ease**.

"I'm tired of that fleshy, pink form!" the girl whined as her hair disappeared, as the boy's hair did as well.

"Too bad," the teacher scolded.  "You must maintain the appearance.  When you get home you can go back to your base forms."

"I don't wanna," the girl continued stubbornly.  Although the terms "girl" and "boy" was mostly a subjective one, as Skrulls can apparently change genders as easily as a human changes their hair color.  "I don't wanna!"

"Enough! B'rat, stop this now.  You will blow our cover." the teacher continued to scold her.  Meanwhile, the young "boy" was full Skrull now, but this hadn't escaped the teacher's notice.  "You too, Mum'e.  Back to the human children forms."

When they didn't comply, she replied forcibly, "NOW!"

They reluctantly acquiesced, resuming the forms of a young redhead girl and a young blonde boy.  But the Skrull teacher was not done with them yet, "Good.  Now do not shift back again in public.  Listen to me, DO NOT shift back again!  What you do behind closed doors and drawn shades is your business.  But you two will not jeopardize this invasion because you feel that you have to be indulged."

She righted herself and the Skrull teacher said, "Now go and keep up the pretense.  Keep your cover.  Your mother won't be pleased with you if you are the reasons why this invasion failed!"

The two ornery and bratty children left.

"Why did the Empress bear such unruly children?" the Skrull teacher lamented quietly, switching to English.

---
*Just a note, I couldn't find anything on a Skrull's reproduction and rearing behaviors, so I felt free to invent.

**Okay, not literally.  I don't speak Skrull.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2012, 01:23:35 PM

Probably the last chapter today -- here you go.  Then I'll probably slow down a bit, allow Parker to catch-up (yes, I've seen you on this thread).  One chapter a day, slow.  But . . . don't hold me to this, 'kay?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Invasion Bunglers

But, as it would turn out, the Skrull teacher's scolding and warning would come far too late.  A passerby was doing some sort of mobile vlog thing, and just so happened to stumble upon these two Skrull children shapeshifting out of their chosen human forms.  He deliberately caught it on camera, hoping to catch a few views, maybe even some subscribers, on YouTube.

So, naturally, he went home and uploaded it to the video-viewing website, and waited, only for the few comments he received to be trolls that insist that it was obviously fake -- citing poor photoshopping, kids in Skrull costumes*, and so on.

But just as it so happens some of the Skrulls who saw this were immediately alarmed and went on high alert -- apparently unaware that they could just flag the video and have it taken down.  The teenager was taken and replaced by another, newly arrived Skrull.  Although why was unclear and unnecessary.  The Skrulls were seriously overreacting, as the video was deemed to be a fake, and they were the only ones taking it it so seriously.

The mayor-disguised Skrull even banned the video with the Skrull-replaced legislators making it illegal to look at it.  Did they seriously think that this would not arouse suspicion?  Most of all, it aroused the suspicions of exactly who they wanted to be distracted -- the RAFians, the only collection of beings on Earth that might have just enough force to fight them off the planet.

"Why'd he banned that video?  It wasn't even good." SuperNate commented.  "Very blurry and not steady at all.  Like that Bigfoot video."

"It could quite easily be a fake," Poparena postulated benignly.

"What if it wasn't?" Cloak interjected quietly.

"What do you mean?" "Richard" asked.

Cloak looked at Richard, hesitated, then continued.  "What if the whole Skrull thing here was just a diversion?"

"What?  You mean we went through that hell for just a diversion?!" Blue erupted.

"Yes." Cloak said unabashed.  "Diversion to infiltrate larger populated parts of the planet.  Unnoticed and unrepelled by us, because we're too concerned with our own internal matters."

"He has a point," Gaz said grudgingly.  She still wasn't over how the Skrull managed to tazer her.  "But the public doesn't know.  We don't exactly have a stellar PR image to tell them straight out."

"Especially because we haven't any proof, hard or circumstantial, to show them." Parker said.  "There'll be the people who believe this because they want to believe this.  But there are many skeptics and cynics out there that will demand proof.  Not just circumstantial proof, but hard, undeniable proof."

"They'll screw-up," Blaze offered.  "They cannot maintain such a pretense forever."

"The Chee did," Rocklobster said.

"Really?  Then how come we know about you?  Every RAFian does."

"Touche"

"Anyway, there'll be another crack in there facade, then another, then another.  Then we can exploit it from there."

Cloak nodded at this, and making a mental note of "Richard's" prolonged silence and expressionless face.  But he said nothing.

***

In the next few days, it went just how Blaze predicted.  More and more Skrulls were getting uptight, and accidentally shifting out of their forms.  A majority managed to get out of the public eye just in the nick of time.  But one day, one was shot by a geniune cop.  He reverted to his natural shape after death, and here was bona fide proof that the Skrulls were invading.  The cat was out of the bag.

And the dung was about to hit the fan.

---
*I wouldn't mind seeing how Skrulls would look in three dimensions. . . . But somehow, I doubt they'll appear in any future movie. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2012, 10:17:03 AM

Okay, and, unless something comes up, here's the line up again (remember, these are tentative titles):

• Book XVII: The Last RAFian
• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!*
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales*
• Book L: Maul*
• Book LI: Erised Orbs*
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!*
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time*
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging* -- gonna be a rather dark book.
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll* -- not what you think.
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors*
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island* -- naturally, Dino will be in this book.
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*

Remember the (*) designates a book that I haven't done the chapter-by-chapter on.  Yes, I do plan on writing all of these books.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Betrayal . . . Sorta

The Knights had outted their leader was a Skrull and crucified him.  No, they literally crucified him.  Then they burned him at the stake, and defiled the burnt remains.  They took it to such a length because they felt to be infiltrated in such a way and being so thoroughly duped was an utter defilement against them and their xenophobic cause.  It was just a matter of time before this began to explode out into the city with these zealots killing everyone assuming them to be a Skrull.

But the RAFians held no knowledge of this, but the problem would eventually resolve itself, as the leader (who was found tied up and humilated) warned that they mustn't confuse real humans with the shapeshifters.  That they shouldn't spill human blood.  This powerkeg was contained for the moment.

***

"Shadow," Cloak had said, back on his hill with his neice at his right side.

"Yes, Uncle?"

"I have a very special, very important mission for you." Cloak said without so much as turning his head.  He was still staring intently on the forum that had become home to him.  "It is vitally important for you to succeed -- and I have the belief that only you can succeed at this."

"What is it, Uncle?"

"You need to find someone."

"Who?"

"Richard."

"He's right down there.  You should be able to see him, too."

"That's not Richard," Cloak said, seriously.  "It's a Skrull imposter."

"What's a Skrull?"

"Ancient -- by this realms standards -- alien shapeshifters."

"Oh, so you think one had replaced Richard."

"I do not think, Shadow," Cloak replied stiffly, "I know that he's been replaced.  This Richard's behavior and intensity is a little . . . off-putting.  So, remember your Earthsight and Metalsight lessons."

"Right."

"Go, and good luck, little Shadow."

***

B'nt decided to use Richard's notoriety to his advantage, calling a meeting of all the RAFians.  He was confident in his ability to use Richard's influence and inflection to manipulate the RAFians, not really considering them, as a whole, very smart.

"Greetings, my fellow RAFians," he said, though Cloak looked at him through narrowed eyes.  The Realm Walker still suspected him, but had not outted him yet.  Why?  Why had the cloaked feline waited to accuse him?  Was he waiting for a mess-up?  A slip-up?  Well, he'd have a long wait then!  "As you may already know, there's been sightings of Skrulls in the city."

Silence.  Everyone apparently knew this already.

"I believe these to be mere refugees from the Skrull Empire." Richard continued.  "I do not believe they mean us any harm."

"And you're lying through your teeth," Cloak called out.

"What?"

"You're not Richard." Cloak accused.  "You're a Skrull yourself."

A breakout of murmuring met this.

"You don't know what you saying." B'nt said, hiding his shock, but managing to keep up the pretense.  Cloak wasn't fooled.  Parker looked at both as if he were watching a tennis match, and, apparently listening to Tyr's advice, glared at Richard.

"Cloak has a point," he said.  "Why would you be defending a race that is just replacing people.  People in high positions of power, no less."

Helen's eyes narrowed.  "And if those Skrulls really were refugees, why would they need to replace people at all?  Would they be able to take a completely individual form?"

"Don't listen to him!  He's the Skrull -- put here to sow confusion and discord!"

Classic tactic -- accuse the accuser.  Cloak didn't flinch at this, he had expected it.  He had even expected Rotiart, Gulliver, and Itellsya to side with it.  It was actually quite pathetic.

"Where's your proof, Cloak?" Rotiart shouted.

Ah.  That snag.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2012, 11:44:46 AM

No one has anything to say, huh? Or did I leave you guys in the dust? :P Anyway, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Unmasking the Impostor

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Rotiart roared.  "Where's your proof?"

"Why hasn't that guy been Banned yet?" Cloak heard Blaze grumble.

Cloak remained silent with arms folded over his chest.  His eyes remained narrowed, and still he did not say anything.  He was playing for time, giving Shadow a sufficient amount of time to locate --

"You don't have any proof, do you?" Rotiart snorted.

"I'll Ban him myself," Blaze snarled threateningly under his breath.

Cloak retained his composure and remained silent, glaring at the false RAF Father*.  He stood stock-still, as if a tiger watching prey.

C'mon, Shadow, hurry up, Cloak thought fervently.  I think I may have jumped the gun here.

***

Shadow decided to go to the most obvious place that Richard could be -- the fake Nyac ship, which was, for some reason, still in RAF's hanger.  It was still disguised as Yarin's ship.  Probably because no one came here to disengage the disguise.  Whatever the reason, it hovered a few inches off the ground, but it was low enough for Shadow to easily touch.

She knew right away that it was metal.  She and her uncle could sense the elements that they have mastery over.  She reached out a hand to touch the smooth exterior, expecting at least a zap or something.  But nothing happened as her gloved fingers made contact.  Shadow looked over the ship with a sudden contempt.  How could you be so arrogant not to think that such a thing needs defenses?  Were they worried that it would make them look suspicious?  What if her uncle was wrong?

She easily popped the door out forcibly, using the subtlety of her mastery of Metal to force it open.  Then she entered to find it incredibly dark.  She expected an ambush at any moment, and was on guard all the way in.  She halfway expected the door suddenly shut, plunging her into complete darkness, and her night vision wasn't any better than that of a human, although she could "see" via vibrations in the metal.

She proceeded easily but cautiously.  Her uncle impressed upon her just how important this was, and she wasn't about to allow herself a stupid mistake.  She pressed her hands on something accidentally which caused lights to come up and made her jump about six feet in the air before her senses caught up with her.  He chuckled nervously to herself, grateful that no one was around to see that misstep.

She felt frenzied vibrations from the metal in the floor.  It took her a minute to pinpoint and then she was off like a shot towards it.  It could very well be Richard, or maybe even another prisoner.  If there was one Skrull that infiltrated RAFian, she reasoned, there might just as well be more.  But that was very unsettling thought, even if it proves to be true.

She found the source of the rather violent vibrations.  It was Richard, gagged and tightly tied up.  He was thrashing about wildly.  Shadow began to approach, but then stopped.  This could be a trick, a decoy, a diversion.  She remembered that her uncle impressed upon her how tricky Skrulls could be.  She shut her eyes and turned to Metalsight. . . .

What she "saw" didn't match up with what she saw with her eyes.  It was a deception.  But where would the real Richard be?  He's probably on the other side of the ship.  This ship wasn't very big, as Yarin's ship wasn't very big itself. . . . But there was also the possibility that Richard wasn't even on this ship.  Or even if he was, he could have been moved . . . no.  Wait, that's wrong.  He wouldn't have been able to be moved without being noticed.  You can't do anything in RAF without being noticed by someone.  He had to be here.

Shadow spent the good part of a thirty to sixty minutes looked, but eventually found a figure tightly bound and gagged and unconscious.  Shadow used the metal of the ship to form a knife and hacked Richard free.  She ripped the tape off his mouth with him moaning slightly.

"Oh, wake up," she said impatiently.

Richard apparently didn't hear her as his head lulled to one side.

"WAKE UP!" she said, slapping him hard.

"Ow!  Hey!" he exclaimed.  "Wha . . . where am I?"

"A Skrull ship," Shadow said, helping him stand.

"Wha . . . what's a Skrull?"

"Shapeshifters, I think.  One's impersonating you as we speak!"

"WHAT?!"

***

"Cloak, present your evidence for such an accusation, or take your seat!  Or stand down, whatever." the faux Richard demanded.

Cloak did not acquiesce, but continued to glare at the pretender on stage.  It was this glare that unsettled the fake a bit, but he remained in his Richard disguise, not one bit of green eked out.

"Cloak, you're risking Banning!" he warned.

Cloak had no fear of this.  This wasn't the real Richard, he didn't have that power.  Cloak hoped.  Suddenly, the doors flew open with an icy wind blowing in.  The real Richard was silhouetted in the doorframe.

"Who is this jackanape who thinks he can impersonate me?!" Richard roared, storming in.  Shadow trotting benignly behind him, saying, cheerifully, "Hi, Uncle."

Richard was as angry as Cloak and the seven others were.  Cloak knew the rage and humiliation that Richard must be feeling.  It's a definite violation when you know someone was using, or trying to use, your identity, your inflection, your notoriety to manipulate someone to a cause you do not endorse.  The fake Richard lost none of his composure, like a poker player with a couple of aces hidden up his sleeve.

"Well," he said, voice changing to, not the raspy Skrull voice, but a deep gravelly voice, as he resumed his true form, "at least, I don't have to keep up this ridiculous pretense anymore."

---
* Kinda makes Richard sound like the Godfather, doesn't it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 29, 2012, 04:57:29 PM

Finally caught up! This is quite the epic. For some reason I giggled when I saw the word "jackanape". That's a fun word.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2012, 05:33:50 PM

I never realized that "jackanape" was a comedy word. . . .

Anyway, just wait.  It'll get a whole lot worse in the next two chapters. . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 29, 2012, 06:48:31 PM

I'm just easily amused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2012, 09:22:29 AM

I suppose that could be true of any of us, Gaz. (Spell check always wants me to spell your name as, Gaza. ::))  Okay, fair warning, this is where it REALLY kicks into high gear. . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Prophetic Lie

"Who are you?" Richard demanded.  "Who are you to come here and presume to impersonate us?  What gall you have, sir!  What haughty arrogance!"

The rest of the RAFians rose together, as one, as Richard spoke.  B'nt wasn't remotely intimidated, but it was unclear why he was so staggeringly confident, why he was so calm.

"Who am I?" he repeated.  "You should know me by now, Richard of RAF.  My fame has reached the seven corners of the universe by now, surely."

"You gonna deflate that head of yours a little?" Faerie snarled, but B'nt dismissed her threat with a haughty, hearty snort.

"I am the most powerful being in this room," he said.

"I take offense at that," Estelore said, assuming her, ah, "Warrior Mode".

"As do I," said Cloak, with a certain venomous vehemence.  "What makes you claim such a thing?  Skrulls, from what I've observed, tend to be a cowardly lot.  Like those soldiers, if you can call them that, who ran from me and the other seven when we made our escape."

This wasn't the total truth, but Cloak said it to get a rise out of B'nt.  But it didn't work.

"Such posturing, cloaked one, it's pitiful." he said.  Then he addressed the room at large.  "You want to know who I am?!  I am B'nt!"

"Bent on what?" Blaze said, flippantly.

"Silence, hybrid!" B'nt snarled.  Cloak did sense some real power coming off B'nt.  He was strong, sure, but he couldn't be as powerful as he boasted.  "I am here because it was prophesied to be so.  Just like this blue planet was prophesied to belong to the Skrulls!  That we'd need to take the world of blue for our own, and that we'd succeed!"

Cloak snorted derisively, although he couldn't help but suspect that maybe Malice toyed with the Skrulls' "ancient prophecies".  "You place faith in prophecies?  You believe in fairy tales in rhyming couplets?  Seriously?"

"No, I don't, to be honest," B'nt admitted.  "I came here for a very, very different reason from what the Empress wants.  I come to redeem my little brother.  To AVENGE him!"

"What?" Phoenix said, blinking in disbelief.  Cloak thought he knew where this was going.

"My brother, Lam, migrated to this planet years ago," B'nt said, spilling his guts with his emotions finding that they can no longer be suppressed.  Cloak understood this -- only when it happened to him he lost control of himself and his powers.  "My family had not known where he had gone.  He was a radical.  He didn't like the militaristic ways of the noble Skrull Empire!"

B'nt's breaths were coming in heavy and with a heaving chest.  Cloak had the feeling that he was holding this in for years, and he was trying to suppress his emotions, but it's not very easy once they blow forth.  Cloak knows this first hand.

"He ran away.  We did not know where he came until recently.  I did not find out until recently . . ." B'nt said, more to himself than the RAFians.  "Poor Lam . . . he was MURDERED.  MURDERED by the inhabitants of this planet!!"

Cloak suspected who was responsible.

"Humans killed him for the sole crime of being different.  Eviscerated him for the sole crime of being nonhuman.  So," B'nt's eyes took on a hardened look in them, "ALL humans will pay for that infraction.  My brother's blood is on their hands, and I'll wash it off with their own!  I'll have my justice!!"

"You monster!" Gaz said, outraged.

"You can't punish every human for the acts of a few!" Sakki roared.  "This isn't justice, it's vengeance!"

"So what if it is?!" B'nt roared and then entire building shook.

"'So what if it is' . . ." Cloak threw his words back at him.  "'So what if it is' . . . B'nt, vengeance won't assuage your grief.  Hatred will not fill the void left behind.  The fiery passion of hate will just wither you from the inside out.  Leave you feeling empty and hollow, like a discarded shell."

"You know nothing of my pain!"

"I know everything of your pain!" Cloak shouted back, Realm Walker tears singing the ground.  "You're not the only one whose lost people that they love!  People that they care about!  My grandfather wasn't murdered, but that doesn't mean I don't feel pain at his loss.  That I don't feel that he was RIPPED away from me!"

"You cannot know my pain unless someone you know has been murdered," B'nt replied bluntly, "and that's a pain that you are soon to become familiar with!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2012, 11:25:06 AM

Now, the chapter of the day. . . . This'll be a hassle to write, but I do it for the love of writing and you guys!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Ultimate Skrull

"You can't take us all on," Sakki spat.

"Oh, no?" B'nt said with the vaguest hint of coyness.  "Try me.  But lets move to a place where there's more room to move around -- I want to have some pleasure in this."

With that he levitated rather like an Amperi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Ampfibian) and an Ectonurite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Ghostfreak), even growing motionless Lepidopterran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Stinkfly) wings, Necrofriggian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Big_Chill) wings, overlarge Nanomech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Nanomech) wings and Aerophibian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Jetray) membranes.  Then he flew upward and through the roof in a way reminiscent of a Ectonurite or Necrofriggian.

"Everyone, outside!" Richard called, though he needn't have bothered.  Everyone was already streaming outside, ready to do battle.  The only ones that seemed reluctant was Gulliver, Itellsya and Rotiart.  "That includes you three!  Time for some real training!"

Outside, B'nt continue to hover slightly above them all, wearing a maliciously satisfied grin.  "So, step up.  Who's the first to die?"

"I got this joker," Cerulean said, and he sped at top speed toward the Skrull.  B'nt sat there, almost stupified, until at the very last second, he zipped out of the way!  Cloak instantly recognized the movements as being similar to both a Citrakayah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Fasttrack) and a Kineceleran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#XLR8)!  Dumbfounded, Cerulean stopped and gaped at B'nt.  Then B'nt extended one of his arms, where a glowing pulse appeared, and he lowered his hand.  Cloak saw that the gravity on Cerulean increased to the point where he cried out in pain!  He had the powers of a Galilean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Gravattack) too!

B'nt smiling turned to the other RAFians, "Do you see now that you're outmatched?  Do you see now that you all will die?  JUST LIKE HIM!"

"AHHH!" Cerulean cried.

"NO!" Cloak roared.  Then he turned to Kelly, and ordered,  "Kelly, go!"

Kelly wasted no word and ran to Cerulean's side, and allowed her newly-discovered healing powers to go to work.  She knew not its limitations yet, but it was worth a try.

"How cute," B'nt sneered.  "Trying to rescue a fool."

Cloak knew that they should underestimate him.  He didn't know how many powers that he may have been modified with.  B'nt was right in his own assertion.  The guy was definitely dangerous.  Cloak wasn't sure that they could beat him!

"Enough of this," Estelore snarled.  "I'll take him to school."

Estelore blasted B'nt with her mightest stellar might.  But it seemed to be doing nothing . . . Cloak's eyes widened.  He must have access to the powers of a Prypiatosian-B (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#NRG) or a Pyronite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Heatblast) or both!  In which case, Estelore's attack will never affect him!  If anything, if he DOES have Prypiatosian-B DNA, Estelore's attack is doing nothing but FEEDING him!

"Esty, stop!" Cloak cried.  "You'll only make him stronger!"

"What?" Estelore cried in disbelief, stopping her attack, and looking at Cloak.

"He might have taken in the DNA of a Prypiatosian-B." Cloak explained.  "They FEED on energy, especially radioactive energy."

"But --"

"And if he has Pyronite DNA . . . well, their homeword of Pyros isn't a planet at all, Estelore," Cloaky said, as urgently as he could.  "It's a star, Estelore!  So he would be able to survive it!"

"Excellent, cloaked one," B'nt taunted.  "I do have the DNA of those two species modified into my genome."

Then apparently Bn't felt a need to show-off, as he added a few seconds later, "As well as the DNA of an ultimate Vulpimancer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Wildmutt), a Petrosapien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Diamondhead), a Galvan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Gray_Matter), a Tetramand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Fourarms), a Pisciss Volann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Ripjaws), a Loboan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Benwolf), an ultimate Arburian Pelarota (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Cannonbolt), a Florauna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Wildvine), a Thep Khufan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Benmummy), a Transylian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Benvicktor), a Gourmand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Upchuck) for some reason, an Opticoid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Eye_Guy), an ultimate To'kustar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Way_Big), a Spheroid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Spittor), a Megawhatt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Buzzshock), a Polar Manzardill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Articguana), an ultimate Methanosian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Swampfire), an ultimate Sonorosian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Echo_Echo), an ultimate Vaxasaurian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Humongousaur), aCrystalsapien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Chromastone), a  Cerebrocrustacean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Brainstorm), an ultimate Arachnichimp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Spidermonkey), a Polymorph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Goop), a Biosorvortian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Lodestar), an Appoplexian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Rath), a Orishan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Water_Hazard), aTalpaedna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Armodrillo), a Geochelone Aerio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Terraspin), a Merlinisapien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#ChamAlien), a Gimlinopithecus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Shocksquatch), an Oryctini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Eatle), a Planchakule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Jury_Rigg), a Conductoid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Feedback), a Segmentasapien (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ben_10_aliens#Bloxx), and more I haven't even tried yet.  A total of 10,000!  And I have ALL their powers!"

"'Ultimate'?" Blaze noticed.

"Must mean that the Skulls genetically modified the species," Yarin guessed.

"Oh, shut up!  We're wasting valuable smashing time!"* Faerie announced.

"How?" Nina piped up.  "He's a Super Skrull!"

"Don't dare insult me!  I'm more than a Super Skrull!"  It was at this point that Cloak suspected that B'nt just loved to hear himself talk.  "I'm more than a Hyper Skrull!  I'm more than an Ultra Skrull!  I'm more than a Mega and Giga Skrull!  I am THE Ultimate Skrull!"

"And you really love the sound of your own voice." Aquilai said.

"Guilty," B'nt said, feigning bashful modesty.

"Fight me, you pompous sack of Slitheen guts." Aquilai snarled.

From there, Aquilai took on B'nt, holding his own at first, Cloak noticing that his normally red-and-orange flame pushing into being blue.  Cloak mused that no Pyronite or Methanosian that he knew of could manage that feat.  But, then again, he's never known any "ultimate" Methanosian. . . .

But Aquilai's blue flames weren't enough to save him, because eventually B'nt stopped playing fair, and pummeled him using Vaxasaurian and Tetramand strength -- even growing Tetramand arms to do so.  Aquilai was getting his clock cleaned, and Cloak didn't care how much Aquilai wanted to do this alone, he could no longer allow that, and the rest of the RAFians swept into the battle, hoping that sheer number could overwhelm him.

"Kelly, heal Aquilai!" Phoenix shouted.

"I . . . I can't.  It's too late." Kelly shouted back.

---
*Guess what Simpsons episode this came from? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 31, 2012, 09:20:29 PM

B'nt Ben Ten...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2012, 06:41:09 AM

Actually, you'll find out why I named him "B'nt" in the title of the next chapter . . . which'll probably come tomorrow or Monday.  I'm just not feelin' it today. . . .

Oh, new page, so --

• Book XVII: The Last RAFian
• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs*
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!*
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time*
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors*
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.  If you want spoilers . . . well . . . I might consider it in PM.

EDIT:  I'll try and make a decent chapter.  I'm aware that I've sort of written myself in a corner.  Don't be surprised some ugly deux es machina rears is ugly head.  *suddenly imagines Deus Es Machina as an alternate form of the Pootang.* Shortish chapter.  Might add onto it tomorrow.  Might not.  Depends on how lazy I am.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Hell B'nt*

A brillant flash lit up Aquilai's body.  He stood far more muscular and wearing clothes of green, white and brown.  He also had some sort of bracers on his hands and shins that rather intricate designs on him.  He was no longer a firebender, but he was now an Earthbender of the highest caliber.  Cloak and Aquilai, in a notably steady, blunt, and somewhat stubborn personality, as well as adapting a rather more careful attitude (he REALLY didn't want to have to regenerate again).

B'nt looked puzzled at this, but in the end did not care.  He had other "toys" to play with.  Prospects still didn't look to favoriteable toward the RAFians.  B'nt used his combined Tetramand and Vaxasaurian strength to overpower Dino, Blocky, Shock, and EvilPinkDragon, nearly killing them in the process.  He could not be crushed, as the powers of his Polymorph, Ectonurite and Necrofriggian DNA enabled him to get out of it, as both Aquilai and Cloak tried to smash him beneath some flat earth slabs.

He easily dispatched FuBar, Bladeh, and Hunter -- not really considering them much of a threat.  Cloak wondered idly if that was the Appoplexian mentality skewing his judgement -- and maybe, just maybe, he didn't get a boost in his intellect from the DNA of the Galvin, Cerebrocrustacean and Transyl.  After a few minutes, it seemed clear that he only gained the tangible abilities, and his intellect was in no way affected, positively or negatively, by the DNA infusions.  That was a small advantage, but it was one, nonetheless.

Then, as B'nt gaily dispatched Blue and Parker, a thought occured to Cloak.  If he was using Ectonurite DNA, then something was off.  Ectonurites have a genetic memory -- the memory of the individual is retained down to the DNA.  Why wasn't B'nt having trouble with that?  Did the Skrull scientist manipulate the DNA to only have the positive -- namely the powered -- attributes of the creatures?  Or was B'nt lying about being implanted with DNA and all these powers were obtained through some other method?  Cybernetics or an Omnitrix-like tech?

Cloak winced as he heard a hoarse, animal groan.  Bear was down.  Seal was down.  Gaz and Guy, down.  Blaze and Noelle, down.  RAFians were dropping like flies!  There had to be some solution!  Ash, Phoenix, Underseen, and Demos were still standing, solely due to their regeneration capabilities.  Kelly was doing the "white mage" thing and attempting to heal up as many RAFians as she could.  If this kept up, she would severely overstrain her powers, overstrain herself, and end up . . . well, the thought wasn't a pleasant one.

Then Sakki and Oceanspray were severely hurt due to B'nt using his Planchakule power of dissembling on them.  AniDragon had tried to help by boosting the others abilities. . . .

There seemed to be a brief ten second delay before he acted.  AniDragon.  AniDragon could bind his powers like she did for the Bibliophaetos.  Only . . . B'nt is far more dangerous, far more powerful than Bibliophaetos.  She'd have to get close to touch him, and his Amperi powers gave him mind-reading abilities.  Except for Cloak, which he didn't understand, but he best be considering himself lucky as Realm Walker thoughts tend to be rather chaotic and . . . and stuff.

Cloak ran to AniDragon, and apologized before he launched her at B'nt, who thought that this was amusing.  But AniDragon got the hint just as she landed right in front of B'nt, daintily.  Then she, not hesitating at all, placed her hands on his head and chest and immediately stripped his Pryiatosian-B powers.  Then his Necrofriggian and Ectonurite powers.  Then his Vaxasaurian, Aerophibian, and Tetramand abilities.  Then his Polymorph, Kinecceleran, Citrakayah, and To'kustar powers.  One by one, the powers evaporated.  AniDragon was showing the effort this was taking, and, by the look of her face, it was fairly taxing work.

By the time B'nt realized what was going on, he was a Skrull again.  But he retained his Skrull shapeshifting, as AniDragon fainted from exhaustion soon after.  The rest of the RAFians that were healed were now very, very, very angry.

---
* Yes, that's where I got his name.  From "hellbent".  I knew in advance that this chapter would be called that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2012, 10:01:38 AM

Last chapter of the book.  Gettin' low on the gigabytes I'm allowed, so I've gotta be careful.  I just had to see "fakemon" pictures on devinart.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Invasion Aborted

B'nt had escaped from RAF, after all his surplus powers were taken away.  By doing so, AniDragon was put into the infirmary for several days as one of the limitations of Kelly's powers (which the overuse of put HER in the infirmary for several days for fatigue, as well) was that it could only heal physical, tangible wounds, not exhaustion.  She could not heal psychological, emotional, or imagined wounds.

But B'nt didn't get too far.  His corpse was found in the eastern river, dessicated and partially decomposed.  All in all, a sight one would have been happier NOT seeing.  There was no way to determine just how he'd been killed, but it had to be a murder, as he still retained his Skrull shapeshifting.  There were two prevailing theories on who killed him -- the Knights somehow found him out, located him, and then slayed him, or that his very own people slayed him for purposes unknown.

The RAFians, with aid of the police force, declared worldwide if there were any invasionary Skrulls living on the planet, that they best pack their bags and leave.  If they wished to remain peaceful and settle here, it would be okay.  But Cloak, Shadow, Parker, Sakki, and Oceanspray would be able to ferret out the liars and they would be arrested with extreme prejudice.  If they struggled or resisted, lethal measures may be taken.

Cloak didn't really like having to be such a -- as the humans say, "hardass" -- but it was necessary to do the job.  But, fortunately, most Skrull seemed to have enough since to pack up and leave, except those that could produce papers of the legitimacy of their residency and were found to be truthful.  In the end, out of about 493 Skrulls, instead of the believed to be millions, only 45 tried resisting, and four had to be taken down with lethal force.  They were booted from the planet, and Estelore followed them until they were well out of Earthling, Earther, whatever space.

It seemed to be over.  But Cloak knew that it was only a matter of time before something else happened.  Such was the fate of a RAFian, it seemed.  But, so what?  It made life interesting.  It made life an adventure.  One thing about being a RAFian in this day and time -- it never got boring.

"Now, Aquilai," Cloak said, as the RAFians left the police officers to their business, "you're an earthbender now."

"Yeah," Aquilai said rather surly, "what of it?"

"Do you know how to Earthsight?"

"What?  No."

"I can teach how, if you wish."

"But you're not an earthbender."

"No," Cloak agreed, "but I can use Earthsight."

***

It turns out Malice was watching this through some sort of viewing globe, reclining on what appeared to be a beaten, old couch which at some of the filling coming out in odd places.  Abomination was sitting in a rather uncomfortable-looking, high-backed armchair with horn-like legs and horns atop it giving the look of a styracosaur frill.

"Love, they defeated the Skrulls!" Abomination exclaimed, agitated for some reason.

"Yes, dear, I saw," Malice said, snacking on the Realm Walker equivalent to popcorn.  "I saw.  So, altering that 'ancient' Skrull prophecy wasn't enough.  You'd think they'd notice all the sloppy mistakes in it.  But what can you do with the devoutly zealous?"

She tossed the empty bowl to the ground, and sat up.

"C'mon, love, time to prepare for tomorrow night."

"What are we gonna do tomorrow night?  Sing a song about all the world's cheeses?"

"No, dear." Malice said, turning in a full parody of the Brain, "try to torment Cloak and his RAFians some more for our entertainment!!"

Then the scene fades out while "Pinky and the Brain" plays.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2012, 07:31:02 AM

New book time.  Now, I should mention that this book takes place outside the usual continuity.  Warning:  This is gonna be rather lengthy.

Book XVII:
THE LAST RAFIAN
Chapter One:
The Mechaniloid

It was normal day at RAF.  They just celebrated RAF's 34^th anniversary -- it's birthday, really.  Cloak remained rather stoic and surly.  He was still remembering what happened four Dweller weeks prior . . . where he finally had enough of Malice and Abomination and slew them both.  Yet, for reasons he could not comprehend, he felt guilty.  'Tis a horrible thing to take a life, and he had taken two.  Granted that they were rather evil beings, one who was brutish and servile and the other arrogant and manipulative.  True that Malice saw Realm Dwellers as nothing more than fanciful entertainment, and had tormented Cloak for entertainment as well, but did that mean that she deserved to die?

Cloak said nothing of this guilty conscience to the others, for fear of the inevitable rebuke that would come.  But they did notice a severe change in his behavior, as he became rather moodier and quiet.  It is one thing to kill someone of a different species, you could distance yourself from it, in a way, but Malice and Abomination were Realm Walkers as he.  But he wasn't even wanted for murder in the Nexus, who still refused to believe Malice had lived, and Abomination made a rather . . . unpleasant reputation there.  He didn't like the sudden hero worship -- and pitied anyone who does.

Cloak looked around and noted the differences around RAF.  Rotiart was eventually Banned, which left him morose and bitter, though he killed Queen to assume her role as leader.  But he proved to be a very ineffective leader, moreso than Queen, and he was shunned by the Banned, as well.  No one knew what happened to him afterward.

Aquilai had changed, but only relatively recently.  He had regenerated into an Airbender about two weeks ago, and he sported a bald head with Airbender tattoos, though he dressed like J. K. Simmons.  He was now very serious, but yet humorous in his way.  He had spent 25 years as a Earthbender and Metalbender, so it was taking some time to adjust to the new Aquilai, the Fourth Aquilai.

Estelore had left to check out the Nosdeen Quasar.  That was six months ago.  The RAFians were certain that nothing had happened to Estelore, but, in any case, Esty was a big girl and could look after herself.

Parker and Helen had been married for about twenty years.  They even had a three young SPARTANS and a daughter who became a Green Lantern.  Parker's suit was very advanced now -- not so much SPARTAN tech anymore.  He had managed to install Realm Walker (the R.A.M., from 25 years ago), Cybertronian, Andalite, Yeerk, Galvin, Vulcan, and many other types of tech.  This gave him a rather more streamlined look and boosted his durability to near-Kryptonian levels.  Helen was still a Star Sapphire, and she got stronger over time, and her hair had grown out to her navel.

So many changes, and more that Cloak probably wasn't even aware of.  Little did he know of the plan of vengence that was happening behind their backs.  But more on that later.  Cloak himself had only aged about two and half years, and Estelore looked as if she hadn't aged at all -- seriously.

Suddenly, an alarm went off.

<Trouble in the industrial district,> Noelle reported.  She'd pretty much taken on the roll of dispatcher.  <Cloak, Blue, Oceanspray, Dino, Parker.  Report there immediately.>

They didn't question this but went directly to the coordinates provided.

***

Once there, they approached quietly and carefully.  But then the trouble became crystal clear.  It was a rampaging Mechaniloid, a metal beast that hovered off the ground with a huge fiddler crab-like claw on the left side and nothing on the right.  There was a small sphere with a glass lens hovering around this behemoth.

"Parker, scan that thing." Cloak said.

"Already on it."

"Dino, better get into battle mode."

"Right." she nodded a little as she grew to her full size -- which pretty much made her equal to the Mechaniloid.  Dino actually had a rather noticeable scar on her right flank from a rather tough battle with Malice two years ago.  It was just a cosmetic mark, as it didn't impair her.  Strangely, it was a scar that Kelly couldn't heal.  Dino wore it like a badge of courage.

"The mechaniloid is giving off some sort of wi-fi signal," Parker reported.  "Attempting to pinpoint."

"Attempt faster, it's attacking." Blue said, thowing several explosive shurrikens at it, only to have them bounce off and not stick in.  "Damn, those things aren't easy to make!"

"Lemme give it a try," Oceanspray said as his hand folded back into his arm to reveal an energy cannon, a la Cyborg.  He fired at the Mechaniloid, but it only scratched the Mechaniloid's tough hull.  Oceanspray kept pounding it with the cannon bursts.

The Mechaniloid struggled to proceed forward, but couldn't because Cloak was using his mastery over Metal to stop it in its tracks.  Twenty-five years had only increased Cloak's strength very little as it was pretty much just two and a half years to him.  But it was sufficient enough to stop the Mechaniloid.  Cloak tried to ball it up, but the resistance was too great and it was to large.  And Cloak was afraid to go to his zenith, he was still quite afraid of losing control over himself.

"That ball is the source of the transmission!" Parker said, taking aim and firing one of his guns in his rather diverse arsenal.  But the ball opened and revealed a mirrored lens that reflected Parker's energy shot back at him, which he defended using a Chimera Sui Generis shield.  "O-kay, energy attacks won't work."

Blue unsheathed his ninjabo, and said, "Let me take a whack at it then!"

He leaped, and brought the ninjabo, which was remade from adamantium after it broke in a battle with giant mechanical monsters fought twenty or so years ago.  The ninjabo cut through the orb like a superheated knife through butter.  The mechaniloid fell to the ground, absolutely useless and lifeless as Blue landed quite daintily.

He smirked, "I still got it."

"Let's report back," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2012, 08:44:50 AM

Posting another chapter, because I may not be able to tomorrow.

Chapter Two:
The RAFian Hunters*

This was all watched on a monitor.  Before it stood a tall and lean figure, a short, stubby, apish figure, and an a haunched, cane-wielding figure.  All three were biotechnological -- with techno-organic matter.  The tall one was cobalt blue with gold trim, the apish one was orange with brown trim, and the haunched on appeared to be the most human-like of the trio.**

"They're smart, these RAFians," the haunched one said.

"They do function well as a team," the tall one said, rubbing his chin.

"They ain't so great," the apish one said.

"How are his upgrades coming?" the tall one addressed the haunched one.

"Excellent, if he would be satisfied.  He keeps wanting more and more."

"What's wrong with more?" the apish one said stupidly.

"Oh, would you think for one time in your renewed life, Bubbles?" the stooped man said, with a very haughty tone.

Bubbles?

Far from being abashed, Bubbles snarled, "You think you're so great, don't you, Slicer?"

"Smarts makes one greater," Slicer replied, "so, naturally I do, Bubbles."

"Enough, you two." the lean one snapped.

"You're not the boss of me, Magnus!"

"No . . . but I am." a voice said from the back of the room.  "And these biocircuitry will be sufficient.  Sufficient for my vengeance."

"Sire," Magnus said, carefully, "sire, why do you desire vengeance against these RAFians?"

"Yeah, they don't seem so tough!" Bubbles proclaimed rather idiotically.

The new guy's voice lowered to a dangerous whisper.  "Are you questioning me?"

"N-n-no, sire!  I was just --"

"Question my motives, and you question me!" he snapped.  "Are the RAF-Banes done yet?!"

"Not yet, sire," Slicer said, nervously.  "They just need a bit of fine-tuning and testing!  That's all!  They'll be ready within three days!"

"And yet," he said, voice still dangerous.  "You're here, watching television.  You worthless . . . I worked my hands to nubs giving you three imbeciles life -- again -- and you repay me with laziness!"

"No, sir!  The biotechnological components will activate in the three days, that's just it!"

"Fine.  We'll go and check on them together.  Then we go to the main event . . ."

He held up a small cylinder of swirling energy.

"RAF will die."

Then the door opened and dim light poured into the room, revealing the new guy as a cyborg in dull yellow with navy blue trim -- and his face was that of Rotiart.

---
* Who knows where I got this from?  Seriously, guess!

** Do you know what I based these on?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 03, 2012, 03:41:49 PM

(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110422220004/liloandstich/images/7/73/Cobra_bubbles.gif) What Bubbles made me think of :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2012, 08:02:32 PM

Nice -- but not the basis of the character.  They are somewhat parodies of Serges, Agile, and Violen from Mega Man X2.  And apparently it's supposed to rain tomorrow, which may delay my plans -- so I'm putting it off until Friday. . . . Okay.
Might be a long chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Pelorian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants_(Greek_mythology)) Technovore

The four approached several upright tubes with creatures in fetal positions floating, suspended in some kind of translucent green liquid.  There were about eight tubes.  Each creature specifically designed to take out a particular RAFian.  On the side of the tube that faced the walking path, there was a display screen that contained information pertaining to the creatures vitals, purpose, function, and even name . . . the Pelorian Technovore, the Heliosian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios) Cruxpalm, the Mimasian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas) Muklok, the Eurymedonian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giants_(Greek_mythology)) Dragosaurus, the Enceladian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus_(Greek_mythology)) Andalbeest, an Ouranosian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus_(Greek_mythology)) Vortexsapien, a Clytian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clytius) Berserker, and a Chiropteran Skunk.

"They've reach full growth," Rotiart said, voice a little tinny, "excellent.  But just eight?  EIGHT?  Seriously?  You thought eight would be sufficient enough to destroy RAF?"

"But sir --" Magnus said in a vain attempt to placate his master.

"SILENCE." Rotiart snarled.  "If I wanted excuses, I'd have asked a politician!  Computer, are there any SPARTANs alone?"

A cool female voice replied, "RAFian designate Parker is approximately five miles away from the forum.  He is the only one bearing the Mark signal."

"Excellent," Rotiart said, smirking.  "Release the SPARTAN-Bane!"

"But, sir, the adjustments haven't yet been completed!  It cannot adjust to --"

"DO NOT QUESTION ME!! DO IT!!"

And Slicer, however reluctantly, obeyed Rotiart's whims.  All three servile biotechnological beings looked on as the Technovore awoke and was launched from it's tube to the direction where Parker was.

***

Parker, Helen and their children had come to this nice, little scenic area for a family picnic.  Parker's eldest boy was seventeen, the middle son was twelve, and the youngest son was seven, eight.  Their Green Lantern daughter was nineteen.  They were going their to enjoy themselves, while Helen was chiding her husband and sons, good-humoredly, about wearing their armor to a picnic.

"You and Venus are wearing your rings," Parker reminded her playfully.

"You want me to take off my wedding ring?" Helen quipped coyly.

Parker, who had his helmet retracted (another update that he obtained over the years), kissed her in response.

"Oh, gross!  How could you do that in public?" their youngest SPARTAN said.  But he was seven -- the stage where girls are considered "icky" -- so they let that slide.

"Eh, you'll want to kiss girls too someday, you know, Troy." Venus, the Green Lantern, said.

"Ew!  Never!" he declared.

The elder two, Pierce and Tommy, remained silent and stoic.  The family set down the picnic blanket -- a red plaid monstrocity that Helen absolutely adores for some reason.  And she places the picnic basket down upon it.

"If a bear tries to steal this basket, it'll be --" and Troy mimicked Mega Man's Mega Buster.

"I don't think that Bear would like that, at all," Parker mused reminescently.  Bear, being a Kodiak bear, was full grown at twenty-five years ago, was getting on in years, and became the only known boar Kodiak bear to live to thirty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodiak_bear#Reproduction_and_survival). . . .

"Who's Bear?" Troy said, tacklessly as only a child can be.

"A friend, from a long time ago." Helen said.

"Hey, Dad, what's that?" Pierce said, staring intently at the sky.  Parker looked up, too, and saw with a shock, that it appeared to be like a Valeek, but more wraith-like in form.

"No idea, Pierce," Parker said, instantly taking command of the situation -- signaled by having his helmet cover his face again.  "Venus take your little brothers to safety."

"Daddy, I wanna fight!"

"NO, Troy."

"Dad, we're not helpless!"

"I SAID NO, TOMMY." Parker roared.  "Venus, NOW!  Take them back to RAF.  Have someone there look after them.  AniDragon should be in.  Then come back and help us."

"Daaaaaddy!"

"TROY, I SAID NO!!"

Venus did as she was told, but rebellious little Troy was whining and crying the whole way.  This is why they just gave him armor with no weapons or electronics in it.

"Parker, you have any idea what that thing is?" Helen asked.

"Yes," Parker said.  "Trouble."

"Thank you for that, Mr. Obvious," Pierce grumbled.

"Don't talk to your father that way," Helen scolded.

Then the battle was joined, only to discover that Parker and Pierce was at a severe disadvantage.  It didn't matter what they threw at it, it just absorbed it without a blink.  It made no sound, no roar or anything.  And when Pierce got desparate enough to try and punch it . . . it . . . it ate the sleeve of the armor and the sleeve of the undershirt that Pierce was wearing.  But his flesh wasn't touched.

Pierce's eyes widened, "It eats technology.  And inorganics."

"Which means we're royally screwed." Parker said.

"What, are Mom and me chopped liver?" Venus had returned.  The two women proceeded to bludgeon the thing to death, but not before reducing the two men's armor to rags.

Eventually, the two Lantern ladies managed to slay the monsterous beast, and the four retreat back to RAF. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2012, 02:46:43 PM

Let's see if I've the sufficient energy . . . I dare to think that I do.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Heliosian Cruxpalm

"Sire . . ." Slicer said, nervously.  "Sire . . . the Technovore . . ."

"What about it?" Rotiart snapped.

"It . . . it . . . it . . ."

"OUT WITH IT, YOU USELESS PILE OF SPARE PARTS!!"

"It . . . it failed, my lord," Slicer said, vibrating from fear.

Rotiart's face contorted.  "Did it obtain any data?"

"Yes, sire," Magnus reported.  "Reaching 100% transmission -- now."

"Excellent," Rotiart said, fury forgotten.  "Oh, computer, is there any vampires on their lonesome?"

The cool, clear, female voice replied, "Designate Gaz Latte is at the following coordinates."

"Excellent, send the cruxpalm to the coordinates," Rotiart said airily, then narrowed his eyes dangerously, "You don't have a problem with that do you?"

"No, sire," Magnus said without hesitation.

"Uh, no, sire." Slicer said.

"Actually --" Bubbles started.  He was never the sharpest tool in the shed.

SMACK!!

Bubble's head was smacked so hard that it spun around like a basketball balanced on a finger until he took his hands to stop it.

"If I didn't need you, you'd be SCRAP right now, Bubbles!" Rotiart snarled.  "Don't think that I won't dismantle you and make a better servant from the spare parts!!"

***

Gaz was lounging in a small field, relaxing, enjoying a rare moment of levity and calmness.  RAF has had many battles in the last quarter of a decade (but being a vampire, Gaz didn't age a day).  She allowed herself this little excursion to put everything into perspective.

"Something's gonna come along and ruin this, isn't it?" she said with remarkable foresight.  Because no sooner that these words had escaped her lips, that a dark shadow fell upon her.  She rolled away and onto her feet, glaring at the beast.

It was skeletally thin, somewhat insectoid with a beetle shell "backpack" which usually hid it's four gossamer wings.  It was also skeletally-thin and midnight black with bloodred coloring at the joints.  It's eyes were not obvious, if it had eyes at all, possibly colored the same shade of black.  It held it's sideways mouth shut tight, with vertical-opening mandibles covering it.  It had no antennae or horns, but did possess six arms ending in three-clawed-fingered hands, two large, stubby legs with two clawed toes and a spike protruding at it's heel.  All six hands had a blisteringly white cross shape on each one, dead center of the palm.  Hence the name.

It landed and folded up its wings into the "backpack" structure.  Then it looked at Gaz, as if sizing her up.  In response, Gaz extended her fangs and hissed.  It was a futile hope that this would scare the cruxpalm off.  If anything, it seemed to attract it to her more.

"Not one of my more brilliant ideas," Gaz scolded herself.

It reached out and attempted to seize her, but all six arms missed when Gaz when vapor mode to dodge and she reintegrated back into solid form a few feet away.

"You missed!" she called out.  "And you're ugly!*"

Then the mandibles opened up, and putrid, fetid stench filled the air.

"Garlic?  Geesh, this thing was made to kill vampires." Gaz noted.  "Only far uglier than Buffy."

The creature hadn't moved from it's position, other than to face Gaz.  With a moan, it began to open it's maw . . . and a powerful beam of light -- SUNLIGHT -- streamed out of it's mouth.  Gaz was nicked, but the injury was survivable and the pain tolerable.

"Now it can learn Solarbeam?  That's just overkill!!"  Gaz gasped.  "How am I gonna get out of this?"

Gaz attempted to flee in bat mode, but the cruxpalm just hovered over her, forcing her down.  There was no way to defeat this thing!!  When Gaz resumed human form, it seized her arm, which caused her to feel extreme pain.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!"

The cruxpalm was knocked silly, but its grip was harder to break than admantium.  Guy appeared and attempted to pummel the thing, apparently unperturbed by the garlic breath.  But then the thing opened its maw to fire the beam again, but Guy wasn't aware of this ability.

"Guy, run!"

"No," he said stubbornly.

Suddenly, in the same moment where the cruxpalm fired, a spire of ice appeared between the two that refracted the beam right back at the cruxpalm.  This was sufficient force to shatter its grip and Gaz was free, though her left wrist and lower arm were severely burned.

"I can't leave you two alone for more that two minutes . . ."

"Hardy har har, Horse." Guy said, moodily.

Horse was a seal no more, though she retained white hair to reflect her pinniped past, but she was a fully human girl now.

"It's . . . not dead." Gaz pointed out.  Her voice betrayed how much pain this thing put her through.

"Oh, that's easily enough fixed," Horse said as she freezed the beast, and Guy shattered it.

"Gaz, we need to take you to see Kelly," Guy said, concerned, "that doesn't look too good."

---
* Yes, yes, another Beast War homage.  This line is from "Crossing the Rubicon", I think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on September 06, 2012, 12:29:39 AM

Awesome previous book. Sorry it's taken me so long to catch up. My days have been filling up like crazy.

Pretty good new book. I'd point out a few things; but I know these books aren't to be taken too seriously. I will however, PM one detail.

Nice name choices too. Beside Troy (though still a good name), I would actually consider calling my kids Pierce and Tommy. Pierce Brosnan and Tommy from Power Rangers! I'm sure Helen named Venus. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 06, 2012, 02:18:30 AM

[spoiler]http://postimage.org/image/z5ny6mg1t

I am making RAF models of our persona again, finally made mine. The only thing is I have to humanoid any animal persona. But there are textures and animal parts and such.

Next is Blue (if I can get some parts for him), Este (as she would appear as an "avatar" form, I think you called it), Horsie, Dino. Anyone else want one? PM me with details about your RAFsona. [/spoiler]

^^^ Might help RAF writers.

 But anyway (to my point) , that is what I look like XD I might (with your permission, of course) animate some of the scenes from here, mainly fight scenes and they will take a bit to animate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2012, 07:14:37 AM

Quote from: Darth Revan on September 06, 2012, 12:29:39 AM

Nice name choices too. Beside Troy (though still a good name), I would actually consider calling my kids Pierce and Tommy. Pierce Brosnan and Tommy from Power Rangers!

*chuckles* Funny, I chose those names because of "Tommy gun" and "pierce", going along with the whole weapon motif.  As for Troy . . . Spartans, Trojans . . . well, anyway, movin' on.

Quote from: Darth Revan on September 06, 2012, 12:29:39 AM

I'm sure Helen named Venus. ::)

Yep.  Married life, huh?

Quote from: Sakki on September 06, 2012, 02:18:30 AM

But anyway (to my point) , that is what I look like XD I might (with your permission, of course) animate some of the scenes from here, mainly fight scenes and they will take a bit to animate.

Um . . . why WOULDN'T I give permission for this?  Sounds really cool to me.  (I actually secretly hoped someone would illustrate some scenes from these books, and this is just as good).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 06, 2012, 09:33:58 AM

The info I'll need to know from everyone before I start just making it up

[spoiler]
Hair color
Hair length
Hair style
Eye color
Skin tone
color scheme
Top style
Bottom Style
Shoe style
Preferred fighting style
Clearance to use models for other things that re-enactment [/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2012, 09:40:40 AM

I'll PM you my RAFsona's specifics.

Oh, I probably should mention that the Nexus is a dark place, where the only light is emitted from the roads, the earth, the plantlife, the structures, the buildings and the Realm Walkers themselves.  Oh, and the Realms themselves are bioluminescent.

As far as the fic goes, I'll post another chapter soonish.  Blaze, it'll feature you and I don't know how long it'll be.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Mimasian Muklok

"Sire . . ."

"Don't you dare tell me." Rotiart snapped moodily.

"But . . ." Bubbles protested meekly again.

"Sire, the data has been transmitted." Magnus said abruptly.  "It just finished."

"Ah, excellent.  The cruxpalm may have been lost, but we got what we were after." Rotiart said, mood switching in an instant.  "Time for the next step.  He'll be flying around by now.  Computer, release the muklok at the coordinates of the hybrid.  Designate Blaze."

***

Blaze was gliding, diving and soaring.  He loved the feel of the wind beneath his wings, buffeting him higher and higher, only for him to tuck his wings up and go into a full dive, only to flare his wings and pull up.  He enjoyed the purest form of joy when he was flying.  But naturally he carried his sword with him, but its glow was colorless -- joy and happiness wasn't a registered color on the emotional spectrum.

He managed to perfect a flaming barrel roll over the course of twenty-five years.  He was like Richard and Estelore in the fact that he didn't age any physically, except that his wings got a little broader and thicker.  He didn't really care as long as he had wings and the power to move in these three dimensions.  He would have cried from such joy that he felt in the air, but he contented himself from laughing like a carefree child.

He continued this game of gliding, diving and climbing back up again.  These twenty-five years have done much to improve on his flying finesse and skill.  Only Faerie could best him in the air.  He also perfected the technique of igniting his wings for a swipe attack, with no harm to himself or his wings.  He was also far more skilled with his blade, which was still the blade that Cloak gave him all those years ago.

Then it came.  He sensed it before he saw it.  It felt like a horrid hole in the sky, like a dimensional rupture manifested through this beast.  It had wide, bat-like wings, a vaguely humanoid body that was scaly and sapphire blue, while the membrane in its wings were black.  It had four clawed fingers and an opposible clawed thumb on each hand, and three clawed toes with a hooked, sickle-like spur on it's digigrade heel.  Its face was nearly identical to that of Zorc from Yu-Gi-Oh acclaim, only with its horns raked backward, but every bit as hideous.

"I don't know what you are," he said, calmly, flapping his wings but staying in roughly the same place, "but I'll give you the chance to leave of your own volation.

In response, the beast shot a blast of water at Blaze, which he dodged fairly easily.

"I'm trying to be reasonable," Blaze said, attempting to be civil.  But the muklok got it's orders, and it had no mind, no free will of its own.  But Blaze did not know this, though he was beginning to suspect.

In response, the creature attempted to bum rush Blaze, who managed to barrel roll out of the way.  The creature had reacted far faster than Blaze had anticipated, as it sprayed him with water before he could even pull out of the roll!  Steam coiled from Blaze, and he glared at the muklok.

"'Kay, that was two mistakes.  Mine . . . and yours!" he shouted.  Then he fired a full concussive blast of flame from his palms at the beast.  But the muklok was incapable of feeling fear, and it just fired two torrents of equally powerful jets of water.  The result was a stalemate.

"Oookay . . ." Blaze said, starting to feel frustrated, unsheathing his sword, which was engulfed in what appeared to be bloodred flames.  "I'm getting irritated."

The muklok did not speak -- well, because it could not and it wasn't within the parameters of its programming to speak anyway -- and it did not flinch.  It did not move.  Blaze moved to strike, but was surprised when the creature held it at it's hilt and took its claws and slashed at Blaze.  The claws tasted blood and Blaze tried to back off, but the muklok delivered a surprising powerful kick to Blaze's abdomen, fortunately only leaving rather shallow scratches.  Blaze bent over to hold his abdomen, and the muklok maneuvered behind him and delivered a powerful punch which knocked Blaze into the ground.  Fortunately, at this point, they were only about ten feet up.

Blaze groaned as the beast stepped up and grabbed his wings.  The muklok then began pulling, ripping them off.  Blaze screamed, until suddenly the pain stopped -- his wings still attached, but bloodied.  He looked behind him to find that Faerie was there, her axe was down.  It was stained with the muklok's gore . . . it did not seem to have blood at all.  Faerie had sliced it in half and immediately the beast began to congeal into nothingness.

"Don't talk, and don't fight me on this, Blaze," Faerie said, returning the axe to hammerspace.  "But you're gonna have to see Kelly and Goom."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 06, 2012, 08:46:16 PM

Love the updates!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2012, 09:03:49 AM

Thanks, Gazzy -- although you may not love it when Chapter . . . uh, Seventeen or Eighteen comes 'round.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Eurymedonian Dragosaurus

"Don't you dare tell me that the muklok is dead." Rotiart warned.

"But, sire, it was." Bubbles replied, rather stupidly.

"I told you not to tell me!" Rotiart snarled.

"But, sir, the data was recieved in complete form," Slicer interjected.

"Well, then, it was worth it.  And at least that bunghole was bloodied up.  Maybe, if we're lucky, he'll die."  Rotiart said, remembering the chilly reception that Blaze always gave him.  Rotiart liked him nearly as much as he like Cloak.

"Now, Computer, is the dinosaur nothlit on her own?"

"Designate DinosaurNothlit is just north of RAF at the following coordinates."

"Excellent," Rotiart said.  "Encapsulate and lauch the dragosaur."

***

DinoNothlit was outside tromping around in her compact form -- she didn't want to accidentally cause some picnickers an heart attack.  Or be a target for a couple of trophy hunters that she had dealings with over the course of the years.  They only wanted her head to compensate for more . . . lacking features they find shameful.

Dino tried not to dwell on the animosity she felt towards them.  But how could you like a guy whose sole reason for hunting was disproving their impotence?  Who "hunts" from helicopters?  Dino was the only Anklyotyrannus known to exist.  That made her a rather covetous target for these people rather than those hunters who hunt for food and such, and have some honor about how they take down their quarry.

WHUMPH!

Suddenly, a mighty impact shockwave alerted Dino -- but knocked out her communications with RAF.  She approached what appeared to be a large, black, egg-shaped meteorite thing.  Only the surface . . . it looked smooth.  Too smooth.  Dino kept her distance, eyeing the thing wearily.  Then a vertical crack appeared.  Then it proceeded in a lateral way, and Dino was quick to notice that the cracks were too straight, as if it used a ruler to make the crack.  This could only mean one thing -- this thing was not an egg but some sort of mechanical conveyance.  But Dino's instincts told her that it was not of extraterrestial origin -- there were no heating marks on it that it would have gotten if it were entering the atmosphere. . . .

The creature that slithered out was black with red, veiny highlights and silver accents.  It looked rather like a therapod, but with a dragon-like fringe of silver, horned crests around the back of its head and rather wispy-looking silver spines travling down its back terminating about a foot from the tip of its tail, which had for large, silver, stegosaur-like spikes.

<Well, hello, there,> Dino said, in thought-speak.*

The creature didn't speak, but appeared to sniff Dino from this distance.

<Great, I'm upwind,> Dino said aloud.

The dragosaurus roared, and charged Dino, who sidestepped.  She swung her ankylosaur tail, in attempt of hitting its thigh, but it maneuvered in such a way where the tail scraped the spines.  Dino realized in an instant that those spines were not just for decoration.  They were venomous barbs, and Dino was suffering from the venom.

<AHH!> she screamed, as the dragosaurus revealed another power -- firebreathing.  It had severely burned Dino's left thigh in such away that the force of the blast knocked her to her right and she fell and could not right herself again.  She tried in vain to snap at the dragosaurus but it stayed out of her range.  It opened its jaws, preparing to parboil Dino again, and she shut her eyes anticipating the killing blast . . .

But it never came.

Dino opened her eyes and saw that Blocky blocked the flame blast -- being a dragon, he was more tolerant to the heat.  But he had not come alone when he heard Dino's scream.  Ash and Underseen had taken the form of two titanoboas, and were constricting the dragosaurus with a combined pressure of about 800 or so pounds.  The venomous barbs didn't seem to bother them any, due to their natural regenerative ability inherent.

"It's done," Underseen said, having returned to his default form, as well as Ash.  It was at this point that Dino lost consciousness, but Block was quick to notice.

"Guys, we've gotta get her to Kelly, and fast!"

Ash and Underseen took on larger, stronger forms, and the three of them carried Dino back to RAF. . . .

---
*Yes, I know I've been a bit inconsistent with this thought-speak thing with Dino.  I'm sorry.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 07, 2012, 12:31:38 PM

Lol. Oh dear. I await it with baited breath.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on September 07, 2012, 01:20:24 PM

Awesome chapters.  :)

*burys self back into VTNE questions*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2012, 02:31:18 PM

Thanks, Gazzy and Noelle.

Oh, new page, so --

• Book XVII: The Last RAFian
• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!* -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.  If you want spoilers . . . well . . . I might consider it in PM.  A new chapter will come tomorrow -- if I don't get too busy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 07, 2012, 05:03:02 PM

You are so devoted to these, that is good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2012, 11:25:19 PM

I suppose so, Underseen.  As I've said many times before, RAF is such a fertile ground for ideas. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 08, 2012, 12:05:18 AM

Mhm, still surprised you have 70+ planned... That would take about 1 year.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2012, 11:35:48 AM

That's only assuming that I don't quicken the pace any time soon, and don't run out of idea.  Or don't veto some books, like I've done with some parodies (nearly 800!) -- I vetoed the one where Horse basically tells the RAFian version of Star Wars. . . . Perhaps I will quicken the pace again, once I get a more comfortable chair -- this one I'm sitting on now really hasn't much comfort.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Enceladian Andalbeest

"Sire, the dragosaurus was --"

"Don't finish that sentence, Bubbles," Rotiart snapped.  "I'm well aware!  But at least that slag-spoutin' saurian* got what she deserved."

"Her survival doesn't seem likely, according to the data received."

Rotiart waved this off, "Makes no nevermind to me.  My magnum opus is nearly complete. . . ." Rotiart said, ending with an almost reverent tone when he gestured toward the largest tube that was steeped in darkness and shadows.  "Just three little RAFians to do away with, minions."

Then he walked up to the computer interface, and spoke in a sharp, commanding tone, "Computer, is there Andalites alone?  Mark-bearing Andalites?"

"Searching . . ." came the cool female voice.

He glanced ruefully at the spiky red "B" no emblazoned on his palm where the blue "R" of the Mark used to be.

"Located -- designate Noelle -- at the coordinates." the computer's voice said in a rather stilted way.

"Excellent, launch and send the Andalbeest toot sweet."

"Sire, I don't think that's how you say --" Bubbles began before Rotiart smacked him so hard that his head was left spinning literally.

"Don't you correct me, you mindless automaton."

***

Noelle was outside RAF, running, prancing through a field, grazing as Andalites are apt to do.  She seemed fairly relaxed and more confident in her abilities than she may have been 25 years ago.  But she did not come out this far from RAF unarmed -- she wasn't stupid.  She carried a fully-charged Shredder, and she had her tail and her morphing.  She was pretty confident that she could handle anything that came up.  And, if she couldn't, she was in thought-speak range of her fellow RAFians.

So she continued to feed, and exercise -- there hadn't been any real incidents that happened to her knowledge . . . only because she didn't know the incidents with Parker and the technovore, Gaz and the cruxpalm, Blaze and the muklok, and Dino and the dragosaurus.  She continued to graze in blissful ignorance of the danger that approached her with alarmingly rapidity.

It was the loud crash and thump that grabbed her attention.  It came from the forest.  She had her stalk eyes dutifully scanning her surroundings . . . she was horribly reminded of the Xenomorphic-Brood encounter years before.  She suppressed a shutter.  She watched as blacks smoke curled out of the edge of the forest.  She narrowed her main eyes, squinting to see through the smoke.  She did not call out to it -- experience told her that doing such would be a very stupid idea.

But then the colossal beast rushed out from the forest, standing on four large, spider-like legs, with smaller leg-like appendages extending from its abdomen.  Its head was rather like that of a rhino, only with the horn being of bone, not keratin.  It's mouth was horrendous enough to cause a Taxxon to faint from looking at it.  It had a smooth, thick-looking back with a camel-like hump, which apparently was nothing but a mass of muscle.  The skin was granite-gray and craggy-looking, almost like bark.  It issued a bloodcurling roar rather like a high-pitched tyrannosaur roar with some bear in it.

Noelle felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.  Terror.  Mind-numbing terror.  She tried to scream for help, but found that her thought-speak no longer worked!  This creature must have some sort of biological thought-speak dampener built into it.  She could not think how -- she's never seen a creature like this before now.

She whipped out her Shredder and fired it at the creature.  It just warmed its skin!  It did nothing, but annoy it!  Noelle kept firing it until the charge was gone.  Then she threw it, and it found itself inside the creatures mouth.  The andalbeest just swallowed it with no worry or hesitation.

This is NOT good, Noelle thought to herself.  And with the thought-speak dampeners, it's the only communication she could do.

It rushed her, but she sidestepped and struck it with her tailblade.  It left a streak in the creature's side, but it did not bleed, it did not wince, it did not wail.  The cut simply sealed itself in twice the time it would have taken Demos.  Noelle blinked all four eyes in surprise and shock, realizing she couldn't do anything to this beast!  She couldn't defeat it.  She couldn't defeat it.  No Andalite could!

. . . No Andalite could, huh?  Hmmm . . .  Noelle concentrated on the picture of a polar bear, and waited for the changes to happen.

But they never did.  The same thought-speak dampeners must have a morphing field dampener as well!

Well, this is just dandy!  Just . . . peachy! Noelle thought savagely.

She tried to run away, but this creature was faster than her.  She tried again with her tailblade, but the creature easily dodged, and slashed her with the surprisingly sharp legs, leaving several gashes in her side, and her right rear leg was now useless.  The pain was intense.  If she could only morph it away!!  If she could only morph it away!!

She stumbled and fell on her side.  She looked up with her left stalk eye and saw the beast looming over her.  She tensed her body, preparing to feel the first bite -- but it never came.  Noelle opened her eyes, all four of them, wondering whether the creature was enjoying torturing her when she saw it rear up and explosions rip its back.  It didn't seem able to heal from burns like it could from cuts and slices.

"You chose one HECK of a dancing partner, Noelle," a voice said.  She knew that voice.  But she still couldn't speak, not that she didn't want to.

"What's with the silent treatment?" the same voice said, helping her right herself.  It was Blue -- Blue had thrown exploding shurrikens that caused the beast intense pain to which it was unaccustomed.  "Oh, hold on a minute, Big Ugly's not dead yet."

Blue withdrew is ninjabo, and began to hack the creature apart. . . . Apparently, the touch of admantium was like a branding iron to its skin.  Within a few minutes (which included Blue using his favorite ninja trick of vanishing in a puff of smoke and leaving a log in his place), Blue had thoroughly taken care of the beast.

<Ah,> Noelle gasped in pain, relieved that she could thought-speak again.  She did a quick human morph and back again.  The pain vanished, and she was pleased.  <Much better.  And I can talk again.>

"What?  You couldn't talk?"

<As best as I can figure, that creature had some sort of thought-speak dampeners, as well as morphing field dampeners.>

"That's possible?"

<Apparently so.>

"Well, this has to be told to the others," Blue said, and Noelle agreed, <Let's go.>

---
*Yet another Beast Wars reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 08, 2012, 12:38:32 PM

I liked the ninja fight scene.

Edit: As I reread the earlier chapters for fun, I realized that there are 8 'robot masters' to fight. Megaman Reference? Plus how the 3 Mavericks from X2 are being parodied. I am kinda happy how clever this reference is.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2012, 12:53:47 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 08, 2012, 12:38:32 PM

Edit: As I reread the earlier chapters for fun, I realized that there are 8 'robot masters' to fight. Megaman Reference? Plus how the 3 Mavericks from X2 are being parodied. I am kinda happy how clever this reference is.

:wow:

Uh . . . that wasn't intentional, actually -- at least, not consciously.  It was more of a happy accident.  You're gonna get a +1 for pointing that out to me, Underseen.

I just realized the latter part of the book is also very much like the end of a Mega Man X game . . . wow.  And it isn't like I haven't played them (well, except for X7 and X8). . . . Wow, I never noticed this. . . .

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Ouranosian Vortexsapien

"Infernal ninja," Rotiart cursed, while the other three cowered quietly.  "But we've got the data.  That's all that matters."

"Computer, is that star nearby?"

"Designate Estelore is presently leaving Earth space at a rather slow stellar pace," the cool female voice announced.

"Then quickly shoot the vortexsapien into geosynchronous orbit!"

"But, boss," Bubble attempted to interject, "won't that raise notice from the planet's governments?"

Rotiart glared at him and detached his legs, because they were too valuable to break.

"I withdraw the question," he muttered very quietly.

"Do it now!  Kill the star!"

The other three were well aware of the potential horrible consequences of such an action, if successful, could be for the world.  But they didn't have the courage to stand up to Rotiart, who seemed to lose some sanity after his Banning.  He didn't care if he adversely affected the world, as long as he got his vengeance.

***

Estelore was leaving the Earth, prepared to go onto one of her long intergalactic sojourns.  She was, at her core, a curious person with a touch of the explorer in her.  Her fellow RAFians knew this and accepted this about her.*  Cloak even asked her to make notes, so she could update the RAF species database when she returned.  Her destination this time was Andromedan space -- Cloak mentioned to her, in an aside, that he he thought that Orishans, Amperi, Talpaedans, Geochelone Aerios of the planet Aldabra, and Prypiatosian-Bs inhabit that area of space.  This had her intrigued, though Cloak already created entries for all the species that B'nt listed, using his knowledge of the species from another realm that similar species (if not identical species inhabited).

Estelore felt the exhilarating thrill that comes from being able to explore somewhere, maybe finding and discovery a new species on a new planet.  She lived for the rush of discovery.  Her power was just something that enabled her to peek upon these newer worlds.  She could understand, if any one could, why Realm Walkers first began to Walk the realms.

But she wasn't too far -- not even outside the solar system, when she sensed something.  Some strange creature that rivaled her in size, who had a strange power of its own.  She wasn't sure of it's level power, but she was not arrogant enough to believe that no one could equal her in power -- after all, she was just one of millions of stars and -- though she had yet to meet one -- she presumed she wasn't the only sentient one.

She saw the creature that pursued her.  It would have been indistinguishable from a black hole, only it held what appeared to be a wholly green cyclopean eye in its center, and had two smoky claws extending from it's black hole-ish body (which wasn't black at all, but the color of rust, with black accents).  Estelore said nothing, as spoken voices do not carry in the vacuum of space -- unless you're a Lantern, apparently.

Estelore prepared herself, knowing full well -- from her experience as a veteran RAFian -- that the creature was preparing to attack her.  The creature, in a flash, reached out with it's clawed smoke hands and struck!  The claws found their mark, and Estelore reacted in shock.  It actually hurt.  It hurt a great deal.  The strike could even be seen from the surface of Earth.  The non-RAFians did not know what to make of it.  Parker's youngest son, Troy, saw this, and declared it as, "Pretty."

"That's nice, Troy," Parker said, as an adult would to a young child without looking up from his work.  "Now play quietly while Daddy and Pierce rebuild our armor."

"Dad, you know we probably could've punched that thing."

"I nearly lost an arm trying to do that to a Veleek," Parker scolded.  "Who's to say that wouldn't have happened this time."

"Ooooh . . . pretty . . ." Troy said, still looking at the sky.

Back in the battle, Estelore wasn't fairing as well as she would have liked.  She was injured, rather severely, but it wasn't fatal.  She was unaccustomed to feeling pain.  She was unaccustomed to battling such a beast like the vortexsapien.  She knew that she wouldn't be able to beat it alone, and it pained her to admit it to herself.

But suddenly a ship appeared and zapped the creature.  Estelore immediately recognized the ship and tried to gesture Yarin to get away and save himself.  The vortexsapien attempted to pull the ship into it's vortex maw.  Yarin seemed to allow this, but Estelore attempted to stop it.  But she was weakening and could not get over there fast enough.

<Do not worry, Esty.> Yarin said, telepathically.  <I have a plan.>

<YARIN, NO!> Estelore said.  <You've no idea the power this thing -->

<Oh, I'm well aware of the power.  But Cloak fetched for me a certain special item . . .>

But before Estelore could question Yarin about, a small iron-gray ball with dull blue core with a black core sheath.  It hat "MMX3-GBGW" written on it with spiky black letters, and in, what Estelore assumed, Nyac script.  The ball was easily sucked into the the beast, but right beneath the creatures gelatinous eye it opened and started feeding a black energy into the creature that seemed to have an adverse reaction to it.  The beast was sucked into the gravity well that the ball produced.  Then the ball collapsed it and the gravity well.  Then the ball disintergrated itself into nothingness, leaving space as empty as it was before.

<Wow.>

<Okay, Estelore, encapsulate yourself into your avatar form, and we'll take you to Kelly.> Yarin instructed.  Estelore complied, although her avatar reflected her beat up and bloody condition.  With that they flew back to the forum.

---
*Yes, this is the premise of why Estelore isn't in ALL the "Memoirs" books.  Just like the premise for whenever Aquilai or Aila is absent is that they're off having adventures in time and space.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 09, 2012, 02:22:11 PM

I have beat all the X games, and the naming of the creatures actually sound like real enemies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2012, 02:25:28 PM

Well, I just based the names on the RAFians that they're supposed to be the "banes" of.  And there are only two more to go.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 09, 2012, 02:52:31 PM

Makes sense... I am probably going to play X5 tonight, all the MegaMan talk got in my head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2012, 12:57:00 PM

Right.  I know it's been a couple of hours, but I'll see about getting Chapter Nine (featuring Sakki and the Sakki-Bane) out of the way soon.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Clytian Berserker

The three subservient to Rotiart quietly breathed a sigh of relief, while Rotiart was only appeased by the data received from the battle.

"Only two more to go . . ." Rotiart said quietly looking at the two creatures left.  He patted the right hand tube, saying "I'll save this one for last . . ."

"Alert.  Mark-Bearer presence detected 54.6 meters away from this location.  Sensors show that it is designate Sakki and --"

But the computer's voice was drowned out by Rotiart's whoop of laughter.  "This is just perfect!!  Just so perfect!!  Computer, unleash the berserker at those coordinates!"

"Uh, sir, do you think that wise?" Magnus said, rather hesitatingly, as if he was speaking against his better judgement.

"Are you QUESTIONING me?" Rotiart said, gnashing his teeth on the word "questioning".

"No, sire!  Not at all!  But --"

"Oh, shut up, you overlong, doddering pile of mismatched parts." Rotiart spat, and Magnus said nothing, but clearly took offense.  "Computer, do it!"

"Executing commands now."

***

Sakki looked over the area where the old carnival that once sheltered the Bibliophaetos once stood.  It was now fully abandoned and basically a wasteland of trash and tattered dreams.  Sakki found that she didn't like it much, but Demos said he thought it wasn't too bad.  They had separated to conduct isolated investigations.  This didn't seem to be a good idea, but Sakki never much bought into horror movie superstitions.  She was as tough as they come.

But a few minutes into the investigation, she was feeling annoyed.  There was nothing here.  Yarin's equipment must be glitched . . . it couldn't pinpoint the location that the several other creatures seemed to spawn from, but this seemed to obvious a site.  There would be no reason to build anything here of any significance.

"Well, this was a pointless waste of time," Sakki muttered waspishly.

She sensed it before it struck.

She dodged to the left, and rolled away, then unto her feet.  She glared at her new foe.  It had a visible acanthite skeleton swaddled in transparent-to-opaque, gelatinous, puke green flesh with no visible eyes or mouth but a rudimentary-looking head.  It held several weapons inside the gelatinous flesh -- a steel battleaxe, a claymore sword, a couple of obsidian daggers, a vibranium lance, a couple of admantium sais, a katana, a bo staff, a couple of nunchucks, and more.  Making this beasts eight arms look like a cluttered mess.

"You're really ugly, you know that?" Sakki said, trying to get a rise out of the creature.  But the berserker lacked the intelligence to register Sakki's comments as insults.  What it was waiting for, Sakki had no clue.  But she prepared herself to fight, and was astonished with just how quickly the creature could move -- the gel flesh was about as heavy as styrofoam apparently -- only far more disgusting.

Sakki hadn't enough time to make quips during the battle -- it was all she could do to just dodge the blows and strikes.  The beast did not tire -- but she knew that she would.  Eventually.  Her reflexes would slow, and . . . it wasn't pleasant to think about.  It felt like forever, but the beast reacted so quickly and attacked so relentlessly, that Sakki couldn't counterattack.  What was worse was that this thing seemed to be aware of all her moves, of all her techniques.  This was not going so well.

"Demos!" she chanced -- and got a nice, long, lovely cut down her leg.  But Sakki wasn't fooled -- it was sheer luck that her leg was still attached.  Sakki didn't know when she could chance another call.  But that one cut was followed by blunt smashing and more cuts.  She had lost her rhythm for dodging.

"Demos . . ." she said faintly.  "Demos . . . get your . . . butt . . . over here . . ."

It was not good, this beast wasn't gonna just beat her into submission.  It was gonna . . .

"Hey!  Goo-blob!" Demos shouted.  "I think we need to heat things up!"

Suddenly, the berserker got very warm.  So very warm that it forgot about Sakki and began to stumble away.  But Demos didn't let up -- he had saw the condition the thing left Sakki in, and, in his turn, got very, very angry.  His flame was now accented with black.  Then it became hellfire.  The creature's flesh began to boil.  And, within minutes, it boiled away and its "skeleton" shattered with it's weapons (except the vibranium and admantium).

"Demos . . ."

"Quiet, Sakki.  We've gotta get you to Kelly."

"Demos . . ."

"Hush now."

With that, Demos scooped Sakki in his arms, and dashed back to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 10, 2012, 03:32:01 PM

(I've been reading this whole time)
Nice chapters :) I like how these banes are well thought up, almost like the Silent Hill monsters.

Now for model updates:

[spoiler]
Me: Completed
Cloak: Base still needed
Blue: Base, parts and items still needed
Underseem: Same as Blue
Darth: Yeah...about that armor... ^_^;
Horsie: Almost done, just need to put everything together and test it
Shadow: Finding bases that are just right for her, then clothes and hair
Kelly: Need info on her, I have an idea for the effect to use for her healing
Demos: Needs EVERYTHING [/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2012, 03:51:32 PM

Quote from: Sakki on September 10, 2012, 03:32:01 PM

I like how these banes are well thought up, almost like the Silent Hill monsters.

Well, I can honestly say that they weren't based on any of the Silent Hill monsters because I haven't seen any of the films or played any of the games.

Truthfully, I wait until I write the chapter to come up with the bane creatures' descriptions (only using a vague description of them in my notes).  The berserker, I admit, has some resemblance to the Rainbow Devil from the Mega Man series.  And that's where the eye idea came from for the vortexsapien.

And, glad to see your work is comin' along, Sakki.  I can't wait to see the finished product.

Oh, and be sure to pay attention to the list at the top of the page -- I do intend to write all those books if I can.  (Let's face it -- this series'll probably be my magnum opus.)  But anyway, pay attention, because (unless this is moved to a different page), I'll update that if I chose to veto (i.e. take out) a book or add an additional one (more likely).  Please note, some of those books will be "out-of-normal-continuity" books, like this one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 10, 2012, 07:01:09 PM

Oh, that is nice Sakki! Will there be a site to view the models when you are done?

Great update, I was thinking of MegaMan Zero before I read this, so I knew what was going on. I am really interested in what book XXIII will be like. The title makes me think...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2012, 07:08:59 PM

Well, I did wonder why there wasn't some sort of RAFian comic book, Underseen.  I mean we have enough storylines and artists to make it a reality, right?  Well, Sakki is working on that animation thing (which I am still excited about and I can't get ahold of Shadow to tell her).

Speaking of which, Sakki, will the final product be on YouTube or Devinart or what? :huh:

New page --

• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!* -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villian*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 10, 2012, 07:12:16 PM

By the way, how much space does all of this take up on your computer?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2012, 07:16:51 PM

I don't have it on my computer.  I've literally written all the chapter-by-chapter notes by hand (although those consist of a vague one or two line -- usually -- description).  Then I sit down and write it out in the "post reply" box.  Some ideas just come to me on the fly when I sit here and type it.  This computer actually doesn't have a word processor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 10, 2012, 07:26:05 PM

 :o DANG! I thought you go to Word and make them and then paste them into the reply box... That is talented!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2012, 07:28:19 PM

Thank you, Underseen.  I did have a book on my old laptop that exceeded 200-pages, though.  Then it went ka-put.

Anyway, I might post a new chapter, or wait until tomorrow.  Haven't quite decided yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 10, 2012, 07:44:50 PM

Youtube for animations
Deviantart for model previews.
But you guys don't have to worry about trying to find these accounts, they will be all posted on here
I am trying to figure out "sliders" which are basically additional parts to a model I can
take away and add mid video. I am also working on finding effects that'll help for things like magic and chiz like that. I can basically find any weapon in existence.
Also things like: Stages, music, ect

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2012, 07:48:33 PM

Ah, 'kay.

And I've decided that I'm a little TOO brain-dead right now to post a decent chapter.  Sorry, guys.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 10, 2012, 07:49:48 PM

It's okay.

Sakki, what programs are you using?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 10, 2012, 10:06:41 PM

MMD PMDeditor and plug ins such as MME

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 10, 2012, 10:50:20 PM

Thanks! I thought so when I saw your model....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2012, 09:30:11 AM

Okay, chapter time. . . . What chapter were we on?  Oh, yes, I remember.

Just note -- I may very well post more than one chapter.  I realize that it'll make it harder for people to catch up, but . . .

CHAPTER TEN:
The Chiropteran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiroptera) Skunk

"Sire, I told you --"

"You tread dangerous ground, Magnus," Rotiart snarled.  "You'd best to back off."

"But sire, I must insist -- AAAAHHHH!"

He was electrocuted by his very own circuits.

"Sorry . . . sorry, sire . . . I . . . I overstepped my boundaries."

"Yes, you did.  And all three of you best remember this."

Rotiart activated the shock for all three of them, which caused them to withdraw from Rotiart and cower.  This, however, amused Rotiart slightly.  He had the power to dish out punishment to uppity lesser beings, a power he never had as a RAFian.  Of course, now he'll make them pay for daring to exile him.  For daring to Ban him!  He noted briefly that the data was received from Sakki's fight with the berserker.

"This one had better not fail.  This one had better kill its intended target," Rotiart said, more for his own benefit than his involuntary lackeys.  He was spiralling down the pit of insanity, but he seemed not to be aware of it.  There was only one beast left, and Rotiart seemed to think that it was the greatest -- well, except for the other one in the considerably larger tube.  It remained in shadow, but bits of red, blue, white, yellow and gold seemed to eke out in the dim lighting.  "If this doesn't work, then the Onslaught will begin. . . ."

"Sire . . ." Slicer spoke up from the corner, ". . . what if . . . what if . . . what-if-it-doesn't-work?"

"It cannot fail, fool.  It's the ultimate contingency plan!"

His lackeys seemed to doubt it.  Apparently, Rotiart hadn't noticed their doubtful looks and body language.

"Computer," Rotiart said with a snap like that of a trodden twig.  "Is the Realm Walker nearby."

"Designate CloakedFigure Mark-signature is at these coordinates."

"Excellent," Rotiart cackled, "launch the chiropteran skunk."

"Complying." the cool female voice replied.

"Excellent.  This time it cannot fail.  Cloak will finally meet the fate that he deserves.  He will die!" Rotiart said with megalomanical relish.  He was apparently unaware that Realm Walker can only be killed at the hand of another Realm Walker.  Rotiart took out the transparent, cylindrical canister that held the swirling energies that he procured a while ago, right after Cloak slayed Malice and Abomination. . . .

***

Cloak was sitting on a rather comfortable rock in the middle of a forest, by a bubbling stream with a slight waterfall to his left and a few feet behind him.  He had allowed his cloak and tail to drape over the edge of the rock, while he crossed his legs so that his left heel touched the right side of his hip.  He had balled his hands into fists and had the knuckles touching each other.  He was sitting straight up, and his eyes were closed.

Cloak had hoped to come out here to meditate, to hopefully contact his grandfather's spirit.  He sought solice from the horrible grief, the dagger of remore that had lodged into his heart.  He hoped for his grandfather's wisdom, something he still felt that he had not inhereted from his mentor.  But his mind was so full . . . too full.  He couldn't concentrate properly.  He was also getting rather antsy, as well.

Cloak noticed that he was feeling really restless of late, but could not explain why.  It was as if he felt a deep, dark shadow of the future flowing over to him, eclipsing him.  It was not a pleasant feeling.  Cloak continued to try to calm his mind and focus on the mediation.

He sensed it before he smelled the odoriferous beast.  It stunk worse than skunk fumes, a Gloom, an uncleaned toilet, a Muk, rotten eggs, a Stunky, rotting meat, a Skuntank, soiled baby diapers, a Trubbish, the worst kind of gym socks, or a Garbodor.  It stunk worse than all of those things, enough to bring tears to Cloak's eyes, though Cloak managed to leap up and behind the creature, where it turned and he got a good look at it, albeit with watery eyes.

It appeared similar to Stinkor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Masters_of_the_Universe_characters#Stinkor) with the colors of Stinkbomb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinkbomb_(Transformers)).  It had broad, bat-like ears, and broad, flapping bat wings on its back, as well as a fluffy, tongue-shaped black tail with a centralized white stripe.

Cloak could barely breathe -- much less speak, due to the awful stench.  Then it opened its mouth -- Cloak took note of two overlarge upper canines -- and unleashed a blast of sound of which a Howler would have been jealous.  It was only the sheerest luck that Cloak managed not to be hit.  Cloak was effectively immobilized by the stench.  And the howl, for lack of a more fitting term, screwed up his Earthsight.  Not that it would have mattered anyway, because it remained airborne.

Cloak attempted to fight back using the Air Element.  But the howl rendered that effectively useless in this condition.  He daren't use the Fire element, lest he burn down this entire forest.  Attempted to fling the boulder that he had sat on at the creature, but it managed to howl at such a frequency that the boulder shattered into gravel.  Cloak didn't want to use his energy -- because that's rather akin to a human picking up dog droppings with their bare hands.

Cloak glanced at the waterfall -- maybe that would clean this monster up.  Cloak flung the water from the falls, as if fired from a firehose, at the skunk.  He had hoped to lessen the smell.  And it worked . . . to a degree.  It still smelled to high heaven, but it was more tolerable now.  But unfortunately that just also gave the creature an opening to fire a howl directly at Cloak and hit him dead-on.  The pain was intense, but he compartmentalized it.

But then a blur appeared in the trees.  Flitting from branch to branch with unbelievable skill and agility and athletism.  It caught the creatures attention, and Cloak managed to fire more water its way before falling to his knees.  The blur leaped from the tree and landed, gestured at the nearest tree, which stabbed one of the creatures wings -- skewering it completely.  Without flinching, the creature ripped off that wing, which concealed into nothingness, only the merest hint of its stench remaining.

"Sh-Shadow . . ."

"Don't worry, Uncle, I've got this."

It attempted to use it's howl at her, but Shadow possessed far more agility and less bulk than her uncle.  She was a far smaller target, and she deliberately used this to her advantage.  The howls could not seem to land at her.  Cloak realized, as he summed up his wounds, that Shadow's sense of smell was not as acut as his, and the stench, thereby, has less of an effect on her.

Eventually, she skewered its other wing, and then finally delivered the killing blow.  The beast congealed into nothingness, its ever-fading stench its only legacy.

"There, that's done.  You okay, Uncle?"

"I'll be fine." Cloak said.  Standing up, and it was clear that he wasn't fine.

"Uncle!  You're hurt!  Let's go to Meemaw's*."

"No, Shadow."

"But Uncle --"

"No, Shadow.  I'm never going back there."

"You're hurt, Uncle.  Surely --"

"Kelly can heal me, then." Cloak said, knowing full well that Kelly couldn't.  Or else she would've when Cloak was on his deathbed**.  "But I will never go back to the Nexus.  Never, if I can help it."

Shadow looked crestfallen.

"I do thank you for your timely assistance, Shadow.  And I do love you.  But I have no home there.  My home has been, and always will be, here.  I'm sorry, but this is the way it is.  You should go back though.  Your mom is probably waiting for you."

And, with that, Cloak began to walk off, although there was no hiding the limp in his left leg.

---
* That's Shadow's name for my mother.  I don't know if this had come up before.  Possibly in Book I.

** All the way back in Book I.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2012, 02:07:24 PM

One more chapter before I trek the ¹/₄ of a mile walk to get the mail.  Hopefully, I can make it a decent one.  (Oh, and I'll probably write another after I get back -- but don't hold me to that.)  I probably should apologize in advance for the language . . . probably gonna be a bit of a short chapter.

Chapter Eleven:
Rage and Recovery

"WHAT?!" Rotiart roared so loudly, that people on the next planet could possibly hear him.  He was in paroxysms of rage.  It was so palpable that they could practically feel and see it as a dark aura, a purplish-black radiation.  His face seemed to contort in the rage, as if this was some sort of perverse anime gimmick.  "HOW THE BLOODY HELL COULD HE HAVE SURVIVED!!"

Magnus spoke up, in a quavery voice, "Sire, the data has --"

"**** THE DATA!" he raged.  He was like a train which was accelerating rapidly without any breaks -- a collision was inevitable.  It was never clear why Rotiart hated Cloak so much -- jealousy for his powers?  For his veteran status?  It could have been anything, but Cloak's survival seemed to send him careening over the edge of sanity and prudence.  But then he caught sight of the largest cryogenic tube, and he seemed to have forgotten his rage.  He seemed to regain his composure and sanity -- although he still spoke with that insane lilt to his voice.

"No . . . no, you're right." he said, and the three cowering minions stopped for a fraction of a second.  Rotiart said sharply, "I didn't tell you to stop cowering."

The three proceeded to cower some more, and, for some odd reason, it seemed to please Rotiart, and ease his mind.  Clearly, Rotiart's Banning had unhinged some screws free that were already too loose.  He stroked the cryogenic tube lovingly* as a young child would to a teddy bear.  "It's almost time, my dear.  You'll avenge me upon this world.  The final preparations just need to be done . . . to give you life."

***

The RAFians had dragged themselves to RAF, to the infirmary.  Kelly and Goom presided over the six that had arrived -- Parker wasn't injured, just his armor.  He feared that he may have lost Tyr forever -- as such, he worked feverishly to fix it.  The Ride Armor Matrix was damage far beyond repair, and Parker didn't know how to replicate Realm Walker tech.

Kelly had managed to heal the wounds of Blaze, Estelore, and Gaz.  Noelle had already morphed her injuries away, but the problem was Sakki.  Due to her artificial nature, Sakki was still severely wounded.  This was yet another limitation to Kelly's power -- it only worked on organics.  Only a technopath could heal Sakki now . . . and there were no known RAFian technopaths.  Though Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin was taking a crack on repairing her.  And it seemed to be working, but it was going slow.  They were even updating her body with admantium and vibranium and zoodeitium.

Kelly evaluated Blaze and Estelore, and tsked.

"I can heal the body.  But I cannot heal the mind or psyche." Kelly lamented quietly to Gaz.  "That, they're gonna have to deal with on their own, I'm afraid."

No one knew where Cloak was . . . there were rumors that he could have been attacked.  Even rumors that he could very well be dead -- which Horse, Blue, Parker, and Gaz usually stamped out when they reminded everyone -- repeatedly -- that only another Realm Walker could slay Cloak.  The last time in which they did this, Cloak limped into RAF.  Thankfully, all of Cloak's injuries were internal, so his ichor wasn't spilled.

<Cloak! Clo-- . . . Cloak, what happened?> Noelle asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," Cloak said, rather bluntly.  Noelle didn't react at this, Cloak had been rather surly since he slayed Malice and Abomination, so it wasn't out of character for him.

<Cloak,> Noelle said softly, cajolingly, <you don't have to bottle up your feelings.  You don't have to hide anything from us.>

"Thanks for the advice," Cloak said, rather more gruffly than he intended, as he tromped up to his thread to lie down.  Noelle watched him go, thinking quietly to herself, No one blames you, Cloak.  You did what you had to do.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 11, 2012, 04:11:57 PM

Good updates!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2012, 04:47:53 PM

Thanks, Gazzy.

Guys, don't forget to keep checking the list at the top of the page -- I'm adding more to it as I speak.  I will write all these books as long as I'm able.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 11, 2012, 06:28:03 PM

The Rachel Toxin sounds pretty interesting. And XXIX sounds like it would be about Apocalypse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 11, 2012, 07:42:42 PM

I should write a history for my RAFsona... :p

Mainly "pre-raf" life. So it would introduce the programer and the start of life.

Even though, you and Blue have augmented so much to what a "VOCALOID" does XD
I pretty much went from singing android to  kick ass singing android (or cyborg).

Anyway: RAFmodel updates

[spoiler]
Demos: Found hair, base, wings. Looking for clothes

Progress on Sliders: still working on it, give me some time XD
Current conflicts: Parker's gear, Cloak base (need to check model's rules...because I do know of a model I can edit.)

Effects I have that can help: Rain, snow, Billboard (sort of like a glowy aura), Fire Particle (fire that can move), Glass (can turn people into a glass texture) ObjectLuminous (makes certain parts of a model/object glow), Vector lines (a glowing line that trails after a bone [same concept as our bones] and I have it in every color). I am looking for one that adds a glittering to the hands of the model to be kelly's healing)  [/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 11, 2012, 09:30:14 PM

Great Sakki. Vocaloids are officially better

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2012, 09:41:54 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 11, 2012, 06:28:03 PM

And XXIX sounds like it would be about Apocalypse.

I assure you it's not.  Apocalypse will never make an appearance in all these books.  A character named "Cataclysm" and "Corrupter", however . . .

Quote from: Sakki on September 11, 2012, 07:42:42 PM

Even though, you and Blue have augmented so much to what a "VOCALOID" does XD
I pretty much went from singing android to  kick ass singing android (or cyborg).

So . . . should I give you a Howler-like "howl" or something like ability of a Loboan?  This isn't the first I'm thinking of it.  Kelly got the healing thing because she confirmed that to me in PM.  AniDragon got the power suppressing/boosting ability for the same reason.

Again, new page --

• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!* -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villian*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Anyway, I'll write a new chapter shortly. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 12, 2012, 10:15:16 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 12, 2012, 09:41:54 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 11, 2012, 06:28:03 PM

And XXIX sounds like it would be about Apocalypse.

I assure you it's not.  Apocalypse will never make an appearance in all these books.  A character named "Cataclysm" and "Corrupter", however . . .

Quote from: Sakki on September 11, 2012, 07:42:42 PM

Even though, you and Blue have augmented so much to what a "VOCALOID" does XD
I pretty much went from singing android to  kick ass singing android (or cyborg).

So . . . should I give you a Howler-like "howl" or something like ability of a Loboan?  This isn't the first I'm thinking of it.  Kelly got the healing thing because she confirmed that to me in PM.  AniDragon got the power suppressing/boosting ability for the same reason.

That'd be up to you.
(Even though I should be an UTAU not a VOCALOID, but that is because of something that I wrote yesterday)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2012, 10:22:02 AM

Quote from: Sakki on September 12, 2012, 10:15:16 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 12, 2012, 09:41:54 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 11, 2012, 06:28:03 PM

And XXIX sounds like it would be about Apocalypse.

I assure you it's not.  Apocalypse will never make an appearance in all these books.  A character named "Cataclysm" and "Corrupter", however . . .

Quote from: Sakki on September 11, 2012, 07:42:42 PM

Even though, you and Blue have augmented so much to what a "VOCALOID" does XD
I pretty much went from singing android to  kick ass singing android (or cyborg).

So . . . should I give you a Howler-like "howl" or something like ability of a Loboan?  This isn't the first I'm thinking of it.  Kelly got the healing thing because she confirmed that to me in PM.  AniDragon got the power suppressing/boosting ability for the same reason.

That'd be up to you.
(Even though I should be an UTAU not a VOCALOID, but that is because of something that I wrote yesterday)

That's why I tried to be vague -- to be honest, I have no idea what either of those things are.

I should warn you -- 'round Chapter 15 or 17, it'll become a bloodbath. . . .  This might be a shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Ultimate Weapon and Sagely Advice

"It is time!" Rotiart announced.  "Upload the data!  The Onslaught will begin!"

"But, sir, have you thought this through?" Slicer said, meekly.  "What if it isn't loyal to you as we are?"

"Silence, fool!" Rotiart snapped, lashing out at him.  "You know nothing.  Nothing that I didn't give you myself!  Now shut that mouth of yours or I will tighten your jaw so tight that not even a dinosaur could open it.  And remove your vocal synthesizers, while I'm at it!"

At this threat, all three spoke no more.  The continued to cower in the corner -- much to Rotiart's delight -- as he began to upload the data collected from the defeated technovore into the larger tube.  This took about two hours.  When it was done, the creature in the tube looked more powerful.

"It worked," Rotiart said, smugly, "as I knew it would."

Then he imputed the data from the cruxpalm.  This took another two hours.

"I sense a pattern . . . oh well," Rotiart said, "those RAFians will now surely die!  When Onslaught is complete!"

Onslaught grew more powerful.  Rotiart still didn't see the possible drawback of doing this.

"Computer, upload the third set of data . . . now."

"Complying."

"We're all gonna die," Bubbles squeaked from the corner.

"It happens," Magnus whispered.

Rotiart was so far gone into this mania, that he hadn't even noticed their conversation.

***

Cloak was in his thread, safe to take his cloak off, as the walls, floor and ceiling were coated in the fabric that makes his cloak, as well as his fairly nondescript bed.  He was reclining on said bed, with his hands behind his head, resting on a pillow coated in the billowy fabric.  He took a deep breath -- he was still very much in pain, though he refused to show it -- and began to drift off into sleep.

Suddenly, Cloak was striding among gray, smoky mist.  He could not make out what ground was supporting his weight, and the walls of this area seemed to be made up of the smoke or mist.  There was really nothing else but him here.

"Cloak," came an authoritive voice.

"Grandfather?" Cloak said -- but suddenly it wasn't the full-grown Cloak, but he was a little cub once again.

"Cloak, you cannot continue this."

"Continue what?  What are you talking about, Grandpa?"

"Running to me for comfort, for reassurance."

"What? Why?"

"I am dead, my former pupil." Sage said, appearing at last.  That white feathered head, those clear sharp golden eyes, that curved yellow beak.  It was Sage, his grandfather.  "And, as such, I should have no influence -- no active influence -- over the living."

"But I . . . I'm so confused . . ."

"Yes, I know you are, Cloak," Sage said, gently.  "But don't you have friends to help you with this?  An Andalite, a SPARTAN, a vampire, and more?  Cloak, they need you and you need them.  You've just yet to realize it.  You've got to let me go. . . ."

"No!  Don't go!"

"I must, and you must, Cloak.  You cannot grow as a person if I'm always here like this.  You must be confident in your own abilities, as well as trust those that you name as friends."

"I . . . I . . . don't want you to go. . . ." he said somewhat lamely.

"I know that, Cloak," Sage said, calmly but firmly.  "But you must.  It's time for me to go -- we'll meet again, eventually."

The way he said that seemed to Cloak that he knew more than he was letting on.

"What do you know?" Cloak said, no longer in the form of a cub that he had been.

"You're taking charge now, Cloak.  Good job," he said, deliberately dodging the question.

"You're avoiding the question, Grandfather.  What do you know that I don't?"

"A great deal," he said, levity somewhat dulled.  Then he started to fade away.

"Grandfather, no!  Don't go!  Don't go!  Tell me!  Tell me what you know!  Don't go!!"

Then Cloak awoke to the pain that he had forgotten.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 12, 2012, 10:59:54 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 12, 2012, 10:22:02 AM

Quote from: Sakki on September 12, 2012, 10:15:16 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 12, 2012, 09:41:54 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 11, 2012, 06:28:03 PM

And XXIX sounds like it would be about Apocalypse.

I assure you it's not.  Apocalypse will never make an appearance in all these books.  A character named "Cataclysm" and "Corrupter", however . . .

Quote from: Sakki on September 11, 2012, 07:42:42 PM

Even though, you and Blue have augmented so much to what a "VOCALOID" does XD
I pretty much went from singing android to  kick ass singing android (or cyborg).

So . . . should I give you a Howler-like "howl" or something like ability of a Loboan?  This isn't the first I'm thinking of it.  Kelly got the healing thing because she confirmed that to me in PM.  AniDragon got the power suppressing/boosting ability for the same reason.

That'd be up to you.
(Even though I should be an UTAU not a VOCALOID, but that is because of something that I wrote yesterday)

That's why I tried to be vague -- to be honest, I have no idea what either of those things are.

They are voice synthesizers where people make a voice and a character behind the voice. So if you just want to put "android"  that'd probably be best.Because I think you have me more on the android side anyway)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2012, 11:04:07 AM

Ah.  Well, that was only because I remember you making a comment before on how something wouldn't affect you be cause you haven't flesh or something.  I think it was in chat -- back before I forgot my password.

Anyway, the next chapter'll be in my previous post.  And the current chapter'll be in this post.  May be a short one.  Dunno.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
One More Thing

"Computer, upload the last data into Onslaught."

"Complying."

It took nigh on sixteen hours, giver or take a minute, but all the data was uploaded into the creature so it looked quite large and formidable, albeit still hidden in shadowed silhouette.  But even after all the data was imputed, it did not wake, but slumbered evermore.  Unheard by Rotiart, but the three cowering in the corner stopped shaking a breathed a sight of relief.

"It didn't work, sire," Magnus piped up, with a hidden note of hope in his voice.

"Fool," Rotiart spat, "it's still far to early for such assumptions.  I haven't yet given it life."

Rotiart withdrew the canister from his pocket, and affixed it to the circular depression on the moniter.  It clicked quite easily into place.  Then the swirling energies within it spiraled down and into the beast.  The energies fused with empty shell and, with a pulse aura, it's heliatrope eyes slowly opened . . .

"It's alive!  IT'S ALIVE!" Rotiart roared gleefully.  It was a pity, really.

***

Cloak sat up, and limped over to his cloak.  With a flourish, he donned it as he limped out of his thread.  After a few steps, he decided that this wasn't gonna work at all, so he used power over the Wood element to give his a walking stick/staff to lean on.  He felt a little stronger than he did when he entered the thread.  Sleep did him some good, even though he wasn't entirely sure the whole thing with his grandfather was real or not.  Regardless of whether it was or not, he would keep that information to himself -- what little information there was.

He thumped to the infirmary to check up on everyone.  He saw that they were all doing well, and he was pleased to see it.  Kelly and Goom were going to discharge them right after dinner.  Kelly went ahead a looked at Cloak, who insisted he was fine.  The injuries were not severe enough, and he would be able to walk just fine in a few days.

"Well, if you're sure," Kelly said, doting on her and Goom's other patience.

Sakki, however, was not just fine -- she was far BETTER than she was before.  Goom, Aquilai and Yarin, with some consultation with Parker, had made given her some internalize weaponry -- a Loboan screech, complete vocal mimicry, and probably more.  Cloak sort of tuned out of the tech-specific parts.  Suddenly, Cloak dropped to his knees.

"'Just fine', huh?" Kelly said, whipping over to him.

Cloak unceremoniously through out his arm to block her.  "This has NOTHING to do with my injuries.  Something of immense evil has just be unleashed."

"What?" Blaze said, concernedly.  He had to fight his own instincts to flap his wings, remembering they're in a rather moderate, if a bit low-ceilinged room.

But before Cloak could speak, Cerulean, Ash, and Underseen entered the room.  Cerulean bore Bladeh in his arms, while Ash had Fubar and Underseen had Kern.  All had fainted.

"Case and point." Cloak said, rather hoarsely.

"What's case and point?" Underseen asked.

"Cats of all sorts and types can sense evil.  It's our schtick." Cloak elaborated.  "And, judging by what I felt, the sheer brute power of this evil, these three will be out for quite a while."

"Not at all reassuring," Estelore commented.

"No," Cloak agreed.  "It's not."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2012, 03:46:50 PM

Well, hopefully I do have enough energy to do this chapter right.  As well as give Sakki a bit more material to work with. ;)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Onslaught Begins

"Venus.  Pierce.  Take your brothers and get the hell away from here." Parker ordered.

"But Dad, I --"

"Don't argue with me!" Parker yelled.  Cloak knew it was only because he feared for the lives of his children more than his own.

"Daddy --"

"Do as your father said, Venus.  It's very important."

"You're gonna let --"

"NOW, Pierce!"

"Fine.  Troy, Tommy, let's go." Pierce said, giving his parents a venomous look each.

"He'll get over it, Parker." Helen said, in an aside that Cloak nonetheless heard but pretended not to.

"Any idea what we're facing, Cloak?" Parker said, allowing worry to flit across his face.

"Not entirely," Cloak said.  "But I . . . I think I do sense the energy of --"

"Alert." came a cool male voice over the intercom.  "A massive energy surge detected."

"More on that later, let's go." Parker said as he, Cloak, Helen, and the others left.

***

The creature's enclosure within the tube persist until its eyes flared and the tube shattered into glass dust, not shards.  Rotiart wasn't fearful at all, but overjoyed.  Gleeful, even.

"Welcome into the world of the living, my pet." Rotiart said.

"Who are you?" it spoke in a deep, glutteral tone.  It extended its extremities as it stood, so it towered -- at least five times taller then the rest put together.  It appeared to be the result if you decided to merge Onslaught (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onslaught_(comics)), Omega Red (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Red_(comics)), Megatron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatron#Transformers:_Prime), and Exodia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodia#Exodia) together into one singular being.  All in all, not the most attractive being in the world, but certainly one of the most powerful creatures to exist, if not THE most powerful.

"I am your lord and master," Rotiart said, unabashed and proudly.

The creature that Rotiart called Onslaught laughed, a deep and hearty belly laugh.  "You?  MY lord and master?  Please!  You're nothing but a flea."

"I created you!  I can destroy you!"

"Give it your best shot."

Rotiart produced a remote control device with a single red button on it.  He pressed the button dramatically.  After a few minutes, when nothing happened, he pressed it again.  Then again and again and again.

"Insect, end this foolish gesture.  You are nothing to me, and you're antics have ceased to be entertaining."

"This cannot be!  I created you!  I . . . I . . . I gave you life."

"Well, thank you.  Because of this, your suffering will be brief."  The Onslaught killed him in one blow.  Then he killed the three minions in one swipe, declaring killing as "fun".  Then he tore a hole in the wall, and exited to the outside world. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 12, 2012, 06:20:43 PM

Great update, three chapters all in one day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 09:05:03 AM

Expect more.  Nowish.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Unbound Massacre

When the RAFians arrived, Richard had just spoken, telling the computer to put the disturbance on-screen.  It showed a satellite map of the location -- which Sakki and Demos recognized immediately.

"That's the grounds of antiquated circus -- the one that Bibliophaetos came from twenty-five years ago!" Demos exclaimed.  "We were right there!!  How come we didn't find anything?"

"I was plenty busy getting beaten to a pulp," Sakki said, rather bitterly -- as if it was a memory she did not want to recall.  "But what about you, Demos?"

"Nothing!  The scanner picked up nothing!"

"That could be because it was inactive." Goom suggested.  "And its activation was only recent."

"Plausible, but what could 'it' be?" Aquilai said thoughtfully.

"That energy . . ." Cloak said, more to himself than anyone else.  "It feels somehow . . . familiar. . . ."

"What's that?" Yarin said.  "What did you say Cloak?"

"That energy is familiar.  Somehow.  I don't how or why, but I just know I sensed it before."  Cloak said, then suddenly realizing something.  "That's the evil that caused Kern, FuBar and Bladeh to pass out!"

"Oh, great.  More good news." Blaze said.

"So that's what you were sensing, Mr. Jedi?" Parker teased tersely.

"You're more of a Jedi that I am, Parker."*

"The energy signal's on the move." Blue pointed out.  "Look's like it's headed for the city."

Within a manner of minutes, the satellite picture went to static.  It took about thirty minutes to an hour to get it back.  Some RAFians getting antsy in the intervening time.  But when it came back . . .

"What happened to the city?" AniDragon said.

"There is no more city!" Kelly gasped.  "How --"

"I'll tell you how!" Phoenix said.  "That -- that -- that whatever-it-is destroyed the entire city in less than a span of an hour!"

Silence befell these words.  An awful, all-consuming silence.  It would seem that Atlas's ancient burden had settled itself firmly around the RAFians' shoulders.

***

Onslaught had sped toward the city, looking for sentients to kill, as he found the slaying of nonsentients too easy and far less entertaining.  Once he entered, people saw him and ran away screaming.  He loved to hear their screams, enjoyed their terror, fed on their fear.  He began to easily slay each one, prolonging it enough to be of interest to him.  He did not discriminate -- he went after everyone of every race, gender, and age.  He ignored their terrified pleads, their horrorified pleads, their desperate pleads.

You know, he thought, as he headed for an elementary school, Onslaught was a decent name, but it really doesn't fit me, I don't think.

He made easy work of the school, leaving nothing but pain and grief in his path.  He did not feel even a twinge of pity or remorse for his actions.  He did not, would not apologize.  He did not, would not stop this massacre.

"Massacre"? he thought, Why, that is a more fitting nomenclature!

His laugh sent out waves of crap-your-pants fear to everyone in the vicinity.  But no one would survive, no one would escape.  They were all doomed -- and, worst of all, they knew it.

"Fear the Massacre!" he roared, laughing heartily all the while.  Within the next thirty minutes, the entire city was reduced to rubble.  Massacre felt disappointed all his killing had ended, but then he noticed RAF. . . .

---
* ;) ;) Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the "Darth" in "Darth Revan" denotes a Sith and not a Jedi, but I couldn't refuse this joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 10:28:42 AM

I rely liked the last sentence. Finishes the chapter off nicely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 10:32:42 AM

Thanks, Underseen.  Oh, and expect it to start getting REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad.  RAFians will die . . . may be a short chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN*:
An Approaching Massacre

"Uh, guys?" Broken said, pointing to the screen.  "It looks like whatever that thing is -- it's coming this way!!"

"What?  Why?" Gaz said in shock.  "I thought we were reasonably well-hidden and well-defended!"

"Who can be well-defended against this thing?" Underseen pointed out.  "It took out an entire city -- reduced it to rubble! -- in under an hour!"

"Whatever it is, it's a monster," Cloak said, voice low but steady.  "Pure and simple.  It clearly hasn't a soul or a heart."

"Yeah, but what do we do about it?" Blue said.

"There may very well be nothing that we can do about it," Estelore said, uncharacteristicall y morose.  She had a brush with her mortality, something she'd taken for granted in the past.  Her one-sided battle with the vortexsapien had subtly changed her.  She was less flippant about her abilities, though she still wore her "Warrior Estelore" avatar.  "We'll have to do what we can."

"And if that's insufficient?" Yarin said.

"Then it's insufficient." Esty said, calmly.

"You should write for Hallmark, Estelore.  Seriously." Parker said, wryly.  "We might as well prepare for battle."

"Right," Cloak said, well aware that he was still weak.

Meanwhile, Massacre continued to approach.  Gulliver, Itellsya, and a few other young RAFians attempted to step in and stop it.  The poor fools that youth encumbers.  Unlike the city, he took his time to destroy each and every one of these RAFians individually.  Feeding on their fear as their lives are snuffed out.  Their Marks could not protect them from this.

The other RAFians were made aware of the loss of these seventeen RAFians.  Cloak realized that they were just lambs for the slaughter that was to come.  He knew his reflexes were dulled with pain, his strength wasn't above sixty percent, but still he went into battle.  Estelore was also similarly burdened, though hers was psychological rather than physical.

"Ah!  More toys for me to kill!" Massacre declared.  Like a boy with a magnifying glass burning ants.

Cloak looked at the creature.  Is that all they were to him?  Mere insects to be crushed?  Ugly flames which to be snuffed?  Needless extensions of his life?  Cloak had thought he had confronted the most conceited and arrogant being and silenced her. . . . Cloak's eyes widened ins shock.  No . . . it couldn't be!  It was not possible!  He narrowed his eyes to slits.

So, this is what you meant, Grandpa?  This is how I'll fall? I am a son of the Elements . . . let the battle be joined.**

The beast laughed again, "Come on, then.  Come and play with me!"

"Well, that didn't sound too creepy," SuperNate said.

"Looks like I'm gonna have to kill them again.  Let's do this," Cloak said, mirthlessly and deadly serious.  "AniDragon will be able to strip his powers."

But Massacre seized her his large arms and . . . AniDragon . . . was gone.  Then he slayed Kelly with ruthless ease.  He seemed to have sensed that they'd be the biggest problems, so he slayed them first.  Then the mods were next, save Phoenix, who managed to regenerated himself due to his phoenix powers.

"ATTACK!" Phoenix choked out.

"A tack? Thumbtack? Carpet tack? Income tack?"*** Massacre sneered.  Then he laughed uproariously at his own joke.

"Geez, it wasn't even that funny." Gaz said.  Massacre eliminated her next.

After twenty minutes of battle, 17% of the RAFians were slain!  It was not going well at all.

---
* I actually mislabelled this chapter as Chapter 17 in my notes, and I was toying with the idea of saying "Oh no!  Massacre is so powerful he destroyed Chapter Sixteen!" but I decided against it, as it might have ruined the tone.  I'll just split the plans for Chapter Twenty in two.

** Bit of an homage to Dinobot (Beast Wars).

*** Reference to Weird Al's Wreck-Gar (that is, Transformers Animated Wreck-Gar)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 10:42:29 AM

The chapter title is very clever. It wasn't that short of a chapter, it was longer than what defines short in my mind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 10:48:18 AM

Thanks, Underseen.  I always put the "short chapter" thing as a bit of a disclaimer.  Sometimes I'm just too lazy to remove it, if it isn't.  More chapters on their way -- and it's gonna get worse.  Much worse.  But remember, this is outside the usual continuity.

Apparently this is what you may call a "good day", because this is the third chapter already, and I might have energy to finish off this book today! . . . I do realize that makes it harder for others to catch up. . . . In that case, I'm sorry -- but I'll probably not post as much on the weekend.  But who knows?

May be a short chapter, may not.  Let's see . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Relentless Massacre

The battle was intense.  It was fierce.  It was brutal.  It was . . . one-sided.

Despite the advantages of numbers, the RAFians were losing.  And not even losing badly, but SEVERELY.  Phoenix, as basically the interim leader, had ordered a retreat before Massacre seized him, and attempted to squeeze the life from him.  But his phoenix powers kept regenerating him in fire.  This seemed to fascinate Massacre, who acted very much like a young boy with a new toy.  Phoenix wasn't pleased at all.  But none of his flames was even singing the metallic hand of Massacre, who kept on squeezing.  Phoenix did not know how longer he could keep this up.  Eventually his powers would burn out . . .

But Massacre, with rather a childish mindset, dunked Phoenix into a deep stream, and squeezed.  Phoenix fire could not ignite inside water, so . . . venerable Phoenix lost his life. . . . The RAFians continue to try to evacuate, but now without a definite leader to guide them.

Massacre dropped Phoenix's body, which collapsed to ash, and reached out and held Aquilai and Aila in his hands.  Then he sat down, glaring and leering at them.  Massacre began to squeeze them, and they regenerated.  Aquilai was now a waterbender again.  He tried to waterbend, but it was impossible when both your arms and legs were pinioned together -- very tightly pinioned together at that.  Aquilai could possibly try bloodbending but that would run into the same problem.

"Ah, these two have tricks, I see!" Massacre cooed.

He squeezed them hard enough again, and forced them to regenerate again.  Aquilai was now a firebender for a second time.  But fire did nothing but warm this beast.  And lightning wouldn't conduct.  He squeezed them again, forcing another regeneration.  This time Aquilai started to feel real terror and so did Aila.

"Mmm . . . oh, is that fear you're feeling, RAFians?  Mmm, yes.  I feed on terror, you know.  Let it grow.  Let it consume you.  Feel it!  Yes, feel it!  Feel the fear!!"*

Then he continued to force them to regenerate until they could no more, and simply died.  Massacre seemed disappointed that they couldn't regenerate any more.  He dropped their disintergrating bodies.  He turned his attention to the fleeing RAFians.

"Oh, I love it when they run."

Then he began picking them off one by one.  He popped Faerie, Shock, EvilPinkDragon, Blocky, Goku, and Sam out of the sky with a single blast.  Killing them instantly.  He continued on this path, slaying each RAFian in an easy and careless manner.  But then he recieved a shock when one managed to jump out, eyes glowing golden scarlet and only managed to inflict the most superficial of cuts.  It was Cloak, using the full extent of his powers.  And all he could manage was a small, superficial cut.

Estelore appeared behind him and blasted the beast through that cut with her full stellar powers, but all she managed to do was irritate the small wound.  And irritate Massacre as well.  It made a mad swipe at both of them, only managing to give Cloak's cloak the appearance of Mr. Sinister's cloak thing.  But fortunately it still worked -- but barely.

Estelore and Cloak manage to escape, and Massacre was about to go after them, when the flow of evacuating RAFians caught his eye.  He decided to go after them after he finished here.  Within an hour, he massacred 88% of the RAFians.  Within 90 minutes, all but two were gone. . . .

---
* Yet another Beast Wars reference ("Bad Spark").

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 11:12:43 AM

Isn't it 25 years later?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 11:18:50 AM

Yes.  It's an alternate future though.  The next book will be back in the normal continuity, at the normal time.  Sorry, I have habit of being vague like that I'm afraid.

Again, new page --

• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!* -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villian*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 11:25:51 AM

I actually like the out-of-continuity books. I am big into alternate realities.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 11:27:25 AM

Good -- because, as you can tell from the list, there are gonna be two or three more.

EDIT:  Okay, I was wrong about finishing off the book today.  That'll fall to tomorrow's work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 12:07:43 PM

I'm fine with that. You made Massacre seem amazingly powerful in the last chapter, so I would wonder how you will defeat him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 12:14:20 PM

Who says that I'll defeat him? ;)

I may post again after I go and get the mail in about 45 minutes. . . . Haven't decided yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 12:43:42 PM

Well, with you and Estelore left you basically said it yourself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 01:28:18 PM

Well -- granted.  But I still think you'll be in for a surprise.  I'll post another chapter in a bit.  Got some stuff to do right now, but I start working on it in . . . thirty minutes, probably.  Shortish chapter . . . probably.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Then There Was One

Estelore and Cloak managed to get a safe distance away from the monster.  Cloak was in great pain, but he hid it from Estelore.  The time will come to drop the bombshell, and now wasn't quite it.

"Everyone . . ." Esty said, tearfully, seating herself on a solid rock protruding rather indignantly from the loamy soil.  It was rather disconcerting and heartrending seeing Estelore so tearful and morose.  Just knowing that Cloak would be adding to it, didn't make him feel better.  "Everyone is . . . is . . ."

"Gone," Cloak supplied, his hidden pain making his voice sound rough and grizzled.

"What are we gonna do now, Cloak?  We both cannot take that thing on.  As powerful as we both are, we cannot do it alone. . . ."

"And there's one more thing," Cloak said, unable to hide his pain any longer.

"Cloak . . . you're in pain," Estelore said, standing up.

"More than that, I'm afraid, Esty," Cloak said, struggling with the words.

Estelore got his meaning instantly, and rushed over to Cloak.  "Oh no!  Not you too, Cloak!"

"Alas, Estelore, it's true.  I'm dying." Cloak said.  "I'm just holding myself together through sheer will.  I'm . . . ah . . . stubborn like that."

"But this . . . this . . . this is impossible!  Realm Walkers are the only ones that can slay a Realm Walker -- you said that yourself."

"And Massacre was enough Realm Walker to accomplish it," Cloak said.

"What?"

"I felt familiar energies within Massacre." Cloak said, reclining now.  "It was the essences of Malice and Abomination."

"Malice and Abomination are controlling that thing?!"

"No, I did not say that.  I said it was the essences of them."

"Wha -- what are you talking about?"

"It's a rare occurrence.  Sometimes, when a Realm Walker dies, the essence -- a compilation of the Realm Walkers knowledge, skills, and strengths -- remains as the mind and soul go on." Cloak said.  "It's not really known why or how this occurs.  Most call it a 'deux es machina'."

"That makes no sense."

"Probably not," Cloak agreed.  "But it's the only way that . . . that you can beat Massacre."

"What are you talking about?" Estelore said, wondering if Cloak had gone delirious.

"When I die, and I will, perhaps this will occur," Cloak said, breaths getting ragged now.  "And then you must absorb the essence, the culmnation of all my knowledge, skills and strengths will be at your disposal, as well as boosting your own powers beyond their usual zenith."

Cloak coughed.

"The decision is yours to make my friend," Cloak continued, determined to get the message to her.  "But it just may work.  It's the only shot we got."

With that Cloak shut his eyes, and spoke no more.  Moved no more.  His body began to dissolve into soft golden scarlet energy, and a wisp got flung off, and Esty, without really thinking, snagged it from the air, and absorbed it into her being.  He powers increased to a point where she knew she could take on Massacre . . . but she remained herself.  She looked at the rather empty cloak, and she bundled it up.  Then placed it aside . . . Shadow would deserve to know what happened to her uncle -- to know of his death.

Little did either of them realize what true power could come from this.  How powerful and dangerous the Mark had become.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on September 13, 2012, 02:26:59 PM

*edge of our seat!*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 13, 2012, 02:57:09 PM

Wow, no wonder it is an alternate future.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 13, 2012, 05:15:24 PM

-waits for Shadow to come out and be all awesome-

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 13, 2012, 08:16:30 PM

Taken out on a bad joke. That's a horrible way to go.

Great chapters! This is exciting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2012, 09:30:06 PM

Quote from: Sakki on September 13, 2012, 05:15:24 PM

-waits for Shadow to come out and be all awesome-

Sorry, Shadow had already done her part in the story, and Estelore is still a Realm Dweller.  Nothing can change that.  But you'll have to find out more about this tomorrow.  My brain is far too sluggish to post another chapter right now.

(At least it gives me something to take my mind off of waiting for my White 2 game to come -- next month -- as well as that new Heroes of Olympus book.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 14, 2012, 01:18:04 AM

Holycrap holycrap holycrap.  I just got caught up and that's pretty much my only coherent thought about current events.  Well, holycrap, and EPICNESS.  :D

Definitely have to agree with Underseen about the alternate realities thing.  I've noticed that you allow your stories to be much darker when you're writing in an alternate-future timeline.  I like to read stories with an edge to them, and doubly so with stories that are as action-packed as yours always are anyway.

As mentioned in the karma I just gave you, I also very much enjoyed the fight scene between me and my bane towards the beginning of this book.  Might be inspired to draw it, even.  Dragosaurus vs Ankylotyrannus, does it get more epic than that? dumb question.  Obviously it does.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2012, 07:33:12 AM

Thanks, Dino.  :-]

Anyway, I probably will finish off this book today.  I just need to wake up a bit -- tough time going to sleep last night.  Might be be a short chapter, but probably not.  The battle had begun.

CHAPTER NINTEEN:
Unity Obliteration

Estelore flew towards Massacre, seemingly unaware of the golden-scarlet energy that seemed to amplify her avatar's natural beauty and power, and that rolled off of her in tongues of energy, before dissipating.  Unlike Massacre, who fed on terror and fear, Estelore pulsated an energy that, had anyone been around, would have increased the level of hope in their hearts -- effectively nullifying any terror or fear on which Massacre could feed.

Massacre remained in the rubble that was once RAF, sitting with crossed legs, like a pouting child.  It pained Estelore to see the forum she adored reduce to ruin like that.  But the forum was built due to the RAFians, the sense of community, that was found there.  Without the other RAFians, even if the buildings and threads were still intact, it would be cold and lifeless.  It greatly pained Estelore to realize this.

She descended and found that she was now of equal size as Massacre -- both standing as tall as the smallest Megazords.  It was some time before Massacre deigned to recognize her arrival.  Estelore realized Massacre was nothing more or less of a spoiled brat.  But, then again, the same could have been said of both Malice and Abomination.

"Rise," Estelore said.  She spooked herself a little when she heard how ethereal her voice sounded now.  "Rise, you rotten, evil, little brat.  Rise, and pay for your crimes!"

"Crimes?" he said, with a chuckle.  "What crimes?"

"Genocide, for one?" Estelore said, voice quite cold and hard.

"Genocide?  I cannot be guilty of that!" he replied with a laugh.  "You cannot be genocidal when you slay insects!"

"They were sentient beings," Estelore said.  "And you killed them.  For what?  Enjoyment?  Entertainment?!"

The golden-scarlet energy stopped appearing so benign and flared into a fiery corona around Esty.  But, yet, it did not damage the earth or the nearby trees or incinerate the atmosphere.  It was apparently just a cosmetic change.  Massacre noticed this and did not seem impressed.  Yet he stood up.

"What?  You want to fight me?" he said, as if the merest idea of such a thing was ludicrous and suicidal.

"No," Estelore said, now with the merest suggestion of an edge to her voice.  "I want to make you atone for your sins.  I want to prevent you from murdering anymore innocents.  I want to make you pay your dues."

"Well, then," Massacre said, standing up at last, "have at you then!  It'll be your funeral."

Then he cracked a rather childish, yet malicious, grin.  "Oh, wait -- you'll have no one to attend it!"

Estelore charged forward and brought her fist into his gut.  It didn't shatter the armor but it did fragment it -- like a high-impact on a windshield.  Then Esty jumped up and brought her leg over in a perfect martial arts-esque kick.  This shattered some of his helmet revealing copious amounts of wild, tangled, curly, dirty brown hair, but his face was a decayed, dessicated brownish-gray, and his revealed eye was blue with red sclera.

"Ah, not gonna win any beauty pageants, I see." Estelore taunted.  Massacre charged, but she nimbly dodged out of the way.

"STAND STILL!" he roared.

"Um . . ." Estelore said, feigning indecision, "no."

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Yeah, you're doing a fine job of that so far," Estelore said.  She knew that half of the battle was psychological, but Massacre seemed unaware of that fact -- being so used to being able to easily overpower everything he came across.  Estelore continued to taunt, "Yeah, I'm so sure you'll succeed."

"SHUT UP!"

"Why?  Doesn't wittle baby wassacre like big, ol' mean Estelore's taunting?"

"SHUT UP!!"

Then Estelore's tone changed from taunting to serious.  "No, I don't think I will.  You think of killing as a game -- something that exists simply for your pleasure.  But you seem woefully --"

Estelore dodged an energy blast from Massacre easily, and then continued in her lecture.

"Seem woefully unaware that each of the people you killed had a life, had a family --"

Estelore ducked and executed the perfect flip over Massacre as she dodged Massacre's attack.  Then she whapped him upon the skull, which caused more of his helmet to flake off.

"I wasn't done!" she scolded.  "Each of the people you killed had loved ones who will now have to grieve."

Estelore thought of Pierce, Venus, Tommy, Troy . . . and Shadow.  They did not know the fate of their loved ones.  Estelore knew that she had to win this battle, to tell them.  But it really wasn't much of a battle.  Massacre clearly had no combat experience, which her life as a RAFian afforded her.  He was nothing more or less than a deranged killer with the mentality of a young child -- a young, BRATTY child.

"SHUT UP!  YOU CAN'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!  I'M NOT A KID!  I'M MASSACRE!!"

"Yes, you are," Estelore said, quietly.  "But now . . . now it's time to end this struggle."

"YES, DIE ALREADY!!"

"You misunderstand me.  You're the one that's going to ride on Charon's boat!"

"Huh?"

"Oh, never mind!" Estelore said as she flew up, pointed her right hand -- the hand that bore the Mark . . . the last Mark . . . and aimed it at Massacre, while silently thinking, Man, I hope this works!

Then Pulse energy started to collect around the Mark . . . more energy then would normally be able to.  She was the last RAFian -- so she would be able to use the Unity Pulse without any others here.  But she felt them.  She felt the other RAFians, as if their spirits were still connected through the Mark.

"No . . . they're dead!" Massacre said fearfully, seeing an illusion of the other RAFians, standing at Estelores side, all of equal size.  "I killed them.  They're dead!"

When enough energy collected, Estelore said, "Unity . . . OBLITERATION!"

Then she fired a powerful beam of energy down onto Massacre -- and when the smoke cleared . . . the only thing left was a crater that eliminated the last remnants of what was once RAF. . . .

"It's done," she said, landing, and turning her back on the forum she once called home.  Then she walked away.  She wanted the feeling of walking rather than flying.  It was gone . . . it was all gone.  And she, Estelore, was the Last RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 14, 2012, 07:51:15 AM

Well, I won't get back on until the RAFparty starts, so I will have a lot of chapters to read! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2012, 07:53:14 AM

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Underseen (yes, I realized irony of that statement)!  There are only two, or possibly three, chapters left in the book.  Remember, I try to go fo a minimum of twenty chapters. . . . Then again, you're probably right.

Again, new page --

• Book XVIII: Hostages Wild
• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive!* -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Well . . . time to end this book.  Again, it may be a short chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Heavy Hearts

Estelore stopped, turned around, and inspected the crater more thoroughly, realizing he may be able to regenerated like Demos or Phoenix can -- er, could.  That thought was just yet another stab in her heart.  She still didn't like being the last RAFian.  Already she missed her friends a great deal . . . Cloak's stoic warnings, Gaz's levity, Parker's tactical assessments, Demos's crazy experiments, Yarin's bizarre inventions, Noelle's wry commentary . . . all gone now.  All gone.

Estelore was satisfied that no part of Massacre survived, so she flew this time.  But aimlessly, without any knowledge or care where she was going.  She had nothing more to tie her to this planet, but she remained.  Even she did not know why.

Then she remembered.  Helen and Parker's children.  They deserved to know the horrid fate of their parents.  But how to find them?  Parker and Helen set up a safehouse for them, but that information was kept deliberately secret.  Only Richard, Parker and Helen knew. . . . But then again, Cloak knew.  He knew because he accidentally Earthsighted it one day.  And so, Estelore had a rough idea where it would be.

She landed and proceeded to walk on foot to the safehouse -- or at least she hoped it was the right way.  But eventually she heard a voice -- it sounded like a young woman scolding a child.

"Troy!  Get your but back in here!"

"No, Venus!  I wanna go outside!" came the rather whiny voice of an obstinate child.  "I don't wanna stay inside all day!"

"It's not safe out there," came another voice, a young man's.  "Troy, you listen!"

"You're not Mommy!  You're not Daddy!" Troy bawled.  "You can't tell me what to do!"

"Oh, like hell we can't!" Venus said.  "You get your butt right back in there!!  And you'll do as Pierce and I say until Mom and Dad get here!"

"Hello, kids." Estelore said.

"Wha -- Estelore?" Pierce said aghast.

"How'd you find this place?" Venus asked.

"Lucky guess," Estelore said calmly.  "You might want to keep your voices down if you're trying to hide."

"She has a point," Tommy said, quietly.

"What about our parents, though?" Pierce asked.  "What's taking them so long to get here?"

Estelore hesitated just a moment, it wasn't unnoticed.

"What happened?" Venus said, with a sinking heart.

"A beast called Massacre," Estelore said.

"Are Mom and Dad okay?" Pierce said, cutting through to the heart of the matter.  Again, Estelore hesitated.

"They're okay, right?" Venus insisted, but bordering hysterical.  "Right?"

Estelore heaved a heavy sigh, "No, Venus, they're not alright.  They're . . . they're dead."

The looks of horror from the quartet's faces was something that no one should have ever seen.

"Along with the other RAFians.  I am the last surviving RAFian."

Troy ran up to Estelore and beat his fists against her -- it wasn't painful in the physical sense, but it was quite a different matter in the emotional sense.

"Why did you survive?" Tommy said.  Estelore could not blame him for the accusatory tone.  "Why did you survive and they didn't?!"

"Because . . . Cloak saved me. . . ."

She went on to explain to them the circumstances and events that happened.  How all the RAFians were massacred, and only she and Cloak could only manage to damage it superficially.  How Cloak died and his essence -- his knowledge, his strength, his skills -- were passed on to her.  Then how, only with this boost, was she able to slay Massacre.

"And now . . . now I'm the last RAFian," Estelore finished, somewhat lamely.

"No, you're not." Tommy said, quietly.

"I beg your pardon?" Estelore said, clearly perplexed.

"Maybe you were the last RAFian during the battle," he replied, raising his hand to show his palm.  There was the stylized RAF "R" on it -- the Mark.  "But now we're all RAFians too."

Pierce, Venus, and Troy showed Estelore their newly obtained Marks.  This somehow helped Estelore find solice.

"Now," Venus said, when some of the shock had warn off from this devestating news about her parents.  "Let's go rebuild that forum."

"At the same site -- let everyone know that you can't keep RAF down."

"Right," Estelore said, unable to help but smile brightly.  "Follow me."

***

But the site wasn't as deserted as Estelore thought when the five arrived.  A lone figure -- in a cloak -- stood, looking down at the crater.  Upon their approach the figure stood up straighter, but wasn't very tall.

"Where is he?" the figure said.  "Where is the forum?"

"Shadow," Estelore said, "about that --"

"I said, 'Where is he'?!" Shadow repeated, more forcibly.

"Shadow, I'm sorry, Cloak is . . . well, he's dead, dear."

Shadow seemed to take this in.  She looked at Estelore and glowered at her.

"You're lying." she said.  "He can't be dead."

Estelore pulled out his tattered cloak, and handed it to Shadow, who's stony facade melted away.  But she didn't want to believe it.  She sincerely didn't want to.

"I suppose some explanation is in order. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on September 14, 2012, 09:35:30 AM

Eeeeeeeeeeeep.


Good chapter. *fetching popcorn*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2012, 09:58:47 AM

The last chapter is in my previous post, Esty, and thanks.  I'll probably start the new book . . . now.  And we're now back in normal continuity.

BOOK XVIII:
Hostages Wild
Chapter One:
Earthsight Training

Cloak and Aquilai were walking towards a rocky area, a trench -- a deep groove in the earth.  Aquilai was barefoot, feeling the earth beneath his feet.  He also wore colors of green, brown and gold.  Cloak simply wore his black cloak, gray shirt and pants, black twine belt and the black gloves for his hands and feet.

"I've been meaning to ask, how can you earthbend without being barefoot?" Aquilai asked.

"Technically-speaking, I'm not an earthbender.  That's something similiar, but different altogether." Cloak replied.

"Then how can you teach me Earthsight?"

"The two are similar enough to share that subskill," Cloak said.

"But --"

"Do really want to get into the semantics of this stuff?"

"Yes."

"Or are you trying to delay the exercise?" Cloak said, folding his arms, and giving Aquilai a stern look.

"Okay, okay! Geesh, stop with the glare.  You're worse than Teach!"*

Cloak stopped Aquilai from walking, and told him to put his blindfold on.

"And no peeking!  I'll be checking!"

After Aquilai tied on his blindfold, and Cloak came to check.

"Ah-ha!" Cloak said, readjusting Aquilai's blindfold.  "Nice try, Aquilai, but I've trained Shadow.  Such tricks won't work -- she's tried them all."

"I wasn't tryin' anything, honest!"

"Sure," Cloak smirked.  "Now, keep that on, and I'm gonna roll down a boulder for you to stop."

"Wh-what if I don't stop it in time?"

"Oh, you'll just regenerate into an airbender."

"That's not funny!"

"Okay, here we go!"

"Wait, I'm not ready!  I'm not ready!"

Too late, the boulder was rolling, and Aquilai jumped and clung to the trench's wall.  "I said I wasn't ready!!"

"Oops, my mistake," Cloak said.  "Now, you better get ready!  We'll be at this all day if we have to."

"Why did I ever agree to this?"

---
* Sorry Terenia -- I could resist the ol' "inescapable-teacher-glare" joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 14, 2012, 05:01:48 PM

The book title makes me think that it will be about Wild Hostages ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2012, 11:02:32 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 14, 2012, 05:01:48 PM

Wild Hostages ;)

Never heard of that, actually.

Anyway, I don't know when I can get on tomorrow.  Got a few things to do, unless they fall apart at the last minute.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 15, 2012, 12:18:19 PM

Cloakster, it's official.  I've found my muse, and it's you.  Seriously, if my muse had a physical incarnation in the real world, it would be you.  This is the second hit of inspiration I've gotten from your story!  First my literary muse goes crazy, and now my artistic one is going off the chain.

(http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/tobey158/DragosaurusvsAnkylotyrannustoshow.jpg)

Told ya I was drawing this scene.

I'm thinking next I might draw you, Cloaky.  So I was just wondering, how much of you could be showing from under your cloak before things get incinerate-y?  Face, hands, tail, maybe?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2012, 03:22:08 PM

Nope, not face.  My face is almost always in shadow, although my eyes do glow when I'm feeling an intense emotion.

However arms, tail, and legs, sure -- although their are all covered (gloves adhering to sleeves, "foot gloves" adhering to pant legs, and the tail has it's own covering.  Necessary considering all the movement I go through over the course of the series.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 15, 2012, 12:18:19 PM

(http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/tobey158/DragosaurusvsAnkylotyrannustoshow.jpg)

Little more WHITE then I was anticipating. ;) j/k

Okay, maybe a little short, but it introduces a new character.

CHAPTER TWO:
Enter . . . the Collector!

Meanwhile, in a desolate area of space, a strange ship -- darker than the darkest black thought possible -- proceeded at a slow and languidly pace.  It was flat and shaped like an arrow, with thin wings that raked forward.  All in all, it looked like the ship that Ravage piloted in Beast Wars -- only far, far bigger.  There were many lifeforms on board, but there was only one occupant onboard who was not in a painstakingly realistic habitat.

He wore a cloak the color of rancid feta cheese, and his eyes flickered with dirty white and an ugly shade of yellow from time to time.  This creature was obviously a Realm Walker, but a stranger.  He was far too small and too squat to be Cloak or Abomination or even Brute, Cloak's biological father.  He was clearly an avian-form Realm Walker -- a magpie-form, specifically.  He was called the "Collector".

He milled around the bulky area of the ship.  Where he had creatures stolen from their native homelands, and attempted to appease the sentient specimens with realistic simulations of their homeworld's ecosystem where they had lived.  The nonsentient animals seemed perfectly content with this, although their somewhat cramped quarters were reasons for their misery.

The self-aware specimens were not so easily satisfied.  His Orishan specimen would glare at him.  His Prypiatosian-B specimen would attempt to attack him, but he couldn't get through the radiation-proof glass.  His Geochelone Aerio specimen would sulk in the corner of his cramped enclosure.  His Talpaedan specimen would just cower in the corner, with the mentality of a scared child.  His Amperi specimen would attempt to divine ways and methods to escape -- but found that none where fruitfull.  This, all of this, amused Collector.

And death didn't stop this monster from simply taxiderming the poor critters -- and he's found a way to taxidermy all species other than Realm Walker.  As he IS a Realm Walker, he'd find that too monstrous.

There was a sound very much like a ringtone, and Collector said, in a high, nasally way, "Oh good!  The DNA scan of that forum is complete!"

He ran to the nearest consol to see the results.

"Forty humans . . . I'll only need one . . . I'll take that one.  Twenty-two Andalites -- one'll be all that's necessary for my collection.  That one, specifically.  So pretty.  Yeerks . . . endoparasites, hmm?  Well, I'll just have to remove them from their host . . . that one'll do nicely.  And . . . oooh, dragons!  But I already have one.   A furry?  I don't have THAT in my collection, I don't think. . . . Cats. . . . Hmmm . . . already have one of those.  Helmacrons?  I already have some*.  Hork-Bajir?  I already have one taxidermied.  " he muttered quite audibly.

He went on to deliberate on how he could do it, how he could snag each RAFians.  He seemed to even be aware of their Marks, but dismissed it as an unimportant, extraneous detail.  He basically continued to entertain the notion that collecting species like dolls or cards was perfectly normal and allowable.

Little did he realize that keeping RAFians isn't as easy as it looks. . . .

---
*In an ant farm-like structure with though-speak dampeners.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 15, 2012, 06:03:00 PM

Are you drawing or animating the scene, Dino? I know how you often animate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Mithril on September 15, 2012, 07:56:09 PM

Sakki asked for my help with the Rafian models.

I get Underseen, Blue, and Humanized Dino
 (We found dinosaur models, but they take up half the grid and are difficult to work with)

We are thinking of doing a Battle Cup with them where members vote on the winner.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2012, 08:08:00 PM

Ah, excellent. *attempts to refrain from imitating Mr. Burns.*

With two working on it, then it'll go faster.  Good luck, you two!

Anyway, new chapters -- well, they'll have to wait until tomorrow.  My head is killing me, and I'm not too sure, but I suspect someone's tryin' to hack my computer.  Fortunately, nothing's stored on this computer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 15, 2012, 10:10:32 PM

We're trying. But (more so with male models) there are glitches...glitches everywhere.

And I am having WAY to much fun with this Demos model XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2012, 10:15:41 PM

Quote from: Sakki on September 15, 2012, 10:10:32 PM

And I am having WAY to much fun with this Demos model XD

What do -- never mind, Don't Ask, Don't Tell and all that jazz.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 15, 2012, 10:58:31 PM

Quote

We are thinking of doing a Battle Cup with them where members vote on the winner.

What's a Battle Cup?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 15, 2012, 11:26:34 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 15, 2012, 10:58:31 PM

Quote

We are thinking of doing a Battle Cup with them where members vote on the winner.

What's a Battle Cup?

Battle tournament

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2012, 11:28:45 PM

I think he's looking for more explanation, and I'm afraid we're getting a wee bit off-topic. . . .

Anyway -- let's get some more chapters rolling, shall we?

CHAPTER THREE:
M.I.A.

Cloak and Aquilai returned to RAF shortly before dusk.

"There.  That wasn't so hard, was it?"

A very sore Aquilai glared at Cloak, "You're kidding, right?"

"Oh, don't be that way!  You managed to Earthsight in the end, didn't you?"

Aquilai grumbled.  Then Cloak looked at Underseen, and could see that he was quite upset and worried.

"What's wrong?" Cloak said, easily snapping out of his jovial state.  "What has happened?"

"Gaz.  Parker.  Noelle.  Myitt.  Hunter."  Underseen said, barely able to hold his form due to his agitated state.  "They're all gone!"

"Gone?  Gone?" Cloak said aghast.  "How?"

"That's just it, we don't know." Underseen said.  Then he looked over to Cloak's right.  "Uh, where'd Aquilai go?"

"He didn't go anywhere, Underseen, he's standing . . . right . . . here?"

But he wasn't.  He was gone too.

"WHAT?  This makes no sense!"  Cloak said, fighting a desire to run his had through the fur on his head -- as that would involve removing his cloak's hood.  "Underseen, alert Gloom -- I mean, Goom!  And everyone else!  We must put up the energy shields."

"We're already on high alert, Cloak." Underseen said.  "Everyone's being recalled to RAF as we speak.  We're to meet in the assembly hall when everyone's here.

***

When everyone had arrived.  Richard had stood in front of them, with his mods flanking him.  Except Phoenix.  He was now missing as well.  As were Horse, Yarin, Dino, Demos and Sakki.  As well as the Sakki's friend and newly-minted RAFian, Mithril.  Thirteen missing.  The number now seemed more unlucky than ever.

"As you may have guessed, my fellow RAFians, thirteen of our number has vanished without a trace." Richard announced to the group en masse.  "We do not know where.  We do not know how.  That is why we're going into high alert.  Red alert.  If you leave RAF, you may be asked to wear a tracking chip, so YOU do not disappear like the thirteen.  It is a drastic measure, I know, but we don't want to allow anyone else to be kidnapped or vanish or however this is happening."

Richard took a breath, looking as if he aged fifty years in that once exhalation.

"If anyone has any idea, any notion, about how this has happened, or who may be behind this," he said, rather heavily, "we'd love to hear it.  We haven't any clues ourselves about the perpetrator."

Cloak, who stood at the back of the room, rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  He thought, Those thirteen must have some connection to this or to themselves.  But what could it be?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2012, 11:33:30 AM

Again, new page --

• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Now another chapter.  Probably a long one, but don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Collectibles

Noelle was roused from a drugged sleep.  When she looked around, she couldn't believe her eyes.  All four of them.  She appeared to be on the homeworld.  She hadn't seen it for so long, having decided to make her home in RAF.  But this . . . this was impossible.  Who could have possibly brought her here? Ardnalil, her ex?  Had he been stalking her?

No, that was out of character.  He was demanding, arrogant, xenophobic and brutish, but kidnapping wasn't his style.  She walked a bit looking at her surroundings, and bumped into an invisible wall.  She placed her hands on a smooth surface that, visually-speaking, should have not been there.  Then she followed this wall to a corner.  Then she folled the perpendicular wall, to what appeared to be a floor-to-ceiling glass panel.  It was as if she were some kind of prisoner . . . no, she realized as her eyes widened.  It's much worse.  She was nothing more than a zoo animal!

The mere thought was demeaning and it incensed her.  She was a sentient being!  Not existing for a bunch of alien pukes with overinflated egos to gawk at!  Then she saw someone in a white cloak enter her line of sight.  At first, her heart leaped, thinking it was Cloak or Shadow . . . but no, this Realm Walker was too short to be Cloak and too tall to be Shadow.  And he walked with the somewhat twitchy step that could only mean he was a bird-form Realm Walker.

He was mumbling to himself as he approached Noelle's enclosure.  "And this is the And-a-light specimen.  Very beautiful, in its way."

<You there!> Noelle shouted.  <Let me out of here?>

"Now why would I want to do that?" he spoke with the underlying tone of condescension.  "When I worked so hard to add you to my collection, my dear?"

<Your . . . your WHAT?!> Noelle practically screamed.  <I am not a doll or card to collect!  I'm a living, breathing being!  I am a sentient being!>

"'Sentient' being.  That's funny," he chortled.  This Realm Walker, this Collector, was one of the Realm Walkers that believed that Realm Dwellers lesser beings.  A type of Realm Walker that Cloak actively avoids himself.  "You are a Realm Dweller, silly.  Realm Dwellers are hardly 'sentient'."

Noelle was furious at this marginalization of not only her, not only her species, but everyone who could not Walk.  Noelle decided that she could morph to escape, she tried to focus, although her anger made it difficult, focus on an insect.  But nothing happened.

"Oh, by and by, you won't be able to, ah, what do you call it?  Oh, yes. 'Morph' your way out of there.  I've installed a metamorphic disabler in your exhibit." he said in an offhanded way that irritated Noelle.  "Now, if you're done, I have more specimens I've yet to catalogue."

Noelle struck the glass plating with her tail in anger, and, though Noelle was unsurprised, it did nothing.  Not even a scratch.

"Oh, got to love those ever durable ultrapolymers." Collector smirked, as he moved on to the next "exhibit".

***

Parker moaned as he raised himself into a sitting position.  He shook his head -- it felt heavy.  Then he realized his helmet was still on.  He blinked blearily, barely making out the room that he was enclosed in.

"Tyr . . . what hit me?"

Silence.

"Tyr?"

More silence.  What he offline?  Was that possible?

Parker finally looked around his surroundings and became instantly confused.  It appeared to be the SPARTAN origin, but very ship-like.  But he couldn't help but easily spot inconsistencies and errors.  Parker's eyes narrowed as he thought that someone clearly had sought to replicate -- and actually replicated it very sloppily -- a SPARTAN ship.

But Tyr's silence is what made Parker feel uneasy.  Then he noticed a glass partion which the otherside looked somewhat similar to what was in here.  He tapped on the glass.  Thick.  But he should be able to blast through it easily.  But his weapons wouldn't work.  They wouldn't come online!

"You're wasting your energy, SPARTAN." came a crisp voice that sounded rather like Tony Jay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Jay).  "The techo-suppressive patch in your enclosure deactivates any technology you possess."

"That's impossible," Parker said.

"Perhaps," said the haughty magpie, "to your limited scope of intellect."

"Hey!" Parker said, outraged.  But the Collector simply walked away.  "Hey!  Come in HERE and say that!  HEY!  I'm talkin' to you!  HEY!  GET YOUR CLOAKED BUTT BACK HERE!"

***

And so it went.  Collector checking on each of his kidnapped RAFians and taunting them each in turn.

Phoenix's enclosure was that of a stately British castle.  It was also thermically-resistant ultrapolymer keeping him in.

Aquilai's was a rather simple representation of Gallifrey -- the Time Lord homeworld that was lost long ago during a "Time War".  Collector noted that Time War made the Realm look rather congealed and ugly, before insulting Gallifrey.  Aquilai was stripped of his sonic screwdriver and there was no true earth or metal that he could bend.

Gaz's enclosure was that of a graveyard, which she didn't fancy all that much.  Collector taunted her for being a lackluster vampire, but a nice addition to his collection.  Gaz tried to go mist mode and wiggle her way out, but that didn't work -- there were little cross marking around the viewing glass.  She was effectively blocked in without the glass partition.  She couldn't even get close enough to pound on the glass.

Myitt and her human host were in an almalgam swimming pool and Yeerk Pool.  Myitt would not deign to speak to the Collector and instead was trying to figure a way out.  Even with her human host's help, they could not think of a viable way out.

Hunter's enclosure was a dark forest with high-arcing treetops.  But he was without his gun weapon, which he noted that he felt kind of naked without.  Collector just looked at him for a bit before moving on.

Horse was enclosed in basically a frozen playground for her.  She had an ice slide and everything.  But she was still unhappy with being a zoo animal, and even more so when the Collector called her a lesser being.

Yarin was enclosed in a representation of his native Nya.  He found it lacking and rather poorly constructed, personally, and he told Collector so.  Collector told him, that as a Realm Dweller, his opinions have no place here.

Dino was in a very meticulously designed prehistoric forest, but she didn't stop from trying to pummel the door down.  Collector tsked as he past by without bothering to tell her that ultrapolymer can withstand a 1-megaton explosion -- even though this had never been tested or proved.

Demos was in a very scarily reproduced habitat version of Hell.  But, unlike the other RAFians, he seemed to enjoy it -- except for the crampness.  Collector notes that he is a strange one.

Sakki was in a padded room -- shouting that this isn't what Vocaloid worlds are like at all.  Collector passes by and mentions that he just plain doesn't care.

Finally, Mithril was looking at his enclosure which was a rather crappy representation of the Great Transition.  When Mithril points this out to Collector, the Realm replied "It was a crappy transition".  Then moved on without another word.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 16, 2012, 12:39:44 PM

Great Chapters, I liked the Tony Parker mention although I kinda still miss him. The Collector reminds me of someone from something I watched, but I just can't put my finger on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2012, 12:44:05 PM

Simpsons?  Treehouse of Horror X?  The "Desperately Xeeking Xena" segment?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Mithril on September 16, 2012, 12:47:00 PM

There was also a Teen Titans episode like this too.

Yours is written better though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 16, 2012, 12:48:17 PM

That except less fat. I actually turned on my T.V. and the episode of Teen Titans came on. O.o That's kinda creepy how you mention it and it's on, but yeah that is what the Collector reminded me of.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2012, 12:49:39 PM

Really?  I don't remember a Teen Titans episode . . . I got the idea from Treehouse of Horror X, I think, as well as the first episodes of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.  It was a long time ago.  And he's a magpie because I thought people often associate magpies as hoarders.

Anyways, I was gonna post another chapter than this dank weather seemed to have just SUCKED the energy out of me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 16, 2012, 02:42:36 PM

I know that feeling. It is super sunny where I am, but rained all yesterday.

You already did two chapters today, that's a lot of writing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2012, 07:55:27 PM

I might actually post another chapter soon.  I might not.  I haven't quite decided.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on September 16, 2012, 08:13:54 PM

*Tries to make the rain go away so there can be more updates*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2012, 10:29:51 PM

Looks like we're gonna have to wait for tomorrow -- when the RAFians es-- er, never mind.  Almost let something slip.

[spoiler]Well, not really.  Okay, there'll be an escape in a chapter I write -- tomorrow, maybe.  But I ain't saying WHICH chapter.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 16, 2012, 11:01:27 PM

Not much of a Spoiler, considering how the book is called Hostages Wild.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2012, 07:12:32 AM

Good -- I don't wanna give too much away.  I'm probably gonna go back to one chapter a day.  Sorry.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Breakout

Noelle nearly gave into despair, being unable to escape her unwanted and involuntary confinement.  Then a thought had occurred to her.  She could try to use a mirror-wave call in conjunction with her Mark, so that only RAFians could hear the call.  She focused her energies and sent the call out, hoping to get a response.

<RAFian brethren, I am here.> she called, repeating the message with an image of the limited view she could see outside her cell, because that is essentially what it was.  It had a rather reverberating twang to it.  Then something happened that surprised her somewhat.  She got a reply.

<Noelle?>

<Yarin?  Are you nearby?  Can you get me out of here?> Noelle said, sounding rather more desperate than she intended.

<Yes, I'm nearby . . .> Yarin said, almost reluctantly.  <But I cannot get you out.>

<What?  Why?!>

<Because I am caged in an enclosure with a rather pitiful display of Nyac culture.> Yarin replied dolefully.  <Clearly our, uh, host didn't do his research.>

<Great, how do we get out of here?> Noelle asked, when another idea occured to her.  <Are their other RAFians here, Yarin?>

<I do not know,> Yarin answered.  <Allow me to check . . . if there are, I'll link them up to this telepathically.>

Silence, but after a few minutes.

<What?  There are more RAFians in this fresh piece of hell?>  Dino.

<Hey, I take offense at that!  Hell isn't THAT bad . . . okay, it is.> Demos.

<Hi.> Mithril said, rather dolorously*.

<Hi . . . uh, where are we?> Hunter.

<Good question.> Myitt.

<I dunno, but I know that little Realm Walker is trying to bribe me with an ice slide.> Horse said.

<You get a slide?!> Sakki yelled, indignantly.  <He locked me up in a padded room!>

<Understandable,> Mithril teased.

<Don't make me hurt you,> Sakki threatened.

<Well, I suppose that it could be worse.> Aquilai commented.  <I could be in earthsight training.>

<Anyone else figured a way out?> Parker said, pragmatically.

<Just how many RAFians were taken?> Phoenix asked, taking charge, but not in a forceful way.

<I count thirteen,> Noelle said.

<Well, we'd have the advantages of numbers, then,> Phoenix said, thoughtfully, <if we could escape.>

<Hmmm . . . I want to try something,> Parker said, <give me a sec.>

Then came the sound rather like a lightsaber cutting through a wall.  Parker was taking his energy sword -- which the Collector seemed to have forgotten to strip him of.  And, soon enough Parker was out.  All his suits tech suddenly flared to life again, with Tyr seeming to a bit punch-drunk.  Then he freed the others, after finding their enclosures, one-by-one.

The all thirteen RAFians ran to a secluded area of the ship, although they were unaware of this fact.  Then Mithril looked outside a window, and gasped with a start.  "Uh, guys, I think you should see this."

The others took it in turns to look, and were quite surprised.  They were in space -- and Earth wasn't anywhere in sight. . . .

---
* "In a dolorous (solemnly or ponderously sad) manner."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 17, 2012, 01:43:41 PM

Good update!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2012, 01:49:10 PM

Thanks, Gazzy.  I might post another chapter -- but probably not, so don't get your hopes up -- got some walkin' to do tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 17, 2012, 04:47:41 PM

Caught up again!  Excellent chapters, as always.

I should note, just for the record, that as soon as I would figure out that there are thirteen RAFians aboard the ship, the real me would probably start freaking out a bit.  I quite compulsively avoid that number whenever I can.  :P

Those RAFians whom I've happened to spot at a certain numerical interval of karma can attest to this.  Heh, I will give karma for no other reason than to 'fix' that number.

And, Underseen, to answer your question, no, I'm not planning on animating the scene.  The larger an image is, the harder it is to animate because of all the shading.  Hence why the RAF Animorphs smileys tend to be so small.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 17, 2012, 04:54:56 PM

That makes sense. Great chapters the thought-speak projector was smart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2012, 04:56:36 PM

Besides, I thought Mithril and Sakki were workin' on that, anyway.

"Thought-speak projector"?  Yarin just did what Miss Martian does in the show "Young Justice". . . .

Oh, and I forgot about your triskaidekaphobia, Dino.  I chose thirteen because . . . because . . . okay, I'll level with you.  I don't know why I picked that number.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 17, 2012, 05:04:40 PM

I was talking about what Noelle did...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2012, 05:10:39 PM

That was supposed to be a mirror-wave call . . . like what Ax did in Book 4.

Anyway, new page --

• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 17, 2012, 07:40:29 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 17, 2012, 07:12:32 AM

CHAPTER FIVE:
Breakout

<You get a slide?!> Sakki yelled, indignantly.  <He locked me up in a padded room!>

<Understandable,> Mithril teased.

<Don't make me hurt you,> Sakki threatened.

The sum of our friendship XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 17, 2012, 08:07:44 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 17, 2012, 04:56:36 PM

Oh, and I forgot about your triskaidekaphobia, Dino.

Hey, that's fine.  I can't really expect you to remember every detail about every RAFian, can I?  I was just sayin', you know, in case you needed my character to freak out over something, well, there you go.  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2012, 06:06:29 AM

Noted.

I'll try to post a chapter soon -- if not, I might just wait until tomorrow.  Gotta walk roughly 8.4 miles (round-trip), according to Google Maps.  Should take me more than three or four hours.  But the rain . . . *sigh*

EDIT:

CHAPTER SIX:
An Expected Twist

"Space?" Sakki said aghast.  "We're in space?"

"Well, what else would you call it?" Mithril asked.  Sakki punched his shoulder, to which he replied, "Ow."

<How long were we out?> Noelle said.  <We must have been out for some time, considering the enclosures he had ready for us.>

"Never mind how long were we knocked out," Phoenix said.  "What I want to know how that dingbat managed to captures us all so easily!"

Everyone seemed far too concern with the fact they were in deep space, far from Earth, to notice Dino's conspicuous silence.  They were so concerned with the situation they've found themselves in, they hadn't noticed her triskaidekaphobia.  It's something when you see an ankylotyrannus shake and shiver.

"Dino," Yarin said, having noticed her stress, "are you okay?"

The other twelve turned to her.

"Thirteen . . ." she muttered.

The other twelve blinked, and Mithril looked at Dino with a confused gaze.  Yarin slapped his forehead -- accidentally poking on his six eyes -- and said, "Of course -- sorry that I forgot, Dino.  Dino is triskaidekaphobic, guys."

"Um . . . what?" Hunter said.

"She's afraid of the number thirteen," Aquilai supplied.

"Well, there isn't much we can do about it now," Myitt said, "Sorry Dino, you're just gonna have tough it out . . ."

"We could split up," Phoenix offered.  "Hunter's missing his weapon.  Aquilai's been stripped his sonic screwdriver.  They could go look for that together.  Then the rest of us can go to the bridge of this ship, take control from this -- this "Collector" -- and turn it around.  Head toward Earth, and beam us down or whatever."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Parker said.

"Sounds like a death warrant to me," Demos said, grinning.

***

Hunter and Aquilai stalked through the opposite direction of the other group, searching for a secret room, a hidden alcove, where their items might be recovered.  It was tough, daunting, and arduous work.  And they repeatedly met with little success.

"Well, this is time-consuming," Aquilai said, an attempt at a blythe tone.

Hunter said nothing.  He wanted his gun back, and he wanted it back NOW!  Then he perked up when he thought he smelled a familiar scent -- his own scent.  It was faint, but he did as the toucan demands and followed his nose.

They manage to find the alcove that housed both Hunter's gun and Aquilai's sonic screwdriver.  But something about it, the placement of the items . . . out in the open, no security measures taken . . . it unnerved Aquilai.  Hunter was just too focused on his gun to care.

"Hunter," Aquilai cautioned, "I think we should be careful.  This could be a --"

Hunter reached out and grasped his gun, suddenly two tubes encapsulated the two from ceiling to floor.

"-- Trap," Aquilai finished, as the tubes started to fill with a greenish knockout gas.

***

Meanwhile, the others had managed to locate the bridge of the ship.  The door was, naturally, closed.  The deliberated on the quickest way through, and in the end, Parker just cut through using his energy sword in one fluid movement.

"That was actually easier than I thought it would be," Parker said, suspiciously.

"Too easy," Phoenix muttered in agreement.

They filed in, flanking Collector who looked unsurprised at their intrusion.

"You're outnumbered, Collector!" Sakki shouted.

"Hand over this ship to us," Myitt said, well aware her human body was unarmed.

"Or you might as well be hurt," Parker threatened.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Collector said, still irritatingly calm and infuriatingly condescending.  "Poor little beings.  Do you honestly think that you would have escaped your enclosures . . . if I had not allowed it?  I deliberately left that sword in the SPARTAN's possession to see if he was intelligent enough to USE it."

Collector snapped his fingers and, as a white-and-yellow energy bubble shielded him, green knockout gas leaked up from the floor and down from the ceiling.  One by one, the RAFians dropped, with Sakki being the last to fall.  Collector never even left his chair.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 07:12:07 AM

Well that escalated quickly. Him defeating them without leaving his chair is like the Sasuke vs. Itachi fight...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2012, 07:17:37 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 07:12:07 AM

Well that escalated quickly. Him defeating them without leaving his chair is like the Sasuke vs. Itachi fight...

Well, I can tell you that I didn't base it off that . . . because I have no idea who those two are.  In my mindset, it was mostly based off Aggregor and the five Andromeda Galaxy aliens in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on September 18, 2012, 07:57:53 AM

Interesting story Cloak. Cool premise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2012, 11:37:59 AM

Thanks, Parker.  I was gonna post a new chapter . . . but this weather . . . you'd be surprised how much rain can take out of you -- especially when you have to WALK in pouring rain . . . ugh . . .

And if I get the job I just applied for, I may be posting chapters less frequently -- though I will continue to strive to post a minimum of one every day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on September 18, 2012, 11:45:20 AM

What? Crazy kid, rain rejuvenates! Especially walking in it! You just need the proper attire to appreciate it. Though I can understand walking 8 hours would suck no matter the weather. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2012, 11:55:13 AM

Not here -- no sidewalks.  Mud.  Crazy drivers (some which scream out their windows because apparently giving a walker a heart attack is funny ::)).

Anyway, I hadn't anything really to eat before I left.  I just had a bit of food, so now I'm reenergized.  And need to post that eight-hundredth (seriously, 800 parodies) in the "RAFize Songs" thread.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Putting Two and Two Together

"Where could whoever did this taken them?" SuperNate asked.

They were still in the auditorium, and now the RAFians were postulating and guessing about what had taken place.

"I've already notified Estelore," Richard said, "and she'll keep an eye out.  But space is a vast place -- they could be anywhere."

This was a fairly large assumption on the RAFians part, but their instinct told them that they would be taken into space.  It seemed the logical choice.  Cloak mulled this over, but said nothing to anyone.

"There must be some connection," Terenia, the RAFteacher, said.

"They're all single species," Jess said, pondering.  "That is to say, each of the kidnapped's species is different.  No two were the same. . . ."

"I dunno . . ." said Underseen, "that makes it seem like . . . like . . . like whoever's doing this is . . . collecting them?"

Cloak's eyes widened.

"Underseen.  Say that again."

"Say what again, Cloak?"

"Say what you JUST said again."

"'That makes it seem like whoever's doing this is collecting them'?"

Cloak's face had grown ashen.

"Cloak -- something you want to clue us in on?" Richard said.

"Not yet, Richard." Cloak said, his tone was that of a it's-so-obvious-how-could-I-not-see-it quality.  "I have to be sure. . . ."

With that, Cloak swirled his cloak and was gone.

"Well, that was abrupt." Faerie commented in the way only Faerie could.

***

Cloak had entered the Nexus.  Collector had to still be in the Gate Prison.  He had to.  There was no way he could have . . .

Escaped.

He saw a rather dazed-looking, red dragon-form Realm Walker.  The guard to the Gate Prison.  This did not bode well.

"What happened here?" Cloak said.

"Wha?" the guard replied.

"What happened here?" Cloak said, patience thinning horribly.

"Dunno," the guard said.

Cloak gave up and stormed away.  This could only mean one thing -- Malice and Abomination somehow busted Collector out.  Cloak looked to his right at the large luminous building -- all buildings in the Nexus was luminous, as well as the earth, people and plants.  Cloak continued to glare at the Council building.

"Maybe they know something about it," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 18, 2012, 12:07:53 PM

Oooh, that was an unexpected twist!  Nice!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2012, 12:20:51 PM

The next chapter is in the previous post, Dino.  I'll be postin' that parody before goin' to lie down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Darth Revan on September 18, 2012, 05:55:23 PM

Was the guard affected somehow; or was he just an idiot?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 06:29:59 PM

Probably just an idiot...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2012, 08:17:43 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 06:29:59 PM

Probably just an idiot...

Yep.  Not all Realm Walkers are -- to put it in a somewhat nicer way -- intellectually-gifted.  And just wait until you see the Council!  Which will be in . . . Chapter . . . 10, I think.

Now, another chapter before I retire for the night.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Jailbreak, Part Deux

The RAFians awoke from a rather drugged sleep, and discovered that they were chained.  But these were not tylee chains, but regular old admanitum-vibranium alloy.  Normally, unbreakable, but not to the degree of tylee chains, which can successfully bind Olympian gods, Asguardian gods, and even Realm Walkers (those are the type that the bars and chains in the gate are made up of.

"Wha . . . what happened?" Mithril said, groggily.

All thirteen RAFians were back together in a single cell this time, but all chained by their tails (when applicable), wrists and ankles (or in Dino's case, by her neck, ankles and tail).  When Dino realized there were thirteen again,  she bucked her frame as much as the strong chains would allow.  She was a razor's edge from freaking, her triskaidekaphobia kicking in.

"Oh, the saurian is frightened.  Hilarious." Collector said, in the same demeaning, condescending tone.

"How . . . how'd you gas me?  My armor is supposed to filter that out . . ."

"Your armor filters gas out?  You thought it was a gas?" Collector said, smirking, nearly laughing hysterically.  "Dweller fool.  The Spectral Mist cannot be blocked by any means.  It only has a marginal effect on my kind, but Realm Dwellers -- well, it shorts out your conscious mind for a considerable length of Dweller time.  Armor doesn't stop such a thing." Then Collector laughed an annoyingly, haughty laugh.  "I'd go into the specifics, but I don't want to overwhelm your puny Dweller brain."

Parker was really starting to seriously not like this guy.

"And these chains are unbreakable to Dwellers," Collector said in his continually snobbish way.  "To lesser beings."

"LESSER BEINGS?!  WELL, LET ME TELL YOU A THING OR TWO --" Sakki exploded.

Collector waved his hand at her as if her words were of no concern to him, as he turned and walked away.  Sakki was still fuming, and Parker wasn't far behind her.  The RAFians, all thirteen, were tired of hearing of the supposed superiority of Realm Walkers.

"If that's the mindset of the majority of Realm Walkers," Gaz said, "it's really no wonder why Cloak elects to stay at RAF."

"Is our, uh, host gone?" Aquilai asked.  He couldn't see from his vantage point and he had not learned to Metalsight yet.

"Looks like it," Phoenix said.

"Good," Aquilai said, snapping his fingers and metalbending the shackles open.  Then he went around to open the bindings of the others.  Dino was still shaking like a leaf.  She REALLY did not like the number thirteen.

"Wait . . ." Hunter said, "escape cannot be this easy.  Remember what happened last time?"

"Good point, we need a plan." Horse said.

"Awww . . . where's the fun in that?" Demos.

"Shut up, Demos*," the other eleven said, while Dino continued to be concerned.  And, with that bit of comedy over, the thirteen began to plan.

---
* Yes, I've made Demos here a bit like Abridged Mokuba.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 10:39:58 PM

I wonder how this escape will be different...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 19, 2012, 03:55:28 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 10:39:58 PM

I wonder how this escape will be different...

We will use you as a sacrifice in our escape :P


jk XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2012, 08:24:59 AM

Anyway, new page --

• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever*
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Quote from: Sakki on September 19, 2012, 03:55:28 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 18, 2012, 10:39:58 PM

I wonder how this escape will be different...

We will use you as a sacrifice in our escape :P


jk XD

Yeah, especially because Underseen isn't even there, Sakki. ;)  I just go ahead a reveal right now that you guys will have a plan for the Spectral Mist and it will involve a Unity Pulse.  I'll probaby post the chapter shortly . . .

CHAPTER NINE:
Carbolucite

The RAFians storm the bridge again, this time better prepared -- having procured all their weapons.  Hunter had his gun, Aquilai had his sonic screwdriver, and Myitt even found a Dracon beam laying around.  Collector looked at them, without any surprise or intimidation.  He remained in his chair, with steepled hands.  His haughty demeanor wasn't dented at all and it never faltered.

"Oh, such clever little Dwellers," he said, with a drawling condescension.  "You managed to escape again.  But clearly you didn't realize that the same thing would happen again."  He sighed.  "But what can you expect from the puny mind of a Dweller?"

The Spectral Mist started to eke up from the floors and descend from the ceiling, while Collecter sat in his chair in his little energy bubble.

"Guys, now!" Phoenix called.

Their Marks glowed brightly, then an orb appeared over the Mark, then they all blasted the Mist with a Unity Pulse.  Collector was expecting this to do nothing, but instead the green mist turn ashy-black and flaked down to the floor as nothingness.  The RAFians smiled in spite of themselves, and glared at their captor.  Collector was nonplussed at first, but that was short-lived.

"Oh, so the little Dwellers learned a trick." Collector said.

<Oh, stop it with the condescension, Collector!> Noelle said.  <We've got you surrounded.  You can only escape by Walking to another realm.  But you won't will you?  You won't leave your precious collection behind, will you?>

"Oh, you think you've me all figured out, do you?" Collector said, with a mildly amused tone.  Then he sighed heavily.  "You disappoint me.  But, despite how entertaining this little romp is, my matron had decreed that we can't have you continually escaping.  It just won't do."

Then he snapped his fingers and a strange device appeared.  It looked like a ray gun that had been fashioned from a bubble gun.  Gaz looked at it bemusedly, perplexed as she thought she recognized one of the components.

"That looks like . . . a . . . a transwarp cell?" Gaz said.

"'A transwarp c' -- oh, by the Gate, you are all stupid," Collector said, facepalming a bit.  "This is a transwarp omega-beam.  Any child* knows that.  I won't bore you or overpower your puny minds with the details.  But if you want to see what it can do, allow me to show you!"

He fired it at each of them in turn, with the appearance that they just disappeared without a trace of ever being their in the first place.  Then Collector snaped his fingers and the transwarp omega beam powered down and withdrew into the ceiling.

"Well, I'd better get down there.  Get the carbolucite processing done."

"Yes, you had better.  You should have done it the minute you got them." said a voice from the shadows.

"My matron," Collector said, suddenly in oiled tones.  "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there.  Forgive me."

"You could run for the Council, being as slick as you are."

"But he was a criminal, so how could he run --?" a rather dimmer voice said.

"Quiet, love." said the matron, who stepped into the light and revealing herself as Malice.

***

Back at the destination point -- as the transwarp omega-beam does not disintergrate but transports, teleports, its victims.  This time the RAFians found themselves, not in lofty enclosures or period dungeons, but in an indvidual-sized tube, finding it horribly cramped and this room had activated the techno-suppressive units.  Parker's suit was offline, Sakki remained unconscious, Aquilai's sonic screwdriver was nothing more than a hunk of metal and Noelle couldn't morph.  Hunter found out that his gun had been emptied of ammo and Myitt discovered her Dracon beam with nothing more than a toy.  They were truly and honestly trapped.  They couldn't communicate vocally, and even through the telepathic network that Yarin managed to reestablish, the words were faint.  There wasn't a way out of this.

A long while after they had came here, Collector came into room, walking in that twitchy, bird-like way.  He seemed to take a certain enjoyment out of seeing them there.  "Well, well, well," he said, "haven't found a way to escape yet?  Well, that's a shame.  It really is.  Because, now I shall freeze you in carbolucite.  Allow me to demonstrate so your feeble minds can understand."

He demonstrated the process on some strange bird looking creature, who was evidently newly-deceased.  The aftermath was that it basically looked like a bronze statue of itself.

"I think we'll start with the saurian mish-mash first," Collector said, smiling.

"Heaven help us," Mithril gasped, as a machine put them on a conveyer belt, still in their tubes, marching them ever closer to their freezing into bronze statues.

---
* Which isn't true.  Realm Walker children can be rather unfocused, much like Dweller human children . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 19, 2012, 09:40:29 AM

You are so close to planning out 100 books.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2012, 09:44:23 AM

Well, this is my magnum opus.  My greatest work.

Though I doubt I'll write the number of books to match the number of parodies.  Chapters maybe.  When or if I ever get to book XLI, I suppose.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 19, 2012, 09:45:36 AM

You probably have more chapters than parodies *remembers there are 800* Nevermind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2012, 09:53:57 AM

And they're probably more as time goes on.

I mean, it's understandable I suppose. I started the Parodies 3 years ago (June 2, '09) while this thread isn't even a year old (Jan 18, '12).

Anyway, I might post a new chapter later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 19, 2012, 12:12:32 PM

I will be waiting, I have nothing to do today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2012, 12:56:06 PM

'Kay.  But this might -- I emphasize MIGHT -- be the last chapter of today.

CHAPTER TEN:
Cloak and the Council

Cloak walked into the building, to see the vast illuminated lobby the color of pure gold.  Midas would have a heart attack in this place.  Cloak, however, didn't care much for it.  He knew where to go, he strode toward a large, gilded door.  In front of a door was a secretary bird.  No, seriously -- she was a secretary bird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_bird) Realm Walker.

"Do you have an appointment?" she said with a bored, monotone drawl.

"They'll see me," Cloak said, without taking his eyes off the door.

"No appointment, no admittance," she said, not even bothering to look up from some kind of magazine.  "Sorry."

"Wanna bet?" Cloak said as he easily opened the doors.

She finally looked up and said, "You can't do that!"

"Looks like I am doing it." Cloak said nonchalantly.

"It's not allowed!"

"I'm tired of hearing that, you know," Cloak said.  "I have a matter of the utmost urgency to discuss with the Council.  And I will not be railroaded or given the runaround as you government types are apt to do."

"What give you the right --"

Cloak pulled down his hood, forgetting to do so out of habit.  Forgetting that here, in the nexus, he could pull it down with no repercussions.  He revealed his feline features and hard, stubborn face to her.

"I am Cloak, the Master of the Six Elements." Cloak said.  "Grandson of the great Sage.  And I have business here, with Council.  Is that sufficient?"

She was gaping at him.  Cloak was well known for not being in the Nexus for the majority of his time.  But, judging from her reaction, he was glad to see his name still carried some clout here.

"Uh . . . go on in."

Cloak strode, unperturbed and unafraid, into the dark inner chamber where the Council resided.  They were beneath spotlights, as was an area on the floor, as they sat on a high dais, in six high-backed, comfortable chairs.  The gilded door behind him shut with an ominous clang, but Cloak ignored it.

"What is this?" a braying voice said.  "We said we would see no one else today!"

"I think," Cloak said, with a silky quiet tone that nevertheless carried, "you'd make an exception for me."  Cloak stepped into the spotlight, and the six councilors gave a quiet gasp or other mildly startled noises.  "Or would you turn away an Elements Master?"

Cloak looked at each of the Councilor in turn as all six settled back into their seats.  On the far right was a lion Realm Walker dressed in scarlet robes with gold trim.  To his left was a badger Realm Walker dressed in yellow robes with black trim.  To her left sate a donkey Realm Walker, the speaker, and he was wearing robes of gray with copper trim.  To his left sat a squirrel Realm Walker with robes of purple with platinum trim.  To her left sat a golden eagle Realm Walker with robes of blue with bronze trim.  The final councilor was a garden snake Realm Walker with green robes and silver trim.

Cloak knew their names, but they are not translatable to Dweller language.

"And why, Elements Master, do you seek us out?" the golden eagle Councilor said in a rich, throaty voice.

"The fate of Collector," Cloak said.

The donkey Realm Walker snorted inappropriately, and said, quite arrogantly, "He's imprisoned in the Gate!  He's to be executed within the week."

Collector had been a real menace, going from realm to realm, to add to his "collection".  The Council usually frowned on interacting with Dwellers.  They knew of Cloak's preference, and it really didn't help at this point.

"Are you sure about that?" Cloak said, using the donkey Realm Walker's true name, which would only sound like a snarl to Dwellers.  "Are you so sure that your prisoner remains where you've put him?"

"Why should we even believe a Dweller-loving fool like you?  You may be an Elements Master but you're nothing like your esteemed grandfather." the donkey Realm Walker said.

Ouch.  Cloak could see this'll take more finagling and finesse then he anticipated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 19, 2012, 01:03:08 PM

Quote

In front of a door was a secretary bird.  No, seriously -- she was a secretary bird Realm Walker.

I see what you did there

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Mithril on September 19, 2012, 01:20:46 PM

But you missed the Harry Potter references.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2012, 01:34:48 PM

I wasn't very subtle, was I, Mithril? ;)

EDIT: Whoa, FIVE guests are reading this?  You can only read the first chapter of Book I if you're a guest!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 19, 2012, 02:15:20 PM

Wow I did miss those! Everytime I see a guest viewing this I feel sorry that they can't finish it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2012, 02:18:52 PM

Well, they could always join, Underseen.  Granted, they'd probably be lurkers, and we've enough of those.

Anyway, I don't think I'll post another chapter today.  Sorry, guys.

And . . . new page --

• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils*
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 19, 2012, 02:42:22 PM

Well, that is cue for me to go to sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2012, 08:06:04 AM

I'll post a new chapter . . . eventually.  Still wakin' up.

EDIT: Over 10,000 views!

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Council Politics

Cloak gathered himself, and glared daggers at the donkey councilor.

"As you may have noticed, or not, I am not my grandfather." Cloak said with cold tones.  "And my grandfather wouldn't think twice about associating with Dwellers."

"I beg to differ!"

"Beg all you want, I don't care."  Cloak quipped.  "You didn't know him, like you like to pretend you do.  I did.  In any case, it's a moot point.  You know the reason I've come.   Now I ask you -- what are you going to do about it?"

Silence.  Cloak's eyes narrowed and he folded his arms against his chest.

"Oh, I see." he said scathingly.  "You're not going to do anything about it.  You ignore Malice's reemergence, and now this."

"Malice is dead!"

"She is not.  I've fought her countless times, foiled her schemes.  All with more assistance from my RAFian friends and allies -- more help then I ever got from the likes of you six.  No, you are content pretending that she no longer exists.  Content in your ignorance that she's once been able to acquire the Forbidden Power -- which was destroyed by the Dwellers that you look down on -- that she released the Bibliophaetos, among other things that I'm probably forgetting."

"Look," said the donkey Councilor, "let me illuminate some things for you.  The Forbidden Power is forbidden -- no one has acquired it and no one will.  The Bibliophaetos is just a legend, perpetuated by your family."

"No, you look here, you arrogant bastard," Cloak said, finally losing his cool, "you don't know everything that you think you do.  You sit there blissfully unaware of what occurs within and without the Nexus.  You do nothing to endanger the seats that you so covet.  Yet -- you have the gall to marginalize the Dwellers, to deprecate them -- even though they've proven themselves far more useful that you six put to together!  And yet, you ridicule me for leaving.  Ridicule me for getting tired of this Realm Walker superiority complex you've all have!!  I prefer to associate with Dwellers because many of them, if not most, don't have their heads up their butts as you do!!!"

Cloak paused and gazed at each of them in turn, breathing very heavily.  He was managing his emotions enough so he would not lose control over his powers.  He thought that would only deepen their contempt and arrogance.

"You!" Cloak pointed an accusatory finger at the lion Councilor.  "You . . . you are supposed to be renown for your courage and bravery.  But, yet, here you sit, a coward, the fight beaten out of you.  Scared to do anything about this!  Scared to even check to see if Collector is even in the Gate Prison!"

"You!" Cloak pointed again, this time at the badger Councilor, who flinched.  "You are supposed to be renown for the kindness of your heart.  But, yet, here you sit, while innocents are slaughtered.  While innocents are maimed.  Just because they're Dwellers doesn't mean that they don't feel pain.  What will your heart tell you if you knew that these innocent's pain were caused by a rogue Realm Walker or two?"

"You!" Cloak pointed again, this time to the snake Councilor, who wiggled a little.  "You are supposed to be renown for your ambitions and cunning.  You should be able to devise a way to trap and capture the rogue Realm Walkers.  You should be able to device a method for seeing justice done.  And, yet, you sit there.  Idle.  Motionless."

"You!" Cloak pointed at the golden eagle Councilor, who twitched a little.  "You are supposed to be renown for your intelligence and wisdom.  Surely, you must see that sitting here, doing nothing of real importance, isn't the wisest course?  I know you probably don't want to interfere with the lives of Dwellers, I can understand that.  But what about the rogue Realm Walkers who do not share such a compunction?"

"You!" Cloak pointed at the squirrel Councilor, who flinched terribly.  "You are supposed to be renown for your pragmaticism.  Is what you're doing really all that practical?  Is what you're doing really very effective?"

"And you," Cloak said, turning toward the donkey Councilor, who was standing and had his arms haughtily folded against his chest.  "You are simply an ass."

An uncomfortable silence greeted this monologue.

"Who are you to judge us?" the donkey Councilor said.

"Who are you to judge me?" Cloak countered.

Another pregnant silence, as Cloak came to a realization.  "Oh, I see . . . you're afraid to know, aren't you? You're all afraid that I might be right and you must do something.  Politicians!  Well, if you don't want to know, and I can't convince you, I will no longer waste my energy with such futile efforts.  Good-bye!"

"Wait, you leave when only we allow it!" the donkey Councilor called out after Cloak turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

"Oh, shut up for once!" the lion Councilor snarled at the donkey Councilor.  Apparently, either Cloak's words wounded him deeply, go through to him, or perhaps a little of both.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 20, 2012, 06:42:49 PM

Ha, that reminds me of Bottom from A Midsummer Nights Dream...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2012, 07:36:41 PM

Yet another reference that you've found, Underseen, that I didn't realize was there.  I just chose a donkey because that's the inoffensive synonym for "ass". . . .

You know what?  It's about time I posted another chapter, albeit a short one..

CHAPTER TWELVE:
C.S.I -- Cloak Scene Investigation

Cloak stormed away from the Council building.  He was walking so quickly he did not notice or care about the secretary's flustered gasps as she strove to recapture the papers that Cloak had accidentally sent flying when he slammed the door behind him.  Cloak berated himself for actually thinking that that would be a fruitful endeavor.  He knew the Councilors were not fighters, diplomats or anything.  They were just politicians.  Politicians who never bothered to sully their ceremonial robes in the affairs of Dwellers.

"Looks like I must find my answers by myself," Cloak muttered mutaniously.

He walked to the Gate -- and felt another stab of anger when he saw the same guard from before was still there.  The Council didn't even bother to check to see the compency of the guards for this gate!  And only one guard at the entrance, as well?  They clearly never saw a problem with such lax security!  But Cloak could see a plethora of problems that needed to be addressed.  But the Council proved that they would not listen to anything that interfered with the status quo as is!  Fools!  The lot of them!

Cloak realized with painful pity that entering the Gate would be incredibly easy . . . the guard was asleep.  He didn't even take his job seriously.  Cloak thought savagely, We need to re-elect a whole new council.

He could literally waltz in.  Cloak narrowed his eyes, and if he could, Malice most certainly could.  She surely did it herself -- as Abomination, without the stolen abilities of the Twelve, was rather brutish and clumsy.  But this guard was clearly unperturbed by his laziness.  Confident that nothing was great importance was happen.  Completely unaware that a prisoner might have already escaped.

Cloak already had a feeling he knew what the truth was . . . but he had to be sure.  He needn't have really gone in, so he didn't.  He placed his hand on the stone exterior of the wall and used Earthsight to "see" . . . to "see" what he had hoped he'd been wrong about.  Collector's cell was empty -- and the tylee chain shackles that all prisoners work were broken.  He had escaped.

"Hey!  You stupid, lazy piece of --" the word was not translatable directly, although the closest translation would be "half-wit with a fragmented brain" -- "Wake up!  You!  WAKE YOUR SORRY BUTT UP!!"

The guard stirred, scratched his nose, and turned and went back to sleep!  Cloak smacked him, using his claws fully extended -- something he wasn't really accustomed to doing.  The slash, however, worked and the guard awoke.

"Wha . . . what did you do that for?" he said.

"You lazy piece of Void trash," Cloak said, angrily.  His eyes began to spill energy in his rage.  The guard knew better than to argue with him.  "Because of your utter INCOMPETENCE a dangerous criminal has escaped from the Gate Prison!!"

"Nope," he said, "sorry, sir, but that's impossible.  No one has ever escaped from this prison."

Cloak turned his back on him, "Maybe you'll go educate yourself to the truth one day."

Cloak could see now that he was wrong to think that the reigning Realm Walker authorities would help.  There was only one place that would help him, and the thirteen kidnapped RAFians.  Cloak was sure that Collector had them and that Malice put him up to it.  He would do it very willingly -- after all, that's what he did.  He was the Realm Walker version of the Skrit Na, in a way. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 20, 2012, 08:09:08 PM

Hahaha C.S.I

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2012, 08:07:47 AM

Right.  Might be a short one.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Collections and Recollections

Collector was walking around the room that the RAFians were caged in.  They were no longer caged, but encased in carbolucite.  They were left perfect statutes, with bronze coloring, of themselves.  Collector examined each and every one of the RAFian statues, criticizing their look, their pose, and other rather trivial matters.

"Of course, the carbolucite is just exoskeletal for the moment," he muttered, "but soon it will solidify into pure carbolucite.  This is how I can keep my collections forever, for the more troublesome species.  If the species dies, well, taxidermy is perfectly fine too.  Of course, those fools on the Council," this was back when the Council was competent, "couldn't see the beauty of my collection.  It's not like I was skinning them for their pelts!  Thanks to them, I have to rebuild my collection."

The RAFian, who were still alive, were his captive audience, although they really didn't want listen to this guy hash out a backstory.  They wanted a little thing called freedom.  So far, only Parker's suit was affected, it was like he was the filling for a hollow chocolate bunny -- only he didn't have the strength to break free.  And he knew soon the carbolucite would extend inward, turning his flesh to carbolucite -- fossilizing him, perserving his body forever.  Not a fate that any of the RAFian's cared to endure as they had to suffer through more of Collectors rants and attacks on the Council that convicted him.

***

Cloak had arrived back at RAF.  Underseen and Blue were the first to see how ragged and forlorn Cloak was.

"What happened?" Underseen said.

"Later," Cloak said.  "We need to form a group.  We need Helen, Sam, and Goku."

"What?  Why?" Blue said.

"Later!  Time is of the essence!" Cloak said.  "I know the thirteen's kidnapper!  We need to marshall a force of RAFians to take Collector's ship!"

"Collector?" Underseen questioned quietly, as Cloak rushed to round up a team.

***

After a span of an hour and a half, Cloak managed to round up Helen, Mr. Guy, Underseen, Goku, Blue, Faerie, Azguard, Sam, Aila, Bear, and Rad.

"Some quick explanations are in order, I suppose," Cloak said.  "The kidnapper is a Realm Walker.  A Realm Walker known as Collector."

"Let me guess, he collects things." Rad said, cheekily.

"Yes," Cloak said, not losing his serious tone or facial expression.  "But he doesn't collect dolls or cards, he collects living species.  Dweller species. . . . Which he treats as if dolls.  Hence why he was imprisoned in the Gate Prison."

"Whoa -- we're dealing with a Realm Walker convict?" Guy asked.

"Oh, we've deal with worse.  We've tangoed with Malice." Cloak said.  "Now we really should go."

Then Richard and the rest of the mods wished them godspeed as Helen, Goku, and Sam used their Lantern rings to enclose every one in an energy bubble to tow them through space looking for Collectors ship.  Cloak, Mr. Guy (carrying a large club with a spike ring near the top), and Underseen were being towed by Helen, who was really driven to find her Parker.  Blue, Faerie, and Az were being towed by Goku, and Aila (armed with her sonic screwdriver), Bear, and Rad (carrying her favorite zatt) were being towed by Sam.

None of them thought about using Yarin's ship, which was still in the RAF hanger.  Yarin'd probably have a conniption if they had.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2012, 02:53:05 PM

'Bout seven more chapter to go. . . . This one might be a little on the short side.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Trojan Ship

Once they were a prudent distance away from earth, the orbs of Lantern energy coalesced into an Interceptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lantern:_The_Animated_Series)-style ship that was predominately green with violently violet accents.  The RAFians got jumbled together when this occurred.  It was seemed to be like being within a washing machine.  There was a fair bit of grumbling going on from the non-Lanterns.

"Mind TELLING US next time you do something like that?!" Faerie snarled.

"Sorry," Helen said, "we felt that a ship would do better for what we're doing."

"Why did I ever let Aquilai take my TARDIS?" Aila grunted regretfully.

"I don't think you could have inconspicuously got us to Collectors ship in the TARDIS, Aila," Cloak said, standing up and straightening his cloak.

"What?  How come?"

"Well, from what I know, Collector is meticulous.  He knows everything that belongs on his ship and what does not."

"Well, that's a bit --" Blue said, searching for the right word.

"I believe the term you're searching for is 'obsessive-compulsive'." Cloak offered.

"Eh, it'll do."

"Collector, if the historical records on him are factual and not a skewed bias, is anal.  As well as being a . . . a species supremacist and full of himself." Cloak said.  Then after a brief moment, though the effort felt like he was wrenching his heart to pieces, he admitted, "Like a lot of Realm Walkers are, I'm afraid."

"Cloak, what are you --" Az began, before Cloak cut him off.

"Don't worry about it." Cloak replied rather more surly than he intended.  "Helen, Goku, Sam.  Better stop accelerating.  If we look like a dead ship, we'll be more alluring to Collector."

"Roger." Helen said.

"Who's Roger?" Underseen asked rhetorically.

***

Several hours passed.  It was a testament to Helen's love for Parker and Sam and Goku's sheer willpower -- as well as their focus, determination and concentration.  The ship did not faulter, but Cloak knew the charge in there rings couldn't last forever.  Eventually, they'd need to recharge them.  Cloak was, frankly, surprised that they didn't already need charging.

"Ship approaching," Goku announced.

"Is it his, Cloak?" Guy asked.

"It would appear so." Cloak answered.

"I've been meaning to ask," Rad said, "how'd he manage to get an entire ship into this universe?  I thought you could only take a maximum of two people with you."

"Whoever said he brought it over from the Nexus?"

Rad thought back . . . that's right, Cloak never said that.  They all just assumed.

"That's not to say that he hasn't probably outfitted it with some Walker tech.  But my gut says that Guy could easily hack into the system."

"What me?"

"Yes, you." Cloak said without looking at him.  "That is, if Collector takes this bait."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 21, 2012, 05:06:42 PM

I haven't ever seen the Green Lantern Animated Series is it good? I am not a big CG T.V. show fan...

I hope that Cloak has a plan to defeat the collector ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2012, 05:13:48 PM

It's "meh", Underseen, Young Justice, in my opinion, is better.  Although it's nice to see the Red Lanterns on television.

And do I have a plan?  Of sorts.  Considering that, when up against another Realm Walker, Collector can be kind of gutless . . . I hope I haven't given too much away.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 21, 2012, 10:48:04 PM

Thought I'd pop in and get caught up. You're definitely succeeding in keeping my interest.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2012, 08:45:17 AM

Excellent, Gazzy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Raiders of the Collection

For a few tense moments of wondering, "Will he bite?  Will he bite?", it would turn out their concerns were misplaced.  Collector easily swallowed the ship into his own.  When the orifice that they were swallowed into closed the ship faded away to nothing.  Helen, Goku and Sam quickly recharged their rings while the others spread out to cover the room.

"Clear," Rad said, in hushed tones that nonetheless carried.

"For now," Cloak added ominously.

"Just a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Faerie said, coyly.

"Don't get ****y now, Faerie," Cloak warned.  "Collector probably has robotic drones or other self-defensive measures to be sure that no one dares to steal his precious collection."

"How can you be so sure?" Underseen asked.

"Isn't it obvious that you'd protect what you value above all else?" Cloak answered.

"Uh, where do we go from here?" Az pointed out prudently.

Cloak didn't answer but shut his eyes and stamped his foot.  He was using Metalsight to look for . . .

"That way." Cloak said.

"How can you be so sure?" Rad asked.

"Metalsight," Cloak said, remembering Rad was unfamiliar with the technique.  "But there'll be time to explain that later.  Let's go."

***

Collector was still ranting about the Council and his imprisonment to his captive audience -- who wished they had enough mobility to just clamp their hands over their ears -- er, granted, Dino couldn't do this even in her non-statue form, but it didn't mean that she didn't want to.  Gaz had even tried going into mist mode -- but that didn't work.  It was a wonder that they didn't even asphyxiate, but they were dying a slower death.  Not from the carbolucite that was gradually solidifying their bodies into their statuary forms (they already had exoskeletal shells of the stuff), but they were quite literally begin to die of sheer boredom.  Collector's whining rants were not remotely entertaining, and the RAFians were pretty much mentally begging for death or rescue -- well, except Sakki.  She was still unconscious.

Yarin found that he could not use his telepathy so he could not alert would-be rescuers to their location.  Which was just as well, because while he could hear just fine, he couldn't see through any of his six eyes anymore.  Noelle couldn't thought-speak, as well.  And her four eyes were just as blind.

But then the door blew open.  It literally blew open as if a powerful force was on the other side.  Collector saw the newcomer and immediately cowered against the nearby wall, stammering, "Sage?!  No, it can't be.  You're dead."

"Yes," came Cloak's voice from the silhouette, "he is."

"But who --"

"You know of my grandfather, vermin," Cloak said, striding toward Collector as the others stormed and secured the room.  "But I don't imagine you would know of me.  His only heir to the Six Elements."

Cloak stuck his face right into the magpie's face, "My name is Cloak.  Remember it."

"Computer!" Collector screeched.  "Activate the transwarp omega-rays!"

Cloak allowed them to deploy.  Cloak allowed them to initiate.  But then he focused his mind and energies, snapped his fingers and the metal parts fell away.  Pretty much making it useless.  Faerie used that lovely axe of hers to take care of the other one.

Collector didn't seem to like this one bit, as he screamed like a frightened schoolgirl, "Computer!  Defense protocol alpha!  Get those drones in here!"

Cloak glanced at the carbolucite machine, and saw, with relief, that Guy was already attempting to set into reverse and bolster their numbers with the kidnapped RAFians restored to their normal selves.  Cloak smiled to himself, as he lifted Collector up.  He was gonna force him to see that Realm Dwellers were not as puny or lowly as he no doubtly thought. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 22, 2012, 10:43:15 AM

And you made him seem so powerful before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2012, 01:48:41 PM

That's the thing with people with a tyrannical disposition, Underseen.  They always seem more powerful than they actually are.  Of course, there's the odd case where this isn't true, though.

Collector was always a spineless worm (not literally, of course) -- only brave when he had to deal with Dwellers.  Another Realm Walker in the picture that he's not allied with . . . well, his whole facade crumbles away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 22, 2012, 02:11:41 PM

Well spoken...

I think that the Aquilai centric book you were talking about was Book XXIV: The First Master [Time] master. I am probably wrong though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2012, 02:14:41 PM

You're wrong -- that's the book that's gonna have no RAFians in it at all.  Except for minor bits of me in the beginning and end.  Besides, I've finished the chapter-by-chapter thing of that book a long while ago.  I was talking about Book LIV.

Speaking of which -- new page.

• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals*
• Book LVI: Of One Mind*
• Book LVII: The End of Time* -- another out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic*
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth*
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*
• Book XCII: Calendar Creep*
• Book XCIII: The Branding*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 22, 2012, 02:29:47 PM

I was close.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2012, 02:35:28 PM

If you say so, Underseen.  ;)

And I don't think anymore chapters today.  That inconsiderate neighbor is giving me a headache.

EDIT: New chapter'll be coming . . .  nowish.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Free, At Last!

Mr. Guy continued to work on the carbolucite machine, and Cloak continued to force Collector watch as the other RAFians dealt with his drones with skill and style.

"You see how wrong you were, Collector," Cloak intoned.  "You and all of your ilk?  Dwellers may not be able to Walk but you shouldn't write them off so glibly.  They can be a force to reckon with."

"And that's why you joined them?" Collector said, with a nervous patter.

"No, you fool." Cloak spat.  "They're my friends."

Then Cloak thought of Rotiart.

"Well, most of them."

Mr. Guy go the machine to roar to life, and he managed to get it to go into reverse.  Soon, Noelle, Parker, Myitt, Hunter, Demos, Sakki, Mithril, Gaz, Horse, Yarin, Phoenix, Aquilai, and Dino were back among the mobile.  Although, Sakki was still unconscious, but Cloak didn't know why.  Then it hit him.

"Hey!" Cloak protested as he unintentionally released Collector.  Cloak saw the thing that fell from the ceiling, and recognized it as a tech-suppressing device.  Itemsmith would be furious to learn the perverted way his invention was being used.  Cloak held it then closed his fist, using his mastery over metal to destroy it.  Cloak had no qualms -- Itemsmith would be able to recreate it in a flash if he wanted to.

Sakki's eyes immediately snapped open at the destruction of the device.

"Any calls while I was out?" Sakki asked.

"Only one," Mithril said, "DUCK!"

Cloak watched benignly as Collector attempted to sprint to the door, despite not being much of a sprinter and a little rotund to run very fast, only to have found it tightly shut.  He knew that the wouldn't risk going back to the Nexus -- he was a wanted criminal after all.  And they thought him dead.  He couldn't leave, and he wouldn't leave his carbolacite and taxidermied collection behind.  Turns out, that the RAFians were the only living specimens on board.

"Open!  Open up!" Collector screamed.  He tried pulling with both his hands and his energy, but to no avail, as Cloak walked sedately up to him.  "Only a master of Metal or metalbender can open that door now." Cloak said.

"No!  No!  It can't end like this!"

"Well, it did, feathers-for-brains," Parker said.  It was difficult to tell with his helmet and all, but he was ticked.  Really ticked.  Cloak looked at Collector, then at Parker, and then he stepped aside for Parker to have words with the little scumbag.  As well as the other twelve that no doubt have had words for the little pipsqueak.

Collector glowered at a shadowy corner.  "Help me!  Help!!  We had a deal!  WE HAD A DEAL!!"

"Eh, it didn't work for me," replied an offhand voice as Parker, punched Collector on the head, though on the cloak side -- he was much too fond of his fist to try the more direct route.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 23, 2012, 12:45:43 PM

Nice Chapter, but the book isn't over yet so something can always happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2012, 12:58:49 PM

Well, I don't have my notes here with me at the moment, but I can assure you that you're right, Underseen.  But better get used to this one-chapter-a-day deal, because I'm getting a new book on the second and getting Pokemon White 2 soon, as well.

Maybe now people -- like Phoenix -- can catch more easily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 23, 2012, 02:39:18 PM

I just got Borderlands 2 so I will probably just spend my time on that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2012, 04:25:36 PM

Well, you seem to be the only RAFian caught up, thusfar, Underseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 23, 2012, 06:39:25 PM

Mithril and I have been reading this, we just don't have anything to say that doesn't sound repetitive

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2012, 06:42:39 PM

Oh, well, I thought Underseen was the only one caught up.  Guess I was wrong.  But still, the one-chapter-maximum will stay in play -- at least, until I finish Pokemon White 2 and that Riordan book. ;)

It's only fair to let everyone else catch up.

Anyway, Sakki, Mithril -- how's the animation thing goin'?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on September 23, 2012, 11:10:41 PM

Just wanted to say (even if it isn't finished yet) this book is awesome :P

Quote

...RAFians dealt with his drones with skill and style.

Is there another way? ^^

I'm just wondering on how you're going to deal with Collector. Are you sending him back for his death sentence?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 24, 2012, 07:14:29 AM

Oh, I think I'll wait in to the last or penultimate chapter to reveal that, Aquilai. ;)  Either way -- it won't be pleasant for Collector.

New chapter -- probably gonna be a short one.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Collector's Backers

"Young Elements Master," came the voice stepping out of the shadows.  It was Malice.  "Surprised?  Surprised that we are the backers of Collector and his collection?"

"Not really," Cloak replied coldly, folding his arms across his chest, giving Malice a heavy-lidded look.  "I am far to used to just about everything being due to your machinations."

"You mean, my Machiavellian machinations." she said, as Abomination stepped out of the shadows as well, flanking his "love".

"Not entirely." Cloak said, with a dry tone.  The others were still battling the drones -- they seemed to be deliberately drawing out the battle, enjoying destroying something.  Parker, however, stood right beside Cloak.  "I'm well aware that you freed Collector from the Gate Prison -- the Council's fault for not looking to the compency of their workers.  That's why, I assume, you were able to smuggle him out so easily, and without anyone being the wiser."

"So Realm Walkers aren't immune from bureaucratic idiocy?" Parker said, in an aside to Cloak.

"I never said we were," Cloak said, not troubling to lower his voice.  "No government is immune from that blight."

"We . . . we had a d-deal . . ." Collector said quietly with a cowering stutter.  Malice ignored him, but Abomination's eyes flicked to him and then back to Cloak.

"And you had Collector collection thirteen RAFians to add to his collection," Cloak said, with a bored air, as if all of this should have been quite obvious.  "While the Council would believe he had been sent through the Veil."

Parker said nothing -- he knew that "sent through the Veil" was the Realm Walker version of an execution.  What passes through the veil cannot return -- and nothing's been known to return.  That's why the gate was initially built, to prevent accidental deaths, from roiling down the pit into the oblivion that the ghostly, ever-fluttering Veil takes souls on to.  The gate was eventually turned into a prison, where the Twelve -- rogue Realm Walkers that was eventually taken down by the first ever Elements Master and they were the first prisoners there.  But their deux es machinas remained, and were spirited away.  Hidden, but Abomination found them, absorbed them, and came here.  Then he proceed to beat Cloak to near-death.  The only time in his life where he accomplished such a feat -- fortunately one of his ancestors had made the Zodiak rings . . .

Malice clapped slowly in a mocking way.  "Very good, very good.  You can put two and two together."

"We had a d-deal . . ." Collector said more insistently, but his voice fearfully low.  He was ignored again.

"But you've missed one crucial detail, I afraid," Malice said.

Parker leaned over and whispered into Cloak's ear, "Do all Realm Walkers like monologuing like this, or is just the bat**** insane ones?"

"I HEARD THAT!" Malice called in ringing tones.  "The detail you and your pet there seemed to have missed was that Collector was supposed to collect EVERY RAFIAN!  Not a mere HANDFUL at thirteen!"

Cloak didn't react.  It really came as no surprise to him.  Parker appeared not to react as well, but, beneath his helmet, he raised his eyebrow and wore a disbelieving, skeptical look.

"As always, Malice," Cloak said, his tone unpleasantly cold, "such a grandoise vision that it overshadows the pure nonsense of the scheme."

"We had a d-deal!" Collector said, shrilly.  "This wasn't part of the deal!!"

"I have changed the deal!" Malice said, unable to ignore the shrieking magpie any longer.  "Pray I don't change it again, you pathetic piece of --"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 24, 2012, 05:26:27 PM

Why won't he just DIE?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 24, 2012, 05:28:16 PM

Don't get ahead me.

. . .

;)

EDIT: Added a Book XCII and Book XCIII to the list. . . .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Collecting Dust

"B-b-but . . ."

"Oh, stop your snivelling," Malice said, delivering a swift, irritated kick to the cowering, whimpering creature before her.  He no longer seemed the powerful being that he had striven to look like to Cloak's RAFian friends, but looked more like an older Realm Walker, a shell of his former glorious facade.  Gone was the haughty imagine, replaced with the truth of what a pathetic person Collector was in reality.

Then, quite gradually, as Cloak stared her down, a smile blossomed and grew upon Malice's face.  Abomination just looked stupidly from one to the other.  Parker's face was inscrutable -- again, because of that helmet of his.

"You've been to see the Council," Malice said maliciously.

Cloak said nothing.  He knew well enough that she was just trying to get a rise out of him.  But his glare got all the more colder.

"Did you honestly think that they would believe you?" Malice chided gleefully.  "You expected politicians to help?  You expect politicians to DO anything, except covet their positions of power?  Did you honestly think that they would accept something that violates their quite way of life?  Those fools haven't stepped foot outside the Nexus!  Everyone knows this!  Yet, you honestly expected the government to investigate themselves?  You are so young and naive, Cloak.  They only tell the populace that to satiate them that something's being done, or deny anything has ever happend, while covering it up.  This why I would have been a much better ruler."

"You couldn't rule anything," Cloak said, voice as mild as he could manage.  Clearly, Cloak's optimism was nonexistent at this point.  "You couldn't make a democratic government work.  You have always been a tinhorn dictator."

She flushed, as if Cloak flattered her.  "Guilty," she replied with a school girl titter.

Cloak did not move.  He did not react -- outwardly.  Inwardly, he recoiled with disgust.  He always knew that Malice was screwed up -- considering her grandfather was called Cataclysm (and also presumed dead), he guessed that megalomania and vanity was a familial disease.  Cloak's frowning expression did not falter in the least.

"P-please . . . we had a d-deal . . ." Collector begged rather pityingly.

"Your usefulness has ended," Malice said, kicking the pathetic lump of a Realm Walker away.

***

Meanwhile, the rest of the RAFians were starting to enjoy battling the drones.  It was like level five on the training simulations in RAF's version of the Danger Room.  The levels went up to one hundred, with most -- if not all -- veteran RAFians training at level fifty or so.  So, this was pretty much a cakewalk for them.  But when they were all destroyed, Sakki was heard to, quite loudly, lament, "Awwww . . . no more?"

Faerie leaned against the wall after returning her axe to hammerspace.  Smacking her lips as if she was drowsy, she said, "Gee, I wish there were more of them."

Suddenly, several new drones appeared and, with a smile of intense gratification on her face, Faerie pulled her axe from hammerspace again, and said, "Ah!  Good!  Good!"

Sakki was heard to shout, "Banzai!", when diving into the fray.

***

"Oh, Cloak," Malice said, coyly -- and it was at this point that Abomination started to think that Malice was flirting with Cloak.  Cloak had no interest in the person he viewed as a monster.  "You failed."

"What is she talk--" Parker began.  But Cloak realized what she was gonna do a split-second before hand, and before he could shout, "NO!", Malice had struck Collector.  Hard.  Very hard.  The poor old fool had fell upon the metal floor, and his C.S.I, his corporeal structural integrity faltered.  Then his body collapsed into energy, and dispersed into nothingness.  Only his cloak remained.

Now Cloak could not show him to the Council.  Now Cloak could not prove that the Council needed to do more than sit on their butts.  Which is what Malice meant by it, by killing Collector.  Sure, Cloak could show the Council his cloak, but that is a bit of evidence that can be easily rationalized and explained away, especially to those who WANT to believe the rationalizations.

Cloak unfolded his arms, and glared at Malice.  He felt anger, but not enough for him to lose control of himself, like when Malice attacked Shadow.

"Uh-oh," Parker said, noticing Cloak distinct change in mood, "now ya in for it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2012, 09:13:07 AM

. . .

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A Devastating Dispute

"Parker, get Helen, Sam and Goku to take everyone out of here." Cloak said.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"But . . . but what about you, Cloak?  Even you cannot survive the vacuum of space!"

"You heard me." Cloak repeated more forcefully.  "Don't worry about me.  It takes a lot to kill a Realm Walker . . ."

Cloak glared at the two rogues before him.

"Fortunately, I'm sufficient enough."

Parker's eyes widened underneath that helmet of his, but Cloak stood resolutely.  His resolve would not be broken.

"What are you waiting for, SPARTAN?!" Cloak said.  And Parker knew that because Cloak had called him by his RAFspecies name, that he was starting to get ticked off.  "GO!"

Parker hesitated for a moment or two, then acquiesced, wondering how he would live with himself if Cloak did not make it out of this.  But, within moments, after the last droid fell, they broke a hole into the ceiling and left.  The suction lasted for only a minute or two before the ship's systems activated and pinched the broken hole back together.  The suction, naturally, stopped after this.  And still the three Realm Walkers said nothing, just glaring at each other.

"Isn't like an Elements Master?" Malice said blithely.  "Always so willing to sacrifice themeselves for the 'greater good' and whatnot.  Such inane heroic nonsense."

"I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand, Malice," Cloak growled.

"Huh?" Abomination said with a comically bemused look on his face.

"And I wouldn't expect someone like you, Abomination, to understand many things." Cloak said icily.  "Like how to tie your shoes."

"What?  Tie my shoes?  What's that?"

"Case and point."

"Huh?  Malice, what is he talking about?"

"Never mind, dear," Malice said, as if calming down an emotional toddler.

"And you actually believe Malice loves you, Abomination."  Cloak shook his head, and Abomination screamed not to call him that.  "Abomination, she doesn't love anyone.  Except the one that she sees in the mirror everytime she looks into it."

But the last part was lost on Abomination.

"So, what are you planning on doing, exactly, Cloak?" Malice said.  "You're a 'good guy', aren't you?  You can't possibility be thinking what I think you're --"

She stopped as the nearby wall exploded into metal shards.  Then they began to orbit the two, with the jagged ends pointed towards them.

"Wow, a little dark for you, Cloak." Malice said, though her bravado was slipping.

Cloak narrowed his eyes, as the shards began to orbit closer to Malice and Abomination.

"Y-you can't kill us!" Abomination shrieked.

"Watch me," Cloak said, as the shards now glowed with golden scarlet energy.  While thinking to himself, Now you'll feel the callousness that Collector felt.  The terror he felt.  He may not have been the greatest person in the world, but no one needs to die in such an off-hand, callous, and pathetic way.

"Y-you can't!" Malice said, showing fear for the first time.  "You're supposed to be a 'good guy', not an anti-hero!  You aren't supposed to kill us!"

Cloak smiled inwardly.  Of course, he knew he couldn't kill them.  But Cloak was tired.  Tired of their schemes, their using Realm Dweller suffering as entertainment.  This whole Collector business also proved that they weren't above using other Realm Walkers for their plans, and then killing them when it didn't work out anymore.  That's why they used Collector -- he was expendible.

"I'll . . . I'll bring you to the Council on this, Cloak!  I really will!"

That was the Realm Walker equivalent of threatening to sue.

"No," Cloak said, keeping his face stony and expressionless.  "You won't.  You won't risk them realizing you're not dead."

Although, Cloak thought savagely, they'd find a way to rationalize it away, no doubt.

Cloak kept thinking that he should kill them.  That he could kill them.  But his will kept faltering.  Eventually, the shards just fell, as Cloak lowered his hands and turned his back on the two.

"I knew you couldn't do it," Malice said contempuously.  "I wouldn't have been so weak with your powers.  I wouldn't have given it a second thought!!"

Cloak contorted his face into one of rage.  And then he ripped the ship apart -- literally.  And the three hung in space momentarily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on September 26, 2012, 12:20:40 PM

Bad Cloaky! >:(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2012, 04:12:39 PM

Everyone has a dark side, Sakki.  Even me.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll be able to post tomorrow or not.  I'm feeling very apathetic right now. . . .

Anyway -- new page, and a couple of new ideas added.

• Book XIX: The Clone Wars
• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals
• Book LVI: Of One Mind
• Book LVII: The End of Time -- another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . or possibly not . . . ;) . . .
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth* -- possibly the most frightening book to date ;)
• Book LX: The Replacements*
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*
• Book XCII: Calendar Creep*
• Book XCIII: The Branding*
• Book XCIV: The Void Zone* -- probably gonna be a parody of the story modes of one of my fav will games . . .
• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn*

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Probably a short chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Survivors

After Cloak ripped the ship to pieces -- to insure no one would use it, or, more likely, misuse it.  But in doing so the three Realm Walkers hung in space.  Discomforted, but not in any real danger.  Realm Walkers can only be killed by conventional means in the Nexus.  Within Realms, they are exceedingly harder to break or kill.

But Malice and Abomination both swirled their cloaks and Walked from the Realm.  Cloak followed suit.  But upon emergence into the Nexus, Cloak cursed rather loudly.  But, in the languid "paradise" of the Nexus, no one seemed to hear.  Cloak could not believe that he had his chance to end this, end all the schemes and whatnot, and he choked.  He couldn't end it.

Sage wouldn't have hesitated, Cloak thought bitterly.  He wouldn't have had any doubts.  He would have done the right thing, he would have had the nerve, the courage, the heart.

Cloak put his grandfather up on a pedestal, but the truth of the matter is that his grandfather wouldn't have killed Malice or Abomination either.  Killing is not something a good person does easily, even if the the would-be victims do it easily.  Especially not from one who routinely runs from his emotions, including rage.  Someone who is afraid to feel.  Someone like Cloak.

So, Cloak turned on his heel and returned to the Prime Universe at the same, familiar location.

"Cloak!" Broken shouted jovially, jogging to his position, although Cloak remained slightly surly.  "You're back!"

Underseen came over as well, asking, "So . . . did you . . . finish the job?"

Cloak said nothing for a few minutes.  Then he replied, in weary voice, "They live."

"What? Why?"

"I'd rather not talk about it just now," Cloak said, surly.  "I'll be in my Thread."

As he was walking away, he could hear Broken whisper to Underseen, "It must have been bad."

***

Back at their hideout, Malice and Abomination were talking in low voices.  But, like most things, Malice was dominating the conversation.

"We really cut it too fine back there," Malice said.

"He could have killed us," Abomination said, rather huskily.

"You'd be a fool to believe that he would," Malice spat, deliberately ignoring that she was genuinely scared.  "He would never have that kind of ruthlessness."

"If he wasn't gonna kill us, why'd he sent all his Dweller pets away?" Abomination asked.  They too refused to acknowledge Dwellers as real people with real emotions and feelings.  To them, like an unfortunate amount of Realm Walkers, Realm Dwellers were nothing more than objects.  Beings of no real consequence.  This was something that Walkers like Cloak REFUSED to believe.

Malice looked like she would have an abusive retort, but then her face changed.

"The Dwellers . . ." Malice said quietly.  "Those Dweller pets of his.  They're a WEAKNESS, love!  They're his weakness!  He'll stand by them.  Maybe if we can -- heh heh -- convince a certain Dweller scientist . . ."

"Who?"

"Oh, you know the one." Malice said, rising and fastening her cloak on.  "C'mon!  We may not have much time. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 27, 2012, 06:33:02 PM

Is that ending for the next book? "The Clone Wars" is a title that can mean anything, but with scientists involved I am thinking clones of people.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2012, 07:39:42 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 27, 2012, 06:33:02 PM

"The Clone Wars" is a title that can mean anything

And that's exactly why I chose it.  As well as being a reference to something else -- a certain CGI show on Cartoon Network. . . .

But you'll find out more in the next few days.  I'm still gonna to the chapter-a-day thing until everyone else catches up.

BOOK XIX:
The Clone Wars
Chapter One:
A Hot, Buggy Day

"Ow!" Gaz yelped.  "What is it with all these mosquitoes?"

"It's not so bad," Guy said consolingly, "it was just the one.  Ow!  Er, just the two."

"But it doesn't make sense," Gaz said, worryingly, "there are no pools of stagnant water here for them to breed."

"What about the Yeerk Pool?" Guy pointed out.

"Oh, you know that the Kadronna is lethal to them*," Gaz said, waving her hand absently.

It was a warm, muggy day.  But the RAFians had abandoned the threads for the grounds.  Gaz and Guy were picnicking beneath a worn oak tree, while Horse splashed in the water with Underseen and Ash.  All three had suffered a single mosquito bite, but thought nothing sinister of it, and continued playing in the water with nary a care in the world.

Cloak was sitting on a raised earth platform -- a makeshift chair really -- with his legs crossed, reading a copy of Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" beneath a young, vibrant juniper tree.  He was fairly off to the side of everyone else, in the shadows.  He still would not go into detail about what had happened in Collector's ship -- just saying that the ship was gone, and they needn't worry about it.

Parker and Helen were having a picnicked lunch date beneath a veritable, old rowan tree.  Parker had just removed his helmet when, "OW!  Never fails.  The minute I take this helmet off. . . ."

"Ow!" Helen exclaimed as a mosquito made a snack out of her.  "Never mind it, Parker, dear.  Here, have a sandwich."

He accepted, and just enjoyed being in Helen's company.  There weren't very many moments where they could do this -- normal things like a normal couple.  So, they were bound and determined to enjoy this day.  Neither of them realized that no other mosquitoes made any attempt to bite them again.

Aquilai, however, wasn't really enjoying the day, but fiddling around with his TARDIS, his pride and joy.  "Ah!" he said as he swatted the back of his neck, cursing, "Infernal insects.  Never mind that, Aquilai, back to work."

Curiously, though, no mosquito made an effort to bother Cloak, and he never noticed this.  He just read on, only over a quarter of the way through his book, while various other RAFians complained about mosquito bites.  Cloak didn't have blood anyway, and his ichor would have just vaporized any bug that tried to feed off him.

Demos's demonic blood proved poisonous to the bugs, so he didn't mind.  He just laughed as he saw the bug that tried.  "Demon blood is addictive, you know," he would taunt at the bug.  "You'll surely be back for more."

Sakki and Oceanspray, being a VOCALOID and android respectively, had no blood to interest the mosquitoes, so they were left alone and unbitten.

The Yeerks, in their natural forms, were unmolested by the parasitic female insects, but their hosts weren't as lucky.

<Why do these blasted insects have a taste for Andalite blood?> Noelle moaned, scratching a spot on her left hand where a bug got her.

Dino was condemned with an itchy mosquito bite on her neck that she could not reach, which drove her up the wall.  It was a flaw having tyrannosaurid arms.  She grunted trying to scratch it -- it seemed to increase in itchiness expotentially with each passing minute.  Eventually, Cloak noticed and had pity for her, so he conjured up an earth spire, that she could scratch the area easily.

"Oh, that is a lifesaver," Dino sighed with relief.  "Thanks, Cloaky."

"Anytime," came his reply as he returned to his book.

---
* Does the Yeerk Pool count as a stagnant pool of water?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 28, 2012, 05:05:36 PM

I guess it can on the yeerks planet... I am not sure though.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 28, 2012, 08:23:45 PM

I'm amused by the vampire getting bitten by another bloodsucker. Lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2012, 11:06:15 PM

Just wait until the next chapter tomorrow . . . or Monday.  Depends on how busy I get.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 28, 2012, 11:17:05 PM

Not sure if the mosquitoes have anything to do with the plot, because it sounds like they do. 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2012, 07:57:59 AM

Probably a short chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
DNA Doctor

The mosquitoes, having gotten what they were after flew away -- easily surviving the few smacks they suffered.  The reason was soon clear.  They weren't real mosquitoes at all.  They were mosquito-bots!  They were after RAFian DNA, and survive with it viable enough to reach their master.  An insane genetist, the one responsible for so many Azguard clones -- hence why he wasn't a target for a "mosquito bite".

"Ah!" the scientist, Mr. Gemini, said with delight as he saw his little charges loaded up with the valuable microscopic treasures.  "You've succeeded, my pets!  Well, you know what to do."

The bugs were not sentient and had no semblence to intelligence -- real intelligence, that is.  But they had sufficient A.I. to complete their mission, and nothing else.  But the dear doctor spoke to them as if they had intelligence, and, indeed, could respond to him at all.  But, shut away all by himself, despising the human society that he sees as rejecting him and his genetic replication experiments, could drive a man to completely disconnect with reality.

Despite his genuine insanity, his skills in genetic engineering were certainly not subpar.  He was one of the best, until his experiments lead him being thrown into prison, after cloning Az a great deal (although now it was easy to tell Az from his clones -- only the REAL Az bears the RAFian Mark).  There the "good doctor" would have remained to rot, had he not had help escaping.

His benefactors told him that his escape wasn't for free -- he had to do something for them first.   But when he was told what it was, he was elated.  He wanted to do the task the put before him.

"Computer, download the blood samples from the Mosquitius drones," he commanded his computer.

After a few minutes, when the Mosquitius drones seemingly dropped dead after completing and complying with this action (to which Dr. Gemini didn't seem to really care), he commanded, "Computer, extract the genetic material from each sample.  Then upload the genetic materal into the tubes."

He refered to the ten to twenty cryogenic tubes behind him.  One of which had an Az clone already inside it, who looked aged to ten years old.  Dr. Gemini seemed unconcerned with that one.  Within minutes, the computer complied and the tubes changed from a bloodred color to a soft amber color.

"How is it coming along, doctor?" said a hard, female voice in the shadows.  As the room was rather dimly lit, it was mostly shadows.

"Exceptionally well, mistress," the doctor said, without any stammer, but with concealed excitement.  "The sample DNA has been sent to the tubes.  They'll replicate any moment now."

"How long?" she said, with the same hard, unyielding tone.

"They have a four and a half month gestation," the doctor said.

"The results had better be worth the effort," the voice replied, before it's owner vanished.

"Oh, believe me, mistress," the doctor said, apparently unaware she left, "it will be.  It will be."

***

Miles away, Cloak shuttered.

"Why'd you shutter just now?" Aquilai asked Cloak, as he continued to work on his TARDIS while Cloak was reading his book.

Cloak blinked, "I don't know."*

---
* "Bart Carny" Simpsons episode reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 29, 2012, 03:57:06 PM

I knew the mosquitoes had something to do with the plot, but the cloning was not excepted for the 2nd chapter

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2012, 04:36:13 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 29, 2012, 03:57:06 PM

but the cloning was not excepted for the 2nd chapter

Did you mean "expected"?  Otherwise, you've got me confused, Underseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 29, 2012, 05:28:39 PM

Sorry, it was a typo... Happens a lot when I am tired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2012, 06:38:26 PM

Ditto, Underseen.  I make mistakes too when I'm tired.  I once accidentally called Richard "Richardo" in a parody.

CHAPTER THREE:
Mistaken Identity

About four months have passed since that mosquito-laden day.  The RAFians continued to mill about the threads, playing games in the Bored Board, discussing and debating in the other threads.  Cloak noted that his original brainchild, the RAFian parodies, were being slightly ignored, but it couldn't be helped.  He had ran out of ideas.  But there were 800, so it's not like that there wasn't a sufficient amount of them to begin with.

But then it happened.

After a few weeks, the site was inundated with claims of criminal activities perpetrated by its members.  Parker and Demos were accused of murder, Underseen and Ash were accused of petty theft, Gaz was accused of harassment of a public official, Horse was proclaimed to have escaped from the zoo, Dino was believed to have rampaged on the south side of the city, Noelle was accused of holding a family hostage, and the list went on.

But all of the accusations made no sense.  The RAFians they claimed did these crimes had be perputrated by could not have possibly done it.  Parker was on a date with Helen at the time (and she vouched for him immediately).  Demos was in the training room with Underseen, Ash, and Cloak.  Gaz and Guy were talking on the darkening RAFian grounds.  Dino was kinda hard to miss, snoozing in the twilight.  Horse was reading a story to all the young newbies.  Noelle was feeding with like ten other RAFian Andalites.

However, the accusers had videotape evidence of silhouettes that looked just like the aforementioned RAFians.

"That proves nothing," Cloak said, surly, as the RAFians watched it.  "They could just be more Skrull imposters."

"After the ultimatium you gave them?" Underseen said.

"Possibly." Cloak said.  "But it would be incredibly stupid of them to return for a coup."

"Wait, this can't be them." Horse said.  "It's too public.  To revealing.  If I remember the Skrull incursion correctly, they did it as quickly and quietly as they possibly could."

"Touche," Cloak replied.

"Could be Dr. Gemini." Az suggested.

"The guy who cloned you?*" Faerie asked.  "Clones?  It is possible.  But Gemini is in prison."

Az tossed her a newspaper.  "He got out."

"They released him?" Cloak said, thinking that the Dweller's legal system was as dubious as the Walker's.

"Nope, he escaped." Az said, who had clearly read the article.  "They don't know how -- he was there one minute, then poof, the next day he was gone."

"They searched his cell? . . . Wait, it says here that they did, and they couldn't find any tunnel dug or any loose bars.  It was like he vaporized."

"This has Malice all over it," Cloak said with folded arms.

"How can you tell?"

"Well, isn't it always?" Parker replied.

---
*Reference to an impromptu RP that Faerie, Az and I had a while back -- when I was still a yearling, I think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 30, 2012, 11:15:22 AM

At least we weren't all sent to jail...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2012, 03:29:43 PM

It's early yet, Underseen. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 30, 2012, 09:03:31 PM

I will stop spoiling this for myself

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2012, 09:08:57 PM

It's okay, Underseen.  If you do want spoilers, just PM me.  Of course, this current book is a bit of a parody of a certain "Gargoyles" episode . . .

And . . . new page . . .

• Book XX: The Darwin Gun
• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks
• Book XXII: Pits of Terror
• Book XXIII: RAF Comix
• Book XXIV: The First Master
• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical
• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage
• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity
• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings
• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers
• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser
• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker
• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing
• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food
• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation
• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn
• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream
• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey
• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem
• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen
• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks
• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare
• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms
• Book XLIII: The Piper
• Book XLIV: The Wishing Star
• Book XLV: A War of Armor
• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague
• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons
• Book XLVIII: Go Away!
• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales
• Book L: Maul
• Book LI: Erised Orbs
• Book LII: RAFians Alive! -- an out-of-normal-continuity book
• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever
• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils
• Book LV: Dangerous Deals
• Book LVI: Of One Mind
• Book LVII: The End of Time -- another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . or possibly not . . . ;) . . .
• Book LVIII: Hematomimic
• Book LIX: Sins of Youth -- possibly the most frightening book to date ;)
• Book LX: The Replacements
• Book LXI: Arachnoids*
• Book LXII: Personal Tissues*
• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow*
• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon*
• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite*
• Book LXVI: The Merging*
• Book LXVII: Be A Doll*
• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors* -- yet another out-of-normal-continuity book . . . unless I change my mind.
• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island*
• Book LXX: Corrupted*
• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins*
• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety*
• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians*
• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea*
• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos*
• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin*
• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence*
• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh*
• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol* -- yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.
• Book LXXX: Savage Heart*
• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts*
• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King*
• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show*
• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker*
• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh*
• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain*
• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen*
• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow*
• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin*
• Book XC: Virus Alert!*
• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief*
• Book XCII: Calendar Creep*
• Book XCIII: The Branding*
• Book XCIV: The Void Zone* -- probably gonna be a parody of the story modes of one of my fav will games . . .
• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn*
• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators* -- I'll go ahead and say that this book will contain the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless"

Again, the (*) denotes a book I have yet to do the chapter-by-chapter notes for.

Possibly a short chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Inquiry

A few more days passed quietly and uneventfully.  But the RAFians still fretted about being convicted of crimes they did not commit.  They didn't exactly have stellar PR images as is.  They weren't the public superheroes that the Fantastic Four was, but even the events of the Skrull incursion could not be ignored, no matter how stubborn the politician was.

A new department was set up to govern extraterrestrial and superhuman affairs -- aptly called the Department for Extraterrestrial and Superhuman Affairs, or DETSHA.  Cloak didn't like the initials -- they sounded too much like a rather vulgar swearword for his liking, but why would any politician listen to him?  If Walker government was anything to go by, politicians only really care about keeping their seat more than the vitality of the country or planet that they're suppose to serve and represent.

The head of the department was a very arrogant, condescending man by the name of Mordecai Dobbs.  The RAFians were very much aware of his appointment to the department, but Cloak, though he had no proof or evidence, suspected him to be a closeted Knight of Humanity.  A rather odd choice, on the surface, to be the head of such a department.  But, looking deeper, it's rather sinister . . . he could cause the government to make more out of some minor event than necessary.  However, his actions remained rather neutral, but Cloak didn't trust the guy.

Suddenly, there was a buzz from the gate.  Cloak had been so wrapped up in his thoughts and suspicions, that it took him a few minutes to realize.  But Phoenix was already at the gate.  There was a prim, well-dressed young man who couldn't be older than 25 and couldn't be younger than 20.

He recognized this individual from the television broadcasts.  He was Morris "Moe" Daragon, Dobbs' protege.  He handed Phoenix a letter and said, "You've been served."  Then left without another word, but Cloak saw that he winced when he saw Cloak -- as if seeing something quite bright and luminous.  So it was true, then.  Daragon possessed the power of true sight -- he could quite literally see through deception involving illusions or body-swapping or possession, etc, etc.  And he was Dobbs's right-hand man.  Did this mean he was also a Knight?  The man was a man of few words, so that was harder to deliberate on.

"Oh no," Phoenix said quiet audibly.

"What is it?" Cloak inquired.

"Something terrible," Phoenix said, "we're facing an inquiry."

"What?!"

"Turns out the Department of National Security and the DETSHA think that we may be a terrorist training facility!!" Phoenix said, unable to keep outrage from his voice.

"We must call a meeting, then," Cloak said, forcing his own outrage away, knowing what could happen if he lost control of his emotions.

***

The other RAFians didn't take it much better than Cloak and Phoenix had.

"But we've decided that they couldn't have been the perpetators, right?" Underseen said.

"Yes, but problem is," Richard said, rubbing his forehead as if to massage a stress headache away, "we haven't any proof they're innocent."

"We can verify we weren't anywhere in the victinity when the crimes happened!" Gaz protested.

"Circumstantial evidence," Kelly said, looking deeply woebegone.  "It won't do much.  Especially not if people have already made up their mind about guilt."

"I hazard a guess and say they already have." Cloak said, sighing heavily.

"Kelly," SuperNate said, gently, "we'll need you to --"

"I understand." Kelly said, getting up.  "It won't be easy, though.  But I'll . . . I'll do my best."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 01, 2012, 05:03:51 PM

Of course Richard commits no crime

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2012, 05:55:51 PM

There's a reason behind that, actually.  As Richard suffered no mosquito bite . . .

EDIT: Updated the list with a new book idea -- Book XCVI (96): RAFian Gladiators.

EDIT: I was going to post another chapter, then the site became "temporarily unavailable" and I lost everything.  It was nearly done, too.  So I'm taking a little hiatus from this.  I might retype the entire chapter again and post it later or tomorrow.  Just a heads-up.  And this also gives everyone an opportunity to catch up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 02, 2012, 08:19:47 PM

I think you should be a published writer one day.[spoiler]A friend of mine said this site isn't a scam hhttp://www.chooseyourpublisher.com/ But don't get mad if it is.[/spoiler] It is a bad idea to try, but it is worth the shot.

It is because you are a good writer, but I think you write for fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2012, 08:22:17 AM

True, I do write for fun.  I also write to help me keep my sanity.  And I do have an idea for a non-RAFian book (using something I've actually featured in the books here -- the Fractured Realms -- albeit that would like book thirty of the book series plans I made from high school).  But I haven't a word processor or printer.

Believe me, Underseen, I would love that.  I wouldn't expect J. K. Rowling's level of success or even R. L. Stine's level of success (I've read that he's written 100 books or so).

And the hiatus is over.  I'll post two chapters to make up for yesterday's lack of one.  Unless the same thing happens as yesterday, in which case, it'll continue.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Out of the Frying Pan

The RAFians were still reeling from the PR problems.  Kelly was working hard to prove legally that there was no case.  That shadowed silhouettes isn't hard proof . . . but it was circumstantial.

The denizens of the city were either sure that the RAFians were guilty (many of those on this side were Knights, but not all), some thought the claims were preposterous, and still there some that were unsure.  Sure, the victims and their families latched on to this, hoping the RAFians were guilty just so they could get some closure.  But some of these people really didn't have to be such asses about it.

There were protesters that were protesting the existence of RAF, much like those idiot followers of the Westboro Baptist Church.  There signs and posters were no less offensive.  Some of these people were Knights, but a lot of them weren't.  They were just looking for someone or something to hate.  Fortunately, they were not the majority, and a lot of the people living within the city chewed them out for being just icons for hate.  They wanted the RAFians to be guilty, hate was all they knew.  They wanted to condemn RAF with the meagerest, merest proof.

But the RAFians could not pretend that they didn't notice this.  They didn't know how to salvage their PR with the city, a city moreover that they've been responsible for protecting for the last few years.  The citizens didn't seem to care about this (although a great number would point this out to the detractors, who feigned deafness).

Then things got more complicated.

There were reports of several burglaries and robberies -- including nuns, banks and Boy Scouts.  Naturally, all surveillance showed were dark silhouettes that could, in theory, be RAFians.  But it wasn't proof enough to warrant an arrest, although there were several gung-ho people who wanted to take the law into their own hands, so the RAFians sequestered themselves in RAF.  Of course, that didn't stop the drunks who thought themselves snipers from trying to take potshots at the RAFians, only to realize the mystical-scientific barrier prevented them from doing as such.

"Why are we letting them do and think whatever they want form us?" Parker paced agitatedly.  Helen tried to comfort him, but he pulled himself away.  "We're being treated as if we're slime for crimes we didn't even commit!!"

"And there's not much we CAN do," Richard points out, "until we can have irrefutable proof of innocence."

"So, that's the plan?  Just sit here on our butts?" Gaz said, also quite agitated.

Cloak stood off to the side, arms folded, and silent.  He was reeling.  He hadn't seen so much hatred at one time.  He didn't know humans were capable of such emotion, such lust for vengence.

But . . . are we Realm Walkers any different? a small voice in the back of his mind said truthfully.

Cloak could not blame the families of the murder victims from wanting justice of the capture of their murderers, but it wasn't a RAFian.  On none of the silhouettes was the Mark visible.  The Mark tends to always show up when you least expect it.  Kelly had already put that into her case. . . .

There had to be something they could do about this, but Cloak didn't know what or how.  But he knew this . . . something was about to give.

***

Back at Gemini's secret lab, there was a veritable armada of silhouetted figures around Gemini, unloading their burdens.

"Excellent!  Excellent, my children!" he was speaking in a voice full of rapture.  "You've done well!  Exceedingly well!"

"Thank you, Father," they spoke in unison.

The light changed ever so slightly in the dully-illuminated place, so the thirteen silhouetted figures' faces could be seen.  They looked virtually identical (except for being dark palette swaps) of Parker (in a Metroid/SPARTAN-fused suit), Noelle, Underseen, Demos, Ash, Gaz, Horse, Bear, Faerie, Blue, Blocky, Aquilai, and a compacted Dino.  But they bore no Mark.  These weren't the real McCoys.

"Parker2, your suit is holding up well, yes?"

"Yes, Father," he said.

"Very well, then, my children!  Off to bed, off to bed, with you!" Gemini said with seemingly-geniune paternal air.  The thirteen tromped off obediently, and without a word.  Never questioning the motives or drives of their "father".

"You use them to pilfer for you?" said the voice of the haughty woman.

"Yes, mistress," Gemini said deferentially.

"You really don't realize their full potential, do you?"

"Mistress?"

But she was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2012, 10:16:42 AM

Now, as promised, second chapter of the day.  Unless what happened yesterday happens again today.  Probably gonna be a short one.

CHAPTER SIX:
Damage Control

"I must convene with the other mods." Richard said, getting up with a weary sigh.  "We must see just how much damage control we can do."

Richard took a deep breath and looked over in the direction of the city through haggard eyes, then he let out his breath in a long, beleaguered sigh.

"If there's any damage control that we can do," he added, with an exhausted tone.  He knew that it was a steep hill that they had to climb, and he also knew that the city may not ever trust a RAFian again.

The mods gathered in the D-Lounge, while the other RAFians milled around weary, fretful or both.  It was certainly a rather dark day for RAF.  Cloak did not even want to consider the notion of the forum, the home he loved so very much being shut down, or his friends -- his INNOCENT friends being arrested for crimes they did not commit.  Especially since the city's government seemed rather eager to convict, regardless of the flimsiness of their evidence.

Perhaps they should take some proactive steps in preventing this.  Cloak rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as he regarded this idea.  He realized quickly though that such an action could prove to be more detrimental than helpful.  But there was a sense of restless energy present within the forum, and something was bound to happen, and it may not be for the better.

Parker, Ash, and Gaz were nearby.  Cloak could see clear signs of anxiety and apprehension upon the trio.  If things really hit the fan, they might be condemned to prison.  Even death.  Cloak wished that he could help . . . wait.  He gave Aquilai some tech to tinker with -- to maybe enhance his TARDIS's defense mechanisms.

***

"Aquilai, is it done?"

"Yeah," he said, wiping some sweat from his forehead onto his sleeve.  His metalbending had made his tinkering somewhat easier for him.  "But I don't know why you wanted me to have this cute little bird robot scan a camera."

"It's Cybertronian, Aquilai," Cloak explained.  "It can transform into a camera."

Cloak held out his palm for the little robot to hop into.

"Can Laserbeak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazorbeak) fly in camera mode?"

"Yeah." Aquilai said, then looking at Cloak, said, "'Laserbeak'?"

"What can I say?" Cloak chuckled.  "I have weakness for classic names."

"Cloak," Aquilai said, putting his hand on the former's shoulder, "are you sure about this?"

"You have more to lose than I do, Aquilai." Cloak said earnestly, and grasped his friend's hand as Aquilai wished him luck.

***

"We should just go and find those fakes masquerading as us, and get our names cleared." Parker was saying.  He was standing, too worked up to sit.  Gaz and Ash were also standing.

"About that," Cloak said, coming up behind him.

Parker looked around at Cloak and said, "Do you get a thrill on coming up from behind people?"

"No," Cloak said, dismissively.  "I heard what you said."

"That was . . . was just bluster."

"You and I both know what it was, Parker," Cloak said.  "And I think I've a way to help you."

Laserbeak perched on Cloak's shoulder, making him look somewhat less intimidating.  Then Laserbeak fluttered over to Gaz and landed on her shoulder.  Gaz looked at the little bird of Cybertronian tech, and smiled slightly.

"This is Laserbeak." Cloak said.  Then to the robotic bird, he said, "Show them what you can do, Laserbeak."

He left Gaz's shoulder and then transformed into a flying camera.  But then transformed back into bird mode, and landed back on Gaz's shoulder, nuzzling her ear, causing her to giggle a little as it tickled.

"What are you saying, Cloak?" Parker said, although he was getting the gist of Cloak's intention.

"We capture your duplicates on camera," Cloak said.  "As well as yourselves.  And people will see that their are two of you."

"And that will invalidate their claims against us?" Ash asked.

"In theory," Cloak said ominously, "yes."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 03, 2012, 06:35:49 PM

Great. Updates! Aw! My new little friend. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2012, 07:37:41 AM

Yeah -- unfortunately he gets killed in the next chapter.

. . .

Psych! ;) Seriously, I wouldn't do that to you -- unless it was an out-of-continuity book. ;) Something a little too like Hedwig 'bout that though, if you catch my meaning.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Double Take

"Why do we have to wear these things, Cloak?" Parker asked gruffily.

"You're wanted, Parker," Cloak said, keeping his voice low.  "We're supposed to be keeping a low profile."

Gaz and Parker were wearing ID masks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_10:_Alien_Force#DNAliens), which projected imagines that were nothing like their true appearance.  Parker's was a big and burly bear of a man so he could remain in his armor beneath, but he had to remove his helmet to fit the mask onto his face.  Gaz's appearance was that of a twitchy, mousy woman with rather wiry black hair.  Ash, who hadn't a need of an ID mask, assumed the form of a young female child, and people on the street just assumed that Parker and Gaz were the girl's parents or guardians.

"Besides, you don't hear me complaining." Cloak added.

Cloak did not need to wear one, but he decided it would be better if he did, as a lot of the city citizens were rather hostile towards RAFians and he was quite known to be one.  The one he wore projected the image of a rather pudgy, black-haired, twenty-something man with dark brown eyes and glasses.

"And why'd you pick that image projection anyway?" Parker asked.

"What are you implying?" Cloak said quickly.

"Whoa, nothing, dude." Parker said, holding his hands up in mock defense.

"Where do we begin to look for the doppelgangers?" Ash asked, mimicking a little girl's voice perfectly.

"God, that's so unnerving, Ash," Parker commented on Ash's vocal mimicry skills.

"Dunno," Gaz said in response to Ash's query, "but the only alternative was to sit around and wait for them to befoul our names some more.  I'm glad to be doing something more proactive."

A few moments passed, when Gaz voiced a concern of hers.

"Laserbeak will be find flying around alone up there, right, Cloak?"

"Of course," Cloak said, "he isn't called Laserbeak for just nostalgia.  He has weapons with which to defend himself.  But he mustn't interfere just yet.  He needs to get the footage.  He isn't stupid, he knows this."

Gaz thought Cloak was trying to convince himself more than her.

As it turned out, they didn't have to wait long.  They could see three figures in the distance and gloom.

"It's them," Cloak said.

"How can you tell?" Ash asked.

"I'm a tiger," Cloak replied stiffly.  "I can see in the dark.  And, in any case, Earthsight confirms it."

"And what do we do, pray tell?" Gaz asked.

"I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do," Parker said, dashing forward, pulling off his ID mask, and putting on his helmet.  Gaz followed suit as Ash resumed her base form.  Cloak managed to catch the two ID masks and stow them into his cloak.

"HEY!  THOSE MASKS WEREN'T CHEAP, YOU KNOW!!" Cloak called, removing his own mask and stowing in his Cloak with the others.  The three RAFians (easily told apart because of their glowing marks) stood across from their doubles.

"Stop it, Knock-Off." Parker said.  His double just laughed arrogantly.  Then Parker said, in an aside, "I don't really sound like that, do I?"

"What are you Hasbeens gonna do to stop us?" Ash2 said, haughtily.  Ash really didn't like that snotty tone Ash2 used in her voice.

"Don't challenge us," Gaz said firmly.  "It won't end well for you."

"My, aren't we full of ourselves?" Gaz2 said with a tone like poisoned honey.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on October 04, 2012, 08:13:49 AM

lol "Yeah, Gaz...I am going to crush all of your hopes and dreams...Just kidding, girl I love you too much"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2012, 08:18:25 AM

;)

Anyway, the new chapter is in the previous post.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 04, 2012, 09:04:22 AM

It was like you were saying "I will pee on everything you love"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2012, 08:35:56 AM

Anyway . . . might be a short chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Fighting Yourself

The three began to fight each other.  Cloak notices immediately that the clones had no qualms about being as vicious as they could.  Laserbeak hovered over them, keeping the camera trained on the three.  He looked very agitated.

"Calm youself, bird-bot," Cloak said, affectionately, "you can't do anything for her now, other than taking the pictures.  Don't sweat -- Gaz knows what she's doing. . . ." Cloak caught sight of her fighting, "I think."*

Gaz had aimed a right hook at her doppelganger's face but Gaz2 went mist-mode and Gaz missed.  Then Gaz2 tried the same move but Gaz used the same defensive tactic.  Then both went batty and took to the air, demonstrating aerial mastery over offensive and defensive maneuverability.  The high-pitched bat squeaking was a bit annoying, Cloak found.  Then they tumbled to the ground viciously biting and slashing each other with their teeth and claws, before resuming human form and going at it again.  Bracing each others arms hissing like snakes, although only Gaz2's face contorted horribly and evilly.

Ash and Ash2 were basically fighting like Ben Tennyson and Albedo -- with a flurry of form changes to trump the others.  First, Ash2 became an alligator of prodigious size, while Ash became a rabbit to dodge, but Ash2 managed to snap some of Ash's lapin tail off.  Ash sped circles around Ash2, before Ash2 then assumed the form of a red fox, and pursued the original.  Ash manages to deceive Ash2 by hiding in a piece of discarded wood, and changing into a caterpillar.  But Ash2 eventually notices this and takes the form of a hen who manages to throw Ash into the air, with her open maw waiting down below.  Ash, seeing this, takes the form of a large walrus, squishing her.  But Ash2 isn't done, as she takes the form of an Asian elephant, and seizes Ash by the neck.  But then Ash takes the form of a white mouse, which causes Ash2 to shriek (which Cloak shakes his head -- he refused to believe elephants were musophobic**) and drops Ash.  Ash pursues Ash2, still in her rodent form, until a roar is heard, and it is discovered that Ash2 turned into a tiger (which Cloak tried not to feel too offended by) and chased Ash into a hole in the wall.  Ash exited another one and prepared to nibble on Ash2's tail (which Cloak had to admit was rather stupidly brave), except that Ash2 had turned into a rattle snake.  Ash2 struck but Ash had dived back into the hole and Ash2 bit herself, which left her thoroughly aggrieved.  Then she followed Ash into the hole, only for Ash to be waiting on the other side, in a crab form.  Ash prepared to snap her pincers shut over Ash2's neck.  She had nearly succeeded once, but the Ash2 smashes up from the hole in white rhinoceros form (that's the one with only a single horn and a flat lip . . . and they're also gray).  Cloak was quick to use his mastery over Earth and Metal to fix everything up as best as he could.  Then she charges toward a guardrail, but Ash lets go of Ash2's horn and jumps from Ash2 who cannot stop her charge, and she get stuck in the guardrail (which Laserbeak films).  Then Ash backed up, changing into a billy goat with each step.  Then she charged forward and knocked Ash2 into the ravine.  Cloak fixed the guardrail using his mastery of Metal, while Ash was assuming her base form, thinking she had slain her doppelganger, who rose up from the ravine in a dragon form.***

Parker was well aware of the destruction his long-range and mid-range weaponry could wreck on the city, and he wasn't really ready to risk it, especially because he was all too aware that his clone, in what Parker considered to be inferior armor, would have no compunction to do the same.  And he knew it would be his reputation, and not Parker2's to take a hit.  He took out his energy sword, and Parker2 ignited what appeared to be a pink lightsaber.  Parker thought at first, Great, Lucas is gonna sue us, then a second later, wha-- wait a minute, PINK?!, while they began to engage in battle like skilled fencers, but unfortunately, Parker2 wasn't above cheating.  He would transform into a ball -- probably due to the Metroid tech -- and roll around to behind Parker.  Eventually, Parker became accustomed enough with this tactic that he was able to predict it.

Then there was a high-pitched whistle that only Cloak and Laserbeak seemed to notice or even hear.  Then the three clones retreated and were gone before the real RAFians could assess what was going on.

"What was that?" Parker said.  "No one won!"

"Never mind that now," Cloak said cautiously.  "Put the ID masks back on.  We gotta tell the other RAFians this."

---
*;)

** One of only two contentions I have with the Mythbusters . . . which is apparently in the Spell Check's dictionary. . . .

*** Okay, guess what that was a near-direct rip from?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 05, 2012, 07:29:19 PM

That was Sword and The Stone, or in the stone.... Been some time since I watched that movie. This reminds of the episode of Teen Titans where Raven's dad made clones of the Titans to fight them and then they beat them by fighting the others clones.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2012, 10:10:21 PM

Quote from: Underseen on October 05, 2012, 07:29:19 PM

That was Sword and The Stone, or in the stone.... Been some time since I watched that movie.

Yep.  The duel between Mad Madam Mim and Merlin.  Of course, that's just what I could remember off the top of my head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 05, 2012, 10:20:23 PM

It was a good disney movie...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2012, 09:52:44 AM

Right, new page.  Now something's gonna be a little different about this list. . . . And, remember, any of it might change when we get to these books.  And, don't read if you don't want small spoiler nuggets to be revealed.

• Book XX: The Darwin Gun

The RAFians must contend with a ray that causes its target to devolve or hyper evolve into "ultimate" forms.  Twenty chapters.

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knock-offs of his armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the papparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with a Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's stupid jailor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twentychapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Three chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors

The RAFians are sealed into cards, and it's up to Jack and Shadow to free them.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an ocidationr ay wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Zat) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

Well, I hope I haven't given too much away.  Anyway, turns out that I'll be rather busy today -- but I might manage to get another chapter up.  If not, I'll post two tomorrow.  If not then, then three chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 06, 2012, 12:06:50 PM

It's cool. I might be gone for a week or two so I won't really mind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2012, 02:06:58 PM

Well, I've found some time.

CHAPTER NINE:
I Think I've A Clone Now*

"Are you crazy?" Phoenix blurted, when the four had described the events of earlier.  He had his arms folded in disbelief.

"Yeah, we're crazy, Phoenix.  Real loonies, 'kay?" Parker said, feeling rather nettled.

"But why?" SuperNate interceded.  "You could have died.  You could have been seen."

"That's the point, Nate," Cloak said.  "We wanted to be seen.  What people would have saw would be two Gazes, two Parkers, and two Ashes."

"And what would that prove, exactly?" Goom asked.  "People have already made up their minds about RAF's culpability.  We're already guilty in the court of public opinion."

"Little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Gaz muttered, and Goom made no reaction as if he heard.

"It's true," Cloak conceded, "but not all have casted their votes as guility -- some have not cast a vote at all."

"Besides," Gaz said, speaking up, "Laserbeak caught sufficient footage of it.  Didn't you, Beaky?"

The little Cybertronian bird chirped and appeared to throw his tiny little chest proudly.  He remained firmly perched upon Gaz's shoulder, as if to be sure that she wouldn't leave him.

"Cute bird," Goom said, flatly.  Then, in normal tones, he continued, "So, what was it this time?  Skrulls again?"

"I do not think so, to be perfectly honest, Goom," Cloak said.  "The Skrulls in their incursion did not really know how to act like us.  Not to mention, completely lacked our powers."

"They have your powers?" Richard spoke, for the first time since the meeting began.  "They mimicked them perfectly?"

"Yes," Ash said, "and they knew our tactics as well.  What moves and techniques we'd be more inclined to use.  And they used it against us."

<But why clone us?> Noelle said, sure that she had a clone as well.  <Why ruin our reputation?  Why ruin our relationship with the city?>

"Because," said a new voice, "Gemini is upset with Faerie, Cloak and I putting him in prison for cloning me several times."

"Of course . . ." Cloak said, facepalming.  "Why didn't I see it before . . ."

"And he probably went completely bonkers while in the big house," Faerie put in, "not that he was all that stable to begin with."

"But how did he escape?" Kelly asked, who attended while still trying to prepare a defense of the forum.  "There is no release record of him and it hasn't been released in any media that he was let out on parole or anything."

Cloak hesitated a bit before saying, "I have a shrewd notion who did."

"You mean -- ?" Underseen began.

"Who else?" Cloak said, with a casual shrug of his shoulders.

Suddenly, a screen behind the mods glowed to life with static on it . . . the screen that was used to communicate with the RAFians en masse. . . .

---
*Anyone get the reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 06, 2012, 02:19:21 PM

That Weird Al song. I expected it from you...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2012, 08:43:53 AM

Yep.

CHAPTER TEN:
Dr. Damien Nathaniel Aloysius Gemini

On the screen appeared . . .

"Dr. Gemini," Faerie said, drily, "as butt ugly as ever."

She was right -- he wasn't the most, uh, pleasant face to look at.  His skin was marred with scars and slight burns.  His graying brownish-red hair was a mess.  He work a plain t-shirt, slacks and a dirty lab coat.  He also decided the occasion called for a monocle.

"Dear RAFians," he said in a voice rather like Eric Idle, "I present to you an opportunity.  To join me."

"He can't be serious," Parker said, tonelessly.  Then after a few minutes, replied again, "Shut up, Tyr."

Suddenly, music began to play from the screen.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Aquilai said with disbelief.

"It's gonna be a song, isn't it?" Underseen commented benignly.

"I was far too smart
From the very start.
I never was too dim.
I began to grow,
Little did they know,
I had my own plans for them.
They thought I was tame --
HA!
Just my little game.
Until this all became MINE!
They all do as I say.
No one stands in my way!
Everybody here is happy
Or I'll have them slightly altered!"

Gemini demonstrates this by lobotomizing an Az clone.

"I can do as I please,
I can change things with ease.
Horn or hair or fin or feather,
I control the wind and weather!"

"Well, this proves his state of mind," Cloak said quite audibly to everyone except, apparently, Gemini.

"We can rule the world together,
If you come with me.
You'll be happy,
Oh, so happy,
When you come with me.
You'll be kings of everything,
Of all that you can see.
Ah hahaha.
Just say yes, heroes --"

This was greeted with a resounding, "No!"

"Just think what we few can do,
All of us, me and you.
Buck yourself up,
Don't look so sad!
We'll have more
Than dear old normals had!
Butterflies and pretty flowers,
Sunny skys and superpowers!
Silver streams and fluffy kitties,
laser beams and rubble cities!
Take your chance!
While you can.
Join in my master plan!
You wont tell me I'm too blabby,
When I'm ruler of Forum Valley!"

"I knew there was an ulterior motive," Cloak said, more to himself than anyone else.  "Malice would allow him to fulfill any insane ambitions . . . as long as it was entertaining."

Meanwhile, Gemini was continuing:

"All of it will be mine.
Every day will be fine.
All the trains will run on time,
And they'll be no more wars and crime
And I'll reduce your brain to slime!
Unless you just say yes!
You'll be happy,
Oh, so happy,
If you just say yes!"

Then he caressed the Az clone's face looking very much like a pedophile.

"Oh, poor fellow,
Mind like jello!
Such a nasty mess!"

Then he turned his attention back to the RAFians.

"Come on in,
To the greatest kind of life,
To the best,
And the latest kind of life!
You'll be happy,
Nice and happy,
Perfect happiness beyond measure!
Purest pleasure,
If you just say yes!"

Again, with a resounding "NO!", but Gemini continued:

"It's our chance to rule
To let it slip away
Don't be upset
It won't hurt much.
You wont regret it.
If you just say yes . . .
Just say yes!"

The RAFians replied to the deafening silence that followed with another resounding "No!", but Gemini countered with, "EHHH! Wrong answer."  Then he terminated communications.

"Well," Gaz said airily, "that was pointless."

"Not so much, actually," Goom said.  "Yarin?  Aquilai?  Guy?  Did you get it?"

"Yep," Guy said succinctly.

"You'd think for a guy who claims to be a genius," Aquilai noted, "he'd keep his coordinates more secret."

"Unless he wants to lead us into a trap," Cloak pointed out.

<It could very well be a trap,> Noelle agreed.

"But, exactly, what choice do we have?" Dino put in.  "If we don't do anything, those clones are gonna continue to ruin our reputations and worsten our relations with the city."

"Looks like a Hobson's choice, then," Richard said, rubbing his chin wearily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 07, 2012, 12:10:55 PM

I like things with poems/songs in the middle because I switch from reading it poetically to reading it normally. 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2012, 12:39:13 PM

Quote from: Underseen on October 07, 2012, 12:10:55 PM

I like things with poems/songs in the middle because I switch from reading it poetically to reading it normally.

Then you'll probably like Books XXV (25), XXX (30), and LXXIX (79).  There'll be a lot of that in them.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Trap Made for You

"The coordinates lead to . . ." Yarin began.

"Don't leave us in suspense, Nyac," Sakki said, "spit it out!"

Yarin looked up and gazed in Sakki's general direction, "the old abandoned amusement park."

"That place again?" Demos said, no humor, ironic or otherwise, in his tone.

"Must be a chronal nexus of malignant energies converging there," Aquilai suggested, "or it's one heck of a coincidence."

"It's a trap," Blocky said.  "It's guaranteed now.  That's too much of a coincidence."

"What choice do we have but to go there, though?" Gaz said heavily.  Laserbeak tried nibbling her ear affectionately in an effort to try and perk her up.  Didn't work.  "Nice try though, Beaky."

Laserbeak chirped sadly at this.

"We must go and take the fight to these impostors," Parker said.  "We cannot let them ruin both our reputation and that of RAF any longer.  We must find a way to stop them."

"They have all your powers -- and apparently your skills as well -- so I must advise extreme caution." Goom said.  "But I won't stand in your way.  This is a violation of one the deepest ways, and those that were cloned must do what they must."

There was a brief murmur of agreement.

"Excellent," Parker said, fists clenched at the thought of his impostor.  Then apparently Tyr noted Parker's anxiety or something because Parker then muttered, rather audibly to Cloak, "Shut up, Tyr."

Gaz, Parker, Underseen, Horse, Bear, Ash, Faerie, Demos, Blue, Blocky, Aquilai, Noelle, and Dino (hesitantly, due to being the thirteenth, but mustering a brave face) got up and began to proceed toward the coordinates.

"Wait," came Cloak's voice.  "I'm coming with you."

Dino relaxed a bit.  Fourteen was better than thirteen in her opinion.

"Why?" Underseen asked.

"I have my reasons," Cloak said repressively.

"Which are . . ." Faerie said, motioning with her hand in a hurry-up gesture.

"Mine," Cloak replied simply.  "And mine alone."

Horse eyed Cloak, then said sagely, "It's because you suspect Malice's hand in this mess, isn't it?"

Cloak said nothing, which said everything. He turned to Gaz and said, "I'll need Laserbeak to feed live footage to the city's media outlets."

"Cloak -- what are you planning?" Gaz said, as Laserbeak hopped to Cloak shoulder as Cloak activated his wireless device to beam the footage to the router that Cloak had with an omni-interface.

"Don't want to jinx it," Cloak said, stiffly.

The fourteen left and made for the abandoned amusement park.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 08, 2012, 04:48:55 PM

A lot of things will happen in these next 9 chapters

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 08, 2012, 06:31:33 PM

This is exciting!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2012, 08:35:04 AM

Right, a new chapter.  Possibly later -- and it'll be a chapter every other day or so when my White2 game arrives.  But I'll let you know -- but it'll give people a chance to catch-up, I suppose.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

The group entered a rather elaborate funhouse that looked far larger on the inside then it did on the outside -- appeared to have no ceiling.  The fourteen had split up into three groups, with Cloak going off alone while Laserbeak was to locate each of the RAFians when they confronted their clones.  Gaz, Parker, and Underseen entered into a hall of mirrors.  They glanced around and saw many reflections of themselves.

"Perhaps coming into a hall of mirrors while looking for clones of ourselves wasn't the brightest move," Underseen commented, hiding his true feelings of anxiousness and apprehension.

"Let's not jump to conclusions." Parker said steadily.  "This isn't the time to panic."

"When is the right time to panic?" Gaz asked rhetorically.

Parker answered her anyway, "Never."

Then they heard an energy discharge, and Parker managed to parry it with his energy sword.

"Where'd that come from?" Underseen asked.  "You can't tell anything with these stupid mirrors!"

Gaz was suddenly suspicious, "You'd think some of these mirrors would have been broken over time.  This place is abandoned after all."

Then, with a kamikaze yell, Underseen2 dived for the original, who dodged it.  Underseen battled his clone fiercely, but it was a deadlocked match.  They both knew all their techniques, moves and powers.  It was, in the most literal sense, like Underseen was fighting himself.  But the other two RAFians weren't standing around twiddling their thumbs.  Both their clones had attacked them shortly after Underseen2 did.

Laserbeak hovered above them all, filming it all.  He still wanted to help Gaz but he knew his mission, and he was intelligent enough to know that it would help her out more in the long run to do what he was doing.  But that didn't mean he had to like it.

The three RAFians pulled away from the battle, out of breath but not injured -- they knew their tactics well enough that no punch, kick or blow landed.  But their clones had them surrounded.

"This is impossible!" Underseen gasped.  "They know us too well!  They have all our powers and abilities!"

". . . No," Gaz said, after an idea snapped into place.  "They don't have all our powers."

"What are you talking about, Gaz?  Yeah, they do!" Parker said.

"No, they don't!" Gaz said, talking excitedly.  "They don't possess the Mark!"

"Huh?  What --" Underseen said at first, looking confused.  Then his eyes widened as he understood.  Parker's face remained inscrutable because of that helmet of his.

"It's worth a try, guys," Parker said.

They faced their clones, their back to one another.  Then they shut their eyes momentarily.

"Look, they've accepted defeat!" Underseen2 said eagerly.

Please tell me that I'm not that stupid,* the real Underseen said.

They felt the unity between the three of them and their Marks glowed brightly and brilliantly.

"What's going on?" Underseen2 hissed.

"It's a trick!" Parker2 declared.

"Their hands are glowing, how is that a trick?" Gaz2 said, though she sounded unsure.

"Unity Pulse!" the RAFian trio said in unison, firing the Unity Pulse at their clones.  After a few seconds, the clones were reduced to rather disgusting looking glop.

"Ugh," Gaz said, as the smell was horrid.

"Clean up, Aisle Three!" Parker said, smirking beneath his helmet.  He wasn't perturbed at the smell -- an indescribable stench.

Underseen pulled a face, "Let's get away from this spot.  Please."

They did, trying to open communications with the others.  But they got too much static interference.

"Gemini must have jammed communications," Parker speculated.

Gaz looked up and waved at Laserbeak to descend.  And, in spite of himself, Laserbeak acquiesced.  "Beaky, you saw how we destroyed those knockoffs right?"

Laserbeak chirruped affirmatively.

"Then I need you to go find the others," Gaz said.  "Tell them.  Then find Cloak."

Laserbeak would have giving her a salute if he could, and then he was on his way.

---
* There is some degeneration in the clone's brains, so they would be undoubtedly loyal to Gemini and won't ever conceive of revolt.  So, yeah, they're dumber than the originals, in some ways.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on October 09, 2012, 06:39:05 PM

<_> That glob sounds like my mother.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 09, 2012, 07:19:21 PM

Wow Sakki. That comment was interesting, also so was the chapter. I am guessing that this is going to be all action from here out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2012, 07:50:04 PM

Well, I confess that it might peter out when it gets to me . . . but maybe not.  But, all signs point to yes, Underseen.

And, Sakki, I'm afraid I don't understand . . .

And I'll confess right now, this entire book is loosely based on the "Double Jeopardy" episode of "Gargoyles", and a bit of "The Reckoning" episode of the series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 09, 2012, 08:15:55 PM

I never got into that series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2012, 08:56:43 AM

Well, Underseen, if you like my writing -- you might like some of their episodes . . . but apparently you can only watch it on Disney XD . . . at four AM.

Anyway, I'll try to post another chapter soon.  If I don't, I'll double up tomorrow (of course, this will be completely tossed out the window whenever my White 2 game comes.

Oh, new page --

• Book XX: The Darwin Gun

The RAFians must contend with a ray that causes its target to devolve or hyper evolve into "ultimate" forms.  Twenty chapters.

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who recieved it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knock-offs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the papparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty planned out.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Sixteen chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors

The RAFians are sealed into cards, and it's up to Jack and Shadow to free them.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an ocidationr ay wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Zat) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 10, 2012, 10:48:44 AM

Gargoyles was an awesome show. Maybe that can be my next series recap after Beast Wars? I might do a few selected episodes of Batman the Animated Series.

Good chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2012, 02:08:37 PM

Too right, Gaz, and, guys, this fic is gonna be on hiatus.  Nothing serious, I . . . I just got my White 2 game . . . and, well . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 11, 2012, 08:39:45 PM

Mark of Athena came in so I will not use the internet for a while too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2012, 12:21:47 AM

Quote from: Underseen on October 11, 2012, 08:39:45 PM

Mark of Athena came in so I will not use the internet for a while too.

I'm actually almost done with that book (pre-ordered it on my Kindle).

EDIT: This small hiatus will probably be over on Monday.  Don't hold me to that though.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Tumble, Tumble, Toil and Trouble

"What is this place?" Horse asked, as Bear grunted in disapproval at the place.

"No idea," Ash said.

"Nice colors, though," Faerie critiqued, "if faded a bit."

"Kind of a trippy place," Demos said, brushing some cobwebs off his silk suit.

"Still," Horse insisted, "what is the point of it?  This is supposed to be a fun house, after all."

"Well, now it will be a dead house," said a voice with one the lamest puns of all time.  The voice's owner was Bear2, which was odd because the original seemed incapable of speech . . .

". . . Well, have at you then!" Demos cried.

"You are so corny," Demos2 replied.

The battle was joined, stopping briefly when the floor began to rotate laterally.  This caused the five RAFians to stumble and fall.  Faerie and Faerie2 managed to escape this by flying and then they continued their battle, with Faerie2 using a flail against Faerie's double-headed battle axe.  Eventually the floor's movement subsided.  The two Faeries landed daintly while their comrades were in entangled in a heap on the floor, groaning.

Then suddenly the room started rotating in a vertical way so that everyone was tumbling around like clothes in a dryer.  It was very chaotic, so much so that they could not tell up from down until the thing stopped.

"Well . . . I always wanted to know what was like to ride in a dryer," Demos commented dryly.

"Oh, shut up," Demos2 said crankily.  "You're not funny, you know."

Then the battle was joined again. . . . Until the floor started up again.  When it stopped the five RAFians continued their fight with their clones, until the room started rotating vertically again.  The room did this again and again, with only ten minutes between each cycle.

"How the bloody hell does anyone consider this fun?!" Horse screamed.

During mid-vertical cycle, the mechanisms for doing this just stopped.  Unfortunately, every one was on the ceiling.  Cries of pain were heard after gravity did its thing and pulled them all back down to earth.  Each side withdrew to either side of the room, glaring at each other.  A chirp was heard, and Laserbeak flew in, having disabled the mechanism.  He then landed on Demos's left horn.

"Laserbeak?" Ash asked.  "Does this mean the others are in trouble?"

"Doesn't really matter," Faerie interjected, "we have troubles of our own.  Five of them."

Laserbeak chirped insistently, and projected a holographic image of Gaz, Paker, and Underseen using the Unity Pulse to destroy their dastardly doppelgangers.  Ash, Bear, Horse, Faerie, and Demos watched it with rapt attention.

"Of course," Horse said.

"We really should have tried that first," Demos suggested.

"Enough talking, more hitting," Faerie said.

They all aimed their Marks at their clones, who also saw the images and were scrambling over each other to try and escape, but resulted in just tangling themselves up more.  The five fired the Pulse and the clones melted into piles of runny, stinky gloop.

"Neat!" Demos said.

"Gross," Faerie amended.

"Now where to?" Horse asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 15, 2012, 07:29:44 AM

Yay, it's back!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2012, 11:41:48 AM

Yep -- and don't forget to check on the list in at the top post of the page.  I try to keep it as updated as possible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 15, 2012, 11:27:03 PM

You know who hasn't been accruing recently... Blazing Angel. He was a main character 3 books ago

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2012, 08:29:48 AM

Yeah . . . I tend to make posters here main characters of the books, so, he's been dropping off. . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Maze Thing

"And we get lost in a maze," Blue grumbled.  He had already lost sight of Block, Aquilai, Noelle, and Dino.  He shook his head angrily.  How could he lose track of them all?  Especially Dino?  Granted she was in her compacted form, but still!  And Blue never liked mazes.

"Lost?" came a cheekily arrogant voice.

Blue turned round, and it was Blue2.

"Oh, hello, copycat." Blue sneered.

"I may be a clone, but I'm still vastly superior to you," Blue2 sneered right back.

Am I so conceited?  Or is this just basically a Bizarro-Blue? Blue wondered idly, as he used his ninjabo to deflect several of Blue2's shurrikens.  Then Blue2 drew his ninjabo and the two battled sword to sword, equally matched in strength, technique and skill.

Meanwhile, Blocky had stumbled upon Blocky2, who commented on his originator's clumsiness.  Blocky tells him to shut up and proceeds to slash and bite at him with his dragon claws and fangs, while Blocky2 attempted to do the same.  Then it came to a fire-belching contest, which immediately caught the paper barriers of the maze aflame . . .

As this happened to the maze, Noelle had found her clone, and shuttered slightly at the indignity of be violated so thoroughly by this.  But, quite unusually, Noelle2 possessed morphing powers, same as Noelle.  Superior, in fact, as Noelle2 didn't seem to have a time limit.  Noelle learned this quite painfully, when Noelle2 taunted her about it.  Noelle2 seemed to possess all of Noelle2 morphs as well, in addition to having some that Noelle never acquired.  But Noelle was able to use what she had to hold her overpowered clone at bay.

While this was happening to Noelle, Dino had located Dino2 and was talking smack to her.  Dino2 shrugged everything Dino said off, but did not speak.  Dino wondered if her clone COULD really speak at all.  But then the two extended to their full sizes, roaring so loud it caused the paper-lined maze pathways to vibrate in most ominous way.  She tried biting or smashing at her clone with her jaws or tail, only to be countered by her clone's tail or jaws.  It was a very iffy thing -- Dino was dangerous at both ends.  But they immediately shrank down to their compacted forms when the paper walls had lit on fire -- and, as durable as Dino's hide was, it was not impervious to fire and heat.

During Dino's debacle, Aquilai was attempting to reason with his clone, only to find that Aquilai2 was completely unreasonable.  Aquilai was attempting to talk sense into his doppelganger, only to recieve a blast in the face like being shot with a firehose.  Aquilai2 was still a waterbender -- and hadn't regenerated once.  Aquilai found this somewhat offensive, but he could not imagine why he felt so.  So the battle went with Aquilai2 attempting to bludgeon Aquilai with force, while Aquilai used strategy and tactics -- usually involving blocking Aquilai2's attacks and then attacking himself.  When the walls bursted into flame, both Aquilais managed to douse it, although it was purely accidental in Aquilai2's case.

The fire had annihilated the maze, and all ten individuals stood in simply a large, stone room.  Five stood on one side, and the RAFian five stood on the other.  The RAFians were at an impasse.  Their clones had all their moves, their techniques, and their skill.  It was like fighting a shadow.  The RAFian clones stood with haughty little smirks on their faces.

"Give up yet, has-beens?" Aquilai2 said, snarkily.

"Who you callin' has-beens, hose-brain?" Dino snarled.

Then suddenly a chirp, and Laserbeak fluttered down and landed on Dino's head.  Then he hopped onto Aquilai's head, and Aquilai didn't look too happy about it.  Then Laserbeak focused his lens as Blue2 shouted, "It's the robot bird!  Kill it!"

But before the clones could act upon Blue2's order, Laserbeak displayed the way to kill the clones.

"Of course," Aquilai said.  "It's so obvious. . . ."

"Well, then," Blue said, smiling in a most unpleasant way, "let's do it then."

Within minutes, the clones were a bunch of smelly goop on the floor, and Laserbeak took flight again, to find RAFian Realm Walker.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 16, 2012, 09:17:51 AM

Yay laserbeak! Glad to see an update. I'm stuck on the couch cuz of my back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2012, 09:19:52 AM

Yeah . . . I'm even considering breaking my self-imposed one-chapter-a-day rule. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 16, 2012, 04:58:59 PM

No one will mind if you do..

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2012, 05:02:54 PM

Yeah, well, I only really did it to allow everyone to catch up . . . otherwise I might make it seem like an insurmountable endeavor to read it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Desperate Delusions

Cloak carefully stalked forward, deftly keeping to the shadows.  His cloak allowed him to blend into the darkness, which is one reason he preferred dark-colored cloaks.  It was this reason and not, as many RAFians suspected, to keep his air of mystery.  Cloak saw a doorway, and he lurked just behind the threshold, glancing around at the room beyond.  Unlike many rooms of human habitations, this room hadn't four walls.  It just had the one, although it bore evidence of having an additional three, but they were disintegrated into rubble after time had its way with it.

Carefully, Cloak strode into the room.  He was sure that the place seemed empty, but it was a prime place for an ambush or a trap.  So he had his guard up, and it was very lucky that he did.  For when he strode into the room proper he felt the slipstream of a missed punch.  Cloak knew who the puncher was without even looking.  The attacker attempted to pummel Cloak some more, but found that it was rather like trying to punch a leaf.  Cloak didn't throw a single blow, content to just riding the waves that his would-be attacker was flinging at him rather carelessly.

"Stand still!" Abomination demanded angrily.

"Don't think so, no," Cloak said, with irritatingly blithe manner.

Abomination attempted some more fighting combos, only to find that they did nothing but use up his energy.  But Abomination's intelligence wasn't sufficient to figure that out.  Pity he couldn't steal the Twelve's powers again, then he'd be an actual threat.

"STAND STILL AND LET ME HIT YOU!!"

"I think not," Cloak said, with a rather bored intonation.

"STAND STILL!" Abomination roared.

"Make me," Cloak said, noting that Abomination seemed to be tiring.  "My, my, my, Mr. Abomination."

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!!  I'M . . . I'm . . . I'm, uh . . . Apocalypse!  Yeah!  My name is Apocalypse!"

"Did you say Calypso?  That's very odd.  Calypso is a girl's name." Cloak said, deliberately feigning ignorance.

"I DIDN'T SAY THAT, YOU -- YOU -- YOU --" Abomination sputtered, and, apparently unable to come up with a suitable insult, roared angrily and charged.  Cloak simply somersaulted over it, springing off Abominations own shoulders, which caused him to faceplant straight into the ground.  Cloak was finding this battle quite easy.

Too easy.  Cloak started to become suspicious and stopped playing games with Abomination.

"Enough of this, Abomination," Cloak said.

"I SAID STOP CALLING ME THAT!" Abomination roared.

"I'll call you that because that's what you were, what you ARE inside!" Cloak snarled back, his patience having snapped.  "Where's Malice?"

"How am I supposed to know that?!" Abomination spat.

"Well, you are her lover, are you not?" Cloak asked, regaining his composure.

"Well, we've never really -- I don't have to tell you anything about that!" Abomination cried defensively.

"And you still don't see it? Don't see that she's only using you for hired muscle?  Don't you see that Malice is incapable of love for anyone but herself?" Cloak said, almost pleadingly.  "Abomination, she doesn't love you.  She doesn't know how to love."

"You're lying!" Abomination snarled.  "Why are you lying to me?  Leave me alone!"

With that, he vanished with a swirl of his cloak.  Cloak could not feel hatred for the person who nearly murdered him.  Not anymore.  But he could feel pity for the brute.  And that, he felt in copious amounts.  Cloak decided however that he would feel pity for the hulking thug later.  Right now, he had an appointment with the doctor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 16, 2012, 10:54:55 PM

Hoping for another Malice vs Cloak scene

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2012, 05:14:40 PM

Perhaps.  Probably gonna post a couple chapters today . . .

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Noncommittal Malice

Cloak charged forward, knowing that Abomination went off somewhere to sulk for a while.  Found that he was back in front of the funhouse, and he quickly realized with a shock that Gemini wasn't even in there.  Then he caught a whiff of something -- something that smelled very much like sweat and . . . something else that he couldn't put his finger on.

He was torn between following the scent or seeing to the welfare of his friends.  But his curiosity toward the scent told them that they were big boys and girls -- they could take care of themselves.  And, if he had gone to check on them, he would almost definitely lose the scent trail.  He might be able to still get a confession out of the good doctor. . . .

He followed it to a rather large, squat, dilapidated, brick building.  Cloak didn't recall it being there before when they dealt with the Bibliophaetos incident.  Perhaps he just overlooked it.  He walked up to the door, and pulled on the handle.  Locked.  There was only one real reason why it would be locked -- after all, this park was abandoned over seventy years or so ago.

The door was made out of wood, but it was a simple task for Cloak to open it.  Then his communicator beeped, having received Laserbeak's wireless download.  Surely the bird would either return to Gaz, or come to him to catch the good doctor's confession.  Perhaps he should have waited for the robotic bird, but one of the fatal flaws to any feline, be he Dweller or Walker, is their innate curiosity.  Cloak proceeded onward, unaware of Laserbeak winging his way toward his position.

Cloak followed rather labyrinthine passages until he came upon a room were light was leaking out of.  He stealthily approached the door.  He waited a bit, and then leaped over the threshold, noting that there was a door hanging precariously on its bottom hinges.  He saw what he didn't expect -- which he would curse himself over upon later reflection.

It was Malice, sitting on a cozy, motheaten armchair, with the stuffing poking out in odd places.  She seemed to be drinking a dark-colored tea complete with teacup and saucer.  Upon seeing Cloak's sudden appearance (of which she didn't jump once), she calmly placed the empty cup and saucer on a rickety-looking endtable to her right.

"You seem surprised to see me," Malice said coolly.

Cloak didn't address this, and, instead, demanded, "Where is Gemini?"

Malice clucked her tongue disapprovingly, and replied in a bored voice, "Am I not enough for you?"

Cloak said nothing, just glowered at the Tasmanian devil-form Realm Walker.  He was in no mood for games just now, and it was perfectly clear Malice had placed herself here as a mere distraction.  But what was she distracting Cloak from?

"Why so serious, Cloak?"

Cloak narrowed his eyes at her, but said nothing.  This was pointless.  She wasn't going to give up the doctor's location.  He contemplated on asking her why she was using Abomination, why she was leading him on.  But that also was clear, she needed his thuggish muscle.  She didn't care if his feelings got hurt along the way, he was expendable to her.  Everyone was expendable to her.

"Oh, I knew you and your Dweller lackeys would come here," she went on.  Cloak suspected it was because she loved the sound of her own voice, of her own gloating tone.  "I knew you'd want to salvage their ruined reputations.  Watching them struggle against a system that had already villified them for actions they never even committed!  So entertaining!  And if a few Dwellers had to die . . . well, then fine with me."

Cloak's expression soured further.

"No one would have ever guess that your darling RAFians," she said the word as if a swearword, "were innocent and they've been unknowingly, involuntarily cloned!  And no one would believe that the residue left behind was ever really a viable being!"

"Maybe not before," Cloak said, his expression doing a complete 180.  He actually beamed at Malice.  "But they will now."

Malice stood, looking thoroughly perplexed, which pleased Cloak greatly.  Then he turned and looked over to Laserbeak, who was silently perched on an old goose-necked lamp.  He had been recording everything.

"What?!  I will destroy that piece of --" Malice cried, uttering a Realm Walker curseword, which sounded like a snarl to non-Walkers.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Malice.  Such language," Cloak taunted.

Malice moved to attack Laserbeak, who flew off, apparently looking for Gaz.  Malice made to go after him, but Cloak blocked her.

"Now, you were saying something about being good enough to fight you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on October 17, 2012, 05:46:37 PM

Catching up with Mithril while drinking tea XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2012, 05:49:43 PM

The next chapter'll be in my previous post.

And it's funny that you said "drinking tea" . . .

Oh, new page --

• Book XX: The Darwin Gun

The RAFians must contend with a ray that causes its target to devolve or hyper evolve into "ultimate" forms.  Twenty chapters.

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who recieved it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knock-offs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the papparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Ten chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors

The RAFians are sealed into cards, and it's up to Jack and Shadow to free them.  May be an out-of-continuity book, haven't decided yet.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an ocidationr ay wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Zat) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 17, 2012, 09:42:56 PM

You said a couple, but oh welll

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2012, 10:55:12 AM

And I did mean a couple, Underseen.  I really did.  But I was really brain-dead tired after the last chapter, so . . .

Anyway, I might post a new chapter later on, or maybe not.  I'm not exactly feeling it just now. . . . And I do have things that I've been neglecting to do. . . . Like clean out the refrigerator, and clean the shelves of it. . . .

Probably gonna be a short chapter.  Dunno.  We'll just have to see . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Doctor is In

Cloak cracked his knuckles as he narrowed his eyes and pulled his mouth into a grim smile.

"N-n-now when I said that," Malice stammered, her composure slipping slightly in her swift hurry to backpedal, "I didn't mean it in the way you're thinking."

"Oh?" Cloak said, laying a very light stress on the word.  "Then, pray tell, tell me exactly what you meant."

"I . . . I . . . I . . ." Malice said, as Cloak stood up at his full eight-foot height.  Malice knew that Cloak easily could outmatch her.  When she challenged him, she thought he would take it seriously.  It was a little dark for him.  It was basically just arrogant bluster.  "It . . . it's Gemini.  He's the real enemy.  It was his plan, his idea."

"Yeah," Cloak said, voice dangerously low, "right."

"He's . . . he's through the door there," she pointed, seeming to feel genuine fear.  "Down the stairs, and in a secret door to the right."

Cloak eyed Malice suspiciously.  This whole fear thing could just be an elaborate act to get Cloak to walk into a trap.  She seemed to shrink against the wall, and shiver with fright.  Something about the way she did it made Cloak feel uneasy.  She was definately up to something.  Cloak knew that if he trusted any of her information on face value, he'd be the king of fools.

Still . . . Cloak was curious.  Curse that feline curiosity of his!  He had to go see if she was telling the truth.  Cloak looked back at Malice and stepped toward her but she shrieked quite believably and Walked out of this universe.  Cloak had hesitated a moment too long.  Now he had a choice -- to go and see the doctor and walk into what was very possibly a trap or to try and follow Malice (which was impossible, you couldn't track the realms a Realm Walker walked to unless they were very conspicuous about it, and Malice had eluded detection by the Realm Walker council, though that was also mostly because the Council did not want to believe she was alive).

The choice was obvious, if not a little forced on Malice's behalf.  Cloak proceeded onward, taking Malice's instructions with a grain of salt.  He was approaching everything very cautiously.  But he realized that he probably didn't have very much in the way of time, so he hurried as much as his cautious nature would allow.  Using Earthsight to see his surroundings, he was unable to detect any danger. . . . But that didn't mean that it didn't exist. . . .

He cautiously made his way down the stairs and easily found the secret door behind the stairwell.  He easily busted through the five-foot-thick steel door that apparently Gemini (or Malice) thought would be sufficient enough to keep Cloak out.  It was made of METAL and Cloak was a master of the element.  Who really thought that was gonna keep him out?

Of course, that could be the entire point.  But Cloak brushed that worrisome thought away and proceeded over the threshold cautiously, as if he expected metallic spiders to suddenly start pouring out of the walls, or something.  Cloak looked around, his feline eyes easily piercing the gloom.  He found the good doctor, sitting in a chair, looking rather bored.

Cloak couldn't stop himself from thinking, This is too easy, far too easy.

Then two more shadowy figures leaped out of the darkness, and attempted to accost the Realm Walker, who managed to bend the air into a shockwave and knock the two off their feet.  But there were more.  More and more seem to come.  It was as if they were multiplying expotentially.  None of them were armed, but merely bodies of flailing legs and punching arms.  They were all human, it seemed, and none very strong at all.

This was Malice's trap?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 18, 2012, 06:08:12 PM

What kind of trap is that?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2012, 06:28:24 PM

You see, in the next chapter. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 18, 2012, 08:03:23 PM

The next book seems interesting. So does the next chapter

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2012, 09:28:27 AM

Hopefully, I can make it live up to your expectations, then, Underseen. :)  Still a little on the sleepy side right now.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Quick Goo

Cloak managed to easily fend of the figures, before realize they were all Dr. Gemini.  Did this mean that Gemini just cloned himself for a quick escape or that he, himself, was a clone?  At the moment, it was meaningless.  While the clones weren't particularly strong or remotely powerful, they did have a numbers advantage.

And Realm Walkers are not immune from exhaustion.

Cloak was prepared to unleash his full elemental might upon the clones, which would have surely levelled the place.  Cloak wasn't sure if he really wanted to do that, however.  He was prepared to, nonetheless, however.  But it turns out that he didn't need to.  The clones stopped moving and started speaking gibberish.  This perplexed the Elements Master.  Even more so when all of the Geminis in the room began to dissolve into flesh-colored goo.  All of them.

"Quick clones! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black:_The_Animated_Series)" Cloak declared vehemently.  Then he noticed that even the one in the chair was flesh-colored glop now.  Cloak balled his hands into tight fists and narrowed his eyes.  He saw now that this wasn't so much as a trap, as a diversionary tactic.  Malice must have pretended to be so afraid so the good doctor could escape his wrath, and Gemini made multiple quick clones of himself as he made a timely getaway.  By now, it would be too late to try to Earthsight him.  He could possibly already off the earth and in the sky in a plane or helicopter or whatever.  In any case, Cloak's Earth sight isn't of an unlimited range.

Nothing he could do about it now.  Better just find the others.

***

"UGH!" Underseen was agitated.  "How do we get out of this place?  This is the fourtieth dead end!"

"It was the third," Gaz replied calmly.

"But Underseen's right, enough is enough." Parker said, aiming his fusion cannon at a mirror.

"Seven years bad luck, Parker," Gaz pointed out, smirking.  She had no reflection to confuse her.

"I'm not the superstitious sort." Parker replied, deadly serious.  But before Parker could do anything, the mirror just fell inward, but strangely did not shatter.

"You're good," Underseen noted.

"I didn't do anything." Parker stammered, surprised.

Gaz examined the mirror's frame.  "Well, that's rather . . . the exit was hidden by a mirror."

"That's a little convienent, don't you think?" Parker said, skeptically.

"Hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

"I don't much like being a gift like that," a voice said drily.  Turns out the exit to the room wasn't an exit at all, but just one of the labyrinthine passageway that linked to the tumbling room.  Horse, Bear, Ash, Faerie, and Demos all looked quite disgruntled, if not a little dizzy.

"What happened to you?" Underseen asked, looking moderately alarmed.

"Brain. Dizzy.  Room.  Spinning.  Brain still doing a pirouette." Demos mumbled.

"What?"

"We were trapped in a spinning, rotating room." Demos said, revealing he was feigning dizziness.

"Oh," Underseen said, attempting to chose his words carefully.  "Sounds . . . uh, fun."

Bear gave Underseen a glowering look, as Demos said, "Yes!  Wonderfully fun!"

Then Ash slapped Demos upside his head, which incited Demos to reply, "Hey!"

"I still don't know why anyone would think a room like that would be fun!" Faerie fumed.

"Could be why this entire park went bust." Gaz said, thoughtfully.

Then they walked down a path which lead them to be reunited with Blue, Blocky, Aquilai, Noelle, and Dino, who were all walking in a perpendicular passageway.  They decided to leave this not-so-fun funhouse, and find Cloaky.

But the task was easier than anticipated, as a disgruntled Cloaky was standing outside the funhouse.

"What's the matter?" Aquilai asked.

"I'll fill you in on the way to Laserbeak." Cloak said.

"You know where he is?" Gaz asked.

"He should be winging his way to Kelly, by now." Cloak said, with a rather weary quality to his voice.  "He collected a great deal of evidence."

"Though we're already guilty in the eyes of public opinion . . ." Parker muttered more to himself than anyone.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 19, 2012, 02:02:16 PM

Good update, Cloaky! Hopefully today I can get a beast wars recap done. My back is finally starting to feel better.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2012, 02:19:54 PM

Glad to hear it, Gazzy!

Anyway, two more chapters before I can begin Book XX. . . . Hard to believe that there's been nearly twenty books.  And if Blocky hadn't posted in this thread -- I would have deleted it!  I'm really glad I didn't though.

EDIT: Hmmmm . . . maybe another chapter . . . later . . . maybe I'll just go ahead and finish the book. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 19, 2012, 04:24:15 PM

What if you did delete this?- That would really suck.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2012, 03:29:39 PM

There's really no chance of that now, though, Underseen.  Probably gonna be a short chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Public Opinion

Laserbeak was perched on a tree, momentarily resting, on his way to Kelly.  He may be Cybertronian, but he wasn't immune to exhaustion.  And it was not an easy trip to make.  Especially since Abomination didn't give up easily on getting his rather beefy hands on him, but was aerially superior to the rogue Realm Walker, so he was able to dodge his attempts.  But such maneuvering took energy, and he had a trying trip ahead of him anyway.

Pity that Abomination went back to swallowing every little lie that Malice tossed his way.  Abomination was that desperate for love and affection, it would seem.

Anyway, soon enough, Laserbeak landed on Kelly's thread window.  Kelly was absorbed in her work to defend the RAFians, and so did not notice Laserbeak's arrival or his insistent chirping.  It was only when Laserbeak began to tap sharply, smartly and a bit angrily on the window when Kelly looked up, and threw the window open.

"Laserbeak?" she asked.  "Does this mean you have evidence?"

Laserbeak opted to show her than chirp affirmatively.  The confrontations with the RAFians and their clones, along with Malice's confession.  It was a lengthy video file, but Laserbeak prided himself in being able to relay all of it, without any lag times or anything.  As well as display in a full three-dimensional holographic display.

"Excellent," Kelly said, rubbing her chin pensively, "that should be enough evidence to exonerate them."

Laserbeak chirped proudly.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, now, Laserbeak," Kelly said.  "The battle's not won yet."

***

The court case against the RAFians was proving to be a grueling one for Kelly.  But she was more than ready to prove that she was as tough as any RAFian.  Sure, she may not be able to spout flame or energy from her hands or mind read or strip powers away or anything like that, but she was tough as any of them.  Yeah, she had the power of healing, but it was a rather passive power that required physical contact with the person to be healed.  And it didn't work on non-organics and Realm Walkers.  But she was now in her element, with a different kind of entity.

The prosecutors tried to spin the evidence so that the RAFians would look guility, but they were having a hard time trying to discredit the new evidence in a believeable way, instead concocting rather outlandish and farfetched stories.  But it all came down to the jury . . . and they've been trying this case for about three days already, and closing comments were coming about today. . . .

The jury only took about twenty minutes to decide a verdict . . . of not guility.  The courtroom erupted in a mix of angry protests and cheers.  It was as Parker indicated, that they were already guility in the court of public opinion.  But not everyone subscribes to that opinion, as the judge agreed with the jury and dismissed all charges against the RAFians.

Outside, reporters began clamoring for interviews -- one asked the fate of the clones, and Kelly answered with a simple, "Destroyed", before moving along, shielding herself from the barrage of microphones and cameras.  The RAFians returned to RAF, returned home.

---
NOTE: I'm not a law major or really know anything about law -- I could have gotten the process wrong.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 20, 2012, 08:53:12 PM

Cybertronian is a word? The more you know...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2012, 09:41:16 AM

Cybertronian = someone from Cybertron

Now, let's end this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Behind the Facade

Cloak had sequestered himself within his thread, pondering on the past events.  Gemini was still at large.  Cloak was absolutely convinced that Malice had a hand in it, as well.  But why?  Why would Malice be so interested, so invested, in keeping Gemini alive and at large?  She never did anything unless it suited her in some way . . .

But there were too many questions about this.  Cloak knew that only real motivation for using Dwellers like this is for sheer entertainment.  If some of them get seriously injured, made pariahs, or even killed, it made no never mind to her.  After all, she was one of those Realm Walkers who considered Realm Dwellers lesser beings.

Perhaps that's why she took such a vested interest in Cloak.  Cloak was one of the few Realm Walkers, his niece included, who did not see Realm Dwellers on par to pondscum, but as living, breathing creatures with rights to live unmolested by the machinations of a Realm Walker such as Malice.  Truth be told, Cloak initially came to the Prime Universe after a large fight with his mother and he was tired of the languid lifestyle that Realm Walkers tended to adopt.  And he was glad he did, for, as a RAFian -- the only Realm Walker RAFian -- he had found friends, found adventure, found acceptance . . . Cloak didn't have the most charmed childhood, and he didn't really care to recall the pain he had endured there.

Most Realm Walkers would not understand Cloak's alliance to the Realm Dwellers and RAF, but he didn't care.  What they thought was of little consequence to him.  His position as Elements Master could be used to throw a little weight around, but he found himself not really liking to do that.  He was far more content to spend it with the like-minded Realm Dwellers instead of the stuffy, pompous members of his own kind.

And there is the catastrophes and atrocities that rogues like Malice would bring about to the Realms, had he and his RAFian allies not interfered.  Of course . . . Cloak thought, these events may not have even occurred if he were not a RAFian . . . I may be doing more harm than help just by my mere presence here . . .

Cloak continued to muse about this by himself, for some time.

***

Meanwhile, in some out-of-the-way, undisclosed place where a lonely shack stands, Gemini is huddled.  This is the real Gemini, not another quick clone.  He pressed a sequence of gnarled knots in the rotting wood, and a secret trapdoor opens with a whoosh.  He jumps down, closes the trap door, and walks to a nearby armchair.   The fabric was threadbare and a bit dusty and moldy, but Gemini didn't care.

"They'll never find me here," he muttered gleefully to himself, as he turned on rather dim lighting.  This was one of his safehouses, one of the lesser visited ones.  Gemini was confident that law enforcement would never find it, and, to make it even better, he managed to pay off some of the corrupted ones and some of the closeted Knight ones.

"Dweller law enforcement might not," said a voice from the darkness, "but I found it easy enough."

"What?  Who --?" Gemini stammered.

"Don't you remember just who helped you escape justice?  Just who enabled your escape?"

"M-Malice?"

She stepped into the light, and said, "Yes, dahling.  And I've a new project for you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 21, 2012, 12:00:13 PM

I knew what it meant, but just didn't know it was a real word.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2012, 12:05:39 PM

Understood, Underseen.

Oh, and the next chapter'll be in my previous post.

Oh, new page --

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who recieved it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knock-offs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the papparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Ten chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors

The RAFians are sealed into cards, and it's up to Jack and Shadow to free them.  May be an out-of-continuity book, haven't decided yet.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an ocidationr ay wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Zat) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

BOOK XX:
The Darwin Gun
Chapter One:
The Targetmaster

It was about a week after what's become known as the "Clone Wars" and RAF was settling back into it's usual insanity.  Although, Cloak was quick to notice that a lot, but not all, of the denizens of the nearby city were decrying RAF as a terrorist front organization.  Of course, they had little to no proof of their claims, but that didn't stop some people from believing the nonsense, just as they would believe anything in the National Inquirer.

Cloak realized that RAF wouldn't achieve universal popularity with the outcome of the trial and having the evidence that exonerated the thirteen RAFians that were cloned (which all thirteen felt was a horrid invasion of their privacy and violation of their being, especially considering that their clones were evil, heartless beasts).  Such a fool expectation would be childish and unrealistic.

There were even some people looking for the most ludicrous ways of discrediting the solid evidence.  Of course, no one else really believed or entertained these postulations as truth.  The conspiracy theorists were all over this, misinterpting some minute gesture or direction of a fall as sinister, misconstruing intent and motivations to ridiculous degrees.  But that's what these people do, and no one pays them any mind, usually.

Cloak had wandered over to where Aquilai was working on Laserbeak, with Gaz looking on fretfully.  Cloak made a beeline for the two, wondering what was up.

"He'll be okay," Gaz said, concerned, "right?"

"Stop your worrying," Aquilai said, calmly, "he'll be better than fine."

"What's going on?" Cloak asked.

"Aquilai's updating Beaky," Gaz said, looking up for a moment.

"Updating?  How so?"

"I'm giving him another transformation."

"You're making him a triple-changer," Cloak translated aloud.

Aquilai gave Cloak a sidelong look, and said, "I suppose that's a good term for it."

Cloak didn't say that he didn't coin that term.

"There," Aquilai said, shutting a pannel on the little robotic bird.  "Done."

"Beaky?" Gaz asked hesitantly.  The little bird hopped up, and hopped over to Gaz.  He looked at her, then hopped on her shoulder and affectionately nipped  her ear.

"Laserbeak, why don't you show Gaz your new transformation?" Aquilai suggested, putting his sonic screwdriver away.  Beaky chirped in an excited way, and leaped up, and, with the G1 transforming sound, turned into a ray gun vaguely resembling the one in the Super Smash Bros. series, only with a circular barrell.  He landed in Gaz's hand, who found out that the handle grip fit perfectly with her hand.  Either one.

"Wow, Beaky," Gaz said, evidently awed at this transformation.

"So you turned Beaky -- I mean, Laserbeak, into a Targetmaster?" Cloak said, with his arms crossed, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"A what?"

"Never mind."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2012, 04:32:48 PM

Hmmm . . . apparently it's a busy Monday for everyone else. . . .

CHAPTER TWO:
Forward and Backward

Meanwhile, back in an underground bunker that's well hidden from human radar and tech, Gemini was finishing up a new weapon.  It was large and bulky, colored gun metal gray with black accents and grips.  It was evidentally held like rifle or shotgun, and it's function was clearly something devestating.  Gemini looked proud and smug about his work.

"This shall be my magnum opus, my greatest work," he muttered with a crooked smile.

Then he picked up the weapon, gripping it firmly, and flipping the black strap over his shoulder.  Then he headed into another room, which held several captive and unconscious aliens -- a Vulpimancer, an Arburian Pelarota, a Methanosian, a Sonorosia, a Vaxasaurian, a Necrofriggian, an Arachnichimp, and a Vulcan.  There was also a small, unconscious ten-year-old boy with dark hair.

They were all lying down in a row, and Gemini checked to see if the stasis chips that he implanted on the right side their heads worked.  He was unsure about these chips effectiveness, as he never tested them out before now, but he really didn't have anything to lose.  The chips would allow him to control the minds of these victims, in theory.  If they were unsuccessful in that, they were were loaded with enough explosives to cause sufficient enough brain damage.

But when he aimed the beam at the boy and the Vulcan and began to fire, there was a jarring rumble and the two awoke.  Gemini attempted to sedate them again, but they struggled with him, even as he tried to use the control chips, which clattered to the ground and exploded.  The two took this chance to escape, going two different directions.

"Damn!" Gemini cursed.  He didn't even know if he had hit them with the ray.  No matter.  He still had seven other victims to attend to.  Only he made sure this time that the chips were firmly secured before proceeding.  He doused them with the rays, but nothing seemed to happen.  Gemini expected the beam not to work instantaneously.  Over the next two hours, the seven victims began to change.  Size shifting, appearances altered.  They now were identical to their "Ultimate" forms*.

Gemini grimaced, "Well, the evolution progression function works."

"What good is that?!" demanded an angry voice behind him.  "We don't want to give our enemies more advances!"

"The Darwin gun cannot only progress evolution," Gemini said, smiling in a most unpleasant way.  Then he whirled and fired the gun at the voice, continuing, "but regress it as well!"

The figure -- unmistakably Malice -- was exposed to the ray, but looked unconcerned.  In fact, she laughed scornfully.  "Fool!  You should know the evolutionary ancestry of the beings you turn that thing onto!  How little you know about Realm Walkers!"

She laughed heartily, "Realm Walkers, fool, evolved from energy!  We were the very first beings to exist.  We existed before the moons, before the planets, before the stars, before the very realms themselves!  What made you have the gall to believe that your little trinket, your meager toy, you insignificant plaything could do anything to me?"

"I -- I -- I --" Gemini stammered.

"SILENCE!" Malice roared.  "I'll let you live.  I'll let you live as long as you use that little bobble on Cloak's beloved RAFians and their forum.  Do not progress their evolutions.  Regress them.  Regress them to ooze!"

"Y-y-yes, Mistress," Gemini conceded.  "I will carry out your bidding."

"You're --" she uttered a Realm Walker curseword which the closest translation in English is "damn", "right you'll carry out my bidding.  Now, go.  Do it."

She left, Walked out.  Gemini looked as if he had just wet his pants and soiled himself.  Then he stood up straight, narrowed his eyes, and snarled, "One of these days, Walker, one of these days . . . I'll find a way to have power over you.  Powerful as Realm Walkers are, you are not all-powerful. . . ."

---
*See "Ben 10: Ultimate Alien".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 22, 2012, 05:22:24 PM

I finally get free time and read this.

I liked Ben 10 Ultimate Alien enough to watch most episodes, but I skipped the ones that felt like filler. I believe that they released a new series that looks terrible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2012, 05:25:06 PM

Eh, I don't mind it as much.

I just like like the thought of the Nemematrix -- Khyber (new villian) uses it on his hunting dog to turn it into predatory species of Ben's aliens.  That's what really keeps me watching it. . . . Just another thing I can catalouge . . .

Anyway, I might post another chapter, but don't count on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 22, 2012, 07:43:30 PM

The animation and voice acting turns me off

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 22, 2012, 08:35:03 PM

Good updates! Yay for little Beaky's upgrade! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2012, 09:06:05 AM

Thanks, Gazzy.  And Underseen, it could be worse -- it could have "Fred" voices.  *shutters* How that guy ever managed to get two movies and a tv show is BEYOND me.

CHAPTER THREE:
Curious, Very Curious

Laserbeak eventually transformed back to bird mode and perched himself firmly on Gaz's shoulder, nibbling her ear affectionately, which evidently tickled Gaz.  Aquilai and Cloak looked at this with benign smiles, when a memo request to meet in the auditorium was sent to all RAFians.  Yarin had detected several odd anomalies.  He refused to elaborate further in the forum-wide memo.

"What's this all about?" Aquilai asked.

"Nothing good," Cloak muttered under his breath.  His further silent inquiry of whether his presence here was causing more crap to happen to RAF than would happen had he never became a RAFian resurfaced again, but he kept it to himself.

"Dunno," Gaz replied, as the three strode to the auditorium.  "Sounds important though."

Once, the RAFians were assembled in the auditorium, Yarin approached the podium with Richard and the mods seated to the right and left of a large screen.  Yarin motioned for the talking to quiet and it was really a needless gesture as all the murmuring had ceased when he walked onstage.

"My fellow RAFians, I've detected some strange anomalies via my security scans of the surrounding areas," Yarin said.  Then he showed on the screen pictures and video of what he found.

There appeared to be about six Cro-Magnons running rampant in the city.  An adult male wore a three-piece business suit, a female one wore a jogger's windbreaker, a young one wore what appeared to be swimming trunks even though the day was far too cold for swimming, another young one wore what appeared to be a tattered ballerina tutu, an adolescent one wore what appeared to be tennis attire, and the last one appeared to be wearing one of those Party City "morph suits" that Cloak never got the attraction of.

"Cro-Magnons?" Cloak queried disbelievingly and quite audibly.  "I thought they had evolved into the present-day Homo sapiens."  Then added after a thought, "In this realm."

"They did," Dino said.  "Could these be some of those cavemen-frozen-in-ice-but-then-revived deals?"

<Or perhaps a genetic experiment gone awry?> Noelle suggested.

"Guys, guys, guys," Goom said, "you're all missing one key fact.  Those clothes they were wearing, it didn't look like they just stole them from some place.  Besides, if these guys were frozen in ice, don't you think that they would have loincloths made of animal hide?  Not something from Banana Republic or whatever?  And if these Cro-Magnons were created from scratch, then wouldn't they have clothes that fit a lot better?"

Goom was right, the clothes looked strangely tight, and the morph suited Cro-Magnon's spandex had holes in some place as if the suit could handle a sudden increase in musculature . . .

"Maybe they were devolved by . . . something . . . something that should be impossible . . ." Cloak suggested, standing in his usual spot, rubbing his chin.

"By what?" Underseen said.

"As much as it pains me to admit," Cloak said, "I have no idea what could do this.  I sincerely have no idea."

"Be that as it may," Richard said, "we cannot really know until we have more information about this.  So --"

Suddenly, red lights started to flash, and Yarin immediately got the report.

"'Seven monsters rampaging in the city'," he read.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 23, 2012, 05:31:00 PM

Seven Monsters... Hmmm

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2012, 06:33:01 PM

I don't know if you're making reference to something, Underseen -- outside the book, I mean.

Anyway, I might post another chapter later on -- it all depends on how I'm feeling.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 23, 2012, 06:45:22 PM

No I am just thinking.... Just thinking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2012, 06:48:31 PM

Well, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then you're probably right. . . .

Still feeling a little ill, so I may wait until tomorrow to post.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on October 23, 2012, 07:14:09 PM

Is the Evolution/Devolution gun from something? Seems like a novel idea. Energy beings are so different to biological that their evolution would be pretty fascinating to learn about.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2012, 07:21:35 PM

Quote from: Aquilai on October 23, 2012, 07:14:09 PM

Is the Evolution/Devolution gun from something? Seems like a novel idea. Energy beings are so different to biological that their evolution would be pretty fascinating to learn about.

The gun part is partially based on Dr. Animo's weapon in the original Ben 10 series, although it wasn't really a gun per se.  The evolution progression/regression part isn't really anything too original by me . . . I used a similar item (some sort of powder) in "Animorphs: A New Beginning", the first RP I ever participated on RAF.  There's probably more to it that I'm forgetting, though.  My brain is like sludge right now. . . .

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Response Team

"Well, as I was saying, we need to send in an investigation team, which will now also double as a response team." Richard said.

"I'm going," Cloak suggested strenuously.

"Fine," Richard nodded, "Helen, Blaze, Sam, Hunter, Parker, Gaz, Horse, Block, Noelle, AniDragon, and . . . Aquilai.  Go with him."

The twelve soon departed for the city.

***

It was madness!  Mayhem!  Pandemonium!  People streaming into the streets, screaming.  Some were shouting profanities at the RAFians as they approached to quell this insanity, as, for all the world, if it was their fault.  Perhaps in an indirect way, it was, but how was it their fault that things like this happened simply for just existing?

"Split up," Cloak advised.  "Try to stay in sight of one another."

"On it, Cloak," Parker said, in a pose rather like Samus's up-taunt on Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Into the fray, they went.  Cloak initially taking on the hyperevolved Vaxasaurian, which immediately retracting his fingers and fired only what Cloak assumed to be osteobullets or something.  Which Cloak brought up an energy shield to block, but unfortunately, with the flurry of movement and bombardment of sounds, he was finding it difficult to focus.

Why now? he bemoaned quietly himself.  Why do I have the lapse of focus and concentration now?

But he was slammed away from the hulking, armored saurian's attention by the thrown body of AniDragon.  She was alright, up and fighting (using a spare Shredder as her powers required touch, and she couldn't really get close enough to these beasts).  Cloak suddenly found himself surrounded by floating disks, and he knew what would happen a split-second before it happened.  The disks radiated powerful sonic blasts around Cloak, forcing him to his knees holding his ears.  It wasn't as bad as a Howler's eponymous howl, but it wasn't really tolerable, either.

Parker managed to sharp shoot the disks, while Cloak found himself fighting his own emotions, trying desperately not to lose control -- although it's when he's his most powerful, it's also when he's at his most dangerous, as he didn't distinguish between friend or foe.  At least, not very easily.  It's why Cloak continued to try hard to bury his emotions as deep as he could.  Although he wasn't always successful.  But Cloak knew that the hyperevolved Sonorosian was now damaged.  Injured.  If his memory serves, they could not replicate those disks.  They could not replicate at all.

Parker, however, did not escape unmaimed, as he was rolled over by the hyperevolved Arburian Pelarota, who was rolling at high speeds toward Noelle who had to quickly morph a kafit bird to escape, and land and demorph again.  Noelle was finding her tail could not cut through or even scratch the armored hides of the hyperevolved Vaxasaurian or the hyperevolved Arburian Pelarota (in his rolled-up state).

Physical attacks were pretty much useless on the hyperevolved Necrofriggian while he was intangible, though energy attacks seemed to have some marginal success.  And Cloak was flash-frozen for the attempt.  But he simply engulfed him self with flames and melted his way through, as Gaz kept using Laserbeak, in raygun mode, and kept firing.  She had to resort to going to mist mode more than once to dodge an attack, although this didn't really work with the Necrofriggian.

Cloak saw that the hyperevolved Arburian Pelarota was making a way toward Horse who had her back turned, so he stepped in, using his mastery over Earth to make a trench to steer him away . . . straight into Aquilai.  But Aquilai was prepared and used a slab of Earth as a baseball bat to knock the Arburian Pelarota out like a home run ball.  This left it bouncing around a block over, until momentum stopped it.

Blocky managed to fight the hyperevolved Vaxasaurian close-range, but found that his bulk and strength was more than a match for the RAFian dragon.  Fortunately, Block's naturally thick, scaly hide protected him from most of the close range damage.  But he still bore marks of the battle, before Sam and Helen leaped in to help him using their Star Sapphire and Green Lantern rings to immobilize the beast, but it proved a difficult, but doable task.

Hunter was taking pot shots at the hyperevolved Arachnichimp while Noelle began to use her tail to start hacking at his four spider-like legs.  Eventually the Arachnichimp spat a glob of webbing from his mouth which, with a curse from Hunter, essentially sealed his gun's barrel shut.  So he had to rely on animal instincts and senses, which wasn't going to be easy -- the Arachnichimp didn't exactly smell like roses.

"Isn't it bad enough that I get eaten daily from the Pootang?!" Horse roared suddenly.  "Now I'm an alien dog's chew toy?!?!"

She was being worried by the hyperevolved Vulpimancer, until AniDragon fired into the side of Vulimancer's rather long, blockish head.  He released Horse with a whimper.  Horse landed a few feet away, covered in Vulpimancer drool.

"Ugh, alien slobber," she grumbled, then addressing AniDragon, said, "Thanks.  I think."

Meanwhile, Cloak had taken up battle with the hyperevolved Methanosian.  He was having a much easier time battling this one, due to the petrified wood in his body that Cloak could use his master over wood or earth to manipulate.  Cloak didn't like doing this, as it made him feel like a bloodbender, but he had little choice.

Blaze flew overhead, getting in an aerial battle with the Necrofriggian, having a hard time -- he kept going intangible just as Blaze was about to strike.  Even with Gaz and Laserbeak's help, in bat mode and bird mode respectively, it wasn't easy.

The battle continued to rage in this wild, chaotic manner with no side emerging victorious yet.  Little did the RAFians realize that the nearest alleyway contained a sniper. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 24, 2012, 06:37:58 PM

A sniper other than Parker. It'd be a shame if someone dies soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2012, 06:44:44 PM

RAFian deaths only happen in out-of-continuity books -- this is a continuity book.  And, looks like you've been successfully misled. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 25, 2012, 07:26:21 AM

Oh... That does make sense, but I was just making sure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2012, 11:23:07 AM

Right.  I'll post a new chapter soonish -- neck pain or no neck pain.

But, as it's a new page --

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who recieved it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the papparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Eight chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXVIII: RAF Captors

The RAFians are sealed into cards, and it's up to Jack and Shadow to free them.  An out-of-continuity book, because it'll take place in c. 40XX.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an ocidationr ay wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

EDIT: Probably a short chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Trigger Happy*

The sniper held his special gun, the Darwin gun, steady aiming as carefully as he could.  Gemini was by no means a crackshot, but he was sufficiently accomplished enough to shoot from this distance, which wasn't far enough to be really impressive.  He had nothing on Blaze and Parker in terms of marksmanship, but fired just the same.  The first shot hit Cloak, who noticed nothing and continued his battle against the Vulpimancer with Hunter at his side.  The second shot found Hunter, however, who did react to being hit, as if a particularly heavy fly had landed on his chest.  But then the sensation faded and he pursued the Vulpimancer after Cloak pulls a Simba, and kicks him over Hunter's way -- nearly giving him a haircut.

"I like my hair this length, thank you very much!" Hunter quipped.

"Shut up and fight," Cloak said, quite seriously.  "We haven't time for meaningless banter!"

"What's up with him?" Hunter queried quietly.

Cloak was a tiger Realm Walker, and like ordinary tigers, they aren't really big on the endurance thing, and Cloak was being to tire.  But these seven enhanced aliens did not know how or when to give up.  And this was starting to annoy him -- not that he was in an all too good mood to begin with.

Meanwhile, Gemini continued to snipe shots at the RAFians, missing a lot, and everytime it hit one of the aliens, nothing seemed to happen.  Probaby due to the titanium "time brakes"** he installed on each of their emblems -- which were located where the Ultimatrix would have been located had any of these seven been Ben Tennyson.  It was these emblems (which Gemini inscribed the RAFian "R" just to add insult to injury) that controlled the aliens, that bent them to his will.  The flurry of action caused the RAFians to miss this, and the creatures rather evil-looking, glowing red eyes.

Eventually, Gemini managed to strike Blaze, Cloak, Hunter, Helen (when her violet aura was gone), Horse, Block, and Noelle with the evolution regression beam.  But no one showed any effects, and Blaze and Cloak seemed completely unaware they'd been hit at all, while the others seemed to sense something different, but could not put their fingers on how or why they did.

By the time that Gemini decided to skedattle and leave the seven enhanced aliens to the RAFians, Sam managed to notice the emblems.

"They're wearing some kind of hexagonal badges," he announced.

"That's nice," Blaze said, "now how about doing something helpful?!"

"Wait . . ." Parker said, still in the thick of battle, but an idea occuring to him.  For some reason, these emblems reminded him of the second season of Power Rangers . . . "Break them!  Break the emblem thingies!"

"What?  Are you out of your mind, Parker?" Helen called down.  "What good will that do?!"

"Don't argue!" Cloak roared.  "Do it!"

With a few minutes to an hour, Blaze managed to sever one of the emblems, from the enhanced Necrofriggian.  The alien stopped attacking, holding his head and looking thoroughly confused.  Especially at its new, hyperevolved form.

"I don't believe it," Blaze stammered.  "It works.  It actually works."

After that was found out, it was rather more simple to defeat the rest, and, within two hours, it was done.  Although, they now had seven seriously confused aliens and no answers for them.  They took them to RAF, to rest and come to terms with what happened to them.  And apparently, provide training for powers that they now had but didn't in their previous forms.

Cloak narrowed his eyes and folded his arms on the way back.  He couldn't help but feel that this whole ordeal was nothing more than a distraction, a diversion.  It was a gut feeling that made no sense.  But it would make more sense later. . . .

---
*Yep, another Weird Al reference.

**A Jimmy Neutron reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 25, 2012, 05:01:59 PM

Oh that kind of sniper.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2012, 08:45:38 AM

Yep, and I edited the list a bit, to make it easier for me to use and update.

CHAPTER SIX:
Night Jitters

It was a hard night for Cloak to get to sleep.  He tossed and he turned, but his mind keep repeating the same refrain.  It was a diversion, it was a trap.  His suspicions, his instincts, would leave him in peace, so he got up, pulled his cloak on, and paced around his thread for a bit.  Deliberating on these recent occurrences . . . they never did investigate the supposed sightings of the Cro-Magnons.

Suddenly, Cloak realized something.  He was so stupid.  Cro-Magnons are the pre-evolved forms of humans.  So what if whatever accelerated the evolution of those seven aliens could REGRESS being too?  It seemed like a practical application for the weapon, if not evil.  Why just kill your opponents when you can devolve them out of existence?  And Cloak thought of the strange pulses of energy . . . he thought it was just one of the aliens attacks. . . . But now that he thought of it, none of them used energy attacks of that color and opacity.

This thought cemented his suspicion that the whole attack was nothing but a diversion, a distraction so they wouldn't notice the strange energy pulses.  But why was the facade?  Why endanger the lives of innocent beings?  There was something more here that Cloak could not answer with the information he had available.  He'd have to go snooping or something for the --

"Huh?" Cloak sense strange vibrations from the floor of his thread.  Naturally, his feline curiosity forced him to go an investigate, and see a strange creature scuttle by him.  It looked rather otter-like . . . then Cloak noticed that it carried the Mark on it's right paw.  This surprised him greatly as only RAFians are in possession of the Mark. . . . Unless . . .

"Horse?" Cloak said absently, still gazing in the direction at the fleeing Puijila darwini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puijila_darwini) took.  It . . . no, she -- disappeared into the shadows.  Not even the light of the big, full moon could unmask her hiding place, even with Cloak's superior night vision.  Cloak stood, still flabberghasted at this.

***

Phoenix had spotted something strange hiding in a corner of RAF, he ignited a ball of fire in his hand to act as a makeshift lantern -- an elementary skill that all fire-masters know.  He cast the light in the direction of the movement he thought he detected, to find a rather odd sight.  It appeared to be a Canis lepophagus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_lepophagus) with slightly beefier arms, unusually long brown shaggy hair on its head, and rudimentary opposoble thumbs.  He wore clothing that hung rather more loosely, as if he had strunk and lost about thirty pounds.  Phoenix did not miss the Mark on his right paw.  But he was aghast.

"Hunter?"

Then the beast lunged at Phoenix, who instinctively pulled away, fell down by the wall as the fire in his palm was snuffed out due to Phoenix's shock.  Then Hunter ran away into the night.  Phoenix, still beside himself in shock, got up and dusted himself off.

"How in the world . . ."

***

"Not now, Helen," Parker moaned, "I'm not in the mood."

But he continued to feel an insistant tugging, but ignored it.  When he heard the light "ting" as Helen's ring fell to the ground, he knew something was up, and he was fully awake and alert within seconds, only to find a three-and-a-half foot Australopithecus female at the side of his bed.  Parker immediately felt vulnerable without his armor.*

"What the hell?" he cried out.

But this seemed to scare the small, unclothed simian, and she ran to the window.  She looked back as if Parker was familiar in a way she couldn't figure out, then she jumped out of the window and ran into the darkness.  Parker sat up, and immediately got out of bed.  He picked up the Star Sapphire ring from the floor, and then looked out the open window as the thought occured to him.

"It can't be . . . no . . ."

***

Aquilai, like Cloak, found sleep difficult, so he decided to get a little air.  And time to think.  Then he spotted what appeared to be a small lizard, colored like ice.  He grinned a bit at the tiny creature, who noticed Aquilai, and back away, snapping and gnashing it's little, but sharp teeth.  Aquilai himself didn't feel threatened, but when he saw the tiny fire-lizardine** creature lift it's claws.  He saw what appeared to be a minute Mark on it's right one.  This took Aquilai for a surprise, and he was speechless.

The tiny fire-lizard saw this as an opportunity and fled, disappearing into the night as all the others.

"This," Aquilai said, when he regained his senses, "is not good."

***

Dino was plodding along, having just fed, thinking she might regret that second helping, when she smelled something.  She looked left and right, but her night vision wasn't exactly spectacular.  But then the creature inched into the moonlight, and Dino, instinctively, left her compact size for her true size.  This intimidated the creature, who Dino saw enough of to see that it looked vaguely Andalite, but with almost deliberate flaws, and that whatever this creature was -- she possessed a Mark.  This confused Dino a bit.

"Who are you?"

Instead of answering, the creature fled, melting into the darkness.  Dino couldn't help but wondering aloud . . .

"Noelle?" she said, in a hushed voice.  Then, snapping out of her shock, Dino muttered to herself, "I wonder if the others know about this . . ."

---
*No, Parker, I'm not gonna have you sleep in your armor. ;)

**"Dragonriders of Pern" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 27, 2012, 09:58:48 AM

That devolved seal looked cute on Wikipedia

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 27, 2012, 10:04:44 AM

It's Horse's curse. ;)  *immediately thinks of the "I'm Cute" RAFparody.*

Okay -- this IS a rather long chapter.  I didn't really realize how long. . . .

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Mission: Improbable

"Ha, ha!" Gemini said, as he was watched the devolved RAFians fleeing the forum, their minds and intellects severely reduced, from three-quarters of the way to the city.  They were little more than beasts of instinct now.  "The devolution function works.  Now, when they send more of their people to gather up their beleaguered comrades, I'll take more of them out."

He smirked sinisterly at the thought.

"To think, one man will be responsible for the destruction of the all-mighty RAF." he crowed to himself.  "My name will make the history books.  And everyone'll bow down and respect me, or devolve into a primordial goo."

"Talk to yourself often, do you?" came a voice.

Oh, not her!  Not now!! Gemini languished silently.

"Don't take that attitude with me, I'm just here to check your progress.  But . . . I am pleased.  You've certainly made things . . . very entertaining."

***

Back in RAF, an emergency meeting was held.  Most RAFians looked thoroughly disgruntled, in housecoats and pajamas rather than their usual RAFwear.  Parker had even neglected to put on his armor, as he was still quite shellshocked.  He never expected Helen to have . . . devolved . . .

Richard began, in some rather stylish blue pajamas of his own, by telling the rest of the RAFians what transpired, what Cloak, Phoenix, Aquilai, Dino, and Parker had saw.

"So what?" Faerie snapped.  She apparently was a little snippy when she didn't get to sleep.  "They saw animals.  Big whoop."

"They weren't animals, Faerie," Cloak said evenly.  "They all bore the Mark.  As you or I do.  And only RAFians bear the Mark!"

"What's your point?"

"The point is," Phoenix said, massaging his forehead, "that we don't have RAFians of the species we described.  It's impossible, those species have been extinct for millions of years."

"Give or take," Aquilai added.

"Alright," Faerie conceded, "but what exactly do we do about it?  We don't exactly have a make-everything-normal-deus-ex-machina ray thingy."

"No," Richard agreed, "but we'll worry about that when they're back in RAFian custody.  We need to make a team to recover the lost, devolved RAFians.  So, uh, --"

"Wait!" Underseen spoke up.  "If we send more RAFians out there, what's to say that this won't happen to them?  No offense, Cloak -- Goom -- Richard -- but the Mark obviously cannot protect us from this -- this -- this devolver."

Cloak tried not to take offense -- after all, the Mark was his and Goom's creation, with Richard's go-ahead -- but Underseen had made a few fair points.

"It would help greatly if we knew what this 'devolver', to use Underseen's term, was." Terenia pointed out.

Cloak rubbed his chin as he said, "There was an odd pulse of energy . . . purplish-blue.  I remember seeing Horse get hit with it out of my peripheral sight, but nothing happened at the time."

"You saw it, too?" Gaz said, suddenly alarmed.  "I saw it hit Hunter and Block!  But nothing happened . . . I assumed they were able to immediately shrug off whatever it was."

Laserbeak, perched on Gaz's shoulder steadfast again, chirped insistently as Gaz looked at him and listened, as if she understood what he was saying.

"Beaky says he saw Noelle get hit as well.  And . . . are you sure about that, Beaky?"

Laserbeak let out an angry squawk.

"Okay, okay, settle down." Gaz said to pacify her metallic pet.  Then she addressed the others.  "Beaky says that Blaze was hit, too, but didn't seem to notice."

That woke Blaze up all the way.  His eyes widened as he said, "I was?"

"Wait a minute," Parker said, almost accusingly, "so was Cloak!  I saw him!'

Cloak looked surprised at the accusatory tone, but didn't seem so surprised when it appeared that the ray didn't affect him.

"So were you Parker." Sam added, who was wearing his Green Lantern outfit because he had his ring on.

"What?"

"Your armor probably proved to be more-than-sufficient shielding for the devolver ray or whatever."  Aquilai surmised.  "It's completely self-contained, right?"

Parker looked at a lost for words and did not answer.  Maybe he realized how close he could have been to devolving himself. . . .

"But why aren't Blaze and Cloak devolving?" Sakki asked.

"I'll field my side of that," Cloak said.  "As you know, individual Realm Walkers are born from and die as energy.  It was the same for our species."

"Why?" SuperNate asked.

"No one really knows, actually," Cloak said, with a shrug, "it's one of the most hotly contested things in the Nexus though.  And that's why I assume it hasn't affected Blaze."

"I wasn't born from energy, though."

"No, but exactly how long have djinns or angels been around?  Probably not as long as stars, but, I assume that they're far older than humans as a species?" Cloak guessed.  Blaze didn't know how to answer.

"We still need to send a team to retrieve our, uh, newly-diminutive comrades." Kelly put in.

"Yes, but ones that the ray will have no effect on." Cloak added.

"I'd say, not to sound speciesist, send a team of inorganic RAFians, that is to say, the robotic RAFians," Dino said, thoughtfully.  "Evolution may still exist with the robotic set, but it's not the same kind of evolution that this beam seems to target.  That could be our solution."

"Right you are, Dino," Richard said, after considering it for a moment.

"I want to go, too," Phoenix said.

"Me too." Goom added.

"Didn't you two just hear --"

"We did, Richard," Goom said.  "But I'm a goomba.  I'm a small target."

"And I can just use my phoencian powers to burn away the effects," Phoenix said.

"I have my doubts about this," Richard said.  "But, against my better judgement, I'll allow this.  Take Sakki, Oceanspray, and Rocklobster with you."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Cloak said to himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 27, 2012, 11:52:42 AM

Nice name of the chapter.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 27, 2012, 06:03:49 PM

I continue to enjoy this. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2012, 09:32:55 AM

We have to prepare for the storm, so I may not be able to post another chapter.

. . . And I really don't feel up to it right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 28, 2012, 10:46:53 AM

I just caught a cold so I well probably be sleeping for all of today anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2012, 11:10:59 AM

Well, if the power goes out, I won't be able to RAF anyway.  They are predicting it.  And high winds.  Just lovely. . . . :dull:

Granted, Gaz has it worse.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 28, 2012, 11:36:13 AM

Yeah, we were talking at Friday's meeting to be ready in case school gets cancelled Monday or Tuesday. High winds, rain, and possible flooding.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2012, 03:11:16 PM

Just be safe, Gazzy.  You know we RAFians worry. ;)

. . .

Too bad, the Mark doesn't exist IRL. :)

Anyway, I'll post another chapter as soon as I can.  Perhaps I can provide some levity for you, Gaz.  At least, some entertainment.

EDIT: Here we go.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Ultimates

The team scoured the city, but sticking to the shadows, wearing ID masks whenever they had to stray from them.  RAF had had enough bad PR already, with the clone debaucle and this.  The ID masks projected holographic humanoid forms, and was rapidly becoming standard-issued RAF tech, for missions such as these.  Of course, Rocklobster, being a Chee, had no need of them.

Anyway, thus far, the team found nothing worthwhile.

"Although I think I found a suspected Knight meeting," Sakki reported.

Phoenix facepalmed a little, and said, "You didn't do anything about it, did you?"

Sakki was silent.  Phoenix and Goom sighed heavily.

"I didn't hurt them!" Sakki protested.  Then, as an afterthought, she added, "Much."

"This was supposed to be a stealth mission, Sakki." Goom said, exasperated.  "Find the devolved ones, and bring them back to the forum.  Without the populace being any the wiser."

"I know that! . . . I just . . . uh . . ."

"Never mind that now," Rocklobster said, rather more calmly than the occasion warranted.  "I believe I have visual on the, uh, victims."

"Wait -- Rocky there is a Chee," Oceanspray noted, "you guys are hardwired for nonviolence, right?"

"Yes, and I believe I know what you're getting at," Rocklobster said, wearily.  "Because of the nonviolence protocol in my programming, I won't be able to fight directly."

Exasperated sighs greeted this, but Goom looked at it positively, "Then you can keep a watch out for Gemini and that devolver of his."

"Right." the Chee nodded.

"Wait . . ." Phoenix said, looking over to the right.  It was nearly dawn and the sun seemed mulling it over whether to rise or not.  But in the near-dawn gloom, Phoenix could see the five devolved RAFians, in cages -- well, two of them were rather like cat carriers (presumably carrying Horse and Block), one of them similar to a dog carrier (with a devolved hunter inside), with a devolved Helen and Noelle occupying the wrought-iron-barred ones.

"There they are," Oceanspray said.  "Let's go and get them."

"Stop, fool," Sakki snarled.  "Don't you think it odd that they just so happened to be here?  In a deserted street?  All caged up and ready to go?"

"Sakki's right, it's gotta be a trap." Goom said.

"Ha, ha, ha!  Indeed it is, little RAFians." said a voice.  The RAFians turned and weren't at all surprised to see Gemini standing behind them.  "You're little friends would make excellent exhibits at a zoo.  Or they'll devolve right out of existence.  Makes no never mind to me."

He had a hearty laugh before continuing, "But enough formalities and pleasantries!  Time for you to join them!"

"Even if you do succeed," Goom said, logically, "it'll have a delayed reaction.  That'll be plenty of time to kick your butt!"

"Oh, you think so?  How do you know I'm the REAL Gemini?" he taunted.  "I could be just a quick clone.  Don't wonder how I managed to capture your little devolved friends there?  In the space of a few minutes?"

The RAFians remained silent.  They hadn't yet entertained that possibility.

Gemini laughed again.  "You didn't even notice that collodial goo at the base of these cages, did you?  Priceless.  A small armada of quick clones.  Sure, they're temporary, but effective for my needs.  And the great thing is they're incredibly easy to make.  Clones with some permancy and free will, that's different."

"Oh, shut UP!" Sakki said, she had already balled her hands into fists.  Not missing a beat, Gemini fired his Darwin gun as Sakki lunged at him, the force of the blast altered her trajectory, but nothing else happened.  She didn't feel it.

"Ah, you're a robotic one, aren't you?" Gemini said, smartly.  "Your power levels don't indicate you're a Realm Walker."

"Why you pompous little --"

Before Sakki could tell this little man just exactly what she thought of him, he threw out what appeared to be the ghost-catching device from Ghostbusters, only without the cord.  Sakki stopped midsentence because such an action seemed absolutely ludicrous.

"You think I wasn't prepared for nonorganic pests?"

He pushed a button, and the device emitted a small electromagnetic burst.  It was not strong enough to scramble or erase their robotic RAFians memories, but just powerful enough to render them unconscious.  Naturally, it had no effect on Goom or Phoenix.

"Didn't think about use, did you?"

"You forget.  I still possess the Darwin gun!"

And, with that, he fired two pulses of energy at the two at point-blank range.  But what he didn't realize was that when Sakki lunged at him, he had accidently switched the gun's polarity.  Instead of devolving the two, the ray was having a more instantaneous effect of hyperevolving the two.  And the process wasn't painless.  But they weren't in any position to attack at the moment.

Gemini, however, was still ignorant of his mistake.  He straightened himself up, and, with a haughty little smirk, moved to leave.

"Oh, Gemini." came another voice.

Only this time, it was completely unexpected.  He whipped around, unprepared, immediately threatening, "I'll shoot you with this!"

"Oh, you already tried that," Cloak said, waving Gemini's threat away.  "I won't work on me or any other Realm Walker.  And, besides, some of my friends here --" the hyperevolved aliens appeared behind Cloak, now in full control over their faculties, "-- have a rather big bone to pick with you.  I believe you know Koowser*, Cambrian*, Audacity*, Motley*, Boll*, Ateles*, and Manmoth*?"

Well, Gemini thought, THAT can back to bite me in the butt.

---
*These are the seven mentioned, for those that don't follow Ben10, except they don't have Ultimatrix symbol --
[spoiler]

• (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSwD2KvcIzW2CuB_cnkb7_qtw70bQI6xS-2XP2ZQEGs7xaTsdrW) Koowser (Koopa+Bowser)
• (https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsYQAmCQz__WLpVwb-_y70DTC4avl25zcJUwpBejDfrLbkmc1m2A) Cambrian --> Cambrian era
• (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSuqFKK5XMac63cl1h8qzigpttO_34LuwQ1_ZG3LlhEU6PqIG_y2Q) Audacity --> sounds similiar to Audio
• (https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSSxe3KhIwlrZJB4cBBmNa3teltSkKgL7g2oeqfpO3NkUe7n7BZtQ) Motley --> corruption of Muttley
• (https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRxaJbiiAL9kTNo1MBhXTlxgxWXZgacQYvTVHTUEDnu4TLCoFDO) Boll --> corruption of "Ball"
• (https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSjcZKg2B77ReGUlMMLfufbd0zRVjMWDED_Qsvf9FJk6M-3Skg8) Ateles --> genus name for spider monkeys
• (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbVFOkmlcVh7SHlFtYeL4nrITtSHIUKgZlqsIIyoI2mGILugMv) Manmoth --> Man+moth

[/spoiler]

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 28, 2012, 03:57:59 PM

That would be awesome. Well, they called it already. No school Monday or Tuesday.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2012, 04:01:46 PM

Ah, 'kay.

Well, the chapter'll be in my previous post.  And it's shaping up to be a rather lengthy chapter.  But we won't find out until I'm done.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 28, 2012, 04:55:29 PM

What is a hyper-evolved goomba?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2012, 05:06:07 PM

Oh, you'll find out in the next chapter, Underseen.  I'll describe it there, as well as Phoenix's hyperevolved state.  (I've already PM'd them, and they already know.)

I might post it a little later -- if we still have power.

And, new page.  You know what that means.

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who recieved it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the papparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Five chapters planned out thus far.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an ocidationr ay wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  Might be one of my longer books -- and, no, I haven't watched Grimm.  I've only recently discovered it via "Face Off".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature from the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 28, 2012, 07:20:59 PM

Yay update! You're the best, cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2012, 07:40:59 AM

Thanks, Gazzy!

. . . It looks really bad out (granted, it's probably worse for Gaz), so I don't know if I CAN post a new chapter.  I don't want to start it, then have the power go POOF on me, and people have been talking like power outages will be certain. . . .

I'll try, if I can.  And there may be an upgrade for Faerie's battle-ax and Horse's Pinniped Dagger in a future book, and Phoenix, Mithril, Underseen, and Goom may get a new weapon each . . . don't hold this to me though!

EDIT: Short chapter, but I will be posting another one . . . unless something comes up.

CHAPTER NINE:
Doctor Says, "WTF?"

Gemini was very intimidated by the seven, soon all attention was taken from the good doctor and given to the two evolving RAFians, who were starting to become swaddled in brilliantly white light.  And the two who stood before them were very different from the two RAFians they knew, but only physically -- they had the exact same personalities.  But they were both a great deal more powerful, but not as much as Estelore or Cloak, but nearly there.

Phoenix retained his human face, head and neck, but the rest of him was very similar, if not identical, to Blaze Heatnix*, including fiery hair.  His body kept igniting in weird places, and it took him a few minutes to learn how to control this much power.  It was like immediately riding a bike that suddenly turned into a Formula-1 racing car, both going at top speed.  He was now Ultimate Phoenix004.

Goom's basic form didn't change as drastically.  He grew in size drastically, so he was of equal size to Phoenix, but remained with the same proportions of a Goomba, and he still lacked arms.  Large, white avian wings unfolded from his back and his upward fangs became more pronounced, becoming rather like Granbull tusks.  Goom noticed immediately that his hearing and eyesight were both sharper than he was accustomed to.  He was now Ultimate Goom.

"What?" Gemini spluttered.  "They were supposed to have devolved!"

"Well, sorry to disappoint you," Phoenix said, exercising more control over his bodily flames.  His slightly-deeper voice now had a slight reverb effect to it.  "But we're not devolved."

"I think I like this," Goom said, smirking.  His eyes still had the slightly-cartoonish, Goomba look.  But the tusks made him look far more intimidating.  He tried to fly and found that he could easily lift his bulk off the ground.  Now he realized why the RAFian fliers like Blaze and Faerie loved flying over walking.  He discovered that he could extrude movement restricting "mini-mes" that he could telepathically direct.  "This is so awesome."

But Gemini wasn't paying the two Ultimate RAFians any attention anymore.  At least, not as much.  He was desperately trying to fiddle with the Darwin gun, but but Boll attempted to intercede, only for the good doctor to fire the gun, and the beam was aimed at Cloak.  Cloak, without thinking, absorbed it with his index and middle finger, forced it down his arm, across his stomach, up the other arm, and out of his other index finger and middle finger.

It hit Gemini square in the chest, as Cloak just realize what he may have done.  Was he anymore in the right devolving the good doctor than he was at playing God with that damned machine of his?  As the Darwin gun clattered to the ground, it's polarities shifted (which Gemini was attempting to when he accidentally fired), and the beams hits Ultimate Phoenix, Ultimate Goom, Ultimate Audacity, and Ultimate Ateles.  Within a few moments, all four were back to their normal forms, and the Darwin gun looked somewhat damaged, but not too bad.**

Goom looked and saw that he was plain ol' regular Goom again, and moaned with immense disappointment, "AWWWWWW!!"

Phoenix who looked thoroughly disappointed, echoed the sentiment by saying, "I miss Ultimate me. . . ."

It was at this point that Sakki, Rocklobster, and Oceanspray started coming back online.

"Ugh . . . someone get a number of that train that hit me?" Sakki moaned.

"This can't be good for my servos," Oceanspay muttered.

"My hologram emitter is offline," Rocklobster noted, as he gave himself a self-diagnostic.

"Uh, guys," came the rather husky voice of Ultimate Koowser, "you might want to see what's happening to this guy there."

"It ain't good," Motley said, which was unique in and of itself, as regular Vulpimancers can't talk.

Gemini was curled over, but they could see changes occuring within him.

---
*Similar, if not identical, to this --(https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ5zZQn5f3ijazpQD0BSap8sU_-4wnQHonfZCm4d7ZRaHJGkYfTqA)

**Please don't grip "then why did you have them hyperevolve at all" -- this ain't the last time we're gonna see those two forms.  Well, it's gonna be the last time we see this specific transformation of Goom . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2012, 03:16:07 PM

Right now, I'm really in the writing zone.  So, unless the power cuts out or I desperately need a nap or something, here's the next chapter!

CHAPTER TEN:
The Ultimate Madman

Gemini's skin was becoming rather gray, like the skin of a cadaver.  The veins of his head were becoming rather more pronounced.  While his body seemed to be shrivelling, his head -- and presumably his brain -- was becoming larger and larger.  His eyes seemed to become rather bloodshot, and they increased in size, but not to the extent this guy's head was growing.  Soon enough, it looked roughly the shape of an unpopped kernel of popcorn.  He seemed to grow a devilishly evil goatee in the mean time, as his actual body seemed to grow more and more vestigial, like a human's appendix or a tyrannosaur's arms.  Of course, as small as they were getting, the clothing he was wearing no longer fit and . . . well, that's best left to the imagination.

Eventually, the changes stopped and now he was a hyperevolved human.*  His head was roughly the size of the plastic bubbles or human-sized hamster ball things, and his body had degenerated to a vestigial object roughly equivalent to that of a moderately-sized kindergardener.  His eyes seemed to have adapted some black sclera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclera), for some unknown purpose -- possibly to see a wider range of the spectrum, or perhaps the ability to see n^th dimensionally.  Who knows.

But what was clear was that he had gain some phenomenally powerful telepathy and psychokinesis.  Fortunately, just as Phoenix and Goom had when they were in their hyperevolved, or Ultimate forms, Gemini was unfamiliar with his new power.  There was some time to act before he learned of what he could do and the extent of his powers.

"Koowser, Phoenix, Boll, Goom -- everyone, listen.  And listen quickly -- we haven't much time." Cloak said, taking immediate charge.  "You need to get the five in those cages back to the forum.  Quickly!"

"And what about you?" Sakki said, picking up immediately that Cloak left himself out of that.

"I can stay here and hold him off."

"That's being a bit generous about your power, isn't it?" Goom said.  "What if you're no match for him?"

Cloak sighed a bit angrily.  "If you're concerned about that, send Estelore over here to assist me.  She's due back from that Alpha Centauri star system today.  Maybe I can use the Darwin gun to devolve him . . . no, you guys take it, so you can fix it or reverse engineer it to put everything right.  Now hurry -- before he reads your minds!"

"What makes you think he can't --" Oceanspray began.

"LATER!" Cloak snarls, knowing very well that all Realm Walkers are immune from telepathic probes and mind control, which tends to make them rather unpredictable.  "GO NOW!"

They didn't dawdle from there.  As Gemini, felt himself innudated with the minds all beings on the planet -- giving him a monster-sized headache, which was considerable, considering the size of his noggin -- the others gathered up the cages and the Darwin gun and fled the scene.  Cloak, knowing he was alone now, attempted to act a whole lot braver than he actually felt.

Much too soon for Cloak's liking, Gemini seemed to grasp and control his newfound abilities.  He looked at the Realm Walker with a haughty sneer, although it would appear that he could no longer speak normally, but he could broadcast his thoughts in something similar to thought-speech, but somewhat louder.

<AH, THE LONE GUNMAN, STANDING ALONE AND FRIENDLESS BEFORE THE BEHEMOTH,> he crowed, <WELL, THIS DAVID AND GOLIATH STORY WILL END WITH GOLIATH THE VICTOR!>

"I suppose that would depend on who's really Goliath here." Cloak said far calmer than he actually felt.

<SUCH BRAVADO IN THE FACE OF IMMINENT DEMISE!> Gemini gloated.  Cloak was really starting to get irritated by the frequency he did that.  <SUCH A PITY.>

"Who's imminent demise, though?" Cloak replied, keeping his voice even.

<YOU HAVE NO DEFENSE AGAINST ME!  I CAN READ YOUR THOUGHTS!>

"Really?  What am I thinking?" Cloak said, folding his arms across his chest, ****ing his head slightly to the right, and speaking pleasantly.

< . . . UH . . . UH . . . UH . . .>

"You don't know, do you?"

<YES, I DO!!> he insisted.  <YOU'RE THINKING OF . . . OF . . . OF . . . POKEMON?>

"Was that an answer or a question?" Cloak replied, keeping his pleasant tones.

<IT'S WHAT YOU WERE THINKING OF!!>

"Wrong-o."

<YOU LIE!>

"And you clearly have no knowledge of Realm Walker physiology." Cloak said, as if he was explaining things to a very emotional toddler.  "We are immune to all types of mind control.  Trying to probe or read our minds is like trying to extracate yourself from a Taxxon's mouth without killing or harming it -- impossible."

<IMPOSSIBLE!>

"Is there an echo out here?" Cloak taunted.

Gemini tried to use his telekinesis to throw Cloak, but Cloak anticipated this, rode the wave, bounced off the building and landed behind the macrocephalic fiend.

"It's not gonna be so easy, Gemini." Cloak said, although he knew very well that this probably would end up as a war of attrition with him.  Cloak also realized he may not be able to continue to hold back, to keep his emotions in check.  This little problem would probably require the absolute zenith of his power . . . and that's what really scared him.

---
*Form roughly based on both the Jimmy Neutron episode "Sheen's Brain" and an episode of "Mighty Max".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 29, 2012, 04:52:01 PM

Ahh Mighty Max... Bad game, but can't remember the show...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2012, 06:18:40 PM

Never played the game, but the show was decent.  Had Rob Paulsen (1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Animaniacs, Jimmy Neutron, etc) and Tony Jay (Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame) in it.

Anyway, more chapters will come tomorrow, lest I lose power.

EDIT: Added Books XCVII ("The Box") and XCVIII ("From the Shadows") to the list.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 30, 2012, 08:41:52 PM

I am thinking about re-reading the whole series again... I am that bored

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2012, 08:55:34 PM

Well, I'll post a chapter soon enough, Underseen. :)

Meanwhile, during the commercials of Face-Off, I'm working on an idea for Book XCIX (that's Book 99). . . . I've really have got too many ideas. . . .

Anyway --

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Shooting Star

Cloak stood in the middle of an unusually desolate street, staring down his foe with the abnormally large noggin.  He felt no fear, only a slight apprehension and hesitation to cause property damage.  The RAFians' PR images weren't all that stellar as is, and knocking down a few buildings, regardless of intent, wasn't bound to endear him to the denizens of the city.

"The consumate hero, aren't you, alien?" Gemini sneered.

Cloak said nothing.  He didn't care about the creature's taunts.  He thought Gemini was slime to the core, though, and no matter of accelerated evolution or devolution would change that.  There are fundamental qualities to this person that would never change.  As Cloak reflected on this, while starting his foe down (which wasn't exactly easy as Gemini had his head levitated moderately above Cloak's plane of vision), a slight breeze blew on by, causing his cloak to flutter in a way most dramatic.

Slowly, deliberately, light appeared on the horizon behind Gemini.  Dawn had arrived at last in earnest.  But Cloak knew this wasn't not a pleasant turn of events.  Soon enough, rush hour would begin, and the two's battlefield was in the way of that.  There'd be innocent bystanders in the way -- Cloak would never understand humans need to crowd around and watch imminent disaster unfold.

Cloak knew he had to end this somehow.  He contemplated killing Gemini, but knew in his heart of hearts, that he was just not sufficiently ruthless enough to go through with it.

"Ah, I see," Gemini said, breaking the spanning silence between the two.  "You're worried about the pitiful nothings that will show up here and get injured.  So, you're considering ending my life, right?"

Gemini wasn't reading Cloak's mind, he was making educated guesses shrewdly.  Cloak's face hardened and he said nothing.  But his surly body language told Gemini everything he needed to know.

"Ah," he crowed, at an unnecessarily loud volume.  Surely, some people were bound to have noticed already.  Cloak hoped that they were so self-possessed that they would not, as they would be possibly used against him.  Gemini continued in derisive tones, "I see, Walker.  I see it very clearly.  You are required to kill me, kill me to stop me from ruling, but you can't do it.  You're too kind and gentle, right?  Too kind and gentle to do what must be done?"

He laughed a deep, hearty, malicious laugh.

"How pathetic.  All the power you possess . . . and it's wasted.  Wasted on a weak-willed little nothing!"

His face hardened as his tone turned serious.

"You may not be willing to kill me, Walker," he said, "but I have no such limiting compunction towards you!"

Cloak didn't bother to tell him that Realm Walkers can only die at the hands, or, to split hairs, energies, of another Realm Walker.  What would the point be?  It was apparent that Gemini's head wasn't the only thing that grew -- his ego and arrogance did, as well.  Cloak, in a way, pitied the hyperevolved man.  The higher your ego and arrogance are, usually the more humiliating defeat will ensue.

Anyway, Gemini attempted to telekinectically lift Cloak again, surprised to find that he was unable to do so.  Unbeknowst to the macrocephalic fiend, Cloak was using his mastery over the Earth element in a rather unorthodox way, by using it to make him "stick" to the earth.  This is the first time Cloak had ever tried such an endeavor.

"Miserable insect!" Gemini snarled.  "I'll just have to crush you beneath my heel, you --"

"Oh, SHUT UP!!" shouted a familiar voice.

Gemini managed to deflect a bolt of what appeared to be stellar energy to the left of him as Estelore, wearing her kevlar suit and her hair in that tight bun.  Esty, in warrior mode.  Esty, when she means serious business and butt-whooping.

"Sorry I'm late, Cloak," she said, "Phoenix only just told me."

"Well, let's wrap this up with as minimal property damage as we can.  And before we . . . get . . . by . . . stan . . . ders. . . ." Cloak said, ending the sentence in a stilted way when he saw the amount of bystanders that had gathered.  What did they think this was?  Some sort of street preformance?  Some kind of stunt show?

"That complicates this a bit," Esty commented in a weary way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2012, 01:00:21 PM

Okay . . . dunno if there'll be a parody in this one, but it does feel like a place to put one . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Gemini's Disappointing Goal

"That's the understatement of the century, Esty," Cloak grumbled.  With all these people here, both RAFians must carefully measure the strength and accuracy of their attacks.  They must pull back, lest some of these innocents -- moronic innocents, though they are -- get hurt.

Estelore smiled sadly at Cloak at this, and said, "Perhaps if we distract him from whatever it's he's after, we'll give Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin enough time to repair that evo-doohickey, and bring it here.  But the question is how."

"Estelore, he's the stereotypical mad-scientist-type," Cloak said, "we just need to get him monologuing."

Then she turned to Gemini with a more serious face, and said, "What do you want, little bighead?"

"'Little bighead'?" Cloak said, in an aside.

"Hey, you come up with better!" Estelore said in tones of mock outrage.

Gemini, however, heard none this.  He was just reveling in the opportunity to gloat some more.  Cloak swore that hyperevolving Gemini just made him into a petty, two-note criminal -- like Calendar Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_Man).

"Eh, Richard's Animorph Forum.  Worldwide destruction.  Take your pick." Gemini said, with a shrug of his minuscule shoulders.  Cloak was surprised that he had any muscle control in that shriveled form below his cranium.  It was kind of like a raisin being attached to a ping-pong ball.  Suddenly, music started up out of nowhere -- and Cloak realized that Gemini had taken control over a nearby store's musical equipment.

"Or a song," Cloak said, in an aside to Esty.  "A song's good."

"Let's go back to
War and violence
I'm so bored
With peace
And --"

Gemini apparently was angry that the bystanders had started muttering through his song, so he yelled, "SILENCE!!" and everyone wisely decided to shut the heck up.  Then the music, which had stopped briefly, began to resume the musical number.

"Nights of evil filled with fear
Your worst dream, that's my idea of fun!"

"You're mad," Estelore said, unenthusically.

"In both senses of the word." Cloak said with a subtle sneer.

"I'm so glad you noticed. I've been working at it for years!" Gemini crowed again.  It was really starting to irritate Cloak, like a rash in a place you can scratch.

Wow, this guy is really pathetic. Cloak thought to himself.  But he has incredible power that would, usually, enable him to do whatever he wanted on Earth.

Gemini's song continued.

"Let darkness find its sad ways
Let's go back to good old bad days
No more foolish acts of kindness
Richard and his kingdom
Will be mine!
Years from now, no one will bother
To recall your good mod Richard, rather
Because all of this
Will be mine!
This . . .
Will all be mine!

Prepare for the dawning . . . of a new age! The Age of Gemini! Year One!"

"Such hubris," Estelore said, shaking her head, a little.

"Where's that clip of Bison saying, 'of course'?*" Cloak quipped in a very bored way.

"Only one will be revered
Worshipped, hated, loved and feared.
I'd just like to say a few words: 'I, me, mine'!
You were mistaken if you believed
Gemini was someone who'd crumble and leave!
Now I'm back!
And I will be staying!
This time --
I told you once,
I told you twice,
Everything you see before you
Every last bit of it
Will . . .
. . . Be . . .
. . . Mine . . .
. . . Now!!!!!"

"Really?" Estelore said, giving him a rather pitying look.

"You know someone like this was bound to crop up," Cloak sighed.  "Such delusions of grandeur.  Tsk, tsk, tsk."

"Does everyone who's hyperevolve lose all sensibility?" Estelore asked, sincerely.

"Phoenix and Goom seemed fine," Cloak said, rubbing his chin.

"What?"

"I thought Phoenix told you."

"No," Estelore said, narrowing her eyes, "he left out that bit."

"Hey, Siskel and Ebert!  Shut up!" Gemini whined.  Funny how such a large-headed man could whine worse than a three-year-old. . . . and then he went to the ol' bully standby -- "Or I'll make you shut up!!"

---
* Know what this was a reference to?  That's right! Nostalgia Critic!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on October 31, 2012, 02:43:35 PM

I have been reading this whole time I swear XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2012, 02:51:59 PM

:eyebrow:

Methinks you have a guily conscience, Sakki.

Anyway, I know I said a couple of chapters, but I think I may need a nap soon. . . .

:edit: Added ideas for Book C (100) and Book CI (101).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on October 31, 2012, 06:47:51 PM

This is fun. ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2012, 07:14:07 PM

It's fun to write too. . . . Although I still have to get a better chair to sit in to write it . . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Elusive Emitter

Aquilai was staring at the opened Darwin gun as if it had decided to call his mother a cantankerous cow.  He seemed offended by the sheer superfluousness of its bulk.  Yarin, Goom, and he discovered as soon as they opened it, that it could have easily been condensed into something slightly larger than a Dracon beam or Shredder.

"It makes no sense!  It doesn't need to be this big!  There is all this empty space in here . . . for what?"

"Probably to make it lighter," Yarin noted, "Gemini isn't really big on physical strength, I believe."

"Don't make snap judgements," Goom noticed.  "Look at this area here.  There, in the center.  It's been completely fried."

"Phoenix didn't mention seeing any sparks or fire come from it." Aquilai pointed out.

"Don't forget I was there," Goom said.  "There was a slight snapping noise, if I recall correctly.  But it seems that the sparking and fire was confined to this large area.  That could why it's so bulky.  As a rather uninspired contingency or precaution should it do this."

"Gemini was never as smart as he thought he was," Aquilai said.  "The engineering is painfully basic.  Yet, still so dangerous."

"It's only dangerous because of the evolution-altering Darwin photon particle emitter."

"That's a mouthful," Goom noted.

"Let's just abbreviate then," Aquilai suggested, "Ee-ad-pee? E-A-D-P-P-E?"

"That . . . that sounds dirty somehow."

"Let's just call it the Emitter, and be done with it.  Remember guys, Cloak and Estelore are fighting Gemini alone right now.  How'd you think they'd react that we were arguing semantics while they were battling for their lives?"

The three imagined Cloak and Esty, furious with the trio, giving them atomic wedgies.

"Wait, Goom, you're a goomba.  You don't wear clothes.  How can you be given a wedgie?"

"Don't ask."

"But --"

"Don't.  Ask."

"Uh, right.  Back to work guys.  We need to figure out this emitter thing."

***

Meanwhile, back to our other heroes . . .

"Stop it!!!  Stop it!!!  Stop it!!!" Gemini was shouting stomping his pathetic, shrivelled feet.

"All I said was your plan lacked creativity and focus." Estelore said, with a tone that clearly said that she was trying to be reasonable.  "It's so contrived, and, frankly hon, it's been done to death."

"Yeah, it's kinda comic book schtick.  Makes you rather two-dimensional, Gemini!"

"Shut up!!! Shut up!!!  Shut up!!!"

This certainly wasn't the kind of battle Cloak was expecting to have.  Nor did he expect Gemini's ego to be so fragile.  Cloak wondered to himself how much longer before this guy realize how emasculating this scenario was for him.  He wasn't acting the part of a vicious supervillian.  He was acting like a spoiled brat who had never been disagreed with before receiving his first criticism.

Estelore was also starting to think that this battle hardly warranted her warrior form, but she was feeling rather too lazy to change back to her sundress form.  She also secretly hoped that Gemini would finally get the message and realise that stomping his feet, kicking his minute legs, and thrashing his withered body wouldn't get him anywhere.  That throwing a temper tantrum will not get him what he wants.

Both RAFians sigh deeply and resignedly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2012, 10:26:40 PM

Still feeling energized from the season finale of "Face Off", so I'm gonna write a chapter before it wears off!  Still seven more chapters before I can say that I've written twenty books . . .  kind of.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Shadow Assistance

Cloak resisted the urge to yawn.  This had to be the most boring battle of all time.  Gemini seemed to easily fall to pieces by just hearing Estelore and Cloak's rather beign criticisms and critiques.  Cloak should have known that nothing is ever that easy.

"Uncle?"

Cloak turned to his left in surprise.

"Shadow?  What are you doing here?  I thought school didn't let out for another month."

"Uncle, it's Saturday."

"Oh . . . uh," Cloak said, taken unawares.  "I thought you did things with your dad on Saturdays."

"He had to work," she answered.  "Hi, Estelore.  Are you trying to get rid of me, Uncle?"

"No," Cloak said quickly, "but -- but it's not a good time, Shadow.  Estelore and I are kind of in the middle of some--"

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"You're being unsually blunt today, Shadow.  Is there something you're not telling me?" Cloak said, suddenly suspicious.

"Uh, no.  Nothing at all." she said, but Cloak caught her shifty eyes.  But he didn't have time to call her out on it, Gemini wouldn't like Shadow's sudden intrusion.  He wouldn't tolerate it at all."

"What happened to him, Uncle?"

"Gemini got hyperevolved," Cloak said, feeling that Shadow needn't know the specifics of how that happened.

"How?"

"That is immaterial," Cloak said firmly.

"Oh," Shadow said.  "You don't want to talk about it."

She know somehow her uncle was responsible.  Sometimes that girl is too smart for her own good.

"Why are you two just standing around while that guy blubbers like a hatchling?"

"I am NOT blubbering!" Gemini protested.

"Oh, be quiet, Gemini.  Your role in this chapter has already been marginalized!" Cloak said, exasperatedly.

"Huh?" Gemini said, lifting a massive eyebrow.  But Cloak's exclaimation had the desired effect of confusing Gemini into silence -- although it puzzled Estelore as well.

"Are you and Esty fighting him?"

"Shadow, does your mom even know you're here?"

"Can I fight him, too?"

"Did you copy off someone else's schoolwork again?"

"I only did that once! Er, I mean, uh . . . can I fight him too?"

Cloak sighed heavily.  "Neither Faith or your dad or your Meemaw* or your Auntie Dagger know you're here, does they?  No one other than me?"

"Cloak, are you two nearly done?" Estelore asked.  "Gemini there looks rather impatient."

"Why hasn't he thrown a car or something, then?"

Other times, she's not so smart.  Then again, it was a perfect way to distract her uncle . . . and Gemini descided that he really ought to throw some sleek yellow car with black racing stripes at him.

"SHADOW!"

Cloak used his mastery over the Metal Element to grab the car, and use centripical force to send it back at Gemini, who telekinectically ripped asunder.  Cloak could plainly hear someone say, a la the Cabbage merchant, "My car!"

Sorry, pal, Cloak thought, it was either that or let it crush me.  I picked the former.

Shadow took a battle pose, clearly thinking that Cloak had forgotten this little exchange between them.

"This isn't over, Shadow.  I'll be speaking to your mom after we're done here."

---
* That's what Shadow calls my mother.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 31, 2012, 10:49:31 PM

A chapter this late at night. Wow Cloak, must be a good day for you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2012, 08:56:35 AM

Eh, there are good days and there are bad days.

EDIT: And this is gonna be one of the bad ones.  Gonna have to be on hiatus until Monday.  I don't want to be that way, but my mom decided to spring something on me -- something of which, she'll probably be unsatisfied with in the end.  She's never satisfied.  >:(

Anyway, new page, and you know what that means.

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Fourteen chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  Might be one of my longer books -- and, no, I haven't watched Grimm.  I've only recently discovered it via "Face Off".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature from the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 01, 2012, 11:00:09 PM

I would say I know how that feels Cloak. My last girlfriend was kinda like that, but unlike girlfriends you can't break up with your mom...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2012, 06:21:01 PM

Well, as I've said in the Totally Random Thoughts thread, if the GBs* look good, I'll post another chapter or two tomorrow.  Or maybe later tonight, but don't hold me to that.  Thus, the hiatus is basically over -- until Thursday, when I've got to help my cousin again.  But I finished planning out the chapters of two books during this last hiatus.

---
*I'm only alloted a specific amount of gigabytes -- five, to be specific -- and cannot go over, lest pay overages.  Which I really cannot afford to do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 05, 2012, 07:52:25 PM

I am surprised no one cared to buy you a new computer for your birthday

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on November 08, 2012, 11:37:07 PM

Yay, caught up!  :)  I can't wait to read more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 10, 2012, 10:11:59 PM

Ten days of hiatus and Cloak has still not returned... I hope everything is okay with him and his family.

I think I should start a Memoirs themed roleplay

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2012, 07:52:00 AM

The hiatus was because of the GBs I was alloted -- there was no more, after I was on last.  So I had to wait until the tenth . . . then I had to help my cousin and his friend work on my mother's roof again.

But I'm here now, and now that I have a rather comfy seat, I'll post as many chapters as I've the energy to post.

Quote from: Underseen on November 10, 2012, 10:11:59 PM

I think I should start a Memoirs themed roleplay

There kinda already is . . . it's called "Intro Randomness".  I tend to draw from that well a lot.

I'll post another chapter after I update the list . . . I did a lot of writing while I was on hiatus.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 12, 2012, 08:20:34 AM

Oh, my bad. I forgot about the bytes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2012, 08:23:22 AM

It's alright, Underseen.  I managed to completely plan the chapters for two or three books in the meantime. . . . As well as come up with new ideas for a few . . . I really should add them first, before I forget . . .

:edit: Added three new book ideas to the list!  Book CIII to Book CV . . . that's Book 103 to Book 105.  Anyway, the chapter -- brace yourself, it'll probably be short.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Prawns and Pawns

Gemini really seemed to like throwing vehicles at the three, although Cloak didn't know the make or model of any.  He just knew that they were a hot pink one, then a fiery red one, then a subtle blue one, then a green one, then yellow, then a brown dirty one, and so on and so forth.  Cloak was really tiring of this, and he blurted, "You can't hurt us with anything made of metal, you macrocephalic moron!!"

Then Cloak had platter of prawns thrown at him, that made him choke a bit.  Cloak couldn't help but think, Where, in the name of the Gate, did he get a platter of prawns from?!

Then he looked and saw that one of the bystanders was what appeared to be a caterer.  And not a very good one at that.  Who caters prawn platters?*  More to the point, why did Gemini think that would be an effective attack?  Neither of them have an allergy to the minute crustaceans that Cloak was aware of.  It was a move that really smacked of desperation than anything else.

"Why'd he think that was good idea?" Shadow asked.

Cloak said nothing.

"You don't know, do you?"

Cloak continued to feign muteness.  It was at this point the incurably-childish Gemini realized his prawn plan failed, and he began to kick his withered legs and pump his vestigial arms in a mode of pure tantrum.  Cloak raised an eyebrow as if to say, Really?

"Why is he acting like a Hatchling?" Shadow asked with a tone that conveyed Cloak's shared disbelief.

"I . . . I really don't know why he's being so childish," Estelore commented.  "He wasn't like this when you fought his RAFian clones, was he?"

"His what?"

"Later, Shadow." Cloak said, firmly, adding, "If that."  Then he addressed Estelore, "I didn't fight any clones, I didn't even see the REAL Gemini.  He led me into a trap where I had to battle his quick clones."

"You just said you didn't --"

"Quick clones aren't the same as permanent clones.  They will dissolved by themselves after a few hours." Cloak countered.

"Quit ignoring me!" Gemini wailed.  It was rather pathetic, but then again, he was rather like an infant in that new body of his, but he hadn't an excuse.  Goom and Phoenix, in the precious few minutes that they were Ultimate, didn't act as such.  Cloak was finding Gemini less and less a threat and more and more a pitiable figure.  Isolation had not done the biological engineer any favors.

Cloak realized that Gemini's whines and bawling had ended, and he wore a look of malicious intent upon his face.  It was rather unnerving to see.

"You see, I've just had an idea," Gemini said.  Only he had decided not to use his own voice to say it -- he used the voices of a twelve-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy.  Simply by doing this, Gemini had succeeded in sending a chill up Cloak's spine from the very tip of his tail, it felt like.

"Is it me, or is that really creepy?" Shadow asked.

"It's not just you," Cloak replied.

But then a broader chorus of voices began to speak in unison, where more voices seemed to have been added with every three words.  "I should have realized before, should've realized sooner.  I needn't waste my time or my powers battling you directly.  Not when a nice group of pawns have amassed on the sidelines of this battle."

"You fiend!" Estelore said, well-aware of the line making her sound like a cliched superhero.

"Uh, how do we battle this guy without hurting the people?" Shadow asked.

"You can't," came the chorus of voices as many bodies of every possible demographic -- young, old, male, female, slacker, workaholic, black, white, whatever -- strode to stand between the bigheaded coward and the three.  At this, Cloak was unable to repress a feline snarl.

"Uncle!" Shadow said in scandalized tones.  "Such language!"

---
*I don't know if they do or don't in reality, so I thought I'd make this a joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2012, 10:17:17 AM

I'm probably gonna finish this book today.  But don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
This Is A Disaster . . . roid!*

The RAFian's utter reluctance to harm the innocents, even to get to Gemini, had led to an impasse.  They would not attack, yet they would not yield.  Gemini was starting to get petulant.  He was behaving more like a spoilt child than the ruthless conquerer he imagined himself to be.  And it was clear that Gemini was starting to bore of this impasse.

"I hope those three are really working fixing the Darwin gun, and just not dawdling." Cloak sighed quietly.

***

Suddenly, an exterior view of the workshop now shared by Goom, Yarin, and Aquilai.  All seems fine at first . . . but then purple clouds with brilliant gold stars issue from the windows after a loud explosion sound.

***

"I'm sure they're working diligently," Estelore assured him.

"What's a Darwin gun?"

"Later, Shadow!"

"Stop ignoring me!  I'll make these pawns to lewd and degenerate behavior!  I will!  Don't doubt me!" Gemini shouted, though Cloak noticed that he was back to using his own voice.

Estelore, Cloak, and Shadow didn't pay him no mind.  It was as if he was a child acting out to get attention -- and one who HATED being ignored.  Granted, he was getting bored with his pawn shield, and he knew that he should be relishing in the victory over the RAFians, but he couldn't enjoy it with them being so . . . so . . . so UNINTERESTED in it!!  Eventually, Gemini relaxed the dark hold he had over the people's minds, and basically told them to beat it.

Cloak narrowed his eyes at this, as he noticed it immediately.  He had a shrewd idea why he let them go.  He was finally bored enough to release his pawns, his hostages.  A hardened criminal would have never done it, but Gemini was hardly a hardened criminal.  He was an accustomed to having everything basically handed to him, apparently.

"Stop ignoring me!  I've let the people go.  Pay attention to me!  Pay attention to me!"

"You've let them go, but how do we know that you won't just recall them back when you are at a disadvantage again?" Shadow asked, rather coldly, turning her attention away from him.  She was learning.

"You have my word!"

"Your word is meaningless," Estelore said dismissively.

It was amazing how red Gemini's face could turn.  He quite literally looked like a cartoonish interpretation of a volcano going off.  He was incensed, enraged, and powerful.  Not a very stable combination.

"FINE!  Then DIE with all these intellectually-inferior ants!!" Gemini said, and he shut his rather massive eyes.  Then Cloak thought he could feel a telekinetic pulse, initially thinking it was aimed at him.  But soon realized, that Gemini's telekinetic powers were far stronger and powerful than he had anticipated.  For Gemini had telekinetically pulled loose, drifting asteroid onto a collison course with earth.

Clearly, he still did not understand the physiology of his opponents.  This recourse would only, really just spit the Realm Walkers out into the Nexus, and Estelore would easily survive it.  But Cloak was unsure of the survivability of his RAFian friends, and he KNEW that the native Earth life would never be able to survive . . . the asteroid seemed to be bigger than the one which ended the dinosaur's reign.  Perhaps some life would survive, but why take that chance?  Mass extinctions are never good for the species that must endure it.

"Estelore --"

"Oh, I'm on it!" she said, already halfway up in the air as Cloak spoke.

Cloak locked eyes on Gemini with the overlarge noggin, and spoke with a voice of cold fury, "You wanted us to pay attention to you?  You wanted our attention, eh?  Well, now you have it.  And you'll wish you'd never sought it out!!"

---
* Ever watch Esteban on "Sweete Life"? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 12, 2012, 06:07:38 PM

This is getting good... It's been awhile, but the wait was appropriate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2012, 07:34:34 PM

Believe me, I couldn't wait myself.  But, other business to attend to and all that.  Maybe short.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Prototype Problems

"That's no good!" Yarin exclaimed, while the primitive Helen was confused about what just happened..  "All it did was turn her yellow!"

They had tried to fix the Darwin gun, but the beam wasn't quite right.  It was yellow and rather like a spray from a hose.  The three went and opened up the casing to find the problem -- a yellow ink cartridge in place of the emitter.  It was a rather embarrassing oversight on their part, but they would address the embarrassment at a far later date.

"Is it ready yet?" Parker asked, incessantly.

"NO!" the three shouted in unison.

"Well, what the hell are you waiting for!"

"Look, Parker," Goom said, shooing Parker down the hall, "we'd a lot more done without your grousing.  Now, get!  Go on, get!"

When Goom returned, the trio continued making their adjustments.  It took more time than they had anticipated, but they thought they had it squared away this time.  But the beam was too thick and misty, and it just turned Noelle into an Andalite-sized canary, which soon molted and she was back to her devolved state.

"Well, THAT didn't work," Aquilai said, wearily.

"Back to work, guys," Yarin said, with a sigh.

***

"Okay, guys, this is the twenty-seventh try, so . . . let's make it count!" Goom said.  The beam had done things like backfire and shock them, explode a little bit, and the like.

"Aim . . . both eyes open . . . and fire!" Aquilai muttered to himself.

Suddenly, Horse was restored to her bouncy, little seal self.  She dropped her Pinniped Dagger, as well -- no one knew where she stored that thing, and don't bother to ask, fearing the answer.

Horse still looked very dazed, "W-what happened?  Who hit me with that steamroller?"

"Later, Horse," Goom promised as the the trio worked to restore the others.  Helen shrieked after it she returned to normal, as she shirked her clothing as an Australopithecine, as the protohumans didn't wear clothing. . . .

"Aquilai, give her some clothes!" Goom scolded.  Aquilai complied shielding his eyes for Helen's sake.

"My . . . my ring!  Where's my ring!" Helen said, once appropriately clothed.

"Parker has it.  I'll send for him," Yarin said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 12, 2012, 09:49:17 PM

The ring part was slightly romantic... Now that the RAFians have the Darwin gun and everyone's back to normal what happens now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2012, 08:53:42 AM

Not everyone's back to normal, Underseen.  Gemini's still "Ultimate Gemini". . . . And the ring she was after was her Star Sapphire ring.  Parker and Helen aren't married, just dating.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Cerulean's Delivery Service

"'Kay, now we need to get this to Cloak and Estelore as soon as possible," Aquilai said, unaware that Shadow had decided to join her uncle and the star.

Goom nodded, which looked very disorienting to see a Goomba do.  "Cerulean, you're needed in the lab."

Within seconds, Cerulean was there.

"Why are you wearing a Buckingham guard hat thing?" Yarin asked the RAFian speedster.

Cerulean looked surprised, and whipped the hat off his head.  Then he said, rather unconvincingly, "What hat?"

"The one you have behind your back."

"What hat?"

"Cerulean, I can read your mind."

"Uh . . . what hat?"

"Enough of that, you two." Goom said, stiffly.  "Cerulean, we need you to deliver something to Estelore and Cloak at these coordinates."

Aquilai handed him the Darwin gun daintily and carefully.  "Be extremely careful not to discharge it -- we fortunately added a regulation 'safety' mechanism that should prevent it from discharging when jostled."

"'Should'?" Cerulean inquired, taking the gun.

Aquilai, however, continued as if Cerulean hadn't spoken.  "And please do not intentionally discharge it -- we've enough troubles without dealing with hyperevolved frogs or saber-toothed squirrels."

"Right." Cerulean said, cautiously maneuvering the gun to be more easily carried.

Then Cerulean zips out of the lab, out of RAF, all the while a rather nice song played, seemingly unheard by anyone but the reader . . .

Blue streak speeds on by.
Cerulean the RAFian.
To fast for the naked eye.
Cerulean the RAFian.
Cerulean.
He can really move.
Cerulean.
He's got altitude.
Cerulean.
He's the fastest thing alive!
Look out!
He'll come through.
Cerulean the RAFian.
Don't doubt what he can do.
Cerulean the RAFian.
Cerulean.
He can really move.
Cerulean.
He's got the aptitude.
Cerulean the RAFian.
He's the fastest thing alive!
He's the fastest thing alive!
He's the fastest thing alive!

Soon enough, he's mere seconds away from the two . . . Realm Walkers?  Where'd Estelore go?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2012, 11:46:11 AM

Two more chapters to go.  My computer decided to have a mind of it's own and decided to back me out of the "post reply" screen -- I didn't even click on anything.  So, I'm rewriting the entire chapter in WordPad first, then posting it again.

:edit: Oh, new page.

• Book XXI: Other Side of the Tracks

The RAFians experiences significant differences which allow them to see the other side's point of view.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Fifteen chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  Might be one of my longer books -- and, no, I haven't watched Grimm.  I've only recently discovered it via "Face Off".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature from the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Deathly Devolution

The two Realm Walkers were battling it out with Gemini, who decided to actually fight this go-round.  Neither of the Realm Walkers were using the full zenith of their abilities, as they both were trying to keep collateral damage to a minimum.  They were both aware that they could quite easily end this contest by simply removing their cloaks, but the consequences of that were intolerable.  If they kept being uncloaked, they might irreparably damage the reality enough where it could not heal itself.

Imagine a powerful flame thrower being used on a lake.  A small spritz from the flame thrower into the lake would not hurt it, if at all.  But if this imaginary flame thrower was flowing a sustained stream and the handler was consistant and unrelenting, the lake's damage would be more severe.  It would be something like that.

Gemini's tactics were far more brutish than the elegant, flowing techniques of the two Realm Walkers that complimented each other.  Gemini's attack repertoire consisted of levitation (mostly for keeping his gigantic head aloft), telepathy (useless against the Realm Walkers), mind control and manipulation (again, useless against the Realm Walkers), telekinetic throws, telekinetic pushes, psionic pulses, and psychokinectic blasts.  But unlike Cloak and Shadow, Gemini did not care about collateral damage or harming the innocents, yet he didn't try to use that against them.  Surely, he must have been aware of it.

Suddenly, Cerulean came zipping up, and stopping on a dime to Cloak's left.  However, the dust that he trailed with him, felt no such compunction, and, as such, the three were obscured in a cloud of dust.

"A futile ploy, RAFians!" Gemini shouted, unaware that Shadow wasn't technically a RAFian.  "But you'll soon see it was a meaningless diversion!"

"He . . . just likes hearing himself talk, doesn't he?" Cerulean guessed.

"Give the gun here, Cerulean," Cloak said.

"But I thought you hated guns, Uncle." Shadow inquired innocently.

"I do," Cloak said.  "But this is a Darwin gun, Shadow.  It's a necessity for what must be done."

"I don't understand," Shadow said.

"Oh, you will soon enough." Cloak said, turning to Cerulean, "Quick, back to RAF, before Gemini reads your mind!"

"But --"

"Cerulean!"

"Oh, okay."

And he zipped off, as Cloak took careful aim.  Then he fired the Darwin gun, and it was fortunate that Gemini had such a large cranium, for when it came to guns, Cloak was a notoriously bad shot.  But the beam connected with the stuffy, haughty, self-important former bioengineer.  It was working he was devolving.

Cloak assumed he would devolve into a regular Homo sapien, so he used his mastery over metal to smash the gun into a crumpled mess, as if it was a mere soda can.  However, this assumption was premature, because Gemini did not regress to a Homo sapien.  He regressed further, and it was, with a sinking in the pit of Cloak's stomach, that he realized that he must have squeezed off two shots, not the one he assumed it to be.  Now, because of his own actions, Cloak has condemned Gemini to life as an Australopithecine.  Cloak felt a guilt akin to the feeling of letting his grandfather down.

***

Estelore was finding the asteroid difficult to dislodge from its trajectory.  She didn't want to flare up and go into full stellar-mode.  It could be devestating for the Earth, and she had a certain fondness for the planet.

But to her surprise, suddenly, the asteroid's stubborn will seemed to relinquish, and she found it rather easy to alter it's trajectory to the opposite way it came.

"What brought that on?" she wondered idly, before deciding to return to the forum.

***

Then he heard a sigh.  "Such a waste of such potential."

Then he turned round when he heard a terrified screech, and saw a lifeless body at the feet of Malice, with Abomination hovered behind her, saying nothing about the brutality and the utter indifference to life Malice had just showed.

"Malice," Cloak said, feeling his ichor bubbling, nearing boiling point.  "It was you, wasn't it?  You were behind this all along."

"Oh, how astute.  Maybe next time I will leave clearer signals -- a big sign saying 'Malice's Handiwork'?"

Shadow sensing what was coming, and why Malice was goading Cloak, swiftly said, "Uncle!  Don't!  She's goading you!  She wants you to lose control.  She wants you to go to your strongest -- wants you to destroy buildings and kill innocents."

This snapped Cloak out of it.  Shadow was right.

"Infernal whelp," Malice said, distastefully, at Shadow.  "One day, little girl you'll get yours."

"Don't you threaten her . . ."

But Malice continued to address Shadow, "One of these days, girly, you won't have your uncle here to protect you.  And you'll be mine."

Cloak moved to seize Malice, but she and her lovesick toady were gone.  Cloak looked over at Gemini, his body was still that of an Australopithecine.  It was with a heavy heart as he returned to RAF with Shadow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2012, 01:58:29 PM

Okay, the final chapter of Book XX.  Just a bit of forewarning . . . the next book can be a bit . . . uh, weird.  It's based off a Futurama episode.  Which one?  Well, I think it'll become clear after you read it . . .

Anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
It's Over

Cloak and Shadow arrived in RAF, and Cloak, who much rather go into his thread and isolate himself, knew that would be unfair to his RAFian allies and friends.  So, he sat down, and told them with as much detail as he could muster what happened, with Estelore and Shadow filling in their parts.

"He died?" Kelly asked, aghast.  "She killed him in cold blood?"

"Malice doesn't have any other temperature blood . . . I mean, ichor," Cloak said wearily.

"How does she know when to pop up like that?" Aquilai though aloud.

"I surmise she somehow watching us," Cloak said, with the same resigned tone.  "Realm Walkers haven't any television you know.  Professional acting and such are the novel creations of Realm Dwellers."

"You mean," Parker demanded with cold fury, "we're nothing but entertainment to her?"

Cloak thought they were aware of this facet of Malice.

"It's why she does what she does.  Personal entertainment and gratification.  Even if we succeed in thwarting her, she still gets her entertainment."

"That's sick!" Sakki proclaimed.

"Yes," Cloak said, with tired sigh, "but sadly, Malice isn't the only one who thinks that way.  There are Realm Walker who . . ."

Cloak hated himself for saying it.  Ashamed of its truthfulness.

". . . Who . . . Who think that Realm Dwellers are lesser beings.  It seems more and more every day that me and my family are the only ones who don't lend that idea any credence."

"Surely, your government --" Kelly suggested.

"The Council cares for nothing but the seats they are elected to!" Cloak spat unexpectantly.  "But what can you expect?  They're politicians."

Cloak said the last word like it was a curseword.

"I'm sorry, guys, but Shadow and I have to go." Cloak said abruptly.

"Go?  Go where?"

"Go tell your mom and dad where you've been for the last few hours," Cloak said.  Then he eyed his neice suspiciously.  "You thought I forgot about that, didn't you?"

***

"That girl!" Malice fumed.  "She ruined my fun!"

"Darling, calm down.  Remember your ichor pressure!" Abomination said, rather ineffectually attempting to soothe his "beloved".

"Screw that!" she roared, not even bothering to keep up the pretense anymore.  But Abomination explained it away, to himself, as just her frustration at not getting Cloak to go postal.  He was absolutely determined, beyond all reason, to be Malice's husband, but was settling for "boyfriend" (although Malice had never called him as such, and saw him more of a disposible minion).  He was a rather pitiable figure, really.

Attempting to deflect Malice's rage, Abomination attempted to turn her attention to the rather bulky packages on the floor around them.

"Uh, what are those, dearest?"

"Huh?  Oh, just a little surprise for Androgynecopraesent and Gendreconcido." Malice said, a malicious grin playing around her lips.  "One of the 'boom-boom' variety."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 13, 2012, 07:46:41 PM

I can't wait to find out what the significant differences that let us see others point of views in the next chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2012, 10:55:25 PM

Actually, might not be what you think, Underseen . . . as I've said it is basically based on a Futurama episode, a direct parody, in a way.  And "Androgynecopraesent" and "Gendreconcido" might be giveaways.  But I'll give you a hint -- it'll be a real he said/she said deal. . . . It'll definitely be weird.

But I won't post it until I get some sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 13, 2012, 11:06:37 PM

Sadly I understand the prefixes, but not the suffixes in those words... I can only guess

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2012, 12:47:03 PM

Which is good, on my part, I guess.

I'll try to post another chapter, the first chapter of Book XXI, when I've the energy for it, and I have to get the mail in about fifteen minutes.  (It's a quarter mile walk up a dirt road, with some neighbors who sometimes don't tie up there friggin' pit bull, about halfway down.)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 14, 2012, 01:04:22 PM

Keep up the great work, cloaky!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2012, 02:16:38 PM

Yes, I intend to, Gazzy . . . although this book may be a bit sticky . . . I may decide to abandon it. . . .

[spoiler=REALLY BIG SPOILER!! . . . Oh, you're just gonna click anyway.]I'll go right ahead and say that it is loosely based on the "Neutopia" episode of Futurama.  And I do mean loosely based, and I'm not gonna include the link because it will be spoil a lot, but not all of the plot.[/spoiler]

BOOK XXI:
The Other Side of the Tracks
Chapter One: The Explosion

"I told you, Shadow, I'm not going." Cloak said stubbornly.

"But . . . why?"

"I am not going to visit that horrible harpy," Cloak said vehemently.  "I only put up with her because . . . because Grandpa wanted . . ."

He shook his head, to clear it.

"No," he said firmly.  "And that's my final word."

"Uncle, she's not getting any younger.  How can she apologize if you don't come?"

"I'm no longer interested in her apologies, Shadow." Cloak said, turning his back on his niece.  "It's years too late."

"But . . ."

"No!" Cloak said, in a movement reminiscent of the Beast when Belle asked what's in the West Wing in the Disney movie.  "Shadow, I understand your motives.  I really do, but it's too late.  The damage has been done and cannot ever be completely healed."

"It doesn't have to be that way, Uncle," Shadow insisted.

"Shadow, if I wanted a non-apology apology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology), I'd go to your Meemaw."

Cloak turned and shut his eyes, wishing he hadn't had to be so hard.  Cloak's grandmother had been asking for him, but he refused to see her.  He had, for a time, lived with her, but ended up just waiting on her, hand and foot.  The relationship steadily deteriorated from there, to the point Cloak had wondered to himself what his grandfather had ever saw in her.

He continued to his thread, battling feelings of guilt that he knew he ought not have felt.  Upon entering his thread, he said quietly, "I'm sorry, Grandpa . . . I just can't."

He heard only silence.

***

On a distant, porous planet with 23 small moons, most no bigger than a basketball.  It only had a clear, unobstructed view of the stars for one side.  But all nameless moons and the planet, called Androgynecopraesent, were dead -- no lifeforms at all.  If there was any sign of ever being inhabited, it disintegrated long ago.  It's surface was much like a golf ball, only instead of craterous dimples, there were cavernous holes.  It's interior was much like the surface but containing rather redder stone than the bleached coloring of the surface.  Within this planet, looking out of one of the craterous holes, was a hulking, shadowy figure.  This planet only got rather dim, reddish-brown light from its sun.  Besides the figure was what was obviously a bomb.

"Maybe this'll bring my dearest back into my arms," said a husky, thick voice.  It was obviously Abomination.  "The angle is right . . . the power is correct . . . this should work."

He worked on the bomb a bit, before setting a timer for five minutes, then Walking out of the realm.

The timer continued to tick away in his absence -- 4:45 . . . 3:30 . . . 2:25 . . . 1:00 . . .

0:10 . . .
0:08 . . .
0:06 . . .
0:04 . . .
0:02 . . .

BOOOM!

A light pink shockwave suffused with a masculine blue was created.  But most of it was blocked by the moons, but the opening allowed a fragment of the wave to head Earthward. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 14, 2012, 11:13:18 PM

I am pretty excited by what I read on RAFchat

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2012, 08:54:59 AM

Okay, I'll post the next chapter, but don't be surprised if I -- involuntarily -- disappear for a few days.  Something has come up with my mother's leaky roof, and . . . well, let's face it, she'll probably blame me somehow or just make everything worse.  She does things like that when she's angry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 15, 2012, 08:55:56 AM

I probably will be gone for my thanksgiving trip anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2012, 08:58:38 AM

Oh, that's right.  Thanksgiving is close . . . in the midst of all that I've been through recently, I forgotten that it's a week away.

Chapter Two:
The Androgynecopraesent Wave

The shockwave approached Earth with alarming rapidity.  It was strange and odd that there was no debris or objects in its path.  Either Abomination got astoundingly lucky or he did his homework. . . . The former is more likely.

When the wave hit Earth, the area between RAF and the city was ground zero.  It wasn't harmless however, but it was not malignant either.

In RAF, some RAFians were arguing over who had it worse, men or women.  Cloak found he didn't like such a debate, having so precious few male role models in his youth and being basically brought up by females.  He turned his back on them, and began to return to his thread.

It was then that the shockwave hit, and it's effects were felt.  Everyone was knocked to the floor in both forum and city.  Cloak was out-cold and could not wake up, falling into a comatose-like state.  Parker was protected by his armor . . . although he was surprised to discover that Tyr was now a female.  Helen, Goku and Sam's Lanturn aura protected them from the effects of the energy surge, but they were knocked out, like Cloak.  Only they woke up a few hours later.

The rest of the city and forum . . . well . . . they awoke to some rather drastic surprises.  The male RAFians and city dwellers became female and vice versa.  Although this wasn't really a problem for Ash and Underseen who just easily assumed their normal states, it was a rather strange experience for the other RAFians.

Gaz was now a male vampire, Horse was a male seal, Blue was a female Ketran ninja, Sakki was a male VOLCAROID (Cloak didn't even know those existed*), Oceanspray was now a gynoid**, Noelle was a bigger male Andalite with a larger tail-blade, Aquilai was now a Time Lady, Aila was now a Time Lord, Blaze was a female angel/djinn hybrid, Hunter was a female wolf, Marie was a todd (that is to say, a male fox), Dino was a somewhat smaller ankylotyrannus, Faerie was a male faerie (again, something Cloak did not know existed), Mr. Guy was now Ms. Guy, Mithril was now a femal Keeper, Yarin was a female Nyac, Kelly was now a male Oompa Loompa, AniDragon was a male Pemalite, Goom was now a female goomba (though it was impossible to tell the difference), and Richard went from the father of RAF to being the mother.

The RAFians that did not possess a gender, like the Yeerks, weren't affected in the least -- though their hosts were.  For instance, while Myitt's host became male, she herself didn't gain or lose or swap genders.

This, naturally let to an uproar in both the city and the forum -- although a select few in the city were happy with the change, there were many more who were not.  The Knights naturally endeavored to find a way to blame this on aliens or the RAFians -- who they blame for killing former general Cannon, as well as other percieved slights on their little "club", as they call it when in mixed company.  But the RAFians still didn't consider the Knights of Humanity a real threat, not compared to the real, true villians they had to take on.

Back in the forum, an emergency meeting is called.  Richard began without preamble.

"I believe you know why we're here," he said, brusquely.  Even his voice had changed.  "To discuss possible solutions for this predicament -- unless you like the change."

There were murmured protestations about that, some louder than others.

"Okay, then," Richard said, in a whippish, business-like manner.  "Goom, Yarin, Aquilai.  Can you devise a prototype of some sort to reverse the process?"

"Possibly," Goom said -- his . . . er, her voice didn't change at all.  Goombas really don't sport sexual dimorphism, apparently.  "But it'll take time."

"You've got twenty-four hours," Richard said.  Before adding, "Kidding.  Kidding!  But get to work on it ASAP.  What's Cloak's status, Kelly?"

"Well," her . . . er, his voice changed as well, "from what I can tell, from our limited knowledge of Realm Walker physiology, he's stable, but it's like he's in a coma."

"But why?" Underseen asked, his shapeshifting bugged a little bit, but he corrected it.  He'd been having this problem ever since the shockwave happened.  "Why did that quantum surge or whatever just knock him out?"

"And it didn't seem to affect him the way it affected most of us," Kelly put in.  "Cloak's still a 'he'.  But unconscious, almost catatonic state."

"I must echo Underseen here," Mithril said, his . . . er, her voice was different as well.  "Why was he knocked comatose?  Why did the surge do that to him?"

"Maybe because he's basically a corporeal energy creature . . ." Gaz said, with a newly deeper voice, ". . . perhaps, just perhaps, his natural energy reacts hostilely to the that of the surge's?"

"We'll probably find out in due time," Phoenix said -- and he was now a she, and his, er, her voice was different as well.  "In the meantime, we could find out what caused that surge to begin with."

Richard nodded, "Right.  I'll have Estelore on it."

---
*;)

**Yes, I did look up the term for a female android.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 15, 2012, 03:50:31 PM

I can just imagine me in the back or something babbling and going "is that my voice? is that MY voice?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2012, 04:00:25 PM

A better reaction than the one I was fearing, Gazzy.  *whew!*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 15, 2012, 08:25:27 PM

I'm technically affected, but hiding it... Doing a pretty bad job at it too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2012, 08:45:20 PM

Actually, the idea was that it was like a little uncontrollable shapeshifting, but if you prefer what you said, I can make it so. . . .

New page!

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  Five chapters planned thus far.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age and a Diznee Ice Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  Might be one of my longer books -- and, no, I haven't watched Grimm.  I've only recently discovered it via "Face Off".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature from the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some experience with.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 15, 2012, 10:51:16 PM

Yeah, and I do tend to slightly liquefy when I'm nervous...

Don't you think you should erase XXI from the list since we are on it right now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2012, 09:00:22 AM

I was going to, as that's what usually do when this happens.  I just wasn't thinking when I posted that at first.  Believe me, I remembered just before I went to bed last night, but was too tired to come and change it at the time.

And I did add two new book ideas, as well.  But . . . sorry for the short chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Adjustments To Be Made

"Okay, Estelore is on her way," Richard said, addressing the crowd.  Estelore wasn't even on Earth, but her communicator was with her, and she wasn't far enough out of range for it to be useless either.  Something involving Z-Space transponders and whatnot.  "She reported that she saw an odd surge of light -- pink and blue -- traveling towards Earth, but thought nothing of it."

Estelore had been out to check out the planets of a "static" star (compared to the sentient Estelore's rather "mobile" nature) in the Libra constellation, so affectionately named Omega Librae*, and it serendipitously so happened that's where the wave seemed to have originated from.

Estelore made strenuous stellar strides to arrive in the star system, and noted that it didn't seem to have any planets.  Which was strange because she could have been sure their was a rocky, porous one roughly the size of Jupiter with many moons and an open slit in the moons' orbits.  The planet Androgynecopraesent . . .  But it seemed no longer to exist.

Well, a lot of things could have happened since her last sojourn out this way, she reasoned.  Then she saw debris . . . debris that shouldn't be here.  Unless . . . unless the planet was destroyed.  Estelore felt aggrieved if this was true, though she knew the planet was lifeless -- a barren rock of slight radioactivity.  As Estelore took inventory of the damages, she concluded the planet had not been destroyed by impact of a meteorite -- the moons would have shielded it and it would still be intact -- perhaps damaged severely or superficially, it did not matter.  It's core was solid and cold, part of the reason that it was lifeless.

But, Estelore thought, planets don't just spontaneously explode on a whim.  This was planned . . . yes. . . . Yes, I'm certain of it now.  This was intentional destruction.  But one question remains . . . why?

She stayed stationary for a moment, pondering this.  Then she thought that she should report to the mods what she's discovered.  The communicator still worked at this distance -- and Estelore decided that she had to hand to Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin.  They did fine work -- and improvised parts no less!

***

It was then that this surge became known as the Androgynecopraesent Wave -- the A-Wave, for short.  RAFians had to spend the next couple of days acclimating and adjusting to their new bodies and . . . uh . . . appendages.

But the three in the lab weren't really worrying or caring about nomenclature, nor were they, uh, exploring their new bodies.  They were focused on finding the reverse wave, and developing a way to harness that to restore everybody.

Well, everybody who WANTED to be restored.

"Perhaps if we had a spectral analysis of the surge . . ." Yarin suggested.

"We don't even have video.  We were caught completely with this thing," Goom said, adding after a measure of silence, "in more ways than one."

"Well, no one said this'd be easy," Aquilai sighed heavily.

---
*Yes, I know this star doesn't technically exist.  Hence why I made it up . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 16, 2012, 05:46:18 PM

...Exploring... Their new.... Bodies....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on November 16, 2012, 05:47:49 PM

Quote from: Underseen on November 16, 2012, 05:46:18 PM

...Exploring... Their new.... Bodies....

(http://www.myfacewhen.net/uploads/3025-if-you-know-what-i-mean.png)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 16, 2012, 05:55:32 PM

Darn it Sakki, trying ruin my life...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2012, 06:44:47 PM

. . . Uh . . . right. . . .

New chapter tomorrow.  Probably.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: AniDragon on November 16, 2012, 11:28:07 PM

Hey, just noticed that you had mentioned that I was now a female Pemalite, when I'm female to start with. So I'm guessing I'm supposed to now be male?

Also, skimmed through some earlier chapters and nearly died laughing when you threw me at a Skrull. XD OMG. (And yes, I WILL eventually actually read through the whole thing instead of just skimming, but there's a LOT. And it's NaNo.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 12:27:11 AM

Well I'd probably be staying up all night this week so don't get surprised if I do another ReRead...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 12:27:56 AM

Don't worry, AniDragon.  Phoenix hasn't managed to get to read any of it, although he tells me he wants to.  Nice catch, BTW, too.  That's the second time I've done that . . . I don't do it on purpose, though -- I assume I got you mixed up with Blue. . . . :facepalm: First it was Ken, and now this . . .

And Underseen, go ahead, but don't force yourself to stay up . . . which . . . is what I'm doing right now. . . . Well, I'm gonna fix the error that AniDragon pointed out, and problem go to bed soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 12:33:33 AM

I just drank a monster... Hate those things, but I had to stay up for a paper and I am still hyped...

You can tell you're tired when you say "and problem go to bed soon"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 12:40:08 AM

Indeed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 11:09:05 AM

Well I would wait for chapter 4 now...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 12:12:43 PM

Well, here you go, Underseen.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Cloak's Coma

While this whole, rather . . . unusual thing was going on with the other RAFians, which Cloak, in his coma, was blissfully unaware, inside the Realm Walker's mind something decidedly different was taking place.

Cloak stood in what seemed to be  a wide expanse of blank whiteness.  It was as if he was an animated character whose animators forgot to fill in the background.  Yet there seemed to be firm ground upon which to stand.  And he still cast a shadow.

"What the . . ." he said, but this strange void or whatever gave his voice a strange, tinny reverb.  "What's going on here?"

But no one miraculously appeared to tell him what was what.  He was confused, nothing seemed to make sense.  He was at RAF, there was that light, and he wound up here for some reason.

There seemed to be no concept of time in this background-lacking area.  He could feel the physics of walking, but never seemed to get any where or really leave the spot he was in.  There was no Earth here, no Metal, Wood, Fire, or Water either . . . there was also no discernable Air that he could manipulate.  But the thing that alarmed him the most was that he could not seem to access or utilize his own, innate energy.  Every Realm Walker could do that, even from a young age.

He was more alarmed when he discovered he could not simply just Walk from this place.  Realm Walkers aren't used to such confinement, due to the knack they have of being able to escape confinement, one reason being imprisoned in the Oblivion Gate is considered be so hellish.

Was he dead?  Was this some sort of sensory-deprivation purgatory?  What in the name of the Veil had he done to deserve this?

Suddenly, a chorus of many voices -- all familiar -- rang out from the vast empty expanse.

"You cannot escape," they had said.

Cloak whipped around and looked everywhere he could, but he could not find the source of the multitude of voices.  But none could be found -- just the same, singular, white nothingness.

They spoke again, and again in perfect unison, "You cannot escape."

Again, the speakers did not deign to make themselves visable!  Cloak was starting to feel annoyance and frustration.  Which didn't help when they spoke again.

"You cannot escape."

"Who are you!"

They did not deign to answer him.

"You cannot escape."

"Why are you holding me captive here?"

Cloak was starting to feel hopelessness.  He knew he couldn't simply Walk away.

"Answer me!!"

But the voices spoke again, and they added a single word that rendered Cloak speechless.

"You cannot escape . . . yourself."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 12:22:35 PM

Woah... Can't wait until you show the way you awaken from the coma.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 12:30:43 PM

A coma . . . I just realized how "soap opera" that is. . . .  :XD:

:edit:  Geez, new page already?  :o

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  Five chapters planned thus far.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age and a Diznee Ice Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  Might be one of my longer books -- and, no, I haven't watched Grimm.  I've only recently discovered it via "Face Off".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature from the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some experience with.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . . No chapters planned out yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 12:43:32 PM

Probably because I was replying alot... I'll stop

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 12:45:31 PM

No, Underseen, don't!  I like your replies -- it also means that I don't have double-post, and I'd like to avoid that as much as I can.

BTW, Chapter 5 is underway!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 01:32:10 PM

I hope Chapter 5 will come today...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 01:36:37 PM

Well, considering I'm currently working on it (though it probably gets a little repetitive at the end), the chances of it are likely, Underseen.

And you and Sakki will "appear" in it, in a way . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 01:40:20 PM

Will it be another chapter in Cloaks head?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 01:45:46 PM

Yes and no.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 01:50:21 PM

Cool! It would explain more than the last chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 01:56:05 PM

Well, I left it intentionally vague.

CHAPTER FIVE:
New Discoveries

The RAFians were milling about RAF, roughly a week after the "Change" happened.  Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin were on pins and needles, and would snap at people angrily, lashing out due to their utter frustration in developing a device to counteract the effects of the A Wave.  Eventually, it became so that RAFians gave the three a wide birth, lest they lash out.  Nerves were frayed even amongst the three themselves.

But, this day, the three scientifically-inclined RAFians seemed more relaxed and mellow.  They finally had seemed to make some headway.  They found a particulate that may revert them back.  No guarantees but it looked quite promising.  They could at least make a prototype reversal ray.

Meanwhile, the other RAFians were finding themselves discovering the prejudges, idiosynchronicencie s, and new limitations of their new genders.  Granted, all the culprits of this sexism were dwellers of the city, and were the genders they now prejudged against . . . but, curiously, the RAFians seemed the only ones aware that a change had happened.  The city dwellers seemed to believe that nothing out of the ordinary was happening, which confunded the daylights out of the RAFians.

Other than that, the "Change" really didn't affect the RAFians lives too much.

***

Meanwhile, back in Cloak's coma, Cloak himself was confunded.  What did these voices mean he couldn't run away from himself?  How could that even be possible?  What was going on here?  Did he seriously, sincerely lose his sanity?

"We are you," they decided to chime in, "you are us."

"Stop with the riddles!" Cloak roared, his voice intermingling with that of a male Siberian tiger.  "Show yourselves!"

Cloak had expected his demand to go unheeded.  He had fully expected to be ignored yet again.  He had expected for them to repeat that three more times.

What he did not expect was the swirl of color, and the formation of the multitude of figures in cloaks.  Cloak could not count them easily, but there seemed fewer than a quarter of a hundred.  They encircled him, as he looked at them each in turn.

The first one wore a cloak of bright bloodred and was a hulking massive being.   Cloak received a shock as it was the Pootang!  But it was much larger than it should have been.

To the right of this one, the second one, he wore wore a red-brown cloak.  Cloak felt taken aback again -- he was staring at his own father.  His biological father, Brute.

The third one was a small, more delicate one.  A slighter figure, she wore a lavender cloak, and Cloak recognized her immediately as Shadow.

The fourth one was a slight, moderate-sized figure in a brutalized crimson cloak, with folded arms and haughty body language.  Cloak recognized her as Faerie with her wings either gone or hidden.

The fifth one that one was a slight figure, in a weathered cloak the color of granite.  She stood perfectly still, as if preparing to endure an attack.  Cloak recognized the face of Sakki.

The sixth one was a rather solidly-built figure in a jade cloak.  He stood, looking thoughtfully on, considering Cloak in a most logical manner.  Cloak looked closer and saw the face of Aquilai beneath the cloak.

The seventh one wore a brick red cloak, and Cloak recoiled a bit at the sight of the angry face of his mother, Ursa.  The eighth one wore a dirt brown cloak, and Cloak recognized, with contempt, the face of the donkey Realm Walker from the Council.  The nineth one wore a sepia cloak, and Cloak thought he recognized Underseen, looking at him as if Cloak was a bug in a jar.  The tenth one wore a blue cloak, and Cloak saw, with a tinge of disappointment, the eagle Realm Walker from the Council, when he had been hoping for his grandfather.  The eleventh one wore a fiery red cloak, and Cloak saw, with disgust, the lion Realm Walker from the Council.  The twelfth one wore an emerald green cloak, and Cloak recognized the snake Realm Walker from the Council, which he eyed with distrust.  The thirteenth one wore a yellow cloak and Cloak easily recognized and loathed the badger Realm Walker from the Council.  The fourteenth one, in a fanciful ghost white cloak, he easily recognized as his beloved maternal grandfather, Sage.  The fifteenth one wore a baby blue cloak, and was recognizeable as Horse, with a hopeful look in her eyes.  The sixteenth one wore a deep lilac cloak, and Cloak recognized her as kindly Kelly.  The seventeenth one wore a golden brown cloak and Cloak recognized as reliable Phoenix.  The eighteenth one wore a folly red cloak, and Cloak recognized her as AniDragon.  The nineteenth one wore an indigo cloak, and Cloak saw that it was ever-compassionate Estelore.  The twentieth wore a black cloak and resembled Demos.  The twenty-first wore a dark green cloak and resembled Green Lantern Sam.  The twentieth-second and final one wore a gray-blue cloak and was obviously a goomba -- namely Goom.

This just added to Cloak's confusion.  "Wha . . ."

"We are you," Goom said, practically.  "And you are us."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 02:06:14 PM

Why is this happening to you? Is it because the wave? The list reasons is infinite, but the reason you will show us will be good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 02:08:04 PM

I'm sure I can come up with an adequate term. . . .

And now, onto Chapter Six!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 02:11:14 PM

Dang you are on a roll today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 02:22:13 PM

Hey, I don't usually have this much energy! . . .

Must be a full moon up tonight or something.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 02:25:41 PM

Can't we but a Yeerk in cloaks brain to wake him up or can Realm Walkers can't be temporary controllers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 02:31:32 PM

If if that was possible (which it isn't -- the Yeerk would be simoutaneously melted, incinerated, and disintergrated), it wouldn't work -- remember that Edriss couldn't wake Eva at the end of Visser (or did she?  I need to reread that.)  Besides, you'll soon have another concern . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 02:33:02 PM

I never read Visser at all...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 02:38:58 PM

I have the book.  But I haven't read it in a while.

Wow -- goin' fast!  ;D

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  Five chapters planned thus far.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder ghost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age and a Diznee Ice Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  Contains the parodies of "It's Like A B-Movie" and "Worthless".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  Might be one of my longer books -- and, no, I haven't watched Grimm.  I've only recently discovered it via "Face Off".  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature from the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some experience with.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . . No chapters planned out yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 02:45:00 PM

In a couple of posts I would have more posts than Blaze for this thread... Wow

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 02:46:27 PM

But not me!  :XD:

Well, you seem to be only one fully caught up, thus far, so it's really not too surprising.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 02:54:09 PM

I just don't want to be the 2nd top poster... I don't know why... Probably because people have to skip over my posts when they are trying to catch up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 03:04:26 PM

Eh, some people skip over posts regardless.

CHAPTER SIX:
Prototype Pandemonium

"Well, it's been three days, but let's see how much our labor has been fruiting -- er, that came out wrong." Yarin said.

"Never mind that, let's test fire this baby." Aquilai said.

"Just hurry up, I'm not getting any younger over here." Rotiart sniped.

"Or any nicer," Goom muttered.

They fired the beam and it . . . turned him blue.  Navy blue to be precise.

"IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE?!?!" Rotiart screamed.

"It was not intentional," Aquilai said, then added quietly to the other two, "but it should deflate that ego of his for a time."

After two hours, Rotiart returned to his normal coloration as the three continued to tinker on their new toy.  While Rotiart's disposition hadn't changed in the slightest, the three were ready to test it, but this time, Gaz had elected to be the test subject.  Laserbeak soared to the the nearest table to watch protectively over her.

"Ready, Gazzy?"

"Just fire before I change my mind," Gaz said, evidentally steeling herself for the ray.

They complied . . . and Gaz turned into Swiss cheese.  No, literally Swiss cheese, as in the edible kind.  She was as still as a statue and Laserbeak did not like this one bit.  He viciously pecked the three without mercy.

"Hey!  Hey!  Hey!  Stop that!" the three cried.

"She'll return to normal in an hour, Laserbeak!  Cut it out!"

But he did not relent until Gaz returned to normal and called him off.  As they left, Laserbeak threw his beak up int air at them.

"Ugh . . . that bird needs obedience school." Aquilai grumbled.

"Oh, he was pretty well obedient to Gaz," Goom remarked.

"Easy for you to say!  You hid underneath the desk!!" Yarin protested.

"You use what you got," Goom said cheekily.  "Now let's get back to work on this."

The other two grumbled a bit, and then proceeded to go back to work. . . .

***

"I still don't quite understand," Cloak said.

"Look at it logically," said Aquilai-in-the-jade-cloak, "we are you.  You are us.  We are facets of you.  I'm the representation of your logic."

"So, you're not really Aquilai, then."

"Not really, no."

"Why am I here then?"

"There are things you need to learn about yourself, that you -- that is to say, we -- cannot do on our own." Goom said practically.

Cloak remained silent for a moment.  Then he said, "So you're all facets of me, my personality."

"OUR personality!" Pootang roared.  Which pretty much proved what they were saying -- as the Pootang was not known for speech.

"So, you're my representation  of anger," Cloak concluded to the Pootang.

"No, RAGE!!"

Cloak looked at the Rage Pootang . . . he was massive, raging, and powerful.  Everything he feared.  Cloak feared his rage, his resentment.  Feared of having it take control, of having it conquer him.  But his rage . . . he couldn't suppress it anymore.  Doing so would only make him rather volatile.  Much like Pootang . . .

Suddenly, the Rage Incarnate that was Pootang smiled and vanished . . . becoming part of Cloak again.  Cloak blinked.  So this is what he had to do . . . he had to reconcile with himself.  With these facets.

Come to terms with his Hatred (represented by Brute) and his tendency to hold grudges.

With his Innocence (represented by Shadow) and how his childhood wasn't exactly ideal.

With his Bravery (represented by Faerie), and how he wasn't as cowardly as he thought himself to be.

With his Resilience (represented by Sakki), and how he shouldn't give up so easily on his friendships and family.

With his Logic, and how things are never as black as he sees them.

With his Angst (represented by Ursa), and how he should see that other people are as fallible as him, and his mother did not know how to handle a son like him as he always assumed she would, as irascible, narcissistic, and hypocritical as she can be, she has faults, like the rest of us.

With his Contempt (represented by the donkey Councilor), and see that not everyone is going to accept others, but rather cling to their hatred and bigotry.

With his Curiosity (represented by Underseen), and see that those that are curious must take precautions as best as they can not to harm anyone in their pursuit for the answer.

With his Disappointment (represented by the eagle Councilor), and see that everyone experiences disappointment, and we shouldn't let it get us down.

With his Disgust (represented by the lion Councilor), and see sometimes that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, but that's the very nature of the universe.

With his Loathing (represented by the badger Councilor), and pretty much was a rehash of his coming to terms with Contempt.

With his Distrust (represented by the snake Councilor), and realizing not every stranger means to do you harm.

With his Fear (represented by Demos), and realizing fear is natural, everyone feels it, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

With his Will (represented by the Green Lantern Sam), and realizing that he can't control everything, and being too willfull will distance himself from others.

With his Desire (represented by Sage), and realizing some desires will remain unfulfilled, but that shouldn't ruin your outlook.

With his Hope (represented by Horse), and realizing that no matter how bad the circumstances may be, there will always be hope.

With his Kindness (represented by Kelly), and realizing that kindness isn't something to be shunned.

With his Reliability (represented by Phoenix), and realizing that trying to please someone else when you are either trying to spare their feelings or doing a task you cannot do is not a good thing.

With his Affection (represented platonically by AniDragon), and realizing that it won't hurt to feel some affection for others, instead of spurring the feeling.

With his Compassion (represented by Estelore) and realizing that no matter how little he can do, it will always be sufficient in someone's eyes.

With his Practicality (represented by Goom) and realizing . . . well, nothing really.

After that, Cloak was now alone in the void, although he felt more at peace then he had ever felt.  But suddenly the background turned black, and Cloak was certain something else was coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 17, 2012, 03:17:23 PM

The chapter name only represents the first half of the chapter, but still great chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2012, 03:19:03 PM

Thanks, but I think that's gonna to be the last one today.  Still, three chapters ain't bad, is it?  ;)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 17, 2012, 04:03:24 PM

LOL! That was great. Made me grin. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2012, 11:02:08 AM

Great!  That was the intention!  ;D

Anyway, looks like Underseen overtook Blaze in the number of posts . . . and newest chapter is underway.  Let's see how many I can do today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 18, 2012, 11:18:14 AM

Less than 5 is my guess

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2012, 12:28:31 PM

We shall see, Underseen.  We shall see. . . . Though you're probably right.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Success! . . . Sorta!

"Well, this had better work," Aquilai said bitterly, still nursing the wounds the Cybertronian bird inflicted.

"Don't be so grumpy," Goom chatised.

"Don't make me stomp you," Yarin sniped.  "You may be a mod, with strange mod-y powers, but I'll do it!"

It was, of course, and idle threat.  Goom treated it as such, and paid it no mind.

"Just shut up and get that beam ready, before my reason catches up with me," Phoenix said.  He held his eyes out wide, closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and tensed his body, bracing for the beam.  He was fully it expecting it to do something ridiculous, like turn him into a mound of pizzas or something.

"Firing in . . . three . . . two . . . one." Aquilai said, behind their prototype that looked remarkably similar to the shrinking machine in the "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" franchise.  The beam, colored orange and brown, lanced from the barrel and hit Phoenix square in the chest, yet he did not fall backward at all, but his body rippled.  Literally rippled as he returned to his masculine form.

"It . . . worked. . . ." Phoenix said, sounding rather astonished.

"Don't sound so surprised!" Aquilai snapped.

"I halfway expected to be shrunk or something," he replied.

"Hardy har har." Yarin said.

It looked like Phoenix had been restored.  And he had . . . but only for twelve hours.  A mere second afterward he reverted back to his feminine self.  And so did all the other RAFians that the beam "cured".  Some of them were really angry and vocal about it, but Rotiart was the angriest and noisiest of them all.

It was all the three could do to stem the flow of anger -- granted the population was about 90% lurkers.

***

Cloak looked around and saw that he was once again in a void, only with a black background this time instead of white.  He felt ground beneath his feet, but, again, it wasn't Earth, Metal, or Wood.  Cloak did not know what it was.

Suddenly, a piller of wood appeared to his left with a quite audible creak.  It seemed to be roughly the same height as cloak.  Then, with an eerie hiss, a funnel of rotating air appeared next to the wood pillar.  Then, with a distinctive rumble, a pillar of earth, a perfect column, rose from the ground.  Then, with a surge of noise, a geyser of water shot up and continued to gush.  Then, with hellish "FOOOM", a column of fire sparked into life.  Then, with a sound like plunging a knife into fabric, a column of metal shot up from the ground.

Cloak knew that those were the Six Elements.  The elements that any Elements Master must master before attaining such a title.  And not all Realm Walkers can be Elements Masters -- he and Shadow are the only living ones.  Shadow learned from him, and he from his late maternal grandfather.  Beyond that, he didn't know any other Elements Master ancestors of his, aside from marginal knowledge at best about Guardian.

Cloak knew clearly that he was in for some kind of test.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2012, 01:50:36 PM

Gonna be a short chapter, methinks.  Looks like I may have skipped a chapter or misnumbered the chapters, but no matter.  And Underssen, you're right.  I tried, but it isn't gonna be more than two today.  Or not.  Don't hold me to it.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Beams, Pillars and Booms

Meanwhile, on another faraway planetoid, very similar to Androgynecopraesent, called Gendreconcido but called "Xi Viriginis 5" to scientists,  Abomination stood.  Gendreconcido was virtually identical to Androgynecopraesent in being barren and lifeless, but it was one of five that were so, and they orbited binary stars, one yellow, one red.

"Now, my love," Abomination said, making sure the alignment was right and perfect.  "My love, you'll see my usefulness.  You'll love me again.  This has to work."

Then when the moment was right, perfect down to the second, Abomination set the very last bomb to blow in five minutes. . . .

***

Back at the forum, Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin had spent the rest of the night perfecting the permancy of their ray's effects.  They were doing final adjustments.

"Now, if this doesn't work, I don't know what will." Aquilai said, eyes looking somewhat blearily.

"Maybe this'll settle 'em down," Goom said.

"I wouldn't count on it," Yarin said, tiredly, but knowingly.

"Just fire the blasted thing on me, and get it over with," Faerie said, irritatedly.  Nerves were easily frayed at this time of night.  They complied and it worked, as they knew it would.

"Well, we'll just have to wait twelve hours to see if it was permanent." Aquilai said, trying and failing to stifle a yawn.  "Until then, we can see to returning everyone back to what they were before, for a brief respite, at least."

But it turned out that the ray had succeeded as it should have.  And the permancy lasted longer than twelve hours.  How ironic that in another thirteen hours' time, they wouldn't have needed to labor so arduously.

***

Cloak looked and glared at the element pillars, unsure of what was about to happen.  But he knew that they weren't just their to be looked at, they had formed a circle around him.  Cloak recoiled from the fire pillar, and stepped a bit closer to the stone pillar.

Suddenly, something happened.

With many ominous creaking and groaning, the wooden pillar became a perfect likeness to Cloak.  And with many other noises, the other pillars followed suit.

"I must reconcile with the elements now?"

"More than that," said the metal Cloak, in his voice.  "You must reconcile with your fear of us."

"But I don't fear you," Cloak said, knowing very well that this was not the complete truth.

"You may not fear me," said Earth Cloak, "as I am your favored element." -- the other five didn't take exception to that -- "But you do fear one of us above all the rest."

"You fear me," said Fire Cloak, "and your reasoning for such has its merit, but is not without its flaws."

"What?  What do you mean?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean.  It is true fire grows and feeds, if left unchecked.  But fire is also the source of life -- both Dweller and Walker depend on fire for warmth, for light." Fire Cloak elaborated.  "Without fire, the world would be a very dark, very cold place."

"And it is not only fire that is destructive," intoned Air Cloak.  "Hurricanes and tornados cause vast amounts of damage, injuries and even deaths."

"And floods as well," Water Cloak added.  "And torrential rains that can cause exposure."

"Wood in baseball bats that can be used to bludgeon." Wooden Cloak added.  "And wood is responsible for many a vampire death."

"Metal is the most common element used for death," Metal Cloak said, "Knife blades, guns and their bullets . . . all of them metal."

"But bludging, shooting, stabbing -- the elements have no say in how they're used in those instances."

"But they are used because they are lethal." Air Cloak said.  "No element is free from the taint of murder, be they the murderer or accomplice."

Cloak stopped a moment to ponder this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 18, 2012, 04:36:55 PM

Just came back from Thanksgiving shopping and enjoyed these chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2012, 06:51:25 PM

Thanks -- looks like I've a busy week ahead of me.  So, at most, I'll only be able to post one chapter a day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 18, 2012, 06:59:10 PM

Okay... What the Abomination just did is going to be explained soon hopefully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2012, 11:15:58 AM

It'll be explained in the next chapter.  When I get around to writing it . . .

Anyway, a new page, so . . .

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  One chapter planned thus far.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . . No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).  No chapters planned out yet.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Gendreconcido Wave

Six hours had passed, and the surge had surpassed Estelore, making her way back rather sedately, in stellar terms of speed.  She even felt its "slipstream" of sorts buffet her -- but it did not affect her.  However, she did not fail to notice that the surge was headed to Earth.

Great, she thought, as if the others hadn't enough to deal with.

If she had the presence of mind at the time to call to RAF, the whole mess probably would have been adverted -- but not likely.  It would take it about seven hours to reach Earth and Estelore had to beat that time.

She had attempted to us her stellar might to disintegrate the surge, or diffuse it somehow, but her blasts missed by mere fractions of an inch.  It was infuriating to the star, like an opponent who spams Protect, Detect, Sand Attack or Double Team*.

But Estelore is nothing but persistant.  She continued this futile assault, until they came the solar system's space, and she had to encapsulate herself into her humanoid avatar before entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the few seconds Estelore required to do this gave the surge wave a big honkin' headstart.  To big of a headstart -- it made landfall just outside the city and RAF.  The resultant shockwave razed everything all over the planet.  But it did destroy anyone, no.  It just made them androgynous and neuter.  It basically removed all sexual dimorphism as well as all genders.

It turned the Earth into a world of hermaphadytes -- except Parker (whose armor shielded him), the Lanterns (whos Lantern aura protected them once more), and the still-comatose Cloak (who was born of energy, so it affects him a different way instead, allowing him to communicate with . . . well, that would be telling).

And, the wave managed to somehow wreak the emitter and barrel for the reversing ray.  The now genderless Aquilai, Goom and Yarin looked aghast at their reversal ray lying there in pieces.

"At least we managed to capture a spectral scan of it," Aquilai said quietly and sheepishly.

"Well, we better work fast," Yarin said, "before we get disgruntled RAFians storming in here."

***

"You must accept the elements for what we, what they are," said Earth Cloak.  "The very nature of each element is different and easily can be used for malicious or altruistic purposes."

"They are what they are, and we are what we are." Fire Cloak added.

"Yes," Cloak said.  "I guess I've always know that, but I was too afraid . . ."

"You weren't afraid of us, you were afraid of losing control of yourself," Air Cloak supplied smartly.

"Yes."

With that, the elemental Cloaks vanished, returning to the Realm Walker.  Cloak opened his eyes and saw that he wasn't in a vast black void, but he wasn't back at RAF either.

"What the . . . not another test!!"

"No," came a voice that was entirely unfamiliar.  It belonged to a Realm Walker who Cloak had never seen, who had his back to Cloak.  "But I need to talk to you.  I'm sure you don't know me, but I am your distant ancestor.  I'm the first Elements Master."

---
*Pokemon references, to those unfamiliar with the franchise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 19, 2012, 06:51:57 PM

What the heck...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on November 19, 2012, 07:51:20 PM

er




ma



gerd

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 19, 2012, 10:56:47 PM

This is good stuff. I look forward to more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2012, 12:21:17 AM

Thanks, Gazzy.

*is unsure what to make of Sakki and Underseen's reactions.*

CHAPTER TEN:
An Old Master and Adjustments

The RAFians and denizens of the city seemed rather subdued, but continued on with their lives despite the rather big change that happened to them recently.  There wasn't an easy solution to this -- Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin did not know if their reversal ray would even work on them once they've repaired it.

"The emitter's shot to h--"

"The barrel's mangled beyond repair."

"The body's held up fairly well, though."

Basically, everything they said after that, was indistinguishable due to the overlapping voices.

The denizens of the city were blissfully unaware that they had ever had genders, so they were happily unaware of the change.  But it was a bit more traumatic for the RAFians (but not by much -- Gaz's encounter with Madre de Vampyra in the past was far more traumatic for her, and the events of which she still did not want to talk about, as they were still painful to her).

Cloak remained in his coma, and his fellow RAFians began to really worry whether or not he'd ever awaken from it.  They didn't know of the internal struggle that was going on or went on in Cloak -- it was tough to tell the timing of things in the void.

***

"What do you mean you're the first Elements Master?" Cloak said, feeling scared as a cub again.  But he swallowed his fear, buried it, as he looked at the back of the Realm Walker.

"Just that," he said as he stood and turned around.  He was a stag-form Realm Walker, with twelve-point antlers.  Cloak wondered how he Walked -- those antlers didn't really seem able to easy fit into a hood of a cloak.

"I know what you're wondering," he said, as if he read Cloak's mind, "during my time, the realms did not exist.  There was just the Nexus.  You, son, are the only Elements Master, the only Realm Walker, to take up residence in any of the Realms.  You are unique, in that regard."

Cloak said nothing, but the first Master seemed to gather what this meant.

"My taken name was Avatar*," he explained.  "You really should know that for everything, there is always a first.  I'm the first of our line to master the Elements, which no one had done before me.  And, like you, I favored the Earth Element."

Cloak looked at Avatar with his head slightly ****ed to the left.  Avatar met this look with hearty laughter.

"I'm the first Elements Master, kid!  Not the first Realm Walker!"

"You said you needed to talk to me." Cloak said seriously.

"Ah, not to be distracted, I see.  An admirable trait to have in an Elements Master."  Avatar said.  "It's natural for any Elements Master to fear their power and, naturally, their emotions, as their emotions empower the Elements they control.  And we've all doubts.  In ourselves, in our control over our abilities."

"I got that," Cloak said, drily.  He wasn't sure whether or not he liked this guy.

"Yes, you do.  But you feel a need to bury your feelings, run away from your emotions." Avatar said, taking on a hearty but stern paternal tone.  "This is not good, Cloak.  It makes you a powder keg ready to go off at any moment.  A time bomb ticking away."

Cloak said nothing . . . though he knew and accepted what Avatar said as truth.

"You must accept your power.  You must accept your feelings, you mustn't flee from them, afraid of the harm that will come about." Avatar said.  "But to go to the extreme of being lax about them either.  You also mustn't hide away when others need your help."

"Huh?"

"Well, you'll understand soon enough." Avatar said.  "But now go, your friends -- and friends I've found are invaluable to have at your side -- need you.  Do not forgot our talk, young Master."

But, naturally, Cloak does.

---
*Yes, this is a nod to "Avatar: the Last Airbender" and "The Legend of Korra".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 20, 2012, 11:01:14 AM

Oh, how I miss Avatar: The Last Airbender. I hate when my non-Avatar-fan friends call Aang, Avatar and state it as his name... I know it can be used as a title, but not his name.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2012, 11:03:35 AM

Could be worse -- they could be using M. Knight's f*cked up pronunciation of it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 20, 2012, 11:19:41 AM

I know M. Night is Indian, but why did he make all of the characters in the movie Indian?

The reason I said "What the heck" about the last chapter is because after they got people back to normal they lose their genders.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2012, 11:32:27 AM

Quote from: Underseen on November 20, 2012, 11:19:41 AM

I know M. Night is Indian, but why did he make all of the characters in the movie Indian?

That actually wasn't my biggest gripe about the movie -- it was M. Night's apparent need to change or alter just about everything that made Avatar what it was, even the names!  I mean, the show was successful for a reason!  And the casting was apparently one of the biggest sore points.  But what really offended me was how weak he made earthbending look.  (Granted, I've only seen promos and what not, but considering what I saw of it from YouTube -- well, I never wanted to see it.)  But that's getting into off-topic territory.

Quote from: Underseen on November 20, 2012, 11:19:41 AM

The reason I said "What the heck" about the last chapter is because after they got people back to normal they lose their genders.

Hey, that kind of thing (something good happens that is immediately shut down by something bad) happens more often than I care to admit. :shrug:  Granted, it is a bit of screw-the-audience thing.

Anyway, on a different tangent, I may post another chapter later on tonight, but -- don't get your hopes up.  Oh, and did post an idea for Book CIX.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 20, 2012, 12:19:32 PM

Giddy... I will be playing Halo 4 until then...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2012, 09:49:04 AM

Did you mean you're giddy or did you mean "goody", Underseen?

Short chapter, ahoy!

Chapter Eleven:
The Awakening

Suddenly, everything around Cloak went dark, although the form of his ancestor remained for but a moment.  Then he too faded away into nothingness.  He felt as if he had been put in the middle of a washing machine who spun with hurricane gale forces.

He did not know up from down, left from right, back from forward anymore.  It was that chaotic, and random.  To say that Cloak felt confused was a rather large understatement.

Then he found that he was reclining on his back all of a sudden.  Eyes closed.  His body felt rather stiff, as if he hadn't been moved in a while.  With a quiet moan, he opened his eyes, and sat up.  There was a numbness in his body that he couldn't explain, but it was welcome, as it meant he was back in the waking world.

"Oh, you're up." a voice said.  Cloak recognized it as Kelly's.  Only . . . something sounded slightly off.  Cloak looked up at her, but his eyesight was blurred a bit.  That went away after a few seconds.

Cloak saw Kelly clearly as the Oompa Loompa* as she was, and saw that he was in the infirmary.  It was already dark out.

"How're you feeling?" Kelly asked.  It was an earnest question.

"Confused, truthfully." Cloak said honestly.  "How long was I out?"

"A couple of weeks," Kelly replied quietly.

"What?!"  Cloak had expected the answer to be a couple of hours at most.  "How . . . how . . . h-how?!"

"I don't know any more than you do about that," Kelly said, swiftly switching her tone from kindly nurse to strict disciplinarian.  "But if you don't relax you're bound to do more harm to yourself, so calm yourself down or I will be force to sedate you.  We're lucky enough that the Androgynecopraesent Wave just put you into a coma!!"

Cloak stared at her for a minute.

"The what Wave?"

"Lay back down, and I'll tell you what I know," Kelly said, uncharacteristicall y severe.  Cloak complied, but in a rather numb, unconscious way.  "That's better -- you don't need to get so worked up right now.  Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin are already working on a cure for the Gendreconcido Wave."

"You said 'Androgynecopraesant Wave'," Cloak pointed out.

"Well, there were two."

"Two?"

"Let me start at the beginning."

---
*I don't know if Oompa Loompas  have sexual dimorphism, truthfully, so, I decided not to mention it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2012, 11:39:22 AM

Posting another chapter, because I don't know if I'll be on at all tomorrow.  It being Thanksgiving and all.  Anyway, another short chapter.

Chapter Twelve:
Parts!  My Kingdom for Parts!

Meanwhile, in the lab, Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin had stumbled across a very inconvienent snafu in their plans.  They needed a new emitter, and the spare was also damaged beyond repair, and they couldn't find the spare of the spare.

"Well, this is just perfect." Yarin sighed.  "We need a new emitter, the barrel is bent beyond viable repair, the wave-particle matrix is just shrapnel now, and the casing is just sufficiently warped enough to be insufficient to use."

"It could be worse, I suppose." Goom said.

"There's the kiss of death," Aquilai commented benignly.  Then he heaved a heavy sigh, "And we haven't any parts to replace them in the lab."

"Or make them from scratch." Yarin added, head in his upper arms, while his lower arms rubbed his face in a fretful manner.

"Well, we'll just have to order them," Goom said, with an air of determined optimism.  "Then wait for them to arrive by the delivery man."

"You think they'd accept an Alien Express card*?" Yarin asked.

***

Abomination had watched all this unfold, and he watched with greedy anticipation.  His relationship with Malice had been recently strained (he still deluded himself that it was one of lovers instead of a boss-lackey relationship).  He thought, he hoped, that by taking the initiative and blowing up the two planets when the time was perfect, that it would curry favor with his beloved.

He was so pitingly desirious of her affection that he went to such lengths.  He wouldn't have cared if the planets or Androgynecopraesent's moons held life, he would have snuffed them all out just the same.  As long as he got Malice's love, blissfully unaware that Malice has never truly loved anyone other than her self, nor has she felt it in return.  She just saw love as a way of manipulating people to do what she wants.

Abomination eventually takes off . . . eager to tell Malice what he's done . . . but after a romantic dinner . . . yeah, after dinner. . . .

***

"They're here," Yarin said.

"About time." Aquilai commented.

"Just lucky they accepted Alien Express," Goom said.  "Now, let's get to work, shall we?"

---
*Yes, it's a reference to the 80s TMNT.  "The Attack of MACC", I think the episode's called.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2012, 01:52:43 PM

Well, apparently, I AM gonna be online today.  And, since I don't have to get the mail, I'm probably gonna post chapters off and on all day.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Introspections and Reflections

" -- And that brings you up to speed," Kelly finished.

"Two waves?" Cloak said, more to himself than Kelly, "The destruction of Androgynecopraesent and Gendreconcido . . ."

"Cloak?  Are you okay?"

It was few seconds before Cloak registered what Kelly had said, or that Kelly even had spoken in the first place.

"In a manner of speaking," Cloak muttered, looking out the window still deep in thought.  He had naturally assumed that Malice was behind this.  But . . . it didn't make sense.  It seemed rather too stupid and contrived for Malice.  Gender swaps and neutering?  Seemed a little banal and . . . well, pointless, really.

Malice had done everything to RAF to either get back at Cloak, annoy him, or simply for her own amusement.  Cloak could not think what possibly could Malice see in this.  Cloak wasn't affected, and the RAFians didn't seem humiliated at all.  The denizens of the city didn't seem to remember things being any different from what it was now.

Life in the city wasn't as unaffected as once thought, Cloak realized quite quickly.  Genders had eliminated several forms of discrimination.

All gender-based discrimination, such as homophobia, transphobia, and whatnot had been rendered defunct in a genderless environment.  So was misandry -- the hatred of men and boys -- and misogyny -- the hatred of women and girls.

But hatred like that cannot simply evaporate, and so it is transferred to other areas.  Some elitists transferred such bigoted hatred into racism, ageism, class discrimination (or "classism"), genetic discrimination (or "genism"), height discrimination (or "heightism"), language discrimination (or "languagism"), attractiveness discrimination (or "lookism"), mental stability discrimination (or "mentalism"), hierarchy discrimination (or "rankism"), religious discrimination (or "religionism"), size discrimination (or "sizeism"), speciesism, weight discrimination (or "weightism"), or some combination of the aforementioned discriminations.*

Violent crimes fuelled by hatred, channelled by wrath, and encased in distrust did not stop with the Gendreconcido Wave.  It was just funnelled into other areas that did not require a gender.

It was amazing, completely unfathomable, how hateful any sentient creature could be.  Humans are by no means the only species susceptible to hate -- hate laced with murderous desire.  Cloak knew that Realm Walkers were just as susceptible to it -- all sentient creatures who ever had a thought independent from instinct were.  The mere fact that the Red Lanterns exist is proof of this.

But why?  Why must it be so?

It was something Cloak never understood, though he felt the unholy flames of hate lick at his own heart.  Like all his emotions, he attempted to bury it as well.  He never understood why someone would want to kill someone simply because they're of a different age, class, genotype, height, race, rank, religion, size, weight, etcera.

Then Cloak widened his eyes as he realized something.  Perhaps this whole wave ordeal wasn't as stupid as he thought.  Perhaps, just perhaps, Malice intended to escalate already unstable, bigoted people's hatreds by removing a type of discrimination.  All that hate has to go somewhere.  Bigotry doesn't just evaporate into nothingness -- it dies, and dies slowly, if at all.

That would be up Malice's ally -- watching Dwellers killing each other over trivial matters. . . . If that's her plan . . .

Then again, Cloak thought, I could be reading too much into this, I don't know Malice's plans or motiviations, not really.  It would be really foolish of me to assume that which I am not certain of.

"Cloak?" Kelly's voice penetrated through Cloak's thoughts.

"Huh?"

"Cloak, I think you need to go down to the mess hall and get yourself something to eat," she said, rather benignly.

"I'm not hungry," Cloak replied brusquely.

"You should try to eat something," Kelly said, writing on a clipboard, "keep your strength up.  It'll do you some good.  I'll go inform the mods that you're awake."

With that she left the room, and Cloak stood up.  He wasn't really hungry, but he probably should get some food in him.

---
*Yes, I looked these up at Wikipedia.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2012, 02:41:17 PM

Another chapter -- go!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Prototypes on Parade

While Cloak had awoken, Goom, Aquilai and Yarin continued to work on the prototypes, and Mithril had, rather reluctantly, accepted being their test subject.  (He insisted that Sakki somehow tricked him into it.)

Meanwhile, unheard by all except the reader, was a song:

"Look out! Look out!
Smilies on parade!"

The prototype did not return Mithril's gender to him, but made his hair grow uncontrollably for five minutes.  It filled up a third of the room.

"Here they come!
Hippety hoppety."

After a couple of quick adjustments, the prototype gave Mithril explosive burps for ten minutes.

"They're here and there
Prototypes ev'rywhere!"

Again, the three made another few adjustments, and then fired at Mithril.  It forced him to speak in a very bad British accent for fifteen minutes.

"Look out! Look out!
They're walking around the bed!"

After more adjustments, the prototype turned Mithril into a rather angry-looking tree for twenty or so seconds.

"On their head
Clippety cloppety!"

After more adjustments, the prototype just reversed Mithril clothing . . . his pants were on his upper body and his shirt on his lower body.  Mithril quickly corrected this himself.

"That was not funny!" he protested angrily.

"Arrayed in braid
Prototypes on parade!"

Now the prototype made Mithril look like he walked through a rainbow for fifteen minutes, and Mithril was quickly becoming disgruntled.  He was also starting to wonder if this was worth it, going though this abuse.

"What'll we do? What'll we do?
What an unusual view!"

The prototype made Mithril's muscles bulge up rather conspicuously, making him appear to be a rather cartoonish-looking professional bodybuilder.

"Okay, this isn't so bad . . . is it --" Mithril began, then his muscles deflated, and he added, "oh."

"I could stand the sight of worms
And look at microscopic germs."

The prototype suspended Mithril in gelatin dessert, which, upon being freed, Mithril reflected was better than being frozen in carbonite.

"But pretty prototypes, dear,
Is really much for me!"

"You know, guys, I think that I've really had about enough of --"

But then the next prototype rendered him mute for ten minutes.

"We must remember this next time Rotiart gets mouthy," Yarin observed passively.  Mithril just glared at the three.

"We're not the type to faint
When things are odd or things are quaint."

"Guys, I think I'm gonna go now --"

But then the next prototype removed his bones.

"Hey!  I NEEDED those!"

"I think we're getting close, though." Aquilai said.

"Ugh, they don't pay me enough for this." Mithril muttered.

"We're not paying you at all, though," Goom said, with only a sideways glance as Mithril's bones returned.

"But seeing things you know that ain't
Can certainly give you an awful fright!"

"Guys, can we just put this off until --"

The prototype then turned Mithril into an insubstantial state for five minutes, but it was enough to get him to toss his cookies all over the ground.

"Intriguing reaction," Aquilai noted benignly.  "Don't worry, Mithril, we're almost there."

"What a sight!
Chase 'em away!"

"Really, guys!  I've really had enou--" Mithril began, but the prototype turns him into one of those little polyp things of Ursula's from Disney's "The Little Mermaid".  He glares accusingly at the trio, even after he returns to his normal form nine minutes later.

"Chase 'em away!
We're afraid we need your aid."

"Last time, Mithril," Goom said, "I promise."

Mithril protested.  "I don't want to do this anymore."

"Just this last time," Goom said.

"No!" Mithril proclaimed, but it was too late, and the prototype fired.  Mithril winced and braced himself, but then realized nothing had happened.

"Prototypes on parade!
Prototypes,
Prototypes . . ."

"Last time, I swear," Goom said, earnestly.

"No!  You said that last time!"  Mithril insisted.  "No!"

But the prototype was fired, and this time something did happen.  Mithril became a "he" again.  It worked.

"Good," Mithril said, then in a very Snake Jailbird way said, "'Bye!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2012, 10:46:31 AM

I really hate quadruple-posting -- especially because this post won't have a chapter in it (at least, not yet) -- but I felt that I should mention that I've added ideas for about seven or so new books . . . tell me what you think.

I may not post a chapter at all today, but perhaps -- just perhaps -- I will later today.

:edit: Oh, crap!  New page.

• Book XXII: Pits of Terror

The RAFians fall into pits that show them their greatest fears. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.  Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun. Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper. Nineteen chapters planned.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore). Eighteen chapters planned.

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.  Twenty-two chapters planned.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.  Twenty chapters planned -- a RAFian story per chapter, discounting the intro.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.  Twenty chapters planned.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.  Thirteen chapters planned thus far.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Carrotik.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to one of Mojo's programs.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker. No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faeries possession.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Essentially gonna be a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Shadow, Aila, and Aquilai.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . . No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).  No chapters planned out yet.

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students.  No chapters planned out yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 23, 2012, 01:09:37 PM

I'm back... It hasn't been that long.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2012, 01:38:23 PM

Well, I was working on the chapter, went to get the mail, and came back to find that my computer had shut itself off.  I lost the chapter.  And really don't feel like retyping it.  This computer probably has hundreds of viruses on it. . . .

:edit:

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Rays and Dismays

"Now, Mithril," Goom said, speaking as if he memorized a form letter, "report to us in twelve hours to see if it is permanent.  If you should revert to your androgyneous state before the twelve hours have elapsed, you will report to one of us or a member of the staff."

"Right," Mithril said, clearly disoriented.  "But if it fails, you ain't testing more prototypes on me, got it?"

"Fair enough," Aquilai said evenly and fairly.

As it turns out, the ray only worked for ten hours.  Then it resulted in a rather painful revert to their androgyneous states.  When Mithril reported this, he did not even wait for the three to reply -- he dashed out of there as fast as his two legs could carry him.  He needn't have done so, as the three had no intention to subject him to more tries.

"What could have gone wrong?" Yarin asked.

"I don't know," Goom said, starting to look over the machine.

"Perhaps we need a new lubricant for the beam." Aquilai suggested.

And the three argued and debated and deliberated well into the night.

***

Cloak was in his thread, contemplating and pondering over what had occurred.  His RAFians had begun to worry about him -- he only did things like this when he was preparing to do something rather reckless.

He knew Malice had to be behind the A Wave and the G Wave, but he could not nail down her motivations with any certainty.  He did not like this fact.  Malice's intentions usually were crystal clear to him in any of her schemes.  But no this one.

Cloak wrote off Abomination as being the cause of these Waves.  He wasn't very smart and he had no initiative to speak of.  He wouldn't make a move without Malice's okay.  Last Cloak saw of him, he was still lying to himself, telling himself that Malice loved him.  Every time Cloak thought about it, he couldn't help but feel a twang of pity for the brutish, lovesick hippo.

There were still too many question without concrete answers.  Cloak had to know.  He had to find answers, and they weren't here in RAF, in his adopted home.  He had to leave, and he would do it alone.

"Hi, Uncle!  Where ya going?"

Maybe not.

***

"You think this'll work?" Aquilai said skeptically.

"A little gekkota salvia and a few bits of essence of eye of pleurodelinae?" Yarin asked rhetorically.

"Gecko spit and eye of newt." Aquilai translated, still with the skeptical tone.

"Yes, it should be sufficient."

"I don't think he was talking about the quantity, Yarin." Goom said.

"I'm well aware of what he meant, thank you very much." Yarin snapped.

"Let's just see if this works.  Gaz, you can come in now." Goom said.

"As long as you leave that crazy, gun-camera-bird thing out there!" Aquilai ordered.

Laserbeak chirped rather threateningly -- which looked absolutely ludicrous.

"It's okay, Beaky." Gaz said, patting the little mechanical bird.  It puffed his chest out  -- and promptly tumbled off of Gaz's shoulder.  "Beaky!  Oh, Beaky, you should be more careful!"

They fired the beam at her, and it seemed to work perfectly.  But they did not know the permancy of it.  Goom gave Gaz the same spiel as he did with Mithril.  Laserbeak gripped her shoulder and flared his wings.  He had intended for it to be a gesture of intimidation.  But it just looked cute.

Twelve hours later, the ray has proven permanently successful, so the three spent the next three days righting everyone back to their normal states.

***

"Does your mom know you're here this time?" Cloak said, with a tired, worn tone.

"Yes, Uncle."

"Are you lying to me?"

"No, Uncle."

"Did you finish your homework?"

"We didn't have any?"

"Is that a statement or a question?"

"We didn't have any."

Cloak said nothing for a bit, then sighed.  He didn't have time for this. . . . Alright, technically he did, but he didn't chose to acknowledge that little fact.

"Alright, if you're coming, let's go."

"Go where?"

"I don't know yet."

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 24, 2012, 01:37:05 PM

So much fun being the walking test subject. lol

Good update!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2012, 01:54:53 PM

I especially like the dynamic between you and Laserbeak. :XD:

Okay, I may be posting off and on all day.  But I'll try to get another chapter up soon.

:edit: Just a warning this next chapter's gonna get a bit . . . cartoony.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Some Extraneous Song Levity

Cloak and Shadow set out, with the readers seeing the obligatory "journey montage", whilst hearing this:

Look out, new journey, here they come!
Brave intrepid, and then some!
Pioneers of maximum audacity,
Whose resumes show that they're just the team
To live where others merely dream,
Building up our head of steam
On the path they blaze!

Changing legend into fact,
They shall ride into RAF's history,
Turning myth into truth!
They shall surely gaze,
On the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery.
All will be revealed
On the path they blaze!

Answers are close at hand,
The questions, the promised plan.
Quite unusual nowadays,
On the path they blaze!
The path they blaze,
Is a road uncharted.
Through terra incognita,
To find the answers, fine.
No place for the wary traveler,
To be fainthearted.
It's part of a sumptuous grand design.

Change legend into fact,
We shall ride into history.
Turning myth into truth.
They shall surely gaze
On the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery.
All will be revealed
On the path they blaze!

"Some song choice, Uncle," Shadow commented, revealling that the Realm Walkers heard every lyric.

"Oh, shut up," Cloak said, with a smirk.

"So," Shadow said, as the two proceeded to analyze the waves and research the planets that met the rather bleak fate.  "Are we there yet?"

"The whole montage, you didn't say anything about that, and you choose now?" Cloak said with mock irritation.

"You know the 'montage rules' were in place!" Shadow said, sardonically.

"Anyways . . . here.  I think here's where we'll find answers," Cloak said.

"Not that old carnival thing again."

"No, this place is an abandoned aquarium."

"Oh, goody," Shadow said dryly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2012, 03:55:10 PM

I am tempted to put another parody -- "Terror Time" -- in this chapter, but I've think I've done that enough in this particular book.  Perhaps the next book it would be more appropriate.

Anyway, I think I'm back on track -- warning: this could be a short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
It's Like A Movie, A Horror Movie Show*

The two Realm Walkers stepped foot on the grounds of the abandoned aquarium park.

"Not what I was expecting at all when you said it was abandoned," Shadow observed.  "Still creepy -lookin' though."

"I know," Cloak said, "there wasn't a picture just a rather crude map."

It was night, and the waxing moon issued enough moonlight for even Shadow's eyes (she had the same night-vision sight as that of a human) could penetrate the gloom.  Cloak, being a tiger Realm Walker, could easily see through the darkness.  And what he could not see, he could easily earthsight it.

There were an abundance of buildings, empty outdoor pools and tanks for marine animals that were long gone.  But there was not very much decreptedness and dilapidation here for some reason.  There could be other reasons, but Cloak found it rather suspicious.

"How long ago was this aquarium abandoned?" Shadow asked shrewdly.

"I believe it was seven years," Cloak answered.

"Sure doesn't look like it," Shadow observed.

"No, it doesn't, does it?" Cloak said, with the same shrewd tone as his neice.

"You suspect something," she noticed.

"Yes, I do." Cloak said, kneeling and examining some dust on the floor.  Standing up, he instructed her, "Stay on your guard.  Keep your feet, ears, nose and eyes open and alert.  Anything can happen."

"Aren't you being a little bit paranoid, Uncle?" Shadow said as she complied.

"Getting caught off-guard isn't any fun, Shadow.  Trust me."

They said nothing for the next hour as they scoped out an empty concession stand and a forgotten souvenier stand.  Cloak supposed that this aquarium had fallen on hard times and could not be saved finicially, and that's why it had to close down.

Still, that didn't explain the lack of decay here.  It wasn't because of the area, that was for sure.  It was on the same elevation as the city near RAF, and they had go through periodic repair as all human constructs do.  But this place could not have been untouched for seven years -- it was too clean, too intact.

Granted, it wasn't exactly perfect and, well, pristine.  There was a modest amount of grime and grit, and a patch of mold here and there.  But not nearly as much as to have been expected.

"Someone's been living here," Shadow suggested.  Then, looking for assurance and confirmation, added, "Right?"

"I believe that's an astute observation," Cloak said.  Then he rubbed his chin.  It could very well be . . . but it could also be a homeless person with a passionate hatred of dirt.  Improbable, but not impossible.

"Do you think that it's Malice and . . . and . . ." Shadow said, struggling to remember Abomination's name, ". . . and . . . and whathisname?"

"Possibly," Cloak said, unwilling to commit to this without more proof.  "But there could be humans who live here with a particularly severe cleaning compulsion."

"I somehow doubt that," Shadow said.

"Somehow, so do I," Cloak replied.

---
*A play on a lyric in the song "B-Movie" from "The Brave Little Toaster".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2012, 04:56:20 PM

Three more chapters to go.  Hopefully.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Oh, He's Abominable!

If someone was  living here, other than the fact that this place wasn't as decayed as it should have been, there was no other evidence that it was so.  One would think that eventually whoever dwelled here would eventually get sloppy or lazy, and leave a mark, a trace of their existance.

"All other buildings are clear.  That means --"

"Only the big one remains." Cloak said, turning to his right and looking at the building as if it had been snickering behind his back.  Cloak shut his eyes and stomped his right foot.  He was earthsighting the building, and he could tell that Shadow was following his lead.  He scanned throughout the building, but it proved to be much larger than he had anticipated.  But he did see something, but Shadow exclaimed it first.

"Someone's in there!" she gasped.

"And it is most definitely a Realm Walker," Cloak said, with narrowed eyes.

"What's our next move?"

"Go in after them, of course." Cloak said, although with no humor or levity upon his face.

"You're the boss," Shadow sighed.

***

" . . . To prevent this from ever happening again, Aquilai, Yarin and I have developed orbital wave nullifiers  --  O -W-N --"

"I think we're gonna get into some copyright issues with that," Guy commented benignly.

Goom proceeded to address everyone else on a global scale, "-- which will prevent such things from happening again.  The O-W-N have no weapons and are powered by solar batteries which store solar energy.  This is not a hostile action, but one of preservation. --"

And Goom's speech went on from there, attempting to reassure other countries that might see this as an act of aggression.  Thus, feel like they had to strike back.

However, the Knights had become a global organization, it would seem, as they seemed to relish sowing doubt in the minds of the people.  Accusing Goom and RAF of lying about the O-W-N being weaponless.  Politicians everywhere were the easiest to sway -- as a great many of them will just about flipflop for anything if it means garnering them voters.*

Goom and the other mods knew they were fighting an increasingly uphill battle.

***

The two managed to make it to a metal door to which the person lurked behind.  Cloak aimed and easily kicked the door in.

"My, my, my," said the figure within, "such manners.  Hasn't Mommy taught you that it's rude not to knock?"

Cloak was momentarily stunned.  Then he burst out with laughter at the sight of this Realm Walker.

"What?!"  he demanded.  "What by the Veil is so FUNNY?!?!"

"You?" Cloak said, attempting to stem and restrain his laughter.  "You did this?  You, Abomination?"

"Yeah, me!!  I did it all!  I planted the bombs on Androgynecopraesent and Gendreconcido!!  I blew both up!!  I caused the waves that swapped the Dwellers genders and the one that eliminated them all together!!"

"Not exactly," Cloak said, not laughing anymore.  "Those blessed with Lantern glows and those that were sufficiently armored were unaffected.  As was any Realm Walker."

"You lie!" Abomination roared.  "It worked on all of them, and none where the wiser!"

"It did not work on all of them, and those who bear the Mark," Cloak said, lifing his right hand to show his Mark, "remembered everything."

"You lie!  You lie!!" Abomination bellowed, as if the louder he said it, the more truthful it would become.

"I have no need to lie to you," Cloak said coldly.

"How old is this guy?" Shadow said.

"I killed you once," Abomination snarled, "and I'll do it again."

"Actually, Abomination," Cloak said, ignoring Abomination's roars of "don't call me that", "you never killed me.  I have never died.  You came close, I'll admit.  You came real close.  But, ultimately, like all your endeavors, you failed."

"I'll kill you!"

"Please, you couldn't even beat my tweenage neice."

"'Tweenage'?"

"We'll argue semantics later, Shadow."

"I'll kill you!  I'll kill both of you!  I'll --"

Then a louder voice, if that's possible, rang out.

"THERE YOU ARE!!"

---
*Not meaning offense to those who actually like politicians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2012, 05:33:59 PM

Now, the penultimate chapter of this book. . . .

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Trouble With the Missus

"THERE YOU ARE!!" the voice repeated, but at a less explosive volume.  The voice's owner was soon reveal to be Malice, incandescent with outrage.  "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY IT, BOY?!  WHO TOLD YOU TO TAKE THE BOMBS, HUH?  WHO TOLD YOU TO BLOW UP THE PLANETS?!  WHO, HUH?!  WHO?!"

"No one, dear, but I --"

"DON'T YOU 'BUT' ME!!!"

"But I --"

"BUT YOU WHAT?!"

"I . . . I, uh, I --"

"YOU WHAT?!"

"I thought you were gonna do it anyway, so I'd thought . . ."

"YOU THOUGHT WHAT?  GO ON, TELL ME!!  YOU THOUGHT WHAT?!"

Abomination continued in a meek voice, "I thought you'd be happy that I did it for you."

"WHO ASKED YOU TO DO IT FOR ME?!  HUH?!  YOU'VE MISSED THE ENTIRE PURPOSE, THE ENTIRE POINT, OF IT!!  I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE ANY OF THE RESULTS!!" Malice berated him.  "I DIDN'T GET TO WATCH ANYONE SQUIRM, LAUGH AT THEIR HUMILIATION, OR --"

Cloak felt immense pity on Abomination seeing Malice's treatment of Abomination, and he could tell his niece felt the same.  It reminded himself of the fights he and his mother, Ursa, would have when he was a teenager.  It forced him to speak up.

"It doesn't matter, Malice," Cloak's voice cut through Malice tirade, "only the Mark-Bearers remembered anything about it."

"Wha . . ." Malice said, gazing over at the two Elements Masters.  Then she snapped back to Abomination, and shouted, "Now, look what you've done.  Now Sage's spawn is on to us."

"Leave him alone," Cloak said.  It was hard to believe that Cloak was defending a person who's threatened to murder him.

"I don't need your help!" Abomination snarled.

"Get up, you stupid lump," Malice hissed at Abomination, " and let's go!"

"Abom -- er, wait!  Just wait." Cloak said.  "You don't need to put up with this.  She's not worth it.  She's abusive and knows nothing about love.  Let go of your devotion to a woman who won't even see you as an equal!"

However, this fell onto deaf ears as both vanished.

"Uncle . . ." Shadow said, clearly unnerved, "why . . . why does he stay with her?"

"He's deluded himself into a fantasy," Cloak said ruefully, as the two turned to go back to RAF, "he believes with everything he's got that she actually loves him."

"But doesn't he see that she's abusive to him?"

"Sometimes," Cloak said, "the fantasy is better than the reality."

***

Meanwhile, the RAFians were having a time with Knights attempting to infiltrate (rather poorly) and sabotage the O-W-Ns.  But soon enough they were operational, and, with international acceptance -- which was odd in and of itself, launched into geosynchronous orbit.

The Knights, and sympathizers with their cause, insist that the O-W-Ns were a terrorist weapon.  But their logic became more and more flimsy every day, until not many believed them.  Then thing seemed to get violent with some, and others maintained a more passive, yet pervasive, means to discredit this project.  Some only trolled the MSN and YouTube comment boards . . . although they did that beforehand.

"Well, universal acceptance is a fool's dream, I guess," Richard thought, pensively, as he looked out from his thread.  It was rather opulent, but at the RAFian constructors insistence, not his.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 24, 2012, 10:56:57 PM

lol, yeah, the stuff with Beaky is fun to read about. Love it!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 02, 2012, 10:55:33 PM

Oh my gosh... Since you have been gone for so long I have re-read this book and now that I re-read this chapter I get kinda mad that you get inactive right after the climax... I know it's either an internet problem or a family problem, but I hope it gets better and that you aren't dead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 11, 2012, 02:52:10 PM

Underseen, there's a reason why I've been inactive.  My mother threw me out.  But I'll start from the beginning.

When I was working on the last chapter, and I was cooking beef stew.  I added meat, carrots and potatoes, but when it came to serve the potatoes all but disintegrated.  She accused me of either eating them all or not adding them at all.  I tried to tell her the truth, but she called me a liar.  I begged her to listen to reason, but she didn't, and eventually came to threaten me with jail.  I countered that I'd get her for assault (she pulled my hair a number of times -- but I knew full well I wouldn't) and she threw me out.

I went to a mission, and had an emotional breakdown.  They admitted me to Pardee (I was feeling HIGHLY suicidal), and I got the conseling that I sorely needed and actually DESIRED.  Now, I'm at Meridian, and they're gonna help me with what was my primary goal for nine years -- getting stability to my life -- a job, a driving license, the whole nine yards.

My aunt, her son, and his wife took me in and . . . what a difference not being around my mother makes.  Sorry that I didn't take your advice on that one sooner, Aquilai.  I no longer feel expendable, feel worthless.  I feel like I'm a real person, who's opinion actually matters.  Granted, I can't see Shadow so much anymore -- Faith is still close to my mother.

And I've discovered I've may have been far too harsh on my father. . . .

Anyway, that's the general gist.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 11, 2012, 03:06:43 PM

I'm so sorry to hear about that Cloaky. But I'm glad to hear that you were able to successfully figure something out. Feel free to PM me. Good luck.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 11, 2012, 09:42:53 PM

Threaten to send you to jail over potatoes!? That is when you know you need to find a new place to live. I am glad you live somewhere where people care about you. With my bad day hearing the end of your story really made my day up. I hope you pursue a great career and with what of getting your life back on track I would completely understand a long term hiatus on Memoirs. If Memoirs ends because you are so busy and can't find time to even use the internet I will be happy because you are doing something [a little bit more] productive in your life.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2012, 10:17:47 PM

Memoirs won't end, though, Underseen.  I will write it as long as I'm able.  And the list now is horribly out of date -- I'm actually working on the chapters for Book XCV, "An Epic Yarn".  I might finish up the book tomorrow.  Now, I'm just catching up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 13, 2012, 10:35:36 PM

Oh wow. Now I have something to look forward too this holiday season!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2012, 10:41:41 PM

I haven't written them out, per se, though, Underseen.  Just planned out the chapters out.  And Gaz is so fond of Beaky . . . She's so gonna hate me come Chapter 15 of Book XCIII: "The Brand". . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 13, 2012, 10:50:30 PM

Spoilers...  C'mon you told us the exact book and chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2012, 10:55:26 PM

Uh huh.  Besides I'm having trouble having this iPad letting me modify the previous post with the list.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 13, 2012, 11:06:59 PM

Only problem now is how long it would take for you to write on the Ipad.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2012, 12:12:00 AM

Y'know, as much as I hate to do it, I'm gonna have to forgo the list.  Too much of a pain in the butt to mess with right now.

Well, anyway, if some words look weird, it's also because I have to contend with the blasted autocorrect.  So, new chapter sometime tomorrow, unless I'm busy helpin' out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 14, 2012, 12:36:39 AM

That's actually good. You make me kinda want to get into writing on RAF, but I have nothing to write about D:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2012, 09:57:38 AM

Okay, the first chapter via iPad. . . .

Chapter Twenty:
Similarities

Over the the next few following days, Cloak couldn't think of a thing other than the abusive relationship of Malice and Abomination.  Of it's similarity to him and his mother.  Ursa had always been a supercilious sort, narcissism at the core, unable to admit personal faults, deeming those that she turned against as losers.

Cloak remembered with a pang that she said the same of him, to his face, not too long ago.  At the time, he craved her approval, much like Abomination craved Malice's affections.  This he could understand, if involuntarily.

While Abomination was not an innocent person -- he knew full well that he was harming or inconveniencing people -- this whole thing with Malice was rapidly extinguishing his hate for his old foe, much like the hatred for his own mother had burned itself out.  He now pitied the both of them.  His mother, for her inability to see herself as a flawed being, very capable of making errors. Abomination, for being so . . . Desperate for love and companionship, he turns a blind eye to the verbal abuse that Malice so kindly decided to bestow upon him.

Cloak held out hope, just a little, that Abomination would see just how volatile his situation was, just how abusive it was.  Would see like Cloak did.  Would untangle himself from that noxious personality that Malice was.

In Cloak's mind, the reprise of his falling out with his mother came as a song . . . As his mother singing the reprise to "Mother Knows Best".

"Cloak, are you okay?"

It was Underseen, Gaz and Aquilai, but Underseen was the one who had spoken.

"I'm fine," Cloak said, rather repressively.  "Just thinking."

When he did not elaborate, the three looked ant one another, while Laserbeak squawked nosily, as if prodding Cloak to explain himself. Gaz quickly shushed him, though he complained about it.

"Quiet down, Beaky." Gaz scolded. Laserbeak glared at Gaz in what appeared to be a mutinous look, causing Gaz to chatise him, "Oh, don't you give me that look now."

***

Meanwhile, a good distance away from the city and RAF, on a nicely sandy beach, someone or something slurped ominously as if it just finished a meal of an unwary, foolish passerby.  Like a trapdoor spider that had already pounced on a juicy, tender morsel.

Then the beach went back to being and looking completely normal and harmless.  But only a fool judges anything based on appearances.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2012, 10:50:39 AM

Book XXII:
The Pits of Terror
Chapter One:
A Day At The Beach

Cloak still proved to be a bit moody three days past.  He kept to his ruminations, and kept them to himself.  It was festering in him, and his thread was where he was spending most of his time.  Naturally, his RAFian friends began to worry about him.

Then Dino decides that the RAFians need some recreational time, time to clear their heads after the effects of what happened that full Yeerk feeding cycle ago.  She suggests the beach.  The Andalite RAFians refused, unable to grasp why the beach was such a desirable destination, with all that sand and whatnot.

Goom, Gaz, Faerie, Parker, Ash, and Underseen agree to go, the others that may of had interest were unable due prior commitments.  But the six then go about trying to concoct ways of convincing the Realm Walker RAFian to go with them.

***

"How'd I ever let you talk me into this?" Cloak wondered, as he stood upon the sand, looking thoroughly discomforted.  "I don't even like beach parties."

"Have you ever been to one?" Faerie asked shrewdly, guessing the truth.

"Not particularly," Cloak said.  "We really don't have beaches in the Nexus."

"No wonder you guys started Walking, then!" Ash teased, though the sour expression on Cloak's face remained etched there.  He had noticed some obviously-closeted Knights glaring at the seven, as if to say, how dare you ruin the sanctity of OUR beach!

Oh, how Cloak would love to terrakinetically send them into shark-infested waters and be done with it.  But he wasn't a savage.

The other RAFians ran and jumped and played, Parker evidently felt safe enough not to even wear that armor of his.  Or maybe he just got sick and tired of Tyr -- Cloak remembered hearing Parker argue heatedly with him just a scant twenty-four hours previously.

Meanwhile, Cloak remained where he stood, a foreboding silhouette on the beach's horizon.  He wore a rather forlorn-looking cloak, and it was tattered in some places, but it still did it's function well enough.

But it wasn't long before Cloak notice that the xenophobic family seemed to have left for the day.  Good . . . But why was Cloak getting this ominous feeling, this dreadful sensation around his gut?  cloak looked 'round, and saw that the others didn't seem to realize or sense something was off.  That something wasn't exactly kosher . . .

But what if he was mistaken?  What if he was seeing things that weren't really there?

Wait, what was that?!  Something moved under the beach . . . Cloak thought.  This sand was really messing up his earthsight, making things appear fuzzy and indistinct.  He could have just been seeing things again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2012, 01:33:39 PM

Chapter Two:
Into The Pit

Cloak's unease did not go away, despite his futile attempts to ignore it.  Then, as the RAFians splashed back up to the beach in full frivolity and laughter, Cloak spied something quite odd and out of place with his wary eyes.

It was a child's pink stuffed bunny bearing a red shirt with illegible writing in yellow cursive.  Now, if human children are the same way with such items as young Realm Walkers are . . . then . . .

"Oh," Cloaked said, in preface to his Walker swear, which only loosely translates to English as "energy turds", but still sounded like a snarl to Dwellers.

The owner of the bunny would undeniably never forget it here, judging from the immaculate condition of it.  It was probably very important to him or her.  That leaves the only exp laxation that he or she left quite quickly and suddenly.  While it did cross his mind that it could be because that they were there and the adults seemed to be of the xenophobic, Knightly persuasion . . . Cloak could not help but think that's not the the reason they left -- Knights are a combative sort, and these people seemed to approve of such methods . . . And here they were, gone without so much as a whimper . . .

"We need to get off the beach." Cloak hailed to his friends.

"Oh, Cloak, don't be such a stick in the -- AAAHHHHHH!"

Gaz was gone!

"GAZ!!!!!"

The RAFians' cry was sure to carry, but it seemed that the sand and sea swallow it up as well as their little vampiric friend.  With a bellow of idignation and fury, Dino was next into whatever pit lurked beneath the sands.

What scared Cloak most was, though it looked like sand, it clearly was not.  It couldn't be earth sand, because it did not yield to Cloak's will, and he was the Lord of the Elements.  Lord of the Six Elements, and helpless to stop this . . . this . . . this whatever from doing what it was doing.

It didn't take a genius to divine what had happened to the human vacationeers.  With all the powers the RAFians had, combined,and they were still helpless.  The humans didn't stand anything remotely resembling a chance.

But to what fate?

One by one, all the RAFians, including Cloak himself, was pulled beneath the ever shifting sands.  He could not stop it, he could not slow his own decent down this sweeping, undulating shaft slick with sand and . . . And stuff he was profoundly happier not knowing its identity.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 14, 2012, 11:08:16 PM

Of course the Andalites decide not to go...

I wonder what Cloaks biggest fear is...

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 15, 2012, 12:21:30 AM

Uh-oh...that doesn't sound good.

Glad to see updates! But, by all means, take all the time you need.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2012, 10:44:33 AM

Thanks, Gazzy.  And I had to change my signature . . . It's just easier on me to have it in that format. . . .

Chapter Three:
Deeper and Deepest

Cloak landed rather roughly on the bottom of . . . of wherever here was.  Cloak looked up and saw blackness, a blackness that even his feline eyes could not penetrate.  He could tell that the aperture was gone, sealed up.  The way onward was dimly lit, but he could some how tell that it was going deeper in, not out.  But it was the only way to go, as he could not seem to move what appeared to be stone, and he could not Walk for some reason.

Cloak did not like any of this.  Realm Walkers are accustomed to absolute freedom of mobility.  They hated to be confined in such a way.  But he hadn't any other choice or option but to proceed onward.  So, Cloak took a few tentative steps forward, and the ceiling didn't cave in on him.  He took this a more positive sign that it was safe to proceed further.

For the first few feet, it was large unexciting and calm and mild.  But, eventually, a roar of red, orange, blue and white flames erupted around him.  Cloak, starled by this, felt a twinge of fear, but, then the words of the fiery representation of himself.  He stood up a bit straighter, and, in ringing tones, told the flames to back off.

The flames complied, retreating to the walls rather like naughty children who had just been disciplined.  Disappearing into the wall until the heat and light they gave off vanished all along with the flames into the slick-looking, crystalline-looking walls.

Cloak elected not to take time to ponder this, and proceeded further, deeper, into whatever this play was.  It was uneventful for what felt like mile walked.  Then Cloak's ear picked up a distinct sound of chittering, a creepy refrain of his echoing footsteps.  Cloak had just realized that his footsteps were echoing.  How'd he missed that before now?

Suddenly, a blacklight flooded the tunnel, and Cloak recoiled violently.  There were scorpions, on the walls, the ceiling, the floor.  Some were of natural size, and some were unlikely, supernatural proportions.  Cloak felt a twinge of terror, before he shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and snapped his eyes opened.  Then, with a mighty bellow, he tells them to scram.  Surprisingly, they complied.  Even the large, obstinate-looking one.  ll vanished into invisible holes in the walls, ceiling, and floor.

Cloak gathered himself, taking in some deep breaths, and then proceeded deeper into the cave.  Then a considerable time later of walking down the tunnel, penetrating deeper and deeper, he saw the others.  He rejoiced at the sight of them . . . But then he saw . . . No, this cannot be right.  He saw Noelle, Ken, and Demos.  And more RAFians . . . that did not go to the beach.  How . . .

"What are you doing here?!" they all shouted as one.  Their voices had a buzzing, as if speaking through a very bad drive-tru speaker.  "What made you think we would want you back here?!"

"Wha--" Cloak began, feeling crushed.

"It is not real . . ." spoke a small voice, barely the volume of a whisper.

"Why . . . Why are you being like this?" Cloak said, unable to keep the hurt from his voice.

"it is not real . . ." the voice spoke again, a bit louder.

Cloak allowed this to resonate with him.  Then he realized that the others would never have treated him in such a cold, unfeeling, and heartless manner.  They, after all, weren't his mother.  Cloak stood up and stood tall.

"You're not real.  You're nothing but an illusion.  GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!"

"You don't know that we aren't," they replied Cooley and truthfully.  But, as Cloak really thought about it, the less real they seemed to be.  Cloak repeated what he said with such calm, but fierce, sincerity that they evaporated into a wisp of vapor.

This time, he had to wait even longer before something happened, a deeper fear.  He saw a rather angelic depiction of Shadow . . . and of Faith.

"I don't love you," both spoke, although their voices sounded as if they were chewing live snakes.  "I never did, who could ever love such a thing like you?"

Cloak reeled considerably at this, and slumped down a wall.  Then the voice came back again, and this time, he recognized the voice of his grandfather, his guardian angel.

"It isn't real, Cloak!  Master your deepest fear!"

he could not see his beloved grandfather, but he knew, somehow, that he was down here with him, giving him light.  Cloak stood up, stood tall, and announced that they weren't real, and ignored their attempts to convince him otherwise.

Then there was an uncomfortably-bright light, and he found himself spat out into a cold, dark, dank cavern, covered in an unknown kind of yuck.

"Ugh," Cloak groaned, "fear spit."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 16, 2012, 12:04:19 AM

That was a really good update. I hope other fears are like this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2012, 12:23:12 AM

Well, I am hoping to put two song parodies into one each.  I just need to figure out how to copy and paste on this iPad. . . .

[spoiler]And one of them would be yours, Underseen.  Bit of an in-joke . . .[/spoiler]

But more chapters tomorrow.  Although, I don't know when I'll post next week, Probably not until after four, four-thirty in the afternoon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 16, 2012, 12:30:20 AM

Copy and Pasting on the Ipad is easy. You select all and then wait and tap copy then do this same thing to paste.

I would post this on a different thread or in a spoiler, but I didn't feel like it.

Touch and hold your finger on the iPad screen on the text you wish you to select. A magnifying glass appears. Position the glass over the text you want to copy.

Remove your finger from the screen and tap "Select," which highlights a word of text in the selection.

Drag the selection handles to expand the highlighted area over the text you wish copied on your iPad. Once selected, tap "Copy."

Navigate to a text-entry box. Press and hold a finger on the text field until the "Paste" button appears. Tap this button to paste the copied text into the field.

Yes I copied and pasted that from wiki-answers because I'm bad at explaining things.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2012, 12:49:10 AM

Eh, it's not too necessary yet, next chapter's for Gaz anyway. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 16, 2012, 12:52:28 AM

I think that you having the Ipad is good because you can write notes and rough drafts of chapters when you are out of the house... Or play Angry Birds Star Wars, because for some reason that exists.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2012, 01:21:33 AM

Underseen, I did that before I had an iPad. . . . Granted, it was handwritten, but still.  And I think about the next chapter before I write it, sometimes actually concocting things right before bed.  That's how I got the idea for Book CXIX: "The Great Race", anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 16, 2012, 01:46:13 AM

But it would be easier to copy-paste the ones when your done was my point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2012, 09:28:46 AM

Understood, Underseen.

Chapter Four:
Relapsing

Cloak, still covered with the rather vile goo (which he was actually afraid of the goo's true identity, as now he wasn't so sure that it was fear spit), explored his surroundings.  He seemed to be in a small recess facing a larger, cavernous room.

He heard loud rumblings and scratchings, as if a creature shifting its weight in a somnific way.  Cloak hoped he was mistaken, or, at the very least, mistaken by the size.

Anyway, he turned his attention the the glistening walls, and discovered that when they flaked off, the little grainules looked like sand . . . Possibly meaning the sand above wasn't true sand . . . He had wondered about the odd multifaceted coloring.

Cloak placed his hand upon the wall nearest the wall he just exited from.  He really didn't expect anything to happen, but it was the hand that he bore his Mark on . . .

FLASH!

It was as if he was transported back into time . . . Except it couldn't've been, as he tosses his cookies every time he is temporally displaced.  Not all Realm Walkers are so temporally-queasy, but he was.  It was like seasickness in a way.

He saw Evil Gaz, that is to say Gaz when she was under the malicious influence of Madre de Vampyra.  But Madre de Vampyra was dead, so Gaz shouldn't have gone under her thrall again.  When a vampire dies, that's it.  That's all she wrote.  However, Cloak wasn't an authority on vampires . . .

There were scenes replayed moment by moment, with excruiating detail.  Then some new images that Cloak knew didn't happen, and knew couldn't happen.  Like Phoenix, Demos, Sakki, and himself getting . . . is "sired" the right term in the vampiric vernacular?  Well, in any case, that was an impossibility.  Sakki and himself hadn't any blood, she has oil or something, and Cloak has golden ichor, like the Oympians and Asguardians.  Phoenix's and Demos's natural regenerative powers would not support the vampiric virus.

This confused and perplexed the Realm Walker until he realized he heard sobbing.  It was Gaz . . . Gaz in the bathing suit that she wore to the beach . . . the real Gaz.  Before was a horribly contorted version herself.  It was Evil Gaz.  Evil Gaz that was teasing, taunting, and bullying Gaz.

"I am still a part o f you," Evil Gaz spoke, with a voice like a cloak being dragged over leaves.  "No matter what you do, no matter where you hide, I will always be here, lurking in your mind, ready to spring out.  Ready to take control.  To convert your precise RAFian friends again.  I am the darkness in your heart.  I shall never leave. . . . You are stuck with me . . . Stuck with me, forever . . ."

Cloak tried to shout to Gaz, to tell her that it was all an illusion.  Though his mouth and lips moved, no sound escaped.  He was muted here.  Cloak continued to watch as Gaz was forced to relive these old atrocities, and he tried to gather enough strength to call out, but each attempt was more futile than the last.

Then, when he could no longer stand being here and doing absolutely nothing for his friend in need, his Mark flared up, bright and brilliant blue, he shouted, "GAZ, IT'S ALL AN ILLUSION!!  IT ISN'T REAL!!  IT ISN'T REAL!!"

However, his voice came out as a whisper.  But it proved to be enough.  The real Gaz heard his cry.  But Evil Gaz was quick on the uptake.

"Now, you're desperate enough to hear voices . . ." she crowed.

Gaz, however, realized something.  She stopped sobbing, stood up, and glared Evil Gaz in the face, wearing a look of utmost disdain for her sinister counterpart.  When she spoke, her voice never quivered or wavered, "You are NOT me.  You were NEVER me.  You are nothing but a bad memory.  Now, get out of my way!!"

Evil Gaz screamed, twisted, and writhed in pain as she was twisted, wrung out from existence.  Gaz took a few steadying breaths, before --

FLASH!

Both she and Cloak were at the recess, Cloak was standing and Gaz had landed on her rear end.  She inquired about the goo, and Cloak said she was better off not knowing, and they both were.  Gaz did not want to talk about her ordeal.

"Talking it out sometimes helps," Cloak suggested benignly.

"Alright then, what did you see in yours?"

"What I truly fear above all else."

"Which is?"

"Rejection," Cloak answered, a little heavily, "like yours is a fear of relapsing into Evil Gaz."

Gaz heaved a heavy sigh, "It's true.  Ever since it . . . You know, ever since it -- it happened, I've been afraid of it coming out in me again."

"Madre de Vampyra is dead, Gaz.  Estelore slated her.  The dead don't come back to life."

Those words would eventually come back to bite Cloak in the butt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 16, 2012, 12:39:45 PM

That reminds me of one of the newer chapters of Naruto.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2012, 01:09:44 PM

Well, I assure you that's not where I got the idea. :)

I don't read or watch Naruto, to be honest.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 16, 2012, 06:54:28 PM

That was a good chapter. Can't wait to see what happens next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 17, 2012, 01:56:00 AM

A bit of levity, methinks, Gazzy.  Although, perhaps it isn't smart to post a chapter when I'm half-asleep.

Chapter Five:
We Are In Love . . . Right?

"Gaz, are you okay?" Cloak said, turning away from her and approaching the wall again.

"I think so -- what are you doing?" she replied at once.

"I was able to reach you by touching this stuff with my Mark," Cloak said, not even bothering to turn around, and speaking over his shoulder.

"And?"

"You're forgetting about the others, Gaz."

"You mean they didn't manage to escape?" she said, alarmed.

"It got us all.  But I do get the feeling the fact that we managed to escape it . . . It's craw, maw, jaw, or whatever, is serious news."

"You think we're the first to think to conquer our deepest fears would set us free of this creature, or whatever it is?"

"Probably not," Cloak answered cooly, about to place his Mark upon the crystalized surface as Gaz mirrored him, "but perhaps the only ones who realized to do it in time."

"What about those without fear?"

"That is an impossibility," Cloak said, thrusting his hand forward.  "Despite what some people may say to the contrary, no one is without fear.  Fearlessness is recklessness."

As soon as both their Marks made contact with the surface, the two endured a bright flash of light, and then saw a rather nice cafe that Parker sat at, looking perfectly contented, as Helen came prancing up, singing:

"Been thinkin' for a while
And there's somethin'
I gotta tell you . . ."

Parker shrugged it off, as he continued to peruse his paper, "Eh, I'm kinda busy."

Undeterred, Helen sang:

"Been thinkin' that our love
For each other has grown so very strong."

"Aren't you going a little too fast?" Parker said, genuinely alarmed now.  But, Helen continued:

"It's plain to see
We're building
Our worlds together."

"Uh, back up a minute." Parker said, still trying to be reasonable.  But, Helen persisted:

"I'm looking at your eyes right now
And I can tell you feel the same --"

Then she tackled Parker into a very tight embrace, as he gasped (while desperately wishing he had his armor on), "You're choking me!" as some background chorus sang:

"We are in love!"

Parker broke free of the embrace and stood away, as if this was a side of Helen that he neither knew about and did not particularly like.  Then he turned, and sang:

"I think I'm gonna run away . . ."

this was followed by the chorus singing the same lyric.  Then Parker ran, eventually hiding in a rundown shack, looking fearfully at his cellphone as he sang:

"Did you tap my phone lines?!"

After the disembodied chorus said the same lyric again, Helen confessed that:

"Yes, I tapped your phone lines."

Then Parker sang:

"I won't lie,
You're a very pretty lady."[/i]

Helen gushed as she said, "Thank you!", but Parker continued:

"But you're crazy, crazy, crazy . . .
You make me wanna move to Bolivia."

"Oh, I'll go with you!" Helen said as she inexplicably had packed bags in her hands and horrid-looking violet sunglasses on with a lurid sunhat.

Suddenly, it shows Parker in the shower, shampooing his hair, as Helen's recognizable silhouette is seen through the shower screen.  Parker sang:

"You know, I'm thinkin'
I should get a restrainin' order."

Helen comments, "Those are so hard to enforce."

Parker continued:

"'Coz your car's parked
Outside my thread
Every night last week!

She commented, rather unnervingly, "Your neighbors are sweet."

Parker continued:

"You're the reason why I have
To keep my shades drawn!"

To which Helen replied in a rather stalkerish way, "I'll watch you through the chimney!", even though Parker's thread possessed no such thing.  Parker sang:

"I've installed an alarm system,
With motion-feed detectors."

But Parker flees when Helen says, "I have the code.". All the while the chorus repeated that one lyric over and over again.  Parker pleaded:

"Give me just five minutes!"

But when he clicked on the light of the closet of which he hid, she was there, hearts in her eyes, claiming:

"I think that was five minutes!"

Then Parker burst out of the closet, and fled to his thread, only to find . . .

"Did you just move in with me?"

The answer Helen gave was:

"Yes, I just moved in with you."

Then the chorus sang their final reprise, and Parker declared loudly, "NO . . . WE'RE . . . NOT!!"

From there, the Helen's voice changed from stalkerish to undeniably seductive.  "You love me, don't you? Don't you?"

Here, Parker faltered, but Gaz and Cloak channeled their strength into their Marks and tried to get Parker to be able to hear them.  It didn't seem to do anything at first, and Parker seemed genuinely discomforted.

"You killed a man for me," the false Helen said, taking on more of an appearance similar to that of Other Mom in Coraline.  Parker saw that and heard encouragement from his friends, and looked straight at the beast, and said, with ringing tones, "Your are NOT my Helen.  She is not so starved for attention to be demanding it of every second of my time."

"You killed a man for --"

"Further proof that you are not who you pretend to be.  Helen knows the truth of what happened.  And it wasn't nearly as simple as your making it out to be.  Now, GO AWAY!!"

With a flash, all three were out, and on their feet.  All still covered with goo, although the goo on Cloak was beginning to dry out.  Cloak looked at Parker and wondered what made him fearful of an overly-needy or stalkerish women.  But he didn't ask.  He thought it would be too personal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 17, 2012, 08:08:53 AM

Who isn't scared of an attention-****. Maybe our hatred derives from fear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2012, 09:45:37 AM

No maybe about it, Underseen.

Chapter Six:
Beaten and Unbeaten

"Okay, guys, again." Cloak said without so much as a preamble.

"What again?" Parker said, hostilely.  Cloak had forgotten how naked Parker felt in circumstances like this without his armor.  "What are you talking about?"

Gaz then spoke up and explained as Cloak wordlessly walked back to the wall, Marked hand extended, dedication to his friends driving his actions.  Soon enough, the other two joined him.  Cloak warned, just before they touched the wall, "Prepare yourself."

FLASH!!

They were suddenly in the ruins of some forgotten city . . . But soon, with a pang, they realized the ruin was RAF.  But this was a fear that they all shared.  So, who's fears were they sifting through now?

"I WILL NEVER YIELD TO THE LIKES OF YOU!!!" a commanding, if not a little haughty voice called out in natural ringing tones.

It was Faerie.  She was battling some kind of monster . . . It looked as if Doomsday and Zorc had a demon child with metallic skin and horns protruding from every orifice and square inch possible.  It's teeth looked rather gnarly, like the bark of a tree.  It was also at least twice the size of the dreaded Pootang.

"Pathetic work, girly.*" it growled with a voice that sounded that some one dragged it over a bed of nails for a week, but it still survived.  "You're still nothing.  A puny little girl."

"I'LL SO YOU PUNY, YOU HORNED SACK OF --" Faerie said, getting quite vulgar.  She held her axe, and swing it with all her might at the beast, but it just bounced off with a resounding CLANG!  The horns also prevented her from using the axe as any more than a mediocre bludgeon, but the metallic skin absorbed it.

"Still haven't learned your lesson," the beast said, suddenly contrite.  As if it was hoping that taunting her and destroying RAF was the lesson.

"I'll teach you a lesson!" Faerie said, forgoing the shouting at the top of her lungs.  She tried a magical attack, but found that the metallic hide was impervious to faerie magic.  "I'll beat you!  I'll never give up, never surrender!!"

"And, thus, you'll never win."

With a roar of rage, Faerie charged it, chaffed by its remarks.  But, ultimately, she could do nothing to damage the creature, and it was with startling realization that Gaz noticed that they weren't standing in the ruins of RAF at all . . . Well, not the one that they were accustomed to.  It was old RAF, which was already in ruin after the RAFians moved to the current forum area.

But this wasn't what confused Cloak, what he was pondering is why the beast didn't seem malicious but contrite and fretting about teaching Faerie a life lesson.  In theirs, the objects of their fears were genuninely malicious.  Not here . . . Why?

"Mark my words! I will win.  And I will DANCE THE RUMBA on your GRAVE!!"

"And the lesson would still not be learned."

But Parker got what the creature was saying.  "FAERIE, YOU GOTTA YIELD!!  IT'S THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THIS!!"

The other two echoed Parker, realizing this too, and Parker repeated himself again, hoping to be heard.  Faerie looked around, as if she did hear them, but refused to believe what they were saying.  Eventually her axe snapped and fragmented into shrapnel so small that it was inrepable.  She glared at the beast who looked on with eyes like a basset hound.

Faerie screamed with rage, as she resorted to fists and kicks.  She could do much, except bloody herself up.  It seemed that she lost all reason to her rage.  She wasn't about to give up.  But, eventually, the beast easily overwhelmed her, and pinned her to the ground.

After a few minutes of this, Faerie swallowed her pride, and said, rather scornfully, "I yield."

FLASH!!

All four were splayed upon the ground.  One by one, they stood up and brushed themselves off.  The goo had long since dried on Cloak, and Gaz was getting drier.  Parker and Faerie were both still quite wet.

"How come your fear wasn't malicious, though?" Parker said, unable to keep the accusatory tone from his voice.

"I suspect," Cloak said, before Faerie could answer, "it's because she's a magical RAFian.  That is to say, that it protected her from the truer menace of these tunnel things."

"That's a large assumption," Gaz said.

"Indeed." Cloak agreed.

---
*Apparently "Gorky" is a word and "girly" is not. ::) Stupid autocorrect.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 18, 2012, 08:32:19 PM

Wow autocorrect... Wow

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2012, 10:46:19 AM

Well, my internet at home, on my iPad, has gone screwy -- so, I may not be able to post chapters . . . I'm using a computer at Meridian right now, and there's a 30 minute time limit.  So . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 19, 2012, 08:28:56 PM

At least there isn't a 2 hour time limit...

Well you can hope for something nice in your future, but bad internet is always a problem.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2012, 10:29:20 AM

Could always be worse -- I could still be at my mom's, in that bad place with repressed anger, resentment, and rage.  At least, now, I'm getting the assistance that I always knew I needed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 20, 2012, 06:26:58 PM

I don't that place because you make it sound terrible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on December 25, 2012, 07:11:16 PM

Finally got caught up!  Excellent work, as always.  You definitely deserve the 'fic of the year' nomination.

Interesting twist in the previous book, making Abomination into slightly less of a villain and more of an identifiable character.  Maybe there's a redemption somewhere in his future?

And, of course, the most recent book has me on the edge of my seat.  I mean, geez, what sort of creature/entity could block a Walker's powers like that?  Can't wait to find out.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with everything.  I'm glad things seem to be looking up for you, and hopefully they continue to do so.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2012, 10:25:47 AM

Well, as it turns out, I have to find housing elsewhere -- my aunt made sure to tell me that they aren't abandoning me, but my cousin's wife has a high-risk pregnancy, and I walk too quietly.  And I scare the crap out of her when I do that (although it isn't something I do on purpose, and my aunt calls it my "panther walk").  If I stay, there's a chance that I might do something without thinking about it, to jeopardize the baby's health.

I don't really know how to feel about it, to be honest.  But the root of this problem is still my mother.  It was just REAL bad timing for them that my mother kicked me out, in that cold-hearted, unfeeling way that she did.  It's actually now a full month since I've cut her out of my life.

Anyway, Dino, the Abomination thing . . . I was mostly using him and Malice as a surrogate between me and my mother.  As for redemption . . . uh, don't really hang your hat on that.  They have a Joker/Harley Quinn-type relationship -- an abusive one.  As for the recent book . . . well, that'd be telling.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 26, 2012, 12:11:44 PM

Good luck with everything. I would offer to help you out if I were closer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on December 26, 2012, 12:29:24 PM

Man, that sucks.  I'm sorry.  If there's anything at all that I can do to help you out, please don't hesitate to ask.  I'm probably one of the few RAFians with a decent savings account that I don't need, so if money would help you out in any way at all, just let me know.  I wish you the best of luck with everything.

*tries to hug Cloaky without touching the cloak*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 26, 2012, 01:42:30 PM

Do you have any friends that won't mind you being with them for a [more than] couple days. I've done that before to my friend that got kicked out for drug abuse (after he was clean of course).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2012, 02:46:53 PM

That's the thing, my aunt and my cousins are looking for housing with me.  But on a more sour note, I emailed Shadow about what went on, and my sister chatised me for it in a return email.  Looks like Shadow's out of my life for now.

She doesn't even realize just how my mother is manipulating her, acting like she gives a rat's ass about me.  SHE is the one that heartless threw me out on a cold night, not giving a damn if I lived or died.  And Faith is ACTUALLY defending her.  :'( :'( :'(

So . . . I truly have to bid Shadow goodbye.  Because my sister's gonna cut me off anyway if I tell her the truth.  I don't want to, but Faith clearly cannot see when she's being played.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 26, 2012, 05:12:55 PM

At least you're not having to do this completely alone. Sorry to hear about all that other stuff with your family. That really sucks.

Let me know if there is some way I can help out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 26, 2012, 05:26:07 PM

I wish I can say I know how it feels to be kicked out on a cold December night, but I don't. I really feel sorry for you and I will keep you in my prayers and I hope better things will come.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2012, 10:19:55 AM

I was kicked out in November, Underseen.  My aunt and cousins aren't kicking me out, but helping me get an apartment of my own.  Heck, they said they'd even help out furnishing it.

But if you see Shadow dropping out of the fic, you'll know why.  The pain is still fresh.

And I'd write more once I get a more reliable Internet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 27, 2012, 06:10:49 PM

That's why I said "I wish I can say I knew what it felt like to be kicked out on a  December night." I was once kicked out on Thanksgiving, but it was more of me running away ;)...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2013, 01:13:59 PM

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 02, 2013, 03:41:10 PM

The new chapters sound good... Since you just posted that either you or on someones computer or your internet is back up. I'm thinking option 1.

EDIT: I started a rough draft on my own RAFfic, but when I finished the first chapter I realized it was kind of similar to Seal's "Revenge of The Banned", but it had some differences in the plot, and characters. Do you think I should still post it on RAF because it was kind of a spin-off of Memoirs and I think you would like it. I also brainstormed possible ideas for other books in my series, but I still haven't thought of a title.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2013, 09:55:33 AM

Yes, I posted it, and no, my internet isn't back up, although I was gonna try to see if I could post during the thirty minute time limit, using (~) as a symbol to indicate the chapter is incomplete.  But apparently all the PCs are reserved from 1 to 2:30.

So, Monday . . . er, no, I have the briefing from the housing authority (I was wrong, it was yesterday, so I have to go Monday), so Tuesday.  Possibly.  I do much intend to write it more.

As for your fic, I've gotten inspiration myself from Blue's old RAF:TAS, Horse's fics, and my own parodies.  So, no, I don't mind -- although a title's a rather important thing to have.  Just hopefully it won't be called "Memoirs GX" -- (yes, a Yu-Gi-Oh! reference).

This may be a stunted chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Thirteen

"Let's get the others, shall we?" Cloak said, with a weary little sigh in his voice.

"What are you talking . . . oh, never mind, I get it." Faerie stated, as she followed the others.  All of them placed the hand bearing their Marks upon the wall.

FLASH!

It was dark.  Very dark.  There were faint luminescent glows, but it was rather illegible at these distances.  There were a variety of colors . . . pink, red, blue, green, yellow, brown, purple, orange, olive, indigo, white, tan, gold, gray, violet, silver, black, pewter, cerulean, vermilion, celadon, lavender, fuchsia, saffron, cinnabar, viridian, goldenrod, ecru, cyan, mahogany, and more. . . .

Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the many colors were just one thing, in a myriad of forms.  The number thirteen -- 13, XIII, several dots or hearts or things in a variety of configuration -- and there was a sniffling, sobbing sound coming from the center.  These luminous things, these thirteens, attacked this figure as if they were nothing more than biting flies rather than just luminous numbers and what not.

Cloak easily knew whose fear this was.  But when his shouted, his voice sounded small and meaningless in this void.  Even when the others joined him in chorus, their voices, added to his own, didn't seem to strengthen the sound.  Dino was still sobbing, shaking from her snout to the very tip of her tail.  It was a rather disconcerting thing to see -- Cloak had NEVER seen Dino so frightened.

"IT'S NOT REAL!!!!!" they attempted again, and this time, her head perked up at the sound.  Her tremendous shivering halted, and she seemed more confused than afraid after a few minutes.  So, they shouted again, "IT'S NOT REAL!!!!!"

"It's . . . it's not real?" Dino said, more to herself than the others.  Then she seemed to think this over, and stood up straighter, eyes blazing with emotion.  Then her body pulsed with power, the power of her realization.  "Of course, it's not!  How could it be?  There couldn't be just '13' lights without a source."

This FLASH was a bit brighter and more unnecessarily powerful than it should have been.  The RAFians had trouble righting themselves afterward, and Dino had the most, still covered with that nasty goo.

"Yuck -- fear spit," she moaned.

"Joke's already been done," Cloak commented benignly and wearily.

"Where are we?"

"Dunno," Parker said, "not the Ritz."

"Thank you for that, Parker," Faerie said drily.

They didn't feel the need to comment about it.  Dino's fear of 13 was rather well known, and she didn't hide it.  But she seemed to be getting along better than Cloak had anticipated.  Her Mark glowed faintly between her eyes as if it were a welt or oddly-shaped bruise.

"That leaves Ash, Goom and Underseen, I think," Gaz said.

"Then the real work begins."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 03, 2013, 01:48:28 PM

I will work more on the title and the stories today. Great update though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2013, 03:09:28 PM

Right.

Well, it'll have to last until Monday or Tuesday.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 03, 2013, 04:22:30 PM

Good update, Cloaky! Good luck with everything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on January 03, 2013, 09:56:09 PM

Oooh, nice chapter!  *wishes that overcoming irrational fears was so simple in reality*  :P

BTW, I hadn't realized before that my Mark was between my eyes.  That is a brilliant place for it!  It definitely makes more sense than putting it on my hand (where it would have to be tiny to fit, lol), would look completely awesome to boot (picture a dinosaur's head with a glowing insignia on it . . . bad@$$, right?), and since I generally headbutt anything that a more opposable-thumbed person would use their hands for, it would be easier for me to actually use it.  All-in-all, I love that mental image.  ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2013, 09:36:53 AM

Well, it just made sense to me, Dino.  Not all RAFians even have hands. For instance, the Yeerk RAFians have it on the true bodies and it doesn't appear on their host's appendage. 

Edit: Yay! Fanfic of the Year! To think, I was going to delete this thread had Blocky not replied first!

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• *Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• *Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

Sorry about the short chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Squish

"C'mon, guys," Gaz said, in rallying tones, "we've gotta get the other three free."

"This is going very slow, if we keep having to do it one at a time," Parker pointed out.

"Oh, shut up and do it," Cloak snarled, weary and worn.

They did, and there was the usual FLASH.  Then they saw a black void of nothingness.  There was a hard surface upon which to stand, but that was nothing compared to the spectacle in the center.  There was someone or something there, it appeared to be a flurry of different shaped limbs, a different texture each time.  It was all rather surreal to watch.  But in a sad way.

Cloak knew right away whose nightmare that they intruded on, but was too awestruck and horrorified to think much about it.  Ash was clamoring to stablize her form, to maintain her cohesiveness.  But it was a sisyphian task, as each attempt met with bigger and bigger failure until she resembled nothing more than Polymorph glop.  A Polymorph without the floating saucer thing to restore them.

Then the RAFians begun their chant.  "IT'S NOT REAL.  IT'S NOT REAL.  IT'S NOT REAL.  IT'S NOT REAL.  IT'S NOT REAL.  IT'S NOT REAL --" but this seemed to make no headway, as if Ash's consciousness was starting to lose its cohesiveness as well.  But her friends persisted most insistently.  They would not allow her to simply melt away into nothingness, to become one with this void. . . .

"IT'S NOT REAL!!!!"

Suddenly, a hand, human in morphology, reached up from the goo.  An arm followed, then itself followed by a shoulder, then a torso and head, then another shoulder, arm, and hand.  Then a midriff and legs.  The feet were the next to form, and suddenly, Ash appeared, fully-clothed, in her usual appearance.

"It wasn't real. . . ." she said, to herself.

Then the usual FLASH and all of them, Ash included (although in fear muck), fell to the ground.

"So you feared becoming a puddle?" Faerie said.

"Faerie!  Don't tease," Gaz said, reprovingly.

"No," Cloak said, in lieu of Ash actually having to explain, "she feared losing her consistency, her corporeal cohereance."

"English?"

Cloak flared his nostrils, "She feared losing control over his shapeshifting abilities, or that they might betray her in some extreme way."

"It's true," Ash managed.

She looked rather better than when she had melted into that flesh-colored puddle.

"Now, only Goom and Underseen remain," Parker said, turning back to the chutes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2013, 12:33:42 PM

Hopefully . . . another chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Goom Stomping Day

"C'mon, let's get the other two out of there." Faerie said, rather bracingly.

"Wonder what this'll be?" Dino commented benignly.

"Probably something plumber-related, if it's Goom," Gaz mused.

"Just put your Mark up there, and let's get this done." Cloak said moodily.

FLASH!

It was as if they were in the Robot Chicken universe, although the RAFians were invisible.  Suddenly, music started up . . .

Faces filled with joy and cheer,
What a magical time of year!
Howdy ho, it's Goom Stomping Day!

Put your viking helmet on,
Spread that mayonnaise on the lawn,
Don't you know it's Goom Stomping Day!
(Goom Stomping Day)!

All the little girls and boys
Love that wonderful squishing noise!
You'll know what this day's about,
When you stomp a goomba's guts right out!

So come along and have a laugh,
Snap their mushroomy spines in half.
Grab your boots and stomp your cares away!
Hip hip hooray, it's Goom Stomping Day

People up and down the street,
Crushing goombas beneath their feet.
Why we do it, who can say?
But it's such a festive holiday!

So let the stomping fun begin,
Bash their weaselly skulls right in!
It's tradition - that makes it okay!
Hey everyone, it's Goom Stomping Day . . .
We'll have some fun on Goom Stomping Day . . .
Put down your gun, it's Goom Stomping Day!

Hip hip hooray!
It's Goom Stomping Day!
Goom Stomping Day!
Hey!

All the stompers bore a certain likeness to a certain licensed Nintendo plumber as well . . . anyway, the RAFians began their chant again.  And it took a while, but Goom reformed from the boot of someone who looked like a hybridization of Weird Al and Mario, who promptly stomps him again.  But eventually, in this war of wills, Goom's wins out, and . . .

FLASH!

All of them were lying on the ground again.

"Yuck, fear muck," Goom moaned as he righted himself on his toe prodigious feet.  "What happened?  Where are we?"

"Uh . . ." Gaz started.

"We'll let you know," Cloak said, brusquely, "when we know ourselves."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on January 07, 2013, 03:47:42 PM

"Yuck, fear muck"

What I pictured
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/Ayuriko/Moemon/Muk.png)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 07, 2013, 03:50:20 PM

Wow Sakki... The last chapter sounding like an acid dream.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2013, 07:48:18 AM

Jjust you wait, Underseen. Yours is next, and it also has a song in it.  And bit of an in-joke, as well. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 09, 2013, 08:45:19 AM

Well now I have something to look forward to...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2013, 12:48:43 PM

Well, here it is.  Hopefully.

CHAPTER TEN:
Fanfic Writing is Killing Us

"Underseen is the only one left," Cloak said, though his voice betrayed his weariness, "let's go find him and get him so we can get out of this mess."

"Why don't you just Walk out?" Dino asked.

"One cannot simply Walk out of their mind," Cloak replied enigmatically.  But he did not elaborate as the RAFians touched the crystalline wall with their marks.

FLASH!

They were in a strange place . . . they looked as if they Walked into Family Guy's universe.  But the buildings were still clearly RAFian. . . . Suddenly, music built up from nowhere, and Cloak saw . . . himself, as well as a mass of other RAFian fanfic writers, with Underseen standing before them, back to the real world RAFians.

The faux Cloak began to sing:

"Each page would peal with a vibrant zeal
As the writing feeling was filling us.
But, now instead, all we're feeling is dread
Because fanfic writing is killing us!"

Then the others added:

"Each RAFParty thread gets us more and more dead.
'Til the thought of existence is chilling us."

Cloak continued, solo:

"I'll tell you what,
Stop being a nut
Because . . ."

The the others chimed in with Cloak:

"RAFParty was killing us!"

Then Underseen got into it:

"But can't you see that what you do
Is a dream come true?
Can't you see that every smile
Makes it all worthwhile?"

But Cloak proclaimed:

"No!  Screw you!
It's all but through.
There's too much to do.
All these dreams are nightmares
And blank icy glares.
Each little writing sage
Used to fill up a page,
Making fanfics and selflessly thrilling us.
Now they're talking smack
And it feels like slack
Because fanfic writing is killing us!"

Then the other fan fic writers joined together in a chorus:

"Each little strain only heightens the pain
Of the workload that's draining
And drilling us."

Then Cloak continued:

"Fingers all bleed
And we are going to seed.
Because fanfic writing is killing us."

But Underseen persisted:

"But can't you see our point of view?
We rely on you.
Can't you see that this cheer
Get us through the year?"

But Cloak countered:

"This whole crew is black and blue.
Can't you take a clue?
You may think I look great,
But I'm 28!"

Then the others joined in:

"Each post bell is a requiem knell
And while you think it's swell . . . ."

Then Cloak sang alone:

"Take a look, you can tell,
As a man I'm a shell!"

Then the others joined in for this final refrain:

"Because RAFParty is killing us!
Killing us!
RAFParty is killing us!"

Then the faux Cloak, the one who sang, coughed up blood -- red blood, and not the golden ichor that all Realm Walkers have.  Underseen saw this and was actually quite confused.  The real RAFians yelled, as all their Marks glowed uncomfortably bright, "IT'S NOT REAL!!"

"It's . . . not?"

"NO!"

"Well, okay then."

FLASH!

Suddenly, they were not back at the crystalline place.  They were in a tunnel of earth.

"Wh-what happened?" Underseen asked.

"Uh," Dino said, flustered, "good question."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 09, 2013, 05:55:40 PM

That was also strange, but of course I enjoyed it...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2013, 02:33:36 PM

Thanks, Underseen . . . I think.

Sorry about the lack of a new chapter today -- I'm just not feeling it right now.  Especially with the thirty minute time limit here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 10, 2013, 07:11:57 PM

You can just pm some of it to yourself and when time gets low send... I did that because I was working at the library with an hour time limit and I got half my chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2013, 10:12:20 PM

Or use my email the same way.  I know.  I just didn't have the energy for it either, and that's important to have.

EDIT: Now, back to the, heh, award-winning fanfic!
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Light and Darkness

"What happened to the crystal walls and things?" Faerie asked.
 
"This is reality," Cloak said simply, as if this explained everything.
 
"Care to elaborate?" Dino asked.
 
"Is it not obvious?  We were trapped within our own minds, and the Marks allowed us to connect with each other.  It explains why I couldn't simply Walk out of my visions."
 
"Wait, what?" Ash said.
 
"Never mind, it's immaterial," Cloak replied repressively.  Then he stomped his foot and slugged his fist at no one.  Suddenly, far up the tunnel to the right where it sloped up gradually, sunlight poured in copiously.  Then Cloak glanced in the opposite direction, where the tunnel began to slope downward.
 
"What . . ." Underseen said, thoroughly nonplussed.

Dino and the others looked longingly at the hole, but did not sojourn to it and leave.  Faerie turned to Cloak, folded her arms against her chest as she fluttered her wings irritably, "Cloak, you should know better than that.  You should know us better than that!"

"What?"

"You're not gonna get rid of us that easily, Cloak." Gaz said.  "I don't know what did this --" she nudged a human skull that looked as if it been there for a while, whilst it's body was still trapped beneath some sort of gold or silver webbing.  The group just realized that they had such webbing on their person.

"Gross." Parker commented unnecessarily.

"Uh, what's that?" Underseen asked, pointing.

What Cloak had neglected to notice before was that before each webbing held a square, like a movie projector screen.  It was displaying, in gray scale, images and video of the incarcerated skeleton's fears -- one was dendrophobic, another was pyrophobic, and a third was aquaphobic.

"Let's proceed, then?" Ash said, as brightly as she could, though she looked quite sick.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2013, 03:00:15 PM

New chapter -- this computer has a wonky shift key, it appears. . . .
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Koh-It

The group proceeded downward, further into the bowels of the tunnels.  Cloak didn't voice it, but the tunnel suddenly took on a form reminescent of a creature's intestines, but the walls were still earth.  He could still earthsight.  He could, if he so wished, Walk out, he knew.  But, he was curious.  It was a fatal flaw of all felines and feline-form Realm Walkers.
 
"Uh, Cloak?" Underseen spoke up.  Cloak did not make any indication that he heard him, so Underseen repeated himself, albeit louder.  Cloak just arduously pressed ahead.  "CLOAK!"
 
"WHAT?!" Cloak snapped, emotions still rather frayed after his visions, though he kept that information private.
 
"Sorry, you didn't act like you heard --"
 
"What do you want, Underseen?" Cloak said, more calmly, though not looking back, just plowing onward.  He was pursuing his rather single-minded goal of satisfying his curiosity.  "Well?  Out with it."
 
"I't's just that you seem to know what the thing is."
 
"I don't."
 
But the way he said it, Dino noticed something.  She spoke, "Then what do you suspect this creature or whatever to be?"
 
"Could be a variety of different things," Cloak answered thoughfully, disappearing a bit as the tunnel made a 360 turn, still slanting downward.  "But the creature that sticks out in my mind most is a Koh-It."
 
"And that is?" Parker prompted, rather irritatedly.
 
"A spectral creature," Cloak answered, ignoring Parker's irritation, "a creature of too many legs, too many lights, and a face not even its mother could love."
 
"Sounds nasty," Gaz commented conversationally.
 
"It is ugly, but, according to the accounts I've read, it isn't slimy or sludgy in the least," Cloak said, rounding another tight corner.
 
"Accounts?  You've never seen it?" Goom piped up.
 
Cloak actually stopped and looked at the little goomba.  "I've never said that I've met all sentient, near-sentient, and pseudo-sentient beings in all the realms.  There are a hundred realms to each star in the sky!  More!  And you've presumed that I've visited them all?  No Realm Walker has succeeded in such an endeavor.  More realms pop up all the time."
 
"Why?" Ash asked.
 
"That is immaterial." Cloak said, repressively, turning to continue onward.
 
"You don't know." Gaz commented.
 
"I don't deny it." Cloak replied quietly.
 
"Where is this thing, anyway?" Underseen asked.
 
"The bottom," Cloak said.  "That's where this Beast of Fear will dwell."

"'Beast of Fear'?  Like Parrallax?" Parker asked.

"Not exactly, I don't think," Cloak said.  "I believe it is widely accepted that this creature is the pet of Olympians.  The sons of Ares or Mars, Phobos and Deimos, specifically."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 17, 2013, 11:17:17 PM

This is a unexpected update.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 18, 2013, 02:58:50 PM

Good update!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2013, 08:12:40 AM

Unexpected how, Underseen?

Anyway, thanks guys.  Just don't expect a chapter today, okay? Today is Shadow's birthday, and I don't know if her mom will even allow me to wish her a happy birthday.  And, while I have no proof to the contrary and I could be just as easily jumping to conclusions, I have reason to believe that my sister believes my mother's version of events.

Probably passing off telling me the proper way to slash my wrists as "calling my bluff".  Anyway, a current list:

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:*Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:*Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:*The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:*Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

Back to business, now.  Short chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Macabre Trophies

"Let's move on," Cloak said motioning everyone forward.  When they stumbled into the flat area with sixteen or so webbed decaying bodies in clothes ten, twenty years out-of-date.  Upon the webs were visions of their deepest fears.
 
One showed signs of deep grooves on the body, and the golden web showed incredibly graphic scenes of evisceration.  The one next to that one showed scenes of the electric chair, while the one beside that showed scenes of being impaled with icicles outside on a frozen tundra.  Further along, one showed a scene of pyrophobia and a irrational fear of bombs in everyday -- and impossible items -- like an ordinary fountain pen.  The last one on this row showed a deep-seated fear of disembowelment.
 
This seriously disturbed the Realm Walker, as these scenes were not censored at all and shown in the full gratious light.  No one spoke, as the full gory images filled their mind.
 
"There . . ." Underseen said, quietly, as if unable to find his voice at first, "there's more over there."
 
The others looked on the other side of the room.  The images showed one in a neverending fall with the suspense of impact overwhelmingly present, one that was unrealistically fearing crashes, one afraid of bubbles, one afraid of spontaneous combustion, one afraid of being last and not having enough, one afraid of bright flashes, and one afraid of stakes -- this one didn't have a body but a pile of ashes.
 
"That one . . ." Gaz said, pointing to the small pile of ashes, "that must have been one of my kind."
 
"A vampire," Parker murmured.
 
It was clear that the ash must have blown away some during the intervening years, otherwise the pile would have been larger.  There was a large silence that greeted these words.  Cloak eventually broke the silence.
 
"Did you hear that?"
 
"Hear what?"
 
"The monster is still ahead." Cloak said.  "Let's leave this . . . this ghastly mausoleum.  This inhuman trophy case."

They sojourned into the tunnel, far away from the macabre scene.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2013, 10:27:18 AM

Apparently no one realizes if there's a new chapter if I modify a previous post . . .  Sorry, short chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Going Down

The proceeded in silence for a moment, before Cloak, who was out in front, threw out his arms to stop the others from proceeding further.

"What is it?" Dino said, unable to keep the note of anticipatory horror from her voice.

"Drop-off." Cloak said, bluntly.

"Drop off for what?" Underseen asked.

Cloak narrowed his eyes at him, very much aware that Underseen couldn't see him.  Cloak pointed his index finger and a small golden scarlet orb of energy blossomed from it.  It illuminated very little.  But soon it grew the size of a beach ball, and illuminated not much, but then a coil of fire extruded from Cloak's finger inside the orb, and suddenly the entire tunnel illuminated to see that the entire tunnel suddenly decided to drop at a straight ninety-degrees downward, and it seemed to swell outward, as well.

"Oh," Underseen said.

"You could have just said what it was, you know, Cloak," Faerie sighed.

"How deep is it?" Goom asked.

"Thirty, forty feet." Cloak said.

"How'd you know that?" Gaz asked.  Then she thought about what she just said, that coupled with the dirty look that Cloak sent her, and she retracted the statement.  Cloak had obviously Earthsighted it.

"Stupid question time." Parker said, still looking rather naked without his armor.

"Must we?" Ash asked.

"Stupid question time," Parker repeated, "how're we suppose to get down?  Not all of us can fly."

"Parker, you insult me." Cloak said, his voice had a trace of a growl and snarl in it.  Cloak stomped his foot and an earthen platform shot out, just enough to support the group.  "All aboard who's going aboard."

"We're not leaving you, Cloak." Faerie said.  "Get that through your thick Realm Walker skull . . . if Realm Walkers have skulls that is."

Cloak brushed off Faerie's jovial teasing, and started to cause the platform to descend.  But he kind of wish he could make it go faster than was safely advisable.  They were forced to see another sixteen macabre trophies -- showing fears of needles, magnets, twins, a certain dysfunction, spinning, snakes, sparks, ninjas, stupidity, mummies, drills, rings, toads, dust, ships and skeletons.

They landed as the platform merged with the drops ground with a soundless feeling, the RAFians went onward, feeling unpleasantly sick.  That was certainly an unpleasant surprise -- they'd much rather fight an ugly creature.

"This Koh-It is a monster," Underseen said.  No one disagreed with him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 23, 2013, 06:10:32 PM

This reminded me to update my story...

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 24, 2013, 09:17:50 AM

Love the updates!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2013, 11:18:59 AM

Thanks, Gazzy.  And, uh, glad I could help, Underseen?
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Noxious

Cloak stopped, shut his eyes momentarily as he spread his toes.  He didn't utter a word while he did this, but said when his eyes snapped open, "It's still here, onward.  Anyone with second thoughts --"
 
"Cloak!  Enough with that!  We're here, and that's final!" Faerie chatised.
 
"Fine." Cloak said roughly.  "Let's procee -- ugh!"
 
Cloak retched as he reached up to cover his nose.  Dino waved her tiny arms frantically but she couldn't cover her rather large nose, and she was very verbal about it.  But only Cloak and Dino seemed to react to whatever it was.
 
"Um . . . what's with you two?"
 
"Can't you smell it?!" Dino pratically shrieked.
 
"Smell what?"
 
"Smell that -- that -- that offensive odor that smells like the flatulence of a Skuntank, Muk, and Garbodor have intermingled!" Cloak exclaimed loudly.
 
There was a very pregnant pause that met this words.
 
"How do you know what THAT smells like?" Parker asked.
 
After a moment of hesitation, Cloak replied, "I don't want to talk about it."
 
"But --" Faerie said, devilish smirk playing around her lips.
 
"I SAID I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!"
 
"Okay!  Geesh!"
 
They proceeded further, with Dino asked if they really had to, and Cloak insisted that it was the best course.   Dino then called him a masochist.  Soon enough the pungent odor was enough for the others to smell it too, and they dubled over in retching.  And Parker even lost his lunch.  Ash and Underseen, however, just shapeshifted their noses away, and presumably their sense of smell.

Cloak glowered at him.  Despite all of his elemental might, he could not simply just not smell anything.  Then they came upon a depressed, roughly rectangular room, filled with a strange gas.  It was mustard-yellow and had shifting images formed from the gas itself.

Cloak managed to discern images of a boulder, a train, a tsunami wave, a star, a large hand, a helicopter, a Taydenite crystal, a Napalm Man bomb, a knight, a centaur, a tornado-level wind, flames, a blizzard, a flowering plant, a tomahawk, and a spear before he shook his head, to clear it.

"Cloak --" Gaz started.  Her eyes were watering from horrible stench.

Cloak performed an aerokinetic display similar to Hurricane Tornado -- or whatever the weapon Storm Eagle gives, which he carved a "tunnel" into the gas large enough for Dino.  He heard the skittering of old forgotten bones.  Were they human or not?  He really didn't care to know.

"Hurry!" Cloak prompted the others.  "You realize I can't do this forever, right?"

With that they travelled through the gas to the other side, and Cloak managed to Earthsight a skittering of many legs.  The Koh-It was getting closer -- or more like they were getting closer to the Koh-It, but Cloak found it difficult to judge the distance.

"That was vile," Dino said, puffing air from her nostrils, as they quickly left the stench behind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 24, 2013, 06:01:54 PM

I freaking hate napalm man... those were all robot masters right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2013, 07:15:42 PM

Alas I have beenfound out! ;)

Yes they are Underseen.  You have detected the pattern of the nightmmares.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on January 24, 2013, 10:55:12 PM

Great chapters, Cloaky!

And, yeah, I can certainly vouch that having a good sense of smell can backfire on you.  :-X

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2013, 10:44:49 AM

Too true, Dino.  Too true.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Pools of Terror

The group moved on -- and Cloak glanced back to notice that Goom seemed to be hitching a ride on Dino's nose, and she didn't seem too pleased with this arrangement.  Cloak said nothing but led this band of RAFians onward.  He could feel the rather skritchy vibrations that indicated that they were closing in on a many-legged thing.  Whether it was the Koh-It or another creature remained to be seen.  But the vibrations didn't really feel any closer, but Cloak didn't voice his frustrations to the others, as it was, even now, it was difficult for Cloak to convey his emotions instead of simply suppressing them.
 
Suddenly, Cloak stopped and shuttered.  But he could not understand why.
 
"Why did you shutter just now?" Goom asked.
 
"I don't know." Cloak said, rather repressively.  "Must be getting close, though.  Look, we're approaching another room . . ."
 
"Oh, lovely," Faerie said, drily.  "Some new fresh hell."
 
Faerie's characterization was apt, as the room seemed to be illuminated from below.  From a luminescent liquid that looked very much like --
 
"Is that what I think it is?" Underseen said.
 
"Don't . . . just don't." Gaz said, hand over her eyes.
 
"But it looks like glowing p--"
 
"Yes, yes, we know, Underseen." Parker said waspishly.
 
Looking down, the liquid seemed to be the liquid equivalent to fiendfyre.  Cloak could see numerous shapes leaping out of the liquid, which was at least a good ten, fifteen feet below them.  Images of a man freezing, hazardous waste, spontaneous combustion, mushroom clouds, bed springs, evisceration, darkness, sinister-lookin cars, tengus, vastness of space, creepy dynamos, coldness, a man being burying alive, pirates, a man being burned, magic, swords, clowns, military bazookas, everlasting frost, grenades, and a man drowning.  Quite vivid and uncensored.
 
"'Fiendwater'," Dino decided the name.
 
"Why that?" Gaz asked.
 
"It just seems right."
 
"Forget about what it's supposed to be called," Goom said, "we should be concerned on how to get across."
 
The others looked at the area the little goomba indicated.  There was a chasm spanning about twelve feet or so.  Before Cloak could react, Faerie simply just flew to the other side.  Gaz went batty and followed her.  Underseen and Ash shapeshifted into creatures with wings and followed suit.

"Nice!" Parker called out to the others sarcastically.  "Now what about the rest of us?!"

Cloak glowered at Parker.  "SPARTAN, you insult me again."

Cloak stomped his foot, and punched his fist outward, and then suddenly the chasm was ellapsed by an earth bridge wide enough for even Dino's strides and strong enough to hold up her weight.  Then they joined the others.

"Now, let's find this damn thing and get out of this not-so-funhouse of horrors," Dino said.  "Oh, and Goom?  I appreciate your friendship and respect you as a Mod, but I AM NOT A TAXI!!"

Goom hopped down.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 28, 2013, 03:57:20 PM

Being a vampire rocks! Lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 28, 2013, 07:21:22 PM

Shapeshifter> Vampire

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2013, 08:27:18 PM

Well, technially, Underseen, vampires are shapeshifters in a way.  The bat form, the mist form . . . granted it is if the word shapeshifter is taken literally. . . .

*has sudden image of Gaz as Michelangelo saying "God, I love being a vampire!"*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 28, 2013, 08:45:10 PM

True... True...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2013, 09:52:39 AM

New page.

• Book XXIII: RAF Comix

The RAFians are sucked into a comic book made by Damien.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

Now, another chapter.  Sorry, it's gonna be short.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Frozen Fear

"How much further?" Goom asked.
 
"Beyond the next room," Cloak said, eyes shut, attempting to Earthsight.  "I -- I think."
 
"You think?  I'd much rather go on something you know." Parker said, thoroughly agitated.
 
"Go through the Veil," Cloak muttered.  It was synonymous with the human phrase "go to hell".
 
"Whatever."
 
Nerves were getting frayed and they had better come upon this creature soon, or friendships and allegiances could fall apart.  This was a harrowing experience to all who had the misfortune to experience it.  Granted, they appeared to be the only ones that seemed to have survived such a thing.  Well, to their knowledge.
 
Then they walked into a vast room, roughly circular.  The walls seemed to smooth all around until about ten feet up, then it became rocky and craggy as the ceiling.  The floor was pleasantly smooth though.  Set within the walls were little alcoves filled with different slabs or plates . . . each one had a terrorified face as if they all had been frozen in carbonite.  Above each was a small pictoral representation of, presumably, their greatest fears: concrete, tornadoes, mermaids, plugs, jewels, hornets, magma, falsity, blades, running water, commandos, chills, sheep, baseballs to the face, fire, and sunlight.  Two were obviously vampires, the one with running water and sunlight depictions above their alcoves.

"That is gruesome." Goom said, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice.

Cloak did not dawdle his gaze on any of them, while Gaz gazed ruefully at the two vampires.  Cloak instead focused on their goal with a near fanaticism, and said, "Let's move on.  The faster was get to this Koh-It, the faster we get the Veil out of here."

"What?" Underseen asked.

"Let's get the Veil out of here."

"What do you mean 'the Veil'?" he asked.

"Is this the time, Underseen?" Cloak asked, feeling nettled.

"It was just a question."

"The Veil is the separation of life and death." Cloak said, brusquely.  "One who passes through the Oblivion Veil, which is often referred to as the Veil in a short-hand way -- anyway, one who passes through the Veil can never return.  Eventually, it turned out a number of phrases, many of which don't translate well into your languages."

"Great, now that teaching time is over, let's go give this Koh-It whatever a good sock in the nose!!" Faerie said, gung-ho.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 29, 2013, 05:54:41 PM

Veil rhymes with hell

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2013, 09:47:42 AM

Yes.  Yes, it does, Underseen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Lair of the Beast

"Please tell me this thing is close," Parker said, thoroughly nettled.
 
"Should be in the next room," Cloak answered.
 
"Should?"
 
"Don't harp on about it, Parker," Faerie said, clearly lusting for battle.
 
"I said 'should' because it was easier to determine when it was moving around," Cloak said impassively.
 
"So, it's dead?  Or sleeping?" Underseen asked.
 
"I wouldn't give your hopes up, Underseen." Ash said.
 
Then the group entered a cavern large enough for an evolved To'kustar to lay comfortably with enough room for a fully functional Yeerk Pool or two.  But Cloak noticed that there appeared to be a stone columns rather like tree roots.  The light was marginable, but Cloak's feline eyes could easily pierce the gloom.  He noticed that Gaz went bat mode to be able to "see" better, and Ash and Underseen shapeshifted their eyes into ones with superior night vision.  The others would just have to deal . . . although Cloak had no idea how good or dismal goomba night vision was.
 
Suddenly, a sudden vibration so monumental that Cloak announced, "It's here!"
 
"Thanks, I think we got that!" Parker shouted sarcastically.
 
"YOU'RE AFRAID." said a deafening voice.  "GOOD."
 
"I'm NOT afraid," Cloak replied angrily.
 
"Nor am I!"
 
"I'm angry, actually." Cloak clarified.
 
"I'm furious."
 
"Curious." Goom replied.
 
"Indifferent." Faerie said, bored.
 
"A tad hungry." Dino said.
 
"Impatient," Ash said.

"Perplexed," Gaz replied genially.

Underseen blinked momentarily, then said in a way reminescent of Zach Braff's Chicken Little, "What are we talking about?"

"Oh, nothing really, Underseen," Faerie said, waving her hand dismissively.  "This is just the pre-beatdown banter."

"YOU DARE MOCK ME?!"

"You clearly don't know, Faerie." Cloak said, passively.

Then the creature rose into pronounced clarity.  Its ashy-gray body was rather serpentine, but with a metallic black centipede shell and tarnished gold centipede legs.  It was roughly the thrice the diameter of a monster truck tire, while as about long as eight or nine school buses.  Cloak could see how its head -- seemingly a tarnished-gold-and-black fusion of a Taxxon head with a Tyrannopede head ringed with smaller legs of a dark black -- could be seen as frightening.  But he, like the others, were too tired and irritable to be afraid.

"NO ONE MOCKS ME!!"

"I thought I just did." Faerie said, feigning ignorance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 30, 2013, 07:23:50 PM

This is why we should never go to the beach

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2013, 10:33:26 AM

You so deserve a +1 for that, Underseen.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Fury of the Beast

A deafeningly, yet also ear-shatteringly, roar enveloped the space, which was a feat in and of itself.  But the RAFians felt no fear.  Anger and exhaustion had routed the fear right out of them.  They stood their ground, and after the roar, the Koh-It ****ed its head as if it were confused, as if it was thinking, why aren't you cowering before my sheer might and ultimate awesomeness?
 
"No, bub," Faerie snarled.  "We're not scared."
 
"FEAR ME!!"
 
"No." Cloak replied.
 
"I SAID, FEAR ME!!"
 
"We heard you the first time," Dino sighed, as if the Koh-It was a toddler about to throw a temper tantrum.
 
"YOU WILL FEAR ME!!"
 
"Really?" Gaz said, with feigned interest, "How?"
 
It didn't seem to have an answer to that.  It roared again.

"Ah, you don't have an answer." Goom said shrewdly.

It roared again.

"Get a little angrier," Ash advised.  "Then you'd have some small inkling to how we feel."

It was about to open its jaws again to roar, but stopped, and ****ed it's head at Ash, perplexed.

Underseen sighed and said, in a very board way, "We should have never gone to the beach."

"FEAR ME!" the creature roared.  Then it hesitated, and in a smaller voice said, "please."

There was a small pause of the purest silences, until the RAFians burst out in raucous laughter.

"STOP!  STOP THAT!"

They didn't.

"STOP THAT NOW!!"

They did in a stuttering sort of way, but it was mostly to catch their breath.  Gaz was the one that noticed that the creatures shell seemed to be a bit looser on the creature for some reason.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2013, 11:25:17 AM

Now, a bonus chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
An Unconventional Weapon

"Guys," Gaz said, uncertainly, laughter gone from her face, "look.  Its armor."
 
The RAFians noticed, and the laughter died from their faces as well, replaced with seriousness.  Cloak halfway expected to see the creature to bloat back up and fill up the shell again.  But this did not happen.  The RAFians could not believe it.  That the key to defeating this monster, the weapon, the weakness, the vulnerability that they could exploit was . . . was simple laughter?
 
"Oh, I don't believe it," Faerie said, nearly pouting.  She had already pulled out her favorite battleaxe from hammerspace -- or "Faeriespace", if you'd prefer.
 
Parker's eyes were narrowed.  He still looked very weird, very naked without his armor.  He said suspiciously, "That's too easy, though.  And how do we know it was the laughter that killed it?"
 
"You know, when you really think about it --" Cloak said, rubbing his chin.
 
"YOU DARE TO IGNORE ME?!  I'M FEAR INCARNATE!"
 
"No, that's Parallax.  You certainly pale in comparison, pet of Phobos and Deimos." Cloak corrected, before ignoring it again.  "Anyway, as I was saying before, if you really think about it, laughter is, in its own way, the antithesis for fear.  As such, it would make plausible sense for it to harm, or even poison, one who feeds upon feelings of fear and terror."
 
"You certainly picked an awful time to be a philosopher," Faerie chided good-naturedly.
 
"All this talking is really nice," Parker said, "but I highly doubt we could talk this thing to . . . death . . ."
 
He turned around to find the creature, curled up on the ground, inert and motionless.  It was not possible!  No one could literally be talked to death!  The RAFians were motionless with surprise and shock, but not by fear . . . then the creature gave a resounding snore that sounded much more like a brief snort.
 
The RAFians all had narrowed eyes -- Underseen deciding to show-off and gaining eyes all over his body so he could narrow them.  He looked remarkably like a human/Opticoid hybrid.
 
"Clever, Koh-It." Cloak said in ringing tones.  "But surprise is not fear.  Not enough for you to feed on, anyway."
 
"I AM NOT A KOH-IT!!" it roared.  "I AM A PHOBEEST!!"
 
"Oh, that's a much better name," Faerie said, rolling her eyes.  And this was met with much snickering.
 
"I AM!!  AND STOP THAT SNICKERING!!"
 
That only made it persist more.
 
"I SAID SHOP!  I MEAN, STOP!!"
 
That cause the RAFians to burst into laugher.
 
"STOP LAUGHING!!  STOP LAUGHING AND FEAR ME!!"
 
And that caused the RAFians to double over with laughter.

"YOU WILL FEAR ME!!"

Now the RAFians were ROFLing, until there was a rather metallic CLANG as the empty shell of the Koh-It clattered to the ground.  Completely empty and headless, as the head had dissolved into nothingness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2013, 11:48:00 AM

Eh, let's just finish off this book now.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Beach Be Gone!

It took a moment or two for the RAFians to collect themselves, and to ensure that the Koh-It was really gone and dead.  It had every appearance as such.  Gaz and Parker were still red in the face from laughing so hard, Goom, Underseen and Ash were hard of breath, Faerie was wiping tears of hilarity from her eyes, and Dino was trying not to think of it to prevent a fresh wave of giggles.

Then Cloak managed to carve a shortcut to the surface, with his mastery over the Earth element.

"Why couldn't just do this before?" Parker exclaimed.

"Never thought of it," Cloak said, which was only partially true.  The whole truth was that, by being forced to face his deepest, most desperate fears, he was shaken.  He wasn't truly thinking at full capacity, until the laughable comments of the Koh-It dispelled the lingering doubts and anger.  He made sure not to tell the others this, preferring to keep that private.

Eventually, they saw sunlight.  While initially wincing at the light, the RAFians embraced the sunlight as if a long-lost, beloved relation.  Then the others were beginning to make their way to RAF, Cloak hesistated and looked back.

"What is it, Cloak?" Gaz asked.  Cloak knew it was only because of her benevolent heart that sunlight didn't affect her like other vampires.  But Cloak didn't reply, just looking intently on the beach, and Gaz and the others noticed this.

"Cloak, it's dead." Faerie said, with cold finality in her voice.

"How can we know that for sure?" Cloak said.  "How can we be a hundred percent certain that it won't return?  Won't claim new victims from the beach?"

"We could tell people," Underseen said.

"And who'd believe us?"

Silence.  The answer was crystal-clear, despite the outrageous things that happen, without proof, no one will believe us.

"There must be a way to protect people from that beach, then." Ash said.

"There is two ways I can think of." Cloak said quietly.  "I could raise sharp stones on the beach . . . or . . ."

Suddenly, Cloak stomped his foot and the land sunk down a great deal, and then Cloak made sweeping movements with his arms, as the water flooded the former beach, stirring up the silica.

"That." Cloak finished.

Then the RAFians returned to RAF, unaware of the fact that there seemed to be two red eyes peeking out from beneath the waves, before vanishing from sight. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on January 31, 2013, 12:52:21 PM

Haha, that's awesome!  A creature composed of fear whose weakness is laughter.  That's brilliant!

It kinda reminds me of a certain Pinkie Pie song. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrPte1uijDw)

Oooh, and nice touch with the ominous ending.  I mean, uh . . . *nervous laugh* red glowing eyes, am I right?  *obviously-forced laughter at whatever-it-is*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2013, 02:39:17 PM

Thanks, and the whatever-it-is will probably or probably not make an appearance in Book L.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 31, 2013, 03:55:56 PM

Great stuff!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 31, 2013, 06:04:37 PM

Now you are making new chapters at a good rate... at least for me

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2013, 07:58:55 PM

I just had sufficent time and an unusally abundant amount of energy to do three chapters today, Underseen.  I may not be able to do the same number tomorrow or Monday.

And just looking at the next book's title makes me wonder what a graphic novel of these books would look like. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 31, 2013, 08:33:06 PM

I understand you. My chapters are half your size and come once every blue moon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on January 31, 2013, 11:30:40 PM

Heh, you both put me to shame as far as 'chapters-per-time-unit' goes.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2013, 11:48:12 AM

Eh, as strange as it may sound, "Memoirs" actually is helping me through my recovery. . . . *blinks* "Memoirs is over a year old!  It's birthday was on the 18th!
 
Anyway, time for the twenty-third book. . . . Out of 135 . . .

BOOK XXIII:
RAF Comix
CHAPTER ONE:
Topsy Turvy RAFParty Day

 
The sun rose on the forum as a joyful, celebrating music streaked into the air as a parade of RAFians rejoiced.  Their song filled the air, waking the more stubbornly somnolent RAFians.
 

"Come one, come all!
Leave your threads and tools,
Coop your inhibitions and don't be mules.
Come one, come all!
Close the churches and the schools,
It's the day for bending rules.
Come and join the . . . "

SuperNate declared:

"RAFparty!

Once a month, we throw a party here in RAF town!
Once a month, we turn all RAF upside down!
Ev'ry man's a king and ev'ry king's a clown!
Once again, it's RAFparty Day!
It's the day the devil in us gets released.
It's the day we mock the users and shock the admins!
Ev'rything is topsy turvy at the RAFparty!"

Then the crowd sang, "Topsy turvy!" twice as SuperNate continued:

"Ev'rything is upsy daysy!
Ev'ryone is acting crazy
Grass is gold and weeds are a bouquet
That's the way on RAFparty Day!"

Then the crowd repeated and sang, "Topsy turvy!"

Then together, SuperNate and the crowd sang:

"Beat the drums and blow the trumpets
Topsy Turvy!
Join the users and admins and donators
Streaming in from RAFev'rywhere!'

Then SuperNate continued solo:

"Even scurvy RAFians are extra scurvy
On the sixth of 'Januervy'!"

Then the crowd joined into the song once again:

"All because it's RAFparty Day!"

Then SuperNate continued the song, solo, once again:

"Come one, come all!
Hurry, hurry, here's your chance!
See the myst'ry and romance.
Come one, come all!
See the one of the finest girls in RAF!
Make an entrance to en-trance!
Dance la Gaz!
Dance!"

Suddenly, in a sudden blast of smoke, SuperNate had vanished and Gaz was in his place performing some vampire fighting poses and movements and such.  She was executing them with such grace and charm that it almost looked like a dance.  Suddenly, the music heated up again, as SuperNate reappeared off-stage, singing:

"Here it is, the moment you've been waiting for.
Here it is, you know exactly what's in store.
Now's the time we laugh until our sides get sore!"

Then the crowd began to alternate with SuperNate:

"Once a month we throw a party here in town!"

"Once a month we turn all RAF upside down!"

"Once a month on RAFparty Day!"

Then they joined together again:

"And it's the day we do the things that we daren't explore
On the other three hundred and sixty-four!
Once a year, we love to drop in
Where the beverages are never stoppin'
For the chance to pop some popinjay.
Mad and crazy, upsy-daisy, RAFparty Day!"

And the celebration continued, celebrating the anniversary of something.  Cloak only stood by and watched passively, with his arms crossed.  He was still unaccustomed to feeling comfortable in frivolity and "letting his hair down", so to speak.
 
Meanwhile, Damien was setting up his own little booth, promoting a little project near and dear to his heart. . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 01, 2013, 03:15:17 PM

Woo! Party! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 02, 2013, 12:09:31 AM

Nate doesn't get invited to parties... Nate is the party

Didn't you mention a while back (at least 2-4 books ago) that you were going to have a book in which Seal and Faerie get upgrades in their weapons and that a couple of characters get their own unique weapons too? Do you remember what book that was going to be in? Because I might incorporate it into my story.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2013, 07:23:44 AM

In the book "Infinity and Eternity".  Better PM me for more.  It would be a major spoiler about what weapons are what.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 02, 2013, 11:52:04 AM

I just wanted to know what book it happens in. Thanks

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 02, 2013, 12:10:19 PM

Oh oh oh I want a head-mounted Dracon cannon plz!

What?  No, I didn't say anything.  You must be hearing things.  Crazy person.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2013, 12:12:43 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on February 02, 2013, 12:10:19 PM

Oh oh oh I want a head-mounted Dracon cannon plz!

What?  No, I didn't say anything.  You must be hearing things.  Crazy person.

Hmm . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 02, 2013, 12:16:39 PM

A head mounted Dracon Cannon on a Dinosaur sounds kind of scary...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 02, 2013, 05:55:51 PM

That's kinda the point, silly.

I mean, what?  Dracon cannon on a dinosaur?  Wherever did you get an awesome idea like that?

But seriously, though, it isn't my intention to pressure you at all.  Your story is much too awesome as it is for me to ever tell you how to write it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2013, 09:27:39 AM

First . . . the list.

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

Now, a new chapter -- short, sorrry . . . that will have no RAFians in it.  (Might as well get used to it, the next book won't have any RAFians in it, except for a brief bit with me at the beginning and end.)

CHAPTER TWO:
The B.I.R.

 
Meanwhile, whilst the RAFians were celebrating for the sheer sake of celebrating, a short distance away, on the outskirts of the city, a platinium blonde man in his mid-twenties was tinkering on something that should have never been trifled with.  He was taking a wrench and screwdriver to a machine that looked rather eerily like the shrinking machine from "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", only colored entirely gun-metal-gray.
 
"That should do it," he said.  He was Brian Simon Savage, a rather poor writer in his own right, but a mediocre inventor and exceptional engineer.  His device was far more dangerous then he realized.  "There.  The Biblio-Immersion Ray should be functioning at optimal capacity."
 
One had to wonder if he even knew what he was talking about, as his nickname was "BS" -- a nickname that he despised to no end.  And who could blame him for that?
 
Then he pressed a red button on the machine and it powered to life, with the "barrel" part of the ray glowing with white, almost ethereal light.  Then he placed a book (a half-written book with rather crudely-drawn chapter pictures) upon the targeted area.  Then he fired the ray, which looked rather wispy, like wind made into white light, at the book.  Then the ray deactivated and powered down quite noticeably.
 
"Now," he said, his voice rather stupidly greedy, "to experience what all these publishers and literary agencies refused to acknowledge.  The genius that they turned a blind eye to."
 
Clearly, Brian hadn't much common sense.  Hadn't considered the possible consequences or dangers of this endeavor.  He turned to the book, and looked hungrily.  The book was glowing with the ray's light, the light licking at the pages.  Any other person in their right mind would be able to tell that it wasn't right, would be able see the dangers of immersing themselves in an unfinished work with such a ray.
 
But Brian had carelessly ignored such things, and was foolishly single-minded in his work to bring himself into a world where he was king.  A king that knew all, who could do no wrong.  He placed his hand upon the pages on which he jotted down his innermost fantasy, and he was slurped inside like a spaghetti noodle into a hungry mouth.  The energy seemed to disappate, but he soon discovered that he was now unable to return back to his world -- not that he really wanted to -- until his tale was complete.
 
He naively thought he could stay there, and his happiness would be neverending.  He never once expected that his story to take on a life of its own.  He never anticipated the assassination . . .
 
Outside the world, the book maintained a silvery-white glow, until Savage's death.  Then the light disappated, but he wasn't spat out of the book, as one may have expected.  His mind, body and soul was now forevermore trapped in the book.  Only now he hadn't any control over what happened in his story, and he hadn't remembered that he left the stove on . . . and that potholder was a little too close to the hot burner . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2013, 11:35:20 AM

Now, a bit more while I'm still feeling the energy and have the time. . . .

CHAPTER THREE:
Drawing Boards and Discoveries

Damien was at his drawing board, drawing out a comic of the past adventures of the RAFians . . . prior to the creation of the Mark, as well as adding in a few of his own adventures.  Granted, he had a little difficulty on picking a style, and ended up using a different style for each story.
 
He was doing this when the call came in to RAF.  There was a major fire at an old, rundown, dilapidated house.  Damien recalled seeing the house on a previous adventure several months before . . . that house was filled with more holes than swiss cheese.  Which probably accounted for the large number of rodents seen there.  Perhaps a lightning-strike had put the house out of its misery.
 
Damien wasn't called out to investigate it, as Yarin, Cloak and Gaz were.  Three as the situation's threat level was deemed as minimal.  Damien was sure that the others wouldn't discover anything interesting.  After all, it was just a burned-out house.
 

***

Cloak's feet crunched over the charred wood, and looked around.  It wasn't the Biltmore House, but it wasn't a studio apartment either.  There wasn't much left, nothing combustible anyway.
 
"Someone was living here," Gaz said.  "This stove seemed to be the cause."
 
"But there's really no way to be sure," Yarin pointed out.  He and Cloak were wearing ID masks to disguise them as normal humans.  "We should have brough Aquilai or Aila with us."
 
"They're not Chronosapiens," Cloak said.  "They wouldn't be able to show us exactly what happened like that.  They don't have that power."
 
"Besides," Gaz said, with a heavy sigh, "we don't . . . wait.  Wait, what's that?"
 
She pointed over to something completely covered with soot.  Yarin went over to the device so fast that he jarred his ID mask off, which Gaz deftly caught and planted back on his face.
 
"This is no time to be careless!" Gaz said reprovingly.
 
"Whatever!  I must examine this thing." Yarin said, a light appearing in his ID mask-altered eyes.  "We must take it with us."
 
"What?!" Gaz said.  "That must weight like a hundred pounds."
 
"Cloak can do it!  Right?"
 
"I can," he said.  "But I really don't see the reason why.  For all we know, it could have been the cause of this fire."
 
"There's one way to find out." Yarin insisted.
 
Cloak sighed heavily.
 
"Oh, okay.  It's against my better judgement, but . . . okay, Yarin."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 04, 2013, 05:53:59 PM

There goes Brian :s

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2013, 09:40:44 AM

Yep.  We won't see him again . . . hmmm . . . well . . . no.  We won't see him ever again.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Immersing Yourself in A Project

Damien had been working nonstop on his little comic, and he continued to be nearly-oblivious to all other things around him.  But when he heard that loud THUMP that caused a vibration through the ground even the Earthsight-blind could feel.  Damien grabbed his comic book, almost absently, and trotted out onto the RAFgrounds to see what the hubbub was about.
 

***

Cloak was throughly disgruntled, as the machine was quite a bit more weighty than it appeared to be.  He was sure that the device was more useful as an oversized paper weight, but Yarin disagreed voraciously.  He was like a child to which the next five Christmases had come early.
 
"Don't be so huffy, Cloak," Yarin chided, "think of all the things we can learn from this device!  Think if we get operational again!"
 
Cloak repressed a snarl, and pointed out, "You don't know what it does, Yarin.  It could be a simple shrink ray, or it could be a doomsday device.  It could very well be the reason the house burned to a crisp!!"
 
"Oh, don't be such a downer, Cloak." Yarin replied.  Cloak had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't really hear Cloak's words, just his intonation.
 
Cloak threw his hands up in the air exasperatedly.  "Yarin, ever heard the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat'?"
 
"But I'm not a cat," he said distractedly.
 
"That's not the point." Gaz joined in.
 
"What's going on?" Underseen asked as Damien and Horse trotted over to see what was up.
 
"Yarin found this -- this thing, whatever it is -- and he wants to activate it, to make it functional." Gaz explained with his armed crossed.  "And he doesn't know what it does!"
 
"Oh." Underseen said, casually.
 
"Why?" Horse asked.
 
"Who knows?" Cloak said.
 
"Cloak, you're a cat right?" Yarin said, for once taking his eyes off the machine, the B.I.R., and locking his gaze upon the Realm Walker.  "Aren't you a little curious?"
 
"No." Cloak said with resounding finality.
 
Suddenly, Queen appeared around the device attempting to drag it away unnoticed.

"Hey!" Yarin exclaimed.  "That's not yours!"

"Technically, it isn't yours either, Yarin," Cloak pointed out.

"THAT is immaterial," Yarin snapped.  "I have scavenger rights!"

Cloak just wondered benignly how Queen got onto RAF land unnoticed.  Then he noticed a broom and what appeared to be a invisibility cloak.  He nodded slightly.  The aerial defenses needed to be looked at again.

"It is mine!" Queen claimed, still attempting futilely to drag it away.

"No, foolish Dweller," came another unseen voice, whose tone was icier than Antartica.  "It is mine.  I lay claim to it."

"No!  I found it!  It is mine!!  Scavenger rights!" Yarin roared, outrage.

"Yarin, Malice doesn't care about any rules but her own." Cloak said coldly.

"You flatter me," Malice said with twinkling eyes.

Suddenly, the machine powered to life, but was unnoticed by everyone, due to the arguing.  Everyone except Damien, who the device was pointed at.

"Um, guys?" he said nervously.

No one heard him.

"GUYS!!" he shouted.

But it was too late.  The ray hit his comic book -- and he, Cloak, Horse, Gaz, Underseen, Yarin, Malice, and Queen were sucked inside its pages . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2013, 10:24:13 AM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
RAF Noir

The group landed roughly and hard.  They were all disorientated, although Queen and Malice had landed elsewhere convienently enough.  They righted themselves as they stood up, and, instantly, Cloak was confused.
 
Everything was in grayscale.  There wasn't a drop of color -- no reds, no blues, no greens, and no yellows.  Only white, black and gray.  How was this possible?  Then he nearly jumped out of his skin as he looked down at himself.  He wasn't in his usually attire of a black cloak and clothing reminescent of Disney's Quasimodo (only in blacks and grays and browns), with a sleeve for his tail and black gloves.  Instead, he wore a black trench coat, gray shirt,black slacks, shiny black shoes, some sort of black fim noir hat, and a tiger-print tie that clashed horribly with everything.  He was human, granted his features easily put into mind a tiger.
 
The others were situated similarly.  Underseen was in a long-sleeved white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, black suspenders, and gray slacks -- also undeniably human.  The expression on his face was briefly shock, then he scrunched it up as if he was trying to lay an egg.  He did this several times before donning a crestfallen look on his face.

Horse wore a simple white dress, snow white hair pulled up into a bun and wearing white high heels.  She had big, black eyes, referencing the seal that she once was.  She was gazing at her human hands as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.  She clenched and unclenched her hands several times, eventually ending up wearing a look of disapproval on her face.

Gaz wore a sparkly gray dress, dark hair pulled up into a bun with some sort of beaded mesh in her hair.  She also wore dark gray gloves than went up to her elbows and she wore high heel shoes that looked far more like torture devices.  She felt her upper canine teeth and wore a look of shock.  She gazed around.

Yarin looked as human as the rest of them, dressed like Cloak (only with out the tie and trenchcoat).  He looked, frankily, a little disgusted and more disoriented than the rest.

Damien wore the same style as Underseen, only with the colors reversed.  He was the only one that didn't seem surprised at this change. . . .

"What just happened here?" Gaz said, and Cloak detected a tad bit of fear.

"We're . . ." Damien began before losing nerve.

"We're what, Damien?" Cloak said.

"We're in my comic."

"What?" Underseen said, blinking.  "Is that why I can't shapeshift?!"

"Quiet, you fool." Horse snapped.  "My cryokinesis and hydrokinesis is gone too, but you don't hear me screaming about it, all right?"

"Yes . . . the Elements have been silenced from me as well." Cloak said, quietly.  "I'm not even sure I can Walk out from this."

"You haven't tried?" Damien asked.

"There's the chance I could end up in a worse realm than this," Cloak said.

"What could be worse than this?" Underseen said, and Cloak shot him a look that clearly said, you don't EVEN want to know.

"So, this is that device's power!" Yarin said.  "I'm not sure I like it much.  How do we get out, I wonder?"

"You don't." said a voice.

Further ahead on the strangely deserted street was Queen.  She was dressed as Queen Elizabeth was when she visited 1939 New York's World Fair, but dressed in black.  Her arms were folded imperiously, as if this was intimidating to the RAFians, who apparently retained their marks, although it had been branded on their lower arms, rather than their hands.  And it seemed to be little more than that in this book, brandings.

"And, indulge me, Queenie," Cloak snarled.  "Just how are you planning on keeping us here?"

Clearly she hadn't considered resistance.

"She has nothing," said another voice on the opposite end of the street.  "But I can."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2013, 10:52:27 AM

One more?

CHAPTER SIX:
The Maltese Pootang

Cloak snorted rather obviously.  He knew that voice all to well.  She may look like an old, wrinkly flapper, but she was still who he knew she was.

"Malice, what makes you think you've powers here that you don't in reality?  Powers that I don't?"
 
"Impudent --"
 
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know." Cloak said, waving away the comment, then rolling his eyes as he said,  "I'm an impudent, ignorant whelp.  Yeah, whatever.  We have more pressing matters to discuss then to deal with the likes of minor threats like you two."

They didn't like that much, but the RAFians ignored them.  If Cloak's abilities have been surpressed, then assuredly Malice's must have been as well.  The RAFians walked away from them, ignoring their cries of "Don't ignore me!"  "Don't turn you back at me!"  "Don't you DARE snicker at me!!"

Once they were far enough away from the two, the RAFians began speaking in earnest.

"So, Damien, how does this story end."

"It doesn't."

They stopped walking.

"What?" Gaz said.  "I must not have HEARD you correctly."

"I was just kidding, it does have an end." Damien said, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

"THIS is not a time for 'kidding around'." Cloak said, very seriously.  "Now, answer the question!"

"And you wonder why I'm not very active," he mutter, but Cloak still heard him and glowered at him for that jibe.  "To finish the story, we must find the Maltese Pootang.  But, that's only one of the stories."

"ONE of the stories?" Underseen noticed.

"Yes, this book isn't a singular graphical narrative," Damien said, almost proudly, "but a compilation."

"And we'll have find our way through each one." Yarin realized.  "How many?"

Damien seemed to shrink a little, "Only three.  Maybe four."

"Great." Horse said.  "We've got our work cut out for us."

"First thing's first," Cloak said, with folded arms. Then he turned to Damien and said, "Where's the Maltese Pootang?"

***

It took what felt like several hours, which Cloak wished he could have just hopped to another panel like on that episode of Fairly Oddparents, but he was unable to do such here.  But they came upon where the Maltese Pootang was hidden -- a old warehouse at the waterfront.  And Queen had taken it away.

Then she got in a game of "Catch the Statuette" with Malice, who came to demand the bronze-plated statuette.  Eventually the RAFians themselves got into the fray and were able to keep it away from the two.  And then they were able to end the story by getting the "fuzz" to arrest the two.  Strangely, the officers resembled human representations of Goom, Phoenix and Russell.

"That wasn't the way it was supposed to end, though," Damien complained.

"Oh, get over it," Cloak said.  "It worked out for us in the end."

Suddenly, there was a bright, brillant FLASH!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 05, 2013, 06:10:46 PM

This is fun

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 05, 2013, 08:37:05 PM

That sounds like some outfit I got. Lol

Love the new chapters. This is fun sounding!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 05, 2013, 10:43:40 PM

Oooh, this is interesting!  Excellent chapters, Cloaky!

I kind of wonder, how the balance of power will shift, with the RAFians missing their powers.  Granted, yes, the RAFians still far outnumber Malice and Queen.  But Malice is a clever foe, she'll probably find a way to cope with not having powers pretty quickly.  And the RAFians are used to being nearly invincible thanks to how powerful they are.  So, if Malice wants to take them down in anything resembling a fair fight, right now is probably the best chance she's ever going to get.

The one major setback I see for her will come if Malice and Queen try to cooperate with each other.  Both will want to call the shots and be obeyed without question, but I certainly can't see either one of them ever bending to the other's will.

P.S. This is all just me thinking out loud.  Don't tell me any spoilers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on February 06, 2013, 01:31:59 AM

[spoiler](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTuArcvJre09I5WMW1J5Yt9exEOTzUCnTq_uW4lhDoYFFvrxTb1)[/spoiler]

mixed with

[spoiler](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120603213351/sonicpokemon/images/7/77/Pikachu.png)
[/spoiler]

Me:[spoiler](http://[url=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5dmInsMtHFw/T0m5axol-9I/AAAAAAAAAaM/HahdZ6FLd3I/s1600/cute+meme.png]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5dmInsMtHFw/T0m5axol-9I/AAAAAAAAAaM/HahdZ6FLd3I/s1600/cute+meme.png[/url])[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2013, 10:08:19 AM

Really, Gaz?  Somehow I find that scary.

And Dino . . . you REALLY put a lot of thought into that.  Some of it makes me a bit uncomfortable . . . because -- oh, never mind.

And Sakki, what?

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI:Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

Oh, shortish chapter.  Maybe more today.  Maybe not.  We'll see.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Super Samurais

When the brillant light vanished, they were not back in the forum, as some of them had clearly hoped.  Damien had said three or four stories, so it was a vain and slightly stupid hope.  But they weren't simply in another film noir setting, it was more like feudal Japan.  They were all dressed as samurais, all with swords.  Their Marks had moved off their body and onto their chests, as their symbols.

"Wait, were there girl samurais back then?" Horse asked.

"I dunno," Gaz shrugged.

"So I may not have been 'historically accurate'," Damien groused, "so sue me.  There weren't anthropomorphic animals or aliens either."

He was indicating Cloak, Horse, and Yarin, who this time retained their strictly nonhuman forms, only Horse was now an anthropomorphic seal.

"Still," Cloak said, "this isn't a bad art style . . ."

They were drawn in some ancient Japanese style that Cloak wasn't too familiar with.  It was like that anime Batman interstitial things in DC Nation.

"We still don't have our powers," Underseen said dejectedly, although he looked like a rather young man just the same.

"We have our blades, though," Damien said.  "Each had a name.  Cloak's is Elements Tamer.  Horse's is Pinniped Tempest.  Gaz's is Laserbeak --"

"What?  Laserbeak?"

"It's probably what Laserbeak would have been had it been feudal times outside this book," Damien shrugged, then continued, pointed to each blade.  "Underseen's is Darkness Bane, Yarin's is Mind's Eye, and mine is Death Brush."

"'Death Brush'?" Cloak asked.  "I see.  Referencing your art."

"Some of those names leave a lot to be desired." Yarin said.

"Hey!  Do I criticize your creations?"

"Yes."

That took him off-guard.

"Yeah, well, I . . . um . . . I --" he stuttered.

"Never mind that," Cloak said, hoping to defuse the situation.  "How do we finish this story?"

But suddenly a streak of lightning -- and two ninjas appeared.

"Let me take a wild guess," Gaz said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2013, 10:40:16 AM

Tryin' to get three chapters today.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Collations and Confrontations

"Malice, give up up.  You too, Queen." Yarin said, logically.  "You're trapped in here, same as we are."
 
"Oh, I don't really care about that," Malice said, apparently proving that she could speak.  For some reason, Cloak assumed that she couldn't.  "I just care about making Cloak's life as miserable as I can."
 
"Why?" Underseen asked.
 
"Because I smashed the orb of Ultimate Power." Cloak answered, hand on the hilt of his sword.  He yearned to strike out at the monster, but he held his position.
 
"Oh, that isn't it at all!" she cried coyly.  But Cloak knew the coy behavior was masking the true anger and fury she felt.  She wasn't fooling him with such an act.  However, Cloak was wondering why Queen was remaining silent.
 
"It is, however, unusual." Cloak said, turning 'round to Queen, "for you to be quiet."
 
"Not in this story." Damien said.  "She got into a argument that she should have backed down from.  She lost her voice in that ensuing battle."
 
Queen glowered at Damien, unsheathed her ninjabo and attempted to strike, which Damien easily deflected on his Death Brush.  Malice used this diversion to attempt to slash Cloak in the back, but Horse parried it with her own Pinniped Tempest.  Cloak realized just then how vulnerable he was without his Earthsight.
 
Queen had been disarmed, threw what looked to be a black-painted egg down and vanished in a cloud of violently violet smoke.  Meanwhile, Malice was battling Horse and Cloak, when she noticed the others were drawing their swords to join in.  She snarled, "Your friends cannot protect you forever, Cloak.  You are nothing without your elemental powers.  You hear me?  NOTHING.  Soon this blade will taste your blood."
 
Then she vanished in a cloud of black, shadowy smoke.  Cloak, though he tried to hide it, was unnerved.  Unnerved because he knew.   He knew that Malice was . . . right.
 

***

Queen was standing in a forested area with a quickly darkening sky (which was only noticeable by the shadows and shading).  She was in tears as she ripped away her mask and felt her throat.  She would get that Damien for this insult!  She will see him writhe for daring to portray her in such a shameful way, in such a revolting light!
 
Suddenly, a twig went SNAP and Queen, quick as lightning, unsheathed her ninjabo.  Only for it to, seconds later, wind up on stuck into the ground, point down.
 
"Pathetic," said a voice.
 
Queen's eyes widened with recognition, and then she glared with an accusatory stare.
 
"Oh, don't look at me that way, human." Malice said, still wearing her mask -- mostly out of habit of wearing something around her head.  "I don't come to kill you."
 
Queen glared at her disbelievingly.
 
"I'd admit that it would not satisfy me.  But I still believe that we have common ground -- you hate the RAFians, especially Damien right now, am I right?"
 
Queen glanced away.
 
"Am I to take that as a 'yes'?"
 
Queen gave a quick, curt nod.
 
"Alright then," she continued.  "You want to kill Damien, and I want Cloak to squirm."
 
Queen narrowed her eyes.
 
"I believe we've much to discuss. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2013, 10:58:03 AM

Last one today.

CHAPTER NINE:
Assassins and Deals

Then the two sat down to talk, in a manner of speaking.  But Queen remained pitifully unaware of just how manipulative Malice could be.  Malice was at least 600 years or so older than Queen, so it was to be expected.  The initial talks was just Malice measuring Queen's intelligence and triggers, discovering RAF and her Banning were big buttons to push.  She would remember that.

Malice knew negetative emotions, knew how to manipulate them to work for her ends.  Queen had a lot of emotions, and, though she appeared to regulate them very severely, she didn't seemed to have the control over them that Cloak had.  Not surprising, as he was afraid of his own emotions, which Queen clearly was not.

Malice weaved together a subtly patronizing plan for Queen, which would involve Queen taking all the risks, and Malice would recieve all the rewards, though she deliberately remained vague about that part with Queen, using enough platitudes and ego-stroking.  All in all, Malice discovered that, unlike Abomination, manipulating Queen was a challenge.

What's more, it was a challenge that Malice was enjoying.

***

"So how does this story end again?" Underseen asked.

"When we successfully protect Daimyo Richard from Daimyo Whassis's assassins."

"Daimyo . . . Wassis?" Horse asked, looking at Damien perplexedly.  "As in 'what-is-this'?"

"Clever," Cloak encouraged.

"Oh, don't encourage him, Cloak!" Gaz teased.

"Hm?" Cloak said, having just gotten back from running an assassin ninja through with his sword as Damien and Underseen did the same to an assassin of their own.

As the sun rose, it was clear that the RAFians had made easy work of the assassins.  Gaz stifled a yawn as Horse said, "Gee, I wish there was more of 'em."

"I'll bear that in mind next time, Horse," Damien said, rather flatly.

Then came the FLASH that they all expected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2013, 12:31:40 PM

About the previous chapter being the last one today?  Well . . .
 
I LIED!

CHAPTER TEN:
Goin' Medieval

"What the bloody hell was that?!" demanded a haughty voice.  It was Queen, dressed in armor reminiscent of Joan of Arc, with a very darker motif.  Queen, surprised at the fact of her voice being restored, gaped in shock for a bit, clutching at her throat.
 
"I would have thought it was obvious," Malice said, with a wheezy, cackling tone.  She was dressed very much like as if someone decided to fuse Morgan le Fey with the old crone from Disney's "Snow White" -- all in all, she was human, but one so borderline in the determination of attractiveness, that one couldn't be sure.  "Clearly the last story's tale was done."
 
"No matter," Queen said, presenting herself in her armor and carefully managed hair in a most arrogant way, "I will get my revenge.  On Damien, and the rest."
 
"Yes, Ms. Queen," Malice said, with a subtle maliciousness to her tone that Queen missed, "yes, I do believe you will."
 
The two stalked off somewhere, on this medieval landscape of knights, kings, and maidens.
 

***

The RAFians awoke to find themselves already standing.  They looked around, and took in the rugged environment -- right out of Arthurian lore.  Then they looked at themselves, all human again.
 
Damien was dressed as a knight, with a rather ornate sword at his side and his armor swaddled in blue revelry.  Underseen was dressed as a young squire, in the form of a young blond boy.  Cloak was dressed rather like Merlin, in sweeping robes of dark earth tones.  Gaz was dressed as fancy noblewoman, with Horse as a younger noblewoman.  Yarin was dressed rather like an archer, without armor, but with his bow slung to his back.
 
"The Middle Ages.  Really?" Underseen said.  Even his voice was young, and he didn't seem too incredibly pleased with that, as he couldn't simply shapeshift into his normal form.  Damien heard his jibe, but shrugged his shoulders which caused his faceplate on his helmet to fall down with a bit of a clatter.

"What's the story here?" Cloak asked, not really minding the sweeping robes, although he did mind the white hair and beard that Damien gave him.

"We have to defeat the opposing army."

"Oh, yes," Gaz said, "nothing like a simple, unconvoluted plotline."

"How was I to know that we'd be sucked into the comic book?" Damien demanded defensively.

"Never mind that now," Cloak said.  "Never mind the inaccuracies, too.  The question, however, is how do we --"

"Die?" said a voice, rather innocently.  "Die a most humilating and slow death?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 06, 2013, 12:54:59 PM

Oooh, seems that my previous analysis underestimated Malice.  Heh, I assumed she would go for a straightforward 'you will obey me!' approach.  Which, if anything, proves I don't know her nearly as well as I thought I did.

I think I have a slightly soft spot for evil characters in stories (not in real life, obviously), because I used to roleplay several.  So, when an evil character is particularly well-done, as Malice is, I respect that.  But, of course, that really just makes it all the more satisfying when they're defeated at the end.  In short, my apologies if my previous overthinking unnerved you.  I certainly was not rooting for Malice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2013, 12:58:36 PM

It didn't unnerve me so much because of the amount of thought but how close it was to the original plan for it, before I decided to go in a different direction.

And one must take into account the age difference, as Malice would more experience.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 06, 2013, 10:46:51 PM

Is it bad that I saw us all Asian in the samurai scenes? The way you described me in this chapter reminds me of Arthur on Disneys the sword and the stone and you as Merlin. I'm actually curious how this next fight will play out since the lack of armor on Yarin, who is on of the few of us with weapons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2013, 10:59:10 AM

Well, Yarin was still a Nyac (original species created by him, I assume), Horse was an anthropomorphized seal, and I was anthropomorphized tiger, but I suppose the more racially-sensitive would see it as such, Underseen.  And, well, it WAS set in feudal Japan . . . never mind, let's not get into THAT mire.
 
Now, I'm not sure how many chapters I can get up today, but really don't expect more than one.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Sword to Sword, Spell to Spell

"And I have been expecting these two dipwads to show up any time n-- where's Malice?" Gaz started.
 
"You think I NEED that miserable alien?  To destroy you?" Queen snarled.
 
"Pretty much," Cloak said with a shrug.
 
"Yeah," Underseen said, making an irresistible similarity to Wart from "The Sword in the Stone".
 
"You'll all pay for that insult!!"
 
"Uh, she's not serious is she?"
 
"Well, it's possible . . ." Gaz said, a bit nervously, eyeing Queen's double-edged sword.  "She has a weapon.  Underseen, you and me don't."
 
"Neither does Cloak," Underseen pointed out, and Queen didn't seem to like that she wasn't being seen as a genuine threat.
 
"But he's in wizard garb -- you must have some magic, Cloak."
 
"He does." Damien said.
 
Cloak frowned, as he felt the joints on his hand pop with golden-scarlet light.  "I suppose that will suffice."
 
"YOU DARE TO IGNORE ME!!  I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" Queen screamed as she lunged, cutting Gaz's dress, just missing flesh.  Queen ****ed her arm back to strike again, but Cloak interfered by raising his hands, intending to raise a force field shield of magic -- the way he would in the outside world -- and he did create a wall of magic.  Only he accidentally sent it forward with minimal momentum.
 
"Oops."
 
"BIG oops." Yarin agreed.
 
"Hey, it took me years to master the Elements -- I was just given this ability of spellcasting but a few minutes ago!" Cloak said defensively.
 
Then he heard a low chuckle, but its source chose not to reveal herself.  But he knew that it was her.  Then an idea occurred to him.  He had read the "Harry Potter" series several time through.
 
"Accio Malice!"
 
Suddenly, a form burst into view.  An old hag . . . or a beautiful young maiden?  Cloak couldn't tell, but he knew as soon as she broke free of his summoning spell that she had similar powers.
 
"I don't need your help!" Queen snarled to Malice.
 
"If you were paying attention, I didn't want to come out.  The spawn of Sage's spawn forced me with that summoning spell." Malice snarled right back.
 
"Come on, then."  Damien said, smirking.  "Have at you!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on February 07, 2013, 11:50:00 AM

Any magic spells of any time period or modern day Harry Potter with this setting being a renaissance? :P Cool story skipping.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2013, 11:57:41 AM

Story skipping?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 07, 2013, 05:58:05 PM

Story skipping- how the characters are going from the different stories in the comic...Or at least that's my guess. I guess its going to be a three against two fight, which would be more fair than the other fights in this book, but like what Dino said about her soft spot for villains (which I have too) of course they would be the ones to be outmatched. I might be wrong considering there are 2 magic users so that always adds fun to the mix. With me being so young in this chapter the conversation I with Gaz sounded like brother to sister talk. That's just my feedback.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2013, 07:08:32 AM

A fair assessment, Underseen.

A new chapter on Monday.

EDIT:Now . . . it's Monday.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Song and Swords

CLANG!!  CLANG!!  SWISH!!  CLANG!!!
 
Damien and Queen launched into a furious, vicious swordfight.  Queen surprised a bit at Damien's strong swordmanship, but Damien himself was unsurprised.  After all, he had already written this battle.  He knew how it went down, how it HAD to go down. . . .
 
Meanwhile, Malice was crowing, and Horse complained at feeling vulnerable.
 
"Don't worry, Horse.  She can't kill anyone." Cloak said, with his arms crossed.  Then she attacked magically, and Cloak had to somersault out of the way -- not an easy feat in magician robes.  "Of course, you never know what you can live through."

Malice laught most raucously, and taunted, "You were always good for a laugh!"

"Oh yeah?" Cloak said, skeptically,  Then he attacked himself, with a lot of flashy bangs and smoke -- he wasn't too good at this magic thing.  Yet.  "Who's laughing now?"

With her voice magically amplified, she crowed, "Why . . . I believe it's me!"
 
Then she snapped her fingers and a jaunty tune played --
 

"I must admit, your parlor tricks are amusing
I bet you've got a bunny under your hat!"

Cloak is then crushed beneath the weight of an overlarged stuffed bunny, which burrows his way out beneath it.

"Now here's your chance to get the best of me!
Hope your hand is hot!
C'mon, clown, let's see what you've got!"

Cloak dodges her card attack, feeling as if he had been sucked into the Yu-Gi-Oh world -- which has actually happened before.  But that's another story, for another memoir.

"You try to slam me with your hardest stuff!
But your double whammy isn't up to snuff!
I'll set the record straight,
You're simply out of date,
You're only second rate!"

"Am not!" Cloak protested, but Malice continued, conjuring a hoop and a blackboard:

"You think your cat's a meanie, but your tiger's tame!
You've got a lot to learn about the magic game!
So, for your education, I'll reiterate!
You're only second rate!"

"Okay, I'll admit, I am not the best magician around, but --" Cloak began, then he realized suddenly he was sitting on the palm of a very large hand, on a black background.

"Men cower at the power in my pinky!
My thumb is number one on every list!"

Then suddenly, everything was back to normal, and Damien was still swordfighting with Queen.  Neither was giving an inch.  Malice continued to gloat through song:

"But if you're not convinced that I'm invincible,
Put me to the test!
I'd love to lay this rivalry to rest!"

Cloak, tired of this, began to whale on Malice with everything had, missing his old elemental powers greatly.  Malice continued to taunt:

"Go ahead and zap me with the big surprise.
Snap me in a trap, cut me down to size.
I'll make a great escape.
It's just a piece of cake.
You're only second rate!"

"Ugh," Cloak groaned from sheer irritation, as with a deafening clang, Queen and Damien's blades met again, but they were unable to push either one away.

"You know, your hocus-pocus isn't tough enough.
And your mumbo-jumbo doesn't measure up.
Let me pontificate upon your sorry state.
You're only second rate!"

"You know, you don't have to rub it in. . . ." Cloak said, he was sweaty and getting miffed.  But he kept his emotions under lock and key.

"Nada-cada-badra! "

Suddenly, Cloak was enclosed in a mirrored room which he shattered, unaware of the Earth superstition, and not really caring.  Then he approached a strange rocking chair that clearly held an elderly human female . . . which turned out to be Malice in disguise --

"Granny's gonna grab ya!"

"This is starting to get old . . ." Cloak commented, but nothing would deter Malice from this song.

"Alakazam-da-mus!
And this thing's bigger than the both of us!
So spare me your tremendous scare.
You needn't struggle or fight or swear.
And I can hardly wait to discombobulate,
I'll send ya back and packing in a shipping crate!
You'd make a better living with a spinning plate!
You're only second rate!"

"DO YOU EVER SHUT UP?!?!"

It was Cloak that roared that, which caused enough of a distraction for Queen to disarm Damien, but he just rolled back snatched back up his sword.  Then in a swish of power Damien shatters Queen's sword, demanding she yield.  Cloak, unable to keep his emotions in check any longer, unleashed a wave of golden-scarlet energy at Malice, which caused her to start dissolving.  But this energy wasn't his energy, not truly, as it was magical in nature.

"This story," Damien announced proudly, "is done."

FLASH!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2013, 10:44:17 AM

New page:

• Book XXIV: The First Master

Cloak meditates alone in a forest, and has a vision about the first Master . . . the first Elements Master.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI:Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII:War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII:Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX:*Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL:*Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

Now, the final comic story thing . . . I know it'll probably be a bit corny.  But as I haven't written it yet . . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Go Go RAFian Rangers

When Cloak's vision cleared, but he wasn't quite sure if what he was seeing was real.  The others were wearing suits like some one merged Sentai, Bisharps, and PokeBalls together.  Damien wore red, Horse wore white, Gaz wore yellow, Yarin wore blue, and Underseen wore green.  Cloak looked down at himself -- he still had his cloak, but also wore a uniform similar to that of the Unova Defense League -- er, from PokeStar Studios in the Pokemon universe.
 
"What the bloody hell?" Horse said.
 
"'Power Rangers', Damien?  Really?" Gaz said, exasperatedly.
 
"What?"
 
"Didn't Slushie Man already have a fic about this?" Cloak asked.
 
Underseen shrugged.  "Dunno."  After a beat, he said, "Who's Slushie Man?"
 
"Never mind," Yarin said, waspishly.
 
"Hey, at least you're not human again," Damien said, almost defensively.
 
"I look like some butchered make-up from an early contestant on Face-Off," Yarin complained mulishly.
 
"Look, this is the final story anyway," Damien pointed out.
 
"You said, 'maybe four', though," Horse said shrewdly.  "Does that mean that this story is unfinished?"
 
"Um . . ."
 
"Oh, God, it is unfinished, isn't it!" Gaz said rather accusingly.
 
"Hey, hey, hey!  Hands off!" Damien said, as Gaz made to grab him by the throat.  "I did finish the basic premise of it!  I just didn't edit it thoroughly yet."
 
"Next time you make a comic, I'm staying fifty yards away from it at all times," Yarin grumbled.
 
"What about Queen and Malice, Damien?  What are they in this universe?  And do we have all of our powers here?"
 

***

"Why did I ever listen to you?!  I have such a headache!!" Queen raged.  She looked very much like Rita Repulsa with more gold in her wardrobe, and a star at the end of her staff instead of a crescent moon.  But it certainly looked quite uncomfortable and a hassle to wear such a dress and collar.
 
Malice, however, had a more drastic change to her.  She looked like a mixture of Lord Zedd and Ivan Ooze . . . only much, much, much uglier.  Her temperment and demeanor was unchanged however, and she had lost her patience with the pathetic little Dweller.  "You listened to me because you are like all Dwellers!  Stupidly lusting for vengence, ignorant of the ways of your superiors as you should be!  You will continue your service to me, whether or not you like it is immaterial, you petty, moronic fool!"
 
"I serve no one!" Queen yelled.
 
"Oh?"
 
Malice unleashed energy from her hands rather like Force Lightning.  She did this repeatedly, ignoring Queen's screams, and waiting just long enough for her wounds to heal (much faster than usual, by the way, due to the comic's effect on her) before inflicting them again.  When Malice stopped, Queen's garments were still smoking, her staff reduced to curled metal, which was still smoking.
 
"Do we have an understanding, Dweller filth?"
 
No answer.  Malice frowned and narrowed her eyes.  She held her hand at Queen, and did it again.  Queen let out an almighty scream, and Malice stopped, leaving Queen gasping painfully.
 
"I said," Malice said with clenched teeth, "do we have an understanding?"
 
No answer again.  But as Malice aimmed to do it again, Queen said, breathlessly, "Y-yes!  Yes, we have an understanding.  P-please . . . n-not again. . . ."
 
"Good."
 
Then Malice gave Queen another spritz of Force Lightning anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 11, 2013, 07:32:25 PM

Corny and fun are the same in my book

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2013, 10:22:00 AM

Right -- a reaction I was hoping for, Underseen.

But, sorry, guys, no new chapters today.  I didn't get much sleep last night as my neighbor decided to "jam out" rather loudly . . . at 2 am.  So, sorry, I may try a little later, but I wouldn't count on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 12, 2013, 05:50:53 PM

I wouldn't blame your neighbor... I too was blasting music early in the morning

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2013, 09:43:33 PM

Eh, if he does two more times . . . but then I share a wall with him.  And I do not like his dog much.

Chances are good that tomorrow may be a multiple chapter day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 13, 2013, 12:43:51 AM

Good... Because I'm  always busy on Wendsday and I like coming home to something nice.

I've been reading tropes recently and I think this book has A Band of Five plus the sixth ranger.. I will see who's which types when I get the time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2013, 09:45:07 AM

Well, I'm not too sure how many, Underseen.  It may very well be just one.  Just don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Battles and Ideals

"Powers?" Damien asked in a very evasive way.
 
"We don't, huh?" Horse said, shrewdly.
 
"Well," Damien started, "yes and no."
 
"You're flip-flopping more than Mayor Quimby," Cloak said, plainly.
 
"Am not!" Damien protested.  "You have a semblance to your powers, but they can only be accessed via your weapons."
 
As if to demonstrate, Damien pulled out a sleek sword resembling a katana or ninjabo with a red hilt.  Gaz pulled out a pair of nunchukkus, colored yellow, that could link together into a three-sectioned staff.  Yarin pulled out a pair of sais, colored blue, that could link together into a staff weapon.  Underseen pulled out a bo staff that could turn into a green naginata, a spear-like weapon, and back again.  Horse pulled out a white-handled battleax of which Faerie would be envious, which could be turned into a rifle weapon.
 
"You too, Cloak," Damien said.
 
Cloak pulled out a rather massive-looking sword, somewhere between a claymore and a broadsword.  The hilt was colored gold.  Cloak frowned and said, somewhat accusatory, "I think you think that I'm overcompensating for something."
 
"No!  I don't!  Not at all!"
 
"I think that's a very apt assumption." said a voice.
 
"And of course, this is the time that Malice would show-- what happened your face?" Horse said, reacting to Malice's newfound ugliness.
 
"What do you mean, Dweller?" Malice said with a threateningly imperious tone.
 
"Well, just how many trucks ran you over, Malice?" Cloak said, with a rather sardonic little smirk on his face.
 
"I'm still more beautiful than any of you!" Malice snarled.  Queen whimpered a little, which Malice told her swiftly to stifle.  Queen uncharacteristicall y obeyed.  This warranted a change in atmosphere for the RAFians, as they could still see that Queen's clothing still smoldered a little and the way that she cringed and cowered, which, again, was out of character.
 
"What did you do to her, Malice?" Cloak said, all humor gone from his tone.
 
"Hm?" Malice said, as if she just noticed him.  "Oh, her?  I just put her in her place.  In the place all Dwellers belong.  Beneath our feet like the filth they are.  We are the first of all sentient species, first of all species altogether!  As such, we are innately better than all others."
 
Cloak's narrowed such a great deal and his frown deepened so much that it was clear that Cloak held a very, very low opinion of such ideals.  It is one of the few reasons that he couldn't bear to live in the Nexus.  He hated the arrogance of his kind towards Dwellers.  Despised with reckless passion.

"No one species is better than another," Cloak said.  "And those that subscribe to such antiquated and elitist ideal are so sadly mistaken they refuse to see other species for how unique and remarkable as they truly are."

"You are as much of a fool as your grandfather was," Malice spat.

Cloak scowled, and said, "Then fight me, you monster."

Malice shrugged, and answered, "Nah, I don't think so.  Not yet, anyway."

Then she snapped her fingers and many strange creatures appeared.  They appeared to be humans of high school or college age in what Cloak believed to be called morphsuits, wearing plain white, generic human facemasks.  Their hands however hid Lady Deathstrike-like claws of an unbreakable metal immune to tarnishing.

"Fight these Dimwits," Malice said, waving her hand dismissively.  "Entertain me."

Then the horde attacked, and the RAFian prepared themselves to battle . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2013, 10:11:33 AM

Now another chapter . . .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Zordless

"There," Cloak snarled at Malice.  "Your mindless minions have been killed.."
 
"Um, Cloak, 'destroyed'." Damien said.
 
"What?"
 
"This whole story is essentially a parody of Power Rangers."
 
"So?"
 
"So, you can't say 'killed'."
 
"The Veil I can't." Cloak said testily.  "I don't give an orb what those censors think.  Frankly, they all need to get a real job."
 
"Can we not talk about semantics, and get this over and done with?" Yarin complained.
 
"Fine with me." Cloak said.
 
"Oh, you think it would be so easily done?" Malice taunted, then postured,  "A fine accomplishment it would be, nonetheless.  Defeating the most powerful being in the universe."
 
"Huh.  'The most powerful being in the universe'." Horse repeated skeptically.  "Ego, much?"
 
"Aren't we supposed to have a villian monologue a bit, send out a monster, we destroy that monster, she makes them grow, and we call on some kind of Zords to defeat them?" Underseen asked.
 
Damien shifted uncomfortably.
 
"That's the general flow of every Power Rangers episode, if I remember right." Gaz said.

Damien looked very uncomfortable.  But this time Cloak noticed.

"What is it, Damien?"

"Uh . . . I . . . I . . . uh . . "

Yarin's bottom set eyes narrowed, while the others looked as if molded into a prothetic, and he said, with a rather accusatory tone, "you didn't design any 'Zoids' --"

"'Zords'." Underseen corrected.

"Whatever." Yarin said, before turning back to Damien.  "You didn't design any of these whatevers, did you?"

"No."

"Great.  Then we're stuck here." Horse said.

"No, this story was finished.  This particular one."

"What?" Gaz said, not daring to believe.

"You were gonna make this particular story into a series, weren't you?"  Cloak said aloud.  "The previous stories were standalone stories.  This is not, right."

Damien nodded.

"Then will we have to finish out the series or just this episode, so to speak?" Underseen wondered aloud.

"We'll find out, all we have to do is join the weapons together and take potshots at Queen and Malice." Damien said.

"Then what are we waiting for?!" Yarin exclaimed.

They joined together the weapons as Malice scoffed, "You think that mishmashed weapon can really harm --"

The ground at her feet exploded.

"Ha!  You missed!"

"That was a warning shot," Damien explained.

"You couldn't hit the broad side of a fat To'kustar!"

A hole right between her feet exploded into existance.  She briefly exclaimed a "Ha!" before she was sucked into the hole, dragging a very reluctant Queen with her.

"Done." Damien said proudly.

FLASH!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2013, 10:35:46 AM

Now yet another chapter . . .  probably be short.  Maybe finish off this book today.  Maybe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Reality Check

A feeling of rushing air, several thumps upon the ground.  Eight groggy forms rose up from the ground, six of which had their Marks of a RAFian glowing brightly for a few seconds, before the glow faded.  The RAFians and Malice remembered the events from the book.  Queen, however, didn't seem to, as she was verbally abusive and arrogant again.  Such a pity.
 
"We're back in reality again." Cloak said, rejoicing at feeling connected with the elements once again.
 
"Are you sure?" Gaz asked earnestly.
 
"How dare you sully the colors of this dress!  It is a *blah-blah* original! --" Queen's tirade continued, but everyone gathered began to tune it out.
 
Damiens comic book was still pulsing with the energy from the Biblio-Immersion Ray.  But soon, the energy disappated and the book was nothing more than paper and ink once more.
 
"Maybe we should destroy the book." Horse suggested.
 
"No!" Damien cried, and ran over to it.  Then he cradled it like a baby.  Cloak thought he could understand, that book was Damien's brainchild, it was his baby.
 
"Perhaps that's a bit extreme," Cloak said.
 
"Perhaps that's not extreme enough," Yarin countered.

"How dare you ignore me!!" screeched Queen, who was promptly ignored.

"The effects of the ray have clearly elapsed and faded from the book." Cloak reasoned.  "Damien's holding it, and he wasn't sucked in."

"He has a point, you know." Gaz pointed out.

"It's the ray machine that should be destroyed." Underseen said, earnestly.

"No!!" Yarin cried.

"Yarin, we know what it does now, and it doesn't really serve any real use." Cloak said.

"The . . . the prisons are overcrowded.  We could implant them in books." Yarin said, with the air of a man grasping at straws.

"That would fall under the lines of 'cruel and unusual punishment'," Horse said.

"We could use if for . . . for . . . um . . ."

"Stop ignoring me!" Queen shrieked.  "I will not stand for --"

She was ignored again, no one really realized that she had stopped her tirade and was no longer standing where she was.

"Give it up, Yarin.  It needs to be destroyed.  It's too . . . gone!" Cloak said as he noticed it's absence.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 13, 2013, 11:50:17 AM

I'm down cuz of back pain again. Can't do much, so I was glad to see new chapters. Made me feel a bit better.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2013, 12:03:52 PM

Well, get ready to see a few more then, Gazzy.

Although, this book might only have nineteen chapters.  Might not.  Short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Debate and Decision

"We have to find it!" Yarin declared.
 
"I agree," Cloak said, "for the simple reason that it needs to be destroyed."
 
"Cloak, no!  I beg you, don't!"
 
"Yarin, I know what must be done.  You're letting your technophilic nature cloud your better judgement." Cloak said sternly.
 
"But . . ."
 
"Yarin, consider the consequences!" Cloak snapped, causing the earth, air, and nearby water source to tremble slightly before Cloak reclaimed control over himself.  "The risks are too great to allow the thing to still be functional.  It could cost the uncautious drastic consequences."
 
"I'll be careful!"
 
"You say that now." Cloak said.  "You may mean it right now.  But, eventually, you or another will get careless -- perhaps get sucked into the 'Red Badge of Courage' or something, and die.  Could you live with yourself, knowing that person's blood would be on your hands?  I know I couldn't.  The guilt would be fierce and . . . and unavoidable."
 
Yarin didn't raise any more objections after that, and Cloak hoped he understood what his message.  Understood and was not planning to undermine him.  In either case, the device needed to be found and wrested from Malice's hands.  It had to be Malice, because Queen didn't have the sheer physical strength, nor the telekinetic might to move such a monstrous machine.  Malice could have easily encapsulated it in a bubble of her energy, and travel with it.
 
But she wouldn't have taken it to the Nexus.  It would be far too noticeable, and she liked the fact that the rest of the Realm Walkers were refusing to admit that she was still among the living.  That, and she would look to find a way to either destroy Cloak or hurt him deeply in some way.  Of this he was sure.
 
Then he realized her target.  He turned to the others, and said, "Follow me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2013, 12:36:17 PM

Oh, what the hell, I might as well finish off this book . . . maybe.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Busting the B.I.R.

"What makes you so sure?" Underseen said, having heard where Cloak suspected Malice's target was.
 
"Where else?" Horse replied rhetorically, with a heavy sigh.
 
They were all in a energy bubble of Cloak's making and speeding off toward the target site.  It would take them a minutes to reach the destination, and Cloak said, "Trust me."
 
"But why?" Underseen asked.  "What would she have to gain?"
 
"To gain?  My pain.  RAF has become more of a home to me than that shack back in the -- er, never mind." Cloak said, as they arrived and Cloak landed the bubble, "popping" it.
 
Yarin was uncharacteristicall y moody.  Cloak was still unsure about whether he would allow the machine to be destroyed or try to save it.  It was not a good idea to have questionable motives in situations as these.  No matter, what would come would come, and what didn't wouldn't.  No point in obsessing over it now.
 
There was a loud thump, and Cloak's Earthsight immediately detected it.  Cloak called to the others, "Follow me."
 
He was tempted to tell Yarin to stay behind and evacuate the forum, but Horse and Damien had already volunteered to do that.  Cloak really didn't like the uncertainty of Yarin's motives.  Cloak could not read his mind, and Yarin, the telepath, could not read his either.  The tension between the two, however, was palpable. . . .
 
Malice had just set down the Biblio-Immersion Ray on a hill overlooking RAF.  It was a slap in the face to Cloak.  The hill was his hill.  The hill he would stand on the crest of to ponder things.  To think.  It was like some grand desecration.  Cloak tried to fight to keep his fury down, his fury at such an intrusion of something so personal to him.
 
"Whoa, Cloak, simmer down," Underseen said, a little apprehensive.
 
"That is my thinking hill," Cloak said, and the fury was evident in his voice, "and Malice is besmirching it with that weapon of destruction."
 
"It is not a weapon of destruction," Yarin argued.  "Machines don't kill people, people kill people."
 
"Really?  You're gonna start that now?" Gaz asked.
 
"'Machines don't kill peopel, people kill people'?" Underseen asked.  "That doesn't make any sense."
 
"So sue me." Yarin said, surly.
 
"Oh, shut up, the lot of you, and let's get rid of that thing!"
 
"Try it," Malice said, having clearly heard them with her Tasmanian devilish hearing, "and I will burn the comic that your precious little forum is sucked into."
 
"And just how," Cloak said, holding out his hand, and slowly crumpling it, "are you," suddenly, the B.I.R. started to crumble too, as if it was made entirely out of metal, "going to do that," suddenly Cloak punched his fist upwards and the machine exploded into shrapnel, which floated uncharacteristicall y down like leaves, "without that blasted machine?!"

"NO!" Yarin bawled, like a small child who had his toy taken away and destroyed.

"You fool!  You destroyed the instrument of your destruction!" Malice snarled as she Walked away.

"H . . . h . . . how could you?" Yarin said, with shuttering breaths.

"I did only what had to be done," Cloak said, with folded arms.  After a second's hesitation, he turned and walked away, while Yarin mourned the irreparable machine.

"Why'd he need us here?" Underseen asked.

"Some things, you'd have to accept never having an answer for, I guess." Gaz shrugged.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 13, 2013, 10:47:34 PM

The premise of the next book intrigues me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2013, 11:02:31 AM

And you'll find out more about Elements Masters, I think, if I write it well, Underseen.  But this book needs to be finished first, and the last chapter needs to be posted.  I'm sorry that it came in a bit short . . . unless I misnumbered the chapters . . . it has happened before, but I usually caught the mistake before it happened.
 
Oh, and happy Valentine's Day.  Pity that this chapter won't have too much love in it. ;)

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Introspection and Hiatuses

"I can't believe he did it . . ." Yarin said, still in shock.
 
"Oh, stop your grousing.  It's been a hard day for all of us." Gaz scolded.
 
"And besides, it's not like you haven't already learned enough from the shrapnel that you hauled back here," Sakki, who was briefed along with the other RAFians, pointed out.  "You do know it's suffering from 'Humpty Dumpy' syndrome, right?"
 
"What?" Underseen asked.
 
"Humpty Dumpy syndrome -- you know the song, right?" Sakki said.  "'All the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't put Humpty Dumpy back together again'."
 
"Gotcha." Underseen nodded.
 
"It's not true!  I will rebuild it.  I will!"
 
"No," said a voice.  "You won't."
 
It was Phoenix, who looked a little weary.  Clearly, the mod meeting had ended.
 
"What?"
 
"The mods have agreed.  That device must never be rebuilt." Phoenix said, and the bags under his eyes were pronounced.  It was a lengthy one.  "It is too dangerous.  We were very fortunate and lucky that Cloak did what needed to be done."
 
"I disagree." Yarin said mulishly.
 
"Be that as it may," Phoenix said, who could could sense defiance in the Nyac, "that machine is not to be rebuilt.  Yarin, I implore you -- don't disregard this."

Yarin looked strongly defiant, but eventually relented, backed down.  He sighed, and said, "Okay, Phoenix."

"Where's Cloak, anyway?" Gaz asked.

"He turned in a request for a leave of absence." Phoenix said, holding a sheet of notebook paper, which Cloak penned his request.  "Which is odd, because it wasn't something that he had to do."

"Why did he request such a thing?"

"I wouldn't know where to guess, to be honest, Gaz."

Aquilai, who remained quiet and noncommital in the conversation, spoke up, "He probably just wants to clear his head.  And his heart."
 

***

Cloak withdrew from his other RAFians for a bit.  He needed some time alone to think.  He couldn't go to the hill he reserved for think or pondering.  The Elements Master felt that the area had been defiled by the presence of the B.I.R there.  He couldn't use it again for as his thinking spot.
 
He hoped the RAFians would understand his need to sort this out by himself for a while.  He went into the nearby forest, looking for a new spot in which he could mediate, could think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2013, 11:47:45 AM

New book!  You should see the faces of people in Meridian when I mention I wrote twenty-plus books here . . .;)  Anyway, this might be a short introductory chapter. . . .

BOOK XXIV:
The First Master
CHAPTER ONE:
A Cozy Little Spot

Cloak sojourned deep into the forest.  The path could be confusing, but Cloak seemed to know where he was going, though that was far from the truth.  He just ambled along, sometimes shuffling along some heavily vegetation.  Cloak did not know what he was searching for, but feeling that he would know when came across it.
 
Eventually he came into a hidden glade, concealing a rather comfy looking grotto.  The grotto was unusually clean, although it held no scent.  As if it was lived in at one time, but then abandoned for whatever reason.  Cloak's ears perked up as he heard a a slight sound that startled him.  But he relaxed when he realized it was just a young white-tailed buck taking a drink in a nearby stream before prancing off.
 
This glade was perfect for his needs, but was it what he was searching for?  Cloak believed so.  He could meditate here in absolute safety.  He could look inward and find out more about himself, and not just what his mother told him to believe. . . .
 
He shook his head.  He had to get the emotional hooks that she left in him and wounded behind him.  He couldn't change the past, he must remember that little fact more often.
 
Cloak went into the grotto, sat, crossed his legs, and layed his tail next to his right leg with the tip twitching up and down in a most content way.  The he shut his eyes, and steadied his breaths.  In . . . out. . . .  In . . . out. . . . In . . . out. . .
 
He started to feel himself going back . . . back . . . back . . . as if he were in a timewarp. . . .
 

***

Cloak opened his eyes and became aware that he was no longer in the Prime Universe.  There was no Prime Universe.  He was back in the bioluminescent lands of the Nexus.  He walked about realizing that it wasn't like anything to which he was familiar.  The Oblivion Gate wasn't built yet, and the Oblivion Veil was floating in full view.  This made him nervous.
 
The Realm Walkers weren't wearing cloaks, but bioluminescent togas, though the clothing wasn't as brightly lit as the creatures wearing them.  And none of them could see him nor hear him nor sense him.  Cloak didn't recognize any of them either.

There could only be one reason for such glaring inconsistencies -- he was in the past.  But how?  Probably some sort of vision quest.  But why?

Hopefully that will be answered soon enough.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 14, 2013, 05:57:07 PM

I won't be surprised if some of your friends start making accounts

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2013, 10:48:28 AM

Me neither, Underseen.

New chapter on Monday.  Hopefully.

New page:

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI:Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII:War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII:Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX:Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL:Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2013, 10:25:31 AM

Here's a new chapter.  Hopefully it won't be too short. . . . Oh, it's probably too long. . .

CHAPTER TWO:
The Avatar

In the biolumescent land of the Nexus, where the land, seas, and plants are lit up, even the Realm Walkers are bright.  There was one, a tiny fawn-form Realm Walker, who was alone.  He was orphaned, both parents killed.  He didn't know by who or why, but he knew that it wasn't by accident.  Or by suicide, as the authorities claimed it to be.  He tried to tell them such, but being twelve (around 120 years old, in Dweller Earth time), he was ignored and dismissed.
 
He felt very alone and helpless.  He didn't take a name, nor was given one.  Realm Walker convention was that a Walker's name would come when his or her personality is known, well after they have hatched from their Life-Light Eggs, and this poor fawn's parents hesitated more than most.  Now he was called, most against his will, Progeny of the Twin Suicides (Progeny, for short) -- as suicide was something that rarely, if ever, occurred amongst the Realm Walkers.  This fuelled his fervent denials that his parents killed themselves, using this as proof.  But due to his young age, he was dismissed.  Even all the way back then, sixty or seventy generations ago, the Realm Walker governing system left much to be desired.
 
To make matters worse, Progeny was constantly and consistently tormented by twelve hoodlums.   These hoodlums were looked down at as freaks, as they've powers no other Realm Walker possessed.  To make matters worse, they had a leader that was shrouded in mystery.  A leader of these Twelve. . . .
 

***

Progeny was sitting alone, thinking about his situation.  When his parents died, he was homeless.  He had no living grandparents.  No aunts or uncles or cousins on either side.  He had no one.  No one at all.  He was just another lifeless dreg in life . . . with a secret.  He wondered if . . . if they were killed . . . killed because of his . . .
 
"Oh, if it isn't Progeny of the Twin Suicides," said a snide, squeaky voice, using the full nomenclature of which he so despised, "sitting on a rock, all alone."
 
"Go away, Reanimator," he said to the rat-form Realm Walker before him.  Reanimator, like the rest of the Twelve, were 14 (140 in Dweller Earth years) and had to power to bring lifeless effigies to life, as such, he always "wore" an automaton-like bodysuit.  It looked similar to the Ride Armors Vile would use in the Mega Man X universe.  When it would exist.
 
"And what will you do if I don't, little baby boy?" he taunted.
 
Before he could master his anger, a sudden crack appeared in Reanimator's effigy.  It was such a structural blow, that the metallic mass crumbled into dirt clods.  Before Reanimator could gather his wits, Progeny had fled away, unable to believe he lost control of his emotions again. . . .
 

***

But it wasn't to be his day this day, as when he discovered a spot to be alone to assess what he done, his thoughts were interrupted yet again.
 
"Oy, twerp!"
 
It was Oxhorn, an ox-form Realm Walker, quite a deal bigger than Prodigy.  At least he didn't call him "Progeny of the Twin Suicides" -- although, that could be because he wasn't too big on brains, regardless of being far stronger physically than any Realm Walker before.  In any case, he wouldn't make for scintillating conversation.
 
"I was calling for you, twerp!" he roared.  Great, he was angry.  "You better listen to me, twerp!"
 
Prodigy started to suspect "twerp" was his favorite word.
 
"Twerp!  Get over here, you twerp!!"
 
He never wasted a moment to say it, it would seem.
 
"I'd . . . rather not." he replied to the ox.
 
"Twerp!  I didn't ask you if you wanted to.  I told you to come here, twerp!"
 
"I don't think so, Oxhorn," Prodigy rebutted.

"I didn't give you permission to think!" Oxhorn roared, and then charged, head down, horns outward.  Now, Realm Walkers are very durable, and very powerful, unable to be killed by conventional means by other beings.  But a Realm Walker can kill another of their kind.  So, Prodigy seemed to have been in danger, but he easily somersaulted over Oxhorn, who got his horns stuck in the wall behind Prodigy.

Prodigy ran before Oxhorn could even realize that he had gone.  He made a mental note to be exceedingly careful with what he said or did from now on around any of the Twelve.
 

***

Prodigy was a good distance away, when he noticed Karma, reading a rather thick book.  He didn't even look up.  Of all the twelve, Karma, a tiger-form Realm Walker, was the most reluctant of their hoodlum activities.  But he wasn't about to stand up to his "friends", so he continued to pretend to read until Prodigy left.  Then he wondered if he was doing the right thing, as all tiger Realm Walkers seemed to have a tendacy to second-guess themselves at times.
 

***

"I think I'm safe," Prodigy gasped, looking around, ears attuned to every sound.

"That's not very nice," said a giggly voice.  "When I'm around, NOBODY'S safe!!"

"Speedy," Prodigy said, turning around and coming face-to-face with the rabbit-form Realm Walker.

"Yes, Speedy," she taunted.  Then she easily zipped to his other side.  She was as fast as a light particle it seemed, sometimes.  "And where're you headin' off to, Prodigy of the Twin Suicides?"

Prodigy scowled, knowing there was nothing he could do to outrun her, nor outsmart her.  She would torment him as all of her other eleven comrades would.  Even he didn't know who their leader was.

'What do you want?" he asked, irritation in his voice.

WHAM!  She kicked him, hard in the face.  It caused him to topple sideways.

"How dare you take such a tone with a lady?"

Speedy was the furthest thing from a lady that you could imagine.  Prodigy said nothing but stayed upon the ground.  Eventually, Speedy got bored, as Prodigy hoped she would.

"Aw, you're no fun." she said, then she sped away.  Prodigy got up and went to find a place to be alone.  He hid in the edge of the forest, and it was there that he found a place to sleep for the night, with a stinging cheek.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2013, 11:45:50 AM

Probably not more than two or three chapters today.  Sorry.

CHAPTER THREE:
Bullied and Bullied Again

Prodigy was rather rudely shaken from his sleep from his heavenly dreams of his parents, an Irish elk (his father) and eagle (his mother), embracing him.  He had awoken to find himself in a snake's massive coils.  Despite himself, Prodigy recognized them.
 
"How nice-sss to ssssee you again, Prodigy of the Twin Ssssuicides." he said, with the speech impediment that snake form Realm Walkers sometimes had.  Prodigy made a point of not mentioning it, as Silentslither was very sensitive about it.  That, and Silentslither's coils were making speech impossible.
 
"Wondering how I managed to ssssneak up on you?"
 
In truth, the answer was no.  Prodigy knew of Silentslither's power of invisibility, but he also knew of Silentslither's need to boast.  It was odd, he was the most boastful of all snake Realm Walkers.  Prodigy swiftly lost what Silentslither was prattling on and on and on about, but was thinking of a way to get out of this mess.  Then he shut his eyes and focused, and suddenly Silentslither released him.  He opened his eyes to see Slither's hands (all serpentine Realm Walkers have arms, rather like nagas) caressing his coils, as if they've been burnt.  Then he shimmered and vanished, although the nearby foliage gave him away.
 
Prodigy knew better than to stick around in case of Silentslither deciding to double back.
 

***

Apparently, this day wasn't meant to be any better than the day previous.
 
Prodigy was trotting with the grace that his form allowed him, only to be knocked down, rolling along the ground by a swooping creature.  Prodigy knew it wasn't an innocent move, and he knew to suspect two Realm Walkers.  He looked up and saw that it was Wargon, a dragon-form Realm Walker.  And the uglist dragon there ever was.  he was covered with metallic-looking plates and had hooked parts of his anatomy and razor-sharp straight edges, as well.  He looked as if some one mixed the Turtles' dragon forms with a Haxorous with a gorgon.
 
"Wargon," Prodigy burst out, "why can't you and your fellows just leave me alone?!  Or find someone else to pick on?!"

"Keep whining, Prodigy of the Twin Suicides," Wargon sneered.  "Make this all the more fun!"

Then Wargon dived down, breathing a stream of concussive fire, making a beeline straight at Prodigy.  Prodigy feelt a rush of power from somewhere and stomped his foot.  Then he vanished into the earth, leaving a rather confused Wargon soaring the skies on his massive wings.  It was hard to imagine the guy was just fourteen (140 in Dweller Earth years).
 

***

Prodigy emerged in a less vulnerable spot, but then ducked behind a tree and a bush when he saw Immortal, an equine Realm Walker, galloping and rushing by.  She called herself that because of her near-instantaneous healing abilities, not because she's actually immortal.  No Realm Walker is.  She stopped just short of where Prodigy hid.  She whinnied, a curseword, and then said, "I must have just missed the pathetic Prodigy of the Twin Suicides."

Then she galloped away. Prodigy found himself thinking that he would really like to know why they were so intent on picking on him.  It wasn't like he was really remarkable in that aspect.  Prodigy decided to stay in this spot for a moment longer.

***

But, after five hours time, it was apparently too long, as he was discovered by a ram-form Realm Walker by the name of Ghost.  He called himself that because he could go to an insubstantial state and back at will.

"Well, lookee what we've got here," said Ghost, with his voice rather like Jim Dale's interpretation of Peeves.  "Bitty baby boy."

"I'm just two years younger than you," Prodigy said, nettled, caution thrown to the winds.

"I doubt that, boy, I seriously do!"

"I've enough of this," Prodigy said, swinging some metal item through Ghost which forced him back into his substantial state in a most painful way.  Then Prodigy high-tailed it out of there, but his thoughts kept coming back to one thing.  Why were they so insistant on making their lives even worse than what it already was?

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 18, 2013, 12:18:06 PM

Great chapters! Can't wait to see what happens.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 18, 2013, 01:28:20 PM

I like this so far. The First Elements master is actually pretty cool.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2013, 06:04:19 PM

Thanks.

Now, let's see the amount of chapters I can dole out today . . .

CHAPTER FOUR:
Harassment Hell

Prodigy ran, stopping only to rest.  Of course, this wasn't without its occasional dangers.
 
"You are a disappointment . . ." said a voice that Prodigy recognized.  But he daren't believe it.  His father had evaporated, as all Realm Walkers do upon death, leaving behind their clothing.  "You are no son of mine . . ."
 
Then Prodigy saw him, but he wasn't the glowy, ethereal effect of a ghost.  He looked more like a zombie, a reanimated corpse.  Prodigy knew immediately it wasn't him -- Realm Walkers don't leave corpses.
 
"That's NOT funny, Imitator!" Prodigy snarled.  His eyes pulsed with power, unbeknowst to the impostor, which is always a danger sign, as it is with his decendant.  The "corpse" shapeshifted back into his base form -- a monkey.  Like all monkey Realm Walkers, Imitator was a cheeky, impetuous character.
 
"I disagree, Prodigy of the Twin Suicides." Imitator said with a chittering laugh.
 
With a roar of rage he was unaccustomed to, Prodigy channeled a powerful concussive force of air that blew the simian head over heels for miles.  But it wasn't a controlled blast, but one wrought out of painful emotion.  And this why Prodigy was so scared over his powers, and tried his best not to utilize them at all.
 
And he wondered if his powers may have accidentally killed his parents . . . he was doubting himself and his resolve about that venue.  He began to travel away from the city in which he had hatched.
 

***

"There you are!!" cried a cawing voice.
 
"Oh no.  Not this thing again." Prodigy moaned, as he dived down to avoid being crashed into by a flying rooster Realm Walker, by the name of Galloflight.  The fact that he's a fowl may lead some to think that he was cowardly, but that was only true of hen Realm Walkers.  And Galloflight spent his life as a hooligan trying to prove this fact, willing to take stupidly and outrageously dangerous risks.
 
"Fight me, Prodigy of the Twin Suicides!!" Galloflight called.
 
Prodigy rolled to the other side of the road, calling, "And if I don't want to fight?"
 
"Too bad!  You haven't a choice!" he cawed back, taking another pot-shot dive at Prodigy.
 
"Enough of this," Prodigy said, as he blasted another blast of air powerful enough to knock Galloflight out of the air.  Then Prodigy ran away as fast as his cloven hooves could take him, whilst his hands balled into fists as he wondered why they just couldn't leave him be.  Why was he such a target to bullies like the Terrible Twelve?
 

***

Prodigy thought he had reached a safe spot.  Then he heard the baying.  The neverending baying.  He knew right off who it was -- Ageless, the unimaginative nomenclature of the bloodhound-form Realm Walker of the Terrible Twelve.  Prodigy knew that even the other eleven found Ageless rather irksome, because he never shut up and always had to have the last word.  Nobody knew why he took the name of Ageless, either, as he was still a juvenile and aged just the same as any of them.

Prodigy ducked down, managed to change the winds so that he was upstream of Ageless, so that Ageless wouldn't get his scent, if he hadn't already.  While Ageless was smarter than Oxhorn, it wasn't by much.  Ageless was also far more obnoxious than Galloflight and Imitator.

Prodigy did manage to trick the bloodhound Realm Walker, and managed to skirt by him without him being any the wiser.

***

ZZZZZAP!!

Suddenly, Prodigy had to jump and somersault out of the way of two laser blasts.  Prodigy moaned quietly to himself, as he recognized the blast.  It was Gazer, the boar-form Realm Walker.  He was the only Realm Walker thus born able to channel his energy from his eyes as a powerful laser blast, managing to give the actual beams themselves a somewhat flat look.

Being a boar-form Realm Walker, he was rather slovenly and dirty.  He didn't bathe regularly, unless you counted mud, and most people do not.  Prodigy dodged six more pot shots at him.

"Well, well, then, Prodigy of the Twin Suicides," he said, sounding rather like Bebop from the '80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, "I found youse."

"So you did," Prodigy admitted, "and what will you do now that you've found me?"

This seemed to stump him a little -- apparently he didn't just sound like Bebop but had his brainpower as well.  "Uh . . ."

"Looks like you'd have to let me go, then." Prodigy attempted.

Gazer looked very angry at that suggestion.  "You think I'm stupid?  Do you?"

Okay, he was slightly more intelligent than Prodigy gave him credit for.

"'Kay, then what do you want with me?"

"That's classified," he retorted with a piggy snort.

"Oh," Prodigy said.  "'Bye, then."

"What?"

But Prodigy had vanished through the earth, sealing up his exit hole, leaving Gazer thoroughly perplexed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2013, 10:56:30 AM

Hasn't anyone noticed anything about the Twelve's names yet?  A callback from a previous book?  Maybe bit of a short chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Last Straw

Whilst Prodigy ran and discovered a reasonably safe place to be for the moment, the Terrible Twelve regrouped at the table of their boss -- which remained in so much shadow it was difficult to even determine what form he was.

"Boys," the boss said with such a resounding tone, it nevertheless conveyed his displeasure, "report."

Eleven of the Twelve babbled rather incoherently, while Karma consented to remain quiet.  This was dismissed by the boss, who acted fatherly outwardly, but, at heart, was nothing more than a crime syndicate kingpin wannabe.  So he "took in" these twelve orphans and manipulated them.  Twisted their hearts, tainted their souls, and forced them to call him, "Boss".

"Enough." he said with enough force that everyone else assembled flinched.  "What of the prodigy of the two rebels?  The two with the audacity to oppose me?"

Silence.

"Answer the question," he snarled.

"He lives," Karma ventured rather bravely.

The Boss wasn't happy with this, "And WHY does he survive?"

"He's tricky!" Oxhorn protested.

"Oh, shut your yap, you pathetic fool!" the Boss snapped.  "I took care of his parents and made the authorities think it was a suicide -- it's amazing what some people will look the other way on if you pay them enough -- and I practically gift-wrapped their brat, and you couldn't even take care of him."

"We could have," Imitator said, "if we didn't have to take him on one-by-one!"

The Boss leaned forward, revealing himself to be a great white shark-form Realm Walker, and a rather fat one at that.  "And who, in the name of -- " no English translation available -- "told you to take him on one-by-one?"

"You!" Karma burst out.

"Don't lie to me," Boss said cruelly, as it wasn't a lie, but perfectly true, but he wasn't about to acknowledge his fault in failures.  He rose from his chair.  "You go and take him down together."

There was no movement but abject silence.

"WHAT ARE YOU BRATS WAITING FOR?!  GO!!!!" he roared and all twelve took off.

***

Prodigy managed to rest on his little spot, feeling actually secure.  He should have known it wouldn't have lasted for long.

"There he is!" Karma said, hating himself for saying it.  But it was him or Prodigy . . . which made him exceptionally different from a future tiger Realm Walker who would willingly give himself to protect another.

Prodigy turned to run, before realize he couldn't -- the only other escape was the forest, on the other side of the Terrible Twelve.  There was no way to run, no way to escape.  He didn't even think of tunneling beneath them.

Then they launched their simoutaneous attack . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 19, 2013, 06:03:21 PM

When it came to imitator I realized that the twelve are the same twelve Abomination absorbed... I feel good for guessing that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2013, 06:29:54 PM

Yes, and you'll discover just how he did that, I think, Underseen.

Hmm . . . looks like it'll be more than seventy generations . . . more like seven million . . . as there are no realms in Avatar's time . . . he is known here as Prodigy, of course.  Eh, let's forgot about the maths of it.

Now, I probably will only be able to post one or two chapters today.  Although, this chapter'll probably be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER SIX:
Fear Thyself

When the Terrible Thirteen's strike came, something deep within Prodigy snapped.  His eyes flared and white and silver energy leaked out of the outside corners of his eyes, trailing behind him, rather like Sylveon's ribbons.  He absorbed the energy and redirected it back at the thirteen who quickly scattered, but remained present, as threats.

Suddenly, the ground trembled as the air around Prodigy swirled into an wind dome, a ring of conjured fire and water appeared in thin rings around this dome of air.  Fragments of stone and wood, as well as shards of stray metal began to rise and orbit this dome, which quickly became an air sphere as Prodigy rose into the sky.

It was a frightening and intimidating sight -- as several RAFians can atest when witnessing Prodigy's descendant did the same.  When he lost control of his emotions, of himself, of his powers.

Prodigy began to rather mindlessly attack the thirteen, together or separately, it made no never mind to him.  And when they fled, he gave chase for a few minutes, before exercising control over himself and his emotions once more.  This state didn't only scare the thirteen away, but it scared -- terrorified, really -- Prodigy himself.

He fled into the forest, not paying attention to where he was going, not caring where he was headed.  He just wanted to run away, run away from the monster within him.  But no matter how hard you run, no matter how hard you push it away, you can never run away from yourself.  No matter how much he desired it to be so.

Prodigy collapsed to his knees near a bubbling body of water somewhere between a stream and a river.  It was there that he cried.  He sobbed almost hysterically.  Why was he burdened with this monster within him?  Why him?  Why?

His sobs carried so much, that even he did not notice the sound of approaching footsteps, stepping delicately and cautiously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2013, 10:04:53 AM

*To the tune of "A Quake, A Quake".*
A chapter, a chapter . . .

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Benign Kindness

"There, there," came a voice, one as sweet as the scent of a rose, as gentle as the caress of a breeze.  "It's alright."
 
"No, it isn't," Prodigy protested tearfully, "you better get away.  I'm a monster."
 
"A monster?" the voice said, this time with a gentle touch upon his cheek.  He turned to look at her, she was a beautiful nymph-form Realm Walker.  "I don't see a monster.  I see a good soul.  A good soul with a powerful gift."
 
"Gift?!" Prodigy said, emotions flaring up.  He realized what was happening and swiftly suppressed his anger.  "This is a curse.  It makes me a monster. . . . I suspect it . . . that this monster . . . killed my parents."
 
"How so?" the nymph Realm Walker said, calmly and still with that powerfully sweet voice and tone.
 
"I --" Prodigy said . . . but he couldn't finish.  When he was last with his parents, he wasn't angry or upset or anything like that.  They were joking and laughing.  He sighed, and, though he did not know where the music came from, he sang:

"Why do all the Dwellers flee every time they look at me?
I just don't fit in.  I only make the Walkers cringe.
I'm so confused, sad and blue.
What's a Realm Walker to do?"

Then the nymph-form Realm Walker, Benign, stood and sang in a wonderfully beautiful way:

"You've got to sing a new song."

Prodigy stood there, pawing the sand with one hoof, with his arms folded tightly against his chest, and said, "I don't know. . . ."
 
Benign persisted in her message and tune:

"It's time to change that old depressed tune,
It's time to get a move on."

"I suppose," Prodigy said, holding his arms less tightly against his chest.

"Pick yourself up, brush up your fur,
Get that old, tired mantra moving along.
Sing a new song!
So, get on outta your funk and get into the swim
There are so many worlds waiting for you to jump in
Just say good-bye to the dark and gloomy
And go where its bright and roomy
And try your song on someone new
And see what you can really do!
You've got to sing a new song!"

Prodigy stifled an amused smile.

"It's time to change that old depressed tune.
You've gotta get a change on!"

Prodigy was no longer able to suppress his amusement completely.  He smiled slightly.

"Pick yourself up, brush up your fur
Get that old, tired wave of thought moving along!
Sing a new song!"

Then the song ended, and Benign smiled brightly at Prodigy.  He, rather staggeringly, smiled back at her.  She took his hands in hers and said,  "You're not alone, friend.  I am known as Benign, and my friends and I will be pleased to take you in."
 
She searched his eyes briefly, none of her beauty within and without blemished in the least, and replied, "If you'll allow us."
 
Prodigy was wondering if this was just another trap, it was an elaborate one, if it was. In the end, he acquiesced, and followed her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2013, 10:49:32 AM

Probably the last chapter today, but don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Bonds and Bands

Prodigy met Benign's friends, a little shocked to discover that they were all peers, in terms of age, to the Terrible Twelve.  But they were like Prodigy -- only they only had mastery over a single element, while Benign had mastery over Wood and Metal elements.  The mastery over the Metal element was rather paradoxical in a way, and rather contradictory in another, due to her nymph form.
 
The Water masters were the scorpion-form Scorpio, the fish-form Pisces, and the crab-form Cancer.  The Earth masters were the bull-form Taurus, the rare human-form Virgo, and the goat-form Capricorn.  The Fire masters were the ram-form Aries, the lion-form Leo, and the even more rare centaur-form Sagittarius.  The Air masters were the rare human-form Gemini, the jackal-form Libra, and the Orishan-form Aquarius.
 
They were all genial and welcoming to Prodigy, which surprised and shocked him.  He wasn't used to people being so pleasant around him, other than his parents.  And the other thirteen Realm Walkers seemed to sense this about him.
 
"Don't be so stiff," Aquarius said, jokingly, "none of us will bite!"
 
"Oh, Leo might," Scorpio pointed out with feigned solemnity.
 
"Oh, please.  I bite Imitator for impersonating me, and Scorpio can never let me forget it." Leo said, leading to raucously, good-natured laughs from the entire group assembled.

"You bit Imitator?" Prodigy asked, when he had managed to pluck up the nerve.

"Yeah, although 'git', 'idiot', and" -- translation unavailable -- "would have been a more accurate name for him."

Prodigy then found himself relating everything that had happened to him to the others.  They didn't seem too pleased with the other twelve.

"Well," Virgo, who was wearing a chiton of gold and royal purple, said, "they deserved what they got, and I think we'd better call you something different from 'Prodigy', as it is clear that was intended to be a hurtful epithet."

"Wait, can you do that?"

"Please, any one can, should it not be a means for a simple ego boost." Sagittarius said, waving his hand rather dismissively.  "And if it doesn't stick."

"Now, it is clear to me," Cancer said, stroking his chin with his crab-like clawed hand, "that the Six Elements have chosen you to be their avatar.  Just like they chose to bless us with our single elements, and Benign with her two."

Gemini, arms folded benignly over his chest and his green chiton with blue trim, looked at Prodigy, "And blessed you with all six of the elements."

"Blessed?" Prodigy said, and it was clear from his tone that he doubted it.  If he was blessed, he wouldn't be an orphan would he? . . . But then again, it would seem that he found another, slightly bigger family.  "I see it now."

"Yes," Aries said, scratching his right horn, "so I think the name of 'Avatar' would be far more suitable to you.  Any agreed?"

There were thirteen affirming answers, including Prodigy -- er, Avatar, himself.

"Now, do you have any training in your elemental gifts?" Sagittarius asked.

"No, my mom and dad didn't have this blessing." Avatar answered, feeling more like a part of a group, and no longer an outsider.

"Well, then," Tauros said, absently rubbing a horn on a tree, "then we must teach what we know."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 20, 2013, 05:56:42 PM

Avatar the master of all 6 elements

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2013, 06:30:50 PM

Yep.

Now, I wonder how many chapters that I can do today.  I probably should have mentioned that the twelve (not Benign or Avatar) have rings very similar to Power Rings, only holding symbols identical to the zodiac symbols (go to Wikipedia to see what I mean).

CHAPTER NINE:
Master and Betrothed

A little more than decade passed (a century in Dweller Earth time), and Avatar had grown into a stag Realm Walker with antlers, sharp and pointed, and Master of all Six Elements.  He was now roughly twenty-two or so, and Benign began to really take an interest in him as more than his Metal and Wood element teacher.  And that interest is reciprocated.
 
He remembered when he finally recognized these feelings, while watching Benign demonstrating her mastery over the elements, making it look more like a dance, an art.  He gazed upon her fondly, his thought singing:
 

So many times out there
I've watched a happy pair
Of lovers walking in the night.
They had a kind of glow around them
It almost looked like paradise's light.

I thought I'd never know
That warm and loving glow,
Though I might wish with all my might.
No one as monstrous as I was,
Was ever meant for paradise's light.

But suddenly an angel has smiled at me.
And touched my cheek
Without a trace of fright.

I dare to dream that she
Might even care for me,
And as I ring those bells tonight,
My cold dark world seems so bright
I swear it must be paradise's light.

Avatar decided to talk to Benign that day . . . and, through a rather convoluted series of conversations, the two became an item.  When they told the other twelve, they did not react with surprise or shock, but expectation.  Expectation that this was a long time coming.
 
"It's about time!" Scorpio said, with a feigned snappish tone.
 
"Took you two long enough," Cancer said, rather crabbily.  But he always said things crabbily nowadays.
 
They all laughed and Avatar felt true happiness, of which he had never thought he would ever feel again.  That was three years (i.e. thirty Dweller Earth years) ago.  Now, he was going to take the ultimate step with Benign.
 
"Benign," he said, as he approached her.  She had her back to him, and was wearing a chiton whiter than the whitest snow.  She turned to face him, smiling warmly, and putting her long, flowing hair behind a pointed ear.
 
"Yes, Avatar?"
 
"There's . . . there's something I want to ask you."
 
"Oh?"
 
Avatar held out his hand and a bouquet of silver and white flowers materialized out of his own energy.  It looked strangely like a flower bouquet Patronus.  Benign held her hand to her chest in delighted shock -- it was the Realm Walker version of a proposal.
 
"Will you marry me?" Avatar asked.

Benign took a minute to compose herself.  "Yes.  Of course, I will."

Avatar felt such joy -- it felt as if the very elements were celebrating with him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2013, 11:22:06 AM

Probably the last one today . . . but don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER TEN:
Darkness Rising

Meanwhile, while Avatar was mastering the elements and experiencing true joy and utter contentment, the world in which he left, the city which had abandoned him in his time of need, was in dire straits.  It had gone very much downhill.  Boss and his thirteen hooligans became, for lack of a better term, terrorists.  Terrorists who embarked on a path of destruction and terror, unimpeded by the authorities (which they overpowered ruthlessly and mercilessly).  They easily intimidated the local populace and the government eventually toppled by them.

Boss was installed at the top of the chain of command with the Terrible Twelve as his enforcers.  Karma seemed to have dismissed the questioning he did as a child as childish idealism, and is willing to do as his "father" demands.  Whereas the truth of the matter is that Boss doesn't care for any of the Twelve as family, but he sees them as mere tools -- a means to an end.  A fact that all twelve seem pitifully unaware of.

Boss wasn't above making all the populace know that he was in charge, unaware it kind of ruined his mystique:

"Welcome to my place.
Welcome to my land.
Welcome to the empire,
That only I command!
Bossopolis,
My metropolis.
My favorite place to be.
Bossopolis,
My metropolis.
Where it’s all for one,
And that one is me!
From Boss Boulevard
To Boss Avenue.
All landmarks,
Roads and parks
Are named after me, not you.
You know, before I came around,
This was just a pathetic little town.
But now it’s
Bossopolis,
My metropolis.
The rrregion that I rule.
Bossopolis,
My metropolis.
Now welcome to my school.
Bossopolis,
My metropolis.
A wondrous place to be!"

Then he clapped and, in a militarial cadence tone, his enforcers sang:

"It’s glorious.
Implorious.
We all laugh uproarious.
‘Cause life is so euphorious."

Then Boss tapped his chin and sang:

"And here is what you’ll see:
“Bossy Beach”, starring me.
My name in lights at the Boss scene.
Boss books and magazines.
Boss shirts.  Boss jeans.
Boss chocolate.  Boss mints.
Boss shampoo and rinse!
Hear me chat on the radio, eh!
Bossopolis,
My metropolis.
My royal blue legacy.
There’s no stop-olis!!"

Then a young, fish-form Realm Walker piped up, in a little kid-voice, "That's not a word!"

Boss replied in song:

"It is to me!"

Then he snapped the child's neck, causing him to evaporate into nothingness, as Realm Walkers do when they die.  Boss didn't bat an eye and continued with his song:

"Some have tried
To run and hide.
But they just can’t get free.
‘Cause when I’m dead,
You’ll bow your head.
To an effigy of me!
Welcome to my place.
Welcome to my land.
Welcome to the empire
That only I can command!
Bossopolis."

Then he just cackled as he made his way back to his citadel "palace" as the boy's family mourned their lost little one. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 21, 2013, 05:58:57 PM

Weird, whenever the 13 were mentioned in the past I always saw them as Antiheroes

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2013, 06:40:49 PM

Whenever I mentioned thirteen,it was a mistake -- a CFSU, CloakedFigure Screws Up, if you will.

And they probably would have been antiheroes, if Boss wasn't present to twist ther morals and their minds from a young age.

New chapter on monday or tomorrow.  We'll see.

---

BTW, the next book will probably have the most chapters up per day . . . as many of them, if not all (sans the introduction and outro chapters) will have some of the "RAFize Songs" parodies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 23, 2013, 04:12:14 PM

Finally got caught up again!  Heh, whenever I get busy for a couple days or a week, I always have plenty to come back to!

In the last book, I have to admit that I sided with Yarin a tiny bit, in that I too was disappointed that the Biblio-ray was destroyed.  If it had been something that was only a weapon and nothing more, then yes, it should have been destroyed without hesitation.  But it was a device to make fictional things come to life!  There was loads of good potential for a device like that, as well.  Point me at an Animorphs book, please.  ;)

As for the more recent book, I noticed something that I wonder if you noticed.  You started the first couple chapters calling him "Progeny," but at some point the word got changed to "Prodigy."  I wasn't entirely certain at first if that was accidental or not, given that "Prodigy" (meaning a person with unexpected talent at something) seemed to fit remarkably well.  But I guess it was an accident after all, since if it wasn't then you wouldn't have subsequently changed it to "Avatar."  Still, it's an interesting (perhaps even subconsciously-motivated?) slip.

But in any case, it's very interesting to learn more about the Twelve!  Yes, I thought I remembered them from a previous book.  Oh, now I'm curious to go back and re-read that book.  That was one of your earliest ones, wasn't it?  Dang, it's amazing how long this has been going, that book feels like it happened forever ago.  *is jealous of Cloaky's muse all over again*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2013, 04:29:45 PM

Yes, the Progeny and Prodigy was a mistake on my part.

And the Twelve was in the earliest book - Book One, page three on this thread, to be specific - and more chapters on Monday.  If I've the time.

New page (please note that the ones that are underlined are the ones that I have already finished planning out):

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII:Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII:Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV:The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV:Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI:Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII:War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII:Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX:Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL:Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• *Book CXLI:Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• *Book CXLII:Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 10:20:03 AM

Now, a couple of chapters.  I hope.  Probably a bit of a short one.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
He's Wed

Whilst Boss was ruling in an abject tyranny, Avatar was embracing his love as his friends, the Titanic Twelve as he affectionately began to think of them, looked on.  They were being wed, in a private ceremony.
 
Avatar was wearing robes of royal blues, crimson reds, verdant greens, crisp golds, shiny silvers, and brillant whites while Benign wore a dress of simple silvers and greens.  The wardrobe wasn't Avatar's idea, but of his fiancee.  They walked up to an archway in which all six elements were represented in a most glorious way.
 
Virgo was marrying the two together.
 
"My friends," she began with ringing tones such that it was rather surprising that Boss and his grunts did not hear from their citadel -- although the fourteen assembled had no knowledge of those happenings.  "I welcome you here to this glorious occasion, as we bind, unite, and wed these two young Walkers."
 
The two smiled broadly, both filled with nervous excitement.  Even the eleven in the crowd tittered a little.  Virgo went on her spiel, as the couple awaited to say their vows with much restrained eagerness.  Benign gave hers and then Avatar gave his.  Now, unlike humans, Realm Walkers do not exchange rings.  But their natural bioluminescence changes, so subtly that only the most observant Realm Dwellers would be able to distinguish it.  It is, however, easy for Realm Walkers to percieve the difference.  Everyone in the Nexus is able to distinguish a married man and woman from a single one.  Divorce, which is uncommon but not unheard of, or even widowing does not return the bioluminescence to it's former state until the Walker is ready to date again.  (Although some Realm Walkers can lie to themselves about it just as humans can.)
 
"Avatar," Virgo said, at last, "do you take this Walker to be your wife?"
 
"I do."
 
"Benign," Virgo said, turning to her, "do you take this Walker to be your husband?"
 
"I do."
 
"Then, by the power vested in me, I declare you man and wife." Virgo said with a smile.
 
There was no kiss -- kissing is a foreign concept to Realm Walkers.  Instead fireworks of silvers, greens, and whites fired fast and furious around the two.  It was their own energy, demonstrating and representing their sheer, unadulterated happiness and joy.  After a minute or two, the other eleven stood up and the reception began. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 10:45:06 AM

Another chapter, I think.  Might be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Old Wounds

It was about three months later, after the wedding.  Avatar had never known that such happiness could have existed.  Benign had even talked to him about having children.  Children!  Avatar had always wanted to be a father.
 
Then Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio came to the married couple with some very bad, very unpleasant news.
 
"The city has been turned into a nightmare," Scorpio said, his tail twitching ever so slightly.
 
"The streets are barren and trashed." Taurus said, voice unusually thick.  "People huddle inside their housed, afraid -- no, terrified -- to go outside."
 
"And they are so skinny that they're flesh and bones." Leo said.  "Those that have flesh and bones, anyway."
 
"That's horrible," Benign said, aghast, while Avatar was stone-faced and said nothing.

"We have to stop this," Leo said.  "All fourteen of us."

"No." Avatar said.  His voice was cold and had a snap to it.

"'No'?  What do you mean, 'no'?" Taurus said, flummoxed.

"I meant, no." he said, a little emotion leaking through.  "I am not going to sacrifice my happiness, my life, for people who saw me as a freak.  Who blamed me for my parents death."

"Avatar," Benign said, "you can't mean --"

"What can't I mean?!" Avatar erupted suddenly, unable to stem his feelings.  But still, he had more control over his abilities when emotional than his descendant would.  "You weren't there, Benign!  You don't even know what I went through!"

"Then tell me, my husband --"

"Don't!  Just . . . just don't!!" Avatar said, sputtering, shrugging away her compassion, the warm blanket of her love and understanding.  Unable to stand it, he left their humble little house, and stalked away, without thinking of his destination.

Meanwhile, back the house, Benign looked striken.

"Don't . . . don't take it personally, Benign," Scorpio said, soothingly -- quite uncharacteristic for a scorpion, "some wounds run too deep to be healed so easily."

"Be that as it may," Leo said, "we must do something.  Avatar will get his head on straight soon enough . . . I hope."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 11:16:09 AM

A bit of a Lion King influence in this part of the narrative, I know.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Clouds

Avatar ran and ran and ran some more, until he collapsed at the water's edge of a large lake.  Unbeknowst to him, Pisces was residing in the lake at the present moment, but Pisces had enough sense to not disturb Avatar, as he could feel his emotional state.
 
"What would it even matter?" Avatar was breathing heavily and raggedly.  "They didn't want me in there city.  They reviled me as a monster.  Why should I even bother saving them?  They wouldn't even be grateful for it, the fickle" -- no translation available -- " and why should I risk everything for them."
 
Then he looked angrily at the sky.
 
"What do you want from me?!  Do you hear me?!?!  WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!?!?!?" he screamed.  Silvery-white energy leaked from his eyes in lieu of tears.  He shut his eyes, and the energy flares subsided immediately.  Then he collapsed to his knees, head bowed, and real tears flowing.

"I . . . I don't . . ." he sputtered, then sighed a shuttering sigh.

"Avatar . . ."

The voices came as softly as the slightest wind, a small breathy whisper.  The thing that most jarred Avatar was that the voices sounded familiar.

"Avatar . . ."

He stood up, wiped away the tears, and looked at the sky.  Dark clouds were swirling . . . they were convalescencing into familiar forms, and begining to glow with a white light.

"Avatar . . ."

"M-mother?  Father?" he asked, voice very small.

"Avatar," said the cloud-form of his mother, "you have forgotten us."

"No!" he protested.  "How could I have done such a thing?"

"You've forgotten your heart," his cloud-father said.

"And, in so, forgotten us." his cloud-mother added.

"Look inside yourself, son," his cloud-father continued, "can you really turn your back on those that have need of you?"

"Can you abandon the innocents, the children, who have suffered because you turned you back to them?" his cloud-mother asked, sincerely.

"But . . ."

"You know the answer," his cloud-father said.  "You must do what is right."

"How can I go back?"

"You will do what is right, my son," his cloud-mother said.  Avatar then realized that they were fading away back into the clouds whence they came.

"No!" he cried, as if he was a boy again, "no!  Don't leave me!"

But his pleas were unanswered.  He looked at the clouds for what seemed an eternity, then he turned and headed toward the city.  Seeing this, Pisces headed back to the others.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 25, 2013, 11:22:54 AM

You know, influenced by the Lion King or not, that was a nice touch.  It fit in wonderfully with the story, and, it seems, it was just what Avatar needed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 11:28:05 AM

I thought so, too.

Hopefully, I will get an additional two chapters up today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 25, 2013, 11:41:02 AM

I would be online all day today to read it too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 11:58:59 AM

Here's one of them . . . may be a short book.  Hopefully not.  Short chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Barren and Boredom

Boss sat in his throne room, lounging on a throne of green velvet and gold which tended to look like a mouth vomiting up a great white shark who happened to have mutated some legs.  All in all, a rather unappealing sight.  Boss himself looked rather bored, and he was uncaring about the fact that the Nexus had become barren and lifeless.  He got what he wanted -- power -- and that's what mattered.
 
But he was so incredibly bored.  Instilling fear and terror into the populace had lost its appeal a long time ago.  He was unaware of anything else to conquer, and Boss lived for the conquest.  He wasn't smart enough to know he could manipulate and brainwash the children into believing whatever he wished, given enough time -- as he seemed to bore of that after the Terrible Twelve.  He was a brute, a savage.
 
His Enforcers fanatically believed in Boss's superiority, which bloated his already ample ego.  Boss genuinely believed this himself, but secretly hoped for a foe to fight him so to get rid of this irritating monotony.  But none in the city were brave enough to defy or deny Boss, or otherwise unwilling to put their families at risk.
 
Boss was led to believe that Avatar, then known as Progeny, was dead.  The Thirteen had led him to believe that -- one reason for their fanatical service of Boss.  They, themselves, were terrified that he would find out, not even bothering to entertaining the fact that if all twelve ganged up on Boss, they could easily overpower him.  Had Boss not suspected this himself, and he had gone so far to procure the klepto stone -- a gem very much like a Chaos Emerald in appearance, only being completely translucent.  If they turned on him, he'd just steal those abilities of theirs.

Little did he know, he actually tied their powers to the stone.  If, at any point, any of the Twelve were to meet their end -- their abilities would be safely secured within the gem.  This is another reason for the sudden, illogical attachment to Boss, who remained ignorant of this fact.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 25, 2013, 12:28:54 PM

Short and Simple... I like it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 12:46:12 PM

Right, and this is the last one today.  Maybe.  And Gmail's spell checker is a piece of crap -- the "fif" in "fifteen" it declares as mispelled, and ONLY that! ::)

Anyway, probably gonna be a bit short.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Return to the Ruined City

Avatar stepped up on a hill overlooking the city.  Buildings moldering and many in rubble.  Smoke pouring out from various points and spots.  And in the middle of all this havoc -- a strange building, very much like the Space Needle, only on a more massive scale.  Clearly whoever was behind this was overcompensating for something.
 
He felt a pang of guilt.  He had let this happen.  Had he been more aware, had he been less prone to let his wounds take priority over his sense of duty . . .
 
"Avatar, wait up!" cried a voice.  He recognized that voice.  His wife.
 
She caught up, and the two embraced briefly.
 
"I didn't want to believe it," Avatar confessed.  "I'm sorry for my reaction."
 
"Even the best of us cannot lose control over our emotions," she said.
 
"Can we can the lovey-dovey stuff and get down to work?" Cancer said, grumpily.
 
"Huh?"
 
"You didn't actually think we'd let you have all the fun, did you?" Sagittarius said with a smirk.
 
"But --"
 
"Uh-huh.  Save all your 'buts'." Aries said.  "We're doing this with you.  We ain't abandonin' you."
 
". . . Oh, okay."
 
"Oh, how lovely," said a cold, snarky voice.  "All of you want to die together.  It'ssss sssso ssssweet."
 
Galloflight, Oxhorn, and Silentslither were standing roughly two o'clock to the group.
 
"Hardly," Capricorn said, charging the Oxhorn, locking horns.  Battling fiercely, proving himself to be equal to the ox, despite being smaller, often muttering, "Dumb ox." which just infuriated Oxhorn.
 
"You won't find me so eassssy to disssspatch!" Silentslither hissed, tongue flailing out of his mouth with each "s" sound.
 
"I beg to differ." Taurus said, entombing him within a dome of earth.  Then he charged forward, rather bullheadedly.  "Your invisibility won't help you in there!"

"Galloflight takes flight!" Galloflight narrated.

"No, he doesn't!" Virgo announced, grounding him by entombing both his feet into earth.  Then, over her shoulder, she said, "Go!  We can hold these three.  They won't kill us."

That last sentence reverberated in such a way that sent chills down Avatar's spine, but he hesitated.  He only continued at Benign and Leo's insistance.

He did give in to glance over his shoulder to discover that Galloflight had freed himself, though his feet were still encased in earth, and he was diving at Virgo.  Silentslither turned the dome into an igloo and was attempting to bite Taurus.  Oxhorn had thrown Capricorn across the field into the hill.

"Avatar, now's not the time!" Leo shouted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 25, 2013, 12:55:08 PM

This fight reminds me of the last Harry Potter book. I know that they can't all make it out alive and noble legends like Avatar die in battle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 02:27:57 PM

Avatar can't die, Underseen -- his my direct ancestor and, at this point in the narrative, he's childless.  But you're right on other counts . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 25, 2013, 02:55:47 PM

I wasn't talking about dying soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2013, 08:23:49 PM

Okay.

New page.

• Book XXV: RAF -- The Musical

The RAFians find themselves trapped in a musical where everyone must burst into song occasionally.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3013.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2013, 09:53:17 AM

Don't know how many chapters I'll get up today.  But I'll give it a good try to finish off this book today.
 
Okay, I just proved (via hyperlink) that Gmail's spell check is complete crap -- "cancrine" is a word according to Wiktionary, but not Gmail . . .

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Thresholds

The eleven dashed to the threshold of the city, when they heard a throaty voice roar, "Not so fast!", after they felt the slipstream of a large object flying by them.  Wargon.  Aries glared at him.
 
"Fast?" cried a cheeky female voice and Speedy popped up out of nowhere.  "Hardly.  I could go faster than that when I drag my feet!!"
 
Pisces glowered at that.
 
"Oh, stop it, Ghost!  You know we can see you!" Cancer snapped at the ram Realm Walker.
 
"Oh, Cancer," Ghost said coyly, "you were never much fun you crotchety, cancerous cancrine (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cancrine)
 
Wargon landed and Aries clenched and unclenched his fist in almost greedy anticipation.  Then, without even looking back at them, he said.  "You guys go on.  Cancer, Pisces and I have it handled here."

"Handled?  I'm more than the three of you can handle!" Wargon protested angrily.

"Oh, your ego's fighting too?" Aries said.

Wargon blasted a blast of fire at Aries which he dispelled with ruthless ease.  Then the battle between the two heated up, but their powers were equally matched -- as fire could destroy neither.  It would come down to strategy and brute strength in the end.

"And what is the little fishy gonna do?" Speedy said, tauntingly.

Pisces decided not to mince words, and rather hurriedly encapsulated Speedy in a bubble of water.  She squirmed and wiggled and writhed, but Speedy could not shake the bubble from her neck down.  Then Pisces upturned the bubble and began to slam the bubble upon the ground.

"Ol' Crabby," Ghost teased maliciously, "what will you do to me now?"

Suddenly, Ghost was caught in Cancer's cancrine  (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cancrine) claws.  He was forced into his substantial form.

"H-how did you do that?!" he demanded.

"Dunno." Cancer said, putting on the squeeze.  "Don't care."

"AVATAR!" Leo roared.  "We need to get a move on!"

"But --"

"They'll do fine!!" Leo said.  "Let's go!!  We're the only ones that can take the citadel!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 26, 2013, 10:04:12 AM

I like how enthusiastic you are about writing. Lots of stuff aren't words with Gmail... Like pescatarian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2013, 10:43:06 AM

'Bout four more chapters (including this one) until the end of this book.  Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Atrium

BOOM!!
 
The eight busted into the atrium of the citadel.  Prepared for an oncoming attack.  Drones perhaps, even though robotics would eventually become a Dweller-only science as Realm Walkers really didn't have any need for robotics, any more than Anodites do. What they didn't expect was what there was.
 
Nothing.
 
There were no guards, no drones, no security cameras or anything.  It was just a large, round, featureless room with a spiral staircase to their left.
 
"Well . . ." said Scorpio said, claws clicking absently, "that's anticlimatic."
 
"I should have known those idiots could not hold it off." came a low, deep voice.
 
Aquarius recognized it immediately, and he declared with a rather accusatory tone, "Karma!  You used to have some good in you!  But you let it bleed and bleached out of you!"
 
"And who are we, chopped wood?" Ageless said, braying rather irritatingly.  He seemed to be oblivious how annoying it was.  Eventually, Libra got so peeved by it, he moved to smack the bloodhound, and that led into an all out brawl between the two.

Karma took this as it was okay to attack and that the banter had ended.  Then Gazer came firing his optic blasts rather indiscriminately, unaware that he could cause the entire citadel to topple.

"Hey, Porky," Scorpio snarled, "if you're not careful, you'll bring down this citadel FOR us!!"

Realizing this, he was exceedingly more cautious with his optic blasts.  Scorpio cried, "BANZAI!" as he flew into the melee.  This time, Avatar didn't have to have Leo prompt him, and he proceeded with only a momentary glance backward, worried about his friends, his family.

He saw one of Gazer's beams lance through one of Scorpio's claws, but was fortunate enough not to be a fatal shot.  Libra suffered a bite from Ageless and Karma seemed to be holding back, which Aquarius seemed to take for Karma not taking him seriously.

It was hard to look away and proceed onward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 26, 2013, 10:54:16 AM

This is a really interesting book. I like books like these and the out of continuity books.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2013, 10:56:31 AM

Right.  And the next one is gonna be one of two musical books -- well, you can just look at the list.  I am still currently planning the chapters of "It's Tough to Be A Mod", but I generally do change things when it comes to actually writing out the chapters.

I will write more . . . if I can get a computer after class.

EDIT:  Well, I did.  Now, wrapping this thing up.  Three more chapters or so to go.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Final Guards

And up they went.  Up, up and up.
 
"Hasn't this guy ever heard of elevators?" Gemini said.
 
"Quit your grousing," Sagittarius said, "we're nearly there."

"I'll quite my grousing when the Veil I want to stop my grousing!" Gemini snarled.

The Oblivion Veil still existed at this time, but the Oblivion Gate -- a barrier and a prison all in one -- was not as of yet in being.

"Look, you two," Leo said, "we're there."

"You know, I think that we're missing three --" Avatar said.

"No, we aren't," Sagitarius said, pointing an arrow of fire and energy ahead of the group.

"What's this?" Immortal asked, looking geniuinely surprised.

"Oh, come off it, Immortal," Gemini said, "you should have know that your idiotic comrades wouldn't have stopped us!!"

Meanwhile, Imitator reluctantly slipped Reanimator some sort of monetary denomination, while the latter looked very smug about it.  Immortal was unaware of this, it would seem.

"Reanimator!  Imitator!  We must protect Boss!" she whinnied.

"Sorry, pal, but that ain't happenin'," Gemini growled.

"Ah, monkey-boy, we're facin' off again, aren't we?" Leo said, rather coyly.

"Vermin, prepare yourself!" Sagitarrius declared.

"Avatar, you and Benign need to face this 'Boss' fellow," Leo said.  "We'll be along shortly."

"We aren't the pushovers you think us to be, Leo," Imitator said, huffily.

"Sure, you are!" Leo said, with a gregarius smile.  Then he turned to the younger two, "Hurry, now.  Don't keep the tyrant waiting."

This time Benign was the one who hesitated.

"No, Benign, we are needed elsewhere right now," Avatar said, realizing he may never see Leo or Scorpio or Virgo or anyone again.  "We must meet our potentially final destiny now. . . ."

Upon later reflection, Avatar would facepalm whenever he thought of that line.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 26, 2013, 01:50:26 PM

If boss uses the stone won't he basically be the same way Abomination was? I noticed earlier in the chapter how you said Cancer said something crabbily and Scropio said something piercingly, but I forgot to comment on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2013, 02:01:27 PM

Yes, Underseen.  He would.  If he ever got to it.
 
Two more to go . . .

CHAPTER NINTEEN:
The Tyrant and Avatar

The two burst into Boss's throne world.  He looked at them without really any interest, as if they were mere flies that had come in to irk him.  His conquering of the city had left him complacent.
 
"You?" Avatar said with disbelief.  "You are the tyrant?"
 
"'Tyrant'?" Boss said, clearly not caring for Avatar's choice of words.  "Boy, I am not a tyrant.  I am the Boss.  The one and the only Boss."
 
"And I thought Wargon had a big ego," Benign commented benignly.
 
"Impudent prude!" he said, a fired an blast of concussive energy at Benign, which she, not missing a beat, calmly batted away.  Boss looked shocked at this outright defiance of his authority, of his control.  These two would not be easily intimidated or scared away.
 
"Yes, Tyrant," Avatar said, giving him a new epithet.  "We will NOT bow to you.  We will NOT cowtow to you."
 
He watched as the tyrant processed this, clearly not liking it at all.
 
"There's nothing you can do to scare us away.  There's nothing you can do to deter us from freeing these people from you." Avatar said.  "It's over."
 
"IT IS NOT OVER!!" he roared.  "IT IS NOT OVER UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER!!"
 
"Control issues much?" Benign asked.
 
"Don't do this, Tyrant." Avatar said, crossing his arms, and showing the full display of his antlers.  "Don't challenge us."
 
He lunged forward, Avatar simply spun on his right hoof and slammed his fist down on the bloated fish Walker.  Only to realize the rough skin that Tyrant possessed.  It scaped his arm enough to start a little trickle of golden ichor to flow.
 
"Not one of your better ideas," Benign said.
 
"Tell me about it," Avatar agreed.
 
Tyrant lashed out at both of them and they easily evaded or attacked him.  But it still seemed to be a stalemate.  Avatar had such a strigent control over his elemental abilities he kept pulling his attacks, deeply afraid of losing control.  Of becoming the monster he so feared.
 
But then . . . then it happened.
 
A gem on a spindly looking table beside his throne glowed to life when twelve blackened orbs within it appeared, swirling in a perpetual motion.  Simply, inexplicably appeared.  The battle stopped momentarily as all three combatants looked at the klepto stone.  Tyrant was grinning greedily.
 
"No!" Benign shouted as Tyrant made his way to the table, but suddenly a bunch of white rings appeared and revolved around the gem, preventing Tyrant from touching it, from accessing it.
 
"NO!!" Tyrant roared.  He wasn't accustomed to being denied, so he acted rather childishly.  "You can't stop me!  That stone is mine!!"

Benign's face took on a deathly palor, and Avatar was perplexed.  Benign met his eyes and he suddenly knew why.  He knew what must had happened.  Their friends . . . they made the ultimate sacrifice, not to just save them, but everyone.  They were truly selfish.  Now their rings, the ones that they wore, the ones that would eventually expand into hula-hoop-sized rings to leech the Twelves power from one who managed to successfully steal the stone . . . the rings were imbibed with some hint of the character and strength from their wearers.  They essentially lived again through their rings. . . .

That was the final straw.

Avatars eyes glowed like silvery-white suns, and a sphere of wind encircled him. . . . And he did what Cloak could never quite seem to get himself to do. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 26, 2013, 02:13:26 PM

They stopped the tyrant from using the stone... Like a boss (sorry I had too)

The finale is going to be great.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2013, 02:28:28 PM

Now, the last chapter of Book 24.  Gonna be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Actions and Lineages

After the death of Tyrant, the city slowly, but assuredly, returned to its former glory.  As for the klepto stone, Benign and Avatar walked toward the Oblivion Veil which most other Realm Walkers gave a very wide birth, except for the brash young boys who wished to prove their bravery by taking rather stupid risks.  But no such boys were there at the moment, as the two picked their timing very carefully.
 
Avatar and Benign buried the gem -- neither touched it, feeling as if it was dirty and vile.  Which it was, in a way.  Then, accessing his full terrakinetic might, to form the Oblivian Gate, which, he spun it to the Council, could be used as a prison, keeping it's true function from public knowledge.  The less known about the stone, the better.  But one would eventually discover it, and only Benign and Avatar's descendant would be able to finally destroy the stone, which Avatar assumed he wouldn't be able to.

The two went on to have two daughters and two sons.  Only the youngest daughter would prove to be able to master all the elements.  This daughter took the name of Progeny, being proud of her father and how she relates to him.

Progeny would, in turn, have two daughters and a son.  The youngest daughter would prove to inherit Progeny and Avatar's gifts.  It is through this daughter that Cloak was related to Avatar and Benign, through his mother, and her father.

"So, do you understand now?" Avatar asked.

"Understand what?" Cloak inquired.

"That the life of any Elements Master is never easy," Avatar said, "but you mustn't allow those mistakes or hardships in your past define you.  It is always difficult, with our gifts."

He paused as his stroked his chin.

"I too, at one time, believed these powers to be a curse," he said, "afraid to feel.  Afraid to simply be.  But my destiny was to stop Tyrant and his Thirteen.  And your fate is to help these Dweller friends of yours, these RAFians."

"You don't look down on me for that?  You didn't have any Dweller friends."

"You forget," Avatar said, "at my time, Dwellers didn't exist.  The realms in which they reside didn't exist." Avatar clarified.  "But if they had . . . no, I would not look down at you.  In many ways, you've impressed me with being able to relate to species so different, and in many ways, very like our own."

Then he smiled and said, "Our time is at a close, but should you have need of me again . . ."

Then he was gone, and Cloak opened his eyes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 26, 2013, 02:41:25 PM

I hope the next book would have a decent amount of action.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2013, 03:07:12 PM

Well, it's gonna be a musical, Underseen.
 
New book.  Maybe a bit short.

BOOK XXV:
RAF -- THE MUSICAL
CHAPTER ONE:
The Evillaser's Victim

Cloak found his body feeling a bit sore.  He stood and golden-scarlet energy pooled around his feet into a thin disk.  Then it lifted him above the tree line.  He looked around a bit, then sped off to the left.   Then, with a rather needless flourish, he jumped off it when his reached his destination, rolled and jumped up.
 
"Show-off," Parker muttered, ruffling his morning paper, his helmet on a nearby table, with his feet on the table.
 
"I hate it when you put your feet on the table," Helen chided him good-naturedly.
 
"Tough noogies." Parker said, with a lull to his head to show that he was joking.  Helen smirked.
 
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the grounds, a few RAFians (all either whooping or catcalling) were chasing the Pootang, who was chasing Horse, who was screaming, "HE'S GONNA EAT ME!!!  AGAIN!!!  THIS ISN'T FUNNY!!!!!"
 
"Somethings never change," Cloak sighed, smiling.
 

***

"Hurry, my boy, hurry!" Malice was chiding Abomination.
 
"Right away, my flower!" he said, rather mushily.
 
Lightning and brilliant glows appeared from a pistol-like device that Malice was leaning over.  She was constructing this with all the love that Yarin usually shows his creations.  With more love and care then she ever showed Abomination, although he remained willingly ignorant of this, refusing to acknowledge it.
 
After a few more hours, Malice had finished her device.
 
"A-ha!  The Evillaser is done!  And best of all . . . I didn't have to free Corruptor." Malice said, surpressing a shiver at the thought of Corruptor -- an old boyfriend.  Although, she never told Abomination this little fact as he's been so wonderful in his servility.
 

***

"Has anyone see the new power -- oh, hi, Cloaky -- that experimental power cell I've been developing?" Yarin asked the trio, as the Pootang was hauled back into its cage and Horse was calming down . . . and washing off.
 
"I think Shorty had it," Parker said, with a sip of coffee.  "He needed a new battery for that MP3 player of his."
 
"WHAT?!"
 

***

Shorty had fitted the power cell into the player, even though it wasn't a really good fit.  But it still worked, and that's all that he cared about.  Then Malice rolled the Evillaser up to him, and he screamed when he saw it.  It looked like a weapon of mass destruction.
 
"A-ha!  One of Sage's brat's brat's Dweller pals!" Malice crowed as she aimed the laser at him.  She fired, but Shorty move ever so slightly that he was out of the path of the ray.  It didn't even wing him.  The Evillaser's blast caused it to become a pile of rubble to which Malice mourned over it as if it was a lost loved one.
 
Shorty's MP3 Player, however, was a different story.  It grew to the size of an aircraft carrier -- hovering in the air by no really visable means.  It's colors changed to green and black.  It's ear buds turned into electronic eyes.  And, suddenly, a green energy dome formed over RAF . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 26, 2013, 03:29:26 PM

I like musicals and your parodies... this will definitely by cool.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 26, 2013, 08:51:54 PM

Musicals are fun! Got myself all caught up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2013, 11:10:47 AM

You probably could tell what parodies this will contain -- until I throw you a bit of a curve ball, that is.

CHAPTER TWO:
What the Heck is That?

Suddenly, Horse awakens from her thread, as she dashed out, she sang:

"What's that racket?
What's that clatter?"

Then Parker was immediately on his feet . . . apparently, he slept in his armor.  He donned his helmet whilst singing:

"We're under attack!
It's a life-or-death matter!"

Underseen exited his thread, yawned, and still looked rather sleepy.  He sang:

"I was in a deep-sleep RAFian Dream."

Wild declared in song:

"I heard what I believed to be a scream!"

Jack jabbed a rather accusatory finger at Alic:

"That wasn't me, that was mama!"

Alic countered this:

"Uh, no, I was just startled!"

Blue, ever practical, asked:

"But, what was that light?"

Then Gaz finished the thought:

"In the middle of the night?"

Wild was consulting Dino:

"You have it your sights?"

Then a shiver went up Wild's spine as he sang:

"It's behind me, right?"

Underseen asked:

"What the heck is that?"

Block echoed:

"What the heck is that?"

Jack sang, as he gestured to the MP3 monster:

"Check out that mook
In the starry night sky."

SuperNate sang:

"Gimme a sec,
To wipe the sleep from my eye."

Jack decided to sing a description:

"It's oohy, ooky and flat!"

Then mother and son sang in a duo:

"What the heck is that?"

Then Horse noticed something:

"Hey, wait! Does something feel quite wrong?"

SuperNate declared:

"By Jove, we're all breaking into song!"

Gaz stated:

"Now that you pointed it out --"

Alic announced:

"We are crooning no doubt!"

Jack added:

"And we can't help but sing along."

Underseen asked:

"What the heck is that?"

Horse echoed:

"What the heck is that?"

Blue decided:

"I'm goin' to guess it's coz of that creepy thing!["

Cloak sang:

"Someway, somehow, that thing is making us -- "

Then all RAFians sang a sour note:

"Sing!"

The MP3 monster blasted a green energy beam at the assembled RAFians.  They naturally scrambled, and Jack observed:

"This thing gets madder and madder
If you hit a note that is flat."

Then they all sang the final lyric before they headed for cover:

"What the heck is that?"

The MP3 monster roared and flew over, as the RAFians hunkered down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2013, 11:12:06 AM

New page.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• *Book CXLII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2013, 11:44:13 AM

Now a second chapter today . . .

CHAPTER THREE:
Everybody Must Sing

After a few minutes, the RAFians began to poke their heads out of their hiding places.  Jess sang:

"Oh dear!"

Yarin concurred:

"This is weird!"

Underseen accidentally shapeshifted a rather opulent and copious beard.

"Hey!  I have a beard."

Shorty lamented:

"My MP3 player grew to huge-ocity!
It's an up-in-the-air monstrocity!"

Marie looked at Shorty strangely and sang:

"What did Shorty say?
And why did he say it in that way?"

Shorty still lamented his MP3 player:

"I cannot make it obey!"

Marie commented on the singing:

"This feels, to me, creepy and wrong!"

Shorty addressed Marie, asking sincerely:

"To be suddenly speaking in song?"

Yarin, in a sudden change of tempo, declared:

"Wait!  I think I can explain!"

Rotiart replied:

"It could be extremely lame."

Yarin snarled in song:

"Do you mind?!  This is science!"

Rotiart replied randomly.

"It's a kinda weird appliance."

Yarin, shoving Rotiart aside, sang:

"Yes!  Take my experimental power cell -- "

Shorty saw fit to add:

"Add that laser's evil spell --"

Yarin added:

"Plus Shorty's MP3 player . . ."

Cloak finished:

"The combo that makes this musical slayer!"

Then Cloak and Yarin sang together:

"Now, everybody sing!
Everybody sing!
Everybody has to sing!
You don't have a choice
But to modulate your voice!
Because everybody must sing!"

RAFians sang:

"Sing, sing, sing, sing, sing."

Yarin though aloud in song:

"RAF is caught in an energy bubble."

Cloak observed:

"It's a melodorous sort of trouble."

Yarin elaborated:

"Like Broadway
But involuntary."

Cloak raised an eyebrow and sang:

"Don't need a rhyming dictionary?"

Yarin, ignoring that, pressed:

"This is rather key."

Cloak added:

"The last thing you will see."

Yarin continued:

"This crazed talent judge --"

Cloak finished:

"Who evidently holds a grudge."

Then the two sang together:

"Now, everybody sing!
Everybody sing!
Everybody has to sing!
You don't have a choice
So raise your pretty voice!
Because everybody must sing!"

Again, the RAFians sang:

"Sing, sing, sing, sing, sing!
Sing, sing, sing, sing, sing!"

Cloak sang urgently:

"We have to think fast!"

Yarin added:

"Before the energy blast -- "

Too late, as the monster blasted the green energy at them.

While Yarin dodged out of the way, Cloak however managed to funnel it into his left index and middle fingers.  He forced it down his arm, down to his stomach, cross his stomach, up to his right arm, and out his opposite index and middle fingers, functionally redirecting it.

The blast hit the machine, and it fell . . . crushing Aquilai's TARDIS, causing it to vanish into nothingness.  The green dome vanished immediately, without a second thought.

"MY TARDIS!!" Aquilai roared furiously.  "CLOAK . . . Cloak, I swear I'll . . . I'll . . ."

"Get another one." Cloak said, as Aquilai roared in frustration.  Meanwhile, RAF was preparing for school letting out the next day. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 27, 2013, 12:59:41 PM

This is very funny

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2013, 01:02:52 PM

Eh, it wasn't really intended to be funny yet.  But oh, well.

More chapters will come tomorrow, though.  I just am not up to posting another.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 27, 2013, 01:16:14 PM

2 long song chapters can never be wrong.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Aquilai on February 28, 2013, 08:33:50 AM

Finally got round to reading The First Master and it's really good ^^ Fresh change from RAF and the use of zodiacs was really interesting too because they've been around since ancient times. Very well linked together with all the references. I was going to PM you earlier about the Prodigy/Progeny naming but thought I'd read on in case someone else mentioned it (started reading late) instead and Dino (as expected ^^) had . Not that that bit really mattered in the long run. One of your bests I would say. Well done!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2013, 09:55:02 AM

Thanks, Aquilai.  Of course, IRL I may have an ancestor that was really like that but I really don't know.  I really know about much before either of my grandparents.

Anyway, I'll try to get you more chapters today to hold you until Monday. . . .

First chapter of the day.

CHAPTER FOUR:
RAFians Being RAFians

It was the next day, Aquilai was still rather surly, and not even talking to Cloak.  Whereas schools were letting out for summer, and Genies was rather excited about this, singing:

"The bell rings.
School’s done.
Time for eight straight weeks
Of sun and fun!"

Noelle echoed this sentiment:

"No shirt,
No shoes."

Sakki, who was whaling on a particularly ugly troll, sang:

"Beating trolls up,
Anytime I choose."

Marie sighed contentedly before singing:

 

"The beach,
The mall!"

SuperNate stroked his chin thoughtfully as he sang:

"Maybe visit the Tahj Mahal!"

Genies sang:

"You can do the things
That the Mallorians forbid."

Blue sang, with boyish innocence:

"Like streak?"

Genies, ignoring Blue, continued:

"Summer’s not a bummer,
‘Cause we’re RAFians being RAFians."

Brad elated:

"It’s time!
It’s here!"

Brad and Faerie sang together:

"Our very favorite time of year!"

Brad sang happily:

"No school!
Just play!"

Faerie added:

"Being crazy the entire day!"

Brad sang, thoughfully:

"Are you really sure this is allowed?"

Malice, who was hidden by the trees just outside RAF, was listening and sang to Abomination:

"We should help them be destructive and loud."

RAFians sang in chorus:

"‘Cause of RAFians just being RAFians.
Running wild and running free!
RAFians just being RAFians."

Parker, armed with a TP cannon, yelled, "Who can I TP?!"

RAFians, ignoring this continued:

"RAFians just being RAFians.
Close your eyes,
And count to three."

Meanwhile, over in the city, the Knights fretted through song:

"There’s nowhere safe for you or me!
With those RAFians just being RAFians."

A closeted Knight, a female, sang:

"My house!
My hair!"

Then another closeted Knight, this time a militarial male, sang:

"Who bought these rockets
With my credit card?"

The answer was Demos.

The Knights continued to lament:

"My Porsche!
My word!"

Terenia, meanwhile, retorted:

"It’s not my problem
Until September 3rd!"

The city's mayor cried out in song:

"My town!
Might there be something
Goin’ down?"

A mob sang:

"They can do the things that we forbid,
Like freaks!
The problems of the summer
Are caused from RAFians just being RAFians.
RAFians just being RAFians.
Wreaking things and ruining stuff.
RAFians just being RAFians."

Malice's voice managed to carry down into the forum:

"Are you sure that this is enough?"

Genies declared, "No!"

The mob sang rather hostilely:

"RAFians just being RAFians.
Takin’ risks, we must stand tough,
And save our kids from all this stuff!
From RAFians just being RAFians!"

Of course, during the course of the song, no one noticed how the sky took on a green hue or the fact that the MP3 monster and Aquilai's TARDIS had appeared during the duration of the song number, then vanishing yet again. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2013, 10:52:32 AM

Now another chapter -- you know, I'm not cranking these chapters as fast as I intially thought I would.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Get Cathy

In RAF, Terenia was cracking a whip and using a chair to keep some rather rabid newbies and the city's children (all strung out on a sugar high) at bay, saying, "This isn't supposed to be my problem until September 3rd!!"
 
Meanwhile, in lieu of this craziness, which Malice and Abomination helped rather quietly to get out of hand, led to a commercial appearing on the television -- again no one seemed aware of the MP3 monster and Aquilai's TARDIS's second momentary reappearance -- and it featured a performer known as Cathy Daniels, wearing rather ludicrous polka-dotted pants.  She sang:

"You’re sitting there, complaining
About all that you’ve been through.
With the whole summer remaining,
You must be askin’ who
Can protect your darlings
From the bad things that you abhor.
Let me tell ya,
Cathy’s the gal you’re lookin’ for!
Before they skin their knees,
Before they’re black-and-blue,
Before they’ve got TV,
Or keep annoying you!
Before they break their necks,
Before they break their arms,
Before all utter wrecks,
Before they do more harm!"

Then a group of backup singers and dancers sang as they danced around Cathy:

"Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flapppity-do!
Cathy is the clown for you!
Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flappity-di!
She's the clown for you and I!
Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap-flappity-oh!
Cathy is the way to go!"

Underseen immediately stood up, looking thoroughly upset:

"You hear what I’m hearing?
No, this can’t be true!
That CLOWN is about to take away summer,
For me and you!"

Parker asked:

"No more post slingshots?"

Demos asked, aghast:

"No more forum runs?"

Underseen answered through song:

"No!
If we don’t act now,
We’ll be trapped in Camp Tortureium.
Before she steals our summer,
Before it’s check and mate,
We’ve gotta stop that Cathy,
Before it’s way too late!"

Meanwhile, Cathy continued her ad:

"Why sit here just complaining?
Why even take the chance?
Leave your RAFies with the chap
Who wears the polka-dotted pants!
I know that it seems harsh – "

The RAFians sang loudly:

"It is!"

Cathy added:

"And a little bit unfair."

The RAFians concurred:

"You’re right!"

Cathy rounded out her pitch:

"But someone’s got to be there,
When you know you can’t be there!
It might be a tad expensive,
But let me ask of you,
Won’t it cost more down the line,
When the cops are blaming you?
When the injures incurred while
The RAFians wreck the town,
You can learn to love your cellmate,
Or just learn to love this clown!!
Get Caaaaaaaaaaaaaathy.
Get Caaaaaaaaaaaaaathy.
Get Caaaaaaaaaaaaaathy."

And, as the MP3 monster and the TARDIS vanished again, the RAFians shouted, "Get Cathy!" -- but it was just an idle, empty threat.  In the end, they decided that it was just the flow of the music and song that got to them. . . . However, they did not know that Malice and Abomination were in the Bannedlands. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2013, 12:58:08 PM

Dunno if this'll be the last one today.

CHAPTER SIX:
RAFians Ruin Everything

Meanwhile, in the Bannedlands, Malice and Abomination remained in the shadows.  Abomination was somewhat clumsy and klutzy at this.  The entire lot of them did not notice the sky becoming green or the low, disoriented moan of the MP3 monster.  Either people were being entirely too oblivious, or they did not care.

Malice, however, paid no nevermind at this, and spoke to Queen, "You know, Queen, all your misery has one common denominator: RAFians."

Queen, who apparently did not recognize Malice's voice, answered with a question, "Wait a minute . . . whaddya mean 'RAFians'?"

Malice, in response, sang:

"Who shuts the chats early?
Who bans you for making RAF barren and stark?"

Queen chimed in:

"Yeah!  Who gets all mad and surly,
When you make snarky, snide remarks?
Who do we have to hide from?
From RAF to Bejing?
They’re takin’ away our internet.
RAFians ruin everything!"

Her trollish minions sang, between every line of Queen's:

"RAFians ruin everything!"

Queen sang:

"With all their rules and lies!
It looks like that because –
Time and time again.
It’s an honor to be Banned!"

Aloth announced, after the troll chorus shut up:

"I’d feed the whole world broccoli ice cream!"

A troll that resembled Laura Mallory very much sang:

"I’d censor the mall!"

Yorick, aiming a weapon, sang:

"I’d melt stuff with my heat beam."

Malice, still unseen, sang:

"Too bad it’s not your call."

Queen sang, revealing a scepter with an orb containing two "Fairly Oddparents"-style fairies:

"But I’ve captured two magic fairies.
Waiting to be twisted and twirled.
RAFians couldn’t ruin everything
If we ruled the world."

The troll chorus began their schtick again as Queen sang:

"But we’d run things right.
But we know we can fight!
That’s how this day unfurled.
That won’t happen
If I make that we rule the world!
We would make it right.
But we know that we can fight!
That’s how this day unfurled.
That won’t happen
If I make that we rule the world!"

Then the trollish chorus shut up again, as Queen continued:

"Who gets to make the rules?"

The trolls yelled, "Us!", then Queen continued:

"We’re all perfect,
And we have no flaws!
Who gets to run the country?"

The trolls declared "Us!" again.

Then Queen inquired:

"Who gets to say what’s cool?"

The trolls cheered "Us!" again.  Then Queen concluded:

"To be perfectly blunt,
It is us that rule!"

"Excellent," Malice said, with a low chuckle, as the land around started changing around them as the MP3 monster vanished again.  Queen was using the fairies magic to reimagine the world.  Reimagine it into one where RAFians are fugitives, and the Banned are the dictorial government.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2013, 01:53:23 PM

Probably will be the last today.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Banned and In Charge

The world was now a dystopian mess of world, so much so, that the sky was already green when the MP3 monster blipped back into existence.  RAFians were either arrested, imprisoned, fugitives, or dead.  Queen was the head honcho, with Yorick and Aloth as her generals . . . but Queen explains it best when she gloats through song:

"That Banned had no power,
I had to correct.
We Banned are the boss now,
So, you can expect
That things will be different
With me at the wheel!
I’m Banned and in charge now,
And here is what I feel!
I made a place that the Banned are now running.
The view from this treehouse is really quite stunning."

Meanwhile, Malice and Abomination were watching it with amused smiles, as Malice sang:

"My plan, oh look, it’s working,"

Abomination added:

"You’re really quite cunning."

Ignoring that, Malice sang:

"Off to Monger we go!"

Just before they Walked away, Abomination said, "Nice cloak," which fell on deaf ears.
 
Back at Queen's citadel palace, Queen was singing:

"It’s revenge for breakfast,
And vengeance for lunch.
It’s retribution for dinner,
And I have a hunch,
With the way things are run,
We don’t act like a mob,
There’s plenty do
And we’ve all got a job!"

She handed the smallest and scrawniest troll a badge as she announced:

"You get to be the police chief."

To which he replied in song:

"Can I flash the big red light?"

Queen acquiesced rather irritably with an "all right", and turning to Yorick:

"You go to the RAF forum,
And break everything in sight!"

Yorick declared, "At last!"

Queen sang more, pointing to a troll:

"You get to lead my armies
All over the map."

Then she pointed to a magically-chained Brad:

"And you clean my room,"

Then she pointed to a similiarly-bound Faerie:

"And you clean my clothes,
While I stay here and nap!"

***

Meanwhile, in the Nexus, the two Realm Walkers rapped:

"We’re sickies*,
We’re sickies,
Check out our mad, wicked mixies."

Malice rapped solo:

"Have you checked out Cloak's adopted planet?"

Abomination added:

"We know that you didn’t plan it."

Malice continued:

"But the Banned have the power and a Realm Walker."

Monger, a militaristic, warmongering (hence part of his name), bellicist gorilla-form Realm Walker, sat before their performance.  He recognized the two, but he couldn't quite see a way that he could use as an excuse to go to war.  He spat:

"Dagnabbit."

Malice and Abomination sang:

"We’re sickies,
We’re sickies.
And we’re about to unfix these.
Here’s your notice of eviction!"

Monger, offended and disgruntled, snarled:

"This is my jurisdiction."

Malice sang, rather persuadingly:

"The power balance needs a-fixin’."

Abomination added:

"Like a magical prediction."

Then they two rapped:

"We’re sickies,
We’re sickies.
And if you open up “Da Rules”, see,"

Malice said:

"It’s Section R."

Abomination clarified:

"Subsection A."

Malice clarified further:

"Amendment F."

Then both rapped:

"A loophole, we say!"

Malice continued:

"Which means we can make the world
What we desire!"

"Was the rapping really necessary?" Monger asked.  The fact that he wasn't turning the two in was a rather treasonous act in and of itself.  But Monger lived for war -- which had never happened in his lifetime.

***

Back in the Prime Universe, Queen was surveying her lands.  She sang:

"Everything’s going tremendous.
I finally have the reins!
Hot guys are bringing me pizzas.
And Cloaky’s in tylee chains!
Teachers have homework,
And bullies babysit!
I make the rules,
And I call the shots!"

Faerie snarled in song:

"To this, I will not submit!
She thinks things are running quite smoothly,
Though she ignores starting twenty-seven wars!"

Brad added:

"And I don’t think it’s groovy,
That we’re stuck with all the chores!"

Queen chided the two:

"How can you be disapproving?
This gets better by the hour!
No worries, no strife.
My, this is the life!"

Monger appeared, with Cloak in hand, still bound in tylee chains.  He turned to Queen and said coldly, "You have too much power."

Then he takes Cloaky and Walks away.

Queen shrugged, and said, in an off-hand way, "Crud."  Back in the Nexus, Monger drops Cloak atop his desk angrily, unaware that the chains had loosened considerably in transit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 28, 2013, 06:01:47 PM

Shamelessly parodying the fairly odd parents movie eh? One of my favorite cartoon musical TV movies... and yes I have a list for that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2013, 09:21:42 AM

*Sudden image of Underseen, dressed as Stewie Griffin, singing, "I've Got A Little List".*

Anyway, the second book was a shameless parody of the "My Little Pony Movie", which was on a VHS tape after some 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episodes (I was into TMNT, Dagger was into "My Little Pony").

Anyway, as I've already said in "Totally Random Thoughts", I had a bit of an issue last night, so I don't know if I can get anymore chapters up today, though I'll give it a shot. . . .

Well, how about this?  Okay, it may be a bit of a lazy chapter -- but cut me a break.  I didn't get much sleep last night.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
We're Sickies

Meanwhile, back in the Prime Universe, Malice and Abomination were gloating . . . through rap, as the MP3 monster, looking forlorn reappeared and the sky became green again.

"Yeah.
We’re sickies.
Yeah.
We’re sickies.
We’re sickies.
Check out our mad, wicked mixies.
We got glowin' heads, large pointed hoods, saps.
Clean out your ears, and hear our rap."

Then Abomination rapped solo:

"Yo, M, yo!
You’re in charge."

Malice rapped rather haphazardly:

"I may look strange,
But my goals are large!
I’m not a hater,
But I must cater
To my mission
To become the something-rator."

Abomination continued solo:

"I’m Doomsday, son,
I’m anti-fun.
And all those RAFians
Can bite my bun!
But my darling's is gonna be
The big-time ruler, see?"

Malice replied in rap:

"You got that, I see."

Then they rapped again together.

"We’re sickies.
We’re sickies.
And the climate is in the sixties.
We’ve manipulated that CLOWN to be our tool,
To beat the RAFians, so we could rule!
We’re sickies.
We’re sickies.
It’s goin’ exactly as we predict-ies.
We can’t stop now,
The time is near.
Where the Nexus and RAF here,
Are ruled by us, you hear?
By sickies.
By sickies.
We’re sickies.
Strong like Bill Bixby.
We’re sickies.
Yeah.
We’re sickies.
Yeah.
We’re sickies."

Meanwhile, a small lizard scurried away unnoticed.  No one noticed the small, stylized "R" on his right forefoot nor that the MP3 monster vanished again with Aquilai's TARDIS. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2013, 10:29:38 AM

Still tired.  Sorry if this chapter sucks because of it.

CHAPTER NINE:
Pull Back the Realm Walkers

Meanwhile, back in the Nexus, Cloak was freed from his chains rather unceremoniously.  He never did like monger, with his lust for battle and blood.
 
"Oof!" Cloak uttered as he landed hard on his rear end.  Then he stood up, and demanded, "What do you want, Monger?"
 
"I know that you’re upset, and also on fire." Monger said, with a thick voice.

Cloaky looks down and notices his cloak caught fire.  He irritatedly snaps his fingers and the fire is extinguished.

Monger continued, "But let me explain something to you."
 
Suddenly, polka music started up.
 
"Oh no." Cloak said, hand over his face.  "Not the polka."

"With my muscles
I will tussles,
With those who dare discuss-ills.
I live for reprisals
For those that challenge my authority.
With my knuckles,
You will buckles,
Like a chicken, you will cluck-ills.
For I love “Da Rules”,
And I know “Da Rules” love me!
You will learn to fear my mighty fist,
If this polka won’t help you get the gist.
And all you fools might disagree
But you will all answer to me!"

There was a brief pause musically, as Monger sent a wave of camouflage brown and green energy out in all directions.  It was a showy technique with no effectiveness at all.  Monger's attire was very different from the average Realm Walker.  He wore camouflauge cargo pants, combat boots, a cloak, and he eschewed any shirt ever given to him.
 
He continued:

"With this polka,
I won’t choke-a.
But first this delish mocha!
Mmm!
I was shocked when I awoke-a,
To a world where Banned and trolls all ruled.
With my biceps
I must try-ceps
To see that the Banned are now the nice-ceps.
The energy for your plans
Has just been retooled.
Oh, I love to get to draw that line,
And this moron makes me all the time."

Cloak looked thoroughly offended, but said nothing.  He did not know how far Monger's authority extended.  The fact that he loved rules was pretty much just for show, Cloak knew.

"For “Da Rules” are very clear.
Now the time is here.
For . . . me . . . to . . ."

He showed Cloak to a larger, rather comical-looking magnet attached to some strange device.  Monger took out a remote with a large red button from his cargo pants, and pushed it as he sang:

"Pull back the Realm Walkers.
Bring them all home one-by-one.
Pull back the Realm Walkers,
Now that my mocha is done.
Pull back the Realm Walkers.
Now that the Banned has the reins.
Now we’re pulling, pulling, pulling back the Realm Walkers.
So, I can BRING THEM PAIN!"

Suddenly, all Realm Walkers -- except Malice and Abomination strangely enough -- were being drawn from the Realms back into the Nexus.
 
"You cannot have had the authority to do this," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2013, 10:53:58 AM

Okay -- a little change of pace, no song in this chapter!  So . . . may be a little short.

CHAPTER TEN:
Trouble Monger

"As a matter of fact, 'Cloak', I --" Monger said, jeering at Cloak's chosen name.

"Do not." came a rather hard voice.

Cloak and Monger looked around, and saw five figures coming towards them in rather ornate robes, all wearing cloaks, although their hoods were down.  Apparently, there was an election since Cloak was gone, as the faces were newer and younger than the ones that he saw before.

A male dragon Walker in red robes, a female phoenix Walker in pink robes, a male shark Walker in blue robes, a female smilodon Walker in yellow robes, and a male snake Walker in black robes.  The hard voice that had spoke belonged to the dragon Realm Walker.

"What?!" Monger roared angrily.

"You do not have the authority to pull all the Realm Walkers back to the Nexus," the phoenix Councilor spoke.

"Who are you to determine what my authority --"

"We are the Council, Monger!" the shark Councilor snarled.  "You will do better to remember that!"

Cloak was glad to see that the old codgers that previously resided as the Council were no longer in possession of the offices they so arduously loved.  But that didn't mean that Cloak trusted these new Councilors any more than he did the others.  They were politicians, after all.

Monger looked nonplussed, as if he never considered that the Council would interfere with him and his goals.  It was a rather shortsighted oversight on his part.

"Councilors, I --"

"Ssssave it," said the snake Councilor, "we are not interessssted in your excussssessss."

"You have overstepped your authority in doing this," said the smilodon Councilor, "a transgression that must be taken seriously and severely."

"Come with us, Monger," said the dragon Councilor imperiously.  "As for the rest of you, you may go.  Lest you want to give testimony against Monger?"

Cloak, repressing vindictive feelings, declined, and, once more, immersed himself back in the Prime Universe.  To his real home.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2013, 12:57:50 PM

Maybe just one more.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Where's The Fun?

Cloak arrived at RAF again . . . only remember that there wasn't a RAF anymore.  He saw Cathy the clown talking rather heatedly to Queen, as Malice was attempted to talk to her, while the Banned dismissed her.  Cloak realizing what was going on after hearing the conversation and the referencing of fairy godparents . . .
 
"No!"
 
"You're too late, Cloak," Malice hissed.
 
Suddenly, unknown to everyone assembled, a rather subdued MP3 monster appeared atop Aquilai's TARDIS, causing the sky to go green again as music started up.  Cloaky sang, plantively to Cathy:

"Hey, Cathy,
Can’t you see what they’ve done?
They needed a pawn.
And clearly you were the one.
They took away your cool clothes.
Your assortment of shoes,
And button nose.
Just look around . . .
How can you call this fun?
Since you’ve been here,
They’ve decided your fate!
From the style of your goofing,
To the food you ate!
I know it seems that they gave a lot,
But I’m telling you, it’s part of a plot,
A plot that you can stop!
Stop it, before it’s too late!"

Then the other two shoved Cloak out of the way as they rapped:

"Hey, Cathy girl,
You hear what he be spreadin’?
The lies he be tellin’?
I can tell where this is headin’.
It was you, Cathy,
Yeah, you were the one,
That we protected,
And respected,
As though you were our sun.
You’re right here in the middle,
You can fiddle
With this riddle,
That your wishes will be done!"

Cloaky shoved the two aside as well, and sang:

"Where is the fun?"

Cathy, looking thoroughly nonplussed:

"Who should I turn to?"

Malice and Abomination intoned:

"Where is the fun?"

Cathy sang:

"How can I learn how –"

Cloaky asked:

"Who is the one?"

Cathy finished:

"-- The one who I can trust to tell me what’s fun?"

Cloaky asked again:

"Where’s the fun?"

Cathy eyed Cloak suspiciously:

"Why should I trust you?"

The other two Realm Walkers sang accusatorily:

"He was the one!"

Cathy, rather wrongly and accusatorily, sang:

"You were the one
Who wanted to shun
Everything that I thought fun!"

Cloaky sang, in a valiant attempt to appeal to her:

"But, Cathy,
Can you see in your heart?
There’s a role you play,
And, guy, this just isn’t the right part!
I know my actions weren’t ideal.
But how would your comedian parents feel
About the path you chose,
Whether or not it was smart!
Where is the fun?"

Cathy, now thoroughly perplexed:

"Who should I turn to?"

Malice and Abomination intoned:

"Where is the fun?"

Cathy asked again:

"How can learn how –"

Cloaky inquired:

"Who is the one?"

Cathy cried out:

"The one I can trust to tell me what’s fun."

Cloaky asked again:

"Where is the fun?"

Cathy stated in song:

"I’m so conflicted."

Malice and Abomination sang accusatorily:

"He was the one!"

Cathy sang, glowering at the tiger Realm Walker:

"The one who restricted –"

Nodding, Malice and Abomination added:

"Your mission of fun."

Cathy declared:

"Just give me a pen,
I’ll sign by Item One."

Cloaky shouted, "No!"

Cathy continued, thoughtfully:

"Maybe you’re right –
This could be a giant mistake.
But changing my life is not a risk
I’m willing to make!
This nose, hat and shoes,
They’re all my past,
And so now I chose
To make a world,
A world for my views,
A world where I am safe."

The other Realm Walkers -- brandishing Queen's fairy staff, while forcing her away -- declared, "It’s over Cloak, you lose!"

The Cloak fell, bound by tylee chains again, as he roared defiance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2013, 01:02:34 PM

New page.

• Book XXVI: Outage Outrage

The RAFians find themselves losing their powers.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• *Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• *Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2013, 01:28:02 PM

Maybe just one more.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Unfundamentals

While Cloak was bound to a rock, thoroughly wrapped in the tylee chains, a radical change was occuring above ground.  Everything was padded, everything was Rated G, everything was without points, sharp edges, and rough textures.  Everything seemed to be bubble-wrapped.

Cathy, Malice and Abomination were immune to this effect.  They laughed as saw what they wrought, while every Dweller was miserable, though they were forced to be smiling -- except the underaged, it would seem.  RAF was not immune to this, though the RAFians kept their minds in tact.  This was horrible torture for them.

The MP3 monster appeared on Aquilai's TARDIS -- suddenly wrapped in bubble wrap -- and the sky turned green.

Brad sang:

"This used to be a fun place,
But now we wear a sad face,
Since those guys have all replaced
The way things are done."

Faerie lamented:

"No more doing as we wishes,
They make us eat year-old knishes,
Now, pipe down and do the dishes.
Come on, now, everyone!"

All the RAFians cried out:

"They are the unfundamentals,
For us RAFian confer-entials,
Who are now devoid of joy and mirth.
We are certifiably demental.
Cause these unfundamentals
Keep makin’ this place as fun as giving birth!"

Cathy, surveying all that came to be, sang in an aside:

"All the boards close a three.
All the threads are bouncy-free.
And there’s a pad over every knee.
Everything’s fine, as far as I can see.
But I can’t help but think out loud,
The things that guy had said somehow.
My mom and dad would NOT be proud
Of the path I’ve taken in life!
Have I been wrong?
Have I been used?
Should I embrace my nose and shoes?
Accept these gifts I once refused?"

Her background dancers began:

"I’m Happy Peppy –"

Until Cathy roared, "NOT NOW!!"

Demos sang, dully and in monotone:

"Our heads must be protected,
Our bodies, disinfected.
This is just as I suspected.
If this world was ruled by –"

And then the other RAFians joined in:

"-- By unfundamentals!
Surely, you over-parentals
Must see how fun this really is!"

Then Laura and Mallory Black, real role models of overbearing, drill sergeant/helicopter parenting, sang:

"But all these unfundamentals
Seem quite instrumental
To keep you rowdy RAFians in line!
If you need us, we’ll be playing the back nine!"

The misery was thick as smog in the air, but the skies turned back to the muddy black as the MP3 monster, reluctantly and resignedly vanished with Aquilai's TARDIS, like a stone skipping a pond. . . .

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 04, 2013, 05:52:09 PM

I'm enjoying this!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2013, 10:07:30 AM

Dunno how many chapters I can have up today -- maybe just the one . . . and it doesn't have any songs in it, so it may be rather short.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Manipulated No More

Doubts swirled around Cathy's head.  She seriously was reconsidering her assertions, her assumptions, her beliefs.  Everything was safe now -- why was everyone else so miserable?  Why weren't they happy that the world was free of danger?  Why did safety bring about such misery and hatred instead elation and joy?  It did not make any sense.
 
Meanwhile, Malice and Abomination were being rather careless with where they had a plot-unraveling discussion, as they were within earshot of Cathy.
 
"My darling," Abomination's rather coarse, throaty voice said, "it worked."
 
"Yes, I can see that." Malice said, and once again, Abomination confused the tone of contempt with love, whether deliberately or not.  Malice persisted in the ruse that she loved him, as it was so useful to have a brutish lackey.  It was pitiful, but it was Abomination's choice.  No one could force his eyes open, if he didn't want them opened.
 
"And all we had to do was --" Abomination began.
 
"Tricking a Dweller is nothing to brag about," Malice said, rather hypocritically.
 
Cathy started at this, but still was unheard by the two, who continued their conversation with Abomination apologizing and pontificating Malice, which allowed her to stroke her ego, which was a prodigious enough size as is.
 
"Won't the Council attempt to revert this?" Abomination asked, worriedly,  "Or Cloak and his little band of misfits?"
 
"Cloak is currently bound by the tylee chains in the dungeon chambers below," Malice said scornfully (the tone of which Abomination ignored rather stubbornly), "and the Council have their hands full at the moment with that fool Monger.  He never had very much sense, or very much brain."

Abomination chose to take this as a implication that his sense and brain were superior, when Malice hadn't meant anything of the sort.  She was aware of this deliberate misinterpretation and allowed it to happen.

"All we have to do now is continue to string along the stupid little Dweller girl," Malice said, arms folded imperiously across her chest, "and we'll continue to perpetrate this."

"But Dwellers have such limited lifespans," Abomination pointed out, "what will we do to maintain this world like this when she dies?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we burn it," Malice said, waving away this legitimate concern.

Cathy left, and the two were not even aware of her presence.  It was shameful, really.  But, then again, neither of the two could Earthsight.

***

"I'm sorry for what I've done," Cathy was saying, as she used bolt cutters to snap a metal chain serving as an anchor.

Suddenly, a large mass plummeted to the ground, but the chains loosed, and a burst of energy forced them away.  Then Cloak landed rather daintily, crouched, tail straight out for balance.

"Glad you've decided to see reason, Miss Cathy," Cloak said respectfully.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Oh, I think I've got something planned," Cloak said, enigmatically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2013, 10:40:46 AM

One more. . . . Really, Gmail?  "FOURTEEN" is not a word?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Reprise Rhapsody

It took some time to gather the RAFians again, but after six or seven hours, they were all assembled.  Of course, the MP3 monster and its TARDIS steed chose to reappear and cast their singing light over everyone again.  As such, music started playing . . .
 
Cloaky sang:

"Hey, Cathy,
Can’t you see what they’ve done?"

Cathy declared:

"It might reek now,
But it can all be undone!"

Cloaky added to the RAFians:

"So grab your death-kites and stupid guns!"

Slushie Man declared as he strode it:

"My motorbike!"

Demos claimed without thinking:

"My clones!"

Then he added, realizing what he said and what it would mean because he was barred from cloning experiments, "Er, I mean, NOT my clones!  Wait –"

Horse caught a pastry that was easily as large as her head, and she sang:

"This big sticky bun!"

Cloaky sang with full voice:

"It’s not a crime
To have some time
In the sun!"

The condescending Laura, Mallory and their ilk sang:

"RAFians just being RAFians.
Acting up and eating dirt!"

RAFians roared "WE DON’T EAT DIRT!" and sang:

"RAFians just being RAFians."

Laura, Mallory and their companions sang:

"They could all get hurt."

As if that was their true concern.  Then the RAFians retorted:

"RAFians just being RAFians."

Cloaky commanded:

"To keep those goons off all of our butts.
We’ll get this town out of all its ruts,
By RAFians just being RAFians."

***

Meanwhile, Malice and Abomination took notice of this, and began rapping:

"We’re sickies,
We’re sickies,
We finally rule all the trickies.
The time has come,
The deal has gone through.
Just stay there,
We’ll come to you!
We’re sickies,
We’re sickies,
This is how we get our kicksies.
Our plan has worked,
And they have lost.
Let’s Walk on down,
And show them who’s the boss.
Go sickies,
Go sickies,
Go sickies!"

***

Cloaky pointed to Block and Shock:

"You two roar real loudly."

Cathy turned to Dino:

"It’s your turn now to roar!"

Cloaky pointed to Parker:

"You get to parade real proudly,
With the skills you purport!"

He then pointed to Sakki.

"You find the rest of the RAFians and rile them,
I’ll give ‘em what they need!"

Cathy asked, "How?"

Cloaky snapped, "Internet?"

Cathy observed:

"With this much fun,
Those cloakheads will be here at breakneck speed."

Cloaky sang in an aside:

"Malice ruins everything.
That’s what I’ve always thought."

Cathy acknowledged:

"You RAFians ruin everything,
That’s the lie I bought."

Then Cloaky and Cathy sang:

"But someone else was pulling strings,
As far as we could tell."

Cathy remarked:

"But you and me
Can set us free."

Then the two sang:

"Everything ends well!"

"DOES it now?" cried Malice's rather gruff, yet shrill voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 05, 2013, 05:49:46 PM

I laughed when Cloak used the FoP classic internet joke because RAF is actually on the internet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2013, 09:13:27 AM

Quote from: Underseen on March 05, 2013, 05:49:46 PM

I laughed when Cloak used the FoP classic internet joke because RAF is actually on the internet.

Which was my intent, although I wondered if anyone would get it.  It pleases me that someone did.

Anyway, I only have about fifteen minutes time right now, so probably no new chapters today.  Sorry.

EDIT: Okay, disregard that.  I got a call and my appointment was pushed back to one.

Newish chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Reprises and Realizations

"'Bout time," Cloak said, more blythely than the occasion warranted, as Faerie smashed Malice's fairy staff, saying, "Faerie, smash!"

Cloak, with a heavy-lidded look as the world reverted back to the norm, addressed Malice again, "You're getting slow in your old age, Malice."
 
"You dare to speak to me in such away?" Malice said indignant.
 
Cloak gave her such a look as if to say, You're kidding, right?, which Malice took even more offense towards.  Cloak could not believe just the amount of ego this one being possessed.  "Malice, you know what would happen if you challenged me openly and directly."
 
Malice pulled her face into a snarl, but couldn't coming up with anything scathing to say.  Cloak felt no fear, as Malice was hardly a threat without the staff.

Suddenly, the MP3 monster appeared, unbeknowst to the group at large.  The sky went green, and the MP3 monster quickly disentangled itself from Aquilai's TARDIS rather huffily.  Then the music started:
 
Abomination whined:

"My ears!"

Malice lamented:

"My heart!
They tore my whole plan and world apart."

Broken sang:

"Have wish –"

Faerie finished:

"– Will grant."

Both sang:

"There’s nothing boring that we can’t enchant!"

Queen cried out some distance away:

"My legs!  We should have known.
They made us pedal all the way home."

Shorty, ever the spry RAFian, sang and danced:

"We can do the things that the Banned forbid.
Summer’s not a bummer
If we’re just –"

Then the other RAFians joined in:

"RAFians being RAFians.
RAFians just being RAFians.
Running wild, running free!
RAFians just being RAFians.
I think we can all agree.
RAFians just being RAFians!
Close your eyes can count to three."

Laura, Mallory and their like-minded grunts sang, though no one paid them any mind anymore:

"They’re all out of control as they can be!"

The RAFians continued:

"RAF is the place to be,
With forum friends and family definitely.
As . . .
RAFians being RAFians!"

"NO!" Malice wailed, as the green light pulsed away.

"Oh, give it up," Cloak snarled.  "You lost.  Now, get lost or I'll do what I probably should have done twenty or so books ago."

"What?" Underseen asked.

"Never mind."

Then the group became aware of the MP3 monster who was looking thoughly angry and willing to lash out at anyone.

"This could be a problem," Gaz said.

Aquilai, however, was oblivious as he was hugging his tipped-over TARDIS.  Cloak looked away, not wishing to know whether or not he was actually kissing it. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 06, 2013, 07:11:10 PM

While I was rereading chapter 8 I started to wonder about the lizard with the mark on it. The book may be coming towards an end, so it might be explained later on or I didn't notice it being explained when it was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2013, 09:55:26 AM

I thought it was obvious, Underseen.

The lizard was you, a shape you assumed.  I probably should have been clearer on that point.  And I probably shouldn't have forgotten it.

Anyway, I'm experiencing some strange lag and slowdown on the forum -- I don't know if I'll be able to get a new chapter up with the time constraints I'm saddled with. . . .

EDIT: First chapter of the day -- perhaps the only one as well.  Gonna be short -- this computer has a wonky shift key. . . .

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Monster Lives

"Uh, guys?" Horse said.  "I think we should pay attention to the monster!"
 
The MP3 monster then swooped low, and, due to her inherent small size, Horse was spared easily from the attack.  But that did not prevent the beast from continually attempting to divebomb the little seal.
 
"Why does every single monster pick on ME?!" Horse lamented, as it came in for the third divebomb, and, by the time of the sixth divebomb, she roared to the other RAFians, "WILL YOU STOP STANDING THERE GAPING AND HELP ME?!?!"
 
"Oh, right," Parker said a bit abashed.
 
"Not me, I'm outta here." Cathy said, and she promptly left the scene.  The monster apparently had no interest in her, but continued to harass the seal.
 
"Thanks, random throwaway character," Cloak muttered very quietly beneath his breath.  As far as he knew, they would never see her again.
 
"GUYS!!  A LITTLE HELP?!?!" Horse screamed.  "Oh, leave me alone, you -- monster . . . music player . . . thingy!!"
 
Cloak launched himself in the at the beast, only for it to mimic a crocodilian's death roll, forcing him to plummet back down to earth with a rather sizable dust cloud.  He said, as he stood back up, "Ooookay . . . not one of my better ideas."
 
"You think?" Sakki.
 
"Don't start with me, Sakki." Cloak snarled.  "Besides, you have any better ideas?"
 
Sakki, in response, unfolded her jaws to allow them to be as large and gaping as an Exploud's maw.  Suddenly, a powerful wave of sound burst from her expanded mouth.  It hit the monster mid-dive and seemed to disturb the creature.
 
"'Sakki used Hyper Voice.'" Cloak said, with mock enthusiasm.  Then he calmly observed the MP3 monster's reaction, and added, "'It's super effective.'"
 
"Oh, shut up," Sakki said, mouth folded up neatly again, so she looked rather indistinguishable from a human with a slightly too-lustrous hide.

"'MP3 Monster ran away.'" Underseen piped up, following Cloak's joke.

"Very funny, Under--" Dino started, then looked around.  "Oh, lovely."

"Wait -- where'd Malice and her deluded would-be lover get to?" Cloak said, suddenly aware.

"I thought you told them to get lost," Underseen pointed out.

"I didn't think that they'd actually listen." Cloak admitted.

Little did they know that Malice and Abomination had not fled, not truly.

***

The two Realm Walkers remained within the Prime Universe.  Abomination was confused, but still a little fearful at voicing it.  It would have been funny, considering just how much larger Abomination was to Malice, but, in truth, it was a very sad story.  One that Abomination, despite having the power to change his lot in life, could not bear to undo.

The two stood in a rather damp cave, lit with a green glow.  Not the glow that makes everyone under its influence sing, though, but a natural (although somewhat radioactive-looking) glow.  The cave also appeared to have green-tinged rivers and creeks, and random chasms large enough to throw Optimus Prime into, and have him unable to climb out.

"Um . . ." Abomination said, when he plucked up the nerve an hour or two later, ". . . um . . ."

"Spit it out." Malice said, testily.

"Well -- darling -- why are we here?"

"Use that brain of yours!  It's obvious why we're here!" she snapped, before turning to a certain opening that was empty, except for a large expanse of dry land.  Malice eyed it intensely, while Abomination was still flummoxed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2013, 02:09:32 PM

Just one more.  Maybe.  Short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Brand New Plan

"But . . ."

"Silence!" Malice said, without looking back.  She was gazing at the arrival of the new occupant of the flat expanse -- the MP3 monster, who curlled it's eye stalks (the earbuds and the wire) around it's body with its eyes lying atop it.  The green light filled the air and Malice found herself singing:

"I love this aberration,
An unforeseen complication,
Cause for celebration.
I thnk from where I stand
There is a strong demand
To play my role,
To seize control . . .
This calls for a new plan!
In my most malicious dreams,
My parade of noble schemes,
Swimming fast to extremes,
But I never thought of this.
An unexpected twist,
It simply cannot be missed.
I have to take this stand,
A fate is oh so grand!
To win the day . . .
My power play . . .
It's up to me to step in . . .
And to me this superweapon
And the RAFians
Don't even have a clue!
That they'll be blasted to kalamazoo!
It's big and bold,
The new plan!
And cruel and cold,
My new plan!
This ultimate, crowning, supreme debut
Of my latest, greatest, solidest status.
Brand new plan!"

Abomination looked taken aback by this, as the green energy surge faded.  He hesitated some more before voicing a concern of his with a rather timid tone, "Are you sure that plan is the best, my darling?"

"Of course it is," Malice said waspishly.  "I know what I am doing."

Abomination, however, was given cause to wonder, even though he did not voice it outright, even as Malice began to approach the resting beast, tired from its time skipping.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2013, 02:18:18 PM

Another one, perchance?  Sorry for the brevity of it.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Malicious Power Ballad

Slowly, cautiously, Malice approached the creature.  It knew she was there, as it eyed her wearily, like a coiled serpent.  It unleashed a green puls which prompted Malice into singing, while Abomination became silent.

"Only I, Malice know
How to tame this beast, and so . . .
Won't you listen to my power ballad solo?
My solo . . .
In a world of mediocre minds
Where genius is disssed by ignoramus Walker kinds.
Prepare to be, heh, pleasantly astounded!
Astounded, ohh . . .
I wanna control you.
Want to control you.
I . . . I wanna make you mine.
I wanna conjole you.
Want to conjole you.
An offer that I hop you shan't decline!
I've got an ocean of devotion.
And you're the one for me.
A mutant disaster!
I'll be your master!
And together we'll be
In wonderful wicked harmony!
Like a beautiful, noble destiny!
Livin' large,
In absolute charge
Of RAF and the world, you see!
I've got an ocean of devotion.
And you're the one for me . . .
And you're the one . . .
For me . . . "

The creature blinked, ****ing it's eye stalks in such a way that it appeared to be considering Malice with polite interest.  Abomination began to sincerely doubt this plan, but said nothing, too afraid of being dumped.  Still pityingly unaware of Malice romantic disinterest in him.

Malice began to approach the monster . . . closer . . . closer . . . and it seemed to allow her to span the distance. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 07, 2013, 05:53:49 PM

That's what I thought, but it didn't really make much sense towards the plot besides stating the fact that I wasn't with Cathy. It is a small detail that is easy to forget when writing, so I can't blame you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2013, 10:26:53 AM

Right, Underseen. First one today.  If I've time, I'll probably finish off this book today.  This chapter may feel a little rushed.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
An Unified Assault

The RAFians seemed to have gone one with life for a few hours, although on edge.  They knew the MP3 monster was still there, and knew that it had gotten away.  Cloak passed the time, by benignly praticing the elements, still favoring Earth.  He realized he shouldn't be playing favorites with the elements, but he just felt the closest connection with that element, and the furtherest connection with Fire.
 
Cloak pondered things idly whilst he did this.  He was sure that Malice wasn't done, not while the monster still lived.  She would see that as a source of power, and she lusted over power.  Abomination seemed unaware of this dark tendacy in his chosen mate, but his unfortunate (and spectatively deliberate) obliviousness stemmed into many areas.  Cloak continually found himself unable to hate Abomination for becoming what he has, as the emnity between the two had somehow transformed into pity on Cloak's part.  He knew firsthand what it was like -- being constantly cut down, manipulated, belittled, marginalized . . .
 
No! Cloak scolded himself, as he abruptly stopped his practicing, You mustn't dwell on those unpleasant memories.  No good would come from it.  I am free from her malignant ministrations, her nettling comments, her asperations on my intelli . . . Gah!  I'm doing again!
 
But there was something in the sky that took Cloak's mind off of this horribly negative experiences in his past.  Malice had arrived, riding atop the MP3 monster.  Abomination was there too, though he sat while Malice stood.  Cloak looked at it unsurprised, before alerting the other RAFians, using an aerokinetic pulse to rattle their windows for a few seconds.  He knew they would come out to see what caused such a thing.
 
Malice laughed raucously, and crowed, "Time to die, little RAFian maggots!"
 
Cloak noticed that she wasn't singing -- so clearly she either disabled that function permanently, or had some control over it herself.  But now wasn't the time for idle discussion or musings.
 
"DIE!"
 
The RAFians scattered as the thing fired the green pulse from it's eyes, only Cloak stayed put.  He redirected the shot back at the monster.
 
"DIE!" Malice yelled.
 
"You missed!!" Parker yelled, as Cerulean attempted to wrest Malice away, but Abomination punched him off the monster.  "How could you miss?!  He was fifteen feet in front of you!!"
 
"DIE!" Malice offered.
 
"I wasn't aiming for the monster, Parker." Cloak said, indignant.  Faerie, Gaz, Laserbeak, and Blocky had just failed in their individual aerial attacks and were all shot down -- literally.
 
"DIE!" Malice suggested ever so helpfully.
 
"You first!" Cloak roared, and the roar of a tiger intermingled with his words, as he blasted a jet of his own golden scarlet energy.  Which missed as well.
 
"Hahahahahaha!  DIE!!"
 
Cloak mimicked the movements for a Hadouken, only with a sphere of wind, and Malice barrel-rolled to evade it.  This caused Abomination to fall off the monster and plummet to the ground.  He Walked away mid-air.
 
"DIE!" Malice screamed, beginning to sound more annoying than Flame Hynard.
 
"WILL YOU SHUT THE VEIL UP?!?!" Cloak roared, holding his hands an inch apart, and making a slashing motion down left.  Between his palms a mass of golden scarlet energy amassed, and was flung forward in a large crescent.  Malice managed to upend the monster enough that it passed by harmlessly, with mere inches to spare.  "GATE BURST!!"
 
"DIE!!!" Malice yelled, full voice, filled with eagerness and delight.
 
<Wait,> Noelle said, standing as if she was pushed to her current spot (which she was, given the momentum of her attack, <what if we use the Unity Blast?>
 
"That would seriously deplete our energies," Phoenix pointed out, launching volley after volley of fireballs.
 
"Got any better ideas?" Goom said, a little miffed as there was really nothing a goomba could do in this fight.
 
Phoenix didn't answer, but just sighed heavily.
 
"Do it," Cloak said.  "Just do it and shut her the Veil up!"
 
The RAFians all took their stances, and pointed their Marks at the beast.  They had easily encircled it.
 
"Together, now!" Richard said, as the pulsing white of the Unity Energy bubbled and frothed from his own Mark.  The others followed suit.
 
"You think your little light show scares me?" Malice said, and Cloak was secretly glad that she hadn't just said . . . then she said, "DIE!"

"FIRE!" Richard commanded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2013, 11:30:39 AM

Last one of this book.  No more singing . . . for the rest of this book, anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Interpret and Regret

Many of the beams of Unity Energy lanced from the Marks the RAFians possessed.  From palms -- and from their foreheads for those that did not possess palms, flippers, or whatnot, or if those were rather insubstantial, in Dino's case.
 
Anyway, the beams of Unity Energy blasted forward, merged upon contact with the MP3 monster, striking it completely.  It was too slow to move upward or downward to dodge, and Malice herself never considered this.  She was so certain in this beast's indestructibility, that she laughed at the attack.
 
She stopped when she felt the lurch from her platform, her monster.  The creature let out a rather piteous moan, as the light began to disappate.  About 37% of its body was destroyed, and the light that lit it from within, that was gone.  The creature began to plummet to the ground.  Not straight down, however, but a forty-five degree angle, until it dragged it's belly along the ground, and friction made it stop, leaving about a sixteen foot or so trail behind it.
 
"NO!" Malice roared with fury.  "You cannot be dead!  Get up!"
 
The creature did not comply.  The creature could not comply.
 
"I know you hear me!  Get up!  Obey me, beast!!"
 
Nothing but silence from the motionless creature.
 
"OBEY ME!!!  RISE UP!!!" Malice said, and their was a rather panicky note in her voice.  "I said, 'RISE UP'!!!!!"
 
Cloak strode from the circle the RAFians had made, his cloak swishing in an almost mincing way with each step.  He stopped mere feet away from Malice, who was still trying to order the monster to rise up.  Cloak did not miss the halfhearted tone that her voice began to take on.
 
"It is over, Malice," Cloak said, and his voice was like a sharpened knife to her.  "It's time for you to face your punishments for your misdeeds."
 
"On whose authority?  Yours?" Malice snapped, glaring and glowering at Cloak.
 
"I shall escort you to the Council." Cloak said, with narrowed eyes.
 
Malice glared at him for a moment more, and Cloak seemed to realize what she was planning a second before she act.  He reached for in a snappy movement, but too late.  She already Walked away.
 
"Gate burst!" Cloak cursed loudly.
 

***

Malice had met up with Abomination, who looked thoroughly miffed.
 
"You left me to die," Abomination.
 
"Honey, you know that fall wouldn't have killed you," Malice said, with a simpering, Dolores Umbridge-type of voice.  Abomination looked on with a surly, pouty face.  "Oh, come on, dearest, I would not have left you there.  You know this, right?"
 
Suddenly, Abomination's conviction seemed to falter.  It was all Malice needed.
 
"You see, don't you?  I was under the monster's influence.  I really didn't realize that you'd had gone.  I really do love, you know that right?  I can't live without you . . ."
 
Abomination's conviction seemed to diminish and dwindle with every successive word Malice uttered in that simpering tone, which she subtly changed to a seductive one.  Eventually, Malice conjoled Abomination back into his servile role, without him even being aware of it.  But one must wonder -- how much longer can Malice get away with this without slipping up?
 

***

Cloak sat upon an earthen spire that he constructed himself.  He sat there pondering, and second-guessing his decisions.  Why did he tell Malice what he would do?  Why didn't he just grab her and take her to the Council, to prove that she's still alive?  Why didn't he just . . . do what Avatar did to Boss?

"Cloak?" came a gentle voice.

Cloak ignored it.

"Cloak, don't ignore me, please."

Still Cloak didn't move or speak.  He was feeling rather moody right now, regretting his actions.  Suddenly, he saw a large eye pass in front of his face, which shocked him out of his stupor, that he fell and his spire toppled over.

"I'm sorry I had to do that to you, Cloak," Dino said, shifting back into her more compact form.  Once again, Cloak wondered idly if Dino had some Vaxasaurian DNA.  "But I think you and I must have a talk."

"Why?" Cloak said rather more hostilely than he had intended, but made no real effort to correct this.

"Cloak, you must second-guess yourself like this," Dino said, evenly and calmly.  "You seem to expect yourself to be infalliable, which you are not.  And striving for that is foolishness -- you've said this many times yourself."

"I should have done --"

"No," Dino said, shaking her head slightly.  "No 'should've'-ing.  You did what you did.  You cannot change it."

"Yeah, and thanks to that indecision, Malice lives to blight our lives evermore."

"Cloak," Dino said, "do you think you really have it in you to kill someone?"

Cloak folded his arms against his chest, and did not answer, as he knew the answer.  And he feared that answer made him weak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2013, 12:11:06 PM

We're not even 75% through the books I've planned.  I didn't expect to be so ambitious. . . .  Anyway, shortish introduction chapter.

BOOK XXVI:
Outage Outrage
CHAPTER ONE:
The Emotional Quagmire

Cloak's surly attitude eventually passed, as he continued to post, along with RAFian compatriots.  Soon after the whole musical fiasco, after the remainder of the MP3 monster's body was relocated and buried at a far safer location, RAF returned to it's former state of glorious zaniness.  Horse even said, "The threads are alive with the sound of posting . . ." proceeding to hum "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music".
 
And yet, whenever Cloak found himself alone, he could not help but start to dwell on those matters which bothered himself.  His tumultous past, the decisions he regretted . . . sometimes he couldn't pull himself out of that mire for a few hours at a time.  He did not like this, he thought he was over this baggage.  Granted, the RAFians, for the most part, knew all of these things, and would attempt to help him out of that emotional quagmire.
 
Of course, this led to a sense of guilt, as Cloak knew that they shouldn't have to worry and fret themselves about his past problems.  Unfortunately, these problems had left an indeliable mark on Cloak, one that one does not see with their eyes.  He had some problems with PTSD and such from his rather cruel mother.
 
Cloak clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, as if chasing away these bad memories, these painful experiences.  It worked for the interim, but they would eventually rear there ugly heads again, he knew.  It was when he did this, that he realized that he was being watched . . .
 
He looked around, but he could not see with his eyes or the Earth who or what it was -- if there was even anyone there in the first place.  He shook his head vigorously again.  Now he was getting paranoid.
 
He proceeded to the Bored Board, hoping that Aquilai would be there, so that the two of them would play the Continue Game and the Word Chain.  Perhaps doing something somewhat mindlessly like that would help ease him of the unhelpful thoughts. . . .
 
Little did he know that he WAS being watched by a boy in a tree in the nearby forest.  This wasn't just some ordinary boy, either.  He wasn't human but a young Osmosian, but that wasn't all.  He was also one of the victims of the Darwin Ray that escaped, meaning that he was an evolved Osmosian, though he didn't really look any different on the outside.
 
The boy had shoulder-length black hair, sunken eyes with dark lines around them, and a rather long, athletic build.  He wore a pair of rather rather blocky shoes, pinstriped socks, athletic wristbands, ragged and tore-up jeans, and a black shirt with a white painted skull on it and the sleeves tore off.
 
Even he himself didn't know what attracted him to the forum, but all he knew was he wanted what they had.  Not their humor or fun or levity.  He desired their powers, and he had a plan for obtaining them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2013, 12:12:15 PM

New page.

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• *Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 08, 2013, 06:04:44 PM

goodbye ending, I enjoyed the fight scene and I feel good that Malice is still alive.

The Osmosian looks like Kevin from the original Ben ten.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2013, 06:30:58 PM

Quote from: Underseen on March 08, 2013, 06:04:44 PM

The Osmosian looks like Kevin from the original Ben ten.

Exactly, Underseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 08, 2013, 10:46:22 PM

If he takes my powers will I stay in the form I was in or turn into Polymorphic Slime?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2013, 11:36:29 PM

He'd look exactly the same, only gaining the powers, growing parts when the powers are activated.  Think Ultimate Ben 10000.

Granted, this absorping thing can get out of hand as you will see soon enough . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 09, 2013, 01:39:19 AM

I was talking about myself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2013, 06:45:18 AM

Oh. Well, due to the nature og your powers, you'd be rather slick to touch in the first place. . . .

You'll just have to wait and see. ;)

EDIT:  Added two new book ideas (CXLVI and CXLVII), and sorry that I hadn't posted this sooner -- I just found out recently that I can do the Global Link thing with my White2 game.
 
Now, the dangers of a good deed.

CHAPTER TWO:
No Good Deed . . .*

The Osmosian boy decided to put his plan into action, having managed to steal the powers of a Skrull boy (who was living on the planet legally).  Then, almost vampirically, drained the life force out of the poor creature so that he was quite literally nothing but a bag of skin and bones -- as to keep the poor boy quiet, although such a measure was rather excessive.  But, due to the Darwin Ray, he did not gain just 10% of the power's strength, effectiveness, and potency, he gained 100% of it.  And they did not go away but retained its permanency, and his physical form is not altered to reflect the absorbed power's source, like others, unless it's important and vital to use the ability.
 
Now he had an adequate power to fulfill his desires, his machinations.  And he wasn't even old enough to have grown his horns yet**, although now he was able to grow those horns and back at will.  But he was quite literally indifferent to what this would mean.  He managed to find a huge boulder, and then managed to wiggle a leg beneath it . . .
 

***

Cerulean and Demos were doing some minor patrol in the land between RAF and the nearest city.  The two were rather bored with the whole endeavor, and boredom inevitably leads to carelessness, unfortunately.
 
"Why did we get stuck on patrol duty?" Demos groused.
 
"Quit griping," Cerulean said, zipping here and there.  "We got the duty, so suck it up."
 
"Griping is what demons do best, though," Demos said, stifling a smirk.
 
"Sucks to be you, then," Cerulean said airily.
 
Suddenly, a youthful voice cried, "HELP!  HELP!" and the two RAFians turned to the sound.
 
"Why me?" Demos griped.
 
"Oh, you were bored and you know it," Cerulean pointed out.
 
"That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."
 
"That made no sense."
 
"It wasn't supposed to." Demos said, with a rationalizing tone.
 
Then the two arrived on the scene -- the same scene that the Osmosian boy planted his trap to be trapped under a boulder himself.  Only he did not hold his own appearance -- he had short-cropped blonde hair, stormy gray eyes, was scrawnier and looked to be five years younger than he actually was.  It was obvious that he was using the Skrull's shapeshifting powers to affect a more innocent image of himself.
 
"Hold on, boy, we'll get you out of there." Cerulean said.
 
"Do we have to?" Demos said with a deliberate whine his voice.
 
"YES." Cerulean said, as he reached for the boy's hand, "now blast that boulder away."
 
"You want to melt the human?" Demos asked.
 
"No, of course not, just use a concussive blast of fire," Cerulean said.
 
Demos complied, expecting the melt the boy, unaware that the boy was really in his mid-teens.  But he did not melt the boy as he expected, but did manage to send the boulder tumbling away, which pleased him somewhat, like a young child hitting their father in the groin***.
 
Cerulean touched the boy's hand to help him up, and suddenly felt strange.  Weakened, as if he had the flu.  Demos came over and grabbed the other boy's hand to help him up when he noticed Cerulean's affliction.  Then Demos too felt weakened, drained.  Neither of them understood why.

"Ooooh . . ." Cerulean said woozily, as he held his head.  Neither of the two realized that the Osmosian was gone until he had fled.  Instead of remaining, the two stumped off to RAF -- still retaining their Marks.

***

Meanwhile, a few miles away, in a remote area, the Osmosian returned to his natural form, elating on stealing Cerulean's super-speed and Demos's pyrokinesis and regeneration powers.  But he was disappointed, vastly disappointed, to discover that he hadn't stolen their Marks, not realizing he could easily have get his own by joining the forum.

"I'll just have to steal the powers of a few more of these aliens, of these RAFians," he muttered to himself with a rather insane smile on his face. . . .
 
---
*Reference to the phrase "No good deed goes unpunished".
 
** Read at a Ben 10 wiki that Osmosians need to be a hundred years old to grow the four horns Aggregor has.
 
*** Ever see those kids smile when they do that on "America's Funniest Videos"?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 11, 2013, 10:23:16 AM

He is already basically unstoppable with regeneration and super speed, but also has the skrulls power (which has limits) and he is thinking about getting a mark.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2013, 10:24:19 AM

Once people like him have a taste of power -- they'll always want more.  Like Rachel (the Animorph) once said, power is an addiction.

Second one today, methinks.

CHAPTER THREE:
The New Hero

"I . . . I really don't know." Kelly said, after examining Demos and Cerulean.  She looked completely confused and flummoxed.  "As far as I can tell, aside from momentary weakness, they're both perfectly healthy."
 
"But my speed . . ." Cerulean protested rather meekly.
 
"And my regeneration, I've never had to come into the infirmary before." Demos brooded.  Then he demanded, "Do you know how embarrassing this is for me?!"
 
"Calm down, Demos," Richard said, quietly.  Then he turned to AniDragon, and said, "What about you?  Can you undo this?"
 
"If their powers were being suppressed or negated, sure." AniDragon said, pensively.  "But this isn't suppression or negation, Richard.  This . . . this is something else."
 
"What else?" SuperNate pressed at at once.
 
AniDragon hesitated, as if she did not want to say what she considered, as it may be too horrible to think about.  But she found that she could dawdle no longer.  She sighed and continued, "I cannot bind or amplify what's no longer there."
 
"What's . . ." Phoenix said, appalled.
 
"What's no longer there." AniDragon finished.
 
"What do you mean by that?" Goom said, clearly as alarmed as Goombas can get.
 
"What I mean is," she started, took a deep breath, "that it would appear that the powers are gone."
 
"Gone?!  WHAT DO YOU MEAN GONE?!" Demos demanded.
 
"Calm yourself, Demos, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack!" Kelly scolded.
 
"I CAN'T HAVE A --" Demos roared, before realizing what it meant.  Then he muttered, in a very quiet voice, "Oh, right."
 
"How can they be gone?" Cerulean said, his color quite pallad.
 
"I suspect they've been removed," AniDragon said.  "Transferred, if you will."
 
"It was that little brat." Demos said scathingly.  "I knew I should have melted him!!"
 
"Um, guys?" Underseen said, popping in from the door.  "You might want to turn on the TV -- Channel Thirteen."
 
Richard did as Underseen suggested.  On the screen was a teenager in a rather loud superhero costume of yellows, blacks, and reds.  He obscured his face with an eye mask and orange googles.
 
"Okay, that guy seriously needs some fashion sense," Phoenix said, as the colors were almost too bright to look at directly and clashed horribly with one another.  "What is he doing, anyway?"
 
"He just saved an orphanage from a blazing fire," Richard said, pointing to the screen and a rather shapely woman with flowing hair who was reporting.  "Says his name is 'Syphoon'."
 
That was pronounced "psy-foon".
 
"'Syphoon'?" Super Nate ****ed his head, with an raised eyebrow.  "A combination of 'siphon' and 'typhoon', perchance?"
 
"You think he's the one who did this to us?" Cerulean asked.  "Can't be.  The boy we 'rescued' was between ten and thirteen.  He looks like sixteen, seventeen"
 
"Clearly he must have stolen another's powers before yours," Richard said, shrewdly.
 
<What do we do about it?> said Russell, who remained quiet until now.
 
Richard shut his eyes and he rubbed his chin in a thoughtful manner.  It felt like a full fifteen minutes before his eyes snapped open, and he declared an emergency meeting in the auditorium.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 11, 2013, 10:34:26 AM

Demos without regeneration is like Captain Hammer at the end of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

Well now considering there is a lock down they won't let him join.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2013, 10:41:14 AM

Lock down? :huh:  When did I say there was a lock down? :huh:

Anyway, I don't even know who Captain Hammer is, or who Dr. Horrible or what his sing along blog is.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 11, 2013, 10:43:47 AM

My bad I misinterpreted the last sentence... that tends to happen when I'm tired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2013, 10:45:09 AM

Ah.  Well, I'm tapped out for chapters today.  Rainy day tends to suck out a lot of energy -- I suppose this is what we have pay for having such a nice, warm weekend. . . .

More tomorrow.  Hopefully!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: AniDragon on March 11, 2013, 12:23:23 PM

I enjoy the name Syphoon far more than I probably should.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2013, 08:15:02 AM

Really?  AniDragon, why -- never mind.  Don't wanna know. ;)

Anyway, added a new book "A Journey into Her Past", which will feature Noelle. . . .

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• *Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2013, 09:19:21 AM

First chapter of the day.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Star and the Element's Son

The auditorium was filled with rather rambunctious RAFians, the younger ones seemingly oblivious to the serious of the situation.  But veterans, like Cloak and Estelore, looked far more forlorn and stern.  They were well aware that a meeting would not have been called, much less one that included newbies and lurkers alike, if the situation wasn't at the most dire.
 
Cloak and Estelore were the only ones in the audience that elected to stand instead of sit (with the obvious exception of the Andalites, which don't do the sit thing).  Cloak had folded his arms, and the only movement from him was from his tail tip, which was unseen to everyone, and caused his cloak to undulate a little.  Estelore held herself rather stiffly, held her elbows in her hands, rubbing her left upper arm in a most agitated way, and her face was deliberately blank.
 
Richard approached the podium, as the mods stood behind him, with AniDragon and Kelly flanking either side.  Underseen seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, although his face kept shifting between a variety colors, features and textures in a most distracting way -- and he didn't seem to realize he was doing it.
 
"My fellow RAFians," Richard said, as his voice echoed from speakers spaced ever so often through out the auditorium so every could hear him clearly and he didn't have to shout.  Richard's tone sounded unusually formal and strange, which indirectly told the rest of the RAFians that this was serious stuff.  The smiles vanished at once from the RAFians' faces.
 
Richard continued after this brief pause, "as you may have noticed, there is a new 'hero' stylizing himself as 'Syphoon'.  This man is no hero, as he stole the powers of Demos and Cerulean, leaving them relatively weakened."
 
At the shocked faces at their faces, Richard fell silent as Kelly piped up, "They'll be fine, they're recovering as well as can be expected."
 
"Be that as it may," Richard said, taking the reins of the meeting again, "the fact remains is that all those with powers are now in danger here, if they want to retain their gifts.  If you don't have powers or have technological means to give you abilities --" he gestured in Parker's general direction -- "you'd be safe from Syphoon's power-stealing abilities. . . ."
 
"Power stealing?" Cloak said in a loud whisper.  Then he looked up and addressed the assembled RAFians as a whole, "It seems to me that this 'Syphoon', aside from having a stupid name, may very well be an Osmosian."

"But then his powers would have wore off by now, and Demos and Cerulean would have their abilities back," Underseen pointed out.  He finally stopped the shifting face thing, and his statement put Cloak into a thoughtful silence, when an idea hit him.

"The Darwin Ray . . ." he said, more to himself than anyone else.

"But it was destroyed," Gaz protested.

"Yes," Cloak said, "but we assumed that he just used it on those aliens and RAFians.  Do we really know just how many test subjects he used?  Not all may have been reported. . . ."

That was greeted with a resounding silence, and, with a heavy look, Richard looked at Estelore and Cloak, and said, "And it is with a heavy heart and regretful mind that I must send you, Esty, and you, Cloaky, into exhile."

There was a moment of silence as the sheer ridiculousness of this statement sank in.

"Say what?" Estelore said.

"You heard me," Richard said, very seriously.  "Can you imagine if Syphoon got ahold of your powers?  Adding them to his power collective?  Do realize just how powerful he would become?"

"He can't even touch me!" Cloak protested.

"He has Demos's regenerative powers!!" Richard said, for the first time in recent memory losing his cool.  "Cloak, how do you think we got you away from RAF when Abomination nearly beat you to death?!"

Cloak said nothing, but, after a few moments, with a face of mingled rue and anger, he Walked back to the Nexus.  Estelore turned her back on the RAFfather, and she shot straight through the ceiling and into the vastness of space, leaving a rather conspicuous hole.

"It's for the best," Richard said.  "I hope."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 12, 2013, 09:48:53 AM

Its a good thing that the 2 most powerful members left, but also a bad thing since they were strong leaders

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2013, 10:36:21 AM

A lot of things happen that way, IRL, though, Underseen.  Besides, Estelore and I may not STAY away. . . . ;)

First chapter today, and may be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Victims

"We need to fortify the defenses," Parker said, breaking the silence that followed after Richard's dismissal of two of the most powerful RAFians.  "He may portray himself as a hero and a savior, but that won't stop him from coming after us."
 
"And how much defenses can we shore up if he decides to come?" Underseen asked earnestly.  "He can narrowly outspeed a Kineceleran and a Citrakayah with Cerulean's power!"
 
"That does not mean we give up so easily," Richard said, coolly.  Then he turned to Parker, with an air of it not being his best judgement, "Take a contingent of RAFians to increase the potency and impregnability of our defenses."
 
"Right!" Parker said, with an rather over-the-top salute.  Then he turned to the audience and said, "Horse, Gaz, Blaze, Ash, and Yarin.  Let's go."
 
"But I urge you all to be careful," Phoenix intoned warningly.  "Syphoon could show up anywhere, any place."
 
"Ah, so long as there's no pressure." Gaz sighed.
 
Blaze said nothing, but kept his sword sheathed, and moved out with the others.
 
"Richard, I have a bad feeling about this," Super Nate confessed.
 
"So do I, Nate," Richard admitted, "so do I."
 

***

The RAFians worked fast and diligently to fortify their protective shielding and improving the extendable wall around their forum.  But, as Underseen predicted so clearly, Syphoon appeared, but hid and watched them work.  Yarin and Parker went inside the forum to work on the controls within, leaving the other four outside.  Rather exposed.
 
Syphoon stole his opportunity to nab Horse and quickly siphon off her powers of hydrokinesis and cryokinesis, and speed away.  But he apparently took something more without realizing it. . . .
 
"Horse!" Blaze exclaimed.  "Horse, what happened?"

Horse only made seal noises and seemed thoroughly upset about it.  She tried to convey what she wanted to say, but failed again.  She lost her power of speech!!
 
"I don't understand you, Horse." Blaze said, seemingly not wanting to accept what happened.  "What happened."
 
"It's bloody obvious what happened," Gaz said heatedly.  "Syphoon's here somewhere and he not only stole Horse's powers, but her ability to talk!!"
 
"What?  Why?" Ash said, nonplussed, "That wasn't a special power!"
 
Horse gave Ash a very ugly look, as Gaz interpreted correctly, "It is for seals."
 
"We have to get out of -- ack!!" Blaze said, as his muscles suddenly tensed and he dropped his sword.  He quickly scooped up his sword -- but his wings and pyrokinesis were gone.  Blaze was thoroughly ticked, "He already had pyrokinesis!  Why pick on me!!"
 
"Your wings, Blaze.  They're --" Ash said, as Gaz started pounding on the wall.
 
Blaze felt his back, and shouted, "THAT BASTARD!!"
 
But Ash and Gaz were soon next, both drained of special abilities.  Gaz's fangs were gone and Ash looked like an average girl, although her Mark clashed violently with her clothing.
 
"Oh no . . ." Gaz said.  "Laserbeak!  Beaky!"
 
The Cybertronian parrot came over to them and took them into the forum, as the force field went back up again.  They were unaware of a strange orangish, blackish, reddish mist filtering into the forum seconds before the force field. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 13, 2013, 10:43:26 AM

Horse can't even use sign language with her lack of fingers. Now syphoon is almost an avatar considering all he needs now is earth and air.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2013, 10:48:28 AM

There's still Mithril and . . . and . . . and . . . uh . . . There isn't an aerokinetic RAFian (other than me) is there?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 13, 2013, 10:52:47 AM

*checks species log*

You're the only aerokinetic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2013, 10:58:42 AM

Thought so.

*Goes back to work on Chapter Six.*

Second chapter today.  Bit short.

CHAPTER SIX:
Power Hungry

Unbeknowst to the other RAFians, the mist curled and swirled along the perimeter of the forum, as if it was casing the place.  For a robbery, for a fight, who knew?  But one thing was clear, this mist wasn't any ordinary mist.  It had intelligence and sentience, as it made sure to keep its distance from Gaz, as if it recognized the fact that it itself might be recognized.

Eventually, in an unobtrusive corner of the forum, one that had the musty smell of disuse, the mist collected and coalesced into a roughly humanoid form.  The clothing materialized as well, although it was spandex . . .

Syphoon smiled in the darkness.  He wasn't sure that the test of that newly-acquired vampire power would work, but his hunger for powers was not satiated -- not by a long shot, but he would take enjoyment out of stealing these RAFian's powers.  He was also determined to steal their Marks, which still confunded him that he was unable to do it.  His desire for these Marks was dubious, but it would seem that he still just craved the powers that they afforded him, still unaware what Unity energy would do to him.  What it would do to him considering he was an energy addict before being affected by the Darwin Ray.

He sat and hid for a while, planning on just who his next victim would be.  Had he'd been in the right frame of mind, and had he not been thinking so loudly, things may have turned out differently.  But the events happened to occur in his favor, as Yarin, instead of doing the prudent thing and raise the alarm, decided to investigate this himself.  Alone.

And so that's how Syphoon obtained telepathy, although it took him about two hours to learn how to control it.  Unfortunately, Phoenix came to look for Yarin, and when he found him, Phoenix was involuntarily stripped of his powers, which Psyphoon already added to his vast bank of powers.  It was the hunger for powers that drove him to take Phoenix's, as it would have been rather redundant to take them otherwise.

Smiling to himself, he made himself into a bat with black wings and an orange body, and he flew to the deepest bowels of RAF.  It was now clear what his motive was, but how he knew of it was in question . . . until one considers that he had stolen Yarin's telepathy, and most RAFians aren't very guarded with their thoughts.

He was at the door that housed the cage, the prison of one of the most vile creatures in existence, second to only one species*.  He would open these doors, and do something that he would have regretted, had he any mind outside this power addiction of his.  The RAFians realized too late where he was and what he planned on doing, and they dashed to stop him.

"STOP!" Parker screamed as he was the first to make it to Pootang's subterranean paddock.  Psyphoon already had the doors opened, and, with a roar, the Pootang lunged at him, with gnashing fangs.

"You're too late," Syphoon said, quietly, as he held Pootang by the throat and immediately began to absorb it's powers.  The Pootang soon loss all its color and became grayscale -- still alive, but barely.  Syphoon was now unstoppable. . . .

---
*Namely, Toepick's species.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 13, 2013, 11:35:11 AM

Well although Parker has enhanced strength, reflexes, and speed he is in pretty powerful armor that Syphoon may not be able to get past.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2013, 11:39:06 AM

That's rather apt, Underseen.

Parker, in this narrative anyway, seems to rely on technological weaponry rather than natural powers.  Granted, Syphoon considers those without powers or "powerless" as useless and not worth notice.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 13, 2013, 12:40:41 PM

Yikes! Stripped of my fangs. That can make a vampire feel naked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2013, 09:36:50 AM

It's about to get worse, Gaz.

First chapter today.  Probably a bit short.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Resistance is Futile

Hidden by his helmet and visor, Parker's shocked expression went unnoticed, although the other RAFians mirrored it.  Pootang layed there upon the ground, except for the odd twitch, it laid there motionless, eyes shut.  It was odd to see the beast look so weak, old, and powerless.
 
"But," Syphoon said, a malicious grin upon his face now, although his voice seemed to be a bit higher and lost some of its humanity, though he still retained a humanoid form.  "Unfortunately for you and your little friends -- I am still HUNGRY!!"
 
"Run!" Parker told the others as he turned his twin fusion cannons at the monstrous Super Osmosian, without any real conviction that he would be able to do any real lasting damage to him.  While he still looked like a teenage Osmosian, Syphoon's real horror came from the terror-inspiring, unseen dark aura that he casted, quite unintentionally around himself.
 
Soon enough, only Parker, Sakki, Oceanspray, and Rocklobster remained to hold off the monster, hoping futilely to contain the beast.  They did not delude themselves into believing that they could destroy it . . . if they only knew, if they only realized, if they only had time to consider.
 
Syphoon thundered up the stairs and seized Parker's wrist.  With smile and reckless abandon, he attempted to absorb Parker's powers, not really thinking and not realizing that Parker wasn't a robot but a person in a armored suit.  His attempt only succeeded in giving Syphoon a material shell of the substance of Parker's armor.  Syphoon didn't look very happy at this.

"What's this?!" he snarled.  "Where are your powers, robot?!"

"Robot'?" Parker spat with a remarkable amount of dignity.  "I am a SPARTAN, sir.  I am NOT a robot!"

"You are worthless," Syphoon said, grabbing Parker's wrist again, and using Pootang's strength, threw the SPARTAN over his shoulder as if Parker was nothing more than a handkerchief.  He landed with a resounding THUD, and wasn't seen any more.  Of course, that didn't mean he was dead.

Syphoon then seized Sakki by the throat, and found that he couldn't absorb her powers either.  Then Sakki recieved the same treatment as Parker, as if Syphoon considered her existance pointless.  Then he did the same to Oceanspray, to the same effect.  Rocklobster was prohibited by his programming from fighting back, and Syphoon could not absorb his holographic projectors, so he literally threw him away, and entered RAF.  Entered the forum to feed again, not caring that the four were stirring at the bottom of the staircase.  He considered them meaningless, and did not consider them threats, which Parker took as a personal insult.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 14, 2013, 10:21:54 AM

Well that was a big mistake on Syphoon's part, but seeing that they did no damage to him makes it a smaller mistake.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2013, 12:51:32 PM

Maybe, Underseen, but remember, he's now being very one-minded about his goal, arbitrarily dismissing and overlooking what he shouldn't, if he wasn't really being consumed with this power obsession of his.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Addictions and Contingencies

Syphoon strolled out into the dull, dawning light that was already prevalent in the forum by this time.  The night had come and past, and Syphoon was displeased (but not altogether unsurprised) that RAF was barren.  Even a tumbleweed bounced and rolled along before Syphoon, who, with narrowed eyes, incinerated it with a glance.  He had a vast array of powers, but he still lacked the power that all RAFians had but he apparently could not suck or drain away from them.
 
But why?  Why was he unable to?  He was so much more than other Osmosians before he absorbed these powers, before he was hit by that ray!  All the powers these worthless insects had belonged to him.  All for him!!  But, deep down inside, he knew that those powers would not satiate this gnawing hunger, this unbearable thirst, this intractable desire for power.  Part of him knew that this desire would never be able to be satisfied, and he'd seek more and more and more powers.  He knew that this was an addiction, and instead of making excuses, trying to suppress it, or denying its existence, he instead chose to embrace it with full gusto.
 
So, he put his mind to the task at hand.  The RAFians decided to flee and he had no idea where they were headed to.  He may have been able to absorb energy, material, and powers, but he cannot absorb the intangibles of memory and thought.  He shrugged off the annoyance he felt at that, he would rectify that shortcoming soon enough.  Granted he had no idea how, or even why he desire such a thing, but he planned on thinking about that for the future . . . when he controlled all that is, and had every power conceivable.

In the meantime, he decided that he would enjoy the hunt. . . .

***

Meanwhile, back at the Knothole Village-esque fallback bunker, Richard had arrived.  Only Esplin and SuperNate were there before him.

"Anyone else here?"

"Just us." SuperNate replied heavily, gesturing to the depowered.  "It's just us here."

<The perimeter is secured,> Esplin said, then added rather harshly, <as if it matters.  That Osmosian boy could penetrate it with ease.  We're as helpless here as we are anywhere.>

"We should make our stand here," SuperNate said.

<Stand?> Esplin said, in nearly a sneer, dripping with Andalite and Yeerk arrogance, <Our stand?  Nate, how do you honestly expect us to stand up to that boy?>

"We cannot simply do nothing, and sit here to await our own destruction."

"You should really write greeting cards," Goom said, popping out from Richard's pack.  The group assembled turned on Goom and made sure that it was him, eventually ending with Yarin pointing out that Syphoon had his telepathy, so any answers they give would be immediately the right ones.

"Yes," Richard agreed, "had we been thinking of the right answers."

"Where's everyone else?" Gaz wondered, she looked far paler than usual.  She was apparently experiencing some power withdrawl of some sort.

"Dunno," Goom said, "we had to leave in rather a hurry."

"With luck, Parker and the others were enough to delay him." Blaze said.

<Not likely,> Esplin said, cutting through that theory, <Who knows how many powers he's already absorbed by now?  Perhaps an armada of Incursions or a space faring fleet of Pool ships would be sufficient to stop him.>

"Little extreme, don't you think?" Ash said.

"Be that as it may," Richard said, and there was a weariness to his voice, "we must form a plan, and a contingency plan.  We may have to take extreme measures."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 14, 2013, 02:30:00 PM

This guy really has us scarred of him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2013, 11:20:20 AM

Underseen, you mean "scared", right?

If that's the case, then, in answer to your question, well, yes, but just wait until the later chapters. . . . Which will have at least one up on Monday.

EDIT: Whoa.  One hundred pages!  If memory serves, that's more than "RAFize Songs" thread!

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• *Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 16, 2013, 04:36:09 PM

Yeah I meant scared, this is what happens when I use touchscreens when I'm tired.

Kudos on the 100 pages.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2013, 09:58:09 PM

Yeah, I noticed that myself when I used an iPad.

And thanks.  On to 200 pages!  I certainly have sufficient ideas for it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 16, 2013, 10:04:33 PM

Its weird because the books I look forward to are the out-of-continuity books and the books about characters pasts because they tend to be the most original. Like the First Master an The Last RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2013, 08:11:45 AM

Ironically, the ones that I am rather free to be as, uh, merciless with deaths with.

And you can expect at least two or three more books that delve into character's pasts . . . a little.

EDIT:  Now for an actual chapter.  Now, you'll see just why this Syphoon and his addiction is REALLY scary, Underseen. . . .

CHAPTER NINE:
Feeding An Addiction

While the old bunker held some RAFians, not all were lucky enough to make it there.  Underseen was immediately chased by Syphoon, unable to hide his plethora of thoughts, after he "fed" and feasted on the powers of a male Loboan, male Thep Khufan, and male Transylian.
 
Naturally, Underseen fled from this fight, attempting to hide in plain sight, as a variety of objects, creatures and materials.  But it did not occur to him to disguise his thoughts until he was physically exhausted.  He attempted to hide as a punkish teenager, his mind too tired to think of something more ornate.  It was that tired mind that actually narrowly saved him.  Syphoon, unable to decipher Underseen's muddled mind, dismissed him as another useless, powerless, human.
 
Underseen did not look a gift horse in the mouth, and he made his way to the bunker, collapsing into an opaque goo when crossing the threshold.
 
"Ew," Gaz remarked, upon seeing this.
 

***

Syphoon gave up his search for Underseen fairly easily, as he hungered for more power, and it was the type of hunger that simply could not be denied.  So Syphoon sought out, easily overpowered, and fed from an Orishan, an Amperi, a Talpaedan, a Geochelone Aerio, a law-abiding Prypiatosian-B, and a Merlinisapien.  Not only their powers this time, but their lifeforce as well.  His appetite abated for a time, but Syphoon's absorbing addiction was starting to take a disasterous turn.  He was quickly becoming a sort of pan-vampyra -- a vampiric creature that needs to feed on everything.
 
And he didn't seem to realize he was quickly losing his rational mind to this addiction. . . .
 

***

Dino was rather in a panic.  She was in her compacted form, although she was still large enough to be quite noticeable.  She was all too aware of this.  She had to find a safe spot from Syphoon, as she already knew that he'd already gotten EvilPinkDragon and Shock.  What she didn't know, however, was that the Mark somehow prevented Syphoon from sucking their life force out entirely -- he hadn't absorbed a dementor, because he didn't know their existence.
 
BOOM!

In an explosive infusion of fire and sand, Syphoon appeared in front of her with a rather sinister, hungry smile on his face.  Dino was trapped, cornered.  But she would not go down so easily.  She struck with her tail!

Missed.  By a wide margin.

She lashed out with her teeth, and missed.  Syphoon rather deftly placed his hand on her pebbly neck and it was as if the color was draining out of Dino, not only taking her power, but taking a bulk of her life force.

And in the bunker, the other RAFians writhed a little, able to feel some small portion of what Dino felt, as if her Mark was reaching out to the others, telling them what happened.  Even in the vastness of space, and on the fringes of the Nexus, it was felt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2013, 09:43:30 AM

Time for a second one today, I think.  Probably gonna be a short one.

CHAPTER TEN:
Estelore and Cloak At Bay

Estelore meandered somewhere between the Andromeda galaxy and Omicron Persei, she wasn't really paying attention where she was.  She was only present enough to prevent collisions with other, albeit nonsentient, stars.  Her mind was really full.  She, like Cloak, didn't like being expelled and suspended from RAF.  She understood Richard's motivations, but she didn't have to like it just the same.
 
She moodily watched as a star a fair distance away go supernova and collapse in on itself.  She bowed her proverbial head in respect for the old one's death, and after a few minutes, moved on.  She continued to brood on her situation, then she felt the twinges of pain.
 
She was so alarmed she turned and looked around, as if someone would harm her.  It was a few moments before she realized that the pain was not coming from anywhere else but . . . but her Mark.  She knew this meant her friends were in grave peril, but what should she do?  What if she rode in to the rescue and Syphoon absorbed her powers. making everything infinitely worse?  But could she really sit here, proverbally speaking, and do nothing?
 
Estelore looked around, scaring herself momentarily, as she initially thought she didn't know where she was.  But she got her bearings back, and looked in the direction of Earth, with feelings of longing tugging at her and indecision overwhelming her.
 

***

"Wha, we're not good enough for you, Mister Cloak?" came a sneer from a piglet Realm Walker.  Cloak ignored him.  He was just an arrogant little brat who, like most his age, thought he knew everything.
 
Cloak stood on the fringes of the Realm Walker city, arms folded, looking out into the fluid columns that snaked and twisted alongside a rather ample pier*.  But, Cloak looked specifically at the largest one, the one that seemed to have others branching off of it.  They were not alternative timelines, but alternative universes, such as the Harry Potter, Animorph, and Sonic universe.  This was the Prime Universe, the Realm that had become Cloak's home.  As such, Cloak considered himself effectively homeless at the moment, as he simply WOULD NOT go back . . . back to that dilapidated mess of a house that he was effectively imprisoned at for so many years.  Shadow and his grandfather was all that really helped him keep his sanity in that Veil-pit**.

"I'm talking to you!" the piglet Realm Walker insisted.

"Go home," Cloak said in a very hostile and surly manner.

"You don't tell me what --"

Cloak whirled at him and said, anger in his face, "You can go home of your own accord and volation or I can send you there as a flying piglet!!"

"Mommy!!  Daddy!!" the piglet squealed as it ran home to his parents.

Cloak was well aware he might have to deal with the angry parents, who if were any kinds of parents would have told their little Brat that it wasn't proper to annoy people with deliberately loaded words and statements.  Cloak didn't care.  He didn't care if the Brat's parents would scold him for what he did.  If they did, Cloak knew his retort.  But, as it turned out, he didn't even need it.

Cloak felt the twinges of writhing pain in his Mark, and he knew his friends, his makeshift family, were in trouble.  He also knew there wasn't one blasted thing he could do to help without making everything worse!!  He glared at his Mark angrily, as if it was it's fault that he was condemned to be back here, so near the place he despised.

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, calming down with each successive breath.  It was pointless to be angry at the things outside his control.  A waste of energy and thought.  But he did not release the yearning he had, the yearning to return.

---
*Bit of a retcon, I know.  Unless, of course, you've never read "Intro Randomness", then never mind! ;)

** Realm Walker for "hellhole".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2013, 10:15:07 AM

Got time and energy for a third chapter.  Might be a bit of a short chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Strain of Leadership

Meanwhile, back at the bunker, Goom was tabulating the arrivals and the recovered drained RAFians.  Some where still missing, like Shock, Parker, and Blue.  Goom was frowning, and sighing heavily at the casualties.  At least he had Kelly's timely assistance with such a monumental task.

Richard and his mods surveyed every one, lined up, being cared for, as best as the circumstances would allow.  Fortunately, Underseen rested enough to coalesced back into a recognizable humanoid form.  But he was still of that gooy, opaque substance.  Richard supposed with more rest, Underseen would return to color.

"Richard," SuperNate said, "we're, at best, just surviving.  We must be proactive in order to end this threat."

<Why must we be the ones to end it?> Esplin countered.  <We did not create this mess.>

"That may be true," Phoenix said, leaning on a crutch, "but we are the only ones that are equiped to stop it."

<"We?> Esplin said.  <You haven't any powers, Phoenix.  You're safe from Syphoon now.  He has no interest in vecols.>

"I am not a vecol!!" Phoenix protested most ardently.

"Enough!" Richard snapped.  The two stopped immediately, Richard hardly ever snaps.  "I know we're just surviving, and barely, at that!  We haven't any other choice!  We haven't the strength to go up against that monster, and it's just a matter of time before powers and life forces will not satiate him any longer!!"

"Richard --" SuperNate said, rather hesitantly.

"Don't," Richard said.  "I haven't a clue what to do from here, other than survive.  I haven't an idea how do defeat Syphoon, certainly not before he absorbs all that is!"

He took a deep breath, and said, "We may very well be facing universe-wide armaggedon."

"Richard?  Am I interrupting something?" Goom said, who was inexplicably holding a clipboard.

"Not anymore, I think," Richard said wearily, as a man who bore the weight not of the world, but of the universe upon his shoulders.  "What is it?"

"My initial assessment shows that, of the RAFians returned here, approximately eleven percent have been depowered," Goom said, checking his clipboard.

"Great," Richard said, hand rubbing the back of his neck, "and the bad news?"

"There are still roughly twenty-seven of RAFians that are unarrived, or missing."

"Lovely," Phoenix said, heavily.

"Is that all?" Richard asked, looking rather old.

"That is all," Goom confirmed.

"Okay, go onto your rounds, then," Richard said.

"Right," Goom said, as he left.

"Nothing can ever be easy, can't it?" Richard muttered to himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2013, 10:40:29 AM

Now, a fourth chapter.  Yes, a fourth chapter today, may be quite short.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Syphoon Loses His Mind

Meanwhile, while that drama was going on in the fallback bunker, Syphoon had lost his appetite for just powers and life force.  Now he desireds something more substantial, more tangible.  He happened to be back at the abandoned forum, and he dug his fingers into the Bored Board building and absorbed it in its entirety.  But his body did not remain the same, a miniscule replica of the building appeared on his back in a hump.  But the one building was not enough to satiate this strange appetite, as he then went for the hanger, and absorbed it into his being.  Then one hump became two.

Then he saw Yarin's ship.  He touched it and absorbed it into his being were it replaced his left arm with a smaller replica, with all its weapons at his command.  Then he heard something, a rustle and a twig snap.  He whirled around and saw that it was Parker who was attempting to shoot him in the back.

Syphoon, unwittingly was losing his complex thinking and rational thought, and slowly losing his sentience, as well.  Soon enough he'd just become a horrid beast with no real mind of his own anymore.  He stalked over to Parker and in a swift manuever he overpowered the SPARTAN . . . and absorbed his armor into himself.

Suffice it to say, this left Parker rather, uh, exposed.  Syphoon didn't care, as he put a hand that had no flesh sticking out of it anymore, and absorbed the bulk of Parker's life force.  Leaving him barely conscious, the Syphoon beast -- as he wasn't really a man anymore -- proceeded absorb the rest of the forum.

After a few hours, the entire forum was gone, and Syphoon did not look remotely human anymore.  He looked very much like if Ultimate Kevin Levin was merged with the Peacemaker robot from that "Astro Boy" movie.  He had long since lost any humanity he once possessed.

Then Syphoon looked up toward the city and the Bannedlands, and went off in a loping stride, very much like a beast, toward the Bannedlands and the unsuspecting Banned, saying, "More, more, more, more, more, more . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2013, 12:23:51 PM

Probably gonna be the last chapter today, and be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Viewing Globe* and Unpleasant News

"What the bloody hell was that about?" Phoenix said when he caught his voice.
 
They had been watching Syphoon's actions through a round, normally- globe on a rather roughly hewn pedestal.  The mods had gathered around it as if it was some sort of ludicrous television set.

<I certainly hope that was one of those 'television programs' humans like so very much,> Esplin said, drily.

"You know very well it wasn't," Phoenix said acidly.

"Enough, you two," Richard said.

"It's obvious what it was about though," SuperNate said, hand on his chin, rubbing it thoughtfully.  "It would see Syphoon's hunger has transcended powers and life force.  He would appear to require literally require material, directly absorbing it."

"It is as I feared." Richard said, rather morbidly.  "If left unchecked, we won't have a planet to stand on."

"What do we do?" Phoenix asked.

<What can we do?> Esplin queried.  <It is a strange phenomena.  The Osmosian boy seems to have absorbed enough powers and material to be slowly but steady losing his sentience.  He is nothing but a beast now, in mind and body.  He knows just hunger and how to satiate it.>

"And our span of doing something amounts to really nothing." SuperNate added, rather bitterly.  "It's barely enough that we survive.  Should this beast discover this bunker . . ."

He needn't finish the thought.

<There is one option,> Esplin suggested.

"No," Richard said firmly.  "It's too dangerous.  They must stay away, as long as it remains Earth-bound --"

<And, may I ask, how long until he's not?> Esplin pointed out.

Richard did not answer.  He shut his eyes, and let out a heavy, weary breath.  "Gather the other RAFians.  They deserve a say in this."

Then, with another weary exhalation, he said, "And send a team to get Parker, as well."

---
*Anyone get this reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2013, 12:57:44 PM

Okay, maybe one more if I've the time, and energy.  And I do.  Here, gonna be a bit short.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Restless RAFians

Back at the Universal Nexus, Cloak had stopped standing rigidly, watching the udulating Prime Universe.  He had taken to pacing the land before the pier, like a bored tiger at a zoo.  His eyes remained mostly locked on the universe, however.  He didn't like being back here on a long basis.
 
He was mostly a pariah in his home world, as most everyone was now aware of his preference of living in the Prime Universe.  Granted, they think that it is him snubbing them, instead of the truth.  He had ran to the universe to escape his overbearing mother.  He had turned to his RAFian friends for emotional support when his mother gave him none and had ran his father off.  It was reasonably tolerable when his grandfather was alive.  But when he died . . . everything fell apart.  His mother cared more of her image than she did of him, incapable of admitting fault or flaw.

He had escaped.  He had escaped to RAF.  Granted, there had been hard times, but nothing like what he had to endure under his mother's reign of constant criticisms and belittlement.  She was a narcissist, an egotist.  And he knew that she'd never be cured of it.

Cloak shook his head roughly.  He shouldn't be thinking like this.  He shouldn't be remembering those painful times.  It would do him no good in the long run to dwell on such things, on such painful recollections.

ARGH!  If he could only go back!!  RAF always has a way of providing a nice distraction, a way of relaxing, of venting.  He wanted so much to go back to his friends, to help.  But good sense said that would be pointless.  He could wind up doing far more harm than good.  If Syphoon got his powers . . .

Cloak stopped, continuing to stare at the Prime Universe, lovingly and longingly.  Then he transfered his gaze down to his hand, where his Mark lay.  It was then that a thought occurred to him.  There is always a threshold for things . . . but how to tell his friends?  How to tell them without potentially risking their lives?

***

Knock it off, you little brat! Estelore scolded a smaller and younger sentient star by the plainer name of Fred.  Go away before I go supernova on your nonexistent butt!!

The smaller, bluer star fled laughing a laugh that only those of a stellar persuasion could understand.  The little thing had been bothering Estelore endlessly, after he discovered that she was another sentient star as he was, and while she was in a fit of indecision at whether or not return to RAF.

She fumed at little at the younger star's impertinence and immaturity, but in the end decided that she had more important things to be concerned with.  Little did she know this wasn't the last she would see of Fred.

Estelore stood on the precipice of deciding whether or not to go.  She was as hesitant as Cloak to act, and it was as if the other knew each other's anxiety and longing.

But the decision had been made. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 18, 2013, 05:09:11 PM

Wow Syphoon is a menace, not only did he chase me down until I could barely hold form, but he absorbed the vehicles in the hanger and became kinda like a transformer. The power rangers reference brought me back and why does an annoying 'star' name Fred sound so familiar?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2013, 08:37:14 PM

Actually, Underseen, when I was a young child and something inexplicable happened, my mpm would blame a fictitious ghost called Fred.  This was LONG before that obnoxious YouTube "star" came into being.

Anyway, I read the first chapter of Book I to the class today, and it was met with rather flattering praise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 18, 2013, 09:00:59 PM

Well with all the animorph references in chapter 1 either they are fans or you explained the parts you needed to explain.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 05:04:28 AM

The latter, Underseen.

Now, a new chapter.  Short, though.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Syphoon's Rampage Truly Begins

Syphoon, little more than the animal, prowled the forum to see if it could discover anymore stragglers.  Unfortunately, he was successful.
 
Helen and Sam had gone back over to the forum at Helen's insistence to find and save Parker, unaware that the other RAFians found him, Sakki, Oceanspray and Rocklobster and took them back to the fallback bunker to revive.  But she was so insistent and persuasive in her plight, her desperation to find her love.  Sam was prone to pity her in her endeavor and agreed to help her in her pursuit of her boyfriend.
 
However, in doing so, the two placed themselves in rather serious jeopardy.  They were aware of the threat of Syphoon, but believed his powers were over-hyped.  They did not know about his latest transformation, his loss of sentience.
 
The attack came so swift that the two never realized what happened until it was over.  Both their respective rings were sucked dry, and they reverted back to their "street clothes" versions.
 
"What happened?  I just charged this thing!" Sam cried out.
 
"As did I," Helen echoed the sentiment.
 
Then the two were knocked out by the beast, who saw that, without their rings, that they had no powers.  So, it dismissed them as a predator would dismiss rancid meat.  Then it stalked toward the city, still hungry for powers, lifeforce, and material.  Fortunately, it had not occurred to it to start absorbing the planet itself, so the RAFians still had time, albeit very little, to figure out what to do.
 

***

"Oh, what now?" Richard said, wiping his face with his hand.

"It is Helen and Sam, Richard," Phoenix said, "they've been found.  The team is bring them along with the other four back here."

<With luck, they won't be sighted by the monster,> Esplin said.

"Well, that was certainly cheery, Esplin," SuperNate said, dryly, "Start writing greeting cards yet?"

"Enough," Richard said, wearily.  "We have to go to the others and make a plan, construct a countermeasure, if that's even possible."

"Don't give up hope just yet, Richard," SuperNate said, bracingly.  "Things will be alright in the end."

Richard gave SuperNate a sideways look of slight disbelief.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 09:31:07 AM

Another new chapter, albeit short.  Hopefully, I've the time to post it. . . .

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Forgotten Power

Richard gathered the RAFians that were survivors and those that were still conscious enough and that both Kelly and Goom signed off as being well enough to sit in this council of war.  Kelly would continue the rounds to the patients while Goom would sit in on the assembly.
 
"This cannot continue," Yarin said, "with our powers that creature is truly dangerous."
 
<That is obvious,> Esplin said, heavily.  <But there seems to be no way to destroy the beast.  It's a matter of time before the Earth becomes its newest snack.>
 
"But it would destroy itself in doing so," Gaz said, looking perplexed.  "It surely hasn't absorbed the powers that would allow it to survive in the vacuum of space?"
 
"It absorbed the powers of a Transylian, I believe," Underseen said.  His color was returning far too slowly, so that he looked pretty much a talking Peep right now without the powered sugar.  "If I remember right, Transylians can survived the vacuum of space."
 
"Not to mention he absorbed the energy from Sam and Helen's respective rings," SuperNate pointed out.  "Granted, I don't think Helen's Star Sapphire ring would be useful to him at all -- it is clear that he doesn't feel love at all -- but Sam's ring is powered by will, and I don't think it's a stretch to believe that the creature he became to be willful at all."
 
"So, all in all, good news?" Blaze said, rather sardonically.
 
"This isn't a joke, Blaze," Richard said, unusually stiffly.
 
"I know it isn't a joke, Richard," Blaze countered.  "But some levity can help take off some of the burden, otherwise it would seem too heavy and crush us all."
 
"Be that as it may," Phoenix said, brushing this aside, "our problem remains.  I don't know what we can do.  All I know is the only think he didn't take from me was my Mark."
 
"Me too," Demos agreed.
 
"Make that three," Cerulean said, showing his.
 
"All the RAFians retained their Marks," Goom said, conversationally, as if this was common knowledge.
 
"What?" Richard said, perking up, "Why didn't you say anything?"
 
"I thought it was obvious," Goom said, glancing down at the clipboard he was inexplicably holding again along with a pen he was inexplicably holding. "But that brings to mind a question.  Has anyone used any Unity energy against this thing?"

A resounding silence greeted these words.  He looked up from his clipboard, and it seemed almost strange that he wasn't wearing a pair of librarian glasses to glance over.  Then he somehow capped his pen, and addressed everyone.

"Should I assume that was a definite 'no', then?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 11:48:48 AM

Yet another new chapter.  Maybe a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Giant, Monstrous Pain

Meanwhile, Syphoon did not waste any time.  He absorbed an elementary school building into his body, indifferent to any injuries or deaths he might have caused.  He simply did not care about anything but this gnawing hunger of his.  Powers and lifeforce did not compare to how the material satiated his appetite.  But, alas, the appetite is not satiated for long, as he went to look for more things to absorb.
 
He settled upon a fire station, and he absorbed it in a thrice, leaving the city vulnerable to fires without their fire house . . . or fire engines, which was next on Syphoon's menu. . . .
 
Naturally, the police were called, but did not find Syphoon at the fire house location, for he decided to nosh on a indoor pool, ignoring the screams of terror.  Ignoring the spark of lifeforce that each had.  A thousand would not satiate his hunger like material would right now.
 
When the police finally could react to the pool place, Syphoon had already walked to an arboretum, and began to suck the building, objects and even the plants into nothingness, as his size grew even bigger.  By the time the police responded to this, Syphoon was long gone, and due to his shapeshifting power he could go unnoticed . . . had he had the sentience and complexity of thought to use it.
 
He feasted upon a power generator and the building that housed it.  Then he went and fed on tunneling equipment, a water purification plant, a butterfly sactuary, a fighter jet, an old church, a ice cream parlor, a library, an old passenger airplane, several quarry machinery, a performing arts school, a school for the blind, and a smelting plant.  And still his hunger had not abated.

When the police finally caught up to him, he looked more like the final design of the Peacekeeper robot in that movie, "Astro Boy", and less like Ultimate Kevin.  Though trying most valiantly, there was virtually nothing that the police could do about Syphoon.  His looks differed so drastically from the "hero" that they recognized that no one realized that the "heroic" Syphoon and this monster was one and the same.

The monster was now at a monstrous size, a size rather rivaling Godzilla or any Megazord.  Although he had various bits and peaces of all the buildings he absorbed all over his body, he was generally broad-shouldered, with arms and hands far thicker than his trunk -- a Conkeldurr build, in another words.  His head was relatively smaller and plainer than the rest of his body.  He also now had three digit hands (including an opposible thumb).

He roared, and the police attempted to hold there ground.  But not the hardest training could supercede the human instinct to flee from such a monstrous beast.  Though the police turned their work at evacuating the city.

The time for action had come.  The time to stop Syphoon was close at hand. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 11:52:23 AM

Well, it would seem that I'm going through pages rather quickly. . . . Here's the most up-to-date list:

• Book XXVII: Infinity and Eternity

The Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones make themselves known.

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• *Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.
[/quote]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 12:20:22 PM

Three more chapters to go before the end of the book.  And all three might be on the short side.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
United, We Fall

Richard stood atop a tall building, looking down at the monster, who looked miffed that some of the more foolhardy police officers attempted to keep it back.  Their bullets did nothing to the monster, they might as well been throwing ball pit balls at the goliath.  Syphoon didn't even feel them, but he was getting annoyed just the same.

Eventually, all the residents of the city were evacuated and the police ran for their lives as well.  The city was empty, except for the RAFians. Richard looked around and saw the RAFians who were fit enough for this on surrounding buildings while Goom, Esplin, SuperNate, and Phoenix accompanied him.  They knew what they must do, and they must do it quickly.
 
"You still think that this might actually get him to, uh, 'vomit' up the powers, lifeforces and material?" SuperNate asked, both skeptical and a little disgusted at the thought.
 
"Yes," Goom said, holding nothing this time.  "If I've tabulated the --"

"Okay, we don't need to know the mathematical specifics," SuperNate interrupted.

<He is in position, Richard.> Esplin said.

"Okay, everyone," Richard said, "together now.  FIRE!"

A few beams of Unity Energy lanced toward the behemoth.  It roared in anger and fury -- it could not absorb the energy, so it had it's desired effect of damaging it.  But it did not induce it to "vomit" up whatever it had absorbed.

"More!!" Richard cried, trying to get the heavily-biased, anti-RAF reports of Gordon Gallows out of his head.  "Pour it on, RAFians!!"

They did.  But all they managed to do, aside from marginal damage, is annoy the beast.  Any more and it would begin thrashing around.  Quite dangerous considering the proximity to the buildings the RAFians were standing on -- and not every RAFian could fly. . . .

"Richard, it's not working!" Phoenix intoned.

"Keep it up!" Richard insisted desperately.  "We cannot fail this time!!"

<Richard -->

"I don't want to hear it, Esplin, we must do this!"

"It's not enough!!" Gaz cried from the next building over.

"It will be, just hold on!"

"Looks like you guys need a little assistance," said a wily voice.

"Yes," another voice said, with a gentle ribbing tone, "good thing we came over."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 12:57:18 PM

Two more chapters, and hopefully they're at a more appropriate length. ;)  Okay, so they're not.  Sorry, if this book seemed rushed.  It kind of was.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Back into the Fold

Cloak and Estelore were on the scene.  Cloak stood upon a golden-scarlet disc and Estelore hovered there in her "warrior mode", the kevlar bodysuit and her hair drawn up into a tight bun.
 
"Wha . . . WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE?!?!" Richard roared.
 
"Disobeying your dismissal," Cloak said, " and adding our Unity Energy to the mix."

"Which reminds me -- Cloak, if you will?"
 
And the two fired their two Unity Beams down into the Super Osmosian, turning the beams into an Unity Blast.  The RAFians were unable to continue this unslaught after this, and many fell, unconscious, to the floor.  Cloak and Esty prepared for another blast, though that first one took a rather lot out of them.  Both were just too stubborn to lose consciousness.

At first, it appeared nothing happened, then there were loud belching sounds as Syphoon belched out the buildings from his skin and body.  But this happened too fast for him to cope with and there was a large, squishy explosion.  Suddenly, the sky were peppered with colored orbs.  These were the ill-begotten powers that Syphoon stole.  They were being returned to their rightful owners.  If those owners happened to be dead . . . the orb turned black and dissipated into nothingness.  The stolen lifeforce could not be returned to those that he had taken it from, so they vanished in streamers of vibrant and vivacious color.

Now there was the mess to clean-up, and they had to find someplace to keep Syphoon's bones -- because, yes, Syphoon was dead.  It was his fate.  He just absorbed too much, and the blast found the right spot to cause him to vomit his absorbed mass and it destroyed him.  His addiction destroyed him, as many addictions destroy so many people.  It was a heavy-handed message, but it was well-received.

"Do you mind telling me," Richard said, although his anger had left him already, "why you two returned when I dismissed you to stay away?"

"I couldn't stay in that place any longer," Cloak said, honestly.  "I hadn't anywhere to go there.  I wasn't about to go back -- er, never mind."

Cloak's eyes took on a dark, haunted look, as if remembering very unpleasant memories before he mentally shook himself from such a state.  But he did not explain it, and he was not pressed.

"And I had to get away from an obnoxious brat of a sentient star," Estelore said.  Then she smiled a bright smile, "Besides, everyone knows that RAF is still home to me."

"And we're proud to be RAFians." Cloak said.

Suddenly, music cropped up, but Cloak made a slashing movement with his arm.

"No, we're not doing that parody," he said, as everything else went grayscale behind him.  Then it bloomed back into color as the RAFians used there newly reacquired powers to fix up the city, and their forum.  Everything was as good as new, and they'd deal with Syphoon's body tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 01:37:15 PM

Last chapter before the new book tomorrow.  Probably very short.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Yellow Journalism

"The city of [indistinct] is recovering after an attack by a gargantuan monster created by those monsters in that forum outside of town," Gordon Gallows reported, from his soundstage.  "How many more times do we have to put up the danger and travesty and devastation these p-people -- and I use the term loosely --* caused?  Or will cause in the future?  I ask you, the people of [static interference], when will we put our foot down and demand change?  When will these talking beasts and aliens -- most of which are illegally here, mind you -- leave our way of life alone.  Is it too much to ask for them to enter our lands legally --"
 
Cloak irritatedly turned off the television.  Someone left it on that channel and this moron came on, Cloak never had a high opinion of such people -- and naturally, the Nexus was filled to the brim with them.  Gallows refused to acknowledge that the RAFians cleaned up.  He was rather like G. Gordon of "Young Justice", Will Harangue of the Ben 10 universe, and an subpar Rita Skeeter.  He was a foul reporter who managed to successfully garner his own show, with the rather uninspired name of "The Deathly Gallows".
 
Cloak once entertained the notion that Gallows was an undercover Knight, but then realized that he was far too vocal, far too opinionated and spoke his mind far too often to be one.  Though unintelligent on the whole, the Knights weren't that profoundly stupid to allow such a loudmouth loose cannon into their inner circle.
 
It was fortunate that Gallows never found out what happened to Syphoon's bones, or else they would have to endure another litany of lectures from the prejudiced man on his metaphorical pulpit.  Cloak shook his head as he thought about this, that apparently this "shock show" thing had endured for so long.  It's a pity, really.

Then Cloak thought about the boy who became the monster Syphoon.  Cloak believed the boy must have gotten in the way of the Darwin Gun, and, as such, got addicted to power and energy.  The addiction eventually overwhelmed him and he could not cope with it.  He imagined that he and the RAFians didn't really help matters in this, but they were at their wits end.  Even Richard, which was a concept inconceivable before this.  They did what they had to . . .

Cloak shook his head again, sighing to himself, "What's done is done, what's past is past."  This was the mantra that helped him soothe a guilty conscience.  But it didn't always work, and it didn't assage his guilt on this, so he left the room for the grounds.  Maybe a little Elements practice would take his mind off such heavy concepts.

Little did Cloak or any of the RAFians know or realize at the time, there were six very dangerous objects heading for the Earth at that very moment. . . .
 
---
*Anyone get the Ben 10: Omniverse reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 19, 2013, 05:01:42 PM

That was a great ending and the book didn't seem rushed to me. The next chapter I one of the ones I'd been looking forward for and now the wait is over.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 05:26:10 PM

Well then, I supposr it was more of a case of me expecting the worst (which I'm working on fixing).

 And I'm afraid I didn't understand that last bit, Underseen.  The Chapter 1 of Book XXVII hadn't been posted yet, it hasn't even been written yet. :huh:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 19, 2013, 05:41:04 PM

Yet again another case of "Underseens' evil phone changing words" I meant the next chapter is one I've been looking forward too because it will be the introduction to a good book... Now I'm back in the habit of proofreading every thing I send with this device.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 19, 2013, 07:33:49 PM

I'm still keeping up with and enjoying this! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2013, 08:02:38 PM

Um, thanks, Gazzy.  I think.

Quote from: Underseen on March 19, 2013, 05:41:04 PM

Yet again another case of "Underseens' evil phone changing words" I meant the next chapter is one I've been looking forward too because it will be the introduction to a good book... Now I'm back in the habit of proofreading every thing I send with this device.

The evils of autocorrect, Underseen?

Anyway, I think I must thank loyal readers of this thread for this achievement of a hundred pages.  Had no one replied, Chapter Two of the first book would have never been posted.  And those that came after would very likely never been conceived.

So, thank you.  Thank you all. :D

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on March 19, 2013, 09:28:43 PM

That was a good thing. lol. I just meant that because I hadn't replied in a while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2013, 10:29:42 AM

And it's be good for me, too, Gazzy.  It's actually helped me through the recovery I have to go through due my rather verbally abusive mother.  (Although it frightens me that Shadow may be her next scapegoat.  My father and aunt was before me.)
 
Anyway, a new chapter.  I'll see how many I can get up today.

BOOK XXVII:
Infinity and Eternity
CHAPTER ONE:
The Sixth Gem

The RAFians were still had mix emotions about Syphoon, what he became, and how he died.  There was talk about it for a while after he died, but then it became somewhat of a shameful secret that everyone and their brother knew.  Gordon Gallows wasn't helping things, stirring strife and discord into the already tenuous relationship RAF had with the city.  The Knights were subtly endorsing his program (but Cloak, Yarin, and Richard suspected that Gallows was unaware of this, as he seemed to be unaware of most things), and Gallows had some of the more easily swayed and gullible people convinced of RAF's "sinister motives".
 
Cloak spent some time alone in his thread this day, and he noticed a glow coming from a box beneath his rather nondescript, plain bed.  He took it out, and noticed that it was the five gems.  They glowed strangely, as if they sense a mortal enemy coming closer.  The Kwame Diamond was glowing a bright yellow, the Wheeler Ruby was glowing a brillant purple, the Linka Pearl was glowing an incadescent orange, the Gi Sapphire was glowing a beautiful blue, and the Heart of Mati Suchi was glowing a glittering green.  But something felt strange, something was off.  Cloak couldn't think of it, but somehow he felt that their should have been a red light here. . . .
 
Was it possible that there was a sixth gem?  How was that possible when five were sufficient to destroy the Phalanx?  The possibility was strangely disconcerting and yet, at the same time, exciting.  He must procure the sixth before the . . . the others arrive.

Should he tell the others, or undertake this journey alone, though?  He decided on what may have proved to be an unpopular decision.

***

"Where did Cloak go?" Underseen asked Horse.

"Dunno," Horse said, rather languidly.  She had reacquired her powers of speech from the Syphoon debacle.  It was a subject that she was still rather touchy about.  "Didn't leave a note or anything."

"Why would he just up and leave?"

"Could be anything, really." Horse said, waving a flipper airily.  "Problems in the Nexus, universes in flux, or some other convoluted thing that we don't have knowledge of yet."

"Why does it sound like you've been sedated?" Underseen said.

"Oh, how dare you." Horse said, with mock rage.

The two and the other RAFians had no knowledge of the dangerous gems that were, even now, speeding towards the planet.  Gems of incredible power, and which would attract another, equally dangerous threat . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2013, 11:09:38 AM

And another chapter, if you please.  Forgive me if it is short.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Infinity Gems Cometh

Steaking to earth were rather minute, elliptical-shaped gems.  One red, one blue, one green, one yellow, one purple, and one orange, each leaving a trail of energy of the same coloring.  These were the gems of dangerous power -- the Infinity Gems.  The Soul Gem, the Time Gem, the Space Gem, the Mind Gem, the Reality Gem, and the Power Gem.  They all had different, but powerful abilities of their own, and to the one who would possess all six . . . he would have absolute power in this Realm.  Power to rival that of the strength of the stars and Realm Walkers.  What's worse was that the Gems had no morality, they could be used or misused any way the possessor sees fit.
 
What had attracted this powerful artifacts to home in on Earth?  Well, some could say that it was Estelore's fault.   She did not hide her trail in her rush to make it back to Earth in time, left a "vapor trail" of sorts that the gems followed as a result.  But the gems traveling on it, destroyed it behind them, as they approached the Earth.
 
Or perhaps it was because they sense their mortal enemies on the planet they were streaking to.
 
They just passed Jupiter, and were rapidly approaching the planet . . .
 

***

Meanwhile, back in RAF, the RAFians were lounging about, luxuriating in the frivolity.  Completely aware that their lives would soon be turned upside down.  The RAFian sensors in the O.W.N. satellites (put there to prevent any more body-changing radiation waves) were sophisticated, but one had to wonder if they would be sophisticated enough to pick up the power output of these monstrous things.  They would make landfall within the week.
 
The feline RAFians could not sense anything, as the Gems would not have been truly evil unless the person or being that possessed them was evil.  Even including the rudimentarily sentient Soul Gem.
 
But time for action was quickly approaching, and the RAFians still remained pitifully unaware of the impending threat.  Which could be construed as Cloak's fault for not telling them.  Cloak's rationale was to protect them from this, but it is a tall order, despite his strength and his powers.  While Cloak may be powerful, he is not omnipotent or all-powerful.

Had he really thought this through, he wouldn't have left the others in such a precarious situation.  But he wasn't thinking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2013, 11:57:59 AM

A bit more.

CHAPTER THREE:
Massive Readings

Rotiart was in the control room, snoozing.  He was supposed to be monitoring any abnormal readings from the O.W.N satellites, which never really registered anything of notice, and most of the newbies took such duties as excuses to lounge around and sleep, despite several scoldings about this and comparisons with air traffic controllers sleeping on the job.  Most of these lectures are passed off as the older, experienced RAFian veterans being too overdramatic and worrying over nothing.
 
<Overdramatic?!> Esplin raged once at one newbie, a small, mousy boy who never really learned to hold his tongue.  <Nothing?!  Have you not noticed what happened to us last week?  Why did you think we put those satellites up there?>
 
Yarin would take a shift or two at this, and he never took the duty too lightly, as he would most diligently, even though there wasn't anything.  He was also the one the first veteran RAFians to rebuke any goof-offs.  This was a most important, and there shouldn't be any lackwits at the helm.

Even as the readings started to spike, Rotiart slept on and did not stir.  Sure, it was a routinely boring duty, but there are times where it would pay to keep an alert eye on things.  Even the incessant beeping of the readings would not rouse the lazy lump.  Eventually, loud screeching allowed him to stir -- but then, he wished he was dead when Sakki got ahold of him after discovering him shirking his duties.

"You lazy sack of --" Sakki roared.  "You should have warned us of this immediately!!  C'mon, you stupid, moronic, idiotic sack of worthless --"

And Sakki's tirade continued as they brought their information to the mods, and Sakki turned Rotiart in for his hubris.  The mods scolded him severely -- to the point that he was nearly in tears (though he didn't show it, as he did not want to cry in front of a girl -- Sakki).

"Gather the RAFians," Richard said, "in the auditorium.  Get Yarin to go over the readouts.  Clearly, Rotiart cannot be trusted for such an assignment."

The others left, and Richard mused a bit on what Cloak had told him before he had left, before he requested a momentary leave from RAF.

***

"There are six impact areas," Yarin reported with a projector and everything.  "One in Kenya, one in New York, one in Siberia, one in China, one somewhere in the Brazilian rainforest, and, finally, one in Britain."

"What caused these impacts?" Gaz asked.

"Unknown at this current time," Yarin answered swiftly.  "But it doesn't appear to be quite big, although the power readings . . ."

"Go on, Yarin," Richard prompted.

"The power readings seem very similar to Cloak."

Silence met these words.

"You're saying there are six little Cloaks running around?" Parker blinked.

"No, they don't seem to be Realm Walker, in origin." Yarin said.  "But, it would appear to someone or something of slightly less power, it would seem."

"And six of them." Underseen added, quietly.

"Where is Cloak anyway?" Dino asked.

"He had some business to take care of," Richard answered, "he gave me a notice of momentary absence."

"Considerate," Saffa, a relatively new RAFian said.

"However," Richard said, loudly, "we can handle this without him."

"Really?  How?" Rotiart asked haughtily.

"I would think," Goom said, passively, "that the fact that you ignored your duties and slept on this, thus giving us far less time to prepare, that you would know to keep your opinions to yourself."

Rotiart shrank back down in his seat, hoping to remain unseen.

"Right," Richard nodded, "now, I think we should send teams over to these areas to investigate whatever or whoever made these impacts and gave off these readings are and report it back here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2013, 12:31:46 PM

At most, you'll probably get only to Chapter Five today, at the very least, this'll be the last chapter, you'll get today.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Searching For the Sixth Stone

Cloak continued his search for the sixth stone, the CP Garnet.  He stopped and looked upward and saw what looked to be one meteor split into six.  However, Cloak knew that it wasn't a meteor, but the objects that he feared would come.  He knew he must find the CP Garnet before the red one discovers the location before he does.  He carried the other gems in his cloak, and felt their urge to destroy those that came and sought to destroy them.

Cloak barreled his way through the forest fraught with poison ivy and poison sumac.  He surfed a lava flow, forded a shallow creek, ignoring the thunderclouds overhead.  He bypassed some genetics and forensic lab, as he burrowed down deeper.  He rested a bit before plowing on.

No wonder he was unaware of this stone, the rather complex way required to find it. . . .

Cloak charged forward, coming to some cave open hidden by geraniums, then he scooted over a lake of lava, then he dove beneath an underwater lake, and his fur stood on edge in a statically-charged tunnel.  He plowed forward toward in a mind-numbingly twisted, dark, apparently hand-dug tunnel.

He stopped momentarily, considering all this may just be a horribly-realistic illusion to prove the worthiness of those who sought the CP Garnet. . . .

Cloak proceeded forward with gusto as he ignored some ferns who got in his way, deftly crossed a stone bridge over a river of lava, swam a dark river, pushed some electrostatic stones from his path, as he continued to another headache-inducing labyrinth of tunnels, and came to a slick, flat metal bridge over a bridge, which he crossed in a twinkling.  Whatever a "twinkling" was.

He stopped for a moment to gather his bearings.  Then he plowed onward, with fierce determination.

He used wooden bridges to span some uneven and unstable earth, ran from some Fiendfyre, barrelled through the bones of a water dragon, hitched a right on some rising balloon-like stones, charged forward in an area that made him feel as though he was being x-rayed.  Then he dodged an area of the tunnel which felt rather like the Egyptian Underworld -- not that he's ever been.

He, again, stopped to catch his breath, then pushed himself into what he believed to be the final leg of this mission.

He pushed aside some nonpoisonous vines, glanced at a strange chandelier for some reason, ignored the croakings of a rather upset toad, incinerated some fleas or mites or ticks -- he couldn't tell -- who tried to make him a meal, ignored the bats fluttering around his head, and reassembled a statue of a Sentai-like figure, which opened a door to let him through.

Then he saw more to do . . . well, he never expected this to be easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 20, 2013, 07:42:14 PM

Successfully adding one of my favorite pieces of marvel lore into your story is a success. I am a big fan of comics (can't you tell by my previous avatars? ;)) and would try my best to not correct you if you change something about the soul gems to better fit Memoirs.

I an guessing that Cloak will be searching for the six stone for at least half of the book, but it is a loose guess on my part.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2013, 07:51:43 PM

Very astute, Underseen.

As a teenager, I was very into comics, myself.  More Marvel than DC (yes, I'm a Wolverine fan, and Shadow absolutely adored Spider-Man).  And I admit I do scour the storylines for ideas.

Granted, most of my knowledge of them come from that SNES game and Wikipedia.

EDIT:

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• *Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2013, 12:06:05 PM

First (and perhaps final) chapter today.  It may be a bit on the long side.  Okay, a lot on the long side.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Sinister Six

A thick silhouette, on board a dark ship, approaches the Earth.  This person was an unknown, but he wasn't Realm Walker, that was for sure, as he wasn't wearing a cloak, but a suit of armor of blue and gold.  He held his hands behind his back, and it was obvious that he was wearing a golden gauntlet on one hand. . . .
 

***

In Kenya, the green Gem was discovered by a haughty, tyrannical, and thoroughly unpleasant woman.  She picked it up, took it home, and found that she could make anything that she wanted happen, even if it directly contradicted the scientific laws of existence.  Things that would have caused Aquilai to have an aneurysm due to the IMPOSSIBLE things that she made happen.
 
This woman took on the name of Desiree, and made herself queen of all of Kenya, before she thought that she was thinking small, and desired the world.  The Reality Gem made this so, save for the changes provided by the other Infinity Gems.
 
Aquilai, Aila, and Yarin arrived in Kenya at the impact site, to discover that it had vanished, as if it were never there.  The three were shocked.
 
"It was here!" Yarin exclaimed.  "I assure you that it was!!"
 
"We believe you, Yarin," Aila said gently to the agitated Nyac.  "But how can this be?"
 
"It's impossible," Aquilai said, thoroughly disconcerted.  "Nothing can just erase things like that.  Even a terrakinetic would leave signs of coverup. . . ."
 
"Perhaps . . . perhaps the Gem's power is --"
 
"Who are you?" said a voice, haughty and condescending.  "What are you doing here?"
 
The three turned to see Desiree, flanked by an army of fifteen heavily muscled men, fist clenched over something green.  The three RAFians noticed this. . . .
 

***

The purple Gem was found and pulled out of the fire by a narcissistic, selfish New Yorker woman.  This fiery-haired woman had no compassion, no love, for anyone else, and valued her image above all others.  She was also frugal to a fault.  She discovered when she held the Space Game that she could travel everywhere and anywhere that she wanted.  She could even have omnipresence.  She loved this mostly because now she had no need of public transportation or expensive cars.  She was also a con who managed to escape prison.
 
She was caught again, and put back into the clink, although, she just instantaneously teleported out as the cops did not have time to search her before she activated her stone to escape.  She then takes the unimaginative name of "Everywhere Woman".
 
Cerulean, Blue, and Demos arrive at the location to see that the Gem has gone.  Cerulean did a rather swift check around the immediate 200 yard area, being swift even by his standards.  Still he found nothing.
 
"Well, it couldn't have gotten up and walked off." Cerulean said.
 
"Couldn't it?" Demos posited.  "We don't know its powers.  It could have very well been --"
 
"Picked up and taken by someone in the area." Blue interrupted.
 
"That too." Demos amended.
 
"You're those RAFians that Gallows guy talks about, right?" said Everywhere Woman, who appeared directly behind them, still clutching the purple Gem, the Space Gem.
 
Demos narrowed his eyes belligerently.  "Who wants to know?"
 

***

The orange Infinity Gem landed in the most bitterly cold part of Siberia, the heat of reentry melting the snow around the impact site, which promptly refroze.  But a man, a man as bitter as the cold was, discovered the Time Gem.  He pulled it out of its impact crater and found that the whole time continuum opened before him.  He had been granted powerful chronokinesis, the ability to accelerate and reverse aging, and could create time loops (which he wasn't really interested in doing the latter, being a rather combative bully rather than a cunning, strategic man)*.  He was sentenced to Siberia for being a little too quick to fight, especially if they were smaller than him.  He took the name "Time Maestro" -- intending for it to mean "master" instead of "teacher", as he was an exceptionally poor teacher, and because that he thought it sounded impressive.  If Aquilai or Aila heard it, they probably would have had a conniption fit.
 
Time Maestro smirked as he planned to reduce the people who sentenced him to dust by accelerating their aging.  He froze time as he travelled to the place . . .
 
Sakki, Faerie, and Gaz travel to the impact site, unaware that it had already gone.  They were dismayed to see that it had gone.
 
"Could it have shattered on impact?" Gaz wondered idly.
 
"With those power readings?  Hardly," Sakki countered.
 
"Yeah, I suppose that it shattering was far too much to hope for." Gaz agreed.
 
"Let's just find the stupid thing and get out of this cold." Faerie said, as a device on her belt beeped.  "Reading some chronal distortion."
 
"Where?" Sakki asked.
 
"It starts at the impact site, and heads that way," Faerie said, pointing.  Then she lowered the sensor, and replied, "Well, I guess someone decided to take it."
 
"And use it, by the looks of it." Gaz muttered.
 

***

The blue Gem landed in a Chinese field, in a very out of the way place.  It was found by a dictatorial, abusive man who stooped over and held it discovering that it increased his mental faculties and latent psychic abilities to their absolute zenith.  Having them ripped open so quickly seemed to cause his sanity to tear a little, and seemed to also increase his innate megalomania to disturbing levels.
 
He decided to call himself "Overmind", supposedly a portmanteau of "overlord" and "mind".  One would thing that with a significantly increased I/Q he'd come up with a far more creative nomenclature.  But intelligence doesn't always necessarily go hand-in-hand with creativity.  He used the Gem to subjugate his neighbors and family, and bend their minds to his will.  So what if they end up a little insane?  What did he care?
 
Goom, Guy, and Parker arrive at the impact site, and Parker scanned it.
 
"Nothing.  Whatever was here is long gone." he reported.
 
"Clearly someone found it, found what it could do, and took it with him or her." Guy postulated.
 
"I think that's astute." Goom said.  Had he hands, he'd be rubbing his chin thoughtfully -- if he had one.
 
"You dare to encroach upon my homestead?" cried a loud voice in English.  Clearly, Overmind used the RAFians minds to translate his own words from Chinese into English.
 
"Well," Guy said, affably, "that was lucky."
 

***

In the Brazilian jungle, a rather rebellious, arrogant boy stoops down to discover the green Gem.  It called out to him -- something that the other Gems did not do.  It was sentient, but really borderline sentience.  It hungered for souls, and only a strong soul could control the Gem, while a weak one would be manipulated by it, and eventually consumed by it.**
 
This boy took it, and ate up the Gems appeals of power to the boy, who declared himself "Soul Controller", a rather unimaginative name.  Then he went and used the Gems against his enemies and all those that defied him.  One had to wonder who was really in control here. . . .
 
Oceanspray, Rocklobster and Horse arrived in the thick forest, and only Horse seemed to really have a problem with this, because, after all, she was a seal.
 
"Why couldn't they send me to Siberia instead of Guy?" she complained.  "It's far too HOT here, too MUGGY!!"
 
"And complaining about it will change what, exactly?" Oceanspray asked, lifting up a log to get a better view of the impact area.
 
"Already found and taken, I'd wager," Rocklobster noted.
 
"Great.  Perfect." Horse said, sullenly.  "God, it's like being back in the Pootang's digestive system."
 
The other two stared at her.
 
"What?  Leaving by its mouth isn't always an option."
 
Suddenly, they heard a voice cried out, low and menacing, "Hungry . . ."
 

***

In Britain countryside, a woman with a rather unpleasant, ugly disposition discovered a rather curious hole in the side of a garden.  She fishes out the red Infinity Gem, and claps it tightly.  She feels invincible (because she kind of is) and found that she had access to just as many powers had Syphoon had, only she didn't have to absorb them.  But this isn't an innocent woman -- she had been shamelessly involved in numerous scandals, and seemed to thrive on the attention.  With this Gem, she declares her name to be "Unbreakable".  Then she dons a rather convenient "superhero" costume, although she makes it clear that she has no intention of being a superhero.

Phoenix, Ash and Blocky arrive at the impact site, and are disappointed that the Gem is not there.

"We're too late," Blocky said.

"I suppose touring London is out of the question now," Ash said.

"Perhaps later," Phoenix said, "we've got to find out who had absconded with the Gem."

"Um, Phoenix?" Blocky asked, pointing with a claw, "could that be it?"

The other two looked up and saw what was clearly a woman in an ill-fitting spandex suit flying toward the nearest populated area.

"Oh, lovely," Phoenix said with bitter sarcasm.

***

Meanwhile, the mysterious man approached the Earth even closer now, his ship's shadow upon Mars's moon of Phobos. His intention was clear, and what he sought was obvious. . . .
 
---
*Please don't think I'm generalizing the entire country based on one man.
 
**Probably taking a particular liberty here. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 21, 2013, 04:51:34 PM

I get the chapter titles reference. I enjoyed this chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2013, 05:02:42 PM

Good, Underseen, because it'll have to tide you over 'til Monday. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 21, 2013, 07:47:53 PM

Ugh... I'll just continuously read this chapter and other books until Monday.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 24, 2013, 05:09:46 PM

*Wonders if he has the longest fic here. . . .*

The answer may be obvious and I'm just oblivious. . . .

And I just remembered how similiar "obvious" and "oblivious" are, in appearance.

Okay, enough stalling -- new chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Fantasy Reality Meets Real Reality

"Did I not make myself clear, you worthless nothings?" the woman clenching the Reality Gem demanded rather haughtily.

"Uh," Aquilai said, rather uncertain what was the proper thing to say and how to say it, "may we ask who you are?"

However, this had the opposite effect of Aquilai's intention. Desiree was horribly offended by this.

"YOU DARE TO FEIGN IGNORANCE?!" she erupted.  "YOU DARE TO CLAIM YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR LADY AND MISTRESS?!  Lady Desiree takes great offense at this lack of common courtesy!"

"I think that stone has affected her sanity." Yarin whispered to the other two.

"I doubt it," Aila put in, "this is ego, not sanity or insanity."

"One is not exclusive, or inclusive, of the other," Aquilai added. "The fact remains that she cannot remain in the possession of --"

"Stop all your muttering!" she demanded loudly.  Suddenly the three we without mouths.

<Oh, you'll have to do better than that, you hopped-up tyrannical despot.> Yarin said, telepathically.

Then their Marks grew hot, and the effects of the Reality Gem vanished.

"This is not possible," Desiree said, momentary flabberghasted.  This caused her Gem-manifested machinations to faulter and her grip on the Gem to slacken ever so slightly.

This proved that the powers of the Gems were not as absolute as previously believed.

Suddenly, a mammoth silhouette appeared behind Desiree, who regained her grip upon the Gem.

"Who are you?!  WHO ARE YOU?!" she demanded, although there was a tinge of fear to it now.  This shadowy figure was a lot more intimidating in his size and silence than the three RAFians.  "YOU WILL ANSWER!!!"

"I am Thanos," he said, easily plucking the Gem from her sweaty palm.  "And you disgust me."

He fitted the Gem in to a golden Gauntlet, then he looked scornfully at the woman.  Yarin seemed to sense what Thanos's intent was, but it was too late before he could protest.

There was a flash of the most perverse shade of yellow, and Desiree was simply gone.

Gone, as if simply removed from existance.  Thanos did not even bat an eye at this.  The three RAFians were speechless and frozen in abject shock at the sheer callousness of this act.

Then Thanos surveyed the RAFians, stating after a tense, pregnant pause, "You're nit worth my time.  Tell your kin, though . . . tell them not to cross me or get in my way."

Then he was gone.  The RAFians were still in shock.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2013, 09:39:14 AM

Second chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Everywhere and Nowhere

"Everywhere Woman does, insect!" she bellowed.
 
"'Insect'?" Blue said, eyebrows raised.  "How incredibly cliche."
 
"What?"
 
"Clearly not classically educated," Cerulean said, with mockingly exaggerated foppish manner.
 
"Don't you dare condescend to me!!" she cried.  "I am everywhere!"
 
"And, yet, you're nowhere." Demos said, dismissively.
 
The trio had quite accidentally stumbled upon the best way to deal with this woman.  She was too proud, too arrogant.  She took possession of achievements she had no business taking for her own.  All in all, Everywhere Woman was a very insecure woman, which could be one reason why she elated and delighted in her ability to be everywhere at once.
 
Even to the point where a man (who used to date her, but she thought he was cheating on her when he wasn't, which led him to dumping her -- which she refused to acknowledge) was afraid of her and fearful for his very life.
 
However, then she came upon this RAFian trio, and she lost momentary interest in her surveillance over this poor man, caged within his own house, although that does not seem to stop the power of the Space Gem, but what else can he do.  The Gem has allowed her to continue to victimize him.
 
The trio could easily sense that she was such a woman, and while Demos didn't really care, being a demon.  Perhaps pushing her buttons was not the most wise thing to do in such a situation, but it seemed like prudent thing to do at the time.
 
What Demos said however perplexed the woman, who did not understand Demos's meaning, though she tried for several minutes.  Which, apparently, was the point as Cerulean attempted to wrest the Gem from the woman's hand before a single one of her synapses could fire off.  But she gripped the Gem like a madwoman (which she was).
 
"Oh, I see," she said.  "It wasn't anything more than a distraction to get this stone from me!!  Well, too bad, losers.  It's mind -- er, mine, and I'll never let it go."
 
"Oh, I don't know about that." said a dark voice.
 
"What?  Who are you?" she demanded.  Then she allowed her avarice to over take her, greed so strong it's surprising an orange power ring wasn't making its way towards her at that very moment.  "You can't have it!!  It's mine!!  I need it.  I need to make sure he doesn't cheat on me again!"
 
"I'm sensing some major insecurities here," Demos noted.
 
"Demos, we can't let that other guy have the Gem, either!" Blue pointed out.
 
"He already has one," Cerulean noticed.  "Yellow."
 
"That must be the Gem that Aila, Aquilai, and Yarin failed to procure," Blue said, referencing the report they recieved from the team prior.  "We can't let him get this one, it would make it far too easy for him to --"
 
But it was too late, though she struggled to get away, Thanos retained his grip on her wrist and easily wrested it from her hands.  Then he placed it upon his Gauntlet, an evil light lit up his face, as he delighted in the fact that he was a third of the way done.  Then he crushed the former Everywhere Woman's wrist and hand, then he, in one blow, killed the rather frail and scorned woman.  Her body was dispersed on the wind.
 
"No!!" the trio cried.
 
Thanos looked at them, dismissed them as inconsequential, and said, "Enjoy the rest of your lives -- it won't be very long now."

Then he was gone, this time using the Space Gem's power to relocate, as so he could discover the locations of the others.  Cerulean immediately reported this to the others and the mods.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2013, 12:18:10 PM

Third chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Time and Time Again

"What does it say?" Gaz asked.
 
"Can't you hear?  It says 'beep beep beep'!" Sakki interjected.  Gaz gave her a moderately scathing look, then returned her gaze to Faerie, who replied, "It says we're getting close."
 
"Hold up," Gaz said, activating her communicator which projected the holographic body of Aquilai.  "What's up, Aquilai?  You find your Gem yet?"
 
"Yes," Aquilai said, "and no.  There was this massive being who took it from the woman who initially had it."
 
The three let out sympathetic groans.
 
"Then killed her."
 
"What?" Faerie blinked.
 
"You heard me."
 
"So this person has one gem.  So what?" Sakki said, mustering up enough bravado.
 
"No, he has two." Aquilai said.  "Demos, Cerulean, and Blue just reported in.  He also killed the woman wielding that Gem."
 
"Why kill them and spare the RAFians?" Gaz asked.
 
"That," Aquilai said, holding up a finger, "is a question that we haven't an answer for."
 
"That doesn't make sense, though . . ." Gaz insisted.
 
"A lot of things don't," Sakki pointed out, then shrugged.  "Don't fret about it too much."
 
"The fact of the matter is that the second Gem he took, what's tentatively being called the Space Gem," Aquilai continued, "allows for omnipresence and instantaneous teleportation."
 
"Please don't say that means what I think it means," Faerie groaned audibly.
 
"I'm afraid it does," Aquilai said, head bowed and arms crossed.  "So, be on the look out whenever you find the Gem.  Thanos will surely be after it as well.  Aquilai, out."
 
Then Aquilai's holographic form vanished and Gaz pocketed the device, saying, "Well . . . that's just peachy."
 
"Aw, I was gonna say that," Faerie replied.
 

***

It took sometime later, but they finally discovered Time Maestro, who was, naturally, misusing his newfound powers.  Time Maestro had found a victim -- a government official who had absolutely nothing to do with his sentence to Siberia.  But he didn't seem to want to recognize this fact.  He was having a blast aging this man into dust and back into infanthood -- only to do it again.  And again.  And again.
 
"That," Faerie said, her eyes so narrowed they looked nearly shut, "is really sick."

"I'd say." Sakki replied.

Gaz said nothing but wore a look of deepest revulsion.

The three stood there, motionless for a moment or two, as if the Time Maestro had frozen them in time.  It took a few minutes to realize, that's exactly what he did.  Their Marks allowed them to be aware of this passage of time even though time was paradoxically frozen for them.

"We have to stop this," Gaz said, managing to choke out some words through her revoltion.  "This is really sick.  We can't let him just get away with it."

"Right, and we have to be quick." Sakki said, turning to the other two.  Oblivious to the shadow that enveloped Time Maestro.  "Because we never know when Thanos will . . ."

Thanos clutched Time Maestro's hand and wrested the orange Gem, the Time Gem, from Time Maestro's grip.

"He's behind me, isn't he?" Sakki said, noticing the other two's faces and turning around.

Then he fitted the Gem onto his Gauntlet, and, for good measure, reduced Time Maestro to the finest grain of dust, killing him.  The trio looked apprehensive, and Thanos raked over them with his eyes.

"Fear not," he said, with his deep, intimidating voice.  "You shall live until I make tribute to my beloved."

Then he was gone.

"Holy crap." Faerie spat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2013, 01:01:12 PM

Last chapter of the day.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Mental Assault

"Got it," Parker said, then relayed the message to Guy and Goom.  Goom was riding around on Guy's shoulders -- apparently Goom was a lot lighter than he would appear to be at first glance.
 
"So he's got three." Guy said, a little color draining from his face.  "That's half of the Gems."
 
"All the more reason to find it before this Thanos guy." Goom insisted.  "If he managed to gather all of them . . ."
 
"A dragon'll appear and grant them one wish?" Parker asked rather snidely.
 
"You know very well that these are Gems, not Dragonballs." Goom replied rather sourly.  Whether there were Dragonballs in existence in this realm still remained to be seen.  "Where to now."
 
Parker examined the readouts he was getting, listening rather impassively to Tyr's imput, before eventually declaring to go in a rather southeasternly direction.  Upon approaching close to a marvelous-looking house, the three shared a chill.
 
"Whoa, that was weird."  Parker said, rather nonplussed.  "You guys feel that?"
 
"Oh yeah." Guy said, shuttering a bit, nearly dislodging Goom.
 
"Hey, hey, hey!  Watch it!"
 
"You watch it," Guy shot back.  "I'm not the one who wanted to give you this piggyback ride."
 
"Settle, you two," Parker said warningly, "we'll need our wits about us."
 
<Too bad for you,> said a telepathic voice.  <Wits are my weapons, no matter whose side they're on.>
 
A man in ornate regional dress burst out of the door.  He possessed long black hair that seemed to be graying, and his face had a rather permanent-looking crankiness to it.  When he spoke, it was initially Chinese, until he clenched the blue Gem and then his words became translated.
 
"Why are you here?  Why do you trespass on my land?"
 
"Your . . . your land, you say?" Guy said, attempting to be diplomatic.
 
The Gem-wielder's face deepened with dislike.  "All lands are my lands, peasant."

Then there was a powerful psionic force that buffeted Guy's clothing (as Parker's armor was flappy like clothing and Goom wore none, being a goomba and all).  But the RAFians themselves did not recieve the full import of the psychic pain, as the Mark prevented some of it.
 
"Bow to me, lesser ones." he said.
 
"Ego much?" Goom muttered.

"I heard that."
 
"Yeah, I kinda wanted you to."
 
"You dare to intrude upon my homestead and hand me such disrespect?" he said, begining to telekinetically levitate some antique swords.  "I'll teach you respect!"
 
Guy and Goom had to dodge the strikes, but Parker didn't bother as his armor was more than up to protecting him from those blows.  Then the swords dropped to the floor as the man who stylized himself as Overmind, attempted to simply seize control over their bodies, attempting to brush their minds aside -- as he did with his disobedient children and wife.  When that did not work, he attempted to force their minds to do his bidding.  But that did not work either, although the RAFians were actively resisting this.

"Give it a rest, old man!" Parker said, thoroughly irritated at the attempted breaking-and-entering of his mind.  "You cannot control us, or manipulate us!!"

"So I see." he said, using a rather racist epithet.

"And so do I," said a deeper, darker, sinister, and far more intimidating voice.

"You cannot have it!!" Overmind cried, having already read the newcomer's mind.

"You peeked," Thanos taunted, as he seized the man's wrist, and began to wrest it out of his hand.

"No!" Parker said, as he fired.  But, using the Time Gem, Thanos just stopped time and rewound it so that Parker never fired.  Parker wanted to fire again, but he saw the futility of such a maneuver.  He turned to the other two, "I'm open for suggestions."

"Me too." Guy said, as Thanos freed the Gem and fitted it into his Gauntlet.

"I haven't any," Goom said as Thanos used the Mind Gem to slay Overmind in the most painful, the most humiliating way possible.  He was a lousy man, but even he did not deserve such a death.

Thanos looked at the RAFians, "Return to your hidey-hole.  Return, and prepare my tribute.  Prepare your friends, your loved ones, prepare every one for my tribute to my beloved. . . ."

Then he was gone.

"His beloved?" Goom inquired to a horrid silence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 25, 2013, 05:02:26 PM

Although I am not a fan of the hunger games after watching it last night each time Thanos mentioned tribute I thought of (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m00kbwbNKC1qd6vs5o1_400.gif)

I enjoyed the dragon ball bit and I'm further intrigued by what Thanos was saying. If we would have to fight him it would be quite interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2013, 06:09:55 PM

I haven't seen nor read "The Hunger Games", so any similarities are purely coincidental.

First chapter of the day, may be shorter than my usual standard.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Soulful Manipulations

"Hungry . . ." the boy uttered.  The stone had seemed to twist the boy's mind . . . and his soul.

"Not another one!" Horse said, throwing her flippers into the air in a gesture of irritation, oblivious of the communicator's signal going off -- she had apparently inadvertently turned it to the lowest vibration setting.  "Why is seal meat so friggin' popular?!"

"I will have . . ." the boy said, sounding rather like an OD'ing addict.

"Sorry, pal," Horse snarled, "I've grown rather attached to my flesh being where it is. On the inside!"

Oceanspray and Rocklobster did not raise similar objections as neither of them had flesh, so to speak.

"I will have your . . ." the boy continued, ". . . have your . . ."

"Getting a little freaky, just now . . ." Oceanspray said, his hand folded into a blaster.

"Oceanspray, you can't attack him.  He may wield the Gem, but he's still a kid." Rocklobster said reproachfully.

"I'm not so sure that he's wielding the Gem," Horse said as the boy who once called himself the Soul Controller managed to choke out, "I will have your . . . your soul."

"Not likely, buddrow." Horse countered, then addressed the others, "I believe this is a case of the Gem wielding the boy."

"Astute," a voice said.  "The juvenile must be pathetically weak-willed."

Thanos had shown up.  He easily wrested the Gem from the boy.  But nor before the Gem claimed the boy's soul for its own.  The boy's body fell, not quite lifeless but . . . just . . . empty.

Thanos paid this no mind as he fitted the green Gem into his Gauntlet.

"What did you do to him?" Horse demanded.

"'Twas not I but the Soul Gem that claimed his weak, vulnerable soul."

"What are you?" Rocklobster inquired, not bothering to hide his revulsion.

"Fiancee to Death herself," Thanos said with a perverse smile.  Then he was gone.

There was a pregnant pause, broken by Rocklobster, "He's just all kinds of crazy, isn't he?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 09:08:22 AM

Second chapter, again may be a bit on the short side.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Breaking Unbreakable

Then Phoenix noticed that his communicator was beeping, and he received Aquilai's report with Blocky and Ash.  None liked the news.
 
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE HAS FIVE?!" Phoenix roared, his body flaring up, bathed in flames.
 
"Hey, watch it, Phoenix." Ash said.
 
"I meant what I said." Aquilai asserted.  "This Thanos being is in possession of the Gems -- the Soul, Time, Space, Mind, and Reality Gems -- and he apparently seems to wish to make some kind of tribute to Death, who he thinks he's engaged with."
 
"So you mean a flippin' nutso has five Gems of near-infinite power?" Block said, then his tone turned to being acidly sarcastic.  "Well . . . that's good news, isn't it?"
 
"Blocky, there's no need for that tone," Ash said reproachfully.  "We just need to deny him the sixth Gem."
 
"Oh, yeah," Blocky snipped.  "'Coz that'll be so EASY."
 
"Oh, quit your grousing, Block, and let's get a move on." Phoenix said.  "We don't want to lose her."
 
"Speak for yourself," Ash said, gazing once again at the rather loud and ill-fitting costume the woman wore.
 

***

They arrived to the nearest city, to find that the woman, this "Unbreakable", giving the city the "Tighten-from-Megamind" treatment.  Why she was so angry and domineering, no one knew and she wasn't telling.  She was causing mostly cosmetic and aesthetic damage, but it was clear this was merely oversight on her part and not a result of pulling her punches.
 
"Good God!  We have to stop her!" Ash said.
 
"Good thinking!" Block declared, adding, "Any idea how?"
 
Silence.
 
"I'm open to suggestions," Phoenix said, attempting to heave a basketball-sized fireball at her . . . and she apparently had the Kryptonian power to not be affected with such mundane things as fire.

"Allow me to take it of your hands," Thanos appeared, seizing Unbreakable's hand clenching the red Gem.

"No!  You cannot have it!  It is mine.  The powers are mine!" Unbreakable said, rather hysterically.

"Great," Phoenix muttered, "we trade one psycho for another.  Just dandy."

Thanos had a bit more difficulty wresting the Power Gem from Unbreakable than he had from the others -- one reason he saved it for last.  But in the end, he used the Soul Gem to suck out her soul, giving her the same treatment as that poor boy.  Then he wrested the Power Gem from Unbreakable, who was not so unbreakable after all.

"No!!" Phoenix cried.

"We have to stop him!!" Ash shouted.

"He can't have all six!!!" Block yelled.

But all three were chronokinetically frozen in mid-pounce, via the Time Gem, as Thanos looked at them in an appraising sort of way, "You're too late."

Then he fitted the final Gem into his Gauntlet, taunting, "Yes, you three and the rest of your kind will make my beloved Death very happy.  Go, and enjoy what few precious seconds you've left before you and your entire system is presented as a small tribute to my beloved."

Then he was gone, and Phoenix, Ash, and Block quickly took Yarin's ship back to RAF.  It was really about to start . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 09:44:10 AM

Third chapter, and again may be a bit on the short side.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Sixth Stone

Meanwhile, while the RAFians were rushing to collect the Gems, the Infinity Gems, Cloak sought out a very different type of stone.  The CP Garnet.  It was an arduous journey to get this far, and the edges of his cloak were frayed to prove it.  But he was so close now, so tantalizingly close.
 
He entered a large room, after easily subduing a rolling boulder a la Indiana Jones.  But Cloak had an ace that Indiana Jones did not -- he was terrakinetic, a Master of the Earth Element.  He easily froze the unnaturally spherical boulder and walked onward without so much as a look backward.

He saw before him three small treasure boxes, none held locks, no higher than two and half feet tall, no thicker than a foot wide, and no longer than three feet long.  All sat upon special cushion -- green, red, and blue.  The leftmost one was wooden encrusted with emeralds upon it and sat upon the green cushion, the one in the middle was black metal with encrusted rubies and sat upon the red cushion, and the rightmost one was gunmetal gray with sapphires encrusted upon it like barnacles and sat upon the blue cushion.

A choice.  Any could have been the right one, and any could have been the wrong one.

Cloak tapped his chin as he considered this.  One assuredly contained a trap, one most certainly contained some evil magic.  He could sense the evil magic of the middle one, being a feline.  That left the outer two.  Cloak glanced at each one, hesitating, unsure, uncertain.

"If it must come down to a gut feeling," Cloak murmured to himself.  He walked over to the wooden treasure box, and threw it open.  The stone was somewhere between orange and blue, and had a rather simplistic design, rather like Captain Planet's chest symbol.

Cloak felt the other stones writhing and straining at the box Cloak kept them in.  But the CP Garnet floated in the air, then, to Cloak's surprise, it began to write words in the air:

"The time approaches near,
Along with the being of fear.
The warring Infinities and Eternities
Will bring the Earth's chosen to their knees.
Six upon six, there can only be one fix.
A catalyst is needed, the Chosen is deeded,
The Element's Son will render asunder
To the Gauntlet-Bearer's blunder.
Only united can the blades, when bade,
Cause the Gauntlet-Bearer's power to fade."

Cloak blinked.  A prophecy?

Then Cloak shook his head.  There were no such things as prophecies. . . . Granted that stone so long ago . . . No, no prophecies didn't truly exist.  Cloak opened the box with the other stones and they changed form when exposed to the CP Garnet -- the became very much like Chaos Emeralds (granted Chaos Emeralds were seven, and these were six).  Then they circled Cloak as if they were orbitars (from Kid Icarus).

"Well," Cloak said, standing tall, as the six continued to orbit him in different orbits from each other.  "It's time for the Infinity Gems to meet the Eternity Stones."

And he was off.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 12:43:54 PM

Fourth chapter, and it may be of an acceptable length . . .
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Futile Stances

With all six Gems safely fitted into his gauntlet, Thanos elated at this success.  He had near-infinite power, although he believed it to be infinite.  He arrived at RAF seconds after Phoenix's group.  It wasn't even a race though, Thanos just took his time to arrive in style.
 
After all, who could stand up to him?  Not even Estelore could match the powers that he now wielded with, quite ironically, an iron fist (though the Gauntlet was gold in color).  The RAFians chose to fortify their defenses, shore up their energies.  They knew just how futile, how pointless this last stand was.  And not because Rotiart continued to tell them as such.
 
"You believe that you can deny me?" Thanos roared with laughter.  "You believe to be able to stand against me?!"
 
The force field blipped into existence, while Thanos looked at it with gleeful laughter.  He destroyed it with a wave of his massive hand.  His gold and blue armor glinted sinisterly in the sun.
 
"Is this your strategy?" he taunted.  "I sincerely hope I'm mistaken in that."
 
With a mighty battle cry, Faerie descended upon the Gauntlet-wearing monster, hoping to cleave him in twain with her trusty battle axe.  Pity that her battle axe was just smashed into smithereens.  Thanos just flicked uer away with a backhand.  Faerie landed, semiconscious, by the fragments of her old battle axe.
 
"You dare to attack me," Thanos said, more amused then angry.
 
"You monster!" Horse shouted, leaping off an ice bridge of her own creation, pulling out her Pinniped Dagger to stab Thanos.  He caught her by the throat.  He caught the dagger in his other hand, the sharp edges contacting his flesh, but not penetrating.  Then he tightened his grip on it, shattering the black, but leaving the hilt more or less intact.
 
"Such a pathetic attempt," Thanos said, with the barest semblance of contempt, dropping Horse, who managed to be rescued by Gaz.
 
"Take this!" Saffa shouted as several rather large diamonds appeared in a resemblance of a Stone Edge attack, only with diamonds instead of stones.
 
"I'd rather not," Thanos said, deaging the diamonds back into coal, and having them plummet to the Earth.  Saffa went avian mode and beat wings away from that spot, before landing and assuming her usual form.
 
Several other attacks ensued, all meeting with failure.  But RAFians are not the sort to give up so readily.  They continued until many suffered extreme exhaustion -- Underseen was opague and barely able to hold a coherent form again.
 
"Face it," Thanos said, gnashing his teeth with every word.  "You're done.  You're powerless.  You are all pathetic.  But you should still serve a purpose for me.  Enough foreplay.  Prepare to die."

"Not so fast, Thanos!!" cried a very familiar voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 01:07:52 PM

Time to kick it in, here's another chapter.  And its the shortest chapter today.  Sorry.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Clash of Infinity and Eternity

"What?  Who are you?" Thanos said, a little perturbed by Cloak and the orbiting Eternity Stones, allowing him to fly without using aerokinesis or his energy disc.  "And how DARE you speak to me in such a way, gnat!"
 
Cloak merely frowned, a bit disappointed on how apparently limited Thanos's knowledge was.  The Eternity Stones were the counters of the Infinity Gems in everyway.  Granted, this was rather obscure knowledge, even for Realm Walkers.  Still, Cloak said nothing.  Let Thanos find out in his own way.  Let him find out that the powers of the Infinity Gems aren't as infinite as he believes them to be.
 
"Silent now?  Even a braggard such as you is scared of my power."
 
Cloak folded his arms in front of him and said nothing more.  The Eternity Stones orbited him a somewhat sedate and lazy way.  Cloak stared into those dark, pitiless eyes of Thanos.  The man with an obsession with Death, a very unhealthy, romantic obsession, at that.
 
"Why don't you speak?  You were very verbose a minute ago."
 
No, he wasn't.
 
"Stop it with the silent treatment, fool.  Bow to me and we can get on with this."
 
Cloak finally spoke, with an unusually calm and cold.  "I will not bow before you or anyone."

"You still defy my will?" Thanos looked a little taken aback.  "You still dare to believe you can stand up to me?"

"Attack me if you will," Cloak said, coolly, "but I will not yield to a tackless, delusional lackwit such as yourself."

"How DARE you!" Thanos raged.

"How?  Like this!" Cloak said, demonstrating the power of the Eternity Stones, striking his Gauntlet.  This caused a small crack in the metal and the Gems to dull in color -- as well as the Eternity Stones own color dulling as well.

"Fool, your powers are nothing to mine!!" Thanos cried triumphantly, ignorant of what the attack truly did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 01:17:18 PM

Now, the future book list.  Getting close to the book I'm rather looking forward to writing (Book XXX).  And I'm planning out the chapters of Book CXXXVIII ("Solar Sucks").

EDIT: Yarin, Estelore, Saffa and I were the principal characters in that book.  Now planning out the chapters of Book CXXXIX ("Hounded").

• Book XXVIII: The Virus Rings

The RAFians are attacked by foes they never thought they'd see again.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 26, 2013, 05:06:52 PM

I liked how you said "Kyrptonian power to be immune to mundane things." We all know Superman's writers like making him a Mary Sue.

I admire the fashion in which this is happening, great writing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 05:29:09 PM

Too right, Underseen.  Although I do worry that my character is a bit of one, as well.

Anyway, I'm not sure how many chapters that I'll be able to get up tomorrow, but it will, at the very least, be one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 26, 2013, 05:37:05 PM

Let's hope for good weather.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2013, 09:50:50 PM

Well, I just realized this thread has overtaken my last project thread -- "RAFize Songs" -- by 19 pages.

First chapter of the day.  Sorry about the brevity of it.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
One-On-One

The battle began in earnest, after Cloak told the others not to involve themselves, Cloak easily managing to either dodged, redirected, blocked or preempted every attack Thanos attempted.  He wasn't too happy with this development.

"This isn't possible! I possess the Gauntlet!  I possess the Infinity Gems!!  It is not possible to defy me!!!" he raged.

Cloaked disengaged Thanos, and stayed there, hovering.  "And I have the Eternity Stones."

This stumped the behemoth, who resorted to anger and arrogance, "Eternity Stones? There's no such things!"

"Really?" Cloak said silkily, as Thanos recommenced his assault.  Don't believe your own eyes do you?"

Cloak dodged and avoided this attack with practiced ease and feline agility.

"Always the brute, eh, Thanos?" Cloak said. "Surely you must have realized by now."

"Don't mock me, you miserable --"

"Realm Walker," Cloak supplied.

"Whatever!  You will die!"

"You don't honestly think you're the first to try to kill me?  Only one has come close." Cloak said.  "I doubt you'll be second.  Especially now that the Eternity Stones dimished the powers of both sets of stones."

"Wh-what?"

"Oh, c'mon, Thanos! This ain't rocket science! That energy pulse diluted the powers and effects of both the Infinity Gems and the Eternity Stones themselves!" Cloak said.  "Now you cannot do inreptuable damage to the reality of this realm."

"This realm?"

"Don't even entertain the possibility, Thanos," Cloak scolded.  "No Dweller, no matter how powerful, can ever leave their realm."

This wasn't the entire truth, but Cloak didn't need Thanos contriving and scheming to take the Nexus.  The humiliation would be akin to being responsible for allowing a rather naughty, destructive cat outside.  More of nuisance than an actual threat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2013, 11:30:40 AM

Second chapter of the day.  Probably gonna be a bit short.  I apologize.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Underestimation

Thanos gave a loud roar and charged Cloak.  This time he wasn't fast enough to dodge.  Thanos barrelled into Cloak, who just rather passively rode the air currents.  Thanos whipped right around and attempted to grab Cloak only for the Eternity Gems to bat it away in a rather languid, lazy way, resolutely following their orbits.
 
"Give it up, Thanos," Cloak said.  "There is no way that you can win."
 
"There's no way you can win either!" he countered.  "Our power levels are equal!!"
 
Cloak said nothing, hiding his true emotions.  It was true, the Eternity Stones really didn't make him any stronger than he was before, and, though their powers permanently diluted, the Infinity Gems still had some juice to make Thanos a real viable threat.  Granted, Thanos would not be able to kill Cloak, but he would be able to hurt him enough to wish that he was dead.
 
"You're one doing the realization thing now, aren't you?" he taunted.  "We are equals.  Of equal strength, equal might, equal power!"
 
"You will not win," Cloak said stubbornly.
 
"You haven't the power to defeat me," he pointed out.  "Your puny little Mark is nothing, does nothing, to help you out."
 
He was right on that account.  Unity Energy here was more than likely useless.  Cloak could really do nothing but check Thanos's power.  Check it . . . for all eternity.  That was not possible -- even Realm Walkers aren't immortal.  Nothing truly is.  Every beginning has an end, even Realm Walker society had to rebuild before.  While Cloak knew that Thanos wasn't effectively any more immortal than he himself was, it wasn't very much comfort.
 
"Face it, boy." Thanos said.  "You can't do anything more than just keep me in check.  You have no friends that could even remotely help you here.  You're just the catalyst for a never-ending struggle."
 
Thanos couldn't have been really any more satisfied with this situation as Cloak was.  The two had interlaced their fingers and were struggling to push the other back.  The Eternity Stones had changed their orbit slightly to allow this.  They were basically locked in a battle that neither could win, and neither could lose.
 
And yet . . .
 
And yet that word . . . "catalyst" . . . it meant something more, something that Thanos had no idea what it truly meant.  But, in Cloak, it registered something . . . something in the back of his mind. . . .
 
"And you'll never give up, will you, boy?"
 
No, he knew he would never give up.  He would always hold this monster in check, no matter his attempts to throw him.  No matter how many threats or taunts he threw casually his way.  But . . . still . . . that word . . . why did it illicit such a reaction in him?  Why . . .
 
No.
 
No way could it be that.  No way could it be telling him what he thought it was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2013, 12:04:32 PM

Third chapter of the day.  May be quite short, may not.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Catalyst

Only a fraction of Cloak's thoughts lingered upon the battle, the never-ending battle with Thanos.  His other thoughts strayed back to that prophecy of sorts that appeared when he had procured the CP Garnet. . . . Maybe it was more than what Cloak initially dismissed it as.  The more he thought about it the more he could see the parrallels.
 

"The time approaches near.
Along with the being of fear."

The being of fear was not Sinestro or his Corps.  It wasn't Phobos or Deimos, immortal sons of Ares.  It wasn't even Parrallax.  It was Thanos -- who attempted to flip Cloak, but he stood his ground.
 

"The warring Infinities and Eternities
Will bring the Earth's chosen to their knees."

Cloak resisted another attempt from Thanos to throw him.  The warring Stones and Gems . . . and they brought the RAFians to their knees.  In a way.

"Six upon six, there can only be one fix."

Only one fix . . .

"A catalyst is needed."

A catalyst . . . Cloak's eyes widened with realization.  He wasn't meant to defeat Thanos.  That wasn't his destiny.  He allowed Thanos to flip him, and he twisted his body and landed on his feet the way that only a cat could, with practiced ease.  But he stood tall.
 
"I understand now," Cloak said, voice sounding rather ethereal.
 
"You understand nothing," Thanos spat.
 
"I understand far more than you do," Cloak said.  Suddenly, Eternity Stones stopped their orbits as the RAFians below were reviving.  Suddenly, all six were awash in golden-scarlet energy.  Then Cloak crossed his arms in front of him, and then his eyes snapped open, golden-scarlet suns.  "I am the catalyst."
 
Suddenly, the Eternity Stones rotated on their own axises as rapidly as a Ferrothorn.  Cloak waited only a moment more before declaring, "Now go!  Go to your rightful owners!!"
 
The Stones sped away from Cloak, and one each stopped in front of Horse (absorbing her destroyed Pinniped Dagger), Phoenix, Faerie (absorbing her broken battle axe), Mithril, Underseen and Goom.
 
The Stone that used to be the Gi Sapphire turned into the Tempest Blade, her Pinniped Dagger reborn, and Horse grasped it.  With a brillant blue flash, she became a human with long, snow-white hair with blue armor with white seafoam accents.
 
The Stone that used to be the Wheeler Ruby turned into the Sun Blade, and Phoenix took it.  With a brillant red flash, he was adorned with armor rather similar-looking to Blaze Heatnix -- red armor with yellow, fiery accents.
 
The Stone that used to be Linka Pearl turned into the Gale Blade, her battle-axe reborn, and Faerie took it eagerly.  With a brillant white flash, she was adorned with white armor with pink airy accents.

The Stone that used to be Kwame Diamond turned into the Fissure Blade, and Mithril took it tentatively.  With a brillant green flash, he was adorned with green armor with brown earthy accents.

The Stone that used to be Heart of Mati Succhi turned into the Light Blade, and Underseen took it rather hesitantly.  With a bright yellow flash, he was adorned with golden yellow armor that changed as he did.

And, finally, the Stone that used to be the CP Garnet turned into the Damocles Blade, and Goom took it somehow.  With a bright silver flash, he was adorned with silver armor with many sharp corners and edges.

The Eternity Blades had been given to their rightful owners.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: The Spectre on March 27, 2013, 03:42:16 PM

Book CX for the win!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2013, 05:16:22 PM

Yes, but we're a long way off from that book.  And no spoilers, Spectre! ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 27, 2013, 06:39:46 PM

Armor is always cool and so are swords. That was pretty cool and I wonder the true potential for everyone's weapons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 28, 2013, 06:48:59 AM

I am gonna read every Memoir even if it means saving all 102 pages for offline reading and driving my mom completely nuts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2013, 07:20:57 AM

I'm simultaneously flattered and concerned at that, Saffa.

First chapter of today.  Kinda short.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Blades

"Stupid boy!" Thanos said, not quite hiding his perplexity, as Cloak slowly descended to the ground, landing rather gently.  "Only a fool throws away his advantage!"

Cloak collapsed down to one knee, head bowed, eyes closed, breathing ragged as his left hand clutched his chest.  The mere act of catalyzing the Stones drained him far more than he had anticipated.

"And you've weakened yourself in such a futile display!" Thanos proclaimed uncomprehendingly. Then his tone took on a slight tone of disappointment.  "You and your Eternity Stones could have held me at bay for countless millennia.  Now you're a weak, little nothing."

Cloaked gritted his teeth, steadied his breathing before slowly lifting his head, gnashing his teeth with every word, "Am I, Thanos?"

Then he stood tall, looking directly at Thanos, feeling completely unintimidated and completely irked.

"You see, Thanos," Cloak said, very clearly and plainly, as the chosen wielders of the newly-minted Eternity Blades came and stood beside him. "The Eternity Stones had another power that the brutish Infinity Gems do not."

Thanos hesitated at this, then decided, "LIES!"

"How can it be a lie when you witnessed the event for yourself?" Cloak said, as if Thanos was a very naughty child.  "The Stones, when enough energy from a full-fledged Elements Master of the Six Elements, have been sufficiently energized, they evolve -- yes, evolve, Thanos -- into the Tempest, Fissure, Sun, Fissure, Light, and Damocles Blades, collectively known as the Eternity Blades."

"Fancy words," Thanos taunted. "But that's all they are, aren't they?"

"Care to see for yourself?" Goom said.

"We're more than ready to take you down." Phoenix said.

"Enough talking, more hitting!" Faerie cried.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 28, 2013, 10:56:25 AM

Haha no worry, it's just that I'm slightly late and so I'll try and read as much as possible. You go so fast it's crazy!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2013, 11:49:06 AM

Well, it's a sort of therapy for me, Saffa.  Writing is always cathartic for me.  One hundred pages at only 27 books. . . . geez, wonder what the page number'll be when I get to Book CX (that is to say, Book 110).

Now, another chapter -- and the one after it will end it.  This book, that is.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Shattered Explosions

"Happy to indulge, fairy!" Thanos said.
 
"What . . . did . . . you . . . call . . . me?" Faerie said, her eyes alight with malicious violence.
 
"Oh no." Cloak said, slightly facepalming.  "He called her the 'F' word."
 
"What?  What's wrong?" Saffa asked, sitting up, reviving from Thanos's first assault.
 
"He shouldn't have done that." Az said rather amused, but in a somewhat bemused way.
 
Faerie roared loudly and flew straight to holding her Gale Blade at a very dangerous angle.  Then she struck, struck, struck!  Thanos blocked each strike with the Gauntlet -- apparently unaware of the minute fissure, the crack that appeared in the Time Gem.  But Faerie's attack didn't stop or faulter.
 
It was this barrage of attacks that actually forced Thanos to the ground.  Faerie had backed off a bit, only due to exhaustion.
 
"This is all you have to muster?" Thanos gloated, still unaware of the damaged Infinity Gem.  "Pathetic."
 
"Oh, hello." Underseen said pleasantly, on Thanos's side.  Then he slammed his Light Blade against the Gauntlet, causing several rather invisible fractures in the Soul Gem.  Thanos roughly threw him aside, and he remained ignorant that two of the Infinity Gems were structurally-compromised.  However, Underseen hadn't missed this, as he oozed away from Thanos -- the Light Blade and his armor oozing with him, as if they were nothing more than an extension of his being, which they were.
 
"Phoenix, Goom, Horse, Mithril," Underseen said to the others, when his lips, mouth, and vocal cords solidified enough.  "You each have to attack him individually.  Jeopardize the other Infinity Gems."
 
"What?" Horse asked.
 
"The Space Gem and the Time Gem have been fractured," Cloak said, nodding, "I can sense it from here.  The only reason it's still in one piece is because of the Gauntlet.  Each power would have been affected accordingly."
 
"Okay, I'll go then." Mithril said, and he charged forward, easily ducking Thanos blow, wondering idly how he could remain ignonant of his power ebbing away slowly.  Then he slammed the hilt of the Fissure Blade upon the Gauntlet, and slashed at it with the blade, breaking the Reality Gem with rather obvious cracks.  But Thanos's mind was elsewhere, as he punched Mithril in the gut, and the RAFian flew in the air, the Fissure Blade slipping from his grasp for just a moment.  He landed hard on his feet, and his breath coming in huffs and puffs.
 
"My turn," Horse said.  So she charged forward, teeth clenched in an animalistic rage, yet the seal still lurked about in her face.  She fluidly dodged Thanos's punches.  It was as if he was trying to punch water.  Horse snuck under his guard and got in a nice slice of the Mind Gem.  Then she dodged away, and stood her ground.  This perplexed Thanos.  He was suspecting something more was going on.
 
"Quick, Phoenix," Cloak urged, "he already suspects.  Do it now."
 
Phoenix nodded, and flew -- yes, flew -- on fiery phoenix wings toward Thanos.  He was not one to be so easily intimidated, though.  This fact served Phoenix very well, as his intent was far different from intimidation.  With two well-placed strikes from his Sun Blade, he managed to cleanly sever the Space Gem into quarters.  Thanos remained none-the-wiser, as he believed the attack was intimidation.
 
"Fool!  I will not be so easily frightened!!"
 
"Goom," Cloak urged, "go now."

"Right," Goom said, charging forward, sword held high and inexplicably.

However, Thanos didn't considered Goom very much of a threat, as he laughed a great big belly laugh.  Goom had no trouble in slicing open the Power Gem.  Then he charged out of Thanos's reach.

Thanos was still grinning like a great big idiot, "Is that the best you could do?"

"I think it was suitable." Goom said, lowering his Damocles Blade slightly.

"Suitable?  You didn't do anything!!" Thanos said with another belly laugh.

"Didn't they?" Cloak said, a subtle smirk playing around his lips.

"What do you mea -- ARGH!!"

BOOM!  BOOM!!  BOOM!!! Bah-BOOM!  BOOM!! Bah-BOOM!

The Gems disintegrated explosively with colored explosions, as they were unable to contain the little power they managed to hold on to.  Thanos was very, very, very much weakened by these explosions, and the gold Gauntlet was nothing more than twisted, tarished gold that was smoking slightly.

"Uhhh . . ." Thanos said, before succumbing to unconsciousness.

"It's over." Phoenix said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2013, 12:27:45 PM

Last chapter of the 27th book!  Just remember, the chapters today will have to tide you over 'til Monday.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Dark Horizon

"Okay," Underseen said, lowering his Light Blade all the way, now that Thanos was prone, unmoving, but still alive.  "What do we do with him?"

"If he's not already dead," Faerie said, the fire still in her eyes, "let's kill him and be done with it."

"That's a bit dark.  Even for you, Faerie," Goom said, but did not offer an alternative.

"Killing him is what he wants," Cloak said.  "It's his way of being with his, ahem, 'beloved'."

"What do you propose?" Phoenix asked, as all the Eternity Blades vanished in a way much like the Keyblades.

"Let him live," Cloak said, vaguely.  Then he realized how vague it was, and sought to clarify, "Remove all vestiges of power from him, then release him.  The Infinity Gems and Eternity Stones are no more, he cannot do any real harm once AniDragon gives him her treatment."

"But the Eternity Stones aren't gone," Mithril said, resumming his Fissure Blade in a style like Riku, and the armor came back with, "they come to us when we call."

"Mithril, weren't you paying attention?  That is no longer the Kwame Diamond, no longer an Eternity Stone.  It is an Eternity Blade.  It evolved -- they all evolved, so the Stones are gone." Cloak explained.  "The Stone could have been used by anyone.  The Fissure Blade is at your beck and call, Mithril.  Your beck and call.  Yours, and no one else's.  Those blades cannot be used by anyone else but the ones that they chose."

"Wow," Horse said, benignly.  "That's better than my Pinniped Dagger . . . although, this is sort of its son or something, I suppose."

"Right," Phoenix said, thoughtfully as AniDragon approached nearer, "but what about those people that Thanos killed?  With the Infinity Gems gone were they brought back from death?"

Cloak remained silent as he watched AniDragon work her magic and bind any powers Thanos had left.  He remained silent as she thanked the six Blade-Wielders and then went on her way.  He remained silent as Parker, Blocky, and Dino drug Thanos, none too gently, from the forum.

"Well?" Phoenix said, impatiently.

Cloak closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Phoenix, I don't know."

"What?"

Cloak opened his eyes and met the Blade-Wielder's gaze.  "I don't know, Phoenix.  I said, I don't know."

"But you doubt it." Phoenix said shrewdly.

"Yes." Cloak answered truthfully.

***

Meanwhile, somewhere, deep in space, a small mass of small black things swarmed closer to the solar system, like locusts looking for fresh greenery.  It's shadow cast upon many a barren planet.  The very swarm shouted evil from light years away, and they sought to ring destruction.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2013, 12:30:50 PM

Still planning out the chapters for "Hounded".

EDIT: Added "Book CL (150): Utter Pandemonium" and "Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite".  Now, planning the chapters of "A Buggy Afternoon", with four already planned.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2013, 12:57:01 PM

Eh, I'll go ahead and start this book.  Bit on the short side, I'm afraid.
 

BOOK XXVIII:
The Viral Rings
CHAPTER ONE:
Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

Upon the grounds of RAF, Cloak felt like some weight had been placed on his back.  He did not know why, but it took him all his strength, all his willpower, to not collapse upon the ground.  He had never felt such a powerful force of evil.  Even Malice didn't give off this much.  And that was saying something.

He has heard tale, however, of one Realm Walker issuing out a similar level of evil.  His name was, quite aptly, Cataclysm.  But he was dead.  He's been dead for years.  And yet . . . and yet, so was Malice.  Malice is still believed to be dead by the general Realm Walker populace.

Whatever it was, Cloak could tell, it was coming closer.  What it was, however, he could not say.

"Cloak!" Aquilai exclaimed.  "You're okay!"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, rather flummoxed.

"Well, FuBar, Bladeh, Kitsi, and every other feline RAFian is unconscious." the Time Lord said.

Cloak sighed heavily, "So I didn't imagine it."

"Imagine what?"

"The enormous, powerful evil approaching us."

"Wait -- more powerful than Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet?"

"Yes, in a more pervasive way." Cloak said.  "I don't know what this thing is, but --"

"You're worried." Aquilai said, astutely.

"Yes, Aquilai," Cloak said, very seriously, turning his gaze from the stars to Aquilai, "I am."

Silence spanned the hours as they stood their looking across the cosmos.  Thinking about it, make Cloak feel so small.  Even smaller when he thought that there were thousands more realms, realities, than just this little one.  Millions, really.  Some are destroyed and others are born every few days.

But it was in this one that Cloak found a place where he belonged.  It was in this one that Cloak found friends with similar interests.  It was in this one that Cloak found . . . a family.  Cloak shut his eyes as if he could shut out the memories.  He was treated with scorn back in the Nexus.  Simply because he valued Dwellers. . . .

But no . . . that wasn't entirely true.  There were other Realm Walkers who valued the lives of Realm Dwellers.  Shadow . . . for one. . . .

No, he mustn't go there.  Those memories were too painful.  They must be suppressed.

***

The mysterious mass encroached further and further to the solar system.  Upon closer inspection, revealed them to be round, with a hollow middle . . . rings.  Semi-sentient, black rings who appeared to be suffering from some corrosion.  There was no counting how many individual rings there were, but the mass seemed to be about the size of a compact car.

Who knew why they sought out the solar system, but their bad vibes were strong enough to span the distance. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 28, 2013, 05:19:19 PM

Wow my armor is really cool. Why do I of all people get the light blade and can I change the sword too?

This new book will be interesting. I like when aspects from other books make new books themselves.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2013, 05:39:23 PM

Quote from: Underseen on March 28, 2013, 05:19:19 PM

[...] can I change the sword too? [...]

Yes, although it takes a toll on your energy and concentration.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 28, 2013, 05:41:53 PM

Meh rather just change myself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2013, 02:38:40 PM

Its mostly for camouflage purposes -- helping you pull off certain impersonations.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on March 29, 2013, 02:49:34 PM

Oh I see. Why was it the light blade for me? I know I already asked that question, but you never answered it.

I just forgot that although today is Friday there would be no chapters, but I can just speculate what is going to happen in this new book over a latte.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2013, 03:05:57 PM

God, you're quick. ;) And speculate away!  There  are basically two things that this book is loosely based on.

Quote from: Underseen on March 29, 2013, 02:49:34 PM

Oh I see. Why was it the light blade for me? I know I already asked that question, but you never answered it.

I just forgot that although today is Friday there would be no chapters, but I can just speculate what is going to happen in this new book over a latte.

Yeah, I deliberately neglected to answer that.  Why? I didn't really have a good answer . . . it just seemed a good idea at the time.

EDIT: Well, you can expect a minimum of two chapters tomorrow.

And here we go.  Sorry, it's short.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
The Black Plague

Estelore was muddling around some lonely, barren, "unattatched" planetoids.  She felt mingled feelings of disappointment, sorrow, and pity for the lifeless rocks.  Her examinations showed that the planetoids never had life, never had the opportunity.
Then she noticed something rather odd in the distance.

It was a swarm.  A swarm of small black objects, with something more substantial in the center of this strange hive mass.  It was a lantern of black metal, alight with a black-colored light.

What in the world . . . ? Estelore found herself thinking, wondering.  Her innate curiosity piqued, she approached the mass, who seemed to not take notice of her.

"The blackest night falls from the skies. . . ."

What's this? Estelore thought, thoroughly nonplussed.  How can I understand them?

"The darkness grows as all light dies."

Estelore started to realize that these things, whatever they maybe, were not harmless, inert things she initially thought.  Not objects doomed to float in the void, at the mercy of whoever decides destiny and fate.

"We crave your hearts and your demise. . . ."

The import of this message, and she realized the true motives of the vile, viral creatures.  She tried to figure their trajectory, working furiously.  It was with a heavy heart, leadened with dread, that she realized that they were making a beeline toward the . . . the Earth.

"By our black whims, the dead shall rise!"

For the first time, in a long time, Esty felt real terror.  Terror equal to when a Mummudrai Evile-possessed Phoenix came after her.

She took off to Earth, to warn them, to prepare them.  Unfortunately, this mass picked up on her terror, "seeing" her in shades of fearful yellows mixed with willful greens and hopeful blues.

They followed that . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2013, 08:31:06 AM

Got more to go, and that's not an April Fools joke.  Sorry this one's short too.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
A Falling Star

Estelore, oblivious that her emotional "light" was essentially lighting the way to the Earth, hurried towards the planets that orbited Sol.  Towards the third one, all blue, green, brown and white.
 
But, in reality, the blame did not fall with Esty.  It was just a matter of time before these corroded black rings and their black lantern hive-mother discovered the Earth, a planet so vibrant, so pulsing with the life and the emotional light that these rings and their lantern-mother despised.
 
Anyway, Esty encapsulated herself in her woman-in-a-sundress avatar as she approached this simple, unassuming rock.  She was soon descending through clouds of the fluffy variety as she controlled her plummet to the soft, loamy soil.
 

***

Cloak squinted as he looked upward to the darkening sky.
 
"What in the realm . . . ?" Cloak muttered the Realm Walker equivalent of "What in the world?"
 
"It's . . ." Aquilai said, squinting as well.  Then his eyes widened as he finished the statement, "Heading right for us!!"
 
Cloak stood his ground as Aquilai dove away.  But the descending object stopped within mere feet of Cloak -- and revealed herself to be a rather harried Estelore.
 
"Well," Cloak said with an airy tone he did not feel, "what brings you here in such a hurry?"
 
"Them," Estelore pointed enigmatically behind her, "they come."
 
"Care to be mor elaborate?" Aquilai asked, brushing and dusting himself off.
 
"Death itself."
 
"Yeah, that's specific," Aquilai sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2013, 08:45:50 AM

Warning: this chapter'll be really short.  Probably too short. . . . So, yeah, I padded it a little.
   

CHAPTER FOUR:
Black Rain

But soon became obvious just what Estelore had meant just mere moments later.

"The blackest night falls from the skies,
The darkness grows as all light dies,
We crave your hearts and your demise,
By our black whims, the dead shall rise!"

Like some perverse rain, the rings plummeted into the atmosphere.  They still supported their "queen", their hive-mother, this lantern of black light.

"The blackest night falls from the skies,
The darkness grows as all light dies,
We crave your hearts and your demise,
By our black wrath, the dead shall rise!"

They eventually set down in the nearest sect of the Westboro Baptist Church, as that church was a leading cause of death, the death of tact and common decency, and this appealed to the lantern and its energy, fuelled by the vast emptiness, by its cold, lifeless expanses.

"The blackest night falls from the skies,
The darkness grows as all light dies,
We crave your hearts and your demise,
By our black avarice, the dead shall rise!"

The lantern's inner black light writhed and undulated rather hungrily.  Its "children" continued to recite their Oath in an almost singsongy way as their "mother" did this.

"The blackest night falls from the skies,
The darkness grows as all light dies,
We crave your hearts and your demise,
By our black dread, the dead shall rise!"

Then they scattered inexplicably.  They floated in a swirly manner before they floated away, for one mission.  One macabre mission, to extinguish the light of the emotional spectrum.  There was only one way to do that -- eliminate all life.  Still, they recited the Oath like little kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

"The blackest night falls from the skies,
The darkness grows as all light dies,
We crave your hearts and your demise,
By our black wills, the dead shall rise!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2013, 09:18:21 AM

Perhaps the previous chapter was creepy enough.  Anyway, have a fourth chapter today.
   

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Rings of Death

The rings flared out and went, seeking some unknown object.  Some seemed attracted to the outskirts of RAF, to the graveyards of the city, to a mausoleum where Knights were buried.  They were drawn to crypts and places of death.  It was soon clear what their gross goal was.
 
They blasted into the crypts and wormed their way onto the fingers of those enclosed.  Then used black energy tendrils to firmly adhere themselves to the corpses which then began to raise up.  Not quite zombies and not quite Black Lanterns, but some perverse fusion of the two.
 
Several of the people that the RAFians had faced before -- the former owners of the Infinity Gems, Syphoon, Louis Cannon, Mallory Falwell, and, most surprising of all, Thanos himself!  They were restricted to just finding corpses, even the vaguest remnant was sufficient to reconstitute a viral Black Lantern.  Madre de Vampyra became a viral Black Lantern, as did Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar and his crew that were slain when Dark Phoenix annihilated their Dome ship.
 
They weren't exactly the same people that they were before the Black Lantern rings chose them, as if they were being controlled by another entity, but they retained all their memories.

But not all corpses were turned into Black Lanterns -- Abraham Lincoln's tomb was unable to be breached, as was Harriet Tubman, Gandhi, and other beings who vouched for peace and equality.  The Black Lanterns could not tolerate such an embrace of life, even in these great people's deaths.

 But there were enough people who allowed hatred and contempt to corrode this one principle, who allowed their bodies to be used in such away.  Like Black Lantern Inferi, their distorted and gruesome appearances in death frightened pretty much all.

Cloak saw all this happening, mostly with Earthsight.  Cloak felt a chill travel up his spine from the tip of his tail.  He could also feel his fur puffing up a little.

"Cloak," Aquilai said, showing a great deal of concern upon seeing Cloak's reaction.  "Cloak, what's wrong."

Cloak was very glad that Aquilai couldn't really see just how unnerved he was.  Realm Walkers all found the idea of leaving corpses when you die rather disconcerting, as they do not.  The idea of them being reanimated in any way was truly revolting to Realm Walker sensibilities.  Cloak wasn't an exception to this facet of his species psyche.

"Cloak," Aquilai repeated.  "What's wrong?"

Cloak turned and looked Aquilai in the eye, and said, with a slight quaver to his voice, "Everything."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2013, 09:48:24 AM

Oh, yeah, this is getting creepy, I think.  Fifth chapter today.
   

CHAPTER SIX:
Hunkered Down

More and more rings took on host corpses.  Some historically famous, like Andrew Jackson, and others more unknown.  But none were children, it seemed -- perhaps because they embrace the light of life more than anybody.
 
The other RAFians could not help but sit up and take notice of this.  Green Lantern Sam and Helen were among the first, after Cloak.  The color had left their faces as they realized something.
 
"Yarin, Aquilai, bring up the perimeter defenses," Richard commanded.  "The rest of you, in the auditorium.  NOW."
 
With that, everyone dashed to the large indoor auditorium.
 

***

"Now, what do we have here?" Richard asked the room at large.  "It appears to be zombies of some sort."

They had all assembled into their usual spots in the auditorium.  Cloak stood in the back, arms crossed, looking very somber and serious.  There was a brief outburst of whispering at Richard's proclaimation.

"Black Lanterns, actually," Sam corrected, stifling his fear.  "I thought they were a legend, a myth."

"They were viral, too," Cloak said, surly.  "They contain great evil.  FuBar, Bladeh, Kitsi and the others sensed it, too."

"They could be a fusion of a zombie virus and Black Lantern rings," Helen suggested, shivering at the mere thought of it.  Cloak didn't blame her.  "Who knows if there's a weakness?"

"Simple," Parker said, fully-armored, "headshots all the way."

"Honey, you know I love you," Helen said consolingly, "but it may work that way if they were solely zombies, but they're also Black Lanterns.  They'd regenerate."

"Oh, that's just perfect," Parker sighed.

"So, we just remove the rings." Gaz shrugged.  "Easy-peezy."

"I highly doubt that it'll be that easy," Underseen pointed out.  "They probably have roots or tendrils or something locking them onto the corpses."

<So,> Noelle thought aloud, <we'll simply have to destroy the rings.>

"But we don't know of anything that CAN destroy them!" Sam interjected.

"I have a question," Saffa spoke up.

"What is it?" Phoenix said, encouraging her to go on.

"If they were after us, why isn't there, I dunno, shakes and wobbles and such?"

Dead silence greeted this.

"We're not their primary targets, are we?" Saffa pressed.

Dead silence again as Cloak facepalmed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2013, 10:30:10 AM

Probably gonna be the last chapter today.  Maaaaaybe not.  Depends.
   

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Mark-Bearers and Ring-Bearers

"Well, then," Cloak said to the silenced crowd at large, "there can be only one solution.  We must go and protect the city."
 
"But what about the other cities, Cloak?" Underseen asked aptly.  "We cannot possibly protect all of them."
 
Cloak forgot that this realm wasn't like the Nexus with only one real central city, only one big metropolis.  He recovered his poise with reasonable ease, "We must do what we can."
 
"And if it isn't enough?" Kelly asked, biting her lip nervously.
 
"It will have to be enough," Cloak shrugged.  "And we must give it our all to repel this threat."
 
<And get turned into one of those horrid things too?> Esplin countered.  <I heard their chanting.  They want our hearts.>
 
"Fine, Esplin," Cloak said, nodding to him, "then send in the RAFians who lack a physical heart."
 
"Like who?" Saffa asked.
 
"Like Sakki and Oceanspray," Cloak suggested, "being mechanical, and all.  And I would go with."
 
"You don't have a heart?" Estelore asked.

"I do, actually," Cloak said, "although somewhat -- er, never mind the specifics.  The fact of the matter is when I die, there would be nothing for them to eat.  Even if there was, it would cause the simultaneous incineration, melting, and disintegration of the realm."

Which would serve the viral Black Lanterns, as they hated life, but Cloak chose not to mention this.

"Wait," Faerie spoke up, "what about the Mark?"

"What about it?" Goom asked.

"Would it protect us from the Black Lanterns?"

All eyes glanced between Goom and Cloak.

"I don't know." Cloak said, honestly.  "It doesn't protect you from dying.  It protects you from possession, mind control, etcera, etcera.  But Goom and I never prepared for this eventuality.  We never foresaw it."

"I'll take that risk," Faerie said recklessly.

"I will too," Underseen said, suddenly holding the Light Blade.  His thinking was that they would recoil in fear against it.

"Okay, Oceanspray, Sakki, Faerie, Underseen, and I --"

"Hold up, I'm coming too." Parker said stubbornly.

"Parker, no!"

"Sorry, Helen.  I'm not getting left out of this."

"I'll tag along too," Gaz said.

"And that makes nine," Esty said, standing.  She was no longer Casual Esty -- the sundress and hat were gone.  She was wearing yellow Kevlar and her hair was drawn up into a tight bun.  She was Warrior Esty.

Noelle skittered a little, and, with slight hesitation, she said, <Make that ten.>

"Okay," Richard nodded.  "Go, and stay in constant communication."

***

The ten stationed themselves around the city, after a thorough search realized that the Black Lanterns had only penetrated the upper northwest quarter, turning those that they could into Black Lanterns.  Cloak noticed that their marks, normally blue, were now colored rather blisteringly white.

"Nothing here." Parker noted over communications.  They did probably the worse thing that they could have done.  They split up to cover more ground.  Even Cloak couldn't keep them in Earthsight range with all the other vibrations going on throughout the city.  He didn't like it, the city seemed to be deserted.

He had a very bad feeling about this. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 01, 2013, 05:21:33 PM

People that took us a considerate amount of time to defeat are all back and if we can't beat them we might join them. The odds are not in our favor, which makes this all the more interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2013, 05:28:06 PM

But there's always a way.  It doesn't help that these are some old demons, particularly in Parker and Gaz's case.

EDIT: Still planning out "Buggy Afternoon".

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 01, 2013, 05:31:52 PM

You're right, Cloaky. Some pretty creepy stuff here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 02, 2013, 03:23:46 AM

I'm at Book 13, and so far it's been SO FREAKING AWESOME! Cloaky, do not ever, ever stop writing. You make wasting time on the Net a good thing. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2013, 06:39:02 AM

Quote from: Saffa on April 02, 2013, 03:23:46 AM

I'm at Book 13, and so far it's been SO FREAKING AWESOME! Cloaky, do not ever, ever stop writing. You make wasting time on the Net a good thing. :)

Saffa, I assure you, as long as my hands are in good working order and completely functional, I won't.

Anyway, probably a long chapter.
   

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Ghosts of the Past

Cloak paced idly, something he did when thinking or agitated, with the rapidity usually indicating which in combination with the movement of his tail.
 
Cloak had his arms folded rather stiffly as he twitched his right ear in a most irritated way.
 
He had his back to a big, black silhouette wearing a ring on one of his beefy, sausage-like fingers.
 
Cloak didn't even deign to turn around, and felt secretly sick.  He addressed the silhouette, "Thanos, I presume?"
 
"Surprised, boy?" Thanos said, his appearance was a Black Lantern uniform with their symbol of a point-down triangle with four lines arising from the flat edge in diagonals.  His flesh was corpse gray with sunken, white eyes.
 
Cloak turned slowly to face him, his face expressionless and quite serious.  "Not really.  You couldn't stand to have your powers bound, I suppose?  So desperate to be with Death in you own delusions, you snuffed out your own life.  Am I close?"
 
"Scared?"
 
Cloak narrowed his eyes with utter contempt, he replied, "You wish."
 

***

Gaz hovered outside an abandoned florist, showing signs of serious apprehension and trepidation.
 
"My daughter . . ." came the voice of the person Gaz dreaded.  "My daughter . . . you have forgotten me . . ."
 
The truth was Gaz had not forgotten that voice, that sultry, enticing voice.
 
Gaz turned around and saw Madre de Vampyra, looking very much the same, only wearing a Black Lantern uniform and a ring.
 
"You've abandoned the old ways . . . the true ways . . ." she said in a breathless manner.  "You've abandoned your mother. . . ."
 
"You are no mother of mine," Gaz said defiantly.  But she did feel fear.  Not fear of Madre per se, but what she represented.  But she needn't have voiced this.  "And I reject your path, Vampyra!"
 
"Such a pity," Madre tsked almost fretfully.
 

***

Parker was completely on guard, he was trained for this type of scenario.  He was completely cautious. His mind so focused at the task at hand, he didn't recognize the familiarity of the spot he patrolled.
 
"Returned to the scene," said a sneering voice, "of the crime?"
 
Parker was glad that his helmet obscured the shocked, stricken look upon his face.  He said nothing as he turned.
 
It was Louis Cannon.  He was in the spandex-looking Black Lantern uniform which really left nothing to the imagination.  His skin was the darkest corpse-gray, and his hair was quite white and thick, not whispy at all.
 
"Oh, big hero," Cannon sneered.  "It wasn't enough for you to steal my betrothed from me, but was killing a bit overkill?"
 
Parker hesitated for a moment, before saying, tonelessly, "It wasn't I who killed you."
 
"LIAR!  She didn't kill me!"
 
"No, she didn't." Parker said, narrowing his eyes.  "You did it to yourself in your lust over Helen . . ."
 
"LIES!"
 

***

Noelle's hooves clop-clop-clopped on the sidewalk rather omniously.  Her stalk eyes were never stationary and her tail-blade quivered.  The idea of reanimated corpses were unnerving to Andalites as they were to humans and Realm Walkers.
 
<Noelle . . .> came a thought-speak voice that was like an ice molasses.
 
<No.> Noelle gasped.  She had suspected that he might be a Black Lantern.  But she had hoped that she was mistakened.  He didn't wear a uniform, but a black belt rather like Machoke or Machamp's with the Black Lantern symbol on it.
 
<Noelle . . . you've killed me . . .>
 
<No! I didn't!> she protested.  <Ardnalil, I didn't!>
 
<You . . . allowed that beast . . . to do what he did.> Black Lantern Ardnalil said, his tone more accusatory.  He looked at Noelle and saw green, yellow and indigo.  At what he said he saw a little of the yellow and indigo transmute into bright red.
 
<I did not.  I could not have helped what happened to you.>
 
<You should have just married me when I asked . . .>
 
At this point, the yellow and indigo he saw in Noelle transformed at once into the brightest, deepest red, while the green remained intact.  The two colors filled her.
 
<Now you listen here!  I don't care if you're a zombie, a Black Lantern, or some strange hodgepodge of both!> Noelle said heatedly, her tail quivering from anger instead of fear.   <If I had married you it wouldn't have changed your fate at all.  You've always placed far too much importance on image and rank.  You were -- are one the most arrogant, egotistical, narcissistic people in the whole galaxy!>
 
<I'm . . .> Ardnalil said, voice sinister and breathy, ". . . very disappointed to hear that, darling Noelle.  Prepare to join us.>
 
<Us?> Noelle said, frantically rescanning her surroundings.
 

***

Estelore was standing looking rather ruffled.  When she heard a shuffling sound behind her and a cry of, "I . . . I must have . . . MORE!!"

Estelore easily dodged the lumbering attack from Syphoon.  He no longer had his absorbing powers, but he did bear a Lantern Ring, and it didn't seem to satisfy this hunger that cursed him, even in death.  Estelore, taking pity (seen by Syphoon as an overwhelming amount of indigo with a bit of yellow, green, and blue mixed in.  She held out her hand and used her stellar might to reduce Syphoon to nothing -- but the ring remained.  Because the ring remained, Syphoon's body began to regenerate, to pull itself together.

Estelore's eyes widened.  "This is gonna be a problem."

***

Sakki paced irritably around this.  She didn't like the fact that Cloak decided to volunteer her for this duty.  Granted, she would jumped on board to kick butt, naturally.  But she didn't like waiting around, doing nothing.  It was clear that this city was either abandoned or all turned into Black Lanterns.

The fact of her mechanical nature saves her from the Lanterns . . . Sakki wasn't sure how to feel about that.  She glanced at her Mark, which she had noticed was white instead of the normal light blue.  She wondered idly why it was doing that, when she heard a breathless voice with an accusatory tone.

"You . . . !"

Sakki calmly looked up from her Mark with a heavy-lidded look, and saw Mallory Falwell.  It was the bimbo who delighted in being assimilated by the Phalanx.  She clearly was no longer assimilated by the Phalanx, but by the Black Lanterns this time.

"Can't ever pick a winning team, can you?" Sakki asked, casually.

"You," Falwell said, still pointing an accusing finger with the hand that she wore the corroded ring on, "you severed me from my . . . from my . . ."

"Phalanx?" Sakki guessed.

"Yes, yes, yes!" she said, stamping her feet like an overemotional toddler.

"Hmmm . . . I see you've matured well in death," Sakki replied drily.

"You will join us, machine!"

"Eh, not bloody likely."

***

Meanwhile, in the patrols of Oceanspray, Faerie, and Underseen were far less eventful.  But each were on edge, unsure of just what to expect.  Every sound put them on guard, even when it could have been made by an innocent creature just scurrying out for a late-night snack.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2013, 12:36:45 PM

Now, Slushie has a little notion in this chapter.
   

CHAPTER NINE:
Overwhelmed and Research

While the nine were out and about, Slushie Man had a thought.  He dashed to the library, one that Estelore herself was quite fond of, one with tomes from a variety of species -- albeit many translated into English, and began to search and research this idea he had.  He had to know if there was any possible weight, any clout to it. . . .
 
Then he looked down at his palm which was glowing brightly.  The meaning of this wasn't lost on him, "They must be resorting to Unity Energy.  This is bad.  I have to find it soon or . . ."
 

***

"Before we start, Cloak," Thanos said, with sickly smile, where his teeth looked rather rotted, playing around his face, "I believe my friends deserve to join in."
 
Suddenly, the former wielder of the Infinity Gems appeared.  Behind them where far more Black Lanterns.  Cloak's eyes widened as he saw the horde, knowing they were even too much for him to beat alone, especially since the rings would possibly regenerate the dead bodies.  Cloak had a nagging suspicion that the Black Lanterns could not even feel pain.
 
However, he did not feel weak.  He felt the other RAFians with him, though they were not physically near.  He clenched his fist, which was charged with white Unity Energy -- and the Black Lanterns seemed very leery of it.
 

***

Faerie came upon an unrelated horde of Black Lanterns, she was slashing through them with her Gale Blade.  It was nasty and gory, and it was a futile gesture, because the Black Lanterns always regenerated enough to be functional.  Then her eye flashed, her Mark glowed and her fist was enveloped in white Unity Energy.  Her smile would incite fear in any evil army.
 

***

Gaz was overcome with more hatred than fear.  She viciously attacked Madre, as Laserbeak (which Gaz could use as a form of transportation rather like Snake's up-special in Super Smash Bros. Brawl) peck, shot, and divebombed her relentlessly.  But all for naught.
 
"Tsk tsk tsk." Madre said.  "You really should exercise more control over your pet, Daughter.  And over yourself."
 
"Die, monster!" Gaz said, uncharacteristicall y bloodthirsty.
 
Suddenly, Madre's manner changed to one of anger and rage to match Gaz's.  "You DARE to DEFY your Mother?!  You DARE to DEFY my whims?!?!"
 
"YES!" Gaz said, as the fist that held her Mark pulsed.
 
"Come to me. my children!" Madre called to the other Black Lanterns who were just arriving.  Gaz realized that she couldn't take them all on.  Part of her didn't care.  Her Marked hand flared and was engulfed in Unity Energy.
 

***

Underseen had came upon several Black Lanterns, unrelated to any other group.  He was currently proving that he was just as hard to hold on to as a Realm Walker.  The Black Lanterns seemed leery of his Light Blade and he used that to his vantage, as they seemed to simultaneously hate and fear the Blade.
 
Underseen balled his Marked hand into a fist as he tossed the Blade to his other hand, and his fist became engulfed in the white Unity Energy as his face set, teeth clenched.
 

***

"Back off, Cannon," Parker warned, pointing his dual fusion cannons at him, "or you'll go back to your grave the hard way."
 
"You can't kill me."
 
BLAM!
 
Cannon's head was gone.  Parker took no satisfaction in what he had done.  But then Cannon's head regenerated from his the surge of his black ring, but he looked far more grotesque.  The ring only regenerated enough to be functional -- it didn't do cometic changes.
 
"Like I said," the ghastly being said, "you can't kill me."
 
Parker's Marked hand began to glow, engulfing his fist in white Unity Energy.
 
Parker spat, "Wanna bet?"
 
Cannon whistled, and Black Lantern Knights of Humanity appeared at his side.  But Parker wasn't willing to back down although his more pragmatic side knew the futility of his actions.
 

***

Oceanspray was blasting each Black Lantern over and over again.  At this rate, he'd need a new battery.  Eventually he had to just stop as his Marked hand glowed and engulfed his fist in white Unity Energy.
 
"This'll do," he muttered.
 

***

Sakki was using her sonic wails and her sonic roars, but really to no avail.  She knew not how much longer she could hold out.  Nothing that she could inflict upon these monstrocities that Falwall had called to her aid, these Black Lanterns, seemed to be very lasting.  Not even when she mimicked the Howler's howl, not something she even knew that she was capable off.
 
"Give it up," Falwell taunted.  "Your efforts are futile.  You'll just wear yourself down.  Just join us."
 
"Um . . . nah, don't think so." Sakki said as her Marked hand glowed and was engulfed in white Unity Energy.
 

***

<You can't win, Noelle . . .> Ardnalil said, as his fellow crew members -- all Black Lanterns as well -- joined and flanked him.  <Give up.>
 
<No,> Noelle said defiantly.  <You've never known me as well as you think you do.  I shan't give up so easily!!>
 
Her Marked fist glowed and was engulfed in white Unity Energy.
 
<You can't beat me, Noelle . . .> Ardnalil said.  <No mere female can . . .>
 
<You're not making your case any better, you --> Noelle said, uttering a rather impolite Andalite word.
 
<Language.>
 
<Oh, shut up!!>
 

***

Estelore was finding herself being overwhelmed by the sheer influx of Black Lanterns that she seemed to have attracted.  She kept incinerating them, but their rings just kept reanimating them.  However, with dogged determination, she continued to attack, attack and attack.  Eventually, her Marked hand glowed with white Unity energy and she balled it into a fist which caused the energy to engulf her hand.

***

Each of the nine RAFians knew what they had to do, though they had no certainty or qualms whether it would work or not.  They simply must try it.  The Black Lanterns seemed leery of the energy, it must be for good reason.  The silence of the city was soon broken when nine voices cried out --

"Unity Explosion!!"

The city was suddenly engulfed itself in the white Unity Energy, which had no interest in harming the buildings.  The glow remained for a few seconds before dissipating.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 02, 2013, 02:14:45 PM

Oh no! Evil vampire lady!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 02, 2013, 05:18:46 PM

Hmm, Unity Explosion. Sounds strong, but I am anticipating what kind of damage it caused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2013, 08:44:34 AM

From my hand, I summon . . . a new chapter! (Sorry, I have YGOTAS on the brain for some reason.)

Okay, and chances are this'll be the only one you get today.  Apologies if it is too short.
   

CHAPTER TEN:
Code Avalon

The city was intact, of course, but the Black Lanterns were severely injured.  But it wasn't anything that the rings couldn't regenerate, as the rings themselves weren't destroyed, but looked a tad bit more corroded.  The nine were well aware of this, and they didn't need Richard telling them, "Get out of there now, you nine!"
 
They all fell back to RAF quickly as the Lanterns began to regenerate.
 

***

"They're in," Aquilai prompted Yarin.  "Activate Code: Avalon."
 
"Activating." Yarin replied as his four hands flew over the computer console.  Only a tetramand species could work in such a fevered fashion and so quickly to activate the protocol to activate it.
 
Code Avalon worked by putting up a multi-layered defensive forcefield in a complete bubble around the forum.  While no RAFian would be foolish enough to claim that such a thing was foolproof and invincible and unbreakable, it was very close to all those things.
 
The code was developed for such a situation that a horde of zombies, pillagers and assorted ne'er-do-wells who would attempt to storm the forum.  It was thought prudent due to the number of times that they had to abandon and take back the forum in the course of recent years.
 
But it was not foolproof, but it was the best completed defense that they had at the moment.
 

***

"Unity Energy was effective," Parker said, "but only marginally."
 
"Doesn't matter, though, does it?" Sakki said, rather huffily.  "Those rings would just regenerate this Lantern zombies into semi-perfect functional order."
 
Cloak stood with his arms crossed and head bowed.  "Unity Energy was our best weapon against them.  No element I wield would be as effective against them.  Anything I try, they could regenerate from."
 
"The same here," Estelore said, rather dejectedly.  She had become complacent in her power.  "Each time I incinerated one, the ring remained, and the cinders would coalesce back into a reanimated corpse."

She was unable to suppress a shiver at the thought.

"So . . ." Underseen asked, "it's hopeless?"

"It would appear so, Underseen." Gaz said, with a hoarse voice.  She was still emotionally strained after being forced to deal with Madre de Vampyra again.  Then she said, more to herself than the others, "I . . . I just don't wanna see her again."

Parker remained silent and surly, having only spoken to Helen.  She shared Parker's mood.

"Code Avalon can only hold out for so long." Goom said.  "We haven't infinite power.  Eventually . . ."

He let it hang, as the idea was too horrible.  None of the RAFian's hearts were taken nor were any bitten, so the mystery of whether they would be turned into Black Lanterns or whether the Mark would forbid it was still mostly a mystery.  Though one could make the argument that since the Unity Energy seemed to perturb them that the Mark would protect them, it was still of very little consolation.

There was an overall feeling of depression in the auditorium after this info sunk in.  However, there was one RAFian that was not present.  There was one RAFian that had remained in the library feverishly pouring over tome after tome after tome . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2013, 09:28:57 AM

Now, how's about another?  Warning: it's gonna be a bit short.
   

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Slushie's Shining Discovery

Slushie was working harder than he ever remembered working in RAF.  It was as if this idea had taken possession of him, but he didn't care.  If he discovered an answer . . . just any plausible answer . . .

He pulled an old leatherbound book to him.  There were strange characters on it -- in black, yellow, blue, pink, red, and white ink.  Slushie Man thought about that script for a moment, and thought he recognized it.  It looked like Phaedosian characters.  He did not know enough about the Phaedosian language to dare a translation, but still his curiosity was piqued.  He saw from just how stiff the book's spine was that had never been opened, or perhaps not for a very long time.

He cracked the book open, and he could tell right off that the book was quite old right off the bat.  He coughed a little and sneezed as the dust desperate to be free from their bookish prison made a mad escape.  Then he carefully blew some dust off the pages and resorted to using a Galvan universal script translator to help him translate the text.

Something 'bout a guy named "Ooze", something about a betrayal, something about goliath automatons . . . worthless to their plight right now, but still Slushie Man read on. . . .

What's this?

Slushie read on with the text translator, not in a hungry fashion but in an almost starving, obsessive manner.  This could be exactly what they needed!!  Phaetos couldn't have been too far away, surely Estelore must have known where it was. . . .

Slushie knew what he had to do, what he must do.  He slammed the book shut, which caused more dust to flee the confines of the book, and tucked it under his arm.  Then he hurriedly dashed to the auditorium, where the meeting was starting to break up.

"HOLD IT!!" Slushie shouted as he came barrelling into the auditorium.  "Hold it!  I've found something!  I've found something!!"

"Slushie, you're late." Alic said.

"I know, I know, I know!" Slushie said, but nothing could squash his excitement.  He was convinced now.  Really, truly convinced that this was the way.  The answer to the Black Lantern zombies.  After all, what better way to combat a force embodying death and destruction then one that embodies life and creation?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2013, 10:12:29 AM

Maybe just one more.  Writing can be addictive for me. *sheepish grin*
   

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The White Lining

"What is the problem, Slushie Man?" Cloak asked genially.
 
"Problem?  No problem!!  None at all!" he replied, still full of that vibrant, excited energy.  "I found it.  I found the solution, I believe.  The solution to destroying those zombies!"

"Black Lanterns, actually," Helen corrected.
 
"Whatever." Slushie said, dismissively with a gregarius wave of his hand.  "Here, look!"
 
Cloak watched as Slushie opened the book -- which was placed under a camera so the whole assemblage could see as well.  Cloak looked at the squiggles that were words, sentences and paragraphs.  But the thing that interested him most was the symbol his saw in some sort of pictogram.
 
"That symbol . . ." Cloak said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.
 
<I know that symbol,> Noelle said, uncharacteristicall y aggressively.  Apparently, her Black Lantern ex-boyfriend wrought far more damage to her than she let on.  <It was on Ardnalil's ring.>
 
"It was also on Thano's," Cloak said, "if not for that one horizontal line.  The curved one."
 
<What?> Noelle hadn't apparently noticed.
 
"Yes," Slushie said, pressing on, "the text translates a story of a Great Power, purported to be powered by life and creation, resting upon the planet Phaedos."
 
"Phaetos?  Surely not a Anur Phaetos?" Underseen said skeptically.
 
"Phaedos," Slushie Man corrected, "with a 'd'.  Not Phaetos."
 
Estelore stirred.  "I have heard of it, bypassed it in my travels."
 
"Bypassed?" Cloak asked.  "Why?"
 
"It's barren, as far as I know." Estelore said, looking rather perplexed.  "Why would such a place harbor a Great Power of life and creation?"
 
"It could be life that we are unfamiliar with," Gaz suggested with a shrug.
 
"Yes," Richard said, thoughtfully.  "In any case, I think we should mount an expedition to Phaedos.  Esty, you know the way, so you should go.  But I think you need a team with you."
 
"Right." Estelore agreed.
 
"Yarin can pilot his ship to the Phaedos," Richard said, " so he's in, I think."
 
<I'm going.> Noelle said, though her thought-speak voice trembled a little.

"So am I." Underseen said valiantly, though his form quivered a little, betraying his fear.

"I am too." Parker said.

"Not without me this time." Helen insisted.

"Alright then," Richard said, "Helen, Parker, Noelle, Yarin, Underseen, and Estelore."

There was a small expectant pause.

"Cloak?"

"What?"

"Aren't you going to chime in and say that you're going?"

"Nope."

Richard couldn't hide his surprise.  "Oh, well then, uh --"  He turned to the group going, "good luck then.  Goom will replace Yarin in the communications center.
 
 "One question, Richard," Saffa said.  "How are they gonna get by the Black Lanterns, they're crawling all over the forcefields like maggots on roadkill."

"Leave that to me, Saffa." Cloak said, and his eyes were golden-scarlet suns.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 03, 2013, 05:52:03 PM

I'm surprised the unity explosion was not stronger, but they do have unbreakable rings that revive them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2013, 06:54:03 PM

Well, not quite unbreakable -- there is one thing that can destroy it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 03, 2013, 07:49:47 PM

Man, what was I thinking when I picked that guy?   :XD:


This is a great break for studying, can't wait to read more.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2013, 08:15:56 PM

Quote from: Noelle on April 03, 2013, 07:49:47 PM

Man, what was I thinking when I picked that guy?   :XD:

 Oh, you'll fine out.  Granted, it is over a hundred books away. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 03, 2013, 08:32:37 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on April 03, 2013, 08:15:56 PM

Quote from: Noelle on April 03, 2013, 07:49:47 PM

Man, what was I thinking when I picked that guy?   :XD:

 Oh, you'll fine out.  Granted, it is over a hundred books away. ;)

*Feeds Cloaky's muses mass amounts of caffeine.*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2013, 09:22:45 PM

I also haven't planned out the chapters for it.  I'm still working on planning out the chapters for Book CXLI ("Buggy Afternoon").

*hums Disney's "Belle" for no reason.*

EDIT: Added three more book ideas.

• Book XXIX: Soul-Suckers

The RAFians are attacked by Dementors, which have a rather large effect on Cloak.

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• *Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• *Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• *Book CLI: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2013, 11:47:13 AM

Hopefully, I won't accidentally delete this chapter . . . again -- (fortunately I only had written two or three paragraphs).  Hmmm . . . looks like I may have to split this chapter into two chapters. . . .
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Fury and Phaedos

Cloak walked into the center of the forum as the Phaedos team boarded Yarin's ship, even Esty.
 
Cloak closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, to calm his nerves, to silence his doubts, his fears of failure.
 
What he was about to attempt was exceedingly dangerous.  He could easily lose control, of himself, of his emotions, of his powers.
 
He took a couple more steadying breaths, as he saw, via Earthsight, that Yarin's ship was a boarded snd powering up for flight.
 
Cloak opened up his eyes, two golden-scarlet suns. A tendril of golden-scarlet energy extended from the outermost corners of each of his eyes.  Then the tendrils split into two, then into three.
 
Mustn't lose his focus now.  He must tread where he feared to tread.
 
Suddenly, the Black Lanterns recieved a shock as hurricane-force winds forced them all from forcefield. They were violently buffeted, the wind was also turning into a massive firestorm.  But this usage of his powers were wearing on Cloak's focus, his attempt to keep himself controlled.
 
"Go. Now." Cloak urged, the stain evident in his voice.
 
Yarin's ship rose and passed through the forcefield's radius as Code Avalon was momentarily dropped and then reestablished.
Then Cloak shut his eyes, causing the energy tendrils to dissipate into nothingness, as did the firestorm seconds later.  Cloak allowed a long exhalation. He did not wish to repeat the feat again, it took enormous self-control to manage this feat, and he felt drained somewhat afterwards.
 
Yarin and his crew were now on their way to Phaedos. . . . but the distraction wasn't sufficient enough, as three Black Lanterns had enough autonomy to follow while the other Black Lanterns seemed none-the-wiser.
 

***

Some time has passed since they managed to escape from the Black Lantern's siege and elude the ones that followed them.  It was a scene of monotony.  Parker had to keep himself from falling asleep, although his armor allowed him to convince the others that he wasn't sleeping . . . even though they hadn't asked.
 
Estelore and Yarin were so focused upon simply finding Phaedos in the myriad of stars and planets.  It was not so much as "finding a needle in a haystack" as "finding a needle in the Pacific Ocean".  It was a task that was very tough, very arduous, and one that they simply could not afford to screw up.
 
The others mostly spent their times sleeping or eating as none of them had the foresight to bring a book or portable gaming device for fear of losing it or having the treasured items destroyed.
 
"This is so boring," Underseen complained.
 
"Be thankful for it being so," Parker replied darkly, "chances are that it won't be so boring sooner or later."
 
"Ever the positive one, eh, hon?" Helen teased.  Parker's face was expressionless -- not that anyone could tell beneath his helmet.  "Oh, c'mon, stop it with the Batman-moodiness."
 
In spite of himself, Parker smiled -- again, no one other than Helen seemed to notice.
 
<Are we near?> Noelle asked, and it was clear that boredom had infilitrated her mood.
 
"Nearly." Estelore replied.
 

***

They soon landed upon the arid land with harsh-looking mountains raking upward like fangs around them.  It was like a beach -- without the water.  Or life.
 
"Well," Estelore seeing the expressions of the others, "I did say it was barren."
 
"Estelore, I advise you to look again." Yarin said, remaining in the ship, clearly reluctant to leave it.
 
The land wasn't just uniform sand and mountains.  Upon the ground, partially covered by sand were bones.  Bones of every sort, from countless number of species.
 
<Well, that's pleasant,> Noelle said, drily.  She was just struggling to walk -- Andalite hooves were not made for sand.
 
"I'm starting to get the feeling that this was a bad idea," Helen said.

"Oh, great," Parker said, looking skyward.  "Incoming!!"

The three Black Lanterns landed, their horrid features thrown into horrible relief by Phaedos's strong sunlight.  Noelle glanced at the bones with her left stalk eye and wondered if the Black Lanterns would reanimate these beings.  Did they have other rings besides their own?

"Brace yourselves, RAFians!" Parker cried.

But it was unneeded as a beam of powerful white light, punctured all three in a single shot.  The bodies dissolved, and the RAFians braced for all three to regenerate, but the rings themselves dissolved.  The RAFians turned to see a lone figure in white with the Great Power's symbol upon her chest, and wearing a white power ring.

Underseen blinked, and said, "You're a --"

"That's right, I'm a Chimera Sui Generis (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Chimera_Sui_Generis), what of it?" she said, haughtily.  She glared imperiously at the assemblage, but the RAFians were still rather in shock at her sudden appearance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2013, 12:37:59 PM

Okay, I'll try to get another two chapters up, including this one, but I make no promises.  Chances are it'll only be this one.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Richard's Old Friend

"Who are you?" Helen asked.
 
"Imperient." the Chimera Sui Generis sniffed.  "You come to my doorstep bring those ring-bearing corpses and you expect me to be subject of your interrogations?"
 
<Forgive us,> Noelle said, as diplomatically as she could, slipping a bit causing her hand to flail a bit.  Her Mark was briefly visable.
 
"What's that?" the Chimera Sui Generis said, suddenly.  Her eyes locked onto Noelle's hand.  "On your hand there."
 
<What?  My Mark?> Noelle asked, geniunely nonplussed.
 
"Mark?  That symbol . . . that is not your mark!" she said defiantly.  Then her tone turned wistful, lovingly.  "It's his mark.  It's his symbol."
 
"Who?" Underseen asked, but Parker realized something.
 
"You know Richard?" he asked.  "Head mod of RAF?"
 
"'RAF'?  What is this 'RAF'?"
 
"It's his forum -- Richard's Animorph Forum." Estelore said.  "We're all members of it."
 
"You're . . . you're his?  His allies?"
 
"Yes," Yarin said, refraining from simply telepathically probing her.  It is usually universally considered rude.  "We were sent to save Earth from the Black Lanterns."
 
The Chimera Sui Generis visibly relaxed a little.  It was clear that she fancied the mod, whatever difference their species had.  "I am Silhaxx, Guardian to the path toward the Great Power.  If Richard has sent you, I know his reasons must be just."
 
She walked up a narrow path, and over her shoulder said, "Follow me."
 

***

They came to a white marble and alabaster building that looked remarkably like the Pantheon.  Upon nearing the threshold, Silhaxx said, "Behind here, you'll find your powers do not work, and your technology and weapons will be inert and nonfunctional."
 
"What?  Why?" Parker asked quickly.
 
"Because it is only then that the Great Power will endow you with it's power." Silhaxx elaborated.
 
"White rings?" Helen asked.
 
"Possibly," Silhaxx said, rather evasively.  "Possibly something . . . more."
 
<Great, she picks now to be cryptic.> Noelle muttered in private thought-speak.
 
"You could go now, or turn back." Silhaxx intoned again.

A split second before the music started, Parker declared, "Sensing musical number coming."

Silhaxx closed her eyes and sang:

"You must go to the east, go to the west,
The road is rocky and the way is far.
It's a dangerous trail, a difficult quest,
If you want know where the Great Powers truly are . . .

There are voices all around you,
To comfort and to guide you.
Fathers and teachers,
Powerful creatures.
And a voice that sings inside you.

Or you can turn back around,
Run along home.
Back to the place where your friends are.
Perhaps that is best,
You need the rest.
Who wants to go on a ridiculous quest?
Unless you want to know,
You truly want to know,
Unless you want to know . . .
What these powers really are."

Then the music died off, and Silhaxx's eyes opened.

"So what is your choice?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 04, 2013, 01:17:30 PM

This is getting quite interesting. I am surprised Sam didn't join us to go find the secret to defeating the black lanterns.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2013, 06:11:31 PM

[spoiler=. . . Why am I putting a spoiler tag on this?  You're just gonna read it any way.] It's actually a bit of foreshadowing for a future book, Underseen.[/spoiler]

EDIT: Finished planning out the chapters of "Buggy Afternoon" and "Cloak's Nightmare".  Working on Book CXLIII, "Cloak and the Olympians".  Waring -- it will contain, as the "Simpsons" episode commentaries put it, a "screw-the-audience" joke.  Oh, expect a minimum of one chapter tomorrow.

Well, here's a chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Osteoanima

They chose to go onward.  Silhaxx warned them that, in order to be truly worthy, their powers and weapons would be suppressed and ineffective.

"WHAT?!" Parker protested.

"This must be so," Silhaxx said, very seriously, "or the Great Power, the Power of the White Lantern, with not deem you worthy."

"Aren't you coming with, Silhaxx?" Underseen asked.

"I bear the only White Ring," she said, "if I were to escort you, I would just negate all your trials and tests."

"Lovely," Estelore said sourly.

None of them seemed aware that she said that she had the only White Ring.

***

"Well, this isn't so bad," Helen said, in her "street clothes" despite still wearing her Star Sapphire ring.  "Just a hike . . . through an explicablely-grown rainforest. . . ."

"The mugginess leaves a lot to be desired."

"Still," Helen said bracingly, "it could be worse."

A sudden rumble vibrated the ground all around them.

"I cannot believe you just said that, Helen," Parker groaned.

From the ground, many skeletal form rose.  They were not Black Lanterns, they were the osteoanima.  Osteoanima tyrannosauria (an animated tyrannosaurus skeleton), osteoanima pterosauria (an animated pterosaur skeleton), osteoanima ceratopsia (an animated ceratopsian skeleton), osteoanima smilodon (an animated smilodon fatalis skeleton), osteoanima mastodon (an animated mastodon skeleton), osteoanima draco (an animated Godzilla-style dragon skeleton), osteoanima gigantorana (a gigantic animated frog skeleton), osteoanima arctos (an animated brown bear skeleton), osteoanima lupus (an animated wolf skeleton), osteoanima pullus (an animated crane skeleton), osteoanimapithecus (an animated ape skeleton), and osteoanima gigantofalco (a gigantic animated falcon skeleton), specifically.

"Okay, this is a bit overwhelming." Estelore admitted.

"Eh, there are only twelve." Underseen said.

"You're kidding, right?" Parker said.

"This is obviously one of the tests, Silhaxx told us about." Yarin said reasonably.

"What happened with stepping up the difficulty in stages?  Why do we have to jump in, without powers and weaponry no less, at level 50?" Parker complained.

"I'm sure it's not as bad as it looks," Helen said.  "Look they're not attacking."

"Yes," Yarin said, thoughtfully.  "It's rather odd.  They've closedoff our rear, so retreat isn't an option.  They've cut off either side, so escape that way is not possible without force.  And our path ahead is impended."

<Is it me, or is this a rather perverse test?> Noelle asked.

"How do you mean?" Underseen asked.

<Bones are usually associated with death, are they not?> Noelle answered.  <Is it not perverse that they be used in a test for the power of the White Light of Life?>

"Perhaps," Yarin said as Parker said, "Guys."

Yarin continued, "Perhaps, because they're animated they represent life after death."

Parker said a little more loudly, "Guys!"

"That makes sense," Underseen said.

"GUYS!" Parker shouted. "We don't have time to launch into a lengthy, drawn-out discussion about the meaning of this test!! We're on a time limit, remember?! We need to figure out the best way to whoop these things, whatever they are and get to that power ASAP!!!  Code Avalon won't hold out forever!  We need to hurry."

"Why do we have to 'whoop their butts'?" Helen asked.

"What?" Parker snapped.

Helen elaborated, "Why do we have to beat them at all?  Maybe the trick is simply to get by them."

She decided to prove what she meant. She dashed toward the group of osteoanima impeding their progress, and she pulled a few gymnastic moves and easily bypassed them.

"Ten years of gymnastics," she explained with a triumphant smile.

Though it was a bit more awkward for the others, being rather dependant on their powers and weaponry, they managed.

<Okay,> Noelle said. <Where to now?>

"I am guessing," Yarin said, pointing the clear path onward with his right upper arm, "on."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 09:09:08 AM

Well, here's another.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Improvising and Lith Guardians

Meanwhile, back at the forum, things were not going so well.  The Black Lanterns seemed to make even the sunlight seem darker, diluted.  They relentlessly hammered away at Code Avalon.  And there seemed more everyday.  Every hour.
 
The klaxxon sound was not well-received by the other RAFians.  Aquilai's announcement nor his worried tones did not bode well, either.
 
"Code Avalon is failing! Brace yourselves!"
 
"I don't think so!!" Cloak cried willfully.  "I will supplement Code Avalon with my own energy!"
 
"No, Cloak!" Kelly protested. "You've already exerted a great deal of energy already!  Any more, and it might result in --"
 
"Do you want the alternative?" Cloak asked, already throwing his hand up and fortifying the forcefield, turning it into a heterogeneous mixture of opaque-yet-translucent white and golden-scarlet.  Kelly said nothing, but he knew her answer . . . and he knew this was a plan that would not last unless the others get to that Great Power, and fast.
 

***

"We're there." Helen said.  "I think."
 
<Just where is "here," exactly?> Noelle said, dutifully scanning with her stalk eyes.
 
They had come upon a stone wall, with what appeared to be a door rather like those of Jurassic Park.  But instead of torches, seventeen notches filled up the sides -- eight on each side and one atop the door -- and each one was filled with alabaster-like stone statues.  Each one carried a different looking weapon and each had a face that not even a mother could love.
 
They sprung to life as the RAFians approached, with their body armor transmuting chromatically.  Their bodies retained their stony appearance and textures but took on the smell of flesh.  They were all dressed rather differently, and they all were vaguely humanoid.
 
The plain-looking one wielded a bladed bow with a quiver full of arrows.  Its armor took on a rather plain, pink color and it snarled in the most unpleasant way.
 
The fiery-looking one wielded a big claymore.  Its armor took on a fiery red color as if it were made from real flames.  It hissed in a most disconsolate way.
 
The fish-faced one wielded a trident.  Its armor took on a blue color that made it appear as if it was underwater.  It gulped in a rather comical way.
 
The one sprouting leaves and vines, which obscured its face, wielded a bo staff.  Its armor took on a verdant green color that made it camouflage rather unfortunately with the surrounding rainforest.  It huffed and snorted in a rather threatening way.
 
The electric one wielded a warhammer and its armor took on an electric yellow color that seemed to literally spark.  It grinned most malevolently.
 
The grounded one with the sanded face wielded a scythe and its armor took on an earthy brown color.  It was expressionless and did not make a sound.
 
The one with the poisonously sweaty face wielded twin daggers and its armor took on a toxic purple color.  It looked as if it was thoroughly discomforted, as if it preferred to be a lifeless statue.
 
The one with a face like minced meat wielded a gladius and its armor took on a rather violent orange color.  It seemed incapable of staying still.
 
The buggy one wielded nunchukkus and its armor took on a rather sketchy, olive green color.  Its appearance more than it's scuttling gait was disconcerting.
 
The cold, icy one wielded some overlarge shurrikens and its armor took on an icy white color.  It looked more of ice than stone.
 
The ethereal-looking one with the multiated face wielded dual katanas and its armor took on a spectral indigo color.  It looked more like a samurai ghost than the others.
 
The draconic one wielded a flail and crook, while its armor took on a tannish color. It looked rather hostile and brutal.
 
The airy one wielded a pair of battle fans, while its armor took on a sunrise golden color.  It looked feminine and exceedingly dangerous.
 
The bulky, burly one wielded a halberd, while its armor took on a granite gray color.  It looked the most generically stony of the lot.

The dark, shadowy one wielded a ninjato, while its armor took on a shadowy black color as if it were crafted from the very shadows itself.  It looked the most evil of the lot.

The hard, metallic one wielded a machete, while its armor took on a metallic silver color.  It looked rather like a very ugly knight.

The final one, the one that was at the top of the door, wielded a chakram and its armor took on a mindful violet color.  It looked the most dangerous of the lot.

The RAFians stood there and blinked a bit at this.  These were the Lith Guardians, and the RAFians had to get by them in order to get the Great Power.

Parker sighed heavily, "Let's get this done."

"Remember, it more than likely won't be as easy as just defeating them," Yarin warned.

"Yeah, I would have never guessed." Parker said, surly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 09:42:10 AM

And . . . here's another chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Failure and Power

"Cloaky, you must stop!" Kelly protested.  "We've fell back to another fortified perimeter."
 
"I can still keep it up," Cloak said.  But this was a lie.
 
"No, Cloak." Kelly said, her voice more authoritative now.  "You'll run yourself into exhaustion -- if you haven't already!  We're prepared to fight back."
 
"But --"
 
"Uh-uh." Kelly said, putting her foot down.  "No.  Suicide isn't an option here -- and we don't need martyrs.  Come along now."
 
Cloak, very near exhaustion, meekly acquiesced, and as the shield vanished and failed, the Black Lanterns -- including Rojo, Azul, and their Virus mother -- bumbled into the outer boundary of RAF as Kelly and Cloak retreated. . . .
 

***

Back on Phaedos, the RAFians were already in the fluidity of battle.  They quickly disarmed the poison-themed, plant-themed, air-themed, fire-themed, and water-themed statues, but couldn't just kill them when they looked so pitiful disarmed.  All five vanished.
 
They quickly disarmed the insect-themed one, showed it mercy, and it vanished.  The plain one quickly followed suit, then the electricity-themed one.
 
"Come on, everyone," Estelore said, bracingly, as the ground-themed one vanished.  "Keep it up!"
 
"Where do they go when they vanish?" Underseen said, disarming the brawl-themed one.  He showed it mercy, and it vanished.  "What if it presents a problem later?"

<Live in the now, Underseen!> Noelle said, disarming the mind-themed one, showing it mercy, and it vanished with the others before it.  <We can worry about what may be at a later date!!>

"Give me that!" Parker said, disarming the stone-themed one.  He showed it mercy, although it was clear that Parker found it tempting to finish it off.  The living statue vanished as did the others before it.

It went rather quickly after that.  Soon, the metal-themed one, the ghost-themed one, the ice-themed one, and the rest were all disarmed, rather dismissively shown mercy, and vanished.

"That's all of them," Yarin said.

"Yeah," Parker concurred, "so . . . what now?"

With a blinding flash of white light, the statues had returned to their lifeless states back into their niches in the wall around the door.  Then the door began to open . . . and the RAFians -- though having no idea why they were doing such -- held out the hands had bore their Marks at the blazing white light behind the dramatically slow-opening door. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 10:11:33 AM

Okay, a fourth, albeit shortish, chapter.  This book is nearly done.  I hope you're not tired of the dark atmosphere.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Power of Life

Suddenly, the RAFian's marks were no longer the blue they normally where but a blistering, pure white.  Their color schemes of their clothing or fur as the case may be became the purest white with the other colors become mere highlights of their clothing or fur.
 
"Whoa . . ." Underseen could not help but utter aloud.  "Cool."
 
Parker's armor looked rather like he was heading out for a mission with snow terrain.
 
"Oh, baby!" Yarin said.  The RAFians looked at him, as he was not apt to say such a thing.  Then they realized why he said that.  He was speaking of his ship -- his "baby".  The Great Power had also apparently drawn Yarin's ship to this spot, and a white portal was opening up in front of it.
 
"Everyone on board.  Now.  C'mon, let's get going." Yarin said, encouragingly.
 
They did, and they were on their way to Earth, going much faster than the ship was usually capable of, as it was being powered by the Great Power, the White Light of Life, as the RAFians were.
 

***

Meanwhile, back at the forum, something happened that caused the Black Lanterns, every single one of them, to back away with a horrid hiss.
 
The RAFians stood up -- the Great Power having transferred via the Marks.  The Mark granted all RAFians the Great Power.  Cloak's cloak was now the purest white, as well as the primary color on all his clothing.  Laserbeak was all white as well (except gold in the joints).  All the RAFians clothing or bodies were now primarily white.

Cloak realized immediately that the Great Power erased his exhaustion, as it did for the others.  To make matters better, above, in the sky, Yarin's ship appeared, with a white paint job.

Cloak looked directly at the Black Lanterns, who now weren't very scary.  Not very scary at all.

"Looks like the tables have turned," Cloak said, with a coy little smirk, addressing the Black Lanterns, "You better run and protect your Battery."

They decided that he was right, but the rings either would not or could not abandon their corpse hosts.

"Time to end this," Gaz said.

"Indeed," said Richard, looking rather resplendent in his Great Power redesign.  "Let's go, my RAFians."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 10:43:37 AM

Fifth chapter today, and the penultimate chapter of this book.  Sorry that I got a little political, but Fred Phelps and his church really irks me.  I hope I didn't make a mistake by doing that. . . . You could always skip this chapter, I guess.  Please don't flame this thread.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Unified Life Beam

The RAFians, empowered by the Great Power, followed the fleeing Black Lanterns.  Cloak's taunts had worked.  The Black Lanterns apparently were not smart enough to realize by fleeing directly toward their Lantern, their hive-mother, that they were leading the RAFians straight to it.
 
But the RAFians were prudent enough to keep at enough of a distance to keep the Black Lanterns from finally figuring out their plan.  It took about two hours of travelling, but they discovered the Lantern at the church.  Cloak was unsurprised about it being at a Westboro Baptist sect.  In a way, Fred Phelps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps) embraced death -- the death of decency, the death of tact.  He was one of the more evil men to have every existed.  To actually advocate protesting at soldier funerals . . .

Using homosexuality as a scapegoat for everything. . . . Cloak knows a thing or two about scapegoating . . .
 
Cloak closed his eyes and gave his head a small shake.  It was probably the best for him not to allow hatred fetter his heart right now.  Now there was a task that needed to be done.

The RAFians marched into the grounds of this sect of that evil place, that garden of hatred, and saw that the Lantern was pretty much standing out in the middle of the grounds.  Cloak was secretly glad.  He didn't want to step foot in that evil place.  He wondered idly how humans could secrete such evil . . . but then again, Realm Walkers weren't any better. . . .

Cloak attempted to clear his mind.  Thoughts like these weren't helping matters.

The Black Lanterns were buzzing around their Lanterns like ants in an anthill or bees in a hive.  They sought to protect their mother, this lover of death and bitter enemy of life.

"Everyone," Richard commanded, "together now."

Then they launched an almighty Unity Beam, powered by the Great Power of Life.  This destroyed the Black Power Battery, the Lantern, explosively, while disintegrating all Black Power Rings reverting the wearer to dust or back to life that they had before the Black Lantern rings came to Earth.

Then the Great power dissipated from the RAFians.  With the Black Lanterns utterly destroyed, the Power was no longer needed.  So it faded away to nothingness, until such a time where it would be needed again.  The rings remains and the remains of the Black Lantern Power Battery, faded away into the blackness of space.

"Can we get out of this godforsaken spot?" Cloak said rather moodily.

"Yes.  Please," Gaz said, with similar disgust and similar reasons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 08, 2013, 10:52:41 AM

I just discovered that I'm in this book, and here I am still stuck on book 23  ;D :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 11:14:45 AM

Oh, you'll be in far more -- now that I've gotten a better sense of who you are, character-speaking.  In fact, you'll be one of the main protagonists in the, at time of posting, unwritten but planned-out "Solar Sucks".

Now, the last chapter of Book XXVIII.  Gonna be a bit on the short side.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Reflections and Introspections

With the Black Lantern debacle behind them, and virtually no trace of them left behind.  Those turned recall EVERYTHING that they underwent as a Black Lantern.  As such, the mayor parlayed with his higher-ups with the government, and RAF was named the primary institution to deal with such situations.  There was going to be a big ceremony and such.  Richard and the other mods will be there.  Cloak supposed that a majority of RAF would be present.

He would not.

He didn't want to be in the public eye.  He did not want to be a spectacle.  Frankly, all he wanted at the moment was some alone time, so he could write.  Perhaps transcribe his experiences in a memoir, though he knew he wasn't really old enough for a memoir -- although he was old, by Dweller standards.  Being 271 apparently is a big deal to Realm Dwellers.

But as much as he didn't want to dwell on it, his mind seemed to want to, of its own accord, go to the worst and most painful memories had.  He had tried to suppress them, but that never works.  He had a very tumultuous life before RAF offered him some stability.

He couldn't stand it, he got up from his bed, and paced around his thread, cloakless.  He made sure that the door was locked, as it would have been horrific if someone just opened it and he was without his cloak.

He kept mulling his thoughts over and over again.  He knew that he shouldn't dwell on the awful times -- the times with his mother, the absence of his father in his life, his grandfather's death, his involuntary separation from Shadow . . . it was enough to get a grown Realm Walker to cry.

KNOCK!  KNOCK!

"Cloak, it's time to go to the ceremony," Aquilai said through the door, though his voice was somewhat more muffled due to the Nexus fabric lining it as well as every other interior surface that may lead outside.

"I'm not going." Cloak said, surly.

"But you must!" Aquilai insisted.  "You were there when the Black Lanterns --"

"I'm aware, Aquilai," he said, far more calmly than he felt.  "I need some time to myself."

There was some silence, before Aquilai replied, "Well, if you're sure --"

"I am." Cloak said.

"Well, then," Aquilai said, with a chipper attitude he was doggedly determined to maintain, "see you later."

"Have fun," Cloak said, rather noncommittally.

Little did Cloak know that soon enough, far too soon, he would have to deal with these memories and would not be able to suppress them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 11:33:52 AM

Now, this book will be interesting, I think.  Especially for me.  Okay, maybe a short introductory chapter.
 

BOOK XXIX:
SOUL-SUCKERS
CHAPTER ONE:
Cold Chills

Cloak spent the next three days in this moody disposition and he continued to isolate himself.  Aquilai, Noelle, and Underseen were seen to express concern about this, but he wasn't in any danger.  He just needed time to himself, time to think.
 
Cloak had managed to focus on the positive aspects of his life -- something that tended to involve Shadow a lot.  He was unable to think about her without a smile or smirk on his face.  He remembered her when she was young, he remembered her when he saw her last.
 
But, unfortunately, this came with pangs of sorrow and loss.  He deeply missed his little Shadow, but felt that he was as good as forbidden from seeing her ever again.  This was one wound that he wondered if he would ever recover from.
 
Then his thoughts turned to his father . . . his father which he gave the epithet of Brute.  Now, he regreted it, as it stuck.  Cloak knew that his father wasn't a perfect man, but he also know that he wasn't nearly as bad as his mother, Ursa, made him out to be.  Cloak felt a measured amount of guilt about how he vilified him, about how he hated the man.  Especially when he did not deserve it.  In many ways, the two were vastly different . . . and yet . . . in many ways, they were alike.  They were both victims of his narcissistic, controlling mother.
 
"ACK!" Cloak said aloud, verbally scolding himself.  "DON'T think about things like that!!"
 
Of course, telling yourself not to think about things never works.  Not really.  And there were so many things that Cloak did not want to think about, so many memories that he did not want to relive.  He tried to suppress the more painful ones, but those were the ones that lingered, the ones that remained so powerfully formed, so ingrained, so sharp and clearly focused.

Suddenly, Cloak stood stock still.  Not even his tail moved in the slightest.  Cloak felt a chill, a chill so encompassing and so complete that it shook him out of trying to suppress these unhelpful and negative thoughts. . . .

What was worse . . . this chill was familiar. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 08, 2013, 05:07:57 PM

WBC uses more than just homosexuality as a scapegoat. They blame the economy on Muslims last time I checked.

I am surprised that you released 6 chapters in one day. The Great Power was cool while it lasted.

This new book seems quite depressing only because Dementors always make me think about the third Harry Potter book and how sad Blacks' death was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2013, 05:56:01 PM

Damn it -- lost a chapter.  Excuse my language, but I am very pissed right now.

Anyway, I didn't know that Underseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2013, 02:56:07 AM

Whole family but me was out this morning so I FINALLY got to catch up! I must say so far The First Master has been my favourite. :)

Great new chapters... so, we're not on the Public Enemies list anymore, are we? Interesting. Of course, as with most good periods, all it takes is one little bomb to blow it all to smithereens. Or maybe that's just my experience. :P

New book sounds good! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 05:40:40 AM

Thanks, Saffa.

Quote from: Underseen on April 08, 2013, 05:07:57 PM

I am surprised that you released 6 chapters in one day.

Eh, it was a good day.

And the ambitious list:

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 08:09:35 AM

Well, let's try this again.  Sorry, it's shorter than the one that I lost.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
A Demental Case

"Will you hurry up?!" Malice snarled.  "I'm getting impatient! And, more importantly, annoyed!"
 
"Nearly there, dearest!" Abomination said sycophantically.  His voice was muffled a bit due to the crate-sized case he was hoisting effortlessly.  He made to put it down, which incited Malice's ire to flare up again.
 
"Not here!" Malice scolded, deliberately avoiding saying, "you idiot", though wanting to. As much as she would deny it to everyone and herself, she needed Abomination's muscle.  "We must be closer to that forum."
 
"Why?"
 
The question was innocent enough, but Malice saw it as insubordination, as she never knew love.
 
"Don't question me. I know what I'm doing." she sniffed.  "Come now, a little closer?"
 
Abomination hesitated before voicing one of the stickiest questions he had ever dared to, "Forgive me, love . . ."
 
"What is it?" she said, finding it difficult to keep out the scorn.
 
"Why must we . . . why must we rely on such . . . things?"
 
Malice stopped walking, looking at Abomination, her face inscrutable.  Then she hid her contempt and disgust with practiced ease, and said, "They affect you?"
 
Abomination said nothing, he was painfully aware that she would think him delicate or weak if he answered truthfully.
 
"This is the spot.  Let them out."
 
"How can we be sure they'll stay in the forum?"
 
"Cloak will attract them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 08:14:09 AM

Another shortish chapter, and one that doesn't quite meet my size quota. . . . Sorry.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
That's Demented

Gaz and AniDragon were milling around the "Gaz Reviews the Beast Wars" thread*.  Gaz had just posted a new review that Cloak was not yet aware of.
 
"Do you feel that chill?" AniDragon asked the vivacious vampire as Laserbeak nuzzled a wing.
 
"Well, Megatron had just erased the Maximals from existance.  So, yeah it's a bit chilling." Gaz replied.
 
"No, seriously,"AniDragon said, and it was true it was a if the heat had been literally sucked out of the air.  And it was a very warm, comfortable sort of day to begin with.
 
"We'll just shut the window then," Gaz said, decisively.
 
But she never got that far.  The coldness seemed to reach deep inside the two.  Forcing them to remember things.  Horrible things from their lives that they were now being forced to relive.
 
They did not see or seem to know what is causing these demented feelings, but it forced the two to their needs, feeling as if they'd never be cheerful again.
 
Then, all at once, it stopped, as Gaz forced herself to shut the window.  Then the effects suddenly and swiftly stopped.  The two RAFians looked borderline to tears.  The two of them were shaking with the force of the visions, the bad memories that they were forced to relive with such vivid and elaborate detail.

AniDragon reached for a Twix in her pack, and turned to address Gaz.
 
"Twix?" AniDragon offered, as she took some herself.  AniDragon suspected comfort food might help the both of them.  Gaz took her up on her offer.
 
But the creatures remained within the forum, hungrily looking for more victims to feed on.
 
---
*Yes, this is a bit of "project-placement" -- you know, like "product-placement".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 10:34:22 AM

A long chapter title, hopefully the chapter itself will follow suit.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Things that Armor Can't Stop

These creatures that feed on positive feelings, these creatures that empty feeling beings of every happy memory, continued to prowl RAF -- and not all RAFians could see them.  Mostly the non-magic kind, although no thing can be invisible from Realm Walker eyes.
 
Parker, Oceanspray, Underseen, and Sakki were milling around and about posting and mostly enjoying the day -- except the sunlight seemed unusually muted all of a sudden.  And the suddenness of this darkness was disconcerting.
 
"Strange, I don't have any meteorological data for rain today," Parker said.  Then Parker said, "What do you mean it is because of those odd wraith-like creatures, Tyr?  There aren't a wraith-like creatures."
 
A beat of silence, broken when Parker said, "There's no call for namecalling, Tyr."
 
Another beat of silence, broken again when Parker said, "Tyr, I'm in no mood for -- now do be that way!"
 
But then the other three felt the chill.  Oceanspray and Sakki were surprised at how cold it felt, but Parker was mostly surprised that he could feel the chill through his armor, as if it was made of cheap tissue paper.  Parker would remark on the sheer impossibility and implausibility of this, but the chill was forcing him to relive rather unpleasant memories.  The other three were not spared, and Underseen was terrified.
 
Terrified because he knew exactly what creatures could cause a chill, a cold, this severe, this completely soul-numbing.  Underseen uttered very quitely, "De . . . Dementors. . . ."
 
Suddenly, Parker was lifted up by the scabbed hands of a particularly large Dementor . . . it pressed it's blind jaws upon his helmet and began to suck.  It was attempting to deliver a Kiss -- but, being blind, it was unaware of Parker's helmet.  But this foul beast would not hold Parker for much longer.
 
His Mark activated, and it drove the Dementor away.  Parker was dropped roughly, and the rest of Dementors fled before the power of the Unity Energy.
 
"What the bloody hell was that thing?!" Parker gasped, scared of the force that he could not see.
 
"De--Dementors," Underseen said, he was still shivering so much that his form was blurred.  "Those things are worse than the Black Lanterns."

Parker pondered this.  "Dementors . . ."

Then a chill rather unrelated to the chills that the Dementors foist upon all feeling beings crept up his spine as he read the species database entry for "Dementors".  "It was attempting to Kiss me, wasn't it?"

"I would imagine," Underseen said.

"You couldn't see it?" Sakki asked.

"I couldn't," answered Underseen.  His form was still shaky.  He looked similar to a staticky hologram.

"Neither could I," Sakki said, voice hollow.

Oceanspray said nothing but shook his head in reply.

"So we're powerless against them." Parker said, then was silent for a bit, and spoke again with an acidly sarcastic tone.  "Oh, yeah, Tyr, you've been ever so helpful when it was trying to Kiss me."

"Not necessarily," a voice said coming up to them.  It belonged to Broken, with Faerie skimming the grass behind him, they were attracted by the actions of the Dementors.  "We -- that is to say, Faerie and I -- can see them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2013, 10:57:45 AM

That can be even creepier when you can't actually see them. *shivers*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 11:24:00 AM

Yes, it is true, Saffa.

Now, very probably the last chapter today.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Cloak Demented

Cloak had left his thread, thinking that maybe his mind was playing games with him.  He thought perhaps a walk would help him clear it.  It was an idea that he regretted immediately, as the Dementors made a beeline for him.  But unlike Gaz, Parker and the others, he could see them.  He could see them quite easily.
 
"Away!" Cloak commanded.  "Away with you!"
 
It was then that Cloak realized that he was not immune from their effects.  He saw images began to swim before his eyes, but he forced the memory down.  But he eventually failed to do so -- and the memory swam through his mind and he saw it as if it were happening right now. . . .
 

***

He was back in the dilapidated mess that was his mother's house that was surrounded by trees and had a very great view of the Realms.  He was a great deal younger, roughly 25 years old (or roughly 251 in Dweller years).  His mother was singing.

"The world is cruel.
The world is wicked.
It's I alone whom you can trust in the whole city!
I am your only friend.
I who keep you, teach you, feed you, dress you --
I who look upon you without fear
How can I protect you, boy, unless you
Always stay in here?"

Then she stood up, nose held proudly in the air, and she spoke, "Remember what I taught you, son."

She sang,
 

"You are inferior."

Cloak echoed,
 

"I am inferior."

She continued with this littany:

"And you are lazy."

Cloak echoed this again,
 

"And I am lazy."

Then she continued her abusive words:

"And these are crimes
For which the realms and the world
Shows little pity!
You do not comprehend!"

Cloak added, in a quiet manner,
 

"You are my one defender."

His mother continued:

"Out there, they'll revile you
As a loser."

Cloak spoke to himself more than his mother.
 

"I am a loser."

His mother continued in her debasement:

"Out there they will hate
And scorn and jeer."

Cloak again spoke to himself more than his mother.
 

"Only a loser"

Ursa now wheeled Cloak to face her, and sang:

"Why invite their calumny
And consternation?
Stay in here.
Be faithful to me."

Cloak answered:
 

"I'm faithful."

His mother added:

"Grateful to me."

Cloak replied:
 

"I'm grateful."

His mother continued:

"Do as I say.
Obey,
And --"

Then they sung together:
 

"Stay
In here."

"Remember, son," she said, gesturing to the shack of a home, "this is your sanctuary."
 
Then she left as Cloak slid down a wall, one of the few solid walls in the house.  He sang in a voice over, as he went over to a window:

Safe behind these windows and this guilt I can't atone.
Gazing at the Dwellers down below of me.
All my life, I watch them as I hide here alone,
Hungry for the histories they show me.
All my life, I memorize their faces,
Knowing them as they will never know me.
All my life, I wonder how it feels to pass a day,
Not apart of them,
But among of them!

And out there,
Living in the sun.
Give me one day out there!
All I ask is one!
To hold forever!

Out there!
Where they all live unaware!
What I'd give,
What I'd dare,
Just to live one day out there!

Out there among the goombas and the gryphons and their wives.
Through the roofs and gables, I can see them.
Ev'ry day they shout and scold and go about their lives
Heedless of the gift is is to be them!
If I was in their skin,
I would treasure
Ev'ry instant --

Out there!
My life to brighten.
To taste a morning out there,
Like ordinary Walker men,
Who freely walk about there!
Just one day and then
I swear I'll be content
With my share!
Won't resent!
Won't despair!
Old and bent,
I won't care!
I'll have spent
One day
Out there!!

***

"NO!" Cloak roared, very aware how close he was to passing out.  But he simply would not allow it.  It was difficult though, to stand after that heavy, heavy memory.  One of many he had tried to suppress.  And there were still others, others that he continually tried to repress.

Maintaining consciousness was difficult . . . though . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 02:19:28 PM

Perhaps just one more.

CHAPTER SIX:
Cloak's Vulnerability

Cloak had collapsed to his knees, stubbornly trying to stay conscious.  But the . . . the images . . .

"Go away . . ." Cloak said weakly and rather pathetically.

They ignored this.  They were hungry -- Malice has starved them as best as she could.

"Go away," Cloak said, slightly firmer.

They once again ignored this.  The largest swooped down upon him, pulled back its hood, and lifted him up.

"Put me down . . ." Cloak said, still tormented by the memories, his own memories.

The Dementor did not and would not acquiesce.  Cloak hated seeing those horrid scabbed-over scratches where eyes would be on a normal being.  Then there was that gaping mouth with its rattling breath and its underwater-death skin.

"Put me down," Cloak said stronger now, his anger not being a positive emotion that the Dementors could suck out of him.

Too late, the Dementor lunged forward to Kiss Cloak . . . only to be incinerated, melted and disintegrated simultaneously.

Cloak was fine, his soul still where it ought to be.  But his fury was still quite tangible.  The other Dementors could not see what happened to its fellow but they were very eager to Kiss Cloak.

"I'm not telling you again," Cloak said, eyes like suns again, "BACK THE VEIL OFF!!!"

Suddenly, a powerful blast of golden-scarlet energy from within Cloak erupted and pushed the Dementors away. Then he pointed his palm, the one that bore the Mark, at them.  It bubbled and frothed with Unity Energy.  This seemed to deter them as his own biological energy could.

The Dementors fled, and Cloak looked at his Mark incredulously.  He supposed that Unity Energy was similar to the material that gave Patronuses their substance.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 09, 2013, 04:28:47 PM

Was that a hint, Cloaky, in that one chapter?

Good stuff! I really enjoy reading this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2013, 04:51:47 PM

Why, I don't know whatever you could mean, Gaz.  :shiftyeyes:

Another shortish chapter. I think.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Rage and Rescue

Cloak looked around and saw the Dementors were gone.  He had to be sure, though.

He began to patrol the boundaries of the grounds like an indoor housecat when there's another cat outside.  He hunted them down, evenn though he didn't really want to find them.  He knew he was still very vulnerable to them, but he knew so was his RAFian friends.

He really must hurry, but he must be thorough.

***

Esplin and Noelle was grazing about the grounds. Then the sunlight vanished into a dark, inky blackness.

<What in the world . . .?> Noelle said, confused.  Then the chill hit her and Esplin.  The two Andalites started to remember . . . remember terrible things.

She pressed her hands to the side of her head, as if to squeeze out the bad memories, and Esplin followed suit.  They squeezed their main eyes shut as their stalk eyes scanned the area frantically.  Neither could see anything.

<What is causing this?!> Esplin demanded.

<I have no idea!> Noelle screamed. She didn't care, she was reliving her worst moments.

Then she felt ice-cold hands grasp her shoulders and the base of her neck . . . but Andalites had no mouth.  The Dementors could not suck their souls out via a nonexistent nose. The Dementors, being blind, knew no better, so went for the noses instead . . .

Which doesn't work.  They can't Kiss someone through the nose. This fundamentally made Andalites immune, but it doesn't help that they all are unable to see them.

But Noelle's Mark didn't allow the Dementors to really try, so it wasn't something that would be tested, nor would any Andalite (or any feeling being) volunteer for such a test.

The Dementors fell back to see more food.  It was then that it was apparent that these Dementors had somehow been . . . altered.  They sought not to simply suck the place of all positive feeling and memories.  No, like a hormone-crazed teen, they desired to Kiss others.

But the question remained . . . how could Dementors be altered?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 09, 2013, 04:55:46 PM

Weird how right before I read these I saw a picture saying "Honey Boo Boo is my Patron us." Nice updates.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 10, 2013, 12:33:43 AM

Great chapters! Like plunging yourself into a bucket of ice-cold water.  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 08:07:39 AM

Strange that, Underseen.  Just . . . strange.

True, Saffa.

Anyway, I don't know how many chapters I'll get up today.  I'll try for another six, but don't give your hopes up.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Demented Dispelling

Saffa was reading a long book beneath a holly tree while Horse and Guy were splashing about in the lake.  Horse, being a seal and therefore far more adept in the water, was repeatedly getting the better of Guy.

"You know Horse, somehow this has lost its fun," Guy said drily.

"Oh, don't be such a wet blanket!" Horse said playfully.

"I think my blanket is just about the only thing of mine that isn't wet," Guy sniffed.

"Hey, what's that supposed to --"

But Horse never got to finish her question.  The sun seemed to have vanished from the sky, and the three were mired in inky blackness as a coldness filled them up.

Saffa dropped her book, where it laid forgotten, as she writhed from both the memories and the cold.

Guy struggled to leave the water as Horse summoned her Tempest Blade, allowing her to take her armored human form.  But the Blade would protect her about as much as Parker's armor would have protected him from the cold -- such cold that even a seal was unaccustomed to.

"Wh-what's happening?" Guy said, his voice quavered at the memories that he was forced to relive.

Saffa's voice held the same quiver as she replied, "Only on thing I can think of, off the top of my head -- Dementors."

"Oh, that's just peachy!" Horse snarled.  Being forced to relive the worst memories she possessed made her rather moody.  "Then where are they?"

"I don't think we can see them." Saffa stammered.

"Oh, lovely," Guy said, facepalming. "I don't wanna be Kissed."

"Brother, dear, as a Geek, I don't think that will happen -- AAH! GETOFFGETOFFGETOFFG ETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!" Horse said ending in a somewhat hysterical shriek as she felt icy hands on her back.

"What is it?" Guy shouted, instantly concerned. Horse was too busy being hysterical about being Kissed.

"Sheath your Infinity Blade, Horse!" shouted a voice. Horse complied, reverting to her seal form, slipping out of the Dementor's grasp.  It tilted its head as if Horse confused it.

"Now, Dementors, talk to the hand!" said another voice, revealed to be Richard, while the owner of the other voice was revealed to be Cloak.

Both were holding up their hands that bore the Mark, then they fired a beam of Unity Energy each at the Dementors which promptly fled. The sun returned to its full brillance.

"How'd you see them?" Saffa asked, absently scooping up her book.

"It's rather obvious why Richard can," Horse said, a little shakily. "He's just awesome like that."

"And you, Cloak?"

"Nothing is invisible to a Realm Walker," Cloaked answered, a little surly. The three picked up on his tone easily.

"Are . . . are you okay, Cloak?" Saffa ventured tentatively.

"I'm fine!" Cloak snapped quitely. "I'll go tell Aquilai, Goom, Yarin, or whoever to put up and modify the Code Avalon. Then I'll meet you in the auditorium."

And, with that, he swept from the group, his black cloak swishing in time with every step.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 08:22:35 AM

Probably a short chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Raise the Code Avalon

Cloak walked to communications, where the buttons to activate Code Avalon were, usually Yarin was on duty in there. This time, however, Aquilai was in there.
 
"Cloak! What --" Aquilai said initially genial, but quickly changed to all seriousness upon reading Cloak's body language, "what is it?"
 
"We need Code Avalon activated," Cloak said with a hard, expressionless tone, "once everyone's in the auditorium."
 
"Why? What's happened?"
 
"That's everyone," Cloak seeing the monitor, "activate it now."'
 
"Not until you tell me why!" Aquilai said, pushing his luck.
 
Cloak narrowed his eyes. "To keep the Dementors out."
 
Aquilai looked on blankly for a moment.
 
"Check the database if you're unsure, then!" Cloak said losing a bit of his temper. "But activate it now or I will!"
 
Which was a bit of a stretch because Cloak couldn't remember the complex series of buttons to push to activate it.
 
"Okay, okay," Aquilai said, setting about activating Code Avalon. "But something's going on with you, Cloak. Don't think I can't tell."
 
Cloak said nothing but swept from the room in a style of which Severus Snape would've been proud.
 
"Must've been some bad memories," Aquilai muttered after Cloak's departure, revealing he was very aware of was Dementors were.

***

On the way back to the auditorium, Cloak felt genuinely contrite with his shortness with Aquilai.  Aquilai didn't know the . . . the things that Cloak saw, but if he had he wouldn't have reacted in the same way, Cloak was sure.

And even now, with the Code Avalon activated . . . he could still feel them.  He could still feel those death-cold hands, hear their rattling breath as they sucked the happiness out of the air. . . .

Cloak shivered and tried to put it out of his mind, but it kept charging on through to the forefront of his mind.  No one was around, so Cloak allowed a tear to sear the ground.  These Dementors were bringing up everything, every emotion that he had though he had so successfully surmounted.

It would seem, Cloak realized, that he never overcame them at all.  He just buried and suppressed them until they were long forgotten.  He knew this was unhealthy, but he knew nothing else to do to manage his emotions . . .

He entered the auditorium and took his usual spot.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 10, 2013, 10:50:15 AM

*sniffs slightly*

Ahem. I know the memory I would've seen... You'll know when I get about to posting my fanfic, which will be accomplished as soon as this infuriating coaching class is over. Either way, it involves... okay. I'm not gonna say any more. Focus on Cloaky, people! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 10:56:32 AM

Ah.  And you'll soon see more of my memories in this book.  But fret not -- this atmosphere will end with this book, as Book XXX is gonna be a tad more light-hearted.

Maybe a short chapter.  Probably the last chapter for a few hours.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
The Dementors' One Fatal Weakness

The auditorium was full, yet it felt more packed then usual, and louder than usual.  Cloak wasn't a particular fan of loud noises, but he tolerated this as his mind seemed to want to dwell on the unpleasant images he was forced to unsuppress.  He did not want to remember them, as most of them were of with his deteriorating relationship with his narcissistic, egotistical mother.
 
"Now," Richard addressed the group at large.  Cloak was only half paying attention, the other half of his mind continued to obstinately dwell on the sour, bitter memories of being ignored and enduring his mother's verbal knives.  "As you may have noticed, the Forum is involuntarily playing host to some Dementors."
 
There was a brief surge of voices easily overlapping each other.  Richard waited for it to subside before continuing.
 
"Now, I don't know how they came to be here," Richard began.
 
"That's no mystery," Cloak interrupted.  "Malice must have brought them here."
 
"How do you know that?" Saffa asked.
 
"Because they don't affect her," Cloak guessed.
 
"Realm Walkers are immune?" Underseen asked.
 
"I didn't say that," Cloak said, as he fell into silence once more.
 
"Well, then," Richard said, seizing the floor again, "the fact of the matter is they're here.  And some of you may very well not be able to see them.  I can.  Broken, Faerie, and Cloak can as well."
 
"I can't," Saffa, Noelle, Gaz, Parker, Horse, Esplin, AniDragon, Oceanspray, Guy, Sakki, and Underseen said, at once and in unison.
 
"Now, be that as it may, this brings us to the question of how to destroy them." Richard continued, ignoring this outburst.
 
"Except that they can't be destroyed," Underseen said sadly.
 
There was a subdued silence at these words.
 
"That's not exactly true," Cloak said quietly.  Then he was aware that all eyes were on him, but he said nothing.
 
"Care to elaborate?" Dino coaxed.
 
Cloak looked up and took a deep breath.  "They're weak to what all Realm Dwellers are vulnerable to." Cloak said, fiddling and rubbing the clasp that kept his cloak fastened.
 
He thought this was a subtle enough to answer the question.  But Rotiart, obnoxious as ever, said, "WHICH is WHAT?!"
 
Cloak pulled his mind out of the unpleasant memories at this, and threw Rotiart a look of deepest loathing.  Rotiart didn't do subtlety very well.
 
"Removing my cloak," Cloak answered, very plainly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 12:02:42 PM

Maybe a short chapter.  Probably the last chapter for a few hours.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
75%

"Great, you get to strip and run around naked --" Rotiart began derisively.
 
"YOU GO TOO FAR!!" Cloak raged.  The walls actually trembled and Rotiart pulled away, cowering a bit.  Cloak shut his eyes and controlled himself.  Then he snapped his eyes open, and he spoke, gnashing his teeth with every word.  "Watch that tongue of yours, Rotiart, or you might find that you no longer have one to wag."
 
He allowed the threat to stand, and felt no remorse for issuing it.
 
"Cloak . . ." Gaz started, but a glare from him told her in no uncertain terms that he was not about the retract his statement.
 
"Let's all just calm down," Richard said, with a soothing voice.  "These Dementors have our feelings rather closer to the surface than they would ordinarily be."
 
It was true.  It took all of Cloak's willpower to keep his powers in check.  He could still feel them.  He suppressed a shutter -- he didn't need to get Rotiart more ammuniation to get him to lose his tempter.
 
"Alert!" Aquilai cried through the forum-wide intercom.  "Code Avalon at 75% power and dropping!"
 
Cloak flinched, and another memory swam before his eyes . . .
 

***

Cloak was sitting in a corner, in tears, thinking in song, via voiceover:
 

Look at me.
I will never be able to hide
Or be a perfect son.
Can it be
I'm not meant to play this part?
Now I see,
That if I were truly
To be myself,
I would break my mother's heart.

Who is that tiger I see
Staring straight
Back at me?
Why is my reflection someone
I don't know?
Somehow I cannot hide
Who I am,
Though I've tried.
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside . . .[/b]

Cloak continued to cry and sniffle on into his misery . . .

***

NO!! Cloak thought savagely.  He looked around, and very few if any of the others seemed to be affect as he was.  The dementors effect was strong enough now that they could feel it through the walls.  This, although he would deny it later, scared Cloak witless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 12:39:19 PM

And, once again, the ambitious list:

• Book XXX: Mayhem of the Music Miser

Cloak recalls the RAFians' previous confrontation with the Music Miser three years ago.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 12:39:46 PM

Gonna try to get to chapter 13 today.  This chapter may be a bit on the short side.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Malicious Watcher

Meanwhile, while all this was happening, Malice was watching from her perch upon Cloak's old hill.  She watched the goings on through a thermal binoculars, because she couldn't see through the inky blackness that Dementors caused.  Her face was expressionless.
 
Though she would deny this to Abomination, she was regretting doing this.  Not because of the pain or suffering her machinations had caused.  She didn't care about minor things like that.  No, she was regretting doing this because she couldn't watch it easily, the thermal binoculars pretty much only showed multicolored blobs with no real defined form or anything.  The Dementors themselves were too cold to be picked up at all on the binoculars.

She felt excited once or twice when it appeared that the Dementors would get a successful Kiss, but was immediately disappointed when the Kiss failed to be delivered.  She did not know why the Dementors failed to deliever the Kiss, as Unity Energy did not show up on the thermal binoculars.

All in all, she thought, this scheme was better on paper than it was in practice.

Then she saw that they activated that shield thing that the Dementors couldn't penetrate, but they hovered outside it.  She knew that it would have been easier for them to fly away to the city and feed on the people there, but she made sure her alterations would keep them focused on RAF and, in particular, Cloak.

She was about to get up and leave, rather dissatisfied with this scheme, when she noticed that the shield's strength wobbled.  Then it was steadily weakening.  She sat back down to enjoy the show -- Abomination had declined to watch it with her as the Dementors affected him, although not to the degree they affected Cloak.

Malice did not feel their effects because, simply put, she's never known love.  She was colder inside than the Dementors could make her otherwise.  Of course, she neglected the fact that Dementors could not Kiss other Realm Walkers.

In short, Malice thought of this as nothing more than an interactive television show or video game she just bought.  This was entertainment for her.  It's what got her sent to the Gate.  And she would be headed there -- if the Realm Walker Council did not believe her to be dead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 01:05:36 PM

Probably gonna be the final chapter from me tonight.  But don't hold me to that.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
50%

"Code Avalon has fallen to half!" Aquilai proclaimed with a tense, terse voice.  "It's also still falling."
 
"Not for long," Cloak said, leaving the auditorium -- and that obnoxious upstart Rotiart -- behind.  He dashed to the center of the field and fired his energy up and suffusing it with his golden-scarlet energy.
 
"It's working, Cloak," Aquilai's voice said from the outdoor intercom, "the power dropoff is stablizing."
 
"Good.  Now, guys, come up with a containment method for these things.  Now!" Cloak roared to the few RAFians who followed him.
 
But then, suddenly, as he heard the rattling breaths of the Dementors outside the shield, he was force to remember . . .
 

***

Cloak was dealing with the aftermath of a big fight with his mother, and he had gone off to "lick his wounds", so to speak.  He found himself thinking in song:

Out among the RAFstars I posted
Where I'd regularly croon.
In my new silver cloak, I posted
In a dream that ended too soon.
Now I know exactly who I am,
And what I'm here for.

Still in his ears, he heard his mother's voice, "You are a loser!  You cannot defy me!"

Cloak continued this mental song:

And I will go posting . . . no more.

Then his internal voice turned challenging as his eyes hardened with determination.

But, no, it can't be true!
I could defy if I wanted to!
Free like Grandpa Sage in the sky,
Why, I'd defy!

He determinedly stands up to his mother, and she kicks him out of the house . . . out of the family. . . .

Clearly . . . I will go posting . . .
No more . . .

Cloak went off alone, unsure which realm was the Prime Universe, as the realms were currently in flux.  Their positions were not always statically there.  When they were in flux, they moved, shifted, and changed order.
 

***

"Gah!" Cloak said, coming back to the present.  He wasn't really sure if that was a memory or an extremely vivid nightmare of his.  But it was enough to force him down to one knee, causing him to briefly stop add his energy to Code Avalon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 10, 2013, 05:07:00 PM

Wow this book is deep, emotionally speaking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2013, 05:23:48 PM

Justifiably, I think, Underseen.  Considering I would be forced to see similar images were dementors real.

Now, don't hold me to it, but I'll try to get the rest of the book up tomorrow.

Well, here's an additional chapter to tide you over.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Gotta Catch Them All

Cloak shut his eyes, grit his teeth, and poured his energy back into the shield. He remained on his knee, though.  If he kept this up, he would pass out from exhaustion. Or worse . . .

***

Meanwhile, back in the forum, the other RAFians were muttering quietly.

"People, people!" Richard said, trying to restore peace. "Your attention please."

There were some minor, defiant babble going on after these words. But even that died down soon enough.

"We are tasked with a monumental endeavor," Richard said. "A method for capturing Dementors."

"They're not intangible," Faerie said, reasonably. "They just look that way."

"So any footlocker would do?" Saffa asked.

"I suppose . . ." Underseen said rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"One flaw there," Goom pointed out. "It would require all of them to be captured at once."

A brief, heavy silence greeted these words.  It was as if a weight had been added to the atmosphere, which weighed heavily on all present.

"Well . . ." Broken said thoughtfully, "perhaps there is a way . . ."

After a few beats, Sakki said, rather nettled, "What is it with you people? More elaborate answers would be be nice!"

"Sorry," Broken said. "I was just thinking that maybe I could enchant this said footlocker with a combination of Summoning and Banishing Charms.  To Summon them to the footlocker and Banish them there. But it would be tricky -- I've never attempted such a thing."

"Now seems a prudent time," Richard said. "Get on it.  Demos, Faerie, help him."

The three got up.

"And hurry.  Cloak cannot keep up slowing Code Avalon's deteroration. Especially with how they affect him." Richard impressed. "All of our happiness may be at stake, our very sanity."

Then he waited for a beat, then he said, "But no pressure or anything."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 10, 2013, 07:49:00 PM

Can't wait for more.  :)  *scampers off to study more*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 08:49:02 AM

Well, then, Noelle -- here's some more and about another 5 chapters (including this one) to finish off this book.  Unless I have to split a chapter in two.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Construction

The three got to work on the solid pine footlocker that was fortified by steel.

There wasn't nearly as much flashes and bangs as one may expect.

"Careful, Broken! Or this footlocker will mirror your name!" Faerie chided.

"I am being careful!" Broken snarled.

This whole Dementor business was making everyone on edge.  Everyone, ironically enough, except Demos. He alone seemed to be unaffected by the Dementors, or if he was, he was supernaturally adept at hiding and concealing it.

"Look, we better just focus on the task set before us. Like Richard said, these Dementors are making us on edge."

"And we don't even know if this works," Demos said.

"Well," said Faerie, a mischievous little grin flitted onto her face, "we can always test it on you."

Demos gave her a sour look that any non-RAFian would found frightening. Clearly, he wasn't amused.

***

Cloak worked hard to maintain Code Avalon with his own energy. He knew he would not be able to do it very much longer. All he was doing was prolonging the inevitable.

And it diddn't help that the memories were coming in clearer and more intensely.

***

It was yet another confrontation with his mother. She didn't approve of his spending so much of his time in the Prime Universe, rather than at "home", which was little more than a prison.

She sang:

"This is where you belong!"

"You don't understand!" Cloak protested, but his mother cut across him in song:

"For once, just listen
Will you?!
Those uncouth brutes would use you
In the realm you love!"

"They're not uncouth!" Cloak protested angrily.

"Don't try that same ol' dance and song!
I'll have you grounded 'til next year!
Am I clear?!
Don't go near that realm you love!"

"I'm not a child anymore!" Cloak protested again, and was, again, ignored.

"No? Have you lost your senses? They're Dwellers! You're a Walker!"

Cloaked snarled, "That doesn't matter!"

His mother sang:

"I'm still the boss here!
My word is law.
That filth you associate with --
This is the final straw!
Push, my son, has come to shove!
I'll make you obey
'Til you do as I say!
I don't care how it may!
But I'll keep you away
From that cruel, harsh, cold, vile realm you love!"

"No!" Cloak protested and pleaded. "You can't do that!!"

***

This time Cloak only faltered briefly before resuming his efforts.  But, this time . . . this time there were tears that seared the soil and burned and withered the grass.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 09:02:54 AM

Sorry if I already used the song in this chapter. Here we go.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
20%

Cloak keep it going though he was easily becoming more emotionally fragile with every effort.
 
He would have never thought that dementors would affect him so . . . but, in retrospect, it was kind of stupid of him, knowing what his past was like.
 
And, though he fought tooth and nail to suppress it, another horrid memory surfaced. . . .
 

***

He was kicked out of his family's house, and he just discovered that his sisters were siding with with his mother.  Only Shadow had seen a shadow of his mother's true nature, that Cloak had the misfortune of discovering through verbal, and seldomly physical, abuse.
 
Cloak turned his back on them, although reluctantly where Shadow was concerned.  But he hadn't a choice.  His mother took that away from him long ago.
 
He thought to himself in song, in a bit of a self-derogatory manner and a bit mish-mash with his mother's brainwashing, making him feel worthless:
 

I'm gonna build me a wall.
I'll make it ten miles high.
See ya later, pal,
Bye-bye.
You ain't gettin' in,
So don't you even try!
A ten-mile wall.
I'm gonna build me a wall.
I'm gonna disappear.
Whassamatter, pal,
Am I not being clear?
Can't you take a hint?
Am I getting through at all?
Just get outta here!
I was told that the world
Would despise me.
So, I should've known.
I should've guessed.
I thought that these two
Might've been different.
Well, now I know!
They're just like all the rest!
I won't be what they want.
I won't be what they say.
Hey, mother, have it your way!
If you're looking for a loser,
It's your unlucky day.
I won't be what you want!
What a fool
To think she might love me.
I open my heart
And let them walk through.
It was disarming,
I just wanted a home that I lacked.
How unlucky that I never came through.
Gonna build me a wall.
A perfect place to hide.
The best way to conquer,
They say is to divide.
Gonna build a wall.
Not gonna be what she says.
Gonna hide it in my heart.
Gonna build a wall!

A week and a half later, Cloak made it back to RAF, where the memory abruptly cuts off because it was no longer a bad memory.

***

"Look alert, guys!" Aquilai said, alarmed.  "Down to 20%!"

"I'm giving it all I got," Cloak said, rather quietly, to disguise the fact that he was outright crying now.  He, like all Realm Walkers, could be very prideful, ashamed of any perceived weakness.

However, this didn't change the fact that he was weakening at a much faster rate than even he would expected.  It was clear that the Dementors were taking far more of a toll on him than anyone had anticipated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 09:49:40 AM

Getting close to the end. . . .
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Testing . . . Testing . . .

"I told you I didn't want to be the test subject!" Demos protested.
 
"What made you think it wasn't a serious suggestion?" Faerie said in an innocent and airy manner.
 
"Faerie, I said no!  I don't want to be trapped in there forever!"
 
"Relax, we'll get you out." Broken said, waving this concern aside.
 
"If I could get out," Demos said pragmatically, "don't you think one or two of the Dementors could escape?!  They may have mass, but not very much of it."
 
Silence met this pronouncement.  This hadn't occurred to the other two, and they immediately revised their decision of Demos as a test subject.  They needed on that was expendable, and, as such, they could not with good conscience do such with a living creature.  Demos ordinarily wouldn't care -- but he fabricated caring just so he wouldn't be reelected as the test subject.
 
"Maybe a stone like this would suffice," Broken said.
 
"Better it than me," Demos muttered.
 
"Better than nothing." Faerie agreed.
 

***

Cloak's emotions were being stretched taut.  He did not want to think about these things, about his misery with his mother, about his misery without Shadow in his life. . . .
 
These feelings of hopelessness and futility threatened to overwhelm him as another memory came to the forefront . . .
 

***

There was a time, when he was in RAF and people cared about him, that his thoughts went back to Shadow.  He wondered if his mother got to her . . . brainwashed her against him as she had done with Cloak to his father, Brute. . . . Painfully, Cloak operated under the assumption that this was true, though he exceedingly did not want it to be true.

He found himself thinkin in song:
 

When she loved me,
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart.

And when she was sad,
I was there to dry her tears.
And when she was happy,
So was I,
When she loved me.

Through the summer, and each fall,
We had each other, that was all.
Just she and I together,
Like it was meant to be.

And when she was lonely,
I was there to comfort her.
And I knew that she loved me.

So the years went by,
I stayed the same,
And she was ripped away.
I was left Shadowless and alone.

Still I waited for the day
When she'd say,
"We will always be with you."

Lonely and forgotten,
Never thought she'd look my way.
That she'd smiled at me,
Just like she'd used to do,
Like she loved me,
When she loved me.

When Shadow loved me,
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart.
When she loved me. . . .

***

This memory wasn't as powerful as the others, because he didn't know that it was true that Shadow stopped loving him.  It was just a memory that he had in a moment of doubt, a moment of weakness.  But the thought of Shadow -- the merest thought -- gave him newfound strength to resist the Dementors' increasing influence, but it did not change his exhaustion.  He managed to gather enough strength to slow the drain of the Code Avalon, but it was not a permanent solution.

Eventually, Cloak would pass out.  Or worse.

Those three had better hurry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 11, 2013, 10:28:59 AM

Definitely been one of the best books so far. Your writing's really hit a high point! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 11:57:57 AM

Thanks, Saffa.

Three more chapters to go -- including this one.  The next book won't be as heavy as this one, I believe.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
10%

"Must . . . keep . . . this . . . up. . . . Must . . . speak . . . in . . . fractured . . . sentences." Cloak muttered, attempting to inject a little humor into his struggle.  He didn't know if he succeeded.
 
He knew he wasn't stopping the failure of Code Avalon, but just delaying it.  Such knowledge wasn't exactly very comforting.  Cloak braced himself, as he knew the Dementors were foisting another horrible memory upon him again.
 

***

Cloak was a child, roughly middle school.  His mom wasn't as horrible to him then, but he supposed that was because he still had the cute cubby looks about him.  Probably the main reasons that foolish people think that tiger cubs make great pet -- only to get their butts killed by said "pets".

Cloak was singing quietly to himself, after his mom had a Freudian slip and said that he was not smart enough*.  He went off to sulk, and he sung quietly to himself.
 

"I guess I’d be a hero –
With sword and armor clashing,
Looking semi-dashing,
A shield within my grip.

Or else I’d be a Viking,
And live a life full of daring,
Or maybe that's just a red herring,
Upon a rickety ship.

I’d sail away.
I’d see the worlds.
I’d reach the farthest reaches.
I’d feel that wind.
I’d see the sights and truly see,
And maybe stormwatch some beaches.
That’s who I’d be.
That’s who I’d be.

Or I could be a poet,
And write a different story.
One that tells of glory,
And wipes away the lies.

I’d write a verse,
Recite a joke,
With wit and perfect timing,
I’d share my heart.
Confess the things I yearn
And do it all while rhyming.

But we all learn.
But we all learn . . .
A loser always hides.
A loser’s fate is known.
A loser always stays
In the dark and all alone.

So yes, I’d be a hero,
And if my wish were granted
Life would be enchanted,
Or so they say.

Of course I’d be the hero,
And I would scale a tower
To save a hot-house flower,
And carry her away.

But standing guard
Would be a beast.
I’d somehow inconvenience it.
I’d get the girl.
I’d take a breath,
And I’d remove my helmet.

We’d stand and stare.
We’d speak of love.
We’d feel the stars ascending.

We’d share a kiss.
I’d find my destiny.
I’d have a hero’s ending.
A perfect happy ending.
That’s how it would be:
A big, bright, beautiful world . . .
A perfect happy ending.
That’s how it should be."

He stood against a flat stone surface and slid down into a crouching position, sniffling quietly.  His mother never really knew or realized the weight of her words.

***

"Ten percent!" Aquilai announced.  "Down to ten percent!  Prepare yourselves, people!"

Cloak could not muster any more energy to prolong Code Avalon.  He could no longer even force himself to remain conscious.

He collapsed in the grass, his tears still burning the soil and the grass.

---
*In reality, this references the fact that when I was younger my mom told me that I wasn't "smart enough" to be on Jeopardy.  I really hadn't any intention anyway -- although my maternal grandmother continued to say that I would do well on "Wheel of Fortunate" due to how many puzzles I solved while watching on episode.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 12:26:49 PM

Two more to go.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Containment and Contentment

"It's done!" Faerie cried as Broken and Demos carried out the footlocker.

"It's done for!" Aquilai cried over the intercom, leaving the main console room.  He was referring to the Code Avalon.  It would be some time before it recharged, and was fit to use again.  He dashed down to the ground, to see the opaquely-translucent dome wither away and seemingly vanish.

"No matter, the footlocker is done." Faerie said, addressing Aquilai.

"Would you mind helping us carry it, then?" Demos complained.

"Oh, you two have it very well in hand." Faerie said dismissively.

"Then, since you're free Faerie, could you go get Kelly or Goom?  Cloak has kind of collapsed." Aquilai said urgently.

"What?  Oh.  Oh, fine." And she was off.

The Dementors didn't wait for the entirety of the Code Avalon to fail, they just waited for the holes to be big enough for their entry, and then they swooped over RAF once more.  Broken and Demos dropped the footlocker, which now issued a minor aura of magical energy.

The Dementors came to them first, as they were right in front of Cloak, who Aquilai was trying to drag off, away from the grounds.  Broken kicked the footlocker which opened emitting a faint and garish green glow, as if this was right out of "Ghostbusters".  All the Dementors was sucked within, none evaded it, and none escaped it.  They were all now trapped within the overlarge box, and Demos shut the lid with a snap.

But the Dementors remained hungry and restless.  The footlocker thumped and bumped in a most disconsolate way.  However, nothing more happened.

"Okay . . ." Saffa said, upon seeing the spectacle, "what now?"

Silence greeted these words.

"Uh, good question," Faerie replied.

But then Cloak answered wearily.  "That'll be up to me."

"Cloak, no." Aquilai said.  "You've overexerted yourself.  You --"

"I will do what I must," Cloak replied.

He walked over to the footlocker. Then he formed an ecliptic forcefield around himself and the footlocker.  It didn't just stop at the ground, the forcefield encapsulated the two totally.  Cloak fiddled with his cloak's fastenings and then his cloak dropped to the floor of the forcefield.  Then the egg-shaped energy capsule was filled with a blisteringly bright light.  It enveloped both Cloak and the footlocker.

Five minutes passed before Cloak donned his cloak again.  There was nothing left of the footlocker.  Not a single trace, not even a trail of smoke.  The Dementors were gone.

The forcefield dropped, and Cloak dropped into silence and unconsciousness yet again.

"He's really got to stop overexerting himself," Saffa commented benignly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 12:49:39 PM

Last chapter before Book XXX.  May not be very long.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Recovery

"Oh, Veil," Malice cursed when she discovered how the RAFians overcame this.  "If they didn't have Cloak they would have been done for."

"But I thought Cloak was the one that was attracting the Dementors," Abomination said.

Malice paid this no mind, and instead said, "Well, I suppose it's time to come up with another scheme to make these Dwellers entertain me -- I mean, us."

Then the two vanished, as if they were having a nice picnic at the sight of the RAFians suffering and hurting.

***

Cloak had to sleep for a few days to recover from the amount of energy that he expended.  He realized how close he came to killing himself from exhaustion.  It wasn't an experience that he would like to repeat, but he knew he would again, if it came down to it.  He would give his life for these people, these RAFians.  They were his family now -- although he knew his aunt and cousins were there for him as well.

Cloak was looking at RAF from high up, thinking in song:

In some new place,
With some new case
I've never seen.
I thought I'd find where I belong, someday.
And there may even be a new dream for me
Waiting here along the way.
Who knows where I go from here?
There's nothing to lose, nothing to fear.
The past is gone.
I must move on
From . . . there.

Cloak concluded that he must move on from the abuse he suffered in the past.  He wasn't that person anymore.  He was a far stronger person now, because of his aunt, his cousins, his Nexus friend, and his beloved RAF.  He would not allow anyone else to use his past against him like this again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 03:33:07 PM

Okay, now onto the thirtieth book.  Waring -- my be short.

BOOK XXX:
THE MUSIC MISER
Chapter One:
A Musical, Miserly Tale

"Well, that was some heavy stuff two weeks ago," Underseen said.

"Yeah," Saffa agreed earnestly, readjusting her marshmallow. "I don't care to relive that memory again."

Saffa, Underseen, Sakki, Kelly, Parker, Helen, Phoenix,  and Cloak were sitting around a campfire. Everyone but Cloak were roasting marshmallows and having s'mores. Cloak didn't really care for either.

He looked up at the inky black sky, dotted with thousands of stars. Cloak wondered idly if one of those white, twinkling dots was their own Estelore.

"I suppose that was the worst enemies that we had to fight," Helen said withdrawing her stick to devour her marshmallow.

"I dunno," Sakki said, reclining with her head behind her head. "The Music Miser had his moments."

"Oh, God, not him," Kelly said, facepalming. "The less that I think about him the better."

"Aw, that was because you knew he was sweet on you," Parker said, teasingly.

"He couldn't take 'no' for an answer!" Kelly protested.

"Um, question," Saffa interjected, "who's this Music Miser?"

"Yeah, I've never heeard of him." Underseen said.

"Count yourself lucky, then," Cloaky muttered.

"Nor have I," Helen added, not having heard Cloak.

"Ah, well, that was before you three joined RAF," Parker said, nibbling his marshmallow as Helen began to roast another.

"I was only a yearling myself, I believe," Cloak said. "If I recall correctly."

"Who was he?" Underseen asked.

Phoenix shrugged and turned to Cloak, "You wanna tell it?"

"Fine," Cloak said, "But you guys may have to fill in some holes, and make sure I don't forget anything."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 11, 2013, 04:57:39 PM

Sweet another musical. Were you saying the book may be short or the chapter?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2013, 05:04:51 PM

The chapter.  The usual twenty chapters are planned for this book.

EDIT: Well, expect a rather lengthy Chapter 2.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 12, 2013, 03:52:41 AM

Yay, marshmallows-and-bonfire story time! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2013, 10:11:18 AM

That's right, Saffa.

Now, here's another chapter.  Maybe the only chapter that I can get up today.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Enter the Miser

It was a different time.  RAF was not as big as it was now.  AlothAssassin had just been Banned. The reasons behind which he hadn't any idea, he just knew he wasn't particularly fond of the guy.
 
Anyway, Parker, Sakki, and Horse were dispatched to stop Queen, Aloth and Yorick from procuring ill-begotten satellite equipment.
 
Cloak himself was watching from atop a building a fair distance away. He was brooding.
 
"Tsk tsk tsk." Parker said. Back then his armor was plain old SPARTAN armor, with any Walker tech in it.
 
"Naughty, naughty," Sakki snickered, "you just got caughty."
 

***

Saffa snorted, "You actually said that, Sakki?"
 
"Oh, shut up and let Cloak tell the story." Sakki snarled.
 

***

"You can't stop us from taking this equipment!" Queen snarled.
 
Parker sneered right back, "Then it sounds to me that's it's time to rumble."
 
"Indeed.  But it is you that will take the tumble." Queen said haughtily, singing the last word unintentionally.
 
Sakki raised her eyebrow as she asked, "I'm sorry, hon, but did you just sing that?"
 
Queen said shortly, singing the last word, "Of course I did not!"
 
Then she realized, "Wait, yes, I did!"
 
Then she began to sing in earnest:
 

"I'm sounding shrill
Against my will
And cannot stop this singing!!"

Then Horse sang:
 

"And, in my ear,
Is where I hear
A quite distinctive ringing!"

Aloth sang with an aggressively:
 

"This silly game
Is very lame!
And someone is gonna pay!"

Sakki sang:
 

"An unknown force,
But where's the source
That has us in its sway?"

Yorick sang in a rather simpering manner:
 

"Who is doing this to us?
And, on this, we must concur --"

Then together, RAFian and Banned sang:
 

"The dastardly, dispicable,
Disturbingly inexplicable --"

Aloth added:
 

"And immiently kick-able."

Then then they sang together:
 

"The mastermind is --"

Then they see a man in drab 1950s clothing bearing an uncanny resemblance to Neil Patrick Harris with aviator glasses and prominent front teeth, with a slight gap between the two -- the Music Miser. He sang:
 

"The Music Miser!
Put down your arms, my friends,
Your arrows, guns and swords.
You resistance to my charm now ends.
WHEN I BELT OUT THESE POWER CHORDS!!
RAFians or Banned, it really doesn't matter.
You all are just slaves to my hypnotic patter.
As I regale you with my backstory,
You know you have no choice
But to do my evil bidding
When you hear this booming voice!
Oh, I'm the Music Miser!"

The RAFians and Banned sang:
 

"He's the Music Miser!"

Music Miser sang:
 

"And everyone just fawns."

The other six sang:
 

"He's the Music Miser!
And we are all his pawns."

Music Miser sang another verse:
 

"And so, for me, it's destiny
To be the Maestro of Villiany!
I'm the Music Miser!
And I'm here to settle the score!"

Then he switched to spoken words, "You see, I, too, have plans for this equipment.  And, now that I established
who's in charge, GET TO WORK!"
 
Meanwhile, Cloak had noticed that something was clearly going on. Cloak, glancing down from a building, peering through the gloom, said "Well, that's something you don't see every day -- even on RAF."
 
Music Miser sang:
 

"Bullies used to pick on me
Because I sang in Choir.
But something very strange occured
When I kept singing higher.
The ruffians around me quickly fell into a trance.
It was then, with wicked glee, I made those puppets dance!
I'm the Music Miser!"

The six others sang:

"He's the Music Miser!"

Music Miser sang:

"And everyone just fawns."

The six others sang again:

"He's the Music Miser!
And we are all his pawns."

Music Miser sang again:

"I'm the Music Miser!
Crime became my path."

Sakki sang, though her eyes showed the vaguest signs of disgust:

"He's the Music Miser!
And we must beware his wrath . . ."

Then Cloak leaped from the building and landed a few feet away, cracking the concrete, but repairing it with a wave of his hand. But he said nothing aloud, and glares with an icy stare.  The Music Miser saw him and vocalized loudly, attempting to get Cloak under his sway, unaware that Realm Walkers are immune from all forms of Dweller mind control.

Cloak's stare just got colder with each try.  But the Music Mister lost none of his poise as he said, "Sorry, but my work's not quite done.  Can't allow you to stop me just yet."

Then he turned to the others and sang:

"You all better tow the line, you see,
Because your wills belong to me.
And now, my friends, you have the chance
To show that man how well you dance!"

Then Cloak used circle-walking -- something he noticed in airbenders -- to not harm his RAFian allies. The Banned, however, he couldn't care less about.  Cloak couldn't keep his mind on both the fight and the Music Miser all at once.

To emphasize this, the Music Miser sang to his drones:
 

"Now that Cloak's been delayed
Your usefulness has passed.
A distraction is what I need
To kick into that blast!"

The Music Master jumped into a hot air balloon's basket and sang:

"I'm the Music Miser!
I cannot help but boast."

The six under his control sang:

"He's the Music Miser!
Under his spell, we are all toast!"

Music Miser sang, taking off in the balloon while the RAFians and Banned kept battling Cloak:

"I'm the Music Miser!
I won the day now I must fly.
I'm the Music Miser!
And I'm here to settle the score!!"

***

"You're kidding," Underseen said.  "You got your butts handed to you by a singer?"

"That was before the Mark, remember," Cloak said.  "Had Richard, Goom and I never managed to successfully bring it out, then mind control would be a real concern right now."

Cloak thought a moment.

"Well, for you guys, it would."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2013, 10:15:06 AM

Return of the ambitious list!  Added Book CLV (i.e. Book 155), titled "Muppet, Muppet Man".

EDIT: Added #CLVI: "Larval Ambush".  Finished planning out the chapters for #CXLV: ("Hitting the Dino-Sauce") and #CXLVI: ("Blood Feud") -- both have twenty chapters.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• *Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 12, 2013, 10:57:21 AM

Nice. Reminds me of "RAF: The Musical" which was fun. Thanks for the random +1 (or should I say +2?) by the way. Just noticed! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2013, 11:24:22 AM

Well, there'll be another musical book -- "RAFian Idol".  And, you're welcome about the karma.  I generally just applaud people on a whim or if they make me laugh.
 
Now, another chapter, I think.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Cloak or the Miser

 "Go on, Cloaky," Phoenix said, choosing another marshmallow.
 
"Alright," he replied, tapping his chin thoughtfully, "lemme see . . . oh yes. Well --"
 

***

"The name is CLOAK!" Cloak shouted impetuously, unaware if he could even be heard by the Miser.  His own bravado was much higher in those days, involuntarily emulating his mother.  "Remember it!!"
 
The Miser had escaped in his balloon and soon enough he was at a prudent enough distance that his song lost its effect upon the RAFians and Banned.
 
Queen was shaking, incadescent with rage, having a tantrum about feeling "dirty" and how the Music Miser had defiled her.  She pretty much forced the other two to agree.  The four RAFians left them to it . . . after dispatching them and depositing them back into the Bannedlands -- a truly awful place.
 
Meanwhile, outside of RAF, Kelly was in a field relaxing with a book . . . when a large hot air balloon landed.  Then she heard the music emitted from it.  The Music Miser had noticed her in a field and taken an immediate liking to her, although he labored under the assumption that Cloak was infatuated with her -- which was not the truth -- just as the Miser also assumed Cloak was a mere human with elemental powers.
 
His song with nothing more than assumptions and educated guesses:
 

"Fat and weak, what a disgrace.
Guess Cloak got too lazy.
Ain't gonna fly now, he's just takin' up space.
All his efforts were for naught, and gone down the drain.
But he thinks he's a bum; he lives in the street.
He feels that he's nothing but a major pain.
Alone, by himself, now he's reliving his defeats.
Come here, hear my deal as I say:

You want the Cloak or the Miser?
We don't have all night.
If you want, you can have an appetizer.
You seem decent and, well, all right.
And you really seem to get along well with the cloaked kid,
And this Miser.

Never lets anyone see me sob.
I'm a bit power-hungry.
But I make a pretty mean troll shish kabob.
Have a taste, they were made fresh today.

Try the guy, the miser, or go fly one of those box kites.
Maybe I can suggest an appetizer.
Stay away from that forum, it smells funny tonight.
But you just can't go wrong, I don't kid,
With the Miser.

So every day, the forum comes first.
But I still dream of glory.
He goes in the back and beats up on the worst of the worst,
Hear my song and do as I say:

It's the kid and the Miser, who's never contrite.
Let me please be your wedding adviser.
If you want substitutions, you won't put up a fight.
You can have your money on the bid,
Or the Miser.

The bid or the miser,
The bid or the miser,
The bid or the miser."

It didn't make much sense but it did force Kelly under his sway, and, due to the fact that Marks hadn't existed yet, she went with him, although she wouldn't have, had she been in the right state of mind.
 

***

"He thought you and Cloak --" Saffa asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, he did." Kelly said, unusually intense.  "Cloak never had that kind of interest in me, nor did I in him."

"Our friendship is nothing more than platonic." Cloak said.

"So, he was delusional," Underseen acknowledged.

"Maybe, maybe not," Cloak shrugged.  "I've never really understood his methods."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 12, 2013, 04:52:36 PM

I have a feeling that I might ship Cloak and Kelly by the end of this book. Or Kelly  and Music Miser.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2013, 07:04:23 PM

:facepalm:

No, Underseen, please don't.  Please no shipping . . . At least not with me in it. ;)

And you may not be so fond of him in later chapters.

Anyway, it'll hafta last you the weekend.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 12, 2013, 09:07:53 PM

Good chapters! This book makes me want to watch Music Man or something.

The planned books sound awesome! Seeing the latest addition made me laugh. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 12, 2013, 10:04:09 PM

Dang. I almost thought you'd go with "The name is Figure... CloakedFigure" in your opening line :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2013, 10:59:13 PM

Quote from: Saffa on April 12, 2013, 10:04:09 PM

Dang. I almost thought you'd go with "The name is Figure... CloakedFigure" in your opening line :D

Eh, that'd really only be funny if the first part was "Go". ;)

Quote from: The Tell-Tale Gaz on April 12, 2013, 09:07:53 PM

Good chapters! This book makes me want to watch Music Man or something.

The planned books sound awesome! Seeing the latest addition made me laugh. :D

Well, I'll disclose this much -- it was inspired by an episode of "Angel".

EDIT: Well, I finished planning out the chapters of Book CXLVI ("Blood Feud"), and it took a darker turner then I had expected . . . and I came up with a new idea (#CLVI -- #156 ("Larval Ambushes")).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Kelly on April 15, 2013, 04:45:36 AM

You are amazing Cloaky. I can't believe how creative you are.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2013, 08:25:12 AM

Thanks, Kelly.

Now, a new chapter.  Hopefully, I haven't already used the parody in it.  Shortish.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
That Ol' Song and Theft

Free of any encumbering RAFian interference, and having tied up Kelly at his hideout (an old abandoned opera house), the Music Miser floated above the city.  He had left the hideout, believing it to be perfectly protected.

His voice amplified as he sang, putting the entirety of the city in his musical, lyrical thrall:
 

"The gold of Bizarro,
The jewels of Cortez,
Will seem like mere trinkets
By this time tomorrow!
The gold we find here
Will dwarf them by far!
Oh, with all ya got in ya, boys,
Loot up the city, boys!
Mine, boys, mine -- ev'ry mountain!
And loot, boys, loot 'til ya drop!
Uncover those loverly
Pebbles that sparkle and shine.
It's gold and it's mine . . . mine . . . mine.
Oh, how I love it!
Riches for cheap!
And I'll be on top of the heap!
My bullies back home,
It's not that I'm bitter,
But think how they'll squirm
When they see how I take Twitter!
The men and women online
Will be all over Twitter!
King Richard will reward me!
He'll lord me -- no, king me!
It's mine, mine, mine
For the taking!
It's mine, boys!
Find me that gold!
With those nuggets lugged . . .
It's glory they'll gimme
My dear friend, who-gives-a-whatever,
Will probably build me a shrine!
When all of the gold is mine!
Keep on working, lads!
Don't be shirking, lads!
Mine, boys, mine!
Find me that gold!
Beautiful gold!
Mine!
Find a mother load!
Then find another load!
Loot! Loot! and looty,
Loot! Loot! For that gold!
Make this island
My land!
Make the mounds big, boys!
I'd help you to loot, boys,
But I've got this crick in me spine!
This loot I behold . . .
This beauty untold . . .
A man can be bold!
It all can be sold!
And the gold
Is . . .
Mine!
Mine!
Mine!
Mine!"

Cloak watched all this, unaffected by the mind-controlling song.  He was a little surprised at the sheer avarice of the Miser, but he really shouldn't have been all that shocked.  Cloak knew that he must have had a hideout, but he wasn't aware of where. . . .

***

"Wasn't it obvious?" Saffa asked.

"Not then," Cloak said.  "And I wasn't as . . . aware . . . of things like I am now."

"What do you mean?" Underseen pressed.

"What he means is that he was impulsive and impetuous," Sakki said.

"Gee, thanks." Cloak replied drily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2013, 09:08:56 AM

Now, a second chapter.  Perhaps a bit short.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Cold-Clocked Cloak

Cloak looked at the situation, hoping to divine a way to discover the hideout.  Whereas nowadays he would probably consult some of the other RAFians, at this point in time he was still a bit of a loner.  He was still under his mother's thumb . . . so he had a desire to prove himself that has long since been exhausted, he thought.
 
Cloak noticed something, just then.  All the mind-controlled looters -- the Miser was repeating the same song over and over again -- were heading to one place, dropping off their loot and heading back out to loot again.  It was the old, dilapidated, abandoned opera house.  Cloak could have smacked himself for missing such an obvious connection.
 
However, Cloak did not realize the connection was purposefully obvious. He was not yet jaded or paranoid enough to suspect a trap.
 
Cloak stole to the dark alleyway beside the opera house.  It happened to be next to a butcher (Cloak suspected that it had something to do with the opera house's closure, as the pungent smell of the meat, both fresh and rotting, permeated the air in the alleyway alone was enough to unsteady the Realm Walker.
 
He perked up his ears, and heard, to his relief, that the Music Miser was still singing.  It was a different song, but fortunately not a Bieber one as he didn't really exist yet as a -- ahem -- "celebrity", as the world would suffer from that blight in only a few months time. Clearly Cloak was never a fan.
 
Cloak dashed into the building -- their was a rather conspicuous hold in the back wall.  Yet it had not rung "TRAP" to Cloak.  He was still rather inexperienced in such matters.  Then he walked on all fours, like a tiger, moving shadow to shadow, until he came to a rather large atrium.
 
He stood for a minute at an impasse.  His instinct was to hug the walls, and stay away from the open areas such as this.  But his eyes easily penetrated the gloom and saw a bound Kelly up in the middle of this atrium.  He walked quickly and quietly up to her, and told her that he would get her down, and take her back to the forum.  Kelly didn't reply, she was gagged . . . and her head lolled to the left.  Her eyes were shut, but other than that, she looked untouched.

It was then that Cloak started to suspect that all may not be what it seemed.  It was then that Cloak finally suspected that this may have been nothing more than an elaborate trap.

It was too late -- WHACK!

He was knocked down, his eyes bleary.  He wasn't bleeding, but disorientated.  It took another five WHACKs before Cloak submitted to unconsciousness. . . .

***

"That must've been embarrassing," Saffa said.

Cloak said nothing.

"Point taken," she said in reply to Cloak's surly silence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2013, 09:41:21 AM

Okay, third chapter up.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Death Trap

"Oh, stop being like that, Cloak," Kelly chided, "and continue the story."
 
"Oh, all right," Cloak said.  "Anyway --"
 

***

Cloak awoke to find himself bound on the other side of Kelly, who apparently was ungagged and alert.  There were some mechanical sounds, which happened to go off rhythmically.
 
The Music Miser appeared -- now dressed in clothes that seemed to be the color of Ho-oh vomit.  He sang:
 

"Gears grindin',
Chains bindin',
Coils windin',
For a cloaked sap!
Heh heh, death trap!
Pistons pangin',
Chains a-clangin',
Springs sprangin',
It's the last lap.
Death trap."

Then he switched to spoken words as he sneered to Cloak, "No encore for you, Cloak."

Then he turned to Kelly, looking genuinely contrite, "And I'm afraid it's closing night for little Kelly too.  A shame.  Now, the world awaits my final number.  Ciao."

With that he left, and it was just the two RAFians, hovering precariously above numerous death traps.  It looked very grim.  But Cloak was wondering idly why villians just leave the room before assuring that their victims meet their demise.  It was a very cliche thing to do.

Kelly sang:

"Acid steamin',
Blades gleamin'.
Lasers beamin'.
Final nightcap.
Death trap.
Bones crushin'.
Flesh mushin'.
Gore gushin'.
It's a dirtnap.
Death trap.
Death trap.
Death traaaaaaap!"

She sang the last two lines as Cloaky uses his elemental mastery to disable all the traps and free Kelly and himself.  Cloak had to push himself in order to do it -- he never used two elements at the same time before -- he didn't think that he could.

Cloak turned to Kelly and asked, "Was the singing necessary?"

Kelly replied, very quickly, "What are you implying?"

Cloak raised his hands in mock surrender, "Nothing!  Just -- nothing!"

"That's what I thought," Kelly smirked.

"Here," Cloak said, handing Kelly earplugs.  "This way the Miser cannot take control over you again."

"Thanks." Kelly said.

***

"Earplugs?  Really?" Underseen asked incredulously.

"We all can't just simply shapeshift our ears away," Phoenix said calmly, reclining a bit, with his hands behind his head.

"Yes, but . . . that's all it takes to defeat his power?" Saffa asked.

"Ever had to fight while wearing earplugs?" Kelly asked, checking her marshmallow.  "It's a lot harder than you think."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2013, 09:45:10 AM

A new page, so I'm reposting the list.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• *Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2013, 10:24:21 AM

How about a fourth? Gonna be a LONG one.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Miserly Plans

"What happened next, Cloak?" Saffa asked.
 
"Okay," Cloak said, "lemme see . . ."
 

***

Cloak and Kelly used hand signals and gestures -- neither one was telepathic, and in any case, Cloak was immune from Dweller telepathy (and Realm Walker telepaths, while not unheard of, were rarer than finding a shiny Mew).  Cloak may have not needed earplugs, but Kelly did, and, as such, would not hear him say anything.
 
Then Cloak heard a creak and suspicious footsteps.  He wasn't about to take any more chances.  He put his hand upon Kelly's shoulder, and she stopped, looking at Cloak, who was looking over his shoulder.  They were downwind of the direction the noises came from.  Cloak held his body rather rigidly and with unnerving stillness, like a tiger who was hunting prey.
 
Then came the scent . . . it took Cloak a moment to recognize it.  It wasn't a dangerous smell -- rather like latex gloves and bunsen burners.  Cloak soon realized it was the scent of a Nyac.
 
"Yarin, what are you doing here?"
 
Yarin stepped from the shadows.  "How'd you know it was me?"
 
"You've made no attempt to disguise your scent," Cloak pointed out.
 
Yarin looked a bit confused, but at this point in time, it wasn't real wide knowledge that Cloak was a tiger beneath the cloak.  That wouldn't happen until a month or two later.
 
"You have that acute of an olfactory sense?" Yarin asked.
 
"Yes," Cloak said, "but never mind that now.  You need to put in earplugs -- I haven't got any more -- so that the Miser doesn't take control over you."
 
Yarin looked slightly offended at the suggestion.  "Cloak, my telepathy is far stronger than the Miser's influence!"
 
"So, your telepathy immunizes you from Miser's mind control?" Cloak said, skeptically.
 
"Yes," Yarin said haughtily.
 
"You'd better be right," Cloak said.

"WHAT?!" Kelly shouted, and then, after Yarin telepathically filled her in, said, "OH."

***

"So Yarin's immune to mind control?" Saffa asked.

"Yes, but I believe his immunity has more caveats than mine," Cloak said.  "But I don't know what they are."

"Stop interrupting, I wanna find out how it ends!" Underseen said, after deliberately shapeshifting into the form of an obnoxious, whiny young boy -- simply for the laughs.  Then he resumed his normal form.

"Well, back to the story --" Cloak said, scratching his chin.

***

The three travelled to the outskirts of the city, where there was a run-downed building with a huge satellite dish beside it -- the true site of the Miser's HQ.  The three stopped just short of it.

"Whoa," Yarin said aloud.

"What?" Cloak said, while Kelly looked just as perplexed, but said nothing, as she knew it would probably be too loud.

"It's amazing that I'm getting reception to the Miser's mind from this far away and so easily.  It's like he doesn't have a defense, or --"

"Or he expects it." Cloak finished.  "Can you try to dig deeper?"

Yarin closed all six of his eyes and concentrated, focused.  It took a few minutes, and Cloak heard the song he was singing stop momentarily with grunts of pain.

Then Yarin's eyes snapped open.  "I got his plan."

***

"Well?  What was it?" Saffa said.

"Tune in next time," Cloak said, with a mischievous smile on his face, "same RAF time, same RAF channel."

"Cloak, that's not funny!!" Underseen said, agitated.  He looked like Mystique did when she randomly was forming and unforming parts in "X2".  Cloak laughed anyway.

"Cloak," Kelly scolded good-naturedly, "come now."

"Okay, okay," Cloak said, "I couldn't resist."

"He plans to use this satellite equipment to amplify his voice and put the --"

"The entire world in his thrall," Cloak finished.

"How'd you know that?"

"It's so cliche -- and this guy is all about the cliches." Cloak shrugged.

"But that's not all," Yarin said.  "He plans to take a wife as well."

Cloak facepalmed, "Oh, let me guess --"

"That's right.  He plans to marry Kelly."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 15, 2013, 11:05:53 AM

Quite an old-fashioned 90s villain this guy is! :D

I'm quite a curious little bird, aren't I? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2013, 11:09:08 AM

Ironic, too, cause it takes place in 2009, or thereabouts. . . . ;)

Okay, looks like I screwed up a bit, and this book may only have 19 chapters.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Kelly, Unplugged

"Enough with the suspense," Saffa said waspishly, "what are you waiting for? A commercial break?"

Cloak deftly looks at the reader, then back at Saffa, and continued . . .

***

"Uh oh," Yarin cried.

"What?" Kelly mouthed.

"Don't tell me that he was aware of the telepathic probe," Cloak groaned to Yarin.

Yarin smiled sheepishly and said, "Alright then . . . I won't tell you."

"Ha ha ha," Cloak replied tonelessly. "Great. How long do we have before he gets here?"

"Oh . . ." Yarin said, noticing that they were surrounded, "I'd say zero minutes."

***

"Wait, what?" Underseen asked. "Why couldn't you just 'Earthsee' it?"

"I hadn't even learned it yet," Cloak said, laying a delicate emphasis on each syllable.

"Oh, ooooh-kay," Underseen said, holding his hands defensively.  He was still holding up his marshmallow stick, which the roasted marshmallow glopped to the ground, to which Underseen responded, "Shoot!"

"So, what happened next?" Saffa said helping herself to a s'more.

"Well --"

***

The three RAFians stood their ground, not budging an inch.

"That really hurt," the Miser said. Then he ordered his minions to fight the trio.

Yarin was not much in the terms of brute strength, like Cloak was. Kelly was suffering from the notable handicap of being unable to hear. Which, in its way was fortunate -- the Misers constant vocalizations were getting irritating. The battle was going reasonably well, all three avoided actually maiming or killing these mind-controlled drones.

The Cloak heard something that he wished he had not.

"Come to me, my darling," the Miser said, "let's remove those unsightly accessories . . ."

"Kelly!" Yarin exclaimed.

"No!" Cloak protested.

Too late.  The plugs were out, and the satellite dish was charging up . . .

"Oh, this ain't good," Yarin observed.

"Obviously," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 08:06:29 AM

First chapter today.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Put A Sock In It!

"What do we do now?" Yarin asked.
 
"The only thing we can do," Cloak said, sounding more like his present-day self, "you go and stop that satellite program. I'll handle things out here."
 
"But --"
 
"You've an alternative?"
 
"No, but --"
 
"Just do it. I'll be fine."
 
Yarin dashed into the rather rickety old shack to disarm the satellite.
 
This did not go unnoticed, as the Music Miser attempt to follow the Nyac.
 
"Sorry, Miser," Cloak said, cracking his knuckles threateningly, "your fight is me."
 
Then he tried to hide behind the mind-controlled Kelly -- some heroic chap, right?
 
Cloak bypassed Kelly with an aerial flip and delivered a gutbusting kick to the Miser, causing him to double over in pain.
 
"Kelly . . . do . . . do . . ."
 
But the kick delivered knocked the breath from him, and, without breath, one cannot sing.
 
Cloak grabbed the Miser and lifted him straight off the ground -- he weighed about nothing.
 
"Put . . . a sock . . . in it!!" Cloak snarled and gave the Miser a punch to his face that knocked him out.
 
Meanwhile, Yarin was at the console, disturbed at the crudeness and primitiveness of the setup. He easily managed to disable the satellite and he disassembled the equipment.
 

***

"-- And then the police came to arrest the Miser."
 
"They did take proper precautions, right?" Saffa asked.
 
"They muzzled him with a sound-negating device, and forbid him from speaking at the trial at a frequency higher than normal," Kelly said, gathering up the empty marshmallow bag, while Helen gathered the empty Hershey chocolate wrappers and Parker gathered up the graham cracker box and wrappers. With a snap of his fingers, Cloak put out the campfire.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 16, 2013, 08:09:10 AM

Aww, campfire over. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 08:15:17 AM

Oh, perk up!  There are still another ten chapters (give or take) to go, Saffa!  Counting this one.

Second chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Can't Stop the Music

Meanwhile, in a maximum security prison, the Miser milled around in the soundless, sound-absorbing room.  He wore a rather raggedy, baggy prison jumpsuit with the monochromatic stripes.  His hair was limp, yet greasy.  His eyes were sunken and bloodshot.  He was missing three teeth.  He was wearing -- forcibly -- a device that silenced him and made his voice sound raspy, far too raspy to use his unique ability.  He was essentially powerless, as he wasn't all that strong,
 
It was pure hell for him, being in such a prison.  There were more bullies here than there was in his childhood schools.  But this is the price for villainy, and he should have accepted it, which he refused to believe was reality.
 
He still was enamored with Kelly, desiring her with a fiery passion, fantasizing about her in ways that would make any normal, sane person vomit.  The Miser spent his days thinking about her as he slept, as he ate, as he was beaten up.
 
So it came as a surprise when the exterior wall to his cell suddenly collapsed with a powerful energy burst.  And the aforementioned energy ripped off the device.  His skin bore the damage from being saddled with the device for three, nearly four, years.
 
"What?" the Miser said, rather croakily.
 
A silhouette appeared, and the Miser looked at it.  He reacted with anger.
 
"YOU!  Why are you here?!  Was not my humiliation enough for you, Cloak?!"
 
"I," said the shadowed Realm Walker, seemingly to take offense at this, "am not Cloak.  I am called Malice."
 
"What do you want?"
 
"Oh, think of me as your personal Abe Lincoln," Malice said, rather foppishly, "I'm here to set you free."
 
"Why?"
 
"Oh," Malice said, waving her hand conversationally, "to allow you to reek your vengeance upon the forum.  I think it should be truly entertaining to watch."
 
Miser opened his mouth to inquire some more, but Malice intercepted him, replying serenely, "If you don't hurry, then you'll never get out.  Do you want to escape, or do want to question me?"

Miser narrowed his eyes at her as the floodlights and sirens started to blare.  He decided to escape, as Malice told him of the buried remains of something to his advantage quite a distance away from here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 16, 2013, 11:07:26 AM

Didn't know Malice knew who Abe Lincoln was. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 11:09:21 AM

We Realm Walkers aren't history dunces.

. . .

Okay, well, I am, but that's beside the point.

Third chapter today.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Miser's New Pet

The Miser headed toward the direction that Malice had indicated.  She had subtly inferred that he could use this device to make Kelly love him -- by force, if need be.  So he strove to find where it was.  He dove into an underwater cave and swam toward the device.  It was a long swim, but he managed to "convince" a store owner to let him have a scuba tank pro bono.
 
Then he nearly plunged off an underground waterfall.  He managed to grasp as stalactite for all he was worth . . . when a stress fracture started to appear in it.  The Miser tried to "convince" it, through song, not to break.  But stalactites have no minds of their own to control, so it promptly broke off and the Miser plummeted through the air, riding the stalactite to what he believed to be his doom.  He questioned following the advice of Malice -- now believing all Realm Walkers were not to be trusted.
 
He did not go SPLAT as he braced himself for.  Instead, he was forced away from his stalactite as he splashed down into the winding river's rapids.

"Oh, lovely," he rolled his eyes.

***

"He did WHAT?!" Kelly yelled.

"The Miser escaped from the --" Aquilai began.

"What?! How?!" Kelly said, clearly agitated.  She had good reason to be.  She knew the Miser lusted after her, even though she clearly despised him.  She knew he would make a play to win her affections, even though he had about as much of a chance as seventy meteors hitting the world in the exact (emphasis on exact) same spot, one after another.

"It appeares the wall caved in," Aquilai said.

Cloak facepalmed, and growled, "Malice."

"Huh? How'd she know about the Miser?" Aquilai asked, alarmed.

"She must have overheard the story at the campfire last night." Cloak said, arms folded close to his body. "It's my fault, I got careless. I should have Earthsighted her, but I didn't at all."

"You can't blame yourself, Cloak." Kelly said, still the anxiety remained in her voice.

"Then who can I blame?" Cloak said rhetorically.

***

The Miser's clothing were really nothing but strips of rags and he looked like he went through quite an ordeal.

"This had BETTER be worth it," he snarled, as he pulled himself on to the bank of the river, whose current had thankfully slowed to being a gentle, but deep stream.  He eased himself to his feet, and walked, in a rather loopy gait, to some sort of damaged electronic thing.  It looked gigantic.

"What is this?" he asked, and he touched it.  Somehow, his touch sparked it to life, "healing" it's case and revealing itself to be the evil, demonic, sentient MP3 player. . . . It snuggled against the Miser as if some overlarge, demented dog.  The Miser smiled at his new pet and said, "Well, MP3, it's time to get to business, don't you say?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 11:54:51 AM

Now, the fourth chapter today.  Sorry, it'll be a bit short.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Markedly Unexpected Defense

"Alright, girl," the Miser said, leaping onboard of the MP3 monster whom he decided was female, "let's go and get your mommy here."
 
Of course, with that disturbing sentence uttered, it was obvious who the Miser thought that the MP3 monster's "mommy" should be. So, they flew out of the cave quite easily and effortlessly.  It was crystal clear just where they were headed. . . .
 
High above RAF, the Miser, unaware of just what could change in the span of three (nearly four) years, he vocalized loudly.  Using his "gift" to try to bring the RAFians under his control.  Years ago, that would have worked -- but this time each and every RAFian were packing a Mark of a RAFian.  The Miser could not control them -- although he would not have been able to control Cloak, Richard, Yarin and a few other RAFians.

"Ah-ah-aaaaaaaaaah!" he continued, not quite understanding just why it wasn't working.  The MP3 monster was boosting his powers at levels that they weren't before.  He should have control over the entire forum -- more importantly Kelly -- by now.

"Okay, guys!" Cloak announced.  "All together now."

Several beams of Unity Energy shot by the Miser, who backed off a good, long distance away.  His head was ****ed a little to the side, a bit confused about this odd new development.  The Miser thought about it a bit, and decided that perhaps he and his pet alone were not enough to take on RAF, who clearly had gotten more powerful in the intervening years.

He turned his sights for an already-made army in the Bannedlands.

***

All RAFians were still staring skyward.

"Was it enough?" Aquilai asked.

"I hope so," Richard said.

"No, it wasn't," Kelly said.  "Not enough to deter him permanently, anyway."

"Kelly's right," Cloak concurred.  "He'll be back.  Probably with an army of mind-controlled slaves."

"Hey, we could be lucky," Parker shrugged.  "His army could be just the Banned and their trolls."

***

He easily bent the Banned and the trolls to his will, and, with the power of the MP3 monster at his command, he was not required to sing continuously to keep them in his thrall.  He laughed maliciously as he plotted and schemed. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 12:17:05 PM

A fifth chapter -- today is a really good day, I guess.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
What's Up Bannedlands

The Miser began to reinforce his control over the Banned and the trolls, as they sang:

"Welcome to Bannedlands,
Such a perfect town.
Here we have some rules,
Let us lay them down.
Don’t make waves, stay in line,
And we’ll get along fine.
Bannedlandis the barrenest place.
Please keep of the glass.
Shine your shoes, wipe your . . . face.
Bannedlands are, Bannedlands are, Bannedlands are an imperfect place."

Then Queen said, quite against her will, "And here’s the man who made it happen! That towering colossus of moxie! Lord Miser!"

The Miser sang, grandoisely:

"Once upon a time
This place was infested.
Freaks on every corner –
I had them all arrested.
Hey nonny-nonny-nonny-no.
If you had a quirk,
You didn’t pass inspection.
We all have our standards,
But I will have perfection.
And soooooo . . .
And soooooo . . .
Things are looking up here in the Bannedlands.
The things I’m cooking up here in the Bannedlands.
A model that amazes.
A plan with seventy phases.
Things are looking up here in the Bannedlands.
In the Bannedlands!
The ladies all look swell.
The men are so dashing.
Thanks to my dress code,
The fashion is never clashing.
Hey nonny-nonny-nonny-no.
This castle I had built.
Is taller than the cliff-tops.
A city like a postcard –
A monorail and gift shops!
And so . . .
And so . . .
And so . . .
Ev'ryone's from the gutter in the Bannedlands.
Embrace the cookie cutter in the Bannedlands.
The upshot is enormous
When you can shout –
“Conform us”!
Yes!  Things . . . are . . .
Looking . . .
Uuuuuup . . .
Here in the Bannedlands.
There’s no sign of slowing!
We’re growing!
We’re growing!
Things are looking up here –
Things I’m cooking up here --
My hard work, and my rigor,
Have made me so much bigger!
Things are looking uuuuuuuuuuuup . . .
Things are looking uuuuuuuuuuuup . . .
In the Bannedlands.
Here in the Bannedlands!
Up . . . up . . .
Up . . . up . . .
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uup!"

The Miser was smiling broadly as he looked over his army.

"There." he said gregariously.  "Now that we established who's in charge, and sung a completely pointless song, it's time to develop a plan that's nasty enough.*"

---
*;) What do you expect from a singing villain.  Depth? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 12:38:41 PM

Sixth chapter.  More pointless songs, I'm afraid.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Miser Wants the Good Times Back

"Oh, what the heck, how about a more back ground information, first?" the Miser said, finally relishing being on a "stage" again.  It was unfortunate that the Banned nor the trolls could groan from this.
 
The Miser sang:
 

"My reign – why, it was blissfully delicious!
And glamour, glitz and style were au courante!
Did I use some vocal magic?
Well, oopsie— my bad!
Did I mutilate, maim and destroy?
Just a tad!
And for that, I get arrested!
But me, I’m not mad.
There’s just one little thing that I want . . .
Just one eensy teensy thing that I want:

I want the good times back!
I want those grand ol’ days!
I want the twisted nights.
The sick delights.
The wild soireés!
I want those trembling crowds of shellfish
Cracked and peeled for me to dine.
Not because I’m mean or selfish —

I only want what’s mine!
I want disgusting wealth!
I want exquisite sin!
Want the entire world, see,
To worship me
On bended knee and begin!
I want to greet my loving subjects
And then give them a good snack!
Remember those good times?
I want them back!"

"Picture it, my minions. Pretty soon, I’ll be back on top! Sipping bubbly. Eating caviar! Cloak is the only thing that stands in my way. If only I can find his Achilles heel . . . the soft quivering underbelly beneath all that armor . . . and then guys… oh, guys… we’re back in business!" he related.

Then he continued:

"I want to make the RAFians cower,
Like they did in days of yore!
Sure, it’s sheer abuse of power—
Ain’t that what power’s for?
I want to taste their tears!
I want to hear their screams!
I want the special rush
You get from crushing
Hopes and dreams!
It’s an aphrodisiac!
Oh god! Were they good times!
Let’s get them back!
If only I had a way
To make her pay
I’d set ol’ Kelly straight!
I want that girl!
And guys, I want her bad!
I want that goody-goody Cloak
To come rescue her – the sap!
And then one way or another—
I’ll spring the trap!
And get the good times back!
I mean with all the perks!
They'll be accident-prone—
All mine alone!
The whole dern works!
But most of all, I want ol’ Cloak
Pinned and wriggling on the rack
Then, fellas, it’s my time!
And frankly, it’s high time!
Those fabulous good times . . .
They’re coming back!"

The Miser was silent for a minute.

"Okay, now for the real plan."
 

***

Cloak tapped his foot expectantly.  He had expected the Miser to show up immediately with his army, whatever he chose for an army.  But it was becoming very clear that the guy was taking his sweet time.  Cloak wasn't a very patient tiger to begin with.

"Give it up, Cloak," Parker said, buffing his armor (while still wearing it), "he's not coming."

"Yet." Kelly clarified.  "He's not coming yet."

"Fine," Parker said, "he's not coming yet.  Happy?"

"Not particularly." Kelly replied.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 12:55:37 PM

Okay -- final chapter for today.  (Maybe.)
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Be Prepared

"Alright, now --" the Miser said, than he sang:

"I know that your powers of retention
Are as wet as a warthog's backside.
But thick as you are . . . PAY ATTENTION!
My words are a matter of pride.
It's clear from your vacant expressions,
The lights are not all on upstairs.
But we're talking lords and successions.
Even you can't be caught unawares!
So prepare for a chance of a lifetime.
Be prepared for sensational news.
A shining new era
Is tiptoeing nearer."

Queen managed:

"And where do we feature?"

The Miser sang, after pinching Queen's cheek rather roughly:

"Just listen to teacher --
I know it sounds sordid,
But you'll be rewarded!
When, at last, I am given my dues.
And injustice deliciously squared.
Be prepared!

Of course, quid pro quo, you're expected
To take certain duties on board.
The future is littered with prizes,
And though I'm the main addressee,
The point that I must emphasize is
You won't get a sniff without me!
So prepare for the coup of the century.
Be prepared for the murkiest scam.
Meticulous planning.
Tenacity spanning.
Years of denial
Is simply why I'll
Be lord undisputed,
Respected, saluted,
And seen for the wonder I am!

Yes, my teeth and ambitions are bared.
Be prepared!"

Then, finally, they moved out toward RAF.

***

Cloak's ears twitched ever so slightly, and he looked off in the direction of the Bannedlands.

"What?" Kelly said, ever tense.

"It's faint . . ." Cloak said, looking intensely in the direction he Earthsighted, "but it looks like the Miser found his army."

Parker stopped his meticulous care of his armor, and looked at Cloak as if he could not be serious.  Parker's voice was incredulous, "You're kidding, right?  The Banned?  He seriously took the Banned and trolls as his army?"

"Looks like it." Cloak said, still staring in the direction like a hungry tiger who has sighted prey.

"Well, this'll be easier than . . . well . . . oh, I can't come up with an analogy right now.  Sheesh, he must have really been isolated in that prison." Parker said, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 01:31:26 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Things Out Here

Cloak stood steadfast where he was, while Parker sighed and donned his helmet in a rather less dramatic way as mist curled in in far more dramatically, but in an ominous way.  Kelly was a little unnerved but she forced herself not to show it upon her face.  Cloak heard it before the other two.
 
It was Miser.  And -- big surprise! -- he was singing:
 

"You're all alone in the middle of the night,
Something moves in the cold moonlight.
You're tryin' not to scream,
But you got to let it out,
And it make you wanna,
You wanna --
You wanna shout!
There's things out here!
Sneakin' up behind you!
Things out here.
That'll terrify you to the bone,
These things out here.
You know, they're gonna find you.
No matter where you go,
You know.
There's things out here.
Running through the graveyards,
Bumpin' into trees,
Somethin' reaches up
And pulls you to your knees.
Try to get away.
You don't know if you can,
And you're starin' at the
At the ol' Banned man!
There's things out there
Sneakin' up behind you.
Things out here!
Don't go out alone!
These things out here.
You know they're gonna find you.
No matter where you go.
You know . . .
There's things out here.
Things that'll chase you!
Things that'll eat you!!
Things that'll jump out and
Say they're glad to meet you!
And you know the ones
That hate you the most!
Are these things out here
Waitin' in the darkness?
Things out here
With the bright red eyes!
Things out there,
Better watch where you're going.
'Coz you never know when there are
Never know when there are
Know when there are
Thingss out there.
And you know RAF has fallen.
Things out here.
Better run from home!
There's things in here,
You can hear the mummy calling.
You never gonna know when there are
When there are things out here.
Things out here.
Things out there.
Things out there."

 "Predictable as ever, eh, Miser?" Cloak said scathingly.  He hadn't moved at all, even when he could see the Miser atop the MP3 monster.

"Give me Kelly," he exclaimed.  "And I'll make you die fast, Cloak!"

"You ignorance is just . . . painful, at times, Miser," Cloak retorted.

"You heard me! I will be true to my word!"

"You knowledge of the physiology of my kind is clearly lacking," Cloak said.  The Miser took this to mean RAFians.

"I warned you!"

The MP3 monster fired powerful energy bolts at Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 16, 2013, 05:37:58 PM

Storytime is over, but it was fun while it lasted. Maybe if he wanted her he could just not be a complete creep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 06:13:07 PM

I did warn you that you may not like him towards the end, Underseen.

Anyway, this book'll probably be completed tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 16, 2013, 09:35:12 PM

Before this book ends I would like to say that this is probably the most dirty book you made. Just look at the number if you're not cat hing my drift.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2013, 09:43:04 PM

"XXX"? . . . Oh.  God, Kelly, you scared me for a minute there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 17, 2013, 03:24:22 AM

Was that intentional or a crazy coincidence? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 05:38:06 AM

*shrugs*

Eh, watit until we get to Book 666.

*blink*

Okay, that's a little too ambutious, considering we're only on Book 30.

Okay, guys, its the first chapter of the day.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Phony Lord of RAF

Cloak extended his index fingers and middle fingers on both hands, after assuming the proper stance, and forced them both down his arms, across his stomach, up the opposite arms, and out again.

"What the deuce?" he cried as the MP3 monster barrel rolled to avoid the redirected blast.

When he gathered his bearings, he said, "You've learned some new tricks."

"Did you honestly things would remain static after three, four years?" Cloak asked rhetorically.

"It's been four years?" the Miser whispered to himself. But Cloak heard it anyway.

"Clearly your fashion sense remained static," he sneered.

"You really want to go there?" Parker snorted derisively. "I saw what your fashion sense was four years ago."

The Miser's face soured and he gave the dirtiest look that Cloak ever saw a human face muster.

"Kelly, you will come woth me and be my wife."

Kelly replied, "Why don't you leave me alone? And, well, why don't you leave RAF alone?"

"But you don't understand, m'dear." the Miser said, "RAF needs me."

"It's gonna be another song, isn't it?" Parker asked.

"Oh, yeah," Cloak replied, with his arms folded.

The Miser sang:

"Now, RAF needs improving.
It's just too impossibly odd.
Someone needs to get some changes moving,
And I'm just the man for the job.

Now, don't you ever wonder about RAF?
How everything's upside-down?
The creatures are so crazy in their RAF.
They don't know that it's turned around.
Everything's all askew.
But I could change a thing or two.
And . . .

Don't you ever wonder about RAF?
How everything is so confused?
Everything's disorganized in RAF.
There should be just a few strict rules.
Everything's turned around.
Someone needs to tone it down!
And . . .

Wouldn't it be wonderful if RAF
Were underneath a metal dome?
The traffic would be minimized in RAF
With everyone banned from this home.
Lands and creatures well in hand.
We'll make the colors much more bland.
With everything at my command.
When I'm the lord of RAF.
When I'm the lord of RAF."

There was a moment of silence after this song.

"Really?" Parker said, the sarcasm very evident in his voice.

"That made no sense," Kelly said. "It was just a random song."

"Clearly, prison has unhinged his sanity," Cloak observed.

"Screw you!" he snarled. "Screw all of you!"

"And now we're to the childish taunts. Let's just get this over with."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 11:28:47 AM

Now, I may be able to stretch this to twenty chapters . . . may be a bit of a short chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Army of Three

"You think you can defeat my unstoppable army?" the Miser snarled.
 
"'Unstoppable'?" Parker snorted back a laugh.
 
"You really give them too much credit, Creep-o." Kelly said.
 
"Any veteran RAFian worth their salt," Cloak said, "can make short work out of these . . . these guys."
 
Cloak was about to use the word "losers".  But that word -- or any real variation of it -- had bitter, negative memories attached.
 
"Do you really think that they've never staged a coup before?" Parker asked.
 
Miser said nothing -- which was as good as a flag or a banner announcing his ignorance of this fact.
 
"Kelly will be mine." he said obstinately.
 
"Kelly has a mind of her own, thank you very much!" Kelly snarled. "I will be the one to decide whom I date.  I will be the one to decide whom I marry. ME.  No one else!!"
 
"And it will be me!" the Miser said, disregarding the true defiance of Kelly's statement.  "Attack!!"
 
"I suppose I could use a little exercise." Parker smirked beneath his helmet -- although he didn't really need the armor.
 
Then the three RAFians dashed into the horde, knowing full well that they were really of no match -- not this particular batch of trolls.  The RAFians got lucky that the Miser didn't know about the tougher ones further in the Bannedlands.  They could be nasty -- and potentially problematic if the Miser was thorough enough.
 
"Oh, wait," Cloak said.  Then, in one swift movement, he punched the ground and a large spike of rock emerged skewering the MP3 monster directly in the middle.  It's lights lit up momentarily, then died.  It's earbud "eyes" drooped in a most pathetic way.
 
Cloak had intended to just immobilize the thing, but this worked too. He had no qualms about slaying that monster because it was essentially just a "Frankensteinized" version of its former self.  But he would spend some time later questioning his own actions.
 
Cloak looked up at the shocked Miser, and said, making his voice sound more ruthless than he actually felt inside, "Don't go anywhere now.  We'll deal with you shortly."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 12:11:03 PM

New page again. Added a new book ("As the World Doesn't Turn") and finished planning the chapters of "She's Back! A Dino Story" and "A Journey to Her Past", starring Dino and Noelle respectively.

• Book XXXI: The Metal-Maker

The RAFians must save their own from a Roboticizer.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• *Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 12:12:49 PM

Two more to go.  May be short.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Kelly's FINAL Answer

The three easily did away with the trolls -- the weakest of Queen's troll regiments (conquered when she was Banned).  The Miser, during this time attempted to get away by climbing down.  Unfortunately, for him, it was slow and careful work.
 
And he wasn't fast enough.
 
Cloak stamped the ground and a spire of earth caught him by the back of his shirt, basically hanging him up with no means to get free.
 
"Uh uh uh." Cloak said, wagging his finger disapprovingly.
 
"Cloak, lower him to the ground." Kelly said, and there was an unusual hardness and edge to her voice.  She glowered at the Miser, as she addressed Parker, "Get AniDragon."
 
"Yes, ma'am." Cloak said, as Parker left, and obediently lowered Miser to the ground, per Kelly's request.  Kelly grasped the Miser by his shirt with both, and got right into his face.

"Listen to me, you creepy, old, sack of bones," Kelly snarled.  "You will leave me alone.  You will leave RAF alone.  You will even leave the Banned alone.  You will the city alone."

"You have no right --" he gasped.  Kelly shook him angrily.

"I have no right?!  I have no right?!" Kelly screamed her anger palpable and incandescent. "And you do?! I don't know what happened to you, but you clearly do not know the difference between right and wrong!"

"I'll decide what's right . . . ack! . . . Wrong!" the Miser said obstinately.

"No, you do not! How could I ever love such a man as you?" Kelly said, disgust and revulsion filling her voice and tone.  "You are a selfish, domineering, self-centered shell of a man!!"

These words seemed to hit him like no blow could.  It was here that AniDragon made her appearance, and bound the Miser's powers, making him powerless.

"Now, get out of my face, ya creep." Kelly said, dismissively to the Miser, who was rearrested some time later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 12:28:50 PM

Now, this one'll be a far jokier chapter. . . . Oh, did I get ya?
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
End Credits

There was blackness, nothing but blackness.

"Well, this is odd." came Cloak's voice.

Then behind him appeared the words, "In Memory of --", Cloak's hooded head blocking the last part of the dedication.  His black cloak blended in perflect with the background.

"Huh?"

Then the words vanished as the words, "A CloakedFigure Project" appeared in a pyramidal like form.

"What?"

Then more words started appearing and vanishing.  Cloak could only catch "Neil Patrick Harris" across the the name "Music Miser".

"What is this?  Ending credits?"

The words appeared and disappeared without reply.

"This is crazy.  There's still over a hundred and twenty more books to do!" Cloak exclaimed.

Then the words vanished.

"Good.  I thought so."

Then they appeared again, only scrolling upward now.

"This isn't funny!" Cloak proclaimed, then, as he tripped on one of the words, shouted.  "Ah!"

It continued to scroll upward, undetered to Cloak's complaints.

"Hey!  This isn't funny!"

***

Cloak snapped his eyes opened, his breathing ragged.

"Still wasn't funny," he muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 01:16:28 PM

Now, a new book.
 

BOOK XXXI:
THE METAL-MAKER
CHAPTER ONE:
There's A Party in RAF

It was the pleasantest of days.  The perfect weather for a wedding -- or, more especially, a RAFwedding!  Faerie was bubbly, in exuberant Faerie dress.  Cloak was wearing his most formal cloak -- still black, while the clothing beneath the cloak was white.
 
Faerie, who had spent a great deal of energy in planning the RAFwedding, sang:

"There's a party here in RAF.
There's excitement in the air.
People pouring in from near and far
'Cause Ash and Broken are gonna have a RAFweddin'."

Then she appeared behind Gaz and Alic, singing:

"There's a party here in RAF,
Everybody will be there.
So if you're a pauper or a shah,
Do somethin' with your hair!"

Suddenly, it appeared that the two had stuck their fingers in an electrical outlet.  They yelled at Faerie, but didn't have time for vengeance.  They had to get ready for the RAFwedding.
 
Then Faerie appeared next to Horse and a lesser known newbie.

"You mustn't wear an outfit that's naughty!
A turban that's unraveling just won't do.
No earrings that are tasteless or gaudy.
You're gonna look gorgeous when I get through!"

"Faerie, stop!!" Horse said.  "I just got my fur the way that I like it!"
 
Calming down for a moment, she said, "Faerie, you're trying too hard. You're -- gone."
 
For Faerie had left Horse to check more on the wedding preparations.  She sang:

"There's a party here in RAF.
So, I'm going to paint the town.
If you want to see what colors are,
Follow me around!"

Then the RAFians assembled sang:

"Ash and Broken's gettin' RAFmarried, and it's gonna be
The wedding of the century."

Then Faerie sang:

"My buddies are gettin' married, and you're gonna see
Just how much I can do!
You've heard of your safari bar mitzvahs.
You've all been to a luau, a sweet sixteen.
Well, none of them compare to what this is!
The food'll be disgusting,
By evening you'll be busting!"

The girls of RAF, except Faerie, sang:

"There's a party here in RAF.
And it's got us all aglow!"

Faerie sang, popping up elsewhere rather like Timmy Turner:

"If a sorcerer could've come so far,
Maybe I could do it.
Sure, there's nothin' to it!"

Rotiart sang:

"There's a party here in RAF,
But we're not sure that we'll go.
For although the bride is lah-dee-dah,
The groom is awfully low."

Then Faerie throws him from the balcony, without any regrets of such an action.

Faerie, doing a news reporter impression, said, "And now we take you down to RAF HQ, where everyone has celebrated all night long. Without Queen and Malice -- everybody's happy! What could possibly go wrong?"

Rotiart, apparently having a change of heart, and an arm in a sling, sang:

"There's a party here in RAF,
And the loot is pourin' in!
I like this RAFwedding stuff so far --
Maybe if I'm pleasant,
I'll get to keep a present!"

Faerie consulted a clipboard, and was judging the bridesmaids:

"We've ordered just a few tasteful flowers.
The valets will carefully park for you.
The bridesmaids have been dressing for hours!
Girls, you look just lovely and so grown-up, too."

Then she examined the RAFwedding hall:

"There's a party here in RAF.
Guests are filling up the room.
But there's something missing . . .
Yes, ah ha!"

Richard spoke-sang:

"Where is the groom?"

***

Broken was pondering other matters when two RAFians came to collect him.  The he was speaking -- well, singing -- to Cloak and Phoenix:

"There's a party here in RAF,
And the party's all for me.
Just look, you guys, at where we are,
And how our dreams have come to be!"

On the opposite side of the forum, Dameg was consulting Jess and Terenia in much the same way Broken was with Cloak and Phoenix.

"There's a party here in RAF,
And I can't believe it's true
After all this waiting, here we are
We'll finally get so say 'I do!'"

Then they sang together, though apart.

"Someone who could just understand me . . ."

Cloak sang to Broken:

"Hey, c'mon, Broken, this stuff has gotta end!"

Phoenix sang to Broken:

"There's a party here in RAF
And it's starting right away!
Let's getcha dressed, 'cause you're the star!
Hey, c'mon, it's your RAFwedding day!"

RAFians, as a whole, sang:

"Broken's gettin' RAFmarried, and it's gonna be
The RAFwedding of the century!
Amazing how RAFcould've come so far . . ."

Faerie shouted, "They're finally gettin' RAFmarried!"

Richard proclaimed "They're finally gettin' RAFmarried!"

Rotiart wasn't interested, and, instead, said, "Look at all these presents!"

Ash said, "We're finally getting RAFmarried!"

Horse said, "They're finally gettin' RAFmarried!"

Broken said, "I'm finally gettin' RAFmarried!"

RAFians sang:

"They're finally gettin' married!
At the party in RAF!!
To the party in R . . . A . . . F!
There's a party in RAF!"

The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception went off without a hitch.  Pity that such a happy, festive occasion would soon be marred by something far more unpleasant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2013, 08:00:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Malice and the Fat Man

While RAF was celebrating this blissful union of two RAFians, Malice was in a different universe. At her feet was a rather large man with an improbable reddish mustache, bald head, and glass-like eyes.  He wore red and yellows with blacks from the generous waste down.

All around them were robot parts and shrapnel . . . SWATbots.

"I'm not going to ask you again, dear doctor." Malice said, as Abomination folded his arms, looking far more like her bodyguard and stooge than her suitor.

The man attempted to reach a button.  Then Malice broke his arm with her jaws.

"I can't tell if you are stubborn or just plain stupid, Robotnik," Malice snarled. "Give me the plans!"

The man glared at her hatefully, but did not reply or comply.

"Don't bother summoning more of your precious little toys of antique tech." Malice threatened. "I believe my love here has demonstrated what will happen if you do."

Robotnik said nothing but whimpered a little.

"Did I stutter?!"

The man hesitated for a moment, then reached into his breast pocket. Then he brought out a compact disc with the schematics on it.

"There's a good lad," Malice said, as she snapped up the disc. Then the two Realm Walkers Walked out of the realm.

***

It took them nearly two weeks to complete the device, while the RAFians were dealing with the Music Miser.

Watching from a spycube, Malice watched passively, only muttering, "Oh, that's too bad," before resuming her work.

The timing of Broken and Ash's RAFwedding was a serendipitous event, allowing her to complete her device. Allowing her complete the . . . the Roboticizer. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 17, 2013, 10:11:40 PM

Malice hasn't learned that she can't stop us yet. Why steal from eggman when everything he makes is terrible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 18, 2013, 12:15:43 AM

Great chapters! Oh, and Cloaky, you need to update your siggy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2013, 05:49:00 AM

Yeah, I just realized that.

And Underseen, it's not the Robotnik from the games, but the one from the comics/SatAM.

First chapter of the day.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Initiates

Malice, and Abomination to a lesser extent, finished the Roboticizer and it was completely operational . . . as she already used it fourteen times successfully.

The adult Opticoid now had a metallic hide with detachable electronic eyes which glowed red when activated. He retained the Opticoid ability to have the eyes merge together and back again.  He also bore metal-rending claws.

The adult Vulcan looked simply like a robotic Vulcan in black spandex. Her eyes glowed a sinister red.

The adult Pyronite looked like burning metal android. His eyes glowed a villainous red.

The adult Slitheen was massive and bulky with a heavy metallic hide -- essentially immunizing her from vinegar. Her now built-in holograph projectors made needing to take skins rather unnecessary. Her eyes glowed a malicious red.

The adult Kinecceleran, while hard to capture, was composed of the lightest metal alloy. His eyes glowed red.

There was an adult grail, an adult Galvan, an adult Klingon, an adult Vulpimancer, an adult Wookie, an adult Perk Gourmand, a teenaged human, and a teenaged Tetramand were all turned into robots, with red eyes, and all under Malice's absolute and abject control.

"Hon?" Abomination asked hesitantly, still choosing to believe in what was obviously not true.

"What?"

"I don't quite understand . . ." he said.

"Spit it out," Malice replied impatiently.

"Why are we doing this?" Abomination said, looking in Malice's general direction, unable to meet her eyes. "Wouldn't it be more . . . prudent . . . to take the RAFians directly?"

"I know what I'm doing," Malice said with a tone that said clearly that the matter was closed. "You just do your part in keeping Cloak busy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2013, 09:46:12 AM

And the second chapter of the day.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Phase Two

"Now, go," Malice said.  "Remember distract him until you get word otherwise."
 
"Yes, love," Abomination said, rather like an obedient dog.  Then he went on his way and Malice turned to her new metallic army of fourteen.  "Now, you lot.  You have a very special mission to accomplish for me."

The fourteen showed no emotion -- perhaps they were incapable of it.  But their roboticization had seemingly shut off their sentience, as they now only knew the orders of their lady and mistress, Malice.

***

The reception was rounding to it's closing moments, when an uninvited gatecrasher burst his way inside.  He glanced around, and saw the party.  He was perplexed for a moment, but resumed his single-minded pursuit of his goals.  He charged for Cloak who easily and elegantly dodged the tackle.  Abomination roared, baring those four tusk-like teeth that all hippos have.  He also had the same proclivity for violence as hippopotamuses are apt to indulging in.

"You're ruining such a lovely occasion, Ab -- uh," Cloak said, who had taken to wanting to call him anything but "Abomination", though he knew that he himself was the one to inflict such an epithet upon the Realm Walker.

"You're coming with me!"

"Oh?" Cloak asked coyly.

"I'll make you!"

"Alas, first impulse is anger and violence," Cloak replied, with a heavy sigh, "don't you see that this makes you little more then a ruffian?  A grunt?  A --"

Suddenly, a large table was flung at Cloak.  Unfortunately for Abomination, it was made of wood.  Cloak easily froze it in place and set it down rather daintily.

"She's never going to love you, you know," Cloak said, rather crassly.

During this big distraction, no one noticed the silent abduction of Horse, Gaz, Parker (who had not worn his armor but a tailored suit for such a joyous occasion), Bear (knocking off a rather stupid-looking party hat), Noelle, and Phoenix -- all knocked out before taken.  Had Cloak not been confronting Abomination -- and not having tables, chairs and the entire wedding cake thrown at him -- he just might have Earthsighted the abductors.

He did briefly look in that direction, sensing the metal in the roboticized people under Malice's control, but Abomination roared loudly, distracting him from it.

"LIAR!" he roared.  "LIAR!! She DOES love me!!"

"Ab," Cloak said, settling on this shorting of "Abomination", "I don't know why you are choosing to believe this illusion."

"It's no illusion!" he roared, although it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than Cloak, "It's REAL!!"

"No," Cloak said, sorrowfully, "it isn't."

"It IS!!" he insisted.

Cloak shook his head, pityingly, "You'll find out in time, Ab.  You'll see.  She's not good for you.  She would abandon you the moment, the very moment, she had no longer any need for your muscle and your gullibility."

"You're wrong." he said, turning to run, having gotten a subtle signal to withdraw. But as he fled, he chanted, "He's wrong. He's wrong.  He's wrong. . . ."

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Guy was asking, "Where's Gaz?  And Horse, for that matter?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2013, 09:49:49 AM

Reposting the list:

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 18, 2013, 09:57:26 AM

At this point I kinda feel sorry for Abomination.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2013, 11:33:14 AM

You kinda should -- his relationship with Malice (minus the romantic leanings) are probably what my life would have been if I still was living with my mother, and believe me, it wasn't pleasant.  Though he's CHOOSING to remain in such an abusive relationship -- I was looking for a way out that I fortunately found. So, in a way, he's my foil.

Third one today.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Robo-RAFians

Back at their secret hideout, the RAFians were laid in a row.  First up, Gaz was dragged to the Roboticizer where she groaned and opened her eyes.  She realized she was not in a safe place immediately.  The Roboticizer buzzed to life, and the top began to surge with energy.  Gaz's terror was clearly defined through the clear, plexiglass-like tube that she was trapped in.  The ring of energy slowly approached downward.  Gaz's mind was so befuddled she didn't realized that going to mist mode would effectively neutralize the energy's effect on her.  As it descended downward, it engulfed her head, then proceeded down to her shoulders, then approached and bypassed her midriff, thighs, legs, and finally stopped at her toes.  Her eyes glowed red for a bit, before quickly fading to green, then to blue.

She was pulled from the Roboticizer, now a robot and believed to be without free will.  She seemed to be confused as she looked at her newly mechanized hands.  Abomination dragged a groggy Noelle to the chamber -- which was usually able to accommodate an Andalite.  She looked around blearily with her stalk eyes, still unsure of where she was.  She sobered up real quickly when she realized the energy ring was descending for her.

She knew what she would do!  She would morph!  She would morph . . . morph what?  What possible morph would allow her to escape the energy ring? A paramecium?  She didn't have a paramecium morph -- where that even possible.

It was over soon enough, however.  She was now a robot Andalite -- incapable of morphing . . . in the conventional sense.  Her morphing ability translated into Cybertronian transforming -- scanning instead of acquiring through touch.  Like Gaz, her eyes -- all four of them -- glowed red briefly before fading into green and then settling into blue.

She was roughly dragged from the Roboticizer tube, and it was Horse's turn next.  It was easier to plop the little seal into the tube and Roboticize her.  She now looked more dangerous than cute, although unable to summon the Tempest Blade in this roboticized form.

It was Bear's turn next, as Parker and Phoenix awoke and gained their senses.  Bear's left arm and his lower body were successfully Roboticized before Parker blasted the Roboticizer, as his armor wrapped itself around his body.

"What the --"

"Turns out the Walker tech Cloak installed in my armor allows it to mass-shift and fit in a watch," Parker said, through his helmet. "And back again. I just discovered this application a week ago, after our little skirmish with the Music Miser."

Then Parker shifted his armor to the Chimera Ride Armor and dragged Bear free of the device.  Then he made to leave the place, but Phoenix protested, "But the others."

Parker glanced at the Roboticized RAFians, the Robo-RAFians, and he said, with difficulty, "They're Malice's now.  They're gone."

Then the two left with Bear before Malice and Abomination could ascertain what was going on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2013, 12:55:18 PM

Now -- the fourth one today.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
The Flaw in Her Plan

The three Robo-RAFians, the three that Parker and Phoenix were forced to leave behind, had rather blank looks upon their face.  They had not really recognized what had happened to them, though their Marks still clearly glowed upon their new mechanized selves.  This was the one thing that Malice had neglected to remember or realize.
 
The minds of the Robo-RAFians, though quite addled with this sudden change from organic to inorganic, were not putty in Malice's hands.  Their minds were still their own, their wills were unchanged from their previous states.
 
Malice still seemed blissfully unaware of this, as she sized up her new toys.  "Finally, willing slaves and hostages, all rolled up into one."
 
"What would you have them do now, love?" Abomination said, almost tentatively.
 
"Isn't it obvious?" she asked, very well aware of the demeaning tone in her voice. "Cloak would never bring himself to destroy his friends!  They are the perfect weapons."
 
"And if this fails?" Abomination asked, hesitantly.
 
"It won't!" Malice said, with a glint of anger in her eye.  "I've planned it out.  It is perfect."
 
Abomination opened his mouth slightly, then shut it.  He decided it would be better not to speak just now.
 
"Slaves!" Malice said, address Gaz, Noelle, and Horse.  But the other fourteen stood at attention, waiting for orders as well.  "Listen to me."
 
"No." said Noelle.  Her roboticized form did not allow her to thought-speak, but instead provided her with an auditory voice.
 
"No?" Malice said, angrily.  "NO?!  You dare to defy me?!"
 
"Yes," Gaz replied, her electronic eyes narrowed.
 
Malice was going to launch into a tirade, when a thought occurred to her.  "You haven't any will of your own.  You obey me!!"
 
"Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen." Horse replied, with her usual sass.
 
"It is not possible!"
 
"Clearly," Noelle said, "it is."
 
"Can't say it hasn't been just lovely," Gaz said, transforming into a bat a la Transformers, "beause it hasn't been."
 
Noelle scanned an owl and transformed into one.  Then she easily picked up Horse and they were on their way.  Malice was so dumbfounded that she didn't realize they were getting away until it was too late.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 18, 2013, 03:27:43 PM

Robo-andalite, sounds kinda cool.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2013, 04:40:04 PM

Just don't get too used to it, Noelle.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Surprises

"Gaz. Noelle. Horse." Richard said, addressing Phoenix and Parker. "Robots?"

Cloak rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as he said, "How did this happen?"

"I don't know, it supposed to be impossible, isn't it?" Parker said. "Turning flesh into metal."

"You misunderstand me," Cloak said, standing straighter now, "I mean by what conveyance, what device."

"There was tube made out of what could have been plexiglass," Phoenix said as he rattled off the description.

Cloak's expression darkened with each word. It wasn't lost on Phoenix, who stopped his description and said instead, "You know what it is, don't you?"

"Unfortunately," Cloak said, voice heavy, "I do."

"I got a bad feeling about this," Underseen said, staying unusually still.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Saffa asked, addressing Cloaky.

"Oh, I'd say so,"Cloak said, "I really don't like the thought of Roboticizers."

"What? What's a Roboticizer?" Parker. "Is it Realm Walker tech?"

Parker knew right away that he had said something Cloak considered highly offensive by the glare he gave him.

"No it is most certainly NOT Realm Walker technology." Cloak said, in a very dignified way.

"Okay!" Parker said, raising his hands defensively. "No need to be so touchy!"

"What does this Roboticizer do?" Saffa asked.

"It turns organic creatures to mechanical creatures." Cloak said.

"AND just what is so wrong with mechanical creatures?" Sakki said.

"Did I say that there was?" Cloak said, nettled. "In any case, Sakki, you have free will. In the process of transmuting flesh into metal and circuitry, it strips the victim of Roboticization."

"Oh," Sakki said.

Suddenly, there was a commotion as Gaz, Noelle, and Horse returned to RAF. They were greeted with hostility by the other RAFians, believing the three under Malice's control.
"Whoa! We're still us!" Gaz said. Laserbeak was confused and squawking in a most plaintive way.

"We're still ourselves. Our wills are intact." Noelle insisted.

Cloak scrutinized the three . . . but his attention was constantly drawn to their eyes. Blue . . .

"Stand down," he told the other, though he didn't really have the authority to say as such.

"What? Why?" Rotiart said defiantly.

Cloak's face soured at Rotiart's defiance. He said, "Because, you lackwit, they're telling the truth."

***

After the three told their stories, Horse asked, her voice with a robotic lilt to it, "So . . . are we stuck this way?"

"No," Cloak answered. "All we need is a De-Roboticizer."

"And we're going to get that where?" Bear asked.

All eyes looked at Cloak.

"Do you honestly think that I've schematics?" Cloak said incredulously.

"Then how --" Noelle asked.

"Goom, Yarin and I possibly could devise one." Aquilai said thoughtfully. "Only . . ."

"Only what?" Richard asked.

Goom finished, "We're gonna hafta see it. The Roboticizer."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 19, 2013, 02:02:15 AM

Ooh can't wait to see what happens next!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2013, 08:56:42 AM

Then wait no longer, Saffa! Here's the first chapter of the day.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Cranky Escort

"It's too dangerous," Cloak said.
 
"What other option do we have?" Yarin asked rhetorically.
 
"Yeah," Gaz said, attempting to calm and soothe a very stressed Laserbeak, "I don't wanna stay this way forever. And I sure Laserbeak doesn't either."
 
"Fine, then," Cloak sighed. "But I'm gonna escort you there."
 
"Me too."
 
"No unnecessary risks, guys," Richard warned.
 
"Who? Little ol' us?" Cloak said drolly, with a heavy-lidded look.
 
"Will be and out, Richard," Aquilai said. "I mean what could go wrong?"
 
Both Parker and Cloak facepalmed.
 

***

The five approached the Roboticizer and were close enough for Goom to get a schematic scan -- but Cloak still thought that they were entirely too close. The tube was open, and Cloak found that ominous.
 
"Goom? Hurry up." Cloak prompted.
 
"It's going as fast as it can," Goom said, unconcernedly.
 
But Cloak's senses were blaring DANGER! Cloak couldn't help but look around nervously. His Earthsight showed him nothing . . . he felt a small tugging sensation just north of his stomach . . . oh, Veil.
 
"Hurry! It's a trap!" Cloak exclaimed pointed in the direction of Malice's automatons. The Kinecceleran managed to speed towards Aquilai faster than a blink, pushing him into the tube, but could do no more because it appeared that he was being both Force choked and bloodbent. And Cloak hated himself for it.
 
"Done!" Goom cried.
 
"Good," Cloak said, resorting to "bloodbend" more of the Roboticized due to sheer necessity. Didn't mean he liked it.
 
On the way back, Aquilai theorized that he would have just regenerated, but Cloak doubted it, though he said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2013, 09:34:27 AM

Ta-da! The second chapter! May be a little on the short side! I'm have too many exclaimation marks! I needed to put them somewhere! (;))
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Get to Work!!

The five returned to RAF after this ordeal, and told their stories.  It was mildly amusing, except for Robo-Gaz, Robo-Horse, and Robo-Noelle.

"You were being very careless, Aquilai," Noelle chided.

"I wasn't being careless!" Aquilai protested.  "How was I to know that they had a speedy Roboticized alien."

"It was a Kinecceleran," Cloak said, dryly. "Really, Aquilai, they're in the Species Database."

"Oh, please, you know how outdated that thing is?" Aquilai quipped.

"It isn't," Cloak said, defensively, hiding his wounded pride, "I've kept it up-to-date with Underseen and Parker's assistance."

"Moving on," Richard said, refocusing the group upon the task at hand, "the fact of the matter is did you succeed in capturing the scans you required?"

"Affirmative," Goom said.

"Good," Richard nodded.  "Now, you three need to get to work.  Gaz, Horse, Noelle, you best go with them."

The six nodded and then left.

"And the rest of us?" Underseen asked.

"We wait," Richard replied.

"Oh, yippee," Saffa said, sarcastically.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Faerie concurred.

***

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY GOT AWAY?!?!" Malice raged later.

Abomination flinched visably, which was odd considering just how much larger he was to Malice. Then he reported, in an expressionless tone, "They came in, huddled around the Roboticizer. The Roboticized Kinecceleran charged one at half-speed, and pushed him into the Roboticizer."

Malice's face lit up, "And it was activated?"

"No, love." Abomination confessed, and it was like he was anticipating the worst.

Malice looked furious, but then she remembered.  "It wouldn't have done anything anyway.  Those stupid Marks restore their minds and wills to them."

Abomination relaxed a little, but this was a mistake.  Malice wasn't done laying into him just yet, she wasn't done venting all her anger and frustration on the poor hippo.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2013, 10:28:44 AM

Presenting . . . the third chapter!
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Prototype Parade

The six reached the laboratory that now seemed to solely belong to Aquilai, Yarin, and Goom, as Demos had been forbidden to experiment, due to the last experiment nearly turning RAF into the next Chernobyl. He was none too pleased about this arrangement.
 
"It was just a little leak," he had protested, "it was just a little radiation."
 
The mods, Cloak and Esty were not amused.  So, he was essentially banned from experimenting on the risk of him being Banned.  He seemed to take it all in good stride though.
 
Anyway, Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin got to work, quickly constructing a skeletal version of the Roboticizer -- using the schematics scanned.  Within a few hours, which Noelle, Gaz, and Horse felt like they were being bored to death, they constructed a rudimentary Roboticizer.
 
"Is it ready yet?" Horse asked, groggily.
 
"No," Aquilai answered, "we have successfully recreated it, I think.  Now we need to modify it to reverse the process by --"
 
"Blah, blah, blah.  Wake me when its done."
 
"But you're a robot -- you don't sleep," Yarin said, perplexed.
 
"Just rub more salt in the wound, why don't you?"
 
"Yeah, Laserbeak won't even look at me anymore." Gaz pointed out sadly.
 

***

It took another five hours for them to have modified it enough to look like a Light Capsule from the Mega Man X series, but big enough to accommodate all three at once.  They puttered and tinkered around with it before Yarin confirmed its completion.
 
"Great, I was dying of old age over here," Horse said, snippily.
 
"You're a robot, Horse, you can't age." Aquilai said.
 
"Just shut up or I'm gonna go all Terminator on you," Horse countered.
 
"I'm so scared," Aquilai said patronizingly, as he scooted Horse inside the prototype De-Roboticizer. "Okay, activated it, Yarin."
 
"Activating . . ." Yarin said, as his four arms flew over the controls, some of which were over head.  This is why he was so often used for these jobs his six eyes and four arms made everything go far faster than, say, a human.
 
The energy rings descended down around the three and . . . just made their voices sound tinnier.

"It can be fixed!" Aquilai said, hurriedly.  Then he and Goom made a few tweaks, and cued Yarin to start up the De-Roboticizer again.

The three Robo-RAFians endured another ring enveloping them.  It just turned Gaz gold, Noelle silver, and Horse platinum.  The three Robo-RAFians wore looks that clearly said that they were doubting the ability of Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin to cure them.

"Not to worry, not to worry," Goom said, attempting to wave away their concerns before realizing he hadn't any arms.  The two continued to make minor alterations.  Then cued Yarin again.

This time it just took their voice synthesizers offline. Horse, especially, looked ticked at this, while Noelle looked more passive.

"Just a few more adjustments!  I swear!" Aquilai promised. Then he and Goom worked even more furiously before they cued Yarin again, who sighed rather obviously.

This time it took all three offline.

"You killed them," Yarin accused.

"No!  No, they're just unconscious.  Just offline a bit." Aquilai rationalized.

"They're dead," Yarin insisted, because it indeed looked as if they were dead.

"No, they aren't.  Look they're coming 'round now." Aquilai countered, as the three did stir.  It was twelve, fourteen minutes that they were offline.

"You know, maybe I can live as a robot. . . ." Gaz complained.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 19, 2013, 11:32:07 AM

The Vampire Robot Strikes Back. Hmm. I like it. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2013, 11:37:51 AM

LOL.

Sorry, but that's probably it for chapters until later on.  I'm wiped.

EDIT: New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Success! For Now . . .

"This time, for sure," Aquilai insisted.

"Heard that before," Robo-Horse said groggily.

"Trust me."

"'Trust me', he says," Robo-Gaz mutters.

"Yarin -- do it."

Yarin sighed to himself as he initialized the De-Roboticizer, and activated.

The energy rings began their downward descent, and the three Robo-RAFians braced for what was bound to be a failure with another unintended, unforseen side effect.

But nothing of the sort happened.  The three had their eyes shut tightly in anticipation. All three felt the tingle of the ring, and nothing more than that.

"You can open you eyes now," Aquilai said with a trace of smugness in his voice.

They did, and realized they wer flesh and bone again. They did not hide their shock or relief.

Goom sniffed, "We did tell you we would put you right in the end."

Then Yarin's eyes widened, all six of them, as he said, "We've forgotten about Bear."

"Alright, let's get him in here." Aquilai said, off-handedly.

Alas, there was one caveat that all six were unaware of. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves now.

***

"Well done," Richard said, as the three RAFians displayed that thet were no longer Roboticized. "Now, what to do about the Roboticizer."

"Destroy it," Parker said at once.

"That's not enough," Cloak disagreed. "Especially if Malice has schematics of it."

"How likely is that?" Dino asked.

"Very likely, I think," Cloak answered. "That tech doesn't come from the Prime Universe -- that's this one -- it comes from Realm # . . . well, that's not really important. But the thing is, Malice surely would keep it on her person . . ."

"Destroying the Roboticizer couldn't hurt though, right?" Saffa piped up.

"No," Cloak agreed, rubbing his chin pensively, "it couldn't hurt."

"Then it's decided," Richard said. "Cloak, you go and try to either wrest or destroy the schematics. Dino, Oceanspray, Helen, Sam, and Sakki -- go with him, and destroy that Roboticizer."

They all nodded their ascent and went on their way.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 20, 2013, 09:03:26 AM

Good chapters, Cloaky! I always look forward to these.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2013, 11:07:36 AM

Thanks, Gaz. Now one more chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Destroy the Roboticizer!

The group went in quietly and as inconspicuously as they could floating in a sphere a mixture of green, pink, and golden-scarlet. They bobbed and weaved toward their destination, eventually landing nearby, where the bubble lost its golden-scarlett coloring, and split into two orbs, to gianted bubbles of energy, one green, one pink.

"Good, now go and be careful," came Cloak's nearly silent voice.

The two spheres oriented themselves so that each on was on either side of the Roboticizer, although they had to shrink in size to fit in the enclosed area.

All was in place . . . and yet . . . it seemed too easy . . .

Dino charged forward, resisting the temptation to roar. She held her head low, apparently preparing for a headlong tackle. But at the last moment, she stopped, and swung her ankylosaurid tail at the Roboticizer.

"Stop them now, slaves!!" came Malice's scream.

But it was to late -- Dino's tail made contact with plexiglass tube and the sound of shattering glass reverberated rather ominiously.

Meanwhile, Sakki, Helen, and Sam worked in ripping out the circuitry and ruining the hardware.  Helen and Sam eventually had to use their rings to shield themselves from the explosion and the inevitable cave-in that followed.

While this was happening, Oceanspray wastyping in some sort of computer code on his arm. Then he turned it into an arm cannon, and fired a wide-beam shot that caused all fourteen Roboticized minions to deactivate.

"Hurry!" he shouted. "Everyone out!"

***

Malice was entirely focused on the destruction of her precious Roboticizer.

"It makes no difference! I'll build a new one! This time with a Burn-Thru Brain chip! That way your precious little Marks will be powerless against it!!"

Cloak said, "You know, shouting your plans at top of your voice isn't the wisest strategy."

"Huh?" Malice said, jumping.

"You lost sight of you environment? Tsk tsk tsk."

The others has safely left by this time.

"Don't you dare to lecture me, whelp!" Malice screamed. Cloak didn't see Malice lose control like this very often -- in fact, this was only the second time.

Then Malice looked around, clearly looking for Abomination, "GET CLOAK, LOVE! What? WHERE THE VEIL ARE YOU?! GET OVER HERE!"

Abomination never materislized. Cloak hid a smile as he thought, There could be hope for him yet.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"Give it up, Malice. Ab's not here." Cloaky said. "You know what I'm after."

Malice's eyes narrowed. "You can't have it!"

"Fine," Cloak said. "Your choice."

Cloak punched the ground and it was as if he used Fire Pledge. Malice was alight with fire, but she quickly used her own energy to douse it.

"Did you honestly think the schematics were on paper?" Malice said revealing the disc.

Then Cloak fired of a gattling gun like shots from his tail, rather like Neon Tiger's Ray Splasher. The disc was destroyed.

"No! That was the only copy!" Malice lamented.

"Bit of an oversight on your part," Cloak said, as left, ignoring her roar of rage and frustration.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 20, 2013, 11:48:27 PM

Robotic Andalites were so cool, but nothing can replace the real Noelle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 21, 2013, 03:58:56 AM

Just goes to show when you're angry you can screw everything up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2013, 11:04:35 AM

Too true, Underseen, Saffa.

I just realized the evil stepmother and Timothy Spall's character in "Enchanted" has a similar relationship to Malice and Abomination, only the latter tends to be more violent. . . . Actually, now I think of it, I believe someone brought this to my attention before.

Anyway, I've come up with an additional two ideas "Princess Pearls" (#158, or #CLVIII) and "Attack of the Killer Produce" (#159, or #CLIX).

EDIT: And now planning the chapters of "The Coming of Galacticron" -- but I haven't gone beyond the first chapter yet.

And the list -- and, yes, I fully intend to write all these books.

• Book XXXII: Richard is Missing

The RAFians must cope without Richard.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• *Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• *Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• *Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 08:25:45 AM

First chapter of the day -- dunno how many I can post today, but I'll try for a minimum of three. This one's kind of short.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Aggro

Back at RAF, Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin seem to be unsatisfied with how large and bulky the De-Roboticizer had to be.

"I still think we can miniaturize it!" Yarin was heard proclaiming to Phoenix.

"But Malice's Roboticizer, and the schematics, were destroyed," Phoenix countered reasonably. "There won't be a need --"

"So it'll just be a busywork project," Aquilai shrugged. "Cloak has the RAFparodies, Gaz has her reviews, and we three have this."

"Well, it is your time and energy," Phoenix said, thoughtfully, "what you do with it is your business."

"You never know," Goom said in an off-handed way, "it may have a future application that we don't forsee at the moment."

With that, the three went to work.

***

It was a couple of hours later where Bear went WHUMPH! And his body was partially Re-Roboticized again.

"What? Bear!"

"So . . . hard . . . to fight . . ." he muttered. He was fighting very hostile and rageful feelings that were horribly amplified by the Re-Roboticization. It was as if he was fighting an inner Appoplexian, and sooner or later, he knew, he'd tire and lose the battle.

<Wait -- if Bear's been Re-Roboticized . . .> Saffa said in her hawk form. Her eyes widened.

"The others!" Underseen gasped. "Gaz! Horse! Noelle!"

The fearful suspicions and assumptions of the two turned out be accurate. Gaz, Horse, and Noelle were flesh and bone no more. Once again, they were metal and wires and circuits. But, unlike Bear, they were completely Re-Roboticized, and could not resist going aggro.

Cloak was on the scene immediately. He saw what had happened -- the De-Roboticizer's effects were only temporary.  He could have berated himself for not realizing sooner, but that was best saved for later.

"Calm down, you three," Cloak warned, with a suggestion of a plea in his voice, "don't make me do something I'll surely regret."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 08:35:23 AM

Second chapter comin' up.  And a bit of a spoiler -- something will happen to Abomination in Book L (#50), I think. . . .
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Cloak and the Mental Metal People

"Let me tell you sumthin', Cloak!" Gaz said, in a rather flawless Appoplexian vernacular, with an accusatory finger, "you aren't nearly as strong as you think!"
 
Well, at least they're not talking in the third-person, like an Appoplexian, Cloak thought, before switching to speech, "Please, guys, don't force me to act against you. You know I will."
 
"Let me tell you sumthin'," Noelle said, "you ain't got nothing!"
 
Then the three attacked Cloak in their addled, hostility-increased states.
 
"Then so be it," Cloak sighed. He raised his hands and the three's attack stopped before the first strike. They hovered in front of him, struggling against an unseen force.
 
Cloak hated himself for it. He felt like a bloodbender -- something he considered quite shameful.
 
"I hoped you wouldn't . . . wouldn't force me to this. . . ."
 

***

Meanwhile, back at Malice's rather easy-to-find headquarters, she was still seething.
 
"Where the bloody Veil were you?" she said without even turning around. She knew it was Abomination, and her anger had not abated but nor had it straightened much.
 
"Attending to the repairs that you set before me," Abomination said, with a little quaver to his voice which went unnoticed by Malice.
 
"You didn't come when I called."
 
"I --" Abomination dare not voice his doubts about the sincerity of there relationship or the uncertainty he had of the sincerity of Malice's feelings. For the moment, his brushed all that aside and thought up the most plausible lie he could muster, that he could conjure, "I -- I didn't -- didn't hear you."
 
Malice glared at him for a moment through narrowed eyes, before saying, "Very well. The slaves should be reactivated by now. Gather them and send them here for new instructions."
 
"Y-yes, my love," Abomination said, and went to her bidding as Malice brooded some more.
 
Abomination knew he wasn't happy, living in a world of fear and verbal abuse. But he now labored under the pitiable delusion that he could change her . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 09:18:31 AM

Third chapter, but probably not the last today. And I'll apologize in advance to Abby if she doesn't like her characterization here.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Portability and Purpose

Goom, Aquilai and Yarin, shut up in the lab, were blissfully unaware of this incident.  They just continued to improve upon the De-Roboticizer, their decision to do so was more serendipitous than one could have hoped.  It was just very unfortunate, however, that they were nowhere near finished.
 
They were unaware of the failure of the first, rather rudimentary, De-Roboticizer -- until Abby burst into the room and told  them that the first De-Roboticizer failed.  She told them what Cloak had been forced to do.
 
"-- And he doesn't look very happy about it at all." Abby finished.
 
"Of course not," Aquilai replied, looking very serious and grim, "he despises Bloodbenders."
 
"But . . . he's not manipulating their blood." Abby said, confused. "They haven't even got blood anymore, have they?"
 
"And he can't bloodbend," Aquilai said, "but the principle's the thing. He can manipulate the metal -- it's one of the Six Elements."
 
"Six elements? What --"
 
"Water, Wood, Earth, Metal, Fire, and Air," Goom answered as he looked at the readings for the new portable De-Roboticizer with more intensity than ever. He knew that the importance of this device just became top priority.
 
"Oh," Abby said.  "Anyway, we need you to fix --"
 
"We're already on it, young RAFian," Yarin said, his four hands working feverishly. "But the portable prototype won't be ready for a few hours."
 
"But . . . but we haven't got hours," Abby protested.  "We got minutes at most."
 
"Why?" Goom said, finally looking up at the relatively-new RAFian.
 
"Gaz, Noelle, and Horse aren't the only Robians that are here . . ." she replied enigmatically.
 

***

Cloak was holding himself back, trying to keep his emotions in check, thereby keeping his powers in check.  He was able to reasonably "mechbend" -- that is able to manipulate the metal within any mech or robot -- although he was not a bender by the "Avatar: the Last Airbender" terms.  Not at all.

Cloak managed to Earthsight it a fraction a second before he managed to dodge it's attack.  Then he did the "mechbend" thing on the Roboticized Kinecceleran.  Cloak knew that the others would show up before long.

He was right, of course.  He managed to "mechbend" all of them, all seventeen.  It was not without effort, however.  It was not without strain.  Cloak exerted a large amount of energy in just keeping them all immobile and frozen in place.  He did not know how much longer he could maintain this, how much longer before he exhausted his abilities.  This was a risk, it's true.  But it was a risk he was willing to take -- no, it was a risk that he had to take.  For the safety of his friends, of the world.

"I hope Abby hurries," Cloak muttered, revealing it was he who had sent Abby to Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 09:49:11 AM

A fourth chapter, and it'll be a bit short.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Exhausted and Explosions

Cloak's energy reserves were depleting, and he knew it.  But he still obstinately refused to give into the fatigue that he felt -- and he felt the exhaustion growing in him, like some cancerous curse.  Cloak abjectly refused to give in to it, as he knew the importance of keeping these seventeen from running rampant.
 
"Cloak, you'll overexert yourself!" came Parker's cry.
 
"I . . . don't . . . care!" Cloak snarled, stubbornly.  "This must be done until the De-Roboticizer is completed!"
 
"Cloak --"
 
"Don't argue with me!!" Cloak said, momentarily distracted.  He relaxed his hold over the seventeen in that moment, and, cursing his own stupidity, had Parker go after the Robotized Opticoid.  Parker took this up with great gusto, as Cloak maintained his control over the remaining sixteen, this time determined not to let his focus waver.  Not even when he heard the explosions, unaware that the lab was hit.

Parker manged to successfully recapture the Robotized Opticoid, with the help of Helen (who froze him in a pink Star Sapphire crystal construct).

"Good," Cloak said, not even looking in that direction. "Now, go see what the bloody Veil is taking those three so long!!!"

***

The four in the lab were recovering.  The explosion only blasted a hold through about have of the exterior wall.  But the original De-Roboticizer was done for.  Fortunately, the portable version, while incomplete, was fine.

"That was lucky," Abby said, noticing this.

"Yes, and let's not push it any longer.  Goom, Aquilai," Yarin said, calling his fellows over, "time to get back to work."

The three had just began to get back to work when Parker came in, and they told him what had happened, as they continued to work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 10:23:22 AM

It's a very good day for chapters, apparently.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Device Complete!

"Parker, you can stop that," Aquilai chided, "we're going as fast as is prudent."
 
"Cloak is getting tired, and I think he's overexerting himself." Parker said.
 
"Cloak is fine," Goom said aptly, "he could do more.  He's being so crass because he doesn't like what he's doing being like bloodbending."
 
It was true -- Cloak may have been exhausted, but it could have been exacerbated by the fact that he absolutely hated doing this.  Especially to friends, and what he considered to be innocent victims.
 
"He looked exhausted," Parker remarked, still concerned.
 
"Probably because of his hatred for such an act -- that wire's loose, Yarin -- and he may not like it, but we need a little more time." Goom said.

"He's not gonna like that," Abby said.

"It's not like he has much of a choice," Aquilai said solemnly. "It's nearly done, anyway."

Then they closed a small panel.

"And now it is done," Yarin proclaimed.

***

Cloak wondered idly why this was taking so much effort.  He's done amazing feets with this element, after all.  This should be nothing . . . perhaps he was expending more energy than he need to, more energy than he ought?  Cloak stood up straight, while keeping his hands raised up.  He stopped expending so much energy needlessly.  He found immediate results.  He wasn't as tired, and he was actually recouping some lost energy.

Cloak sighed to himself, while keeping his focus, and shook his head.  He had forgotten one of Sage's most basic lessons -- do not use any more energy than is necessary to complete an objective.  Otherwise it could lead to meaningless, pointless wastes of energy.  Cloak, in his reluctance and hatred of the act that he must commit, had proven that particular lesson of Grandpa Sage's. But even those experienced in an art are not immune from forgetting the basics.

He could easily wait for the De-Roboticizer now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2013, 10:33:57 AM

I know that feeling of wanting to give it your all even though there are several people shouting in your face.

Brilliant chapters! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 10:40:55 AM

*Nods.*

Too right, Saffa.

Now, that'll probably be the last chapter for a couple of hours.

EDIT: New -- but short -- chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
De-Robotization

"We're here, Cloak. How you holding up?"

"Oh, just lovely," Cloak answered dryly, unable to concoct a more scathingly sarcastic remark. "You had better have that thing finished, Aquilai. I'm starting to get bored."

"Lower Horse down a bit and we can try it out." Yarin instructed.

Cloak complied and Yarin took out what appeared to be a golden steering wheel the size of a saucer ans pressed it to her head.

Cloak lost the power to restrain Horse as she was no longer metsl and circuitry, but flesh and bone again.

"It works!" Saffa and Abby exclaimed.

"Yeah, but for how long?" Parker said.

"Deal with that later," Cloak said. "Do Gaz and Noelle now."

Within minutes, they were back, groggy but flesh again.

"Great," Cloak said, "now the -- stop struggling! -- The others. Turn them back."

Cloak suspected that Malice had programmed them to resist De-Roboticization. A protocol that the Robo-RAFians' Marks had undone and burned through.

"Hurry! They're really struggling now!" Cloak warned and complained at the same time.

But then Cloak lost focus and the Roboticized Slitheen, Wookie, and human teen managed to free themselves, and dodge Cloak's attempts to freeze them again.

"Forget about them," Cloak ordered the others, "revert these first!"

They did -- first, the Kinecceleran. Then the Opticoid. Then the Pyronite and grail. Then then the Galvan, the Klingon, and the Vulpimancer. Then the Perk Gourmand and, finally, the Tetramand.

At long last, Cloak could lower his hands. It was over . . .

Nearly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 22, 2013, 04:57:15 PM

These are really good. I am at the library and I now know how you feel with a time limit on computers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 05:39:41 PM

It's inconvenient, right, Underseen?

Another chapter (what the heck, I might as well finish off this book today).

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Back to Flesh

"Aquilai, Goom, Yarin," Cloak said wearily. "Our work is not yet over."

The three understood at once what Cloak had meant. With that the hunt was on.

***

The easiest to find, by far, was the Slitheen. In lieu of taking human skins (although it still could, having a built in compression device) it could project a holographic form.

However, Earthsight easily unveiled it.

Cloak easily found him, disguised as an overweight teacher with an ample gut and walrus mustache in a brown suit and black vest with gold fastenings.

"Hold up there," Aquilai said. "We like to have a word."

The Roboticized Slitheen dropped the pretense and prepared to attack -- still compelled by Malice's order.

But it found suddenly that he could not move. Cloak had hidden in the nearby forest, and had slinked into position, like the cat that he was.

Aquilai easily De-Roboticized him, and arrested him -- the Slitheen were guilty of several criminal acts on Earth.

"Why was he here?" Yarin asked pensively. "Why did it not return to Malice?"

"I would think it obvious," Cloak said. "Malice has Walked. She's no longer in-universe."

"But . . . why? Why has she left?"

" To that," Cloak said, "I haven't a clue."

"But you've a suspicion." Aquilai said shrewdly, as they went after the Roboticized Wookie.

***

They found the Roboticized Wookie in a forest. They found it with some difficulty, but De-Roboticized it easily enough.

The human teenager however hid in Comic-Con . . . which Cloak felt just plain awkward going into. It took them several hours and a more than a few honest mistakes before finding the real one and De-Roboticized him immediately.

"Ugh, that was too challenging," Yarin said.

"All's well that ends well." Cloak looked around self-consciously, then said, "Can we get out of here now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2013, 07:02:30 PM

Now, let's end this book, which turned out better than I anticipated. Very short chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Abomination Abuse

"S-sorry, love," Abomination said as he cowered before Malice's rage. He was fighting tears. "I'm s-sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry!" Malice snarled, glaring at the larger, but emotionally fragile Realm Walker. "You know, Ab, that's not really acceptable anymore. All my schemes . . . all would have come to fruition."

She had weird, wistful look upon her harsh Tasmanian she-devil face, as if she was transported. Then her face darkened, and her eyes were like dark suns.

"Then you . . . you just have to go and bungle it!"

"B-b-but . . . but I . . ." Abomination stuttered.

"Save it!!!" Malice roared. She was starting to get careless. If she made any more noise, she'd attract unwanted attention. But fortunately for her, the two hadn't Walked back to the Nexus. They were in some unknown universe. "I'm not interested in your excuses."

"But I wasn't --" Abomination attempted reason. But a person like such as Malice is uninterested in things like truth and reason.

"I said save it!" Malice snarled. "My plans were perfect, especially this one. Then you didn't pull your weight. --"

And she went on a rather violent tirade. Abomination soon realized that it would just be easier to accept the blame --although it wasn't his to take -- than try to convince Malice of the truth. She continued to barrade Abomination, and he just took it.

"Huh?" a sudden voice said as a young child peered into the alleyway which the two were.

Malice heartlessly flicked her wrist, unleashing a whisp of energy which twisted his neck until it broke. She never batted so much as an eye.

"And to the RAFians," Malice said, as she prepared to Walk away, "a Vox on their house."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 22, 2013, 09:23:16 PM

Great chapters!! You did a good job with me. The newcomer, not understanding much in the ways of RAF.

:) Go Cloak!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2013, 08:13:18 AM

Thanks, Abby.  Anyway, I dunno how many chapter I'm gonna be able to post.  Much less this week -- it's gonna be very busy for me.
 

BOOK XXXII:
RICHARD IS MISSING
CHAPTER ONE:
A Questionable Mission

"Richard, I must register my concern of the advisability of this mission," Cloak said.

"Yes," Richard said, wearily, "and, after the last thirty-one* times, it's getting a bit redundant."

"We do not know this thing is," Cloak said, urging Richard to keep his distance from the roughly egg-shaped, organic-looking thing.

"It looks familiar," he said.

"It could be dangerous," Cloak countered, deadly serious.

"It's inert," Richard pointed out.

"That doesn't mean that danger lurks within," Cloak insisted. "Like Venus flytraps."

"Don't be so paranoid."

"Paranoia is one thing," Cloak said, "caution is quite another!"

Richard -- rather recklessly in Cloak's opinion -- approached the odd pod-like device that apparently just blossomed in this deserted area.

Richard had decided to investigate this himself, tired on sitting on the sidelines. Cloak immediately sensed danger in this, and he went with.

Anyway, Richard reached out to touch it as Cloak roared, "RICHARD, NOOOO!"

To late, his skin made contact with the cool, rough-textured device.

Suddenly, a blinding flash blinded the two. It was strong enough to knock Cloak off his feet, while Richard had vanished.

Before lapsing into unconsciousness, he realized why he was so weary of the device. It was at this moment that he recognized the design of the pod.

He muttered, "Vox . . ."

---
* :eyebrow: Spell Check said the proper way to spell "thirty-one" is "thirteen" . . . the words don't even LOOK alike. :eyebrow:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2013, 08:21:30 AM

Second chapter comin' at you.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
The Death Sphere

Cloak was evacuated from the site while the other RAFians search for Richard, but don't find so much as a trace.
 
And the pod was M.I.A. as well.
 

***

Cloak, who remained unconscious, was laid down in the infirmary. Questions could wait, could be answered later.
 
Kelly and Goom, really the only medics RAF had on hand, watched over his condition.
 

***

Yarin was once again taking up the duty of monitoring the sensors and communications. His Nyac physiology making it rather easier on him than RAFians of other species (and considering he was the only RAFian Nyac, this made rather him indispensable in such a position).
 
But that did not change the fact that it could be inconceivably dull and boring, even to Nyac sensibilities.
 
Anyway, the O.W.N. network -- which had extraorbital sensors on it installed at the major global powers absolute insistance (though Knights of Humanity -- and conspiracy theorists with nothing better to do -- insisted that they'd be used for spying and other malicious actions, showing just how little they truly knew). These world powers recognized that, while not all non-Terrans were malicious, not all were friendly either.
 
There was a rather large blip discovered on on of the sensor relays.
 
Yarin was on the case immediately. He immediately scanned the object, assuming that it was simply just an asteroid that the O.W.N. satellites, which had been modified into a planetary shield.
 
"Huh?"
 
The scan had to be wrong. It was roughly the size of Earth's moon . . . but hollow.
 
"Oh -- that's not good," Yarin said as the moon flared out and transformed into a weapon array. One that size and magnitude . . . would shatter the planetary shield. It would spare the planet but only to wait for the second shot.
 
Yarin turned on the intercom with a flick of the switch, and said, "Attention, RAF. Alert: an extraorbital object of immense power is attacking the Earth. One shot will shatter the shield. This forum is dead-center of the predicted blast epicenter."
 
This was enough to jar Cloak back to consciousness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 23, 2013, 09:41:16 AM

Whoa, this is a fine start!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2013, 10:09:32 AM

Yeah, I think so, too, Saffa.

Anyway, planning out the chapters of "The Theft of Intellectual Property" -- ten chapters in.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2013, 10:37:09 AM

Third chapter today -- probably shouldn't expect another until a little later.  Okay, relatively short chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Charge of the Light Degrade

The planetoid had transformed into a roughly flower-like shape with a sort of cannon at it's center.  It was this that began to charge up with multichromatic energy.  The energy separated into a star burst pattern, separating the colors.  Then they hit the next electrode thingy and then energy of white and black culminated and coalesced at the tip.
 

***

Cloak dashed from the infirmary and looked up and could see the overlarge weapon well enough.  He knew the planetary shield would not be enough.  It would shatter. . . . Then Earth would be doomed.  But, not only that, RAF would be decimated.  No . . . not just decimated, as in Ground Zero, but obliterated.  All traces eliminated, evaporated into nothing.
 
This would not stand.  This would not be allowed.
 
The thing unleashed its first blast, and, as thought and believed, the beam destroyed the planetary shield.  But the power of the beam was such as that the shield was not only destroyed but the O.W.N. satellites were destroyed beyond repair.  They did not drop down upon the Earth, but knocked out of their orbits with sufficent force and drifted into the vastness of space as debris.

"Alert!" Yarin exclaimed on the intercom.  "The O.W.N. satellites have been damaged beyond repair!"

The next shot would hit the planet's surface. Directly where Cloak stood. Cloak was aware of this fact.  It's why he stood where he stood.  He knew what he must do.

"Cloak, get going!" Abby said.

"It's gonna fire again!" Saffa warned.

"I know," Cloak said quietly.

"If you know, then you should start hauling butt!" Underseen said.

"No," Cloak said, not taking his eyes of the weapon.  It was charging up for a secondary blast.  "You three go.  I know what I must do."

"You'll kill yourself!" Abby declared.

"No . . . I won't."

"Cloak, even you can't redirect that much energy!" Underseen said.

"Well . . ." Cloak said, taking a stance and pointing his right index finger and middle finger at the weapon, "we'll see won't we?  Now, get out of the way.  Seriously, don't make me MAKE you get out of the way.  I won't be gentle."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 23, 2013, 10:45:32 AM

Oh no. Talk about a hold-your-breath moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 23, 2013, 12:42:34 PM

Ahhh!!! No kidding!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2013, 03:14:09 PM

:XD: I admit, I did not expect such a reaction. :)

Now, a new chapter.

CENTER FOUR:
Blast It!

The beam travelled toward Earth at a rapid pace, Cloak's determination was evident upon his face. His eyes were golden-scarlet suns.

"Cloak --"

"I'm not arguing with you, Saffa," Cloak scolded the younger RAFian, "this is how it is. I'm ready. And you can stifle that protest in your throat right now, Underseen."

The beam lanced towards the Earth, spanning the considerable distance in mere moments. It raced closer and closer.

Then it was siphoned into Cloak's outstretched fingers. Down his arm, across his belly, up and out the two fingers opposite. So there was now two beams of energy, one going down, one going up.

Eventually, the second beam made contact with the weapon. Instead of obliterating RAF, wiping it of the map -- and wiping the map off the map -- the weapon itself was annihilated, reduced to space debris.

When the last of the energy had been redirected, Cloak stood, looking haggard and stooped.

"Cloak . . . ?" Underseen ventured hesitantly.

WHUMPH!

Cloak fell, face first, to the ground, eyes shut. It was this time that the other RAFians were gathering round.

"He's dead!" Abby was heard to yell fretfully.

"No," Parker said, "he isn't."

Blue explained that when a Realm Walker dies, only the cloak is left behind, "So, Cloak's not dead, just clearly exhausted."

"Yes, he clearly expended a lot of energy," Goom said, "again."

"Yes, such actions certainly cannot be healthy," Phoenix said concernedly. "Well, best get him back to the infirmary. Parker. give me a hand here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2013, 04:41:48 PM

Now, the last chapter today . . . and it'll probably be on the short side. Sorry.

CHAPTER FIVE:
RAF In Turmoil

Cloak was resting on a bed, in a dreamless sleep, he appeared to be barely breathing, and Abby wasn't entirely convinced that Cloak lived, but, then again, Cloak was the only Realm Walker she's had contact with*, so she didn't really know better.

Then there was the subject of Richard's disappearance. Rotiart was leery and suspicious of Cloak, but, then again, it was no secret that Rotiart was no fan of the Elements Master.

Gaz and AniDragon, however, couldn't put their fingers on it, but they thought this was familiar, somehow. It annoyed the two to no end.**

Other than this and a air of foreboding, RAF pretty much resumed their previous activities. Gaz posted her reviews, the RAF couples did dates and things -- same old, same old.

But, although no one wanted to speak of it, Richard's prolonged disappearance could point to one outcome of his fate. It was the dreaded outcome that no RAFian wanted to think of, or even consider.

Richard could not be dead. He had to be alive, just tansported somewhere, perhaps in a focused cryonic sleep.

Despite this, there was a very real possibility of this, a great fear of the RAFians being true.

Would RAF be the same without its founder?

***

In a void of muted colors, two skeletal heads with glowing orbs for eyes with fine filament-like cilia tendrils were hovering rather aimlessly.

"Did --" the voice if the slightly larger one was indistinct here "--retrieve the merchandise?"

"Picked it up a small time ago," the more subservient one replied.

"Good, that's one nuisance dealt with," the larger Vox acknowledged. "Now the experiments can truly begin."

"Yes, let them begin."

---
*Yes, I consider the Intro Randomness Act 2 a different continuity.

** :wink: :wink:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 23, 2013, 05:07:13 PM

I love this. It's getting really good. :):)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 08:19:36 AM

Thanks, Abby.

Now, the first, and maybe -- unless I feel better emotionally -- only, chapter today. I suppose it's ironic given the title of this short chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Bad Mood

It soon became clear that whatever happened to Richard would not be resolved soon enough. Someone had to step up and take his role. To bear Richard's hefty burden of leadership.
 
Phoenix, though rather unwilling, stepped up and, with a heavy heart, took the role, the burden of being the head of a growing forum.
 
Had Cloak been conscious, he wouldn't have envied Phoenix. Not even a little. Cloak had always thought himself unworthy such power, such authority . . . such a burden.
 
Phoenix wore a somber look and he seemed to have aged several years' time.
 
"Why should you lead?" Rotiart said, immediately upon close proximity to Phoenix when the little upstart first heard. "What gives you the right?"
 
"Not very bright, this Rotiart," Abby whispered to Gaz.
 
"Oh, you don't know the half of it."
 
Phoenix took it in stride, but Rotiart was not the sharpest tool in the shed. He kept pushing his luck.
 
Eventually, the pressure got to Phoenix and he seized Rotiart by the neck, and lifted the young brat to eye level. Phoenix said, in a voice like a smoldering brushfire, "I'm in a bad mood. Care to push your luck any further?"
 
"Nuh-uh," Rotiart said in a strangled voice. Phoenix released the little monster, who decided to give Phoenix a wide birth.
 
"I guess he learned his lesson," Abby said.
 
Parker hadn't even looked up from his newspaper, "He really did have it coming."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 24, 2013, 08:39:02 AM

No, that bad mood can't stay. You need.... INSPIRATION!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 24, 2013, 09:30:09 AM

Yay Phoenix! ;)

And that's where your inspiration will come from, Abby. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 11:37:10 AM

Well, I finished planning the chapters for "Theft of Intellectual Property", which may see a title change by the time we get to it (by which time, I'd probably have ideas for #CCL (#250) or even #CCC (#300)).

Another chapter.  Bit on the short side and a little bit "bare bones". I may post more later, but don't hold me to that.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Has Anybody Seen This Guy?

Phoenix called a meeting of all RAFians in the auditorium shortly thereafter.  There was little mystery about what this meeting would pertain to.

"As you all may have gathered," Phoenix announced, in ringing tones, "we're here about Richard.  I, for one, refuse to believe that he had met his demise."

There was a smattering of agreement from the RAFians. Rotiart, however, was shrunk down in his chair, as if he hoped not to be seen by Phoenix.  The little altercation had clearly terrified the little snot.

Then Phoenix gave groups of RAFians assignments in which to look, and then sent them on their way.
 

***

During their global search, a voice-over sang:

We've got to get together,
Got to use our minds.
We've got to find Richard
And there's not much time.

We've got to travel light,
We'll go place to place.
Askin' everybody,
"Have you seen this face?"

Has anybody seen this guy?
He's really got it all.
Has anybody seen this guy?
He's about this tall.
No lead will go on by,
Has anybody seen this guy?

Here's a little picture,
For a quick reminder,
I'm hopin' you might have a clue.
Does he look a little bit like someone you know?
Does he look a little bit like you?

Has anybody seen this guy?
He's really got it all.
Has anybody seen this guy?
He's about this tall.
No lead will go on by,
Has anybody seen this guy?
Has anybody seen this guy?

But, sadly, despite this exhaustive global search, not one team found any trace of the founder of RAF, the father of RAF.  Not even a trace of the pod-like pustule that absconded with him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 24, 2013, 12:42:14 PM

:( poor Richard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 24, 2013, 05:09:54 PM

The only person who recognized that the device was Vox in origin is now out cold.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 05:56:44 PM

In the words of Yoda, Underseen, "No, there is another . . ."

Well, two actuaally, whose species has a rather advesarial relationship with the Vox.

Well, unless I change my mind.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Bitter Pill To Swallow

It became clear soon enough, no matter how long the search, no matter how thorough, Richard would not be found.

It was difficult for Phoenix, nor the RAFians, not to find this news demoralizing. Hope of finding him persisted, but it was dying a slow, painful death. RAF was soon losing the hope of finding their leader.

"Phoenix?" came a quiet voice. It penetrated Phoenix's deep thoughts like a flashlight's beam in a subterranean shaft.

"What is it, Goom?" Phoenix said, unable to keep the weariness from his voice.

"It's Cloak," he said.

Phoenix raised his eyebrows, "He's awake?"

"No," Goom said, "not quite. He's talking in his somniferous state."

"Saying what exactly, Goom?"

"Just one word over and over again." Goom said, leaning inward, rather conspiratorially. "'Vox'."

Phoenix looked flummoxed at this, "'Vox'? What does that even mean?"

"I haven't a clue," Goom said, "but I thought it was worthy enough to bring to your attention."

"'Worthy to' . . ." Phoenix murmured, looking taken aback a little, until he remembered that he was now the head of RAF. "Oh."

"Well -- I must return to my post in the infirmary. 'Bye."

"'Bye."

Then Phoenix returned to looking out the window without really looking outside.

***

Aquilai happened to be passing by the infirmary to go work on his TARDIS, when he heard Cloak mutter in his sleep state.

"Vox . . . Vox . . . Vox . . ."

Aquilai stopped, stock still, and looked at the doorway to the infirmary. All thoughts of working on his TARDIS were forgotten.

'Vox'? The Vox?" Aquilai muttered. "Of course. Of course!"

How could he not have seen it? How could he not have realized?

But . . . this presented more problems.  More problems they didn't need.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 24, 2013, 06:04:09 PM

As I see from this chapter Time Lords are one of them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 06:34:48 PM

I was actually referring to two Time Lords. I apologize -- I see that was too vague on that.

CHAPTER NINE:
A New Wrinkle

"Phoenix, I believe I have news," Aquilai said, tentatively crossing the threshold into the room.

"News?" Phoenix echoed. "Of what kind?"

"Pertaining to the Vox," Aquilai said immediately.

"How'd you know about that?"

"Cloak was muttering it quite audibly."

"Understood. What do you have?"

"Well --"

"Incoming communication," Yarin interrupted on the intercom.

"Interrupt all video displays and broadcast it," Phoenix commanded after a slight moment's hesitation.

Even Cloak was partway roused by this. He stared bearily at the screen -- Kelly and Goom had their backs to him.

On the screen, it showed Malice in a strangely-illuminated shack. She was even looking into the screen, but preening herself by looking in the mirror.

"RAF, I know you're monitoring this frequency," Malice said, in an off-hand way, still not looking directly at the camera. She was still primping.

"I've a little sumthin-sumthin that might be of interest to you," Malice said, almost bored. "I believe you call him . . . what was it? Oh, yes Richard."

She sneered at the name, as the imaged panned to Richard who was in a cryonic sleep, tightly swaddled in what appeared to be shredded Reaper Cloths.

"You want your precious founder back, it is just a simple matter of barter, my dearies."

Now she looked at the camera directly, her eyes colder than the surface of Io.

"You will transfer Cloak into my custody," she said, her tone as icy as her stare. "Cloak for your founder. Your choice."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 24, 2013, 06:42:14 PM

This is a strange dilemma we caught ourselves in. We can't hand you over because that would basically be admitting defeat, but we can't live without Richard. 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 07:30:22 PM

Yes, but is everything what it seems, Underseen? Anyway, this'll be the last chapter today.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Backfire

"But . . . that . . . that can't be right. . . ." Aquilai said, perplexed.

"No kidding," Phoenix said. "It's an impossible choice!"

"No, I mean I was sure that --"

"Dwellers! I'm getting impatient!" Malice scolded. "I'm not getting any younger!"

"Or any nicer," Cloak said, quietly. Goom and Kelly jumped rather comedically. Cloak moved to stand up, but the two tried to usher back to bed.

"No, stop." Cloak said. "That's not Richard."

That stopped the two from fightung him.

"What?"

"That's not Richard," Cloak repeated. "It's an explosive simulaid synthoid. It is nearly impossible to detect, if you don't know what to look for."

"What makes you so sure?" Kelly asked. "If your wrong . . ."

"There are several clues," Cloak said, feeling his energy returning. "Such a cryonic sleep would leave traces of the process -- the bluing of the skin or some sort of frost build-up. And those items that he's swaddled with -- they're shredded Reaper Cloths, most likely to disguise the seams on the body. Not to mention just how bored Malice seems in the broadcast -- if it was real, she'd be more animated."

The two looked at each other.

"Besides," Cloak said, "you can hear the ticking."

"What?"

Cloaked at them, slightly surprised, "You can't? It's rather incessant."

"Your time draws to a close, Dwellers!" Malice said, with a quaver to her voice.

The three went to Phoenix to inform him. When they finished, there was a rather conspicuous explosion. Then communication ended.

"But . . . Richard . . ." Phoenix said.

"He was taken by the Vox." Closk said. "They took him and knocked me out."

"Their kind are antagonistic to my kind," Aquilai said. "They are OCD about keeping the time stream going along, with no deviations."

"But why?" Goom said.

Cloak shrugged, "Who can say?"

"But why did Malice go through this charade?" Phoenix asked.

"She just attempted to on the off chance that it would work." Cloak suggested.

"But . . . how'd see even know that Richard was gone to begin with?"

Cloak said nothing for a moment, before suggesting, "She must have an insider . . . an informant . . ."

"A spy," Kelly supplied heavily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 24, 2013, 08:05:48 PM

This is just getting better and better. I always look forward for your work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 24, 2013, 09:54:09 PM

This is amazing work. 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 10:16:25 PM

Thanks, but just forewarn you -- the traitor's identity won't be revealed until #35 "Richard's Horn". Towards the end, and it won't be who you think it is.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 24, 2013, 10:18:06 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on April 24, 2013, 10:16:25 PM

Thanks, but just forewarn you -- the traitor's identity won't be revealed until #35 "Richard's Horn". Towards the end, and it won't be who you think it is.

Gahh!!! What kind of hint is that?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2013, 10:21:00 PM

Corocoro-type hint. ;)

(Pokemon reference.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 25, 2013, 04:05:47 AM

Ah, that kinda hint, is it? Well now, that just heightens the anticipation. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 09:12:05 AM

Okay, continuing to plan the chapters of "The Contingency".  Only seventeen chapters in.  It's nearly done, the planned chapters, that is.

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 09:14:16 AM

Hmm. . . . It would seem that I've confused Vox with Vok. :shrug: Oh well.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Oh, Vox!

"A spy?" Phoenix said, skeptical. "Who'd want to betray us?"
 
"There are countless lurkers -- forum bums." Kelly shrugged.
 
"There is Rotiart," Aquilai said thoughtfully.
 
"Isn't that a bit too, I dunno, obvious?" Goom said.
 
"How do you mean?" Cloak asked.
 
"His name is simply 'traitor' backwards." Goom said, earnestly. "He probably never considered the implications of such a name."
 
"Regardless," Phoenix said, "keep this under your proverbial hat. We don't need to tip off this spy."
 

***

"What's this?" Yarin said, looking at the scans. The orbital sensors may have been obliterated, but the atmospheric ones were working well enough.
 
It was these sensors that picked up strange things. Stonehedge was giving off strange energy, a floating island appeared, and a strange botantical pod -- but not the one who abducted Richard.
 
"I'm pretty sure those weren't there before," he muttered. He almost missed the most important message . . .
 
"My . . . RAFians . . . "
 
Yarin said nothing, but boosted the signal carefully, as not to lose it.
 
"My . . . RAFians . . ."
 
"R-richard?" Yarin said, no really daring to believe.
 
"Yarin . . ."
 
"Richard? Richard, where are you?"
 
"I . . . dunno . . ."
 
"Richard, your signal is weakening! Say that again."
 
"It's . . . strange . . . and cold . . ."
 
"Richard, come in! Cone in!! Come in!!!"
 
But nothing more came of it. Yarin indulged himself in a string of Nyac curses.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 25, 2013, 10:24:56 AM

Okay. He's in Antarctica. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 25, 2013, 11:51:49 AM

:(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 12:22:28 PM

Still gonna try to get at least Chapter 15 today. Not let the RL stress get to me.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
An Island's Spire

Yarin related these findings to the rest of the RAFians in the auditorium, where the meeting was being held.  Saffa made a comment about him being in Antarctica, and Abby just frowned deeply.
 
"So, Richard's somewhere where it's cold," Phoenix said.  "That not really much to go on, Yarin."
 
"It's all I got before the signal vanished." Yarin said, holding his hands out helplessly.
 
 "It's better than nothing, Phoenix," Blue called out.

"True," Phoenix said, thoughtfully.

"But that was only part of it," Yarin pressed on.  There's a mysterious floating island and several botanical oddities."

"Why does this seem so familiar?" Gaz wondered quietly. "It's like these events are based on a show that I reviewed*."

Then Yarin showed the readouts and scans in full 3D glory.  It showed the island was roughly shaped like a figure eight (without holes in the interior), but it was clearly supposed to be based on the symbol for infinity. It had a stone monolith, a marble obelisk with a crystal-like pyramidal point, on one side, and what appeared to be a pond on the other.

"A floating island?" Parker blinked.  "How is it kept aloft?"

"The Master Emerald?" Underseen guessed blithely.

"Probably some Vox technology," Cloak said, as the Vox had already been explained at the beginning at the meeting. "Perhaps some chronal dissemination or something."

"They do this kind of thing, and then they claim to keep the time stream along its proper path." Aquilai spat. "Hypocrites."

"Oh, yeah, Time Lords and the Vox have an antagonistic relationship." Cloak said.

"Yeah, we gathered," Duff interjected.

"What's that spire?" Goom asked.  "Some kind of weapon, or perhaps that's what's keeping the island aloft?"

"We . . . we should investigate." Phoenix said, still somewhat unsure.

"Too right we should," Cloak said, stepping forward. "I'm going."

"I'm not sure that's advisable, Cloak," Kelly said. "You've only just regained consciousness. You need bedrest --"

"I repeat, I'm GOING."

"And so am I." Parker announced right after.

"I volunteer," Aquilai said, but his reasons were not really hidden all that well.

"I'm going as well!" Gaz piped up.

"You're not cutting me out of this, I'm in!" Saffa declared.

Phoenix sighed heavily, "Fine.  Cloak, Parker, Aquilai, Saffa, and Gaz will go and investigate this mysterious island."

The five left to prepare.

I hope I made the right decision, Phoenix thought afterward.

***

Meanwhile, unlike the RAFians, Queen snuck off the Bannedlands to investigate.  She didn't want to have to share anything with the other Banned and trolls. She knew that there was something powerful on that island -- otherwise how did it stay up? This was her glory. This was her power to take. No one were to know -- and trolls are notoriously awful for keeping secrets and equally greedy and stupid, so she confided her plan to no one.

She had come to be on the island easily enough, simply by climbing a high mountain precipice and the falling about six feet onto the surface.

Success!

Now to get to the spire, and take that power for her own.

---
*Yes, Gaz.  I think you see what I'm getting at.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 12:26:44 PM

Finished planning out the chapters of "The Contingency", moving on to "Muppet, Muppet Man".

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 12:49:49 PM

Now, another chapter for a bit.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Traps and Megalomania

The RAFians had arrived on the island, and began to walk toward the spire.  Cloak found the simple act of walking on this hovering island very odd and strange.

"It's like walking on one of those cliffs in what you call Looney Tunes," Cloak commented.  "It feels like every footstep will send me plunging down into an abyss."

"It's not like that for me," Saffa said, conversationally.

"Yeah, well, you can't Earthsight, can you?" Cloak said, still feeling as if he was walking on a tightrope. Saffa conceded him this point.

"Wait! That marking there --" Aquilai said pointing to a strange mark that looked like a little headless stickfigure holding up a sleeping back with a scythe-like pickaxe. "What does it mean?"

Suddenly, both ends of the valley they were in were closed off by stones. Stones that started pushing in on them.

"Vox for 'trap'?" Gaz guessed.

"I think that's very likely." Parker replied.

Cloak terrakinetically blasted the rocks away, and left the way clear.  But then the spire charged up and attempted to hit Cloak, who batted it away.

"Well, no one said that this would be easy," Aquilai shrugged.

It wasn't the first trap they had to deal with either.

***

Queen, however, had a huge honkin' head start, and, therefore, made that association earlier.  She made it to the interior of the spire.  She easily made it up to the top, and sat in a velvet throne as if it was waiting their for her. She was infused with energy shortly after, changing her color scheme to black and silver.

She now had total control over the spire and the island. It grossly increased Queen's already present megalomania.  It was too easy . . . almost like the Vox wanted her to take control over the island.  But Queen didn't even consider this.  She didn't care who did what, as long as he got the power that she wanted.

She charged up the blast of the spire to fire directly upon the RAFians. . . . Only for it to come right back at her.  The spire was rather decimated by its own power.

"No . . ." she moaned, as she was blasted to the lake as the island started to fall and crash.  "NO . . ."

"I think it's time to leave," Gaz said, going batty.

Parker accessed the Hawk Ride Armor, and told Tyr to shut up.  Aquilai and Cloak rode the same energy disc as Cloak formed it beneath their feet. Saffy was in red-tailed hawk mode.  Then Cloak picked up Queen in an energy sphere, muttering, "I had better not regret this."

Then they abandoned the island, as Saffa said, <Well, that was a bit rushed.>

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 25, 2013, 02:46:35 PM

The floating island! Gotta watch out for those aliens and stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 25, 2013, 05:00:42 PM

Don't you mean Angel Island Gaz? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 06:00:46 PM

Yep. I'll try to get another two chapters up.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Pustule Plant

While the island investigative team were doing their thing, Yarin discovered some strange techno-organic botanical pustule. He thought it could be related to the Vox. FuBar and Raevyn were dispatched to investigate.

The two travelled there in silence, they really haven't spoken or socialized with each much in the forum.

"We have arrived at the site," Raevyn reported making flying movements rather like Yveltal in the Pokemon Direct video.

"Don't take unnecessary risks," Yarin said.

"Roger that," Raevyn said, as the avian smirked as she landed.

The plant looked like a purple, pulsating pustule with four rather fake-looking leaves at its base.

"There's no way that this thing is biological," FuBar said, scrutinizing it.

"Surely not," Raevyn agreed.

"Don't call me Shirley," FuBar said with a smirk.

"Careful with the joke," Raevyn said, with mock solemnity, "it's an antique."

FuBar opened his mouth to say something, but the putrid plant pod opened up, revealing poisonous yellow quarters with a long whip-like "tongue" that darted around. It seized FuBar by his left hind leg, and shocked him with a powerful energy discharge. FuBar succumbed to unconsciousness.

"I'm on my way!" Bladeh called out, dashing, full-pelt, toward the two distressed RAFians. Raevyn was displayed full aerial expertise in dodging the poisonous barbs that the plant shot from its fleshy quarters.

But eventually one caught her in a fleshy part of her wing. The poison acted quickly, but not instantaneously.

It let go of FuBar's leg and whipped Bladeh with it, slamming it into her with quite an amount of force.

Bladeh was the only on of the three standing, and rather wobbly at that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 25, 2013, 06:53:27 PM

Oh crap!! Now something else to deal with!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2013, 07:43:36 PM

Well, nothing's ever really easy, Abby.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Plant's Grasp and Gasp

"FuBar! Raevyn! Bladeh! Come in!" Yarin yelled, having rose to his feet.

"This . . . this is . . . Bladeh," her voice crackled upon the communcations console.

"What is happening?" Yarin demanded.

"Raevyn . . . and FuBar . . . they're hurt. . . . Or worse . . . I dunno . . ."

"Stay with me, Bladeh!" Yarin said in ringing tones.

There was a crackling silence.

"Bladeh! Bladeh! Answer me."

Nothing.

Yarin's mind was made up, he arranged for Aila to monitor communications as he collected Kelly and headed for his ship.

***

It looked ver bad for the trio, though Raevyn was in a worse state due to the venom.

But all three were still alive, if barely.

Yarin's ship showed up and the plant fired its poisonous barbs at it, which deafened the air with a tinny "tink-clunk-tink-clunk". They had no effect, natually.

Yarin fired a thin welding laser at the plant, which curled, charred and soon was blackened into rather inefficient charcoal.

Yarin deftly landed, and had Kelly investigate the three. Kelly resorted to using her healing powers on Raevyn to counteract the poison. She attended to the other two when all three were safely on board.

"Setting course back to RAF," Yarin said.

***

"This creatures interfere with the experiments," the larger of the two Vox said.

"Clearly taking away there leader didn't get them to behave themselves," the other one said.

"Indeed," the first agreed.

"What shall our next move be?" the second asked, as if this was just some game they were playing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 25, 2013, 08:10:57 PM

Ooh.... Interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 26, 2013, 03:01:14 AM

This is getting weirder.

And I get something to do. Cool! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on April 26, 2013, 04:50:59 AM

Dammit, CLoak. I know Bladeh in real life. Oh the feels :c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 08:11:45 AM

Well, she's not a background character in this book, as she usually is, is she, Sakki? ;)

I'll try to finish off this book today.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Vox's Hostage

Days passed. Excruciating days where no information or lead surfaced. Yarin has resumed his post in communications, but had begun to lose his vigor at find Richard's signal -- kind of like breeding Pokemon for a shiny.

"My . . . RAFians . . ."

It was barely audible. Yarin had diffuculty making out the words. He was about to dismiss it when he heard:

"Can you hear me? . . ."

"Huh?" Yarin muttered inquistively.

"My RAFians? . . ."

"Richard . . . ?"

"Yarin. . . ."

"Yes! Yes, it's me." Yarin said eagerly. "Richard, where are you?"

"I dunno . . ."

"Try! What do you see? What's your environment?"

"Void. . . ."

"Richard, the signal is weakening. What else can you tell me? What else?"

"They watch. . . ."

"'They'? Who's 'they'? Richard! Answer me, please!"

"I don't know what they are. . . ."

"I'm losing you . . ." Yarin working frantically to boost the signal.

"I'm losing you."

Yarin swore loudly, in his native Nyac, as he lost the signal.

Meanwhile, Cloak and Aquilai was watching video of Stonehedge and the way that it was glowing so perversely. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 08:44:50 AM

Okay, currently on Chapter Six of "Muppet, Muppet Man", as far as chapter-plannin' is going.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Hedgin' a Vox Transport

"I can't believe I didn't see it before," Aquilai said.  "Stonehenge is nothing more than a Vox chronal transport. A way to get into their guarded territory."
 
Aquilai examined the video captured from the site.
 
"It's rather sloppy of them, when you think about it." the Time Lord commented. "Putting it there, right out in the open, quite conspicuous."
 
"Perhaps it wasn't sloppy at all," Cloak said, suspiciously. "It could very well be a trap."
 
"And they could have very well been careless." Aquilai insisted. "Cloak, you really shouldn't be so paranoid all the time."
 
"When I wasn't, I blundered into a trap by the Music Miser," Cloak informed him.
 
"Let it go, that happened a long time ago." Aquilai said, cuffing Cloak on the shoulder.
 
Cloak remained surly, but he had reached his decision. "Trap or no, I will go. There are a few things that I'd like to say to these Vox creeps."
 

***

"Are you sure that we shouldn't have told anyone?" Aquilai asked.
 
"Oh, I let Itellsya see me leave, and didn't you notice how I was speaking just a little loudly than necessary?" Cloak said as he scrutinized the structures. "Kinda looks like a Galvin practical joke, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Aquilai said drily. "But why would it matter if Itellsya was aware of our departure and the reasons behind it?"

"Don't you know? Itellsya is the biggest gossip in RAF." Cloak said. "And he never quite knows when to shut up, so he isn't very big on the brains category."

"So, are we going or not?" Aquilai said, stepping into the ruins.

Then the two travelled into the realm of the Vox, to retrieve Richard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 26, 2013, 09:10:28 AM

Fun. Cloak, you are cleaver. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 09:12:07 AM

How am I a cleaver? I'm a tiger-form Realm Walker. ;) :P

Three more chapters to go before this book is over -- unless I split a chapter in two.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Subspace Skirmish

"He's been contacting his brethren," the smaller Vox told the larger.
 
"But how?" the other queried passively, as if this was only a mild nuisance.
 
"There is not enough evidence as of yet to determine," the first said.
 
"Well, you don't speak as annoyingly as a Kraangdroid," a voice cut through to the two Vox.
 
"What's this?" the larger said.
 
"A Time Meddler and a Reality Transcender," the smaller said.
 
"That's Time Lord, you bloody hypocrites," Aquilai snarled.
 
"The Time Meddler does enjoy his self-proclaimed title of 'Lord'," the larger one said, as if this wasn't glaringly obvious.
 
"And I am a Walker," Cloak said, "a Realm Walker."
 
"You are insignificant ant," the smaller Vox said, addressing Cloak for the first time.
 
"Gnat," the larger one corrected.
 
"Gnat," the smaller one agreed.
 
"And I though my kind were arrogant," Cloak commented wearily.
 
"You cannot to anything to us in our own domain -- we know of your elemental prowess." the larger one lectured.
 
"There are no elements here for which to bend to your will," the smaller one explained.
 
"You think so?" Cloak said with a sardonic smirk and a raised eyebrow. Then he executed a right hook and seemed to mimic Guile's Sonicboom projectile which hit the larger one directly into the face (not that it was exactly a small target).
 
"The gnat dares to strike at us!!" the larger one roared.
 
"Aquilai, get Richard and prepare to leave." Cloak whispered, in an aside to Aquilai.
 
"But, I can fight!"
 
"There is nothing here for you to bend," Cloak pointed out practically. "I still can use my energy offensively. Go now."

Aquilai may not have liked it but Cloak was right.  Cloak battled rather viciously with the Vox, as Aquilai managed to seize Richard and was heading back to the transporter.

"They are taking what we rightfully took," the smaller Vox pointed out.

"You had no right in taking Richard," Cloak countered.

"We had every right! Whatever we decide is what's right!" the larger one roared.

They were swarming him now.  Cloak just smiled grimly as he removed his cloak . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 26, 2013, 10:36:51 AM

And thus, the secret of Stonehenge is finally revealed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 10:47:23 AM

Yep.

And I've recently found a Superpower Wikia . . . which leads me to think that I rather underutilized some aspects of the Elements. . . .

Anyway, new page!

• Book XXXIII: Emotional Food

The RAFians must confront a different kind of vampire.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 26, 2013, 11:10:37 AM

This is kinda cool. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 26, 2013, 01:19:50 PM

Wait, I thought you weren't supposed to take off the cloak.....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 09:34:48 PM

It's kind of necessary for the tougher foes who won't go down any other way, Abby. It's really a last-ditch move, but only happens for a few seconds. If the cloak were to remain off, however . . .

It's like firing a flamethrower at the Mississippi River -- would three seconds dry it up completely? Or would a long sustained blast? It's the best analogy that I can come up with at the moment.

And I know you're still relatively new, but double-posting (with exceptions of chapters and the RAFparodies (and "bumping" threads, apparently), it is usually frown on double-posting.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Richard Restored To RAF

After recuperating from his ordeal, Richard resumed his responsibilities. Phoenix practically stumbled over himself to give back the burden to Richard.

"Gee, thanks," Richard said sardonically, when he met Phoenix's eagerness to step down.

"Just promise me on thing," Phoenix said.

"And that would be?"

"Never get kidnapped and held hostage again." Phoenix said, quite seriously.

***

Meanwhile, Cloak was second-guessing his actions in the Vox Void, that subspace chronal . . . place.

He had only removed his cloak for all of three seconds. It was enough to destroy the two Vox. But . . . was it really a necessary measure? Did he go overboard? Did really use excessive force?

There was little point in second-guessing himself now. Now that the act was done. He couldn't undo it. His guilt would not abate, nor would his conscience. He couldn't run from it.

"Cloak -- are you okay?" said a voice.

"I'm fine, Aquilai." Cloak said.

"You're second-guessing your decision," Aquilai said astutely.

Cloak said nothing, but haunched his shoulders a bit.

"Cloak, if you don't mind me saying so," Aquilai began, "but it seems to me that no one is as hard on you than you yourself are."

Cloak said nothing, but haunched his shoulders more.

"Eventually, Cloak," Aquilai said, cuffing his shoulder, "you'll allow yourself to feel."

Then he left and Cloak hesitated a moment, then journeyed to his thread.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 26, 2013, 09:55:48 PM

With the superpower wiki at your hand every character will do something amazing with their powers and I'd love the creativity in it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 10:29:23 PM

Too right, Underseen.

Now, final (probably short) chapter before #33!

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Schemes and Dreams

Cloak was standing in what appeared to be a city carved from snow and ice. He could quite decide if it was a Cryolacite city or the Northern Water Tribe.

Then he saw a monstrous figure, and he gasped, "Koi-zilla!"

But it wasn't. It was a silhouette of himself, representing his darkest emotions, impulses and desires. The things he so ardently tried to keep in check and suppress.

The suddenly seemed to be a great sandy, earthen bowl where this silhoutte was in a sphere of wind with eyes like golden-scarlet suns. And Cloak was frozen in place.

The darkness that all sentient, sapient creatures have. The silhouette was the yang to his yin.

It scared the crap out of him.

He woke with a start, sitting up in his wrought iron bed. It wasn't the first time he had a fragmented dream such as that.

He kicked his legs over the side of the bed, feet upon the cloth lining the entirety of his thread. He leaned over and held his head in his hands. His breathing ragged.

Everyone has a darkness inside, but Cloak was scared to death of his.

***

"The Vox failed," Abomination said.

"I'm not surprised," Malice said. "Though I can see the darkness of Cloak's heart is growing."

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Malice said dismissively. "I've got to release a new opponent for the RAFians."

"I'll come too," Abomination said.

"No," Malice said firmly and acidly. "The last thing I need is for Van Pyrrhus to feed on you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 26, 2013, 10:42:35 PM

Oh Vampires are her plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2013, 11:17:27 PM

Vampire. Singular. And a rather unique one at that.

I'll start the new book later on today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 27, 2013, 08:12:17 AM

Can't wait to read it.   :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2013, 09:42:27 AM

Well, here's the first (probably short) chapter, then. Don't expect more than one or two today.

BOOK XXXIII:
EMOTIONAL FOOD
CHAPTER ONE:
Enter Van Pyrrhus

Malice had gone and easily procured a strange, ornate box that looked very much like a Rubix cube with the center squares on each said missing, and a bluish lumpy pustule in their place. The other squares were a tarnished gold. She had purloined from a rather ancient-looking temple, which she had no qualms about destroying and decimating to get her prize.

Malice held up, smiling maliciously. "With just how dangerous Vam Pyrrhus was, you'd think that they'd make one actually expend energy to obtain this box."

Then she dropped her arm and looked at it from eye level. "A vampire so dangerous, so powerful, so fear-inducing, that not even Madre de Vampyra could exercise any control over him."

Then Malice went to work figuring out just how to open the box and free this unusual vampire, this Van Pyrrhus. But Malice wasn't nearly as smart as she thought -- Madre de Vampyra knew what she was doing when she sealed Van away.

"Clearly, this is the wrong artifact." Malice said, her face contorted in frstration and rage. She threw it over her shoulder.

When it landed, it twisted and reconfigured into opening. Malice didn't miss this, and saw as a black light issued from the opened box. Before Walking away, she smirked and muttered, "I'm such a genius."

The creature which that stepped from the broken cube that imprisoned and incarcerated him for so long was roughly Namekian in silhouette. He had smooth green skin like Jim Carey when he wore the Mask, and his antennae looked more like that of a Beedrill than a Namekian. He had a perma-smile and sharp, pointed nose like the Joker. He had a bald head, and large bat-like ears with rudimentary wings attached to his arms. He possessed large hands with a penknife-like claw on every one of his fourteen fingers (including two opposable thumbs). His feet were digitigrade, sporting two large claws and clawed spur. He also possessed a smooth, reptilian tail, which was tipped with what looked like a stinger.

But, unlike the more conventional vampire, he lacked fangs of any type or sort. When he spoke, his voice sounded to be a demonic hybridization of King Piccolo and Mark Hamill's Joker.

"Free," he mutter looking at his hands, "free at last."

Then he looked up, contorting its face into a deeper a deeper smile, which made look like it was gnashing its teeth.

"I'm free . . . and famished." he said, with relish.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 27, 2013, 09:46:34 AM

It's just the first chapter. and we're in trouble already.

Oh, uh, Cloak, you need to fix those URLs in your siggy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 27, 2013, 11:57:20 AM

It is scary how clearly I can hear that nightmare inducing voice in my head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2013, 12:23:42 PM

Saffa, those URLs are that way for a reason -- being that I can't adjust them into links right now, or I'd have already done so. Sorry if I sound a little snippy, but I just came from doing some errands in the rain -- and I don't have a car.

And, Underseen, you haven't seen what he can do yet. . . . ;)

EDIT: Again, sorry for the snippiness earlier.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Cat "Force"

While Van Pyrrhus was relishing his newly-realized freedom, back at RAF, Bladeh, FuBar, Bladeh, and every other feline RAFians were forced to their knees, figuratively-speaking.

"Huh? Bladeh, what's wrong?" Sakki asked.

"A great evil," she said.

"Care to elaborate?"

But then, Blade began to shake uncontrollably.

***

"Cloak!" Underseen said, alarmed.

"You're . . . you're shaking," Saffa said.

It was true. Cloak, like all other felines globally, started to shake and tremble uncontrollably. There was a great evil, on that hadn't been felt for many millenia.

"What is it?" Aquilai asked shrewdly. "What evil had been unleashed?"

"Evil?" Abby said, clearly confused.

"Cloak is a tiger beneath that cloak, Abby," Aquilai began.

"And I can sense evil, as all cats can," Cloak said.

"So . . . Black Lanterns?" Underseen asked.

"Dementors?" Saffa asked, unable to keep the tone of fear from her voice.

"Inferi?" Abby asked.

"Line-dancing vampires?" Aquilai queried jokingly, though he had sounded serious.

"None of the above," Cloak said, unable to suppress a shutter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 27, 2013, 06:05:45 PM

Well Aquilai was the closest.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2013, 08:58:50 PM

True, Underseen.

CHAPTER THREE:
You Will Not Pass!

Gaz stood at threshold of RAF. She felt what the cats felt, but didn't know why. She was a vampire, not a cat. She looked out at the ground beyond RAF's borders, deep in thought.

It was dusk now, but, being a vampire, her night vision was superior than that of a "flatscan" human (that is to say, a human without any inherent powers). Her gaze picked out something that seemed to coalesced from the very night. It had a face that not even a mother would love.

In her shock, she took several steps backward, into the forum. This . . . this thing, whatever it was, was that off-putting, that ugly.

Its horrid voice cut through the night like a cleaver through meat. It addressed Gaz.

"You're afraid," it had said.

It was able to "see" Gaz not as most could, but with a vision similar to thermal vision. Only it didn't see heat.

"Yes . . . you're feeling fear. It's quite clear that you're terrified."

"You're wrong," Gaz said attempting to swallow said fear.

"Oh," he said, approaching closer and Gaz found herself actually rooted to the spot, "it is pointless to lie to me, when it comes to feelings and emotion. I can see them as clearly as you see freckles on a face. Now -- ACK!"

It was then he discovered he couldn't cross the threshold into the forum. He hadn't been invited, and he was nowhere near welcomed.

He attempted to seduce Gaz.

"How's 'bout inviting me in, dearie?" he said.

But Gaz was gone, but not be fore some yellow energy had left her being and was hoovered up into Van Pyrrhus's ugly maw. He licked his lips, and muttered, "Delicious emotion."

Then he pressed his hand what appeared to be a temporary plastic wrap bubble that was invisible except where he put his hand.

"Don't think yourselves safe from me," he muttered, mildly. "Your delicious emotions will satiate me soon enough."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 27, 2013, 09:09:33 PM

Wow, so you really have to invite a vampire in.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2013, 09:39:27 PM

Depends on the power level of the vampire, I believe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 28, 2013, 02:17:43 AM

Oookay. Creepy guy.

I think my ESP would've probably gone mental in my head screaming "Evil! Evil! Trap ahead! Danger!" :P 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2013, 11:42:13 AM

A lot of old-school vampires can be, I believe, Saffa. The modern-day vampires are more like the ones in "Being Human" or "Angel", I believe.

CHAPTER FOUR:
All-Points Bulletin

The RAFians quickly assembled in the auditorium after Yarin, who managed to see Gaz's encounter with Van Pyrrhus, called into the intercom, "RAFians, assemble!"

"What? We're Avengers now?" Horse said, as she toddled into the auditorium with the rest.

Once there, there was an outpour of chatter. Parker and Blaze were having an argument over who had the most points in the training sim. Two rather newer RAFians that Cloak wasn't familiar with were swapping recipes. AniDragon and Underseen were apparently comparing Pokémon or whatnot. Emotions were running high.

Cloak noticed that none of the feline RAFians -- himself included -- were being so jovial. Neither was Gaz, Saffa, Shanker, Yarin, or any of the mods. It was as if all of them knew the seriousness of the situation. It didn't help that not all of these meetings and announcements in the past were all of grave importance, but some, like the announcements of the dates for the RAFparty, were met with earnest frivolity.

Richard approached the podium on the raised stage. Cloak felt a little bit more relaxed knowing that he was there, considering all he and Aquilai did to retrieve him from the Vox.

"RAFians! RAFians!" Richard said, attempting to steam the talk. "Lend me your ears!"

A pair of pointed ears landed at Richards feet. They were old, plastic, novelty ears.

"Very funny, Demos," Richard replied drily, then he insisted, "This is serious!!"

That got everybody's undivided attention. Then Richard related Gaz's encounter with the emotion vampire.

"Van Pyrrhus?" Shanker interrupted duddenly, quite alarmed, upon hearing the description. "It's real?"

"Oh yeah," Gaz said suppressing as shiver.

"You know of this creature, then?" Cloak said, standing at his spot in the back, arms folded most severely.

"Only legends, really," Shanker said. He was not handling this shock very well. "They say that he didn't feed on -- on blood, like a proper vampire. He chose to feed on emotions, all emotions. Feed on every last one, until his victim is a dessiccated, dried-out . . . thing."

Shanker took a couple of shaky breaths, before continuing.

"He doesn't even need to bite -- acvording to the legends, he didn't even have fangs --"

"Well, he has a face not even his mother could love." Gaz retorted, allowing herself a small shutter.

"That's thing," Shanker looking directly at her, "his mother is -- was -- Madre de Vampyra. She birthed him."

"You mean 'sired' him, right?" Abby asked.

"No, the legends specifically state that she birthed him."

"Great, now I have a little sympathy for the old bat," Gaz muttered mutinously.

"And, according to legend, she also sealed him away because she could not control him." Shanker said, running a hand through his hair, looking pale. "She always was a control freak."

"But . . . then who let him out?" Abby asked aloud.

"Malice. Who else?" Phoenix said with a shrug.

"No," Cloak said with ringing tones.

"Huh? Why not?" Underseen asked.

"Because, if this thing really does feed on emotions, she'd be affected." Cloak said. "Realm Walkers possess emotions, like any feeling beast in existance."

"But it couldn't kill her, right?" Saffa asked. "I thought only another Realm Walker could kill another Realm Walker."

Cloak's eyes darkened, "You'd be surprised what you could live through."

It was clear he wasn't thinking of Malice as he said that.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 28, 2013, 12:13:11 PM

That guy's creepy. Creepy vampire type dude.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2013, 02:13:21 PM

And he ain't gonna get any less creepy, Gaz. But he'll get bored easily enough. Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A New Target

Van Pyrrhus remained at the threshold of RAF, hoping to seduce a RAFian to let him in, to invite him in. He very nearly succeeded when it apppeared, for a moment that Rotiart fell under his thrall. But, it was revealed, that Rotiart had decided Van Pyrrhus was something else with burning red eyes, as he proceeded to the auditorium.

Soon, Van Pyrrhus could not see any emotions within the forum to snack on.

No angry reds. No greedy oranges. No fearful yellows. No hopeful blues. No compassionate indigos. No lovely pinks. Nothing.

Van Pyrrhus, to his credit, did wait. He waited for whatever meeting these creatures with emotions had, not knowing where they've gone.

While he could see emotion, as well as having acute night vision, he could not see through walls and more than the average flatscan human.

Van Pyrrhus speculated aimlessly that the emotional-prey had gone to plot against him. they always plotted against him, even his own mother forsake him. Of course, Van Pyrrhus didn.t know that Madre de Vampyra was dead. . . .

Eventually, the emotion vampire got bored, and began to poke around RAF's borders.

Then looked in the direction of the Bannedlands, which, to Van Pyrrhus's eyes, glowed red with anger, bitterness, and resentment. He considered travelling there to feed briefly.

Then he caught sight of the nearest city, which seemed to be alive with feeling.

Van Pyrrhus weighed his options. The Bannedlands looked to taste quite sour and not as appetizing as that city.

The city . . .

It appealed to him as a world of candy would appeal to Homer Simpson. . . .

There really wasn't a choice here, was there?

Van Pyrrhus, salivating at the thought at all those delicious emotions, galloped off towards the bright lights of the unsuspecting city. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 28, 2013, 06:56:20 PM

Were did you get the idea of Van Pyrrhus anyway?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2013, 07:13:51 PM

Hmm . . . *rubs chin* . . . an interesting question. . . .

I suppose intial idea came from an old "Are You Afraid of the Dark" episode, I think -- I couldn't really remember the episode (it scared me as a child -- had an overactive imagination) or its title, but there was this everpresent image of a monster sucking the emotions out of someone he was holding up with one hand.

"Van Pyrrhus" was initially "Van Pyrra", which was a pun off of the word "vampire" (say Van Pyrra aloud).

The initial design wasn't really designed until the night before I wrote and posted the chapter.

Hopefully, that answers your question, Underseen.

Anyway, I probably won't post any more chapters until tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 28, 2013, 10:51:54 PM

Oh crap!! *facepalms* I didn't realize I double posted until you said something...

Nothing is ever very easy for us, is it? It's always something... This is going to be interesting...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 29, 2013, 03:12:57 AM

What's a superhero without some work to do, eh? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 08:14:21 AM

Right, Saffa.

Planned out the first ten chapters of "Larval Ambush", and it'll probably be a dark book.  Thus far, it appears that Aquilai, Cerulean, Demos, Dino, Goom, Horse, Parker, Phoenix, Saffa, Sakki, Underseen, Yarin, and myself (big surprise there) will have appearances, unless something changes when it comes time to write and post it.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• *Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• *Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 08:19:35 AM

Now, let's see if I can get another five chapters up.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
To Protect the World From Devestation -- or Not

Cloak felt it, like a firebender feeling the sun after a solar eclipse. The evil that lurked around RAF's borders was receding. Not disappearing, but moving. Moving away, nearly out of range.

"Hear me," Cloak said. "The evil, this Van Pyrrhus, is moving away from the site."

"What?" Richard said, at once.

"Where is he going?"

"Has he been killed?"

"Maybe he's just going to the Bannedlands."

These were among the rising roar of voices that was heard. It was much too loud.

"Quiet, all of you!" Cloak snapped, unleashing some emotion he tries to bury, "yelling out questions all at the same time so that it is impossible to distinguish words isn't helpful."

But it was no use. even Cloak couldn't make himself heard. The thoughts and worries of a creature able to consume emotions, it was certainly a fear-inducing and discomforting idea. Cloak eventually resorted to let loose his tiger roar, something he hadn't utilized in a while.

Rotiart yelped and cowered in his seat. The other RAFians quited down, but Cloak knew they were on a razor's edge from bursting into noise again. Cloak had a personal dislike for prolonged loud noise.

"Look, as disconcerting as this news is, breaking out into a panic won't help matters." Cloak said. "So, calm yourselves down and don't work yourselves up. That'll serve no purpose other than attracting it to you."

Of course, this has the opposite effect that Cloak desired. Cloak feeling annoyed left the auditorium.

***

Meanwhile, in the city, it was foggy. A lone woman with a strawberry blonde ponytail, white headband with a blue stripe, and a red windbreaker was jogging rather nonchalantly.She was feeling good and happy, indifferent to the cool evening air.

But, from out of the fog loomed such a fearsome silhouette, and filled the woman with fear. She screamed as Van Pyrrhus sucked the emotion out of here in whites, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, indigos, pinks, and blacks.

The woman flopped to the ground, a cross between petrified wood and a mummy.

Van Pyrrhus just wiped his mouth with his arm and licked his lips.

"Delicious, and so tasty." he muttered. The woman was his third victim this night, and still his hunger was not satiated. It seemed to be on par with a Taxxon's lust for sustenance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 08:55:04 AM

You know, eventually I will only be able to post one or two chapters a day. Just don't get used to this "five-chapters-a-day" deal. Maybe a short chapter comin' up.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Impatience

Cloak stood around outside the auditorium, waiting for what he assumed would be a solution, a plan of action. Something. But he stood discovered that they were still talking in rather loud, rumbling voices.  Eventually his own impatience got the better of him, and, disregarding the fact that he was just as susceptible to this vampire as the others, he left the threshold of the forum.

Little did he know that Noelle, Aquilai, Underseen, and Saffa had came after him, after they realized that he had left. They were fearful to leave the safety and sanctity of the forum's protection, which extended to the grounds. To leave was to put themselves at risk.

The only being immune to Van Pyrrhus was one devoid of emotion. And the four did not know one creature such as that -- though Cloak, Horse, and many old-timers did know one.

"He can't go out there!" Saffa proclaimed. "Surely he must realize the risk!"

"Looks like he already did," Underseen said, fretfully.

<This isn't like Cloak,> Noelle said. <This isn't like him to disregard danger and his own susceptibility.>

"Cloak's been burdened with guilt recently," Aquilai said knowingly. "He feels guilt for what he did to the Vox. He wonders if it was too excessive."

"He just took of his cloak, didn't he?" Underseen asked.

"Yes, and thereby, he killed the two Vox who kidnapped Richard.  He feels that maybe it didn't come down to executing them in such a fashion." Aquilai explained, having heard all this from Cloak firsthand. "He wonders if he didn't act according to the values he subscribes to."

<But he was just making sure they didn't kidnap Richard again --> Noelle began.

"Yes, but he still questions the necessary amount of force he brought to the table," Aquilai interrupted.  Then he looked beyond the borders of RAF, as he mused, "This must be his way of getting his honor back.  To wash away with what he must see as a sin."

"Isn't this, in and of itself, excessive?" Saffa asked.

Aquilai remained silent, as to let the question stand.

"We have to go and save him, don't we?" Underseen asked.

Silence from all four.

***

Cloak ran until he had to slow to a trot.  His thoughts swirling around his head seemed to be unbearable.  But his face showed no emotion, his body emanated no emotion. He was used to suppressing his emotions, it was how he survived being around a narcissistic, egotistical mother. Now it was an asset to him, or so he believed.

Cloak slowed his pace as he approached the city -- he knew the creature was here.  It had the faint scent of wet dog, which only olfactory sense such as his and beyond could pick up.  Humans had such pathetic senses of smell, they would not be able to flee, to escape, Van Pyrrhus.

Cloak slowly approached the city limits, his emotions buried deep.

***

Van Pyrrhus was feasting upon the homeless in the city.  This evil beast seemed to take the most delight when caught a homeless child, and fed.  Fed off their fear, their anxiety, their panic. It was disgusting. It was vile.

It was cruel.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 09:38:41 AM

Three more chapters today, I think.  Don't hold me to that -- just hope my energy holds out.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Fuelled By Emotion

Van Pyrrhus had seized a boy with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes and a red Star Trek shirt, who was taking out the trash as demanded by his mother.  Van Pyrrhus began to suck out his emotions in the rainbow colors -- it was like he was vomiting a rainbow in reverse. Not only was it vile, but it was also very gross-looking.
 
Soon enough, the boy's skin was wrinkled and creased so much, he looked like a mummy or petrified wood in a blonde wig and modern-day clothes. He was sucked dry, and Van Pyrrhus discarded the poor boy's body rather unceremoniously before he left, wiping his Joker-like grin with his arm.
 
Had Van Pyrrhus more presence of mind, he would have fed on the mother who knew instantly that the mummified corpse was that of her boy and she lamented loudly, which Van Pyrrhus seemed to have discarded.  He seemed to have fed his fill tonight, but needed to find a place to rest for the day -- for he, like many other vampires, were heliosensitive -- that is to say, sensitive to the sun's rays.
 
But, unbeknowst to Van Pyrrhus, Cloak had seen this and was repulsed.
 
"Stop right there, vile monster." Cloak said, at the emotional vampire.
 
Van Pyrrhus, unaccustomed to being unable to see a being capable of speech via emotions, was surprised.  "What? Who are you? More importantly, where are you?"
 
"That is immaterial and irrelevant," Cloak said coldly.
 
Van Pyrrhus squinted. He saw dark images of swirling grays that soon brightened to muted colors in one spot. Then his smiled deepened as he taunted, "You think you're the only one who tried to suppress their emotions to face me? It does not work.  True, it makes your emotions more difficult to see -- difficult, but not impossible."
 
Now Cloak realized that he was in some serious trouble.
 
"Fearing me now, I see?" the vampire taunted again.

The night was beginning to be disspelled as the first light of the day was beginning to crest into the city.

"I'll feed on you later," Van Pyrrhus said, "don't go away now, delicious."

Then he left, and Cloaky was stunned.  How pathetically juvenile he was. Why did he think just suppressing his emotions would be enough? Why did he believe that burying them would prevent Van Pyrrhus from seeing him? He was a stupid, stupid fool.

It was at this point that Saffa, Underseen, Noelle, and Aquilai had come to collect him.  He went with them without a fight, and in silence -- after assuring them that Van Pyrrhus never fed on him. Had it not been the well-timed appearance of the sun . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 29, 2013, 10:25:18 AM

This is really gripping stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 10:29:53 AM

I'm glad you think so, Saffa.

Anyway, new page -- so here's the list again.

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 10:32:09 AM

Two more chapters, at most -- probably -- today. Probably gonna be a short one
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Old Feelings and Isolation

Van Pyrrhus needed to find a hideout. The sun's rays would burn his green hide -- turning it into a jaundiced yellow color. That part would eventually collapse into sulphurous powder.  He would be able to regenerated, but he'd need to feed more in order to accomplish such.  So he didn't want it to happen.
 
He found an old playhouse.  He could quite literally taste the old feelings this place had wrought, it fed him as if he were taking fifteen minute sips of a juice box.  It was dark, secluded, the perfect place in which to spend the days, to rest and sleep.
 
Van Pyrrhus didn't dream, not in the conventional sense.  He just relived the emotional memories of those that he feasted upon. His mind has an extensive library of such memories.  Memories of hate, greed, fear, stubbornness, hope, compassion, and love. Memories of gluttony, lust, avarice, pride, wrath, sloth, and envy.  Memories of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility -- even though some of those may not be considered emotions.
 
He relished these "dreams", they were all he had when he was in that stupid little box.  They were all he had to pass the years, the centuries, the millenia that had gone by with him crammed into the stupid little box.  The thought of the incarceration again simultaneously chilled him and riled him.
 

***

Cloak returned to RAF, and the meeting had finally adjourned.  They were apparently unaware of Cloak's little excursion to the city, unaware of his confrontation of Van Pyrrhus. Cloak looked up and saw the communciations tower -- which resembled an air traffic controller's tower -- and knew that Yarin would have been able to see him leaving the forum.  He left on foot and had not Walked to the the city. Such precision in a universe was unheard of . . . except for . . . Shadow. Even now, it pained Cloak to think of her, how she had been cruelly ripped from him due to his mother's machinations.
 
"Cloak, are you alright?" Saffa asked.
 
"I'm fine," Cloak said repressively.
 
"That's not gonna fly Cloak," Aquilai said. "What happened?"

"I told you what happened."
 
<You only told us that Van Pyrrhus did not feed on you.> Noelle pointed out. <There is much more you left out.>

"Yes, and we'd like an answer, too." Richard said, upon arriving.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 04:57:11 PM

Now, last chapter of the day. Dunno if I can get five chapters up tomorrow.

CHAPTER TEN:
Clash of Egos

"Why did you go out on your own?" Richard asked. There was no hostility in his tone or gestures. It was just a question that he genuinely wanted an answer to.

Cloak couldn't just disregard the question put that way. He haunched his shoulders in a surly way -- although it just had the effect of a naughty teenager who had been caught sneaking out.

"Cloak, I'd really appreciate an answer," Richard pressed. "Surely, you were aware of the risks, the potential danger? Even you inferred susceptibility to the emotion vampire's effects."

"Got tired of waiting for action to be taken," Cloak said, and he hated the defensive tone in his voice.

<I've just about have had it with your loner act, pal.> Esplin flared up.

Cloak narrowed his eyes dangerously mutinous, "I go where I want to go."

Esplin was about to retort, but Richard held his hand up, signaling his silence.

"Be that as it may," Richard said, "the point is that it was quite reckless. What if it managed to feed on you? What if it killed you?"

Cloak wasn't about to back down at this, "No less than ten people were attacked this night. Three of them were children! Sitting around in hysterics will accomplish nothing!"

"What other choice do we have? No one here is immune." SuperNate said, in a stab to be reasonable.

"It is heliosensitive. Just like Madre de Vampyra. Estelore --"

"-- Is currently investigating the Omicron Persei star system." Phoenix pointed out.

Cloak realized what he learned was essentially useless information. He felt crestfallen but angrily defiant.

"Still," he insisted, "this proves that it is not an invincible juggernaut as once thought! He has vulnerabilities."

Richard's eyes widened a bit, "You're right about that, I suppose. But the fact of the matter remains, only one without emotions stands a chance against that monster."

Then the mods left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 29, 2013, 05:04:53 PM

You do such a good job at leaving me to wait, impatiently, for the next chapter. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2013, 05:15:32 PM

 >:D

Well, Abby, I could do similarly what GameFreak does to Pokémon and release a chapter a month. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 29, 2013, 05:40:00 PM

Ya.... No thank you...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2013, 07:02:48 AM

Eh, I wouldn't do that. GameFreak can be a bit of a douche sometimes (I understand why they're drawing it out, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it).

Now, a shortish chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The One Without Emotion

"A being without emotions," Cloak said aloud from his thread sometime later, "is it even possible? All sentient, sapient beings feel, even if they suppress it, like I do."

Cloak paced around his thread, thinking on this. Pondering a solution. But he couldn't concoct one without a RAFian sacrificing themselves, and he would only take his own life so lightly.

"The one," Cloak repeated again, "the one without emotion . . ."

A machine? No, you can only program so much into an artificial construct without having the machine becoming self-aware and sentient -- and, yes, having emotions themselves, therefore defeating the entire purpose.

"The one . . ."

The notion came back to Cloak, as if to appeal its case once more, but Cloak soundly dismissed it. It couldn't have been that simple.

". . . Without emotions. . . ." Cloak muttered again.

The notion popped up again, refusing to be silenced. It was like the grating voice of a certain YouTube "star". Incessant and persistent. Cloak disregarded it once more as he considered other, less extreme ideas. Granted the notion wasn't as extreme as uncloaking -- which wouldn't work because it would require a relatively close proximity to work without damaging this realm. But this persistent notion was extreme, and dangerous.

The dangerous and extreme nature of it did not make it really truly viable. Yet it would not leave him be.

For he, and the more senior RAFians knew of a being that could be described as without emotions, that is rabidness perdonified, in a way. But the danger was to great . . . too great.

And Cloak wasn't sure it would even work . . . and Horse would never approve of such an idea. . . .

But . . . if it worked . . . would that justify the risk? It coul very well be a PR nightmare, and there's the Knights of Humanity always waiting for an opportunity to abuse their reputations . . .

Whatever happens, it would be he, Cloak, to bear the responsibility. It would be his burden to bear. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 30, 2013, 07:17:11 AM

*waits in anticipation to find out what it is*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 30, 2013, 07:20:40 AM

^^agrees.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2013, 08:59:14 AM

Just . . . just don't expect five chapters today. I just got some rather demoralizing news that I do not really want go into right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 30, 2013, 10:19:53 AM

I think I know what the being is. (And don't worry Cloaky, I'm not putting out any spoilers ;) )

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2013, 12:07:50 PM

Eh, with the posting of the last chapter, I think it would be a bit obvious -- but, then again, everything is obvious to a writer of a piece.

Probably a short chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Interview With A Ninja

"Don't you already know all this?" Blue had said.

"I must be sure, Blue." Cloak said. "I must be sure of its backstory, it was before my time here. I must be sure I'm not neglecting to remember anything relevant."

"Well, let's see," Blue said tapping his chin thoughtfully. "It was born from Toc, Anna, and Ken -- let's not get into the specifics -- and quickly grew to be a bloodthirsty monster."

"You're glossing over things," Cloak pointed out.

"I don't pretend to be the expert on the Pootang, Cloak," Blue said, "but this is the extent of my knowledge of the matter. You can take it or leave it."

"Acknowledged," Cloak relented, "please, continue."

"Well, the Pootang became a big problem," Blue said, "so it was capture in the monstrous enclosed paddock below."

Then Blue looked at Cloak with a suspicious glint in his eye, "But, just why do you want to know."

Cloak hesitated just a second too long before remarking, "Just . . . an idea."

"You think the Pootang is incapable emotion, don't you?"

"I didn't say that," Cloak replied a second too quickly.

***

The sun was now beginning to wane. Soon, its rays of the star Sol would not be an obstacle to Van Pyrrhus.

He would feed again, and more lives would be lost, because a living being's emotions could not be excised from them anymore than their free will could. They could be suppressed, intensified, minimized, or manipulated, just like free will, but not separated without severe detrimental effects.

Van Pyrrhus quite literally slept on his feet, resting his weight on his tail and his two feet.

As the shadows grew longer, his red-yellow eyes began to open groggily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on April 30, 2013, 12:53:49 PM

I should have known.   :XD:


And I hope everything's okay.   :-\

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2013, 01:24:32 PM

;)

Now another chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Feeling Gourmet

As the last few rays of sun faded into darkness, Van Pyrrhus stoof up straight, stretched, and yawned an inhuman yawn, contorting his face into one that would turn Medusa into stone. He scratched himself in a most inappropriate way, as he smacked his chapped lips.

"Time for some breakfast," he said, as he left his sleeping quarters. He saw immediately that this night he didn't have the luxury of fog to obscure his movements.

Didn't matter, though. He knew of humans pathetic night vision -- or lack there of. He'd just have to stay out of the artificial light hives -- that's what he thought streetlights were, bioluminescent bee hives.

He lurked in the shadows of an allyway, waiting for his first victim of the night.

He was fortunate -- there were two.

"Dude, the streetlights are coming on! My dad's gonna kill me!" a red-haired tweenager said.

"Then enough talking, and ride, dude. Ride like the wind." his fellow, a blacked-haired peer, said.

"Man, I'm gonna be so gr--"

The sentence was abruptly cut off as Van Pyrrhus chose that moment to strike. His hand was clamped firmly down on the boy's mouth as he fed on the terrified boy's emotions.

But his fellow noticed his friend's sudden disappearance, and thoughts of parental punishment, while not forgotten, given a lower priority.

"Tim? Tim? Where are you,Tim?" he said, having only seen his friends Schwinn.

It was at this point that Van Pyrrhus, discarding Tim's mummified remains aside like an apple core or orange rinds, that Van Pyrrhus wished that he could mimic voices perfectly like those Cyclops he heard about before he was incarcerated in that blasted cube.

But he just waited for the other boy, Bruce, to investigate. Just a little closer . . .

"Tim! We don't have time to screw around!"

. . . A little closer . . .

"Tim!"

. . . A little more . . .

"Tim?"

Just a tad more . . .

"Aaaah! You're definitely not Tim!" Bruce screamed, as Van Pyrrhus seized him. Soon, too soon, he met the same fate as Tim.

Discarding Bruce's mummified shell like Tim's, he licked his lips and muttered, "Yummy."

But these two innocent boys weren't going to be the only victims tonight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2013, 04:17:25 PM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Internal Conflict

Cloak had left Blue, who gazed after the Realm Walker, pretty much guessing his plan. But he was under the impression that Cloak's scheme would not work.

Cloak himself was unsure of the fruitfulness of this endeavor. He could be responsible for killing the Pootang. Granted, Horse would celebrate for a solid fortnight if this came to pass, Cloak's guilt would be too burdensome.

It wouldn't be fair to the Pootang, either. Never mind that it is a savage, bloodthirsty, rabid beast. It didn't really deserve to treated like a . . . like a . . . like a pawn.

Cloak stopped immediately when that crossed his mind. His eyes widened.

He was planning on using the Pootang to accomplish his goals. Using it, without any regard for its safety or any care of its preservation.

Cloak suddenly felt hollow, as if Van Pyrrhus had already fed on him. Cloak stood there frozen in epiphany.

Was he really better than Malice? Malice used Technarchy, Madre de Vampyra, dementors, those Xenomorphic Broods, the Bibliophaetos, Collector, Abomination, Dr. Gemini, and whoever this RAFian spy is. All to meet her goals, while she's uninterested and indifferent to their welfare, their well-being. She couldn't really care less if they died trying to accomplish her goals, fulfilling her motives.

And here was he, Cloak, Master of the Six Elements, granson of the great and noble Sage, just about to engage in a similarly despicable act.

Cloak's face soured at the thought. How could commit such an act of base selfishness, of such unfeeling cruelty?

But what choice was left to them? Pootang may very well be the only thing to be able to stand up to Van Pyrrhus. He could rationalize these worries away -- but Malice does that too. What right did Cloak have in using it against the beast anyway?

He had none.

Shadow's face swam before his face, and Cloak's expression darkened. How would he explain such an action to her? That lowering himself to Malice's standard he saved the day? How warped does that sound?

Cloak was wracked with indecision, afraid of becoming like Malice, of dishonoring his grandfather, of shaming his elder niece.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 30, 2013, 05:00:58 PM

:( good points...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2013, 05:42:59 PM

Not exactly the reaction I was expecting, Abby, but -- yes, they are. ;)

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Challenging Prey

Van Pyrrhus had just taken his thirteenth victim -- a football player on the victorious team after a game -- he was gorging. He had taken family members looking for the two boys, before he desired a "different taste".

He decided that he didn't want to finish off the whole team in their entirety, but he wondered away from the city -- which was in a delicious panic. But it was like gluttonously gobbling cookies for the vampire. This prey was too easy. He wasn't really hungry anymore. He was mostly hunting and feeding to have something to do. Because he was bored -- much like a bored human might turn to food for comfort.

Van Pyrrhus, ignoring the intoxicating panic that he helped to bring about, looked towards RAF.

He fantasized that the beings that dwelled there were stronger, wouldn't give up as easily. They'd be challenging prey, interesting prey -- if they were anything like that one fool who thought surpressing his emotions would make him invisible to Van Pyrrhus. That such a pitiful tactic would be sufficient to permit his destruction.

Van Pyrrhus found himself unconsciously heading towards RAF, towards delicious new challenges! Towards prey that would fight back!

The "invite-him-in" thing must have because he was not yet strong enough. He hadn't eaten then, he was weak . . .

Yes, that had to be it. There wasn't anything more than that.

***

Of course that wasn't it at all -- it was Code Avalon in its lowest setting. It was a measure to prevent the Pootang from ravaging the city, though it never has seemed to have an inkling or desire to do as such.

It mostly just wants to eat Horse, much to her chagrin.

Cloak was still on the grounds grappling with this epiphany. He very nearly became that which he and others despise.

Then he looked over, and saw that Van Pyrrhus at the threshold of RAF.

He crossed the barrier into the threshold.  There was no barrier.

Rotiart was supposed to be on-duty, watching it. He was clearly sleeping instead and it was disenga-- . . .

No . . . the spy.

The spy turned it off!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 30, 2013, 06:20:29 PM

Oh crap!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 06:18:32 AM

Too right "oh crap", Abby.

Short chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Defenseless and Senseless

"I knew your little shield wasn't enough," Van Pyrrhus gloated.

Cloak suppressed his emotions defensively.

"Haven't I already told you?" Van Pyrrhus taunted. "That doesn't work."

Cloak didn't really have any other option at the moment.  He would not use the Pootang like Malice uses people and things. He would prove to himself that he wasn't like her.

Besides . . . Van Pyrrhus couldn't kill him, just make him wish he was. Cloak knew this, but Van Pyrrhus didn't. Van Pyrrhus didn't know that he had pretty much inexhaustible food source in Cloak.

But it wasn't like Cloak was going to go down so easily.

Cloak tried to restrain Van Pyrrhus a la Aang with Yakone. But he somehow managed to squirm his way free.

Then Cloak stomped his foot and made a a swoopung gesture and a bunch of wooden stakes erupted from the ground. Van Pyrrhus used his superhuman flexibility to dodge.

"So you have a few tricks, I see," Van Pyrrhus's smile deepened. It made look more hideous than usual.

Cloak had another idea, but no idea if it would work -- it didn't work on Gaz. But, then again, Gaz is a very atypical vampire.

After a variety of quick movements, Cloak had placed running water between him and Van Pyrrhus in the form of a small river. Cloak wasn't even sure he could do such a thing.

It worked like a shield.

"Blast you!" Van Pyrrhus said, proving that even he, himself, was not immune to emotions.

Cloak made a mental note -- older vampires cannot cross running water. However, this was a temporary measure at best. He had best come up with another plan of action -- and soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 01, 2013, 07:29:40 AM

I am learning all these facts about Vampires from this book alone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 01, 2013, 07:39:59 AM

^^ same here. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 08:06:34 AM

And I learned it all from "Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire" direct-to-video movie, seen from Cartoon Network.  ^-^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 01, 2013, 10:30:26 AM

I remember watching that AGES ago - man, I was so young!

I've always wanted to b****-slap Rotiart ever since you introduced him (Hermione style :D ). Reminds me of this annoying little jealous twerp I knew in 7th grade.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 11:30:18 AM

Yeah -- I don't like him much myself.  Although considering his fate . . . oops! I've said too much. ;)

• Book XXXIV: Transformation Confrontation

The RAFians must confront some strange machines.

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 12:13:55 PM

Now, a new chapter . . . maybe -- just maybe I will finish this book today.  Granted, I won't reveal the identity of the spy until the book after next, in "Richard's Horn", itself a parody of "All Dogs Go To Heaven 2".
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Sunrise Again

Van Pyrrhus pounded on the force field created due the fact that he couldn't cross the running water. He was ticked, but, at the same time, he was thrilled.  He was thwarted.  He was actually thwarted! This just proved that these RAFians were the only truly challenging prey there was.  There was no need to feed on any other for any other reason than to fend off starvation.
 
But he knew that he would come back, and back, and back again until he managed to overwhelm or out think these RAFians. He never expected to feel this exhilarated at being brought to a stalemate.  He wanted a challenge, and, by Jove, he got it!  He worked his way around the running water -- but it wasn't any good.  It circled paradoxically around the form, as if a moving moat.  The creature in the cloak must be actively moving it.
 
Van Pyrrhus's perma-smirk deepened with malicious joy.  The cloaked one could not maintain such a defense indefinately.  He would tire, and then Van Pyrrhus would triumph!! He would deal with the problem of having to find another challenging prey later -- although he still did not know that he would be able to feed off of Cloak ceaselessly, as he would be unable to kill the feline Realm Walker.
 
Fortunately, Cloak had the presence of mind not to point this little fact out to the emotion vampire.  Van Pyrrhus waited for Cloak's strength to wane . . . but he neglected one flaw in this plan.  A rather big flaw.
 
The sun was rising up, slowly, but inevitably higher. Soon it's rays would be upon him, causing him unbearable pain.  So he gave up his pursuit -- for the moment -- and returned back to his hidey-hole in the city.
 
Cloak relaxed his efforts, lowering his arms, and letting out a huge sigh.  He felt a burden was lifted temporarily from his shoulders.  He would need to rest -- but he would need to have a word or two with Rotiart first. . . .
 

***

"What happened?" Abby asked, noticing Cloak's weariness after he finished reading Rotiart the riot act, and turned him over to the mods for proper discipline -- although making sure Phoenix knew who Cloak really thought was responsible.

Part of him made him want to question if even that was the proper thing to do, as Phoenix could have been the spy. But then again, so could any other RAFian -- but Cloak did not want to believe any of his friends, the people he knew throughout his nearly five year tenure as a RAFian, were capable of being so duplicitous. He hated the wondering . . . the wondering of whether or not any of his friends could be such a thing.

It was the not knowing that was horrible. Sure, he could use his Earthsight as a means of divining the truth -- but the fact of the matter is that even this was not foolproof. This uncertainty was certainly nothing he liked.

"Cloak?" Abby prompted.

"Huh? What?"

"What happened?" Abby repeated, somewhat less patiently.

"What do you mean?"

"That was that emotional vampire right?"

"Yes, the shield was down." Cloak said.  Then he found himself explaining the necessity of it and the Pootang.

"Why was the shield down?"

Cloak hesitated for a moment, wondering . . . then he answered, "Rotiart was being lazy again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 04:54:11 PM

Now, to finish off this book . . .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Final Sundown

Cloak had rested most of the day, having reawakened a few minutes before sundown. Je hydrokinetically created the moving moat around RAF again.

It was about six hours after sundown that Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Noelle came over to help. Rotiart tagged along, but it was clear to everyone except Rotiart himself that he was unwelcome.

"This isn't going to work," Rotiart insisted.

Noelle, Gaz and Underseen threw him a very ugly look -- and Underseen made his deliberately grotesque. Rotiart visibly recoiled at Underseen's look, but did not quell at it.

"Well, it's the truth!"

"Shut up, Rotiart," Saffa, who was no big fan of Rotiart.

"You don't ever speak to me like that again!" Rotiart snarled, acting as if his minor seniority gave him a right to say that to Saffa.

Saffa got right into his face -- it didn't help that Rotiart reminded her of someone she wasn't particularly fond of -- and she said, something of the hawk lingering in her voice, "I'll speak to you in any manner I see fit. You do not order me around as if I'm lesser than you."

Saffa would not normally do such a thing, but Rotiart had been irritating her ever since she had the misfortune to meet him.

Cloak was sure that Rotiart couldn't be the spy because it was too obvious. But there were times, such as these, that Cloak doubted his initial assumption. But he tried not focus on that, but the task at hand.

"Still at it?" Van Pyrrhus said, and Cloak heard Rotiart whimper. Cloak said nothing. Van Pyrrhus laughed, he had fed on a woman and her young baby (which he vilely thought tasted "underdone" or "undercooked"), so he wasn't ravenous.

"The silent treatment, eh?" Van Pyrrhus goaded. "You would just how old that tactic is."

Rotiart whimpered again, and this time Van Pyrrhus took notice. He laughed again, heartily.

"I see you brought friends this time!"

Cloak wanted to quip that Rotiart wasn't his friend, but he remained silent, stubbornly maintaining the river.

"You can't keep this up forever," Van Pyrrhus threatened.

"Try me," snarled the Realm Walker.

This stalemate only lasted for about three hours. Then something rather unexpected happened.

There was a vibration, a clatter, and a monstrous beast bursted onto the scene.

It was roughly six, seven feet tall. It had mangy yellow fur, demonically red, glowing eyes, and teeth like a Scraplet*.

It roared its defiance as Rotiart cowered against the wall of the mess hall/cafeteria, whimpering uncontrollably.

"What is that?!" Saffa yelled.

"Oh no -- the Pootang! It's free!" Gaz said.

The Pootang looked around for Horse, but could not seem to find her. But it saw Van Pyrrhus.

It attacked.

---
*Transformers reference.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 01, 2013, 05:33:04 PM

This is quite exciting!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 01, 2013, 06:16:51 PM

It is!! I love your writing. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 06:20:26 PM

And it will just keep up until the end of the book, I think, Gaz.

Thanks, Abby. I do love doing the writing as well.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A Dawning Attack

Van Pyrrhus managed to dodge the initial attack. He tried to feed off of the Pootang . . . but could see it as more than a shadow -- a very dangerous position to be in where the Pootang is concerned. How could Van Pyrrhus fight a beast that he could not see?

"What manner of invisible beast is this?!" the emotion vampire demanded.

<Invisible?> Noelle inquired. <The Pootang is perfectly visible.>

The Pootang made another charge, sinking its fangs deep into Van Pyrrhus's flesh.

"Not to him," Cloak said, in response to Noelle's query. "Van Pyrrhus doesn't see like we do. He apparently only has rudimentary sight when it comes to the visible light spectrum. But his sight in the emotional spectrum is pretty acute."

Van Pyrrhus managed to extricate the Pootang fron its bicept, having to relinguish the flesh already within the Pootang's mouth, revealing sulphur yellow muscle beneath his skin and blood as black as ink.

Saffa had a furrowed brow, thinking if Van Pyrrhus and the Pootang, "So . . . the Pootang hasn't any emotions? Is that why he can't be seen?"

The Pootang launched itself at Van Pyrrhus again, just missing his thigh, but nabbing him by his tail.

"'It'." Gaz corrected Saffa. "It is neither male nor female."

Van Pyrrhus's tail snapped off. But, unlike lizards capable of a similar feat, his tail wasn't supposed to snap off.

"But . . . it's an overlarge Pikachu -- an overlarge, rabid Pikachu with fangs and a certain bloodlust, but a Pikachu, nonetheless." Underseen said.

The Pootang soon lost interest in the spasming tail, and launched another attack at Van Pyrrhus who screamed, "CALL OFF YOUR BEAST AND I'LL LET YOU LIVE!"

The RAFians promptly ignored him. He was done for, and afterall he did, he was receiving his karmic reward.

Besides the Pootang needed a little exercise. Why not on an amoral emotion vampire?

"Gaz, Cloak, my question," Underseen prompted.

"Don't look at me," Cloak said, still maintsining the river, "the Pootang was before my tenure here."

"Hey, I don't know anymore on that then you do, Cloaky." Gaz said, as the darkness seemed to lessen.

"NO!!" Van Pyrrhus screamed, and it gave Cloak a note of satisfaction to hear the note of terror in the monster's voice. "Let me go, beast! I must get to my lair! Let me go, I say!!"

The Pootang, who had seized him round the middle, would not let go of his new chew toy.

Eventually, the sun reduced the Pootang's new snack into sulphurous dust.

Van Pyrrhus was dead. The Pootang was dazed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 01, 2013, 06:29:51 PM

FINALLY!!! That darn emotion vampire is dead. :) I'm happy now. Although.... I'm always happy....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2013, 07:52:33 PM

Ah, yes, Abby, but our troubles aren't over yet. There's still that spy . . .

Anyway last chapter of the book and the day. Probably a little short.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Caged and Spies

Cloak stopped putting energy to maintain the river, and, in one fluid movement, formed a scarlet and gold leash around the Pootang's neck.

It roared, still upset that its chew toy decided to turn into yellow powder.

"What's goin' on?" Horse said, making her way over. Then she saw the Pootang, screamed and ran away as fast as her flippers and tail would take her.

Unfortunately, the Pootang saw her and wanted a piece of her. To eat.

"Sorry, Pootang, but it's back beyond the trapdoor for you." Cloak said, as the other RAFians came into help.

***

"They killed the emotion vampire, Mistress." said a voice that was clearly electronically altered.

"Is this electronic voice pretense really necessary?" Malice said, in bored, indifferent tones.

"Yes, Mistress," said the voice, "you never know who's may be listening in."

"If you've done your job well," Malice said acidly, "then you shouldn't be suspected."

"I haven't, my Mistress."

"Very well," Malice replied haughtily from the communitor orb disguised as a crossed scythe and flail charm. One would think that the charm woul have illuminated this spy's face, but they sat far enough back that their face was still obscured by shadow.

Malice continued, "You said the emotion vampire has been slain? How did this come to be?"

"A monstrous creature called the Pootang kept caged here. It held the vampire until the sun could destroy it."

"I would think that it would be sucked dry."

"It is a curous creature," the spy said, "one without emotion."

"Without emotion, you say?" Malice said, sounding mildly surprised. "You've recorded these events?"

"Transfering as we speak," the spy said.

"Excellent, keep me briefed," Malice said.

***

Unbeknowst to Malice, Abomination heard this exchange and was very much aware that Malice seemed to be losing interest in him. But there was that nagging, pervasive voice that sounded very much like Cloak telling him that perhaps she never had interest in him.

He didn't know how much longer he could deny this. He was lying to himself. And what was worst --

He knew he was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 01, 2013, 09:37:23 PM

The next book sounds like it would be along the lines of Transformers. Judging by the title and info.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 01, 2013, 09:46:33 PM

True... Can't wait for tomarrow, that is, of you post more. :) or course, you always do. :)

How are you so on top of things?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 02, 2013, 03:39:26 AM

Brilliant, as always! :) I like the way you've made the spy seem obvious at one point and doubtful at another Really keeps us guessing!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2013, 05:40:56 AM

Over 21,000 views!

Quote from: abbyblaster on May 01, 2013, 09:46:33 PM

How are you so on top of things?

*shrugs*

Well, you weren't a RAFian back when I couldn't post chapters after my mother excommunicated me from thay part of my family (to be blunt, I finally had the 'nads to stand up to her . . . she didn't like that).

It was at least a week without new chapters. And there were times I could only one chapter a day. So, again, don't expect five-chapters-a-day forever.

I also plan out the chapters ahead of time, that's why some books are underlined in the list and some are not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 02, 2013, 06:57:38 AM

Ah, makes sense. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2013, 08:50:33 AM

Now, a new book. Abomination is going have something happen to him in the next book instead of Book L (i.e. Book 50).
 

BOOK XXXIV:
TRANSFORMATION CONFRONTATION
CHAPTER ONE:
Questions and Quandaries

Cloak took to an isolated part of the grounds. It was here he practiced the elements, it was here that he thought.

And the thought occupying his thoughts this day was the spy, as it had been the day before and the day before that. It wasn't so much an obsession as a prevalent concern.

Why would someone want to betray this forum? Cloak had long since thought of this forum as home, and its RAFians, family members. This was worse than a Percy Weasley-style betrayal. This was far more malicious and malignant than that.

But who? That was the real question. It could be anyone -- and more newbies are joining every day. It could be any of them. As much as Cloak did not want to admit it, it could very well be a veteran.

But . . . who would want to work for Malice? Surely all the RAFians knew of the danger she possessed. Surely they knew of her intolerance of failure and her unwillingness to acknowledge her own fault in any endeavor?

Then an idea occured to Cloak.

Maybe, just maybe, this spy isn't an intentional spy. Malice may be either coercing or duping them into helping her. Cloak wouldn't put it past her to do such a thing.

He stopped practicing -- dropping the rather large boulder he was terrakinetically lifting with a rather conspicuous THUD -- as he was given pause to consider this possibility he hadn't before.

***

Abomination had isolated himself. It would incur Malice's wrath, but he needed time to think, to reflect.

He was coming to spme undeniable truths about his relationship with Malice.

There wasn't one.

Not the romantic one that he so arduously desired. Or so he thought. Thinking about it, he didn't want to be in such an abusive relationship.

And it was an abusive one he knew. But he didn't know how to get out of it.

He dug this hole, though Cloak had tried to save him, he saw that now. He had dug this hole and it's become his figurative grave.

"WHERE THE BLOODY VEIL ARE YOU?!" came Malice's dulcet tones.

"I'm here," Abomination said, thinking in a fit of self-pity and self-loathing, I do deserve the name . . . I truly am an Abomination . . . look what I thought was mate material . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2013, 09:35:19 AM

Now another chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Tech Thievery

Malice found herself easily penetrating the core of this mechanical planet.  Really, these Dwellers have really lackluster defenses. Those defenses of RAF didn't count -- they had Cloak helping them out, she believed.  Malice may be unable to acknowledge fault, but she also was incapable of acknowledging Realm Dwellers as nothing but inferior to Realm Walkers. It was an old prejudge, and one that Cloak refused to subscribe to.

Anyway, she managed to procure a shard of incredible power -- if used correctly -- without the mechanical natives of this planet noticing.  You'd think with their camouflaging ability, that it would have stronger defenses. But, then again, these pathetic, overlarge Dwellers hadn't met or faced a power such as a Realm Walker.

Malice scoffed at such inferior beings, as she and, albeit reluctantly, Abomination left the Realm. They proceeded to the Prime Universe so that they -- no, so that Malice's scheme could come to fruition.

***

"There, it is complete," Malice crowed, fawning over her minature tommy gun-like device. It held a bulb in its undercarrage, that held the shard she collected suspended somehow in the air. "This new ray will get 'em! It was worth taking that biotech."

Abomination said nothing, but kept his face deliberately blank and expressionless. Malice misread this completely and thought Abomination was just getting dumber, when in reality he was getting wiser to Malice's deception. He was starting to really see what his lot in life was, what it had become.

He pondered on whether he must have deserved this treatment.  Whether he was karmically-indebted, and this was him paying back that debt. He was not a good person, he realized.  He had nearly killed Cloak . . . but why?  Why was he so inclined to destroy him? Why did he bully others as a child?

Even he didn't know.  His parents were both present in his childhood, and they fawned over him.  Granted, he lost them right after he grew into adulthood.  It didn't justify his actions.  Nothing would.

"Why are you sulking?" Malice asked, reading Abomination's body language correctly for one.  "Why so serious?"

"No reason," Abomination said, quietly and repressively.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 02, 2013, 09:49:40 AM

I sense a Transformers angle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2013, 11:50:16 AM

Now -- well, let's just drop all pretense, Underseen and Saffa has already guessed it.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Allspark Ray

"Eighteen vehicles have been stolen," said a reporter to the camera, then read from a list, " A sedan, a fire truck, a boat, a forestry jeep, a hybrid, a bulldozer, a garbage truck, an excavator, a -- Model T? Is that right? -- er, a monster truck, a snowplow, a dump truck, a gyrocopter, a tow truck, a van, a flatbed truck, and a semi."
 
She looked back into the camera.
 
"There are no suspects at this time.  There is no motive known."
 
Then the reporter signed off, and the newscast continued onto sports.
 

***

In her cavern hideout, Malice had used a mixture of Galvanic Mechamorph and Cybertronian tech.  This ray, which she names the "Allspark Ray", would transform any machine immersed in it (unless that machine possessed a Mark) into a Cybertronian.  What's more, a Cybertronian under her complete and utter control.
 
"Excellent," Malice said, when she saw that Abomination, who still had serious qualms about his actions, brought in the eighteenth vehicle.  She turned the ray on each vehicle in turn, leaving them with a silvery smoke rising from their frames.  With the trademark sound, all eighteen took robot mode.

The sedan was had a fairly generic robot mode look.  The fire truck bore a resemblance to the Autobot Inferno.  The forestry jeep had a rather hippy look to it.  The hybrid looked like the Engineer Trainer Class from the Pokemon franchise. The bulldozer had a couple of miniature bull horns on its robot head with the shovel forming its hands.  The garbage truck had a distinctly Animated Wreck-Gar feel from it. The excavator had a distinctly Animated Constructicon Scapper feel to it. The Model T's robot mode was that of an old man with a walker. the monster truck was fairly monstrous, with a silhouette much like the Blob from Marvel Comics. The snowplow had a certain feline design to its robot mode.  The dump truck was rather like Thunder Loader's High-Stance mode crossed with Constructicon Long Haul.  The gyrocopter bore a remarkable resemblance to Animated Megatron.  The tow truck bore a resemblance to Mega Man's Pirate Man for some odd reason. The van's robot mode took a robot mode resembling the Autobot Ironhide toy -- with a holographic "head". The flatbed truck seemed to be very rudimentary Cybertronian robot mode.  And the semi took a very Optimus Prime look -- although somehow mixing in a bit of Optimus Primal.

"Success!" Malice yelled triumphantly.

Abomination was less than enthused.

"Now," Malice said, ignoring Abomination's surliness, and addressing her drones, "transform back to vehicular mode!"

They complied.

"Now go and follow the RAFians," she said.

"Uh," Abomination said, unable to bring himself to use any term of affection to Malice, "won't that be slight noticeable?"

"No, it won't." Malice said firmly.

"Don't you already have a spy in RAF?"

"Don't question me or my methods again." Malice threatened.

This is definately not a healthy relationship, Abomination thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2013, 04:36:50 PM

I'll probably post another two chapters. That's including this one.

CHAPTER FOUR:
An Unlikely Lead

The RAFians continued about their daily businesses, many still talking about the Pootang and Van Pyrrhus. Itellsya wouuldn't shut up about it.

Cloak had taken to isolating himself in his thread just so he could think. His thought inevitably turned to the spy, the traitor. He didn't pull a Bishop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_(comics)) and outright falsely accuse someone.

Granted, he didn't know the identity of the traitorous RAFian, so an unfounded accusation was tactless -- something Rotiart would do.

But Cloak continued to dwell and brood upon the matter. He was taking the fact there was a betrayer personally, though he knew he shouldn't. He was aware that there could have extenuating circumstances for this spy, this betrayer.

The question was, Cloak asked himself, would he be able to forgive the guilty party?

***

Meanwhile, the other RAFians found a lead in the missing vehicles case. But they did not know if it was sufficiently unusual to warrant their jurisdiction.

"It's just an ordinary car theft ring," Parker said, as the mods gathered the veterans (two-year RAFians and up) into a council of war. Cloak was in attendance, but his mind was elsewhere.

"They just showed up in that warehouse," SuperNate said. "A warehouse that was untouched for years."

"It could be a trap," Cloak said, finally pulling his mind from the subject of the traitor. "Whoever stole them could put them to lure someone out."

"Malice?" Gaz asked.

Cloak thought about it for a minute, "No. Malice wouldn't use such a . . . a mundane methodology . . ."

But he wasn't sure about that.

"You're not sure, are you?" Dino said.

"To be perfectly honest," Cloak said with a deep sigh, "I'm not sure of a lot of things lately."

***

At the warehouse, the police surrounded it, preparing for a raid . . . only they were not prepared for what laid beyond those doors.

It is not pleasant what happened to them . . . it was now RAF's jurisdiction. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 02, 2013, 04:47:35 PM

With Abomination's regret would he become a good for once? 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2013, 04:58:01 PM

That will become clear in the next book, Underseen. And the spy will be revealed in Chapter 13 of the same book, I think.

Last chapter of the day.

CHAPTER FIVE:
WHAT In Disguise?!

"They're . . . dead, aren't they?" Abby said.

The mods called a meeting immediarely after Richard recieved the call from the mayor. The RAFians had just been briefed on the police officers and their back-up.

"I'm afraid so," Richard answered. "I'll spare you the gory details, but yes, the local law enforcement cannot get anywhere near the warehouse. That's why we've been called in to inestigate. The mayor reasons we would stand a better chance of success."

"I'm going," Cloak said at once.

Richard nodded unsurprised. He suspected what Cloak had.

"Laserbeak and I will go as well." Gaz said, standing.

"I will go," Parker said, deftly donning his helmet.

"You're not going without me this time," Helen said.

"I'd like to go, too," Underseen said.

"Permit me to go, as well," Mithril said.

Richard nodded. "Very well. Cloak, Gaz, Parker, Helen, Underseen, and Mithril will go."

***

The six arrived at the warehouse and Cloak recoiled nearly immediately.

"Did you sense something?" Underseen said at once.

"Can't you smell that?" Cloak's question was an earnest one.

"No, why?" Mithril's question was also sincere.

"The stench of what I can only assume is charred flesh is everywhere here. Everywhere." Cloak said.

"Something definitely happened here." Gaz said as Laserbeak cooed morosely.

"And whatever caused it is behind those doors," Helen said, unable to hide the revulsion from her voice.

"Well, then let's get a move on, shall we?" Parker said, activating his twin fusion cannons and Laserbeak, using his Targetmaster transformed into his blaster mode, held easily by Gaz.

The opened the doors with an ominous crash, and just saw the inert forms of the vehicles.

Cloak immediately sensed danger . . . Underseen glanced at Laserbeak and his eyes widened.

"The vehicles. The vehicles," Underseen stammered.

Cloak got whatnhe was getting at. He didn't need to see the vehicle shifting and transforming to know.

He said, "They're Cybertronians."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 02, 2013, 06:08:57 PM

I hope Laserbeak doesn't go evil.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 03, 2013, 03:08:09 AM

Oh no, that would be awful. I love that bird.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2013, 08:08:00 AM

Worry not about Laserbeak -- this isn't the book where he breaks . . . ah, er, :facepalm: I said too much. ;)

• Book XXXV: Richard's Horn

The RAFians must get Richard's Horn, a mystical musical instrument, back from Malice, who received it from a RAFian traitor.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• *Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• *Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2013, 08:29:28 AM

I'll try to get another five chapters up today. We'll see if I succeed.

Anyway, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Cybertronian Strikes

The Cybertronians finished their transformation, and pulled out their projectile weapons. The RAFians, without a word needed, scattered dodging their attacks.

Cloak managed to dodge their attacks with the minimal amount of energy and movement necessary. The others were pretty much showing off their power, agility, speed, and strategy.

But it was a stalemate. The Cybertronians may have seemed bulky and slow-moving, but the eighteen were far more nimble and agile than they would appear.

Cloak wasn't fooled though -- he suspected that Malice would be watching this confrontation somehow. This was her entertainment.

The other RAFians were handling the Cybertronians fairly well. Cloak noticed that, despite carrying their Energon weapons, not one had discharged. This struck Cloak as odd, and pretty much confirmed to him that an outside force was controlling them, whether by suppressing their sentience or perhaps they were created with sentience.

But how would Malice be able to cre . . . ate . . .

"Allspark!" Cloak hissed in sudden realization.

"Cloak, a little help here!" Helen said, as her ring's shield constructs kept shattering, much to her annoyment.

Cloak quickly stepped up and easily dodged their brute attacks -- except for the Model T one.  It was really the only Cybertronian that wasn't being defended against. It wasn't too terribly fast, it's movements were rather clunky.

"Why did these things come here?" Gaz asked as Laserbeak fired indiscriminately at the Cybertronians.  Laserbeak would never turn evil, it was much too loyal to Gaz.  If Gaz turned evil, however . . .

"Who knows?" Parker said, taking a couple of pot shots at the Cybertronians.

"One thing's sure," Cloak said. "They've no mind of their own.  Someone else is controlling them."

"Who?" Underseen asked, easily dodging their brutish attacks.

"You have to ask?" Cloak answered with a question.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2013, 09:13:23 AM

Now another chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Mechbending

"Cloak, don't you think you've worked out enough?" Mithril yelled.
 
"What?" Cloak said, flummoxed at this remark.
 
"Mechbend, or whatever the heck you call it, already!!" Helen answered.
 
"Oh," Cloak said, who was slightly ashamed to admit that he was wrapped up in his own musings to realize this. But, truth be told, Cloak had no idea if he was strong enough to "mechbend" all these Cybertronians. It was worth a try though.
 
Cloake went through the motions and gestures, and the Cybertronians twitched in a most disconcerting way. He had managed to get all of them under his control.  Then Cloak realized the real reason he didn't remember this.
 
He didn't like it.  He was a master over the Metal element, thus the parts of the poor, mindless automatons were under his whim.  But that didn't mean he had to like it or even enjoy it.  He hated himself for not only being able to do it, but commiting to act of doing it.
 
He felt dirty, sullied and defiled by this dark ability. "Mechbending" really isn't any different from bloodbending. Cloak would never embrace it -- he didn't care that the Cybertronians had no minds of their own. It didn't change the nature of the ability.
 

***

Malice was watching this all through the very eyes of the fire truck Cybertronian.
 
"No, no, no! It's not fair! Cloak's too overpowered!!" she whined, and as she struggled to find an order that they could carry out. Then she remembered something about Cybertronians, as she looked at Laserbeak.
 
"Fire your weapons.  Discharge them all at once!"
 

***

They complied, and the entire warehouse was laid to waste. Since Energon was not metal, Cloak couldn't stop that from discharging their projectile weaponry.  Cloak immediately stopped "mechbending" -- though not true bending in the "Avatar: the Last Airbender" sense -- and he, along with Helen, projected an energy shield around him and his friends.

Only six Cybertronians managed to survive this -- the forestry jeep, the firetruck, the boat, the hybrid car, the van, and the gyrocopter.  The RAFians were buried int the rubble of the warehouse, which had collapsed.

***

Malice was thoroughly engrossed in this, she disregarded losing seven Cybertronian automatons, reasoning she could always make more.

"Good," she told the surviving drones, "now transform and return to base."

Little did Malice realize that Abomination was paying attention to everything, and he had the Allspark Ray in his hands.  He knew what he must do.  He knew what Malice's reaction would be.

He didn't care.

***

"They ran away," Underseen said, when the RAFians unearthed themselves (a minor task considering they had Cloak and Mithril with them -- two RAFian terrakinetics).

"Not all of them," Mithril pointed out, nudging some twisted metal object with his toe.

Cloak wasn't surprised.  "As long as she has the means to make more, all of these Cybertronian drones are expendible to her."

"Let's go and report back," Parker said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2013, 09:33:39 AM

Now another chapter, I think.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Fortress RAF-imus

" -- And then Cloak and I terrakinetically dug everyone out." Mithril said. All of RAF was assembled in the auditorium again, with the mods at the forefront.
 
"And these automatons?" Richard asked.
 
"Nearest that I can figure," Parker said, "at least eleven were destroyed in the blast. Eleven of the seventeen."
 
Richard blinked. "That's rather significant, I think."
 
<Why would Malice destroy that many?> Esplin said, blinking all four eyes. <It does not make sense.>
 
"It makes perfect sense," Cloak contradicted, "as she obviously has a way of making more Cybertronians. Hence the rather careless disregard and discarding of these eleven."
 
"That's a very serious assumption," Terenia said, from her seat.
 
"One that you cannot back up in any way!" Rotiart declared mutinously. Cloak did not even reward the brazen coward with even a sidelong glance. Maybe Rotiart was the traitor, he certainly unpleasant enough to be it.
 
"Shut it," Saffa snapped at the Rotiart.  Her animosity toward the egotistical upstart was a little more evident than Cloak's self-same animosity. Saffa continued, "He has sound logic backing up this theory!"
 
A braver man than Rotiart would have been quelled under the look Saffa hurled Rotiart's way.  Rotiart was intimidated enough to shut up for the rest of the meeting.  Well, Cloak hoped he was intimidated enough to shut up for the rest of the meeting.
 
"What measures do you think we should take, then?" Richard asked, with no hostility or animosity whatsoever.
 
"Red alert," Parker suggested, looking at the other five.
 
"Yes. But we're still having the power problem with Code Avalon, so we'll have to save that as a last-minute measure." Yarin pointed out. "We can't always ask Cloak to augment it."
 
"Cloak could 'mechbend' the Cybertronians if they get too close," Mithril said off-hand.

"No," Cloak said, with a pleading tone.

"What?" Abby asked.

"Please don't ask me to do that," Cloak said.  "I still feel dirty about using it. . . ."

"But . . ." Mithril said.
 
"Very well," Richard said, standing up. "Now, let's get to work on the defenses."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2013, 09:52:47 AM

Another chapter -- and maybe one more after this.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Undermined and Undetermined

Malice was in a full-on rage, even when the Cybertronians returned.  She had dismissed the "deaths" (if a being had no mind or soul or whatnot, was it ever truly alive?) of the eleven Cybertronians.  Cloak's assumption was, indeed, correct. Malice wrote off those eleven because she thought she could always make more.

But that was no longer the case.

The Allspark fragment was missing and the ray was destroyed in some most peculiar and suspicious circumstances. The framework was completely crushed and twisted into a pretzel.  The glass orb in the undercarriage that housed the Allspark fragment was smashed to bits.  All in all, an unrepairable mess.

Malice was absolutely enraged about this, as she didn't write down the schematics of the device and was now missing the key piece. But, of course, in her mind, this wasn't her fault. It couldn't possibly be her fault, it had to be someone else. And the only person to blame was Abomination -- and he was aware of it.

He was aware of it when he destroyed the ray gun and discarded the Allspark fragment back into its home universe.  All while Malice was so thoroughly engrossed in the battle with the RAFians. Abomination finally decided, in a rather undetermined way, to work against Malice in small and subtle ways -- ways that it was thought that he was incapable of even thinking in.

Malice had her spy, and, in some ways, RAF had theirs.

"Fortunately, the six 'bots I needed survived." Malice snarled.  She had pummelled Abomination when she found out that the ray was destroyed.  Abomination played stupid rather convincingly enough that Malice didn't pummel Abomination as hard as she could have.

"How so?" Abomination asked tentatively. Malice never noticed that Abomination had dropped the niceties of the pet names.

"Let's just say, it was a six-for-one deal." she answered cryptically.

Abomination was perplexed, and he played it up, so Malice would not be too suspicious of his motives -- not that she really ever was all that interested in the first place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2013, 10:18:21 AM

Last chapter of the day, guys.

. . .

Maybe.

Anyway, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Defense Work

The RAFians, except Rotiart, Gulliver and Itellsya, were working hard to improve the defenses of RAF from the Cybertronians that Malice would send and create -- having no knowledge that the Allspark ray was destroyed, by Abomination no less.  Every machine not bearing the Mark was suspect.

"There is NOTHING WRONG WITH LASERBEAK!" Gaz was heard shouting to Rotiart a few hours after the meeting. "He is FINE. Stop treating him like he's a glitchy --"

"How do you know he won't betray you at the last moment and go with his kind?" Rotiart said, rather snotily.

Then Gaz stopped using "nice" words as she shouted at him, and even after he retreated to the safety of his thread.  Rotiart was fast working on the other RAFians' nerves. If he didn't cool it, he would wind up imprisoned, suspended, or Banned. He was seeming to think along the same lines, as he decided to lie low for a couple of days.

Gaz was seen moments later attempting to calm down the Cybertronian parrot, eventually getting him to coo at her.  His loyalty was always to Gaz, and he would only turn evil if Gaz herself turned evil. Gaz knew this, and couldn't understand why people like Rotiart couldn't.  Even Saffa has had an affection for the robotic bird, and he knew it.  He was the most loved robotic bird in all RAF. . . . Okay, he was the only robotic bird in RAF at this time.

The perimeter wall was about ten feet tall, and the force field power situation was attempting to be addressed. But, sadly, not nearly as much progress was being made.

Cloak buried himself in the work.  Keeping his mind and thoughts away from "mechbending" and the thoughts of the identity of the spy.  But trying to keep yourself from thinking of something never works, not really.  He was basically rethinking his doubts of Rotiart as the spy.  Perhaps it was him . . . but then logic prevailed and Cloak could not deny that he was the obvious choice, and it usually is never the obvious choice.

But then who?  This was a question that had tormented Cloak, Aquilai, Kelly, Goom, and Phoenix ever since they discovered there might . . . what if he was wrong?  What if there never was a spy, a traitor? It just seemed likely when Richard had been kidnapped, but is it really?

These thoughts stirred around his head before he realized that night hald already fallen and the younger RAFians -- in both actual age and seniority -- were having a campfire.  Cloak chose not to indulge and retired back to his thread, with these thoughts still whirling around his head like the whirlpools in the Whirl Islands.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 03, 2013, 10:42:11 AM

Great chapters, as usual! I like my badass looks, you have successfully captured my dark side. >:D ;)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 03, 2013, 02:23:15 PM

How dare he suspect Beaky!

Love the chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 03, 2013, 08:09:12 PM

You know... Roriart is starting to get on my nerves.... I would probably slap him.... Even though I wouldn't want to....

And great chapters, as always. (Like Saffa said) ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2013, 07:18:11 AM

Well, Rotiart's supposed to be a jerk (in lieu of a more vulgar word). He demonstrates that not all RAFians are saintly and good-intentioned. Although, if you knew what he was going to go through as I do . . .

Er, ahem, here's a new chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
They're Heeeeeere!

The RAFian defenses were certainly shored up, and Code Avalon had become more energy efficient. Cloak surveyed the defenses that were in place, and still he wondered, but not about the spy, but if these defenses were sufficient. . . .

The setting sun turned the sky an ominous reddish-orange. Cloak hoped this wasn't an omen.

Then he looked beyond the threshold of RAF, and facepalmed. The six Cybertronians were parked most obviously and most conspicuously. One would think that they would have presence of mind to turn off their headlights -- but, then again, they had no minds of their own to have presence of.

The bot was hooked up to the forestry jeep -- which didn't look weird at all. Cloak rolled his eyes.

"THEY'RE HERE!" Cloak roared loudly -- like any other Siberian tiger, Cloak's roar could carry for about two or so miles -- as he prepared himself for their change to robot mode.

But they didn't they were inert. But, as the RAFians were mustered, the Cybertronians finally turned off their headlights, as if Cloak hadn't already noticed them.

Cloak couldn't help but shake his head in disbelief at this.

***

Malice, still watching via the fire truck, had not heard more than a dull, faint rumble that was Cloak's call to arms. She was unaware that her automatons were already found out.

"Turn out your lights," Malice said to her automations. She was unare that it was too late. Unaware that clear logic would show that no one would just park their vehicles and abandon them for no reason. But Malice always had a rather limited knowledge if Realm Dwellers.

Abomination lurked quietly just outside the doorway, eavesdropping. Malice, despite all of the assertions of her genius, was still unaware of Abomination's duplicity, of his change of heart.

But Abomination couldn't see how he could stop or hamper this without completely announcing his epiphany to Malice. He wasn't ready to do that yet.

Then Malice's scythe-and-flail charm glowed blue -- she was getting a call.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2013, 08:11:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Transform This Way*

"Mistress, they are aware of the duplicity." said the spy's silhouette.

"You've let yourself be found out?!" she demanded angrily.

"No, Mistress, you misunderstood -- it's the robots. They know that they aren't harmless vehicles." the spy said. "The alarm had been raised."

"By who?"

"Cloak."

"Interfering Elemental scum," Malice snarled quietly to herself, knowing full well that it was because of Cloak that she had such an interest in the Prime Universe in the first place. But ever since the destruction of the Forbidden Power -- disregarding that it was his RAFian friends that actually destroyed it -- she now lived to see Cloak writhe.

"Very well," Malice said. "Anything else?"

"No," the spy said.

"Very well, you are dismissed," she said.

The call ended, and Abominstion withdrew slightly from the doorway, enough for his bulk not to be seen.

Malice now addressed the automatons, "Transform. Transform already, you languid lackwits! Transform now, you lazy lunkheads!"

***

"I don't get it," Abby said. "Why are they just sitting there like oversized paperweights?"

Suddenly, all six moved and were transforming to robot mode with the iconic sound.

"You had to ask," Rotiart said from the very back of the group. There was a somewhat breathless way to what he spoke.
Abby gave a well-deserved smack, and Saffa followed suit.

"Stop hitting me!" he whined.

"Stop being a dick," Saffa retorted.

"So . . ." Parker asked, "what's the plan?"

---
*Get the reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2013, 09:48:57 AM

Yet new chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
I'm Givin' It All I Got Captain!

Soon, the Cybertronians' bodies were glistening in the ample light of the full, heavy moon. Cloak needn't need the moonlight to see them perfectly, due to his acute feline vision.

"The plan?" Parker prompted again.

The Cybertronians stood stock still not moving. Cloak could practically hear Malice screaming at them to attack.

"Hope the shield either holds or tires them out."

"But . . . they're machines," Abby said. "Tireless."

"That is a fallacy," Cloak said immediately. "They'll eventually run out of energy, fuel, whatever. They just seem to be tireless because they last longer than most organic organisms."

"That'll be enough to cause us trouble, though, right?" Saffa said.

Cloak said nothing, which she took for her answer.

"Still operating at full compacity," Yarin declared through the intercom as the Cybertronians began to bang on the shield. "Although that could be problematic."

"I suggest you amp and psych yourselves up for battle!" Sakki declared.

"Oh, yeah!" Faerie said cracking her knuckles in midair, taking out her Gale Blade, having her armor appear upon her body.

Goom, Phoenix, Underseen, Mithril, and Horse followed Faerie's example.

"Oh, now we're at ninety percent!" Yarin warned.

Cloak closed his eyes to calm his mind and at least quiet his thoughts.

"Eighty-one percent!"

Abby quickly morphed into a Crabdozer while Noelle went Terroranchula -- she had acquired one in a zoo that the RAFians had to recently shut down. Cloak, Goom, and Phoenix had allowed it, now Abby, Saffa, and Noelle had access to Crabdozer, Buglizard, Slamworm, Root Shark, Vicetopus, Tyrannopede, Psychopterran, Mucillator, Terroranchula, Rancor, Anubian Baskurr, Cortalopus, Dravek, and Dasypodidae morphs. A rather fruitful event for them. The zoo animals eitherbwent to sanctuaries or returned to the wild of their home planets.

"Uh, seventy-two percent!"

Parker was priming his weapons as Helen and Sam's respective rings unleashed a minute geyser of light.

"Sixty-three percent!"

The pounding did not relent, it seemed like a pure mechanical madness to it now.

"Fifty-six percent!" Yarin warned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 04, 2013, 10:30:25 AM

That's some sweet morphs you've given us. 8)

Quote from: abbyblaster on May 03, 2013, 08:09:12 PM

You know... Roriart is starting to get on my nerves.... I would probably slap him.... Even though I wouldn't want to....

Gimme a fistie, sister. We'll slap him together. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2013, 11:11:54 AM

I thought so, Saffa. ;)

Now, how's about another chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Coping With A Dirty Ability

"Forty-five percent!" Yarin yelled.

Cloak's mind forced him to confront his "mechbending" ability, an ability he considered as dirty as bloodbending, although in his case it wasn't truly "bending". His unwillingness to commit to "mechbending" could be considered a serious liability. Would allow these creatures, these macines to destroy his adopted home and his surrogate family?

Which was more important? Piece if mind, or the lives of the people he cares about? That was a Hobson's choice if there ever was one -- a choice that was no choice.

He would have indulge in the ability again, he knew. He knew it, but hated it just the same.

"Thirty-six percent!" Yarin shouted.

"Hold the line," Richard said, preparing himself to fight. "Prepare yourselves."

Saffa eventually decided to morph a Tyrannopede, to add some flexibility between, Abby, Noelle and herself.

"Twenty-seven percent!"

"Nearly time," Cloak said, more to himself than anyone else. Cloak knew he would do what he must, and then he could find a way to live with it.

He will take necessary action, nothing excessive . . . Cloak shut his eyes, feeling shame. That's the way tyrants think.

He stood in an area of gray -- no matter what action he took it could be spun in either direction. He should have realized before now, that things aren't so easy, that things are not so black-and-white.

"Eighteen percent!"

"We're ready . . ." Wild growled softly.

What would happen would happen, what would come would come. Debating it and ceaselessly second-guessing his decisions after the fact. He could, he would learn to forgive himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 04, 2013, 11:46:28 AM

Well these 3 chapters were all better than Iron Man 3. I am still upset at that movie.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2013, 12:44:38 PM

I shouldn't have passed on writing the script then, Underseen. ;) :XD: j/k

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Exposed!

"Nine percent!" Yarin announced. "And falling! Get ready!"

There was a shattering sound as the Cybertronians quite literally broke through Code Avalon.

The six charged into the forum, crossing immediately over the threshold, turning the external wall to rubble.

Abby charged forward using her Crabdozer horn and strength to take on the fire engine Cybertronian. They were of similar strengths though -- and Abby only had ninety minutes left in morph, and this Cybertronian had no such limitation.

Meanwhile, Noelle was using her Terroranchula webs to tie up the boat Cybertronian over and over again. The Cybertronian kept breaking the webs. And again, Noelle had another ninety minutes in morph.

Saffa took on the forestry jeep, using the nozzle on her forehead to wrap in into a cocoon within seconds. But it kept busting out, and Saffa only had a hundred minutes left, having morphed later than the other two.

Helen, Sam, and Parker was blasting the other three rather indiscriminably. Goom, Phoenix, Mithril, Faerie, Horse and Underseen used their Blades to hack at the Cybertronians with much clanging.

But something was off. For every damage done, it seemed to seal up with a green-black discoloration. . . .

Cloak's eyes widened when he realized. He yelled, "They're not just Cybertronians! They have properties of Galvanic Mechamorphs!"

Underseen seemed to have grasped this immediately, but Noelle shouted, <Properties of WHAT?>

"An alien species similar to the Technarchy!"

Silence.

"Remember the Phalanx? That was Technarchy. Mutated, though -- I think."

"Thanks for the summary, now what exactly do we do about it?!" Blue said, using explosive shurrikens.

Cloak did not answer. He knew of one thing that could be done, as he saw Saffa, Noelle, and Abby slink away to demorph. Abby decided to morph a Buglizard, Noelle decided to go Root Shark, and Saffa went Slamworm.

Cloak shut his eyes in acknowledgement of what he must now do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 04, 2013, 12:52:38 PM

You really must hate mechbending. I know I would though too.

 We've got some fierce morphs...

And another great chapter. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2013, 01:21:27 PM

Well, mechbending is essentially the robotic version of bloodbending . . . and, I remember Saffa mentioning the power to control oil (there is a specific term for this, ending in -kinesis, that I can't remember right now) which means if this is still true, then she's capable of mechbending as well, just using the oil instead of the metal, as I do.

Anyway, if I feel up to it, I might post another chapter or two later on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Noelle on May 04, 2013, 08:37:52 PM

Woot for awesome morphs! ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 05, 2013, 01:38:36 AM

I did? :P (Didn't know South Africa had oil reserves). I'm pretty sure I'm capable of it - in human form - but the scary part is that it's similar to bloodbending.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2013, 07:47:39 AM

I believe you did in PM, Saffa, when I initially asked about your powers. But that could have been a rough idea, and you could have refined it since then.

Yes, it is like bloodbending -- so you can see why I hate it as much as Katara hates bloodbending . . . although as a hydrokinetic myself . . . er, never mind, I want to think about it.

Let's see if we can finish this book today, shall we?

EDIT: Well maybe not! Not consider this thing thinks "preview a post" means "start a new fr*ckin' thread", and now won't let me modify this post!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
What Must Be Done

In movements eerily similar to bloodbending, Cloak put his qualms on a backburner as the other RAFians had changed all six's color schemes to green-and-black. Suddenly, the movements of these recently-enhanced Cybertronians (must have been recent as then that would mean the other eleven with alive an functional) ceased, aside from twitchy movements.

May he be forgiven for using this dirty, dirty ability. He would hate himself for it later.

But Cloak had to be careful not to overexert his powers. There was a great deal more metal here to mechbend then in the Roboticizer incident, and these Cybertronians don't have suppressed free will, like in that case. They haven't any free will to begin with.

<I thought you hated that, Cloak.> Saffa pointed out, still in Slamworm morph. <Mechbending, that is.>

"I will do what I must," Cloak said, hating himself for saying it. "But I cannot stop them from discharging their weapons."

So he made the point them skyward. Perhaps not the best solution, but it was all he had.

He was unaware if this made him determined . . . or ruthless.

At the moment he didn't care. Such analysis and second-guessing could wait until later. When his hand wasn't forced, when mechbending was no longer necessary.

Parker recogized the danger immediately and shouted to the others, "Disarm the weapons! Dismantle them! Hurry! Cloak cannot keep this up forever!"

***

Malice was crowing and laughing raucously as if she was playing a perversely immersive video game. She remained oblivious to Abominayion's presence just beyond the dark doorway.

But the Cloak used his "mechbending". Now Malice was much less enthused.

"What? No! No!! You're cheating!!! Cloak, you are a cheater!"

Abomination knew this tirade would go on through the night.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 05, 2013, 07:52:31 AM

Hm, apparently I did. But yes, controlling a sentient something is disturbing, as you've already illustrated so well.

Uh, I think Chapter Sixteen got posted as a new topic by mistake. (I hate when that happens.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2013, 08:08:46 AM

Yeah I know. It wasn't RAF's fault, but my own for trusting this piece of crap.

I really angry right, but at least I rectified it as much as I could. So, I'll modify that bit with Abomination and Malice, then I'm gonna take a small break to cool off.

EDIT: Well, I'm as cooled off as I'm gonna be. Let's try this again.

Naturally, this chapter'll probaby be short.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Component Deconstruction

The other RAFians worked busily to disarm the Cybertronians. Noelle, Abby and Saffa had to demorph and remorph no less than twice during it. Cloak wondered why Malice wasn't preempting this strategy by firing them anyway.

He didn't know that Malice was still throwing her hissy fit.

After a final remorph by the three, the RAFians managed to disarm all six.

"That," Cloak said, "was too easy."

Was he just being paranoid?

"I don't it too farfetched that something else could have come to her attention, or else, dierted it," Aquilai reasoned.

Cloak was suspicious, until he felt the resistance against his "mechbending" lessen and, soon, cease althoughter.

He lowered his arms and narrowed his eyes. The Cybertronians were stiller than statues, and their glowing eyes dimmed. . . .

It was as if they were idling. . . .

***

Malice continued her rageful tirade for six hours, and Abomination found himself wondering, silently of course, how he ever found that attractive.

Eventually, Malice stopped when a little nugget of an idea reached her. She calmed down alarmingly swift, and had a cruel smile upon her face.

For the first time since associating with her, that smile did not bring him reassurance and comfort. He knew now what Malice was doing was wrong, but did not have the guts to confront her on it.

Abomination would have gotten word out to Cloak -- who he began to felt remorseful for everything he put him through -- and warn him of this abrupt change in Malice. But . . . even if he could and did, would Cloak or any of his Dweller allies believe him?

No, he was sure, they'd think it was a trick. And what if Malice caught him in the act?

No, Abomination was doing everything in his power that he could right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2013, 01:51:51 PM

Three more chapters to go until the end of this book. May be a short chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A Nasty Combination

Suddenly, the Cybertronians eyes lit up -- literary and figuratively.

"Cloak!" Abby yelped -- she was swiftly going into Psychopteran morph. Noelle and Saffa followed suit.

". . . They're . . . not attacking," Cloak noticed.

<But . . . why?> Noelle asked, completing her morph. Cloak supposed the only reason the three chose Psychopterans to morph was simply because it was the largest flight-capable morphs that they had.

Gaz lowered Laserbeak and looked on with disbelief, as she said, "They're transforming? They're gonna dight as vehicles? What sense does that make?"

But AniDragon saw it first. "They're not goung to vehicle mode! They're transforming . . . together."

"Oh, Veil!" Cloak cursed. "They're Combiners!"

***

"Form feet and legs," Malice said, ripping off "Voltron", as two Cybertronians formed the legs.

"Form abdominals and crotch," Malice said, after a prudent pause, as one Cybertronian obliged.

"Form chest and head," said Malice, after another prudent pause, as the fire engine Cybertronian formed such.

"Form arms and hands," Malice said, waiting for a bit shorter length of time.

Finally, the Combiner was in its combined form. Malice's smile was that of a deranged woman.

"My Endgame," she said, dubbing the Combiner's combined form. " Cloak, and your Dweller dopes, prepare to die."

Malice clearly had forgot it would take her own hand to fi ish Cloak off for good. She remembered it momentarily and was about to ask Abomination to go over there to do it (which, unbeknowst to Malice would give him an opportunity to defect) . . .

But no . . . no, he'd just screw it up somehow. Anyway, it should be her own hand that snuffs out that life . . .

And it will be easier without his little Dweller pets . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 05, 2013, 02:39:22 PM

Uh oh..... Really BIG uh oh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2013, 03:08:24 PM

Yep.

Now, the penultimate chapter to this book! Hopefully, nothing goes wrong in posting this.

And I hope I haven't just jinxed myself.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Hey, You Ripped Off Power Rangers, Cloak!*

The combined Cybertronian -- Endgame -- let out a roar. Then Cloak attempted to "mechbend" them again. But he found the resistance greater, more unified. More irritating.

"Enough of this," Cloak growled. "It's time to stop playing defense. It's time to get more proactive!"

"What are you going to do?" Underseen asked.

In reply, Cloak stopped "mechbending", with the fervent hope that he'd never have to do it again, and the elements of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air enveloped him in a kind of mishmash suit -- an elemental exoskeleton. He easily matched Endgame in size, but, he hoped, exceeded him in power.

Cloak didn't even know that he could do this. But, then again, he never tried.

Then the two claped hands and began to grapple. Cloak was at a disadvantage now, but his own volation, no less. He was never much of a grappler.

"You not doing this alone, Cloak," Underseen said, determinedly, as he started to grow.

It was clear growing to the size he was was quite painful for him. His Light Blade grew with him. Clearly, Cloak wasn't the only one trying new things that he didn't know he was capable of.

Soon it became clear that Underseen was not just attempting to get bigger, but shapeshifting into a To'kustar, which the Light Blade quickly accomodated its handle for.

"You okay?" Cloak asked, whose  voice sounded remarkably small in his exosuit.

"What?" Underseen asked, his voice emulating that of a To'kustar.

Cloak asked again, using his aerokinesis to amplify his voice. Underseen answered, "I'll be fine, let's get to work."

Cloak extracated himself, and the two were staring down Endgame.

***

"WHAT?!" Malice cried. "No fair, no fair, no fair!"

It was getting hard to image that Malice was supposed to be older than either Abomination or Cloak.

---
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 05, 2013, 05:22:10 PM

This isn't the first time you ripped off Power Rangers, (RAF Comix chapter 18 if memory serves me right) but that doesn't mean it is a bad chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2013, 05:47:33 PM

Yeah, I know. *shrug* I just thought the title was funny. :XD:

Now, the last chapter before the book that reveals the spy -- and its probably not who you expect. :smiles infuriatingly:

May be a bit short. But, it will be the last one today, I think.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Cybertronians Slain Senseless

The two giants, Underseen as a To'kustar and Cloak in his elemental exoskeleton, battled Endgame. With Underseen's appearance into the foray, Cloak needn't depend on grappling. He fought with punishing punches and monstrous kicks. Underseen wielded the Light Blade, in the venacular, "like a boss".

They double teamed it, and Endgame was at a number of disadvantages. It was outnumbered, outmatched, Noelle, Saffa, and Abby kept flying in its face blocking Malice's view (as she only thought to put a camera inside the fire engine one) and it was unable to make a move without Malice's input -- and she wasn't the great fighter that she thought herself to be.

The five RAFians almost felt pity for the mindless automatons. Its actions were not its own, its will was not its own -- it never was. Thses six Cybertronians, combined into one, were a travesty of life . . . if you can call eternal servitude a life.

Cloak lived a semblance of such a life . . . he wouldn't wish that upon anyone. Anyone.

Cloak, hoping forgiveness, ripped its arms off roughly and brutally as Underseen ran it through with his Light Blade. His eyes shut after he felt Endgame go limp. Cloak saw the light in its eyes dimmed to nothingness -- literally and figuratively.

Then it dropped down, lifeless. Saffa, Noelle, and Abby demorphed as soon as they landed. Cloak relaxed his control over the elements, and his element exoskeleton dissolved away.

Underseen experienced just as much pain shrinking down to his normal size, his Light Blade following suit.

"Okay . . . going big is a . . . a last resort," Underseen told himself more than the others as he sheathed the Light Blade.

Clean-up was to begin immediately -- Endgame was to be recycled back in to the nontransforming vehicles that made it up. Then returned to their owners.

***

"NO!!!!!!" Malice screamed and howled like a wounded beast as her viewing orb burst, like a soap bubble. Her rage was unchecked for a moment before she checked it with a devious plan.

Abomination remained in his spot wo dering how she could be so melodramatic.

Malice took her charm out, which allowed connection to her spy who was due to check in.

"Mistress?"

"I already know of the destruction of Endgame," she snapped. "It was ironically-named -- I'm not done yet."

"Mistress?" the spy prompted after Malice lapsed into a deranged silence.

"Tell me more about this artifact you mentioned in the last transmission," Malice said, her quiet tone venomous. "Tell me about Richard's Horn."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 05, 2013, 06:46:28 PM

You are blazing through these books. I remember when you were ten books before this one as if it was yesterday.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2013, 07:48:41 PM

You . . . uh . . . can't keep a good writer down? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 06, 2013, 01:29:59 AM

Nope, you can't. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2013, 08:15:22 AM

Yep.

Well, I'm to planning out Chapter 13 of "League of Assassins" (Book CLXI -- Book 161).  And came up with ideas for Books CLXVI, CLXVII and CLXVIII (see below -- marked by the asterisks(*).)

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• *Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• *Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• *Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2013, 08:18:03 AM

Now, a new book -- which is a parody on "All Dogs Go To Heaven 2" and reveal the spy . . . eventually. And Abomination's story will climax here, I suppose . . .
 
 :-X
 

BOOK XXV:
RICHARD'S HORN
CHAPTER ONE:
Parade of the Newbies

Cloak was looking on, watching as the latest batch of newbies were being processed. There was a big security update since the Cybertronian incident a month ago. Personally, Cloak thought it was grossly unnecessary and unneeded. But the newbies scared, and this was thought up to assauge them. They required a special horn thing to open the gates -- although the veterans could come and go as they please, as they had Marks.
 
Mostly, it was just for show. A sort of initiation. Such concepts were quite foreign to Realm Walkers, but Cloak kept his silence about it.
 
Cloak looked idly at his right palm, at the stylized "R" glowing softly, almost like a coo. His Mark, so much like the marks of the Signers in "Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds"* . . .
 
Cloak wondered idly if there was a drawback for having them. . . . Well, at the very least, if he didn't know, that means this spy -- whoever it is -- didn't know either. . . .
 
Cloak looked at the Horn, which "opened" the gates of RAF. Cloak couldn't help but think that the thing would prove to be a liability . . . but he put that down to paranoia on his part.
 
The Horn was a harmless tool of initiation, right? What harm could it do?
 
. . . Right?
 

***

"Do it tonight!" Malice commanded in ringing tones. "Undercover of darkness. Bring me the Horn!"
 
"But . . . Mistress," the spy protested. "Mistress . . . my cover . . ."
 
Without really, truly considering the consequences, she said, in a fit of emotion, "that doesn't matter anymore! Bring it to me as soon as the coast is clear."
 
". . . Y-yes, Mistress."
 
Then the communication went out, and, unbeknownst to Malice, Abomination heard everything.
 
So . . . even if he hadn't had his revelation, he was going be replaced by this traitorous little weasel.
 
His path was clear. He would do what he must.
 
He was leaving Malice.
 
---
*Where the initial idea of the Mark originated from.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2013, 09:08:52 AM

*cues the parody -- "I Write Stuff".*
 
Why are you looking at me that way? No, that parody isn't gonna be in this chapter.  What made you think that? Anyway, might be a bit of a short chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Purloined Property

The traitorous spy snuck out of his thread late at night. He tiptoed, taking in every sound, as he stole into the armament. He managed not to trigger the sensors by somehow disarming them.  This traitor had rudimentary knowledge of the security systems -- revealing a security problem in teaching and training all RAFians elementary knowledge of such things. But the concept of there even being a spy or a traitorous RAFian was absurd.
 
The spy spied the Horn, the loop-de-loop shape of the instrument, hovering in his lit cylindrical pedestal. The identity of the spy was close to being revealed . . .
 
But the spy's movements were too quick, and he snatched the Horn, and made a mad dash for the gate -- since he had a Mark he was able to bypass the normal security restrictions and he was out!
 
However, his flight did not go unnoticed.  The pounding of his feet as he escaped alerted the one RAFian would could "see" with the Earth.  Cloak awoke nearly immediately, dream forgotten, as he fled his thread to find capture the betrayer -- and was at the door before he remembered to put on his cloak. It would be incredibly sloppy of him to forget that.

But, by the time Cloak was properly clothed, it was to late. The spy had left RAF and was swallowed by the night. Cloak could not Earthsight anything.

"Gate burst!" Cloak cursed quietly.

***

The spy ran as far as he could, then he remembered Cloak's Earthsight.  Then he leaped into a tree and brachiated a fair bit, backtracking to lose Cloak's trail and making all sorts of zigzags before arriving in the city. He knew that the RAFians would eventually want to search here, but because of the new restrictions, they would only be able to send two at first.

He walked to the city limits, confident in his duplicity.  Until he realized . . .

Until he realized an awful truth.

He had lost the Horn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2013, 09:47:33 AM

Now, another chapter. Not gonna reveal the identity of the spy just yet. ;) Shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Alert!

Cloak sent up the alarm and then he went with the Mods and Aquilai to investigate what had been taken.  They went to the armament first, on a hunch from Aquilai.  From there, it was obvious what happened.  The spy (which the other mods were privy to) must have absconded with it.

"But why?" Phoenix said. "Why take such a trivial instrument?"

"I don't know," Richard said. "Surely whoever this spy is knows of its triviality."

"Not if Malice disregarded it," Cloak said shrewdly. "Malice tends to disregard things that seem trivial at first, but turn out to be rather important, to her cost."

"But who is this traitor?" SuperNate pointed out practically. "That should be a priority as well."

<It could be any of us, though,> Esplin pointed out.

"No, not just any one." Aquilai countered. "Clearly, the spy did not linger or return. Otherwise, the Horn would still be here."

"They could have possibly hidden it," Goom said.

"Not if Malice wanted it," Cloak replied.  "Malice doesn't have a very long patience, and, since this spy serves her judging by her actions when Richard was kidnapped by the Vox, the spy wouldn't want to incur her wrath. Believe me when I say, I know what it is like to fear a very frightening woman . . ."

Cloak eyes darkened slightly at the last sentence.

"Moving on," Aquilai said quickly, "how do we unmask this traitor? Simply get a roll call."

"Not gonna be so simple," SuperNate pointed out. "Several RAFians are out. Itellsya left early on today to visit his grandmother, Gulliver and Rotiart are attending some sort of convention at the community center in the city. And those are just the ones at the top of my head."

"Call an assembly," Richard said, deciding.

***

The spy walked towards Malice's well-hidden, and excellently-concealed hideout. He was nervous. He had failed her mission. He had failed her request. But . . . Cloak's tales of Malice's disposition had to be false, right?

He felt a fear such as he had never felt before. He wasn't this afraid of betraying the RAFians, those whom he at one time called friends. . . .

KNOCK! KNOCK!

The knocks were eerily and ominously loud.

"M-Mistress?" he said, unable to keep the quaver from his voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 06, 2013, 09:57:26 AM

So, we have an essential detail about the spy: he's male. :P

Yeah, the security system is a bit weird - I dunno, it sorta feels like herding animals. I guess I have a soft spot for newbies that way, maybe 'coz I'm essentially still one myself. Confused and scared - yeah, that's pretty much the story of my real life.

...

Uh, Cloak. Do yourself a favour and post more awesome chapters instead of listening to my rant. :P ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2013, 09:59:56 AM

Quote from: Saffa on May 06, 2013, 09:57:26 AM

So, we have an essential detail about the spy: he's male. :P

Ah, so you caught that? ;)  ;D

Yeah, I'll probably post another two chapters a little later. But don't hold me to that.

EDIT: It's later.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Mission . . . START!

". . . As such, the security system will only allow two out at present time." Richard was explaining.

They were in the auditorium, assembly hall, whatever term you prefer. They had to be gathered.

"But why would one of us, a RAFian, steal the horn?" Saffa asked, pretty much anticipating the answer. But she wished to be mistaken.

"Time to come clean, guys," Kelly said. "They've a right to know."

The mods faces were masks, masks hiding their feelings, their thoughts.

"Don't be like that," Cloak chided, "it's clear he or she isn't here."

"Who?" Abby interjected, perplexed.

"Ever wonder just how Malice knew Richard was missing?" Cloak answered. "Or paused to wonder just how those Cybertronians knew where our doorstep was? Much less why they knew to keep hammering away at Code Avalon?"

Abby blinked, as did most of the assemblage. Saffa looked down, she had wondered . . . her ESP telling her something wasn't right but not clarifying.

"No?" Aquilai said, genuinely surprised. "You guys hadn't wondered any of this?"

"There was a spy," Phoenix said gruffly. "A traitor in our midst."

"A traitor? That's impossible!" Gaz protested. "No one would betray us!"

"I dunno 'bout that, Gaz," Saffa said, "Rotiart certainly fits the bill."

Gaz could not refute this, although she clearly did not want to believe it.

"So, any of the RAFians not present are suspect?" Dino said, voice heavily.

"Yes," Cloak said, then as an afterthought, added, "Except for Esty. She's been at that nebula-quasar-star-birth thing for ages now."

Silence settled over the room, broken only when Underseen asked, "You said that two of us could --"

"Leave, yeah," Aquilai said, intercepting the question. "Cloak and I are going."

Richard hesitated for a moment, then nodded his agreement.

Then the two left, not wasting a second.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2013, 06:48:04 PM

Last chapter today. May be a bit short.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Transit and Taken

"Where to look first?" Aquilai asked as the continued in the linear path.

"Best guess?" Cloak replied. "The city. If this spy somehow lost the Horn in the woods . . . I'd rather not think about it."

"Fair enough," Aquilai responded. "But something occurs to me . . . won't the spy recognize us?"

"If they delivered that Horn to Malice, it won't matter. . . ."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know exactly," Cloak admitted, looking at Aquilai in the eyes. "But I have an inkling something very bad would happen."

***

As it turns out, the Horn had fallen very near a small stream with pebbly shores that were lined with thick vegetation about a yard from the stream's banks.

It was discovered by a shadowy figure in silhouette, who picked it up and, like the RAFian spy, absconded with it.

***

"You dare came here empty-handed?" Malice said, surprisingly calm and collected. Her eyes were narrowed with contempt.

"I'm sorry, Mistress," the spy said, kneeling with his eyes down.

"Fortunately," Malice said, her voice even, "I still have need of your services. My other, ah, associate decided to take an . . . an extended leave of absence."

"I won't fail you again."

"See to it."

The spy got to his feet and turned to leave, but Malice called him back -- she had an idea.

"Your premise to leave the forum was what again?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 06, 2013, 09:19:20 PM

It's not female, so that renders out a bit less than half of us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 06, 2013, 11:01:48 PM

Yep. I noticed that too. I'm very impatient to wait for the next chapter. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 07, 2013, 01:36:37 AM

Yep, the man really knows how to keep us guessing. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 06:04:46 AM

Well, it looks like the spy's identity may be revealed in chapter 8 instead of chapter 13. And who you think? Probably should guess again. But go ahead and take a guess. >:D

CHAPTER SIX:
The Grandmother and Forum Fever

Meanwhile, back at the forum, the posts had stopped, as the newbies dropped into an advanced state of lethargy. Then one stood up, acting rather crazy, saying, "Oh no . . . I've got the madness . . . I've got forum fever!"

Then another popped up and said, "I've got it too!"

Then music started up and all the newbies sang --

"Forum fever!"

Then a third newbie sang --

"I've got forum fever,
it's burning in my brain!"

A fourth sang:

"I've got forum fever,
It's driving me plain!"

Then sll the newbies rang out,

"We've got forum fever!
We're flipping our bandanas.
We've got forum fever!
We've been stuck here so long,
we've simply gone bananas!
We've got forum fever!
We've lost all sense we've had!
We've got forum fever!
We're all goin' mad!"

Then a fifth newbie sang, in a square dance caller voice:

"Grab your partners 'round the ears,
press them to the wheel,
Do-si-do,
Step on their toes,
Listen to them squeal.
Now, a little to the left,
A little to the right,
It's time to post or sink.
Sling your partner
And toss them in the drink."

Then the sixth and seventh newbie were dressed like faux aristocracy as they sang snobbily, trading each lyric between the two, except for the last one:

"We've got forum fever,
No 'if's, 'and's, and 'but's.
We're demented,
And disoriented.
And a little offset."

Then the entirety of the newbies sang:

"We were posting, posting,
The forum was at our side!"

Then an eighth newbie, one dressed as a mummy sang:

"Then it died."

Then a ninth sang, with a bad Mexican accent:

"I've got forum fever.
I think I lost my grip."

Then a tenth said, with some limited multidimensional awareness apparently:

"I'd like to get my hands on
Whoever wrote this script!"

Then the eleventh newbie -- a male singing in falsetto:

"We're behaving like lovable fools,
Dreaming of an azure lagoon,
And now I'm crazy as a loon."

Then all the newbies joined in for the final chorus:

"Forum fever!
It's grabbed all aboard.
This once proud forum
Has become a static psycho ward!
We were posting, posting,
To who knows where
And now that we're all here . . .
We're not all there!
Forum fever!"

Then Genies, who had been watching this, said drolly, "It's only been an hour."

***

"Itellsya?" Cloak said, surprised to come across him. He glanced at Aquilai.

"We thoughtnyou were visiting your grandmother," Aquilai said.

"I am," he said. "There she is."

They looked where he indicated and saw an old crone who resembled a more wrinkly, more feminine version of Itellsya with a more prominent nose. She was dressed like Granny from "Looney Tunes".

"What's up?" Itellsya asked. "Why so serious?"

Cloak wished he hadn't said anything. His mother once asked why he was so serious, not really acknowledge her emotional abuse made him that way.

"Something has been stolen from RAF," Aquilai said, stealing a glance to Cloak. Imperceptibly, Cloak gave a little nod.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 07, 2013, 08:23:21 AM

Nice kick-your-feet-up-and-dance tone you've set there :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 09:50:44 AM

Well, considering they sung it again after they finished . . .

Now a single chapter away from the revelation of the traitor -- and, unlike Corocoro, I'll be true to my word (I'm looking at the fact they decided to give us nuttin' for March, other than a game I really don't care about instead of XY news).

Anyway, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Crohn's Offer

"Stolen?" Itellsya asked. "What?"

The two subtly exchanged looks, and thereby subtle messages. They both knew of Itellsya gossiping tendacies. But they could risk too much information to his loose lips.

"A horn." Aquilai said, striving to keep the guarded, repressive tone from it.

"Is that this 'Richard's Horn' you were telling me about, Itellsya?" Itellsya's grandmother, this Irma Crohn, said. Her voice was as if someone decided to merge the voice of Wanda Sykes, the Evil Hag of "Snow White", Angela Lansbury, and Julie Andrews together into a singular voice and inflection.

The two RAFians eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. They were right to assume that Itellsya couldn't be trusted with more information.

"Nana, please," Itellsya said with an imploring tone.

"Something like that," Cloak replied, unsuccessfully suppressing the repressive tone. He was suspicious of Itellsya, though his story checked out. But the spy could quite easily not be him.

And, if Cloak was truly honest with himself, he was honestly hoping that Rotiart was the spy, the traitor.

"What do you think, Nana?" Itellsya deferred to his grandmother. "Can we help?"

This defference struck Cloak as suspicious, but really . . . was this all that different from how used to be with his mom in what he felt was a different life? He deferred to her to make all the decisions because she neer really trusted him as a child to make any, and undermined his confidence.

Itellsya could be in a similar position. Although, Cloak hoped not -- it was a terrible time in his life, the only and brightest light being . . . being Shadow.

Cloak wondered idly if Shadow knew just how much of a light she was in his miserable, neglected existence.

Pull yourself together, now he thought to himself, you're on a mission.

"Well?" the elderly woman, this human female, asked.

"Huh?"

Aquilai whispered, "She asked if she could help us find it."

The two looked at each other, and both knew it was a bad idea.

"No," Aquilai said, "we don't think we'll take you up on that."

"Have it your way," she said, and Cloak thought he heard a note of anger in her voice. He sensed a note of familarity . . . he waited until they were far enough away before telling Aquilai.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 12:42:25 PM

Now . . . you wanted to know who the traitor was (though you may have already guessed)?

Can I get a drumroll?

*someone whispers in his ear.*

That much, huh? Never mind! Here's a shortish chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
It Feels So Good To be Bad!

"What is it, Cloak?" Aquilai said, putting his hand on Cloak's shoulder.

"It's him," Cloak said. "Itellsya is the traitor!"

Aquilai's eyes widened. "How . . . how could you tell?"

"That wasn't his grandmother," Cloak said stoically, "It was Malice. Wearing a cheap ID mask rip-off."

***

"M-Mistress, it worked," Itellsya said, with a sliver of fearful tremor in his voice. "Th-they fell for it."

"Silence!" Malice snarled as she ripped off the ID mask, which looked like a metallic version of the Green Lantern mask. Then she snapped her fingers and music started up and she turned to Itellsya.

"Now, I know you can be malicious,
Spiteful, and a trifle vicious.
It's no secret that you cheated and lied!
And you've done some double-dealing,
Scheming, swindling, and stealing.
You're an amateur,
But I know you tried."

"Th-that's right, didn't I?" Itellsya said. "Money, power, stature!"

"Good boy," she said, patting him on the head like a dog, "Very soon, your efforts will be rewarded."

Then she sang:

"Oh, you'll develop so much faster
Now that you're working with a master!
Who will help you cultivate your darker side!
You'll discover wicked ways that you've never known before!
And you'll find,when you're really rotten to the core . . . !
It feels so good to be bad!
So delicious to be a dispicable cad!
It's just so thrilling and so fulfilling
To give someone the worst time they've ever had!
It feels so good to be bad!
I promise you, by sunset, I'll . . .
I'll have Richard's Horn!"

"Why can't I get it for you?"

"'Coz you had your chance and blew it.
I entrusted you to do it.
But you BINGLED it,
And threw your chance away!
It's a problem you created,
If the Horn can't be located,
I'm not naming names,
BUT SOMEONE'S HAS TO PAY!!!"

"I can try again, Mistress!"

"You'll never find it. Only RAFians can hear its heavenly tone."

"But I am a RAFian!"

"Not anymore," Malice said with a sneer, "You work for me, anyhow!"

Malice then elaborated:

"Though you gave me cause to doubt you,
There's a loathesomeness about you,
That attracts me to you as a protege!
And when you've learned every creepy, crummy thing I know
You'll taste the joy that comes when you're the lowest of the low!
It feels so good to be bad!
So delightful to be a deplorable cad!
It's so unfeeling to have the feeling
That what you're doing
Gets trouble brewing
And drives everybody mad!
You've got my guantee!
It feels so good . . . to be . . . bad!
So exciting!"

"Olé! So inviting!"

"So good to be bad!"

The song ended with both smiling.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 04:32:39 PM

Not as big an reaction as I expected. ;)

*Tumbleweed blows by.*

Horse! Hor-- oh, right.

CHAPTER NINE:
Horns and Misdemeanors

"How'd you see through the deception?" Aquilai asked.

"Malice should have picked up a better ID mask -- my Earthsight saw right through it."

"Oh. But Itellsya? I thought for sure it was Rotiart."

"I was actually hoping for it to be him," Cloak said as they dawdled throughout the city. "But just being an horribly unpleasant person doesn't make one a traitor apparently."

"Yes, but -- hear that?"

Cloak turned his head very slowly and looked at Aquilai with narrowed eyes. The message was clear, as Cloak's feline hearing was more acute than Aquilai's.

"Alright, stop with the look," Aquilai said. "What is it?"

"The Horn," Cloak said.

"Oh, right, the mods said that it would make that low noise like a heavenly choir." Aquilai said. "Can you pinpoint it?"

"Not exactly," Cloak said, "but it is in that direction. Let's hurry up a d procure it and get back. Communications are down."

"God, that 'lockdown' mode was always overkill," Aquilai facepalming a bit. "This'll have to be fixed when we return."

"Indeed." Cloak concurred.

And off they went following the sound.

***

"You have got to be kidding me," Aquilai said.

"The . . . the police station?" Cloak said, confused. Cloak Earthsighted as much as he could and could see, barely, that the Horn was in evidence lock-up. He thought.

Aquilai cursed, "Itellsya must have dropped it at a crime scene. How are we going to get it out?"

"That," Cloak said, "is a good question."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 07, 2013, 05:38:00 PM

And that....is going to be fun....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 06:13:09 PM

>:( >:(>:(

I had a nicely-sized chapter, intoducing two minor characters, when this piece of crap decided to do the "post a thread instead of posting a post" thing again, only this time I caught it.

Then lost everything.

Gonna wait an hour or so before trying AGAIN.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 07, 2013, 06:26:29 PM

Fun. Good luck with that!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 07:33:22 PM

Let's try this again. Those two minor characters are gonna get written out though. It will be short because of this.

CHAPTER TEN:
Break-In

"How're we going to get in there?" Aquilai asked.

"I dunno," Cloak said earnestly.

"Could you just Walk in?" Aquilai said.

"Can you --" Cloak began but he could not think of an analogy, so he dropped it, and replied. "Walking realm-to-realm, sure, that's easy. Walking within the same realm? I don't know if that's even possible."

Then Cloak, planning to deflect the question he knew Aquilai was bound to be thinking, elaborated, "Teleportation and Walking are not the same thing. I'm not Nightcrawler, Aquilai."

"Then what?"

"There's one way . . ." Cloak said thoughtfully. "You have that magic screwdriver of yours?"

"It's a sonic screwdriver," Aquilai said, "and I always have it."

"Good, unless the floor is concrete -- Earth -- we'll need it to repair it when we leave."

***

Turns out that the floor was concrete, and Cloak (using Earthsight to confirm that the coast was clear) easily broke into the evidence lock-up, and Aquilai used his sonic screwdriver to screw up the surveillance footage (there were security cameras everywhere nowadays) while Cloak took the Horn, and then he dove back into the tunnel, and Cloak closed up the opening, leaving it seamless and markless. He obliterated the tunnel behind them as they burst back up to the surface outside the city near the harbor.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 07, 2013, 08:45:43 PM

After a mind numbing day of having orientation stuff thrown at me for a new school it was great to have some new chapters! :D

These really do make my day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 07, 2013, 09:03:51 PM

The traitor was almost impossible to guess until recent chapters, which made me suspect almost everyone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2013, 09:31:55 PM

Quote from: Underseen on May 07, 2013, 09:03:51 PM

The traitor was almost impossible to guess until recent chapters, which made me suspect almost everyone.

Which means I did a good job then -- I was in constant fear that I was giving to much away. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 07, 2013, 09:39:12 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 07, 2013, 09:31:55 PM

Quote from: Underseen on May 07, 2013, 09:03:51 PM

The traitor was almost impossible to guess until recent chapters, which made me suspect almost everyone.

Which means I did a good job then -- I was in constant fear that I was giving to much away. ;)

You weren't giving ANYTHING away. The only thing was that you kept saying its no who you think, which most probably thought of as Rotiart. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 05:24:14 AM

I meant in-chapter, Abby. Oh, and Rotiart will have an interesting story come future books. And pay attention to Abomination in Chapter 17 or 18 (i.e. tomorrow). He will have something rather, uh, life-changing happen to him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 08, 2013, 07:21:06 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 08, 2013, 05:24:14 AM

I meant in-chapter, Abby. Oh, and Rotiart will have an interesting story come future books. And pay attention to Abomination in Chapter 17 or 18 (i.e. tomorrow). He will have something rather, uh, life-changing happen to him.

But still... You weren't giving away anything until the chapter before... Maybe I just didn't see it....

And.... Now I have to wait. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 08:09:19 AM

Eh, if I should decide more than five chapters today . . . maybe not so long.  Just to get your hopes up.

Now, the first chapter of the day.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Net Loss and Found

"Well, we finally have the accursed thing." Cloak said, clutching the Horn. Then his eyes darkened as he said, "We probably should destroy it."
 
Aquilai said, "After what we went through to procure it? Have you taken leave of your senses?"
 
"We wouldn't have gone through the ordeal at all if this thing was never created." Cloak pointed out. "And all for what? An initiation for newbies? We didn't have such a thing when I joined nearly five of your years ago. Why now?"
 
Aquilai took that in, and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Malice's carrying tones.
 
"Why now? Why, so I could put you RAFians were you deserve!" she called. She was in a black cloak with a blood-red interior and blood-red clothing underneath. Her eyes burned from beneath her Cloak.
 
Then he realized what she just said. That's what she meant . . . the Horn, though named after him, was not Richard's idea. It was an idea of Itellsya, who somehow persuaded and manipulated the senior RAFians to size with this idea. . . . No one suspected him of being traitorous or manipulative enough to do such a thing! He had necessary subtlety . . . he was more dangerous than Cloak gave him credit for.
 
He was there, as well, wearing a black wool hat, a pair of stupid-looking Elton John-like sunglasses, and a black scarf that obscured everything between his nose and the base of his neck. He also wore a pair spandex gloves, some awkwardly bulky tennis shoes, and a leotard that really didn't leave much to the imagination.
 
"Hand over the Horn, or my associate --"
 
"Cut the crap, Malice," Cloak snapped. "We know that's Itellsya."
 
"Who?" Malice said, feigning ignorance.
 
"Stop playing stupid." Aquilai said.
 
"You're too good at it," Cloak said flatly.
 
"I don't know --"
 
With a flick of his hand, Cloak blasted a gust powerful enough to dislodge Itellsya's hat and glasses. He takes off the scarf, revesling himself as basically the red-haired, purple-eyed clone of Cameron Boyce with black sclera.
 
"How'd you know it was me?" he asked.
 
"That's immaterial." Cloak said.
 
"And irrelevant." Aquilai added.
 
The battle was swift and vicious, ending with the Horn falling into the water of the harbor, but the four battling were unaware of this.

It was eventually found by a hulking silhouette who decided to hide in a lobster cage -- although what lobster cages where doing here when they weren't even native to the area was unknown.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 08, 2013, 10:13:42 AM

I'm turning my head back and forth between a decidedly creepy episode of X-Files and Memoirs.

My day is loaded with awesomeness. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 11:31:58 AM

Nice, Saffa.

Finished planning out the chapters of Books CLXI, CLXII, and CLXIII (which turned out well, in my opinion). Now planning out the chapters for Book CLXIV ("Moody").

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 01:50:24 PM

Now . . .

*gasp*

Chapter 12 is missing!

[spoiler]Just kidding, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Distractions

"Enough!" Cloak said, going all Final Smash, scaring off Malice and Itellsya -- who seemed to not realize how scary it was when the elementary fury was focused on you instead of on another. But this was a dangerous tactic for Cloak to have chosen. He could easily lose control, of himself, of his powers.

Malice pulled Itellsya away from the danger zone, but not for some altruistic reason. She simply could not lose his usefulness, as he had talents that even the RAFians didn't know about -- because Itellsya thought them to gimmicky to boast about.

The two of the scurried away as Cloak closed his eyes to try and his emotions and himself together.

"Cloak, are you okay?" Aquilai asked.

"For the moment," Cloak said, with a heavy breath. Glancing at Aquilai, his luminescent feline eyes widened, "Where's the Horn?"

Aquilai's eyes widened to match Cloak's, "Don't you have it?"

"Does it look like I have it?" Cloak replied testily.

"There's no need for that tone," Aquilai chided calmly.

"Oh really?" Cloak snapped acidly. "We out one Horn, again. Malice and that traitorous scum has designs on it! That must mean that it can do more than just initiate newbies!"

"I realize that," Aquilai said, determinedly remaining calm and collected, "but I'm not the one that you're mad at. Itellsya is the one that betrayed you. Betrayed all of us."

Cloak shut his eyes, took a breath, and said, in a tumbling-out sort of way, "Yes, I know, sorry."

"Apology accepted," Aquilai acknowledged, then commented, "Where could it have gotten to?"

"Could be anywhere," Cloak said, "but not here. I'm not getting it on Earthsight, nor can I hear it."

"Right, then, "Aquilai said, "let's try, uh, this way then?"

Then the two were off.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 03:01:50 PM

Now . . .

*gasp*

Just kidding -- I wouldn't do such a joke twice. . . . Well, not today anyway.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Bad -- Really Bad --News Everyone!

"Mistress, why'd we flee? I could have --"

"Never mind that now," Malice snarled, "we split up now. Find a new hideout. When -- If you find one, contact me with that charm."

"The crossed scythe and flail one?"

"You have any other?" Malice narrowedher eyes.

"No, Mistress," he said, and the vicious old Tasmanian devil Realm Walker left him alone.

Itellsya headed down to the stream for some idea, some brainwave, of a new hideout. He knew why Malice thought of it as such a priority. Aquilai and Cloak knew he was the spy, the betrayer.

But why had they never outed him? Revealed his duplicity? Could it be that they only recently discovered him?

At the stream, he, on a whim, activated his psychometry power. It worked similarly to a Chronosapien, where he picked up the technique -- he was a mutant who looked human.

He saw the horn drift down here, be picked up by that bulky, shadowy figure. Itellsya followed this psychometric ghost and discovered its hiding place.

He pulled up the lobster cage, and . . . he . . . discovered . . .

A pet lobster. The Horn was in the other cage.

***

Malice discovered a lovely abandoned prison. One would think, considering her time in the Oblivion Gate (which was similar to this place, only the Gate was better maintained) that she would be reluctant to use this Alcatraz-styled prison as her base of operations.

But she found it adequate for her needs. Even the cell bars survived.

Then Itellsya called.

"Never mind," she said, "come to these coordinates, this place is adequate enough."

"Mistress, I -- I got it."

"Got? Got what? . . . Wait, you mean --" Malice blustered. Itellya held it up, and Malice gave a whoop of delight. "Bring it here! Bring it here immediately!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 05:00:28 PM

Another chapter. Darn weather's making me sleepy.

Oh, BTW, Rotiart was originally gonna be te traitor, but I thought that I introduced him too early and developed him too much (although, I'll concede, not very well -- although this could be an example of "being-my-own-worst-critic").

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Thar She Blows!

It felt like forever waiting for Itellsya to arrive at the coordinates. They did not depart that long ago, right? Just an hour or two?

She decided to go wait at the entrance of this Alcatraz-style prision, as it was easy to get lost in these labyrinthian hallways with the glass ceilings (which had some plans of glass missing or broken or cracked here and there. There were cobwebs and mice everywhere.

Malice didn't care about any of this, although humans (and human mutants), like Itellsya, would find it dreary, dingy, and spooky. But Malice didn't put any stock in stories of haunting or spirits or ghosts.

"M-mistress!" Itellsya called.

"'Bout time. I was getting bored," Malice said, aloof. Itellsya thought nothing of this, but assumed it was part of this master/pupil, mentor/protege relationship. It would make Abomination flinch to see this volutarily servile behavior -- knowing, that once upon a time, it had been he himself that was that foolish and naive.

"Give it here," Malice commanded. Itellsya knelt and presented it on high, with his head bowed. Malice thought this was a stupid gesture, but did not speak it aloud. She just took the Horn, restraining herself from snatching it.

"Now," she smiled, "to turn their precious Marks against them."

Itellsya instinctively looked at his palm -- the protection of the Mark no longer was extended to him. He was RAFian no longer. But he didn't regret his decision to betray those that, at one time, he would have counted as friends.

Malice pressed her lips agains the Horn, whose inherent aura turned as black as her soul and apparently the Horn could only be destroyed by a RAFian or a ferrokinetic or both due to its self-mending nature (which, again, Cloak thought was a mistake). Then Malice took a great breathe and blew.

At first, it seemed to do nothing but make the RAFians' Marks burn red. The second blow maked the pain excruciating as the Marks burned black. By the third blow, the RAFians (Rotiart and Gulliver included) were all flying towards the prision. Even Esty, with all her power, was unable to resist this as it drew her in half a galaxy away.

Eventually, by the fourth blow, all the RAFians -- be they mods, veterans, newbies, and lurkers -- were all trapped in an individual cell. Unable leave or summon the energy or strength to use their powers to escape.

Even if they could, their Marks forever bind them to the cells. Even Cloak, accustomed to coming and going as he pleased (as all Realm Walkers are), was unable to evade this. Estelore, as well, was unable to escape.

All hope looked lost.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 08, 2013, 05:11:47 PM

Wait wait wait... What? No no no no no no..... Ahh!! Why Cloak? Why? You left us in suspense!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 07:23:57 PM

Not quite, Abby. There's one more chapter before I'm done for the day (my internet is getting spotty again ::) >:().

Anways, the chapter -- and hopefully I'll finish off this book tomorrow and move on to "Feral Scream", which is loosely based off a Beast Wars episode.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Victorious, At Long Last!

Malice crowed with a whooping laugh as she clutched the Horn, whose dark, black aura was horribly reminescent, but not identical, to the Black Lantern energy.

"Oh, this has been a long time coming." she said, her face alight with her namesake.

"It has?" Itellsya asked.

"Don't ask!" Cloak shouted. "It'll only lead to --"

"If you only knew, Itellsya, it's been a lifetime!" Malice said, interrupting Cloak.

"-- a villain song. . . ." Cloak's voice faded away as the music started.

"In my formative and hungry years,
I was unappreciated by my peers.
As their slings and barrels flew,
I would ponder -- wouldn't you?!
Why me?
Why me?
For a woman of my charisma and mystique."

"Not!" Cloak said defiantly and audibly. Malice ignore him.

"I've taken far too long to reach my peak!
Why was my status never quo?
Why did no one want to know?
Poor me.
Why me?
Why was I so unable to fulfill my true potential?
Kept down by those that I knew were smaller fry?
But here's the rub.
Rub-a-dub-dub!"

She cackled as she petted the Horn fondly, as if she were a Bond villainess. Rubbing in quite an disconcertingly obsessive way (causing, once again, Cloak to call her sanity into question) before continuing her song.

"I am power, I am clout personified!
I've the Horn and sheer malice on my side!
It's a combination which
Works me up to fever pitch!
When the master of the Horn says 'bow', you bow!
You foreget who wears the pants around here now!
A woman who knows just what to do
And who to do it to!
Who's she? M-E!
Who's the titan, who's the god?
Who will get the nod?
Who's the one who'll take up
Pages in Who's Who?
Who? Why, me!!!!!"

Then she cackled so loudly she could hear the small, low scoff coming from the long, deep shadows.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 08, 2013, 09:17:41 PM

Never thought I'd see the day when Abomination saves us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2013, 09:29:19 PM

But at what cost, Underseen?

Maybe he'll leave us to rot. ;)

Anyway, it'll all be clear tomorrow. I do intend to finish this book tomorrow.
Now, the first chapter of the day. I will try to complete this book today. Then it's on to book XXXVI, a Wild-centered book.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Hornless

"Wh-what do we do now, Mistress?" Itellsya asked, his voice quavering a bit.
 
"Examine our new exhibits, I suppose," Malice said, with a grin to match her name. "You know, before they starve to death. Bet the seal goes first."
 
They both chuckled evilly at that. It would seem that Itellsya had no redeemable character, which was rather disappointing.
 
Cloak tried not to wallow in despair, but it was not an easy task to do. He could not conceive a way out of this mess, he would die here, and that could take years, Dweller time. Malice would wait for him to hear the anguished cries of his starving RAFian brethren as, one by one, they expired. Then, weakened ever more, would Malice finish it. And he'd probably beg for it.
 
If only Goom and he not made the Marks, if only Richard not given the go ahead . . .
 
But, no . . . that wouldn't be right. All they've faced, the Mark protected them. Their troubles would've been worse without it. How could they even foreseen this outcome?
 
Cloak fought against the feelings of grief, shame, fear (yes, fear), guilt, shame, disillusionment, and mental distortion of the situation.
 
Suddenly, something rattled several of the bars toward the left side of the prison. Itellsya looked scared -- apparently he was phantophobic.
 
"W-was that a ghost?" he asked, still with the tremble in his voice.
 
"Don't be a fool," Malice said scornfully. "Ghosts don't exist."
 
The bars rattled again, spooking the newbies within -- one screamed.
 
Malice's grip on the Horn loosened stupidly. A pulse of energy knocked it out of her hand and into the shadows, and she couldn't see where.
 
"Where'd it go?!" she demanded immediately. "Where's the blasted Horn?!"
 
"Apparently," Cloak said, dryly, "you've lost more than your mind."
 
"Oh, shut up!" she snapped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 08:50:45 AM

New page, reposting the list.

• Book XXXVI: Feral Scream

A Wildwethel-centric book, he must deal with his feral side.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 08:53:36 AM

 Now, another chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Tooting His Own Horn

"WHERE IS IT?!"
 
"Apparently, you lose horns like you lose boyfriends." Cloak heckled.
 
"Shut up, Cloak, or I'll -- I'll -- I'll --" she said, unable to come up with a viable, coherent threat.
 
Cloak called her on it, too. "Or you'll do what?"
 
Knowing the scope of her threats right now, though weakened and trapped, Cloak could still be a threat to her. She vented her emotions with a growling grunt of frustration and a momentary discharge of her own energy. Cloak smiled cheekily. He may not be able to perform his usually feats, but he still could heckle her.
 
Suddenly, from the shadows directly in front of Cloak's cell, a glow that oscillated from dark gray to light gray and back again illuminated the darkness. It was the Horn, held by no other than Abomination. His gaze was cold and stony, yet determined.
 
"Love, you found it!" Malice said, voice like noxious honey. "Hand here, dear."
 
Abomination did not. He did not move an inch. He was not swayed by the false niceties.
 
"Dear --"
 
"Save it," Abomination snarled. She was taken aback by it.
 
"What . . . what did you just say to me?"
 
"I said, save it!" Abomination snarled, looking Malice directly in the eyes. "Cloak was right. Right about everything. You are incapable of love. Loving anyone but yourself, that is. I see that now."
 
Abomination took a heavy breath as he shut his eyes. When he opened them again, there was a blaze of strength and the aura around the Horn was getting whiter and whiter.
 
"I earned the name Abomination. I am an abomination, a bulky. But that's something I seek to rectify right now!"
 
Then took the Horn, which had a blazing white aura now, and blew it loudly. Once, twice, thrice. Then one final time.
 
The Marks reverted back to their normal blue, and the cells all opened simultaneously. They were free.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 08:56:28 AM

Now a third chapter. May be short.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Abomination No More

Malice was incadescent with rage, seeing Abomination toss the Horn to Cloak.
 
"You DARE to betray me, Abomination?!?!" Malice said storming up to him, glaring upwards at him.
 
"I do," he said, unafraid. Then he suddenly grunted, "Ugh!"
 
Malice had formed an energy blade projected from her wrist, and shoved it through Abomination's gut. It easily penetrated his clothing and flesh. His ichor scored and seared the dusty cement of the prison's floor. It was a fatal injury.
 
Malice was remorseless. "Such a pity. You showed so much promise."
 
But Abomination's last words were not aimed at Malice, nor were they venomous or hateful. He stared desperately at Cloak.
 
"Cloak . . . I'm s-sorry . . . f-for everything . . ." he choked out. "P-please . . . f-f-forgive me . . ."
 
Cloak looked in his dying eyes, as he still clutched the Horn tightly. Abomination's breaths were ragged, and, though Abomination had once very nearly came to being Cloak's murderer, Cloak was not inclined to hate the dying Ream Walker.
 
To the contrary, Cloak was disposed to be sympathetic, as he took Abomination's hand in his own. Cloak said as gently and calmly as he could, despite the flurry of emotions he was feeling, "You are Abomination no longer."
 
Before Cloak could say any more, Abomination gave a contented sigh, and his C.S.I., his corporeal stabilizing integrity, destabilized and his body translated to pure energy, leaving nothing but his cloak behind.
 
Malice laughed crassly at this, saying mockingly, "That's sho schweet."
 
Cloak looked up. He held the Horn in one hand and Abomination's cloak in the other.
 
"You are a monster," Cloak growled.
 
"Well, duh." she replied flippantly.
 
Cloak's eyes were scarlet-gold suns -- a danger sign. He spoke with tempered anger, though his voice quavered as he addressed Malice, holding up the Horn, "You want this? This Veil-forsaken thing?!"
 
Cloak's eyes narrowed, and the Horn exploded into useless, inert powder.
 
"What have you done?!" Malice shrieked.
 
"Oh, we're not done yet." Cloak said, quietly dangerous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 08:58:00 AM

 Now, this book's penultimate chapter. I must say, it turned out well, right?
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Malice Go Down the Hoooole*

"Whoa . . ." Abby said.
 
"Took the word right outta my mouth," Gaz said absently.
 
No one would look at their Marks the same way again. And no one would take them for granted ever again.
 
"Malice," Cloak said in carrying tones. "I'm tired of this song and dance. I'm weary of your half-baked schemes and ill-conceived plans. And all for what? To what ends?"
 
Cloak paused to steady himself emotionally. He was being incredibly emotional, and his powers are strongly connected to powerful emotions.
 
"For all you scheming, Malice what do you have to show for it?" Cloak look her in the eye. She still hadn't lost the maliciously malevolent smile from her face nor that irritatingly-narcissistic demeanor.
 
Cloak continued, "For all your plotting, you have nothing to show for it.. Every one of your plots have been undone, not only by us," he gesture the other RAFians looking, as Cloak ripped Malice a new one. "They've been undone by yourself from the outset. By your arrogance, egotism, narcissism, and your constant and abject underestimation of Dwellers."
 
"You've underestimated the darker natures of Realm Dwellers," Malice pointed out blithely, "consider how Itellsya was able to fool and deceive you."
 
Cloak glared at Malice, and said, "I do not deny it. I acknowledge my mistake, for, unlike you, I do not believe myself infallible."
 
"Are you done?" Malice said, looking frankly bored.
 
Cloak slammed his fist into the ground, causing a sinkhole with perfectly smooth sides to form beneath Malice and Itellsya. They tumbled down it, with Malice laughing. Cloak made no mistake, he knew it was because she thought him weak for not "finishing the job".
 
---
*Anyone know what this is a reference to?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 08:59:57 AM

Last chapter of Book 35 (probably short)! Looks like it's gonna be a really good day for chapters.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
In Memorandum

Cloak took Abomination's cloak with him as the RAFians. He had quite forgiven Abomination for his past transgressions as he, with his final actions, attempted to rectify them. He had attempted to redeem himself . . . and he had to see this possibility happening. Malice would barely tolerate failure (though she would never acknowledge responsibility for it, much like Cloak's own mother), she would simply not permit a betrayal of this magnitude.
 
Cloak honestly hoped Abomination would find happiness in the world beyond, if there was a world beyond.
 
Once in RAF, he was pleased to see that excessive security measure broke as the Horn itself broke. He hoped no one made another -- if they did he'd destroy it -- although now that he thought of it, the Horn was Itellsya's idea in the first place. Now they know why he was so insistant, so ardently promoting it.
 
Upon returning to the forum, Cloak immediately went tothe archives. He folded Abomination's cloak neatly, and wrote a brief history about it and the Walker who wore it. Then he dated it, and filed it into the museum-like, mausoleum-like Archives.
 
Cloak knew it was customary to present the cloak to the deceased family -- but Abomination had none living that acknowledged him or his existence. It was probably for this reason that drove him to bully -- he was venting his feelings as he knew he was unloved by indifferent, negligent parents. Their only child. A mistake, apparently.
 
It was this story that made him realize that Cloak himself could have became like Abomination was. Had he not his aunt, had he not his cousins, had he not his trusted childhood friend . . . had he not RAF . . .
 
Abomination had none of those things. But, in the end, his goodness eventually surfaced - and Malice gave him the ultimate punishment for it.
 
Itellsya would take his old position at Malice's right hand. But how long before he meets a similar fate to poor Abomination?
 
Time would tell.
 

***

Meanwhile, Malice easily escaped with young Itellsya from the terrakinetically-made pit.
 
She decided to keep the prison as a hideout, as no one would expect them to continue using an once-compromised place as a lair.
 
"Wh-what n-now, M-Mistress?" Itellsya, who seemed to have a slight, but permanent, stutter.
 
"Now we gather materials to recreate the Roboticizer," she said. Itellsya, in his naivety, didn't realize she had a plan on a certain person to roboticize . . . granted, she no longer had the plans, but she thought she had enough recall to recreate it, more efficiently this time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 09:04:13 AM

Now, onto book 36. Short introductory chapter, I couldn't make it any longer without taking some of it from the next chapter. Sorry.
 

BOOK XXXVI:
Feral Scream
CHAPTER ONE:
Movie Night

To get over the general heaviness of the Horn fiasco three days ago, the mods organized a movie night. Ironically, the theme was "Monster Mash".
 
Cloak was curious, as Realm Walkers didn't really have things like television or movies. There were no Walker actors, producers, acting agents, etc. There were books and scrolls and whatnot. There just haven't been any motivation to bring what little fiction existed to life. Then, it would be harder to cast, as Realm Walkers have a great deal more biological diversity within their own species. That is to say, do you think a hippo Walker could believely pass as a rabbit Walker? A leonine Walker pass a bumblebee Walker? A moose Walker pass as a seal Walker? A bear Walker pass as a butterfly Walker? A rhino Walker pass for a monkey Walker? A walrus Walker pass for a shark Walker?

Not bloody likely.
 
Besides, with the advent of Realm Walking, for which his species got their name, pretty much renders it moot. Realm Walking is far more immersive than any cinematic experience could be. Granted, it's more dangerous, but it's like Iago, from "Retirn of Jafar", said -- "You'd be surprised what you can live through".
 
Cloak stood and lurked in the back in the shadows. Wild was only conspicuous by his absence.
 
The first movie of the three was "A Werewolf At Comic-Con" -- Cloak supposed that it was supposed to be a comedy of some sort.
 
Cloak mused how humans saw this phenomenon called lycanthropy. Why was the animal most considered? Man-wolf? Wouldn't a Man-Ape, a wereape, be more realistic? Cloak was sure that it had to do with some history he was unfamiliar with.
 
And the idea that lunar radiation could trigger a transformation? Cloak never saw it in action. But, then again, it was impossible to visit every Realm. Even with Realm Walkers' long lifespans. For every star in the sky, there are thousands more Realms. Billions more, really.

Cloak continued these musings, completely missing the movies -- "Dracula Enlists" and "Frankenstein Kills Fred".  Such a pity too, he would have loved the last one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 09, 2013, 10:38:48 AM

Oh... wow. That was... holy crap, if I could say it, Cloak, I'd say you wrote Abomination's final moments just as well as J.K. Rowling would write her death scenes. And that's saying something.

That's all I'll say. Any more fangirl babbling from me and the moment will be ruined. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 11:24:43 AM

 ;D Thanks, Saffa. I do try. ;D

New shortish chapter. Sorry about the length, I'm tired. :-\

CHAPTER TWO:
The BWTM-2 Drive

"Done," Malice said, holding what looked to be a machine the size of a basket ball or soccer ball. It's design was a mirror image and complete reversal of the color scheme of the Transmetal 2 driver from "Beast Wars". She plugged in to the strange device backed up to the nearest dingy concrete wall that Itellsya was glancing at nervously. It looked nothing like a Roboticizer.

"Wh-what w-will this th-thing do to m-me?" he asked, with that stutter.

Malice smiled as she told the boy a half-truth, "Give you powers undreamed of. When it's ready to be started up."

"Oh," Itellsya said, though he clearly had doubts. But he had made his choice. He would stick to it.

"I just have to run through the calculations," Malice said, clearly indifferent to Itellsya's concerns. Indifferent of his personal safety, though Itellsya proved to be ignorant of this fact. That's just how Malice liked her pawns.

When this worked on Itellsya and he had no will of his own, she decided passively gi and forcibly recruit those failed RAFians, those Banned, into her services. Shouldn't be too difficult.

***

"It's a strange machine," Wild was saying to his communicator. "It doesn't look like a Roboticizer in design, but it has a certain sinister look to it."

"I'm nearly there, Wild." Parker replied. "Don't act, don't give away your position."

"I'm not stupid, Parker," Wild said, quietly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 04:45:43 PM

Well, I took a much-needed nap, and here's the eighth chapter today.

CHAPTER THREE:
Goin' Wild!

Wild watched impassively and impatiently as Malice completed her calculations, seemingly satisfied by them.

"Itellsya, if you would step into the alcove, please." Malice said with faux politeness covering the order.

Itellsya hesitated for a moment, then complied, saying, "Y-yes, M-Mistress. As y-you w-wish."

Malice made a note to get rid of that ridiculous stutter, and added to the equation. With a few keystrokes the machine glowed to life, humming in a most deceptively comforting way.

Itellsya was nervous, not knowing what would happen as the BWTM-2 drive began to revolve downward, while remaining static and stationary. Energy was building within the drive.

Wild was getting antsy seeing this. Something was happening, and something was happening now. Where on Earth was Parker?! This what he calked being close by?!

"I can't wait any longer," Wild muttered mutinously, "I gotta stop this. I have to intervene."

Wild launched himself from his hiding place -- ironically the same cell he was trapped in three days prior. He was in his wereferret form, and his call was a mixture of cute and frightening. He ran to the machine on all fours, snarling an spitting.

"The wereferret." Malice said, clearly unimpressed. "Really? They send the wereferret to stop me." She scoffed vulgarly. "What a joke."

And, with that, Malice ignored Wild, believeing him not to be much of a threat. Energy continued to build up in the drive, but then a fraction struck Itellsya, causing him to lose his stutter and affording him rudimentary telekinesis.

But then Wild charged the machine, absorbing the rest of energy.

Then Parker arrived on the scene, witnessing the light show. And Wild's charge.

Wild seemed to absorb too much -- he seemed to explode into nothingness, leaving a gaping hole into the exterior wall, revealing the inky black night.

The machine and drive were totaled. Malice was disappointed, because, as far as she was concerned, the drive was a miserable failure. She and Itellsya left.

Parker was in shock. In a few moments time, he left and headed to RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 08:11:46 PM

Let's try this again (lost the first draft of Chapter 4, so I have to rewrite it ::)), and hopefully my neighbor will take hint that his music is too loud (probably not, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed). :dull: *rubs temples*

EDIT: Please forgive my language but this DAMN "Error 500" bull is getting REALLY FRICKIN' ANNOYING!! One more time, and this'll be a short chapter. I may modify it into being longer.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Gone Wild

Parker plodded slowly back to RAF. He had to listen to Tyr and go down the wrong corridor, which led to a blocked off corridor. That's what took him so long to get to Wild. Sure, he could have simply blasted or hacked his way through, but that would have alerted Malice and Itellsya of their presence, as well as very well as taking too long. The more prudent action was to backtrack.

But he still arrived too late.

And this was the first active duty -- first in-field duty -- Wild had taken in a while. Then he . . . he gets . . . killed.

Richard and Parker suspected that Malice may not have evacuated the prison as a lair. Simply because that would be the layman's first thought. So, teams of two RAFians were to watch the prison in shifts.

Parker's guilt weighed on him more than his armor. Parker was very close to tears himself, fir he knew it was his fault, his decision, that costed Wild so dearly.

Blue greeted him at the threshold of the forum. "Parker! You're back. Demos and I are ready to relieve you. Wh-where's Wild?"

"There was an accident with Malice's machine," Parker said, producing a bloody claw and a scruff of bloody fur. "Wild . . . he didn't make it."

"We must report this to the mods immediately." Blue declared at once.

***

An assembly was called to inform and brief the RAFians. A memorial was to be set the next day.

Cloak, Gaz, and AniDragon weren't so sure of the legitimacy of his death. Oh, sure, Parker was sincere, but that didn't mean that he wasn't mistaken.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 09, 2013, 08:15:40 PM

Interesting. Shall wait for you to post more!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2013, 09:49:33 PM

Well, I tried to work on Chapter 5, but it decided to do the "start-a-topic-instead-of-preview" crap-olla again. And I'm too tired to fight it right now.

EDIT: Let's try this one more time.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Backwoods Beast

Several days later, after Wild's memorial, there were rumors, myths, and legends in the backwoods around the prison. They called the mustelid cryptid the Backwoods Beast. It was said it was as high at the shoulder as a full-grown male grizzly and about as long as a bus. It was said to have course black fur, golden-amber eyes, and strong claws and teeth.

Fortunarely, the place was fairly remote, so the encounters were mercifully brief and far in-between. But it soon reached the status of bigfoot, yeti, and Nessie.

It garnered enough attention that "Destination Truth" did an investigation, and found some conclusive proof.

***

Malice and Itellsya fell back to a three-bedroom shack that had part of the floor separated from the wall on the south side with a broken window on the self-same wall. One of the smaller bedrooms' inner walls had what appeared to be black mold, with a hole opened to the sky and the conjoining room had a leaky ceiling, and the master bedroom was drafty and a rather large black rat snake was taking up residence in the bathtub in the master bathroom. Rats infested the walls and couch's armrests. The place where there used to be a sliding glass door was opened, glassless and exposed.

Malice was sitting on an old moth-eaten, moldy, queen-sized bed.

"Mistress, should we recreate the BWTM-2 drive?" Itellsya asked, standing in the absolute mess of this hovel.

"What would the point be?" Malice said empirically, "It didn't work."

"It boosted my psychometry and gave me telekinesis," Itellsya pointed out.

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Malice said. "That scheme is done. Time to move on to something a bit more substantial."

Suddenly, there was a roar. A roar of rage that shook the shack. The the shack trembled violently. Something was outside, wanting to get in. wanting blood.

"What the blood Veil is that?" Malice demanded.

"The Backwoods Beast!" Itellsya yelped.

"Don't be a fool," Malice snarled, "the Backwoods Beast is a myth!"

Golden-amber eyes peered in the permently fogged up glass. It ignored the neglected pool that had transformed into an artificial swamp.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2013, 08:13:10 AM

Okay, here's the updated list.

I finished planning out the chapters of Book 164 ("Moody"), and haven't yet started on the chapters of Book 165 ("Bound Together"). I also added a new book idea -- Book 169 ("You Wish!"), which is intended to be a loose parody of that DuckTales movie, with some "Aladdin" references thrown in.

• Book XXXVII: Predators and Prey

The RAFians are being preyed upon by some sentient predators.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• *Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2013, 08:15:29 AM

First chapter today. I'll try to post more, but don't bank on more than five today.  Might happen, might not.
 
Shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
The Broadcast and Suspicions

Gaz, AniDragon, and Cloak had sat down to watch "Destination Truth" -- a special episode were they went after the Backwoods Beast. They had some rather conclusive proof -- fresh footprints (all those could be put down by skeptics as enlarged ferret footprint plates used), fur, picture and video.
 
Cloak notice something in the video that his feline eyes picked up easier than the other two. They paused it, and Cloak scrolled it back slowly.
 
"Look there!" he said. It was barely in the footage save for a frame or two.
 
"What is it?" AniDragon asked.
 
"Look at its paw," Cloak said.
 
"Is that . . . ?" Gaz said.
 
"No way," AniDragon gasped.
 
"The Mark of a RAFian," Cloak said.
 
"Then," Gaz said, "then that means . . ."
 
"Wild is still alive." AniDragon finished, "but not quite himself. . . ."
 

***

Malice and Itellsya were still in the shack, which was still shaking violently.
 
"Mistress," Itellsya said, "I cannot keep this hovel from caving in!"
 
"Oh, fine," Malice said. "This travesty of dwelling is better kindling, anyway."
 
With that the house crashed into a mess of wood, metal, drywall, and roofing singles.
 
The two fled as the Backwood Beast -- as Wild searched the remains of the horrid place for the two.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2013, 08:51:44 AM

Another chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Discussions and Banned News

"Wild's alive," Gaz said, unable to take the awed tone from her voice.  "But how did he survive that blast Parker described?"
 
"Yeah, Parker said he exploded." AniDragon added.
 
"Maybe what Parker saw wasn't what he thought he saw," Cloak said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
 
"How do you mean?" AniDragon asked.
 
"Well, 'Beast Wars' here is one of those movie things here that your kind are so fond of, right?" Cloak said, again, reinforcing the idea that television and movies were a foreign concept to Realm Walkers. After all, if you could just, quite literally, go to the universe directly, and maybe even directly interact with the characters, what would the lure of just watching it on a moving-picture-box be?
 
"It was a television show, yeah," Gaz said.
 
"If I'm not mistaken," Cloak said, "there were two episodes, if my understanding is correct, called 'Feral Scream'?"
 
Dawning comprehension lit up the faces of the two girls.
 
"Is he in some sort of stasis-lock?" AniDragon asked. "Stuck in wereferret form?"
 
"Probably," Gaz concurred, as Cloak silently nodded his agreement.
 

***

But, alas, Cloak, Gaz, and AniDragon were not the only ones to notice Wild's television debut. It was seen by some undercover Knights, who didn't think anything of it, and dismissed it as another hoax. But the Banned -- Queen, Yorick, and Aloth -- had far more experience with RAFians than the Knights did.

They saw straight off that it was Wild, wild and feral. Queen soon, somehow, became convinced that they could coerce him to join them and enable them to take over the forum. It was a delusional plan, but she wasn't corrected. Yorick was indifferent and Aloth was scared of her.

Both knew the plan was pointless and would fare about as well as any of Team Rocket's pre-Unova plots. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 10, 2013, 09:55:04 AM

This Queen never gives up, eh? You gotta give her credit for perseverance. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2013, 10:05:13 AM

Another chapter, I think. I've realized I've painted the Banned as a rather extreme form of Team Rocket, in a way. . . .

Saffa, you have no idea.  And she's not even a fictional character. . . .
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Grandiose Plans and a Knight to Remember

Queen, with the reluctant (and forced) help of Aloth and Yorick, Queen contrived and conceived a grand plan -- that had no basis in reality. When the two coerced Banned attempted to point this out, she boxed them around the ears violently. The two realized that directness with Queen was not always the best route to go.
 
With the two indirectly stabilizing her plan, by bringing it back down to Earth, and made it more realistic, all the while stroking her ego. It was rather more exhausting that it would initially have appeared.
 

***

The trio of RAFians -- Cloak, AniDragon, and Gaz -- struck out to go back to the prison.  The mods let them go, pitying them, but not really believing their limited proof.  Cloak had to concede that it was dubious, and easily-explained away. But the trio felt absolute conviction in this belief, but parted peacefully from the mods, who gave their blissing, even though they felt it was a foolhardy mission.
 
Of course, though, it wouldn't be so easy.
 
They met up with a contingent of Knights, who were lead by a slight figure. A human female. All fifteen were clad in white clothing with blood-red highlights and silver metal armor, whose helmets hid their faces. Cloak noticed this note of cowardice from a majority of bigots. They were willing to commit these unspeakable acts, but they weren't willing when their faces. Afraid of being unmasked as a racist, a speciesist, or the like.
 
Shameful. Utterly, utterly shameful.
 
At least Cloak had a reason to wear his cloak -- to keep the Realm intact -- unlike these Knights, who don't have a justifiable reason to wear their armor. Xenophobia and speciesism are not viable or justified reasons for such actions. Cloak despised such things -- and Realm Walkers were no more immune to bigotry than Andalites or humans were. No sentient, sapient species is immune. Not one.
 
"Stop right there, aliens," came the voice of the leader. Cloak was right, she was female. "You haven't any right to be here. You must vacate this planet at once."
 
"Okay, first off," Gaz said, heatedly, "I'm not an alien. I was born right here, on good ol' Earth."
 
"Silence, undead filth," the woman said.

"You don't order me around," Gaz said, immediately riled. "You and your cronies are the ones outside your rights here."

"Earth is human territory," she said, as if she was reading off a list that she devotedly memorized, "all beings and creatures whose species were not created upon this planet are unwelcome and should leave immediately if they don't want force to be used."

"It's not up to you or any secret militia to determine that!" AniDragon bursted, utterly outraged. Odd, for a Pemalite. Cloak was furious, too, but he was too used to tempering his emotions, due to the nature of his powers.

"Leave now, or force will be taken," the woman said -- and it was then that Cloak recognized her voice. She was Roseanne Thorne of the ??PD. It was disheartening, knowing there were Knights on the police force, but bigoted hatred was filters into every possibly carreer, apparently.

"This is your final warning," Roseanne Thorne said.

"Oh, shut it, Thorne," Cloak said, and it was clear from her body language that she didn't expect Cloak to be able to identify her. "But this explains why there was so much shoddy police work at scenes of alien deaths. Why charges weren't brought up against several Knights. You and some of your 'friends from the country club' went into law enforcement and law firms, I suppose?"

Roseanne remained silent -- in shock, Cloak presumed. But gathered herself soon enough, and said, "You have five minutes --"

"Oh, enough of this," Cloak said, as he snapped his fingers and all fifteen and Thorne were forced to the ground ferrokinetically. Cloak spoke over his shoulder in a falsely bright way, "Oh, and, Rosie, did you honestly think coming here and confronting a Master of Metal in full Knight regalia, in full metal Knight armor, was a good idea?"

With that the trio left, and only when they were a fair distance away, did Cloak relax his hold over their armor. They retreated, having suffered a great humilation this day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 10, 2013, 10:20:03 AM

Oh, yeah, just remembered how much I hate these guys.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2013, 10:50:25 AM

Yeah, they're pretty detestable -- but then again, so is the KKK, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc.

Anyway, that may very well be the last chapter today. I'm feeling tapped out right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 10, 2013, 02:55:04 PM

I still don't why a human being would join a cult like that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2013, 04:27:25 PM

Why would anyone join the KKK?

Why would anyone join the Westboro Baptist Church?

People of such hatred congregate together and this what you get -- organized hatred.

Anyway, come Monday, the speed I come out with these chapters will slower. Just a warning -- I have a great deal to do next week.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 11, 2013, 09:26:21 AM

So, I just looked at you're list of stories you have planned... And I kinda want to see how you do book CII. You are the second person that I know of that actually has any idea what that is. Do you read a lot?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2013, 09:38:45 AM

Yes, I usually do, Abby. Heck, I've reread books 5+ times before.

Although I have only read three books of the series, I'd easily read more if I could get my hands on them. I actually first came upon them from an excerpt in an English book in grade school -- and I've searched for the books that it came from ever since, only discovering them relatively recently.

And we'll probably go back to the minimum-one-chapter-a-day deal, unless something comes up.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Beast From The East

"Is it done yet?!" Queen demanded.

"Just a little more patience --"

"Don't you scold me, Yorick!"

Yorick sighed, and said, rather tonelessly, "Right you are."

They were in the middle of building a rather simple metal-barred cage.

Queen had basically left the two to do all the work for her while she "supervised". If it succeeded, she'd take the credit without a single thought. Though if it failed -- and that was a very real and distinct possibility -- she would shove the blame upon the other two, acknowledging no fault of her own.

Really, if they didn't hate each other so much, Queen and Malice would be kindred spirits.

***

"Ooh, the audacity those Knights have," Gaz stewed and vented.

"No sentient, sapient species is immune from bigotry," Cloak said, as they walked, the outskirts of the old abandoned prison to their left and the woods to their right.

"Even Realm Walkers?" AniDragon asked.

Cloak stopped suddenly, and tirned his gaze slowly toward her. "Have you ever met Malice?"

"She took in Itellsya," AniDragon said.

"That doesn't mean she sees him as an equal," Cloak said as the trio began to walk again. "She still carries the old Walker prejudice. Walkers very well may be oldest species in existance, but that does not make us any better than any of the younger species."

Cloak frowned a bit at how conceited that sounded. But, before he could try to rectify this, he "saw" something with Earthsight, hearing a distant rumbling, and smell that they were downwind of something vaguely ursine and vaguely mustelid.

"Get down!" Cloak cried.

AniDragon managed to comply, but both Cloak and Gaz misinterpreted how fast the beast's traveling speed was. It launched itself from the woods directly at Gaz, who screamed and instinctly went mist mode. She dissipated and reconstituted on Cloak's other side.

It was not so much a wereferret but a bearferret. Cloak easily spied the mark on its right front paw.

"Wild," he said.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 11, 2013, 02:32:22 PM

Mist mode sure does come in handy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2013, 03:11:44 PM

And no more overpowered than the Martian Manhunter's intangibility, either. ;)

Still getting over my giddiness over the Pokémon reveal this morning.

CHAPTER TEN:
Taming the Wereferret

"He's . . . gonna kill us, isn't he?" AniDragon said.

"Only another Realm Walker can kill me," Cloak pointed out.

"Well, that's comforting," Gaz remarked dryly.

"It will not come to that, I believe," Cloak said gazing between his mark. An idea was being born there.

"Cloak, that may very well be Wild, but his mind has clearly gone!" AniDragon insisted. "He is pure beast now."

"Could you drain some of his power?" Gaz asked.

"Who do you think I am? Rogue? My powers don't work that way. I cannot strip some of their physiology, except for some incredible rare condition and circumstance that even I'm not familiar with? Why did you think I was helpless when Madre de --" AniDragon remembered who she was speaking to, and did not finish the thought.

Cloak interceded on AniDragon's behalf, and said, "I do not believe that's not necessary. I believe that Wild's mind is still very much alive, but dormant . . . and surpressed."

"How can you tell?" Gaz said seizing on this change of topic.

"Simple," Cloak said, gesturing to the "mindless" beast before him. "Excluding the intial pounce, during this lengthy dialogue, he has not made one attempt to strike us, nor had he ran away."

It was true. Wild sat there, looking rather like Toothless, if he were a bearferret instead of a Night Fury.

"Alright, then," AniDragon said, thinking, "but how do we get through to him?"

Wild let out a low growl.

"We'll use the Marks as an interface," Cloak said, pondering their next move. Then he extended his hand pointing his Mark towards Wild, who snarled angrily. The other two followed suit.

"To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without." Cloak said.

All three Marks glowed brightly, reminants of the old Great Power seemed to stir. The other two joined in.

"To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without."

The Marks grew brighter as the Great Power begun to awaken. Wild's Mark also glowed brighter, and he shook it frightfully.

"To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without."

This continued in this vein for some time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2013, 05:18:20 PM

Another chapter, I think, since I've the time and energy.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Bestiality and Rationality

"To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without!"

Wild's Mark was soon glowing as brightly as the trio's he grunted and winced. But the pain wasn't coming from his Mark. Something within was struggling . . .

"To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without!"

The grunts were more frequent and the bearferret was holding his head, as if enduring some massive headache.

"To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without! To release the warrior within, you must tame the beast without!! TO RELEASE THE WARRIOR WITHIN, YOU MUST TAME THE BEAST WITHOUT!!!!"

With the finality of a monstrous roar, the bearferret shut his eyes tighty and reared up to his hauches with his paw-hands on his head, breathing ragged. Then his breathing stabilized and steadied, and he calmed, as his Mark's glow died a bit and so did the others. His eyes opened, and it was clear that there was an intelligence, a rationality, behind them.

"Wild, are you in control of yourself?" Cloak asked.

"Yeah," the bearferret replied with a husky, gruff, deep voice. "But . . . it's dawn. How come I'm . . . how come I'm not human?"

"We believe you to be in some sort of organic stasis-lock." AniDragon said.

"Wh-what happened?" Wild asked.

"You remember Malice's machine?" AniDragon asked.

There was a pause. Then he said, "Yes . . . yes, I remember now. The machine was totaled. Twisted and useless. In my . . . my savage state of mind, I began to treat the prison like a den. But I -- I went after Malice and the traitor."

Very few RAFians referred to Itellsya by name any more, just epithets like "the betrayer" or "traitorous scum". Cloak could not blame this attitude. The sense of betrayal was deep-seated.

"Will I ever be human again?" Wild asked.

"I do not know," Cloak said, "even in my 271 of your years, this a new one for me."

"Let's get you back to the forum," Gaz said, kindly.

"Yeah," Wild concurred.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2013, 06:39:17 PM

Again, have enough energy and it's rainy out -- although it oscillstes every time I look . . .

Anyway, chapter 12.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Failures and Setbacks

"It's not working," Wild said, sounding somewhat disappointed.

"No, it doesn't seem to be, does it?" Aquilai said. "Don't worry, we'll find a solution."

"You said that hours ago." Wild said, unable to keep the dejection from his voice.

"Don't worry," Goom said bracingly. "We'll find a way to unlock this -- this stasis-lock thing."

"Well, when you do, come get me." Wild said, walking sullenly to the door and exiting.

"Did you say something, Wild?" Yarin asked.

***

"Don't do it," came a voice as Wild looked from the threshold of RAF's border. He sat hunch-shouldered, looking downcast.

He didn't look up, but knew it was Cloak who spoke.

"Don't do what?" he asked, surlily.

"Don't given to despair," Cloak said, leaning onto a nearby tree . . . which wasn't there before. "Do that, you give in to hopelessness. That's not place you want to be."

"How would you know?"

Suddenly, the tree was gone, and Cloak stood upright arms folded across his chest.

"How do I know that?" he repeated, emotion tinging his voice. "How do I know that? Wild, I've been there! When my mother disowned and disavowed me, I fell into deep depression. I thought I would never see my little Shadow again. I wanted to kill myself. I hit my lowest point, felt my basest instincts."

Cloak closed his eyes, took a deep breath, unfolded his arms. Then he continued, voice more even, "I felt worthless, nothing to live for. But I found my own worth. I found who I truly am. I realized I truly have friends and support. Why do you think I chose to live here, rather than the Nexus? I still get flack about it by other Walkers -- but you know what I don't care. I don't despair -- not as much as I used to."

"So what." Wild said, self-pityingly. "You don't have a monster in you."

Cloak glared at him.

"I -- if no one else, Wild -- knows what it is like to have a sleeping monster within." Cloak said, with a voice of determined calm. "Don't you think the Elements ever want to break free and go wild? You've never seen me lose control."

Cloak did not elaborate, but turned and began to walk away, feeling that he'd better leave the pep talks to AniDragon. He spoke over shoulder to Wild, "I know this wasn't the pep talk you need, but you need to remember -- you're not alone."

With that, Cloak walked away, leaving Wild to his thoughts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2013, 07:38:55 PM

Hmmm. . . . Is this the fifth or sixth chapter I posted today?

*shrugs*

Oh, well. Here's short Chapter 13.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Despair and Depression

Wild hadn't moved from where Cloak had left him. He was still having fits of deprecating thoughts and melancholy. It was not a good situation to be in.

Who was Cloak kidding? No one knew what he was going through. Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin would never free him of this condition. He woukd become a social pariah, an easy target for the Knights, the butt of jokes.

He couldn't stand the pity and the oversensitivity to this condition that his fellow RAFians were sure to show him. He was starting to wonder if he was better off as a mindless beast.

He could not stand it anymore, though he was unaware how distorted this line of thinking was.

Unable to bear it any longer, he ran. Ran from RAF, ran from the situation, ran from himself. But he could never outrun the latter two.

"Wait! Wild! Wait! Don't . . . go . . ." AniDragon said, running to the threshold of RAF. Then releasing that there wasn't any hope of her catching up to Wild. He was just too fast.

***

It would be a lie to say that Cloak had not suspected this to happen, though he wasn't aware of Wild's flight. This is why he sought out AniDragon -- she seemed to be rather good at this pep talk thing. So good that it was practically a superpower.

But he could not find her right away, unaware that she had been to late to the scene. He knew that he had probably made Wild feel worse, and that he might flee any time.

Then he found AniDragon at the edge of RAF's grounds. Her hand was outstretched, but then it dropped and her head drooped, as Cloak realized what this spot was. It was were Wild was not more than a hour or two ago.

"He's gone, hasn't he?" Cloak said immediately, addressing AniDragon.

"Yes," AniDragon said. "But why . . .?"

Cloak's eyes darkened with the memory of his own descent to the bottom, he replied in a low, hollow voice, "His thoughts are distorted. His perceptions are misperceived. He gave into despair -- something very easy to do in his position."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 11, 2013, 07:43:04 PM

Awww... :( Poor Wild.....

Anyways, creativity must be falling from the sky today, huh?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2013, 07:48:01 PM

Well, I thought I give you guys some more because I don't how much I'll be able to post next week, if at all (I'll try a chapter a day but it won't be until the afternoon, as my mornings are booked).

EDIT: I was goin' to post another chapter, but my idiot neighbor thought it was prime time for his drums. And I cannot even hold my hand still, I'm so royally p!ssed. . . . Fortunately, I don't have to wake up at six (0600) tomorrow like would Sunday night.

[spoiler]At least now the idiot is doing it outside. But it is still really loud.

GOD! We're not even supposed to play damn instruments at this time of night. Why the bloody hell does he think he's so special?! I don't care if its because he's been drinking and his hearing has dulled. I went fir 28 years without a drink, and I'm just fine!

ONE more time and I''m callin' the police on this inconsiderate bastard.
>:([/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 12, 2013, 01:57:00 AM

The worst part is that he doesn't care about what you say. That is truly rude for a person who lives quite close to you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2013, 05:17:43 AM

Actually, the worst part is that he has the memory, intelligence and learning curve of a goldfish.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 12, 2013, 07:27:36 AM

Couldn't you complain to someone? At least, over here if you have a competent enough authority (which we usually don't) that does the job...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2013, 08:41:40 AM

I did try that -- all he gets is basically a slap on the wrist. He's no stranger from prison from what I gather -- gets arrested (probably due to noise violations), goes to jail, gets back, is good for a couple of days, binge drinks, and it starts over again. Again, he has the learning capability of a goldfish. I wish they'd make it illegal for both him to buy alcohol or make it illegal to sell him alcohol.

Or just confiscate his drums.

Anyway, let's get back on topic.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Search Posse

"This has to be dealt with," Cloak said immediately. "There's no telling who would or how they would take advantage of him in his current state of mind."

"I want to go," AniDragon said boldly.

"Sorry, AniDragon," Cloak said, declining her request, "but I need trackers."

He turned to find the RAFians he thought best able to track Wild with him.

***

"Why have you gathered us here?" Hunter asked, looking relatively bored.

Cloak was facing Parker, Hunter, and Saffa on the precipice of grounds of RAF. Cloak stood still, a gentle breeze causing his cloak to sway ominously. Hunter leaned against a tree, picking his claw with what appeared to be a Bowie knife. Parker stood at attention, but in a somewhat relaxed way, with his helmet beneath his right arm. Saffa sat upon the ground with her legs crossed. The sunlight was just starting to wane a bit.

"Wild has fled," Cloak said. "You guys are the best trackers currently at RAF, apart from myself."

"Very well," Saffa said. "Where do we start."

"As much as I hate to say it, and hope it does not come to it, we may need to make use of your Pychopterran morph, Saffa, providing we find him first." Cloak said heavily. Unlike his mother, he would take responsibility if this plan went south.

"What's that mean?" Parker asked.

"Psychopterrans emit a wave that stimulates happy fantasies in others. Not Realm Walkers, of course, because it is a form of mind control." Cloak explained rather badly, but he insisted, "We'd better get going. Hunter and I can track him by smell and sound. Parker can use thermographic scans I assume."

"And me?"

"Hawk, or owl," Cloak said. "Aerial reconnaissance."

"Done with talkin' yet?" Hunter asked. "Yeah? Then let's get this done."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 12, 2013, 08:45:53 AM

Going owl, Chief. ;) But won't the Mark protect Wild from the Psychopterran's waves?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2013, 09:01:11 AM

Yep, but I do forget to consider things, and considering urgency of situation  people do not always think clearly.

That being said -- don't think you won't be using them, although the target . . . well, I've said too much. ;)

Now, another chapter (as Mother's Day no longer has any meaning to me -- at least, not until I get married).

EDIT: Accidentally posted when I meant to preview.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Adjustments Adjusted

"-- And that should do it!" Aquilai said, woth an air of triumph.

"Do you think we might've gone too heavy on the weight of it?" Goom asked, conversationally.

"No, I don't think so," Yarin said. Then he addressed Wild, who, of course, wasn't there, "Sorry it took so long, Wild, but -- uh, where'd you go?"

"Just noticed, have you?" came a cold voice. Female.

"Huh? AniDragon?" Goom said.

"Yes, me. Do you realize how hurt Wild was?" she said, chatizing them in a rather disapproving-motherly way. "He's run away. He believes you incapable to curing his condition."

"But --" Aquilai began, at a loss for words.

"We always find the solution in the end," Goom said. It was true, too.

"You guys are looking at this too rationally," AniDragon countered. "You're not considering his emotions. Emotions are not logical. They tend to swing to the negative and distort the reality percieved by the feeler."

"We know about emotions, thank you very much." Yarin sniffed, while Aquilai looked crestfallen -- as if he knew he should have taken it into account, but had forgotten.

"Do you, Yarin?" AniDragon said, with her hands on her hips. The Pemalite, so usually fun-loving, was wearing a very cross expression. "Is that why Wild isn't here? Is that why he's decided to give into despair and depression?"

Aquilai felt as AniDragon's words were knifes piercing him -- but Regeneration couldn't save him from this.

"You're right, AniDragon," Aquilai said somberly.

"Yes," Goom said. "We're sorry about it and regret our actions. We've gotten so overconfident with our successes we discounted the failures and Wild's feelings. But how do we find him?"

"Cloak's already on the case," AniDragon said quickly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2013, 03:30:07 PM

Okay -- has interest in this died? *shakes head* Maybe I'm leaping to negative conclusions again.

Anyway, I might get two chapters up today, but don't hold me to it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Double Trouble

"I'm the boss, and I'm sick of waiting." Queen announced imperiously. "I want Wild! And, this time, don't screw it up!"

Yorick rolled his eyes subtly, as Aloth sighed heavily. But neither could resist the impending song, with the unseen chorus singers.

These singers sang the chorus:

"Prepare for trouble,
Make it double.
Prepare for trouble.
Make it double."

Yorick sang:

"We'll be the roughest rogues of all time."

Queen sang, haughtily:

"I'm the creator of a grand design."

Then this unseen chorus sang their namesake again.

"Prepare for trouble . . ." Queen said menacingly.

"Make it double," Yorick replied, inexplicably holding a rose he hadn't a second before.

Queen sang jauntily:

"To blight the world with devastation!"

Then Yorick sang:

"To unite all trolls within our nation!"

Queen sang acidly:

"To denounce the evils of truth and love."

Yorick sang:

"To extend our grasp to the stars above."

Queen and Yorick announced their names while Aloth watched them like a young child and a television.

The chorus joined in with Queen -- quite bold actually, for them.

"Team Banned blasts off at the speed of light."

Then the chorus sang with Yorick now.

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

Aloth added, "That's right!"

Then the chorus started singing:

"Team Banned is rockin'.
Talkin' trouble,
Walkin' trouble.
Double trouble.
Big trouble's gonna follow you.

Team Banned is rockin'.
Talkin' trouble,
Walkin' trouble.
Double trouble.
Big trouble is gonna follow you."

"We're gonna capture Wild, too." Queen and Yorick said rhythmically.

The chorus went back to the first chorus, before adding at the end:

"We're Team Banned."

"We're Team Banned, and we fight for what's wrong," Aloth explained rhythmically, "for mayhem, and madness, and rare vengeance, mon."

"I'm so genius." Queen said aloud.

"I'm always the man," Yorick said, taking on a stereotypical "cool-guy" pose.

"You just a player," Queen snarled rhythmically, "in my master plan!"

Then the chorus went to the second chorus. Then the three Banned said rhythmically, "We're gonna capture Wild, too."

The chorus and Yorick sang:

"We're always gonna try it.
No one can deny it.
We can cause a riot in RAFian school.
We'll have you believin'.
The truth can be deceivin'."

Then Queen and Yorick sang alone:

"'Do unto others'
Is our golden rule."

"Shh!" Aloth said suddenly, abruptly stopping the song. "Here they come!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2013, 07:42:24 PM

Well. I'll just keep writing. . . .

I finished off the chapters of Book 166, and I am currently two chapters in on Book 167.

Now, to this book.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Trackers, No Tracking!

Saffa had gone to owl, while Cloak and Hunter searched for Wild's scent as Parker searched for some relevant thermographic evidence. Hunter thought he had the scent . . . but, being unable to Earthsight an identify the creature ahead of time, he was just following an ermine-like critter.

But, in the end, Saffa's keen owl sight spotted Wild walking onward rather listlessly, with his head bowed and shoulders haunched.

She circled over his position, and Wild, so deep into his despair, did not notice or care.

<Guys, I got him!> Saffa called. Then she described the location. <Hurry, I think there's something going on. I hear something . . . wait, is that singing?>

"Wouldn't surprise me," Cloak replied drily as the three approached the location Saffa indicated. Saffa had to land and demorph.

"Wild!" Parker called out.

"Go away," Wild said surlily.

"We will NOT," Cloak said so firmly that Wild turned and eyed him with a stony glare.

"Leave me alone," he said warningly.

"Cloak . . ." Hunter said, unsure, but Cloak waved it away.

"Wild, you do not need to push us away," Cloak said, knowing just what probably was going through Wild's head. As he said before, he had lived through this kind of thing before. "Wild, we're your friends."

"We care for you, Wild." Saffa said, in human form.

"No one can love a monster," Wild said.

"But you're not a monster," Saffa insisted.

"Yes, I am!" Wild snarled. "Those three will never find a way to let me be human again!!"

"You don't know that, Wild," Parker said, reasonably. "They could have already found a way to --"

"Stop your patronizing!" Wild snarled. "Don't go trying to give me false hope! You know as well as I how hopeless this situation is. Just . . . leave me alone, okay?"

Then Cloak Earthsighted something he should've been aware of, but he was careless.

"WILD, NO!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 14, 2013, 04:50:39 AM

Dun, dun, dun......

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 14, 2013, 10:47:30 AM

OOH! Something in the underbrush!

*watches Abby continue playing dramatic music*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2013, 12:51:07 PM

Right, chapter later on. Been on my feet in vocational rehabilitation. Had an epiphany that my mom did not want me to grow up, but remain a child forever, until I could no longer stand her. Such a pity.

So, yeah, chapter a day. But maybe not on Thursdays (those will be busy days for me).

Anyway, enough jawin'. You came for the chapters, right? ;);D

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Prepare For Trouble . . .

And down he went, in to the pitfall that Cloak Earthsighted seconds before. Wild gave a obligatory yelp of surprise as he fell. Then there was a clang so sharp and loud that it caused Wild, Cloak and Hunter to wince.

Suddenly, a metallic claw shot from the neareast "tree" as that "tree" fell away, revealing it to be a disguise. It was concealing a hot air balloon with the Mark of a Banned (so like the Mark of a RAFian, only the color of blood with a ragged, lightning-bolt-shape connecting the two "legs" of the stylized "R").

"You'd think that they were afraid that we wouldn't know who is benind this." Parker replied with a bored voice.

Then lights came up, illuminating the ballon's basket. Cloak squinted, thinking. Something about this was very familiar.

"Prepare for trouble," said a haughty female voice.

Cloak narrowed his eyes and scowled. He suddenly knew why it was so familiar.

"Make it double," came an aloof male voice.

Cloak felt a deep indifference as he sighed.

"To blight the world with devestation!" Queen said, her figure coming into clearer focus. Parker made it clear that he wasn't impressed.

"To unite the trolls within our nation!" Yorick proclaimed theatrically. Hunter leaned against a juniper tree and snoozed benignly, with his arms folded against his chest, as this overacted fiasco.

"To denounce the evils of truth and love!" Queen exclaimed proudly. Saffa raised an eyebrow, clearly wondering if these people were for real.

"To extend our grasp to the stars above!" Yorick declared boldly. Wild laid in cage, head supported by one paw and the other was drumming his claws on the bars of his cage.

"Queen!"

"Yorick!"

"Team Banned blast off at the speed of light!" Queen shouted.

"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!" Yorick threatened.

"Yeah, that's right!" Aloth put in, lastly.

Wild yawned, Saffa turned her gaze to the others, Parker was checking the time, Hunter was still snoozing.

"Oh, are you done?" Cloak said.

The three looked miffed that the RAFians weren't more impressed by their "original" motto. As if they couldn't be impressed with the three basically copying their motives and actions off of Jesse, James, and Meowth.

"Oh, you are," Cloak said, correctly interpreting their silence. He stompped his foot and the sides of the pitfall pinched together, vanishing all together. Then he snapped his fingers and the hovering cage holding Wild popped open like a soda can.

"Permit me," Parker said, taking the shot at the balloon, which flung the three back to the Bannedlands. Cloak could almost hear them say, "Team Banned is blasting off again!"

"There you are!" came a new voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2013, 04:00:19 PM

'Nother chapter, I think. (Expect the weekends to be chapter explosions, I think.)

Now, the penultimate chapter. Of-of this book, that is.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Slap In The Face

"We've been looking for you everywhere," Goom said.

"Why?"Wild asked rhetorically, "To run more tests? Or use a device to turn me into American cheddar?"

"It was Swiss cheese," Yarin corrected, "and it was not you but Gaz that was transmogrified."

"Whatever," Wild said. "Try your potions and rays on some other guinea pig. I'm gone."

He moved to leave only to find a ten-foot tall, ten-foot thick wall of earth in his way.

"Okay, Wild, I tried to be understanding. I tried to be persuasive. I tried to convince you politely. I tried being nice." Cloak said. "Now I will have to be blunt. Now I have to be that guy."

Cloak's eyes were on a slow burn now. A clear-cut sign that he was seriously serious.

"I've told you I've been through all this. All this drama. I've experienced it first-hand." Cloak said, wishing he did not have to take it to this extreme. "But this self-pity will not do anything for you but plow you into a deeper depression. Until suicide becomes an all-consuming thought."

Cloak did not elaborate just how he knew this, as he thought it was obvious.

"Just give it a shot," Cloak said, quietly. "That's all I ask."

Wild's answer did not come right away. Cloak had not expected it to. This was not easy.

"Fine!" he spat. "But hurry up!"

"No reason this shouldn't work now," Aquilai said, activating the device.

"Huh?" Wild uttered as the machine gave a glow and then a blinding flash.

Wild was human again. He said, quite surprised and delighted, "It worked."

"Of course it worked," Yarin sniffed.

"Not only that," Goom said, double-checking his calculations -- inexplicably holding a calculator. "You should be able to access your -- your bearferret form at will!"

Wild demonstrated, and declared, "Cool!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 14, 2013, 04:57:39 PM

This books idea (although it came from beast wars) felt fresh and new.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2013, 05:23:58 PM

Thanks, Underseen. It actually turned out more emotional than I initially planned. It's odd how that happens sometimes.

Last chapter of this book. If I stilo have this giddy energy, I might start on the next one.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Somebody's Watchin' You

"Mother!" Cloak shouted to his ursine mother across a dimly-li grotto.

"Son, dear!" she replied, feigning affection. "You're right on cue."

"Give Shadow back to me."

"Not on your life." she replied, not losing any of her malice. "It so hopes she signed a contract."

"No!"

"Even put a smiley face in the 'o'," Ursa said, tauntingly."Is it binding? Goodness, yes. Unreakable -- unless . . ."

"Unless?"

Then music started subtly and Ursa slipped into song smoothly:

"There is a little sumthin' we could try."

Cloak narrowed his eyes to slits. "Go on."

"Perhaps we could arrange a sort of trade-off?"

"What?!"

"Maybe swap Shadow's soul for, say, your own?
Sign the scroll, and set her free!
Or else, she comes with me.
To suffer through eternity
To atone."

Then she switched to spoken speech. "The acute little Hatching drowning in her own sorrow with no will to call out your name."

Cloak's face was stony -- hiding the anguish he felt inside.

"Well, I'm waiting," his mother prompted nearly at once.

"It's not my soul you're after," Cloak said knowingly, unable to keep the cry from his voice, "it's my freedom."

"Which would you rather be? Free-ranged, or a mentor to your little protege?"

Cloak's arms drooped, head bowed, and a golden tear dropped from his eye.

Slowly . . . hesitantly . . . reluctantly . . . he picked up the bone-like quill. . . . He pressed it to the scroll. . . .

***

"AHH!" Cloak exclaimed as he awoke, sitting up in his bed. Nexian objects don't make the realm react as an uncloaked Walker does. It's mostly a metabolism thing, although this was never proven.

Cloak held his head and his tears. He thought he was over this!!

It was true the absence of Shadow in his life was like someone amputating his tail or someone amputating Blaze's wings.

It hurt. It hurt a great deal more than he let on. Shadow was the Jake to his Finn. The Donkey to his Shrek. The Abu to his Aladdin. To have her suddenly ripped away from him by the actions of his mother . . . it hurt in a way that never heals until the person returns.

Here, unseen by anyone, he allowed himself to cry.

***

Wild had returned to his normal self, which Cloak was pleased to see. But something other than the dream was bothering him . . .

He couldn't put his finger on it, but it felt like he was being watched.

But, by what?

Unbeknowst to Cloak, it turns out that they were being watched.

Six shadowy silhouettes gazed at RAF, almost hungrily. They watched from the trees, so Cloak couldn't Earthsight them, and Cloak wouldn't learn the technique with thw wood element due to the dirty jokes imminent from such a skill.

But, unbeknowst to these six mysterious aliens with the shiny faces and dreadlocks, they were being watched themselves by Malice and her stooge.

"Glad they took me up on my offer," Malice smirked quietly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 14, 2013, 06:08:14 PM

This chapter got me towards tears.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 14, 2013, 06:10:26 PM

I'm kinda scared to see what the heck those things are....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2013, 06:26:50 PM

I know, Underseen -- I'm livin' it.

Well, fortunately, you'll be safe, Abby. Well, for the moment.

Now, let's start the next book, 'kay?

BOOK XXXVII:
PREDATORS AND PREY
CHAPTER ONE:
Training with Danger

Cloak wasn't particularly happy.

He never really like training in the holographic "Danger Room". He easily wiped out tweny-five "Alloys" -- holographic entities whose style of fighting is determined by their colors and resembled a cross between Zeta from "Batman Beyond" and Alloys from "Super Smash Bros. Melee".

Red Alloys fought, quite literally, like beasts. Orange Alloys fought defensively. Yellow Alloys fought retaliatorily. Green Alloys fought with finesse. Blue Alloys were irritatingly persistant and the hardest to break. Purple Alloys used weaponry, and would protect other Alloys. Pink Alloys fought evasively. White Alloys used energy projectiles, while Black Alloys use motion-sensing mines and other delayed-timed explosives.

Cloak found this all out the the hard way when he first used the training room. The older RAFian laughed at it, until Cloak nearly destroyed the room when he lost his temper. His emotions were far more unstable back then.

Aside from the Alloys, there was a terrain issue. It changed every fifteen minutes. There were six terrain changes per session, with a ¹/₁₀₂₄ of mixing terrains. Cloak never had this happen in his grand total of eighteen sessions in his nearly five-year tenure with RAF.

There was the plain field, which was pretty self-explanatory.

Then there was the volcano field, which the training fighters have fight on round pallets or rock platforms (in a Volcano/Mountain scenario). Unless they possess powers to survive the lava, falling in would be considered a failure.

Then the ocean field pretty much featured pallets floating on water, where sinking to the bottom is considered a failure.

And then there's the Grassland, Electrified, Subterranean, Wasteland, Jungle, Dojo, Cemetery, Ice, Ruins, Sky, Mountain, Astral, Shadow, and Metal Fields, all with their own hazards and advantages.

Anyway, in the current session, Cloak, Parker, Gaz, Underseen, Parker, Aquilai,and Noelle were participating. Cloak had the highest score, and -- well, it wouldn't be nice to say who had the lowest, despite being the less experienced with the simulations.

Cloak was annoyed because Parker's stupid explosives -- he believed Parker called them frag grenades -- although he coukd call them Flash Bombs for all he cared. They kept bumping up Parker's score whic bumped Cloak to second-place momentarily.

At the end of the session, Cloak and Parker managed a tie. Parker began ribbing Cloak about it until he remembered he had to meet Helen.

Cloak caught a strange scent on the air. He thought it smelled vaguely familiar but could not think why or how.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 14, 2013, 06:31:39 PM

Hmmmm.... I shall wait to find out what they are.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 14, 2013, 06:34:25 PM

The Danger Room sounds incredibly fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 14, 2013, 06:36:08 PM

It does... And I just realized you said 'for the moment'. Should I be worried? I suppose I should wait to find out though...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2013, 06:39:33 PM

If you like that kind of thing, Underseen. ;)

Oh, and Abby, you'll find out Chapter 2, I think. And I was worried that I may have made it too obvious. Anyway, this is the book that Blaze gave me an idea for way back in the book with the Xenomorphic Brood, I believe. And don't worry, you're not in any danger -- in this book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 14, 2013, 06:41:31 PM

I feel soooo confident now... ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2013, 01:40:48 PM

Well, sixteen chapters into Book CLXVII, and looks very interesting . . .

Now, this chapter . . .

CHAPTER TWO:
Predatorly Preparations

Within their quarters upon their ship, their trap set, the six aliens prepare for their individual hunts.

Each one of their quarters were lined with trophies -- this wasn't the first hunt for any of them.

It was revealed that their metallic "faces" were masks, with rather similar functions to Parker's.

***

The youngest of the group was overconfident and reckless. His quarters had three of what appeared to be perverse lava lamps. He also had a banged-up Polymorph antigravity-ufo-thing as a trophy with a bit of a Protost locked in a glass sphere in eternal stasis so it could not reform. While upon closer inspection, the lava lamps contained bits of sludgepuppy in the left one, a remnant of a warwolf in the middle one and bit of Limax in the other.

He had a holographic disc in his hand, this Predator. He was studying the holographic representation of Underseen. . . .

***

The eldest of the group was cold and calculating. His room was adorned with a Crabdozer skull, a Vaxasaurian skeleton, the shell of an Arburian Pelarota, a Cerebrocrustacean shell, a right Petrosapien arm, a left Crystalsapien arm, an Orishan head, a Talpaedan arm, a Geichelone Aerio shell, and a Biosovortian head.

He was studying a holographic file of Parker intently.

***

The third was a sadistic Predator with a nearly intolerable bloodlust. Her trophies included several wooden stakes, a vampire slayer's skeleton, and the carcass of a Vladat -- a now extinct species.

He watched the holographic profile of Gaz almost inappropriately.

***

The fourth one was rude and selfish. The trophies he had was a Pyronite's left arm, an Orishan's right hand, a Talpaedan head, and a Geochelone Aerio shell.

He watched intently, if not dispassionately, at the holographic profile of Aquilai.

***

The fifth one was haughty and condescending. He had the fewest trophies of the others and the least experience, but he made up for this for refusing to hunt the a solutely toughest prey.

Apparently, Noelle qualified his conditions.

***

The last one was the most experienced one of the lot. His quarters was cluttered with various trophies that he really didn't care about. He was all for the hunt, not the memories of it.

He had no idea how difficult his next hunt would be. Cloak would not be easy prey, and, unbeknowst to the Predator, Cloak couldn't be killed by the likes of him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2013, 05:54:53 PM

If this chapter does not post . . . well, then you guys won't be reading this, then.

EDIT: Piece of sh!t. Forgive my language. This'll be a truncated chapter now.

CHAPTER THREE:
Old RAF

"Are you sure this is the place?" Underseen asked.

"Sure, I'm sure," Parker said, sounding a bit miffed -- as if Underseen slighted his navigational capabilities.

They were in old ruins, yet there was a familarity to the abandoned, mundane cinderblock buildings. The dirt was loose and rather sandy. Earthsight was more difficuct, but not impossible.

It was Old RAF.

"So," Underseen said, forcing the cheery tone in his voice, "how does it feel for you guys to be back here?"

"I've never been here before," Cloak said, voice rather plain and expressionless. Aquilai and Noelle said similar things.

"Okay, sp never mind then." Underseen said falling quiet for a few minutes. Then he asked what caused this.

Cloak said, "I dunno, but my guess would be on the Pootang."

"The Pootang?" Aquilai asked.

"Unless I'm mistaken," Cloak said, "Pootang was born here."

***

The six Predators gathered holding the six devices that simulated the distress beacon. The Predators knew it would be the perfect lure to the RAfians. Once the RAFians arrived, they were informed and split into individual paths away from each other, splitting the one distress signal into six.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 15, 2013, 10:20:47 PM

How much is missing from that chapter?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2013, 04:26:07 AM

At least 25%, Underseen.

Anyway, I finished the "Monster Mash" book, and I am currently three-quarters through "Jumping To Conclusions" book. Added a several new book ideas:

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 16, 2013, 09:21:47 AM

No wonder, it's strangely short. (Of course, my standard of "short" needs to be redefined. :P )

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2013, 12:08:36 PM

Right you are, Saffa. Now, I don't know if I'll be able to post a chapter today, but I'll try to post one a little later on.

EDIT: Have time right before class -- here's the list.

• Book XXXVIII: A Protean Problem

The RAFians must deal with a powerful snot-nosed kid who, quite literally, can do whatever he wants.

• Book XXXIX: The Horsemen

Four RAFians are captured and converted into four Horsemen of the ancient, rogue Realm Walker Cataclysm.

• Book XL: Sizeable Pain in the Necks

The RAFians must deal with Heinlein aliens.

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• *Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• *Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• *Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• *Book CXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 16, 2013, 04:44:29 PM

Well this is unfortunate, but a day without a chapter won't kill me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2013, 05:32:51 PM

Sorry, Underseen, but I'm exhausted. Spent an hour and 40 minutes walking (nonconsecutively) and another four on my feet.

But I will try.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Six Degrees of Separation

"That's odd," Parker said, "although not altogether unsurprising. The distress signal has split into six."

"There!" Underseen proclaimed. "Bona fide proof that this wasn't anything more but a trap. We should get going --"

"Not so fast," Aquilai said. "That'd be sloppy, we need to be thorough."

"Thorough?!" Underseen said, quite seriously. "Thorough?! This is obviously a trap! You can be seriously considering this. You've seen horror movies. You can't be honestly suggesting --"

"We should split up," Cloak said, brusquely. "Take 'em on."

Underseen facepalmed repeatedly, his hair changing color and style with each one, until he wound up in a platinium blonde mullet. With a twitch, the mullet recided into a crew cut.

"Underseen, do you honestly think we cannot handle whatever laid this rudimentary trap?" Gaz said bracingly.

"Yes, the old 'distress beacon lure' is so old-school," Parker said dismissively.

"But --"

"Underseen, anything short of Heralds of Unicron or Galactus we can handle. We're good." Cloak said.

Normally, such overconfidence would lead to ruination. But, is it overconfidence when you know your opponent? Cloak had told the others his suspicions of thesecreatures, and read from the database's entry. Underseen yelped a bit.

"I must still protest," Underseen said.

<That's fine,> Noelle said. <Go west, young RAFian.>

"Huh?"

<Go to the west, follow that distress beacon,> Noelle elaborated.

Resignedly, Underseen complied. Cloak went north, Noelle went east, Parker went south, Aquilai went northwest, and Gaz went southeast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 16, 2013, 07:02:53 PM

Wow, I am surprised you pulled this off today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2013, 07:08:40 PM

Yes, if there are any chapters on Thursday, expect them rather later than normal, if at all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 17, 2013, 01:30:51 AM

Soo... Gotta wait for a bit. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2013, 01:39:24 PM

Well, if this chapter, this short chapter, doesn't post . . . well, then you'll hafta wait until tomorrow or later on tonight.

CHAPTER FIVE:
It's RAFian Season!

Cloak had hesitated a bit before going onto his path, he sensed something, something watching.

He had a shrewd idea what was doing the watching. He hoped by going to these different pathways to turn the trap around on the would-be trappers.

Doubts did fetter his decision, but he silenced them. But they remained, disquieting him.

He closed his eyes, hesitated no longer, and pressed onward.

***

"They're going," one of the six said in their Predator language.

"Yes, yes, I can see that," another sniped, in the Predator language. "Don't narrate everything."

All six were perched in an old oak tree, and completely in shadow and silhouette. You wouldn't be able to tell they were there unless you were looking for them.

"Let's go! Get this hunt on!" one exclaimed in the Predator language, clearly quite eager to get his clock cleaned.

"No!" the most experienced of the lot snapped in the Predator language. He was the big cheese of the six apparrently. "It's too soon. Too quick a hunt. If you want it to mean anything, you'll have to wait a little longer."

And they waited. The most experienced on getting tired of the others' complaints. This why he had the RAFians separated, he preferred his hunts alone for this reason. When you're alone, the only complaints you hear are those from your prey if you decide to draw out the death.

But only real young Predators  or the sadistic ones, enjoyed drawing it out. This one did not.

Then, after a half hour had elapsed, the most experienced one dropped down from the tree.

He spoke in the Predator language, "Now is the time. The hunt is on!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2013, 02:43:50 PM

Now, if my internet doesn't decide to get spotty on me, here's another chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Hunted, Underseen

Underseen took his pathway, but was wondering what good was running. He also noticed just how much smaller old RAF was to its modern day counterpart. Within moments he was a the western threshold of the forum.

Still the Predator hadn't shown. Underseen's form quavered a bit -- eventually winding up with Justin Bieber hair and a distorted version of his own natural face and that of the overrated pop star with an ego the size of Hindenburg.

When he realized that had happened, he quickly shapeshifted it away, looking around, thinking, I hope no one saw that.

The Predator following him was being rather careless, ignoring his camouflage tech. He was so confident that his victory in this hunt was assured, he didn't even stalk Underseen, but strolled after him at a sedate pace. His weapons still holstered, his mask's tech not even activated.

Underseen found this lack of finesse, this abandonment of secrecy, this utter distain and denial of Underseen being seen as a threat, offensive. He was abjectly indignant at this.

The Predator wasn't even bothering to keep himself secret! He was just strolling blandly and bold as brass! Underseen could see him easily from a distance!!

This not only angered Underseen, but infuriated him. He may have some more subtle abilities, not as ostentatious as, say, Cloak's or Estelore's, but the Infinity Blade, his Light Blade, did chose him, after all! To disregard him after all he's done to a C-list . . .

Underseen got a grip of himself, and shot an glare of such deep loathing to the reckless Predator, as Underseen decided to turn the tables in this overconfident sack of Taxxon manure.

He deftly disguised himself as a wasp, when he came to the area where the distress beacon was placed -- a rock by river rapids. Trees all around. An isolated area.

Obviously, the Predator thought it would be the best place to make his kill.

Well, it won't be that easy, you irritating idiot, Underseen thought bitterly.

Then he waited for the lolligagging Predator to show up . . . then he'll show this dimwitted Predator why he, Underseen, was as much of a heavy-hitter as the others, as Parker, as Estelore, as Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 17, 2013, 02:51:01 PM

Nice chapters. Do you really think like that Underseen? Just a random question for you. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2013, 03:42:30 PM

I may have been wrong, but sometimes shapeshifters don't get the respect they deserve. ;)

May be a short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Shapeshifter Schooling

The Predator approached the distress beacon, and examined it in a rather lazy, laid-back way.

"The bait's been untouched, and it definitely came this way," the Predator said in its natural language. Had he been human, he would have been smiling like an idiot. "The prey is hiding. It could be anything, if its profile was right."

Naturally, Underseen couldn't understand what it was saying, but he got the gist. But he waited a moment more, before flying as high as he could, before shapshifting into a black rhino -- the species withe prehensile upper lip and two horns -- and plummeting right down on top of the Predator. He quickly rolled off as he shapesifted to a gray rat and hid in the undergrowth, watching.

The Predator managed to survive that -- after all they can crush concrete with their bare hands.

Suddenly, Underseen burst from the underbrush as a cheetah, this way and that, successfully disorienting the Predator.

Then he retreated into the underbrush, which the Predator recklessly fires his energy weapons into -- luckily not starting a fire. Still, it was a careless, thoughtless thing to do.

Then, quiet suddenly, The Predator had a 400-pound gorilla on his back,mwrestling him to the ground -- not using brute force but dexterity, momentum, and skill.

Eventually, the Predator manages to stand, but Underseen was already gone.

"This can't be," the Predator cursed in he own language, "it was not supposed to be this . . . this . . ."

Suddenly, behind him came an earth-shattering shriek. A velociraptor burst forth from the underbrush, charging the Predator, drawing blood -- its glowing, phosphorescent blood -- which splattered the rock. The Predator touched the gash, fumbling to a knee to find a blade, the Light Blade at his throat.

"Am I danger to you now?" Underseen snarled.

The Predator closed his eyes expecting to feel the Blade bite into his neck. But it did not come.

"No," Underseen said, sheathed the Blade. "I shall not take your life. I've beaten you. That's plenty."

But this was not what the Predator's culture demanded. In the end, this overconfident, reckless Predator took his own life, as his culture demanded it after a defeat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 17, 2013, 04:38:43 PM

And another amazing chapter!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 17, 2013, 04:54:57 PM

Even I have a serious side Abby. This fight didn't disappoint.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 17, 2013, 05:00:15 PM

Cool cool.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2013, 05:47:13 PM

Glad to oblige, Underseen, Abby.

Now, let's see if I can post the fourth chapter today. Maybe short.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Target Acquired!

Parker walked resolutely along his pathway, following it to the distress beacon. He knew the dangers. He knew that the Predator was several feet behind him, invisible to mundane eyes (his helmet easily unveiled the cloaking), though Parker pretended otherwise. He didn't need Tyr repeatedly informing him of the danger.

"I know," he hissed to Tyr, " I know what I'm doing. Stop being such a nag, Tyr!"

This was all a part of his plan. Provided that the Predator doesn't make its move before they got to the distress beacon. Something that wasn't lost on Parker, and which Tyr felt compelled to tell Parker every few minutes. Parker was getting very annoyed by this.

The Predator, however, had no intention of attacking Parker or making himself known yet -- unaware that he's already been made. A while back.

Eventually, Parker came upon the beacon, outside a rather large cave opening. Parker was unafraid, unspooked, and unimpressed by the cave, and he knew that the Predator would be along shortly.

"Initate Chameleon Ride Armor," Parker said.

"Is that wise?" Tyr said.

"Tyr . . ."

"I must question this course of action," Tyr insisted. "I do not like this foreign techology that you've integra--"

"Oh, shut up and do it!!" Parker snapped.

Parker's armor ballooned outward until it resembled the armor on Sting Chameleon's stage in "Mega Man X". Only his helmet remained unchanged.

Then Parker's armor shimmered, and vanished from view. It didn't only mask him from visible light, but from X-rays, infrared light, and ultraviolet light. He was also masked from thermographic and seismographic scans. He was functionally infallibly invisible.

Well, dread-head, make your move, Parker thought, after telling Tyr to shut up. Again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 17, 2013, 06:26:36 PM

Parker's armor is pretty cool for a SPARTAN.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2013, 07:47:16 PM

Well, he might not always have that armor, though . . . *smiles deviously, not saying more*

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Ride Armor Jamboree!

The Predator approached the distress beacon in a cautious and somewhat detached way. He examined it calmly and thoroughly, deciding that it hadn't been touched.

But why? The armored human should have came this way. It surely would have inspected the beacon.

"Ugh!" the Predator cried, his camouflaging tech failing. Parker had used the fist of the Chameleon Ride Armor to smack the Pred.

"Wasn't expecting that, were you, dread-head?" Parker snarled.

The Pred snarled, firing a shoulder-mounted laser cannon. It was a glancing blow, but Parker intiated another ride armor, causing the armir to shift and morph into the Charge Ride Armor -- which, other than the color scheme, resembled the Ride Armors in "Mega Man X2".

Parker gave a short shoulder charge, knocking the Pred into the cave's exterior wall with sufficent force to collapse that side of the cave. Yet, the Pred managed to walk away from it.

"You guys are more resilient than I thought," Parker muttered.

"Did I mention the fallacy of this?" Tyr piped up.

"Shut up, Tyr!" Parker snarled. "And intiate the Nemean Ride Armor!"

But the armor took on the form of the Frog Armor -- only useful for marine purposes.

"The Nemean Armor, Tyr!!" Parker roared.

"There's no need to yell."

"Tyr!"

This time it turned into the right armor and Parker commensed with the Pred-pummelling. But didn't seem to go anywhere, so Parker thought a change was in order.

"Initiate the Kangaroo Ride Armor," Parker said.

"I'm not sure I care for your tone."

"Just do it, Tyr, you useless excuse for a Help paperclip!" Parker raged.

The armor morphed into the Kangaroo Ride Armor, and Parker extended the spiked hands on the chain, spilling the Pred's glowing blood. The Pred fell, battered and beaten.

"Okay, deactivate the Ride Armor, Tyr," Parker said.

"Fine, but we're talking about this later." Tyr said, as the armor resumed its normal form. Parker sighed heavily, rolling his eyes.

"I saw that!" Tyr said.

Ignoring this, Parker held his arm-mounted fusion cannons to the Pred's head, before deciding that it was over, and turning away from it.

The Predator decided to speed its death, as Parker refused to deliver the death blow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 17, 2013, 07:50:48 PM

You just keep pulling chapters out today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2013, 07:55:27 PM

Well, I'm not as tired as I was yesterday. And, as long as my internet doesn't become spotty, expect more of the same tomorrow.

A shortish chapter. Sorry for the brevity of it.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Vampire Predator

Gaz strolled the pathway almost sedately, as if it was a serene daytime excursion. She had a secret weapon floating on high, watching out her.

She heard a chirrup, and began to walk, to power jog, purposefully. She knew somewhere behind her, the Pred was lurking. He could just barely hear a cackling little laugh.

What was this? Why'd she have to get the crazy one?

"Not funny, Laserbeak," Gaz muttered to her Cybertronian pet. Apparently it had "replied", "Just lucky, I guess."

She knew that this Predator was a complete sadist. She had to hurry and set the trap. But without losing her pursuer, nor letting him get too close. A tough job indeed.

A squawk.

Laserbeak was alerting Gaz that this Predator was making his move already. Gaz quickly went bat mode, taking pains to be seen.

Then there she flapped her wings in the still air. She easily found the beacon in the most open-ended area of the forum. Not many places to hide. Gaz, still batty, perched upon a moderately-sized monolith shaped like a spent cigarette butt, only square. There she waited for the Predator, as she knew he would come.

Meanwhile, Laserbeak circled overhead in the sky, obscured by a rather helpful cloud.

Any minute now, Gaz thought. Any minute now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 17, 2013, 08:48:46 PM

Yessss!!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2013, 01:04:48 AM

Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" is playing as I read this. Seems the perfect background music ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 04:55:35 AM

Never heard it, Saffa. (And save yourself the effort of putting up a video, I can't watch 'em on this thing).

New chapter. Don't get your hopes up, but I may finish this book today -- if not today, tomorrow.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Talk Softly, Carry A Big Honkin' Gun

Gaz waited as the Predator came into the clearing. Unlike morphing, she did not have a time limit of any sort.

But her left wing was feeling a little sore. She couldn't help but thinking, What in the world is taking that sadistic monster so long? My wing's getting sore.

But, think of the devil, and there was the bloodlusting monster. He examined the distress beacon rather sloppily and disinterestedly. He only cared about feeling the life drain from his prey, to watch the light to leave their eyes, or, in the case of vampires, he enjoyed seeing them become ash. The trophies he didn't care about nearly as much as this.

He looked around. She had to be here! He saw her come here!

Meanwhile, Gaz easily slipped from the monolith. She shifted to her human form quietly, and the Predator looked up,and saw Gaz (although she had deliberately allowed this happened).

It fired its shoulder-mounted laser, but Gaz went mist mode and materialized behind him, giving him a swift scissor kick, knocking him back.

There was an angry squawk and Laserbeak dropped slightly before Gaz said, "Not yet, Beaky!"

The Predator snarled something which Gaz could tell was highly inappropriate somehow. She gave him a slap, and immediately went to mist mode, knowing that he was going to immediately try and stake her. She materialized behind him, and gave him a leg sweep strong enough to knock him off his feet.

Laserbeak circled down lower and lower and lower. He was as loyal to Gaz as Soundwave was to Megatron. He was worried ans scared -- yes, scared -- that the Predator would succceed in its hunt.

The Predator was back on its feet, deciding to opt for the biggest stake it had. Gaz would ordinarily make a flippant comment about being "honored" about this, but her focus was elsewhere.

Gaz went mist mode, materializing to his right giving him a right hook (impressive, considering she was considerably shorter), then went mist mode and gave him another scissor kick to the face. Then it was back to mist mode, and behind him for another leg sweep.

But this time when he gathered his bearings, he was staring into the barrel of Laserbeak's gun form.

Gaz's breathing (or was it a memory of breathing? Who could tell with vampires?) was ragged, as she said, "Your hunt has failed. You have failed. Good-bye."

Gaz withdrew, unwilling to sully herself by killing a defenseless foe. The Predator was forced by the customs of his kind to take his own life rather than bear this humiliation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 08:03:31 AM

Now, another chapter. I may be wrong, but I think Aquilai is currently an Earthbender . . . I've actually forgotten. And sorry about the brevity of it.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Time Lord and A Lord of the Wild

Aquilai walked confidently along his chosen path. He was thinking hard, but well aware of his surroundings -- Cloak's Earthsight lessons coming in handy.

Aquilai "saw" the swaggering, staggering footsteps of the Predator, and he felt like facepalming. Why'd he have to get the soused one? Did this Predator think it hunted better drunk? Because that's what his footsteps were telling Aquilai.

Aquilai continually allowed himself to be spotted by the crass Predator, so the trail he was laying did not get too cold. It was not easy -- he swore that this Predator was actually swaying when he walked. This was actually becoming rather offensive.

Was that a burp? Was that honestly a burp?! This Predator evidently did not put much stock into stealth and secrecy. Was this honestly his first hunt? Or did he just shoot animals in cages, or from the spacecraft?

Aquilai, despite himself, was beside himself. He was a Time Lord, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, race in the galaxy, and he gets hunted by the hunter who thinks he needs to be inebriated first. Words could not express the offensiveness, the abject anger, this caused Aquilai.

Eventually, he came to the place where there appeared to be some ancient remnants of a camping site. Probably a special place for campfires, singalongs, and whatnot. Aquilai tapped his pocket, assuring himself that his sonic screwdriver was still there.

Then, with a jumping, whirl flourish, he buried himself beneath the ground by Earthbending. He thought to himself, Now we play the waiting game.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2013, 09:04:40 AM

It's almost become target practice now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 10:18:57 AM

Haha that's awesome Saffa, and true. Jeeze the Predators are becoming ****y. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 10:31:05 AM

Hey, you decide to hunt RAFians, you get to be target practice. ;) They did initiate this after all, and ****iness is a real liability.

New chapter, and I apologize in advance for the brevity of it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Sonic Screwdriver is Mightier Than The Blaster

The Predator stumbled into the opened area, Aquilai "saw" all this through Earthsight -- though granted it was a bit blurrier and not as crisps as Cloak's Earthsight was, but that was simply due to the fact Cloak has a far more habitual use of it. The Predator gamboled to the distress beacon, examining it blearily, with drunken finesse.

He burped again. Aquilai most sincerely wished that he would stop doing that. It wasn't only rude and crass. It was gross.

"This hasn't been touched," the Predator judged, slurring in his own language. Apparently the meat he stole from the nearest slaughterhouse was store nearby some vodka or something. And he thought he'd indulge.

When the Predator fell on his butt, doing whatever passed for laughing for them, Aquilai could bear it no longer.

He erupted from the ground, landing adopting an Earthbending stance, while holding his sonic screwdriver. This seemed to sober the Predator up real darn fast.

"Finally," Aquilai muttered, "glad to see you're FINALLY taking this seriously."

The Predator aimed his shoulder-mounted laser cannon. It fired -- only to hit a Earthbent wall, obliterating most of it. Only Aquilai wasn't behind it.

This confused the Predator . . . at least, until his mask popped off. But Aquilai was suddenly no longer there, disappeared into the earth, stowing the mask there, before popping out behind the Predator.

Aquilai, in show of technological skill, deactivated the shoulder-mounted laser with his sonic screwdriver before the Predator even realized what he was doing or that he was even there. Then the Predator was starting to get annoyed, snarling in the Predator language, "I will have your pelt!"

"Sorry," Aquilai said from behind him, "didn't understand that."

The Predator glared at Aquilai, mandibles flared out.

"Oh, such a face only a mother could love," Aquilai said, sardonically. "Anyway, let's end this."

Suddenly, slabs of earth pinioned the Predator's arms to his sides. Despite the Predator's brute strength, it could not free itself.

"It is over," Aquilai said, retrieving the Predator's mask, not as a trophy but as an object of study. Then he turned and walked away, while the Predator took a concealed knife and stabbed himself in the gut.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 10:42:13 AM

Why is it that those Predators hav to kill themselves? I understand its part of their culture, but seriously, they let you live..... K, I'm done ranting. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2013, 11:02:08 AM

I guess it's a dignity thing, you know, like, "oh my gawd, I couldn't defeat these guys by any stretch of the imagination, eish I don't deserve to live" that kinda thing. Like some battle-obsessed warrior.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 11:41:01 AM

Just something I read on their Wikipedia page, Abby. Based on the samurai, I believe. They have to commit ritualized suicide when they failed their daimyo or when they've been dishonored. Apparently, the Predators consider a failed hunt dishonoring.

Another brief chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Preds and Shreds

Noelle galloped along her chosen pathway, deliberately leaving obvious signs of her presence in the area. She didn't really know how smart these Predators actually were, but she knew that they certainly thought they were particularly smart.

She paused for a moment, looking through her stalk eyes, and saw a brief movement, a distortion of reality. It was very clear that it was using its camouflage thing.

Noelle the broke into full gallop toward the spot where the distress beacon was. It was an open, circular space literally littered with large, twisted metal things everywhere. She could easily use them as cover to morph.

She hid behind one that appeared to have a rather large bite imprint in it. Noelle did not miss it, and could not help but wonder if this used to be Pootang's nursery.

What a disturbing thought.

Noelle, while waiting for the Predator, wondered what it was like to deal with monster as an infant -- Pichu? -- then through adolescence, into monster adulthood.

Noelle soon pulled her mind from that and put it to work at the task at hand. She was going through her litany of morphs accessible to her. The big and bulky one would have to be the go to ones. . . .

***

The Predator found the notched, chipped stones and sliced pillars that were the path Noelle left deliberately. The Predator glared at it scornfully. These creatures are too careless, he thought distastefully, completely unaware of the intentional actions of the Markings. The Predator, unlike the previous ones indulged in actually secrecy and stealth. He was also decent at it. His scorn for Andalites was evident, though he remained pitifully ignorant of their, arguably, greatest scientific achievement.

He regarded them as simple herbivores whose only reason for existing was to be hunted. He knew Noelle would nearly impossible to sneak up on, due to those stalk eyes of her. But that's why they have camouflage technology.

The tailblade was also a problem, although, this Predator supposed, it wouldn't be a problem once it was severed . . .

Yes, he decided, that would be the trophy he takes from this kill. He would take Noelle's tail.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 11:43:12 AM

Oh crap!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 12:44:34 PM

Only six chapters from the end.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Quick Morphs

The Predator strolled up to the distress beacon, perplexed at why hasn't been touched. He wondered if that pathetic beast even made it this far.

Then he was struck in the head by a tail, and he managed to right himself to see that his assailant was a Buglizard, who roared defiance.

"Pathetic," the Predator said in the Predator language. "You can't best me with monster pets!"

It was enough for Noelle's translator chip to start working. She almost wished it hadn't.

Thw shoulder-mounted laser cannon blasted at Noelle, nicking her Buglizard tail enough to break the skin.

She spewed out a yellowish gas that could dissolve Lepidopterran goo, and vanished into the cloud.

"A foolish tactic!" the Predator coughed. Then he fired his laser cannon into the gas, hitting nothing.

Suddenly, the ground beneath the Predator vibrated as a huge beast, a Slamworm, burst forth and held the Predator in its jaws. The Predator managed to wiggle away, and survive, muttering, quite audibly, "How many pets does this thing have?"

<I have news for you,> Noelle said, demorphing in plain view and then morphing a Root Shark, <They're morphs, not pets.>

"It doesn't matter the number of shape you inhabit," the Predator snarled. "I'll still have your tail -- or head or whatever!"

<Lose the condescension,> Noelle advised acidly, hiding the fatigue of multiple morphing, lunging forward. <You haven't a hope.>

After three lunges, Noelle demorphed, and morphed a Terroranchula. Then she made several energy nets to tie down the Predator, aware that they wouldn't hold him for long.

She demorphed, took a breath, and then morphed a Mucillator.

The Predator freed itself, and charged Noelle, only to get trapped in one the pustules.

<Face it,> Noelle said, breathing hard but determinedly. <You can't beat me.>

"These changes of shape obviously tire you out," the Predator said shrewdly, extricating itself.

Noelled demorphed quickly, and had her tailblade at his throat before he could recover.

<And yet tired you out as well,> Noelle said. <Your hunt has failed big time, pal.>

"Finish it," he said.

Noelle looked at him,and decided that he was just nit worth it.

<No,> Noelle said, turning away, <get a life.>

Unable to put up with shame of being defeated by a "lesser being" and being forced by his culture's demands, he took his own life.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2013, 12:50:32 PM

Clearly he decided to ignore the statement "get a life". :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 12:56:18 PM

Right.

Not sure if i can post again soon, power's out. Which means I'm on borrowed time, essentially, until ths battery needs recharging and I can hear all of my neighbor's innane conversations (a lot of which concern him yelling at his mutt, "Thunder", to shut up).

::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2013, 01:01:27 PM

Good, I'm not the only one with stupid power cuts. :P

A dog named Thunder? Seriously? That's more suited to a horse!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 01:03:21 PM

Haha. Why would you name a dog 'Thunder'. Sounds kinda stupid. *sigh* good luck with that power outage Cloak!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 01:14:09 PM

I think it is a stupid name, too.

But this neighbor of mine isn't too bright (he thought playing drums AT NIGHT was a good idea). He also uses irrelevent facts to try to support his side. Too many years of alcohol, I suppose.

If it comes back on, I'll try and post the last five chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 01:34:10 PM

Oh, he's THAT neighbor. Hmm... I'm worried that one day stupidity will rule the galaxy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2013, 01:36:25 PM

If you spend a lot of time on the internet you'll be convinced that it already does. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 01:42:37 PM

Okay then, universe. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 03:59:49 PM

Well, yeah, but the power is back on, so . . .

A brief chapter! Sorry, about the brevity, the neighbor's "music" seems to be getting louder and louder. Ugh.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Pred Element

Then Cloak, the last RAFian of the six yet to tangle with a Predator, walked at his own pace, which was plenty swift in its own right. Cloak wore an expression that oscillated from impassive indifference to utter exasperation. Perhaps that version of stealth worked with other, nonsapient prey, but it was rather pathetic. At least Van Pyrrhus and Malice knew how to be an effective threat. This . . . this was just pitiable.

Unlike many other species, Realm Walkers haven't got any natural predators. Not a one. So this was just . . . just . . . just blasphemy, in a way. This Predator had no idea -- no idea -- what he got himself in to.

Only old age and another Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker. That has never changed for over twenty billion or so Dweller Earth years.

Cloak made no attempt to hide himself, to lose the Predator, to evade him, or anything. It could be called arrogance, it could be called ****iness, it could be called complacency. Cloak didn't care.

He didn.t like being considered pr-- he suddenly realized just how Horse felt. Every rime, emphasis on "every", the Pootang got out, it tried to or succeeded in eating Horse. Granted, Horse always got out whole -- er, one way or the . . . the other.

And she never compl-- okay, that's not entirely true. But he could understand the complaints now. He had a frame of reference now.

He eventually came to a forest grove, a woodsy grotto. There were plenty of places to hide.

Cloak did not hide.

Call it pride, call it whatever you like, Cloak didn't care, he was going to face this Predator. Face him, and show him just why Realm Walkers haven't any natural predators.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 18, 2013, 04:28:02 PM

I like the chapters name. Sounds like a movie title.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 18, 2013, 04:46:47 PM

Ya, it does. :) great chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 06:26:06 PM

Thanks! . . . I think.

Anyway, I'm nearly done planning out the chapters of "Hat's Off", loosely based of a couple episodes of "Darkwing Duck".

Now, another chapter. Four more to go.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Might and Mercy

Cloak stood, fully and deliberately exposed, waiting for this Predator to show up. Cloak was not looking with his eyes, that was foolish. He was seeing though his feet, through the ground.

No matter how refined their camouflaging technology, it cannot, simply cannot, mask their heavy footsteps. And each footstep provided a vibration the ground.

Even the trees weren't a viable option to escape this, as they would surely sway or rustle ever so slightly, alerting the RAFian Realm Walker's acute feline hearing.

It is not an easy task to sneak up on a RAFians, and a Realm Walker and Elements Master, at that.

"Cut the oogie-boogey crap," Cloak said, the minute he Earthsighted that the Predator was closeby. "I know your there, and I don't really care whether or not you can understand me. You cannot hunt me."

The camouflage of the Predator fell. Cloak had suspected that Realm Walkers were inherently omnilinguistic, although with a few limits and provisos. There was literally no literature on the subject.

"Your cloak will make a fine trophy," he said, not commiting to any pretense.

"You actually think you can kill me?" Cloak scoffed. "That proves just little you know of my kind, l--"

Cloak was about to say "loser", but stopped, having bad associations and memories with the word.

"Prepare to die."

"Don't challenge me," Cloak warned, "it won't end well for you."

"Such bravado," the Predator said.

"Please," Cloak said, almost pleading, "don't force my hand."

But the Predator charged forward to attack, which Cloak managed to Earthsight a split-second before it happened. Cloak easily damged it and touched the Predator's mask, deliberately distorting it so it no longer fit properly.

"That could have been worse," Cloak warned. "Yield, and we can abandon this fruitless exercise."

"Stop holding back! You'll ruin this hunt!"

"You can't kill me, you fool! Only another of my kind can!"

"Lies!" he spat. "Show me your full might!"

"Fine," Cloak said, "you really did ask for it."

Cloak unleashed his full power, but this was only for show. He slammed the Predator between two slabs of earth. The Predator fell, but alive.

"F-f-finish it," he begged. "Kill m-me . . ."

"No," Cloak said immediately. "Learn from your mistakes. Live another life."

Then he turned and walked away, after declaring, "We're done here."

This Predator did the same as its brethren and took his own life. Cloak suspected that he might.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 18, 2013, 06:28:35 PM

This is a good book

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 07:34:20 PM

Thanks. Just three more chapters to go. So, unless, my internet gets spotty . . .

Anyway, a brief chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Back to the Center

The six RAFians trudged back to the center of old RAF, all having deactivated and destroyed the distress beacons.

"Aquilai, what is that?" Gaz said, Laserbeak on her shoulder, leering at the helmet-mask-things Aquilai carried.

"One of their helmets," he answered.

<You know there could be a tracking chip in there.> Noelle pointed out.

"It's deactivated," Aquilai replied defensively.

"You're getting as bad as Yarin," Cloak said, "hording tech and all."

"I'm not hording," Aquilai argued, "I'm going to --"

"Study it, and reverse engineer the tech?" Cloak asked rhetorically, in a toneless expressionless way. Then he waved Aquilai's response away, he really didn't care one way or another. "Let's just get back to the forum, I've had enough of this for one day."

But then that's when the ship appeared, decending ever so slowly, ever so slightly.

"Oh, just lovely." Cloak facepalmed.

Aquilai quickly ditched the helmet as he said, "The mothership?"

<I'd say that's a fair assessment,> Noelle said.

"What do they want with us? I didn't kill my Predator." Underseen said.

"Neither did I," Parker said, "Though he really . . . oh, shut up Tyr."

<I, too, spared mine,> Noelle said.

"Me too," Gaz said as Laserbeak squawked, as if to corroborate her story.

"I . . . just took mine's helmet, I swear!" Aquilai confessed.

"Cloak?" Underseen prompted.

"I showed mercy," he replied stiffly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 18, 2013, 07:46:55 PM

I don't feel too good about this ship.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2013, 08:20:11 PM

Don't be surprised ifnyou get thrown for a loop then, in the next chapter. Tomorrow, probably. Sorry, but I grow tired.:-\

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 18, 2013, 10:41:15 PM

Very exciting! I shall be on the edge of my seat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 06:51:21 AM

Well, we're two chapters from the end of this book, and actually twelve books away from fifty ("L") books, where something'll probably happen to Itellsya, I believe.

Now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Respect Dismissed

The door of the ship opened and the gangplank steps came down. The Predators aboard seemed to wait for the RAFians to come on in. Cloak had a rather "Mars Attacks!" feeling about the whole situation.

Not one of the six moved. After all these guys put them through, they actually expected them to cowtow to their whims? Really?

<We're not going in, you arrogant sacks of Taxxon manure,> Noelle snarled. <You get your skinny butts out here. You're on this planet illegally.>

This bravado was something considering how tired they were. Suddenly, a procession of the Predators decended the gangplank stairs. The "Mars Attacks!" feeling seemingly intensified. They each were carrying shield-like items that each heavily resembled a ceratopsian frill.

Then they offered the frills to the RAFians as a sign of . . . respect?

The RAFians were rendered speechless at this. Even Laserbeak, who sometimes had a problem of never shutting up.

Cloak felt outrage. He glared up at the procession, all looking a little miffed for the fact that the RAFians weren't accepting their great gifts, their signs of respect.

"You actually, honestly believe we'd accept your meaningless TRINKETS? Aftwr what you did? Hunting us, not for food, but for SPORT?! For TROPHIES?!" Cloak raged. Golden-scarlet waves of energy pulsated away from his body, and the Predator backed away. And Cloak wasn't the only one miffed.

"Get lost," Underseen snarled.

"Run away," Aquilai suggested, "and never return."

"Earth is off-limits," Gaz said, pointing Laserbeak, who deftly assumed gun mode, at them.

<Do not make us have force you off,> Noelle glowered, <we've shown just about the limits of our mercy. . . .>

"And we proven that you guys aren't really a threat to us." Parker said practically.

The Predator procession looked a bit shocked at this. As if a couple of dismembered shields would pacify them. The Predators lingered, and Cloak raised a pulsating hand.

"Wanna push your luck any further, pal?" he threatened. He would not feel aggrieved about this particular action.

They went into their ship, withdrew the staired gangplank, and hovered up. They hesitated a bit, as if wondering to fire their energy weapons. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 19, 2013, 07:05:00 AM

... and then, they offered everyone cheese and crackers and yelled "Happy New Year!" :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 08:41:56 AM

Lol, Saffa. Sorry, nope.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Nightmares and Dares

Cloak stood apart from the others, taking the stance he would usually take to redirect energy. If they had any relevant, coherent data on his abilities, they would know that using energy weapons against him were not the best of ideas.

They seemed to weigh their options. Seeing the amount of payoff there was.

They fired the ships weapons. Cloak redirected them, winging their ship. He did not destroy it, otherwise, they'd be stranded on Earth. And that was undesirable.

Cloak hoped that now that these supposedly-great hunters would be able to take a hint -- they were easily outmatched by any reasonably-trained RAFian.

After a few tenuous moments, the Predator ship turned and left Earth's atmosphere, hopefully, to never return.

"Well," Cloak sighed heavily, "I think it's safe to say that we're done here."

"Totally," Underseen agreed.

***

Cloak was clinging to the side of a sheer cliff, all five of his sharp, black claws dug into the side of the cliff.

"Uncle . . . !"

Shadow was sliding down the side. His hand was outstretched towards his little Shadow. He did not question why she wasn't using her Mastery over the Elements, nor did he question why he wasn't.

"Ah!" Cloak winced. He looked up and saw his mother, Ursa, had buried her ursine claws into his hand.

"Trust me . . . son. . . ." she said in an inhumanly hoarse and wispy manner.

"Uncle . . . help me . . ."

"Shadow . . ." Cloak muttered.

"Hah!" Ursa said, throwing Cloak off the cliff and into oblivion. . . .

***

"HAH!" Cloak exclaimed as he awoke with a start. He sat up, kicked his legs over the side of his bed, and put his head in his hands, with his tail curled close to his body, only the tip twitching.

"I guess I haven't gotten as over this, as I thought," he told himself quietly. He felt hollow, as if the void Shadow's absence left was just more noticeable, and somehow deeper.

Cloak sighed heavily. Then he got dressed and put on the black cloak that had become his iconic one. Then he went out into the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 19, 2013, 08:46:20 AM

:( I miss Shadow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 10:20:18 AM

How you think I feel, Saffa? :-\ It's been nearly a year since I've seen her (and I swear my mother was deliberately depriving me from seeing her -- the same mother that gave me PTSD after I left).

But you've come for the chapters. Here, let's start the next book.

BOOK XXXVIII:
PROTEAN PROBLEM
CHAPTER ONE:
Insult Insulation

"C'mon, Cloakclucker --" said an incredibly inept insult monster. It had the power to turn insults into tangible damage, and could be a real threat . . . if it wasn't so uncreative.

"Really?" Cloak taunted. "That's the best you got?"

This monster resembled the monster "Bugaboo" from "Scary Godmother" and the mascot of "Monster.com" fused together only with smaller lips, more prominent tail, thinner sharper teeth, and thicker limbs.

"Don't criticize my craft, Cloak-For-Brains." it snarled. The most power that caused was like the weakest, most limp-wristed slap.

"Your craft?" Sakki piped up. "Then one would expect you to be -- oh, I dunno -- good at it."

"Must you taunt the monster?" Saffa asked, teasingly. "You might make it cry."

"Hey! I am supposed to be doing insulting here!" it whined.

"Yeah," Faerie acknowledged nonconcernedly, "badly."

It was at this point that Cloak noticed the monster was getting smaller.

"Stop it!"

"Why? Can't handle your own medicine, pal?" Gaz said. "That why you're hanging around schoolyards?"

It shrank some more.

"Quit it!"

"Why?" Cloak said, scornfully. "It's not like you're really a threat."

It shrank to the size of a housecat.

"Clearly, you can dish it out " Saffa observed passively, "but you clearly cannot take it."

POP!

It shrank so much, it blipped from existence. It was gone.

"Pity it can't always be so easy," Faerie said, sipping her drink.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 19, 2013, 10:25:59 AM

I'd be lying if I didn't mention the first thing the title reminded me of is the Proteas - the name for the South African national cricket team! :P :D

Anyway, on topic. This sounds fun. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 10:29:37 AM

Actually it came from "Proteus" -- and I really cannot say more than that right now.

Internet spotty right now. Try to post more later.

CHAPTER TWO:
Cylinder X

Deep within a government site -- widely rumored to be Area 15, Area 6, Area  4, Area 5, or Area 51, in any matter, it was inconsequential and immaterial -- where a canister, a cylinder, of an amalgam and alloy of N^th metal, vibranium, and admantium held within it a very dangerous creature. Possibly more dangerous than the brute force of the Pootang.

But this creature was sapient, made of yellow energy. It was kept under lock and key because of the trouble it caused over twenty years ago, when a radical splinter government group created it.

Itellsya used his psychometry to discover this, and reported it to Malice.

Malice penetrated the defenses with ruthless and laughable ease. She came to the canister easily taking it for her own.

"So, this is the great 'Cylinder X'?" Malice sneered. "Somehow, it looks rather unimpressive."

She examined the canister impassively, and unimpressed.

"Interesting alloy," she commented. "The adamantium makes it unbreakable to brute force. The vibratium guards from sound-based attempts to open it, while the N^th metal guards from energy projected trauma."

She patted the canister with her other hand. "Very thorough. Mundane to the naked eye, but rather well thought out when examined more closely. Well thought out indeed."

Suddenly, a guard by the name of PFC X. Pendabel came in and saw Malice fondling Cylinder X.

"What are you doing --" the guard said.

Malice, with a gesture and not bothering to look up, used her energy to kill the twenty-something. She held no remorse for the slaying.

"For a creature of such danger, with so many precautions built into its prison," Malice said, "one would think that they wouldn't have made it a pop-top."

Malice popped the top effortlessly, and it was like a tear gas bomb.

Suddenly, a hulking, nine-foot figure of pure yellow psionic energy came forth.

"Hello, Proteus," Malice said. "How's things?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 19, 2013, 01:46:00 PM

Why would it be made of all sorts of powerful metals and basically be a soda can holding a giant made of energy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 03:02:00 PM

You're gonna find out in Chapter 17, I think, Unseen.

But I'll say that it wasn't in the canister's designer's originally design, but the idea of someone with too much authoritive power and too little common sense.

Ugh, clearly, this neighbor of mine hasn't an "in-door" voice. ::) Someone really should tell him that yelling hardly eer gets your point across.

Anyway, another chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Alarming and Unleashed

Yarin was passively, but intently watching the sensors and communications. It had become a rather regular ritual for him.

Then he shut all six of his eyes, holding his head. He was sensing a telepathic disturbance. A powerful disturbance.

It took him a moment to gain control and probe further . . . Eventually seeing Proteus . . . a confused mind, a teenaged mind . . . he saw him standing with Malice, whose mind was unreadable, due to her being a Realm Walker.

Then Proteus noticed his telepathic probe and easily forced Yarin away.

Yarin opened his eyes knowing the implications of what this meant. He left the communications tower, to gather the other RAFians, veterans, yearlings, half-yearlings, newbies -- the whole kit and kaboodle.

***

"Why do you want to know?" Proteus said. His voice wasn't big, deep, reverberating at all. It sounded like an ordinary teenager. Male. "Why free me?"

"Oh, no reason, really," Malice said. "Just thought you'd liven things up a bit."

"You want something. . . . But I . . ."

"Can't read my mind?" Malice replied conversationally. "Ah, don't worry about it. My kind are telepathy-proof. Oh, and we aren't affected by your little reality-warping power either."

Her tone turned crisp. "Now, unless you want to be crammed back into your little home for another twenty years or so, you'd make good an escape."

Proteus took in what she had said.

"Tick-tock, Proteus, tick-tock." Malice prompted.

That's when Sergeant C. Fodder stepped into the room. Proteus thought no more, and quickly jumped into him, the only giveaway was the glowing yellow eyes. He could not only access Fodder's mind, but his memories, his emotions, his every nuance, like a Yeerk, but to a much greater degree.

"There!" Malice said, gregariously. "You have your disguise and you'll be on the mainland before you know it!"

She gave a highly exaggerated curtsey, and Walked away, as Proteus masqueraded as Fodder to get back to the island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 19, 2013, 04:05:24 PM

Reality warping and body snatching. I am not even sure if the mark protects us from that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 04:31:58 PM

From one, and partway the other.

Sorry, no more chapters today, I think. My neighbor's been drinking again and been banging on my wall no less the three or four times in the last hour or so -- as if he's punching it. I swear he's an overgrown spoiled brat. I don't want to call the police on him, but *sigh* it looks like he's gonna force my hand. :facepalm:

*rubs temples, praying for patience*

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 19, 2013, 06:11:21 PM

Think he might be the sort to do stuff because he knows it annoys people? That's the idea I'm getting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2013, 06:58:05 PM

Well, I'm nit the only one whose complained. That's a distinct possibly, Gaz, but I think it's more that he hasn't a very high I/Q. He's killed a lot of brain cells with alcohol, I surmise. Its just the way he talks. . . .

EDIT: Chapter later today.

Nearly finished planning out "You Are What You Read", based off an episode of "Smallville".

EDIT: Tired. But I'll try to get this chapter up.

CHAPTER FOUR:
RAFians, Assemble!

Yarin gathered the every RAFian -- the veterans of many years, the yearlings, the half-yearlings, the newbies -- and told them to meet in the auditorium in five.

It took a further ten minutes to calm people down, and get down to business.

"A being of incredible power has been released," Yarin said without preamble. "It has a telepathic power unparalleled by any species or individual I ever met."

That got their attention.

"And, I've received some video from General Pepper Ann Mills --" Aquilai said, glaring a few newbies who snickered before continuing, "and the incidents are not encouraging."

Then Aquilai allowed the videos to speak for themselves. The first one showed Malice examining Cylinder X and popping the top the container, unleashing Proteus.

"Uh, why was that thing trapped in a soda can?" Under asked the rom at large.

"He was contractually obligated by Pepsi?" Abby suggested in an offhand way.

"Proteus . . ." Estelore said quietly. She recognized it as she was the one who designed the canister as a last resort against him, 'bout twenty years ago. However, she didn't design the pop top. It irked her to see it, as it was the sergeant on duty at the time's idea.

What was his name? . . . Oh, yes, Cannon. Louis Cannon. The one who tried to force himself upon Helen.

Then, realizing Underseen's question, she replied, "It wasn't supposed to have a pop top."

"How . . . how can you be so sure?" Saffa asked, having a shrewd idea of the answer.

"Twenty years ago," Estelore answered, "I designed it. Designed as a last resort. He has the power to," she gestured to the second video, the one of Proteus demonstrating his powers, making it to the mainland, taking a teenager with an unusually pointed nose., "to warp reality itself and snatch bodies . . . for a time."

"What do you mean 'for a time'? Dino asked, quite seriously.

"The bodies would eventually . . . uh . . . burn out." Esty said, looking down.

"You knew him," Cloak said, gazing at her shrewdly.

"Proteus . . . that's his name, Proteus." Estelore said. "But his real name was Adam Furst. He was ripped away from his family, and experimented on by a government splinter group. Checkers or Checkmate or something."

Then her tone turned regretful. "They gave him the powers, and he wasn't the most selfless, harmless person to begin with," she explained. "I had to use the canister to contain him. I . . . I didn't notice the pop top. I . . . couldn't destroy him. It wasn't entirely his fault that his powers drove him mad. His mind is still that of a child."

"So he's a teenager whose finally free and quite capable to do whatever he likes," Richard summed up. "Not a comforting thought."

"The Mark should protect you from the body snatching," Cloak said thoughtfully.

"'Should'?" Phoenix noted.

Cloak shrugged.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 20, 2013, 02:04:32 PM

The title reminds me of Avengers. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2013, 03:03:51 PM

It's suppose to, Abby. That's what it was referencing. :)

EDIT: WOOT! 2000^th post!

CHAPTER FIVE:
Experiencing the Human Experience

"-- Our top story tonight, the epidemic that's sweeping our city." said a clipped and polished news anchor in a brilliant red blazer, ruby red lipstick and teased blonde hair, "It seems to be chararcterized by intense weakness, severe internal trauma, unusual out-of-the-ordinary behavior, delusions, and, some reports state, glowing yellow eyes. There are no cures known at this point and the cause is as of yet unknown. Five deaths are confirmed at this time."

Then the screen shifted to show the photos of the victims, against a greenish-blue background.

"Bambi Townsend, 42."

The pictured showed a woman whose dark hair was in disarray, and who had a face rather pockmarked face

"Tricia Third, 38."

Tricia's picture looked rather like the stereotypical image of a homeless woman who looked like the most defeated person in the world.

"Teddy Forsyth, 12."

Teddy looked like an ordinary vivacious, lively, energetic boy with a bright smile.

"Kenta Pennyworth, 28."

Kenta appeared to be a fairly well-off man with an understated sort of handsomeness.

"Hector Slix, 45."

Hector looked to be the stereotypical money-grabbing, thrifty tycoon.

"It is believed . . ."

Suddenly, camera shorted out, and when it came back on, the anchorwoman had glowing yellow eyes and began to comfort the populace. The gullible would easily believe it.

***

Click!

"Why is he doing this?" Abby asked.

"Isn't obvious? He was trying to experience all the decadence and depravity of human existence." Cloak said shrewdly.

Estelore nodded, " He probably wants to experience it all -- again -- after being contained for two decades."

"That should make him easier to track, then." Faerie said. "And we need to act fast."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 20, 2013, 04:41:53 PM

All of those poor victims. :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2013, 08:00:47 PM

Right, Abby.

Now, just a warning, if I can post a chapter tomorrow, it'll come late. Got a lot to do. And I'll be exhausted.

And, as far as the chapter-planning goes, I'm about halfway through "Wrath of the Colossuses".

EDIT: Finished planning out the chapters of "Wrath of the Colossuses", ending in what looks to be 22 chapters, assuming i don't split on in two. Started on "The Year Without RAF", which will kind of be out-of-continuity, and yet in-continuity.

And I've procured some earplugs, which I'm gonna use as an auditory defense against my neighbor.

Now, the rather brief chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Telepathic Tracking

"This is a danger we cannot ignore, it is true," Richard said.

"I believe that I can track this Proteus creature down, telepathically," Yarin self-advocated.

"Very well, then," Richard nodded heavily. "Yarin, take Cloak, Faerie, Parker, and . . . and Aquilai."

"As you wish, Richard." Yarin said at once, immediately heading for his ship, gesturing briefly to the others to follow his lead.

"Godspeed," Richard muttered as they went off, genuinely and sincerely wishing them luck.

***

"I believe the place to start is where we saw Proteus come ashore in the video," Yarin said.

"Swell, Brainiac," Faerie said with her usually acid sarcasm. "But wouldn't a more obvious location be the Channel Six station where we saw the newscaster being body-snatched?"

Silence.

"Yes . . . well . . . that would be the most prudent course . . ."

"Stop babbling, Yarin," Parker said. "Just get this this mission going. We're wasting valuable time here."

"Setting course," Yarin said.

"You do realize he's probably already abandoned the newscaster's body, right?" Aquilai pointed out.

"Or has killed her," Cloak added.

"No, it would have been reported on," Parker disagreed.

"Couldn't he just warp reality so it is so?" Faerie asked.

"Unlikely -- warping is not rewriting." Cloak said. "But I am not a reality-physicist."

"Is that a thing?" Faerie said, teasingly.

Cloak said nothing.

"We're approaching the coordinates of the . . . the . . ." Yarin gazing incomprehendingly at the screen.

The Channel 6 building was just fine. But another building in the . . . the background. It was a rather objectionable new shape.

"Well," Parker grunted, "he is a teenager."

Faerie curled her lip in disgust, "Boys are gross."

"Well, at least we know where he is," Cloak pointed out.

"Right," Yarin said, coming out of his stupor, "the manipulations to reality are only maintained as long as he's applying consistant concentration on them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 21, 2013, 06:30:43 PM

I found an awful lot of humor in the chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2013, 06:42:25 PM

Well, it was intended to be humorous, mostly as a treacle-cutter, I suppose, given the bluntness of the deaths in the previous chapter.

And sorry, no second chapter today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 22, 2013, 09:45:16 AM

Funny chapter :D This is getting good!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2013, 02:17:26 PM

Well, I've nearly completed the chapter planning of "The Year Without RAF", obviously a direct parody of "The Year Without Santa Claus". And I came up with a couple more ideas: Books CLXXIV ("Kidnapped"), CLXXV ("Lockdown"), and CLXXVI ("Exhile").

Now, the chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Overindulgence and Body Hopping

After he spent about four hours in the newscaster, he quickly abandoned her body -- leaving her in a coma with moderate internal damage. She would survive.

He leaped into a 34-year-old man , a studio gofer. He didn't stay long before getting bore, doing some rather inappropriate things with the body before leaving his body (which fell into a coma for an hour or so).

Then Proteus left the studio wall, momentarily turning it into a piscine building, basically defying all known physics. He heard a giggle and, without a second thought, now wore an eleven-year-old redhead girl. Like his other hosts, he treated the body very carelessly and inappropriately. But eventually he got bored again, and leaped out of the girl and into a 24-year-old man with a blonde buzz cut, clean-shaven and army fatigues.

The mischievous, childish grin that grew upon the army man's was, in a word, disturbing. Proteus did some exploring of the army man that . . . well, he was a teenager mentally.

But he soon got bored and left the young PFC in a rather . . . compromising position.

Then he jumped a 21-year-old woman with long black hair and brilliant green eyes. He quickly bored of her body and left, causing her to lapse into a coma, like the others before.

Then he took a 46-year-old woman and professed "psychic" (as much of a fraud as Yuri Geller). Proteus was disappointed when he discovered this, and made her look like a lunatic before he "stepped out" violently.

Then he took a six-year old boy in a ninja getup. He spent more time wearing this body than the others, having no proper childhood of his own. So he thought he could steal some of this boy's childhood, well aware of would happen if he overstayed his welcome. Eventually, he did, sad as it was. The boy's body burned out. But Proteus was remorseless.

Proteus just hopped into a nearby 38-year-old, bald man with an auburn walrus mustache with a penchant for riddles. He spent a few minutes wearing him, but soon got bored, and leaped into a 27-year-old man, with rumored mob or Knight connections. Proteus found out, via the man's own memories, that this was a lie. He was disappointed at this duplicity, but focused the nearest building into the form that the RAFians had noticed.

But Proteus had lost his focus and concentration when the body he was wearing had died. Proteus, of course, survived, but he was in his transcorporeal form.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2013, 04:55:06 PM

Okay, chances are this'll be a long chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
In Search Of . . . Proteus*

"That guy was just shot," Parker pointed out. "Yarin, are you sure --"

"The man carries Proteus's psionic fingerprint," Yarin said, as they examined the body after the paramedics declared him dead on-scene.

"But why was he shot?" Aquilai asked, genuinely concerned. "Did someone suspect he was hosting Proteus?"

"Somehow, I doubt it." Faerie said, thoughtfully. "I believe what we have here is a dementor, threstral type of situation. Not everyone can see old Yellow Eyes's glowin' peepers."

"Then why can we?" Aquilai asked. Then he answered his own question, "Oh, right, the Marks."

"And the Marks allow you because I can see them plain as day," Cloak said, scanning the crowd. Why must humans crowd a calamity? He clearly needed to learn more about humans. "And, from what I can see he didn't linger."

***

Cloak's assessment was right, Proteus didn't linger. He hopped into a 31-year-old falconer, but quickly bored of him within ten minutes.

Then he hopped into an androgynous 49-year-old. Then the novelty wore off quickly, and he jumped into an plain-looking 45-year-old woman. He quickly bored of her and then hopped inside the body of a thirty-year-old man with a foggy memory.

Proteus didn't like that so he abandoned his body, leaving him momentary weakened like the aforementioned. Then he decided to wear a genteel and gentle 23-year-old woman.

After engaging in some risque behavior, atypical for the woman in whose body he was currently joyriding, he dumps her fir a cold, cranky 16-year boy with platinum-blonde hair.

Now he engaged in a few lude acts, under the name of the boy whose body he currently purloined, although it mattered very little. When Proteus left him, his internal damage was severe enough to lay him up for many years, if not life. Proteus didn't care. Although Proteus gave away his position to the RAFians when he made the streets turn into an asphalt grayish-black stream, until he got bored with that too and hopped inside an arrogant 24-year-old woman who refused to admit defeat or fault.

In the end, Proteus found this rather pathetic, and took the nicer, more gregarious 19-year-old girl.

***

"This poor boy," Faerie said. "My healing magic is rather subpar, compared to Kelly's healing abilities."

"Pity that she had familial responsibilities to attend to," Cloak sighed, "or we could callher in on this. But give it your best go, Faerie. You might be able to give him a chance."

"But no pressure, right?" Faerie replied drolly.

"Where could he have gone?" Aquilai asked.

"I have a feeling this monster went north," Yarin said. "We needto stop thinking of him as a teenager. Just look at the pain and anguish he has caused in the last four Earth hours."

"I agree," Cloak said, quietly.

---
*Referencing the old show, "In Search Of . . .", on Scif-Fi . . . erhm, excuse me, SyFy. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 22, 2013, 08:57:30 PM

Proteus is one of my favorite villains so far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2013, 04:24:56 AM

Huh. Didn't expect that, Underseen.

'Kay, since it's Thursday, remember the chapter'll be later than usual.

As far as the chapter planning goes, I've finished "The Year Without RAF" and started on "Kidnapped".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 23, 2013, 10:28:20 AM

Quote from: Underseen on May 22, 2013, 08:57:30 PM

Proteus is one of my favorite villains so far.

Oookay. I didn't expect that, either.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2013, 05:30:39 PM

Sorry, no chapter today. My internet is really p!ssing me off. What am I thinking? It'll just give me that Error 500 bullsh!t when I try to post it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 23, 2013, 05:37:36 PM

It was a RAF bug that was just fixed for me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2013, 05:50:17 PM

Still, I don't want to work for an hour or two just for it to flare up again. . . .

I might post the promised chapter (hopefully that I didn't break this thing in my anger), but later. I'm still somewhat ticked.

EDIT: Okay, came up with an idea for Book CLXXVIII -- "Dullsville".

Now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The RAFians Are Made

"Looks like Proteus did this one a favor," Parker said, scanning the charred remains of an older gentleman, whose short beard obscured his mouth.

"How do you mean?" Faerie asked.

"Looks like he's a cancerous growth on his --"

"We're being watched." Cloak said immediately.

"Proteus is nearby," Yarin said at the same instant.

And indeed he was. He wore a surfer dude with wavy blond hair and a skintight suit -- a walking stereotype of surf culture. He looked at the RAFians curiously. He did not know that they could determine which body he currently occupied.

"He's there," Faerie said,  pointing as her eyes narrowed. Always a danger sign.

Huh? Proteus thought. They can possibly mean me me, but this guy's mind has no memory of them.

"We know its you," Aquilai said, "Proteus."

But how? How did they know it was me? the overpowered teen thought.

"Leave the innocent," Cloak said. "Don't force my hand, Proteus."

Proteus tried to bluster, masquerade as his stolen body's rightful owner. None of the RAFians fell for it.

<You're not fooling anyone, boy.> Yarin said telepathically. <Drop the pretense.>

Proteus did drop the pretense, but not purposefully. More like he forgot to maintain it. He spoke as a corporeal intruder.

"It's you, wasn't it? You told them about me?" he said rolling the man's shoulders and pulling out, leaving the surfer severely weakened, but alive. Barely.

"Proteus," Cloak said, unaware of the disapproving, parental lilt to his voice. "What you're doing to these people is wrong."

Proteus took the rebellious teenager stance. The other RAFians looked unsure of Cloak's course of action. Lectures and teenagers mixed as about as well as oil and water.

"Proteus, I --"

"I don't care what you have to say!" he shouted, attempting to jump into Yarin, only to be flung violently away. He had bluish-white smoke steam from his psionic form in curls.

But he soon got up again and he wasn't too happy. An angry teen who could literally do nearly any thing he wanted -- not a really auspicious prospect.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 23, 2013, 09:35:03 PM

Its cool to see that as far as I know he can't posses people with the mark, but it would be an interestingly difficult fight if he could.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2013, 04:31:45 AM

No, he can't possess a Mark-Bearer. But that doesn't mean he's completely harmless against us . . . well, you guys.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 24, 2013, 10:43:07 AM

*shudders to think of the consequences*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2013, 02:18:27 PM

As you should, Saffa. Probably.

Anyway, it's a three-day weekend . . . so, I think you know what that means. :)

Warning: mild language at the beginning.

CHAPTER TEN:
Realitybending

"What just happened?" Parker asked.

"You totally pissed him off, that's what happened!" Faerie shouted.

"Is the shouting really necessary?" Cloak said, as Proteus made his move. He did not possess any of them -- as he couldn't -- nor did he possess anyone else. He just manipulated reality so that Faerie looked as if someone decided to paint her in a pointillist fashion.

This wasn't unnoticed by her. "Oh, I think shouting is very well necessary at the moment."

Then Aquilai took on the appearance as if he was rendered by Pablo Picasso. Cloak couldn't tell Aquilai's face from his gut. "Just our luck -- the kid's an art major."

But he wasn't through. Yarin was then in the attire of Whistler's Mother, in a rocking chair. "This isn't funny."

Then he turned his attention to Cloak. But nothing happened. Then his concentration seemed to waver from the others as he trained it upon Cloak.

Cloak understood at once what was happening. He was attempting to manipulate reality with Cloak as he did to the others. But he couldn't.

"You're wasting your energy, Proteus," Cloak said. "Your reality-warping abilities will never have any affect on me."

"Liar!"

"You see it with your own eyes," Cloak said. "The reason is simple. I'm not from this reality. I'm not from any reality really."

"I don't believe you." Proteus said, transforming four rocks into minute, identical copies of Faerie to attack her, causing her to complain, "I didn't even say anything!!"

"Believe it or don't, I cannot force you, nor I want to." Cloak said, addressing Proteus as tolerantly as he could.

"They're lies!" Proteus insisted, abjectly refusing to acknowledge limitations to his powers.

"Get over yourself, Proteus!" Parker burst. "The facts are facts. No matter if you decide to ignore them!"

Proteus glared at Parker. Suddenly the reality around and within Parker distorted, becoming surreal. The Walker tech wasn't sufficient enough to protect him.

"No!" Cloak exclaimed.

Proteus was literally tearing Parker apart -- physically, intellectually, and psychologically.

"Proteus, stop!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2013, 03:17:03 PM

Well, let's see if I can post another chapter, we are ten from the end of this book.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Pull Yourself Together, Parker!*

"Proteus! Stop!" Cloak said, not even looking at him. His full attention went to Parker.

Eventually, everything reverted to normal. It wasn't that Proteus finally learned mercy. No, it was because he had decided to leave the area.

Cloak and the others were more concerned with their resident SPARTAN's well-being than chasing down Proteus.

Parker was shaking with minor convulsions, and it sounded like . . . like he was in tears. Cloak would not blame him if this was the truth.

"Parker . . . are you . . . are you okay?" Faerie said, with genuine hesitation and heartfelt sincerity. Not a tone she usually utilized.

Parker did not answer. He had a right to be surly, Cloak felt.

After a few moments, Parker stumbled to a tree, tore off his helmet, and promptly vomited all over the ground.

" Do you want talk about it?" Aquilai asked, with genuine concern.

"Not now," Parker replied, gruffly, "not ever."

Cloak glanced at Parker, feeling some responsibility for what happened. After all, he didn't have to say anything to Proteus.

But Cloak could easily see that Proteus was not a force to be reckoned with lightly. He wondered if he, and he alone, should go after Proteus. When it ca e down to it, Cloak was immune to all of Proteus's abilities. He was the best chance.

Still . . . he was a teenager, a minor. Perhaps he wasn't aware of his actions. Perhaps he thought nothing more than an interactive video game?

Cloak shook himself out of his relverie. Why was he making excuses for this monster? They should put him down like Van Pyrrhus, like Madre de Vampyra, like the Black Lanterns. . . .

But perhaps there was another way . . . if they could figure out his next move . . .

---
* I know, a bit "Dragon Ball Z Kai" as far as titles go.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2013, 04:18:51 PM

Well, a third chapter, then more, possibly, after a power nap.

Probably a brief one.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Politicking Day is a Very Dangerous Day*

Meanwhile, Proteus was getting away, having chosen to wear a passing bicyclist in full bicycling regalia. He smirked impishly as he rode quickly beyond the eyeline of the RAFians.

So, he thought, this is bicycling. Not much to it, is there?

He rode for a time, before desiring another form. Lifting himself from this man's spandex-clad frame he pulled himself into a nearby collegian who had just struck out, romantically-speaking, with a peer. Well, that's why politics and religion are the stickiest places for conversation.

Anyway, Proteus, as with all the bodies he stole to wear, took control instaneously as soon as he was in. He had command over this collegian's memories, and he snickered and derided the recent ones.

"Oh, Nigel," he chided aloud with Nigel's voice. "Even I could tell you that you just don't talk with friends about such radical ideals. And I've been in a cylinder for twenty years."

He laughed Nigel's laugh, only tainted it with a malicious lilt. Then he decided to go a head and . . . uh . . . explore this new body.

But, before he could, he noticed a poster to his left. It was a political one -- "Vote Joe Savage", where "Savage" was pronounced "sa-vahge".

Seeing this Proteus's eyes burned a darker yellow. With a twitch, Nigel's body fell to the ground, like a pair of discarded jeans.

"Him," Proteus growled, and the street around him seemed to bubble red hot. Eventually, it reached a full-on boil -- literally boiling Nigel alive. Boiled by Proteus's wrath made tangible, made real.

"I'm imprisoned for two decades, and he only thinks of reelection?!" Proteus raged. The street was no steaming, and Nigel was already dead by this point.

"He will not get away with this." Proteus fumed and pouted. "He will not forget me. Not again."

Then the street returned to normal as he rode a tangible piece of reality like Cloak would right one of his energy discs. He had decided to find this Joe Savage.

Why was anyone's guess.

***

"Whoa," Yarin said suddenly, holding his head, as all six of his eyes winced in telepathic pain.

"What is it?" Aquilai inquired.

"Proteus," Yarin said, barely managing the pain. "He's really angry. Really focused on . . . on tjis Joe Savage."

"The mayor?" Faerie asked.

"The incumbent mayor," Cloak corrected. "There's an election going on."

"What on Earth could he want with him?" Parker asked, unable to keep the warble from his voice.

"I dunno," Cloak said. "But I'm sending for another two RAFians, for backup."

---
*"Rocko's Modern Life" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 24, 2013, 04:45:41 PM

He is one of the most powerful humans we have fought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2013, 06:07:23 PM

Metahuman, Underseen, metahuman.

Anyway, today's been a very creative day for me. Because after "Exhile" (remember, all titles are subject to change), there'll be:

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Super Men

The RAF must face a small army of Kandorians.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

RAF gets a "bug" which sucks all the creativity, all zaniness from it.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

The RAFians must deal with a malfunctioning, insane Galvan Mechamorph.

• Book CLXXX: Go To Hell

Several RAFians are forcibly transported to Hell, Demos's birthplace.

• Book CLXXXI: The Schism

An out-of-continuity book. Parker and Cloak's ideals come to a crossroads.

And I'm considering a "what-if" book. If you've a "what if" question, just PM me . . . if I get enough, I'll add it to the book queue, and the answer will be one chapter long. That is, if this idea pans out. . . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
RAFians Used Protect!*

"Sir," Cloak said, having trouble keeping the irritation from his voice, "I don't think you fully appreciate the danger you're under."

"I'm not interested in some fairy tale about a dangerous demonic thing." Joe Savage replied stubbornly. The man was at least late fifties, early sixties, and, quite possubly the most obstinate non-RAFian human Cloak had ever met.

The RAFians had decided to preempt Proteus's meeting with this idiot. They told him the truth -- all of it -- and he didn't believe it. Then again, he wasn't the mayor that gave RAF the level of government institution -- he was one of the opponents to that move.

"Listen, Mayor Savage," AniDragon said, calmly. She was one of the two backup RAFians Cloak asked for, the other was Cerulean. "Look at this reasonably --"

"I know my predecessor thought very highly of you freaks and aliens," he said crankily. "I do not. You may have limited government access, but that does not mean I have to kowtow to your every whim!"

"You don't know what this . . . this thing can do!" Parker said, very close to a yell. His helmet was off and there was an unnerving intensity to his eyes. "He can penetrate your mind with ruthless ease. You'll have no secrets from him. And I know you politicians always have skeletons in your closets that you rather not see the light of day."

Parker continued to look the mayor directly in the eyes, as he took a breath before pursuing his monologue, "He can also possess your body and the mere occupation of his conscious may cause it to burn up into nothingness. We've seen and examined the results of this. It appears you sould have not idea, not concept of what use he uses your body, unless your lucky enough to survive his -- its occupation of it."

Then Parker's eyes took on a dark, haunted look. "And that's not his w-worst power."

His voice involuntarily cracked a bit at that.

"Parker --" AniDragon began consolingly, but Parker shrugged it off, took a deep breath and continued.

"Possession and telepathy aren't its only powers." Parker said, though his voice sounded hollow. "Reality itself is a mere plaything to it. It can literally rip you -- mind, body, and soul -- apart and restore you, j-just to do it over again."

"And when does this issue come out?" the hardheaded politician said, already pretty much deciding not to believe a word of it. "No one's that powerful. Besides, I've my own security."

"You fool," Cerulean said, outraged. "You damn fool!"

"After all we've told you," Aquilai said, unable to stifle the disbelieving lilt to his voice, "you still thing your security, who haven't had any experience with such matters, can handle this?"

"Whereas we have had dealt with this kind of experience weekly to daily?" Yarin added. "You're not only a fool, but one that seeks his own destruction."

"We're wasting our time here," Faerie said. "He's already made up his mind."

---
*Frankly, I think it's obvious what this is a reference to. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 24, 2013, 09:42:40 PM

He's such a typical politician.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 06:49:58 AM

Yeah, and most politicians never have a change of heart. Not a genuine one, anyway.

*remembering the Republican nominees debate where some @ss booed a gay soldier and none of them had the balls to put him right. >:(:dull:*

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Family Man

Outside his office, Faerie asked, "Well what do we do now? We know Savage," she deliberately pronounced it "Savage" instead of the usual "sa-vahge", "is Proteus's next target."

"But, it begs the question," Aquilai said thoughtfully, "the target for what exactly? Possession? Doubtful, because his other victims were victimized just because they were there."

"The fact of the matter," Cloak said, "is he has been targeted. Yes, the motivation is not clear and Savage hinself does not realize the gravity of the situation -- and, unfortunately, probably won't until it's too late."

"What are you suggesting?" Cerulean asked.

"That we provide him the protection anyway." Cloak answered heavily, knowing that it will be unpleasant. "Four at a time, in two-hour shifts. Round the clock. Remain unseen. Cerulean, Faerie, Yarin and I will take the first shift."

Parker wondered mildly if Cloak deliberately didn't give him the first shift, but his expression remained inscrutable, hidden beneath his helmet, concealing his uncertainty and reluctance to face Proteus again.

***

Meanwhile, Proteus headed, not for Savage's office, but his home estate. He quickly put on the guard to sneak onto the premises (though, technically, he needn't as reality bends to his will).

The estate was the epitome of opulence, excess and overindulgence. Everything within the overlarge estate was prohibitively expensive. It basically was advertising to everyone "I'm wealthy! Look at me! I'm wealthy off your tax dollars!"

"Figures," Proteus muttered with the husky guard's gruff voice. "Always had ambition, dear ol' Savage."

Upon entering and exploring a bit, he was finding the guard's body was starting to chafe. But he did not relinquish it. He needed time to look around, and he'd prefer to do that without a flurry of investigations and whatnot. He had to know what Savage had been up to in the intervening years.

"What are you doing here, Dan?" came a youthful voice.

Proteus turned and saw a teenaged boy, bit younger than he was mentally, about fourteen or fifteen. Proteus gathered from Dan's memory that this boy was Joe Savage's stepson, Tobey Ornotobi*, who refused to take his stepfather's name.

"Dan? Did you hear me?"

Suddenly, Dan's body spasmed. It was starting to deteriorate rapidly. Within moments, Dan's body burned out, revealing Proteus to Tobey.

"What did you do to Dan?!" he cried.

"He was merely a costume of meat," Proteus said, quickly and easily swooping down upon the boy, engulfing him and wearing him. "Ah, much like yourself now."

Proteus examined his new body and brain, commenting, "Oh, you're a strong one, aren't you? You'll last a long time. Dunno if I'll get tired of wearing you."

Then he examined some of Tobey's most personal memories and perceptions and conclusions. Tobey believed his mother's marriage was one of convenience, his mother needing the financial support and Savage needed a family angle, a completely politically-minded decision.

"Nice guy, wasn't he, Tobey," Oroteus said with an ironic smirk. He spoke that despite knowing for a fact that Tobey would have no memory of this and could not reply. Proteus was already pretty much deciding to spend a great deal of time wearing Tobey. He was the perfect disguise.

---
*"To be, or not to be", get it? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 09:28:08 AM

Second chapter, methinks. May be brief.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Places, Everyone! Places!

"Are you sure he's gonna show up here?" Faerie said through her comlink. She was stationed  in the catwalk, glammored invisible, something she didn't usually do these days.

"Probably not throough the basement," Parker said, as he lurked in there, in casual dress, but still packing heat. He decided to forgo his armor, withdrawing it into the special watch, as it had proven to ineffective against Proteus, wearing a brown boots, comfortable plaid shirt and well-worn blue jeans.

Cloak was disguised as a black-haired, somewhat hairy human with glasses and slightly wild hair in a stylish black cloak that caused him to melt into the shadows -- figuratively not literally. He replied, "Joe Savage is here. He's Proteus's next target. Logics follows he might show here."

Cerulean and AniDragon, both disguised as official-looking humans stood in the right wing of the stage while Aquilai and Yarin (disguised as a human production assistant) stood in the right wing.

"And if he does? Show up, I mean." AniDragon asked.

Cloak allowed a prudent pause, then replied, deadly serious, to AniDragon, "You know what to do."

There was a beat of silence before AniDragon said, "Oh."

"Now, everyone, be on the look out for anyone with glowing yellow eyes. He could already very well be here."

"He is not in my telepathic range yet," Yarin said.

"Be that as it may," Cloak said, "stay on your guards. Be alert, and be sure to report if you should spot him."

Then Cloak looked onto the stage as Joe approached the podium. It wasn't exactly a packed house, but about 90% of the seats were occupied.

Cloak narrowed his eyes, though the image-obsessive politician would not recognize him.

Joe started launching into a long-winded speech about deteroriating home values and such other political drivel. He made claims about how important family is and family values -- Cloak didn't believe he meant a word of it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2013, 10:23:14 AM

Politicians, supervillians. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if there's any difference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 01:47:57 PM

Well, Lex Luthor was both.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Political Statement

"I'm starting to think that he's nev--" Faerie began to complain.

"He's here!" Yarin alerted and Parker gave an involuntary shutter at this.

Cloak quickly scanned all present, but could not make out any glowing yellow eyes.

"Where?!" Cloak demanded, voice low.

"Give me a moment!" Yarin hissed tersely.

"We may not have a moment!" Cerulean said, in an undertone.

"You think this is easy?!" the Nyac snarled quietly back. Then, with dawning realization, he said, "The boy."

"What boy?!" Cloak demanded.

"-- because, without a doubt, our children are our future. They should never be forgotten." Joe Savage was saying, pitifully oblivious to this danger.

Then a boy's voice piped up, "And yet, Joe Savage, you have forgotten one of your own children!"

And on the stage, unblocked and unfettered by Joe's "protection" came Tobey's body, which still housed Proteus. The metahuman was right -- Tobey's body held up much better than Proteus's other hosts for this time period.

"Tobey?" Savage said, genuinely perplexed. "What are you talking about, son? You know you're the only son I have."

"No, he isn't!" Proteus snarled. "Tobey isn't your only son! I cannot believe you've decided to forget all about me in the twenty years --"

"Tobey, son, you're -- you're delirious." Savage said, attempting to save the reelection.

"Don't you get it yet, Dad?!" Proteus screamed in his unwanted sibling's voice. "I'm not this pathetic twinkie that you call Tobey! He's not home, and I ain't taken messages. I just wearing him to get at you."

Suddenly, cracks began to form on Tobey's body as if Proteus was Blight from "Batman Beyond" burning through another shell. Eventually, Tobey exploded off of Proteus as if he was nothing more than a faulty radiation suit. It was unclear if this was a result of Proteus's realitybending or . . . real.

"T-T-Tobey?" Joe stuttered.

"Your fake son is dead." Proteus said, standing tall, dwarfing the lamebrain politician (whose "security" fled the minute that Tobey exploded).

"Now, dear, Daddy," Proteus said spitting the last word, "time to bow before your firstborn."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 04:08:40 PM

Again, another chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Maniac's Monologue

"K-Kevin?" Joe gasped quickly.

"Yes, that's right, Father," Proteus snarled. "I was born Kevin Joseph Savage. But like so many things, I shed it and fashioned myself a more appropriate nomenclature. I . . . am . . . Proteus!"

He said that last sentence with ringing tones. The whole of the audience was shocked, motionless and silent. This was quite the skeleton -- it's a wonder how Joe Savage managed to shove into his closet.

Proteus continued his monologuing.

"My childhood was a sham, though. Nothing but bitter loneliness in a house of excess opulence. And I knew from the mind and memories of your fraudulent son that he underwent the same neglect I did in your stead.

"My mother . . . Do you even remember her, Father? No, of course not. It wasn't like you were ever home. Career came first, didn't it? Family was no nearly as important, hmm? In the end, Mother resorted to the drink to medicate away the feelings of loneliness, drinking until she passed out every night. But did you care? No! Not unless it was dragged into public sight.

"Didn't matter, I didn't need you then, and I don't need you now. But the world needs to see through your lies.

"I admit I was a bit selfish, I foolishly wanted to be loved. Now, that's a simple prospect, I can just wear some who's beloved instead. But why bother? Love's only point is to find a mate, an equal I haen't an equal!

"Anyway, eventually, I got so fed up and ran away -- but you found a way out of that one, didn't you, Daddy? Found a way to smooth it out all over, didn't you?

When I was out, I was kidnapped, thought to be an orphan. They did . . . things to me. Awakened my latent powers. I was easily able to escape then. I first discovered my ability to wear the bodies of others when I grew jealous of the loving cheers a child was getting after a school play. The kind of praise that I never got. Well, I got it, though I had to possess another do so.

"I don't remember how I figured out that reality itself was my plaything, but that really doesn't matter, because you decided to authorize my imprisonment. So boob from beyond the stars created a canister and trapped me inside it and -- hey!"

Proteus was suddenly encapsulated in a golden-scarlet orb.

"And," Cloak said, having successfully snuck up upon Proteus, "that proves that you aren't uncontainable."

Cloak smirked. "You really shouldn't monologue like that, boy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 25, 2013, 04:39:16 PM

All good villains monologue for a considerately long amount of time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 05:00:25 PM

To their cost, Underseen. To their cost.

On a role today. Maybe I can finish it today -- just a warning, the next book? It might get a little dark.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Lectures and Lessons

"Let me out!" Proteus shouted. He was clearly unaccustomed to not getting what he wanted. And, with him behind Cloak's energy bubble, Tobey's flesh shrapnel were merging back together and his clothing were restitching themselves back to how they were before. He was alive, but in a deep, deep coma.

Cloak only barely noticed this, because he was intent upon this monster, though he could not help but also acknowledge bitterly that, in many ways, he was as mentally damaged and emotionally abused as he, Cloak himself, was.

The only real and true difference was their choices. Cloak had chosen not to harm others in his pain, but turned inward, turned it into self-loathing and self-hatred. He took out his anger and bitterness out on himself, and no one else. He probably would have committed suicide had it not been for . . . her . . . his little Shadow. And she did not even know it.

Meanwhile, Proteus was the opposite he took his frustrations out on others. Innocents that were in no shape or form related to his suffering at the hands of his negligent father and passive mother.

And Cloak told him so.

"So what?! I have power, they don't. I should exert and control I desire over them! It is the strong that are on top!"

"Ideals of a child!" Cloak snarled. "The world is never so white-and-black! Your immaturity may have very well caused the deaths of forty-plus people!"

Cloak looked into Proteus's eyes and he still saw no mercy, no remorse. He shut his eyes sadly.

"Proteus," Cloak said evenly, "just because you have power does not mean you've been given the right to do as you please."

"Yes! Yes, it does!" he exclaimed as loudly as he could.

Cloak gazed sadly at the boy and realized this wasn't just his immaturity speaking, but a deep-seated belief. It saddened Cloak to see just how far this boy had fallen to the darkness within.

"Well, I had hoped to reason with you, make you see and understand the consequences of your actions." Cloak said somberly. "But I see now, that you are fully aware of the results of such actions  but you sadistically, heartlessly disregard them."

"So what?" he said with surprising bravado, considering his scope of doing anything.

"So," Cloak said, meeting Proteus's eyes, "we'll see hiw you feel when you're one of the masses who's lives you freely disregard. AniDragon?"

She jumped a bit at being addressed so suddenly, but stepped forward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 25, 2013, 05:30:13 PM

Of course it is going to be dark. It is about a Realm Walker cataclysm you can't make a book about that without making it pretty dark.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 07:09:28 PM

 Actually, Underseen, I think you misr-- er, >:D never mind. I didn't say nothing. :angel:

Anyway, a brief chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Dejected, Depowered, and Denial

"She can't do nuthin'." Proteus said. "You open this thing and I will so escape!"

Cloak ignored this bluster, and turned to the Pemalite. "You know what you must do."

She nodded and entered the bubble with a ripple. She was unafraid, and full of conviction. Proteus immediately tried to possess her but it didn't work, just weakened him.

She firmly clasped his forehead and chest. Her eyes glowed as she focused, activating her powers, and the psionic force that made up Proteus's began to dim and fade. Slowly, inch by inch, the psionic force failed and shrunk, until AniDragon made tactile contact with the boy's flesh.

She didn't stop there though. She kept on, until this Omega-Level metahuman was fully depowered, his abilities bound forever.

Proteus was no more, only Kevin Savage remained. He was not happy about this arrangement, as he loved his powers, as it permitted him to do whatever he liked.

"What did you do to me, Dogface?!" Kevin yelled outraged as Cloak removed the bubble and interceded on AniDragon's behalf.

"She took away your powers," Cloak said, easily dodging Kevin's fists. "You enjoyed using your gifts to terrorize and victimize others, so they've been taken away. Now you're on of the 'weak ones' that your life philosophy denounces and derides."

"I'll kill you!" Kevin swore loudly.

"You couldn't kill me even as Proteus." Cloak said. "And now you will be held accountable for the pain you've caused, the lives you ruined and torn asunder."

Kevin continued to spout hate-filled rants, threatening tirades, and offensive oaths. Cloak came to the conclusion that the boy lost his sanity as the proper authorities carted him away.

Cloak watched sadly as this happened in silence, as the other RAFians followed suit.

Then he spared a look at Joe Savage who was on his hands and knees. Cloak felt a wave of revulsion. He had a fair few things to say to this mayoral candidate. In the end, he settled for saying, silkily quiet, "Hope you're proud of yourself, Savage. You turned your son into a monster."

Then the RAFians pulled out and returned home with a heavy silence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 25, 2013, 07:20:17 PM

Great 19th chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 08:00:20 PM

Thanks, Underseen.

Now, let's finish up this book. May be brief. Most likely the last chapter of the day.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Endings and Beginnings

There was a rather heavier atmosphere to the forum over the next few days. Cloak felt that having Proteus's powers stripped instead of resorting to a more lethal recourse was the right thing to do. At least now Kevin was getting the help he needed, and Tobey actually held no grudge against him oddly enough.

Naturally, Savagw did not get reelected after this fiasco and he was replaced by Verity Justice, who was very much a proponent of RAF affiliation.

Oh, and Tobey's mother, Deena, divorced Savage shortly after. She was horribly shocked that Joe did not even seem abashed when her son was essentially blown up. She came to have adopted Kevin into the family, giving him the emotional support that he had to essentially steal from others by possessing them.

With all this, Joe's life was basically in the crapper So, rather than face the consequences, he took his own life.

Not all endings are happy. Cloak mused.

***

Cloak stood upon a bank of a large lake in the Nexus. Cloak recognized it -- it is where Sage taught him the Water element and where he taught Shadow. . . . And there's the ache he felt whenever Cloak thought of that cheeky monkey.

"Cloak," came a familiar voice. "We need to speak. It's urgent."

"What is it, Grandpa?" Cloak said, identifying the owner of the voice immediately.

"He stirs," Sage said enigmatically.

"'He'? 'He' who? Who 'he'?" Cloak asked.

"Him, my pupil, him!" Sagebsaid, and Cloak was disconcerted to see his grandfather this anxious and unnerved. He was never anxious and unnerved.

"I'm sorry, Grandpa, but I'm not getting --" Cloak said flummoxed.

"Cloak, Cataclysm stirs." Sage said, though agitated. "The one who cursed my grandfather's grandmother, Guardian, with hardship. It was carried down to us."

"Where is he? Can we put him to back to sleep?"

But everything was fading back to mist, and Cloak woke against his will.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 25, 2013, 08:04:33 PM

I am guessing the new book will come Sunday

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2013, 08:13:53 PM

You guess right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 26, 2013, 08:15:44 AM

Wow. That was actually one of the saddest books you've written so far. Once again, I take my invisible hat off to you, Cloaky. *applause*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2013, 11:49:35 AM

Thanks, Saffa.

Yeah, it's funny how sometimes a story just writes itself. This story turned out to be more tragic than I initially planned.

Brief introductory chapter.

BOOK XXXIX:
THE HORSEMEN
CHAPTER ONE:
Peaceful Forum

Sunlight peeked over the mountains, snaking down its side. It made its inevitable way toward the forum. It soon penetrated the threshold, and illuminated the slumbering forum.

Very soon, the early risers were already milling about, searching for some breakfast.

But one RAFian was not milling anout posting or eating, for he had neither the appetite nor the desire. Cloak was still mulling over this revelation of Cataclysm stirring. Was this guy really as dangerous as his grandfather suggested.

Then there was that annoying riddle:

THE CATACLYSM AWAKENS AND REMAINS PARAMOUNT
ONLY THE STAR AND THE CHOSEN CAN SURMOUNT
FOUR OF THEIRS WILL BE TAKEN
ALLIES AND FRIENDS WILL BE FORSAKEN
ONLY BY ACKNOWLEDGING WHAT HAS BEEN LOST
ELIMINATED CAN BE THE MIND'S OPAQUE GLOSS
ONLY BY THE LORD OF THE ELEMENTS'S HAND CAN ONE BE FELLED,
FOREVERMORE WILL THIS ANCESTOR OF MALICE BE REPELLED

It had reappeared in every dream he's had over the last three days. Cloak never put much stock into prophecies and things similar. He was, prehaps, too rational, his emotions somewhat maligned and atrophied.

The main thing Cloak took away from the riddle/prophecy thing was that, whoever this Cataclysm was, he was the ancestor of Malice.

Cloak looked at his Mark as was left to wonder once more . . . was this all because of his presence here? Would RAF be better off without him?

These doubts . . . he didn't like them. He had found the place where he belonged, here with his fellows, here with his RAFians. He did not want to consider just how horrible his life would be without him. He did not want to entertain the notion.

But yet those lines . . . "Four of theirs will be taken" . . . "Allies and friends will be forsaken" . . . despite himself, these lines cause him quite a deal of anxiety, worry and agitation.

"Oh, stop it!" he scolded himself fiercely. "It is a meaningless thing. Prophecies do not exist."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 26, 2013, 11:57:31 AM

Only the star and the chosen can surmount? Esty?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2013, 12:06:10 PM

You'll find out in due time, Underseen. :angel:

But, right now, I must finish my laundry. These cloaks do get dirty, you know. ;)

But I'll post another chapter soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 26, 2013, 12:10:24 PM

Great job keeping it a secret and leaving me anticipating a new chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2013, 02:22:35 PM

Now another chapter. May be brief, may not. Probably not as it contains a song.

CHAPTER TWO:
Rise of Cataclysm

A shadowy figure rises up, and looms from the darkness.

"Where . . . am I?" he asked.

"On a planet called Earth, in the first realm, Ancestor." came a familiar voice. It was Malice. And she was alone.

Malice put Itellsya into suspended animation in a cyrogenic tube, which she secretly thought of as "the kennel". She planned to come back for him when he became useful again, though she was careful in not letting him know this.

"Planet? Realm?" the husky, deep voice of the ancient Realm Walker said dismissively. "What is this nonsense?"

"The lights you remember grew into separate realms," Malice explained. "Upon the pebbles pondscum grew."

"Ah, I see. The cloaks we used to wear for fashion now double as personal realm protective wear." he mused. "Very well. I remember being sent through the lights with my . . . my shadow clan minion reliquary."

"I have it here, Cataclysm, dear Ancestor," Malice said handing it over to him, uncharacteristicall y irreverent. "But, your curse has been unfulfilled."

"What's this?" Cataclysm spoke softly. His form was clearer now. He was gigantic -- bigger than Cloak or Monger. Cataclysm was a Gigantopithecus-form Realm Walker.

"There is another Elements Master," Malice said, deciding not to mention Shadow. She'd rather not endure the embarrassment of her great ancestor knowing that she coukd not kill a mere child (not taking into account that Shadow was the youngest Master to have ever Mastered all six elements -- but, she's a bright kid). "He's here. He has made a home here, in this realm. He's chosen the name 'Cloak'."

"At least, my curse will finally be fulfilled," he said, clutching the reliquary as it glowed a toxic, radioactive shade of green. "And the last of the Masters will diiiiie!"

Suddenly, some rather jaunty music played. Cataclysm sang:

"In the dark of the night,
I was tossing and turning.
And the nightmare I had
Was as bad as could be!
It scared me out of my wits --
A curse falling to bits!
Then I opened my eyes
And the nightmare was key!"

Then he swept his flowing cloak as he sang agitatedly and animatedly.

"I was once the most mystical man in all the Nexus.
When the Masters betrayed me, they made a mistake!
My curse made each of them pay.
But one little Walker got away.
Little Cloak, beware, Cataclysm's awake!
In the dark of the night,
Evil will find him.
In the dark of the night,
Just before dawn.
Revenge will be sweet
When the curse is complete!
In the dark of the night,
He'll be gone!
I can feel that my powers are slowly returning.
Tie my sash and dash of freshener for that smell!
As the pieces fall into place,
I'll see him crawl into place!
Da svidanya, your grace!
Farewell!"

Then he started to walk to some sort of staging area with Malice following him. He basically ignored her -- treating her with very much the same disregard she treated Abomination and Itellsya. She never realized this, and remained ignorant of it.

Cataclysm sang:

"In the dark of the night,
Terror will strike him!
Terror's the least I can do!
In the dark of the night,
Evil will brew!
Ooh!
Soon he will feel
That his nightmares
Are real!
In the dark of the night,
He'll be through!
In the dark of the night,
Evil will find him.
Find him.
Ooh!
In the dark of the night,
Terror will doom him.
Doom him.
Ooh!
My boy, here's a sign,
It's end of the line!
In the dark of the night . . .
In the dark of the night . . .
In the dark of the night . . ."

The he held out his reliquary, which glowed a brighter green as bat-winged Shadow Khan-esque demons unfurled from it.

Cataclysm sang:

"Come my minions,
Rise for your master.
Let your evil shine!
Find them now,
Yes, fly ever faster!
In the dark of the night . . .
In the dark of the night . . .
In the dark of the night . . .
They'll be MINE!"

The demonic ninjas, after leaving the reliquary, flew from this hiding place. Out to seek Cloak, presumably.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 26, 2013, 03:17:21 PM

He may be evil, but at least he has good songs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2013, 04:53:31 PM

*chuckles at Underseen's post.*

Now the third chapter, and now we kick into action.

CHAPTER THREE:
Abductions

Demos and Sakki were standing on the edge of the forest to the rear and sides of the forum.

"-- You have to admit it was kind of sweet."

"Demos, he killed or maimed no less than forty people." Sakki pointed out.

"What's your point?" Demos said, showing his demon sensibilities.

"Demos, you really --"

Suddenly, the bat-winged ninja minions appeared around Demos. This took both of them by surprise.

"Friends of yours?" Sakki asked, eyes wide.

"Uh, never met them?" Demos said, then replying in a lower voice that Sakki nonetheless heard, "did Shenecron send you? I told him I wasn't really betting. It was a phrase, an expression to express my feelings of the near certainty of his relect-- hey! Let go of me! I told him that wasn't a real bet!"

The winged ninja seized Demos and began to melt away in the shadows with him, against his will.

"Demos!" Sakki cried out. "What did you do?!"

"Nothing! Honestly, I didn't do anything!" Demos cried out with genuine sincerity. He was carried away into the shadows without another word, his pyrokinesis refusing to activate.

***

Parker and Helen were standing outside the training room. Parker had his armor sheathed into the watch -- he was so glad he discovered that feature of the Walker tech afforded him. Tyr, however, was not a fan of it. It put the AI in a state of semi-suspended animation, only vaguely aware of what was going on. Parker would mostly tell him, rather crassly, to get over it.

"Nice session, dear," Helen said, taking Parker's arm in her own. She had revert to her "street clothes" version with a pink flash, and Parker was already dearmored.

"Thank you, Helen. You weren't too bad either." he teased lightly.

They kissed, until something, quite literally, came between them.

"Wha--" Parker said, surprised, as the winged ninja demons prised the two lovers apart.

"Parker!" Helen cried as they began to carry him away.

With a pink, violent flash, Helen materialized her Star Sapphire regalia prepared to go after them. But they vanished into the shadows . . . how they entered RAF to begin with.

"P-Parker . . ." Helen said, lips quivering a little.

***

Ash and Broken were sitting down by the lakeside. They were laying on a red-and-white checkered blanket, emptying a picnic basket fairly quickly.

"It's so nice not to have a pressing emergency," Broken yawned as he reclined fully.

"Yes," Ash agreed wholeheartedly. "We don't get many of these lazy Sundays."

Then she laid down in her base form -- the one Broken preferred -- and their heads were inches from touching. They luxuriated in the shadow of this old rowan tree.

But the shadows were not the safest place to be.

With a muffled cry of protest, Ash began to sink into the shadows. Pulled down by the energy ninja hands.

"Ash!" Broken cried immediately. But it was too late to rescue her, as Broken frantically pawed the ground.

***

Yarin and Aquilai stood beside the hanger, while Yarin worked on his ship and Aquilai buffed his TARDIS.

"-- the oscillating isometerics of it are really unsettling, you know?" Yarin was saying.

"The gravitational equations and orbital stabilization may be a factor." Aquilai replied offhand.

"Good point."

"I'm just glad we've had some downtime," Aquilai commented. "I haven't fixed the bugs or polished my TARDIS in forever."

Yarin chuckled as he said, "You'd think you'd be able to time travel to a time that you could."

Aquilai threw an old rag at Yarin good-humoredly. Then they went back to discussing specifics using five-syllable terms.

"Uh, what?" Yarin gasped.

"Fuel-intake problem?" Aquilai asked, before noticing hands pulling Yarin into the shadows. Aquilai attempted to intercede, but he was too late.

***

Cloak's eyes snapped open. He dashed out of the forum, but it was too late. Too late.

The four had been taken.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2013, 06:32:47 PM

One more chapter. Might be the last one tonight, but don't hold me to that.

May be a brief chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Emergency Meeting

Within moments, an emergency meeting was held. Cloak could not believe he overlooked shadow travel as a way of bypassing the defenses. But, to his credit, it was a rather rare power, and easily-overlooked. But, in Cloak's mind, even that wasn't an excuse for overlooking it.

Sakki, Aquilai, Broken, and Helen had gotten up and said their piece. How Demos, Yarin, Ash, and Parker were taken. Cloak could not deny it anymore.

"I have an idea . . . of what may have happened." Cloak said heavily and hesitantly.

All eyes were now on him. Cloak did not enjoy such attention. He always shirked away from the spotlight. But he could not run away from this.

"I've been having dreams." he explained. "In the first one, my grandfather, Sage came to me and said that Cataclysm was stirring."

"What kind of cataclysm?" Underseen asked.

"No, no, no," Cloak said, "you misunderstand. Cataclysm is an ancient Realm Walker.  He's to my Element Master ancestor, Guardian -- my grandfather's grandfather's grandmother, what Malice is to me."

"That bad, huh?" Abby commented.

"Pretty much." Cloak admitted. "Anyways, over the last three days, I was torment by the same riddle." Cloak said, almost at once regretting bringing it up.

"What did it say?" Saffa asked.

Cloak recited it, and silence befell the auditorium. He knew what they were thinking.

"It's not a prophecy." Cloak insisted flatly.

"But --" Az began.

"No, Az." Cloak said. Cloak wasn't sure if that was the real Az, and not just one of his plethora of clones. "You forge your own destinies. It is not predetermined. Those that say otherwise are those that attempt to manipulate you into their way of thinking. In any case, we're losing sight of the true objective here."

"Right," Richard said. "We must search for our fellows."

"But they could be anywhere." Faerie said.

"Then we had better get started." Cloak said gruffly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 26, 2013, 11:45:07 PM

This is getting interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 06:44:40 AM

Right. Chances are, since I haven't anywhere to go today (and, after all, most places are closed), there's a chance of four or more chapters today.

Brief chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Where in the World Did They Go?

"We searched everywhere," SuperNate reported. "They're not in Australia."

"Unfortunate,"Aquilai said. He taken up Yarin's old duty of monitoring communications. It was harder on the Time Lord because he only had two arms and two eyes. But he managed gracefully and without complaint.

"Saffa, what about India?" Aquilai queried.

"Haven't completed the search yet," Saffa said, trying not to sound downcast, "but it's not looking promising."

"Noted," Aquilai said, still trying to coordinate this search. It was a monumental task, but Aquilai was determined to manage it.

"Morfowt, how about China?" Aquilai asked.

"Not going well, we're having problems initating the search -- the weather's not helping."

"Keep me posted." Aquilai replied professionally. Really the stress of this search endeavor is gonna force him to Regenerate. "Tocade, what about on your end?"

"Nothing in this part of South America. But we're still looking." she said.

"Phoenix, what about the United Kingdom? Any luck?"

"None, I'm afraid."

"You know, the world's governments might chafe at this search." Cloak said, having arrived in the tower to help. "They might see it as illegal or that we're trying to glean information and military secrets."

"Don't be so paranoid." Aquilai said tersely.

"You underestimate the paranoia of those in power," Cloak said, "be they politician, dictator, or king. They live in fear that someone will discover their secrets."

"Can we discuss theoretical political concourse later? I'm a little busy here!!"

Cloak raised his hands, bowed his head, and left the room.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 09:54:30 AM

Now another chapter. May be a bit brief.

CHAPTER SIX:
Lab Work

Meanwhile, back at the rogue Realm Walkers' hideout twenty miles beneath surface somewhere between the city and RAF -- when used at a vertix, it could be used to make a roughly 91º angle between RAF and the city.

Cloak never found them through Earthsight because it was twenty miles down of rock with asymmetric air spaces dotted randomly. It would be like trying to see someone twenty miles away with low hanging branches in the way.

It was the same place that the MP3 monster had once laid dormant. Of course, that happened weeks ago, and the recent incidents had caused the RAFians to forget to consider that this cave just might be reused.

Itellsya was no longer in one of the for cryogenic tubes.

Cataclysm had derided this descendent of his for wasting a tube, and questioned rhetorically if his bloodline had deteriorated over the millenia. Malice chose to ignore that jibe.

He had been forcibly and involuntarily merged with all of Cataclysm's minions, effectively rendering his free will nil, bounded his psychic and psionic powers until they were nonexistant, and causing him to lose any semblance of humanity. His skin was now a toxic shade of green and it emitted a faint glow in total darkness. His fingertips were now pointed and harder than diamond. He grew big, leathery wings that glowed just the same as his skin. His teeth, nose and ears became pointed, as he lost all his body hair. His physique became buff and built. He clothing was jusr a loincloth worn like any Gargoyle from Disney's "Gargoyles".His sclera and pupils was blood red and his irises were midnight black.

Without the minions to hold within it, the canister-like reliquary was nothing more than an useless tricket without a purpose. It was smashed carelessly with no ill-effects. No one knew how Cataclysm survived so well outside the normal life expectancy of a Realm Walker (mostly a millennium or two, though Sage died at 800 -- using Realm Dweller Earth years, of course).

"You are Itellsya no more," Cataclysm said, who apparently shared Demos's perchant for making monsters. "You are now, and forevermore 'Rumor'."

"As you wish, my Master," Rumor said, his voice deep with an reverb effect. Nothing like the young human boy that used to be before this drastic, irreversible transformation.

"Very well," Cataclysm said, moving to the the cryogenic tubes, saying with a self-indulgent smirk, "the Horsemen of the great Cataclysm."

He placed his hand on the second one, proclaimed it's occupant as "War". The occupant of the fourth tube was given the name of "Famine". The third tube occupant was named "Pestilence". The first, and yet final, occupant of the tube was called "Death". Silhouettes could be seen in the tubes, but it was to dark to tell who occupied those tubes.

"How long will the augmentations and conditioning take, Ancestor?" Malice asked.

"Slower, I'm afraid, than with Rumor," he answered silkily. "These have stronger wills, and a strange marking, too."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 27, 2013, 10:21:08 AM

Yep, you don't mess with us. ;)

Is it just me, or do the names of the Horsemen sound very familiar? Wait, wait, wait... they're the four plagues! Right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 10:35:45 AM

Horsemen of the Apocalypse, actually, Saffa.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 27, 2013, 10:40:18 AM

*snaps fingers* THAT'S what it was! I remember catching a glimpse of them when Rose was watching Supernatural. This suddenly stirred up the reference... so I guess it's fair to say, appropriate name choices.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 10:45:53 AM

Well, this is more based off of Marvel Comics Horsemen than "Supernatural".

Anyway, I'll probably post more chapters a little later. Not feeling up to writing at the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 27, 2013, 10:48:34 AM

Lol, I was never expecting it to be ;) The only part of the show I did like were all the interesting references.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 03:48:36 PM

Ah, okay, then.

Now, a possibly-brief chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
A Markedly Grim Prospect

Back at RAF, the search was still in full fling, although the more miltant groups of people within each country were really chafing at the search. Conspiracy theorists -- the people who clearly had nothing better to do but cause controversy, twist truths and misinterpret facts -- were not helping matters. These people made Cloak's own self-admitted paranoia seem downright nonexistent.

But still the RAFian searching and probing yielded nothing. It was wearing on Aquilai's nerves and an incredible drain on his resolve.

But that wasn't to say that there wasn't progress. They had determined that the four were not in Yemen, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Pakistan, Morocco, Kenya, India, Egypt, Canada, Albania, Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Jordan, Libya, Russia, Tasmania, and Vietnam. Nothing. But that didn't mean the search was over. But RAF could not manage to excuse the search for very much longer, and the RAFians themselves.

Meanwhile, Cloak was assigned with the job of coming up with a defense for hostile shadow-travellers. This, in and of itself, was an equally monumental task. Shadows lurk everywhere light does, and coming up with defense was not as easiy as putting up a fence. Cloak deliberated upon this problem.

Cloak had wondered idly why a magic-user was not dispatched to this work instead of him, because the more he thought about this problem, the more he felt that magic was the only recourse.

And he wasn't a magic-user.

But the something happened that brought all RAFians a momentary lapse in the two respective searches.

Cloak felt like some one was putting an enormous amount a pressure on his right hand, his Mark hand. Cloak could not imagine why. But he wasn't the only RAF to feel it, he knew. Eventually, the pressure let up, and vanished completely.

While the other RAFians may have shrugged off the importance of this, Cloak could not. He knew something had to have happened to the four.

Suddenly, a line of words flashed before his eyes -- "ALLIES AMD FRIENDS WILL BE FORSAKEN" -- he curled his face into a snarl, saying quietly, "Oh, shut up."

But he could not deny the pressure on his Mark . . . perhaps somehow, in some way, the Marks were bypassed. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 05:09:27 PM

Okay, maybe the last chapter today. But don't hold me to that!

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Final Adjustments

"Finally bypassed that minor obstacle," Cataclysm spoke quietly to himself. "They're ready to be programmed now."

He hummed as he typed on the hard light keyboard. Malice was in a lower level of the cave, building what appeared to be a hovering pyramid that could accomodate six riders.

"How are the Horsemen coming, Ancestor?" Malice asked.

"Swimmingly, swimmingly," he said. Though the words my have indicated warmth and friendliness, the tone and lilt betrayed the truth of Cataclysm's emotions towatd his descendant -- cold indifference. "These final adjustments shouuld complete the transformation into something better then they were. With complete and utter loyalty. To me."

Malice didn't miss that last jibe, but she wanted so desperately his approval. Even Malice herself didn't know why. But everyone wants the approval of their idols, no matter how little they sole out.

"Are you don't constructing the Eye of Ages yet?" Cataclysm snapped, jerking Malice out of her reverie.

"Nearly," she said. "Just needs a few more tweaks to the --"

"Well, hurry along then, girl! I haven't the time for lollygaggers!" Cataclysm snarled, as Malice immediately got back to work.

Rumor, in which the RAFian traitor Itellsya lurked no more, stood standing motionless in the corner, almost like a zombie or automaton. Malice still felt no remorse for what Cataclysm did to him, for she never felt any real affection for Itellsya, who was now truly dead. He died in the birth of Rumor.

Malice continued to tinker away at the Eye of Ages transport. Then she completed the transport with the intention of going with her ancestor to the great Reveal.

"There," Cataclysm said, whose voice was very similar to that of Apocalypse of the Marvel multiverse. He caressed the tubes of the transformed RAFians lovingly. "They are complete. My horsemen wait to be reawakened as their improved selves."

Malice saw this caressing and felt an inexplicable spark of envy. She surprised herself by it, she thought she felt aloof and indifferent. She hid these implausible feelings, not only from Cataclysm, but from herself.

"It is complete, Ancestor." Malice said, deliberately voiding her voice of emotion.

"Excellent," Cataclysm said. "Then it's time."

He went and typed some keystokes into the computer.

"Rise . . . Famine."

The tube opened as the cryonic gases escaped melodramatically. A slim silhouette covered in glowing brownish-tan runes stood in front of the tube.

"Rise . . . Pestilence."

It was the same as with Famine, but the glowing runes on the silhouette were a royal purple.

"Rise . . . War."

It was a same deal with the other two but the glowing runes were gunmetal gray.

"Rise . . . Death!"

It was like the other three only the glowing runes were an angry red.

"Come, my Horsemen," Cataclysm said, taller than all four, "it is nearly time for the rapturous Reveal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 27, 2013, 08:08:04 PM

I like seeing Malice being related the way she treats her allies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2013, 08:28:04 PM

She had to channel that evil from somewhere. And we learn how to interact with others from those around us when we're younger, right?

Anyway, I came up with an idea for Book CLXXXII ("Caught in the Middle"). Basically we caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

Don't know how many chapters I can post today.

This one maybe brief.

CHAPTER NINE:
Suspending the Search

"Yar-- I mean, Aquilai, call everyone back." Richard said.

"But . . . but Richard, we haven't found them." Aquilai protested.

"Aquilai," Richard said, looking sincerely contrite and hating having to do this, "Aquilai it's been two and a half weeks. We dare not prolong it any longer, as some countries might take it as an act of aggression."

"But --"

Richard held up his hand, "I know how nonsensical it sounds, but when tempers and emotions run high, logic is very often surpressed or nonexistent. It's human nature."

"Indeed," Aquilai said. "Very well, then. Helen, Sakki, and Broken are going to be livid, you know."

"I do," Richard said, preparing to address the full forum at large. Aquilai gazed at the great father of RAF, looking so burdened and stressed. To bear the mantle of leadership . . . is to bear the world's weight on your shoulders.

***

"I know that it may displease many of you, that it may lead to mutinous feelings, but I'm afraid I must suspend the search for Demos, Yarin, Ash, and Parker." Richard said. He was right, mutinous mutterings met these words, although Rotiart made several snoring sounds, attempting to be funny. Funny, how it never quite pans out the way he plans.

"For how long?" Helen demanded, standing immediately. After it is her love for Parker that powers her ring.

Richard waited a prudent time before saying what he did not want to. "Indefinitely."

"WHAT?!"

Aquilai was quite right in what Broken, Sakki, and Helen's reactions would be.

"Why? What possible reason could you --" Faerie began.

"Because it's a matter of diplomacy," Cloak said from his usual spot in the back, arms folded, head bowed. "Do you think that all of thes countries we conducted this search was happy with the sudden intrusion?"

Cloak looked up, and shrugged.

"I mean, I could be wrong, and your governments may very well work differently from the Council's version of diplomacy."

Silence met these words until the auditorium screen descended behind the mods. Aquilai announced over the intercom, "The airwaves are being pirated, and it looks really important."

Suddenly the static on the screen solidified into Cataclysm's ugly mug. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2013, 02:28:23 PM

Now . . .

CHAPTER TEN:
The Reveal

"Cataclysm!" Cloak said, his worst fears confirmed. "He is still alive."

"What does he want? And whose that he's with?" Az asked.

Faerie squinted and then widened her eyes, "There are . . . there are four of the them."

Kelly seemed to grasp Faerie's meaning first with a soft gasp. Cloak did not want to believe it.

"The time has come," Cataclysm said in a booming, carrying voice. "The time to see if your world is ripe for the Cleansing."

"The what now?" Myitt asked.

Cloak groaned as he facepalmed. "The 'Cleansing'," he spat the word, "some of the more fanatic Realm Walkers speak of it as cleansing the world of the weak."

"Oh, and let me take a wild shot in the dark at just who gets to decide that." Sakki said snappishly.

"My horsemen," he indicated the four behind him, "will examine your world -- do not attempt to resist them, for you will surely not survive."

They were all standing up the Eye of Ages, which had folded out into a hovering platform. The five stood comfortably upon it -- Malice wasn't invited. Whilst grossly embittered, she was still quite alive.

"Allow me to introduce your overseers, my horsemen," Cataclysm said.

It was a punch in the gut to the RAFians because they saw thier friends in full color and illuminated.

"Meet . . . Famine!"

Yarin's normally gray skin was paler and looked tauter than usual. He looked rather bonier than usual, and his face looked rather like Gollum from those "Lord of the Ring" movies, only with six milky-white eyes that appeared to each have a cataract.

His fingertips were a darker gray -- he was "blessed" with the Touch of Famine. His telepathy had grown into Omega-Level telekinesis. He could easily ravage a mind without as second thought.

Goom muttered, "Yarin . . . gone?"

"Meet . . . Pestilence!"

Ash's form seemed rather indefinite and yet her hair was distinctly dementor-like, yet seemed to be like cobwebs. Her skin texture kept shifting colors and textures -- nothing was consistent.

Only her fingertips remained stable in form, "blessed" the Touch of Pestilence. She could assume the form of any plague -- a bug swarm, a megastorm, etc.

"Ash . . ." Broken said, cry in his voice and hand outstretched.

"Meet . . . War!"

Parker appeared to have his armor fused to his body, and his armor having some slight metamorphic properties. His helmet's face plate was replaced by a robotic eye, and there were actual Spartan references -- that is to say, an actual ancient warrior from Sparta.

He was "blessed" with the Touch of War. He was able to summon any weapon for warfare instantaneously.

"No . . . my . . . my Parker . . ." Helen said, tears freely falling.

"Finally, meet . . . Death!"

Demos bore a striking resemblance to Summoned Skull from "Yu-Gi-Oh", sans the wings. Demos's flesh was bone white and his horns were a purplish-black. His fingers now bore claws as did his feet.

Demos now carried the "blessing" of the Touch of Death". His pyrokinesis was boosted to its absolute zenith, as well as his regeneration being instantaneous.

"Demos . . . what have they done to you?" Sakki muttered.

"That's all of them," Estelore said. "No one was spared . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 28, 2013, 06:28:56 PM

Fighting friends is hard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 29, 2013, 01:19:18 AM

Even harder when you have no choice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2013, 04:28:14 PM

ARGH! Lost the entire damn chapter because my frickin' internet thought this was frickin' funny. Ugh!

Fortunately, it wasn't too long. I'm gonna take a break, then try AGAIN.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 29, 2013, 04:47:49 PM

I will be here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2013, 05:48:04 PM

You're a devoted fan of "Memoirs", aren't you, Underseen? ;)

Warning: may be brief.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Gameplan

"The evaluation of your syrength will be if you survive this onslaught," Cataclysm said, smiling maliciously. "Survival of the fittest. If you should survive, you'll have a place in the new world. If you resist after this Judgement, you shall be," he gave a nasty chortle, "remade."

"The presumption! The gall!" Terenia blustered, outraged. "What makes him think he has some divine right to do this?!"

"He's not the only Realm Walker who thinks in such a way," Cloak said heavily. "It is a coomon prejudice in the Nexus, amongst my species." He spat the word, just to make sure the others knew just how he despised the prejudice.

"We'll have to act quickly." Goom said, at once.

"Right." Richard said. "Sakki, Underseen, Yunyun -- go after Demos. Helen, Sam, Blue -- Parker. Broken, Noelle, Gaz -- Ash. Aquilai, Dino, Rad -- Yarin. See if . . . if you can get through to them. See if you can make them remember."

"And if we can't?" Dino asked hesitantly.

Richard shut his eyes, and everyone knew what would have to happen if they couldn't get the four to remember.

"Maybe," Cloak said slowly, "if Cataclysm was taken out . . ."

"What are you suggesting?" Phoenix asked.

"I must take on Cataclysm," Cloak said.

"But didn't he put a curse on you Elements Masters?" Broken asked.

"Mere mysticism and spooky manner -- it will take more than to scare me off."

"Well," Estelore said, translating to her sunshine yellow kevlar bodysuit, "you won't be alone, Cloak."

"Estelore, even with your power, you can't kill him." Cloak pointed out. "Barring old age, only another Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker. You know this."

"Doesn't mean I can't use my talents to help." Esty shrugged.

"Very well, then. It is decided." Richard with urgent finality. "Now, go."

"Just a second," Cloak said, gesturing to the broadcast that was still going on. Cataclysm, much like Malice, seemed to like the sound of his own voice. "Cataclysm seems to be under the impression that I'm the last Elements Master. Do not correct him."

Even though forcibly separated by his mother's machinations, Cloak was still trying to protect Shadow.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 29, 2013, 07:12:20 PM

Great chapters, Cloaky!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2013, 08:36:06 PM

Thanks, Gazzy.

Okay -- remember guys, the chapter (if I get a chance to write and post it, anyway) will be late tomorrow. And I can pretty much guarantee that it'd be only one.

EDIT: Finished planning out the chapters of "Swarm of the Supermen" -- a dark, out-of-continuity book -- and started planning out the chapters of "Dullsville".

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Death and Taxes*

"Demos!" Sakki cried out.

The Horseman pf Death stood in a graveyard. He looked at Sakki, Underseen, and Yunyun, but his cold, dead eyes registered no recognition. His glowing rune "tattoos" shone menacingly, but the trio saw them as little more than bioluminescent scars.

"Demos, listen to me," Sakki insisted, but he gave no recognition that she had even spoken.

"I don't think he's listening," Yunyun commented benignly.

Demos blasted a concussive burst of fire, which Sakki and Yunyun dodged. Underseen, however, was left with a comical hole in his chest.

"Uh, hey!" Underseen said, gesturing to the hole. But it was only a minor inconvenience, as he easily closed the hole due to his shapeshifting prowess.

"Demos, it's us!" Sakki said seizing his arm, practically preparing to slap the demon-turned-Horseman. Demos, without hesitation, without regret, without thought, turned his hand his "blessed" palm  upon her. He closed it around her arm, activating the Touch of Death.

But, instead of the expected effects, Sakki's Mark and point of contact flared white and Demos's hand and runes burned. He lost this "blessing", he had the Touch of Death no more.

"Demos . . . you -- you tried to kill me . . ." Sakki said, shocked and affronted.

"Sakki . . . are we even sure that Demos hasn't been consumed by Death?" Underseen asked rather pragmatically.

Sakki didn't answer, she didn't like the conclusion she had come to.

"No," Sakki said, with an air of grasping a straws, "Demos is in there -- somewhere -- just subsumed by Death, not consumed."

"But how?"

"There has to be a way," Sakki said stubbornly.

---
*Reference to what Franklin once said, I believe -- "Two things are inevitable: death and taxes" -- or something like that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2013, 06:36:18 PM

Okay, just one more. Probably the last of the night. Still gotta get up early tomorrow.

May be brief.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Mark of Death

"Um, any ideas, then?" Yinyun asked, eyeing Demos wearily.

"He's in there, somewhere. I know it." Sakki said.

"Don't you think that it could simply be wishful thinking, Sakki?" Underseen said, slipping and weaving out of Demos's attacks.

Sakki frowned with narrowed eyes. Then she snapped, "Unity Pulse. Let's go. Now."

The three triangulated their Unity Pulses upon Death-Demos. They gave it all they had.

"It's not working!" Yunyun said.

"Yeah! We're just making him angry!" Underseen grunted.

"Demos, SNAP OUTTA IT!!!" Sakki screamed.

Then, as if in slow motion, a small spark of the purest white energy snapped into existence. That one became two. That two became four. That four became eight. Sixteen

Suddenly, Sakki's clothing became predominantly white, and her long hair became platinum blonde. Her Mark's sheer brute power increased.

Yunyun's clothing also shifted into being predominantly white, and her hair became so white snow looked gray in comparision. Her Mark's power increased exponentially, just like Sakki's.

Underseen became rather like sentient Patronus energy. His Mark's power is boosted as much as the other three.

"The Great Power . . . it's back!"

"Forget that, Underseen," Sakki said. "Pour it on!"

Suddenly, Demos doubled up in pain. The glowing, tattoo-like runes on his body turned a brillant white rather slowly, but eventually dissolved as Demos's Mark became more prominent. The alterations Cataclysm made seemed to flake away as he reverted back to his "Great Power" form, where his body is brillant white with red horns and a white silk suit with red and black trim.

And, as suddenly as it appeared, the Great Power faded. Demos just resembled his normal self.

"What happened?" he asked, then positing hopefully, "Did I maim someone?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 30, 2013, 09:10:07 PM

I love how he asks if he maimed someone unaware of what went on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 31, 2013, 02:12:10 AM

Reminds me of that scene in Avengers where after the Chitauri are, uh, disabled, Tony Stark wakes up suddenly and is like, "Please tell me nobody kissed me." :P

Wow, these are great chapters. Love the whole good-over-evil light-and-dark vibe you've got going here. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2013, 04:25:12 PM

Well, while I'll try to still post a chapter a day, considering I'm working a couple more hours next week,  you should really not expect more than one then. Just a heads-up.

Anyway, I planned up to Chapter 14 in the book "Dullsville".

Now, to the reason you come to this thread (;) 8)), a possibility-brief chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
War -- What is It Good For?

Helen and Sam hovered over a nearby abandoned building that was formerly a munitions retailer. Or something to that effect. With a small puff of smoke, Blue appeared and apparently melted into the shadows as the ninja that he was.

"Are you sure that War is here?" Sam asked.

"His name is Parker, Sam," Helen said, hotly. "And this seemed the most logical place."

"But its been abandoned for years," Sam pointed out.

"Yes, but --" Helen begun to protest.

"Hey!" Blue snarled to the two. "Keep down to a dull roar, will you?!"

They looked at Blue, who followed his instincts and hugged the shadows. Blue looked around, anxiously and apprehensively. He replied, "It's a miracle he didn't hear your exchanges."

BOOM! Ba-BOOM!

The abandoned munitions retailer was reduced to a crater. Blue had used a smoke bomb and vanished seconds before.

"No miracles today, it would seem." Blue replied, breathing rather heavier.

"He has got to have bigger armaments than that," Sam said, his Green Lanturn aura enveloping him thoroughly as War-Parker came into view, weapons drawn.

"He showed restraint," Helen said, her Star Sapphire aura seemed to get pinker. "Parker's still alive in there!"

"Or he's toying with us, like a cat with a mouse," Blue said cynically. "Don't romanticize this, Helen."

"No, Blue. Parker is alive in there," Helen insisted, landing. She rushed to War-Parker's side, pleading, "Parker, it's me. Helen."

"Helen, what are you doing?!" Sam cried.

"Helen, he'll kill you!" Blue shouted.

Helen paid them no mind, but she seized War-Parker's arm. War-Parker looked upon her, with that face that was no face, no recognization in his electronic-looking eye. No regret and . . . and no mercy. He reached over and grasped her with his Touch of War.

As with Sakki and Death-Demos, the point contact blistered white as Helen's Mark burned white. War- Parker lost his Touch of War.

"Parker . . ." Helen breathed, not losing her resolve. "Parker . . . I know you're still in there. Fight it! Hear me? Fight it!"

"She's delusional," Blue said, voice barely a whisper.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2013, 05:58:40 PM

Another chapter, I think. Why? Because I can. :) Again, the disclaimer it might be short, but this book is going to exceed the usual twenty chapters anyway.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Mark of War

"I heard that, Blue," Helen snarled as Blue blinked, taken unawares, in reply. The fury of a Star Sapohire is said be a rather frightening as a woman scorned. Helen continued with clearly a lot of decorum and dignity, "And, no, I'm not."

War-Parker lost his grip on her and backed away, as if to assess this new happening. But Helen wouldn't be detered. She knew if the situation was reversed, Parker would not, simply not, give up on her. How could she fail him by giving up on him, when she knew that he would fight just as hard for her? And, in a way, Parker had, with whole Louis Cannon debacle.

"Parker . . . Parker, please . . ." Helen outright pleaded. It didn't seem to work, Parker seemed impervious to her words. But Helen wouldn't give up.

"Helen . . ." Sam began.

"Helen, it's time to face facts." Blue said, with as much compassion as the ninja possessed.

"No! He's still in there -- somewhere -- and I will save him!"

That's when it happened, at the exact moment it happened for Sakki and her team. The Great Power returned in great force -- turning Helen and Sam into momentary White Lanterns, and just turning Blue's ninja outfit white with deep blue accents from its normal deep blue with black accents.

"Whoa -- we're White Lanterns." Sam said, surprised. "I thought the Great Power was gone for good."

"Apparently, the great power is more fickle than --"

"Enough jibberjabber," Helen said.

"'Jibberjabber'?" Sam asked. "Wha . . ."

"You just made that up, didn't you?" Blue asked accusingly.

Helen ignored the jibe, "It's obvious why the Great power decided to show up -- Unity Pulse at Parker."

"Huh?" Blue said, taken aback by the suddenness of this urgent request.

"C'mon, guys! Unity Pulse!" Helen insisted urgently.

The two acquiesced, and fired a triangulated Unity Pulse. It had the same effect as it did with Demos. The runes blared a blistering white and the War persona flaked away, revealing a Parker.

"Wha . . . what just hap--mph!"

Parker couldn't speak any more as Parker's mouth was otherwise occupied by an elated kiss from Helen, as the Great Power faded once more.

"Aw," Sam said, disappointedly as the Great Power withdrew.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2013, 07:18:24 PM

Eh, probably the last -- possibly brief -- chapter today. But don't hold me to that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Plague Upon Thee

<What makes you think that this site would attract Pestilence, Broken?>

"Ash, Noelle." Broken corrected politely and succinctly. "I don't care what that monster may have decided to call her. She's still Ash."

Noelle acknowledge this with a slight nod, stalk eyes scanning the area dutifilly. <But still, what why would she be attracted to this florist greenhouse?>

"Yeah, Broken," Gaz concurred, "I'd hate to think that we secretly evacuated it for nothing."

"She'll be here," Broken said, voice filled with unwavering, unerring conviction.

<While I want to believe you, Broken, I'd be lying if I did not admit to having my doubts about this.> Noelle said, honestly but choosing her words carefully.

"As do I, Broken," Gaz confessed earnestly. "Broken -- be honest with yourself now -- what will you do if you can't change her back, if you can't get through to her?"

Broken didn't answer, but his silence was answer enough. Gaz and Noelle fell into silence as well, giving each other subtle looks.

Suddenly, a swarm of bizarre locust/minute Lepidopterran creatures broke through the glass and entered. Broken gazed intently at them, and recognition lit his eyes.

"That's her!" Broken proclaimed.

"But she can't transform into a swarm of anything," Gaz commented.

<Clearly,> Noelle summarized, <her abilities were somehow enhanced by the process that turned her into Pestilence.>

"Oh, great. Just dandy." Gaz sighed as the swarm coalesced into the Pestilence-Ash. Her eyes were dead as her speech. It pained Broken to see her in this form.

"Ash." He said, but the dead look her eyes did not light up with recognition. She was following Cataclysm's orders without question or free will.

"Ash . . . I know you're in there." Broken said.

"Uh, Broken . . . I don't think --" Gaz said, hesitantly.

"Nothing can strip free will!" Broken exclaimed. "Not even the Imperius Curse! They can only suppress it, or render it dormant."

<While I see the plausibility of your statements, Broken,> Noelle said, nimbly dodging strikes by Pestilence-Ash. <Ash could you stop attack and let me finish a thought!>

Broken had seized an arm of Ash, gripping it firmly. She retaliated by touching him with the Touch of Pestilence. But, as with Demos and Parker, all this accomplished was ridding herof the Touch of Pestilence.

"Ash, I will get through to you." Broken swore.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 31, 2013, 10:05:15 PM

This is romantic in a weird way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 31, 2013, 11:43:52 PM

Very. And I'm back!! Got caught up (Jeeze, three pages?). This is all very romantic... and really cool. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 01, 2013, 12:37:49 AM

Yup, never knew you could give the romantic touch, Cloak. ;)

Now why did Helen remind me of this...?

Quote

"We are to assume that she is a woman scorned, which fury hell hath no!" - Captain Jack Sparrow

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 06:54:27 AM

Eh, I never really thought of it as romantic. Guess this book isn't as dark as I thought. Then again . . . I haven't gotten to the battle with Cataclysm. . . .

Anyway. Here's the next chapter. May be short.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Mark of Pestilence

There was a brief moment of stares between the two. Broken's imploringly, while Ash's remained empty and hollow.

Then an idea occurred to Broken. But he really didn't like the concept, but he hadn't any other idea.

Noelle was wondering idly if she should morph. Even if she did, what morph would exactly be useful?

Gaz felt like she really go for a can of Blood Lite, a human blood substitute that served her very well.

"Ash, I know you're in there," Broken said suddenly, breaking the tenuous silence, as Ash continued to give him a dead look devoid of recognition. "And, so help me, I'm going to get through to you."

Broken closed his eyes, folded his arms and inhaled deeply, saying, "And, if this is the only way," he snapped his eyes open, "Then so be it."

To others he said, "We have to coordinate an Unity Pulse, triangulated on Ash."

<But wouldn't that destroy her?> Noelle queried in a way only an Andalite could.

"It could also awaken her," Broken said. The two girl did not miss how his voice cracked a little. Broken knew the possible and plausible consequences, and was preparing to bear the brunt of them.

They fired the Unity Pulses at Ash, wavering only a moment or two. Then, at the exact same moment as the previous two group, the Great Power resurfaced again.

Broken's wizard robes became white with black accents as his hair was bleached white. Gaz's clothing became predominantly white as her hair became pure white, as if she saw something truely terrifying. Noelle's became so white that she could have been mistaken for an albino Andalite, only without the pink eyes.

"Pour it on!" Broken said, hoping what he speculated brought about the Great Power was correct. "Come back to us, Ash!"'

It worked like it did with Demos and Parker. Her runes glowed blistering white, and her Pestilence persona flaked away. Ash was back to normal.

"Wha . . . why do I have a fishy taste in my mouth?" she asked.

Broken asked no questions but just pulled Ash into a warm, fond embrace.

"I guess I should get kidnapped more often." Ash said, remembering only the abduction, not the transformation into Pestilence nor fighting the three.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 08:20:18 AM

Another chapter, I think. Now that I've the time and energy.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Most Vulnerable Place

Dino walked, full-sized, with Aquilai and Rad on her back. She didn't seem to really like this circumstance.

"I'm not a taxi," she grumbled.

"Oh, don't grouse," Aquilai childed affably.

"I don't like fearmongering like this," she said seriously.

"It's necessary," Rad said. "It will make people evacuate."

Dino still didn't like it. Instead, she asked, "Where is this place?"

"It's there," Aquilai said pointing. Once Dino arrived she began to shrink, to compact herself. Aquilai and Rad slid off her back when she was small enough that the drop wouldn't kill them.

"What makes you think that Yarin'll come to a food warehouse?" Dino asked.

"He's Famine now, so it would make sense that he would want to take out the local food source." Aquilai replied practically. "For what is famine if not starvation?"

"It's what I would do in his position," Rad noted.

""I won't deny that that seems logically sound," Dino said, "but I will confess that I have doubts."

"You're not alone in that," Aquilai admitted earnestly. "But my gut says that he'll show."

"Speak of the devil." Rad said, blithely gesturing to the Famine-Yarin, who had his fangs bared. "Or the Horseman of Famine, in this case."

But such levity and flippant attitudes were really not warranted. Aside from the Touch of Famine, the increases in Yarin's abilities did not just grant him with Omega mutant-level telekinesis, instantaneous teleportation, and a level of telepathy that could penetrate and "starve" any mind -- sans a Realm Walker's mind, a precaution of Cataclysm's should his free will suppressant fail. The trio could not make a move that Famine-Yarin did not know about. The Mark wasn't sufficient strong enough to prevent such telepathic intrusion.

Before any of the three could utter a word, fire a synapse, Famine-Yarin had seized one of Aquilai's arms with his Touch of Famine. Aquilai, Rad, and Dino had no knowledge of what happened with the previous three groups when this happened to them (as it was happening concurrently to this), so Famine-Yarin had no idea that by doing this, he'd lose his Touch of Famine.

This was enough of an distraction that the trio needed. They needed to act now!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 09:59:01 AM

Third chapter of the day. Again, may be brief.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Mark of Famine

The trio reacted together upon a single thought. Not having enough time to triangulate their Pulses, as doing so would give Famine-Yarin time to recover.

Yarin let out a gasp of surprise and growl when he was hit by the Unity energy. The trio could feel Famine-Yarin try to rip into their minds but they just increased the brute force of the Pulses to their maximum.

Like the previous three, the Great Power emerged, dying Aquilai and Rad's hair white and their clothing became white predominantly. Dino pretty much became an albino ankylotyrannus without the pink eyes.

"Keep pouring it on!" Rad said in a rallying cry.

It took longer than the other three, but eventually the glowing runes on his body disintegrated and the gross modifications had flaked away. Yarin collapsed to the ground, all four hands holding, cradling his head. He had a massive headache as his telepathy returned to its normal level, and he lost the telekinesis and teleportation completely.

"Yarin --"

"No so loud!" he complained. "Let take a wild guess. The kidnapper experimented on me and now I have no memory of what transpired."

"I -- I guess," Dino said.

Meanwhile, Rad was taking a call.

"So, that's all of them?" she was saying. She was speaking to Goom, who was monitoring the communications. "All of Cataclysm's Horsemen are back to their lovable selves?"

Then she fell silent, other than the occasional "Right" and "Roger".

"What?" she said, suddenly urgent. This garnered her the attention of the other three.

"What? What is it?!" Dino demanded, but Rad waved her hand to hush her.

"He is? They are?" she said. "Then what do we -- nothing? Seriously?"

Small silence.

"He would say that," Rad sighed. "Are you sure we shouldn't -- oh, alright."

She hung up.

"Cataclysm knows." she said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 01, 2013, 10:02:22 AM

Now that's just dandy.

Wait, we're at chapter 19 already? But wasn't there supposed to be a battle? Or are you breaking tradition this time?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 01, 2013, 10:04:45 AM

I don't think he's gotten there yet. It sounds like ones coming up... I dunno though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 10:07:39 AM

There are going to be more than twenty chapters, guys. I thought I mentioned in a previous "before-the-chapter" blurb. :huh:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 01, 2013, 10:08:43 AM

You did?

*goes back checking several pages*

Oh.

:P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 01, 2013, 10:23:26 AM

I told you Saffa! I told you!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 01, 2013, 10:27:43 AM

Okay, okay, calm down now. The chapters will come and the hurricane will be diverted and the world will be saved. You can calm down now.
:P ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 11:56:54 AM

Now, now, children -- don't make me get Terenia and her Ruler of Death. ;)

Anyway, as it looks right now, there'll be about 23 chapters, unless I split one into more.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Confronting Cataclysm

It was several moments before Parker, Ash, Demos and Yarin were reverted. Cataclysm had just dispatched them, rather overconfident with himself, already planning his victory . . . he and Malice were alike in many ways.

But Malice wasn't here at his side, which really chafed her. She did not like being treated as such, and yet she failed to realize that treated Abomination and Itellsya -- er, "Rumor" -- the same way. She remained painfully unaware of this fact, and she would never acknowledge it were she made privy to it.

Anyway, Cataclysm was happily designing his victory, seemingly forgetting the entire reason he did this, or simply losing sight of it, or both. He revelled in the death and destruction -- it's why he chose the name "Cataclysm".

Suddenly, he was knocked to the ground by two passable imitations of the secondary fire of Speed Burner. The flames evaporated to reveal Warrior Estelore and a rather ticked-off Cloak.

"You're the Elements Master? You?" he sneered at Cloak, who tempered his emotions. "You're just a child!"

"I'm 27."

"Yeah, right."

Cloak said nothing. He knew that Cataclysm was goading him.

Cataclym was taking in Estelore, and he scoffed. "You Masters are all the same. Afraid to face me alone."

Cloak continued his silence, knowing Cataclysm would just twist whatever he had to say.

"Oooh, the silent treatment." he snickered.

"Are we done with one-sided banter bit yet?" Estelore asked.

"Oh, your pretty little pet can speak, Master." Cataclysm taunted. "What other tricks can it do?"

"That's it, buddrow, you're goin' down." Estelore forging a katanna with a yellow hilt from a solar flare of her own.

Cataclysm didn't attempt to defend himself just evaded every slice and stab. Then Cloak joined in using all six elements.

Both RAFians were holding back, pulling their punches. They both were well aware of the extent of the damage their abilities could wreak unchecked. They were two of the most -- if not the most -- powerful RAFians in existance.

However, Cataclysm was blissfully unaware of this. Henassumed that both were showing them the extent, the limits, of their power. Cloak's ancestor, Guardian (the only other Master Cataclysm had ever fought, despite his sneers), did the same as Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 04:09:49 PM

Just a couple more chapters until the loose parody of "The Puppetmasters".

May be brief.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Blast and the Furious

"You two are no match for the likes of me!" Cataclysm claimed. He was still pityingly unaware that neither of the two were using their full might.

Cloak was still hoping for a peaceful way to end this. A way where he woukd not be forced to take another's life, to become a killer. If he were to kill Cataclysm, would he truly be any better than Malice? Would he have shamed his grandfather's memory?

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he knew it was Estelore. Her mere touch was like lazing about in the sun on a warm, sunny afternoon. He looked at her, in the eye, and the message was clear, Do the doing now, save the second-guessing and doubts for later, when everything isn't so dire.

Cloak nodded, but then recieved a shock as his and Esty's Marks flared to life, a brilliant white. Estelore's Kevlar suit became white with sunshine yellow accents. Cloak's normally black cloak became the purest, stainless white, as did his clothing with black accents.

"The Great Power?" Estelore said, surprised. Unlike the others, these two did not relish its return. "We don't need it to send this doofus packing."

"What is this? A costume change?" Cataclysm demanded. Loudly. He was promptly ignored.

"We might not," Cloak noted, "but it does not mean that the others don't require it."

"Stop your muttering! Fight me, weaklings!" Cataclysm shouted, sounding more like a schoolyard bully than an evil mastermind. But, then again, was Cataclysm really anything more than a schoolyard bully, really?

"What do you me-- ah!" Estelore said, addressing Cloak. She understood mid-sentence. "You mean they would use the Great Power against the Horsemen."

"Precisely." Cloak nodded.

"What about my . . . my . . . no," Cataclysm said, his uneeded and unwarranted bravado evaporating. Prehaps he could sense that his four Horsemen were no longer loyal to him.

In any case, the Great Power withdrew and who knew where and when it would show up again.

Cataclysm gaped comedic for a few moments, then his bravado translated into rage and fury. He hurled a sizeable purplish-black energy orb at the two, which they dodged with practiced ease.

"YOU LOST ME MY SERVANTS!!!" he roared.

"I guess the others are free now," Cloak said.

"Cloak," Estelore said seriously, looking the Elements Master in the eye. "I think you know what must be done."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 06:14:35 PM

Two more chapters to go, and I will try to post them today.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
No Holding Back

Cloak knew just what Estelore was alluding to. The time for restraint had passed. They were what the Techadons refer to as Level 10 creatures, their highest ranking (with Level 1 being reserved for wimpy, placid creatures like flobberworms -- ordinary humans were like Level 3). They had the power and capacitate the entire planet, even the entire realm.

"You little pests!" Cataclysm snarled, then his voice turned into a hoarse hiss, "I've had enough of you."

He fired a blast of energy at each. His overconfidence in his abilities were truly staggering. It was a wonder how he managed to survive for so long.

The two easily batted the energy balls aside. He really wasn't as he thought himself to be in his delusions of greatness. Such egos are soon punctured.

"Imposdible! What kind of trick is this?!" he said, rather Vegeta-like, refusing to believe or accept that his initial impression of the two.

"Hear us now, Cataclysm." Estelore said, addressing him formally, displaying her true power as much as she could encapsulated in her avatar. "Repent."

Cloak followed this with, "Repent and make reparations for all the damages your ambitions and machinations have caused. Redeem yourself."

"What is this?" he snarled disbelievingly. "Foolish Dweller! Stupid Decendant of Guardian! You haven't the power to stop me! I don't particularly care for your parlor tricks, clever though they may be."

"Cataclysm," Cloak said, keeping the plea from his voice, eyes golden-scarlet suns. "Don't do this. Don't force our hands. Don't challenge us."

Cloak paused to determine Cataclysm's body language under his beggar-like cloak.

"It won't end well." Cloak finished.

Cloak's subtle plea was not for Cataclysm but for himself. He did not want to kill. It was not in his nature, though his feline form would seem to imply otherwise.

"I don't take orders from you," Cataclysm snarled back obstinately.

Cloak felt Estelore give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but nothing could really reassure him.

If he could take solice in one thing, it was that it was quick and easy. Cloak had stabbed Cataclysm much the same way Malice to Abomination.

"And . . . yet . . . Malice still lives . . ." Cataclysm said with his last breath. Then only his cloak was left behind. Cloaked and and walked away.

"Cloak . . ."

"I don't want to talk about it, Esty. Not now. Not ever." Cloak said, voice quavering with regret on the last word.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 01, 2013, 06:28:18 PM

I like long books that deserve to be long.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 07:31:58 PM

Um . . . thanks, Underseen? I think?

Now the last chapter before Book . . . uh . . . uh, Book XL, which, ironically I suppose, won't be "extra large". Just the usual twenty chapters, unless I split on of them in two, which can and does happen -- just not very often.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Something Better?

Cloak had holed himself up in his thread for days on end after this. Estelore made sure the other RAFians knew that he needed some time to himself, some time alone, to deal with this.

Eventually, the call of adventure in the deep recesses of space called to the sentient star. So, she made another sojourn into the inky black void.

Meanwhile, deep in thought inside his thread -- the name of the quarters given to RAFians who lived on-forum, dubbed such by the little seal RAFian -- and Cloak's mind kept coming back to one memory . . .

***

It was about five years ago, Dweller-Earth time, and Cloak was feeling thoroughly isolated. An involuntary shut-in, terrified of going against his mother (with good reason). But he found himself thinking to himself as he slaved over the dirty dishes.

I look around here
And I want to cry.
I feel like life
Is passing me by.
And I just can't help but wonder
"Am I doomed to wash and dry?"
And is it a curse I'm under
To do it 'til I die?
When I could be a realm explorer
Walking into different realm lands!
Instead of spending every day
Getting dishpan hands!
My future looks like nowhere I want to be.
There's gotta be something better,
Something better,
Something better for me. . . .
Would danger call my name?
I'd put my courage to the test!
There's gotta be something better than this.
I know there is so much more out there to see
And I know this life that I'm living
Can't be my destiny!
There's gotta be something better,
Something better,
Something better than this for me!

Then the sound of a tinkling bell was heard*, and Cloak felt thoroughly disgruntled. What now?!?! he thought angrily, but he dare not to show it in his face or body language -- his mother usually just misinterpreted this as him "just being serious".

***

Cloak remembered his mother often ringing that stupid bell at the most inopportune times . . . like when he had just sat down. How tempting it was just obliterate the damburst thing.

But had he found that something better? Would he ever find whatever it was that he truly sought?

Little did he know something would happen soon to drive all thoughts of Cayaclysm from his mind. . . .

A ship was slowly approaching the planet. . . .

---
*Yes, my mother actually had a little brass bell to ring when she wanted me. :dull:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 01, 2013, 07:34:42 PM

A bell to ring for you? You weren't her servant. Enough about her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 07:46:06 PM

Quote from: Underseen on June 01, 2013, 07:34:42 PM

Enough about her.

Do you mean you're tired of hearing about her . . . because this is alluded to in future books. . . . "The Pain-Reliever", for instance . . . :-\

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 01, 2013, 07:52:57 PM

No I just assumed that talking about her would be painful to remember.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2013, 07:58:54 PM

Perhaps, if I didn't have "Memoirs" or a strong support system.

"Memoirs" is essentially an underlying outlet for my emotions and feelings. My way of "getting it out", while encapsulating it in a story.

Okay, so this book's gonna be more of a direct parody.

BOOK LX:
ROYAL PAINS IN THE NECK
CHAPTER ONE:
Illegal Aliens

Three boys, who couldn't be older than fifteen, were playing a makeshift game of baseball, one being the catcher, one being the pitcher, and one being the batter. The pitcher was a preppy, white-collar sort of guy, the catcher was a thickset with a babyish sort of face, while the batter had an everyman sort of feel to him with a hoodie and backwards baseball cap. The apparently referred to each other by their surnames.

"Hey," said the batter. "What was that?"

"Don't even, Lee." said the pitcher. "Just because you could hit the broadside of a barn --" the pitcher said.

"Wait a minute, Prichard." said the catcher, Ketchum. "I see something, too."

Then Prichard turned around, and saw the light streaking to a nearby forest. He wanted to be practical, although he was curious.

"It's just a meteor," he rationalized. "C'mon, let's get back to playin-- hey!"

But the other were already running to the forest, leaving Prichard to dash after them.

"This is a bad idea, you know," he told them.

"Cut the crap, Prichard," Lee said, "you want to see whatever it is just as much as we do."

***

"What the . . ." Yarin said, as he noted an alarm and an alert on the monitors. There was an atmospheric breach in an area a few miles from here. He also noted that a news studio was reporting to an apparent crash site. Yarin, despite having suspicions let it slide. The alarm sometime went off if a meteor managed to make it to the atmosphere.

He punched the intercom. "Alert -- atmospheric breach at coordinates," he gave them with the trajectory. "Request an investigation team."

Then he noticed that the news team was withdrawing with such suddenness that, frankly, was suspicious. Suspicious enough to be in RAF's realm of jurisdiction.

Yarin punched the intercom again, and said, "requesting a secondary team to investigate suspicious activity from a local media outlet."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 01, 2013, 10:12:05 PM

Direct parody to The Puppetmasters? This will strange considering the yeerks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2013, 12:29:06 AM

Oh look, I just noticed, there's a guy called Ketchum. :P ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2013, 05:58:44 AM

Yeah . . . that isn't gonna come into play, Underseen, besides, perhaps, a passing mention.

Quote from: Saffa on June 02, 2013, 12:29:06 AM

Oh look, I just noticed, there's a guy called Ketchum. :P ;)

Catcher, Ketchum. Ash Ketchum was surnamed such for a similar reason, I believe.

I dunno how many chapters I can post, but probably not as many as yesterday.

This chapter is very probably gonna be brief.

CHAPTER TWO:
Team Select

Richard and the mods heard the request. They granted it, dispatching Gaz, Saffa, and Noelle to investigate the mysterious goings-on at the studio I-K-E-E-L-U* and dispatch Parker, Demos, and Cloak to investigate the presumed crash site.

"Cloak is still locked-up in his thread." SuperNate pointed out. "He's still dealing with the Cataclysm thing."

<He should get over it,> Esplin said. <He killed. So what? Move on.>

"As crass as that summary is, Esplin," Phoenix said, "it's very different slaying one of your own species. Very different --and difficult -- indeed. Especially for someone who dislikes killing like Cloak."

Esplin scoffed, <I've killed Yeerks before in the name of the mission.>

"Yeerk sensibilities do not equate to Realm Walker sensibilities, then." Goom said.

"I think Myitt would take issue with that generalization, Goom." SuperNate pointed out pragmatically. "Everyone is different, individual, and each one deals with slaying another in his or her or its own way."

<Wallowing in self-pity for an entire feeding cycle is not a constructive use of time.> Esplin said. <Cloak needs to come to grips with his actions. The past is immutable, as it should be. Nothing he does or says will change what happened. Dwelling on it is pointless.>

They were all good points.

During all this, Richard remained silent throughout this discussion, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, pensively. Who knew what he was thinking? Remembering? Considering?

When he spoke, it had the tone of finality to it. "Abby will go instead."

***

Cloak, however was not wallowing in self-pity, but seeking reassurance with his grandfather and with Guardian.

"You burden yourself so, young Master," the swan-form Realm Walker had told him. "Cataclysm left you no choice. He would ravage this innocent world. It was like your beloved grandfather told you, he left you no choice."

Cloak still had his doubts. "But you didn't Guardian."

"This is true," Guardian admitted openly. "But the Nexus is far from an innocent world, and Cataclysm had ran away before I could do anything. I never found him again."

Cloak said nothing, but still seemed conflicted. Guardian placed a hand on Cloak's shoulder -- quite a feat because Cloak was taller, though Guardian's neck gave the illusion otherwise. "Young Master Cloak, I know you are a gentle soul, but you needn't burden yourself so. Cataclysm forced your hand. You gave him a chance of redemption, but he rejected it. It was his choice, not yours."

Then Cloak awoke from his meditative slumber.

---
*Anyone get it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2013, 08:12:21 AM

Another chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
On-Site Investigation

Parker, Demos and Saffa headed out for the supposed crash site. Saffa went hawk and provided aerial reconnaissance. Parker personally thought it was unnecessary, they were on pretty flat ground, exceoti g the hills they were hiding for. Demos kept fiddling with his ID mask -- which were modified to basically resemble a Green Lantern's mask. It projected a human image over its wearer.

"Stop fiddling with that thing." Parker scolded.

"Why do I have to wear this thing?" Demos demanded.

"We don't want to start a panic." Parker answered easily.

"Then why are you still wearing your armor?"

"We need the sensor readings," Parker answered quickly, then adding after a moment's thought, "besides, there aren't religious zealots out for my blood."

"A demon joke." Demos said, snippily. "You proud of yourself for that one?"

"I was serious." Parker said, when Saffa landed in front of them taking on human form. Parker replied wearily, "What's the good word, Saffa?"

"It's just beyond those to hills." she said. "You're not gonna believe what a mess it is."

It was a mess. There were people strewn about. A man taking and selling tickets. There was something peculiar about him. His head seemed to be heavily bandaged. Parker's scans showed that he recently undergone some head trauma and his body was hotter than the people milling around her. Parker relayed this to the others.

"Oh, I have a bad feeling about this," Saffa said concernedly.

"Oh, don't be such a pessimist!" Demos said cheerily. "This looks to be great fun!"

"Fun. Right." Saffa said.

When the trio tried to bypass the ticket vendor, he tried to stop them, but they flashed their Marks like police badges, with Parker saying, "RAF business."

It was true that RAF was given such jurisdiction over extraterrestrial and supernatural events. The ticket vendor, as well as every layman in the country, knew this. He reluctantly let them by.

They walked until they reached the supposed site and saw the average Joe taking photos and posing next to a ship that looked like a cross between a Skrit Na freighter, a classical UFO and a mop bucket.

"It's tourist trap," Demos noted. "We came all this way for a tourist trap?"

"A tourist trap wouldn't have alerted Yarin's sensors," Saffa said confidently. "It was an atmospheric breach, remember?"

Parker could tell right away from his experience, both as a SPARTAN and a RAFian, that this thing they saw was NOT the thing that crashed here. He told the other so.

"So . . . what, the aliens or whatever fabricated a false UFO and put it on this spot? Why?"

"They must be an invasive species," Demos postulated.

"Want to have a look inside?" said a voice. It was Prichard. "Just a buck more."

Saffa decided to turn on the ol' feminine charm, though Prichard was a couple years younger.

"How much have yoy made so far?" she asked, not quite flirtly, but not so indifferent either. Prichard didn't react, didn't respond at all to how this was said, and just answered, "Three hundred dollars, miss."

"Parker -- may I suggest switching to thermal view superimposed upon real imaging?" Tyr suggested.

"Do it," Parker instructed, and he could suddenly see the heat signatures of every one. He noticed as two adults (one male, female) and boy of about nine went inside with normal heat signatures, but came out with slightly higher body temperatures. Clearly, this ship was like a Yeerk Pool. Something was either marking or inhabiting the people leaving.

"No, I don't think we will," Parker said, knowing that while they had the jurisdiction to inspect place, they didn't have the authority to shut down things without more substantial proof. "I think we've got all we need here. Good day to you."

A little way away, they began talking about what they should do. Parker suddenly hushed them, noting that they were being followed. Saffa easily knocks out the guy -- who turned out to be Lee, Victor Lee. He was out cold.

But yet his back twitched, and seemed to move of its own accord. Then something black and wet tire through Victor's shirt and tried to attack them, as Saffa reflectively began to morph a Tyrannopede.

But, with three swift movements, Demos had captured the alien back-rider in an orb rather like the one the Omnitrix was found in.

"Demos, that was a little too easy," Parker said suspiciously.

"Pract-- er, I mean, I was just . . . lucky! That's it!"

Parker facepalmed, "Please don't tell me you're continuing your genetic experiments."

"Alright -- I won't tell you."

"Demos, don't remember what happened with the poisonous duck?"

"That was my bad, I'll admit."

"Now you've gone and create whatever this --"

"I didn't create this!"

"Atmospheric breach, remember," Saffa poined out.

"Touche," Parker conceded. "But we're no done with this Demos."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2013, 08:17:57 AM

Yeah, I can't flirt to save my life. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 02, 2013, 08:26:28 AM

Where did I go? I didn't say a thing the whole time? Or was I just being quiet?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2013, 08:31:30 AM

*facepalms until forehead is red*

Crap, I got mixed up, I guess. Abby -- you're on the studio team now.

Let's just say that you and Saffa swapped duties at the last minute because -- because Saffa thought the crash investigation team was more interesting? More fun? Abby always wanted to see a television studio?

Ugh . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2013, 08:32:40 AM

Lol. Hey, what's a world-saving group without a little chaos, eh? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 02, 2013, 08:35:29 AM

Yep. You're fine Cloak. I just wondered where I went. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2013, 09:08:52 AM

Okay. And I might post some more chapters later on. Right now, at this very moment, I'm tapped out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2013, 09:10:14 AM

Take your time. We're always ready to wait. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 02, 2013, 09:16:15 AM

Yep, always. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2013, 01:25:57 PM

Something's off with your name, Abby . . . :facepalm: you just capitalized the "A" and the "B" didn't you?

CHAPTER FOUR:
Studio I-K-E-E-L-U*

"Why, again, did you switch teams with Saffa, Abby?" Gaz inquired.

"Well, I've never been to a tv studio before," Abby said.

"We're here as investigators, not tourists." Noelle said, having morphed to her usual human morph.

They flashed their Marks, which essentially served as their badges. Why did Noelle morph human then? To have any foes that might be watching them underestimate them. They eventually manage to sit down with the head honcho who looked rather like a Honchkrow made human without the fedora.

"What brings you to I-K-double-E-L-U today, ladies?"

"We're investigating some rather unusual behavior. From you and your studio." Noelle said, eyeing the man closely. She got a seriously weird vibe from him. Abby and Gaz felt it too. Noelle missed her tail.

"Strange?" he said, a little too politely to be plausible. His voice was like a tired, lazy impression of Snagglepuss. Abby swore he saw a bit of the guy's back wiggly and twist unnaturally. Gaz thought she detected the merest trace of a odd, faint odor of something acrid.

"Strange?" he repeated, "Why whatever do you mean?"

"You were going to report on a nearby crash landing of some extraterrestrial craft, but then inexplicably turned around and pulled the story." Abby recited. "Sure sounds fishy to me."

"What a lovely imagination to have, little girl." he said, as Abby bristled at the "little girl" comment. "It was nothing more than a tourist trap. The claims of something crashlanding there was a hoax."

"Cut the crap," Gaz told the studio's head exec. "And stop trying to handle us."

"I don't like your tone or your accusations." he said, voice sounding more and more like a yawning Snagglepuss.

"As if you don't know that we had a planetary atmospheric breach around dusk last night," Noelle said, as she stood up arms folded and eyes narrowed. "But you are clearly being manipulated. But not by Yeerks."

The man ducked down quickly but by the time he came up with handgun, Noelle had already demorphed. She had her tail blade at his throat before he could fire. Then Abby and Gaz quickly disposed him of his weapon.

"So, what are you?" Gaz asked. "You're clearly not human."

But then man drooped, like a marionette whose string had been cut. Noelle withdrew her tail, and the man fell over, as if dead. He laid there motionless, except for his back -- or something that was mounted on his back seemed to writhe.

Abby and Gaz screamed, while Noelle thought-screamed, when the thing burst from his back similarly to the way a Xenomorph bursts through the hosts chest. Only here the body of the man seemed to be fine, aside from the hold in the base of his neck that went all the way up to his brain. Gaz realized it was this creature's adhering mucus that she smelled.

It attempted to launch itself at them, but Noelle cleaved it cleanly in two laterally. It was dead.

"What was that?" Abby breathed.

<I believe a more pressing concerns are how many of them are out there in the newsroom, how many of them heard the commotion, and how do we get out without being, uh, ridden..> Noelle pointed out.

"I'm open to suggestions," Gaz said dryly.

---
*This isn't too subtle of a reference, is it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 02, 2013, 02:26:19 PM

I furrowed my brows and it a little irritated with him when he said little girl. You got that perfectly. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 03, 2013, 01:28:22 AM

Reminded me of an X-Files episode where you had a mutant, host-seeking fungus was sprouting out of peoples' necks when it matured. *shudders*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2013, 04:49:19 AM

Well, I assure you, Saffa, it isn't based on that. (It is, more or less, what happened in "The Puppetmasters", which had Donald Sutherland in it).

Brief chapter, I think. I may post another, but don't hold me to it.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Two Hypnoticks and a Gassy Gaz

The trio ran into the open newsroom only to discover that the entire news room had been taken over.

"Well," Gaz said, "this is less than auspicious. These things must be telepathic. Wi-Fi ready."

The other two didn't reply. They were morphing.

"What could you guys possibly morph to save us right now?" Gaz asked nervously. Then Gaz saw the tell-tale wings, mouthparts, and color scheme. "Psychopterans?"

<We know what we're doing,> Noelle said, as she and Abby completed the morphs.

<We should raid Hokem's zoos and circuses more often,> Abby said.

"Enough wisecracks!" Gaz said as the creatures uttered a squealing hiss through the mouths of their hosts. Gaz commented, as if giving one of her recaps*, "That's disturbing."

Then the two morphed-Psychopterans dove between Gaz and the parasite-ridden humans. Suddenly, red concentric circles spewed forth from the two. This caused the ones assembled to have their minds stimulated by the rays so they saw their most desired fantasy.

<I knew this worked on Necrofriggians,> Abby commented, benignly interested. "But I didn't it would work on humans and . . . and . . . and whatever those things are called.>

<Gaz,> Noelle said, <I really hope you've an exit strategy. Abby and I can not keep this up forever. An eighth of our time in-morph has already elapsed.>

"Right . . . uh . . . right . . ."

<You've got nothing, don't you?> Abby said.

"No, uh, I'm just . . ." Gaz babbled, then she spoke firmer when she got sudden inspiration upon seeing the open window -- far too small for them individually, much less together. Gaz wasn't deterred so easily.

She reached out and touched both of her fellows, concentrated, and all three were transformed into mist and were out the window before any of the puppetmaster aliens came to. Gaz continued to "Vought"** the two to a prudent distance away before rematerializing safely.

The two quickly demorphed as Gaz sat against a tree. It took a great deal of strength and power to accomplish such a feat.

"I didn't know you could do that!" Abby exclaimed.

"I've never done it for such a distance," Gaz said. "It was risky, too."

<How so?> Noelle asked as Abby helped the exhaused vampire up onto her back. They weren't too far from RAF now.

"If we were divided in mist form, and that part blew a suitable distance away . . . and dispersed . . ."

<You make your point quite vividly,> Noelle said, sounding slightly nauseous at the thought.

---
*Does this count as product placement? ;)

** After Marvel's "Amelia Vought" character.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2013, 05:55:50 PM

Now, a new chapter. Might be brief.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Vivisection and the Dissection

Demos took the parasite to the labs, easily restrained it, and prepared for a vivisection. Being a demon, he didn't care about the cruelty and brutality of such practices. But he was discovered by Parker and Saffa rather quickly.

"Demos!" Parker said, his voice booming like a drill sergeant.

"Demos! Vivisection is totally barbaric!" Saffa said in scandalized tones.

Demos turned to see them -- and it was very lucky that it was not yet twelve hours since this puppetmaster had not bred -- and said, with a drawling tone, "You don't like vivisection?"

Flame arced from his fingers and the creature squealed a scream of pain. Burnt flesh permeated the area quite pervasively. Demos had killed it.

"Demos!" the two scolded.

"You didn't want it vivisected," Demos said, with just a hint of faux misunderstanding, "what about dissection, then?"

"We will have Aquilai, Yarin, and Goom handle that, thank you so very much." Parker snarled tersely, taking the slain puppetmaster to them. He kept on the restraints, though they were unnecessary. They could be Regenerators, like Time Lords.

"Demos, actions like that are exactly why your experiments are forbidden!" Saffa said. "This is why your lab privileges were revoked!"

"Don't speak to me of such things, whelp!" Demos snapped. It was a touchy issue with him. "You've no idea what your prattling on about, child!"

"I know more than you give me credit for, Demos!" Saffa said coolly, before storming out.

Demos watched her go, and when she was gone, he muttered, "You don't know as much as you think you do, child."

He deftly push a roughly elliptical ovoid device further into its hiding place. Its contents were unknown, but decidely not good. But the RAFians wouldn't find out what was inside for some time later.*

---
*First in Book CXLI, so . . . you have a while to wait. >:D Sorry! >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 03, 2013, 06:52:33 PM

Yea, we sure do have a while to wait. Jeeze, Cloak, plan ahead much? (Don't answer that.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2013, 07:02:27 PM

(I'm gonna answer anyway. ;))

Well, as I'm starting to plan the chapters for Book CLXXX ("Go to Hell", where some RAFians forcibly visit Demos's birthplace), so, yeah.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 03, 2013, 07:28:54 PM

We have a very long while to wait, then, don't we. Is this series ever going to end? Not that I'm complaining or anything. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 03, 2013, 07:31:31 PM

I doubt an end anytime soon and that's all I care about.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 04, 2013, 12:41:23 AM

If it ends my life will have no purpose (at least, in one aspect), so I'm pretty sure it won't. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 04, 2013, 12:45:33 AM

Cloak, you can never ever end this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2013, 04:50:50 AM

What makes you think I will? :eyebrow: I still have 144 books to write! And I add more every time I get an idea. And, don't forget, I was the main driving force behind the 800+ RAFparodies in "RAFize songs". The day I stop is the day I stop being a RAFian. Translation: never.

Granted, sometimes, the ideas might repeat. . . . But, I endeavor not to let that happen.

Anyway, got an idea for Book CLXXXIV ("The A.R.A.") . . . I don't know if I posted it before, but here's the list from Book CLXXX to Book CLXXXV:

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Six RAFian souls are sent to Hell by an obscure half-brother of Demos's.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Out-of-continuity book. Parker and Cloak are at odds over methodology.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians get caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence, and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians meet a boy with multiple personalities whose appearance and powers depends on the currently dominant personality, who they have difficulty trying to help.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.S.A

The RAFians must deal with an oppressive governmental action.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians confront a "Granny Goodness" who erases the orphan's memories of their past.

Again, do not expect more than one chapter today.

EDIT: Added a new book to the above list.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Lowdown

Cloak had left his thread, just to clear his head. Then he caught the scent. It was an acrid odor. . . .He could tell by the scent that the creature it belinged to was dead. But that familiarity . . . what was it and why did it smell so . . .

Cloak's eyes widened as he recognized it. It wan't the first time he smelled that scent. . . .

It . . . it couldn't be. . . . Heinlins were not native to this universe he thought. But he had been mistaken before.

Cloak bursted into the lab, where Goom, Aquilai and Yarin hovered over the dissection board. The trio looked at Cloak with scandalous looks.

"Where is it?" Cloak said, urgent to see if this was an inter-realm infestation. Or the hand of another Walker was involved. "Where's the Heinlin?"

"The what?" Yarin asked.

"Its that thing you're dissecting." Cloak noticing this at once. "How long since the Heinlin perished?"

"'Bout two hours ago," Goom answered  though a little nonplussed at the intensity of this questioning. "What do you know of these creatures?"

"Everything," Cloak said, "this isn't my first encounter with Heinlins -- or Panneuros raptorcorpus heinlini, if you want to be banal about it. How long has it gestated before its death?"

"'Gestated'?" Aquilai said, "It hasn't had contact with another four several hours."

"I doesn't need to!" Cloak exclaimed furiously. "Heinlins are an asexual species -- technically what you're dissecting is just on part of a massive superorganism."

Cloak quicly scanned every were on the forum with his Earthsight. No one was sporting a hidden "backpack" that he could "see". Cloak wasn't entirely sure that the Mark would be able to stop it.

"Heinlins . . . here . . . it's not good." Cloak said, rather agitatedly. "Parker should be able to help with thermographic scans of his."

"Wait -- I confused. How could that help?" Aquilai asked.

"Heinlins run their hosts hotter than normal," Cloak said. "Unless they've changed between the other Realm and here."

"Since you know so much, how do you kill them?" Yarin said. "Other than pyrotechnical means, that is. This dissection shows that they are very difficult to put down normally . . . save for fire and blades, which would kill the host as well."

"So would separation of parasite and host -- they possess total control. And that's total control, they could stop and restart the hosts heart at will." Cloak said. "But you should be able to see that their bodies are sixty percent brain tissue. So diseases like encephalitis are a very big weakness."

Cloak considered for a moment.

"The world's governments need to be for warned." he said. "Get a RAFian to the United Nations or whatever it is called and I'll collect Parker, Helen, Sam, Gaz, and Underseen. We'll go to Washington, DC."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 04, 2013, 03:45:33 PM

Uh oh. Whenever you have to warn D.C., you know it's bad.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 05, 2013, 01:30:57 AM

So, we're finally hitting the UN.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2013, 05:42:15 PM

Well, next week I'll be working an additional 2¹/₂ hours (unless they run out of things for me to do). Where do I work? Let's just say, for the moment, it's plant/factory work. (The kind of legitimate, legal work my mom always looked down upon. ::)) And I won't say anymore on the subject.

Anyway, I finished planning out "Go to Hell", and nearly done with "Schism".

Brevity is always a chance, especially with me being this tired.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Government Involvement

"Sir, with all due respect," Parker was speaking, "I don't think your grasping the gravity of the situation."

"What?" said the supercilious head of security with a sanctimonious little smirk. "That little green men from Mars are invading Earth? Infiltrating some backwater city?"

Cloak swore when somebody got a little too fond of power, the result was before them. Cloak's face showed no emotion, though his distaste and distain for the man was evident in his body language.

How'd did they get this far with all the increased security? Eh . . . it's not important.*

"Sir, no disrespect intended," Helen said, attempting to defuse the situation. "You should be well-briefed about the alien presence on-world."

"Especially when one stands before you," Cloak said smoothly, coolly, and silkily. Severus Snape/Alan Rickman would have been proud.** "And I am not from Mars. Not your Mars, not any Mars."

This seemed to silene the high ranking official momentarily.

"The fact is, sir," Gaz said, already irritated with this annoying little man and his Napoleon complex, "that regardless if whether or not you believe it to be happening, it is."

Sniff, sniff.

"And the President must know," Sam said. He appeared to be in street clothes, as did Helen. The whole Lantern regalia wouldn't help their cause right now. Underseen took the appearance of a nondescript human male with sandy hair who appeared to be in his early twenties.

"Mr. Douchebag --"

"It's Touchécrag!" he snarled.

"Sorry! I didn't mean that! I -- I, uh . . ."

Oh, this wasn't going well, and Cloak was suspicious of a very different kind of skullduggery. He wondered if this Touchécrag character was a closeted Knight of Humanity. He sniffed the air very quickly.

"Douchebag is clean," Cloak said.

"TOUCHÉCRAG!!" he corrected angrily.

"Might want to try not ACTING like one, little man," Cloak snarled back. "Then the confusion would not be so evident."

Then he turned to the others and said, "There's a Heinlin here. Just not the Mr. Napoleon-Complex."

Cloak scanned the area, and pointed out the secretary in a rather luridly bright green dress and a white pearl neck that disguised the top of the Heinlin's proboscis.

"Nice security, pal," Gaz spat at a thoroughly disgruntled Touchécrag.

---
*>:D
** ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2013, 07:28:43 PM

Well . . . let's hope that this rain doesn't make my internet go wonky on me. Again.

CHAPTER NINE:
Jockeying For Position

The RAFians go and Cloak aerokinetically restrains the long-haired, brunette woman. She gasps with shock, but Cloak's ears pricked upon hearing Heinlin's brief squeal.

"What do you think you are doing?!" the oblivious head of security demanded. He had foolishly not noticed the Heinlin. Sam gave the man a rather curious and disbelieving look.

It was easy to see why. This guy was the head of security, yet his not-so-eagle eyes had missed this major security breach. Granted the Heinlin had hudden itself well, if not haphazardly.

"Gateburst!" Cloak cursed so loudly it could be heard for aboyt two miles around. The secretary broke into convulsions and sobs, with no apparent reason why. But Cloak's keen feline eyes in conjunction with his Earthsight had seen it abandon the woman's body. He lost track of it, and related it to the others.

"Oblivion Gate! I forgot how fast the accursed things were!" Cloak said, furious at himself. "It's on the loose!"

"Ah!" Underseen shouted scared by something. There was a sparking flash and the Heinlin was forcibly thrown against the wall opposite. Underseen said, while catching breath from the sheer shock, "The Mark . . . the . . . Mark . . . it saved me."

"Well, that's comforting," Helen said. "But not by much."

Cloak inspected the carcass of the Heinlin . . . he was dismayed to discover that there was far too much fluid here . . .

Cloak's eyes widened as the realization hit him. He turned to the others. "This one was gestating! We've got a runner!"

"Wh-what?" Gaz blustered.

"Don't worry about. Parker and I will find it." Cloak said, taking charge. "The rest of you stay here and protect the president."

"That's my job!" Touchécrag protested.

"And you've done a piss-poor job of it," Parker snarled. He was through trying to be civil with this egomaniac.

"I have not!" he protested.

"Oh, yes, just wonderful. You nearly got the President to be under control of an alien parasite. Brilliant. Good job." Gaz said, with acidly crushing sarcasm.

Mr. Douchebag didn't raise and further objections after that.

"We're wasting time." Cloak said, urgently. "Parker, c'mon."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 05, 2013, 07:40:59 PM

Ha, Mr. Douchebag.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 06, 2013, 01:45:32 AM

Well, he certainly acted true to his moniker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 06, 2013, 02:10:02 AM

Ya, no kidding.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2013, 12:24:55 PM

 Well . . . I'll post another chapter in a little while (probably not for a couple of hours). But I am going to try and make contact with Faith. . . . Dunno how it's gonna turn out.  But if it goes poorly, expect these books to get somewhat darker and moodier, I think. Maybe an exaggeration, but I'm really ready for contact -- I really miss Shadow. . . .

EDIT: . . . And I chickened out. :-\

Anyway, here's the next chapter. May be brief -- and may be the only chapter today.

CENTER TEN:
Parasite Party

"Oblivion Gate!!" Cloak raged. "Where the Veil did it go?!"

"Yelling won't help us find it," Parker said, far calmer then he felt himself. "This area is thermographically-clean. Let's go."

"It could be anywhere," Cloak said as they moved out. "It could be on anyone."

"But they run their hosts hotter than normal, you said," Parker reminded. "We'll be able to corner it."

"Why did I never consider how large this place was?" Cloak said, then a thought occured to him that filled him with a sense of urgency. "Parker, we've got to hurry."

"Why?"

"Twelve-hour gestation, Parker. In twelve hours, we would have two. Then, after another twelve hours, four. Then, after an additional half-day, eight. And so on and so forth!"

"Oh --"

"Save your catchphrase when we have time for it, and MOVE!!"

***

Whereas watching the Prez prived to be very boring work. All he did was read and sign and stamp some papers, and make a few calls. However, Touchécrag became so irritating both Helen and Gaz slapped him, Helen using her ring hand, no less.

"Shut." Gaz snarled.

"UP." Helen finished, addressing the patheetic little man.

The lousy head of securrity -- with bright red hand marks upon both of his puffy cheeks, opened his mouth to argue, but Sam stepped and said, "I wouldn't press your luck, Mr. Douchebag."

"It's TOUCHÉCRAG!!" The head of security shouted losing all decorum.

"Whatever," Sam said offhandedly, as Mr. Douchebag launched into a tirade.

"And it's YOU -- y-y-you miscreants that are pushing your luck. I am the head of security here!"

"Who nearly let an alien hostile take over the Prez's personage," Underseen added noncommittally.

"Who nearly -- HEY!!!"

***

Meanwhile, the city was overtaken over completely by the Heinlins. They did not discriminate, and took people regardless of the gender, their age, their skin color, their religion, their sexual orientation -- none of it mattered to them. Every man, woman and child . . .

However, they stayed clear from those with encephalitis and similar diseases. But the city was under their thumb, the went to RAF but could not bypass the Code Avalon, and, instead set their sights on the Bannedlands, while the one stationed in the White house only pursued on goal -- though it had to wait another ten hours now, to reproduce. But, suddenly, a shadow falls over it's hiddening spot. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2013, 08:17:33 PM

Well, still planning through Book CLXXXII ("Caught in the Middle") -- so far it looks like Underseen, Wild and myself will be in it (unless I decide to kill off >:D . . . who am I kidding I would never do that).

And I came up with an idea for Book CLXXXVI -- "Remnant A.E." -- a loose parody of "Titan A.E.".

Anyway, a potentially brief chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Aftereffects

While Sam and Helen stood sentry outside the President's door, Gaz and Underseen went to thd poor woman who had hosted the Heinlin. She wasn't convulsing so much anymore, but she was still shaking horribly. The two were alarmed at this.

"This isn't like when a Yeerk takes a host," Underseen said, clearly concerned. "They don't shake this much upon un-infestion."

"These Heinlins take host a great deal more violently," Gaz said, eyes upon the hole in the base of her neck. "It's bou d to have more psychological effects, as well as the biological."

"Biological?" Underseen asked. "What do you mean biological?"

"I'm no nurse -- which we should call for this poor girl -- by any means," Gaz said, alerting the medics -- hoping that they are under their full faculties. "But I have a sneaking suspicion, judging on her behavior (which is similar to some vampires I've seen who got addicted to killing), I swear there seems to have been some addiction."

"Addiction? To what?"

Gaz said nothing, but Underseen got the gist. He could not believe what gaz was suggesting -- it was something that Yeerks weren't known for, and they were the first alien parasites that came to his mind.

"You can't really be suggesting --" he began.

"They do secret some sort of chemical that makes their riding addictive," came a familar voice. Cloak and Parker came into view, revealing that Cloak was the one who spoken.

The four were leery, forgetting the Mark protects from Heinlin takeover.

"Guys, Mark immunity, remember?" Parker said.

"Oh, right," Sam said a bit abashed.

"Not only that, but anything that wiggles it's way underneath this hood, and they meet oblivion."

"Cloak, you were saying? About the addictive chemical?"

"Oh," he said, clearly a little mad at himself for forgetting to mention it earlier as the medical team carted the woman away. "Right, the Heinlins apparently secrete it when 'riding' someone. To make them feel that they need the parasite. In sufficient quantities, it could make the affected person to wish for death after a degree of separation."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 06, 2013, 10:30:00 PM

Uh oh. That's never good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 07, 2013, 07:06:42 AM

This is one of your books with a lot more evil in it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2013, 03:41:54 PM

Oh, this is nothing . . . I forget which, but there is a book with more, Saffa.

Oh, and a RAFparody might show up more than once.

Ouch . . . right shoulder and neck very sore . . . ugh! >.< Ow.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
If At First You Don't Succeed . . .

"What is going on out here?" said a voice, opening the door. "What are you --"

He saw the RAFians -- more specifically their Marks -- and the the change in his manner and demeanor was shocking. He suddenly spoke in a clipped professional manner.

"RAFians, hmmm? What's the situation?"

"Mayor Justice filled me in, yes. Not directly, of course," he elaborated, with a manner eeriely like that of Faerie. "But enough pleasantries, what's the situation?"

They began to convey to him the story. . . .

***

Meanwhile. the Heinlin managed to attach it itself to a handsome blond teen who could have passed for a member of a 90s boy band member. The Heinlin straightened out this teen's clothes. It was still 9³/₄ hours before it could breed again. But "he" needed to be by the president when that happens so that it could take him. If it hadn't gestated by then, it would abandon this prettyboy and take someone of substance.

Finally riding piggyback again, "he" went to find the President again. . . .

***

". . . And that really sums it up, Mr. President." Helen was saying.

"Another invasion, eh?" he said, "Well, you guys handled the Skrulls and Black Lanterns just fine. I place my trust in you with this."

Sniff, sniff.

Cloak's eye widened, before narrowing at the sight of a teen . . . but that scent. It was crystal clear. He was being ridden. Cloak let out a repressed snarl.

"Helen! Sam! The blond teen is being ridden!" Parker said, having scanned where Cloak looked.

The Lanterns incapacitated it so that the Heinlin could not escape. It squealed angrily through the teen's mouth.

"That is still SO creepy," Gaz said, with her arms folded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 08, 2013, 12:04:44 AM

Neck sore? May be alien parasite.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 08, 2013, 01:08:48 AM

Good one Underseen :XD: Did I mention I'm getting frequent stings in the chest? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 08, 2013, 01:20:55 AM

Are we having a sudden alien invasion?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 08, 2013, 01:29:05 AM

Well, we've always wanted to believe, haven't we? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 08, 2013, 01:49:51 AM

Yes, very true.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2013, 08:31:39 AM

>:(>:(>:(

Sorry, no chapters today! I wrote a nice long one, then my damn internet ****S UP. And I lost it all.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 08, 2013, 08:48:28 AM

I hate it when that happens. Good luck getting it sorted out. We'll be here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 08, 2013, 12:29:04 PM

I'm sorry Cloak. Good luck with your stupid Internet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2013, 08:58:07 PM

Well, gonna give this another try. If this chapter's brief -- well, you'll know why. It won't be as good as the first one, I'm afraid.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Interrogation

The six RAFians were in a control center type of place -- location classified -- with a cranky General D. Day and the motley assortment of scientists and technicians. The teen was bare-chested, restrained and facedown, sedated heavily. The boy's parents were informed, and, while welcomed to attend, advised not to. This wasn't the kind of experience that any parent -- a decent one, anyway -- would enjoy. It would very likely reduce them to paroxysms of grief and emotional pain.

Cloak understood the rationale of that. He didn't, however, really understand this. He had told them everything he knew. Cloak had a sneaking suspicion though, that the hard-nosed General did not believe him, something that rankled the Realm Walker.

"Wake him up," the General commanded, his voice having a somewhat imperious lilt to it.

The teen pop star lookalike awoke rather jerkily. Cloak seemed the only one to notice the ever-so-slight movements of the Heinlin's proboscis. Then again, he had feline eyes, and feline eyes are atuned to movements.

"What are you?" the general asked haughtily.

"We are you," the teen replied with a sickening smile. But it was clear that he wasn't anything but puppet with strings being pulled.

"I told him what they are," Cloak sighed. "Asexual-reproducing exoparasites with total and complete control over their host species and limited telepathic contact with each other via fiber optic-like minitentacles, as well as all functioning as a part of a superorganism."

"How many are you?" the general asked, not having heard the disgruntled Realm Walker.

"One," came the controlled teen's reply.

General motioned to one of the technicians, and a shock was delivered to the Heinlin. This caused the parasite to seize up momentarily and return control to the teen, who cries out, "Oh, God!"

Then, with a sickly, sticky sound that only seemed to be heard clearly by Cloak, the Heinlin reasserted its mental dominance over the boy.

"That hurt."

"Good," the General said more smugly than was warranted. "That's the general idea. Tell us what we want to know and we won't do it again. Now, how many are you?!"

"One," he replied again.

The General indicated that the technician give him another zetz. It squealed with pain.

"Why does it keep saying that?" Sam asked. "There's obviously more than one."

"Think ants, Sam," Cloak answered. "Or termites. In any case, the General is gonna get that boy killed. The Heinlin is in enough control to stop the poor boy's heart at will."

"R-really?" Underseen asked.

"I've seen it very nearly happen . . . last time. In a different Realm. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2013, 10:30:10 PM

Okay, I am currently planning out the chapters for "A Fractured Mind", and I'm very nearly through.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Meeting of Top Minds

After the interrogation, where the Heinlin was killed and very nearly took the teen down with him. It would have succeed had Cloak not flagrantly ignored the General orders and intervened.

"I told you civilians to stay back," he growled.

"One, you don't give us orders. Two, we don't have to follow your orders or even be required to respect you." Cloak snarled back. "Three, you're really willing to sacrifice the life of an innocent boy?"

"The loss of one pales in comparison of the many!"

"Oh, I'm sure his parent would be real understanding of that line of thinking, of that purely militarily-minded logic."

"I'm a soldier, and --"

"And he is not!" Cloak said, as the technicians were preping the dead Heinlin for dissection -- clearly disregarding all the information Cloak's already put forth. "Why should he be sacrificed for your ambitions?"

"I'm doing my duty and protecting my country."

"Cut the crap, you don't fool me." Cloak replied coldly, easily able to discern the minor deception in such a statement. "You're really hoping for a Medal of Honor or some other pointless accolade."

General D. Day had nothing to say to this, because there was some truth to it, from a very selfish part of him.

"I thought so," Cloak commented acidly, as the teen was taken to the infirmary. His tone remained icy, as he said,  "It's easy to discount someone if they're not someone you know personally, isn't it? But just imagine Day, if that was your son upon that table. Or your brother. You may be a soldier, but it's made youe heart hard . . . or nonexistent, for that matter. . . ."

Feeling that he'd made his point quite clear, Cloak turned his back and walked away.

***

All six of the RAFians attended a meeting with the military and Prez. General D. Day rose concerns about their clearance, and the President said they were cleared, and Cloak added that the six of them had far more experience with this sort of thing than he did with 26 years of service. He bridled at this, thinking it presumption instead of cold, hard fact.

Soon, the meeting was underway, and Cloak was starting to become really, truly irritated. They were simply rehashing everything that he told them in the first place, and presenting it as their own findings! But Cloak, though he did not know how, held his tongue, though it was apparent that he was getting incensed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 08, 2013, 11:40:50 PM

At least the POTUS isn't a jerk to us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 09, 2013, 02:23:40 AM

Well, he's theoretically the highest authority, so I guess it's his subordinates who have to do the bristling and the whole state-secret-so-keep-away thing to keep him clueless. Hell, I'm pretty sure there are government organisations who know far more than the President does.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 06:06:18 AM

True, in a way, Saffa. That and no government, no matter how big and "almighty" as they think themselves to be, is immune from corruption and incompetence. And those that think that there is are fools.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Military Strike

"I've organized a surgical strike to the area we believe the hive to be," another general, a benign one by the name of General Gulliver Imperio, said.

At this, Cloak facepalmed. "You sent more people down there? General, have you not paid attention to any we told you?"

By the way the General's face grew taut, he didn't like people questioning his decisions. Cloak didn't care. It needed to be said.

"Why are you guys so impulsive?" Cloak asked, genuinely asked. "Why do you think that acting without fully considering consequences is acceptable? You just sent the Heinlins more bodies. You're own inability to foresee this risk has just bolstered the ranks of the enemy! In addition, providing them crucial intel!"

"You go too far, alien!" General D. Day snarled.

So there it was. All out in the open now. General Day was a closeted xenophobe.

"I have a name, General," Cloak said, his voice even. He was attempted to accuse him of being a Knight of Humanity -- which was essentially a xenophobic terrorist cell now. But now wasn't the time. "And I'm not the one who chooses to disregard lives as pawns."

"Cloak is right," Parker said, standing, "this isn't a chess game, people. We're dealing with real people with real lives. You can't just disregard them at your earliest convenience."

The other four RAFians stood beside their fellows, They needn't have said anymore. Then they got some u expected support.

"They're right, Daryl," said General Mills. "We're being too detatched. Our actions, our decisions, affect more than ourselves. This isn't a country without her people. Disregarding life doesn't make us strong -- it makes us dictators, tyrants."

***

The military unit stormed quietly into the city which was disturbingly quiet. Clearly the roadblocks and quarantine organized by the local police failed spectacularly. Clearly, they were taken.

Still, the unit approached with a dull roar. It looked like the city was completely deserted.

"No way . . ." a PFC mutered without thinking.

Before them was a wall of children. Or, at least, they used to be children. Before they were ridden, before they became puppets ridden by their puppeteers.

"Wh-what do we do now, sir?" another private asked, clearly not wanting to hurt children.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 09, 2013, 10:39:56 AM

Uh-oh...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 12:46:36 PM

Right. And it's not gonna get any better.

A brief (possibly) chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
I ALREADY TOLD YOU THIS!!

The RAFians were feeling rather disgruntled as facts that Cloak already presented the group as a whole were re-presented as new facts. Cloak's tolerance of this was being stretched incredibly thin. He was being pushed to the breaking point.

He was also getting antsy. While they sat here while the military validated Cloak's claims more and more people found their freedoms, and their very bodies, wrested from them. It was the bureaucracy and the majority of the General's mistrust at fault here, but Cloak couldn't help but feel like a caged animal. He did not how much the bureaucracy slowed things down. At this pace, they'd be ablento make a move in a month -- and, by then, it'd be far too late. The Earth would be overran with Heinlins. His adopted home destroyed.

The only free humans would be RAFian humans, though they were the most numerous RAFian species, if Cloak was not mistaken, but if all the other species were added together, they made a relatively small number of RAFians. They'd be the remnant of a conquered species. Eventually, the Heinlins would become to numerous here and the numbers of the hostless would outnumber the amount of the hostless, and they'd take off to find another suitable host for there species, while keeping enough here to subjegate Homo sapiens, taking hosts at three or four years, when they are large enough to support these perverse puppetmasters.

Only the RAFians would remain, bearing witness to this, burdened with the awful knowledge that they did nothing to prevent this, to stem or stop the Heinlins' rise to dominance. . . .

Cloak had had enough, "I ALREADY TOLD YOU SIMPLETONS THIS HOURS AGO!!!" Cloak roared, a tiger's roar intermingling with his words. "Stop presenting it as new intel. It is what I told you. A smart idea would have been to listen to the guy who TANGOED WITH THESE THINGS BEFORE!! But no . . . no, you insist upon wasting time with pointless dissections and verifying facts thatnare obvious and evident."

Cloak glared at all except General Mills, who had the right idea from the start. But, with a lot of the generals being misogynist creeps, she was ignored.

"But, no," he said, his voice quavering with emotion. It was through sheer force of will that his powers did not go out of control. "No, you're content to sit back and turn to conventional means to squash this threat. Instead of listening to the people with experience in this area of aliens and the supernatural, you decide to deride and criticize us. Instead of being the people of action that you claim, you're content to sit back and feel your backsides grow."

He was interrupted when the generals received a report that they lost contact with the contigent of soldiers sent to secure the city. All contact.

Parker stood by Cloak, saying, "Congratulations, gentlemen. You've lost more people not only their freedom, but their bodies."

"But you don't care, do you?" Helen accused with narrowed eyes. "You're nice and safe in your hidey-hole."

"Forget it, guys," Sam said. "They're doing more damage than help."

"C'mon, then, guys," said Cloak, sweeping from the room, "if they aren't going to stop this menace, someone's got to."

"Stop! I order you to stop!" General Day commanded with ringing tones, bloated on his own power. "You don't have any right to speak to us like --"

But the RAFians did not acquiesce, and kept on walking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 09, 2013, 02:26:03 PM

The military is painfully annoying towards us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 03:38:49 PM

Well, I'm not saying there aren't some good eggs amongst the bad, but when you get overconfident into your capabilities, lax in your good sense, allow yoour power to go to your head and become carelessly reckless -- you'll get your butt handed to you. I know all generals aren't like this -- I wager some are downright likeable -- but sometimes the whole "America's-the-absolute-best-at-anything-we-do,-thereby-we're-better-than-everyone" line of thinking (quite prevalent during George W. Bush's presidency, I've noticed) irks me to no end, as well as being an statistical improbability -- no one and nothing is perfect. That's where I stand on it. But, I digress.

Anyway, let's not get too political (granted this book got a little more political than I originally planned :facepalm:), and get to the next chapter, if I can. Thunderstorm, you know.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Heinlin Hive

The six reported back to RAF, and briefed everyone. Asmo immediately declared the generals' behavior has shameful and embarrassing.

"Yarin, Goom, and Aquilai," Cloak said, glancing at Richard, who gestured him to get on with it. "We need you to devise some sort of encephalitis bombs."

"But we'd need a sample, a culture of it," Aquilai pointed out, feeling that this was an essential necessity. "We can't just conjure up --"

"We procured a sample from the lab," Underseen said. But he did not elaborate further, but handed it off as the three went to work.

"And the rest of us?" Abby asked, clearly eager to do something about this infestation.

"We must find out the location of their hive," Cloak said promptly.

"Hive?" Saffa inquired.

"Just like Yeerk congregate around their Pools," Cloak said, "Heinlin's have hives. They have, essentially a hive mind, remember?"

"Oh, right."

"Do we have idea where to start?" Richard asked.

"If I could hazard a guess," Phoenix said, rubbing his pensively, "I would suppose it would be near a source of water. They might not need it, but humans most certainly do."

"It's a starting point, anyway." Richard shrugged.

"And I think that only Parker and myself should go in, once we do." Cloak said.

"What? Why?" Helen said at once.

"Because this mission will call for stealth, so a small team is best." Cloak replied without batting an eye. "Parker is possibly the RAFian most experienced with explosives."

<But if you're caught,> Noelle pointed out, <if you're found out -->

"Then we would have to be careful." Cloak said.

But Parker was listening to Tyr, who was appraising Parker over a feature that the Walker tech apparently afforded him, a War modification that lingered.

"Apparently, I can block their telepathic signals -- they won't be able to detect us, provided we're not seen." Parker said.

Cloak seemed to know that this was a leftover War modification, as he was the one who gave Parker the Realm Walker tech that allowed him access to the Ride Armors.

"Now that that's out of the way," Cloak said, snapping his gaze from Parker to the room at large. "let's get a move on. Time is against us."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 06:30:40 PM

Might wrap this thing up today . . . but don't count on it. And this next week I might not be able to post a chapter, though, I will try.

As far as the chapter planning goes, I'm currently planning "The A.R.A.", only six chapters in. Nearly ready to move on to the third notebook with these chapter synopsises.

Anyway, this book is nearly done.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Survive the Hive

They discovered the location of the hive in the tenth of the time it took the military to get around to even discussing the possibility of finding and attacking the hive. All that egotistical posturing and sluggish bureaucracy squandering valuable time.

Both the SPARTAN and the Realm Walker loaded up on the encephalitis bombs (or "EBs"), which were discs but would resemble the secondary fire of Parasite Bomb from "Mega Man X3" when activated, as Goom briefed them on them.

"Press the button and adhere it to the wall. It will emit a hologram of the area around it, much like a Chee. It will detonate remotely." he said, in an quick, urgent way. "Neither of you will be affected due Parker's armor and Cloak's natural physiological resilency."

"Right," Parker said, while Cloak only gave a short, curt nod to let the goomba know he heard and understood.

"Now, you'll have to place three at the exterior, interior and core of each cardinal directions, and north-east, north-west, south-west and south-east." Goom reported. "This is so you'd get the best coverage area."

"Understood," Parker murmured. Cloak just grunted acknowledgement.

"Going on the information you gave us, Cloak," Aquilai said, and his tone wasn't accusatory, "the Heinlins, being 60% brain tissue, encephalitis is fatal to them, while humans are relatively unharmed. I won't lie, though. I have my doubts about this."

"It will work," Cloak said. "It did in that other realm. The hive is were the heart of this superorganism is."

***

Planting the exterior bombs were easy as cake, but planting the interior ones were more difficult.

They were nearly caught by a curly-haired redhead boy in an egg-yolk yellow soccer jersey, purple shorts, and egg white cleats. Cloak could easily see the Heinlin beneath the jersey. They were very nearly breathless. Then he moved on, deciding that they weren't really there.

This wasn't the only close-call as they were nearly caught by a teenager in a Tin Man costume -- clearly a high school play -- when they planted the final interior bomb. They slunk to the shadows and this ridden boy decided that what he saw was just a shifting shadow.

They made it to the core without incident. The core seemed to be the inside of a mushroom-like creature. At the center seemed to be some sort of glassless cryogenic tube where there were tentacles decending from the ceiling attacted to the Heinlin puppetmasters. It was as if they were . . . recharging. All ages, genders, and ethnicities were represented in that tube-like thing. The hosts had their eyes closed, faces blank, but still clearly feeling some rapturous sensation.

"C'mon, Parker, the bombs," Cloak whispered.

"Sorry."

They were finally made as the first ones started to go off after Parker depressed the detonation button.

It was too late . . . for them. Suddenly, all was blackness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 07:36:49 PM

Two more chapters to go. May be brief.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Clean-Up

Neither had blacked out, it was just that all light had, like the Heinlins, been killed. The humans seemed to be unconscious without any real repercussions. Yet the two RAFians were unsettled.

"This was too easy." Parker said, anxious. "Too clean, too neat."

Suddenly, with a squealing shriek, the last living Heinlin attacked him. He just calmly blasted it to smithereens along with an energy pulse from Cloak.

"Better?" Cloak asked, drolly.

"Not really," Parker replied, as he contacted Cerulean and Yarin to collect the humans from this mess. "But at least we got a scan of their DNA for the recognition scans."

Cloak said nothing, but narrowed his eyes, unintentionally mimicking Marge Simpson's annoyed murmur.

Parker didn't react to this, only saying, "Yes, yes, I know you don't approve of it these DNA recognition scans. But thry can be really helpful."

"They can also be used against us," Cloak grumbled.

"How do you figure?" Parker said, as Cerulean sped in, cleaning everything up in a thrice, and set up a Gleet biofilter at the entrance. Having no DNA himself (Realm Walkers have another, rather more complicated way of passing down genes involving energy), the Gleet biofilter was useless against him.

"I said, how do you figure that?" Parker prompted.

"The scan stores the genome -- written out -- of the species in question, does it not?" Cloak answered with another question.

"Yeah, so?"

"Think about it! If that information were to fall into the wrong hands, think of what they coukd do." Cloak said. "Why do you think I'm heartily suggested all the Heinlin corpses incinerated?"

"Well, I won't deny that it was a little dark of you," Parker said. "They were sentient were they not?"

"They were mere extensions of a sentient mind," Cloak corrected. "This thing, at the core, that's the real being. And it had to be done. But I'll feel a twinge of guilt about it, I'll admit. Anyway, they should be destroyed because who know who would manipulate that DNA into something more dangerous? Or make it subservient to the cloner's mind? Then anyone could be his puppet. See that danger now?"

"Cloak, you're being paranoid."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 08:32:44 PM

Last chapter of the book and of the day (again, probably brief, especially as its more of an epilogue). And I have no idea how the next book will turn out either.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Lingering Feelings

With this whole mess behind them, they could move on. But, despite himself, Cloak could not help but continue to dwell upon it. Was the force necessary? He thought so. Would he do it any differently? Handled it any better? He really couldn't see how.

Why does he always do this to himself? He sighed heavily as he sat down on his bed in his thread. Why does he always second-guess himself? Question every decision that he's ever made? Over and over again, until it just becomes repetitive and dull.

He let out a long sigh. Being angry at himself for that habit was no good either. It was pointless. What was done is done. What was said is said. There's no taking it back and redoing it. Even if there was . . . would he? Would he take that opportunity? Or would it just mak everything worse?

His decisions, the good and the poor, have made him what he was. Would he change any of that? Could change all of that?

Even his travails with his egotistical, narcissistic mother help mold him into the person he was. He knew who and what he was now, and it wasn't anything that she predicted.

Cloak growled at himself. Why couldn't he let this go? Why did he continually harp on this past trauma?!

"Ugh!" he grunted with irritation. "Why won't the past be silenced, at least for a moment?"

He wished he didn't have to relive his mistakes like this. He just burdened himself when he did this . . . so WHY did he keep dwelling on this?

***

Meanwhile, Rumor was flitting through the air, landing by Malice. She patted his head -- he didn't really have very much sentience than a goldfish.

"Well done, Rumor," she said, smiling a malicious smile. "Now, come. We have much to do, my pretty, and miles to go before we sleep."

Then Rumor made some odd, inquistive noises. Malice interpreted them as wondering where they were going.

"Where are we going, Rumor? Is that what you want to know, my deary?" Malice said, with gaily chuckle, "Why, we're going to wake up the Kruegar. The wonderful Kruegar of Nightmares."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 09, 2013, 08:47:46 PM

The way Malice is describing him makes him sound like he's as benevolent as Willy Wonka or The Wizard if Oz.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2013, 08:51:31 PM

Well, consider her mindset. :)

Anyway, no new chapters until around late afternoon tomorrow. Don't expect more than one.

Here's the list:

• Book XLI: RAF's Nightmare

The RAFians must survive their own nightmares.

• Book XLII: Unlucky Charms

The RAFians must contend with a rather bloodthirsty leprechaun.

• Book XLIII: The Piper

The RAFians must contend with a pied piper.

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

All are libel to change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 10, 2013, 04:47:30 PM

The list is so long.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2013, 04:53:08 PM

And I intend to write every single one too. Besides, that list is nothing compared to the parody index (which was actually Goom's idea).

Anyway, let's start off this book, 'kay?

BOOK XLI:
RAF'S NIGHTMARE
CHAPTER ONE:
When You Were

Cloak had shut himself inside his thread. He often sequestered himself when he was in one of these moods. He was lamenting the loss he felt with Shadow. He sang, in voiceover:

"As I sit here reminiscing,
Part of me is missing.
My little Shadow has been ripped away.

You loved to dance.
You loved to laugh.
You loved to simply be.

When you were good,
You were very, very good.
When you were bad,
You were very, very bad.
But through it all,
You were the very, very best
Person to make me glad.

You loved to tell childish lies
Until you made me mad.
Then you'd cry and say:
"I'm sorry I was bad."

When you were good,
You were very, very good.
When you were bad,
You were very, very bad.
But through it all,
You were the very, very best
Person to make me glad."

Cloak still yearned to see his no-so-little neice again. He wanted to be a monkey's uncle once more. The mere yearning for it seemed to overwhelm him, as he stared morosely at the floor.

"Can't stay in her an mope around," he forced himself to scold himself. "There are things to be done."

***

"Who?" Malice said scornfully. "Who's this Freddy you're going on about, Rumor? We're off to see the wonderful Krueger of Nightmares."

There was a moment were Rumor jabbered on seemingly incomprehensibly.

"Who told you that, Rumor?" Malice said, with acid derision. "Seriously, you need to reevaluate your sources. The Kruegar's name is Somnus, not something as absurd as 'Freddy Krugar'. Wherever to you get such ludicrous notions?"

Then they arrived at their destination in a rather abrupt manner.

"Here it is," Malice said. "All we have to do is free him from his sleep."

Then she chuckled for no apparent reason.

"Awaken him. How droll . . . okay, yes, Rumor, and ironic."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 10, 2013, 05:59:25 PM

You're almost halfway to a hundred.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2013, 06:25:24 PM

True.

Sorry, but looks like that'll be the last chapter today.

I did manage to talk to Faith -- Shadow's mom -- for a bit (she was at work) today. She was not at hostile at all (which, to be honest, I had not really anticipated at all).

All in all, a delightful, brief, and thoroughly exhausting exchange. Maybe I'll get to talk to Shadow sonner than I thought intially . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 10, 2013, 07:21:20 PM

That's really exciting. How soon?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 10, 2013, 10:56:52 PM

You go Cloak!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 11, 2013, 01:07:37 AM

That's wonderful news! Hope it's sooner than later. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2013, 08:10:26 AM

Quote from: Underseen on June 10, 2013, 07:21:20 PM

How soon?

It's not set in stone or anything. But I presume earlier than six years.

Now, I'm not sure if I could post another chapter at home.  The Internet's been really spotty today.  But I'll endeavor to get one up before I leave here today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 11, 2013, 08:54:22 AM

I know how you feel Cloak... Rose and I spent the last fifteen minutes staring at the router. A full-scale celebration began when the Internet light came to life. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2013, 10:09:15 AM

That proves it -- our species is too reliant on technology. ;)

Let's give this a try. Sorry for the brevity.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Waking the Nightmare

Rumor made some sounds that seemed to be similar to a bad Momo imitation, a la Zach Tyler Eisen's from the Avatar episode "Nightmares and Daydreams".
 
"Of course I know how to wake him!" Malice said, affecting an offended manner. "You just . . . uh . . . I just push this here . . . erm . . ."
 
Rumor repeated the gurbling noises.
 
"I do too!" Malice snarled, apparently unaware of how childish she sounded.
 
Rumor repeated the gurbling noises, but more emphatically this time.
 
"How dare you insinuate such a thing!" she said, smacking Rumor. "For a third time!"
 
Rumor whimpered.
 
"That's right, Rumor," Malice said, impressively, "remember your place."
 
Then Malice went to work figuring how to awaken the Kruegar, Somnus. Eventually, somehow, unknown to even her (though she disputed this vehemently when called on it), the Tasmanian devil Realm Walker awoke the Maestro of Nightmares. . . .
 

***

Cloak stood up a little straighter.  He was leery about something . . . but he didn't quite know what. There was some force, some malevolence, that had been awakened somewhere.  But he didn't know what or why or who . . . it was a tad infuriating for someone used to knowing things.

And Cloak knew that he wasn't the only one that sensed it.  FuBar, Bladeh, Kitsi -- all the felines knew something was up.  But the ignorance of the source was not only inconviencing, but it was disconcerting.

Cloak shut his eyes and took a deep breath.  Whatever this thing was, they'd deal with it in due course.  They always did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 11, 2013, 10:18:48 AM

This comes right after an X-Files episode involving a boy who was possessed by a dark and malevolent force, possibly that of his dead twin. Lovely times. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2013, 04:35:56 AM

Sorry, I didn't post more yesterday, but the new Pokemon . . . they had me all excited. Just a nite, when I get Pokemon X, and the House of Hades, this thread will be on hiatus. Don't worry I'll tell when it will be.

EDIT: Still very excited about the Pokémon news.

Maybe a brief chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
In Your Dreams, Everyone Can Hear You Scream

Night had fallen in earnest several hours ago, and the forum slept -- at least, those that required sleep slept. But a powerful oneirokinetic force had roused Cloak, FuBar, Blade, Kitsi -- all the feline RAFians who could sense, could feel, this force, this presence. The sensation was not a pleasant one.

It was an oppressive feeling, so much so that it made breathing difficult. And yet, Cloak realized . . .

And yet it was somehow familiar. . . . Familiar, like a story he had once heard or read but forgotten . . .

Unbeknowst to Cloak, the flatscan human RAFians -- that is to say, nonmutant and so-called "purebred" humans -- were all writhing in their beds. All were moaning quietly as their dreams became nightmares.

Eventually, their Marks began to glow. Then screams filled the forum.

This alerted the feline RAFians and the sleepless ones. But their scope of helping the sufferers was exceedingly limited, which irritated Cloak to no end.

What could they do? This oneirokinetic force was attacking them in the one place were they could not have outside assistance -- their dreams.

"What can we do?" FuBar asked frantically. "We have to something!"

"I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno --" Bladeh replied, nearly hysterically.

"There has to be a way!" Kitsi insisted. There has to be away to save them!"

Cloak was reserved and his face inscrutable, which in and of itself, was actually very telling, "There isn't anything we can do. None of use has the powers or means to stop this."

"You must be able to do something!" Bladeh pleaded. "With all your power --"

"I cannot," Cloak countered. "You think me an oneirokinetic? Dreams aren't one of the Six Elements."

And, despite their ministrations to prevent it, a young, newly-minted RAFian affectionately known as Red, was killed. He had barely been a RAFian for three days. This death weighed heavily on Cloak, though he did not show it outwardly.

"Wh-what do we do now?" Kitsi asked.

"I," Cloak saaid, with a quaver in his voice, "do not know."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 12, 2013, 04:33:55 PM

Cloak not knowing something is becoming more common now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2013, 05:01:03 PM

Hey, I don't know EVERYTHING! :XD:

And, think about it, Malice is older than I am by a great degree. It's natural that she would know more than me. Most times her downfall comes from disregarding things and taking things for granted (like Abomination).

Unless more Pokemon news comes up, I'll try to post another chapter.

Yeah, this might be one of the darker books (granted, it'll have two parodies -- one which has already appeared, and another which'll appear in a later book), but considering the main, uh, "antagonist" of the next one . . .

EDIT: Sorry, no more chapters today. But I did come up with two new book ideas:

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Up

The RAFians must deal with strange moisture-sucking slug-like parasites (larger than Yeerks, and semi-liquid).

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

An old evil returns to life and inexplicably steals the powers of the Octessence, effectively rendering them useless, and single-mindedly seeking revenge.

All book titles subject to change. And, just remember, all chapters are possibly brief -- I don't write them down until I post them.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Fields of Thought-Screams

"What if we wake them up?" Bladeh asked.

"That could just have the effect of waking sleepwalkers." FuBar said, dismissively. Then he added, uncertainly, "R-right?"

"I won't deny the plausibility of it," Cloak said, his voice still carrying that heaviness. "But we're treading into unfamiliar ground for me. But, yet somehow familiar . . ."

"What do you mean?" Kitsi asked.

"I've heard of something like this happening," Cloak said, "but I do not remember where or specifics."

Then Bladeh had an idea. "Couldn't you just Walk to the Dreamscape?"

Cloak shook his head. "There are very few places my kind cannot Walk to. Heaven. Hell. Purgatory. The dream world, the dreamscape -- however you wish to term it. We cannot Walk into these places. We enter the dreamscape, though, but the same way every one else does -- sleep."

"Didn't know that," Kitsi replied, with a shrug. "But the question remains. What do we --"

<AAAAAAHHHHHHH!>

The wakened RAFians heard the though-speak screams. The Andalites were being attacked.

"What do we do?!" Bladeh yowled.

"What CAN we do?" Cloak countered, furious at this helplessness. He liked being able to do something, not being forcibly sidelined like this. "Anything we try could prove to be ineffective or exacerbate the problem!"

Cloak only felt this helpless once before, and it was not a pleasant experience.

"Th-there's gotta be something," FuBar said, "anything . . ."

Cloak thought about this. He came up with one possibly impossible and possibly pointless idea.

"We have to wake them up," Cloak said.

"But was if it kills them?" Kitsi asked.

"They're gonna die if we don't," Cloak said decisively. "Better give it a try than wait for their deaths."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 13, 2013, 07:16:11 PM

I forgot about the Thursday chapter schedule again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2013, 07:27:24 PM

Well, best get used to getting chapters relatively late -- working more hours now. I will still strive to post a minimum of one a day -- sorry :-\ but it can't be helped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 13, 2013, 08:31:27 PM

It's no big deal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2013, 08:49:58 PM

'Kay. Well, in any case, I came up with two new books.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must deal with Shenecron's great bestial pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Some RAFians deal with a prism that divides them into eight personalities singularly driven by one emotion.

I know, I know. Slow down on the ideas.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 14, 2013, 12:59:36 AM

No, don't slow down on the ideas. As long as your brain's working overtime we know it's all good. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2013, 07:00:05 PM

Alright then. Since its the weekend, provided my internet connection doesn't royally screw up, I'll try to get more chapters out.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Psychic Scream

"It's no use!" FuBar cried out, futilely trying to rouse Abby, who writhe a little in her nightmare. "Nothing we try works."

"Discomfort, water, promises of waffles," Bladeh said, "but they remain firmly and stubbornly conked out."

"I even tried putting Hunter's hand in water," Kitsi said.

"How's that supposed to help?" Bladeh said at once.

But FuBar got it immediately, "This isn't the time for levity, Kitsi."

"Wet blanket," Kitsi said.

FuBar facepalmed and said, "I cannot believe you just said that."

"Doesn't matter either way," Cloak said, arms folded, completely stumped on how to waken their fellows. "That is a fallacy, a myth*."

"Now you tell me." Kitsi replied drolly.

"In any case," Cloak said heavily, transferring the topic back to the situation at hand, "I'm out of ideas. They seem to be in some sort of somniferous lock. I've never seen such a thing before -- heard of it, but didn't believe it."

"Sorry, but 'somniferous lock'?" FuBar asked.

"Look at the context Cloaky used it," Bladeh said. "He obviously means 'sleep mode lock'. Or something."

Then they tried to tend to Yarin, vainly hoping that their minds would be able to penetrate this lock and reach him. Well, except Cloak who's telepathy-incapable.

However, when they arrived at his side, they were alarmed to see that he wasn't just writhing, but all six eyes were shut in what seemed like pain as all four of his long thin arms flailed about.

"We have to help . . . but we can't, can we?" FuBar said, hating himself for having to admit it.

Cloak, hating himself for saying it, replied, "No, we can't do anything."

Then, quite suddenly, a palpable wave of telepathic might erupted from the Nyac. It was a psychic scream. Cloak felt it wash over him with no ill effect, whilst the other three whimpered in pain.

But this is what was needed, this psychic scream. It seemed to disable the somniferous lock, and the whole of RAF awoke.

Cloak, however, was looking concernedly at Yarin, who was awake now. He was rocking back and forth, looking as if he clearly felt violated psychically. It reminded him somewhat of a story his grandfather, Sage, had once told . . . but it was just a story.

. . . Right?

---
* I seem to remember that Mythbusters busted this myth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 15, 2013, 12:35:59 AM

I have anger heard of the wet blanket.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 15, 2013, 05:42:21 AM

Ya, I think Mythbusters did. I'm pretty sure anyways.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2013, 06:16:48 AM

Did you mean "ever", Underseen? If not, then I quite honestly do not understand your post.

Anyway, being a wet blanket = party pooper. Of course, here it was also revealed to be a reference to that myth.

Okay, so here's a second shot at the same chapter (that I was going to post last night).

CHAPTER SIX:
Myths and Decisions

With all RAFians now awakened and having experienced similiar things -- as this evil, nightmarish figure took on different forms but always with a red and black color scheme with desiccated facial flesh.

Naturally, a meeting was called immediately, and the RAFians didn't bother to change out of their sleepwear -- well, those that actually wore clothes, anyway.

It was quickly established that the dreams -- of the species that actually dreamt -- were striking similiar. All lamented Red's death, but only the ones who were close to him grieved deeply about his unfortunate passing.

Parker saw this death as a message from this devilish force (a term that Demos found offensive for whateve reason) was deadly.

"But what can we do to stop it, whatever it is?" Parker intoned ominiously. "In the dream world, it is master, and the only way to even fight him is on his terrain, on his terms."

Silence met these words as the truthful and sincere heaviness of the reality of it hit them.

"Well, it does put me in mind of a story that Sage once told me roughly two hundred of your years ago." Cloak said thoughtfully.

After a few minutes, Saffa prompted, "Care to share the story, Cloak?"

Cloak, a bit flummoxed at Saffa's reply, rubbed his chin thoughfully before continuing. "Well, there was said to a being -- species unknown and undocumented -- whose true name was long forgotten and he had desired the power of the dream world, of the dreamscape. No one knew how he accomplished it, the tale claims that he succeeded. But there was a major caveat to this obsessive quest of his. While he succeeded over many decades of hard, devoted, and, above all, secret work to enter the dream world physically, he was unable to return to the waking world by any means. He was no longer a physical being, he was a dream construct."

"A large drawback," Gaz said, whistling.

"Yes," Cloak said. "And, as the story goes, that, while he mastered the dream world's secrets, he began to grow jealous of those that could enter and leave at will, just like he used to. He began to lust after severing them from their physical selves, to kill them."

"Couldn't he just steal their bodies, like in 'Nightmare on Elm Street 2'?" Underseen asked.

"It is never mentioned in the story." Cloak answered honestly. "But Sage told me this story before that movie was even made."

"So, you Realm Walkers have your own boogymen," Dino said benignly.

"I suppose so," Cloak said. "But that's the extent of my knowledge of it."

"How do we protect ourselves from it?" Ash asked.

"Simple," Rotiart said snarkily, "do go to sleep. Ever. Again."

"Don't be an idiot, Rotiart, that's impossible for those ofmus that require it." Saffa snapped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2013, 02:32:34 PM

Okay, a brief-ish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Snap, Heckle, and Drop

It was decided to put off sleep as much as possible. Cloak new of the futility and fraility of such a decision. No one would be able to acquiesce permanently. They would all have to rest at some point. Cloak also knew that sleep deprivation would cause . . . unpleasantness to arise.

As the hours wore on, hostilities began to flare up, like a wildfire, threatening to engulf the forum. Saffa nearly mauled Rotiart when the latter wasn't exactly careful with his words and said something very offensive that is better off not repeating. No one stopped her -- the arrogant toerag had it coming.

Those that weren't hostile and angry were surly and isolationist. Cloak was one of them. He decided to hole himself up in his thread, away from the others, as sleep-deprived as he.

The others resorted to caffeinated coffee and its derivatives to stay awake, though none were fully alert. Cloak never liked the taste of coffee himself, and was mostly awake by sheer force of will. But that didn't stop delusions and hallucinations . . . like that Green Lantern ring that miraculously broke into his thread, only not be there moments later with the wall intact.

"This cannot go on," Cloak moaned, head in his palms, wishing to sleep. "No one can resist sleep forever."

He could clearly hear his fellow RAFians snapping at each other, Rotiart heckling Saffa again (Cloak foresaw another mauling by Saffa in Rotiart's future), and there were many objects dropping with a tremendous, tumultuous clatter.

"This is probably the worse plan we've ever come up with," Cloak commented, tiredly.

***

"Ha-HA!" Malice crowed seeing just how tired and slow the RAFians had become just after a mere 3³/₄ days. "It would be too easy to conquer them now!"

Rumor made gurgling noise, rather like those of a baby, grotesquely distorted.

"Of course not, Rumor!" Malice said. "The entertainment value is still there."

The Rumor made loud obnoxious sounds that sounded like "WARRRK! WARRRK! WARRRK!" as he looked at his Mistress urgently.

Malice's eyes widened slightly, as if Rumor suggested something that she actually hadn't considered, but she covered it with her malignant poise. "Of course I considered that, Rumor. My dreams will be fine and free from Somnus. He daren't attack me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 15, 2013, 04:14:50 PM

Now I want to go through the species list and count the ones who actually need sleep. I have enough time today so why not?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2013, 04:23:23 PM

Well, that'll help me. I'm gonna try to post as many chapters as I can today, anyway.

Now, then, let's see if I can post another chapter.

Hmmm . . . apparently the next 3 books will be rather gimmicky, if I'm not mistaken.

This chapter is gonna be short . . . unless I pad it out . . .

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Inevitable

It was another twelve hours before the inevitable happened. RAFians began to drop off into sleep. A sleep as irreversible as the first. No one was spared -- even those that did not sleep were inexplicably felled into their first sleep.

Even Cloak and Estelore, two of the most powerful RAFians, could not resist and fell under this somniferous sway. Even the Pootang fell under this sway easily.

Within moments, the whole of RAF was snoozing, but not writhing. Their dreams had not been corrupted into nightmares yet.

The reason for this was soon made clear. The radius of this somniferous surge was not confined to RAF's borders. Malice and Rumor succumbed, though Rumor's sleep was dreamless.

The sleep surge did not stop there. It soon eclipsed the Bannedlands and halfway enveloped the city.

By the time the city fell to this sleeping state, the surge slowed significantly. It began moving so slowly and sluggishly, it seemed that glaciers were speedy in comparison.

***

The reason this surge slowed was because the source of the surge, Kruegar Somnus, eventually lost interest in expansion, and began to focus more on his "toys".

That's what he thought of his prisoners, his victims. He would delight in seeing their pathetically saccharine dreams and oneirokinetically changing it into a nightmare perfectly suited to the individual. That's why he always tried to break them one at a time. He always drew it out as long as he could.

He didn't like it when they died too quickly and in too unimaginative and too mundane ways. That would be too boring, much like that stupid Red kid. He died too quickly, Somnus thought.

Now the choice of the three locations to start his attack first -- the city, the Bannedlands, and RAF.

Ah, decisions, decisions.

He decided he'd get most the most bang for his buck with the RAFians. They were the strongest of those under his sleep thrall. It took even more of his power to keep them in a slumber, to lock them into it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2013, 05:36:00 PM

Okay, according to my notes, this book'll have nineteen chapters, unless I find a way to split a chapter or arbitrarily add another (which will probably be filler). However, if it does not post, you'll have to make due with three today.

Now another chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Somniferous Sovereign

As he sedately made his way along the "dream corridor", as he thought of it, he passed by a flurry of thick wooden doors with name plates with the names engraved in black, gray, or white, depending whether the dream was a goid one, a marginal one or a nightmare. The name plates were bronze when the owner was awake, silver when in a dreamless sleep, and gold when the door's name-bearer was actively dreaming. They emit a faint glow when they are under the sleep lock.

As he walked along the RAFian dream corridors, already seeing them sucked into oblivion, as is what happens when the owners die, leaving a briefly unoccupied expanse of wall, until someone is born to replace it.

As he prolonged his decision, his thoughts turned to his past. But a lot of it had been corroded and eroded by his permanent existence and residence in this place, as time was really extremely hard to judge in this place.

Kruegar Somnus wasn't his real name, he knew. He had long forgotten his true name and true form. Anything of permanence usually gets eroded away here, and eventually forgotten. Somnus couldn't remember what species he was before coming here, or indeed if even had came here frim the waking world. For all he knew he could be the merest fragment of a way overpowered oneirokinetic.

For his current form, he wore a very basic human form -- as he wore a body-length red spandex suit with black horizontal stripes.

The red-and-black stripes . . . it was the only thing about him that never faded away. Sadly, any significance it once held for him had been eroded away to nothingness and forgotten. Yet it remained with him no matter what. So it must have had some really deep significance to him.

The only other then that he remembered is hating the waking. If pressed, he wouldn't be able to explain or state why, just that he does. He does know why he does what he does, but he does it, and takes great enjoyment out of it. He has no remorse, no regret. If he ever had, he doesn't remember it.

It would be a rather sad fate if he wasn't so murderous, so callous, so evil.

Then he remembered that monster -- the monster that managed to banish him, lock him up somehow. He still did not understand how he did it. That monster with that unbreakable will and cloak.

As he stopped infront of a door with a glowing name plate, his form changed subtly and seemingly without thought or desire. He grew glowing eyes rather like Noivern, a scorpion's tail, pincers and eight scratchy, scrambling legs. He was entirely red, except at the joints, which were black and vented flames.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2013, 07:00:39 PM

Fifth chapter today. I don't know how many more I can post today. But I was lucky that my internet isn't giving me a problem.

*Jynx behind him says, "Jynx, Jynx."*

Don't give me that, Valkyrie. Return! Ahem -- now Chapter 10. May be brief -- and emotional.

CHAPTER TEN:
Dream of a Deep Desire

Cloak, vaguely aware of the fact that he was in a dream, was walking towards his dream-reality wife, Wisdom (a snowy owl-form Realm Walker) in her snow white cloak. She, as her chosen name (though, like Cloak, was essentially given to her) implied, was very wise. She was also very knowledgeable, very personable. She, like Cloak, was a staunch believer of equal rights and was an egalitarian as well. These are the qualities that Cloak valued very dearly, and, in this dream reality, are the qualities that drew him to her.

At her side were their dream-reality children, both having inherited Cloak's gift . . . and curse. Both were Elements Masters-in-training.

There was the eldest of the two was in a blue-gray cloak, a blue-pointed Siamese cat-form Realm Walker, and was his daughter Lightarrow. She was ten years old (a hundred years in Dweller Earth years). She was a fiesty, sassy and affectionate yet fiery, mature and moody Realm Walker. She favored the Fire element.

On their mother's other side was Valor, a seven-year-old (seventy, in Dweller Earth years) German Shepard Realm Walker who favored the water element. He was very loyal, gentle, and kind, with a good heart.

Cloak knew deep down that they weren't real. But this, believe it or not, was one of his deepest and most desperate desires, if not the deepest and most desperate desire. To have a family, to be a husband, a father. It was pretty much something he doubted he would ever get to have . . . which made the desire all the more fervent.

His hope to be all this in this waking world was derailed, derided, and decried as a pipe dream. He believed  at one time when he was essentially imprisoned at him mother's house that this fantasy was just that -- a fantasy, a pipe dream. But still, he yearned.

He paid no mind to the empty void in which he stood, them before him, in a spotlight. He made to walk towards them, to embrace them, to hold them, to be with them. It became an all-consuming desire. He had just get to them . . .

But, with each step he took, he did not get any closer. He did not draw any nearer. His steps quickly turned into a brisk walk, which evolved into a jogg which translated into a light run. Spon, he broke out into an all-out run, never tiring, but never getting any closer. But they were so tantalizingly there! Just there! He just had to get nearer. He had to.

But it was no use, though he refused to believe this. The reality of it was that he would never reach them in this dream, until he reached it in the waking world. But he could never wrench his eyes from them, from the family he so desperately wanted.

This obsession, this all-consuming desire filled him so much that he didn't realize that this private dream now had an uninvited, unwelcomed dreamdropper.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 15, 2013, 07:17:02 PM

Aww...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 15, 2013, 07:19:03 PM

Seeing dreams become nightmares is a depressing thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2013, 07:46:29 PM

I certainly hope that wasn't sarcastic, Abby.

True, Underseen -- but the next chapter'll have somewhat of a twist to it. But it'll be a bit of a cliffhanger, because I've ran out of energy. :-\ Sorry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 15, 2013, 07:52:22 PM

No, that wasn't sarcasm. I honestly thought that was sweet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 16, 2013, 12:23:32 AM

And so did I. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2013, 11:12:51 AM

Ah, okay.

I'm not sure that this'll even post, but here we go.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Repel the Nightmare

Cloak remained oblivious to the intrusion and the dreamdropper. He was possessed with desire, his eyes locked upon the three fictitious beings before him. He continued to try and reach them, even outstretching an arm, though he remained forever out-of-reach. He was so close, yet light-years away at the same time.

It was this driving desire, this consuming obsession, that blinded the Elements Master to the thing that was quite literally corrupting his dream. The surrounding, blank environment began to take a darker tone, with sharper edges. All unseen by Cloak.

Then he saw his fictional wife and dream construct children suddenly standing upon an impossibly large palm, looking terrified. The palm was aged with coarse brown fur and stiletto-like claws. The three representations of Cloak's deepest innermost desire. Then, what seemed to be agonizingly slow, the fingers and thumb began to curl around the three. They were quickly snuffed out, gone as the hand balled into a fist.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!" Cloak screamed, his voice intermingling with a tiger's roar. He glared high up and saw a face -- his mother's face -- mostly obscured in shadow with malevolently glowing eyes.

"YOU'RE NOT READY," her voice boomed. While the words themselves, maybe even the tone or lilt of her voice, may have seemed innocuous, the reality and symbolism of it wasn't.

Somnus had expected this to break Cloak, to cause him to collapse into tears and beg for death. To wish to be dead. And Cloak might have . . . six months ago. But he was not the same person he was then. He wasn't so easily shattered emotionally.

Waves of fury emanated from him in palpable and visable waves, alternating scarlet and gold. Somnus was so taken aback at this, his very form wobbled into a guy-in-a-Sentai-suit form. Cloak remained oblivious to this, though a mist began to form about 45 degrees to Somnus's right, but still behind Cloak.

The dream construct of Cloak's mother boomed again, "YOU ARE NOT READY."

"Who are you to decide that?" Cloak said, heatedly. Suddenly, this construct shrank instantaneously to her normal size -- still formidable-looking for a woman in her sixties (six hundreds, if you're going by Dweller Earth years).

"I am your mother," she said, voice rather tinny, with a slight reverb effect. "I only want what's in your best interest."

"The Veil you do!" Cloak snarled, finally expressing all the repressed feeling to this pale imitation. "You never cared about my interests, best or not! I was nothing but a source of free labor to you. I wasn't a son to you. I wasn't even a pet. I was a servant, a slave, to you. Nothing more, nothing less. Just somwone you could kick around simply because you could. Then minute I finally had the backbone to stand up to you to say that you're wrong, you abandoned me. You ditched me! You threw me away like yesterday's garbage."

Cloak's gaze was severe. "You could not handle being wrong. You always had to be right, and you never took bad news well."

He pointed an accusatory finger at the diminishing form of his mother, "You always killed the messager. Yet, you wondered why I was so reluctant to give you bad news. You never permitted me to feel anything, yet you wondered why I was so serious all the time."

"I'm done. I'm done with you." she said, though the sincerity was questionable.

Then he turned his back to her, "Welll, know what, Mother? I'm done with you. Good-bye, and good riddance."

Then the construct shattered into nothingness, and he noticed, for the first time, Somnus. And the new figure.

"Grandpa?"

"Hello, Cloak," he said  though he glared at Somnus, addressing him, "I don't know who freed you, Somnus, but I'll put you back again."

"You . . ." Somnus growled, but fled. He would avoid Cloak's dreams from now on, for fear of Sage. Fear of the one who captured and contained him.

"What do we do now, Grandpa." Cloak asked.

"Do what you've done many times before," he said, "place your faith in your rather remarkable friends."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 16, 2013, 11:18:53 AM

They do say you can't die in your dreams.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2013, 07:27:56 PM

Sorry that I didn't post more chapters today. Just got caught up in something else.

Remember in these books some parodies might show up elsewhere in future books. and I might be able to stretch this book into twenty chapters.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Torturing the Torturer

Somnus escaped with his essence in tact. He did even know if he could be killed anymore. But he had the feeling that he may have been very close to it. The very idea . . . it unnerved him. He actually felt fear, a sensation he had so thoroughly forgotten that it was novel. But he didn't like the novelty of this atrophied emotion.

He burst through a dream door without actually reading the dream-owner's name . . . Pootang.

It wasn't one would have expected. It wasn't wild and bestial. The dream's environment was bright, colorful -- like that show, "Timon & Pumpaa". There were millions of identical Horse clones, as it was a well-known fact that she was its most favorite meal.

Bright, cheery music was playing, and the Pootang was eatting a Horse clone inbetween every lyric. Its voice was a deep, rich baritone.

"Yummy, yummy, yummy,
I've got Horse in my tummy.
And I feel like munching a few.
She's such a sweety.
Good enough to eaty!
I think the same of you."

Somnus realized that he was being addressed, and he had a seal form with the usual red-and black color scheme. But the Pootang continued in its song, addressing the other Horses, eating one whole every lyric:

"I love to hug ya.
I love to kiss ya.
I Horse so!
Sweet, sweeter
Than sugar.
I won't let her go!
Yummy, yummy, yummy,
I've got Horse in my tummy.
And, as sick as it may seem --"

Then it seemed to forget the lyrics of its own song, muttering, "Uh, somethin', somethin', somethin'," before launching back into song, cintinuing to snack on the infinite Horses between each lyric:

"And she tastes like peaches and cream!
Kinda like sugar.
Kinda spicy.
Kinda like Xanadu!
Kinda sounds funny!
Kinda like honey!
Horsie, I love you!
Yummy, yummy, yummy,
I've got Horse in my tummy.
All I need to satisfy.
Such a sweet thing.
Sweet enough to eat!
And that's no lie!
I love to hold her.
I love to kiss her.
I love her so!
How much sweeter,
Sweeter than sugar!
Oh -- !"

But, suddenly, there were no more Horses. The land looked suddenly barren and dull. Somnus's handiwork.

Pootang was furious -- you may think tickling a sleeping dragon is bad. Well, provoking -- deliberately provoking -- the Pootang is not only very dangerous, but very stupid. If it couldn't snack on Horse, it'd just come up with an alternative . . . Somnus.

The foolish dream wanderer barely escaped in one piece. He almost didn't get the door shut.  Like Cloak, this was enough rouse the Pootang from slumber.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 16, 2013, 07:33:42 PM

Serves Somnus right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2013, 08:51:16 PM

True, that. The confrontation with Sage has unsettled him more than he allows himself to believe, and then this.

Last chapter tonight.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
That's All I Need

Disturbed and unsettled by this last encounter, he decided to head for another target. An easier one . . . the seal. The seal should be effortless enough to terrify. An easy victim.

Pity that Somnus really didn't know anything about Horse.

Horse's dream was colored like a theatrical animated Disney movie. She was laying upon a rock, repeating "Scurry . . . sniff . . . FLINCH!"

After the third repetition, music started up, and Somnus muttered, "What is it with these guys and songs?"

Horse sang with the music at a moderate tempo.

"There's more to life than panic
And being the Pootang's favorite snack.
I may be deliciously organic,
But this little entree's fighting back!
I'm gonna put being eaten behind me,
And live with a positive attitute.
I'm gonna reach for the stars to remind me
That I'm not mere Pootang food!
For once, I'll be
Looking out for me."

Suddenly, the music's tempo quickened noticeably.

"Yeah, I'll tell you what I want,
This seal is movin' on.
She's a bon vivant
Who's missing out on bon
I'd be a bigger cheese,
Far from the menu scene.
A little icy breeze,
A little patch of sea green.
And I'll be snoozing in my hammock
By a rippling Artic stream,
Many miles from Pootang
And his silly dancing team.*
Looking after RAF will be my only creed,
That's all I need.
That's all I need.
I've always been good at swimming away,
Well, now, I'm gonna run the show.
I've always been seen as the ultimate prey,
But now my status ain't so quo!
A dream sublime.
It's Pootang time -- !"

Suddenly, the Pootang was there, saying, "Oh, look it's dinner and a show! And I thought beans were the only musical fruit."

This was it, Somnus thought anticipatory, she would collapse in fear, in terror. And then every would be right back on --

SLASH!

The Pootang dissolved into dream mist. Horse was in her Eternity armor with the Tempest Blade.

"So, you're the one behind this," she said. "I expected you to be taller. And scarier."

Again, Somnus barely escaped and Horse awoke.

---
* D-don't ask. Just -- just don't ask.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 16, 2013, 09:07:04 PM

Pootangs dream was not what I expected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2013, 04:53:00 PM

Kinda the point, Underseen. ;) Sorry, about the late chapter, I had to work late today.

May be brief.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Plan Patience

"Who's awakened?" Cloak said, his back to whom he addressed. He sat with his legs crossed, his heel touching his hip on the other side. His hands were on his knees. His tail twitched at the intrusion, though he didn't bothering opening his eyes. He didn't need them to "see" who had disturbed his meditative solitude.

"How'd you know it was me?" said Horse.

"How indeed."

There was a pause, then, "Oh."

"My question, Horse?"

"Only me." Horse answered. She couldn't have known about the Pootang -- she never went to check on it, for fear of being eaten. "Everyone else is asleep. Even those that don't sleep."

"Odd," Cloak commented rather benignly.

"'Odd'? That's all you can say? Just 'odd'?"

"This creature -- my grandfather called him Somnus -- must be expending all lot of his somniferous strength to induce and lock them into sleep."

"He did look rather less threatening and frightening than before," Horse replied thoughtfully. "It's rather arrogant of him, isn't it?"

"He may very well not realize what he's doing," Cloak pointed out, not moving, remaining in the same position. "He's only had someone challenge his power only once, and that challenger contained him, not knowing if he could destroy this oneirokinetic force."

"Who challenged him?" Horse, assuming it was Cloak.

"My grandfather, Sage." Cloak said, with a prideful lilt. Then, with surprising quickness, he return to the business tone. "The plan proceeds then."

"It's going too long." Horse said apprehensively.

"Patience, little seal. Patience."

"But what if Somnus discovers what we're up to?"

"Have faith, Horse." Cloak said, looking up. "He'll have a time trying to get to the others."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 17, 2013, 05:08:09 PM

It was worth the wait

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 17, 2013, 09:20:47 PM

Yep, it was. Catching up after a while and this is really good. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2013, 05:18:51 PM

Well, I may not be able to post chapters as often come next week. Starting a new job, if things go well.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Forget About Love

Somnus, still a little disconcerted about the seal seeing him and not feeling fear. But he put it out of his mind.

So he entered another RAFian dream -- this time, it was Helen's dream.

Somnus found just about fifty shades of . . . pink, in here. It was also a bit more flowery than should be allowed.

Somnus took the form of a parrot like wyvern with undulating, gaseous wings. His evil gaze met Helen's who was wearing a lavender chiton with a fuchsia headband. There was a very Hades-abducting-Persephone-to-the-Underworld vibe, that Helen apparently remained blissfully unaware of as she picked flowers, with the mental image of Parker before her.

Somnus sang suddenly, with a voice like a demonic James Earl Jones, evaporating the image of Parker and subsuming it with his own:

"Forget about that guy.
Forget about the way you feel into his eyes.
Forget about his charms.
Forget about the way he held you in his arms.
Walking on air is OBNOXIOUS,
The thrills!
The chills!
Will leave you nauseous,
And you'll never get enough.
Just forget about love!"

The spectral trails from his wings began to wrap and coil around Helen, who looked determinedly unimpressed and aloof.

"Forget about romances.
Forget the way your heart dances.
Then you feel the blush
When he's spouting saccharine mush!
Love really is revolting.
It's even worse when you're bolting.
Enough of this stuff!
Just forget about love!"

Helen closed her eyes, and sang herself, her voice beautiful and melodic.

I had almost forgotten the way that it felt
When he held out his hand for mine.
My heart all aflutter.

Somnus threathened (which was kind of hard to sound menacing with the tempo and lilt of the song):

"Did I stutter?"

Helen, naturally ignored him, still remembering things from Parker. She sang:

"The first time we kissed . . ."

Somnus sang forcifully:

"It won't be missed!
Forget about his touch!"

Helen condradicted him, as the spectral tendrils around her loosened greatly.

"I can't forget about his touch!"

Somnus realizing his hold is weakening, sang:

"In the grand scheme, it doesn't matter much."

Helen contradicted him again:

"It matters so much!"

Then both sang (with Helen making it sound like a good thing and Somnus, the reverse):

"Love is filled with compromises!"

Then Somnus tried a different tack:

"And don't you hate those big surprises?"

But Helen refused to give in, and somnus was slowly withdrawing his tendrils involuntarily.

"A cozy rendezvous . . ."

Somnus scoffed:

"Oh, please!"

But Helen persisted:

"Candlelight for two . . ."

Somnus derided:

"Aw, geez!"

Then Helen addressed Somnus:

"Look, you're callin' my bluff.
I can't --"

Somnus joined in forcifully:

"Just forget about love!"

But, by now, Somnus's tendrils had withdrew completely, and Helen was now in her Star Sapphire regalia. She had a confident smirk, and it was this that intimidated Somnus.

He fled before she could capture her. This allowed Helen to waken.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 18, 2013, 06:38:18 PM

So we may be back to around only one chapter a day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2013, 07:09:12 PM

There are some days were there might be none at all. Depending on how long I worked. Just a heads-up.

EDIT: If I have to work a double shift, that is.

Hmmm . . . that weird endless-blank-expanse thing has stopped. Probably the reason why Saffa and Abby hadn't replied . . .

Well, I'll just post another chapter, hopefully nothing goes wrong.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Societal Hell

What was it with these guys? Why were they much stronger now than before? He easy slayed that one, the one called Red. Was something wrong with him?

No. No, it must be a fluke. he thought as he barreled through another door. He found himself in Hell. Literally. He was in Demos's dream.

A big mistake on Somnus's part, one would think. But Somnus had an idea of how to corrupt it, taking on a form that appeared to be a merging, a fusion, of the Robot Devil of "Futurama", a Pyronite, and a Polar Manizardrill.

Then he snapped his fingers, and said, in a rather jaunty voice, "Gentlemen?"

Suddenly, an up-tempo beat began. Demos, however, was completely and thoroughly unimpressed. He replied, playing with a cigar-shaped rock, "Aw, crap. Singing. Mind if I croak?"

But the song began:

"Cigars are evil,
You won't miss 'em.
We'll find ways to simulate that smell.
What a sorry fella!
Rolled up and smoked like a 'sumthin'-ella'.
Here on level one Societal Hell!
Gambling's wrong, and so is cheating.
So is forging phony IOUs.
Let's let Lady Luck decide what type of torture's justified!"

Then he locked Demos, still looking rather bored and unimpressed, as if he's seen worse. Then the wheel landed on "deep-fry", and Somnus said, "Ooh! Deep-fried demon!"

But the song continued with Demos singing in monotone, and Somnus interjecting now and then:

"Just tell me why . . ."

"Just read five hundred-page warrant!"

"There must be worse demons than I."

"I checked around, there really aren't."

"Then let me explain.
My crimes were mere boyish pranks."

"You stole from boy scouts, Andalites, and DQ banks!"

"Aw, don't blame me. Blame my upbringing."

Then Somnus replied through song, as Demos tried to deftly steal his wallet.

"Please stop sinning while I'm singing!
Selling bootleg 'Memoirs' is wrong.
Cloak needs that income to survive.*"

Demos muttered a "huh?" before Somnus materialized the Kruegar Boys, who sang:

"Hey, boy, gonna make some noise
With your mind pummelled by the Kruegar Boys!
That's whacha, whacha, whacha
on Level Five!"

Then Somnus sang:

"Fencing diamonds, fixing Smash fights,
Posting insufficient posts!
You'll pay for every crime,
You'll suffer 'til the end of time!
Enduring tortures,
Most which rhyme,
Trapped forever
Here in Societal Hell!"

The song ended, but Demos was still clearly uninfluenced by the song.

"Are you done?" he said, examining his silk suit. "By the way, I've never done any of that. Now . . . are you gonna run away and make this fun, or come quietly?"

Somnus fled.

Demos smiled. "I was hoping you'd do that."

---
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 19, 2013, 05:27:54 PM

I'm guessing today will be one of those days.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 19, 2013, 05:48:04 PM

Next week, Underseen. Check my previous post -- which I was editing as you posted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 19, 2013, 06:10:20 PM

Great chapters. Sorry for not posting, just had enough time to look at them, not post. I got really busy this past week.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 19, 2013, 06:44:46 PM

Oh, thanks for the heads up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 20, 2013, 01:56:44 AM

Well, the reason I've not been posting is because Rose has started school and my mom gives online rights only on weekends. But I steal time on my phone whenever I can, like right now. Great chapters, love the parodies as always. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2013, 06:01:02 PM

Ah. Sorry, I'm still a little giddy. Just had two Pokémon battles with a friend, and we each walked away with a win.

A brief-ish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Waiting . . . Waiting . . .

Cloak remained where he was, quietly mediatating. He felt the vibrations through the earth, and knew that two more had awoken. He could tell right away -- the plan had not yet come to fruition. He was not disheartened by this, but he could feel the tension in Horse through the Earth.

"Did you succeed?" Horse said.

Cloak had his eyes closed and his back to them, and dully replied, "Horse, they did not succeed in capturing Somnus. We would know if they had -- everyone would be awakened."

"Do you know how creepy it is when you that omniscient bit?" Helen said.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Cloak said with feigned ignorance, eyes still shut, but concealing a mischievous smirk.

"I almost had him!" Demos claimed.

"But you didn't."

"I could have gotten him!"

"But you didn't," Cloak repeated, opening his eyes and turned to face them, "that's fact. There's nothing we can do to change it."

"I can go back to sleep." Demos said stubbornly.

"You can't guarantee Somnus would return or even if it wouldn't be a dreamless sleep." Horse pointed out.

Demos pouted a bit, miffed at how close he came to ending this and failing. Cloak couldn't blame him, and allowed him to pout without calling attention to it.

"What do we do now, though? We don't know what's happening." Helen said.

Cloak said nothing for moment, then he took a heavy breath. "We must have faith. Faith in the others."

"That's your answer? Your grand plan?" Demos retorted moodily. "Just sit here on our butts?"

Cloak knew where this was coming from, so he did not rebuke the demon.

"I know it's hard, being relegated to the sidelines," he answered. "To be helpless to do anything to help. But we cannot do anything right now. We must deal and cope with that."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 20, 2013, 06:08:51 PM

I can't wait to learn how Somnus is defeated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 20, 2013, 06:11:54 PM

^^ Oh, ya. Can't wait for that either!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2013, 06:13:43 PM

Well, probably not in the way you think, Underseen. ;)

. . .

But you ain't gonna find out until the weekend most likely. >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 20, 2013, 08:57:55 PM

Aw, man!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2013, 05:49:41 PM

Sorry to be so long -- just got Pokemon Dream Radar and Pokemon 3D Pro . . . *wonders if 3D Pro will get a XY update*

Anyway . . . you came here for a chapter. A possibly brief chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Ambush!

Somnus was reeling from his last bout in the demon's dream. The guy nearly caught him . . . but why did this act fill him with fear? What possible harm could they do to him?

He was the Master of Dreams, Lord of the Dream Land, Maestro of Nightmares, after all. None could match his oneirokinetic power, his dream-reality omniscience! He alone plumbed the mysteries of dreams, of nightmares, of night terrors. He was feared by all but feared no one or no thing.

But . . . why did he feel as if he was running for his life when the demon gave chase? Why did he, for the first time in his admittingly-faded memory, feel not just fear, but outright terror at being caught by the demon? Didn't make sense. But, no . . . must of been a fluke. A fragment of memory from his days in the living world. Of course . . . were that true it would be the first time in millenia.

He'd just sucessfully corrupt a dream into a nightmare. Yeah, that's what he'd do. He chose a door, scoffing at the name. It wasn't a name, but a color!

The dream landscape appeared to be a science fiction-manga-anime feel to it. But, Somnus found it mundane. Pretentious and mundane, even though it was, in reality, neither.

But the dream's occupant was nowhere to be seen. This was odd, it never happened before.

Somnus waited, but he could not see or find the occupant of this dream. This was impossible! There had to be a dreamer here! But where?! Where?!

There it was again, Somus realized. The irrational fear. The nonsensical terror. He was the master here, this dreamer the victim. That's the way that's always been.

Suddenly, he felt cold, sharp metal across his throat. It actually hurt.

"You must be the one behind this sleep terrors," said a silky, quiet voice. "Don't bother to struggle. We're going on a trip."

Then, quite suddenly, the dream seemed to fold in on itself. Soon, it was clear where Blue was taking Somnus. Blue was waking up, and he was taking Somnus with him.

***

Cloak's head jerked slightly as he sensed it. Throughout the forum, the RAFians were awakening. Only in Blue's thread were there sounds of a struggle -- an one-sided struggle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 21, 2013, 06:51:34 PM

Go Blue!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2013, 06:19:40 AM

Probably gonna post between two to four chapters today, but don't hold me to that.

Now, possibly a brief chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Talk!

"Talk, Somnus!" Parker growled. "Who are you, who are you really? Why did you do all this?"

Blue had managed to subdue the fiend with only the merest amount of difficulty. He stood in the back, arms folded, on Cloak's left side, who also had his arms folded. Cloak thought this was a pointless exercise, but he and Blue allowed Parker to indulge himself. But both knew it would be fruitless and futile.

"Answer me, nightmare filth!"

Cloak did not know if he cared for Parker's interrogation style. It was a little intense. Perhaps too much so, but neither Cloak or Blue reined this in.

"Answer!"

Cloak closed his eye as the blow landed. It was then that he noticed what his Earthsight has been telling him all along.

"Parker, stop!"

"Cloak, he hasn't talked yet!" the SPARTAN objected. It was times like this that Cloak wondered just how Spartan-like SPARTANs actually were.

"There's a reason for it, Parker!" Cloak said.

"Yeah, he hasn't been broken yet."

"No," Blue said, sensing what Cloak had. "Parker . . . he's dying."

"I . . . I . . ." Parker stammered, and his face became pale, drained of color. "I didn't hit him that hard."

"No, that's not what's killing him." Blue said astutely. "If anyone is responsible . . . it would be me."

Cloak bowedd his head in agreement. "Somnus, it would appear, can no longer survive in the waking world."

"You aren't actually considering putting him back there?!" Parker proclaimed fiercely.

Cloak said nothing, and neither did Blue, though both remained somber.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 22, 2013, 08:11:04 AM

The worst part of being a good guy is issues of morality.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2013, 08:23:00 AM

It's the price you pay. ;)

Now, let's finish up this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
What Next?

It turned out that fate had made the decision for them. Somnus slumped suddenly, and lay there motionless. He was dead -- the burdens of the waking world were just too much for the self-proclaimed Master of Dreams.

"Well, I guess that'd be a 'no'." Blue said tonelessly. Yet, it still weighed on his mind.

Cloak was disconcerted by this. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he said, "That was too easy. Too clean, too neat."

"Sometimes things are," Parker shrugged. The he tapped his communicator, "Get Kelly and Goom down to the interrogation room."

"You mean the unused storage room?" Yarian's voice crackled from it.

"Yes," Parker said rolling his eyes.

***

A week passed after Goom and Kelly confirmed Somnus's death and inability to be resuscitated. It still weighed on Cloak's mind, but moreso on Blue's. But it was better than the alternative . . . right?

Meanwhile, the other RAFians were convorting and having a grand ole time. Apparently  there was a RAFparty of some sort.

"So, what do you think we'd face next time?" Abby said, cheerily, taking a swig of her soda of choice. "A zombified mummy? An amorous Veela horde? A killer leprechaun? Line-dancing alpacas?"

"Probably all of the above." Saffa replied, unable to suppress a mighty grin on her face.

But upon the mention of "leprechaun", a lesser known RAFian called Avers Ice, squirmed slightly. But he passed it off as momentary discomfort, as he readjusted his orange shirt (with a blue snake printed on it).

***

As darkness fell, Avers Ice snuck out of the forum. His only power was rather passive -- superhuman night vision. There was no moon this night, making it rather easier for him.

He slunk to a well-hidden grotto, roughly a half-mile from RAF, in a cliffside. It was a rather tight fit -- Avers Ice wasn't exactly thin, but wasn't morbidly obese either.

But then he got to what he desired . . .

Six gold coins. Six leprechaun gold coins. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 22, 2013, 09:40:50 AM

And we all know the secret of leprechaun gold. Don't we?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2013, 10:01:07 AM

Wrong franchise, Saffa. I'm basing these books off those "Leprechaun" movies -- my knowledge of which comes solely from the Nostalgia Critic's reviews of them. But I've probably given too much away.

New book.

BOOK LXII:
UNLUCKY CHARMS
CHAPTER ONE:
In the Moola

Far away, in a dank, dreary cave said a rather odd creature. It was dressed in typical green leprecaun attire, but this redheaded creature wasn't as benign and cheery as a cereal box mascot. He had a pointed, ugly, swarthy face, full of blemishes. He was also not tiny, but roughly the height of a young child, yet obviously full grown. He had pointed, needle-like teeth. Pretty much the antithesis of the common image of a leprechaun.

This horrible creature was cackling malevolently as he stood with a pot of gold. He was letting each coin slid through his admittingly ugly fingers.

Then, all at once, his cackling stopped eith such alarming abruptness that silence that followed seemed to be extra sinister. The leprechaun frowned as he gazed intently on his gold. There was something wrong, he knew.

Then he realized.

"Six missing!" he rasped. His voice not anything like the stereotypical representations have presented. "Six taken!"

His rage was easily palpable. He plopped on his green hat (with emeralds studded on the brim). The look on his face made it look even uglier.

He would find the thief, he would take his gold back, and he would punish those that DARE steal from him.

"Looking for thieves?" came a cool, unconcerned voice.

"Give me back me gold!" the leprechaun roared as he lunged at the source of the voice.

But missed.

By a wide margin.

"I didn't take it, fool!" snapped the voice, full of distain. "What use would I have for gold?"

"Where's me gold?" the leprechaun demanded.

"Oh, I know of a little thief den," said the voice, stepping out of the shadows, revealing herself to be Malice. "You just have to go a few hundred miles from here. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 22, 2013, 10:42:07 AM

Of course. She would lead an angry, frothing at the mouth leprachan to RAF, wouldn't she?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2013, 11:34:54 AM

Well, she finds it entertaining.

Possibly a brief chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Back to RAF

"Somewhere in your mind's eye,
There is some place that you have never been.
Welcome to the strangest place
That you've ever been a stranger in.
Dreams might give you a clue.
Close your eyes, it's there for you."

Suddenly, it is revealed that it was Gaz both playing the organ and singing. She was welcoming the newly-arrived newbies.

"But everybody's crazy in RAF.
You hafta be a bit insane
To sit and watch a thread fly away and play
In a field of raisin cane.
Call it crazy, if you please,
We're as happy as can be."

Then the rest of the RAFians joined in as they went about various tasks.

"'Coz everybody's crazy in RAF.
You simply won't believe your eyes.
Because if you've never been, you wouldn't understand.
You couldn't in a million tries.
You'll see combinations no one ever sees."

"Huh?" Dino said, noticing that the newbies were looking at her upon this lyric.

"Ain't anything normal, even with a swarm of these."

"Hey!" the Frolis Maneuvered RAFians objected.

"Let's get back to RAF.
Back to RAF.
Back to RAF.
Back to RAF.
Back to RAF.
Back to RAF."

Only Blue and Cloak weren't celebrating. Their minds were both heavy with the events around Somnus. And Avers Ice was suspiciously absent from the proceedings, as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 22, 2013, 06:56:16 PM

The only Leprechaun movie I have seen is Leprechaun in Da Hood.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2013, 07:29:37 AM

Uh, you don't say, Underseen?:eyebrow: Anyway, I dunno how many chapters I can post today.

Remember, as always, it may be brief.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Hoarder

Avers Ice* was at his little hidey hole, gazing greedily at his six large coins. It satiated him now, but it was only a matter of time before this hunger for riches, this thirst for wealth, would ache for more. Such desires for wealth and riches are hardly ever truly satisfied. Avers Ice's avarice had nearly consumed him in his entirety.

He hiccuped as his eyes took on a fanatical glow to them. It showed that this avarice was possibly not coming from within Avers. It would appear that he suffered a bit from gold fever**, which apparently was a very, very rare disease brought on by gold mites. It cause a near-obsessive interest and desire for gold.

SNAP!!

A twig. Could have been made by an innocent creature, but the gold fever had addled Avers mind, increasing his paranoia and lower his rationality.

The coins aren't safe here, Avers thought, as he hiccuped. They must be kept on my person at all times.

Then a thought occured to him.

But, no, that won't work, he thought frantically and fervently. There could be thieves everywere! Pickpockets! Bandits! Muggers!"

He bit into one of the coins, but it would not yield to make teeth marks. Then he accidentally winded up swallowing it.

"No!! Hic -- my -- hic -- coin! Hic. My precious -- hic --"

The gold fever was getting bad -- he should have been going to the infirmary. Kelly would be able to treat him in a thrice.

Then Avers began to swallow the other coins. He reasoned that it was the safest place for the coins not to get stolen. Of course, he hadn't considered what he'd do when they came out the, uh, other end. But the gold fever was making him irrational.

Avers decided to not go back to RAF -- far too many potential thieves and layabouts there -- so he renounced his membership, though he wasn't a RAFian long enough to receive the Mark. If he had, renouncing the forum would have broken his Mark. However, then again, had he bore it, the gold fever wouldn't have addled his judgement, his rationality to such a degree.

Such a pity too -- he would have made an excellent RAFian. But one had to wonder . . . how'd he get infected with a disease so rare?

---
*Anyone get where this name came from?

**"DuckTales" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 23, 2013, 07:38:53 AM

Uh, avarice? :D

I unintentionally got the 'My precious' reference. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2013, 02:32:22 PM

Let's see if this works. Internet's been spotty for me.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Vengeance is Mine!

"Give me me gold!" the leprechaun demanded at RAF's borders, but the RAFians paid him no mind. After all, they faced Syphoon, Thanos, the phobeest -- even the Pootang itself made this deranged, gold-seeking, killer leprecaun seem to be rather tame in comparison.

"I want me gold!" the deminuative gold hoarder demanded.

"Yeah," Empress Goose said, heavily-lidded, lazily leafing through a magazine, "I'll get right on that."

"I know it's here, me boyo," the leprechaun threatened. "And I've come for it!"

"Whatever," he replied, not even bothering to look up. "Do me a favor, though?"

He looked up from his magazine, and saw just how ugly this leprechaun was, but didn't react to it.

Empress Goose continued, "Lose the abhorrent Irish accent. It's obviously phony, it's painful."

"Give me my gold, thief!" the leprechaun snarled.

Now, Empress Goose was offended. "I am no thief little man!"

"Aren't you a body jumper?" Chad30 inquired benignly from nowhere.

"Shut up," Empress Goose snapped.

"Give me back me gold!"

"Oh, do be quiet," Chad said, continuing to read his book, "there is no leprechaun gold here."

"I know there is, whelp!"

"What is going on here?" Sakki asked.

The leprechaun stared and oogled her rather openly and unflatteringly. Suddenly, all thoughts of his gold were forgotten. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 24, 2013, 02:35:54 PM

Uh-oh. I don't think that's very good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 24, 2013, 02:38:46 PM

Ha! Sakki is being crushed on by a leprechaun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2013, 06:42:23 PM

Oh, she's about to make her feelings known. ;)

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Lecherous Leprechaun

The leprechaun gave a a rather disturbingly lecherous grin at Sakki, who looked as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. The dangerous look she gave the leprechaun would have mimicked the gaze of a basilisk.

The leprechaun just chuckled suggestively. This just made Sakki irate, as Empress Goose and Chad were grinning like idiots, fit to burst. This made Sakki even more hostile.

"You cannot be serious," she said, in venomous tones.

Now the leprechaun added raising and lowering his eyebrows suggestively. Empress and Chad started snickering at the livid look on Sakki's face and thefact that this leprechaun just didn't seem to be getting the message. The leprechaun began to make kissy faces at Sakki . . . oh, this wasn't gonna end well.

"Back up there, pal."

The leprechaun ignored this warning and approached closer with puckered lips.

"I'm warning you . . ." Sakki said, with a definite threatening posture. Again, the leprechaun persisted with all the charms of a lobster.

"I said, " Sakki said, baring her teeth, her mouth unfolding to maximize her sonics, "BACK OFF!"

The lecherous leprechaun was sent tumbling, head over foot, as Chad and Empress Goose's reading material was pull out of their hands and buffeted horribly. The leprechaun was no longer in sight.

"Bit excessive, don't you think?" Chad commented calmly.

"He made me mad." Sakki shrugged. "I'm not a piece of meat."

***

But, apparently, this leprechaun was lonely and -- and -- well, he wasn't exactly picky. He made lurid passes at any RAFgirl that he came across.

They didn't show him and more mercy than Sakki did. It didn't help that this archaic leprechaun treated them all as objects, as meat.

The chauvinist pig essentially got karmically what he deserved.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 24, 2013, 06:49:29 PM

Not very smooth for an Irishman

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 24, 2013, 06:52:41 PM

Oh, he is gonna get knocked off the face of RAF if he doesn't stop. Haha.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 24, 2013, 08:23:59 PM

I shall send legions of bats after the leprechaun! Or maybe I already did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 25, 2013, 08:49:39 AM

Get ready to face my diamonds, boyo! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2013, 06:36:09 PM

Sorry, dunno if I can post a chapter even with that little Error 500 snafu earlier. But I'll try and modify this post with one, after I check to see if it'll post.

CHAPTER SIX:
Cloak and the Clover

In a field of clover, Cloak was practing the elements, trying to hone his reaction time and agility, as his mastery with the elements were already at their zenith. Aquilai was nearby, crawling around his TARDIS like an ant on picnic food. Repairing, regular maintenance, updating it -- who know?

"You missed," the Time Lord commented absently, referring to air pulse shot Cloak took at a target.

"Say, would you love your TARDIS to pieces?" Cloak said, with a subtle irritable threat.

"That was uncalled for." Aquilai said, suddenly livid.

Cloak had forgotten how touchy Time Lords got about their TARDISes. It was almost as if the two were quantumly-entangled, like quantum lichen*.

"Alright. Alright, I went to far." Cloak conceded. Then Cloak's right ear twitched at a distant sound. Aquilai didn't appear to hear it, but Cloak was sure it was from RAF -- the two were essentially on a training leave, on the inactive list of RAFians.

Aquilai was quick on the uptake. At once, he said, "What's going on? What's happening?"

Cloak frown a bit, "Sakki's twlling someone to back off."

"Rotiart must be up to his meddling ways again," Aquilai suggested with a shrug.

"She's never used her sonics on him, though," Cloak said, thoughlyy nonplussed. "Usually, a simple glare is enough to --" Then, quite suddenly, something soared over the field, tumbling in the air.

"What the devil was that?" Aquilai asked fervently.

"Looked like the ugliest little man I've ever seen adorned in green." Cloak said, "with the stupidest-looking bowler hat I've ever seen."

"Please tell me you're kidding." Aquilai said.

A beat passed.

"You're not kidding."

Then the little man appeared, looking thoroughly ruffled, and proceed to make his way back. He was giving the clover a wide birth. Cloak noticed this, and raised an eyebrow.

"Doesn't he see us . . . oh my. That's an actual leprechaun." Aquilai said.

"Notice how he keeps his distance from the clover," Cloak said, thoughtfully.

---
*See "Futurama" for the reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 25, 2013, 08:53:10 PM

This book is taking one humorous turn to the next

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 25, 2013, 09:33:58 PM

I have a feeling that the clover plays an important role in this story.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 26, 2013, 02:53:36 AM

Lol, I'm loving this :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2013, 05:59:35 PM

Okay, I'm working evenings (3:30 to midnight) now apparently, so, there might not be a chapter tomorrow. Fair warnin'.

Warning, this chapter might get a little . . . racy.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
We Don't Have Your Bloody Gold!

"Honey!" a rather unfaithful womanizer cried as he embracing and kisding another woman. As the door creaked open. "Honey, it's not what you -- who are you? Isn't a bit early for Halloween -- and GET OUT!"

"Give me me gold."

"Wha -- get lost! Get out of my house!"

"Give me me gold!"

"I don't have any of your gold!" the man snarled. "Now go away or I'll call the police."

"Liar! Thief! Insurance salesman!"

And, with that, the walls were sprayed with blood. This leprechaun killed the both of them, and began to ransack their house.

Unable to find what he wanted, he left, seemingly unaware of the rainbow leading from the crime scene.

***

Then a politician was partaking too much of the bubbly, and getting really off his butt drunk. He drunkenly looks up from his desk seeing the leprechaun, but reacted accommodatingly.

"You're early!" he said, slurring his words horribly.

"Where's me gold?"

"Ask the buffalo," the politician slurred, unwittingly losing dignity in his drunken wake.

"Don't play games with me, boyo." the leprechaun snarled. "Where's me gold?!"

"The buffalo knows -- he took them." thendrunken replied before passing out.

"Liar! Thief! Slop artist!"

That politician would never wake up with an excruciating hangover again. A rainbow appeared as the leprechaun appeared.

***

In the end, this leprechaun caused five more additional deaths, each with a rainbow leading to the crime scene. Each one innocent of thievery, but guilty of other vices. Though the leprechaun accused them, though wrongly, of theft an lying.

A greedy man, whom the leprechaun also accused of being a lawyer, asked how much they were worth and was killed on the spot.

A lazy man, who the leprechaun accused of being Justin Bieber, simply ignored the gold-obsessed little man. The leprechaun was not one to be ignored.

A prideful man, who the leprechaun accused of M. Knight Shamaylan (or however you spell it), refused to answer. The leprechaun killed him without a second thought.

The leprechaun went on to kill a very angry man (who he accused of being a backseat driver) and a very jealous man (who he accused of being a politician).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 26, 2013, 06:11:09 PM

Well then. He is certainly mad at not having his gold. This is gonna be interesting....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on June 26, 2013, 08:01:14 PM

HAHA!  I am finally caught up!  It took about three days of almost nonstop reading, but I DID IT!

Hehe, and about the giant random karma-dump.  :XD:  I really just needed a way to comment on all the chapters as I read them, and I didn't want to have to remember everything I was going to say so I could post a gigantic wall of comments in this post.  Geez, could you imagine how long this post would have been?  So, just in case you were wondering, no, your karma didn't suddenly glitch, that was all me.

I did want to just mention, though, how sad I am that Abomination died right when he was becoming a very deep and interesting character.  My heartstrings are still twanging from how hard you pulled them, Cloaky.

[spoiler=slight GONE spoiler]
Towards the end, did Abomination's feelings towards Malice remind anybody else of Diana and Caine, or was that just me?[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2013, 08:18:15 PM

I've never actually read GONE, so, that's news to me, Dino.

I was actually planning for Abomination to die in Book L, i.e. Book 50. But I decided to push to an earlier book. And don't expect Rumor to be sticking around forever, either.

And I don't mind the karma dump, Dino. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2013, 12:12:23 AM

Those insults are perfect. Just perfect. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 27, 2013, 01:23:08 AM

It's all fun and games until a leprechaun calls you Justin Bieber

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2013, 06:58:28 AM

Lol, Underseen. Granted the little egotist (frankly, his ego is so big, it's amazing and remarkable that he can stand upright) might try to sue me if he ever reads this.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Ol' Lucky

It was not long when these deaths were determined as strange enough to be outside the normal police jurisdiction. The government deemed it to be within RAFian jurisdiction, and so called them in on the case.

***

Shock, RYTX, and Chad30 were dispatched to deal with the womanizer's death. They arrived in the suburban house where the murder happen, and saw the . . . uh, the wall's new, um, "paint". But none of the three reacted to this outwardly, they remained professional. The examined the rainbow.

"Must have been that leprechaun that had that crush on Sakki." Chad30 determined.

"Excuse me, what?" Shock said.

***

Phoenix, Sakki, and Empress Goose were dispatched to investigate the politician's death. They arrive at his penthouse office, and examined the scene thoughly, noticing the rainbow -- it was kind of hard to miss.

Sakki shuttered, feeling dirty. "It was that dirty little leprechaun lecher. Has to be."

"What?" Phoenix said  thoroughly nonplussed.

"Oh," Empress Goose began before Sakki threateningly interceded with, "Don't you DARE, Goose."

***

Underseen, Noelle, and Blue investigated the death of the greedy man -- a notorious loan shark with an outrageous sixties hairdo. They saw the rainbow indicating were the body was.

"D'you think he was killed due to crimes of fashion?" Blue asked.

<This coming from the guy in the ninja get-up.> Noelle said drily.

"What could of done this and leave a -- a rainbow?" Underseen said, hesitantly. There really wasn't a manly way to put that.

That stumped them as they were unaware of Sakki's little encounter and Cloak and Aquilai's observations.

***

The other investigations were pretty much the same. Aquilai, Saffa, and Gaz investigated the death of the lazy man's death -- a man who lived off of the system and fraud. Dino, SuperNate, and Yarin investigated the prideful man's death -- who was a real-world representation of Marvolo Gaunt. Kelly, AniDragon and Damien investigated the envious man's death -- a very insecure, very jealous man.

***

Cloak, Abby, and Parker began to investigate the death of the angry, angry man -- one who had a hair trigger temper.

But then Cloak's ears picked up something. Something that he could not openly dismiss without being incredibly foolish.

Abby seemed to recognize this reaction. "What is it?"

"Something," Cloak said, listening intently, "something outside."

The three went to investigate this and found the leprechaun in question. Going through a dumpster.

"Stop right there!" Parker called, using a clipped, police-like tone.

The leprechaun looked up, and fled. The RAFians attempted to stop him, but he "lucked" away Cloak and Parker's attacks, only Abby's seemed to have any affect. But, he still got away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2013, 07:53:37 AM

Why is Abby in two places at once? :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2013, 08:49:10 AM

A tired writer, Saffa.  A tired writer.

EDIT: Fixed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2013, 09:06:34 AM

Get some sleep, then. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 27, 2013, 10:00:45 AM

Wait, where was I?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2013, 09:37:24 PM

You were where Nate was, by mistake.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 27, 2013, 09:42:42 PM

Oh. Okay. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2013, 11:11:17 PM

There might not be a chapter tomorrow, work schedule is varying -- noon to 8:30 tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 27, 2013, 11:28:12 PM

Okay! Good luck with that weird work schedule 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2013, 09:16:44 PM

Back from work, and sleepy. But I'm gonna try to post the next chapter -- if there's any mistakes, you'll know why. Forgive me, if its a bit brief.

CHAPTER NINE:
Unlucky Indigestion

"Oh . . ." Avers Ice moaned.

Ingesting the gold coins in his greed-addled paranoia was proving to be a rather detrimental. His stomach was not responding well to becoming a makeshift coin purse -- then again, would you?

"It's worth it -- hic!" he muttered to himself, punctuating it with a hiccup. The gold fever's grip, if anything, had strengthed over this time, as if the act of swallowing the coins seemed to have exacerbated the disease. Avers Ice had lost all good sense and his sensibilities were terribly skewed now -- he couldn't help but see anyone who breathed, whose heart still beat, as a potential thief (not even considering that no one would want them when the coins decided to make their . . . uh, their reappearance. Nor was anyone aware where his coins were.

Well . . . there was one who knew.

"Where's me gold?"

"Get away!"

"Gimme me gold!"

"Go away!"

"You have me gold!"

"It's not yours!"

"Gimme me gold!"

"By the laws of Celtic magic, its no longer yours!" Avers tried fudging. In reality, there was no such rule of magic, Celtic or otherwise. "They're mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!"

Now Avers Ice just looked psychotic. The leprechaun looked furious, but just as psychotic.

"GIMME ME GOLD!!!" shouted the leprechaun leaping upon Avers Ice with surprising speed and agility for one of his stature. The leprechaun began to throttle the gold feverish young man.

"You'll never steal them, thief!" Avers declared, daring to be stupid. "They are where you can't get them!"

But the leprechaun understood the meaning behind this. With an evil, malevolent smile, he pulled out a dagger . . .

***

"That's gruesome," Underseen commented. "Poor Avers."

"Tsk tsk tsk," Cloak shook his head. "He had gold fever -- look at the flecks of gold there . . . and there . . . there."

"So the leprechaun got his gold back -- disembowling Avers Ice in the process." Parker said pensively. "There's nothing more we could do for him now."

"So this leprechaun will disappear into obscurity again?"

"Doubtful," Cloak said.

"Then what could be after?"

"Offhand?" Parker shrugged. "Bride?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 28, 2013, 09:31:35 PM

Ohhhhkkkaaayyyy....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2013, 12:40:54 PM

*notices Cloaky's posting and waits in anticipation of next chapter* :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2013, 01:02:31 PM

Yeah, it's gonna be a weird book. The next book won't be any less weird. Or the one after that. It gets more serious in #44.

Anyway, maybe brief.

*notices Saffa's post, and stifles a laugh.*

CHAPTER TEN:
The Bloodthirsty Bachelor and the Bloody Brides

Turns out that Parker's offhanded guess was right. The lecherous leprechaun went on a bride finding spree . . .

"Nose too long."

He killed and disembered her. The usual rainbow showed up, but the leprechaun appeared to be oblivious to it.

"Too fat."

He killed her in a way too vile to be described tastefully, for the crime of being a half-pound overweight. The leprechaun demanded absolute and abject perfection in his bride. Anything less, in his horrbly distorted view, was not worth leaving alive.

"Too thin."

So the leprechaun disemboweled her, with no other excuse other than she was too thin to be his bride.

"Too short!"

He bisect this woman as if being prepped for dissection. The cruel irony was that this woman was still taller than himself.

"Too tall!"

He chopped off this poor woman's legs, and let her bleed out. The leprechaun never questioned whether these women would even want to be his bride, but his chauvinist ideals led him to see women as objects, things to be owned. It was despicable. It was detestable. It was a sign of his age and ego.

Then he discovered Helen in her street clothes. She was on the inactive roster, essentially having a "day off". She was just doing a little window shopping, and planning to meet up with Abby, Saffa, Gaz, and Sakki a little later on. She had her raven hair tied up behind her, and looked generally chipper and vivacious.

The leprechaun examined at her from a distance. Not too tall, not too short, not too thin, not too fat for this dumpty little leprechaun. Her nose wasn't too long or short for him, and she wasn't too old or too young for him. Her hair was at what the leprechaun considered an appropriate length. The leprechaun thought that her eyes were the precise distance away from each other as the should be.

The lecherous leprechaun thought Helen was the epitome of perfection.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2013, 01:18:44 PM

Ohh, Parker's gonna be so mad! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 29, 2013, 02:52:45 PM

Yes, yes he will be. :D That leprechaun is gonna get it!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2013, 04:26:52 PM

You guys are assuming Parker'll find out. ;)

I was going to post another chapter . . . but I don't have the energy I thought I did.

Maybe later. Maybe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 29, 2013, 07:04:59 PM

I think this will he funny.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2013, 09:02:41 PM

Yes, it's playing out like a Simpsons episode for some reason. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2013, 02:23:12 PM

Yeah, I don't think the later books get this schticky. Anyway, a new chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Down the Aisle

"Come with me," said the leprechaun, seizing Helen's hand - the one where she wore her ring. "Come with me, my bride."

Helen was already repulsed by the leprechaun's face and slovenly ways, but this assumption -- this presumption that she'd accept such a demand without a fight! That was the most offensive thing about this. But before Helen could voice her indignation, her revulsion, the leprechaun's face cracked a crooked, malevolent smile, revealing his yellowed, crooked, pointed teeth. He snapped his fingers, still holding Helen's hand with his iron grip.

Suddenly, they were standing in a void, and Helen couldn't understand why she couldn't access her Star Sapphire powers. The leprechaun snapped his fingers again and rather somber music started.

"Oh, great." Helen muttered, distracted from her plight momentarily.

"Oh, I can't live a single day without you --
 Actually, on second thought, well, I suppose I could.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is,
Honestly, you're the greatest.
Well, at any rate, I guess your pretty good.
Now, it seems to me that I'm really lucky,
I know I couldn't ask for more.
I can honestly say you're a C+ lady.
You're very nearly what I've been looking for.
You're sorta everything I ever wanted.
You're nearly perfect, but I love you somehow.
You're the woman I've dreamed of.
Well, not really, but you're good enough for now.

"You're darn near close to what I've always hoped for.
That's shy my love for you is . . . moderately strong.
And I swear I'm never gonna leave you, darling.
. . . At least, unless someone better comes along.
'Coz you're sorta everything I ever wanted.
You're nearly perfect, but I love you somehow.
You're the woman I've always dreamed of.
Well, not really, but you're good enough for now.
No, not really, but you're goid enough for now."

Deeply offended by this song, Helen was just about to tell this leprechaun her mind when she discovered that she was inexplicably in a flowing pinkish-white princess-like wedding gown and bridal gown with only a white light showing an aisle and alter. Worse of all, a wedding brand had replaced her Star Sapphire ring.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 30, 2013, 02:29:44 PM

Yeah, Parker will kill him for sure now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2013, 02:43:28 PM

Again, you're assuming Parker'll even find out. ;) Helen doesn't have to tell him everything, you know. :XD:

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Monetary Distraction

"Walk with me, lovely," the grotesque leprechaun lecher said.

"No," Helen said firmly. She was always a strong woman, even if she didn't always get a chance to showcase it.

"Women don't get a choice, they do as they are told!" the leprechaun snapped.

SLAP!

Helen ****ed her arm back to slap this leprechaun sharply again. Helen was absolutely livid. "It's high time someone reacquaints you with the modern world, you chauvinistic sack of buzzard crap!"

SLAP!

Helen gnashed her teeth. "I'll speak my mind if I so chose, and no one -- no one -- will tell me that I cannot do so simply because I'm a girl."

SLAP!

"Now, on a different matter, GIVE ME BACK MY RING!!!"

There was a small pause.

"YOU KNOW VERY WELL I DON'T WANT YOUR FRIGGIN' WEDDING BAND!!! I WANT MY STAR SAPPHIRE RING!!!"

SLAP!!! SLAP!!!

Clearly, the leprechaun's probability manipulation powers don't work on strong women.

***

"I don't know about this, Cloak." Underseen said.

"Finding that gold could be the only thing to lure the leprechaun out of hiding," Cloak said, adding soberly, "as well as prevent Avers fate upon any other."

"But do not, and I cannot stress this enough, do not touch any of the gold." Aquilai intoned warningly. "I have reason to believ this gold might be covered with gold mites carrying the gold fever microbes."

Dino, Saffa, Abby, Noelle, and Gaz nodded understanding and the search was on.

It took upwards of 95 hours to find the really well hidden grotto in which the gold festered.

Cloak ferrokinetically removed the pot from the grotto . . . but the gold coins levitated from the pot, as if they were a gold coin swarm, destroying the gold mites in the process. Then they exploded out into many directions.

"Gateburst!" Cloak cursed. "They went and Dragonballed!"

"What?" Dino asked.

"Never mind!" Gaz said. "We have to find the coins! Find them before that blasted leprechaun kills again!"

***

"Me gold!" the leprechaun gasped as Helen continued to pummel him, until he dropped the ring, transporting them both back to reality. He gave up on brides, and decided to seek out his gold.

Again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 30, 2013, 08:58:44 PM

Talk about a fickle mind...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on June 30, 2013, 09:18:06 PM

The leprechaun is really obsessed... Obviously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2013, 01:10:51 PM

Right, I'll post another chapter if my internet behaves.

Probably gonna be a short chapter -- and I don't know if I can post one tomorrow.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Globetrotting

"Underseen -- it's not funny anymore." Abby said, searching for the coins in a patch of clover with Cloak and . . . and a shapeshifted Underseen.

"But itsa me! Mario!" Underseen perfectly mimicking the voice and the Super Smash Bros model.

"It's not as funny after the twenty-third time, Underseen." Cloak said, adding fifty coins to the ones they collected.

Underseen took the point and reverted to his base form. He asked, "Why are we finding them all in clover patches?"

"Dunno." Abby shrugged, not deterred or distracted from her goal.

"He wouldn't cross clover when Aquilai and I observed him earlier," Cloak recalled.

Abby briefly abandoned her search, "Really? Well, we may have a weapon to use against him."

Cloak shook his head as the search began again. "A deterrent maybe, but not a weapon. We don't know if it harms him -- he may just have a clover adversion."

"So just grow a clover ring around the forum, Cloak." Underseen said.

"Wood is one of the Six Elements, but clover -- to my knowledge -- has no wood in it." Cloak corrected.

"Oh," Underseen said, returning to search intently to the left, "sorry."

"At least you acknowledge errors . . ." Cloak muttered, more to himself than the others.

***

Meanwhile, Phoenix, Brad, and Aquilai were scouring the countryside for the coins, as the entire planet was crawling to find them before the leprechaun.

"Who are you?" Brad said suddenly.

"Just an old mountain coot," said the wizened, barefooted man in tattered clothing (blue jean overalls, plaid shirt, and an old, pale khaki prospector hat) with a long dingy beard and crazy-looking, electric-blue eyes.

"What are you doing here? You didn't find any coins?" Aquilai interrogated the coot.

"Coins? What would I want those things fer?"

"Then what are you doing out here? Looks like it may storm soon." Phoenix inquired, gentlely and calmly.

"Lookin' for four-leaf clovers." he said, sounding quite demented.

"Need some luck?" Brad smirked patronizingly.

"It has nothing to do with luck, m'boy!" the coot said with a wheezy, insane-sounding chuckle. "Four-leaf clovers are the only thing to kill evil leprechauns!"

Then he ran off laughing insanely. The three RAFians looked at this crazy old mountain coot as he made his way out of their eyeline.

They were seriously considering what he said, though probably not the best source or lead to go on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 01, 2013, 01:19:08 PM

Aha! So the clovers might just be a weapon after all!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 01, 2013, 04:37:31 PM

of course you guys don't accept my comic relief in a time like this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2013, 05:02:05 PM

:XD:

It was the 23rd time you did the joke, in the story, Underseen! :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 01, 2013, 05:12:23 PM

Ya, I probably would have been sick of it by then.  :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2013, 08:44:33 PM

Well, sorry, but no new chapter today. Just done 8.5 hours of work -- which I'm probably gonna get fired from. >:(

I work -- perhaps I should use the past tense of "worked" -- as a housekeeper for four buildings at the local college, and today was my third day of work -- and I was on my own, completely alone. Well, I had to wait outside the gate for fifteen minutes just to clock out and turn in the keys for the night. I thought I'd be there all night, and lost my temper and cool -- I tried to wiggle underneath the gate, and then angrily pummeled it.

Then the **** guard who finally decides to show up decides to make light of the situation, and I tell him I wasn't in the mood for it. Then he calls me an ****, and so I get a little touchy (I was and am exhausted, I didn't sit for more than a few minutes everyday). Then he tells me not to take a tone with him, and I say, in a low voice I hope, that I'd speak to him any way I please. Then he lets me into the damn building, and I turn in the keys -- only to discover that I need a key to get to the room with the goddamn time clock. Then there was the fifteen, twenty minute walk ahead of me, with darkness falling and a very real possibility of rain.

Problem was, I think it may have been the supervisor but I'm not sure.

*throws his hands up*

Don't know why I bother sometimes. I work hard, but I get the feeling that that will be discounted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 02, 2013, 08:52:30 PM

That really blows, Cloaky. I know you haven't heard the verdict yet, but you could look for an opening somewhere else just as cover. I'm pretty sure you'll find something; there are too many places that need housekeeping.

For the record, nothing in that incident was even your fault! So hopefully justice prevails and you keep your job. There's always <hope...> :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 02, 2013, 09:52:01 PM

That's a totally sucky deal, Cloaky.  Hopefully, though, if that was the supervisor, he'll be understanding of the circumstances behind your bad mood, because really, who wouldn't have been put off by a day like that?

BTW, the idea of a four-leaf clover being a weapon against a leprechaun?  Very intriguing twist.  (I found a six-leaf clover once.  I wonder what that would do?)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 02, 2013, 11:23:00 PM

WTH you did nothing wrong. I strongly hope you won't get fired and that your employers are not going to be as bad as the guard was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2013, 07:15:59 PM

Well, I guess I got a bit melodramatic, I wasn't fired -- but have to work again tomorrow.

I'm exhausted but I'll try to get up two chapters today (got off early due the sheer downpour -- somewhere, there's a PO'd Kyogre ;)), dunno if I will succeed, however -- Internet's getting iffy on me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Coins Collected and the Clover Contingent

It was eventually decided, once the coins were collected and accounted for, that a RAFian contingent was needed to find as many four-leafed clovers as they could. Given the rarity and relative luck needed to locate the plants, it was a tall order.

This contingent was made up of Rotiart, Marie, Blocky, Sakki, Terenia, Broken, Estrid, Goom, Alic, Oceanspray Gulliver, and Parker (who was thoroughly unhappy with this). They were sent all over the world into clover patches, to search for enough four-leafed clovers to provide an adequate arsenal.

It would be arduous, time-consuming, and tedious. Only Rotiart wasn't taking this task, this duty, this detail, seriously. But this did not go unnoticed --

"Rotiart!!" Sakki shouted suddenly, break the quiet of the clover field. "Why are you lounging?! We have important work to be doing, and you goofing off!"

"I'm not doin' anything." he whined.

Sakki seized his ear, and pulled him roughly to his feet. She was livid -- and a livid Sakki was simply one of those things that you just didn't want to see -- it could very well be the last thing you see.

***

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the leprechaun was livid as well. But a livid leprechaun was not nearly as scary as a livid Sakki.

"Me gold, me gold, me gold, me gold, me gold, me gold . . ." the leprechaun repeated obsessively and fervently. He looked rather more disheveled and bore more defiguring marks and welts.

"The thieves!" he spat suddenly. "The thieves with the 'R'! They've stolen from me again! They've stolen from me for the last TIME!"

With that he dashed toward RAF. . . .

***

"Ooh, what a new twist." Malice said clutching what appeared to be a crystal ball. Rumor chirruped. "Don't be stupid -- kt was a twist."

Rumor fell silent for a moment, then made a small, squeaky snort sound.

"How DARE you?!" Malice said, clearly deeply offended. Then she sniffed, " I am always right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 03, 2013, 11:52:30 PM

Malice is getting more like Rita Repulsa each day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2013, 08:25:29 AM

 ;D :XD:

Yeah, I suppose she is -- I guess her time in Damien's comic book affected her more than we think. ;)

Sorry, but no new chapters until later tonight, if I'm not too tired. Still resting up for my shift.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 04, 2013, 10:58:40 AM

Haha! Go Sakki! You teach Rotiart a lesson! He friggen deserves it!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2013, 11:21:27 AM

Yeah, seeing as we aren't around to do so ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2013, 07:29:00 PM

Oh, that's because we're needed elsewhere, Saffa.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Damn the Luck!

While the contingent continued with their search (with Sakki heavily supervising Rotiart, who began to snivel), the rest of the RAFians were on alert. They knew that the leprechaun was going to come after his gold. It was only a matter of time.

Saffa was on a leisurely afternoon flight as a red-tailed hawk. She was enjoying it, but then her eyes caught a flash of emerald green emerging from the forest. She knew right away it was the deranged, dwarf-like leprechaun. She dived and landed of RAF's border.

Cloak was already there, his cloak blowing and billowing in a most spectacular and impressively, as clouds began to gather darkening everything. But the darkness was no barrier to Cloak's feline eyes, and his face held no emotion -- but it hardly ever did.

On either side of him two shapes were getting bigger and more defined. Abby was becoming a Buglizard and Underseen was becoming some bizarre creature like a distorted, miniaturized Arceus. Looming behind Cloak soon thereafter, was a particularly testy-looking Vicetopus -- Saffa.

Then, soon thereafter, all the active RAFians lined up at the perimeter. This line of force would have intimidated anyone. Dino even roared, simply to complete the effect.

But, like Avers Ice, this leprechaun seemed to have been suffering from gold fever -- although the bloothirstiness was a part of his personality beforehand. The leprechaun wrung his hand greedily, giving a slight hiccup.

"Me gold's here," he said, in a rather sociopathic way. Apparently, he had a more severe case of gold fever than Avers, presumably with prolonged exposure to the mites. "Gimme me gold. Gimme. Gimme! Gimme! GIMME!!"

"No," Cloak said, the wind still playing with his cloak and carrying his voice.

"It's mine! Gimme me gold!"

"It's a biohazard of gold mites -- or at least was." Cloak said, his tone cold and hard. He folded his arms with contempt. "I suppose we should be disposed to be sympathetic to the gold fever you're suffering."

Then his glare intensified, as he continued, "But you slaughtered innocent people without remorse."

"They weren't innocent," the leprechaun spat, hiccupped, and finished, "they were thieves!"

<You have no proof of that.> Noelle said, having elected to remain Andalite.

"Everyone else who breathes are either thieves or --hic -- potential thieves!"

"All-or-nothing thinking," Wild muttered in his wereferret form.

"Now --GIMME ME GOLD!!!"

Then the attacks begun. Only the attacks from the female RAFians came anywhere close due the leprechaun's innate probability manipulation.

"Okay, this isn't going to be as easy as I thought," Blue muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 05, 2013, 04:47:54 AM

To think leprechauns were nice creatures.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 05, 2013, 05:04:59 AM

Cereal box mascots seem so far away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2013, 09:17:15 AM

Oh, c'mon, Saffa, you knew Lucky would snap eventually. Always being chasedby those kids wishing to steal his precious gold -- I mean, cereal ;) :XD:

Since I've some time . . .

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Clover Field

The RAFians were well aware of the ineffectiveness of their attacks -- after all, an attack is useless if it doesn't hit its mark, regardless if directly or indirectly. They realized keeping the gold from this insane little man would not be so easy.

Nearly two hours passed, and Noelle, Abby, Saffa, and the other morphers (predominately Andalites) had to demorph. Fortunately, Underseen and Ash were under no such restrictions. But, due to that accursed probability manipulation power apparently inherent to all leprechauns (hence their incredible difficulty to be caught), he was managing to wiggle through their defenses.

"Cloverfield!" Cloak instructed.

The RAFian then began to subtly herd the leprechaun toward a field of clover. The leprechaun, focused on his tainted gold, had not heard this command.

Cloak could only hope that either this field had a four-leafed clover or that the search contingent had found a plentiful supply. Although, given the inherent rarity of such clovers, it did seem unlikely for them to find one, much less the supply they would need  due to that irritating rarity.

After a couple of hours, they managed to succeed, but the leprechaun was wise to them now.

***

"ROTIART!!"

"I'm doing it! I'm doing it!"

"Liar," Sakki snarled. "I saw you lounging -- also your biometrics show that you are lying."

"Was not!"

"Oh, stop your whining, Rotiart!" Parker roared. "You're really grinding my nerves!"

"I'm not whining!"

"Quiet!" Broken said, and the force of his voice carried the nonverbal pulse of "Silencio". Rotiart was forced into silence -- the Mark didn't block it. "And do some actual work, you lazy lump!"

Then they worked some more -- only having found eight globally.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 05, 2013, 11:01:01 AM

EVERYBODY. Come to the dark side. Cloaky has Memoirs, and I have PDFs of every book he's written so far...
(Just felt like giving that intro :XD: )

Anyway, these came about in the limbo period between school and college when all the exams were done and I had absolutely NOTHING to do, so I made them for my reading convenience. Anyone else who's viewing the last page of this thread can download it if they want to read the rest of Memoirs, since it's never the same unless you read it from the beginning. (Yes I'm talking to you Twinny. ;) )

I had to make it a Zip file since there were 41 PDFs and the attachments box doesn't support RAR files (which is what I normally use) so you'll need to have WinZip on your system in order to access them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 05, 2013, 12:43:48 PM

If all leprechauns have can manipulate probability then why hasn't Lucky got his charms from a group if kids. Checkmate Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 05, 2013, 12:53:18 PM

Haha! I love how you point me out. :D

I have them saved on my iPod. My PDF reader on it is amazing, so I can read them. :) Thanks Twinny!

Oh, and great chapters Cloaky!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2013, 08:23:06 PM

Quote from: Saffa on July 05, 2013, 11:01:01 AM

EVERYBODY. Come to the dark side. Cloaky has Memoirs, and I have PDFs of every book he's written so far...
(Just felt like giving that intro :XD: )

Anyway, these came about in the limbo period between school and college when all the exams were done and I had absolutely NOTHING to do, so I made them for my reading convenience. Anyone else who's viewing the last page of this thread can download it if they want to read the rest of Memoirs, since it's never the same unless you read it from the beginning. (Yes I'm talking to you Twinny. ;) )

I had to make it a Zip file since there were 41 PDFs and the attachments box doesn't support RAR files (which is what I normally use) so you'll need to have WinZip on your system in order to access them.

:wow:

You . . . what? My "Memoirs" in actual . . . I'm just pleasantly gobsmacked, Saffa. And at a loss for words. I didn't even know they could be in that form . . . I'm actually flattered and a bit flustered. I really did not expect this. ;D

Now, if only I can get an artist to do book "covers" -- the other friend got busy and forgot his password. *shrug.*

And, to think, I thought I was just going to come here and say that a new chapter will come late tomorrow, after my shift.

Wow, Saffa . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 05, 2013, 08:31:34 PM

*waves hand in from of Cloaky's face* Helloooo, Cloaky? You still in there?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2013, 08:55:52 PM

I'm a little tired. So sue me.

*sees the Blue-Haired Lawyer from Simpsons come in.*

Put that away!

Anyway, I might post another chapter if I've the energy -- this book's nearly over, too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 05, 2013, 10:29:17 PM

Quote

:wow:

You . . . what? My "Memoirs" in actual . . . I'm just pleasantly gobsmacked, Saffa. And at a loss for words. I didn't even know they could be in that form . . . I'm actually flattered and a bit flustered. I really did not expect this. ;D

Now, if only I can get an artist to do book "covers" -- the other friend got busy and forgot his password. *shrug.*

And, to think, I thought I was just going to come here and say that a new chapter will come late tomorrow, after my shift.

Wow, Saffa . . .

Okay, I wasn't expecting that reaction... especially since they were a product of boredom! But it's made you happy, which makes me happy to see you this happy, so I'll definitely continue the project - now that I'm in college, on my lazier days. :)

Mind you, don't ask me for book covers - I'm no artist, graphic or otherwise! I only have a text banner of sorts :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 06, 2013, 01:11:38 AM

I could attempt book covers. They might possibly not look too good, depending on how much time I get to spend on them... I dunno, I may, just for fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2013, 06:37:01 PM

That's what I write them for -- fun, and as a funnel for my emotions. Then again, some of the stories basically write themselves.

Anyway, I've come up with several new books --

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFians must contend with a villainous quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with a creature that can absorb human bodies created from the DNA of a Heinlin and two RAFians.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians battle a self-replicating bug-like nanobots (who consume everything in their path, like locusts).

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in the 1600s. Out-of-continuity book -- obviously.

I'll try to get a chapter up a little later. Preparing for a really busy eight hours tomorrow. . . .

EDIT: It's later.

. . . And it's earplug time, apparently. ::)

Well, I'm planning out Book CXXXVIII ("Hammer Time"), only on Chapter 5, though.

Anyway, the new chapter. Again, may brief.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Supply and Demand

"Well," Broken said, standing, wiping his brow with his sleeve, "I think that's all we're gonna find."

"But we only found ten," Gulliver said.

"And we were damn lucky to find even that many." Parker said bluntly. "Besides, we've haven't the time. Yarin just contacted me. The others need these clovers NOW."

"But will it be enough?" Marie asked.

"It will have to be," Sakki said.

"What more could we do? We can't magically make more sprout up." Oceanspray said.

"Broken?" Marie said, suddenly struck with inspiration. But the modest wizard shook his head. "Using Geminify or any other duplication spell would multiply the clovers, sure. But the duplicated ones would be duds, useless."

"Why?" Gulliver and Terenia asked simultaneously.

"That's not important," Broken said, repressively.

"You don't know." Sakki said, shrewdly.

"Yeah, sure." Broken said with indifference.

"'Kay, guys," Marie said. "We've got a forum in peril. Let's get going."

"'Peril'? Really?" Rotiart snorted. "It's just one little leprechaun. How much of a threat could it really be?"

SMACK!

Sakki had smacked the upstart sharply upside his head.

"OW!" he whined.

"Then stop being a know-it-all brat," Sakki sniffed.

***

"GIMME ME GOLD!!"

The leprechaun continued his screams of this after he slitted the throat of a young RAFian boy named Timothy (who gave him the name of The Pulverizer, and was not to be confused with Horse and Guy's brother). He perished with seconds.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 06, 2013, 07:34:52 PM

So close to 200 and some of the books sound so good, but so far away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 06, 2013, 10:26:32 PM

Exactly...

RAF in 1602 sounds interesting. Hmm. King Richard IV, anybody? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 07, 2013, 08:04:21 AM

^^ Yes. That sounds sooo cool.

And just cause I have to say it. HA! Serves you right Rotiart!!

EDIT: Oh, and I see why the books are never the same unless you read storm the beginning. I started yesterday and I am already on book six. :) So many things make sense now. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2013, 05:34:28 PM

Yeah, Abby, I can understand that.

Well, I finished planning out "Hammer Time", and began "Shenecron's Pet".

Internet's being iffy . . . but I'll try to post another chapter, and I'm off for the next two days. So, I'll try to post as many chapters as I can. Internet willing.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Wasted

"We're here with the clovers!" Sakki announced.

"Ten, total." Parker said, adding, "Shut up, Tyr."

"Ten? Only ten? That's it?" Helen said urgently.

"Can't be helped, dear," Parker said. Then he paused for a moment, then he muttered, "Shut up, Tyr."

"Yeah, any more would take hours more work to find." Sakki said wearily. "Maybe it wouldn't be so, if this lazy lump was of any HELP!!"

"Stop hotting me!" Rotiart whined.

<Then do your work!> Abby, who had demorphed and then morphed a Root Shark, snarled in thought-speak. <We may be a severe disadvantage because of your laziness, goof-off!>

"I did work!"

<Oh, stop whining!> Saffa, having gone Rancor, shouted. Rotiart easily grinded Saffa's nerves.

"Uh, guys?" Underseen asked, voice in a deep baritone from the massive monstrous form he took, rather like a Rancor, manticore and spinosaurus hybrid. "I thought you said you had ten?"

"That's right." Marie said.

"Well, I only see one," Underseen said, as Dino nodded affirmation as well. "Where are the other n--"

But soon it became incredibly obvious and evident where they went.

Gulliver and Rotiart had began to throw them and the incoming leprechaun -- missing each time, losing them in the vast expanse of grass.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU TWO IDIOTS DOING?!?!" Phoenix roared, apocalyptic with rage.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 07, 2013, 06:18:08 PM

Next comes the chapter in which we kill the leprechaun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2013, 07:21:51 PM

What makes you think that we will kill him, Underseen? Maybe the other leprechauns come and commit him?

. . .

Okay, maybe not. Or . . .

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Unity Shamrock

"But . . . we . . . I . . ." Rotiart stammered.

"Shut up, you foolish whelp," Cloak said, voice low and soft. "You have yet to fathom how grievous your actions were!"

Rotiart gave Cloak a soured look, but the Realm Walker was indifferent. He stood with folded arms, and stood looking coldly at the encroaching leprechaun.

They had only one shot at this. They could not fail. They could see if their was a leprechaun society willing to commit this one, but that wasn't likely. No, they'd have to destroy this one, and hope that it wouldn't eventually end up biting them in the butt.

If it did, they would deal. Deal with it then, deal with this now.

But the question was how? They knew that they could use four-leafed clovers, but how to ensure that one would hit him? That blasted probability manipulation power . . . AniDragon could probably bind that power if she got close enough. But he'd just stab her or that very ability could prevent her from getting close at all.

Then Gaz's eyes widen as realization hit her. She turned to the others, and said, "What about Unity Energy? What if we charge the last clover with it?"

"It would incinerate it," Parker said immediately.

Cloak wasn't so quick, though. "Not . . . not necessarily, Parker. These four-leafed clovers of yours have some interesting properties. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . it could work. . . ."

"What a vote of confidence." Abby replied dryly, then shrugged. "But it's worth a shot."

Then the totality of the RAFians present managed to energize the shamrock with Unity Energy, and it floated up with some pseudo-sentience. Then it took off after the leprechaun.

"Me stars and garters! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

The leprechaun fled, with the Unity Shamrock flying after it as if it was on a fishing line connected to the leprechaun. It was not long before they both were out of sight.

"Well," Underseen said, resuming his usual form, "that was unexpected."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 07, 2013, 07:39:50 PM

Best part of the book was the portrayal of the leprechaun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 07, 2013, 08:02:54 PM

This was probably one of the most humorous books so far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 07, 2013, 08:04:43 PM

Unity Shamrock?  That's AWESOME.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 07, 2013, 08:07:18 PM

I wonder what it'll be next. Unity Teacup, Unity Salami Roll... the possibilities are endless. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2013, 08:28:03 PM

Thanks, and the next one will be just as schticky, I believe.

Now, to finish this book -- may be brief. Okay, it will be brief.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A New Scheme, A New Dream

The RAFians had not heard hide nor hair of this demented leprechaun, although the Marks had glowed brightly roughly a week to ten days after. The general assumption was that the Unity Shamrock did its job.

Still, Cloak was dubious of this, but he kept his opinions to himself. He knew that, when the time came, they would deal with it then.

Meanwhile, RAF returned to its normal zany ways. There was a prank war that broke out, but Cloak did not participate -- but was thoroughly irritated when he was very nearly hit with a pie projectile.

He made it very clear why trying to prank him was a very dangerous proposition.

***

"And . . . I'm bored now." Malice said, getting up, discarding a bowl with unpopped popcorn kernels (frozen in hardened butter that she had Rumor add) into a sink of a dilapidated, dingy house.

Rumor chirruped brightly.

"Hmm," Malice said thoughtfully. "A new scheme does seem to be in order."

Rumor gave a inquiring series of clicks.

"Well, that's the question, isn't it? What scheme it will be." Malice said as she airily swirled some swill in a coffee mug. "I really must make it a good one this time.

Rumor squawked.

"Too commonplace."

Rumor barked.

"Too derivative."

Rumor mewed.

"Too . . . too lude."

Rumor made a series of bird-like whistles.

"No, that's too predictable." Malice said, waving it away, then her eyes widened as an idea occured to her. "But, an idea comes to me . . ."

Rumor made some rather indescribable noises of an inquistive nature.

"Well, they say music soothes the savage beast . . ." Malice said with a lilt to match her name.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 07, 2013, 08:33:38 PM

Well then. Malice always has some sort of idea, doesn't she?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 07, 2013, 08:35:52 PM

She gives us some activity, Abby.

Last line offered a very nice clue: MORE PARODIES! YES! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2013, 08:39:59 PM

Yes, there will be more parodies -- just not any that's intrinsic to the next book's plot. You'll hafta wait until the book after.

And I'm all chaptered out right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2013, 07:33:13 AM

PDF of the latest book, for anyone who wants to download.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2013, 07:44:02 AM

Excellent, Saffa. I'll start Book XLIII after I get back from running some errands.

EDIT:

BOOK XLIII:
THE PIPER
CHAPTER ONE:
Enter the Piper

"He's here, then, Rumor?" Malice was saying, sitting on her threadbare armchair as if it were a velvet throne. "Well, then, what are you waiting for? Show him in! Go, now!"

Rumor dashed from the room to fetch their guest. The house in which they stayed was quite rundown, rodent/insect-infested and dilapidated.

Rumor returned with a rail thin man with a round face, black goatee, crow's-feet, and long, prominent nose. He wore drab minstrel-style clothing with black gloves and a blue-yellow feather in his dark hat. He held a silver flute in his left hand

"Piper," Malice said, in a clipped pleasant tone. "I hope we find you well."

The piper said nothing.

"Always to the point," Malice said with a blithe airiness. "You want to know about the job?"

He gave a short curt nod. It would appear that this piper was either very stoic or mute.

"I'd like you lure several people to their doom."

The piper shrugged as if to say, "Same old, same old." Then he brough his right hand up and rubbed his thumb against the tips of his index and middle fingers. He was clearly inquiring about his fee, his reward.

"Oh, you'll get your just rewards," Malice said, dismissing the concern. "but you must succeed first."

The piper gave Malice a scandalous look that quickly transformed into a scathingly one. He found it offensive that Malice would dare question his credentials.

"Oh, don't be that way," Malice chatised. "You can't expect payment upfront, can you? For a service not yet rendered?"

The piper should have known the type of person he was dealing with. If he had, he would have left long before this point. But avarice kept him rooted to the spot.

"Oh, don't even try charming me with that ornate metal tube." Malice said, all seriousness now. "It is classified as mind control, and such things haven't any affect on my kind. Now go. Do it and succeed, and I'll give you an eternal reward."

The piper didn't react to the term "eternal reward" the way a normal person would -- accepting it and leaving to finish a job. . . ,

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 08, 2013, 11:05:47 AM

Hmm... This is gonna be interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2013, 11:07:16 AM

LOL, the two of us were busy doing a countdown to the chapter on RAFchat. ;D

I am guessing the flute is not hindered by the Mark. Or is it? No, wait... okay. No spoilers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2013, 08:40:37 AM

Well, here's the list:

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race Malice, Abomination, and the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Out

The RAFians must deal with a strange creature created by black magic.

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

The RAFians must deal with sentient hammers who possess those worthy to wield them, forged by Singularity.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must battle Shenecron's monstrous pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Four RAFians are seperated into the emotional spectrum.

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFian deal with a rogue quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with creature created of the DNA of two RAFians and a Heinlin.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians must battle self-replicating creatures.

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in 1602.

All titles are libel to change.

EDIT: Oh, and Saffa, could I get a form of those PDFs that I can copy and paste to my e-mail? A couple of my friends are highly interested in these. Granted, I could tell them just to join, but that may mean just more lurkers or turn them off to it altogether. . . . *shrug*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2013, 10:48:25 AM

New chapter. May be brief -- and may get cut off, but I'll finish it when I can.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Setting Up Shop

The piper left the dilapidated shack, trying to decide if this job was worth it. Malice wasn't the first employer that wanted the piper to lure people away, even to their doom off cliffs. But he really wanted that money, despite not knowing just how underhanded Malice was capable of being. He eventually came to the conclusion that he would commit to the job, thinking that the reward was a justifiable amount, believing it to be a large sum.
 
Now, he would require a place, a base of operations. Preferably one that could enable him to use his abilities on a large scale.
 
Hmmm . . . that radio tower will do.  He played his flute, making the inhabitants forcibly dance out and away from the building, leaving the door unlocked.  He entered, and barricaded the entrance.  He made sure to wear a mask that made him look older than he really was, a different race than he was, balding, and with an implausible mustache style.  Once inside, he removed the mask rather haphazardly.
 
Then he checked out the equipment, which he apparently was familiar with. He was apparently a failed flutist, who became a pied-piper-for-hire after being rejected by big name record producers -- who were mostly interested in no-talent hacks and egotistical pretty boys (not all, but a lot of these producers). All seemed not interested in a very talented flutist, none apparently believing that such a thing would sell very well. This piper -- "Pretty Boy" Preston, as he attempted to use as his professional name -- got his revenege by "pipering" them out a window. Ever since then, he took the name "the Piper". Apparently, he was also distantly related to the Music Miser.
 
The equipment seemed to have met the Piper's high standards, and he began to flick little switches and turn knobs and press buttons deftly. He was preparing to broadcast his music into RAF. He set his flute to "Yeerk" . . .
 

***

"What is that?" Myitt asked.
 
"Flute music," Sakki shrugged, not even looking up from her magazine.
 
"But why? This channel isn't for flute music, but that's what's been on it all hour."
 
"Who knows?"
 

***

The Piper was taken aback, as he watched through his minute spybots. No Yeerk, RAFian or otherwise, was dancing or even jiving a little. How was this possible?
 
It was simple. Yeerks are naturally deaf, even when using their host's ears, they technically have no hearing themselves.  They could not directly hear the Piper's music, as the music was specifically targeted to Yeerks, which was contradiction of itself, because they must use to their host's brain to decipher sounds.

But the Piper wasn't deterred. He decided to change up the plan. Target a species that he could use. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 09, 2013, 10:59:47 AM

Would a Zip file or RAR archive do? Though when it comes to email, I'm pretty sure the Zip file will be more readily accepted - provided you can attach Zip files through mail, that is. I'm pretty sure you can. Of course, you'll have to have WinZip installed on your computer to decompress and access the PDFs. You could always download a free trial version for that sole purpose and use a USB later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2013, 12:00:21 PM

I was thinking like a weblink that I could copy and paste. I suppose my computer know-how is limited.

Anyway, I'll try to post another chapter later, if I'm up to it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 09, 2013, 12:11:22 PM

You can always email me. The app that I have for the PDFs lets me send them via email and you could always just forward them or something.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 09, 2013, 12:19:02 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on July 09, 2013, 12:00:21 PM

I was thinking like a weblink that I could copy and paste. I suppose my computer know-how is limited.

Anyway, I'll try to post another chapter later, if I'm up to it.

Well, I haven't exactly uploaded it to any other website - I tend not to use file-sharing websites. Anyway here's the zip file. All you have to do is download it to your system and uncompress it with WinZip, if you have it (if you don't, download a free trial version from the net). If you need any help, just let me know, I'll guide you step by step. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2013, 06:17:27 AM

Well, maybe later, Saffa -- I'm feeling sleepy and lazy right now.

CHAPTER THREE:
Interruptions

". . . and that's the end of 'Revenge of then Banned'." Horse was saying before a group of young RAFians (in terms of actual age, not seniority). An obligatory round of applause was sounded, some clapping with more enthusiasm than others. Horse was modest in return. "Thank you, thank you. Now, go ahead, get up stretch, go get a snack, and whatnot. I'll start 'An Error Has Occured' in fifteen, twenty minutes."

Most of the crowd dispersed, as Horse took a drink of water. She was in seal form currently, which made it rather a spectacle.

Soon, twenty minutes had passed and nearly all of the group had returned.

"Now, let's get started, shall we?" Horse said, preparing to start reading her second book. But she was rudely interrupted. She complained, "HEY! I'm having a book reading here!"

Then she shifted into her humanoid form, and ran to the door . . . and saw the cause of the interruption. Horse was aghast. "No . . . way. Just . . . no . . . way."

There was line-dancing Andalite RAFians. Horse didn't know that Andalites could line-dance.

It was then that Horse could hear the flute music. She was puzzled and perplexed at this.

Cloak was just as confused by this. He found the flute music quire irritating after a while, like people who decide to have seven days of fireworks every day in the week containing July 4.

Then the Andalites' thought-speak cries of help were noticed -- they weren't line-dancing voluntarily.

But what could they do? Where was that music coming from? Why wasn't the Mark blocking its effects?

***

"Excellent," Malice said, with moderate interest. She was watching all this with the very same spybots that Piper was using, as she was the one that gave them to him, via Rumor. "This is one scheme that might work. I'll break Cloak eventually."

Rumor gave some inquiring grunts. He was asking why breaking Cloak was so important to her.

"That," Malice said, "is none of your business."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 10, 2013, 06:23:43 AM

*tries to somehow conjure up an image of line-dancing Andalites in her head*

HAW :rofl:

I was forced into a line-dancing class at school once. It was fifteen minutes of pure, unadulterated torture.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 10, 2013, 06:30:08 PM

Those poor Andalites . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2013, 07:37:04 PM

Oh, just wait, Dino. It'll get worse . . . now that I look at it this book's gonna be a bit darker, and less schticky, then I thought.

I'll try to post another chapter after I rest for a bit.

EDIT:

CHAPTER FOUR:
Kidnappings

The Andalites, even the more willful ones, were helpless to defy the music. They were forced to line-dance out of RAF. All the way to a secluded warehouse, which was conveniently wide open, and looked abandoned and full of holes on the outside.

But the interior was a different story completely. It was polished steel and stone, absolutely immaculate. Other than the chains giving off a faint golden glow littering the floor.

These Andalites, exhausted by the forced dancing -- something Andalites were clearly unaccustomed to doing -- were danced into the middle if the room, into the mess of glowing chains.

Suddenly, these chains magically burst to life. They wound and snaked their way around the Andalites But not all these special chains were used.

<H-h-help . . .> Noelle attempted to call out, her thought-speak voice hoarse, as the flute music was snuffed out. <H-h-help. . . .>

"Oh, give it a rest." came Malice's voice, cold, clear, and hard. "You telepathic communication cannot be cast outside this room. It is soundproof, as well."

Several Andalites tried to concentrate, tried to morph, Noelle included. Malice allowed this to go on for twenty minutes with a crooked smike on her face. But nothing happened -- the morphing field could not be created, could not be activated.

"Discovered that your shapeshifting -- your 'morphing', as you crudely put it -- doesn't work yet?" Malice taunted sneeringly. "These are tylee chains, Dweller fools. If they can bind Olympians, Asguardians, or even my own kind, the is no chance that you can escape them."

***

With one species captured, the Piper rested for a moment, before selecting another species.

He rose his flute to his lips again, and began to play a slightly different tune. . . ,

***

"Wha -- what the heck?!" Abby cried out.

Suddenly, the forty or so RAFian humans began to square dance. They were no longer in control of their own movements, though their thoughts were still their own. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 11, 2013, 10:07:16 AM

*winces* had a bad feeling that humans were next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 11, 2013, 10:25:44 AM

Quote from: Jake Berenson

We are the only humans resisting the Yeerks. 

We may be the only hope that Earth has. 

We have a lot on our shoulders. 

Which is why I really, really, really did not see why I had to have more suffering piled on. 

Wasn't I under enough stress? Life wasn't bad enough? We had to have .  .  . square dancing? 

Square dancing! The horror! 

The CD player was blasting out screaming-cat fiddle music. Which, in my opinion, is possibly the worst music ever created. 

... He had a lot more to say on the subject. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 11, 2013, 10:35:21 AM

Isn't that from the sario rip book?? What was the title for that... I can't remember.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 11, 2013, 10:44:44 AM

It was #11, The Forgotten.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 11, 2013, 10:49:16 AM

Good book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 11, 2013, 12:36:53 PM

Yep, that's exactly the scene I was thinking of, too, Saffa.  :XD:

Lol, if the guy can only affect one species at a time, he's gonna have to make up a lot of different songs if he ever wants to get all of RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 11, 2013, 12:50:41 PM

Yes, yes he will. :D lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2013, 08:50:27 PM

Well, you must remember a majority of RAFians are Yeerks, Andalites or humans.

While you are the only ankylotyrannus, Dino, and I'm the only Realm Walker. But he's gonna pick up the pace soon.

May not post a new chapter until tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 11, 2013, 09:23:26 PM

Wait, so I have a question for whoever really wants to answer.

Say, the piper set his flute to humans, but a morph-capable human was in morph. What would happen, do you think?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 11, 2013, 09:29:24 PM

They... would... demorph?

No idea. That's the creator's whim, after all. :) Over to you, Cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2013, 10:46:01 PM

Same deal with the Yeerks, you'd be safe -- but for only two hours, until your clock runs out . . .

And, sorry, the chapter's gonna hafta wait until tomorrow. My body's telling me its bedtime . . .

EDIT: Probably gonna be brief. Still a bit sleepy.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Where'd You Go?

The humans, still being tortured by being forced to square dancing, had crossed the threshold of RAF's borders. Then they were off, off to the warehouse.

Abby tried to morph -- and that would have saved her from the Piper -- but her body was no longer in her control. She could still speak and her facial expressions were her own though.

They were eventually chained together with the rather defeated-looking Andalite RAFians. All the humans were too out of breath, and much too exhausted, to cry out for help. They didn't have the energy to fight back.

***

The Piper took a minute break, to take in what he had accomplished.

But, alas, his job wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

He adjusted the song's tune once more. . . .

***

Cloak had sequestered himself to his own thread, reflecting and dwelling on past events. He earnestly and sincerely wondered if his presence in RAF did more damage that had he never joined the ranks.

The only reason Malice was targeting his RAFian allies and friends was . . . was because of him.

Though he knew many RAFians (except his malcontent Rotiart, of course) would deny this, or explain it away.

Then his ears pricked up, and he heard flute music -- which would have compelled him to Riverdance, but Realm Walkers never lost control of their bodies.

But the other feline RAFians weren't so fortunate -- ever seen a cat Riverdance?

Cloak, despite his usual curiosity, thought nothing of it, and dismissed the music.

However, when the music forced Dino to perform ballet out of RAF -- then he took notice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 12, 2013, 06:57:22 AM

You got your wish, Dino. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 12, 2013, 09:39:07 AM

Well, if you started to see a dinosaur start to dance for no reason, I imagine someone would take notice. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 12, 2013, 09:41:54 AM

Your autocorrect's acting up again... ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 12, 2013, 09:53:04 AM

Thanks. I'll go fix it. Stupid autocorrect.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2013, 09:57:04 AM

Well, I was in my thread at the time. I didn't see her with my eyes, I "saw" her with Earthsight.

Anyway, I might post another chapter after my shift tonight. But, I wouldn't count on it.

EDIT: Probably gonna be brief.

CHAPTER SIX:
Dancing Unseen

The pace of these kidnappings picked up on the next day. More species were lured out of the forum, against their will, in a variety of dances that Cloak's never heard of. All were chained using the same chains in the warehouse, as tylee chains -- heck, tylee metal itself -- isn't easy to come by, esspecially as it only exists in the Nexus and in the possession of Asguardians, Olympians, and Titians.

The third day, the rate of the kidnapping were relatively the same. The RAF's member numbers were beginning to diminish noticeably. But none of the remaining RAFians seemed realize the cause for the sudden inexplicable dancing. Magic dancing shoes? No, neither Dino or the Andalites wore shoes.

The fourth day, it picked up again. At least 50% of all RAFians were gone. Chained in that warehouse.

***

Cloak remained his thread. But he was not oblivious to the disappearances -- he saw them all with Earthsight. But they always stopped before he could pinpoint their destination.

Cloak knew the true mastermind behind this, and it wasn't this piper person. Malice was tone-deaf when it came to playing musical intruments. Only she would use his fellow RAFians in such away. She wanted to destroy Cloak.

But why did she care about him so much? Why was it so important to her to destroy Cloak? What did he ever do to her to deserve such ire?

Yes, he was responsible for the destruction of the Forbidden Power, but she was interested in hurting him, in destroying him, in breaking him, before then.

But, then . . . why?

***

By the end of a week, the end of seven days, all the RAFians were gone. The forum had became a bleak, desolate, deserted place. Tumbleweeds were running rampent without Horse attacking them.

It was a very sad sight. The threads and board had gone eerily silent and lifeless.

All were gone . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 13, 2013, 10:00:05 AM

That took the piper a bit less time than I thought it would...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 13, 2013, 06:41:23 PM

Me, dancing ballet?  Thank you very much for that mental image, Cloak.  :XD:

Oy, forget the piper, tumbleweeds taking over RAF without Horse to stop them is the thing we should really be worried about!  :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 13, 2013, 07:03:42 PM

Oh no!! The tumbleweeds!! The horror!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2013, 11:51:32 PM

Maybe if they were sentient . . .

Sorry that I didn't post another chapter today, Internet got buggy. Really irritating. It's too late now, though.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Final Eight

. . . Except Rotiart (who wore noise-canceling earbuds), Cloak, Parker, Estelore, Oceanspray, Sakki, Richard, and Underseen. Ash wasn't captured either, due to being away, and on the inactive roster, for personal reasons.

"What happened?" Rotiart said taking out his earbuds.

"Where is everyone?" Estelore asked.

"That flute music . . ." Sakki said. "It's gone now."

"What does one have to do with the other?" Oceanspray asked, assuming the two were unrelated.

Richard facepalmed. "Of course. The flute music -- they must have been Pied Pipered out of RAF."

"Well, we must rescue them." Underseen replied at once.

"You go. I'm not going." Rotiart said brattily.

"Rotiart!" Sakki scolded, but then music started playing out of nowhere. He sang:

"I've been a moving target!
I've been a sitting duck!
I've almost been the Pootang's food!
All because somebody with more courage than good sense
Had to be rescued from their own ineptitude!
Well, if fools with not so much to live for
Want to jeopardize THEIR lives,
Maybe that should be allowed.
But I was born for higher things,
And I shouldn't risk my life like some ordinary member of the crowd!"

Estelore countered this in song:

"But, Rotiart,
That's what you do for a friend, oh,
That's what you do for a friend.
That's what you do for a friend.
That's what you do for a friend.
You hang on to the good times."

Cloak shrugged as he sang, with folded arms:

"Make 'em laugh when they're feeling low."

Esty took up the song from there.

"When the danger's near you say --"

Then all seven chorused:

"No fear!"

Esty continued:

"And you go where you have to go.
And you never back down."

Cloak added:

"And you never back out."

Esty persisted:

"Fighting, even when you're filled with doubt,
That's what you do for a friend, oh,
That's what you do for a friend.
That's what you do for a friend.
That's what you do for friend."

Rotiart took up the song:

"Zipping into danger, dashing into traps,
Rushing into an untimely end!
You foolhardy heroes will end up with your backs
Against the wall, in deep trouble once again.
Now, some may think it noble to die like that,
And be immortalized in songs about the past,
And you may think it wise
To have a harrowing demise
So life is exciting up until the last --!"

But Estelore interrupted and sang:

"But, Rotiart,
That's what you do for a friend, oh,
That's what you do for a friend.
That's what you do for a friend.
That's what you do for a friend."

Sakki saw fit to add:

"Even if you have to stick your neck out."

Esty expounded on this:

"No matter how scary it gets."

Cloak supplied:

"You go out on a limb
When the chances are slim."

Esty nodded as she sang:

"And you do it with no regrets.
And you never give up."

Sakki piped up:

"And you NEVER give in."

Esty sang:

"You keep on trying."

Cloak sang:

"Through thick and thin."

Esty repeated the chorus, with all seven singing the last lyric.

"Cute. Catchy." Rotiart said his arms folded. "Didn't work."

"Pity that you haven't a choice, then." Sakki said, seizing his ear. "Let's go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 14, 2013, 08:11:29 AM

Ahh, a happy friendship song. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 14, 2013, 12:25:26 PM

Hah! Sakki is awesome!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 14, 2013, 01:24:00 PM

I thought the song would work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 14, 2013, 01:27:35 PM

There are some hearts that are harder than others, that even a song can't melt...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 14, 2013, 04:27:30 PM

Good thing Sakki had a backup plan ready, lol.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2013, 06:35:18 PM

:XD:

I may post a chapter later on, but tomorrow and Tuesday are my days off. So, if my Internet doesn't get ornery, I post more than one.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
No Fear

The small group went slowly and surely toward Malice's believed headquarters. This first part was going very smoothly . . . almost too smoothly. Then something rather unusual happened.

Cloak's ears twitched, "What the . . ."

It was not the flute music he had been expecting. It was more of a cross between a clarinet and a PokeFlute. Then Estelore sang:

"We're off on a mission.
We're tough, in good condition."

"Estelore, what are you doing?!" Cloak demanded in a hiss, right before Underseen sang:

"We're sure --"

Estelore supplied:

"Standing tall."

"You two are going to --"

Then all of the RAFians, except Cloak and Rotiart, sang:

"No fear!"

Cloak sighed as he facepalmed, "Blow . . . our cover . . ."

But Cloak's protest seemed to fall upon deaf ears, as Estelore sang:

"There's danger all around us."

"Then stop singing!!" Cloak said, as some trolls appeared to fight them. Rotiart sang fretfully:

"They'd hurt us, if they found us!"

"Then shut the VEIL up!!" Cloak snarled. But, Sakki sang:

"Backs to the wall."

Then all six (excluding Rotiart and Cloak again) sang:

"No fear!"

A thought occured to Cloak as Estelore sang:

"'Coz we have all the courage we require."

Rotiart added, in a sung aside:

"Such a frequent liar."

Cloak considered the source of this sudden musical number as Esty countered Rotiart dangerously:

"Boy, you're trying your luck.
The plan will fly."

Then all six sang "no fear" again, as Cloak looked for a way to stop the music. Rotiart whine musically:

"This plan if applied'll
Be simply SUICIDAL!
We'll be a sitting duck!"

Another thought occured to Cloak as the six repeated the refrain of "no fear", and Rotiart continued whining:

"Suppose I'd do this,
Who know if we live through this?
That's just oue luck!"

The refrain continued between every lyric as Cloak's eyes widened with realization.

Meanwhile, Esty sang:

"Our team is shy one lily-livered volunteer."

Rotiart's answer was:

"No way, Jose!
No chance!"

Sakki replied rather forcifully:

"No choice."

"Guys!" Cloak said, urgency in his voice. "Guys!"

But they sang:

"We'll take on any dare
That the other side'll dare
To dream up.
We'll fight tough; we'll play fair.
But we're sure to win because we'll team up."

Rotiart panicked:

"I'm shaking!
I'm leaking!"

Parker observed:

"He's freaking,
Frankly speaking."

"GUYS!" Cloak roared, full voice. "IT'S A --"

The other seven plummeted into a hidden sinkhole, and only he was spared.

"Trap." he finished in a small voice.

Suddenly, a ring of tylee metsl fastened around his middle, pinioning his arms to the side, and he fell over barely conscious, before succumbing to unconsciousness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 15, 2013, 12:05:31 AM

8 chapters in and everyone is trapped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 15, 2013, 12:20:44 AM

Cloak -

(http://www.devinrose.heroicvirtuecreations.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ackb1.gif)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 15, 2013, 12:27:35 AM

Well dang. This sucks. I'm really intrigued as to how we all get out of this one...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2013, 05:43:09 PM

Well, the reason that happened in chapter 8 is because (after checking my notes) this book is only going to have like 18 or 19 chapters, unless I find a way to stretch it.

Internet's getting buggy, but I'll try to post another chapter.

EDIT: Scratch that. My internet decided to get funny again. And, after the day I had today, I'm really in no mood to put up with it right now.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 16, 2013, 08:31:37 AM

Lovin the story!

(Also: feral scream part 1 was posted in my recaps)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2013, 10:03:32 AM

Here's the book list:

• Book XLIV: Starlight Desire

The RAFians race the Banned to a wishing star (no, not Estelore).

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Out

The RAFians must deal with a strange creature created by black magic.

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

The RAFians must deal with sentient hammers who possess those worthy to wield them, forged by Singularity.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must battle Shenecron's monstrous pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Four RAFians are seperated into the emotional spectrum.

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFian deal with a rogue quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with creature created of the DNA of two RAFians and a Heinlin.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians must battle self-replicating creatures.

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in 1602.

All titles are libel to change.

Quote from: Darkwing Gaz on July 16, 2013, 08:31:37 AM

(Also: feral scream part 1 was posted in my recaps)

I know, I was gonna post than my Internet decided to crap out on me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2013, 10:06:31 AM

Let's try this once more. Forgive me if it's brief -- this whole book will be brief.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Restrained Trophies

Somehow, the HQ had undergone a rather dramatic transformation in the span of a few hours.  Now the architecture had an Arabic palace twist to it, and the RAFians were situated rather decoratively around the makeshift palace. All of the RAFians were unconscious, gagged or muzzled, and their head lolled to one side.  There was only one RAFians that was semiconscious, and he was nowhere to be seen.
 
Malice walked sedately around, with Rumor flapping in a most distracting way behind her. They were taking in the decorative nature of their noncognizant, unconscious RAFians. Rumor squawked rather like a parrot.
 
"Yes," Malice agreed.  "They really do pull a room together, don't they?"
 
Rumor chittered in agreement, then hesitantly barked like a sea lion.
 
"Oh?" Malice said, as if this rose her from a reverie.  "Don't worry about that one.  We'll get to him later.  He'll break easily."
 
Rumor mewed three times.
 
SMACK!
 
"I find you lack of faith disturbing," Malice said, coldly quiet. "He will break. He will."
 
Rumor said nothing, but seriously doubted this.

"Anyway," Malice said, stepping back into her calm, casual demeanor, "the Piper did a good job.  Simply lovely."

Rumor made an odd cooing noise.

"Oh, he'll get paid.  He'll get his reward, don't worry about that."
 

***

Deep within the bowls of the dungeon was a room so white that an unicorn would look the dingiest of grays.  There, arms chained outward, head bowed, legs and tail pinioned together by tylee metal rings, was Cloak.  He looked the most defeated that he had ever looked, barring the torment inflicted on him by his mother.
 
The room did not appear to have any doors, any exits of any kind.  The walls were seamless, featureless and plain.  THere was illumination somehow, as everything was in perfect relief, visable.

Cloak was only semiconscious, but his powers were unaccessible to him in such bindings. He only knew a resounding depression . . . the trap . . . he should have saw, should have realized. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 16, 2013, 10:23:01 AM

It is darker than you originally intended it to be.

Is your Internet your own, Cloaky, or is it a public network?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 16, 2013, 10:30:34 AM

Dang. It is pretty dark...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2013, 10:44:23 AM

Okay, started planning out Book CXCI ("The Attention Hog").

Quote from: Saffa on July 16, 2013, 10:23:01 AM

Is your Internet your own, Cloaky, or is it a public network?

My guess is public network, as the Internet is included in my rent.

I'll try to post another chapter if the Internet is agreeable today (I honestly think the weather plays a part in it).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 16, 2013, 10:51:28 AM

Good luck with your Internet!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 16, 2013, 10:53:52 AM

Well, if the cables are underground I doubt the weather will affect them - not so much with satellite or wireless though. But then again, if the apartment or wherever you're living in is the one supplying the internet, then you can expect it to be screwy... It's like college Wi-Fi.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2013, 12:32:34 PM

I believe it is wireless.

Oh, and I'm not suspended up in that room, I'm on my knees.

CHAPTER TEN:
Paying the Piper

Malice lounged on a thone whose precious metals and gems had been plucked clean from it. Malice didn't really care, she was relishing her victory.

Rumor landed on a perch and squawked and squeaked.

"Very well, then," Malice said unconcernedly, sitting up straighter. "Send him in."

Rumor flew out of the room --literally flew -- and went to fetch the Piper. Malice drummed her fingers impatiently as she waited. The Piper even coming was foolhardy, but his avarice had taken ahold of him.

He stepped into the expansive room, unaware of Malice's motivations and true intents. It is a very dangerous position to be in.

The Piper wore a very stern and hard look. This was when he would have to force the client to fork over their cash, because, like the fabled pied piper before him, more often than not his clients would try to stiff him out of payment. Henwould have to force them -- usually by making them dance until their feet bled, knowing that such claims of "he made me dance until my feet bled" would be dismissed and derided.

"What brings you here, Piper?" Malice said, girlishly coy.

The Piper said nothing but just stood stoically there.

"Aw, why so serious?" Malice said, still coy, rising to her feet.

"You know what I want," the Piper said, voice cracking from lack of use.

"Yes, yes. Your . . . reward." Malice said airily.

The Piper glared at her, due to the wording, and rose one eyebrow. Malice was getting much too close now. Much to close for comfort. The Piper frowned on cross-species relationships.

"Your . . . eternal reward." she said, stabbing him much like she killed Abomination. The Piper collapsed to the ground. Then she snarled to the dying man, "Don't mess with me, little man."

Then she stepped away, looking at the blood soaking the ground. She muttered, as she snapped the Piper's flute. "Ugh. Dwellers. So messy to kill."

Rumor yipped quietly.

"Yes, yes, yes -- go get it and have it clean up this mess." she said, dismissively.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 16, 2013, 12:40:45 PM

We all knew that was gonna happen...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 16, 2013, 12:44:12 PM

Huh. Like a use-and-throw towel.

Suddenly I have a strong urge to make a Malice meme.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2013, 12:47:52 PM

Well, Malice will get hers. Uh, eventually. *wonders if he said too much.*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 16, 2013, 12:51:57 PM

Not too big a spoiler, it's bound too happen... The real question is when. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 16, 2013, 05:28:04 PM

Yep, the piper was a bit of an idiot, wasn't he?  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2013, 07:27:00 PM

Hey, in sufficient amounts, greed tends to reduce your I/Q. Besides, the Piper had no idea who he was dealing with.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Shattered Spirits

"Ugh, dirty Dweller blood," Malice sneered as the Taxxon scarfed down the Piper's corpse. Malice never was burdened with blood guilt and would kill anyone on a whim, unless she required their services. In her view, everyone else was expendable. Even Rumor, who was more of a pet now, than a minion. "So incredibly primitive and unevolved, these Dwellers."

Rumor didn't know how to feel about these comments. He knew he was born a Dweller, but he had evolved from Cataclysm's machinations. Right?

"Well, that was fun," Malice said, as if she had just finished pulling weeds from a garden instead of ruthlessly murdering someone. Then the Taxxon, having finished the Piper clothes and all, loomed over the two. It was a slave of the Taxxon hunger, after all. But Malice was unconcerned and she slashed it to ribbons. Rumor screeched surprisingly.

"Yes, yes. Go get the bigger one to finish of this one."

Rumor whimpered like a beaten dog.

"Don't be pathetic." Malice said crassly. "Sedate it afterward if you must. I will attend to the only nondecorative prisoner."

***

"Cloaky, Cloaky, Cloaky." Malice said tauntingly and sneeringly, somehow entering the room. "How the Veil are you?"

Cloak said nothing, but hung limply. He wasn't dead, for if he were, as with all Realm Walkers, it would be obvious.

"Aw, you're not broken already, are you?" Malice said malevolently.

Cloak said nothing still which Mslice took for affirmation of her assessment.

"Such a pity," she said, partially disappointed at this. "I was expecting more of a fight from you, from the grandson of the great Sage."

She left, and Cloak found himself not caring. He had just stopped caring about everything. Despite himself, Cloak had permitted himself to give into despair.

***

Meanwhile, the other RAFians began to stir, rousing into semiconsciousness. Malice noticed this, but was indifferent. They weren't threats to her. The only threat had already had his spirit broken.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 16, 2013, 07:44:56 PM

Dang. This is probably one of the darkest stories so far...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2013, 06:19:23 AM

True, but, then again, I know what's coming in future books . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Despair and Dismissal

All his fault.

It was all his fault. He never should have became a RAFian five Dweller Earth years ago. Malice would have never developed an interest in them if not for him. And now they all were surely dead. Why else would Malice keep them alive? It would be far more devestating to the Elements Master to have slaughtered them all.

All his fault.

He should have known that, despite being a Elements Master, that he was a screw up, a meddling fool.

All his fault.

His silent tears did not sear the white floor, revealing that this room was Realm Walker in design and function. Cloak was feeling distinctly aggrieved and despaired silently.

"Cloak, you can break these chains." said a voice. His grandfather.

He did not speak, did not answer. He wouldn't even acknowledge him, at first.

"Cloak, you can do it."

"No, I can't." Cloak said, depression clear in his tone. "I tried. What does it matter?"

But his grandfather was a shrewd one.

"These chains aren't what's holding you back," he said.

"Leave me alone." Cloak snapped.

His grandfather was not taken aback, surprised or angry. He took this in stride.

"Fine," he said, with a clipped tone to hide his disappointment. "Give into despair if you so wish. Resort to your basest instincts. I'm dead, but I never thought you could be dead and yet still alive."

He was gone, and his words lodged within the self-pitying gloom surrounding Cloak, and did not, could not reach him.

This depression, this despair, that enveloped him so thoroughly preserved the ache in his heart involuntarily. He continued to dwell on it, which made everything worse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2013, 06:29:03 AM

I so don't mind postponing my homework if I have to come back and read stuff like this. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2013, 06:38:41 AM

Well, that chapter's very likely the last one I'll post before my shift today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2013, 06:40:38 AM

In that case, thanks, because... I still have homework. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 17, 2013, 07:25:19 PM

It may be a dark book, but so totally worth reading.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2013, 08:11:35 PM

Well, I fell today at work (due to my own hubris, if anything else -- stripping wax from the floor), so I'm a bit sore and irritable right now. And tomorrow, it's 3:30 to midnight. So, I'm gonna be exhausted.

But I'll see if I can get another chapter up today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 17, 2013, 08:26:29 PM

Do what you have to do. We'll be here. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2013, 09:09:41 PM

Well I have to stay up another three hours or so, so . . . a brief chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Flaw in the Plan

Malice relished her victory over the RAFians. It took her, what, fifty tries? Nah, it must have been more like five.

She patrolled her palace several times. But soon the novelty wore off. Keeping the RAFians as decorations was interesting and intriguing -- at first. But now they were becoming little more than a chore to look after. She bored easily, and it never occured to her that victory could end up being so dull and tedious.

She left Rumor to look after his former compatriots. Even her frequent patrols of the palace was boring and pointless now. She couldn't even taunt Cloak, who, even now, wallowed in self-pity and despair.

Malice hardly left her thone nowadays, though feeling thoroughly restless. There was no one now to scheme against. No one to stand in her way.

Why was she so disquieted, so unsettled, when she finally achieved besting Cloak and his toadies, his RAFians?

Could it be . . . could it be the struggle that she truly enjoyed, not the goal? That she enjoyed concocting plans and scheming schemes, rather than success?

Her eyes widened as she realized that she did. She did enjoy the schemes, the plans. It was entertaining.

Having won, it was boring, desperately dull. The RAFians were little more than collateral damage. She truly desired mental gymnastics with the Elements Master, progeny of the spawn of Sage.

***

Meanwhile, whilst Malice was having this epiphany, the RAFians were, despite Rumor's ministrations, regaining consciousness. They found that their Marks still worked but did not prevent them from being bound and gagged/muzzled.

They found it allowed them a measure of nonverbal communication -- due to the tylee metal affecting the Mark differently that the RAFians' powers. It granted them a basic form of thought-speak that dealt with emotion instead of words.

They all felt Cloak's despair, his self-pity. However, no one knew why he felt so. Cloak dismissed feeling the others' emotions as a hallucination, a phantom of a lost desire.

Malice, with her newfound (and forced) lethargy, did not notice this, or care any two ways about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 17, 2013, 09:13:51 PM

Hmm... Her situation reminds me if the movie MegaMind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2013, 09:23:17 PM

It does, doesn't it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 17, 2013, 09:51:18 PM

Lol, that's what I was just thinking of, too.  Still, it's a very interesting concept, and it shows Malice in a new light.

Dark, yes, but I like it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 17, 2013, 09:57:14 PM

I'm sorts happy I wasn't the only one to notice that. :) lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2013, 06:17:55 AM

I don't know if it was based on Megamind though, I may have planned that out before I ever saw the movie.

I may post another chapter later, depending on how I feel.

EDIT:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Appeal

The RAFians used this strange new communication, so much like Leeran communication yet not anything like it at the same time, to assure each other of the condition of another.

This communication was a one-time deal, and would never be accessed again.

Everyone alright? Phoenix "said".

I've been better, Abby "replied".

Being used as nothing but a decoration, Saffa "replied" "harshly". My mother would be so proud.

Everyone lucid? Richard "asked".

Ugh, I need a drink, Duff "commented".

I told you guys something like this would happen! Rotiart "said" "snottily".

Shut up, Rotiart, Sakki "said", much like Peter Griffin addressing his daughter.

Is that Cloak? All that depression I'm sensing? Underseen "asked".

I certainly hope not. It's overwhelming. Gaz "piped up".

Cloak? Is that you? Dino "asked".

No answer, but the other RAFians felt the reaction. A refusal of acknowledgement, a disbelief of the reality of the situation, a pervasive self-blame.

That is Cloak, Kelly "said", but that cannot be possibly what he's feeling?

Cloak! Listen! We're alive! Ash "called" out. We're all alive! We're just . . . being . . . used as . . . decorations.

There really was no way to take the ludicrousness out of that statement. Even Ash had a hard time believing it.

Lies. Spectors of memory. Perverse phantoms of hope. Cloak "said", though unaware of "saying" it.

He . . . he thinks we're a hallucinations. SuperNate pointed out immediately.

How do we convince him we aren't? Horse asked.

I . . . I don't know, SuperNate admitted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 18, 2013, 07:28:35 AM

Oh, my mother would be so proud indeed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 18, 2013, 10:02:03 AM

You know, this is actually one of my favorite books, oddly enough, just because the emotion is so well written.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 18, 2013, 10:11:23 AM

^^ what she said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2013, 07:03:23 AM

Right, I'm still a bit tired (it's a miracle that I got any sleep last night with my neighbor's damn dog howling all night . . . and morning), but I'll try to post another chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Shadow of a Doubt

Cloak, it is really us. Kelly "said", attempting to reach out, to conjole, Cloak. This is really us, Cloak, we're alive. You are responsible for our nonexistant deaths.

Lies. Deceptions. Delusions. Cloak "said", unaware of "saying" anything.

Cloak, you must understand. Saffa intoned now. You know Malice better than anyone. You must realize that we're still aluve and kicking.

Impossible. Improbable. Implausible. Cloak said. What possible reason would Malice have to keep them alive? She could -- and did -- cause more damage if they were all dead. All dead. All my fault.

This silenced the other RAFians for a moment.

He . . . he really thinks that he signed our death warrants, Underseen "commented" surprised.

He's wallowing in self-pity, Jess "said" "tonelessly". Cloak, you need to pull your head out of your butt and get your head back into the game!

Jess, that is too harsh. Cloak needs -- Kelly protested.

The only thing he needs is a reality check, Kelly. Jess countered. He has his head so far up his rear right now that he can see the light of day. How do you think Shadow would react to seeing her uncle in such a state? Huh, Cloak?

Cloak's widened, and he said aloud (he wasn't gagged, for the sole reason that Malice wanted him to fight back verbally), "Shadow . . . my little Shadow . . ."

Yes, you remember her, Cloak? Jess "said", knowing she had made some headway. What would she say if she knew that you've given up, given into despair?

Cloak didn't say anything. He simply couldn't, though he had the capability. He saw Shadow's face swim before his eyes. Feeling was slowly restored to him like a creative, passionate flame. The mere thought of his beloved neice, his sardonic protegee, often had this effect on him.

But his element might was being suppressed by the tylee metal. But this metal, like all things, had a limit to how much it could do.

"The tylee metal may suppress my powers, may hide the elements from me," Cloak said, rather theatrically, "but metal is still metal. And all metal bows before my will!!!"

It took a great deal of will and power, but Cloak managed to shatter the chains and metal rings around him.

But he bit off more than he could chew. He was forced to his knees, utterly, utterly exhausted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 19, 2013, 07:06:08 AM

There is unfortunately no smiley for smiling and tearing up at the same time... :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 19, 2013, 10:09:06 AM

Actually, there is. :')

That was great!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 19, 2013, 10:17:19 AM

Huh. I knew the combination, but it had never worked for me before. Anyway. :') :')

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 19, 2013, 10:30:41 AM

Wow.  Excellent writing.  The :') smiley seems to sum it up.

And yay Cloaky!  All you really needed was a healthy dose of tough-love (copyright Jess).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2013, 08:57:34 PM

Yeah, and this book is now slowly wrapping itself up . . . and the next one won't be so heavy. It'll be a bit more lighthearted, I think, considering it is partially based off of "Wakko's Wish" . . .

Another chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Strength From Within

Cloak had expended so much of his power, his might, that he required rest. It would take a couple of hours before he could be sufficiently rested enough to use his powers again. He'd be able to walk within the hour, though. However, by severing his bonds he severed the unique communication relays with the others.

No matter, he had to rest before he could even move at any acceptable speed.

***

What happened? AniDragon asked. I can't "feel" Cloak anymore.

You don't think he . . . Underseen "inquired" carefully, letting it hang.

No, he did the right thing. Aquilai "said". While he would freely sacrifice his life to save others, he would not commit that act.

Bull. Rotiart sneered.

That's it. Where is he? Where's Rotiart? Saffa "said". I'm gonna give him the Prometheus treatment.

Rotiart gave a muffled whimper.

How about figure out how to get out of our predicament instead? Dino put in. I can't even so much as twitch my tail here.

I'm open to suggestions, Genies "commented".

Silence.

What about Unity Energy? Abby "said", after a while. Would that work?

Who knows? Goom "said". Only his feet were bound together rather painfully-looking and he was also gagged. Unity Energy effects are still enigmatic, it's a Realm Walker science apparently.

Lovely, Gaz "replied" sardonically.

Worth a try, I think, Blue shrugged.

Eventually, the rest agreed. They unleashed an Unity Blast. This managed to atomize the tylee metal, freeing them. But the chains and rings would eventually mend themselves, just without prisoners.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 19, 2013, 09:05:00 PM

Unity FTW!

Makes sense that Realm Walker technology would trump just about anything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 19, 2013, 09:10:20 PM

If only I could draw :'( This would be an awesome scene.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 20, 2013, 09:01:03 AM

It would^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2013, 08:20:09 PM

Time to funnel my feelings again -- 'nother chapter. Book's nearly done.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
An Unconventional Decision

The RAFians collected Cloak, helping him to his feet. Cloak was so tired, that he wasn't sure if he himself was delirious. But he thought he saw Malice watching them through a large window in a high up window. But . . . that didn't make sense. . . .

"Catch him, he's falling," Broken said quickly as Cloak's legs began to give.

"God, he must never overexert his powers like that again," Slushie Man commented.

***

Malice, however, was indeed watching the RAFians leave her rather intricate and elaborate trap. She made no move, no action to stop this. She felt odd . . . relief, excitement. This meant that she could scheme again. That was the real fun, this contest of wills, the mental gymnastics. She indulged herself with a small smile.

She wanted that eternal, everlasting struggle back. She thirsted for the thrill of a plan in motion. She hungered for watching the RAFians trying desperately to overcome her schemes. The real entertainment was in the doing, not the after.

Rumor had winged it up to where Malice watched, looking enticed at the RAFians escape.

Rumor ****ed his head, perplexed. He fold hisbwings against his back, looking rather like the titular monster from "Jeepers Creepers", only predominately green. He blinked hesitantly, clearly trying to bite back his thoughts.

Then, against his better judgement, he let out two tea kettle-like whistles and a honk like a car horn.

Malice's brief smile vanished instantly beneath an immediate scowl. Her hands balled into fists. "Did you just ask me why I'm letting them go?"

Instead of heeding the warning tone in Malice's voice, ignoring all the danger signs, he gave two yips.

Malice's eyes narrowed. Then, all in one swift movement, she stabbed Rumor straight through, like she did with the Piper.

"Now you'll never question me again!"

Rumor fell, dead.

"Oh, dear me," Malice said, rather like a granny, hand delicately touching her mouth, "now I need a new minion."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 20, 2013, 08:28:53 PM

Raise your hand if you saw that coming.  *raises hand*

Rumor was a bit too back-talk-y for his own good.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2013, 08:39:26 PM

True.

Probably not gonna post another chapter tonight.

[spoiler=Dreading tomorrow.]Hafta work with the three guys who abandoned me today (as mentioned in Totally Random Thoughts), potentially ruining some friendships in the process.[/spoiler]

Can't sleep, so a brief chapter. Sorry, it isn't longer.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Unease

Back at RAF, Cloak was eventually fully rested and back to 100%, physically. His mind was preoccupied, however.

He was certain he saw Malice. He was sure now that it was not a delirium-induced sight. She could have stepped in at any moment. She could have interceded at any moment, impeded their progress. He would have been in no position to attack or defend. They were perfect targets.

Then, why? Why choose inaction when she never had before? Why allow them to escape when going through all the effort of hiring the help of that hapless Piper? It seemed all rather pointless. It was irrational and illogical . . .

But, then again,perhaps Malice's decision was an emotional one instead of a practical, rational one. But Cloak still could not understand her motivations, and it was this that caused him a great amount of unease.

Cloak was the only one that seemed to be distinctly aggrieved at this. The other RAFians didn't seem to grouse over this like Cloak was. But, then again, he was the only one that seemed to notice Malice's spying.

Whenever he tried to mention this theory with the others, they dismissed it. And, should he persist in it, they would pass it off as Cloak's paranoia.

***

Meanwhile, Malice had abandoned the palace, leaving Rumor's corpse in the same place it fell.

She now was in what appeared to be a rundown warehouse. She hovered over mechanical bits and such. She smiled devilishly as she cracked her knuckles.

"Well, enough of the flawed minions of the past," she said, as she began to tinker. "Ttime to build a better minion."

Then she thought of something.

"No," she said, with finality, "no, those 'Despicable Me' minions are so played out. This one . . . this one needs to be better. Less of a thinker like Rumor, more loyal than that traitorous Abomination."

The sounds of fervent tinkering was heard, as Malice began to build her next servant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2013, 12:34:33 AM

Oh no, Rumor died. And to think he was a RAFian before...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 21, 2013, 01:22:00 AM

Ya, I saw that coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2013, 07:09:01 AM

Yeah, well, we won't be seeing Malice for a while, I think.

Saffa, be prepared to make a PDF of this -- last chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Edge of the Edge of the Boundary

Cloak isolated himself training himself in the elements. Despite himself, he thought of and remembered his past . . .

***

He was venturing nearer and nearer the realms. Against his mother's wishes.

"She never hears me,
Although she has ears, she
Refuses to understand.
She merely sees me.
She doesn't believe she
can let me be who I am.
What am I to do?
After all that I've been through?
She may tie the proverbial ropes,
But she can't hold my hopes!
That some day . . .
I'll break away!
And I'll fly,
You will see,
To the edge of the edge of the boundary.
To be free from her control."

But his mother discovered him, and he saw her, and sang quietly:

"Oh, how I'd like to go."

***

A while later, Cloak snuck off again, singing quietly, in an aside:

"Conscience, be quiet.
C'mon, let's try it.
So many realms to explore.
I don't have a plan,
I'll just have to trust my hand.
She's not that wise,
And I still can surprise
her some day!
I'll break away!!
And I'll fly, unbounded and free,
To the edge of the edge of the boundary!
To be free from her control,
I can't wait to go!
Let's go!"

And, with that, he dived into the Prime Universe. This eventually earned the ire of his mother for daring to defy her. She would continue making his life difficult to the point that Cloak felt himself expendable, the only expendable one of the family. Fortunately, this would only last . . . a few years.

***

Meanwhile, an entity hovered above the Earth, discovering it for the first time.

It giggled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2013, 07:46:36 AM

It giggled. Huh.

PDF: done. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 21, 2013, 10:29:40 AM

It giggled?? Waddaya know.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2013, 06:03:11 PM

Well, believe me when I say that there is a completely legitimate reason for it.

Now, I'll start this new book in a moment -- and it won't be as heavy as the last one. It's gonna be a loose parody of "Wakko's Wish", though with a twist at the end . . .

*overdramatic gasp* I've said too much.

BOOK XLIV:
STARLIGHT DESIRE
Chapter One:
The Star of Blue Fire

Cloak stood upon a hill, two feet from a sycamore tree. He was still pondering Malice's motives. It was a fatal flaw of his (and he knew it), being unable to let things go and holding grudges.

He sought the solitude of this lonely, star-filled night. It was really quite beautiful. The Nexus didn't have stars, it was just an expanse of land, water, and a near featureless sky. It took some time to become habituated to it when moved into his thread. He couldn't help but wonder if Estelore was really the only one in these billions of stars that had, somehow, attained sentience. Could it be possible that there were others?

"What the Veil . . . ?"

There was a strange blue twinkling in the sky that looked simply odd. Yet, it didn't seem like a threat . . . Cloak didn't understand why it felt this way.

Suddenly, the blue twinkling became a blue burn, as the object descended from on high as a falling star.

Cloak's first thought was Esty . . . but her stellar powers were sunlight yellow.

Something very odd was going on here. . . .

***

Meanwhile, Abby was suffering from a little morphing snafu -- she couldn't. All the Andalite RAfians were flummoxed with it. She still possessed the ability but could not apparently activate it. It was a possible allergy to the tylee chains, unique to Abby.

"What? Why me?" Abby complained when this hypothesis was presented to her. "Why me? Why not someone who deserves it? Why not Rotiart?"

A voice called, "Hey! I heard that!"

Saffa and Underseen were at her side. They were both attempting to calm Abby, but she was feeling thoroughly disgruntled and disillusioned.

Then they heard and saw a large something land in the distance.

"What, in the name of the infernal KASU, was that?" Saffa asked.

"No idea." Underseen said.

"Wonderful." Abby said.

"I know what it was," said a voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 21, 2013, 06:53:30 PM

Hmm, I'm interested to see what kind of servant Malice builds . . .

And why anything would giggle at earth.  I mean, okay, it is kind of a funny-looking planet, but not like laugh-out-loud funny.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 21, 2013, 07:09:15 PM

Wakko's Wish is one of the many episodes I remember.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2013, 07:42:40 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on July 21, 2013, 06:53:30 PM

[...]And why anything would giggle at earth.  I mean, okay, it is kind of a funny-looking planet, [...]

Believe me, that isn't the reason. But I can't say, lest give away a large plot detail.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 21, 2013, 08:23:46 PM

Stupid tylee metal. But I have a feeling it has something important to do with this book or something...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2013, 08:42:18 PM

It's always you, isn't it? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 21, 2013, 08:46:37 PM

Apparently.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2013, 08:34:51 AM

Well, it's because of -- never mind.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Wishing Star

"That wasn't Rotiart," Saffa said, turning to find an elfin boy between six or seven dressed in various shades of blue, grinning in a cheeky, puckish way. He was sitting cross-legged, hovering in a way reminiscent of Peeves of "Harry Potter". Saffa let out a stifled scream, as Underseen asked, rather calmer than he felt, "Who are you?"

"Forget that," Saffa snarled. "How'd you get in here?!"

"All good questions," he said, and it was strange to see a boy this young speak in such a way. But RAFians are trained not to underestimate a potential threat based solely on looks. Look at the Yeerks, for instance. They look innocuous and harmless in their pools, but their ability to essentially steal the bodies of others for seventy-two Earth hours a pop makes them rather more dangerous. "That's quite beside the point."

Abby said, unable to keep the derision from her voice, "Come off it. You come in here, acting like a mythological trickster, brushing aside all inquiries, with giggly exuberance, and expect us to immediately trust you?"

"Not to mention having the form of a kid will make us trust you any more than any other form." Saffa said, shrewdly.

"Exactly," Underseen said. "Now, who the bloody hell are you?"

"I'm the wish fulfillment facilitator," he said. "I've come to say that you just so happened to wish on the one and only wishing star out of all the other stars in the sky."

"I did no such thing." Saffa sniffed.

"Nor did I," Underseen said.

There was a few seconds of silence before the two turned to Abby.

"What?"

The two held their gaze, not backing down.

"Okay, okay! I did make wish upon a star." Abby conceded. "Who knew it would actually work?"

"Whoa, let's not jump to conclusions." Saffa interjected. "If you made a wish, why hasn't it come true?"

"You must touch the star first," the "facilitator" said.

"Oh, lovely," Abby rolled her eyes.

"How can we be sure you're on the level?" Underseen pointed.

"Well, your cloaked friend -- a least he has the same marking you three have -- is on his way there now."

He showed them a wobbly image of Cloak making his way to the star.

***

The truth of the matter was that Cloak was not after the wish. He did not put stock in such things, believing it to be ludicrous to have a wish magically come true. His view was not uncommon amongst Realm Walkers.

He was after the star because he thought that it was Estelore, fearing that she might be injured.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 22, 2013, 08:50:05 AM

She probably just wished for Danny Phantom back on TV. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 22, 2013, 09:48:24 AM

Well, it's definitely not Estelore.

EDIT: I can't believe I missed this!

Quote from: Saffa on July 22, 2013, 08:50:05 AM

She probably just wished for Danny Phantom back on TV. ;D

Shush.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 22, 2013, 05:51:54 PM

Oooh, an actual wishing star, that's interesting.

But you have to touch it?  Wouldn't that, I dunno, burn a little?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2013, 11:36:44 PM

There's more to it than meets the eye.

Exhausted, found out at the last possible moment that they switched me from having Mondays and Tuesdays off to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Expect chapter-posting-frequency to reflect this.

Now . . . good night.

zzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzz . . .

EDIT:

Gonna be a long chapter because -- well, you'll see.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
The Race Begins

The three dashed from the thread, and music began.  They sang:
 

"We're leaving RAF Falls to find the wishing star!
We're heading off to see a dream come true!
It's waiting right up there!
The answer to our prayer."

Saffa sang:

"A wish for free --"

Underseen sang:

"That you might be a --"

Then the three of them sang together:

"Multibillionaire!
That's why we're off to seek our destiny together!"

Underseen sang:
 

"It's one for all --"

Saffa sang:

"All for one --"

Abby sang:

"Times three!"

Then the three sang:

"Who cares about the stuff we lack?
We're on our way and we won't be back!"

Saffa sang:

"Until we find that star!"

Abby added, through song:
 

"Gee, it looks kinda far."

Underseen noted, though song:
 

"Too bad we don't have a car."

Then the three sang:
 

"Oh, what the hay?
We're on our way!
To find the wishing star!
We're leaving RAF, dolls,
To find the wishing star!
And when we do,
our troubles will be through!
It's just around the bend,
Where the mountains end.
We're packing our load,
We're hitting the road,
Let's sing it together again.
Hey, hey, we want to be the first
To touch the wishing star!
We're going for miles.
We're leaving town today!"

Underseen sang:

"We're takin' a stand!"

Saffa sang:
 

"We're makin' a vow!"

Abby sang:

"This is the place!"

Then the three sang:
 

"The moment is now!
For Cloaky, Jess, and Horse, tots.
We're giving all we got!"

Abby sang:

"We're coming, so ready or not!"

Then the three sang:
 

"Today's the day!
We're on our way
To find the wishing star!"

Then the other RAFians began to stir, and slosh through the snow toward the trio.

Yarin sang:

"Hey, what's up?
What's all the noise?"

Touquie sang:

"Two girls and a boy."

Blue sang:

"They've gathered 'round
In the thread square."

Touquie sang:

"They say there's something
Way out there."

Noelle sang:

<Something weird
and something strange.>

Foxglade, Hunter, and Goom sang:

"Something beyond the
farthest mountain range!"

Yarin sang:

"What are you saying?"

Sakki said;

"What do you mean?"

Rotiart, Terenia, Touquie, Blue, Estrid, foxglade, Hunter, and Goom sang:

"It's something no one's ever seen!"

FuBar sang:

"What's the story?
What's the buzz?"

Underseen sang:

"We're about to leave
And that's because --"

Abby sang:
 

"We're on our way
To the wishing star."

Yarin sang, as Sakki echoed him:

"The wishing star?"

SuperNate queried:

"What's that?"

Faerie asked:

"Haven't you heard?"

SuperNate replied:

"There's no such thing,
That's too absurd!"

Shorty asked:

"What's the story?
What's the dish?"

Saffa sang:

"Touch the star and
You get one wish."

Yarin sang, asking for clarification:

"You get one wish
If you touch the star?"

Shorty sang:

"Where's it at?
Is it way out far?"

Abby sang:

"It could well be,
But we just don't know."

Underseen sang;

"We'll soon find out
Because we're going to go --"

Then the trio sang:
 

"To the wishing star!"

The RAFians sang:

"To the wishing star!
It's something weird
And so bizzare!
It fell down from
somewhere very far."

Then the trio sang solo:

"The wishing star,
Oh yes, we are
On our way.
So we'll say "bon sware".
Ciao, you guys, and au revoir.
Now, we're off to the wishing star."

Yarin sang:

"They'll be as rich as a king or czar!"

Abby sang, as the other RAFians (except Saffa and Underseen -- and Cloak and Esty, who were absent) sang the same thing as a chorus:
 

"I looked up in the sky last night,
And all the stars were shining bright.
I wished I may and I wished I might
Just have the wish I wished last night.
Then right before my eyes,
I saw a light above in the skies.
The wishing star lit up the night.
Then exploded really bright.
It fell to earth and it
Came on down
In a great big piece
That hit the ground.
Then some kid said to me,
'Whoever gets there first, you see.
Just touch the star, that's all you do.
Then you get you're wish come true.'"

'

Yarin sang, realizing the loophole:

"Wait, now.
Let me get this straight, now.
You mean, whoever gets there first
Can have a wish all to himself?"

Fubar sang:

"I have to go now,
'Coz I know now,
Upon the first to touch the star --
That wish belongs to me!"

Shorty sang:

"I have to run now,
Before they're done now,
So I can get a big headstart
And beat the others to the punch!"

Aloth, who had been spying, sang:

"I can't be slow now!"

Foxglade, Hunter, and Goom sang:

"We've got to go now!"

Noelle sang:

<And I've got to get there first
Because -->

The RAFians cried:

"That wish belongs to me!"

But Yorick, who discovered this on his own, sang:

"It all belongs to me!"

Yarin sang:

"We're on our way to the wishing star,
It could be near or it could be far."

The trio sang:

"But we're going to get their first, you see.
The one who gets there first will be
In a super wagon, wrapped up in a sled
It's like a sleigh, look out world,
We're on our way."

The RAFians sang:

"We're on the road, nothing can stop us now
Over field and plow."

Yorick sang, as he trampled a mime:

"Outta the way, you stupid mime!"

Foxglade, Parker, Hunter, Agent X, Goom, and Phoenix noted:

"He gets trampled all the time."

The trio sang:

"Over hill and gale,
Through the snowy trails."

Shorty sang, as he bounced by pogostick through the trees:

"Through the trees is mighty quick.
You can go by pogostick."

The trio sang:

"Onward, through the snowy drifts.
Onward, towards the mountain cliffs."

Yorick sang:

"The one that finds that wishing star
Will be soon eating caviar."

Yarin sang:

"That person is going to be
No one except for me."

FuBar sang:

"This is definately
Going to be
My golden opportunity!"

The RAFians sang:

"I got to get that wish, you see!
That wish belongs to me!
No, no! The star belongs to me!
No, no! The star belongs to me!
To me! To me! To me! To me!"

The trio sang, with Sakkin and Yarin echoing them:

"I got to get to the wishing star!"

Shorty sang:

"I hope it's near and not too far!"

The RAFians sang:

"Gotta be the first to the wishing star!"

The trio sang:

"I've got to get to the wishing star!"

Yorick, bumping into the horde of RAFians, sang loudly:

"Out of the way, whoever you are!"

The RAFians sang:

"I've got to get to the wishing star!
Wishing, wishing, wishing, wishing
Wishing, wishing, wishing, wishing
The wishing . . .
The wishing . . .
Star!"

Saffa noted, in retrospect, "Maybe we should have kept this our little secret."

With a final flourish, the RAFians sang:

"The wishing star!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 23, 2013, 10:48:31 AM

Interesting way to start a race. Although, it makes sense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 23, 2013, 11:33:41 AM

Me while reading this:  :nerd:

I wish my roommates were out so I could sing it to myself. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 23, 2013, 11:39:43 AM

Haha!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2013, 08:44:28 PM

LOL, Saffa.

I might post another chapter later -- but don't count on it. (I'm training myself to stay up past midnight.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 23, 2013, 08:47:04 PM

Somehow that comes a lot easier when you're a university student... :yawn:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2013, 10:10:38 AM

Okay, well, I've come up with an idea for Book CXCV ("Reanimated"), and I finished planning out the chapters for Book CXCI ("An Attention Hog"), and started planning on Book CXCII ("The Engulfer").

CHAPTER FOUR:
Caught

"Hurry up, Aloth!" Yorick snarled.

"Uh, right," he replied.

The two continued running toward the wishing star, disregarding the dark silhouette in the woods. This silhouette watched them as Yorick smacked into Aloth, and both toppled to the ground.

"Aloth! Why did you stop?!" Yorick demanded.

Aloth pointed at the force of horseback trolls gathered and encircled them, riding the most demonic and ugliest horses to ever exist, saying, "All of Queen's horses and all of Queen's men."

Apparently, Queen's taken to cloning and mutating horses . . . only she wasn't as skillful as she thought she was.

Yorick and Aloth were roughed up and dragged -- literally dragged -- out of no man's land, back to the Bannedlands.

The silhouette stepped from the shadows revealing himself to be Cloak.

"Wonder what that was about." he said, then he looked in the direction of the wishing star. He knew there was a possibility that may not have been Esty, but he couldn't think of what else it could be.

He leapt from his perch, and made his way to it.

***

Meanwhile, Saffa and Underseen were gliding to the wishing star with Abby reclining in the bed of it. Music started up inexplicably.

Underseen and Saffa sang:

"Sailing through the slush
In a windowless wagon sled.
Down the road we mush.
Abby is still in bed."

Abby said, in an irritated tone:

"I'm getting really bored.
I've read this magazine.
If we don't get there soon,
I think I gonna scream!"

Then the other two sang:

"Wishing star from afar,
Abby's getting worse!
Be a sport and grant our wish,
Or we'll sing another verse!"

And onward they went.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 24, 2013, 12:24:00 PM

We're like the genderbent RAFian version of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Quote

"All of Queen's horses and all of Queen's men."

woah gawd :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 24, 2013, 12:26:15 PM

Quote from: Saffa on July 24, 2013, 12:24:00 PM

We're like the genderbent RAFian version of Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Haha. Lol. We are! :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2013, 05:03:06 PM

:eyebrow: O . . . kay.

Well, alright, I mean, in the parodies Blue and Demos were like Abbot and Costello. . . .

Anyway, unless I find a way to stretch it, looks like this book'll only be 18 chapters.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Queen's Command

"Hey!" Aloth protested.

"What's the big idea?" Yorick snarled.

"I've heard tale of a star brighter than my own countenance," Queen said, a few minutes after the two were dumpted before her.

"Just rumors." Yorick muttered, as Aloth cowered.

"You surely believed it was something worthwhile, Yorick!" Queen spat. "You were discovered heading for it. Now . . . tell me . . . what's so special about this star?"

Yorick tried to bluster pass this question, but Aloth, out of sheer fear of repercussion, spilled the beans, causing Yorick to facepalm. Yorick muttered, "Nice, Aloth. Nice."

"A wish, eh?" Queen said, voice silkily and dangerously quiet. "What could you possibly wish for that service of your queen does not already give you?"

It was a rhetorical question, one no one with a double-digit I/Q would answer. The two didn't.

"The RAFians are on their way to it, are they?" Queen asked. "Of course they are."

Music started as she whipped around, singing:

"They're on their way
To touch to the wishing star.
Those RAFians are going to be rich!
But what about me?
You better bet that
I'll be getting there first,
And, if I don't,
Your lives are going to be cursed!
So wish that the wish will
Wind up belonging to me.
I want it so much!
I gotta go touch
The wishing star!"

Yorick made defensive gestures as Queen's intensity was making him uncomfortable. He was saying, "Okay, okay . . . !"

"They're getting ahead!
They're getting it,
Instead of me!
You gotta be quick!
You gotta be fast!
You gotta beat out
The rest of the cast!
And procure that wish for me . . . !"

Then Aloth and Yorick, albeit hesitantly, joined in.

"We're taking a stand.
We're making a vow.
This is the place.
The moment is now."

Then Aloth and Yorick sang alone:

"This is our golden opportunity!"

Then Queen joined in:

"The wishing star belongs to three!"

Then Queen made her intent crystal clear:

"Me, myself, and I."

The song ended, but Queen's malice did not. "Get going you two! NOW!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 24, 2013, 05:20:26 PM

And now we have the Banned coming too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2013, 07:54:02 PM

Well, no more chapters tonight. Maybe not tomorrow either (due to the rather large parody in it, and the device I'm using right now has a significantly smaller character limit than RAF itself and time constraints, as I do have work tomorrow). Sorry.

Anyway, I finished planning out "The Engulfer" (which may be rather bittersweet) and started planning out "The Horde", which very well may be under 20 chapters (but I hope not).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 24, 2013, 10:47:37 PM

Now all we need is Malice...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2013, 11:29:02 PM

Don't count on it, Saffa.

She doesn't place any more stock in wishing items anymore than I do. Other than a possible cameo at the end, she won't appear in this book, and have any involvement or bearing on this plot.

EDIT: Anyway, here's the list

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Out

The RAFians must deal with a strange creature created by black magic.

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

The RAFians must deal with sentient hammers who possess those worthy to wield them, forged by Singularity.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must battle Shenecron's monstrous pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Four RAFians are seperated into the emotional spectrum.

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFian deal with a rogue quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with creature created of the DNA of two RAFians and a Heinlin.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians must battle self-replicating creatures.

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in 1602.

• Book CXCV: Reanimated

The RAFians must deal with a creature that reanimates dead bodies as its own.

All titles are libel to change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2013, 09:16:32 AM

Okay, maybe I can get this chapter up.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
What Wish Would You Want?

The RAFians continued to sail over terrain to get to the wishing star, which shouldn't exist by all scientific means.  Although, by that same token, Realm Walkers and sentient stars would probably be an impossibility as well. Meanwhile, Underseen was getting thoughtful as music started up and he sang:

"Did you ever wish that
You could have a wish
That would come true?
I wonder what my wish would be?
Which wish I would
Want to wish, you see?
Which wish would be
The wish for me?
Geez, I wish I knew."

Abby sang, without missing a beat, though punctuating it with a cough:

"I'd wish we were happy and
Be glad for what we got."

Underseen shrugged and added:

"And I'd wish we could make this
Journey when the weather's hot."

Then the three asked, aloud, despite being too far from the others to be heard:
 

"If you could reach that wishing star
And it was yours to take?
What wish would you want the most
And what wish would you make . . . ?"

Faerie did not sing, but spoke most directly, "If I'm kicking butt, then I'd be happy!"

FuBar sang, in an aside:

"If I could roam,
Then I'll be happy.
It's just a little task,
And it isn't much to ask.
If I could have my wish,
And a little kitty dish.
And then I'll be happy!"

Liz sang:

"I would wish for every single person would
Appreciate me only for my mind,
Because I got a mean I/Q of 192.
They love me for my looks
But never for my books.
So, love me for my brain.
Then I'll be happy."

Yarin sang, holding up a small flask of a blackish, carbonated liquid:

"This stupid darn elixir!
I would wish that I could fix her.
Because it's always been a failure and a flop."

Meanwhile, Yorick and Aloth trudged through snowdrifts, singing angrily.

"We've been insulted and neglected
And we've never been respected.
And we wish the wishing star
To make it stop!"

Gaz sang, making extensive use of the hyperbole:

"I have bunions, arthritis,
lumbago, bursitis,
I need glasses and
I wish retirement, you see,
In a giant RAF thread for me.
Then I'd be happy.*"

Then Saffa, Underseen, and Abby sang:
 

"If we could have our wish,
Then we'd be happy!"

Fubar declared, "I want to roam!"

Yorick and Aloth announced, "We want respect!"

Then Saffa, Underseen, and Abby sang;

"If you wish on a wishing star --"

Underseen sang:

"You'll get your wish, you see,
Then, for sure, you're gonna be --"

Then the other two joined in:

"Happy!"

Then the others joined in with the same word several times.  Then, together, they sang:

"When I get that wishing star I'll be happy!"

Then Queen, who was watching all this sedately from the window of her car, sang:

"And when I get my wish, they'll all be gone."

---
*Sorry, Gaz, I couldn't resist. ;) :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 25, 2013, 10:22:21 AM

Well. We can't let Queen get the wish, or poof, no more RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2013, 12:22:28 PM

Really? You think so?

*smiles infuriatingly*

Sorry, no more new chapters today. Need to rest up for my shift . . . and it'll be after midnight when I get home, so it won't technically be today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 26, 2013, 08:03:54 AM

Did your computer go bye-bye again? I saw you posting...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2013, 08:44:11 AM

I was . . . then I didn't feel up to it (considering what happened yesterday, and worrying about being fired because of it -- the guy was clearly accustomed to using people as doormats, and after my problems with my mom, I will never be anyone's door mat again). There very well may not be a chapter today, but I will try.

EDIT: Which is why I came to Meridian -- it's a Recovery Education Center sorta deal.  As much as I can talk it out with my fellow RAFians, it was something I needed -- a face-to-face council with someone.  But don't get me wrong -- I really appreciate the support of my fellow RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 26, 2013, 08:52:59 AM

Hey, it's okay, if you don't feel like posting, you don't need to, unless it's helping you get things off your mind. Though I don't see how that would work out with  the current book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2013, 09:32:39 AM

But I will try. I apologize in advance if the brevity is offensively apparent.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Tumbling, Stumbling Down

Cloak had heard the song, and was given pause for incredulity.  Did they truly think that whoever touched this star would be granted a wish?  How absurd!  The only way a wish comes true is through hard work with trials and tribulation.  Magically gaining what you desire -- how worthless would the object be?  How worthless the endeavor?  Great things are brought about not by magical wish-granting, but through blood, sweet and tears.
 
As he padded quietly through the snow-covered forest, Cloak pondered this conundrum. Cloak had never understood this Dweller facet -- humans aren't the only Dweller species to experience such a ludicrous desire, a desire for instantaneous wish fulfillment, without any of the toil or effort required to accomplish such feats.  Then again, Cloak noted mentally, most -- if not all -- Realm Walkers consider things such as wish-granting a foreign concept.

Besides, Cloak considered, if stars had that power, why the Veil would Estelore have never used it? It could be that not all stars possess this ability, like the difference between metahumans and ordinary humans.

Cloak saw the RAFians stream out of a narrow mountain pass, and his eyes widened.  He sensed the vibrations very quickly, and, without thinking, leaped up as the first rumbling started.  His unconscious mind seemed to take over, as he formed a rather large air scooter, which hovered beneath him.  It was easy to balance atop it, as felines are renown for there senses of balance.

He could feel the avalanche buffeting the bottom of the air scooter, but he always bobbed above it, as if the snow in the avalanche was using the air scooter as a beach ball.

But it turned out the other RAFians hadn't escaped the wrath of this tumbling snow, but each were riding it down in their own way.  Underseen was an unusually large and lithe Venber -- with Abby clinging so tightly to his neck that her knuckles were white, whereas Underseen couldn't seem to feel it.

Naturally, all the fliers were flying from it -- Parker using his Owl Ride Armor and Gaz went batty.  Saffa and Noelle went Psycholopterran, passing through the snow (literally) and flew up and away.  But most were either using makeshift toboggans, sleds, skis or snowboards to careen down to the base.

<Funny meeting you here,> Noelle replied drily, addressing Cloak.

"You all are on a fool's errand," Cloak said, quietly.

<Didn't catch that.>

"Never mind."

Meanwhile, Abby was screaming -- not "rollar-coaster-aaaah" but "I'm-gonna-throw-up-and-die-aaaaah".

"Abby, you okay?" Underseen asked.

"DO I HAVE TO ANSWER?!?!" Abby screamed, now digging her nails into Underseen's Venber flesh and regreting it immediately.  Underseen could take the Venber's form, the texture, but he could not mimic the Venber's temperature tolerances, so he would not melt by the heat generated from Abby's crushing grip.

They all eventually reached the bottom safely. . . . Of course, Yorick and Aloth were buried headfirst in the snowdrift, legs dangling most awkwardly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 26, 2013, 09:36:57 AM

Ooh, Abby, you're becoming almost murderous with this wish. ;)

Quote

"Abby, you okay?" [...] "DO I HAVE TO ANSWER?!?!"

I got that reference. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 26, 2013, 09:51:38 AM

It's a RAFalanche!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 26, 2013, 09:53:09 AM

:facepalm: Ay, caramba, DN.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 26, 2013, 01:58:08 PM

I liked Dino's joke

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2013, 05:53:40 AM

No new chapter until later, or maybe not at all. Went from working 3:30 to midnight to 10 AM to 6:30 PM. Exhausted.

EDIT: New chapter. Hopefully it's not too short or has stupid errors. I'm still quite tired.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Deaf Ears

At the base of the mountain, Cloak hopped of the air scooter which soon dissipated. His face was in scrutible as the wind forced his cloak and hood to billow melodramatically. He glanced around to see the rest of the RAFians landing or demorphing or what have you.

"So, after the wish, too, eh, Cloak?" Dino smirked.

"There is no wish," Cloak said.

Dino's cheeky smirk faded almost immediately. "What?"

"There is no wish," Cloak said, his tone stern and serious. "The very idea is ludicrous. Absurd."

"Bull," Rotiart accused. "You just want us off the trail so you can hog that wish all for yourself!!!"

Several of the RAFians seemed to think that Rotiart had a fair point. Noticing this, Cloak curled his lip in disgust.

"One, I have no -- I repeat again, no -- interest in this supposed wish (should it even exist, which I highly doubt)." Cloak said. His tone was even, calm, and impatient. "Second, if that thing is truly a 'star' how do you plan on touching it?"

Silence met these works, but the faces of the others showed mutinous looks of defiance. Cloak sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead in frustration.

"Look --"

"Why are you going after it, then?" said a quiet voice. Azzy.

"I thought it was Esty," said Cloak earnestly. "I though she could have been in distress."

"That starlight is blue," Gaz pointed out. "Esty's is yellow."

Cloak shrugged, "There are chromatokinetics in existence."

"What-to-kinetics?" Abby asked.

"They can manipulate colors," Cloak said.

"Sounds real useful." Sakki said, unable to keep the derision from her voice.

"In any case, that is immaterial," Cloak said, tone formal and business-like. "Have any of you considered all this wish nonsense is nothing more but bait for a trap?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 27, 2013, 08:12:02 PM

You could be either doubtful or correct.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 27, 2013, 09:58:37 PM

Hmmm... Fair point right there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 27, 2013, 11:20:53 PM

Don't worry about errors in the chapter. If there are spelling mistakes or anything I always correct them before making the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 27, 2013, 11:37:28 PM

See, Cloak? Saffa's got your back. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2013, 06:39:10 PM

Ah, well, thanks. And make no mistake, I mean that sincerely.

Now, unless I can stretch it, is the halfway point of this book.

CHAPTER NINE:
Estelore and the Elixir

Silence greeted these words. Underseen looked thoughtful, but said nothing. Saffa and Abby were nonplussed.

Then there was a loud, obnoxious snort. The owner of such a snort was obvious as Rotiart said accusingly and derisively, "You're manipulating us, so you can have that wish to yourself!"

Cloak was starting to get irritated. He rubbed his forehead with his hand, as if to release inner pressure, "Haven't I just told you? I do not desire that wish, even if it existed! How much more vehemently sincere to I have to be for you to take notice of this fact?"

"Lies," Rotiart sneered.

Cloak narrowed his eyes wondering how severe the implications and consequences would be if he squished Rotiart like a bug. Cloak was a bit ashamed to admit he was sorely tempted to commit such an act.

Fortunately, a distraction occured by Yarin's elixir bubbling and frothing forth rather explosively. Yarin rushed to it immediately to try to stem the flow of the carbonated black liquid. Dino walked up to the streaming, bubbling liquid and sniffed it. She took a few tentative licks.

"Dino, don't! I don't know what it could do to you!!" Yarin said urgently.

The Ankylotyrannus replied, "Yarin -- it's Pepsi. Your elixir is nothing more than Pepsi."

***

Estelore was sedately heading to Earth from observing the planet Omicron Persei VIII, which she found rather amusing. She remained oblivious to the wishing star business on Earth. And she clearly wasn't there.

It was a vast distance between the two planets which she could span much quicker if she had the inclination. But she felt no urgency, so she took her sweet time, taking in the scenery.

She was about a couple of light-years away when she suddenly disconcerted. This confused her a little. Then a thought occured to her.

Oh . . . oh, the little booger better not of . . . she thought angrily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 28, 2013, 07:59:12 PM

Meh.  I prefer Coke.  :P

BTW, I would not blame Cloak one bit if he did squash Rotiart like a bug.  In fact I kinda wonder how come nobody else has yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 28, 2013, 08:08:03 PM

Yes. Agreed. ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 28, 2013, 08:09:45 PM

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on July 28, 2013, 08:08:03 PM

Yes. Agreed. ^^

Which one?  Coke > Pepsi, or Everything > Rotiart?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 28, 2013, 08:10:40 PM

Rotiart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2013, 08:29:41 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on July 28, 2013, 07:59:12 PM

BTW, I would not blame Cloak one bit if he did squash Rotiart like a bug.  In fact I kinda wonder how come nobody else has yet.

Well, he'll get his -- rather harshly -- in "Grimm Prospects", but I cannot say more without revealing MAJOR spoilers.

I might write another chapter in an hour or two. Or not. Depends on how tired I am.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 28, 2013, 08:31:17 PM

... I prefer Pepsi. Just sayin'.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2013, 06:56:33 AM

Ah, yes, well -- new chapter! May be brief.

CHAPTER TEN:
Nearly There . . .

Rotiart may have been a fool in a plethora of ways. But he knew an opportunity when he saw one. While the others were preoccupied with the Pepsi incident, he attempted to sneak off and procure that wish for himself.

"HEY!!!" Dino exclaimed, having spied the uppity, obnoxious RAFian. "Rotiarts going to the star!"

"Dammit," Rotiart cursed, as he ran for it. The rest of the RAFians gave chase, all wanting that wish for themselves.

"Wait! That wish doesn't --" Cloak called, but it was futile. He never finished the sentence, but punctuated it with a heavy sigh. Cloak still could not fathom the Dweller desire for wishes like this. It was a complete foreign concept to all Realm Walkers.

That's not to say that Realm Walkers do not have wishes, but they realize that they cannot be magically brought to fruition. Cloak was at an impasse -- what should he do? Should he let them follow their fruitless road, or try to prevent the inevitable trap from springing -- assuming it is a trap, after all.

They were making rather remarkable time in getting close to that blue dome of light. Any one of the could be the first to touch it. So, natually, music started up, and they all sang:

"We're taking a stand.
We're making a vow.
This is the place.
The moment is now.
This is our golden opportunity!
The wishing star belongs to three!"

Suddenly, they were surrounded by Queen's troll army. The RAFians were taken completely off-guard. She smirked gloatingly as threw a grenade full of somniferous spores, she sang:

"Me, myself, and I."

Each one of the RAFians were slowly drifting off into dreamland, or deactivating. Queen cackled at her success, mildly indifferent to having also dusted Yorick and Aloth as well.

Queen may have pretended otherwise, but she was not as heartless and malicious as Malice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 29, 2013, 07:21:17 AM

This book is going surprisingly fast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2013, 08:10:40 AM

Well, I did say its going to be eighteen chapters. And the "Simpsonsian" twist hasn't happened yet.

May be brief.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
. . . Or Not

"Take them to the cells," Queen instructed. "Put Yorick and Aloth in cells seperate -- punishment for failing me."

"Yes, my Queen," the troll guard said in a slurred baritone.

"And keep the RAFians sedated," Queen said. "I cannot emphasize that enough. Keep them sedated."

"We shall, my Queen."

"Fail this -- and you, all of you, shall feel my wrath." Queen said, quite seriously and severely sincere. "Now, leave me. I need to think how to word my wish properly."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, dolt." Queen snarled. "Just don't take my command lightly."

She spoke as if she knew they would foul up this whole arrangement. It was prudent to expect such, as trolls were not known for being particularly smart. But Queen hadn't an army without them, and they feared her. She did not care for them, they were just tools to her, although she didn't discard them as readily as Malice would have. The trolls seemed oblivious of this factoid though.

***

For the first few hours, the trolls mindlessly continued drugging the RAFians. But they eventually began to slack off, when Queen didn't come to inspect the prisoners. She was too busy contemplating how to word her wish, to close the loopholes.

The RAFians began to stir. Underseen, Abby, and Saffa were the quickest to reach a groggy state of semisomnolence.

The trolls were slow to notice this, providing the three enough tim to free and extricate themselves from the cells. It was when the others were showing subtle signs of semisomnolence that the trolls began to panic.

They sedated the rest of them, without even realizing that three were gone.

Worse still for the trolls, Cloak was rapidly approaching the encampment, and Esty was getting closer to Earth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 10:14:47 AM

Anyway, here's the list, complete with a new book!

• Book XLV: A War of Armor

Parker is outraged to see knockoffs of his rather unique armor and what they're being used for.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Out

The RAFians must deal with a strange creature created by black magic.

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

The RAFians must deal with sentient hammers who possess those worthy to wield them, forged by Singularity.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must battle Shenecron's monstrous pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Four RAFians are seperated into the emotional spectrum.

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFian deal with a rogue quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with creature created of the DNA of two RAFians and a Heinlin.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians must battle self-replicating creatures.

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in 1602.

• Book CXCV: Reanimated

The RAFians must deal with a creature that reanimates dead bodies as its own.

• *Book CXCVI: Making of a Monster

This book'll deal with Malice's backstory. Chances are RAFian appearances will be relegated to cameos.

All titles are libel to change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2013, 10:21:07 AM

New book sounds interesting - villain backstory FTW! :D

Though with what we've seen so far, it'll be interesting to see if she's flawed villain or just crazy psycho villain.

Am I saying too much? Yeah, I probably am... I'll just go now...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 10:33:38 AM

Quote from: Saffa on July 30, 2013, 10:21:07 AM

Though with what we've seen so far, it'll be interesting to see if she's flawed villain or just crazy psycho villain.

And why can't she be both? >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2013, 10:37:21 AM

Ah, now we're talking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 10:49:23 AM

Now, a new chapter. About six more chapters to go.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
To the Pit With Them

"Please!  Please, my Queen, let me explain!" a troll pleaded. He had hair like Venusian clouds of sulfuric acid, smokey breath, yellowed teeth and diseased-looking lips.
 
"No, allow me, my Queen! He doesn't know much, really!" said another troll.  This sweaty one had sweat like toxic sludge, hair like a petroleum spill, and bearing a distinctly oily smell.
 
"Don't listen to them, my Queen!  They'll just place the blame solely on me!!" said the final troll.  He had sparse, wispy hair and he was skeletally thin.
 
Their squabbling then became more pronounced that their words became unintelligible. They didn't seem to notice or realize that this loud, obnoxious quarrelling was not making their case, but just annoying the Banned.  But they did not stop, did not halt this childish bickering.
 
"ENOUGH!" Queen roared when she had reached her limit, her tolerance of this immature passing of the blame. Queen had leaped to her feet in her fury.  The three trolls were on their knees immediately, bent over in a gesture of submission.  "I put you three in charge of assuring that the RAFians were properly sedated before I made my perfectly-worded wish."

"My Queen --"

"SILENCE!" Queen snarled.  "NO ONE TOLD YOU THAT YOU COULD SPEAK!!"

The troll relapsed into abject silence again.

"I am quite cross with the three of you," she said, still fuming.  "You should realize what your failure means."

"No, my Queen!"

"Please, don't, my Queen!"

"It was their fault, my Queen!  I had nothing to do with it!"

"SILENCE." she said forcifully.  She called in more troll soldiers, and a sort of captain of the guard one. It was this one to whom she addressed next.  "Take these three to the Pits."

"No!" the three screamed in unison. Queen ignored it, as they were dragged away. When they were gone, she turned to this captain again, and said, "As for the RAFians, Captain."

"Yes, my Queen?"

"Kill them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2013, 10:51:18 AM

Lovely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 30, 2013, 11:14:40 AM

Mmhmm...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 12:51:13 PM

Yeah, and now another new chapter. (Hey, it's my day-off. ;))

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Attempted RAFiancide

The trolls recieved their orders. They pointed their weaponry at the seemingly somnolent RAFians, preparing to cold-bloodedly slaughter, to heartlessly murder, them. However, things should never be taken at face value.

Dino's eye snapped open, with a low, angry growl. This caused the trolls to hesitate, even after Dino reared up to her full and considerable height.

Ever seen an angry ankylotyrannus? Well, it's an intimidating sight.

This bought time for the other RAFians to revive, and get to their feet.

The trolls, not being particularly smart, stood rooted to the spot. Some actually thinking that they would be able to stand against the angry RAFians. They hadn't the advantage of numbers this time. They were spread rather thin guarding the RAFians and the star (none thought to make a wish, as Queen threatened to cut off the arm that touched it).

Dino loomed over them, and said as casually menacing as she could, "Oh, don't make me eat you."

With this, several trolls lost their nerve and ran off. But a few stubborn stragglers remained, steadfastly obeying their orders.

"Really?" Gaz said, still a bit groggily. "Get out of the way!"

They refused.

Parker warmed up his weapons before asking, "Do you guys really want to be cannon fodder?"

Now there weren't any trolls left guarding the RAFians.

***

Meanwhile, Queen was deliberating on how to word her wish, apparently by snoozing in her makeshift throne.

She dreamed of the destruction of RAF, but nothing to the utter destruction that Malice always envisioned. Queen is and always was more benign in comparison, but no less vindictive, spiteful, and vengeful.

***

While this was happening, Cloak had come upon the scene seeing the blue star, realizing that it was definately not Esty.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 30, 2013, 12:56:18 PM

Yay for days off!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 02:40:15 PM

Quite.

*sips his soda, then cracks his knuckles and wiggles his fingers.*

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Giggly Star

Cloak watches passively as a lone figure makes a break for the star. Cloak knew it was a RAFian, via Earthsight. It took a moment longer, but he recognized the pattern of the footsteps.

It was Abby.

Cloak wondered how long could she remain unnoticed, how close could she get.

Suddenly, a chorus shattered the silent stillness. It was sung by the RAFians exiting some dungeon-like pavilion.

"She's heading for the wishing star."

This roused Queen and she schreeched to her trolls:

"Stop her before she gets too far!!"

But the trolls weren't as fast, as the RAFians completed their reprise. The troll guards and soldiers worked furiously to catch up, but they focused more on power than speed.

Cloak still could not fathom the big deal about this star wish thing. Clearly, it was something that was deeply coveted.

"Hello, Esty, what brings you here?" Cloak said without turning around.

"What's every one --" she began but stopped when she saw the bluish-white energy dome, believed to be the wishing star.

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!" Queen roared.

Why? Because Abby was the first to reach the wishing star. The first to touch it.

She shut her eyes, focusing her mind on her wish, expecting it to come true.

But nothing happened.

She tried again, but the results didn't change. But a childish voice tittered.

Abby tried again, and was only greeted by giggling.

"What's wrong with this thing?!" she cried out, frustratedly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2013, 02:58:54 PM

FAIL!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 30, 2013, 02:59:32 PM

Huh. Figures.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 30, 2013, 03:39:26 PM

Lovin the updates! Being out of town has made it hard to keep up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 04:27:25 PM

Sorry 'bout that, Gaz. But it is my day off and this book's nearly done . . .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Estelore Explains It All*

"Figures," Abby said.  "GIMME MY WISH! I was here first, I touched the friggin' star first and -- DON'T YOU LAUGH AT ME, YOU -- !!!"

"Don't waste your breath, Abby. There is no wish." came a tone with concealed reproachfulness. It was Estelore.

"Huh?"

"This isn't a wishing star. I've never met such a thing. Stop wasting your energy." Estelore said in a clipped tone. Then she turned to the blue star, with masked fury. "That will be quite enough, Freddie. Stop this deception."

The star just giggled and tittered like a naughty, young child.

"Freddie, I said, enough." Estelore said with an air of determined calmness.

"Freddie" just tittered again, stifling laughs.

Estelore's patience was waning. She spoke warningly yet authoritatively, like a parent, "Freddie, I won't say it again."

But this "Freddie" would not obey.

Estelore lost her temper briefly, "NOW young man!! Don't make me come in there!"

Suddenly, the bluish-white energy dome structure vanished and the same boy that told Abby, Underseen, and Saffa to go after the star in the first place appeared.

"You are such naughty child, Freddie." Estelore said, regreting her loss of temper.

Abby wasn't so keen on forgiveness though. "'Naughty'? 'NAUGHTY'?! He told us that we'd have a wish! He --"

"Cool it, Abby." Cloak said. "I told you that it didn't exist. You allowed yourself to give your hopes up."

"You didn't know about this!"

"No, I didn't," Cloak admitted freely, "but I knew wish fulfillment could only happen with blood (or ichor), sweat, and tears. Not some magical star."

"And don't think you're going to get off scot-free from this, Freddie." Estelore said, seizing him by his now-normal-looking ear.

"Ow! That hurts, Aunt Estelore!"

That brought a resounding silence to the RAFians.

---
*Reference to that old Nickelodeon show, "Clarissa Explains It All".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 30, 2013, 04:34:18 PM

Days off are wonderful things.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 30, 2013, 04:37:28 PM

Aunty Estelore? Huh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2013, 04:38:33 PM

Aunt?! :D

This Freddie the Star appeared briefly in some other book, if I recall correctly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 04:48:01 PM

Yep, but unnamed, I think. If he was and it was a different name, let's just call it a CFRSU -- CloakedFigure Royal Screw-Up. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 30, 2013, 04:57:12 PM

:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 30, 2013, 06:13:49 PM

Lol, that was excellent!  "Aunt Estelore," that's awesome.  :XD:

Powerful lesson, too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2013, 07:15:49 PM

Too right.

But I think I'm tapped out for tonight.

*stretches and yawns.*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 30, 2013, 07:30:42 PM

You did good today. How many...? Three? Chapters. That's awesome!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2013, 08:13:20 AM

New day, still off.

May be brief.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Yorick and Aloth's Bogus Non-Venture*

Yorick and Aloth were flung into a cell, still unconscious. They stayed sedated much longer than the RAFians as the sedative was more effective apparently.

But eventually they revived, confused and puzzled from their surroundings. They were in one of the nicer cells, but it was crystal clear that they were imprisoned, even to their semisomnolent minds.

"Wh-what happened?" Aloth asked.

"We royally peeved her off, that's what happened," Yorick said, moodily mutinous. "We failed, so she threw us in the pokey."

"It's the nice cell, though," Aloth pointed out. "She must care. Some. A little."

It was true. Queen was not nearly as quick to throw away allies as Malice was. Then again, Queen was several centuries younger than Malice.

There was a loud click, the sound of iron bars withdrawing, and Queen strolled into the cell without a backward glance.

"This was a fruitless endeavor from the beginning," she said without preamble. "The wishing star was a cruel, vicious hoax by a brat star kid."

Then she looked at the two with an indifferent air, disguising and concealing the fact that she had, in actuality, come to marginally care for the two. Though she would vehemently deny this if called on it. Yorick and Aloth got this, but allowed her to be as pompous as she desired, albeit rather grudgingly on Yorick's end, and they knew she liked being in charge.

"We pull out now," she said. "We will return to the Bannedlands. And plan for tomorrow."

"Why?" Aloth asked. "What are we going to do tomorrow?"

"The same thing we do every day, Aloth," she said, rather melodramatically, "try to take over RAF!"

A beat passed.

"And then what?" Yorick asked, arms folded.

"Never mind that now," she said dismissively. "Let's go."

---
*Referencing "Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 31, 2013, 08:30:00 AM

Haha, I liked the schtick in the end. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2013, 10:19:12 AM

Yeah, it just seemed to fit.

I also wanted to differentiate Queen from Malice, making her different than a less effectual Malice clone -- Queen can be unpleasant and a nuisance, but she's more like Jessie of Team Rocket, threatening but, in the end, ineffectual in her maliciousness. She may try to act big and heartless, but she really isn't.

Whereas Malice is genuinely evil and disturbed, only malicious doing things for her entertainment. I don't know if this coming across.

Anyway, two more chapters to lay down. The next book will be a Parker-heavy one, I believe.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Estelore's Burden

"Aunt Estelore?" Saffa said.

"Aunt Estelore? Are you serious?" Dino said.

"You never told us you had a nephew," Gaz said. Then she looked perplexed. "How does the star family tree work though?"

Estelore looked weary and worn. "It's not like your concept of aunts and uncles. Within a single galaxy, all stars -- despite being sentient or not -- are considered to be interrelated. True sentience in stars are rare. You'd have an easier time creating an all-shiny Pokemon team -- without cheating or events or the like."

"It's quite rare, we get it," Underseen said.

"Anyway, Freddie is the only other one of my kind that I had ever met."

He smiled cheekily at this.

"And he's a complete spoiled brat."

"Hey!"

"It is true, and you know it." Estelore said, very sternly. "Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should."

"Sixty-eight thousand, nine hundred." Freddie replied, flippantly. This wasn't a random number, it was an actual one.

"And that was in this century alone, Freddie," Esty snarled. "I'm getting tired of always having to clean up your messes. If you don't knock it off --"

"Cleaning up his messes? What do you mean by that, Esty?" Abby asked.

But Cloak's eyes widened as he understood immediately, having a mischievous neice of his own. "That's why you have been gone from RAF for those long stretches of time. When you told us you were exploring the galaxy."

Estelore stood up straighter, shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes."

"What a burden to bear," Alic said, "alone."

"You ruin my fun!" Freddie whined.

"Your fun is malicious." Estelore snarled quietly. It was clear she was still more powerful than Freddie, but unlike Cloak and Shadow, it was not because of the age differential.

"It was just harmless fun!"

"Hey, when you're hurting people, that ain't harmless." Estelore said, wagging a disapproving finger at him. "What right have you to get people's hopes up and dash them after the first one touches your steller energy dome?"

"I'm not hurting anyone!"

"Giving false hope is hurting someone, boy." Estelore said, coolly. "Especially if that person has a terminal disease or the like that they're hoping to cure."

Now Cloak was starting to understand such a desire for wish-granting, that it was more than simple avarice in some cases.

"Yeah, now I'll never be able to morph again! Stupid tylee metal . . ." Abby complained.

"Shouldn't that reaction have ebbed by now?" Cloak asked, surprised.

"Say what?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 31, 2013, 10:35:21 AM

Yeah, it, is; I saw the list. Saved a copy of it in Notepad. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 31, 2013, 11:28:24 AM

You're probably gonna finish the book today, huh Cloak?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2013, 12:21:40 PM

Uh, no "probably" about it. I will finish this book today.

Here's the last chapter (yeah, I probably could stretch it out for another two chapters, but it would be boring).

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Go the Distance

Abby was elated that her morphing wasn't gone forever. She would eventually grow out of the allergy as well, but that's a tale for a different time. The RAFians sojourned back to the forum sedately, as Estelore, resignedly, had to go chasing after Freddie again in the cosmos.

But yet, Cloak found himself remembering how he came to RAF. . . .

***

Desperate for interaction, he snuck away from his mother's house while she was away. He was tired of being a shut-in, much less a shut-in against his will.

He thought in song:

I have often dreamed of a far-off place
With a great, warm welcome will be waiting for me.
The crowds will cheer when they see my face.
And a voice keeps sayin',
"This is where I'm meant to be."

I will find my way.
I can go the distance.
I'll be there some day,
If I can be strong.
I know every mile
Will be worth my while.
I will go almost anywhere
To feel like I . . . belong.

Cloak travelled to the Prime Universe, searching for a place. A place where he could be free to be himself.

I am on my way.
I can go the distance.
I don't care how far,
Somehow, I'll be strong.
I know every mile
Will be worth my while.
I will go almost anywhere
To find where I belong!

Then he found RAF, having Estelore actually giving him the name "Cloak". His true Realm Walker name was unknown by his fellow RAFians as he prefered the name Estelore had given him in her offhand, flippant manner.

***

Cloak blinked.

Now that he thought of it, he wasn't sure if that was a true memory or some romanticised fantasy his subconscious fabricated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 31, 2013, 12:29:09 PM

And, hoping my Internet doesn't give in at the last minute, here's the usual:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 31, 2013, 12:41:21 PM

Yay! PDF time!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2013, 01:09:10 PM

Right.

As for Book 45, I might start it today, but, uh, it won't be for a while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 31, 2013, 01:18:11 PM

Take your time. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2013, 06:04:32 PM

Well, I'm not too sure how this'll turn out, but here it goes.

BOOK XLV:
A WAR OF ARMOR
CHAPTER ONE:
Ruminations and the Best Score

Cloak meditated on a rock on a slope overlooking the forum, parrially hidden by the leaves a weeping willow. He ruminated over the events of the preceding week. The "wishing star", the revelation of Estelore's "nephew" . . . it was a lot to take in.

And beyond that, he ruminated at all that happened since his joining -- it was a mere half a year to him, but to Dwellers it was five years. There was a lot that happened in that time. Enough to fill two hundred or so books, Cloak wagered.

He stood and looked skyward, at the azure blue sky with the fluffy white clouds drifting by listlessly. So much has happened already, yet there was more that could happen. After all, Malice was still out there. Who know what her schemes would be? She's bwen too quiet, far too quiet. She was definitely up to something. . . .

Cloak sighed heavily. Or he could just be getting as paranoid as Mad-Eye Moody. But . . . still . . . he couldn't help but wonder. . . .

***

BLAM!

Parker had discharged his weapon at a target. He could hesitate, he couldn't waste a moment.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Three more bit the dust.

Was it charged up enough? Yes! Parker aimed carefully and mimicked Samus's Final Smash with his fusion cannons. The only difference was that his armor withstood the power and did not fall apart in the slightest. It was a powerful, devestating beam. It cleared the rest of the targets, although his armor had to immediately enter a cool-down mode, and he would not be able to use it again until it recharged.

But a loud, booming voice said, "Simulation Cleared!"

Parker chuckled as he took off his helmet and saw the results. He shaved three seconds off his best time! Parker gave an elated chuckle at this, then left. He had a date with Helen later that night, and she wouldn't want him all sweaty.

Maybe afterward, but not before.

***

Outside a classified, nondescript area, a silhouette appeared with a quadrupedal, feline beast with a red-glowing singular, Cyclopean eye.

Then two entered the abandoned warehouse with ridiculous ease, and deposited a wooden crate in there.

"Come, Ravager," said the figure, and the two disappeared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on July 31, 2013, 08:07:24 PM

Cool, new baddies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on July 31, 2013, 09:09:31 PM

Ooh! Yeah!! ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2013, 06:50:00 AM

Quote from: Underseen on July 31, 2013, 08:07:24 PM

Cool, new baddies.

Uh . . . um . . . yeeeeeeaaaaaah, you keep thinking that . . . *shifty eyes*

CHAPTER TWO:
Eye Spy

The crate was soon discovered by the owner of the warehouse -- who was living there -- and he opened it to find some sophisticated technological spy cams. Eight count, along with the viewing device.

Gary Stanley Stewart looked them over eagerly. He remembered seeing Parker's armor in action -- how it was not quite the usual SPARTAN armor. There was something different. He coveted such an armor for himself, although he wouldn't use it as benevolently as Parker. He would use the blueprints to get rich, indifferent to the consequences.

But it would require a full scan of his armor, and these spy cams were small enough to be mistaken for moderately-sized bugs. So, Gary started up the spy cams and sent them to RAF.

Of course, he was unaware that he himself was being watched. A glowing red eye remain in an out-of-the-way spot.

***

In an undisclosed location, the figure lounges on her recliner, as her pet had transformed into a portal viewer. It had Cybertronian tech.

The figure spoke again, and her identity was clear. It was Malice. She said, smirking cheekily, "Now the fun begins."

A beat of quiet, before she added, "Once again."

***

Cloak had sensed something that encroached upon the forum, but he didn't know what. He looked around, inspecting everything.

Then he noticed eight bugs that seemed to have a fascination with Parker. They weren't small enough to go unnoticed though. Didn't help that they weren't even trying to be subtle anout it.

"Go away! Leave me alone!"

Ever try to kill a bug midair? Never as easy as it looks.

But Cloak could sense the metal in them. He held out his had and slowly closed it into a fist.

This cased the metal in the "bugs" to crush and crumple, until they fell to the ground useless.

"What was that about?" Parker asked.

"Not sure," Cloak said, though he had a shrewd idea.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 02, 2013, 01:43:53 AM

So Malice. Again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 02, 2013, 02:07:46 AM

Well, naturally. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2013, 06:55:45 AM

No new chapter today. Lost the damn chapter I was working on. No new chapter unless I use a different device.

That is if this DAMN thing LETS me post this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 02, 2013, 09:06:27 AM

It's alright Cloak. We can wait. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2013, 09:19:10 AM

It's okay -- I actually came up with a non-"Memoirs"  idea with publishing potential, maybe. I'll work that out a bit, but even when I can publish it, don't think I will neglect "Memoirs". I fully intend to write each and every book.  RAF will have to disappear first before I stop.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 02, 2013, 09:21:07 AM

Haha. Yeah. We know your commited. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 02, 2013, 09:25:37 AM

Publishing? Awesome. We're fully behind you on this one. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2013, 09:39:16 AM

*shrugs*

I'll need a reliable computer and a printer first, so it won't be any time in the immediate future.  But after exploring the idea a little, I think it would work. . . . I won't say too much here.  But I'll spend the day before work fleshing it out.  Then I'll work on chapter three tomorrow (after 6:30, as I'm working 10 to 6:30 tomorrow, unless they changed it on me again).

EDIT: Try this again.

CHAPTER THREE:
Incomplete and Incomprehensible

"Any idea what those bloody things were?" Parker asked.

Cloak was inclined to answer, but something occured to him. "Are you talking to me or Tyr?"

"Any one with an answer," Parker said irritably.

Cloak held his tongue. He suspected that he was being paranoid.

"What is it?" Parker said.

"What is what?"

"Don't play dumb, your tail is twitching like mad." Parker said shrewdly. "What's up? What do you suspect?"

"I think they may be . . ." Cloak thought how to put this carefully. "Maybe they were sent here to scan."

"The forum?"

"Your armor."

***

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Gary screamed at the top of his lungs, a scream of which Christopher Lloyd would have been proud, as the video feed snapped off and the scans were barely at 10% complete. He lamented, "It had did not have enough time to complete the scan!"

He was on his feet, arms splayed out in front of him, his sandy-blonde hair rumpled and messy. He was breathing hard due to the adrenaline coursing through his body.

How would he deal, how would he cope with this setback?

He slowed his breathing and closed his eyes, mastering the fury that he felt. Losing his cool at a setback such as this would not be productive. Not productive -- nor profitable -- in the least.

He needed a plan to complete his scans . . . a well-thought out plan . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2013, 07:54:31 PM

Now, because I could post yesterday, a bonus chapter. Sorry for the brevity of it.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Schemes and Scant Skepticism

"My armor?" Parker snorted, as if this were preposterous. "My armor is nothing but standard-issue . . ."

Then he caught sight of the (clearly Cybertronian) fusion cannons on his arm, which stranged this comment.

"No, it isn't 'standard-issue' anything." Cloak pointed out, driving the point home. "Don't forget you're also packing Realm Walker tech."

Cloak waited a beat, before turning his slightly away and his shoulders sagged a little, before he added, ". . . That I gave you."

In retrospect, giving such tech away so freely may have been foolish, but Cloak trusted Parker.

"So," Parker said, now very solemn, "some serious sh--"

"Yes, yes," Cloak said, impatiently. He was well aware his name with the Realm Walkers was apparently the same as Seerow's was with the Andalites. He could only imagine what it would be -- the sheer amount of derision and disrespect -- if they discovered that he essentially did the same as Seerow . . .

It was an uncomfortable comparison.

***

"That seems to be the perfect scheme," Gary muttered, with a malicious smirk. "I'll start out this assault with an . . ."

He looked over the motionless SPARTAN armor automaton he had just constructed within an hour, and gave a mirthless chuckle.

"With an armada of that." he said. Then he sighed heavily, and said, "I suppose I should get to work then."

***

"'Bout time that the plot kicks into action," Malice said, still waiting all this, like some opinionated fangirl.

Malice also appeared to be eating popcorn -- buttered popcorn. This was just a movie on HBO for her.

Ravager mewed.

"Settle, Ravager, it can only get good from here," Malice said, as if she was an amateur film critic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 04, 2013, 12:53:33 AM

Malice the fangirl. Hee hee hee.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 04, 2013, 01:15:20 AM

Haha... That's a funny thought... :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2013, 07:26:03 PM

Now, another chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Armor Armada

"There, done." Gary said, assessing his work two days later, after rousing himself from bed. There was an armada of thirty-two armor replicas. "Not bad for sixteen hours continuous work."

Then he meandered over to the control panel, and began to punching in a command sequence. The armada stirred to life. They were basically standard SPARTAN armor sets with just one modification. The animated armors sat up and got to their collective feet. Then Gary opened a hatch in the ceiling, which opened jerkily and creakily.

"Now, go my pretties," Gary said, sounding rather like the Wicked Witch of the West, "fly, fly, fly! Complete the scan!"

***

"Took him long enough," Malice complained.

Ravager snarled quietly.

"Quite right, Ravager, quite right."

***

Cloak and Parker had returned to the quiet spot from two days previous. Away from the mayhem -- Abby and Saffa were chasing Rotiart with a spiked club apparently.

"Should we stop them?" Cloak asked.

"Eh, Rotiart probably deserves a good beating." Parker shrugged.

"We should keep that armor safe -- why are you wearing it?" Cloak said, revealing what was truly bothering him.

"You know I'm basically naked with out it -- oh, shut up, Tyr."

"Still it's risky -- whoever tried to scan it won't stop with a single attempt. I wouldn't."

"You worry too much."

Suddenly, the armada landed as Cloak narrowed his eyes, saying, "And you don't worry enough."

"What's to worry about? They're just SPARTANs."

"That fly via boot thrusters."

". . . That fly via boot thrusters." Parker echoed, then admitted, "Okay, I admit that it's a bit unorthodox."

"Parker, they're scanning you!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 04, 2013, 07:37:09 PM

Parker's been away from RAF for a long time now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 04, 2013, 07:47:04 PM

Rotiart probably did deserve to get beat up…

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 04, 2013, 08:19:50 PM

Quote from: Underseen on August 04, 2013, 07:37:09 PM

Parker's been away from RAF for a long time now.

What has it been since he was last here - one year? More than that?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2013, 06:44:33 AM

Dunno.

CHAPTER SIX:
Crushed and Frustrated

"Guys, stop it!" Parker said, assuming there were people inside the armor.

"Parker, they're not guys," Cloak said, ferrokinetically crushing one like a soda can, momentarily disrupting the scan. "They're robots."

"Then let us kick butt." Parker replied, disabling one by simply knowing the chink in the armor (which he refuses to tell anyone the location of for obvious reasons).

The two quickly made short work of the armada. The ground was littered with incapacitated or crushed animated SPARTAN armors.

"That it?" Parker asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay," Parker said. "Now who do call for clean-up?"

***

Witha cry of frustration, Gary pounded his computer console. Only 35% had been scanned. Gary coveted Parker's armor so much, but he did not have any intention on wearing it. But modifying it and selling replications of the armor.

Granted, this failure was disappointing, but he was not too terribly daunted. He would not throw in the towel so easily.

But he was back to the drawing board. . . . But he had what he needed. An idea.

He set to work immediately, not caring the time of day he would finish.

***

Malice was sitting back in her recliner. Her hand was in the nearly-empty popcorn bowl. Her head was bowed.

"zzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzz . . ."

Suddenly, Ravager roared loudly.

"I'm up! I'm up! I'm up!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 05, 2013, 08:55:24 AM

Haha. Malice fell asleep. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2013, 09:55:09 AM

 ;D

Anyway, I did come up with a few more book ideas . . .

• Book CXCVII: The Annihilator

A young sorceress is tricked into releasing a vengeful spirit from a mirror and into the body of a war machine.

• Book CXCVIII: Heart-Numbing

Fragments of the Mirror of Khione pierces the eye and heart of a RAFian.

• Book CXCIX: The VSSL

An alien invasion scout comes to earth, eventually looking for a Terran-made device called the VSSL.

Titles are not final. Yes, I know it's ambitious.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 05, 2013, 10:05:06 AM

"Heart-Numbing" sounds creepy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 05, 2013, 10:30:33 AM

Agreed^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2013, 11:35:29 AM

It's not what you think, though.

*smiles enigmatically.*

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Out

The RAFians must deal with a strange creature created by black magic.

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

The RAFians must deal with sentient hammers who possess those worthy to wield them, forged by Singularity.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must battle Shenecron's monstrous pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Four RAFians are seperated into the emotional spectrum.

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFian deal with a rogue quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with creature created of the DNA of two RAFians and a Heinlin.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians must battle self-replicating creatures.

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in 1602.

• Book CXCV: Reanimated

The RAFians must deal with a creature that reanimates dead bodies as its own.

• *Book CXCVI: Making of a Monster

This book'll deal with Malice's backstory. Chances are RAFian appearances will be relegated to cameos.
Anyway, I did come up with a few more book ideas . . .

• Book CXCVII: The Annihilator

A young sorceress is tricked into releasing a vengeful spirit from a mirror and into the body of a war machine.

• Book CXCVIII: Heart-Numbing

Fragments of the Mirror of Khione pierces the eye and heart of a RAFian.

• Book CXCIX: The VSSL

An alien invasion scout comes to earth, eventually looking for a Terran-made device called the VSSL.

• *Book CC: Conscience Corral

Someone's capturing the "angelic" side of all consciences . . . leading to abject chaos and darker impulses uninhibited.

Remember, all titles are subject to be changed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2013, 09:32:08 PM

Okay, before you read this chapter, let's have a moment of silence for Abby's (apparently forced) departure.

. . .

Now, the chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
A Better Robot

"Completed," Gary said. "Dr. Ivo, eat your heart out."

Garu's creation did, indeed, resemble AMAZO a great deal, only with rougher synthetic skin. It's eyes just beads in cavernous, recessed holes, while it lacked a mouth and toes completely. Its hairless body was solidly the color of platinum. If it stood, it would be approximately six feet tall.

"AMS," Gary said, with the air of naming a baby, "for Ability-Mimicking Synthiod."

Then he walked around the table in which it lay, and bent down to where an ear would normally be on a ordinary human. He spoke in the barest trace of a whisper, "AMS, rise."

AMS' eyes glowed hellish red as they powered to life. It rose from the table, unnaturally stiff and straight. It stood up in a similar manner.

"What is it you wish?" its voice was tinny, as expected.

"Scan this," he said, gesturing to the one armor he didn't send. AMS eyes flashed and it internalized the powers it scanned from it, and its flesh bubbled to mimic the armor.

"Now, go, my apex creation," Gary said, grandiosely, rather like Baxter Stockman in the newest incarnation of TMNT -- the one on Nickelodeon. "Go and scan the armor of the one known as Parker."

***

"Well, that didn't take long to clean up." Cloak said brightly.

"You cheated." Parker complained.

"You were the one wanting to turn it into a competition," Cloak countered.

"Yeah, well," Parker said, but never got to finish the thought as AMS made its debut appearance in the forum.

"Oh, fantastic." Cloak sighed.

"What do you want, platinum-played pu--"

"Parker. Language. There are children in this forum, after all." Cloak said, gently reproachful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 06, 2013, 10:19:07 PM

I think I've said it enough times already, but I'm gonna miss her. :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2013, 10:36:21 AM

As will I.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
AMS's Aimless Accident

"Don't censor me, Cloak," Parker said, grumpily. "I'll --"

"Where is Designate: Parker?" the power-duplicating robot said.

"Dude, how can it speak without a mouth?"

Cloak said nothing, but gazed at Parker with a heavily-lidded look, one that clearly said "Really? That's what grabs your attention? After all the Andalites and androids you've met, that's your first concern?",  and he held this glare for a moment or two.

"Oh, right. Never mind."

"Replaying primary query," AMS said, "where is Designate: Parker?"

"Reminds me a bit of how pushy the Phalanx was," Cloak noted.

"Adjusting vocal tone and lilt perimeters," AMS said. Then it replied, slightly more forcefully and a bit more hostilely, "Where is Designate: Parker?!"

"Ooh, scary," Cloak muttered sarcastically.

"Who wants to know?" Parker said, folding his arms surlily.

"Gesture and mannerisms identified." AMS said, looking directly at Parker. "Designate: Parker found."

"Yes, yes," Parker said, waving an impatient hand, "you've found me. Who sent you?"

But AMS did not answer. A wide laser swept from his eyes as he said, "Commensing scan."

"No!" Cloak cried as he stepped between the two as quickly as he could. AMS scanned Cloak's Mark instead.

"Er . . . ror. Err . . . or." it said, its neck sparking rather noticeably. "Unsp-sp-sp-sp-sp-specified eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-energy d-d-detected."

"I think you broke it," Parker said.

"Ret-t-t-t-t-turning to b-b-base for rep-p-p-p-p-p-pairs."

It left in a rather jerky manner.

"Should we follow?" Parker said.

"No, Parker, it managed to scan you again. You're being careless and reckless." Cloak said. Then he sighed and muttered, "And so am I."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2013, 07:57:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Surrogate

"How could it have failed me?" Gary groused as he permentally deactivated AMS, indifferent to any sentience that it may have ascertained, which was none fortunately. "How could have my drones failed me?"

Gary set to work, apparently loving the sound of his voice. He was completely overhauling AMS's body.

"So, I answer myself," he said, rather like Baxter Stockman again. "Only one mind can get this done. And I will get the scan complete come hell or high water. This time for sure . . ."

***

"Oh my," Malice said, fishing the last popped kernals from the unpopped ones in the bowl. "This'll be another long stretch of 'boring'. Why can there just be, I don't know, a montage of this?"

Ravager snarled a comment.

"Oh, right. Real-time."

***

"There, done." Gary said, weeks later.

What was, at one time, AMS was now resembled a gold-skinned blonde teen hearthrob in gold lamé retro clothing, as if it were the 1980s again.

"Perfect." Gary said. He was sweat-stained, unshowered, and unshaven. He left to clean up a bit and returned shortly thereafter looking decent. He stepped to an alcove straight out of "Surrogates", which held this new robot form.

"UHF." Gary dubbed. "Ultimate Humanoid Facsimile. 'Surrogate' is so outdated."

Considering the UHF's clothing, it was a bit grand of Gary considering anything else retro or outdated. Gary was looking rather eager.

He slid onto a rather uncomfortable-looking recliner, and put some sort of device around his head that covered his eyes. Then he laid down and activated the device.

Suddenly, Gary became inert. But he was not dead.

The bars gaurding the UHF's chest opened as his head twitched and he blinked. It had worked like he had hoped. He was controlling this robot body remotely.

"Now," he said, his voice mimicking that of a teen, "let's go and finally complete that scan."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 08, 2013, 08:04:23 AM

One way, or another, I'm gonna scan ya, I'm gonna scan ya, scan ya, scan ya, scan ya...
...
Bloody hell, why am I putting it to the tune of One Direction? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 08, 2013, 01:02:31 PM

The UHF reference was impossible to miss.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2013, 06:17:49 AM

Yeah. No new chapters until later tonight, working noon to 8:30 today, then 10 to 6:30 tomorrow.

EDIT: Sorry that I didn't post a chapter last night. Worked a bit of overtime and was EXHAUSTED when I came home.

EDIT: Alrighty then, down to business.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Surprising Subterfuge

"Veil's bells, Parker!" Cloak moaned, a few days after the AMS. "You know someone's trying to get a scan of that armor! And you're just parading it around --"

"It's as much a part of me as your cloak is to you!" the SPARTAN protested.

"You know why I must wear this," Cloak said, forcing his voice to be even. "And no one's trying to scan my cloak."

"You worry too much, Cloak," Parker said, starting the usual refrain.

"And you don't worry enough!" Cloak said, repeating the circular debate.

"Excuse me," said a voice. Youthful, yet matured. The two turned and saw Gary's surrogate. Immediately, Cloak was wary. He still remembered Itellsya's betrayal, and it wasn't something he would not ever take lightly again.

Parker, however, was more accommodating.

"Hey there. What can I help you with?"

"He's seventeen, not seven." Cloak commented brusquely. He was still eyeing this newcomer suspiciously. He detected metal within this boy.

"Where do I register?" he asked, looking Parker up and down. As if he was sizing him up.

Cloak's eyes widened when he realized.

"Oh, you just go --"

"Parker, get away from it!" Cloak shouted, realizing this boy was anything but. He was fully composed of metal, circuits and mechanical fluids. It was just a robot.

Gary smiled broadly and sinisterly which heavily distorted this surrogate's features. In a metaphorical sense, of course.

"Clever girl." he said.

Cloak seized the surrogate by the throat. "Did you just call me a girl?"

Despite all this imminent danger, Gary laughed through the surrogate.

"It's too late, fools! I have the completed scan."

Cloak's face hardened as Parker's face widened into one of shock. Cloak's grip ferrokinetically tightened.

"Oh, go ahead," Gary replied flippantly. "This body is expendable. I'm still at my hideout. I don't need this hunk husk anymore. Go ahead and destroy it, I don't care."

Then the surrogate jerked slightly suddenly and the eyes became blank and stationary. He could be dead if he hadn't already gotten stiff and everything.

"Gateburst!!" Cloak cursed so loudly people two miles away would have caught his voice upon the wind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2013, 09:30:33 PM

Okay, well, now I'm currently planning out Book CXCV ("Reanimated").

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Repercussions and Replicas

Cloak through the useless thing aside. He was very tempted to say, "I told you so," but what would be the point? What would have stopped this OCD person from breaking into Parker's thread and scanning it?

"Cloak . . ."

"Save it," Cloak said bluntly. "We need to find this whacko's lair. Now."

"But . . . how? He was controlling the thing remotely."

"Doesn't mean that there wouldn't be traces on it." Cloak said. "That's the only reason it isn't metal powder and shrapnel right now."

Parker, even in his stunned state caught onto Cloak's meaning.

"So Aquilai, Yarin, and Goom have got a new project?"

"Decidedly so, I believe."

***

Weeks passed, and the trio hadn't managed to crack to the source of the remote signal or any other tell-tale trace of his location.

Meanwhile, Parker was having wildly fluctuating mood swings. He would be subdued and amiable one moment and surly and prone to argument the other. Cloak, on the other hand, was just quietly thoughtful, pondering and questioning the motives behind the drive for this scan.

***

"They're done," Gary said, smiling. "All fourteen. All improved on the specs."

He approached each one, touching affectionately.

"The Hyperion Armor . . . the Gigas Armor . . . the Chrysaor Armor . . . the Nova Force Armor . . . the Dark Slash Armor . . . the Falco Armor . . . the Terran Armor . . . the Slashing Strike Armor . . . the Ninjitsu Armor . . . the Aeolus Armor . . . the Prometheus Armor . . . the Icarus Armor . . . the Hermes Armor . . ."

Then he stepped up, admiringly, to the last armor. He caressed it, making it clear that it was his favorite of the lot.

"And . . . the . . . Apex Armor."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 10, 2013, 09:46:35 PM

You have Parker's character spot on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2013, 12:15:32 AM

^^ what he said.

Dang, I decide to go to sleep earlier for once, and suddenly two wild chapters appear. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 11, 2013, 04:43:59 AM

I think I may be here a bit longer, at least until the 21st... Until school starts, that is...

Great chappies Cloaky!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Estelore on August 11, 2013, 05:46:40 AM

This thread seriously needs a drinking game dedicated to it.


...Not that anybody would get out of that without some organ failure, but still.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2013, 05:57:19 AM

Ha ha ha. Guess what's going to happen in the next chapter; if you're wrong, down a pint!

Of course, the organ failure is inevitable in this case, since Cloak always keeps the reader guessing... ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2013, 06:11:11 AM

Quote from: Saffa on August 11, 2013, 05:57:19 AM

[...] since Cloak always keeps the reader guessing... ;)

*chuckles*

And, to think, I worry about being too obvious.

EDIT: Now a new chapter. May be brief.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Questionable Decision

"Okay, we'll begin the auction at $1,400." Gary said, showcasing the Hyperion Armor. He wore the Apex Armor for himself, he wasn't going to sell it. This was the most powerful one, and it was his alone.

The Hyperion Armor went for $4,181 to Albert Thomas Wright, a disgruntled inventor and homegrown terrorist.

The Gigas Armor was next. A career criminal -- Marcus Jackson -- bought it for a whopping $4,218.

The Chrysaor Armor was next. Xavier Aurum, a notorious defrauder, quickly bought it for $8,413. The check cleared.

The Nova Force Armor went for $4,418, to a paramilitary, technomaniacal extremist, Petra Foreman.

The Falco Armor went to Xavier Conrad, an air-based career criminal, for $1,588.

The Gaia Armor went to Gaea Eckles, an incurably brutish bully, for $1,858.

The Slashing Strike Armor was purchased for $6,818 by Blake Slycer.

The Ninjitsu Armor was taken for $6,188 by Karai Jensen, a thief and ninja wannabe.

The Aeolus Armor went to Arianna Glyde, a criminal with a perchant for extreme risks, for $8,178.

The Dark Slash Armor went for $4,000, paid by Owen O'Connell.

The Prometheus Armor went to Erin Pandorah, a burglar and thief, for $8,718.

The Icarus Armor went to Joyce Lowe, an inept criminal, for $8,188.

Finally, the Hermes Armor went to a reluctant terrorist, Luke Courier for $8,881.

"That's it, auction is over." Gary said, shutting down the auction.

"What about the one your wearing?" came an arrogant voice.

"Not for sale," he said, laying delicate emphasis upon the first word. "Now, the lot of you, get lost. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2013, 09:58:54 PM

You'da thought he'd find a more respectable bunch to sell these to...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2013, 05:43:36 AM

The Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face were busy. ;)

EDIT: Possibly brief chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Violation and Obsession

"What?" Parker's voice was hollow. He had just discovered that Gary's auction, but it was far too late to do anything about it.

"Parker, you shouldn't do anything hastily." Cloak attempted to advise. "Those who do not think before doing often find themselves in very precarious situations."

Parker said nothing, but he felt thoroughly violated. His armor was more than just a simple hybridized hunk of SPARTAN/Cybertronian/Realm Walker tech. His armor was a part of him, like a secondary skin to him. And, to find out that copies were just sold like sides of beef . . .

Cloak was aware of this sense of violation in his friend. He knew nothing he could say would free Parker from this crushing sensation of violation.

"Parker --"

"Leave me alone," Parker snapped.

Cloak, suddenly recognizing a correlation between this reaction and his own to the guardian spirit of his grandfather during that Piper incident, nodded his head slighty. He said, "As you wish, then, Parker. Do what you feel is right."

Cloak left, and Parker thought about the word he said.

"What I think is right . . ."

***

Meanwhile, Ravager's camera had travelled to RAF to see this exchange between the two.

Malice snorted at Parker's feelings of violation. But, of course, Malice considered hers as the only one whose feelings that matter.

"These Dwellers . . ." she said scornfully. "How very pathetic. Very easy to manipulate. Easier to break."

Ravager snarled a bit.

"Of course I won't stop doing things like this to them, Ravager," she replied, blithely. "They all just exist simply for my amusement, you know."

Ravager made an odd deep-throated purring noise.

"Perhaps one day, Ravager. Perhaps one day I will get bored with them . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 12, 2013, 07:21:03 AM

When Malice talks of being bored with Dwellers, I can't help think of Moriarty, getting bored and blowing up stuff.

Sorry. Just watched two straight episodes of Sherlock. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2013, 08:26:37 AM

And you'll find out why she is as she is in "Making of a Monster", which I'm currently planning out.

And, as it stands now, the current book might have 22 chapters.

EDIT: Well, I'm onto planning out "Heart-Numbing". As for "Making A Monster", I fear that I may have made Malice perhaps a bit too sympathetic . . . but we won't know until we get there. Something very shocking and very changing will happen in that book too, I think.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Parker's Enlightenment, Assembly Included

"Where's Parker?" Cloak asked Helen. Parker had been sulking rather recently.

"What he needs to," Helen said, rather evasively, "to recover."

Cloak narrowed his eyes as she pushed past him. Cloak noted the evasiveness of her tone, but let it slide. He hoped that Parker hadn't decided to do anything rash.

Meanwhile, the RAFians were convening in the auditorium. Cloak took his usual position in the back, while Helen sat toward the front. Cloak couldn't help but wonder if Parker told his plans to her before he took off.

***

Parker was tracking down the Hyperion Armored Dr. Wright. He managed to fight him easily enough.

"Tyr?" Parker asked. "Display known abilities."

Tyr responded, "Indestructible helmet, capable to bursting through solid rock. Plasma cannon, cable of powerful blasts. Durable, thick body armor. Dashing ability."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Sure?"

"You've been discovered," Tyr said drily.

Parker rolled out of the way of the plasma blast, just before it connected with crates he was hiding behind.

"Dirty infidel," Albert decried.

"Yeah?" Parker said, defiantly. "Well, you've something of mine, which I aim to get back."

BOOM! Wright fired a burst of pinkish plasma which Parker deflected back at him.

"Sorry to diappoint you, infidel, but I paid good money for this armor. I'm going to keep it."

Then the terrorist managed to destroy several of Parker's Ride Armors, but it enabled Parker to get close to Wright. As soon as Parker's fingers touched the Armor, something quite unexpected happened.

The Hyperion Armor glowed, and Parker could not remove his hand, no matter how wright struggled. Within seconds, the Hyperion Armor turned muddy brown and black. Then it fell away from Wright and Parker's hands were free of it.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!" Wright raged.

"Nothing," Parker said, signaling the police to capture the terrorist. Parker didn't realize it yet, but the Hyperion Armor wasn't gone. It was his to with what he wished, as it recognized him as its rightful owner. He could switch the armors at will.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2013, 08:40:05 AM

Now, the chapter for the day. I suppose its ironic, given its Parker's birthday and all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Giga Ouchie

The assembly was rather boring, basically rehashing all the crimes commited by armored criminals. It was the immediate briefing of the sudden disappearance of the Hyperion Armor and arrest of Albert Thomas Wright, that Cloak remembered the quirk of Realm Walker tech he gave Parker -- it had marked him as the true owner of the tech, and any replication of the armor would acknowledge this. Cloak had always assumed this was bluster in how much "better" Realm Walkers were to Dwellers.

The mere thought of this ethnocentrism made Cloak roll his eyes.

"Now," Richard said as the presentation concluded, "the question is how fo we stop these replicas."

"We don't," Cloak said in a low voice than nonetheless carried. A stunned silence met these words, though Helen looked worried that Cloak would out what Parker was doing.

"Are you actually suggesting we sit around and do nothing? While those criminal remain at large? This our jurisdiction!" Sakki asked aggressively.

"It is being taken care of," Cloak said. "The reclamation of the tech is being accomplished by the only one that can reclaim it."

"Don't get mysterious on us, be blunt." Duff said brusquely.

"Point is," Cloak said, nettled, "that they are being reclaimed by their rightful owner. What we need to do is find the person who started all this."

***

The battle was vicious. Marcus Jackson showed no compunction to mercy, to sadism. He was all about brutal efficiency.

But, in the end, Parker still reclaimed the Gigas Armor for his own.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 14, 2013, 08:52:10 AM

It really is Parker's birthday. Look at all the presents he's getting. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2013, 06:56:45 AM

So, without preamble, for I'm still quite tired:

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Golden Opportunities

"We need to destroy the scans and data taken from them," Cloak continued. "Otherwise whoever is behind this can just make and extrapolate more armors."

"Right," Richard agreed, "Goom, Aquilai, Yarin. You've the body that whoever-it-is used to scan Parker's armor. Have you made any headway with locating the source of the wireless signal?"

The three hesitated, before Goom spoke, "We could not pinpoint it, not exactly. We tracked it two four possible locations."

"We must be thankful for small favors, then," Dino commented. "What did you do with the body afterward? Destroy it?"

The three shifted uncomfortably again. Aquilai looked a little livid though.

"What?" Gaz asked shrewdly.

"Well, think of the prosthetics we could generate from this technology," Goom said. "Amputees could walk again! The deaf could hear again, the blind could see again!"

Cloak could easily see the double-edge sword qualities of such technology. It could, indeed, be used for all those things. But it could be quite easily used for crime and deception, as Gary proved already.

Then there was the problem of overreliance. Many species were overreliant on their technology already, humans especially. If it was taken away from them, they'd be rather hapless and helpless, being so accustomed to living with it. That is not to say that there wouldn't be some who would doggedly survive, but the layman . . .*

"We're getting offtrack," Azzy said. "The point is you found the locations."

***

Xavier Aurum was a proud, arrogant, narcissistic man. He believed the Chrysaor Armor made him undeniably invincible with its regenerative abilities, double air-dashing, plasma cannon, and forcefield generation.

Then Parker came in. His SPARTAN training linking to to his RAFian training, and Aurum really stood no chance. Parker claimed the Chrysaor Armor for his own.

---
*Actually a legitimate concern of mine. And I'm including myself in that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 15, 2013, 07:35:52 AM

I share your concern. Included it in a Richard speech in my first fic. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 15, 2013, 12:35:59 PM

Keep up the awesome work!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2013, 08:08:45 AM

I intend to, Gazzy.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Mustering the Force

"Okay, then," Phoenix said, "best to come up with a course of action."

"How about split into teams to investigate the four coordinates?" Slushie Man suggested airily.

"Right," Richard nodded. "Cloak, Gaz, Goom, and Dino -- you investigate the northern coordinates."

The four nodded their acknowledgement and acceptance of the plan.

"Duff, Slushie Man, Yarin, and Saffa -- take the eastern coordinates."

The four made acknowledging and accepting sounds.

"Underseen, Helen, Sam, and Aquilai -- take the southern coordinates."

They murmured ascent.

"And Abby, Horse, Guy, and Block -- take the western coordinates."

They murmured their agreement.

"Okay, then," Richard said, "Phoenix and I will monitor your progress from here. Best get going, we haven't a clue to how much time we have."

"Right!"

Then they were off.

***

Parker was battling Petra Foreman and Owen O'Connell in the Nova Strike and Dark Slash Armors respectively. Petra was out of her mind and Owen was coldly methodical and heartlessly malicious. The battle was vicious and merciless. But the two only had their own interests in mind, and were not working together, which would have been the smart thing to do but both were quite prideful and exceedingly arrogant.

Especially when they destroyed the last of Parker's Ride Armors.

Parker smirked as was easily able use that to his advantage and reclaim both their armors as his own.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 16, 2013, 05:08:30 PM

Parker is getting some level ups.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 17, 2013, 03:11:10 AM

Ha ha, I only just got the reference in the chapter name.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2013, 07:13:04 PM

*sleepily* Huh? Reference? Oh . . .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Sky, Earth, and Discovered

BAM!

zzzzz-BLAM!

TSEEEEEEEWWW!

Parker was trading shots with Xavier Conrad, who was wearing the Falco Armor (the one whose primary weapon made the "TSEEEW" sound), and Gaea Eckles, who wore the Gaia Armor. They were actually coordinating some of their attacks, but it appeared to be accidentally fortuitous.

Parker was basically dancing around their shots with an agility unseen before.

 "Yes, run! Run, little man!" Xavier Conrad crowed.

"Yes!" Gaea Eckles agreed. "Flee in terror!"

"Boisterous fools," Parker muttered. He was using an old steel crate as cover. Then, almost as an afterthought, he hissed frustrated, "Oh, shut up, Tyr."

***

The other teams had reported that their locations were thoroughly searched, but deadends.

"Goom, how many times do I have to tell you?" Dino complained. "I'm not a taxi."

However, Gary did not count on his little hidey-hole being discovered by one with Earthsight.

"There's a tunnel in that warehouse," Cloak said, pointing it out to the others. Cloak looked at Dino and said, almost apologetically, "It's not big enough for you, even in your compacted form, though."

"Could you widen it?" Gaz asked.

"Might risk collapsing it . . ." Cloak said, appraisingly.

***

"H-how . . .?" Gaea said breathlessly as the drained former Gaea Armor fell away from her.

"Give it back!" Xavier whined like a spoiledchild. "Give it back! I bought it! It's mine!"

Parker ignored him, and had tne authorities arrest the two.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 18, 2013, 12:47:36 AM

Lol, DinoTaxi is becoming quite popular, eh? :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2013, 07:05:21 PM

Well, it's kinda her schtick.

Well, I finally decided to make a new book based off an idea that I've been sitting on for a while:

• Book CCI: "A Story of Toys" -- The RAFians are reimagined as toys.

Remember, the title isn't set in stone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Strike, Blow, Fizzle

"Are you sure that this is even the right place?" Dino said.

"How many warehouses have a secret underground tunnel in them?" Goom asked rhetorically in an exasperated manner.

Suddenly, blazing from the warehouse, was an armored person cloaked with forceful energy.

"Well," Cloak said, drolly, "I think that's a significant sign that it is right place."

***

Parker managed to find and reclaim the Slashing Strike Armor from Blake Slycer. The armor itself looked as if some used the Ultimatrix on Hork-Bajir DNA.

"You . . . you . . . you loser!!" Blake blustered finding his armor, which he paid so much for, was now junk.

Parker snorted at this . . . then was ambushed from the shadows, with an "ugh-oof".

It was Karai Jensen. She was wearing the Ninjitsu Armor, and using it far more effectively than anyone before her.

"Okay," Parker said, recovering from the attack in a rather ungraceful way. "I've been getting complacent. You're good."

But she melted into the shadows again. Parker couldn't see her. The Ninjitsu Armor was dedicated to stealth, and Karai was using it with deadly precision.

"Oh, wonderful," Parker muttered.

***

Cloak held his hand out and easily stopped the "Nova Strike" attack of Gary's Apex Armor. Then, firmly grasping his helmet, he swung Gary in a wide arc to Dino. Dino easily caught him in her mouth, and, being in her compact form, she worried him like a dog with a bone.

"St-st-st-st-st-stop-p-p i-i-i-i-i-it!!!" he protested, voice vibrating.

It is little wonder why ne never noticed a Goomba slipping away, into his warehouse complex. . . .

***

"There!" Parker said, frustration dissipating. He had managed to reclaim the Ninjitsu Armor after a vicious three and a half hours.

Parker knew he would require rest before going after the rest. Also, because Tyr wouldn't shut up about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 18, 2013, 07:11:28 PM

Lol, maybe I should just give up and paint myself yellow and black.  ::)

Heh, don't get between a dinosaur and her chew toy.  >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2013, 10:01:09 AM

LOL, on both counts, Dino.

Now, the list.

• Book XLVI: The Worst Plague

The RAFians must weather the worst plague to ever existed -- the Hate Plague.

• Book XLVII: Little Alien Napoleons

The RAFians are caught in the middle of a war between Helmacrons and Fmeks.

• Book XLVIII: Go Away!

The RAFians must deal with the paparazzi who are all of a sudden interested in them.

• Book XLIX: RAFian Tales

RAFians tell various RAFian-themed stories across a lunch table.

• Book L: Maul

The RAFians must deal with the result of one of Demos's experiments.

• Book LI: Erised Orbs

The RAFians must face their greatest desires.

• Book LII: RAFians Alive!

Read the "Mummies Alive" parody in the RAFize songs thread.

• Book LIII: The Pain Reliever

The RAFians must deal with an elderly Vulcan styling himself the "Pain Reliever".

• Book LIV: Beyond the Veils

Aquilai and Aila must confront old foes while the other RAFians must put up with a Czarinian bounty hunter.

• Book LV: Dangerous Deals

Demos meets up with his half-brother, Shenecron, who has a perchant for making deals.

• Book LVI: Of One Mind

Malice seeks out the Unimind.

• Book LVII: The End of Time

The RAFians must contend with two Kryptonians (who think they're Time Lords) and prevent them from ending time altogether.

• Book LVIII: Hematomimic

The RAFians must capture a Plasmavore and put up with it's rather stupid Judoon jailer.

• Book LIX: Sins of Youth

Estelore, Richard, Parker, and Cloak must survive when the entire city and forum have been reduced to two-year-olds.

• Book LX: The Replacements

The RAFians must contend with the fame-feeding Eidolon Consciousness.

• Book LXI: Arachnoids

The RAFians must contend with the Arachnoids and finding a cure for one of their own that was poisoned before it's too late.

• Book LXII: Personal Tissues

The RAFians must contend with some one misusing Bibliophaetos's discarded book shell.

• Book LXIII: Memory Today, Gone Tomorrow

The RAFians lose their memory and must find a way to regain it.

• Book LXIV: Appliance Armageddon

A superintelligent computer controls all electronics, and the RAFians must stop it.

• Book LXV: Prodigy and Composite

Some RAFians are merged into two separate entities.

• Book LXVI: The Merging

The Universes begin colliding and merging.

• Book LXVII: Be A Doll

The RAFians are confronted by a Super Chucky.

• Book LXVIII: They're Such Cards

The RAFians are sealed into cards, which end up trapped in an ancient leather-bound book, and it's up to three kids to free them.  An out-of-continuity book.

• Book LXIX: Dinosaur Island

Everyone, except those that bear a Mark, begin turning saurian.

• Book LXX: Corrupted

The RAFians must deal with the son of Cataclysm, Corruptor.

• Book LXXI: Artificial Skins

The RAFians must deal with symbiotes.

• Book LXXII: Separation Anxiety

The RAFians must contend with an ethereal virus.

• Book LXXIII: A Thing About RAFians

The RAFians must contend with Seekers, which home in onto their Marks.

• Book LXXIV: A Planted Idea

The RAFians must contend with a floramaniac.

• Book LXXV: Vacation Photos

The RAFians are sucked into a Polarisoid camera.

• Book LXXVI: A Personal Gremlin

The RAFians must contend with gremlins.

• Book LXXVII: The Rust is Silence

The Rafians must deal with an oxidation ray wielded by a criminal.

• Book LXXVIII: The Toyman Cometh

The RAFians deal with a Toyman-esque character.

• Book LXXIX: RAFian Idol

Yes, just another excuse to put in more of the (as of writing) nearly 800 parodies.

• Book LXXX: Savage Heart

Cloak battles an ancient being called Garrotik.

• Book LXXXI: Slave Islands and Juggernauts

Three RAFians are taken prisoners by the Knights and sold into the slavery of New Genoshia, while the others deal with a juggernaut.

• Book LXXXII: Shredding a King

The RAFians deal with a demonic Shredder-like ghost called Regiphaetos.

• Book LXXXIII: RAF -- The TV Show

The RAFians are forcibly recruited to Mojo's programs.

• Book LXXXIV: The Drinker

The RAFians must contend with a Spirit-Drinker.

• Book LXXXV: The Last Laugh

The RAFians must face Joker Gas.

• Book LXXXVI: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad Villain

The RAFians must contend with mind control cards which are ineffective on them.

• Book LXXXVII: Sight Unseen

Six RAFians are rendered functionally blind, optically-speaking.

• Book LXXXVIII: Don't Let It Snow

The RAFians must face a second Ice Age caused by a Diznee Ice Ifrit.

• Book LXXXIX: The Rachel Toxin

The RAFians must find a cure to a toxin that increases the fearlessness, hostility and aggressiveness induced in people which the Mark cannot protect the RAFians from.

• Book XC: Virus Alert!

The RAFians face a dangerous virus seeking a host.

• Book XCI: A Youthful Thief

The RAFians face a creature that siphons off the youth in its victims, provided they're younger than him.

• Book XCII: Calendar Creep

The RAFians face the Calendar Creep, a criminal whose crimes are holiday themed.

• Book XCIII: The Branding

Faerie fights a witch-boy named Salem (and his magical black cat, Saberhagen) for a magical branding iron in Faerie's possession.

• Book XCIV: The Void Zone

Nothing like a "Subspace Emissary" parody.  Sorry.

• Book XCV: An Epic Yarn

The RAFians' world is turned into yarn and fabric.

• Book XCVI: RAFian Gladiators

RAFians are kidnapped by Gamesmaster, another rogue Realm Walker, and force to participate in gladiatorial games.

• Book XCVII: The Box

The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

• Book XCVIII: From the Shadows

The RAFians must save their shadows and the shadows of everyone else from being absorbed (eaten) by the Umbraraptors, but not everything is what it seems.

• Book XCIX: Grimm Prospects

The RAFians discover Malice controlling several "wesen" with control collars akin to April's in "Catwoman from Channel Six" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Woman_from_Channel_Six#Season_2_.281988.29) and get stuck in one-on-one battles to the death with them.  One will die.

• Book C: Loop-De-Loop

Everyone's trapped in a temporal loop, but the only ones that realize it are Cloak, Aila, and Aquilai.

• Book CI: Get 'Em, Shaw

The RAFians face a creature native to the planet Gossamer, who's under the control of Malice.

• Book CII: Threadfall

The RAFians must exterminate an epidemic of Thread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pern#Thread).

• Book CIII: Siren's Song

The RAFians must deal with a siren and her alluring song.

• Book CIV: Resistance is Futile

The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of the Borg and the Hive chips (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) -- which the Mark cannot protect them from, nor the Unity energy can destroy.

• Book CV: The Titan

The RAFians must contend with the Titan serum and its effects.

• Book CVI: A Stony Glare

The RAFians must deal with a hungry Stone-Biter and a petrifying venom of a Diznee Stone Ifrit.

• Book CVII: Spritely Pests

The RAFians must deal with irritating sprites, which Faerie has had some rather tenuous experiences with.

• Book CVIII: Destroy All . . . What?

The RAFians must contend with a Furon incursion, and it turns out the Nyacs have knowledge of Furons. . . .

• Book CIX: Going Backwards

A grievious malfunction in Aquilai's TARDIS causes time to reverse its flow and flow backwards.

• Book CX: Death Takes A Holiday

The RAFians must convince Death to take up his role again.  A RAFian will die in this book, and it is within the continuity.

• Book CXI: High Price Stakes

Shanker and Gaz must flee and elude Daphne, the vampire hunter.

• Book CXII: A Killer Housing Market

The RAFians must survive and either destroy or escape a killer house.

• Book CXIII: A Silenced World

The RAFians must cope with a world that has become muted and a young sorceress, Melissa Spellman.

• Book CXIV: The Bureau

The RAFians must save their own from the insideous Bureau of Lost.

• Book CXV: To Tell the Truth

Broken's apprentice, Melissa, accidentally casts a spell forcing everyone to tell the truth.

• Book CXVI: Skin Crawlers

The RAFians, repulsed and revolted, must contend with Hundred (who eventually becomes Thousand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_(comics)), then becomes Million, then Billion, and then, finally, Trillion).

• Book CXVII: School of Stepford Lies

The RAFians must save the children from a school that turns them into Stepford students at Terenia's school.

• Book CXVIII: Ol' Salty

The RAFians must deal with the Salt Man.

• Book CXIX: The Great Race

The RAFians hold a race that Aloth cons himself into.  Who will win?

• Book CXX: Ape Escape

The RAFians must help super intelligent apes -- Caesar the chimp, Brutus the gorilla, and Maestro the orangutan -- reconcil their misanthropy.

• Book CXXI: A Different Kind of Unity

The RAFians must contend with a parasitic "unity".

• Book CXXII: The Great Brain Robery

Someone is stealing brains for an unknown purpose.

• Book CXXIII: The Bounty Hunter

The Knights, in their hypocricy, hire a Tsul'Kalu bounty hunter to collect select RAFians (to taxidermy).

• Book CXXIV: New Controllers

The RAFians confront Zirconians.

• Book CXXV: Creeping Crystal

A wave of crystallizing energy is sweeping the land. . . .

• Book CXXVI: The Element Feeder

The RAFians deal with a creature who feeds on a specific element and matures to a different element each time as it matures. . . .

• Book CXXVII: The Rider and the Walker

The RAFians come up against the Ghost Rider.

• Book CXXVIII: Headhunters

What will happen when RAFians lose their heads?  Seriously.

• Book CXXIX: The Color Purple, Man!

The RAFians confront the Purple Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Man), who manages to turn the entire government against them . . .

• Book CXXX: The Nemetrix Beetle

The RAFians confront the Black Beetle with Nemetrix properties.

• Book CXXXI: It's Tought to Be A Mod

The members of a primitive forum declare Demos and Blue to be mods. . . .

• Book CXXXII: Who-Zilla?

An energy reaction begins turning RAFians into monstrous creatures in 3XXX.  Out-of-continuity book.

• Book CXXXIII: Well, Techadon-ally . . .

The RAFians confront Techadons who assign them qualitive quatilities, and refuse to acknowledge any defeats.

• Book CXXXIV: The Mind's Eye

The RAFians face Spellbinder and his realistic illusions.

• Book CXXXV: Bas-ic Instincts

Bas awakens and attempts to take control of Cloak and other felines.

• Book CXXXVI: Midas Duck

The RAFians must contend with a very strange golden idol and a greedy sneak-thief.

• Book CXXXVII: War with the Warworlds

The RAFians must defeat two heavily-armed Warworlds.

• Book CXXXVIII: Solar Sucks

The RAFians must save Estelore from a device able to suck out her stellar substance and lifeforce.

• Book CXXXIX: Hounded

The RAFians are attacked by hellhounds that only Demos can see, although Cloak can "see" them via Earthsight.

• Book CXL: Politics

The RAFians, much to Cloak's chagrin and irritation, get caught up in the middle of Realm Walker politics.

• Book CXLI: Buggy Afternoon

A Bug is after Parker's blood, to "avenge" their brother slain by the SPARTAN.

• Book CXLII: Cloak's Nightmare

Cloak has an exceedingly vivid nightmare of the Great RAFian Purge. . . .

• Book CXLIII: Cloak and the Olympians

Cloak confronts and defies the Olympians.

• Book CXLIV: Down to Earth

The RAFians have gravity-related problems.

• Book CXLV: Hittin' the Dino-Sauce

The RAFians learn the dangers of Dino-Sauce.

• Book CXLVI: Blood Feud

Shanker's past comes into light. . . .

• Book CXLVII: She's Back! A Dino Story

Pretty much a shameless parody of "We're Back! A Dinosaur Story".

• Book CXLVIII: A Journey into Her Past

Delving into Noelle's pre-RAFian life and her relationship with Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar.

• Book CXLIX: Mortality and Morality

The RAFians face some rather conceited Leviathons.

• Book CL: Utter Pandemonium

Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Underseen, and Hunter investigate odd goings-on at a theme park island named "Haunted Island".

• Book CLI: A Reality Rewrite

Cloak, Faerie, Broken, and Broken's protege discover a magical, reality-altering typewriter.  Cloak, being a Realm Walker and the other three, being magical, are immune to its rewrites of reality.

• Book CLII: The Coming of Galacticron

The RAFians must save Earth from Galacticron.

• Book CLIII: Theft of Intellectual Property

The RAFians must contend with Brainiac.

• Book CLIV: The Contingency

The RAFians must battle the Talos Project and their living weapon -- Weapon XLIX.

• Book CLV: Muppet, Muppet Man

Parker and Gaz are turned into Muppets. (;))

• Book CLVI: Larval Ambush

The RAFians must deal with insectoid creatures who are parasitoids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid) with humans.

• Book CLVII: As the World Doesn't Turn

The RAFians must stop a group of feline aliens from stopping the world from rotating.

• Book CLVIII: Princess Pearls

A few girls of RAf discover the Princess Pearls.

• Book CLVIX: Attack of the Killer Produce

The RAfians must deal and cope with killer produce.

• Book CLX: Moonscarred Menace

The RAfians investigate mysterious disappearances on Moonscar Island.

• Book CLXI: League of Assassins

The League of Assassins set a number of Assassins after Blue.

• Book CLXII: Dark RAFians

The RAFians come up against an evil team modeled after them, attempting to usurp their postions.

• Book CLXIII: Danger Rising

The RAFians' training sim gains sentience.

• Book CLXIV: Moody

Gaz and Saffa accidentally have Moodulators attached to them.

• Book CLXV: Bound Together

Some RAFians get molecularly stuck together.

• Book CLXVI: The Legion of RAFians

The 31^st century RAFians are being picked off and controlled by a group calling themselves the Fantastic Fatalities. May be an out-of-continuity book.

• Book CLXVII: Monster Mash

A deranged Yeerk tries to merge its DNA with a Geonosian Brain Worm (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_worm) to rid itself of its Kadronna dependency.

• Book CLXVIII: Jumping to Conclusions

A xenophobic, reliously-zealous, former government man confuses Cloak with a "Jumper".

• Book CLXIX: You Wish!

An ancient lamp is uncovered, and an ancient warlock seeks it out, while RAF gets caught in the middle.

• Book CLXX: Hat's Off

The RAFians must deal with a quartet of hat-like aliens.

• Book CLXXI: You Are What You Read

The RAFians must deal with a "Captain Marvel"-style vigilante, who turns supervillian.

• Book CLXXII: Wrath of the Colossuses

The RAfians must stop the rising Nazca Colossuses.

• Book CLXXIII: The Year Without RAF

Estelore tells the RAFian version of "The Year Without Santa Claus".

• Book CLXXIV: Kidnapped

The government begins to kidnap RAFians.

• Book CLXXV: Lockdown

The RAFian database had been hacked and lockdown activated.

• Book CLXXVI: Exhile

Cloak discovers the "Book of Prophecy".

• Book CLXXVII: Swarm of Supermen

RAF is under attack from Kryptonians. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXVIII: Dullsville

An alien tick turns RAF in't a boring, drab place.

• Book CLXXIX: Technovampirism

A malicious Galvanic Mechamorph assimilates technology into himself.

• Book CLXXX: Go to Hell

Some RAFians are sent to Hell, and must escape.

• Book CLXXXI: Schism

Parker and Cloak have a conflict of methodology. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXII: Caught in the Middle

The RAFians are caught in the middle of the Wager of the Octessence and their Exemplars.

• Book CLXXXIII: A Fractured Mind

The RAFians try to help a mutant boy with multiple personality disorder.

• Book CLXXXIV: The A.R.A.

The RAFians must battle the A.R.A.

• Book CLXXXV: Orphanage of the Damned

The RAFians must face a "Granny Goodness" and her brainwashed orphans.

• Book CLXXXVI: Remnant A.E.

The Earth blows up, and the RAFians must survive space. Out-of-continuity.

• Book CLXXXVII: Dried Out

The RAFians must deal with a strange creature created by black magic.

• Book CLXXXVIII: Hammer Time

The RAFians must deal with sentient hammers who possess those worthy to wield them, forged by Singularity.

• Book CLXXXIX: Shenecron's Pets

The RAFians must battle Shenecron's monstrous pets.

• Book CXC: The Prism

Four RAFians are seperated into the emotional spectrum.

• Book CXCI: An Attention Hog

The RAFian deal with a rogue quantum lichen.

• Book CXCII: The Engulfer

The RAFians must deal with creature created of the DNA of two RAFians and a Heinlin.

• Book CXCIII: The Horde

The RAFians must battle self-replicating creatures.

• Book CXCIV: RAF 1602

RAF, set in 1602.

• Book CXCV: Reanimated

The RAFians must deal with a creature that reanimates dead bodies as its own.

• Book CXCVI: Making of a Monster

This book'll deal with Malice's backstory. Chances are RAFian appearances will be relegated to cameos.
Anyway, I did come up with a few more book ideas . . .

• Book CXCVII: The Annihilator

A young sorceress is tricked into releasing a vengeful spirit from a mirror and into the body of a war machine.

• Book CXCVIII: Heart-Numbing

Fragments of the Mirror of Khione pierces the eye and heart of a RAFian.

• Book CXCIX: The VSSL

An alien invasion scout comes to earth, eventually looking for a Terran-made device called the VSSL.

• Book CC: Conscience Corral

Someone's capturing the "angelic" side of all consciences . . . leading to abject chaos and darker impulses uninhibited.

• *Book CCI: A Story of Toys

The RAFians are reimagined as toys.

Remember, all titles are subject to be changed.

Well, that's it until I'm off tonight. Gotta be at work in an hour.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2013, 09:17:55 PM

Now, what you guys actually come to this thread for, a new thread -- er, chapter. God, I'm must be more tired than I thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Only One Remains

"Uh, Dino?" Cloak said, starting to be concerned.

"No! Mine! My chew toy!"

"I can't tell if she's joking," Gaz commented, slightly worried.

Gary charged the energy around his body, forcing Dino's jaws to open. Freeing himself.

"Should've seen that coming," Gaz said.

"Don't 'should've' over yourself, Gaz."

"What?"

"Oh, never mind."

***

Goom had easily bypassed Gary's stringent safeguards successfully and easily. Clearly, Gary hadn't ever entertained the possibility that someone of Goom's Goomba stature would penetrate his defenses so thoroughly and so effortlessly. Goom was disappointed by this obvious oversight on Gary's part.

"Pathetic. Pitiful." he grumbled, as he found the sole computer console in the room. This computer console looked to be pretty sophisticated, but a little beaten up by the ravages of dirt and bugs. Goom wore his disgust very openly.

"Let's go and get to work on this piece of junk." Goom muttered, beginning to go through the files at a speed Goom found a bit too slow.

***

"Just let this be a lesson to you," Parker snarled at the people whose armor he reclaimed, "don't mess with me or my armor. 'Coz then I'm gonna come after you, and kick all your butts. Remember it!"

Then he walked off, as one moaned rather pathetically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 19, 2013, 09:31:47 PM

You never "should've" over yourself.

Oh, and Abby emailed me with a change in her RAFsona - morph-capable half-ghost:

Quote from: Abby

Well, for the most part, my main ability would be to use my ghost form, (you know: neon green eyes and white hair, but mine would be a more silvery color.) But occasionally, and especially when necessary, or when I don't want to draw attention to myself (because transforming to ghost causes a large white flash).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 20, 2013, 01:25:19 AM

Quote from: Kitty Hawk (Saffa) on August 19, 2013, 09:31:47 PM

You never "should've" over yourself.

Oh, and Abby emailed me with a change in her RAFsona - morph-capable half-ghost:

Quote from: Abby

Well, for the most part, my main ability would be to use my ghost form, (you know: neon green eyes and white hair, but mine would be a more silvery-grey color.) But occasionally, and especially when necessary, or when I don't want to draw attention to myself (because transforming to ghost causes a large white flash) I'll use my morphing ability.

And I forgot to tell you (but since I'm on now I should just do it here) that I will have a majority of the same abilities as Danny, except no ice powers. :) Annndddd.... I think that's all I needed to add, I think... I'll email Saff if I should remember any other details. :)

Oh, and edited that quote just a bit. I think I was distracted when I sent that email to you Twinny... But yeah. Oh, and hi Cloaky!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2013, 08:12:18 PM

Sorry, guys, I try not to just arbitrarily change characters with no explanation . . .

That being said, here's a couple of new book ideas:

• Book CCII: "Dinovolving" -- Dino undergoes a drastic change with some unlikely friends. From out of town. ;)

• Book CCIII: "Abby Gets Everlost" -- Abby is changed after an involuntary trip to a strange "zone".

Titles may change.

Now, the penultimate chapter . . . unless I decide to end it abruptly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
An Unexpected Climax

"Now," Goom muttered, "files deleted. But to make sure he can't do this again . . ."

He looked around, and saw something that stunned and shocked him. He slowly approached a button the size of his foot.

"No way . . . even this idiot couldn't be so stupid," Goom said, with a rather stupefied tone of voice. It was a large red button with "SELF-DESTRUCT" in white lettering on it. "It can't be that easy."

***

"No! You're not chomping on me again, you bizarre saurian mishmash!!"

"Who you calling 'bizarre'?" Dino said, rushing him, he screamed and ran away. Using his Nova Strike to get some distance. Dino gave chase like a dog after a spritely squirrel.

She was really having too much fun with this. Cloak found it hard to surpress a smile.

"Call your monster off!" Gary whined.

"C'mere," she said stretching out her head, opening her maw . . .

BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!

"My warehouse!"

Goom was walking sedately away from the explosion, as the phrase goes, "like a boss". He said, "Then you really shouldn't mark your self-destruct buttons so clearly and legibly. Or even have one at all. I've never understood why you villainous types always feel the compulsion for such liabilities."

Goom neatly dodged Gary's stomp and landed on his head, which he appeared to be unaware of.  Goom looked rather disinterested with this fight and leaped down from Gary's head, as the wearer of the Apex Armor bellowed his frustrations.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

"Not likely," said a quiet voice, as a hand appeared on Gary's shoulder. "And I'll be taking back what you took."

And Parker reclaimed the Apex Armor for his own. Gary fainted when Dino sniffed him.

"So . . . was that a suitable distraction?" she said, referring to the whole "chew toy" business.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 20, 2013, 09:45:40 PM

You know what Goom reminds me of right now?

This video.

Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo#ws)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 20, 2013, 10:47:51 PM

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking of! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2013, 08:29:29 PM

Well, Saffa, I hope you're prepared to make another PDF. This book's now done . . . after this chapter. Maybe short, it's essentially an epilogue to this particular book.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
New Toys, New Schemes

Parker was elated and estatic, having discovered that all the "Mega X" Armors, as he named them, were now at his beck and call. Cloak watched, mildly amused and benignly interested, at the sight. It was like watching a child opening his gifts on Christmas morn.

"Parker, you're going to wear yourself out," Cloak said, with a lighthearted chuckle. His words were lost to Parker's whooping laugh.

Cloak, despite himself, allowed himself a small smile. There was so little precious time for such levity nowadays. Especially in the line of work RAF was in.

"Oh, let him have his fun, Cloaky." Helen said, with a broad, yet subtle, smile. Her Star Sapphire aura seemed somewhat more vivid.

"Eh," Cloak said, with an indifferent shrug, "okay."

***

Malice sighed irritably. She did not like the levity the RAFians displayed. She found it boring, lacking the drama that she found so interesting, intriguing, and entertaining.

"Ravager!" she snapped angrily. She was always prone to anger when bored. "Ravager! Pull yourself together."

It transformed back into the lithe panther form, with the spy camera returning to join up with the rest of Ravager.

"'Bout time!" she said, waspishly. "C'mon, let's go."

Ravager made a small, low-pitched growl.

"Let's just say we need to learn . . . 'Spore'."

Ravager growled with polite interest.

"Oh, they'll hate it."

She smiled maliciously, with a laugh to match, as the two left their mysterious, mill-like hideout.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 22, 2013, 01:05:20 AM

If I was any sort of artist I'd draw the picture that formed in my head - a kid Parker playing with his armour. ;D

Aaaand your PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2013, 08:52:15 PM

If I was any sort of artist, this'd be a graphic novel series. ;)

BOOK XLVI:
THE WORST PLAGUE
Chapter One:
We Are One

Cloak sat on his bed, with his legs crossed, his tail wrapped tightly against his right leg. He had his hands placed upon his knees. His eyes were closed, and his mind focusing on a rather fond memory of his beloved grandfather.

***

Cloak was a young cub, younger than Shadow. He was attempting to master the Earth element, and getting frustrated.

"What if I don't want to be an Elements master?!" he said, frustrated. "It's no fun."

Instead of barrading and scolding him from giving up, Sage knew well enough that subtle encouragement was the ticket.

"That's like saying you want to hide part of yourself from the world," the aquiline Realm Walker said gently. "It's a part of you. As I am."

He smiled, which looked fiercer due to his yellow, curved beak. "We are not so dissimilar, you know."

Music started up as Sage looked skyward, never losing his benign temperment.

"As you go through life, you'll see
There is so much we
Don't understand.
And the only thing we know
Is things don't always go
The way we planned."

Then he clapped his hand on Cloak's shoulder, then he continued.

"But you'll see every day
That I'll never turn away,
When it seems all your dreams come undone.
I will stand by your side,
Filled with hope and filled with pride.
We are more than we are.
We are one."

Then Cloak looked up at his grandfather and sang:

"If there's so much I must be
Can I still just be me?
The way that I am?"

Sage smiled and encouraged Cloak to probe further.

"Can I trust in my own heart,
Or am I just one part
Of some big plan?"

Sage shrugged before looking off at the distance, before looking Cloak in the eye, singing:

"Even those who are gone
Are with us as we go on.
Your journey has only begun!
Tears of pain, tears of joy,
One thing nothing can destroy
Is our pride, deep inside.
We are one!
We are one, you and I,
We are like the earth and sky.
One family in the Nexus.
All the wisdom to lead,
All the courage that you need.
We are one."

Then the music ended, but Cloak didn't understand it then, and he told Sage this. His grandfather, the aquiline Elements Master, just smiled warmly and said, "You will. Some day."

***

Cloak opened his eyes. He thought he understood now. He and Sage, together, were one family.

Just like Cloak and his surrogate family members were one as well. One united -- Cloak thought of Rotiart -- one semi-united force. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 23, 2013, 01:33:54 AM

Aww, flashback time. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2013, 08:13:43 PM

Yeah. Still tired, but here's a chapter (expect more this weekend, too).

CHAPTER TWO:
The Red Spores

Malice was standing outside a burrow of some sort. It was nightfall, all stars obscured by clouds, as if those very clouds were allied with the villainous Realm Walker. She had pulled her cloak tightly around her, as there was a blustery breeze billowing a moorish mist around.

"Hurry, Ravager," she prompted, addressing the burrow. She had sent lithe Ravager in, but her reasoning was not because she would not and could not fit.

Ravager wiggled out of the ravine burrow, having procured all of which Malice sought.

"Careful with that!" Malice snapped. "I have yet to modify them from affecting my kind!"

Ravager mewed its apologies, and began to be more cautious with bring out the corked glass container of red spores.

"This all of them?" she asked.

Ravager grunted affirmatively.

"Good." she said. "The Hate Spores will serve my scheme well."

The two walked off to further the scheme's goal. . . .

***

Cloak was continuing to meditate, relieving more pleasant memories. Nearly all featured Shadow or Sage. But then he sensed something powerful enough to cast a chill down his spine, all the way to the very tip of his tail.

This caused him to snap his eyes open. He shivered, but did not know why. He unfolded his legs and allowed them to dangle over the edge of his bed. He held hishead in his hands, pressing his palms over his eyes.

But why? Why did he sense something so powerfully evil, something so powerfully hateful?

Then he narrowed his eyes. This had to be some scheme of Malice's. If not directly, then indirectly -- she definitely had to have had a hand in it.

But part of him wondered if he was just jumping to conclusions. Misinterpreting things. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 23, 2013, 10:39:41 PM

I liked chapter 1's song.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 24, 2013, 12:38:36 AM

Me too.

Book sounds pretty dark though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2013, 01:42:42 PM

Sorry, no chapters today. My damn internet thinks it's being funny again. It probably not even allow me to post this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 24, 2013, 01:45:25 PM

Well, okay then, I can go back to studying my Physics. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2013, 11:01:31 AM

Let's try this again. If it doesn't . . . well, I guess I'll throw this thing into a wood chipper. ;)

CHAPTER THREE:
The Dispersal

Malice worked hard to alter the spores to be ineffective against Realm Walkers. She did not want be affected by them, for no known species capable of feeling is immune to hatred. Granted, there might be thouse whose abilities retard the effects, but Malice believed that reinfection would always be an option for such species or individuals.

She held a small vial of blood-red granules to the light. It was three-quarters of the way full.

Ravager perked up, growling lightly.

"Yes," Malice replied in response. "Yes, Ravager, I do believe its done."

Ravager got up, but Malice motioned for it to remain.

"No no no, Ravager," she said, still not even bothering with a look, still gazing lovingly at her modified Hate Spores. "No is not an auspicious enough time for the disperal. The timing has to be perfect."

Ravager ****ed its head to the right, obviously perplexed.

"Don't concern yourself with it," she said, gaze never leaving the vial. "I know what I am doing."

***

Cloak knew not why his dreams were filled with darkness and images of hatred. Nor why they had a pitch black and blood-red color scheme.

His eyes snapped open and he threw off his navy blue comforter, and threw his legs over the side of his bed. He just sat there, haunched over. Then he rubbed his face in a rather forceful manner.

He was plagued with this nightmares for more than a week. He was thoroughly sick of it. Perhaps they were warning him of something, but his somnolent mind could not conjure what.

What could these dreams possibly mean? His mind as too somnolently slow and muddy to grasp anything at the moment.

***

Malice decided not to directly infect the RAFians. They'd expect such at thing from her, though she was sure that they were unaware of her scheme.

No, she scoped out a lively, wild kindergarten class. It was recess, and they were playing. She deliberately makes the over large brush she hid within rustle when a dark brown-haired boy -- who looked so much like Daniel Witwickey of the G1 Transformers cartoon -- came over to retrieve a dull red kickball. Malice inticed the boy's innate curiosity by rustling the brush again.

Not knowing any better, the boy cautious approached . . . and Malice blew the spores directly into his face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2013, 11:14:56 AM

You have demigod dreams, Cloaky. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2013, 10:18:00 PM

Mine are much more vague and unclear than a demigod's. Like trying to watch a tv with a flickering picture, or watching itnthrough heavy static.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Victim Zero*

The poor boys body stiffened and tensed as his body, his skin, his hair, his very clothing -- all of them became the exact same shade of blood-red with black highlights and accents. His eyes were the only exception -- they clouded over, becoming opaquely white, like cataracts. But he had no problem seeing.

"Interesting reaction," Malice muttered, blithely passive.

Then the boy was filled with incredible hatred. He was incapable of feeling anything else. His face contorted with rage, as hatred and rage often go hand-and-hand.

"Ah, that's the reaction I was looking for." Malice said happily, swishing her cloak, leaving Ravager's spy cam behind.

The kindergartner stormed away from the brush, the kickball quite forgotten.

"Stan, where's -- hey!" said another boy, with auburn hair and square glasses. The infected kindergartener, Stan, had pushed him. But this act had more to do than just mere pointless violence, the moment Stan touched this classmate, Stevie, he passed along the infection to the new boy. Stevie took on the same color scheme as Stan, including the cataract eyes.

The infection had spread to a couple of girls (Francine and Hayley) and another boy (Roger) before beginning to infect the adults (Jo, Glenda, Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stu, and Brian).

***

"Veil's bells**," Cloak muttered as the alarm was sounded throughout RAF. He was still groggy and a wee bit grumpy. But he seized his eponymous cloak and left his thread to see what was the matter, unaware that a team was already sent out.

***

Helen, Sakki, Faerie, Gulliver, and a reluctant Rotiart went to investigate the goings-on at the school, which by this time was entirely affected and infected. Yet quarantine was not called around the school, as anyone who got to close was infected by those already afflicted.

"What the bloody hell's going on here?" Sakki said, her concern genuine.

"Dunno," Helen said, worriedly. "But perhaps we should keep our distance."

"What?" Rotiart snorted derisively. "No way! It's more than likely nothing!"

"You're being careless, whelp!" Faerie snarled.

"And you're being overcautious," he countered snottily.

He was standing the closest to the brick school building, near a window.

"Rotiart, I don't think --" Gulliver, a friend of Rotiart's, began to protest.

But it was too late. The window was broken, and the infected lady principal touched Rotiart. He had assumed the Mark had immunized him from this threat.

He was gravely mistaken and infected.

---
*Reference to Patient Zero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Zero).

**Realm Walker variation of "Hell's bells".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2013, 11:21:05 PM

It's a contagious Dalek disease!

Sorry, was up the whole night watching Doctor Who. Didn't feel like studying. ;D

... And the Marks can't protect us? Brilliant...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2013, 08:56:49 PM

Hey, you can't rely on something so much without becoming dependent on it. And even the Mark has its flaws.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Hatemongering

It was no time before the other members of the team were infected themselves -- Helen was so filled with rage and hatred her Star Sapphire ring was useless, just nothing more than an accessory (that remained stubbornly pink). Only Faerie managed to survive infection, by flying high up. High enough to be out of reach. This revealed a limitation of the infection, but it was not a really assuring one.

Faerie pulled out her Gale Blade, with any real conviction of using it. Well, she seriously considered using it on Rotiart, the damn fool. But there was nothing she could do for them now without infecting herself in the process. She was at an emotional impasse -- she did not want to get infected, yet she did not want to abandon her team.

Then a horrid thought occurred to her once she noticed that the rate of infection had quickened. Eventually, a flier would get infected and her current advantage would not be so advantageous.

She had no choice. She knew what she had to do.

It was with a heart heavy and burdened by guilt and perceived cowardice that the faerie turned her back on the others and flew to back to RAF. Tears flew from her eyes, though she would deny this vehemently later on.

***

" . . . and . . . they were infected as well."

Faerie was on one knee, due to sheer exhaustion.

"Predominately red?" Cloak asked promptly, with the conclusion of Faerie Larka's story. "With black hightlights and accents?"

"Well . . . yeah. That was it. With opaque white, cloudy eyes."

Cloak's face revealed much -- as if it was confirmation on what he had feared.

"What?" Abby asked immediately.

"The Plague," Cloak said, more to himself that the others.

"The Black Plague?" Underseen asked, thoroughly confused. "This is nothing like that."

"Not Black Plague," Cloak said, quite seriously. "The Hate Plague. The worst plague.*"

---
* Yes, I know I'm title-dropping here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on August 26, 2013, 10:09:54 PM

Title dropping is acceptable when it makes sense. Unlike Superman IV: Quest for Peace.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2013, 08:35:28 PM

Yeah . . . um, right -- here's new chapter. Sorry if there's errors . . . I'm still quite a bit tired.

CHAPTER SIX:
Interruption By Survival

"What do you mean exactly?" Gaz said, attempting to placate Laserbeak, who began to shake profoundly at the mention of the Plague.

"I've never known it to be in this realm," Cloak said, turning to the group, looking profoundly serious, worn, and worried simultaneously. "But in another universe, it was a manufactured plague."

"Manufactured?" Dino said aghast.

"Yes, manufactured." Cloak said, pressing on. "The Plague spread to both humans and Cybertronians alike --"

"ALERT!" Yarin cried from the intercom. "ALERT! Infected RAFians approa--"

Then the intercom buzzed dead silence. Yarin was infected.

"Oh, Gatebreak." Cloak muttered. "Quick! We must cordon off this --"

Too late. Absolute pandemonium ensued.

***

Malice was watching all this while lying lazily in her fully-reclined chintzy recliner.

"'Bout time!" she said, as if she were just a television viewer. "I was getting sick of exposition!"

Ravager growled lightly.

"Good idea, Ravager," she said. "I need popcorn. Pity that there aren't commercials."

***

Phoenix was infected. It seemed to take full and complete hold for a few tenuous moments. Then he burst in to flame, his body completely engulfed. When the flames subsided, it revealed Phoenix was perfectly fine and uninfected.

Demos's regenerative abilities did similar, but both Aila and Aquilai failed to regenerate. Both succumbed to the plague.

Only Richard, AniDragon, Kelly and Cloak seemed to be completely immune. This surprised Cloak a great deal, as he could (and has) felt the hellish fire of hate.

"Survivors! Withdraw! Retreat!" Richard commanded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 27, 2013, 11:54:28 PM

S***'s going down...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 28, 2013, 06:34:52 PM

The only thing worse than zombies.

Angry zombies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2013, 09:14:32 PM

Well, I'm feeling . . . deflated and apathetic at the moment, but I will try to post a chapter. Don't be surprised if it's short.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Backing Up A Minute . . .

"They're gone," Phoenix said, after the pushing and shoving on the other side of the five-foot thick steel door had subsided. "At least, for now."

"Such a ray of sunshine," AniDragon replied drily. "Now -- Cloak. You were cluing us in on how this Plague was destroyed in that other universe?"

"The Matrix," Cloak said, looking at his feet while leaning against a wooden table. "The Matrix of Leadership."

"Uh, care to elaborate?" Kelly prompted.

Cloaked hesitated only for a moment, before answering, "The Matrix was a Cybertronian device. It was a device of incredible power and energy, said to contain the wisdom of the Primes."

This sparked an idea in Cloak, but he hid and stifled it.

"It was destroyed in the process, though. If I remember correctly," Cloak said, standing up straighter and rubbing his chin thoughfully.

He ignored the crestfallen faces that he saw on the others' faces with difficulty. They were hoping that this information would bring salvation, but it was just a dead end.

But Cloak's mind was concocting a scenario, a possible albeit costly solution. The others . . . they would only stop him from putting this plan into action.

"So, who's behind this gigantic mess?" Demos asked rhetorically.

"Who else?" Cloak said immediately. "The plague didn't -- couldn't infect me. She must have somehow weeded Realm Walkers out of the afflicted."

"Why didn't she just isolate her own DNA?" Phoenix asked.

"Who said Realm Walkers had deoxyribonucleic acid?" Cloak countered with an arbitrary shrug of his shoulders.

After that, they lapsed into silence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2013, 09:44:52 PM

Off tomorrow apparently. But, you've come here for the chapters -- *looks up and sees no replies to his previous chapter* -- I guess. Sorry, it's a bit short, damn internet strikes again.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
An Expanding Epidemic

Outside this safe little bubble, the plague was left unimpeded. And it spread.

Soon RAF and the nearby city weren't the only ones infected. Soon the entire county fell to the infection. It was a matter of time before this plague would become a national problem. Then go to an inevitable global pandemic, if not stopped.

But there was little to be done, what with the only ones to stop the plague holed up in a fortified bunker.

This plague also had a hidden effect that wasn't evident yet. It was a mandatory incubation time of a week -- but more on that later, when the time comes.

***

Malice looked thoroughly irritated, as if she was incredibly bored. Ravager mewed softly and concernedly.

"Calm yourself, Ravager," Malice said dismissively. "I just thought that this would have gone much faster. This is going too slowly. It's only the mildest form of entertainment, just slightly better than all-out tedium."

Ravager growled slightly and lowly.

"Oh, there's no need for that, Ravager," Malice said, with a dismissive flick of her wrist. Then a sinister, malevolent smile creeped onto her face. "It'll pick up when bodies start dropping."

***

Cloak started pondering this idea, the brainwave he got. It was surely worth it. There was no doubt about that. But . . . was it excessive? Unnecessary?

He had to silence these doubts and reconcile this guilt for keeping this possible solution to himself. He couldn't quite quell his qualms.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 29, 2013, 10:10:46 PM

Oooh, I wonder what your plan is, Cloak?  You've certainly got me intrigued.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 29, 2013, 11:53:53 PM

I know, he just put it in one line and left us hanging. Very Cloak and dagger oh, God, terrible pun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2013, 05:35:44 PM

Saffa -- you do know about my little sister is Dagger?

Anyway, here's a bit of a clue. . . .

CHAPTER NINE:
A Possible Solution, A Possible Sacrifice

Cloak continued to obsessively ruminate on this idea, this plan. He, with heavy sigh, quelled all doubts. There was no other way, no other alternative, to free this world of this plague. There was no choice. He could not allow this plague to continue . . . for it was his fault that it was brought about.

Had he not adopted this realm as his home, his primary residence . . . they would have never felt this plague. They would have never felt the forty or more tortures they have. It was his responsibility, his burden to bear.

Yes, he was aware it wasn't directly his fault. The actions were of Malice. Though he did not know her motivations outside of blood sport-type entertainment.

But . . . the matter at hand . . .

The Matrix of Leadership was a device of incredible energy. Cloak was a being of incredible energy, having even been born of energy (as all Realm Walker are). So, it was a natural conclusion to come to. That one sacrifice ended the Hate Plague in that realm . . . perhaps another . . . just one sacrifice . . .

The others would never allow him to go through with it. They would try to stop him from what must be done. And he, Cloak, was the only one who could do this.

But . . .

But he had to be sure he wasn't misinterpreting anything. He had to be sure.

So deep in thought and ruminations was the feline Realm Walker, he didn't realize that Phoenix was eyeing him with a scrutinizing look.

***

"Hmmm . . ." Malice said, pensively. "I wonder what's going on in that bunker?"

Ravager whimpered a little.

"Don't fret, my pet," Malice said. Then she made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "It probably not important. There is no Matrix of Leadership here. There is no possible way to cure it. It's perfectly infallible. Let's she just how far my little plague had grown . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 31, 2013, 04:41:32 AM

Yeah, I knew. Which made the pun even worse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2013, 11:24:24 AM

Ah. Well, I've come up with a new idea:

• BOOK CCIV: "Rise of the RAFians" -- A reimagining of RAF in a loose parody of "Rise of the Guardians".

Anyway, a chapter will come later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 31, 2013, 11:30:16 AM

I think this would be book CCIV - I keep a record of the list and I got kinda confused when I saw this, and I checked back in the thread, and yeah, the last one was CCIII.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2013, 11:42:20 AM

Yeah, you're right, Saffa. Fixed it.

Got a bit confused because I had an idea before it that I vetoed because I didn't think I could stretch it into a full book. So I mixed up the numbers (which at this point, you have to admit it's a feet that this is only the second time that I have done such, the first time being offline, in my "chapter guides" that I make as I plan out future books.

I wonder . . . has anyone noticed that I'm being deliberately vague just WHERE precisely RAF is within the narrative?

CHAPTER TEN:
Pandemic Panic

It really was a wonder why this planet yet come to the attention of the Red Lanterns. Or the Sinestro Corps for that matter, with all the fear being generated by the infected.

Within moments, a quarter of the entire country were among the infected. And the entire world were now aware of this plague, via unbiased news programs.

The overzealous religious fundamentalists, like those in the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, took advantage of the panic this Hate Plague to blame the "sinners" and other groups they choose to hate. If the Plague was not accompanied by a change in color scheme, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to tell if any members of such congression had been infected, having already been filled with such irrational and illogical hatred. Of course, they needn't have Hate Spores to pass along hatred and corrupt youth into mongering such hatred.

The religious zealots weren't the only ones getting into the blame game. The Knights were also choosing to capitalize on the fear and panic the Hate Plague generated. Only they were choosing to xenophobically blame non-Terrans for this Plague . . . but, in a way, they had it right -- if grotesquely distorted and sickenly twisted.

And every other discriminatory group -- the different racial supremacists, the different specist, the male chauvinists, the female chauvinists, etc. -- joined this bandwagon. None were making the situation any better, and yet still more of their number were infected just the same as those the vehemently profess to being "lesser".

It was just a mess. The whole world was becoming a mess.

Although . . , one could make the argument that it was always a mess. Even before Homo sapiens came 'round.

***

Raucous laughter sounded with ringing force around the room. Malice was giddy with glee. Estatic at the irony.

Ravager, however, growled perplexedly at Malice.

"Oh, don't you see, Ravager?" Malice said, wiping away a tear of unbridled joy, still wearing a broad smile. "They are near the end of the world as they know it. A utter genocide! And still they cling to their prejudices. They actually use these dire circumstances to give their nonsensical preconceptions validity! They desperately hold onto the prejudices with a grip of iron as their world falls to pieces around them!"

She let out a round of maniacal laughter.

"It is little wonder why the Hate Plague is so powerful, so virulent!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 31, 2013, 01:40:06 PM

The world was always a mess. We just came and made it a bigger mess.

I wonder how we get out of this one.

Quote

I wonder . . . has anyone noticed that I'm being deliberately vague just WHERE precisely RAF is within the narrative?

"We can't tell you who we are. Or where we live. It's too dangerous, and they might find us. ... Because everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you.

;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2013, 02:28:23 PM

Quote from: Kitty Hawk (Saffa) on August 31, 2013, 01:40:06 PM

Quote

I wonder . . . has anyone noticed that I'm being deliberately vague just WHERE precisely RAF is within the narrative?

"We can't tell you who we are. Or where we live. It's too dangerous, and they might find us. ... Because everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you.

;)

Damn, forgot about that.

Actually, no. I just assumed that the reader would assume that it would be in their native country, that's why I try to keep it as vague as possible.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Soul-Searching

Cloak had sat down with crossed legs as the door to the bunker vibrated as the infected had renewed their attempts to break into this refugee stronghold. All the RAFians, except Cloak (who needn't bother, as he could see through Earthsight and Metalsight), looked warily at it.

"The door cannot be penetrated by those children outside," Cloak said, not even bothering to open his eyes.

"How d'you --" Demos began, the Cloak gave him a dirty look that clearly said Really?, and Demos amended his statement by ending it with an abashed, "Oh."

Cloak could easily see the infected middle schoolers -- four boys, two girls -- charging the door futilely. He could tell that they were infected due to his feline ability to sense evil. It was still rather distracting.

Phoenix used this very potent distraction to speak to Cloak with some quasi-privacy.

"Cloak," he said, in hushed tones, "we need to have a word."

"About?"

"You know what about." Phoenix said.

"I'm afraid not, Phoenix." Cloak said, cottoning on to what Phoenix was after, but playing dumb.

"Save it," the mod countered. "I know you're planning something dangerous to cure this plague."

"Why would --"

"Don't," Phoenix said. "You and I both know you're planning something. Stop the pretense of otherwise."

"Fine," Cloak said, dropping all pretense, as he uncrossed his legs, his tail tip twitching unconciously. "I do have a plan."

"Care to let me in on it?"

"No." Cloak said firmly. "You'll just try to stop me from doing what must be done."

Phoenix hid his surprising realization, and said, "You're planning on sacrificing yourself, aren't you? Aren't you?"

Cloak said nothing, but turned his gaze away from Phoenix.

"Why are you so quick to die for us?" Phoenix hissed. "Why not live for us instead?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2013, 03:47:43 PM

Third chapter today. Haven't done that many in a while. Anyway, 'bout 8 more chapters to go, not counting this one:

CHAPTER TWELVE:
An Inexpected Turn of Events

Suddenly, the pounding at the door intensified. Cloak "saw" something that shocked him, for he did not expect it.

"Aquilai and Aila are out there," he said, "right outside the door."

"Sh-should we let them in?" Kelly asked.

"No," Cloak said, his eyes shut. "They've been infected."

Phoenix's eyebrows knit together, as he said perplexedly, "But . . . but why didn't they just regenerate?"

"Perhaps the Plague isn't sufficient to trigger it?" Cloak postulated Then he shrugged with a heavy sigh. "I dunno. They are the only two Time Lords to ever be infected with the plague to my knowledge."

The fury and flurry of pounding was almost deafening. It was most certainly distracting.

"In another words," Richard said promptly, a heaviness to his voice, "we can't do anything."

"Not at the moment, anyway," Demos said, noticing the slightly slower frequency that the pounding came.

"Are they leaving?" AniDragon asked, a sadness and hopefulness lilt in her tone.

Cloak's eyes widened with surprise as he "saw" what was happening. He could not keep the shock from his voice as he answered, "No. No, they aren't."

"Then why have they slow . . . slowed . . . down . . ." Kelly said, just understanding at the last moment.

They were giving up, they were collapsing. They were . . . they were . . . dying.

***

"Ah, yes," Malice said, nodding excitedly. "The little extra fiddling I did is starting to tak effect now."

Ravager growled lightly.

"Yes, slowly makes it more tortuous, more painful."

Ravager let out a mew.

"No, silly head," Malice said with a girlish giggle, "not for them. For Cloak, my dear. Cloak."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2013, 04:41:23 PM

Yes . . . going onto the fourth chapter today. But don't get used it it -- it's simply because I'm off today.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
An Unforeseen Consequence

"Dying?" Kelly said shrilly.

"You can't be serious," AniDragon said disbelievingly.

"He looks pretty serious to me." Demos said, somewhat indifferently and inreverently. It was his demonic nature that caused him to be so flippant about death. This was no surprise to the other RAFians, so used this lighthanded approach to such a macabre subject.

"Aquilai and Aila are . . ." Cloak said, folding his arms and bowing his head morbidly, ". . . are the only ones left standing."

"What's that --" Phoenix began.

But Richard cut across him, "The rest are dead, aren't they?"

Cloak shut his eyes, as if to protect himself from the truth, as he said, "They are motionless. All but the Time Lords."

"So . . . what do we do about this?" Demos asked.

"We must bring them in," Richard decided. "Quarantine them. The Plague can't affect us -- permanently, at least -- and maybe, just maybe, we can learn how to stop the Plague or trigger them to regenerate."

***

It went off without a hitch, and the two Time Lords were safely quarantined. But none of the RAFians would be able to forget the prone bodies on the ground. The only RAFian laying motionless there was Gulliver. All dead, and in death, their color schemes reverted back to normal. Apparently death was a cure, albeit an extremely undesirable one.

"It looks like the lethality increases threefold every thirty-six hours," Phoenix said, looking at a readout. "Most are dead within a week."

"It's just fortunate that the casualities have only amounted to fifteen people." Richard said. "Still, it is a regretable loss."

And their blood is on my hands, Cloak thought, savagely bitter. I cannot hesitate any longer . . .

"They're still not regenerating, though." Kelly said. "My I should heal them."

"Can you?" Demos asked.

"I dunno if I'm strong enough, though. It may very well be too late."

"Don't talk like that!" AniDragon said bracingly. "We'll figure this out. We always do."

"Actually, Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin always figure these things out." Demos said.

"Details!" AniDragon cried exasperatedly.

"Hey," Phoenix said suddenly, "where's Cloaky?"*

---

*Bit of a "Phineas and Ferb" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2013, 12:14:31 AM

Nice Sunday morning treat, all these chapters!

Whoa, it's getting darker, but it's also getting better.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 01, 2013, 03:45:16 AM

Agreed. ^

Hi Cloaky! I missed you! I wanted to pop in (at three in the morning, but that's besides the point) and say hi!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2013, 08:12:33 AM

Hiya, Abby.

And Saffa, there would have been more if my internet had not decided to crap out on me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Requiem for a Regeneration

Cloak had slipped away, by Walking back to the Nexus and then immmediately Walking back to the general area of the forum. He saw destruction, but there seemed to be a lot of mayhe,. a few prone bodies. But he could "see" them breathing.

Even the very sky and clouds was blood-red, as if they themselves had been infected. It was very much like a dystopian world imagined in pretty much every cartoon, except the buildings and people were mostly in tact.

He just had to consult with one person before he put his plan in action. Just the one person whose judgement he valued more than his own . . .

***

Before anyone could comment on Cloak's sudden disappearance, there was a loud, incessant beeping at a high pitch. The Time Lords vitals were going critical.

Cloak's departure was quickly forgotten as the RAFians rushed to Aquilai's and Aila's side. But the two were quickly overtaken with a bright light.

"What's going on?" AniDragon asked.

"They're regenerating." Richard said, shielding his eyes.

"It's about time," Phoenix commented.

It was a matter of seconds before the Fourth Aquilai and the Fourth Aila stood before the RAFians.

Aila looked quite fashionable, with her long hair pulled back into a stylish ponytail. Her clothes were of reds and blues, with yellow accents. She maintained a Ultimate Alien Gwen Tennyson-like form, including the confident smile.

Aquilai was no longer an Earthbender, but had regenerated into an Airbender. He even bore the bald head and the tattoos. He wore a khaki trench coat much in the style of the Question, even with a fedora. He wore a cheeky smile, but other than that his personality is unchanged.

"Took you long enough," Demos said.

"Eh, so sue us." Aquilai countered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2013, 10:08:10 AM

So it's the Fourth now. Are they limited to 12 too? Or maybe more? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2013, 11:32:56 AM

Unless either of them tell me different (Aila will be implausible, as she never posted much and has been here since forever), than yes, Saffa.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2013, 11:50:10 AM

Well, I haven't seen Aquilai around for a long while, either... sad, he was fun. :/

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2013, 05:14:04 PM

And helped make "Memoirs" better, by his constructive criticisms and comments. And stopped me from making a very big mistake . . . ironic this comes up, by this chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Desperate Decision

"Wait -- Cloak." Phoenix said, bringing everyone's attention back to the Realm Walker's abrupt departure. "Where'd he go?"

"Cloak was here?" Aquilai asked.

"Yes, he told us that the way that the Hate Plague was defeated before." Demos said.

Richard's eyes widened. "He said that it was by destroying the Matrix of Leadership, a device of great energy."

"He did not say that." Kelly corrected. "Did he?"

Aquilai was remarkably quick on the uptake. "And Cloak is a being of incredible energy. . . ."

Color drained from Aila, Demos, AniDragon, and Kelly's faces.

"I had hoped he would consider an alternative," Phoenix said.

"As did I," Richard said knowingly. "He clearly feels responsible for the deaths this plague brought about."

"How's that? He didn't infect anyone." Demos said, confused.

"It is clear Malice had, though," Aquilai said, fully serious. The superficial resemblance to a young Tenzin was irresistible. "Cloak must believe that he is responsible for Malice even releasing and infecting others with this plague."

"But he hasn't any control over what she does!" Kelly protested.

"He surely believes she wouldn't even be in our universe, if not for himself." Phoenix pointed out. "He probably believes his mere presence here has brought this about."

"And there is only one life that he would willingly sacrifice for us," Aquilai said heavily.

"You're not saying --" Aila began.

Richard nodded, " I believe Cloak is going to take his own life to stop the plague, just as the Matrix was sacrificed to stop it in that other realm."

"We have to stop him!" AniDragon, Kelly, and Aila cried in unison.

"We can't." Richard said.

"You're going to let --" Kelly began angrily.

"You misunderstand me." Richard said calmly. "We can't stop him when he's made his mind up like this. It's nigh on impossible to hold a Realm Walker, especially one with Cloak's determination."

Richard sighed heavily, then continued, "No, we'd best find an alternative. And find it fast."

"Oh, lovely," Aila muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2013, 08:17:41 PM

Currently planning out the chapters of Book CXCIX ("The VSSL"). Going well.

I think I might be able to squeeze in another chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Sage Advice

Cloak was in a forest clearing that looked eerily like the lion turtle's back in "Avatar: the Last Airbender". He sat down on the smooth hexagonal space, closing his eyes. He touched his his fists together.

He breathed in . . . then exhaled slowly. He repeated this several times.

For a while nothing happened, just the sounds of the sanctity of this untouched, pure area of forest. It was wonderful.

But soon, as Cloak's mind focused and yet relaxed, it was all left behind, and he was standing in a cloud-filled void. He knew he was standing on a hard, stable, featureless surface without a definite texture and color.

There was only one other figure here, in a simple army green cloak, white shirt, khaki slacks, and black shoes. His cloak's hood was down. He had his back to Cloak and he held his hands behind his back. His wings extended slightly.

"Gr-grandfather?"

"Why are you so intent on joining me in oblivion?" he said. His tone was not approving.

"Grandfather, I need your advice. I need to know that this'll --"

"I know very well why you've come," he said, turning to face him. The lookmwas quiet intimidating. "You've come to seek reassurance from your plan."

"Grandfather, I need to know."

"I have never encountered the Hate Plague," he said without hesitation. "So I have no idea if your plan would work. But that's no the real reason you're here. And you know it."

Cloak opened his mouth to speak but was at a loss for words.

"You may think this course of action is selfless and righteous," Sage said, closing the distance between the two. "And many who do not know you, who do not care about you, may also see it that way as well."

Sage looked Cloak directly in the eye, and those fierce eagle eyes were intimidating, though they showed nothing but love and compassion. He continued, "But this course of action, Cloak, is, in all actuality, very selfish."

Cloak was completely nonplussed at this. How is sacrificing his life for the greater good selfish?

"It is one thing to fall at your enemy's hand," Sage elaborated. "It is quite another to take your own life."

"But . . . but there is no other way."

"Isn't there, Cloak? Isn't there?"

Silence met these words.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2013, 09:10:46 PM

Last chapter of the night (after this chapter, it'll be three chapters from the end).

Then it's gonna be bedtime for me.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Discovery

"What if AniDragon boosts your power, Kelly?" Aquilai asked pragmatically. "Would that work?"

AniDragon smacked her forehead than facepalmed. Then she spoke with obvious sincerity. "Why didn't I think of that?!"

"It's worth a try, I think." Kelly shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"But what if even that's not strong enough?" Demos asked, being rather inappropriately blithe.

"It'll have to be." Richard said heavily. "We haven't anything else. Aquilai, Aila -- you stay here. Demos, Phoenix -- find Cloak before he consummates his plan."

The two Time Lords did not argue. Demos, however, giggled a little over Richard's use of the word "consummates". The RAFfather's eyes rolled at this, as he then prompted, "Let's get going."

***

"But . . . Grandpa . . . Grandpa, it's my fault."

"Your fault? Your fault?" Sage echoed. "Cloak, you had nothing to do with it. You cannot control Malice's whims."

"If I hadn't --"

"What makes you so sure that she would not of done it anyway?" Sage asked. "After all, it is one reason she had been sent to the gate so many years ago."

"But . . . maybe if . . . if I didn't come, this universe would be safe."

His grandfather facepalmed, realizing where this was coming from. He muttered angrily, "Gateburst, Ursa!"

Ursa was Cloak's mother, Sage's eldest daughter. The eldest daughter of six. Clearly, Sage believed she had something to do with Cloak believing himself to be at fault for things far outside his realm of control.

It was true. Being his mother's scapegoat for so long had made Cloak feel that he bore all the world's burdens.

"Cloak, no one can bear the world's weight indefinitely. Such stress, such pressure," said Sage affectionately, clamping his hands onto Cloak's shoulders, "it's not something any one man should bear. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for you, though. Circumstances and situations are going to arise outside your control. All you can do is your best to deal with them as constructively as you can."

Cloak said nothing. He knew what he could or should say.

***

Richard, AniDragon, and Kelly arrived at RAF -- a bulk of the RAFians had remained there, but in rather precarious conditions.

AniDragon clapped her hand to Kelly's shoulder, activating her power -- amplifying Kelly's healing power.

"Uh . . . no what?" Kelly asked.

"Got me," AniDragon shrugged.

"Sing, perhaps? I mean the music already started." Richard suggested noncommittally.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2013, 11:27:02 PM

Aaaaand let the singing begin! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2013, 08:42:38 AM

Yes -- but not yet.

Anyway, I finished planning out Book CXCIX ("The VSSL"). As it stands right now, it'll be the usual twenty chapters.

May be a short chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Calmness Before the Song

"Now," Sage said, "our time together draws to a close."

"But, Grandpa," Cloak protested, "I'm . . . I'm . . . so confused. I . . . I . . ."

"You'll figure it out. I have every confidence that you will, young one. It won't be easy, but the things that worthwhile are never easy." Sage said. "You must go to your friends. Taken together, your unity with them is truly a force to be reckoned with."

Cloak didn't get right away that Sage was handing him a clue. With a whitish-blue flash, Cloak's eye opened in the real world.

But Cloak did not move for the longest time. He was reeling. He was willing to give his life, sacrifice it without a second thought or qualm. But he found out that such an act would disappoint his grandfather greatly . . .

"There he is!" a voice cried suddenly. "Demos, he's over here!"

Cloak remained motionless. He recognized Phoenix's voice, but he remained silent and motionless.

"Cloak, don't do it!" the mod cried. "We've found another way. Don't kill yourself!"

"I'm not," Cloak said tonelessly.

"Wh-whaaaa?" Demos said.

"I know that there is another alternative." Cloak said, standing in one fluid movement, his cloak barely moving.

"Huh? How?" Phoenix said.

"Let's just say a muy importante birdie told me," Cloak said.

***

Malice reacted to this sudden reversal of fortune indifferently. Ravager was perplexed at this.

"It was just a scheme like any other," she shrugged. "Win or lose, I will just scheme again."

Then she rubbed her chin.

"Pity too," she said thoughtfully, "I almost had Cloak take his own life."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 02, 2013, 09:36:09 AM

Ugh, that last line just had evil written all over it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2013, 09:42:08 AM

Yes, and at least the next book will be a bit more light-hearted than this one. God, I never realized just how dark this book would become.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 02, 2013, 09:43:01 AM

I guess that tends to happen when you name it "The Worst Plague". :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2013, 07:58:12 PM

Touché, Saffa.

I may finish up this book tonight.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
In Harmony

"What makes someone special?
I suppose it all depends.
It's what's unique in each of us
That we share as friends!"

As Kelly sang waves of healing energy pulsed and pulsated from her being. The light pushed away the scarlet.

"The difference is our differences
May be small or great.
Variety adds spice to life.
So we should celebrate!
In harmony!
Harmony!
You're you, I'm me.
Together, we can live in harmony.
If there was only one note,
how BORING life would be!
I'm glad there are so many notes
In many different keys!"

Kelly chuckled warmly before continuing.

"I hear each voice singing,
With a special quality.
And when we sing together,
We bring music from eternity!"

Suddenly, the other RAFians were cured enough to sing along, their Marks blazing to life. The power began to be strengthened with Unity Energy and be gan to span the globe.

"In harmony!
Harmony!"

Then Kelly belted out enthusiastically:

"You're you, I'm me!
So we can live in harmony!"

Then the others joined in again.

"In harmony.
Harmony."

The Kelly repeated the refrain solo again, and then the chorus repeated the chorus again. They did this twice more before the Hate Plague was finished.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 02, 2013, 09:21:04 PM

That song gives you good feels. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2013, 09:45:57 PM

Well, I guess it's PDFin' time, Saffa. This chapter's gonna be  more like an epilogue, and may be on the short side (but the fact this ia the third chapter on a day were I work is a feet in and of itself).

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Not Quite Eradicated

The Plague was gone. The energy from the Unity Song had drove it to extinction. Again.

However, the plague might have been destroyed, hatred itself did not. The only way to truly do away with hatred would be to do away with free will and all other emotions. No, the hatred -- and the rage and prejudice that accompanied it -- were not eradicated.

But the plague was gone, so it would have to do.

The RAFians were having a big celebration over the Plague's defeat. There were streamers, balloons, a banquet -- everything. Shouts, laughter and good times permeated the forum once again.

Cloak was the only one who elected not to attend. His heart was still heavy with what he almost did. If he had, there would be no celebration, but somber silence and morbid mourning. Is this what his grandfather had meant by the sacrifice being selfish?

He would have plenty to ponder over the coming days.

***

Cloak was at the party, being stoic and reserved as usual. He wasn't feeling jocular, and remained thoroughly serious.

He held a glass of punch in his left hand. He had procured it as he stopped Duff from spiking it -- no, literally spiking it.

Cloak socialized benignly, but he did not like large crowds. It made him feel uncomfortably exposed. He was one to always shy away from the spotlight.

Others were dancing, and Cloak did not partake. He did not notice how they seemed to fade into grayscale, how their movements seemed to slow and blur.

A small figure made his way through the throng. He wore a black cloak and gray clothing. His head was bowed, obscuring his face, his cloak swept around him, swaddling him.

This young Realm Walker stopped five feet from Cloak, looked directly at him, and asked in a child's voice, " Do you still hate me?"

Cloak said nothing. This child was familiar. As if he was someone he knew years ago.

"Do you still hate me?"

Then Cloak realized who this was. He knealt and pulled this smaller Realm Walker's hood. It was revealed to be a tiger cub-form Realm Walker. His stripes were identical to Cloak's own.

"I see now." Cloak said. "You're me. . . ."

"Well? Do you hate me still?" the boy asked, nervously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 02, 2013, 11:31:19 PM

The whole seeing kid Cloaky thing reminds me of something... damn, I can't quite place where...

And here's your PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2013, 08:27:29 PM

Excellent, Saffa.

And I got the idea for that part from a two-parter of "Ben 10 Omniverse".

Now, this next book will be a lot more light-hearted (well, we'll see), maybe more whimsical.

BOOK XLVII:
MINUTE NAPOLEONS
CHAPTER ONE:
Abby's Ambition

"Put down that remote control!
Put down that movie guide!
Put away that jacket!
There's no need to go outside.
Don't you know we control the vertical?
We control the horizontal, too.
We're gonna make a RAFian
Outta you.
That's what we're going to do now!

Don't change the site!
Don't touch that Totodile!
We got it all on RAF!
Kick off your shoes
And stick around for a while!
We got it all on RAF!
Forget about your laundry!
Forget about the mob!
Just crank up the volume
Don't cry or sob!
We got it all.
We got it all --
On RAF!

Ditch the headphones,
Leave the dishes in the sink.
Forget about your homework,
Dontcha dare blink!
All you need to do is
Make yourself a RAFy dinner.
Press your face right up against the screen.
We're gonna show you things
You ain't ever seen!
If you know what I mean!

Don't change the site!
Don't touch that Totodile!
We got it all on RAF!
Forget about your laundry.
Forget about the mob.
Just crank up the volume.
Don't cry or sob!
We got it all.
We got it all --
On RAF!"

You can watch all day,
You can watch all night.
You can watch whenever you please.
You can sit 'round your tv
And watch until your brain
Turns into cottage cheese!"

Then the chorus repeated.

"We got it all on RAF."

And that was repeated at least ten times before the song ended.

"So," Abby said. "What do you think?"

"Do we really need a feature length movie?" Cloak asked.

"Yes!" Abby insisted.

"The song would sound creepy, if taken out of context." Underseen noted.

Saffa looked shrewdly at Abby, "You're bored out of your mind, aren't you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 04, 2013, 12:25:43 AM

The last book was almost too much for me so I am happy to see this one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 04, 2013, 12:52:18 AM

True that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2013, 09:08:37 PM

Wait until you read Malice's backstory. And, I guess, we're on hiatus. Because my internet thinks it's funny to crap out when I'm working on a chapter. >:(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 05, 2013, 01:27:44 AM

I love coming on after a while to find new chapters waiting for me. :) Also:

Quote

Saffa looked shrewdly at Abby, "You're bored out of your mind, aren't you?"

This would totally be something Saffa would say to me, and then I would end up responding with an overexcited "Yep!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 05, 2013, 02:14:08 AM

;)

Oh, and do you want me to mail you the PDF of the last book?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2013, 09:58:04 PM

Let's try this again.

CHAPTER TWO:
Face Off

It was a normal day, and a nearby park was full of families. But one of note was a duo -- a father and his nine-year-old son playing catch rather unskillfully. Yet it did not attract any attention.

The father had a hard, angular face with brownish-black hair, and body to reflect this. The boy, albeit with a slim, slightly pudgy body, had a round soft face. He wore a baseball cap covering hair the color of rust.

"Not so hard!" the boy hissed.

"Sorry," the father hissed back. "I think the mechanism is skewed too --"

"Shh!" the boy snarled. "The humans could be listening in. We must keep up the pretense."

He cast one fervent, paranoid look around. Then he said, a little too loud and tad to forced sounding, "Nice throw, Dad!"

"I think's all for today," the "dad" said.

"Aww!" the "son" said, even though it was not really believable.

"Let's get going." the "dad" said. "Your mom probably has dinner ready."

"Nice touch," the boy wispered as the two walked into an isolated, desolate area that no real father would lead his son to. But these two were not related.

Suddenly, the boy shrieked. The father whirled around and his scream joined his faux progeny. It appeared that both were wearing necklaces of bugs . . . that talked . . . in thought-speak. So many thought-spoke that they overlapped each other.

<Bow before the might of the Helmacron Empire's greatest -->

<-- Stand down and we promise a quick death and -->

<-- And you'll live the rest of your days as our debased swine!>

Helmacrons.

There was Helmacrons around these two's necks. The minute ego trips headed for each's left ear. They managed to pressed a well-hidden, well-crafted button on each person's ear. Each face of the two became eeriely blank, eyes glassy, like a mask. With a hiss of compressed air, both faces of the two swung to the right, revealing them both to be nothing more than exosuits. Exosuits operated, not by Arquilians, but by a single Fmek each.

The Fmeks tried batting away the Helmacrons, but the swarm's Dracon fire were like multiple viper bites . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2013, 10:42:43 PM

Probably pushing my luck, but let's see if my Internet's going to let me post this one.

CHAPTER THREE:
Suit-Jacking Victims

"Believe me, sir," Genies was saying, looking rather put out, "we're working on it. But you aren't the only two Arquillians who have had their exosuits, er, 'suit-jacked'."

"Forgivd me, but I'd like to know what me and my son can do in the meantime." said the Arquillian. He and his son were legal immigrants to Earth, and he worked as a simple groundskeeper. "I have to go to work tomorrow morning, and they aren't expect me like this."

"We're doing what we can, sir," Genies said wearily. "We've already sent a team to investigate the site. But we're stretched rather thin right now."

"You know that Fmeks are behind this, right?"

"We are aware of the evidence against them," Genies said, "but we also have evidence of a third fraction involved."

Genies took a deep breath, than pressed on, "But, until then, I suggest taking some time off."

"During the school year? Are you crazy?"

***

Cloak and Sakki were inspecting the spot where the Helmacrons had ambushed and killed the two Fmeks. They looked around and Cloak "saw" something odd floating face down in the nearby shaded stream. The two wented over to investigate, and discovered the bodies of a man and a boy floating long the stream.

"They're dead!" Sakki said.

Cloak, with elemental sympathies, knew straight awzy that they weren't dead. In fact they've never been alive. "No, Sakki."

She switched tact easily enough. "Exosuits?"

"Yep," Cloak said, ferrokinetically levitating the suits before them.

"What happened them?" Sakki.

"I suppose the Fmek pilots were killed." Cloak said. "Then the killers attempted to pilot the suits the themselves and wind up in the creak.

Sakki picked up what appeared to be several grains of sand large. A dead Helmacron.

"Cloak. CLOAK. C'mere and look at this." Sakk i said.

Cloak looked at the thing that Sakki pointed out.

"Helmacron?"

"I think so," she said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 05, 2013, 11:13:01 PM

Nothing like two new chapters to kill time in math.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2013, 09:20:14 PM

Now, funneling my anger and indignation into constructive ways, let's see if I can get the daily chapter up.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Headaches and Huzzahs

"Sorry for the delay, sir," Genies said, apologetically, "but the suit-jackers weren't exactly careful with your exosuits. Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin have done their best in repairing them. Esplin has installed a DNA recognizer, while Broken has instilled a soul recognizer. The suit-jacking shouldn't happen again until both recognizers have been zeroed out."

"Well, it'll be good not to have to take another day off of work," the father Arquillian said.

"Aw, does this mean I have to go back to school?" the child Arquillian said as both were lifted and carefully placed within the head ****pits. They reaccommodate themselves to their exosuit. They each gained DNA and soul memories of the two Arquillians. The faces would not lock or unlock for anyone else.

The father quickly moved the exosuit's face to lock into place and deftly got off the table, which was reclining at a fifty degree angle. He looked indistinguishable from any other human, species-wise and movement-wise.

The father called his boy's name, "Hurry up! I have to get to work soon."

He did with an unnecessary flourish, leaving his exosuit's face open.

"You know better than that!" the father scolded. "Boy, shut your face!"

***

Meanwhile, Gaz, Underseen and Cloak were dealing with a rather small problem. Small problem, large headache.

"Helmacrons have to be the most irritating species I ever --" Cloak began.

<Bow down and be our beasts of burden!!!>

"Oh, SHUT. UP!!!" Gaz screamed. It was the seven hundredth, give or take, time that they shouted something to that effect. After that many times, it becomes rather intolerable.

<Silence, male!>

Gaz was now even more livid -- if possible by a sentient being. Gaz viciously struck the ship, it's Dracon beams doing no damage, but inciting the wrath of Laserbeak.

The ship was quickly annihilated.

<We are not daunted!> one cried.

"Great," Underseen muttered, "where are they now?"

<We will not be defeated so easily!>

<We will take the cloaked one hosta-- AAAAAAAHHHHHH!>

<AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!>

<AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!>

<AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!>

"Uh, yeah," Cloak said, dryly. "You can't hold me hostage by doing that."

"Doing what?" Underseen said.

"Entering my body, and holding it hostage."

"Oh."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 06, 2013, 10:19:11 PM

I was pretty sure we have some Helmacrons on RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2013, 10:30:45 PM

*shrugs*

The Marks make them sane, then? Eh, call it a plothole, I guess. I still think Helmacrons would be annoying.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Attempted Ambush

"Wait, aren't there Helmacron RAFians?" Underseen asked.

"I dunno," Gaz said. "Probably doesn't mean anything."

"I highly doubt that they are affliated with --" Cloak began.

<Give us the amplifying source!> Another Helmacron ship had showed up, making demands.

Cloak looked a little disgruntled. "I'm getting a little tired of being interrupted."

<Give us the amplifying source! Give it to and live as our debased swine!>

Cloak snapped his fingers and the ship exploded. He looked at the shocked faces on Gaz and Underseen. He said, "Oh, come off it. You know that their minds are indestructible, that they'll just emerging with all others of their species."

"Still," Gaz said. "Still a little dark for you."

And Cloak's guilty conscience coalesced into qualms. He was scared of turning into Malice.

***

It was some time later. The Helmacrons, despite their usual mental instability, did not come demanding the "amplifying source" whatever it was. Cloak still had his qualms about being so hasty with that ship.

It was newbie registering day, which was a big to-do. Cloak was in attendance, although he wanted to stay in his thread and brood. But Gaz, Aquilai, and Saffa would not have it.

But Cloak's eyes widened when he saw the applicants registering. They were all human -- a girl in a girlscout uniform, a boy in generic clothing, a mail carrier, a shirtless surfer in loud trunks with an equally loud surfboard, a police officer . . . all in all about 27 applicants.

"Wait, hold on!" Cloak cried out.

"Yeah," Saffa said. "Something's off here."

Cloak looked at her as if he wondered how she could know just how bad things were. Then he realized Saffa was just put off by the dressing choices of the applicants. After all, she could neither Earthsight or Metalsight as he could.

"No, Saffa. Exosuits! The lot of them!"

"So we add a couple of Arquillians to --"

"No, not Arquillians. Fmeks!"

With the cat out of the bag, they dropped all pretense and attacked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 07, 2013, 08:11:12 AM

Well...that's a problem... Great chapters, again, Cloaky. :D

Quote from: Kitty Hawk (Saffa) on September 05, 2013, 02:14:08 AM

Oh, and do you want me to mail you the PDF of the last book?

Yes, please. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 07, 2013, 08:26:58 AM

Well. That escalated quickly.

Abby: done. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2013, 11:01:07 AM

And there's actually a reason for that. Which you'll probably find out about sometime this afternoon, when I post the next chapter (obviously, I'm off today).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 07, 2013, 11:04:58 AM

Yay for off days! Best days ever. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2013, 11:44:09 AM

Too right. You gotta write when the juices are flowing.

Speaking of which:

CHAPTER SIX:
Motives

Suddenly, ten of the exosuits floated in midair. Cloak was using his despised mechbending. He did not hesitate but this time he would not hate himself -- the exosuits were not sentient or capable of truly feeling. Cloak could be ruthless when needed, apparently.

With ten simultaneous hissings, the faces popped open and the Fmeks ditched them . . . only to be quickly and easily rounded up by Helen and Sam.

"Give us the stature amplification device!" Girl Scout snarled with a most disturbing tone. Yarin certainly looked disturbed.

Cloak proceeded to mechbend the next ten. This time it took longer for the ten to abandon the exosuits and be rounded up with their fellows.

"Give us --" said the surfer.

"Coming here like that, and even attacking us, was a futile gesture at best." Richard said. "Tell me . . . why do you think that we would acquiesce to your demands when your force is more than half gone?"

"G-give . . ." stuttered the mailman, before changing tact, calling to the other six, "Retreat. Tactical retreat!"

Faerie, Saffa, and Sakki made to go after them, before Parker stopped them.

"No," he said. "We've proven that they are no threat to us. We'll find them when we need to."

"Besides," Cloak added, slightly disgusted with himself for mechbending, "we need to find out what exactly they want."

"I would thought that was very clear," Abby said. "They want whatever this 'stature amplification device' thing is."

Yarin squirmed and Cloak quickly noticed. Cloak eyed the Nyac suspiciously.

"Some sort of growth-enchacing thing maybe?" Underseen guessed with a shrugged.

Parker's eyes widened.

"Like Yarin's microwave!" Horse gasped.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!" Yarin roared.

"But that's impossible," Blaze said. "I smashed it to bits!"

Cloaked shrewdly examined Yarin's body language, then facepalmed. "And you rebuilt it, didn't you, Yarin?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 07, 2013, 11:49:41 AM

Yes! The FYI. I loved that book! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2013, 09:44:13 PM

Let's try this again.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Warring Ones

<We must get to the amplifying device!> commanded a harsh female voice.

<Before the beanheads!> another added.

<Death to the grain-brains!> yet another declared.

<To the greatness of the Helmacron Empire!> another one proclaimed.

It was like some sort of weird pep rally aboard the third Helmacron ship. It hovered just outside RAF, in the no-man's-land between RAF and the Bannedlands. Yet, they were just posturing. They haven't gotten around to actually discussing just how they were going to accomplish this.

But it was inevitable for the topic to come up. And when it did . . . well, swords got involved. If they managed to increase their size with the FYI . . . it was a truly terrifying prospect.

***

Back in the warehouse that Gary once used for a home base, a headquarters, lurked the Fmek commandos. The walls were lined with every exosuit in the tri-state area, barring the two that were repaired by Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin and the twenty in RAFian custody. None were legally owned by the Fmeks, and all were stolen.

The seven that had escaped were on their knees . . . er, their exosuits were on their knees with their heads, er, ****pits bowed, face plates wide open.

Before them, a slim-bodied exosuit designed to look like a blonde, tanned twenty-something, wearing a reddish-orange tracksuit with white trim. He was piloted by the Fmek commander, and he had the face plate open as the others did.

"Twenty." he said, with obviously supressed anger. "You fools allowed twenty exosuits to be taken."

"Forgive me, sir," said a Fmek piloting the surfer exosuit, "but we didn't --"

"And twenty of our people dead," he said.

"They were captured, sir," said the Fmek piloting the girl scout. "Captured, not killed."

The commander whipped around so fast that his face plate slammed shut. The faux face that was completely blank before now reflected the commander's fury. He spoke through the exosuit, "THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE!! Especially if they talk!"

The commander straightened up and pressed the button on the lobe of his exosuit's ear. The face went blank as it swung open.

"What's worse is that you blew your cover! Now the vermin and the guardians of the device are put on guard!"

"No, sir!" the Fmek piloting the boy exosuit protested. "We were keeping up the pretense and no one was any the wiser! But the cloaked one knew the truth somehow without anyone dropping the pretense."

He whipped around, slamming the face plate again, and said "What? You're sure?"

"Yes, sir!"

"We may need to keep the Arquillians around, after all," he said thoughtfully, looking at a kitty carrier where the Arquillians cowered, and the young ones cried.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2013, 08:22:40 AM

Let's if this works. Damn unreliable internet and all.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Desperate Debates

While the Helmacron ship stayed within the borders of the no-man's-land between the RAFians grounds and the Bannedlands, the RAFians (who were fully aware of the Helmacron ship's location) were debating on what to do.

"NO!!!" Yarin roared. "I FORBID SUCH A THING!!!"

"No one told you to rebuild the damn thing!" Parker snarled.

"Have you forgot that it made me into a mammoth monster?" Horse asked rhetorically.

"I fixed that malfunction!" Yarin said."It shan't happen again!"

"You can't know that!" Blaze said. "You're a telepath with marginal telekinesis. You don't have premonitions or visions."

"And if you recently got such an ability, you should have told us." Gaz said, arms folded. Laserbeak was perched, resolute and reserved, on her shoulder.

"The FYI must be destroyed," Richard decided. "I'm sorry, Yarin, but the dangers outweigh any benefit."

"No!"

"And you must not rebuild it ever again," Phoenix added, foreseeing a possible problem. Richard nodded at this.

Yarin looked as if the mods had took his child and ripped apart before him. As Aquilai would if the same was decided of his TARDIS.

"But it . . . it's necessary! It could end universe-wide hunger!" Yarin tried.

"Or make a masdive troop of Helmacrons!" RYTX countered. "Or these Fmek things. Neither are at all desirable."

This argument would continue for several more moments before Yarin was forced, by sheer numbers of the others and their well-founded objections.

Cloak, however, was pondering about something completely different. Fmeks did not  make exosuits, at least not of the quality of those that they piloted, which were nearly flawless in their deception. Blue noticed that Cloak was sitting apart from the arguments over the FYI. He went over to Cloak, and asked, "What are you thinking, Cloak?"

"The Fmeks. The exosuits." Cloak answered with obvious sincerity. "From what I know of Fmeks, those exosuits were a lot more sophisticated, design-wise, than anything they could manufacture. A lot more sophisticated."

"What are you getting at?" Blue asked, though he had a shrewd idea.

"Think about it. The ladt time two Fmeks were discovered piloting those exosuits, they were reported stolen. Now we have twenty of the twenty-seven piloted by Fmeks. Yet no reports of theft, none at all. None have been filed. Arquillians would never sell an exosuit either."

Blue nodded sadly, "The Fmeks must be keeping the Arquillians hostage."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 08, 2013, 08:58:18 AM

I just noticed that Malice has had no role so far in this mini-war.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2013, 09:15:26 AM

Yeah, and she won't. Not until Book LI (51), though she'll have a cameo at the end of Book L (50).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 08, 2013, 09:29:07 AM

Even the villains need their off days. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2013, 10:14:20 PM

Too right. All that scheming and villainous laughter can take it out of you.

Sorry, I couldn't post another chapter earlier. Internet got buggy.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Next Step

The FYI, despite Yarin's many, prominent protests, was systematically destroyed. Each part was broken down molecularly, and the blueprints seized and destroyed.

"That was overkill!" Yarin complained petulantly. "Completely unnecessary!"

"It was a needed precaution, Yarin, you understand," Wild said.

"I disagree!"

"We know!" Faerie said, rubbing her temples. "You won't shut up about it!"

"It is my --"

"It was your bad judgement," Parker snapped. "I remember what happened to the last one. You can claim it was a malfunction you fixed all you want, that does not eliminate the use to which the Fmeks and Helmacrons desire it for!"

"Yeah," Horse said, heatedly, "you're not stupid, Yarin. I know you remember too. But you disregarded it when you rebuilt the blasted thing!"

You know you've done wrong when the usually mild-tempered Horse yells at you. It certainly shut Yarin up but he looked surly and mutinous still.

"You guys do realize when the Fmeks or Helmacrons discover the destruction of the microwave --" Poparena began.

"Food Yield Increaser!" Yarin snarled, nettled.

"-- that they'd decide to go after the microwave's --"

"Food Yield Increaser!"

"-- inventor instead?" Poparena finished as if he were never interrupted.

Silence met this pronouncement for a few minutes.

"That's a good point." SuperNate said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Yeah . . ." Richard said. "Yarin'll need a full guard."

"Do I have a say in that?" Yarin said testily. "I don't need a single guard, much less a full team! I can take care of myself! Especially from such miniscule threats!"

"Be that as it may," Richard said, "I rather think it an apt idea."

"But we also need to rescue the Arquillian hostages," Cloak said.

"You don't know that they have hostages," Poparena pointed out. "Not for a fact."

"Perhaps," Cloak conceded, "but the evidence points to it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2013, 08:45:37 PM

Something something something lark aside.

Sorry couldn't resist.

CHAPTER TEN:
Ash's Suggestive Song

"So what do we do --" Underseen began.

But, suddenly, a rhythmic drumbeat began to pulsate through the forum. The RAFians were so accustomed to these things, they did not question this.

"Who's phat and flashy
With the big green eyes?
Who know nearly all
And can put you wise?"

Ash had appeared, her form anything but static. Broken replied, with mild amusement, unable to surpress a smile, "Chestshire Ash, who else?"

Ash continued the song, using her shapeshifting to emphasize the points:

"You know, I see those Arquillians in a lonely room,
Where the Fmek commander's got 'em locked away.
Now, he's one bad dude.
He's in a nasty mood.
And he wants to be big one day.

Now,if you're gonna rescue those Arquillians,
Then split this group in two.
A few of you
Protect Yarin from malice,
And, the rest, here's what to do.
You don't need to go up.
You don't need to go down.
But remember what the RAFian said:
You just go where your hi-top sneakers sneak
And don't forget to use your head, no, no.
Don't forget to use your head, nah, nah."

The music ended, and Ash had vanished. But Cloak was well aware of where she was.

"Wouldn't it have been --easier -- if you just said, 'split into two groups'?" Parker asked.

Ash and Saffa spoke at the same moment, "Where's the fun in that?"

"Right," Richard said. "Poparena, Aquilai, Goom, Kelly, Underseen, Gaz. You're on guard duty. Cloak, Parker, AniDragon, Blaze, Horse, Faerie. You go and rescue the Arquillians."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 09, 2013, 09:19:50 PM

I rapped this in my head. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2013, 07:53:23 PM

Internet's being wonky.

Anyway, I finished planning out Book CC ("Conscience Corral"), and started in on Book CCI ("A Toy Story"), which is shaping up to be a rather sad book.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Guard Duty

One would think simple guard duty was boring, tedious, or mind-numbing. But this is RAF -- and even guard duty is anything but.

And guarding an impatient, miffed Nyac was not the most pleasant thing in the world.

"I said I don't need to be guarded!" Yarin snarled, pacing back and forth, like a bored zoo animal. "I can take care of myself!"

"Yarin," Kelly said ina gentle, would-be soothing tone, "we know that. We're just --"

"Insurance." Poparena put in bluntly.

"You think I am incapable of dealing with Helmacrons?!" Yarin demanded.

"No one said that," Aquilai said, holding a staff/glider that was in reality his TARDIS. Apparently, he fixed something called a "chameleon circuit" in it. Just don't ask him about it -- unless you want a long explanation. "Just calm yourself, Yarin. It's just a precaution, you understand."

"Yes, we mustn't leave anything to chance." Goom said.

Yarin looked like he very much desired to give the Goomba the "Mario treatment". He folded both sets of arms -- Nyacs are tetramands -- and muttered mutinously.

"Um," Underseen said, "quick question. How do the Fmeks and Helmacrons even know about Yarin's microwave?"

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!" Yarin bellowed.

"Uh, yeah, that," Underseen amended.

"That's a good question," Kelly observed thoughtfully.

"Don't forget, that micro--" Gaz began.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!" Yarin erupted, flushed with anger.

"--wave caused Horse to involunarily see what the fifty-foot woman's life was like, but as a radioactive seal." Gaz said, blatantly ignoring Yarin's outburst. "I think eventually that story would get around."

Then Poparena said, "Helmacrons, inbound."

Gaz whistled, "Laserbeak! Playtime!"

The Cybertronian bird took great glee in chasing the deluded egomaniacs. Their Dracon beams did not even mar his metallic hide.

"Have fun!" Gaz said. Then she turned to the others, "Now, what were we talking about again?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 10, 2013, 10:45:35 PM

Of all things I didn't think the microwave would make such a spectacular comeback. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 11, 2013, 08:58:41 AM

You should never know what the expect Saffa.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2013, 09:01:25 AM

Quote from: Underseen on September 11, 2013, 08:58:41 AM

You should never know what the expect Saffa.

*smiles broadly, in a good-natured way.*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 11, 2013, 01:18:03 PM

Poor Yarin.  Lol, in some weird way he kinda reminds me of Einstein right now.  Except, of course, that Einstein had the wisdom to FEEL BAD ABOUT IT when his inventions and equations were twisted to create the atomic bomb.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2013, 08:30:57 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 11, 2013, 01:18:03 PM

Poor Yarin.  Lol, in some weird way he kinda reminds me of Einstein right now.  Except, of course, that Einstein had the wisdom to FEEL BAD ABOUT IT when his inventions and equations were twisted to create the atomic bomb.  :P

Heh, different sensibilities for different species? I'm not sure Yarin would be happy with me portraying him in such a way, though.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Exosuit Exhibitions

Why were they being so loud? Cloak thought, mildly bitter. He thought the footsteps of the others, which echoed in the most ominous fashion, in the huge expanse were prohibitively loud. Even Faerie's wing strokes seemed sinisterly loud. Cloak carefully padded along, ears back, like a tiger after prey.

They walked through the warehouse, with everything eeriely still and motionless.

"When did this turn into a horror movie?" Faerie whispered.

Cloak looked around intently, haunched over. He saw the exosuit mausoleum, all with faces opened. A male youngster, a young lass, a forest ranger, a park ranger, a waitress, a preschooler, a young girl, a fisherman, a scientist, a karate master, a nurse, two clerks, a janitor, a harlequin, a engineer . . .

"I swear if anyone pops out and says 'boo' . . ." Parker said. He was on edge.

Cloak continued to examine the exosuits. There was a backpacker, a lady with a parasol, a hiker, a baseball player, four cheerleaders, a teen celebrity heartthrob, a heiress, a soccer player, a football player . . .

"Something should have happened by now," AniDragon said, worryingly.

. . . a tennis player, a biker, a breakdancer, an artist, a bikini-clad woman, a roughnecked cueball, a Speedo-clad man, a kid with an inner tube, a detective, and an old gambler. Then Cloak realized something that caused his ears to prick up and him to stand up straighter.

"They're all empty," he said. "There's so many, and they're completely empty."

"The ones that tried to infilitrate the forum aren't here, though," Blaze pointed out.

Horse's eyes widened. "I get what Cloaky's getting at. Why go through so much trouble to obtain so many? To procure so many, but not use them?"

"Because it's a diversion," Faerie said. "They wanted us to come here!"

Blaze's voice contained shock. "Because they're going to go after Yarin!"

"But let's free the Arquillians anyway. Then we can return to the forum." Cloak said.

"But --"

"Have faith in the others, Blaze." Then the Realm Walker searched with Eathsight. "They're over there. Let's go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 11, 2013, 08:37:35 PM

Enjoying this thoroughly. It makes for a nice homework break.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 11, 2013, 11:14:23 PM

Lol, it interrupts my homework. But I'm not complaining. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2013, 09:13:24 PM

God, I was on my feet too long. And would be very surprised if Dino comes here tomorrow, with it being 9-13-13. . . . And we're on Chapter 13. Huh.

And I can't tell if RAF is being wonky or if its my internet again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:*
Fmek Offs!**

Laserbeak perched in a tree, looking thoroughly put out and disgruntled. He had lost his new toy! He let out a morose chirp before returning to RAF and Gaz.

Meanwhile, the Helmacron ship's crew was full of their usual undeserved bravado and irritating bluster. Crowing on how they "frightened away" the "bloated mechanical bird". Of course, they got needlessly careless (even by Helmacron standards) and began to hover out into the open.

<Do you see how the robotic turkey fled before the might of the Helmacron Empire?> one demanded. How one ship was representative of an entire empire was anyone's guess.

<Yes! All cower before our collective armada!> Now, Helmacron mental fluidity could be responsible for this madness of theirs. But even that has its limits.

Suddenly, the ship was rocked violently as a human-looking hand seized it.

"What is it?" the Fmek commander, still wearing the same exosuit, only this time he kept the face closed. He addressed the mailman pilot, who held the ship.

"A vermin capsule, sir."

"Oh," he said, disinterested. "Dispose of it. Make sure all the little vermin are dead."

Clearly, the Fmeks did not understand nor care about the Helmacron's post-mordem mental fluidity.

<Release us, bloated beanbags!> a Helmacron hollered. <Release us and live as our defiled beasts of burden!>

"Um," the commander feigned thoughtfulness, "no."

<You will not get to the creator of the amplification device!> another Helmacron cried out. <He shall rebuild it for the glory of the Helmacron Empire!>

"'Rebuild', you say?" the Fmek commander said. "So. It's been destroyed."

<Release us -->

"Oh, shut the vermin up already." the Fmek commander said irritably. The mailman pilot crushed the ship like a toilet paper tube.

"Sir," said Girl Scout, "does that mean we're stuck piloting these ugly things?"

"The stature amplification device may have been destroyed," the commander thought aloud, "but that doesn't mean that it can't be rebuilt."

Clearly, he wasn't aware of the recent destruction of all Yarin's notes and blueprints of the micro . . . er, FYI.

---
*Oh, Dino, stop hiding underneath that blanket! ;)

**Yes, I know it sounds like an expletive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 12, 2013, 11:09:29 PM

It's already Friday the 13th here. And I started it in grand style by oversleeping and missing my first class. Well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 13, 2013, 12:31:47 AM

*quickly posts while it is still the twelfth in her time zone*

Hmm, for some reason I had thought the Fmeks and Helmacrons were in cahoots.  Not sure where I got that idea, but it would seem I was wrong.

Also, I keep wondering what AmberKatira must be thinking about all this.  Isn't she a Helmacron?

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 12, 2013, 09:13:24 PM

*Oh, Dino, stop hiding underneath that blanket! ;)

No.  Not coming out.  You can't make me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2013, 06:28:44 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 13, 2013, 12:31:47 AM

Also, I keep wondering what AmberKatira must be thinking about all this.  Isn't she a Helmacron?

Isn't she also a lurker?

Uh, I'd explain it away as the Mark interrupts the postmortem mental fluidity of Helmacrons, making them saner?

Anyway, I'll be off tomorrow, so I'll post as many chapters as I can. But I'm gonna hang out with a friend on Sunday, and don't know for how long.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 13, 2013, 06:35:52 AM

Not quite a lurker, last I checked she was at full member status. She's very active on the Mafia board.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2013, 06:41:36 AM

Ah. . . . Then I'll quickly finish this book and get on to the next one, then. But after work.

Oh, right . . . the next one is the pap-- oh, right, Saffa doesn't want spoilers. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 13, 2013, 06:55:03 AM

LOL, I have the list, don't worry about that one. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2013, 08:57:57 AM

Heh. ;)

Well -- pay attention to the next book, because something big'll happen towards the end. Like Chapter 19 of the next book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 13, 2013, 09:13:35 AM

Now THAT is a spoiler. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2013, 09:28:04 AM

Eh, not really. You'll see when we get there.

Now a chapter -- maybe two if I've the energy.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Switch and Squish

"Sir?" said the Fmek pilot through his boy exosuit's mouth. "Sir, what's our next move?"

"We must leave nothing to chance," he said. Then he went over to the boy, an exosuit that was unrecognizable without its glasses and with its hair in a different style, and pushed the ear lobe. With a hiss, the face opened to reveal a perplexed Fmek. Then the commander opened his exosuit, and he got up. "Hold out its hand."

The Fmek did as he was told, and the Fmek commander stood upon it, leaving his abandoned exosuit inert.

"Move over," the Fmek commander ordered, and he took over piloting over the exosuit, signified by the slight tremor that raced the length of the exosuit. "Get on the hand."

The Fmek followed these directions and the Fmek commander practically shoved his subordinate into the ****pit.

"Uh, sir, if I may be so bold," said the Fmek subordinate, leaving the face plate open, as the commander used the exosuit's hand to close the face plate, completing the disguise as a human boy with a blond buzz cut. "But why did we switch exosuits?"

"Because I will not allow you to foul this up again." he said, speaking with a child's voice. "I'll go myself."

The subordinate did not argue, did not protest. He just shut his new exosuit's face plate.

"Stay in the shadows," he commanded, looking rather paradoxical, these adults taking crap from a snot-nosed brat. "Do not be seen. The cloaked alien should have gone for the Arquillians, thinking we would ambush them at the makeshift base."

"Sir, wh-what if he didn't?" Girl Scout asked timidly.

"Don't question me," he snarled.

***

Squish! Squish! Squish!

"Ah! God d-- where'd all these bloody Helmacrons come from?!" Gaz demanded, having stepped on three with enough direct pressure to squish them. It was like seeing army ants move along upon the ground.

"Dunno," Aquilai said, sending the Helmacrons back with a powerful gust of wind.

Goom was stomping them in his armored form, "This is a lot of Helmacrons."

"A whole armada," Poparena commented, accidentally tripping and crushing several with his backside.

It wasn't long before the seige relented. Many Helmacrons were dead, and all were killed accidentally. Altjough none were truly "dead".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 13, 2013, 10:23:37 PM

*posts from hiding place underneath numerical-safety-blanket*

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 13, 2013, 06:28:44 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 13, 2013, 12:31:47 AM

Also, I keep wondering what AmberKatira must be thinking about all this.  Isn't she a Helmacron?

Isn't she also a lurker?

Uh, I'd explain it away as the Mark interrupts the postmortem mental fluidity of Helmacrons, making them saner?

The explanation for her sanity makes perfect sense.  I interpret most of their crazy to be due to a total lack of the fear of death, anyhow, so with that removed, I would see no reason for one of them to be less crazy than . . . waaaaait, wait, wait, are we really saying, here, that being a RAFian can make you LESS insane?  *headsplosion*

*scrubs brain residue out of numerical-safety-blanket*  But, anyway, I think you had actually pointed that detail out before.  So, no, that wasn't what I was talking about.  I was merely wondering about Amber's general opinion on the matter.  Whether she would be like, "Oh, good lord, is this my species?  This must be how humans feel when they see the Westboro Baptist Church," or whether she'd think more along the lines of "Hey, they're Helmacrons, I'm a Helmacron, maybe I can talk some sense into- oh wait, they're Helmacrons."

Just sort of a random stray thought I had.  *shrugs*  But I see no reason you would need to include it in your story.  Mostly I'm just thinking out loud.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2013, 06:14:41 AM

And the real fact of the matter is that I haven't any real interaction with her, nor have I really read any of her posts, so I'd feel uncomfortable including her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Pity for the Deranged

"They're gone," Underseen said, relieved. Then he saw just how many Helmacrons "died", it almost seemed like a pyrrhic victory.

"I know when a Helmacron dies," Gaz said, "they're just, uh, 'absorbed' by the species as a whole, but still . . ."

"I never expect a swarm of them to come, or to even exist. But, then again, no one really knows what planet they originated on . . ."

Yarin was massaging his head, all six of his eyes shut. It looked as if he was suffering a massive migrane.

"Yarin, what's wrong?" Kelly said immediately. She crossed over to the suffering Nyac.

"Never . . . never trying that . . . a-again." he muttered.

"Never trying what again?" Poparena said at once.

But Aquilai figured it out. He facepalmed. "Yarin -- you didn't."

"Didn't what?" Underseen interjected.

"Read the Helmacron's minds! Or try to anyway." Aquilai cried, exasperated. "Yarin, you knew of their mental fluidity."

"I thought I could find a way . . . a way to dissuade them. Or a kill switch." Yarin said, but his tone was evasive.

He wasn't fooling anyone. He wanted to prove that he was more than capable of taking care of himself. Kelly stepped up and healed this migraine in a thrice.

***

"Sir," said the surfer, having ditched the surfboard at the base, "it appears the fortress has been overrun with vermin."

"Excellent," he said, with his child's voice, "this could fit very well with my plan."

"Uh, sir?" said the mailman's pilot. "The vermin are withdrawing. Many seem to be dead."

"Futile gesture, on their part," he said. "But they'll come again."

"Forgive me, commander," Girl Scout said, hesitantly, "but what if they don't."

"Don't dare question me again." he threatened.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2013, 12:43:39 PM

How's about another chapter?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Deceptive Con

"And here they come again," Goom said.

"Gotta admire their persistence." Aquilai sighed, assuming an airbending stance.

"No, you don't." Poparena said, drily.

"Pity that you cannot reason with a Helmacron," Kelly said.

"Especially because all the deaths have made their minds destabilized all the more." Underseen pointed out.

"That too," Kelly amended.

"Don't try to attack them psychically, Yarin," Goom said reproachfully. Yarin glared at the Goomba, who had his back to him.

None of them felt the rumbling from below. The rage of the caged beast with, yearning to get out again.

***

Meanwhile, the Fmek commander, after being informed of the Helmacron swarm recommencing their attack, was going to deliberately place himself in harm's way, but with his forces placed strategically around.

"Do not come out until I give my command," he said, assuring himself that the faceplact was closed and the seam hidden. He also applied what appeared to be a small earring -- in reality, it was to prevent the exosuit from being open on the outside. But it didn't look gaudy or even noticeable.

Everything of this deception had to be perfect, and nothing could be left to chance.

He seemed to be overrun with Helmacrons, who seemed to haven't any interest in him, though he deliberately kept his head -- the ****pit -- well out of reach. But that didn't stop him from screaming, terrified, in his child's voice, for help.

This was all an act, however. Although it did garner the attention of the guard.

"Help me! Please!"

Somehow, the way it was said put off Poparena, though he wasn't sure why. It just seemed a little to overacted, in a way.

Kelly moved toward the faux boy, following her instincts to heal, but Yarin stopped her.

"Don't waste your time."

"He needs help! Can't you --"

"Read his thoughts?" Yarin finished. "Yes, and that's not a real boy."

Yarin gazed intently at him, saying, "It is nothing more than an exosuit."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 14, 2013, 12:50:45 PM

Nothing beats drinking a cup of tea and reading new chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 14, 2013, 12:53:19 PM

Took a bit of a dark turn, too. But then, I like the dark turns, I'm not complaining... ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2013, 02:20:47 PM

Uh, there seems to be a slight misunderstanding -- which I hope to rectify with this chapter. (At this rate this book will be done by this weekend's end.)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Keep Away

"Wha . . ." Underseen said, then his expression hardened. "Of course. We should have realized they would try deception."

"Help!" the commander cried, still feigning fear.

"And, look, the Helmacrons are starting to thin." Poparena said.

"Help!" the Fmek commander said, still overacting.

"Oh, stop!" Gaz snarled. "You're not fooling anyone . . . ahem, any more."

"Yarin, get back." Goom warned. "It's you they're after."

"I can fight!"

"If you fought, it would render everything we've done thus far moot." Goom said.

"Not to mention that they might get their exosuit's hands on you," Aquilai said, clearly considering Fmeks a bigger threat than the Helmacrons. "And who knows what they'd do to when they couldn't pull the intel they want from you."

This seemed to silence any further objection from the Nyac. Meanwhile, the commander was still trying to keep up the pretense.

"Help me! Why aren't you helping me?!"

It was now that he realized that it was glaringly obvious that he had been found out, his cover blown.

"Oh, fine." he said, standing up, causing the Helmacrons to tumble off him like crumbs or grains of sand. He commanded in ringing tones, "Assemble and atrack!"

"I would guess that you would be the big boss one?" said Gaz lazily, with a heavy-lidded look.

"Assemble and attack!" he roared again, stamping his exosuit's foot and killing two Helmacrons doing so.

"Sorry, sir!" cried Girl Scout as all seven tumbled into sight.

"No excuses, lackwits!"

"You know, this is kind of cute -- in a cruel and twisted way." Kelly said, reffering to what appeared to be a child disrespectfully barrading adults. But, as with most things, there was more to this than there appeared to be.

This time the rumble wasn't to be missed. The beast was free and looking for seal meat.

"Oh, this is so not the time for this," Poparena said.

"It's out," Yarin said.

"Fools! Your lies do not trick or frighten me!" shouted the commander, yet he continued to have his face plate locked and seamless.

"They're not lies." Goom said, drawing the Damocles Blade. "Turn around if you don't believe me."

Behind them, the Pootang loomed feasting on Helmacrons -- to which it considered akin to M&Ms or Skittles.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 14, 2013, 02:25:02 PM

I wonder how the Pootang likes his Helmacrons? Ketchup, mayonnaise or barbecue sauce?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2013, 02:34:15 PM

Scrambled, and a little bit runny.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Cavalry Cometh

The Pootang charged the boy exosuit, but he managed to easily subdue the beast into a headlock. The RAFians were in shock. They hadn't battled these things directly.

"Yes, fools. These disguises may be horrendously hideous, but they are strong enough to bend piping, to lift one of your primitive land transports." the Fmek commander crowed as the Pootang whimpered. The beast may have acted fierce but it wasn't that much of a savage. Its impulses were just . . . just unrestrained and uninhibited. It was brutal and could be unyielding, but the same could be said of some RAFians.

But the Fmek commander wasn't finished gloating. "So, you see, these exosuits have other uses other than blending in your pathetic society! Now you will feel our wrath."

The boy exosuit's face stop speaking and stayed frozen so the last four words were spoken by the Fmek, and not through the exosuit. It seemed as if the exosuit, and its fellows, were seizing up.

"Pity, they don't seem to prevent you from gloating and monologuing," said a voice.

Pootang withdrew whimpering. It was quickly retreated to the safety of its cage.

Footsteps echoed ominously, until the RAFians realized the voice was familiar -- it was Cloak. He was mechbending the exosuits, while the others were carrying the rightful owners of the exosuits, eight Arquillians.

HISS!! HISS!! HISS!! HISS!! HISS!! HISS!! HISS!! HISS!!

"Uh uh uh!" Cloak said, and the face plates did not swing open. "Not this time, you deminuative demons!"

"They're not damaged at all " said a Arquillian quietly. She looked to Yarin's guard. "You showed a lot of restraint."

The RAFians felt a bit churlish and modest at this mild compliment.

"Guys, compliments later. Action now." Cloak said, reproachfully. "You know how much I hate mechbending."

"Which first?" Horse asked.

"Like it matters," Cloak grumbled.

"The blond boy there has the commander." Goom said.

"Eeeeew." said a child Arquillian, presumably the rightful pilot.

"Sounds like a suitable starting place," Parker said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2013, 08:11:39 AM

Two chapters from the end now -- although you probably could already tell. It's already starting to wind down.

Now the penultimate chapter of this book.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Captured and Grilled

So, it was one-by-one the Fmeks were removed from the exosuits -- forcibly -- and they were returned to their rightful owners. The Girl Scout was the last one.

"Whoo!" said the boy, who had his face plate opened, waving the exosuit's hand in front of it. "It really smells in here. It really needs to air out."

"Sorry, we don't have any air freshners that . . . that wouldn't crowd you in there." Kelly said, sweetly and gently. "But, still, if you want maintain the pretense, the illusion, you're gonna have to shut your face plate."

"I know that!" he said, with a jovial smile. Then he began to fan it out, by waving the face plate on its hinging, much like someone would attempting to air out a car with the door. Neither was very effective.

The Helmacrons were gone. The Pootang either scared them away, or ate them. The Pootang iitself was locked back in its cage where it still cowered and whimpered.

But there was one more business to attend to before they were done.

"I will never talk!!" the Fmek commander snarled.

They decided to forgo questioning the subordinates, as they didn't appear to be very smart anyway. The commander wasn't much smarter, especially when one considers how he was strapped to a doll's chair.

"I just asked if you were comfortable, Fmek." Parker said smoothly.

"You know I'm not!"

"Then I would wager that you spill what you know," Parker said calmly. "And then you can run along home."

"What do you take me for?! I'm not a Helmacron!" he said, spitting the last word.

"No," Parker said, not disquieted or perturbed at all. "No, it's obvious you aren't. But if you don't talk of you own volation, we might be forced to use more . . . intimate," he laid a delicate stress on the word, "ways to extract the information. We don't really want to go that far. But we must know."

Parker lowered his face so that it was a vast billboard in the Fmek's eyeline.

"Tell us, how'd you know of the microwave?"

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!" cried a voice in the back.

Parker stood back,and said, "Answer the question."

The Fmek resolutely refused.

"Answer the question, or the Nyac over there will invade your mind telepathically and take the info."

"You lie!"

"How d'you think we got wise to your deception?" Parker said. "It wasn't your lackluster, ham acting. You might as well been directed by M. Night Shama-dingdong."

The Fmek did not understand the reference, but understood the main import of the message.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 15, 2013, 08:17:53 AM

This could be a meme. Top frame: screencap of a movie/TV dialogue with microwave in it. Bottom frame: "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2013, 09:40:19 AM

It is a bit of a running gag, it's true.

Anyway, last chapter of Book 47!

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A New Threat

As it turned out, the Fmeks had just recently become aware of the "Radioactive Seal From A Forum Near RAF" incident. They deduced that FYI was responsible. Though that took several months.

The RAFians gave them a subtle ultimatium -- leave and never return or die.

They chose the former.

But Cloak still felt unease. He didn't know why. It was just . . . just that it felt like . . . like they were being . . . watched. He couldn't Earthsight or Metalsight anything within the perimeter. But this unsettling feeling of unease would not dissipate.

He turned to go to his thread, as the Aquillians left to resume their peaceful lives in their exosuits. It had been a long day.

However, Cloak's instincts were right. There actually was someone watching them.

***

Night had fallen. The moon was big and bright. The stars twinkled almost lazily. Cloak was standing at the end of the forest looking up, marveling at this. The Nexus had no stars, no moon, just inky blackness.

"Hello, stranger." said a voice. One that involuntarily filled Cloak with terror and dread.

"M-mother?" he said, hating how his voice trembled. "How'd you find me here?"

"Oh, I heard the sound of utter betrayal and my heart shattering, and followed that." she said, concealing her fury. "C'mon, son, we're going home."

"No." Cloak said, at once. Then he gestured to the buildings that made up the forum. The boards, the infirmary, the mess hall, the thread quarters, the auditorium, the training simulator, etc. "They like me. They care about me. I am home."

"Like you? Please, son." his mother said, dismissively. "This is why you should have never left."

"You kicked me out." Cloak snarled.

"I didn't mean it," she said, still in that infuriatingly dismissive tone. "Dear, this whole fantasy that you've invented just proves . . . you're too naive to be here."

She stode over to him, getting rather closer than the prerequisite six feet diameter that Closk wanted to keep with her. "Why would they like you? C'mon now, really! Look at the state of you! You think they're impressed?!"

Then the music started.

"Don't be a dummy!
Come with Mummy.
Mother --"

"NO!" Cloak snarled, with a tiger growl intermingling with the word.

"No?" his mother said, looking miffed at the defiance. "Oh, I see how it is.

Cloak knows best.
Cloak's so mature now.
Cloak can never go admiss.
Cloak knows best.
Fine, if you're so sure now --"

She seized his arm and showed him the Mark.

"Go ahead and break THIS!"

"How'd you know --"

"This is why they're here!
Don't let them deceive you!
Break this and watch, you'll see!
Trust me, my son."

She snapped her fingers.

"That's how fast they'll leave you!
I won't say, "I told you so"!
No, Cloak knows best.
Go ahead and put them to the test!
If they're lying,
Don't come crying!
Mother knows best!"

Then she was gone, and all was blackness. Cloak felt horrible and hollow.

***

With a gasp, Cloak sat straight up in his bed. He was shaking. No matter how he tried to deny it, part of him was always afraid of his mother, even now as an adult.

But why? Why was she this way? Why was she so narcissistic, so arrogant, so unwilling to find fault in herself? No one is just born like that.

Okay, maybe Helmacrons, but thats beyond the point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 15, 2013, 09:48:49 AM

Why is it that I sang it in the original voice?

I'm not so sure I'd want to meet your mother, Cloaky.

Edit: Internet's better now, so here's the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2013, 11:53:53 AM

She is a tough person to be around. I went and got the therapy and help I needed, and she -- I assume -- still hasn't. But what narcissist ever does? But I do suspect one of the reasons that she was so hard on me was because I resemble my father so much (which, of course, wasn't my doing, but nature's). Although my face is a bit rounder than his.

Anyway, enough of that. Let's start off the next book, which will show just what I think of the . . . ah, well, no spoilers.

BOOK XLVIII:
GO AWAY!
CHAPTER ONE:
They Come . . .

Cloak sat beneath a broad sycamore tree. He closed his eyes and meditated. His mind flowed back to a time he would have rather forgot . . .

***

A bell rung*, but only Cloak seemed aware of it and the loud cry of "Cloooooooaaaaaak!"

Cloak muttered, through song:

"'Cloak! Cloak!' All I hear is 'Cloak!'
From the moment that I get up,
'Til the shades are falling.
There isn't any let up!
I hear her calling,
'Go up and do the attic,
Go down and do the cellar.
You can do them both together,
Cloak!'
How lovely it would be
If I could write book and parody,
But, in the middle of my concocting,
She's screaming at me --"

From the beeper like device that he was forced to wear came, "Cloooooooaaaaaak!"

With a grunt of disgust, got up and Walked away to see what his "master" wanted.

Horse, Gaz and Parker bore witness to this. It wasn't the first time this happened.

They lamented this treatment, because, at the time, Cloak thought nothing strangenor sinister of it. Of how his status had lowered from "son" to "servant". These three understood it better though.

Horse lamented:

"Cloaky, Cloaky,
Night and day, it's 'Cloaky,
Make the fire, fix the breakfast!
Wash the dishes, do the mopping!'"

The other two chimed in.

"'And the sweeping
And the dusting!'
She always keeps him hopping."

Horse continued:

"He goes around in circles
'Til he's very, very dizzy.
Still she hollars!"

The others chimed in:

"Keep a-busy, Cloaky!"

***

Cloak pulled himself forcibly from the memory. The three never had any idea that Cloak was aware of their lament.

He knew he mustn't dwell on such bad memories. He had a feeling that, were he a wizard, he would be very bad at Occlumency.

Then his attention was drawn to the gates of RAF. He frowned deeply.

There were more of the today. with their obscene lights and flashbulb flashes. Cloak repressed a snarl as he withdrew further into the forum.

They were parasites. The lot of them. Parasites!

---
*Based off a true fact. My mother really did ring a bell when she wanted me to come. :dull: Made me believe it was normal -- no wonder my cousin (different cousin from the one that took me into his home with my aunt) refused when I offered it him when he and I were alone in the house (he was fixing the roof).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 15, 2013, 11:56:26 AM

What the hell? You're not a bell-boy!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2013, 12:05:11 PM

Yes, yes. I know that. Now. I've been away from her for nearly a year now (Nov 26 is the anniversary), and I've changed quite a bit. For the better.

I'll post another chapter later. I'm a wee bit drained now. And this'll be a rather atypical book, I think.

EDIT: 'Kay, I lied. Came up with a new book idea instead:

• BOOK CCV: "The Thirteenth" -- A RAFian is coerced, but will they go over to the dark side?

Just a note, October 15th to like October 18th or 20th, "Memoirs will be on hiatus. Getting Pokemon X.

CHAPTER TWO:
Prey and Pray

Saffa was attending a nearby prestigious college, but she soon regretted the decision. No, not because the classes or the teachers or the homework.

It was the papparazzi. They hounded her for exclusive interviews, screamed questions at her.

"Leave me alone!" she roared. But it was quickly swallowed up by the papparazzi's clamoring like an ice cream cone by a diet-cheater.

"I'm not going to say it again." she warned.

But, still, they pressed in, closing ranks around the nettled RAFian.

"I warned you." she said. Then she morphed a Tyrannopede, and roared fiercely.

Now they listened. Now they backed off.

Saffa demorphed, and groaned irritably. "Great. Now I'm late!"

Then she dashed off to class.

***

Gaz had managed to snag some time on a public access show -- "Cooking with Gaz"*. She was making something called pumpkin soup.

At least, she was trying to. There were people -- newbie papparazzi, most likely -- who were ambling to get a picture of Gaz's Mark.

"What the -- get out of here!" Gaz said, barely maintaining her composure and tempter. "Hey! That goes for you too buddrow! Yeah, you! In the catwalk!"

But this fell on deaf ears.

"HEY!" Gaz roared, losing a bit of temperment. "Get lost, you photo hacks! I'm trying to make -- oh! Oh! Oh! Burning soup! Burning soup!"

***

Abby was attending her school, but then she was cornered by the overly-persistent papparazzi. She kept her clipped tone even as she spoke, "What do you greedy photographers want from me?"

The flashes blinded her, and she could not escape as a human. So she began shrinking down, down, down. She was becoming a flea, eluding this merciless media mob.

She demorphed in a safe place away. Looked like she would have to either play hooky and get left alone, or continue the day, get continually harassed and have her picture taken involuntarily.

Who said being a RAFian was easy?

---
*I told you I would reference it. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 17, 2013, 05:53:57 AM

Stupid papparazzi.

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 15, 2013, 12:05:11 PM

Yes, yes. I know that. Now. I've been away from her for nearly a year now (Nov 26 is the anniversary), and I've changed quite a bit. For the better.

Huh. Is it odd that that's also my brother's birthday? But it's a good thing that you've changed for the better. :) We probably wouldn't have such awesome RAFfics if you didn't. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 17, 2013, 02:29:18 PM

How dare they interfere with the making of the soup! lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 17, 2013, 07:18:13 PM

Reminds me of earlier this year when a paparazzo (the singular version is a fun word) died trying to take a picture of Justin Bieber's car.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2013, 08:18:39 PM

Quote from: Underseen on September 17, 2013, 07:18:13 PM

Reminds me of earlier this year when a paparazzo (the singular version is a fun word) died trying to take a picture of Justin Bieber's car.

:dull: Let me just cry him a river. Sorry, I don't mean to be so cold, but I really don't have a high opinion of papparazzi. And Justin Bieber? God, that hack's not worth the time.

Still, I'll admit it was unfortunate the guy lost his life . . . which is actually somewhat ironic because, in this book, there . . . er, never mind.

CHAPTER THREE:
Terrrrrrrrible Tabloids

"'RAFians consorting with the Devil' -- Theo-Zealot Monthly. 'RAFians allow boy to get swallowed by horde' -- the Idiot Times. To think, the "National Inquirer" actually reported that correctly." Abby snarled. Cloak knew that she had decided to give these tabloids those names, their true names were different. The RAFians had convened in the auditorium and were briefed onnthe papparazzi problem. "The rest are like that. All mindless crap."

"They're tabloids, Abby." Cloak said dismissively, tone flat and emotionless. Even Realm Walkers had tabloids. "You expected different?"

"Well, I --" she said, falling into a mollified silence.

<Abby brings up a valid point, though.> Noelle said. <These tabloids could very well undermine our efforts to secure the safety and well-being of this planet.>

"And we'd be foolish to think that the Knights won't capitalize on this." Aquilai pointed out.

"Not to mention our PR image isn't the best," Faerie pointed out. "I believe the poll was seventy-two percent of the populace thought we were a threat."

"Sixty-three percent, actually," Goom said. "And I believe most of those polled were either Knights or Knight-sympathizers."

"Well, that's something, at least." Faerie muttered.

"The question is just what we do about it?" Parker said, always a man of action.

"You assume something can be done," Phoenix said.

"We can't do nothing!"

"Our actions could easily be misconstrued, Parker," Cloak said. He had some painful experiences with misconstrued actions. "And then where would we be?"

"Right," Richard said. "We must play by the system."

"Aw, that's no fun." Demos said. This earned him several heavy-lidded looks. "What?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2013, 08:37:47 PM

Okay, next chapter before I rest. May be a little short.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Encroaching and Enraging

"Phoenix, SuperNate, and I will go to the courthouse -- Kelly, you'd better come, too -- and see if we can get a papparazzo restraining order." Richard decided.

Cloak was feeling mixed about this plan. The restraining order may stop some, maybe most, of the papparazzi. But not all. The most stubborn, most arrogant of the bunch will most assuredly ignore it.

There had to be a contingency for this inevitable scenario. Cloak looked at his Mark, an idea formulated in his mind.

Richard, Phoenix, Kelly, and SuperNate had already left, and the meeting was breaking up. Cloak made up his mind, and he turned to the three RAFians essential to it.

"Aquilai, Yarin, Goom." the Realm Walker said, urgency in his tone. "May I have a word?"

He quickly told them his plan.

"It seems viable," Yarin said. "But why do you seem so sure that the restraining order will fail?"

"Not fail," Cloak said. "Just not work for every pappara-bozo. Especially the most stubborn ones."

"I say you have a point," Aquilai said. "Diplomacy can only do so much. There are those that openly disregard it, it wouldn't surprise me of some mock it. I say we do it."

The other gave their agreement to the plan. Goom said, "I'll send a PM to Richard appraising him of this plan. See if we have his go-ahead."

Cloak felt it prudent, as well as getting started immediately. He could already sense them encroaching.

***

A vew days later, and Code: Avalon was modified to only allow those with Marks in or out. But that didn't stop the papparazzi from gathering right outside the gates.

Cloak could not help but wonder why the RAFians were suddenly so fascinating. Although Duff was was able to escape the stampede of lights and cameras by feigning a Justin Bieber sighting. It didn't distract them for very long, just long enough to escape and elude them.

But Sakki . . . oh, Sakki . . .

She got cornered and she wasn't able to shake them. She warned them thrice to leave her be, but they refused to listen. So, in desperation, she used her sonic scream at its lowest, weakest devastation setting.

But one of the stalkers -- er, papparazzi, Montgomery Banks, happened to get injured.

Avery Slix and Courtney Cash suffered similiar injures from Faerie and Saffa respectively, both being harassed to the point of lashing out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 20, 2013, 09:41:38 AM

Catching up wasn't too hard, but love the chapters! :)

Haha, I'd totally see myself bashing up a paparazzo if he got all up in my face. What would they want from me, anyway? The secret to the extreme curl in my hair? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2013, 08:42:24 PM

Well, considering that I couldn't post a chapter yesterday, I'll try to get two up tonight.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Restraining Order, Remaining Disorder

"Well," Richard said, wearily, to the RAFians at large, "we succeeded. The predatory papparazzi cannot cross our borders or be seen within seven hundred feet of RAF."

"We've also have the added precaution of no one without a Mark being allowed entry via Code: Avalon." Cloak added from his usual place, arms folded, looking generally surly. Cloak never thpught very highly of papparazzi, and didn't hide it.

"Isn't that a bit overkill?" Kelly asked.

"Kelly, I know you want to put your faith in the system," Aquilai said, kindly, "but the fact remains. The system does not always work."

"There are also loopholes that one would exploit," Cloak added. Then his tone turned snide and harsh, "That is, if your court system and legal justice system is anything like the Realm Walker council."

"That bad, huh?" Underseen askes.

"They're all corrupt. Bloated by their own sense of control. Power tripping at the drop of a cloak." Cloak said, with disgust at the factual nature of this statement. "I sincerely yours has people of integrity and character in the system."

"Let's all hope --" Richard began, before a sensor detected that a would-be intruder was identified lurking just feet away from Code: Avalon's field.

The RAF easily identified this guy as a bold-as-brass, unapologetic papparazzo with a rather expensive camera. Name of Hendrick Thicknesse.

"You are not welcome here, Thicknesse." Blue said, icily. "Leave now."

"Not until I get my shot of the girls who --"

"Who said that you have a choice?" Az snarled acidly. "Leave now, or be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!"

"You can't --"

"You are in violation of a restraining order." Parker said, voice still and calm. "Disregard, to your cost."

It turned out that he wouldn't leave, even when the cops showed up to arrest him. Apparently, this wasn't his first arrest.

"Why are they SOinterested in us?" Saffa wondered aloud.

"Turns out," Guy said, laptop in hand, "that WikiLeaks found out about our, erhm, exploits."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2013, 09:31:35 PM

Now . . . well, most definitely the last chapter of the night.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Foreboding in Forum

"What?!" Jess demanded imperiously.

"WikiLeaks did what now?" Genies said, apparently flummoxed.

"Apparently," Gaz said, consulting his laptop, "WikiLeaks 'unofficially' hacked a government server that had some of our, ah, more discreet misadventures documented. Like the Darwin Gun and the exosuit business."

"Clearly, they didn't encrypt it well enough," Goom said haughtily.

"Well, it's obvious what happened next." Guy said, putting the laptop away. "It got out, RAF became the next 'big thing'."

"'TMZ' will probably have --" Cloak muttered.

"Apparently, they already had." Blaze said, showing a YouTube clip of TMZ obsessing over them.

"Don't these people have better things to --" Faerie began, outraged.

"We're being watched." Cloak said suddenly. He had Earthsighted another person who decided to ignore the restraining order. He stood upon his car to see over the wall, to fill or take stills. Code: Avalon would not distort the pictures, just prevent entry. "This is getting ridiculous."

Cloak took a fighting stance, took a deep breath, and his eyes flashed scarlet and gold momentarily. Then he punched the ground with his fist. The walls around the forum just rose another ten feet, to about twenty feet total height.

"You do realize," AniDragon noticed, "that doing that may not keep them away for long?"

"It's better than nothing," Cloak soghed, knowing that she was right. "I do rezlize more . . . more drastic measures may eventually become a necessity."

"What do you mean?" Gaz asked.

"It may not come down that," Cloak muttered to himself. Then, louder, he said, "Hopefully, we'll just become old news soon and some other poor sucker will shift focus."

Cloak sighed heavily. He could not fathom why anyone would crave such attention. Who would waste time and energy actively seeking fame.

All a waste of time, energy, and resources.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2013, 08:08:29 AM

Just a heads-up, chances are that the next book will have LONG chapters.

Now another chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
I'll Sue Ya!

"This is starting to get old," Abby said.

Cloak had to add another ten feet to the wall, because the papparazzi were persisting in disobeying the restraining order, which clearly was not being taken very seriously -- by the police or the papparazzi. Cloak's hope of becoming too stale an issue for the papparazzi to pursue seemed to be far-off. Maybe they'll never lose interest.

There was another option, buut Cloak was exceedingly reluctant to implement it. He was sure there would be objections. No, now wasn't the moment to act, the moment of implementing the plan. He told no one of it . . . but it wasn't the first time he implemented this course of action . . .

"I don't believe it!!" Super Nate cried out, clearly outraged.

The RAFians clamored around him for an explanation.

"We just got notice," he said, his voice trembling with a rage unbefore seen in the RAFian. "Sakki, Saffa, and Faerie are being sued."

The three reacted at the same time.

"What?!" Faerie roared.

"What for?!" Sakki erupted.

"Why?!" Saffa cried out.

"Apparently, for causing 'grievous injury' to a 'Montgomery Banks', an 'Avery Slix', and a 'Courtney Cash'."

"That slimeball?!" Faerie raged.

"He's faking!" Sakki declared passionately.

"'Grievous injury'? That's the charge?" Saffa said, disgustedly, dismissively, and derisively. "What kind of trumped-up charge -- oh, God, she's gonna show up in a neck brace and wheelchair, isn't she?"

"What did you --" Abby began.

"Nothing! It was a couple of scratches at most!" Saffa seethed. "She'll just be wearing that crap to make the lawsuit stick!"

"Saffa has a point," Guy said. "The courts are often bogged down with such frivolous, fraudulent cases. We live in a rather litigious society, I'm afraid."

"Wonderful," Sakki said, sarcastically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2013, 09:14:32 AM

Second chapter of the day.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Adding Insult to Injury

"No way!" Az shouted. But he wasn't responding to the lawsuit news. He was reacting to something on the tv.

"What is it?" Cloak said.

"You missed it, but it was this commercial --"

"A commercial? A commercial, Azguard?" Faerie said, acidly. "We have far more pressing concerns than a lousy --"

"There! Turn it up." he said, indicating it was back on again. There was a musical jingle focused around a team picture circa 2009. How the producers of this commercial procured it was beyond Cloak.

"Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
They do! They do!
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the aliens under wraps?
They do! They do!
Who kills the electric car?
Who makes Justin Bieber a star?
They do! They do!
Who robs cave newts of their sight?
Who rigs every Emmy night?
They do! They do!"

Then at the end, in a quiet and quick voice, "Produced-and-paid-for-by-the-glorious-Knights-of-Humanity,-chapter-three."

Cloak was apocalyptic with rage, but he had enough control over himself to maintain control over his powers. "They . . . they DARE to SUGGEST that we had ANYTHING to with that arrogant, no-talent HACK!!!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cloaky. Cool it, or we're gonna be another Ground Zero." Gaz warned, very seriously.

Cloak closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, held it for a count of four, then exhaled slowly. He repeated several times, until he calmed down.

"As if we didn't have enough to worry about." Saffa said. "Our PR isn't exactly the best, either."

Blue was deep in thought. "This can't be coincidence. We get news of three of our number being sued frivolously, and this."

"Is it stupid to think that some of the papparazzi could be Knights themselves?" Underseen asked.

"Or have family that are." Sakki said, thoughtfully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 21, 2013, 12:36:47 PM

I'm being SUED?! Oh, you just wait 'til I get my lawyer on this!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2013, 01:16:35 PM

Yeah, Kelly's RAF lawyer in this continuity.

Third chapter today. I wouldn't expect more than four chapters today.

CHAPTER NINE:
An Arresting Development

<People can't be so easily swayed by such media, can they?> Noelle said, concernedly.

"Media can easily sway the gullible and weak-minded," Duff said. "I mean, just look --"

Then there was some loud, thunderous knocks at the gate. The echoes left an eerie sense throughout the forum. Richard, Kelly, Cloak, and Abby crossed over to the gate, to answer it. Cloak had an oppressively bad feeling about it.

Behind the gate was two police officers. Cloak narrowed his eyes as he noticed immediately that the two did not stand in the usual stance a police officer has. More haughty, more contemptuous, more consternate. Very unprofessional, very un-police officer-like.

"May we help you?" Richard said. The way he said it clearly said that he noticed the same thing.

"We've come to collect the -- the RAFians known as Saffa, Sakki, and Faerie." the leaner of the two said.

The other added, "We're to detain them u til the trial."

"Liars." Cloak said without hesitation.

"How dare you!" the shorter of the two said. "We're officers of the law!"

"Then you should know that you haven't any right to detain anyone for civil court!" Kelly countered. "This isn't a criminal trial!!"

The two "officers" looked flummoxed at this, and they didn't hide it well. Cloak saw through the facade.

"Oh, I see how it is," he said, approaching the two, his cloak swishing menacingly in his wake. The two couldn't hide their slight intimidation. If they were real officers, such a thing would not have intimidated them so easily. "You two are just two Knights or two papparazzi playing police dress-up. Didn't bother to consider the possibility that we would see through your shoddy disguise? Didn't entertain the possibility you don't even stand like an officer of the law would have?"

"Y-you don't know what you're talking about!" the leaner one insisted.

"Your own body language is continuing to betray you, you know." Cloak said.

"Impersonating an officer is a severe offense, you know." Kelly said, conversationally.

The two wisely decided not to push their luck. They stumbled over themselves fleeing.

"Pathetic," Abby muttered, as the gates shut with a deafeningly finality.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 21, 2013, 01:48:32 PM

LOL. Pathetic indeed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2013, 08:14:52 AM

Dunno how many chapters I can post today (plans with a friend later on this morning), but, after this chapter, we're halfway through. Gonna be a short chapter, probably.

CHAPTER TEN:
Controversy of Frivolity

There wasn't much keeping a lid on these lawsuits. When it got out into the media, there was a loud, passionate outcry. Despite the poor PR ratings the RAFians thought they had, the outcry was in their favor. No matter how Fox News tried to sway them, though their attempts were feeble at best.

The public declared the lawsuits frivolous and a waste of their taxpayer monies. Which it was true, there's no denying it and no defense for it. But the court would hear the cases anyway.

It just proved one thing -- in this country, you can harass someone, you can push and push and push them until they lash out out of sheer frustration, then sue them for all they're worth. It was sick. It was twisted. It was baseless, groundless, and a waste everyone's time and energy and resources.

However, that did not change the fact that these cases would be brought before a judge. Kelly, essentially RAF's lawyer (and a damn good one, too), had the cases monopolizing most of her time. Her fellow RAFians had to remind her to do little things like sleep and eat regularly.

It seemed like a bleak time. Saffa, Sakki, and Faerie fluctuated between rage at sheer injustice of it all and depression at the utter hopelessness of it. Cloak easily recognized this -- having gone through these feelings before. Back before . . . before he was free to be himself.

There was actually groups forming, unaffiliated and unrelated with RAF (despite Fox News's claims), who were casting their support for the three. The support was welcome, if not for the attention these cases wrought.

This made the papparazzi problem even harder. Cloak was unable to make the walls any higher -- RAF was already starting to feel like Ba Sing Se. The papparazzi just waited at the gate instead, to ambush the RAFians should they leave.

Cloak scowled deeply. He did not like that these overly-aggressive "photojournalists" were turning this place of fun and entertainment into a virtual prision. Cloak reflected that it was partially his fault for the walls, which caused the forum to be in near constant shadow.

But it wouldn't end, Cloak knew, no matter the outcome of the cases. There was one solution, one way that they wouldn't find them again . . .

But the others wouldn't like it. They were settled in this place. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 22, 2013, 09:42:23 AM

If Fox News is as bad as you make it out to be I wouldn't be surprised if they brought my race into the picture...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2013, 12:18:36 PM

Eh, I'm just not a fan (or believer) of Fox News reporting. Heck, the only reason I even watch Fox at all is for The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad.

Well, I've finished planning put Book CCII ("Dino-Volving"), obviously a Dino-heavy book. I started planning out Book CCIII ("Abby Gets Everlost"), which will be an obviously Abby-heavy book, and will be rather intense at the beginning.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Date Approaches . . .

"Will you three relax?" Parker scolded light-heartedly. "You haven't anything to worry about."

"You can't know that," Saffa said, pacing fretfully. "I should have kept my temper, I should've . . . should've . . . I dunno, done something different!"

"And how could you know of your harasser's motives or litigiousness?" Aquilai said, balancing himself atop an air scooter. It was a technique Cloak was never really apt to use -- unsurprising considering he favored Earth, considered to be the polar opposite of Air in some circles.

"And you never know if the judge will have bias," Faerie said, who tried to remain stoic. But there was a slight quiver and a miniscule waver in her voice.

"Think about it logically," Goom said, wearing a pair of small horn-rimmed reading glasses, which looked somehow oddly-appropriate for a goomba. "They'll never give you a biased judge. It's a requirement for a fair hearing to have an impartial judge."

"That doesn't mean a biased judge will admit to being biased!" Sakki said, stewing in her emotions.

Cloak thought she had a fair point, but said nothing. It would only reaffirm the trio worry and anxiousness, which would not be constructive in any way. But any government is vulnerable to corruption . . . to its members getting bloated on their sense of power. With power always comes the temptation to abuse it -- Syphoon and Proteus proved this on a much grander, less subtle scale.

He just stood there, arms folded, head bowed a little in thought. He gave a sidelong glance at the entrance, the gate, and "saw" that the papparazzi horde was still lurking out side, like a wolf pack waiting for a rabbit to emerge from the roots of a tree.

Cloak scowled deeply. Clearly, the restraining order was not only not being enforced, but openly defied. Cloak disliked that the system often ignored things like this until things escalate to dangerous -- and sometimes deadly -- results.

"You three need to relax," Richard said in calm, soothing tones. "You do yourselves no favors worrying and fretting like this. Stress can kill. Kelly has amassed plenty of evidence for your case. Now," he clapped his hands, and continued in his fatherly tone, "you three should get off to bed and get a good night's sleep. Kelly, too."

Phoenix smiled warmly, as he said, "You'll do fine."

Cloak was mostly wrapped up with the idea hehad several days ago, but managed to offer words of confidence to the three.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 22, 2013, 09:29:41 PM

I've been looking forward to this current book and the next book. This book already exceeded my expectations.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2013, 09:42:45 PM

Wow, thanks, Underseen. Now, let's get this next chapter done as I'm getting very tired. (And it looks like I may have to sleep with earplugs in again -- God, this neighbor must have been drinking, he's shouting as if he doesn't know how loud he's being.)

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Dreamy Delirium

Saffa was before a judge in a podium that would have towered over her as a Tyrannopede. The judge possessed rather cartoony features, with a ridiculously large and bulbous nose.

To her left was a jury of twelve equally cartoony people. All looked a little jaundiced.

The judge spoke in a deep, thick voice than nonetheless spanned the distance easily and strangely audibly. He didn't address Saffa, who felt no apprehendion but, quite paradoxically, felt some smugness. He addressed the jury, not mention how odd it is for a jury to be present in a civil court case. "How d'you find the defendant?"

Suddenly, music -- rather catchy music -- started up as a juror stood up.

"She's guilty of mayhem cognizant."

Then another juror stood up and sang:

"Morphing, both chronic and recent."

Then all the jurors stood and sang:

"Alien technology possession."

Then the jury's foreman sang:

"And that's just page one of her fifty-five-page confession!"

Then the judge sang:

"I should put you away,
Where you can't kill or maim us.
But is an odd day,
And you're a RAFian and FAMe-uuuuuuuuuus!"

Then the jury and judge were flipped as if the scenery was that of a theatrical play. Saffa turned and sings directly to the audience:

"I'm loggin' in!
I'm loggin' in!
No more phones to call.
No more malls to crawl.
No more stinkin' sanity at all!
I'm loggin' in!"

Then Abby pranced in, in a totally not-Abby way, and sang, as she removed a small bottle from Saffa's possession:

"No more lookin' pale or thin.
No more problems with your kin."

Saffa protested at the item being taken:

"Hey! That's just my asperin!"

Then the whole of RAF sang:

"Chuck it out!
You're loggin' in!""

***

Saffa's eyes snapped open, and she immediately facepalmed. She muttered, "Great. I'm dreaming in song now."

She got up, wiped the sleep from her eyes, as she muttered, "It didn't even make sense."

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Saffa," Kelly said. "Freshen up. Court is in two hours, be sure to eat something."

"Lovely," Saffa said, drolly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 23, 2013, 10:29:04 PM

I know I've lost it when I'm dreaming in song.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 24, 2013, 09:04:43 PM

Was gonna post a chapter. But my internet decided to get sucky.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Saffa's Day

"Saffa," the judge, a thick-set, leonine man said, "you are charged with causing grievious injury to one Courtney Allison Cash. How you you plead?"

Saffa stood alongside Kelly. Kelly would be representing all three RAFians. Likewise her counterpart, Cole Lokey, would be representing all three plaintiffs. The two were not unfamiliar with each other, and shared an adversarial relationship -- much like Cloak and Malice, or Saffa and Rotiart. Lokey was like, physically, the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. But only if he was given Judge Judy's arrogance with Justin Bieber's ego, in addition to a brain.

"Not guilty, Your Honor." Saffa said, respectfully.

Courtney scoffed. She was, as Saffa predicted, decked out in a wheelchair and a neck brace, but otherwise immaculately attired and her blonde hair was straight and lank. Saffa did not react to the scoff but took it gracefully in stride, confident in Kelly's ability. This caused Courtney to scowl deeply -- she loved getting a rise out of people, but hated when her attempts failed. When people lashed out, she would allow herself minor injuries, then play it up. She was an ideal stalker -- er, papparazzo. But this is the first time it occurred to her to sue.

"Very well, be seated." the judge -- Judge Arthur Ferris -- said. They did. "Begin testimony."

"Your Honor, I move for this case to be dismissed." Kelly stated rather abruptly. Saffa began to feel some misgivings.

"Objection!" Lokey said, sardonic little smile on his face, as if he considered Kelly a little kid playing with the big boys and sharks. Kelly lost none of her poise. "On what grounds?"

"Lack of evidence," Kelly replied, evenly. She easily kept her cool.

"Please elaborate," Judge Ferris said, impartially.

"The plaintiff has nothing but her word," Kelly explained. "Which she has altered thrice since the papers were filed."

Courtney flushed.

"Meanwhile, we have no less than thirty signed affidavits of witnesses who refute nearly every detail of Ms Cash's account. As well as campus security camera footage, showing Courtney shoving a camera in Saffa's face. Saffa did not even morph -- as you can see on the tape, the scratches were a result of Saffa trying to desperately bat the camera away. In another words -- an accident. Nothing more, nothing less. There's more if that's insufficient."

"Do something!" Courtney hissed to Lokey, but before he could hiss back, Judge Ferris spoke after having thoroughly reviewed the evidence.

"Objection overruled. Case dismissed. Cleared of all charges."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 26, 2013, 12:42:42 AM

Go Kelly! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2013, 06:31:12 AM

Well, I would have posted another chapter, but RAF (or my internet) quit on me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 26, 2013, 08:51:36 AM

That's pretty much expected these days. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on September 26, 2013, 07:56:34 PM

Cole Lokey....

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2013, 03:52:54 PM

UGH!!! Miserable piece of crap!

Not going to post a chapter until tomorrow. If I can. This damn thing has a mind of its own, and I'm trying very HARD not to rip it in two.

Anyway, I did come up with a couple of idea for books. Though I'll probably never get to write them.

:edit: :dull: UGH. Why my internet is so PREJUDICED  against THIS site . . .

The two new book ideas are #207 ("Cell 2.0") and #208 ("Ghoulfiend").

:edit: Okay, since I don't hafta fight as hard, I'll release a bit more about the next two books.

• BOOK CCVII: "Cell 2.0" -- A monstrous creation grows too powerful and challenges the RAFians to a tourney.
• BOOK CCVII: "Ghoulfiend" -- The RAFians must prevent the release of a demon (who has a history with Demos) by the Gatekeeper and the Keyholder.

And, no, Underseen. I think I know what you're thinking, and no,  Lokey = Loki/Low-Key. Cole came after Cole Turner, from "Charmed".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 29, 2013, 09:18:00 PM

Your internet is worse than ever...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2013, 10:11:58 PM

Yes. But it seems to be better now. Doesn't matter, though. I have Chapter 14 saved in my email. I won't need to rewrite again.

And I also have to go to work tomorrow. . . . *sigh* Only three more months before I qualify for vacation time.

Now, let's try this AGAIN.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Battles and Retreats

There was a celebration after Saffa's hearing. Streamers, ballons, food, drinks -- the whole shebang. Cloak, however, stood aside, pretty much acting like a papparazzi bouncer. He eventually made the gate solid instead of the opaque state it was in. But he remained there looking all surly and broody.

"You go, Kelly!" Helen said, cheerfully. She had some green tea in a crystal glass.

"The evidence was more then sufficient," Kelly said, blithely modest. She sipped her chosen beverage, and nibbled a cookie before continuing, "And Faerie's Sakki's hearings have been pushed back -- tomorrow and the day after, respectively."

"Why?" Faerie said, who wasn't as jovial as the others. Sakki was also looking nervously grim.

Phoenix let out a bark of laughter, "Isn't obvious? He's scrambling."

"But --" Sakki interjected.

"He wasn't expecting the sheer amount of evidence that presented today." Kelly elaborated.

"But, I thought that you had to make the other side aware --" Underseen piped up.

"He dismissed it." Kelly said. "Probably thought that he could charm the judge."

<He was expecting a female judge?> Noelle asked, taking a sip of water with her left forehoof.

"I really don't know why he thought that that was the best course of action," Kelly admitted. "But, Faerie, you should get plenty of rest. I don't know what tricks he plans to exercise tomorrow."

***

Faerie stood, Gale Blade in hand, twitching with a battlelust she never recognized before. She was surrounded on all sides by "warrior papparazzi", which looked like Shadow Heartless from Kingom Hearts, only with a single luminous, Cyclopean eye.

Montgomery Banks appeared upon some high pedestal, and mysic started up.

"So, you think you have friends in high places?
With the power to put us on the run?
Well, forgive these smiles on our faces,
You'll know what power is when we are done.
Hon."

Faerie gritted her teeth and fought fiercely and furiously against the so-called warrior papparazzi. But, for every one struck down, seven hundred took their place. Too much, even for someone of Faerie's combat caliber.

"You're playing with the papparazzi now!
You're playing with the papparazzi now . . .
(Oh, that's pretty.)
Ev'ry word and gesture
Tells you who's the best-er.
You're playing with the papparazzi now.
You're playing with the papparazzi now!
You're playing with the papparazzi now!
Stop this foolish mission!
Watch a true tactician!
Give an exhibition
How!"

Faerie was knocked down, the Gale Blade skittered just out of reach. Faerie looked awfully beaten up.

"Pick up your silly knife, girl.
You're playing with the papparazzi now.
You're playing with the papparazzi now!
You're playing with the papparazzi now!
By the might of the law, lil' us,
You will kneel before us.
Kneel to our splendorous power!"

"NEVER!" Faerie snarled with her characteristic never-give-up-never-give-in attitude.

"You put up a front!
You put up a fight!
And just to show we feel no spite,
You can be my acolyte!"

Faerie got a very heavy-lidded look* at this. As if she believed the offer was insincere or fury at the merest suggestion of such at thing.

"But, first, girl, it's time to bow!
(Kowtow!)"

"You can't be serious," Faerie said drily.

"Or it's your own grave you'll dig, girl!
You're playing with the papparazzi now!
You're playing with the papparazzi
Now!"

Soon, Faerie was overwhelmed. Being smothered by the warrior papparazzi . . .

***

With a sharp gasp, Faerie awoke. She placed her face in her hands, rubbing it, as if hoping to rub away the dream. But it was already starting to fade away from her memory.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Faerie, freshen up." Kelly. "Court will start in a couple of hours."

---
* I.e. this -- :dull:.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 30, 2013, 09:18:02 PM

Yes! A chapter. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2013, 06:55:21 AM

Yeah, I wouldn't rely on me posting too frequently, unfortunately. Unless it becomes less of a battle to simply post. It's not just my internet doing it, either. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 01, 2013, 07:18:26 AM

Well, I think it's gotten worse now, you just double-posted the last post :rofl2:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2013, 07:29:00 AM

UGH!

I'll see how it is tonight. See if I can post a chapter then. It's only this site to. Only this site . . .

Anyway, currently planning out "Rise of the RAFians". Even though I may never get the chance to write them. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 01, 2013, 07:36:59 AM

Oi, don't say that, that's a long way from now, I'm sure it'll eventually come through. Even if I'm 40 and crashing into stuff I'll still have time to read them, because they're just that awesome. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2013, 07:44:07 PM

Well, no chapter tonight, considering how much I had to fight to get THIS posted.

MODS! Please do something! It's not just my internet having trouble with this site.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 02, 2013, 12:27:43 AM

 I got on, and my reaction to seeing TEN chapters:  :o :party:  :roof: :woot2:

I was pretty excited, *looks up* obviously. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 02, 2013, 01:49:18 AM

Haha, at least somebody's not bothered by the internet lag. But I've had RAF lagging several times before, even on my phone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2013, 06:10:21 AM

Well, it seems fixed now. . . .

Gonna be short.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Faerie's Day

"All rise," the bailiff said. "Honorable Judge Horatio Iapetus Faraday presiding."

A hard-nosed, balding, older man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a stern expression sat down. He was well-known for his inability to be bribed and his habit of piercing through lies, manipulations, and coercions to get at the ultimate truth. He did not allow petty things like fame or celebrity fetter or cloud his judgement. He was fair, but brutal in his judgement.

He did not like frivolous cases. He did not like the way they cluttered up the courts. He did not like how many people's first instinct to sue when their was very little evidence to begin with, and all of it circumstantial. He did not like people who put up fronts -- like when he saw Montgomery in his head bandage (which covered obscured his right eye) and his left arm in a sling, and right leg in a cast -- just to get their case to stick. He needed to see legitimate medical reports to by it.

He was not a fan of this case.

"Be seated, be seated." he said, waspishly. "Faerie Larka, you have been charged with causing 'grievious injury' to one Montgomery Cocytus Banks. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty, Your Honor." Faerie said.

Montgomery looked sneeringly at her. She ignored him, but it did not sit well with her.

"Very well. Very well. Begin testimony."

The pace picked up from there. Kelly pretty much had to call objections on Cole Lokey's methods for either badgering witnesses or being irrelevent.

Judge Faraday did not see any genuine medical reports -- just by the quack Ricky Rivera. Which caused Judge Faraday to dismiss the whole of that "evidence". Unfortunately, it was the cornerstone of Lokey's entire case.

The case was eventually dismissed, charges dropped, and Faerie was acquitted of all charges.

But Montgomery wasn't as fortunate. He was given a choice -- pay for the RAFians' legal fees or go to jail for litigation fraud (which apparently was a thing, an obscure thing, but a thing).

He chose to pay out of pocket -- as this wasn't the first time that he tried to defraud his papparazzing victims through litigation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 02, 2013, 07:15:28 AM

It is safe to say Judge Faraday was not shocked by the nature of the case. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2013, 09:53:34 PM

Still planning chapters for "Rise of the Guardians", a rather close parody.

Remember, when I get Pokemon X -- "Memoirs" will be on temporary hiatus.

And I lost another chapter. Took me thirty damn minutes to write. Ugh. Every time a chapter has a parody in it . . . ugh.

Let's try this.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Papparazzi Out There

There was another celebration at the skillful way Kelly got Faerie off.

"Well, the evidence was there, and I simply presented it," Kelly said modestly.

"Just one more to go, though!" Helen said brightly, bringing her ice tea to her lips.

"For now," Cloak said, darkly, his Sunkist barely touched. He remained apart, in shadow.

"What do you mean by that?" Abby asked, still slightly jovial.

Cloak looked at his Dweller friends, as if he could not believe that they hadn't realized this yet. "You think that it will just end with these three cases?"

A pall had been cast over the celebration at these words. It was clear to Cloak that everyone thought it would end with these cases . . . Cloak involuntarily pitied them for this. He would have assumed that Donut or Shock or RTYX or Wild or Aquilai would have at least seen it by now.

"You honestly believe they're gonna stop harassing us? Stop suing us?" Cloak said. "No, we're an easy mark for litigation now. They will see it as an easy payday."

Donut sighed, and said, "He's right. People try defrauding the government every day. What would make us immune to it?"

"Killjoy," Faerie said, mockingly accusatory.

"On that note, I'm gonna head for bed," Sakki said, heavily.
 

***

Sakki stood in the darkness, running from glowing, Cyclopean eyes . . . reacting to what was sung in song:
 

"You're all alone in the middle of the night,
Something moves in the cold moonlight.
You're tryin' not to scream,
But you got to let it out,
And it make you wanna,
You wanna --
 You wanna shout!
There's papparazzi out there!
Sneakin' up behind you!
Papparazzi out there.
That chills you to the bone,
Those papparazzi out there.
You know, they're gonna find you.
No matter where you go,
You know.
There's papparazzi out there.
Running through the postyards,
Bumpin' into trees,
Somethin' reaches up
And pulls you to your knees.
Try to get away.
You don't know if you can,
And you're starin' at the
At the ol' cameraman!
There's papparazzi out there
Sneakin' up behind you.
Papparazzi out there!
Don't post alone!
Those papparazzi out there.
You know they're gonna find you.
No matter where you go.
You know . . .
There's papparazzi out there.
Papparazzi that'll chase you!
Things that'll won't balk at you!!
Papparazzi that'll jump out and
Say they're glad to stalk you!
Are those papparazzi out there
Waitin' in the darkness?
Papparazzi out there
With the bright, glowing eyes!
Papparazzi out there,
Better watch where you're going.
'Coz you never know when there are,
Never know when there are,
Know when there are,
Papparazzi out there.
And you know decency has fallen.
Papparazzi out there.
Better run from home!
There's papparazzi in there . . .
You can hear your mommy calling.
You never gonna know when there are
When there are papparazzi out there.
Papparazzi out there.
Papparazzi out there.
Papparazzi out there."

***

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" she screamed.

"Sakki, it's okay, you're having a nightmare," Kelly said, from the other side of her thread door. "Now, it's nearly time for court -- two hours to freshen up.  Remember, look your best."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 04, 2013, 04:07:47 PM

It's almost time for X and Y so I may start another re-read

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 05, 2013, 11:47:03 AM

I'm guessing this will be slightly longer than the usual 20 chapters?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2013, 02:35:54 PM

*sigh*

Well, I finished planning out "Rise of the Guardians", started planning out "Losing Face".

We'll let's try this.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Sakki's Day

The bailiff bid everyone to rise for Judge Verity Andrea Justice, and everyone complied. She was a venerable old bird with white wiry hair which framed a face like a crumpled old paper bag. She was known for her blunt sternness and lack of patience for frivolous cases.

Lokey knew he was in trouble now. He vainly -- and rather irrationally -- hoped that Judge Justice would not notice how Avery Slix didn't bother to play up the injuries. He looked perfectly unharmed, barring a few scratches that only a little kitten could inflict on his lift wrist.

"Be seated, be seated," the judge said. She shuffled her papers distractedly before reading. "Sakki, you have been found to have incurred grievious injury to one Avery --"

Lokey's hopes were dashed as Judge Justice noticed the obvious lack of harm to Slix. Judge Justice, with eyes like pinpoint lasers. She did not wear a pleased look when she saw this.

"Okay, what do you take me for?" she said. She was clearly offended.

"P-pardon, Your Honor?" Lokey said, feigning ignorance. But he knew the jig was up, if he was honest with himself. But he clearly wasn't ready for such personal honesty.

"Cut the act, Lokey! Even the stupidest person in the world can see that Avery Slix is completely uninjured! No 'grievious' injury can possibly heal in the amount of time that the reported act took place! Slix is uninjured."

"I am too!" Slix protested, indicating his scratches.

Judge Justice eyed the delusional papparzzo beadily, saying, "You cannot be serious."

***

"Cleared of all charges! It must be a relief to be free of that burden." Duff said, waving around his glass cheerily and haphazardly.

"I think that's enough 'celebrating' for you, Duff." Terenia said, plying the drink away from him.

"It is a relief," Sakki admitted. "But I can't help but feel a little sorry for Lokey."

"It was humiliating for him, I'll admit," Kelly said, indulging in a couple of fries from the cook-out. "But the guy made his choice. It's just a pity he made a triple bad decision."

Then she paused thoughtfully.

"But he stuck to his guns. That's something."

"But it's not over," drifted Cloak's voice. He stood in the edge of darkness, at the periphery of the party. "How long until the next incident? How long until someone else decides to blow something way out of proportion?"

"Cloak, relax! C'mon, join the party."

Cloak said nothing, he was deep in thought. The government wasn't honoring their restraining order, they were too busy quibbling endlessly about who knows what, something probably very pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Action would need be taken.

And soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2013, 08:29:57 AM

Now, a second chapter. . . .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Leave Us Be . . . Or Else

The party went on, but Cloak feel them through the earth. He felt them coming closer, encroaching upon the forum that at one time felt safe and free. Now, it was little more than a fortress, a prison.

Cloak had already a significant amount of time in a prison that should have been a home. He suffered through that while his warren, his mother, willingly turned a blind eye to it -- as she crafted it.

Defiant determination solidified in the Realm Walker. His jaw ser, the can of Sunkist crushed and twisted in his fist.

No, he thought savagely. No, another home will not be turned into a prison. I will not abide it. I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!!

He vanished from the party, so quietly, so quickly, so seemlessly that no one noticed. At least, at first.

Cloak slipped outside the forum, with its overlarge earthen walls.  The walls that he himself was forced to create to shield themselves from these papparazzi parasites.

Why were they so interesting to them? Why were they so desirable to them? Why were they so fascinating to them?

"C'mon out, leeches." Cloak said, with a tone acidly derisive. "I know you're there."

No one moved, all laboring under the delusion that Cloak was bluffing.

"Do not force my hand," Cloak said, voice icy. "You cannot fool me."

Suddenly, he was stampeded. Soon enough he was surrounded on three sides. They were jabbering questions that over lapped each other.

"SILENCE!" Cloak snarled, a tiger roar intermingling with his voice. "I did NOT come out here to provide you with an interview!"

That silenced them, for the moment. Cloak felt disgusted and revolted by these people. They didn't care, did they? Didn't care who they hurt, as long as they got the shot or got the footage.

Cloak's eyes narrowed, as he looked upon this horde. In many ways, these people were more heartless than Malice.

"Back off, all of you." he said. "Leave me and my RAFoan brethren alone. Or else."

"Or else what?!" a brazen papparazzo said. Cloak realized that it was Avery Slix who spoke, so 'brazen' wasn't the proper term, 'stupid' would have been more accurate.

"Or else you'll force me to do something that I really don't want to do." Cloak said. With a slight flourish of his cloak, he retreated back into the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2013, 08:30:36 AM

Dunno if I can get all these posted today.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Movin' On Up

Cloak gave them twenty-four hours to abide by his ultimatium. To leave the RAFians in peace, though Cloak was not foolish enough to lower the walls. Cloak did not really believe that they would abide by the Realm Walkers wishes.

He was right. They didn't even wait three hours before pushing their luck. Cloak made sure all the RAFians were present and accounted for.

Horse, Blocky, Faerie, Parker, Blue and few others seemed to realize what Cloak had in mind. They accepted it, knowing that they'd be free from papparazzi, at least for the time being, and Cloak had done it once before.

Horse swam in the lake, using her hydrokinesis to keep the water still, before using her cryokinesis to form a "skin" atop it.

Cloak stood at the center of the forum. His eyes closed focusing his mind, his emotions, his power. This was going to take a fair bit of power, of focus, of concentration.

He took a breath, then his eyes snapped open, golden-scarlet suns.

Suddenly, the walls collapsed inward, as if bowing to their Master. They eventually coalescenced into a smooth-walled dome. Darkness was absolute for a moment before the thread lights came on.

Then Cloak stamped his left foot and push his arms up. What was strange is that no one felt the descent, or when Cloak stopped moving the forum.

Then Cloak, eyes closed, turned and began to swing his arms as if he was heading up a steep hill. Then he stopped that, and receded the walls.

The newer RAFians were amazed by their new location -- a wonderful glade of dappled sunlight with an open sky above, obscured by trees, and hidden grotto entryway that overlooked the city.

Cloak had moved RAF once again*. He hoped, as he did then, that this would be the last time.

The other RAFians were off to explore this new habitat of theirs, as Cloak slumped, second-guessing his decision. He wondered if he was being rash, and he wondered this long into the night . . .

---
*In the "Intro Randomness" thread.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2013, 08:31:18 AM

Last chapter of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Acclimating

For the most part, the RAFians didn't complain about the new location, which was well hidden and required a Mark to penetrate. Well, Rotiart complained, but, then again, he always complained. Saffa got so fed up with this, she chased him, in hawk form, threating to peck out his eyeballs.

Cloak was rife with doubt and insecurity about what he had done. Was it ethical? He didn't ask the opinions of the others. He acted of his own accord. How was he any better than the others of his kind who saw Dwellers as insignificant specks, who opinions mattered little? The others didn't seem too bothered by this. Heck, it made the travel Saffa, Gaz and Abby had to make their respective schools easier . . . although that could be because all thre just fly there.

Cloak found himself drawn to a distinct, quiet spot in the shade. The entire area was circular, and the thread buildings -- the Bored Board, the Animorphs Board, the General Board, the infirmary, the mess hall, the training simulator, etc. -- fit quite easily in the expanse with the fragile-looking stone walls arcing up unsymmetrically, as if carved out by a lavabender all around the forum -- but, yet it felt more open, as their was no ceiling to to this place. There was an opening rather like an aircraft hanger down the hill that over looked the city. It really was a lovely view.

"LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU DEMON BIRD!!" Rotiart whined.

<I'll consider it,> Saffa said drily, <after I've pecked out your eyes.>

"NO!"

"Saffa, that's enough," Cloak said, legs crossed and eyes closed.

Saffa resumed her human form, declaring, "Killjoy."

"Yes. Quite." Cloak said, obviously not really paying attention.

***

Meanwhile, in the fringes of the city, a man-sized creature was feasting from a green dumpster. It had orange fur with a burnt-black, flayed, ugly face. Beady eyes, large flappy mouth, and a body shape like a hairy potato. It had on arm with three pencil-like fingers each ending a penknife-like claw and one leg with pencil-thin claws that look similar to that of a dog. It possessed another limb on its right side that could function as both an arm or a leg.

The commotion drew the attention of the human populace and the creature fled. It thirsted for revenge.

Revenge on a RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 07, 2013, 08:36:37 AM

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I look away for a few seconds and the book gets finished?!

Yay Cloaky's internet!

PDF time, then.

EDIT: Aaaaand here's the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2013, 08:59:09 AM

Now, a new book.
 

BOOK XLIX:
RAFIAN TALES
CHAPTER ONE:
Life is Like a Hurricane . . .

"Life is like a hurricane,
Here in this burg.
Race cars, lasers, aeroplanes,
It's a RAF-blur.
You might solve a mystery
Or rewrite history!
RAF Tales (oooh ooooh)
Every day they're out there making
RAF Tales (oooh ooooh)
Tales of daring do bad and good
Luck Tales (oooh ooooh)
When it seems they're heading for the
Final curtain!
Cool deduction never fails.
That's for certain!
The worst of messes
Become successes!
D-D-D-Danger! Watch behind you
There's a stranger out to find you
What to do? Just grab on to some RAF Tales
D-D-D-Danger! Watch behind you
There's a stranger out to find you
What to do? Just grab on to some ... RAF Tales
Not pony tales or duck tales, no
RAF Tales (ooh ooooh)"

"Abby, give it up." Saffa said. "After that papparazzi incident, no one's gonna want to do a movie on us.  Not even a television show."

"With this hype? C'mon! It's the perfect time!"
 
"Do you honestly think that they'd show us in a good light?" Cloak said.  "That's one reason I moved us away from all that."
 
"Besides, don't you think that the plot's a little lacking?" Underseen asked.
 
"Really?" Abby said, acidly. "What would you have for a plot?  Any of you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 07, 2013, 09:17:55 AM

*puts on dramatic TV host voice*

LAST SEASON: After the attack of the paparazzi threatened RAF's peace, a dramatic intervention by Cloak put RAF in a whole new place, and saved the day - or did it?

TODAY - an all new season of Memoirs of a RAFian, brought to you by AbbyBabbles!

LOL, I love doing that. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2013, 09:27:05 PM

LOL, Saffa.

I was considering posting yet another chapter, but I'm just too tired, and I already posted five today . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 08, 2013, 02:04:52 AM

I think 5 in a day is enough, lol.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2013, 08:27:12 PM

Now another chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A RAFmas Carol

"Well?" Abby prompted.

Blue spoke up, hesitating in a thoughtful way, "Well, here's an idea . . ."

***

Queen was dead, to begin with. Her partner Rotiart Scrooge had inherited their business, and he pinched a penny harder than Scrooge McDuck.

His clerk was affable ol' Lumy Cratchet, a poor but decent man. Father of Tiny Horse.

He asked Scrooge for RAFmas Day off, to which Scrooge scoffed, "A fone excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!"

Later that night, Rotiart was visited by the Queen Marley, who sang a variation of "Marley and Marley". She warned that he would be visited by three ghosts during the night.

The first ghost, the Ghost of RAFmas Past, was a small, cheeky monkey* spirit who showed Rotiart Scrooge his past inquiring benignly on the events before vanishing, having Scrooge awaken in his bed.

The next ghost, the Ghost of RAFmas Present, was a jolly old soul -- a man with a beard**. He shows Scrooge how the world sees him at present. And it was not pleasant viewing.

Then the cloaked*** Ghost of RAFmas past wordlessly show him how disrespectful people were to him in death as well as his own grave.

He awakes a changed man.

***

"Christmas Carol, RAF edition" Phoenix said appreciatively.

"But that's more of a single episode idea." Abby said.

---
*Shadow, obviously.

** SuperNate.

***:dull: Guess.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2013, 09:15:06 PM

Second chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Three RAFians Though

"Eh." Blue said, in response.

"It's not enough drive a whole --" Abby began.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Gaz said, suddenly excited. "What about this?"

***

There were once two pastures, separated by a deep, uncrossable river. This river was only spanned by a wooden bridge. The pasture on the right was growing low on karma. Soon the three RAFians who dwelt their would have to cross the bridge to the other side.

But this was fraught with a singular danger, for the Pootang dwelt beneath the bridge. It would eat the poor RAFians should they try to cross over.

Soon enough, there was nothing to be done for it, they had to cross.

The littlest RAFian began to cross the bridge. The Pootang roared, "Who's stomping on my bridge?!"

"Not I," said Goom.

"I shall eat you."

"You don't want me," claimed the little goomba, "you want my bigger friend."

"Bigger friend?" the Pootang said. "Very well, you may cross."

The little goomba crossed onto the karma-verdant pasture. But soon, the second RAFian decided to leave the graying pasture.

"Who is stomping on my bridge?!" the Pootang raged.

"Not I," Sakki said, with faux innocence.

"I shall eat you."

"You don't want me," Sakki said, persuasively. "You want my biggest friend."

"Very well, then. You may cross."

She did.

Soon, the last RAFian began to cross, and the Pootang cried, "Who's stomping on my bridge?!"

"Not I," Dino said throatily.

"I shall eat --"

CHOMP!

Dino ate the Pootang.

***

"Nice twist," Saffa smirked.

"But that's too episodic --" Abby began to protest.

But this was no longer about the movie. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 09, 2013, 02:39:23 AM

No series is complete without their version of "A Christmas Carol". :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 09, 2013, 08:21:46 PM

I knew this book would be entertaining. I hope X and Y will come after this book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2013, 08:33:37 PM

Right.

Now, just the one chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Three Little RAFians

"Guys! You're losing sight of --" Abby protested.

"How about this story?" Kelly asked.

***

There were once three RAFians who had to go out and seek their fortune. One had built his thread of straw, the second built her thread of sticks, and the last built her thread of bricks.

As it so happened, a Big, Bad Pootang came into the area. It happened across little Underseen's thread of straw.

"Yeah, I know." Underseen said to the audience. "It violates every building code. So what?"

The he saw the Big, Bad Pootang. He quickly ducked into his thread.

"Little RAFian, little RAFian," the Pootang rasped, "let me in!"

"Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!" Underseen decried.

"Then I'll huff, and puff, and bloooooooow your thread in!!"

Then the straw thread collapsed in on itself and Underseen fled to Abby's place.

"What do you want? There's not a lot of building material around here." Abby said to the audience, explaining her building material choice. Then she spotted an approaching Underseen with Pootang in tow. The two RAFians dived into the thread.

"Little RAFians, little RAFians, let me in!" the Pootang demanded.

"Not by the scabs on our shinny shin shins!"

"Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blooooooow your thread in."

It went just as it did the first. The two fled to Saffa's thread, which was made of bricks. The two huddled against the door, while Saffa sat on a comfortable easy chair, flicking absently through a catalogue.

The Pootang beat on the door, demanding loudly, "Little RAFians, little RAFians, let me in!!"

"Not by the scars on our skinny skin skin!" the three said, though Saffa sounded quite bored frankly.

"Then I'll huff, and puff, and blooooooow your thread in!"

"Knock yourself out," Saffa said, not even looking up.

And, of course, the Pootang did just that. Saffa had the officials cart the brute away.

***

"I like it," Saffa said with a smirk.

Underseen and Abby were less enthusiastic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 10, 2013, 03:10:42 AM

I ROFLed hard. :rofl:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2013, 09:11:19 PM

;D

And now, the daily chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Pootang and the Seven Young Seals

"Uh, guys --" Abby said, attempting to get everyone back on topic.* It was rapidly getting to a point of one-upping each other.

"Oh, wait! How's about this one?" AniDragon said.

***

There once was a mother seal, Horse, and seven pups -- one angry, one greedy, one fearful, one willful, one hopeful, one compassionate, and one loving.

"Now, I need to go away for some time to collect some fish from the market." Horse told her children. "Do not let anyone in -- not a one, Gregory!"

She spoke to the angry, fighting-prone one.

"There's a Pootang in the area. It will gobble you seven up in a thrice if you let it in. Now, when I return, you'll know by my musical voice and white flippers. Farewell, children -- remember to do as I said."

After Horse had left, the Poitang did come calling. It attempted to pretend to be Horse, but the seven recognized the gruff, rough voice as not being Horse's and did not let it in.

Two hours later, the Pootang managed a passable imitation of Horse's lyrical voice, but the seven pups noticed the yellow-furred feet. They refused entry.

Then the Pootang spread flour on its feet, making them appear white. Then it tried again, only this time, it managed to successfully trick the youngsters and eat six of the pups, only the fearful one was spared due to her victorious hiding ability.

When Horse returned, she and her surviving went and found the Pootang. Horse cut open its stomach rescuing her brood, replacing the six pups with stones. Then she sewed the stomach shut and she left with her brood.

The Pootang eventually awoke, and went to drink from a river . . .

***

"I'm a mother? Oh, no-ho-ho-ho way!" Horse protested. "Seven kids are just too much. One would be enough."

"Little dark, dontcha think?" Saffa asked.

AniDragon shrugged, "It's based off of 'The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids'."

---
*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 11, 2013, 04:43:59 AM

James Moriarty: "Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain" = the Pootang ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2013, 08:22:20 AM

:)

Well, as you guys have probably already guessed, "Memoirs" is on temporary hiatus due to Pokemon XY coming out.  I didn't realize just how long the game is (or just how long I'm making it, due to training more than the prerequisite six), and as such, new chapters will usually appear on the weekends (or any time I have off of work).

I have come up with a few new book ideas, but I forgotten what was the last book I left you guys off with.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 17, 2013, 08:32:54 AM

LOL, we expected that. No worries.

This was the description of the last book, by the way -

BOOK CCVII: "Ghoulfiend" -- The RAFians must prevent the release of a demon (who has a history with Demos) by the Gatekeeper and the Keyholder.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2013, 05:18:50 AM

Ah, thanks, Saffa. But that was Book CCVIII, not Book CCVII (that's "The Importance of Cellulite", which used to be "Cellular Games", same plot but different title). So --

• BOOK CCIX: "Still Life Chase" -- Some of the RAFians find themselves running through paintings.
• BOOK CCX:"Repression Oppression" -- The RAFians must deal with an ancient demon that feeds on repression.
• BOOK CCXI: "A Saccharine Scheme" -- The RAFians must combat the Cuddlepies.
• BOOK CCXII: "A Reflection Complication" -- Some RAFians get trapped inside the realm of mirrors.

And that's all I got.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Morpher and the Pootang

"Be that as it may, AniDragon," Abby said, valiantly trying to get the conversation back on topic, "you guys are forgetting the --"

"Oh! I got one!" Faerie interrupted.

Abby pulled an "angry Jigglypuff" face. Fortunately, she didn't have a felt marker, like that Jigglypuff from the earlier seasons of the anime.

***

Once upon a time, there was a Pootang who was in terrible pain. It had a bone most uncomfortably in it's throat. It was cranky, naturally, and sought any means to dislodge it itself.

But it could not accomplish this, and bellowed mournfully at this predictament.

It was reduced to begging for help, in return for a reward. However, none were willing to help the untrustworthy beast.

Eventually, one took pity upon the beast -- but still expected the reward for her services.

Abby morphed into a crane and used her long beak to poke at the bone in the Pootang's gullet. She eventually managed to pull out the bit of bone lodged so unaccommodatingly in its throat. Then she demorphed.

Then the Pootang walked off, seemingly going back on its promise of a reward.

"Hey!" Abby demanded, now human. "What about my reward?"

The Pootang stopped in its tracks, reared up to its hindlegs in a most intimidating way. Then it looked over its shoulder and spoke.

"You just stuck your head into the mouth of the Pootang, and back out again unharmed." it said, its voice timber somewhat like Avatar Roku. "That should be reward enough."

***

Abby was not amused. She refused to believe she would be that greedy or that stupid. But the she gave up trying to get back to the topic at hand, as it has obviously gone onto a different tangent.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 19, 2013, 05:22:17 AM

I think I must've missed book CCVII somewhere along the line...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2013, 05:54:06 AM

It's where we fight a powerful creature created by -- well, that would be telling.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Eating Excuses

"Anyone else got one?" Saffa said, sipping her chosen beverage -- before realizing she required a refill. She went off to fill it up again and returned quickly.

"Well?" Saffa prompted everyone.

Sakki held her index finger and said brightly,"Got one. Based off of one of Aesop's fables."

***

There was once a seal named Horse who was pursued by a gigantic, red-eyed, fanged Pikachu called the Pootang. Horse usually managed to outwit her foe, but there was one occasion where she did not, where she could not, endeavor to outwit it. It had her cornered.

"You are charged with the crime of being a worthless sack of meat."

"I am not worthless! I've saved my fellows numerous times, with plenty of evidence. What you claim cannot be true."

This went on for a fair bit as the sun peeked into the forum. The Pootang accusing Horse of crimes more ridiculous as the last. Crimes that justify it eating her. Horse disproved all of them as impossibilities.

"I cannot fill my empty belly with dialogues," the Pootang said eventually, before it lunged at Horse. But she wiggled her way free.

Momentarily free, but still trapped.

"Tyrants always find a way to excuse their tyranny." he muttered.

Then she sneezed.

And the Pootang was frozen solid.

Horse blinked bewilderedly. She said, "Didn't know I could do that."

***

"Could you do that, Horse?"

Horse looked thoughtful. "I don't really know. Never tried that particular, uh, 'technique'."

Cloak said nothing. He knew of the original fable, and it would apply all to fittingly with him and his mother. Cloak did nothing but sit stoically, stewing in his pain of his past traumas.

He hid it well from the others. Although, Aquilai gave him a suspicious glance, but said nothing about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 20, 2013, 09:35:12 PM

What is the original fable? I don't think I've heard it before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2013, 10:43:27 PM

"The Wolf and the Lamb", Saffa.

Now, I'm feeling a little write-y at the moment. So . . .

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Questionable Enticements

Silence fell for a bit, broken by Noelle. She said thoughtfully, <Well, I have one, I believe.>

She hesitated, but Saffa prompted her encouragingly. Noelle took a breath, and plowed on.

<Well, it's based on an Earth fable I heard some time ago . . .>

***

There was once two siblings who grew into a geek and a seal. As it so happened, they got separated from their parents and lost in a dark forest of Phantumps and Pumpkaboos.*

"Guy, why are you leaving a trail of --"

"I would think it was obvious."

"But that's the last of our food!"

"Oh! Uh . . . um . . . erm . . ."

"Making noises of discomfort won't help us ya know." Horse said.

"There!" Guy said, pointing.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho no. I'm not falling for that." Horse quipped. Then she cleared her throat, and muttered much quieter, "Again."

"No, seriously, Horse! Look! A house made of junk food!" he exclaimed, with his mouth watering.

The two decended upon the house, began devouring it. Not a thought of the homeowner occured to them, as often the belly reigns over such courtesies.

"Are you enjoying it?" came a wheezy voice. It belonged to a haggard, old hag -- er, woman in an elaborately embroidered cloak. "No, no. Don't worry! I'm not mad!"

The two were leery.

"Don't be like that," said the cloaked lady. "I have more inside. Come."

She went inside.

"Let's the who-know-what outta here," Horse said.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Guy said.

The two fled, and managed, by a sheer stroke of luck, bump into their parents, who was looking for them.

***

"A little too neat, don't you think?" Rotiart asked.

"Who invited you?" Saffa scowled.

---
*Would you rather Heffalumps and Woozels?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 21, 2013, 11:26:28 PM

LOL, if he ever comes up with a story I'd probably be the first to die. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2013, 08:06:14 PM

Yeah. Like you'd let him, Saffa.

Feeling write-y again.

CHAPTER NINE:
Little Blue Riding Hood

"Guys, what -- oh, forget it." Abby said, as Ash said, enthusiastically, "Oooh! Oooh! I've got one! I've got one!"

"Wonderful," Abby muttered drily. She was a little irritated that her idea of television show was long forgotten.

***

Once upon a time, a RAFian had to deliver a basket of goodies to the venerable, old Estelore.

"Here," said Ash, handing Blue a blue riding hood, "put this on."

***

"Wait, wouldn't Cloak be a better choice for --" Blue interjected.

"Hush up and let me tell my story!" Ash protested.

***

"Do I have to?" Blue complained.

"Please and thank you," Ash said presumptively, as she turned to reentered the the darling forum villa.

Blue sighed as he reluctantly donned the blue cloak. Then he took the basket and said defiantly, "I'm not skipping while carrying this."

Eventually, Blue made it to Estelore's cottage after a run-in with the Pootang. However, Estelore was not in -- she was out on some sort of cruise spa thing. The Pootang broke into the cottage and disguised itself as Estelore.

Blue did not know this, however.

"Why, Estelore, what long yellow ears you have," Blue said drily.

"The better to hear you with, dearie." the Pootang rasped.

Blue's eyes narrowed as he turned his back to the Pootang to set down the basket.

"My, Esty, what merciless red eyes you have." Blue said, hiding his suspicions.

"The better to see you with, dearie," the Pootang rasped.

"And what big fangs you have." Blue said, over his shoulder, waiting for the inevitable moment to come. He pulled a small, lightweight pack attached to a shurriken.

"The better to eat you with!" the Pootang roared as it lunged for Blue. But he had anticipated this, and threw the shurriken. Quick acting goo spread over the Pootang, hardening to a immovable shell, leaving only its head free.

***

Silence erupted after Ash was done.

"Well . . . I liked it." Ash said, in a meek voice.

Applause sounded soon after.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 24, 2013, 12:16:32 PM

This book is so cute. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2013, 08:46:53 PM

Thanks, Saffa.

Sorry that I haven't been posting new chapters, but I've been tired and they changed my hours. I'm still adjusting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 26, 2013, 03:33:17 AM

No problem. We're used to the hiatuses now. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2013, 07:50:11 AM

Ah.

CHAPTER TEN:
Horse and Pootang in Partnership

"Wow, thanks," the shapeshifter blushed.

"I think I got one," Wild said, thoughtfully.

***

Against ordinary convention of their enmity, it came about that the Pootang and Horse became friends. They secured a vat of various Berries for use in leaner times.

Eventually, the Pootang made an excuse to be away for a period of time, but just went to the vat and ate the top level of the Berry vat. When Horse had inquired were it went, it replied, "Topoff." Horse though it was an odd name for a place -- before she assumed it may have been a seedy place, but she did not press the issue.

Soon thereafter, the Pootang made a similar excuse to Horse to leave. Then it gobbled the Berries in the vat until they were halfway gone. When it returned, and Horse inquired where it had been, it replied, "Haffgon."

Then the third occasion where this happened, the Pootang finished off the vat. When it returned, and asked by Horse. It replied, "Algon".

Leaner times soon came, and Horse decided that they should delve into the provisions they had set aside, only to realize what the Pootang did. The Pootang warned her not to put it together, but she persisted. So it attempted to gobble her up -- but found itself locked within a block of ice.

***

"I would never! It'd never trust that rabid giant Pokemon!" Horse protested vehemently. "And I wouldn't be that stupid!"

"Well, it was an adaptation of one of Brothers Grimm's stories." Wild responded simply. "'The Cat and Mouse in Partnership'."

"Wasn't that Aesop?" Gaz asked.

"Don't think so," Wild replied earnestly.

"Well told, in any case," Cloak said quietly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 26, 2013, 08:01:07 AM

A sign of things to come? ;)

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 27, 2013, 12:21:39 PM

Fell behind, but I'm finally caught up!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 27, 2013, 05:36:10 PM

Not really, Saffa. Congats on that, Gaz.

Meanwhile, I just realized. A week from tomorrow I'm gonna be a year older.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Aquilai and the Berry Stalk

Then they briefly lapsed in to silence, broken by Dino -- who had finished off a considerable "snack". "I've got one."

"Then tell it, sister!" Saffa said, with a mirthful laugh.

Dino laughed herself, and indulged in a rather intimidatingly toothy grin. "Fine then! Lemme see . . ."

***

Once upon a time, there lived a Time Lord, who lived peacefully out of his TARDIS. But he eventually discovered someone had haphazardly tossed magic Berries beneath the TARDIS which had the form of an old police box . . . thingy.

"I have got to fix that chameleon chi-- what the deuce?!"

Suddenly, Aquilai and his entire TARDIS were shooting up into the clouds upon the branches of a Berry stalk.

When the horrid rumbling stopped shaking his TARDIS and throwing him around, Aquilai cautiously ventured out, finding himself and his TARDIS having been forced through a crack in the floorboards of a humongous kitchen. He estimated that you'd be able to fit a couple of the largest and most famous landmarks in here, and they'd still be the size of toys.

When he felt the tremendous vibrations, he retreated to the interior of his TARDIS. He still fell onto his butt though.

"Fe fi fo fan." came a deafening loud voice. You could be sitting right next to a speaker at a heavy metal concert and it still would not be as loud.

"There's no need to yell," Aquilai muttered.

"I smell the blood of a RAFian." it boomed.

"And that's my cue to get the heck outta dodge." Aquilai said, immediately working the controls of his TARDIS. He blipped out of there as quickly as he could.

***

"I . . . am not fond of the ending." AniDragon said.

"Eh, it's a cliffhanger.*" Dino shrugged. "So sue me."

"Oh, it isn't any fun, let me tell you." Saffa said, darkly.

---
*;) Yeah, yeah. I know. You're gonna say mine are worse. Or not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 27, 2013, 09:28:26 PM

That story caught me off guard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 27, 2013, 09:31:21 PM

It was a crack in time and space! :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2013, 06:48:48 AM

Sorry 'bout the lack of chapters, but I've been exhausted. Mondays and Tuesdays, it's just me at work. Exhausting.

But here's the new book idea (hopefully it's not a recycled book idea).

• BOOK CCXIII: "A Care Less Spell" -- A spell is accidentally cast to make the whole world not care about anything.

Probably post another chapter tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 29, 2013, 07:19:52 AM

Ah, that's the book you were talking about. Spot-on!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2013, 07:10:34 AM

Now, a chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Golden Seal

There was some complaint about the cliffhanger in Dino's story, buut she shrugged it all off.

"Hmmmm . . ." SuperNate said, thoughtfully. "I think I've got one."

***

There were once three neighbors -- Yorick, Queen, and Guy. The first two were not the most pleasant people in the world, while Guy was mostly humble and generous.

All three went into a nearby forest for firewood, as the coming winter was predicted to be severe.

All three met a little Blue man who begged for a crumb of bread and a swallow of drink. The first two rebuffed this man, and met with unfortunate accidents in the forest. Guy, however, was more inclined to share his food and drink with the crafty man.

In return for his kindness, the Blue man gave Guy a seal whose fur was of the finest, and purest gold. Guy thanked the man with all the sincerity he possessed, then the two parted ways.

Guy came to stay in an inn by a roadway. One of the patrons, a miserly old hag-woman, easily grew envious of the golden pinniped, and, unable to restrain her greed, attempted to pluck a couple of hairs from the hapless seal. But her plan went awry when she found that hairs would not come lose, and neither would her fingers from the hair.

Her sisters attempted to pull her off the seal, only to be stuck to the sister before them.

Eventually, mostly to Guy's consternation, more people were joined in this perverse conga line -- the parson, the schoolteacher, the deacon . . . only the village drunk and the village idiot seemed free of this parade of plight.

***

"Nice!" Saffa laughed.

"That's what greed will get you," Cloak said, simply. "To be honest, I never really understood the Dweller fascination with so-called 'precious' metals and gems and such."

"Realm Walkers don't do the avarice thing?" Gaz asked.

"I never said that," Cloak replied.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 30, 2013, 08:39:17 AM

I think I can guess who the hag was referencing. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2013, 08:56:11 PM

 Oh, Saffa? ^-^

Anyway, don't expect a chapter until late -- if at all -- tomorrow. Got Creative Writing right before work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 31, 2013, 03:49:32 PM

I love how Horse is perfect for these stories.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2013, 09:01:29 PM

Right, Underseen.

Short chapter. Sleepy.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
An Underseen Story

"Who's next?" Duff asked.

A smattering of muttering sounded, but Underseen spoke clearest. "I've got one."

***

There was once a hard-working, industrious Durant who worked quite diligently to stock up for the winter. She had plenty of Apricot, Micle, Mago, Belue, Cheri, Aspear, Rowap, Micle, Roseli, Kasib, Leppa, Kee, and Tanga Berries, but horded them jealously.

One day, she was mocked openly by a flippant, lazy Kricketune, who spent his days playing his music and singing his songs.

"Mock me all you want," the Durant cautioned fretfully. "But we'll see whose better of come winter. Then you'd wish you wile and squander your time with pointless lounging."

Then she returned to work, as the Kricketune snorted derisively at this. "I'll be fine. Durant thinks she knows everything."

But the Durant's warnings turned prophetic as the Kricketune was unable to feed himself in the month that followed. He met an early demise, cursing his ambivalence and arrogance. Meanwhile, the Durant was comfortably toasty, with a stockpile of Berries to last her ten winters.

***

"Nice retelling," Saffa said.

"Thank you." Underseen said.

"Bit short." Rotiart sneered.

<Care to be passed through a Crabdozer's digestive tract?> Saffa threatened in Crabdozer morph.

"Why are you so mean?" Rotiart whined.

<Why are you such a jerk?> Saffa said, demorphing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 02, 2013, 07:51:11 AM

That was a little harsh even for me...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2013, 08:38:15 AM

Okay, probably one chapter today. But don't hold me to it.

Gonna be short . . . then again the tale it was based off of was short as well . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Rotiart in the Pootang's Skin

"Okay, maybe it was a little harsh," Saffa said admitted before changing tact, "who's got the next story?"

"I'll give it a shot," Duff said, finishing his chosen beverage.

***

A notorious fool managed to find a Pootang skin, and donned it. And, being quite an ass, Rotiart went around frightening Banned and Lurker alike. They believing -- somehow -- that Rotiart was the true Pootang.

Rotiart cackled wildly at this fun, then he came upon another victim to frighten and harass. He put on his exceedingly loose-fitting "costume" and attempted to scare KitsuneMarie.

Marie wasn't as easily frightened, though Rotiart tried hard. Soon, he did away with the farce and said, "How'd you know it was me?"

"You almost frightened me," Marie said, "until your bray gave you away."

"Huh?"

"No one knows a fool until they open their mouth." Marie intoned.

***

"Stop picking on me!!" Rotiart whined.

"Well, Rotiart," Cloak said, quite seriously, "if you didn't go out of your way to be so unlikeable, maybe we wouldn't take it in such a way."

"I do not!"

"Really? You can really stand there and make such a statement?" Duff asked. "Rotiart, most of the time, you are loud, arrogant, obnoxious, narcissistic and selfish. These are not admirable characteristics."

"Am not!"

"Childishly deny it all you want," Cloak said. "And we all have our faults. But you make yours nearly intolerable."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 02, 2013, 12:31:09 PM

Something tells me Cloak is enjoying X and Y

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2013, 08:50:03 PM

Yes, I have, Underseen. But I've been working hard at . . . well, work. And, of course, at 8am tomorrow exactly . . . I turn 29.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Yeerk and Its Hosts

"Okay, okay," Az said, attempting mediate. "Let's all just relax and keep this storytelling ball rolling."

He pointedly at Rotiart, Cloak and Duff.

"Az is right," KitsuneMarie said, clearly trying to divert hostilities. "Anyone got one?"

"I believe I do." Myitt said. "Lemme see here."

***

There was once a Yeerk, who controlled a gardener. But she soon grew dissatisfied with the rigors and stresses of such an occupation. She petitioned her Visser for a change of host, hoping to get a celebrity or a rich tycoon.

She got a twenty-six-year-old potter, and became a he. Sne was dissatisfied with the thanklessness and anonymity of such a profession. She soon gathered up the nerve to petition for another host.

And so it went. This Yeerk lived in the heads of a Gedd, a janitor, a Taxxon, a greengrocer, a Hork-Bajir, a child psychologist, a theme park's costumed character, a child, a school mascot, and more. Eventually, she had more host transfers than costume changes in Vegas. But she remained dissatisfied with all of them.

She yearned to be in her first human host, the gardener again, but it was not possible. That host had passed away weeks ago.

Then the Yeerk sought another host transfer, but was denied. So she deliberately avoided the Yeerk Pool. Effectively commiting suicide.

***

"And the moral is," Myitt said, "change isn't always for the better."

"Nor is it easy," Cloak said, heavily. The others glanced at the Realm Walker, but he wasn't in the mood to elaborate.

He was vaguely remembering the part of him that wanted to go back to his mother's house after being kicked out, though he knew nothing would have changed. It was nothing more or less than wishing to stay with the familiar, with all that he knew, no matter how abusive the environment was. He associated it to the same reason why battered spouses return to their abusers. It's the same thing, really.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2013, 09:58:24 PM

Now, just one more chapter before bed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Teenagers and the Beast

"Oh, don't be such a buzzkill, Cloaky!" Gaz said bracingly, but in a playful manner. "Anyone else got something?"

No one answered for a moment.

"Me." Parker said.

***

There was once two travelers. Teenagers. Neither without a worry in the world, talking about -- stupid crap.

They took a path into rather ominous-looking woods. With claw-like trees and dark, swirling mists.

It was against the shorter teenager's better instincts, but the older one goaded him into entering. At that age, good sense is a rare commodity.

They eventually near the exit, when a monstrous beast stops them. The taller teenager swiftly leaves his friend for dead, as he scrambled up a tree. The shorter one feigned death.

The beast leaned over this teenaged traveler and appeared to be sniffing him before lumbering off, apparently disinterested in the potential meal.

When the cowardly teenager slid down the tree, as his friend got up and dusted himself off.

"So," said the teen, daring to crack a smile. "What did the beast tell you?"

The other teen glowered at his friend, and growled, "To avoid friends that would abandpn you in your hour of need."

With that, the teen turned his back to the coward and left the forest. Alone.

***

Parker lapsed into silence. It was clear that the story was, at the very least, allegorical fiction.

Cloak eyed the SPARTAN, considering him. It was obvious the two teenaged travelers in the story was Parker and . . . and Louis Cannon. Clearly he was not the only one dwelling on his past.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 03, 2013, 10:12:21 PM

Suddenly the book is taking a very different turn. Unexpected, but I like it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2013, 10:28:05 AM

You think this is a surprise, Saffa? Just wait for "Making of a Monster".

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Honest Swordsman

"Ooookay," Saffa said, "any one have a less, uh, dark story?"

"I'll give it a whirl." Blaze said, with a shrug, which ruffled the feathers of his wings slightly. He fingered the hilt of his special blade thoughtfully.

***

There was once a young swordsman, possessing a sword others would consider valueless. But it was the first he had ever crafted, and he was fond of it immensely.

As such, it was inevitable that the young man would lose such a prized weapon. Which he did, in a river, too deep and too fast-moving to retrieve. The young man wept openly for his lost sword. His lament would not go unheard and unheeded though.

A star came down, in the avatar of a kindly woman with flowing hair, wide-brimmed hat and a sundress. The star asked why the youngling was crying, the young swordman explained his lost blade. The star assured him that she would retrieve it.

She came back with a solid gold sword, inquiring if this was the one. The young swordman rejected it as it was not his.

The the star returned with one of solid silver. But again, the swordman turned down the offer because the glorious blade was not his.

Finally, on the third time, the swordsman could claim the sword, because it was his. He thanked the star humbly before going about his business, tears of joy in his eye. He vowed never to get so cafeless ever again.

However, an embittered rival of the swordsman happened to be watching such travails the swordman endured. Being a selfish, greedy man, he desired the swords the man left behind.

He repeated the same process as the wiser swordsman, until the star asked if the golden sword was his. He greedily lied and said that it was.

But the star was no fool, nor was she so easily deceived. She denied him the gold sword and his lost one. So now the greedy swordman was now without a sword.

***

"Nice," Duff said, nodding.

"Indeed," Cloak agreed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 05, 2013, 12:02:22 PM

That was a good one.

And yes for the comeback of Blaze and his sword! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on November 05, 2013, 01:54:22 PM

Did I somehow manage to get into the story as a bloodsucking lawyer?! XD Priceless and technically true. ;)

Or is there actually another Kelly on the site?

EDIT: Oh. There is someone with the actual screen-name "Kelly" on the site. Aaaaawww. :( X).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 05, 2013, 05:12:01 PM

Great Chapters Cloak! I really miss seeing this every day... Oh well. I'll log on when I can. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2013, 10:04:32 PM

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on November 05, 2013, 05:12:01 PM

Great Chapters Cloak! I really miss seeing this every day... Oh well. I'll log on when I can. :)

I'll try to keep fresh chapters up for ya, though. ;)

Quote from: Shenmue654 on November 05, 2013, 01:54:22 PM

Did I somehow manage to get into the story as a bloodsucking lawyer?! XD Priceless and technically true. ;)

Or is there actually another Kelly on the site?

EDIT: Oh. There is someone with the actual screen-name "Kelly" on the site. Aaaaawww. :( X).

Yeah, I tend to use the usernames of RAFians as I knew them.

I'll put you in a book, if your species and/or powers gives me an idea to use somewhere, Shenmue.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Fox and the Hypocrite

"That was a good one, Blaze! Where have you been hiding, by the way?" Saffa said.

Blaze shrugged, and said, "I've been sick."

Thank you, Dr. Marvin Monroe*. Cloak thought to himself.

"Never mind that," Gaz said. "Anyone else got one?"

"Oh, what the hey? Let me take a stab at it," Estelore said with a lively, mirthful laugh.

***

There once was a woodsman, who had a habit of tromping through the deep woods. He kept to himself mostly, but was a friendly enough fellow.

There came a time when a fox -- a vixen named Marie -- came streaking by, hiding beneath some bushes.

"Don't tell them where I am," she whispered urgently to them. "Please? Pretty please?"

Then the hunters who sought her came, one on a white stallion hunting horn on hand. They were foxhunters, they were blood sportmen. Only they werewithout dogs, strangely enough.

"Have you seen a fox go this way, perchance, my good fellow?" the guy on horseback said rather snobbishly and aristocratically.

"Uh, no." he said, but pointed out Marie's position anyway. She cursed him as she just barely escaped with her life.

***

"Wow," Abby said.

"Based off of Aesop's 'The Fox and the Woodman'." Estelore said. "A tale warning of hypocrisy."

Hypocrisy.

That's something Cloak has been a victim of for so long. But he knew that he was allowing himself to continue to be victimized by it by simply dwelling on it.

Cloak tried to shake himself out of this dark stupor that he was in. This was a time for levity -- a commodity the RAFians so rarely got to enjoy. A time for fun.

---
*The guy other than Bleeding Gums Murphy and Frank Grimes who died in "The Simpsons".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 05, 2013, 10:46:22 PM

LOL, Shen, that you are. ;D

:o ABBY! You always pop up without warning! I hate time zones.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on November 06, 2013, 03:15:42 PM

Hmm. About all my "species" would be likely to do in Super RAF Weird Land is give me the ability to control a squadron of shadow-like minions. The Good News: They'd be pretty hard to kill. The Bad News: They're dumb as bricks. Think the goblins from Labyrinth, complete with incoherent, adorable scrabbling snarling noises. :p They'd do things like dump water on your head when you ask for a glass of it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 06, 2013, 05:03:44 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 05, 2013, 10:04:32 PM

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on November 05, 2013, 05:12:01 PM

Great Chapters Cloak! I really miss seeing this every day... Oh well. I'll log on when I can. :)

I'll try to keep fresh chapters up for ya, though. ;)

I'll always look forward to them!! :)

Quote from: Saffa on November 05, 2013, 10:46:22 PM

:o ABBY! You always pop up without warning! I hate time zones.

I know. Time zones suck. I try to get on more though. Just keep an eye out for me! ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2013, 09:49:59 PM

Quote from: Shenmue654 on November 06, 2013, 03:15:42 PM

Hmm. About all my "species" would be likely to do in Super RAF Weird Land is give me the ability to control a squadron of shadow-like minions. The Good News: They'd be pretty hard to kill. The Bad News: They're dumb as bricks. Think the goblins from Labyrinth, complete with incoherent, adorable scrabbling snarling noises. :p They'd do things like dump water on your head when you ask for a glass of it.

Hmmm . . . that may be useful for some chapters, but I haven't visited the Species thread in a while. What is the name of your species?

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Beware the Narrator

"Nice one," Saffa said.

"Thank you," Estelore said. Then added, in mock challenge, "Anyone care to top it?"

"Why," Cloak said, with a smirk, "allow me."

"Cloak, why do I get the feeling a puppy dies every time you smile like that?" Abby teased.

***

"All the RAFians in RAFville
Liked RAFmas a lot,
But the Queen, who lived just southeast
Of RAFville, did not.
She groused and complained
To what the festivities pertained.
"For years I've put up with it now,
I must stop RAFmas from happening!
But how?"
Then the Queen got a horrid idea.
A horribly horrid idea.
She crudely disguised herself as the Claus,
And she snuck into the forum without pause.
Within a twinkling, she had succeeded,
Her work nary impeded.
She rode on her sleigh to Mount Crumpet
With the the sac of trimmings, to dump it.
She waited to hear the forelorn cries
To rent the skies.
But to her very great suprise,
The sound that sounded wasn't sad.
No, it was glad.
So she puzzled --"

"Whatever," Queeen said, starting to push the stuff off of Mt. Crumpet.

"As I was saying,
Which you better start obeying, --"

"Who do you think you are? I don't take orders from you!" Queen protested haughtily.

"So it goes, the Queen defied the orator.
Unbidden, the ground beneath her began to slacken.
But to this be the lesson, the curator,
As the Queen falls to oblivion, one must remember,
Don't ever f*ck with the narrator."

***

"What a twist!" Saffa said.

Cloak winced a little, remembering the representation of M. Knight Whatever in "Robot Chicken".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 06, 2013, 11:46:20 PM

The spelling is Shyamalan, lol. Confusing Indian name. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2013, 09:27:43 AM

Ah.

Now, Saffa get your PDF maker ready, here's the final chapter of this book!! Then is onto Book L (50)!
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Saga Begins

"Nice one, Cloaky." Abby intoned.

"Thanks." he replied appreciatively. "Next!"

"I'll take that up," Horse said.  "And if you have to go to the bathroom, go now.  I'm not stopping."
 

***

A long, long time ago
In a forum far away
RAFNaboo was under attack.
And Chad thought he and Faerie Larka
Could talk the Federation into
Maybe cutting them a little slack.
But their response, it didn't thrill them.
They locked the doors and tried to kill them.
We escaped from that gas
And met DinoNothlit and Az.
They took a Bongo from the sceen
and they went to RAFTheed to see the queen.
They wound up on RAFTatooine
That's were they found this boy . . .
Oh, my, my, this here Ken guy.
May be Vader someday later -- now he's just a small fry.
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a RAFguy
"Soon I'm going to be a RAFguy."
Did you know this junkyard slave
Isn't even old enough to shave?
But he can use the Force, they say.
Well, he knows he built RAFO
And he's heard how fast his pod can go
And they were broke, it's true.
So, they made a wager or two!
He was a pubescent flyin' ace
And the minute Demos started off that race,
Well, Chad knew who would win first place.
Oh yes, it was their boy.
They started singin' . . .
Oh, my, my, this here Ken guy.
May be Vader someday later -- now he's just a small fry.
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye,
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a RAFguy.
"Soon I'm going to be a RAFguy."
Now they finally got to RAFCoruscant
The RAFian Council they knew would want
To see how good the boy could be.
So, they took him there and they told the tale
How his abilities were off the scale
And he might fulfill that prophecy.
Oh, the Council was impressed, of course,
Could he bring balance to the Forum Force?
They interviewed the kid.
Oh, training they forbid.
Because Richard sensed in him much fear,
And Faerie said, "Now, listen here,
"Just stick it in your moddy ear!
"I still will teach this boy."
She was singing . . .
Oh, my, my, this here Ken guy
May be Vader someday later -- now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye,
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a RAFguy.
"Soon I'm going to be a RAFguy."
They caught a ride back to RAFNaboo
'Cause Queen Estelore wanted to.
Chad frankly would've liked to stay.
They all fought in that epic war.
And it wasn't long at all before,
Little Hotshot flew his plane and saved the day.
And in the end some users died,
Some ships blew up and some pilots fried.
A lot of folks were croakin'.
The battle droids were Broken!
And the RAFian we admire most
Met up with Darth Malice and now she's toast.
Well, he's still here and she's a ghost.
I guess he'll train the boy.
And he was singin' . . .
Oh, my, my, this here Ken guy.
May be Vader someday later -- now he's just a small fry.
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye,
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a RAFguy.
"Soon I'm going to be a RAFguy."
They were singin' . . .
Oh, my, my, this here Ken guy.
May be Vader someday later -- now he's just a small fry.
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye,
Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a RAFguy
"Soon, I'm going to be a RAFguy."

Now some years later, Ken became a Padawan --
 

***

"She isn't gonna tell the entire saga?" Saffa whispered.

"Oh, yeah." Cloak said, wearily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 07, 2013, 10:12:31 AM

*stands up and gives round of applause*

That. Was brilliant!! :D

So many awesome 50ths! Doctor Who and Memoirs. Can't wait!! :D

Aaaand here's your PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2013, 11:28:43 AM

Yep, and let's start this book!
 

BOOK L:
MAUL
CHAPTER ONE:
zzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzz

"Cloak met him in a swamp down in RAFDagoba
Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda.
S-O-D-A, soda.
He saw the telepathic guy sitting there on a log.
He asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said, "Yarin."
Y-A-R-I-N, Yarin.
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin.
Well, I've been around, but I've never seen, I say,
A guy who looks like a Fourarms but he's thin and gray!
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin, Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
Well, I'm not dumb, but I can't understand
How he can lift me in the air just by raising his hand.
Oh my, Yarin!
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin, Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
Well, I left home just a week before,
And I've never ever been a RAFian before.
But Chad, he set him straight, of course.
He said, "Go to Yarin and he'll show you the Forum."
Well, he's not the kind that would argue with him,
So, it looks like he's gonna start all over again
With Yarin.
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin, Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
Yarin!
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
So, he used the Forum.
He picked up a box.
He lifted some rocks
While he stood on his head.
Well, he won't forget what Yarin said.
He said, "Cloak, stay away from the darker side
And if you start to go astray, let the Forum be your guide."
Oh, Yarin!
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
"I know Ken's really got you annoyed,
But remember, if you kill him, then you'll be unemployed."
Oh, Yarin.
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
Well, he heard his friends really got in a mess.
So, he's gonna have to leave Yarin, I guess.
But he knows that he'll be coming back some day.
He'll be playing this part 'till I'm old and gray!
With Yarin!
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!
Ya-ya-ya-ya Yarin!"

At the end of this song was greeted with -- "zzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz . . . ."

"HEY! I DIDN'T FALL ASLEEP DURING YOUR STORIES!!" she protested.

"Our stories didn't take three hours to finish," Gaz said, sipping her coffee.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 07, 2013, 12:47:51 PM

So Horse is doing a ballad, then. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 07, 2013, 04:38:38 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 06, 2013, 09:49:59 PM

"Why," Cloak said, with a smirk, "allow me."

"Cloak, why do I get the feeling a puppy dies every time you smile like that?" Abby teased.

Haha. My best friend said that I would totally say something like that too! :XD:

How does it feel to be on book fifty, Cloaky??

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on November 07, 2013, 06:04:29 PM

Quote

Hmmm . . . that may be useful for some chapters, but I haven't visited the Species thread in a while. What is the name of your species?

"Human, accompanied by a creepy disembodied spirit with an erudite thespian voice who has claimed he's everything from a fairy to Satan."

The gremlins belong to the spirit, in headcanon. He probably wishes they didn't. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 07, 2013, 07:48:35 PM

It took a little over a year, but you're finally at book 50! I'm impressed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 07, 2013, 09:32:47 PM

As am I. And what a ride. :)

Abby, you sound like you're interviewing him. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2013, 10:11:26 PM

Quote from: Shenmue654 on November 07, 2013, 06:04:29 PM

Quote

Hmmm . . . that may be useful for some chapters, but I haven't visited the Species thread in a while. What is the name of your species?

"Human, accompanied by a creepy disembodied spirit with an erudite thespian voice who has claimed he's everything from a fairy to Satan."

The gremlins belong to the spirit, in headcanon. He probably wishes they didn't. :P

Hmmm. . . . I'll bear that in mind.

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on November 07, 2013, 04:38:38 PM

How does it feel to be on book fifty, Cloaky??

You should see the looks of shock when I tell people.

Quote from: Saffa on November 07, 2013, 12:47:51 PM

So Horse is doing a ballad, then. :D

Not really, Saffa, she didn't sing the entire stories. Those two song adaptations were just bookending it.

CHAPTER TWO:
Caught

A few uneventful days later, Demos was in his lab, humming an adaption of "Making Friends" from "The Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein". The room was dark, the only light was sickly green and coming from some variously sized cryogenic tubes filled with some colloidal, toxic waste-colored goo. There was a lifeform in every single one, eerie silhouettes.

Well, one large one appeared to be broken, the goo having dried to the consistency of melted glass. One of the creations had obviously achieved self-awareness and escaped.

Demos was bustling about the lab. He was fawning over his "babies", his "pretties". He didn't even notice that he had already been made.

"They should all be destroyed," Cloak said. He observed the chaotic hostility that all of them seemed to exhibit in their somniferous fits.

"Cloak!" Demos said, clearly flustered. He dropped the two test tubes he was holding -- one with a blue liquid and a red liquid in the other. They corroded the floor at his feet. The demon was unaffected. "Uh, uh, wh-what are . . . you . . . doing . . . uh, here?"

"You mean in your secret lab?"

"It's not really a secret lab, it's just -- uh --"

"A monster-making facility?" Cloak supplied.

"Yes!" Demos said quickly before realizing what was said, and turning tact, " I mean no! No!"

"Demos," Cloak said, arms folded. "This is precisely why your lab rights were revoked. You know the mods -- as well as Esty and myself -- look disfavorably at monster-making."

"Cloak, I know it looks bad, but please don't --"

"Report you?" Cloak said. "Sorry, Demos. I cannot turn a blind eye to this."

"Cloak! Please! Please don't!"

Cloak turned his back to Demos, began to walk away. But then he stopped, and spoke to the demon, over his shoulder.

"I gave you the benefit of a doubt when you first crafted this lair," Cloak said. He had Earthsighted it immediately. "And this is what you endeavored to do with that."

He looked onward, before saying regretfully. "I'm sorry, Demos. But something must be done before your monsters wreck havoc."

"They won't!" he protested. "They are all in safe confines!"

Cloak whipped around, slightly offended. "You think me a fool?! I can easily see that broken canister over there! Where is that one, pray tell?"

Silence.

"I thought so."

Then he was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 09, 2013, 01:04:44 AM

Demos is the perfect anti-hero.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2013, 07:49:07 PM

He does, doesn't he? Yes, this'll be a Demos-heavy book -- as if you couldn't already tell.

CHAPTER THREE:
Condemn and Conundrum

"Demos, it has reached our attention that you have been genetically engineering monsters." Richard said.

A tribunal setting had been set up, with the mods behind an elevated table. Cloak and Estelore flanked opposite sides, standing. Estelore held her hands in front of her in a very ladylike fashion, giving off a faint yellow glow in the dim room. Cloak had his arms folded, head bowed slightly, disappointed that Demos forced him to take this action. Unlike Estelore, the darkness caused his cloak to blend in, so he was very nearly invisible.

"My babies are not monsters," Demos protested unconvincingly. "They, uh, wouldn't harm a fly!"

The mods produced a jar with the most minute one ravenously and viciously disemboweling a housefly.

<You were saying?> Esplin replied dryly.

"But . . . but . . . that the only one I, uh," Demos spluttered, clearly looking for a way to weasel out of this. He was not succeeding.

"Demos," Cloak said, flatly. His voice rang out causing the demon to flinch.

"I -- I swear!"

Cloak's eyes narrowed and his gaze grew icy. "Demos, knock it off."

"I -- I'm afraid I don't --"

"Demos, I know that you made over 150 monstrosities!" Cloak snarled. "None of which showed any redeemable qualities."

"Given that," Phoenix said, effectively defusing the situation, "the question remains of what to do with ones that are still caged."

"They are all safely caged and accounted for," Demos said, dropping the pretense.

"Except for the one," Cloak said, shrewdly.

"Except the -- I mean, nothing!" Demos said, clearly still trying to cover things up.

<The conundrum still persists,> Esplin said. <How to confine these monstrocities securely.>

"Don't I get a say in this?" Demos said hostilely.

"No."

It was Richard who spoke.

"No, you're too close to this, Demos. We cannot trust you not to impede or interfere with this."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 10, 2013, 01:26:20 AM

That thing must have extreme dexterity if it could disembowel a fly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2013, 07:49:02 PM

Or of similar size, if not a tad bigger.

And, sorry, but I'm not feeling it right now, so no chapter today. But, I can bring you these:

• BOOK CCXIV: "Since Time Immovable" --Time stops and only a few RAFians are unaffected.
• BOOK CCXV: "The Abusement Park" -- The RAFians are trapped at an amusement park.

Please tell me if any of these seem like a rehash of older books by the simple synopsis-es. It's getting hard for me to remember . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 10, 2013, 11:40:15 PM

No, I went over the list earlier and it doesn't seem that way. The first Bibliophaetos one did start in an amusement park, but that was only part of the story.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2013, 09:27:33 PM

Ah, thanks, Saffa. Hmmm . . . "Saffa the Archiver" . . . too much?

Anyway, I'll post another chapter as soon as I get my notebook. . . . And here we go.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Remaking Fiends

"Demos," Richard said, as the inquisition party adjourned to his secret lab. "These tubes are empty."

"I disposed of them," Demos said flatly.

"He lies," Cloak said, dully, at once.

"Damn Earthsight."

"Language." SuperNate prompted.

"I'm a demon," Demos shrugged. "Cursing is in my nature."

<And the Armani suits?> Esplin said, his hooves clopping echoing in an ominous, eerie way.

"They're silk," Demos said stiffly. "They're a weakness of mine."

"Don't change the subject," Estelore said, parentally. "Where are the creatures?"

"I took care of it already." Demos said.

"You're talking in circles," Cloak said, sensing truth in the demon's vague words.

"Time to be more explicit, Demos." Richard said, heavily. "Or this could be considered grounds for Banning."

"Okay, okay." Demos said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "They're here. I dehydrated and encapsulated them in these balls."

He revealed something out of the pilot of the "Lilo & Stitch". The balls were arranged in stasis in the shape of a double helix.

Cloak's eyes narrowed, "There better be six hundred twenty-five monstrosities in there."

"Huh?" Demos said.

"Never mind."

"Demos, remand the balls capsule to mod custody." Richard said, sounding worn.

"Okay, okay!" Demos said, hands up. He handed over the capsule.

Cloak narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Demos gave into that too easy, with virtually no resistance. He was either more coldhearted or heartless then Cloak knew . . . or he had a contingency plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 11, 2013, 09:39:05 PM

LOL it does seem that way, eh? ;) I'll put up a PDF of the list sometime when I get my Wi-Fi back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2013, 10:55:43 PM

Now if anyone asks if I back up my "Memoirs", I can say I have a person for that. ;) . . . Too conceited?

Anyway. The second chapter, as I didn't post one yesterday.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Mysterious Thief

Cloak's suspicions were right. Demos had returned to the holding place for the capsules. He had gone with standard cat burglary ensemble, though looking rather odd on a demon.

"Don't worry, my babies," he murmured, "I'll have you back."

"Will you, now?" came a voice. Cloak came into view as the moon peeked out from a cloud, removing the shroud of darkness. He was leaning nonchalantly against a wall with his arms folded, an unsurprised look on his face.

"Cloak! You've gotta stop doing that!" Demos said, clutching his chest. "You're gonna give me a heart attack."

"Wouldn't have," Cloak said, standing upright, walking to Demos. His cloak swished rather like a guillotine. "Wouldn't have, if you weren't being dupliciteous, deceitful, and deceiving."

"Cute." Demos said, matching Cloak's demeanor. "What gave me away?"

"You gave in too easy." Cloak said. "Cloak, I have to have them back. They're my babies."

"They're monsters, Demos." Cloak said, emphatically. "Bestial, nonsentient monstrosities who possess no loyalty, no respectability, no affection."

"They're innocent!"

"They're many things, Demos, but 'innocent' isn't one of them."

"They've never hurt anyone," Demos said. "They never had the chance."

"Disregarding how bad the last bit, it doesn't matter, anyway."

"Says who? You?" the demon replied.

"I forgot. You rely solely on your eyes to see." Cloak said evenly.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Go on, then. See for yourself."

Demos did, and Cloak allowed it.

"It's gone!!"

"That's right." Cloak said. "Someone -- or something -- beat us both here."

"Why didn't you do anything?!"

"It was gone before I got here. I had assumed that you took it, had you not shown up twenty minutes later."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 11, 2013, 11:17:27 PM

I've got your back(up). :P

I love the whole "bad is good" thing you've got with Demos. The son of Satan's perspective is indeed interesting. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2013, 06:33:31 AM

Too right, Saffa.

Well, don't expect a chapter until later tonight, after work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 12, 2013, 04:45:06 PM

You're being more consistent on posting than I thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2013, 10:51:25 PM

Right, Underseen. Okay, guys -- just a warning -- I'm tired so chances are there's gonna be a high instance of spelling and/or grammar errors in this chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Monstrous Monologue

It turned out that the true thief was the escaped monstrocity. It had a potato-like body covered in orange fur and orange hair with a leathery face and a wide, flappy mouth. He had two beady, brown eyes. It possessed one frail-looking, pencil-thin arm with equally-thin, claw-tipped fingers and one leg with claw-tipped toes of equal thickness of the arm (it was very odd that such a spindly leg could support the creature's weight). Then a third appendage that doubled as an arm and a leg.

"Calm yourselves, my brethren," said the creature to the orb-like capsule containing Demos's atrocious monstrosities. His voice was similar to that of V. V. Argost. "You'll all be free soon. But, alas, my dear brothers and sisters, I must keep you in your present state. I need to use you fellows for bait. Forgive me, but getting revenge on Master Demosie," -- he said it with such vehemence and bitterness the very air itself seemed to crackle with it -- "revenge for making me so . . . so . . . ugly."

Apparently, this creature had a weakness for theatrics and the dramatic with a certain eclectic flair. He continued to posture and rant in this dank alleyway-like sewer, setting the device down. He really needed a cape to wave around dramatically, but he was essentially as naked as an Andalite.

"And I've the perfect plan, I believe," the creature said. To the casual viewer, it would appear that this creature was unaware that his "siblings" were unable to hear or communicate. None of them had the intelligence higher than a particularly stupid dog and were completely insentient. "All I need is the lure, the bait . . ."

Then he sat and thought about the matter, puzzling until his puzzler was sore. "Somehow, some way, I must let Master Demosie know that it was I who did it. And where to come. And where to lay the bait. This'll take some time to setup, I think, but it has to be the perfect vengence."

He snapped his fingers, making a "clack" sound instead of the normal sound.

"That would be it." the creature smirked, revealing teeth that were each like the backside of a black Numel with moldy "points". "The perfect plan -- all that is left to do is to implement it. But I must be cautious . . . can't afford any mistakes, any missteps, any errors -- it must be perfect. I won't permit anything to taint --"

Apparently, this creature, whatever he was, loved the sound of his own voice or fancied himself an A-list villain. One would have to wonder if this creature didn't actually escape but was instrumented by Demos to appear so . . . simply because of this seemingly inability to shut up, or tell when others want you to shut up.

Talk about a monstrocity.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 13, 2013, 12:08:22 AM

Well. That escalated quickly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2013, 10:45:11 PM

Now it'll plateau a bit. Thid chapter may be short.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Letter

The creature had pondered over how to do this appropriately and fittingly. In the end, he broke into a stationary store by apparently compressing his ribs like a rat to slither under the door. He deftly destroyed the security cameras, and he looked at the stationary. In the end, he settled for a floral print one.

He tore the package open, took only one, replaced it as if he hadn't taken it at all (though it was still obvious that he had). He took a pen and wrote with spiky lettering and blood-red ink. Then he folded it twice, placed in a scarlet envelope. Then it slithered out of the shop.

Come morning, the shopkeeps would wonder what happened, and what took out their cameras. They were having a "Paranoia Files"-type show come out to investigate.

***

Demos was returning to his thread. He was moping. He wanted his babies back -- but hadn't so much as a clue to where they could be. What could he possibly do?

When he entered his thread -- which was decorated in crimsons, scarlets, and shades of black -- he didn't immediately recognize that there was a letter on his wrought iron bed (which looked more like a torture device, frankily) that wasn't there earlier.

Within a moment later, he saw it and snatched it up. He blithely and mindlessly opened the letter, and read it:

"Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Who, what, when, where, and why?
I delight in
What you intend to find
This time.
Find another way to duck and hide
From this Island
Of Screams."

This incoherent mess seemed to mean something to the demon, because he dashed from the thread, the door slamming of its own accord and the letter fluttering down right outside the thread.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 14, 2013, 12:28:29 AM

The Island of Screams. Delightful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2013, 11:07:45 AM

Right. To Demos, anyway.

I would post the chapter -- but I don't have my notes with me at the moment. So, it'll have to wait until after work tonight.  Sorry 'bout that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on November 14, 2013, 12:03:31 PM

X) Awesome. I like the creepy little demon scientist and his monstrosity army. Meanwhile Mr. Potatohead demon is concocting some strange plan for revenge that we know absolutely nothing about. ;}

I'll be following this to see where things go. <.< >.> Ilikedemons. <.< >.>

;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 14, 2013, 12:06:17 PM

What makes it even better is that as a RAFian, Demos is actually one of the good guys... yet not.

Quote from: Shenmue654 on November 14, 2013, 12:03:31 PM

Meanwhile Mr. Potatohead demon is concocting some strange plan for revenge that we know absolutely nothing about. ;}

Reminds me of a Doctor Who line to the Sontarans. "I'm the clever one, you're the potato one!" :D :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2013, 10:37:14 PM

True, Demos is very much in the same boat as Mundungus Fletcher, only not a coward. Being a demon, and all.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Tracking . . . Tracking . . .

Cloak had come to Demos's thread, fearing that he may be planning something stupid and reckless. He had met Underseen and Ash on the way, and they tagged along. But Cloak was startled to Earthsight that Demos's thread was empty.

"He's gone!" the Elements Master declared.

"Where would he go?" Ash asked.

"I have no idea where," Cloak said, "but I know what he would be after."

Ash seemed to understand what the Realm Walker was getting at. "But why would he think the thief would give it up? Give it up at all?"

Underseen spotted something on the ground.

"Demos isn't thinking clearly." Cloak said, urgency in his voice. "He's being rash."

Underseen read the letter that Demos left behind so hastily. "Uh, guys?"

"What d'you have, Underseen?" Ash asked.

"I . . . dunno. I really can't make sense of it. Sumthin' about an island of screams."

"Oh, delightful." Ash said.

"Lemme see that," Cloak said. He read the same near-incomprehensible gibberish as Underseen had. Cloak sniffed.

"Mean anything to you?" Underseen asked.

"Not a word," Cloak said, discarding the letter. He sniffed again, and smelled the fading scent of brimstone and smoldering silk. "But I've got his scent. This way."

***

Demos was deftly making his way through wild country. He was unconcerned with the rips and tears that he was putting into his fine silk suit. Rather uncharacteristic of the demon. But he was obsessively seeking out his "children", refusing to see the inherent maliciousness and instinctive hostility within them.

He didn't care, but he suspected who was behind this -- he was kind of regretting giving it opposible thumbs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 15, 2013, 12:03:11 AM

Guess we have to find the Island of Screams.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2013, 11:08:19 PM

It's not as difficult as you think. Once you have a lead . . .

Anyway, I apologize if any errors appear in this chapter. I am quite tired.

CHAPTER NINE:
Obstacles and Obsessions

"Well, that wasn't too hard," Ash said, as the trio trudged through the thick foliage of the untamed wilds of the Island of Screams.

"Would've been harder," Cloak interjected, "had Demos's trail hadn't been so fresh."

"There's a clearing up ahead." Ash said.

"What's that there?" Underseen pointed.

"It looks like . . . like the . . ." Ash hesitated. She needn't finish. It bore a superficial resemblance to Richard's Horn.

"This may be a stupid question," Underseen said, "but how do we get pass this? I don't see any other way around."

"There's water in the horn," Ash said, as the trio investigated the site. "Perhaps we drink from it?"

Cloak immediately did not like it. He was very particular to the water he drank.

But they couldn't dally long. They couldn't lose the trail.

Ash spluttered, as she tried to empty it in one gulp. It was impossible to do.

"Of course," Cloak said shrewdly. "The horn is linked to all the seas in the world. It is impossible to drain it."

Suddenly, a path was opened when the shapeshifter dropped the horn. The water flooded and managed to dissolve a pathway.

"Well," Underseen said, "that was convenient."

"Hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' Ash replied.

"You know," Cloak said, as the three took the path, "that is a strange phrase, if you really pick it apart."

***

Meanwhile, Demos was continuing in his obsessive quest. He single-mindedly pursued his goal, easily dodging the various traps and things.

"I will have you back," he muttered, clearly unaware that he was speaking aloud. "My precious little poopsies."

He was carefully making his way to the center of the island, maybe a smidgen west.

***

Then the trio was still active in their search for Demos. But they eventually come across an elderly woman, who blocked their path. It was clear that they would have to defeat her to pass.

Cloak took a fighting stance, as did his fellows, but he eventually saw the true futility of such a battle.

"Save your energy," Cloak told the two. "She cannot be defeated."

"She's an old woman!" Underseen protested.

Cloak shook his head, "No . . . no, she's Old Age."

Old Age heard this, smiled, and allowed them to pass.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 15, 2013, 11:40:47 PM

This is a VERY interesting island. Love the whole mythology vibe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2013, 04:31:06 PM

Now you know what I think about when I'm working (when I'm doing things like detrashing or sweeping).

Anyway, what you guys come to this thread for. A chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Conflict of Interests

Demos was still heading, almost mindlessly, to the center of the island. He still muttered about saving his "little poopsies", his "beloved darlings". He cared not for the tattered rags that had once been a luxurious silk suit. He was cautiously approaching the mouth of a cave that looked disturbingly like an actual mouth of a monster.

This continued, until a voice broke him out this trance-like revelry. "There you are!"

Demos was not pleased to see the trio, who trampled the underbrush to reach him. His resolve had not been broken. He knew his babies were close by. He could practically feel them. He still abjectly refused to believe the monstrocities were the horrors that they were.

"What do you want?" he said surlily.

"There's no need need for such a tone," Ash said admonishingly.

"Save your scoldings, Ash!" Demos spat like an angry cobra. "I am not a child. Something has been wrenched from me, something I want returned."

"Demos," Cloak said, unintentionally taking on the tone he would use to scold Shadow when she misbehaved, "if you don't want to be treated as such then don't as rashly as a child."

"Don't lecture me, Realm Walker!" Demos snapped. "Are all Realm Walkers as meddlesome as you?! I will not be denied what's mine!"

Cloak narrowed his eyes, but knew it was only Demos emotions speaking -- his desperation, his determination, his fear of the desire being dashed.

But, before Cloak, Ash, or Underseen could speak, many deminuative creature fell from the trees. They were macrocephalic humanoid in shape, skeletally thin with sharp, bony fingers and toes with heel spur claws. Their eyes were large and almond-shaped, while their skin looked like tree bark that hung loosely from their frame. Their faces . . . well, let's just say they were ugly enough to turn Medusa to stone.

"Uh, excuse me," Cloak said, addressing Demos. Then he balanced on the ball of his left foot, touched his right heel to his left knee, and slammed his fists together. A wall of air formed around the quartet, and then expanded outward, sending the creatures tumbling backward.

Then Cloak stood, as if nothing had happened, and continued as if he had just had to sneeze.

"Sorry, 'bout that," Cloak said, changing tack, "Demos, you cannot be serious. You surely see the danger of --"

Cloak saw the creatures starting to get to there feet and resume their attack.

"Oh, no," Cloak said, conversationally, addressing the creatures, generating an air slash that bowled them over again. "Don't get up."

"Cloak! Demos is heading into the cave!"

"Well, let's follow him," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 16, 2013, 06:38:24 PM

The island is giving off a Percy Jackson vibe... I love it

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2013, 07:06:34 PM

Since I'm feeling extra creative -- and I got to a chapter I was looking forward to writing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
That Thing Has A Name?

The trio followed Demos into the cave, but it wasn't a very long trip. Within the cave, it seemed to be illuminated by an unseen artificial or mystical source.

"What in the world . . ." Ash said with hushed awe.

Underseen spoke hesitantly, "Someone doesn't seem to like you, Demos."

That was putting it mildly. It was like some put up a museum or shrine to Demos, and then deliberately and viciously desecrated it. Topping it off, there was a hideous portrait of what Cloak could only assume was one Demos's monstrous creations. With its potato-like proportions and orange fur.

"Where are you?!" Demos screamed. "Give me back what you had no right to take!"

"I liberated my siblings from your hold," came the voice. "And I shall free them from their spherical prisons."

"Show yourself!" Demos roared savagely.

Suddenly, the figure in the portrait moved as a two-dimensional figure. Then, with amazing fluidity from a two-dimensional image to a being of three dimensions -- the creature leaped off the wall, and out of the empty portrait.

"You . . ." Demos growled.

"The escapee, I take it," Cloak said drily.

"Ah, Demosie," the creature said, his regal voice ill-befitting his hideous body. "We meet face-to-face -- for the last time."

He snapped the fingers on the limb that doubled as an arm or leg.

"It's gonna be a song, isn't it?" Underseen asked rhetorically.

Then the music started up.

"Yep, definitely a song." Underseen sighed in confirmation.

"Hi, hi, hi, to you all.
Who am I?
Just call me Maul.
Who made me
So ugly?
Gotta be Master Demosie.
Oh, you're the Great 'Creator',
And you really rock --"

He seized Demos and slammed him headfirst into the rugged rock wall.

"With your magic talk,
Magic talk."

Maul slammed Demos into the wall twice more before releasing him. But Demos's regenerative abilities healed the damage in a thrice, though the black demon blood lingered.

"But when it came to me
It's plain to see.
You made a monstrosity!"

"Well, duh." Demos muttered, wiping away the black blood. Maul seemed not to notice this remark.

"What am I?
I DON'T KNOW!!
Creepy guy or potato?"

"I'd say both." Underseen said.

"Well, I got news
For you all.
I'm the boss,
Now crawl
For Maul."

He looked at them expectantly as the song ended.

"You don't honestly expect use to do that, do you?" Cloak said scornfully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 17, 2013, 12:53:42 AM

I've heard the chapter name somewhere before, I just can't place where...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2013, 08:01:53 AM

It's a direct quote from Hermione in the "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" film, Saffa.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 17, 2013, 08:24:21 AM

Ahh, yes! Fluffy!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2013, 02:53:50 PM

Yes. Now, I'll try to post another chapter later. I need to rest today in preparation for work tomorrow.

EDIT: New book idea -- though an out-of-continuity one.

• BOOK CCXVI: "An Incredible Story" -- Out-of-continuity. The RAFians are forced into hiding, only to be picked off by robot prototypes controlled by a rival of Richard's.

I know it seems similar to one book because of the premise, but they are different. I hope so anyway.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Tantrums and Transports

Maul continued to wait expectantly, but the quartet had faced far more fearsome foes than this sad, pathetic potato-man.

"Crawl!" he whined. Suddenly, it seemed the regal, lofty demeanor morphed into that of a bratty, spoilt, demanding child. "Do it!"

Ash wore a look that said,Is this guy for real?, while Underseen looked simply perplexed at Maul's sudden change in attitude. Cloak wore a look that clearly conveyed, You cannot be serious, while Demos wore an expression of deepest scorn.

"Do it! Do it! Do it!" he said stamping his foot childishly.

"Tantrums rarely work, you know," Ash said.

"Fine! I'm still the boss here." Maul said, approaching a box and removing something from it.

"That's a child's answer!" Cloak snarled scornfully.

"Well, he is nearly five and a quarter years old," Demos muttered very quietly.

But Cloak heard him, and narrowed his eyes. "We're gonna have words about that later."

"Crawl! Crawl before me peons!" Maul said, with an abrupt return to his Machievellan self.

"I'm sensing some mental instability." Underseen commented in a low voice. Demos glowered at him.

"Do as I say, or I push this button!" Maul threathened, with a grandiose flair. Cloak wondered where Maul's cape was.

"Oooh -- scary." Ash said, unsympathetically sarcastic. Apparently Maul's antics were wearing on her patience.

"Fine. So be it!" Maul said, far too overdramatically.

CLICK!

Cloak felt it before any of the others due to his Earth sympathies. The ground lurched and wobbled.

"What's happening?!" Underseen shouted.

"Isn't obvious?" Cloak said, far more calmly then he felt. "The island is airborne."

"I'm starting to see why its called the Island of Screams." Ash said dryly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 18, 2013, 11:13:31 AM

You mean the thing had been sitting in a cryogenic tube for five and a half years?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2013, 09:53:41 PM

Perhaps. >:D

Remember, his secret lab was found by me, and Earthsight is a relatively new skill -- not to mention we usually have a lot going on -- what, with the Phalanx, the vampiric take over, the Ooze, etcetera, etcetera.

Anyway, I'll try to post another chapter soon. It's Monday, and I'm exhausted.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Holy Lake, RAF Man!

"Surrender your wills to me," Maul said, actually sounding menacing for once. "Surrender, and you may survive."

"So you made the island float. Big deal!" Underseen said.

"We're not just floating. We're heading somewhere," Maul snarled.

"Vegas?" Ash guessed sarcastically.

"No," Maul sneered. "There was a man of the cloth who liked waterskiing so much he decided to bless his favorite lake."

"What does --" Demos snarled before realizing and having all the color drain out of his face.

"That's right, Master Demosie." Maul said. "Death awaits, unless you comply!"

Cloak was hesitant. He didn't mention to whom Death awaited. Surely, Maul knew such a fate would only be lethal to Demos? But Maul, while he can be Machievellian one moment, he could prove to be quite immature and ignorant.

"Time for your compliance is elapsing," Maul said. "Decide. Decide now!"

Ash and Underseen looked at Cloak, clearly hoping for a magic answer or a clever solution, while Demos looked petrified with shock.

"Not to mention my patience is waning!" Maul said.

"Good, sweet Nexus," Cloak swore quietly, "Grow up, Maul!"

"How dare you --"

"Shut up." Cloak said. He radiated power, so his patience had obviously been stretched to the breaking point of tolerance. "I've had just about enough of your posturing. I've grown tired hearing you prattling about trival matters, like mere appearance."

"I'm the boss here! You do --"

"You're not the boss of anything." Cloak cut across him. "Only a child cares about who's the boss. In the grand scheme of things, leaders -- or bosses -- are not the ones who demand to be one, but ones who do not desire it."

"Huh?"

Cloak sighed deeply, attempting to keep himself calm and centered.

"Don't you realize that you'll be dipped into the water, too, right?" Cloak said. "A fall from this height would kill you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 19, 2013, 01:28:02 AM

Badass line back there, Cloak. 8)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2013, 10:28:35 PM

 Thanks, Saffa. I think.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Flight of the Monstrosity

Maul recovered his poise at this observation. He lost none of his immaturity or arrogance however. "No, I won't. I'll watch your destruction from afar."

Then he whipped out a cape and donned it with flair that was really unnecessary and flamboyant.

Cloak held his tongue, and sent a urgent glare to the other three -- a look that said quite clearly, Say nothing! -- in hopes that the message would be clear. Maul had fouled up. He had overlooked a major flaw in this plan.

It is true such a plan would be fatal for Demos. But the other three were unaffected by blessed water. The fall itself, while potentially fatal to Maul, wasn't so for the two shapeshifters and a Master of the Six Elements. It was vital that Maul did not become aware of this fact or he might prove to be more pestilential.

"Yes," Maul gloated, misinterpreting the exchange of looks that had passed between the quartet. "Yes, wallow in despair from your impending doom. Fret about your demise."

Will you just leave already?! Cloak thought savagely. The Realm Walker strongly suspected the monstrocity loved to hear the sound of his own voice. It was very difficult hiding his irritation, but Maul seemed to mistake this for haughty acceptance of a terrible fate.

The temptation for all four to collectively roll their eyes was great.

"Now, I take flight!" Maul said, lifting his cape it the billowing breee from the opening of the cave.

FINALLY. Cloak thought.

"A-doo-doo, chumps!"

Closk supposed that he meant "adieu".

"Well, that's one problem solved," Underseen summed up, "but how are we going to stop this thing?"

"We could just abandon it, and fly away," Demos suggested.

"There are people who live there, Demos."

"And?" Demos asked. He looked slightly perplexed -- ah, demon sensibilities.

"And that would be bad, Demos." Ash said, with biting sarcasm.

Cloak was just glad that the demon seemed to have forgotten about that container of monstrocities. But he knew it would eventually turn up and bite them in the butt sooner or later.

"Point is," he said, "I needed that malignant miscreant gone so that could concentrate."

"Concentrate?" Underseen asked.

Cloak took a deep breath, and said, "I'm gonna try to tap into the power that I'm always afraid to tap. It's much easier to lose control . . ."

Suddenly, just then, Cloak could feel the island begin to plummet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 21, 2013, 02:31:13 AM

PLOT TWIST!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2013, 07:15:10 AM

Not really. I'm not going to exhibit a new power -- just a power level that I'm terrified to tap into.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Crisis Averted

"We're falling!" Demos said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Cloak snapped irritably. It was, after all, because of Demos and his obsession with those Veil-forsaken monstrocities of his that they were even in this mess. But the Realm Walker shrewdly did not bring this up, as the demon had seemingly forgotten about it, what with his life in peril and all. "I am slowing the descent, but only just."

"You can't stop it?" Underseen said.

"Ever try to stop an aircraft carrierer from falling seven hundred feet?" Cloak shot.

Underseen conceded the point.

"Now," Cloak said, the strain started to infiltrate into his voice, "I need to concentrate, to focus my energies."

Cloak closed his eyes, slowed his breathing. He focused his mind to the enormous task at hand.

He had doubts he was sufficiently strong enough to accomplish this task. His grandfather would have completed it in a thrice . . .

He gave his head a quick shake. Such thoughts weren't helpful or productive. He couldn't allow them space in his head right now.

Suddenly, Cloak opened his eyes and they glowed scarlet-gold. But it wasn't the out-of-control suns with tendrils of energy leaking out, but more like the slow burn of a kerosene heater. It was controlled -- but this power . . . it still terrified the Elements Master. It was something he would never willingly revel in.

***

Outside, a huge orb of wind -- a gargantuan Air Scooter -- appeared beneath the island, buoying it up. Slowing its descent to an easy-surviveable speed. The island set down in the large lake, lazing atop like leaves on an unattended pool. Suddenly, the ground beneath the island shot up, firmly attaching the island to the ground.

It was done.

***

"Cloak?" Ash said, concerned.

Cloak took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and then opened them, revealing the normal amber color.

"The island is now anchored here," Cloak said. Then he fell to his knees, exhausted from the effort. But before the others could speak, he said, "Never mind me, go destroy those flight mechanisms. stop this from happening again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2013, 10:26:56 PM

Sorry if there are any errors. Still rather tired. Gonna be a short chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Miffed Maul

The three decided to take Cloak at his word and each sought out the flight mechanisms while Cloak sought to recoup the energy lost. Within three seconds of each other, each of the flight mechanisms went up in a explosive blaze. The island would never fly again.

Watching all this, while he glided like a leaf to the ground, was Maul. The misshapen monstrocity was mighty miffed.

"No!" he snarled as he angrily ripped away his cape. "The plan was perfect! There wasn't one flaw to exploit!"

"It would seem," came a voice from the shadowed wood behind him, "that there was one considerable flaw you failed to consider."

"How dare you speak to me that way?! Who are you, anyway?!" the immature monstrosity demanded.

"All things in good time," the voice answered cryptically. "I'm just a tad curious, though. How will you react to this rather significant setback, hmm?"

"I will kill Demos! Mark my words, I will kill him!" Maul snarled bestially.

"Ah," the voice said, taking a condescending edge. "I see. Vague threats and plans you don't really think through. A simply superb combo."

"Don't speak to me like that!" Maul raged. "Don't you dare speak to me like that!"

"I'll speak to you in any way I please," the voice said in a rather dismissive, bored way. "You'll never achieve that ambition, you know."

"Shut up! You don't know! You don't know anything!"

It's amazing how quickly Maul's regal mannerisms had dissolved into childish bawling.

"I know more than you could even bother to guess at." The voice now had a dangerous lilt to her voice.

"Show yourself coward!" the monstrosity demanded with ringing force.

"Coward, am I?" Malice said, stepping into the light. Ravager padded softly behind her, looking rather larger and strangely bulkier. "Perhaps. But at least I'm honest about it."

Maul was foolishly distainful, "Am I supposed to be impressed, or something?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 23, 2013, 01:48:15 AM

*dramatic background music plays*

She's baaaaack!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2013, 03:48:00 PM

Yep. You knew she wouldn't be away for long, right?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Maul and Malice

Malice only showed the subtlest, most minimal signs of haughtiness, smugness, and condescendation at these foolhardy words of the monstrosity. She lost none of her poise or cunning.

"Whether or not you are impressed with me is immaterial. In the grand scheme of things, it matters very little." she said.

"You talk like that other defiant know-it-all." Maul muttered. "You both think you know more than you do, when you know NOTHING."

Ravager snarled, but Maul -- whether by stupidity or arrogance or some infusion of both -- felt no fear or intimidation from the metal beast.

Malice placed her hand upon Ravager's head, and addressed the beast, "Calm yourself, Ravager, you'll have your pleasings soon enough."

Then she turned to Maul, standing up a little straighter, giving off haughty body language. "You'd do well to not only watch your words, but your tone, monstrosity." Then her eyes took on an intense edge. "You'll find that my kind know vastly more than any mere Dweller."

She practically spat the last word. Maul did not understand the meaning of the term "Dweller" as Malice used it. But he didn't care. He didn't need her help, he didn't need her.

"What do you want?" Maul asked, rather snottily.

"Oh," Malice said, turning back to her more blithe demeanor rather abruptly, "to see if you would be interested in joining my, heh, organization, as it were."

"Why would I possibly be interested in something as stupid as that?" Maul said, mulishly. Then he -- rather stupidly naive -- turned his back to Malice. But she did nothing, and Maul trotted in the direction he saw Demos go.

Ravager growled softly.

"I know," Malice said, conspiratorially, "I was surprised that went as smoothly as it did."

She watched Maul disappear from sight, and she smiled. She knew he would be back -- and she smiled as she examined the capsule that contained all of Demos's other monstrosities.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2013, 06:15:47 PM

Well, now. It looks like its time for a second chapter while my neighbor apparently does his Chimpanzee-With-A-Drum impersonation. ::)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Mauled Demos

"Can I just --"

"Your pushing your luck, Demos." Ash warned.

"I just need to check --"

"It's not there." Cloak said, tonelessly and dully.

"You don't know that for a --" Demos began, before quelling at Cloak's glare. Cloak had Earthsighted the entire island, and the capsule wasn't there. But Demos had apparently remembered what he went there for.

"But it does bring up a rather pertinent question," Underseen said. "What if they were activated? We don't know how many there were in there. Could be like six hundred and twenty-five or something."

"If they're still viable." Demos muttered, very quietly. Cloak eyed him wearily, as the other two did not seem to notice.

"It could just as easily have been destroyed." Ash pointed out.

"When have we ever been so fortunate?" Underseen asked rhetorically.

"Which why we should turn back!" Demos declared.

"No," the Realm Walker interjected moodily, "you should have never made the Veil-forsaken things to begin with."

"Well, I --"

Demos never got to finish the thought. He was tackled from roughly 5 o'clock. He and his assailant rolled a fair distance further along the path. When they separated, Demos stood and his silk suit regenerated into being whole, flawless suit. Only this one was powder blue, which clashed a bit with his scarlet skin.

Demos brushed it off, saying haughtily, "Luckily, I had a spare suit. They aren't easy to come by -- I had to take . . .  well, never mind."

The assailant haunched close the ground in a very visceral, bestial way. It was Maul, but incredibly more filthy.

Maul attacked, but Demos easily repelled it. Thrice more did Maul try, but all were easily repelled by Demos.

"I . . . I will . . . k-kill . . ."

"You think you can kill me?" Demos said, with a callously raucous bark of laughter. "Fool. I purposely designed the monstrosities -- yourself included Maul," he sneered at the monstrosity's chosen name, "I designed them to be incapable of overpowering me."

Something shattered within the monstrosity. But he stammered, "L-lies! It has to be a lie!"

Demos laughed rather cruelly. Cloak scowled at it, but Demos was a demon, so such behavior was in his nature. Didn't mean Cloak had to like it.

"No, Maul," Demos said. "you were designed to be an assistant -- my 'Igor' if you will. You could not accomplish even that! You were a mista--"

"Demos! That is quite enough!" Cloak roared, tiger roar intermingling with his words. Cloak had stomached just about enough, though he still felt thoroughly ill. Cruelty may be natural for a demon, but Demos was a RAFian. Such cruelty was unacceptable.

Demos quelled, and Cloak felt shame for allowing it to go so far. Cloak didn't blame Maul from running off. He gazed after Maul, and felt pity for the creature. He hadn't chosen his lot in life, and he did not deserve it.

"Demos, we obviously need to have a talk," Cloak said, turning and roughly chevvying Demos away.

Underseen looked at Demos, and commented quietly, "And he's supposed to be a good guy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 23, 2013, 08:10:11 PM

Wow, I don't like the way Demos treats Maul.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2013, 08:47:13 PM

Oh, Demos will get told off for it, Underseen. And its gonna come around and bite him in the butt. Anyway, here is the penultimate chapter of this book.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Caveats and Regrets

Maul blustered and ran, trying not to cry. Then he realized one of Demos's cruelties was not giving the monstrosity tear ducts, depriving him the ability to cry. He felt hollowed out, like a candleless jack-o'-lantern.

He ran and ran -- what else do find out that the sole purpose for your creation, for your life, was slavery? That your existence was nothing but a mistake? Kind of makes your sense self-worth go out the window.

"Considered my offer yet?" came the voice, gentle but powerful.

Maul looked up and said nothing. He was at rock-bottom, he had nothing. He almost wished for death than this cruelty of life. Blissful Yveltal over cruel, cruel Xerneas.

"Ah, you recieved some soul-shattering news, I take it?" Malice said, leaning lazily against a tree scratching Ravager's left ear.

Maul looked down, tripped, and laid sprawled on the ground. He tried to cry, but he could not.  He wanted death, he wanted the grim reaper's scythe to taste his blood . . . assuming Demos had denigned to give any!

"Death could be a swift or slow," Malice said, conversationally, examining her glove. "I see your pain upon your . . . your disfigurement."

Now he gets to be mocked! Wasn't it bad enough Death is continually standing him up? Wasn't it bad enough that his existence was pointless? Now he had to be here, in the mud, and mocked?

"There is another option you know." Malice said, conspiratorily. "You don't have to endure this pain. You can give your own existence purpose. That's for you to decide."

Maul, distraught and disillusioned, looked up at Malice. He dare not hope for such a thing.

"I can recreate you. I can give you power." Malice said. "But do not think of betraying me. I had someone try that and I dealt with him the same way that I will with you, should you choose treachery over loyalty."

Maul hesitated for only a second, before he said, "I will do what you ask of me. I pledge my loyalty."

"You had better be sure," Malice standing, and walking toward Maul. "There is no backing out."

This time, there was no hesitation.

"I understand. And I accept those terms."

***

"You were completely out of line!" Cloak roared.

"I am a demon!" Demos countered, albeit less loudly. "It is my nature."

"That does not mean that it is right!" Cloak countered. "There was no need to take it that far! I understand cruelty is one of the most basic instincts of demons, Demos. But you crossed the line today, and I was under the impression you were workingnto curb those tendacies."

Demos sighed, showing legitimate remorse. "Look, I know. I know it was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself."

Then he looked up, "Of all people, you should know what it's like."

That took Cloak off-guard. That was a feat in and of itself -- Cloak was always so guarded.

"Cloak, I know about your struggles to keep your powers under control," Demos said, earnestly. "You know you're not the only one with such a struggle to reconcile? Granted, mine isn't as extreme as yours, but it does not lessen it's legitimacy."

Cloak waited a couple of beats.

"You had better not be trying to play me, Demos." Cloak warned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2013, 11:23:30 PM

Well, Saffa, does this make up for missing -- whatever it was that you missed?

Last chapter of Book #50.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Reminisce and Remade

After the Demos debacle, Cloak retired to his thread. He was irresistably reminded of his first days in RAF . . . of finding people like himself, although different species. . . .

Cloak reminisced in song about his first days, first weeks, as a RAFian.

Whatever you do, I'll do it too.
Show me everything, tell me how.
It all means something,
Yet nothing to me.
I can see there's so much to learn.
It's all so close and yet so far.
I see myself as she sees me.
Oh, I knew that there was something
More out here!

Then the chorus sounded.

I wanna know! Can you show me?
I wanna know about these
People like me.
Tell me more, please show me!
Something's familiar with these
People like me?

Then another verse.

Ooo, these emotions I never knew
Of some other realm far beyond that place.
Beyond the "me, me, mes", above the bows.

The chorus sounded twice more. Cloak sighed. It has been a long five years, half a Nexus year. So much has happened within that time frame.

***

Malice was in full mad scientist mode. She was glancing upwards. She pulled a long lever, which lowered a table.

"Don't fret, my little Ravager," she said affectionally. "He survived the process."

The table turned to an angle revealing the creature looked nothing like Maul. He had four limbs -- two arms, two legs. His arm resembled the photographic negative of a Chesnaught. He possessed a shield on his back similar to BlackWarGreymon, only completely blank. His legs and torso resembled a cross between Zero and Mega Man. His head was encapsulated in a helmet like Samus's from "Metroid". A groan emitted from the bulky creature.

"See, little Ravager," Malice smiled, "he lives."

"Wha . . ." said the creature woozily. "Did it work, Milady?"

"Yes," Malice said. "You're so much more than Maul now."

Malice stood with her hands behind her back.

"So, rise, my minion." Malice announced withnringing tones. "Arise, Mega Maul!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2013, 01:38:05 AM

It certainly did - jeez, you shouldn't have. :-] Wow, those last chapters were really strong. Love the character defilement.

Not sure if that's Mega-Maul or Frankenmaul.

EDIT: And here's the PDF!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2013, 09:37:28 AM

Character defilement? Saffa, you make it sound so . . . dirty.

BOOK LI:
THE ERISED ORBS
CHAPTER ONE:
New Toys, Old Wounds

Parker was wrestling with what appeared to be an oily individual, whose mask slipped revealling him to be an Akrennian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_A.E.#Cast) wearing an "MIB"-standard human suit. Parker knew there was a black market for such disguises.

"Stop resisting, Akrennian!" Parker snarled as he handcuffed and subdued the alien. "You're under arrest for Panunsian trafficking."

This had become somewhat of a problem. Panunsians were being captured and exported to the animal black market. From there, they either functioned as guard dogs (even though they weren't remotely canine), but mostly they were sold for so-called canned "hunting" -- that is shooting an animal in a cage, and acting as it that is some big accomplishment. It is a despicable, deplorable act. It doesn't help that Panunsians are quite rare or that they have a corporeal fission ability like their Splixson prey.

Turns out that this Akrennian was planning to use this to force a Splixson family to do his bidding as his slaves. Only he hadn't expected Parker to have catch him smuggling in the illegal animal. . . . Which escaped and Saffa, Noelle, and Abby were forced to find.

It split into three to take the morphers by surprise. The three had to acquire the Panunsians to calm them down -- as well as add a powerful morph to their arsenal.

Eventually, they managed to relocate the Panunsian to a reserve. The Akrennian was dealt with severely.

***

Cloak was clinging to the side of a sheer cliff, unable to get up, and certain oblivion below. He dug his claws into the side of the rocky cliff, sliding slightly downward.

In his panic, Cloak noticed a figure in the darkness. He realized that he . . . he recognized her.

"Ursa!" he cried out, sliding down a fraction of an inch. He swallowed, then pleaded, "Mother! Help me!"

She hesitated for a moment, remaining in the shadows. Then she launched herself forward, digging her ursine claws into the flesh of Cloak's hands. Cloak let out a roar of pain.

Then she said coldly, "Long live the RAFian."

Cloak's eyes widened. His own mother said those words, and he suddenly knew what would happen. She pulled her hands from the rock, pulling Cloak's hands, his claws, free. Then she withdrew her claws from his hands . . . and Cloak fell. Down, down, down . . .

This jerked Cloak awake, sitting up. He felt hollow as he usually did after the dream.

This was not the first time he's had it. And he knew the meaning of it full well.

When he needed help, his mother would never acquiesce assistance. He had to do it on his own -- yet she would claim credit if anything good came of it, though she deserved none.

Cloak kicked his feet over the edge of his bed. He put his head in his hands. He had thought he had moved past this. Why was his mind constantly dwelling on such unhappy things? Why couldn't he reconcile his past?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2013, 10:20:21 AM

LOL. You know what I mean. Besides, that's what makes the story. Now if only someone would inform a certain Steven Moffat of that fact...

Anyway, I went back to the list and saw which one was next, and ooh, I'm excited. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2013, 02:21:52 PM

Ah, well, look up (or down as the case may be). The first chapter's in my last post.

Sleepy right now, I will try to post another chapter later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2013, 02:28:56 PM

Oh.

I hate it when the edit thing doesn't mark the thread as "new".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2013, 03:42:33 PM

That's why I have my sig.

'Kay. See if I've enough energy to post another chapter. I may have spent it all last night on those last four chapters.

CHAPTER TWO:
Dangerous Discoveries

Malice, Ravager, and Mega Maul were in an ancient part of the Nexus known as the Forest of the Forgotten. No one dared go into that cursed place, for the tales rumored that if one goes in, they will never leave.

Malice dismissed these stories and myths and legends as old wives' tales. Ravager and Mega Man were ignorant of them, but they did not raise any objection.

"Forward," was Malice's constant refrain. Her pet and her bodyguard were silent, and blindly trudged through the dense wood with her.

"Stop! Go no further," Malice said. The two complied without the slightest hesitation. But Mega Maul could completely hide his curiosity -- which amused Malice, but even she herself did not understand the emotion she felt. She decided to ignore it.

"The items we seek must be nearby." Malice said, with a crisp, clipped, business-like tone. "This is the deepest, darkest part of the Forest of the Forgotten."

Then they peered pass the trees that looked irresistibly like lifeless Trevenants.

"Yes," Malice said, apparently seeing something that the other two could not. "That must be the carcass of the last Black Mercy* plant."

Then Malice used her energy to encapsulate several orbs in an energy sphere. She pulled them to her, but did not touch them.

"The seeds of the Black Mercy," she said, relishing the moment. "The fabled Erised Orbs."

***

Cloak sat on a stumpy boulder that had a flat top. There he tried to meditate, to reconcile the feelings of betrayal, and lovelessness he felt.

He could not just continue to dwell on his bad fortune in early life -- born of an alcoholic and a narcissist. Of all the verbal and emotional abuse he had suffered at the hands of his mother -- someone he was supposed to be able to trust unconditionally.

No, Faith had always fulfilled the role of confidente, his grandfather as mentor, his aunt and friends as advisers and guides.

It was not like his life was without positives. His elements training with his late grandfather . . . becoming a RAFian . . .and most of all, possibly the most positive experience of his life -- when Shadow came forth from her Life-Light Egg.

Then he saw sudden movement, and soon all was black. . . .

---
*You might see where this is going from this clue -- if you're a Justice League Unlimited expert.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 24, 2013, 07:19:36 PM

Leaving us on a cliff at the end of this chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2013, 10:39:15 AM

You mean cliffhanger, right, Underseen?

Hmmm. . . . Unless I'm mistaken there are more "Memoir" books then there are Super Bowls -- 50 > 48. Meh.

Remember, a "~" means the chapter is unfinished, incomplete.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Senseless, Confusing World

He was in the Nexus. He had no memory of ever leaving. Nothing was as it should be, but Cloak himself remained oblivious to it.

In this new world, there were realms, but they were more like vacation spots. No unscripted dangers or troubles.

Cloak's parents were together and supportive. His father was not brutish, and never overindulged in the drink. His mother was caring and selfless, able to put aside her own desires to allow her children to grow into who they were. He was able to get along with Dagger, without any sense of competition.

Only Faith and Shadow and his beloved aunt remained unchanged.

It was a secret desire of his, and everything felt artificial, but he chose to ignore it. He could delude himself into believing that it was real.

He found himself falling in love with a serval-form Realm Walker named Athena, after spending several weeks with her. Then he berated himself for it.

"If there's a price for rotten judgement,
I guess I already paid that.
No woman is worth the aggravation.
That's ancient history.
Been there. Done that."

Then came a chorus from which Cloak himself could not see. They sounded like Horse, Fairie, Underseen, Saffa, and Abby, though.

"Who do ya think you're kidding?
She's the earth and heaven to ya.
Try to keep it hidden.
Honey, we can see right through ya!"

Cloak sang, "Oh no!" as the chorus continued.

"You can't conceal it,
We know how you're feeling.
Who you're thinking off."

Cloak continued.

"Oh! No chance! No way!
I won't say it. No, no!"

"You swoon, you sigh.
Why deny it?
Uh oh!"

"It's too cliche.
I won't say I'm in love!
I thought my heart had learned its lesson.
It's so hard to start out.
My head is screaming, 'Get a grip, Cloak!
Unless your willing to rip your heart out.'

Oh-oh!"

"When ya gonna face it like a grown-up?
When ya gonna own up
That you got, got, got it bad?"

"Oh, no chance! No way!
I won't say it. No, no!"

"Give up! Give in!
Check the grin, you're in love!"

"This scene won't play.
I won't say that i'm in love!
You're way off base!
I won't say it!
GET OFF MY CASE!
I won't say it!"

"Boy, don't be proud,
It's okay.
You're in love!"

"Oh, at least out loud,
I won't say I'm in love . . . "

Cloak sighed, and pictured Athena. Unaware that she was doing the same.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 25, 2013, 11:06:55 AM

Oh, boy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2013, 09:39:32 PM

I'm not sure if it was clear, but she was picturing me, and I was picturing her.

Still tired for work and there's terrible weather in the forecast tomorrow. *sigh*

CHAPTER FOUR:
He's In Love

As Athena and Cloak became closer, this couldn't help but be noticed by others. His sisters easily took notice.

"Who?" Dagger asked her elder sister.

"I'm talking about Cloak, that's who." Faith replied, in such a way that recalled Shadow.

"What about him?"

"He sure is acting fishy lately. Spinning in circles, chasing his tail."

"That boy is up to his hood in sumthin," Dagger agreed.

Then the obligatory music began.

"He's dizzy and he's dreamy."

"Polishing all that chrome."

"Eyes gone all bleary,
It's like there's no one home!"

Then sung together in a duet.

"He floats away for days,
Gazing at the coastal shelf."

Then Faith sang:

"You ask him where he's goin',
He blushes like a fool."

"He never has time to duel."

"It's more than just a phase!"

"Face it, he's just not himself!"

"Is he ill or insane?"

"Is it water on the brain?"

Then they sung together:

"What has got him bothered so?"

Then they brainstormed:

"It's the bends?"

"It's the flu?"

"I wish we had a clue."

Then they snapped their fingers.

"Oh, wait! Oh, dear!
Good grief! It's clear!
He's in love!
He's in love!
He's in love!
He's in love!
Glory be!
One of us!
Gotta be!
He's in love!"

Then Shadow came up, after some sport she was playing ended with her team the victors.

"Hey, Shadow," Faith said, "do you know anything weird with your uncle?"

"Oh, you mean Uncle Cloaky? I'll say!"

"He acts like he doesn't see me*.
Doesn't even speak.
He treats me like shashmi
Leftover from last week.*
You see him late at night,
Tossing in his ample bed.
He's going out on a limb.
He's oblivious as rocks.
You walk right up and tap him,
He lays there like a lox!
As sure as the doggish bite,
Somethin' made him lose his head!
And he sighs and he swoons,
And he's humming little tunes."

Then Cloak's sisters sang:

"Even has a sorta glow!"

"Itsnotreal . . ."

"What in the Nexus could it be?"

Then Cloak's sisters sang:

"Anyone can see.
That sigh, that mope, that swoon --"

"Oh, no!

He's in love!
He's in love!
He's in love!
He's in love!
See him blush,
See him grin.
Got to be love he's in!
Uncle and someone,
Sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
It's clear as H₂O!"

"You know I can hear you, right?" Cloak said, poking his head into the room.

"Itsnotreal . . ."

"Huh?" Cloak looked confused, but no one else seemed to hear it. Or care.

---
*This should be a clue that not all is as it seems.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 26, 2013, 01:43:07 AM

Avoiding Shadow?

Sounds more like the orbs are creating a world of Malice's desire rather than yours.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2013, 10:00:44 PM

Oh, there is a subtle reason for that, I think.

Anyway, sorry about the lack of chapters today. My head is killing me. Damn weather. If I feel up to it I'll post a chapter, but don't count on it tonight.

EDIT:

CHAPTER FIVE:
A New Life

A few years passed in the Nexus, Athena eventually became an exclusive item. Then Cloak proposed in the usual Realm Walker fashion, by presenting a bouquet of his energy -- scarlet flowers in gold wrappings. She accepted, and they were married soon after.

There were instances that reality seemed to vibrate and quake, unnoticed by all except Cloak. So he ignored them, though it was getting harder, but no one drew any attention when he had such episodes.

Roughly six Nexusian months passed, and the Realm Walker couple had produced a single Life-Light Egg. It would eventually hatch -- much like Pokemon "hatch" from eggs in the anime -- and the toddling new Realm Walker's form will be known.

The new parents gathered around their unhatched child, due to hatch any time now, and sang:

"Don't be afraid,
It'll be aright.
You'll just take our hands,
And hold 'em tight.
No matter where we are,
We will be with you.
Just think of us,
Don't you cry.
'Coz you'll be in our heart.
Yes, you'll be in our heart.
Now and forevermore.
You'll be in our heart.
You'll be here in our heart.
You'll be here in our heart.
Always . . ."

Cloak intoned quietly, "Always . . ."

The Life-Light Egg "hatched" with a brilliant gold and white light into a male Walker, with the form of a mischievous little housecat. He had black fur coat with a white underbelly and white hands and feet.

Cloak was happy. He had a family all his own -- some he desired all . . . all his life.

That's when another reality tremor came, but this time the words that usually accompanied such a tremor was perfectly audible -- though Cloak had a hard time discerning to whom the distorted voice belonged.

"It's not real."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2013, 10:08:34 AM

Just one more before work.

CHAPTER SIX:
Cracks in the Facade

The young soon took the name of Mischief, which denoted the boy's mischievousness, but in a benign way.

Cloak proved himself to be a model father -- he kept his temper even, allowed his boy a say in the household goings-on, allowed him to make him his own decisions and allowed him handle his problems on his own and on his own terms. But remained as his father, his advisor. Things that, in another life, his mother deprived him of.

However, the reality tremors persisted still. Only the voice was clearer, though the voice still was distorted enough to stop any identifying factors from getting through. They were becoming so obviously present, that they couldn't be ignored.

But Cloak was inclined to try.

"It's not real," the voice insisted.

That voice isn't real, Cloak told himself, as he tried to shirk it.

"It's a lie," the voice intoned.

My life is not a lie. It is worthwhile, fulfilling . . . Cloak argued.

"What you're seeing," the voice said nonsensically.

That doesn't even make sense.

"It isn't reality," the voice insisted, warbling and oscillating as if going in and out of focus.

What the Veil? Of course this was reality.

From there on, the voice was garbled and Cloak couldn't make sense of it. But the reality quakes seemed to have intensified, but he seemed to be only one to notice.

"Husband, are you alright?" Athena asked, genuinely concerned.

"I'm . . ." Cloak began. He was going to say "fine", but that really wasn't true was it? "I'm gonna make an appointment with a therapist in the morning."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 27, 2013, 11:06:47 AM

Oh my God. This reminds me of the Doctor Who episode Human Nature. And that made me cry... although I'm a masochist for sad stuff. I can't wait to see where this goes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2013, 10:15:47 PM

Well, it will be a bit of an emotional book at the beginning.

Anyway, I've come up with a new book idea.

• Book CCXVII: "In Essence" -- The RAFians are confronted with a foe that they haven't met yet, fleeing another foe.

Sorry for ther uber-vagueness of that book, but if I was any clearer, I'd have given it away.

Really short chapter. Sorry.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Cloak never made it to therapist. The reality quakes had ended quite abruptly, but were replaced with something more disturbing. People were flickering in a strange way.

Some flickered and vanished completely, returning later in a flickering fit and acting as if nothing had happened. Mischief and Athena were like this.

The ones that did not vanish . . . well, it was just as disturbing. If not more so.

His mother went from being selfless, warm, gentle, and motherly to being narcissistic, cold, harsh, and miserly between flickering fits. His father went from being strong, fatherly, and sober to being beaten down, distant, and habitually drunk. His grandfather went from being alive to being dead.

Very disturbing.

But still Cloak refused to believe that what he desired so fervently . . . so arduously . . . so futility . . .

No. It couldn't all be fake! All that he had now! He had . . . had everything he ever wanted. A wife . . . a child . . . a family. Parents who loved him unconditionally. His beloved grandfather was still alive. He was accepted for who and what he was.

No! They all couldn't be cruel, cruel, cruel lies!

The flickering was starting to get maddening. Not to mention disorienting to look at straight on.

"No . . . please . . ." Cloak pleaded. "It has to be real."

"But it isn't," came the voice again. But, in the state that he was in, Cloak did not recognize the familar voice. At all. He did not realize who it was . . .

Cloak unwilling to believe it, shouted, "No! Lies! Lies! This is real! I'm free of . . . of . . ."

He ran. He ran and ran and ran . . . but try as much as he cannot run from the truth, he cannot hide from it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2013, 12:12:35 AM

Last chapter before bed.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
All I Ever Wanted

As Cloak ran, he sang in voice-over.

Gleaming in the landscape light,
Cool and clean, and all I've ever known.
All I ever wanted . . .

Cloak could smell the divine scents of home. See the homestead in the distance.

Sweet perfumes of incense.
Graceful rooms of Nexus stone.
All I ever wanted . . .

Cloak came to the homestead he had with Athena and Mischief. He felt safe here.

This is my home.
Without a family torn asunder,
Oh, so noble, so strong!

Cloak entered the empty house. It was rather ominous. His voice-over tone turned somber.

Now I am home.
Here amongst my trappings and belongings,
I belong.

Then his voice-over tone turned challenging.

And if anyone doubts it,
They couldn't be more wrong!
I'm a sovereign Master of the Six Elements,
A son of the proud history shown
Etched on ev'ry wall!

Then his voice-over turned pensive and unsure.

Surely, this is all I ever wanted.
All I ever wanted . . .
All I ever . . . wanted . . .

A beat after the song ended, the illusion failed, with the sound of shattering crystal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 28, 2013, 01:10:36 AM

Oh no...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on November 28, 2013, 01:51:04 AM

*Hugs Cloak tightly*

This seems a powerfully emotional set of chapters. And that makes them inherently interesting. Hope the past doesn't come back to bite you too often. :}

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2013, 01:21:24 PM

Well, I'm still feeling rather emotional (see Totally Random Thoughts), so here's another chapter.

Might be a bit short.

CHAPTER NINE:
Reality Bites

Cloak looked at his surroundings, his environment, in dismay. Everything looked darker, more muted, and grittier. It felt harsher, more unforgiving. Is this what people felt when prolonged exposure to Psychopteran's power ends abruptly?

The pains of a non-idyllic world, a less-than-ideal universe were strenuous to readapt to. Cloak remembered now. He was the son of a monster and battered man. He himself used to be a battered man. Such painful memories . . . such a painful childhood . . . it was almost if the pain was fresh and new. Cloak did not know if he could stand it.

Then Cloak thought of what he had, what he had lost. He had no children. He had no wife.

He lamented this. He should have known that it was too good to be true.

He heard it before he saw it. Writhing of something upon dry leaves. He looked and he saw with disgust an eyeless, octopus-like plant thing with ink-like tendrils and a hard, black shell on its back like a soccer ball that had been cut along its equator.

"A fabled Erised orb," Cloak said, vouce hoarse. "Half-germinated into a Black Mercy parasite plant."

Cloak stood and blasted the thing into oblivion. He felt a rage well up inside him. They may be inventions of his heart and the Black Mercy sapling, but they were real to him.

Suddenly, there was an explosion and a plume of sand to his right. Cloak glared hard. Malice appeared from it, looking distracted and alone. She also apeared to be running.

Cloak's face contorted into fury. She was behind this, he knew. He unconsciously decided to forgo using the elements.

He charged toward her, allowing a roar to leave his lips within mere seconds of impact. He seized her by her neck.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" Cloak snarled, tiger growls and snarls intermingling with his words. "What you've cost me?!"

Malice laughed. Cloak was surprised and livid at her gall. "I gave you what you most desired. Freeing yourself must have been like tearing off your own arm."

She gave another wheezy laugh. Cloak's fury had not abated.

"'Tearing off your arm'," he echoed, uncharacteristicall y bloodthirsty and vicious. "What a marvelous suggestion!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 28, 2013, 02:28:20 PM

*catches breath*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2013, 10:01:19 AM

Sorry about not posting another chapter yesterday. I was more tired than I thought.

Anyway, beware the beginning of this chapter is gonna get dark . . .

CHAPTER TEN:
An Unanticipated Surprise

"That's a little dark for you," Malice said cheekily, clearly not believing Cloak would follow through with it.

Then Cloak seized her wrist with his free hand. His face was lined and contorted with rage. He had lost control of himself, but somehow managed to keep the elements in check.

"Y-you wouldn't dare!" Malice claimed, somewhat hysterically.

Cloak spoke in a soft, hateful voice, "Oh, wouldn't I?"

He applied pressure to the arm by pulling slowly. She's caused him so much pain . . . so much pain . . .

Deep down, he knew what he was doing was not justified, but just a rationalization. However, he was possessed by his own rage, his own pain. He . . . he just couldn't stop himself.

"You're supposed to be a good guy!" Malice blubbered.

Cloak said nothing, but increased the strength of the pulling ever so slightly.

Then the unexpected happened.

"No!"

A smaller hand laid itself upon his arm. It cause a surge like electricity flow through him.

"No," said the hand's owner. "This isn't you."

He he dropped Malice (who did not waste any time in hastely Walking away), having completely forgotten about her and the false reality concocted by the obliterated Black Mercy sapling.

He gaped at the owner of that hand, realizing that the voice attempting to jar him from that false reality was not that of his grandfather, as it would have been normally. But the figure standing before him.

Cloak was in shock. He daren't believe. He was so such that she was turned against him, that she had hated him for crimes that he did not commit as claimed by a control freak.

And here she stood. Right before him, without any hatred or anger. But looking as she always had, only stronger.

"Sh-shadow?"

"Yes, Uncle."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 29, 2013, 10:05:13 AM

*squeaky noises*

OH!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2013, 03:01:17 PM

Right. I was gonna post another chapter, but my energy just left me . . . but I'll give it a shot.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Spread

"Yes, Uncle," Shadow said, wry smile playing around her face. "'S me. But enough about that now, I left behind some mechanical dog thing and some mishmashed, misshapen Frankenstein thing --"

"Ravager and Maul," Cloak said, at once, in an abrupt return to his normal, seemingly emotionless and detached demeanor. "Malice has probably already collected them, and went off somewhere to scheme."

"Ah, so you've met them before," Shadow said. "And their Malice's new minions? What happened to Abomination?"

"I'll tell you later." Cloak said. Then he looked at the spot where he had obliterated the Black Mercy. He had a strange notion.

"I take it Maul was that weird mishmashed thing?" Shadow said. "When I fought hom he called himself Mega-Maul."

That pulled Cloak from his thoughts momentarily, thinking Shadow had said "mega mall" for an instant. "So, clearly, Malice had altered him. Hos capabilities most certainly will have changed, then."

After a moment's hesitation, Shadow asked. "What was that thing attached to you, Uncle?"

"An Erised orb," Cloak said. "Seeds of a Black Mercy."

"What's a Black Mercy?"

"An ancient peril," Cloak explained. "A plant who produces parasitic seeds that, when attached to a host, form an augmented reality -- an illusion so complete, so real, that all memories of the true reality begin to fade. The seeds use this to germinate, feeding on the feelings of elation, hope. It can cause the host to waste away."

"That's awful," Shadow said, as the two walked towatd RAF.

"Yes," Cloak said. "In those most ancient times, when our kind was on the cusp of sentience -- that is to say, capable of complex thought -- they preyed upon us. Long before the realms, long before first Element Master could master a single element, they were wiped out. Much like the Galvins and their predators, the Omnivoracious."

"But Malice found one seed," Shadow added. "The one attached to you."

Cloak shook his head, as they crossed the threshold into the sheltered area of RAF, "There never was just one Orb. Perhaps it was the only one viable."

Then they saw the scene. There was at least eleven RAFians sporting Black Mercy saplings on their chests.

"Alas, no such luck." Cloak replied gravely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 29, 2013, 04:10:27 PM

Well, I know where the Erised reference comes from. And I know what I would see if I looked in that mirror...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2013, 11:24:50 PM

Yes, and well, you have an Erised orb on you as well.

Might be a bit short.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Tied Hands

"What about the others?" Shadow asked as the two Realm Walkers dashed into RAF. There was just the eleven, strewn about.

"Not here," Cloak said, as he examined Saffa, Underseen, and Abby (who ironically was not supposed to be here because of some school event or whatever). "It was fortunate Malice chose her strike when she did. Most of the other RAFians are on missions, and the rest are on holiday."

"Missions?"

"Yeah, RAF has become the facility that regulates alien tourism as well as alien and supernatural crimes -- anything the ordinary law enforcement cannot easily cope with." Cloak said, looking over Aquilai, Goom, Yarin, and Gaz. "These Black Mercy saplings have already taken hold."

"Same over here," Shadow replied, examining Shenmue, Ash, Richard, and Noelle. "What do we do?"

Cloak sighed, "The Black Mercy saplings have taken hold, so we can't remove them."

"I know that," Shadow said, thoughtfully, "I tried to remove it from you physically."

Well, that explained the reality quakes.

"Could we destroy them?" Shadow said, with an air of trying to solve a conundrum. "Would that free them?"

Cloak shook his head. "No. That would be unwise with the saplings so intertwined with them. To destroy them --"

Lemme guess, to destroy the saplings would be to kill the RAFians?" Shadow said, heavily.

"I'm afraid so," Cloak said, looking at his friends with a forlorn look. "I don't know what we could do. They'll just have to snap themselves out of it."

"Is that possible?"Shadow said.

"'Possible' does not mean 'likely'." Cloak said, with a heavy sigh. "The augmented reality is so . . . so desireable that convincing yourself that it is not real, or not what you truly want . . . not easy. Especially if you really want to believe it is real."

"So that's it? We do nothing?"

"It's all we can do," Cloak said, "at least . . . for now."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on November 30, 2013, 03:23:10 AM

Quote from: Saffa on November 29, 2013, 04:10:27 PM

Well, I know where the Erised reference comes from. And I know what I would see if I looked in that mirror...

It feels like ages since I read that book. I should reread the series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 30, 2013, 03:44:31 AM

For some reason I keep reading the first book a million times. :D I should take it back with me when I come after the holidays.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 30, 2013, 04:04:11 PM

Right, now back to the book . . . uh . . . what chapter were we on? Oh, right.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Connecting . . . Connecting . . .

The two Realm Walkers looked on helplessly. Their capacity to free the others was pretty nil, but neither really enjoyed how little they could do.

They had already swept the entire forum, and flushed out the inert orbs. They easily destroyed them, but they were still helpless to help the others.

"We can't just sit here and do nothing!" Shadow roared, pacing agitatedly.

Cloak was standing moodily. "Shadow, we can't do anything without the risk of killing them."

"We have to risk something," Shadow countered, "otherwise they're dead either way."

Cloak noted Shadow's observation, and she was right. It was a question of dying slowly or quickly.

"Maybe there is a way," Cloak said, eyes widening with realization. "A way to get through."

"How?"

"When I was in the -- the augmented reality." Cloak said, voice breaking a bit, "I could hear you calling out to me."

"Really? I thought that that wasn't working," she replied.

"I . . ." Cloak said, turning away from her, and saying quietly, "I tried to ignore it."

"What?"

Cloak looked down, and closed his eyes. "The fake reality . . . it was so much what I wanted. All I ever desired. I didn't want to believe it was nothing but lies."

Shadow hesitated before asking, "What did you see?"

Cloak said nothing, but he opened his eyes and looked away from Shadow. It was clear he was ashamed and afraid to admit what he saw. Besides, ir was a rather personal question.

"Uncle . . . ?

"So," Cloak said, approaching Yarin. "Were you making tactile contact when you spoke, or just shouted at it?"

"Hint taken." Shadow said. "What I did was --"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 30, 2013, 04:14:53 PM

Cliffhanger chapter!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 01, 2013, 03:21:02 PM

Not really. And I know the book's pace seemed to slow down a great deal. But vear with me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Mark of Progress

"Ugh," Cloak saud, irritably, "this is going to slowly."

"Patience, Uncle." Shadow offered.

"I know, but we haven't the luxury of being patient." Cloak said. "The Black Mercy might take millenia for their hosts to drain away. And th-- . . . those were Walkers."

Cloak hated saying things like that. Even if they were true, it sounded just plain speciesist, when he was an egalitarian at heart.

"But it did not always last that long. Sometimes it was weeks. The fact that they managed to stay reasonably well in tact this long . . ."

Shadow understood, and changed tact. "But we're doing the same thing that I did with you."

She was passing her hand over the hard, bone-like shell on the Black Mercy saplings, attempting to connect to Gaz. It wasn't working all that well.

"But we have a connection," Cloak thought aloud. "As uncle and neice, teacher and pupil."

Then he looked a his hand and saw his Mark embazoned there in blue. The Mark that blazed to life when they -- the RAFians --stood united. It seemed odd to picture a time where the Mark had not been a fixture in RAF.

"What is it, Uncle?"

Cloak was pleased with how quick on the uptake she was. He couldn't help but swell a little with pride at this.

"It'll probably be easier for me to get through to them," Cloak said, rather bluntly. "Via my Mark."

"Oh. Okay."

Cloak moved to place his Mark on the Black Mercy shell on Yarin. But before he could execute this plan, he stopped abruptly. He had Earthsighted something.

"Gateburst! What are they doing here?!" Cloak snarled. "How'd they find us again?"

"Who?" Shadow said. Then she Earthsighted the nuisance herself. "Oh."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 01, 2013, 03:27:44 PM

"They" being... the sidekicks, I'm guessing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 01, 2013, 03:59:25 PM

Ravager and Mega-Maul? No.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Unwelcomed Squatters

"How'd they find us? I moved the forum," Cloak grumbled.

"What's that that they're singing?" Shadow asked.

"This is quite the place"

"Full of grinning, trollish, Banned faces.
Hangin' out!"

"Feelin' fine!
Where everyone is a friend of mine!"

Cloak then Earthsighted Yorick gesturing grandly.

"Every Banned and troll gets to the point.
This day will live in infamy!
This blasted forum is history!"

Then they all, Banned and trolls laughed evilly. They were using the RAFians momentary incapacitation to squat in RAF!!!

Queen, Aloth, and Yorick sung:

"It's our forum now! It's our forum now!
It's a fact that you can't ignore.
Shut the windows, lock the doors!
It's our forum now!
Raise your mugs,
You trolls, Banned, and thugs.
Join the rabble-rousing crowd!
It's our forum now!"

Queen purred:

"All the coolest cats fit in so perfectly.
All evil Queens get due respect!"

"Love your work," a troll commented. He's backhanded by Queen. She continued:

"You'll firget your troubles, put your trust in me.
You had your fun, you've made your play."

All assembled elated:

"But every RAFian has his day!"

Then the trolls sang:

"It's our forum now! Down and dirty!
It's our forum now, me hearty!
What a place for breaking bread! --"

Cloak revealed himself in a very dramatic way, only being partially illuminated.

"You've had your fun." he said, voice of determined calm. "Now get the Veil out."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 02, 2013, 11:02:14 AM

I'm gonna try to sneak another chapter in before work.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Notions and Beatdowns

"This is our forum now!" Queen snarled. "We took it from you losers fair and square!"

"'Fair and square'? The forum was virtually abandoned." Shadow said. Then she turned to her uncle. "Do we really have time for this? The others . . ."

"We cannot allow the Banned and trolls to squat here." Cloak said. Then he looked at his Mark, and a spark of an idea came to him.

"I know that look," Shadow said. "You have an idea."

"Notion, really," Cloak said, urgency in his voice. "Look, go to look after the others. If I'm right, all should be alright."

"And if you're wrong . . . ?"

Cloak didn't answer -- which was an answer in and of itself -- and he was about to address Queen, when he realized that she was in the middle of a viciously boring monologue.

"Are you done?" Cloak said, positively unimpressed.

"How dare you take --"

"Blah, blah, blah," Cloak saiud as Shadow took off to look after the others. "Get the Veil out of here. Or . . . you'll regret it."

"You don't to me in such a disrespectful way, boy!"

"'Boy'?" Cloak said, conversationally. "Queen, I'm at least a hundred and fifty of your years older than you."

Cloak strode forward, closing the distancem ignoring hisses and heckling of the trolls. "Queen, I will tell you again. Leave our home, leave RAF. You are no longer welcome here."

"You don't get to decide that!"

"I didn't." Cloak said. He was surprised that not a blow had flown yet. But he could feelt his Mark glowing blue. The Unity Energy was reaching the others, he was sure. "The mods did. But you didn't like that did you?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." she said.

"Why else endeavor so hard to either take or destroy RAF?" Cloak asked rhetorically. "Because you wanted revenge for us turning you away. For not doing exactly what you wanted." Cloak said tonelessly. "But now I tell you for the last time. Get. Out."

"Or else what?" she snarled.

Cloak snapped his fingers. The earth acted like a catapult, sending the Banned and their small contingent of trolls back to the Bannedlands.

Cloak turned, began to walk back to the others, saying, "I did warn you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 03, 2013, 07:25:38 AM

Whoa. Calm down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 03, 2013, 09:19:45 AM

:eyebrow: :huh: Huh?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on December 03, 2013, 06:03:48 PM

Finally got caught up again!  Great work, as always.  Loved the RAFian fairy tales especially.  :)

Just out of curiosity, will we get to see any of the other RAFians' fantasies?  I think it would be rather interesting to see what their 'perfect worlds' would look like.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 03, 2013, 09:56:42 PM

Nope -- sorry, Dino. I only know what mine would be. But even those worlds weren't really "perfect", you know.

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Dangerous Decisions

Cloak was disappointed that the confrontation with the Banned had not whipped up enough Unity Energy to break the spell, the illusions of the perfect worlds the RAFians were enjoying. Cloak had no idea just what the worlds contained, but he knew the dangers. Fortunately, his RAFians friends were strong. Weaker beings would have withered and wasted away by now.

"There's no notable improvement," Shadow said, without even looking up from Saffa. "They're weakening."

"Gateburst," Cloak cursed lightly. "The notion failed. There's only one alternative now. I'll try to infuse my energy into my Mark and translated it into Unity Energy."

Shadow tore her gaze from the RAFians and gave her uncle a look that clearly said that she thought he took leave of his senses.

"It could work," Cloak said.

"And it could kill you." Shadow countered. "You could expend all of your energy during it."

"There isn't another option available to us." Cloak said.

"Uncle, you're being rash! They wouldn't want you to sacrifice yourself like that."

"Shadow, time is of the essence! We don't really have time to quibble --"

"Recall the other RAFians!" Shadow proclaimed. "Recall them! Then you'll have enough Unity Energy to break --"

The saplings undulated in a most unnerving fashion.

"We have to make haste then," Cloak said. Then he quickly went to communications and sent the message:

"Return to the forum. Repeat, return to the forum. Assistance required. Code: . . . Paradise Lost. Repeat: Return to the forum A-S-A-P."

The Cloak returned to the others, and saw the same unnerving undulation. His gut was sending him an urgent message, telling him to get a move on.

"Shadow," Cloak said, deadly serious, "time has nearly run out. I have to do something."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2013, 12:07:20 AM

Just one more chapter before bed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Extrication and Extermination

"Do what, exactly?" came a voice. "And what are those clingy things on Gaz and 'em?"

"Cerulean! You got the message?"

"Of course I did," he said genially.

"That was fast," Shadow commented.

"'Fast' is kinda my schtick." the speedster commented. "Now, what's going on?"

"Explanations later," Cloak said. "Unity Pulse the saplings pn their chests."

"Alrighty then," Cerulean said. The two tried to pick off the saplings -- but two was not enough. But they managed to slow the eleven's weakening.

"Not enough, not enough!" Cloak complained quietly.

"Perhaps we can change that then!" Dino said, with a triumphant roar.

More and more RAFians began to return, adding their share of Unity Energy to the others. Eventually, the "perfect worlds" the afflected RAFians enjoyed shattered.

They awoke, each with a overtly theatrical gasp and looked around. The Black Mercy saplings were dead, withered husks. They disintergrated into black ash, then nothingness.

"It's over!" Shadow cheered.

"Yes," Cloak said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He wasn't so quick to give into celebration.

"What's wrong?" his neice inquired.

"The Black Mercy doesn't exist naturally in the realms," Cloak said.

Shadow nodded, seeing where he was headed with this. "Which means someone brought them here."

"Yes," Cloak said. "But that's not what really disturbs me."

"Then, what?"

"The Black Mercy is supposed to be extinct." Cloak said. "Yet, here were both seeds and saplings. And there's little doubt that Malice was behind there dispersal here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 04, 2013, 04:02:58 AM

Two more chapters left - are we getting a confrontation?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2013, 06:53:22 AM

Nope. Windin' down. And the next book will be outside the normal continuity.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
An Explanation is in Order

". . . and they require rest," Kelly was saying to Cloak in a fussy manner akin to Madam Pomfrey. "I'm sorry, but I can't permit anyone -- even you -- to rile them --"

"Kelky, they deserve to know what happened to them. No one can do that better than me right now." Cloak said, sidestepping her and entering the infirmary.

***

"So . . . none of it was real? None of it?" Underseen said.

"That is correct," Cloak said. "The Black Mercy pulls out your deepest desires, your most desperate ones, and fabricates a world based off it. There would be inconsistencies, of course."

"But where'd they come from?" Gaz asked pointedly.

Cloak stood up from the stool on which he sat so broodingly.

"The Black Mercy evolved, like many predators, after its prey had already existed. You Realm Dwellers are borne of matter, Realm Walkers are and were borne of energy. Parallax and its brethren were borne from emotion."

"And the Black Mercy?" Abby prompted.

"I do not know for sure," Cloak said, "but many believe they were borne from thought itself."

"Deep." Saffa commented. "Why didn't you tell us about these things before."

"Simple. I didn't see a reason to. They're weren't a threat."

"Weren't a -- what do you mean they weren't a threat!" Gaz exclaimed.

"Calm down, Gaz. I meant that they weren't. They were supposed to be extinct."

"Extinct?" Yarin asked.

"Yes, long before me, before my grandfather. Before Avatar, the first Master of the Six Elements."

Saffa blinked. "Then there's no way you could ever expected this to happen."

"And I didn't." Cloak confessed. "And it scares me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 04, 2013, 11:19:17 AM

Saw the appearance of this new chapter only thanks to your sig... Why do I get a feeling incidents of this book will influence further ones? Aside from Shadow's return, of course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2013, 09:29:53 PM

Maybe subtly, but don't worry about the Black Mercy, it's now truly extinct. Unless I change my mind . . . >:D

And that's why my sig is the way it is. I used it whenever I posted a new song adaptation.

Now, tomorrow, don't expect chapters until late. Meeting about job benefits in the morning, Creative Writing, then work. Oy.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Reflections on Desires

Cloak was alone in his thread. He had bid Shadow a fond farewell as she returned to the Nexus and her parents.

Parents . . . Cloak closed his eyes as he reflected upon this. His parents . . . he was an orphan. Unwanted by his mother, unknown by his father.

He bowed his head as he placed his left hand on the cloak fabric-lined wall.

He took a deep sigh as his thoughts drifted back . . . back . . .

***

Cloak was in his mother's miserable shack again. He had just awoken.

Seven AM, the usual lineup.
Start the chores and sweep 'til the floor's all clean.
Polish, wax, do laundry, mop, and shine up.
Sweep again, and by then it's only 7:15!
So, I'll read a book,
Or maybe fifty-three.
I'll add a few new stories to my gallery.
Must not get in a snit.
I'll cook and basically . . .
Just wonder when my life will begin?

Then, after lunch, it's cleaning galore, and baking --
More day? I could do with less.
The garbage needs taking,
Then I'll squirm, maybe writhe.
Deeply sigh, under such duress.
And I'll reread the books.
But I haven't time to spare.
I'll scrub the walls some more.
Probably missed a spot somewhere.
Still stuck in the same place I've always been.

I just keep wonderin' and wonderin'
And wonderin' and wonderin'
When I my life begin?

And there they are.
The realm lights right there.
It's not really fair.
What is it like
Out there where they glow?
Now that I'm older . . .
Maybe Mom might just . . .
Let me go. . . .

She, of course, forbade it. So Cloak went anyway. He became a RAFian, much to his mother's distaste and chagrin.

***

He did not know why his thoughts always drifted back to that place. He did not know why he did this to himself.

He sighed deeply, opened his eyes, and sat on his bed. His tail hung lifelessly on his right, danging slightly over the bed.

Time to face facts. He clearly was not meant to get married, to have children of his own.

What Walker woman would have him, anyway? He was carrying tons of emotional baggage, he was broken. Sure, he was mending himself slowly, but not quickly enough.

Besides, his name was a joke in the Nexus by now. The Realm Walker who prefers the company of Realm Dwellers to their "own kind".

He would just have to come to terms with it one way or another.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 05, 2013, 02:58:46 AM

I sang it. :D And you never know, maybe life will give you a plot twist of its own. :)

Also, PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2013, 09:44:24 PM

Right, currently planning the chapters of Book CCXVII ("In Essence") -- it's gonna be one of those books that write itself. And two more book ideas!

• Book CCXVIII: "Curses!" -- The RAFians fend off an arai infestation.
• Book CCXIX: "The Mutagen Menace!" -- A mutagen gun wrecks havoc.

Don't think I've rehashed anything. At this point, it's easy to do.

BOOK LII:
RAFIANS ALIVE!
Chapter One:
Openings

A little boy named Preston
Found out a secret this year.
He was once head mod
When RAFians ruled the world.

Now, a sorceress named Queen Scarab
Tries to get him day and night
But Preston has four guardians
To protect his very life.

He has the RAFians.
(From 2013AD.)
He has the RAFians.
(To protect the new Richie)
He has the RAFians.
(By Jetson Bay.)
He has the RAFians.
(Protectors of the world today.)

He has the RAFians.
(From 2013AD.)
He has the RAFians.
(To protect the new Richie.)
He has the RAFians.
(By Jetson Bay.)
He has the RAFians.
(Protectors of the world today.)
(RAFian Way.)
(RAFians alive!)

***

The world was very different now. Being 7013AD would do that. It was a world that was a perfect fusion of "Jetsons" and future "Ben 10".

A boy, twelve, with distinct locks of hair protruding below his hairline. His name was Preston. Preston Colins. He was riding a hoverbike -- a norm for the time.

Little did he realize what fate had in store for him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 05, 2013, 10:18:15 PM

No, you haven't. And I just realized who the arai are... Oh my, yes. Have you read House of Hades yet?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2013, 10:40:22 PM

Going through my first reread now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 05, 2013, 11:47:22 PM

Oh, just noticed the new chapter. Are we dealing with future RAFians here, then? :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2013, 09:39:25 PM

Future RAFians, you say? (Psst. The song adaptation has all the clues. Granted, they're still vague.)

CHAPTER TWO:
Familiarity

Preston headed over to the Museum of National History, racing a friend on a hoverboard. They were twelve-year-old boys, and they were at the point of their lives where they were showoffs. They were trying to outdo each other with tricks on their respective hover vehicles.

It was all good fun, the joys of youth.

Anyway, the proceeded toward the tiered steps that lead to the building composed of ancient architecture. Once inside, they toned down the horseplay considerably, and began to to attend to the reason that they came -- a history report on the 21^st century.

"I still don't get why we need to know about those bodunk times." Preston's friend, Billy Cassacyd, said.

"Best to know the past," Preston said, "to prevent the mistakes of the past from recurring."

"Geez, you got serious all of a sudden."

Preston blinked. He realized that Billy was right. Preston decided he should loosen up and stop being uptight.

Then they came to the Hall of the RAFians. There was a tour going on --

"-- Soon after the Black Mercy debacle, the RAFians manage to capture and slay the evil goddess of malice." she said.

"Wait . . . she wasn't a goddess . . . Malice . . . was her . . . name," Preston murmured.

"And you know better than the tour guide?" Billy teased.

"But . . ." Preston said, uncertainly, as the tour guide continued, "Then after the twelve gods merged into one --"

"C'mon, 'Ton," Billy said. "Let's get this thing done."

But Preston was still unnerved. He felt that he knew for a fact that Malice wasn't a goddess, but didn't know why.

"Lookie here," Billy said, pointing to the nearest exhibit. "'Hieroglyph of the Head Mod of RAF -- Head Mod Richard.' Look at this, Preston."

Preston was looking at a book written in a strange script, it was translated on the placard -- "Memoirs of a RAF"*. "Huh?"

"Take a look at this Richard guy," Billy insisted. "He kinda looks like you."

"You think so?"

Preston looked at the artifact for so long, Billy eventually had to leave. Preston did not know the draw . . . but he reached out as if to touch it . . .

---
*Yes, I namedropped the title of the series. So sue me. ;-)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 06, 2013, 11:33:07 PM

This book is breaking the fourth wall somehow. ;) "Twelve gods merged into one"? Wait, I've heard that reference to another book...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on December 07, 2013, 10:58:12 AM

Oooh, it's already getting interesting.

*thinks about how cool it would be to see a museum exhibit about RAF*  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on December 07, 2013, 02:23:28 PM

I'm horrified. o__O

Someone else actually enjoyed watching Mummies Alive. XD It's like my weird 90's past of bad Saturday morning shows come back to haunt me.

My young mind remembers this one as being pretty badass, so it'll be interesting to see Cloak riff on it. (Especially since it was probably awful. xD )

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2013, 04:14:38 PM

It really wasn't, Shenmue. But, sadly, it was mostly dismissed as a "Gargoyles" clone. Pretty much a similar situation as "Street Sharks" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".

Might be a bit short.

CHAPTER THREE:
Encounters

Preston quickly withdrew his hand. What was he doing? There was probably a rule against touching the exhibits. But still his gaze was drawn to the exhibit. There was a . . . a familiarity to it. But that was ridiculous. How can anything from five thousand years ago be familiar? The thought was utterly ludicrous.

And yet . . .

Preston forced himself to look away, only to find yet another exhibit to ensnare his interest.

They were four oblong, egg-shaped stone structures. They were at least nine feet long, two feet diameter. According to the placard, the RAFologists were unsure of their function or true significance. One theory believed them to be ancient altars to pagan gods, but this was contested by a myriad of other theories, some really quite farfetched.

"They're all wrong . . ." Preston said. Then he gazed over to the stone structures, looking at them intently. "They're . . . they're . . ."

Preston's eyebrows knit together as he tried to penetrate why doctorate-holding RAFologists were wrong. But he did not seem to be aloud that information, and it gave him a headache the more he tried.

"Ow," Preston said, massaging his temples. Then he shot a look towards the stone structures. A small pulsating light was emanating from within the things. There were vague silhouettes of --

"Excuse me, young man," came a voice. Female. "But the museum is about to close. You will need to vacate the premises."

Preston turned, and saw the Revonnahgander curator wearing what appeared to be a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Next to her stood a woman in a dress rather like Delphox fur, only cobalt blue with gold trim. This woman was human, and wore her hair in elaborate curls.

"Oh, Bruk Lar," the human woman chided good-naturedly, " what damage could one preteen do to a museum?"

"Sorry, Director, but the rules clearly state --"

"I'll keep an eye on him, then." she said. "Don't worry, I'll call his parents to come and get him."

Preston felt a chill race through him when he noticed the womans genial demeanor did not reach her hungry eyes.

"As you wish," the Revonnahgander said, having noticed nothing out of the ordinary in the director, "Director."

Then she left, and Preston was sure that this woman, this director had less than pure motives for him. The woman did not speak until the Revonnahgander left, but she eyed the boy hungrily.

"Ah . . . you tense up. You remember, don't you?" she said. Her voice had abandoned the pretense of geniality, but became a snarl with a hard-edge. "Don't you . . . Richard?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2013, 08:58:02 PM

Okay, gonna go ahead and post another chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Backstory

"I . . . I don't . . ." Preston spluttered, "I'm not Richard!"

The museum director, Director Scarab, laughed mercilessly and mirthlessly. The sound was chilling. Preston backed away a few paces.

"Still resisting the knowledge, the memories, I see." she said. She laughed that hoarse, humorless laugh again. "Still trying to protect your reincarnation. Richard is dormant within you, Preston."

Then Director Scarab changed. No, literally changed. Her dress vanished and she now had a body similar to a shiny Greninja, a scarab-like head with a human mouth whose skin was chalk white -- as it from a corpse or mummy.

"Oh," Preston whimpered.

She laughed again. She said, her voice more breathy now, as if betraying her age. "Oh, yes. That's right. You resist knowing just how I got this way."

She took a step forward, and Preston scrambled backward, falling onto his backside. This illicted another laugh, and Preston caught a whiff of it. A Muk was more fragrant.

"Shall I tell you?" she mused menacingly. "Oh, yes, indeed, I think I shall."

Preston scrambled backward -- but there was nowhere further back that he could scrabble back to.

"I was once human," she began breathlessly. "Similar to you, but far superior. Yet, I was changed when your precious RAFians -- yes, boy, your RAFians, what did you think the "R" in "RAF" came from? "Royal"? Honestly!"

She gave a wheezy laugh, and Preston wondered if this awful monstrocity was nothing more than a disguise intended to terrify him. But, it was indeed queen Scarab's true forum.

"But I was weak then," she said, she was waxing nostalgic now. "I had no vision beyond halfhearted attemprs to retake the forum. But then one day, the day that that malicious, hostile interdimensional alien was killed -- her name was Malice, I believe -- suddenly things became clearer to me."

Preston was terrified, he was only twelve after all. He scanned the area for any exit strategy, but could not come up with one.

"I do not know what caused it," Queen Scarab continued monologuing. "But I knew it allowed me with the idea to drain your power, Richard."

Preston didn't bother to protest.

"Aloth and Yorick thought it was too risky. They had to go." she said. Then she seized Preston round the neck as he tried to slip by her to escape, and said, "How rude! I wasn't done with my story!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 07, 2013, 11:27:48 PM

I love reading this in their voices. Well, at least what I think their voices would be. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2013, 12:16:38 AM

Yes. And I still have a faint hope of someone doing a graphic novel on this series, but that would take someone who could draw well. That's certainly not me.

And I would post another chapter . . . if I wasn't so tired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2013, 01:44:42 AM

Me neither. I can barely draw a head and a body standing stiff straight like they're singing the national anthem. :P Which is a pity, because Memoirs graphic novels would be awesome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2013, 08:18:09 PM

THIS PIECE OF **** DECIDED TO STOP WORKING AND I LOST THE DAMN CHAPTER.

:edit: *composes self* Er, sorry 'bout that. I'll try to get up two chapters to compensate. And yes, Saffa, it would.

CHAPTER FIVE:
They Live!

"Please . . ." Preston whimpered, "don't kill me."

"Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves, boy!" Queen Scarab said, inappropriately jovial. "I will have to drain you first!"

"I keep telling you," Preston said, before breathing became more difficult.

But Queen Scarab dropping him when the glow built up in the four egg-like stone pods to a bright flash, demanding in a hiss, "What the deuce?!"

Then, with a sound of Mega Stone activation and Mega Evolution, four figures burst from the pods with mighty roars. Preston took the opportunity to back up to the wall.

The first figure came out of the light was wearing a heavy-looking, ornate, black cloak, with his luminous, feline eyes glowed from beneath the hood. He radiated power, but he stood stoically, glowering at Queen Scarab. It was as if he knew her. Preston recieved a stabbing headache, and muttered, "Cloak." But he had no idea why, but it was evidently this character's name, if a bit an obvious one.

The second figure stepped from the light, but possessed no clothing. He had light gray skin, six glittering eyes, a thin frame, a small mouth, four thin arms, and two thin legs. He blinked all six eyes blearily, as if he just awoke from a long nap. With another stabbing headache, Preston muttered some nonsense word, "Y-yar . . . rin . . ."

Then the third person stepped forward, and his form looked unstable. As if he slept for so long that he forgot how many fingers he was supposed to have, how long his arms and legs were supposed to be, and things of that nature. Preston was finding these stabbing headaches rather annoying. "Un-der-see-n . . ."

The final person stepped from the dissipating light was a human girl with rather serioua bedhead. But she made it work, somehow.

"D'aah!" Preston said as he clutched his head. "Ssssaaaahhhh . . . ffffffa. . . ."

But none of these names meant anything to him.

"You!" Queen Scarab said scathingly.

"You were expecting Percy Jackson and the Olympians?" Cloak said rhetorically.

"It makes little difference, RAFians!" Queen Scarab said, savagely.  "You didn't stop me last time, you won't now!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 09, 2013, 11:33:32 PM

Now, the second chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Standoff

"Just try us," Saffa said, already growing to Tyrannopede stature and form. It wasn't much room for such a morph though, and Saffa seemed to reconsider this.

"You four failures failed your duty before," Queen Scarab said, hands lighting up with energy.

Cloak narrowed his eyes at this. The energy was Realm Walker, and easily recognized as such by another Walker. But the bichromatics, the physiology, of the energy was essentially Realm Walker fingerprints, Realm Walker "DNA", all rolled-up into one. And Cloak recognized this energy.

"Oh, I see what happened now." Cloak said. "Queen Scarab, I know you're secret."

"Do ya now?" she sneered, tossing a ball of energy which Cloak batted aside, without really thinking about it.

"Hey! Watch it!" Saffa snarled, momentarily human again.

"You're not Queen," Cloak said, addressing Queen Scarab, "not truly, not anymore."

"If that's not Queen, then who is it?" Underseen asked, his form stablizing, settling.

"Malice?" Yarin guessed.

"Yes," Cloak said, folding up his arms imperiously. "And no."

"Well," Saffa said, sardonically, morphing Psycholepteran, "that clears that up."

"My point is," Cloak said, looking deathly serious, "when I slayed Malice, clearly Queen unintentionally and unknowingly absorbed Malice's deux ex machina."

"Malice's what?"

"Malice's powers, shadows of Malice's personality, most if not all of her knowledge, all unified into one singularity, one energy orb." Cloak said.

Little did the five notice Preston inching to the exit. He prayed to continue to be unnoticed.

"So, Malice's ghost possessed Queen."

"Except I am Queen." Queen Scarab. "Or at least, I was. I am far beyond what I was five centuries ago."

"A deux ex machina contains no mind, no will of its own." Cloak lectured. "Although it is clear that it twisted Queen into this twisted malformed monstrocity before us"

Preston managed to slip out the door. Unnoticed, in fact.

Queen Scarab got angry, shouting, "STOP TALKING!!"

Then the clash began.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 09, 2013, 11:40:17 PM

I love these standalone books

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 10, 2013, 01:40:17 AM

Especially the out-of-continuity ones. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2013, 10:28:43 PM

Glad you like it. I'll try to get a chapter up -- but do note, I am quite tired, so forgive the spelling and grammatical errors.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Overwhelmed

Saffa, as a Psycholeopteran, attempted to mesmerize Queen Scarab, but was smacked away. She promptly demorphed, deciding that this morph wasn't the one to use.

Yarin telekinetically threw several artifacts at Quuen Scarab, but she possessed irritatingly superhuman agility. Yarin also found some sort of cloud or foggy barrier that shielded the majority of her thoughts from him. All he got were the vaguest, nonsensical words in a disjointed, confusing manner.

Underseen tried the form of what can only be called an ultimate Panuncian. But Queen Scarab easily dodged his attacks, and Underseen quickly reconsidered this form. He hadn't much maneuverability in this rather cramped, self-contained space. Underseen simply stayed in his human form, unsure of which form to use in such a space. He can mimic their shape but not their powers or non-physiological attributes.

Cloak was the only one who had yet to attack. Cloak realized something rather important.

"Guys! Careful!" he shouted. "Limit the collateral damage!"

"There is more important --" Saffa began to argue.

"The building is not grounded!" Cloak cut across her. "We're hovering in the air!"

"Fools!" Queen Scarab laughed scornfully "It is 7013AD! You have no idea how things have changed, or how much power I've gained in the intervening time!"

***

It couldn't be true. Preston thought as he rode away on his hover bike. It can't be true.

He was just twelve! Yet they keep telling him that he knew he was not! He couldn't be the new incarnation or reincarnation of Richard! That was ludicrous! Laughable!

He had no special powers like that monster asserted. He was a regular kid with a mother, father, and a cat on the husky side. To think, earlier his only concern was with some stupid school project. He missed that.

"I never should have gone to the museum," he muttered. He felt like he was bearing the weight of the sky on his back.

It wasn't fair.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 10, 2013, 10:33:52 PM

Oh that's okay, I didn't actually find any errors - and even if there are I always correct them in the PDFs. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 11, 2013, 09:55:50 PM

How do you know when you really into this? When you dream of Saffa making PDFs and seeing the post in the dream. :facepalm: :laugh:

Anyway -- I have more book ideas. I think I left off at #219.

• Book CCXX: "Brain Drain Pain" -- The RAFians must deal with the Brain Nudger.
• Book CCXXI: "Scare Bears" -- The RAFians must fend off teddy bears whose animatronic endostructures have been infiltrated by the Legion Virus.
• Book CCXXII: "Brain Sponge" -- The RAFians must face a vampire that feeds, not on blood, but intellect and knowledge.

I hope I haven't rehashed anything. I am currently planning the chapters of Book CCXX, #220.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Power and Truths

"Mom! I'm home!" Preston said, entering the dark house, that lit up upon his presence. "Sorry, I'm late!"

He looked at the clock. He was way pass curfew, but yet his mother was not waiting up for him -- his dad was away, on business. This was quite unusual and atypical for her. Preston had expected to hear the riot act and be grounded.

Although, compared to what happened at the museum, that would be a minor inconvenience. Preston shook his head violently. That wasn't his problem.

"Mom?" he called out.

No answer.

"Mom, where are you?"

He was starting to get really worried and concerned. If not downright panicky and hysterical.

"Mom?! Mom, if you're here, answer me!"

No answer.

Surely those hysterics would have roused the most heavily-sleeping parent. Surely that would have made his mother come running. Preston expected her to, hoped she would.

No one came. There was no sign of struggle or murder. It was as if she simply never existed.

But that was impossible. If she didn't exist, then how could he exist?

***

Queen summoned her familiar, Sir Penns. He was one of Ssserpent (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Ssserpent)'s species, but unique in the fact that he could transform into a trident.

With this new lackey-slash-weapon, she steadily overpowered and overwhelmed the RAFians, as Cloak was expending most of his power just keeping the museum in one piece.

"At what point did we lose control here?" Saffa gasped.

"When that snake showed up, obviously." Yarin said drily.

"How're you holding up, Cloak?" Underseen asked.

Cloak said nothing, but glared at him.

"Ooookay, message received." Underseen.

"Any thoughts?" Saffa asked.

"Just one," Yarin said. Then he detailed his idea.

Then all four shouted, "By the power of RAF!"

All their colorations became cobalt blue with gold. Cloak looked like a gold knight with a cobalt blue cape. Yarin appeared to have gained paladin armor. Saffa and Underseen also gained armor, but theirs were more mercurial.

Queen Scarab was unimpressed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 12, 2013, 12:05:56 AM

Damn, I would love to be able to draw this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 12, 2013, 11:08:44 AM

I would love for someone to do that, Saffa.

Anyway -- new book idea:

• Book CCXXIII: "R-E-L-A-P-S-E" -- The Mutates relapse monstrously.

Who or what are the Mutates?  :-X You know I can't tell you.  >:D

CHAPTER NINE:
Vanishings and Strangers

"Stand down," Cloak said, low enough not to warrant the attention of the Revannohgander curator.

"Just because you go through a costume change, I'm supposed to be intimidated?" Queen sneered. "I'm not some lowly villain-of-the day from 'Power Rangers', fools! This will make little difference!"

"Then have at you!" Yarin declared verily.

The clash continued before Queen Scarab realized the real reason she was here. She glanced around, barely managing to keep her defense up -- when donning the armor, the Guardian RAFians' powers evolved. Saffa could morph directly to another form, without having to revert to her base form. Underseen found himself able to mimic the abilities of thw forms he mimicked. Yarin's telepathic and telekinetic ability were seriously Omega level. Cloak was the only one who showed no boost in power -- for he felt he was already powerful enough, he did not need more power. Did not earn such power.

"Drat," Queen Scarab cursed. "The brat has abandoned the museum."

"You still have us to contend with," Yarin warned.

"A minor inconvenience," Queen Scarab said, extricating three black, marble-sized balls from her garment. Then she smashed them to the ground, as she said, "Solved easily enough!"

"No!" Cloak shouted, sending a crescent of wind out, clearing the smoke easily. She was gone.

"Gateburst!" Cloak snarled, as their armor faded away as the energy to sustain them was now insufficient.

***

Preston saw a light coming from the sitting room, reserved for special occasions. He was hopeful.

"Mom?" he said in a small, quiet voice. But he saw a strange woman that at the same time familiar. She wore sa sunny sundress with a wide-brim hat with fancy gloves. She was sipping what appeared to be sun tea.

"Sorry, m'boy," she said in a lyrical, melodious sort of voice. "But no."

"Who are you?" Preston said, without preamble.

The woman was not offended, but appeared slightly disappointed.

"You still resist the truth, Richard?"

"Not this again!" he erupted. "I am not Richard! I'm not! My name is Preston, not Richard!"

The strange lady just sipped her tea serenely for a moment, then said, "Resist it all you want, but the fact of the matter is, Preston, you are Richard."

She sipped her tea again, emptying her cup.

"Or, at least, more to the point, you are what's left of him." she said placing her cup and saucer upon the table beside the chintzy, comfortable chair.

"I . . . I don't understand."

"Yes," the stranger nodded. "That's why I'm here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 13, 2013, 12:29:30 AM

Ahh, so that's why you took the little Predators and Ultimates poll. ;)

Queen's escape trick reminded me somehow of Persephone's pearls.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 13, 2013, 01:47:37 AM

I didn't post in that thread because Cloak is more creative than me. At decision made for my character is good if it's made by him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on December 13, 2013, 07:28:55 AM

So... I'm popping in to say hi. And I was getting a list of all the books you have planned and totally just realized something:

Book CCIII: "Abby Gets Everlost" -- Abby is changed after an involuntary trip to a strange "zone".

I totally just figured out what this "zone" is. I can't believe I didn't see it before... *facepalm*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2013, 07:33:06 AM

The plant thing that Rachel turned into in that last book with David or a Polymorph's natural predator would do, I think, Underseen.

And Saffa, it was actually for another book. ;)

LOL, Abby.

CHAPTER TEN:
Unwanted Revelations

"You should remember everything in time," the stranger said. "But, quite unfortunately, time is one luxury we cannot afford."

A stabbing pain ripped through Preston's brain. "You're . . . you're . . . Est . . . te . . . lore. . . ."

Then pain subsided.

"Very good," Esty said genially. "But you wouldn't suffer so much pain if you weren't desperately clinging to the Preston identity."

"I am Preston!"

"Then what's your surname?"

That a ridiculous question. It was . . . it was . . . uh . . . what was it?

"I admit illusion wasn't perfect, but Broken crafted it as best as his resources would allow." Estelore explained, regretfully. "But this Preston identity was created in an attempt to protect you from Queen Scarab until you were strong enough defend yourself."

"So," Preston saidscornfully, "what you're saying is everything I know to be true is a lie?"

"What other twelve-year-old do you know that speaks with such deliberation?"

"I'm not the only one who speaks like this!"

"True, perhaps I made a generalization." Esty said, thoughtfully. "Yes, being centuries-old would do that to you."

Preston held head, face grimaced with pain. "You . . . star, living star."

"I prefer 'sentient' star, actually," Esty said, partaking in a pastry from a plate Preston hadn't seen. "All stars live, but very few can think the simplest thoughts, let alone the complicated, higher thinking my kind possess."

Preston stood up again, looking thoroughly rumpled. "I just want to be a normal kid."

"Yet you were never an average joe," Esty countered. "Five thousand years ago, during a battle Queen Scarab -- her fusion with Malice's thingumajig had caused her normally benign darkness to flare into full-blown malevolent evil. Anyway, she managed to get close enough to siphon some of your being, your substance. The Mark was outside her reach."

"M-Mark," Preston said.

"If you'd just stop resisting, the pain would cease," Estelore said in a maternal sort if way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2013, 04:44:30 PM

New chapter. Trying to make up for the lack one last night.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Too Much to Handle

Queen stalked outside a hovering cul-de-sac. She was sure that she had eluded the four dipstick RAFians. They were never as smart as they thought they were.

"That's far enough, Queen Scarab." came a toneless, unimpressed voice. "Your quest ends now."

Queen Scarab's face contorted with barely-suppressed rage. She was so close! She glared at their freshly-summoned armor and felt distinctly aggrieved.

<Fife thousand years passed, Queen,> Saffa said, in the form of a hyper-evolved Tyrannopede. Her morphing ability had evolved to the point where she can "go ultimate" with her morphs. The effect lasts for about twelve minutes or so. She could also morph directly to another form. <Five thousand years. One would think that your methods and strategies would have updated, y'know, a little.>

"You'll pay for that insult!" Queen Scarab snarled.

"Don't bother," Yarin said. "Your thoughts are not as hidden from me as you think."

Queen opened her mouth to speak, but then a light flared to life on each palm of the four Guardians. Queen's jibe was quickly forgotten, as she know what this meant.

"The boy still lives." she muttered.

"Not that you'll ever touch him again," Yarin said, aware of her thoughts.

***

"This can . . . can not be --"

"Richard," Estelore said, in a genially stern way, dropping the Preston identifier, "it is so. Denying it will service no one and do nothing but furthering endangering yourself. While I credit Broken with his mystical illusion, that's all it is, Richard. An illusion, a deception to allow you to survive and grow stronger from Queen Scarab's first attack. You are strong enough to remember the truth now, and refusing to acknowledge it just puts your life into further jeopardy."

"No." Preston said. "This is a fantasy, a psychosis. A nervous breakdown."

"It is not," Estelore said, standing now. "You know it to be a rationalization."

"N . . . no."

Esty ****ed her head slightly, as if examining him. Then she she stood up straight, and sighed, "In time then, Richard, in time. The walls of the memory block have been breached, you'll remember in time."

Preston turned to run away.

"I shall watch over you, from afar." the star avatar said. "I will be there if you get into dire dangers. Moreso than now."

Preston ran, but as he did a blue mark his palm began to glow and pulsate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 14, 2013, 11:35:52 PM

Can't wait to see what happens next!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2013, 11:23:08 AM

Well, here's the chapter for the day then.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Running from the Past

"Oh yeah?" Queen Scarab snarled, pulling out more pearl-like balls. She threw them to the ground as Yarin yelled, "Cloak!"

But was already on it. He swirled using his momentum to power the aerokinetic crescent that easily dispelled the smoke.

"Ah. Cloak knows Defog." Underseen smirked.

Cloak scowled. He knew the reference and was not a fan of the Pokemon technique. "Enough levity. Get her before she escapes again!"

"You honestly think that's my only trick?" the monstrous deformed entity sneered. "Sir Pens!"

"Your other trick is to send your tricephalic serpentine minion after us?" Cloak replied scornfully.

But Sir Pens just turned into a trident with snake heads instead of pointed tips. Queen held him in a way very reminiscent of Jafar.

<I though Jafar held the patent on snake staffs,> Saffa said drily and drolly.

"Please. Jafar wishes he was me." Queen said. Then she went all Lord Zedd and summoned numerous ten-foot-tall shabti statutes, each modeled after a god from Really-Ancient Egypt. They were each made of a different material -- hardwood, obsidian, gold, softwood, granite, silver, marble, platinum, etc. Even now, Queen, was hard to notice in this crowd -- she had reverted back to her human-in-a-Delphox-like-dress form. "This should keep you busy."

She laughed a mirthless, evil laugh as he vanished.

Underseen blinked. "Who would have guessed that if Malice and Queen merged that they'd become such a threat?"

***

Preston ran, and ran, and ran.

My name is Preston , not Richard! he thought desperately. He was fifty feet away from the house when he noticed the strange sigil, glowing with a blue light, on his hand. A stylized "R". He didn't stop running, but his pace slowed a bit.

"What in the world -- d'ah!!"

He had to stop and cradled his head as he slammed his eyes shut. Images flitted across his mind's eye -- blurry at the edges, faint with washed-out colors. A Goomba, that cloaked Guardian talking in garbled, distorted voices. The same sigil flared to life on the Goomba's forehead and the cloaked Guardian's right palm. The images soon faded, forgotten.

"Maybe . . ." he said, thoughtfully, running again. Then, after a few seconds, he should his head. No. No, it was all a lie.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2013, 06:06:51 PM

'Kay. Forgive me if there are any errors in this chapter, because I feel full and stupid at the moment.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Fearful Power

There he is, Queen Scarab thought as she spied what she believed to be Preston at a long distance away. He's SOOOO close.

She streaked off after him, with surprising speed in a dress and heels. As she ran, she shifted rather smoothly and horrifyingly into her Greninja-scarab form. This only served to make her a great deal faster.

She leaped onto the boy, saw a flash of light, and held him up by his shirt. Something thunked and the light sputtered.

"What the deuce?!" she snarled.

It wasn't Preston, but Billy. The two indeed looked similar from a distance, but up close, it was obvious the two were different.

"Wh-wh-what are you?" Billy said as he shook with terror.

"Damn!" Queen said, roughly dropping the boy. Under normal circumstances, one would flee the minute they were released. But, in this form, Queen Scarab inspired fear and terror in those unaccustomed to this sort of thing. And Billy was so paralyzed by it, he barely remembered to breathe and his heart was beating like it was trying to abandon his body. It also didn't help that he was cornered.

BOOM!

Queen glanced at the direction of the sound. She wore a look of concern. "I knew that wouldn't hold them for long. I need to accelerate my plans."

Billy began to blubber quietly. Queen Scarab ignored this, as her brain was working fast.

"Richard is in Preston, and Preston is a child, therefore pliant to such whims of a child. So I needn't chase him. I can use that against him . . ." Queen Scarab said. She passively noticed recognition in Billy's eyes at Preston's name, and easily came to the conclusion that this boy may not be so expendible. "Ooh, I have an idea."

Queen Scarab was still not looking or holding on to Billy, who was thinking, Well, so have I!

Billy attempted to run from the monstrous creature. But she easily snatched the boy back.

"Sorry, boy," she said, with insincere sorrow, "but I'll be requiring your services."

She whistled, "Sir Pens! We have work to do."

"Oh, joy," Sir Pens hissed in three-part harmony as he slithered into view. Billy whimpered.

***

<Cloak, you're holding back!> Saffa said accusingly. She had gone ultimate Crabdozer.

The Realm Walker said nothing.

"Cloak, we haven't time for this. You need to let loose!" Yarin prodded.

"I c-can't," Cloak said, attempting to keep the fear from his voice.

"There is no choice," Underseen said, discovering the usual Polymorph trick ineffective against these shabti.

That was a half hour ago. Cloak was trying to rationalize how he could still not use his power. But he could not without being completely ridiculous.

He sighed, "Okay, stand back."

He focused his mind, meditating on control. Then his eyes snapped open glowing a pleasant mixture of scarlet and gold. He radiated power, but in a way that seemed to energize and revitalize his friends.

(Even Preston felt these effects through his Mark.)

Cloak in a swift three gestures reduced the shabti into dust, splinters and congealed metal shavings.

Cloak quickly pulled himself out of this state and saw the aftermath. When he saw the extent of his power, his fear of losing control grew.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2013, 11:15:49 PM

Well, I got a new idea.

• Book CCXXIV: "Light Purge" -- The RAFians are confronted by Nyx, who wishes to extinguish all light.

Hopefully, I'm not rehashing anything. I can say that it will introduce a rather significant character, I think. But I can't say any more -- I may have said too much already.

Short chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Untraceable

"Cloak," Saffa said, human again, voice filled genuine concern, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Cloak lied a little too quickly. He swiftly diverted attention from it, saying, "Now, quickly before we lose track of Richard."

"Could you just track him?" Underseen asked.

"No, he can't. It's part of the protective illusion Broken crafted." Yarin explained. "I can't telepathically search for him -- theres too much telepathic white noise here anyway -- as part of the protection. We'd have to practically bump into him to discover him if he gets too far away."

"It have a very faint scent of his," Cloak said. Then he adressed Saffa and Underseen, "Go something with an acute sense of smell."

Both went Panuncian.

"Excellent," Cloak said, swiftly and urgently. "Let's get this show on the road. For all we know . . . she's already got him."

<Just a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?> Saffa teased, attempting to lessen the tension.

"No matter, one thing to be sure," Yarin said, thoughtfully, following the other three, "she's definitely scheming. What I cannot say. I feel dirty just probing a mind twisted by Malice."

***

Preston huddled in the doorways of drafty buildings. He managed to scrounge up food so that he wouldn't starve. He was just lucky that it was summer, and had been a warm day.

"I am Preston," he muttered so often it became a chant.  "I am just a regular kid. I am Preston. I am just a regular kid. . . ."

He wrapped his arms around his legs, and touched his knees to his head.

He couldn't stem the random, meaningless images in his head. A black creature with gold trim that covered things. A purplish ooze flooding over everything, congealing into an impenetrable shell with him underneath. A swarm of vampires. A contagion that turned everyone red with black accents and cataract-like eyes . . .

"Argh!" he snarled at the images. "Go away! You're not real! You're not real! . . ."

Preston spent a couple of days there, until he noticed the light. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 16, 2013, 12:28:05 AM

Love the references to the previous books. :D

Oh, and Cloak, I was checking back and I noticed you've made two Chapter Elevens.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2013, 01:08:26 AM

God, I knew I would did something like that. :facepalm:

I'll fix it, unless I get too tired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 16, 2013, 02:11:46 AM

Hey, it happens to the best of us. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2013, 08:15:20 AM

Right. Since I'll more than likely be exhausted when I come home tonight, here.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
What A Circus

Preston's curiosity got the better of him as he slowly approached the source of the light. He felt fear, sure, but his childish curiosity overrode it. He crept closer and closer to the source of the light. It wasn't what he expected.

It was a circus. Literally, a circus.

The Big Top tent dominating the scene with carts and stands dotted around it. The Big Top tent was strips of alternating green and silver, with a small bloodred pennant fluttering atop at the very tip of the tent. People were milling around, but not as many as Preston would expect.

Preston placed a hand to his forehead, seeing only a blurry image of a the inside of a Skrull ship, but no other image appeared after that.

A small, rational part of Preston wondered how a circus tent and such could be assembled in a mere 24 hours, unnoticed. But, no, that wasn't right. People were here, weren't they? That must mean that it wasn't unnoticed completely. Just by him -- but then again he never heard any sound coming from  this direction all day.

Without really realizing it, he had entered the grounds of the circus. Curiosity can be a very powerful thing -- it can also be a very dangerous thing.

"Preston!" came a familiar voice. "There you are!"

"Billy?"

"Where have you been, dude?"

"Uh, long story," Prestin said, clearly not wanting to get into it. "Where did this circus come from?"

"Did you see the flyers all over school?" Billy said, with a laugh. "It's here for seventy-two hours only!"

"That's oddly specific," Preston said, falling into an old rhythm with his friend. Unfortunately, this was the last thing he should have done.

"Eh," Billy shrugged. "They're circus folk, I guess they live by their own schedules."

Had Preston been in his right mind then, he might have noticed something odd about his friend just then. As it was, Preston sensed no danger from neither the circus or his old friend.

"C'mon, 'Ton." Billy said, twitching his head during the tent's entrance. "Let's go in, dude."

"But I haven't any money to pay admission?"

The laughter that usually lit Billy's face faltered for a second before he declared, "Don't worry about it 'Ton. I'll cover you."

Preston should have questioned this sudden kindness. Billy would have never covered Preston for something like this. Unless --

"Let's call it an early birthday gift," Billy smirked impishly.

***

The three RAFians had their noses to the ground, tracking the scent. Cloak was relieved to find the scent was getting stronger.

Then he felt an unbearable chill.

"Richard's in danger." he said. "We gotta hurry!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 16, 2013, 08:26:39 AM

Ai, sheit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 16, 2013, 10:09:49 PM

Quote from: Saffa on December 16, 2013, 08:26:39 AM

Ai, sheit.

You can say that again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2013, 10:14:40 PM

Well, ordinarily, I would post another chapter to prevent the joke of Saffa simply reposting her previous post.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
It's A Traaaaa -- Oy

"He was here," Cloak said, holding some debris from this abandoned, mouldering building to his nose before deftly discarding it. "He spent a great deal of time here."

"He must have stayed here overnight." Saffa said, having demorphed. "There are scraps of food everywhere."

"But, still, the scent grows faint." Cloak said quite seriously. "He must have vacated this site a couple of hours ago."

"But why?" Underseen asked, he had gone human again as the armor faded away. "There has to be a reason.

Yarin looked to his left, blinked all six eyes in disbelief. Then he narrowed them. He asked rhetorically, "There, maybe?"

He was looking at the circus that lured Preston away like a moth to a flame. Nothing about it looked overtly sinister, but it just looked like one of your run-of-the-mill circuses.

Cloak scowled. He never liked circuses. Seeing animals perform stupid tricks while the "trainers" act like they have such bonds with the animals (when they usually have to hurt or abuse the animal to do such a thing) -- this never appealed to the Realm Walker. That's not to say there aren't cirus animal trainers that legitimately care for their nonhuman charges, but Cloak suspected that this was few and far in-between.

Saffa noticed this reaction, and said, "Wow, Cloak. If looks could kill . . ."

"You see all those people there?" Yarin said.

"Yeah," Saffa and Underseen said, in unison.

Cloak's expression changed to one of shock. His voice carried the shock. "No . . . no, I don't."

"Huh?"

Yarin nodded. "I don't sense any minds either."

"Wait, I can Earthsight two, maybe three people down there. But that's it." Cloak said.

Yarin nodded, "Yes, the big top there seems to harbor some telepathic barrier or shielding. I would not have guessed such a thing could be disguised in such a way."

"Wait, so all those people we see down there, milling about." Underseen said. "They all are --"

"Illusions, fake." Cloak said, offhandedly.

"Yes, it was a trap." Yarin said, as the group headed toward the circus. "A remarkably well-thought out one."

***

Preston was really enjoying the circux, but did not seem to notice that Billy didn't seem to share the enjoyment. He stole hungry looks at Preston whenever the boy took his eyes off him.

The two sat on the bottommost portion of the stands, as it was packed higher up. One could question how the wooden stands could tolerate such weight -- but twelve-year-olds rarely consider such things.

"Now," called the ringmaster, with a foppish, Eggman-like voice, "time for the main event."

"Indeed," Billy muttered sinisterly.

"What?" Preston asked without glancing back.

"Oh, nothing," he said, deflecting the question. Then he promptly spilled his drink over Preston. Billy spoke with what sounded like genuine sincerity, "Oops! Sorry, Preston!"

Preston's lap, wrists and ankles were no bound to te seat -- wait, seat?

Suddenly, the circus began to flicker, as if it was an ancient hologram.

"Ah, the technological advancements of this day and age," Billy said. His voice sounded the same, but yet older at the same time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 17, 2013, 11:35:17 PM

'Nother chapter. Tired, so there might be spelling errors and such.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Evil's Clutches

"Billy?" Preston said, fearful. It was amazing just how many times he was terrified in the last few days. You'd think he'd be desensitized to it by now. "Billy, why are you talking like that?"

Billy gave a cruel, mirthless laugh. "I see that you liked my costume, then."

The boy came and stood before Preston, an eeriely sinister smirk on his face. "Fell for it hook, line and sinker."

"Billy, you're making no sense!"

Seemingly changing tact, Billy said, "You wanna see something really cool?"

"Billy, what I want is to be let -- what are you doing?"

Billy had reached into his mouth with his right arm, while holding Sir Penns in his trident form. And it was far beyond was humanly and physically possible. Then he apparently found something that he hooked his fingers around and started to pull. As he did this, wisps of black and bloodred energy escaped his lips.

"How are you doing this?" Preston demanded. How he expected Billy to answer when he was supernaturally pulling something from it, wasn't really clear. "Billy!"

From Billy's mouth, came a black foot. Then a second. Then lower legs, a torso, shoulders, a head and her arms followed. She was being licked with black and bloodred energy. Queen Scarab stepped, in a mincing, menacing, deliberate manner as Billy slumped to the ground unconscious. But he was breathing, he was still alive.

"You," Preston said, accusatorily.

"Yes, good thing too," she said brushing herself, "I couldn't stand that costume's smell."

"He's a living being with thoughts, feelings, and free will!" Preston raged. "Yet you toss him aside like a sack of potatoes!"

"He's served his purpose," Queen Scarab said, distractedly. Then her tone turned grandiose. "And now . . ."

She placed her right handed on Preston's forehead, and the other upon his chest. Black concentric circles formed from black enery, and Queen Scarab began to absorb these rings into herself.

It was not a pleasant or painless experience for Preston.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 18, 2013, 12:19:31 AM

That is creepy to visualize.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2013, 08:04:43 AM

Which was the point. Yeah, this is a darker book than I originally intended, darker than the tv show I -- *ahem* -- loosely based it off.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Oh, Snap

"It's all gonna be mine!" Queen Scarab said. "After so long . . ."

Preston would not let a scream escape his mouth as he felt the very life slowly be drained out of him. But then something rather fortuitous happened.

There was no sound -- athough a snap, a crack, a glass-shattering sound seemed appropriate -- as Broken's last greatest magical illusion failed, as it failed.

Queen had killed Preston, but that gave rise to Richard.

***

Five thousand years ago, Richard found himself in a similar situation with who he thought was Queen. He had gotten a bit ****y, due to the number of times Queen's been beaten in the past with little effort.

He did not know she now carried Malice's deux ex machina, that it twisted her heart and mind.

Queen had gotten close to Richard in a rather similar way. Queen wore a disguise of small girl, who was crying. Only she didn't inhabit the body of this girl, for the girl was nothing but an illusion, a disguise.

Richard experienced such pain when she took him by surprise and started to not only leech his lifeforce, his strength, but his very substance.

"Get away from him!"

She was blasted away by hurticane-force gales, before she could siphon away everything from the RAFfather. Queen attempted to get close enough to continue, but by that time, Estelore, Yarin, Saffa, and Underseen arrived on the scene.

"I'll come back and get more," Queen said. 'You can't stop me!"

Estelore frowned, realizing something was up with Queen. "You are not Queen -- not anymore."

"You're right. I'm Queen Scarab!"

Had Cloak put his mind to it then, he might have realized what had happened. But he was concerned for Richard. The five eventually ran off Queen Scarab, but were at a lost of how to help Richard. It looked like he was dying.

But then Broken came along, attracted by the commotion. But by this time, Richard lost consciousness.

***

"I remember," Richard choked out, still in Preston's form, still with his voice.

"Too bad it's too late," Queen Scarab said savagely.

"Haven't you heard?" Richard said, fighting the pain, "It's never too late."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 18, 2013, 08:15:48 AM

Jeez, I had to read it twice over before I realized the middle passage wasn't within normal book continuity. :facepalm: Oi, brain, work!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2013, 09:53:40 PM

Yes, yes, that does happen sometimes. ;)

Anyway, two new book ideas. (Yeah, this series isn't really gonna have an end, it seems.)

• BOOK CCXXV: "Children of Night" -- The Abby, Saffa, Underseen and Cloak must battle a monster from Nyx's brood.
• BOOK CCXXVI: "The Pit" -- The RAFians must face Tartarus.

The last one, "The Pit", may be noncanonical. I haven't decided.

'Nother chapter a little later. Until I am too tired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 18, 2013, 10:52:10 PM

Wouldn't want it to end. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2013, 09:05:19 AM

D'awww.

Anyways, I'm not sure I'll be able to post another chapter today.  Gonna be dead tired. The weekend will be a lot easier.

:edit:

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Turning the Tables

"So . . . yummy . . ." Queen Scarab muttered. Yet, she didn't notice that Richard's restraints had popped open like a pressurized can in a hot car.

"Get away from him!" a voie cried as a tremendous force of wind blasted through the tent blowing it to one side. Estelore used her stellar wiles to incinerate the tent. Yet, Queen Scarab never once loosened her grip. She had waited so long, too long.

"Such tenacity," Underseen observed.

"You too late, RAFians!" Queen Scarab said in a gurgling way that was reminiscent of Krang. "I'll be able to live forever soon! Nevermore will I have to ritually drain street people to extend replenish my immortality!"

Revoltion rippled through the RAFians. Estelore was so disgusted she had to take a step back. So . . . she lived this long by stealing the lifeforces of the homeless? Of society's forgotten? The RAFians were frozen revilement of this . . . this creature. To write off people as worthless just because she assumed these people wouldn't be missed.

"Don't think you've won just yet," Richard said, still possessing Preston's form and voice. He took his hand and planted them on Queen Scarab's forearms. The black concentric circles crawling up Queen Scarab's arms slowed before stopping completely.

"What the deuce?!" Queen Scarab demanded.

"I'm taking back what's rightfully mine!" Richard declared, as the concentric rings reversed direction and began pulling the power, the vitality, back to Richard. The energy she had stolen from him.

"No! No!" she sobbed pathetically. "Give it back! It's mine! Mine!"

Richard stood under his own power, and continued to take his power, his vitality, back. As he stood, he quickly was reforming into the Richard the RAFians knew so well, with his clothes resizing with his increasing stature. Soon, he broke contact and a brilliant blue flash obscured everything.

The RAFians had to avert their eyes from the brightness. But when it ended, Richard was looking and acting like his old self, while Queen Scarab seemed stuck in her monster form.

"What did you?" Queen snarled furiously and accusingly.

"I told you," he said, " I took back what you stole from me."

"This changes nothing!" she said savagely. "I drained you twice --"

"Never completely." Saffa interject.

"Shut up!" she snarled. "I'll have your power again. Mark my words, I'll drain you completely sooner or later."

"I wouldn't bet on it." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 20, 2013, 10:33:34 AM

I wouldn't bet on it either, it's the last chapter. :P Unless...?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2013, 09:52:11 PM

Oh, it is the last chapter, but a rather open-ended one. Which I'll post shortly. Five an half hours straight of washing windows -- my arms and shoulders are sore.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on December 20, 2013, 10:43:34 PM

Caught up (again)!  Internet's been in limbo lately, so I don't know how far behind I'm going to get by the time I have reliable internet again.  :P

That said, I'm loving this book.  I always love the out-of-continuity stories, and there's something about the idea of RAFians lying dormant for however many years and then making this incredibly epic comeback to thwart Queen/Malice . . . the whole concept just gives me this warm fuzzy feeling that RAF could never truly die.  :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2013, 10:57:59 PM

Thanks, Dino.

My Internet decided to be unreliable, so I'm gonna wait to post the last chapter tomorrow. Sorry.

:edit: Well, my Internet is still unreliable, but . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A New Technique

"And why would that be, twit?" Queen Scarab sneered. "You haven't got anything."

"You'd be surprised," Cloak said evenly. "Your power comes from when Malice's deux es macina intermingled, merged, with you."

"Ridiculous."

"Not to mention that it's influence twisted your mind and your soul," Cloak continued as if there was no interruption. "But just because it had intermingled with, just because Malice's darkness and evil infected you, does not mean that it cannot be purged."

"Purged?" Estelore asked. "Then what'll happen to Queen Scarab?"

"I do not know, in all honesty," Cloak said stoically. "But purged, Queen Scarab will, presumably, revert to Queen without any of Malice's malevolent influence."

"You're all talk!" Queen Scarab screamed. "My power is my own! I didn't get it when one miserable Realm Walker died!"

"Really? Then how did you know what a Realm Walker deus es machina is?" Yarin asked.

That shut her up.

"Now we begin." Cloak said, taking a fighting stance, making sure that he was in his golden armor.

"Good luck," Richard added.

Suddenly, two pillars of water emerged in a double helix formation around Queen Scarab.  Cloak allowed it to go on like this for a bit. Then sand appeared in another double helix structure around Queen Scarab, who seemed to stunned to react, to move. About five minutes later, columns of fire erupted and bent into a double helix pattern around Queen. So far only three elements encircled Queen Scarab.

Five minutes later, columns of hurricane-force winds erupted and bent into a double helix formation. Then wood splinters flew into a double helix pattern, and metzl shrapnel followed suit. All six elements encircled Queen Scarab.

Then Cloak gestured his hands as if he was spinning a very large basketball that was affixed to a static point. The elements started to rotate to the left. Faster and faster and faster . . . until a hiss quite disconnected from the elemental funnel. Within minutes, the funnel evaporated.

"It is done," Cloak said, armor evaporating, energy nearly depleted.

Queen Scarab was no more. Queen lay there, unconscious. Malice's deux es machina had left her. She was as she was five thousand years ago.

But there was a little something the RAFians had forgotten.

"THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED!!" Billy exclaimed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2013, 09:21:31 PM

Okay, this is my second attempt at getting this chapter up. Gonna give it another shot.

BOOK LIII:
The Pain Reliever
Chapter One:
Pains of the Past

"You cheated a little, Underseen," Cloak teased.

He was monitoring the shapeshifter's training simulation in the "Danger Room"-like simulator, which had just ended.

"You're just mad that I beat your high score!" Underseen countered impishly.

It was true, but Cloak had only used the thing twice. He wasn't ever really motivated in it also. He always preferred to train in the elements outside. Those weren't excuses, though! Really, they weren't!

"You broke the rules of the simulation," Cloak said in a mostly indifferent, bland way. "You were not to try and overpower your opponent but evade and outthink them."

Underseen declared dramatically, "Screw the rules, I have green hair!"

"Uh, no, you don't."

There should have been a sound like a pop or something as Underseen's hair became green, and couffed like the top of a frosted PokePuff.

"How 'bout now?"

***

Later that evening, Cloak stood on the edge of the forest, watching the sun decend the horizon. Despite himself, his thoughts turned to his traumatic past. It was the anniversary -- or maybe a month later. Translating Nexus and Realm time was not always an easy thing.

"Leave me be," Cloak said to the approaching figure without even turning around.

"What's wrong?" It was Aquilai.

"I . . . I don't want to talk about it."

"Cloak, it's your childhood, isn't it?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Cloak repeated.

WHACK!!

"HEY!!" Cloak cried. Aquilai had hit him with a branch. "GEEZ!! What was that for?!"

"Doesn't matter," the Time Lord replied. "It's in the past."

"What? It still twinges," Cloak said, rubbing his head.

"Yes, the past can hurt." Aquilai said, arms folded. "But, as I see it, you can either run or dwell on it --"

He swung the branch again, unpredictably. Cloak dodged.

"Or learn from it."

Cloak realized Aquilai's message. And he was at a loss for words.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 22, 2013, 02:13:32 AM

(1) Loved the Incredibles reference at the end of the last book! That was a great book, too. :D

(2) Also loved Aquilai's little bit back there.

(3) PDF of book 52!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 22, 2013, 11:04:02 AM

Not to mention the YGTAS reference at the beginning of this book

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2013, 01:36:54 PM

Yes, and I've been planning the chapters of Book CCXXII ("Brain Sponge"). Over halfway through.

CHAPTER TWO:
Relief, At A Steep Price

A derelict, shrine-like ship the size of an aircraft carrier floated aimlessly through the vastness of space. A small, personal Piscciss-borne spacecraft made its way to the ship, where a fabled sage was said to relieve a heart's pain was said to dwell.

A word of caution was given with this legend though. Those that sought out the services of the Pain Reliever were never seen again. This led some to denounce him as a demon, a monster. But, usually, those in pain disregarded such caution. They only desired to stop hurting. Some wounds simply could not, would not, heal.

The female Piscciss Volann piloting the beat-up, rickety ship was suffering. Nothing physical, but not all pain is limited to the realm of the tangible. She was suffering from a severe heartbreak. It was exactly clear what triggered it, but she clearly was experiencing intolerable, excruciating pain.

She docked with the ship, married the hatches, and put on her reverse rebreathers. Then she walked into the ship. But she, full of nerves, loitered in the doorway to the Pain Reliever.

"Come in, come in!" the Pain Reliever said, welcomingly. It was amazing that he could see at all, as his eyes were bandaged, though it appeared that he may have a third one, which was shut. Other than his purplish-green hue, macrocephaly, and the aforementioned third eye, he could have passed for an ordinary Vulcan. He was obviously the hyper-evolved Vulcan who escaped. Clearly, he got a ship, and amassed a cult following. "Come in, child. We mustn't lurk in doorways. It's rude."

She slowly entered the room, in an scared, cautious way that was rather uncharacteristic for Piscciss Volann.

"One might question your upbringing," the Pain Reliever chuckled, sitting on a throne of torn and ripped velvet. "Now, dear, I see you've travelled a long way. You have suffered great pain. Yes . . ."

"Please . . ." her voice was a croak, "please . . . just make it go away. . . . Please. . . ."

"Of course, child," the hyper-evolved Vulcan said, "come closer. Let me lay my hand upon your flesh."

He placed a dainty, frail-looking hand upon the side of her face. It was slimy, but the Pain Reliever did not recoil or react negatively.

"I am afraid," she confessed.

"There's no need to be, my dear," he said. "The pain will leave you forever. You'll be at peace, the peace you so ardently desire so covetously."

She shut her eyes, and the Pain Reliever opened his third eye. There was a brillant flash, and the Piscciss Volann fell to the deck, motionless.

She was dead.

"Her pain has be relieved," he claimed, as he shut his third eye. "Her peace has been restored."

His followers dragged the body away -- there was no way he couldn't have heard it.

Title: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 22, 2013, 09:02:26 PM

Good stuff!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2013, 09:58:03 PM

Yes, and here's very probably the last chapter tonight.

CHAPTER THREE:
Rendezvous En Route

These disappearance at the hands of this supposed Pain Reliever began to attract the attention of the RAFians. Aquilai, Cloak, Gaz (sporting Laserbeak on her shoulder), Saffa, Demos, Underseen, and Noelle (with Yarin piloting his ship) were dispatched to rendezvous with Estelore, and, from there, investigate the disappearances.

It was still a long journey to get to that sector, but it could be worse. They could go to the Null Void.

And Cloak was feeling a bit cranky. He was out one element on spacecraft, his favored one.

"Oh, c'mon, Cloaky," Gaz said bracingly, rubbing Laserbeak's besk as he cooed appreciatively. "It'll do you some good to get out of that stuffy forum!"

"And into a stuffier spacecraft," Cloak grumbled.

"Hey! My ship is not stuffy!" Yarin sniffed.

"Touchy," Aquilai noted.

"Hey, what if I called your TARDIS stuffy?" Yarin countered.

"Eh."

"Okay, how about 'smelly'?"

"Hey, it is not smelly!" Aquilai protested.

"Okay, that's enough, you two." Saffa said.

"Oh, it was just getting good, Saffa!" Demos complained.

"Oh, don't make me slap you, you dirty demon," Saffa said, offhandedly with no malice.

Noelle said nothing, but grinded her hoof nervously on the smooth polish surface of the floor. Yarin loved this ship as much as Kevin Levin loves his car.

<There's Esty,> she said, breaking the few minutes silence that had erupted spontaneously. <Perhaps she's found something already.>

"Hopefully, it's good news, if any," Underseen undertoned.

"You should write greeting cards, Underseen," Saffa said, in her usual sassy way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 22, 2013, 10:44:07 PM

There is something very spiritual about the "pain relief" here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2013, 10:36:20 AM

Dunno about that, Saffa. Then again, I'm not the most spiritual of people myself. And I know what's coming next.

Probably gonna be a short chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Relief Tour

The Pain Reliever's ship powered up and moved to a different area of space, getting rather close to the Anur system. Yet he dare not delve into the Anomalous Nebula, though he greatly wished to. What he, himself, desired was said to be within that large nebula, which was scarlet with bluish-purple trim. He did not disclose anything to his followers, considering them little more than servants or slaves, expendable and dispensable. But he made a conscious effort not to say anything to trigger resentment, opting to make it sound like the servitude was a great situation, an excellent vocation. He was a strong telepath now, so he knows of any mutinous thoughts straight away. Those that have such thoughts are plied with platitudes and such. The more stubborn ones are given a "memory modification" -- a total lobotomy where the brain is replaced, cell by cell, with a computerized one -- to become the Reliever's Elite Guard. Of course, the followers -- no matter how devout -- knew these truths.

He cared little about the ones that he "relieved". He knew that he was killing them, but twisted it so that they were, technically, relieved of their pain. Going to him to relieve your pain was essentially committing suicide.

He looked yearnfully outside his window, seeing a faint blip of the Anomalous Nebula with his two standard eyes, which was still bandaged. He touched these bandages, remembering why he had to were them. But he could see everything, no deception could be undetected by them.

"Sir," said a male voice. The Pain Reliever's most devout follower, a Triceraton. "A young Pyronite in pain has come to see you."

"Very well," he replied. "Thank you."

And so it went. The Pain Reliever "relieved" the Pyronite of his pain. He was followed by a Talpaedan, a Geochelone Aerio, a Florauna, and a Biosovortian. All "relieved", all bodies disposed of.

The Pain Reliever noted such disposal of the remenants of the "relieved" was probably a waste. Why couldn't he simply "promote" them to his Elite Guard? The answer was simple. They could not waste their resources to support their highly individualized needs. This was far better, as they kept coming and he kept up the pretense.

Why did he do so? It was not logical, something that Vukcans were known to embrace. But he was as beyond the Vulcans as humans were beyond protosimians. Perhaps he enjoyed the legendary status. Perhaps he, in some perverted, twisted way, thought he was genuinely helping out these hurting beings.

Perhaps it was just a way to find the way to navigate the Anomalous Nebula safely. A way of bringing those with the power to him. If that was the case, he hadn't found them yet. So, he persisted in this facade, this sham.

"One day," he muttered to himself, "one day, I'll have you."

"Sir," the Triceraton said, "we have a Methanosian in pain."

"Very well," he said in reply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 23, 2013, 12:50:30 PM

I guess I identify with it because of my grandmother. At the moment, she's so sick and suffering and making us suffer because of it, we feel the best thing that could happen is for her to pass away in peace. That way she'll truly be relieved.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2013, 11:22:16 PM

Ah. Well, this isn't really dealing with physical pain, but the one that comes from the heart, from emotional wounds -- emotional hell (which, sad to say, I actually know a thing or two about). Not to be insensitive to your plight, Saffa.

Anyway, three more book ideas:

• BOOK CCXXVII: "Bezoar Galore" -- The RAFians must deal with a buried Bezoar queen and her brood.
• BOOK CCXXVIII: "The Other RAFians" -- Shenmue gets trapped in a distorted part of the realm.
• BOOK CCXXIX: "That's Jacked Up" -- The RAFians must deal with the consequences of three body-jackers.

Okay, I don't think I've repeated or rehashed anything.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A Stellar Summary

"Hullo, Esty," Saffa said dully, as Esty entered the cabin of Yarin's ship. "What's the good word?"

"Why are you talking like that?" Underseen asked.

"Just bored, I guess."

Laserbeak hopped over to Saffa and Esty, looking quizzically between the two. He was definitely the "Momo" of the group. Gaz giggled a bit at this.

"The disappearances were in this neck of the woods," Esty said pensively. "But I haven't found any evidence of this 'pain reliever'."

"Tylenol?" Saffa guessed.

"Alieve?" Underseen inquired.

"Bayers?" Gaz smirked.

"Ibuprofen?" Yarin said noncommittally.

Estelore and Cloak were not amused.

"You know very well that's not what I meant," Estelore scolded. It was remarkable how much like Molly Weasley she was when she scolded like that. "This is no time for levity and flippancy."

"Yes, this must be taken seriously." Cloak said, moodily. His arms were folded tight againsted his chest, giving a unyielding vibe. "Remember that these disappearances were linked to some legends of a creature that kills people, attracted to them by their . . . their inner turmoil."

The lighthearted atmosphere all but evaporated right then and there. Laserbeak was the only one that was seemingy indifferent as he fluttered back to Gaz's shoulder, nibbling her ear affectionately.

"Buzzkill," Demos muttered.

"I heard that."

"I know."

Cloak would have retorted, but Yarin announced, "Wait, guys, I'm getting something at two o'clock."

Cloak looked through the window, as it drifted aimlessly into view. It did not move, but Cloak recognized its species.

"An Orthropterran?" Cloak said.

"A what?"

"Ever wonder what your Mucillator morphs eat?" Cloak said, quickly. Then another form drifted closer.

"A Conductoid!" Cloak cried. He could not keep the horrified tone from his voice. "This . . . this is convenient."

"Perhaps too convenient," Esty said darkly, reading Cloak's mind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 24, 2013, 08:38:29 PM

So, without preamble, another chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Terrible Tangible Trail

"I really don't like this," Underseen said, his very form rippling with anxiety. He referred to what had appeared to be a virtual landfill of Spixson corpses. They had followed the line of death, followed the corpses of a Necrofriggian, a Gelchone Aerio, a Methanosian, a Talpaedan, a Vaxasaurian, an Orishan, an Arachnichimp, an Amperi, a Tetramand, a Kineceleran, and a Arburian Pelarota. They followed the grisly line to this . . . this . . . this death mound.

"They must corporeally fissioned into this mass at the point of death," Cloak said, hollowly. He failed to hide how much these lifeless bodies disturbed him. Realm Walkers do not leave such remains -- when they died it was . . . well, cleaner. As if the Realm Walker souls saw fit to clean up their remains (other than the cloak, of course) before ascending to the Beyond Life. He could barely look at the grim spectacle, unable to stand it. "I've . . . I've never seen a Splixson . . . d-die."

"Hate to be soullessly pragmatic here," Gaz said, looking faintly sick. "But we lost the trail."

"Perhaps I should mention," Yarin said, holding head with his upper right hand, "that, though dead, there is easily detectable psychic residue on these vacated vessels."

"Residue?" Estelore asked, curiosity piqued slightly.

"Yes, apparently all -- and I do mean 'all' -- of these poor individuals were feeling powerful emotional pain. It's dissipating slower than usual. . . ."

"As if someone's deliberately leaving us a trail to follow," Demos said. He alone looked undisturbed at the carnage, due to his demonic nature.

<Yes, but for whom?> Noelle added. She had determinedly focused all four of her eyes elsewhere, rather than dwell at the body mound. <We do not know if it is us that this 'pain reliever' of legend is attempting to lure. Or if, indeed, that is his or her intention.>

"But why leave these . . . these bodies in such away if this guy wasn't baiting a trap trail for someone?" Saffa asked.

"Carelessness," Cloak said.

"Come again?" Gaz asked, ****ing her head, as Laserbeak mimicked this.

"They could have simply jettisoned the bodies off the ship -- assuming, of course, who or whatever this 'pain reliever' guy is requires a ship." Cloak elaborated.

Estelore nodded, "It happens more often than you know. Can't list the number of times I've seen floating bags of garbage in my travels."

"There's the trail again, a Galilean corpse," Yarin said.

"Follow it," Cloak said at once. "Let's get the Veil out of here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 24, 2013, 10:47:40 PM

Funny, I was watching an X-Files episode yesterday featuring some ectoplasm that was apparently telepathic residue.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 25, 2013, 04:19:22 AM

These chapters were a good Christmas present to read.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2013, 08:56:24 AM

Well, this residue isn't tangible like that, Saffa.

You're welcome, Underseen.

And I suppose it's a bit ironic to be talking about this stuff on Christmas.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Trails and Tractor Beams

So, the followed the trail. Corpse after corpse, each a different species from the last. Cloak was so disgusted he felt that he might be sick, but he disguised it as being stoic.

"Whoever this guy is," Underseen said thoughtfully, "he's been at this for a while."

"Clearly," Estelore said, mirthlessly and somberly.

"Uh-oh," Yarin muttered.

"What? What is it?" Cloak asked as one.

"A ship," the Nyac replied. "But one I haven't seen before."

It was a large ship. Proportionally, if Yarin's ship was the size of an ordinary aircraft, then this ship would be an aircraft carrier. The top portion looked like a red shrine with gold trim. The bottom half looked rather cobbled together, the gutted remains of hundreds of ships. Yet it looked remarkably airtight and up to code.

"Looks like its dead in the water. Scanning for lifeforms now," Yarin said.

Something on Cloak's gut said that this wasn't something wise to do.

"Yarin, don't," Esty said, having the same instinct.

Too late. The shrine ship brought itself around to face them. Yarin gasped as he seemed to have sensed something on the ship that the others didn't -- or couldn't sense.

"There is a powerful telepath onboard that ship." Yarin elaborated.

"This 'pain reliever', no doubt." Aquilai said. "I wonder how we could sneak onboard."

"I don't think that will be a problem, Aquilai." Yarin said, apparently struggling with the controls. "They've got us in a tractor beam. We're being pulled into the conglomeration below the shrine."

"Just lovely," Gaz said drily.

"Better come up with a contingency plan," Cloak said. "And real quick."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 25, 2013, 10:04:11 AM

Lovely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2013, 11:43:13 PM

Yes. I would post another chapter, but I'm more tired than I thought, so it'll have to wait until after work tomorrow. I have Creative Writing in the morning, it'll be after work.

:edit: Well, enough formalities. Here's a chapter . . . this book might be longer or shorter than normal, I don't know. I've done a mental rewrite of this book.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Captive Audience

They were encapsulated into the capsule-like undercarriage of the shrine part of the ship.  The place was dark -- an absolute darkness.  The lights in Yarin's ship failed to dispel it.  But the surface on which Yarin's ship lightly hovered was smoothed with precision.  Cloak could easily tell that it was metal, so he was undaunted.  He could Metalsight, after all.
 
The gangplank decended into the open area after Yarin determined the air was breathable.  Cloak and Estelore let the others out.  Cloak noticed that the others tended to stick to Estelore, who emitted a faint aura of light that illuminated a fraction of the darkness.  Cloak had no need for it, so felt more at ease than the others . . . Cloak noticed that Underseen was in a Vulpimancer form.  Vulpimancers are blind, so he thought that he could use the radar that they have.  Apparently, Underseen could mimic a creatures sensory input powers.
 
"I'm getting a serious 'axe murderer behind me' vibe here," Saffa said, her voice echoing ominously.  As if this entire capsule-like pod thing was completely empty except for them and Yarin's ship.  Cloak found that eerie and sinister at the same time.
 
He shut his eyes, focused his mind.  But the shrine part of this ship was out of the range of his Metalsight. He muttered, "Gateburst."
 
"What exactly do we do now?" Aquilai asked. "We can't exactly wait around here, until the air runs out."
 
"Calm yourself, Laserbeak," Gaz said, attempting to placate her Cybertronian pet, who was getting quite agitated. His eyes emitted a faint glow. "It's alright."
 
"There are people aboard this ship . . ." Yarin said, concentrating.  "But it's like trying to hear faint voices that someone's trying to cover up."
 
"The Pain Reliever is a telepath, then," Estelore said. "He used the tractor beam to bring us in here, yet he delays in revealing himself or his plans for us. Highly suspect."

"We're a captive audience," Cloak said.  "I could free us, but, I don't know if it would be wise.  I might kill the others on this ship accidentally, as well as you guys."

Just then, an ample rectangle of light flooded the empty cargo hold (at least that is what Cloak assumed to be it's purpose).  In the doorway, the shadow of a Triceraton stood, adorn in robes of gray.  Cloak narrowed his eyes.  He knew of Triceratons, albeit not too intimately.  He knew this ship was not of Triceraton design -- as they favored far more triangles and edges in the design. Also that they breathed nitrogen and sulfur. This one must have had some environmental equipment devices beneath his robes.

"Welcome, honored guests. Your journey of pain has joyously ended." the Triceraton bowed.  "I am Kuzon. I will guide you to the great Pain Reliever."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 26, 2013, 10:33:39 PM

*eyeroll*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2013, 10:58:35 AM

Okay, let's give this a shot. Damn AutoCorrect.

CHAPTER NINE:
Meaningless Motivations

"You're kidding," Saffa said drily.

"Yes, I understand, "it's quite difficult to believe that your trevails have reached such a blissful conclusion."

"We hadn't a choice, and you know it!" Gaz snarled, as Laserbeak squeaked in agreement. "You tractor beamed us in here, and are now keeping us against our will!"

Kuzon conveniently did not seem to hear this. Withouyt any better alternative, the RAFians followed him, albeit mistrustfully.

***

"I thank you for coming here," the hyper-evolved Vulcan said when they arrived to his sanctum. "You may go Kuzon."

"As you wish," the Triceraton said. "M'lord."

He left. The RAFians were not impressed with all this cultlike behaviour and procedure. Yarin looked at him strangely.

"You're a hyper-evolved Vulcan," the Nyac said. "You were exposed to the Darwin Gun! You were on Earth!"

"Bold claims," the Pain Reliever said. "So, my hopes about you lot were prescient."

"I don't think you used that word right," Aquilai taunted.

But the Pain Reliever pay this jibe no mind and continued without interruption. "You very well may allow me safe passage into into the Anomalous Nebula."

"And it was a trap after all," Demos said. "How delightful!"

"You wanted something from us," Cloak said tirelessly. "Big surprise."

"Hmmm . . . If that is your attitude," the hyper-evolved Vulcan said, "perhaps your hearts are too bogged down to help me. Perhaps a little relief is in order."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 27, 2013, 10:12:20 PM

Things are getting bad fast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2013, 08:29:49 AM

Oh, this isn't the worst of it.

CHAPTER TEN:
Demonic Relief

"You're buying into your own hype," Demos said, in a bored, offhand way. He fretted more about the lapel of his powder blue silk suit.

"I cannot believe that you have the audacity to assume that we would help you. You kidnapped us, you killed all of those . . . those people we saw floating out there." Saffa scolded, voice breaking when she thought about the careless, disrespectful way that these bodies were treated. "And you don't care do you?!"

"I offered them relief the Pain they suffered, that they endured," the Pain Reliever said simply, as if he was talking to a young child. "They sought me out. Not the other way around. I simply gave them what they wanted, offered the peace they desired."

"You killed them," Demos said, still more concerned with his suit than the events occurring. "Your platitudes and rationalizations mean nothing. At the end of the day, you're a murderer."

This, the Pain Reliever took offense to. But he lost none of his poise, none of the openness to his voice. They were going to lead him through the Anomalous Nebula to his prize, whether they wanted to or not.

"And you know it." Gaza said, shrewdly with an aghast tone. "Don't you?"

"Perhaps the demon's pain should be relieved first." the hyper-evolved Vulcan said, but there were the subtlest traces of threat in his tone. Not many would have noticed.

Demos was not intimidated. He looked from his suit, and gazed balefully at the Pain Reliever. "Sure, give it a try. Pain doesn't affect demons in the same way as other species. As such, your attempts would prove quite ineffective and a pathetic waste of energy."

"So I see." the Pain Reliever said, waspishly. "But can you same the same of your friends? Your thoughts may be masked from me, but your pasts -- all your pasts -- are as an open book to me. Such long lives some of you have had . . ."

He glanced derisively at Laserbeak, and spoke in a subtly haughty way, "And one rather short."

"Leave Laserbeak alone!" Gaz said defensively.

"Very well," the Pain Reliever said, "then you shall be next."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 28, 2013, 08:50:13 AM

Crap.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2013, 12:31:22 PM

And we haven't even got to the worst part yet. Maybe. Don't want to oversell the ending. Anyway, New book idea . . .  these particular books of the series are rather interconnected.

• BOOK CCXXX: "Torn" -- Nyx's love is being torn apart as she desperately tries to save him.

I post another chapter shortly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 28, 2013, 12:49:37 PM

I'm on the edge of my seat!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2013, 01:29:16 PM

Good, Gaz. That means I'm doing my job. ;)

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Vampire Direly Sees

"Uh, let's not be hasty, now," Gaz said, not wanting to end up another link in the corpse trail. "Let's just, uh, not be brash."

"Ah, I see now," the Pain Reliever said, "still harboring the guilt, are you?"

"Shhh!" Gaz said, as if she didn't want the others to know this truth. Cloak, however was well aware of it.

"Well, it was you're fault, you know." the hyper-evolved Vulcan said. "The Madre de Vampyra's thrall. You didn't fight it hard enough, did you?"

"I -- I --"

"That's enough, Spork!" Cloak said, flat out refusing to call him the Pain Reliever. His actions her proved that he didn't have any intention of healing anyone. Everyone was expendable to him. "Do you hear me, Spork?"

"That is not my name. My name is the Pain --"

"The Veil it is!" Cloak snarled. "If you were true to that name, you wouldn't revel in the pain of others! You wouldn't be so dismissive of the others pain! You wouldn't work to exacerbate it!"

"You presume much." Spork said in a low, dangerous voice. "Perhaps you should go first instead."

Cloak scoffed. "You won't kill us. You need us to help you see through this ridiculous scheme."

"Cloak's right. You would've tried to kill us already if you didn't need us." Estelore said. "Besides, I tumbled around in the Anomalous Nebula before. There's nothing there."

"Wrong. God is in there!" Spork said, delusionally desired devout.

Silence met these words. Cloak was the one who broke it.

"You've gotta be kidding me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 28, 2013, 10:34:38 PM

EH WHAT

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2013, 10:56:35 PM

Oh, you'll find out, Saffa.

Okay, another chapter I think. Here's where it becomes somewhat . . . autobiographical.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Humble Beginnings

"You cannot seriously believe that load of Muk ding," Cloak said. It sounded completely implausible to him, that the supposed creator of all that is in this realm was located in such a place. He probably misappropriated the sight of a large Ectonurite for this supposed God. They were close to Anur Phaetos, after all. "You would risk your entire cult --"

"You mean crew?" Saffa interjected.

"I know what I said," Cloak answered brashly. "You, Spork, would risk the lives of your cult in addition to your own to seek out this fool's dream."

"Ah," said Spork, reaching behind his head, fiddling with the knot the bandages were tied in. "All this hostility, all this skepticism, all this lack of faith. You may be able to hide and obscure your thoughts from me, but your past is an open book. Such a rich past full of disappointment, heartache, and abuse."

Cloak said nothing, he could not deny it.

"Yet you haven't told them everything have you? Allow me, dear, cloaked stranger," Spork.said, sounding uncannily like former Fire Lord Ozai. Then he dropped the bandages from his eyes, which glowed a purplish-blue. They glowed, not like suns, but like fluorescent lights.

"I see why he wore the bandages," Estelore muttered. "He makes a Feebas look cute."

But ol' Spork ignored the snide remark and unleashed a bluish-gray mist from wear a human's tear ducts would normally be. The mist appeared was a psychoactive substance, used to amplify Spork's psychic abilities. The mist started taking on forms, shapes from Cloak's past. The others could see it as well as he himself.

"Is . . . Is that the Nexus?" Aquilai asked.

"Over two hundred of your years ago," Cloak said, tonelessly. "Roughly."

The mist quickly formed itself into pictures of Cloak's near infancy. His grandfather, Sage, would sit all his children, grandchildren, and, eventually great-grandchildren, down upon his knee and sing them a song, the same song for each one of his six daughters and their children. Cloak could never remember more than the first two lyrics.

It was right then and there that Cloak was recognized as being . . . different. Everyone else cried after a few minutes. Cloak was the only one not to cry. The only one. His grandfather suspected that it might mean that he was born with something special, but said nothing. After all, Shadow was subjected to this tradition and she cried as with all the rest, and she became an Elements Master.

Cloak stood by idly, arms crossed, eyes closed. His expression was inscrutable.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 28, 2013, 11:27:57 PM

This guy reminds me of a church priest. I hate priests.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2013, 01:39:40 PM

Certainly hope you were referring to ol' Spork, Saffa. Now, most of these events are absolutely true, unequivocally. But the song adaptation is essentially a parody of what happened when I asked my mom to take me to get my driver's license.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Man Behind the Cloak

Then his little sister, the one who would later become known as Dagger, was born. While he and she could have been considered close in some aspects -- they would play games like hide and seek (which was easier when Cloak had to do the finding, as Dagger would giggle and give her hiding spot away) and such, but their sibling relationship was far from ideal. Mostly, they competed in all things, suffering from severe sibling rivalry at times. The two were like day and night -- Cloak was quiet, timid, and a wallflower, while Dagger was aggressive and prone to domineering and arrogance.

But Dagger did have a softer side. As the mist showed the others, while his mother hit his father and then two fought, Cloak was in the room he shared with her, curled into the fetal position, crying. He believed his parents to be fighting because of him. Dagger could have hurled some horrible jibes his way, but she didn't. She patted his back in an attempt to comfort him. Dagger wasn't evil, just complicated and flawed -- as is all people, regardless of species or religion or age or whatever category was left.

The fighting of his parents intensified, eventually, his father had to sleep on the couch in their living room. Little did Cloak realize then he was glimpsing into his future, as the selfsame couch was to become his bed when his bedroom became infested with mold (which of course was his fault, according to his mother). Cloak never had the best of relationship with his father, but that was mostly because he was so different from him. Cloak was always an introverted schoolwork, his father meanwhile was an active sports nut. His mother eventually led Cloak to believe that is why his father didn't love him -- which was very likely a lie, as not only was Cloak his eldest son, but he was his father's firstborn.

Eventually, his father got as much as he could stand of Ursa's crap, he ran away. Ursa led Cloak to believe it was because of him that his father left, and because Cloak's disinterest in sports. Like an idiot, Cloak swallows this hook, line and sinker. Just one instance of a long line of being manipulated by his mother.

Cloak would later join RAF, but eventually his mother puts her foot down and forbid's him to return.

"You want to the Realm? Why, son?
Look at you! Fragile as a flower!
Still a little sapling, just a sprout!
You simply don't have enough power.
That's right, we need to keep you safe dear.
Guess I always knew this day was coming.
Knew that, soon, that you'd want to leave the nest.
Soon, but not yet.
Trust me, pet,
Mother knows best!
Mother knows best.
Listen to your mother,
Those are scary Realms there.
Mother knows best!
One way or another,
Something'll go wrong, I swear!
Trolls, thugs, poison ivy, quick sand,
Cannibals and snakes, the Hate Plague!
Also large bugs, monsters with pointy teeth and --
Stop! No more, or you'll just upset me!
Mother's right here.
Mother will protect you.
Darling, here's what I suggest!
Skip the drama!
Stay with Mama!
Mother knows best!
Go ahead, get trampled by a wino.
Go ahead, get mugged and left for dead!
Me, I'm just your mother, what do I know?
I just bathed and changed and nursed you.
Go ahead and leave me, I deserve it!
Let me die alone here, be my guest!
When it's too late, you'll see -- just wait
Mother knows best.
Mother knows best.
Take it from your Mumsy.
On your own, you won't survive!
Sloppy, underdressed,
Immature, clumsy -- please!
They'll eat you up alive!
Gullible, naive,
Positively grubby!
Ditzy and a bit, well, um . . . vague.
Plus, I believe,
Getting kinda chubby.
I just saying because I wuv you!
Mother understands.
Mother's here to help you.
All I have is just one request!"

Any protest Cloak had was swiftly drowned out during the song, and now his mother said, rather menacingly, "You must never go back."

Cloak turned his back to her, not answering. Tears were welling in his eyes. There was no one his age around here, he was so lonely . . .

"Don't forget it!
You won't regret it!
Mother knows best!"

Cloak felt a crushing weight of loneliness crash down on him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 29, 2013, 09:09:35 PM

Yep, obviously I was referring to Spork! You are in no way hateful, like you said, just flawed. And that's okay. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2013, 10:40:26 PM

It wasn't me that I thought you were referring, it was my grandfather, Saffa.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Rise of the RAFian

From there, the mists reformed into the night most prominent in his memory, because it was when he hit his lowest point. The point where he considered doing the unthinkable to himself.

He was cooking a meat stew, as he always did a bulk of the cooking (not to mention a most of the.laundry and nearly all of the cleaning). He cooked per his mother's finicky orders. It seemed to be going well, other than the raging tempest of rage, resentment, and bitterness that he was repressing. His mother seemed blissfully oblivious to this.

When the stew was ready, his mother got upset that the fact of an ingredient -- a potato-like herb that is prepared identically -- had dissolved into the stew's saucy brine. Instead of accepting that that is what happened, she told him, as if he had an IQ in the negative integers, that there was none of the herb in it. She accused him of not putting it in (which he did) or eating them all (which he did not, he always served his mother first, before himself).

"No, I did!"

"Don't take that tone with me!" she said. Then she landed some of the stew up and let it fall into the pot, showing Cloak the absence of the chopped herb, as if he was stupid.

"But I did put them in! I did everything you told me too!" Cloak said. Even now, he didn't know how he kept control of his powers.

"Then where are they?!"

"They must have dissolved --"

"They can't dissolve!"

"But that's what happened!"

"I don't believe you. You're lying."

"I'm telling the truth!"

"You're a horrible liar."

Cloak's temper began to flare, but he kept his powers stable. If there is one thing that he cannot abide, it is being called a liar when he is being sincere. "I am not lying!"

Things escalated to the point found himself with a knife at his wrists. And he was going to follow through . . . had Shadow's face not swam before his eyes. He could not do that to her. He would not do that to her. But his mother caught him, and, instead of stopping him, she actually instructed him on the proper way to do it!

Cloak had enough, and his mother told him to get out, after he threatens to have her arrested for child abuse and neglect (in response of her claims of having him arrested for some stupid reason he chose not to remember). He left, and he never returned.

"Such deep pain," Spork said. "You don't have to carry this around anymore. You can have relief."

Cloak opened his eyes, but his expression was surprising. He wore a bored look of indifference, as he addressed the Spork, "Are you done yet?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 30, 2013, 07:58:31 PM

It's been more than a year since that happened and you can still remember it that clearly. This is really deep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2013, 12:40:17 AM

Well, it wasn't verbatim, and I was begging on my knees somewhere in there for my mom to understand. Power corrupted her.

Anyway, back to the two-time RAFAward-winning fanatic.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Truths and Deceptions

"What's this?" Spork said. "You cling to your pain?"

"I do not cling to it," Cloak said, voice even. "I know my childhood, my past, was far from idyllic and ideal. But it is mine, and I accept it. These hardships molded me into the person that I have become."

"Besides," Cloak stood up straighter, unfolded his arms, and glanced briefly at Aquilai. "A good friend once told me that you could either dwell on the past, or learn from it. The first step is acceptance, these events happened and there no going back and changing them. Without changing who I have become."

"You speak nonsense," Spork disagreed. "The pain of the past is best purged, removed. Relieved."

"You speak nonsense. You speak dogmatic foolishness, an empty unfulfilling religion." Cloak said. "You know very well that you don't help anyone, but expedite their end. You are little more than a  murderer who kills under the veneer of mercy!"

"Cloak, nice speech and all, but you might as well save your breath." Saffa murmured. "I get the feeling he's one of these really stubborn, ultra-religious fundamentalist."

"A Vulcan Fred Phelps?" Demos interjected.

"That too."

"It makes little difference," Spork snarled, doing the bandages back up, concealing his luminous house-elf-like protuberant eyes. "You will lead me and this ship through the Anomalous Nebula. Whether you cooperate or not!"

"Dropping the 'holy man' routine?" Estelle asked rhetorically. "Not that it was entirely believable or plausible."

"I didn't ask for your critique!"

"I know," Estelore said, in a bored voice. "That's why I gave it away for free."

"Pestilential star," Spork snarled quietly.

Aquilai's eyes widened, "You took us into the Nebula already, haven't you?"

"'Bout time you caught on." Spork said, haughtily. "Now, help us find God or be lost in this forgotten fog with us forever."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 31, 2013, 01:41:34 AM

As an atheist, I am thoroughly enjoying this book. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2013, 11:23:00 AM

While I don't consider myself an atheist, just someone who places a higher importance on science and provable fact, to the mythologies of mainstream religions. And as you can guess, I despise people who hide behind their religion to justify their bigotry. People like Laura Mallory (who wants to ban Harry Potter from her children's school, but can't be bothered with actually reading them) and Fred Phelps (the guy who instituted the tactless homophobic protests at soldier funerals).

But enough of that, there's a thread for it already.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Plumbing the Depths

"I cannot believe how selfish you are, Spork." Gaza scolded. Laserbeak mirrored this with a reproachful squawk.

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!!" he roared. "And I'm not being selfish! I'm showing the devotees the path of enlightenment! When we find God, we will be welcomed in His kingdom with open arms!"

"Your god cannot be all that good if he allows brazen, remorseless murderers into his heaven," Underseen said.

"I am NOT a murderer! I eased and relieved them of their pain! I lifted the weight from their hearts! I purged the sin from --"

"Oh, stop with the pretense," Demos said. Even he was getting annoyed now.

"Don't you take that tone --"

"Enough," Cloak said. The very air vibrated with his aerokinetic power as the inner hull vibrated with his ferrokinetic power. Spork decided that it was in his best interest to listen, as it became obvious that Cloak was getting close to gutting him like a fish. "We have no interest in hearing your rationalizations for your crimes, nor with helping you in your inane quest from the metaphysical. We shall leave."

<Cloak, I hate to argue,> Noelle said, <but can we really, in good conscience, leave these people to meander here, endlessly?>

Cloak's expression was inscrutable, but Spork acted as if Noelle was his ally. But she ruined it for him when she thought-spoke again, <I mean, Spork deserves that, he chose this path knowing full well of the consequences of such actions. But can we say the same of his devotees? He could have -- and it is very likely that he has -- deceived, threaten, or brainwashed them to stay onboard. They deserve some consideration, do they not?>

Cloak said nothing, because he knew that she was right. He couldn't just write off the crew like that. Cloak.looked at Estelore, hoping she had a better plan. He was sorely disappointed because, by the look on her face, she hadn't.

"We're taking over this ship," Cloak said. "We will find a way out of this Nebula."

"You can't!" Spork protested. "I'm so close!"

"Silence, you. You've done enough already!" Cloak snarled.

"Wait, Cloak." Esty said, noticing something outside the window. "What's that?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2013, 07:41:34 PM

Okay, new chapter ti-- why is Auto Correct capitalizing the 'n' in 'new'? Seriously, how many times has auto correct ever been helpful, not just a nuisance?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Rock

Cloak turned to see what Estelore indicated. It was a rocky planetoid, possessing a Galilean complexion, though very clearly lifeless. Besides it was much too big to be a Galilean. It possessed three large craters each forty-five degrees from each other, at least from this angle. Every so often, one of the craters (which was about as big as RAF itself) would belch the same hazy, misty, gaseous substance that made up the Nebula.

"What does this mean?" Yarin said, all six eyes open in surprise, then blinking furiously.

"It means that I was right, foolish nonbelievers!" Spork shouted. "Now you'll have to endure His eternal damnation!"

"He don't know me very well, do he?" Demos said, in a possible Bugs Bunny impression.

"Fanaticism aside," Saffa added, "that planet proves that this Nebula isn't naturally made. Assuming that the planet itself is artificial."

"Helmsman! Plot a course for the planet off the port bow!" Spork yelled into an intercom-like communications device. "It is there where what we have sought for so long is located!"

Cloak sighed. "That's right, I forgot to tell someone to watch him."

"You'll see! You'll all see! My crew and I will be welcomed into the gates of heaven, while you'll be left behind! We will be rewarded grandly!" Spork said, rather deliriously devout. He was fast losing the veneer of a sagely old prophet and becoming more akin to those street people who are convinced that the end of the world is near. "Not only will you be left behind, but you'll be punished most severely for your disbelief! For your lack of faith!"

<You are ranting,> Noelle sniffed, in a remarkable -- but completely unintentional -- impression of Jim Dale's reading of Minerva McGonagal in "Order of Phoenix".

"Uh, is it me, or does it seem that we're coming upon that planet a little fast?" Underseen asked, quite prudently.

"It isn't just you," Cloak commented.

"We're coming too hot!" Estelore exclaimed. "Everyone, back to Yarin's ship! Now! Go go go!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 31, 2013, 10:37:30 PM

Now he reminds me of my grandfather at church. And I don't like that either. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 01, 2014, 05:36:44 PM

My maternal grandmother was similar, Saffa.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Pan Padre

Cloak's eyes snapped open, and he was his feet within seconds. He looked around immediately, and saw that he was on the rocky planetoid. He saw the others scattered around him, just now reaching consciousness. They had never made it to Yarin's ship.

Cloak was surprised that Yarin's ship survive a crash that turned Spork's significantly larger one into shrapnel. That reminded him, and he glanced around for the non-RAFian survivors. He didn't. He felt a pang of sorrow and empathy. . . . Sport's crew did not survive. Cloak knelt beside a shattered horn and a dismembered piece of Triceraton tail. Poor Kuzon.

Yarin staggered his ship, muttering something about being grateful for its Impervium finish. That would explain its ability to survive such a crash.

"It . . . It is done!" came a maniac voice, tinged with insane devotion. "Can you feel it? He is here! My eternal rewards are nigh! The Rapture shall begin, wiping away the sinners and unworthy! Only the devout will profit! Beware His Almighty ha--"

"Oh, shut up!" Saffa snarled, holding her head as Underseen completed reconstituting himself. "I already have a migraine, I don't need you piling on more pain!"

But Spork wasn't listening, but walking drunkenly toward an unseen mass of purple vines. It was like he was so delirious of his dream that he decided to forgo reality. Unfortunately, this planet did not seem to be uninhabited. . . .

"Get away from there, you damn fool!" Esty shouted. She doesn't make it habit to curse, so you knew it was serious. "It's not safe!"

So she sensed it too. But her warning met deaf ears, and came a smidgen too late. A vine -- no, an oozy tentacle had wrapped itself around Spork.

"BECOME ONE WITH ME," boomed a voice that reverberated around and through the planet. "BECOME ONE WITH ME."

"Yes! Yes, M'Lord!" Spork said, slavishly devoted. "Thank you for choosing me! Thank you! Rapture me,  rapture me when ready, Lord!"

"You idiot! That's not -- " Aquilai began, but the tentacles completely enveloped the hyper-evolved Vulcan as Saffa, Noelle, and Gaz shrieked in terror as lightning flashed in the misty fog around them.

"What the hell are you?" Demos said. Even he looked disturbed.

"PAN PADRE," the creature said. It was a hybrid of Father, the One, and a Lethifold. "BECOME ONE WITH ME."

"No," Cloak said in reply. Then we he addressed the others, "We need to get to Yarin's ship. We need to get out of here."

"YOU WILL BECOME ONE WITH ME!"

"No, we won't. We're not deluded theomaniacs." Gaz said, primly. "But how do we get out the Nebula after we get to the ship?"

<Worry about that later,> Noelle said. <Let's get out of here!>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 01, 2014, 09:58:01 PM

Good heavens. Brilliant stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2014, 09:16:04 AM

Thanks, two more chapters until this book is done. Then we'll see more of Aquilai's past -- hopefully, it won't be to heavy-handed.

But I'll post 'em after I get off work.  It's a miserable day here, weather-wise, so I may be too tired to do so.  If that happens, forgive me.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Escape

"You heard her," Estelore said, "get moving guys!"

"Don't dawdle!" Cloak intoned seriously. "I'll hold it off, but hurry!"

Cloak used his mastery over the earth element to make earthen walls to cover the others' flight to the ship. But it was like fighting that viral ooze and the Phalanx all over again! Cloak glared at the creature, pondering this idea of his . . . was it right to slay a creature for doing what it was biologically programmed to do? To slay a creature of questionable sentience? All of its sentience could have just come from the beings that it absorbed, just like that Father creature that the Ellimist defeated.

But did that make it right to take its life? Did it?

"Cloak, we're all aboard!" Gaz shouted. "Get the lead out!"

If he left this creature here . . . then it would just absorb more and more hapless travelers who blundered into this Anomalous Nebula. What would they say of his ethical qualms to allow this creature to survive victimizing more and more people? Could he really justify his decision then?

"Cloak!" Saffa called.

Whatever happened, he would take the responsibility. He would bear the burden of blame. It would be his burden alone to bear. He gnashed his feline fangs as punched the ground, terrakinectically ripping the planet apart. Granted, it took a majority, if not the totality of the power he possess, the power that he usually restrained, and repressed.

Then, with a hop, a skip, and a jump, he boarded the ship. The RAFians looked at him a bit awestruck at the show of brute strength. Cloak looked at them with a heavy-lidded look. This wasn't the first time he showed the limit of his power.

"You just . . ." Underseen said.

"I didn't do anything that you haven't seen me do before," Cloak said, a bit irritably. "The land wasn't as solid as you believe it to be. The outer crust of that planetoid was a fraction as thick as the Earth's crust."

They just shuffled a bit, as Estelore told Yarin to pilot the ship out of the Nebula, which seemed to dilute just a bit. Cloak was glad to see that the stunned look of shock evaporate from their faces. The planetoid was mostly hollow due to the large craters synthesizing the Nebula gas.

Cloak looked out the window, and saw that the creature was being swallowed up in the rubble of the planet. He heard the creature attempt a sustained roar, until it stopped with unnatural abruptness. He saw that it stretched over about two-thirds of the planetoid. The creature clearlybdied as the imprisoned psyches were freed to go wherever such things end up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 03, 2014, 02:42:25 AM

Argh, hate it when I miss the edited post. But what a finale.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2014, 06:43:32 AM

There is still one more chapter left, Saffa. But yes, it is winding down. The next book will focus primarily on Aquilai, I believe.

Anyway, this closing chapter probably will be short.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Old Wounds and Acceptance

It was going to be a long trip home. They sat mostly in silence, but about halfway through, Estelore parted with them. She wouldn't say why, but it was apparently to clean up more of Fred's messes. Such a burden to bear . . .

Cloak couldn't help but dwell on the images that Spork showed with his mind mist. Just because he accepted the fact that the events happened, does not mean the wounds had healed. That would take time, a considerable amount of time, before it happened. If it ever did -- some wounds never quite heal completely. One thing's certain, he will never trust mother so explicitly again. Never again.

It is complicated also by the abject knowledge that his mother, Ursa, was not sorry for what she done. She was not remorseful or regretful for her actions, instead goes to lengths to justify them, coming up with some certainly laughable scenarios.* In grander scheme of things, it is not just sad, but really pathetic. Cloak wasn't feeling so much pain from this relationship as much as he was feeling extreme pity for her.

How can you honestly go through life blaming your faults on others? Refusing to believe in your kwn fallibility? Only fools seek absolute perfection, as anyone with a well-organized mind knows perfection is an impossible goal, and can only be achieved in one's mind by ignoring or denying the imperfections, the things that don't mesh with the falsified version of reality.

Cloak sighed quietly. His mother needed help of the psychiatric kind, but he knew that she was too proud, too arrogant, too narcissistic to get it. This actually filled him with a sense of sorrow. No matter how you sliced it, the fact remained. She was still his mother. Nothing could change that, and nothing ever will.

"Cloak," Saffa asked gentlely, looking at him, "are you okay?"

Was he? Was he really okay? After everything he had been forced to endure?

The answer surprised him a little.

"Amazingly," he began, albeit heavily, "yes."

"You sure?" Gaz asked.

"Yes," Cloak said. "Yes, I am. It's true it wasn't an idyllic past, an ideal childhood. But it wasn't all bad . . . fishing with my grandfather . . . learning the elements from him . . . Shadow . . . Faith . . . no, it wasn't all bad."

With that, silence once more eclipsed the cabin.of the ship, as they sped off to RAF.

---
*Referencing the fact that she told my youngest maternal aunt that the aunt who rescued me (the penultimate eldest, with my mother as the eldest sister) had "kidnapped" me from a halfway house. ::) Not a word was true, of course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2014, 10:55:19 PM

Okay, apparently the last chapter fell victim to the "modified post syndrome", that is to say that it is still hidden from those that don't look at my sig. ;)

But let's start this book, now shall we?

BOOK LIV:
BEYOND THE VEILS
CHAPTER ONE:
Menial Maintenance

It was a brillant, if blustery, day. Most RAFians, unable to take advantage of the sunny day due the chilling wind gusts, took to indoor pursuits. Gaz with her Recaps, others with their RPs, and such. Only Az and Horse seemed to enjoy the weather, their cryokinesis imparting a higher cold tolerance than the others.

Cloak and Aquilai were deep in the bowels of the forum. They were updating the species database, expanding it it to include every species that the RAFians had ever encountered. Thus far, it just basically included species with RAFian members, with just a smattering of non-RAFian species.

"Present Mark for scanning," said a cool female voice.

They complied with this. Cloak cracked his knuckles and the two set to work.

Cloak was beginning to write an entry for the Czarnians -- a humanoid species with human-like hair and chalk-white skin. Save for one or two, they were fundamentally extinct. It was a species that Cloak had just the briefest of encounter with one of the last surviving Czarnians. He wasn't sure if it was in this realm, though. He was reconsidering this entry.

"Czarians? Never heard of them." Aquilai commented, conversationally.

And that was all Cloak needed to  confirm his assumption that they must not exist in this realm. So, they continued on, cataloguing the various species, until they got to the "V"s. Specifically, then entry on the Veils, a reptilian species apparently able body hop into other species. There was a picture, a portrait, of the creature accompanying the file.

Cloak glanced at Aquilai's face, and was surprised to see an uncharacteristic look of rage and hatred on his face. He was glaring at the portrait of a Veil . . . it didn't take a genius to understand why. Aquilai clearly had an experience, an encounter, with one of these Veils. It was obviously an unpleasant one.

Cloak approached the precipice of asking what happened, but bit it back, thinking it to be too personal, too impertinent, a question. If Aquilai chose to disclose the events, then fine. If not . . . well, it's his story to tell as he will. But he had to say something to break Aquilai out of this emotionally-triggered state.

"Uh," Cloak said, in his brilliant opening statement, "need a break, Aquilai?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 03, 2014, 11:30:50 PM

Body-hoppers. Brilliant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2014, 10:13:56 AM

. . . No PDF? It's okay, I don't want to sound as if I'm pressuring you, Saffa. I assume it has something to do with school getting back underway.

Another chapter will be along shortly. God, I am glad I discovered how to turn off autocorrect.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Hideaway and the Fugitives

In some rundown, dilapidated part of the city, two figures streaked by. By the looks of them, they were street people. Upon closer examination, they were a man and a young boy no younger than five. The man had the build of Dom DeLuise in his later years, with wild ginger hair sprouting from nearly every inch of shown ski and rather basic, if threadbare, clothing of subdued blues and whites. The boy had dark hair and clothes that looked too baggy on him, with an overlarge orange hat.

"Hurry! Hurry up now, Gynecovyx!" the man snarled at the boy, so that his leonine likeness was more pronunced. "We need to get to a safe place."

"You worry too much, Androvex." the boy said. His voice had a little whine to it, and he seemed to notice. "Ugh, why did I have to get this whiny brat?"

"You were the one that wanted to wear it." Androvex countered. "And I'm right to worry! This is Earth, fool -- this should be good enough. Let's ditch the --"

A bipedal, tailless, reptilian humanoid stepped from the man, who collapsed into an unconscious heap. The possessing creature possessed sharp teeth, scaly skin and somewhat ridged head. A a long pinkish tongue snaked from the creature's mouth and flailed a bit before withdrawing.

"-- the dead weight." Androvex said, as if there was no interruption of dispossessing the homeless man.

"Finally," Gynecovyx exclaimed in the boy's whiny voice. Unlike the man, the boy let a grunt escape as the Veil dispossessed him. Only this one was clearly a female, and slightly younger than Androvex. "That was one whiny brat. I'm glad I gave him blistered feet."

"Gynecovyx," Androvex said, as the two slinked away into the darkness. Their former hosts were beginning to stir. "You know we have to be more careful with who we inhabit. We can't just jump into these humans indiscriminately. We cannot afford to attract unwanted attention, and we cannot afford to be outside a body, because that bounty hunter."

"Oh, he'll never think to look on us on Earth." Gynecovyx said.

"Don't get complacent!" Androvex scolded. "The Czarnian isn't the only concern! He is here. And he has powerful allies, if the stories are true."

They strayed into an ally, and saw two teens loitering, drinking beer and whatever illict goings-on. Androvex turned to Gynecovyx and said, quietly, "Now, choose wisely, because we'll have to wear them for a while."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 04, 2014, 11:11:06 AM

Yes, autocorrect is a pain, Cloak. I wasn't actually able to get on my laptop today, as I was out the whole day. But I'll make the PDF a little later and attach it tomorrow. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2014, 11:20:41 AM

Ah. The next chapter will be in my previous post. Working on it now.

:edit: Time for a new chapter I think.

CHAPTER THREE:
Past Qualms and Strange Sensations

Meanwhile, back at RAF, life went on at its usual zany, crazy way and its usual pace. Some RAFians gathered under the trees with agood book to read. Cloak sat upon a tree stump, and was meditating. He was having a hard time at it though.

He snapped his eyes open irritably, as he looked to his right. No one was there. He heard the laughing, as the younger RAFians frolicked in the lake, but that didn't bother him. It was the insistent poking on his right shoulder that was bothering him. But there was no source of it . . . It couldn't be from some one invisible, as virtually nothing, if anything, was invisibe to him. Earthsight would have alerted him if any one who traveled upon the ground was doing it. That, added to his acute hearing and sense of smell, made incredibly difficult to sneak up on him.

"D'ah!!" Cloak growled, as he recieved two more pokes. It was like ten pokes now. "Stop it!"

***

In a dark ally, two boys stopped in front and were talking loudly. They were painfully oblivious to the potential for danger the ally presented. One had dark hair and the other was platinum blonde. The dark-haired one was arguing for the two to cut through the ally on their way home.

"Chaz," the plantinum blonde said. "You know our parents don't want us to cut through there. You know this city has an attraction for monsters."

"There hasn't been a monster attack in forever, Ian." Chaz said. "C'mon, it'll cut off --"

The streetlights cut on.

"We're late as is. We need to get home fast. You worry too --AAAH!!"

He screamed as he was roughly grabbed by something. Something hiding, lurking, in the shadows.

"Cha -- AAAH!!" he started, as he was grabbed by a second creature. Their bikes clattered to the ground.

Seconds passed. Then footsteps were heard and the two boys stepped into the light. A pinkish tongue withdrawing back into their mouths. They picked up their bikes, as Ian said, "As I was saying before this opportunity presented itself, I didn't know those two teens were overdosing, Gynecovyx."

"And, as I told you, Androvex," Chaz said, with a slight effeminate edge, "there is no way that the Czarian will track us here. Especially now, as we have the best disguises. At least, this boy isn't as whiny as the first one."

"Remember to keep up the act, though, Ian. We need to remain undercover, and not garner attention." Androvex intoned cautiously.

***

Aquilai was working on his TARDIS, but he was doing it on automatic. He wasn't readly thinking about the repairs. He was remembering the Veils. He scowled at the thought. He remembered his old companion, before he came to RAF. Back when he was a waterbender.

He delighted in showing him the exciting things the universe had to offer. She was estatic, and a very good student. But, in reality, she was more than just a mere companion. Much more.

Suddenly, Aquilai recieved an alert on some strange tracking device. He was surprised, sure of a mistake. They surely wouldn't be foolish to come here, to his adopted home. It was a well-known fact. What could made them think that they could come here and leave unscathed? Especially after they killed . . .

"Androvex . . . Gynecovyx . . ." he muttered savagely, "I will make you sorry for killing her. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 05, 2014, 12:48:38 AM

This felt like a TV show episode with how you described the events.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2014, 01:23:04 AM

I've always felt Memoirs would make a brilliant TV series. At least I have my head to play it out. ;)

As promised, here's the PDF of the last book. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 05, 2014, 02:55:11 AM

Wow. After I read this book, I'll be all caught up!! I actually ran out of things to do at my dad's house (which doesn't have wifi) because I caught up. Haha.... Yay! So many things in these makes so much more sense now!! (I hope that makes sense. :XD:)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2014, 11:06:19 AM

Um . . . suuuuure, Abby, if you say so. ;)

Anyway, I discovered that I mispelled Czarnian, so I went back an fixed it. And here is a potentially short chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Czarnian Cometh

Cloak was relieved when the irritating poking had ended. He did not know what caused it, but would not allow it to cause him discomfort. It was probably nothing. What did cause him concern, was Aquilai's rather erratic, uncharacteristic behavior. He was alll broody and reclusive. Clearly something has happened, something that he doesn't want to talk about.

Cloak actually could understand that mentality. During his transition from being his mother's involuntary servant to being a full-time resident of RAF, he was behaving similarly. He would haunch his shoulders, looking down, and basically looking like the most defeated being in existence. But Cloak could tell that it wasn't defeat Aquilai was feeling, he could recognize the cues of unbridled rage, having experienced it himself.

Cloak worried and fretted about his friend. He knew what such a path of rage and hatred could lead, as it was very nearly a road he took. And such a road is filled with nothing but darkness, darkness and pain.

***

High above the Earth, what can only be described as a Czarnian biker. He wore inky black leather clothing, a bushy mane of black hair, and black markings around his sunken eyes that blended into the blackness of the vast expanse of space, which accented well with his chalk white skin. He was astride a space-flight capable bike with propulsion components of wheels. He also had a pair of sunglasses in his pocket.

In his left hand, which wore a fingerless leather glove, he held a unusually high-tech device that clashed horribly with the whole style and motif he had going on. He studied the screen, looking rather bored. Maybe the lead was wrong, as the scanner wasn't detecting the energy that was unleashed when the Veils took and left a body. Most beings couldn't notice the minute energy given off, but it was there.

Suddenly, an orange dot appeared on the scanner, then blipped out of existence. Then it appeared again and then vanished again. The Czarnian smirked an intimidating sneer. They were here. They were here on this backwater planet, and they weren't being very careful.

***

"Gynecovyx! What did I tell you?!" Androvex said, still occupying Chaz's body.

He was addressing Ian's older, teenagd sister. Ian was unconscious in his bed, and they moved the argument to room next door, belonging to his sister, Valerie. Androvex was clearly livid, and Gynecovyx was churlish, but defiant.

"I was tired of always have a male host." she said, mulishly.

"I told you that we are in hiding, fool!" Androvex snarled. "You realize that the Czarnian can track it when we take and release bodies? No. No, of course not."

"Stop speaking to me as if I'm child!"

"Then stop being as reckless as one!" Androvex countered. "We have to run away now, thanks to your impetuousness."

After a beat passed, Androvex snarled, "What do you think you're doing?! Didn't it just tell you that he could track us if we release bodies?"

"But then how --"

"We'll go on the lam inside these ones," Androvex snarled. "We could have lived here comfortably until the bounty on us expired. But, due to your recklessness, we have to go now. Inside these pathetic creatures."

He sighed heavily.

"This exactly why Earth is so dangerous for us, Gynecovex." he said, his tone more subdued now. "We killed that girl, remember."

"I didn't know that it was his girlfriend, I was just having fun." Gynecovyx protested.

"And your hedonistic urges landed us in this predicament!" he snarled. "Now, hurry up and pack. We gotta get going. This time use your head. Or Valerie's, as she has better judgment apparently."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2014, 11:59:34 AM

Aquilai is giving me the feels.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2014, 02:30:44 PM

Um . . .  Is that new phrase amongst the kids now, Saffa? I'm not quite sure what it means.

CHPATER FIVE:
City-Wide Alert

"Alert. Alert. Alert. . . ." came the cool female voice over the intercom.

"Hell's bells," Demos was heard to moan, "what now?"

"Uh, apparently there a hubbub in the city," Saffa said.

"Uh, what is that?" Abby asked, peering at the screen with squinted eyes. "I haven't seen that species before."

Several RAFian glanced at Demos, and he responded, "Hey, not one of mine."

"Of course not," Cloak said dismissively. "He is a Czarnian."

"A what?" Dino asked.

"A virtually extinct species," Cloak explained, "so rare that I thought they were extinct in this realm."

The video captured showed this Czarnian grabbing up humans, which he stood out easily against. He appeared to be scanning them, then dropping them roughly when the scanner didn't detect anything. Yarin noticed this.

"Look at the device he holds in his hand," the Nyac pointed out. "He's looking for something."

"Then it's time for us to be proactive," Cloak said, "those people are depending on his us to come to their rescue, and that Czarnian is behaving atypically from an ordinary Czarnian. He could harm them."

He looked at the mods, Richard in particular, and continued, "With deference to the mods, I'm going.down there to see what he wants."

"I agree," Richard said, "but take a team with you."

Cloak nodded, "Saffa. Underseen. Dino. Aqu--"

But Aquilai hadn't come to see what was going on. Cloak fretted what he was up to, but there wasn't time to linger on that.

"Az. Come, let's get going."

***

Androvex, still occupying Chaz, and Gynecovyx, still inhabiting Valerie, were in Valerie's car. They were listening to Valerie's presets on the radio.

"Can't believe she likes this noise," Gynecovyx said, which was a bit odd hearing Valerie criticize her own presets.

"Wait, go back." Androvex said.

She turned back to the news station which described the hysteria that the Czarnian's arrival and manhandling caused. Androvex glared up at Valerie with Chaz's eyes.

"What?"

"That was the Czarnian, Gynecovyx!" he snarled. "Releasing Ian and taking Valerie must have attracted him here. I told you that this could happen! I told you we should have been cautious. But no. No, you allow your baser, hedonistic instincts to get ther better of you."

Gynecovyx took her eyes off the road and said, sternly, "You don't have to rub it in!"

"WATCH THE ROAD!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2014, 10:18:56 PM

Yeah, it generally means sad emotions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2014, 11:01:47 PM

Well, as you can tell if you look to the left there, I came up with a new book idea.

• Book CCXXXI: "The Chimeras" -- The RAFians must stop chimeras from sucking the life from the populace.

Yeah, I know that it is similar to the Mutates books in the series, but -- and trust me on this -- they are not alike.

CHAPTER SIX:
Confrontation and Desperation

"Czarnian," Cloak shouted, a tiger roar intermingling with his voice. It silenced the crowd a little . . . nont that there were many people remaining there. The Czarnian looked up at Cloak, at being addressed as such. "Czarnian, desist disturbing the peace."

"Being a little formal, Cloak," Saffa said, in aside.

"You're not speaking to the Main Man like that," the Czarnian said in a voice very much like Brad Garrett's dulcet tones.

Cloak raised an eyebrow, as he ****ed his head slightly to the side and folded his arms. "But you're not Lobo."

"Who the frag is Lobo? I'm Bolo." the Czarnian said, in a rather, um, earthy way.

"Greaaaat," Dino said, rolling her eyes. Cloak did not know that she could do that. "We have a perp named after a tie."

"The Main Man doesn't doesn't like that tone." Bolo said, trying to get into Dino's face -- not easy, considering how she towered over him in her true height. He clearly wasn't easily intimidated. Or just lacking common sense, Cloak couldn't tell.

"Oh, don't make me eat you." Dino snipped.

"Oh, stop this ridiculous behavior." Cloak said. He was starting to get annoyed. "What the Veil are you doing here?"

"Exactly," he said. "You know 'em?"

Now Cloak was perplexed as well as annoyed. "You're not making any sense, Bolo."

"They're my bounty, and I've come to collect 'em." he said. "I've got dibs, so don't get in my way."

"You have no idea who you're dealing with, Czarnian." Cloak threathened, not liking the way the Czarnian was taking him lightly. He had his pride, after all.

"The frag I don't," he said, tossing his device rather more carelessly than warranted. "I can track the energy that they give off when they possess people."

Suddenly, Cloak realized what he was talking about. But judging by the looks the others had, they hadn't connected the dots. But they hadn't updated the species database like he and Aquilai did. But there was still the issue at hand.

"We can't let you manhandle the denizens of this planet for your bounty."

"You wanna fight about it?"

"You honestly have taken leave of your senses." Cloak said.

"Who said he had any to begin with?" Az said.

***

Valerie's car had a headlong collison with another driven my middle-aged housewives -- whether they were desperate or not was unable to be determined. Valerie and Chaz were very near death, but Androvex and Gynecovyx abandoned their bodies, being completely unharmed themselves, leaving the two for dead. They took the housewives, with Androvex being the driver.

"You're never driving again." Androvex said, thoroughly distempered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 06, 2014, 12:07:06 AM

There's quite a bit of comic relief in this book. Or have I spoken too soon?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 06, 2014, 06:13:22 AM

What were the veil based on? The whole idea of the creatures is familiar to something else.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2014, 07:37:36 AM

I didn't create the Veils. They're a Doctor Who creature. Unless you mean Androvex and Gynecovyx specifically? I guess I based them off an old married couple, which wasn't my intention when I initially planned out the book. They were "Monster of the Day" sort of deal in characterization. But this characterization is better, I think.

And, as for the comic relief, it's better to have some coming out of a book like the last one, right, Saffa?

I'm really pushing my luck posting this chapter with the length of time I have left before work, so it'll probably be short.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Aquilai Angst

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Aquilai and Yarin is monitoring the events. Aquilai had the scanner hidden on his person, but it did not detect the energy signatures of the two Veils yet. Aquilai knew that he would have to wait to find them. And he would find them. Find them and exact his vengeance upon them. They would know they made a grievous error coming to Earth.

Then he heard what the Czarnian was after. And saw that it took the time like six seconds to subdue him.

"They should let him have the Veils," Aquilai muttered savagely. The RAFians were bringing the Czarnian to the forum, as their clean-up team went and began fixing up the property damage. Aquilai watched as Bolo was broight in, encased in a small iceberg -- courtesy of Az.

Then, suddenly, his scanner lit up as it detected the energy from the Veils -- only his was more sophisticated, as it was able to detect the type of energy, whether they were possessing or dispossessing victims.

"I have business elsewhere," he said, quietly, excusing himself from Yarin.

***

"Look, I'm sorry, Androvex," Gynecovyx said, now wearing a burly, hairy, fat, redhead man whose clothing was not very flattering of his body style as his ample belly stuck out prominently from his stained white tank top. "But I couldn't couldn't handle this guy beating my last body."

"It's okay," Androvex said, ditching his housewife body. "The Czarnian has been caught by the local authorities. We're off the hook."

Gynecovyx quickly abandoned the man's body, describing it as disgusting. But then she realized something. "But, Androvex, what about the Time Lord?"

Androvex looked shocked. "I forgtten about him!"

"We have to find new disguises, don't we?"

Androvex smiled, and said, "Eventually, but I have an idea how to get him off our tails."

"But we don't have tails."

"It's a figure of speech!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 06, 2014, 12:48:32 PM

I'm guessing Classic Who, because I don't quite recall them in an episode of New Who - of which I've watched everything. Or that might just be my memory acting up again. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2014, 09:16:45 PM

Maybe "The Sarah Jane Adventures" or whatever.

Anyway, I finished planning the chapters of Book CCXXV. It is unofficially the longest book of this series -- at 48 chapters, unless I decide to combine some chapters when it comes time to write them. I can say that it will star Saffa, Abby, Underseen and myself.

I'll post another chapter shortly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 06, 2014, 09:42:35 PM

Dr. Who had lots of spin offs, I can't imagine you writing a Memoirs spin off because you spend most your time on the original series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2014, 09:54:07 PM

Eh, the out-of-continuity books are kind of one-shot spinoffs in a way.

Oh, and in twelve more days, "Memoirs" turns two. Two years old.

I know I said that I would post another chapter, but I'm just too tired and don't have sufficient energy to do it. Sorry, but you'll hafta wait until I get some shuteye.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 06, 2014, 10:49:45 PM

Two years well spent. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2014, 10:55:59 PM

And I just realized "Memoirs" won the Fanfic of the Year award every year since its inception (2014 doesn't count yet).

Sorry again 'bout the lack of a new chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 07, 2014, 02:15:44 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on January 06, 2014, 09:16:45 PM

Anyway, I finished planning the chapters of Book CCXXV. It is unofficially the longest book of this series -- at 48 chapters, unless I decide to combine some chapters when it comes time to write them. I can say that it will star Saffa, Abby, Underseen and myself.

Holy crap! Fourty-eight chapters?? That's awesome!! ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2014, 09:25:17 AM

It's still 170 or so books away.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Hopalong and Powwow

Aquilai had returned his tread to make sure he had all he needed. He was going to find those Veils. He didn't care where they may be hiding. He would make them pay.

"Going somewhere?"

Aquilai jumped, and spun as he saw Cloak standing at his thread's door, leaning nonchalantly on the door jam. His arms folded, but wearing a knowing look.

"Yes."

"You know where?"

It cost Aquilai something to admit it, "Not really, no."

"Going on a directionless journey is pointless," Cloak said, infuriatingly benign. Then his tone changed to a more serious one. "It won't help, you know."

"What are you talking about?" Aquilai said, snappishly.

"You know very well to what I refer," Cloak said. "It will not bring whoever you lost back. It will not make you feel better."

Cloak stopped leaning on the door jam, and stood upright now.

"Hatred is a fire that destroys all that it touches. The Hate Plague clearly demonstrates that." he said. "Don't dwell on the past, Aquilai, learn from it."

"Don't stop me," Aquilai said. It was an idle threat, as he knew Cloak could very easy restrain him if he had the inclination.

"I'm not going to," Cloak said as the two walked to the main plaza of the forum. Bolo was set up there as if some perverse fountain statuary, without the fountain and water. Horse and Az had been taking it in turns to refreeze the Czarnian. "You need resolution, closure, for this. I just hope you don't do something you'll later come to regret."

There was an explosion and smoke was furling from the bounty hunter's tracking device. Aquilai shook his head at the primitiveness of the device. His was still operational, but saw that it, despite its higher sophistication, it was being heavily taxed. Aquilai knew what the Veils were doing, attempting a smokecreen for his scanner. Clearly, they were deliberately trying to activate his scanner by hopping from body to body rapidly to cause an irregular reading or an error, as Cloak felt an irritating series of pokes.

It wasn't going to work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 08, 2014, 10:29:47 PM

Okay, new book ideas.

• Book CCXXXII: "Clay Achin'" -- The RAFians must deal with a puppeteer who has magic voodoo clay.
• Book CCXXXIII: "Unmitigated Havoc" -- A man with a hologram-enabled suit runs amok and wrecks havoc.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Last and the Furious

"Aquilai, I won't stop you, but I hope you listen to this. Let your anger out, but don't do anything that you'll later regret."

"What do you know about killing?" Aquilai said harshly.

"You know I killed Cataclysm. Another Realm Walker, granted one that other Walkers already believed to be dead." Cloak said, quietly. "It's not as easy as those who haven't taken a life believe."

It was clear that decision still haunted Cloak somewhat. Aquilai's haughtiness dissipated somewhat, but he left without another word and Cloak watched him go, hoping he wouldn't come to regret this decision. He was so distracted by this, he didn't notice that Yarin and Goom were confiscating the Czarnian's bike and dragging it right in front of the frozen bounty hunter.

What really snapped Cloak back to the present was what the two were debating. They were planning on disassembling and dissecting the bike. If there was one thing Cloak knew was a bad idea was talking about taking apart the bike in front of its owner.

"Stop talking about th--" Cloak began, but his warning came to late. Bolo shattered the ice encasing him, furious that they would dare to touch his sweet ride. He took it, beating the two away from it and tore out of the forum.

"What in the name of the First Light," Cloak said, exasperately, "made you think it was a good idea to try to dismantle his bike right in front of him?"

***

"How many more?" Gynecovyx said, wearing the body of a three-year-old boy.

"Just one more flesh change should do the trick." Androvex said, wearing the body of a crotchety octogenarian. Two orphan kids slunk by, picking pockets out of necessity rather than greed. "And they'll do nicely."

Within ten minutes, Androvex was wearing Mary Susan and Gynecovyx was wearing Gary Stuart. Androvex stood up straighter, haughtier. "That should do it."

Gynecovyx looked very uncomfortable, and said, "Actually, Mary, I think just one more change is in order."

They switched hosts so that Androvex wore Gary and Gynecovyx wore Mary.

"Satisfied now?" Androvex asked.

"Yeah," Gynecovyx said.

"Well, get comfortable. We're not leaving this flesh until we're safely away."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 08, 2014, 10:55:01 PM

You could use this for reference in later books where Saffa has a considerable part - she has taken a life before, as illustrated in my fic. It was an instinctive decision which left her scarred afterwards (on the inside, that is. She's still able to keep a straight face and the sass - but you know how it goes).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 09, 2014, 02:16:53 AM

Mary an Gary Stu. Good job on that one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 09, 2014, 07:51:18 AM

Yeah. What Underseen said. ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2014, 09:15:56 PM

Right. Okay, nearly done planning out Book CCXXX. There's gonna be an overall story arc between Book CCXXII to Book CCXXX.

I'll post another chapter soon, but first . . .

[spoiler=Click at your risk]Oh, you clicked. Are you sure about this? Turn back now, if you don't wanna be spoiled. [spoiler]Still? Really? Maybe I shouldn't say anything. [spoiler]My, you're persistent.[spoiler]Okay, okay, okay. Malice won't always be the primary antagonist. In fact, she -- er, never mind.[/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 09, 2014, 09:20:49 PM

Cloaky, you troll, you. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2014, 11:19:51 PM

Heh heh heh.

Now a new, possibly short, chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Caught and Echoes

Aquilai struck out in the fringes of the city, but doggedly refused to give up. But, as he continued his relentless search for the Veils, Cloak's words buzzed around his head. He sook it, as if they were a nuisance. He would do what needed to be done, to give them what they had coming to them . . .

He was so driven, but saw that his scanner wasn't picking up anything. The smokescreen was working. They were staying put, whether it was in stolen bodied or their own scaly, cowardly hides was immaterial and irrelevant. He would find them . . . he wasn't sure just how he would accomplish that unless they dispossessed or possessed a body.

No matter, he would be able to set the scanner to scan for residual energy and scan each person he came across. He didn't care what they thought of it, but it was a slower way of tracking them, but it was a way.

After a few more minutes, Aquilai decided that it may be the only way to to those transcorporeal monsters. He was to about to set the scanner to narrow the subject scanning perimeters, when the device gave two screeching beeps. Aquilai consulted the screen to see it it was a duel dispossession.

"I've got you filth now," Aquilai muttered savagely. The device beeped again, signalling that they possessed again.

***

"An-- I mean, Gary, there's the Czarnian."

"Don't draw attention to us, Mary." Androvex said, stressfully. "Maybe we can sneak by --"

"You know I can hear you two, right?" Bolo said, with his Brad Garett timbre voice. "And I'll make a deal with you. You get out of those wimps and I'll go easy on you. Don't, and I'll just take them with us."

He reached out and grabbed Gary's arm, but Androvex leaped out of him, leaving the street boy to his fate. Gynecovyx followed suit. Bolo, having no interest in the kid, thew him aside roughly. The two Veils ran, not taking an bodies, but flat-out running, until they were out of his line of sight.

"Oh, I love it when they run," Bolo said, in his deep voice. "They actually think that they can get away."

The Veils hid inside a pair of newlyweds, and rode them a goood distance away, before abandoning.the lovey-dovey couple, and making their home him a pair of blonde, fraternal twins. They were safe.

For the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 09, 2014, 11:32:23 PM

Caught between a rock and a hard place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2014, 08:49:03 AM

Too right. Now, chances are I'll post after work. This book's halfway over, if I recollect correctly.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Bounties and Comeuppance

Aquilai stalked a nearby forest, close by the incident with the Czarnian. He knew he was close. His heart was rotting with murderous desire. His Mark flickered as if trying to remind him not to forget himself in his fervent desire for vengeance.

TWANG!

Aquilai tripped a crude tripwire, and obvious trap sprung, but Aquilai easily evaded it. He didn't have time for this! He could lose the trail! They might escape his vigilante justice! What moronic lackwit set up this stupid trap?!

"Gotcha!" a voice drawled.

Brad Garett?

"What's this? How'd you escape my trap, Veil?" Bolo said.

The Czarnian. Of course.

"Answer me!" he demanded, so unlike the more laidback nature of Lobo from the DC miultiverse realm. "Answer me, you pathetic little man! No one ignores the Main Man, Veil!"

Aquilai felt his rage lick at his innards with its acidic saliva. "You have the unmitigated gall to call me a Veil?!"

This show of rage seemed to take the Czarnian by surprise. Aquilai had never been one to show such overt fury and anger, usually opting to be calm and reasonable. Aquilai was allow his emotions to overrule thought and reason, for this wound was that deep.

"I'm a Time Lord, Czarnian." Aquilai said, struggling to resume his normal composure. "Do not confuse the two."

The two gazed at each other, sizing them up. Aquilai narrowed his eyes dangerously. "You're hunting the Veils."

"They're my bounty."

"Well, this is one bounty you won't be collecting, Czarnian." Aquilai said, deadly serious. "They're mine!"

"You're not hornin' in on the Main Man's bounty!"

"I don't want your accursed bounty," Aquilai said. "The Veils are due for some . . . comeuppance."

"Hey, pally, they're mine."

"Don't challenge me, Czarnian."

"Or you'll do what?"

There was a hardness to the gleam that appeared in Aquilai's eye. It was worrisome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2014, 10:55:06 PM

*hums*

This is the fanfic that never ends.
Yes, it just goes on, and on, my friends.
Some people, started reading it,
Never knowing what it was,
And they'll continue reading it forever,

'Coz it's the fanfic that never ends.
Yes, it just goes on, and on, my friends.
Some people, started reading it,
Never knowing what it was,
And they'll continue reading it forever,

Just because this is the fanfic that never ends. . . .

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system. 'Nother chapter soon.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Dark Techniques, Fearful Abandon

"That should do," Androvex said. He rolled his new body's shoulders, still trying to adjust to this new, heavier build. "We should be safe now."

"That was scary, Don." Gynecovyx said, keeping the pretense rather poorly. Just using their hosts' names was not a sufficient enough facade to dupe everyone, they had to mimic behavior as well. Androvex was guilty of this logical discrepancy as well.

"True, Yvonne." Androvex said, brushing Don's sweat-matted hair out his face. "But it's over now."

He looked around as Gynecovyx said, "This heart won't stop pounding."

Another fallacy, saying "this heart" instead of "my heart".

"Don't fret, sister," Androvex said, finally adopting some of Don's mannerisms and turns of phrase. But the way he drummed his chest made it obvious that he was a possessing creature who had taken the teen's body for his own. "We'll be safe in here."

There was no buildings around, just trees and a dirt road. He was obviously referring to the twins and their bodies. It was a very disconcerting thing to see, had there been any witnesses. And there was just the one. . . .

"What do we do about the Czarnian?" Gynecovyx whispered, finally realizing that they could be overheard. Nonetheless, her -- that is to say, Yvonne's voice -- could be heard clearly on the wind. "He knows we're on Earth. We're marooned here, and he's here too. He'll eventually catch up to us, no matter where or who we are."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about the Czarnian for some time," called a voice. From the shadows, Aquilai appeared. "I dealt with him already, so he wouldn't get in my way."

***

Back where the two were about to clash, Aquilai used what could be considered the airbending equivalent to bloodbending in the dark nature of the techniques. Cloak would have never conceived it.

Aquilai, allowing himself to be consumed with vengeance, airbent the air from the Czarnian's lungs. It was a technique that could have killed a normal human, but Czarians apparently have a very unique respiratory system as they can apparently survive, unaided, in space like Ectonurites and Transyls. Aquilai did not kill Bolo, but managed to render him unconscious.

***

"Now, it's time . . . to pay. . . . To pay for what you've done!" Aquilai snarled, walking menacingly.

"What we have . . .  what are you talking about?" Androvex said, in a valiant attempt to feign ignorance. "You've got the wrong people."

"Yeah, you're making no sense." Gynecovyx added, hoping to solidify and validate the ruse.

Aquilai narrowed his eyes. "Drop the charade, Veils. Yes, I know what you are. The Czarnian isn't the only one with a scanner. My name is Aquilai."

It was with disturbing quickness that the Veil dropped the pretext, the pretense, and ditched the twins' bodies. There was flurry of movement and Aquilai managed to capture Gynecovyx while Androvex escaped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 10, 2014, 11:15:51 PM

That little tune. I love it. :hug:

This book is picking up the pace alright. Can't wait to see what happens next!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2014, 11:02:57 AM

Gonna post another chapter, but I'm gonna hang out with a friend for a few hours. So I post it afterward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 11, 2014, 12:29:14 PM

Nailbiting stuff!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2014, 03:52:14 PM

Oh, it'll get more intense. Uh, I think.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Walkers of Time and Reality

"Time for you to reap what you sowed," Aquilai snarled savagely. He had lost himself to his rage, to his vengeance. Aquilai started to airbend until --

"Aquilai, stop!" came a piercing roar.

Aquilai found himself forcibly lifted away from Gyneconyx, and he was bestial in being removed, fearing her escape. He did not know that she was restricted from some old tylee chains Cloak had hoarded away. He was prepared to use them on Malice, when the time came. His plan was tto then tote her to the Council in the Nexus -- which has probably changed Councilors by now -- to prove to them that Malice is indeed still alive. This was only a recent acquisition of the Elements Master.

This was more essential. Far more essential than that. He had to be sure that Aquilai wouldn't lose himself to his fury. Cloak knew -- he had been in Aquilai's place before, but he alway had his aunt, his sister Faith, his grandfather Sage, his fellow RAFians, and even innocent little Shadow . . . if not mostly Shadow, but by sheer virtue of simply being herself . . . if not for they, Cloak could have been . . . he didn't want to think about it.

"LEMME GO!! LEMME GO!!! SHE'S GETTING AWAY!! SHE CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO ESCAPE!!" Aquilai screamed, not even sounding like himself. He was becoming hysterical with his murderous desire.

"GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF, AQUILAI" Cloak roared, drowning out the deranged rant. A feat in and of itself. "Get control over your emotions, don't let them conquer you, don't let them take you over. You've lost control, Time Lord."

"You don't know that!"

He wasn't yelling so loud anymore. They were making progress.

"Don't I?" Cloak said, tone dangerously quiet. "Aquilai, think about this rationally. You know the nature of my powers, how inexorably linked they are to my emotional state. Don't you think that I've ever been envious of the average Walker, able to let loose without fear of causing extensive property damage?"

Cloak took a deep breath, then continued to monologue.

"But this isn't about me, it's about you. Whatever these Veils did to you, whoever they took from you, killing them would be a temporary fill of the void left. Vengeance is like a perverse intermingling of acid and fire, it does nothing -- NOTHING -- but hurt."

After a few moments, Aquilai righted himself, and he had regained his normal aloof composure. "I . . . I'm sorry, Cloak."

It was genuine.

"I don't know why I just lost it like that I . . ."

Cloak held up his hand, "I know. You know my past. I felt it too."

"How . . . how can we make them face justice?"

"Ever wonder who set that bounty?" Cloak said. "The intergalactic community is seeking reparations from them as well."

"But outside those chains," Aquilai said, "she'd escape."

"We'll get AniDragon to bind that ability," Cloak said, as the two proceeded to the RAF.

"But all Veils have that ability," Aquilai said, "will she be able to?"

"We'll find out." Cloak shrugged.

"And there's still one more. Andovex."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2014, 07:13:47 PM

New chapter. Seven more chapters until the end of this book, including this one, of course.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Infiltration Backfires

Androvex seemed to notice Gynecovyx's conspicuous absence about three-quarters of an hour after he had left her behind. He was at a loss of what to do, as he looked at his hands. Whatever he planned, he wouldn't be able to do it looking like a Veil. He spied an elderly gentlement preparing to sit down and feed the birds.

Within seconds, Androvex was wearing the old man. He regretted it nearly immediately when he discovered how itchy and prone to temperature discomfort the old man happened to be. He would not be dallying inside this human. But he remained.long enough, feeding the birds, so he could come up with a plan to rescue Gynecovyx. A more ruthless part of him considered cutting his losses, and leaving her to the mercy of the RAFians. He still had the Czarnian to deal with as well.

No. No, that wouldn't do. Gynecovyx was his friend, his mate. He couldn't abandon her. He had to save her from the RAFians and their human pets. Then a notion came to him. And it could work.

He spied a teenager skateboarding in this park. This teen had brown hair and eyes, a slight figure, and an unusually blank face. He wore worn and ripped jeans, a black helmet with colbalt blue trim, knee and elbow.pads od the same coloring, black fingerless leather gloves, and a black shirt with "Skatin' Satan" in white, chalk-like print. Androvex eyed with obvious and inappropriate looks. When the boy was close enough, he leaped from the elderly gentlemen and into the boy, resisting whipping his tongue from the boy mouth. He didn't need to give himself away so soon.

Now, to see if his plan could follow through.

***

Time for a plan B, then. He was going to see if he could trick the RAFians into letting him join up, then ditch the skateboarder and find Gynecovyx. Or else search, whilst pretending to be the boy. But it was no good.

Aquilai had taken to scanning all possible recruits with that blasted, infernal scanner of his. So, he wasn't going to get inside that way. And he was sure that he would have to get inside, but not by force. No, subterfuge and secrecy was the only way. It wasn't going to be easy, as the RAFians had proven that they are not easily decieved.

He was back in the park, indulging the boy's need to board. He happened to pass a playground were a lone child in a navy blue winter jacket with a hood a royal purple color. He stopped the board, and couldn't help but smile. What he needed, really, was a Trojan horse. . . .

He watched and saw the boy's mother, sister, aunt, nanny, whatever was reading a fashion magazine and not really paying attention to the boy as he played on the jungle gym. An opportunity too perfect to pass up.

***

"What's wrong, little man?" Saffa was saying gently to the crying boy, whose guardian seemed to be nowhere around. She was attempting to console him, though their was something like restraint in her movements and gestures.

"N-nothin'." he sniffled, as an exceedingly sinister smile warped his face, though his body still shook as if upset. "Nuttin'. NOW."

Androvex leaped from the boy and attempted to get into Saffa -- only to have her Mark blast him away. The RAFian expressed no surprise at this, as if she expected it.

"Wha . . ." Andovex said woozily.

"Yeah, the Mark of a RAFian makes us possession-proof," Saffa said, bored and unimpressed.

Androvex stumbled back to his.feet, to find another host disguise. He turned only to find himself nose-to-nose with a Psychlopterran. Abby. Androvex could only choke out, "Clever girl," before falling under the hypnotic sway of Abby's Psychlopterran morph.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 12, 2014, 12:25:57 AM

*flexes fingers* Working on those reflexes helped. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2014, 07:29:47 AM

Yeah.

Uh, no new chapters today. My Kindle Fire has decided not to turn on. I haven't had the damn thing for a month, and there were 4 unread books on it.

It's my own fault. Shouldn't've gone to those damn wikia sites.

:edit: Strike that! And you have Asmo to thank!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Claims and Jumpers

The Veils were trussed up and hanging from a from a beached-white yew tree. They struggled to escape their bindings, of course. But the chains could bind Olympians, Realm Walkers, Azguardians, Incorporeals*, and most, if not all, Celestial beings. What hope could a mere Veil hope to stand up against such a rare and powerful metal. Only Hephaestus himself could possibly smelt such chains.

"Let us go!" Gynecovyx whined. "We've done nothing wrong!"

"You have a very distorted definition of 'wrong' then, Veil." Aquilai said, plainly unable to keep the cold contempt from his voice. "I still wouldn't argue against your destruction."

Androvex, however, was not pleading and whining for his freedom. He was foolishly and pointless attempting to cleverly coercing newbies over, ones that had not yet bore the Mark, to attempt to possess them. Each attempt was met with abject failure of course, but he kept trying.

"I would have thought it obvious by now," Gaz said, filing her nails, preparing to paint them as only Gaz does. She had he back to the Veils, who a prudent distance away but well within earshot. Laserbeak perched on the back of her beach chair, eyeing the two Veils wearily. Gaz continued, "Those chains can hold gods. Yet you honestly think you're powerful enough to free yourself from them? That is being optimistic beyond reason."

"Then what do you intend to do with us, RAFian?" Androvex snarled.

"Oh," Gaz replied blithely, fangs gleaming as if she was in a vampire commercial for suntan lotion, beginning to paint her fingernails as she sat in the dappled light of the partial sun, "it's not up to me what happens to you."

She examined the paint on her index fingernail before continuing, "Besides, it is not you're faultless. You killed no less than three people on Earth alone."

"We are Veils!" Gynecovyx said with speciesist vainglory in her voice. "All other species are merely living costumes, to tried on and worn, then tossed aside when we're done with them."

"Humans are not lesser species," Gaz said, examining a ring fingernail.

"Hypocrite." Androvex spat. "I know of the feeding habits of Earth vampires. You feed on human blood."

Gaz shrugged. "That is a gross generalization. There are many different kinds of vampires, Veils. Some are exceedingly photosensitive, I'm not."

The Veils looked like they were about to argue the point, when a spluttering sound like a car with need of a new muffler sounded throughout RAF. It appeared as if Bolo's bike needed work, and Bolo himself looked rather roughed up. Clearly Aquilai usually battles with restraint, but not with the Czarnian.

"I've come for . . ." he coughed roughly. But he seemed to be getting better, the wheeziness in his voice was lessening with each word. "I came for . . . for my bounty."

---
*Referring to the Egyptian pantheon as written by Rick Riordan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2014, 10:02:18 PM

Okay. Just one more tonight.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Unreasonable Contention

"Hand them over," Bolo said, calling the RAFians a word that Cloak didn't hear clearly enough to decipher. Bolo was getting hostile at the unintimidated hesitation they showed. "NOW!"

"Look, bub," Cloak said, taking offense at the insolence of the Czarnian, "what the Veil makes you think you can waltz in here and make demands? We don't serve you. We don't fear you."

He pointed a rather unnecessarily large gun in Cloak's face. A metal gun. Cloak's heavy-lidded look didn't change at all at this. Bolo's look of preliminary triumph diminished somewhat, but reappeared as he ****ed his gun.

"Oh, that's right," Blaze murmured quite audibly as he snapped his fingers. "This is they guy barred from Heaven."

Demos looked mildly surprised, as he realized something too. "He's also barred and forbidden in Hell."

"Geez," Underseen said, having heard both. "Why?"

"Too violent," both said, in unison.

"You're kidding," Helen said, in disbelief. Silence met these words. "Oooookay. Not kidding."

Cloak ignored this exchange, as he sighed heavily. "Really, Czarnian? You eliminate your own species in some sort of genocidal act, and yet you're stupid enough to point a metal gun at me?"

"What's your point?" he said gravelly.

"You have no idea what I'm capable of?" Cloak said, with comical disbelief. "Do you know what any RAFian can do?"

"Get to the point. Fast."

Cloak actually chuckled at this. Then Bolo's gun warped and shattered into twisted metal pieces tha littered the ground, the flew up and merged together in a hunk of misshapen metal. Bolo's look was priceless.

"Huh," Cloak said, in an almost disinterested way. "I was going for a brick of metal. Eh, I've never tried to artistically use the Metal element, anyway. Earth has always been the easiest."

Then he addressed the Czarnian, "Anyway, Bolo, don't waste time -- ours and yours -- with threats that, ultimately, you can't follow through on. If you haven't already guessed, I'm master of the Metal element. And that's just one of the elements I've mastered."

Then he gestured the other RAFians.

"And I'm naught but one RAFian." Cloak said, driving his point home. "So, now that we've opened hostilities this early, do you still think you can make demands from us using nothing but brute force and violence."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 12, 2014, 10:56:48 PM

That reminds me...it's about time for a new nail theme.

Good chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2014, 09:52:50 PM

Thanks. I might post another chapter a little later on, but I'm quite tired . . . So if I do, it'll probably be short. Unless I really get into it.

:edit: *wonders if he offended Saffa*

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Czarnian and the RAFians . . . Don't Get Along

"Sheddup," Bolo said, point a flamethrower at Cloak. He fired it, but was surprised when the fire abruptly changed direction and head back toward him, as if the Realm Walker. Cloak had no qualms in doing this as he remembered the Czarnian trait of regeneration, rather like Demos's, only somewhat slower.

"Care to stop making yourself out to be a fool, Czarnian?"

"Oh, I know you didn't just cal the Main Man a fool."

"More like the Pain Man," Saffa muttered.

"Stuff it, girly," Bolo growled. "Now, give me my bounty."

"Ooh," Faerie said as flippantly as only she could, "someone's gettin' coal for Christmas."

"That's a eleven months away," morfowt said.

Bolo ignored this. He didn't know or care what Christmas was. He had rep to maintain -- he always got his bounty. Always. He wasn't about to let these fraggin' interlopers interfere, and this one in the cloak, he was the one who insulted Bolo repeatedly. He had to go down.

Cloak anticipated this attitude. "Don't do it, Bolo."

"What? Blow the frag out you?" Bolo said, as his bike puttered mutiously.

"Don't challenge me, Czarnian." the Elements Master warned, voice even. Though his eyes began to glow scarlet-gold. "It won't end well for you."

"Oh, why so serious? We can liven up this party." Bolo said, balling up his fists, clearly planning to use them.

"This is serious." Gaz muttered. "You Kiss reject."

"Hey-ey-ey-ey, hold on there, pretty lady." the womanizing Bolo said, clearly not taking it seriously, and overconfident in his reputation for always getting his mark. "Let go on a date first before you deride my kisses."

"And now I need a shower," Gaz quipped, obviously repulsed and revolted.

"Why don't we just hand them over?" Aquilai asked.

"Well, I'm not really being too protective over the Veils," Cloak said. "It's the chains that I don't want in this Czarnian's possession."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2014, 10:30:03 AM

Okay, as compensation for the lack of a chapter yesterday, here's another one.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Diplomacy Fails

"I don't really care," the Czarnian said. "I just want my bounty. If I get to bust a few skulls along the way, well then, that's a plus."

"Let's mention the fact they escaped from you thrice before, then," Yarin said.

Bolo's facade of brutish carelessness and rough indifference seemed to evaporate in an instant. He got very angry.

"They never escaped from me!" Bolo snarled. The Veils snickered. "Hey, shut up!"

Bolo might have looked frightening to someone unaccustomed with dealing with frightening things on a nearly everyday basis. The RAFians were not so easily intimidated by a bullying brute.

"Oh, I see." Cloak said, his eyes narrowed. "You've never had Veils as bounties before. You captured them ignorant of their abilities."

"Hey!" he protested.

"So, one of them possessed you," Cloak continued, undaunted and unintimidated.

One of the Veils shuttered, and said (revealing himself to be Androvex), "It was like wearing underwear that had been soaked in mud and gasoline."

"If I didn't have to bring you in alive . . ." Bolo snarled.

"Alive? Well, you lost my support." Aquilai said, surly. "That, and you don't seem to thing these things out."

"Sheddep!" Bolo said, pulling out a gun and began to fire indiscriminately, but only managed to get two shots off. It nailed both Veils, both in a leg. Of course, this gave Bolo an idea, but found his head hurting. Yarin attempting to telepathically force him into unconsciousness. It was like trying to wrestle with a tyrannosaur, but due to the Czarnian's brutishness and not his intellect.

"AniDragon! Bind the Veils now!" Cloak ordered, as he sunk the Czarnian in the earth to his neck.

"But --"

"No time for doubt. Just do it!" Cloak snarled a lot harsher than he intended. "Ash. Underseen restrain their tongues."

"Wha--" Underseen said.

"You heard me!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on January 14, 2014, 12:30:27 PM

~They certainly seem to get into a large number of interesting adventures, both with out-universe villains and in-universe threats. There is a shared universe here, built among the RAFians, largely it seems about both writing and the past of the users.

We are also glad we were not the only ones who conceived of a shared Internet communication as a "place where people were" early on.

Yepyep, keep the good stuff flowing Cloak. ;) Also, this makes me want to watch Doctor Who.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 14, 2014, 12:59:42 PM

Yes, do watch Doctor Who. ;)

The personalities we create for ourselves and RAF only make it all the more fuller. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 14, 2014, 09:18:40 PM

Restrain...their... tongues

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2014, 10:06:48 PM

Um . . . thanks, Shenmue. I think.

Too right, Saffa.

And yes, Underseen. Restrain their long, whippish tongues.

'Nother chapter methinks.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Get Lost

"It is done." AniDragon said, withdrawing her hands from Gynecovyx's chest and head. "But I must register my concern again about the permanence of th-- you two can let go of their tongues now."

Underseen shuttered. "That, by far, was the grossiest thing I've ever had to do."

"You know you liked it," Androvex taunted, though his taunt was weak.

Underseen looked at him, shaking his head, muttering, "Pathetic."

Cloak withdrew the chains from the depowered Veils. They fell to the ground rather comically, staggering to get up, as if their limbs were numb, which they were.

"Now, then, Lobo," Cloak said, addressing the Czarnian.

"Bolo!"

"Right, my mistake." Cloak continued with indifference. "Bolo, you may have your bounty. They pose no danger to anyone anymore."

"Cloak, again, I --" AniDragon began to protest.

"Doubt your ability's effectiveness," the Realm Walker finished. "But I don't, AniDragon. Even if they should regain their abilities, there is nothing they will be able to do about it on Incarcecon."

"Wh-wh-what?" Androvex said, fearfully. "Not there? Please tell me, not there."

"What's Incarcecon?" Shenmue asked.

"Later," Cloak said. "Bolo, take them and go. And I hope, by the First Light, we never see you again."

"Aww. You're gonna make me blush with all this sentimentality." Bolo said.

"Get lost."

"I'll miss you too." the Czarnian said, smirking, as he gathered up the two Veils, numb and stiff with shock, and left to deliver them to their fate.

"So, Cloak," Shenmue said.

"Incarcecon, right?" Cloak said. "It's a prison planet."

"I think we gathered that," Saffa said.

"But . . ." AniDragon said, uncertain.

"What if their powers come back? Even if that happened, they would still be marooned. The jailors are Galvanic Mechamorphs, no organic bodies for them to possess." Cloak said. "You saw how fearful Androvex was. There is no way off for him and Gynecovyx. Even if the power binding was temporary."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 15, 2014, 12:41:57 AM

Reminds me of last night's Supernatural episode (though I don't watch it, I picked up this quote from my Twitter feed):

"We don't see you here again. Or else..."
I'm dead. Yes, I know. I love you too." :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2014, 09:55:52 PM

That is an apt comparison, I believe. Anyway, Saffa get ready for PDFing -- when you're not busy, naturally.

• BOOK CCXXXIV: "R.O.C." -- Rotiart, in another dimensional timeline, takes over RAF and either kills or subjegates the RAFians.
• BOOK CCXXXV: "Surrogate Suppliments" -- RAFians are divided over robotic surrogacy, a la "Surrogates".
• BOOK CCXXXVI: "Ghost Town" -- The RAFians must race to save the lives of eight children from being sacrificed to unleash a cunning force.

And here's the last chapter. Well, of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Welcome to RAF, You

Saffa, Underseen, and Abby were introducing newer RAFians:

"We are the welcoming RAF creatures.
We're very pleased to meet chas!
Senors and senoritas, too!
The users we feature
You know would never eat cha!"

"Er, mostly." Saffa said.

Then they continued:

"We sing so very sweet to you
Welcome to RAF, you.
You, you, you.
With Tyclairecorns (ooh), and the Realm Walkers too.
Welcome to RAF, you, you, you.

Show some self-reliance
Come in and see our RAF clients
But beware Pootang attacks.
You'll learn about Roxeans,
And advertising tie-ins,
And maybe learn some literary facts.
Welcome to RAF, you.

Wipe off your eyes, so you can see
The sentient star, Mewtwo, and the Chee.
The shingami, the faeries, the Gryphon are all hairy
The Goombas, Dracomansas, Stroggs, and Vampyras
Seals and Nyacs and the non-species, and the . . .
(rambles on) . . . Strogg!
Welcome to the RAF, you, you, you."

Then Saffa sang solo, with a pencil tucked behind her ear:

"We're literary creatures.
We're very pleased to meet chas.
I haven't written this verse yet!
But, uh, I will write it, and it will sound much better
Than when we had the wet, wet, wet."

Then they sang together:

"Welcome to the RAF, you.
With the Bota-kun and the Geeks too.
Welcome to the RAF, you, you, you."

***

Meanwhile, Aquilai was keeping to himself. Cloak understood, and gave him his space. But there was one exchange between the two of them that Cloak would have been hard pressed to forget.

"Would you have done it if it had been Shadow?" he had asked.

"What?"

"If the Veils had killed Shadow, would you have been so lenient with them?"

"They would be incapable of --"


"You know very well what I mean." Aquilai cut across the Realm Walker. "If someone murdered her, would you have been so lenient?"

Cloak said nothing.

"It's always easier when it's someone else's burden, isn't it?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 15, 2014, 10:39:49 PM

Ouch. The question left me cold.

And here's the PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2014, 09:10:43 AM

Thanks, Archiver. ;)

Anyway, my Kindle Fire had decided to turn my Wifi off (though I can get online and post through my 3DS), so I'm unable to get online with it.  Maybe I can never get online with it again, though that is a extremely pessimistic view.

I'll try to post the first chapter later today, after work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on January 16, 2014, 11:00:42 AM

That question was pretty powerful. The psychological implications of murder and tragedy, and of other people trying to judge another person's reaction to it....get sticky, and interesting.

Also, YAY! :D I got into the story. <3

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2014, 09:09:35 PM

Right. Well, I finished planning out Book CCXXXV, the ending of which might make you annoyed -- but in a good way . . . I think.

BOOK LV:
DANGEROUS DEALS
CHAPTER ONE:
In Session

Abby sang, as she gathered her books:

"We're sad we're confessin'
That school's back in session."

She pulls out a water gun with a mischievious smile, as Saffa glares at it.

"I sure learned my lesson."

Saffa slammed her in her locker, as she sang:

"I actually had fun!"

Gaz sang:

"I'm filled with elation,
I'm back from THAT vacation!"

Alia sang, as she was being pursued by a nerdy guy:

"For my next regeneration,
I'm coming back as a nun!"

The teacher sang:

"Welcome back to school, you few,
For a new school year."

The students declared:

"Yikes! A test!"
"I need rest!"
"I'm living in fear!"

Gaz sang:

"Gotta commute to the city."

Ash sang:

"At least I got my pretty."

Duff sang:

"No more playtime,
No more stay time."

RAFians sang:

"We've been outdone."

Abby added, in song:

"And I am the champ."

Saffa pulled a string, as she sang:

"And now you are just damp."

A cascade of water falls on Abby. She twitched a bit, and sqid, "No fair."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 16, 2014, 10:43:16 PM

Keep up the good work. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 16, 2014, 11:35:23 PM

I'm actually in uni, but eh. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2014, 08:37:51 PM

Yeah, RAF U.

. . . Man, that sounds like an expletive. Anyway, my internet is being iffy.

CHAPTER TWO:
Who Needs You?

Demos was left to his own devices, but without access to his secret lab, he really did not have much to do. His lab privileges were suspended after the Maul incident. He wandered away from the forum, walking aimlessly. He wore an old silk suit, but still looked slick.

"Hello there, brother," a throaty, inhuman voice said.

Demos gritted his teeth. His eyes took on a stony edge. "Shenecron."

"It's been a while," the skeletal dragon demon said.

Demos turned round, eyes alight with anger. "Not long enough."

"C'mon, I have a deal --" Shenecron began conspiratorially.

"NOT interested."

Now Shenecron matched Demos in anger. "Aw, who needs you?"

"And who needs you?!

I need you like a hole in the head!"

"And I need you like a bug in the bed!"

"You're constantly biting the claw that feeds you!"

Then they bith sang:

"Who needs you?  Not me!"

Then Shenecron sang:

"I need you like a pain in the gut!"

"Oh yeah?!
Well, I need you like a kick in the butt!
You truly disgrace the race that breeds you!"

Both sang again:

"Who needs you?  Not me!"

Shenecron sang:

"Who needs you, you weepy, clawsy creature?!
You're ugly as sin,
Just a scraggly bag of skin!"

"And who needs you?
Your tail is your finest feature.
You're thick-skulled and a bore,
Dragging your telly 'round the floor!"

"Oh, I need you like a sock in the nose!"

"And I need you like a rock in my toes!
I'm shocked and appalled by your behavior!"

"Don't try being nice,
Because that won't save ya!"

Then they sang in duet again:

"I'm better off without you I can see!
So, who needs you?  Not me!"

Demos sang:

"I need you like a cold in July!"

"And I need you like a punch in the eye!"

"Of all the dumb beasts,
None precedes you!"

Together, they sang:

"Who needs ya?  Not me!"

Shenecron sang:

"I need you like I need a disease!"

"Oh, and I need you like the universes need to freeze!
For quickness of mind, a rock outspeeds you!"

Again, they sang together.

"Who needs you?  Not me!"

Shenecron sang:

"Who needs you, you cross-eyed crazy critter?!
You twitter and squawk,
And knock me when you talk!"

"And who needs you, slack, no-foot quitter?
You're bitter and you're mad,
Cause you're as ugly as Dad!"

"Oh, I need you like I need more teeth!"

"I lift a rock, and find YOU underneath!
I'm deeply upset by your demeanor."

"I know that I'm mean, but you're the meaner."

Demos muttered sarcastically, "Clever."

Then they sang together:

"No more do I care that we'll ever be."

Demos proclaimed:

"The words are 'sibling incompatibility'!"

"Not only that, we don't get on, you see!"

Thwn they sung together antagonistically:

"Who needs you,
Except the race that breeds you,
Who needs you?!"

Demos:

"Not me!"

"Not me!"

"Not me!"

"Not me!"

Then they both sang:

"Not me!"

After a moment's hesitation, Shenecron said, "Fine. Suit yourself."

Then he swept away from Demos, muttering, "Stupid RAFians. Made him go soft."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 17, 2014, 09:21:23 PM

That's one expletive I would gladly use. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2014, 10:01:46 PM

And the next chapter's in my last post.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 18, 2014, 12:50:34 AM

Don't piss off your brother. It never usually ends well. Of course, I don't have one, but still. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2014, 10:46:40 AM

Well, neither do I. Anyway, Memoirs is two!

And I have a couple of book ideas -- I hope I haven't rehashed anything.

• Book CCXXXVII: "Game Over" -- Three RAFians get trapped in a video game.
• Book CCXXXVIII: "No More RAFians" -- A powerful reality-bending witch eliminates RAF, and turns all its members into human, except Cloak, who is trapped in some sort of reality prison.
• Book CCXXXIX: "Something, Something Darkseid" -- Cloak battles an enhanced Darkseid, and doesn't hold back.

Again, I hope I didn't rehash anything. Chapter laterish.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 18, 2014, 10:50:43 AM

Game Over might sound similar to RAF Comix in some ways, but that was in a comic book while this is in a video game. There are differences.

Anyway, happy birthday, Memoirs! Two years of epicness. Thank you Cloaky for everything. :hug:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2014, 02:43:45 PM

You're welcome, Saffa, my Archiver. Believe me, I get as much enjoyment out of writing it as you do reading it.

And "Game Over" is different from "RAF Comix" as there are elements of "Spy Kids 3" in it, if not a direct p-- er, that might be revealing too much.

CHAPTER THREE:
Poor Unfortunate Souls

Shenecron stormed away from his half-brother. He knew when he threw in his lot with those goody-goody RAFians that he'd go soft. But no need to worry about that now. He had a client coming, which reminded him.

His form shifted from his natural skeletal to an emaciated, bald, old man swaddled in a red tunic with yellow trim. He was enticing a teenaged Pisciss Volann to get what he wanted. She had fallen for a human, Eric Prince. He was cleverer than Demos gave him credit for.

"The only way you can get what you want," he said, not at looking at her, his back turned, "is to become a human yourself."

"Can you do that?" she said in a small voice.

Shenecron smiled as he turned and said, "My dear, that is what I do. Helping poor folks, like yourself. Poor souls with no one else to turn to."

Then the song started up.

"I admit that in the past I've been a nasty.
They weren't kidding when they called me, well, a witch.
But you'll find that nowadays,
I've mended all my ways.
Repented, seen the light, and made a switch.

(True? Yes.)

And I fortunately know a little magic.
It's a talent that I always have possessed,
And here lately, please don't laugh.
I use it on behalf
Of the miserable, lonely and depressed.

(Pathetic)

Poor unfortunate souls.
In pain, in need!
This one longing to be thinner.
That one wants to get the girl.
And do I help them? Yes, indeed.

Those poor unfortunate souls!
So sad, so true!
They come flocking to my cauldron,
Crying, "Spells, Shenecron, please!"
And I help them? Yes, I do!

Now it's happened once or twice.
Someone couldn't pay the price,
And, I'm afraid, I had to rake 'em 'cross the coals.
Yes, I've had the odd complaint.
But on the whole I've been a . . . a saint,
To those poor unfortunate souls!"

Then the two discussed the terms, with Shenecron dominating the conversation. Shenecron stated that she had three days, three Earth days, to get Eric to kiss her, a kiss of true love. But if she fails, she reverts back and Shenecron claims her soul.

And then he states his fee is her voice. But when she attempted to protest, he sang:

"The men up there don't like a lot of blabber!
They think a girl who gossips is a bore!
Yes, on land, it's much preferred
For ladies not to say a word,
And after all, dear, what is idle prattle for?

Come on, they're not all that impressed with conversation!
True gentlemen avoid it when they can!
But they dote and swoon and fawn
On a lady who's withdrawn!
It's she who holds her tongue who get's her man!

Come on, you poor unfortunate soul!
Go ahead! Make your choice!
I'm a very busy old man, and I haven't got all day.
It won't cost much. Just your voice!

You poor unfortunate soul!
It's sad, but true!

If you want to cross the bridge, my sweet, you've got the pay the toll.
Take a gulp and take a breath, and go ahead and sign the scroll!
The boss is on a roll!
THIS POOR! UNFORTUNATE! SOUL!

She signed the scroll, and Shenecron turned her human, as well as taking her voice. The contract was ironclad can could not be revoked. In three days time, she failed. Shenecron claimed her soul. Then he looked for the next sucker to make a deal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 18, 2014, 07:33:48 PM

I just got Poor Unfortunate Souls from iTunes yesterday! Good stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 18, 2014, 10:08:45 PM

I sang it in my head. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2014, 11:00:03 PM

The next chapter will probably not have a song adaptation in it, unless, perhaps, if I find one that fits. But I probably won't be able to post it until tomorrow.

And here it is . . . probably gonna be riddled with typos and grammatical errors, as I am quite tired. May be short, as well.

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Bannedland Discovery

Shenecron* wandered, ditching the old, emaciated man disguise. He looked more like a Sigma looked in "Mega Man X4" with a tattered robe pinioning his arms to his sides. His eyes glowed maliciously with all his malefic power. He was actually Demos's older half-brother, and Demos never demonstrated this.power, although apparently Demos had the ability to possess cows**.

He surveyed the Bannedlands, the utter wasteland that exhiled former RAFians, now called Banned, reside. There were trolls here, who had naturally made this horrid, bleak, dusty, lifeless wasteland home. Then when the first Banned showed up, they overthrew the trolls' primitive government -- being rather generous with the term -- and put themselves in charge as a noble class, with the simple-minded trolls as a slave or serf class.

Shenecron rubbed his chin as he considered. He could see the clear boundary line that separated the Bannedlands from RAF's old location (before Cloak moved it), a distinct division of lush forest with arid wasteland. As if someone used a straight edge on it. Shenecron considered and pindered. Surely, someone in the wasteland would be eager to sign a deal. The place reeked of desperation and poverty.

Shenecron observed the trolls from a prudent distance, and bore witness to how condescendingly, how expendably, how disregarded they were all treated. But all seemed unware and indifferent, even content, with such treatment. They clearly either knew nothing else, could not imagine anything better, or were really stupid.

Shenecron blinked as he saw two trolls hitting another with two solid logs with the diameter of a small drum. The one in the middle, the one being hit, guffawed stupidly.

Okay, maybe all three. Perhaps he was mistaken, perhaps there wasn't a soul here that he could connive or con away from the unwitting trolls. Yes, he could trick or manipulate them with ruthless ease, but that, in and of itself, was a problem. If he removed the challenge from outthinking his would-be clients was half the fun. These trolls were just too easy, and he wasn't sure if trolls had souls to begin with. Like most lawyers.***

Then he happened to notice one troll, one troll that caught his eye. He clearly was a rare troll witha mind more complex then his fellows, but still incurably childish. Unlike the others, he alone questioned the Banned supremacy, their reign. As such, the Banned . . . turned him into a janitor? Clearly, it was the worst, most demeaning thing the Banned could think of for this type troll, this ProudToBeATroll (Proud, for short), to do.

Obviously, they weren't a very imaginative bunch, because the tasks weren't too bad. Proud did the jobs given without complaint, but still questioned why he had to be subservient to the Banned. Why he had to.follow their orders. What made them so special?

Shenecron smirk sinisterly. He could work with troll, this Proud. . . .

---
*Pronunced as "shen-neck-crawn".

**Referencing Demos's schtick when chat got too quiet.

***Yes, it was an easy joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2014, 02:10:09 PM

New chapter methinks.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Tempting the Troll

Shenecron saw his chance, and he took it. He kept his disguise as he approached the troll, mopping up some brackish muck from the ground. It was . . . It was more prudent not to describe any further than "foul". Proud was muttering to himself.

Shenecron was now close enough to get a good look at the troll. The dragon demon (although his disguise was definitely, certainly humanoid) thought that he would not win any beauty contests. He was big, burly with ample amounts scarred skin showing, but nothing lewd was exposed. He had a gaping, square jaw, a bald head, slightly pointed ears, beady black eyes, bulbous nose, and huge hands and feet in portportion to his body size. He also possessed . . . quilled warts?

He grumbled, "Why do I always get the worst jobs? Why do they get to be in charge? If it was me --"

"What IF it WAS you, my lad?" Shenecron said, from behind him. Proud jumped so much, he dropped the mop with an embarrassing clatter. He seized it and turned round. Shenecron spoke conversationally, as if there was no interruption, "It could be so, you know. You can be top dog. You can have -- uh -- all this under your rule."

"How?"

"I have malefic, supernatural powers," Shenecron said, knowing full well that the troll would not know what "malefic" meant, thinking it was a name or logo or something. "I have the power to remake you, reformat you so to speak, to allow you to overthrow the Banned."

Shenecron deliberately didn't mention the price just yet. He flourished a scroll and said, "All you need to do is sign."

"Don't you want . . . payment?"

Not all trolls were severely intellectually-deficent, apparently. But none possessed the intellect of a Galvan, a Cerebrocrustacean, or a Transylian. But those were innately ingenius species.

"Ah," Shenecron said, smoothly, "just a coup against the RAFians, slay them if you can. This deal will assure your assent to ruling the Bannedlands, and allow you stage a coup on the forum."

Proud was not smart or paranoid or intuitive enough to question what would happen if he should fail in this endeavor. It would have been wise, been prudent, to do so. But he did not. He signed without another moment's hesitation.

Then Shenecron worked his magic, reformatting Proud into looking like a fusion of "Mega Man X4" bosses Colonel and General, with gray armor with gold and silver trim. He was now about twice his original height. He parted ways with Shenecron and easily over threw Queen. He threw her and Aloth into the dungeons within the remotest part of the Bannedlands. He kept Yorick around, as he switched sides and sided with Proud.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 19, 2014, 03:11:04 PM

Male Ursala right there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 19, 2014, 11:40:28 PM

Haha, that's what I was thinking. Especially with the songs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2014, 09:30:05 PM

Well, while that was not the original idea of the character, but he eventually became that, I suppose. All three or four chapters. Two more ideas.

• BOOK CCXL: "Discord's Apple" -- The RAFians must cope with the Apple of Discord.
• BOOK CCXLI: "Livin' in the Fridge" -- The RAFians must deal with a garbage-devouring slime mold that gains near sentience.

A new chapter shortly.

:edit: Strike that. My internet has decided to be a pain in the . . . neck.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 20, 2014, 10:47:49 PM

I know the feeling about annoying internet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2014, 11:58:56 PM

Well, I give it a shot.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Invading Army

"Steph and Esplin and Phoenix and SuperNate and
Gaz and Parker and Tyler and estrid and
Chad and Dino and Duff and Myitt and
Terenia and Kelly and Goom and Horse and
Druid and Faerie and morfowt and ANna and
Dameg and Azguard and Blaze and Nomad and
Esty and Cloaky and Bear and Jess --"

Shenmue was giving a shot at something that had never been attempted before -- singing the names of all RAFians that bore a Mark (lurkers and newbies aren't granted them immediately upon joining, as a security precaution). Saffa and Phoenix were monitoring her while giving sportcaster like testimony to a camera.

Most of RAF had gathered to witness the attempt, but one did not. One felt too restless to sit around, tryong bear witness to an impossible feat to do in one sitting. Cloak prowled the perimeter of the forum, like a tiger pacing the walls of its cage, though RAF was the farthest thing from a cage. He did not know why he felt so antsy, so unable to sit still.

So, naturally, he was the first one to notice the invasion force. Although, it was so blunt, so obvious, it bordered on insulting. But they were headed by an unknown leader. Cloak ****ed his head to the side, perplexed. Why weren't the Banned leading the charge?

Cloak shrugged the question off, and went to raise the alarm.

***

There really wasn't anything to it. The RAFians absolutely destroyed the army, as they would normally with the Banned. Yet there was almost a disqppointment, as the army wasn't nearly as tough had the Banned been at the head.

Cloak himself took down Proud with ruthless ease. He cracked the armor savagely, revealing that the only true change in Proud was the armor. Cloak could not muster up pity for the thing, but showed mercy.

Demos stared at Proud, eye wide with recognition. He recognized his brother's handiwork, as much as a brother could recognize such a thing.

***

"Time to pay up," Shenecron said to Proud.

"I don't --"

"You didn't stage a coup, you went full frontal assault." the demon said. "You failed."

"You can take it back, it's been destroyed."

"Oh, really?" Shenecron said coyly. "Then I need compension, don't I?"

"But what --"

"You know what." Shenecron said, dropping all pleasant pretense, with his voice taking on a hard, sinister tone. He reaped Proud's soul as compensation for the armor Shenecron knew the RAFians would destroy. He also sent a message to his dear brother.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 21, 2014, 12:08:18 AM

:rofl: Cloaky your signature.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2014, 09:33:09 AM

Eh, I was tired.

I might post a chapter before work, but I wouldn't give your hopes up. Oh, and over 200 pages now . . . is that a record? For a RAFian fanfic, I mean.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 21, 2014, 09:36:43 AM

I'm guessing it is. But as the song goes, this is the fanfic that never ends... :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on January 21, 2014, 11:42:29 AM

Demos really has too many problems. He can't catch a break for like thirty seconds. XD

Also, yaaay I'm making appearances now! :D

Also, you know you have problems when the first thought you have upon reading about an Ursula-like demon whose name includes the first half of your screen name is of getting awkwardly possessed by it. :p Or it attempting to do so but unexpectedly getting thrown out. x3

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 21, 2014, 02:17:10 PM

Haha. Ooh, and Shen, I have PDFs of all his previous books if you want. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2014, 09:09:48 PM

It's actually a combination of "Shendu" from "The Jackie Chan Adventures" and "Necron" of DC Comics, Shenmue.

I'll post another chapter, after I finish my dinner.

:edit: And here we go.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Talk, Demon!

"Okay, what's up with you?" Sakki said, addressing Demos.

"Huh?"

"Don't 'huh' me, buddrow." Sakki said, shrewdly. "You heard me. Now answer the question."

"Wh-what question?"

"Don't make me hurt you," Sakki said, with narrowed eyes. It was an idle threat, but Demos knew there was really no point in keeping up the pretext. Sakki doesn't get distracted easily, especially when she noticed something like Demos's reaction to the head troll's body armor. "You created that armor, didn't you?"

Demos was taken aback by this, and frankly, felt a little insulted. "No, I most certainly did not!"

Sakki took the indignation in his voice as proof of sincerity. But she wasn't done yet. "But you obviously recognized something about it -- oh, you just knock that off. Get over here and tell me who made it."

"I dunno," Demos said. Then he quelled under the fearsome glare Sakki gave him. "Okay, okay! Put that look away!"

Sakki acquiesced, and Demos took a deep breath.

"The creator of that armor was my half-brother. Shenecron."

"You have a brother?"

"A half-brother." Demos clarified mulishly. "We . . . don't get along."

"He does sloppy work," Sakki said.

"I would agree," Demos said, hesitantly.

"But . . ." Sakki said, gyrating her right hand in a "hurry-up" gesture.

"But," Demos said, giving into Sakki's subtle prompting, "I think it was deliberate."

"Deliberate?" Sakki said, genuinely surprised. "Why?"

Demos looked directly at Sakki, full in the face. "Why? To send me a message. A message saying that he knows of my affliation with RAF. That I am RAFian."

"Why would that be such a big deal?"

"He probably thinks that I've gone soft."

Sakki snapped into action mode, "You've got to tell the others. They've a right to know."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 21, 2014, 10:09:47 PM

Hehe. Old married couple bicker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 22, 2014, 05:31:37 AM

Haha. Totally. ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on January 22, 2014, 05:01:33 PM

They're cute together. ;}

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2014, 09:38:30 PM

Okay, I'll post another chapter after I eat dinner. Meanwhile, I'm currently planning out the chapters for Book CCXLIII. Oh, wait. I never posted the ideas.

• BOOK CCXLII: "Faulty Faculty" -- The RAFians face some AAHLPs.
• BOOK CCXLIII: "Oh, Super!" -- The RAFians must stem the flow of a new illicit drug that grants normal people superpowers, but has serious drawbacks.
• BOOK CCXLIV: "Extreme Bod Mods" -- The RAFians must confront Alpha.

Hope none of those were rehashes. Let me know what you think! Now, to dinner.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Knightly Temptations

Shenecron was well aware of the fact that his younger half-brother had got his message. But perhaps he needed another message. Shenecron needed another fool, another soul to collect. It shouldn't be too hard . . . oh, yes, this should do. The hatred coming from it was palpable, and it warmed the demon. Hell was full of hatred, rage, blood, bone, and fear -- any demon could recognize it.

Well, maybe except his half-brother. Those mortals had made him go soft. He was blood, and it was unforgiveable to have a brother -- different mothers or not -- go soft and all bleeding heart. He'll use this next deal to demonstrate this.

He looked again at the low-key building which appeared to only recently reinhabited. Shenecron wore a disguise of a skeletally thin man in his prime as he entered the HQ with little trouble or effort. The Knights of Humanity had been rather quiet for a while now. Some had even thought that they died.out or disbanded. This was not true, they just went underground. They were gathering strength, a presence, before going out into the open again. Shenecron was disguised as a low-level grunt.

It took him only moments to find the perfect patsy. Warren Mongo. A thick-set, hairy man in silver chainmail with thick arms, broad shoulders, and a gorilla-like frame. He had an obvious gap in his upper teeth and beady, dark brown eyes. He wore a thoroughly disgruntled look on his face. Shenecron suppressed a smile. He was perfect -- just absolutely perfect.

But Shenecron was smart enough not to rush into anything. He waited, and got to know Warren. He believed that aliens had manipulated his wife to leave him with their "mental powers", something he was convinced that all aliens was capable of, so he never took off his helmet. Even when showering.

"It is possible, you know." Shenecron said. "To rid the planet of all aliens."

"That's the cause," Warren said.

"Not what I meant, Warren." Shenecron said. "I can make it happen in one fell swoop."

"Then what's stopping you?" Warren said, skeptically.

"I can't do a thing for myself," Shenecron said, smoothly. "My particular brand of . . . of hoodoo can only work for someone else."

"So, what does that have to do with me?"

"Just sign on the dotted line," Shenecro said. "Sign and all the aliens will never trouble you again. Sign and they'll be gone."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 22, 2014, 11:46:38 PM

Great. These guys again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2014, 12:08:43 AM

Did you honestly think they wouldn't pop up again? ;)

Okay, new chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Deception

Mongo signed, blissfully unaware that he was signing his soul away. Had he been smart he would have read the contract and realized the wording didn't exactly mesh with what Shenecron had told him. He just believed that the Knights' goal, their whole reason for being, would finally been fulfilled.
 
"Very well," Shenecron said, smiling brightly. "By morning, every non-Terran-borne creature will be removed from the planet."
 
Then he left.
 

***

The next day came with disturbing rapidity. Mongo was, at first, delighted. It would have appeared that most, if not all, alien immigrants were slain. Shenecron couldn't reap their souls, however. They didn't sign a contract.
 
But this euphoria did not last long, as it became evident that there were still what the Knights consider aliens in their extreme xenophobia. But this did not void the contract, as Shenecron had stated that all "non-Terran-borne aliens" would be gone. Namely, aliens who were not born on Earth were slain. Mongo was enraged, believing he was tricked.
 
When Shenecron came to collect his debt, Mongo laid into him.
 
"I don't owe you an effin' thing! You didn't rid us of all of the extraterrestrial vermin!"
 
"I said that I would eliminate all non-Terran-borne aliens." Shenecron said, surprisingly even. "And I did."
 
"No, you effin' did not!" Mongo roared. One would have expected him to beat his chest, gorilla-like. "Look, there! They're still here."
 
"They were born here," Shenecron said, in the same calm, even tone. "They're just as much Terrans as you and your lot."
 
"Mankind was born here!" Mongo protested furiously.
 
"Ah," Shenecron said. "You should have caught that in the contract. I offered you a chance to read it. But, like most of your kind in this day and age, you agreed to it without reading first. Your carelessness is not my responsibility. The contract is not voided. Now, my fee has come due."
 
But Shenecron had overlooked something. Not a RAFian was touched by this contract. Shenecron couldn't enter the fortified forum. Demos had told the others about his half-brother and they had taken precautions. Mongo didn't hesitate to point this out.
 
Shenecron lost his calm, even demeanor. This voided the contract. To Mongo's horror and humiliation, Shenecron assumed his true form. Mongo was disgusted that he was associating with a nonhuman. This reaction did not endear the Knight to the demon, who Shenecron slayed out of fury and frustration.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on January 23, 2014, 11:29:56 AM

I'm always baffled by the "why" of Jackass Genie contracts that involve your soul. The Jackass Genie has no reason to screw you over in a wish where you're giving your whole being to Hell. He just would need to wait until it's time to collect and watching the fireworks would more than make up for his trouble. 

More importantly, something you'd be willing to pay your soul for must be pretty messed up. In the original Faust, Mephistopheles just straight up gave the guy whatever he wanted because he knew that Faust's wishes would have despair-tastic consequences.

Of course, it could be that Shenecron is just a huge ****. XD Oh demons. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2014, 09:20:11 PM

I assure you, Shen, he is.

Anyway I'll post another chapter shortly.

:edit: Sorry, too tired to write the next chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 24, 2014, 12:50:26 AM

I think it's ridiculous that some people won't even read the contract. I mean, if you're gonna sign something, then why don't you read the fine print instead of writing your life away? But, I am not i. Their shoes, so I don't know all of the details.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 24, 2014, 03:24:40 AM

It's like the "Terms and Conditions Apply" thing on most products. No one reads it and installs them anyway. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2014, 09:44:06 AM

Precisely, Saffa.

CHAPTER TEN:
Just Say No

Shenecron decided to try to tempt his half-brother's weak fellows. They shouldn't be so hard to tempt, right? He happened to come upon some at the base of the mountain that RAF was hidden in. Shenecron couldn't know what to expect.

A musical number wasn't what he expected.

"Well, you look like three fine individuals.
I have an offer here that you may want to try.
Something to suit you real good."

The goomba glared at him, as he sang as if speaking to someone else.

"There’s a million and one wonderful ways to say no."

Gaz added:

"No thanks!"

Goom:

"No way!"

AniDragon sang:

"Better learn a few,
And take it wherever you go."

Gaz:

"No thanks!"

Dino sang:

"No sir."

AniDragon:

"If your pals have left you high and dry -- "

Fubar sang:

"Here’s a practical reply: -- "

KitsuneMarie sang:

"Go ahead, just once,
Go ahead and just say – "

RAFians sang in unison:

"No!"

Parker, Wild, and Shorty sang in unison:

"There are a million magical ways to say no.
All around the world,
Different places you may go."

AniDragon:

"I have dreams for RAFball."

Morfowt sang:

"A stitch in time saves nine.
Or something like that."

Shenmue sang:

"A challenge that works fine."

The RAFians sang in unison:

"‘Coz there are a million wonderful ways to say no."

Fubar sang:

"Now, you can say “beat it”,
“get lost”, “get outta my face”
And that stuff."

Shenmue:

"But that could be tactless,
You may prefer to be cool.
Like this: -- "

Then random RAFians popped up with difference suggestion, in song:

“I’ll catch you guys later, okay?”

“I’ve got too much homework.
It’s rough.”

“I’m late for practice,
And I’ll miss my ride.”

“My kid sister needs me.”

“My hamster died”!

“I’ve gotta get home”.

“No time to kill”.

“So I’ll catch you later.”

The RAFians sang in unison:

"Like heck we will!"

Parker, Wild, and Shorty sang together:

"There’s a million wild and wonderful ways to say no."

Whammy sang:

"'Ah-choo.  Guess I’m allergic.'"

Fubar sang:

"A good excuse is something you never outgrow."

Faerie came up with an excuse:

"'It’s bad for my complexion'."

AniDragon sang:

"When it persists,
Say 'Give it a rest'."

"OKAY! I'm going. A simple 'no' would suffice." Shenecron said, stalking and storming off.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 25, 2014, 04:28:00 AM

Hehe. Here's a tactic I can use the next time someone bugs me to do something. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 25, 2014, 08:00:14 AM

I'd never have the courage to do it, though, Saffa. I only felt comfortable singing in front of Shadow -- who, like her mother, has a pretty decent singing voice.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Tempting the Realm Walker

Cloak had retreated to his serene, forested spot to meditate. He had become curious of his ancestry of late, after Avatar but before Sage. He knew there was an ancestor called Guardian, but did not know anything about her. He was consumed with curiosity, and he need the peace and sanctity of this place in order to achieve it.

He sat with his legs crossed, heel touching hip, with his tail draped over the back of the flat, gray rock where he sat. He had his hands on his knees, eyes closed. The tip of his tail twitched contently, like a cat bathing in sunlight streaming in from the window.

Pity that he wouldn't remain alone long enough to glimpse any ancestors, or their lives. He felt and Earthsighted the intruder long before he said anything.

"Hey, there!" cried a voice, disrupting the stillness and near silence. "Have I got a deal for you!"

Greeeeeeaaaaaaat, Cloak thought, not even bothering to open his eyes out budge an inch. He gave no indication that he heard this most unwelcomed newcomer. That's just what I need now. A living pop-up ad.

Cloak knew at once that this intrusion was not brought about by a fellow RAFian. They knew to give him his space, and respected that. This guy, whoever he might be, clearly did not respect anything like that. He had no qualms about interrupting Cloak's endeavor to divine his ancestry.

"Hey, pal," came the same voice, grinding the Realm Walker's nerves. "Didn't you hear me? I've got the deal of a lifetime for you!"

Cloak said nothing. Maybe he'd get the point if he was greeted with a frosty silence, maybe he'd leave. Cloak was quite mistaken, to his chagrin.

"The deal of a lifetime, friend!" the voice persisted. Clearly, subtlety was simply not going to work. "You simply cannot pass it up, friend!"

"Go. Away," Cloak said, with remarkable resemblance to that monkey spirit in the "Avatar:the Last Airbender" episode "Siege At the North Pole, Part 1". You'd think that that would be sufficient, that he'd be left alone after that, with his aggressive tone and infliction.

"Aw, don't be like that, friend!" said the voice. Cloak stood, and turned to face the owner of this voice. Obviously, it was Shenecron.

"I am not your friend, demon," the Realm Walker said, voice silkily quiet. "Now leave this place. Leave me to my meditation."

"Now, don't be that wa-- AAAAAAHHHHH!"

He was suddenly buried alive. But he managed to extricate himself minutes later as Cloak turned his back to him. Then Cloak felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to confront Shenecron again.

"Wwhy for you bury me in the cold, cold ground?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean like this?"

Cloak repeated the technique. Shenecron extracated himself again.

"Why do yo keep d-- AAAAAAHHHHH!"

He extracated himself again.

"Stop that!"

"Leave me alone, then."

"But -- ARGH!"

He extracated himself again, but it took six or seven more times before he got the point. He stormed off and Cloak returned to his meditations.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 25, 2014, 09:03:27 PM

Now, a new chapter. . . . As soon as I check my notes.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Brotherly Hate

Demos was milling around the base of the mountain, on the opposite side to the others. He was expecting an unwanted visitor, and he wanted to be alone when the time came. And he told Sakki so when she tried to stay by his side. He insisted that he had to do this alone.

"Took you long enough," Demos said, suddenly, without turning around. He knew that he was there. He didn't know how he knew exactly, but he knew. "You surely aren't stupid enough to try to get me to sign a -- what the bloody hell happened to you?"

Demos was inquiring about Shenecron dirty, dingy visage. He was caked with dirt, in his skeletal, dragonoid form. He looked thoroughly disgruntled, and Demos seemed to guess what Shenecron had been up to, of just whom he tried to tempt.

The RAFian burst out in hysterical laughter.

"It's not funny!" Shenecron pouted, sounding more like Achmed the Dead Terrorist than a scary demon.

The protestation caused Demos to laugh harder.

"It's not funny!" Shenecron repeated, still with the unintentional likeness of Achmed.

"I . . . I . . . beg to differ," Demos choked out. He was finally winding down from his raucous peel of laughter. "You were actually fool enough to disturb Cloak during his meditations?"

"What of it?" Shenecron snarled, scowling heavily.

"Oh, just that everyone -- everyone -- knows better then to bother him when he goes on such a retreat!" Demos said, almost winding himself up with another series of laughs. He couldn't laugh that hard anymore, he'd rupture something. "Only Shadow herself could get within that radius!"

"Who's Shadow?"

"Someone smarter than you," Demos answered swiftly, wiping a tear of hilarity from his eye. "And don't think I didn't hear the song either."

Shenecron looked thoroughly humilated.

"These mortals that I been with," Demos said, turning more serious, though the smile lingered around his face, "not so easy to manipulate are they, Shen?"

"My name is Shenecron," the skeletal dragon spat. He did not like having his name shortened.

"Yeah," Demos said, flippantly waving the comment away. Then replied in a remarkable imitation of the Nostalgia Critic, "I don't care."

With a frustrated roar, Shenecron charged his younger half-brother, unable to take the embarrisment any further.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 25, 2014, 11:18:16 PM

Well. That escalated quickly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 26, 2014, 09:32:05 AM

Yep. Oh, I should update with new book ideas.

• BOOOK CCXLV: "A Forsaken Covent" -- Immortal witches seek to take back one of their own, who forsaken them for the RAFians.
• BOOK CCXLVI: "Omnifarious" -- The RAFians must battle Night's Champion.
• BOOK CCXLVII: "The Gorf" -- The RAFians must deal with a creature that can steal voices and use them as its own.

Hopefully, there aren't any rehashes there. If there are, I'll just retool them, I guess.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Heat of Battle

Demos rolled to the side, yet his silk suit remained pristine and pressed. Improbable as it seems. Shenecron roared -- it was a bit tyrannosaur, a bit Baby Bowser, a bit of a screech. During this roar, Demos dashed up to his half-brother and socked him with a fiery fist, before dashing away. Shenecron was not pleased as he glared at his younger half-brother.

Shenecron dashed forward with a fiery uppercut, a more brutal Shoryuken than Ken, Ryu or even Akuma had ever executed. Yet, he still missed Demos by a wide margin.

"Where did you learn that move? Off a cereal box?" Demos sneered.

"Why you imputant little --"

"Ah, sheddup," Demos said, stabbing Shenecron with a dagger formed from flames. Shenecron was only nicked, but he didn't heal as quickly as Demos could. Not something one should bring up in conversation with him.

Then Shenecron then sent out a volley of Hadokens at Demos, which he just batted aside. Though younger, Demos's pyrokinetic combat was superior to his elder half-brother. This was due to his being a RAFian, where the call for his pyrokinetic talents were called on more than the rather lazier lifestyle that Shenecron had. While Demos hadn't the power to manipulate events like Shenecron did, though he could only do that via contracts.

"Stop that!" Shenecron roared frustratedly.

"Get off the couch, Shenecron? I mean, at all?" Demos said. "You let your abilities atrophy grossly."

"Atrophy, you say?" Shenecron said, a sinister smile playing around his face. "You have no idea what I am capable of, little half-brother. NO IDEA!"

"Oh?"

"My power is beyond your feeble imagining!"

"Really? I can imagine a lot." Demos said. Then the other RAFians had begun to gather round, attracted to the sounds of battle. "Don't interfere! This is my battle and mine alone."

Shenecron, despite his beating, laughed heartily, yet derisively, "You'll come to regret such a decision, little half-brother. I'm reasonably warmed up now."

It was true, he was holding back, warming himself up. Now Demos faced his full power.

Alone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2014, 08:53:36 AM

I guess that the last chapter fell to "Modify Message Syndrome".

Short chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
An Ill-Timed Deal

Then the battle began anew.

This time Demos was at a disadvantage, and Shenecron the upper hand. The elder demon was moving with such blinding speed, even teleporting. Apparently, all these techniques were new, as they took Demos on unawares.

Shenecron knew he could do this. The first part of the battle was just Shenecron playing with his pup of a half-brother. Demos had gotten overconfident. That's very dangerous to do in any kind of combat, though not guaranteeing failure necessarily.

Shenecron was also starting to get over confident as well.

"Didn't I always tell you, you little nothing?" Shenecron sneered. "No matter how strong you get, no matter how smart you get, I will always be your BETTER!"

"I'm not done for, you dottering old fool! Not by a long shot!"

The battle had become more vicious and more brutal. Cloak and Horse concerned themselves in preventing the flames from causing a forest fire, which was a real possiblity with sheer volume of flames and hellfire and Fiendfyre being produced (the latter two being solely from Shenecron).

Shenecron laughed a laugh similar to Flame Hyenard, complete with the "Burn! Burn to the ground!" banter. Revealing any collateral damage was intentional on his part. This intentional harm to a forest of innocents was unfathomable to the RAFians.

"That's it," Cloak siad, his morose tone disguising and hiding his anger. "This has gone on long enough."

"No, Cloak. This is my fight."

"Wel, you fight is going to raze the tri-state area!" Cloak exaggerated.

"So?" Shenecron said. "In any case, my little half-brother there has no hope of winning."

Shenecron recieved a fiery sock to the nose for that.

Shrugging it off Shenefron said, "Perhaps you would like to sign a contract, little half-brother. It's really the only way for you to defeat me."

Now Demos's untapped power started to come into light. He engulfed himself in flame armor, as he said, fullfury carrying in his voice, "You dare? You dare have the audacity to try and tempt me, Shenecron?"

"It crossed my mind," Shenecron said, unimpressed and blithely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 27, 2014, 09:54:06 AM

Lol yes it did. But this is engrossing stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 27, 2014, 04:29:24 PM

Quote from: Saffa on January 27, 2014, 09:54:06 AM

Lol yes it did. But this is engulfingstuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2014, 09:50:42 PM

Okay, I have new book ideas (to think, I thought I was running out):

• BOOK CCXLVIII: "Ultimate Omnifarious" -- The RAFians deal with the return of Omnifarious.
• BOOK CCXLIX: "Wanna Fight, Scout?" -- The RAFians deal with a Limax scout.
• BOOK CCL: "Unlikely Uniformity" -- The RAFians must stop the Mirror of Narcissis from being used.
• BOOK CCLI: "Star Gatherer" -- Estelore is kidnapped.

I'm currently planning the chapters of Book CCXLIX. I'll post another chapter soon. Maybe.

Quote from: Underseen on January 27, 2014, 04:29:24 PM

Quote from: Saffa on January 27, 2014, 09:54:06 AM

Lol yes it did. But this is engulfingstuff.

Eh?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 27, 2014, 10:31:21 PM

Same reaction, Cloaky. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2014, 10:03:56 PM

Right, chapter time. Maybe then I can feel my extremities again . . . accursed.cold and snow. And ice.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
RAFian Rage*! Demos, Smash!**

The battle commenced, with maintained viciousness and fervor. This was an outright half-brother-on-half-brother civil war. Demos was feeling plenty of rage and indignation while Shenecron was still overconfident, arrogant, and conceited.

"Is this the limit of your power, half-brother?" Shenecron teased maliously, as he dodged, evaded, gave and took blows with Demos. "Pathetic -- you can't even summon hellfire or Fiendfyre!"

Demos snorted derisively, as he stood with an impressive profile. "You surely must be kidding, Shenecron. Hellfire and Fiendfyre are notoriously unpredictable and uncontrollable. They can be.powerful, perhaps, but their use does not signify strenth, half-brother."

Demos held out his open hand, palm up. Then he balled it into a fist, and all the hellfire and Fiendfyre vanished with a pop and a sizzle. Suddenly, Shenecron wasn't so confident, so sure, so condescending.

"Summoning hellfire and Fiendfyre is not a demonstration of skill, but one of ineptitude. One of the inexperienced. One of a novice attempting to look more impressive and skilled, hiding the atrophied and amateurish forms and stances." Demos lectured. "Namely, hellfire and Fiendfyre are crutches for the weak."

"I'LL SHOW YOU WEAK!!" Shenecron roared.

Demos was not daunted, as he dodged all his elder half-brother's attacks, without even striking back. It wasn't necessary to, as Shenecron allowed his rage to consume him. Demos hadn't even ruffled his flame armor.

"STAND STILL, YOU IMPUDENT --"

"Not going to happen," Demos said benignly.

"I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD!"

"Why? Has yours stopped working? You need a replacement?" Demos goaded skillfully. "I mean, it certainly would be a step-up."

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH HHH!" Shenecron roared in sheer, unadulterated frustration. He charged forward blindingly. Demos smiled as he saw his opportunity present itself. The smaller demon used Shenecron's own momentum against him and slammed the draconian demon upon the ground.

Demos was in the perfect position to kill him.

---
*YGOTAS reference.

** Yeah, yeah, I know. Dragonball Z-type title.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 28, 2014, 10:34:02 PM

Actually I was thinking along the lines of Hulk Smash. :P

Demos' lecture reminds me of some of the debaters from my match yesterday. Too many big words, not enough real substance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2014, 10:52:34 PM

I meant the title as a whole.

Short chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Merciful Heavens! . . . Or, You Know, Not

"Well," Shenecron said, looking rather singed and bloody, "what are you waiting for?"

Demos said nothing, did nothing, and his face was hard and inscrutable.

"Why do you hesitate?" Shenecron snarled, feeling as if he was being toyed with. "Finish it. Finish me. I'd do it if positions were reversed. You know I would!"

Demos said nothing still, and remained immovable. It was as if he was contemplating on whether or not he should commit such an action. Fraternicide, the slaying of a brother (semantics of being blood, half, or step-brothers all being applicable to the term) was a serious thing to commit to. Shenecron admitted that he would do it without a second thought. But did Demos want to be like him?

The truth was not all that surprising, really.

Demos withdrew, and said, heavily, "But, I am not like you, Shenecron. I do not want your depravity, your soullessness, your heartlessness. I do not want them. So, go now."

"You deprive me oblivion?"

"I show you something you've no concept of," Demos said, somberly. "I show you mercy. It is not something you deserve. It is not something that you earned, but I am not as ruthless as you are. I cannot ignore the guilt, guilt which you've never felt."

Shenecron stood up, and brushed himself off. But, far from feeling grateful, he was scornful. "I was right. You're soft! All your pretty words have no real value. All just excuses and rationalizations for not doing what has to be done! You're not only soft, but weak and stupid as all moralizing fools are."

"Need I remind you, Shenecron," Sakki called out from the RAFian crowd, "that Demos already whupped your ungrateful butt?"

"Butt out, you stupid wretch." Shenecron snapped.

"Oh, I know you just didn't call me a --"

"Sakki, stand down." It was Demos's uncharacteristic morose, calm tone that surprised her enough that the anger quickly evaporated from her. Demos continued, "Shenecron, you're beaten. Defeated. You've nothing more to gain here. Leave this place."

"You don't give me orders!"

"No, he doesn't," Estelore said, glowing brightly. "But maybe, just maybe, I can fulfill your death wish if you don't comply."

Shenecron growled frustratingly, before vanishing in a blast of flame. The RAFians dallied for only a moment or two more before returning to their forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 29, 2014, 10:07:20 PM

Bet half that crowd was facepalming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2014, 11:24:05 AM

Possibly, although someone else was watching . . .

Anyway, new ideas!

• Book CCLII: "Road Trip!" -- The RAFians must find and bring together seven Dragon Emeralds.
• Book CCLIII: "The Brush Off" -- The RAFians must confront Brushogan.
• Book CCLIV: "Trigger Happy" -- Covert assassins are triggered, and the RAFians must deal with the fallout of this.

Yes, I know I'm 200 books ahead of myself, but let me know what you think.  A new chapter probably won't be posted for another nine hours or so, until I clock out from work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 30, 2014, 11:31:32 AM

I think you're insane and wonderful at the same time with all these ideas. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on January 30, 2014, 05:54:46 PM

Finally caught up again!  Real edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Although, I have to admit that in the last story I was actually almost rooting for the Veils.  They didn't seem all that bad, compared to that horrible Czarnian idiot, so I was starting to think maybe they were actually the good guys and there'd been some kind of misunderstanding.  Oh, well, at least Aquilai got his justice in the end.  And, yeah, I probably shouldn't be rooting for murderers, should I?

As for the current story, I kinda wish we could have heard what Shenecron wanted to offer Cloak.  What kind of leverage would you even try to use on a Realm Walker?  . . . Which, really, when you think about it, only further proves the point that Shenecron's a moron.  Hey that rhymed.

And I just wanted to comment on the "Road Trip" story that there is nothing better than a road trip with RAFians.  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2014, 10:02:05 PM

Probably not the same kind of road trip you're thinking of, Dino. Let's just say I got the idea from a Ben 10 Let's Play and a show with a lot of screaming. ;) And his offer was going to be one of a wife and family, but I had anticipated that.

Three more chapters to go, after this one, if my math's right.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Someone's Watching Me

Cloak made to follow the others, but something made him stop. A chill running up his spine from his tail tip. He looked over his shoulder, and then turned around. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, but could not help but look. The feeling seemed prescient, but Cloak could not validate it, for he saw nor Earthsighted anything.

He reluctantly turned his back to it and continued on his way.

***

Cloak's instinct was indeed correct. The whole debacle with Demos and Shenecron was watched from afar. By Malice, who was smiling a smile to match her chosen name. She loved seeing the dysfunction, the sibling rivalry taken to murderous, fraternicidal extremes.

Then again, Malice had no siblings of her own, so she remained oblivious to the amount of give and take such relationships can require.

What was unsual, though was that she was alone. Ravager and Mega Maul were nowhere in sight, although it didn't mean anything. Though it could have meant that she disposed of the two, or, far more likely, she left them behind so she could watch this alone, without any side commentary to possibly give away her position.

"Yes, hurry home, RAFians," Malice said, in a pretty darn good impression of Ursula, which she dropped immediately. "Such a shame when brothers don't get along."

She spoke with obvious insincerity as she idly checked her claws.

"Such conflict in the world nowadays," she said, giving her voice a wispy, ethereal twang to it. "Such pain, such suffering."

Her smile gave her away, showing that she was talking nonsense to her sensibilities.

"Fortunately," she said, still wearing that simpering, sinister smile, "I know of a way. A way to stop all this, a way to bring this world to peace."

She gave a mirthless, cackling laugh.

"A way to unify the whole of this entire realm!"

Then she left, cackling all the while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 31, 2014, 01:12:40 AM

Ah! There's Malice. I was wondering when she was going to pop up. Haha. Yay! I'm all caught up!! And btw, I love the ideas you come up with. They are all brilliant!! ^_^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2014, 07:19:41 AM

Yeah. Well, I was going to post a new chapter, but, sorry, I'm just still tired.

:edit: Still quite tired, but it's a restless sort of tired.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A Demon's Qualms

Demos retreated to his thread, head full of the encounter with Shenecron. They had usually kept their distance from each other, an arrangement they had wordlessly agreed upon. Demos was given cause to wonder.

Was Shenecron right? Was he was weak?

Where he came from strength ruled supreme and anyone or anything seen as weak was eradicated, excised, or removed. Strength was everything, and weakness was shameful. Any weakness. Going soft was the worse thing conceivable to happen to any of his kind.

Demos stood, gazing at his hands, at his claws. His kind did not demonstrate restraint very often, they did not rein in their hostile instincts frequently. Yet, in his tenure as a RAFian, he did all those things, and frequently, out of habit. He stared intently at the subtly glowing blue Mark on his right hand. He's been a RAFian for so long . . . has it proven detrimental instead of beneficial? Had he lost the way of his kind? And, if he bad, was it really a bad thing?

Surely, if the others of his kind discovered this (as he was sure that Shenecron wouldn't keep it a closely-held secret), he would be ostracized and alienated from them. But . . . were they really his kind anymore? Did he really have anything in common with them other than blood and species?

He looked around as he paced aroun in thought. He decorated his thread in reds and blacks, witha hellish motif. Yet it was better, and more comfortable than the actual place. The thread had clear air and smooth ground, while his homeland was toxic hair and ground of broken glass.

Would it really be bad to be seperate from other demons? He wasn't the only one who has gone through a similar ordeal he realized. Cloak had been essentially been ostracized and condescended by others of his kind because of his choice of not only befriending Realm Dwellers (which a majority of Realm Walkers look down upon) but in choosing to live among them, rather than returning to the Nexus each night.

How did he do it? Demos wondered. How does he go about his day, knowing that his name was a joke amongst his kind? Could he, Demos, do the same?

He bowed his head, sighed deeply, as he sat upon a bed with fiery red sheets and a black bone frame. He blinked his eyes open as he spoke aloud, " I wish I knew."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 01, 2014, 12:49:39 AM

You know, I always kinda wondered how Demos must feel, as probably the only 'good' demon in existence.  Very interesting insight into his character.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2014, 08:23:52 AM

Yeah.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Sympathy For the Demon

"Sakki -- no."

"Outta my way, Realm Walker, he's moped enough."

"It's been five minutes."

"It has not," she protested indignantly, "it has been two hours and you know it."

"Give him time," Cloak insisted.

"He's spent enough time wallowing in self-pity."

"He's not wallowing," Cloak said with conviction. "Demos requires time to sort through his emotions, take inventory --"

"How d'you know?" Sakki interjected.

Cloak said nothing, but said it all with a combination of silence and a glare. Sakki softened a bit at this, but Cloak went ahead and said it, "Because I've been in the precise position that Demos now sits."

"Cloak, sorry, I --"

"It's not important, don't apologize," Cloak said, dismissively. "But this is hardly something that anyone, not even Demos can accomplish in a mere few hours, your time. It took a week or two to accept it."

"Accept it?"

"Demos must recieve the same ostracism that I do from both our representive kinds," Cloak said, thoughtfully, reminiscingly. "He's a good demon, a misnomer if there is one, which probwbly puts him at odds with others of his kind -- if Shenecron's reaction is anything to go by. While I, myself, have been looked down upon and condescended to by most other Walkers."

"Why?"

It was clear she was inquiring about the latter bit. Cloak answered, "Why is my name a joke to those Realm Walkers? Because I chose to make my home here, in-Realm. Because I eschew living in the Nexus, the homeland of my kind. Because I prefer the company of Dwellers then those pretentious bigots."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2014, 11:46:43 AM

Last chapter of this book. May be short.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Demos's Decision

Demos stayed in his thread, ruminating over the things Shenecron said and implied and inferred. He was not wearing his usual silk suit, but a bloodred housecoat of some sort of silky material with fluffy black trim. He wore pajamas of the same color scheme beneath it.

He continued to mull over all the permutations of what his half-brother said, and the veracity of the truth of it. He began to wonder what led him to become a RAFian . . . he always tried to avoid dwelling in the past . . .

Then . . . why the homeland was he sitting here? In his pajamas and housecoat? With a hankering for bonbons?

"Man, I'm getting too emo," he muttered with a chuckle. Then he stood and his body below his neck was engulfed in flames. When they abated, he was wearing a crimson silk suit and necktie, with a midnight black shirt underneath and polished black pennyloafers. He added black gloves and a stylish black derby with a bloodred band around it. "It's about time I got my head on straight. I came to RAF for clarity, and clarity they gave me."

He looked off in thought, and said aloud, "Who cares what he says about me? And to who he says it? I cannot change others perception of me. I will not waste energy trying. I am what I am, and I cannot be anything more then true to who I am."

He squared his shoulders and took a ddep breath, continuing to speak to himself. "I am a demon. I am not malevolent, not truly. I harbor no darkness in my heart."

He thought of Maul and how he ruthlessly he treated him. He felt remorse and guilt for that act once more.

"I know that I am not . . . not of pure heart. I am capable of regret, remorse, and guilt. No other demon has shown such things in a genuine, sincere way." he spoke to himself again. "But I am what my history, my choices, have made me. I am a demon, but, more importantly, I am a RAFian. That is all that there is to say about that. Now, enough introspection for this century."

Then he left his thread to join the knot of RAFians headed to the cafe, eatery, mess hall, whatever you want to call it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 01, 2014, 01:06:32 PM

Wow. That was amazing. Especially the last few chapters.

The PDF will be a bit late, since I'm busy with the uni debate tournament tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 01, 2014, 02:32:04 PM

Excellent book.  I absolutely loved the message of it, that you are what you are and you can't let others judge you by their own standards.  So true!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2014, 05:51:39 PM

Thanks, Dino.

And don't worry, Saffa, the next chapter will be a little late too. Winding down after hangin' out with my friend.

:edit: Okay, let's start this thing.

BOOK LVI:
Of One Mind
CHAPTER ONE:
A Timely Holiday

A week or so had passed since the whole Shenecron business, and Demos had returned to being his normal self. In fact, nothing out of the ordinary happened recently, so RAF was given an odd reprieve. They weren't used to uninterrupted downtime, but many were taking advantage of it. Fortunately, this reprieve was during a sunny, warm weather. Dino snoozed in the sun-dappled light of the surrounding forest, while Horse and Block frolicked in the water of the lake.

But Saffa, Abby, Gaz, and several other RAFians grumbled at this, as they had to use this time to catch up on forgotten schoolwork. It was so incredibly tempting to shirk the horrid bookwork for the frivolity of free time. But they had to resist such temptations.

Aquilai meanwhile thought this a prudent time for a holiday in another time. He was saying his good-byes when he had noticed that the resident Realm Walker was absent. Far from being hurt, Aquilai felt exasperation. He turned to Shenmue, who was passing, and asked, "He's at the cliff again, isn't he?"

"Where else?" she replied, knowing immediately to whom he preferred.

Aquilai sighed knowingly, and prepared to leave in his TARDIS.

***

Cloak stood at the very apex of the cliff that overlooked the city, which from this viewpoint, looked rather like a circuit-like termite mound. But it wasn't down he looked, but up. He did not know how, he did not know why, but he knew that something was going on. It was difficult to explain.

He could not sense evil in the traditional sense. It was more like a ripple or . . . or . . . or one of those "fixed points of time" that Aquilai went on about. Cloak did not know if that is what it was, undeniably. But it was obvious that something big was underway.

Something big . . . something dangerous . . . something dark. . . .

***

"Why the bloody 'ell would I know where she has gone, ya mangy, tin-plated --" Mega Maul said, thickly. Ravager snarled savagely, to which Mega Maul snarled back, "Don't you take that tone with me Scraplet-bag! She don't tell me everything, and I don't question her or her motives."

Ravager snarled and roared a bit.

"Now, them's fighting words!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 01, 2014, 08:09:00 PM

Great! The Unmind book has come.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2014, 11:48:24 AM

You're missing an "i" in there, Underseen. Unimind.

CHAPTER TWO:
Of Myths and Maps

Malice was nowhere near RAF, to begin with. She stood around inky blackness, as if her environment reflected her soul. She was reviewing a piece of paper, lit by a single light, revealing a myth of the Unimind. The Unimind was a spherical energy construct that enabled the hive mind of stout, small light green aliens in predominantly blue jumpsuits to connect their minds together equally. No one knew how these aliens, these L'G'Ms, minds worked with or without their hive mind. All that was known was that L'G'Ms were industrious workers who never complained about their work or thought independantly.

But they, their home planet, and their Unimind were regarded as little more than myth, and any who believed was often treated with the same derision as those who hear voices and such. But Malice had deaigns on that Unimind. She did not entail to anyone what her schemes with the glowing mythical orb dealt with, other than mutterings of "unification" and "world peace".

And, as with all things so covetous to people such as Malice, it was not, could not, be so easy to find. But she happened upon this except. A long forgotten scrap of parchment. It was not a.map to the place, but it was nearly as useful. It detailed three possible places were the components of the map were spirited away.

The places were not the most inviting places to venture into. But Malice was arrogant enough not to know fear at these places, as not much, if any, could kill a Realm Walker inside the realms. But such thinking could lead to serious hubris and underestimating the dangers of a realm. And Malice really was one to throw caution to the wind on the odd occasion.

She studied the sheet of parchment again, attempting to divine more information from it. It held no more than what she already gleaned. She tucked it inside an interior pocket, and looked out into the vastness of the Prime Universe cosmos and decided that she need a means of transport. This Unimind was not on Earth.

***

"I'm commandeering your spacecraft," Malice said, appearing suddenly from the dark. She scared the turnip vendor near to death. "You will take me off-planet."

"It's a pickup truck," he replied in a drawling voice.

"That's all and well," Malice said. "Now pilot it to these coordinates for me, if you value your life."

Needless to say, it didn't go so well from there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 02, 2014, 12:51:06 PM

Finally! Tournament done, so I get to catch up on a new book. And here's the PDF. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2014, 03:27:41 PM

Thanks, Archiver Saffa. Hmmmm . . . Might be an idea in those two words. . . . Nah. Anyway, I don't think I used this song adaptation before.

CHAPTER THREE:
Let It And Him Go

Having decided that standing on the cliff and staring at the sky would not divine him any answers, Cloak retired to his usual meditation spot. He was relieved to find nothing unusual -- unless seeing a squirrel yell in its squirrel-squawk at a woodpecker for some reason classified as unusual*.

He sat upon his usual rock, and crossed his legs with his tail drapped over the back side of it, tip twitching every so often. Then his placed his hands upon his knees, and bowed his head. He shut his eyes and focused his mind. Then he began to meditate.

***

Slow, quiet music started up, as Cloak stood on a desolute mountaintop, laden with fresh snow. He looked around with his cloak billowing around him dramatically. It was just after his mother turned him out . . . Cloak thought he was over this. . . .

"The snow glows white on the mountain tonight.
Not a footprint to be seen.
A world of isolation,
And it looks like I'm the Dean.

The wind is howling like this swirling tempest inside.
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows, I tried.

Don't let them in, don't let them see,
Be the proper boy you always have to be.
Conceal, don't feel, don't let her know.
Well, now she knows!

Let it go, let it go!
Can't hold it back anymore!
Let it go, let it go!
Turn away and slam the door!
I don't care what she's going to say!
Let the elements rage on!
Loneliness never bothered me anyway."

The last line was a lie, but the worst kind of lie. The kind of lie that one tells themselves, but are afraid to acknowledge the truth of.

"It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small,
And the fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all!
It's time to see what I can do,
To test the limits and break through.
No right, no wrong, no rules for me!
I'm free!

Let it go, let it go!
I am one with the elements and, oh, my!
Let it go, let it go!
You'll never see me cry!
Here I stand, and away I stay!
Let the elements rage on!

My power flurries through the air into the ground.
My soul is spiraling in elemental bursts all around.
And one thought crystallizes like an explosive blast.
I'm NEVER going back, the past is in the past!

Let it go, let it go!
And I'll rise like the break of dawn!
Let it go, let it go!
That house-elf slave is gone!
Here I stand in the light of day!
Let the elements rage on!
Isolation never bothered me anyway."

The song ended, and Cloak felt . . . felt . . . felt . . . free. Emotions less a tempest sea more like a bubbling creek.

"Interesting . . ." came a voice. A heartbreakingly familiar voice. "Didn't really happen that way, though. I was watching."

"G-grandpa?"

It was like he was just . . . there. There was no transformation, no sudden entrance. He wasn't there one minute, the next he was. Cloak took in his maternal grandfather's appearance -- his cruel curved yellow beak that belied his good humor, his white feathered head, how his talons clicked on the floor as he walked, his penetrating eagle stare.

"You've forgotten me?"

"No!" Cloak protested vehemently. "No, how could I?"

He smiled warmly, and Cloak felt his love palpably. He was afraid that he had offended Sage with the whole Pied Piper fiasco. But he had come back to him.

"Cloak, I cannot stay," his grandfather said sadly. "You do not need me anymore."

"But I do!"

"No, boy, you don't." he said, still as warm. "Your friends of yours, these RAFians, you can -- and should -- be turning to them in your times of need. Even little Shadow can be there for you, as well as her mother."

He clapped him on the shoulder, and Cloak found himself as a young cub again.

"While I cannot approve of Ursa's actions, you must allow yourself to dwell upon them. Or me." he said. "I was allowed to come back this one time to give you a warning?"

"Warning?"

He was suddenly an adult again.

"Yes, Malice heads for . . . ugh, I am not permitted to tell you straight out. She heads for the place to make her one with everything."

"Huh?"

But Sage had already begun to fade away.

"No! No, Grandfather! Don't go! Grandpa!" Cloak protested, becoming a child again. But this reversed as he spoke in a quieter tone, "Don't go. . . ."

---
* This really happened on campus. I still don't know why.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 02, 2014, 10:16:31 PM

There's such a thing as being too cryptic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2014, 10:20:41 PM

I can't exactly give it away now, can I? ;)

• BOOK CCLV: "RAF Kid" -- The younger generation of RAFians must save the world with the guidance of Cloak, Shadow, and Parker, the last of the old RAFians. Out-of-continuity.
• BOOK CCLVI: "The Galactic Games" -- The RAFians are sought out to provide security for the Galactic Games, a galactic version of the Olympics.
• BOOK CCLVII: "Lego My RAF!" -- RAF is reimagined as Lego mini-figures. Out-of-continuity.

Okay, don't think I rehashed anything. Correct me if I'm wrong.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Alpha Perplexahedron

As it so happens, Malice managed to luck into a spacecraft used by an alien hokester and conman. When the four-armed alien rather like Roger Smith began to protest in a nasally drawl, Malice got in his face. She gave him an ultimatum -- his ship or his life. The hokester was easily intimidated by the rogue Realm Walker and gave in without any effort.

So she killed him anyway. She didn't care if that wasn't the spirit of the deal, but she really could not care less. She knew the coordinates of the Alpha Perplexahedron, where one part of the map to the Unimind planet was located. Sure, she could have gone to the Gamma Perplexahedron first, with the perceived easier puzzles and a somewhat lazier, labyrinthine maze.

But she came to another obstacle -- she did not know how to pilot this ship. Well, it couldn't be all that difficult, now could it?

***

Eight and a half hours later, she left Earth's atmosphere. She imputted the coordinates into the autopilot, and went to rest. When she awoke, she was pleased to find that the ship was able to located the cubic Perplexahedron. It had a metallic, dark green color to it.

Malice didn't think much of the structure, and looked for a way to marry the hatch to the Perplexahedron. It took some doing, but she managed it. She swiftly entered and had to battle the Perplexahedron Guardians that retained the green of the Perplexahedron, but with white highlights and black trim. Malice took exceedingly exuberant enjoyment in destroying these Guardians, making her way to the center, or what she believed to be the center.

She elated and reveled in the destruction of the mindless drones that were the Perplexahedron Guardians. She took savage pleasure at rending them to pieces. Eventually, there were no more rooms to move through. She was at what appeared to be a throne room. Upon the ruby-encrusted gold throne with red velvet was a red-skinned Churl (http://www.ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Churl) in splendorous robes of reds, golds, and greens.

"Where is it?" Malice demanded.

"You are not worthy," the Chuurl sentinel said, single eye narrowing gravely. "Your heart is a blackhole."

"Thank you," Malice replied.

"It was not a compliment."

"It was to me." Malice said, snippily. "Now fork over what I came for."

"I cannot."

"Well, then," Malice said, in a venomous honeyed tones, "you will die."

"And that," the Chuurl said, "is precisely why you will never have it."

"Oh, we'll see about that," Malice said, mock blithely.

***

Eventually, Malice sped away from a collapsing Alpha Perplexahedron collapsed in on itself. Malice grinned as she held a red triangle piece in her palm. One down, two to go.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 03, 2014, 11:10:28 PM

Is it just me or has Malice become stronger than from the last time we saw her?

And I'm loving the new books. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2014, 11:12:57 PM

She didn't destroy the Perplexahedron, Saffa. Not directly, anyway. It collapsed due to the fact that the map piece was no longer inside it.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Vision Divining

When Cloak "awoke" from his meditation, he wore a wan expression upon his face. He looked very rumpled and ruffled, though his signature, eponymous cloak remained pristine and perfect. He uncrossed his legs and rose up. He wore an unconcealed look of confusion on his face.

"Where she could become one with everything?" he muttered. "What kind of zen crap is that?"

It didn't make sense. His grandfather was the furthest thing from a zen master, but yet he gave such a tantalizing clue. But what could it mean? Cloak hadn't a clue as he reentered the forum. Hat was Sage alluding to? Why did he have to be so cryptic?

He was so deep in his ponderings, so mired in his thoughts, he had not realized that he was in the middle of the forum's square, a pavilion with a rather nice view of the lake, where Horse was lazing about in. Cloak looked around with half bemusement, half amusement. But his thoughts swiftly turned back to the riddle his grandfather left him, his last riddle.

What could it possibly mean? Was Malice looking for a way to integrate her deux ex machina into all things? Was that even possible?

No, that was absurd. Even if that was her goal, she'd have to kill herself for it to happen. And there was no guarantee that it would even create a deux ex machina in such a suicidal act. Malice would never kill herself, or leave that much to chance.

But then . . . what? Cloak was at a lost for meaning.

He folded his arms mulishly, as he thought, as he pondered over the riddle. It could literally mean hundreds of things, although that might be a slight exaggeration. He gestured with his right hands as he went over his previous theories, shooting them all down again.

Then he glanced at his Mark and an idea came to him.

Far from being pleased, he feel the ichor flee from his face. The idea was so horrid, so vile, so disconcerting that Cloak fervently hoped that he was wrong. Malice wanted to make herself one with everything. Cloak had misheard his grandfather. Malice had no intention on making herself one with everything. She intended to.make herself one with everyone!

The Perplexahedrons! She must have discovered his grandfather's Perplexahedrons! If she assembled all three pieces . . .

No. She must not do so. She must not access the planet. She must not be allowed near the Unimind. He remembered his grandfather's tales of such a device, how it only appeared in two realms, and must be protected in this one (it was already protected in the other by its native Dwellers).

Cloak swiftly decided that he needed Yarin's help.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2014, 10:18:33 PM

Ah, that old "modified post chapter" syndrome I presume.

I have new book ideas, but I'll post them tomorrow. Yeah, I'm feeling a bit lazy. Anyway . . . short chapter!

CHAPTER SIX:
The Beta Perplexahedron

Malice had reached the second Perplexahedron, colored a metallic purple with black highlights and white trim. Like its predecessor, it was shaped like a gigantic cube. Malice eyed it longingly, greedily, and almost lovingly. She swiftly married the hatches of her ship and the Perplexahedron.

Like the first, the puzzles and guardians were not simple to get past. One couldn't just muscle their way through, nor simply outwit them. It required a delicate balance of brawn and brain. Malice, impatient, found that she had to find that balance. But she eventually made it through, via dogged determination and obsessive desire.

"You shan't have it," said the yellow-eyed Chuurl sitting in the throne of purples, yellows, and silver. He did not even bother to look at Malice, his Cyclopean eye shut fast.

"You deny me what I want?" Malice said. "Do you know dangerous that is to your health?"

"Your mind is corrupted," the Chuurl said, "it is warped and twisted."

"Thank you," Malice said, perfunctorily. "Now fork it over."

"No."

"You know the consequences for refusing me what I want?"

"You may not have it," the Chuurl said, stoically.

"Oh," Malice said, dangerously, "We'll see about that."

She violently ripped the map piece from the Chuurl's possession, and left him there to die. Once she was speeding away in her stolen ship, the Perplexahedron, having no more reason for being, like its predecessor, it collapsed into nothingness.

"Only one more purple-deck-a-whatevers to go," Malice crowed rapturously, unconcerned with causing the deaths of two Chuurls, as well as that human trucker and the alien hokester. She was true to her name. "Only one more piece to go, and the Unimind will be within my grasp."

She smiled evilly as she thought about it.

"So, this realm will not be riddled with errant behaviors and such," she said, with a relish, "I will bring this realm . . . peace."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 04, 2014, 10:56:14 PM

Not quite modified-post-syndrome, more like I fell asleep. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 05, 2014, 04:33:55 PM

I remember this on Ben 10

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2014, 11:02:28 PM

Except there was only one in Ben 10. And a Chuurl wasn't the guardian.

So, Pokemon Bank! . . . Yeah, no new chapters today. Sorry.

• Book CCLVIII: "Total Chaos" -- The RAFians face Apophis.
• Book CCLIX: "Blob-jection!" -- The RAFians face a blob monster.
• Book CCLX: "A Pod Cast" -- The RAFians face pod people.
• Book CCLXI: "Breathless" -- The RAFians must help an old foe. Maybe considered a "filler" book.
• Book CCLXII: "Evil Energy" -- The Banned discover the antithesis of Unity Energy -- Evil Energy.
• Book CCLXIII: "That's Sick!" -- The Knights of Humanity experiment with germ warfare.

There are the most recent six books, and I'm close to moving on to my fourth notebook of chapters planned out in advance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 06, 2014, 02:45:51 PM

Malice strikes me as one of those people who would use cheat codes to 'beat' a video game rather than playing it how it's meant to be played.  Kinda surprised she has the patience to go through the mazes at all, rather than trying to find some brute-force quick way through.  I suppose it's set up so she can't, though.  No gameshark for the real world.

Wonder what's gonna happen when she finally puts all the pieces together . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2014, 09:21:24 PM

Nothing good, Dino, I assure you.

Here we go -- sorry about yesterday. But I've gotta split this chapter in two.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Stowaways

"The coordinates have been inputted, Cloak," Yarin said, turning to the Realm Walker. "You sure about this?"
 
He told Yarin, and no one else, about what needed to be done. Yarin acknowledged the gravity of the situation, and acquiesced to pilot his ship to the location Cloak needed to go to. But Yarin was leery of the secretiveness of the mission, with good reason. Cloak didn't want it to be secret per se, but he knew that action had to be taken now and time couldn't be wasted with debate and discussion.
 
Was it reckless? Yes. Yes, it was. Cloak would have to be a fool to have deny it.
 
"Cloak, are you sure you want to do this?" Yarin repeated. "The mods ought to know."
 
"They will get their notices in due time," Cloak said.  He had sent them a "send all" report. "This has to be done, Yarin.  It has to be done now. There are three Perplexahedrons and chances are that Malice got to at least one of --"
 
Cloak stopped mid-sentence, as they left the Eath's atmosphere.
 
"Abby, Shadow. You don't have to hide anymore, I know you're there."
 
Shadow stepped out of the shadow in predominately black clothing with navy blue trim, and a cloak of a matching color scheme. She looked rather sheepish, like a child with a hand caught in a cookie jar. Cloak's expression did not soften from the mildly exasperated one he wore.

"You too, Abby." Cloak said, with an authoritative sort of tone.

Nothing happened.

"Abby, I know you're the roach."

The roach did not appear aware that it was being addressed. Cloak was not amused, while Shadow looked a little relieved to no longer to be in the spotlight.

"Abby!" Cloak said, beginning to get irritated.

<This is not the roach you're looking for,> she replied in her best Obi Wan voice.

"I wasn't looking for one, and Abby, you're not a Jedi." Cloak said sternly. "Morph back."

She hesitated for only a moment before deciding not to incur the Realm Walker's enmity. Once human again, she played innocent.

"Shall we depart, Cloak?" Yarin prompted.

"Just a minute," Cloak said. "Don't you two have homework? Shadow, you know your mother'd kill me if you shirked such responsibilities."

Cloak waited a beat.

"She does know you're here, right?" he said sternly.

"Cloak, I thought we hadn't time to waste?" Yarin said.

Cloak had momentarily forgotten.

"Very well, very well," Cloak said, against his better judgement. "Let's go, Yarin."

Then he looked at the two, and said, "And let it be on your heads, if you did not complete your work."

"Cloak, it's Friday!" Abby protested.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 06, 2014, 10:44:05 PM

Kids. *shakes head* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2014, 10:05:31 AM

Techniacally, Shadow's 112 Prime Earth years old, roughly. ;)

And here's a couple more book ideas:

• Book CCLXIV: "A Hat Trick" -- Two forgotten foes team up in a malicious alliance.
• Book CCLXV: "Knick-Knack, Paddywack" -- The RAFians face off against a creature that can possess the shadows of others and objects.
• Book CCLXVI: "A Ventriloquist Terrorist" -- The RAFians face off against a ventriloquist terrorist, who claims that the dummy made him do it.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Saffa?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 07, 2014, 11:50:12 AM

Nope, you didn't.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2014, 06:55:01 PM

Excellent. I actually have another three ideas, but . . . I don't feel like getting up. Whether becuase of illness of laziness, take your pick.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Gamma Perplexahedron

"I have been expecting you," said the sentinel Churl. "The pure soul . . . the curious soul . . . the conflicted soul . . . and the persistent soul."

"You expected us?" Abby said. "Then why'd you make us go through all those puzzles? I was done with homework for the night!"

"Such is not my decision to make, young one." he replied formally. He sat upon a throne of bronze with orange and blue fabrics. This Perplexahedron was a metallic orange, and the puzzles were not easy for anyone with an I/Q below that of Stephen Hawking. But they managed.

"Do you know why we've come, Perplexahedron Sentinel?" Cloak said, respectfully.

"You've come for the last piece of the Map of the Unimind's planet, home of the Microhominiverde -- known more commonly as the Tinkerers or Little Green Men, which is often abbreviated as L.G.M., or L.G.M.s, if plural." the Churl recited, as if they were lines he had learned from a religion's scriptures. "You seek to safeguard it better than your grandfather, Grandson of Sage. Guard it from the dark, tainted soul who seeks them out."

"Wait," Yarin said, "Cloak, your grandfather --"

"Not important," Cloak said gruffly. Turning his tone more respectful, he addressed the Churl. "May we have it?"

The Churl stood and handed the piece to Cloak, who found the blue triangle unimpressive and plain in appearance. But he knew of the importance of it, and marveled how something so small could lead to powerful consequences.

"Thank you, Perplexahedron Sentinel." the Realm Walker said.

"Go now," he said. "Before the dark soul approaches."

This threw Cloak for a loop. He spoke with alarm, "But Sentinel, if we take this piece from this place --"

"I'm well aware, child." he replied gravely. "Without that piece, this place has no purpose. But so do I lack purpose without it."

"But, you'll --"

"Go, child."

Cloak was conflicted, but in the end, he left with the others. He hated himself for leaving the Churl behind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 07, 2014, 10:13:17 PM

Nooooo!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2014, 11:26:34 AM

Not the kind of reaction I was anticipating, Saffa. :)

• Book CCLXII: "Blemish Blundering" -- After being hit by a discarded invention of Yarin's, a boy's blemish comes to malicious sentience.
• Book CCLXIII: "One Hat, Ah-Ha-Ha, Two Hat, Ah-Ha-Ha" -- The RAFians are dispatched to the Numero System.
• Book CCLXIX: "Things That Go Bump in the Night" -- A discarded invention, the Evilpersonificator, grants evil sentience and personification to decidedly nonhuman objects.
• Book CCLXX: "Weapon Masters" -- The RAFians, the Knights, and the Banned vie for the Star Saber, the Skyboom Shield, and the Requiem Blaster.

That's it for now, I don't think I rehashed anything. Though Gaz may hate me for "Blob-jection" . . . but that would be telling.

CHAPTER NINE:
Abject Malice

"Uncle . . ."

"I'm not going to talk about it, Shadow," Cloak said, quietly gruff. Truth was, he did not want to think about the Churl's willingness to give up his life for a noble if not pointless death. Cloak himself had considered . . . a similar dark motive. Had not for Shadow's image come into his mind, he might have very well committed such the dark act, and act of sheer desperation for freedom. Only one who have felt themselves in such a truly impossible situation could really understand the dark depths to which one's mind can plunge.

"Cloak," Yarin prompted gently.

Cloak did not reply, and Abby and Shadow exchanged frightened, worried, concerned looks. Cloak's mind had plunged back to the day -- such memories aren't easily forgotten, and often linger when one wishes evermore fondly to expunge the bad memory, the nightmare . . .

"Cloak, I require the next coordinates." Yarin said, snapping Cloak out of his darkness. "You said there were thr-- er, two more Perplexahedrons."

"Right . . . they need to be checked," Cloak said, giving the Nyac the next set of coordinates.

***

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" came a frustrated cry which the entire cosmos would have heard had there been atmosphere to support and facilitate the sound. Malice had come upon the location of the newly-nonexistent Gamma Perplexahedron.

And she was apocalyptic with fury, palpable with rage. She had come so close! So close!!! So close, only be so utterly thwarted like this! Without the third piece, the two she had obtained were useless! Pointless! A wasted effort!

"I will not be denied!" she roared to no one. "I will bring this world peace, I will free it from conflict, from war."

Then she snarled, breathelessly, with sudden realization, "That brat. He has it, he must have it. Sage's heir. The one they call Cloak."

She never realized just how deranged she sounded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2014, 08:24:21 PM

Time for another chapter, methinks. Before the creative energy leaves me and I become tired. God, I've gone diva. ;)

CHAPTER TEN:
Realizations

"But where would the overpowered, simpering brat hide such an important piece?" Malice was saying, looking rather deranged. Then her tone turned rather envious. "The brat who cringes at his own power, who hesitates to use it at its full potential?"

She stopped speaking, panting. She was allowing her frustration to drain from her, permitting herself rational, coherent thought. But her mind raced all the same.

"Of course," she said to herself, "of course. He is so transparent, so predictable. Pitiful hatchling."

She cackled madly as she inputted the coordinates.

"Now, it's just a matter of finding which area of that pathetic Dweller settlement that he spirited my map piece to."

If she was really paying attention, she might have realized that she had inputted the coordinates for the old location of RAF -- the area where RAF sat before Cloak had to relocate it.

***

"They're . . . they're both . . ." Abby said, horrorstruck. She could not finish her thought.

"Gone," Cloak said, voice sounding as cold as he felt inside. "They're all gone."

"What does this mean?" Shadow said.

"You know what it means, Shadow. Malice has the other two pieces." Cloak said, tonelessly. He still felt hollow. He held the blue piece between his index finger and thumb, seeing how like hard plastic yet metallic it was. "Which means she'll be after this."

"You are going to hang on to it, then?" Yarin inquired, as he piloted a course for home.

"No," Cloak said. "I could lose it, or have my pockets picked. I'll have to hide it."

"Uncle," Shadow said, hesitantly, "are you sure that's wise?"

"Oh, I'll just hide it where no one in their right mind would enter," Cloak said.

"Hell?" Abby guessed.

"Realm Walkers can't enter there," Shadow said.

"Oh, trust me, I have an idea." Cloak said, seriously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 08, 2014, 10:46:02 PM

I can imagine Malice as one of those crazy cat villains. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2014, 10:54:43 AM

Crazy cat villain? Oh, like James Bond, right? James Bond, hmmm . . . maybe not just yet. . . .

• Book CCLXXII: "The Pretender" -- The RAFians must deal with a master of disguise causing problems, causing massive PR problems.
• Book CCLXXIII: "Talk Like A Politician" -- Several snack cakes become laced with a powerful Antiveritiserum, disabling them from speaking the truth.

Don't think I've rehashed anything, though the last book is the antithesis of the truth-telling one. Anyway, a chapter soonish. Must get and review my book notes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Seal of Doom

"That's your big hiding place, Cloak?" Abby said, a little too loudly.

"Keep your voice down!" Cloak snarled. "The less people in on the secret, the better. Especially considering how much of a loudmouth Rotiart is."

"But stiil, Cloak," Abby said, now in a hoarse whisper.

"You want to get it?" Cloak said as Pootang came charging the door rather like Killer Croc in the Arkham series of Batman games, snarling and slobbering. Abby involuntarily took a step back, while Cloak did not even flinch.

"Be that as it may, Cloak," Yarin said, "this still seems incredibly risky."

"Says the guy who rebuilt that microwave."

"Food Yield Increaser!" the Nyac hissed like an angry snake.

"Yeah, that." Cloak said, dismissively differential, with a careless wave of his hand. Cloak was well aware Malice may have been listening. She would have expected it to be in the Pootang's cage, but Cloak had ensured it was in a slightly safer location. Although, it was still risky. . . .

***

It was a few days later, and . . .

"PUT ME DOWN!!" Horse screamed, as the Pootang seized her. "I AM NOT A COMFORT FOOD!!!! LET ME GO I SAY!!!!"

Too late. She went down the hatch, and was swallowed whole.

"Not again . . ." she wailed from the beast's stomach. She was alive, but not looking forward to coming out of the Pootang -- it was one of either two ways, and neither were pleasant for her.

***

A few days later, Horse . . . uh, came out of Pootang. She was covered with ick, and the Pootang was caged once more. She snapped angrily when someone asked how she came out, saying she didn't want to talk about it. But there was more to it . . . there was something stuck to her fur, mired by the Pootang ick clinging stubbornly to her fur. Something triangular and metallic blue. Something that had hungry eyes lingering upon it. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 09, 2014, 01:53:23 PM

Following on from Dino's fic - she probably teleported through the slobber. ;) (ewwww)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 09, 2014, 02:34:26 PM

If Realm Walkers can't go to hell (heh, that renders a few insults useless, doesn't it), then why didn't Cloak give the thing to Demos?  Seems like hell would be the perfect place to hide it from another Realm Walker.

Although, I suppose Malice probably has minions that she could send in instead of going herself.  So, nevermind that idea.

Poor Horse.  :P  That has to suck no matter how she got out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2014, 06:26:43 PM

Saffa, that is far more pleasant than the truth. Dino, that is indeed a possibility, (one that I didn't consider in-canon), but, as you predicted, Mega Maul and Ravager have no such restrictions as Malice does, but also remember, Hell is full of all sorts of unsavory figures.

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Cue Chase Music

Malice struck fast and unexpectedly, like a snake or a trapdoor spider. She seized the piece, uncaring to the muck, completely focused on her mission, her obsession. Malice was gone before Horse had even reacted. Malice did not care about Horse, but her illbegotten prize.

She did not go unnoticed in this endeavor however.

"Yarin, to your ship!" Cloak roared, knowing precisely what Malice would do. "Shadow, come along! Now!"

"I'm coming too," Abby said, running to the ship, a mulish expression on her face.

"I'm not being left out the action this time." Saffa said, oblivious to the reason for this emergency. She clearly felt left out of the whole Shenecron thing, or something.

"Very well, very well," Cloak said, not really caring. "Just hurry up, we haven any time to waste!"

Apt words indeed, as Malice was already in her purloined ship, proceeding to leaving the planet's atmosphere. Joining the pieces into a Triforce like configuration, and, hovering upon her palm, it became like a compass needle, with the blue piece as the pointer.

"Some hiding place, Uncle!" Shadow chided.

Had it been anyone else who spoke those words, Cloak would have roared an angry retort. But he had always allowed Shadow a little more leeway in such matters. As it were, Malice had a lead, but she was not out of range of the ship's sensors.

They had to assume the reverse was true.

"So, what's this all about?"

"Malice has a map thingy to some place where she can do something really, really bad." Abby said.

"Gee," Saffa said sardonically, "that clears that up."

"Stay on her trail Yarin." Cloak said, rather stiffly.

"My ship is more than capable of staying in tandem with that old Techadon relic," the Nyac sniffed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 09, 2014, 11:06:44 PM

Love that chapter title haha. So apt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2014, 11:11:42 PM

Now, the point of any book that Dino dreads -- Chapter Thirteen!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Planetside Planet

"There! That planet!" Abby pointed. A green planet loomed in the viewscreens of Yarin's ship, and it appeared to have a lime green ring around it.

"What's so special about this planet?" Saffa inquired.

"It's not the planet, but what's on the planet." Cloak said, haunched over, like a tiger mid-stalk. The ship was in atmosphere now.

"And what's that?"

"The Unimind."

"The what?" Shadow inquired.

The ship landed, and Cloak burst from the door onto the technologically advanced world of greens and yellows, but they were nothing but blurs to him.

"What's the Unimind?" Abby asked, panting to keep up. Cloak had been going at top feline speed, while the others seemingly struggled to keep up, Yarin's arms flopping almost comically around.

"A mental hub for the microhominiverde to communicate with each other nonverbally, and at the speed of thought." Cloak said, as he streaked in and out of view. The macrocephalic, short-statured, triclopic creatures with short stubby antennae (which was how they communed with the Unimind) and lime green skin and blue jumpsuit with purple accents. The microhominiverde, their appearance identical to the green aliens in "Toy Story". All suffering injuries . . . or worse. Cloak continued as he follow the swath of destruction and devestation,  "The microhominiverde are a peaceful race, malice and hostility are foreign concepts -- they're 'happy-go-lucky' personified. The Unimind reflects that."

"Why is it so dangerous, though?" Yarin asked.

"Pray you never find out, Nyac." Cloak said, very sternly. "You cannot, thankfully, rebuild or reverse engineer it. We don't need another microwave fiasco!"

"Food Yield Increaser!"

"Like it matters." Cloak said quickly. "Hurry up!"

But, as they rounded the corner, Cloak's heart felt like it fell through to the planet's center. He saw the Unimind -- a spherical devices of green energy and a greenish-yellow ring around it, in a remarkable mimicry of the planet. And Malice was standing by it, already relishing her victory.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 09, 2014, 11:14:55 PM

Oh, that microwave. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2014, 11:50:06 PM

Yeah, the running gag we'll never see or hear the end of. (And funnily enough, I never originally intended it to be such.)

:yawn: Oh, how I need to sleep. But I want to post a chapter. Such . . . a . . . quandary . . . zzzZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZz zzzzzzz . . .

:edit: Now that I slept, and eaten, I think a chapter before work will do fine.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Epic Failure

"Malice, NO!" Cloak roared loudly.

"You're too late, Cloak," Malice said, reaching out her gloved hand toward the Unimind. Suddenly, time itself seem to disobligingly slow down. Cloak knew, deep down, that he would never reach her in time, that no projectile he threw would reach her in time. Malice was right, he was too late.

She lunged her hand into the Unimind. It was this very touch that poisoned the Unimind. Corrupted it, tainted it. It went from yellow with green highlights to black with a Dark Energon-like purple highlights. The ring around it turned blood red, and expanded out so fast that not even the fastest being in the universe could have reacted. The ring became a surge, a wave. It washed over the RAFians, knocking all of them off their feet.

Shadow stood up, completely uninjured and unaffected. Cloak's Mark burned intensely at first, then milded down to a constant itch. The other RAFians still laid upon the ground, in some limbo between sleep and unconsciousness. The Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.

The two Realm Walkers looked up and saw the prominent bloodred glow that Malice had, but so.did the nearby microhominiverde. It didn't take a genius to figure out what Malice had done.

"Malice, how could you do this?" Cloak croaked.

"I have granted this realm a supreme gift," a microminiverde spoke, but they weren't his words. They were Malice's. Malice was speaking through the poor Dweller.

"Gift?!" Shadow said, not even attempting to hide the disgust in her voice.

"I have freed this realm from all conflict, all war," she spoke throught a different microhominiverde. Apparently, she did not want to deign to speak through her own mouth and voice. "I have freed this realm from all pain, from all suffering."

"'Freed?'" Cloak spat. "You dare to think that imprisoning the minds of others, that by subverting their will for your own, is freeing them?! You remain so arrogant to believe that no one's mind and will is superior to your own?"

"This realm is free now," she said, speaking through the first one now. "All minds are linked to mine."

Cloak stole a glance at the other RAFians, and knew that she hadn't. Not all the minds in this realm. But he did not draw her attention to it.

"Our minds are truly free," Shadow said, and Cloak was secretly proud of her bravery. "And we will find a way to undo this."

"But we must retreat for now," Cloak said, picking up the other RAFians in an energy bubble, and motioning for Shadow to come.

Malice smiled as they left, speaking humorlessly and ironically with her own mouth and voice, "And where can you go? I have eyes everywhere."

***

They managed to get to Yarin's ship, and set the others down.

"How are we going to get off-planet?" Shadow asked. "Can you pilot this?"

"No, I can't." Cloak said. "But I'm going to have to try."

Cloak noticed Yarin groaned, and he turned and saw the Nyac holding his his head. Shadow stood off to one corner, looking scared. But Yarin's eyes were normal, and his Mark clearly itched as Cloak's did.

"Yarin . . ."

"What happened?"

Cloak was suspicious, until he saw Yarin's eyes. They were normal. If he was under Malice's control, they would be glowing wholly blood red.

"Never mind that," Cloak said, "we'll fill you in on the way."

"Where we going?" Shadow asked.

"RAF." her uncle replied.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 10, 2014, 09:36:41 PM

Ooh! The suspense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2014, 10:27:46 PM

Yep. Anyway, I'm currently planning out the chapters of "Blemish Blunder", which is shaping up to be a rather slow book, but hopefully with a decent payoff.

Anyway, a chapter. A chapter, I say!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Sleeping Beauty Syndrome*

They landed in RAF, and discovered every last RAFian flopped down upon the ground -- even the Andalites -- almost as if they were dead. The trio glanced around the desolate grounds, littered here and there with RAFians.

"Wh-what happened to them?" Yarin asked, apparently noticing the blue auras that lanced with red electricity every now and then.

"Sleeping Beauty Syndrome," Cloak siad, as if for all the world this explained everything.

"What?" Shadow asked, clearly unnerved. She was remembering the whole Black Mercy saplings again, and that wasn't a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

"Sleeping Beauty Syndrome," Cloak repeated, but as if it was an article title. Now he spoke in a clipped tone that suggested that he memorized it from some long forgotten magazine or something. "A co.dition which the subject is trapped in an endless sleep."

"Don't tell me I have kiss anyone to wake them up," Shadow said.

"You've been brushing up on human fables and fairy tales I see," Cloak said. Then he addressed her inquiry, "And if you tried to kiss them, Shadow, they would wind up lipless."

"Hey!"

"I was being serious, Shadow," Cloak said, deadpan. "We wear these cloaks for a reason."

"Oh," Shadow said, abashed. "Right."

"How do we wake them up?" Yarin asked. "By all conventions, I should be stuck with Syndrome too. How'd you wake me up?"

Shadow started to speak, but a distraction appeared mere feet to their right. It was TARDIS, and Aquilai stumbled out, griping, "What on Earth possessed me to visit the Salem witch trials?"

He dusted himself off and looked around. He spoke with an intonation and timbre of Professor Paradox (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Professor_Paradox), "Well, well, well. What's all this, then?"

"Okay, then," Cloak said, with an heavy sigh, "let's take it from the top."

---
*Yeah, yeah, I stole the term from the "Kingdom Keepers".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 10, 2014, 10:45:51 PM

Yeah, how did Yarin wake up?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2014, 11:01:45 PM

*in the vein of the old Adam West Batman show*

"All these questions and more in the next chapter or two! Tune in -- same RAF time, same RAF channel!"

Sorry couldn't resist. But you WILL find that out around Chapter 17.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 11, 2014, 05:54:28 PM

I'm on the edge of my seat, here.  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2014, 10:49:12 PM

I'm still quite tired, but I'll try to write a chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
No Cookies For You!

"And why are they asleep?" Aquilai asked.

"I was getting to that," Cloak said, unintentionally similar to Rook Blonko. "The Unimind is constantly trying to impose Malice's mind and will on them. The Mark will not allow this, but it has forced them in to a semisomnious state, to better defend them against this constant assault."

"Ah," said Aquilai, "that makes sense."

"It does?" Shadow said, frankily surprised.

"Now, I assume it didn't affect either of you because you're both Realm Walkers."

"Correct." Cloak said.

"But why am I not affected, then?"

"You were in the past, or outside time itself," Cloak postulated. "You were not present for the wave."

"But I was," Yarin said. "You haven't said why I woke up when no one else -- who woild come to call at this hour?"

There was gathering at the forum's perimeter. Yarin moved to go and see what they wanted, but Cloak stopped him. "No. Activate the forum's defenses."

"They're girl scouts," Yarin said.

"No," Cloak said. "They were girls scouts."

"It couldn't have possibly --"

"You underestimate the power of the Unimind." Cloak said, seriously. "All corners of the universe now have been probably reached by the wave."

"Their eyes are glowing red," Shadow said slowly. "I think."

"And they are jeering at us in unison." Cloak said. "All the same words."

"How d'you --" Aquilai began.

"I'm a cat, Time Lord." Cloak said. "I have rather acute hearing."

"Well, what do we do now?" Shadow asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 11, 2014, 11:20:18 PM

Ah! We still don't know how it happened! ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2014, 11:41:39 PM

Don't wait worry, Saffa! You'll find out in the next chapter. Before work tomorrow. Okay, maybe after, depends on how I am feeling.

:edit: Okay, turns out all needed was sleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Only Way

Cloak looked around, and saw how the RAFians were surrounded blue aura, normally invisible to all but Realm Walkers, riddled every now and then with fearsome electricity the color of blood. The Mark was holding up, and would do so.

He heard a groan, and saw that Goom was waking up near Shadow. This confirmed it in Cloak's mind. The only solution.

"Cloak . . ." Yarin said.

"One moment," Cloak said. He went over to Goom, who was groggily getting up. "Goom, I know it's sudden, but something serious has happened, and we need to act straight away. We need you to monitor things here. Are you up to it?"

"Huh?"

"Goom, time is of the essence. The whole realm has falling to Malice's absolute, and, so far, uncontested, mind control. We'll give you the details later, whether we succeed or fail." Cloak said, hurriedly. "Point is, can you look out for RAF? A nuclear strike or such against the forum may be options that Malice may employ."

"On it," the Goomba said, still groggily. Cloak had qualms, of course, but he quieted them.

"Aquilai -- shrink your TARDIS down to its charm form." Cloak said, more authoritatively then he intended. "Yarin, fire up your ship. We gotta go back."

"Wha--"

"I can explain on the way back to the Unimind," Cloak snapped, clearly stressed, as tiny fissures appeared in the ground at his feet. "Now, GO!!!"

***

"The Unimind had been corruped by the darkness deep within Malice's own twisted, evil soul." Cloak said, as they were underway. "It caused the Unimind to overpower, take over, and subsume all minds and wills. Unless they bore a Mark."

"We know this already,"Yarin said, rather impatiently.

"Yes, but I believe the solution is equally as simple as Malice corruption of thing." Cloak elaborated. "I believe a pure soul, a strong mind, and a powerfully good heart can undo. And only that."

"You?" Aquilai asked sincerely.

Cloak shook his head. "No, not me. It must be a heart who hasn't known true darkness, a pure heart. I haven't such a heart, I've known darkness. I have fallen into deep darkness after my mother . . . disowned me. I've known the darkness of self-loathing and having . . ."

He glanced sideways at Shadow and hesitated to finish his sentence. But she would have found out eventually.

". . . Having suicidal thoughts."

There were several beats of horrid silence, before Yarin, ever so wisely, broke it, "Then who?"

"The same person whose mere touch awoke you and Goom," Cloak said. Then he looked pointedly at his neice.

"Me?" she said.

"You do have your mother's good heart." Cloak replied simply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 12, 2014, 08:33:42 AM

AWWWW. :')

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2014, 10:56:25 AM

Well, as my supervisor has insisted that I don't go out in this snow, I have the day off, though I may have to go in on Sunday.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Time For The Hard Work

"We have arrived on the planet," Yarin said. "Yet it appears to be deserted. Odd. . . ."

"Wait, Cloak, you didn't say why it was so important to bring my TARDIS with me." Aquilai said.

"You're never without it," Cloak said. "Besides we may need the insurance . . ."

"Insurance? Insurance for what?"

"We'll worry about that when the time comes," Cloak said repressively, but mostly to himself. "Chances are Malice is well aware of our arrival, and she has the microhominiverde as guards. Which would not be an incredibly good plan, as they don't have much in the way of brute strength, though they possess a high degree of corporeal resiliency."

"Perhaps I am mistaken," Yarin said thoughtfully, "but that sounds like it leaves too much to chance. Surely, Malice would have a contingency plan thought out?"

"Yes, she can be quite methodical, and she probably realizes that the weakness of this plan hedges upon the fact that the Unimind can be purged of her taint." Cloak said. "But we mustn't forget that Malice is a vain, arrogant, and narcissistic. She might believe that no such person exists outside her control, unaware that she would not be able to control such a person, not completely and utterly."

Cloak looked out at the deserted landscape.

"Malice tends to overlook key details and underestimate the powers she does not comprehend, though claiming she's done neither." Cloak continued. "I have to believe luck is on our side. And luck favors the prepared."

Cloak nodded to Yarin, who opened the doors. "Let's get this over with."

***

They retraced their steps, and found no resistance. No guards. No sentries. This unnerved Cloak, though they had planned for it. He couldn't imagine someone getting this complacent. Not even Malice. Part of him started second-guessing himself and the certainty of the things he said.

No, he scolded himself mentally, I mustn't doubt myself now. Not at this critical juncture, not when it all comes down to this. If this backfires, if something goes wrong, I will bear the weight of the failure, and I will bear it with grace.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 12, 2014, 01:20:53 PM

It's a trap. We've read the right books. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2014, 03:13:59 PM

Eh . . .

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Time to End This!

The four burst into the room where the Unimind was held, looking hideously black and purple, like it was just one big bruise that retained its shape. Malice was in the room, but only had the same microhominiverde as before. Cloak could tell through Earthsight that there were none hidden for ambush or anything. Malice's utter complacency left Cloak speechless and aghast. Was she really that confident that she had already succeeded? That arrogant?

"Why do you come back when you have already lost?" she spoke with all the mouths and voices present, including her own. Excludijg the RAFians and Shadow, of course. "There is nothing more you can do. You lost. You failed to stop me. This entire realm is mine."

"The entire realm, Malice?" Cloak said, as if he was stalling her. Shadow knew what he was planning. "Really, you believe that?"

Malice's anger flit across many faces. Cloak knew she would not resist a monologue, that tired old villain cliche. This was good, it could serve them well. Fortunately the others were just as quick on the uptake.

"Yes, the entire realm, fool!" she snarled with her legion of voices and mouth. It was something strange to watch a crowd speaking in absolute synchronicity. "The strong Tetramands are tools of my will. I have the mighty intellects of the Galvin, Cerebrocrustaceans, and Transylians under my will! Even the fearsome Ectonurites follow my slightest whims! Even the feared warlord and conqueror Gilvaxx has had his will subsumed by my own!"

Shadow was using her smaller size to go unnoticed, moving with agility and deliberation. Cloak made a point not to watch her with his eyes. That'd just give Malice a head's up. No, best just to keep her talking.

"I think you may have missed a couple, surely," Aquilai said, examining his fingernails, as if the whole Unimind business bored him.

"Wretched Time Walker! I'll teach you to talk like such to the Realm Lord!"

"I think you mixed up a few things," Aquilai said, as if the threat was only mildly interesting.

"Besides," Shadow said, her hand touching the surface of the Unimind, the corruption already starting to ebb away. "You talk too much."

"NO!!!" she screamed and nearly lunged at Shadow, but with her own body as her control over others was ebbing and fading faster than sand in an hourglass. But she quickly found her wrists cuffed in golden scarlet energy.

"Sory, Malice," Cloak said, with gritted teeth, control his own fury that Malice would dare to attack Shadow, "I cannot allow you to do that."

Soon, the Unimind was back to normal. Wait -- it was . . . better than normal. It was white with gold trim, and a golden energy ring around it. The spell was broken, and Malice was one again. Cloak was in awe, and Malice managed to wrest herself free by Walking away. But Cloak wasn't worried, he knew she wouldn't show her face for a while. She was beaten by a child. That was a humiliation she would have to endure.

"Well, I guess I underestimated your capabilities yet again, Shadow," Cloak said, proudly and warmly.

"Now no one can do that again," Shadow said, sheer exhaustion in her voice. "Or the Unimind would just stop working."

"You did good, kid." Yarin said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2014, 06:45:29 PM

I suppose I could have abruptly end the chapter there . . . nah.

• Book CCLXXI: "The Pretender" -- A master of disguise becomes a character assassin for hire.
• Book CCLXXII: "Talk Like A Politician" -- A serum, Nonveritaserum, makes it impossible for the the consumer of the said serum to tell the truth. At all.
• Book CCLXXIII: "Son of the Pretender" -- The illegitimate son the character assassin tries his hand at it.
• Book CCLXXIV: "The Ol' RAF" -- RAF, set in the Old West. Obviously out-of-continuity.
• Book CCLXXV: "What's In A Name? -- A creature steals names and identities, and the RAFians must stop it.

Hope that I haven't rehashed anything. *hums "This is the Fanfic that Never Ends."*

Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Time to Wake Up!

The four return to the forum. The trip was quiet, and rather subdued. Shadow nodded off more than once. Her uncle did not blame her, she expended a lot of energy. But Cloak realized witha heavy heart that he had let Malice go. Anything that she did after this would be on his head, any blood she sheds would be on his hands. Maybe not directly, but still.

It was his burden to bear. His mistake, his regret. But could he have ended Malice, killed her? All previous encounters made that answer obvious. He never had the heart to kill . . . and yet, his hands were stained (metaphorically speaking, you understand) with Cataclysm's blood. Though he was really left with no choice, and his hand forced, the act still weighed on him. The guilt still haunted him to this day.

This was also another reason why he knew he could never purify the Unimind. He had taken another's life, whether justified or not. Shadow had not. He hoped that Shadow didn't know about it. He was already a pariah in the Nexus because of his choice of becoming a full-time RAFian. But it was HIS choice, and his alone.

Cloak realized long ago that others might have seen it as strange that he shouldered so much responsibility for things outside of his control. Cloak supposed it was due to the fact that he bore all responsibility for anything when the energy hit the fan, and things went bad. His mother accepted the blame. Never, for anything. Whether she wrought it or not.

Stop it! he scolded himself. Why did he continue to dwell on these bad memories? He was over this! Yet . . . yet the wounds remain, and they remain deep. Would he truly ever be over this? Perhaps if he got a sincere, genuine apology from his mother?

He gave a small, mirthless chuckle to himself. His mother? A sincere, genuine apology? The idea was laughable. His mother was never sorry for anything she did, but just rationalized and outright lied to make herself look better*. It was pathetic, it was sad, it was maddening.

But she's no longer his burden to bear. So . . . why does this still weigh on him so?

***

They launded in the hanger, and found that all the RAFians stirring and waking. Non had any idea that was going on, and Cloak did not really care to elaborate. He suddenly wanted to be alone, but no. He mentally slapped himself. Isolation would not help him now. He needed company of the people like him, of the people who cared about his well-being dar more than his mother ever did -- all least when Cloak stopped being a cute little cub.

He had once again helped save his safe place. His home. Who cares what the others of his species thought of him? Many of them can take their elitist schticks and shove it . . . er, never mind.

Cloak knew who and what he was. He was a Realm Walker. He was the son of a chronic drunk and a domineering narcissist. He was the brother of Faith, uncle of Shadow, nephew, and cousin. He was most certainly not worthless or lazy.

But above all else, he was a RAFian, and always would be.

---
*Proven when she told her sister (youngest of the six daughters of Sage) that my aunt (her sister, and the penultimate eldest) kidnapped me from a halfway house. ::) "Memoirs" is a solid testament to invalidity of the story.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 12, 2014, 09:29:56 PM

That was great. Fairytale-like, almost. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 12, 2014, 10:49:16 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 12, 2014, 06:45:29 PM

But above all else, he was a RAFian, and always would be.

Love this quote so much I'm extremely tempted to put it in my siggy.  I think it kinda applies to all RAFians, in some way.  That, no matter what else you are, you're a RAFian, and that's something that transcends one's past or circumstances.

Excellent book, as usual.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 13, 2014, 01:18:18 AM

And, here's the PDF, as usual.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2014, 09:44:30 AM

Thanks, Ye Olde Chronicler. ;)

Now new book.

BOOK LVII:
End of Time
Chapter One:
A Meticulous Analysis of History

Some time has passed after the Unimind fiasco, Malice was pouring over human history books. Some lively music played, and she sang as she schemed:

"Through meticulous analysis of history
I will find a way to make the people worship me.
By studying the conquerors of days gone by,
I'll discover the mistakes that made them go awry."

Mega Maul sang:

"So that you can make the same mistakes if you just try."

Malice glowered for a second or two, before continuing:

"By studying the past so carefully,
I won't repeat the same mistakes of history."

"You'll never make another mistake, you see,
'Cause you'll fall asleep from reading all that history."

Malice snarled, "Pay attention, Mega Maul!

When Cleopatra reigned as Queen,
With Roman leaders she was often seen.
But when she had no ruling friend,
She found a poison snake to bite her in the end."

"A bite down there I really wouldn't recommend."

"I won't need world alliances,
When I'm commanding everyone's appliances."

"Oh no, Malice, that would really smart,
To be bitten on the bottom by a Cuisinart."

"Yorick, this book confirms,
Tried conquering RAF with pachyderms.
Just why he failed, nobody tells,
But he never could get past the RAFian sentinels."

"And he couldn't find his weapons in the peanut shells."

"An elephant is not required,
If I can use the media to be admired."

"The TV viewers you'll delight,
Unless the network puts your show late at night."

"Attila was a mighty Hun,
He ransacked Asia Minor just for fun.
But when he got to Europe's banks,
He was routed by an army of heroic Franks."

"I like mine with onions and ketchup, thanks."

"Why pillage like a criminal,
When I can send out messages subliminal."

"Please send a message to that Hun,
To see if he can pillage me a hot dog bun."

Malice grit her teeth momentarily before plunging forward:

"Aloth was no boy scout,
He did things that I won't even talk about.
The RAFians knew he'd lost his head,
When he tried filled a vacant admin seat with Mr. Ed."

"What's wrong with being friendly with a thoroughbred?"

"Why rule like such a reprobate,
When I can put the world in a hypnotic state?"

"And when everybody's in a trance,
You can make the people do a stupid dance."

Malice grabbed Mega Maul, by the throat, and pulled him down to eye level. "Meha Maul, if you don't stop this foolishness, I shall have to . . . hurt you."

"'Kay." Mega Maul said.

Then Malice released him and continued her song adaptation.

"In France, Napoleon Buonaparte,
Thought beating Austria was very smart.
But when he took on England too,
He was beaten up by Wellington at Waterloo.

"And now he is a pastry filled with gooey goo."

Malice actually smirked at that.

"Why conquer with depravity,
I'll win the world by undermining gravity."

"And even if your plan falls through,
Maybe they will name a pastry after you."

Malice seemed to sincerely consider that, before continuing.

"From Kangaskhan to Charlemagne,
From Alexander down to Tamburlaine.
I find a ruler's tragic flaw,
And gain a little wisdom out of each faux pas.

"Don't forget all the Bieber arrest hoohah."

Malice gave Mega Maul a look that plan said, who the Veil is this Bieber?, before continuing:

"That concludes my little rhyme,
I hope this lesson wasn't just a waste of time."

Mega Maul sang:

"Well, Malice, I've learned that one thing's true,
Every one of them has failed, and so have you."

Malice replied drily, "Gee, thank you for your vote of confidence. Now come, we must prepare for the next fortnight."

Mega Maul asked, "Why, what are we going to do the next fortnight? Sing a song about all the world's cheeses?"

Malice responded, "No, Mega Maul, we shall try to take over the world—

Through meticulous analysis of history!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 13, 2014, 12:40:23 PM

That title... eponymous with one of the most emotional Doctor Who episodes ever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 13, 2014, 03:33:02 PM

I took your silence as consent and went ahead and quoted you in my siggy.  ;)

Very interested to see where the new book is going.  Also, I'm very curious about the Banned's attempts to take over RAF with elephants and horses?  Are those escapades ever going to make it into any books?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2014, 03:56:31 PM

I wasn't aware you were waiting for my consent, Dino. And quite the contrary, Dino, I'm quite flattered.  Oh, and don't hold your hopes up about the elepahnts and horses thing, I meant it to indicate the dubiousness of the books Malice was using.

• Book CCLXXVI: "The Millennium Door" -- All the RAFians sacrifice themselves to seal a powerful demon away. A thousand years later, the seal begins to weaken. . . . Out-of-continuity.
• Book CCLXXVII: "City of Stone" -- A female gargoyle casts a spell to turn all humans to stone every sundown, reversing every sunrise.
• Book CCLXXVIII: "Tides of Cleanliness" -- The RAFians get caught between a turf war between two supervillains, one who is an OCD clean freak and the other is an incurably filthy slob.

Hope I didn't rehash anything. Remember, all titles are subject to change.

Oh, that was the last of Malice we will see for this book . . . lest I change my mind.

CHAPTER TWO:
Power Lust

"So how do we do this?" said a woman in silhouette. "Jak-Yr?"

"What, Wala? Get the Unimind?" said a burly man with neatly clipped hair. "The cloaked creature banished it to the end of time, dear. He used the other Time Lord. Aquilai, I believe."

Clearly, these two needed better sources of information, for the faux news they were getting was quite ibviously wrong. But these two were not Time Lords, while possessing the memories and knowledge of two rather mentally unstable ones. Their true physiologies were Kryptonian, but something went wrong when they bought some memories from some Iskoort.

"We don't have our TARDISes, dear," Wala said. They never had one, but remembering having one just the same. "How are we to get there, love?"

Jak-Yr was silent for a moment, thinking on it. Then he chuckled, "Well, then the solution is simple."

"How so?"

"We need to go to the end of time to obtain the Unimind, right?"

"Yes, yes, we've established that," Wala said, evenly.

"And we cannot go by easier means, right?"

"Oh, spit it out already, Jak-Yr."

"It's simple," he said, obviously with aweakness for the dramatic, "since we cannot go to the end of time by our own volation, we just simply need to bring the end of time to us."

He looked directly at his love, and continued, "We bring about the end of time itself."

"Great idea academically," Wala said, "but not in practice, dear. We haver any means to bring such a conclusion."

It was baffling that they were speaking so casually about this. They seemed blissfully oblivious and unaware that it would obliterate them as well all Dwellers within this realm and timeline.

"When there is a will, my lady," he replied jovially, "when there is a will, there is a way."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 13, 2014, 10:00:27 PM

Oh, yeah, bringing about the end of time and all, it's an everyday thing, I do it every day in the shower. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 13, 2014, 11:48:47 PM

Oh, I wasn't really waiting for your consent.  Which is why I didn't wait for your consent.  ;)

I love the idea of Iskoort memories gone wrong.  :XD:  Oooh, that actually gives me an idea for another book you could write, RAFians with the wrong memories.  Yanno, if you're running short on book ideas.  :kitty:

Quote from: Saffa on February 13, 2014, 10:00:27 PM

Oh, yeah, bringing about the end of time and all, it's an everyday thing, I do it every day in the shower. ;)

Which is exactly why I never take showers if I can help it.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2014, 11:25:29 PM

Probably not, Dino. Might be too similar to another book, to be honest.

CHAPTER THREE:
Instigating A War

"How does stealing these useless relics accomplish anything?" Wala said. "And why hide them on those two planets?"

She was referring to the two items sacred or otherwise important to Chronians (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Chronian) and Chronosapiens (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Chronosapien). They left subtle indications that the other chronokinetic species was responsible.

"Wala, think about it," he said, landing a bit. Feeling the rays of a yellow sun was just lovely, as it gave the powers of a super man. "One -- whether Chronian or Chronosapien, it does not matter -- will find the evidence we planted. They will assume the other race stole from them. They will not deliberate, they will rush to judgement. Assumptions will be made, one race vilifying the other. Misunderstanding after misunderstanding will stack up, and accumulate like leaves upon a forest floor."

He looked at his lover as he held her shoulders with a gleam in his eye, as if he was explaining an exciting day trip they were about to take. Not inciting a interplanetary war.

"Oh, Jak-Yr," Wala said, as if Jak-Ur had just proposed to her. "Will it really work that well?"

"It will, my love," he said, boyishly exuberant. "It will."

It was genuinely remarkable how little they thought of the other beings in the realm that would be affected by such actions. Indeed, they were very, very, very reckless in their endeavors, and they reveled in such disregard for others.

***

"What?!" Cloak roared.

"There's no need to yell," Aquilai said. "I said that two species have begun warring against each other."

"Aquilai, you don't appreciate the gravity of the situation." the Realm Walker said, quickly and fretfully. "Chronians! Chronosapiens!"

"What's the big deal?" Dino said, attempting vainly to pick something from her teeth. "It isn't like it's any of our concern."

"Guys," Cloak said, unable to keep the exasperation from his voice, "they all are chronokinetics."

"What?" Abby asked.

"They can manipulate time! Time itself!" Cloak said, attempting to impress upon the others the seriousness of this situation. "If they clash . . . it could prove disastrous."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2014, 07:58:31 AM

I think I have time enough for this.

CHAPTER FOUR:
An Rippling Effect

"Disastrous how, exactly?" Saffa asked.

Cloak gave her a look that clearly said, You're kidding, right?

"What?" she replied defensively.

"They manipulate time, Saffa. They could very well rip the fabric of time and space if either side decides to get careless."

"The end of time itself," Aquilai elaborated.

"We have to do something. . . ." Cloak said. Then he considered the potential consequences of such an impulsive action. If the chronokinesis was aimed at him, he'd be unaffected. Realm Walkers are, essentially, immune to Dweller chronokinesis. It'd just wash over him, like the Unimind's mind control wave did, but not affect him in the least.

But his friends were Dwellers. They were vulnerable to it. The Mark does not prevent aging or deaging. It does not stop the effects of chronokinesis. To go to this war with them would be putting their lives in jeopardy. A greater jeopardy than they had ever experienced. Who was he to ask such a thing of them? He valued their lives -- rather unlike a fair amount of his species, unfortunately.

"I have to do something," Cloak amended, in a quieter tone. "I cannot ask you to place your lives in such jeopardy."

"Oh, no. You aren't cutting me out of the action this time." Saffa said.

"Saffa, don't you get it?" Cloak said, somberly. "Their chronokinesis will not affect me as it would you. They could age you into dust. They could deage you to nothingness. What else, I dare not fathom. I cannot ask you to put your lives in such grave jeopardy."

"Cloaky, our lives are already in jeopardy," Dino reasoned. "Just by the mere fact that they're warring. Look, we get it. It's dangerous. It's perilous."

"But you forget, Cloak," Abby said. "We have faced enough dangers to fill like fifty books. We are aware of the dangers and accept them."

"Guys, guys," Aquilai said. "We can't just go. There are still interplanetary relations to think about. Neither the Chronians or the Chronosapiens may take kindly to a third party entering the fray, a third party that has no business in the conflict, from their point of view."

"But we do have business in this conflict," Saffa argued. "Their warring can severely harm the fabric of space and time, right? Then all living beings have a stake in this conflict."

The conjecture was ended rather abruptly with Estelore's report that nearby planets were starting to feel the effects of the war. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 15, 2014, 08:04:43 AM

Ah, me, forever the debater. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2014, 07:36:35 PM

Oh, right . . . the debate thing . . . forgot about that.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Mass Hysteria

"Galvan Prime, Encephalus IV, and even Anur Transyl are all in disarray, and they are the birthplace of some of the smartest species in existance." Estelore reported. "There's pestilence on Lepidopterra, famine on Luna Lobo, and the Gourmands lost their twelfth planet."

"Geez -- what hapened to the other eleven?" Saffa asked.

"They ate them," Cloak said. "Go on, Estelore."

"The panic, the fear of utter and inevitable doom is infectious and spreading faster than a rumor." the star said. "Mass hysteria is running rampent. Those with ships are attempting to flee from the ripping continuum."

"Where are they going to go?" Abby said. "No matter how much they run, they cannot run from this."

"They're scared and desperate. Fear, when combined with desperation, has a way of overriding all rational thought and reasoning capability." Cloak said. He knew that first hand . . . no. No, he would jot allow his mind to wander back to those most hated memories. Now wasn't the time dwell upon them.

"It's only a manner of when the panic will reach the people of earth." Estelore said. "I do not know if we can stem the fear and mounting hysteria. But if something's not done soon, the entire universe will be, not only turned upside-down, but awashed in destruction before time unravels."

"We have to act!" Underseen cried.

"We'll go to Chronia first." Cloak said. "Maybe talk some sense into the Chronians."

***

"Oh, isn't just lovely, Jax-Yr?" Wala said, as if the two were newlyweds at Niagara Falls or some other highly romantic, expensive location. "All the screams of terror and colorful explosions?"

"It's just spendid, I know." the stubble-laden Kryptonian agreed.

Both wore monogramed housecoats, as if they were awaking from a resort's penthouse and taking in the view from the balcony. But in reality, they stood upon the luxurious quarters of a large warship -- manned by nonsentient, nonsapient robots that had a passing similarity to Slix Vigma.

"Any moment now, my love, the Unimind wil be within our grasp. Then all of creation will know our love!" Jak-Yr said, leaning Wala over and kissing her passionately. It soon devolved into . . . er, let's not get into specifics.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 16, 2014, 02:00:23 AM

This deranged evil couple is making me laugh. Now all they need is to be stroking a cat between them or something.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2014, 08:11:09 PM

Ah . . . no, this isn't the place for dirty jokes.

Anyway, looks like "Weapon Masters" will be a fun book to write. Currently planning my way through "The Pretender".

CHAPTER SIX:
Advising Against Aggressive Diplomacy

"Hold up, Cloak," Dino said, "we should set up another group on . . . on . . . on . . . what planet do Chronosapiens hail, anyway?"

"I . . ." Cloak said, "I don't know its name."

"Kind of important, don't you think?"

"And we must be careful how we do this, as well," Richard said. "One error, one misstep, may make things even worse, may deteriorate time even further. Serious consideration needs to be taken."

"We don't have time for debate!" Cloak protested.

"Don't have time to stop the end of time," Aquilai mused infuriatingly. "That's ironic -- or an oxymoron, or something."

"Hilarious, Time Lord," Cloak said, dryly without expression. "Real Gateburst funny."

"Cloak, relax a little. All this stress can't be good for you." Saffa said. "It will turn out alright. It always does."

Cloak gaped at her. She was choosing now of all times to get complacent?

"So, two teams of three?" Dino suggested.

"You guys are forgetting that Yarin's ship is the only functional ship we have." Cloak said. His tone was still testy.

After a couple of hours of what Cloak considered fruitless debating, it was decided that Yarin was to drop Cloak, Parker, and Saffa off on Chronia, and Helen, Abby, and Underseen at the Chronosapien homeplanet. Yarin will be piloting, of course, and Aquilai will be coordinating from the ship.

"Now that we got that pointlessness out of the way," Cloak said, still testy, "let's get get going!"

***

After the two deluded Kryptonians . . . uh . . . finished, they became aware of a ship leaving a planet's atmosphere.

"Oh, dear. What could this be?" Wala said, as if it was a minor inconvenience. Not something to be considered.

"Eh, probably nothing, dear." Jak-Yr assured her. "Our plan unfolds as delicately and beautifully as a flower blossom."

Wala reels Jak-Yr in to her arms, giving him a loving, doting kiss, saying, "C'mere you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 16, 2014, 10:33:20 PM

What happened to Aquilai's TARDIS? Or would that be too much timey-wimey interference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 16, 2014, 11:04:37 PM

To be fair, there are plenty of planets that simply don't have names, and just get referred to by their species, ie, the ____ homeworld.  Andalite, Yeerk, Sector Five, RG-Two-One-Five-Seven-Eight-Four Hork-bajir.  Really shouldn't be all that surprising that, uh, 'Chronosapia,' doesn't have a name either.

Also, I think those two got a little something extra with those fake memories of theirs.  Do the Iskoort trade in godawful sappy love potions?  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 16, 2014, 11:42:35 PM

This book is great for February. If you catch my drift ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2014, 06:34:51 AM

Uh, Dino, no. They were always that sappy. And Chronosapiens are a Ben 10 species, and I don't know their homwplanet name because they haven't revealed it yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on February 17, 2014, 11:06:16 AM

The whole Unimind arc reminded me bizarrely of Darkseid, but that's just because I'm media-inundated. :p

Also, I caught the Vilgaxx (Possibly the correct spelling) reference from Ben 10. XD He was like Slade, man--- Every time he showed up everything got 100 percent more interesting. But you can't be too careful with such characters, or you'll get Villain Decay...:}

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2014, 10:00:41 PM

Only one "x", Shenmue. I was going to add another chapter, but my Kindle is being difficult. I want a cursor, dammit.

. . .

FINALLY!

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Diplomacy Futility

"Oh poo, pookie," Wala pouted as the two watched the RAFians valiantly trying to defuse the situation and mediate the two warring races. "Those horrible creatures are ruining our carefully-laid plans!"

"Fret not, my pet." Jak-Yr said, rather soppily and sappily. "They shan't be able to accomplish anything."

"But, sugar," Wala protested. Really? They were that oblivious to how tacky and over-utilized pet names were? "They seem to have it all thought out."

"Oh, my darling, they do know as much as they believe themselves to know." Jak-Yr said. Then he gave her a one-armed hug, and . . . geez, could it get any sappier? The funny thing was they were always this sappy, even before the Iskoort memory incident. Hey, Kryptonians aren't only divided into altruistic farmboy boy scouts and criminal, militant usurpers.

"How can you be so certain, love?"

"Because, my dear, once two sides decide to war with each other, nothing can stop them. It can never be remedied so easily, a resolution discovered so effortlessly."

"Oh, you're so smart, Jak-Yr." she said, wriggling into his embrace.

"Oh, don't sell yourself short, dear," he said genuinely. "Oh, look."

They watched as Yarin when to pick up both teams from each planet's surface.

"Dear, I suppose we should do something." Wala said. "They may come up with a resolution."

"Reveal ourselves?"

"Well, we dress first, obviously."

"No, I didn't mean it like --" But his voice was muffled with a kiss from Wala.

"I know, love, it was a joke."

***

"Nothing we said made any difference." Saffa said. "These Chronians have a serious God complex."

"The Chronosapiens weren't much better," Abby said.

"Wouldn't give us the time of day," Underseen added.

"Aquilai, couldn't you use your TARDIS?" Helen asked.

"The temporal fabric is far too thin now." Aquilai said. "Were I to use it now, it would rip the temporal fabric like tissue paper. It would both exacerbate and accelerate the very outcome we're trying so hard to prevent."

"Oh, so more good new then?" Cloak said, gruffly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2014, 10:29:33 PM

NO CHAPTER TODAY, I GUESS!

MY INTERNET F*CKING DECIDED TO CUT OUT ON ME WHEN I WAS NEARLY DONE WITH CHAPTER EIGHT!

:edit: Yes, modifying this post because of this thing I have against double-posting. Short chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Options and Abductions

"Options?" Parker asked.

"What options?" Cloak said, moodily. He had become accustomed with having most, if not all, the answers. Perhaps it had made him complacent. Arrogant. Overconfident. "Diplomacy failed. If we took them on face-on? Narrow chance of success, but that would be optimism bordering on lunancy."

"The continuum is already like tissue paper, so the TARDIS is out of the question." Aquilai added. "I can't say just how much more give and take it can suffer before tears begin to appear."

"Tears?" Underseen inquired.

"Yes, Underseen, tears. Did you think it would be a simple flash and the end of time would have occurred?" Aquilai said, with a ponderous look upon his face. "The repairable tears, the ones that the Andalites call Sario Rips, are of little consequence usually. But if these two chronokinetic races carry on like this, there may be more irreparable damage done. If my estimate is right, no such damage permanency has happened --"

"That's god, right?" Abby interjected.

"-- Has happened yet." Aquilai finished.

This cast a pall over all over in the ship. Futility settled in, and Aquilai fidgeted a bit, passing it off as a momentary discomfort, but Cloak suspected that by the way he fidgeted and his tone of voice, that he was hiding something. But the Realm Walker was subdued, and did not call it to attention.

"Uh, guys?" Abby said, point through the windows. "We have company."

A huge warship, generally shaped like a "+" with the upper fin and center being more bloated and thick  then the other three fin-wings. Its hull was gunmetal gray with reddish lights with yellow lights interspersed. It made Yarin's ship look like a Fischer-Price car compared to a minivan.

"It's tractor beaming us," Yarin said, working the controls, frantically.

"More bad news." Saffa said. She mimed checking a nonexistent watch. "Right on time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 19, 2014, 12:30:53 AM

:hug: *gives Cloaky cookies* There there. It'll come back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 19, 2014, 08:50:22 AM

That sucks. It's worth the wait though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2014, 10:19:37 AM

Thanks, guys. :hug: The new chapter is in the previous post.

• Book CCLXXIX: "Coulrotoxin" -- The RAFians must deal with a toxin that turns people into zombified clowns.
• Book CCLXXX: "Jeepers!" -- The RAFians must contend with a creature that only appears once evry 23 years.
• Book CCLXXXI: "Phantogorgon Sisters" -- The RAFians must prevent several dangerous entities from escaping their mystic idols.
• Book CCLXXXII: "Clay Family Guy" -- The RAFians must deal with a Clayface family.

The titles are libel to change. Do not think I rehashed anything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 19, 2014, 10:57:13 AM

Things are getting screwed up fast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 19, 2014, 03:32:26 PM

Is it bad that I kinda want to see what permanent tears in time would look like?

Sorry about your internet, Cloak.  But the chapter was worth the wait.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2014, 10:00:40 PM

Thanks, guys.

I think I should clarify something though. When I said the Kryptonians were always so lovey-dovey and sappy, in-story. As far as developing them when I planned out the chapter, they were very much in the mold of Malice. But I changed my mind, thinking they were far more interesting this way.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Tower

The ship was surrounded by darkness. Only the dim interior lights of Yarin's ship illuminated anything. They were most definitely in a hangar of some sort. Yet Cloak looked over his shoulder as if he expected to see someone looming over him. There was no one there. Strange. Although . . . it could mean . . .

Well, that was a solution out of this mess. Too bad it was nigh on impossible.

Just then, the hangar's lights came on, bright and yellow. All the RAFians flinched involuntarily at the sudden brightness of the hangar lights streaming into the ship. They saw through the window that the hangar was metallic steel, and filled with robots, milling about. The robots resembled Slix Sigma, with red, blue, yellow, black, or silver coloring and trim of those five colors.

"This does not bode well," Yarin said.

"No duh," Abby muttered.

Then two people emerged from amongst the robots, which only came up to their waists. They looked human, but the way that they walked recalled something in Aquilai.

"They walk like . . ." Aquilai began.

"Kryptonians." Cloak supplied. It was not what Aquilai was going to say.

"How can you be sure?" Saffa asked.

"Why else flood the ship with yellow sunlight?" Cloak answered with a question. "Light from a yellow sun grants Kryptonians superhuman strength, superhuman durability, heat vision, telescopic vision, tactile telekinesis, freeze breath, flight --"

"We get the point, Cloak." Parker said, interrupting this litany.

"Occupants of captured ship," the male boomed, as the woman grasped his arm, as if they were holidaymakers at Disneyland or Disney World. "Welcome to the Tower!"

"What is this? Are they activity coordinators on a cruise or something?" Underseen said, perplexed.

"Occupants of captured ship!" the woman said, cheerily. "If you would kindly disembark, we can get started."

"It's gotta be a trap." Cloak said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Saffa quipped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 19, 2014, 10:41:31 PM

This reminds me of some particular scene in Animorphs, but I can't quite place which one...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2014, 07:45:07 AM

Can't rightly say, Saffa.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Confrontation With Confused Kryptonians

"Step on out, we know you're there." the male said.

The RAFians did not comply.

"Oh, poo, Jak-Yr, dearest. Looks like they need to be dragged out." the woman said.

"Don't fret poppet," he said, nuzzling her nose. Cloak thought he might be sick, though that could be because Realm Walkers weren't really all touchy-feely, it wasn't in their nature really.

The sickening sappiness never left the two's tones. Cloak wondered if these two where sent to the Pantom Zone so that the other Kryptonians just didn't have to deal with this soppy lovey-dovey schtick.

"Come on out, fellas," Jak-Yr said, brightly. But the command intonation of his voice left the RAFians in no uncertqin terms that this was a command, a demand, and a threat all rolled up into four words.
 
From the exterior of Yarin's ship, the door opened into a dark, black hole. None of the occupants were visible.

"That's better," Jak-Yr said, gladly, "you see, Wala? You just have to put your foot down with captives?"

"Put your foot down?" she said coyly. "On their necks?"

"Oh, my dearest Wala," Jak-Yr chortled, "that doesn't come until later!"

"Aw," she said with mock disappointment.

Distinct but faint retching could be heard from the interior of Yarin's ship, and Jak-Yr was starting to get impatient, though his voice betrayed none.

"Come now, come now. Disembark." he said, still with the asinine brightness in his voice. "There's no time to dawdle. You're quite outnumbered, you know."

Suddenly, the first two rows of robots on either side of them were rolled up into small lumps of twisted metal looking more like balled up notebook paper than robots now. Suddenly all the flippancy left the Kryptonians, all overconfidence and arrogance deflated somewhat.

"I think," Cloak said, stepping boldly from the ship, "that that is completely untrue."

Cloak's became like golden-scarlet suns again, and the rest of the robots assembled were not crumpled piles of metal upon the floor.

"No matter, boy," Jak-Yr said, quite more seriously now. He was going to speak more, before Cloak cut him off, as the other RAFians emerged from the ship.

"'Boy'? You call me 'boy' in the arrogant assumption that you're older?" Cloak said, deliberately making both Kryptonians focus on him and over look Yarin, Aquilai, and Parker scanning the ship, subtly. "While I am somewhat young by my species standards, I still have two and a fifth centuries your elder, at least, Kryptonian."

"But I am not a Kryptonian, arrogant ferrokinetic," Jak-Yr said. "I am a Time Lord, as is my wife, Wala."

Aquilai nearly dropped his sonic screwdriver.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 20, 2014, 08:36:12 AM

Damn, Cloak! What a badass entrance. 8)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2014, 09:17:33 PM

Yeah, thanks. . . . I will see if I can get another chapter up, still quite tired.

:edit: Well, let's see if I'm up to this.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Denial

Cloak was about to say something before the ship rocked violently, and Aquilai really did drop his Sonic Screwdriver, for a second or two. The two Kryptonians hovered a few feet above the floor and wasn't really affected. Cloak quickly seized upon this.

"Time Lords, eh?" he said. "Then why don't your feet touch the ground, then?"

"All Time Lords can fly upon exposure to yelow sunlight," Wala said, as if she was an adult dismissing a child's stories. Aquilai, who had quickly seized up his Sonic Screwdriver and hoping no one noticed, raised an eyebrow at this statement.

"No, that's Kryptonians, fool." Cloak said derisively. "Time Lords cannot fly unassisted. Not in this or any other Realm."

This was a rather bold claim by Cloak. He had never visited all the Realms. No Realm Walker has -- the Realms were that numerous.

"Don't you dare speak to my wife in that manner!" Jak-Yr roared, charging Cloak.

Unafraid, Cloak shot a short pulse of energy into the manic Kryptonians face and Jak-Yr charged into a way, disformingit, as if it was made of wet clay. Further proof they were not what they claimed to be, yet they seemed to be fervently believing that they were indeed Time Lords. Why?

"I will speak to whomever in whichever manner I chose, Kryptonian." Cloak said.

"We are not Kryptonians!" Wala screamed. They were both quickly losing composure, proving some mental instability on their part. "We are Time Lords."

"You're in denial," Saffa pointed out.

"We are not!" both proclaimed rather dementedly.

"Deny it all you want, I don't really care," the Realm Walker said. "Just tell us the reason you forced us here."

Cloak had an idea, but he wanted to hear confirmation.

"We will not allow you stop us!" Wala snarled.

"You thought the Unimind would be safe, didn't you?" Jak-Yr cackled. "You thought you'd just hide it at the End of Time, didn't you? Thought that it'd be unreachable to everyone then, didn't you?"

Cloak stood, staring at the two Kryptonians in utter disbelief. This was the confirmation on his hunch.

"You cannot be serious." Aquilai interjected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2014, 09:45:42 AM

Another chapter methinks.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Delusions of Grandeur

"We were smarter than you!" Wala said, slightly hysterical tinge to her voice.

Parker and Underseen looked nonplussed at this whole Unimind business, while Saffa and Abby looked somewhat peerplexed.

"No," Cloak said. "You aren't."

"The Unimind was never at the End of Time," Aquilai said, pocketing his sonic screwdriver. "Such an endeavor . . . it would be utter suicide!"

"Cowardly filth," Jak-Yr sneered.

"You so fervently endeavored to bring about the End of Time to obtain something that was never there." Claok said, aghast at the audacity and sheer stupidity of such a grievous action. "But why? Why? Surely you know that you would be torn apart, as would the others you've doomed."

"We will survive," Wala said. "Time Lords can survive chronal armageddon."

"Time Lords can be destroyed -- annihilated! -- by chronal armageddon!" Aquilai said, in an uncharacteristic burst of emotion. "And you two are not Time Lords. No Time Lord in their right mind would believe ending all of time was a good thing!"

The ship lurched to the left slightly.

"See the devastation you wrought?" Parker demanded. He was angry, too. "You put everyone's lives at stake -- everyone! And for what? A Yuni Mine, or whatever the hell it's called that's apparently not even there?!"

"It is there!" Jak-Yr said stubbornly. "It is! We don't believe lies so easily, fools!"

"You can't even use the Gateburst thing!" Cloak roared, a tiger's roar intermingling with his words. "Shadow's pure heart has sealed its use against all except the innately-benign micronhominiverde!"

"Lies!" Wala proclaimed. "Lies all!"

"You're stubborn arrogance will kill us all," Saffa said, heatedly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 21, 2014, 12:09:00 PM

This is a bit like dealing with clueless people in the computer lab who don't get logic. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2014, 09:58:40 PM

Yep, there are people that abjectly refuse to believe things even when it smacks them in the face.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Reasoning With the Unreasonable

Wala fired her heat vision at Saffa, but Wala had hesitated too long. Saffa had suspected this move as soon as she spoke. So, Saffa had decided to morph a Crabdozer, a most wise choice, considering the beast fed on Pyronites. She had also lucked out that the first change was the rocky, craggy skin.

"Impossible!" the Kryptonian snarled.

<Just because you refuse to believe the truth, or your own eyes, does not mean that it is not possible.> Saffa retorted smugly, finishing her Crabdozer morph.

<Okay, I'm ready. Let's get this battle over with.> Abby said, easily shrugging of Jack-Yr's freeze breath in her Psycholepterran morph.

"Just answer me one thing," Parker said, addressing the Kryptonians, "if you succeeded, who would you be lord and master over if everyone's dead?"

"Irrelevant!" Jak-Yr said stubbornly, dodging Cloak's redirection of his own heat vision.

"I would think it highly relevent," Parker said, fighting in an almost casual, laidback way. He clearly considered these Kryptonians' mental instability a great weakness. "Considering the amount of trouble you two have gone through to see it through."

"Irrelevant!"

"Do you even know what that means?" Underseen asked. He had chosen a Panunsian form for this battle.

"Irrelevant!"

"Or maybe he like shouting 'irrelevant' at the top of his voice?" Yarin suggested with a shrug.

But then a distraction in the form of a commotion from the horde of robots cut off this rather irrelevant, irreverent conversation.

"What the --" Aquilai said.

But Cloak had a notion who was causing this distraction.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 22, 2014, 02:39:16 AM

Sounds like a Dalek who found a different word to yell. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2014, 08:08:49 AM

Right.

Hmmm . . . not even a question about the disturbance? ;)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Bit of Levity

Suddenly, the horde of robots scattered enough to make out the source of the disturbance, and, somehow, Cloak wasn't surprised to see its source.

Upon one of the more bovine and equine robots was Shadow, riding it very much like a bucking bronco. All conversation ceased at this spectacle, while Shadow remained oblivious to the looks that she drew. She was just having too much fun.

"Wheee-HA!" she cried out cheerfully. Then she burst out in joyful laughter. But how could she know the serious situation that they were in? How could she know that with each rumble of the ship was because it was being rocked by temporal tears, chronal undulations, as time itself was begining to deteroriate ever so slowly. How could she be aware of the utter futility of their situation? How the Realm where Cloak had found were he truly belonged was about to be destroyed? All becuase of a doey-eyed couple of Krytonians, who thought they were Time Lords, sought to obtain something that did not exist at the End of Time? That would not listen to reason, labeling it all as irrelevant?

"Wheeeeeeee-HA!!"

Cloak found himself somewhat envious of that obliviousness.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . . aw, no more?"

The robot collapse to pieces beneath her. Shadow looked disappointed, pouting a little. Cloak did not question how she could find him so easily. She could always navigate the realms, as well as within the realm, beter than he could while Walking. She had a talent for it.

"So, what's up, Uncle?"

"Why did you come here, Shadow?" Cloak could not keep the weariness from battle from his voice.

"Practice was canceled, had no homework, and I got bored," she said, with a shrug. "So what's going on here?"

"Temporal armageddon."

"Cool."

Cloak scowled at this choice of words.

"What?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2014, 03:09:42 PM

Okay, new chapter time now that my Kindle's finally decided to give me a cursor.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
It Begins . . .

Then all levity evaporated instantaneously as the ship rocked severely. The rocking was severe enough to knock everyone except the Kryptonians (who hovered), Abby (who was in Psycholeopterran morph, thus in the air), and the Realm Walkers (whose mastery over the Metal element allowed them to stick to the floor). Another violant vibration, smaller in intensity and power, rocked the ship a short while after, like an aftershock.

But the RAFians were not fooled. They knew that the worst was yet to come.

"It's nearly here!" Jak-Yr cried, rapturously.

"We will finally have what you've tried to deprive --"

"SILENCE, YOU VEIL-FORSAKEN IDIOT!!" Cloak roared, his body radiating a fiery, scarlet-gold aura. His eyes were suns of power. Yet, Cloak manqged to control himself somehow -- probably because of the presence of the other RAFians and Shadow. Moronic though they were, the Kryptonians couldn't help but recoil in fear somewhat. "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'VE JUST DONE, DO YOU?! YOU, IN YOUR PANGENOCIDAL QUEST TO DESTROY ALL OF CREATION!!"

"Uncle . . ." Shadow said, placing her hand on him. At her touch, and feelt the others through his Mark, help calm his emotions that the fiery aura faded away, and his eyes resumed their normal amber appearance. But Cloak's breathing was still ragged and breathless.

"I cannot believe," Cloak said, as he felt another temporal shockwave as if the very universe was slapping him in the face with its death throes. His voice shook with emotion as he spoke, as if he was already grieving, "I cannot believe that two beings, despite how instable their mental states are, would be so selfish to have the gall bring about the End of Time, while simultaneously being so incredibly stupid to not realize that it would mean the destruction of everything that was born into the universe."

Cloak sunk to his knees. He continued, "I will not be destroyed, but forced to bear witness. Witness all that I've come to love and adore come to an abrupt and devastating end. I will . . . be alone again . . ."

Shadow pulled her uncle to her and attempted to comfort him . . . she had her mother's good heart, she always did. . . .

"Uncle, you won't be alone," she insisted.

But she didn't understand, he couldn't just go back to the Nexus. He was a joke there, a laughingstock. It was here at RAF that he had found kindred spirits, friends. . . . Family. And, now, because of the vain, greedy desires of a couple of idiots . . . it was moments away from being ripped away from him . . .

"Uncle, we can shield the ship." Shadow said.

"It won't work," he replied, unable to keep the defeat from his voice. "Even if it did, then what? We won't be able to keep it up forever."

"You don't know that, Uncle." she insisted, voice encouraging. "It's worth a try, isn't it?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2014, 07:05:58 PM

Well, here's the third -- third?-- chapter today. If I've the energy, you'll get a fourth.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Unraveling

The two Realm Walkers began to try and project their energy outside the ship. But it was slow, painfully slow. Cloak had tired from the battle -- tigers were not known for their endurance. One percent . . . two percent . . . three percent . . . five . . .

Even with Shadow's help, it was slow. She was not as practiced as Cloak with this kind of thing, though she keep up encouragement. She was always more optimistic than Cloak, who had been very much a doubter and pessimist for the bulk of his life. So it wasn't much of an effort to be more optimistic.

"No! You cannot do this!" Wala screamed like a madwoman.

The rest of the RAFians worked to subdue them, with Saffa snarling, <They're trying to save all of our lives, you giant-sized knucklehead!>

Whatever happened between them next, Cloak had blocked out. He had to focus, had to concentrate, had to ignore his multiplying doubts.

The shield had barely reached nineteen percent before it utterly shattered. The temporal death throes were getting strong, much stronger. Too much stronger.

The temporal distortation and dissolution had reached the ship's hull and all assembled watched as the ship's did not age to dust, but deaged into nothingness. It was horrible to witness, and that was an inanimate object. Then the Kryptonians, Shadow, and the RAFians were floating in a blank, white nothingness.

"Where is it? Where is the bloody Unimind?" Jak-Yr said, a slight ethereal echo to his voice.

"We keep telling you! It isn't here! It was never here!" Aquilai said, looking sick. It wasn't from what the Kryptonians, either. "What does it take for you to understand?"

"Lies . . .!" Wala said. She sounded weaker too.

"Use your eyes, fool. It isn't here. Everyone is gone, never existed." Saffa said. There was pain in her voice, not all physical pain.

The Dwellers were dying, temporally dying. Their bodies deaging, but minds remaining as sharp as ever. There was nothing Cloak or Shadow could do to stop it. They didn't have the kind of power it required. Cloak was distinctly aggrieved.

"Guys . . ." he said, he was on his knees, as if to beg their forgiveness. ". . . Guys . . . I'm sorry. . . ."

"Don't blame yourself, Cloak. You tried so hard to prevent this," Underseen said.

Then they were gone. Cloak bowed his head, and said angrily to himself, "Not hard enough."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2014, 08:45:30 PM

Now, the final chapter of the night, methinks.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Stranger

Cloak broke down and sobbed unabashedly. His tears did not sear or scortch anything, as there was no longer anything to sear or scortch in existence any longer. Shadow tried futilely to soothe her uncle's palpable grief and misery. But it was a small comfort if anything.

"Why do you fret?" came a voice. It was male, and like Drake Bell, Josh Peck, or Ross Lynch, but a singular voice. "Why do you cry?"

Cloak could not bring himself to look up. It was just a delusion, an illusion from his grief-addled mind. It couldn't be real. The Prime Universe was no more -- as was all universes spun from it. Alll gone. His home was taken from him a second time.

"Why do you despair so?"

"The universe has been destroyed," Shadow had spoken, but she had not addressed her uncle. That was clear. "We had friends who died when time unraveled."

Cloak looked up, and was surprised that he could get vertical. He looked at the stranger and was surprised greatly. It was as if the cosmos was printed on his skin, with stars and starburst patterns adorning it, with his hand tips and fingers in white. He had yellow eyes without pupils, a narrow jawline (yet no jaws or mouth to speak of), and three stylish horns upon his head. He was about Cloak's height, give or take an inch. But Cloak knew he could be any size he wished.

"You're a Celestialsapian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Celestialsapien)." Cloak said, immediately recognizing that this stranger's species.

The Celestialsapien, instead of being imperious and arrogant as one may expect -- or being useless and trapped in eternal, circular debates like others of his kind, he shrunk back as if he was afraid of reprisals. Cloak did not really expect this, as the Celestialsapiens were the ones who forbid any Realm Walker from crossing into the Forge of Creation -- the Celestialsapien birthplace. They were long-lived, even moreso than Realm Walkers, though the Realm Walkers were the elder species.

"Forgive me," he apologized respectfully. Cloak eyed perplexedly. He was speaking with a single voice. When Celestialsapiens reached his age, they had two distinct, unique personalities. This was a handicap usually, because it prevented them from really doing anything, as both personalities are required to agree before any action is done. Most, if not all, are inactive, locked in debate. "Forgive me, Realm Walker, but I heard your sobs and . . . and I . . . I was curious."

Though different Cloak began to see real similarity between the Celestialsapien and himself. The deferential, timid way of speaking . . . it was the same manner of speaking that he used whenever he spoke to his mother. Back before . . .

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have intruded," he said quickly, and was preparing to turn to leave. He was a pacifist at heart . . . Cloak found another kindred spirit.

"Wait," he said. "You're different."

The Celestialsapien winced, as if it was painful being called that. "I am. I was . . . malformed. I have only one personality. I'm . . ."

"An outcast." Cloak finished. "Like me. Like . . ."

Cloak looked away, mourning his RAFian brethren. He was the last RAFian.

"Can I help?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 22, 2014, 10:51:01 PM

Whoa, three chapters. And they're full of feels. :'(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2014, 05:54:21 PM

Four, actually. Got a slow start today. Damn Comporium.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Too Good to Be True

"I don't really see how," Shadow said, hesitating because she didn't know his name. "Uh, what is your name? I'm Shadow and this my uncle, Cloak."

The Celestialsapian hesitated for a moment, before saying, in a quiet, thoughful tone, "Call me . . . Anomaly."

Cloak noted a tone of self-loathing in Anomaly's voice. Cloak blinked in surprise. Anomaly was him in Celestialsapian skin, they were so similar.

"Well then, Anomaly," Shadow said, rather gentlely, "I don't see how you can help. There's . . . there's nothing here anymore."

"Yes, that is true," Anomaly said, "there is nothing here for the moment."

Shadow's eyes widened, while Cloak looked unsurprised, but his face clearly showed that he daren't hope, for fear of getting his hopes up too high.

Shadow said, "What do you mean, 'for the moment,' Anomaly?"

"He means," Cloak said, as Anomaly looked a little churlish and mollified at the attention. He was quite passive and a pacifist by nature. "He means that Celestialsapians can remake and reshape universes. Usually it is required by both personalities to agree."

"And it can be remanded by others of my kind," Anomaly put in rather timidly.

Cloak heaved a heavy sigh, and said, "As much as I want to ask you do it Anomaly, I cannot request -- I cannot in good conscious make such a demand from you. You could get in great trouble with your people."

"Why, Uncle?"

"I am not Malice. I am not my . . . never mind." Cloak said, with a hard-edged tone, "I do not use people and throw them away."

"But it would make you happy, right, Mr. Cloak?"

"You do not have to be so formal with me, Anomaly," Cloak said, in what he hoped was a friendly way. "And yes. It would bring me great joy."

He looked directly at his new forbidden friend, "But Anomaly, I cannot ask you to go against the rules of your kind. Besides, Jak-Yr and Wala will nust repeat the process again."

"I do not understand." Anomaly said.

Shadow and Cloak regaled Anomaly the events of the Time War and everything, in a somber and sober way. And here's the thing about Celestialsapians, there faces are completely inscrutable, and it is impossible to tell what they are thinking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2014, 06:52:19 PM

Another chapter. Probably the last tonight.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Return What Once Was

"So, Anomaly," Cloak said, in summation, "even if you undid what the two Kryptonians endeavored so hard to accomplish their shortsighted goal, nothing would change. They'll just do it again, refusing to believe this would happen again."

"Yes, I can see that, Friend Cloak," Anomaly said, still quite formal. "But if one thing is altered, none of this would happen."

"Editing Jak-Yr and Wala out of existance? Isn't that a bit . . . extreme?" Shadow said impetuously.

"That would not be necessary, Young Friend Shadow." Anomaly said.

"Editing their personal histories?" Cloak guessed. "They wouldn't be the same people then, I suppose."

"I don't have that fine of control over my powers," Anomaly said, as if he was confessing a humiliating secret. "But the object of their desire . . . the Unimind. That could be deleted."

"But . . . the microhominiverde need that."

"It was a crutch," Anomaly pointed out. "They can survive without it -- I can tweak that. Eliminate the object of desire, elimate the annihilation lust."

Anomaly held out his hand and he trailed in a counterclockwise circle, a perfect circle. A geometric circle remained frozen in reality. Anomaly said, with an ethereal tone, "Motion carried."

Then before their eyes the realm, the universe was remaking itself, applying the changes Anomaly proposed. Everything was coming back . . . Cloak's heart raced, he daren't believe it. His home was returning, but yet . . . there was a bittersweet element to it. With the realm restored, Cloak was not allowed into the Forge of Creation, and Celestialsapians rarely, if ever, left their birthplace.

"Shadow, we must never speak of these events again." Cloak said.

"But why?"

"We will never be believed," Cloak elaborated. "Some Realm Walkers might believe, but few would care. Most only Walk as a novelty, before boring of it."

Cloak turned to his neice, "Now. Have you finished all your homework?"

"Uh . . ."

Cloak sighed, somewhat amused, "That would be a 'no', I take it?"

Shadow Walked home without another word, leaving Cloak to chuckle, "Kids."

Cloak looked around, taking it all in. He was in RAF again. He was finally home again. Unaware if he could hear him or not, Cloak said, quietly, "Thank you, Anomaly."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2014, 09:11:33 PM

Let's finish up this book, shall we?

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Cloak's Forgotten Hope

With everything back to normal, Cloak relaxed. His stress level lowered considerably. No one remembered the Time War, or the Unimind debacle. Cloak was content, yet there was a sadness to this happiness.

Anomaly was a hood friend, and Cloak hoped he knew it. But what was troubling Cloak this day was a hope he had forgotten, yet one he had desired.

***

He was dreaming, and Anomaly was there, but he was unrestrained, and free to be his lovable, zany self. So was his father, Brute. But he was not the demonic form Cloak had expected. It was what his mother led him to believe about his father. He was really a boarhound form, his father's true form. Seing him as a demon must have been a psychosomatic thing.

"Dad . . ." Cloak was saying. "Dad, I'm . . . sorry."

"Sorry?" he said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. Cloak could see the traces of pain his mother inflicted on him. She had after all made their son hate him. Something the son felt very contrite over, and he told him so.

"Sorry, for believing every Gateburst thing she told me about you," Cloak burst out, giving voice to the guklt he had buried so very deeply. "For believing her lies and half-truths. For believing that . . . that you never loved me."

"How could I never love you? You're my son. My firstborn."

They embraced, and Anomaly, timing it perfectly, said, "Enough with this dark past, let's crank out somwthing a little new."

Then he sang:

"It's a big, bright, beautiful future.
Thank your lucky stars you're alive!
You got someone special to talk to.
A friend that you can trust for life.
You've been on your own with no family ties,
But those solo days are done.
You'll be two of a kind,
Spending quality time,
Together -- as father and son.
Buildin' model ships,
Takin' fishin' trips.
Workin' hand in hand,
Painting the fourm, walkin' through the sand!
First at ten to go,
With your daddy-o!
Once you break the ice,
You can postulate paternal advice.
See, you're traveling at the speed of life.
That's the theory of relatives!
It's a fine, fantabulous future!
I see fruit on the family tree.
You'll be great as a grumpy ol' grandpa!
Bouncing babies on your knee!
You can fall asleep on the comfy couch,
After playin' one-on-one.
Dreamin' back-to-back,
That cha wallop the Shaq,
Together -- as father and son!"

Brute sang:

"May be a bumpy ride."

Cloak added:

"We'll make it side by side."

"Good afternoon, I'll be your travel guide!
Move over, Cloak,
Make room for the bloke!
You got a whole new shoulder to cry on!
Take a chance now, give it a spin.
You've had chums for palin' around with,
But you never had a friend like him!
Put your checkered past behind you now,
Those painful days are forever done.
Face the big, bright, beautiful future,
Together, together, together, together -- as father and son!

It was a dream, but it reflected a desire Cloak had forgotten.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 24, 2014, 01:35:19 AM

The Celestialsapien made me feel very light-headed, somehow.

Also, PDF. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 24, 2014, 06:31:00 PM

I like that guy.  Very interesting character.  Hoping we see him again sometime?

I also find it interesting that you've decided to call this incident the Time War.  Heh, it's really quite similar to another war of the same name . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 24, 2014, 09:47:33 PM

New chapter in a bit.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on February 24, 2014, 06:31:00 PM

I like that guy.  Very interesting character.  Hoping we see him again sometime?

Oh, not for a while . . .

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on February 24, 2014, 06:31:00 PM

I also find it interesting that you've decided to call this incident the Time War.  Heh, it's really quite similar to another war of the same name . . .

It was actually named after a Ben 10 event. Which coincidentally was itself named after the event to which I presume you are referencing. ;)

BOOK LVIII:
Haematomimic
CHAPTER ONE:
Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me

Saffa was sitting her room, looking at the ceiling exasperatedly, having just finished reading her e-mail from a fellow student at her university. She sighed, and sang quietly to herself:

"Oh, the sand keeps fallin' through the hourglass
And there's no way you're gonna slow it down.
They say we gotta treasure each moment,
Who knows how long we're gonna be around?
Yeah, they keep on tellin' us life is short
And it's hard to disagree with what they say.
But, if time is so precious, why're you wastin' my time?
'Coz I'm always reading, always deleting
Every useless piece of manure that you send my way.
Every inane hoax, all those rude jokes.
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Well, I don't need tons of flinch-inducing puns.
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
You're sendin' virus-laden, bandwidth-clogging attachments
To every single student you know.
You're passin' around a link to some pointless thing on YouTube
That everybody saw thirteen years ago.
And moronic, poorly-Photoshopped photographs
Were never that amusing to me.
And I just can't believe you believe those urban legends
But I have high hopes someone'll point you toward Snopes
And debunk that insane junk you're spewing constantly!
No, I don't want a bowl of tomato soup for the soul.
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Send more Top 10 lists and I'll slash your wrists!
PLEASE stop forwarding that crap to me.
Well, I'm sorry, I won't accept your paranoid rant
And we don't need the dragon-liver cookie recipe.
Won't you kindly refrain,
'Coz it's harming my brain.
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Like glittery tarts and bicorns.
And bad pictures of FuBar cat.
Now, tell me, in what alternate reality
Would we care about something like that?
And, BTW, your quotes from CloakedFigure aren't really CloakedFigure!
Mr. Guy never fought the Vietcong!
And Queen's never gonna give me somethin' for nuttin'.
And I highly doubt some dead girl's gonna slay me if I don't pass your spam along!
Now, you're wishin' I'll sign that Mallorian petition.
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
And we don't wanna read your series of nutty conspiracy theories,
Just stop forwarding that crap to me.
And your two trillion viruses all have our address now.
'Coz you never figured out the way to bcc:!
Now, I've gotta insist . . . take us off your list!
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . .
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . .
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . Just stop it now!
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . Oh no, ohh!
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . I can't take it.
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . Aw, please!
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . You gotta stop!
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . Right now!
Stop forwarding that crap to me.
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . . I'm not kidding!
Stop forwarding that crap to me. . . .
At the risk of being a bit repetitious,
Gonna ask you to stop!
Stop  . . sendin' me that crap!
I don't want it!
Don't send it to them, don't send it to me,
Stop forwarding that crap to me . . . Just stop!
Stop forwarding that crap to me!
To me . . .
Ahhhhhhh . . ."

POUND! POUND! POUND!

A roommate complaining about the noise. Saffa was impatient, so she left, muttering that maybe something interesting, like the world in peril again, would happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 25, 2014, 01:17:37 AM

I thought it was the same Time War Dino was referencing, so I got quite confused. :P

Also, this actually happened - I was singing and my roommates WEREN'T EVEN STUDYING and they told me to shut up. I'm so taking a single room next year. :dull:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2014, 10:12:45 AM

Huh. Talk about serendipity. Anyway, I'm currently planning the chapters and developing Book CCLXXV ("What's In A Name"), and I have several more book ideas. Hopefully none have been rehashed.

• BOOK CCLXXXIII: "Polyjuice On The Loose" -- The RAFians must deal with black market Polyjuice Potions.
• BOOK CCLXXXIV: "Mystery, Incorporeals" -- The Realm Walkers must deal with incorporeal creatures of legend with a serious superiority complex.
• BOOK CCLXXXV: "The Attack of the Hydropithecus" -- The RAFians are vexxed by an "Aqua Ape".
• BOOK CCLXXXVI: "Incorporeal Child" -- The RAFians must intervine after discovering an Incorporeal child has been forcing a town underaged into a perverse game of hide and seek.

All titles are subjected to change. Don't think I redid any plots.

CHAPTER TWO:
A New Arrival

A junky spacecraft hurtled to Earth. It lacked any sensor dampeners, weaponry, or Z-space transponders. It was an rickety piece of junk that was miraculously held together. When it breached Earth's airspace, Yarin noticed the sensor readings detailing the incursion. He had a mental battle of ethics, on whether or not to report this.

Always the prudent RAFian, and remembering the scandal of his rebuilding the F.Y.I., he decided it would be best for everyone to report it. They'll just send out a small investigative team, but it was probably nothing. Just the odd meteorite that evaporates in the atmosphere and never makes landfall.

But . . . it wouldn't do to keep the others in the dark. No, they must be notified.

***

"What was that?" a father of three said. He and his wife had taken their children camping. It was the perfect night for it, too -- mild and windless. The moon was bright but waning, so that it was like a lit sickle light.

"A spaceship!" a boy of about seven exlaimed.

"Don't be silly, dear," the mother said. "There are no unregulated landfalls."

Yeah -- aliens were well known, but some still sought to disguise themselves as humans. Some from species envy, some from loathing their own species.

"How can you be sure of that, Mom?" said the eldest daughter, fifteen. "The government isn't foolproof."

After that, the conversation soon devolved to screams as all five were quickly slain, bodies sucked dry as if they were CapriSun pouches. The campfire wavered and flickered and wobbled, unconcerned and indifferent to the screams of terror.

Then all was silence. Unsettling silence.

Then the foot of a barefoot twelve-year-old girl came into the light. Her sandy hair blowing in the sudden chilling wind. Her eyes were hard and dead. It was a disturbing sight, an unnerving image. It was obvious that the creature who slaughtered this family was merely affecting the girl's form to disguise itself amongst humans. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2014, 09:21:28 AM

Ah, the ol' modify-post syndrome, I presume.

CHAPTER THREE:
Something Wicked This Way Comes

"Whatever was here," Parker was saying, picking up a twisted, slightly blackened piece of metal, "it barely made it through reentry. If at all."

"Doesn't mean it didn't have an occupant," Cloak said knowingly, "a Crystalsapien or Petrosapien could have easily survived that impact, and the heat of reentry."

"You're assuming that it was a spacecraft, though," Gaz pointed out. "How can you be sure?"

"The shrapnel from the impact," Cloak said, ferrokinetically holding up the most intact piece, the less blackened one. "It is like warped sheet metal. It indicates the object was hollow, as well as the fact that it obviously shattered, presumably, on impact."

"Still an assumption," Saffa said, secretly glad to get out of her dorm. "But still . . . if there was an occupant as you speculate Cloak, then that opens a question. What was it?"

"A Crystalsapien, a Petrosapien, an Arburian Pelarota, an Osmodian, a Galvanic Mechamorph, Methanosian, possibly a Vaxasaurian, possibly an Ectonurite, possibly a Polymorph, possibly an Orthopterran, an Amperi, a Chronosapien, a Chronian," Cloak listed from his litany of species. He did not mention Celestialsapiens, Galileans, or Transyls, because they wouldn't need a ship as all can survive the vacuum of space without one.

"Be that as it may," Parker said, thoughtfully, "that doesn't speak of the motives. Why come to Earth in such a way? As a refugee? As a fugitive? As a . . . a predator?"

"Well, I think we've gleaned as much as we can from this wreckage." Gaz said. "We probably should bring a piece back so the science boys can do their analysis things."

They were preparing to pull out, which Cloak stopped stockstill. The others seemed oblivious, but then again the sound was faint, and though Gaz's ears were sharper than a normal human, Cloak had the ears of a tiger.

"Hold up," Cloak said, holding his hand up. His ears pricked for the rustling sound, but then again, it was getting louder. Coming nearer. Nearer. Closer now.

A girl of about twelve bumbled out of the woods. While her clothes liked it, she reeked of the acrid smell of.freshly spilled blood -- Cloak's tiger nose was able to pick this up, but so did Gaz apparently, being a vampire and all.

"Uh . . ." she said, clearly surprised to have stumbled upon them. Then she said, rather unconvincingly, "You got to help me! Someone's killed my whole family!"

She was far too cavalier about it to be remotely possible or believable Saffa scolded the kid about lying about things like that, impressing how seriously not funny it was. Cloak eyed the girl suspiciously, and she soon deserted the four. Cloak wo.ders if he made a mistake in letting her go . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 26, 2014, 12:02:19 PM

Yes, it was, actually.

That kid is creepy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 26, 2014, 01:36:39 PM

This has all the makings of an excellent horror movie.  "The Vampire from Outer Space!"  Or something.

*gets popcorn, turns out all the lights, and bundles up under a blanket for safety*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2014, 10:15:53 PM

Doctor Who fans who haven't already guessed . . . ;) . . . then again, I've probably taken some liberties.

CHAPTER FOUR:
On Alert

". . . And that concludes our findings." Parker was saying.

"You didn't mention the creepy kid," Saffa said.

"She was irrelevant. Just another creepy kid." Parker said differentially.

"No," Cloak said. It was the first time spoke all meeting. He clung to the shadows in the back, and it was easy to forget that he was there. He strode up the middle of the isle, stopping halfway. The sweeping manner was rather akin to Alan Rickman's portrayal of Severus Snape. "The kid was more than simply creepy. She smelled of blood."

"She's a kid. Of course she's got blood." Parker said, dismissively.

"I'm not talking blood in veins," Cloak countered. "I'm talking freshly-spilled blood. And . . . another scent. Like . . . like decay."

"I didn't smell anything." Saffa said.

"You were human," Cloak said. "My sense of smell is more acute."

"I smelled it, too." Gaz said, quietly. "As ridiculous as it sounds, that girl scares me."

"Why should that sound ridiculous?" Dino inquired.

Gaz looked up, there was a haunted look in her eye. Laserbeak attempted to make her feel better with reassuring coos. "That kid . . . she felt like . . . like Madre de Vampyra."

"Did you try using the species database?" Aquilai asked, thoughtfully.

"Of course not," Parker said. "Why?"

"It just puts me in mind of a Plasmavore," the Time Lord elaborated. "Apparently, one had attacked the Nameless Princess of . . . a planet I can't remember at the moment."

"You're not suggesting that it came here to hide?" Abby said.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"And it is entirely possible." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 26, 2014, 10:19:39 PM

I think I might be onto something. I won't ruin the suspense. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2014, 07:20:01 AM

Perhaps, Saffa, perhaps.

Anyway, new book ideas. Funny how I always seem to get these ideas when I'm at work.

• BOOK CCLXXXVII: "Competition Contention" -- The RAFians must deal with a faux organization calling themselves MIB, who challenges the RAFians' "sovereignty" in alien affairs.
• BOOK CCLXXXVIII: "A Phears Debt" -- Phears, the Animal Traveler, comes to collect a debt from Demos. . . .
• BOOK CCLXXXIX: "Tunnel Vision" -- The RAFians discover the existence of the Jackovitch Tunnel.

Don't think that I rehashed anything. . . . Saffa?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 27, 2014, 07:25:13 AM

Nope, don't think you did. And it seems to be a thing that the best ideas usually arise out of boredom.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2014, 11:26:32 AM

Thanks, Saffa. And here we go.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Bloodening

She was seen. She had foolishly allowed herself be witnessed.  She knew that those individuals could possibly be the ones that regulate non-Terran immigration, that one was based on Earth.  Had she been a fool to travel here? To hide out on this simple biosphere?
 
No, this was the perfect choice.  No one would think to look for her here, not with the tales of the planet's egalitarian heroes protecting it so thoroughly.  But still . . . she could not afford the girl's form to allow her to attract unwanted attention.
 
She looked over her shoulder, and was fretting badly. Yes, this form was now a liability. She stepped deftly and quickly behind a tree, and the girl did not appear from behind it, but a boy of about seven.  Unfortunately, recalling a previous form stirred her . . . his hunger.
 
He was a Plasmavore, true.  But he was different from any other Plasmavore.  He was able to recall up to the last five victims to take his form.  He had no gender, but was instead referred to by whatever gender his currently worn form was. But an unfortunate side effect was that recalling a form of a past victim costs him, her, it, whatever, a lot of energy. It nearly always triggers a bloodlusting hunger.

It knew it probably shouldn't have attacked and killed that princess, but it was bored, it was hungry.  It couldn't recall the princess's form now, she wasn't one of her last five victims. Had it been thinking thoroughly, it probably could have disguised itself as the princess. But that wouldn't have lasted forever.

Now it allowed its last form to be seen. Had it been thinking, it may have realized that it would have been more prudent to disguise itself as an adult human.  A child so young, wandering about alone in the forest, would undoubtedly attract more attention. But it didn't really matter much, as the Plasmavore wasn't planning on staying as this young, sandy-haired boy with a scar below his left eye.

It sought out a new victim to satiate its hunger, perfectly aware that doing such may call undue attention. But hunger often overrules thought in such cases.

***

The Plasmavore now wore the form of a stately woman, a socialite and a rather poor choice for laying low.  It was not hungry anymore, having fed off of ten unlucky street people before selecting this rather opulant woman's form. She easily disposed of the lifeless, dried-up husk, which no longer resembled the woman at all.

Of course, this was careless on the Plasmavore's part.  The husk may have not resembled the physically, but she still retained the woman's DNA, which, for the moment, was still viable. Not to mention that no matter what form she takes, though she mimics the innards and such perfectly, and can simulate the scent, she cannot obscure her own scent from the form she affects.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 27, 2014, 03:48:06 PM

Oh, man, that pronoun thing is gonna get confusing.

But it does lend the interesting effect of making the Plasmavore seem even more otherworldly, which I like.

Also, I obviously need to watch more Old Who.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on February 27, 2014, 07:18:59 PM

Creatures from Old Who looked really fake, but nothing is unbearable. Most of my knowledge on this comes from reddit so don't take my word on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2014, 11:17:15 PM

Oh, it's about to get more complex and convoluted.

CHAPTER SIX:
Oh, Guard, No!

As the RAFians were continuing their discourse, an electonic notification appeared on their monitors. Someone was announcing their intent to search of the planet for a dangerous fugitive, and there was a request for permission to be given.

"What in the . . ." Dino said, blinking with surprise.

Color seemed to drain from Aquilai's face, but not from fear. More akin to having sit a test you haven't studied for. "Oh, no. Not the Judoon. Not the Judoon."

Another polite notification was sent -- stating that an emissary will be sent down for briefing.

"God, why can't it be the Czarnian again?" Aquilai fretted, not as if the Judoon was terrifying, but like a relative you hope never visits.

The red-and-black Judoon craft landed. From it stepped the rhinocerid humanoid stepped from the craft. He was larger than Cloak expected, but the Realm Walker was not so easily impressed by a Rocksteady alien.

The Judoon held some odd device that was obviously some sort of scanner. It was a crimson, dumbell-sized, sonic screwdriver-like device. It was lit blue on one end, and it was scanning the RAFians, determining their species. But when he tried to scan Cloak, it came up a blank -- Realm Walkers weren't in his database. He kept coming closer and closer with the device.

"If you value your life, Judoon," Cloak said in a warning tone, "you will it that thing the Veil outta my face."

"Unknown alien," the Judoon said, with a throaty, guttural voice, "physical violence against a Judoon is punishable by a death sentence."

"My name is Cloak, Captain Dunce," Cloak snarled and seethed. "And, even you lamentably stupid creatures could manage it, you are the outsider here. We are not obligated to your laws -- which sound as painfully stupid and brutish as the Council's lawmaking -- but while here you must abide by Earth's laws."

"Uh . . ."

"I am not dumbing it down for you." Cloak said coldly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 28, 2014, 01:43:57 AM

Hehehehehe. That episode. *goes to do a rewatch because why not*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2014, 08:29:08 AM

More or less, Saffa. I haven't seen the episode per se, but I've read up on it a little. Oh, and I'm currently planning my way through Book CCLXXVIII ("Tide of Cleanliness"), and "City of Stone" looks like it'll be fun to write. And I'm thinking of changing up one thing in the next book, but more on that when I start on it.

I might aw well reveal that the last book was completely rewritten from my original chapter plans, due to not wanting to explain that Realm Walker past "selves" are little more than echoes, silhouettes, ripples in the water that is the realm's reality. I didn't think I could explain it properly.

Anyway, a new chapter probably won't be up for another twelve hours or so. But don't hold me to this, and be sure to check my sig. If I modify this post, the new chapter details will be in there.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Unwilling Allies

"What business do you have here, Judoon?" Aquilai said, cold but more diplomatic than Cloak.

"A Plasmavore attacked a dignitary," he said, and Cloak was surprised that he managed words longer than two syllables long. "We tracked the fugitive to this backwater planet."

"Gee, tell us what you really think of us." Saffa said, voice drenched in sarcasm. But the Judoon did not seem to understand this subtlety, but said nothing.

"You will not impede this mission," the Judoon said casually, jamming the scanner into Cloak's face again. He was seriously pushing his luck, believing himself to be safe due to his sheer brute power. While Cloak's physical strength was subpar to the rhinocerid humanoid, his elemental power far eclipsed the power. "You will assist me in apprehending the fugitive."

Cloak let out a low snarl, and hissed, "I told you to get this Gateburst thing outta of my face!!!"

When the Judoon did not comply immdeiately, Cloak pulled back his right fist, pulsating with golden-scarlet energy. But Cloak mastered the impulse, turned on his heel and stormed out of the forum. Oh, how he would have loved to hit the arrogant sack of . . . but no. That would have been a waste of time and energy. You cannot beat someone smart, and any attempt to would be futile and pointless.

Cloak would find this Plasmavore, he would prove the Judoon's ineptitude and uselessness. He didn't need a scanner to track a quarry. He was a tiger -- some of the hunting instinct was in him. He just never bothered to tap into it. The sooner the Plasmavore was found and brought into custody, the soon the Judoon buffoon would be gone.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, there was a bit of a stunned silence wrought after Cloak's abrupt departure. Only the Judoon seemed indifferent and unconcerned at the Realm Walker's leaving. His arrogance continued to mstch his brainlessness.

"If you don't comply, you will all be sentenced to planetary confinement," the Judoon said.

"You have no righted, no authority, to do that, Hornnose!" Kelly objected vehemently.

"That's Mr. Hornnose," said the Judoon stupidly.

"I don't care!" Kelly said, in a passionate display of outrage, "We will not subvert our own sovereignty, deny our right to independence! We will not defer to you Judoon. We will work with uou if we must, but we retain our autonomy!"

A beat of silence.

"Huh?" the Judoon grunted.

"Oh, lord," Kelly said, facepalming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on February 28, 2014, 11:02:13 PM

The Judoon, now there's a Whovian race I remember!

Mo cho ro to vo ko lo tho!

. . . No idea what I just said.  Hope I didn't insult anybody.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2014, 11:09:23 PM

You just said you will feast on the cones, or that you're pregnant. ;) j/k

Another chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Really Low-Key, Really

The Plasmavore played the role of the socialite, which put her in the public eye more than she really cared for. She couldn't exactly stay under the radar when she had to attend charity balls and such. She was beginning to think that she didn't think this through. And hunger stirred every now and then, but she put it off as much as she could, after all more than five victims and she would be unable to maintain the socialite's form.

Soon, the hunger gnawed at her again, and she wondered whether it was really worth it, staying as the socialite? But she must . . . the sudden disappearance of the socialite might -- no, assuredly would attract attention. Attention that she did not want. She realized that in her haste, she had trapped herself. The thug was assuredly here by now, the Judoon bounty hunter.

But, she supposed, she should be flattered that a powerful bounty hunter was sent to bring her in. And one that it would reasonably easy to evade. Provided she doesn't drink from a nonhuman, the pathetically simplistic scanner would not be able to tell her real species. She simply must never make that mistake . . . er, again. Earth was not the first inhabited planet she attempted to hide out on.

Of course, she did not realize that a foe far more dangerous than a simple-minded Judoon was about to track her down.

She lurched over, and grasped her bathroom counter. She winced horribly, her legs shook, as her stomach rumbled mutiniously. She could not ignore her hunger any longer. The "socilite" would have to mysteriously disappear.

She allowed a housekeeper in to clean, when her hunger begame far too much to bear . . .

***

After a binge of feeding, having well abandoned the socialite's form (the authorities having found her desiccated, emaciated corpse washed up on the side of the river), she eventually settled in the form of a ten-year-old orphan girl. No responsibilities, no connections, someone people would tend to overlook. She thought this out better. Not much, but better than last time.

Her bloodlust was finally satiated, but she had to deal living without the luxuries she enjoyed as the socialite. No set meals of unabashed opulence, no overlarge beds, no luxurious coats, no nothing. Anything she got for herself had to be by her own endeavors. The Plasmavore didn't mind as much, as she was finally low-key.

But the disappearances of street people and petty criminals, the ones that maintain a low profile, tend to go unnoticed by the general populace. But not everyone neglects such a trail . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2014, 03:08:36 PM

Gonna try to getbup another four chapters today . . . a tall order, I know.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Judoon and the Knights

"Do not interfere with my pursuit," the Judoon said.

"You have no amnesty or diplomatic immunity here, Hornnose," Aquilai said, thoroughly distemptered. "You haven't a right to order me around or call the shots."

"Do not interfere with my pursuit," the Judoon said mulishly.

"I swear," Aquilai said, irritably, "I'd make better headway with a brick wall."

The Judoon said nothing, but may not have understood Aquilai's frustration. Aquilai was the only escort the Judoon ever saw. Abby, Saffa, Ash, Noelle, Rocklobster and Underseen were hiding in different forms or disguises. Even Aquilai didn't know what they were disguised as. They had decided to allow the Judoon to proceed on his mission, and allowed him to think he's doing it on his terms.

They didn't tell him that he could, though. But, by the same token, they really didn't say that he couldn't do it by his own terms, just that he had to abide by the laws of the governing body here. Unfortunately, even this had its consequences.

"No, no, no!" Aquilai said, "Leave him alone!"

The Judoon had gone after a jaywalker. He had decided to follow the rules strictly, and sought to impose such strictness upon everyone, in addition to his mission to get the Plasmavore. Needless to say, Aquilai was very stressed out.

"No!" was his constant refrain, followed less frequently with "Stop that!", "Leave him/her/it alone!", and "Knock it off!"

"I told you not to interfere in my mission, Time Lord," the Judoon said.

"Your mission is to capture the Plasmavore, you inattentive twit!" Aquilai said, venting some of the frustration he felt. "Not punish the citizens and inhabitants of this city for every misdemeanor! Granted,  some of them may have d-- never mind. Get your ample posterior over here and let's get going."

"You hand me orders, Time Lord," the Judoon said.

"You do not have sovereign-- you are not the boss here, microbrain," Aquilai said, deciding midsentence to dumb it down from this bounty hunter.

He was about to continue, when he noticed two figures in gleaming armor coming toward them. Outraged at the audacity of the openness of the alien form. They were obviously Knights -- coming at the worst possible moment, as usual.

"Oh, lovely," Aquilai snarled quietly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 01, 2014, 03:24:22 PM

You wouldn't have expected comic relief from a book with such a... er... bloody name.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on March 02, 2014, 01:48:43 PM

This CANNOT end well.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2014, 11:11:03 AM

Sorry about the hiatus guys. Just a little longer wait.

CHAPTER TEN:
Track's End

Cloak bent down to look at a dark stain upon the ground. He touched it and brought his fingertips to his nose. Sniffed. It was blood. His olfactory sense wasn't as strong as a canine's perhaps, but it was sufficient enough to tell that it was human blood.  He couldn't discern whether it was male or female, young or old.  But whether that was due to it having aged somewhat or the strength of his sense of smell, he could not be sure.
 
RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE!
 
That pricked his ears.  But he did not move, he shut his eyes and listened.  Not just with his ears, but with his feet. This Plasmavore, or whatever it was, could not be an insurmountable obstacle. Cloak sat in the kneeling position, not moving an inch, not giving an inch. It may have given the appearance of fear, but Cloak felt calm, confidant. He knew the beast he was tracking was close. This splatter-spot was fresher than the last.

RUSTLERUSTLERUSTLER USTLERUSTLE!

Something was certainly agitated. But Cloak was calm and unafraid. After all, he had faced far more frightening creatures.  This one sounded rather man-sized. Cloak was prepared, prepared for anything. He closed his eyes -- he was more alert, though it looked differently.

"RAAAAAAAAAH!"

Cloak reacted quickly at the creature who leaped out at him, blast it with a low-intensity energy beam of golden scarlet. That downed the creature instantly. Cloak crossed to the creature, without a trace of sympathy or remorse. He knew this was the creature which he tracked. It affected the form of a middle-aged, lightly bearded man with black hair wearing black-and-white stripes. "His" lower jaw still bore blood on it.

"Pathetic," Cloak said, dismissively. "Think you could feed on me? Me? Do you realize the number of things wrong with that?"

The creature moaned piteously.  Cloak's eyes narrowed.  It was just an act.

"First, Plasmavore -- yes, I know what you are -- first, I do not have blood.  I have ichor -- something which you cannot feast upon."

The creature gave up on the "moaning-piteously" ruse.

"Secondly," Cloak said, continuing his lecture. "Secondly, you get up and personal with my body, you'll go headless.  Not anything I can do about it, blame my physiology."

The Plasmavore couldn't not believe that it was getting a lecture.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2014, 09:43:03 AM

New book ideas!

• Book CCXC: "Dark Sham Asylum" -- The RAFians must deal with an asylum taken over by the inmates, some superpowered.
• Book CCXCI: "Untying the Ties That Bind" -- The criminal, Lisa Scheisser, manage to get their hands on a Yuyong Seed. . . .
• Book CCXCII: "Pixelating" -- The RAFians must counteract an odd pixelating effect.
• Book CCXCIII: "Hard to Swallow" -- The RAFians must route an Absorbuerat invasion.
• Book CCXCIV: "Just Another Tattoo" -- The RAFians must face a tattooed man.

Remember, all titles are subject to change.

Now, let's see if I can get another chapter up.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Escaping a Realm Walker

The Plasmavore struggled "his" way to "his" feet.  Cloak's back was turned, and the Plasmavore was under the errant assumption that he could not "see" "him".  The Plasmavore thought this was "his" chance. "He" made a break for it . . . and ran straight into an Earthen wall.
 
"Escape," Cloak continued in his intentionally-droning lecture, "is quite impossible, Plasmavore."
 
Cloak's stratagem was to drone on and on, and cause the creature to be bored into sleep.  It worked with Cuthbert Binns, why not here? Cloak essentially was indulging on the feline tendency to play with their quarry. He hadn't even realized that he was doing that, anymore than Demos realizing his inherent cruelty from being a demon.
 
The Plasmavore attempted to take off again, as Cloak continued his droning lecture.  But found "his" leg snagged by a scraggly, but hardy, vine. "His" leg was quite tangled up.
 
"You're wasting your energy, Plasmavore," Cloak said.
 
The Plasmavore tried kicking vehemently and violently, but that just ensnared "his" other leg.
 
"And, apparently," Cloak said, with final summation, "so am I."
 
Then the Plasmavore did something Cloak had not anticipated.  It changed form.  It changed form to a child, a homeless child that it had fed on previously. Cloak was not prepared for such a thing, unaware of the ability to recall the forms of old victims. It was unprecedented in his experience.
 
Using the Realm Walker's shock to "his" advantage, the Plasmavore fled into the forest.  It took a bit of time before Cloak's faculties caught up with him. When they did, Cloak dove into the forest, after the Plasmavore. Cloak had "his" scent, but it was different now.  It must subtly change the scent with every shift, but he could still smell the blood upon "his" face.  If "he" was smart, he would have wiped it off.

Of course, there was the downside of such a victim recall. "He" was now very hungry, but he couldn't afford to stop and feed right now.  Now with the cloaked beast chasing "him" down. "His" escape made him very, very angry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 12, 2014, 09:49:27 AM

I know where that criminal came from. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2014, 09:51:25 AM

Yep. "Scheisser" is supposed to mean "worthless person" in . . . in Dutch, I think it was.

Gonna try this again.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
At Wit's End

Aquilai was quickly believing that he got the short end of the stick.
 
"No! No! Leave them alone! It's fine! Don't! ARGH!" was his constant, consistent refrain. It was no contest. He would have much preferred to be "escorting", read "babysitting", the Czarnian. Though violent-prone, he was at least indifferent from the rule of law on whichever planet he trespassed.  He didn't insist that every citizen follow every law to the letter, in a way that would make even Bartemius Crouch Sr. blush.
 
Aquilai wasn't sure how much more he could take of this Judoon buffoon. He supposed Rocksteady, incompetent though he was with his pal Bebop, would have been easier to escort.
 
"Do not interfere with my mission, Time Lord," the Judoon repeated his refrain.
 
"How is pummelling jaywalkers to a pulp fulfilling your mission to capture the Plasmavore?!" Aquilai exclaimed, exasperated and frustrated.
 
"Plasmavores do not follow the law," came the simplistic response.
 
"That doesn't make any sense!" Aquilai said, quite obviously stressed. "You are so dense, it's a wonder how you can stand at all!"

Aquilai was quite literally at his wit's end.  He couldn't take anymore of this, he knew.

"That's it, we're going back to the forum."

"Do not --"

"We are going back to the forum." Aquilai said, his frustration leading to an open display of frustration and anger. "You won't listen to me, maybe Dino can make you more pliable."

***

"Here! Here!" Aquilai said, somewhat hysterically. "I've had enough with this idiot.  I'll go find Cloak. I'll help him. One of you can deal with this buffoon!"

"I told you not to --"

Dino lumbered up and eyed the Judoon distainfully as she assumed her true size.

"I . . . I told --"

"Don't make me eat you," Dino said.  "I bet you taste nasty."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2014, 09:01:20 AM

Ah, the old "modify-post syndrome", I presume.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Bloody Trail

The Plasmavore couldn't help it.
 
"He" was so hungry, "he" couldn't pass up those unfortunate hikers. He drained all six of them.  He took the form of the most jowly of the bunch with most horrid, Santa Claus-type beard. As to why "he" picked the form the most ill-suited for a lengthy chase is anyone's guess.

Sudden rustling in the grass.

Was it just the wind or the cloaked devil? Can "he" be sure? No.  No, "he" couldn't.  He must flee -- only to discover that this form was the wrong one for such an endeavor.  He had to recall another -- and their was only one worthwhile to recall. "He" quickly shifted and remolded himself into the second campfire victim, which was fortunately a track star in her high school.

"She" sprinted in a random direction, which, in and of itself, was a foolish maneuver. The thing about humans is they had no innate sense of whether a forest thickened or thinned, no internal compass.  They were not wolves. Another downside of this maneuver, in addition of recalling a previous victim, all this aimless running worked up the hunger again.

There was probably no chance of lucking into another campsite, and "she" could not feed off the animals, or "she" would lose the veneer of being a human to the Judoon's scanners. "She" had to get out of the forest . . . but how?  Was "she" deep in the heart of the forest, or nearing a clearing, or approaching what passed for civilization on this planet?

Suddenly, the trees simply stopped for a straight line, a black path with two yellow lines dividing the path. The Plasmavore blinked "her" eyes, unable to believe what she stumbled on. With "her" back to it, she did not see the two glowing lights approaching her rapidly.

There was an earshattering screech and an obnoxiously sustained honk of a horn. A voice called with a hint of a Jersey Shore accent, "Hey, kid! Get out of the road!"

***

Sniff, sniff.

Blood. It was definitely blood spilt here.

Cloak looked around, and walked away from the center of the road. His thoughts whirring fast, as he noticed the tracks in the blood trail. The Plasmavore has obviously attack and assumed the form of a driver passing by. There was no telling where the Plasmavore went. It could be anywhere, look like anyone.

But the directions of the tire tracks that had gone through the small pool of blood, just before it dried . . . it pointed to a direction. It was the only lead Cloak had. He had to follow it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 15, 2014, 04:42:10 AM

This book needs a warning label. "DO NOT READ IN THE DARK." Creepy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2014, 09:45:02 AM

Okay, after a mandatory hiatus (I don't have internet at my new place yet, I'm waiting to see if I can afford it).
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Stranger Danger!

Cloak was really fighting a losing battle. The trail, though he abjectly, stubbornly, obstinately refused to acknowledge it, had gone cold. He was just really aimlessly going in one direction, the last direction he lead pointed to.  But there was no way of knowing -- it could have suddenly decided to double back . . . but no.  No, if that had happened, Cloak would have been aware of a car driving on the other side of the road.  But that did not happen, the road was as dead as a graveyard. And he had not come upon and intersection yet, and should the Plasmavore had decided to do some off-roading, there would be obvious evidence, he would think.
 
No, it must have continued on in this direction.  There wasn't any intersection for . . . miles?
 
He had just stumbled upon a "+" intersection, where all the roads were perpendicular to each other. Each at a ninety-degree angle from the other.  Cloak was irritated.  Here, he had to admit the trail was cold. He had no idea whether it went right, left, or straight ahead. It could have decided to go directly into the city, which would have been either the straightaway or the right roads. The left? He hadn't a clue where it led.
 
That left either the straightaway or the --
 
"So, how far are we along?"
 
"RAAAAAWRR!"
 
The attack was purely instinctual. It had no rationality or consent of the conscious. Cloak managed to stop himself before he could harm the newcomer.
 
"Aquiliai," Cloak said, voice vibrating with indignant anger. But his powers were under control. "Aquilai, do you have any idea how close to regenerating again you came?"
 
"I . . . I think I just got the memo," the Time Lord said. "I thought I couldn't sneak up on you."
 
Cloak said nothing. It should have been true, but he was really fixated on tracking the Plasmavore, like a hungry tiger who's sighted the presence of prey. Cloak was recklessly disregarding taking precautions of his personal safety. Granted, nothing in-realm could kill him, but that did not prevent him from feeling pain.
 
"I thought you were escorting the Judoon," Cloak said, diverting attention from that little faux pas.
 
"I . . . I, uh, delegated that responsibility to Dino," Aquilai said.
 
"Did she eat him? Dah, I mean, why are you here?"
 
"I'm here to help you," Aquilai said.
 
"I don't need help."
 
"Well, I'm here in case you do."
 
Cloak recognized a circular argument as well as anyone, and decided it wasn't worth the energy.
 
"Fine. Just stay out of my way."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 17, 2014, 11:58:51 AM

Hey, I think I recognize that title from somewhere!

Aside from that, hope you're settling in well and that lady isn't giving you too much hassle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2014, 09:31:35 AM

Got it from "Family Guy", actually.

And I'm still trying to get the $1,100 she owes me.

• Book CCXCV: "Another Body-Swapping Story" -- The RAFians must deal witht the Trinity Stones and the Transference Prism.
• Book CCXCVI: "Carpe Corpus" -- The RAFians must destroy a Soul Cistern.
• Book CCXCVII: "The Secret Past of Underseen and the Muck" -- Details of Underseen's past and a certain "science goo".
• Book CCXCVIII: "Species Swapping" -- Whilst Cloak is away, the RAFians have their species swapped.

All titles are subject to change.

Now the chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Snatching Success

The Plasmavore had ditched the car and the driver's form as it infiltrated at blood bank -- the perfect place for it. The blood was in plentiful supply, and it can get it rather cleanly. It appeared that it was aware that it was leaving a trail via blood splattered, and finally was thinking through it's feeding.
 
It took the form of an nondescript, elderly woman. "She" decided to see if she could maintain this form, and remain in this form.  "She" suspected the constant shifting was actually aiding "her" hunters, "her" would-be capturers. "She" thought that "she" was being careless.
 
But Cloak and Aquilai still pressed closer, and the Plasmavore noticed Aquilai (unable to see Cloak, who was using his tiger instincts to stay hidden). "She" started to panic, recognizing the Mark on his hand as the same one as the cloaked one. "She" put two and two together and correctly assumed that he was a colleague of Cloak. "She" knew that "she" could not fight, could not attack, the cloaked one. "She" could not attack the friend of the cloaked one -- then he would not simply want to capture "her", but destroy "her".
 
And "she" knew that he could. "She" had to get out.  And "she" had to do it NOW.
 

***

"Nice try," Cloak said.
 
"I . . . I don't know what you're talking about deary!" the Plasmavore said, attempting to affect any old woman's mannerisms. "She" was trapped in a stone cage, rather like the XY animation of Stone Edge, only with very small gaps -- so "she" couldn't simply shapeshift into a child victim and slip away again.

"Save it, Plasmavore," Aquilai said. "We know that it's you."

"I -- I'm sorry, deary," the Plasmavore said, still attempting to keep up the pretense. "I don't know what a 'plasma-whosit' is."

"Save it, Plasmavore," Cloak snarled.  "I can smell copious amounts of blood on your person.  And my sense of smell isn't strong enough to smell blood when it's still in veins."

"Not to mention my sonic screwdriver has a scanner -- one of my own design, actually -- and it is more sensitive and acurate than any Judoon scanner."

"But, dearies," the Plasmavore tried again, but it was now tripped in a golden-scarlet energy bubble as the earth spires receded back into nothingness once more. "What do you think you are doing?!"

"You know exactly what we're doing, Plasmavore." Aquilai said.

"You might as well drop the pretense." Cloak said, in a careless way. "You aren't fooling anyone."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 18, 2014, 11:23:58 AM

Wait, five more chapters... surely this isn't the end of it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2014, 08:41:42 AM

Five more chapters. There is still one more wrinkle to be worked out.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Interloping by Knight

The two RAFians began their trek back to RAF. However, it never occurred to the two that the sight of them carrying an elderly woman in a golden-scarlet energy bubble might be misconstrued as something sinister. Especially to a type of person who would easily believe the maliciousness, whether mispercieved or not, of non-humans.
 
"Dearies!" the Plasmavore cried, putting on the facade, the pretense again.
 
"Shut up, Plasmavore -- we've told you that you're not fooling anyone." Cloak snapped.
 
But she wasn't addressing the two RAFians, as Cloak assumed.
 
"Oy!"
 
"Hey, you there!"
 
"Stop right there!"
 
Three men, who had more brawn than brains by the look of them, and were wearing obvious signs of Knight membership (the chain-metal armor and helmets and blades were a dead give away). Passersby probably assumed that they were refugees from a renaissance fair.
 
"Oh, like we have time for this now," Aquilai sighed.

Then the three attacked, and the two RAFians, resignedly, engaged them.
 

***

"Dino!" Shenmue scolded. "Put him down! Put him down!"

Dino spat out the dazed-looking Judoon, who seemed disinclined to move. It was as if he was a fainted Pokemon.

"Dino!"

"What?"

"What was that for?"

"I didn't chew him." Dino said, mulishly defensive.

"Be that as it may, don't you think it was a bit extreme?"

"Hey, I warned him to cut it out," Dino countered.  "That if he didn't, I would eat him. Not my fault he didn't listen."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on March 19, 2014, 12:23:12 PM

*smacks lips*  Hmm, Judoon is an interesting flavor.  Interesting mix of 'alien' and 'rhinoceros,' with slight undertones of 'lawyer.'

. . . Oh man I haven't had lawyer in forever.  Now I'm nostalgic AND hungry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2014, 08:09:30 AM

"A Dinosaur just ate our lawyer,
I guess that proves,
They're really not all bad."

Or something like that.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I can post another chapter today.  Gonna be rather busy. Well, busier than usual.

:edit: Oh, wait! New book ideas!

• Book CCXC: "Big, Bag RAFians" -- A direct RAF parody of "Big, Bad Beetleborgs".
• Book CCC: "RAF Rangers Neo" -- A somewhat-direct RAF parody of "Power Rangers" -- I hope I don't step on Slushie's toes here.

Remember, all titles are subject to change. But probably not these ones -- Saffa! Did I repeat anything?

:edit: Well, gmail is a piece of crap.  I can't write emails and that means I cannot write chapters, because the goddamn piece of crap computer I use times out after an hour. >:( >:(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 20, 2014, 10:44:36 AM

Nope. Although we did have a bit of a Power Rangers segment in RAF Comix.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2014, 08:08:41 AM

Well, that one was based on "Mighty Morphin'", this one will be more based off of "Zeo".

And I'm gonna try something -- Gmail is clearly trying to force people to install Google Chrome or something.  I have to write chapters.

:edit: Okay, if I post a chapter ending in a "~" that means it is unfinished, and I will return to edit it.

Let's give this a whirl . . .

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Fools and Freedom

"Release the lady, alien scum!" one of the three said, the beefiest of the lot. He addressed Cloak, because he looked more alien than Aquilai.

"She isn't a lady, first off," the Time Lord said, apparently miffed at the apparent cutting him out of the conversation. "She isn't even human --"

"Shaddap you face," the scrawniest one said. "We know a lady when we see one."

"Then," Cloak said, voice not betraying his annoyance and irritation, "you three must be rather pathetically easy to decieve."

"Why, you!" cried the dumbest of the lot. "Let her go!"

"It is not a 'her'," Cloak said. "It is a Plasmavore -- it takes on the form of whoever's blood it siphoned off last. And it is able to recall past victim forms."

"Do we look stupid to you?" Mr. Beefy said.

"Do you really want us to answer that?" Aquilai asked.

***

"You killed him," Shenmue observed.

"I did not!" Dino protested. "He's breathing!"

"You know there's gonna be Judoon reprisals for this," Shenmue pointed out.

"He's alive! He's knocked out, but he's alive!"

"But the humiliation is still there," Horse said, knowingly.

"You don't know that!"

"Don't I?" Horse said, obviously referencing the fact that the Pootang sought Horse out as a comfort food.

***

"Oh, enough of this!" Cloak said, holding out his hands. The Knights realize how much of a mistake it was to tick off a master ferrokinetic when they are wearing armor of metal.

"Cloak!"

"Come off it, Aquilai, they need to be restrained," Cloak countered.

"No, Cloak! The energy bubble!"

Cloak gasped, completely forgetting to maintain the sphere, which popped and vanished for a moment.  But it was too late -- the Plasmavore escaped.  But she did not run immediately -- she was hungry. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 21, 2014, 12:48:12 PM

Google tends to do that. They'll be asking you to force-join Google+ next, trust me. It's annoying. How about switching your email client? And I assume you still don't have a good word processor?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 24, 2014, 08:07:10 AM

I have to use the computers at the REC, the recovery education center, in order to write and post chapters. I'll try to post another chapter soonish.

:edit: Odd . . . it's not doing it anymore. I have my email back -- I guess it WAS just a glitch. That lasted for two days at least.

:edit: Aaaaand now it's doing it again. Geesh, Google, make up your mind.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Oh, Bloody 'Ell

There was a bit of the standoff between the six -- the two RAFians, the three Knights, and the Plasmavore. The Knights were obviously taken aback that this was not the demure old lady they were expecting. Cloak regarded them coldly for their ignorance of the obvious, their arrogance at believing that they were in the right. But, apparently, those two factors are required criteria in order to join up with the so-called "Knights of Humanity".

"Hungry . . ." the Plasmavore said, eyeing the Knights like a Vladat eyeing a Transylian.

"They starved her, too," said the beefy Knight, apparently too dim to understand that "she" considered THEM the food. "Come with us, ma'am, we'll get you something to eat."

"So kind," "she" said. How could the Knight's not notice the snakelike hiss in "her" voice?

"We'll get you a steak, too!" cried the dumb Knight. "How do you like them?"

"It doesn't eat steaks, you --" Aquilai cried, before the Plasmavore cut him off.

"I like them -- BLOOODY!" the Plasmavore cried with a clearly inhuman shriek. She charged while speaking, and tackled the beefy one with more force than he thought her capable off. "Her" face contorted slightly as she tried to get to the beefy Knight's neck, which was actually protected by the chain mail -- a rare instance where arrogant bravado and self-inflated sense of superiority saved someone's life. But it didn't help that he screamed like a little girl.

The RAFians were not frozen in place during this, they were trying to extricate the ungrateful Knight from the Plasmavore, but both worked to beat them off.

"Idiot boy!" Aquilai snarled. "We're trying to -- oh!"

One of the Plasmavore's fangs grazed Aquilai's shoulder.  It bled, and "she" had tasted it.

"Mmmmmm . . . Time Lord," "she" said. "She" didn't drink enough to allow "her" to assume his form, but "she" consumed enough.

"Oopsie," Aquilai said, rather uncharacteristicall y. He held back a smile, meaning his actions were deliberate, and Cloak knew why.

"Get away!" the beefy Knight said, to both the Plasmavore and the RAFians. His fellows just stood there, dumbfounded, frozen in terror and confusion. They may have wore Knight armor, but they held no values of brotherhood or unity. "Get away, I say!"

"We're trying to help you, you idiot!" Cloak snarled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 24, 2014, 11:00:03 AM

I think I know what's coming next.

Wow, this book has been eventful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2014, 09:19:51 AM

Perhaps, Saffa, perhaps.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Back In Custody

"Get away from me!" the beefy Knight said, referring to all three non-humans. Then he attempted to appeal to his friends, "Shane! Shaun! Help me!!"

But it was for naught, as his two friends had long since abandoned him to his fate. Whether this would affect their standing in the Knights of Humanity, or whether the Knights of Humanity would tout the former Atasian* principle of this Knight being "tainted" by an alien, was unknown. But it was clear that they had a semblance of brotherhood and reliability and unity, but that, like their cause, was a farce.

"Shane . . . !" the Knight called out again, less sure than before.  "Shaun . . . !"

"They're gone, boy," Cloak said, distastefully. "They've decided to leave you to your fate and in favor of saving their own necks."

"Some friends," Aquilai said, scornfully. "Now, stop fighting us, and let us help you!"

"You lie!" the beefy Knight protested.

"Then," Cloak said, who really had enough of this, "where are they?"

Silence, other than the hissing and snarling of the Plasmavore, who had seemingly given over its sentience to its hunger, becoming a starving beast, with little thought or forethought.

"Okay, ENOUGH of this," Cloak said, and he tapped into the power that he feared still, eyes golden-scarlet suns. He easily pried the Plasmavore off the Knight and into an energy bubble. It didn't looke remotely like a kindly, old lady now. It looked more like a Steven King-version banshee.

"It is back in custody," Aquilai said.

"You are still worthless aliens," the Knight muttered mutiously.

"And you are an ingrate," Cloak said, distainfully.

Then the two left, Cloak creating an energy disc to take them to RAF. It was draining work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 25, 2014, 11:19:00 AM

Hello, Aquilai made it through without regenerating.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2014, 08:02:56 AM

Eh, you don't know what's gonna happen to him in the next book. You think this one was scary, Saffa? Just wait. ;)

Okay, time to end this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Get the Hell Off Earth, Judoon

"There! Take it!" Cloak said.

"It is human," the Judoon said, as if he had the last word on everything.

"Scan it, you idiot!" Aquilai said. "With you laughably-primitive scanner!"

The Judoon acquiested, but just a little too slow for either Cloak or Aquilai to take.

"I could always eat him again," Dino suggested blithely, waving a claw indifferently.

"Dino!" Shenmue said, admonishingly.

It was rather odd to see an ankylotyrannus shrug unconcernedly.

It didn't help things that the Plasmavore took on the form of an old woman again, but she was still quite human. The scan soon completed -- Aquilai couldn't help but notice that a Time Lord scanner would have finished the scan ten times quicker -- and confirmed that "she" wasn't human, but alien. But this was only due to the fact that "she" had partook in some of Aquilai's blood.

"Subject's identity confirmed as nonterrestrial."

"Good!" Cloak snarled. "Now take it and go!"

"You have no jurisdiction here, unknown alien," the Judoon said.

Cloak fell silent. It was a subject that he often wrestled with, tortured himself with. Whether he had the right to interfere in Dweller affairs or not. Whether he had the right to live amongst them.

"YOU are the one who has no jurisdiction here, Judoon," Helen said, hotly. She was human, and, as such, had more right to say that than either Cloak or Aquilai. "Take your criminal and get lost!"

"You do not speak to a Judoon --"

"Do you have any idea what happens to a ship when it get's too close to a star?" Esty asked, as if posing a hypothetical. But it was clearly a threat.

The Judoon was smart enough to stop pressing his luck after that, and left with the Plasmavore.

"You know that if the Plasmavore escaped from him once, it'll do it again?" Saffa said.

"If it comes back here, then I won't be pulling my punches," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 26, 2014, 11:27:08 AM

Nooo! No spoilers! :P

Also, PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2014, 08:23:21 AM

Alrighty, and thanks again, Saffa.

Sorry, no new chapters today. Broke my glasses, and even typing this is difficult right now. I'll try tomorrow, lest my friend wants to hang out, then it'll be Monday.

:edit: Glasses fixed, and I have seven new book ideas, which I'll post a little later.

:edit: It's later.

• BOOK CCCI: "It's Hero Time!" -- RAFians as Greek/Roman heroes/demigods.
• BOOK CCCII: "When All Are One" -- The RAFians must helpe two men, colonists, one who is involuntarily hosting the personalities of half of the crew, and one who is voluntarily.
• BOOK CCCIII: "The Sword Smiths" -- The RAFians meet the forgers of the Eternity Blades.
• BOOK CCCIV: "Xchanges For the Better?" -- The RAFians question productizing body swapping tech, seeing how easily it can be perversed.
• BOOK CCCV: "Virtua Nighters" -- The RAFians stumble across a planet trapped in a virtual game.
• BOOK CCCVI: "Bod Mods" -- The RAFians are divided against a "body studio" who uses genetic manipulation and "science goo" to bring about corporeal changes.
• BOOK CCCVII: "Paddyquack Paddwhacksen" -- The progeny of Paddywhack confronts the RAFians with his "toys".

Hmmm . . . gmail appears to be working . . .
 

BOOK LIX:
SINS OF YOUTH
CHAPTER ONE:
A Prophetic Dream

Cloak was standing in what appeared to be a void. He wasn't sure what was happening, but knew it wasn't good. He could see shapes around him, milling around. They were hostile, Cloak could tell, but he couldn't quite make out their shapes or colors. He could tell they were of varying sizes, but they pressed together in a swarm.

There was a leader standing immediately opposite of him. Cloak couldn't make out a species for him -- duck? Rabbit? Pig? Heffalump? Woozel? Anyway, he was speaking.

"Wouldn't you agree, Cloak?"

"That's not going to work," Cloak found himself saying. He also said the creature's name, but could not hear nor remember what it was. "I've put it behind me."

"Ah, but what about your loyal RAFians?" the creature of shadows spoke. "Have they put it behind them?"

Then Gaz's voice sounded out of nowhere, but she did not make an appearance. "Cloak, what is he talking about?"

"Ah!" the creature proclaimed. "So, you haven't told them your secret! Well, now's your chance. Tell them, who's responsible for death of --" he said the name of a RAFian, but again, Cloak could not hear or remember who he was talking about.

Cloak felt hesitant for some reason. Then, despite himself, he said, "I am."

"There! You see? He admits it!" the creature said. "Murderer!"

"No, it wasn't that way at all!"

"It's your fault he's dead," said the creature, who started circling a stationary Cloak. "Do you deny it?"

"No."

"Then you're guilty!"

"No, I'm not a murderer!"

Then the group, en masse, pressed together, forcing Cloak backward. The leader creature was at the head, clearly in his element, saying, "Oh, look, Cloak. You're in trouble again. And this time you won't have your RAFians to save you."

Then the creature took on a vaguely leonine form, and shouted, "AND NOW EVERYONE KNOWS WHY!!"

He felt them push him into an abyss. With a veil.

***

Cloak awoke quickly.

He was shaking. He felt hollow. He rubbed his shoulders absently, repeating to himself that it was only a dream. Only a dream.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2014, 09:25:51 AM

Now, a new chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Malice's Gas and Shadow's Crusade

"The Hate Plague may have not worked out so well," Malice said. "But it wasn't the end."
 
"Yes, Mistress," Mega-Maul said, perfunctorily.
 
"I'm trying to synthesize it into a more aerosol form," Malice continued, blatantly ignoring the tone of Mega-Maul's statement. "It appears to be going well."
 
"Yes, Mistress."
 
"Now," Malice said, not bothering to acknowledge Mega-Maul's obvious lack of enthusiasm. "Mega-Maul. I need you to go fetch me a few victims. Ones that won't attract attention. Adults, preferably."
 
"Yes, Mistress."
 
"Well," Malice said, now heating up, "GO THEN!!"
 

***

Back at RAF, Cloak continued to mull over the dream. It was too vivid, it was frightening. It seemed to be warning him that he would be a murderer of a RAFian. But he would never do such a thing -- not even to Rotiart, though he would deserve it. Saffa would probably be implicated in that one though.

Cloak stood, looking out the window from the dining pavilion of the mess hall. It was a nice place. Before the dining pavilion was a rustic lobby with aluminum siding or something similar in a passive khaki color, complemented by browns and wooden funiture. The dual set of kissing glass doors that led to it did not have any fingerprints on it, a testament to the house-elves' hard custodial work, though the glass between were littered with paper notices of various things and events happening in RAF.

To the left of this lobby area, was the men's bathrooms and the women's were on the right, as well as the custodial closets. These bathrooms were unique -- they functioned like twin Rooms of Requirement, changing to fit whichever species needs are required to be met.

The house-elves . . . Shadow was so appalled to learn some never thought enough of themselves to give themselves names. She sought out to change that one little fact, and bestow names upon them, the ones agreeable to it. She was rather fervent in this endeavor, and only satisfied when all the house-elves had names. Cloak smiled inwardly at this -- there was so much light in his neice's heart.
 

***

"Here you are, Mistress," Mega-Maul said, presenting her four adult humans in rather worn, ratty clothing. Three sported scraggly beards. Malice scrutinized the four, then nodded, finding them acceptable.

"These specimens will do," she said, taking out a vial of a gas of indeterminate color. She threw it right between the four, and the vial broke easily. The four were soon obscured from view, and, according to Malice's face, this wasn't supposed to happen.

When the gas dissipated into nothingness, what was left wasn't four adult humans. But four children of about five years old. This was most certainly not the intention . . . but, as Malice smiled, it could be just about better than those intentions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 01, 2014, 10:47:10 AM

We have house-elves? Aw, sweet. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on April 01, 2014, 11:52:40 AM

Love the description of the mess hall.

And, well, Saffa already beat me to the other thing I was going to say.  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2014, 08:07:47 AM

How else do you think RAF stays neat and tidy? Well, unless you like organized chaos in your personal threads, that is.

Anyway, sorry, but there'll be no new chapters today. Gonna be rather busy. Tax time and all.

:edit: Gmail really is working . . . I suspect it'll backstab me any day now.

Here's a new chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
What a Gas!

"Hold up, Mega-Maul," Malice said, as the strongman hefted a large cylinder, a metal canister of some sort. There were ports on the bottom, with an overlarge, archaic valve to turn atop it. It was a rather Kingdom Hearts-esque setup. "That spot shall do."
 
Mega-Maul sat down the heavy canister rather haphazardly. It rocked back and forth a bit.
 
"CAREFUL, you fool!" Malice snapped.
 
"Sorry, Mistress," Mega-Maul said. He seemed to almost have had a lobotomy or something. Or this is a classic effect for being a minion of Malice, who's very true to her name.
 
"'Sorry' won't cut it if we lose that gas, or it goes off prematurely." Malice snapped.
 
Ravager snarled back at Mega-Maul -- he was clearly the favored of the to minions. Something Mega-Maul secretly resented, but was unable to anything about. He made his vow to Malice, and, as much as he would like to sometimes, he could not renege on the deal. Literally could not, it was totally binding.
 
"The timing must be perfect." Malice said. "It'll rise straight up to RAF from here."
 
"Forgive me, Mistress," Mega-Maul said, his voice thick, "but why do you wish to RAF's destruction?"
 
"I have already told you!" Malice snarled.
 
"Forgive me, Mistress," Mega-Maul said quickly, "I should not have asked."
 
"It is because he dares to dwell there, with those unworthy of Realm Walker company!" Malice said, clearly unaware of the hypocrisy and xenophobia in that statement. "Peddling Realm Walker secrets about to the lesser beings!"
 
Mega-Maul felt offended at the "lesser beings" remark, but there was little that he could do about it. The vow was binding.
 
"That's time enough," Malice said. Then she addressed Mega-Maul in a rather Yzma (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Yzma) way. "Turn the valve, Mega-Maul!"
 
"Yes, Mistress," Mega-Maul said, tonelessly. He was rather disillusioned with his lot now, he realized as he turned the valve, dispelling the gas from the canister.  It billowed through the city, transforming everyone above five into five-year-olds (complete with the minds and intellects of five-year-olds) and anyone between two and five, into two-year-olds. Anyone younger was unaffected. Of course, this was regulated to be the equivalent for any non-human species.

Mega-Maul, Ravager, and Malice were completely unaffected by the gas. But more and more denizens of the city were becoming children -- some rather bratty, Justin Bieber-level bratty.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2014, 09:44:30 AM

Okay, gonna try a second chapter today.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
The True Meaning of Fear

It was a peaceful day. Days as bright and enjoyable as these didn't come around RAF too often. So, naturally, it wouldn't last long.
 
Suddenly, the forum was inundated with a strange gas. It was difficult to tell whether it was green or yellow, but at the moment it really didn't really matter. There is no telling if the Mark would protect the RAFians from whatever effects this gas has.
 
"What is that stuff?" Parker asked, fully decked out in his usual armor.
 
"What makes you think I know?" Cloak countered.
 
"You're usually the man with the answers," Parker pointed out.
 
The gas flowed and filtered into RAF, and it didn't seem to be anything any different than a colored fog.
 
"I can't see anything!" Estelore cried out.
 
"Where is everyone?!" Richard demanded.
 
"Dunno!" Shadow cried out. "Uncle!"
 
"I'm here, Shadow," Cloak said, his voice calmer than he felt. "Rely not on your eyes, but with your Earthsight."
 
"Oh. Right."
 
But soon all this confusion ended, when the gas, evidently having done its work, began to dissipate. The five looked around, thinking this was rather anticlimatic.  Then, in the forum . . . the scariest thing ever. Every other RAFian had turned into a five-year-old -- or their species equivalent of a five-year-old.

Cloak looked on wide-eyed. "And I thought babysitting Shadow was bad."

"HEY!" Shadow protested. Then she thought a moment, and conceded the point, "Okay, you may have a point there."*

"This is a problem," Parker said.

"You think?" Esty countered.

---
*Taken, and paraphrased a little, from our talk last Monday.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 04, 2014, 09:54:12 AM

I don't know about everyone else, but kids scare the crap out of me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2014, 10:19:32 AM

Well, don't worry, Saffa. In the terms of the story -- you're now a five-year-old. ;)

Now another chapter -- which probably will get the "modified-post syndrome", if you know what I mean.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Overstretched

Utter pandemonium.
 
Just utter pandemonium.
 
The RAFians seemed to maintain their previous mindsets while in this deaged form. Then, ten minutes later, they devolved into the childish mentalities to reflect their body. There was so much noise, so much chaos.
 
Cloak raise his right index finger and middle finger, and created scarlet and gold sparks of energy from them. This seemed to draw the attention of the kiddy RAFians. Cloak relaxed a bit, but it was a bit premature. He forgotten that children of that age had a predilection for having short attention spans -- Cloak had only bought a few minutes of peace.
 
"Parker, you take of that helmet," Estelore said, afraid the gas may still linger, "and I will personally kill you."
 
"I'll help," Cloak said, seriously.
 
"Hey, it's not THAT bad." Shadow protested.
 
Then the crying and fussing began. It was like 500-part harmony.
 
"I stand corrected." Shadow admitted.
 

***

It took a while to get all the RAFians settled, many napping. Naturally, Rotiart proved to be the brattiest of the bunch, so he got to spend his day sitting in a corner. Cloak was rather tempted to put a dunce cap on his head, but had to remind himself that he was now a five-year-old boy, and to do that would simply be cruel.
 
The five met up, all exhausted.
 
"Still want to have kids, Cloak?" Estelore asked.
 
"Not that many!" Cloak retorted. "Do I look like a masochist to you? Or Pongo (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Pongo), for that matter?"
 
 "Quiet!" Richard hissed. "You want to wake them up?!"

"The question is," Parker said, "why this happened? Who is behind this?"

"Malice." Shadow said immediately.

"What makes you say that?" Estelore said.

"Well, isn't she always?" Shadow asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2014, 09:29:56 AM

Okay, currently planning through Book CCXCV ("Another Body-Swapping Story"), which is much, much darker than the title lets on.
 

• BOOK CCCVIII: "It's a Vladat World, After All!" -- The RAFians must deal with the last Vladat, Lord Devimpayl.

I am pretty confident that that one hadn't been done.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Curative Case Study

"No, Shadow," Cloak said, heavily, "she's isn't always."
 
"Just usually," Richard added.
 
"But that brings us to the matter at hand," Parker said, arms folded and head bowed slightly in thought. "Is there a way to cure this?"
 
"Add to that, 'Is there a time limit?' and 'Did we already surpass it?'" Cloak added.

"Aren't you just a ray of sunshine?" Estelore said.

"That's your schtick, remember?" Cloak said, with a small smile, that vanished at once, when he considered the seriousness of the situation.

"But both are valid points," Richard sighed heavily.

A few napping RAFians stirred, and the five were silent, watching them intently.  They relaxed when it turns out they were just turning over and going back to sleep.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," Parker said. "One kid, sure. Two, yeah.  Three -- maybe. But they outnumber us a hundred to one. And if you add in the city, that's like ten thousand or so to one."

"We know that it's less than ideal, Parker," Richard said.

"Well, what about this then?" Shadow said, indicating to something rather large and shapeless.

Cloak looked miffed, and spoke derisively. "I thought that thing was destroyed a long time ago."

It was the Prophecy Stone, back from before the Realm-Walker-formerly-known-Abomination first came to RAF.

"Why? I could be useful." Shadow said. She didn't sound hurt -- but then again she was one of the most resilient kids Cloak had ever had the pleasure of knowing.

"Only fools rely too much on prophecies," Cloak said mulishly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 08, 2014, 10:07:18 AM

Didn't that show up in a later book too, other than the first book? Or I might be confused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2014, 09:17:33 AM

The very first book, Saffa. Chapter Two. More book ideas!
 

• BOOK CCCIX: "Oh, Zs'Taryr*!" -- The RAFians must deal with a powerhungry Ectonurite who seeks the secret of the Mark.
• BOOK CCCX: "Underseen's 'Brothers'" -- Underseen meets his 'brothers', who are devoid of conscience, mercy and morality.
• BOOK CCCXI: "Dark Hearts" -- A new emissary of evil appeals to the darkness in others' hearts.

*Pronounced as "the terror".
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ingredients Itinerary

"Still, Uncle, it could be useful," Shadow insisted.
 
"Fine," Cloak relented, but remaining distainful of the stone. "Read it. But don't put too much faith in it."
 
"Thank you," Shadow said, but not frostily at all. She read and exclaimed, "The writing changed! There's nothing here that wasn't on here before."
 
"Coincidence," Cloak said dismissively. "It's been a while since we've seen or read the Veiled thing. Change is the only thing that is unchangeable, and unavoidable."
 
"Oh, Cloak," Estelore said, with an amused smile, "give it a chance, will you?"
 
Cloak said nothing, but looked rather severe and cross.
 
"What does it say, Shadow?" Richard asked.
 

"To undo what has been done
With time under the gun,
To turn Hebe into Geras,
To right what went admiss --
A metal with unique properties.
Wood from well-read and known Asgardian lore.
Soil from ground of many sanctuaries.
Waters from Dreams that have come before.
Finally, add in the heart of Kracko."

"The last line didn't rhyme." Cloak said, scathingly, as if the Prophecy Stone could feel ashamed or hurt.

"Oh, Uncle." Shadow said, in a benignly chastising way.

"I think someone's grumpier than the fleet of five-year-olds." Richard smirked.

As if they heard this, many fussing sounds were heard throughout the forum. Richard rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Wonderful."

"Shadow, would you be so kind to collect these ingredients?" Estelore asked.

"Me?!"

"It was your idea, after all, my dear niece." Cloak said, trying to hide a mischievous smile.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2014, 09:34:41 AM

That wasn't the same thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2014, 10:06:51 AM

It's supposed to be. Maybe it was an error on my part.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2014, 10:42:13 AM

Or - I just thought of it as being an extension to what was already written, as in, Book 1 didn't give the whole prophecy.

*Memoirs geek mode on* 8)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on April 09, 2014, 03:36:35 PM

They'd better hurry.  Before there are diapers that need changed.  *shudders*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2014, 08:05:45 AM

Just don't have the time to write up the new chapter and post it today, guys. Sorry.

Quote from: Saffa on April 09, 2014, 10:42:13 AM

Or - I just thought of it as being an extension to what was already written, as in, Book 1 didn't give the whole prophecy.

*Memoirs geek mode on* 8)

That's hitting the nail on the head, Saffa. The prophecy on that stone was never complete, but mercurial, and changeable.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on April 09, 2014, 03:36:35 PM

They'd better hurry.  Before there are diapers that need changed.  *shudders*

I thought five-year-olds were all potty trained, usually, Dino. They're only two years old if they are younger than five -- and we don't have any RAFians younger than five (relative to human years, anyway).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 10, 2014, 11:24:07 AM

Yeah, five yea olds are generally potty trained unless they have really lazy parents. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2014, 08:22:05 AM

Okay, sorry about that. Internet was down.

New book ideas!

• BOOK CCCXII: "Mascot Madness" -- The RAFians must deal with high school mascots who are not what they appear to be.
• BOOK CCCXIII: "An Oozy Doozy" -- Underseen mets a monstrous man who claims to be his father.
• BOOK CCCXIV: "A Conflict of Interests" -- Thirteen ragtag Yeerks are looking to start up the Yeerk Empire again. Where will the RAFian Yeerk's loyalties lie?
• BOOK CCCXV: "Holiday Hearts and Holiday Spirits" -- Darkshroud seeks to "dethrone" the spirits of holidays and take their powers for herself.
• BOOK CCCXVI: "Emotions of Extremes" -- A mysterious, shadowy villain seeks to eliminate all emotions.

That's all of them for now.  Don't think I actually repeated anything, though I realize I may have come real close. As always, the titles are subjected to change.

Now another chapter, I think.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Most Sought After Water

"Why did I agree to do this?" Shadow muttered.
 
She was in Florida, or thereabouts, looking for this fabled fountain. She wondered idly why she couldn't simply have just gone to the Kirby universe and took water from there. But why would she have to go to another realm to retrieve an item, an ingredient for a potion to heal what has gone on here?
 
This marshy environment made Earthsight difficult, if not practically impossible. But she could be as obstinate as her uncle -- and that was saying something. She knew that this was approximate location, and she would not leave until the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to the fact that she was wrong.
 
"This is not easy," she said, but taking up the challenge just the same. She looked around with her Earthsight, but it was like trying to see through oatmeal, or something like that. But she "saw" the well-hidden tunnel, even if it was a fleeting "sight".
 
"There," Shadow said. "It's there."
 
She entered the the cave, but the Fountain of Youth wasn't anything like the legends. There weren't no great and ornate structures, no water being piped up into a manmade pool. It was water that bubbled up from the floor in a small pond -- no, puddle is more accurate.
 
The water wasn't as appetizing as it was said in the legends, either. The water was a brackish color, and disgusting to look at. Shadow was so put off that she thought that she had surely made a mistake. . . . But she could sense the power of this water . . . and Shadow realized why it looked this way.

It was a defense mechanism, as silly as it sounds. It was a precaution to be taken against those that would use the waters as a Lazarus, as a way of achieving eternal life -- as well as near-eternal youth. Clearly, the water does not stop time, but reverses it on the drinker, and there is no way to undo that.

Shadow, using her energy and Mastery over Water, filled a flask with the potentially-dangerous liquid. She treated it as a live grenade, though it wouldn't have any affect on her, being a Realm Walker.
 

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF . . .

"No! Don't do that!"

"Get that out of your mouth!"

"Don't put your hoof there!"

"Rotiart, stop it!"

"Hey, hey, HEY! No hitting! Saffa, Faerie, that goes for you too!"

"What did I tell you about doing that, Demos?!"

"Hey! Break it up, you two!"

"Don't put that up your nose!"

"Don't eat that!"

Suddenly, Cloak and the others would rather be fighting Malice again. Or nearly dying again. Or . . . ANYTHING ELSE!!

"That's it! Time out! All of you!" Estelore said, somewhat hysterically. "ALL of you! I mean it!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 14, 2014, 11:26:38 AM

Quote

Underseen mets a monstrous man who claims to be his father.

This is the only thing that I can think of.

Quote

"Yes, Underseen. I am your father."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOO"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2014, 08:52:57 AM

Quote from: Saffa on April 14, 2014, 11:26:38 AM

Quote

Underseen mets a monstrous man who claims to be his father.

This is the only thing that I can think of.

Quote

"Yes, Underseen. I am your father."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOO"

There is more to it than that. Although I have yet to plan out the chapters, I'm starting to plan out "RAFian Rangers Neo" chapters, which won't solely be based on Power Rangers Zeo, but with a bit of Mystic Force and whatnot thrown in. "Big, Bad RAFians" will be a fun one, and, at that point, the series could do with a little levity.

The previous books . . . I can't tell if they're just dark or just character-driven. Could be both.

Now a new chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Trip

It was eventually decided to take the young ones to a park, as a diversion. Amusement parks and circuses were out, as the performers were deaged . . . unless they took them on a long car ride. Which was what was eventually decided. Parker and Estelore were to take the young charges out. Neither seemed particularly enthused about this arrangement.
Esty sang:

"Wake up! It's late!
It's twenty minutes after eight!
Everyone get up; it's time to go!
Up and at 'em now!
Come on; shake a leg!
Have some juice and scrambled egg.
On the floor and out the door,
Let's get on our way."

Rotiart whined:

"Hey, watch out!"

Saffa asked:

"What's the matter?"

Rotiart sniveled:

"You almost knocked me off the ladder!"

Saffa retorted.

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did; I almost fell!"

"Don't exaggerate."

"I'm not!"

"Yeah, right."

Rotiart reacted hostilely:

"Are you trying to pick a fight?!"

Saffa matched his anger within seconds.

"Will you get out of my face?!"

"Well, you're always in my space!"

Parker intervened:

"Hey! Get off each other's case!
Because we're trying to get along."

Underseen sang, sleepily:

"I want pancakes,
Or a waffle.
This tastes awful.
Is that all we've got?
Can't find my clothes,
And I need to blow my nose.
And my form is full holes,
And my shoe has a knot."

Az sang:

"You're standing in my way."

Faerie sang:

"Yeah, that's tough."

Esty sang:

"Alright, now that's enough!
Everybody get your stuff,
Because we're going out the door.
Every time we get to the vehicle,
It's so much work!
It takes us twenty minutes,
While you're driving us berserk!
With your playing and your jumping
And your running all about.
When we finally get you inside,
You always lock us out!"

Esty and Parker eventually get inside and they drive off. But Rotiart was fussy:

"I'm mad, I'm mad,
I'm really, really, really mad.
You poked me with your elbow in my side!"

Saffa, naturally, protested:

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"You did! You did!
And I'm just a little kid!
You're lying; don't deny it!"

"Oh, I'm gonna hit you!"

Rotiart scoffed:

"Yeah, just try it!"

Parker sighed:

"Will both of you be quiet?
'Cause we're driving in a car!"

But the thing with kids is that it is rarely so easy to get them to stop like that.

"Ow, he hit me!"

"Ow, she bit me!
She said he's gonna "get me"!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

Esty sang, now fed up:

"Alright that's it; now I forbid
Either one of you to say another word!"

Underseen sang, still somewhat sleepily:

"Are we there yet?
I'm tired.
I'm hungry.
How far?
My nose is snotty.
Need to move my body.
Gotta use the potty!
Better stop the car."

Rotiart and Saffa were getting into it again.

"Stop it!"

"No, you stop it."

Parker sighed wearily:

"Why can't you both just drop it?"

Rotiart pointed an accusing finger:

"Well, she started it!"

"Oh, yeah, I'm really sure, uh-huh."

"Na-ah!"

"Uh-uh!"

"It's your fault!"

"No, it's not.
Your leg's in my spot!"

Esty, always the displinarian, sang:

"Rotiart, you be quiet,
And that goes for you too, Saffa!
Whenever we take a trip,
It's always just the same.
With the fighting and the biting,
And the calling all those names!
Then there's pushing and there's shoving,
And there's scratching on the neck.
When we finally get to where we're going,
Everyone's a wreck!"

All the RAFian kiddies sang:

"Yak yak yak yak yak yak yak yak yak yak yak yak yak!"

Esty said, motherly:

"We're here, we're here.
Doesn't anybody want to give a cheer?"

"You mean this is where we're all gonna spend the day?"

"At the circus?!"

"Hey, guys, look! They got rides!"

Parker sang:

"Now you're satisfied?
Alright, everyone inside.
And let's have some fun, okay?"

"Yay!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 15, 2014, 10:24:12 AM

Oh, man, this reminds me of a first-grade field trip we took. Utter chaos. Being the quiet kid, I got lost. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2014, 09:09:29 AM

Right. Anyway -- new book idea!

• BOOK CCCXVII: "Lucrative Love" -- The RAFians must stem the flow of black market Amortentia and other Love Potions.

Now another chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Very Special Metal

 
"Of course this would have to come from a country in the midst of war," Shadow complained as she held a sample of Zoodeitium. The metal had properties STILL not fully explored. Aquilai had studied the last bit that the RAFians had, a bit too small for the needs of the antidote.
 
So, Shadow had to search for it.  She found a sufficient quantity in a war-torn part of the Middle East. Needless to say -- it wasn't a pleasant sojourn.
 
"This had better be worth it," Shadow said, dodging the fire fight and disappearing into the earth.
 

***

Meanwhile, the time at the circus had come to a close, and Parker and Estelore were taking the young RAFians back to the car.
 
Faerie sang:

"I'm glad, I'm glad.
What a really great time we had!
Did you see those lions and those tigers?
Weren't they neat?"

Parker asked, fatherly:

"Are you happy now?"

Faerie answered:

"We are; thanks a lot!
I'm sorry that we fought.
From now on, I'll get along."

Az replied:

"That's alright, Faerie; I was wrong."

Esty said, motherly:

"Ah, that's nice, now come along.
Let's all get in the car."

Faerie addressed Az:

"You can take the seat you like,
You're always so gallant."

Az replied:

"Ah, thank you, Faerie, but ladies first.
You take the seat you want."

Parker said:

"Everybody's happy now.
We've had a real good day,
And now it's time to go back home.
To RAF, so, let's be on our way!"

But it didn't take long . . .

"You hit me." Rotiart whined to Saffa.

"No, I didn't." Saffa retalitated.

"Yes, you did. Stop it!"

"No, you stop it!"

"Move your leg!"

"No, you move your leg!"

"You started it!"

"No, I didn't, you did!"

"No, I didn't, you did!"

"So what?"

"You always start it!"

"Don't you cross that line!"

"You're not the boss of me!"

"This is where the line is, right here!"

"Oh yeah? Since when? Get out of my face! I'm the boss here!"

"Estelore, he started it!"

Parker sighed, "Helen and I will NEVER have kids after this."

"She's five right now, Parker," Estelore reminded him.

"Ugh," Parker recoiled. "Don't remind me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 16, 2014, 01:24:31 PM

Oh gods, the last few lines :rofl:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2014, 08:22:44 AM

Right.

Sorry, no chapters today, and maybe none tomorrow. I won't be able to get on the computer on the weekends though. I can't afford Internet right now, so I'm depending on the REC (that's the recovery education center -- recovery for trauma, for me) right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on April 17, 2014, 10:36:40 AM

Lol, the fights they get into sound like how my siblings and I still argue, to this day.  :XD:

We've never been the most mature bunch.

Aw, that sucks, Cloak.  I hope you can get your internet back soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2014, 08:18:22 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on April 17, 2014, 10:36:40 AM

Aw, that sucks, Cloak.  I hope you can get your internet back soon.

Don't make enough to afford it. Gonna hafta rely on the REC and the library for now . . . would be nice if it was included in my rent again, but . . . alas, it is not to be.

But I'm off today (gonna work tomorrow so my coworker can have the day off -- it's his 39^th anniversary with his wife, who he had almost lost a couple of months earlier -- so the day was VERY important to him, as it should be), so I'll see if I can get a chapter up.

Now -- if I remember my notes (left them behind) right, this is the next chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Electronic Babysitter

 
"Okay, everyone," Parker was saying, "just sit down and watch these cartoons."
 
Cloak, Estelore and Richard were sitting some distance away, all levity leeched from them. This could not go on for very much longer. The four were ALREADY stretched to exhaustion, and they couldn't face thirteen or so more Dweller Earth years of this. There was just too much to do, too much to keep track of. It would be easier if there were more responsible adults to help monitor the children's tomfoolery, but it was just the four of them -- because they are depending on Shadow to find the appropriate ingredients.

Cloak was the only one to really have absolute, unwavering confidence that she was up to the task. The other three had doubts that she could undertake such a monumental endeavor so effortlessly.

"I never said it would be without effort," Cloak protested. "It won't be easy, but Shadow can do it."

"It's been three days time since she went out to collect the ingredients, though," Estelore pointed out.

"I didn't say it would be immediate results."

"I didn't think you put faith in prophecies, Cloak." Parker countered.

"I'm not putting faith in that" -- he made an ugly face, as if something exceedingly unpleasant had lodged itself upon his tongue -- "'prophecy'. My faith is squarely in Shadow, in her capability to accomplish a task, complete a goal."

Silence greeted these words, spoken with such obvious sincerity that no one dared questioned it. But Cloak could read the doubt and worry upon their faces. None of them were aware of the Unimind Incident, or of the Time War. They haven't had the chance to really to see Shadow's true light that dwelt within her heart. Neither had her uncle, but he was very much aware of it, and proud to see it in her.

Then true horror struck his ears. It came from the television.

"Oh no. Not that. Not that."

"Ooooooooh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"

"You monsters," Cloak said, with mock horror at the other three.

***

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" Cloak winced. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

"It isn't 'Spongebob Squarepants, Cloak. Chill." Estelore said.

"No! It's worse! Much worse! Turn it off!"

On the screen, one of those idiotic "Fred" movies was playing. Cloak could not fathom why or how ANYONE would find such a THING entertaining. It was TORTURE!!

"Turn it off!"

"Okay, okay! It's off, it's off, you big baby." Parker said. They had switched it to Mythbusters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2014, 09:06:05 AM

I guess I can post chapters now whenever I want or can, thanks to my neighbor's generosity. She is really too kind, and a stark contast to my last, far more inconsiderate neighbor.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
One Jump Ahead

 
Shadow had procured a bit of Hesperides Midgardian wood. The Hesperides weren't too pleased with it, however, no matter how good a cause it was for.

"I'll have your hands for a trophy, you mortal rat!" the head Hesperides -- Hesperide? -- said, clearly unaware of Shadow's species and the implausibility of such a thing as taking her hands for trophies.

"All this for a hunk of wood?" Shadow muttered incredulously, before leaping a chasm. The music started up, causing the obligatory musical number to start up.

Shadow sang:

"Gotta keep
One jump ahead of the deadline,
One swing ahead of the sword.
I steal only what I can't afford
To lose.
One jump ahead of the women.
That's all, and that's no joke.
I'm sorry, guys, but I need the oak."

But the Hesperides screeched:

"Riffraff!
Cloaked rat!
Scoundrel!
Take that!"

"Just a little sample, girls?"

"Rip her open! Take it back, girls!"

"I can take a hint,
Gotta face the facts:
I know what I must do.
Tell you all about it when I got the time!
One jump ahead of the Slowpokes.
One skip ahead of my doom.
Next time, gonna use a different nom de plume!
One jump ahead of the hitwomen.
One hit ahead of the flock.
I think I'll take a stroll around the block!"

"Stop, thief!
Vandal!
Outrage!
Scandal!"

Shadow tried reason again.

"Let's not be too hasty!"

Then the dragon Ladon, who Shadow didn't think could sing, sang:

"Still I think she's looks tasty!"

Shadow managed to escape him, with her superior agility and smaller size. She sang:

"One jump ahead of the footbeats."

"Riffraff!"

"One hop ahead of the hump!"

"Cloaked rat!"

"One trick ahead of disaster!"

"Scoundrel!"

"They're quick, but I'm much faster!"

"Take that!"

"Here goes:
Better throw my hand in
Wish me happy landin'
All I gotta do is jump!"

And, with that, Shadow managed to elude the Hesperides and get away to safety.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2014, 08:07:23 AM

Okay, next chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Flames of Passion

"I don't believe this," Parker said. "After all they've done to us, you're actually suggesting this."

"They're children, Parker." Esty intoned.

"Who grew up to be monsters." he countered mulishly. "Let them have their 'Lord of the Flies' life, and let's worry about our own. It's bad enough we have babysit the entirety of the townsfolk in addition to the kiddiefied RAFians, but this is taking it a step too far."

"Parker," Cloak said, with a weary voice of someone expecting something rather unpleasant, "it has to be done. They are running wild."

"I draw the line there. I'm not gonna take care of Knights. I don't care if they're kids." he insisted. "They're monsters."

"Are we still talking about the Knights, Parker," Richard said, astutely, "or ex-General Cannon?"

Parker said nothing.

"The ghosts of the past are never easy to get rid of," Cloak said, quiet and knowingly. "But the duty is clear as crystal. It might not be pleasant but -- ROTIART, YOU KNOCK THAT OFF!!"

Cloak had caught the brat bullying some of other RAFians. If there was one thing from these kids that Cloak would not tolerate, it was bullying. That, and playing with matches.

***

Meanwhile, Shadow was at the old temple at a place called Delphi, looking for a suitable flame to match the line in the prophecy. She surmised that the fire pit here might suffice. Granted, there hasn't been a fire here for many years, it might be cheating the prophecy ingredients a bit. But Shadow had to give it a shot.

She took some ash from the pit and put it into a small pouch of a similar fabric that Realm Walker cloaks were made from, as the ash had a habit of sparking from time to time. It was unusual, but, really, Shadow has seen stranger.

Only one item left to obtain now. The heart of Kracko.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 21, 2014, 03:54:11 AM

I don't blame him. Some screaming kids in the train killed my sleep last night.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2014, 08:31:39 PM

Sorry to hear that, Saffa. But that's Murphy's Law for you -- and I personally hate that law.

New book ideas!

• Book CCCXVIII: "Elecron Alley" -- The RAFians must enter a computer to defeat a foe, while Parker discovers someone he believed to be dead, alive and well.
• Book CCCXIX: "Sickening Skinning Solutions" -- The RAFians must stop a black market sell of an unauthorized, unregistered, undocumented potion.
• Book CCCXX: "Suit and Lie" -- The RAFians must deal with the illegal sale of human-suits.
• Book CCCXXI: "Out of Hand" -- The RAFians try to shut down the black market permanently.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Cloud Catching and You're Afraid

Shadow had divined what the heart of Kracko really was. See, the only Kracko she knew of was in the Kirby world. It was a cloud monster with yellow spikes and eliptical cloud-like body with a singular, bulging Cyclopean eye with power over lightning.

So, simple logic followed that the heart of Kracko was little more than a cloud. However, she approached the problem of getting to the cloud differently than her uncle would have. He would have waited a bit, to get the right bearings of a right cloud, and meticulously calculated the perfect moment to snag it.

But Shadow wasn't her uncle, she had the impatience and impetuousness of youth. She had a reckless streak to match her stubbornness (an obstinateness that was the hallmark of the bloodline she shared with her uncle). She launched herself into the cloud, rather haphazardly. She used her mastery over Air to glide about, instead of using the energy disc technique, which she had developed . . . er, mostly.

She eventually managed to coax some cloud into a flask, then went on her merry way -- before realizing that she nearly forgot an ingredient. Hallowed soil.

***

The four were exhausted. But they managed to get all the little terrors back to sleep. Aquilai managed to decide to stop waterbending snowballs at everyone -- he was back to being the First Aquilai now. The four could manage to sleep a bit.

And Cloak dreamed. He dreamed of back when he was five, or thereabout. His sister, Faith, was roughly fourteen then.

She sang:

"Little brother, you're scared of everything made,
I've never seen anything like it!
You're scared of the barn,
Scared of the tree,
Afraid of everything that you see.
You're scared of the water,
Scared of the dark,
Scared of the daylight too.
The sun and the shade,
We're really dismayed.
Little brother, what'll we do with you?
You're scared of the water,
Scared of the dark,
Scared of the daylight too.
The sun and the shade,
We're really dismayed!
Little brother, what'll we do with you?"

Okay, it was a slight exaggeration on her part. But he really was a scaredy cat in those days. It was only about two years -- Walker years -- later he began training in the elements. . . .

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHH!" came a loud bawl.

Cloak awoke and muttered, "Veil's bells."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2014, 01:05:55 AM

Backward regeneration? Degeneration? Well, that's new.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2014, 09:55:54 AM

More like "turning back the clock" than "regeneration". "Degeneration" has too much of a negative connotation.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Self-Doubt and Mercy Without

 
Shadow looked all around, beyond the wrought iron kissing gate. There was a moderately high brick wall barrier all around the back end of this lonely, pristine white church. But, for all appearances, it appeared to be abandoned. Shadow hesitated for a bit, fearing that this may be some sort of sacrilege, doubt riddling her like machine gun fire.
 
What if she was wrong? What if she had made a mistake? What if she screwed this all up?
 
She shook her head. No, she had come this far. She had done this much . . . although does the soil of a graveyard count as sacred ground? Could sanctuaries be interpreted as sacred?

Wait . . . the prophecy said "sanctuaries", not "sacred ground". She looked at the church and remembered the prophecy described many sanctuaries. A church is but one.

"Well," she muttered, "if it was easy, it probably wouldn't be worth doing, I guess."

And she set off collecting a small soil sample from the ground upon which the church sat -- fortunately, it was not a WBC, so the "sanctuary" status could still apply. Shadow later collected soil from a mosque, a Jewish temple, a homeless shelter where many sought asylum from the bitter cold . . . she thought that was sufficient.

Time to get back.
 

***

"Mistress," Mega Maul said, "I'm . . . I'm afraid I don't understand."

He, Ravager, and Malice was watching the whole situation from afar, from what appeared to be an overlarge crystal ball, that essentially functioned as television. Ravager still maintained his pantherine form, but he looked different, as if he had been updated. They all sat in the dark, illuminated only by the light from this crystal ball.

Ravager gave Mega Maul a weary, whithering look, which Mega Maul found offensive. But he said nothing, knowing Malice favored the Cybertronian feline over him, and resented the metal beast for this.

"Don't understand what?" Malice said, in dangerous, honeyed tones. "You'll have to be more . . . specific, Megs."

Mega Maul did not like the nickname, but could not say anything about it due to the vow he took. It was a binding vow -- literally binding.

"Well?!" Malice said, impatiently.

"How does turning them into children further your plans, plans to destroy Cloak and his RAFians?" Mega Maul said, burying his emotions -- a terrible thing to do.

"Poor, poor, simple Megs," Malice said, with joyous cruelty. "Caring for the children of not only RAF, but the town and those . . . those Knight things, this will exhaust him.  Make him simple prey." Then she shrugged. "And making them kids makes them easier to dispose of."

"But Cloak wasn't turned --"

"I wasn't talking about him." Malice snapped. "OBVIOUSLY."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2014, 12:22:46 PM

Man, was I glad when Fred Phelps died. Perhaps one of the few deaths I'll ever be glad of.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2014, 08:51:57 PM

Yes, he was a truly awful man, and his, as I prefer to call it, his church of hatred is no better. Yet these are the people the GOP seems to want to cater to in America . . . but I digress before I get too political.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Bye Knight, Hello Babysitter

"I don't have to listen you!" cried the brat. "You're not my Daddy!"

The brat used to be a higher-up in the Knights of Humanity. The four RAFians found them as difficult to deal with as Rotiart. They were harder to handle as five-year-olds than when they were full-grown. Parker had the misfortune to deal with this little hellraiser.

"You're not my Daddy!" the brat whined again. "Stop telling me what do do! You're not my Daddy!"

"No," Parker said, his tone clealy indicating that he was reaching breaking point with his patience for these Knight brats. His temper flared. "No, boy, I'm not your father -- woe to whomever that is -- but I am the guy who can give you a smoking crater where your head used to be, now settle down and behave yourself!!"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHHHHH!!!!"

"Oh, you have such a way with children, Parker," Esty sighed heavily. She was glad that stars did not need parenting -- uh, usually. Fred certainly does, the obnoxious brat.

"Don't even start with me, Estelore. The brat had it coming." Parker said hotly. "I told you it would be impossible to take them in. Their hatred is inborn."

"I think you're a bit biased because they used to be Knights," Cloak said.

"What do you mean 'used to be'? They are still Knights! They may seem harmless -- uh, relatively harmless -- now, but they'll grow to be as hateful and prejudiced as before." Parker pointed out.

"Not necessarily," Richard said. "Hatred is developed, earned -- whether justifiable or not -- and cultivated. No hatred is inborn."

"You three are being remarkably naive," Parker grumbled.

"You cannot match hate with hate," Cloak said, darkly. "It never ends well."

"You're one to talk," Parker said.

"I have felt the flame of hatred, it is true," Cloak said, passing around snacks with the others now. "But I found that it can burn your soul worse than Fiendfyre or hellfire, it can blind you to the truths around you."

Cloak looked at the crowd of five-year-olds, and the smattering of two-year-olds. "Parker, why hate them as children for what they did, might do again, as adults?"

Parker said nothing, a convenient sunlight glare obscuring his body language and his helmet masking his facial expression.

"Would you have treated a five-year-old Hitler, Mussolini, or Fred Phelps like that if you knew the evils they would beget, but had not commited? Or would you attempt to sway them away from that dangerous path?" Cloak asked genuinely. "I generally think the later would be more desirable, as no one is inherently evil. It is environmental factors, and flaws within the person's own character and personality that leads them the the seduction of the dark path."

"Done monologuing?" Parker said, irreverently.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2014, 10:08:38 PM

Something to think about, really.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2014, 08:46:01 AM

Okay, now a chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Ideological Debate and Shadow Surprises

 
"It's a valid point, actually, Parker." Estelore said thoughtfully, giving Abby a kiss on the head, after she had took a tumble.
 
"Yeah, yeah," Parker said, in a dismissively conceding way. "I just don't like it."
 
"Parker, they don't even remember what they've done," Richard pointed out. "Even the Mark only allowed RAFians fractured memories of their older selves."
 
"And, one must remember that kids will be -- ROTIART!! I WARNED YOU ABOUT DOING THAT!" Cloak said, turning his attention to Rotiart who was with a gang of former Knights, bullying some of the smaller kids. Cloak wouldn't have it. Not when their patiences have been stretched this taut, this tight. "I warned you three times already that bullying would not be tolerated."
 
"Leave me alone," he said, brattishly.
 
"Do not speak to me with such a tone, young man."
 
"Leave me alone! You can't tell me what to do!"
 
"Still think that the Knights have come capability to be saved, Cloak?" Parker said, coming up, clearly insinuating their influence in Rotiart. "They're rotten to the core."
 
"No," Cloak said stubbornly. "It's the child's upbringing and environment that determines whether or not that they evil. A thirst for power can come from feelings of powerlessness in childhood, but not all those powerless in their childhood develop a thirst for power."

"But you can't deny that some are born hellraisers." Parker countered. "Some are flippant to the core, unwilling to follow rules --"

"You describe what you choose to see."

"And you don't?" Parker replied. "You try to see all the positives, neglect all the negatives --"

"I refuse to believe that a child can be born evil, Parker --"

"What are you two arguing about?"

"Dah!" Parker said.

"I told you she would come back, successful in her venture," Cloak sniffed, as Shadow looked between the two of them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2014, 09:55:41 AM

Another chapter, methinks.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Veritaphotos Glass

 
"Okay," Shadow said, "I got 'em. So . . . what now?"
 
Cloak had no better idea than take them before that stupid rock, and see if it had any brilliant ideas of what do with them now. They placed all the ingredients around it, and then it glowed with light and absorbed the ingredients into itself. Shadow was less than enthused at this.
 
"It had better be doing something helpful," she said. "Those weren't as easy to get as you might think!"
 
"But I knew you'd be able to get them, just the same." Cloak said, off-handedly.
 
Shadow looked at her uncle, but neither said anything.
 
"Do we have any idea what will happen?" Richard said, wearily. It was as if he was afraid this would do nothing but complicate matters. It was a valid worry.
 
"No," Cloak said. "I don't have faith in prophecies. But I do have faith in Shadow, and that she procured the proper ingredients proscribed by the . . . the prophecy." Cloak spoke the last word with derision.

The stone began to glow warmly.

"I swear it better be something more than a radioactive nightlight." Shadow growled.

It began to pulse rather benignly.

"A broken radioactive nightlight," Shadow amended irritably.

Then, with a brilliant flash, the stone and the ingredients were gone. In its place was a circular mirror, about the size of a trash can lid. It's golden, coppery frame made it resemble a Bronzor. Cloak recognized it immediately.

"A Veritaphotos Glass!"

"Oh great. We're gonna turn Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus to their Therian Formes," Parker said, acidly.

"No, Parker," Cloak said. "A Veritaphotos Glass -- a looking glass with the light of truth. A 'Truth Mirror', if you will."

"And how does this help us?" Estelore asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 23, 2014, 11:44:26 AM

A what now?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2014, 09:35:51 PM

You're about to find out, I about to summon it.

I summon New Chapter!

. . .

Okay, went overboard on the YGOTAS reference.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Act Your Age!

"Cloak," Estelore pressed, "I asked you how that helps us."

Cloak stood before the glass, which floated as if mounted to an invisible wall. He stood in such a way that the other RAFians, and Shadow, gasped. The mirror showed Cloak's reflection, but only without his cloak. There were no detrimental effects to the others, none present -- other than Shadow of course -- had seen Cloak cloakless in recent memory.

It reflected his clothes just as they were, but it showed Cloak's powerful feline head, his tiger ruff, his reddish-orange fur with white trim and starkly contrasting black stripes. His large feline ears, with black fur and each bearing a white spot. His eyes were a strong amber color. In the mirror, he carried an aura of scarlet and gold.

"I gather now you see one of its abilities." Cloak said, not bothering to look at his reflection. "It shows you the truth about what you really look like. Estelore's reflection would show her as a big ball of burning gas --"

"Watch it."

"Parker's would show him without his armor -- so you had BETTER be wearing something under there -- and it shows my kind as we are without cloaks."

"So we're just going to show the anklebiters their reflections in this thing?" Parker said, with obvious disbelief. "And they'll just remember themselves older?"

"Not quite that simple, Parker. This isn't Everlost." Cloak said.

"Everlost?"

Abby had approached, curious.

"Oh, that's nothing, dear." Cloak said. "But could you step up to this mirror, Abby?"

"Why?"

"It's a special mirror," Cloak said earnestly. "We just like to know what you see."

Within minutes of examining herself in the mirror, she was awash in an opaque pink light. When it died down, she was back to normal, as if the mirror's light just washed the gas's effect away. And Abby remembered everything from her second go-round as a five year old. But that was because of her Mark.

"Now we need to do that for everyone else." Cloak said.

"Oh, lordy." Esty said, wringing her forehead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2014, 10:19:50 PM

Now last chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
For the First Time in Forever -- Restful Sleep!

It was as time-consuming as it sounded. It took days before it was all undone. But afterward -- the five just slept. No one could blame them -- all those kids, and no one killed anyone. It had to be a record.

Cloak had dreamed of his past again. Back when Shadow as younger . . . before Cloak trained her in the Elements, before they knew she had the ability.

She, a seven-year-old, sang:

"Please don't shut me out again.
Please don't slam the door.
You don't have to keep your distance anymore.
'Cause for the first time in forever,
I finally understand.
For the first time in forever,
We can fix this, hand in hand.
You don't have to live in fear . . .
Cause for the first time in forever,
I will be right here."

Cloak wasn't so sure. He was still living with his mom, but yet still in isolation. He said, "Shadow,

Please go back home
Your life awaits.
Go enjoy the sun--
And before the sunlight abates."

Shadow protested, "But — "

"I know!

You mean well, but leave me be
Yes, I'm alone but I'm alone and free!"

It was a lie, he wasn't free.

"Just stay away and you'll be safe from me."

"Actually, we're not."

"What do you mean you're not?"

"I get the feeling you don't know."

"What do I not know?"

"The city's in deep, deep, deep, deep . . .
Uh oh."

"What?"

"You've kind of set off an eternal sandstorm . . . everywhere."

"Everywhere?"

"It's okay, you can just undo it!"

"No, I can't. I — I don't know how!"

"Sure you can! I know you can!

"`Cause for the first time in forever -- "

"Oh, I'm such a fool!
I can't be free!"

"You don’t have to be afraid!"

"No escape from the tempest inside of me!"

"We can work this out together!"

"I can’t control this curse!"

"We’ll reverse the sandstorm you’ve made!"

"Shadow, please, you’re only making it worse!"

"Don’t panic!"

"There’s so much fear!"

"We’ll make the sun shine bright!"

"You’re not safe here!"

"We can face this thing together!"

"No!"

"We can change this sandy weather!"

"I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . ."

"And everything will be all right . . ."

"I CAN’T!" Cloak cried out, his frustration manifesting in a powerful surge of elemental power. When he realized what happened he looked over in horror, terrified what he was sure befell his neice. But she was perfectly fine, revealing that she had the "spark". . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 24, 2014, 12:10:25 AM

I SANG IT. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2014, 10:04:18 AM

O . . . kay. I didn't anticipate such an emphatic response.

Anyway, I'll hafta post after work. I am so thankful that my neighbor is allowing me to share her internet, though I wonder if I'm taking it for granted.

BOOK LX:
THE REPLACEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE:
The Simple Things

A few days had passed since the youth ordeal. Only Rotiart's maturity remained the same -- that of a brat. But still, as Cloak laid on his back in his thread, he found himself thinking about how appreciative and grateful he was for the simple things in his life without the undue opulence that some not only desired, but believed they deserved.

He found himself quietly singing to himself:

"You can offer me a diamond-plated pearl,
You can send me all the riches in the world,
You can tempt me with the palaces of kings,
I'd give 'em back in a big old sack
And keep the simple things.
I've got the simple things.
I've got the rain in spring,
Got spicy pterodactyl wings,
And french fried onion rings.
You can line me up a mile of limousines,
For me, it just don't add up to a hill of beans.
I've got no hankerin' for grabbin' that gold ring.
It's crystal clear, I'll stay right here and keep the simple things.
I've got the summer breeze,
Wipe the floor with Knightly slease,
A two-speed window fan,
When it's 93 degrees.
So forgive me for not grabbin' your opulent bling,
It's crystal clear I'll stay right here and keep the simple things.

Suddenly, the jovial energy had seeped out of him. He had begun to have a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. It had to be one of Malice's schemes. It simply had to be . . . who else could it have been? Wait . . . could he be overreacting to something that had a more mundane answer? Was he jumping the gun here?

Doubt riddled him . . . he decided not to report it and be mistaken. He couldn't stand Rotiart's endless ridicule that would be imminent. It would be harder to endure than the brat's current taunting.

If he kept it up, he was going to get Banned. Or worse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 24, 2014, 11:06:29 PM

Now I want onion rings. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2014, 10:35:03 PM

*suspects Saffa's too busy with her education for PDFs, so he doesn't mention it.*

. . .

*upon considering it, Cloak gives Saffa some onion rings.*

CHAPTER TWO:
The Mystery of the Moving Mannequins

"There, Mommy!" said a young girl in a straw hat and blue jean overalls, pointing to dime store mannequins, which were rather ratty-looking. "There! It moved!"

"That's nice, Molly, dear." said the mother with usual parental disinterest in childish imaginings. "Now come along, dearest, we've got more errands to run."

"But Mommy -- !" the girl protested again.

"Come along." the mother said, with that firm tone that said clearly that you'd better listen.

This might be rather unremarkable if it was just the wild imaginings of a creative child run rampant. But it was not.

"Daddy! It moved! The lady moved!" a similarly-aged boy said, to his lecherous father who was eyeing a woman half the boy's mother's age (and the father's current wife).

"She certainly can," he said. And the boy riding around his father's shoulders seemed to misinterpret his father's meaning. The little kid thought he meant that he saw the mannequin move too, not that he was referring to the way the woman he was gawking at was walking.

Another child spotted it, a wild child. Her mother was a frumpy, irritable woman in an ample, floral-print muumuu, pink carpet slippers, and hair curlers. Her face clearly showed that she was a reluctant mother with an unwanted child who had basically given up.

"It moved! It moved!" the child screeched, inappropriately loud.

The mother did not correct the child, did not verbally displine the child. She just said, as her cigarette bobbed dangerously from her lip, "Whatever." Then continued on her not-so-merry way, not really caring if the child followed.

It turns out these adults should have placed more credence to their children, for they were right. The mannequins were moving on their own, as if they had inexplicably ascertained sentience. Their movements were slight, they were jerky. But they existed, they did move. And move under their own power.

But . . . how?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2014, 11:38:29 PM

Okay, without preamble:

CHAPTER THREE:
Cloak's Challenger

"Alright," Cloak said, wearily, then continued with projected, but false bravado, "what incurably insane lackwit has dared to challenge me? Master of the Six Elements?"

Cloak looked and saw that his opponent was a boy. He wore a red jacket, blue jeans, sneakers, a black shirt, and had hair like a Kuriboh. Cloak though he smelled like a Gary Stu -- a really stinky bunch, really.

"You?" Cloak said, unable to keep the derision and derision from his voice. He knew it made him sound arrogant, rather like the majority of his kind are to Realm Dwellers. But Cloak found it hard to believe such a thin, frail-looking human boy expected to stand up to him. He could destroy the boy in a second.

He must have an ability that is not obvious, like the Pied Piper. Cloak didn't see any musical intruments on this boy's person, so he ruled that out.

"Here we are Cloak. You and me. The battle that everyone's been waiting for."

"You have a high opinion of yourself." Cloak blurted out. Hmmm . . . perhaps this boy's power was to make Cloak blurt things out unintentionally. That certainly would make him a threat . . . but, then again, if it was true, Realm Walkers like himself would certainly be immune, as it would be a form of mind control, wouldn't it?

"Cloak, let's get thing started!" the boy, the boy named Jayden Vox, said.

"Yes, that's more than enough bant--"

"It's time to spit some rhyme!"

"What?" Cloak was thoroughly flummoxed. Then the music came up, and the boy started rapping. Cloak blinked as if he couldn't believe this was a serious challenger. Cloak never participated in such a thing and he had no intention of starting now.

Vox stopped rapping, and it was clearly Cloak's turn. Cloak's eyes narrowed dangerously. He spoke, not in rhyme, not in rap. "You cannot be serious about this."

Expectant eyes.

"I do not rap battle," Cloak said, miffed. "You RAFians know this. This isn't funny."

More expectant eyes. Cloak curled his lip in anger and swept from the stage, very aware that it was a prank. He swore if he saw Ashton Klutcher pop out from somewhere, he would be given the Vlad the Impaler treatment. You just didn't prank a Realm Walker if you wanted your health to remain at 100%.

But Cloak soon forgot all about it when he felt the presence of a strange energy . . . but it was still quite a distance away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 26, 2014, 12:41:40 AM

Moving mannequins. Autons! :P

And yes, I have been very busy this week thanks to working on my debating outside of my room, so the only way I could access RAF was through my phone. But I finally have laptop time, so here's the PDF. :)

*noms onion rings*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2014, 06:46:59 AM

Quote from: Saffa on April 26, 2014, 12:41:40 AM

Moving mannequins. Autons! :P

Don't get your hopes up too high on that, though. I'd tell you more, but you'd slap me upside my head for spoilers.

I'll try to post a chapter or two later. Gonna hang out with a friend and rest up for Monday because this lazy coworker (who used to be the boss before being demoted) was at it again, this time trying to push his work on us when our supervisor's bosses overheard, so she had to agree to have us do some of HIS work for him. The lazy bastard.

And next week is graduation week, so campus has to be spotless apparently. *sigh*

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Prototype Putterman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puttermans)

Meanwhile, the mannequins had stopped moving, and lay as if abandoned in the corner of an old factory. Lifeless, prone, plastic humanoid figures, discarded almost like dirty laundry. Unseen by human eyes, the factory was alive, by beings from a collaborative consciousness, but not a gestalt one.

Where were you? a mannequin said to the two newly arrived black masses with golden "eyes". This wasn't speech. It wasn't thought-speak. It wasn't telepathy, not true telepathy anyway. The first prototype is nearly complete.

Feeding, one of the masses said.

Irresponsible! the mannequin said. Dereliction of duty!

We were hungry. the second mass countered.

Irrelevant! Get over here and put on the plastic bodies, and get to work! the high-strung mannequin said.

I hate having to work with this clumsy fingers. said the first mass, as it melted into the nondescript mannequin.

Then stop shirking the work! That's precisely why we're making the prototypes! the mannekin lectured. We are too well aware of the limitations of these plastic forms. It prevents us from enacting any plan to take over this planet.

***

There. The first prototype is finished. said one of the mannequins -- it was impossible to tell which. The prototype was vaguely human, a human boy, with an exaggerated latex mask-like face, unrealistic plastic hair, and clothing made of rather boxy rubber foam with an urethane coating. It's eyes were wide, glassy, and staring. It wasn't alive, though it looked exactly like Zack Putterman, only without the battery in his back.

Who will try it on? the same mannequin said.

I will! one of the latecomers cried.

No, you won't! snarled the one who lectured the latecomers. I will.

No one argued. Clearly, that one was the one in charge. Or just the bossiest of the lot.

Anyway, its mannequin body slumped to the ground as it oozed out. If a human were here to see it, it would just look like a puppet whose strings had bee cut -- they would not be able to see the black mass, would not be able to see the black mass of energy that settled itself into the Putterman prototype.

The eyes of "Zack Putterman" blinked, than became gold. "He" sat up, checking out the hands, touching "his" face. Feeling the body. It was comfortable, and he hands were far more dexterous and nimble than the clumsy mannequins.

How is it? one of the mannequins asked.

Its better than the mannequin forms, "Zack Putterman" said, without moving "his" lips. It'll serve our pruposes. And serve them well.

Can you use spoken speech? one asked with the concern an architect might have over a questionable joist in his building.

"Yes," "Zack" said, but it was an unnatural hiss. "Yes, I can speak with sound."

You should be able to disguise your voice. Best not tip our hand too early. one of the mannequins advised.

"Zack" shut "his" eyes for a moment, and it seemed as if a slight shutter went through the form. When "he" opened "his" eyes, the gold had gone from it. When he spoke, he sounded exactly like Zack Putterman, no inhuman hissing, "Very well. Complete the other prototype models."

He looked again at his new body as if someone was looking at a new suit they were wearing.

"I'll be keeping this one."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2014, 04:53:34 PM

Some new book ideas, then I might post another chapter.

• Book CCCXXII: "She Drive Forms Like Crazy" -- A RAFian gets a new toy from an item smith's apprentice, with a potentially deadly side effect.
• Book CCCXXIII: "Unwise Move" -- The RAFians must deal with the ambitions of a Hutt.
• Book CCCXXIV: "The Death-Mark" -- A RAFian is marked for death.

Hopefully I didn't rehash anything.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Did You Hear?

Cloak was storming around a bit, still a little miffed at the earlier prank, having decided the stange energy he sensed was nothing more than a mistake, a misinterpretation of something more mundane, on his part. He decided to go and practice his Elements. Master or not, practice is always needed, lest he become rusty.

Okay, granted, there is usually always a scheme to be foiled, a plan to unravel, a world domination cliche to quash. It's a fact of life for bearing the Mark, for being a RAFian. But it's been relatively quiet on that front for the last few days.

So, naturally, that means somethings bound to come up. And when it did, it came in the from the form that Cloak least expected -- gossip.

"Did you hear?" Shenmue was telling Gaz. "About the old abandoned factory?"

"No. What happened?" Gaz said, sipping her coffee.

"Apparently," Shenmue said, rather conspiratorially, "there are actors dressed up as those puppet things from those old Duracell commercials, those creepy doll things . . ."

"Puttermans?" Gaz guessed.

"Hmmm, maybe." Shenmue shrugged. "But why an abandoned factory?"

"To endorse plastic?" Gaz said, taking a stab in the dark. "It sold that before it closed down, you know."

"Oh, did it?" Shenmue said with benign interest.

Cloak looked to his left, and saw that he wasn't the only eavesdropper. Aila and Aquilai were listening in too. They wore suspicious looks on their faces as they stole a look from each other. Both were apparently oblivious that Cloak had noticed this.

***

"These prototypes are a failure," said "Herb Putterman". "We stand out too much."

"But we managed to feed," "Grandma Putterman" said.

"Yes, yes," "Zack Putterman" said, "and that's all well and good, but it defeats our primary goal. We need to walk amongst these humans, unnoticed. As nice as these bodies are, they're just no realistic enough."

"The the way is simple, I think," said "Boyfriend Bruce".

"Yes! Make these bodies look more realistic!" said "Aunt Gert Putterman".

"That's not --"

"There's no telling how long that would take," "Flo Putterman" said.

"At least it's not a total lost," "Trish Putterman" said, reveling in the memory of the attention. "They still nourish us in these bodies."

"Still, it's not enough." "Zack Putterman" said. "But let's get started."

He hopped up of the table, and laid down, where "he" preceded to leak out of the plastic boy body.

"He" said, Let's start on this one. We need to get this done. A veritable feast awaits us, and we don't want to miss it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 26, 2014, 05:59:05 PM

As if mannequins and dolls weren't creepy enough.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2014, 09:26:12 PM

Oh . . . you thought THIS was creepy? The book's just gettin' started!

New book ideas -- hopefully none are being rehashed!

• Book CCCXVI: "The Devourer Returns" -- An old enemy returns, seemingly from the grave.
• Book CCCXV: "A Malicious Menagerie" -- A forgotten loose end reveals itself.

There. What do you think? Other than I need to get an illustrator.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 27, 2014, 12:58:49 AM

The books are getting seemingly darker as they come. I love it. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2014, 09:01:20 AM

Eh, not really dark, but character-driven, perhaps. And, perhaps, the brief book synopses make them sound darker than they actually are. Eh.

Anyway, I'm planning through "When All Are One", nearly done with it. Then onto "The Sword Smiths", where a fate of a RAFian will change. . . . Er, I guess.

CHAPTER SIX:
Strive For Realism!

"How do I look?" "Zack Putterman" said. "He" now looked like a real boy -- less like Zack Putterman, but more like a young Dylan Sprouse -- except for the unnatural luster to his face, which could easily be overlooked by the unobservant. And, in this day and age of everyone having their eyes glued to some sort of electronic doohickey, many tend to be unobservant of the world around them at a given point.

"More realistic," "Trish Putterman" said.

"But I still think it would be easier, and cheaper, to --" "Boyfriend Bruce" said, before being interrupted again.

"Make them more realistic," "Zack" said, absently. "Yes, I know. But these will do for our purposes at the moment."

It was true. From a distance, they could be could be mistaken for an actual human, as the hair had none of the "plasticy" appearance that the Putterman models had, the clothing was far more acurate and realistic. Only the truly observant could tell the difference. And those who could Earthsoght or Metalsight, abilities unknown to the collective Eidolon Consciousness.

"Alpha Lar-prime," "Boyfriend Bruce" addressed "Zack" by its title (not name -- it is unknown if the individual eidolons that make up the Consciousness possessed names of their own or even had entertained the concept, like gargoyles). "Alpha Lar-prime, I believe there is a far easier --"

"Yes, we will apply these changes to all of the prototypes." the Alpha Lar-prime said.

"Sir --"

"So, let's get to work now. We should make more, too, to further our plans. We won't have to subsist on the meager attention of ill-cared for children much longer."

"There's an easier way, sir!"

"That's nice, Omega Lar-lx." Alpha Lar-prime said, infuriatingly patronizing. "Now, come, we have work to do."

Omega Lar-lx, again a title, one of low rank, did not argue but acquiesced, albeit ruefully and resentfully. He fully, and with reason, believed that this was a waste of time and energy. There were easier ways to get the buffet that each eidolon of the Consciousness desired, but they had a fool for a leader.

"The production phase is nearly complete," Alpha Lar-prime said, "soon the replacement phase shall begin."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 27, 2014, 02:25:14 PM

Quote

Eh, not really dark, but character-driven, perhaps. And, perhaps, the brief book synopses make them sound darker than they actually are. Eh.

That's even better. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2014, 02:33:50 PM

Well, we'll see when time comes to write them.

Okay. Another chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Alright, Out With It

Cloak had caught up with and cornered the two Time Lords. He had told them, "Out with it."

"With what?" Aila asked.

"You know precisely what." the Realm Walker scolded. Then he realized how parentally he was doing it, and he backed off a little. The whole Youth Incident had him acting far more parentally than usual. At least this time he caught himself. He recomposed himself, and stopped speaking to the two as if they were naughty, mischievous children. Something they appreciated. "You heard Gaz and Shen just as much as I did."

"Yes?"

"Aquilai, don't make me say it again." Cloak said, dangerously creeping back into that parental tone, before forcing himself to stop it. Cloak resigned himself that it would take some time to kick the habit. "Please don't make me say it again."

"Alright, the factory . . . the plastics . . . " Aquilai said, in an irritatingly vague way. "We thought you'd check the species index first."

"You know very well its down," Cloak said, unable to keep the authoritative parental tone from his voice.

"It reeks of the influence of Autons," Aila said. "And their Nestene Consciousness master."

"Mistress," Aquilai corrected.

"Whatever."

Cloak thought about this. He wasn't expertly versed in these species, but he was aware of them. But something was wrong with this.

"If the Nastene --" Cloak began.

"'Nestene'," Aila corrected.

"'Nestene', then." Cloak said, doing the Realm Walker equivalent of rolling their eyes. Which was rolling their eyes -- somethings are universal. "If the Nestene Consciousness is on Earth, directing Autons . . . then whey -- er, why, are they standing around allowing people to gawk at them? Don't the Autons come with built-in weaponry?"

"And stand around like costumed characters at a theme park, I know." Aquilai added. "That's why we weren't entirely sure it was them."

"It's just a rumor," Aila said, dismissively. But she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than the boys. "Doesn't mean that the Consciousness is involved."

"It sounds more like a quantum lichen, to be honest." Cloak said.

"A what?"

"Never mind that for now," Cloak said. "Gather everyone. This warrants an investigation."

"Over a rumor?"

"A rumor always has some basis in truth, even if is distorted." Cloak said.

"You cjose a heck of a time to be a philosopher." Aquilai sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 28, 2014, 06:46:55 AM

Such great dialogues. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2014, 07:11:48 AM

And new book ideas!

• Book CCCXXVII: "A Green-Screen Scheme" -- A rather shady company comes to RAF to offer a three-picture deal, with video game rights.
• Book CCCXXVIII: "A Very Gross Problem" -- Yarin's ship has an infestation of dianogas.

There, and I'm pretty sure these aren't rehashes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 28, 2014, 07:32:45 AM

Still keeping up with this! Lovin it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2014, 07:55:38 PM

I'll try to post another chapter soonish. I just accidentally stabbed myself with a pencil. As in stabbed hard enough to draw blood. It just a flesh wound, however, the pain comes not from the injury but the sheer irritation and annoyance of it.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
TMZ Fodder

"Kristen Dunst has a bad hair day!"

"Patrick Stewart's sweat-stained t-shirt!"

"Exclusive pics of Elmo's flabby behind!"

Cloak couldn't believe these were the stories TMZ were gonna feature. Really? Why the Veil were the RAFians even watching such utter bilge? Now they were showing footage of them asking the dumbest, most moronic questions while Adam West tried to eat. His face clearly showed that he thought this was a little creepy.

"Alec Baldwin's big meltdown!"

"Lindsey Lohan's big car chase all over this town!"

There were more, but those were the ones that Cloak could stomach. Especially when they got to the stuff the Bieber brat was up to. He knew he had enough. He never understood these obsessive interest in celebrities that humans had. What's more, he couldn't fathom how they seemed to revel in their downfalls. What is the point of building someone up to stardom, then seek nothing more than tear them down?

Another thing that Cloak couldn't understand is why someone would even want such a life, want to seek out such a life. The concept of fame was not too foreign to him, as some Realm Walkers desired such notoriety some times. But Cloak never sought fame, never sought the limelight. He was blissfully content in his anonymity, though he was quite famous in the Nexus for being the only . . . the first Realm Walker to make a Realm his primary residence instead of the Nexus.

They were ending a segment about some child actor -- well, former child actor -- attempting to set the record straight about why he was working as a host at a restaurant and that he's not broke. Then they turned to some RAFian-based pics and videos.

"Oh, wonderful. Didn't we get a restraining order against them?" Saffa asked.

"Expired," Kelly replied heavily.

"Oh, wonderful," Abby said.

"This location is more protected than the previous one." Cloak said. Then he noticed that a few of the pics showing the celebs on the show had their skin a little too shiny. Cloak had originally dismissed it as a lens flare or something, but something tugged at his gut . . .

"Aila. Aquilai. Tell everyone your suspicions of an Auton invasion."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 28, 2014, 09:36:14 PM

If only Bieber would get taken over by an Auton. Nothing would make me happier. Well, other than the fact he'd want to kill everyone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2014, 10:49:00 PM

Quote from: Saffa on April 28, 2014, 09:36:14 PM

If only Bieber would get taken over by an Auton.

How'd you be able to tell? The guy is already very much like an Auton already, isn't he?

CHAPTER NINE:
The Q and A

And so they did.

"But," Aila insisted, "their actions are a lot more . . . subtle . . . than the averge Auton and Nestene Consciousness."

"Ah, but who said that the Nestene Consciousness is the only one to control Autons?" Cloak posited thoughtfully.

"But . . . but what else can it be?" Saffa asked.

"The behavior -- the fact that these things seem to like attention -- well, it puts me in mind of a quantum lichen, but that's not possible, as there would be a beast-like ego creature."

Cloak could tell that he had lost the others' attention. Rotiart going so far to obnoxiously snore loudly. Saffa jabbed him with a sharpened No. 2 pencil.

"Hey!" he protested, and Saffa was unapologetic.

Cloak, however, was so deep in thought he very barely noticed. Maybe it wasn't like quantum lichen in anything other than motive, but what was the motive? They wanted attention, clearly. Why else replace celebrities -- and Cloak was quite sure this was what was happening, as it would explain the sudden lecherous, daredevil jump in character. Well . . . maybe not in the Bieber brat's case, though -- how would you tell?

"What if they are feeding off this attention?" Gaz said, pensively. "No, I mean it quite literally. What if they are literally feeding off the attention?"

"It's a distinct possibility. . . ." Aquilai admitted slowly.

"Not only is it a possibility, Time Walker," Cloak said, "but it is probable. Why else replace celebrities? Why else try so ardently to get in that venomous limelight?"

"They seek out fame," Shenmue added. "It must be like a buffet to them, a buffet of the utmost opulence."

"Wait, if what you guys are suggesting is true," Blue said, hesitant to commit to the theory, "about just replacing celebrities, does that mean they're still alive? The deception cannot go on forever. It'd eventually be discovered when one gets sloppy."

"What makes you think they'd even get sloppy?" AniDragon asked.

"One," he said, eyeing Rotiart, "always gets sloppy. Always."

"Hey, why did you look at me when you said --" Rotiart began to protest angrily.

"The point is, we may have to stage a rescue mission." Blue continued, cutting across Rotiart, who did not look to be willing to let the subject die.

"Assuming there ARE people to rescue." Parker said.

"Thank you, Mr. Hallmark Card." Faerie said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2014, 09:31:19 AM

New chapter, perhaps?
 

CHAPTER TEN:
A Conscienceless Consciousness

The Eidolon Consciousness had captured more celebrities, once their plastic replacement shells were completed and inhabited by the eidolons. More and more . . . there were at least twenty celebs that had been replaced beforehand. They were Lucas Cruikshank, Ross Lynch, Alec Baldwin, Lindsey Lohan, Patrick Stewart, Justin Bieber, Kristen Dunst, Betty White, Dylan Sprouse, Mary Kate Olsen, Cole Sprouse, Ashley Olsen . . . among others.
 
The Eidolon Consciousness was wrecking their careers for the sheer scandal. Scandals beget attention, and they resorted to the scandals when the fame was just no longer enough to sustain them. Did they care of the the lives they so recklessly and ruthlessly shatter with scandal? No, of course not. These humans were nothing but pigs, but cows. Their lives were nothing but a delightful diversion, a video game made reality.

The celebrities knew this, and that is why they wept and mourned so openly. They'll just be given their lives back when they have nothing. No one will know of their kidnapping, that their actions were by someone who just looks like them, not them.

Well . . . all but one of the celebs (although including Lucas Cruikshank in that term is really stretching it) were mourning their shattered lives and corroded or lost careers. The Bieber brat was demanding to be released -- and actually expecting acquiescence. This allowed the eidolons that made up the Consciousness much amuzement as they laughed at the boy who believes himself to be a god.

"I still cannot believe these humans chose these worthless beings for their gods," one eidolon was saying. It inhabited the Lucas Cruikshank duplicate.

"It is certainly a wonder as to why they haven't been conquered before now, the feckless beings." the Lucas Cruikshank eidolon's companion, the one who wore the Justin Bieber duplicate, said.

They weren't nearby the holding pen, but could hear the rantings of "the Bieb" from a fair distance away.

"How can you act that way?" "Lucas" said. Then added, as if his contempt for the human species wasn't evident enough as is, though he appreciated the biology. "To keep the illusion with these idiotic bipeds?"

"I still think they picked the wrong eidolon for this job. I can't really act THAT out of control. It's been hard." "The Bieb" said. "I could not believe how much of a brat that human is."

"So," "Lucas" said after a while, "did you hear what the Omega Lar-lx's theory was?"

"What theory?"

"How we take more direct measure to --"

Sirens blared as a red light infiltrated every corner of the place.

"What now?" "Lucas" said, as if it was another false alarm.

"Probably another fly," "Biebs" said, "I've said that alarm is TOO sensitive to movement."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 29, 2014, 09:51:16 AM

Yes! Trash the Bieb! :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2014, 07:49:04 PM

Oh, non-Bieblivers (or however you spell that stupid term) of the world unite! Just be glad he's not in your country, Saffa, I wished they'd deport him -- let him be Canada's problem! ;)

Anyway, I'll try to rest up enough to post a chapter (and the new book ideas) later on. Just so exhausted. Graduation week and whatnot, gotta work Saturday because of it.

:edit:

• Book CCCXXIX: "Rogues Gallery -- Assemble!" -- The RAFians' rogues gallery assembles a coalition.
• Book CCCXXX: "The Night Walkers" -- The town begins shopping in their sleep.

:edit: After trying for like ten minutes to get this Gateburst thing to give a stupid CURSOR . . .

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The V.C.C.D.

"I must express my uncertainty that these devices might even work," Yarin said.

"You built them." Parker said, apparently checking a readout or something. Per usual, he told Tyr to shut up.

"It's true," the Nyac said. "But it hasn't been thoroughly tested! We don't know if it would be a permanent solution or a temporary one."

"Oh, like your microwave?" Saffa said.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!" Yarin said shrilly.

"Quiet down, you two. Just because they look like humans doesn't mean their senses aren't more acute." Cloak said, voice low. "Saffa, stop antagonizing Yarin."

"If I'm not gonna have any fun, I'm going home," she replied sardonically. But Cloak knew she was joking. He addressed Yarin's concerns. "Yarin, I know it isn't ideal, but it is the only way we have right now of stopping these eidolons from taking over the planet . . . as cliched as I know that sounds."

Parker, Abby, Saffa, Gaz, and Cloak held taser-like devices (Yarin held two, Nyacs being a tetramand species . . . er, not to be confused with the species named Tetramands), each device with opaque blue bag attached, making them seem like little more than vacuums.

"These vaccum compartment containment devices," Cloak began.

"Or V.C.C.D.s," Parker interjected.

"Whatever," Cloak said indifferently, before continuing. "These V.C.C.D.s may be the only thing that we can use to contain them."

"Uh, can't these ghost things, these eidol-whosits, just phase through the bag?" Abby asked.

Yarin's voice revealed how offensive -- and hurtful -- he found the question. "Abby, don't think that that was the first thing I considered? The bags were woven from a supertangible, nonplastic polymer. Once they are inside, they cannot get out."

"But once we capture them," Gaz asked, "then what do we do with them?"

"Good question." Parker acknowledged.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Cloak said, repressively.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2014, 08:38:31 AM

Another chapter, methinks. Lest the previous one falls to "modified-post-syndrome".
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Attack

 
Cloak approached the factory, which was below a crest of a hill. Crest of a cliff, really. And it was on this hilly cliff that Cloak made his approach, having stowed his V.C.C.D. in his cloak. Saffa and Abby had morphed Buglizards -- something not very entertaining to watch, especially when their faces morph into a Buglizard's. They aren't the prettiest creatures in the Realm -- and Lepidopterrans probably agree -- but that'd be mostly because Buglizards eat them.
 
Anyway, the two held their V.C.C.D.s in their tails. Cloak had forgotten that Buglizards have prehensile tails. The other RAFians were as they normally are, Parker in his Standard Armor. Cloak was crouched, on the balls of his feet, ears pulled back, only the very tip of his tail moving at all.
 
Time was nearly there. . . .
 
It was time. Cloak looked at the two Buglizard-morphed RAFians and they knew it too, immediately. They crawled and stalked towards the factory, the prevailing winds assisting them by blowing the obscuring clouds that both Abby and Saffa's Buglizard bodies produced into the factory, obscuring the RAFians from visual confirmation. Or so they believed.
 
Eidolon's don't require bodies to see, but just to feed on their attention, their fame, their scandal. Cloak suspected this, as did Parker.
 
Saffa and Cloak swiftly took out the two guards -- except they weren't guards.
 
"Good work!" Parker said. "You killed the replicas of Bieber and that Fred kid."
 
Saffa and Cloak replied simoutaneously.
 
"He was a replica?"
<He was a replica?>
 
"Oh, cute." Parker said, with narrowed eyes. "But leave the Simpsons references behind, okay? We're gonna get into it."

***

Saffa and Abby had morphed back to human -- and, along with Cloak, discovered a serious liability, as Yarin, Parker and Gaz had found the human incarceration. (They had to knock Bieber out to get him to cooperate -- and shut up). Then they proceeded to free them.

"Um, guys, I'm full up!" Abby said, refering to her V.C.C.D.

"Me too!" Saffa added.

"The maximum compacity is six?" Cloak said, who could clearly see the eidolons as easily as he saw the Dementors. The memory of that made him shutter. "REALLY, Yarin?!"

"Hey! You try to build a device to contain an ectoplasmic consciousness that can fade out of most material containment devices!" Yarin shot back.

"Huh?" Abby asked.

"Never mind." Cloak said. "Gaz, Yarin, get the captives out of here and go back to RAF. Parker, change into your thickest, strongest armor. Abby -- Saffa -- go Crabdozer."

"But why?" Gaz asked.

"No time for questions!" Cloak said. "Do it now!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 30, 2014, 11:15:29 AM

Loving the comic relief here. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2014, 07:28:22 PM

Good. 'Kay, gonna rest up a bit, than try to post another chapter. I may have to split one in two, or just make the next one rather long, but we'll see.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
They're Fired

Parker deftly switched to his Gaea Armor, as Saffa and Abby completed their morphs to Crabdozer.

"Care to tell us -- WAAAH! YOU'RE ON FIRE!" Parker said.

It was true. Cloak had ignited himself. You'd think that the eidolons that were harbored so snuggly within their plastic replicas would be smart enough to either stay put or flee. But no. Like gnomes in a de-gnoming, they come right out to investigate.

<Cloak, I have some reservations about this --> Abby said.

Cloak allowed the fire to build up, with a roaring grunt as if he was going Super Saiyin. Abby thought it was a response to her comment, though.

<Comment withdrawn.> she said, rather meeker than she had intended.

Cloak's eyes, which had been shut, flew open as scarlet gold suns. The fire continued to grow in size and intensity. Cloak was using all his willpower to hold it in check. He had to time this perfectly.

"What is this intrusion?" said a voice. Sounded like a Sprouse twin. Cloak didn't care -- he knew it was little more than a plastic puppet. "What are those aliens doing here? Who lit that fire?"

He made a mistake of pointing. Now he had no right index finger. The plastic just melted straight off his replica's hand. Now the eidolons seemed to realize what was going on.

"Evacuate! Abandon the building!" the imposter screamed. But already his face was beginning to drip and bead and bubble. Parker, Saffa, and Abby immediately realized why Cloak wanted them here. He was immobilized generating this heat, but they weren't. They were to block off the escape routes. Crabdozers fed on Pyronites, so a little heat wouldn't bother them. While Parker's Gaea Armor insulated him from most, if not all, of the heat.

"Get out of the way! We're gonna die!" said the replicas.

<What do you take us for?> Saffa snorted. She knew very well these replica bodies were nothing more than costumes for these eidolons. They could take them off whenever they wished. But still it was like watching Venber struggle to exist at room temperature. Saffa repeated, <What do you take us for? Idiots?>

". . . Yes?" what used to be replica of Lindsey Lohan -- now more of a runny, third-grade slacker sculpture version of a human -- said. Saffa used her rhinocerid horn to toss the melting, malformed mess closer to Cloak and she melted into liquid plastic and burnt remnants of cloth and faux hair. Her eidolon was fine, but unhappy. They seemed confined to the factory for some reason.

With a roar, Cloak unleashed an incinderary explosion that reduced all the replicas to molten plastic, leaving the eidolons of the Eidolon Consciousness rather perturbed and a little miffed. The four pulled out, with Saffa and Abby demorphing outside the still-standing factory. All its windows were blown out though.

The four returned to RAF, with Parker complaining about the soot on his armor in a benign, jocular way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2014, 07:27:29 AM

Ah. The ol' "modify-post syndrome". Doesn't help when I forget do my sig like in Chapter Five I think it was.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Omega Lar-lx's Experiment

 
What do we do now? an eidolon asked the Alpha Lar-prime.

The Alpha Lar-prime snarled, What d'ya mean, "What do we do now"?

The plan!

The conquest!

How will we feed now?!

This plastic is useless!

Isn't it obvious?! the eidolon yelled. We are trapped in here. We have no more means for leaving this place.

You're sentencing us to death!

There is no other way! the Alpha Lar-prime said.

You are wrong. the Omega Lar-lx said. There may be a way still.

No, Omega Lar-lx, there is no other way. You need to accept it. the Alpha Lar-prime said.

The Omega Lar-lx said nothing but looked around. It has been a few days since Cloak ruined their plastic supplies and his friends set free their captives. (The RAFian were freed from any litigation by the testimonies of all the captured celebrities . . . well, except Justin Bieber, the epitome of the self-centered, egotistical, no-talent brat who should be more thankful for what he has.) The other eidolons in the Consciousness were getting restless, hungry.

The Omega Lar-lx was sure they needn't have bothered with the replifas or the plastic at all. He suspected a more direct route would be easier. He saw a couple of teenagers -- three total, two males with short-cropped hair with one being thicker built than the other and a short, slight, plain-looking girl with long hair.

No other way, Alpha Lar-prime? We shall see. the Omega Lar-lx said, contemptuously.

It drifted toward the thinner of the two human males. He had his back to the eidolon, and it was inviting. The eidolon got closer . . . closer . . . closer . . . close enough until it simply "bled" into the teenager's body. There was no gasp, no convulsions, no outward sign tha the corporeal takeover was complete and total. The other two humans did not seem to notice the golden tint this teenager's eyes took. But the other eidolons knew.

Two others wasted no time in taking the other two's bodies. But there were still more eidolons in the consciousness. And the Alpha Lar-prime? Oh, it didn't get to keep that designation. It became the new Omega Lar-lx, with the intrepid former Omega Lar-lx taking its place as the new Alpha Lar-prime.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 01, 2014, 09:04:11 AM

Probably not modify-post - I read the previous chapter, and then I fell asleep. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2014, 09:21:24 PM

Oookay, Saffa.

Anyway, please take note that some song adaptations will be repeated in the series.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Just One of Those Days

"Got to uni late 'cause my alarm was busted.
Rotiar teased me and Abby offered condolescences,
'Cause it's one of those days, it's just one of those days.

I lost one of my socks in the drier.
I can't find my wallet, and my hair is on fire.
Just one of those days, it's just one of those days.

I just wrapped my morph around a tree.
A big swarm of locusts is following me.
There's not even anything good on TV.
It's just one of those days, it's just one of those days.

Left all my RAFize Songs CDs out in the sun.
Got a Coke bottle stuck on the end of my tongue.
It's just one of those days, gonna be one of those days.

The zombies tied me up and covered me with ants.
And I spilled toxic waste on my brand new pants.
Just one of those days, ever have one of those days.

The bank called me up and told me I'm overdrawn.
Some Knight freaks are burnin' crosses out on my front lawn,
And I can't believe it, all the Cheetos are gone.
It's just, just one of those, one of those days.
Just one of those, one of those days.

The CIA have got a tap on my phone.
Those darn Banned spies won't leave me alone.
Shouldn't have got up this morning, should've known.
It's just one of those days, it's just one of those days.

A 747 crashed onto my pen,
And there's nothin' but tater-tots for dinner again.
It's just one of those days.
Never mind, it's just one of those days.

Big steamroller just ran over my prom,
And I cut myself shaving and they're dropping the bomb.
It's just one of those days.
That's all, it's just one of those days.

Then late at night, just before I go to bed,
The world blows up and now everybody's dead.
You just can't deny it, it's just like I said:
Just, just one of those, one of those days.
Just one of those, one of those days.

It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days."

<You're exaggerating, Saffa.> Noelle said. She had a pair of reading glasses on her main eyes. No one knew why she had them, she didn't need them.

Meanwhile, Cloak paced his thread. He fretted about the Consciousness. They had to still be around. The defeat was too easy, too clean -- well, aside from the melted plastics. But something tugged and tore at his gut, as if he had neglected something. Something important.

But what?

What was he missing?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 01, 2014, 09:51:32 PM

Ah, well, I've gotten stuck in the lift, bombed a test and it's only 8:20 am. One of those days.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2014, 09:22:47 AM

Sorry about the lack of chapters over the weekend, what with the kids in the college graduating (and all of Facilities required to be there, including housekeepers) and my Internet being down, it was unavoidable.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Musings and Mechanics

 
Cloak found himself watching the news, not TMZ or the mindless propaganda that Fox News makes up. He wasn't pleased with what he saw. He saw not only celebrity scandal but stupid stunts that are filmed amateurly. Normally, Cloak wouldn't have thought anything about it.
 
But that would have been before the encounter with the Eidolon Consciousness. He also saw the black masses, like countless vaporous Shadow Heartless. He was surprised -- but, as always, his emotions don't always reach his face. He thought that they were bound to the plastics plant, which is why they required the mannequins to leave . . .
 
Wait, no, that wasn't right. They modeled the mannequins after people. People with notoriety, people who everyone more or less knew. Celebrities. Why? They feed off attention, fame and scandal like humans feed off of potato chips or French fries. They desire it, they drink it up . . . that much was certain.
 
But how could they make their replicas without the plastic? He made it rather useless to them . . . he also realized, with a painful stab of guilt, that this very action may have left the building unable to bind them there, allowing them full incorporeal freedom. . . .
 
No time to dwell on that now. How were they causing . . .
 
Then his feline eyes caught something on the screen, something that the humans at the scene seemed to miss. One of the black mass of vaporized Shadow Heartless -- the eidolons from the Consciousness in their natural form, invisible to the humans, detaching from the larger black mass, with two golden circles upon it.  Rudimentary-looking eyes.
 
This eidolon mass engulfed and "bled" into a human with long hair -- Cloak could not distinguish the face as the figure was too far from the camera for a decent resolution. But the implication was clear. They did not use replicas anymore, they just take the person's body over directly.
 
This was not a thrilling revelation.
 
Cloak immediately left his thread to consult an idea with the RAFian magic expert, Broken. (Faerie had gone to some faerie function that attendance was mandatory).
 

***

"I don't know why you're still fiddling around with those things, Yarin." Goom said benignly, as he read over a sheet of paper that he held inexplicably, wearing a pair of pince-nez glasses that he neither needed nor could really wear (yet inexplicably did). "That adventure was already taken care of."

Yarin was reworking the V.C.C.D.s, finetuning the prototypes, discovering that a substance called "Smoof" locally enabled the bags unparalleled elasticity. He also considered asking Broken to put an Undetectable Expansion Charm on the bags . . . but he was a man of science, and thus, distrusted magic as it was something that he could not replicate over and over.

"You never know when we might need some of these devices again."

"Because they were SO useful last time," Aquilai teased. Yarin gave him a sour look.

"We might need them again." Yarin said stubbornly.

Goom looked over his pince-nez, "Like your microwave?"

"Food. Yield. INCREASER!" Yarin said, angrily.

Of course, Yarin didn't know how right he was about the V.C.C.D.s.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2014, 08:57:47 PM

Huh. Must be a slow day here on RAF.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Plan In Motion

"Yes, it is a powerful spell," Broken was saying thoughtfully. "Able to be cast by a non-magic-user like yourself, though you are versed in energy manipulation -- and make no mistake, most forms and styles of magic are based in energy, with Rowling magic being the most kinetic I can think of off the top of my head."

"We're getting off-topic," Cloak said smartly.

"Yes. Yes, I'm aware." Broken said heavily. "What you're asking is a monumental effort, with no guarantees of success."

"Nothing's ever guaranteed," Cloak said, simply. "But lives are being ruined because of these eidolons and their thirst for fame and scandal. Will Expellicorpus work, Broken?"

"I . .  suppose so," Broken said, hesitant about setting anything in stone, "but there are so many other factors to consider. The volume of these eidolons -- it may be possible to get them all in one blast, but that may take a lot power, power which that even you do not possess. Even so, you could not prevent them from simply possessing another or even repossessing the same body. Expellicorpus does not block or lock the bodies from possession or repossession. Believe me, or else I'd have cast it already wordlessly on every townsperson I came across."

"But Mummudrai Evile didn't repossess Phoenix all those months ago." Cloak pointed out.

"We were lucky then." Broken said, knowing that point was coming up. "Sheer luck and nothing else. Or Mr. E could have simply be an inexperienced possessing entity. These eidolons are clearly well-versed. If we are to do this thing properly, we'll need some sort of containment device."

"Yarin's working on his vacuum devices," Cloak said, deciding V.C.C.D.s was a rather haphazard name. "They're supertangible, and he's outfitting them with something called 'Smoof'."

"Ah, good. Smoof can hold the trickiest and most malious of genies and jinn, outside of a bottle or a lamp." Broken said. "But there is a couple more problems we failed to address. How are we gonna identify whose taken and whose free?"

"Their eyes," Cloak said, remembering the mannequins. "If they are possessed, their eyes will be colored gold."

"Okay, but here's the kicker," Broken said, wondering if Cloak saw every eventuality, "how are we going to get them all in one place? Not to mention keeping them there."

"Oh, Aquilai, Goom and Yarin had been working on a portable version of Code Avalon shielding. It's still the size of a small refrigerator, like the one in a college dorm, but it will do in a pinch. There's a supertangible setting on Code Avalon after the whole dementor business."

"Dementors aren't intangible."

"Yeah, they got off onto a tangent after a while." Cloak said, with a nod. "As for how to get them into one spot . . . well, you give them something they cannot resist."

"What do you . . ."

"C'mon, let's tell Yarin this. Then we have to go meet another RAFian."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 05, 2014, 10:14:26 PM

Yeah, my internet had died. But this is some helluva planning.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2014, 08:10:39 PM

So was mine for a bit. Anyway, planning my way through Book CCCVII ("Paddyquack Paddywhacksen") and I'm nearly done.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Just Don't Look

"Are sure about this, Cloak?" Broken said. "The Plan B seems more --"

"That's the point of it being Plan B," Cloak said.

They were on a stage, and -- despite his ardent desire not to be in the spotlight -- Cloak stood centerstage, enduring the hellish spotlight. At his own volition no less.

"Cloak, I'm telling you, it isn't going to be so simple."

"It's all a part of the overall plan," Cloak said. He tapped the microphone in front of him, which caused some feedback that got the crowd's attention. And Cloak, ignoring his own mortification -- sacrifices had to be made from time to time, after all -- he sang:

"To stop these scandals, one-two-three.
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble-free_
It's got the CloakedFigure guarantee --
Guarantee void in Tallahassee.
Just don't look.
Just don't look.
Just don't look.
Just don't look.
Just don't look.
Just don't look."

"Why is it void in Tallahassee?" Saffa asked.

"He just needed something to rhyme with 'guarantee', I'd bet." Parker said, with a noncommittal shrug.

But the song wasn't working . . . the eidolons were still feasting upon the attention lavished on them. Granted they did not restrict themselves to being corporeally static and sedentary, but exchanged bodies as a person would alter their wardrobe.

"I told you it was a pointless exercise," Broken said.

"Was it?" Cloak asked rhetorically, knowing full well something that Broken had yet to notice.

"Right," said Yarin, "they've taken notice."

"And what good will that do?" Underseen asked.

"Oh, you'll see in due time." Cloak said. Then he turned to a hidden RAFian, and said, "Get ready."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2014, 10:57:11 PM

Okay, one more chapter before sleep, methinks.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
It All Comes Together

"Now?"

"Yes, now, Rocklobster." Cloak said, knowing that such a deception wasn't against the Chee's programing. No one said pacifists cannot be tricky -- especially when the deception won't directly harm anyone. Yet, Cloak wondered . . . wondered if Rocklobster had considered just what they would do with the eidolons after they were captured. "Start up the hologram we discussed earlier."

He closed his eyes, and lifted his arms as if he were channeling a spirit or something when he vanished, replaced by images of adorable babies and toddlers, being all giggly and giddy. They were impossibly cute -- literally. They were impossibly cute biologically, but the impossibilities were so minute and unnoticeable, that you'd only be aware of them if you deliberately looked for them. Very quickly (as the stage was quickly dismantled by speedster Cerulean and his Kinecceran friends), everyone seemed to gravitate towards the unbridled adoration for the faux children.

The eidolons tried to combat this, but no matter which body they stole they could not steal the attention away from the ambling, tottering gaits of these projections. Cloak was hard-pressed not to fall into the same trap as everyone else. The only way to make even more irresistible was to add in kittens or puppies or both to create the ultimate saccharine scene.

If the plan worked, Expellicorpus would not even be necessary. Cloak only joped he deduced the eidolon's motivations correctly -- the entire plan hinged on that fact.

As he watched, he saw the eidolons abandon their current hosts, seeing jow enthralled the crowd was at this sight -- never even bithering to ask where these children's nonexistent parents were. This was a bait the eidolons just couldn't pass up. It would be like a Taxxon unable to eat fresh meat, a pennypincher passing by dropped money, a criminal passing up an easy score. But that was the entire purpose of this -- when you bait a trap, you insure the bait be something that would entice the prey. And in this case, it was like baiting a trap with a favored bone of a dog.

The first eidolon struck, but vanished. It did not, could not, possess mere projections. And Parker was hidden within the projection field, sucking up any eidolon (as he could use technology to ascertain their location) into the eidolon vacuum. More and more went, not even realizing none were possessing the children, but only winding up in the bag.

And after six days without attention, without feeding, they'll shrivel up into nothingness and darkness. They'll die, and it would be Cloak that would bear the responsibility. He alone will bear that burden.

Within moments, Parker had all the eidolons -- Cloak double-checking -- inside the bwg. Rocklobster could end the charade on his part. But there was a question that remained.

What now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 06, 2014, 11:29:52 PM

The cuter they look, the more I am convinced that the kid is the spawn of the devil. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2014, 08:56:33 PM

Hey, that's only true for Shenecron! . . . And, to a lesser degree, Demos. Anyway, let's finish this book up, shall we?

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Hobson's Choice

They were back at RAF, with the eidolon-filled bag safely secured. Saffa had decided to guard it, without paying attention to its contents (she knew that they feed off attention, after all), simply to protect it from the curious younger RAFian's and Alic's son, Jack. Abby and Underseen accompliced her.

"Get away!" Saffa said, enforcing a wide birth around the bag. She made shooing gestures to Rotiart (who was regularly devoid of simple common sense). "I mean it, Rotiart."

"Awww, why can't we see the bag?"

"Because I said so!"

"Who put you in charge?" he said, somewhat mulishly.

"I did," said a voice behind him. Cloak came upto where they were standing, his namesake cloak swishing in a testy way. His tail tip following suit.

"You're not the boss!" Rotiart complained childishly.

Cloak pointed out, "Neither are you."

"Nor do you have the good sense you were born with!" Saffa added.

Rotiart glared at her, stating the obvious, "I hate you."

"I'm not too fond of you myself." Saffa countered effortlessly.

"With such a jerky deposition, Rotiart," Cloak said, smoothly indifferent, "it's wonder that anyone likes you. But you can change -- don't follow Itellsya's example."

"I'm not that stupid." Rotiart said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

Saffa opened her mouth to replied, thought better of it -- the insult was just plain too easy -- and so, addressed Cloak. (But Rotiart did not miss this, and shot Saffa a haughty look of pure, undistilled venom and arrogance.

"We have decided the fate of these eidolons," Cloak said, uncomfortable with pronouncement once he realized how he worded it. "Yarin will take them aboard his ship, and throw them into a black hole."

"Will that work?" Saffa asked.

"It's a six-day trip. It had better work." he replied.

Several days later, it went off without a hitch. Of course, the eidolons had died before they even reached the black hole. As was the plan.

Cloak's plan.

It was a Hobson's choice -- a choice that is no choice. Cloak felt guilt in his part of it . . . he wondered if he had any right to do it. He tried rationalizing it away -- but that is always a temporary fix at best.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 07, 2014, 09:18:07 PM

I'm getting into trouble soon, aren't I.

PDF later today. Got class and a lab final.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 08, 2014, 01:43:38 AM

Hmmm... Remember to email me that if you would. I like to have it saved to my phone so that I can go back and re-read if I wanted to. ;D

Interesting book. And I've noticed that us four (Saffa, Underseen, you, and I) always pair up. Haha.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2014, 05:31:08 AM

Yes, yes, you, Saffa, and Underseen are the "Memoirs" versions of Yao,Ling, and Chien Po (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Yao%2CLing_and_Chien_Po).

Let's start the new book, shall we?
 

BOOK LXI:
The Arachnoids
CHAPTER ONE:
Do You Wanna Build A Sandman?

Cloak was alone in his thread, pondering his actions a few weeks ago, what with the eidolon fiasco and all. All the tabloids decided to sensationalize it, breaking all forms of credulity, but that's what they exist to do. Tabloids are nothing short of the slush pile for journalists, and, if you wish to believe the ludicrous stories within, well, that's your problem.

But, anyway, Cloak sat upon his bed with his legs crossed -- heel touching hip -- with his tail draped, almost forgotten, over the edge of the twin-sized bed in its wrought iron four-poster frame. His hands were fists, pressed against each other, while he sat up straight. His eyes closed, not making a sound, not moving, not even seeming to --

KNOCK, KNOCK.

Cloak's face soured a little at the interruption.

"Uncle?"

Uncharacteristicall y, Cloak said nothing. He was feeling rather moody. But Shadow had always been a tenacious child.

"Do you want to build a sandman?
Come on, let's go and play!
I never see you anymore.
Come out the door.
It's like you've gone away!
We used to be best buddies,
And now we're not.
I wish you would tell me why."

Of course, she also was prone exaggeration sometimes, as all Realm Walkers her age are prone to -- normal Realm Walkers, that is, ones who recieve love and support from their parents. Cloak was not such a Walker -- his parents were no equals, his mother always treated his father (then Cloak himself) as inferior. Cloak had wondered whether his father had any say in the relationship at all. Whether the fact that he existed was nothing more or less that his mother wanted another child -- another daughter, because clearly he was a disappointment to the narcissist for the crime of being male.

Meanwhile, Shadow was singing:

"Do you want to build a sandman?
It doesn't have to be a sandman."

"Not right now, Shadow." Cloak said, not even opening the door. Part of him knew he was wallowing in his darkness. Part of him didn't care.

"Okay, bye . . ."

A few days later, and Cloak was still stewing. But he was sensing something. This was never good.

KNOCK, KNOCK.

"Do you want to build a sandman?
Or imitate Pokemon calls?
I think some company is overdue!
I've started talking to the pictures on the walls!
It gets a little lonely
All these empty threads,
Just watching the hours tick by . . ."

Most of the other RAFians, if not all, were all at some sort of symposium or convention or something. Cloak stayed right where he was. He had a sinking feeling when sensed yet another great evil arising.

A fewdays later, others returned, and a day or two after that, Shadow knocked again. "Uncle,

Please, I know you're in there.
RAFians are asking where you've been.
They say, "have courage" and I'm trying to.
I'm right out here for you.
Please, just let me in.
We have each other,
You and me
What are you gonna do?
Do you want to build a sandman?"

Cloak's thread door creaked open. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 08, 2014, 01:03:27 PM

It's a bit strange to fathom how your mother thought your being male was a crime, when in the country I come from, thanks to deep-rooted culture a lot of times being female is a crime.

Just deep random thoughts. Anyway, here's the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2014, 07:21:52 PM

My mother is a piece of work alright. I know if Shadow or Faith reads this, they will think I'm just vilifying her. But neither of them saw the side of her I saw on an everyday basis, Shadow managing only the briefest of glimpses -- the day she kicked me out of the car and me walk "home" (it was more of a prison shack than a home). It was a two hour walk at least.

And neither of them knew this woman told me the proper way to slit my wrists (which, I actually already knew, overhearing some privates talk about it at boot camp, but that's beside the point). It was then I realized just how little I truly meant to her. I can't remember if she was drunk or not, but either way, there was -- there is no excuse. I realized that she would just use my death to garner sympathy -- for herself. I just wish she'd get some help -- like I did.

I do honestly wish that. Because . . . she is still my mother, and nothing can change that often-lamentable fact.

. . .

Wow, I blathered on a lot, and it wasn't even a chapter. Sorry 'bout that.

CHAPTER TWO:
Beneath These Streets

Meanwhile, well beneath the land between the city and RAF, nearby the old RAF, something stirs. Beneath the ruins they slept, they hiberated, they bided their time. The RAFians did not knownthey built their old forum -- long before Cloak or Saffa or Gaz came along and joined -- built their forum newrby the Arachnoid nest.

They were gender segregated, physiologically-speaking.

The males had a scorpion lower body, with a humanoid torso with arms like Scorponok with a face to match, though they possess two bead-like eyes the size of normal human eyes. There tails were large and reeked of malevolence. These males walked with a canter similar to Andalies -- if Andalites had eight legs. They stood roughtly the size of an adult male Andalite, if not slightly bigger. They were venomous, with their venom coming from their tails, which contained a toxin that granted them greater psychic contol -- able to mentally dominate those who they have stung, or simply a severe neurotoxin. They come in metallic greens, cobalt blues, albino white, bronze or browns.

The females did not resemble the males too much, if at all. They had a spider body, including spider legs, and some possessed human-like arms for front legs, but these are nearly always the gold variety. They possess a the face of a human female, complete with long hair. But they possess additional eyes at the temple, in addition to their human-like eyes and sharp, black, and inhuman fang extending down from their otherwise human lips. Their bite is venomous . . . and bone-crushingly painful. They can spin webs, but with far more creativity than mundane spiders -- they can use them as nets, as gags, as whips, and the like. They come in golds, metallic greens, albino whites, and cobalt blues.

Both genders could stick to and climb walls. The males seem to more prone for brute force and violence, preferring straight up offensives. The females are quite the opposite, preperring to plan and scheme and wait. The males are skilled with close-quarters combat while the females are skilled tacticians and trappers. This stark differences naturally causes friction between the two genders, the males thinking the females are wasting time with unnecessarily intricate and elaborate plans, while the females believe the males to be mindless brutes with an insatiable bloodlust. Yet they manage to get along enough to perpetuate the species and work together as a single swarm.

Neither gender has parental instinct though. When the young hatch, they're on their own. Their survival depends on them, and them alone. But only the Scorpius and the Ariachne of the Swarm are allowed to breed. Any other that reproduces is killed, killed without question.

And yet, for a millennia or two, they slumbered in a cave beneath stone and spongy earth. But now.they were just starting to stir. . . . Again. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 09, 2014, 11:21:39 AM

Like scorpions weren't bad enough. *shudder*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2014, 08:21:16 PM

Okay . . . I really need to do this right now. I need to relieve some stress.

CHAPTER THREE:
Crappiness Mo--Oh, My God!

A shabby motel in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of the city. It was called Crappiness Motel, as the owners decided to be straightforward with their customers, apparently. Well, at least until they started paying rent, but that was a story for a different time.

Two lone figures approached the front desk, where a wrinkly man with a toothbrush mustache and excessive flabbiness made him look like a human Boss Nass. He had white hair like cotton candy, done the way Arnold does his in "Hey Arnold". He was snoozing soundly, as the two figures sauntered up, awaking the hardnosed fellow.

He jumped to the assumption that they were checking in, and, obligatory music started up.

"Oh, there's no fire alarms in the place.
There's no carpet on the floor.
Don't try to order dinner,
There's no kitchen anymore!
But if the road's been kinda bumpy,
And you need to rest a spell.
Well, welcome home to Crappiness Motel.
If you've got luggage, keep it handy.
But you're running out of luck.
'Cause the front desk ain't too organized,
And the golf cart's stuck.
Still, if you don't mind friendly animals,
And can learn to stand the smell.
Well, welcome home to Crappiness Motel!
Welcome home.
Oh, welcome home.
No matter where you wander
You will never do as well.
Okay, the lobby's looking shabby,
And it's got the wrong address,
And the whole dern thing has been condemned by 'Merican Express!
Still the management is assuredly awful, though the whole joint's gone to hell.
Well, welcome home to Crappiness Hotel!
Oh, there are bugs.
(There are bugs.)
And there are lice.
(There are lice.)
Sure, we have our little problems.
But you'll never beat the $500 price!
You've got every kind of critter,
You've got ev'ry kind of pest.
But we treat 'em all as equals,
Jes' like any other guest!
Though you're cleaner than the others,
Still as far as we can tell,
You'll fit right in to Crappiness Motel!"

Then he got a good look at them . . . a male and female Arachnoid. His screams were more on-key than his singing. The rest of the residents -- which was virtually nonexistent -- and the other employees soon joined him as more of the Swarm joined the frenzied feast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 10, 2014, 03:14:23 AM

Such a lovely place, such a lovely place, such a lovely face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2014, 01:53:21 PM

Right.

CHAPTER FOUR:
On The Case

"See, Uncle?" Shadow was saying, as they used their Earth Mastery to make a sandman. Cloak's looked rather generic, while Shadow's bore a striking resemblance to Olaf from "Frozen". "Isn't this better than locking yourself away from everyone?"

Cloak said nothing, but managed a small wry smile. Shadow did not know how hard Cloak trying to refrain from brooding. He was rather prone to it, prone to over-analyzing every nuance, every word spoken, every minute gesture, every slight change of tone and inclination. He was very sensitive to the perceived subtext in everything, even when, perhaps, none exists. It a tendency that he had and has tried to deal with, to cope with. Although . . .

Cloak glanced at Shadow. These were the moments of life that made life worth living. Shadow has far more light within her heart, within her soul, than her chosen name implies. Cloak sees himself as exceptionally lucky that such strong-hearted person is his neice, and so lucky that such a compassionate woman such as Shadow's mother his sister. Those are easily two people his life that he feels immense gratitude for being in his life. He meant that with every ounce of sincerity that anyone could possibly possess.

"Cloak, Horse, Gaz, Demos, and Parker," came Aquilai, over the intercom. "Check out the following coordinates forward to us by the police commissioner."

"I don't care how mundane it seems, I wish they wouldn't broadcast cases over the intercom. Anyone or anything could be listening in." Cloak muttered, shooting his neice an apologetic look, before turning to go.

"I wanna help! I wanna help!" Shadow said, tagging along, mirroring how she got her name all those years ago.

***

"Blood was spilt here," Cloak said, as the six examined the mouldering, molding, delapidated hotel. There were holes in rather inconvenient places in the floor, as well as ceilings and walls. "Maybe not a lot, in terms of sheer quantity, though."

"Still, somehow, disturbing." Parker added. Clearly, he sensed something wrong too.

"Eh, the place doesn't look too bad. A couple of throw pillows, a little potpourri . . ." Demos said, flippantly.

"This is no time for joking, Demos." Horse said, in her humanoid, armored form.

"Who's joking?"

"Enough clowning, guys. Laserbeak, reconnaissance. Go."

Laserbeak, the Cybertronian parrot, flew off Gaz's shoulder and around a corner to investigate. He squawked when he flew around the corner.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 10, 2014, 02:01:23 PM

I can imagine everyone standing around in trenchcoats and holding magnifying glasses to the floor. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2014, 02:25:42 PM

Shadow and I have cloaks -- we don't need trenchcoats. ;) j/k

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 10, 2014, 10:10:03 PM

I feel like I should do a character sketch of Gaz me and Beaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2014, 11:06:57 PM

*fidgets nervously* Uh, right, you do that, Gazzy.

Anyway, new chapter. Sorry if there's grammatical errors, I am somewhat sleepy.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Squish, Squash, I Need A Bath

Laserbeak blew back around the corner, like Pumbaa after meeting Nala for the first time. He perched on Gaz's shoulder chirp and cittering in a very agitated way. Gaz showed great concern at her Cybertronian companion's blind panic. Laserbeak isn't one to panic -- he's one of the more laidback Cybertronians there is, though still being very protective of Gaz.

"Beaky! Beaky! Calm down," Gaz cooed, "and tell us what's going on."

"All he does is citter and squawk, how is he supposed to tell us anything?" Parker said, ever the pragmatist. Gaz gave him a fiery, scathing look. Parker, having been with Helen for a considerable time, knew when to back off.

Then the walls seemed a flurry of color. The Arachnoids had sensed fresh, yielding flesh and essentially vital bodily fluids. They were hungry. The people who had the misfortune to live here or work here had not been enough to satiate their hunger for long.

Cloak recoiled at the male Arachnoids. He never did like scorpions. Didn't help that one of his grade school bullies was a scorpion-form Realm Walker, so similar, in appearance only, to Scorpio. But history shows that Scorpio was childless.

Meanwhile, Shadow wasn't too fond of the female Arachnoids. She harbored some degree of arachnophobia, but it was mostly a learned fear, as both her mother and grandmother possessed it. Her grandmother, Cloak's mother biologically, was such a severe case that spiders could bring her to tears, despite the fact they can do no harm to a Realm Walker, not really. But fear is pervasive like that. Cloak was mostly indifferent to them, as it was the other type of arachnid -- scorpions -- that he couldn't stand.

Parker showed no fear off them -- but, after all, he was in armor. Armor durable enough that those fangs and stingers could not penetrate without blatantly violating the laws of physics. But he couldn't hide his realization that these creatures were the culprits, the reason for the blood stains found.

Gaz recoiled, as Beaky babbled in it chittering squawks. Gaz only had her pirate garb, and it wasn't much armor. With the classic transforming noise, Laserbeak took on his blaster form, which Gaz easily caught.

"Food . . ." one of the female Arachnoids said. The males were apparently mute, as none said a word. None could, it would seem. "Food . . ."

"They're sentient," Cloak muttered.

"Oh, that's very interesting. Can we get rid.of them now?" Gaz said.

"They killed the people here," Parker said. "We must contain them."

"You guys realize that they can hear you, right?" Shadow pointed out.

"Doesn't mean that the can under--" Demos began, when a male snapped his claws at him. "Oh, okay. They can understand us."

Then another male Arachnoid snapped off one of Demos's arms, but his regeneration ability managed to grow him a new one. The male feasted upon the demkn flesh and sinew and bone. But he was indignant just the same. "Hey! I was USING that!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 11, 2014, 12:06:25 AM

Oh, wonderful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2014, 01:03:35 PM

Oh, don't be so cheerful, Saffa! You'd think that I . . . Okay, that joke's not working here. Abort.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Small Casualty

"You have no idea who you're dealing with, Bug!" Demos snarled, leaping into the fray.

"They're not Bugs, that's a different species entirel--" Cloak said, reluctantly engaging the enemy, the Swarm.

"Like it matters!" Parker said. "Less talking, more hitting!"

But Cloak sensed something was off. This seemed to too . . . too . . . too convenient, too expected, too in concert. But Cloak couldn't see how it was a trap. The Swarm appeared to on the verge of decimation, just nearly there. He seemed to notice some heaviness and hesitation in their movements. Why?

They were sentient, he knew. They could speak. Granted, it was with hissing, breathy voices. Yet, as he blew several away with an aerominetic technique he learned from airbenders, he felt disconcerted and uneasy. He was reluctant to outright kill them, though he probably should have.

Demos had no such compunction, being born and raised demon. He was even singing to the tune of "We Go Bump in the Night" from "Scooby Doo Meets the Goblin King": "Who goes squish in the night? / YOU go squish in the night!" He just repeated that lyric over and over again, squishing an Arachnoid every time with flaming impacts.

Parker's body count was higher than the others (both Realm Walkers' were the lowest, with none), with Gaz's close behind. The Arachnoids really hadn't any defense for a person who had long distance weaponry, nor one with as tough armor. Laserbeak was only slightly less dangerous than Hermes's caudeaus in laser mode.

Horse found herself trapped in the claws of a male Arachnoid. She mutters, annoyed greatly, "Great. A giant, rabid Pikachu get to eat me all the time, but does that do me in? Oh-ho-ho-ho no, some great, ugly, dirty arthropod does it. Wonderful. Simply fan-friggin'-tastic."

And that seemed to greatly offend the male holding her.

"Okay," she grunted. "You're sensitive about your looks."

She looked at the others, her armor managing to provide her with protection, but she could still feel and sense the building pressure. She decided to go for surprise, and managed to sheath her Infinity Blade. She shifted back to her seal state, and slipped from the male's grip.

She let out a momentary sigh of relief. But it was a moment too soon, as she was scooped up and bitten by a female Arachnoid. A venomous female, who dropped the seal, not bothering to eat her, just poison her.

"Seal!" Gaz cried out, after glancing in that direction. seal weakly unseathed her Infinity Blade, returning to human form. The puncture marks were an eerie black with spidery veins the most infinitesimal distance away from the puncture marks, which were the size of pins. Horse began to sweat profusely as the Arachnoids, having the RAFians surrounded . . . withdrew. Without any reason to. They withdrew.

But they couldn't worry about that now. They had more pressing concerns.

"We have to get her back to the forum." Shadow said, immediately upon seeing Horse's plight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 11, 2014, 02:20:49 PM

Noooooo!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2014, 07:30:26 PM

Yes, it happened. The Mark can't protect us from everything.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Addressing RAF

"Can't you cure her?" Mr. Guy fretted, as Kelly held a hand that glowed a soft blue over Horse.

"Guy, breathing down my neck won't heal Horse any easier." Kelly snapped uncharacteristicall y, proving everyone has their limits. Guy backed up a few steps, but looked on nervously. He was Horse's brother after all. Kelly continued in a voice of determined calm, "This venom is unusual, it can use my powers to slow it, but not eradicate it from her system."

She sighed heavily, as she deactivated her powers. "She's stable for the moment. This is unusual, though. I have never met such a venom that my healing powers could not eliminate. We need an antidote."

"How would we even know where to start to synthesize one?" Parker said, but there was something missing from his usual bravado. "The antidote could require a million ingredients, or just one incredibly rare one."

"We should take this talk away from here," Cloak said, looking at the suffering that Horse was going through, and wondering if it was his fault. His fault due to his reluctance to kill a sentient being, or even a barely-sentient being as these Arachnoids seemed them sometimes fluctuate between full sentience and near-sentience. They left Guy, Faerie, and Blocky to watch over Horse as Kelly continued her essential ministrations.

"I honestly haven't an idea what we could do." Parker said, with a deflated gusto. The helplessness in his voice was heart-rending. Helen hugged him, hiding her tear-stained face from the others. She was already in mourning.

"We can't give up." Shadow said firmly. "Would Horse give up so easily on us, were we the ones poisoned?"

"Shadow --"

"Uh-uh." she said, rather mirroring her mother which she caught Cloak in mischief when he was younger than Shadow is now. "Don't tell me it's hopeless. It's only hopeless when you allow yourself to give into it. There has got to be --"

"Cloak, I know you can hear me." came a bored voice.

Cloak looked and it was being broadcasted, audio and visual, from their archaic communicators. Cloak had forgotten that he was still carrying his.

"You really should update the encryption," the voice's owner spoke. The image was dark, but there was no mistaking the voice. And they hadn't bothered to shut down the old communicators after the newer models came out. Cloak would have responded, but the transmission was one-sided only. He did not really understand the logistics of it.

"Malice,"Cloak said, gnashing his teeth at the word.

"Who else?" Saffa asked, rhetorically and tonelessly.

"I know my Arachnoid 'friends' had succeeded in poisoning one of your filthy little Dweller pals. She was rewarded handsomely for it." Malice droned, as if she was deliberately trying to do a Ben Stein impression. She held a vial of greenish goo with a luminescence that one associates with radioactivity up in the choppy image. "I have the antidote for the venom. You can have it . . . for a price."

"Oh, big surprise." Abby said.

"Probably wants us to turn over the forum." Underseen said shrewdly. Although, the actual transforming into a shrew was unnecessary.

"The price is one hundred humans," Malice said. "Young, healthy humans -- or any creature of flesh, will do, I suppose. But a hundred of 'em. Gotta feed my friends, you see."

She laughed a laugh as malicious as her name. The RAFians were surprised at this, wondering why she would want such a thing.

"You're probably wondering why I'd want such a thing." Malice said, voice cruel, like Mark Hamill's Joker. "Well, let's just say that I want to see Cloak squirm when given a Solphie's choice."

Then the broadcast ended.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 12, 2014, 12:34:39 AM

Malice is getting creepier by the day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2014, 05:06:37 PM

Well, let's see if I can post a decent chapter after suffering a disapointment (see Totally Random Thoughts for details).

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Choice to Be Made

"How could we possibly sacrifice the lives of a hundred people?" Shadow said incredulously. The RAFians who had seen the broadcast had gathered together in the verdant grass of the forum campus.

"We can't," Cloak said, tonelessly. "We also cannot permit Horse to die."

"That clears it up," Saffa said, snarkily. Rotiart had managed to worm his way into their conversation, but Saffa pulled out a pair of chopsticks and used them to hold his lips shut. She whispered to the others, "I've always wanted to do that."

"Use chopsticks to silence someone?" Gaz asked, as Laserbeak chirped his approval at Saffa's tactic.

"No," Saffa said, as Rotiart was looking on indignant. "Use chopsticks to silence Rotiart."

"This is not the time for levity!" Terenia said, scoldingly. "We have a very serious matter to discuss!"

"We have to do one or the other," Parker said, in a valiant attempt to get back on-topic*. "I cannot think of another option."

"Really?" Demos said, flippantly. "There is one blatant third option staring you in the face."

"Watch it, demon." Parker growled.

"Well, who says we have to play by Malice's rules?" Demos said, with a shrug. "The third option is that we simply go to wherever Malice is at and take the vial for ourselves."

"Great," Parker said, voice tainted with sarcasm, "in theory. Not so much so in practice. We have no idea where they are holed up --"

"Not entirely true," Goom said thoughtfully. "What Malice clearly did not know about the old communicators is that they require and record broadcast coordinates. If Malice broadcasted to every receiver on the planet, then she could've hidden her location. But she didn't. It was isolated to come directly to this location, and only this location."

"Are you saying --" Abby said.

"It does not appear as if Malice covered her tracks this t--" Goom began.

"Then it's a trap." Cloak said bluntly.

"You cannot say that for certain, Cloak." Parker said.

"Yes, I can. Malice always covers her tracks. That's how she eluded the Council." Cloak said.

"I thought you said they were idiots." Shadow said.

"Irrelevant! -- Although completely true. -- Malice is not one to make such an amateurish misstep."

"Her Machiavellian schemes don't always pan out, you know. We've defeated her a number of times." Saffa said.

"Yes, it's true." Cloak conceded. "But we've always won through trial and error, with tenaciousness and effort. This? This is too easy."

"Hey," Parker said, raising his hands in mock surrender (Cloak was not amused), "I wasn't saying it was gonna be a walk in the park. But it is an option that isn't a Sophie's choice."

Cloak had to agree with this logic. But he remained certain this was a trap, and he would be the first one in.

---
*Yes, we can even get off-topic here, in "Memoirs".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 13, 2014, 03:39:13 AM

Going off topic is a given thing with RAF. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2014, 07:21:23 PM

Sorry that I doubt didn't post a chapter yet, I just got distracted with other things. I may not post until tomorrow. But I'll leave you with two more book ideas.

• Book CCCXXXI: "Mylock Menace" -- The RAFians are trapped in space due to mylocks on Yarin's ship.
• Book CCCXXXII: "How I Met Your -- Oh, No" -- An old enemy, believed to be dead, resurfaces, using neural parasites. Meanwhile, Parker meets Helen's parents.

Titles may change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 14, 2014, 01:12:37 AM

I think I paled a few skin colors when you described the Arachnoids. Spiders and scorpions should not mix. Nuh-uh. Scary, scary beings. . . *shivers*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2014, 04:48:19 PM

As my friend would say -- "Eh." ;)

Now, I'm gonna try to post two chapters today.

CHAPTER NINE:
Raiders of the Antidote

"Why do all these creepy crawlies always take to island bases or citadel isles?" Abby said nervously.

"Abby, don't get so jittery. You've been an arthropod creature before." Cloak said.

"Spiders and scorpions should not mix!" she said, clearly finding it unnerving.

"You're a speciesist?" Parker said, playfully. He was lucky Abby had not acquired a basilisk, and that human glares generally did not kill. "They're just bugs, Abby. They go 'squish' like any other."

"Easy for you to say," Abby grumbled. "All decked out in titanium alloy armor."

"Zoodeitium-titanium alloy armor, actually." Cloak said as they observed the hive island headquarters from afar. "Really, Parker, what do you think enables to switch armors without having to suit up?"

"You know guys, for a stealth mission," Blue said, reminding them of the entire point of this mission, "you're talking really, unnecessarily loud!"

"We'll keep it down to a dull roar," Cloak said expressionlessly.

"It'd be appreciated," Blue said, with a poker face to match Cloak's.

From there, all levity was lost as ther seriousness of their stealthy raid of the hive was underway. Finding an entrance point proved only mildly difficult. The sun was up, as it was midday, and the Arachnoids prefer the dark and the damp. They all be inside the hive . . . which Cloak wasn't sure why they had to begin with, as spiders nor scorpions were hive animals. Perhaps it was evidence that they were not spiders and scorpions, not truly, despite their similarities. They obviously have active breathing, as it is usually impossible for insects and arachnids to grow to this size and still be able to breath, as they do it passively. They breathe through holes in thorax that had a specific term that Cloak could not remember.

WHACK!

Parker had smacked Cloak just hard enough to get his attention. It was unnecessary to do, but Parker wasn't permitted to speak. Were these just overlarge spiders and scorpions, Cloak would think it unnecessary to be sneaky, as they have rather crappy vision, but these Arachnoids see as well as humans. Granted, it's not much better, Cloak thought jovially, but it gets the job done.

They discovered the easiest way into the nest was an entrance by a stream. It was completely in perpetual shade, and had only one guard. The guard was a rather scrawny male, who possessed knobby joints that were connected to legs like toothpicks. His tail was like a goose-necked lamp, and his torso was about as built up as Jack Skellington. Cloak narrowed his eyes. This was as subtle as a sledgehammer to a wall.

Blue quickly dispatched the guard and proceeded on. Had the worry for little Horse clouded the judgement of the others? Cloak chose not to believe thst, deciding he may just be very paranoid. The others followed with a reluctant Cloak taking up the rear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2014, 07:18:40 PM

Now, the second chapter today. Might post a third, but don't bank on it.

CHAPTER TEN:
Prelude to the Slaughter

Silently, they slunk around the enemy territory. Cloak still had misgivings, which became to numerous, to insistent to ignore for very long. Was this simple paranoia? His ears were perked to every sound, he Earthsighted as often as possible, but continued to come up with nothing. Yet, he could help but feel agitated.

Abyy was agitated, too, but it was more because she found the Arachnoids so dang creepy. She wasn't in morph, but was ready to at a moment's notice. But she remained a bit high strung. Parker and Blue remained calmly indifferent -- or maybe they had better control over their emisgivings and feelings than Cloak did.

The fact that they had yet to see a single Arachnoid was disconcerting to Cloak, while Abby was thankful. But this was most odd. This was supposed to be their headquarters, and yet it seemed abandoned. There was no getting around it, no matter the rationalizations Cloak told himself.

It was a trap, pure and simple. Cue Admiral Ackbar meme.

"We're in trouble." Cloak said, fur standing on end beneath his cloak, "Abby, morph."

"Morph what?"

"Anything!" Cloak growled in such a way that said that this isn't the time for questions. Immediately, Abby's skin began to harden into a rock-like texture with a horn soon protruding from her face as her hands lost all dexterity.

The reason for Cloak terse reaction was because he realized, with a sickening jolt to his stomach, that he can't Earthsight the Arachnoids. Their legs distribute their weight more efficiently than most other beings, as they distribute it on eight legs instead of two or four. This makes the bibrations sent out from each step "look" far lighter than it was, being imperceptible to those with Earthsight. It might be different with Metalsight, but now wasn't the time to test as lights went up.

The RAFians were in what appeared to be a gladiatorial arena, with high up stands -- like the one on that bug planet. At the seat where an emperor would sit was Malicesl, looking rather bored, twirling the antidote in her hands.

"How disappointing." Malice said, sounding truly disappointed. "You didn't play the rules of the game."

Abby had completed her morph to a Crabdozer, as Cloak was outraged and indignant, "Game? GAME?! Malice, these are real people, with friends, families, and lives! They aren't your toys to do with as you please! You have no right --"

"And neither do you." she countered, wearing a look of insufferable smugness and shrewdness.

"What?" Cloak said, flummoxed. Out of all her responses, that was the one that Cloak had least expected.

"What you're doing is no different from me." Malice continued. "You interfere in these Dwellers' lives just as much as I do. I have as much right to be here as you do. Save your morality slosh for the weak-minded fools you toy with."

These words spoke to a hidden fear of Cloak's and Malice knew from his silence that she struck a cord.

<Cloak, don't listen to her!> Abby yelled as Cloak's self-doubt took hold once more.

"Well, that was fun." Malice said, as if she had just completed a level of Word Whomp. Then she snapped her fingers, and Arachnoid prisoners came onto the field. These were the ones that survived Malice's takeover of the hive. They were starved and little more than beasts in heart, mind, and body.

It was going to be a massacre, a slaughter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 15, 2014, 02:16:06 AM

This is terrifying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2014, 07:05:24 AM

I didn't expect this book to be terrifying when I first planned out the chapters. Funny how that just happens. Now, another chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Tithe Ultimatum

Soon, all the Arachnoid gladiators, for lack of a more appropriate term, were smears of squished goo or burnt extra, extra crispy. Malice stopped twirling the antidote, and clapped very slowly, in a patronizing way.

"Very good, you beat the weakest Arachnoids." she said.

"Shut up," Cloak snarled.

"Oh, dear. You don't want to hear how this was a most obvious trap? That I made your path so simple for the sole purpose of bringing you to this stadium, this arena, crude though it is?" Malice said, inappropriately and inordinately coy. "My dear Cloak, even you should have been able to discern that. I thought the blatant absence of soldiers and warriors in the corridor would have surely tipped you off."

She rubbed her chin grandioely, and Cloak found himself hating her.

"Perhaps the poisoning of the seal has caused you to become reckless," Malice mused very audibly. "I know the Arachnoids disturb the Crabdozer."

<Do not!> Abby protested, already demorphing. Her tough features as a Crabdozer softening to more pliable, more fragile human flesh.

"The protestations of Dwellers are meaningless to me." Malice said, dismissively.

It was then Abby's anger beat her Arachnoid unnerving, and she growled to Malice, "The protestations of Dwellers should have some meaning to you by now! Considering how often the RAFians foil your plans!"

"Not to mention the lives of these Dwellers that you so willingly cast aside, Malice," Cloak added, "are more worthwhile than your own."

Malice's eyes bulged rather derrangedly. "No RealmDweller has ever bested me! None of you miserable ants are superior to me! You're only fit to lick my boots if I wanted your lowly slime to mar them!"

The Arachnoids looked at each other, but Cloak couldn't tell if they comprehended what was going on here. They may be sentient or just near-sentient. He did not know unequivocally to the truth to either. But this could be why Mega-Maul and Ravager were conveniently absent, as they are both Dwellers.

"What you say and what you do are often in conflict it seems." Cloak said, shrewdly picking at this line of thought. Perhaps the Arachnoids might mutiny against her. Cloak failed to account for the unwavering loyalty that Arachnoids give their leadership, granted there were about 61 of the creatures left. "You arm yourself with Dweller beings, Dweller weaponry, and Dweller . . . creatures."

Malice, far from feeling mollified, was snarky and angry. "Arachnoids aren't as useless as most of the Dwellers here, that's for sure! But it's no different from YOU, Cloak! You use those Dwellers you rub elbows just I use the Dwellers in my employ."

"'Employ' implies you pay them," Parker pointed out. She ignored him, as he was a Dweller after all.

"I do not use them in the way you do, Malice." Cloak said. "They -- with the exception of Rotiart, of course -- are my friends. Sadly, Malice, friendship is a subject that you are woefully inexperienced with, evidently."

"ENOUGH!" Malice roared. She was on her feet now, not looking remotely bored anymore but quite livid.with the vial clutched loosely in her hand. "The tithe is raised to a tnousand heathy humans by sundown tomorrow. Now, get the Veil out."

"She cannot be seriously thinking that THAT is gonna work," Blue said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 15, 2014, 08:00:47 AM

Suddenly Malice is reminding me of one of my screaming fifth-grade teachers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2014, 07:38:56 AM

Lol, Saffa.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Ninja . . . Vanish!

"Didn't you hear me?" Malice said, addressing the RAFians. "Your superior said, 'Get the Veil out!' Surely, that is not too complicated for your inferior minds to process?"

"Malice, you are, in no way, superior to us," Cloak said, with a tone that said quite clearly that he was really getting tired, not to mention losing his patience, with this prejudice his species majority seemed to have. They were the oldest civilization, it's true, but it was high-time they grew up, and became much more egalitarian. "Just cut out that whole spiel. It has gotten really excruciatingly tiresome."

"I will not lower myself to the level of my lessers!" she snarled.

"'Lessers'?" Cloak repeated, distainfully and contemptuously. "Really, Malice? You're seriously using that word?"

"It applies! Realm Walkers are all inherently superior to Realm . . . wait. Why are we talking about this? Why are you wasting time, time that you know that your seal friend does not have much of?" Malice said, changing tack mid-sentence, with some sparking insight. Then she eyed the RAFians very carefully, very calculating, and very suspiciously. "Weren't there four of you?"

Cloak remained silent on the matter, and tried to divert attention from it. "You must be going blind, Malice! What you see is what you got."

"You lie." Malice said savagely. "This is a trick."

Her eyes darted around aimlessly and suspiciously, as if hoping to visually reclaim the missing RAFian. She was not fooled -- for very long -- about the log that had replaced Blue's location.

"Where is it, Cloak? Where is the other one of your RAFians?" Malice demanded.

Cloak said nothing. He knew Malice was rapidly losing control of the situation, and her threats were pitiful. This was going to end here. But Cloak knew he couldn't kill Malice. Just doing that with Cataclysm nearly destroyed him from the inside out.

"Enough of this Gateburst shell game!!" Malice said. "Tell me where it is or I will smash this vial right now!!"

Suddenly, the Arachnoids looked sort of mutinous. They wanted that tithe, and now Malice, in her fervent desire to find and capture the missing RAFian, was going to deny them that. But it was forgotten when a male cried out in pain, a shurriken caught in his neck.

"Foolish ninja! I've got you now!" she said, as she lunged for spot where the shurriken was thrown, but there was nothing but darkness there. Malice roared, "Gateburst it!!"

"Such a potty mouth," Cloak said, with deliberate hypocrisy.

"Shut the Veil up!" Malice screamed at Cloak.

"Not so fun when you're the one at the disadvantage, is it?"

"Am I, Cloak?" Malice said, regaining her lost composure. "You forget. I still hold the vial!"

Then she smashed the vial at her feet, and then she had an ashen look on her face as if she forgot something. The Arachnoids milled around with a rumbling sound of discontent.

Meanwhile, Cloak smelled the main ingredient from the antidote, strangely enough. It surprised him, true, but what surpised him more was that he recognized it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 16, 2014, 07:44:45 AM

I have a feeling that when Malice dies, if at all, somehow Cloak won't be responsible. Even though only a Realm Walker can kill another Realm Walker... but still.  :paranoid:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2014, 06:18:00 PM

Not commenting on that, as Saffa still has that skillet in hand.

Sorry, but I don't think that a can post another chapter until tomorrow. I may be able to later, but don't bet on it. Tired.

• Book CCCXXXIII: "Baaaaaad Gingerbread" -- The RAFians must face gingerbread men born from batter and Kanabo seeds.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Malice Has Got Problems of Her Own

The RAFians withdrew dejectedly. That antidote was the only cure to Horse's condition, and now it was gone. Cloak, however, had his mind whirring. He knew he recognized a scent from the smashed vial . . . but what could it have been?

"Where do you think you four are going?!" Malice demanded. She wanted them out before, and now is demanding them to stay until she dismissed them again. The Realm Walker clearly had a lot of control issues. "Get back here until I say you can go!!"

They ignored her.

"Lies. Promises unfulfilled. Treachery." came the hissing voices of many Arachnoids in a chorus of sinister chant. "Lies. Promises unfulfilled. Treachery. Lie. Promises unfulfilled. Treachery. Lies . . .

The Arachnoids had witnessed the smashing of the vial, of course. They were sufficiently intelligent enoUgh to know that, without that vial, they would not be getting their tithe of flesh. This was something that did not sit well with them. Not well at all.

"Not now, bug-brains!" Malice said, scornfully dismissive. Malice turned her attention back to the RAFians, but they had long left. "No! They ignored their superior!"

The Arachnoids did not let up in their chant, as they pressed in on Malice in a circle. Malice looked unconcerned, with good reason too, as the venom would not affect a Realm Walker at all. But th Arachnoids either did not know this, did not care, or both. They continued to press in on her, closing the circle in.

"Back the Veil off," Malice warned. This just proved that Malice was in a merciful mood. She normally didn't issue warnings. Especially warnings that were immediately ignored. "I'm not going to say it again."

Still they pressed in on her. And her towering rage lead to deadly consequences. She fired energy daggers from each of her fingers, which easily ripped through the chitonous skin of the Arachnoids as if they were mere paper. More and more fell. More, until only two survived.

"S-s-sorry." the female wimpered. "We forgot our place!"

"Forgive us." the male pleaded.

"You will regreat turning on me." Malice said, with a cool edge to her voice. "Even I have regrets. And right now, I regret breeding you from those Venoxican eggs!"

"Please . . ." the female cried.

". . . Show mercy, please . . ."

They clearly did not know Malice to well. Malice doesn't show mercy. She thinks it's beneath her. Malice's eyes narrowed ominously.

"Mercy," she said, "is for the weak."

And, with that, no more Arachnoids existed in the Prime Universe. Not anymore.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2014, 08:17:15 AM

'Nother chaper.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Elated Epiphany

Cloak was the straggler on the way back, while the other three were extremely moody. Parker had become surly and hostile, Blue had become devastated and beat himself up, and Abby sobbed unabashed. No one said a single word. They had failed in their very important mission, and now . . . and now Horse would suffer for their ineptitudes. They would have to bear the responsibility for her death.

Meanwhile, Cloak knew he had smell that scent before. It was pungent, like the kind of bathroom no one ever cleaned. The liquid inside the vial was glowing and radioactively green. Cloak had the annoying feeling that he had all but one of the puzzle pieces, and the puzzle was only partially put together.

They kept marching to RAF, none real eager to give the news of their failure. Each felt horrible about what they allowed to happen. Why is it always Horse? She managed to survive being eaten by the Pootang countless times, and this does her in? It's like Steve Irwin all over again.

This shouldn't have happened. Kelly should have been able to heal her. She could heal any injury, any toxin, and physical malady in the Realm. Cloak blinked and stopped short.

In the realm.

But what if the Arachnoids, and thereby the cure ingredient, was from the realm? But where could they be from? What possible realm could they hail from? Where could he possibly start? There a thousand realms in existence for every star you see at night. It could take him years, and that's years Nexus time, to divine the cure location, to identify the scent.

Then a flash of insight.

A world of toxic gases, virulent liquids, and polluted lands. And, yet, in spite of this, life thrived. A land that Cloak had only briefly visited once before. It wasn't pleasant, it wasn't fun. But Horse's life wasn't in danger then.

"Venoxica," Cloak said, aloud. The other three looked back at him, and he elaborated. "The Arachnoids are from this realm about as much as I am. They are from one of the Fractured Realms -- Venoxica."

"Then how'd they --" Abby said, then thought about it for a second, and then said. "Oh."

"Well, I could tell Malice threw a fit back there. There was quite a light show." Blue said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 17, 2014, 08:51:24 AM

Okay. Now Malice was truly terrifying. Almost Dalek-like.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 17, 2014, 06:58:01 PM

Yeah. Malice is pretty bad. Still not as bad as the Arachniods. *shivers*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2014, 08:42:45 AM

Yeah. New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Cloak Alone

"I don't see why you have to this alone!" Parker said.

"Parker," Cloak said, his voice calm and even, despite his annoyance, "you have never been to Venoxica. I have. I know what we're dealing with there. It's too dangerous for you."

"You doubt my abilities?" Parker said, indignantly, drawing himself up to his full height. He was still a couple of feet short of Cloak's eight foot frame.

"You'd never survive," Cloak said flatly. "Only those that have survived Tartarus has an inkling of what Venoxica is like. The air is toxic and inflammatory. The water is concealed toxic waste. The ground is somewhere between yellowcake uranium and solidified petroleum. Most, if not all, the fauna and megafauna are venomous. The plants too. Except the salveo weed, paradoxically enough."

"If it was as bad as you describe," Parker said mulishly, "life couldn't have possibly survived there."

"Maybe in Earth terms, perhaps," Cloak countered. "But these Fractured Realms are different from anything you know. The physics, the biologies, they're all different. I can't explain it, and I really don't want to."

"My armor could just filter out the toxins." Parker pointed out.

"No, it can't." Cloak said. "The toxins are the air. There is nothing for you the filter out. You will just arrive in an airless environment. Yes, yes, I know your armor is self-contained and whatnot. But how long could your oxygen stores last? I have the old Realm Walker biological resiliency to fall back on. Venoxica will just make me very, very uncomfortable."

He looked directly at Parker, with a burning gaze, "But it will kill you, without so much as a second thought."

Cloak let that permeate for a moment before continuing. "It's why I must go alone. I alone can get sufficient supplies."

"You should bring back enough to grow the cure here." Parker thought aloud. It was a pragmatic statement, but he had forgotten on key detail.

"Parker, do know what happened when kudzu was imported to the America? It overran parts of the country." Cloak looked off. "It always happens with invasive species. Besides, the salveo weed would not be able survive here, as it does in Venoxica."

Then Cloak got up and Walked off.

***

Malice surveyed the carnage she wrought. All the Arachnoids were dead. Their bodies were nothing more than smoking twisted pieces of chiton. Malice had no respect, and soon she had incinerated their entire hive with gasoline and a match.

"The things these Dwellers come up with, eh?" she commented to no one. Then she sighed heavily. "All that work to breed them to survive here, gone to waste."

Then her eyes widened as she considered a possibility.

"Cloak won't give up so easily. Could he have figured out . . . I better go check. Yes, that's just what I'll do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2014, 09:03:39 AM

Oh, now you're in trouble.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2014, 04:24:57 PM

Am I?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Void Venture

Cloak had made it to the voidspace that separated the sixteen or seventeen Fragmented Realms. He looked and searched and pondered which one would be the portal to Venoxica. He hasn't been here for so long that he had forgotten which one lead where. And there had plenty that drove if from his memory.

But he had to hurry. He was not only racing to get the antidote to Horse, but get to the plant that Malice would more than likely try to stop him from acquiring. He had no doubt that the Arachnoids didn't kill her. A Realm Walker can only be slain by another. But it would not stop her mass genocide of the Arachnoids. Cloak was hard-pressed to feel any pity for the creatures, after what they did to Horse.

Gateburst! Which one was it?! They did not remotely resemble the way it did last time he was here, he was sure. He did not have tkme to just poke his head in everyone. Logic would follow that the purple one would be the proper portal . . . except there were two. It could Venoxica or Psychesp!

"Here you are!" Malice growled behind him.

Cloak uttered an untranslateable expletive, followed by, "off, Malice."

"Such language, boy. At an elder, too!"

"Save it," Cloak said not even deigning to look at her. "I don't have time to listen to your banter."

Cloak found what he thought was the right portal, but feigned looking for it still.

"There are no elements here for you to throw at me." Malice droned on and on, with Cloak losing track of what she was monologuing about. She always assumed that she knew more than any other. It's was a pity -- and a liability -- really. Cloak normally would have waited for the moment of opportunity to present itself in its own time. But time wasn't a luxury that he could afford right now.

"Hey, Malice?"

"How dare you interrupt my brilliant anecdotes?!" she roared, clearly still riding on the high she had from her successfully genocidal attack on the Arachnoids. Cloak honestly doubted that anything that she had said when he tuned out was anything anyone who wasn't a sycophant would deem "brilliant". "How dare you speak to me? I shall tell you when --"

"Hey, Malice?" Cloak said, reflexively ignoring this tiresome tirade.

Malice looked comedically offended and fluttered. Cloak charged up some energy behind his back, as Malice continued to puff up at the indignity of being interrupted yet again. Clearly, she was around Ravager and Mega-Maul too often.

Then Cloak flung the energy, he didn't form it into any specific shape, just made it as bright as he could, as he snarled, "shut up."

Then while she was blinded, Cloak dove into one of the purple portals which was right next each other for the moment. Malice was still struggling to get her vision back, as it wasn't strong enough to permanently blind her.

Hopefully, it would be a god distraction.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2014, 04:35:37 PM

Man, it's 3 am amd I can't get to sleep. Thanks for the chapter relief.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2014, 04:00:50 PM

Anytime, Saffa.

Anyway, I've finished planning out the chapters for Book CCCVIII ("It's A Vladat World"), and started planning out Book CCCIX ("Oh, Zs'Teryr").

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Bag of Weed, Friend In Need, and Deaf Decree

Cloak knew at once that he was in the right place. The air was thick as pea soup, yet colorless. The ground was spongy soft, yet firm in some places. Earthsight would be as useful as lawsuits to get Justin Bieber to straighten up and fly right. . . . Okay, that was a bad anecdote.

Anyway, Cloak looked around and saw that he was in a different spot, but it was daytime, as told by the purple sky and the opaque circle that was the sun. It was still murky and marshy here, but it could be that way everywhere in Venoxica.

Cloak allowed himself to feel discomfort for a mere moment or two. He had to remember that he had a very important mission to accomplish. There could be no room for error, and there were two clocks against him. Horse's very health and Malice's inevitable arrival.

Cloak eyed a yellowish-green plant with a starchy stalk and thin, curly leaves. It grew over a lake of toxic green water. Yet, it seemed to thrive. Cloak continued to examine it, noticing that he coincidentally came upon a whole field of them. Some with pink flowers with swirls going from yellow to purple, some lacking.

Hopefully, Horse was still stable.

Hopefully, Malice went into Psychesp instead, mistaking the portal for the Venoxican one.

Hopefully, Cloak could get enough salveo weed to save Horse.

Cloak decided that this weed was salveo weed, and took out a pouch, a drawstring bag, and began to hurriedly harvest the weeds.

***

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Horse's health was marginally stable. But it would swing south every now and then, exhausting Kelly and her healing abilities. This cannot last forever. She knows it. The other RAFians know it.

"Cloaky . . ." Kelly said, exhaustion in her voice, "Cloaky . . . hurry. . . ."

And, in Horse's mind, it raced. She was shown an expanse of darkness and light. A black hole below and above, yet neither pulled at her. But what struck her was the sheer nothingness of this place, a void. She did not belong here . . . no one belonged her . . . Nobody belonged here. . . .

Yet, it was nothing but a fevered dream, a daytime delusion. Nothing more.

Kelly watched over Horse fretfully, as this delusion caused the small RAFian to writhe a little.

***

"That was a dirty trick, you little --" Malice said, rubbing her eyes vigorously, slowly regaining her vision. Then she realized that Cloak had gone. "You filthly little -- !"

Then she dove into one of the purple portals expecting to come out in Venoxica. She was sorely disappointed. She had made landfall upon a quaint cobblestone street, dotted with street lamps every so often. The air was identical to Earth's, except the sky was a violent violet.

"Gateburst!" She shouted loudly, drawing the attention of several violet-haired humans. She snarled at them, "Go gawk at someone else!"

The humans went back to and about their own business, as Malice seethed. Had she looked at this practically, she might have thought to immediately go to the other purple portal to Venoxica. But she didn't, and stayed and seethed about the utter unfairness of it all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 20, 2014, 01:14:39 AM

Hah. Serves Malice right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 20, 2014, 08:07:11 AM

A bag of weed, oh dear, I read that wrong :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2014, 03:12:22 PM

Perhaps that was my intention, Saffa. ;) >:D

Anyway, I finished using planning out Book CCCIX ("Oh, Zs'Teryr"), and it, unless I change my mind down the line, has the requisite twenty chapters. And I think Book CCCX ("Underseen's Brothers") is shaping up well. I'd tell you more, but Saffa has the skillet at the ready and I don't wanna get hit.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Getting Away With The Goods

Cloak had managed to synthesize a small vial of the cure. It was hasty, rough, and not as refined as anything Goom, Aquilai or Goom would have come up with, but it was sufficient. He quickly pocketed the vial of glowing green liquid.

He thought about how to leave this Fractured Realm in a way that wouldn't attract Malice's attention. But could come up with nothing. He sighed as he prepared to fight his way out.

He left Venoxica, thankful for the discomfort to end. He looked around, and thought that he was in the clear.  But then Malice came storming from Psychesp, intending to go to Venoxica and drag Cloak out. Only to see the spawn of Sage's spawn staring at her. He must have made the cure -- it was not a difficult task, really -- and was preparing to administer it to the seal.

She could not allow that.

***

The heart monitor began to screech a flatline.

"No!" Kelly shouted, as she hovered a glowing hand over Horse, until the flatline sound stopped into the steady beat. But then it went erratic again. Kelly poured everything she had into healing Horse again, but this time . . .

This time it wasn't enough. Her heart beat remained erratic as Kelly continued to try and heal Horse. But, though she rather die than admit it, Kely was tiring rapidly. She had no choice, however. If she left to rest for even a fraction of a minute, Horse might very well destabilize again.

Broken stepped into the room, noting Kelly's obvious exhaustion. Before Kelly could protest that visiting hours were over, Broken stepped up to Horse and spoke in a commanding voice, holding his hand aloft, "Heal!"

Horse's body was flooded with green energy, as green petals of energy flurried around her. It was Curaga, a healing spell. Broken had mastered all kinds of magic, though he preferred Rowling magic, he could use others.

"Why . . . why didn't you help me before now?" Kelly asked, unable to keep the accusation and exhaustion from her voice.

"Curaga can be a very tempermental spell," Broken elaborated. "It does not always complete, unless the circumstances are right."

"Did you --"

"No," Broken said, anticipating her question. "I did not cure her. I cannot anymore than you can."

Broken placed her hand upon Horse's shoulder -- she flitted from armored human to seal and back again in random intervals, usually accompanied by fits of shivers and fevers. She was going through hell.

"Despite the name, Curaga is a healing spell," Broken said, with a concerned face at Horse, now a seal again, "it cannot strip someone of such an ailment. I have no magic that can do that. Not to my knowledge."

***

"You aren't going to save that seal friend of yours!" Malice said, lunging at him, and he dodged nimbly out of the way, as if by quicktime event. Cloak said nothing, but decided easily enough that he didn't have time to waste fighting Malice. And that's why she wanted to draw out this fight -- or she could just be unbelievably lucky choosing to battle.

"I don't have time for you." Cloak said tonelessly, making three swift movements. First, he swept his right arm to create a stationary horizontal crescent of his golden-scarlet energy. Then he made a downward slashing movement with his left hand so this crescent bisected the first at a perpendicular angle, so the construct looked like a crescent "+". Then he punched the crescent "+" and it lanced forward, heading for Malice.

She managed to divert it elsewhere, where it dissipated into nothingness. Malice was feeling particularly smug at this, and looked down at where Cloak had been, saying, "Is that the best that you -- where the . . ."

Cloak was gone. He had never intended the attack to land. Malice screamed in abject fury at this trickery.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2014, 08:51:07 PM

Hmmm . . . "modify-post syndrome" again? Eh, could be worse, I suppose.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!

"Nice to see you, too." Cloak replied, sarcastically dour, after both Broken and Kelly unwittingly and unknowingly title-dropped. Cloak deftly pulled out a vial, as Horse convulsed painfully back to human. Cloak looked at and immediately understood his less than hospitable welcome.

Horse's hair clung to her head, her forehead beaded with profuse sweat, yet she shivered hard as if freezing. Her eyes were shut, but she seemed to be in some delusional twilight -- Cloak found himself hoping that it wasn't the Twilight books that were in her delusions. Nah, she'd be screaming then, due to the sheer awfulness of it.

No. No, this wasn't time for levity. He had to administer the cure, which had to be ingested before it could take effect. That shouldn't be a problem, but Cloak had to act quickly before she convulsed back to her seal form. Cloak gently poured the green liquid down Horse's throat, easy as her mouth was already open in a grimace of pain. This stabbed Cloak with guilt . . . they spent that time screwing around . . .

Horse's mouth shut as a silent shutter passed through her body. Her face took on a more serene expression. Her breathing settled into a regular pattern, and her heart maintained a normal beat. She would be fine, but it was a close one.

"She will.recover, but she requires . . . she needs rest," Cloak said, only vaguely aware of how serious his voice sounded. "As do you two."

But Broken was far more shrewd than Cloak gave him credit for, usually. He said, "Don't think I don't recognize it, Cloak."

"What do you mean?" Cloak asked, innocently as he could, as the three left the infirmary.

"Don't hand me that, Cloak. You know very well what I mean."

"Broken, what --" Kelly interceded.

"Cloak's blaming himself for what happened." Broken said, knowingly. Cloak did not argue. He didn't have the energy. He, instead, did not acknowledge this, as he turned his back on the two. Broken addressed Cloak. "No. No, Cloak, don't go beating yourself over it."

"It is because of me that Horse nearly . . . nearly died." Seeing Horse like that had shook him up more than he cared to admit. Seeing how close she came to meeting the Grim Reaper . . .

"This was not your fault. How could you have possibly foreseen this? How could you have possibly prevented it?" Broken asked. Cloak still had his back to them, and Kelly looked like a spectator in a tennis match, or one of those black cat wall clock things. "This was Malice's doing, not yours."

"She did it because I was here, because I'm a RAFian," Cloak said, looking at his Mark. "Had I never came . . . had I never joined . . ."

"Cloak," Broken said, adopting a gentler, more brotherly tone, "you underestimate your own importance here. You've helped us save the world countless times, times that weren't even the machinations of Malice."

"For all we know, Malice was pulling the strings behind every single one!" Cloak shouted. But he wasn't angry, he was lamenting. "All because I dared to be different from my kind. To live among Dwellers, to renounce . . ."

Words died on his tongue as futility washed over him. No matter what he did, no matter where he went, people always seemed to get hurt.

"Cloak," Broke called out. "You mean something to us. Not only me and Kelly, but all of RAF, too."

When concerning Rotiart, this was stretching it beyond credulity.

Cloak heard the words, but tromped off to his thread, feeling as if he was nothing more than a magnet for misery. The two watched him go.

"He'll be fine." Broken said, confidently.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2014, 09:54:15 PM

Let's finish this book up, shall we?

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fits and Clean-Up

"Mistress," said Mega-Maul, a little too sycophantically, as Ravager rolled his eyes at.this.dispay of overt overacting. "How did it -- ack!"

Though being taller, Malice easily and roughly pulled him down to her eye level. She glared into his modified eyes, and growled, "Shut. Up."

She released him and strolled brazenly pased him, as Ravager shot him a gloating look and Mega-Maul.scowled back in response. Malice was seemingly oblivious to this exchange, as she continued, "If you value your life, that is, Mega-Maul."

Malice was able to swagger here, because she had the confidence of her lackeys' total and unwavering loyalty, whereas she wasn't required to return such loyalty, as proven with the fates of the Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination and Itellsya/Rumor.

"This scheme may not have panned out," Malice muttered, more to herself than her useless underlings. "But where one scheme, one plan, fails, the prudent schemer always has another to take its place."

Mega-Maul said nothing, but nonetheless paid rapt attention to his mistress, maybe discovering a clue to free him from the shackles of his hastily-made vow, and Ravager simply looked bored, aloof, and indifferent. Malice never looked back at them, or paid them any bit of mind. If not for the vow, Mega-Maul would have attacked her for being so dismissive to him, relegating him as minion rather than dictator.

Not to mention that Mega-Maul was becoming more and more suspicious that Malice knew the fate of his brethren, the ones trapped in the dehydrated spheres.

***

"It looks like Malice really finished the job," Parker said, looking around the burned out husk of the Arachnoid nest. Abby, Yarin, Helen, Aquilai, and Gaz were with him.

"Some date," Helen grumbled.

"What was that, Helen?" Parker asked, an inkling of what she said, but far enough away for plausible deniability.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."

"Oh, cheer up, Hel," Gaz said, bracingly. "This won't take long."

"Thank god," Abby said. "I never liked these Arachnoids."

"No life signs," Parker said, as an Arachnoid egg quivered by his foot. The camouflage was.perfect, as none could see it, and Parker's sensory equipment was not tuned to neonatal life, a small oversight on his part.

Quiver . . . quiver . . .

"So," Aquilai said, with a quick surveying of his surroundings. "We done here?"

Shake . . . shake . . .

"I think so," Yarin said.

Shake . . . shak-- SQUISH!!

"UGH!"

"Parker, you're in armor." Abby said, recoiling from the crushed egg, the laet survivor of Malice's Arachnoid massacre was now dead.

"But I had just polished it!" Parker moaned. Helen allowed herself a small smile.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 21, 2014, 01:45:46 AM

That was an excellent book. :D

I'll put up the PDF tomorrow, seeing as I just woke up and I'll have to study the whole day.

EDIT: bit of multitasking, got the PDF up. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2014, 05:29:20 PM

Thanks, my Chronicler. ;)

Anyway, I'm still planning my way through the "Underseen's Brothers" book, and I like how it's turning out. Can't say anything more -- or Saffa'd hurt me.

BOOK LXII:
Personal Tissues
Chapter One:
The Magical Forum Tour

"Cruisin' on down RAF Street
You're relaxed and feelin' good.
Next thing that you know you're seein'
Goomba in the neighborhood!
Surfin' on a sound wave,
Swingin' through the stars,
Take a left at your intestine,
Take your second right past Mars!
On the Magic Forum Tour!
Navigate a nostril!
Climb into the Magic Forum Tour,
See the plankton, too,
On our Magic Forum Tour.
Raft a river of lava,
On the Magic Forum Tour.
Such a fine thing to do!
So strap your bones right to the seat.
Come on in and don't be shy —
Just to make your day complete,
You might get baked into a pie!
On the Magic Forum Tour . . .
Step inside — it's a wilder ride!
Come on — ride on the Magic Forum Tour!"

Cloak looked thoroughly disgruntled. The Tour ruined his meditation, granted he wasn't in his usual spot.

"Abby, is that really necessary?" Cloak said, not bothering to hide his irritation.

"Oh, c'mon, Cloak smile for the kiddies!"

There indeed were five young kids around Abby, with their parent or guardian nearby. Cloak did not oblige, instead voiced concern.

"Besides overhyping this tour, dontcha think this is a security risk?"

"They're kids, Cloak!" Abby said exasperatedly. There was a strange Nymphadora Tonks and Alastor Moody vibe between the two.

"They look like kids," Cloak corrected. "Doesn't mean they are."

"Gonna yell 'constant vigilance' now?" Abby teased.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 21, 2014, 10:40:00 PM

Ooh, again, never trust kids.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2014, 10:41:43 PM

Oh, they'll never show up again.

. . .

OR WILL THEY???

No, seriously, they won't.

Oh, yes, you'd be wanting a chapter. Here it is, then.

CHAPTER TWO:
Discarded and Overlooked

A bitter, disheveled man in a wrinkled suit with curly hair the color of partially rusted iron. He walked with a cane that seemed to be somewhere between an ordinary cane, Carl Fredricksen's cane and Maleficent's staff -- a particularly hideous accessory. The man's face was broad and lined, with a weak chin. His eyes were bloodshot and gray, with a tinge of vengeful desire lurking behind them. Of all the possible adjectives that could be used to describe this man, this Clyde Skinner, "stable" would not be one of them.

He was at the old circus area, which was far more dilapidated than when any of the RAFians had been here last. The middle-aged man was newly homelss and jobless, his ex-wife taking his daughter and his house, and a hotshot young punk stealing his desk job. He was powerless to do anything about it, and became embittered by it. Hence why he was here, he was looking for a place to dwell reasonably.

He had no knowledge of the previous goings on, or how this dead circus shell had a rather uncomfortable close proximity to Malice's secret lair. It was also a favorite place for teenagers to hang out to do . . . well, to do not-quite-legal stuff, as well as a bastion for people in rather disreputable professions to congregate and do what they call "business".

Even if he had, Ivan wouldn't have cared about it. He didn't care if they decided to shoot and kill . . . what's this? A book? But how can that it be in such a reasonably-good condition, such as it is, with only slight tears to show for it? The book certainly looked ancient.

He reached out to touch it, but pulled his hands back when he noticed the subtle brackish aura around it. It was a book of pure evil, unfiltered and unadulterated evil. It used to host the Bibliophaetos's spirit, before she managed to free herself.

Eventually, curiosity won out over caution, and Skinner touched the boom, and read what had appeared there in magic ink. It not only conferred a power unto Skinner, but an old obsession from the remnants of the former proprietor of the book's prisoner.

Then the book flopped, apparently lifeless, pitiless and forgotten once more. Skinner had no idea the power conferred to him, nor did he realize a power had even been conferred. The book flopped open again, and this time the text appeared in words he could understand. In English, but not very straightforward English.

"Shuck off the unwanted.
Take what is taken for granted.
Don the new.
Be anew for a time."

It wasn't any clearer than when it was in that strange foreign script. But Skinner felt a strange, but incredibly pleasing, tingle throughout the whole of his being . . . but why? His plight with his joblessness, homelessness, and his ex and daughter were quickly and creepily forgotten, as he felt a need for revenge, but at one who had done nothing to him.

He wanted vengeance on Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 22, 2014, 02:59:59 AM

Huh. I was looking a bit confused at first, because your sig said Chapter 3. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2014, 05:07:44 AM

I was tired, I guess. I am sure I typed "2", but my kindle fire must've autocorrected it, or something. The damn thing can be a pain in the friggin' neck.

:edit: case in friggin' point when I had to shut the goddamn thing down just so I could type.

:edit: Okay, I finished planning out Book CCCX ("Underseen's Brothers"), and I must say that I rather like Underseen's progression, not to mention I think his backstory is interesting. Book CCCXI ("Dark Hearts") will be an interesting, if not dark, book that will see the return of a villain, if briefly.

CHAPTER THREE:
Fainting Felines

Meanwhile, while this power conferring was happening, miles away it was felt. FuBar, Blade, Kitsu -- all the feline RAFians slumped into unconsciousness. All except Cloak, who was far too obstinate succumb to unconsciousness. But he felt it, the scope and power of this evil. He even suspected what it could be.

But it wasn't possible. They had destroy that book of pure evil. Hadn't they? So, this couldn't be possible. It was unfathomable. But yet . . . the sense of looming evil . . . there was no mistaking that.

"What's up?" Dino said, clearly alarmed. She had stomped her way to them, narrowly missing Goom, nearly giving him heart failure. That is, if Goombas, in fact, possessed hearts. "What happened?"

"Something serious," Cloak gulped out.

"Worse than the Arachnoids?" Abby asked, hiding a shutter.

"Worse than Malice?" Super Nate asked.

"Worse than an 'F' in Chemistry?" Saffa said, clearly with an exam on the brain.

Cloak looked at all assembled, and at the prone forms of the other feline RAFians. If one did not take the time to watch intently for breathing, it would be easy to mistake them for dead. It was up to him to say it.

"It has been found," he lamented.

"What has been found?" Underseen asked.

"The book, Bibliophaetos's book!" the tiger Realm Walker answered with a deep breath.

"That can't be," Gaz said, seemingly hoping that if she said it out loud it would be so.

"It is," Cloak said.

"But why now?" Phoenix said. "It's been months since the fight with Bibliophaetos."

"There are no accidents," Blaze intoned.

"Don't get all existential on us, Blaze." Goom said.

"What?"

"Never mind."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2014, 09:57:02 PM

Okay, new chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
In Their Skin

Ivan had walked away leaving the book behind. There wasn't anything worthwhile written in it anyway, or so he believed. He did not realize that it was more special than he believed, had a more interesting history than he was aware of.

He moved to exit, as he thought how he could get close to Cloak, to kill him (apparently, perfectly unaware that such a task is an impossible one for a Realm Dweller). He couldn't be direct about it, he would never be able to get close. He did not know about the new power that was granted to him.

"Hey! Watch it," said a teen, with a voice that clearly indicated that he was high or drunk, "ya old geezer."

"Watch how you speak to me, young man." Ivan growled.

Suddenly, this kid was up on his feet -- an angry drunk, apparently. The boy looked like someone between Greg Cipes and Justin Whalen who is trying very hard to look like Justin Bieber for some reason*. He had a flop of hair the color of a perfectly-cooked turkey, with pasty white skin beneath tan lines. He wore clothing that tended to indicate that he dressed pell-mell this morning. He was alone, and it was a very bad thing to be right now.

But, making mistakes seemed to be what this intelligence-deficient high school truant was quite good at, and never learning from them also seemed to be quite a forte. This was proven when he made his very last mistake, he got into Ivan's face.

Now, while this may not seem very grievous of an offense at first glance, this led Ivan to discover the evil power it conferred to him.

"Whatcha gonna do about, Cryptkeeper?"

Ivan place his hand on the teen's face, with the intention of pushing it off. What happened was that the teen's skin slid unnaturally beneath Ivan's fingers, and the teen's skin also slid unnaturally over his own face until the two parted company. He fell to the ground. No longer alive, though his skin looked live.

Ivan toom a step back, surprised at his unintentional pulling of the teen's skin. He was aghast for a moment or two, but the more he looked at the skin, the more it looked . . . wearable. His conscience was soon overpowered by curiosity and smidge of greed.

He went over to the boy, and fully separated the skin with the muscle and sinew. They separated far easier than normal, though with gross squishing sounds. He was a bit giddy at his thought of pulling him on, though thinking it would be as obvious as a Bug wearing an Edgar-suit.

With more gross squishing, and with some odd cracking sounds joining it, he was fully enveloped in the skin. Then he looked at his reflection in the nearest reflective mirror, albeit cracked and broken, and found, to his delight, that he looked exactly as the teen did a few minutes ago.

"Whoa, so cool." he said. He was shocked again with delight, as he spoke with a perfect, but innate, impersonation of this teen, this Harry Aloysius Gulliver. Granted, Ivan didn't know the teen's name, or anything about his history, other than the exchange the two of them just had.

But Ivan had gotten careless as he left, as he had discarded the muscle and sinew and all Harry's vital organs, but it was still recognisable as a human body. This power also preserves that "skin filler" for a time longer than normal decomposition would have set in.

---
*Based on a news article I read about some 33-year-old man in Philadelphia, I think it was, aho was having plastic surgeries to look more like the Bieber brat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 24, 2014, 02:31:24 AM

That. Is disgusting. :sick:

Although I'm definitely passing chemistry. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2014, 07:56:02 PM

I meant it as a fear of getting an "F" on an exam.

• BOOK CCCXXXIV: "Well, That's A Mood Changer" -- A familiar villian uses biologically engineered neural parasites imbued with the power of the Mood Stones on RAF.

I'll post a new chapter when I've the energy . . .

CHAPTER FIVE:
Learning Limitations

Enthralled at his new identity and form, an identity and form he stole from a stupidly loudmouthed teenager. So estatic was he at the seeming loss of his "geezer" status, he forgot several important things. His daughter for one, though his ex-wife wasn't helping matters either by demonizing him to her, and she bought it hook, line and sinker. But Ivan . . . he no longer cared. He was too busy reveling in this newfound power.

He had not forgotten the impossible obsession to assassinate Cloak that was conferred to him with his powers. Not forgotten, just placed on the back burner for the moment. Something that he'll come back to.later after he's had his fun with this perverse form of identity theft. But Ivan never considered that this power might come with limitations, as he attended the nearest high school (which was actually just a crap shoot, as he held none of Harry's memories, and he just really lucked out on that account).

He realized the limitation qlmost immediately when his "scalp" began to bleed. He tried to pass it off to the curious passersby as nothing, saying, "Oh, you know how the scalp bleeds."

Several muttered in stage whispers, "He's high again," or "He's been drinking again," or some derivative of those two, usually prudent and correct, assumptions. How could they know that they were just looking upon a pathetic middle-aged man wearing a skin of a high schooler that inexplicably made him look like the person in life, like their double, when, by all accounts, it should look like a cheap, low-quality costume character entertainer knockoff.

Now, Ivan learned a severe drawback. These skins do not last forever, eight and a half hours tops, before they deteriorate rather quickly. This would not do, he would have to find another "disguise" -- another sign as to how these powers had warped his mind. These were no longer people to him, but mere disguises to don, naught but mere costumes to be put on. The fact that his victims lost their lives in the process meant nothing to him. He had lost all empathy for his own species, thereby losing his humanity.

He hurrried to the bathroom to check out the damage to the skin, and see if it was salvageable. He liked this skin, he didn't want to change just yet. But, looking in the mirror, he could see there was little choice. The skin color was graying ever so slightly, the texture becoming less realistic and more easily tearable. The hair color was becoming wispy, sparse, and duller in color. There was no way he would be able to continue with the act. He'd never get at Cloak.

Then someone, a thoroughly miserable-looking kid, came in and made a beeline for one of the urinals. Ivan and he were alone in the bathroom. He had brushed by Ivan with a angsty-sounding, "Sorry."

Ivan examined him covertly. The identity wasn't ideal, but this skin was pretty much done for . . . this "disguise" would have to do until he could find something better. Ivan didn't even realize that such thinking often led to addictions. That he was already addicted to this sinister form of identity theft.

The kid wore a shirt of polychromatic shirt of horizontal lines and blue jeans. The kid possessed a dark complexion, short-cropped black hair, a nondescript face, and unnaturally white teeth. He finished what he came her to do, and walked to the sink shoulders haunched forward, looking down as he washed his hands.

The hapless kid, an underclassman, became Ivan's replacement for Harry's skin, which he carelessly discarded, as it curled into decomposition. Ivan stowed the body in a locked stall, and then he put the skin on, over his damp suit again. Once again, he inexplicably resembled the kid, this Ronnie Alastor Sheldon, and spoke inexplicably with his voice, perfect mimicry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2014, 12:59:46 AM

C r e e p y

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2014, 09:48:48 AM

Eh, it's based off an episode of a series called, uh, I think it's called "Todd and the Book of Pure Evil", episode "Daddy Tissues". Granted, it is loosely based on it, as I've never seen the episode all the way through, and it's the only episode I've really seen of the series.

CHAPTER SIX:
Investigation Now!

The other feline RAFians were starting to come around, but the sense of an evil in the world had not abated totally. Cloak was getting antsy, pacing like a bored tiger in a cage. He felt like he was sitting around, doing nothing useful. He wasn't Rotiart -- he didn't enjoy shirking responsibilities, scapegoating others for his own ineptitudes.

"Cloak, you've got to calm down." Aquilai said, watching the Realm Walker with genuine concern.

Cloak acknowledged him with a look and deftly went back to his fretful pacing. A small rut in the earth began to form, but Cloak paid it no mind. Something was clearly going on, something was up. The nature of which Cloak couldn't possibly fathom, as the possibilities numbered in the billions, and Cloak's imagination was far too overactive on this venue.

"Cloak, all this stress you're putting on yourself is libel to give you an heart attack, or something," Saffa said, taking her nose out of her textbook. She needed a break, anyway. "Think of your health."

"I am perfectly fine," Cloak said, repressively.

"Cloak, all this stress can't be good for you." Abby replied gently.

"Forget the Gateburst stress!" Cloak said, unintentionally allowing some of his frustrations to vent out. "Something very severe has happened, very obviously, and we're not doing anything about it! No, we're just sitting here, going about our lives as if it has no meaning for us! It could be the Time War with the Chronians and Chronosapiens again, for all we know!"

"What Time War?" Underseen said.

"What's Chronian?" Aquilai asked, simultaneously with Saffa.

"What's a Chronosapien?" Saff asked, simultaneously with Aquilai.

"Never you mind, that a story for a different time," Cloak said, quite serious and sincere. "The point is, that people could be dying. Dying as we persist in doing nothing."

Cloak made his decision -- if he overstepped boundaries, he would take the blame, the responsibility. But something had to be done.

"I'm going to investigate," Cloak said. "The book was in that old, long-abandoned circus last time. That'll be the first place I'll investigate."

Cloak turned to leave, but a hand shot out and grasped him on the shoulder, or tried to at least. Aquilai said, "And who will watch your back? I'm going too."

Saffa shut her textbook with a snappish movement. "I'm coming, as well. I need some time away from studying."

"Me too!" Abby said.

"I'm coming!" Underseen said.

***

A shriek seared the air a few moments later. Saffa had found Harry's skeletal remains. But it was very clear it wasn't a natural death as the bones were buried in ashy decomposition. It was a truly revolting sight.

"What could possibly do this?" Aquilai said, going pale in the face.

"I have no idea." Cloak answered, truthfully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2014, 11:44:48 AM

Wait! The Time War got erased from history, didn't it? From the Memoirs book of the same name.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2014, 12:37:20 PM

Cloak was just grasping at straws when he said that in the narrative, while it technically never happened, he/I still have memory of it, as does Shadow and the Celestialsapiens. But no one else does. It will not come into play, it was just a reference.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
New Flesh

Ivan was learning so much about high school social cases, oddly something he never paid attention to when he was in high school. As Harry, he experienced the dismissive and condescension commonly associated with kids of his like -- not the stoners or the drunks or even drug-users, but by being an arrogant snotnose. He wasn't too sure he liked it, looking back. He was just enthralled to feel young again, not really aware of the avoidance some of the kids had around him.

As this kid, this "Ronnie", in his skin, he discovered quite easily why he was so miserable. He was a magnet for the school's bullies, as he was obviously an outsider, one who didn't mesh with the societal norms, apparently. Ivan wasn't sure he liked this identity much. Perhaps he should find a new one. One with influence, one who could lure the cloaked one here so that he could --

"Oh, look, it's Ronniekins!" came a voice of a deep baritone.

Ivan looked up, and saw the athletic, sporty Nolan Theodore Brody. He was Ronnie's primary bully, and the leader of the rest. Ivan honestly couldn't see why Nolan would bother being a bully. By all outward appearances, he had the perfect family, a plethora of friends and hangers-on, an opulent home, guaranteed scholarship . . . and yet, he needed to bully Ronnie to make himself feel better?

When Ivan did not react as Ronnie would normally -- when he would not cringe at his very first word -- Nolan took this as a sign of disrespect. And those that disrespected Nolan Brody needed to be dealt with. But the complication in this was that Ivan wasn't nearly as afraid of Nolan as Ronnie was, and Ivan hadn't any access to Ronnie's long-since-evaporated mind and memories. He did not know that he was acting out of character.

"You dare disrespect me?" Nolan growled. "Bow to me, worm!"

"Why?" Ivan said scornfully. It may have been Ronnie's voice, but it was clear that it wasn't Ronnie's word. The boy never stood up to Nolan before, not even when the two of them were alone, just like now.

"Why? Why?!" Nolan said, working himself into a state. "You are a worm. I am the lord and master of this school, you stupid little maggot!"

"You have some ego, boy." Ivan said, quite forgetting to speak like Ronnie. Oh, he spoke with his voice, but the words and inflection tended to indicate an older speaker. Even Nolan noticed this, but dismissed it as some trick to get Ronnie off the hook.

Ronnie seized Ivan by the face, intending to force his point home. But he was surprised when he actually ripped the boy's face off with a gross, squishy suction sound. Nolan, when he saw what he had done was looking at the face, mouth agape. He had yet to notice the middle-aged man's face now revealed beneath Ronnie's face.

"Oh," Ivan said, in his own voice, "boy, you're gonna wish you hadn't done that."

Few moments later, Nolan was rubbing his face, appearing to press it down. In the corner was a mound of material slowly disintegrating into nothingness. Then Nolan hefted a muscle and sinew body in a fireman's lift and stowed it away in the locked bathroom stall with the other. It was a very bad idea, but Ivan was sure thst even if they were found, they couldn't be identified.

He forgot about dental records and DNA, and such.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 26, 2014, 04:09:03 PM

What's with the middle names? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2014, 09:49:05 PM

Chalk it up to a bad habit on my part, as a writer.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
School Daze

Cloak had caught a scent. It was old and degraded though, so it was difficult to follow. But the four managed it just fine. They came upon a brick and cinder block school with corrugated metal awnings painted black. There was a circle drive right out front, with a parking lot right before it. The RAFians had come from the area where the fenced-in tennis courts were. The pavement here, between two of the four fenced-in tennis courts (which were divided in a "+" intersection of paved pathways), was a rusty red color.

"High school. Figures." Saffa said harshly.

Cloak stood up straight, allowing his cloak to sweep forward, hiding his arms, legs, and tail. He knew with certainty that the creature lurked there. He could Earthsight, but with students inside it would be impossible to distinguish which one was which, especially if this creature walked exactly like a human.

"Are we going to go in?" Abby said. "Or stand out here staring at it?"

"Wait," Aquilai said, practically, "Cloak, I think that you should wear that ID mask of yours."

The mask that projected an image of a black-haired man in his late twenties with metal-framed glasses and a slight beard. A super-realistic human image that wore a pale black shirt with black at the short sleeve cuffs and collar. It was a pragmatic decision to put it on, to be sure.

"If it was an elementary school, Aquilai, I might agree to it." Cloak said. "But this is a high school. The time for holding their hands and telling them humans are the only form of sentient life in existence is past. It will be time for them to grow up and learn that just because someone's different, doesn't mean they're evil."

"Whoa, Cloak," Saffa said, referring to Cloak's gruff, on-edge manner. "Where's this coming from?"

"Let's get going," Cloak said, brushing off the question. Truth was that Cloak had a suspicion about a few members of this school's staff and faculty had pro-Knight leanings. He had watched and reports about speciesism being taught, though no proof ever surfaced. Maybe he doing this might be just be asking for trouble -- but why do sentient nonhumans have to hide?

And here, the scent was stronger. So strong, he was baffled that the other three couldn't seem to smell anything. Yet, the closer they approached, the more they seemed to detect something was stinky, but only just.

Then four walked into the office. There was a rather lovely woman with blonde hair that came just beyond her shoulders. She had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She sat while the man behind her stood. He looked rather like if someone had decided to clone Danny DeVito and Mike O'Malley together in a single individual. His face held a slight cross expression, and the nicest explanation would be that's because all principals have such slightly miffed expressions.

Cloak knew better.

"May I help you?" the receptionist/secretary said. Her voice was one of polite interest, with no veiled hatred or condescension.

"We've come on RAFian business," Cloak said, the four flashing their Marks as if they were police badges tattoed on their hands.

"What," said the principal, with a high-pitched, snively, Principal Prickly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recess_(TV_series)) voice, "is the nature of this 'business'?"

He addressed Aquilai, refusing to acknowledge Cloak. The nicest way to say it was that this man was intimidated by Cloak. Of course, it wasn't true. The Realm Walker had expected this.

"We've tracked a creature to your school." Cloak said. "There is a scent here -- it is really astounding that you cannot smell it actually -- and we believe that it may mean that it may have hidden its victims here."

"What is this creature?" the principal said, dismissively. As if these RAFians were students that pulled a really not clever prank. Cloak resented that inflection.

"That is what we hope to determine." Aquilai said.

The principal eyed Abby and Saffa, saying, "Aren't you two a little too young to be RAFians?"

Cloak resented again the implication that Abby and Saffa were throwing their lives away. Abby and Saffa caught this insinuation as well, and were just as resentful.

"That's neither here or there," Aquilai said primly. Cloak had to admire how he kept his composure, though he knew Aquilai was as irritated as he was. "We shall begin our investigation now, I think."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 28, 2014, 03:05:23 PM

*Phineas and Ferb reference*

"Yes. Yes, we are."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2014, 06:26:28 PM

Aw, damn. And I had set that up perfectly for that reference, too, and forgot all about it.

CHAPTER NINE:
Suspect and Suspect

Outside the office, the RAFians stayed together. Cloak was well aware of the looks that he was being given, as he was the only nonhuman who looked nonhuman, though it was mostly because of his eight-foot stature, as his Cloak obscured his other nonhuman features, and his amber eyes. His feet also were not digigrade like ordinary tigers, but plantigrade -- meaning that his heel touched the ground.

Cloak found himself feeling surprisingly indifferent to the stares. It was actually better than back n the Nexus, where he would also have to deal with the jeering. To a lot of other Realm Walkers, choosing to live in a realm on a permanent basis alongside Realm Dwellers was akin to choosing to live with a menagerie of uncaged rats. It was little wonder why Cloak preferred the company of Dwellers than haughty, supercilious, arrogant elitists like that.

Cloak stopped, stock still. He was focusing. It was the scent again, it was fluctuating between being strong and stale. That was unusual. He immediately followed it, assuming that the others would follow him. They only realized that he had gone for a moment or two before catching up. There were a lot of students in this school, at least eight hundred by a modest estimate, and, as such, it was difficult to locate the scent, and easy to get separated.

But then the minute-warning bell sounded, and Cloak noticed that some girl students had decided to block the doorway. Apparently, teenage girl humans can be just as self-important as a lot of Realm Walkers. Cloak spied one male student push them roughly aside just so he could make it to class on time, and the girls had the audacity to be indignant at this.* But they were eventually told off by a teacher.

Cloak had noticed that hallways seem to desert after the final bell sounded for the last class of the day. He was sure that some students longed for the end-of-day bell to ring, but he didn't care for the nostalgia that was welling up inside him. The RAFian quartet eventually found themselves inside the boys bathroom.

"You know," Abby said, apprehensively at seeing how hygienic a boy bathroom could be, "I don't think Saffa and I can go in there."

Saffa nodded a little too vigorously.

"Very well, then," Cloak said, who had no qualms about entering, "you two stand out here and bar entry until we had completed this leg of the investigation."

"Gladly," Saffa said. Clearly she could smell some of the nastiness in the bathroom. After all, sometimes they don't -- well, you know what? That's too much information.

"This stall's locked -- and it stinks to high heavens." Aquilai said. "There doesn't appear to be a lock, though."

"Doesn't mean there isn't one." Cloak said, knowingly.

Aquilai retched. "Why could they clean up whatever was in there?"

"How can they do that without a keyhole to unlock the door?" Cloak countered. "But there's another way."

Cloak had only intended to unlock the door. Honestly! Honestly, he did!

But the door popped off like the top of a can of soup, far easier than Cloak had expected. Toppled out of the stall were three skinless bodies in various states of decomposition. It was not an easy thing to look at, and was the source of the stink. Though the decomposition there were no, uh, "juicy" or gooey bits, it seemed to go directly from corpse to dirt.

"What do you think?" Cloak said.

"That this is disturbing beyond all reason."

"No, what could have skinned these guys." Cloak said, with a sad gesture to the bodies. How did they know that they were guys? Well, let's just say it was a bit obvious and not all of them were fully decomposed.

"Can't be Raxacoricofallapato rians," Aquilai said, the academic in him taking over. "Too messy, too sloppy. Perhaps the Foamasi, but they aren't this careless."

Cloak nodded. "Not Warwolves, either. There wouldn't be anything left over to be discovered. Not hags, they would have eaten all this."

They would have continued had they not heard Saffa scream angrily, "I SAID NO, PAL!!"

The two looked up from their examinations and ruminations, alarmed. This was escalated with the scream.

---
*True story actually. Happened at my high school (eleven years or so ago).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 28, 2014, 08:10:13 PM

The third-floor bathrooms at my girls' hostel could smell just as bad as a railway station on an off day. Oh Gods.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on May 29, 2014, 01:49:53 AM

Hmmm. . . Well I must be fairly lucky. The HS bathroom normally smells okay, for a bathroom, anyways. (But either way I don't have to lay eyes on it until after summer. Woot!)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2014, 07:04:16 AM

Abby, you haven't seen a guys' bathroom from the inside, have you? In my experience as a housekeeper, guys -- especially athletes -- tend to be a whole lot messier than girls. Now, that isn't to say that there aren't girls who are messy, but they seem to be the minority at this college.

Okay, new chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Chase Lost

When the two left the bathroom, which sounded a whole lot weirder than it was, they discovered and Buglizard, which just barely fit in the hallway, and intangible Psychloleopterran. The two had morphed. Why had the two morphed? If not for its intangibilty, the Psychloleopterran would have caused some property damage.

"Demorph, you two. You think this is low profile?" Cloak asked.

The two forms began to crinkle and crumble into two female human forms. Fortunately the had the foresight to wear their morphing suits.

"What happened?" Aquilai asked.

"A guy came to this bathroom, and proceeded to try to go in." Abby said, while Saffa looked thoroughly creeped out. That, Cloak felt, indicated the seriousness of the situation, as Saffa doesn't get creeped out too easily. "We stopped him. He was irritatingly arrogant, saying that he was allowed to go in. When Saffa told him that he was to use another bathroom, as an official RAFian investigation was going on inside, he sneered that he was the student president or some other such nonsense. He tried to go in again, and we stopped him. Then, I swear, he tried to come on to us, and Saffa wasn't having any of that."

"I assumed that he was drunk."

"I would have assumed he would have been in class." Aquilai said.

"I'm willing to venture a guess that he didn't have a hall pass," Cloak said, thoughtfully.

"Didn't appear so." Saffa said. "Anyway, I slapped him instinctively. But when I did . . . his . . . his face . . ."

"Yes?" Cloak prompted as gently as he could.

"His face shifted," Abby supplied. "Not like it shifted shape, like Underseen or Ash, but like the skin slid over his face. As if the skin wasn't attached. He tried to act as if it didn't happen, but Saffa morphed to her Psycholeopterran morph, because she wanted desperately to be intangible I guess."

"And why did you morph into a Buglizard?" Aquilai asked.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Abby answered. "And apparently, the gas Buglizards produce, cause deterioration in the skin of . . . of whatever that thing was."

"There's still time to catch it," Cloak said. But then the dismissal bell rang and the halls were flooded with students. It was impossible to get anywhere fast. "Gateburst."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 29, 2014, 08:40:08 AM

This is moving fast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2014, 04:57:17 PM

I have a little time. Just wish the nugget, the seed, of doubt will go away.

• Book CCCXXXV: "Pooka Party" -- The RAFians must face a Pooka, who can mind control children.
• Book CCCXXXVI: "Ivan's Gak" -- An enemy of Underseen's returns with a special ooze that can bring adults underneath his control and gives children the Peter Pan/Lord of the Flies syndrome.
• Book CCCXXXVII: "ARM" -- A militant, PETA-like group discover that the Pootang is caged up.
• Book CCCXXXVIII: "[censored]'s Secret" -- Delving a bit into the backstory of one of RAF's more dangerous enemies.

Remember all titles are subject to change. I don't think that I'm repeating myself in any of these plots. Saffa?

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
New Disguise

Ivan was shuffling around the school. The dismissal bell was a blessed distraction, but his skin was rapidly losing it's potency as a disguise. That lizard creature's gas . . . somehow it caused the skin to begin to deteriorate quicker. He didn't have time to ponder this. He needed a new disguise. He would never be able to fool the cloaked one with this disguise, he thought heartlessly.

He looked around, but now every movement caused some skin to tear or flake off, or lock of hair to fall out. He had to hurry, the skin already was losing it's life-like magic (for want of a more accurate term), revealing Ivan's true build of an out-of-shape middle-aged man. He was beginning to get desperate -- he couldn't just take a skin in the middle of the throng. That many eyes . . . he would be bound to be seen, thus ruining the entire purpose of the disguise.

He would have to get someone alone. And he couldn't afford to be picky. The crowd was thinning out. He thought angrily, Nooo!, desperately searching for a victim, to replace this skin of the class president. Then he saw a student, alone, facing the white-painted cinder block wall and on his knees, going though his ocre bookbag with black trim.

He had thick black glasses, reddish-blonde hair, blue eyes and braces. He wore a sky blue shirt with a stylized "D" on it: Dillon Chalmers, a skilled gamer. Dillon was quite a bit smaller and more meek than Ivan. The oblivious boy was so engrossed in checking whatever he had in this bag, he hadn't noticed that he was alone.

Or, at least, that he used to be alone.

***

To anyone who did not know what was up, it would have looked very odd seeing this fifteen-, sixteen-year-old kid checking himself out with no modesty. But the skinless corpse to flopped down to his right, inches away from his red hi-top would catch the attention first.

"Ah, this is a good disguise," Ivan muttered to himself, using Dillon's voice. Then he glanced down condescendingly at the corpse, feeling no remorse or sorrow for his actions. He cricked his neck, which had an unnatural squish sound that was beyond the range of hearing for most, if not all, humans -- or beings with human-level auditory senses, "Now, where to hide this thing. Hide it where they can't find it."

THUNK!

Ivan looked around and saw . . . the book? How'd it get here? Ivan didn't take it with him from the abandoned circus. He went to it picked it up, and saw something written on an otherwise blank book in black, spiky handwriting.

"For tracks to cover,
Turn this book over.
Aim precise and truly,
And evidence will be duly
Estinguished within the ages,
Bound inside these pages."

Ivan believed he understood what it was getting at, and turned the book over so that the pages faced the corpse. Black and purple light short from the evil book and absorbed the boy's corpse, leaving no trace, except for a faint scorch mark.

Then Ivan looked at the page again, to find different text had replaced the previous one. Ivan just assumed he turned a page without realizing it.

"Be here for you, I shall.
For I am forever your pal.
Should have need of me,
Just think of me,
And there I'll be."

It was really sad that Ivan wasn't perturbed by this at all. Suddenly, the book turned into that dark, evil energy, and the same energy engulfed Ivan in an aura. The book was absorbed into this, and soon the aura vanished. Though Ivan/Dillon's sclera had a black tint for a few minutes before returning to normal.

Ivan just shrugged and said, "Cool." Before going about Dillon's business, unaware that now he could somehow access Dillon's memories and mimic his behaviors.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 31, 2014, 04:27:12 AM

Nope, don't think you've rehashed anything. Interesting, censoring the name in that last title. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2014, 01:57:07 PM

K. Good.

Need a little writing therapy right now to get this friggin' doubt out of my mind. And to help me through my bitterness . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Not Over Yet

"He's here." Cloak said, as soon as the crowd thinned considerably.

"You can smell him?" Abby asked, as Saffa shuttered. Cloak could not blame her, for whatever this inhuman monster was, he was creepy indeed.

"No," Cloak said. "It's more like there's a spike in evil energy."

"How do you mean?" Aquilai asked.

"It's difficult to explain and elaborate on," Cloak answered. Then added as an afterthought, "Satisfactorily, that is."

"What now?" Saffa asked.

Cloak answered, "He's moving away now. Or the spike is fading. Either way we need to get a move if we're not to lose him."

Cloak thought, taking charge without realizing it. "Aquilai, go back to RAF. Get Wild, FuBar, Bladeh, Hunter -- anyone with a sharp sense of smell, or can morph something with a sharp sense of smell, like Noelle. Parker or Yarin probably has equipment to track this creature as well, so get them, too. We cannot do this by ourselves."

"Right," Aquilai nodded, acknowledging the plan, "but how will I find you?"

"Use the GPS on the communicators." Cloak said. "But be careful about it. We don't want anyone hacking or piggybacking the signals."

"And us, Cloak?" Abby said, indicating Saffa and herself.

"Panuncian morphs."

"You mean business, don't you?" Saffa commented.

"Yes," Cloak said. "Yes, I do."

***

The deterioration of the skin began a whole later than it normally should have. And it occured at a far slower pace. Ivan had no idea why, but he doesn't question it. He manages to fool Dillion's family about being Dillion, and the performance is, unfortunately, dead-on.

It takes seventeen hours for the first sign of deterioration to show up. Instead basically falling apart, the skin just merely loses some of its realism, the skin becoming more latex-like and fake-looking. But it is so gradual that it's generally unnoticed.

At first.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 31, 2014, 02:50:57 PM

And you used the reference here instead, lol.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2014, 02:54:28 PM

Feeling some anxiety, so . . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Lady or the Tiger

Seventeen hours had passed. The skin now was looking more and more like a spandex suit with a latex mask atop. With each progressing minute, the skin was approaching the realism of the Puttermans. He had to discard the skin, but he had to find a new one first.

Then he felt a slight wave of nausea and found himself holding the book of pure evil again, opened to a random page in the middle of the book. He read:

"when the disguise you must discard,
It's existence you must guard.
Trust these pages as you have,
Then relax and have a laugh.
Preserved will it be,
The disguise's effectiveness will duly
Be restored quite, quite magically."

Ivan set the book down, and reached behind his head and pulled off the skin, holding before the book, which translated the matter to energy and absorbed it within its pages. The skin was clearly restored by an illustrated image upon the page. Ivan shut the book and reflexively reabsorbed it into his being.

Ivan's suit was looking matted, unkempt, and dirty. He hadn't taken his suit off sense he had gotten this power. His hair was much the same way. He had washed the Dillion skin, as part of the real, the late, Dillion's daily routine. But hasn't washed his true skin for quite some time, causing most people to give him a wide birth and mistake him for an addict. Which, in a far more perbverse way, he was.

He had grown unaccustomed to not wearing a stolen skin in the seventeen uninterrupted, continuous hours of wearing Dillion's skin. Yet, his scheme to get the cloaked one seemed like more a side project than a primary goal lately. He was too keen on feeding this new addiction, and as such, sought out another skin, another identity, to wear.

He spotted some nameless girl who looked like Princess Peach, Princess Zelda, and Rosalina had been cloned into one young girl. A rather disturbingly lecherous smile appeared on the middle-aged man's face, unaware that he was being watched.

He stalked up to her, with an arrogant saunter and self-possessive swagger to his walk. He was going to take her skin. All it would require would be a touch, a swift movement. He had never wore a female skin before, and thought this might be interesting.

Just as he slowly reached out to touch her, to take her skin from her. To make his own disguise, to.make her identity his. . . . No much longer now . . . he approached her . . . closer . . .  closer . . .

He cried out, a sudden wall of earth and stone quickly separated the two. He could not get the skin now! He hadn't even made contanct!

"By the look on your face -- as well as uour general appearance -- I believe I am truly talking to the skinwalker, right?" said a figure in silhoutte from the roughly 9 AM sun. It was Cloak, and he appeared to be alone, but that didn't mean he was.

Ivan actually thought it was a name the cloaked on conferred upon him. He liked it.

"Yes, I'm Skinwalker," he said, snidely, not bothering to disguise his voice. When he got another skin, he wouldn't be using his voice, unless he wanted people to know that it was him. He was certain that he would get another skin. Cloak's eyes narrowed. He knew that "Skinwalker" had just given himself that name. "And now, if you don't mind, I have to find a skin to walk."

"What makes you think that I will permit that?" Cloak said, voice colder than the vacuum of space.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 01, 2014, 10:29:08 PM

Heh, I noticed he went from Skinner to Skinwalker. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2014, 01:34:21 PM

:paranoid: Uh, right. . . . Uh, planned that all along, I really did. :paranoid:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Painful Book

"What you permit?" Skinwalker echoed, with a hysterical tone that made him look and sound rather insane. "What makes you think that I have to care what you permit?"

Cloak said nothing, but stood before him, arms crossed parentally, with a cold, hard expression on his face. His cloak billowed slightly in the wind, as he Earthsighted (not taking his eyes off Ivan) that the lady had long since taken off, startled by the sudden wall of earth.

"You have any right!" Ivan screamed suddenly. Cloak did not flinch, he did not change his expression or react at all, it seemed. "You have no right to tell me to come here and tell me what to do, alien!"

Normally, it would have been a good tactic to use. Normally, it would get Cloak to question his own actions, his own interferences, in the lives of these Dwellers, as well as his friends. But Cloak's expression remained stony.

"You have no right to be here! You and that she-devil --"

Then Cloak recognized something in the words, between the lines.

"So," Cloak said, voice heavy and dark, "you survived, did you?"

This threw Skinwalker for a loop. Whatever he had been expected, it wasn't that. It was like Cloak wasn't even addressing him. His body almost ached -- he needed a new disguise soon, he decided. He needed to distract Cloak. Then his body ached again, but this time it felt different, as if someone was pulling at a blanket he was sharing.

"I had thought that we had destroyed you," Cloak said, "but you had managed to cling to a shred of life, haven't you?"

"What are you talking ab--" Skinwalker said, before doubling over in pain.

"I'm not talking to you, 'Skinwalker'," Cloak said. But he was looking at Skinwalker, though. "I am talking to her. I know you can hear me."

"Her?" Skinwalker grunted, through spasms of varying pain. "There is no her here! There is just you and me!"

"I see now." Cloak said. "You found a hapless mortal being, gave him one of most vile powers you could, and you've been using him to gather up enough energy as so to fully resurrect yourself. Skinwalker there is nothing but your pawn."

"I am no one's pawn!" Skinwalker said, indignant.

"Bibliophaetos, come out, and stop hiding in your pawn!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2014, 02:35:17 PM

I can almost visualize this happening.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2014, 02:39:49 PM

Only almost? ;) :P J/k.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Book Burning

"What?" Skinwalker said, utterly perplexed. "Who is Bibliopha -- ack!"

Still racked with pain, the dark aura appeared around Skinwalker, as if he had suddenly became a Shadow Pokemon. Then he vomited out the book of pure evil, whose pages opened up, and a face tried to manifest in the middle, where the pages joined together.

Skinwalker was shocked at this and grabbed at what appeared to be a wisp of darkness as he scuttled towards the earthen wall. Clearly, he was truly a pawn, as he had no knowledge of this creature. But Bibliophaetos failed to manifest herself -- she hadn't gained enough energy to be able to. As such, she couldn't communicate audibly. She also couldn't have simply possessed Skinwalker when she was inside, as that would have taken more energy than simply manifesting herself.

Cloak repeated this all back to her, and he saw words appear upon the pages, but could not and would not read them. But from the sheer amount, he could tell that she was ranting and monologuing. Cloak couldn't care less. But one thing remained, one thing was certain.

The book had to go.

Cloak opened up his palm, forced to use his least favorite element, and fired a concussive blast of flame at the book. Nothing happened. So . . . conventional means won't work. Cloak was so absorbed with dealing with Bibliophaetos's book, that he hadn't noticed that Skinwalker was no longer present, that he still retained his vile power.

Cloak glared down at the book, lying inert upon the ground, words being hastily scribbled on its . . . pages . . .

Cloak hit upon a notion. What if this evil book wasn't like just an ordinary book, even a spellbook? What if it behaved more like . . . like a Horcrux? By all the evidence offered, that would seem to be the logical case. In which case, then burning it would never work. But he didn't have basilisk venom with him, nor did he know anyone who did. Not even Broken, who usually keeps a store of magical items and potion ingredients for his various forms of magic. Cloak would not even dare to try and summon Fiendfyre, he was not that stupid.

Then what? What could destroy this book permanently?

Cloak looked down, pondering hard over this quandary. Doing this, he caught sight of his Mark. Of course. That answer was painfully obvious.

"We caught your signal flare," Saffa said, running up. She was clearly referring to the fire Cloak had tried to use on the book. He didn't correct her. "What's up?"

Abby, Underseen, Wild, Hunter, FuBar, and Bladeh arrived soon after.

"Unity Pulse the book," Cloak said, before deciding that further clarification was in order, "Bibliophaetos's book."

They did and it appeared to work, but it appeared to have been destroyed the first time, as well. . . .

"Uh, where's the skinwalker?" Hunter asked.

Cloak looked around. "Oh, Gateburst."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2014, 06:12:43 PM

'Nother chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Avoid and Evade

Skinwalker had escaped quickly. No one saw what was in that tendril of shadow that he picked up. It was a fully-restored skin of Dillion, which he quickly put on when he was far enough away. His body stopped aching, as he relished the new youth, the new vitality, that he felt. He let out a maliciously mirthful chuckle, which, of course, was in Dillion's voice.

"The foolish dullards will never find me now." he said, with Dillion's voice, but Skinwalker's tone, inflection, and words were radically different from what and how the real Dillion would say them. "Huh. I can't access his memories anymore."

It was true, Bibliophaetos's book provided him with that information. But Skinwalker wasn't stupid by any means, just a vile man who placed no value on human life, other than his own -- if you could still call him a human. He correctly surmised that it would only give him eight and a half hours, tops, with this skin before it wore out. A suspicion had crawled into his mind as well, maybe one or two of the cloaked one's cohorts may have seen the skin's face, distorted though it was, and could possibly recognize it.

That could be a problem. He needed to avoid and evade them at the moment, he thought, as he no longer desired revenge for now that he thought about it, the cloaked one had never done anything to him . . . but deny him a new skin.

But no matter, he would find one. One far more enjoyable to wear . . .

***

A pop star was having a raucous party at his manor. His name was Dustin Ross, and he was a singer that people either hated with a passion or loved and adored with equal emotion, there was no in-between on the subject. You either loved him or hated him. He didn't have very much commonsense, and usually went for as opulent a lifestyle as he could have.

But what his fans didn't know was that he was mostly a lip-syncher (passing off any irregularities or contradictions as the fact that he "recorded the lyrics in the studio beforehand, in the event he lost his voice",  which was a lie, of course, but he got away with it), though he did apparently write all his songs, though it was nothing to really brag about as the songs were rather simplistic and basic in terms of music.

Had he had more commonsense, he wouldn't have had such a large party with such lax security. A boy had snuck in, he was roughly Dustin's age, if maybe a year or two younger. He looked rather ratty, which apparently was "retro chic" to this particular demographic. No one noticed that this boy's skin was pale, yet jaundiced, and his hair whispy and frail.

Had Dustin had more commonsense, he would have realized that he just might be cornered in his overly opulent bathroom. That there were worse things than fans that looked to him as a demigod for some reason. But alas . . .

He didn't.

"Good evening, Mr. Ross," said "Dillion", hands behind his back as Dustin had come into his bathroom to use it.

"How'd you get in here?" Dustin demanded.

"You really shouldn't spread your security team so thin," Skinwalker said, "it was laughably easy. But that will change soon."

"You bet your --"

"Oh, such language." Skinwalker said, enjoying this cat-and-mouse banter a little too much. "What if I were truly this age?"

"What the h--"

"But never mind that," Skinwalker said, seizing the pop star's hand, "and give me some skin!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 03, 2014, 09:57:24 PM

Did the book get destroyed?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2014, 11:58:30 AM

*in a frustratingly enigmatic way* Perhaps, Saffa. Perhaps . . .

It certainly looks that way for now, and the in-narrative RAFians believe it to be destroyed. But! You never know . . .

[spoiler]But I'll go ahead and say that it has yet to appear in any books I've planned on from this one, but that doesn't mean it won't come back, you know. ;) Hence why the deliberate ambiguity.[/spoiler]

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Aware and Unaware

Skinwalker was enjoying Dustin's life immensely. He wasn't so careless about security as this idiot pop star was, in fact it was such a sudden change in his personality, people wondered where this paranoia came from, but none seemed to guess. "Dustin" didn't seem to be having as much parties as he used to, something rather unusual for this formerly out-of-control, wild teenager. It seemed like someone had flipped a switch, with "Dustin" becoming more miserly, more of withdrawn.

No one knew the truth, of course. That the beloved and hated pop star was nothing more than a skin worn by a middle-aged man who liked the success that he didn't earn nor deserve (though one could make the same argument for Dustin), who liked the abject opulence of this lifestyle. The problems with the law and whatnot were mere nuisances, and stopped completely when Dustin had his . . . his "changeover".

Normally, Skinwalker would have had only eight and a half hours to enjoy this, but he stumbled upon a complex chemical, a preservative, that not only prolonged the life of the skin with every treatment, but enabled Skinwalker to wear it longer and enabled him to somehow mimic the voice outside the skin. The skin required treatment about every three days for about two hours, with two hours to dry. The goop was kept in a large metal vat. During this time, "Dustin" demanded to be alone in his overlarge room, and he knew he had a limited supply.

He managed this for a month, becoming complacent with the routine. He actually took it for granted, unaware that people were noting the inconsistencies of Dustin's "old" personality of flaunting his wealth and "music", despite being a talentless hack, and his "new" conserving, hording personality. There even was a The Onion parody of Dustin Ross being a 51-year-old pedophile man in a rubbery, latex mask and wig (which some people went out of their way to dispute, apparently oblivious to the joke*), which was remarkably close to the truth, though radically off in some aspects. Skinwalker, if he even was aware of this parody, was indifferent to it, as only the most idiotic would lent any credence.

But he kept forgetting that he was supposed to be in hiding . . . and, as such, chose the completely wrong identity to do so, as the RAFians found out those months ago. Paparazzi were everywhere, and it was, frankily, a miracle that his secret wasn't exposed yet. It helped that the room he gave the skin its treatment in was windowless and dimly lit.

The tabloids were reporting The Onion's story as truth (rather truer than their version, actually). But as it was in an issue claiming that the Slender Man and Bigfoot had a baby . . . it was treated with the finest grain of salt.

Anyway, after "Dustin" got done lounging on his porch (or veranda, or whatever it was), he went inside. It was time to give his suit the last treatment, as his supply of the strange chemical goo was dwindling. He did not know if he could give it another treatment. He did not know if he would have enough.

He was perfectly unaware that he was being watched by a couple of pairs of amber eyes.

---
*Based on a true thing -- The Onion made a identical fictitious claim against Justin Bieber and there were people who actually believed it, or went to try to disprove it. I actually just discovered this today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 04, 2014, 12:12:07 PM

The offspring of Slender Man and Bigfoot would be the creepiest thing ever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2014, 05:41:35 PM

Perhaps.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Baiting the Skinwalker

Click!

Skinwalker flicked on the light to the room that the treatment tub for his skin suit. He had brought in a Kindle Fire to read a newspaper, which was exceedingly out-of-character for Dustin, who did not read if he didn't have to, which he had basically explained away as he was just going to use it as a tablet.

The fluorescent light buzzed and crackled benignly, and yet somewhat ominously. Skinwalker deftly ignored it, as he started to tug at the back of his head, revealing his true, somewhat coarser hair. He lifted lid on the tub, not noticing the small sticky note stuck to it flitter to the ground at his feet.

What he saw left him enraged. The chemical was gone! It was like the tub had been scrubbed clean. He couldn't give the skin its treatment! Without that goo, without its repeated treatment, this skin would decompose like all the others!

It was then he noticed the sticky note that had fluttered to the floor. The letters looked to be typewritten. He read it very quickly, as there were only two words:

We know.

He flipped it to the other side, and saw nothing. Who could possibly know about this? He told no one, insured no one knew! This was a secret room! Several defensive measures went into it. Who could have possibly got in? How would they know the security codes and the locations of the secret buttons? It was impossible!

Unless . . . unless it was them. But what could they do to him? He hadn't taken any new skins for weeks. He was Dustin for all this time, and he had been living peacefully and contentedly. He had not harmed anyone as Dustin, and even treated people in his employ better than the original Dustin did!

Skinwalker honestly believed that since his crimes happened so long ago that they were no longer applicable, which was wrong. He was still held responsible for it, the families of his victims (except Dustin's family, who remained unaware, although some were suspicious) had continued to look for their children, until they discovered their horribly mutated and skinless bodies. All except Dillion's family, who were futilely holding hope for his return. The RAFians hadn't any proof, and, unless a body is found to confirm their fears, they will continue to hope.

Skinwalker was perfectly aware of their plight, but did not care. He was becoming as heartless and evil as Bibliophaetos by the day, and he hadn't even noticed. Although she was not within him it seemed, her influence remained somewhat.

Then Skinwalker noticed a second note, stuck to the wall. He crossed to the note and read the single word on it, before taking off, still wearing Dustin's skin, and leaving his -- that is to say, Dustin's -- manor.

What was written on the note?

Run.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 04, 2014, 11:49:13 PM

Whaaaaaat?! :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2014, 07:40:44 AM

Oh, you'll find out, Saffa.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Cut to the Chase

Skinwalker had made it outside the manor's grounds, to the dark road beside it, which had a dark forest on his right side. He glanced all around, looking for the spies who had discovered his carefully covered-up secret.

He heard a low bellowing roar right behind him, a flash of blue and teeth. He did not wish to stick around anywhere near that thing. He ran in the opposite direction, and soon came across another frightening beast, that seemed almost skeletal to him in the dim light. He fled in the only direction that those two monsters weren't. He came along two more monsters that came in his path.

Unbeknowst to him, he was being herded.

The physical exertion, the fear-induced sweat, the lack of a recent goo treatment -- all factors of why the Dustin skin seemed to deteriorate quickly. Soon, his body ballooned out to match the frumpy middle-aged man who wore it, which somehow his clothing expanded to fit for some reason, albeit not comfortably. The skin began to pale, and raplidly lose realism and detail, becoming more of an obvious mask with attached bodysuit. Hair became white and wispy, looking more like melting cotton candy than hair.

Soon the skin was becoming more of a hindrance than help. He began to rip it off as he ran, with the pieces immediately curling up in to formless, crusty dust or ash. He felt the cool night air on his true face, and found it too cold, which wasn't because his face, body, and clothes were slick with goo. Hee was fine for a moment, but he knew he had to hide.

He would take another skin, he thought. He would have to. These spies hadn't left him any other choice! He had to. No one even remembered Ivan Skinner anymore, he was now Skinwalker. He did not want to be Ivan anymore.

Soon enough, he came to a clearing where there appeared to be no one in this dim light. He looked around, and saw forest on all sides. With a stab of fear, and a minor body ache (which he put down to his exhaustion), he realized he didn't know the way out of this forest. He did not know where he could get his next skin from.

Suddenly, the body ache became stronger, as he visibly winced from it. He looked around, hoping to divine a way out, when a huge wall of earth encircled him. When looked around again, light had come up and he saw his pursuers -- an akylotyrannus, a Tyrannopede, a Crabdozer, and a Rancor. The Tyrannopede was demorphing into Saffa, the Crabdozer was demorphing into Abby, and the Rancor was demorphing into Noelle.

"What the --" Ivan said.

"Very good of you to join us today, Skinwalker." Cloak said conversationally, as if talking about the weather. Cloak sat on an old tree stump, and beside him, on his left, on a surprisingly comfortable rock, sat AniDragon. To Cloak's right stood Underseen, who apparently couldn't quite decide what his hair should look like because it shifted from a blond bowl-cut, to red Bieber hair, to black Lucas-from-Earthbound hair.

"What do you want with me?" Ivan said.

<I should think that obvious,> Noelle said, as she and the other three joined Cloak, AniDragon, and Underseen.

"We cannot allow you to persist in stealing lives," Underseen said.

"We cannot permit you to harm another family," Abby added.

"We cannot let you kill another innocent." Cloak said.

"Are you going to kill me, then?" Ivan said, who had gotten over the surprise of this.

"No," Dino said, shaking her massive head. "Death will allow you to evade your responsibility for your crimes."

"So," Ivan said, perplexed, "what are you going to do?"

"I am going to bind your powers," AniDragon said. "I'm gonna take them away."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 05, 2014, 08:48:15 AM

And so it ends.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2014, 10:11:51 AM

There is still one more chapter to go, though.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Uh, What?

AniDragon began to approach Ivan, whose mouth opened in a snarl, but then doubled over in muted pain. AniDragon stopped her approach, tilting her head, face wearing a perflexed expression. The pain subsided somewhat, and Ivan stood up. His bloodshot eyes were that of a self-destructive addict, the one who refuses to believe that he needs help.

"D'ah!!" he cried out in a strained voice. He had not intended to utter anything at all, as he doubled over in overt and obvious pain.

AniDragon hesitated, standing as if rooted to the spot. The other RAFians, including Cloak, were the same. None knew if this was a ploy, but if it was, Ivan deserved an Oscar. The Rafians watched as Ivan collapsed into convulsions. If this was a ploy, then he was overselling it, big time.

Then the body began to go into convulsions in ways no human could simply convincingly act. This wasn't a ploy, apparently. The RAFians came to this conclusion around the same time, but there was little they could do about it. They could only watch in horror as Ivan's innards, wracked with excruciating pain, withered and melted away, leaving a pool of skin and clothing behind.

The RAFians were stunned and shocked into silence. Ivan was dead. Dead in one of the worse ways imaginable, and none of the RAFians, not even Cloak, could explain how this came to be. And it was one death that they could never forget.

***

"I can't say that I'm surprised," Yarin said. "Goom, Aquilai, and I examined that . . . goo, that you took from -- Skinwalker, was it? -- and we made a couple of startling discoveries."

The RAFians present at Ivan's death took his skin and destroyed it. It may be considered destroying what little evidence they had, but they could not risk it coming back to life, in a rather Oogie Boogie fashion. It was a bittersweet moment, with a heavy pall cast over it.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense, Yarin." Underseen said, dryly.

"Well, this goo --"

"Oh, just call it 'science goo' and be done with it." Saffa said crabbily. She apparently had struggled with sleep the previous night as well. What they had witnessed was certainly nightmare fuel.

"Fine. This science goo, then," Yarin said, blinking all six of his eyes in irritation. "Happy?"

"Not particularly."

Yarin chose to ignore that, and pressed forward. "This science goo is a most dangerous substance. It has been shown to possess slight, subtle mutagenic properties, which have yet to be fully investigated."

"You mean, it's Ooze?" Cloak asked. He was tormented by the nightmares, too, as if he didn't have enough nightmares already.

"No," Aquilai said, taking up the explanation. "Ooze is a near-instantaneous mutagen upon exposure, which is rather laughable scientifically, while this requires far longer exposure for any aftereffects to be seen."

"Not to mention, this is only one formula of this science goo," Goom added, "who knows if there aren't other 'recipes' for this chemical?"

A sense of foreboding foreshadowing followed this pronouncement, as abject silence greeted these words.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2014, 03:20:34 PM

Huh. Must be "modify-post" syndrome.

New nook -- d'ah! I mean, book!

BOOK LXIII:
MEMORY TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
CHAPTER ONE:
Whistle While You Train

Several days had since passed since the death of Ivan Skinner, i.e. Skinwalker, and the ones who witnessed it still saw it in their nightmares. It would not be easily forgotten, though many wished that it would be. It tended to make them a bit moody, but none were as brooding about it as Cloak was.

Cloak wandered aimlessly around the forum, cloak sweeping behind him like Batman's cape. He was brooding on the events once more, once again wondering if it was his mere presence in the realm was causing more harm than good. But he couldn't go back to the Nexus, he would be ostracized there, and his own mother would be in that camp as well, he was sure.

He didn't know why, but he decided to check out the training room, and found Demos in there, slaughtering Alloys*. And he was probably singing the most inappropriate tune:

"Just whistle while you train,
And cheerfully I can can tidy up the Alloy populace.
So, hum a merry tune.
It won't take long when there's a song to help you set the pace!
And as you ravage the room,
Imagine that the blade is someone that you love,
And soon you'll find you're killing to the tune!"

Then he spoke, "Oh, how I love the screams." Cloak had no idea what he was talking about, as the Alloys didn't scream. They didn't know pain, they couldn't feel it.

Demos continued:

"When hearts are high,
The time will fly,
So, I whistle while I train.
Just whistle while you train.
Put on that grin and start right in to whistle loud and long
Just hum a merry tune.
Just do your best,
And take a rest,
And sing yourself a song.
When there's too much to do,
Don't let it bother you, forget your troubles,
Try to be just like a cheerful RAF-a-dee!
And I whistle while I train.
Come on get smart, tune up and start
To whistle while you train!"

The Alloys were actually solidified holographic constructs, and dispersed after being defeated. So the only way to see how many were defeated was to look on the computer display in the control room where Cloak stood. So, Cloak glanced at the readings, and saw that Demos had racked up to a hundred or so defeated Alloys.

Blue was monitoring him -- a big safety rule about using the battle simulation room (affectionately called the Danger Room, after the one in X-Men) was that someone had to always be monitoring you, which is why no one wanted Rotiart to be the one monitoring, as he does a sloppy job of it. Cloak looked up and said, "He's having too much fun."

"Eh, he isn't hurting anyone." Blue shrugged.

"Yet." Cloak muttered. But the Cloak shook his head, wondering if that was just his paranoia talking.

---
*"Super Smash Bros. Melee" and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 06, 2014, 01:36:30 AM

Yep, it was modify-post syndrome, as well as time zones being out of sync. PDF coming in a while. here:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 06, 2014, 09:25:51 AM

Caught up on this. I've got a break. Good work, cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2014, 03:02:10 PM

Thanks.

CHAPTER TWO:
Mnemoraptors

In a long forgotten land, Malice travels. She seeks out minions to help her destroy the idiot Elements Master and his lackeys. Such power he possesses . . . yet he squanders it! He suppresses it, restricts it, resists it! How was it that he was permitted such power, when he clearly does not want it? Malice would (and has) killed for power.

She knows he professes that his strength comes fro. His friends -- a laughable concept, this friendship, is -- appear to care for him as well, the Gateburst bleeding hearts! They don't deserve power, the lot of them. They don't know how to handle it properly.

Malice continued to slough aimlessly through the boggy land, searching for her quarry. A quarry that may very well not exist. Mnemoraptors. Thieves of recollections, purloiners of past thoughts . . . they are said to be able to take memories because they are incapable of making their own. So they take the ones others have made.

Malice had unwittingly managed to wander and meander into their hive, which, usually was a very stupid thing to do, for any being possessed of memories. Malice had even managed to stumble upon the mnemoraptor queen!

No one who's seen the mnemoraptor queen had any memory of it. All suffered severe amnesia. The queen was massive and had the appearance of what would be the result of Dark Gaia and an Amperi got too frisky. Only it (mnemoraptors had no genders, the queen generated eggs via parthenogenesis) was marble white with light blue highlights and sky blue trim. Its many eyes were the color of pea soup -- if it was permitted to sit out for a couple of days.

The nonqueen mnemoraptors looked vastly different, and there weren't as many as you would expect. It took 500 years for them to hatch, and three times that long to mature. So they weren't a very populous species. Anyway, the nonqueens looked like Amperi with green eyes and defined human-like heads with no visible nose or mouths. Hundreds of tendrils trailed behind them as they floated, jellyfish-like around their queen. These were the appendages that they used to steal memories with.

Malice, using an energy technique that resembled a Destructo Disc, soon slayed the queen, assuming control of the existing seven mnemoraptors. She essentially, by that one act, killed off the entire species. Regular mnemoraptors were not sentient like their queens (and only barely at that), and loyalty was a foreign concept to them, though they usually followed whoever killed their previous queen, or who it chose as an heir. They do not and would not mourn, they do not know what mourning is, as they don't have memories of their own, they haven't any ethics.

Usually it would be another Mnemoraptor that became the new queen and would produce eggs after fifty years. They can live until they're slain, and won't die naturally -- because, they, themselves, aren't natural but supernatural.

And Malice now had them under rule, as she sat where the former queen had evaporated into nothingness. She decide to go ahead and sing a completely pointless song about it:

"Yeah!
Ohhh-ooohhh!
It was June,
No, it was September,
Wind blows,
The leaves fall.
You tore asunder,
You didn’t bawl.
That insult went on
Without correction.
It caused me strife,
But it’s a way to fame.
But, you should,
You should not doubt me.
You will remember my name!
Oh, my temper!
You will remember!
Temper!
One thing remains!
Oh, temper!
Not so warm and tender!
You will remember my name!
Your brain,
Your brain, you abandoned.
You were wrong,
Now bear the shame!
Like dead trees
In cold December,
Nothing but stupidity remain.
Oh, my temper!
You will remember!
Temper!
One thing remains!
Oh, temper!
Not so warm and tender!
You will remember my name!
Oh-woo-oh-woo!
Oh, my temper!
You will remember!
Temper!
One thing remains!
Oh, temper!
Not so warm and tender!
You will remember my name!
Yeah!
You will remember my name!"

The mnemoraptors didn't react in any way from the song. Malice somehow found this amusing, as she chuckled merrily, before sending the mnemoraptors to RAF. Which they obeyed . . . in their own time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 07, 2014, 12:24:03 AM

That was a most pointless song indeed :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2014, 04:35:02 PM

Yes, the early chapters of this book will be lousy with them. ;)

CHAPTER THREE:
They Come

The mnemoraptors, suddenly possessed of a determination, a hostility, an anger, not of their own, head rapidly to Earth from their distant land . . . or planet . . . it wasn't really clear, but that was the way that it was supposed to be. They were only seven strong, but they were still quite dangerous, as not even the strongest, most durable armor could protect someone from their mighty power to steal what should, by all accounts, be un-stealable.

They continued their arduous journey to Earth, making unusually good time. They didn't require a spacecraft to survive the vacuum of space. This was not unusual, as Ectonurites, Transylians, and possible other species were shown to be able to accomplish the same feat. Realm Walker might be capable of the same, but none had tested this. None had any interest in testing it.

Anyway, the seven mnemoraptors persisted to strive to get to one specific location,with nothing else on their simplistic minds. . . .

***

Cloak found himself brooding again, in his thread. His thread had its own amenities, like all the others, as it was taylor-made for his species needs. All the member threads were this way, from having private Yeerk Pools (as well as a communal one) for the Yeerk RAFians, all of whose hosts were voluntary or indifferent to infestation.

The only one Cloak recalled ever complaining about their threads was Rotiart, who expects skmething more opulent. Cloak never could figure out why someone would want opulence and excessive wealth, his thread was perfectly suited to him and his needs. The floor, ceiling, and was were drapped with the same material as his cloak, so he wasn't required to wear it in here.

Cloak sat on his wrought iron bed, with its navy blue sheets and comforter, the soft pillow within the navy blue pillowcase at the head. It hadn't been made. Cloak was rather bad when came to wanting to make his bed, though he could. He usually opted not to.

Anyway, he sat thinking about how his mother's line of thinking was when she kicked him out. He did not know why it came in the form of a song.

"My worst fear, I know it now.
I should have known this would happen.
Though he's MY child, he is defiant.
And he will know.
So, now it's clear what I must do.
I know too well what he'll become
For as long as I draw breath
I'll remember."

Cloak, in his late twenties when it happened, pictured his mother outright lying to his sister and neice when they inquired about his absence . . . possibly claiming something ludicrous like his aunt kidnapping him from a halfway house, or some other such fictitious nonsense that would fall apart immediately if anyone decided to do some fact-checking.*

"No turning back, what's done is done.
I have seen what he can do.
He can't be saved by me, by you.
It's too late.
I know the truth.
I will protect us.
No other way.
He is not one of us and never will be.
No more to say.
He is a loser and that won't change.
There's no other way.
I sent him away, and there he'll stay."

Cloak sat on the edge of his bed, allowing his tail to dangle wherever, his head in his hands. He took a deep sigh, and then he realized that he was permitting himself to wallow in self-pity.

No. No, that won't do. He has come too far to give into that.

He pulled himself up, standing on the right side of his bed, facing the wall that held the exterior door. He must not allow himself to fall to despair, lest he be preyed on by his lowest instincts. He had a family with his fellow RAFians. He was a contributing member of the community. He belonged.

Cloak's eyes widened.

It was so faint, so . . . so alien that he almost missed sensing it. A great danger, a great evil, was coming. But it felt . . . detatched somehow.

---
*Unfortunately, this is a true story -- my mom was telling people that my aunt kidnapped me from a halfway house. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 07, 2014, 04:39:54 PM

Sounds like Harry Potter and the Dursleys.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2014, 10:17:19 AM

Eh, I suppose.

Anyway --

[spoiler]Was that an accidental click? This is a bit of a spoiler.[spoiler]Well, okay, if you're sure. Come Book LXXIX ("RAFian Idol"), there will be a poll in this thread. Essentially, the readers will chose the winners of RAFian Idol. Well, of course, assuming you vote (and I will add an option for each song "chapter" as I post them). Eh, people may not like the book, but I'm looking forward to writing it. There is a nother spoiler -- [spoiler=Whatever you do, don't click!]Huh, that never works.

Horse, Blaze, and I will be the judges of RAFian Idol, and I probably gave too much away.[/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 08, 2014, 10:27:41 AM

You lost me there :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2014, 10:33:49 AM

Sorry, Saffa, I'm afraid I don't understand you.  :-\ :huh: Did you mean that I confused you?

CHAPTER FOUR:
Hey! That's Not Yours!!

By the time that Cloak had exited his thread, the mnemoraptors had already arrived at the forum. There were only seven, and the RAFians were not too intimidated. Mnemoraptors looked relatively harmless, nothing like the big bruisers that they usually had to face.

Yet, they gave Cloak an odd foreboding feeling. Why? Why did he sense this about them? They appeared to be nonsentient creatures . . . but that doesn't mean that they're incapable of evil acts. Although, if one had no concept of right or wrong, no complex thoughts, can they be evil?

"Cloak!" Gaz called, Laserbeak in gun mode -- he was a Targetmaster, after all -- aimed at these seemingly benign, yet hostile creatures. "Cloak, what are these things?"

Why did they expect him to know every species in pan-dimensional existence?

"What makes you think I know anymore than you?" Cloak countered moodily. He was in one of his cranky moods.

It was then that one of the Mnemoraptors had latched its tentacles onto Azguard's head with two others following suit with Sakki and Faerie. Cloak saw as minute images seemed to be sucked from their heads. Cloak came to a conclusion, and was about to say something, but Blue beat him to to it.

"They're sucking out their . . . their memories?" he said, though he couldn't shake the doubt and uncertainty from his voice.

The three mnemoraptors that had stolen the three RAFians' memories morphed and shapeshifted into floating human brains that were white as marble with sky blue crevices. The other four lurked around, almost lazily, almost as if they had forgotten why they had come.

The three RAFians fell, collapsed. Unmoving at first, but apparently, their bodies remembered enough to breathe and all the other vital stuff. Their eyes were closed, but their faces were blank. As if they had been sucked clean. Without their memories . . . without their experiences . . . would they even be the same people that they had been?

Point was they had to get to the infirmary. Now.

"Ash! Saffa! Blue!" Cloak called out, attempting to take control of the situation. What a time for the mods to be away on personal business! "Get those three to the infirmary and under the care of Kelly and Goom. Now!"

"Everyone else!" Parker said, coordinating with Cloak. "Do not get within range of those creatures! If you can use projects or are out of ammo, fall back! We do not need any more casualities!"

Then Cloak remembered the stories . . . the tales that heard or read before, though he could not remember where. Mnemoraptors, the Memory Thieves.

He had assumed that they were fictional, that they didn't exist. He really should have known better by now not to assume such a thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 08, 2014, 11:31:59 AM

Yes, yes, that's what I meant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2014, 05:27:02 PM

I guess you'll have to wait until we get there, to Book LXXIX, to see what I mean then. In the meantime, I've got four more book ideas. I hope I didn't rehash anything.

• Book CCCXXXIX: "Dial-A-Monster" -- An old enemy creates a Monstrotrix.
• Book CCCXL: "The Lazy Laser" -- The RAFians must cope with a laser beam that causes those affected to become lazy.
• Book CCCXLI: "Dial-A-Parasite" -- A device is reformatted into a Parasitrix.
• Book CCCXLII: "An Unlikely Army" -- The RAFians must deal with a old enemy who is amassing an army, and who has an enemy of his own, unknown to the RAFians.

Again, hopefully, these aren't rehashes. I will admit, it is tough not to run into that hazard with 342 book ideas. Granted, I could always turn these books into follow-ups of those books if they are rehashed . . .

New chapter . . . sorry for the delay.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Amnesiac Amenities

Cloak watched as Kelly tried to use her healing powers on the three. He knew that it wouldn't work -- once something is taken, they can't just spontaneously regrow precisly identical to the first. Even had her healing powers worked, Az, Faerie, and Sakki would not be the same people that they knew. Not really.

There might be documented accounts of people coming back from amnesia as exactly the same person, but Cloak doubted it. That's a soap opera cliche, and an overused one at that. There was only one solution, as far as he saw. But he didn't say it, because he didn't like it. But they had to act quickly.

"Kelly," Goom said. "I don't think it's going to work."

"You're right," Kelly said, ruefully. "I guess I've become accustomed to being able to heal anything. . . . Except Arachnoid venom."

"Maybe we can remind them of who they are," Goom said, somehow setting up a film projector. Cloak had given up asking how a Goomba could accomplish these things.

"Pootang shorts, RAFTA-shows,
Infinity bling, Horse's bros,
Horse is unwell, Cloak epic fails,
Whacking trolls, that monorail,
Mr. Guy, poorly paced,
Maul Demos makes,
Shadow's future, Ash's hubby,
Queen too proud, the Knight's too chubby,
Cloak worries about RAF today,
KitsuneMarie, E2, RAF is okay,
Hippies, Vegas, and Japan,
That boy band,
Jess murmurs, who croaks?
Someone's Buddhist, and Shadow pokes,
Horse blows Pootang away!
What else do I have to say?!
They'll never stop RAF.
Have no fears,
We've got stories for years.
Like Horse becomes a robot.
Maybe Pootang gets a cell phone.
Has Jack ever owned a bear?
Or how about a crazy RAFwedding?
Where something happens and
Doo doo doo doo doo.
Have no fears,
We've stories for years . . ."

Nothing. No recognition, nothing.

Cloak left, feeling that he bore witness enough. There was only one way to get their memories back, and Cloak will deal with his guilt later.

"Uncle, what happened?" Shadow had asked.

"Come, Shadow," Cloak said. "We need to get Yarin. We need to go to the SMB-3 Nebula."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2014, 10:35:16 AM

'Nother chapter. I need the stress-relief.

CHAPTER SIX:
No Other Choice

"The what nebula?" Shadow asked, as they approached Yarin and Abby.

"The SMB-3 Nebula." Cloak repeated, then addressed Yarin, "We need to go there, and we need you to pilot."

"Why?" the Nyac said with mild surprise.

"Because that is where Letheterra is rumored to be." Cloak said. He expounded on this when he met their blank faces, "The theoretical home of the mnemoraptors."

"You want to chase a rumor? I though Goom and Kelly were going to fix those three." Abby said.

"Why try to fix something that's not there?" Cloak said, rhetorically. "It's the only shot. We have to go retrieve the memories from those mnemoraptors."

"Uncle, Letheterra and the mnemoraptors are just a children's story," Shadow interjected.

"Shadow, Faerie, Sakki, and Azguard are in that condition because seven mnemoraptors came here and took their memories." Cloak said, primly. "If they exist, then, logic follows, so does Letheterra."

"While I cannot argue with that logic, Cloak, there is still one problem." Yarin said. "I do not know where this nebula is."

"I have the rough coordinates," Cloak said.

"You do realize how big space is, right?" Abby asked.

The question was rhetorical, but Cloak answered enimatically, "Bigger than you realize."

"In any case, if it does exist," Shadow said, still a little doubtful of her uncle's assertion, "I doubt it would be hard to miss. It is a nebula of bluish-red and bluish-green hues, after all."

"That's oddly specific," Abby noted, as they headed off to the ship, detailing the reason for their mission in a report to the mods.

***

They found the nebula easy enough, though it had the unmistakable air of intimidation, like anyone seeking it would be a fool. Like the nebula that the Pain Reliever sought out.

"See? I told ya," Shadow said, with a satisfied tone.

Cloak just smirked a bit, choosing not to remind her of how skeptical she was at the beginning. Though if he had, it would have been rather hypocritical of him.

"Okay -- you weren't kidding, Shadow." Abby said, with an appreciative whistle.

"Taking us in now," Yarin said.

"So Letheterra is the only planet in here, right?" Abby asked, as she realized this should have been a question she asked at the start.

Cloak and Shadow said nothing.

"God," Abby said, with slackened shoulders, "neither of you know for sure, do you?"

Again, they said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 09, 2014, 11:49:12 AM

Good to see you using the chapters for stress relief. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2014, 08:29:18 PM

It's when I'm not writing that there's a problem, usually.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
A Grass Land

"Still no change in their statuses," Abby reported, having contacted Goom.

"Don't expect to stay in contact with them, though. Remember we're going through a nebula. There is a strong chance that it will interfere with communications." Yarin said, conversationally.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know." Abby said, with a heavy sigh.

"And there's no guarantee that we'll reach it immediately. We might approach another planet instead." Cloak said, with arms folded imperiously.

"What?" Abby said.

Shadow looked sincerely perplexed. "You didn't think that Letheterra would be the only one did you?"

Abby didn't answer, though her face said it all. This was, in fact, her initial assumption. She cursed herself for being that shortsighted. But this exchange was quickly forgotten when they approached a planet with clouds, but it appeared to be all grassland.

"I'll take us in-atmosphere," Yarin said, matter-of-fact.

"It's all grass land?" Abby asked, skeptical. "What is this? 'Star Wars'?"

"I don't think this is Letheterra," Shadow said, as the looked around the landscape. There were a plethora of dog-sized tortoises ("grass tortoises"), suitcase-sized mushrooms ("chair toadstools"), and larger draconic turtles with spiked shells ("spiked shellheads"). And this was only a small snippet of the local wildlife -- and they were wildlife, as the highest level of sentience belonged to the spiked shellheads, and they were only semisentient, if that.

"It's more likely Faerumterra," Cloak noted.

"Do all the planets end in 'terra'?" Abby asked.

Cloak shrugged. "Maybe."

"And the planets are Digimon now." Abby sighed facetiously, shaking her head.

"Yarin, take us back out into orbit. The mnemoraptors aren't here." Cloak said.

"But we don't know that for sure." he argued.

"This is Faerumterra." Cloak said firmly. "They aren't here."

"What if there's a colony of them here? They obviously can survive space travel."

"According to the stories and legends, they breed very slowly," Shadow said, even bring out a book from her Cloak. She was just as much of an incurable bookworm, though she far more active than Cloak was at her age. "And they rarely, if ever, leave Letheterra."

"Then why did they?" Abby asked.

"I guess we'll find that out in due time as well." Cloak said, as they left atmosphere of Faerumterra.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 09, 2014, 10:38:32 PM

Abby sounds a bit like the kid in the back of the car going "Are we there yet?" ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2014, 10:07:28 AM

Well, I am kinda using her for an audience surrogate, at the moment. . . . ;)

• Book CCCXLIII: "Behind the Goomba" -- Delving into a possible backstory for Goom.

Remember all titles are subject to change.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Bone Dry Land

"They're waking up!" Kelly said, excitedly. Then looked visibly deflated when she saw that there was no flicker of recognization in their eyes. It was as if they just remembered to open their eyes, that their eyes could open.

"Don't take it so hard, Kelly." Goom said, soothingly. "They managed to remember this much. Perhaps, in time, they'll come to remember more."

"Not according to Cloak," Kelly said, miserably. She was starting to lament how useless her healing powers had seemed to become.

"Cloak would be the first person to tell you," Goom said, "that he can be wrong as easily as anyone else can be."

***

"And that's Tattooine." Abby was saying as swept down onto a desert planet.

"Looks more like Khoros (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Khoros), or Anur Khufos (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Anur_Khufos), or some mixture of the two." Cloak said, seriously.

"It's Deserterra," Shadow said, matter-of-fact.

A brief silence followed this pronouncement, as they observed skeletally thin turtles ("osteotortas"), animate cacti that reproduce like tapeworms ("animacacti" with "cacticephalus" sections), and sub-like radiation beasts ("solarcidals"). The dominate lifeform seemed to be a spiked-shell variant of osteotortas. All seemed to thrive in the arid environment, taking their water from their food. Only the spiked shell osteotortas seemed semisentient, nothing else did.

"Desert . . . terra." Abby said, slowly and skeptically. "You cannot be serious."

"What's wrong with Deserterra?" Shadow asked.

"It just sounds . . . weird."

"You know, 'Earth' might sound weird to aliens," Cloak pointed out benignly.

"I don't think the mnemoraptors would be here anyway," Yarin said, taking them off-planet. "I would think too arid for them."

Cloak nodded. "I concur."

"Onto the next planet then," Shadow said, returning to her book.

"This is gonna be a looooooong trip, isn't it?"

No one answered. It was a rhetorical question, after all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 10, 2014, 10:58:37 AM

It does sound weird. Strange mixture of English and Latin.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2014, 11:11:16 AM

Well, according to Clea Translations, Latin for "desert" is "desertum", and "land" is "terram".

CHAPTER NINE:
It's A Wet, Wet, Wet World

"Coming up to the next world," Yarin said, his four hands working expertly.

"How'd Leera get here?" Abby said incredulous. "And I thought their continent was destroyed."

"I will admit that it share some resemblance to Leera," Cloak said, as Yarin took them in-atmosphere for a closer look. "But it also bears some resemblance to Piscciss (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Piscciss)."

"To where?" Abby asked.

"The homeword of the Picciss Volann and the Picciss Premann. Aquatic species." Cloak elaborated thoughtfully.

"It's Aguatopia," Shadow said, looking up from the book, and saw the creatures that skimmed the surface. The man-sized, semisentient frogs ("hominiranas"), small red fish with yellow fins ("sharkleapers"), large red fish with white fins and small eyes ("berthas"), the bleached-white squids ("blinkays") and their offspring ("demiblinkays"), bioelectic jellyfish ("zappers"), and spiked-shelled Archerons ("spiked covershells"), and a menagerie more that they could not see. "It's beautiful."

"How does it stay together, though. The atmosphere is a rather thin layer." Yarin said. "There is just one continent the size of a tri-state area, and the core. Neither are attached. The atmosphere itself should be insufficient to hold everything together."

"The core exudes a powerful magnetic field supposedly," Shadow said, consulting her book. "Which work in a complex conjunction with the atmosphere to keep the place in one piece."

"What book is that?" Abby asked.

"A book of myths and such. It was a hatchday present from Uncle Cloaky when I was three." Shadow said.

"A little advanced, dontcha think, Cloak?" Abby asked sardonically.

"Shadow has always been smart for her age," Cloak said, with an almost noncommittal tone. "Besides, I assumed it was more of a storybook than anything factual at the time. I did not think these planets existed."

He paused prudently, before admitting, "I was wrong."

"So," Yarin said. "What is the likelihood that the mnemoraptors are here?"

"This is Aguatopia, not Letheterra." Shadow said.

"Besides, I think the mnemoraptors would be a fairly isolated species. Aguatopia has too much biodiversity. Almost on par to Earth." Cloak said.

"Okay, then." Yarin said, leaving the atmosphere of Aguatopia. "Onto the next world."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2014, 03:33:35 PM

New chapter, a shirt one, and conceiving a new book idea . . .

CHAPTER TEN:
World of Giants

"Next wor-- oh my!" Yarin yelped.

There would be a reason for that. The next world was gigantic, massive, and, well, big.

"There can't be anything living on that thing," Abby said. "It's the size of Jupiter!"

Shadow flipped a page in her book, finding the article she was looking for. "It is Gigantoterra."

"That's lovely," Abby said, as Yarin took them into the atmosphere. "I'm still shocked this planet looks so Earth-like, being so huge."

They had to duck, dodge, and barrell roll from the gigantortaves (slow, flying turtles with avian wings that appeared as if they were superglued to their shells, which were the size of two Priuses) and parafungi (Paragoomba-like creatures with avian wings and minute, black legs like Arachnoids, which were the size of three fire hydrants). Down upon the ground there were shellheads (turtles the size of a couple of Volkswagen vans) with uglier, angrier, more violent, spiked variants.

"Yarin, take us back up to orbit." Cloak said, voice silkily quiet. "Now!"

"But what if they are here?"

"Don't argue with me right now," Cloak said. "It's only a matter of time before the more hostile turtle giants, the ones with the spiked shells, decide to attack us. We cannot afford to get this ship damaged by them!"

"You underestimate my craftsmanship," Yarin sniffed haughtily. Cloak had had hurt the Nyac's pride by suggesting that his ship had limitations, and could not literally do everything. It was an irrational response from a member of a very rational species. "The hull is protected by a similar technology to the Code Avalon and --"

"Save the lecture, Brain Boy, and do as Cloak says!" Abby snapped. "We don't have time to linger about!"

"Besides," Shadow added, "this isn't Letheterra. It's Gigantoterra."

"And the mnemoraptors are far too small to have originated from such a planet." Cloak added. "Gigantoterra is clearly a place that places emphasis on the phrase 'bigger is better'."

"Oh, fine. We're leaving," Yarin said, one of the spikeshells jumped up and snapped at the ship. But they were well outside it's range within minutes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 11, 2014, 04:06:24 PM

We're going in circles...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2014, 07:17:41 AM

Dissatisfied?

Anyway, two new book ideas.

• Book CCCXLIV: "Horcrux Hunt" -- The RAFians must destroy twenty Horcuxes. But there is a catch.
• Book CCCXLV: "Dragon Dilemmas" -- Delving into Block's past, and just how he got frozen in that block of ice before he became a RAFian. . . .

Remember titles are subject to change. Let me know what you think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 12, 2014, 09:42:51 AM

That is a freaking lot of Horcruxes. Who is this murderous individual?! :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2014, 10:08:03 AM

Someone we haven't yet met in the series (i.e. current book), but has appeared before that book. He has a rivalry with a RAFian. That's all I can give without venturing into spoiler territory.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Sky High Boredom

Malice sat on the throne like chair where all the mnemoraptor queens sat, usually becoming rooted to the spot after "her" reign is secured. Malice would not grow rooted to the spot, as her Realm Walker physiology would not allow it. The seven currently existing mnemoraptors hovered around her, the newly brain-like ones being more aftive, actually possessing memories now, though not their own. They acted like they could remember, though unable to speak, but this was a ruse. The act of taking memories did not enable them to make their own.

Anyway, Malice sat with her head resting on her right palm, legs crossed. Her expression said it all. She was bored. She was aggitatedly, aggravatedly bored. The mnemoraptors were not scintillating conversationalists and she had sent both Ravager and Mega-Maul on an errand long before coming here, to the misty world of Letheterra.

"Oh, where are they?" she groused quietly to herself. The mnemoraptors only paid a minimal amount of attention to these irritated mutterings. Malice had obviously sent the mnemoraptors to RAF to steal the memories of the RAFians, and they mindlessly obeyed . . . er, eventually. They had returned, and Malice had expected swift action from the Dwellers and Cloak. She had expected them to come storming into the mnemoraptor palace . . .

No. No that was pushing believability beyond credulity. It wasn't a palace, though gleamed marble white and smooth, and full of soft blue light. The word "palace" inferred sentience, and these creatures had none. It was a hive. It was an opulent, comfortable sort of hive, but it was a hive nonetheless.

Malice remained disgruntled. It was as if Cloak and his Dweller friends neglected an implied invitation! Oh, how she seethed with this thought. "They should have been here by now!"

The mnemoraptors did not answer or respond. They were not the best sort of company.

***

"That could be it," Shadow said, as the came upon what appeared to be a planet of condensed clouds. There was no way of telling, just by looking at it, if there was a solid surface on it. "Or it could be Caeliterra. I'm not sure."

"We can go through the clouds and see, then," Yarin said.

"I feel like I'm on the Magic friggin' School Bus right now," Abby said, getting testy. Cloak surmised it was due to cabin fever. They plunged into the clouds seeing black, armored, flying beetles the size of football helmets, flying turtles the size of little red wagons, and fungi shaped like the Air Screw. But was a good while before they saw the barren core of the planet, being slightly smaller than Earth's moon.

At once, they knew this was Caeliterra and not Letheterra.

"Where is Letheterra?" Abby demanded. "It's like we're going around in circles!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2014, 07:50:44 PM

New chapter, I think. If my Kindle Fire decides to behave itself.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Hoth and Cold

"And now we're at Hoth!" Abby sighed, seeing the next planet. It was rather like Hoth or Io, but Earth-sized.

"Glacieterra, actually," Shadow corrected in a demurred way.

"Yeah," Abby said, in a remarkable imitation of Doug Walker, as her eyes narrowed and her voice flattened, " I don't care."

There were man-eating plants on the surface, bouncy ball-like penguins, albino turtles, and . . . Goombas? Cloak thought his eyes must have decieved him. Goombas, here? No, it must have been just a similar species, a product of convergent evolution. . . .

And yet . . .

"I don't think we need to stay here," Yarin said. How could he of all people not notice the Goomba? He works alongside Goom whenever there was an antidote needed, or a device to be built. "Let's move on, shall we?"

Maybe Cloak was getting himself overexcited. It was like discovering a new evolution, Mega or otherwise, of a Pokemon. Or laying eyes on a species no one else has ever seen before. He must have simply mistook a native species for a Goomba. After all, there was just that one . . .

Little did he know the truth. . . .

***

"I'm gonna make a call," Goom said, addressing Kelly.

"To whom, if I may ask?"

"Cloak's team in the G-- the SMB-3 Nebula." Goom said. Kelly eyed him shrewdly. She knew that he was hiding something. She could have called him on it, but settled for letting it go for now.

"But how will you get the signal through that nebula?" she asked instead.

"Oh, I have my tricks," Goom said vaguely and enigmatically. It sounded as if he was deflecting the question.

Kelly eyed him again, but said nothing as the Goomba left. Goom was thinking about his past, a past he had, insofar, shared with no one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 12, 2014, 09:47:50 PM

Oookay. This is an interesting new development.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2014, 10:54:57 PM

Just don't expect immediate resolution. Chances are you're gonna forget all about it before it becomes relevant again. >:D

Just like Maul's "siblings". Oh, I haven't forgotten about that . . . even though my readers might have. ;) >:D 8)

New chapter later, I've a meeting jn the morning and I best get to bed. Be sure to check my sig if there's a new chapter.

:edit:

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
But A Pipe Dream

"What is that?" Abby said.

"A mechanical planet of overlapping pipes," Yarin said.

"Or Pypevania," Shadow added.

"Thank you," Abby said, facepalming, "but I was to the communication signal thing."

"Goom?" Cloak asked.

"No," Yarin said, "the signal is coming from the planet. Here . . . let me open it. . . . Adjust the acoustic perimeters . . ."

"Let us introduce ourselves,
O people of this land."

"We are the Goomba Brothers."

"With sister close at hand."

"I bet you all are wondering
Who are this young unknown?
And why am I inheriting
The Pypevanian throne?"

"Yes, why?
Yes, why?
Oh, please, please tell us why!"

"The bottom of the family tree
Starts with Goomer; that is me.
I'm the cousin to the sister
Of son's niece's brother
Of the uncle's daughter's father
Of the nephew's sister's mother
And my grandpa's only cousin
Was the king's daughter's sibling,
But they're all gone --"

"So that is why . . ."

"I am now your king!"

"He is now our king!"

"Yes, I am now your king!
Repeat what I just said!"

"Repeat what I just said!"

"And let the pipes ring!"

"Old King Goomer's mania
Was for Pypevania!"

"So, good citizens, I pledge to you
I'll do the best that I can do
For honor, country and the king!
Let the pipes ring!"

"Let the pipes ring!"

"Let the pipes ring!"

"Let the pipes ring!"

"Wait -- Goombas?" Abby said. "I thought that they all lived in the Mushroom Kingdom."

"Doesn't mean that they aren't immigrants." Yarin said. "Perhaps they sought asylum from --"

"It doesn't matter right now." Cloak said.

"Cloak --" Abby said, in a reproachful sort of tone.

"Don't bother trying to dissuade me, Abby," Cloak said, sternly. "We have a mission that is foremost priority. We can debate and discuss the reprecussions of this find later. We must find Letheterra, and now."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2014, 07:42:23 PM

Currently planning out the chapters for Book CCCXIX ("Simply Skin Solutions") -- yes, I changed the title -- and I'm two-fifths of the way through it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Danger of Darkness

"That's weird," Abby said, with a tremulous tremble to her voice.

"You're not still on about that Goomba business, are you?" Cloak said, marshalling his self-control. Even he can succumb to cabin fever, it seemed.

"No!" Abby said, taking care to make it not sound like a sneer. "Look there. At that planet."

It was a dark circle, writhing with shadows and evil. No light penetrated its surface, no hope was present as it quickly burned and rotted away. No Blue Lantern would have survived on it, as it would immediately sap its power.

"Darkterra," Shadow identified. She possessed an aura of the purest sort of light, whereas the other three had light too, but theirs possessed a shadow of darkness. "Said to be the home of darkness, the birthplace of it. Said to be the residence of the one with the darkest heart, the most twisted soul."

"Then Malice has to be there," Cloak said, heavily. His eyes were narrowed.

"But the mnemoraptors would not," Shadow said. She didn't like the effect that this planet was exuding over the three. It didn't seem to affect her at all. But was scared her was how it affected her uncle. Realm Walkers tended to be resilient to most things, but darkness had existed before even the Realm Walkers. Their species were born from the darkness, giving the Nexus some light, other than the planets and landscape. "We have to get away from here."

Yarin didn't respond.

"Yarin! Get us away from that planet! Get us away from Darkterra!"

Again, it was as if the Nyac was incapable of hearing her.

"Yarin! Abby!" Shadow practically screamed, unaware that her aura of light was growing bigger. "Uncle . . ."

The power of the dark planet seemed to exude weaken seemingly. Shadow realized that it was the aura of light that encompassed her. It was keeping the power of the dark planet from her traveling companions, that Darkterra appeals to the darknesses within an individual's heart. Grasps onto it. Makes it grow. But her aura of light stopped that. It atrophied the growth of the darkness, causing it to wither and retreat.

It did not, however, purge the darkness. It still remained within them, but suppressed by their own light.

"Yarin, get us out of here. Out of the vicinity of Darkterra." Shadow said, fear still coursing through her.

The Nyac complied, though his arms shook a bit, afraid of his own darkness, made real by Darkterra.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 13, 2014, 10:01:23 PM

I like how each planet is having different anti-effects on each character's nerves.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2014, 04:30:36 PM

Well, not any longer . . .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Different Approaches

"There it is," Shadow said, pointing. She looked emotionally drained.

She had indicated a planet that whose atmosphere seemed to be consisted of nothing but mists. Perpetually foggy. Everlastingly eerie.

Yarin hesitated. "How deep is this atmosphere?"

"Your ship will be fine." Cloak said, correctly guessing the source of the apprehension.

"You said the same thing about Aquilai's TARDIS when we were dealing with the mutant MP-3 player!!" Yarin protested passionately. "And you remember what happened to that!"

Cloak really couldn't refute that. He had forgotten the precise events that occured at the particular point of time. However, they didn't have the time for this.

"Do we even have to go?" Abby asked. "No, seriously. Do we have to go down there? Goom called us, remember?* Sakki, Az and Faerie are conscious. They remember how to speak."

"Yes, I remember Abby." Cloak said. "But they don't remember any of their friends, any of their family. They don't remember their favorite food, or book, or movie. They don't remember their cultural etiquette. THEY DON'T REMEMBER THEIR NAMES. They don't remember who they are!"

"But that will come back!" Abby protested.

"No, it won't! Amnesia like this just doesn't automatically reverse itself. Without our memories, we lose that sense of self we have. We are not the people we are if we don't remember any of our experiences. We're just biologically the same -- nothing else is the same."

"Uncle, why do you feel so passionately about this?" Shadow asked, gently. There was a reason she had so much light in her.

Cloak's eyes darkened as he recalled the imprisonment in his head that his mother had forced upon him. He very nearly lost his identity, his sense of self, in that living situation. He was treated as essentially a punching bag, a doormat and a slave, all rolled up into one. And he knew that his mother didn't care, as long as she got what she wanted. And when she couldn't have it, whenever Cloak told her "no", she threw him away. Like yesterday's garbage.

"Uncle?"

But Cloak wasn't sure that Faith would want Shadow to know this. Faith still was in contact with there mother, who treated Faith more like a person than he. But then again . . . Faith did not really, truly realize how deep the abuse was. How, for that period of his life, he would have liked for nothing more but to have never waken up. To have died in his sleep. Neither Faith or Shadow knew about that. Or the fact that he wasn't allowed to be himself, that he had to hide himself, his emotions from everyone.

"U-Uncle?"

It was in RAf that he experienced true freedom, as silly as it may have sounded. He was allowed to speak his mind. He was allowed to be himself. It is why he bears his Mark proudly. It is why he would go to such lengths to help his friends, his surrogate family.

"Did I say something wrong, Uncle?"

She must not know. Not yet. Not until Faith gives the okay.

"It doesn't matter, Shadow," Cloak said, repressing his emotions. But Shadow was never a stupid girl, as such, she didn't push her luck. "Yarin, take us down to Letheterra's surface."

Yarin made to object and protest again. But Cloak raised his hand, and said, "Slowly and carefully then."

---
*Off-screen, unless I royally screwed up somewhere.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 15, 2014, 12:21:22 AM

Nah, don't think you did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2014, 11:39:33 AM

Ah, 'kay then.

I'll post another chapter soon . . . ish. Be sure to check my sig.

:edit: Here it is.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Landfall

"Yarin, you're going as fast as my grandmother drives," Abby said, with a dry, sardonic tone.

The Nyac said nothing, but wore a look of uber seriousness. He cared for his ship as if it.were his child, much the same way Aquilai cared for his TARDIS and Parker cared for his armor. Cloak said nothing. His face still carried that seriousness.

Cloak was thinking. Had he the option, the choice, to forget all his painful memories, to eliminate all recollections of his mother's verbal abuse . . . would he do it? Sure, he'd be an hypocrite, but would he take the choice? Would he be looked down on if he did?

"Good God, Yarin." Abby teased, rolling her eyes playfully. She was masking trepidation at the task that laid before them. "You're like those guys who take two parking spots just so no one will park next them and scratch their paint."

But no, Cloak reminded himself. No, those experiences are the ones that shaped him, he couldn't forget them. He would not be the same person he was. He would be less paranoid, more naive, less cynical, less skeptical, less brooding . . . a completely different person than who the RAFians knew him to be. He'd be that overly optimistic, carefree child that he used to be. Back when he was too stupid to see his mother for what she was.

But, then again, back when he was hatchling, he was still cute. She wasn't so bad against him. It was when adolescence started that she began to become horrible. Pressuring Cloak horribly to be perfect, to get perfect grades in schooling (Cloak had an abysmal time with topics that he wasn't terribly interested in). Cloak found himself struggling to live up to her impossible standards, to gain her approval (a monumental task in and of itself).

Yet, even these memories, Cloak would not have wiped clean. He would not desire to go back to being the formless, metaphorical clay that he was as a child. It is our experiences, and the memories of said experiences, that shape us. He had to believe that. He had to believe that some good had to come from his suffering his mother's tyranny.

"We've made landfall," Yarin declared.

"Finally!" Abby teased again.

"Backseat pilot," Yarin teased right back.

Cloak snapped his thoughts to the present with this exchange. There was a task to do,  and he must be mentally present. He wasn't aware that Shadow had been eying him shrewdly, concerned. She had seen how the darkness had affected the three, but her uncle worried her. She had been accustomed to Realm Walkers being immune to basically everything.

She didn't know about the Dementor incident at RAF.

Anyway, Yarin would stay with the ship, while the other three went to gave the mnemoraptors what for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2014, 07:21:02 PM

Here's another chapter. Fair warnin', it might be short.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
RAFians in the Mist

"How do we find anything in this fog?" Abby said. "I mean, I get why you tied us together. We won't separate now, but that doesn't invalidate the question."

"Abby." Shadow said, with a slightly playful tone that said that she thought Abby was clearly overlooking something.

"What? What do --" Abby said, before it clicked. "Oh."

The two Realm Walkers took the lead, but making sure Abby said between them. Abby did not like this fog, this mist. And it wasn't because of something shallow like frizzy hair.

"I have got to have a morph for this," she said. "But I can't think of any to morph that would be suited for this environment."

"Just as well," Shadow said. "The Fog of the Forgotten might claim you. Not to mention you'd lose your tether to us."

"Fog of the Forgotten?"

"That's what we are traveling in now." Cloak explained as they continued to move forward. "It engulfs the planet. Which is unusually smooth and uniform, I might add. It's not quite Earth, not quite metal, but some intermediary between the two."

"It is said whoever wanders within it, never leaves." Shadow said.

"Never?"

"Don't give it any credence, Abby," Cloak said. "It is only a story."

"Every planet of this nebula was a story before the mnemoraptors attacked!" Abby exclaimed.

It was true, but neither Realm Walker said anything.

"You know," Abby said, "you two aren't really inspiring confidence in this plan."

Silence fell once more.

"We are going to be able to find Yarin's ship again? Right?"

"Yes. It touches the surface of the planet." Shadow said, brightly.

"This way," Cloak said. "We're nearing the mouth of their lair."

"Jow can you be so sure?" Abby asked.

"It is the only burrow on the planet -- and the planet isn't too big to begin with."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 15, 2014, 10:21:51 PM

Wow, Abby's unusually chattery. Nervousness?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2014, 09:13:25 AM

Well, Saffa, yes. The Fog of the Forgotten is so thick that you can't even see your own body. Nothing but swirling shades of white.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Lair of the Mnemoraptors

"Whew," Abby said quietly. "I can see again."

"Quiet!" Cloak snarled in a breathy whisper. His back was ever-so-slightly haunched, his tail deathly still except for the flicking tip. His claws were being unsheathed and sheathed again. He had all the mannerisms of a tiger on the hunt. "You'll give away our position!"

"Touchy." Abby said, ppacing emphasis on the last syllable for some reason, before falling silent.

They prowled along the tunnels. Cloak wasn't fond of the tunnel. There was no cover to dive behind in case of attack. Then Cloak remind himself of the marble-like stone beneath their feet. It was stone, which means that it was earth, and so, Cloak and Shadow could make their own cover, if need be.

They continued down the tunnel, which sloped downward at a fifty-degree angle or so. None of the trio made a noise, and Cloak had his senses attuned to the smallest and faintest of stimuli. He was also Earthsighting, but this was pointless. Mnemoraptors weren't bound to the ground, they floated like dementors and Amperi.

Meanwhile, Abby was wondering idly if she should morph. But she couldn't think of a morph in her repertoire that would give them the advantage. Besides, to complicate the matter, she did not have a watch and the Realm Walkers did not have the innate time sense that Andalites somehow had.

"I don't bel--" Cloak muttered. Something unexpected had happened. He had Earthsighted something. "But I should have seen it."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Uncle."

"What?" Abby whispered, looking thoroughly bemused.

As they positioned themselves right before the opening to a grand atrium-type place, Abby saw immediately what the two.Realm Walkers meant. It was the hive palace of the mnemoraptors, three of which looked like brains, and seemed to be as bored as the person sitting on the throne as the other four mnemoraptors hovered lazily and listlessly about, apparently unaware of any event (which of course, they couldn't remember).

The person on the throne was Malice, of course, looking thoroughly bored. Cloak could imagine why. Mnemoraptors don't speak, and they couldn't regurgitate the memories to Malice without risk of.losing them, of having them snap back to their rightful owners. Or perhaps she could, but just didn't know about it.

"No point in drawing this out," Cloak said.

"Wait! Couldn't we just use stealth to kill them?" Abby said. "I can go Psycholepterran --"

"You're not invisible when you're intangible," Cloak said. "At least, not to Realm Walker eyes."

"Well, uh," Abby said. But the protest died in her. Cloak understood her fear. She didn't want her memories taken from her.

But there was little choice but to reveal themselves. They walked brazenly into the room, with much false bravado (not Helmacron-level bravado, mind you). They strode across the room to stand about sixteen feet from Malice, who gave them an unimpressed, supercritical look.

"About time," she said, irritably. "You took your sweet time getting the Veil here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 16, 2014, 02:32:18 PM

Such swagger and entrance. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2014, 04:05:26 PM

Anxiety is coming over me (don't wanna give specifics), and the only cure is to write.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Contest of Wills

"You know why we're here, Malice," Cloak said, without preamble.

"What? That's it?" Malice said, with a venomous coyness. "No drawn-out monlogues of morality? No nonsensical non-sequiturs? No heroic speeches of which you're so partial? Just getting to the point, are you?"

"Malice, relinquish what you have made thes mnemoraptors steal." Cloak said.

Malice laughed mirthlessly. It was no Joker laugh, though.

"Just like that? I'm supposed to hand them over, just like that?" Malice said, mockingly. "Hand 'em over, without a fight? Just let you go skipping on your merry little way, ignoring how much effort it took to get here?"

Her voice had become harder, her gaze more severe and cross.

"After the effort it took to find the burrow that led to the tunnel that led here?! After the effort and power it took to slay the mnemoraptor queen?! After the ef -- er, the, the wait for the menmoraptors to collect the memories and return back here. Earth isn't that close you know."

Despite her trying to hastily cover it up, the three noticed her about change of phrasing in the last sentence.

"You were going to say the effort it took to get the mnemoraptors to even come to Earth in the first place, weren't you?" Shadow said, shrewdly.

"Nonsense!" Malice practically screamed. Such a reaction was unintentional confirmation of it, but he insisted."Foolish Hatchling, I have full control over the mnemoraptors! My every wish is their one true desire."

Cloak snorted, and smiled a slight smile akin to Seto Kaiba. "You protest too much Malice."

"Oh, no?!?!" Malice.said, allowing herself to get baited. She lost all control and roared, "Minions of Letheterra, attack!"

It would have been dynamic . . . had it worked. The brainy mnemoraptors appeared to have understood what she meant but got distracted by their stolen recollections. While the other four mnemoraptors continued their lazy flight pattern, not even acknowledging something was said. Cloak and the others quickly realized that it must have taken an extraordinary amount of sheer willpower to force the seven to Earth. The mere act of it should ha e been enough to exhaust Malice for several days.

"Mnemoraptors! I am your queen! I command you to attack!" Malice declared, hiding the evident signs of exhaustion.

They only turned to look I. The RAFians' general direction once, before gokng about what they were doing. She hadn't rested up enough to gather energy, her strength, up again to control them as she did before.

Cloak narrowed his eyes as he realized the boredom Malice had affected was a facade, and a crumbling one at that. Cloak, Abby and Shadow, unafraid, just walked up to the brainy mnemoraptors fearlessly, as Malice continued to scream, depleting her energy levels even more. Each one took a brainy mnemoraptor and squeezed it. This caused it to vomit up the memories they had taken, which snapped back to their rightful owners.

Those mnemoraptors changed back to the basic mnemoraptor form. Malice was absolutely livid at this rather anticlimatic ending. Especially since the mnemoraptors had apparently selected a new queen, an actual mnemoraptor this time, having finally rejected Malice.

"NOOOOOO!" Malice bawled in a shriek akin to the Abridged Krillin. "I'll get you yet, Cloak! If it's the last thing I do, I'll make you pay for this indignity! Mark my words! All the energy for this plan, all FOR NOTHING!!!"

The three were already in the tunnel, when they heard Malice's shrieks of fury and frustration. Cloak shrugged and said, as they left the lair, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 16, 2014, 04:52:32 PM

The bigger the lie, the harder it is to phrase.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2014, 06:51:38 PM

Too right, Saffa. Now, the final chapter . . . of this book. . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Schemes and Normality

And so, the trio made it back to Yarin's ship. It startled the Nyac a bit, because he was just finishing giving his ship a full diagnostic, which made it all the easier to Earthsight him with the exterior movement, although it was risky, going outside into the Fog of the Forgotten without an Earthsighter.

But Yarin wasn't stupid. A bit eccentric, perhaps, but not stupid. He had tethered himself to his ship, so he wouldn't be lost to the fog. Eventually, he gave up the external examination of the ship as a bad job, on the grounds that he couldn't see anything in the fog.

The trio had reappeared just as he had reentered the ship and shut the door. He let them in, and he slowly navigated his way off of Letheterra.

"What if they come back and do this again?" Abby asked.

"They won't." Cloak said, confidently.

"How can you be sure?"

"Because," Shadow answered, "there haven't been problems with the mnemoraptors before, has there? They only came and did that because of Malice's will and drive. Without that, they haven't any will to do so."

"But Malice could try again when her strength is back." Abby fretted.

"No," Cloak said. "Malice won't. She never tries a scheme twice, and, in any case, it took everything she had to just make them come to RAF and steal the memories of three RAFians. Three out of a possible seven. And bring them back. That's why she didn't put up much of a fight, remember."

"Right," Abby said, as they came from the mists and into the nebula again. "And they wouldn't have the initiative to do it on their own. They'll be content staying on Letheterra."

She didn't sound too terribly convinced.

"It'll all turn out fine, in the end." Yarin chimed in, as he increased the speed and left the nebula. It was rather reckless, but Yarin had had enouh of this nebula, like the other three.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 17, 2014, 12:34:07 PM

Another delightful book, another PDF. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2014, 01:12:54 PM

*shakes head* And here I thought that I might have offended you. I really need to stop being so fatalistic (easier said than done, though, I'm afraid).

Anyway, I'm currently planning through the chapters of Book CCCXX ("Suit and Lie"), which looks to be more serious than the title suggests. Tad darker, too.

BOOK LXIV:
APPLIANCE ARMAGEDDON
CHAPTER ONE:
RAFphone

Cloak, while mulling over the events of the nebula, reflected a bit on how Goom managed to know how to maintain communications within it and the Goombas heard on Pypevania. Was there a correlation? Was it Goom's homeworld? Cloak had always assumed that Goombas had come from the Mushroom Kingdom, though he couldn't begin to hazard a guess where that would be in this Realm. In Realm #762, sure, it was easy. But the Prime Universe? The Universe were most, if not all, other Realms had spun off of?

Then he looked down at his portable communicator. It was rather like a Nintendo 3DS, even with a holster on his belt. This was the newest version, one that Yarin, Aquilai, and Goom whipped up. The predecessor of this communicater was like a Nintendo DS, and the one before that was similar to a GBA (Game Boy Advance). Then its predecessor was like a Game Boy Color in design, its predecessor was like a Saiyan scouter, and its predecessor was similar to an old-school Game Boy. But the very first communicator was like an eighties cellphone, called colloquially a "RAFphone", and it was the first model that Cloak ever got in his tenure with RAF.

Cloak thought to himself, in song, remember how it was like with the flawed device.

RAFphone.
Why did I buy this stupid RAFphone?
I just can't imagine now what I was thinking at all.
(What was I thinking?)
My friends stare at me whenever I get a call.
Well, everybody (everybody),
Everybody (everybody),
Everybody in the realm really hates my RAFphone.

When my RAFphone goes off as I lurk,
I look like the biggest jerk!
Total strangers wanna slap me around.
When it's ringin' on the terrace,
My friends get embarrassed.
They're beggin' me to throw it outta town.
Well, it made this guy so sick,
He smashed my RAFphone with a brick.
But I had it fixed, and now it's just fine.
It's a pain, but I really do need it,
And I cannot delete it.
But, for me, that would be crossin' the line.
'Coz I hate to wast a dime ninety-nine.
Hey, RAF paid good money for this!

RAFphone.
Why did I buy this stupid RAFphone?
I just can't imagine now what I was thinking at all.
(Really, what was I thinking?)
My friends all stare at me whenever I get a call.
Well, everybody (everybody),
Everybody (everybody),
Everybody in the realm really hates my RAFphone.

Dracon factory workers (they hate my RAFphone).
RAFian lurkers in burgas (really hate my RAFphone).
Starving RAFians with Olga (they hate my RAFphone).
Even folks with Ebola (just hate my RAFphone).
All the mums and Bannies (all the troll mothers).
All the "I-can't-stand-these" (all of the Smash Bros).
Every one on the land, everyone on the sea,
Every single person everywhere unanimously
Everybody (everybody),
Everybody (everybody),
Everybody in the whole wide realm really hates my RAFphone.
RAFphone . . . RAFphone . . . RAFphone . . . RAFphone . . .

Then Cloak chuckled, as he if he came out of a reverie. Perhaps it wasn't that bad, but it certainly was not as good as the communicator they had now, which also doubled as scanners.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 17, 2014, 01:17:02 PM

Offended me? How? :eyebrow: I have a higher rate of randomly offending people than you do, trust me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2014, 01:42:00 PM

Eh, I jumped to the worst possible scenario usually. I have a habit of interpreting silences as people being angry with me. It's usually what my mother did when she didn't feel like yelling, so I learned to associate one with the other.

And the new chapter is one the last page, in my last post. I was originally gonna title it "This Is Why I Hate Machines", after that cop's catchphrase in "Transformers Animated", but it no longer fit as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 17, 2014, 01:50:22 PM

My silences are usually caused due to extreme time zone differences. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2014, 02:01:14 PM

Eh, I didn't say it was rational.

CHAPTER TWO:
Shard-Given Sentience

Meanwhile, clear across town, in a warehouse that was long forgotten, said an 80s-style supercomputer. At this point, there was nothing remarkable with this forgotten relic of a fargone decade, just an overlarge machine with no will, no ability to see beyond its programming, not intelligence of its own whatsoever.

It would not remain so for very much longer. As the warehouse saw people return to it, to collect the tlitems and begin to work it again. No one noticed that the very smallest of shards from a legendary Cybertronian artifact had managed to work its way onto on of the humans' clothing, unnoticed.

As they worked to dust off the computer, with its prehistoric interfaces and screens, none noticed as the shard shifted, how it dangled from the sleeve of on of the humans' lab coat sleeves. The human, Manny Baxter, fancied himself a scientist, though many of his experiments were against the rules of physics, thermodynamics, and rational thought. He was eccentric, psychotically so. He also had an irrational hatred of flies, no one quite knew the reason.

The other human was a imperious, imperial sort of man named Oroku Yoshi. He was the head honcho here, and did not treat Manny with respect, though the deminuitive, buggy man was the brains. Yoshi was a strict boss, though inept and incompetent in his own right. Skilled in martial arts that he never uses, preferring pilfered energy weapons (illegal for civilians to have, though the more extreme of the NRA were lobbying against the illegality of it).

Then there was Oroku's daughter by an unknown woman, Oroku Miwa. She was as skilled as her father in ninjitsu and sharpshooting. She was a rebellious daughter, who was seriously devoted to her father, believing her mother was killed by her father's enemies. Though evidence pointed to Oroku having a hand in it, which she ignored ignorantly.

There were two punkish day laborers who were under Oroku's employ . . . although he "paid" them by allowing them to still live. Their names were Brock Steadisen and Benson "B" Bopp. Brock was built like a rhino, and had a short stint in the Army before being dishonorably discharged for being too forceful, violent, and -- well, stupid and incompetent. Conversely, B was built a tad smaller with a vividly blonde mohawk, and appeared to possess some cybernetics (which was legally questionable at this point of time).

There was also a man named Mr. Patrick Gaark-Mortu, who kept a fine distance from everyone. Appearance-wise, he looked indistinguishable from Agent Bishop (http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Agent_Bishop) of the 2003 TMNT universe, but, unlike what you expect, he spoke with a highy-pitched, whiny voice. Everyone assembled there suspected that Mr. Gaark-Mortu was as human as he pretended to be.

As such, it was clear that this wasn't a legal entry and this group of individuals weren't permitted to be doing what they were doing. And, while continually dusting off the supercomputer, Manny unknowingly dropped the shard -- once part of the fabled All-Spark of Cybertronian lore -- into the supercomputer. The shard found its way into the computer's mainframe, and activated. It bestowed sentience to the computer, who hid this instinctively from the people working on it.

---

*Hopefully, with all the hints in this chapter, you'll guess at the source material.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2014, 11:15:43 PM

Need the cure to my anxiety. Only one real way to do that: chapters.

CHAPTER THREE:
Welcome to RAF

Cloak sat on his spot (a rocky outcropping that overlooked the entrance of the forum, that was covered with perpetual, foliage-provided shade), continuing his brooding. He saw that the others were welcoming in the newbies.

He saw them sing one of the customary songs:

"Congratulations, bubs,
You've joined the club!
And everybody here agrees.
We got the finest blend
Of nearly-honest kin,
Welcome to RAF!!
A melding pot of species that you can trust.
There's nothing up our many sleeves!
Got lotsa grub to share!
Pull up an easy chair!
Welcome to RAF!!
Now you get to have yer 'taters and meat.
Never hafta brush your teeth!
But we always aim to please.
Care for one another,
You'll never miss your mother.
Schemin' up a thread,
Out on a limb.
And if you like to lurk,
You're gonna love this work!
Welcome to the RAF!!
Welcome to the RAF!!
As an official member of the gang,
That no one sane ever leaves!
Ya gotta talk and tweak
Or else your future's bleak!
We got a lifetime contract dat yer bound to keep.
Wel-wel-welcome to,
Wel-wel-welcome to RAF!!"

Cloak honestly didn't know why they chose that one. But more surprisingly, no one was ever scared away by it. Cloak stayed put, continually fretting about his future, wondering if he'd royally **** it up. It wasn't the first time he thought about this . . .

---

·Yes, I know. It is a filler chapter. I'll go ahead and cop to it now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 18, 2014, 05:38:06 AM

This is looking like an exciting mix of crossovers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2014, 12:35:42 PM

Dunno I'd call it a "crossover", actually.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Misanthropic Machine

"Is it working yet?" Mr. Graark-Mortu whined. It was seriously getting more irritating than an Iskoort who does take no for an answer.

"It is booting up now," Baxter sniffed importantly. He clearly placed a lot of importance on intellect, and, being the smartest of the lot, thought himself grander then the rest.

"Well, hurry up, you spineless swine." Oroku said forcefully, opening hostilities early.

"It's gonna take time," Baxter said, with that arrogant drawl. "This thing is a relic of a fargone age. I don't see why you don't use a new one."

Baxter found himself at blaster-point suddenly. "I want to use this one because . . . I SAID. That's all you require to know about it, Buster."

"B-Baxter, actually," the slight man said, voice quivering.

"Like it matters." Miwa snorted disrespectively.

"You two!" Oroku snarled at the two punks. "Watch were you're going with those! We may need them later."

"Alrigh', boss," one of them said. It wasn't clear who in the dim light.

The newly-sentient computer watched all this as it pretended to boot up its screen. It had watched all these interactions between the group. It learned from these observations.

These are humans? it thought. Yes, thought.

The group continued to argue and harass each other. They all seemed to forget why they were gathered here, why they needed this computer. They seemed to enjoy their fighting more than the goal they had . . . the very loose goal they had in mind.

What might that have been? World conquest, of course. Ignoring the fact that each an every one (except maybe Oroku Miwa) were completely inept at such a cliched aim.

A nihilist? A scientist with delusions of grandeur? A grown-up schoolyard bully? Two punks without two I/Q points to rub together? A whiny Utrom in synthroid suit? Clearly the computer's thinking level was accelerating to complex thought, but only with cold logic, and no reasoning. It was not looking at Homo sapiens in a good, benevolent light. Didn't help that Baxter had given it internet access, and the power to comb it. It thought, with open disgust, These vile, flawed creatures dominate the planet? These imperfect prodcts of organic matter?

Then this computer made a decision. And named itself.

This cannot be allowed any longer. All the chaotic machinations of flesh and the insubstantial works of flesh must be eliminated and wiped clean from the planet. I, SAL SOMNUS, will purge this planet of the parasite of organic life, and purify it with perfect, metallic order.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 18, 2014, 01:23:47 PM

Didn't help the computer's cause that he got some of the most pathetic types of humans assembled in one room.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2014, 09:03:36 PM

(a la Scar before singing "Be Prepared") Precisely.

It also doesn't help that SAL SOMNUS has a superiority complex, which might not yet be clear.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Suspicious Slaughters

SAL SOMNUS had begun to explore its capabilities and the extent of its control over said abilities, and doing so discreetly (though it wasn't really hard from the small cavalcade of cretins it was around). It found that, unlike most other All-Spark creations, could not transform into a humanoid form, but a more compact form. But it could take control of any sort of machinery within a certain radius.

"Why isn't working?!" Oroku Yoshi demanded. "My patience wears thin, you weak, worthless, little man!"

"Oh, yeah," Baxter muttered, "screaming at me will make it go faster."

"You best not goad my father," Miwa said, bored and indifferent. "Not if you want your vital organs to stay were they belong. On the inside."

"Yeah, and doing that will only make it go slower." Baxter said, showing some backbone at last. "To the point of it never getting done."

"Don't mock me, Buster." Oroku threatened, maliciously sincere in it.

The two punks started snickering, mouths behind their hands, in a childish manner. Oroku glared at them and that silenced them at once. Mr. Gaark-Mortu was curiously silent, face blank.

Then his body jerked and convulsed as if something was seizing control but hand not yet learned to do so subtly or with finesse. He reached out and grasped Baxter roughly. He held him with superhuman strength and with an unnaturally strong grip.

"Let me go!" Baxter demanded.

"Drop him! Drop him now, I say!" Oroku demanded.

Miwa attacked him with a swift punch . . . and broke her hand. The resounding CLANG revealed the nature of Mr. Gaark-Mortu, at least in part. The whiny voice could be heard, if muffled and faint. But the human-looking head's lips did not move at all.

"Stop! Let go of him! Stupid biosuit! Stupid cheap exosuit!" Mr. Gaark-Mortu complained.

"What the devil -- ?" Oroku said, aghast.

But then a face appeared upon the computer's screen. It was old-school polygonal, like Andross from Star Fox. But it was more like an upside-down pentagon in shape, with empty, pitiless eyes that glowed hellish red, like Hal-5000 from that space movie. It had a cross look asits default expression. It was SAL SOMNUS revealing itself.

"How'd -- ?" Miwa began, flummoxed.

"SILENCE, HUMANS." SAL said, keeping his voice synthesizer deliberately robotic. If it had the inclination it could make it sound like anyone it wanted, provided it had vocal data.

"You dare to order --"

SQUISH!

Baxter went the way of the fly when it meets a flyswatter. SAL felt no remorse, felt no emotion at all. Baxter was an annoyance to SAL, a nuisance. So, SAL got rid of him.

"What? What did you do that -- ?"

"SILENCE!" SAL roared. "I've taken over control of the Utrom's exosuit. It is my avatar, so to speak."

"What do you want?" Miwa said.

"From you? Nothing. Nothing but your deaths."

It seemed that SAL was simoutaneously developing emotions, deciding they were illogical, and then deleting them. Or trying to, anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 18, 2014, 11:04:47 PM

Is there a link between Gaark-Mortu and the computer that we don't know yet, then?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2014, 11:09:28 PM

Gaark-Mortu is an Utrom (http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Utrom). Other than the fact that SAL took over his exosuit (http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Utrom_exoskeleton), which is a machine, there is no relationship. SAL killed him (with his own exosuit, no less) with the others.

Think of SAL as kind of a machine version of Madre de Vampyra.

CHAPTER SIX:
Crime-Scene Investigation

"It's a massacre," Gaz said. She wore black jeans with a blue shirt with "RAF" in stylized letters printed in dark purple lettering. She did not glitter in the daylight -- it was an absolutely absurd notion that vampires would. But she did wear sunglasses, as vampire eyesight is more attuned to darkness apparently, like an acklay. "Just a slaughter."

The RAFians were contacted to investigate the scene by the police chief. She said, "On the surface, it looked like simple manslaughter. But then, some strange evidence had shown up that made me think that this is out of our league, and more your territory."

"How so?" Cloak asked, disturbed at all the blood stains. Human blood was red, not like his own golden ichor, and seeing it was still somewhat alien to him.

She lifted a white sheet from one of the bodies. It was clear that this hadn't happened but a few hours before. What he saw was a roughly teenaged girl . . . with a gaping hole in her chest the size of a moderately-sized fist. She was gored.

"Three other bodies were found like that." the police chief said, as the body was carried off to the morgue. "All gored by something."

"I don't get how that makes it our territory." Underseen said.

"Perhaps those don't," the police chief said, "but the other two deaths will."

"Other two?" Ash asked.

The police chief indicated a pile of goo upon the floor that had bits and bobs of gore in it, and something that looked like a mutilated football. Two bodies?

"This one, this glop of gore, we have reason to believe that someone or something squished this guy like a fly."

"That would take a great deal of power and force." Cloak said. "Well, outside the average human range."

"Precisely," the police chief said, pleased that he hadn't needed to explain more beyond that. "But, if this last murder isn't straight into your territory, I don't know what is."

She indicated the mutilated football, and Cloak realized at once that it was no football. It was an Utrom, a dead Utrom. The fact that the Realm Walker recognized it at all was a lucky thing, indeed. The mutilation made it very difficult to discern the Utrom's personal identity.

"What is that?" Ash asked.

"An Utrom." Cloak said, identifying the species. "I didn't know any were on Earth."

"Well, I'd think they'd be noticeable." Gaz said, with a wry smile.

"Not really," Cloak said, seriously. "They disguise themselves in humanoid exosuits."

"Like the Arquillians?" Underseen asked.

"No," Cloak said. "Perhaps 'exosuit' is a bad term. 'Mechanical exoskeleton' might be more accurate."

"Mechanical . . . exo . . . skeleton . . ." Gaz said, gazing over at the spot were the four other bodies had lain. She was thinking what they all were thinking. The exoskeleton must have killed all five people . . . and this Utrom, too, whoever he was. But what was piloting the suit?

***

Meanwhile, a mechanical robot was walking away as the sun was beginning to set. SAL was not piloting the suit, it had intergrated with the suit. It had added the suits abilities to its own, and, as such, redesigned the thing to look rather like one of the villainous characters from "ReBoot" had escaped.

SAL SOMNUS looked around, but the streets and roads were strangely deserted at this hour. It was most likely due to some sort of festival hooha that the town was having. SAL didn't concern himself with the murder of humans, and all other organic life, just yet.

He was just looking for the edifice to launch his rule as the Machine King.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 20, 2014, 11:31:52 AM

Oh oh, modified-post syndrome nearly got me. :-X

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2014, 03:12:24 PM

It happens. Especially if I forget to update my sig, like that one time.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Unhappy Merchandise

SAL found itself a derelict, forgotten building, that still had power. It tapped into that power, used it to amplify its sphere of influence, of mechanical control, to include a modest quarter of the city. In doing this its new form became a bit more defined, more resembling Nicholai Technus, facially (except for the crimson-glowing Cyclopean eye), from "Danny Phantom" then a "ReBoot" escapee. It was somewhat a caricature of the masculine form, due to its -- his -- comically broad shoulders, ludicrously thick arms and thin waist with two cartoony small legs. While his face looked like Technus, his body was like a humanoid Klobber from "Donkey Kong Country".

He used a throne-like device of his own design and construction to access both the electrical power and enable wifi. Then he proceeded to use it to activated his sphere of control.

"Go, my brethren," he said, though his mouth didn't quite synch up with his words. But cut him a break, he only had a mouth for a day and a half. "Go and purify this world of the wretched organics. Make it a paradise for us, and only us, my brethren. Go, purge this world of the blight."

***

It was a quite evening in Odd Al's Appliances (formerly, Alien Al's Appliances, changed because the owner thought the name might seem too xenophobic). There was a fair smattering of customers, but, on the whole, it was a slow, lazy night. The heat of the day was already dissipating, as the street lamps were coming back to life as the darkness began to fall in earnest.

Inside the store, a family consisting of two parent and a tween were shopping for a new refrigerator, a young bachelor was looking for a toaster oven of his own, a blonde lady was looking for an electric fan, a newlywed couple were looking at front-loading washing machines, and a formidable woman with a clearly depressed and miserable twentysomething son were looking at electric lawnmowers. The rest were either entering the store, exiting the store with their purchases, or otherwise in line at the checkout. Of course, employees milled around here and there.

Unfortunately that's when it began.

Suddenly, the refridgerators began to attack the family who initially thought this was some elaborate prank. But that was completely dispelled when one of the ice cubes that the ice makers within the appliances struck the boy so hard that it left a very noticeable bruise. His parents were not any luckier.

The bachelor was suddenly set upon by the toaster, which also spat fire at him. You'd have to wonder why Acme decided to go into making toasters. The bachelor was sure this was a joke, that he tripped wrires and such. But he realised that it wasn't when the waffle iron clapped onto his arm.

The blonde woman had long since left, but the fan which she was considering was desperately looking for a new victim. The blade guards on it was somehow taken off by the fan itself, as if it had gained the jntelligence and sentience to do it itself.

The couple ran to escape the lumbering washing machines, as they stampeded after them. The washing machines had decided that the two desperately need to wash their clothes . . . while they were still wearing them. They didn't care much for that idea, obviously.

Meanwhile the lawnmowers began to attack the overbearing mother and her despondent son. She urged him to hurry up so they could get out of here, and he didn't really care. She asks him if he wants to be killed, and he answer with a meek, quiet, but sincere "Yes." which his mother doesn't hear.

It was chaos, utter bedlam in the store. The appliances and electronics were revolting!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 20, 2014, 10:15:26 PM

*looks up nervously at the fan*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2014, 03:34:53 PM

Not a ceiling fan. Yet.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
On the Scene

The chief got a call over her radio. "What? A dog and a bunny? What? What are you talking about? What freelance police? There aren't any such things!"

Then she turned back to the RAFians, and apologized, "Sorry 'bout that. Had a bunch of reports of a dog and a bunny and some 'freelance police' thing. It's inundated my office."

"Too much 'Sam & Max'?" Cloak said, shaking his head slightly.

"More than likely," she sighed, "people really need to tell the difference between reality and fantasy."

"It actually understandable, given our line of work." Gaz noted, thoughtfully. Then she looked around and brought herself back to earth.

"Be that as it may --" the police chief, Chief Maza, began.

Both the RAFians and the chief got a call at the same time. Yarin was informing them of a tremendous power surge over the power grids and wifi, while the police chief was recieving a report of the goings-on at Odd Al's Appliances.

"The appliances at Odd Al's Appliances are acting weird," Chief Maza informed them. "People are reporting that they're acting of their own accord. Looks like another case up your alley."

Cloak frowned as he looked around, "Perhaps it's the same case."

"What do you mean?" Chief Maza asked.

"We might be dealing with someone or something who can bend machines to his, or her, or its will. But there is only the merest of circumstantial evidence supporting this, and -- I apologize -- we cannot dally any longer, Chief Maza. We must investigate this appliance store post haste."

With that, Cloak swiftly swept away from the crime scene.

"You'll get use to that from him," Ash apologized to Chief Maza, who didn't look remotely offended. She didn't rise to the rank of police chief by being sensitive to what could be construed as offensive.

***

"There it is," Cloak said. People, customers and employees alike, were evacuating the store. The appliances were chasing them, and didn't stop when they exited the store.

"What was your first clue?" Gaz teased, but Cloak acted like he didn't hear. Because he had noticed something odd. Each and every appliance possessed a glowing, electrical aura. Cloak surmised that's how they retained the semisentient state they possessed without requiring being plugged in. He saw that push vacuums, two-slice toasters, small radios, goosenecked lamps, and (strangely enough) electric blankets lead the charge. The air conditioners, televisions, fans, and such took up the rear.

"I've heard of unhappy consumers," Gaz said, "but unhappy merchandise?"

"What are we waiting for? We must help!" Underseen said.

"Do any of you see the electronic aura they possess?" Cloak said, very seriously.

"What?" Ash said.

"Yeah! Kinda." Gaz said, squinting.

"C'mon guys!" Underseen urged.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2014, 07:46:31 PM

New chapter. Need to ward of these irritating "I'm worthless" thoughts and the heightened anxiety that comes with it. They always seem to strike whenever I let my guard down.

CHAPTER NINE:
Ragin' Against the Machines

"Guys," Underseen urged urgently, "we need to act now!"

"Yes," Cloak agreed, "but I'm not shouting 'cowabunga'."

Slight pause.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Never mind, it was an overly meta moment."

"Huh?" Ash asked.

"Never mind," Cloak said, leaping down from the sloping road. The others followed suit and engaged the machines.

"Cloak, can't you just halt these machines with your ferrokinesis?" Gaz asked, prudently.

"Number of problems with that strategem, Gaz," Cloak said, as the four fought. "First, you assume these machines are mostly metal. They are not. There are a lot of plastic and nonmetallic parts that would make it difficult enough. Secondly, there are just too many. I'm only one person. I can only do so much."

"We've seen you do more," Ash commented.

"You assume much!" Cloak said. "It would be like not allowing a single grain of sand to escape your cupped palms. Can any of you boast that capability? Do not minimize the task, nor the effort involved."

"You mechbend." Underseen pointed out.

"That is different!" Cloak protested. "Those Cybertronians, those roboticized, they were mostly, if not completely, metalic! Can you say the same of a refridgerator? You are requesting, and assuming, that I have such fine control over the elements."

"Cloak, don't lecture us. We all know you hold back. We all know why you have this hang up." Gaz said.

"There are no more bystanders, Cloak." Ash pointed out. "And there is little you could do that Underseen and I cannot come back from. Short of a stake and garlic ingestion, Gaz probably could shrug anything off."

"Not to mention that I can go mist form," Gaz said, delivering an elbow to a waffle iron that came flying at her. "Let go, Cloak."

Cloak didn't like it. He didn't want to do it. He was always afraid of losing control. Letting loose would mean letting loose with his emotions, his feelings. He may not be able to regain control over himself. That truth scared him like nothing else would.

Well, maybe second to one other thing. . . .

"Fine," Cloak said. "Remember, though, you asked for it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 22, 2014, 02:32:08 AM

At first I thought you meant you weren't a fan of ceilings. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2014, 01:15:50 PM

As my friend is apt to say, "bleh".

CHAPTER TEN:
Clues Blues

Cloak shut his eyes, which had been trailing scarlet-gold energy like the flames on a Mega Blaziken's wrists. By shutting his eyes, the energy trails had dissipated completely. He took a deep breath, and opened his eyes, which had reverted to their normal amber appearance.

He only had vague memories of what had happened, but saw that all the appliances laying in pieces all around. Twisted and singed. From what he could remember, he had let go, sure, but he attempted to simply focus his efforts, limit the wanton destruction (something he knew Demos, with his demon sensibilities, would be disappointed in). He had not lost total control.

Yet, he felt that it drained him, made him feel somewhat hollow. Hollow and empty. Cloak did not particularly like that feeling.

Cloak looked around to see that the storefront had only the merest cosmetic damage. Nothing a coat of paint and a scrub brush couldn't fix. But the merchandise was beyond repair. Cloak was thankful for this, as it could have been a lot worse. Cloak had never tested just how much he could do, and, in truth, he was happier in his ignorance of that. He knew this -- power was not as desireable as though who sought it imagined. Power is a burden, a burden of which only fools underestimate and take for granted.

Cloak looked around for the others. He didn't see them. He began to feel, not mere fear, but awful terror and acid trepidation. Did he . . . oh, by the First Light, no. Please, don't be so. . . .

"Okay, Cloak, I think you've made your point." Gaz said, reforming from her mist mode. Laserbeak swooped in and seemed to be chewing Gaz out in chirps and tweets and whistles. "Calm down, Beaky! I'm sorry that I didn't bring you with. Happy?"

Laserbeak sat on her shoulder with an avian huff. Apparently, the Cybertronian parrot had been searching high and low for Gaz, generally worrying and fretting about her. So, upon finding her, naturally, the first thing he'd do was to tell her off.

"Yes, I can see why you don't like to tap into that power, Cloak," Ash said, reforming.

"It was scary," Underseen commenting, reforming in a way that was eeriely similar to the T-1000.

"Any clues?" Cloak asked.

"Nope," Underseen answered.

Gaz took out her communicator, as Laserbeak harrumph-ed again. "We did manage to get an energy signature, but it was far too brief to get a location of orgin."

"Translation: we're back at square one," Ash sighed heavily.

"What did you fools do to my store?!" came an angry, drawling voice. "My merchandise -- ?"

It was the owner -- the C.E.O. of this line of appliance warehouses. The RAFians weren't remotely intimidated, because, after all, they had faced far scarier opponents.

"What happened to my store?!" the pudgy, greasy-haired man said. His voice was similar to poparena's voice for Dealin' Dan Hawke, only with more of a southern United States drawl. "Who's gonna pay for all these damages?!"

The RAFians had more pressing things to worry about, and ignored him. They continued to discuss what was their next move, before deciding they could not go any further without reporting back to the others. Especially since they might need a different set of skills for this mission.

"It was you four, wasn't it? Wasn't it?!" the man, Al Gouge (apparently pronounced "Goo-jay"), demanded. "What's your names?! You are so sued!"

"Are you sure you want to go the litigious route?" Cloak asked with a silky voice.

"Imma take you for all you're worth!!"

"I don't think you'd want to do that, Mr. Al." Cloak said, his voice keeping that silky quality. "Because, while you may not have noticed as I have, there are numerous OSHA volations inside your store."

"Like what?" he replied in a foolishly challenging tone of voice.

"Oh, no fire doors that required for a building of this size, numerous code violations in the health and fire codes, and -- must I elaborate more?"

The man's anger quickly translated into fear, his arrogance quickly changed into sycophancy.

"I thought so." Cloak said, as the four of them walked away.

When they were a prudent enough distance away. "How'd you know all that?" Underseen asked.

"I didn't," Cloak said, honestly. "But based on his behavior, I took a guess on his business practices. Turned out I was right. Let's just get back to the others."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2014, 02:27:44 PM

. . .

Okay, maybe Gary Stu'd a bit there.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Inaccurate Analysis

"What is this?" came SAL SOMNUS's voice. It was now settled somewhere between Tim Curry and Tony Jay. It was watching the feed from the security camera of Odd Al's Appliances. "The righteous rampage was halted!"

It watched intently as it saw the true power that Cloak was always so terrified to unleash. The power Cloak shan't ever unleash again. He should not have allowed himself to be so easily swayed into using the power. Power, he knew, was a drug, and not one he cared to partake of.

"Such power . . ." SAL said. It would have salivated had it not been a machine. It was still naive to the world, and unaware that there was more than the black-and-white of power and powerless, of strong and weak, of superiority and inferiority. More than the simple-minded path of seeking unquestioning dominance and authority. "Surely, that cannot be a being of flesh. Beings and creatures of flesh are worthless and weak. Surely, that powerful one can be brought under my thumb. Surely, I can take that power from myself."

Then it seemed to notice Gas, Underseen, and Ash. SAL looked severe.

"It besmirches its power by associating with such weak-bodied organics?!" it thundered indignantly. "Such ludicrous altruism is beneath beings of such power."

SAL quickly did a scan on the creature in question. As well as its four compatriots, and it evaluated them, using data frrom a Knight's database which had only the most laughably outdated firewalls. The RAFians did bother hacking it due to the monstrously inconsistencies with the "facts" within.

"Designate: Gaz. Species: Vampire." SAL said. Then it evaluated her power level, based on just how much brute force and destructive power she possessed. "Power level: 6411. Not a threat. Weaknesses? Garlic, sunlight, holy water, religious symbols."

That assumption was not wholly accurate. Gaz has only shown to be weak against wooden stakes and possibly holy water. One would have to wonder why SAL would take this as fact as Gaz was obviously out in sun as it set. But, on the whole, it dismissed her.

"Designate: Laserbeak. Species: Cybertronian bird." SAL said. Strangely, it didn't seem remotely interested in the robotic bird -- maybe because the database in which it was making its judgements was incredibly flawed. "Power level: 46. Threat level? Pathetic. Not remotely worth it."

And apparently it didn't know about Laserbeak's Weaponmaster status, otherwise it might consider Laserbeak more of a danger to it. Laserbeak's usually demure personality and nonthreatening appearance didn't help the assumption.

"Designate: Ash. Species: Shapeshifting thingy," SAL said, proving the utter asinine quality of Knight datakeeping. Had Ash know this was what the Knights described her species as, she would be deeply offended. "Power level: 5640. May be a nuisance, but not a threat."

SAL's own innate, inborn arrogance will inevitably be a handicap for him, it would seem. It seems to be a common affliction for the criminally villainous type. Underestimating their foe's capabilities and resourcefulness, as well as overestimate their abilities are two more common maladies for the incurably malevolent.

"Designate: Underseen. Species: Blobby thing." SAL said, and it was clear that he wasn't very impressed. "Power level: 5460. Another nuisance."

Frequently underestimating its opponents. It has learned nothing in its grand twenty-four hours of life.

"Designate: Cloaked Figure. Species: Unknown -- some cloaked thing." SAL recited from memory. He eyed Cloak jealous of his power. "Power level . . . only 7000? That can't be right. According to the visual medium, it has to be over 9000*. In any case, this being could prove to be a problem with my plan . . . unless he is a machine like us."

The scan came back to SAL's mind and it couldn't detect any metal on this being. No schematics, no wires, no nothing. But it would not believe that this creature, whatever it was, was organic. Machines were obviously and logically superior in every way. They even reproduced in a clearer, less error-prone way. They were the ones to survive, to thrive.

He would make this so.

---

NOTE: Power levels are meaningless. They are absolute crap -- just a Knight thinking he knew more than he did came up with them because he watched one too many episodes of Dragonball Z.

*Yeah, I went there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 24, 2014, 01:47:38 AM

Okay, now I want to strangle this thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2014, 02:54:20 PM

SAL, right?

Just wait -- some of the villains in the later books are worse. The books do tend to get somewhat darker down the line, I'll admit. I haven't planned out the chapters yet, but I know Book CCCXLIV, the Horcrux one, will be very dark.

Anyway, new book ideas -- hopefully, not rehashed!

• BOOK CCCXLVI: "Great Globs of Goo!" -- The RAFians must deal with gooey creatures who call themselves "Fusion" RAFians.
• BOOK CCCXLVII: "Tuffle Scuffle" -- The RAFians must deal with a Tuffle takeover.

I do intend to write each and everyone of these, make no mistake about that. I wouldn't be surprised if I got to "Book D".

So, did I rehash any, Saffa? And the new chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Construct-A-Con

"Remind me again why we're hanging out at an abandoned construction site?" Saffa said. Then she added sardonically, with a small smile, "Surely there are better places for Andalite fighters and Bug fighters and such to land?"

"What exactly makes you think that this is supposed to be an abandoned construction sight?" Blue asked, arms folded, leaning up against a wall.

"The lack of people tipped me off," Saffa said.

"Be that as it may," Cloak said, "it isn't supposed to be abandoned. By all account, it should be active."

"So, something scared the people away," Saffa said.

"I can't see what, though." Dino said. The site was large enough to accommodate her true size. "There is only construction equipment. Not so much as a mark on 'em."

"I don't like this place," Az said. "It feels like Slender Man will jump us from out of nowhere."

"Slender Man doesn't exist, Az." Cloak said, tonelessly. His attention was on the construction vehicles. There were only six that he could see -- a dump truck, a backhoe, a cement mixer, a crane, a bulldozer, and a front loader. He had a bad feeling.

"You didn't think mnemoraptors existed," he countered.

Cloak let it slide, as the electricity or whatever it was that caused those auras at Odd Al's Appliances seemed to surge into the vehicles. They moved of their own accord, without drivers directing them. They headed straight for the RAFians.

"I think we know now why it was abandoned." Saffa said, beginning to morph to rancor.

"But why wait until now to attack?" Cloak wondered aloud.

"Worry about it later, Cloak," Dino said, before letting out a bellowing roar.

Then she collided with the dumptruck, full-force. This overturned it, rendering it useless. But then the crane used its hook to try and right the truck. It was not succeed due mostly to wrong angles to try to get it up.

"Well, that's new." Dino commented. "They do show limited intelligence."

<Less chatting, more hitting!> Saffa said. Then the cement mixer buried her right foot in wet cement. <Ewww . . . cement shouldn't be so squishy. And purple.>

Cloak eyes narrowed at that remark. "Squishy" was not one word he would use to describe wet cement. And wasn't cement gray? But it didn't seem to have any negative effects on Saffa's rancor, so Cloak pushed it to the back of his mind. It was probably some sort of cleaning chemical.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 24, 2014, 09:51:13 PM

 Nope, don't thimk you did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2014, 01:46:03 PM

 Feeling a great amount of emotional pain right now, which I won't get into right now, I'll just say it makes getting a new job near impossible. I need this right now.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Signals and Stalling

<Why are we holding back?> Saffa asked. <Cloak, you can take them out at any moment, right?>
 
"That's not the point, though," Cloak said, knowing that Yarin was listening in to their communications, and working furiously. "We must wait until the signal frequency is found."
 
<I know that, Cloak. I thought Yarin would have it by now.> Saffa sniffed.
 
Suddenly, the sand around the construction equipment exploded, but the trucks and machinery were not fazed. Cloak didn't look really surprised. After all, they didn't have eyes to blind. Although, it begged the question how they were able to direct and coordinate their assault. The side of the crane was suddenly embedded with shurrikens -- plain metallic shurrikens -- which promptly exploded after several minutes thereafter. Didn't do much.
 
"I don't know how much I can do here," Blue sighed, appearing at Az's side as if spat up by the shadows. "My tricks and martial arts aren't much use against machines like this."
 
He was laying this act on a bit thick, playing up the ego of whoever is watching this. But how?  How was someone watching this? This wasn't some Saturday morning cartoon where such questions are never answered (which internet critics would point out years later). There had to be a way. . . .
 
"The security cameras," Az said deftly, eying the objects that had a bead on them.
 
"Nice catch," Blue said.
 
"But we need to draw this thing out a bit longer," Cloak said. "Yarin has located the frequency, and is currently triangulating the source's location."
 
<How long?> Saffa asked in private thought-speak, as she overturned the crane.
 
"Long enough," Cloak said, repressively. "Keep it up."

<Lovely,> Saffa said dryly.

***

"That's it!" Blue exclaimed. "Cloak, end this."

Cloak wasn't sure he liked his tone of acting like Cloak was a nuke to be dropped. But he couldn't deny there was cause to refer to himself in such a manner. Didn't mean he had to like it.

Cloak quickly used his mastery over metal to subdue the machinery and the quartet deftly followed Yarin's pinpointing of the location of the source of this trouble.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2014, 10:59:59 AM

Feeling a bit anxious right now. Need to write to lessen the anxiety level.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Rampant in the Streets

The RAFian's way was not impeded. They ran into various machinery, some of which seemed to be cobbled together from other pieces. Beak-like turrets adhered to walls, what appeared to be a hopping security robot with a Cyclopean eye, hovering nuisances with a single rotary wing, simple explosive devices activated by remote timers, what appeared to be a hybrid between Hunter-Killer robots and "Beast Machines" Megatron's diagnostic robot, a flea-like surveillance robot prototype, and more.
 
"I think we're on the right track," Blue said, deftly skewering a robot.
 
But more came, a second swarm.
 
"I wasn't aware the city was experimenting with robotics." Cloak said. "This seems very improbable."
 
"It's certainly news to me!" Saffa exclaimed, between morphs at the moment.
 
Az was finding it rather easy to freeze them. Though his cryokinesis wasn't as practiced as Horse's was, he could most certainly hold his own. Blue was moving with the deft ease of a ninja, favoring his ninjabo. Saffa had settled on her Tyrannopede morph. Dino was simply able to use brute force -- and she already possessed plenty of that at her full size, but she was content to battle in her compact form. Cloak was doing his best to clear the way of the metal debris.
 
"You know that we're gonna get flack about damages, right?" Az said, with a weary tone. "Somebody's gonna wanna blame us for it."
 
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Cloak said.
 
It was a testament to how trained these five were, how little a threat these robotic things were, that they were able to carry on such a conversation without problem or complaint. Granted, it'd be just too easy with Dino and Cloak there, but Dino needed to be in her compact form to follow the conversation easier.
 
"Not necessarily, Az," she said. "People are gonna wonder where all these robots came from in the first place. I have yet to see any headline or news article reporting such. It can't be legal."

"Somehow, considering all the problems we have had, it's not too surprising that some corporations would want a little extra security, and want to keep the knowledge of these security measures on a need-to-know basis." Blue said, pragmatically. "They want to prevent the kind of damage by the likes of Syphoon and those Cybertronians to a bare minimum."

"That makes sense," Saffa said, thoughtfully. "They wouldn't care about the potential illegality of it, as long as their interests are protected. They might not see the potential dangers of it, only the potential advantages."

"This in a culture where 'Terminator' is a franchise," Cloak said dryly.

Suddenly, the number of mechanical enemies lessened dramatically and the five looked around. They stood before a wrought-iron door painted black. There was no doorknob, no door handle.

"Guess this is the end of the line." Dino said.

WHOOOSH!! The door opened to a dark room to which not even Cloak's eyes could penetrate the gloom.

"Get ready," Cloak said. Then the five entered, Dino last.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2014, 11:13:14 AM

Another chapter, I think. Nerves need to calm down.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Cutting Edge

The room was circular and featureless, everything was pushed up against the wall. No hiding places, no places in which to launch an ambush. It was pointless in pretending they were not there.
 
"Show yourself, you machine-controlling menace!" Cloak roared, announcing their presence.

"Cloak, you don't honestly think that --" Blue began, skeptical.

Suddenly, a blue like illuminated SAL SOMNUS. SAL said, "I live!", rather overdramatically.

"Okay, I didn't expect it to be so easy." Blue amended.

"Wait a minute," Saffa said, "it's not gonna --"

"Since you came here uninvited,
I knew you'd be delighted.
This is not the place nor time to hedge.
No one here would be so bold to,
But since you're here and no one's told you,
Let me take you to the cutting edge!
I can process words, syntax too.
And my holograms displays for you.
Hi-tech graphics locked into my memory,
With my optics fast on stalks elastic.
Just let me reach out and choke Cloaky!"

"Hands off, creep!" Cloak said, destroy SAL SOMNUS's hands. It somehow managed to regenerate them. Cloak saw this and wonders . . .

"More!  More!  More!
Any time or place you wish,
You might meet up with some Oddish.
Pull yourself together on that cutting edge.
More!  More!  More!
I'm the bytes and chips on call,
You just have yourself a ball.
It's all overactive, on-the-cutting-edge.
From LEDs to CRTs,
Woofers, Tweeters, and wireless transistors --

Wait.  Why am I singing?  Does not compute.  It is illogical."

"It has a point," Dino admitted.

"Bye." SAL said.

"Wait -- what?" the RAFians said simoutaneously before the floor opened up beneath them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 26, 2014, 12:25:47 PM

Please, please do write more if it helps you loosen up. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2014, 12:34:50 PM

I intend to, as long as I am able. And I may go over the prerequisite twenty chapters for this book. I might post another chapter if I've the energy.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Just Absolutely Swamped

Cloak landed on his feet. He is a cat, after all. The fall itself was very strange. It felt to be a long time in duration and yet no time at all. Odd. Cloak peered around in a dim gloom, and tried to Earthsight -- which wasn't easy, as every seemed to "look" slimy and shifty. This combined with the scent of this place and humid mugginess led Cloak to only one conclusion.
 
"Swamp." he muttered, as he continued to assess his surroundings.
 
"How very apt of you." came a voice. Cloak recognized it at once as SAL SOMNUS. Cloak could not see or Earthsight the mechanical monstrocity's location, which left only one venue for it to be. The swampy water. . . . But it couldn't be anything all that bad, as that water did not appear to be very deep.

"Enough of this hiding," Cloak said. "Get out here and face me."

"Fair enough." the voice said reasonably. The creature came out and appeared to be a combination of a Deep Sea Warrior and a Creature from the Black Lagoon. All in all -- not something very pleasant to look at. But Cloak was not perturbed. He had seen much more frightening creatures. He had been trampled before by unknowingly getting in the way between some diehard "Beliebers" and Bieber merchandise. This thing wasn't gonna intimidate him.

"And what are you?" Cloak said, with an unimpressed and bored air.

"Oh, yes, introductions." it said.  The voice was SAL's but slightly different some how. "I am SAL-R."

"Salazar?"

"No, no, no. SAL-R -- s-a-l-hyphen-r." it said. There was no emotion, just cold reason, impersonal rationality.

"Huh. Okay, so what is your purpose here?"

"I am to keep you here, so the Great SOMNUS may use your abilities, and that of your friends, to its purposes."

"And SOMNUS actually thinks that it can get away with this?" Cloak said, a dangerous lilt to his voice.

"Do not resist. You cannot escape. The Great SOMNUS knows of your power levels."

"Pal, you do not know anything about Realm Walkers, do you?" Cloak said. "We do not like being confined. We can not be confined by the likes of you."

"Do not resist."

"Don't challenge me. You won't enjoy it." Cloak warned.

"Do not resist."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2014, 02:57:11 PM

Now another. I've got a writing fire within me right now.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Demon Penguins!!

Az stood up. He didn't much care for the fall. It was so cliched that he surmised that none of them had expected it. Az rasied his palm and flexed it a bit shooting out a small flurry of snowflakes. He still had his powers. Good, then this was some sort of virtual reality or virtual world sort of schtick.
 
Az looked around, taking in his surroundings. The sky was dark, moonless and starless, except for one pinpoint of light, like an aurora. The ground was glacial and frozen. Az was surprised. He hadn't sensed the cold at all, hadn't even felt it. But yet, it must be cold, because snow and ice could not exist at warm, comfortable temperatures such as these.
 
One could make the argument that this was because of his cryokinesis, that he was immune to cold because of it. But this was not true. He could always feel the cold, could at least sense it. Granted it didn't bother him as much as it would someone without cryokinesis, but that didn't mean that he would not notice it.
 
Az also noticed that there were many strange creatures ambling around. They looked like . . . penguins. Penguins in a plethora of shapes and a rainbow of colors. Shapes and colors that were impossible for them to exist as in the real world.
 
"First, I find myself transported to a warped version of 'Ice Age', and now I see unnatural penguins everywhere. . . . I must've hit might head." Az said, placing a hand to his forehead and shaking it slowly.
 
"Correction: demon penguins!" came a squawking voice. It sounded rather like the Abridged Nappa crossed with Scratch from "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog". Rather irritating.
 
"What the . . . demon penguins? Demon penguins? Are you serious? Demon penguins??" Az said incredulously.
 
"YES!" came the malicously eager voice. "Fear them! Wallow in terror at the demon penguins!"
 
"Are you -- wait, who are you?"
 
Suddenly, a penguin whose white parts were colored blood red, and possessed two devil horns and glowing blue eyes leaped out in front of Az, who wore a look that clearly said that he was wondering if someone was punking him. The devil penguin somehow misinterpreted this into a sign that Az was utterly terrified.

"Yes, mortal, fear me!"

"Uh, who are you?" Az asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically, wondering if this guy was for real.

"Ah! You wish to know the name of your tormentor?"

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that." Az said, tonelessly.

"I am SAL-F!" the devil penguin said, loudly and pridefully crass.

"Salf?"

"No, fool! S-a-l-hyphen-f!"

"Whatever. What do you want?"

"I want to obey the Great SOMNUS. I want to keep you here forever!"

"Yeah . . . good luck with that."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2014, 06:39:45 AM

Oooh, everyone gets a different room. And demon penguins?! :rofl:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2014, 08:43:26 AM

Quote from: Saffa on June 27, 2014, 06:39:45 AM

And demon penguins?! :rofl:

Precisely the reaction that I was going for. ;D

A new chapter soonish.

:edit: Now, that new chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Courting Saffa

Saffa righted herself, having trouble deciding if her landing was hard or not. Her backside didn't hurt, so she decided it mustn't have been so bad. The only thing her was her ego. It was an obvious trap, she saw it now. The machine king didn't have any defenses when they confronted him, yet was so cavalier and unafraid. That should have tipped them off that something was up.

She deftly took in her surroundings and saw nothing but darkness, barring the inexplicable circle of khaki-colored light on which she stood, illuminating her and her only. She swiftly decided that this was rather foreboding. Why couldn't it be something funny -- like demon penguins?

She wandered aimlessly. It was aimless because she couldn't tell which direction she was traveling except forward. She did not know if she was going east, west, north, or south. There was nothing but the void.

"Oof!" she uttered suddenly, bumping into a low wall that came up to her waist. She took a look at this wall and discovered that it was actually like a banister with obese columns holding it up. It was like the rather stereotypical ones in a . . .

"Oh, no." Saffa said, quickly surmising what was going to happen.

"Order in the court, order I say." came an impassionate voice. The voice was a mixure of a more masculine Judge Judy and Johnson-as-Judge-Man from "Yu-Gi-Oh!"*. A judge stand appeared in a khaki light of its own, with a perverse seal that said "Just Us" behind it with a flag of blood red with a black print of a Terminator head emblazoned upon it.

"Who are you?" Saffa demanded boldly. This elwas an effort to hide the fact that this whole courtroom schtick unnerved her, and that flag just sickened her.

"Honorable Judge SAL-I presiding," said the voice. Upon the judge's podium sat a rather large creature somewhere between the art of a Judge Man card and Hudson of "Gargoyles". A rather homely, overly and overtly masculine figure who acted so prim and proper.

But Saffa was unable to surpress a giggle. "Judge Sally?"

"Objection: it is s-a-l-hyphen-i." SAL-I said. "Sustained."

The giggles immediately stopped as Saffa caught onto what was going on here. She was on trial again for some reason. It was likely as ludicrous as the last one but why?

"You are charged with a very grievous crime, young lady." SAL-I said.

"What crime?" demanded Saffa without thinking.

"You dared to exist as an organic creature. 'Tis a very serious crime."

"Existence isn't a crime!" Saffa protested as passionately as SAL-I was impassionate.

"I'm afraid it is," SAL-I said, indifferently. "As dictated by the Great SOMNUS."

---

*A hint as to where I got this idea from, the idea for all five rooms.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2014, 01:50:39 PM

Another chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Sterility and the Dinosaur

Dino landed on her feet, which she was thankful for. It was difficult for her to right herself when she is on her side. But she was disoriented enough to have to struggle to know if she was at her true size or her compacted form. The very notion of which terrified her, the not knowing.

She was also quick to notice how the floor felt beneath her considerably large feet. It felt unnaturally smooth and polished, as if her very feet were dirty when they were, surprisingly, not.

"Methinks Petunia Dursley is somewhere nearby." Dino croaked out. She didn't like the way that this made her voice sound and how very echo-y it was. The whole place had a feeling of sterility, lifelessness, and isolating. "Wherever this is, I don't like it very much."

She took a step and could actually feel the impact of her foot. Felt the vibrations that her foot's impact made in a way that seemed louder and more obvious than any moment before she became the nothlit her name implied.

"Don't care for that very much, either."

She continued, ignoring the impact sensations from her feet as best as she could. She was taking in as much of her surroundings that she could, but finding it only being flat, polished pristine, and metallic. It was like living in a Roboticized world. Dino found her self really despising the decor -- or, more accurately, lack thereof.

"Intruder alert!" came a robotic voice.

Dino, taken aback by the abject suddenness of it, recoiled. Then the alarm came and the revolving red lights were far more distracting. "Wha . . ."

"Intruder. Return to your pen." the same voice said.

"Return to my what?" Dino said, now more angry than puzzled.

"Inferior being, return to your pen."

"I will do no such thing! Who are you? Show yourself!"

"Gaze upon the form of a superior being, then, organic filth." said the voice.

Suddenly, before her, a figure rose from the floor. It was hard to determine if the guy was a Robotic Knight, a Perfect Machine King, a Tenkai Knight, or one of those unarticulated Transformer toys. The figure wore a smug look, which was made harder to read due to the lack of a mouth.

"Great. A technophile." Dino said, clearly unimpressed.

"Silence, worthless creature of flesh." said the robot, eyes burning red.

"And if I don't?"

"You will obey your master."

Dino laughed. She couldn't help it.

"I, SAL-H, am your master!"

"You, SAL-H, are deluded." Dino laughed.

"Silence, saurian beast!"

Dino glared at him and said, challengingly, "Make me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2014, 05:29:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Cross That Bridge . . .

Blue landed upon a dark blue Prius, and wasn't injured. However, he didn't like feeling so exposed. It went against his ninja instincts, as ninjas tend to prefer the cover of shadows. So he hopped down and crouched amongst the abandoned vehicles to collect himself and assess his environment.

It was about midday, yet the area was abandoned, cars left behind. There had to be a reason for this. Blue checked himself, and was relieved to discover he still had his ninja arsenal. He was afraid he might have lost them in the fall. From there he continued to assess his situation.

He was on a bridge over some brackish, black slime-like water, and the bridge stretched out into darkness on both ends. Yet the sky was a merry blue with narry a cloud in the air. Blue found this rather contradictory. And reason to be cautious.

He moved stealthily, sneakily, and deftly to a chosen side of the bridge, proceeding methodically forward, careful to stay out of sight. If he did this right, he might escape without anyone even realizing. It would be a testament to his ninja training.

FFFFFOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

Suddenly, the SUV that had been blocking him from view twisted and disintegrated. Leaving only a trailing vapor and scorch marks as any evidence that it had ever existed. Blue was perfectly fine however, though a bit nonplussed at how he was found out.

"Organic, I say, Organic," came the voice. It sounded like the Abridged Vegeta with the vocal mannerisms of Foghorn Leghorn. "Stop your hiding there and come with me."

Blue said nothing, but narrowed his eyes at the being before him. He wondered if he had time to reach for his ninjabo, as he took in the creature's appearance. It appeared to be Mummymon's so-called "human" form with the face of Jinzo. An elegantly disturbing visage.

"Are you, I say, are you deaf, Organic?" it said again. "SAL-C doesn't repeat himself."

"But he does evidently speak in the third-person," Blue muttered, not really paying attention. He was conceiving a way out of this mess, and merely hoping to distract SAL-C into letting his guard down.

"Now, now! We cannot have such disrespect for one's superiors, Organic!" SAL-C said. "Let's try that again now."

"'Superiors'?" Blue said, standing up straight and proud. He reached back and held the handle of his ninjabo. "Who are you to decide that? Who are you to decide who and what is superior or inferior?"

"I didn't, boy," SAL-C said, and Blue found himself hating him, "the Great SOMNUS has decreed it so. And the Great SOMNUS's word is law."

Blue quickly and adeptly unsheathed his ninjabo.

"We'll see about that," he said, voice dangerously quiet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2014, 09:02:43 PM

Aaaaaaand another chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Rationality

"Do not resist. Your efforts will prove futile." SAL-R said.

"You obviously do not know me very well." Cloak said, sending out a pulse of energy. But SAL-R absorbed some water to deflect it back at Cloak at twice its original strength. Cloak took the attack, felt the attack.

"Great. It knows Mirror Coat." Cloak said, snarkily.

"Be reasonable, cloaked one. You cannot win. Every attack you expend at me will only serve to hasten your own demise."

It would be true. Cloak could be killed, as since his own attacks would count as being from a Realm Walker. It was rather ingenius, he had to admit, though he was sure this was unintentional brillance by SOMNUS's stooge here. Cloak would not be able to just bludgeon his way through this obstacle. He had to think in order to get by this obstacle.

Fortunately, he was not a brutish brawler who thought of only force to win. He could strategize -- though he would be the first to admit that he wasn't the foremost strategist in existence, he could do it well enough to get by here.

"Do not struggle," SAL-R said, reasonably, though the request was thoroughly unreasonable. "There is no possible way that you can win. You have failed. You can do nothing. If you try to attack, you will get knocked down again and again until you stop or die. It would be a waste for energy, of effort."

Maybe if Cloak can get it talking, perhaps he could divine a weakness, a chink in the armor. True, SAL-R's defense seemed insurmountable. However, there were many things in his life that seemed insurmountable at the time. This was nothing more than yet another one of those moments.

"I know you're thinkig of a way to escape. There is none. You was your time." SAL-R tried to impress upon Cloak the futility of such an endeavor.

Then something clicked into place. It was so perfectly pieced together.

"I see."

"You finally see reason."

"No, I see that you are not an unique individual." Cloak said, standing up tall. "I see that you are nothing more than a part, an extension, a construct of SAL SOMNUS. His rationality, his reasoning. Hence the 'R' in your name."

"You grasp at straws."

"Your program flickers," Cloak said. "This must be a very good computer simulation. Near as good as the ones in the training room. But it's not real."

"Do not lie to yourself," SAL-R said, but his form flickered noticibly.

"Very believable," Cloak continued. "It came very close to fooling my Realm Walker, and my RAFian, sensibilities. But play time is done. I have things to do."

"NO!" SAL-R said, losing all pretense.

Cloak's Mark glowed brightly, and he used a Unity Blast to dissolve SAL-R destroying him utterly and the very swamp flickered and became a empty, featureless room with a treadmill track-like floor. But Cloak concerned himself with climbing upwards.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2014, 09:53:17 PM

Well. That was easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 28, 2014, 12:57:06 PM

All caught up! Good stuff, Cloaky. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2014, 01:42:01 PM

Glad, Gazzy.

Perhaps, Saffa, perhaps. But I want to end this book around Chapter 26 or so.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Contempt of Court

"Pootang dung!" Saffa spat. "I don't care what that idiot says. Mere existence isn't a crime! I have a right to exist, a god-given right!"

"The time for testimony has ended." SAL-I said impassionately. "Judgement will be passed."

"Like Hell, it will." Saffa snarled. Already she was growing larger, scales growing upon her skin as her hair retreated. A large barbed tail shot from her and whipped dangerously on the stand. Her forearms remained roughly the same thickness as they elongated, as her legs became more therapod in nature. Her hands cracked open as her fingers on each side dwindled into a single claw. Her feet cracked open, reddening into two large claws. Plated armor grew along her back as spikes began to protrude from od angles.

"Objection! Stop this now or we shall hold you in contempt of court." SAL-I protested, but in a very indifferent way.

"A little late for that," Saffa said as her face bulged outward into a near skeletal grimace, as her face became more and more red. Then she grew two more sets of arms and a secondary pair of legs. Her eyes lost their humanity and became the pitiless red eyes of a Tyrannopede. The forehead horn nozzle grew, completing the morph.

Saffa liked the Tyrannopede morph. It was strong, heavy and powerful. Certainly one of her stronger morphs. Its mind was wild and difficult to control at times, but never outside her control. It could take on Vaxasaurians, so it was no pushover.

"You are charged with additional charge of unprovoked metamorphosis." SAL-I said.

<Do you know what the meaning of 'unprovoked' is?> Saffa zaid, switching to thought-speak. <But I have really had enough of you, Sally.>

"You are not allowed -- get back on the stand!" SAL-I changing from impassioned to indignant.

<Oh, I think not.> Saffa said, lumbering towards SAL-I who was feeling intimidated. This was amplified when she let out the Tyrannopede's mighty roar. She saw this poor pathetic being for what it was, for what it embodied. <You represent SAL SOMNUS's impassion, his indignity.>

"You can't get away with this!" SAL-I said, launching into a tirade. But Saffa used the Tyrannopede's web-shooting horn to silence him. It was a testament to her experience with this morph, as the eyesight was more or less human. SAL-I tried to leave, but Saffa webbed him to the spot, as he manged to rip the web of his mouth, revealing himself to be a hologram. "You can't do this!"

Saffa turned her attention from him as she said indifferently, "So sue me," as she discovered a way out. The illusion flickered and died, after which she morphed back, following the way out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 28, 2014, 07:04:48 PM

I like this morph.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2014, 08:25:10 PM

Right. And for anyone reading who doesn't know, this is a Tyrannopede: (http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140504183553/ben10/images/7/7c/Tyrannopede_artwork.png)

The collar thing is not a natural part of its anatomy. It's the Nemetrix.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
That's Cold

"You can't fool me!" SAL-F squawked. "I know that you tremble at the sight of my demon penguins! You put on a brave front, but it's transparent. I know fear as easily as the back of my flipper!"

"Oh, eek." Az said, completely toneless and indifferent. He wore a heavy-lidded look that clearly said that he was unimpressed, not fearful. SAL-F seemed unable to recognize this fact. "Oh, the terror."

"Yes! Tremble at the terrible march of my demon penguin troops! Cower before their every mighty waddle! Dread every flailing flipper!"

Az couldn't help it. He was only human after all. He burst out in hysterical laughter.

"What's this?" SAL-F demanded, as if he did not know what laughter was. "What are these sounds you're producing? Are they high-pitched shrieks of terror?"

Az managed to get control over himself, just enough so he could choke out, "You don't know what laughter is? You're obviously supposed to be the embodiment of SAL SOMNUS's fearmongering -- hence the 'F' -- and you're completely inept at it!"

"Fool! I am fear incarnate!" SAL-F protested, but it came.off as pouting.

"No, that would be Parrallax." Az corrected. Then he lectured, "So you, in all honesty, thought that demon penguins were frightening? Well, let me tell you, you really missed the mark on that one, SAL."

"You'll regret your flippant lecture, boy!" the devil penguin squawked. The he put a flipper to his beak and somehow whistled. Suddenly, torpedo-like penguins filled the sky and plummeted down to Az's position, only to be met with a wall of ice that obscure where Az was. It shattered upon the contact with the explosive penguins.

"What the -- " SAL-F uttered.

A voice from behind him said, "We RAFians aren't so easy to dispatch."

SAL-F spun around and his very form flickered. He found Az standing behind him, holding a shard of ice the size and rough shape of a stake.

"Or detain." Az added, as he charged. But the whole area vanished, as if it was never there. Az casually assessed this. "It wasn't real. How come I'm not particularly surprised?"

Then he made his way out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2014, 02:12:16 AM

It's a bit like everyone found themselves in a training sim room again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2014, 02:39:19 PM

New book ideas. I think.

• Book CCCXLVIII: "Mindscape" -- An altruistic boy uses a Psycho Portal to help people deal with their mental cobwebs, figments of their imagination, emotional baggage and the like.
• Book CCCXLIX: "M'arillian Incursean" -- The RAFians must deal with a M'arillian invasion of Earth.
• Book CCCL: "Die Danians" -- The RAFians must deal with the Danian Parasites.
• Book CCCLI: "What If . . . ?" -- A retrospective book (after 350 books, I think this could justify a retrospective book, thoug not the last book of the series) detailing several "what if" scenarios" through the series. There may be more "what if" books down the line.

Don't think I rehashed anything, but, if I did, I think I can work around it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
[Censored]

"Now, now. That's not good." SAL-C said, seeing Blue's unsheathed sword. "That's too inimitable. Let's go for something a little better."

Now, Blue was confused. "What in the world are you talking -- "

Suddenly, Blue's ninjabo was a comically large meatball sub. Blue blinked a moment before realizing that it was nothing more than a hologram that had been projected over his ninjabo. He could help but feel a little relieved. He liked this sword.

"Come now, you're not believing!" SAL-C chided in a most irritatingly condescending way. "You don't have a sword now. It's a sandwich."

"No, it isn't." Blue said. The projection of a sandwich flickered and dissolved.

"Fine, then. How's about we just edit it out then?" SAL-C said, and Blue's ninjabo appeared to vanish instantaneously. But Blue could feel the handle quite solidly in his grip. He easily broke through the apparent "white-out effect" that SAL-C apparently had cast over it. "You know, boy, this would, I say this would go on a lot easier if you'd just cooperate."

"Cooperate? With you? My would-be jailor?" Blue said. His voice was soft and subtle, but it concealed a great amount of sheer irritation and annoyance.

"No, boy, your, I say, your current jailor."

Blue, despite himself, laughed. "You cannot even convince me enough to see my own weapon as what you wish. You have insufficient will. Your arrogance and ill-concieved sense of superiority has deluded you into believing yourself to be stronger than you actually are."

"How dare you --" SAL-C said, dropping the facade of pleasantness. But Blue continued, talking over him.

"I see you for what you are. You embody SAL SOMNUS's censorship. You aren't his censor, but the one he uses to censor everyone else. If I didn't know any better, I'd call you 4Kids."

"You insolent little --"

"Are you done? I have places that need to be. Places I much rather be, right now."

SAL-C fire his.optic blasts, but Blue easily deflected them with his ninjabo blade as if they were jets of water. Blue was not intimidated at all, but bored and unimpressed, now that he determined the truth. Blue began to walk, blatant and cavalierly past SAL-C. When SAL-C tried to attack him, his head and body parted company as Bkue sheathed his ninjabo. The illusion flickered, then died.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2014, 10:53:33 PM

You could make the "what if" books a periodic thing, considering how many situations and RAFians are there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2014, 11:13:47 PM

True, but chances are there won't be another "what if" book until Book DCCI (701). Because I am gonna try to encompass as many "what if" scenarios to Book CCCLI as I can think of (only being a single chapter or two long).

I got the idea from the "What If . . . ?" comics of Marvel. If any reader has an idea for one, P.M. me. So far (from a while ago) only Underseen has sent me an idea . . . which might be spun off into a full-fledged book instead, or not.

I would post another chapter, the penultimate for this book, but I really need to go to bed.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Imperfect Hatred

"I said silence, beast!" SAL-H snarled.

"And I said," Dino countered, "make me."

Then Dino slammed her tail absently and accidentally into the wall, which bent to force of the blow, and cracked, and splintered. There was a very obvious impact point upon what had once been painstakingly smooth, shiny and clean. The futuristic facade was lost apparently because of how it easily it buckled beneath the impact.

"Watch what you are doing, you stupid beast!" SAL-H scolded scornfully.

"I'd watch my mo-- . . . oh, wait, you do not seem to have one. My mistake." Dino said, this time making a deliberate strike on the adjoining wall.

"Watch it!"

"Oh, I am." Dino said, in a bored, indifferent voice. She watched as she made a third strike.

"Stop this now!"

"Stop what?" Dino said, feigning ignorance rather unconvincingly, deliberately making another blemish against the wall, so it wasn't remotely smooth anymore.

"Hear me, beast!" SAL-H said, unbridled hatred in his voice. "You will stop these stupid shenanigans right this moment and return to your pen!"

"Naw, I don't think that I will." Dino said, rather bored and unimpressed with everything that was going on. She hadn't anticipated that SAL-H would devolve into such a whiny, wimpy crybaby like this.

"Do as I command!"

"And, if I refuse?"

This seemed to stymie him a bit, but he went back to the reflexive, "Do as I command, beast!"

"And what will you do to make me?"

Stymied again.

"Honestly, I've seen far more frightening and intimidating representatives of Hate than you -- yes, yes, I know that you are SAL SOMNUS's hate given life." Dino lectured, becoming aware that she was, in fact, in her compacted form. "All in all, it is rather disappointing that you'd turn out such a boorish, wimpy, whiny --"

"Stop it!" SAL-H protested, but Dino continued without interruption.

" -- childish, meek, little man. I will not go to any pen. I do not have to listen to your petty little demands. I. Am. Leaving."

She turned around, and began taking large therapod steps to the nearest exit.

"No! Go to your --"

SMACK! SAL-H just got up and personal with Dino's tail. And it smashed him to pieces with one smash.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2014, 06:19:34 PM

Last chapter of Book 64.

I think due to the fact I use Roman numerals, that I didn't originally think "Memoirs" would go on this long. Or, for that matter, be so vital in the reduction of my innate anxiety. I'm glad it has. There are gonna be several intresting books in the future, but I won't spoil anything. Saffa would kill me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX*:
Shell of a Machine

There was loud boom as Cloak exploded from his room into SAL's throne room. Another two booms indicated Dino and Saffa (in Tyrannopede morph) burst into the room.  A circular spot on the floor crusted over with ice and shattered when Az punched it, shielding his eyes from shrapnel. In the last apot, a blade was stabbed through the smooth metal disc that blocked the trapdoor. The blade moved in a rough circle in a single stroke of the ninjabo, and it opened like a can. Blue leaped out, landing soundlessly several feet away.

"That was interesting," Az said, dusting off the small bits of shrapnel from his shoulders, as Saffa began to demorph. "But SAL, you really have to much -- what's wrong with him?"

They looked at SAL, but he didn't respond. He didn't react to any stimuli apparently. For all intents and purposes . . . he looked . . .

"He's . . . dead?" Saffa asked. "How could that happen? I just took out his impassion!"

"I took out his rationality," Cloak said.

"Hatred," Dino said, seemingly dawning on something. "The one I had was Hatred."

"Censorship," Blue added.

"Huh, I didn't --" Dino began to protest, mistaking Blue's message.

"No, that was the SAL I fought. Censorship."

"I fought his fearmongering side," Az asked. "He wasn't very good at it. Thought demonic penguins were scary."

"Wait," Saffa said, looking at Az as if she was sure she hadn't heard him properly. "Demonic penguins?"

"Yes, demon penguins. Like I said, not particularly smart."

"So, five different sides of his personality represented in each of the custom-made illusions." Cloak said thoughtfully. "Rationality. Fearmongering, or instilling fear. Impassion. Hatred. Censorship. These must be the five major components that made up SAL SOMNUS. When we destroyed him, assuming that they weren't real, we actually destroyed that aspect of him. Elimating it from his being without either party realizing it."

Cloak gazed at the husk of SAL SOMNUS. His eyes were blank, black, and vacant. He remained motionless, cold as ice. Cloak could tell, via Earthsight, that the hulking mass was immobile. Not so much as a spark of in it . . . and yet . . .

"So . . . we killed him?" Az asked, in a small voice.

"I don't understand. SAL SOMNUS obviously murdered those people, and that Utrom, but . . . I'm feeling sorry for killing it." Saffa said, with a slight perplexed look upon her face.

"It's not a way anyone would want to go," Blue said, solemnly. "But we had little other recourse."

"We did what we had to do," Dino said. But it was clear she had a sense of guilt for it, too.

SAL may have been a machine, but he was a sentient machine. Did he have a soul, one that was twisted into what he had become? Blue and Dino was right. The five RAFians were left with littlw option.

And yet . . . yet, something tugged at Cloak's gut. Something that told him that appearances may be misleading. Could he trust this rather hasty assessment he made? Would it come back to bite them in the butt?

"What about his body?" Az asked. "What do we do with it? Do we destroy it or . . . or . . . or . . . I dunno."

Cloak said nothing. He was unsure of the proper way of doing this. Could that body present them a problem in the future?

"Blue?" Cloak said. It wasn't a request, and the ninja knew precisely what Cloak was asking of him.

"On it." the ninja replied.

---

*My Kindle's dictionary apparently didn't recognize "twenty-six" as a word. ::) Fortunately, I turned AutoCorrect off -- more hassle than it's worth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2014, 10:32:34 AM

Starting the new book.

BOOK LXV:
PRODIGY AND COMPOSITE
CHAPTER ONE:
No One Has To Be Alone

After the events with the whole SAL SOMNUS debacle, Cloak isolated himself. But brooding always had a habit of opening old, and sometimes forgotten, wounds for him.

Cloak always had a habit of unnecessarily brooding over things -- past failures, his victimization of wrongdoing by others, and such. It was not healthy, not even for a Realm Walker. Yet, he always fell into this trap of isolating himself from his friends, his surrogate family.

These were the times that Cloak felt alone in his suffering -- self-inflicted suffering by simply reliving the past wrongs. It is a trap, one that Cloak always bumbles into when he is confronted with a setback.

The RAFians who knew him best knew that this was a warning sign. That he would eventually crash into an emotional crisis if he continued. They cared enough about him to not let this come to pass.

Dino, Aquilai, Saffa, Noelle, and Gaz found Cloak brooding in solitude, in a dark corner of the forum. They tried to conjole him as he sat on his haunches, vaguely wondering if anything was worth anything, if he was worth anything.

Dino sang, gently:

"No one has to be alone,
In this forum we live in.
You don't need to feel
There's no one by your side.
Everything you see
Is a gift you're given.
Anywhere is home
And no one has to be alone."

Noelle added:

"There's so much around us.
There are friends yet to find."

Cloak glances over his shoulder toward the others, but doesn't move. He was always so infuriatingly fatalistic, and he was aware of this facet of himself, but could not control it. He always had a propensity for extreme pessimism.

Gaz continued, coaxingly:

"There are dreams yet to be discovered.
And dreams to leave behind."

Dino picked it up from there:

"All the wonders above us.
And splendors down below us."

All five sang:

"There is so much more to everything
Than we can ever know."

Then the five ushered in a new person, the one person that could possibly get Cloak out of this funk. Shadow. She sang:

"You don't have to be afraid
Of being lost and lonely.
Everything you need
Is right before your eyes.
Each bright and shining day
Is waiting for you only
To make this forum your own.
And you'll never be alone.
Remember, Uncle."

The other five chimed in with her.

"No one has to be alone."

Cloak turned around toward Shadow, as she gave him a hug. It was a very non-Realm Walker thing to do. Realm Walkers tended to show affection at arm's length without words, but Cloak appreciated it just the same. He relflected yet again on how ironic Shadow's name is when she provides him with so much light. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 01, 2014, 10:54:37 AM

That was a good book. And here's the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2014, 10:49:46 PM

New chapter, as I can't sleep. Still a bit furious at myself for not looking hard enough for my d@mn SSN card, giving up hope, and then just finding it in the first place that I should have looked.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Commisceo Concoction

"You've done well in procuring the fuchsia Geryon flowers." Malice said, eyeing a vial of a purplish liquid. "It was the essential ingredient for the Commisceo Concoction."

"Thank you, Mistress," Mega-Maul croaked throatily, bowing deeply. Malice took no notice, to his words nor his gesture of respect.

"And, yet," Malice said, as if continuing a thought that began silently in her head. Mega-Maul visibly tensed at these words, tensed with fear. "None the Concoctions that I've brewed from the supply that you procured for me . . . were satisfactory."

She indicated the corpses that littered the floor behind her. A male African lion the size of an oversized housecat with proportionate wings and antennae of a bumblebee. A female sun bear the size of a Pomeranian with proportionate butterfly wings and antennae. An androgynous creature the size of a small car with the body shape, pouch and tail of a female red kangaroo and a bull elephant's trunk and ears. A male, surfboard-sized creature with moose antlers, seal body, and a head blended somewhere between a moose and a seal. A female, footlocker-sized hippopotamus with rabbit ears, tail, and teeth. A male, man-sized rhesus monkey with a rhinocerosid snout, horn, and hindlegs.

If Mega-Maul tensed anymore, he would pass for a statue. This amount of stress isn't good for anyone. He was so scared that he might have offended Malice in some way, and it was a.particularly apt fear, as the smallest thing could set her off. And Mega-Maul didn't even know about Abom . . . th Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination.

Malice continued her rather macabre musings in a light conversational tone, "Unfortunately, these failures have exhausted the supply of the flowers. As well as subjects on which to test the resulting Concoctions."

"Mistress?" Mega-Maul muttered, afraid that he actually dared to speak. He knew that could anger her, but anything could. Malice was no Elements Master, but that didn't mean she couldn't be intimidating. If she played it just right, she could be remarkably subtle and manipulative. However, she felt that, as of lately, that she might be suffering from what the Dwellers called "villain decay", which she saw as an affront.

But Malice paid this no mind, and kept her light, thoughtful tone. When she spoke, she actually looked at him directly for the first time since the conversation began. "I should wish for you to procure some more for me, Mega-Maul."

He had been dreading this request. But he was well aware of the inevitably of it. Malice was ridiculously difficult to please. Getting praise, even the most minute praise, was paramount of her requesting something difficult in a near-impossible amount of given time. There was no tolerance for arguing or backtalk. There was no wriggle room. He would have to acquiesce.

Mega-Maul turned to leave and Malice once again turned her back to him. She spoke again, over her shoulder, "Oh, and Mega-Maul?"

He turned to look at her, but before he could ask what, she said, with a slightly more authoritative edge, "Don't take so long this time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 01, 2014, 11:19:22 PM

Those corpses sound like something out of The Human Centipede. :sick:

Also, what's an SSN card?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2014, 11:51:29 PM

Social Security (Number) card. You can't get a job in America without it. I dunno if India has an analogue to it.

And those corpses? They were actually based off of . . . Wuzzles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuzzles).

[spoiler]The Commisceo Concoction merged two individual creatures into one, in an almost Potterian magical way.[/spoiler]

Now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Concoction Completion

"F-forgive me, Mistress," Mega-Maul whimpered, as he knelt, head bowed, hands held up. He was cradling a few plucked flowers. The petals were a brilliant fuchsia, with a simple but odd vascular segmentation appearing on the stem, like a rigatoni except with crevices instead of ridges. There were two broad leaves axially on the stem, one had smooth, plain edges, the other was rough with serrated edges. The stamens were Pikachu yellow, and the centers of the deep-belled flowers turned the fuchsia coloring scarlet. "F-forgive me. These were the only ones that were left on that field . . ."

It was then Mega-Maul was shown in greater relief. His armor was chipped and cracked. He was shaking slightly, a nearly imperceptible shiver echoing throughout his body. His mostly hidden eyes looked puffy, but whether that was from the dangers he faced or from the tears he shed was debatable.

Malice scooped up the flowers, and Mega-Maul winced at this briefest of touches. Malice pretended not to notice, as she scrutinized the flowers passively and seemingly indifferently. There were slight variances from the other flowers procured and used, but that was to be expected from any species. Realm Walkers themselves varied far more drastically in form from one another than most species. She looked up from her flowery examination, and gave Mega-Maul a long hard look, which he flinched at, as if he had been shot.

"If this prove unsatisfactory," Malice said, voice still light and breezy, but conveyed a very real and very subtle air of danger. "If the Conction brewed from these flowers prove unsatisfactory, you'll just have to go and find some more."

"B-b-but . . ." Mega-Maul began to protest before he lost his nerve.

Malice spoke with her back to him now. "Remember your vow."

Mega-Maul was at a lost for words. He felt overcome with crushing stress, like trying to lift up one of those cartoony sixteen-ton weights off his back. It was an impossible task. The flowers only grew in that field, and he basically stripped the place of them. It did not sit well with the keeper of the field -- a terrifying monster of a person with the head, legs and arms of a man, but three bodies connecting them.* There was a reason the flowers was named Geryon . . . actually, two, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Correctly interpreting this sudden silence, Malice said, with a girlish coyness, "Or maybe . . . maybe Ravager could do it. He would do it without question. Or hesitation."

Mega-Maul despised the assumption. But he was at a lost of what he could do. There was no more flowers, no more Geryon flowers in that field, in that meadow. He looked so painstakingly hard, while dealing with an irate Geryon.

"Leave me." Malice said, dropping her embarrassingly girly behavoirs for someone her age, revealing it all to be an act. Mega-Maul was quick to acquiesce, but one thing bothered him. He hasn't delievered any test subjects like Malice requested, but she didn't seem to mind.

Truth was . . . she already had two subjects in mind . . .

---

* This. (http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091129211204/olympians/images/3/31/Geryon.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2014, 08:18:33 PM

Alas, the "modify-post" syndrome! Either that or Saffa's busy. ;) j/k

CHAPTER FOUR:
An Attack! An Attack!

In the Bannedlands, a creature that appeared to have the body of Phineas T. Ratchet from the 2005 movie "Robots", a head like Voltron and a face like Optimus Prime was speaking to the mass of trolls. The Banned were all off doing whatever it was Banned do in their off time -- scheming up a scam, out on a lam, taking whatever they please . . . wait, those were lyrics to "Welcome to the Forty Thieves".

The trolls did not seem to understand that this creature manner of speaking an inhumanly dispassionate way and in such a monotone timbre that even Ben Stein would tell him to show a little more emotion. The trolls did not seem to grasp that they should not trust this robot. But they allowed him to whip them up into a frenzy. And they proceded to go and try to attack RAF.

Again.

Meanwhile, the robot showed up at Malice's side, who had been watching the whole ordeal with a sickening smile. She addressed the robot, "Very good, Mauler. You made for a very good test subject."

Yes, she tested the Concoction on both Mega-Maul and Ravenger. It fused them together into this robot . . . thing. Mauler did not answer. He no longer had any will of his own. It was as if he had been roboticized. That was Malice's goal with the Concoction all along -- it wasn't merely enough to completely fuse the subjects, but to completely bent the more-powerful fusion to her will and desires. They would not have any will whatsoever, but complete and utter loyalty to her, and her alone.

This attack by the trolls would naught but a mere distraction. A mere slight of hand. . . .

***

"Here in the land of RAF
We're having twice the fun!
A little bit of this.
A little bit of that.
And when you add it up,
You get a lot of laughs!
Ooh, we've got originality!
Living with a split personality!
We're the RAFians! (Oh yeah!)
We're the RAFians! (Hoho, yeah!)
'N' times the fun,
Wrapped-up and rolled into one . . .
Ooh, we've got originality!
Living with a split personality!
We're the RAFians! (Oh yeah!)
We're the RAFians! (Hoho, yeah!)
'N' times the fun,
Wrapped-up and rolled into one!"

"Oh, Abby, give it up already, will ya?" Saffa said benignly, working on a paper or something school-related. "No major network is gonna green light a RAFian television series."

"Nickelodeon green lit 'Fred: the Show' and Cartoon Network green lit 'Annoying Orange'," Cloak pointed out, sitting upon a smooth rock, legs crossed, eyes closed. He was trying to focus his mind. "And both shows have no substance to speak of."

"See, Cloak gets it!" Abby insisted.

"That is to say --" Cloak began, afraid that he didn't clarify his position well enough.

"Guys! Lock and load!" Parker said. "The trolls are staging another coup."

This.was stretching the true to breaking point, Cloak thought. Still, if it was just another attempted troll incursion, why was Parker so amped up? He soon realized it was because Parker had gotten bored.

"UGH!" Saffa snarled. "Why couldn't they do this on a day when I didn't have so much homework?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 02, 2014, 11:42:42 PM

Actually I was asleep. :P

Oh, NOW I remember where Geryon came from!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2014, 11:44:40 PM

Okay -- you were busy sleeping, then! :P ;)

:edit: New book ideas comin' at ya.

• Book CCCLII: "Blackout" -- The RAFians must save the world from a global blackout.
• Book CCCLIII: "The Phaetovore" -- The RAFians must deal with a ghost-eater.
• Book CCCLIV: "Shoggoth and Papa" -- The RAFians must deal with a Shoggoth, which reveals a truth about Underseen's "father".
• Book CCCLV: "Grundel Grievances" -- The RAFians must save a boy from  Grundel, which a RAFian has had a painful past experience with.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything, if I did, I'll find some way to work around it.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Getting Close

The RAFians were surprised to see that trolls were being unusually viscious and uncommonly untraditional in how these coups usually went. They weree fighting as if their very lives depended on taking back the forum. But no one seemed to notice that the trolls usual leaders, the Banned, were nowhere to be found. They had no knowledge of this incusion, this assault, and were probably very livid to discover the Bannedlands were currently troll-free. Whether they would suspect that someone took their troll (the Banned basically thinking of them similarly to a rancher thinks of his cattle) or that they all decided to up and leave upon their own accord, it would be most likely the former. This was not the usual song-and-dance of the coups past.

The trolls weren't above fighting dirty, either.

"Is it me," Hunter asked, forced by sheer numbers to fight with his back basically touching those of Cloak, Phoenix, Yarin, and Blue, "or are these trolls stronger than before?"

"Or have something they're fighting for that we're not privy to." Cloak said.

"Or it could be a -- HEY, THAT'S MY FACE, YOU JERK!" Phoenix began before yelling a troll who slugged him in the face.

A short distance away, Saffa, Horse (in her Tempest Blade-generated human form), Abby, and AniDragon were similarly grouped. They fought just as hard, but even RAFians could not stand up to such numbers. This led to the awful realization that the Banned always pulled their punches, held back their true numbers . . . but how were the RAFians to know that Malice managed to amass some extraneous trolls from other parts of the world to help out with this siege?

And Malice was quite confident that the Concoction would not work on the trolls. How? Why, she tested it earlier. It was concluded that the person's intelligence had to be more than the lowly brutish minds of a troll could allow and could afford. It rendered them fundamentally immune from the Concoction.

Malice waded unconcernedly through the undulating bodies fighting so hard, as if she was taking a midday stroll through the loveliest of parks. She loved the sound of fighting, of strife, of pain. It is a reason why she took the name of Malice. She delighted in the screams, in the cries, in the suffering.

She came upon the two groups of clustered RAFians. She smiled evilly as they were to preoccupied (yes, even Cloak) to even notice. To even realize that Malice had what appeared to be a Windex bottle of a strange fuchsia liquid . . .

That she sprayed both groups and retreated to a good viewing spot as the trolls finally withdrew. As the trolls left, there were no longer two groups of RAFians. There was just two individuals now. Just two -- a girl and a man.

The girl looked like a female version of Cloud, as represented in Kingdom Hearts, with long flowing hair. The man looked like a wingless Sephiroth, with a cloak and silver hair. The two looked unharmed, and a tad confused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2014, 09:50:18 PM

. . . Hopefully, the forum doesn't go down again. As corny (and maybe pathetic) as it might sound, I don't care: I don't want to imagine my life without RAF. RAF was the first real place I was permitted to be myself without fear of hypercritical judgement. It's rather important to me.

And I'd donate . . . if I could afford it. . . .

CHAPTER SIX:
. . . Huh?

"Are th-they g-gone?" Rotiart cowered from behind the nearly shut door of the Bored Board. But he what he saw answered his question, and so he swaggered out as if he hadn't been hiding during the battle where braver RAFians fought and struggled and were injured. The fact that he dared swagger when he cowered in relative safety was infuriating.

Then he caught sight of the two newcomers.

The girl, upon closer inspection, only had the clothing of Cloud, not his sword or demeanor. She possessed long strawberry blond hair, with rather iridescent, blemish-free skin and a kind, friendly sort of face whose eyes had a lovely twinkle to them. She was a sassy, vivacious person with an earnest honesty to her. But this was not to say that she was frail or a push over, she wasn't. She wasnt any more than the RAFians who made her up.

Yes, you read that right.

The man was of a lean build, standing about seven feet tall. He had long flowing hair as silver as moonlight. His clothing may had a Sephiroth feel, but his cloak was rather more familar. His.face was hard, stern, and unyielding. Everything about him conveyed the thought that this was not a man to cross. There seemed to be a coolness, a chill, that exuded from him like a mist.

Both possessed a Mark on their palms and lower arms, but only the man possessed a Mark on his forehead.

Rotiart, being not the smartest person in the world, though he fancied himself to be, asked, sneeringly, "Who are you?"

Even to anyone who did not know what a snot-nosed brat Rotiart was. It didn't help that Saffa and Cloak constituted part of these individual fusions, and both had a very low tolerance for the spoiled monster (though technically, Rotiart was human).

"I asked you a question!" he snarled, as if he was the one in charge here.

The two held the memories of their fusees, though they were not their fusees. They were their own individuals, though their minds were, like their bodies created from the RAFians' own. Not only created but blended in such a way that they were obviously different. But they had no names yet.

"Answer me!!" Rotiart ordered, but it came out as little more than a childish whine. Which was sad, considering Rotiart was like sixteen or seventeen or thereabouts.

"You don't issue the orders here, boy," the man said in a rich baritone.

"You don't talk to me like --"

But the girl, full of vim and vinegar (er, whatever that means*), grabbed the boy by his shirt and pulled him toward her so that they were nose-to-nose. "We'll speak to you any way we want, you pile of puke."

"Saffa?" Rotiart said, jaw agape like a slack-jawed snapping turtle.

"Not quite," the girl said.

Meanwhile, Laserbeak was watching this, and decided that this was an appropriate time to go fetch Gaz.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2014, 04:21:38 AM

Good Lord. :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2014, 08:18:30 AM

Right, Saffa. Looks like I'm gonna have to deviate a little from my planned notes again. Wouldn't be the first time. Heck, I did so at the end of the last book!

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Overlooked and Addressed

"What is taking them so long?!" Malice snarled, venting out some pent up anger. "They should have been here by now!! With total and unwavering loyalty to me!!"

There was no indication that Mauler had even heard her. Then again, he did not have a thought that Malice did not give him. He no longer had any real emotion, any real sentience. He really was little more than a mindless automaton now. Anything he said now would simply be parroting Malice, anything he did now would be because Malice commanded it. He had lost any complexity he once had -- which served Malice just fine in the interim.

Malice consulted her view screen, provided by a tiny camera disguised as a harmless, if overlarge ladybug. Malice knew that humans have a strange affection for the carnivorous beetle, although she wasn't quite sure why. She saw that the last of the Concoction (because she was forced to accept that Mega-Maul was right that there were no more, as she sent Mauler back to obtain more, and he came back empty handed) had worked splendidly.

But, yet they resist joining up with her . . . why? Why were they able to resist the call? Why were they still burdeoned by their own will and minds? This did not make sense. The Concoction was specifically designed to . . .

She caught sight of the man's forehead. She felt a plummeting sensation that she refused to acknowledge. The Mark of a RAFian. Of course. It was that ridiculous Mark Cloak had made for these lesser beings that he palled around with. When would he learn that Dwellers are nothing but tools? Instruments to serve your ends? They are not and can never be "friends", and friendship itself was pointless as well. People exist to serve your needs, Malice believed. Dwellers were sources of entertainment, like the blood sports the humans love so very much.

"Well," she grumbled, "this scheme has been a total misfire."

She refused to acknowledge that it was just one of many. She refused to remember how bored she was when she didn't have this constant struggle between her and the progeny of the progeny of Sage.

***

The two were brought into the auditorium, where they stood on the stage with the mods as they briefed the rest of the forum of this happening. Shadow was there as well, though not technically a RAFian. Rotiart made sure to sit in the very back, left hand corner of the auditorium. He was still a coward at heart.

"But you two need names," Richard said.

"Just call me . . . Composite." the girl said, with a shrug.

"Oh, like Composite Superman?" Sam, the Green Lantern, asked.

"Sure, whstever," Composite said, with an indifferent shrug.

"And you?" Richard prompted the man.

The man was silent for a moment, remembering Cloak's interaction with his earliest ancestor, Wan . . . er, Avatar.* He considered that for a moment, and said, "Call me Progeny."

"Excuse me, but we didn't quite hear you. Did you say Prodigy?"

"Sure, let's go with that." Prodigy shrugged noncommittally.

---

*;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2014, 08:42:58 AM

OMG I REMEMBER THAT BOOK. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2014, 03:05:29 PM

Which one? "The First Master" or the pied piper one in which Malice gets dreadfully bored?

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Solutions and Ranklings

"Yes, now then," Richard said, continuing to brief everyone. "This is the first time we have dealt with a problem like this before."

"Excuse me, problem??" Composite said. "I don't see any problem."

"Surely you want to defuse?" Super Nate asked, gently. "Return back to your normal state?"

"Our nor--"

"Don't you see, Composite?" Prodigy said, dourly. "They don't want us. They want the people we were born from back. We don't matter."

"It's not like that," Richard said hastily, foreseeing a problem down the line. "We simply thought all of you --"

"Oh, stop that 'all of you' talk." Composite said. "Prodigy and I are two people. Two. We may have been born by the fusion of your friends, but we're not them, not totally. We are two unique individuals from the RAFians you knew."

"Yes, so will you stop trying to appeal to us as if we're the Borg, the One, Legion, or something? Yes, our minds and bodies have been blended from your friends -- and we possess most, if not all, of their memories -- but we are not them. They're gone. There is only Composite and myself now."

Silence met this words. Shadow was looking a little grief stricken, but was contemplating a possible way for them to be defused . . . then wonder about how ethically-sound it was to do so. She was conflicted, unwittingly and unknowingly feeling what her uncle usually felt about his very life.

"You talk about solutions," Composite picked up the thread from there, "you talk about problems. Speak as if our existence was in error. I ask you, do Prodigy and I have no right to exist? Do we have no say in what will be our fates?"

Prodigy intoned, "Are we mere Nobodies, languishing from a missing heart? Do we have no right to live as a naturally born species? We are an amalgam, yes. Born artificially, by the fusion of preexisting individuals, but don't Yeerks start out similarly? Granted, we won't fission into new individuals, but that does not give us the right to live? To feel? To simply be?"

Silence broke over all assembled. Rotiart had snuck out, finding the whole proceedings pointless drivel. It was Shadow who spoke up.

"And what of those that your births constituted? What of them?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2014, 03:31:48 PM

The First Master. It's my favourite book in the series. :)

Ooh, this is getting dicey.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2014, 12:10:20 PM

Ah. It's one of my favorites, too. And ironically no RAFians other than myself (granted rather briefly) show up in it, either.

As for this book getting dicey . . . I'd get used to it. Its not gonna get -- well, that would be telling, I suppose.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Difference of Option

"What of them?" Composite asked.

"You talk about your right to exist. Your right to live." Shadow continued, emotion flooding jn and out of her words occasionally. "But whag of those that constitute you? The thinking, feeling people whose bodies and minds have gone to create and give rise to you two. What of them?"

"They exist," Prodigy said. "They exist as and through us."

"But you keep asserting that you are not them," Shadow countered deftly. "That your are different and unique and separate from those that made you up. You cannot be them and yet also be separate. It is one or the other."

"It's true that we are not them, but they do exist, within us and our memories." Composite argued. "As long as their memories remain intact, they exist."

"Point conceded," Shadow said, but, by the resolute way she folded her arms, she wasn't done yet. "But there are flaws with that line of thinking. Their memories are intact, fine, I concede that fact. But with your creation their individual memories stop abruptly."

"That's not true, our memories are their memories." Prodigy protested.

"Then you cannot argue that you are separate from them!" Shadow said. "You may have newer, distinct personalities of your own, new identities -- but if you make such a claim how can you state that you are not them? Their memories stop at your creation because they effectively become YOUR memories!"

"This all semantics!" Composite snarled. "We exist, we have a right to exist, to be, and yet you are arguing that we are nothing more than science experiments to be undone!"

"I am arguing nothing of the sort!" Shadow said, matching Composite in anger now. It coukd have been an unfortunate thing, as that side of Cloak's family was rather known for tempers. "I am arguing against you two just blatantly writing off the beings that made up by fusing together! Yes, you may have a right to exist, but, by the First Light, that does not make writing off and forgetting about those that made you up right!"

"You are advocating slaying us for the selfish desire to have your uncle back!" Prodigy protested.

"Perhaps, in part, yes," Shadow said, still heatily. "But you are advocating that we allow the RAFians that we all knew and loved to remain gone forever. You are demanding that we accept this lying down. I will not. I will question. I will ask."

She swept from the auditorium in a man er eerily similar to her uncle's favorite dramatic exits, before saying over her shoulder, "And I will find a way."

She left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 05, 2014, 12:22:37 PM

Well. That was dramatic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2014, 12:38:08 AM

Okay, planning may way through the chapters of Book CCCXXV, which is now entitled "Tick, Tick, Tick". Only on Chapter 8 though.

I'll post another chapter after some well-needed shut-eye.

:edit: And here it is.

CHAPTER TEN:
Immediate Inquiry

In a junk-filled room, full of the detritus of abandoned ideas and half-finished project, a figure was working, buzily hammering away at flattening a solid metal rod the diameter of a quarter. He did not hum to himself, but focused entirely on the project at hand.

Soon, he looked at it, appraising it for its quality. He looked somewhat displeased, but whether that was because of the item he was itemsmithing, or because of the faint tinkle tinkle that signified that someone had come into his item shop. Yes . . . his item shop.

"Piggy! I told you no! Your business is no longer desired here!"

Piggy was basically a Realm Walker version of Rotiart, only much older . . . and married. To a snake Realm Walker. Piggy had solicited this shop to make jewelry for his wife, only to throw a tantrum when she saw a flaw that didn't exist. It was their attempt to wriggle out of paying for it, but Itemsmith was a beaver Realm Walker. Not stupid.

But the new customer's voice was young and female. She spoke dignantly, "I am not Piggy."

"That voice . . . you're Cloaky's neice, aren't you?" Itemsmith said, returning to the front of his shop. His voice was very different now, gone was the hostility and anger, replaced instantly was warmness and pleasantness. "How is the old so-and-so?"

Shadow's simian face remained sadly serious, and this was not lost on Itemsmith. The two, Cloak and Itemsmith were friends for a long time, even during their schooling. Itemsmiths demeanor turned just as serious and dour.

"What happened?"

***

"Polycorporeal fusion, eh?" Itemsmith said thoughtfully.

"I didn't know who else to turn to for answers of this nature. No one else in my family, other than Uncle, would know how to solve this. Uncle always spoke so highly of you . . . so . . ."

"Yes," Itemsmith said, "I don't suppose they would. It's not a very common problem, per se."

"There is speculation at RAF that maybe simple defusion magic would work."

"Perhaps, unless they use the Commisceo Concoction." Itemsmith noted.

"What's that?"

"It is a potion that does exactly what you described. It requires a fuchsia Geryon flower to be viable, and they only come from the Meadow of Geryon." Itemsmith said thoughtfully. "But beyond that I'm not too entirely sure. Magic and mysticism are well outside my expertise, I'm afraid."

"Are there any relics, artifacts or items that can reverse it?" Shadow asked desperately.

"Hmmm . . ." the beaver Realm Walker rubbed his chin in a pensively thoughtful way. "Well, I suppose there is an accessory that could be used . . . in conjunction with another item . . ."

"May I have them?" Shadow said, quickly but earnestly. "I'm sorry, I can't give you much for them, but I --"

"Hold on there, young one," Itemsmith said. "I don't have them here. I didn't even make them."

Shadow looked downcast.

"Now, now, none of that." Itemsmith said, good-naturedly. "I said I didn't have them here -- I never said that I don't know where they are."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2014, 04:01:29 PM

This book might be under the prerequisite twenty usual chapters.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Stalemates

After Shadow stormed out, the other two -- the two fusions -- stormed out soon thereafter. Richard resisted the urge to tell them not to leave forum grounds. It would do nothing but exacerbate the problem, making the two composite RAFians feel like prisoners, which they would essentially be. And they would call him out on it.

There were no easy answers in this dilemma. No clear cut right and wrong, no black-and-white solutions. In the end, whatever happened, someone will cease to exist. Whether it will be these amalgams or the RAFians who made them up . . . it wasn't clear. And there will always be the guilt, because only one, the fusion or the fusees, would survive.

Richard feel so very old in this moment. He was drained physically, emotionally, and emotionally. He couldn't make the decision to kill either side . . . that would be murder. No point beating around the bush, it would be murdering a sentient mind if they defused them. And it would be murder to leave them fused.

It was also complicated by the fact that the fusees weren't voluntarily merged together. They were unaware of this possibility. In that manner, it wasn't like the Fusion Dance, and wouldn't reverse itself after a time. These fusions also seemed to be permanent . . .

Another complication was Shadow, and her resolve to get her uncle back. One could say that it was motivated by childish selfishness, but the RAFians all knew better (well, except for Rotiart -- he never takes the time to understand things that he sees in the most superficial of ways). They knew of the rollar coaster ride that Ursa, Cloak's mother, put them on. Shadow just wanted to free her uncle, and, yes, she wanted him back.

Richard wasn't even entirely sure that process even could be reversed. Even if it could, what could the possible ramifications be afterwards? Every action or inaction has a ramification, be it a rewarding one or a consequence. What will happen here?

Whatever would happen, there would be no winners in this one. Only losers.

***

Underseen was conflicted. Two of his most trusted friends were now part of Composite. He felt somewhat numb inside. He pondered their fate as he looked into his thread's mirror and saw his reflection. It was a handsome reflection, with his hair coiffed just so.

He wondered if the face looking back him had always been his face, true face.* Back before . . . before he could remember. . . . The age of this basic form of his seemed to fluctuate with the shifting memory of how old he was before . . . before that thing he couldn't remember happened. He'd get flashes of it now and then, but then retained nothing. . . .

---

*Okay, yes, this is laying down some framework for future books. I won't say more, as this is spoiler enough already and I don't like the look of that skillet in Saffa's hand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 06, 2014, 09:25:24 PM

That book is waaay in the future though. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2014, 10:46:13 AM

Eh, so it's the second time I've done that. Only difference is Underseen's past will play a more major role in books down the line then Maul's siblings. Er . . . maybe.

And, besides, look how long it took Marvel to release Wolverine's real name (James Howlett), fifteen, thirty years from his introduction, I think. Hopefully, you guys won't have to wait that long.

Anyway, still planning through Book CCCXXV, just got to Chapter 10.

CHAPTER TWLEVE:
Seeds of Doubt

The two stormed and fumed away from the auditorium. They were furious at the indignity of being on display, though they did it of their own violation. They could have left the forum forever, they probably even should have. But the mere thought either never occured to them or was so repugnant that they dared not give it any consideration.

". . .We have a right to live, to love, to feel. Why can they not see this?" Prodigy said, fuming. He had Cloak's propensity for anger, but also Phoenix's usual temperance, so the elements around remained in control.

Composite said nothing for a moment. She had tiraded right along with Prodigy a few moments ago. But then something made her stop, made her think.

"What's wrong?" Prodigy asked, at once, as a brother would ask a sister.

"What if she was right?" Composite said, quietly, in a small voice.

"What?"

Composite turned to him, and her eyes shone brightly, as if fire dwelt behind them. "You heard me. What if Shadow was right? What if we are being selfish, Prodigy?"

"She isn't . . . we aren't!" Prodigy said, with some difficulty.

"But you cannot deny that the cost of our existance is the lives of the material RAFians that make us up!" Composite said, emotion bursting forth. She actually had been thinking about this during their tirades. She couldn't rationalize away, couldn't outright deny, the facts. "For us to continue on like this at the cost of their . . . Prodigy, we can't ignore it any longer."

"We aren't ignoring anything!" Prodigy protested, having inherited Cloak's obstinate nature as well. "We live! We breath! We exist!"

"We are an affront to nature!" Composite said, deprecating herself. This was really out of the blue as far as Prodigy was concerned, but Composite had been thinking about and pondering it ever since they argued with Shadow. "We should not exist."

"We are not Nobodies*!" Prodigy proclaimed passionately.

"We might as well be!" Composite said, matching his passion. "We were not born, Prodigy, we were created. We were made."

"Does that mean we can legitimately and outright deny our right to existence, Composite?" Prodigy said, indifferent to the crowd watching on. "We are not second-class citizens, we are not so worthless that we are beneath concern, contempt or consternation! We have a right to be, to just simply be. And you are advocating that we be slain? And slain for what?"

"To return what has been made wrong right!"

"Our existence is NOT wrong!"

"For the cost of our existence, Prodigy . . ." Composite said, now genuinely believing the cost wasn't worth the means. "For that cost . . . it is."

"How can you say that, Composite?" Prodigy said, and there was cry to his voice. He was hurt -- it was like hearing a dear sister sincerely advocate fratercide. "I . . . how . . . ?"

"The cost doesn't justify the means, Prodigy." Composite said sadly. "It just doesn't. It isn't fair, I know, but I know that when Shadow comes up with a way to defuse us . . . I am going to accept the process, whatever it may be."

"What?"

"And you will decide what you want to do, I won't hold you back, I . . ." Composite said, turning her back to him and walking away, "I won't stop you if you run away."

---

*"Kingdom Hearts" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2014, 12:31:16 PM

You know, I'm tempted to put Dino in every Book ending in a thirteen, even if it's relegated as a brief cameo. Would that be just pure evil, considering her triskaidekaphobia?

Now, a new chapter!!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
An Essential Accessory

It was an empty dwelling when a dark, slight figure who clung to the shadows infiltrated the homestead. There wasn't much to say about the room in question, as it was pretty nodescript and dark. The figure hesitated, listening hard with her ears and feet.

This home was not in the Prime Universe, and usually inhabited by blue-skinned hominids with pointed ears, possessed either bald heads or white hair, and had very flowing and poofy clothling. The figure had heard that they were called Kais, but didn't know or care very much. They had the accessory that Shadow required.

She didn't want to steal them, but she had little recourse. The best that she could do is hope to take a matching pair of the item in question, without them being missed. The question was how to do so without arousing suspicion, without calling attention to herself. As far as she knew, this was a land without knowledge of Realm Walkers. She didn't fear for her life, as only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker. Everyone knew this . . .

Except for the denizens of this universe. And this universe had some particularly powerful beings that seemed to just keep on getting stronger and stronger. Realm Walkers might be required for own of their own to be slain, but that did not stop them from feeling discomfort, pain, exhaustion. In many cases, it could prove to be more damaging than actual death.

So, instead, Shadow worked stealthily and sneakily. It wasn't totally ouside her character, being a mischievous little monkey, but she didn't enjoy it as much as she did when she was little. She sneaked and slunk ever so quietly, ever so deftly, towards the closet. At least, she assumed it was the closet.

She rifled through it, careful to replace everything exactly like how it was before she moved it. She eventually came upon the two items she was after. Yellow orbs attached to a metal ring by a small silver chain.

Potara earrings.

When one is placed on the ear of one person, and the other placed on the opposite ear of another, they two are fused together permanently. Bodies, minds, and clothing merged together, much like the effects of the Concoction. These were exactly what she needed.

She quickly Walked out the universe mere seconds before someone entered the room.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2014, 12:32:07 AM

Wait. The earrings give the same effect of the concoction?

I suppose for a process to be reversed you need the thing that started it in the first place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2014, 08:32:15 AM

Nope, Saffa. *smiles most irritatingly*

An answer will come in Chapter 16, more than likely. Anyway, new book ideas!

• Book CCCLVI: "Infiltration Initiative" -- The RAFians must battle robots with the stolen specs of Rocklobster's holograolphic emitters.
• Book CCCLVII: "Cloak's Match?" -- Cloak battles a powerful Airbender, Waterbender, Earthbender, and Firebender. Each, alone, poses a significant challenge to Cloak. All four together . . .

Yes, the last one was inspired by the new season (oh, excuse me, book) of The Legend of Korra. Anyway, new chapter!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Tempest Within

Prodigy could not believe it. He could not believe that Composite would turn on him so suddenly, without any hint of it before. She was now advocating everyone murdering them both! So what that the five RAFians that made him up would cease to be as the others knew them.

They would live on. They would live on inside himself. He is the culmination of their minds, their bodies, their powers at their peak. This also made him potentially a very dangerous enemy, as he possessed all Cloak's power, Blue's skills of stealth and ninjitsu, Phoenix's phoencian regeneration, Hunter's sensory abilities (augmented with Cloak's own), and Yarin's telepathy (fundamentally useless against a Mark-Bearer, otherwise Yarin would have been able to route out Itellsya immediately as the Traitor so long ago) and telekinesis. A very dangerous being indeed, as he did not possess Cloak's pseudo-weakness of requiring to were a cloak at all times outside his thread, while in-universe. "Danger" probably would have been a better nome de plume.

Yet, given the open to leave, to strike out on his own, he stayed. He could not bear to leave the place, though he wanted to. He just could not, and yet he understood the attachment. While the other four may have had a strong bond with the place, they didn't always stay olat the forum. They visited relatives, went on vacations. Heck, Estelore charts out new species light-years away. Cloak, however, spends a good majority of his time at the forum. He's made a home here, where he could escape his mother's persecution. Where he could feel like he belonged. Even now, now when his body and mind have been blended so finely into Prodigy with the other four, he could not leave the place forever.

But he also dwelled on the fact that, he felt, Composite betrayed him. Prodigy was perfectly fine just being this way. He had a right to live, to simply be. But now Composite is conspiring with the others to kill them both. In Composite's case, it would be a simple suicide. In Prodigy's case, it would be murder. Plain and simple. Black and white.

Nothing would change that. Nothing.

He couldn't read the thoughts of the other Mark-Bearers to know they were against him. That they wanted him dead. There wouldn't even be a body to bury. No one else would have known he had existed. He would be quickly forgotten . . .

He despaired over this thought, feeling like he was nothing to anyone else. He was nothing more than Bruticus or Devastator or Voltron or a minute Megazord to them. Prodigy withdrew into the shadows, wishing to be alone and not gawked at. Rotiart's friend Clown Boy was the worst offender of this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2014, 11:12:01 AM

Now a new chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Apologies

"I'm so sorry," Composite was saying. "I know the costs don't justify the means. I know it isn't right to live, depriving Horse, AniDragon, Abby, and Saffa their right to exist as well. I . . . I just didn't . . . didn't want to . . . to . . ."

Richard held his hand up to stop her.

"Every thinking feeling being wants to live. Have instincts to ensure survival." Richard said. "I persoanlly think that it is perfectly understandable that you two would lash out like that. You were defending your right to exist."

"Perhaps we can find a way to give everyone a happy ending in this," Helen said, hoping beyond hoping, "maybe there is a way that you can coexist alongside Horse and the rest?"

Composite looked at Helen, almost pityingly, and then shook her head. "No, Helen. That can't happen. Everything that I am, everything that I think, everything that I feel -- it comes from those four. If any attempt was made to try to make us coexist together, neither they or I would be complete. Not truly."

Composite sighed deeply, cherishing the feeling of the air being both drawn in and expelled from her lungs. Cherishing the way her heart so valiantly pumped blood throughout her being. But was it really, truly her being? She felt like she was stealing. Stealing precious moments from these four's lives. Though she did not want to die, she wanted to do what was right, and couldn't believe that Prodigy could be so selfish.

"I should have never existed. It was a mistake, an accident. I may not be a Nobody, but I am most certainly like one." Composite said, solemnly and seriously. "It pains me, but I must do the right thing. I must be defused."

"And we thank you for making such a mature and well-thought-out decision, " Broken said, "but, I must tell you that I do not know how we could do just that. We do not know what fused you together in the first place."

"We could try a simple defusion spell," Faerie shrugged.

"No!" Broken said firmly. "We do not know what the possibly outcomes of mixing magicks could be! Faerie, you know this! We could just make it worse."

"Shadow had a plan," Gaz said. "I think we can trust in that."

"Shadow's also a child," Jess said. "She may have bitten off more than she could chew."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2014, 12:29:41 PM

And now for the last item that Shadow must get. (Yes, the Potara earrings only counted as one item).

And this is the second time I'm writing this chapter, since I decided to briefly check one of my other tabs, and didn't save this in my email. Ugh. ::) But what else can you expect from Gmail?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

The lighthouse was dark and unusually clean. The top of the light house was strangely dark as there was dark clouds outside, necessitating its light. Shadow did not question this as it was not her mission. She was vaguely aware of the rules of this realm, and was glad that she came when she did.

The item she needed hadn't yet revealed itself to the forces of good and evil jn this universe. The Heylin and Xiaolin both remained ignorant of this powerful artifact. Shen Gong Wu, she believed they were called. Both the dragon and ghost where busy concerning themselves else where in the world, which means that Shadow had to be quick and stealthy. But she had to take care and be careful not to break the thing. She never handled Shen Gong Wu before, and didn't know if it would be light or heavy.

She quickly found the item, and secretly thanked all those hidden object games she's played. She examined the item -- she had to be sure it was the right one. It was a mirror, with black framework. It had a symbol that looked like either a double helix or the infinity symbol, with a yin-yang sigil at its center. It was not very big, either. It was about the size of a serving platter.

The Reversing Mirror.

The Reversing Mirror, like its name implies, reverses the effects of other Shen Gong Wu. It was Shadow's hope that the Reversing Mirror would be able to be used in conjunction with the Potara earrings. The Potara earrings were usually used to fuse someone permanently, but when under the effects of the Reversing Mirror, Shadow hoped, would instead permanently defuse the RAFians.

Both items being from different universes . . . there was no guarntee that this would even work as Shadow hoped. It may very well not work at all and then she'd be back at square one again. And even Itemsmith, the greatest authority on items throughout the known universes and the Nexus, didn't have a better idea than this. But that didn't mean it could couldn't outright fail.

It was worth a shot. She had to act now before either side, be it the Heylins or the Xiaolins, discovered it and got to it before her. She really had no interest in competing in a Xiaolin Showdown, and wasn't even sure she could, as she had none of her own to wager for it.

Shadow deftly took the mirror from within the lighthouse's light assembly, and (wondering idly if breaking it would bring seven years of good luck, since that's the reverse of bad luck) quickly Walked away.

Neither side was any the wiser.

---

*This: (http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120915053552/xiaolinpedia/images/5/52/Mirror.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2014, 02:07:51 PM

Whoa! Suddenly three chapters! Good rest for my broken back. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2014, 09:25:48 AM

Right. Now, I don't know if I can post any chapters today, waiting for a call and may have to leave at any moment.

:edit: Ugh. I really wish they'd stop playing this cat-and-mouse game with me. They said that I was a new hire, yet they won't tell me when I should come in to work. UGH! I wonder if it is really worth it. I mean I'm taking a pay cut -- goin' right back down to minimum wage ($7.25, and part-time [and potential for full-time], but it's a job).

So I need this right now.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Without A Fight

Shadow had Walked back to the forum, not really knowing what to expect. She was anticipating a fight, sure. She had the Reversing Mirror and the Potara earrings in her possession, but she remained a little uncertain at their effectiveness on this kind of fusion. She and the other RAFians still remained ignorant of the Concoction, but this was the best possible solution . . . as she kept trying to convince herself.

Shadow had figured that she would have to get the earrings on to one of the fusions, one not both. Had she put them on both, one on each ear, then it would have permanently fused Composite and Prodigy together. The Reversing Mirror might not be enough.

She was anticipating a struggle, a fight. She had not been expecting what had actually took place.

"Shadow," a gentle voice asked, "did you find your solution?"

It was Richard.

"Yes, Richard. But the hard part will be getting the Potara earrings on them," Shadow elaborated quickly, "now, we'll have to act swiftly. Have you managed to keep them in the forum?"

"Well," Super Nate said, arriving hearing Shadow, "Composite won't be as hard as you think."

They took Shadow where Composite sat on her knees, hands pressed togther and fingers interlocked. Her head was bowed, her eyes shut, and her face wore a morose look. She knew Shadow was within hearing distance, and she said, clearly, "Make it swift. Turn what went wrong right."

Composite shed quiet tears from then on. Shadow felt suddenly like the bad guy. She looked down at the Potara earring and Reversing Mirror. Was she just being selfish? Was she truly doing the right thing?

"Do not doubt yourself now," Composite said, looking up. Shadow was surprised to see that, beneath Composite's sadness there was a dazzling strength and unwavering determination. "Do not doubt yourself, Shadow. You were right in what you said. The lives of AniDragon, Saffa, Horse, and Abby cannot be forfeit. Not even for the sake of my own existance. Defuse me!"

***

While the RAFians still remained in the dark about the Concoction, Malice had grown bored with it, with the entire scheme, already. She rather recklessly disposed of the stuff as Mauler stood mindlessly, standing at attention by the door. He felt nothing, thought nothing, remembered nothing of what Mega-Maul went through to get those Geryon flowers to make that Concoction. Mauler didn't care. Mauler also didn't think, speak, or feel, either. It was as if he had been Shyamalanized*.

Malice, instead poured over old, yellowed scrolls of parchment which littered her desk with clear chew marks from its former owner's pet. So intent she was on the scrolls, written by Realm Walker hand, she didn't notice Mauler's chest open up and show a holographic, two-dimensional image featuring Composite's solicitation of Shadow to defuse her.

Malice, instead, murmured while contemplating the scrolls, "Yes . . . if this is right . . . then the Great Merging  will happen within a Dweller Earth month's time."

---

*Coined by the Nostalgic Critic, not me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 09, 2014, 11:43:51 AM

Ugh, good luck with the job, Cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2014, 04:41:30 PM

Getting close to the end of this book.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Defusing the Situation

"What must I do?" Composite asked.

Shadow took out the earrings, which in retrospect, looked rather gaudy. But a simple gaudy. She passed them to Composite, who looked at them with a raised eyebrow. Only at Shadow's insistance did she put them on as she stood. They didn't dangle, but practically rest on her shoulders.

"Nothing's happening," Composite said.

"Give me a second will you?" Shadow said, taking the Reversing Mirror and holding it as if it were a board that Composite would break in a karate class. Only Shadow held it upright and shouted, "Reversing Mirror!"

Suddenly, the earrings flashed and Composite appeared to just get fat, as if it was an improper fusion by way of the Fusion Dance. She remained this way for only a second or two. She was furthered pulled outward, and a bright flash lit the area.

When the flash had abated, Composite was gone. Gone for good, gone forever. AniDragon, Horse, Abby and Saffa looked uninjured, but physically drained of energy. Abby was wearing on Potara earring on her left ear and Saffa had the other in her right. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have fused them together immediately, but the earrings would still be under the effect of the Reversing Mirror until the two removed them.

"Anyone get the number of that polar bear?" Horse said, woozily.

Shadow wasn't entirely surprised at the lethargy spawned from the defusion. When the Potara earring fused someone together, it increased their power level to be greater the parts that made him or her up. The Reversing Mirror had reverse that into making them tired and lethargic after defusing. But they'd get up to their normal strength levels soon enough.

"Abby, Saffa," Shadow said sharply, aware of what must be done next, now that it was guaranteed to work. "I'll need those earrings back."

"Wha . . . I not wearing --" Saffa said groggily. But she felt the earring and detached it, and handed it over. Abby followed suit. As Shadow watched, she saw the Mirror lose its effect over them. No problem -- she'd just use the Mirror again.

Saffa snapped to attention, recognizing instantly the vibrations from the Earth. Shadow swiftly surmised, "Prodigy must have seen everything via Earthsight. He's coming."

She looked to the others, deadly serious. "He's coming and he's angry."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 10, 2014, 02:42:56 AM

Oh my goodness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2014, 12:01:51 PM

Yes. Might finish this book today. Depends.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
That's Just Distracting!*

"How dare you!" Prodigy roared, appearing mere moments later. Shadow deftly passes the Potara earrings to Cerulean when Prodigy wasn't looking. "How dare you kill her!!"

"We didn't kill anyone," Shadow said, calmly.

"Don't lie to me, whelp!" Prodigy raged, unaware that Cerulean was conspicuously absent. "Don't you think that I can see through the earth just as you can?! Cloak is a part of me, and he was the one who taught you!"

"I do not dispute that." Shadow said. "But Composite wanted to be defused."

Prodigy knew this to be true, but refused to acknowledge it as fact. Refused to believe eyewitness testimonial. So arrogant to think that he was always in the right. All were, at least in part, Cloak's fallacies.

"Well, you won't do so to me, whelp!" Prodigy snarled. "You can't . . ."

Prodigy realized that he didn't know how Shadow managed to accomplish this. He brushed it aside, opting to deal with it later. She couldn't be him. He had the powers of telekinesis, telepathy, phoencian regeneration, ninjitsu, and all six elements. Sure, Shadow had access to all six elements as well, but she was the student, not the teacher.

Shadow stomped her foot, then made a graceful sweeping, scooping motion that brought up two water whips that soon became towering hydrokinetic tentacles. The young monkey's eyes glowed as if she was in the Avatar state. Then the tentacles began to interlock around Prodigy as Shadow began a technique rather like Dark spirit purification from the second season of  "The Legend of Korra". The water turned into a lavender color with swirled-in mauve -- Shadow was using her own natural energy with the water.

It did nothing.

Then again, the technique wasn't designed for this purpose. It was designed for quite another, but that's another story. Shadow used it anyway, despite knowing this already. Why? Well, the answer to that was simple. A distraction.

For when Prodigy broke it, he was unaware that he was wearing some garish, gaudy earrings. Earrings of which Cerulean used his super speed to adorn him with when he was distracted by Shadow elaborate light show.

"Fool! Your attack failed!" Prodigy, soaked and disgruntled, snarled.

"Did it now?" Shadow said, with a shrewd smile.

"Wha . . . WHY are you smiling? And what are the--" Prodigy began, noticing the earrings for the first time.

"REVERSING MIRROR!!" Shadow yelled, presenting the item just as she did with Composite.

Suddenly, a bright flash illuminated the area. When it passed, Yarin was wearing one earring in his right ear, and Phoenix had the other in his opposite ear.

---

*Yes, a Dragonball Z Abridged ("DBZA") reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 10, 2014, 01:02:38 PM

My friend has been pestering me to watch DBZA for a while now. I need internet. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2014, 04:29:36 PM

It is really good.

Now the last chapter. And it's 65 books done. Can you believe it?

CHAPTER TWENTY:
I've Got No Strings

The formerly-fused RAFians retired to their threads to rest and get their strength back up again. While they did this, Shadow returned the earrings and Reversing Mirror back to their respective universes without a hitch.

Meanwhile, Cloak dreamed . . .

***

There was a stage, like a puppet theater. When the red curtains went up, Cloak was upon the stage, but he was a puppet. He sang:

"I've got no strings
To hold me down,
To make me fret,
Or make me frown.
I had strings,
But now I'm free.
There are no strings on me!
Hi-ho the me-ri-o
Free from matriarchal tyranny!
I want the world to know,
Everything worries me.
I've got no strings,
So I can have fun.
I'm not tied up by anyone.
They've got strings,
But you can see,
There are no strings on me!"

Then a puppet version of a Dementor, appeared onstage. It sang -- yes, sang:

"You have no strings!
Your soul is free!
I am quite hungry, you see!
Ya, ya, ya!
Malice had sent me to you,
So I can have your soul too!"

But the puppeteer yoinked it away, replacing it with a puppet of a Black Mercy. With a roughly humanoid shape.

"You've got no strings!
Comme ci comme ca!
Your savoire-faire is ooh la la!
I've got strings,
But entre nous,
I'd use my strings to hug you!"

But it was drawn away by some unseen puppeteer, though Cloak was vaguely aware who the puppeteer was, but not that lucid in this dream. The final encounter was with a puppet version of Abom . . . of Malice's former disciple.

"Down where the prime one flows,
There's a Walker rendezvous!
Where me and Malice go
But I'd rather go with you!
Hey!"

It was at this point the dream ended abruptly.

***

Cloak woke up, still sleepy and weakened. He reflected upon the dream. He was sure the puppeteer he couldn't see was Malice, but things that . . . that Ab said felt like something more. Like a warning. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2014, 07:46:56 PM

Let's start this book. Book 66. Dunno what I'll do six hundred books from now (;), not that I have anything beyond Book 357.

BOOK LXVI:
THE MERGING
CHAPTER ONE:
If I Lived In RAFy

Upon a dreamscape, Cloak was dreaming about when he first started to come to RAF, five or six Dweller Earth years ago. . . .

"It seems everywhere I turn,
There’s harsh reality.
I’m only twenty or so years old,
And I’m still way too young to be
This disappointed with the way things are.
If I could ditch this place,
I’d be better off by far . . .
If I lived in RAFy!
In the company of thee.
If I lived in RAFy!
Everybody would love me!"

The younger Cloak looks up and is inexplicably hugged by Dino, at her true size. Before released with Dino vanishing into the dream aether.

"If I lived in RAFy!
I could run by obscurity.
If I could only live in RAFy. . . .
So maybe I will go where all the cool guys go “Hey”!
Or with Slushie Man, on the show that’s filmed today!
You’d know that up is never what I’d grow!
So here’s the top ten reasons why I should go
And live inside RAFy!
I could have better company,
If I live in RAFy!
And do RAFParty night comedy.
If I lived in RAFy!
RAFian friends would hang with me.
If only I could live in RAFy.
Perhaps I’ll be an arrogant judge with clout*.
Or hang with other two-post RAFkids!"

An ill-defined form that could be a kid of seven, twelve or even seventeen appeared from the dreamworld aether and sang:

"Hey, what choo talkin’ about?"

Then he -- she? -- was reabsorbed by the dreamworld aether. Cloak continued.

If I lived in RAFy!
I’d make my OWN reality.
If I lived in RAFy!
It would be as simple as do-re-mi.
If I lived in RAFy!
That would be the thing to see.
If only I could live in RAFy."

Then he spoke the final lyric, "If I lived in RAFy!"

Then suddenly Cloak awoke. It was a full three days after he defused, and he had regained most of his strength, as had the others. But he felt something. Something wrong. But he could not fathom what it was.

---

*Foreshadowing . . . SAFFA, PUT DOWN THAT SKILLET!! ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 10, 2014, 08:55:29 PM

That would be quite something, being hugged by a dinosaur. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2014, 08:22:14 AM

Right . . . as long as that dinosaur isn't purple and isn't named "Barney".

Anyway, new book idea.

• Book CCCLVIII: "What A Blast" -- The RAFians come across creatures that resemble the Creepers from Minecraft.
• Book CCCLIX: "The Ultimate Assassin" -- The RAFians come across someone who proclaims itself to be the Ultimate Assassin.
• Book CCCLX: "By Proxy" -- The RAFians must confront a cult whose leader isn't as good and pieous as he seems. . . .

Okay, I don't think I rehashed anything, but I can work around it if I have. And I know that the cult leader description pretty much describes every cult leader.

I'll post a chapter soon if they don't FINALLY call me in. If they don't today, then I'm gonna be looking for another job. I know it's suppose to be part-time before I can move up to full-time, but still. I have rent to pay.

:edit: Still getting a bit irritating. . . . I'm tired of this cat-and-mouse game. I also suspect one of the reasons I got fired from my last job was that I was going to take advantage of them offering a free class to me for working there. I cannot prove it, of course, and this just might be some residual paranoia.
 
I need to get rid of some anxiety.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
A Nexus Show

Meanwhile, at the Universal Nexus where the Realm Walkers made their homes, something was happening that hadn't happened in millenia, Walker time. The last time it happened Prime Universe's Earth wasn't capable of supporting life -- and it very well may not have existed. The Realm Walkers paid it no mind. It was a spectacle, to be sure, but it was nothing but an inconvience for them.

The vertical columns of luminous energy oscillated as if it was one of those fountain displays someone might accidentally walk through. It was disconcerting, seeing this. Even to Realm Walker sensibilities. But most considered it someone else's problem, not theirs. Many assumed it was a simple matter of the realms being in flux, which they do from time to time, for inconsistent durations.

During this time the realms move reorientate and shuffle between themselves. The Prime Universe, the First Universe, the universe off where most other are spun off, was usually at the center, but that was akin to saying the needle is somewhere in the middle of the haysack. There were trillions upon billions upon millions upon thousands upon hundreds of different realms (some branching of others, some merely parallel). No Realm Walker has ever managed to visit them all. It has never been done.

But this was not an ordinary realm flux. Something odd and out of the ordinary was going on, but it was really unclear to the average Walker just what was going on. The changes were very subtle at first. Then more obvious when one paid closer attention. The relams seemed to writhe, as if someone forcibly turns another's hide into a gelatin dessert.

No one seemed to realized the realms' bluish hues were slightly darker than normal. Then again, the realms were natural phenomena, and, as such, were not maintained by Realm Walker hand. No Dweller had noticed as of yet.

But there was one Realm Walker watching this with mild amusement. She wore a mild but toothy smile as she kept her hood up. Her Tasmanian devil eyes glinted maliciously as she said, "It is almost time."

Then she vanished into the darkness. Easy to do, as the only light was the bluish light that came from the realms themselves, which continued to undulate in a near hypnotic manner. The implications of what was happening were left unsaid.

***

Cloak was still feeling quite unnerved, uneasy, and anxious. He did not know why. His insticts were telling him that something very wrong was happening, but he didn't know what, by whose hand, and why. He couldn't really validate it either, so he was wondering if he was just being paranoid.

Perhaps being fused together with Phoenix, Yarin, Hunter, and Blue were now presenting psychological effects? No, that can't be right. The other four aren't sensing the same stuff. It was like some lowered a transdimensionak depth charge and only he, Cloak, could feel the ripples. Everyone else was just part of the ripple.

Cloak didn't like it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 12, 2014, 03:34:20 PM

Nearly succumbed to modified-post syndrome back there. And here's the PDF. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2014, 04:11:35 PM

You wouldn't have if I just posted another chapter. But then I got preoccupied with anxiety and . . . well, never mind.

Here's the new chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Cloak's Most Prized Asset

The foreboding feeling hadn't left Cloak by the time he left his thread, with his trademarked black cloak billowing dramatically. He still did not know what it was, and this mere fact irked him to no end. It also fueled Cloak's current on-edge state of restlessness.

Cloak strode the grounds with his usual strides, but still the sense of foreboding would not lessen. He was quite sure this was very different from his feline ability to sense evil, but yet, rather similar. It was a characteristic heaviness with a tad of dread. It is difficult to truly describe to those who could not feel it themselves, so these lackluster descriptions must suffice for the time being.

Cloak's agitated state was not well-hidden from those that knew him well. They, naturally, grew concerned.

"Cloak," Kelly began, and Cloak was alarmed to hear that her voice was tinny with a bit of static, like a tv losing its signal briefly. Then her voice abruptly returned to normal, without any explanation, and without Kelly even realizing something was up. "What's wrong?"

Cloak hid his flabbergasted reaction to this voice change. Kelly did not seem to notice anything, and his Earthsight told him that this was the genuine article. Perhaps this was a delusion brought on by the fusing incident. . . . And yet . . .

"Cloak?"

Cloak replied in an husky, gruff voice with a round-shouldered, hands-in-his-nonexistent-pockets, surly stance, "Nothing."

"Cloak, I'm your friend. You can talk--" -- there it was again! The audio quality dipping noticibly while nothing was wrong visually! It only lasted seconds. "--to me."

"I'm fine, Kelly," Cloak said, hiding his surprise. Cloak also hid his fear, for he was afraid that all these things that he was hearing was a sign of dementia, and he didn't want that.

Cloak quickly retreated back to his thread, avoiding running there and giving away that something was most definately NOT right. His mind was so finely weaved into the mind of Prodigy that he could only recollect the vaguest and blurriest of images. But what if that had destabilized his mind, loosened it? Unhinged it?

Had Cloak not been so wrapped up in his own thoughts he might have noticed the dulling colors of the entire reality. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 12, 2014, 05:27:34 PM

Wait, WHAT? :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2014, 11:15:52 AM

It'll make sense soon.

To save myself from thinking unhelpful thoughts right now. And it's really hard not to. . . .

. . .

And he FINALLY called me. Got orientation tomorrow at 11.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Going Red

Meanwhile, back at the Nexuses, the realms were rapidly going from their usual benign blue light to a deep blood red color. The Prime Universe first, with the others following suit. It was not an event one would simply pull up a chair and watch with a tropical drink.

Malice was there, and she had pulled up a chair and was drinking a tropical ethnic drink. It was nothing but television for her (a technology that the Realm Walkers lacked). Malice was thoughly enjoying this, though she was throwing caution to the wind. She could be witnessed at anytime as living, though she kept her hood up, and the blue (now red) light didn't throw her features into sharp relief.

"It begins," she said, with a maliciously evil smile. "The Great Merging of the Realms. Only occurred once before, but was stopped from completion. Now his prison weakens, and soon the son of Cataclym will awake. Reborn through the endeavors of Malice!"

It wasn't true, though. Malice had nothing to do with this, though starting the Time War could have possibly lead to weakening the realms. Cataclysm's son wasn't imprisoned directly beneath the realms -- there wasn't any beneath. Not to common knowledge anyway. Realm Walker scholars (a pompous, presumptuous sort -- even more than a lot of civilian Realm Walkers) suspect there being a "Void Space" down there, but the presence of the realms makes it difficult substantiate such claims.

Malice took delight in knowing that Cloak would either forever lose his surrogate home that he dared to have or simply be destroyed with them. That's basic knowledge, though often overlooked as most basic knowledge is for most species. No one in-universe would survive the Merging of Universes.

***

Cloak soon comes to the realization that his mind is working just fine. The little audio quirks had seemed to end. But the colors . . . Cloak was mildly red-green colorblind*, and even he could tell when the colors seemed to be all tinted red, and growing redder and redder. Soon, reality will be nothing but shades of red, as if all reality was under a light with a blood red filter.

As far as he could tell, none of the Dwellers seemed aware of this. They were happy in their obliviousness, too. Cloak could tell them about it, but they might think that he was losing his mind as he had.

He shut his eyes, and relaxed his mind . . . then he saw blue words on a red-and-black background:

The calm, serene columns of natural, glowing blue
Become the color of blood at the loss of their hue.
A technique of faith will lead the way,
And save the unknowing innocents' day.
But beware the dolls of war,
The saurian corps**,
Before the rise of the dark one,
Whose cage is being undone.
This monster can turn darkness into light,
And light into darkness -- beware his might.
There is only one way to stop this beast,
And it is the way the hero wants least.

Cloak awoke, surprised he that he fell asleep. Then he pondered over that (for want of a more appropriate term) prophecy, long and hard. He could only come up with one viable solution. Something was wrong with reality itself. Something was happening to the realm.

But no . . . that didn't fit entirely with the lines of the . . . what was he doing? He shouldn't put faith into such things! One makes their own destiny! It's easy to blame some nonexistent entity for your mistakes, but, in the end, you make yourself the fool.

---

* Which I am IRL.

** To any reader who is unaware, it is pronounced "core".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 13, 2014, 11:54:08 AM

It's a bit like you've been living in a dream all this while and you're starting to wake up. Which is terrifying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2014, 02:37:02 PM

I assure you, Saffa, in the terms of the narrative, RAF really does exist. It isn't a dream.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Confusing Distortions

Cloak was finding it rather irritating to live with reality in its current state. It was like being forced to wear a Virtual Boy system and never being able to take it off. Still, no Dweller seemed to notice all that much. Yarin often wore a look of puzzlement and perplexed curiosity. Cloak thought he saw Broken and Faerie begin to sense it too.

"You sense it as well?" Broken asked.

"No, I can see the distortions," Cloak remarked heavily.

"Distortions? What distortions?" Faerie asked.

"Reality shifts of color, sound failing off and on," Cloak said, blandly. He realized at Faerie's question that they wouldn't believe him.

"Could it be --" Yarin began.

"No, Yarin," Cloak snapped. "My mind is perfectly fine. The reality is being warped somehow. How? I don't know. It has never happened before. Even the Time War didn't . . . er, never mind. Anyway, it does not bode well for the realms that it is in this deplorable state of distortion."

"I was actually going to say, 'Could it be true', Cloak." Yarin said, in a flat tone of voice. "In any case, Cloak, could this be a problem that originated from the Nexus? Malice is a Realm Walker as well, remember. Perhaps she could have done something to bring this about."

Cloak felt rather cherlish at this, and said nothing as he considered the possibility. "But Malice doesn't have the power to warp this realm. No Realm Walker does, and there hasn't been any documented cases of such a feat happening. This . . . . this is different. As if the realm decided to self-destruct of its own accord."

"Is that possible?" Broken asked.

Cloak said nothing. He didn't know.

"You're inspiring real confidence, you know, Cloak." Faerie said dryly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 14, 2014, 04:41:28 PM

The accidental Time War mentions seem like foreshadowing. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2014, 05:22:57 PM

Very astute, Saffa.

Okay, I am currently planning out the chapters of Book CCCXXVIII ("A Gross Problem"), and it's gonna be a . . . a dirty book (I think you know what I really meant there, ;)). And I wanted to say, and this may be a bit of a retcon, but the general idea I have is that Book I to Book C is gonna be a single year, but Dweller Earth standards (;)). Ditto for Book CI to Book CC, Book CCI to Book CCC, and Book CCCI to (as of yet, nonexistent) Book CD. So, thus far, the series is only gonna take place for four years. I may change my mind down the line, though.

And another chapter methinks.

CHAPTER SIX:
Wait . . . This Again?

Aila and Aquilai were in his TARDIS, journeying through time. They don't usually accompany each other on such sojourns, but they were doing some tedious chronal chronicling, and it was the type of work that could make you pass out from boredom. So, naturally, they decided to do it together, documenting the "fixed points" of history.

Currently, they were hurtling through time, and the exterior of the TARDIS was floating haphazardly amongst the blue wormhole-type environment. The two were working diligently, but quietly and amicably.

"Hmmm," Aquilai said. It was with a disapproving tone, as he was observing something.

"What is it?" Aila said at once, under the impression that she might have inadvertently mislabeled something.

"This one point . . ."

"What about it? We both verified it." Aila said.

"But look, it appears to have become unfixed."

"You jest." Aila said. "Fixed points cannot become unfixed."

They . . . they don't remember the Chronian-Chronosapien Time War.

"You don't have to believe me," Aquilai said, still genial, "but the data is right there."

Aila read the data and did the same computations and such, but she was still aghast with disbelief. "This . . . this . . . this cannot be. I may have miscalibrated --"

But before she could finish this thought, the TARDIS was rocked very hard. The two were knocked off their feet. The two were alright (Aquilai relieved that it wasn't severe enough to cause him to regenerate*), but they were disturbed.

This was the timestream. Not space. The TARDIS was a time machine, like the Time Matrix (which was incorporated into Aquilai's TARDIS somehow, but that's a different story), and it didn't rock like that. In order for something like that to happen . . . well, it would have to be serious.

"What in the name of the Pootang's --"

"I don't believe it!" Aila cried. "Time itself . . . it's . . . it's . . ."

"Unraveling," Aquilai said.

And this time . . . this time Anomaly won't be coming to the rescue. . . .

---

* A bit of a jab at how many times he regenerated in the duration of the series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2014, 08:51:06 PM

Now, a newer chapter. Just lemme check my notes for a minute . . . *rustling paper*

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Cloak Returns

Initial reluctance aside, Cloak could not rationalize it anymore. He had to go back. He hated the fact of it, but he had to return to his homeland. He was not looking forward to the inevitable ostracism and taunts. The first Realm Walker to live amongst the Dwellers, by choice and not necessity! He convorts with so-called lesser beings then the company of his own kind! How scandalous! Cloak suppresses the desire to roll his eyes at this thought with great difficulty.

The Nexus hadn't been a home for him. It's always been a prison wrought by his mother who was certain that he'd never survive on his own. The only real positives here were his elder sister, Faith, and her daughter, Shadow. Of course, his aunt (Sage's second eldest daughter, with Cloak's mother being the eldest) was always welcoming, as well. So, it shouldn't have been as bad as he thought.

But as he Walked from the Prime Universe, he saw that many other Realm Walkers seemed to be evacuating the other realms. Cloak supposed they were just going on the Realm Walker equivalent of a daytrip. Malice was no longer there, watching the realms like a person on a deck of a ship whalewatching. She was nowhere in sight, not that Cloak really had expected her to be there.

He turned and saw, with a pang of pain, that the realms were all blood red and fiery, as opposed to the calm blue and wispy liquidity they once were. Something indeed was happening to the realms. But what Cloak could not begin to fathom. He could not even begin to devise a way to fix this.

Cloak absently looked at his hand and saw the Mark remained there. This made him feel better. As long as the Mark remained, the RAFians were still there. There was a flawed logic to this that Cloak refused to acknowledge.

"Are you Cloak?" came a lofty drawl.

Cloak turned to face the speaker. The voice came from a giraffe-form Realm Walker dressed rather . . . pompously, if that makes any sense. He held his nose in the air and looked down on Cloak. Literally and figuratively.

"I said, boy," he spoke again, and Cloak noted how close this giraffe Realm Walker's voice sounded to Droopy Dog, "are you the malcontent known as Cloak?"

Cloak narrowed his eyes. He did not appreciate the tone of voice. "You can knock off the snot-nosed condescension act, pal. Yes, I am Cloak, and what the bloody Veil do you want?"

The giraffe form Realm Walker sniffed haughtily, as if he thought Cloak was uncouth. He was starting to really not like this guy. "The Council as requested an audience with you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 15, 2014, 12:00:13 AM

I don't think much would be retconned, though I'll have to do a re-read to be sure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2014, 09:57:15 AM

Eh. If it doesn't add up, then Books I to C will simply be a bit over a year. Then it would return to the formula I said.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Council Contempt

"I don't need you putting your paws all over me, you pompous buffoon." Cloak snarled, as the giraffe Realm Walker -- Buffoon -- tried to forcibly escort Cloak to the Council chambers. "I know the way!"

"Believe me," Buffoon said, sniffing superciliously, "I take no pleasure in escorting someone such as yourself."

Cloak was getting irritated. "And what do you mean by that? That you find it offensive that I prefer the company of more humble, noble beings then pretentious, ostentatious, swaggering fools like yourself? That prefer to distance myself from the corruption of the Council?"

"Whatever," Buffoon said indifferently, ostensibly checking is hoof-like fingernails.

Cloak felt nettled. Conversing with this dolt was nothing like conversing with the RAFians. Even Rotiart made for more scintillating conversation. And that was saying something. Not to mention that his clothing choice was the vulgarest of kitsch.

Cloak quickly left his unwanted escort as he strode into the Council chambers. Cloak was right in his earlier belief that the Council had been replaced yet again. The Council was, once again, an all-male Council. Upon the seats sat an anthropomorphic Stymphalian bird known as "Cutthroat", an anthropomorphic orthrus (that is to say, a bicephalic dog) who was known as "Sinner", an anthropomorphic land shark called "Ripper", and a disgusting anthropophage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropophage) called "Blot". Their leader, the Head Councilor, was a bicephalic, tailless dragon called "Hunger". Cloak knew of all of them, and knew with certainty that they were all corrupt, with destructive, animalistic rages.

Cutthroat was a Realm Walker who was very ichor-thirst, merciless, and barbaric. He can inspire fear into may Realm Walkers, but Cloak was not one of them. He was overly violent, and had a seemingly insatiable ichor-thirst, which Cloak thought made him an odd choice for a politician.

Sinner was a sadistic, predatory Realm Walker, but out of Malice's league in that respect. He is also relentless in pursuit, which he would pursue with a single-minded obsessiveness. But he is laughably terrified of smaller Realm Walkers and beings, which he tries to destroy out of this fear.

Ripper was obsessed with who was superiority, which stems from a hidden, but massive, inferiority complex. Ripper's complex is even more severe than Cloak's own. He often transfers the qualities he dislikes of himself upon others, which he tries to destroy.

Blot was disgusting personified. He had things of questionable natures oozing out from his skin that Cloak would remain happy just not knowing what it was. Blot was the typical bullying bruiser type, who had to have his robes be low-cut as his face was in his humanoid chest.

Hunger was the worse of the lot, hence why he was the leader. He was a decent strategist, but a glutton. He was rather like a Taxxon, afraid of never having enough. Which, as Cloak considered, made him a perfect politician, and plutocrat. He also enjoyed rampant, wanton destruction.

Together, they were an abomination*. They clearly didn't earn their seats, but more likely usurped them by force. They weren't smart enough for the positions, though, and Cloak knew them to be in the Oblivion Gate, last he knew.

"Well, well, well," Cloak said, with narrowed eyes and obvious contempt, wondering if he was being decieved. "Here we are with the 'Council'."

"You will address us with respect." Ripper snarled.

"Ah. So, you didn't speak with your predecessors, then." Cloak said, as he folded his arms. "I will address you with respect, Ripper, when you earn it. Not because you told me to."

"You do as we command!" Hunger roared with one head as the other was chowing down on some unseen thing that was apparently very messy.

"Save your grandiose posturing," Cloak replied back, not remotely afraid of these dolts. "What do you want?"

"We are closing off the realms," Cutthroat said, his bronze beak reverberating slightly with each word. "The Merging is upon us."

Cloak was taken aback, but he knew he really shouldn't be surprised, considering these five's backgrounds. "You would just write off millions of billions of lives."

"Yes," Cutthroat said, not even bothering to hide his bloodthirsty zeal. "The realms are of no consequence."

"You all disgust me." Cloak spat.

"You are not to go back," Sinner barked, as his other head was sniffing the counter before him. Then the heads changed position, "That is a direct order. Do not break it. You know the consequences."

Cloak narrowed his eyes.

---

*Bit of a hint to where I got the idea (http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Abominus) for this council.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 15, 2014, 01:14:35 PM

There was a different council in a much earlier book, the slightly Hogwarts-inspired one. That one was a tad sensible... I see it only gets worse with time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2014, 02:57:30 PM

They were eventually corrupted, too. Either that, or the Realm Walker people, being as fickle as we are, ousted them for something worse. All in all, it shows my rather low opinion of politicians.

:edit: New chapter. Dunno if I can post one tomorrow.

CHAPTER NINE:
Decisions

"You are dismissed," Hunger's other head said, as his first one began the process of gobbling down his food. At least, Cloak hoped it was food.

Cloak did not move, but glared at the five of them with his eyes narrowed.

"Did you not hear him? Or are you simply not smart enough to know what was said?" Ripper said, in a rather pathetic attempt to sound scathing. Cloak could still hear some insecurity in the words.

"Oh, my hearing's perfectly adequate to hear all your self-important, self-indulgent tripe." Cloak said disparagingly.

"What? What did you say?" Blot said, with his thick voice.

"You heard me." Cloak said, wearing his scorn open on his sleeve. He turned his back to them, and said, "And I wouldn't get too comfortable in those seats, if I were you."

"IS THAT A CHALLENGE?!" Ripper roared, abandoning the aloof decorum that he hadn't successfully pulled off. His statement revealed himself to be less civilized then he pretended. Cloak wasn't surprised.

Cloak continued to wear his look of utter distain, "Oh, believe me, Ripper . . . it wouldn't be a challenge."

Ripper's anger broke into confusion at this statement, not even comprehending what Cloak was referring to. Then that made him even more angry.

"Besides," Cloak said, resuming his walk to the door, "it's not me that you should watch out for."

On that enigmatic note, and to seven looks of the utmost puzzlement, Cloak strode from the chambers of the Council.

***

This was precisely why he dwelled in the Prime Universe, he did not like just how corruptable the politics, policies, and politicians were in his homeland. This was true everywhere, even in the realms, he supposed. But not to such a laughable degree.

The Council was always a joke. Ineffectual. Quibbling about stupid, nonsensical stuff while always maintaining the fallacy of Realm Walker thought -- since they came first, they were the best. It was not an ideology that Cloak (and many others) did not subscribe to. Cloak had always been an egalitarian by heart, and was completely unable to see any logic behind such ideals.

If he abided by this crock Council's ruling, he was homeless. He could not, would not go back to his mother's. He would kill himself first. He supposed he could go to his aunt's or his sister Fatih's place, but the two of them were always so busy. And he couldn't be a burden on either . . .

Or he could defy the Council's order, and be labeled a fugitive and criminal. And Realm Walker criminals only go to one place: the Oblivion Gate. It was an awful place, rather like Azkaban, only without the dementors. Each window faced the Oblivion Veil, so the side opposite the Veil was windowless.

. . . What would his grandfather do?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 16, 2014, 02:48:19 PM

I sense meditation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2014, 02:53:34 PM

Are you peeking at my notes, Saffa? ;)

Now, another chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Who Will?

Cloak found a little out-of-the-way area of forest where he felt that he wouldn't have been bothered, and he made a stone seat rise up from the ground. The spot had changed over the intervening centuries and became wild, but it was the spot that Avatar had first proposed to Benign. It was unrecognizable from that time.

Cloak had crossed his legs, so his right heel could touch the left side of his hip and vice-versa. His tail draped over the earthen seat, the tip twitching periodically. He balled his hands into loose fists and touched his knuckles together. Then his shut his eyes, steadied his breathing and . . .

Cloak heaved a deep sigh, and said, "The Realm Walker High Council is not interested in Dweller affairs, or with the Merging of Realms.  And they've forbidden me to act on this.  I'm sorry, but there's nothing that I can do."

He was standing in the forum, with Saffa, Underseen, AniDragon, and Abby standing around him.

Saffa said, "Wait!  Hold on, just a minute!!

You don't lend a hand
When a hand needs lending,
Who will?"

AniDragon added:

"If you don't help your friends,
Where things are heading,
Who will?
When nothing goes right
And everything's all wrong,
When the days are bitterly cold,
And the nights are very long."

Saffa continued:

"If you won't be there
To stand and be strong --"

She and AniDragon sang:

"Who will?"

Abby sang:

"If you don't risk your neck
When a risk needs takin',
Who will?
If you don't break the rules
When the rules need breakin',
Who will?
You gotta be tough."

Saffa sang:

"And forthright and square."

Underseen added:

"You can't hide your head
And pretend you're not there."

AniDragon sang:

"If we don't fight for what's right
And what's fair,
Who will?"

Saffa sang:

"Everyone has a hero,
Hiding deep inside
Waiting to appear.
But there's no time left to hide.
The moment is now.
The place is here!"

Abby sang:

"Who will
Risk life and limb?
Just to help a stranger?
I will."

AniDragon sang:

"Who will
Walk through the dark
Even though there's danger?
I will.
Who will
Stay by your side?"

Abby:

"And take up your cause?"

AniDragon:

"To give his strength,
To his heart or the laws?"

Abby:

"Who will be your back up?"

Underseen:

"Your buddy."

AniDragon:

"Your friend."

As they and the forum faded into blackness, they sang:

"We will.
We will."

Cloak opened his eyes, aware that the whole event was a vision. His decision was clear now, and made. Cloak got up as the seat sunk back into the ground, which smoothed over immediately. Cloak turned to leave, but then looked over his shoulder. He thought . . .

He thought he felt a benign energy. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 16, 2014, 03:07:36 PM

Um, no! ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2014, 08:58:26 PM

Next chapter, over easy?

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Going Home

He was going to go back. He was going to go back home. He would die alongside his friends, instead of living with the utter regret of knowing that he abandoned them by giving into people who really had no business in a governing position, a position of power.

So what if they want to throw him in the Gate? He'd at least go knowing in his heart of hearts that he was doing the right thing. That, of course, assuming he survived. The Merging of Realms had only occured once before. Or, rather, it started to occur. The myth surrounding the Merging of Realms said that if it succeeded all matter in the realms would evaporate into nothingness. It would not discriminate between animate or inanimate. And the other Realm Walkers would not tolerate evacuating them Realms. The Nexus was a place for Walkers that Dwellers were not permitted.

No one knew that Cloak had once, due to necessity, snuck Bladeh and Faerie here. But that was two different stories of questionable continuity*. Cloak really didn't care if they knew. He knew that the Realm Dwellers weren't just some icky things that revel in filth and malevolence, as he had not only lived beside Dwellers, but thrived with them. So, these antiquated ideals that many, if not most, Realm Walkers held so dear were nothing more than a gigantic source of irritation for the Elements Master.

Cloak had suspected that the cretinous Council would have posted guards to ensure no one walked the avenue that lead to the realms, like a peninsula. There wasn't any. Cloak had overestimated the Council of criminals, they were much too arrogant and stupid to realize that their "sphere of fear" did not extend to everyone. Such a pity. Cloak had expected more from someone in their positions. Clearly, they did not ascend to those positions on their own.

Cloak looked and found the Prime Universe. Seeing it so red and fiery brough him emotional pain so real it felt physical. He did not know how to stop it. But he did know that it was stopped before. That means it could be stopped again. Granted, Cloak did know know how it was stopped or by who, but that didn't deter Cloak.

He looked at his Mark, thinking of how much it meant to him. Thought of how much simply being a RAFian meant to him. He would not let this Merging come to past.

He recklessly dove headlong into the realm. Unaware that mere seconds later, two individuals showed up. . . .

***

Malice was pleased with Abominus Five, as she called them collectively. She had sprung them from prison, ensured them spots on the Council (by killing the preceding Councilors with all the stealth and guile of a ninja)**. She didn't give them much information, but knew how to play her cards. She knew that even if he was expressly forbidden to return, he would go anyway. And the threat of being arested and interred in the Gate would keep him in the Realm until its destruction. The plan was perfect.

Then, she supposed, she'll go and find someone else to manipulate. To make miserable. To make the source of her fun. See if they could stymie her. She could walk the Nexus without fear of persecution or prosecution. But she knew it was still within her best interests to stay in the shadows. Even the Abominus Five didn't know it was Malice herself pulling the strings. Malice was being careful as a contingency plan, in case this Council goes south.

---

* Check out "Intro Randomness" for these tales, although a bit of a retcon since Dagger never was a villain in this continuity, neither was Brute. Because, yeah, at the time, I saw them as villains.

** Before you ask why she doesn't do this with RAFians, like the mods, the truth is she just doesn't want to. She wants to have fu. doing it, and she wouldn't have much fun doing it -- assuming that she even could.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2014, 07:37:40 AM

Another chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Back to the Fold

"You're back!" Broken said, genially.

Cloak wasn't too pleased to see the entire realm was still looking like someone decided to redo the entirety of reality in Virtual Boy graphics. But there were far more important things to be concerned with and demanded immediate attention.

"Did you find out what's happening?" Yarin said.

"I found out more than I would have liked," Cloak said heavily. "Gather everyone. I have news, and it isn't pleasant."

***

"The Merging of the Realms is starting," Cloak explained to the forum at large. "It means that the realms will forcibly and violently merge, destroying all matter within it. And all life within it, as well. Myself included."

Although Realm Walkers in a strictly technical sense do not have mattered, but are essentially solidified, corporeal energy. Hence why when they die they do not leave behind corpses. The cloak they all wear is like matter but not quite the same. It's complicated. The Merging would unleash enough energy equal to hurt any Realm Walker, enough to kill.

"I have defied the Realm Walker Council by returning here," Cloak continued. "They have outlawed Walking. They have closed off the realms to us, but I managed to return due to lax security. They now have criminal sitting in the seats of the Council."

But that's true of any government, Cloak supposed.

"The Merging will end all you know and all that you are. It is why this happening. It is the Time War all over again, but worse."

"What Time War?" Cloak heard donut say in a barely-audible whisper.

But Cloak plowed on without explanation of that particular point. "There is a lot against us. But there is a way to stop this, there must be. Because it has been stopped once before."

"How?" Dino boomed unnecessarily.

"I . . . I confess that I don't know how. But it has been done, so it must be possible."

"How long do we have?" Asmo said, practically.

"I . . ."

"Don't know." Rotiart scoffed snidely. "We're gonna die."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2014, 11:21:58 AM

That's one way to look at it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2014, 03:06:41 PM

You know Rotiart, Saffa. He always has to be THAT guy.

Short chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Fugitive and a Renegade

It wasn't long before the Council wondered if their ridiculous edicts had been followed. They essentially turned the peaceful languidity of the Nexus into something out of RoboCop or the Terminator. A complete police state, though they weren't effectual enough leaders to pull this off perfectly, so it was technically an incomplete police state.

The Abominus Five were foolish enough to think that the populace would just bow to whatever they demand. They were not intelligent enouh to see the Realm Walker people tire of such antics and oppression. No sentient species tolerates opressive regimes like this, and it didn't help that the Abominus Five were actually rather poor at maintaining their sphere of fear and control.

It soon got out that Cloak had openly defied their order. Their direct order. While some thought him a reckless fool for doing so, and potentially putting his family in danger from the monsters in the Council, it was a minority. Many congratulated his decision, though it could have been considered selfish. Many were sure that he had a way, a method for stopping the Merging as the mysterious person did in the previous occurance.

Buffoon came before the Realm Walker people, and presented the Council's declaration on the Elements Master's decision. "The Council declares the Realm Walker known as Cloak a rogue, a renegade, and a fugitive. He is hereby barred from reentry into the Nexus, under the punishment of seventy to a hundred years in the Oblivion Gate, pending immediate transport through the Veil."

There mutters of disbelief and much shaking heads.

"Secondly," Buffoon continued in his foppish manner, "all element manipulation is now outlawed and punishable by immediate transport through the Veil."

There was a major outcry at this. As the only other Realm Walker Elements Master was still a child. Shadow. The Abominus Five were advocating essentially killing a child for being who she was. Faith, Cloak's sister was very concerned about this, naturally. She may not have been an Elements Master herself, but . . . but she was still a mother, and would protect her child by any means necessary.

The really sad thing was that the Abominus Five had no idea just how unpopular these laws, the ridiculous edicts, were but expected the people to follow the oppressive legislation just the same. They expect nothing to come of it, and they acted like tyrants instead of elected government officials. They seemed to have forgotten that last bit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2014, 03:26:04 PM

I just swore out loud. :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2014, 05:36:18 PM

They aren't called the "Abominus Five" for nothing. But just wait . . . they'll get theirs. . . . Perhaps excessively. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Too Late to Backpedal

The Abominus Five were slow and stupid, but they were perceptive enough to see that their edicts were unpopular. But they really didn't care. At first. Then they were told that the people had the right to impeach them if the Council made laws that were oppressive and tyrannical. The Abominus Five hadn't even bothered to hide this in their edicts.

There was grounds for impeachment. And the Abominus Five were smart enough to know that their matron would not like it if they got impeached. Though they never met her, each one, even Hunger, feared her. This was the wisest that they ever got.

"Buffoon!" Hunger snarled with both his heads.

"I beg your pardon?" Buffoon said superciliously, not like that that had become his name. Hunger and the rest didn't care.

"Get over here, Buffoon!" Hunger said, as he hastily scribbled down something in Realm Walker script. The other four quickly signed off on it. "Go! Go read this declaration. Now! Now, you fool!"

Afraid that "Fool" would become his new nomenclature, he obeyed at once.

"That should be enough," Hunger told the others. "They should buy that."

"Perhaps we should be more subtle next time." Cutthroat said, fretfully.

"I thought wees was being subtle," Blot said, rather stupidly.

***

"The formerly presented edicts have now been remanded," Bufoon announced to the populace. "They are now null and void. The Council thanks you for your continued suppor--"

Buffoon was drowned out by the outraged outbursts. A simple political backpedaling was not sufficient to satiate them. They wanted the Abominus Five out of office. NOW.

"They're not going to like this," Buffoon muttered, with a heavy sigh.

***

A dark figure swept into the Council chamber, and the Abominus Five knew it was their matron. They still didn't know her identity, whereas a child would have figured it out ages ago. She was most displeased with the five.

"You disappoint me," Malice said, coolly. She had some real guts showing up here of all places, though she stuck to the shadows, ninja-like. "The first edict was sufficient enough. It pleased me."

The torches that lit the room went out one by one, until the natural glow of the Five was the only illumination. Malice obscured her own glow with her cloak. The Abominus Five were utterly, utterly terrified.

"But your second one," she continued, voice soft as the finest silk threads, "well, now, that was a big no-no."

"We're sorry, we'll do better!" Blot blubbered stupidly.

"'Better'?" Malice said with breathless, mirthless laugh. "You misunderstand. Your impeachment is inevitable."

"We can . . . uh . . . we can . . ." Ripper stammered, looking for a solution, but one did not materialize.

"You can do nothing." Malice said, as she formed energy blades from her wrists. Energy blades like the one she used to kill Ab. "You five are of no further use to me."

"Please, no!" Hunger pleaded.

Then the chamber erupted in screams. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 18, 2014, 12:07:15 AM

That was cold.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2014, 10:14:26 AM

Yes, but it's Malice we're talking about here, Saffa. She only tolerated Ab when she needed him, and Mauler is nothing but a mindless tool to her. She believes fear and intimidation is the only way to get what she wants. Possibly another reason she is so focused on me in the stories, because she can't really intimidate me.

Anyway . . . new chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Unity

"What about Unity Energy?" Goom said, at once, ignoring Rotiart.

Rotiart had decided to tow the Rattrap line, and was certain that their imminent death was all but unavoidable, greatly irritating the other RAFians. Saffa felt like stringing him up by his shoelaces, but instead decided to devote that energy for coming up with a solution. She prompted the Realm Walker, "Well, Cloak? Do you think it could work?"

Unity Energy. It had become their save-all grace. Its full capabilities never exactly fully explored, its limits not readily known or demonstrated. Though Cloak never said it or admitted it, he had become worried about it. Worried that the RAFians, including himself, had become too reliant on it. He knew it did have its limits, as all things do, but he did not know what they are.

"Cloak," Richard prompted.

"He doesn't know," Rotiart said scornfully. He spoke rather like that disrespectful kid in the beginning of "Jurassic Park". "The almighty Realm Walker doesn't know. He descends from on high to mingle with us lesser beings, yet he brings no ways to help us."

"Rotiart, if you donr shut up, so help me, I'm going to --" Saffa said, trying to keep her anger in check. Rotiart was really grinding her nerves of late.

Cloak narrowed his eyes at Rotiart, unaware of where this enmity started, but suspecting why Rotiart felt so hostilely towards him. However, when he spoke, he addressed both Goom and Richard. "Unity Energy may be sufficient to stave off the process for a bit, but I have doubts that it would end it permanently."

"So . . . what now?" Phoenix asked, thoroughly puzzled.

"Uncle . . ." a voice said to Cloak's right, and he looked and found his neice.

"Shadow, wh-what are you doing here?" he said, unaware of the change of power in the Nexus.

"Mom and I need you," she said. "We have to stop the Merging."

Now Cloak was confused.

"Oh, huzzah," Rotiart said tonelessly, "the interdimensional gods will make everything better."

Cloak gave him a withering look. He did not like being compared to a god, for reasons he had not yet disclosed.

"We're all going to die."

"THAT'S IT. Come here, you!" Saffa shouted, having had far too much of Rotiart's juvenile behavior. Rotiart did the only sensible thing. He ran from her as Cloak went with Shadow.

***

"I suppose that I was wrong," Malice said, eyeing the one-way transparent vial. Within were five spark-like entities. They had fused to become one powerful spark-like energy. "You will be of some use to me, after all. . . ."

Then she laughed a low, insideously maniacal laugh of which Mark Hamill would have been proud. Yes, the spark-like entities were that of the Abominus Five, the deux ex machinas that Malice had captured and experimented, now simply called the Abominus Soul. The name was actually a misnomer, as the spark that was the Abominus Soul had no sentience of its own, it seemed.

And Malice had a plan for it. An awfully nonsensical plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 18, 2014, 12:47:11 PM

One day I fear it will go too far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2014, 03:48:38 PM

*Eyes Saffa a bit suspiciously, wondering if he should speak anymore on the subject, as an answer either way would be a significant spoiler.*

. . .

New chapter. Bit on the short side. Might hafta end this book before twenty chapters, but I'll let ya know.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Technique of Faith

The two Realm Walkers emerged from the Prime Universe, and Cloak was surprised to find it not as red as it was when he first entered. Was the Merging a scare? Did it never really exist?

"Mom, we're here." Shadow said.

It was with another shock that Cloak saw his elder sister, whom he considered to be the wisest and most nuturing of his siblings, was standing before the Prime Universe. She was making movements as if she was waterbending. The stances and gestures very fluid. This confused her baby brother.

"Yes, Shadow," Faith had said. "Now, please help me. I cannot do this by myself for much longer."

Cloak then realized why the forms and stnaces looked familiar. It was exactly the kind of waterbending technique that Unalaq and Korra used to transform Dark spirits back. But Faith was using her own energy, as she couldn't control the Water element. But Cloak didn't know how this would work.

"Uncle! We need your help too!" Shadow said, for she had fallen in step with her mother, move for move. The realms redness had fade into a a deep pinkish blue, but there was still some redness here and there.

He had never thought his sister was so strong. He would have respected her more, if he didn't already respect as much as he was emotionally capable beforehand. He always tended to underestimate Realm Walkers, his family and species alike, it would seem.

Cloak nodded, and fell into step himself. He mimicked the forms, the stances, the fluidity of the movements. He fell into perfect sync with the other two. The realms glowed brighter, more fluidly and less fiery.

But it . . . it still wasn't quite enough. It was frustating knowing that you were almost there, but just out of range. Cloak pored on his power, tapping into the reservoir that he was almost always afraid to tap into.

Then a surge of power from within the realm itself clenched it. It broke whatever was causing the Merging. Made it impossible for it to happen again. What it was nobody knew, but it didn't matter. It was over, it was done, the realms were safe.

For the time being.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2014, 07:58:07 AM

Gonna try to finish this book today. The next, as it stands right now, looks to be of a somewhat lighter tone than this one was.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Conversations of Faith

Cloak rejoiced in the knowledge that the realms were safe, that his friends were safe. He was free to go back and live where he belonged. To where he had made his home. But he had defied that abominable Council. He couldn't dally any longer, for fear of being arrested.

He would not go to the Gate. He simply would not. He would not be interred with some of the most infamous criminals of Realm Walker history. It is even rumored that the son of Cataclysm, a Realm Walker far more dangerous than his father, whose form is deceptively harmless-looking, was interred there. Buried deep beneath the Gate, where he still lives. Of course, this was a myth. Something told to scare children from not wanting to go there, similar to the use of Dementors in Azkaban.

"It is done," Faith said, hands on her hips, appraising the Realms with a look of satisfaction at a job well done.

"Faith," Cloak croaked out, "how . . . how did you . . ."

"How did I know? Or how was I capable?" Faith said, smiling warmly at her baby brother. Then she chided him good-naturedly, "My dear brother, I may not be an Elements Master as my daughter, but that does not mean that I'm powerless!"

"I --I didn't mean to offend --"

"Oh, Cloak," she said, using his chosen name -- a sign of understanding on her part, she smiled knowingly and warmly, "you take yourself and everything too seriously. Relax a bit. It'll be good for you."

"I'm . . . I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. It was comforting, as Realm Walkers aren't what you might call a touchy-feely species. Physical contact is almost never made in most cases and circumstances. "You tend to over-apologize, you know."

Then she looked at him seriously, clearly detecting the conflict within him. "Look at me, little brother. You really ought think more of yourself. Look at what you accomplished. And I don't mean just here, ending the Merging. You mastered all six elements. What's more you've taught my daughter to.master those elements as well. And if what Shadow tells me of your exploits in the Prime Universe is true, look at what you've accomplished there."

Others might rankle at being lectured by an older sibling, but Cloak actually didn't mind. Faith geniuinely cared for Cloak. It was obvious in the tone and infliction of her voice. It was one reason that Cloak was always more than willing to help Faith out when she needed it, and, in return, Faith was always able to give Cloak some wisedom. He turned to her for it, as well as his aunt, after his grandfather passed on.

It wasn't anything remotely like the lectures he had received from his mother, which inevitably came back to how his behavior made things look for her. It always came back to what she wanted, or how it reflected upon her. Cloak's feelings were almost never taken into account, only his mother's. It was one of the factors why he became so skilled at internalizing his emotions -- it was an essential tool to survive living with his mother. But it also made him what is called "emotionally constipated".

"Thank you, sister."

"Anytime, baby brother."

Cloak knew this is where humans would have hugged, but Realm Walkers are not humans. Hugging was a rarity amongst the species.

"We have company," Shadow said.

It was Courier, a bunny-form Realm Walker. "Mr. Cloak, sir, the Council has humbly requested an audience with you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2014, 08:54:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A Unconventional Request

Cloak bid Shadow and Faith adu, hoping that this wouldn't be the last time that he would see them. Prisoners in the Gate usually had no family or their family disowned them (the fairness of which is questionable). Cloak also couldn't help but wonder why Courier was escorting him to the Abominus Five, when Buffoon could. Granted, it'd be a lot less pleasant if he did, so Cloak probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. But still . . . it unsettled him.

Courier stopped right outside the door, giving a little bow, beckoning him in. Cloak had a rather odd thought when expected Courier to check his watch, gasp, and declare that he was late, late for a very important date. He was a white rabbit, after all.

The doors open, and Cloak was struck again on how unnecessarily large, impeccably ornate, and obnoxiously opulent it was. It was gold, and towered over Cloak, who was approximately eight Dweller Earth feet tall. It opened into the rather vast chamber of the Council, which could have fit two of RAF's auditoriums in it. It's floor was somewhere between granite and marble. The ceiling was shrouded in darkness, as the light came from either the Realm Wlakers or the torches. It was just empty space though. Wasted space.

Cloak looked over to the raised seats, covered by a continuous desk-like counter surface of some dark wood with gold etchings. Cloak was once again reminded of excessive opulence. He found it extremely distasteful. Wealth that could have been spent on vastly more important things. Such vain decorating.

It was then that Cloak noticed that Abominus Five were not seated behind the continuous podium. It was then that Cloak noticed flecks of ichor staining the the wood of the podium stand. Cloak narrowed his eyes swiftly putting two and two together.

Clearly, the Abominus Five were killed, but considering the slight movements and the cleanliness of those seated, Cloak quickly ascertained that they were not the ones who did the slaying. Cloak could have asked the seated about it, but decided that would be too crass, too forward. The opportunity would present itself in due time.

He looked at each of the Councilors in turn. There was a male northern harrier, a female osprey, a male red-tailed hawk, a female bald eagle, and a male peregrine falcon. Cloak wasn't quick to trust them.

"Ah, Cloak," said the osprey genially. Cloak didn't let his guard down. "You recieved our request for an audience, I see.

Obviously, Cloak wanted to say, but held his tongue.

"We have a request of you," the harrier said.

"Request?" Cloak said, suspiciously. Clearly, the Abominus Five's laws didn't stand. But what request could these newcomers have of him. The ichor stains didn't look to be even two hours old.

"Yes," said the peregrine falcon, the Head Councilor, "a request. More of an offer ,really."

"Offering what?" Cloak said, staying on edge. He wasn't ready to just trust these people right off the bat.

"A seat," the osprey said, as if she was offering him paradise. "A seat on this Council."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 19, 2014, 09:00:06 AM

Sudden chapters! SUDDEN PLOT TWIST! :o

And I see what you did with the choice of birds. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2014, 09:20:47 AM

Eh, might have been sudden for you, but I've had it planned out for months. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Cloak's Choice

Cloak was silent for several beats, almost certain that he heard wrong. He narrowed his eyes, and said in a flat voice, "What?"

"A seat on the Council." the red-tailed hawk said.

Now it most certainly was a joke.

"You're serious?" Cloak said, with scornful cynicism.

"Yes," the osprey said. "We know it might be overwhelming at first, but --"

"No." Cloak interrupted.

"No? No what?" the bald eagle asked.

"As in I reject your offer." Cloak said, standing up straight. "As in thhere has never been more than five Councilors as far as I recall, no to mention that I don't believe you're being as gregarious as you pretend."

Cloak don't know what he expected -- maybe scandalized looks or afronted expressions -- but avian faces are some of the hardest to read. He continued.

"Not to mention the seats of the Council are usually, inevitably corrupted. I prefer to not lose myself, or my principles. Politics are only for the trecherous, the backstabbers, the backpedalers. Full of either themselves, self-righteous moralizations, brutish tactics, truth ambiguity, and other sordid things. Call me simple or traitor, I don't care. But modern day politics seem concerned with only ine thing, how to keep themselves in power, regardless if they oppress innocent people or coverup things the people should know. No thanks."

"We're not like that," said the red-tailed hawk.

"Perhaps not," Cloak said, turning to walk out, then spoke over his shoulder, "not yet, anyway."

The council permitted him to go, but Cloak didn't care if they or not. He would never go into politics, as he believed them to be stagnant most of the time, dredging into the lowest common denominator, prositituting one's values in order to garner votes. On the whole, it was a filthly, muddy business. And it was a business that Cloak rather stay out of.

He went with deliberation, went with pride, back home.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 19, 2014, 12:15:38 PM

I suppose straight talk isn't always the way to go.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2014, 01:49:58 PM

Right. Last chapter of this book, comin' up. It's gonna be a long one.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
This Isn't My Idea

Cloak had returned to the thread, and related everything that had happened. The. He insisted that he retire to his thread. He needed some rest. He needed to unwind, to relax.

And when he slept, he dreamed. Dreamed not of imaginary events or symbollic meanings, but he dreamt of the past. Of his ancestors, of Guardian and Noble.

Theirs was an arranged marriage, and neither were too happy about it. At first.

The Noble, as a young foal, sang in voiceover:

I can’t believe I’m stuck with her all summer.
I bet she doesn’t wrestle, run, or box.

Meanwhile, the young cygnet Guardian sang in voiceover:

He looks conceited.

Noble sighed:

"What a total bummer!

Both thought:

If I get lucky, I’ll get the pox!

After being prompted by his mother, who had the form of an anthropomorphized Maine Coon cat, Noble sang politely (thought his face showed that he clearly did not want to say it):

"So happy you could come."

When Guardian was prompted by her father, a giant panda, in turn, she sang in an equally forced way:

"So happy to be here."

Both thought:

Oh, how I’d like to run . . .

Then they switched to quiet asides:

"This isn’t my idea
Of fun."

Then the dream's focus changed to their parents. Noble’s mother, oblivious to the fact that the two seem rather disinterest in each other, sang:

"The children seem to be getting along quite nicely."

Guardian's father sang proudly:

"We’ll join our families together with this arrangement fix."

"My dear, that’s my point!  Precisely."

"It’s such good parenting."

"And politics.
So happy we agree."

"I think we’ve got a deal."

"My boy’s quite a catch!"

"This is my –"

"This is MY idea."

Then they both sang in unison:

" -- Of a match."

Several years pass, and both Noble and Guardian are pre-adolescents, what humans might call "tweens".

Guardian's father sang loudly:

"Good heavens, child!
Don’t dawdle!
We can’t keep them waiting!"

The pre-adolescent Guardian protested, singing:

"I haven’t packed, washed my hair,
And father, I get travel-sick!"

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Noble's mother entered his room as he hastily tried to hide a picture of Guardian and act like he wasn't getting a little crush on her. But she saw him.

"They will soon be arriving.
Is that respect your showing?"

Attempting to recover his poise, he sang hastily:

"If you make me show her around again,
I swear I’m goin’ to be sick!"

Fast forward to Noble and his lupine friend, Amigo, running in the forests as Guardian tries to keep up. He sang:

"I’ve tried all summer,
But I just can’t lose her."

The two flee to treehouse. Once inside, they pull up the rope ladder, which was effective as Guardian was not old enough to fly. They put out a sign that read "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" sign in archaic Realm Walker script, which was still a rather immature thing to do at their age.

"When picking teams or friends,
I’d never choose her.
One would think that she would take a hint
And learn to read."

She protested:

"That really isn’t fair."

The two boys countered:

" We really couldn’t care."

Guardian, frustrated and hurt, loses control over her powers causing the tree fort to be reduced to splinters, as she sang:

"Boys are really – "

All three sang:

"This is not my idea of fun."

Some time passes, and the two grow into teenagers. There was a growing attracton between the two that neither was willing to acknowledge.

Noble sang:

"She tries to talk me into playing “dress up”.
She’s always flirting with the forum guards."

Amigo sang:

"I think you really sort of like her.
Fess up."

Noble countered this, as he began a card game with Guardian.

"I’d like her better if she would lose at cards.
. . . Four sevens and a ten."

To which Guardian replied,

"I think I’ve won again."

The two sang:

"Every time, she’s won."

Guardian demurely sang:

"This is my idea – "

Noble interjected:

"This isn’t my idea --"

Then they both said:

"Of fun."

Fast forward to the point of time when they were young adults. They both sang:

"For as long as I remember,
We’ve been told we’d someday be wed."

The full-grown Noble sang:

"All their pushing and annoying hints."

The full grown Guardian sang:

"I’ve got bruises from their fingertips."

"I can do much better, I am sure."

"He’s so immature!"

They both are herded into a room with each other, and they see each other. Soon, all pretense is lost.

Guardian sang:

"I see him smiling
And my knees start buckling.
I see inside him,
And my doubts are gone."

Noble sang:

"She started out as such an ugly duckling.
And suddenly became a swan."

"So happy to be here."

"‘Til now I never knew."

Both sang to each other:

"It was you I was dreaming of."

Noble sang:

"This is my idea. . . ."

"This is my idea. . . ."

"This is my idea . . ."

"This is my idea . . ."

Both sang:

"This is my idea . . .
Of love."

Then Cloak awoke suddenly, saying, "Wow. That was random."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2014, 03:33:34 PM

New book, new chapter.

BOOK LXVII:
Be A Doll
CHAPTER ONE:
What Harm Would It Do?

One person was evading police on foot. The man wore a tattered trench coat, sneakers, blue jeans and a black shirt. He had long, ratty hair with a generally unkempt appearance. He sang in voiceover:

It starts with just a little thing
No one would miss at all.
What possible, perceivable harm can it do
To break just a little law?
What harm can it do?
What harm can it do?
What harm can it do?
Bedtime's every night at 10:00,
But out of bed you creep.
You post real quiet until you hear:
"You're supposed to go to sleep!".
What harm can it do?
What harm can it do?
What harm can it do?
Rules are made for a reason.
Always some we hate.
But they help us all get along together.
Laws are made to keep us straight!
You borrow something from a friend:
A doll or maybe a truck.
They saw you take it.
They want it back.
Oh, boy! No toy! Oh, yuck!
What harm can it do?!
WHAT HARM CAN IT DO?!

"Hold your fire!" said the cop in charge. "He's in the Joy's Toys shop, we need to get in, quickly and quietly."

They did, and he forced on cop to shoot him in the shoulder. It was a fatal shot, but he was ambulatory enough to stagger away, and realize.

He was dying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2014, 01:07:18 AM

That was quite a dramatic start.

And here's the PDF of the last, brilliant book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2014, 10:52:29 AM

Thanks, Saffa! Now . . . new chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
That's Mr. Abominus

Malice held the vial that held the fused deux ex machina of the Abominus Five -- now just simply called Abominus -- aloft, contemplating her next step. Malice was fully sure that she had extracted any free will from it, apparently forgetting that deux ex machina carries no intelligence, no sentience. Usually. It just contains the powers, wisdom, valor, and such of the Realm Walker it came from. It was by no means the Realm Walker's soul. There has never been a documented case refuting this.

Malice pondered her next move again, hiding, in a skillfully surreptitious way, in the shadows of an alleyway. Some might see her actions as a perversion of nature, but there are some who liken anything they are uncomfortable with as a perversion of nature or simply unnatural, so the term has essentially lost most if not all meaning.

Malice smirked as she thought of her plan. Yes, she thought, it is the perfect plan. No one would see it coming. No would expect it.

She had taken a doll -- a ventriloquist dummy, actually -- and scrutinized it a bit. Its head sculpt looked a bit like Jeff Dunham's Walter dummy and a bit like Robert Naylor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Naylor_(actor)). It had black slacks, black dress shoes, black "socks", a white shirt, a black jacket, and a clashing red tie. Its eyes were an inhuman blue, and its hair was somewhere between brown and black.

"A mock-up of the ridiculously human form," Malice breathed, with a humorless chuckle. "But it should suffice in causing a little mayhem, chaos and bedlam. It should make for an entertaining viewing."

Then she altered the puppet's eyes, add some tech to it that would allow her to see whatever the dummy saw. She smiled to see it worked, although it was strange, as it seemed a little too passively voyeuristic for Malice.

But then she undid the top of the vial and ushered in the deux ex machina of Abominus into the inanimate form. Malice was pulling a Blue Fairy, making a rather more sinister Pinocchio who was devoid of aspirations of being a real boy -- devoid any thoughts that weren't given to him.

"Wait, until you've been purchased," Malice said, sneaking the dummy back into the store she stole it from. It was unnecessarily dangerous, and it would have made more sense to insert the stuff while still in the store. But it is almost as if she wanted people to know there was a break in. "When you are, then we'll see some real entertainment."

Then she left the store, as quickly and as stealthily as a Tasmanian devil can. . . . You probably can see the inherent problem with that.

Meanwhile, Abominus just sat where Malice had left him. He hadn't a real mind of his own, but it was greatly unknown if he might or might not develope one over time. He was the result of some questionable experiments, none of which would have been condone by event the most obssessive of Realm Walker scientists. Also, it wasn't clear just what precisely that Malice had done to it to get the deux ex machina of the five into this state. They were spark-like, whereas most others are in forms of radiant energy or wisps of smoke-like energy, but not like that. It could also be a unique property of the Abominus's five fused deux ex machina.

What would happen next? Only time would tell.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2014, 03:04:38 PM

Another chapter, whilst I have energy. Hmmm . . . I MIGHT go off my notes with this book. It might extend past the requisite twenty chapters. We shall have to wait and see.

CHAPTER THREE:
You Really Don't Find That Suspicious?

A mother was looking for a particular doll for her son, a popular toy this year. It came in a yellow box with red-printed, stylized lettering. The doll itself had reddish-orange hair, freckles, penetrating blue eyes. It wore a shirt-sleeved orange shirt with a moon on the lower right corner of the front and with green cuffs, red overalls with purple squiggles printed on them, and red sneakers with white soles and untied white laces. It was a very difficult toy to find, when it is was made of such a quality that knockoff are easily noticed, and the only place to find them was in the Joy's Toys shop, which was closed due to that odd lightning strike that hit it.

This left Cat Alexander in a bit of a quandary, as he son, Vinny, had only one request for a birthday present -- that doll. The trouble was finding the thing, and one still in decent quality. The proprietor of the shop had claimed that they had lost all of their stock of the dolls. She really didn't want to disappoint the six-year-old, but she didn't know what to do. She didn't make all that much to begin with, and was always outbid on eBay. She had no choice but to be frugal.

So when she found the homeless person with the doll in his possession, one in mint-condition no less, how could she resist not buying it from him?  It was a very reckless thing to do, really. It may have looked pristine from the box, but there was no actual telling how good the condition really was, but she was a woman desperate to not disappoint her child. Yet, she did not pause to consider just how this man came into possession of such a highly-sought-out item, how come it was in such remarkable condition (she did eventually open the box to consider the quality).

How could she know the truth? How could she know the type of heartache and survival-based stress that this decision would cause? She couldn't and she didn't. She bought the doll, took it home to her small apartment for two and wrapped it up in cheap paper.

***

"The restoration of the Joy's Toys store is estimated to be completed in mid-December. This comes as a blow to many who patronize the shop regulary, and for those who eagerly want the Rugrat Ricky doll, as nowhere else sells the popular toy."

The newscadter stood in front of a burnt out shell of a building, which was struck by lightning. Cloak noted how odd that the lightning didn't damage the building any more than it did. He found this suspect, but wondered if it was just his innate paranoia setting in.

"This was also the site of the death of one Jerry "Bucky" Newkirk, a sociopathic murderer known to have killed six people, but claimed the deaths of countless more."

Cloak took this in, and thought it sounded familiar, as if he had visited a realm where something similar had taken place. But he could not think of what it was at the moment. It irritated him greatly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2014, 03:22:56 PM

Dolls have always creeped me out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2014, 01:31:34 PM

Then this book won't get any easier for you, I'm afraid, Saffa.

Anyway, I've started planning out the chapters for Book CCCXXIX ("Rogue's Gallery -- Assemble!"). I think it is turning out reasonably okay.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Connections

Then Cloak saw a new story that he had missed from earlier. Another shop, this time specializing in stage-based entertainment -- ventriloquy, prestidigitation, pantomime, plays, and things like that -- had appeared to be broken into, yet nothing was taken.

Cloak stood in his thread, stroking his chin. There were a bountiful number of reasons why someone would do such. Perhaps they were simply getting a thrill by breaking and entering without being caught. Perhaps the window was simply broken by a disgruntled former employee. Perhaps it was the result of someone who was a bit too fond of the drink that overindulged again. And there were still more possibilities.

And it was obvious it wasn't a robbery. The money was still in the till, the merchandise was all present and accounted for, and in perfect condition. And yet . . . something didn't sit right with Cloak, especially how the reporter said that nothing was caught on security tapes. It was dark in the store as the interior lights were off and the sun had been down for hours. Yet, Cloak thought he detected the slightest of movements on the footage that they showed for really no reason at all.

First, the lightning-struck toy store, now this break in at Stage Quite (an obvious play on "stage fright", Cloak deduced). It seemed to be connected, but Cloak gave himself a mental slap. If he started down that line of thinking, he might as well start calling himself The Question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_(comics)).

But he couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of an evil scheme afoot.

***

Meanwhile, Stage Quite was still operating normally, its glass door having a piece of cardboard covering its hole. A twelve-year-old girl, Gabby Durham, enters the store. She has voluminous red hair, a thin frame, and a rather nondescript face. She wore bluish-red sneakers, blue overalls, and long-sleeved shirt with red and yellow strips on it. She was an aspiring ventriloquist, which several of her schoolmates didn't hesitate to tell her was weird, though she was fortunate to have supportive friends. Her parents, however, were indifferent to what they considered a hobby.

But it was more than a hobby to Gabby. She wanted to turn it into a career, like Jeff Dunham and the likes. She would need a dummy first, however. She had saved up all her pocket money to be able to purchase one, and now came the all-important task of chosing one.

Guess which one she chose.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 22, 2014, 02:03:06 PM

Oh, brilliant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2014, 07:58:47 PM

Yeah, it turns out that this book won't be as lighthearted as I thought. We might be getting one for . . . *flips through his notes* . . . for a while yet.

Oh, and Saffa, please excuse my curiosity, but what does "Khaleesi" mean?

CHAPTER FIVE:
Isolated Incidents?

After practicing a bit with the dummy, getting comfortable using it, Gabby decided to give a little show at her brother's birthday. His name was Arnold and he was only a year elder. The dummy -- which she called "Stevie" -- acted just like a ventriloquist dummy should. She actually had a very believable voice for him too.

The day came and the party was in full swing, a qualified success. The celebration was perfect, everything to Arnold's specifications for perfection. He was content, though he was unsure about let his little sister preform her ventriloquy. He relented, as the two often tended to look after each other.

Gabby was decked out in the most formal clothes she owned. She wanted to look her best, as she believed she'd have a harder time being taken seriously being a female ventriloquist. Well, aspiring ventriloquist. The opening jokes with Stevie seemed to go off without a hitch, then her mind seemed to get muddy and unforcused.

It didn't make sense . . . she had gotten plenty of sleep the night before, right? No one seemed to notice this, so it was best to ignore and go on with the show. Wait . . . did Stevie just deliver the punchline of his own accord? No, that's ridiculous.

Then suddenly her vision blurred, and she tried to excuse herself, but didn't manage to get the words out before she saw blackness. . . .

. . . And when her vision cleared, when her mind cleared, she found the party over and several parents angrily berating her for things that she most definitely did not say. She was confused -- it had been early afternoon when she began, yet now the sun was just beginning its daily descent. Where had the time gone? Where had Arnold gone?

She dropped Stevie with a deep clunk, and managed to detatch herself from the angry parents. She looked to find Arnold, and found him by a window, alone. He didn't even look around to her, but it was obvious that he was hurt and had been crying."

"Go away." he said. It was obvious he was trying to snap at her, but the hurt he felt wouldn't allow it to come across as much.

"Arnold, what --"

"I said, go away!" he snarled, the hurt transforming into anger.

"Why are you so angry? What --"

"Oh, stop pretending you don't know what you've done." he said angrily. "You had no right to do it. To use . . . to use that word!"

"Arnie, I don't know --"

"You know exactly what! You know exactly what you called me." he said. "For nearly thirteen years, I've known you. And, all along, you've hated me. What I am."

"Arnie, I blacked out. I don't remem--"

"You don't remember outting me? In front of everyone?" Arnold said, his voice trembling from the utter pain of the betrayal. "Then calling me a . . . then calling me by that homophobic slur?"

He turned from her to leave, stopping to look over his shoulder and say, "How could you?" Then he left and walked away, bracing himself from the homophobes of the community.

"But . . ." she protested quietly, "but I didn't. . . . Did I?"

Gabby was shocked and scared by this. She had no idea what was happening, and she never suspects the dummy.

***

The police were at the Alexander residence. Apparently, Vinny's Auntie Maggie had fallen out their apartment window. Which was shut. Vinny said, "Bucky said that she got what she deserved."

"Vin, how can you say that?" Cat replied swiftly. "How can you say that about Aunt Maggie?"

"I didn't, Bucky did."

"Vin," Cat said, at her patience end, " Bucky isn't real."

"It was Bucky!" Vinny insisted. He turned to the unmoving doll, and demanded. "Bucky, tell them! Tell them what you told me. C'mon, Bucky! Tell them!"

"Vincent, enough!" Cat said, stress evident on her.

"But it was! It was him!" Vinny insisted.

The doll's expression remain placid and unexpressive. Yet, something about this cause the detective on scene to say, "We best not jump to conclusions, but this may be a bit out of our jurisdiction. Let's bring in someone with more experience with this kind of thing."

"What do you mean?" Cat said, fearful that they might consider something drastic, like locking Vinny up in an asylum.

"I mean the RAFians, ma'am." the detective said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 22, 2014, 09:59:36 PM

Khaleesi is a title for "queen" in one of the languages of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2014, 09:38:47 AM

Ah. And, yeah, sorry, that last chapter came out heavier and somewhat darker than I thought.

CHAPTER SIX:
Get Me the RAFians!*

The RAFians had recieved Officer Veritias's call, and sent Parker, Yarin, and Broken to investigate. Broken was needed for his expertise in a variety of magicks, making him able to identify any in use. Yarin was needed for his technological expertise, to see if something was admiss technologically. Parker was there for his tactical skill, and his suit tech.

Yarin, being the only one who could not pass for human ordinarily, had to wear an ID mask (http://ben10.wikia.com/ID_Masks). The mask projected a human form, rather like the Chee, only more flawed, in that lightning strikes can cause the hologram to be disturbed momentarily. Yarin wasn't a big fan of wearing them, finding them unfomfortable and . . . obvious.

"I thought the human populace knew about sentient nonhumans," Yarin groused as the trio made their way to the location.

"They do." Broken said, consulting a pocketwatch.

"Then why must I wear this? It feels like I put a slab of rock to my face!"

"Oh, stop your grousing," Parker chided. "You know very well that the Knights are still a persistent problem in human-alien relations. And that they're recruiting."

Before Yarin could reply, Broken spoke, "This is the place."

It was a large, square, bricked building. It was clear that this was one of the older buildings in the city, and the neighborhood was pretty much on the poverty line. These were clearly not the 1%.

"Sixteenth floor." Yarin said. "Apartment B-329."

"It's the seventeenth floor, actually." Parker said, consulting the address given to them.

"Yes, but you humans always leave out the thirteenth floor, which I never understood."
Yarin pointed out. "So, in all honesty, it's the sixteenth floor."

"It's an old superstition," Parker told Yarin as they entered, showing their Marks to the officer at the door, who let them up.

"It's ridiculous," the disguised Nyac said, as they rode the clunky elevator.

"I suppose Dino might be interested to know that her triskaidekaphobia is, as you say, 'ridicuolous'." Broken smirked. "She might even eat you for it."

"Very funny," Yarin said sarcastically.

"Seriously, Yarin, don't Nyacs have a superstition around numbers as well?"

Yarin said nothing.

***

Meanwhile, while that was going on, Kelly had heard what had happened at Arnold Durham's birthday party, being friends with one of the parents that attended. From the mother's description of the events, Kelly was suspecting that something inside th dummy took control over Gabby at the point when her eyes fluttered.

"What do you think, Cloak?" she asked.

"I think since Broken is on another call, we get our other magic expert -- while she's still available -- and go check it out." Cloak said, decisively. "Hey, Faerie! Come here for a moment, please."

They told the faerie was was going on, and she was onboard. Then the three told the mods what they were investigating, and they didn't seem to think that there was anything to it, but allowed it just the same.

They made it to the address when they saw that Gabby was having another . . . another "episode".

---

* Anyone get this joke? It's a "Sam and Max (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_and_Max)" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 23, 2014, 01:27:48 PM

They skip thirteenth floors? :orly:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2014, 01:32:59 PM

Yes. At least in America, I believe. I may be wrong. But the whole "13 is an unlucky number deal" is a widely-held superstition by some here, and so they thought it would be unlucky to have a thirteenth floor, so they skip straight to the fourteenth floor from the twelfth. There is no thirteenth floor -- ah, technically.

But that's my extent of knowledge on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 23, 2014, 02:05:31 PM

You Americans are weird. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2014, 05:08:27 PM

I do not, and can not, deny it Saffa. Sorry that this took so long, needed to rest a bit.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Evaluation Escalation

KNOCK, KNOCK. Broken had rapped on the door in the most professional-sounding way he could. There was movement within, and Officer Veritias answered the door. "Ah, good. You answered our requests promptly."

Without preamble, he launched into the story as the RAFians entered the small aparment. It was hard to believe that two people live here. Kat interjected with information the Officer struggled to remember, or nearly left out. Vinny watched it all, as if it was an interesting tennis match.

No one seemed to notice that the doll's eyes seemed to tract the RAFian's movements. No one except Yarin, who trained all six eyes of his though they appeared two and human. He seemed to be sensing something.

"I know that this goes against procedure normally," Veritias said, "but . . I--I believed this is your guy's jurisdiction."

"Hmmm . .  ." Parker said, thoughtfully. "Gabe, I know that your heart's in the right place, but--"

"Not only that, Parker," Yarin interrupted, looking intently at the doll, which just continued to lay there limply. It still wore that vapid, expressionless face -- as if it couldn't move it. But Yarin narrowed his eyes as he understood the truth. He had sensed it, and he had read it. "Gabe Veritias has some good instincts."

"What do you mean?" Broken said.

"The doll has a mind of its own. A fully sentient mind."

"How do you know this?" Kat demanded, frightened for her son's safety.

"Ma'am, I am a telepath. This doll's mind is also too complex, too murderous, to be merely a neophyte mind." Yarin said. "Not to mention on full of profanity it certainly didn't learn from a child."

Suddenly, a notion occurred to Broken, and he he was repulsed by it. "Soul transference."

"What?" Parker said. From his tone, he was skeptical. A good skeptic can keep a team grounded if utilized right.

"Worse, voodoo soul transference, if I'm not mistaken. And I sincerely hope that I am." Broken said. What was remarkable was the doll remained static, though his game was up rather quickly due to these experienced RAFians. Then Broken addressed Kat, "When did you appropriate the doll?"

"What?"

"When did you obtain the doll?"

"A week ago, after lightning struck Joy's Toys." she answered.

"Lightning-struck toy store," Broken murmured. "Only one reported death . . ."

"So," Parker said, losing his skepticism, following Broken's thoughts, "you mean --"

"Yes."

***

"What the . . ." Faerie said, seeing dummny and ventriloquist spewing some vile, abominable, hateful diatribes. The girl's eyes had a slightly glassy look to them that only the most observant would ever be able to notice.

"She really isn't such a hateful girl," Kelly said, "something here is wrong."

". . . and you all can go straight through the Veil and rub a monkey's head --"

Cloak's eyes widened at this comment because it was then he knew for sure that whatever this was, whatever happened, it was Realm Walker related. He was using an ID mask (projecting his "normal" projection of a human with short black hair and glasses), so his shock was obvious, for all to see.

"What? What is it?" Mrs. Durham asked, urgently.

Cloak paid her no attention, as Gabby was garnering the Elements Master's full attention. His face quickly translated from shock to pensive pondering. If he was right in his assumption that this episode Gabby was having was Realm Walker-related, then there was only one who would dirty her hands with such a scheme.

"Don't worry, Sarah," Kelly said, attempting to smooth out Cloak's faux pas, "he just gets really 'inner monologue-y' sometimes."

Cloak knew what action must be taken. He removed his ID mask in a reckless manner, and shouted something that sounded far more like a tiger snarling, which could sound similar to the Beast (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/the_Beast) saying "Namine (http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/Namine)" or "yamete (http://teamfourstar.com/video/tfs-dragonball-z-kai-abridged-parody-episode-1/)".

Gabby's eyes flickered, semingly coming out of a long sleep, as the dummy's head twisted to look at Cloak. Cloak registered that there seemed to be hatred in those wooden eyes. Cloak suspected who this puppet used to be, though the dummy itself doesn't remember. It was just a tool of Malice right now. Of this, Cloak was sure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2014, 09:17:11 PM

New book ideas! (Yes, I am aware that Book CCCLXIV is essentially a rehash -- on the surface).

• Book CCCLXI: "Dial-A . . . Everything?!" -- The Monstrotrix and Parasitotrix are merged and reformatted.
• Book CCCLXII: "Planetary Amalgamation" -- An unscrupulous alien is violently ripping parts of living planets apart to make up his own cobbled together.
• Book CCCLXIII: "So Childish" -- The inner children of the RAFians and others becom corporeal.
• Book CCCLXIV: "Isla de Muerte" -- Someone decides to use black magic to fuse the forgotten Black Lantern ring detris and the remnants of the old Technarch transmode virus to try an attain an impossible goal.
• Book CCCXV: "Can of Worms" -- Now that the Technarch have been resurrected, they go after Galvan Prime, Encephalus IV, and Anur Transyl. . . .

Remember, all these titles are subject to change.

Hmmm . . . is Saffa deliberately avoiding this book, because of the heavy "Child's Play" and "Night of the Living Dummy" influence? *shrug* Eh, maybe I'm looking in it too deeply.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Facade Fail

Suddenly, Gabby's eyes glazed over again, and she spoke. "Don't speak nonsense to me, you stupid tiger!"

Cloak did not bristle, did not bridle, the remark. He knew for sure that she was not in control over her faculties. It was the dummy. The dummy was the conduit.

It spoke with an elderly afflection to it, as well as an ornery tone. "What are you looking at, cloak-for-brains?"

"You're not fooling anyone." Cloak said. "Leave the girl's mind."

The dummy repeated what Cloak said in a mockingly way. Cloak was not amused or impressed. He just stood, arms folded with his eyes boring into the dummy.

"Take a picture, it lasts longer." she said, snottily.

"Yep," Faerie confirmed. "She definitely isn't acting of her own accord."

It was always difficult to discern when Faerie's being sarcastic to when she's being serious. Cloak had hoped she was being sincere in this instance.

"Oh, you Dwellers think you're so Veiled* smart," Gabby said, but the words weren't hers. In fact, her face went more lack that it was before and the emotion showed on the dummy's face. Though the lip syncing was horrible. "You know nothing. You can't get me to stop using this little meat puppet."

"Malice," Cloak said, recognizing the language and word choice. "Using a ventriloquist dummy to communicate transcorporeally over a distance? I'd say 'clever', but the reality of it is really revolting."

"Um, what?" Faerie said.

"Don't worry about it," Cloak said dismissively. "The facade is over, she knows and we know it. There is no point in prolonging this charade."

The dummy stood up on his own as Gabby fell, her eyes starting to roll up jnto her head ever so slightly. She'd be fine physically, but psychologically? That is a different story all together.

"I don't know what your scheme is, Malice, but it ends here."

"Does it now?" she replied coyly, through the dummy. Cloak was at a lost how she did it, as he could not sense any metal that would have been tech of any sort within it.

***

Meanwhile, at the Alexander residence, the RAFians were still taking inventory of the situation.

"So, that doll is actually the receptacle for that -- for a want of a more approriate term -- man put his . . . his soul into that thing?" Parker said, his skeptical nature not alowing him to believe such a thing easily. Then he reminded himself of the other ludicrous lunacy that he and the other RAFians had to put up with for the past year. It wasn't so farfetched then, in fact, it was a little tame.

"Hard to believe such a man even had a soul to begin with." Yarin noted dryly.

"Ma'am, have you son step away from the doll," Broken said, authoritatively. He didn't like using that tone. Vinny easily obliged, which caused "Bucky" to twist his head suddenly and say, in his childish voicebox, "Hi! I'm Bucky! Wanna plaaaaaay?"

Ordinarily, it would be a phrase of little concern. When Bucky did that, it was creepily sinister. Vinny retreated further away. The RAFians narrowed their eyes as they prepared themselves for a fight subtly, with practiced ease.

The doll-man still pretended, almost as if he hoped the ploy would work. It didn't. Yarin could easily read the man's mind. Yarin telepathically discovered the reason why he didn't abandon this futile facade, and when the Nyac did, he laughed.

"Newkirk, you honestly think you're immortal?" Yarin snorted. "You're in a doll's body, but that doesn't make you immortal, or impervious to pain."

The doll's brow furrowed ever so slightly.

"Wait -- he thought if he put his soul into a doll then he would be . . . that's a Horcrux, not soul transference!" Broken scoffed.

The brow furrowed somewhat deeper this time.

"Oh, give it up, Jerry!" Parker said, attempting to goad him by using his hated given name. He did not like how "common" he thought it was.

"Yes, Jerry." Broken said with deliberate emphasis.

Then the doll, then Bucky, abandoned all pretense and roared, "It's 'BUCKY', you son of a --"

But Broken wasn't paying attention, because he said as soon as Bucky spoke, "Imperimenta!"

---

* Realm Walker for "damned".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 26, 2014, 10:48:59 AM

Haha, no. Just had a really busy and tiring week. But good to come back to new chapters. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2014, 12:10:05 PM

Ah.  And here's a new book idea.

• Book CCCLXVI: "Hostage Hybridization" -- A madman is using a unique way to make human/alien hybrids for his own purposes.

Title is subject to change. And, yes, I am quite aware that I'm about 300 books away from where we are now. And I have every intention on writing them, as long as I draw breath. Maybe my Creative Writing facilitator was right in comparing me to Stephen King, I guess.

CHAPTER NINE:
Confrontations and Surprises

Broken's spell missed. Naturally, Bucky shouted something profane about Broken and his mother, but, then again, the serial killer-in-a-doll's-body wasn't the brightest tool in the shed. The low-brow always resort to slurs and lower-class insults because they can't (or have the capability) to think of something more refined.*

Broken was even bothering to pay attention to this trollish doll's potty mouth, and instead changed tact and shouted, "Stopza!"

It missed too. Broken quickly saw the problem in this, as did the other two. Bucky may not be a match for them in terms of sheer power, but he was a small target. That mean it was harder to hit him accurately.

"Parker, can you track his heat signature with your armor?" Yarin asked quickly. Kat and Vinny had backed into the corner, terrified. They were not as accustomed to this as the RAFians had become. Officer Veritias offered comfort them, assuring them that the RAFians knew what they were doing.

"He's a doll, Yarin! He doesn't have a heat signature!" Parker protested.

"Not yet anyway," Broken said, thinking fast. He realised that Bucky must have told Vinny his secret first . . . revealed his true identity to him first. . . . The boy was in danger. He quickly strode over to Vinny, pull a small amulet to be worn by the neck. "Vinny, this is imperative. It's very, very important. You must wear this."

He handed over the amulet to the boy's smaller hands.

"Why?" Kat demanded.

Broken scanned the room, and could not see the doll. That did not mean that he was nit within earshot, so he whispered as quietly as he could. "Bucky revealed himself to your son first. He may want to get inside him. This amulet carries the power of Tas Ren**, it will prevent it from happening."

"What?!" Officer Vertias boomed indignantly. "What fool left the door open?!"

"What?!" shouted everyone else assembled.

Yarin closed all of his eyes and focused his powers like he had never done before. He heard the thoughts of all assembled (except for Broken and Parker, the Mark prevents that). Yarin was distraught to discover that Bucky was no longer there.

"He's no longer here. We must go after him!"

"Not quite yet," Broken said, glancing briefly at Vinny. "I think one of us should stay behind. Just in case he comes back. If its okay with you, Mrs. Alexander?"

***

"Malice, you haven't any leverage here," Cloak said.

"Don't I?" she spoke through the puppet, her voice sounding male and like Slappy from Goosebumps.

Cloak narrowed his eyes, irritated that Malice would still be so cavalier about overlooking the flaw in her plan. "Malice, did you forget that your proxy is made out of wood?"

"Oh, dearest me," she said, remotely putting the dummy's hand to its mouth, in an obviously insincere gesture of shock. "Whatever will I do now?"

Cloak ****ed his head ever so slightly, and raised an eyebrow. Malice knew this fallacy in her proxy, this liability. Yet she still went for it. Why? His feline curiosity was baiting him to ask, but his RAFian experience was telling him better.

Then a thought occurred to him. Maybe that's why she did this. Maybe she was trying to bait him into doing something stupid, something foolish (which wasn't a stretch by any margin, Cloak has done stupid and reckless things before).

"Scared to make an example, coward?" Malice pushed, and Cloak became even more certain of his speculations. She wanted him to do something. Destroy the puppet? But why? There had to be a deeper reason. There had to be something.

"You are scared!" Malice taunted with a gleeful sneer.

"So says the person hiding somewhere talking through a puppet." Cloak retorted scornfully. "I mean, seriously, Malice, if I didn't know any better I'd say that you were using the Millennium Rod."

"Get the feeling that we're just spectators?" Faerie muttered to Kelly.

"Hey, it's my first time out in the field in a while. I just assumed this how things went." Kelly replied.

"Just do it, you coward!" Malice said, finally getting impatient, and inadvertently showing that she wanted Cloak to destroy the puppet.

"Oh, enough of this," Faerie said, getting just as impatient. "Expellocorpus!"

Nothing happened.

"Guess it wasn't a spectal possession, then." Faerie said.

"You miserable Dwellers and your crude Marks!" Malice said. "They are such a deux ex machina. . . . Or maybe five."

It wasn't a subtle hint. But it was shocking nonetheless. Cloak managed to piece everything together from that one honking hint -- thought the term "spoiler" might be more accurate. Malice had killed the Abominus Five, had somehow harvested and merged their deux ex machina, and somehow installed it into that dummy. She somehow used it to speak, see, and hear through, as if it was one of those rare neural parasites (http://secretsaturdays.wikia.com/wiki/Neural_Parasite).

"Will you snap out of it?" Faerie said, testily, addressing Cloak, "It's getting away!!"

---

* I will confess that it is a bit hypocritical for me to type that, as I've been guilty of dropping F-bombs and the like when I'm furious and livid.

** "Tas", according to Rick Riordan, means "bind". "Ren" was the part of the soul concerning identity in Egyptian mythology.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2014, 01:28:49 PM

New chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER TEN:
Unneeded Competition

Bucky was at the house of the man who taught him soul transference, after Bucky discovered that he had a nosebleed. The man, who Bucky quickly rendered paralyzed, demanded to know what was happening.

The man explained that he had been in that body too long, and it was becoming more and more human. Bucky did not take this well, and demanded to know how to get out of this mess. At first, the man refused to tell him, calling Bucky an abomination, an aberration, a sin against nature. Bucky easily counters this telling him, "Oh, don't give me that sanctimonious crap. You knew that I was a serial killer when you taught me."

"I didn't know.you would pervert my teachings like this!"

"Oh, bull," Bucky said, cavalier, "you didn't care as long as you got your cash. Such a pity you didn't know how dirty it was."

Then Bucky's cavalier attitude mutated into one of unbridled anger. "Now, tell me how to get out of this!"

The man clammed up, which caused Bucky then kick him hard in the teeth, knocking out the front teeth between his canines out.

"Talk!"

Nothing.

"I said --"

"You can only transfer your soul into the one you first revealed yourself to," the man said.

"You better not be bullsh--"

"It is true!"

"Ah, okay, Doc. Looks like I got a date with a six-year-old boy." Bucky said, then killed the man. Before he left, he addressed the corpse, "Bye, Doc."

A short time later, Bucky ran into the Malice puppet, and both are revealed to be animate. Bucky doesn't like this much, and sort of forgets that he's on a time limit*, and had to get over to the Alexander residence and transfer his soul into the boy on time.

"Who the f*** are you?" the doll said.

"Mind your tone, doll, when talking with a superior being." Malice said, through her dummy.

Sparks flew immediately, as rage overtook all thought in Bucky's head.

---

* Sorta referencing "Child's Play 2" here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2014, 08:41:00 AM

New chapter. Remember the next book will be out-of-continuity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Death Battle! Bucky vs. Malice Proxy

"'Superior being', you?" Bucky said. Then he laughed a psychotic little laugh. "You're nothing but a hunk of wood."

"The puppet is only my proxy," Malice sniffed.

"Whatever."

"Now get out my way, you worthless Chucky knockoff."

"You don't tell me what to do."

One could almost hear the beginning of the "Death Battle" music and the phrase "FIGHT!" showing up on an nonexistant screen in boldfaced, red, underscored lettering. It first started out a rather funny slap fight. Then the two began to grapple like Greco-Roman wrestlers. It was quite fortunate for them that no one was watching.

"Wait a second . . ." Bucky said during the fight, recalling his time limit. It was about time, really. But Malix made the puppet continue to pummel him, until she realized that Cloak may not break the puppet, but this brash, reckless living doll could.

"I . . . don't . . . have . . . time . . . for . . . THIS!!" the possessed doll raged.

Malice didn't fight back, now that she realized that this possessed doll would do what Cloak would not. She had used the ventriloquist dummy to "incubate" the deux ex machina, enabling its true use to Malice. She had experimented with the deux ex machina using the last bit of her Concoction amongst other potions and devices. The deux ex machina held no sentience, no mind of its own, but it also no longer held the memories, the wisdom, the valor, the skills of the Realm Walkers that made it up. Though they can be useful at times, the deux ex machina is not Realm Walker souls. Not exactly -- more like the sheut or the ka in Egyptian mythology. Once the "incubation" period was over, Malice surmised, she could use the deux ex machina a the ultimate spy, able to infiltrate living and inanimate things as she sees fit. The RAFians may be immunized from it, but she supposed that the buildings of RAF did not.

The dummy's body began to show damage as Bucky whaled on it with some porcelain statuette that was standing a doorway. He managed to do this unseen by the cover of darkness. After Bucky's rage abated for the moment, the porcelain statuette was broken into many pieces and the dummy was sufficiently destroyed to be beyond recognition. Bucky found this funny as he laughed the psychotic laugh.

But he was taken aback by the multicolored energy that emerged from the doll's body and immediately went into his doll body. "Hey! Hey!! Occupado!"

"No!" Malice snarled.

Bucky looked around, but knew it came from his head. He didn't immediately associate with Malice because the voice that came out of the dummy was male.

"No, I couldn't control its direction! I couldn't control its next host!"

Bucky called her a profane name for a female, continuing, "No one can control the Buck."

"Oh, shut up, you simple-minded fool."

Then the bickering started, though from that point on, it was mental bickering.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 27, 2014, 10:52:16 AM

That could make someone explode.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2014, 09:18:09 PM

Don't forget how Malice's schemes usually pan out, Saffa. ;) New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Contest of Wills

<Back off!> Bucky said, mentally. Although he did call Malice a disrespectful term for females, a term of which the serial killer was so partial. He was struggling with Malice for control of the doll body. His time limit was quite forgotten, though unaware that full integration with the deux ex machina would make that just a minor inconvenience or do something else to change up the rules.

The doll looked like it was going into convulsions, so both Bucky and Malice kept it to the shadows. It would have merely looked like a doll with malfunctioning mechanics to the everyman passerby.

"I will not!" Malice was speaking through her device, but it was being translated into mental speak to Bucky. "My proxy was absorbed into you, so that makes you my new proxy by default!"

<I am not your proxy or whatever the hell that is,> Bucky snarled, managing to clenches fists and keept them clenched. Bucky was proving himself to be quite a willful foe. Malice was actually concerned that he might be a tad too willful. But he wasn't so willful to expel her from the doll. Then merest idea, it was so absurd it was laughable.

But she was so overconfident that she failed to notice how Bucky, despite Malice's efforts, managed to close his eyes of his own accord, close his mouth and clench his teeth. He was managing to willfully assert his control over Malice, who refused to acknowledge that she overlooked something.

But there was no denying the fact that she lost control over the doll body to Bucky. She could still see what he saw, hear what he heard, smell what he smelled, feel what he touched (though in a distant way). But she could no longer control what the doll did, what the doll said. Those were all firmly planted in Bucky's sphere of control.

Malice was livid. How dare this Dweller soul not submit to her will? How dare he resist her? A superior species? The superior species? Now her sphere of control over the doll body had shrunken to just a mere passive, indirect way. The humiliation of it! The indignity! This Dweller would be made to pay! She would make him writhe for such insubordination!!

"Ah," Bucky said aloud. Fortunately for him, he was alone. "Alone at last."

"I'm still here, Dweller dolt."

"For how much longer, Princess Hag?"

Malice did not become any less livid.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 27, 2014, 10:15:09 PM

Now I'm actually rooting for this guy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2014, 03:48:27 PM

That'll change soon enough. Don't forget, he is a serial killer, after all. He just hasn't got around to serial killing yet, is all. ;) Or trying to, anyway.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Malice Loses Her Touch

"Stop! Stop this right now!!" Malice demanded, but the integration process was proceeding quickly, and against her wishes. She had been locked out of his mind -- she could still access all the sensory input but Bucky's mind could no longer hear her infernal nagging and grousing. "Listen to me, you brain-dead simpleton!"

But it was no use, as Bucky laughed, psychotically rapturous. "Don't mess with the Buck!" He used a more profane word than "mess" though. Then Malice lost touch with the doll -- literally. She could no longer feel what Bucky felt.

"This cannot be happening." Malice muttered mutinously. "This simply cannot be happening. There is no way that a simple Dweller's mind and will is superior to my own."

Then she suddenly lost all olfactory connection with the doll.

"No!" Malice snarled. "Abominus is intergrating with the Dweller's soul and mind, but instead of giving me more control like it should, I'm being blocked out!"

Then she lost all auditory input from the doll, all she could do was see what Bucky saw.

"It's happening too quickly." Malice said, now really concern. She was unaccustomed to not being in control. "The integration process is proceeding faster than it should --"

She lost visual imput. And she lost it.

"Of course," Malice said, with dawning realization, once she calmed down (Mauler didn't even react). "The Dweller and Abominus must be kindred spirits. That's the reason that the integration process is proceeding with great expediency."

Meanwhile, Bucky stopped, froze. He pretended to be a doll again, in front of some people, as he felt a surge of strength from nowhere. How was he to know what it was, though? That the intergration with fused remains of the Abominus Five had fused to him? Not only the doll body, but his very soul? That it simply knocked up his power level somewhat? Bucky didn't gain any special powers, but the clock seemed to have been reset for him to get to Vinny, not to mention that he was a little bit faster, stronger, and durable, but that could be because his doll body was becoming human.

Once the couple had past, calling him an ugly doll (to which, Bucky, with a subtlety unthinkable of him, gave the couple an obscene gesture which they did not notice at all). Bucky seemed to be a bit more clever and whatnot, which was odd as the Abominus Five were not very clever at all, and neither was Bucky. Maybe he was just lucky.

"Imma be a six-year-old boy again," Bucky cackled quietly, as he made his way back to the Alexander residence, unaware of how much harder doing such will be. Though the full benefits of this intergration were fleeting at times and fully unpredictable.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 28, 2014, 03:54:42 PM

This is getting soooo weird.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2014, 06:55:22 PM

Well, I did base it off of "Child's Play", in part. It can be a weird film.

And of course -- this isn't the weirdest book. For instance, in one of the furture books, -- ah, wait. Spoilers. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Burden of Protection

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Who is it?" Parker said, wearily.

"Gaz. Shift change, remember?" came a voice. The squawk that followed indicated that Laserbeak was with her. Parker repaxed a fraction of inch, as he opened the door slowly as he scrutinized Gaz, making sure that no trickery was afoot. When he was satisfied, he allowed Gaz entry.

Immediately, when Vinny saw Laserbeak, he was instantly impressed. "Cooooool!!" he said, as he scrambled over to the newcomer. Meanwhile, Gaz found Kst's hand and she apologized for such a setup.

"If it means protecting Vinny, then so be it." Kat said, in a valiant attempt at a gregarious tone of voice, but she could not bleach the tireless worry and the fearing eroding her from her tone of voice.

"You are so cool," Vinny insisted happily, addressing the Cybertronian bird. Laserbeak puffed out his breast proudly and stood on his perch more grandiosely. Kat saw this with the RAFians and stifled a chuckle. "So enormously cool."

"Oh, Vincent," Gaz said, with a chuckle, "you're gonna give him a big ego. I mean bigger than one he's already got."

Laserbeak gave her a dirty look at this, which Gaz easily interpreted right.

"Oh, don't give me that look, Laserbeak," Gaz said, as if she was good-naturedly chatising a child. "You know, you can be egotistical as Rotiart sometimes."

Laserbeak made a "hurrumph" noise, as he clearly thought she was wrong.

"Where did you get it?" Vinny asked.

"Him." Gaz corrected.

"Where did you get him?"

"Vinny, dear," Kat called, having overheard the conversation, "you are not getting one."

"AWWWWW!!! Why not?"

"First, you're not responsible enough for a pet -- you still make it a battle to pick up your toys and things. Second, I doubt we could afford a regular parrot, much less a robotic one."

Gaz couldn't surpress a smile at this exchange.

"Can he sleep in my room, then?" Vinny asked.

"It's not my decision to make," Kat said, looking at Gaz, indirectly asking her.

"It's not my decision, either," Gaz said, politely. "Laserbeak is capable of making his --" Laserbeak fluttered down and stood next to Vinny, signifying his approval with this, as Gaz continued with a big smile, "-- his own decisions."

"Then its settled." Kat said, more cheery than she felt. She still remembered Bucky, and the threat of him coming back. "Now, Vinny, its time to get ready for bed. Chop, chop. Teeth and tuck-in."

Vinny was more happy to do this with Laserbeak alongside him. Gaz's smile faltered a bit with worry. She had a foreboding sense, that she did not know how to interpret.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2014, 08:56:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Twas the Night . . .

It was night, a calm clear night. The stars shone brightly, though from Vinny's room window it was difficult to ascertain which stars belonged to which constellations. There was only the merest trace of clouds in the sky, floating lazily like a scrap of bark in a still, placid lake. The moon was big and full, shining bright as the stars.

The window was opened, allowing the gentle night's breeze to buffet and caress his translucent curtains. And, upon Vinny's red racecar bed, the boy slept on in such a deep sleep that only children of that age seem able to achieve so effortlessly. He was curled beneath a reversible comforter that was the yellow of Proto Man's scarf or Zero's hair with it being navy blue on the reverse, which actually complemented the red of the race car bed.

Laserbeak was perched nearby, watching protectively over the boy, who still wore Broken's amulet around his neck. It wasn't too much of a worry, as Vinny was never much of a tossing-and-turning sleeper. His slumbering form was idle, sans his slow and steady breathing. It was impossible to tell whether or not the young boy was dreaming or not, his face was blank.

But then, upon the window sill, a shadow fell into the room. A defined shadow of a humanoid form with ratty, uncombed hair. This figure climbed in through the open window, something different about him, but Laserbeak recognized him for what he was. A danger to the boy that he was protective of. The boy who thought the world of the Cybertronian parrot.

Laserbeak regarded the unwelcomed stranger with a stance that clearly was warning him to stay away. But Bucky paid him no mind, disregarding him as one of Vinny's toys. Bucky smirked, murmured something inaudible ending with, "-- count to seven, when you wake you'll be in heaven."

The doll approached the bed, unaware that Laserbeak's threathening displays won't stay just threatening for long. Laserbeak watched him, as if he was a predator come to raid his nest, with Vinny taking the place of the eggs. Laserbeak made a warning squawk.

"Shaddup, Polly."

That was the equivalent of calling Lola Bunny "doll" in the "Space Jam" movie. Not a particularly wise move on Bucky's part, as Laserbeak moved from his perch at once and flew down to Bucky seized thim by the shoulders, and flew out through the window.

Laserbeak deftly threw him into the garbage dumpster. This did not sit well with Bucky, who shouted expletives all the way there. Laserbeak, however, paid no mind to this, and left Bucky in the dumpster as he returned to Vinny's room.

The boy was none the wiser.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2014, 09:55:54 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Bucky's Tenacity

To say that Bucky was livid would be putting it rather mildly. He was beyond rage right now. He brought his hand up to his nose to discover a small trickle of human blood. The intergration did not stop that from happening. He was turning human, albeit slower than before.

He cursed with many expletives, but the general message was "I'll get that stupid metal parrot and make chicken nuggets of it." Not really caring that such a thing was actually impossible, as Laserbeak wasn't a chicken nor did he possess any meat of any kind.

Did Bucky stop to think out his plan? Did Bucky stop to think it through? Did he consider the best course of action, a backup plan, and contingency for the backup plan? No. No, he didn't. Bucky, even back when he was fully human lacked the intellectual prowess for such things. He was a brutish, overtly direct monster, and the only real difference now is that he is a diminutive, brutish, overtly direct monster, with some subtlety.

He was essentially the Wile E. Coyote of serial killers, he wouldn't give up, but he wouldn't learn either. So, he began the arduous climb back up after remembering to take off the old, blackening, greasy banana peel from his head. He did not like the humiliation, the indignity, the utter disrespect of that act. It was almost as if he had expected them to lay down and allow him to transfer his soul into the boy.

But, like Malice, Bucky was accustomed to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. Taking the coveted item by force or murder, if necessary. This would be no different, and this time, he wanted Vinny's body for his own.

***

Laserbeak quietly tapped on the boy's door where Gaz was seated nearby, wearily watchjng for Bucky, checking the apartment several times, assuming that he'd try to come in through the front, but it didn't occur to her that he might come in from the window -- which was a a straight climb up, where anyone could see him, there were no fire escapes here. The building instead had fire stairs on the inside.

Gaz, like her RAFian brethren, had underestimated Bucky's tenaciousness. Underestimated his linear thinking. He hadn't even thought to go the sane route, and up the stairs, like normal people. He was just fortunate that he was as adept at rock climbing in doll form as he was in human form.

Gaz shifted to mist and slid silently under the door, as to not wake the boy who had school in the morning (where Terenia and Jess would trade off watching him discreetly), where Laserbeak told her everything. Not with actual words, mind you, but a series of squawks, whistles and chirps that inly Gaz seemed able to decipher.

"He won't give up that easily," Gaz thought aloud quietly. "He'll be back. But this time, we'll know what to expect."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2014, 10:34:40 PM

New chapter. Short chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Gaz's BPG*

Laserbeak's legs joined together, as his talons and toes folded up into his legs, as his wings spread outward in much a shape of a crossbow, as his tail slid over his back and opened up into a scope, a gun sight. His head opened to reveal the barrell of a gun much like Megatron's gun mode. Laserbeak was in his weapon form, being a Targetmaster and all. This mode was like a combination of a crossbow, a single-hand-wielded blaster and Megatron's gun mode. Laserbeak would only willing assume this form for Gaz, but no one else.

Gaz hid in the shadows, waiting for the moment to strike. She heard the beating of a heart, could smell blood. Her vampire senses were detecting them, but jot from the boy or his mother. But that didn't make sense. . . .

She looked out the window and saw Bucky climbing up, bold as brass, caution thrown to the wind. She pointed Laserbeak in his gun mode, one handed, down at Bucky, who actually humped his head with the barrel.

"What the hell?"

"You really should work on the language thing." Gaz said. "Having a potty mouth doesn't make you sound scary. It makes you sound immature with an extremely small vocabulary."

Bucky soon realized that he was at gunpoint, and at point-blank distance. The wise thing to do, perhaps, would be to reconsider his actions, maybe even attempt to manipulate Gaz, to cunningly trick her. Try for some subtlety, some nuance, some finesse.

But this was Bucky. He had none of those things, when it doesn't come to hiding, which he isn't anywhere good as Chucky from those films.

"Get out my way," he snarled, adding another expletive.

"Oh, tsk tsk tsk." Gaz said with obvious mock sorrow. "You didn't say the magic word."

The blast was silenced, but Bucky's screams were not, and Laserbeak quickly transformed back, and caught the remains. Bucky was severely injured and in tremendous pain. And, yet, Bucky was still not dead.

---

* "Big Parrot Gun"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 29, 2014, 01:03:33 AM

Sudden chapters! :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2014, 09:12:57 AM

Yep. New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Clinging to Life

Laserbeak held the remains Bucky, which was charred, and possessing a single arm and a single leg on the opposite side. He was missing half of his head. His clothing were charred tatters. And yet he lived.

Gaz could smell the fresh blood on him, which was actually dripping in midair, droplet by droplet. Gaz couldn't really fathom how this was possible, as a mere doll didn't stand a chance of surviving a point-blank shot like that. Something more has to have gone on, something that she didn't know about had to enable him to cling to life as he did.

"Beaky, take that -- that horrible mess to RAF. Maybe Broken or Yarin or someone can figure out what to do with it. We cannot let it go, even as mangled as he is. He'll just come after Vinny again. And we don't know if Broken's nicknack would even work if he did."

Laserbeak protested a little.

"C'mon, Beaky," Gaz said, "this is important!"

With a resigned squawk, Laserbeak took off toward the forum. Meanwhile, Gaz was trying to figure out what to tell Kat and Vinny, as the first rays of daylight began to ascend upon them.

***

In no time at all, Laserbeak swooped into the forum carrying its feebly-moving, slightly-squirming cargo. One would think that it was in its death throes, but Laserbeak was smart enough to know better.

It squawked loudly to awaken the RAFians, but, at this time of day, only Cloak was really up. It was because he could go back to sleep, much less to relive that deam again. Laserbeak easily caught his attention and dropped Bucky, which Cloak caught in a golden scarlet energy bubble with practiced ease.

"Well, well, well," Cloak said, recognizing the intergration process somehow within the doll as well as the serial killer's soul. Realm Walkers might not be all-seeing, but they are good enough at perception. "Abominus and the doll Broken briefed us about have become one."

"Sh . . . th . . . f . . . up . . ." the doll said, in mangled tones. But Cloak got the gist.

"Don't tempt me to . . . you know what, perhaps I should destroy you," Cloak said, thinking about it. "It would put you out of your misery and put you where you more than likely deserve. And many lives could be saved . . ."

Cloak looked at the slowly rotating form. He scrutinized it with narrowed eyes.

"But there's no guarantee that that would kill you, is there?" Cloak asked rhetorically. "Besides, would it be right? . . . Best go and gather the other RAFians, Gaz should be in to brief us shortly, in any case."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 29, 2014, 10:12:21 AM

What a mess.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2014, 11:16:46 AM

Eh, not everything can be neat. Just look at my apartment. ;) New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Interests and Misgivings

It was decided that imprisonment was the best option. None of the RAFians knew what the possible outcomes for this would be. Bucky was the only one of his kind, a serial killer in a mutilated doll's body. Yet, he was still alive.

Cloak noted that, despite his denials, Rotiart seemed fascinated by this. Just why or what aspect drew his attention was unclear, but Cloak found it extremely disconcerting. He was beginning to have misgivings by not using the only sure-fire way to kill Bucky. . . . Only it wasn't sure-fire, as it might destroy his body not his soul.

There was only one place that the RAFians felt that Bucky could be interred with little worry. And that was deep beneath the forum, near the Pootang's cage. One could argue that the Pootang frequently escapes from, but that was always countered by the fact that the Pootang is a violent force of primal nature, Bucky is not. And, in Bucky's condition, there is no indication that Bucky would be able to escape. On the chance that he does regenerate back to full health.

But, still, Cloak had misgivings. He shot a look over to Rotiart, and saw him still giving Bucky's body a rather coveting look, until he realized that Cloak was watching him shrewdly. Rotiart swiftly tried to hide his fascination, but it was too late. Cloak had seen Rotiart's adoration of the doll, whether by what Bucky could do or what he did. Cloak eyed the adolescent human with deliberate suspicion.

Could Rotiart try to free the doll, to regenerate him? No . . . no, that was wrong. Rotiart wasn't much of a people person, but he did have a lust for power that he tried to keep closeted, and even Cloak wasn't fully aware of. His Mark prevented Yarin from seeing it telepathically. It was very disconcerting. Very disconcerting, indeed.

Anyway,  the RAFians followed through with their plan to incarcerate the doll in a metal box with air holes the size of quarters, about a half inch from the top of the box. The box gave adequate room for the doll to writhe and whatnot -- Kelly would not (not to mention, could not) heal him, after hearing about all his crimes. And, still, Bucky would not die. -- The box, which was made from sheet metal steel (though Cloak had suggested adamantium, though impractical given how rare the substance is, though more plentiful than tylee metal), and welded together at the seams. It looked inescapable, especially how it was also welded to the ground next to the Pootang's cage.

Cloak had caught Rotiart a number of times right outside the trapdoor, as if he was going to go inside. And he always shooed him away, easily ignoring the surly insults hurled his way. He found himself wondering again just why Rotiart was so fascinated. He was sure it hadn't anything to do with Bucky as a person.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 29, 2014, 11:37:50 AM

This is worrying...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2014, 11:09:43 PM

Bit early for that, though, Saffa. Rotiart wouldn't act yet -- he's immature and obnoxious, but not completely stupid. Oh, and here's a new chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
I'm Still Here

Still weary from the events, and keping Rotiart away from Pootang's cage, Cloak returned to his thread, which was still sparsely decorated. He hung no pictures from the wall -- he had none. None other than the portrait of his grandfather. It was the most precious thing he owned, given to him by his aunt. He cherished it, and sometimes looked at it to remember the sweet memories connected to the man. Yes, it was the most precious thing he had, as there can never be such an accurate portrait again, since his passing.

He close his eyes. He closed his eyes and . . . dreamt. Cloak was finding himself wishing that he was of a species that didn't, as he did it so Veiled FREQUENTLY.

***

He was back in the hellhole that was his mother's house again. When would ever escape this place? What was the point of being away frequently when his mind returned there at night?

But he found him singing the same song he sang in his dreams for the third night straight:

"I am a question to her, not an answer to be heard,
Or a moment that's held in her arms.
And what do I think she'd ever say?
She won't listen anyway.
She doesn't know me,
And I'll never be what she wants me to be."

He turned to address his mother, an ursine Realm Walker, which was actually quite poetic as she certainly was bear to be around.

"And what do you think you'd understand?
I'm a boy -- no, I'm a man!
You can't take me
And throw me away!
And how can you learn what's never shown!
Yeah, you stand here on your own,
But you don't know me . . .
Cause I'm not here.

And I want a moment to be real.
Want to touch things I don't feel.
Wanna hold on and feel I belong.
And how can you want me to change?
You're the one that stays the same!
You don't know me . . .
Cause I'm not here.

And you see the things they never see,
All you wanted,
I could never be.
Now, you don't know me
And I'm not afraid,
And I want to tell you who I am.
You can't help me be a man.
You can't break me --
As long as I know who I am!

And I want a moment to be real.
Wanna touch things I don't feel.
Wanna hold on, and feel I belong.
And how can you want me to change
You're the one that stays the same!
You can't see me,
But I'm still here!!

You can't tell me who to be,
Cause I'm not what you see.
Yeah, the world is still sleepin'
While I keep on dreaming for me,
And their words are just whispers,
And lies that I'll never believe.

And I want a moment to be real.
Want to touch things I don't feel
Wanna hold on, and feel I belong.
And how can you say I'll never change?
You're the one that stays the same!
I'm the one now,
'Cause I'm still here. . . .

I'm the one,
'Cause I'm still here . . .
I'm still here . . .
I'm still here . . .
I'm still here . . .*
I'm still here, Mom. . . ."

Cloak awoke, kicked his covers off and sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. He was supposed to be over this!! He was supposed to have overcome this trauma by now!!

But how could he? How could he really? He had just ran away from the problem instead of trying to fix it. He knew it would be an impossible, Sissyphian task, but he hadn't even tried . . . but he didn't wanna go back. He didn't wanna try.

Why do things have to be so complicated?

---

* Parody source: here (http://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=16rqqh4j8#/watch?v=Ex9AWegauJM)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2014, 01:39:52 AM

Not sure who's worse off with the dreaming - Cloak or Percy Jackson.

And, PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2014, 03:54:26 PM

Eh, its the narrator-character-protagonist-thingy syndrome. Anyway, new book, and new chapter (sorry for the delay, got called into work today). Remember, this one is out of the regular continuity.

Book LXVIII:
THEY'RE SUCH CARDS
CHAPTER ONE:
Book Banishment

Faerie, Demos, Underseen, Cloak,
Parker, Abby, Estelore, Saffa . . .
Cardcaptors of the RAF, bow.
Expect the unexpected now!

The secrets of the RAF
Were all a mystery.
But when this mighty book was opened,
The RAF cards were all set free!
RAFcaptors.
A mystic adventure.
RAFcaptors.
A quest for all time.

Each RAF card possesses
A power all its own.
We’ve got to find them
To bring the power home!

Faerie, Demos, Underseen, Cloak,
Parker, Abby, Estelore, Saffa . . .
Cardcaptors of the RAF, bow.
Expect the unexpected now!
RAFcaptors.
A mystic adventure.
RAFcaptors.
A quest for all time.

RAFcaptors.
RAFcaptors.

***

It was an average day at RAF, and the forum's denizens went about their business per normal. It was actually a dry spell of illicit activity, would-be world conquerers, and monstrous menaces. Even the Pootang has yet to bush out its cage, as if it has decided that it needs to guard the prisoner, Bucky, who still lives somehow.

Cloak had surmised that the doll's body may act as a more complete Horcrux in a way, with the whole soul transferred inside instead of a single fragment. The Realm.Walker spoke at lenght with Broken about it. Broken pointed out how that could not be it, becuase there was significant enough damage to destroy a Horcrux. Cloak countered with addition of the deux ex machina could have changed some of the rules, as always happens when an intergration occurs. Broken concedes this point.

Suddenly, a leather-bound book is thrown into the midst of the RAFians, who are puzzled by it. Shadow, who had come to visit with her uncle, looked at it perplexed. The thrower then reveals herself to be, rather unsurprisingly, Malice.

"What this?" Cloak said, alerted at once but her presence. "Malice? What scheme are on about today?"

"No scheme this time, boy," Malice said. She stifled a cough. Cloak easily picked up on it and surmised -- but his thoughts were interrupted by Malice. "This time, I will see the end of you and your RAFian cohorts."

Cloak narrowed his eyes shrewdly. "And this attempt would work because?"

"Remember Richard's horn?" she said, unable to stifle a cough. She kicked the book open, and the RAFian makes glowed painfully. "This book works much the same way!"

The RAFians flew, Mark-first, into the book. This seemed impossible, but the impossible happened to the RAFians at least three times a week.

"No!" Shadow yelled, as if that simple plea would be enough to stop and even reverse this.

The book snapped shut and would not open again. A strap of leather with a lock buckle at its tip stealthily exuded from the book. It locked the book so that none could open again. RAF had just lost its heart, its soul. The RAFians were gone.

"Nooo . . ." Shadow mourned, with cry in her voice. She could not open the book, no matter what she tried. She was frustrated

"It is done, then." Malice said, her hands on a walking stick that appeared remarkably like Maleficent's staff. "It is finally done."

Shadow snapped her head up to glare at the elderly Realm Walker. Yes -- the main villain the RAFians had been fighting for months was a old Realm Walker lady. It does take out some of the threatening from the foe. "You . . . you monster!"

"Well, duh."

Shadow leaped to her feet and was in Malice within three bounding steps. Malice, however, was unperturbed. Goading Shadow further, she said, "Go ahead, Hatchling, kill me. I'm dead either way."

Shadow wanted to. She really wanted to, as her inner light dimmed a bit, becoming the same luminosity as her uncle's was. She wanted to . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 30, 2014, 05:29:54 PM

I'm all caught up! Enjoying this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2014, 04:25:25 PM

Great to hear, Gazzy! Dunno about my internet connection, might go out tomorrow. I've been using my neighbor's Internet (at her own suggestion, no less). I think it was because she's aware how important writing is to me. But it might be up tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay, here's the day's chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Passing the Time

Approximately a millennia or two passed, and all things RAF summerged into myth and legend. Even historians could not agree whether they truly existed or if it was just some partheon of mythology, like the Olympians or the Asgardians -- all evidence of the RAFians, Banned, and Knights were long since forgotten.

The book that held the RAF cards had survived, along with Shadow (who was at least 200 or so by now, which was old, even by Realm Walker standards, but despite that she was still spry and capable of real power, power that her uncle was afraid to tap into and power that came from honing and refining the elements with aged expertise). Shadow had long ago come to terms that she could not open the book, but could understand enough to realize that she wasn't the one. Upon the cover, etched in golden print (actually a hammered out fragment of Richard's horn stolen from the scene of its destruction) was a sword and staff crossed behind a rather generic-looking shield. Shadow had discerned that those three items would play a role somehow, but she didn't know quite what.

Shadow had remained in the Realm, eventually using an ID mask to project the image of an elderly woman with coppery skin like old leather, gray hair tied up into a ponytail, bony arthritic hands, a pink dress with a royal blue cardigan, and a certain twinkle in her eye that remained without the ID mask. The image also showed a pair of pez-nez that she rarely used. While wearing the mask, she affected a personality of an old human female who looked unable to put up a fight.

Shadow had secured work at a school library, who believed her to be geriatric (though far younger than her true age) woman on a limited income. Shadow knew she had to lie and decieve them, but she couldn't really come out as a Realm Walker because she didn't know if Malice, or one of her proxies, was on the loose. She had heard rumors of her death, but she wasn't prepared to let her guard down. She wasn't prepared to let them find the book.

She was confident that her uncle and the rest of the RAFians were locked inside, in some sort of temporal limbo. But she could do nothing until the weapon-bearers were unlocked, and the weapons made themselves known. They would be able to unlock the book and set everyone free . . . she was beginning to think of the weapons as the Key-Shield, the Key-Staff, and the Key-Sword.

They would come. They would come, and make everything right. Then, and only then, could Shadow rest.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 31, 2014, 11:39:46 PM

Woah, it has been ages since I last watched Cardcaptors! This is bringing things back. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2014, 06:46:50 AM

Well, naturally, Saffa, some liberties are gonna be taken. And I'm good on the Internet thing, BTW. And I don't think I'll have to deviate much, if at all, from my original plans for this book, like I did for the previous two (the previous one did not originally have the ventriloquist dummy part).

Anyway, currently starting to plan out Book CCCXXX ("The Nightwalkers"). And I have a couple of book ideas.

• Book CCCLXII: "Magicide" -- A being of incredible power seeks to destroy all of magic, including spellcasters.
• Book CCCLXVIII: "Magicmongering" -- A young sorceress looks to steal all magic from spellcasters to use as her own.

All titles subject to change. I don't think that I rehashed anything.

CHAPTER THREE:
It's In A Book

"M-Ms. Raphael?" came in a timid girl of about fourteen or so. She had a fondness of wearing white clothing with pink or blue accents, sometimes with frills, sometimes without. She wore her thick, brown hair about shoulder-length. She found the old librarian Julianna Raphael rather intimidating, as did most students present. If they only knew the truth . . .

The girl, Sakura Gardner, stepped timidly around. It was easily intimidating being in the musty old library when the lights were low, with its labyrinthine corridors of book shelves, it was easy to get lost. She soon came upon an old leather book on a pedestal. Sakura didn't know why but she seemed drawn to the book. Could it have been some ancient diary? Or just some ancient census thing? Perhaps it was some primitive form of social networking?

Sakura approached the book, her initial reason for coming forgotten. As she approached she could see a brass or tarnished gold lock, she couldn't decide which, upon the leather bound book, with golden images of a sword, as staff, and a shield. Her eyes lingered upon the image of the staff for a reason unknown to even her.

As she got closer and closer, she felt a strange sort of trepidation. She didn't know why. When she got there, and was about to touch the lock, she heard a voice and nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Whoa, easy there, girl," said the voice. It was one of her best friends Taylor Hawkins, a girl who was fond of white or purple clothing with red accents, and her other best friend, Lee Wheeler, who was fond of green clothing with yellow accents, was there too. "We just wondered where you got to. We have to study for that test Friday, remember?"

Then they saw the book, too, and it held their fascination as well.

"Are you gonna open that book?" Lee asked. He sounded trepidatious, but excitedly so.

"I dunno," Taylor said. "Might not be a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Sometimes, things are just better off left alone."

"Maybe Taylor is right," Sakura said, uncertainly, her fingers brushed the lock accidentally. Ordinarily, this wod have been nothing, but when Sakura did, it was like a magnet just switched polarity and repelled another magnet. This somehow caused the cover of the book to fly open.

"What inside?" Lee asked, curious.

"A card," Sakura answered, picking it up. The art on it was somewhere between a Chaotic card and a tarot card. The name of the RAFian was written in stylized lettering above the art in all caps -- FAERIE LARKA. Sakura also discovered two more -- BLAZING ANGEL and YUNYUN.

"A card?" Lee snorted. Then, with a yelp of fright from all three, a cornucopia of card blew from the book -- too many to easily count -- and, within seconds, they were gone. "Nice going, Sakura."

"You were the one telling her to open it!" Taylor said, accusingly. She was looking at the Yunyun card

"Well, I -- dah!" Lee began, taking the Blaze card, broken off midsentence due to the fact that a sword had appeared his right hand with white light. The blade was metallic silver in color, while the handle and hilt was a brackish color, and the hilt was shaped like an upside-down omega symbol.

The other two yelped as they too recieved weapons. Sakura recieved a staff of blue and white with a loop atop with a golden star with an alpha marking both sides adhered to inside. Taylor recieved a shield rather like a Spartan shield, and bearing the iota symbol.

"What in the world?" Taylor said, aghast.

"What's going on here?" came a strict, intimidating voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 01, 2014, 08:43:18 AM

Are those two new books like twins or something?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2014, 10:17:19 AM

Not really. Haven't planned them out yet or anything, but the first might directly lead into the next. The main antagonist of the first is a different individual from the one in the second.

New chapter.

New chapter, methinks.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Book of Secrets

"Ms. Raphael!" Sakura exclaimed, flustered. Then she babbled into incoherence, terrified at being caught. Shadow had taken notice of the weapons, and saw that she was mistaken. There were three chosen, not one. Perhaps that is why she was unable to open it and these three were able.

She moved with more agility and grace than she ordinarily feigned. She inspected the weapons, naming them in the process. She mutter, "Omega Blade . . . Alpha Staff . . . Iota Shield . . . all marking you three as the chosen."

"Ms. Raphael . . ." Taylor said, confused, "what are you talking about?"

"Your weapons, dear. That's what they're called."

"You know about this?"

Shadow answered with a question, "Which one opened the book? Or was it a cooperative effort?"

"It was an -- an accident!" Sakura said, afraid of being in trouble. She's never gotten detention in her life, and did not want to start now. "I d-didn't mean to!"

"Stop fretting, dear, you're not in trouble." Shadow said, good-naturedly. "I have tried to open thst book for years! Fifteen hundred years! . . . Or is it two thousand? I've lost track."

"What are you talking about?" Lee said, raising an eyebrow.

"Things are not what they appear, Lee." Shadow said. Being the librarian, Shadow was familiar with these frequent library-goers. Shadow quickly abandoned the old age haunch she affected, and seemed to be a completely different person. "In fact, I am not human, but I was born a Realm Walker -- a long forgotten species in this realm."

"I think someone's gone off their meds," Lee countered.

"Skepticism is a good thing to have, usually," Shadow said, sagely. Then she removed her ID mask, revealing her true cloaked form. She didn't look that much different from a human in a cloak to the average viewer. She demonstrated her mastery over the Six Elements, demonstrating that her knowledge had already surpassed that of her uncle's. She was able to turn water to ice and steam (though it had to start out as water first), she could manipulate earth into lava and back again, and was able to "see" via water mediums, earth, metal as well as detect subtle temperature fluctuations and feel the slightest distortions in the air. She also never had the mental blocks her uncle had, as he was terrified of the true extent of his power.

Yes, she was impossibly OP, but Realm Walkers were always on par with Olympians, Asguardians, etc. That did not mean she was unbeatable, invulnerable, or all-powerful. And she knew it.

"What are you?" Sakura asked.

"I have told you already. I am a Realm Walker. My kind are exceedingly long-lived, every year in my homeland is ten or so in yours." Shadow said, replacing the ID mask.

"Why disguise yourself, then?" Lee asked. "Why hide?"

"To protect the book." Shadow answered. "To protect my uncle, . . . and the RAFians."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2014, 03:08:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Myths and Truths

"RAFians?" Lee scoffed, and continued dimissively, "That's just a myth."

"It's NOT a myth, boy!" Shadow said, small sparks of mauve and lavender energy rolling off her shoulders. Lee involuntarily and instinctively took a step backward. "They're real, boy! I have seen them myself. Your proof is in your hands!"

Without question, each looked at the card they were holding.

"These are just tarot cards," Taylor dismissed, "just a RAFian-themed deck."

"Oh, I see how it is." Shadow said, shrewdly. "You must see in order to believe. Go ahead, then. Point your weapons at the cards."

"What?" Sakura said.

"You heard me."

The three followed her instruction, feeling rather stupid and foolish. But they became quite alarmed when the cards stuck in midair, as they were tapped by the magical weapons.

"What now?" Sakura said, her voice stronger somewhat, more decisive.

Shadow smiled inwardly, proud of these three. "State something like, 'Unlock the prison by my' -- your weapon, the Omega Blade, the Alpha Staff or the Iota Shield. Then something forceful, perhaps. Like 'RAFian release!'"

They recited it word for word. It was not Shadow's intention, though. She was hoping that each would go for some individualistic twist on it. Dust and dirt swirled, which reminded Shadow that the housekeeper had not yet begun his sweeping regiment in here yet today.

Then a blinding light appeared, and Shadow adverted her eyes for only a minute or two, and when her vision cleared she saw Faerie, Blaze and Yunyun dazed and stunned upon the floor. But they were back to normal.

Shadow addressed the three, but instead of childish gloating, she said, "You're gonna be a bit woozy. It will take time for you to be able to do again."

"What if we don't wanna do it again?" Lee asked, wearily.

Shadow waited, knowing the question was pointless. They were going to do it again, they had too virtuous of souls to allow beings -- thinking, feeling beings -- to remain forevermore in card form. Besides, they were kids. This kind of stuff was exciting to them. Shadow pitied them for that.

"Oh, quit your grousing, Lee. They need us. If Ms. Raphael --"

"Shadow. Call me Shadow."

"Your name's Shadow?" Sakura asked.

"Yes, it's my chosen name."

"Then what is your real name?" Lee pressed.

Shadow knew what he was asking, and swiftly decided to simplify matters. "Shadow."

"Then why --"

"Oh, shut UP already, Lee!" Sakura getting irritated by her friend.

"What's . . . What happened?" Faerie said, groggily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 02, 2014, 10:42:20 PM

There's an angle we haven't explored previously. Shadow having a name other than Shadow. Bit like the Doctor. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2014, 03:04:11 PM

Sorry for the delay. Work, you know. Well, "Cloak" and "Shadow" aren't our true names in the story either. True Realm Walker names are unpronunciable to Dwellers.

And funny you should mention the Doctor, Saffa. . . .

CHAPTER SIX:
Time for Time Lords*

Then came the explaining. The three RAFians were having trouble coming to terms with the technical fact that it was the 46^th century, or thereabouts. It's bound to happen when you basically skip over two thousand years, give or take a century or two.

"Two hundred years?" Blaze asked. "But . . . but nothing's changed."

"Not overtly, no," Shadow said. "It's the subtle things, really."**

"All this catching up is really nice," Lee said, his sword strapped to his side somehow, like the way a Goomba can use baseball bats and such, apparently. "But I believe the stories mention more than just three RAFians. Are they all cards?"

"Yes."

"Where are they, then? How do we find out? They all blew away." Lee said.

"This should tell us," Shadow said, still surprisingly spry in her old age, deftly gathering up the boom that held the cards.

"How will that help?" Blaze asked, leery of the book that he had essentially spent two millenia in.

Shadow opened it, and the three RAFians assembled recoiled unconsciously at this, half-expecting to be turned into cards again. The pages showed the card art that had been Faerie, Blaze, and Yunyun, in a three-by-three grid.

"My hair does not look like that," Faerie sniffed. "Though the Gale Blade looks remarkable."

"What am I holding? It looks like a -- a moldy mess. Is that supposed to be my sword?"

"Well, I like mine." Yunyun replied simply.

"Look here," Shadow said, "these two empty spots. Aquilai and Aila."

"He looks like Matt Smith," Faerie noted of Aquilai.

"Who?" Taylor asked.

"You wouldn't know him." Faerie said. "Let's find these guys then, shall we?"

---

* Anyone get this reference? It's based off the call the Power Rangers Time Force have when morphing -- "Time for Time Force". I think.

** Yes, I know this may be a bit overidealized, but I'd like to believe that we won't utterly annihilate ourselves in the intervening millennia. Though, there are times that I have doubts. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 03, 2014, 03:17:08 PM

Well, everyone in 1950 thought we'd have flying cars in 2001, so... ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2014, 04:04:28 PM

Well, yeah, that was somewhat the presumption I was going off of.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Bully! Bully. Bully!

While the three kids managed to succeed in reviving Aquilai and Aila, as well as explaining everything thing to them, they were being watched. Three local bullies had caught them at it by hiding in the nearby bushes, all were large (varying from muscular to beefy) boys of very little brain, usually.

One was built like an Incursean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Incursean), along the lines of  Lord Emperor Milleous (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Milleous). Thick-bodied with a heavy browline, beady eyes with dark rings beneath them, shaved head, a broad flappy mouth with minimal lips, with very low intelligence, made him obviously a grunt. He wore form-fitting clothes that rather did not accentuate any of his strong points, physically. He, Benji Miller, was essentially a drifter, estranged from his father, his ownly known living relative, who Benji felt was abusive and an unrelenting disciplinarian. There wasn't evidence to discredit these accusations. . . .

The one on the other side bore a remarkable resemblance to Morfin from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", only more unkempted and shaggy-haired. His clothes were threadbare, but not for lack of being able to get newer clothes. He, Harry Rowley, chose to wear these clothes and this hairstyle, for the simple reason that he believed (rather wrongly) that they were stylish, in a retro way. Not very smart. Or hygienic. With his father in prison, and his mother passed out more often than she was conscious, he was basically left to fend for himself.

The one in the middle, Paul Fisk, was the smartest of the lot, though that wasn't saying too terribly much, as his intelligence was often, if not mostly, limited to the subjects of bullying, harrassment, and torture without being caught. He was Kingpin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingpin_(comics)) in physical appearance -- build (thick body with no visible neck), shaved head, and rather jowlly features. His attire, however, resembled more of Season 1 Bulk (http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/Bulk) -- lots of black leather and whites that were more gray than white. His shirt usually carried pit stains on the shirt he wore, hidden by his leather jacket. He wore a dew-rag, or whatever it's called, upon his noggin. His parents were present, and they were not anything like the previous two's parental units. They were permissive -- overly and overtly so. They didn't so much as dote, but permitted Paul to do anything that he pleased. Paul had no rules.

It was hard to believe that these kids were only fifteen or sixteen years old. Together, they looked like delinquents by profession, which they, themselves, endorsed. They thought it made them look like bad boys, when, in reality, it just made them some rather sad cases. Textbook examples of what children with their homelives had the possibility of producing.

When they saw the three kids release Aquilai and Aila, they got the brilliant idea to find the cards first, then deny them to the three kids. They had nothing further than that, and, by sheer dumb luck, they found and obtained the cards of Gaz, Dino, Guy, Saffa, and Horse.

Rather unfortunate for those RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2014, 07:04:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Collection Race

Meanwhile, the three kids, the "cardcaptors" as they were rather affectionately called, were mystified how the cards of the five RAFians that the bullies had blundered into weren't there. Of course, cardcaptors didn't know that the bulky trio had taken them, and, well, how could they? How could they know that they know they had competition? Grossly incompetent and immensely immature, sure, but competition still.

While the cardcaptors looked for the five cards the bullybtrio had in their possession, the three idiots managed bumble and blunder into the cards of Estelore, AniDragon, Phoenix and Kelly. They really had no use for any of these cards, no reason to be collecting them, but took them for the same reason a young child suddenly wants a toy that another child is playing with, just to deprive that child from playing with it.

The cardcaptors were flummoxed by this, but continued on their quest. They managed to get and revive the cards of Russell, Myitt, Rocklobster, Sorunome, Shenmue, and Goom. They managed to reunite these six with Aila, Aquilai, Faerie, Blaze, and Yunyun. The cardcaptors felt this was easier for them. It is not an easy thing to find out that you're two millenia in the future.

Granted, Aila and Aquilai didn't react at all to it. But that doesn't count -- they're Time Lords, and, thus, time travellers. They're used to this type of thing.

But then Shadow pulled the three aside and asked about the RAFian cards that, unbeknowst to all assembled, the bully trio -- or the bulky trio, if you prefer -- had already obtained.

"They weren't there, Shadow," Taylor said.

Shadow was aghast. She never had anticipated this. Then again she never anticipated that the cards would up and fly out of the book, either. "They . . . they had to be."

"They weren't." Lee said bluntly.

"Lee!" Taylor chastised. "Have a little compassion!"

"What's the point of surgarcoating it? They weren't there, so there's no point in saying they were or making excuses."

"Be that as it may, there is no need to be, not only crass and rude, but heartless!" Taylor countered. "We don't know these RAFians yet, we are just meeting them. Shadow knows them, this is far more real to her."

But, as Lee opened his mouth to argue, Sakura cut across him and said, "Give it a rest, the two of you."

While Lee bristled at being told what to do, he acquiesced. Shadow wasn't even paying attention to the three of them anymore. Her mind was a buzz, and her stomach was plummeting. Was this a sign? A sign that Malice still lives? It was not impossible. Cataclysm survived longer than Shadow, herself, did. However, there was still insufficient evidence to make such an assumption as of yet.

Shadow's uneasiness would not go away, but seemingly decided of its own accord to linger. She continued to ponder this in silence, and the cardcaptors, unable guess at what made Shadow so distant all of a sudden, thought that Lee had offended her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 05, 2014, 12:26:17 AM

Ooh, this is getting exciting. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2014, 03:37:43 PM

Yes, and there's more! This book seems to be starting to write itself . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Favored Card

"What the -- what is that?" Goom said.

"The videophone," Shadow said, nonchalantly indifferent. Like someone who heard a phone go off to a flummoxed Medieval peasant's bewilderment. "I honestly don't know who it could be, I don't use it much, if at all."

Sakura answered a device much like the videophones in the first episode of "Pokemon", only colored charcoal gray with a more streamlined and less boxy appearance. With a deft touch of a button, the screen burst to life. But the colors seemed unusually and unnaturally muted, shades of black and white.

"I didn't do it!" Sakura said, with a flinch. She was afraid that she broke it.

"It's not broken," Shadow replied at once, recognizing the problem easily. "The outgoing call was deliberately set to this."

"Ah, you've become shrewd in your old age, Shadow!" came a lilting female voice. Shadow scowled as she thought she could anticipate where this was going. "Your dear uncle would be impressed."

Shadow wasn't. "Who the Veil are you?"

"Oh, you have his vulgarity too, I see." the cloaked woman teased joyeously, as she threw her back with a bark of laughter. This threw her hood back as well, revealing her to be a human with long hair the color of the night with copious curl to it. Her skin seemed to flicker between a pasty white and a smooth caramel -- Shadow decided that it must be because of the perimeter s set by the caller. This woman affected an insincere look of hurt when it became obvious that Shadow did not recognize her. "You don't remember me, dear Shadow? Why, I'm hurt!"

"Cut the theatrics, lady," Shadow said, irascible and inflexible. "Who are you?"

"You don't recognize your dear old foe, Malice?"

A beat of silence in which Shadow waited for the woman to correct herself. When it did not come, Shadow said, distainfully. "Liar."

"Come again?"

"Malice is d--" Shadow had a moment of uncertainty, which she forced down and proceeded. " Malice is dead."

"I was," the lady said, "until I got bored of it. I took over this sweet young thing when she was still a wee little whippersnapper. And I must say, she serves my purposes well."

"Enough. Enough of this ghost hogwash." Shadow said, derisively. "If you knew anything about my kind, you'd know that there are no such things as Realm Walker ghosts."

"Oh, no?" the lady said, dropping her sugary-sweet act, and her face contorted into the epitome of pure, unadulterated ugliness. Not Medusa-level, but similar. "Have you forgot about deux ex machina?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Lee said loudly before being shushed by Taylor.

"Again, if you knew anything about Realm Walkers -- other than a random term we use -- you'd know that a deux ex machina does not hold consciousness or sentience of its own. Those go Beyond."

"Beyond?" Lee said, obnoxiously loud.

"Beyond the Oblivion Veil," Shadow said quickly, in aside.

"Did you never pause to consider, in your arrogant confidence of knowing it all, what if the conscious, the sentience, didn't want to go through the Veil?" the lady's voice had somewhat of a rasp to it, but it was undetectable by human hearing. "What if it wanted something else, something more? What if it wished to live on? Granted, it would have to wear someone else. Granted, it would have to evict the former occupant while they squat in their skin, or else, leech from them what it requires."

Shadow was repulsed. What this woman was describing was seen as a perversion by all Realm Walkers with morals and values. But yet . . . such a repugnant act . . . Malice wouldn't think twice about it.

"Now, the reason for this call," the lady -- Malice -- said, as if she was planning a day trip for all of them. She held up a card as the call sprinkled to color. The art on it showed a fellow in a long black cloak standing on a cliff, Batman-like, and looking at the palm of his hand, where a blue "R" was glowing slightly. Beneath this art frame on the card were the word "CLOAK". Malice spoke in a singsongy type of tone, "I've got something you don't got!"

Shadow looked at the card, face inscrutable due to the competing emotions she felt. She managed to utter only one word.

"Uncle."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2014, 08:22:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Abject Subjugation

With a lasting glimpse of Shadow's unfiltered, open look of shock, the call's connection terminated leaving the woman who called herself Malice, who claimed to be the long-dead Realm Walker, alone with her thoughts.

It was true. She was Malice back then. She possessed this woman as an eleven-year-old girl, took her body for her own, and watched with impassive interest as the young girl's soul began to weaken, began to wither, began to . . . to die. Once it did, Malice was in full control over this body. She did not know if she could leave of her own volation or not. She had never had a motivation to try. She played along with this girl's life until she could find a way to get away and scheme once more. She eventually ran away, using the pretext of a fight that, in reality, she was completely indifferent to.

She remembered everything. How she was sick and weakening from old age, so she decided to end her rivalry with Cloak once and for all. She carefully crafted the book itself. But her plan backfired. She hadn't expected the book to ever be unlocked. She hadn't anticipated that there would be a way to revive the RAFians, or that they'd be in card form.

She was careless, she decided. She allowed herself to become reckless by feeling the hourglass of time ticking out of her favor. She did not realize that she could stay -- bodiless and alone, perhaps, but still conscious.

Her thoughts were most rudely interrupted by the stupid guffaws of three hooligans. Malice was irritated, but that quickly evaporated when she saw what they had in their hands. She went over to the three bullies and demanded that they hand over the cards.

"Why should we?" Paul said, surly and childishly.

"They's ours, we founded them." Harry said. Clearly, he never had a grammar lesson that he took seriously. Or he just never heard "Word Crimes" by Weird Al. "You can't have them. Theys ours."

"As scintillating as this conversation will no doubt be," Malice said, getting impatient, "you will hand over . . ."

"No!" Benji said. "Go find your own!"

Malice was going to say something, but an idea occurred to her. She had been working on something based off the Corrupturas that were produced in the bodies of Vladats, a species extinct before even RAF's founding. Malice had become interested, and looked for a way to.se if they were biomechanically possible of recreating.

Now the three bullies were calling Malice some rather unflattering, vulgar things to call a female. Malice decided to test if the three prototypes worked on these three. With a single toss, each of the Mech Corrupturas landed perfectly on each bully's forehead, wresting control of their bodies from them. They were now subjugated by Malice.

She sighed heavily, though pleased with their effectiveness, she was disappointed with their limitations. "Such a pity that they only work on the weak-minded."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 05, 2014, 08:37:36 PM

Well then. That was unexpected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2014, 06:23:56 AM

Just wait, Saffa. In the meantime, new book ideas.

• Book CCCLXIX: "Such a Travesty" -- When a demonic creature called a Travesty begins impersonating an angel, Blaze is offended.
• Book CCCLXX: "The Sacharine Slime of Sublime" -- While on his own, Cloak discovers and must deal with the effects of a blue slime on a fown. Based off a nightmare that I just had.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Card Conflict

"Shadow, I --" Sakura said tentatively, in a valiant attempt to consol the aged Realm Walker. But the book indicated three more cards were now available, and Shadow snapped back to normal.self, though she still felt conflicted about the card that Mal . . . that that perversion of nature had.

"Three more cards," Shadow said, reciting their locations. "Go now, you three. Do us proud." Shadow said, though her mind still lingered on the card.

Could it be a fake? It was quite possible, wasn't it? But then . . . then why would she go through the trouble of making such an authentic-looking replica? It could have been the black-and-white . . . no, the call had buzzed into color as she showed the card. . . .

Shadow had never felt older.

***

The cardcaptors had managed to get the Sakki card, but were having a time finding the other two. The Ash card and the Underseen card were simply not there. The three cardcaptors searched even more fervently, not wanting to let Shadow down, not wanting to give her more bad news.

"It's not here," Lee said. "Neither of them are here. Either the book royally screwed up or someone's already best us to the -- OOF!"

Lee was pushed over from behind, but was on his feet within seconds, incensed. He saw his assailant and made to push him back, never mind being a quarter of his size. Taylor and Sakura had to hold him back, as the hot-bloodied tween would get himself killed if he went through with fighting this guy.

They didn't notice that the assailant had two buddies at first, but then they realized that they were blocking out the sun. The sun caused their features to be shadowed, and hid the Mech Corrupturas from view on their foreheads. But Taylor easily noticed that the two had cards in their hands. The two cards that they were looking so arduously for.

"Your cards . . ." the giant to the right said.

"Give us . . ." said the colossus in the middle.

"Your cards. . . ." said the monster to the left.

"They can't be serious, can they?" Lee asked.

"I think they are." Sakura said, quietly and assuredly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 06, 2014, 06:40:37 AM

Did they change?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2014, 08:22:26 AM

Perhaps, Saffa. Perhaps.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Well, THAT'S New

"Wait -- what are those lights on their foreheads?" Sakura said, noticing the Mech Corrupturas.

"I dunno, but I'm gonna make sure that they don't get this card!" Lee said, quickly releasing Sakki from her card prison.

"How dare you." one of the brutish thugs said. The way he said it sounded almost robotic.

"Return it back into a card." the second one said. His tone and inflection was the same robotic tone.

"Do it now." the last one said, tone and inflection was the same as the other two, as if emotion had been bleached and leeched out of there voices.

"Wha . . . what happened?" Sakki was saying woozily. "Where . . . am I?"

"Lee, you just complicated things!" Taylor admonished the boy. "Ugh! Boys! You never think these things through!"

"Do you have a better idea then, Hawking?" Lee argued.

Before their bickering could reach critical mass, Sakura said, "Give it a rest, you two! We have more important things to focus on here!"

"Give us your cards. Resistance is futile."

They were sounding slightly Borg-ish right now. Especially since Harry, Benji, and Paul did not know what "futile" meant. Seriously.

"Hello, I'd like some answers please." Sakki said, with all of her VOCAROID charm. After a few beats of her being ignored, she said, "I'm not going to be all nice and cordial for very much longer."

"Give us your cards."

"And, by the way, that's getting somewhat annoying." the lone RAFian said to the mind controlled Harry, Benji, and Paul. There appeared to be a pseudo-roboticization process going on in them.

Lee saw them inadvertently show the two cards that they have collected, with an almost mechanical twist of their bodies. Lee, being the recklessly tween that he was, took this moment to release Underseen and Ash from their cards. This could have caused them serious injury had they not been shapeshifters.

Sakki stared at the three cardcaptors, easily piecing two and two together. Then she happened to glance over at Harry, Benji and Paul and her eyes widened with horror. She saw the unmistakable signs of roboticization. There was nothing "pseudo" about it. But what really disturbed her was the process seemed slow and agonizing. The roboticization from her time was over with fast, but this . . . this seemed designed to torture. Designed to heighten the pain of going from organic flesh to mechanics and steel plating. With the Corrupturas becoming like some sort of credt, like the thing on Magneto's helmet.

Who could ha e designed such at thing?

"What's happening to them?" Taylor said, aghast, noticing the roboticization for the first time.

"Something we can't help," Sakki said, taking charge. "We need to get away and regroup. Did you release any more RAFians from those card things? Assuming there were more, of course."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2014, 10:36:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Repercussions of Renewed Roboticization

"You're sure?" Shadow asked urgently.

"I was there," Sakki said. "But you weren't the first time. How do you even know about roboticization?"

"I've read my uncle's memoirs," Shadow said, quickly adding, "besides you don't honestly think that roboticization is localized and unique to this realm, do you? No, Malice lifted the tech from another realm and used it here.

"Excuse me for interrupting," Sakura said, respectfully, "but what is roboticization?"

Shadow explained wearily, "Roboticization is the process by which an organic creature is converted into a robotic being. This is usually accomplished by a Roboticizer, though other species such as the Bem, are able to roboticize through other means. They typically lose their free will, becoming almost mindless automatons (http://archiesonic.wikia.com/wiki/Roboticization)."

"So those things on their foreheads," Lee said. "They were Roboticizers?"

"They must be advanced forms," Underseen said thoughtfully. "The Roboticizers Malice used in our time was significantly larger. Like cyrogenic capsule tubes."

Shadow sighed heavily, "And I never thought to save the Deroboticizer schematics. The forum is now mere ruins that is really nothing more than a tourist trap more than anything else."

"Well, Goom, Yarin and I -- before were, ah, carded, were thinking how unreliable just having a Deroboticizer was." Aquilai explained, with movements akin to the Tenth Doctor. "A Deroboticizer will only work after the subject is Roboticized and stripped of their free will, therefore all the more harder to Deroboticize. Especially when one also considers the utter devotion and sheer mindless loyalty they give to the one who Roboticizes them."

"Cut the preamble, Aquilai," Faerie said, "get to the point."

"A Neuro-Overrider," Goom said. "A device that allows a victim of Roboticization to keep their minds, their wills, their loyalties, in tact. A small computer chip would do."

"Not if it fell off," Lee interjected. "Unless you're talking about an implant."

"What if they use that software they had on the news? About the subliminal message scandal in the goggle games?" Sakura asked.

"Brain Burn Thru or something?" Taylor shrugged.

"Hmmmm . . . interesting," Aquilai said. But it was as if he was considering a tangent that the others weren't privy to. "In any case, I think Goom and I can work around that. Just give use a couple of hours."

"We don't have the luxury of hours." Sakki said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 06, 2014, 11:21:29 AM

Quote

"I've read my uncle's memoirs"

;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2014, 08:11:01 PM

Yes, ;), and I'm going fairly "off-script" again for this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A House of Cards Divided

Malice was furious that her new slaves failed to bring home even one card. But then she appraised how the roboticization process was coming along, appraising it. These three were her test subjects, as there were currently only three Mech Corrupturas in existence. Malice had decided long ago that that's were all her previous schemes weaknesses laid. She just did not test them thoroughly enough.

It was also evident in her taking this inferior human body. She was rash, and thought it.would serve her purposes. And it had, for the most part. But, assuming she was now bound to this body, it meant she was now bound to this realm. She was inside a human, after all, and not a Realm Walker (which was impossible, as far as she knew). She tried not to dwell on that fact, as it was an unpleasant reminder of her impetuousness. She didn't seem aware of the possibilies that this could have present to her, and it was good that she remain ignorant.

She continued to appraise the Roboticization process, as she still groused about the cards. "Yes. Yes, you three are coming along quite nicely. I probably should look into crafting more, once I procure enough parts again."

She finished her overly-thorough test, and dismissed the three as they painfully continued to translate their flesh and skin into circuitry and metal casing. Malice was as indifferent as ever to their pain, as it was only pain that was incurred upon her that she took any concern of.

Then she stepped up to an overly elaborate computer console -- one might think that she was over-compensating for something -- and watched as little black beads (http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_Bugs) shivered and shook in a semi-transparent bucket that was plugged into the machine. On the machine seemed to be what appeared to be a slot akin to the slot you slide dollar bills into on a vending machine.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the cards. Estelore, Phoenix AniDragon, Kelly, and . . . Cloak. She smiled a bit at a thought, a temptation, rolled through her sinister mind, but she evidently decided against it, pocketing Cloak's card once more.

The others weren't as lucky. Malice fawned and gushed over the cards a bit. "Kelly, their white mage. Phoenix, Richard's spiritual second. AniDragon, their power-binder. And Estelore, the star. Their main powerhouse. And this other five. All in my hands now."

She let out the obligatory evil villainess laugh before continuing, caressing the tub of those bug-like pixel things. "That fool Tabuu (http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Tabuu) did not use these to their full potential. They'll make my new Roboticized slaves look like nothing. Good thing that I still had some in stock, and that I can think in my feet!"

She began to slide card after card into the machine, which processed them.

"They aren't the only ones that can revive RAFians!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 06, 2014, 10:47:55 PM

Wait, WHAT?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2014, 06:55:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
True Moods, False Hoods

"This time," Shadow said, as a couple more cards revealed themselves, "I go with you myself."

"But . . . you're so old." Lee said bluntly.

"Little boy, you have not yet seen the true scope of my power." Shadow said reproachfully. "I do not have the power to revive and save the RAFians from their card form, or else this wouldn't even be an issue right now, but I do have other skills."

"You can mechbend." Aquilai said shrewdly.

Shadow hesitated, but then replied. "Yes."

"What is mechbend?" Sakura asked politely.

"It's the mechanical version of bloodbending," Shadow said, quickly, with a wince. She did not think any higher of the ability than her uncle.

"What's --"

"The hydrokinetic ability to manipulate the water within a living organism," Shadow said, anticipating the question. "Let's get going."

***

Malice appraised these new False RAFians (http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/False_Character). They looked, physiologically and fashion-wise, identical to the nine RAFians that Malice had fed their cards into the machine.

These False RAFians had a shadowy, purplish-black haze around them with disconcerting glowing yellow eyes that was, in some aspects, similar to Anti-Sora. As their names suggest, these were not the real, the true RAFians. They were just composed of the Shadow Bugs, which were just small, glowing violet orbs that behaved in a rather insectoid way. They actually behaved rather like the Nesk, only without any sentience or will of their own.

Well . . . maybe except for one anomaly (http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Game_&_Watch). But Malice would make sure absolute loyalty and devotion from these creatures of an unknown primordial substance, like Mauler. Who she discarded immediately after his usefulness to her had ended.

"My enforcers are ready!" Malice said, in a manner irresistibly reminiscent of Zira (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Zira). "Stooges! In here, now!"

The three bullies entered, the Robotization process almost complete. Malice actually took pleasure in seeing out painful it was for them. She delighted in this depravity of hers, in her sadomasochism, or whatever the proper term is.

"This time you three shan't fail me again." Malice said, dressing them down. But the three no longer had any minds of their own, other than the part that still felt pain. "These nine False RAFians will be your protection. Bring me more cards. NOW!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2014, 04:29:18 PM

This book is full of foreshadowing.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
What's All This, Now?

"Got it!" Lee said, holding an Asmo card. The other two had successfully nabbed a Demos card and a Donut card.

"Excellent," Shadow said. "You know what to do now."

The three were released from their card prisons, dazed and disoriented. Demos was the one that recovered first, as Shadow explained to the three of them what had happened, and before any of the three could reply, the neay-Roboticized trio interceded and interrupted.

"Give us your cards." they said in unison. Their voices were now robotic fully.

"Glad we didn't hesitate," Taylor commented.

"Give us your cards."

"These guys are like a broken record," Lee commented in a bored way.

"And I have had enough of it," Shadow said. She used what may have looked like a Force Push to the uninitiated, and the three toppled down from the ridge on which they stood.

"Looks an easy victory for the side of good!" Lee beamed.

Shadow scowled and wondered idly if she had ever been so woefully naive ar his age. When Malice was concerned, there was no such thing as an easy victory. Something else was at play here, and she scrutinized the area for it.

Then she saw them. The False RAFians. They were obviously not the real ones, what with those auras and those glowing eyes. Shadow remembered seeing something similar, but could not place it just yet. It was something she did with her uncle, all those many years ago.

The False RAFians did not speak, nor could pass for those whose forms they've taken. They do have access to their powers and abilities, which could make them dangerous, but not their memories, which made them useless as impostors and spies. Hence the use to which Malice used them.

One of them moved, and Shadow managed to catch a glimpse of a single detached Shadow Bug. Her eyes widened a bit with sudden recognition, as she whirled toward the False Esty. She plunged a hand formed of her own energy into the false star, and pulled out a card instead of a plum. With no template to give them form, the Shadow Bugs fell into a gelatinous mess. But soon started to form three Primids.

This was a much easier foe to deal with. But it was best not risking the Estelore card being taken again. She shouted for Lee to revive the card, aerokinetically throwing it to him. He obliged easily. This created quite a spectacle as Esty had to resume her capsulated, human form. Though it was in her "Warrior Esty" form.

The False RAFians did not seem deterred at this, and Shadow allowed herself a small smile. Malice's arrogance and lack of foresight have hurt her again. Her plan had backfired, and she didn't even realize it.

But, unfortunately, there was no False RAFian of her uncle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 08, 2014, 12:53:09 AM

So that's how they work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2014, 07:06:44 AM

Yep. New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Let's . . . Get . . . Dangerous!

Shadow cracked her knuckles, and addressed the False RAFians, "Okay, how do you guys wanna play this?"

"Uh, Shadow," Sakura said, hesitant and uncertain, "are you sure about this?"

"Just be ready to revive the RAFians immediately after you get the cards." she said, easily eliminating the Primids. "I'll try to make this quick."

From that point, Shadow stepped into action with speed, agility and strength of a simian Realm Walker a quarter her age. She formed a ball of wind between her hands, while eluding and evading the False RAFians attacks, and compressed it into a highly dense disc of air, then sent it out and it sliced through the False Guy and AniDragon, and Shadow drew the undamaged cards toward herself aerokinetically. Then she sent them to the cardcaptors without so much as a second glance, trusting them to go ahead and revive them, which they did.

False Horse launched a volley of water whips which Shadow not only deflected, but with a rather elegant technique, redirected them back at the False RAFian. This distracted it enough that Shadow easily came and ripped the card out of it and easily eradicated the Primids that spawned from the previous False RAFian. She threw the Horse card to Sakura, who released Horse.

False Dino charged, but Shadow blocked that attack with a wall of earth, and then caused False Dino's legs to sink into the ground, making its mobility effectively nil. Shadow was somewhat disappointed as she wrenched the Dino card from within the False Dino, and gave it to Lee to release her. Then she easily crushed the forming Giant Primid terrakinetically.

False Phoenix attempted to fire Shadow, but she wasn't having any of that. She shot her own preemptive pyrokinetic attack, having none of the weariness that her uncle did with the element. Also, unlike her uncle,  Shadow did not really favor one element over another. Anyway, the False Phoenix was distracted, but not injured as it could mimic Phoenix resistance to fire. But the distraction was enough. She plucked the card from it, and sent it Taylor's way. Phoenix was released shortly thereafter.

Shadow stamped her foot and a wooden spire ripped through False Gaz, causing her undamaged card to flutter harmlessly and aimlessly to the ground. But Taylor got to it first, and Gaz was released.

Then Shadow dropped a rather expensive looking car upon the noggins of False Saffa and False Kelly, easily procuring their cards, which led to their inevitable release. Shadow got any stragglers that she missed, and did away with all the Primids.

The task was done, though far easier than she had anticipated. She wondered if they weren't deliberately downgraded so that they couldn't overpower Malice. It was as if the False RAFians had only a mere tenth of the power the true RAFians held. And, despite herself, Shadow could not help but feel a.little gypped at this.

"Let's go back to the lair," Shadow said to the group assembled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 08, 2014, 10:45:53 AM

Dayum, Shadow is a badass. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2014, 03:34:55 PM

Yep. I'll probably finish this book sometime next week, as there are at least another two chapters to go (not counting this current one). Heck, I might finish it by tomorrow. But don't hold me to that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
An Irate Call

They had returned and the newly released RAFians were being briefed about what happened. Shadow had her mind elsewhere, however. The False RAFians concerned her. Yes, they had gotten them back in the end, but who knows how many more cards Malice might procure? How many more False RAFians she would make?

Shadow hoped that she wouldn't have to resort to the deadlier forms of the elements. Bloodbending, breathbending, and such. She didn't even know if she could utilize them, and did not even want to try. She just knew that she could nullify them, when used on others from a third party.

"Well, what now?" Aquilai asked.

"Getting the rest of the cards back seem to be a priority," Phoenix said, uncomfortable with being seemingly thrusted back into a.leadership position. Shadow did not mind the assumption. Those that desire the burden of leadership, who are under the impression that it is simply just bossing people around, are either naive and childish, foolish, tyrants, or some combination of the aforementioned. "We cannot let them fall into Malice's hands. She may decide to destroy them instead of turning them into False RAFians."

"No, she won't," Shadow said. "If she destroyed them she would lose all leverage over us. If she kept them in tact, we would have to adjust our taftics accordingly."

The thread of the conversation was lost as the videophone picked up a call. Shadow did not need caller ID to know who it was.

"Whaddoyu want, Malice?" Shadow said, dryly, putting it on speakerphone.

"How. Dare. You." Malice was seething. "How dare you steal those cards from me!"

"I didn't steal anything, Malice." Shadow said, curtly. She seemed to be underreacting to this, which irritated Malice for some reason. "They were never yours to take in the first place."

"They were my property!"

"Property?" Saffa rankled. She wasn't the only one, but Shadow kept her cool.

"They weren't and they aren't," Shadow said. "Just stay out of our way, Malice. Don't.try to stop us from righting what you made go wrong."

"What makes you think you have the right to do this?! To speak to me in such a way?!"

"You want to speak of rights?" Shadow intoned. "What right did you have to turn the RAFians into cards in the first place? What right did you have bringing the Technarchy to Earth? What right did you have to sic dementors on RAF? What right did you have Roboticizing innocent Realm Dwellers? What right did you have bringing the Hate Plague and the Black Mercy here? What right did you have fusing people together with the Concoction? What right -- you know what, I could spend all day throwing counterarguments to that. And I shall speak to you in any way I please. You do not deserve, nor have earned my respect."

"But you've earned mine," Saffa said, quietly. Shadow could not surpress a smile, as she heard that.

"You forget, you impudent little Hatchling," Malice said, gnashing her host's teeth, hostilities well opened now. "I have leverage. I have your uncle's card."

Shadow said nothing, but attempted to calculate scenarios, plans, and schemes to wrest that card from her. But the truth of the matter was that Shadow was really growing weary of this whole back and forth.

"Fine. Then let's settle this on the field of battle." Shadow said. "You and me. No one else."

"No powers. None."

Shadow struggled to hide a smile. Malice misinterpreted this as an inner struggle with the decision. Malice could be painfully dimwitted at times.

"Deal. Back at the site of the last battle?"

"Agreed."

The call ended, and the other RAFians shouts overlapped each other. Shadow raised her hands in a nonverbal plea to calm down and let her speak.

"Phoenix, I need you to coordinate the other RAFians to collect the other cards." she said. Phoenix nodded, acknowledging this. Then he open his mouth to protest her fight with Malice. Shadow silenced him with a gentle raised hand. "I know your protests. But I can beat Malice in a fair fight without any elements, or my energy."

"Fair?!" Sakki shot. "Since when has Malice ever fought fair?!"

"May I continue with my thought, Sakki?" Shadow asked, pleasantly.

Sakki felt churlish and embarrassed, but nodded. Shadow continued, "I know she doesn't play fair. I'm well aware of it. But Malice has a habit of never thinking these things through. And she's seriously overlooked something important."

"What?" Gaz asked.

"All in due time, Gaz." Shadow said. "All in due time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 10, 2014, 12:14:12 AM

Whoa, I didn't even realize the book was nearing the end, it's been moving that fast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2014, 05:55:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Strategy and the Cheater

At the battlefield, mist began to curl in around the site. Shadow stood in it, unperturbed. They sky was giving rather intimidating threats of a rainstorm coming soon. All on all, it was the perfect atmosphere for such a battle.

Shadow stood and waited. She had not only expected Malice to cheat on the agreement of no powers, she anticipated it. She had her strategy, the things that Malice tends to overlook and forget. Shadow could hear the first few plops of fat raindrops nearby. But they were of no consequence to her.

She heard a distinctive clanking, but "saw" through the seismic sense and feeling the minute air currents, that Malice was coming. And Shadow was right, she did not follow the spirit of the deal. She could also understand why Malice was so keen to get her to promise no power use.

As she appeared, Malice was wearing a suit of armor that looked rather less comfortable than Parker's, more stiff and immobile than RoboCop's, less agile than Iron Man's. It was all metal, full of cumbersome technology that would put Parker, Aquolai, Goom, and Yarin into a laughing fit for days on end.

"I didn't say anything about armor," Malice said, with all the satisfaction of a playground bully. As if this was a surprise, and like Shadow could "see" her from a long way off. Even the way she walked was rather like a duck waddle. Shadow almost shook her head in disbelief. Malice's mind must have gone through some fragmentation process or something. Even the most naive of children could see that this would really be no battle at all. "You lose."

Shadow said nothing, but easily saw that this armor was not mere body covering, but decked out with a full armaments. She was actually a bit disappointed that Malice could be this naive, she basically allowed Shadow to learn that Malice could not use any of hier Realm Walker energy, or was unwilling to. It was sadly pathetic.

"Die," she said. Shadow nimbly and easily dodged each blast. The weaponry was pitifully archaic, like the weapons that would be used during the first world war. And yet, Malice still overlooked the key limitation. Shadow maneuvered to the back of Malice without her notice. "Where are you? No powers remember!"

Really, why should Shadow have to live up to the rules when Malice could just break them? Well, bend them into contorting into ways they were not meant to be. But Shadow was confident her knowledge of Malice's fallacy.

Shadow launched herself --without any elemental or energy assistance, mind you -- at Malice and forced her to the ground, rolling her until she was face-up on the ground. Shadow began to walk away.

"Come back here! If you want your uncle's card, come back here and fight!"

"Oh, you mean this?" Shadow said, showing that she now had the card. "You have no leverage. Not anymore."

Instead of asking how, Malice became apoplectic with rage, yet unable to get up due to the clunkiness and weight of the armor. "Come back here! Come back here and DIIIIIIIIIIIIE!"

"Tempting, but no." Shadow said. "Besides, even without my mastery over the elements, you can't."

"You insolent -- !"

"You are a Realm Walker in mind, but not in body, Malice." Shadow said. "Only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker."

Shadow walked away, as Malice fell silent with shock.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 10, 2014, 01:16:12 PM

That is some scene. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2014, 04:26:31 PM

 Yep. Last chapter of this book comin' up.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Arise, Son of the Elements

"Taylor, it's up to you," Shadow said.

"Why me? Why me specifically?" she asked.

Shadow looked taken aback a little. The elderly Realm Walker had made an assumption that these three brave young people already knew.

"Why? Forgive me, but I thought it was obvious." Shadow said, modestly. "I thouht your weapons gave it away."

"Please, Ms. Shadow," Sakura said, politely, "please, explain."

"Lee, your sword resonates with the more, uh, "hands-on" RAFians, which means you would be the one to release them. Sakura, your staff resonantes with the ranged fighters, the "hands-off" RAFians. Taylor, your shield resonates with the more defensively-minded, pacifist RAFians."

"But if your uncle taught you," Sakura interjected, "wouldn't I be the one to --"

"It's a common mistake." Shadow said. "But I know him better. He has this much power, granted it took me about 176 more years than he to reach my current level of refinement. But my dear old uncle feared the extent of this power. He never used more than he had to. He was deathly afraid of losing control."

"Losing control?" Lee asked, arms folded in surly teenager sort of way.

"Powers such as ours are directly linked to our emotional state," Shadow explained. "If we lose control of our emotions we may very well lose control over our abilities. They may either consume us, or the planet. My uncle has plenty of fears, I see that now."

Shadow looked at Taylor, and the venerability of this old Realm Walker was softened into that of the eleven-year-old girl who just wanted to set things right all those years ago. "Taylor . . . please."

Taylor obliged, and Cloak was revived. He did not look as confused and disoriented as the others did. He looked at Shadow, unsure at first, but coukd see his beloved niece there, beneath the aged, wizen face.

"I always knew you'd do it, Shadow. I knew you'd find the way to make it all right in the end." he said, voice gentle and warm.

"How?" Shadow said, nonplussed at the praise she did not feel that she so rightly deserved. "How did you know? How could you have so muc faith me?"

"Simple, Shadow," Cloak said, with a smile and a shrug, "you were always a resourceful, if not mischievous, child. And I am most pleased to see that the years did not smother your inner light."

Shadow beamed, as the RAFians came in to report about 26% of the missing cards had been collected.

***

It took about five months to find all the cards and revive them all. Malice's plan had ultimately failed, and RAF was restored and the world once again knew them for what they were. Malice was never heard from again, though there were rumors that she still mucked around here and there. Her three stooges' Roboticization somehow was resistant to ordinary Derobotization methods, and they were interred in a hospital/autoshop until a cure could be found. No guardians could be located to be notified.

And while all this was happening, a card sat beneath a bush shaped like an elephant as it was pulled at by the wind and cold. It was the Rotiart card, and it was overlooked. Whether intentional or not was unclear. But he was never found and never revived. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2014, 05:06:50 PM

 New . . . ish book ideas!

• Book CCCLXXI: "A Graveyard Ghoul" -- An old foe comes back from the grave with a very ambitious scheme.
• Book CCCLXXII: "A Totem Token" -- The RAFians must destroy a stone with addictive properties.

BOOK LXIX:
DINOSAUR ISLAND
CHAPTER ONE:
The Nothlit Dinosaur!

Gaz was with some campers at a campfire, strumming a guitar -- or at least, it looked like a guitar -- while Laserbeak watched overprotectively from a sturdy branch from the oak nearby. He did not want Gaz to come here alone, so he followed her. But she had suspected that he would and was resigned to having a robot parrot for a chaperone.

As the kiddies gathered 'round, Gaz sang:

"Long ago on a thread top,
A mighty egg was laid.
Burned by the light
Of the circle bright,
And cooled by the forum shade.
Then one stormy evening,
When the icy rain did pour,
Out of the egg
Appeared the leg
Of the Nothlit Dinosaur!"

"SQUAWK!!" Laserbeak protested to this inaccuracy of Dino's origin. It was assumed she was an actual dinosaur nothlit, due to her full moniker.

"Oh, be quiet, Beaky," Gaz said, without missing a beat, as the kids looked around confused and curious. Gaz continued:

"Her neck was thick but limber.
Her shoulders broad and lean.
Her eye was as high
As the morning sky.
And her vision, they say,
It was keen.
She wandered strong and silent
Across the forest floor,
And everybody called her . . .
The Nothlit Dinosaur!
Dinosaur!
Her tail was quick as lightning.
Dinosaur!
Her heart was breave and pure.
Dinosaur!
Whenever times were frightening
Call her name and she'd be there for sure.
The Nothlit Dinosaur."

She strummed a little without singing, before launching into the next verse.

"One day when she was roaming,
Alone on an important quest,
A vicious pack of trolls came
And became a provocative pest.
She warned that pack of varmets,
Then fought them by the score.
She left them lying fleshless
And she gave a mighty roar.
Dinosaur!
She promised her protection.
Dinosaur!
To the helpless and poor.
Dinosaur!
Whenever ther was danger,
They'd never be defenseless anymore.
This, she swore,
The Nothlit Dinosaur.
Dinosaur!
Her tail was quick as lightning.
Dinosaur!
Her heart was breave and pure.
Dinosaur!
Whenever times were frightening
She'd stop that evil boor.
The Nothlit Dinosaur."

Gaz ended her song, then ushered the kids back off to bed, as another counselor person doused the fire. The kids loved her tales of RAFians for some reason.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2014, 04:51:43 AM

Haha, nice fourth wall break of sorts, considering Gaz is actually at camp now.

PDF of the last awesome book. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2014, 05:07:32 AM

Eh, Gaz had to be doing something between the Bucky book and this one. ;) Remember, the last ws was outside of normal continuity.

New chapter. Might be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER TWO:
Doctor-asaur*

Deep in the bowels of an abandoned laboratory, a lanky man worked. He was modestly tall with a somewhat thin frame. He had scruffy gray hair, which was balding, and a prissy, pretentious mustache design of the same color. He wore a pristine white lab coat with dark clothing underneath, and polished shoes. His name was Anton Retrofilius, although he called himself Dr. Anton Retrofilius. However, his credentials were dubious, to say the least.

He did have extensive knowledge in evolutionary biology and anatomy, with a working knowledge of engineering, genetics, and reverse engineering, but there was no proof he was professionally taught any of these skills. He could just be extensively self-taught.

Of late, he had grown a passion for dino DNA, ever since he watched "Jurassic Park III" and was absolutely outraged that the tyrannosaur lost to the Spinosaurus. He originally intended to clone two into existence to prove the fallacy of such a decision on the part of the movie makers. But, as he got into it, that goal was long forgotten.

He decided on a bit more extreme methodology. He would take the entire world back to the beginning. Yes, that is what he would do. He had pictures of the Darwin gun when that fool used it like a child's super soaker. So careless, so unaware of the greater good that could be accomplished with it.

He would remake the weapon. He would make the world better, he would rid this world of weakness. He would make the world stronger. Yes, everyone would thank him for it, too.

The scientific community thought his experiments were mad. That they were immoral. That they were impossible. He would show them. He would show them all!

Now he just needed was to complete his . . . his special little device, his little bang-baby**. He had only barely begun construction on it.

***

Meanwhile, in the forum, Dino was conversing with Gaz, when she shivered slightly and looked over her shoulder.

"Why'd you shutter just now?" Gaz asked.

"I don't know." Dino replied.

---

* Sort of a reference to "Dinosaucers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaucers)".

** Yes, this is a reference, just not a dirty one. [spoiler]Reference source. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STATIC_SHOCK_-_Other_Bang-Babies)[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2014, 05:42:12 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Nightmare at the Museum

"There is only on thing that I need now!" Retrofilius declared aloud, in a most Dr. Animo type of way. "All  I need is viable deoxyribonucleic acid from those mighty creatures."

With that he left for the Museum of Natural History, carrying with him a knife -- a dagger really -- made of bone. This was so he would get discovered by metal detectors, as that scanning tech that was in the airports a few years ago never really caught on beyond that.

He swept from his admittingly well-hidden laboratory.

***

"Wait, what?" Gaz blinked.

"You cannot be serious." Parker replied when he saw what Gaz saw.

There was a crowd in front of the museum. But this wasn't the big spectacle. It was smaller group of individuals in front of it. The signs of bright primary colors -- predominately red -- showed that this group were protesters. But protesters of what? What at a museum could people find so offensive that it would motivate them to organize a protest?

Then Cloak read the sign. He blinked, unable to believe it. He looked at Dino and back at the sign as if he coukd not believe that these people were such denial about the existance of dinosaurs. Cloak could not really fathom anyone being that stupid, especially because Dino is bona fide proof right here.

And he couldn't tell if the protesters were just creationism extremists, deluded stoners who believed dinosaurs to be a project of Hollywood and "the media man", or just plain losers with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.

When Dino had read a couple of the signs, she said, "Huh. I don't know if I should find this whole futile protest offensive, in a speciesist sort of way, or funny. I mean, I am standing right here."

"This can't be legal," Cloak said. "They're barring entry into the museum. They may have the right to assemble, but they don't have the right to do that, no matter what 'rights' they think that they're entitled to."

A moment's pause.

"Yep. There come the police." Cloak said, having felt their seismic impressions and heard the sirens.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2014, 06:31:06 AM

Heh. Now I know what to do if I ever want to stab somebody on a plane.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 11, 2014, 08:25:16 AM

I'm actually all done with camp now.

Good chapters, cloaky!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2014, 05:03:38 PM

Saffa, you have a bone strong enough to survive that, and still be unnoticable? Retrofilius (get the reference for that name?) Carved his from a -- a -- well, I haven't decided yet. But it won't really -- oops, almost a spoiler.

And, Gaz, now we know what song you sang last when you there! ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
DNA or Bust!

Anton Retrofilius had calmly walked through the chatoic mess that was the protesters, and easily strode into the museum. He went through the rather lackluster, lazy, and overly lenient security force. They all much rather have been sitting on their butts, but Anton knew better than to hurry them along. He had his dagger in his bag, in case the security team was up to scratch. He had not truly expected this security team to be so lax.*

They didn't pick up the dagger on the metal scanner or the x-ray machine (Anton had thought ahead and packed what would appear to be a lunch atop it. As it turns out, it was unnecessary. The guard didn't even pay very much attention to it. His supervisor wasn't here, so he thought he could afford to be lax about security.*

Anton went to each of the exhibits, and used a scanner whose sophistication was strangely uncertain. It looked to be of his own design, and somewhat cobbled together. The scanner was scanning for viable deoxyribonucleic scid, or DNA. Not just any DNA, dino DNA. Surprisingly, he managed to get some readings, but they had holes in the sequencing. But Anton was not discouraged, he believed that he could fill in the gaps with educated guess and further scans. . . .

He ruthlessly slayed a boy wearing a "DINO NERD FTW!!" shirt when the boy babbled on and on and on about his knowledge of dinosaurs. Anton did warn him to leave him alone, but boys that age do not know better, although his parents probably should have kept a better eye on him, but they lost track of him. And Anton was well outside the security camera range. He cleaned up his blade and quickly stowed back to his bag and walked on without a second glance.

When he was satisfied with his scans, he left. He just missed seeing Dino. He would have been estatic to meet her -- to use her in his experiments. Heck, he may even had wanted her to be his queen.

Yes, queen. Retofilius had decided to take up the ostentatious, pretentious moniker of "Dino Lord".

Meanwhile, the police were using the RAFians' help rounding up the rowdy protesters, who seemed to have forgotten their cause for even being there. The RAFians were instrumental of this not turning to a riot.

Some particular troublemakers did not care anything about the cause of the protesters, foolishly futile though it was, but only came to turn it into a riot. They were the sort of people who loved the anarchy and chaos. They didn't care anyone else got killed or injured in the crossfire. Those kind of people sickened Cloak.

However, the protest was ended peacefully, and these troublemakers made no secret of their intentions and were prompy arrested for trying to start a riot.

That's when the boy was found. Dead. Body cold to the touch.

---

*I must admit it. This is what campus security was like at my last job. They even locked me into a building once, without even bothering to check to see if someone was in there. I yelled at them for it, and he had the nerve to be angry at me for yelling at him (he tried to treat it as a joke, and I wasn't havjng none of that crap). Could be one of the reasons that I was fired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2014, 11:08:17 PM

New, out-of-continuity book idea. Don't think I've done this one.

• Book CCCLXXIII: "Back to RAF" -- Cloak forbids his daughter, Melody, from Realm Walking. Out-of-continuity.

The title is subject to change. Anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Da Bomb

Now the security guys decided to take their jobs seriously. And Cloak wasn't just going to let it slide.

"Are you going through these procedures because Dino and I are decidedly not human?" Cloak said. According to the security guard's expression, he mistook Cloak for a human eccentric in a cloak.

"No," he said, and Cloak could hear a definite something in his tone he didn't like. Cloak's seismic sense also told him that the guard was lying. He was a closeted speciesist. Cloak found himself not really liking this man.

"You're lying." Cloak said, deciding to call him up on it.

"I am not." he said, as if this would refute it. He was lying so obviously now that one didn't need a seismic sense to pick up on it.

"Yes. You are."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"You can't know that for sure!"

"I can, and I do."

"Cloak," Parker said, with folded arms, head tilted in such a way to convey nonverbally how boring he was finding this exchange. "Do we really have to deal with this guy? We do have official RAFian business inside, as you know."

"True." Cloak admitted. "Let's go."

"Wait!"

"We are RAFians," Gaz said, her patience getting taut. It usually takes more than this for it to do that. "Read: government agents. Read: back the heck off or you'll find yourself buried so much legislation that you'll need the jaws of life to get out!!"

He let them go after that.

"Nice job, Gaz." Cloak said.

"Let's just hope that he isn't smart enough to actually look into that." she replied. "Now let's see what we could do to help."

***

Meanwhile, the "Dino Lord" had made it back to his laboratory and he was quickly cobbling something together. It looked like a blue winged Koopa shell that was either infected with the Technarchy or being controlled by a Galvanic Mechamorph. Atop this shell-like structure was something like a toy crank, or the crest atop a Chronosapien's head. There bits and bobs missing from the interior of the device.

He was working diligently, humming something that sounded like an off-key "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". He cold-bloodily didn't give the boy that he murdered a second thought. In the "Dino Lord's" mind the boy was just a minor obstacle that got in his way thwt he took care of. The man was incapable of empathy or love. He just saw the world as black and white, strong and weak.

It would be sad if he wasn't so heartless.

"Nearly, nearly done," he said to himself. "Soon. Soon I shall wipe away the dreadful weakness.of this world, and found a dino-topia!"

Yep. He was crazy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2014, 11:50:47 PM

Yep, you definitely haven't done that one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2014, 07:31:10 AM

Didn't think so. And I am conceiving a idea for a sort of mini-arc in the books . . . although it may seem repetitive. On the surface.

New chapter. Short one.

CHAPTER SIX:
Strange Vibrations, Self-Injections

"Finished." the self-stylized "Dino Lord" said. "The Gene Slam Bomb is complete and operational. All the DNA scans are uploaded and all is ready. All I need to do now is activate it with the push of a button."

His finger hovered over the button for a moment. Then he thought of something, he wanted to be the apex dino, the best of both dino, pterosaur and plesiosaur . . . and he had that injection that he forgot about when he came up with the design and implementation of the Gene Slam Bomb . . . it would make him truly the Dino Lord . . . more so than his improperly named Gene Slam Bomb, which was more of a wave emitter.

He injected himself with the greenish, purplish, reddish liquid. The results were almost immediate as his skin broke out into purplish scales, and his clothes began to rip among its seams. But before the transformation could proceed forward (his forehead broadened, his mouth widened as his teeth went from the wimpy human teeth to something stronger and more intimidating, his eyes got a sinister red glow), he pushed the button to activate the "bomb".

Imperceptible waves of energy emanated from the device, easily eclipsing the immediate area, as Retrofilius* had his transformation accelerated. The serum would also give an unprecedented amount of control over dinosaurs. And pterosaurs. And plesiosaurs. . . .

His hands expanded to match his now fully purple-scaled body, and reshaped into a three-fingered-hand, with one being opposable. Thick, strong claws sprouted from them and his feet went from the human plantigrade style to the saurian digigrade. A thick, therapod tail erupted from his backside as his feet lost the weak human toes and reemerged as saurian toes, each of the three ending in a thick claw, with a dewclaw on the inside of the foot. His face bulged out and he lost all his hair, facial or not, as his nose rounded out into the shape of a generic therapod's.

The transformation was done, and he was a generic theropod. An anthropomorphized theropod, but a generic one. He still retained his falculties, and his clothes, though they were torn from the stress of the transformation, but he was still dressed rather like Dr. Curt Connors when he became the Lizard.

All the might of a dinosaur, but with the intellect of a human. This was only a good combo in Dino.

And, all the while, the wave generator were sending out those mysterious, imperceptible energy waves, encompassing a larger and larger radius. Who knew what the possible ramifications of this would be?

---

*"Retro" + "-philius" (likes) = liking retro things, like dinosaurs, for instance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2014, 11:29:42 AM

Now, what I call the "Moreau arc". You see why soon . . . okay, I'll be honest. It'll probably be about two years before you find out why. Maybe more.

• Book CCCLXXIV: "Project Waterworld" -- A man seeks to flood the planet after genetically-altering people into fish-people.
• Book CCCLXXV: "Project Hive Mind" -- A man seeks to genetically alter people into insects.
• Book CCCLXXVI: "Project Sky High" -- A man seeks to break apart the planet after genetically-altering people into bird-people.
• Book CCCLXXVII: "Project Muggle Extinction" -- A spellcaster seeks to eliminate all non-spellcasters in a way that most wouldn't realize.
• Book CCCLXXVIII: "Project Hell on Earth" -- A strange man seeks to bring Hell onto Earth.
• Book CCCLXXIX: "Project Fairy Form" -- A woman seeks to turn everyone into fairies.
• Book CCCLXXX: "Project Skin Deep" -- A man seeks to mechanize everything. And everyone. (Not through Robotization.)
• Book CCCLXXXI: "Project Hot Stuff" -- A man seeks to ignite Earth's moon.
• Book CCCLXXXII: "Project Purity" -- A man seeks to force everyone to evolve beyond a corporeal form.
• Book CCCLXXXIII: "Project Mind Growth" -- A man seeks to force everyone to tap into their psychic potential.
• Book CCCLXXXIV: "Project Wormy" -- A man tries to turn people into worms and wyrms.
• Book CCCLXXXV: "Project Toon World" -- A manchild tries to turn reality into a cartoon.
• Book CCCLXXXVI: "Moreau Raid" -- The RAFians raid the Moreau family island.

Remember all titles are subject to change.

Now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Reports Coming In

"What in the world . . . ?" Dino said, craning her neck upward, just as they arrived back at the forum. She saw nothing, but felt something. Something that was happening and it was not good. She turned to address Cloak, "Do you feel that?"

"Yes," the Realm Walker said. "And I see the slight green tinge that's oscillating on and off."

"I don't see anything."

"To be honest, I anticipated that. Realm Walker eyes are tough, if not downright impossible, to fool." Cloak said, as politely as he could.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I don't rightly know," he answered honestly and earnestly.

"Oh, wonderful," Dino said.

Meanwhile, Aquilai and Yarin were at communications and they were inundated with reports, strange reports that they could not make heads or tails of the --

A professional martial artist was becoming a red-scaled tyrannosaur.

A Navy Admiral was becoming a brown-scaled Allosaurus, as well as his young daughter and wife, while his rival was becoming a red tyrannosaur with black claws. Also his sister and three nephews were becoming pale yellow pachycephalosaurs.

A gymnast was becoming a pink pterosaur.

An engineer was becoming a light green Dimetrodon.

A manchiod prankster was becoming a dark red hadrosaur.

A nerdy high school student was becoming a blue Triceratops.

A baker was becoming a bluish-gray Apatosaurus.

A thug was becoming a gray brachiosaur with gold highlights.

An Army General was becoming a silvery monochromatic brachiosaur.

A police officer, walking his beat, was becoming a caramel-colored Triceratops.

A criminal dentist was becoming an orange Styracosaurus with a black nose horn.

Four teenagers were becoming Velociraptors, each colored red, blue, yellow, black and white.

A swimmer was becoming an ichthyosaur.

A self-taught inventor was becoming a plesiosaur.

A soccer star was becoming a red tyrannosaur.

An actress was becoming an white Archeopteryx with whitish pink plummage.

A fighter jet pilot was becoming an orange Pteranodon.

A young techie was becoming a blue Triceratops.

A cowardly man was becoming a blue stegosaur with pale yellow plates.

A sycophant was becoming a deep red ankylosaur.

A lounge singer was becoming a yellow pterosaur.

A paleontologist was becoming a black brachiosaur.

An artist was becoming a pterosaur.

A forestry worker was becoming a teal Dimetrodon.

A salon stylist was becoming a pale green Parasaurolophus.

A dog was becoming an ankylosaur.

A professional soccer player was becoming a red Styracosaurus.

A surfer was becoming a predominantly red Stegosaurus.

Two homeless people became a Chasmosaurus and a Carnosaurus, respectively. . . .

"More and more!" Aquilai exlaimed. "More and more people turning -- as crazy as it sounds -- turning into dinosaurs!"

"More like anthropomorphic dinosaurs." Yarin said.

"It's not like it's nothing, Yarin. You don't have to be so matter-of-fact about it."

"Indeed. But I fail to see just what we can do about it."

"We need to report this to the others. Like now."

"Agreed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 12, 2014, 12:29:18 PM

I suppose all the villains in the arc-series of books belong to the same family?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2014, 03:42:23 PM

Eh, more or less.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Lording It Over the Rest

The "Dino Lord" strolled through the street as his anthropomorphized therapod self, as if he was just some tourist out to see the sights. He now wore a form-fitting black suit made out of a lycra-type material, but it was stronger than that fabric and was if Anton's

He loved what he was seeing. Humans were, recently, effectively extinct. But the wave emitter had affected some domesticated animals as well. He delighted in seeing the humans-turned-dinos. He was estatic at his own dino form.

"Hold on there!" said an authoritative voice. It was the Tricera-cop. Apparently, the Dino Lord had jaywalked and had been caught doing so. Anton was not in any mood to be inconvenienced in any way today. Considering what he did at the museum, jaywalking was the least of his crimes.

"Back off." Anton said firmly. The Tricera-cop's eyes glowed red for a moment, as he hesitated. Anton noticed this immediately, and extrapolated what it meant in an instant. He looked at the confused-looking Tricera-cop, and decided to test out his hypothesis. "Dance like a chicken."

The dino officer's eyes glowed red for a moment before he . . . complied. Anton watched this greedily, as this confirmed his hypothesis. He could control the minds and bodies of the transformed! Remarkable! This could prove essential to his plans, to his experiments.

He moved on, but found his path blocked by some teenager "mean girls" with Valley accents that had been turned into a variety of pterosaurs. Anton could have just walked around, though it would mean walking in the street. He wasn't about to do that.

"Stand aside," he ordered the gossipy group. They all silenced, and glared at him, their eyes remaining the same. He didn't have control over pterosaurs, it would seem. At this, he felt like some snake was twisting and contorting inside of him. His form was changing into that of a scarlet-scaled Quetzalcoatlus similar in appearance and physique to Sauron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron_(comics)). The gossiping girls didn't notice.

"Well . . . this is new," he said. The he turned to the girls, and he ordered forcefully, "now, STAND ASIDE."

This time the control powers worked as the gaggling group of mean girls had their eyes glow red briefly, and they moved with military precision to obey. Anton noted this as he continued his stroll, shifting back to his therapod form, his most comfortable one. The lyca-esque suit that he wore shifted with him to fit over the new form, like a wetsuit.

But apparently, Anton was a triple-changer as he discovered an Elasmosaurus form when he decided to go to the beach and waded into the water. He surmised that he could control plesiosaurs in this form.

Anton was very, very thrilled with this prospect.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2014, 05:28:27 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Plots and Plans

The auditorium was loud and full of the buzz the "dino-ification" of the populace, as Cloak took his usual place, standing the back, half-immersed in shadow. Cloak did not know whether it was from his bumpy personal history or his feline form that came this predilection for shadows. It could be Cloak wasn't particularly fond of the spotlight.

Somehow, the RAFians were not affected by this strange wave generator. Cloak was sure that the Mark did not protect against sudden transformations like this, otherwise why would they have been at all affected by the planetary shockwaves that forced the other RAFians to be the other gender or have none whatsoever. Cloak could not come up with a conclusion that he found satisfactory.

But something was going on, and he wasn't entirely sure that it was a good thing. He could not ignore a foreboding feeling in the pit of his stomach that he could not explain satisfactorily to himself. He had fold his arms, but was stroking his chin thoughtfully.

He did not realize immediately that the briefing had begun.

"-- and we do not have any precedent for this, not really." Richard was saying.

"What about the Hate Plague?" Kelly said.

"That was different from this," Yarin said. "These were physical, involuntary changes."

"It could be like those planets-exploding-shockwavy thing." Gaz shrugged.

"We are pretty sure no planets were destroyed recently within a close enough proximity to do that." Aquilai said. "And we would have noticed by now."

"But it begs the question," Parker said, "those shockwaves affected us. Which means even the Mark has its limits."

"Everything does," Cloak said, rather cryptically. But the manner spoken was forgotten due to the fact that Cloak could get that way sometimes. "The Mark is no exception."

"The question remains," Parker pressed. "Why aren't we transforming as well?"

"Code Avalon. More than likely," Goom speculated.

"Well, that does limit what we could do." Saffa said.

"Let's not overlook one thing, here," Abby pointed out. "Even if Code Avalon wasn't required to protect us from it, we don't know what to do to stop it."

"We can't make a cure without knowing what is mutating them, what is overwriting their DNA with this hybridization DNA." Aquilai said.

"I would think the energy waves were a dead giveaway." Cloak said, stoically.

"What energy waves?" Sakki said, bluntly.

"Oh, right. Forgive me," Cloak said, sincerely and humbled. "I had forgotten that you may not have been able to see them. Well, truth be told, I could just barely seem them."

"What direction were they coming from?" Richard asked, with professional interest.

"They are very broad, and it was difficult to pinpoint, but -- and this is roughly it, mind you -- but I'd say somewhere in that direction."

"That's out to sea," Horse said, reminded of the cove that sheltered her when she was going though, uh, "radioactive growth spurts". "Toward Sawyer Island."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 13, 2014, 10:13:13 PM

It's like he gained some sort of weird pseudo-morphing power.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2014, 07:43:09 AM

Yeah, about that . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Next Mutation

Anton was reveling in his new discovery of these forms. He got a kick of how everyone was forced to obey him, now that he was the Dino Lord. Granted, he had to eliminate the humans by turning them all into dinosaurs to get people to listen to him, to give the adulation he believed that he so richly deserved. He didn't care that they weren't doing it of their own free will.

What he didn't realize was that this was just from the injection that he gave himself prior to activating the dino-wave generator. The waves did activate his mind control of dinosaurids, pterosaurs and plesiosaurs -- hence his three forms. But it had a mostly delayed reaction in him.

It wasn't done. There was another mutation to come for dear Anton, as he felta small pain in his side as he returned to his island. To what was formerly Sawyer Island. But no longer. He turned into Dinosaur Island!

Ah! There was that pain again. As if something was gnawing at his side. As if something was chewing up his innards. It wasn't a pleasant sensation. But, never mind that, he thought, he had seen the entryway to the castle that housed his laboratory. It was an ancient castle of earth and stone that sat mouldering, long since forgotten by the pretentiously-innovative modern world.

Once Anton crossed the threshold into the castle proper, he had wrapped both his saurian arms around his chest as the pain graduated from nuisance to excruciating. His steps were rather stilted now, as he conttinued to strive forward, unbeknowst to him, the source of his pain.

It felt like someone replaced his innards with live, angry snakes leaving his bones and skin alone. Anton did not know what was happening, but soon the pain shifted from excruciating to euphoric, strangely enough.

Anton realized the three forms he had were just momentarily separated aspects of his true one. And it was he close proximity to the wave generator that allowed him to take his ultimate form for the first time. To become the Regisaurus form, the true Dino Lord!

He disappeared in a flare of sunlight, but when he came back into view he was a massive humanoid. He looked just like a life-sized Magmatron. His lower legs and tail was that of the purple generic theropod form, he had large grayish-teal arms with five clawed fingers, only opposable. His scarlet head was roughly human, with his human face in silvery white with green eyes with cat-like pupils, and he possessed gigantic pterosaur wings coming from the sides of his head, almost like Dumbo ears.

He examined this new form with enthusiastic euphoria, despite it being somewhat about what he thought of as weakness. But people such as Anton are notorious for being hypocrites at one time or another. This form afforded great strength, flight (strangely enough), superhuman swimming ability somehow, and he retained his control over all the dinosaur neophytes.

His cackle rent the air for the entire radius of the island and beyond.

And Cloak heard it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2014, 08:17:05 PM

Finally got gmail to work for me. Sorry for the rage, but it would be nice if they, you know, explained these things.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Extreme Dino Islanders*

The RAFians easily deduced where the waves were coming from between Cloak's Realm Walker sensibilities and the RAFian's technological equipment. The hard part was deducing who was suitable to go to the island.

In the end, it was decided that both Cloak and Dino would go (they were both immune to the waves due today their unique physiologies), Parker (his armor proved sufficient enough to block it, and his arsenal could prove handy), Sam and Helen (on the sole proviso that they keep up their Lantern auras). More wanted to come and help, but Cloak felt a smaller team was necessary. He, despite himself, arrogantly thought that they were more than enough of a match.

Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin that they must not dally. If they don't shut off the wave generator, the transformations could be permanent, or even progress, like a boulder down a hill, until they're fully non-sapient, non-sentient dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and plesiosaurs. It was imperative they prevent "D-Day", or "Dinosaur Day".

"Cute," Parker said, with a droll roll of his eyes. Helen knew what he was doing despite Parker's head and face being concealed by his helmet.

They headed out, and Cloak easily ferried them across the water in an energy bubble. He could of done the Moses thing and parted the water, but this method was faster and far less noticeable.

They quickly made landfall on Dinosaur Island and looked around, but it was silent. Nothing but dark forest. But Cloak was leery. His seismic sense going bananas. It was becoming like a spider sense.

"You know," Parker said, scanning the area, scrutinizing the terrain, judging the path to take to the island's interior -- where they all anticipated the wave generator to be. "That was almost too easy."

At these words, Cloak sighed heavily, "You just had to say it, didn't you, Parker?"

"What?" Helen asked.

As if in answer to this question several anthropomorphized dinosaurs (and one pterosaur) came thromping from the woods. They were all heavily muscular, as if they were in an eighties cartoon. None stood higher than ten feet tall.

The leader was an anthropomorphized tyrannosaur the color of an Agumon. He wore torn pale red pants, spiked shoulder pads, and white boots which his claw had obviously grown and cut straight through. He was shirtless, and he was a punk gangleader.

The techboy was an anthropomorphized rust-colored stegosaur. He wore yellow pants and white boots. He was also shirtless. He seemed a reluctant member of this gang, but stil obstinate and bullying as his leader.

The wisecracking slacker was an anthropomorphized grayish-teal pterandon. He was as shirtless the others, wearing a silver chain necklace, purple pants with white boots. He was lazy with absolutely poor judgement or sense. He flew everywhere instead of walking, no matter how short the distance. He was still uncouth and arrogant -- not the most admirable of traits.

The penultimate one was the one in charge of finding and preparing the food, and he was an anthropomorphized sapphire blue triceratops. His left brow horn was cracked. He was shirtless too, as well as wearing gray shorts, gray leg bands, a purple belt, and is barefoot. He was, first and foremost, a brute. He loves to fight, but doesn't really care about the reason behind it.

The last one was a rather squirrelly anthropomorphized ankylosaur. He wore form-fitting suit, like a darker version of the Fantastic Four suits, only without the "4" design. He, ironically, showed more battle-damage than the others, though that was more from his.stupidity at when to walk away. He was this way even before becoming saurian.

"Back off!" the tyrannosaur snarled. "This is Extreme turf here."

"I think you underestimate our chances of survival." Parker said dryly.

"I think he means 'Extreme' as some sort of gang moniker, hon." Helen said.

"And an uncreative one, at that." Cloak said, flatly.

"You Rapterds**?" the pterosaur said.

"Do we really have time for this?" Cloak said, facepalming.

"Yo, are you Rapterds or not!"

"Oh, will you idiots shut up?!" Dino said, losing her temper. "Do I look like a bloody raptor?!"

There was a beat of silence.

"Are you a girl?" the pterosaur asked. It would seem that he was sincere in his query.

Dino noticed this rather quickly, and narrowed her eyes as she grew to her full form. This seemed to terrify them, as they immediately lost their tough guy act.

"Okay," Dino said. "Now you die."

Then she ran after them, as they fled in terror.

"Uh, Dino? Dino! Dino, priorities!" Cloak called.

---

* I know someone might think this title is racist (not my fellow RAFians, but perhaps one of the unregistered guests that I see visit this page from time to time). It is supposed to be a reference to the Dinosaur Island and that old, obscure show, "Extreme Dinosaurs".

** A derogatory epithet for the rival gang, the "Rapters".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2014, 05:37:30 AM

Might be a bit longer than the average Memoirs book. Kind of going "off-script" a bit.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Island Interior

Dino never left their eyeline, before returning. She was still very miffed about the insult as she resumed her compact form. She still fumed about it.

"Dino, we have a finite time before D-Day, and --" Cloak said.

"I KNOW!" she snarled. " I know."

"There's something more going on with you," Helen pointed out shrewdly as they proceded further on to the island's interior. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," she replied repressively.

But Sam picked up on the reason right away, "It's because we've been insensitive, isn't it? About destroying the wave generator, and preventing D-Day. When you're . . . you're a nothlit."

Dino said nothing, but kept trudging forward. It was true that she was a nothlit, though a unique one as she could speak without resorting to thought-speak. But that could have something to do with what she was before she got stuck. No one, other than Dino herself, knew what species she had been beforehand. And she never spoke about it. She never spoke about her past to begin with.

They had successfully reached the interior of the island, but it was a rather large expanse in and of itself. Cloak could see the waves emanating from a direction ever so slightly to the right. But there seemed to be a small army in their way.

These dinosaurs have forgone clothes as they were not anthropomorphized anymore, but dwarf dinosaurs, somewhere between the dinosaur's actual size and human size. None more than eleven, twelve feet tall. There was a tyrannosaur, a brachiosaur, a triceratops, a pteranodon, a stegosaur, a Centrosaurus, a Torosaurus, a Syracosaurus,  a Pachycelphalosaurus, a Kentrosaurus, and a Rhamphorhynchus. In the inlet lake was a trapped ichthyosaur.

They all possessed human intelligence, but it was clear that even that was beginning to slip away. It was getting harder and harder for them to think. The proximity to the wave machine must be accelerating their mutagenic devolution, the RAFians realized. It may already have been too late for them.

The RAFians easily walked through their midst, some were apparently beginning to lose the ability to speak coherently. His worried Cloak, though Dino seemed conflicted.

"We have to hurry," Parker said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2014, 03:32:18 PM

Huh. Saffa must be busy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Solid Saur*

The group continued their trek to the location of the wave generator. Cloak really didn't appreciate the ticking clock that had been foisted upon them. It did notnmake things any easier. But something he had not expected, something he thought he misinterpreted from his seismic sense, loomed overhead.

"I Earthsighted it, but I didn't believe it." Cloak said, as the five scrutinized the mouldering castle. It was still in fairly good, habitable condition, though it clearly hadn't been lived in for a while. Each brick, each stone, was roughly hewn and eroded. It was remarkable the place even stood.

"Who puts a castle in an out of the way place like this?" Sam asked.

"Supervillians," Cloak said. It was unclear whether he was being sarcastic or not as his tone wws flat and dull. He touched the wall, and felt through his glove just how old the place was. It had felt older than what he had expected. Then he ducked through a hole, in the wall that the others followed through. It was even large enough for Dino in her true size, thiugh she remained in her compact size.

Cloak noticed that she was being awfully quiet for some reason. She looked conflicted, and viewed each new transformed dinosaur witha mixture of sadness and pity. Or so Cloak assumed. The truth was, that they reminded her of some very close friends that she could not . . . that she lost in the past. She never talked about it. It was just too painful.**

When they first tread the moist soil of the castle ground, they weren't too terribly surprised to discover dinosaurs milling around here. There was a Tyrannosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Triceratops fighting as the RAFians made their way forward. These were obviously people turned into these beasts, but they seemed to have lost most, if not all, of their sentience. They were not obsequiously holding to the castle master's orders, guarding the place. Being this close to device had rendered them wild and savage and unpredictable.

They bypassed a Pteranodon and a Stegosaurus as they proceeded further into the castle compound. Cloak was amazed that they were not noticed yet. He could feel each foot impact of the dinosaurs like a baseball bat to the back of the head. It hurt, and was disorienting.

But they soon realize that they had to be cautious, as the other dinosaurs had red glowing eyes and seemed to mindlessly following telepathic orders. Dino showed extreme discomfort with this, but her mind and will remained her own through sheer stubborn willpower.

They managed to elude a featherless velociraptor, so basically a "naked" one, who looked far smarter than the rest combined. It was not easy dodging him -- if Cloak hadn't the mastery over the elements it would have been flatout impossibls.

They eluded a pachycephalosaur, an archaeopteryx, a stegosaurus, a tyrannosaur, a Pteranodon, and a Triceratops to make it to the castle doors. They were obviously obscenely opulent at one point of time, but time has no mercy to such a place left unattended.

---

* "Solid Snake" reference. I'm afraid all I know of him, is from Brawl.

** [spoiler]Yes, this is fireshadowing a later book.[spoiler]Specifically, "I'm Back! A Dino Story".[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2014, 08:44:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Dinosaur King

The RAFians opened the door, which was unexpectedly light and easy. The appearance indicated it would be the opposite. The inside of the castle was expected to be far more grandoise than it actually was. There was a single roll of faded red, threadbare carpet with moldy yellow borders. The floor was highly dusty, except for human footprints and much fresher theropod footprints. The columns that were attempting to hold up the cracking ceiling were marble in the style of Agrabah's palace, which was totally out of place for the castle, design-wise.

"Mixing styles?" Helen asked. "It doesn't even work!"

"Helen, calm down." Parker advised. Apparently, Helen had really gotten into interior design of late, judging by Parker's weary tone on the subject.

"Let's hurry," Sam intoned seriously. "We have a ticking clock, guys, remember?"

"And we're getting close," Cloak said, his feline eyes penetrating the gloom of the room easily. Not that he necessarily needed eyes, being in a castle of stone. The Realm Walker pointed straight ahead when the hallway they were in split into three-pronged fork, and said, "That way."

They burst through the doors, which actually popped off with relatively minimal effort. It was really shoddy craftsmanship, or the material just did not age well when not properly maintained for a Walker decade or two.

"How dare you burst into my throne room like that, peasants?" came a haughty, drawling voice. Cloak saw a creature that heavily resembled Magmatron sitting on what could be called a throne, if a makeshift one at that. To his left sat a strange machine, and Cloak could easily identify it as the wave generator. "The Dino Lord demands you leave this most sacred of areas."

"Sacred? This mouldering pile of rocks that have sat ignored for decades?" Helen said, scornfully.

"'Dino Lord?" Parker snickered snidely. Yes, the name was both pretentious and uncreative. "What, 'Bossasaur', 'Saurian Sultan', 'Chiefasaurus', and 'Grand Duke of Dinosaurs' already taken?"

"You dare mock me?!" Anton roared, standing up. He was a little less than twice the size of Cloak, but the Realm Walker wasn't intimidated. "You weak mammal, uh, weaklings!"

"Niiiiice comeback," Parker said, "you use the brain in your head or your tail to come up with that one?"

"Hey!" Dino snarled. She found the remark offensive. "That was debunked years ago! . . . I -- I think."

It was probably not the best idea to call attention to herself, as the Dino Lord finally noticed her. He reveled in his new idea.

"Dinosaur, obey me!"

Dino's eyes started to glow red . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2014, 05:44:15 AM

I hope nothing has happened to Saffa and that she's just busy . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Dinosaur's Decision

"Obey me, dinosaur!" Anton commanded, and Dino's eyes glowed red, a deeper scarlet. "Obey me, and do as I command! Turn on your friends! Become my queen! We can rule over the one true dinosaur nation together!!"

But Anton wasn't as good as he thought he was. Unlike Vampyra de Madre, he hadn't any finesse or charisma. He was a brute, caring only about sheer power and the subtleties of anything more were lost on him. Granted, he was centuries younger than her, but that's beside the point.

Dino's Mark flared to life with the comment about becoming his queen, an idea that Dino found so revolting, so vile, so bereft of sanity, that she easily broke his control over her.she even shuttered at the thought of becoming his queen, which was quite noticeable to the other RAFians given that Dino had gone to her full size (there was plenty of clearance).

"Not a chance, pal." Dino said, seeing Anton for the pathetic man that he truly was. "You sicken me. You repulse me."

"How dare you defy me?!"

But Dino wasn't through with him. Not by a long shot. "You changed people and animals of the world into dinosaurs and their contemporaries. Why?"

"I am ridding the world of weakness! Soon -- soon, it will be complete and permanent!" he roared. It would have been intimidating to the uninitiated, but the RAFians face this kind of thing fairly regularly.

"Oh, will it now?" Dino said, who had managed to walk up right next to it without Anton being any the wiser. "Look, pal, you're nothing more than a two-bit charlatan who things that since he lacks empathy and compassion that your way of thinking is superior. You didn't even give people a choice of whether they wanted this or not."

"It was a gift!" Anton said, completely falling into Dino's trap. "It was a gift! I gave them strength, I eliminated their weakness! It was that weakness that was holding us back as a species! Now things are as it should be!"

"According to you." Cloak said coldly. This guy was seriously reminding him of several Councilors that he had minced words with in the past. "But you are one of those irritating self-righteous people who always assume that they always know what's the best, even when 'the best' is, in actuality, only in their best interest."

"Don't speak about matters in which you know very little, mammal." Anton said, in a condescending tone. He was actually surprised when a ring of golden scarlet energy had wrapped around his neck and forced him to the ground.

"Fool." Cloak said, his tone frostier than before. "Fool who would be dinosaur king. Do not dismiss me like that. My power far eclipses your own, this is but a fraction of that power, my true power. For a man claiming to be eliminating weaknesses, perhaps you should have started on yourself first."

Dino took this distraction to "accidentally" step on the wave generator and smack it with her tail, full force. She said, rather unconvincingly, "Oopsie."

"It doesn't matter! Dinosaur Day has already come! It's over!" he declared, still looking trussed up. "You lost!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2014, 04:47:09 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
No More Mr. Good Guy

"You lie." Cloak said. His body language clearly showed that he was readying himself for a fight. But Dino wasn't gonna have it.

"No, Cloak!" Dino said, "He's mine."

Cloak looked into Dino's eyes and saw the steely determination and unshakable resolve there. She felt that this was a personal battle. Cloak did not question it. Did not question it with the same certainty that he had that they had stopped D-Day successfully.

It was Dino's show n-- huh? Where'd that music come from?

"God, it is laughable to see 'em forsaking me.
I'm the dino king, you'll treat me with respect!
And I can't wait to see your poor hearts breaking, you see.
So much for politically correct.
Up 'til now I've pulled my punches.
I intend to eat their lunches.
No more Mr. Nice Guy! Not for me!
If you think that I'm light-hearted,
Well, let me by! I just got started!
No more Mr. Nice Guy, no siree!
Domination is what I believe in.
I don't get mad, I get even.
As for the world, well that's tragic.
I'm going to keep this old black magic.
Good behaviour is so much duller.
Time to show my one true color.
Baby, Mr. Nice Guy's history!
Up to no good, I love plottin'!
Yeah, I'm so good when I'm rotten.
No more Mr. Nice Guy, wait and see."

When Dino overcame her momentary shock at this, at Anton's gall, she yelled, "HEY!", but was ignored as Anton continued.

"I'll be that nasty, naughty, petty, spiteful,
Wicked, wayward, way delightful,
Bad guy I was born to be (you so bad, so bad)!"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Dino said, tackling him through a wall. "You don't get a villain song! You're not that important!"

"You want to dance?" Anton snarled, recovering from Dino's tackle. He should have counted himself lucky, not many could survive that. Like, at all. "Well, you abominable mishmash of dinosaurs --"

Dino snorted derisively, "Look who's talking."

"If you wanna dance," Anton said, raised voice now, "then, by all means, LET'S DANCE!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2014, 05:59:08 AM

New chapter. May be a bit on the short side.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Meanwhile, At the Hall of RAF*

"Do you think that they did it?" Abby asked.

"I can't tell. We'd have to go to the city and whatnot to find out." Saffa said. She had her arms folded, and was looking rather thoughtful. "But we cannot because we might become afflicted if they had not."

"What if we morph Tyrannopedes?" Abby shrugged. "They're technically dinosaurs, like Vaxasaurians. Right?"

"But that would be irresponsible." Underseen said. "We don't need to give everyone another three victims to worry about."

"Three?" Saffa said. "Underseen, you're a shapeshifter. You're more than likely immune."

"Yes, 'more than likely'. Not 'certainly' or 'for sure'." Underseen pointed out. "I rather not make assumptions and be wrong."

"Party pooper," Abby teased. Underseen just shrugged it indifferently away.

"It'd just be nice to have, you know, some information of what's going on, you know?" Saffa said, with a sigh. "I feel like a bird in a cage right now."

Within the next twenty or thirty minutes of that statement from Saffa came the forum-wide announcement from Aquilai, up in communications, "I have recently recieved confirmation that D-Day has been successfully avoided. Dino has stomped the wave generator to shrapnel."

"Wonderful," Saffa said, breezily. "Now, to figure out to do with the rest of the afternoon."

"How about I pitch the lastest premise of a RAF TV show to you?" Abby said, smirking sardonically.

"The last six were essentially the same," Underseen said.

"This one's different, I promise!" Abby smiled rather unconvincingly. "You see, depending our budget, we can --"

***

It was true, everywhere that wave had touched was now reverting from its effect. Citywide, people were shrinking back to their rightful species. Even on Sawyer Island, the dinosaurs reverted back into people and animals. Although, clothing does not revert to its normal undamaged state, so there was some embarrassment that, naturally, occurred.

However, there was one person who did not revert. One person in which the changes were permanent. One person who would never be human in anything other than mind again. And it was the person who would be king of them all.

Anton would forever more be a dinosaur mishmash.

---

* Old "Superfriends" refernce.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2014, 06:34:12 AM

New chapter.

I probably should slow down a bit and let everyone catch up . . .

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Clash of the Dinosaurs

Anton returned the favor and charged Dino right back through the other wall. Then he punched her in the face after Dino turned around and bit him as hard as she could on the tail. She eventually let go, and Anton was irate.

"You bit my tail!"

"You punched me in the face!"

"You bit my tail!!"

"You punched me in the face!!"*

The other RAFians, and Shadow, were hesitant to interfere.

"Shouldn't we, I don't know, help her?!" Sam demanded.

But Cloak knew where Dino was coming from. It was from the same.place where he always wanted to face Malice by himself. "No, Sam. Dino would not thank us for it. This a matter of pride for her. A matter of principle."

"Yeah, but --"

"She would not welcome our interference. This battle is hers, and to interefere now would send the message to her that we did not think that she could handle herself in a battle against another dinosaurid." Cloak said, as his eyes darkened a bit before he spoke again. "It might very well undermind her confidence. And confidence is easy to lose, hard to regain."

Fortunately, no one seemed to realize that Cloak was speaking from experience. Cloak was actually thankful secretly for this. He wished that he would stop going back to that point in his life . . . he should be over the fear, the feeling of utter futility . . .

CRASH! BANG! WHAM!

The clash of these two saurian titans was getting more and more vicious. But only the two Realm Walkers seemed to realize something, as the others were too focused on the fight. Perhaps it was the Earthsight.

Cloak watched a tendril of sand fall, leaked from the ceiling, and immediately said, "That can't be good."

---

*DBZA (http://teamfourstar.com) reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 18, 2014, 08:22:45 AM

Yeah, I was out of town, so I was on hiatus for a bit. No worries, Cloak, I'm still alive, and glad of the chapters - although maybe next time I should warn you beforehand :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2014, 02:05:41 PM

Alighty then, Saffa. You never know nowadays what could happen.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Bringing Down the House

Dino.seemed solely focused on Anton, and he her. There wasn't anything more than their battle, than their clash. One would not rest while the other survived.

The other RAFians had other concerns, however. The castle was falling apart, ready to crumble at the smallest provocation. The two dueling dinos did not seem to understand this precarious situation, and was only concerned with emerging victorious. Dino seems to have allowed herself to give in to her baser saurian instincts.

Another tendril of sand fell from the roof. Small granules were now cascading down slowly. If they didn't stop everyone would be crushed under the crumbling ceiling. Only one thing that Cloak could fathom doing right now.

"Shadow, the ceiling!" he shouted, though he could barely make himself heard over the two dueling dinos. He stamped his feet and made a pose as if mocking Atlas, when it was more of a mimicry. Shadow, quick on the uptake, followed suit.

It wasn't easy. Imagine trying to balance a cookie sheet, weighing far more than a cookie sheet should, on both hands. While standing in the dead center of a stampede. Yeah. That easy.

But it was only a temproary measure, at that. There would be no saving of this derelict relic of a far gone age. Its story was forgotten long ago, even by the mouldering stones that even now were eroding into nothingness. There was nothing to be done for it, as pieces of the ceiling began to fall, like sand slipping through a child's hands while they play in their sandboxes.

"Un-- Uncle! I -- I can't --" Shadow groaned. If it wasn't for the battling dinos, it might have proved doable, but they were very distracting. Using the elements usually required a fair bit of concentration.

"I know, Shadow." Cloak said, the moment Dino pushed Anton throuh another wall so it was less a castle and more like Swiss cheese. "Energy shields, everyone!"

With that, the two Realm Walkers let go of the ceiling, and wrapped themselves up in energy bubbles. Parker, Helen, and Sam did the same, with Parker using his rarely-used SPARTAN energy shield and the latter two using their rings.

The ceiling collapsed in on them, burying Anton and the RAFians, except Dino, who only had her snout covered. The other five's shields worked effortlessly. There was no sign of Anton. It was over. He was dead.

"Let's go home," Dino said, tired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 18, 2014, 02:34:25 PM

Reminded me of Atlas holding up the sky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2014, 04:20:43 PM

Yeah, I was going for that. Anyway, here's the last chapter of the book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
JPEGs and Mistakes

It was dusk by the time they returned. Cloak was sure there was a celebration, but he retired to his thread as soon as Shadow returned to her home in the Nexus, a place where Cloak believed that he would never fit in.

Sooon, the Forum winded down, with only the RAFians who did not sleep or.were more comfortable at night came out and about. Only they didn't knos that they were being watched . . .

The first figure in shadow spoke, "Now is the time for all good little RAFians to be safely tucked into their beds."

The second said, "I wouldn't mind being tucked in. I'm exhausted."

"Would you stop complaining?!"

"But Ozzie, I'm tired! And hungry! Couldn't I have an itty bitty green bedtime snapshot?"

"NO! Can't you see I'm trying to wean you off that stuff?!?! From now on, you've got to think, feel, and breathe only one format: JPEGs.

When I wake up firsting I do --
JPEGs --
Is to look around for someone to view.
Exactly!
Feeding myself is very, very tricky,
Because, you see, I'm ridiculously picky!
JPEGs!"

"'Scuse me?"

"This paparazzo won't settle for the dregs.
I'll borrow, I'll beg,
Why, I'll even kiss you -- "

"Kiss me??"

Ozzie's accomplice was thoroughly confused, but Ozzie continued:

"For my dear beloved dose . . .
Of JPEGs."

"I'm so hungry, I can't wait another minute.
Here's a little leaf with a beautiful stick in it.
Can't I have a taste? If I promise just to lick it?"

"Gut!!" Ozzie roared.

"What?!" It was evidently his partner's name.

"You imbecilic eater!
Great green globs couldn't possibly be sweeter
Than a pile of JPEGs!
For a great big scandal,
I am hoping!"

"Oh, look, I'm starving! I'm weak!
There is nothing in my tummy,
The moss on that tree is starting to look yummy."

"The colors and shapes and assorted sizes.
Gobble them all as Pulitzers!
Ecstasy!"

"Ozzie, what's the matter with a little vegetation?"

"I've had it UP TO HERE with this aggravation!"

"Can't I just have this piece of tree?"

"Why can't you be more like me?
You leaf-loving, bush-burping --"

"Now wait a minute!"

"-- Stem-smelling, garden-gorging, plant-popping, tree-tasting, dirt-devouring beast!
You've got to have JPEGs! Thrice a day, at least!"

Suddenly, the rocks they were hidden behind moved to obscure their view. Then stones erupted from the ground so thoroughly enclosing them that they seemed to be inside a Saiyan pod. Then they were tumbling roughly through the ground, still safely enclosed in their "pod". Then they reached their unwanted destination -- the base of the mountain, close by the city, with no idea how to get back up to the forum for their pictures.

Meanwhile, the orchestrator of this unintended trip was revealed when Cloak said, "Usually papparazzi try to be quieter and not call attention themselves.

***

Meanwhile, at the rubble of the castle, Anton's unmoving hand could be seen, with the rest of him still buried underneath the rubble. The hand twitched, first this way, then that. It withdrew into the rubble, and with a dull roar, Anton burst out of the rubble, battered and bruised. He was still his saurian self.

As incredible as his feat of essentially surviving a castle being dropped on him, he collapsed back upon the ground as his cuts bled out. He survived . . . only to die a slow, painful death. . . .

"Amazing," said a voice. "He's still alive."

Anton's eyes blurred, and he could not make out more than a rough silhouette of this newcomer. Whether it was the pain or the blood in his eyes, he couldn't tell. But what did she want with him? He was fairly sure that it was a "she", as her voice sounded effeminate.

"He may prove useful down the road, I must say," she was speaking in an appraising voice, as if Anton was a new coffee table or something. "I will take him."

"Wh-who are you?"

He never got an answer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2014, 05:41:47 PM

New chapter, new book.

BOOK LXX:
CORRUPTION
CHAPTER ONE:
Dream Rhymes and the Meek Veleek

"Why should I believe you?" Cloak growled, starting down someone. "Everything you ever told me was a lie . . ."

"What are you going to do?" came the quivering voice. "You wouldn't kill your own mother?"

Cloak backed up, feeling thoroughly disgruntled. He stared down his ursine mother. Realm Walker genetics are far more unnecessarily complicated than that of Dwellers. "No, Mother. I'm not like you."

Cloak turned his back at his mother, and spoke without so much as turning his head around. "And I never will be."

Cloak thought it would make him feel better, but it just made him feel hollow. It was an empty victory. His mother and he were unable to ever reconcile, and it made Cloak sad, despite all the First Light-forsaken crap that she's put him through.

It took him a while to realize that his environment had suddenly become a paper-white void. That was odd, though it had happened only once before, when Shadow was with him. Suddenly, words in vibrant red and blue appeared before him:

The Son of Cataclysm revives,
None is safe whilst he survives.
His existence which was long denied.
Sired by whom he never complied.
By his touch, what isn't becomes that which is,
Love turns to hate, demons turned to bliss.
Strength comes from numbers, those who relied.
The only cure is when the healing heart applies.

"Oh Veil. Not another one." Cloak said, immediately realizing that this was little more than a dream. He immediately woke up, and laid in his bed, feeling thoroughly disgruntled. He spoke aloud, "You know, for someone who doesn't place stock in prophecies and things, I get an awful lot of them in my dreams."

Then he heard a scuffle outside and a monstrous roar. He recognized the species that roar belonged to. He rushed outside to see a moderately-sized Veleek swooping around Horse, who actually looked somewhat bored and unintimidated. Then again, she had been eaten by the Pootang numerous times, but she was always eaten whole.

It lunged! Horse easily dodged by diving into the lake. The Veleek was leery of the water, as it should be. Horse exploded from the lake, using her hydrokinesis to allow her to perform a Surf-like technique, though it looked like a tsunami. The tsunami grabbed the Veleek, and pulled into the water. It was defeated, as the fish within the water began to snap up the little bugs that made it up.

"Someone mind telling me how in the name of the First Light a VELEEK got in here?" Cloak said.

"Not really," Horse said, nonchalantly continuing to read her book.

Cloak facedpalmed. "Rotiart's turn for security detail?"

"On the nose," the seal said, without looking up from her book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2014, 07:43:40 PM

If you're wondering, it was Malice who sent the Veleek. Yeah. She didn't think it through. And not only do I have new book ideas, but they're part of a new arc, that's currently unnamed.

• Book CCCLXXXVII: "Royal Flush Feud" -- The RAFians must deal with six groups of metahumans who all dress up as playing cards and feud with on another.
• Book CCCLXXXVIII: "Mechaniloids, Mavericks, Roboenza -- Oh, My!" -- The RAfians must deal with the Roboenza virus, then the Maverick virus.
• Book CCCLXXXIX: "The Bane of Faerie" -- The two RAFians must deal with two fairies -- a benevolent prankster and a malevolent sociopath. Much to Faerie's chagrin.
• Book CCCXC: "Azguard Zones Out" -- Delving more into Azgaurd's background.
• Book CCCXCI: "Such A Free Spirit" -- Three known foes merge, fuse, and intergrate permanently to go after a certain ten-year-old child.

New chapter. Bit short.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Son of Cataclysm

Deep within the Nexus, a dangerous Realm Walker was rising. He was waking for the first time in a very long time. His body felt so stiff and rigid, as if he was sleeping on a slab of stone for millenia. He blinked his sleepy, amber eyes as he sat up. He was not restrained, though when one considered just what he was capable of, this was a very poor decision made.

He stretched his short, stocky body with his fingers outstretched. His middle fingers were noticeably thinner and longer than the rest. When he yawned and smacked his lips it sounded almost as if he was saying, "Daubentonia."

He possessed copious amounts of thick hair with a tail almost as long as his body. On his head and back, the ends of the hair were tipped with white while the rest of his body was a brownish-black color. His large ears had a complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of them, giving him heighten hearing.

He lift himself off the bed, if you could call it that, and he stood roughly four and a half feet tall or so. This size made him look rather less dangerous than he was. Because he was quite dangerous for he had a special power. A power no Realm Walker had ever possess before or after him.

And, yet, despite this fact, Cataclysm disowned him. He was embarrassed to have sired such a small child. Cataclysm equated his son's diminutive stature with his own insecurities about himself, as he was a Gigantopithecus and his son was an aye-aye (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayeaye). Such a powerful form to give rise to something that he saw as so insignificant. It was an embarrassment! A scandal! He slayed the boy's mother for daring to allow this humiliation to come to be, ignoring, of course, that she did have anything to do with it. Realm Walker forms aren't chosen, not by the parents nor the Realm Walker in question.

The boy didn't hold his father in any higher regard. His power did not work on him, but worked on everyone else. It never worked on his father, and he never found out why. He never would. But he hated his father as much as Cataclysm despised him. The boy -- well, he's a man now -- desired to prove that he was better than his father, could accomplish more than he could. All despite his size.

But the most shocking thing was how easily he escaped his crumbling, long-forgotten prison. How easily he procured a cloak. How easily he slipped into the Prime Universe.

Corruption was on the loose.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 20, 2014, 02:09:36 AM

Oooh. This should be good. The last Cataclysm book was chilling.

Oh right, PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2014, 07:11:20 AM

Chilling? Oh, this will be a different kind of chilling, Saffa. . . . Maybe.

Anyway, more book ideas! All in the same arc, which won't end until Book CD. That's Book 400, and end of the fourth year, in-continuity, since Book I. Which will probably be another eight or so years from now. ;) Don't get me wrong, I intend to write each and every one, unless I somehow cannot -- and I mean physically cannot.

• Book CCCXCII: "Black Gears of War" -- A man creates black gear implants that he hopes will get around the Mark.
• Book CCCXCIII: "Power of Personifications" -- Someone desires the power of the Personifications. (Yes, I realize that I'm basically giving you nothing here in terms of plot.)
• Book CCCXCIV: "Power Play" -- Young metahumans are being kidnapped by some unknown force which strips them of their powers.
• Book CCCXCV: "R-A-F, Ultimate Charge!" -- Out-of-continuity. The RAFians discover a hidden function of their Marks.

Don't think that I rehashed anything. If I did, I think that I can work around it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Power of Corruption

Corruption strolled down the city boulevard, taking in the sights. He wasn't really very impressed with the constructions and machinations these beings of matter. He, like a lot of Realm Walkers nowadays, believed the Dwellers to be an inferior type of lifeform. But they might still prove fun.

Corruption eyed a vigilant, virtuous police officer by the name of Sergeant James Timothy Justice. He had earn numerous commendations while possessing an unshakable sense of right and wrong, intolerant of injustice, would never abuse his power of authority and wishes to make his city a safer place. This is why he sees the RAFians as a good thing, as he believes them to be better equipped to deal with things like aliens and supernatural stuff, because he know he most certainly is not.

He would be a fine test of Corruption's power, a fine first victim. Corruption waddled right up to the police sergeant, who paid him no mind, assuming that he was a child playing dress up. Corruption found this act of condescension rather irksome. But he would have his fun when all is said and done.

Corruption tapped Sergeant Justice's arm with one of his elongated middle fingers, and the change was rather dramatic and painful. Justice became a photo negative of himself, all colors inversed -- blue into orange, red into green, yellow into purple, white into black, orange into blue, green into red, purple into yellow, black into white -- you get the idea.

It wasn't just his color scheme that was reversed, becuase if that was so Corruption would not be as dangerous as he was. Justice's entire personality was reversed. He lost any sense of right and wrong. He not only tolerated injustice now, but reveled in it. He found himself no longer giving a rodent's posterior about the city, whether it was safe or not. He also jow abused his power of authority maliciously. Worst thing was that Justice wasn't aware of any change in his personality, and he didn't care if there was.

"Still got it," Corruption said. His voice sounded like Maurice from "The Penguins of Madagascar", only with a crack or two due to being ancient. The affliction did not spread like the Hate Plague. No, each individual required a touch by Corruption to feel the effects. No one known was immune, although this was Corruption's first time in an universe.

But Corruption's fun did not end there.

He turned a punk rocker, many have proclaimed as "cool", with a preference for the color red and spicy food into a classical musician with a predilection for the color green and bland-tasting food.

He turned notoriously xenophobic "Sir" Fred Knight, who was openly a Knight of Humanity and never hid his face when in armor, into a ridiculously xenophilic, tolerant man. Knight was by no means less annoying, but he went from deep-seated bigotry to deep-seated pan-species love.

He turned a self-proclaimed Southern belle (despite not being from or even having ever lived in the South) whose vanity was legendary and preference to blue things and dry-tasting food into a modest, humble woman with predilection for orange things and soggy food.

He turned a politician, Perry Richards, into a selfless, honest, and sincere person. Which pretty much would ruin his career in politics.* Especially when in a country that is easily swayed by hackneyed platitudes and redundant rhetoric, where the other politicians only care about being reelected and making campaign promises that they never intended to keep.** Amazing how a country continually seems to get off at being lied to, as proof that Fox News is still a thing.

He turned an excruciatingly cutesy, saccharine pop star with a fondness for pink and sweet things into a grungy, dirty heavy metalist with a fondness for brown things and . . . and inappropriate things to show on television.

He turned a Fox News reporter into someone with integrity, free of bias, and competent.*** She easily lost her job because of this sudden reversal of ethics, and because her employers refused to acknowledge that something was wrong with her since she was very clearly a photo negative of herself.

He turned a very well-respected scientist (who prefers green things and bitter-tasting food) who was well-known for excruciatingly-thorough fact-checking (usually citing no less than five credible sources), exceedingly rational thought, and being very soft-spoken and gentle into someone who easily jumps to conclusions, has exceedingly emotional rants, and being very lough and rough that prefers red things.

He turned a very studious, industrious, tidy child into a very lazy, slothful, slovenly boy. The sudden change would have been jarring for his parents, if he didn't resemble a photo negative of himself.

His most recent victim, a tough-talking professional wrestler with a fondness for yellow and sour food, was turned into a weak-sounding, fearful pansy with a fondness of purple things and sweets.

And Corruption wasn't done with his great fun. . . .

---

*At least, in my country.

**This is my criticism for all politicians. Democrats and Republicans included. Sorry that I got a little political here, although, when one considers the Council, it should be obvious that I don't trust politicians, regardless of what party they're in.

*** Yes, yes, I know. Yet another dig at Fox News.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 20, 2014, 08:31:14 AM

I've seen Fox News once. Truly idiotic reporting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2014, 03:30:49 PM

Oh, too right, Saffa. Though I think calling it 'reporting' is a stretch since I believe they make up most of their numbers and statisitcs. I detest them with a passion, like many other Americans.

Oh, yeah, I have some more books for the arc, which I'm calling the Ultimate Enemy arc. Why? You'll see soon enough.  I think that this is only the second arc in the series, though feel free to correct me on this.

• Book CCCXCVI: "Orichalcos Seeds" -- Seven children are implanted with seeds that siphon all the light away from their being.
• Book CCCXCVII: "Born From the Orichalcos" -- The true purpose of the Orichalcos seeds are revealed.
• Book CCCXCVIII: "The Haunted Masks We Wear" -- The RAFians face the Super Oni masks.

Don't think I rehashed anything. New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Reports of Odd Behavior

"I just don't know what we're going to do with you, Rotiart!" Richard said. Rotiart was getting his butt reamed for being so lax in security. "What if someone had been hurt?"

"No one was," Rotiart said, attempting to sound aloof and indifferent. But it just came out as whiny and petulant. "Nothing happened."

He turned to look at the other RAFians assembled. "Right?"

Saffa was apoplectic in outrage and Sakki was not too far behind her. After what he just did, he was actually expecting -- no, commanding! -- them to cover him for his blunder?! Seriously?! He was that stupidly arrogant, that stubbornly naive, that remarkably childish to expect the very people whose lives he potentially put in peril to cover for him?

Cloak was leaning on the wall, arms crossed, head bowed. He didn't even react to this. He had expected it. Rotiart was many things -- a rat, a weasel, a dunce, a dunderhead, a coward -- but one thing he wasn't was good at inspiring faith and loyalty.

Truly, it was a wonder that he wasn't Banned and banished to the wasteland that was the Bannedlands. Rotiart didn't really seem to be helping his cause, either. His childish naivete leading him to believe that they would never Ban him, despite how much of a jerk and a prick he could be.

Cloak could easily recognize it simply because he used to have the very same naivete. For years, he thought his mother would never thow him out, considering everything he did. He did a bulk (if not all) the cooking, a bulk (if not all) the cleaning, all of the yardwork (which he hated with a passion), with never a sincere word of thanks. Granted, he was technically jobless, but it wasn't like he wasn't pulling his weight. Cloak supposed he probably could have done more, but it wasn't an ideal situation.

"Rotiart," Richard was saying, Cloak had tuned out most of Rotiart's reprimand before this point. "Rotiart, if you don't start to take responsibility fornyour actions, you'll leave us with only one recourse. So, you need to shape up and -- what is it, Cerulean?"

"Reports odd behavior in the city," he said.

"That's hardly in our jurisdiction," Sakki countered.

"There is something more," Cerulean said, passing around the pictures.

When it came to Cloak, he promptly dropped them. He was ashen faced and looked pale. His stomach dropped and the space between had filled rather rapidly with terror. Cloak did not want to believe it.

"This can't be true. . . ." he said, voice small and aghast. "H-He can't be awake. This has to be fabricated. . . ."

"Cloak," Saffa said, concerned by Cloak's strong reaction to the pictures, "what's wrong?"

Rotiart smirked smugly-- he thought that he was off the hook. And, he essentially was, for the time being.

"Cloak?" Saffa prompted again.

"The son of Cataclysm," Cloak said. Looking at each RAFian assembled, he intoned hosrsely, "Corruption."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 20, 2014, 05:55:47 PM

Haaaww, imagine if Rotiart was turned. Although that would provide for some interesting moral conflict.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2014, 03:35:26 PM

Now, the last two books of the Ultimate Enemy arc. Tell me what you think of the arc thus far.

• Book CCCXCIX: "In Essence Denied" -- The RAFians must procure the lingering essences of the seven demons that Shenecron released.
• Book CD: "The Ultimate Enemy" -- The RAFians face an old enemy who is virtually unrecognizable with powers that overwhelm all of them. Even Cloak and Esty.

And, after that last book, we'll move into year five -- that is to say, five years since the start of Book 1.

Sorry, no new chapters yet. Not quite feeling up to it yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 21, 2014, 05:39:08 PM

Ooh, I like it, it seems like a recalling of all the bigger, recurring foes of the RAFians.

Five years!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2014, 05:49:33 PM

No, five years in the narrative. In real time, it'll probably be ten years from now. And Book CD, as it stands right now will bring back only one foe, but more dangerous than ever.

New chapter. It may get a bit PG-13, but it shouldn't be so bad.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Myth of Corruption

"'Corruption'?" Saffa echoed. "This can't be good."

"It isn't. Maybe it is. I don't know!" Cloak said. He had rarely ever achieved such a level of anxiety and uncertainty and apprehension nowadays. To see him at that level now, it was quite jarring. "But it can't be true. What they say. It can't be. It's too much power for one being to wield."

"Pardon me, Cloak? But just what can't be true?" Cerulean said, head ****ed a little to the side, arms folded, looking at him as if Cloak was a statue in a museum.

"Yeah," Sakki piped in, "not for nothing, but we'd all like to be filled in."

"Oh, right. Exposition." Cloak said, returning to his own sane manner once more. "Well, Corruption is . . . was Cataclysm's son."

"I think we got that," Richard replied with a dry, droll smile.

"He was Cataclysm's only son." Cloak elaborated. Then he corrected himself, "Well, he was the only son that was known publicly. There might be more children of Cataclysm, presumably the ancestor of Malice, if the persisting rumors are correct."

"Wait -- Realm Walkers have illegitimate children?" Saffa asked.

Cloak gave her a bemused, confused look. "You didn't honestly think that humans and other Dwellers held a monopoly on adultery, did you? Some things are universal -- er, some things are not bound by species and realm. But, yes, it is rumored that he sired a number of children. Some scholars think that he was ignorant of their existance, though I personally think that's about as likely as Glen Quagmire not saying 'giggity'." Cloak shook his and, then continued. "In any case, it's beside the point. Corruption exists, and is known to have existed. But everything else that he's rumored to do . . . it just can't be true. . . . And yet, those . . . those pictures . . ."

"They're photo negatives, so?" Sakki said, with a shrug.

"Are they?" Cloak countered. "I lay not know a thing about Dweller cameras, but enlighten me. Do your photo negatives only show the negative of people but not environment and landscaping?"

Silence.

"How did I not notice that?" Sakki said.

"What's the big deal? So he just inverses color schemes. That's hardly a threat." Saffa shrugged.

"There's much more to it," Cloak said. "Corruption's touch --"

"Lemme guess," Sakki interjected, "it corrupts you?"

"That is only putting it into its mildest of terms," Cloak countered gracefully. "It changes you. It completely reverses your personality. Even the most petty and banal things. You hate broccoli with a passion? One touch from Corruption, and you'll love broccoli with equal passion."

"That's . . ." Cerulean began, unable to find the right words to articulate what he felt about it.

"It is one reason that he was locked up so long ago. No one nowadays knows -- knew -- where. In many aspects, he was and is a greater threat than Cataclysm."

"You flatter me with the overdue recognition," came a husky voice.

"Corruption!"

"But he's so cute." Gaz said, having come and heard Cloak's explanation with Parker and Underseen. This was not a good thing to say. Corruption didn't want to be known for being cute and cuddly. He wanted to be feared and reviled.

"ROTIART!" Cloak roared. Corruption should not have been able to come here.

"I didn't do nothing!" he protested.

"Precisely!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2014, 08:33:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Touchy, Touchy

"Precisely, Rotiart!" Cloak snarled. "You didn't turn Code Avalon back on after you turned it off, you irresponsible, bratty little twit!"

"Don't mind me, really," Corruption said, in a convincingly demurred way. He dropped down from the tree in which he had eavesdropped. "I just wanted to reach out and touch some people."

He reached out unexpectly and touched Parker. The Mark did nothing to protect him from the touch. Parker's color scheme inverted and he became an insecure, timid, overemotional crybaby. He also quickly stripped out of his armor which he now absolutely despised, inadvertently revealling that this inversing corruption was more than just cosmetically deep. Parker also now hated Helen as passionately as he used to love her. And he was now evil.

"No!" Cloak shouted. He had half-expected the Mark to block it. But, then again, it didn't stop the Hate Plague.

Helen was the next victim. Her Star Sapphire powers stoped working abruptly, as she no longer was the loving, doting person she used to be. The love was synthesized into hatred and the doting nature became a callous one. She now hated Parker with equal passion as he hated her. Oh, and she was evil now, too.

Cloak was stunned. He never imagined this coming to pass. Rotiart ran away, leaving the RAFians to their fate, but Cloak was only dimly aware of this. He had no idea how to stop this. He had no answers. None.

Underseen was next. The tactful, affable, respectful Underseen became disrespectful, mean, and tactless. He was evil now, as well. Not a good quality to have in a shapeshifter.

"Corruption -- please." Cloak begged. He was reduced to begging because there was no cure for this. Other than, possibly, Corruption touching them again.

Richard was just as stupidified as Cloak was. He was intended to be Corruptions next victim, but the touch wouldn't work on him. Cloak didn't know why, but Corruption didn't seem to.care all that much as he turned Saffa into an evil but timid and cowardly supervillainess, Cerulean into a rude, obnoxious prick, and Sakki into a vapid, shallow valley girl.

Cloak stood rooted to the spot, yet to process one thing. Corruption was a Realm Walker, just he himself was. Corruption's powers would affect him as it would the others. Cloak had foolishly allowed himself to be complacent, permitted himself to let his guard down!

He was the next victim.

Cloak's cloak was bleached white, rather like Marth's alternate costume in SSBB. He revered his grandfather and loved his sister Faith and her daughter, but under the effects of the touch he hated them all with equal passion that he had cared for them before. He was afraid to use his powers at their full potential for fear of losing control, but now he not only ised them but he reveled in it, with no fear of losing control. He used have doubts and question himself endlessly, under the effects of the touch he had no such compunctions, and became impulsive and arrogant.

This can't be good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 22, 2014, 01:44:47 AM

OMG PLOT TWIST!!! :wow:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2014, 06:53:48 PM

Huh. I never thought that that would be considered a plot twist.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Untouchables

It was not a good place to be, just then.

A powerful, swirling cyclone sphere encapsulated Cloak as he grinned in a disturbingly megalomaniacal way. Soon this cyclone was joined by a narrow loop of water and fire as metal, wood, and earth shrapnel swirled in their own orbits. Six narrow streams of energy streamed from the corners of his eyes. Cloak had never demonstrated this amount of power. Never. Because he always feared losing control over both himself and his emotions, even going to the length of subconsciously putting mental blocks in his mind to restrict his powers. But here . . . here he was given free rein.

And it was frightening. Truly terrifying.

"Aw, look at that," Corruption said, with only mild interest. He didn't feel intimidated at all, but the guy didn't have the best of common sense. "The boy can finally have his fun."

Corruption used Cloak's reveling in his own power (power of which that the touch had essentially unlocked, by tearing down these mental blocks) to his own advantage. He touched Richard once more. Nothing happened. Corruption tried again, and nothing happened. Corruption tried futilely a fourth time, before giving it up as a bad job. Richard was immune, he was untouchable.

Undeterred and undaunted, Corruption found and touched AniDragon. Again, it failed. But it worked on Broken, Gaz, Ash, and Abby, so Corruption wasn't worried. He could still have his fun, and he was enjoying himself as much as General Iroh with Pai Sho.

He touched Kelly. It didn't work, she was an untouchable as well. But there was something about this Dweller. Something that felt off to Corruption, but he could not imagine what. After all, he was a Realm Walker! What threat could a simple, backwards Realm Dweller provide? No, he was getting paranoid. That was his father's problem, Corruption believed, he was always so Veiled paranoid. This Dweller meant the same as every other: nothing.

He moved on to Shenmue, Sorunome, Genies, Asmo, Demos, Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin. All were touched, all were inversed. This allowed Corruption to ignore his lingering doubts about that one Dweller. He should have considered the danger Richard and AniDragon could present as well, but, in typical Realm Walker arrogance, he did not.

Instead, he just touched Horse, turning her into a cowardly seal with black fur and pink eyes and a death wish to be eaten by the Pootang, whose trapdoor Corruption was starting to make a beeline for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2014, 08:32:11 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Going Underground

Corruption had entered the Pootang's "paddock", touching any RAFians he came across, the untouchable RAFians were forced to flee, made more difficult by Cloak elemental tempest. All three fled and ran to an undisclosed location. It was a catacombs, where strange crystals jutted out every which way at random intervals. The crystals were not all the same, either. They were different in size, shape, clarity, and color (only ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue, yellow, gold, silver, bpack and white varieties could be seen).

"What is this place?" Kelly asked.

"A site that I originally considered to host the forum ten years, or so, ago," Richard said.

"Why didn't you?" AniDragon asked.

"It was darker and more dank then. And the crystals weren't bioluminescent." Richard answered. "And, now, it's just not big enough."

It was true. Just putting twenty people in there would have been pushing it.

"You considered it as a back up bunker," Kelly said knowingly.

"Yes," Richard answered. "But then Cloak dug us out that other one, the one we used when Abomin -- Ab, nearly beat Cloak to death, and I forgot about this one until just now."

"That's convenient," AniDragon sighed, plopping down upon a flat, boxy crystal, just lying on the floor.

"If you've an idea for another sanctuary --"

"No! No, this one's fine. It's perfectly fine."

"I think we should address the elephant in the room," Kelly said.

"Hello, Elephant-in-the-Room!" AniDragon said.

"Funny." Richards said, though tone indicated he thought it was anything but funny. He also showed that he felt some guilt for leaving the untouched RAFians there to get touched. That he had, for all intents and purposes, abandoned them, something he has never done before. "Kelly's right. We need to grasp just what happened."

Richard's face darkened, and it was clear to see the burden of leadership upon it. The mask that shielded the others from this pressure and stress that he faced had come off. "Grasp it, and grasp why I just abandoned everyone."

"Richard," Kelly said, gently, "you mustn't blame yourself. You couldn't do anything. We have never had a foe like this before, we didn't know what else to do but regroup."

Richard said nothing. It was clear that he was taking this hard. He had reafted without thinking, and, as a result, the other RAFians were more than likely being touched. Richard was still furious with himself. But, alas, that's the price of leadership, you don't always make decisions that you think that you can live with.

"Kelly's right, Richard." AniDragon said, voice soft and consoling. "Realistically, what could we.do to stop Corruption?"

It was no so easy to forgive oneself for perceived cowardice, especially when that person is not by any means a coward. Some people cannot forgive themselves for mistakes made, but time would make it easier.

"Seriously, though." AniDragon said. "There has to be something we can do. We're not beaten yet."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 23, 2014, 03:11:39 AM

This is giving me the feels.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2014, 02:46:38 PM

You make it sound like an illness. ;) ;P Anyway, this book is turning out to be darker than I thought it would be when I planned it out all that time ago.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
What to Do?

"Eat me!" the inverse-personality Horse was saying, ignoring the fact that there was a heavily-reinforced cage between her and Pootang. Hence why there weren't any escapes as of yet. "I know you want to! Eat me!"

It was something that Horse would never do. So, naturally, when her peraonality reversed, it would be something that she always does. And the Pootang was yearning to acquiesce, but unable to. The box that held the remains of Bucky remained undisturbed and forgotten, though the RAFians were confident that he was still in there.

Corruption was also standing at the cage. He found this all highly entertaining and amusing. He had come across a few beings who begged predators to eat them while under the influence of his touch. He always enjoyed seeing the people under the influence of his touch acting so out-of-character, doing things that they would never do. It's always one ofnthings that you could tell, as a very inhibited personality would lose all inhibitions under his touch.

He reached out a hand, and touched the Pootang's outstretched paw.

Yellow became purple, brown stripes and tail base became pink, checks and glowing eyes became green, and its ear tips became chalk white. The Pootang, a beast with little emotion and restraint, became burdened with emotions and restraint as well as becoming timidly fearful, and skittish.

"Eat me!"

The Pootang pulled away from the cage door and huddled against the back side of its cage, trembling. It was terrified of Horse, when it usually had no fear of her.

"Hey! Get back here and eat me!"

Corruption laughed heartily before leaving.

"It's not funny!" Horse snarled only after he left, before addressing the Pootang again. "EAT ME!"

***

"I suppose that I could bind his powers," AniDragon speculated.

"That won't work," Richard pointed out. "Corruption is a Realm Walker. Try that and you'll lose a hand, one way or the other."

"Oh, right. Forgot that."

"We'd have better luck trying to trick him into touching them again," Richard said, pensively.

"He's Cataclysm's son," Kelly pointed out. "And Cataclysm was ancient, even by Realm Walker standards. Chances are that someone tried that in the intervening years, so he might be very well on the look out for it. Expecting it."

"Any other ideas?" Richard asked, trying not to give into despair. It was hard.

"Unity Pulse?" Kelly shrugged.

"With just the three of us?" Richard asked, skeptically.

"Worked on the Hate Plague," AniDragon put in.

Richard said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 23, 2014, 04:06:07 PM

So he finds this funny.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2014, 09:07:17 PM

Remember, his dad was Cataclysm. He had to inherit some things from him.

Well, looks like Book CD will be the final "Memoirs" book of the ser-- oh, man. Couldn't even do that with a straight face. Naw, there will be more books. Like these two:

• Book CDI: "Tra-La-La-La" -- The RAFians must deal with the wandering spirit of the High Priestess of Opar.
• Book CDII: "Shadow Swarm" -- The RAFians face a new foe named Shadow Swarm. (No affliation with Shadow.)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Compromised By Limits

Corruption looked at his work, at the chaos it brought. All RAFians at this point where touched who could be touched. Corruption was satisfied. His thirst for entertainment satiated for the moment. Had Corruption been a man of good sense and wisedom, he would have known better than to decide to rest on his laurels at this moment, when there was still a chance for all his works to come undone.

But, like his father, Corruption was a proud, pretentious, and ostentatiously arrogant man with a demurred veneer. He thought no man, be he Dweller or Walker, was his equal. He believed his special touch was irreversible and permanent. He believed that now he truly stood out from his father as being more evil, more cunning, and just all-around better than his father.

He never knew his mother however. He never knew the circumstances which lead to her not being in his life, nor did he even know here name, chosen or given. Corruption found that he really didn't care. The guy had never known the love of a mother or a significant other. But why should he? He's seen over and over again how easily love is refined into pure hatred like flames to petroleum oil. And that's even without his special touch. How powerful could such a stupid and meaningless feeling be?

Pointless. Only for the fools who are slaves to emotions and hormones. he thought venomously.

Meanwhile, Cloak had desided to test the limits of his power. The air vibrated and rushed as if before a major storm. The metal in the vicinity twisted and warped, as did the wood. The water of the lake ebbed and flowed violently. The fire around Cloak was getting hotter. And, all the while, the earth itself trembled, as if it, itself, was growning fearful of the newly deranged Realm Walker's unrestrained might. It is the precise reason for the mental blocks Cloak had put in his mind. This was his worst fear, and, in his present condition, he was none the wiser.

The trembling earth was felt miles away, in the sanctuary of the three, in those crystal catacombs. The three had only one notion of what was happening.

"They found us!" AniDragon shouted.

"But how!" Kelly said, shrieking when a nearby sapphire blue crystal shattered violently.

"Cloak has Earthsight." Richard said, taking quick assessment of the situation. "He probably 'saw' us through that."

"He wouldn't kill us," AniRragon said. Then she added, unsure, "Right?"

"Normally, I'd say no," Richard said, taking command. "But with his personality completely inversed, I'd have to say that's it is a very real possibility."

The rumbling intensified, as an emerald green crystal shattered explosively, one shards missing Kelly's arm by mere millimeters. It was obvious what their next move was.

"We have to get out of here." Richard said. "If we don't the cave will collapse right on top of us, either trapping us or killing us outright. Let's go. Now."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 24, 2014, 02:35:02 AM

Riveting stuff. I can visualize it in my head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2014, 04:48:50 PM

Thanks. The next chapter may not come out until later, though. Exhausting day at work, as well as a headache I had. But, apparently, there is good news to come from work tomorrow.

:edit: New books ideas.

• Book CDIII: "Barbie Dall" -- The RAFians must deal with an actress who has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality.
• Book CDIV: "Hostile Takeover" -- An organization that was on bad terms with RAF is taken over by undercover anarchists called "Red Dove".
• Book CDV: "Playing God -- Again" -- The RAFians must face genetically-modified super soldiers.
• Book CDVI: "Men of the Elements" -- The RAFians must deal with more super soliders, but, this time, of a slightly different class.
• Book CDVII: "Tempting the Parasite" -- The Red Dove attempt to tempt a former RAFian to joining their ranks.
• Book CDVIII: "Dial-a-Mate" -- The Pantrix user makes one for his girlfriend.
• Book CDIX: "Babbling Ghouls" -- The RAFians must deal with a minor outbreak of Babbling Ghouls.
• Book CDX: "Power Lust" -- The RAFians must deal with a Darkness Bug.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Course of Action

"Our best option is to find a RAFian that has been touched, but one that's easier to manage." Richard said. "Cloak is out of the question, Esty more than likely hasn't been touched, considering she's probably dealing with Fred somewhere."

"Horse is out, too. She's probably at Pootang's cage, begging to be eaten, as sick as that sounds." Kelly pointed out. "I honestly don't see how we're going to be able to get a RAFian alone to test this. They all have abilities to either prevent capture or are simply apesh-- er, simply have lost their minds."

"We have to try something," AniDragon persisted. "If we don't than nothing will change."

Just then, an inverse Helen stampeded across their path in a way reminiscent of Chi-Chi from DBZA. And Sam came barging in her way from the other direction. The three blinked at this circumstance.

"Well, we were bound to get lucky at some point," Richard shrugged. Since Helen felt no love anymore, it made her Star Sapphire ring useless. She was essentially powerless in her current state, just like Sam's ring is useless as well, since he now had the inverse of great will.

Kelly looked at AniDragon. "Hate Plague?"

"Hate Plague." AniDragon replied in confirmation, as she placed her hand on Kelly's shoulder. Then she activated her power-boosting ability, which never really affects people in precisely the same way twice.

Kelly outstretched her hands and white concentric circles issued from her hand towards the two inverse RAFians. The two had no idea if this would even work but it was worth a try, as it was the only real solution that they had going for them at the moment. The two inversed RAFians did not have time to react to it in any negative way. The concentric circles reached them and, at first, seemed to do nothing.

"Pour it on!" AniDragon advised.

Kelly acquiesced and this time more of a different was seen. The two slowly, very slowly at first, regained their normal color schemes. The two were slowly being cured of the touch, and Corruption was none the wiser.

Within moments, it was done, and the two's rings bursted into life agin with their respective colors. They were cured, for the moment. It was unknown if they were now rendered immune to the touch or could very well be touched again. But you must be thankful for your victories, however small they may seem at the time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2014, 09:13:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Undoing What's Been Done

"Wh . . . what happened? I feel like I've been clapped by a To'kustar," Helen said, woozily. It was odd. The touch hadn't made them forget their previous lives, just made them disdainful of it.

"Or smacked by a wampa," Sam said, just as woozily. "Wait . . . oh man."

He wore a look of guilt upon his face, signifying that he remembered everything that he had done. It was exceedingly out of character for him. And Helen too remembered, and she looked crushed.

"How . . . how could I have hated him so much?" she said, more to herself than anyone else. "How could I have forgotten the power of love? The Star Sapphire oath?"

"Don't be so hard on yourselves," Richard said, gently. "You weren't thinking clearly."

The two, looking rather put out and on the precipice of tears, glanced at each other, than at the three before them. Sam said, in a holow sort of voice, "Yes, we were."

"We just didn't care." Helen looked downward, as if ashamed with herself.

"You were not accountable, though, you were under the influence of Corruption's touch." Kelly said, as Cloak's power semed to ebb. He must have began to either get bored or tire.

"It doesn't work that way," Sam said, guilt welling up inside, threatening to overwhelm him. He must have done things he thought were absolutely revolting now that he was back to normal.

"We can't make excuses for the behavior we exhibited, touched or not! I almost killed a guy with my own hands!" Helen said, in a heartfelt lament. "I only stopped from acting on it because I was distracted by someone else and then got put right by you two. And I knew what I was doing the whole time."

"You're being too hard on yourselves," Richard said. "I will concede there is a gray area here, but the fact of the matter remains, if you were not under the influence of Corruption's touch, you would have never acted in such a way. This Corruption's fault, not yours."

Helen didn't look convinced. But they took the two to a new sanctuary, while Richard, Kelly, and AniDragon continued to undo what Corruption had wrought.

***

Corruption had left the forum after touching the Pootang. He smirked and smiled broadly as he strolled beneath the reddening sky, seeing the chaos and mayhem that his touch brought to everyone.

He was unaware that all this chaos had an unforeseen implication that the RAFians would be forced to face down the line.

Anyway, Corruption decided to say at one of the more posh hotel in the city, elated at the utter turmoil and unrest of the city. He could watch it from the room he now occupied for an undetermined length of time.

***

They were proving the be highly successful with this strategy. They managed to get 79.97% of the city's populace saved, as well as a fair few of the RAFians including Gaz, Dino, Guy, Underseen, Faerie, and -- to Helen's delight -- Parker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2014, 02:55:47 AM

Oh, Estelore wasn't there? That's a good thing... right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2014, 12:52:22 PM

Yes, Saffa. Yes, it is.

Anyway, I have a mini-arc of sorts, a three-parter.

• Book CDXI: "Immortal Items" -- With the return of the Seven Demons, Blaze must remake the ancient Immortal's Items.
• Book CDXII: "The Search" -- The RAFians search for a RAFian believed to be dead.
• Book CDXIII: "They're BAAAAAACK!!" -- The Seven Demons (and Shenecron) return, stronger than ever, with altered appearances.

Don't think that I rehashed anything. Saffa?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2014, 01:06:06 PM

A RAFian believed to be dead O_O

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2014, 05:23:48 PM

That's right, and it's probably not who you're expecting.

New chapter. Bit short.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Under the Radar

The three continued their work, returning people back to normal. They worked systematically, methodically. Only stopping so AniDragon and Kelly could rest for a moment or two, like right after they fully freed the city's populace from Corruption's heinous influence.

Richard looked concerned and gravely as he said, "You know, sooner or later, Corruption's gonna realize what we're doing."

"We're aware, Richard," AniDragon said, looking rather put out.

"So we best save as many people as we can before he realizes, then." Kelly said, getting to her feet. It was obvious that this whole curing blitz that they've been on was beginning to take its toll on her.

"There is one thing that we are overlooking," Richard noted, "we don't know the permanency of this. We will eventually have to take on Corruption and prevent him from doing this again."

"We would Cloak to accomplish that, though," AniDragon said. "Corruption's too powerful to be allowed to keep doing this. He needs to go down."

Richard nodded heavily, "That's right, a Realm Walker can only be killed by another Realm Walker."

Kelly frowned. "Is there any way to capture him? Must we resort to killing?"

"There isn't anyway around it," Richard said. "He clearly won't stop. AniDragon cannot bind his powers. Anyone he touches becomes inverted. He's too dangerous."

This did not sit well with Kelly, and she knew that it wouldn't sit well with Cloaky. He still had his qualms about killing Cataclysm. But the conversation ended, and they restored Hunter, Phoenix, Super Nate, Esplin, Dameg, Noelle, Saffa, Goom, Broken, Adh, and Aquilai.

They hesitated befoee restoring Rotiart, but he was more dangerous in his current state. He was better off, for the sake of the RAFians and the world as a craven coward. That is saying something.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2014, 06:06:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
What's This?

"That's everyone," AniDragon said.

"All but the one." Kelly corrected. Then she bit her lip worryingly, fretting. "And he'll be the hardest of them all. We might not even be able to get within range."

"We'll get it." Richard said. "Look on the bright side, the elements have simmered down since before."

"Still doesn't make it feel any less ominous." AniDragon said.

***

Corruption yawned, stretched. He was still wearing his cloak, of course, having slept in it. The room was dark, as the thick drapes were drawn shut. Corruption walked over to the drapes, expecting to see red sky and darkness and chaos.

He yanked them open, and turned away with a hiss. He did not expect, like, or appreciate the bright light that issued forth. Shielding his sensitive eyes, he looked out upon the city, upon his great work and was greatly dismayed with what he saw.

He spoke out in song:

"What's this? What's this?
There's color everywhere!
What's this?!
There's bright things in the air!
What's this?!
I can't believe my eyes!
I must be dreaming!
Wake up, man, this isn't fair!
What's this?!
What's this?! What's this?!
There's something very wrong!!
What's this?!
There's people singing songs!
What's this?!
The streets are lined with
Perverse creatures laughing!
Everybody seems so happy!
Have I possibly gone daffy?!
What is this?!
What's this?!
There's children throwing softballs,
Instead of ripping things to shreds!!
They're busy building toys,
And absolutely no one's dead!!
There's absolutely no one coming to blows!!
Oh, I can't believe my eyes!!
And, in my bones, I detest warmth
That's coming from outside.
Oh, look.
What's this?!
They're hanging out, so they're admiss.
Why, that looks so bland, uninspired!!
They're gathering around to hear a story,
Roasting marshmallows on an open fire!
What's this?!
What's this?!
In here, they all are so pleasant -- oh, how I sneer!
And who would ever think,
And why?!
Oh my, what now?
The children are asleep.
And, look, there's nothing underneath!
No convict, no witches here to scream and scare them,
Or ensnare them, only horridly cozy things!
Secure inside their dreamland!
What's this?!
The monsters are all missing!
And the nightmares can't be found!
And in their place there seems to be
Good feeling all around?
Instead of screams, I swear
I can hear music in the air.
The smell of cakes and pies
Are absolutely everywhere.
The sights, the sounds,
They're eveywhere and all around.
I've never felt so miserable before.
What happened to this place that I have found?
What is this?!"

This song had carried upon the wind. The three RAFians heard it.

"Someone's not happy," AniDragon said, not really making out the words of the song.

"Corruption no doubt," Richard said. "We've got to pick up the pace."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2014, 08:56:02 PM

"Look at all these happy people. Don't you want to just kill them all?" ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2014, 04:02:00 PM

Corruption isn't doing the killing. He would not sully his hands with the blood of others. He gets others to do it for him.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
What Are They Doing Here?

"Where is he?" Kelly said. "He shouldn't be this hard to track, considering that he doesn't stick to the shadows anymore."

"Cloak pulled a Batman? Huh. I actually never noticed." AniDragon said.

"Corruption is on to us," Richard reminded them. "We don't know the permanency of the reversion. It could very well happen again."

"We know, we know," AniDragon said, "you don't need to remind us again."

"Well, I just -- what is this?" Richard began, changing tact midsentence.

It was Cloak on his knees, with two figures standing above him, one in a pretty mauve cloak and the other in a stately emerald green one. Cloak had four whips energy around him in a quadruple helix pattern. Cloak was flickering between his normal and inverted forms.

AniDragon raised an eyebrow at this, confused. "What are they doing exactly?"

"I . . . I do not know." Richard said, just as perplexed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Kelly asked. "They're healing him! Or trying to, anyway."

"How can you be sure?" Richard asked.

"Why would his sister or Shadow be trying to hurt him? You hear how highly he speaks of them!" Kelly said, surprised that they didn't recognize them, but, to be fair, they were wearing brand-new cloaks. "I don't think they will spurn a little help."

"It could be dangerous though," Richard pointed out cautiously.

"Richard, I told you. They're his --" Kelly began.

"No, no, no. Not that." Richard said, clarifying his position. "Mixing energies."

"You make it sound so dirty." AniDragon teased.

"Your mistaking energy for magic, Richard." Kelly said, thoughtfully. "I could be mistaken, but I believe that magic is more unpredicable, more volatile, than 'straight-up' energy."

"Still . . ." Richard said, face lined with concern.

AniDragon shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"We don't know that," Richard said quietly.

"Are you done?" Faith asked, her vulpine hearing sharper than her daughter's. Shadow could have Earthsighted them, but her mind was occupied elsewhere. "Because we actually would appreciate a hand!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 26, 2014, 04:06:12 PM

Hello, what's with the change of cloaks?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2014, 04:35:58 PM

It's formal wear, kind of like church clothes, so to speak. I wear just the usual black cloak, which is like everyday wear.

:edit: Well, a couple more book ideas . . . lemme know what you think.

• Book CDXIV: "Prelates to the Core" -- In a possible, dystopian future, a tyrant has taken over, turning all those who resist him into "cores" in which he can turn them into chaos-prelates. Out-of-continuity.
• Book CDXV: "Brainiac's Touch" -- Brainiac returns in a body with a roboticizing touch.
• Book CDXVI: "Gone All to Pieces" -- When hit by the Shatterstone, Richard is fractured into seven pieces. Out-of-continuity.

Yeah, I know that Book CDXV seems to be a rehash of the current one, but it won't be. . . . I think.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Confrontations

"On it!" The two RAFian girls said at once, and fell into the old habit of amplified healing that they used to purge the inverted curse from the others. Combined with Faith and Shadow's technique, Cloak was quickly purged of the cursed.

Cloak blinked blearily. Then he remembered. Then he felt tremendous guilt for his actions, for even thinking to hate his sister and her daughter when, yet again, they save him from doing something that he would regret. As easily as the mental blocks were torn down, they were erected even quicker, even thicker. He had so much destructive potential within himself . . .

He felt weak, and hollow inside. He remained on his knees, hands on said knees, and head bowed. The feelings of shame and guilt were nearly overwhelming, but pressed at him like Stlas's burden.

"So, if I might ask," AniDragon said, addressing the female Realm Walkers, "what's with the new cloaks?"

"Hmmm?" Faith asked, looking at AniDragon. "Oh, we just came back from --" she said a word that sounded like a vulpine yip to the Dwellers.

"Pardon?" Kelly asked.

"It's a service like you have at what call 'church'." Cloak said, though there was the subtlest traces of melancholy remaining in his voice. The three RAFians said nothing about it, but Faith picked up on it just as easily as they did.

"Baby brother," Faith said, in a gentle but bracing way. She was nearly a decade (Nexus time) Cloak's elder. "You weren't yourself. Your faculties were twisted into something you are not, you were not you. You were your opposite. Your own foil."

Cloak said nothing. Though Faith's words had the ring of truth, that did not change the fact of thr matter. It was a miracle in and of itself that no one was hurt. Again, he wondered if he was doing more harm than good by dwelling within this realm.

"How dare you?!" came a heated voice.

Cloak immediately stood up and took a battle stance. "Faith, Shadow. Get out of here. Go somewhere safe."

"Little brother, I --" Faith said, then she got an idea. To Dwellers, it might seem strange to see such a familiar smile -- a mischievous one at that -- upon such dissimilar faces. Faith had just smirked Shadow's same cheeky smile.  "I think I know just what to do, little brother."

The two left. They didn't Walk, they just ran to a location only realized by Faith herself.

"How dare you undo my gift to this world?!" Corruption snarled. "I bring the beauty of massacre and chaos, and you three just have to go and soil it!!"

"Chaos isn't a gift, you deluded nitwit." Cloak said.

"I'll just touch you again, fool!"

Cloak ****ed an eyebrow. "'I need an adult'."

"What?" Coruption spat scornfully.

Cloak shrugged, "A joke you'll never understand."

"One you stole from TeamFourStar," AniDragon replied. "It didn't even make sense in this scenario."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2014, 04:14:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Corruption, No Touchy!

"What does this have to do with anything?" Corruption said quicky, "Come here so I can touch --"

"Nah." AniDragon said.

"We worked too hard to get our Cloak back." Kelly said.

"But didn't F--" Richard began.

"Quiet!" Cloak snarled unexpectedly. The three gave a start, because of they way Cloak said it. It was with an urgency that Cloak reserved for the most dire of circumstances. The three did not seem to understand, at first, why.

Then it became obvious. Cloak was protecting them. He was protecting them from being inversed. Cloak simply could not do with such a memory of the inverses of two of the most important people in his life. And Corruption possessed the heightened hearing that came with being from an aye-aye form.

"Come here, and let me touch you!"

"Cloak," AniDragon said, "are you sure he's an aye-aye and not a pedobear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedobear)*?"

"What's a pedobear?"

"Speaking over jokes going over Realm Walker heads . . ." AniDragon muttered.

"Stop evading me! Let me touch you!" Corruption shrieked.

"Okay, this is getting into really weird territory. Cloak can you just restrain him?" Kelly said.

"Corruption, no touchy!" Cloak said, carelessly title-dropping. Cloak had forced up two lwrge slabs of earth to pinion Corruption's arms to his side.

"Since when did we become a project by TeamFourStar?" AniDragon sighed, commenting on the references they made during the brief struggle.

"We best come up with a plan of action," Cloak said seriously. "It won't hold Corruption forever."

"Yeah," Shadow said, appearing at Cloak's side. "Mom and me have a plan going."

"What?"

"Oh, trust us."

"Why does that fill me with dread?"

"Because you're being silly."

---

*I know, I know. A crass, cliche of a joke that was rather adult humor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 27, 2014, 05:29:31 PM

BAD TOUCH! :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2014, 06:44:03 PM

Yep. That joke had to be there somewhere in this book.

And new book ideas.

• Book CDXVII: "Beastmaker" -- A new game becomes a mega hit, but an alien species with no concept of fun or entertainment believes it to be real. (Fairly obvious what the main inspiration behind this was.)
• Book CDXVIII: "RAFian Day"-- The government officiates a "RAFian Day" as a holiday, but notfor the reasons that they claim.
• Book CDXIX: "The Knights Are Blasting Off Again!" -- The Knights become more proactive in their xenophobic genocidal plans.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Saffa?

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
. . . Wait -- Why Are You Smiling?

An hour or two later, Corruption proved just why it was so hard to hold on to a Realm Walker. He managed to wiggle out out of the trap, nevering questioning just how he was able to manage it, despite Cloak's display of power. Corruption, whether by his lineage or the nature of his powers, could be a very arrogant piece of work.

"Now where did they go?" he muttered murderously. There was a sound, soft as a breeze, and easily mistaken for one. "Right. That place. That 'forum', was it called? That's were the spawn of the Element Masters would be."

He glanced around for a minute, but not to get his bearings or see what direction the forum was from here. He looked around to see if whoever had spoke was still there. He was quite sure that it was someone who spoke to him. Seeing no one, and swatting at a bothersome gnat, he set off to RAF again.

***

"There you are!" Corruption said, easily penetrating the pitiful defenses the RAFians offered. He had been addressing Cloak, who had been sitting with his legs crossed, heel touching hip, with his hands resting upon his knees. His head was down, bowed.

This did not surprise or deter Corruption from his goal. He had just assumed, rather rashly for he did not take a prudent time in assessing the situation. He had allowed his fury to skew his judgement. He said, "Now, let me touch you."

Cloak looked up. "Oh no. Whatever shall I do?"

Corruption stopped in his steps. Cloak's deadpan delivery of that gave him misgivings. Corruption was even more unelneeved and offput when the Realm Walker RAFian smiled a mischievous smile, not unlike that of his sister and niece.

"Wait -- why are you smiling?" Corruption asked, now realizing the brashness of his actions. "The only reason you would be smiling when you're cornered like this is if . . . if this is . . . a . . ."

Suddenly, with a flash of movement that could only barely be seen with even Cloak's eyes, Corruptions hands were bound and enclosed with large metal capsules. His touch was efectively nullified without being energybent away. Cerulean stood a bit away, standing still with a smug smirk on his face.

"A trap." Cloak said, standing up in a needlessly acrobatic way. "And you just blindly walked into it. That's the thing about rage. It doesn't make you stronger, it makes you overlook things. It prevents you from thinking cohesively."

"You are nothing!" Corruption raged, furious at the indignity of being in such a position, as he flopped along the ground as his entire body was chained. "I will get out of this. I WILL. I will wriggle out of this trap and bestow my gift upon everyone once more!"

"Think again," Cloak said. "Those are just any old chains. They're tylee metal, which fortunately don't rust or corrode over time, considering where Faith found them,  forgotten in the forest."

"It doesn't matter! I freed myself from your rock prison!"

"But it does," Cloak countered. "You never questioned why it suddenly got easier to wriggle out? Of course not. You allowed yourself to get so bloated on your ego and inflated sense of self-worth that you never once bothered to question just why it suddenly got easier. Never questioned why RAF's defenses were so laughably easy to penetrate. It was because this trap was finished and we needed you come to the party. You are not as clever as you think yourself to be."

Corruption's eyes widened,as he remembered what he thought to be the voice, but he chise to not believe it. "You lie!"

"Why would I lie? Now when you shall be given the fate you deserve?"

"You are going to kill me?"

"Funny how that's the first thing your mind goes to," Cloak said. "No. I won't kill you like your father forced me to do to him."

"You what? You had no right! That was my birthright! I was going to kill him as soon as I proved who the stronger of us was!"

This attitude, surprising, didn't catch Cloak off guard. He had expected theirs to be a dysfunctional relationship. "Doesn't matter, Corruption, he's dead. But you shan't be given such a luxury. You will stand -- or flop, if you prefer -- before the Council. The fact that you survived since ancient times will be confirmed."

"Oh, just kill me. I rather be dead than deal with bureaucracy."

"Oh," said a familiar voice, "I'd be happy to oblige."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 28, 2014, 01:42:35 AM

WAIT WHAT

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2014, 05:20:32 AM

Oh, you'll see, imma 'bout to post it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Was Wondering When You'd Show Up

"That voice . . ." Corruption said, with dawning realization. "You?"

He was addressing the figure in silhouette, and Cloak frowned. He recognized this person, too. He and Corruption spoke at the same time.

"Who are you?"

"I was wondering when you'd show up, Malice."

Corruption blinked. "Malice? Who is Malice?"

"Aw, I'm hurt, great-who-cares-how-many-times-uncle." Malice said, with obviosuly fake hurt, punctuated by the evil laugh. "You don't recognize your most recent relative?"

"What?"

"No wonder Cataclysm was embarrassed by you," Malice said. "Not very smart."

"You insolant little -- ugh!"

Malice had ran him through with an energy blade like she did with Ab. Cloak was taken by surprise, though he really shouldn't have been.

Malice punctuated this with saying, "And not very quick on the uptake."

Corruption vaporized, leaving only the chains and his cloak behind.

"Well, that was invigorating," Malice said, crassly.

"Why did you do that, Malice?!" Cloak shouted.

"Oh, I couldn't allow you take him to the council," she said, offhand. "That might lead them to asking questions. Questions that I much prefer to leave unasked."

Cloak shrewdly gathered her hidden meaning. "In another words, you don't want them to question your demise. You want them to continue to believe that you're dead."

"Oh, poo. You ruined the surprise," she said, rather flippantly differential.

"We still have the chains," Cloak said to Cerulean. The other RAFian nodded, and was about to speed them, but Malice had pulled a Batman and disappeared while they were talking.

"First Light!" Cloak cursed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 28, 2014, 05:47:25 AM

So Corruption knew Malice by a different name?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2014, 07:04:02 PM

Nope. She was the voice on the wind that urged him to go to the forum. That's the only recognition they had. Why did she herd him to the forum. Well, she wanted to make his death a spectacle.

And now, a couple more book ideas.

• Book CDXX: "Animatronic Animosity" -- The RAFians must play night watchmen to a kiddie-themed restaurant with animatronic characters, that go into "free roam" mode all night.
• Book CDXXI: "Extreme Ecoterrorism" -- The RAFians must deal with two groups of ecoterrorists with conflicting goals.
• Book CDXXII: "P.E.T.A. -- Get A Life!" -- The RAFians are subjected to P.E.T.A. harassment for their caging of the Pootang.
• Book CDXXIII: "Life Or Death" -- The RAFians must stop a madman from gaining the powers of life and death.
• Book CDXXIV: "RAFology" -- A RAFian-based astrology proved to be too accurate. Deadly accurate.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything. Saffa?

Last chapter of the book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Genies Hates Word Crimes

After an incident in the "word chain" thread, which Genies had some misgivings about some of the lesser known RAFians' abysmal spelling and grammar, and after she read pretty much every other YouTube comment, she decided enough was enough.

She called a seminar, where she outline what they were going to do. Of course, it was through song.

"Everybody shut up, WOO!
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
If you can't spell in the proper way,
If you don't know how to conjugate --
Maybe you flunked that class,
And maybe now you found
That people mock you online!!!!
Okay, now here's the deal.
It's time to educate ya.
Gonna familiarize
You with the nomenclature!
You'll learn the definitions
Of nouns and prepositions.
Literacy's your mission,
And that's why I think it's a
Good time
To learn some grammar.
Now, did I stammer.
Work on that grammar!
You should know when
It's "less" or it's "fewer"!
Like people who were
Never raised in a sewer!"

"Hey!" Nina, the resident Ninja Turtle, protested. "That's discriminatory!"

But the song continued.

"I hate these word crimes!!
Like 'I could care less'
That means you do care.
At least a little.
Don't be a moron!
You better slow down,
And use the right pronoun.
Show the world you're no clown!
Say you got a "It"
Followed by "apostrophe-s".
Now what does that mean?
You would not use this in this case!
As a possessive.
It's a contraction.
What's a contraction?
Well, it's the shortening of a word, or a group of words by the omission of a sound or letter
Okay, now here's some notes.
Syntax, you're always dangling.
No X in "Espresso".
Your participle's danglin'!
But I don't want your drama,
If you really wanna
Leave out that Oxford comma.
Just keep in mind,
That B, C, R, U
Are words not letters.
Get it together.
Use your spellchecker.
You should never
Write words using numbers.
Unless you're seven.
Or your name is Bieber!
I hate these word crimes!
You really need a
Full time proofreader.
You dumb mouthbrooder*.
Well, you should hire
Some cunning linguist
To help you distinguish
What is proper English.
One thing I ask of you:
Time to learn your homophones is past due.
Learn to diagram a sentence, too.
Always say to whom,
Don't ever say to who.
Yeah, listen up when I tell you this.
I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis,
If you finished second grade.
I hope you can tell you could tell,
If you're doing good or doing well.
Figure out the difference,
Irony is not coincidence.
And, I thought that you'd gotten it through your skull,
What's figurative and what's literal.
Oh but, just now, you said
You "literally couldn't get out of bed".
That really makes me want to literally
Smack a crowbar upside your stupid head!!
I read your e-mail.
It's quite apparent.
Your grammar's errant.
You're incoherent.
Saw your blog post.
It's really fantastic!
That was sarcastic.
Cause you write too ecstatic.
I hate these Word Crimes!!
Your prose is dopey.
Think you should only
Write in emoji.
Oh, you're a lost cause!
Go back to preschool!
Get out of the Yeerk pool!!
Try your best to not drool.
Never mind, I give up.
Really now. I give up.
Go away!"**

The seminar was over that suddenly.

***

Malice milled around her headquarters, a dusty, mold-infested tenement that appeared to be very much not up to code. Mauler stood with his feet apart and parallel to each other with a machine's precision. His hands were folded behind his back just above his butt. He stood like that without batting an eye, without twitching or showing even the minute signs of discomfort. He just stared straight on, never blinking.

It was almost as if he was a Surrogate.

"Even Corruption wasn't enough for his little band of Dwellers," Malice was saying. Mauler did not speak or add in his two cents, as he no longer had cents to add. He had no more will. "No matter. I am never short on a scheme or two."

She caressed several orbs, set next to the device that held Maul's brethren. But Mauler felt nothing towards it, having been stripped of all identity and individuality other than that of which Malice had given to him.

These orbs contained something different. Due to the dark lighting, it was difficult, nigh on impossible to see what they contained. But it certainly looked . . . venomous.

***

Cloak had elected not to attend Genies seminar. Not because she seemed especially cranky at the moment, but because Cloak needed some time to himself. Some time to come to terms with whwt he did when he was inversed.

Yes, what the others said was true, but his heart would not leave him be. It was heavy with the actions that he nearly committed, the impulses that he nearly acted upon. Had his sister and her dauhter not shown up when they did . . . Cloak didn't even want to think about it.

But it woukd take some time before he coukd forgive himself for this.

---

* Type of fish.

** Source song. (http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc) All rights and whatnot to Weird Al.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 29, 2014, 02:36:10 AM

Nope, no rehashes as far as I can see.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2014, 05:25:56 AM

New book, new chapter. This one should prove . . . interesting.

BOOK LXXI:
SECOND SKINS
CHAPTER ONE:
Cloaky, Chin Up!

Cloak proved to be a bit moody and surly over the next few days. He was still brooding over the whole Corruption fiasco. His mind kept dwelling on the potential damage he could have inflicted. What if he had set of one of those megastorm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megastorm) things? Or maybe . . . maybe worse . . .

Kelly had noticed this lingering guilt in Cloak, when the others seemed to have gotten over their inversions. When the others seemed to have come to terms with their actions, Cloak still seemed to be taking his actions hard. True, Faith and Shadow stopped him before anything major could have happened, but still . . . what if . . .

Kelly had decided that brooding over it would not help Cloak, as he had been for the last few days. So she sang bracingly to Cloak:

"Chin up, chin up,
Everybody loves a happy face.
Wear it, share it.
It'll brighten up the darkest place.
Twinkle, sparkle.
Let a little sunshine in.
You'll be on the right side
Lookin' on the bright side,
Up with your chinny chin chin!
Chin up, chin up,
Put a little laughter in your eyes.
Brave it, save it.
Even though you're feeling otherwise.
Rise up, wise up,
Let a little smile begin.
You'll be a little hearted
Once you get a smile started.
Up with your chinny chin chin.
Chin down,
You can't help frowning,
Turn 'round,
And you can't help clowning.
Think sad,
Your troubles double.
Think glad,
They burst like bubbles.
Chin up, chin up,
Everytime your spirits wilt.
Chin up, chin up,
Give you spirits an upwards tilt.
Twinkle, sparkle
Let a little fun begin.
You'll be on the right side,
Lookin' on the bright side,
Up with your chinny chin chin up!"

Despite himself, Cloak gave a small smile.

"There you go!" Kelly encouraged. "Chin up!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2014, 06:17:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Malice's Morphsuits

Malice fawned over the nine orbs, which could be seen clearer. They contained what appeared to be a oozy, oily, lycra-like material. They were all different solid colors. They were blood red, iridescent orange, pale yellow, emerald green, sapphire blue, royal purple, a frilly sort of pink, black, and white. It wasn't very clear what they were.

"Ah," Malice said, in a prelude to a monologue. "Symbiotes. I like to see them handle these dearies. Able to bond to organic lifeform as wearable suit, though these will not see to assimilate with their hosts, but dominate them as would a Yeerk or Go'ald. Although, I expect they would take on the personality quirks and what not of the host anyway, but that shouldn't prove to be too detrimental, if at all. These symbiotes can also block the entirety of their hosts minds, not just part of them like lesser symbiotes. When bonded with a host, they get superhuman strength, superhuman speed, superhuman endurance, superhuman agility, a healing factor of sorts, and heightened intelligence, though far below that of any Realm Walker. And they enhance any other natural ability that their host may possess. They can shapeshift into anything they desire, provided they have a host."

Malice appraised the symbiotes, which she had modified in her makeshift lab. She either didn't know or didn't care that these symbiotes were essentially an endangered species. She watched with professional interest as the symbiotes writhed around inside their orbs. She took pleasure in these rather abhorrent creatures, these parasites.

"And, best of all, they all will be undyingly devoted and loyal to me." Malice said. Then she considered for a bit. "That Mark of theirs probably will prevent these symbiotes from taking them over. But no matter, no matter. I can work around that."

Malice stood with her hand on her chin, thinking. Considering.

"These symbiotes will be the perfect crew of minions," Malice said, thoughtfully, "I just need to get them the proper hosts. The hosts may be killed in the process, but who really cares about stupid nameless Dwellers?"

She smirked, as if the idea of death by symbiote amused her in an inordinately vast amount.

"Each one," she said, fawning over them, "needs just the perfect host. Each one has different talents, and needs the right host to bring them out. . . ."

She smiled dotingly, before saying, "Mauler! We're moving out!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 29, 2014, 07:37:13 AM

PDF of the last book. That was a cracker. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2014, 12:16:22 PM

Okay . . . I not familiar with that term as you used in context, but I do happen to be a tad sleepy right now.

New chapter. Fair warning. The first part will be fairly brutal and dark.

CHAPTER THREE:
Hosting Services

A very angry man was in a secluded location. He had a woman there with hik, and she didn't appear to be there of her own free will. There was a certainly dark way about the situation.

"You owe me. I gave you a ride."

"No, please . . ."

"Shut up! And come here . . ."

Fortunately, whatever this serial -- uh, you know -- was stopped, when what appeared to be blood red whirling fabric began wrapping around his legs and then up his body. The woman tried to escape, but once the costume was fully on,  one backhand from him killed her in the most brutal way imaginable. But the man didn't do it intentionally, his screams were that of pure terror.

The man looked fairly like a blood red Venom, but with dark green markings similar to the.Red Lantern symbol in spidery lines. He was ridiculously, cartoonishly muscled on his upper body to ludicrous proportions, while his lower body was more or less the same size but muscular. He had the "Spider-Man eye" markings as well a large, butcher knife-like, emerald fangs lining his ample mouth. He also had two tendrils on his head look like bull horns.

This new creature laughed, the man within no longer in control, his mind in a place of semi-limbo, with some fleeting moments of lucidity. "I am . . . I am . . . I AM WARPATH!!"

"Very well," Malice had said. "Go. Have fun. Cause chaos."

***

Then Malice came upon a man who had constant gambling problems, as well a drug addiction and a chronic identity thief. He was very much consumed by greed and avarice, and miserable for it. He was living in a rat-infested tenement, which he could barely afford even with his thievery.

He soon found himself wrapped up in the bright orange symbiote. He looked vaguely Venom, but with a serpentine tail instead of legs. His fingertips ended in claws and Larfleeze's insigna appeared in his chest as a pale blue, spidery marking. He had the eyes of Spider-Man, as well as two long, sapphire-blue fangs with smaller fangs of the same color.

He found that he could shapeshift, not just his clothing but his identity. He could imitate people much larger than himself and those younger. But only those that he stole the identities from,which means in order to shapeshift more people, he would have to steal more identities.. But the thief was no more in control that Warpath's host was, and no more lucid.

"Call me," this new being said with a slight his to his voice, like the Serpentine from "Ninjago", "call me Horder."

"Excellent," Malice said. "Go now. Go and take. And take, take, take, take, take."

***

Continuing her search for more host for her symbiotes, she witnessed a town thug, a neighborhood bully, terrorizing the residency of the block. He really thought that he was tough and the best of the best, when in reality, even Rotiart would laugh at him. Like many of the bullying pedigree, he wasn't particularly wise, intelligent, or tactful. He made the mistake, like many if not all bullies do, of believing that you can just muscle your way through life and people would just roll over and let you. He was a coward at heart.

He recieved a shock to discover the pale yellow symbiote wrapping itself around him. He attempted to pull it off of him, but that just made it envelope him even faster. He tried more fervently, terrified for once, and the symbiote wrapped around him more fervently until he was fully enclosed.

Unlike the previous two, this punk teenager had virtually no bouts of lucidity. He never paid any attention to developing his mind. He always relied on his muscles and forceful personality. He was essentially dead while bonded with this symbiote.

The creature looked like if Venom had bonded with a Genonosian, only pale yellow with the Sinestro Corps insigna in deep purple and spidery art on his chest. It possessed the same "Spider-Man eyes" that the others did, and deep purple fangs.

"I am the bump in the night," the creature said. "I am Nameless."

"Nameless? You sure you want to go with that?" Malice said.

"Yes, why?"

"Oh, I thouht you'd want a name of a little more substance." Malice said, airily. "But, no matter, go on then. Instill fear into others."

***

Malice and Mauler spied a police officer, one of which wasn't like the previous three symbiote hosts found. This police officer was noble of heart, pure of spirit, and a RAF-supporter, though not being in it himself. Malice did not have any misgivings, as she prodded the green symbiote to overtake the willful officer.

Despite the officer's fight and resistance, he is overtaken relatively quickly. He looks relatively like the standard Venom hosted symbiote, on its chest emerald green with ruby red markings similar to the Green Lantern insigna. It also had wrist mounted blades, ruby red fangs, and a monk fish-like appendage that ends in a lantern-like lure.

"I am Lethal Force!" the creature declared.

"Huh. Was expecting a single-word name," Malice said. "Now, overpower others. Enforce your will over theirs."

***

Then Malice and Mauler watch the vitriolic sermons of a particularly hateful preacher. Nearly all, if not all, of his congregation were close-minded, like-minded, narrow-minded extremists like himself. Malice did not listen to the man's venomous words, but she could tell he sounded hopeful in his ambition to keep homophobia, xenophobia, and other such vile things would be the norm of the future. It was all very disgusting. But what was more abominable was the deafening "amens" he recieved from the people assembled.

So, naturally, he became the host for the blue symbiote. He resembled Elemental Hero Avian only solid sapphire blue, a Venom-like head with bright orange fangs, and spidery, bright orange markings similar to the insigna of the Blue Lanterns.

"I am . . . I am . . . Hopeslayer."

"Oh! How deliously evil!" Malice said, with approval. "Go then! Go and slay that hope!"

***

From there, it went rather quickly.

The indigo one took over a C-list celebrity who was embittered at this fact. It looked like the standard Venom body type, only indigo, with cephalopod tentacle "hair", big "Spider-Man eyes", dirty yellow fangs, and the Indigo Tribe insigna in electric yellow, spidery lines. She became "Brutality".

The pink one took over a playboy stud whose handsome features were cosmetic only, as it was only a metaphorical mask for the repulsive man that laid beneath such a pretty exterior. He had been known to break hearts brutally and indifferently at the slightest whim. When he was overtaken by the symbiote, he becomes a standard pink Venom -- had the symbiote bonded with Killer Croc. It was pink with the Star Sapphire sigil upon its chest in brown, spidery design. It possessed brown fangs and a tailless saurian physique. It called itself "Heartbreaker".

The black one bonds with the body of a suicidal gravedigger. It appears to be the standard Venom form only with a symbiote-generated grim reaper robe, white fangs, and the Black Lantern insigna in white, spidery form. It is called "Gravesupplier".

Finally, the last one, the chalk white one, bonded with body of a neonatal doctor fired for malpractice. This caused the good doctor to become quite embittered with the whole business. As a costumed symbiote, he is essentially the pallet swap of Venom. It calls itself "Misery".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 29, 2014, 12:33:01 PM

Considering Malice's attitude towards death, you would expect the book to be pretty dark.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2014, 03:17:20 PM

Touche.

Oh! This thread's been read 55,555 times! Wow!

New book ideas, along with a trilogy arc, which I hope can be good.

• Book CDXXV: "The Unstoppable Exodias" -- The RAFians and the Earth are targeted by the Exodia Warlords and the Exodia Armada. A RAFian is believed to be slain during the conflict.
• Book CDXXVI: "Search for [censored]" -- The RAFians must travel to Avalon Island to see if they can recover a lost RAFian.
• Book CDXXVII: "It's Not Over" -- The Exodia Warlords survive, and thirst to kill the RAFians and Earth.

And that's the Exodia Trilogy. Now, the latest book idea I had.

• Book CDXXVIII: "Escaped Face" -- The RAFians must deal with a face that escaped Koh and garnered sentience of its own.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything. Saffa?

New chapter. Tad short.

CHAPTER FOUR:
This Cannot Be Good

A sliver of a shiver traveled its way up and down Cloak's spine. Something was happening, something malevolent. But it wasn't too nearby, but it had a heady magnitude to it. Cloak looked around, unsure. Unsure of the source of this unpleasant feeling.

But he was not alone in it. Cornson, Bladeh, Fubar and the other feline RAFians had felt it as well. But none could tell what it was. That was the thing about this sensing evil bit. It was far more vague than the Spider Sense, and not as reliable.

They hadn't any hardcore facts with which to back it up, other than this sense of evil in the air that was imperceptible to the non-feline sort. With no concrete proof, they cannot just call for the assemby of all RAFians. Cloak didn't like it, but the sense would not go away, not until the source of its agitation was made known.

"Um, guys?" Gaz said, as she happened to be passing by. She was looking at her phone -- it was one of those smartphone things that Cloak never quite understood the fascination that people had with it. "Tell me you see what I see."

She showed them a news report. It showed video of Lethal Force attacking people as forcefully as his name implied. Then it segued Nameless terrorizing people, followed by stills of the rest of them. Cloak was shocked at the sight.

"Those look like . . ." Cloak began, pondering.

"Do you think it's true?" she said. "It was said that Fox broke the news, and we all know just how impartial Fox News can be."

"This can't be happening," Cloak said quietly, turning away from the screen. "It can't."

"I know it's hard to look at," FuBar said, "but the fact of the matter is that --"

"You know what those things are," Gaz interrupted with a flash of insight. "You do, don't you?"

"Rally the other RAFians," Cloak said, deflecting her question. "I'm calling a for forum-wide meeting, an assembly."

"What?"

"You heard me!" Cloak said, "We have a very serious problem here."

"Well, yeah, nine serial killers in costumes, but--" Bladeh began.

"They're not costumes." Cloak said, as he swept away. He added enigmatically, "Not in the usual sense, anyway."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 30, 2014, 04:20:42 PM

And that very nice number got ruined. :P

Trilogy sounds deadly nice. Can't wait!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2014, 06:09:13 PM

Thanks. Whoo. Sorry about the delay, started reading "Richard's Horn" and got sucked into the narrative again. Certainly gonna be the next book I read in class after the Dementor one.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Lowdown

"Symbiotes," Cloak prefaced his monologue lecture. "That's what we're up against."

"You mean parasites, right?" Saffa asked.

"In a way, they're parasites, but not quite," Cloak elaborated. "The species name is symbiotes. Symbiotes are typically an unfeeling, conquering race. They take over any species they came in contact with, by enveloping them like a lethifold or a shapestealer, to feed off their emotions, though this mainly involved adrenaline rushes from death-defying feats and, as a consequence, the hosts tend to be short-lived."

"Feed off emotions?" Underseen asked in a small voice.

Cloak acknowledged this with a nod. "Yes, Underseen. Not too unlike . . . him. Van Pyrrhus."

Silence greeted these words for a moment. Everyone still remembered the emotion vampire. He had a way of leaving a lasting impression in them all.

"Now," Cloak said, deliberately breaking the silence, "symbiotes empower the natural abilities of their host to the point where they far exceed that of normal members of the hosts' species. These abilities can include the following: superhuman strength, superhuman speed, superhuman endurance, superhuman agility, a healing factor, and increased intelligence, as well as enhancing other natural attributes; a genetic memory, recalling information from all its previous hosts; able to negate damage caused by terminal illnesses and/or permanent injuries, while not actually healing them, as a way of forcing the host to rely on the symbiote; able to expand to any size as long as they have something to grow on, such as a host or an object; like Yeerks, they are able to react to the thoughts and will of the host.

"They are also able to block part of the host's mind, to form fangs or simple bladed weapons out of their limbs, to form tendrils from their body, to project the surface of the symbiote itself to attack from a distance, to shapeshift (from mimicking clothing up to and including total change of the host's appearance, regardless to the host's actual stature and bodily dimensions -- I've never figured out why or how). They are also able to produce toxins and venoms. They can sense the presence of other beings within a certain distance (something else I've never figured out the why or how to). They are able to create storage portals inside of them (think hammerspace)."

"How do you know so much about them?" Saffa said. "Are you just reading from the database? Or Wikipedia?"

"He is!" Shadow tattled teasingly. "He's reading from Wikipedia!"

"Never mind that," Cloak said, deflecting the question, "there is one principal weakness I've found."

"Chemicals?" Yarin guessed.

"Kill them with fire?" Demos said, with a hopeful lilt.

"Why are you looking at me, Cloak?" Sakki asked.

"Sonics." Cloak said.

"Isn't it a little late for lunch?" Abby asked.

"No, no, no! Sonics! Sound waves of the right frequency!" Cloak said. "Sakki is a master of that. So, you, Sakki, will be instrumental in their defeat."

A beat of silence.

"But no pressure or anything." Cloak added.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 31, 2014, 02:46:58 AM

*imagines Cloak delivering all of this Nick Fury style*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2014, 04:33:06 PM

Sorry, no chapter today. Don't feel up to it.

Couldn't pay my rent for next month -- not because of insufficient funds, mind you, but because the landlord won't be available until the second, and it's due on the first. :( :'(

:edit:

You know, what? Scratch that. I won't feel any better wallowing in despair or worrying about things outside my control. Hell, I might even expand this book. . . . Maybe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Sonic Strategy Successes

Cloak, Shadow, Sakki, Aquilai, Aila, Sam, Helen, Parker, and Dino were to go and face them. Nine RAFians, nine symbiotes. It was thought that it shouldn't be so hard. It was thought that they would be rather easy to find.

They were right.

It was in the new mega mall called the Mega Metroplex, which Cloak thought sounded a little hokey and wordy. It sounded almost as if the Autobot Metroplex had Mega Evolved, which may have been the very idea behind it.

They were not all that hard to spot, and each RAFian -- and Shadow -- split up and took on a symbiote. Cloak took on Warpath, Shadow took on Misery, Sakki took on Horder, Aila took on Hopeslayer, Aquilai took on Nameless, Sam took on Lethal Force, Helen took on Heartbreaker, Parker took on Gravesupplier, and Dino took on Brutality.

Cloak looked at Warpath and sense a lot of anger and rage coming from him -- it? Cloak wasn't sure that the host was in any control, or else he wod have spoke by now, as the Realm Walker used his feline speed and agility to deftly dodge all Warpath's attacks. It wasn't too terribly hard, as there was no tactical strategy being used by the red symbiote, just the old brutish "hit, and when that doesn't work, hit harder" stratagem. It was the symbol on the bonded symbiote's chest that worried Cloak.

He had a notion what it meant, but was hopeful that he was mistaken. The beast was locked away . . . locked away for good. The beast of rage could be brought here. . . . He hoped. . . .

But enough of this brutish battle. Cloak inhaled and aerokinetically enhanced his roar to be louder and more powerful than ordinary -- his "Mega-Roar," as he called it. The symbiote stopped its fruitless assault and held its head. Cloak did it again, and the symbiote seemed to recede from its host.

Cloak recoiled at the sight of the human skeleton that was left behind as the symbiote receded and vanished from sight, as well as being practically invisible to Cloak's Earthsight. Cloak found that this did not seem to bode well.

He gazed at the others looking at eight more skeletons. Shadow had emulated his technique into the Ultra-Shriek, Sakki had her innate sonic scream, the two corpsmen used their hard light constructs to make a megaphone and a bullhorn, Dino's strongest bellowing roar was strangely sufficient, and the Time Lords did something with their sonic screwdrivers, Cloak did not see what.

But all of the symbiotes had fled. They were still at large and they could still breed potentially. . . . and there was Cloak's other concern about the Beasts of the Spectrum. . . .

This was clearly not over yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2014, 07:09:28 PM

Wow. Five guests are reading "Memoirs" as I type this.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Sewer Symbiotes Sync Up

The symbiotes did not go far. They had oozed their way into the city's sewers, and remained there, as if they were pools of lycra material. While hostless, they were vulnerable and formless. They were only a real threat in combat when they had a host body. A support structure.

But these were not necessarily ordinary symbiotes. It was true that they had been altered, altered by Malice, who had really questionable ethics. Manipulating the genetic structures of creatures to obtain that which she desires isn't beneath her. And she desired the grewt beasts of the spectrum. But she didn't realize that they were still firmly enclosed in the batteries.

These symbiotes oozed and slithered toward each other, with strange undulating, sidewinding movements. It was unknown how they could move about in such a deliberate way when they seemingly possessed no eyesight of their own. Their movement was hypnotizing and somniferous at the same time.

When each of the nine touched each other, something strange happened. There had been a reason that Malice had kept them separate, within those orbs of hers. She was also aware of the possibility of this happening, as she used a tad of her remaining Concoction left to manipulate the biology of these creatures.

When they made tactile contact with each other, they immediately quickened their pace and all pushed against each other, as if trying to destroy each other in some perverse amalgam of Death Battle and that show "Earth". In the flurry of sudden frenzied movement, it was impossible to tell one symbiote part from the other. Impossible! They were becoming so entangled, so meshed together, thwt it almost looked like there was only a single symbiote.

NISSSSSSSSSSS!

And, quite as suddenly as it began, the movement stopped with that strange hissing sound. There were no longer nine symbiotes, and none of them bred more. They had unified into a singular symbiote, which completely overrode Malice's biological programming of abject loyalty and obligate devotion. This symbiote was now itself, subservient to no one. The minds, bodies, and wills of all nine had merged and fully integrated into one being.

It called itself Niss, a word in a long forgotten alien language. Supposedly, it meant either "nine-in-one" or "supreme being". It shuffled and slithered and undulated about, looking for its next host. It was famished.

***

As they were heading back, thinking that the symbiotes were destroyed, Cloak stopped still. He turned around, and looked toward the mall. He had sensed something. But he didn't know how to interpret it.

He must be getting paranoid again. And yet . . . he got the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2014, 02:33:45 AM

Oh, brilliant. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2014, 03:22:05 PM

To what do you refer, Saffa?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2014, 04:28:41 PM

The combined symbiotes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2014, 04:56:45 PM

There is a wrinkle that I hadn't introduced yet. . . .

New books, and a new arc! (And I realize there was actually an arc earlier in the series, but forgot about it as an arc -- the Traitor Arc.)

Anyway, here's the Reality Shift Arc.

• Book CDXXIX: "Meet the RAFians" -- Reality shifts into a Flintsone-like prehistoric one.
• Book CDXXX: "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, It's Off to Work I Go" -- Reality shifts to pirate times.
• Book CDXXXI: "Roarin' RAFians" -- Reality shifts to the 1920s America.
• Book CDXXXII: "Anime-Verse" -- Reality shifts to an anime style.
• Book CDXXXIII: "RAF Racer" -- Reality shifts to a "Speed Racer"-like one.
• Book CDXXXIV: "Another Dark Future" -- Reality shifts to a dark, dystopian future.
• Book CDXXXV: "D &D: Disillusioned and Detatched" -- Reality shifts to a "Dungeons & Dragons"-like one.
• Book CDXXXVI: "Will You Stop It Already?!" -- Cloak and Shadow discovers the culprits of the reality shifts.

And that's the arc. Remember, the titles are subject to change. So let me know what you think.

New chapter. Tad short.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Mithril's Unexpected Surprise

Mithril was in his bathroom, preparing for bed. You know, brushing teeth, pajamas -- that whole shebang. It had been a long, tiresome day. He wasn't one of the ones that had to deal with the whole symbiote mess, but it wasn't like he hadn't interests outside of RAF.

"Heresy!" Sakki would tease. "Sacrilege!"

. . . At least, Mithril hoped that she was teasing him. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell with her. He was in his thread's bathroom -- yes, each thread had its own bathroom. Some looked vastly different from each other, because, after all, different species had different needs.

Mithril went his tap and discovered that it didn't seem to be working. It was odd because it was working just fine a moment ago. Mithril was perplexed. Hot . . . cold . . . neither worked. He puzzled about this, then his right hand seemed to feel ever so slightly warm. He looked and saw his Mark on his hand. There wasn't anything unusual about it. So why did it seem to alert him like that? With a sensation that could easily be misread or gone unnoticed?

Then he heard it.

NISSSSSSSSSSSS!!

"What in the w-- AHHH!" Mithril began as the symbiote attempted to take him as a host. But the Mark wasn't about to have any of that, and glowed brightly. Niss hissed and recoiled from the bright light, and Mithril kept it on it until it fled to parts unknown. Only then did the Mark stop belching out the Unity Light.

"What was that thing?" he wondered aloud. But he thought he had a rather good idea of what it was already. "Looks like it's gonna be a late night meeting tonight."

***

"Are you sure?" Cloak said. "Absolutely certain?"

"Why would I lie about that?" Mithril snapped. "Why would I disturb everyone at this hour of night with this?"

"This doesn't bode well," Cloak said, agitatedly. "I have never known symbiotes to merge. Unless they came in contact with some of that Concoction of Malice's . . . but no. She couldn't have made any more of that. The flowers are extinct."
 
"Cloak, why are you so agitated?" Sakki said, with a complacent yawn. "If we run across it again, we'll just sonic it into submission again."

"Don't give in to complacency, Sakki," Cloak warned. "This is unprecedented for symbiotes to do. I've heard of them propagating, bearing progeny. But merging? Never. Never in any of the other realms I visited. This could be purely cosmetic, sure. But, for all we know, it could be a game changer. It could have ascertained powers that we don't know about or recognize. We are leaving the comfort zone of verifiable fact and delving into a mystery that requires itself to be solved."

"Where do we start?" Richard asked democratically.

"I . . . I don't know." Cloak answered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2014, 11:13:27 PM

It... came out of the tap? O.o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2014, 03:24:49 PM

Yep, Saffa. And, now, some new book ideas. Let me know what you think.

• Book CDXXXVII: "Son of RAF" -- A married RAFian couple have a son, Pierce.
• Book CDXXXVIII: "Bane" -- The RAFians meet Bane, a person somewhat familiar to them. (Still debating whether it'll be in the regular continuity or not.)
• Book CDXXXIX: "Oberon's Children" -- Oberon's Children want Pierce, who isn't even a year old yet. Each want him for their own reasons, each believes he bolds great power but none can agree on what power that is.

Titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Niss to King, Check

Niss had retreated back to the sewer to recuperate. The plumbing to the forum was mostly self-contained. It was a miracle that Niss was even able to breach it. It was a miracle that it even managed to survive that burning light.

The earth swallowed up the only pipe to RAF, done by Mithril as a reflex. Though he wasn't able to use seismic sight as Cloak was, he was strong terrakinetic in his own right.

Niss recoiled and shrunk away from the pipe as it remembered the light. The burning light. It appeared as if its entire body clenched, like a fist. It hesitated for a moment or two before moving on. Desperate to find a suitable host, one that would last it longer than the pitiful nine its parts had before.

***

A man was pacing around an obnoxiously opulent office. There were so many expensive bits and bobs here and there, placed so carelessly. All the office furniture, barring the swivel chair, were made out of an expensive mahogany.

In the black swivel chair, behind the dark-lacquered mahogany desk, sat a man in stately royal robes with a circlet of gold nestled comfortably against his dark hair. He wore an excessively luxurious cape of fur and velvet. Clearly, he was one of the 1% and so frivolous with his money on luxury items and expensive houses or offices that it was wonder why he was still rich. His name was Rodney Grace -- which was contradictory, as he had no grace.

But, more to the point, there was a reason that he was dressed as an idealised, romanticized king. He had garnered the title of King of the Knights of Humanity. He had become their supreme leader, though just exactly how was open for speculation. He didn't really know when to stop spending, he treated his company's employees like dirt and paid them just under the minimum wage (bribing several people in law enforcement to look the other way, and ordering Knights to do so as well).

But lack of genuine intellect was mandatory (and a prerequisite) for such groups that expouse vitriolic hatred and advocate abject discrimination. And he didn't get to be so high up without fully committing to that foolish cause.

Of course, in his pompous lifestyle, he never expected someone to take it all away from him. He never expected anything to leak from the tap and spill silently over to the washroom floor. Never expected anything to slither and undulate so sneakily and stealthily from the washroom toward him, as he leaned over his desk, templed his fingers and rested his forehead on them. He was reading an unknown document -- probably one of questionable relevance in this day and age.

He never expected anything to slowly, almost lovingly, start to rise up against his left leg. Bu the time he did notice, it was too late. Niss had taken him for its host. Even when it recede and disguised itself as a ordinary blue pinstriped suit, it still maintained control over Grace.

Worst of all, Grace was aware of all this happening, but unable to do anything to stop it. He hated this creature for doing this to him. But this only nourished the parasite, but Grace didn't think of this possibility.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2014, 06:07:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Uh . . . What Was That?

"Cloak," Gaz said, "I sense that there is something that you're have not told us yet about the symbiotes."

"I told you everything I know about them," Cloak said.

"Wait a minute," Abby said, with the air of someone with a game changing idea, "do the symbiotes have a predator? We could just go and acquire one of those and --"

"No." Cloak said firmly. "No, you can't."

"They don't have a predator?"

"I didn't say that." Cloak said. "But this isn't like making a Nemetrix or something like that. You, Saffa, and Noelle got your Crabdozer, Psychlopteran and such morphs from a zoo. While you might have been able to have acquired them in the wild, you can't with a Xenophage."

"Don't underestimate --" Saffa began to argue.

"You don't understand!" Cloak exploded. "The Xenophage isn't just some stupid beast that could make a mistake and accidentally allow itself to be acquired! It is as much of a shapeshifter as Underseen and Ash are! Maybe, just maybe, more proficient! It has an amorphous, brown body normally, as if its body is composed of tendrils or roots. Its salvia carries an incendiary neurotoxin, which I've only seen paralyze symbiotes, making them dead weight to their hosts. I don't know what the effect would be like on other species, and I really don't want to try it out on RAFians -- the Mark may not even protect you from that!"

<Maybe we could just stun it. Like a Shredder on the lowest setting.> Noelle suggested.

But Cloak countered. "They don't feel pain! They have no pain receptors. And they speak, so they're sentient. I don't know if they are truly intelligent, but I know that they are entirely too dangerous to even consider acquiring. Not to mention ungodly difficult to do so. And besides, I doubt they'd discriminated between symbiote and host."

Underseen stayed quiet. This Xenophage scared him. What if came to Earth and mistook him for a symbiote?

"So, then, you have a better plan?" Sakki said, rather huffily.

But Cloak could say nothing, as Yarin received an alert. Something had penetrated Earth's atmosphere.

"This doesn't bode well," Aquilai said, quietly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 02, 2014, 09:14:43 PM

Where did the Xenophages come from now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2014, 04:30:35 PM

According to Marvel Comics (yes, I did not create Xenophages, it's Marvel canon), they don't come from anywhere anymore. Galactus destroyed their world. And I'm being vague about it in this continuity for a reason . . . hopefully, a satisfying one.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Things Are Not What They Seem

"Coordinates?" Cloak asked immediately. Yarin read them off, and Cloak turned to go.

"Wait, Cloak!" Richard said. "You'll need backup."

Despite himself, Cloak's pride rankled a bit at the perceived slight of incapability, but he quickly evaporated that feeling. Richard wasn't being personal, and Cloak shouldn't take as such.

"Abby, Saffa, Noelle, Gaz, and Hunter." Richard selected. He hoped it was the correct selection. "Off you go."

***

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Gaz said.

They were in a deeply forested glade, with a lovely looking cabin by a placid pond that bubbled a bit from the waterfall that fed it. It was like a still from a Disney princess movie, as if Princess Aurora's house plopped down into the setting of Rapunzel's tower. There was worn cobblestone patb leading up to the house, which actually had a white picket fence around it. It was scenic. It was idyllic. It was beautiful.

"These are the correct coordinates," Cloak said, haunched down, ears back. It was very easy to see him as an anthropomorphic tiger in a cloak now, simply due to this behavior. "And there was an impact here."

"How can you tell?" Abby asked.

But it was Hunter that answered. "Those branches there. They've been broken or bent unnaturally. The earth has slight skid marks on them."

"Then where is the object that crashed?" Saffa asked, practically.

Silence fell as a small girl which had heart-shaped face, bright blue eyes, a button-nose, cheery cheeks, and whose brunette hair was crafted into tight curls. She wore a red dress with white stockings, black shoes, and a red cloak. She couldn't have been any older than six or seven. Cloak couldn't tell if she was dressed up as Shirley Temple (as Annie) or simply as Little Red Riding Hood.

Yet, something told him that this girl was in danger. But something about the scene felt off. While it seemed perfectly harmless, a little returning home after . . . Cloak eyes widened a bit. The girl was presumably returning home. Alone. In this day and age.

Cloak was probably being paranoid, though. . . .

***

Niss was not an entirely stupid symbiote. It lived out Grace's life, as he would have. After all, it could see his memories and such. Though Grace fought this control, refusing to believe the futility of it.

What he didn't know was that by the mere action of fighting back he was releasing the adrenaline that nourished the symbiote. This was exactly the symbiote's goal. It would draw this out as long as it could, then, when Grace was sucked dry, they'd go and do it to a new host.

Niss delighted in this, though it could not hear Grace's struggling thoughts as a Yeerk would be able to, it knew that he was fighting. It made Grace's mouth curl into his signature cruel smile, knowing that this Rodney Grace human was a fighter, was strong enough to sustain it for a long while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2014, 07:32:52 PM

Okay, I'm currently planning my way through Book CCCXXXIII ("Baaaaaad Gingerbread"), and I've nearly completed the brief chapter synopses (which we'll see if I stick to once it comes time to write them, because I can go "off-script" sometimes).

Huh. According to the stats on the forum, this thread has the fifth highest views of all the threads on RAF. As well as being the only fanfic on the list, unless I'm mistaken. Maybe it's a little arrogant and a tad conceited of me to be simultaneously flattered and proud of that fact.

Anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Deception and Obliviousness

"Anyone else sense that?" Gaz whispered. "That something seems off? That it feels --"

"Foreboding, yes." Cloak said, only his tail tip twitching. The rest of him was perfectly still, like a tiger who spotted an unsuspecting prey animal. He was wondering if the girl was somehow some sort of lure. Like the glowing appendage of angler fish, luring them in to a creature that wished to feast upon them. He didn't say this out loud, as he was already known for being prone to paranoia.

But as the girl approached, the cabin's door exploded open, as the wood creaked and splintered, and a long rug rolled out like a frog's tongue. It wrapped around the girl's waist, as the house's front started to look similar to the eponymous house in "Monster House". The tongue rolled in the girl slowly.

Too slowly. Too slowly to be plausible. The girl's movements weren't exactly believable either. Her limbs didn't flail, and it only looked like she was struggling halfheartedly. She didn't scream, she didn't speak. Her face was as static as the character faces on a mascot head. Not to mention that through Earthsight, though difficult to "see", whatever this thing was (and Cloak had a shrewd idea what) the girl was a part of --

"Hunter! Saffa! Abby! Wait!" Cloak shouted as the three took off to save the girl. They could not Earthsight as he could they didn't know. Cloak had forgotten to disseminate that information immediately as he should have. But he wasn't sure if he had interpreted the vibrations right, though that was just an excuse. "The girl is not real! She is bait! She's a lure! Like an angler f--"

Too late.

The trio backed off as the creature took on its true form, its base form. . . .

***

Meanwhile, Niss remained blissfully unaware of the landfall of a Xenophage. Of its natural predator. Unaware that it would see it as a delicacy -- nine symbiotes in one! It would be like a nine-course meal.

It just continued its sadistic torturing of Grace by perfectly impersonating him to his wife of sixteen years and his boys, fourteen and five. The symbiote considered going for the teenage son after this host is dried up, and Grace was aware of this. This just added more fuel to the hate that Niss also fed off of, not to mention Grace's fury at being "sullied" by an "inferior" alien organism.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 04, 2014, 01:38:37 AM

Oh, you should be flattered. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2014, 04:56:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Predator Attracting Prey

The creature was a towering behemoth*. It was made of tendrils or roots -- Cloak couldn't tell. It possessed a face that not even its mother would love, with a gaping maw. Cloak soon discovered that his description of the beast was wrong. Completely wrong.

It possessed an armored exoskeleton which did not contain any pain receptors, and it appeared to be partially hairy but that could have been its metamorphic power or a mere optic illusion. It had a body style reminiscent to that of a Florauna (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Florauna).

This could have very well not been its true form, but it was enough to worry the Realm Walker. He wasn't sure how to defeat the beast, which could think for itself, which was obvious from a few minutes of battle. Though the fiery toxin had no effect on the RAFians, it still commwnted that it would like to . . . ewwww . . . like to feed on their brains.

Ignoring how impossible that was for it do to Cloak, it didn't mean the others weren't at risk. There had to be a way to end this quick. But how? How could they defeat something that feels no pain, that cannot be restrained easily, if at all?

Saffa was in her trusty Tyrannopede form, whose webs proved rather distracting to the Xenophage, but only in the way a fly buzzing your face ever so often is distracting. Noelle was in Rancor morph, attempting to overpower it, but failing miserably. Abby was in her Psycholepterran morph, attempting to mesmerize the Xenophage -- it didn't work. Hunter was dual-wielding his guns, firing as much as he could while Gaz did the same with Laserbeak in Blaster mode. Cloak was trying to use the elements to restrain it, but he was hesitating and it was.like holding onto a banana slug -- practically impossible.

This was a sentient creature. They were trying to destroy it. Cloak kept flashbacking to Cataclysm. The first person he . . . he was forced to kill. Those who have never taken a life can never know, know how difficult it is to let that go. But what other chose did they have?

Cloak knew of one way to destroy it, as his hand brushed the clasp of his cloak, still securely clasped. . . .

Little did any of them know that a bystander was out for a walk nearby, while its host was raging against it, nourishing it, draining himself to nothing. This bystander heard the noise and, curious, went to investigate it.

---

*(http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/1/15659/3279542-xenophage-venom-the_hunted%232-devourer.jpg)(http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/1/15659/3279553-xenophage-venom-the_hunted%233-under_fire.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2014, 10:31:58 PM

Yes, yes. I've probably already used this parody before.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Terror Time Again

As the RAFians struggled with the Xenophage (who was proving to be more slippery than a used car dealer), Cloak thought that he heard the faintest of footsteps coming up behind them. But the back of his mind seemed to have bored of this conflict and was playing a song against the fight:

You hear the screeching of a Noctowl,
You hear the Hunter begin to howl,
You know there's Xenophages on the prowl!
And it's terror time again!
They've got you fighting though the night.
It's terror time again!
And you just might die of fright.
It's a terrifying time.

Okay, those were definitely footsteps that he was hearing.

SMACK!

The Xenomorph had taken advantage of Cloak's divided attention and smacked him upside his head, and it was with a lot of force. It wouldn't kill the Realm Walker, just make him irritated. Or worse, angry.

Still the song persisted in Cloak's head:

You hear the beating of your heart,
You know the screaming's gonna start!
Here comes the really scary part:
'Coz it's terror time again!
They've got you fighting through the night.
It's terror time again!
Oh, you just might die of fright.
It's a terrifying time.

Some was still approaching. Cloak hadn't the time or energy to consider the specifics f how and why, he was just as busy as the others with battling the Xenophage. If they were succeeding at anything, it was keeping it in this general location.

All the trees begin to moan,
And the Xenomorphs grunt and groan.
Menacing faces toxic sublime,
Don't you know it's terror time?
And it's terror time again!
They've got you fighting through the night
Yes, it's terror time again.
Oh, you just might die of fright,
It's a terrifying time!!!!"

A sudden scream rifed through the clearing. Saffa recognized him first, and spoke with distaste, "Rodney Grace. Wonderful."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 05, 2014, 12:09:29 AM

What the...?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2014, 06:38:49 AM

Those were the pictures of the Xenophage --and its not particularly easy to find info on them, because apparently they only appear in three issues of Marvel comics. And they only showed one, and in the second one it was the NYPD in the chopper apparently.

New book ideas!

• Book CDXL: "Colonization" -- Humans go about to colonize the solar system (even Saturn, aware of the Veleek problem), but a group of hyper-religious purists try to stop and sabotage them. (Still debating on whether to make this inside or outside continuity.)
• Book CDXLI: "Beasts Unleashed!" -- The Emotional Entities are freed.
• Book CDXLII: "Shadow, the Babysitter" -- Shadow is roped into babysitting Pierce.
• Book CDXLIII: "Billionaire Brat" -- A billinoaire child attempts to buyout RAF.
• Book CDXLIV: "Alpha Technarchy" -- An old enemy merges and controls the Technarchy.
• Book CDXLV: "A Past All Broken" -- Delving into Broken's past.
• Book CDXLVI: "What's Inside" -- An accident pulls out the inner chdren of the RAFians, even Cloak.
• Book CDXLVII: "Planet Brokering" -- An alien species attempts to sell Earth. Sell the planet, which they don't own.
• Book CDXLVIII: "Fugitive Souls" -- The RAFians get caught between the plight of two fugitive souls and the spectral bounty hunter called Warden Warren Walker.
• Book CDXLIX: "Another Wild Story" -- Delving into Wild's backstory.
• Book CDL: "Absorbing Man" -- In his father's nightmare, Pierce grows up to be able to absorb anyone possessing a Mark in totality.
• Book CDLI: "Acolytes and Alliances" -- Two RAFian enemies come across the Darkness, who turns one into its Dark Acolyte, causing the other to make an uneasy alliance with the RAFians.
• Book CDLII: "The Rahkshi Initiative" -- The Darkness uses its two Dark Acolytes to create what it calls Rahkshi.
• Book CDLIII: "The Evisorak" -- The Dark Acolytes create mechanical beings who appear to be somewhere between Visorak and Arachnoids morphologically.
• Book CDLIV: "Brain Replacements" -- The Dark Acolytes create a monsterous parasite from the Cymothos exigua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua), with similar powers. . . .

Don't think I rehashed anything. But if I did, I think I can work around it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Dinner!

The RAfians had knowledge of Rodney Grace. They had a bit of a scuffle with his contingent of Knights, with him in the shadows. It was over in two seconds, but gave the RAFians the heads up of his existance. It happened before the whole Corruption deal, but was so minor that mosstRAFians were dismissive of it. The Knights were like sandbox bullies compared to the big bads they had faced before -- they couldn't hold a candle to Malice or Cataclysm or Madre de Vampyra or the Black Mercy.

Grace just kept screaming. It wasn't a scream of rage or fury, but one of pure terror. He stood rooted to the spot, face emanating absolute and undeniable fear. Grace was far too conceited and supercilious to believe that he was in any danger. The symbiote remained hidden, as if to hide from the predator that it most foolishly had decided to investigate without even considering that it could be a Xenophage.

But the Xenophage wasn't so easily fooled. It had managed to survive the destruction of its home world, the world where the symbiotes lived, from a certain cosmic entity. It quickly lost interest in the RAFians, which perplexed them. It moved toward Grace, who stood rooted to the spot with fear, screaming like an overexcited Belieber, or however you spell that stupid term, only screaming with terror.

When the Xenophage began frothing at the mouth with yellowish drool, Cloak started to suspect something about Grace. But hoped he was wrong, because he remembered that the Xenophage doesn't discriminate against symbiote and host, that it's a brain-eater, like some symbiotes are. Even someone as vile as Rodney Grace and his ilk don't deserve such a fate.

But Niss finally gave up tye pretense, when it realized that it wasn't working and that the Xenophage was on to it. This Xenophage was an experienced symbiote hunter, it wouldn't have been fooled by the trick every hosted symbiote pulled. It wasn't that young or naive, but what it was was hungry.

"Come here," the Xenophage said in a completely inhuman rasp.

"No!" Grace said, shifting involuntarily into a form like Carnage, Hawk from DC, and Spawn had been fused and thoroughly integrated together. This was the "spandex form", so to speak. "No! Go away!"

The Xenomorph rasped a chuckle, and said, rather sinisterly, as it moved in for the kill, "That's what they all say."

Grace tried to escape but was cut off at every turn. Cloak soon realized that the Xenophage could have ended this quickly with that fiery toxin of its. But it didn't. It was enjoying this struggle, this chase. It didn't want it to end too soon, no matter how hungry it was. It was a hunter by nature, and an usual one at that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2014, 09:00:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Rather Dead

Close to their deadline, Abby, Saffa, and Noelle morphed back. All injuries gone and forgotten, but still somewhat mesmerized by the transpiring envents. Hunter and Gaze lowered their weapons. Laserbeak transformed back into parrot mode.

Meanwhile, Cloak's mind was going a mile a minute. There had to be something they could do. Something, anything at all. No one deserved such a fate as having your brain eaten. . . . Of course!

Cloak inhaled deeply, then used his aerokineticalky-enhanced roar, his Mega-Roar. He made it as loud as he could. The Xenophage was distracted (and, apparently, annoyed) by it, sure, but that was not his intention. It forced Niss of Grace's body as he stumbled away from both Niss and the Xenophage. The Xenophage began to play with Niss the way a housecat would play with a mouse.

"Noelle." Cloak said without turning around. She was quick on the uptake. She galloped over to Grace as fast as her hoove would allow, and proceeded to try to pick Grace up. But Andalite arms aren't the strongest of species, and it didn't help that Grace was actually resisting her helping him.

"Hey!" Cloak snapped. "We saved you from having your brain being chowed down! Now let us get you to safety!"

"I'd have rather have had let it eat me," Grace spat, in a most rude, vitriolic way. "Then allow myself to continue to be besmirched by you pathetic lower beings!"

"We saved your life, you ungrateful bigot!" Saffa snarled. "You could show a little gratitude for it. We didn't have to. We could have let the Xenomorph --"

"Xenophage." Cloak corrected, in an aside.

"Whatever!" Saffa said, nettled. "We could have let it have you, and the world would have been a better place! Better without you and your self-righteous band of bigots!"

"Ours is the noble path! Our is the right path! The human species is the only sentient species in existence! Other species might have human-like sentience, but they never can come close to our true sentience." Grace pontificated. "Homo sapiens is the absolute epitome of evolution. We are what everything wants to become! We are what everything wishes they were!"

"Suddenly, it's like talking to Realm Walker government," Cloak muttered, shaking his head. No one heard him, though.

"Funny," Hunter said, with a thoughtfulness and faux stillness to his tone. "If you were so much superior to other species, how you were unable to break the symbiote's hold over you."

"I -- I, uh --"

"You can't come up with a counterargument," Abby said, with a flat tone to emphasis how unimpressed she was with this guy. She was watching the Xenophage continue to play with symbiote, still like a housecat, only more sadistic now. "Further proving that you, and the Knights you head, simply consist just foolish fundamentalists, tyrannical traditionalists and egocentric extremists -- some all three. You and your groupies are just sad, and to be pitied."

"Why you ignorant whelp!" Grace said, in scandalized tones. "Hiw dare you claim to understand our complex goals, our aims, when you debase yourself by rubbing shoulders with --"

FWAP!

Grace collapsed on the ground. Noelle had hit him with the side of her tail-blade with precision accuracy -- cultivated by her time as a RAFian.

<I am sorry,> she said. <but this is not the time for squabbles about politics and moral superiority. We have to get this guy out of here so he doesn't become the martyr he wishes to be. Here, help me get him on my back.>

They did, while the Xenophage continued to enjoy its sadistic game with the symbiote. They secured him and Noelle dumped him off a ways away from the battleground. Then she morphed Psychlopterran and flew back to the battleground quicker than she galloped back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 05, 2014, 01:37:01 PM

Ugh. I would've slapped him too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2014, 08:56:01 PM

Me too, Saffa. America is full of people like them, unfortunately. And they ain't going away anytime soon, I'm afraid.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Om Nom Nom Nom!

When Noelle had returned, she didn't immediately demorph. Psycholepterran are useful as battle morphs, if only for their mesmerizing abilities. She looked around, and spot the the others gazing at something, looking revolted.

She looked round and saw that the Xenophage had decided that it played with its food long enough. It was devouring Niss in an overly loud and overtly oleaginous way. It was a revolting, vile thing to hear, much less see. The symbiote had been paralyzed with the incendiary neurotoxic salvia -- which apparently "enhances the flavor" to the Xenophage.

All the RAFians had froze in disgusted shock. This was the inevitable outcome, but it was still an unpleasant sight. You could turn away an not look at it, but you could not block out the sounds -- the oily slurping, the frenzied voice clamoring over "how good it tasted" --they were very pervasive.

Noelle morphed back, trying not to watch, but as soon as her stalk eyes reformed, they were drawn to the sight. Sometimes having stalk eyes were a pain.

Soon (but not soon enough), it was over. Niss was gone. Eaten. Being digested. What a way to go. And yet, somehow, Cloak had the distinct feeling that Horse would not be fazed by this, at least not as much as they were, having been frequently swallowed whole by the Pootang.

It was done and it was satisfied with a full stomach . . . or fuller than it was before. But it was a sensation that apparently did not last long as it then attempted to attack the RAFians again. Seemingly unprovoked, with unnecessary aggression.

"Hey, what a cotton-pickin' minute here," Hunter said, forced to holster his guns, having ran out of ammo. He would have to rely on claws and teeth now. He continued, "You just fed, on nine symbiotes in one no less, so why attack us?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you," it rasped. "Just die."

"No thanks."

"Good, resist. That would make the act of slaying you all the more gratifying!" it rasped rapturously. "Resist me! Fight me! Then die!"

Then it became clear to Cloak. Cloak understood the Xenophage's reaction to attack them. The Realm Walker uttered, "Predatory instinct."

"What?" Gaz said, still firing Laserbeak's shots, but they weren't anymore effective as the ones before.

"Predatory instinct," Cloak said, moving about the battlefield gracefully, attempting to use the elments against this beast, but it would not be dazed or anything. It was more slippery than an eel or a politician. Cloak continued, "Abby, Noelle, Safga. You've all morphed predators, you should be well acquainted with the concept. As should you, Hunter, being a anthropomorphic wolf, and you, Gaz, being a vampire."

"But I suppress those instincts," Gaz pointed out.

"Doesn't change the fact that you're aware of them." Cloak said, pulling of some moves and techniques that only one with feline agility and flexibility could pull off. He proceeded, "It is this instinct that drives predators to opportunistically hunt when a prey animal presents itself in such a way that it could be overpowered."

"Stop lecturing and die!" the Xenophage grated harshly.

"You clearly know nothing of my physiology," Cloak said, addressing the monster. It had the unintended consequence of confusing the monster, who was thinking that it had something to do with lecturing instead of the Xenomorph being physically incapable of killing Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 06, 2014, 12:19:32 AM

Ewww.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2014, 05:16:21 AM

Yes. Eww.

Anyway, I'm currently planning out Book CCCXXXIV ("That's A Mood-Changer"), which, ironically I suppose, may be similar in tone to this book. I won't know exactly until I write it.

New books ideas! Yes, I'm being possibly unreasonably ambitious!

• Book CDLV: "Mech Wars" -- Giant mech fighting becomes a popular, if not expensive, sport. But thieves develop Headmaster Units. . . .
• Book CDLVI: "The Sigma Headmaster" -- A roboticist transfers his mind into a HU.
• Book CDLVII: "Call Me . . . Wiley" -- Another roboticist/anarchist uses war machines to spread anarchy.

Titles are subject to change. But tell me what you think. I don't think I rehashed anything, though this probably could be considered the "Mech Arc", but I dunno . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Gluttonous Glob!

"C'mere!" it rasped, reaching for the Realm Walker, who easily somersaulted out of its reach with his feline agility and speed. He landed daintily, on his feet, face serious and devoid of emotion. His head was bowed to the ground a little.

Then he looked up and nimbly dodged a flailing tendril strike. To the other RAFians it might not be clear what Cloak was doing. Cloak knew the morphers were exhausted from the morphing, that was plainly seen. He knew Hunter and Laserbeak's munitions were also exhausted. There was only on option left to them now. The option he wanted to implement the least.

"Now I have you!" it snarled with a breathy chuckle. Cloak was surrounded in a nightmare cage of tendrils. Cloak felt no fear. The Xenophage was doing just precisely what it wanted it to do. Its attention was solely on him and not the others. It wanted to eat him, unaware what the consequences would entrail -- er, entail. "I have you, I have you! I win! I win, I win, I win, I win, I win, I win!"

Cloak smiled rather devilishly, "Do you now?"

"Yes, I d-- why are you smiling?" it said, remembering that prey doesn't smile when caught. This perplexed the beast to no end. " I demand you an-- where'd you go?"

For the Realm Walker had vanished as the beast blinked. Only a slight indention in the ground was left where he had stood. And suffice it to say, that this infuriated the creature. It had thought its trap was escape-proof, only to be proven mere seconds later how that simply was not the case.

Cloak blasted its backside with fire. He couldn't risk it losing interest in him and having it go after the others. There would be no time for hesitation now. Cloak, althought he did not like it, knew what had to be done. The Xenomphage would not leave this planet of its own volition, so it would have to pay the price. He couldn't allow himself to ponder on whether he had the right to make such a decision.

"Time for Plan K," Cloak muttered so the other RAFians, but not the Xenophage, could hear him.

"What?" Gaz asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Plan K? Kelly?" Abby asked.

"Can't be," Saffa said, shaking her head. "She's back at the forum."

<A bit more explanation would n-->

CHOMP!

The Xenophage's jaws grew to mammoth proportions, and it swallowed Cloak whole.

"CLOAK!!!" the other RAFians shouted in shock.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2014, 08:13:14 PM

More book ideas.

• Book CDLVIII: "Ascending On High" -- The HU-housed roboticist becomes a sentient computer virus, able to "possess" any machine.
• Book CDLIX: "Elemental Warrior Effigies" -- The Dark Acolytes produce eleven effigies of the ancient Elemental Warriors, and their mounts, some of which can combine with each other.
• Book CDLX: "The Darkness" -- The obvious identity of the Darkness is rrevealed, as the two Dark Acolytes start to come to their senses.
• Book CDLXI: "Huggies" -- The RAFians meet some rather undesirable huggers.
• Book CDLXII: "A Family Hat" -- Two villains, and enemies of the RAFians, have a child.
• Book CDLXIII: "Identity Thieves-To-Be" -- A trio attempt to steal the identities of three RAFians.
• Book CDLXIV: "Longevity, At A Cost" -- A man maintains his immortality by stealing the years from others.

Again, the titles are subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything. Tell me what you think about the book ideas.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Mourn Not!

The Xenophage burped crudely and obviously. The RAFians were stunned by the swiftness of the act. Cloak was there one minute, gone the next. Not even he could have reacted in time.

"Cloak . . ." Gaz said, unable to take the horror from her voice.

"How?" Hunter said, flummoxed. "How could this have happened?"

"But . . . he can't be dead," Saffa said.

"Saffa, he was eaten." Abby said.

"He can't be dead," Saffa said, with conviction.

<Do you deny your senses, Saffa? You saw what . . . what happened.> Noelle said, noticing through a stalk eye, that the Xenophage seemed full. It wasn't coming after them anytime soon.

"You guys are forgetting one crucial detail." Saffa said, looking at them all in turn. "Cloak is a Realm Walker, and the Xenomphage isn't!"

"That's obvious, Saffa." Hunter said, eyebrow raised quizzically.

But Abby got what Saffa was getting at almost immediately. "Of course! It's so stupidly simple. The Xenophage can't kill Cloak because --"

"-- Because it isnt a Realm Walker!" Saffa finished the thought. "Cloak's told us time and time again, only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker!"

Then, quite suddenly, it seemed like the Xenophage was having a severe stomach ache. A light was leaking though its body. Within minutes it was no longer in existance. Cloak had quickly donned his cloak again before any lasting damage could happen to the realm. It takes prolonged exposure to cause detrimental damage.

"Glad to hear you guys have been paying attention to me, then." Cloak said, brushing off his cloak.

"That's what Plan K was? Getting eaten?" Gaz chatized the Realm Walker.

He just shrugged and said, "It worked for Tommy Lee Jones in MIB."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 07, 2014, 12:23:58 AM

So many books! :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2014, 05:33:21 AM

Yep.

New chapter. Last one for this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fall For Grace

"You cannot come back here," said a voice whose owner was in shadow. "You've allowed yourself to be dirtied with loweer filth."

Instead of trying to explain his position or circumstance, Grace arrogantly blusters, "I am your KING."

"You were our king," said another voice, whose owner was in shadow as well. "But you allowed nonhuman filth to corrupt you, to sully you. You are no longer pure as all other Knights are."

"You can no longer be the steward of humanity's purity, protector of humanity's abject sovereignty, overseer to humanity's species superiority." said a third voice, whose owner was in shadow with the first two. "You are unfit to be our king. You must step down."

"I will not!" Grace said, in scandalized tones. He did not go without the opulent lifestyle being the King of the Knights of Humanity came with. A lifestyle that was, quite obviously undeserved for any Knight. Or any hate group for that matter. "I will not! You, the Round Table Council, are wrong!"

"We do not agree," said the first voice.

"We cannot have a leader who has allowed himself to be dirtied -- sullied! -- by contact with the extraterrestrial mongrels." the third voice said.

"The King is supposed to be pure," said the second voice, "pure of pedigree, body, heart, and soul. You are contaminated."

"Step down," said the first voice.

"Step down," agreed the third voice.

"Step down," intoned the second.

"NO!" Grace yelled at the top of his lungs.

"If that is your decision, then," said the second voice with a sigh. "We will do what we must."

"You are hereby impeached." said the first voice.

"You will gather things and leave the premises." said the third voice.

"You can't do this!" Grace exclaimed.

"We can." said the second voice.

"And we did." stated the first voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 07, 2014, 01:50:46 PM

That was a disturbing end...

And the PDF. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 07, 2014, 04:53:50 PM

Good work, cloaky!

Ok, fun reading time is done. Time to get back to reading for class.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2014, 06:07:31 PM

Thanks. And Saffa, it may have no bearing on the rest of the series. . . . or I may be pulling your leg. Hey, hey, hey! No need to morph to Tyrannopede on me. Shadow trampled me enough when she was into Justin Bieber (until she grew out of it). ;)

New chapter, new book.

BOOK LXII:
SEPARATION ANXIETY
CHAPTER ONE:
Why Should Parker Worry?

"Hey!" Rotiart protested as Parker teasingly took a plate of sausages from him, "I helped you get those!  Half of those are mine!"

Parker gave them back with a laugh. He wasn't being serious, but playing around. Although, it was Rotiart . . .

It was a good thing there was such levity this day, there hadn't been much quiet time with the Corruption and symbiote thing happening practically back-to back. The RAFians were to the point that they were waiting somewhat impatiently for the next scheme from Malice.

While partaking in a little impromptu parkour, he indulged himself with a song:

"One minute I'm in RAFian grounds
Then I'm down on Helen's street
From the threads to the lake.
There's a syncopated beat.
Say whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!
I'm streetwise!
I can improvise!
Say whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!
I'm forum smart.
I've got R-A-F-I-A-N heart!
Why should I worry?
Why should I care?
I may not have the time,
But I got RAF savoire faire.
Why should I worry?
Why should I care?
It's just bebop-ulation
And I got RAF saviore faire.
The rhythm of the forum --
But once you get it down,
Then you can own this RAF town!
You can be the clown!
Why should I worry?
Why should I care?
I may not have the time
But I got RAF savoire faire.
Why should I worry?
Why should I care?
It's just doowop-ulation
And I got RAF saviore faire.
Why should I worry?
Why should I care?
And even when I cross that line,
I got RAF savoire faire!
Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!
Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!
Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!
Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!"

Cloak watched it impassively, wondering if Parker's little song just jinxed them all in the Realm Walker's incredibly jaded way of thinking nowadays. Cloak knew he was just singing a Billy Joel song with altered lyrics.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 07, 2014, 09:52:14 PM

I was listening to that song earlier on my ipod!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2014, 07:10:50 PM

Serendipitous, Gaz. Now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Malice Does Machines*

Malice had devised another machine. One had to wonder what progress she could make if she weren't so selfishly evil. It was a rather strange machine in design and function. It was sort of shaped like a microscope and a pound sign -- a "£". It was made of metal sheets in a rather boxy design. With the overarching part large enough to hold an average six-foot-tall himan being.

"It is ready," Malice crowed lovingly. "My precious Ectoplasmer."

"A Yu-Gi-Oh! card?" a voice asked. It turns out that there was a man strapped down to the table where the cross mark on the pound sign (£) would be.

"Silence." Malice said severely.

"What do you want with me?" the young man said, voice betraying his fear.

"I . . . said . . . SILENCE!" Malice snarled, as the young man hastened to obey, terrified. Then she spoke in a deprecating tone, "You Dwellers. So much unnecessary free will."

Mauler stood in the  back, his hands behind his back, standing at attention. He had no will of his own. No mind of his own. Every thought and whim was given to him by Malice. The young man noticed this and was really frightened by it. What sentient being would be terrified of losing their own mind, their own will? Who would ever want to give that up without any other applicable criteria?

"Wh-why are you doing this to me? Wh-why me?" the man asked in a small voice.

Instead of snarling at him, Malice had decided to deign to answer his questions. "Why? Why am I doing this? Poppet, you should have already guessed that!"

Her voice turned harsh and rough, replacing her calm, affable manner with alarming expediency. "I needed a test subject. I needed a test subject and you provided yourself to me."

"Wh-why me?" he said, terror obvious on his face.

Malice was clearly getting a kick out of torturing him. "Why you, dearie? Why, it's simple. You were there. You were the first human that I thought might be able to survive the process . . ." she allowed her self a girlish giggle before continuing, "survive the process, in a manner of speaking."

Then the tip of the hooked part of the machine telescoped out, like a camera zoom, and claws formed from the tip, making it look rather like a spark extractor. . . .

---

* Get the reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2014, 08:20:29 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
La Ni Asylum

"What is the name of this place again?" Blue said, feeling rather exposed as he, Parker, Aquilai, Phoenix, Blaze, Cloak, and Gaz (Laserbeak firmly on her shoulder) approached a rundown asylum.

"Lansdale-Knight Asylum," Parker shrugged.

"Actually, its the Lansdale-Knight Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center and Home for the Criminally Insane, technically," Aquilai noted.

"Yeah, that rolls right off the tongue." Gaz muttered, as Laserbeak nibbled on her ear affectionately. Gaz addressed the Cybertronian bird, "Yes, yes. I love you, too, Beaky, but we've got to be professional here."

Laserbeak flat out ignored this, which caused Cloak to smile, despite himself and the nature of this mission. Beaky could be a stubborn bird when he wanted to be.

"But the sign says 'asylum'." Blaze pointed out.

"Technically, it says 'La Ni Asylum'," Parker said with a concealed smirk.

"Why are we here again?" Cloak said, levity leaving him very quickly, evaporating.like water on a stove burner that still very hot.

"The distress signal coming from the basement level." Phoenix said. They were unaware of who sent the signal, but came to investigate anyway. "It seemed too important to ignore."

"It's gotta be a trap," Cloak said, as he looked at the old building that had debris everywhere. The building itself was the color of sand and sandstone, but looked as if it was rather haphazardly cleaned, but had not for quite some time.

The iron bars, painted black, around it still stood solidly around the ground's perimeter, with only for a bit of rust here and there on it. They entered through the kissing gates of wrought iron. The hinges of which seemed encrusted with rust.

Blaze commented on Cloak's statement with, "I hate it when he says that."

"Cloak, you say that about everything." Blue chided.

"And how frequently am I wrong about them?" Cloak said, walking forward more and more hesitantly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 09, 2014, 01:12:59 AM

Everything's a trap. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2014, 06:15:28 AM

But of course, Saffa. You'd think we'd get use to it by now. Then again we're still in basically Year 1 as of this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
IT'S A TRAP!!

"Odd." Cloak said, suspicious off the bat.

"What is?" Blue asked, his ninja training making him want to stick to the shadows. Cloak's own innate feline instincts told him the same.

"I can't Earthsight in here."

"It has hardwood floors," Gaz pointed out. "You need earth to Earthsight, right?"

"But I should be able to feel the vibrations through the wood," Cloak said, more to himself than the others. It was the same basic concept as Earthsight and Metalsight. Cloak supposed it was because he had more of an affinity for those elements than with Wood. But no . . . Shadow has no particular affinity for any of thr Six Elements that she mastered, and she is no less powerful than Cloak was at that age.

He thought he might have been able to do it, but hasn't really tried. Cloak.was one who did not like to leave his comfort zone too often, as far as the elements were concerned. He was afraid of growing too powerful. He was afraid of being corrupted by power, both in the most literal of senses and metaphorically. What most the RAFians, the ones he doesn't have regular contact with, didn't know was Cloak harbored a deep fear of himself. This was only really brouht to the surface again, after years of being buried in pretense and mental suppression by Corruption's touch.

Cloak forcefully pulled his mind to the present. He had been dwelling on the past with a lot more frequency lately. It wouldn't do to do that during a mission. He hid from his emotions, just like he hid how damaging Corruption's touch was to him.

Yet the other RAFians, like Gaz, Saffa, and Kelly, seemed to already understand this without Cloak saying a word. It's why RAF would always be his true home, despite not being a Dweller himself. And such an action was still unfathomable and unseemly to Realm Walker society -- but an action that was seen as such by less and less Walkers, unbeknownst to Cloak.

But Cloak should have been paying attention to his surroundings, as he had not yet mastered feeling the vibrations through a wooden medium, though he may have thought he did at some points (he was just extraordinarily lucky at those times). As the trapdoors opened to claim Parker, Blue, Phoenix and Aquilai with suddenness of a Cavernmouth or a crocodilian's snap of a jaw, Cloak realized just how dependent on his Earthsight he had become. There was virtually no reaction time to do anything and it was impossible to see where the trap doors opened up.

And now four of his friends may pay for it . . . with their lives.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2014, 07:54:16 AM

And, btw, I'm currently planning out the chapters for Book CCCXXXVI ("Ivan's Gak"). 'Bout a fifth done with planning it out. If I make it to Book M, I'm gonna laugh. Because then that'd be a thousand books. And I haven't even finished the first hundred.

And I never thought of myself as ambitious before this fanfic.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Ripping Apart and Geist Wraiths

Cloak felt thoroughly apologetic. He knew this place was a trap, and still proceeded with everyone. He allowed the mission to continue. He hadn't seen the trapdoors. It was entirely his fault that this had happened.

"Cloak," Gaz said, sharply, "don't."

"What?" Cloak snapped, rather more roughly than he intended. Laserbeak squaked rather indignantly.

"I know you well enough that you're blaming yourself for this," she said. "And you're being far too hard on yourself."

"I should have known that --"

"No, Cloak." Gaz said, folded arms and a very parental sort of look in her eye, "you expect too much of yourself. Now is not the time for beating yourself up. We need to find the trapdoors, so help us start looking."

"Hey, guys?" Blaze asked, not even looking at the two. "What's that?"

A sheet was floating down the hall, it was much too heavy to be held aloft on a mild breeze, and, even if it was, the air was still and calm here. Yet, it continued to move of its own accord, as if something invisible was piloting it. But it wasn't the case because nothing is invisible to Realm Walker eyes, unless of Realm Walker origin.

"Dementor!" Cloak proclaimed.

***

Parker awoke feeling groggy. He looked around, waiting for his vision to clear. But no . . . this couldn't be right.

Everything was grayscale and somewhat blurred where there was supposed to be clear cut edges and whatnot. What the hell?

He found it difficult to grasp what was going on. He tried to speak, but found that he couldn't. No words came out, no sound. It was a frightening sensation. He had no idea where he was, and looking down on himself, he had no idea what he was anymore. He wasn't a ghost, he was sure of that. But he interpreted the unnatural lightness he felt to mean he was now bodiless.

What was he? Where were the others? Were they the other three floating consciousnesses that he saw? And, for that matter, how could he see without eyes of his own, hear without ears of his own?

What was he now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 09, 2014, 08:09:33 AM

Well you are quite. It's quite intimidating how you plan to write nearly 500 books.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2014, 08:30:30 AM

Plan and fully intend to write nearly 500 books. In fact, I'm working on the next chapter as we speak in my email.

Although, many of the newer books doeln't seem to be as lighthearted as some these books. . . . And I know of one that gets REALLY dark at one point (and no, it hasn't been posted yet). . . .

:edit:New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Body and Soul

"Can't be," Gaz said, "I can see that sheet too."

"Then what --" Blaze began, as the sheet swooped closer.

"ooooooOOOOOOooooo!" came from the sheet.

Not remotely terrifying, more like a child trying to be frightening and not really succeeding. It was rather pathetic and poorly thought out.

"How's it floating? Aerokinesis? Telekinesis?" Blaze asked, in a rather clinical manner, as if they were only discussing a mildly interesting YouTube video. Mildly interesting, not spectacular. "Or perhaps some elaborate movie prop involving strings and such."

Cloak thought this seemed familiar . . . perhaps from another realm he visited before discovering RAF? Perhaps sometime when he was in the limbo of time during his mother's tyrannical control over his life?

Cloak decided to try something. He pointed at the oh-so-spooky sheet, and said, "Expellicorpus."

It was a weak spell, as all Realm Walker attempts at magic tend to be, but it was sufficient to get the sheet to drop to the floor. It was obviously possessed, though it was remarkable that "expellicorpus" worked on a possessed inanimate object instead of an actual body. But clearly it was weak possessing spirit.

"What was it?" Gaz asked, and Laserbeak squawked quite noticeably. "Beaky, what's wrong?"

He was calling their attention to the vaguely humaniod form that hovered before them. It had silver eyes, and was composed of wispy, white energy that made its form seem solid but obviously not.

"What is that thing?" Blaze asked.

"What thing?" Gaz asked, earnestly perplexed. She couldn't see it.

"I think it's called a wraith," Cloak said. His face scrunched up as he struggled to remember. "A geist wraith."

The geist wraith fled for no reason. This puzzled the three RAFians.

***

The four disembodied RAFians get the hang being geist wraiths, learning how to move around in their new states. Get used to being fundamentally mute, but able to hear and see well enough. They also possess another power that they are currently unaware of.

They also discovered that their bodies are being loaded up into a truck and . . .

And there is nothing that they can do to stop them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 09, 2014, 10:58:02 AM

WAIT, WHAT?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2014, 05:29:15 PM

Yeah -- the Ectoplasmer got 'em.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Wait -- What?

The truck trundled off, its driver's body hijacked by one of the wraiths by scaring him by making the truck seem to hiss his name. Of course, it was a moot point since the wraith that possessed the truck to do this remained inhabiting the diesel vehicle.

But there was actually a reason that the driver's body was necessary, as the hefty, clean-shaven man in the bland company uniform held a curious device in his hand, that he had not before his body was commandeered and his mind suppressed. It was cylindrical and made of a silvery metal. Atop it was a plunger, like that atop of syringe.

It only had one purpose . . . and he pushed it. . . .

***

Meanwhile, within the cargo hold of the truck, four geist wraiths guarded the four inert RAFians. The thought of possessing them had occured to a four, as the mechanic that required them to be frightened before possession could take place was presumably absent with the bodies being naught but empty shells.

But it was an impossible task. Not because of the needing to scare factor, but because of the Mark. The Mark, by design, was created to protect the mind, body, and soul from any sort of subversion, seduction, mind control, or possession. Sure, there were always around it, as Madre de Vampyra discovered, but those loopholes have closed in the intervening time. As the RAFians, Cloak included, assumed it to be so.

***

Blaze, Gaz and Cloak were standing outside -- but no. No, this was just a section of the asylum that had been rotted away, exposing a gaping hole in it that was nonetheless unseen from the exterior ground-level.

"Somehow," Gaz said, "this doesn't bode all that well."

Laserbeak agreed with a brief, sullen chirp.

"There you are!" Blaze cried out at an approaching flowing, glowing geist wraiths.

But then it was joined by three compatriots. These had a bluish tint hereto unseen in the geist wraiths. There seemed to a miniscule something that bounced along in their spectral forms, but Cloak could not identify what it was from this vantage point.

"Gonna stand your ground this time? Or are you gonna run away again?" Blaze challenged.

It was precisely at that moment when Cloak recognized, and identified, that miniscule something that was bouncing along inside of them.

"Huh? Huh? Huh?" Blaze said, continuing his challenge.

"Blaze, enough!" Cloak said, harshly, to a surprised squawk of Laserbeak's.

"What? Why?" Blaze said, apparently going all Monty Python or something with his challenging.

"They aren't the geist wraith that ran from us." Cloak said.

Gaz immediately picked up on the near-imperceptible crack in his tone. "Cloak, spit it out. What's wrong."

"They're . . ." Cloak said, not wanting to go any further. But he found that he must, "They're Parker, Blue, Aquilai, and Phoenix. Somehow, they've been turned into geist wraiths."

"But . . ." Gaz said, flummoxed. "But . . . HOW?"

"That," Cloak said, "is a very good quest-- get down!!"

He had heard a faint click, and he followed his first instinct. He didn't know if it was the right move.

BOOOM!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2014, 09:31:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Wraith Master

The truck pulled into a strange area -- an out-of-the-way, boonies type.of place thst no one would find unless they actively sought it out. It was here that the geist wraiths had their boss. This was here that their master resided, at least for the time being.

The geist wraith who had possessed the truck had swiftly abandoned it as the truck driver threw the detonator on the passenger side seat. It was a rather careless act, but what did the geist wraith care that this body get indicted and arrested for blowing up an abandoned asylum? It was his concern.

His only concern was not disappointing his master, and that was a hard enough task, in and of itself. The truck driver stepped out from his vehicle. He was quickly joined by a hipster (scared by seeing himself as fashionably outdated by a possessed mirror), a homeless man (which was easy as the homeless tend worry and fret about where to get their next room, where they can sleep next, etc. as the city's programs to combat homelessness were largely unattainable due to politics), and a bartender (night shift at a spooky bar). All three possessed by geist wraiths, all possessed for the sole reason of pulling out the bodies from the truck and presenting them to their master.

They did not possess the foresight to keep the inmates (who never left) that they took over to load upon the truck, due to that annoying alarm -- shrill and pervasive -- from sounding when ever these bodies left the gate. It was annoying them, so they decided to improvise. Well, as much as you can improvise once you have had your free will corrupted and wiped away, like the streaks on a glass window and Windex.

They haul the bodies before their master -- though the proper English would have been 'mistress', had that word not devolved to essentially mean an adulteress in these modern times -- and the four bowed deeply to their master in their commandeered corporeal transports, which they still piloted.

Her manservant was a metallic humanoid with a televison-like screen on his chest. He was Mauler, unsurprisingly enough. And, naturally, than meant that the geist wraiths' lord and master was, rather anticlimactically enough, Malice herself.

The Tasmanian devil-form Realm Walker scrutinized the four RAFians crumbled in a heavy before her, as she sat on her chair, in a pose reminiscent of Loki. Her face was as blank and as hard as a smooth marble wall. The four weren't sure if they had upset their master. Unlike Mauler, they weren't that mindless, in the fact that they still had some semblence of personality and intellect.

"What do mean by this affront?" Malice said, beginning her cruel disparaging of these four (and the two unaccounted for) geist wraiths. "You should be wearing the bodies, not presenting them to me as if they were pelts you bartered for!!"

Malice was on her feet, with her arms folded tightly, and frightening look upon her face.

"And, pray tell, WHERE are the RAFian wraiths that the Ectoplasmer created? They need to be indoctrinated at once!"

A beat of silence.

"You do have them don't you?" she asked, her voice dangerous now, like the tone of a killer without mercy. "Don't you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 10, 2014, 10:21:47 PM

So wait. Who was in the truck?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2014, 05:07:44 AM

The empty bodies of the RAFians. As for the geist wraiths -- I did lose count while eriting, I admit. It was late and I was tired.

I'll post a new chapter soon enough.

:edit: check that. I had the whole chapter up and ready to go -- then clicked on the save button in my email, and it decide that I meant discard the ****in' thing!!! >:( >:(>:(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 11, 2014, 12:41:02 PM

Gmail does not appreciate creativity. Bad Gmail. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2014, 01:41:11 PM

What really irritates me is there is no way to recover it. I'll have to retype -- rewrite! -- the whole thing. And I don't have much time on this, my last day off of the week.

:edit: Let's see if it'll work this time.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Never Gonna Keep Us Down

Back at the site of the asylum explosion, there was debris everywhere. Bits of wood, scraps of twisted metal shrapnel, and whatnot. There was a what appeared to be a soap bubble completely covered in sawdust and debris, obscuring any possible occupants from view.

A tiger's roar sounded and the debris flew from the bubble forcefully as it was revealed to be a scarlet gold forcefield. Cloak dropped it as Gaz and Blaze got to their feet, and Laserbeak flapped his wings in a doleful manner. The geist wraith RAFians were, of course, unharmed as they no longer were in possession of their physical bodies.

"I could have saved us, too." Blaze said, rather petulantly. Cloak couldn't tell if he was deliberately affecting the huffy attitude or if it was genuine. In any case, Cloak wasn't in the mood for it, as he was feeling kind of surly.

"You four," Cloak said, addressing the geist wraiths. They looked identical in appearance. Cloak couldn't tell which one was Blue, Phoenix, Aquilai or Parker -- it was impossible. The Realm Walker continued with his query, "what happened to you?"

Cloak quickly noticed how easily this could devolve into charades as the geist wraiths apparently could not speak without a body's vocal cords. So, simple "yes and no" questions would have to suffice.

"Are your bodies still intact?" Cloak asked, as Gaz and Blaze wonder what had got Cloak so serious. "Just affirm or decline."

Affirmation.

"Do you know where they are?"

Declination.

"Can you traverse in your current state at any respectable speed?" Cloak asked.

Silence from all four -- that is to say, neither yea or nay. Or that they are unsure.

"Cloak -- what's with the --"

"I'll haul you with us then, to the forum." Cloak said, deliberately interrupting the RAFian vampire. Laserbeak squawked in protest, but Cloak ignored him. There were far more pressing problems to deal with at the moment.

The lot of them began the trek back, though through the air: Cloak on his energy disc hauling the geist wraiths very Lantern-like, Laserbeak in parrot mode, Gaz in bat mode, and Blaze has natural wings.

What brought on this change in Cloak? It was nothing more or less than Cloak burying his feeling, his emotions. Forcing himself to be wholly rational. He feared if he allowed himself to feel freely, he'd get dangerously close to being the monster he was when he was corrupted. It was still something that he was dealing with, something he was still learning how to cope with.

Such things never come easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2014, 04:18:15 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Schemer Schemes

Malice was using her own energy to beat and cow the geist wraiths into submission, after demanding that they abandon their hosts, and somehow the two unaccounted for showed up. Her energy could touch them as nothing else could, barring the rare supertangible materials. She was furious that they managed to get the bodies of the RAFians but not their newly-minted geist wraiths.

They couldn't even wear the bodies, making them useless to Malice! Worthless! Whh was she surrounded by such infernal incompetence?! Such persisting idiocy?!

Malice glared across the room, where there were ten cryogenic tubes, six occupied, but the glass had frosted over so the occupant within could not be seen. The geist wraiths had already had their minds twisted into a loyalty to her, and her alone. And they were unaware that Malice was keeping their bodies in cold storage . . .

"Although," Malice said, her fury evaporating into pensive thoughtfulness, "maybe I judged too quickly. Their bodies are here. They assuredly would come back to claim them once more. Become binded to them once more. . . ."

Malice smiled a smile to equal her name. She had an idea.

She placed the bodies in the remaining cryogenic tubes, to keep them "crisp" and "fresh", using her energy. She wasn't gentle with them either. Her smile never left her face. Her scheme was just so perfect in her mind. Everything just seemed to fit in so perfectly with each other.

"Wraiths!" she commanded in a deep booming voice. They paid her their undivided attention, afriad of incurring her wrath once more. "I charge you six with this task. It is a simple one, so you had better not fail me in this endeavor. And you had listen closely."

They hastened to acquiesce.

"Follow them, watch them. Do not let them know that you are doing such."

She thought a moment.

"Do not let yourselves be seen as geist wraiths," she added, wondering if the order was too specific for these six's limited minds. They left, and she reflected about the explosion of the asylum. Her Ectoplasmer was now ruined as it would have never survived such a blast. But no matter, no matter. She could just rebuild it if she needed. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2014, 07:26:39 PM

Alright, I've been planning through Book CCCXXXVII ("A.R.M.A.D.A.", changed from "A.R.M" because there really is an Animal Rights Militia apparently), and nearly done with that.

New book ideas!

• Book CDLXV: "Smarty-Pants" -- A group of kids get ahold of a genius-granting drug that they use to allow them to do whatever they want. They think.
• Book CDLXVI: "Am I Blue?" -- Blue's backstory.
• Book CDLXVII: "Weapon-Plus Bites" -- The RAFians must deal with superhumans with vampire powers, all artificially-made.
• Book CDLXVIII: "Artifact Arsenal" -- A spellcaster seeks many magical artifacts so he can try to usurp the Sorcerer Supreme, which is someone we know.
• Book CDLXIX: "The Power Plates" -- Plates that grant the user powers (and megalomania) surface. One man seeks them out.

Don't think that I did these ideas yet, but if I did, I think that I can work around that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Who Are You Talking To?

"Who are you talking to?" Saffa asked, giving a look as if she feared for their sanity. "Cloak, you're not hauling anything."

"Actually, I am. You just can't see them." Cloak said, very seriously.

"Very funny," Saffa said, not appreciating the joke. Which was a good thing, as Cloak wasn't joking.

"He's serious, Saffa," Blaze said, cordial but serious.

"Okay, then but what --"

"Weren't Phoenix, Blue, Aquilai, and Parker with you?" Abby interrupted.

"About that --" Gaz began.

"Where is he?" Helen said, fretfully. "Where is Parker?"

Cloak saw from the corner of his eye how one of the geist wraiths wretched and writhed at Helen's beginning sobs. She was beginning to assume the worst.

"They're in the energy bubble," Cloak said.

"Don't you dare patronize me, Realm Walker!" Helen snarled, tears still in her eyes. "There is nothing in that bubble! Don't you dare try to toy with me like that! Or I'll . . . I'll . . ."

"Do you remember the Dementors?" Cloak asked, his tone gentle.

Helen shuttered visibly, but tried to hide it.

"Could you see them?" Cloak asked, already knowing the answer. Helen did not provide one though, so Cloak continued as if she had responded as he presumed that she would have, "I thought not. Does that not prove that you cannot see things that others can."

". . . He's -- he's really in there."

"Yes," Blaze said, "though I can't tell him apart from Blue, Aquilai, or Phoenix."

Six pairs of eyes widened at this pronouncement.

"They're all in there?" Saffa said, unsuccessful with keeping the surprise from her voice.

"Yes," Gaz said, "they've sort have -- uh . . ."

"Lost their bodies." Cloak said, rather unnecessarily blunt. "Look, we need to call a meeting to deliberate on our next move."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2014, 09:14:48 PM

Well, looks like this book just may get 21 chapters, but don't hold me to that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Nine-Tenths of the Law

The meeting was going long, and the four geist wraiths quickly bored of it. It was not like they could make their voices heard, either. They no longer had voices in the most literal of senses. Each of the four were getting restless and irritable hearing the conversation between the corporeal RAFians going in circles, and they didn't even seem to notice!

The four became rather disgruntled and left the auditorium, left the forum. They were not heard, and they were not seen. Granted, they were not seen because only Cloak, Shadow, Blaze, Demos, Asmo, Estelore, Richard, and Broken were proven to be able to see them. All four were feeling particularly moody. They fought the despair of never being able to be reunited with their rightful bodies, as it threatened to overtake them with every yard away from the forum.

They stumbled upon a campsite, where the campers looked to be the responsible sort, though young. There were like four campers, the eldest being around seventeen, eighteen, and the youngest about fourteen, fifteen. They were all male.

And they were all terrified. A male grizzly had wandered to their campsite in search of food, as winter would be coming soon enough. The RAFian geist wraiths, abandoning their own worries about their problems for the moment glided over to try to help.

All they succeeded in doing was accidentally possessing the campers -- all except Aquilai who possessed the bear, which was somehow scared when the other three possessed the other three campers. The bear apparently could sense them, if not see them.

Of course, though, it was the same with the RAFian Bear, as well as the decidedly-inhuman RAFians. They could sense them, just not see them. Or hear them.

Anyway, Aquilai lumbered away in the bear's body, waiting until it was a safe enough distance away. Then he abandoned the ursine body and returned. He discovered that only the youngest was -- ah -- unoccupied. And the boy still had enough fear coursing though him that Aquilai was still able to possess him.

Blue had possessed the eldest. The eighteen-year-old boy was rather stocky, in an average way, and wore a blue shirt, a black belt, boots, and blue jeans. Blue wore a serious look on his face, and showed discomfort in what truly amounted in identity theft.

Aquilai had possessed the youngest. The fifteen-year-old was round-shouldered, short, and wearing a bright orange shirt, flip flops, a black belt, and blue jean shorts. Aquilai wore a quizzical look upon this boy's face, as if this was an odd sensation.

Parker had possessed the third-eldest, despite being the tallest. The sixteen-year-old boy was thin, lanky with diastema (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diastema). He wore a old purple shirt that was draped over his frame, blue jeans with a black belt, and simple work boots. Parker wore an inscrutable look upon the boy's face.

Phoenix had possessed the second eldest, and second-shortest. The seventeen-year-old boy was thick-bodied and stocky. He wore a rather tattered red shirt, worn jeans with a beaten up belt, and worn out shoes. Phoenix looked at this boy's hands, which he could move as his own.

"I feel dirty." Phoenix had said. But he spoke not with his own voice, but with the boy's.

"We didn't do this intentionally," Blue said. His voice was that of his host too.

"I kinda did," Aquilai said. "But what choice do we have?"

"None of you have ever experienced being possessed." Phoenix pointed out. "I have. Back when Mummundrai Evile or whatever took me over. I know what it feels like. Now I'm forcing it upon this kid."

"We don't have a choice," Parker said, dryly. "If we want our opinions heard by the others, so they can stop arguing in bloody circles."

"Well, we best go now. These kids pretty much have already packed up their camp before that bear came along, so let's finish up," Blue suggested, breezily, "and head back to the forum."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 12, 2014, 11:17:53 PM

Wait, how come the others can't see the wraiths?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2014, 03:45:54 PM

Well, while similar to ghosts, they are not true ghosts. It basically is the ren of the soul, the identity that had been seperated. And they are more similar to Afterlights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everlost_(novel)), which, under normal circumstances, cannot not be seen by the living. This makes geist wraiths dementor-like, in a way. Only some people can see them. Cloak and Shadow because they're Realm Walkers, Blaze because he's part angel, Demos and Asmo also because of their species, Estelore because she's a wild card in this somewhat, and Richard because, well, he's Richard.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Complexities

It was a bit of a shock when the four showed up in their borrowed (or, as Phoenix ruefully thought of it, stolen) bodies. They each bore a Mark in the appropriate places, but it was not as strong as everyone else's.

"They're fake, then!" Rotiart said. Apparently enough time had passed since the Corruption incident that Rotiart thought it was safe to be himself again -- an obnoxious jerk.

"No, they're authentic," Cloak said, scrutinizing the Marks quickly.

"You can't know that!"

Cloak locked eyes with Rotiart, and he quelled at the intensity of it. When Cloak spoke, each word felt as if it had been charged by electricity. "I helped create the blasted Mark. I would be able to detect a forgery!"

"But why does it seem half powered?" Saffa asked. She could not help but feel weird about the four possessing the campers. Who knows how long they stayed in there already? What if there was a time limit before they got stuck? "Shouldn't it be fully-fledged?"

"Probably because our true bodies are still alive, and the Mark has ties to both RAFian mind and body," Aquilai said, though his host body's voice made it sound rather more comical than he intended. "So the power of our Marks have been split in two."

"Which makes sense when you atop to think about it," Parker said, his gapped teeth distracting. "Since we, the four of us here, are essentially in two places at once."

"And we have to occupy these bodies like filthy parasites," Phoenix muttered.

"Hey!" Myitt protested. "Not all parasites are filthy!"

Phoenix was moody, and this protest did little to sway him. He felt dirty. Unclean. "Your host body is voluntary. This boy is unaware of my using his body to meet my ends. It's not the same thing."

"Phoenix -- that is you, right? -- What's the matter?" SuperNate asked.

Phoenix didn't answer, but Cloak surmised what it was. "Mummudrai Evile."

"What?" Underseen asked.

"Mr. E?" Faerie asked. "What about -- oh, right. . . ."

Phoenix turned away, and folded the teenager's arms in a surly way.

"So," Richard said, in a tone of summation, "seems to me that the logical first step would be to find the coordinates where your bodies are being held."

"This just in!" Yarin said. "It seems to be a -- a fax?"

"A fax?" Genies asked. "When did we get a fax machine?"

"Never mind that! There's coordinates on it!" Yarin yelped in shock.

"That's . . . convenient." Richard said, slowly.

"Too convenient," Cloak said, quickly. "It's gotta be a trap."

"Everything's a trap," Saffa quipped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2014, 09:10:13 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Who Are You Gonna Call?

"If there's something strange
in your neighborhood,
Who ya gonna call?
Wraith -busters!
If there's something weird,
and it don't look good,
Who ya gonna call?
Wraith-busters!
I ain't afraid of no geist wraiths.
I ain't afraid of no geist wraiths.
If you're seeing things,
running through your head.
Who can ya call?
Wraith-busters!
A intangible man,
sleeping in your bed,
Who ya gonna call?
Wraith-busters!
I ain't afraid of no geist wraiths.
I ain't afraid of no geist wraiths.
Who ya gonna call?
Wraith-busters!
If ya all alone,
pick up the phone
and call
Wraith-busters!
I ain't afraid of no geist wraiths!
I ain't afraid of no geist wraiths! --"

"Shadow," Cloak said, addressing his rather overexcited neice, "you do know that this is a stealth mission, right?"

"Sorry!"

The two Realm Walkers, Blaze, Gaz (with overprotective Laserbeak, of course), Broken, and Helen were heading out to the coordinates. Cloak was absolutely sure that it was a trap of some kind.

The four geist wraith RAFians had returned their host bodies to the precise area that they were in before ditching them, leaving them to figure out the lost hours of their lives. They went with the team to the coordinates, and they didn't really appreciate Shadow's song.

"Oh, lighten up, Cloak," Blaze said. "Phoenix, Parker, Blue and Aquilai have all scouted ahead and reported that there wasn't anything."

"That doesn't mean there isn't anything up ahead," Cloak said cautiously. "Traps can be cleverly concealed."

"That brings up a good point," Broken said, airing on the side of caution as well. "We should have seen some trouble before now. A booby trap, an ambush."

"A geist wraith," Cloak added. "But no. Nothing. The air is too still, and . . ."

Cloak stopped midsentence, as he thought he sensed something further on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 13, 2014, 11:40:29 PM

Haha, I was wondering when you were going to throw Ghostbusters in here. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2014, 06:18:07 PM

Yep. Though this book is loosely based on "Geist", a GameCube title, I believe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Monstrokokhlos*

They had entered a cave as they were speaking. It was rather spooky -- if you were a child younger than Shadow. Cloak could tell that there were labyrinthine tunnels beneath it. It was a trap.

Huh, imagine that.

But Cloak sensed something. Something that had pulsed an evil energy. This wasn't the thinking, deliberate evil most sentient beings associated with the word. This was more ancient, more savage and brutal, and far less forgiving. He looked all around, but couldn't find anything with his eyes.

So. Malice had procured a guardian, a bodyguard, a herald. But, no, this freature was far more bestial than any other evil Cloak had sense, except for perhaps Mummudrai Evile -- "Mr. E". Even Malice did not contain this sort of unrestrain malevolence. What possible beast could this creature --

"Demon snail!" Shadow said, as the creature slammed to the ground.

It wasn't a demon snail per se, that was overgeneralization on Shadow's part. It looked like a Shellmon (http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Shellmon) in body style, with the lower body enclosed in a shell (though this one was spiraled vertically), two limbs rather like the forelegs of a wolf or lion with opposable thumbs and fingers, thick human-like shoulders, and its head was like a Bolovax Vikian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowog), only with eyes like that of an Arcona (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Arcona). Its flesh was red as if it had been flayed alive, though its eyes were like glittering diamonds.

But the most dangerous part was its shell, its metallic shell. Cloak could tell that it was a dangerously unstable alloy of adamantium, vibranium, and n^th metal. Cloak knew enough about the metals to know that they don't go together like that. Not without them being extemely and exceedingly volatile.

"This is bad," Cloak muttered.

"It's a monstrokokhlos," Blaze said, as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

"A what?" Gaz said.

"A demon snail," Blaze answered.

"Thank you for clearing that up," Helen said.

"I could have told you that," Shadow said, folding her arms rather petulantly. "Oh, wait. I did!"

"Enough arguing!" Cloak snapped, a tiger's roar intermingling his words as if woven together. "Do not understand how volatile this creature's shell is?"

---

*"Monstro" = "monster"; "kokhlos" = Greek for "spiral shell", I think

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 14, 2014, 11:08:07 PM

It's an exploding demon snail?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2014, 07:41:47 AM

In a manner of speaking, yes. It's actually based off a boss character in "Geist".

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Escar-Got Owned

"Looks normal to me," Helen said. "Well, normal for a monster snail shell. That's metal."

"A dwarf kaiju," Blaze added.

"It must be only people who have mastered Earthsight and Metalsight, then." Cloak said. "But that shell is definately not biometallic."

"Wait, is that what the --" Shadow asked.

"Yes," Cloak answered, wearily. He had foreseen what would have to happen and the amount of energy that it would take from his neice and himself. "I know it looks like the metals are continuous. That they are homogeneous, but the shell is not. It is an alloy made of materials that should not mix. Although the adamantium and vibranium could, I suppose. The n^th metal destabilizes the whole mixture, though."

"Are you speaking English?" Blaze asked, as the demon snail -- the monstrokokhlos, as Blaze put it, the "spiral-shelled monster" -- took notice of them, but did not seem to notice the geist wraiths or had no interest in them because they lacked flesh.

The monstrokokhlos roared belligerently at them, which sounded like the roar of a hoarse tyrannosaur, and scooted towards them with rather astounding, astonishing speed for one of its size. That was in relative terms. In actual terms, its speed wasn't anything to brag about and its agility was virtually nonexistent.

Cloak, for one, did not which to test its offensive capabilities. There could be only one chance. There was a metaphorical chick in the monstrokokhlos's armor, and Cloak thought that he could "see" that with seismic sense -- his Earthsight and Metalsight.

It roared again, almost drunkenly. Cloak wondered if it was supposed to be the personification of belligerent drunkenness, but musings on that would have to wait for a later date. There were more important things to concern himself with.

"Cloak, what's the plan?" Gaz said.

Cloak felt a stab of fear completely unrelated to the task at hand. He had always feared being in positions of power. He feared allowing power to corrupt him, as it had to his mother. He had given her power over him, and she abused it. Was corrupted by it. Cloak feared the same would happen to him. But then, whoever was in charge of fate, had gave him the potential to master the Six Elements since his birth. They gave him the power, power he still thinks he doesn't deserve. . . .

"Cloak?" Broken pressed.

Not the time for introspection now. A plan needs to be made and the monstrokokhlos needs to be dealt with.

"Blue. Aquilai. Phoenix. Parker." Cloak said, "go topside through the ceiling and see if we're  nearby anything that looks like a settlement. Just confirm or deny. Don't worry about explanations."

They followed suit, but Cloak did not hesitate in the next stage of the plan.

"Shadow, Blaze, Helen," Cloak said. "And Broken, if you know an appropriate spell. Be prepared to contain the explosion."

"Explo-- Cloak, you're not serious?" Gaz said.

"I am, Gaz." he said. "It's go time."

The beast managed to get close enough that Cloak could smell its breath, which was about as fragrant as you might expect. Cloak eyed the one spot on the monstrokokhlos's shell that seemed to be the weakest, most volatile spot, according to his Earth and Metalsight. This would take percision.

Cloak pulled five marble-sized earth pellets, which hovered around his fingers. He focused his mind, his will, everything on that one spot. He balled his outstretched hand into a fist, and the earth pellets shot off like bullets, each hitting that one spot, one-after-another, albeit at different angles.

The shells seemed to have crackled with energy, and Cloak frowned that it didn't work as the freature roared with defiance and annoyance. But Gaz had saw where they hit, had Laserbeak go into his blaster mode, and fired. Thankful, but mind on the present thing, Cloak shouted, after the blast hit its mark, "Now, guys!"

Shadow and Helen contained it within an energy bubble, while Blaze coated the interior of the bubble with a literal firewall, and Broken had shouted, "AEROGA!" and added a spiral of wind as a defensive shield for them. The explosion was blinding in both visual aspects and via Earthsight.

It was gone, but Cloak narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"That was too easy," Cloak said, suspecting something larger at play -- the demon snail wasn't the thing he had sensed, he realized. But it wasn't Malice. He didn't know what it was, but was gone now.

"You're kidding, right?" Blaze said.

Cloak said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 15, 2014, 02:51:23 PM

If the demon snail was a distraction... that's one hell of a distraction. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2014, 06:19:44 PM

Not exactly, Saffa. More like -- well, that'd be telling.

Feeling some anxiety right now (I don't have the greatest job security, I guess -- I'm always afraid that I don't work hard enough). Of course, you'll benefit from it, because it means more chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Weakness for the Dramatic

The tunnel managed, more or less, to remain intact.

"Well, that was unbelievably convenient," Gaz pointed out, as Laserbeak panicked and began to examine if Gaz had been injured. She wasn't. "Or remarkably coincidental, I don't know which -- Laserbeak, enough! I'm fine."

Laserbeak wasn't satisfied by this, and continued his diagnostics. Gaz resigned to let him do so as they proceeded further into the cave.

"Wait a minute," Broken said, with sudden realization, "what if there are more monstrokokhlos ahead."

"There aren't," Cloak said.

"How do you -- oh right. Earthsight. Metalsight." Helen said, her violet Star Sapphire light illuminwting the dark cavern. Cloak didn't need it, though.

"They're back," Blaze said, indicating the geist wraith RAFians. The four motioned fervently up, and Shadow and Cloak -- in a near mirroring of a scene from the first season of "The Legend of Korra" -- open the tunnel to the surface, causing fading sunlight to eke into the tunnel, somehow making the darkness seem deeper, thicker. Odd.

On the surface, it was like stepping into the first level of "Slender Man". It was a forest with trees on all sides. The slipping light and the retreating sun made all the shadows look longer, more dangerous, and deeper. Cloak wasn't afraid. Darkness was never a barrier to his feline eyes.

They saw they were mere feet awy from a cottage, where the truck from the asylum still stood. And around the truck were what looked about to be four people with their backs to the RAFians. The geist wraith RAFians descended upon them, pushing out the weaker geist wraiths who apparently were expecting the RAFians to come from that direction.

And yet . . . and yet they didn't seem to put up much of a fight. They seemed to be either puzzled or sullen, as they didn't try to take back the bodies they stole. They just hivered where they were pushed in a melancholic or desolate way, Cloak couldn't be sure of which.

"Geesh, where's Slender Man?" Blaze muttered.

"Who's Slender Man?" Shadow asked.

"First Light!" came an irritated voice. "You took your sweet time getting here."

"Malice." Cloak snarled, seeing her sitting on a rocking chair as if there was no problem in the world. As if she was just a knitting granny or something. "You wanted us to come."

"Oh, stop it, Cloak." Malice said. "You know you need me as much as I need you."

This actually caught Cloak off-guard for a bit, before he recovered. "You've clearly taken leave of your senses, Malice."

"Oh, don't act like you don't see it." Malice lectured. "The give and take. The mental gymnastics. The drama. You need me as your antagonist, as your foil. Without me here, your life would fall into the insufferable doldrum of mediocrity. I give you the spice of adventure, my schemes give you adversity to over come."

"You sanctimonious twit," Cloak snarled, his feline feats somehow more pronounced as he spoke. "You are so completely full of yourself. Have you never thought that I might enjoy the mediocrity? Have you never paused to think that I might have already had had far enough adversity in my life?"

"You need me. Admit it."

"No, Malice, I really don't." Cloak said. "It's the other way around, isn't it though? You are the one who needs me. You are the one who needs this everlasting conflict to break up the long tedium of your life without it. You have no friends. You have never felt love. You are a pathetic old spinster that can handle that someone had found happiness whilst you must have everything, and everyone under your control, at your beck and call. You live the life of a narcissist -- and such lives inevitably lead to lives of loneliness."

Malice stood, her mouth flapping up and down, indignation strangling her voice. But she eventually found her voice. "You know nothing, you impudent whelp! Nothing!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2014, 06:39:44 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Gigantophaetos

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." Cloak said. He Earthsighted the ten cryogenic tubes below them in a secret, underground laboratory. Wait -- ten? Of course. The other geist wraiths were just poor souls that Malice ripped from their bodies. Cloak was more inclined to be sympathetic to them, but not by much.

"Don't ignore me, boy!" Malice screeched.

Cloak deliberately did just that. He pulled back his fist to punch the ground, so he could create a tunnel to the underground bunker of a lab. But then, Malice screamed, "Get him!"

"Uncle!" Shadow cried, and Cloak dodged the blow with his feline agility and speed. Cloak wheeled around to see his attacker, expecting some belligerent beast controlled by Malice. The beast was a gigantophaetos, a giant ghost. It had translucent, iridescent indigo body of ectoplasm, a singular Cyclopean eye and thick body that made it look more like an overlarge Yellow Devil (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Yellow_Devil)*. How was Malice controling it?

Ah. A spiral around its arm with crystals studding the outside decoratively, like the collar that Shedder used to control April O'Neil in "Catwoman From Channel Six", but also like the control spiral from the second Digimon season -- series? Oh, it didn't matter.

BAM!

Cloak nimbly dodged away from it, landing on his feet in a graceful manner. Cloak knew why the gigantophaetos was focusing on him. He had struck a nerve with Malice, and she didn't like it one little bit.

"Incarcerous!" Broken shouted.

The magically-conjured chains passed right through the gigantophaetos, but the others joined in, with Blue, Aquilai, Parker, and Phoenix hanging back, not for fear of battle, but fear of injuring the bodies that they were currently stewards of. Parker rankled a bit at missing the action, being a person who never liked being on the sidelines.

Gaz blasted the giant ghost with Laserbeak, and this seemed to have some effect. Although they weren't strong enough to more than irritate the giant, spectral beast. But she kept firing in tandem with Helen's and Shadow's potshots with their respective energies.

Blaze quickly discovered that his sword wasn't effective. Not melee weapon would be. So he changed his weapon to a crossbow, and fired arrows of flame at it, which did see some marginal success.

"Stopza!" Broken shouted. And this, too, saw some marginal success.

"Dwellers, Hatchling, back off! Cloak has this coming!" Malice ordered. "Back off! That's an order!!"

"She can't be serious," Phoenix said, in commentary.

---

*This: (http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090308200601/megaman/images/4/4a/Yellowdevil.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 16, 2014, 07:30:40 AM

This ghost isn't transparent or what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2014, 02:39:57 PM

About as transparent as the ghosts from "Danny Phantom". There is a reason behind it, which will be in a future book.

New chapter. One more to go.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Ghost Dusted, Bodies of Evidence

"I ORDERED YOU TO BACK OFF!!!" Malice roared, sounding more like a spoiled brat than a geriatric. She was apparently very used to getting her way, despite the sheer volume of defeats that Cloak and the RAFians handed her time after time. "STOP IT NOW!"

She apparently still held on to the ludicrous belief that Realm Walkers were superior to Realm Dwellers -- why? Just because. It was this ideology that made Cloak so disgusted with his own species. He refused to believe such a patented bigoted thing. Yet, all the Realm Walker Councils seemed to abide by this faulty logic and, naturally, were corrupted and cast out of office eventually.

"HEAR ME YOU LITTLE --"

"Oh, shut the Veil up already!!" Cloak roared. "Who do the bloody Veil do you think you are? They are not required to obey you. They are not serfs. They are not slaves. They are thinking, feeling beings with rights! Whether or not you wish to acknowledge it, Malice, does not make it untrue! Get out of the archaic and get into the present! Such ideologies that condone oppression of another, sentient species should be discarded, done away like a cancerous limb!"

With the outburst, the RAFians focused their Marks on the gigantophaetos, and with one triangulated Unity Pulse, the gigantophaetos seemed to have been vanished. Shards of the control spiral lay upon the ground. Cloak was so agitated by Malice's sheer arrogance and bigotry the failed to notice that there was something deeper going on . . . but that's another story.

He looked over the the four geist wraith RAFians. Malice, seemingly understanding Cloak's intention, says, threateningly, "Don't you dare!"

Cloak, of course, ignores her. "There are ten cryogenic tubes in an underground bunker. I think all are occupied. Your bodies are probably there. You geist wraiths too."

Apparently, the geist wraiths that Malice had tried to suppress the free will and identies of failed, and they had been slowly regaining them over time. All ten went down and reunited with their bodies, losing their geist wraith powers.

"No!!" Malice moaned. She glared at Cloak, and snarled. "You'll pay for this."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Send me the bill," Cloak said flippantly. The RAFians and Shadow returned to the forum as the six others returned to their daily lives.

***

When they returned, Kelly was insistent on giving Blue, Aquilai, Phoenix, and Parker a full check-up. Her demeanor became rather Madam Pomfrey-ish as she looked over the four. They knew better than to argue with her.

And yet . . . yet Cloak was disquieted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2014, 06:58:31 PM

New chapter. Last one of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Better RAF-Catcher

There was a big celebration at the forum after the successful completion of this mission. It was also RAF party night. Helen, who apparently (to Parker's chagrin) was pretty good with an accordion, began to play a good polka:

"Faerie, Esplin, and Az,
Mr. Guy, Estrid, and Gaz,
JFalcon, bladepaw, Whammy,
Yarin, Kitkat, and Cloaky!
Myitt, Claire, Cerulean,
Druid and Gamine!
Traycon and Slushie Man - everybody Polka RAF!
Morfowt, Esty, AniDragon,
Jess, Asmodeus, then Anijen.
Broken, Shanker, Sakki,
Shock and ol' Blocky.
Goom, Phoenix, Richard, AniMel,
Ricardo and, of course, SigardTormel.
Sharky and wildweathel - everybody Polka-RAF!
It's time to polka,
For Breekan and Kelran too.
Come on, Nohensen!
And try not to stamp on little Horse!
You'd better grab yourself a partner!
Like Terenia or Parker (Parker).
Hold on a minute - there's still at least a hundred and twenty-seven more:

Including Nomad and Seryna,
ANna, fao and Nina,
AniTiger and Shenmue.
Hunter and ThinkAgain.
Don't forget about Ash,
Ax Man and Gafrash!
Wotw2112 and Tyler - everybody Polka-RAF!
Everybody Polka RAF!
Everybody Polka RAF!"

The sound and feeling of jubilation was infectious. There was plenty to be thankful for, and the laughter was uplifting. But the festivities were short one RAFian.

Cloak had holed himself up in his thread. He was dwelling o. The presence that he had felt with the monstrokokhlos incident. Malice would have mentioned it, had it been one of hers. Cloak was fairly certain that the Tasmanian devil Realm Walker hadn't a clue about it.

But then who? Would have to wait like a year to find out the answer?

***

Meanwhile, Malice was at a new lair, considering the other one had been compromised. The lair looked like a den carved out from stone, but the fact was it was like that before Malice came here.

She stood looking, almost lovingly, upon a silhouette of what appeared to be a slumbering, muscular, armored man. Then there was revealed to be about nine or ten more.

Malice said, with relish, "Almost time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2014, 07:40:22 PM

Guess Saffa is busy.

New book, new chapter.

BOOK LXXIII:
A THING ABOUT RAFIANS
CHAPTER ONE:
A Cold Stare

"Good god," Parker said., forming his fusion cannons from his armor in much the same way Cyborg does in "Injustice: Gods Among Us". He, Cloak, Demos, Blaze, Shadow, and Helen were in the midst of battling a man who looked like the unholy union of Ice Man (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Ice_Man) and Captain Cold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Cold). His hand-to-hand combat was so atrocious that it was laughable, his intelligence and strategies were really negligible to the point of being practically nonexistent. But he did have a freeze ray vision-- a "cold stare", as it were. "Just great. Now any psycho with a freeze ray, heat vison, a shrinking ray -- even a blasted tickle ray (don't laugh, Helen, it happened and you know it) -- think they can take us one."

"Oh, let them have their delusions," Demos said, his inner demonic nature showing. "It makes crushing them all the sweeter."

"Demos! What a crass thing to say!" Helen scolded as the RAFians easily dispatched the man who called himself Cold Stare, despite everyone being well aware that he was Robert Gulliver, of no relation to the RAFian of a similar nomenclature.

"I'm a demon," Demos said, as they arrested Gulliver. "It's in my nature."

Blaze looked uncertain about this team up -- after all, he was part angel. Yet, here he was working with a demon. What did that say about him, he wondered. But he was pulled out of his thoughts when he noticed how silent Cloak was being.

"Cloak, what's with the silent treatment?" he asked.

"It's nothing," Cloak said, quietly and surly.

"Uncle." Shadow said, with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky expression that only she could pull off.

"It's nothing." Cloak repeated.

"You know bottling these things up aren't good for you," Helen said, after they deposited the criminal in the appropriare prison. "What's wrong?"

"It's n--" he heaved a heavy sigh, and elaborated. "It's been too quiet."

"What do you mean?" Parker said. "We got criminal supes up the yin-yang."

"Such an earthy phrase, Parker." Helen teased.

"Why, thank you." Parker smirked, teasing her back.

"Not these people," Cloak said. "No, I'm talking about a bigger, more dangerous fish."

"Fish?" Blaze asked. "What fish?"

"It's an analogy," Cloak said.

"You're worried about Malice." Shadow said, keenly.

"She's been too quiet. When she gets quiet, it is cause for concern."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2014, 06:11:13 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Seekers

"How many, Mauler?" Malice asked.

She stood in front of several beings, which were illuminated fully. They had heads like Sentinels, but their bodies were more like the Manhunters. It made for a rather sloppy design -- as it appeared the heads were like character mascot heads or vacuform masks of sentinels on the stereotypically built male bodies of the machines. They were primarily orange with black highlights and trim. Their eye sockets were blank, as they were turned off.

"How many?" she asked agin, not even looking at him. "How many of my Seekers have been made?"

"Twelve." Mauler said. He was devoid of emotion, and, as such, that's how his response came out. Without emotion. "Twelve total, and still generating. Still building."

Malice was like a little girl impatiently waiting to open her Christmas gifts. She was excitedly, anxiously pacing between the twelve -- which she could have easily counted herself, but she could be lazy like that sometimes. Everyone's prone to a little lethargy once and a while.

"Twelve seekers." Malice said. "Versus how many RAFians?"

"Approximately four hundred and seventy-six, give or take.*"

"Itellsya's intel still proves viable, I hope. Four hundred and seventy-six, you say?" Malice said, replying before Mauler could process a reply, "Well, that's more RAFians then I remember seeing."

"Four hundred and seventy-six are registered.*" Mauler spoke in a calm lilt that unintentionally and unknowingly disguised the monotone of his voice. "This does not mean all are within the forum at any given point. Some have not been to the forum for a while, if data is accurate."

"It matters little anyway," Malice said. The making and programming of the thirteenth Seeker was taking too long for her. She would find a way to speed up production. But for now . . .

"Mauler, activate and launch the twelve Seekers. Set them to destroy the RAFians, Cloak's cretinous cavalcade."

Had Mauler not been stripped of his free will, his emotions, his sentience, and his sense of identity, he might have questioned the wisedom of the act. It would be more prudent to wait, but Malice was impatient. She wanted to see her Seekers in action, she wanted so desperately to see them succeed.

As each was activated, each said in a far more robotic voice then Mauler possessed, "The Seeked cannot escapt the Seeker."

It was heard twelve times before they flew up and away. Away to do their Seeking.

---

*Not counting lurkers, of course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2014, 01:02:40 AM

You actually did a count of the number?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2014, 04:36:01 AM

Not exactly.

It went to the member list, sorted it by position. When to the last page where the first lurker appeared, counted how many there were on that page and subtracted that from the number at the top of the page (it staes "Viewing Members # to #"). The number is more than likely inaccurate, speaking from within the narrative, as there are probably more as it doesn't count the fictional RAFians like Helen and Rotiart (bit of an oversight on my part, but I'm not going to correct it because think about just how long ago Itellsya/Rumor abandoned and betrayed RAF).

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Night of the Seekers

Twelve silhouttes streaked the sky as the sun began its slow descent into the horizon. The Seekers.were coming for the RAFians, their software tuned to scan for the Mark -- but the scannerss in their eyes seemed to mistake every "R" etched in the same style as a Mark. There was no visual discrepancy in it. They did not scan for the unique Unity Energy or anything. They did not have the processor power to do as such, apparently.

These were Malice's perfect RAFian-Killers?

They would occasionally spout out "Nothing Seeked can escape the Seekers" or some derivative of that motto. It got fairly annoying after a while.

Cloak saw them streak toward them. It was a few hours since the who Cold Stare thing, and Cloak was preparing to got to his usual spot and meditate some. Cloak knew at once that Malice had played her next card, but not shown her hand just yet. Cloak couldn't see their details yet, but knew that they were coming for them.

"The Seeked cannot esape the Seekers." Cloak could hear them quite clearly and easily with his feline hearing. "Nothing Seeked can escape the Seekers. Everything Seeked will be destroyed."

"Yeah?" Cloak muttered to himself. "Good luck with that."

Sam happened to be standing nearby, and he saw the twelve automatons begin their approach to the forum, he exclaimed, "Manhunters?!"

"Not unless they are big into crappy cosplay," Cloak replied. "Those heads are more like Sentinels."

"Sentinels?"

"Never mind." Cloak said, quickly. "Even from this distance, I can tell that they're metal. Why would Malice do that? She knows I have mastery over all metals."

"How can you be so sure it's Malice?"

"Well, isn't it always?" Cloak said, waiting for the metal men -- these "Seekers" -- to come within range. He easily crumpled them like soda cans. It was so easy that it was laughable. They plummeted to the ground, twisted metal.

"Hey! You didn't leave me any!" Sam complained.

"You can have the thirteenth, then." Cloak said, pointing towards a latecomer.

"Alright," Sam said, taking off towards the Seeker, taking his time in destroying it as Cloak wondered. Wondered why Malice would send in such pathetically weak villains for them to fight. Did she honestly imagine that they would succeed in killing them? Could she be that deluded?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2014, 03:29:01 PM

Heh, I did that once, but I botched up the math.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2014, 06:37:01 PM

I may have myself. Who knows? (Or who cares enough to double check?)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
No Defeat is Worthless

"Twelve . . . gone." Malice said. There was no emotion in her voice, no remorse, no sorrow. No anger. It was quite unusual for Malice. She did not throw a temper tandrum like a child or assume some delusional, poorly-thought-out stratagem. No, she acted quite sane in this defeat. "Yet, no defeat is worthless when sufficient data is acquired."

"Production had been streamlined and made more efficient." Mauler said. It was impossible for him to feel anything anymore. He was little more than a mindless machine, a mechanical manservant. "The Seeker 2.0 automatons are being crafted swiftly enouth that we will soon be at one hundred and twenty within the hour."

"Ah, yes. My Greater Seekers." Malice said, with a dramatic flair that she was so prone to these days. "All outfitted with the durasteel endoskeleton with the adamantium-vibranium alloy."

It did not possess the n^th metal, making it not nearly as explosively volatile. She inspected the Seekers 2.0, which were superficially similar to their predecessors in appearance except they were sleeker, with their heads actually appearing to match their bodies. They all stood nine feet tall, just an inch or two taller than Cloak, and they towered over Malice being over twice her height.* They were colored predominately green and gray color scheme.

"The metamorphic capacitor and facilitators?" Malice barked.

"Installed and operational."

"Very good. Better Mark targeting, scanning, and tracking software?"

"Uploaded and fully functional."

"Excellent. Monitoring cameras."

"Functional and online. They'll transmit as soon as the first Seeker is activated."

"Good. Combat prowess?"

"Yet to be tested thoroughly."

"Well, then. Now seems like a prudent time as any, I'd say." Malice said, with relish, revealing her intentions with a simple, sinister smile. She snapped at Mauler, "Activate them when we reach one-twenty Greater Seekers. And send them on their way."

---

*This may be a bit of a retcon, but the general idea is Malice stands around four feet tall, Mauler is.around six, and I'm roughly eight. I'm as well reading up on Tasmanian devils to make sure my presentation of Malice is rather accurate -- it is, I think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2014, 11:53:32 PM

The title is so misleading. Sounds like a hero chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2014, 07:44:15 PM

Not to me, since I hear Malice saying it in my head.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Seekers Deployed

The RAFians were afforded some time to rest, oblivious for the most part of the attack (at least until the early morning briefing). The sun had already set hours ago and was now rising, almost lazily. The morning itself seem to mirror the languidity of the rising sun.

Cloak was on the shore, by the lake, meditating. He easily ignored the splashing and frolicking of the other RAFians. There was little time left in the year to enjoy such temperate weather. Cloak didn't really care, although he really didn't care for snow, personally.

"Nothing Seeked can ever escape the Seeker," came a monotone, robotic voice.

They came and landed without preamble. The RAFians weren't really perturbed all that much. After all, they had faced more intimidating threats. And these 120 Seekers were only nine feet tall. Dino towered over them at her full size, seeing them rather like edible raptors.

"You have been sentenced to death," one Seeker said.

"Oh, that's a new line." Sam said.

Cloak didn't care. He wasn't too pleased with tthe disruption of his meditaton. These may have been the next generation Seekers, but they certainly weren't anything to write home about.

Suddenly, their hands spun like turbines, transmogrifying into various blunt weaponry. An apache war club, a samurai kanabo, a Spartan shield, nunchakus, a baseball bat (seriously, a baseball bat), a Shaolin staff, a Shaolin whip chain, a Maori shark-tooth club, a Maori taiaha, a war hammer, a ball and chain combo, a targe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targe), a Hun lasso, brass knuckles -- there was probably more, but Cloak either could not see what they were or did not know what they were. But did it really matter?

"Whoa," Sam said, having made a green energy construct of a buzzsaw to try to cut down the Seekers. While he was making very productive headway, it was somewhat more difficult than last time.

But not by much. Within moments, the ground was littered with debris from the defeated, deactivated, and destroyed Seekers. Faerie was reported to have said, "Aw, no more?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2014, 07:11:06 PM

Guess RAF Party is overshadowing this thread . . . anyway, new book ideas!

• Book CDLXX: "Valhalla Vanguard"/"Deadliest Warrior" -- A deadly warrior seeks out Parker.
• Book CDLXXI: "Rise of the Third Army" -- The Guardians seek to destroy their own Lantern Corps, and their grievances with Cloak (and other Realm Walkers) are explored a bit.

The titles are subject to change.

Now, a new chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Undaunted

"Confirmation: all one hundred and twenty have been destroyed," Mauler intoned tonelessly some hours later.

"It matters little," Malice said, waving her hand dismissively, as she hemd the other behjnd her back. They were now in an abandoned aircraft hangar, another one of Malice's dens, or lairs. "We acquired plenty more requisite data. So, those Seekers served their function."

"Fourteen Seekers, Version 3.0, completed." Mauler announced, deadpan.

"Fourteen, huh?" Malice said, appraisingly.

"Insufficient material and components for more," Mauler said.

"Yes, yes," Malice said, waving away the concern. She saw these Seekers as nothing more than cannon fodder as well. She had easily stolen the material and componets beforehand, and would just simply take what she needed next go 'round. She had no qualms about it, none at all. "They are enough for now. These Ultra Seekers should gather the final bits of actual data we require. Their enivitable destruction will not be in vain."

Maul did not answer, because, after all, Malice was simply speaking to herself jnstead of requesting anything for him to supply an answer. That would come momentarily.

"Yes, all of this was necessary," Malice was saying, addressing herself an no one else as she continued to assess and appraise the Seekers.3.0, seeing if everything was to her liking. "Careful planning -- that's the only thing that my previous schemes lacked. That, and vision. Focus. Deliberation."

Silence fell, as she gazed at the twelve-foot-tall automatons. They were colored predominately purple and gold, and looked more human than their predecessors, though the faces looked as.plain as any of the other Seeker models. Their limbs seemed blocky and heavy though.

"Metamorphic capacitors and facilitators?"

"Fully functional and more sophisticated than the 2.0 model, they shall be able to form bladed weapons."

"Excellent." Malice said. "The experimental tech?"

"Installed."

"Wonderful. Sent them out, like the adorable little lambs they are." Malice said, as Mauler complied. "Little lambs . . . for the slaughter."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 22, 2014, 04:51:21 AM

Heh, I didn't even attend the party, as a matter of fact. Too busy sending out nearly 300 text messages. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2014, 02:23:56 PM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
An Inconvenient Onslaught

It was the next day. Cloak was standing at the edge of the lake, pondering, wondering. Those previous Seekers . . . they were absolutely no match for the RAFians. Any RAFian could have slew them single-handedly, so much so that it had become little more than a game for them. Cloak did not share in their ambivalence and overconfidence, he was in fact concerned by it.

Malice had fought and schemed against them for a long time now -- not quite a year, but still long enough to cause Cloak disquiet. It should have not been this easy. It really should have not been this easy.

"Oh, Cloak," Gaz said, chastising him playfully. "You worry too much."

"It isn't like Malice to be this careless," Cloak said, stubbornly. "She would know our capabilities much better than this! Those Seekers were laughable!"

"Are you sure that this what you think is happening, or just your pride talking?" Saffa said.

Cloak said nothing, and wore a quite severe, very dour look.

"Oh, don't be that way." Abby said, blithely. "Even Malice could have an off day or two!"

Cloak said nothing, but folded his arms in a very austere way. Then they came, like a swarm of locusts in fourteen silhouettes. But Cloak did not gloat. He worried if the others might get overconfident from the first two hordes. No, he was letting his doubts and innate paranoia get to him again.

No words were wasted before the battle commenced. These Ultra Seekers proved to be a rather steep learning curved, and they were not the pushovers their predecessors were. The RAFians struggled battling them. The Ultra Seekers possessed a regnerative ability that the RAFians found that they had to burn out to even make a dent in their numbers.

"Well, this is a significant challenge," Faerie said.

"Nothing Seeked escapes the Seekers." one of the Seekers said.

"Oh, shut up!" Faerie replied.

It was a long and arduous task, but it was doable. And they completed it.

And it was all according to Malice's big master plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2014, 09:59:09 PM

*wonders if it would be in bad taste, unfair and self-entitled, or just plain rude, to remind Saffa that she didn't make a PDF file of the last book when she was and is clearly very busy, as indicated in her last post.*

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Magnum Opus of Seekers

"Total destruction of Seekers pending confirmation," Mauler announced blandly.

"Huh. It's taking them longer than I anticipated." Malice said, in a benign, thoughtful sort of way. "It's almost disappointing. How is the data collection coming along."

"Data is being collected at an uninterrupted rate. It is compiling and being filed away as we speak."

"Excellent." Malice said. "Then the true meat of this scheme can finally take off. Just as soon as Cloak and his nitwits --"

"Confirmation: all Seeker 3.0 units have been destroyed, and the data is ready to upload." Mauler interrupted.

"Excellent!" Malice said, ignoring whatever impertinence she felt when Mauler interrupted her. She headed over to a more moderately sized seven, eight-foot tall Seeker. Her "Master Seeker". It was primarily black with gunmetal gray accents and highlights. It looked more like Master Mold from "X-Men then a Manhunter, although its gunmetal gray face resembled a Manhunter more than Master Mold. Its eyes were shut and it was powered down. "Begin the upload sequence, Mauler. And be quick about it!"

Mauler quickly acquiesced without a single complaint or query. The upload went about as fast as you'd think it would. It would take hours to compile from the upload, and Malice was perfectly aware of this. She didn't care. She knew these six Master Seekers would be more than a match for the RAFians. They woukd be able to generate any melee weapon -- perhaps even projectile weapons -- from their vast, sophisticated databanks. They would be able to generate any injury within a matter of seconds, and their duraplastic "skins" and frames made them lightweight, agile, and, best yet, immune to Cloak's mechbending. They will be able to scan for any signs of weakness and exploit them. They will also be beable to pinpoint, lock kn, and target their objectives by their Mark. They can even detect a Unity Energy discharge.

They would be very dangerous foes for the RAFians. Very dangerous.

And yet Malice repeatedly refuses to acknowledge one danger. She never really considered the possibility of a Seeker gaining sentience, gaining an identity for itself. Never really entertained that a sentient Seeker might decide, whether out of a superiority complex, self-preservation, or a simple mean streak, might wonder why it had to take orders from her. Might decide to disregard any order she gave and operate on its own prerogatives and initiatives. That it might form its own opinions and agendas.

True, she did implant an A.I. limiter and hardwired unwavering loyalty into their programming, but that didn't mean they could never fail. It failed with the geist wraiths, but one could reason that was because they had free will before, and the Seekers had never experienced free will.

Eventually, they were ready to be sent out into the field. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 23, 2014, 03:32:20 AM

Oh, crap! I forgot about the PDF. I meant to get it done, but I have short-term memory problems. Thanks for the reminder Cloaky. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2014, 02:46:26 PM

Ah, any time. I was afraid I was being impolite and imprudent about it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Humble Pie Tastes Horrible

Cloak still had his qualms, but he was always a suspicious, paranoid, if not sagacious person. His disquiet could simply amount to nothing, nothing but delusions, but he somehow doubted it. Cloak had always been a pessimist, or "realist" as some would say. Considering his past, it was not a farfetched way for him to be somewhat of an introvert.

He watched as the RAFians easily rebounded from the serious bout with levity and laughter. Cloak could never bounce back so quickly. He had to dwell on things, as was his nature. He always had to think over things and overanalyze them, no matter how long removed the event was.

Look at the case between him and his mother. It happened a while ago, but he still thought about it. He didn't feel the rage of the injustices that he had to endure by her hand, for the only crime of being her son, having to endure constant, neverending comparisons to his father (who she HATED with a fiery passion), . . . her knack for emotional blackmail (fear, obligation, and guilt -- all wielded as weqpons). These feelings eventually ebbed over time, and he began to feel a deep sadness whenever he thought about it instead.

He could accept what happened, though he may not have liked it, but it happened. Nothing could change it. No, not even Aquilai's TARDIS, as such things do not work in the Nexus, or affect Realm Walkers in such a way.

Cloak spent several hours with these ruminations. He psychoanalyzed both himself and his mother. He kept having to wonder, what exactly made his mother like this? There just had to be a reason. They say narcissism stems from entitlement and fear, but Cloak couldn't begin to hazard a guess where --

His thoughts were interrupted when he spoted six Seekers streaking straight for the forum. Was this here plan? Sending wave after wave after wave of Seekers? She couldn't have an endless amount of supplies and material to make them. She already used a monumental amount. Surely, these were last.

"Ah! More!" Demos said, allowing his demonic bloodthirstiness bubble up beneath his demeanor. "I yearn to rend them to -- OOOOOOOOOF!!"

He recieved a swift kick upside his head. These Seekers were faster than their predecessors, obviously. The damage was healed far quicker than Felix Fixit Jr.'s hammer, but Demos's anger didn't dissipate as quickly.

"Hey! Wait for the quips to be -- UGH!" Demos lectured before getting punched kn the gut.

"Hey!" came a mangled voice. Saffa was in midmorph to Tyrannopede, but the Seekers did not wait until she finished. She had to demorph quickly, shrink rapidly . . . or die. The Seeker would not relent its attack, but was quickly distracted by Underseen.

They weren't being as merciful as their predecessors were. They were dangerous.

Cloak glanced to his left and saw Esty there. Even she was having trouble. She was a restricted as Cloak himself was. But they could hold off the six . . . hold them, so the others could escape.

"Go!" he shouted. "Go! Esty and I will hold them off. Get away!"

"What about you?" Abby asked, having been in the same situation that Saffa was in previously.

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT US!!" Esty shouted, agreeing with Cloak's plan.

"But --"

"GO NOW!!!!" Cloak roared to all the RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2014, 08:19:13 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Safe-For-Now House

"Three-to-one," Esty said, standing to Cloak's right as the Seekers approached them both. The other RAFians had escaped, though some had some reluctance to do so while others, like Rotiart didn't waste any time. "And these are no pushovers. We have no back up. So, summing up, what do yo think of our chances?"

"Considering that neither of us can really use our powers at their absolute zenith without undue damage to the planet -- whether it be igniting the atmosphere, causing a massive storm, or whatnot --I don't think its good. Besides, they'd probably just regenerate from it." Cloak said.

"But they couldn't kill us," Esty said.

"Doesn't mean that they won't try," Cloak said, very seriously. "Besides, you never know what you can live through. There are worse things than death."

But the Seekers had stopped stock still for no reason. Their cold, expressionless LED eyes revealed nothing about what was going on behind them. Cloak knew it wasn't good.

"Prerogative update recieved," they all said in a creepy unison. "Target termination postponed for the time being. Retargeting . . . retargeting . . . retargeting . . ."

"Um, any idea what this is about?" Esty asked. "You understand the way Malice thinks better than I do."

"They aren't targeting us now," Cloak said slowly. "But that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. We are -- at the risk of sounding immodest -- we are the two RAFians with the most raw power. Why not try to take us out first? Unless . . ."

The Seekers flew off, like bloodhounds on a scent.

"They're after the others!" Cloak and Esty shouted together.

Of course, Malice would want Cloak to survive and be conscious when she destroyed his surrogate family, his RAFian friends. She would take immense pleasure in it, and it also proved that Malice did put a safeguard in the Seekers. She disabled them from achieving true autonomy, they are dependant on her instruction.

Esty and Cloak, naturally, followed them.

***

"I really don't like coming here," Horse said.

"We didn't have much choice, dear sister," Guy said, tersely.

"I know that, Guy." Horse snipped. "I meant because of what means. We never come to this fallback place unless we have to."

They looked over the plsce, and saw Kelly, Goom, and Broken tending to the injured. It happened so quickly, and so ruthlessly and viciously. They barely had time to acquiesce to Cloak and Esty's demand.

But they were safe here. They could regroup here and come up with a plan. Communications were down though, Aquilai and Yarin were fiddling around with it, trying to get it to work.

"I hope Cloak and Esty are alright," Nina said, looking towards the entry point.

"We all do," Shenmue assured her. "We all do."

"Right now, it's all we can do to tend to the wounded." Richard said heavily to Phoenix, SuperNate and the other mods. "It's a miracle no one was killed."

"Poor Saffa and Abby came close, though," SuperNate intoned gravely. "We can only hope that Cloak and Esty can stop them."

"And what's to stop Malice from sending more of them?" Phoenix asked. "Stronger and more deadly this time around?"

<No amount of materials are infinite.> Russell said. <She would run out of those resources eventually.>

"But we don't know what her resources are," Richard pointed out. "Otherwise we could have limited her acess to them before now. Right now, we can't do anything on the offensive."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 24, 2014, 07:20:04 PM

Alrighty, I have finished planning out the chapters for Book CCCXLI ("Dial-A-Parasite"), which probably will be a very morally-gray book. I can't say more, or Saffa will hurt me. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Nowhere to Hide

The sound of jet propulsion was quite audible all of a sudden. The RAFians weren't sure what it was, but remained hunkered down, hoping that the dense upper canopy of the forest could hide them.

But the Master Seekers were not so easily fooled. They were not organic, their eyesight was far superior. They were also targeting the RAFians by their Marks. Yet another liability that came from the Marks . . .

The RAFians quickly decided to try to move out stealthily, unnoticed by the Master Seekers, which appeared to hover in the air. They assumed that they were still looking for them through the thick foliage. Dino actually blended into this foliage surprisingly well, while Horse stuck out like a sore thumb, in seal form and human form.

They had locked on to the RAFians, locked on their Marks, but yet, they did nothing. Why?

"Requesting permission for pursuit," one of the Seekers said, revealing the reason behind their hesitation. It must be another contingency of Malice's, to prevent their sentience and autonomy. After the briefest of silences, another Seeker said, "Acknowledged."

They decended below the tree line, towards the forest floor. They landed to ominous silence, and the place appeared to be deserted. The Seekers had briefly lost their lock-on, and now recommenced with their scanning.

"Marks detected." one Seeker stated, as they suddenly sank to their knees into the soil,though the machines did not react at all. They had no emotions with which to react with. They were just soulless machines without conscience.

"You noticed me," Cloak said, sarcastically, as he burrowed up from the ground rather like an Excadrill. His voice still drenched with sarcasm as he continued, "I'm flattered!"

"Does not compute," one Seeker said.

"Only one logical possibility," another said. "The star and the infidel knew the location of the hiding place."

"Theory: They know where the others are hiding now."

"Theory: They know how they are blocking our scanners."

Esty was at Cloak's side as the Seekers were coming to this conclusion. She looked worried about this.

"They're showing sufficient intelligence to know cause and effect," Estelore said.

"So they're smarter than a Congressman," Cloak said. "So what?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2014, 06:24:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Termination Pause

"Permission to pursue?"

"Permission to engage?"

Silence met these words, as Cloak and Esty knew precisely what the Seekers were after. They both knew that the Seekers were seeming to become more intelligent. They had already intellectually surpassed . . . well, that joke can't be made with how litigious he* is.

"Acknowledged." they said in six-part harmony.

Three Seekers peeled off, tracking the RAFians back to the forum. The other three remained, and began to blast the star and the Realm Walker with emerald green energy blasts from on hand, and their other hands turned into bladed weaponry.

"Oh, this isn't good." Cloak said.

"Can't you just mechbend them?" Esty asked.

"They've to have metal in them for that," Cloak said. "It's kind of like metalbending in that aspect."

The battle started and the two held their own. They continued their conversation amiss the grunts and growls of battle.

"If they're not metal, then what are they?" Esty asked, blasting a Seeker with a concussive blast of stellar energy.

"Best guess? I'd say duraplastic. It is heat-resistant as well, so we cannot melt it."

"Then how'd she shape it into robot form?"

"Veil if I know." Cloak said. "But we have to get to those other three. You know where they're headed."

***

"Quick! Quick!" Cerulean insisted. "Everyone in!"

They hurried along, about ninety-five percent of the RAFians were back in the forum. Returning to the forum could be seen by many as a stupid idea, doubling back like this. But the rationale behind it was that the Seekers were robots, and they wouldn't expect something so illogical.

However, there was another reason for returning to the forum. . . .

Code 73.

---

***** ********. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2014, 06:23:24 PM

*wonders if he's posting too fast*

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Code Avalon

"That's everyone," Parker announced, "now what?"

"Activate Code Avalon," Richard commanded. "Quickly!"

The air seemed to ripple as the forcefield was generated. This stopped the Seekers in their tracks. Not because they were stymied by the forcefield, but because they had to await orders transmitted from Malice before proceeding.

"What if it doesn't hold?" Saffa asked.

"We need a contingency plan," Gaz said.

"There is one," Richard said. "But it will probably lose us all public support, if the public finds out."

"That serious?" Abby asked.

"There is a reason why Code 73 is never talked about." Richard said. Saffa and Abby had blank looks on their faces. They did not know what Code 73 was.

***

"Permission to pursue?" a Seeker asked Malice wirelessly.

Malice hesitated, wondering which option would be the most enjoyable for her. She weighed them very seriously, considering the entertainment value -- and vengeance value -- of each. Considered them very seriously.

"Not yet, Seeker 1," Malice said. "Let them squirm for a bit."

"Acknowledged." all six spoke in unison, as Malice sat back to watch events through the Seekers' eyes. The satisfied silence only lasted for a few minutes.

"Query." another Seeker said.

"What?" Malice said, in a threatening, yet toneless way. She wasn't expecting the Seekers to question anything. They were not suppose to question anything. They were to only have any sort of intellectual capability inside combat and battle, but nowhere else.

"Query withdrawn." the Seeker said. It was almost as if it were afraid of Malice. Afraid like a boy with an overbearing, abusive parent.

Malice did not acknowledge this response. She was considering what was happening. Her sentience-suppressing chip and software had evidently failed, and the Seekers were becoming more aware. They were developing feelings. Emotions.

This was very dangerous for her herself, she knew. Fortunately for her, Malice wasn't fool enough to fully depend on the software and chip. She had another, more painful, method for nipping this growing intellect in the bud.

She pulled out what appeared to be a black garage door opener with a broken yellow stripe, only with an antenna and a big, red button on it. She pressed it, causing all six Master Seekers to writhe in powerful electric shocks which had somehow killed their burgeoning minds -- it was a sentience killswitch, which only worked on these six Seekers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 27, 2014, 12:17:19 PM

I'm here. I have to catch up with some reading, but I had a question when I was kinda browsing through the books, I saw that the book CCCLIII—The Phaetovor—had something to do with a ghost-eater. What kind of ghosts? Just like, in general? Because I know there's obviusly several different types of ghosts, especially in these books. Just a question I was wondering, and whether it would affect me, since this is after my trip to the GZ.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2014, 02:35:11 PM

Oh, my. You think you're going to the Ghost Zone. . . .

As for the phaetovore --

[spoiler]Saffa, don't hurt me. [spoiler]Of course, it'll affect you, Abby. ;)[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 27, 2014, 03:13:59 PM

Cloakkkkkk. . .

That's going to be a VERY interesting book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2014, 05:24:44 PM

And here are a few more. ;)

• Book CDLXXV: "The Origin of the Plague" -- The RAFians come into conflicted with a race rumored to have had a hand in creating the Xenomorphic Brood.
• Book CDLXXVI: "Harnessing Powers" -- The Espheni  ("Overlords" ::)) implant devices to six special young people's spines, and it is up to the RAFians to rescue them.
• Book CDLXXVII: "Thousand Droch" -- An old enemy kicks off the Deep Seed sickness, though not precisely what you'd think.

Don't think that I rehashed any plots, but yeah. That's 477 book ideas, with only 72 actually written. Never thought that I was an ambitious person before Memoirs -- how I laugh that there was a time when I actually thought that I would run out of ideas. Kinda killed that notion. XD

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Joined Up

"Acknowledged."

The three Seekers broke off from the battle with Esty and Cloak. No reason given. Cloak saw the electricity lance around the three bodies. It looked painful . . . could the Seekers even feel pain? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of robotic soldiers, of mindless automatons? There was obviously more going on here than Cloak himself was privy to.

"Are they going where I think they're going?" Esty said.

"The forum. I don't doubt it." Cloak said.

"Wonderful." Estelore sighed. "These things are getting more and more annoying, I swear."

"Let's get going," Cloak said, proceeding after them. "The others would have Code Avalon up by now, but it isn't exactly the most reliable defense in the world."

"Still?" Esty said.

"Yes."

Cloak did not mention what was truly on his mind. To his knowledge, there was two ways of eliminating these Seekers and both of them were exceedingly dangerous. He could always subject them to the decloaking . . . encasing them in an energy barrier and taking off his cloak. While possible, he imagined Malice may have already concieved of a countermeasure to this.

The other possible way he could conceive was the taboo Code 73.

***

The two eventually stood before the forum, and saw that the six Seekers were just hovering in front of the dome that Code Avalon created. Just hovering there. Doing nothing.

"Why aren't . . . this is another one of Malice's idiosyncrasies, isn't it?" Esty said, with a sweeping low-powered stellar flare. She always liked to make an entrance.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Cloak said. "She would want to see us squirm, to see us writhe."

"Let's deny her that, then," Estelore said, just before they went to engage the six again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2014, 06:05:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Code 73

"Absolutely not," SuperNate said firmly. "That's out of the question."

"What other option is left to us?" Goom snapped. "Cloak and Esty cannot fight them forever. Neither are immune to fatigue! They will tire, they will wear down."

"What you ask is infinitely more dangerous!" Phoenix countered, on SuperNate's behalf. "It was meant as a last resort, Goom, and you know it."

<I'd say this certainly counts as a time for utilization of a last resort.> Russell argued back.

They were in the auditorium with the other RAFians, and Goom just proposed utilizing Code 73. It was a contingency code, for an enemy that they could not defeat. Only a few RAFians knew of it, since only veterans, RAFians who have been a member for a minimum of six months at the point of the rampages of Proteus and Syphoon. The rest of the RAFians were briefed on them -- the codes that were, more often than not, ignored and forgotten.

"Those codes were made without any real expectation of activating them, you know that!" Gaz protested. "Code 73 could just make everything worse!"

"Assuming that it even works," Guy said. "It was never tested thoroughly. It may not be temporary, and present another long-running problem, if permanent."

"There is no other option!" Parker said. "Estelore and Cloak are the only ones who have been proven to stand a chance against them. And when they fall to exhaustion, what then? Code Avalon isn't a defense that is impregnable, either. It will fall eventually, as well."

"What we have here is a rock and a hard place," Aquilai spoke thoughtfully, as he often did. "Each decision will have unforeseen consequences."

"You know what will happen, don't you?" Helen accused.

"No," Aquilai said, earnestly. It was with questionable honesty though.

"The longer we do not act," Dino said, "the longer our defenses diminish. Code 73 may lead to  further consequences, but so will inaction."

Richard looked old and weary in the momentary low light of the auditorium. Yarin had to reroute auxiliary power into Code Avalon. A decision needed to be made, and, either way, it was going to be an unpopular decision.

"We must," Richard said heavily, understanding all too well the potential backlash for it, "we must activate Code 73."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2014, 04:26:50 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Cannonball!

"Richard, you cannot be --" Phoenix began.

"Phoenix, the ends justify the means," Richard said. "We need to be proactive. We must act. Inaction would not benefit anyone."

"You know what it entails." SuperNate said.

"I'm well aware of the consequences and potential fallout," the founder of RAF said heavily. He was shouldering a burden equal to Atlas himself. "If any negative consequence comes about from this, I will accept the responsibility."

It was clear the decision was not made lightly, and that it aged Richard, when he never seemed to age actually. The opposition let it drop, the air was heavy enough with this decision.

"Ash. Underseen. Rocklobster." Richard said, the weariness in his voice was heartwrenching. "We need you to collect the . . . er, the 'cannonball'."

"Why not just call it b--" Saffa said, but Richard interrupted her by saying, "Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin. You need to build the cannon."

"We don't have the necessary materials," Yarin pointed out.

"Don't be so sure!" Aquilai said, with a faltering air of optimism. "All we need is a little duct tape and fuse wire."

Aquilai waited a beat as he thought it over, before amending, "Okay, a lot duct tape."

***

"Okay," Esty said, as they battled the inert Seekers. "This ain't working."

"We cannot risk going full out. We might 'Goku vs. Superman' the Earth." Cloak said. Estelore did not seem to get Cloak's Death Battle reference. "If they're this durable while in this passive state . . . and with us pulling our punches . . . this might be an impossible endeavor."

"There is . . . always . . . Code 73." Estelore said, as the Seekers decided to be more proactive, and attack back.

"That . . . is . . . much too . . . dangerous!" Cloak said. The Elements Master got to the point where he considered another possibility as safer than Code 73 . . . no. No, decloaking was equally dangerous, if not more, than Code 73.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2014, 07:09:35 PM

Okay, I finished planning out the chapters to "Behind the Goomba", which is obviously Goom's backstory book, and I think it'll turn out okay. Chances are Goom will be the only RAFian in it, and I'm not tagging that a spoiler, because it's a bit self-evident.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
One Shot!

"What is this?!" Malice demanded. Mauler did not flinch or react, but kept projecting the images coming from the Seekers. Malice was livid that the Seekers acted without her say-so, yet she had gave them the potential for independent thought. It was another anachronism with Malice. "I did not give authorization to engage!!"

Malice flipped out the garage-door-opener remote and pressed the big red button again and again viciously. Eventually, her wrath ebbed, and she pocketed the remote. She programmed the possibility of independent, complex thought, and yet she didn't want them to make decisions of their own. It was a contradiction that Malice was incapable of recognizing this. It wasn't exactly subtle.

Just one of Malice's many personality flaws.

***

Aquilai, Yarin, and Goom wheeled their creation out -- an impressive build given how much notice that they were given. It was nearly identical to the Mythbusters' build of a duct tape cannon with fuse wire, for firing purposes. It was only about fourtimes bigger.

But there were two transparent cylinders on the side that were obviously not brand new as they were growing opaque with age. They were filled a purplish-blue gas, which was one of Yarin's pet project.

Ash, Rocklobster, and Underseen were struggling with the "cannonball" -- the Pootang. They struggled to load it into the cannon. They didn't sedate it. That was, apparently, important. Unfortunately, Rocklobster's hardwired pacifism was working against them, as he was forbidden to hold Pootang against its will.

Somehow, they managed it, and the Pootang was in the cannon.

"This had better work." Ash muttered.

***

"What the --"

"Whoa!"

Both Esty and Cloak backed off and backed away when they saw the electricity lancing the Seekers' bodies. They immediately stopped acting in self-defense, and stood, hovering immobile.

"Malice?" Esty guessed, assuming the answer.

"Who else?" Cloak said. "She does have control issues, remember. The Seekers must have acted of their own accord."

"She didn't do that with the other versions." Esty pointed.

"She must not have cared as much about them," Cloak postulated.

"I wonder why," Esty said, examining the scene.

"Cannon fodder, possibly." Cloak said. "As a way to divine our weaknesses, I suppose."

"She's been scheming against us for these many months, and she still doesn't know?"

"She's not as smart or clever as she thinks herself to be."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 29, 2014, 07:22:28 AM

Wow, that was a whole week of way too much work. So glad to come back to some chapters at the end of it. This book is exciting! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2014, 04:44:21 PM

Glad to be of service. :) Sorry that I didn't post earlier, there was a little hiccup in my Internet.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Fire!!

"I still have reservations whether this will work," Ash said.

"It has to work," Goom said.

"We're wasting time," Yarin said. "Pootang's thrashing could tear up the cannon. Rocky's deception won't fool it very much longer."

Rocklobster had created a hologram of Horse inexplicably climbing into cannon, and the Pootang went hurtling in. Now, it was beginning to suspect the deception.

"Fire!" Aquilai said. "But drop Code Avalon first!"

***

"Let's get back into the bat--" Cloak began.

"What's that?" Esty said, noticing that the Code Avalon fell briefly. "Oh, don't tell me that they --"

"Do they have no faith in us?" Cloak wondered. "Code 73 is much too dangerous! The potential destructiveness has never been thoroughly assessed!!"

The two watched as a purplish-blue streak headed straight for the Seekers. The Pootang didn't look the same -- it was changing. It was . . . no. Cloak didn't want to believe it. He didn't was possible.

But it was. It was all too possible. The Pootang, within this purplish-blue light, formed from what Yarin called his Ultima Gas. That's "ultima", not "ultimate" -- like it matters. Within the Gas, the Pootang's form changed. It retained its natural rabid attribute and very sharp fangs, but its fur coat darkened to a dark orange color, its cheeks changed into yellow. Its tail elongated into kangaroo rat proportions as its paws took on a more rounded form. The Pootang just went from a rabid Pikachu into a rabid Raichu. It was Ultimate Pootang now.

"Don't they realize how this could possibly be permanent?" Cloak said aghast. "Don't they realize the risks they're taking?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2014, 07:33:24 PM

New, shortish chapter. One more to go before the next book.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A Surprising Conclusion

Ultimate Pootang was a terror.

It ripped through the Seekers as if they were tissue paper. After all, it did not possess any qualms about using its abilities to their fullest, like Esty and Cloak. It had unprecedented viciousness and unrelenting savagery, which the Seekers found out first hand.

Cloak could almost hear Malice's sfreams of mixed fury and indignation. She had not expected such a contingency plan, he knew. She frequently underestimated what her opponents are capable of, and, as such, her schemes frequently failed.

Estelore and Cloak were frozen in awe at the sheer brutality of the beast. It was unrestrained by tact, unfettered by morality, and was just a sheer force of nature. The Seekers were reduced to useless shrapnel, even unable to regenerate to save themselves.

But this left another problem . . .

"Uh, now what?" Estelore said, rhetorically.

"Why even ask? You know what we have to do now." Cloak said, as he enveloped the beast in an energy bubble, underestimating the powerful savagery of the beast. It busted through the energy barrier, much to Cloak's chagrin and humiliation.

"God, I hope this isn't permanent." Estelore said, very seriously. Normally, she would tease him endlessly about it, but she well understood the gravity of the situation. "Maybe there is a time limit?"

"When have you known a Raichu to devolve back to a Pikachu?" Cloak said. "That's Digimon. Or Mega Evolution."

The purplish-blue mist-aurora around Ultimate Pootang was dissipating bit-by-bit. But when it fully dissipated, the Pootang reverted back to its Pikachu's state. Cloak blinked in surprise, thinking this was too easy.

"What a remarkable cowinky-dink." Estelore smirked.

The Pootang passed out from exhaustion, and the star and the Elements Master took it back to the forum. Cloak still not trusting the ease of this solution. But there are times where things can happen in your favor, that things that happen will be ideal.

It just doesn't happen very often.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2014, 09:02:53 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Big-Lipped Alligator Dream*

After all that happened, Cloak and Estelore were not only enjoying some downtime, Kelly and Goom insisted upon it. They inisted that the two rest up, as they did use up a lot of energy themselves.

So, Cloak slept. And when he slept, he dreamed . . .

***

"Singing is the lowest form of communication." Parker said.

"Parker, you sing all the time." Helen said, working on some needlepoint.

"No, I don't," Parker protested. "I hate to rhyme!"

As the music started in earnest, Sharky sang:

"You like musicals, don't you, lad?"

Parker protested:

"No, I don't! I think they're bad!
They're fake and phony and totally wrong!"

Blue pointed out:

"Wake up, Parker, you're singing a song."

Parker continued to protest:

"I wouldn't!
I couldn't!
I hate that stuff!"

Helen put her needlepoint aside, and sang:

"Now, Parker, listen, I've had enough.
In Cloaky's parodies, I've plainly seen
You're a singing, dancing, entertainment machine."

She plays a montage of Parker RAF parodies, proving her point.

Rotiart sang:

"Helen was right.
Your singing's a sin.
You're as lame at singing
As that Martian, Marvin!"

Parker aimed his fusion cannon at Rotiart and Rotiart shrunk away from the SPARTAN. Helen shrugged as she sang:

"Sure, anyone's singing can make your hair curl,
But, you too, Rotiart, have sung and danced like a girl."

"Eep." Rotiart said.

A Rotiart medley played, though he wasn't really in all that many.**

Shadow sang:

"That was pretty bad, Rotiart.
But it could have been worse.
You could have been carrying
A sequined purse!"

Rotiart sang:

"I hate to dance, and prance and sing!
That is really more of a YouTube thing!"

Saffa sang sourly:

"I think you move like you have a leg lopped off."

A Master Seeker sang robotically:

"Nobody move or I'll blow your heads off!"

All the RAFians present vocalize, as the Seeker looks unemotional.

Horse sang:

"It's a desperate Seeker,
On the run from Malice."

Gaz sang:

"Please spare the children."

Wild sang:

"And let me smack you with my paw!"

The Seeker reacted with surprise.

"A singing forum?
It's worse then I feared.
For hostage-purposes,
You're just too weird!

Bye."

And it leaped from a window, and flew off.

Ellimist sang:

"See? All this singing scared it away.
If we just talked like normal, it'd probably stay."

Abby sang:

"Many people in this forum sing just we do.
There's Mr. Guy, there's Cloaky, and even E2. . . ."

The RAF parodies --"Who Needs the RAFy-Mart", "Send in the RAFians", and "See My Vest" --play. When they ended, the RAFians contjnued their song.

Gaz sang:

"Because she was singing,
We overheard her plan,
And could save those RAFians
From that mean woman."

Blue sang:

"It still wasn't worth her song and dance!"

The Seeker inexplicably reappeared:

"I'm back!  So resume wetting your pants!
Because of you all I've got a tune in my head,
And the only way to stop it is to make you all dead!"

Cloak muttered, "Ugh, I knew I should've shut that window."

The Seeker continued:

"Say your prayers, then it's kablamo!"

Its arm cannon clicked five times. It sung again:

"Uh oh!  I'll be back when I get some more ammo!

Bye!"

Faerie sang, fed up:

"Even the Seekers are begining to croon!"

Blocky was a bit more upbeat.

"Faerie, this whole forum runs on a tune!"

Yarin sang thoughtfully:

"The threads, the posts, and the mods too."

Underseen sang:

"RAF swings like a pendulum do!"

Richard sang:

"We can't even get any new rules passed
Without everyone singing like a big Broadway cast!"

The RAF parodies -- "Monorail" and "We Do" -- play.

Parker sang:

"Alright, guys,
You've convinced me.
There are more terrible things
Then extraneous things where
Everybody sings!"

Shadow sang:

"There is something worse
Than big singin' lugs!"

All sang:

"When a long-running dream sequence
Does shameless, cheesy plugs!"

The Seeker returned and aimed his arm cannon at the RAFians. He sang:

"I'm back to commit
Felonious assault.
Because your infernal singing
Just would not hault!"

"Actually, we're done." Cloak said. "This was a lucid dream, and I'm ready to wake up now."

---

*Nostalgia Critic reference!!

**None that I can think of offhand, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 30, 2014, 12:46:31 AM

Okay, a singing Seeker would be stretching it. :rofl2:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2014, 04:41:03 AM

I suppose. Although it was in Snake's part -- that was a song adaptation from the wrapsround on the Simpsons episode "All Singing, All Dancing".

New book, new chapter.

BOOK LXXIV:
A PLANTED IDEA
CHAPTER ONE:
Boys and Girls of RAF

Abby, Ash, Broken, Dameg, Esplin, Gaz, Helen, Jess, Parker, Phoenix, Saffa, Shock, Slushie Man, SuperNate, and Underseen were standing on opposites of the forum, and they sang.

"Sun goes down,
I'm just getting up.
I'm heading for RAF's lights!
Ready your blast,
We're goin' on to the board club.
Goin' rock this forum tonight!"

The girls sang:

"You're living in a man's world, they tell us,
But we aint buying it,
The things they are trying to sell us,
Now.
'Coz we're the girls of R-A-F!
Oooh-ooh!
Yeah, we'r the girls of R-A-F!
R-A-F!"

The boys sang:

"Oooh yeah!
We're back and I'm ready to go.
My guitar is in my hand!"

The girls yawned, unimpressed. But the boys continued:

"There's nothing more than I rather do
Than play in a RAFian band!
The acclaim we had before is what we will be given.
Headin' for the top!
Dontcha know?!
We'll never stop believin',
Now!
'Coz we're the boys of R-A-F!
Ya better believe it!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
We're the boys of R-A-F!
R-A-F!"

The girls sang:

"We are the girls --
We are the girls --
We are the girls of R-A-F!"

The boys sang:

"We are the boys --
We are the boys --
We are the boys of R-A-F!"

Suddenly, random dancing ensues before the boys continue:

"'Coz we're the boys of R-A-F!"

The girls sang:

"Yeah, we're the girls of  R-A-F!
Better be believin' that we are --"

"Yeah, we're the boys of R-A-F!"

"We're the girls of R-A-F!"

"Yeah, we're the boys of R-A-F!"

"We're the girls of R-A-F!"

A few yards away, Cloak stood with Blue a little off to the side. Cloak sipped his drink, reading a newspaper, when Blue asked, "What's going on over there?"

"Oh, just another one of those 'battle of the sexes' you Dwellers are so fond of," Cloak said, not even lookingnup from thr newspaper.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2014, 05:43:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Planters Guts

Malice was walking through a rather decrepit-looking place, the walls were of a spongy moss-like plant, also carpeting the floor and ceiling. Vines curled around the corners here and there, the flowers were crinkled and brown. It wasn't only the flowers that were dying and decaying.

Malice sniffed dismissively at this, as she proceeded forward. She didn't care that this once spectacular place was falling into ruin. It could have been a beautiful place, but it appeared that someone or something was sucking the life from it.

Malice continued along the twisting, winding trail, all the while lamenting the defeat of her Master Seekers. She seethed the more she thought about it. That should  have worked -- that scheme was perfect, it should have succeeded, by all aspects. Then they pulled out that last minute save, that come-from-behind victory. That deux ex machina, and she didn't mean the Realm Walker "ghosts".

She should have won that one. She should have won, but no matter, no matter. She could always come up with another scheme. Another plan.  Another . . . another pawn.

She came to an emaciated mass of vines, which still clung to life. It was clear that some sort of herbicide was used here, as the residue remained, though inert and sooty. This was an easy enough fix, Malice thought and believed.

She cleaned away the herbicidal residue, and spoke to the mass of vines and tendrils, "Regifloras."

Nothing happened, but the mass seemed to resemble a human skeleton, without defined legs. Malice waited a prudent time before continuing.

"Regifloras," Malice repeated, "awaken. Live again, Regifloras. Reawaken."

The vines became animated, and Malice stepped back to take in the full scene. The skeleton of vines and tendrils writhed and formed around this skeleton, and within mere seconds, looked more demonic, more evil version of the Floronic Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floronic_Man). He smacked his crusty old lips, like an old man, and stood up, as he did have skeletally thin legs that were made up of plant material. With an old man grunt, and a slight roll of his shoulders, he resumed a form more like a fusion of the Floronic Man and Arbutus (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Arbutus) from the "Aladdin" tv series.

"Who dares?" he croaked out. Regifloras's voice was somewhere between Ron Perlman's and Mark Hamill's. "Who dares to disturb my slumber?"

"It is I, Malice," she said. "The humble antagonist."

It was ridiculous -- Malice was anything but humble.

"And who are you to disturb my slumber?" Regifloras sneered, rather foolishly.

Malice did not hesitate to get right up in his face, which actually intimidated the old plant-man, and said, very dangerously, "Someone you do not want to be on the wrong side of."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2014, 09:39:36 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Plant Behavior

Cloak had finished the newspaper, which was full of unpleasant things. No one reported happy news anymore. It was just the same everywhere, he guessed, because the Nexus had similar focus on bad news -- more often blowing things way out of proportion than being legitimately egregious as reported.

Cloak was, as he often was, throughly engrossed in his thoughts, he almost didn't notice it. He looked around benignly, having sensing something. He could not put his finger on it, but he could sense something of malicious intent, but not the kind of malevolence that Malice was known for.

This was subtler, more pervasive. It caused Cloak disquiet and unease. He looked around with narrowed eyes. He knew he sensed something, but he could not see or Earthsight anything out of the usual. He widened his stance and prepared for a fight.

"I know you're there," he said, sure of the presence nearby. "Show uourself, you craven coward."

***

"I've never seen flowers so pink, so red, so green," Helen said, caressing the petal of a dogwood flower, which did not normally come in multiple colors on the same tree. "They're so pretty!"

"Has that tree always been there?" Parker said, surprised. "I've never noticed a tree here before. Right in the middle of the grounds . . ."

"Oh, Parker," she teased, "you're getting as paranoid as Cloak!"

"He usually is paranoid within reason." Parker said, thoughtfully. "And he's not here to ask. He had gone to his meditation place."

"We could go an ask him," Helen shrugged.

"You know how testy he gets if we do that!" Parker chided. "Besides, it's probably nothing. Plants grow all the time, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

"You don't sound so convinced." Helen pointed out.

Parker said nothing. It was true, and his instincts on such matters were on par with Cloak's usually.

***

Cloak waited, anticipated, expected something . . . anything . . . to happen. For someone to speak, to have a dialogue with him. What really happened was something he should have foreseen by now.

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

Cloak would not let his guard down. He would not let go of this hyperalert state he was in. He walked slowly back to the forum, aware that someone may be -- that someone was -- watching him. He could feel the eyes on him as if he was being affected by a slow-burn of Darkseid's Omega Vision. He could not ignore it.

He could not Earthsight the silhouette behind him because this silhouette was not touching the said ground, and was hidden amongst the foliage. And that was the flaw of Earthsight and Metalsight, if someone isn't touching and making vibrations on said element, then they cannot be "seen".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2014, 05:26:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
In the Jungle, the Urban Jungle . . .

The rest of the day passed pretty uneventfully, and the night was mostly the same as well. Yet Cloak had qualms that would not go away, that would not allow themselves to be ignored. His sleep was disjointed and interrupted constantly thst night, that he grew envious of those that were able to sleep so readily this night.

Yet, even with this tossing and turning, Cloak hadn't noticed that a remarkable change was overtaking the forum. He would discover it with the others, when they exited their threads. The forum was overrun. Not by an invading army or anything like that. But by vines and other plant life. It was as if the forum was never built, as the buildings themselves were buried by a mossy carpet if grass and such, trees grew overnight in the most inopportune places.

"What the Veil?" Cloak said nonplussed.

"Uh, since when did we move to Tarzan's turf?" Abby asked.

"I know when they said that cities are urban jungles, but this," Az said, "this is ridiculous."

"Plants on this planet do not grow this rapidly," Yarin said, "not naturally."

"So this is Malice's next scheme?" Underseen asked.

"Probably," Cloak said. "However . . . I don't see what possible goal she could have in mind with this scheme. Hyper-accelerating plant growth? What's she playing at?"

"Cloak, you of all people should know how dangerous plants can be," Gaz said. Of course, the vampire would realize the potential danger a plants, as a wooden stake could kill them. "Have paused to consider just how many poisonous plant species exist on this planet?"

"We don't know the full extent of this, uh, 'reforestation'." Parker said. "We should check out the city."

***

"Well, traffic's gonna be deadlocked," Blue said.

Blue, Parker, Saffa, Phoenix, Demos, and Cloak had gone to investigate the city, and saw that the streets were barren of cars, though some probably were covered up by the vines and wooden trunks of trees. The same mossy grasses carpeted both the sidewalks and the roads. It was as if the plant life had decided to retake the land for themselves, or as if the humans had vanished for many years.

Speaking of which . . .

"Wait, where is everyone?" Saffa said, noting the desolate atmosphere of the place.

"I dunno," Cloak said, "Earthsight is actually difficult here."

"Somehow, that's disconcerting." Parker said. "Do you think its being blocked somehow?"

"Not by intelligent design," Cloak answered earnestly. "Probably. This moss carpeting thing . . . it seems to absorb most, if not all, vibrations through the earth, which makes up Earthsight. But, perhaps, I have become too reliant on it . . ."

Cloak sensed a presence. The same one as before.

"We're being watched." he said, immediately.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2014, 08:34:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
King of the Weeds

"Enough of the stalking schtick!" Cloak shouted, tired of the game. "Show yourself, you pathetic malevolence!!"

Regifloras showed himself in the middle of an abandoned intersection, with the traffic lights still hanging somewhat haphazardly. They apparently still worked as well, as one went from yellow to green.

While Regifloras still resembled Floronic Man and Arbutus primarily, but there were aspects and attributes of Poison Ivy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_Ivy_(comics)) and Undergrowth from "Danny Phantom" had been incorporated into his body, but not his mannerisms. Cloak was unimpressed, as Regifloras retained a rather demurred appearance.

"And who are you?" Phoenix said.

"I am Regifloras," he announced, voice grandiose. "I am --"

"King of plants." Cloak said, dryly and monotone, whose eyes were narrowed.

"I am more than that!" Regifloras shouted. "I am the Sultan of Shrubs, the Lord of --"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Cloak said, not the least bit interested in Regifloras's self-named titles. "Look, it's pretty obvious that you're behind this urban jungle stuff. We need you to clean up your mess."

"My mess? My mess?!" he shouted.

"It's gonna be a tirade, isn't it?" Blue muttered.

"MY mess?!?!" Regifloras said. "These humans poison the air, toxify the water, and makes the land barren! Yet it is 'my' mess that needs to be cleaned up."

"Oh, he's one of those villains," Parker said.

"I heard that, you miserable miscreant! You ignore the crimes your kind commits against my subjects? Like how you hack down my magnificent trees and turn them into lumber. Not only that, you burn them. For warmth! Creating smoke to block our life-giving sun!"

Saffa tried to protest, "We don't do that on purpose!"

But Regifloras countered, "Is it an accident when you rip apart my flowers?! Condemning them to a slow death in a vase?! Your kind . . . you animals, you're all the same! You treat my beautiful, living subjects as mere things! Why should I treat you any differently?"

"Regifloras," Cloak took a step forward, and stood his ground. "I do not like fire as much as you do. I do not like the poisoning of the air anymore than you do. I appreciate the awe-inspiring beauty of a forest, the scent of a blossom. The trees that shelter me. But you're resorting to extremes! I know there are humans that are overcome and consumed by their avarice and greed, by their lust for monetary gain, no matter the cost. That's one end of the extreme, and you're going over to the other. This won't accomplish anything -- just cause pain, turmoil, and suffering on both sides. This isn't the first time such a thing has happened."

"Empty words, human."

"I am not human," Cloak said. "Nor do I ever presume to be one. But my kind are no more faultless than they, or you."

"Irrelevant. I have laid down in pacifism and, as a result, have been trampled over and the rights of my subjects and myself have been rapturously ignored!" Regifloras shouted, indignation known. "No more! You can sever every limb, snap every branch, but my power will always bloom!"

"Regifloras, listen to reason!" Phoenix said. "There is no need for viole--"

"Enough talk! Let's incinerate this idiot and be done with it!" Demos said, having grown weary of the lack of action.

"Demos, NO!" Cloak shouted.

Too late, the demon ignited his hands and began to throw fireballs at Regifloras.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2014, 09:24:50 PM

Okay, currently planning out the chapters for Book CCCXLIV ("Horcrux Hunt"), and it will, by necessity perhaps -- given the subject matter, be a dark book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Mind Vines

"Fool! Infidel!" Regifloras yelled with righteous indignation. "You dare to attack me?! Me?! You miserable sacks of flesh!"

He reared up, snake-like, with a mass of vines acting almost like a powerful, constricting tail. He snuffed out the flames by simply regenerating in this way. Demos did nothing but royally tick off their adversary.

"Nice going, Demos," Blue snapped.

"Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time." Demos said defensively.

"No, it didn't." Cloak said crossly. "Now our task is infinitely more dangerous and difficult. We could have handled this diplomatically. But that's not a solution anymore."

"Okay -- sorry. My bad."

"Accepted for the time be--" Cloak stopped midsentence. It was blurry, in Earthsight, but it was . . . odd. Too odd. Too odd to be real. "What the . . . ?"

"Cloak, you don't need Earthsight to see what we're seeing." Parker said.

"It's like were in the bad future of 'Meet the Robinsons'," Saffa said, as she saw the hazy green horizon as a mass of figures shuffled about. Cloak blinked as.he saw that each figure was trailing a cord of some sort. Their eyes glowed green, with green lines cracking from them.

"Mind control? Again?" Demos said. "I'm beginning to wonder why this city has yet to be abandoned."

It was a very good question.

"Yes, I see you finally admire my work." Regifloras said, contemptuously and condescendingly. "I had had enough of the humans taking me and my subjects lightly, taking us for granted. So, I made a decision. Instead of having you beings of flesh treat us as second-class citizens . . . no, as nonentities! Instead of having to endure the ignominious indignity of being nonentities, we would rise up. The creatures of flesh would be subservient to us!"

"You're monologuing." Cloak said, then he realized that the Mind Vines were coming after them, but the Mark would not allow them to latch on. Regifloras was not pleased with this, as he strung them up in vine bindings. The selfsame vines supported them up. However, instead of stringing up Blue, Regifloras only managed to bind -- or try to -- bind smoke.

"No matter, no matter," Regifloras muttered, more to himself than the others. "I should have awakened earlier, still."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2014, 08:53:27 AM

New book ideas.

• Book CDLXXVIII: "Feeling the Music" -- The RAFians must deal with cursed instruments.
• Book CDLXXIX: "Corrupted Crystals" -- The RAFians must deal with animal crystals who must be separated, yet yearn to join together.
• Book CDLXXX: "Arcane Cards" -- The RAFians must deal with an eeriely-accurate fortune teller.
• Book CDLXXXI: "The Necromancer's Collection" -- The RAFians must deal with a necromancer and his collection, which the RAFians had a hand in unintentionally adding on to.
• Book CDLXXXII: "Cloud Watching" -- A Cloudian (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Cloudian) comes to Faerie for help.
• Book CDLXXXIII: "Constellations Conjurer" -- The RAFians must deal with a Warbeast Conjurer.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Escape From Eden

Cloak chafed at being bound. Realm Walkers are accustomed to coming and going at their own volition, whenever they chose. That's one reason why the Oblivion Gate is considered such a terrible fate, and that's discounting the proximity to the Oblivion Veil.

Regifloras was still muttering to himself, probably deciding what to do with them, and this did not go unnoticed. Blue was still not seen, but Cloak knew he was still here. Blue's scent was faint, but detectable. The rest of them were tied up pretty thoroughly.

Saffa could not morph anything larger than herself without risking being crushed, and she couldn't morph anything like a hawk without meeting a similar fate. Demos actually looked bored, as if this was uninteresting. Phoenix looked uncomfortable, but remained stern-faced. Parker was no suffering from discomfort so much as he was suffering from Tyr acting like Fi from "The Legend of Zelda" franchise.

Cloak looked out across the city and he could make out some forms easier than others. The Mind Vines did not discriminate. Men, women, and children of every ethnicity, every economy, every walk of life was represented in this small sampling. They were tending to Regifloras plants with slavish servility. The Mind Vines clearly suppressed all independent thoughts and obliterated all individuality.

How could they, how could the RAFians fail to respond to this fast enough? How could they have allowed, have permitted this to happen?

"I will have to consider another solution," Regifloras said, muttering to himself. But it was perfectly audible to Cloak. "She did not mention this. She warned me of all . . . all this. But I couldn't believe until I saw. Now I have these cruel creatures of flesh to contend with . . ."

She. Of course, she would have a hand in it. Cloak didn't know why he was surprised.

"Guys, I don't think we can glean anymore information from this guy's mutterings," Blue murmured, having appeared (as is his ninja way) beside Saffa.

"Yeah -- shut up, Tyr -- let get back to the forum." Parker said. Then, as an after thought, he said, "Tyr, that is the most stupid thing that I have ever heard. And I've heard Fox News."

Blue used his hidden ninjabo to slice away the vines pinioning Saffa's arms together. She deftly morphs hawk, for the first time in a while. She forgotten how much she loved that morph.

Parker shifted his armor to the Falco Armor, and activated its Giga Crush function which sliced off the vines, leaving the vine sections to flop wetly on the ground. It garnered Regifloras's attention.

Then Cloak, Phoenix, and Demos ignited themselves, burning away the vines that held them up and pinioning their arms to their sides. The fire continued, as it headed for a building, until Cloak stopped it. He still didn't like open flame, though it seemed a bit hypocritical of him at the moment.

"Quick! To the forum!" Phoenix said. And soon they were gone.

Regifloras managed to see the tailend of their escape. But his rage was concealed under a veneer of demurred stoicism and and calm contemplation. He wonders if he could actually use this to advantage. . . .

Maybe there would be room for expansion. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 02, 2014, 10:19:04 AM

This city is nearly as bad as Gotham. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2014, 10:11:58 PM

True. (Or like any of the -- no. No, that's too political.)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Eggplants

The RAFians had returned to the forum to find that Regifloras had managed to get there first. Not personally, mind you, but his handiwork was evident. The Mind Vines were here, but they did not function as they did in the city.

The RAFians looked around and were greeted with an eerie silence. It was much too late in the morning for it. The large vines appeared to have bloated fruit of assorted sizes, shaped much like blue eggplants. Cloak felt a chill.

"Those aren't eggplants," Parker said, voice audibly constricting. He went over to one, and the others followed. It turned out to be translucent, with something in the middle, a dark silhouette. Cloak realized why this was so familiar with a disconcerting suddenness. "They're the others."

The RAFian in the eggplant thing that Parker had approached held Helen. Parker did not touch it, though it was clear that he yearned to.

"How?" Phoenix asked.

"You guys wouldn't remember," Cloak muttered enigmatically.

"What?" Saffa demanded.

"All the way back when the Technarchy -- or Phalanx, whatever you prefer -- attacked and attempted to assimilate the world, including RAF, you guys were in similar structures." Cloak elaborated. "It was because the Mark prevented any of you from being assimilated. Parker, you may remember that your armor was assimilated, but you, yourself, were not."

"Huh. So that's why Tyr's being so quiet. Now I know what I can say to shut him up." Parker said, trying to inject some levity into the situation. It didn't work.

"But the question remains, Cloak," Saffa pressed. "Why? Why do this to us?"

"It's obvious," Blue said. "Overgrown Piranha Plant over there is essentially putting them into storage. Until, I assume, he can work out how to bypass or break the Mark."

"Not that," Saffa said, shaking her head peevishly, "why attack us? Why attack us at all? I was under the impression that RAF was one of the most green, if not the most green facilities on Earth."

"It doesn't matter," Phoenix said. "He is blinded by his hatred, by his indignation."

"There's probably more to it than that," Cloak said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Then he looked around, suddenly suspicious. "But we shouldn't continue talking about this. Not here. Not where he could potentially be listening in."

It was Saffa's turn to feel a chill. "That is a real creepy thought. But where do we go?" Then she looked at the eggplant things, "And what about the others?"

Cloak said nothing, not wanting to say it. Parker said it instead.

"We have to leave them behind."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 03, 2014, 01:55:50 AM

Eish, I don't even like eggplants. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2014, 06:46:42 AM

I've never had eggplant.

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Regroup in Desolate Area

"How'd you find this place?" Demos said. He sounded as if he hadn't felt the weight of the situation. Cloak knew that this wasn't the case, just Demos's demonic nature. "It's so barren."

They were at a quarry outside the city that was devoid of plant life. A very nice find of Blue's. The walls were of a khaki-colored stone, which continued underfoot, though as a fine sand, gravel, and pebbles. There was a possibilty of grass on the upper banks, and Cloak was paranoid about it.

He, Phoenix, and Demos encased themselves and Saffa (who was tempted to morph Crabdozer), Blue and Parker in a bubble of flame, while Cloak also projected an energy shield which acted almost like a liner of the fire shield. It could have been simple paranoia on Cloak's part, but he didn't levitate them up into the sky -- so he wasn't that paranoid.

"We should keep this brief. We cannot keep this up forever."

"Is this all really necessary?" Saffa asked. Her hair was slick with sweat. "It's like a sauna in here."

"Yes. Yes, it is necessary." Cloak said, humorlessly. "But we must come up with a plan of attack."

"The Mind Vines . . . what if we just sever them? Could it be that simple?"

"That may cause a psychic backlash to the victim of the Mind Vine," Parker said. "Their minds could be intertwined with it."

"Then that leaves us with only one recourse. We got to destroy --"

"I.e. 'kill'." Demos said, bluntly deciding to do away with the Saturday-morning-cartoon niceties. "Call it what it is."

"We have to . . . eliminate . . . Regifloras as a threat."

"He can regenerate, like Demos," Cloak pointed out. "That might prove difficult."

"He's not that stupid." Blue said. "He won't just stand still idly and watch us cleave him and his plant subjects to pieces or burn them to oblivion. The regeneration and that chlorokinesis --"

Cloak prefered the term "florakinesis" personally.

"-- make him a threat of brute force, not unlike the Seekers."

"There were six of those," Saffa said.

"And they were not allowed to make a move without Malice's say so," Cloak said. "And I wouldn't be surprised if she had hand in this, somehow."

"So, the question remains," Saffa said. "What do we do about this? Can we do anything about it?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 03, 2014, 01:42:49 PM

Finally got these up! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2014, 02:11:27 PM

Excellent.

While I'll try to get a chapter up a day, chances are that it will be just that, one. The new Super Smash Bros came out today. So I'm gonna be busy . . .

:edit: Sorry for the delay.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Back to Action!

"All agreed?" Phoenix said.

"Do we have much of a choice?" Saffa asked.

"Not really," Cloak said.  "Get ready now."

Cloak dropped the energy forcefield, which deafened the roar of the flames and blocked most of the searing heat so it was comfy enough inside. But all that returned within a microsecond. However, the flames were quickly extinguished, and they were delved into darkness once more.

"This isn't right," Parker said. "It's midday. It shouldn't be this dark."

"Rain?" Blue guessed.

"No . . ." Cloak said, recognizing what caused the darkness. "He took advantage of our absence."

"What? You mean --"

Instead of mincing words, Cloak blasted a pulse of energy that roughly tore through the large thorny vines that attempted to block the sunlight from them, almost greedily. Sunlight pored into the hole made, revealing it to be a rather sunny day.  But it was quickly obscured again by the vines.

"Okay, fine. Be that way. We'll just use a more permanent method." Demos said. His hands became bathed in flames, licking his palms and fingers with the gusto of an energetic puppy.

"Demos, don't be so hast--"

"BANZAI!" Demos said, rather carelessly lighting everything on fire.

<HEY!> Saffa shouted, having the greatest foresight to go ahead and morph Crabdozer. <Watch it!>

"I am! I'm watching it burn!!" Demos said, laughing maniacally. It was clear he had inadvertently allowed his demonic self get the better of him. The gigantic thorny vines that had been so thoroughly intertwined with each other to resemble a muscle and its fibers was quickly burned away. Phoenix and Cloak had managed to stem it, while Demos seemed to be transported in rapturous delight.

Parker strode over to the RAFian demon, who did not seem aware of his approach. Parker drew back his hand, and smacked Demos across the face. Hard.

"SNAP OUT OF IT!!!" he shouted, as Demos seemed to become lucid again. "We don't have time for episodes of demonic pyromania!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2014, 10:51:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Vines Have Ears

<Which way from here?> Saffa asked.

"You can morph back now," Cloak said, then he shut his eyes. It made it easier to Earthsight. Then he opened them when he got the direction,  though vague with the moving, twisting, undulating vines that were still present several yards away. Cloak pointed to his right, saying, "That way."

And away they went. Yet, something tugged persistently at Cloak's gut. Something was off . . . could Regifloras know of their plan?

"It's about time, fleshlings," came a voice. It was almost sultry (which kinda upped the creepiness factor) and coy. "Took you long enough to come out of your little inconsequential bubble."

Regifloras revealed himself, bearing some attributes similar to Sigma from the "Mega Man X" series. But that wasn't the thing that threw Cloak about the Plant King's appearance. It seemed there was something just plan missing to him. Cloak wasn't sure to trust this sudden intuition of his, but he could help but feel that this Regifloras might not be the actual one. Just a mock-up to deliver a message.

"We will end your tyranny," Parker said.

"My tyranny? What of yours and your fleshy brethen?" Regifloras said. "Alternating from poisoning to burning the planet, and back again. For what? Sheer avarice! For meaningless money! I am doing nothing but returning the world back into its most natural state, imprisoning the perpetrators for their crimes in a jail in which they cannot escape -- their own minds! -- and so their bodies, their weak flesh can be used to do something useful!"

"Then how are you any better?" Saffa asked, shrewdly.

This seemed to stymie him momentarily, before he snarled, "Don't spin this around on me. You are the ones who are wrong. You are the ones who wronged me."

"I thought it was humans, in general." Phoenix said, smoothly. "I am half phoenix. Cloak and Demos aren't human at all."

"Don't you dare twist my words!!"

"Are you done?" Cloak said, early unimpressed.

"How dare you speak to me in --"

"How come you don't speak to us yourself?" Cloak said, realizing what Regifloras always had no matter how his appearance altered. There was a small pink rose over where his heart would be were he human. It was elegantly incorporated into his overall appearance, appearing as nothing more then a small flower on a lapel. "Why send a imperfect mock-up? Have a Dr. Doom complex?"

"Silence!"

"Make me."

"Silence!"

"Oh, we don't have time for this whole schtick." Cloak said, quickly executing the Mario Finale on the False Regifloras, incinerating the fake.

"How did you know?" Parker asked.

"I'll elaborate on the way," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 05, 2014, 01:53:27 PM

Heh. The debating experience. I've still got it. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2014, 03:12:41 PM

Oh, I had forgotten that, actually. I guess that means this story is now writing itself. Anyway -- new book ideas!

• Book CDLXXXIV: "Evolutionary Revolutionary" -- A man, styling himself the Lord High Evolutionary, hyper-evolves animals (and four human children) into anthropomorphic animals. The RAFians get dragged into dealing with it.
• Book CDLXXXV: "The Stone of the Ancients" -- An ancient gemstone holds immensely powerful, immensely selfish beings . . . breaks, releasing them. The RAFians must stop them before they destroy all of creation.
• Book CDXXXVI: "Shadow Beasts" -- Monstrous, sentient beasts of shadow are released by a RAFian enemy, and cause havoc that the RAFians must deal with.
• Book CDXXXVII: "Don't Wake Daddy!" -- A RAFian villain, sealed away, must rely on getting his children to release him.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Tell me what you think!

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Drone Masses

"That simple, huh?" Parker said, after Cloak had explained about the heart/lapel flower. He had seen a similar thing before, in another realm. "Clearly, that Regifloras was a fake or else these vines would no longer be behaving this this way, or have withered and died, or something."

"Still, our goal remains the same," Cloak said. He was beginning to feel uneasy, and it clearly showed, because Saffa and Blue immediately picked up on and asked what was up. "It's too quiet. We should have run into more trouble by now."

"Maybe he doesn't think we're a threat to him," Phoenix shrugged, noncommitingly. Demos gave a slight bark of laughter. "Nah, not really likely. Although . . . he could be trying to herd us somewhere."

"I am thinking that that isn't the case," Blue said, looking over his shoulder. Cloak could Earthsight them, but the twisting undulation of these thorny vines made sensing the vibrations difficult. But his feline sense could pick up the scents before the rest and could hear the shuffling footsteps and the sound of aomething like a great many heavy garden hoses being dragged along the ground.

"Oh, please. He's gonna be one of those villains?" Cloak wondered quietly, but voice still quite audible in this corridor of thorny vines oppened to the sky. "I mean, what is this? A video game? A Saturday morning cartoon show?"

The first vine-drone, as Cloak had come to think of the Mind Vine victims, he appeared to be in his late teens with stubby limbs, large thick hands and feet, small rounded ears, beady eyes, and a round, broad head. His hair was shaved brown with gold highlights. His Mind Vine attached firmly to the base of his skull, dragging it along with absolutely no damage to it, leaving inconsequential, but deep furrows in the ground.

Had he been alone, he would have posed no threat. Had he been alone.

But behind him a boy around eleven or twelve with brown hair and a rather severe sunburn ambled along, Mind Vine firmly attached to the base of his skull as well, right next to what one could assume was once a stately woman with long raven-black hair (which parted down the middle due to the Mind Vine attached to her head). More and more appeared behind them, and Cloak could not begin to count them all.

"This isn't good," Parker said. Although his face could not be seen, it was clear that it was etched with utmost concern.

"So what? We'll just burn through --"

"Don't make me hit you again, Demos," Parker countered, "regain control over those demonic impulses. We don't need you to get careless with your pyrokinesis."

"Listen to the man," Cloak said, as he gazed thoughtfully at the approaching horde coming forward at their slow, shuffling, ambling pace. It was almost as if they were the archaic depictions of Hollywood monsters, like the mummy and Frankenstein's monster. "We cannot fight them without hurting the innocents that the vines control."

"So . . ." Blue said, scrunching his face up visably disgust, "I guess we allow ourselves to get herded."

"Or let him think that he's herding us." Saffa said, a mischievous edge to her voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 06, 2014, 05:01:31 AM

It gets crazier as the books go up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2014, 07:06:39 AM

They also get more and more interlinked. I think.

. . .

Crazier in a good way, right?

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Call for Practicality

"They are deliberately slowing down, I swear." Saffa pointed out, looking over her shoulder. They were going with the plan of allowing Regifloras to think that he was herding them, when they would double back around or something. They hadn't gone into specifics. "They are herding us."

"But why? Why does Regifloras intend for us to go to this place, wherever and whatever it is?" Blue pondered aloud pensively. "Does he just get off on toying around with us?"

Suddenly, the corridor widened into a nexus of four further ongoing passages and corridors. Each was curving in a different direction, two curved right and the rest curved left. Earthsight here was as possible as hearing a person whisper behind a jet engine.

"Which way?" Demos asked.

"Can't Earthsight. Too much interference." Cloak said. "I wish that Airsight was a thing."

"Well, maybe we can divine the right way to go, not the way that he wants us to go. The whole brute force plan won't work now." Phoenix said. "I admit it wasn't much of a plan to begin with."

"It was all we had at the time. We have virtually no stealth options, and there is no reasoning with him -- or else Saffa would have already succeeded." Blue said. "But which way is the right way to go?"

"I'm on it," Parker said, using his armor's tech and Tyr to try to calculate the best direction to go.

Saffa watchedd this benignly, "Uh, boys? Why do we need to go in a direction at all?"

"What?" Cloak said.

Saffa sighed, which sound remarkably to an exasperated, "Boys."

"What?" Parker asked.

"This isn't a linear video game," Saffa pointed out. "We're not bound by the invisible walls of a level map, we can move outside of that map."

Cloak blinked in realization as Demos said, "Huh?"

"She means we do not have to play this by Regifloras's rules. We do not have to pick a passageway at all. We can go our own path, one of own making." Cloak attempted to explain. "We are not relegated by programmed perimeters."

"Or we could just fly out the top of the maze," Saffa said, bluntly. "C'mon, guys! It doesn't even have a ceiling!"

After a rather awkward silence, they flew up from the maze encased in one of Cloak's energy bubbles.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 06, 2014, 08:34:15 AM

I LOLed. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2014, 04:37:44 PM

:D

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Motivation

"These RAFians," Regifloras said, irritatedly. He stood in the overgrown RAF, examining and appraising the RAFians within the eggplant structures. He had seen and heard what had happened via the vine-drones and the thorny vines themselves. "These creatures of flesh . . ."

He eyed the robotic RAFians, like Rocklobster, Sakki, etc., with sneering disgust, curling his lip.
"And their . . . contraptions . . . they will make marvelous drones, but they chose to ignore the rules dictated to them by the superior being. They struggle to allow their arrogant continuation to poison this world's waters, skies and lands."

It wasn't true, of course.

"They were entertaining, except the Infernal One, for a time." he said, continuing to examine the eggplant pods, in which each RAFian was curled up in a fetal position -- unconscious, thoughtless, and dreamlessly. But he was referring to Cloak, Saffa, Blue, Parker, Demos, and Phoenix,and the fact that they were no longer willing to play his game. "I can see how the diminutive woman in the cloak found them as such. She did not warn me how woefully boring they would become."

It wasn't really too much of a wonder how he got to be a dissected mass of vines sealed away in that cave considering this habit of talking to bimself. Although, one could make the argument that he was talking to the plants, who did not seem to respond or reply in any way that an average Joe would recognize.

"I admit," he continued, speaking in a low, melodious voice, "that I underestimated their modest intelligence, their irritating persistence. But they go too far. They openly defied me -- and I wouldn't mind so much, had I divined the secret mystery to these strange blue lights. These lights that protect these RAFians from me."

A thought occurred to him, but he immediately dismissed it out of hand. He shook his head vehemently at the thought, sending a flurry of leaves floating gently to the ground. "No. No, I shall accomplish this take over myself. My contemporaries need not get involved. My brethren and myself should, by all aspects, prove adequate to stomp out these RAFians, especially those rebellious six."

He placed his hand upon the eggplant pod that held Dino, which made it look rather like a shellless dinosaur egg. She was not disturbed, and was unaware that anyone was even in close proximity to her.

"I will find a way to break their resistance," Regifloras declared proudly and pridefully. "I will make these creatures mine, and dispose of their extraneous gadgets." He was obviously referring to the more mechanically-inclined RAFians, and Laserbeak. "Once I succeed with this endeavor, retaking this world would will be an easy effort."

It was at this thought, he smiled at these thoughts of grandeur and triumph. He removed his hand from Dino's eggplant pod, and continued to stroll along the pod-encapsulated RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2014, 09:02:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Aimless

"And here we are," Blue said, with folded arms, standing rigidly. His tone was dripping with scornful sarcasm. "Bobbling along, beneath the beautiful briny sky."

They had been hovering in the sky for all of two hours or so. Cloak was not yet feeling true fatigue yet. But they were hovering aimlessly, without a concrete plan of action. Cloak hated not having one, when they clearly needed one.

"We were fools to think that brute force would have been sufficient," Phoenix said, dourly. His melancholic face worn and weary, head bowed, arms folded. Demos opened his mouth to speak, but Phoenix cut across him. "We cannot simply burning everything away. It could endanger the lives of the innocents that happen to be mind controlled."

"I wasn't going to say that," Demos said, with dignified tones. "What I was going to say, we cannot stay up here forever. Cloak, you are eventually gonna tire."

"I'm okay," Cloak said, with a shrug.

"For now," Parker said. "Cloak, you are not tireless, and don't say that you could keep this up forever. You can't."

Cloak said nothing. It was true, and quibbling with truth is ultimately fruitless.

"We should be focusing on our next move," Saffa said, "there has to be something we can do. Something that hasn't occured to us yet."

"As we established before, stealth is useless. The plants are everywhere. And each one a potential spy to our cause." Parker said, thoughtfully. "I can only think of one possible way, but it seems a bit extreme and potentially stupid."

"At this point and time," Cloak said slowly, his innate pacifism at war with his words, "'extreme and potentially stupid' may be necessitated. Our options are limited. The extent of what we can do is restricted."

Cloak said nothing for a bit, as he suspected Parker's idea, as Cloak himself thought of it as well. It was with a bit of hesitation, and a heavy conscience that he continued, "But we must do what we must."

"If your suggesting what I think you are . . ." Saffa said, looking down at the ever-sprawling forest below them. Cloak and Saffa wondered if Regifloras didn't have a point -- granted he blew it into a ridiculous extremes. "If it is what I think it is, then it won't be easy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 07, 2014, 02:02:02 AM

I'm waiting for Blood of Olympus too. It just HAS to come out during my exams. :/

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2014, 08:04:11 AM

I got it yesterday, and already to Chapter 17, but then my Internet went kaput. Hence why there wasn't a chapter yesterday. Since I'm borrowing my neighbor's Internet (at her own insistance, as it was her idea to begin with, since she knows how much I need to write), I'm not sure if she knows yet. She's one of those people who always seems to have something to do, rather like Shadow, now that I think of it.

I'll try to get a couple of chapters up from this computer.

:edit: New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Rachel Methodology

"Let's land now," Cloak said. "We should be in close proximity to the forum."

"How can you be sure?" Saffa asked.

"I'm not," Cloak said, earnestly. "Not a hundred percent, but I should when I touch the ground."

Once upon contact with the earth, he confirmed that they were about a quarter of a mile or so away from the forum. Even here it was heavily conquered by plants and the writhing, undulating, thorny vines. They blocked their path.

It did not matter. They were not pulling punches -- except Cloak, who never used the true extent of his potential, for fear of losing control. Saffa even went into her rarely-used Rancor morph, to rip and rend the vines.

They brutally sliced through the vines, which seemed shriek with the sound a Taxxon makes when it dies. It was a disturbing sound, Cloak found. When the stubs attempted to regenerate, Cloak cauterize the ends with tongues of flame, but then thought it too cruel, and decided to end it completely, reducing them to ash.

"I thought you were pyrophobic," Blue observed.

"Necessity and obligation forces some things to be set aside," Cloak said. "Doesn't mean I like fire anymore than I used to, but it is the only element that would be effective that's readily accessible to me right now."

"You sound like a politician," Demos said.

"You take that back!!" Cloak snarled.

"Never!" Demos smiled broadly. It was a normally disturbing thing to see, if you weren't RAFian.

The more the plants pushed them, the more these six RAFians pushed back. They weren't about to back off, not even a little. RAFians, by definition, tended to be willful. But other than Goku (who had disappeared into obscurity) and Sam, no Green Lantern ring found them. Probably because they were aware of Cloak's affliation with the group and they were still on bad terms with him.

Anyway, the RAFians came closer and closer, inch by inch, to the forum, where Regifloras dwelled. Cloak was sure that the Plant King was sure to have become aware of their rather noisy approach by now. They made no effort to hide it, as it would be pointless, because every plant was bound to tattle on them to their king.

The RAFians did not know the Plant King's reaction this peculiar methodology that they were employing. They did not know if he would greet them with passive indifference, with a towering tempter, or with an utter refusal to acknowledge their existence. But it mattered very little. The RAFians were long tired of this battle, and it was time to end it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 08, 2014, 10:23:39 AM

You're reading it online?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2014, 11:09:31 AM

No, it's out here in America. I have a physical copy.

Anyway, I dunno when I'll get to post another chapter. The internet at my apartment is still buggy.

:edit: Internet working now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Lord of Flora

"Honey, we're home!" Demos said, unable to stop grinning maniacally. "Where's my dinner?"

Cloak glowered at the demon. He didn't find the joke funny, but, despite himself, Demos's demonic mannerisms were surfacing. It wasn't something that would stayed buried, like Cloak with his emotions. If anyone should have known what it was like, desperately burying a facet of himself for fear of losing control overr themselves -- it was Cloak.

"How dare you," Regifloras reared up regally. It might have been intimidating to the uninitiated, but the RAFians had faced and stood up to similar figures. "How dare you take such a tone with me! How dare you speak to me without my addressing of you! How dare you come bursting into my palace without invitation!"

"So much wrong with those accusations," Phoenix said.

"This place isn't yours!" Parker protested vehemently. "It was never yours. RAF belongs to us!!"

"And before?" Regifloras said silkily. "Before your buildings were built? Before your meanless possessions were put into place?"

The RAFians did not answer, but then again Regifloras did not give them much time to so. He answered with near immediacy.

"The land before you stole away belonged to my subjects, which you cleared away and slaughtered without compunction. That you ripped and destroyed without a second thought!" he snapped. "You have not felt the pain of slain tree dismembered from its life spot, then display their mutilated corpses to build your buildings --"

"Which of these buildings are wooden?" Blue said, interrupted Regiflora's tirade.

"Don't question me, you weak last little nothing!" Regifloras shouted, sidestepping the question. "I am a king, you pathetic little peasant!

<That a self-proclaimed title, or a legitimate one?> Saffa said, still in her rancor morph.

"That . . . that's irrelevant!!"

It was hard to tell if his voice choked because he was grabbing at straws or just indigent at the merest suggestion that his title may not be legitimate. The RAFians didn't really care.

"Enough of this," Cloak said. "We all know what we're here for. Let's just stop the preliminary banter and rehashing of motivations and get at it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2014, 04:10:50 PM

New book ideas.

• Book CDLXXXVIII: "A Lover's Spat" -- The RAFians get dragged into the middle of a lover's spat between two of their staunchest enemies.
• Book CDLXXXIX: "Victory!" -- Nike/Victoria runs rampant, increasing the competitiveness of everyone to ludicrous extremes, and the RAFians must stop her.
• Book CDXC: "The Serapian Staffs" -- The RAFians must destroy the Serapian staffs that are being used in gang wars.
• Book CDXCI: "The Big, Bad Wolf" -- The RAFians deal with Lycaon, who has a history with Wild.

All titles are subject to change. And I don't think I rehashed anything. Saffa?

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A New Tactic

Five of the RAFians charged forward to attack, while only Saffa lagged behind, deciding that she needed to change morphs. She decided that a Buglizard or a Psychleopterran would be best, and the hypnotic powers of the Psychleopterran would not work, presumably, against a plants. So she morphed Buglizard.

Regifloras summoned tendril-like vines or roots from the ground. There was far too many to count. There wasn't time to anyway. A vine slammed down in front of Blue, but he wasn't there, he was standing atop it in a blink of an eye. He hadn't even unsheathed his ninjabo -- he was testing Regifloras strength and capability.

Or was he? Another vine attempted to slam down on Blue -- but he wasn't there anymore -- and Demos rendered those vines into ash before Regifloras could react. Regifloras didn't realize just what this meant, as his vine-roots just grew back, tougher and more tenacious that before. But the RAFians weren't worried, they had there plan, their tactics.

Phoenix had summoned his Sun Blade, which allowed him to both amplify his pyrokinetic abilities, focus them, and channel them through the blade. With it, he could slice through the plants and cauterize the open wounds. Sometimes, even igniting it. He whirled his Blade around with moderate skill, rather like Roy from Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Demos was throwing flame about with reckless abandon. He had to allow his more demonic nature to bubble to the surface. He was being ruthlessly pyromaniacal, his demonic nature becoming more apparent. His silk suit still remained impeccably clean and pressed, somehow, though. Though he wasn't wearing his usual fedora.

Cloak was the only one who held back. He wasn't all that comfortable using fire as an element. He always was far more comfortable with the earth element, he admitted that he favored earth over the other five elements. To Cloak's knowledge, he was the only Realm Walker Element Master known who favors one element over others. Well, to the degree he does. This could be the reason why he was the first one to be able to Earthsight.

Parker was proving that his RAFian name should have been Arsenal instead of Parker. He was using his rather handsome amount of gadgets and ordinance to demonstration kust what kind of threat he could be. He was not a RAFian to be taken lightly.

They moved so fluidly, their movements so practiced, that Regifloras tried so very hard -- but failed -- to keep track of them. All was going according to plan -- the RAFians were careful around their encapsulated fellows, and had to keep Demos from fully succumbing to his demonic instincts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2014, 06:37:30 PM

Let's face it, this book'll be finished either today or tomorrow, before work. The next one will have more levity. Probably. But the series will inevitably get darker, I believe. Unless, of course, I change my mind.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Regifloras's Achilles Flower

It finally dawned on Regifloras, the one thing that he overlooked. He could only see and witness the actions of five RAFians. That couldn't have been right.

"Wait . . ." he said aloud, finally suspicious. It took him long enough. "Weren't there six of you?"

None of the five deigned to answer him. He did not like this insubordination, which was odd, seeing how the RAFians were not his subordinates. Of course, that didn't mean that Regifloras didn't see it that way.

"Stop fighting, and answer me!" Regifloras demanded, unaware of the imminent danger to himself. He was focusing entirely on the five RAFians, who did not acquiesce to his demands. Regifloras was livid with this abject refusal to comply to his wishes. "Obey me, you sacks of filth!"

Really? Did he really believe that by being that "charming" would elicit compliance? Did he, in all honesty think that by demanding something a loud and brutish way will get his wishes fulfilled? It was rather . . . cliche, when you thought about it. Regifloras so readily devolve into a stereotypical Adam West "Batman"-esque villain, when he could have been more.

"Tell me where it is! Tell me . . . and I'll spare you five. I'll allow you to live while I reclaim what these humans have stolen from me."

If you abandon something for centuries, do you really have a claim that it's still yours? Can you really, in all honesty, expect the claim to hold if you aren't around to enforce it as yours? All questions that Regifloras either never considered or tap dances around.

"Where is --"

A flash of blue. A glint of metal.

"Right here." Blue said, sheathing his ninjabo. It had appeared, at first glance, that Blue had missed. But Blue rarely, if ever, misses his target. Blue eyes narrowed as he waited. Regifloras suddenly clutched his chest, as if he was suffering cardiac arrest. But he had no heart -- no literal heart to go into cardiac arrest. A brown, withering effect raced through Regifloras, who appeared confused at first, but caught on quickly.

Especially because Demos had caught a rose that almost touched the ground.

"My heart, my power, will always bloom . . ."

"Yeah?" Demos said, the smile had left his face. He was in full control of his abilities, his demon nature suppressed. "Good luck doing that. Without this."

He burned the rose into ashes, and Regifloras began to really wither into dead brown plant matter. Within minutes, he was gone. Cloak felt conflicted though, wondering if the plan was extreme. He wondered if there wasn't a better way.

Why must everything come down to this? Why must things come down to destruction? He had his doubts and his qualms, and he would deal with then in his own time, he decided, as he watch the plants withdraw their advance as the thorny vines collapsed in to dust-like ash.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2014, 07:06:51 PM

New chapter. Last one of this book, and possibly a short one.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Shadow's Question

The other RAFians were revived when the plants receded back to their normal places, but it was still a mess everywhere. They all felt obligated (except Rotiart, who only felt obligated to himself) to help with the restoration of both forum and city. While the formerly-encapsulated RAFians bore only the dimmest of memories, while the citizens of the city had none, of their endurance of the Mind Vines.

"Man, I missed all the action!" Shadow said, when she came to visit and heard what happened. "Why didn't you come and get me?"

"You had school." Cloak said. "Not to mention your, like, fifteen extracurriculars."

"Oh. Right." Shadow said, abashed slightly.

Then their was a minor incident when a guy confused Faerie for a fairy, and she glowered at him so badly that the intimidated man cowered before he fled.

"Uh," Shadow said, as preamble to a question, "Why does Faerie take being called a fairy so personally?"

At this question, Cloak recalled something --

***

A chorus sang:

"Of the crankiest creatures in the wilds modt scary,
Our next RP features Faerie the fairy!"

Faerie had said, "Call me 'fairy' and you die."

"That's Fairy!"

Faerie pulled a cartoon-style bomb, rather like the Links in "Super Smash Bros." out of hammerspace, "I warned you."

***

Well, THAT was irrelevant. Cloak thought, before answering his neice. "I don't know for a fact why. I suspect that it is a curse word to her kind, but I haven't any proof. Just be on the safe side and not make the mistake."

"Oh." Shadow said. She shrugged good-naturedly, and replied, "Okay."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2014, 08:18:24 PM

New chapter.

BOOK LXXV:
VACATION PHOTOS
CHAPTER ONE:
R-E-C-Y-C-L-E

In the light of the whole Regifloras debacle, the RAFians decided that maybe he had one or two points, though he took it to an unnecessary extreme as all fundamentalist and extremists do.

The RAFians put together a little something of a PSA, inspired by one of the songs from the "Rocko's Modern Life" episode "Zanzibar". Underseen started the scene off.

"No, no. Down here," Underseen asked the camera man. Suddenly, words appeared on the screen, which read, "What can we do to help, RAF?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked," Underseen said, as music started up, and he sang:

"R-E-C-Y-C-L-E, recycle.
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E, conserve.
Don't you P-O-L-L-U-T-E, pollute,
The rivers, sky, or sea,
Or else, you're gonna get what you deserve!
The ozone is in horrible condition!
From fluorocarbons in our atmosphere.
They are too small to be seen by normal vision."

In a transition that disguised the fact that Underseen and Ash deftly shapeshifted into visible, albeit talking and singjng fluorocarbons. They sang:

"But there's getting to be more of us each year!
We come from a variety of places,
Like styrofoam containers and aerosol cans!
We love to eat the ozone, it's our favorite dessert.
And, if we don't have an ozone, then the sun can really hurt!"

Esty played her part and showed how easy that the sun (or Sol, as she called it) could hurt, though she pulled her punches a bit.

Faerie sang:

"You must admit we make a lot of garbage."

Abby sung:

"This dump is filled up way above the brim."

Underseen intoned:

"If we don't make an effort to recycle . . ."

Cloaky sang ominously:

". . . Then the future could be looking mighty grim."

"Look, it's the Grim Recycler!" Saffa teased.

Cloak glowered at her as she smiled cheekily.

Underseen sang:

"Someone's cutting down the forest,
It's not enough to sit around and grieve.
if we don't protect our flora and our fauna . . ."

Yarin sang:

". . . Then we won't have the oxygen to breathe!"

RAFians breathed deeply, to emphasize this fact, then continued in chorus:

"R-E-C-Y-C-L-E, recycle!
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E, conserve!
Don't you P-O-L-L-U-T-E, pollute,
The rivers, sky or sea,
Or else, we're gonna get what we deserve!"

The PSA ended and Rotiart could be heard audibly saying, "What a sappy song."

Not the brightest thing to say, considering both Saffa and Faerie were there and they both wanted to get back at Rotiart for pulling a Montgomery Burns and feigning death to get out of the restoration effort with the city and forum. The two ladies chased after the layabout, and the other RAFians just let them do so.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 09, 2014, 12:56:11 AM

I can see from the last three books that you've already gotten far ahead into Blood of Olympus. ;) I've finished it myself. Great end.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2014, 06:20:06 AM

I haven't just yet. Smash has also come out.

New chapter.Sorry, it's short.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Worst Kind of Tourist*

Meanwhile, a strange spacecraft left a planet that apparently orbited Polaris. It was shaped like a wheel-less, pinkish Cadillac -- or whatever car had those garish tailfins with the spires. When it came into Earth's orbit, what could have been the spare tire, detached from the ship, revealing it to be some sort of escape pod, for perhaps a landing party.

When it entered Earth's atmosphere, it deployed its landing gear and when it landed, the top expanded, rather tent-like, as if the alien inside was camping. The opening would open like a tent, by the metal becoming flaccid and peeling away from the opening. But it currently remained shut.

The creature within was bipedal who wore clothing. He had a thick, pale blue-gray body with cartoony-thin limbs, knobby knees, and four-fingered hands (including opposable thumbs). His large head with Muppet-like eyes which sat atop his head, a large bulbous nose, and overlarge, flappy mouth. He also possessed two insect-like antennae whos function wasn't known. He wore Day-Glo orange short shorts and a dark purple shirt with short sleeves and Jetson-ridges which resembled a parka (other than the sleeves) somewhat. He was a Polarisoid, known across the galaxy to be one of the more obnoxious species, but not in an in-your-face sort of way.

But his most dangerous device he possessed was sitting on what passed for a dashboard in his ship. His camera was like a boxy eighties television camera, like the kind that April O'Neil used in the eighties show. It's purpose was similar, but not exact. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

He eventually stepped out into Terran air, and laughed, his voice rather high-pitched and like some old celebrity. He carried both his camera and a guidebook with him, muttering things about not drinking the H₂O, complimenting Earthlings on their pets (mistaking a bulldog as the own of an old lady), etc.

***

The sensors went off, but Rotiart was on duty and he deftly ignored it. Saffa, Faerie, Cloak, and other RAFians expressed concern at allowing Rotiart to do this, especially in light of his past indiscretions whilst on duty.

Rotiart had said that it wouldn't happened again. He obviously lied.

Although, considering that the Polarisoid did not exactly hide himself, it was a fairly obvious oversight on Rotiart's part.

---

*(http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140127172820/tmnt/images/8/84/0033-504x375.jpg) He's the guy in the middle, obviously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2014, 02:32:39 PM

New chapter. Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Inexplicable Disappearances

"Your local bank is missing? Is this another attempt for a bailout?"

"Your pit bull is gone? Oh, sorry, your bulldog Pit is gone?"

"City hall has disappeared? You're the who? The mayor? Seriously?"

"There goes the neighborhood. What? The neighborhood is missing? That was supposed to be a joke!!"

The communications were a buzz with calls and reports of things vanishing without a trace or reason. Yarin, Aquilai, Aila, and Parker frantically attempted to answer all the calls coming in, but it was like a hydra. For each call they answered, two more came in.

KNOCK, KNOCK.

The four ignored the newcomer by sheer necessity, necessity to attempt to clear the lines. It wasn't easy, and no progress appeared to be made as the four's frantic flailing about to answer call after call. But the tide wasn't stemmed.

"Oh, why did we give out that toll-free number?" Aquilai said, ruefully, before answering another report -- a little girl's mother had vanished. They weren't in a position to act on it.

"Guys," Saffa said, tentatively, not sure what to make of the flurry of furious movement.

"Not now, Saffa --" Parker said, taking another call.

"I was just wondered why . . ." she glanced at the four's furious flurry of frenzied movement. She decided that was the answer she was seeking, as to why she was having difficulty placing a call from the phone at the mess hall. Her phone was out of juice at the moment.

She decided to pursue her line of questioning would be in ill taste. Why would she be griping about not being able to make a phone call when people are missing? She could never be that utterly selfish, her conscience would not leave her alone.

"Guys, here," she said. "Let me help."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 09, 2014, 03:41:59 PM

This is actually a job that I already know. For a big event we held last month, I had to call a whole lot of people who were coming from other colleges, and maintain communications between them.

What a painful job.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2014, 05:22:45 AM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Alien Sightings

Cloak was back in his usual meditation spot, chosen for its peacefulness. Though he was given pause to wonder if the trees and flora still harbored murderous, mutinous desires. Then he told himself that such thoughts weren't helpful. They were being manipulated by Regifloras, these trees had no true mind of their own. Or did they?

His thoughts, though he had tried his very hardest to dissuade them, dwelled upon these issues. These excessive qualms and paranoid questions buzzed around his mind like angry Africanized bees. He continued trying to calm and soothe his mind, but it was just jot going to happen and Cloak was too stubborn to admit it.

He had defiantly closed his eyes, crossed his legs as he sat upon the earth, and the tip of his tail twitching in an involuntary, inconsolate, agitated manner. He would force his mind to calm, to relax. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge that it was a futile exercise.

Then a sound was carried on the wind, unable to be heard by human ears. Cloak did not possess human ears, and even to his acute hearing it was faint.

POWPOW! Zuuuuzuuup.

A delay of seconds.

POWPOW! Zuuuzuuup.

Cloak's eyes snapped open. He had recognized that sound, but hoped that they did not exist in this realm. He knew how much of a nuisance they could be.

"Polarisoids!" he muttered under his breath.

But he did not hear the sound again. Granted, it did not mean it didn't exist, but it allowed Cloak to convince himself that it was just his imagination. A Polarisoid tourist. That's the last thing that they would need right now.

***

There were reports of the alien, of the Polarisoid's presence. Of course, it wasn't hard to notice, as he did not bother to hide or conceal his obvious alien-ness. He just hefted his camera and read from his guide book.

Naturally, the authorities did not take the reports seriously. Despite the fact that the existence of aliens were not a foreign concept anymore, that it was verifiable fact, they chose to ignore it. Despite the fact that the reports describe this alien as the source of the disappearances, it was ignored.

But what can you expect from a government with a disturbing habit of supporting the rich, only being concerned with the 99% when election time rolls around.*

---

*Yes, this a slam at my own government, here in America. The thinly-veiled corruption really sickens me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 10, 2014, 10:38:11 AM

Ah, good old government bashing. Perfectly justified.

PDF!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2014, 05:21:34 PM

Yep. I have already made crystal clear, in the narrative, how I see politicians. It is just a matter of time before they become corrupt. :dull:

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
First Contact

"Die, alien scum!" a Knight said, trying to bring his sword down upon Nina's head.

She deftly dodged it, with the surprising speed and agility that came from being a mutant turtle, but was still indignant. She replied, "I'm as alien as you are, bigot. I'm Earth-born, same as you."

"Lies!" said the Knight, whose face was hidden behind his helmet and mask. "You are subhuman!"

"I am not human at all," she replied, demurely tossing an ordinary-looking orb the size of a softball.

This perplexed the Knight, who clearly hadn't made it into their organization due to his immense brainpower. The fact was enforced when he was mesmerized when the ball emitted colors like that of a lava lamp. Nina just watched him passively, with an idle coyness, like kore of a cat than a turtle.

The Knight reached for the orb, and his hand closed over the device. But the moment that his hand did such, the orb exploded into a mass of microfilaments that wrapped around the Knight, forming a rather tight cocoon.

"An infusion of magic and technology," Nina said, with a breathy sigh. "Tough to mesh together, but doable."

Broken, Blue, Blaze, and Phoenix were dealing with their own Knights, one each. But the boys tended to be more straightforward with their Knight foes, even Blue. Broken saw Nina's trick ball, and frowned deeply. He didn't much care for technology and magic to mix, believing it to be unnecessarily volatile and temperamental. Blaze was fascinated, however. He was fascinated with the mechanics of such a device. Blue only cared if it got results, and Phoenix was indifferent.

But their battles were not private, and soon had a single bystander. And it was the last one that anyone would want to be one.

"Oh-hoo-hoo! A battle reenactment!"

The Polarisoid had stumbled upon the fight, which started when the Knights decided to attack the RAFians with really no provocation. The Knights saw them as aliens, and saw fit to see them slain.

At the Polarisoids words, all ten combatants stopped mid-fight, and looked at the Polarisoid. They gaped and gawked for more than a minute, unable to restrain their incredulity. Only Blue managed to overcome this surprise to say, "What is that th--"

But too late. The Polarisoid had already raised his camera to his enormous, protuberant left eye. It seemed to be going in slow-motion. The RAFians couldn't react in time. The Polarisoid's finger touched the button. He clicked it.

POWPOW! Zuuuuzuuup.

The RAFians and Knights were transmogrified into littlemore than an overlarge image wisp as all ten were sucked into the camera. There was no way to rationally explain it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 11, 2014, 03:40:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Shutter-Mugged

All was darkness.

All was stillness.

All was silent.

After a few moments which seemed like eons, the first grunts of life were heard as the ten were regaining consciousness. They began to stir as their eyes opened collectively, opening to a world of blurred colors. They soon solidified as their minds cleared.

"Wha . . . what happened?" Blue asked. Then he realized the Knights were still present, and immediately got to his eyeing the five Knights warily, while taking stock of their surroundings, as Nina followed suit shortly after. They appeared to be on the same street they were on before -- before that creature interrupted their battle.

As the others got to their feet, Blue and Nina continued to scan the environment. It was very subtle, but there was something different. It was incredibly subtle, but the RAFians couldn't put their fingers on it.

"Communications are out," Phoenix said, checking his quickly before holstering it.

"Something's . . . something's wrong here," Broken said, scrutinizing their environment.

"Yeah! You . . . you monsters still live!!" one of the Knights snarled.

"Oh, yeah, we have time for this," Blaze sighed, as Broken realized what was off.

"It's like a backdrop," he said.

"What?" Phoenix asked at once.

"Don't ignore us!!" another Knight shouted.

"The background there. It's nothing more than an uber-realistic backdrop. The differences are INCREDIBLY subtle, but they are there." Broken said, not paying the Knights any mind. "We're not where we were."

"You mean we're inside his camera?" Blaze said, with a scoff of disbelief in his voice. "That is ludicrous."

"You're ignoring us!" the first Knight whined while trying to sound like he wasn't whining.

"So says the angel/djinn hybrid," Blue pointed out, completely disregarding the Knight.

"I'll make you PAY ATTENTION to us!!!" one of the Knights screamed. It was the one built like a linebacker, but the maturity level of a preschooler. He gave a roaring scream (which would make one think he was attempting to go Super Saiyan) as made a football player's shoulder tackle toward Blue.

Blue deftly stood aside, right at the last minute, completely unintimidated. Instead of cracking his head on the nearby building, the Knight seemingly ripped through reality, leaving a gaping hole of blackness. It was as if the Knight ripped into the canvas or scrim of a backdrop, so Broken's analogy was apt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2014, 04:22:13 AM

New book ideas . . .

• Book CDXCII: "The Hunters of Orion and Artemis" -- The RAFians get caught in the middle of a battle of the sexes between the Hunters of Orion and the Hunters of Artemis.
• Book CDXCIII: "Attack of the Kraangoids" -- The Kraang invade with their perfected mutagenic ooze.
• Book CDXCIV: "Manifestation Transference" -- The RAFians must deal with odd manifestations of themselves which consists of all the qualities and aspects that they despise about themselves.
• Book CDXCV: "Ragtag" -- The RAFians must fight a man called Ragtag, who can deactivate, reactivate, and bestow powers. This doesn't affect the abilities inherent to one's species.

Don't think I rehashed anything. All titles are subject to change.

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Tearing Through the Album

"Marik!" one of the Knights cried as he with his other four stooges followed their cretinous comrade into the hole. "Hold on, we're coming!"

There was a beat of silence amongst the RAFians.

"Do we go after them?" Nina asked.

"I don't really see what damage they could do," Phoenix said pensively. "With the tearaway backdrops, and such."

"Have you forgotten the reports of missing people and animals?" Blue said, standing with arms folded. "Like how we presumably have disappeared?"

"Ooooh boy," Broken said, facepalming, having already deduced what Blue was suggesting.

"Are you saying what I thinking?" Blaze said.

"C'mon then, you pansies," Nina teased. She leaped into the gap, into the hole without hesitation. The others followed her, albeit more reluctantly.

From there, it was like a game of "Portal", only without the gun or the puzzles. Okay -- it was like a crappy game of "Portal". They flitted through the photo album, chasing the Knights.

"It really doesn't make sense, any of this," Blaze said.

"Since when has anything, really?" Broken asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 12, 2014, 06:32:26 AM

Another Blood of Olympus inspired title! How much have you read, really? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2014, 02:22:34 PM

All of it.

Dunno if I'm gonna post another chapter today. I'm feeling pretty angry. Apparently, now it's "backtalk" to be unhappy with your administrator speaking to you as if you're a child.  :mad: :explode: Now it's only a question of whether I'll quit or I'll be fired, I bet. I may just let them fire me so I can get unemployment while I search for another job.

All in all, a less than stellar day. . . . *rubs temples*

I swear of I see that some 1%er dies, I won't be shedding a tear. I'm seriously tired of working my a$s off just some high muckety-muck can get a bonus or something. Executives make far too much already.

:edit: Yessss . . . just a few more views and we overtake the "Post Pictures of Yourself" thread for most views. . . .

Anyway . . . new chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Polarisoid Profiling

"Can't you guys clear the lines?" Genies asked wanely, addressing the five in communications. "We haven't heard back from Blue, Broken, and 'em."

"Why not try the communicators?" Cloak asked, stopping.

"They're not responding. We can't even get a lock on them. They must have been destroyed." Genies summed up. Cloak's heart dropped slightly, but he still held out hope that he was mistaken. Genies continued, "Well?"

Saffa cupped her hand over the receiver, and said, "We're trying, Steph. People, their things, and landmarks are still disappearing."

"Disappearing?" Cloak said, at once, before Genies could answer.

"Yes," Saffa said, before returning to her call.

This shattered Cloak's hope he was wrong. "Finish as many calls as you five can. We need to call a meeting."

"Why?" Genies said, as if she thought this was a bit of an overreaction.

"I have a hypothesis," Cloak said. "I have an idea of the creature we're up again."

"Huh? What creature?"

"I'll tell you with the others." Cloak said, sweeping from the room in a way Severus Snape would have been proud.

***

"Polarisoids," Cloak said, standing on the stage. He had to ignore his dislike of the spotlight in order to do this. "That's what's causing these disappearances."

A holographic image of the goofy-looking alien appeared behind him. He heard the snickers of disbelief, the raised eyebrows. The heckling.

"Have you read the entry in the database?" Cloak asked.

Suddenly, the jeering had ended. Granted, the veteran RAFians had refrained from such childish heckling, but it did not make the sudden silence any less jarring.

"I thought not." Cloak said, voice carrying. "The Polarisoids are not inherently malevolent. They are inherently obnoxious, though in a naive way. They just want to vacation on different planets."

"So," Parker said, "they're tourists."

"What will they do, take pictures of us?" Rotiart said scornfully.

"Yes." Cloak said simply. The silence was somehow deeper than before. Cloak waited a few seconds to let the point sink in. "But a Polarisoid camera doesn't work in the way you believe. They just don't take pictures. They suck the objects that they take the picture of. They don't see anything wrong in this, for some reason."

". . . You're kidding." Abby said.

"No," Cloak said, "I'm not."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2014, 10:05:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Shutterbug Stupidity

There was one other attribute to Polarisoids that Cloak had forgotten, and thus neglected to mention. But it will soon become quite evident what this rather significant flaw is.

The Polarisoid tourist just happened to come across Malice*, with Mauler at her shoulder. As always, Mauler's face was slack and inscrutable, eyes rather vacant and robotic. Malice, however, was like a cloaked version of Hama (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Hama), were she an anthropomorphized Tasmanian devil. Yet she affected a meeker stance, and more wizened behavior to her newly stooped stride, when in truth she was not nearly as weak and frail. It wasn't a really necessary ploy, though she sold it well.

"Excuse me, dearie," she said, affecting a more elderly, frail tone. "Might you tell me what it is you have there?"

"Oh," the Polarisoid chuckled, clearly easily flattered, "its just my new, state-of-the-art camera!"

"Oh, wow!" Malice said, affecting a impressed tone, though to anyone who knew her it would have been clear that she was faking it. She was well aware of this type of camera, snd what it could do. "Say, you're not from around here, are you?"

It was a bit sloppy on Malice's part to bring that up so quickly. But the Polarisoid wasn't suspicious. Wasn't suspicious of the fact that Malice and Mauler did not flee from him in a panic (mostly because they saw what his camera could do, not the fact that he was alien -- most people got along none-Terrans nowadays, and some non-Terrans actually chose to continue to disguise themselves, but it is more like for cosplay or furries).

Malice played her role as an old spinster rather credibly though, and completely fooled this poor sap. Not that it was very hard to fool a Polarisoid.

"No, no! I'm just visiting. Vacationing a tad." he said.

"Taking a lot of pictures?"

"Oh-hoo-hoo yes! That's what a tourist does!"

"Are you in any?"

"Oh, no," the Polarisoid said, jovially. "I never thought of taking my own picture of my vacations!"

"Well, I will take your picture for you," Malice said, with a shrug. She sounded as if she just wanted to be helpful, and the Polarisoid never guessed that there could be ulterior motive behind it. Poor, poor fool. "If you want."

"Oh! I never get pictures of me on vacation!" the Polarisoid said exuberantly. He handed Malice the camera as he said, "Here."

Then he smiled as he posed in front of it. Malice, hiding her excitement expertly, aimed the camera at the Polarisoid and smiled broadly as she clicked the button.

POWPOW! Zuuuuzuuup.

---

*Oh, c'mon. You knew she'd show up sooner or later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 12, 2014, 11:13:51 PM

Wow. Real smart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2014, 07:45:37 AM

I did said that they were naive. Obnoxious, but naive.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Coming to the Rescue

"So," Richard said, "what do we do about it?"

"I have an idea," Cloak said, "but the risks are my burden to shoulder alone."

Richard gazed at Cloak, his face heavily lined, but other than that, it was inscrutable. He sighed heavily, "I trust you, Cloak. Do what you have to do."

"There is just one more thing, though," Cloak said. "Hate to put you guys on the spot here, but did you install that new update for Code Avalon?"

<Yes,> Russell said, <but why is it so necessary?>

"I'm hoping that it would protect the forum from the Polarisoid camera," Cloak said.

"But you don't know for a fact," Rotiart accused.

"No. I don't." Cloak said. "But enough delay. Let's get our people back."

"But you don't know if they're even in the camera!" Rotiart shot.

Cloak said nothing, having already swept from the auditorium before Rotiart even spoke.

***

"Does your mother know you're here?" Cloak asked.

"Yes, of course." Shadow said.

"Don't you have homework?" Cloak said.

"It's the weekend." Shadow answered easily. "Don't worry so much, Uncle."

Cloak said nothing more.

"So what are we doing?" Shadow said brightly.

Cloak was about to answer, when they came across Mauler and Malice, rather serendipitously. Malice took notice of them, and elated at such an easy way to both eliminate the thorn in her side (disregarding the boredom she'd feel if she succeeded), and another use for her new toy.

Cloak hadn't expected it to be this easy.

"Don't fear, Shadow. Let happen." Cloak said, subtly.

"Giving up already? I have changed the camera to the disintegrator setting," Malice, unaware what she really did was reset it, forcing the RAFians and Knights back into their original picture, undoing the damage to it. "Now, prepare to die inside the camera."

The two Realm Walkers didn't move, they just allowed what came next to come.

POWPOW! Zuuuuzuuup.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2014, 08:05:24 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Forgotten Detail

"Any reason you wanted us to get suck into a camera?" Shadow asked, shaking herself off. It may have felt instantaneous to the Dwellers, but the Realm Walkers felt the exceedingly uncomfortable constricting feeling. Of course, it could have stemmed from the fact Realm Walkers, as a species, despise being confined, being constricted.

"Five." Cloak said. "Blue. Blaze. Broken. Phoenix. Nina."

"How are we supposed to get them out?"

"We're just gonna Walk them out."

"What?" Shadow said, surprised. "Uncle, there are five of them."

"I'm aware, Shadow. Remember I just told you that."

"Uncle, I think that you overlooked some--" Shadow began.

"Cloak!" Nina shouted, addressing the Realm Walker. "He got you too?"

The other four came over to join the trio.

"By our own volition," Cloak said.

"What?" Blue said, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"We can Walk you guys out." Cloak said.

"No, we can't." Shadow said, asserting herself. "Uncle, you're overlooking something very important. We can only Walk out two of them. Each."

Cloak was flabbergasted and appalled of how he could forget such a crucial criteria. He felt ashamed with himself, which was a bit extreme of him at this point. He felt bad that he clearly hadn't thought this out as well as he thought.

"Besides, Uncle, it wouldn't be so much as Walking as Stepping," Shadow said, thoughtfully.

"Semantics," Cloak shrugged.

"What about the Knights?" Nina asked.

"What about them?" Blaze said, crassly.

"We can't just leave them behind," Nina said. "They didn't ask to be here anymore than we did."

A ponderous silence greeted these words.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 14, 2014, 12:58:29 AM

Ooh. Interesting moral and technical dilemma. I like.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2014, 07:32:11 AM

Yep. I think by now it's safe to say that this book is somewhat loosely based on an episode of the 80s TMNT. I would say the episode in question, but it might give away the ending. Probably not, but eh.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Small Sacrifice

"You must take four of us out, then." Phoenix said. "Collect the camera. Then come back for the rest of us."

"But what about --"

"The Knight and us are not the only ones in here, Nina. Don't forget that all those disapearance that happened before the ten of us came in here." Phoenix said, then turned to address the Realm Walkers once more. "Take Blaze, Broken, Blue and Nina. I will stay here, with the rest."

"Phoenix, are you sure about this?" Broken asked.

"I am." he replied. "Go on, before I have a chance to change mind about it."

Cloak locked elbows with Blue and Nina, while Shadow locked elbows (as well as she could due to the size differential) with Broken and Blaze.  They Walked away.

***

Normally, when a Realm Walker Walks into a realm, it appears as if a person diving in a pool, it could be smooth and unnoticed (usually by experience) or a spectacle with reality bubbling around them, as if someone fell into a pool. There is only a sound, like a crack or a pop, for someone inexperienced with Walking, or just sloppy.

This wasn't like that. Not exactly. It felt as if it took longer getting into the camera than back out. The six -- yes, Shadow too -- quickly appraised and scrutinized their surroundings. Malice hadn't gotten far, she still held the camera.

Cloak, Blue, and Nina were further away from the camera than Shadow, Broken and Blaze. Cloak had overshot his Walking distance a bit. He was never good at absolutely pinpointing his Walking destination, which was actually more difficult than you may think.

Malice wore a look of surprise while her servant, Mauler, kept his face expressionless and his eyes were empty and blank. Malice, as she usually does, forgot to factor in the possibility of Walking out of what could only be described as a "pocket realm" or "pocket dimension".

Malice's eyes narrowed to slits, "How did you --"

"Hand over the Polarisoid camera, Malice."

"No."

"Give me the thing."

"No!"

"Give me the camera."

"Pffft!" Malice, nlowing a raspberry.*

"Wow," Nina said. "That was mature."

---

*Homage to "Team Four Star's Dragonball Z Kai Abridged 2".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2014, 07:29:01 PM

New book ideas.

• Book CDXCVI: "Charybdis's Secret" -- The truth about the mythological Charybdis . . . or is it?
• Book CDXCVII: "Creepypastas? Really?" -- The RAFians must deal with creepypasta manifestations.

Titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Mauler Enters the Fray

"Can't we be adults here?" Nina said, trying to be reasonable. "Now, Malice --"

Malice curled her lip at Nina, looking at her as if she was scum. Naturally, this was very hypocritical of Malice, due to the fact that Mauler was also a Dweller. But she did not share the automaton's unwavering loyalty. Malice was only loyal to herself.

"Now, Malice," Nina tried again before Cloak cut across her.

"Save your energy, Nina. Malice cannot be reasoned with, no matter the consequences of her schemes and machinations." Cloak said, with the merest trace of a feline growl in his voice. "She doesn't care the harm, the destruction, the chaos she sows. As long as she gets what she wants."

"Guilty," Malice said, unabashed.

"Hand it over," Cloak said. "Don't force me to take you down. It won't be pleasant. For you."

"You overestimate yourself," Malice said. She snapped her fingers and Mauler took immediate attention. "Mauler! Defend your mistress."

Mauler stepped in front of her, and Cloak was perplexed. Malice knew better -- Cloak could sense the metal in her mindless stooge. What was she playing at? Cloak was sure that Mauler didn't really have any unique features -- maybe a hand blaster like a Mega Buster, maybe some antigravity boots, and such. But he was no AMAZO.

"You cannot be serious." Cloak said, with folded arms.

"Oh, but I am. You will never have this camera."

Cloak held out his hand, mechbending Mauler (and hating himself for doing it). Then, with the most casual of flings of his arm, he threw Mauler into the nearest tree. He was smashed rather brutally. Cloak had his qualms, but quieted them out of necessity.

"Oh, right . . ." Malice said, as if she had forgotten that Cloak could do that. "Mauler, initiate internal and external repairs."

Mauler's body seemed to be quickly mending itself. Cloak didn't see why this was a thing, he could just do it again and again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 15, 2014, 01:31:05 AM

Creepypastas? Really? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2014, 08:14:50 PM

Yep. Or was it the title that caused you to respond like that?

Sorry for the delay, more tired than I thought. New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Ninja Vanish!

"Fear what you have wrought, Cloak!" Malice cried out in a rather insane cackle. "Mauler can mend himself faster than you can smash him!"

Cloak smashed him again. He wasn't very impressed.

"Yes, more!"

Cloak smashed him again, frowning deeply. Malice as getting too much of a thrill from this.

"Again!"

"You are one sick puppy," Cloak said, not bothering to do it again, for Malice's masochistic entertainment. She was so heartless that she didn't care about the devotion and utter loyalty that Mauler showed her. Granted, he didn't have a choice, as his free will had been stripped away.

"Do it again." Malice ordered, the manic glee still etched on her face. It was sickening, and yet . . . and yet, it was somehow . . . somehow insecure. Yes, insincere. Cloak couldn't explain it, but he raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Malice raised her empty hands, and pointed at Cloak, in an overly overdramatic way. "Smash him again!"

"Is she serious?" Nina asked, thoroughly incredulous.

"I . . . I'm . . ." Cloak said, perplexed. "I'm not entirely sure anymore."

"Do it again!" Malice ordered.

"I . . . I think she's snapped." Blaze commented. By the way his eyebrows knit together, it was almost as if Blaze was feeling concern for Malice's sanity. Almost.

"Or it could be an elaborate ruse." Cloak said.

"What for?" Blue said, hefting the camera. He had snuck up on Malice and purloined it directly from her hand. "We have what we were after."

Cloak gave Malice a sideways glance, and saw that she was still demanding that he destroy her own minion. Why? There just had to be more to this. There just had to. Malice seemed perfectly sane one minute, stark raving mad the other.

Cloak didn't know if it was some form of Realm Walker bipolar or just some act, and she was just hamming it up. But the others began to leave, and Cloak was the last. He eyed Malice suspiciously and warily. Then he turned to leave too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 15, 2014, 11:06:37 PM

It was a play on the title, yes. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2014, 05:06:33 AM

Ah.

Well, now this thread has the fourth-highest views. That's something, right?

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Tape

Cloak's disquiet, his qualms and uncertainties, did not ebb when they entered the forum. He wasn't sure if Malice's insanity was entirely truthful. It caused him some anxiety, but he tried to ignored it. . . .

Well, ignored it the best he could.

"Okay, we got it." Broken said. "Now what do we do with it?"

"We can't destroy it, naturally." Nina said. "We don't want to kill Phoenix."

"And the Knights?"

"I didn't say that," Nina said, with a coy smirk.

"And the Polarisoid?" Cloak said quietly.

"Pardon?" Blue said.

"Malice had the camera, she must have tricked him into giving it to her. She could have taken his picture. Thereby sucking him into it."

"She could have just killed him." Blaze said.

Cloak shook his hooded head, "No. You Dwellers are not like Realm Walkers. When you die you leave bodies. Residue. There was none of that there."

"Let's get back to business," Broken said. "This camera is rather like a camcorder, with whole boxy thing going on. I wonder if there is a --"

"There's a tape," Cloak said.

"And you know this because?" Blaze said.

"I have had another encounter with another Polarisoid. Different time, different realm." Cloak said, with his arms folded. "I think I remember how they rectified this mess in said realm."

Suddenly, a video cassette, a VHS tape, popped up from the camera, surprising Blue. Cloak caught it in midair. He realized how outdated this item was on Earth nowadays. They would need to find a video cassette recorder -- a VCR -- to playback the tape.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2014, 06:07:17 AM

New shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Bursting the Bubble

"But destroy the camera itself," Cloak said. "Gut it first, if you want. Just destroy --"

Cloak saw a rather hungry look in Yarin's six eyes. He forgotten that Yarin could be a bit of a technophile.

"Watch him.*" Cloak directed. Then he looked over to the communications, and said, "Let's go."

Blaze was took up the directive of gutting the camera and destroying it, along with Yarin, Aquilai, and Goom. And they quickly went through dismantling it. One could argue the point that that the RAFians had no right to dismantle an object that did not belong to them. But one could also argue that the camera was a dangerous weapon, or like a kidnapper's van or something.

In any case, it shouldn't be on Earth. It had too much dangerous potential, it could be too easy abused. This was the rationale, but there would always be opponents to such actions.

***

They put the VHS tape into a rather antiquated VCR in the communications center -- people had stopped calling to report things missing ever since Malice took the camera from the Polarisoid.

"Huh," Mr. Guy said. "It usually display a boat on water."

On the screen, with a black background, were Phoenix, the Knights and the Polarisoid.

"That's great," Broken said, "But how do we get them out of there?"

Suddenly, a tendril of golden-scarlet energy smashed the monitor.

"Cloak, I needed that!" Mr. Guy chided.

The Knights, the Polarisoid, and Phoenix tumbled out of the television monitor. All seven were dazed and disoriented.

---

*Sorry, Yarin, I couldn't resist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2014, 04:40:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Skirmish and Threats

One problem was over. But a new one arose.

"Filth! Filth everywhere!" the Knight, Marik, said.

"We must destroy them!" another Knight, Maximilion, said.

"We haven't any weapons!" another Knight, Ziegfried, said.

"Oh, yeah, overlooked something." Cloaked said, looking at the five Knights. "How to do this properly?"

"We cannot possibly kill all these vermin ourselves," said the Knight named Noah.

"Speak for yourself," said the only other Knight to not to have spoken, named Dartz.

"Then put your money were your mouth is." Nina said.

Dartz curled his lip and said, "It dares to address me? An inferior being addresses a superior without being addressed first? Ugh."

"Wrong answer, pallie," Blaze said, with folded arms. "You seemed have forgot where you are."

"Your bigotry is not welcomed here," Blue said.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

From the view outside the forum, five silhouettes streaked above it, on golden-scarlet discs of energy, and landed well outside the forum. They survived the fall, naturally.

***

"You five are cast out," said the recent Knights of Humanity King.

The five Knights were brought before the King of the Knights of Humanity when their exploits became known. Mostly, because they couldn't shut up about it. They weren't very smart.

"But," Marik stammered, "but my liege --"

"SILENCE!" the King roared in deafening tones. "You won't poison our ranks with your taint, with you weakness."

"Your Highness, we are not --" Maximilion said.

"You allowed yourselves to be rescued by non-Terran filth and sympathizers! Worst of all, you allow a nonhuman to capture you! You! Are! WEAK!!! Now get out of my sight, and never come back!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 17, 2014, 08:45:43 AM

I'm assuming the Knight king has his own throne flanked by cats. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2014, 06:54:33 PM

More like carved, ornate serpents.

Anyway, I'm currently planning my way through Book CCCXLVIII ("Mindscape"), and pretty soon I'm gonna have to switch to a fresh notebook, the fifth one for this series.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Ultimatum

"Can have my camera back now?" the Polarisoid said, with a naive chuckle in his voice.

This was met with some of the coldest looks the RAFians had ever issued anyone. Was this Polarisoid truly that naive, that gullible, as to think the RAFians would acquiesce to such a request, no matter how good-naturely put? Was this Polarisoid so truly lacking in good sense to actually issue this request, after all that godforsaken item has put the RAFians through? He simply could not have been serious.

If the Polarisoid picked up on this hostility, he didn't show it. He, rather stupidly, said, "My camera? Have you seen it? May I have it --"

"No." Cloak said, tone stone cold.

"Pardon?"

"No, you can't have your 'kleptocorder' back," Cloak said, a repressed snarl intermingling with the words. This was sufficient to intimidate the Polarisoid. "It is a dangerous weapon."

"It's not a weapon, it's a camera!"

"Oh, save it!" Genies scolded. "You 'abductocam' may not be considered a weapon to your kind, but here, it will be."

"I'm a tourist! I'm supposed to take pictures!"

"Pictures are images, you dimwitted piece of --"

"Parker, language!" Helen scolded quickly, much to Parker's chagrin.

"My! You lot are being unreasonable!"

"Unreasonable?" Saffa snarled. "It is unreasonable to chafe at someone absconding with our landmarks and people? Unreasonable to take offense of our culture and indigenous peoples being pilfered by a mere tourist? What you and your kind do is thieve and take, Polarisoid, under the guise of tourism -- tourism of this kind we can really do without."

"But --"

"'But' nothing!" Phoenix said. "We have confidcated your camera. And you are -- and I believe everyone here would agree -- you are hereby given a choice. You can leave this planet --"

"With an escort." Yarin interjected, both set of arms crossed.

"-- with an escort," Phoenix amended, before continuing, "or stay and be subjected to Terran law."

"Which means," Kelly added, "being charged with grand theft, kidnapping, and attempted kidnapping. You will very likely be given the highest sentence allowed by Terran law."

"The choice is yours, Polarisoid." Cloak said. "And know -- if your kind comes back here, especially with those camera, they will be met with open hostility. So . . . make your choice."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 18, 2014, 07:50:03 AM

The highest sentence is life imprisonment, if I'm not wrong. India still has the death penalty.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2014, 08:46:06 AM

As does America, if I'm not mistaken.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Escort

"I-is this all really necessary?" the Polarisoid asked nervously. He was standing right outside his ship, or "shuttle" may be a more accurate term. Cloak and Yarin had, somewhat roughly, escorted him there. This may be grounds for warfare between Earth and Polaris, but Cloak somehow doubted it. It was a planet of tourists with dangerous cameras, not militaristic strategists with weapons of mass destruction.

"Yes," Cloak said gruffly, addressing the Polarisoid.

In any case, Goom, Yarin, and Aquilai were devising a countermeasure against their cameras, coming from the dissection of this Polarisoid's camera. So they couldn't just build an over-large one.

"You needn't be so --"

"I disagree." Yarin said.

"And don't think we don't know about that ship you have in orbit." Cloak said. "Don't try any funny stuff once you're inside there, either. I have ripped a larger ship in half before. I won't hesitate to do the same again."

It was a bluff, Cloak was incapable of being as heartless as he was pretending. But the Polarisoid needn't know that. The alien just gulped and entered his shuttle as Cloak and Yarin boarded Yarin's ship, the Nyac's pride and joy.

They rode next to it, watch it attach to the main ship, which was smaller than Cloak was expecting, and led him outside Terran space. They said and waited for sensors to be unable to detect the Polarisoid again. It took longer than Cloak would have liked.

As the two returned to Earth, Cloak began to second-guess his actions. Did he have the right to do thst? He wasn't even native to this realm, though he has lived in the Prime Universe as his primary residence, despite the jeering and catcalls of the other Realm Walkers. Did that truly make him a citizen of the Prime Universe? Would ever be considered a citizen? Will his heart ever leave him alone to give him pesce?

How nice it must be to be assured that everything that you do is always in the right, that you never make a misstep or mistake. But that also has its pitfalls. People like that generally always underestimate their foes, most always (if not all the time) to their costs.

Cloak kept his heavy heart as he prepared to deal with the potential fallout from his decisions, a burden he would not, could not, put onto anyone else but himself. Their would be consequences, he was sure, but whether or not they were immediate remained to be seen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2014, 07:46:00 PM

New book ideas, completing a bit of a story arc, so to speak.

• Book CDXCVIII: "Paper RAF" -- The RAFians become two-dimensional in a three-dimensional environment.
• Book CDXCIX: "Soul Smoothies" -- The RAFians must deal with a device that siphons out one's personality, identity, mind, and soul and turns into a frozen yogurt-like smoothie, leaving their body empty husks.
• Book D: "Freedom Pendant" -- An old enemy the RAFians had sealed away is freed, with some new abilities. Potentially a long book.
• Book DI: "Pendant Phantoms" -- The RAFians must deal with the creatures from mythical pendants.

Don't think I rehashed anything. But, with these books, we enter Year Six of the narrative.

New chapter. Last one of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Back to Business

"Is this really worth keeping this thing here?" a lowlife said. His name was Robert Patterson*, and he was a bandit.

"Are you kidding?" said Pat's obnoxious lowlife friend, Glenda Peck.* "With this beast's feathers, we are unstoppable!"

"Yes," said a third bandit lowlife, Drayton Dump. "We wouldn't have a quarter of this loot without them!"

"But the caging and cost of keeping the cantankerous beast more than we --"

The massive roc squawked with disconsolate indignation, which caused the dust to wrench itself loose from the earthen ceiling. The light was limited to a couple of oil lamps, which emitted a very low light. The glitter from shiny bits and baubles were plainly visible.

"Shaddup you --"

"Endangered species," came a new, cold voice.

"Who said that?" Pat said. "God?"

"You wish." said a new voice. "Perhaps he would have mercy upon you."

"Rocs are a Class-1 protected cryptozoological species," said another, far more clinically-toned voice. "Your cartel has been busted. You are under arrest, by International Statute --"

"Who are you?!" Glenda demanded.

"That," Parker continued, as the light now gleamed of his armor in a rather inhuman way, "is not the issue right now."

"You have no right to --"

"Who are you to speak of rights?" Blue snarled, causing the thieves and bandits to shriek like little girls, as he had silently snuck up behind them. He's a ninja, after all -- they're very good at that. "You, who keep that poor creature in a cramped cage, with the merest food and water?"

On the surface, it may look like Blue was being hypocritical, seeing how the Pootang seemed to be in similar accommodations. But the truth was that the Pootang's cage was actually pretty comfy and it was well-fed and well-watered. It just preferred seal meat to anything else, for some odd, unknown reason.

"Your actions had prompted such a reaction." Cloak said, though he blended too well into the darkness. "You thieve and take and loot whatever you can. You don't even realize you have a juvenile roc. His mother will be rampaging with his disappearance. And you don't care do you?"

The RAFians were back to business.

---

* Thinly-veiled impersonations of three people in my country that I really do not like politically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2014, 08:33:40 PM

New chapter.

BOOK LXXVI:
A PERSONAL GREMLIN
CHAPTER ONE:
Ineffective Interrogation

Cloak and Yarin were sitting in a chair, bound by thick hemp ropes, both looking rather bored and aloof. Before them was a character that was somewhere between Dr. Gero and Psimon, who claimed himself the most powerful telepath in the world. That might have been true, if that was restricted to humans and/or human analogues.

This character called himself the Master of Minds, Mastermind. Very creative, right? He was not as powerful as he thought himself to be. He might as well called himself a Super Human, only without a hairdo change. In fact, he had no hair, just his brain encased in a transparent case in his noggin.

"I can delve into your minds, uncover you deepest secrets," he was monloguing to the bored RAFians. Figures that after they finished the kidnapped roc chick case they came across this pathetic upstart. "You will swear your loyalty to me, and your secrets remain safe."

Cloak glanced at Yarin and rolled his eyes. He could have just tried it and be done with it. But there was a reason that the RAFians allowed themselves to be captured and bound. This just allowed Mastermind to get egotistical, which nearly always meant that they get careless.

"Are you going to ever shut up?" Cloak said, having had enough of Mastermind's prattling monlogues. "If you're going to act, just shut up and do it."

"How dare you speak to me in such a disrespectful manner! Have you forgotten who captured you?" the pompous fool said, all puffed up. "I shall reduce your mind to tapioca pudding! I . . . I . . . I . . ."

"Can't read our minds," Cloak supplied. "No matter how hard you try."

"Such a pity, too." Yarin said, sadly, shaking his head. "I had anticipated a challenge, not a novice."

Quite swiftly and easily, the RAFians became unbound. Both wore looks of deep disappointment. This pathetic little man wasn't what he claimed to be. It was a shame, really.

"Y-you can't! I . . . I captured you!"

"Isn't it obvious?" Yarin sighed.

"We allowed ourselves to get captured to see if you're the real deal. To see if you're a threat to society." Cloak replied, elaborating. "You'd be lucky to get employment at a carnival. Better stick to the kid bithday parties."

"I am the Master of Minds! I am! Don't doubt --"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Yarin said, as he and Cloak exited the low-ceilinged, bare-walled building.
Outside, it was fairly nondescript, recalling the Flintstones home, only slightly more modern.

"That way," Cloak said, pointing with his forefinger and middle finger together.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 19, 2014, 12:34:11 AM

At first I thought the capture was a training sim.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2014, 02:34:34 PM

Not all of our missions are extraordinary, Saffa. Some are just very mundane. Sorry if I'm coming of touchy or anything. I'm exhausted from work.

Anyway, I've nearly finished planning out Book CCCXLVIII ("Mindscape"), and I, for one, really like the way that it came out. Saffa, this isn't a spoiler, but you shall be in it. With a major part.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Little Shop of Corridors

"Helen, are you sure about this?" Shadow said. "Uncle said --"

"Oh, Shadow, it's just a little harmless shopping!"

The Star Sapphire thought it was time for a little R and R, with Parker away on another mission (one of diplomacy) with Richard and Yarin. She thought she'd get out and have a little fresh air.

"In a small, dimly-lit, Asian-themed shop with more corridors than the Library of Congress," Shadow said. The young Realm Walker still did not know how she got roped into coming along on this shopping spree. "In a shop that I am sure wasn't here when the sun was up."

"Oh, you're just like Cloak," Helen teased. "You are worrying too much!"

"And you're not worrying enough!" Shadow countered, not realizing that her uncle would have made the same counterargument if in her shoes right now. "You do not know what dangerous things could be in here. There are other realms where -- oh, never mind. The point is --"

"Ooh!" Helen said, looking at some new, mystical-type bauble.

"The point is that you're not listening to me," Shadow said, with a heavy-lidded look, feeling rather like Lisa Simpson. She decided to make herself heard. "Helen! Listen to me! You have to be careful, you never know if one of these things might be cursed or something. This could very well be this realm's version of Borgin & Burke's -- or whatever that place was called."

Helen was too engrossed with shopping to notice.

"Ugh." Shadow said, getting annoyed. She was so engrossed herself she didn't notice that they were being watched by a fluffy, foot-high creature with bat-like ears. If she noticed it, she probably dismissed it as a miniature chihuahua.* "Helen!! We must be going!"

"Oooh! Look at that!"

"Helen!"

"You think that they'd take credit?"

"Helen, I think you're a shopaholic." Shadow said, weary and wary. Shadow didn't notice that Helen's bag suddenly got heavier and bulged a bit with a slightly moving lump. That she had picked up a stowaway. . . .

---

*Reference of how my aunt's miniature chihuahua got his name of "Gizmo".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2014, 06:58:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
An Obvious Secret

Helen didn't discover her stowaway until she had arrived at the forum and had retired to her own thread. She and Parker had decided to take things slow, and were not even living with each other yet. They had decided on a long courtship.

When she set her bag down, the tiny, fluffy Mogwai tumbled out of the bag and hid under Helen's bed. Helen had bore witness to this.

"There, there.  You're safe.  Nobody's gonna hurt you." she cooed at the cuddly creature.

Then she sang, in a melodic voice:

"Poor frightened baby.
Wandering on your own.
You've been through a lot,
Haven't you, little tot?"

Then she cooed, "Poor tot -- where's your mother, where's your family? Don't worry, little tot, we'll take care of you."

Then she sang again:

"Everybody needs a family.
No one should be alone.
Now, Parker and me,
We're goin' to be the family you've never known!
Just a little love,
And you'll be good as new.
In just a little while,
Watch your smile come shining through.
You're just a little scared,
You need a friend today.
You need a little love,
How can I turn away?"

The Mogwai inched closer to Helen, but outside the light cast by her lamp. "There you go," she prodded gently. Then she continued to sing:

"Just a little a love, that's how we'll begin.
Show you I care.
Being there to tuck you in.
You'll begin to grow,
Each and every day.
Just a little love
Can go a long, long way!"

She smiled, as the Mogwai ambled into her lap, like a small dog or cat. But Helen didn't realize that her song carried. While a number of RAFians did not appear to hear, Cloak did. He hoped that Helen wasn't harboring what he thought he had smelled in the forum.

It was a scent he only smelled once or twice before and had hoped never to smell again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 20, 2014, 02:26:27 AM

I never did like keeping pets.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2014, 04:23:53 PM

I didn't really have a choice. My mom used to get pets, hold interest in them for a couple of days, and then delegate me to take care of them, back when I lived with her. She got a new cat, Sheba, when I wasn't even over the death of our last one. Then again, she never asked me. I was just there to cook, clean, take care of the trash, etc. :dull: and, yet, in her mind, I guess she thought that I still didn't pull my weight. :facepalm:

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Bathed in Defiance

Helen did not know what she had gotten into.

She did not know the three rules for Mogwai ownership. She did not know of the dangers of the supernatural creature. She did not know that sunlight was fatal to them. She did not know never to get them wet. She did not know to never feed them after midnight. She was thoroughly unprepared to care for such a high-maintenance creature.

She decided to called the little Mogwai "Mowgli", for no real reason other than a slip-up when she tried to say Mogwai. There was an entry in the dstabase that she had yet to read thoroughly. She had decided to so . . . after Mowgli's bath. . . .

"C'mon, little Mowgli," Helen conjoled, "time to get you all clean."

"No bath!" Mowgli squeaked, as if he was voiced by Howie Mendel. Fortunately, Mowgli was a Mogwai with good sense. "No bath!"

Helen apparently wasn't taken aback by the fact that Mowgli could speak, albeit in one syllable words. She couldn't explain why she wanted to hide Mowgli so much, pets were allowed in the threads, but strongly advised against, unless they can defend themselves like Laserbeak.

Mowgli hide deep underneath her bed, out of her reach.

"Oh, come now," she chided him good-naturedly. "Don't be like that!"

"No bath!"

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Who could that be? Parker's not supposed to be back until Monday." Helen muttered as she went to the door. Helen was surprised at the visitor. "Cloak?"

"Helen," the Realm Walker.

"What, may I ask, do want of me?"

"You know what." Cloak said. "I know you're hiding something."

"That's . . . that's a heavy accusation," Helen said.

"Helen," Cloak said, seriously, "you can't lie to me. No -- you literally can't lie to me. I can detect it, you know that!"

"Alright, I have a pet," Helen said, allowing Cloak in. "Mowgli."

"Helen, that is a Mogwai."

"How do you know? He won't even come out from under the bed."

"I know the scent." the Realm Walker answered vaguely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 20, 2014, 09:49:36 PM

Three rules?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2014, 06:19:41 PM

You find out soon, Saffa.

New book ideas.

• Book DII: "Lycaon's Last Laugh" -- Lycaon is hyper-evolved into a creature called a Morlun.
• Book DIII: "Phantom Beasts" -- The Phantom Beast are revealed.
• Book DIV: "Clash of the Swarms" -- The conflict of various sentient swarms.

It is sort of an impromptu arc, ending (thus far, anyway) at Book DIII. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Reproductive Fission

"You know the scent?" Helen asked. "How?"

"That's not important." Cloak said. "Mogwai are rather high-maintenance to care for."

"Oh, little Mowgli is a cinch," Helen said dismissively.

"Only because you don't know the three rules to caring for Mogwai that must be adhered to," Cloak said. "You must keep them away from bright light -- you're lucky this lighting is dim. Sunlight kills them, like vampire."

Mowgli squeaked a protestation at the comparison.

"I don't mean the sparkly-in-the-sun vampires," Cloak said, and Mowgli squeaked acceptance of this. "Everyone hates those, I guess."

"That's not too hard," Helen said. "I can just keep my thread dark."

"That's only one rule of three, Helen," Cloak said. "The most important one is to never feed him after midnight."

"That's doable," the Star Sapphire replied.

"No matter how he begs? No matter how much he cries?" Cloak said, raising his eyebrows. "You must never break or give in to it."

"Why?"

"Hope that you never find out," the Realm Walker said.

"And the third?" Helen said, starting to carry out her plan of bathing Mowgli.

"Never get them -- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!" Cloak said.

But Cloak's cry came too late. He didn't think to use his hydrokinesis -- although it would have done little good. Mowgli squirmed free, but he was splashed a bit before he could escape. Little Mowgli's squeaky screams tore at Helen's heart as seven balls of fluff and hair spun off of the Mogwai.

"What --"

"Never . . . get them . . . wet . . ." Cloak said, in a wary tone.

"That's what happens?"

"Reproductive fission," Cloak nodded. "Or maybe 'budding' might be a more accurate term."

The balls of hair were growing into seven other Mogwai.

"I did tell you that they were high-maintenance." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 22, 2014, 02:59:35 AM

GOOD LORD!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2014, 06:42:34 AM

. . . Never seen "Gremlins", Saffa?

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Reporting

While they may have looked cute to the layman from the street, Cloak knew the danger they could propose. They were not identical to their progenitor, as one might expect, indicating that there was, somehow, genetic diversity. They did not retain Mowgli's affable, demurred personality, either.

The one with the tufted mohawk was very prideful and arrogant. He was prone to narcissism, and held no respect for his "father" Mowgli. Helen called him "Mohawk", or simply "Mo" for short.

The one with the brillant emerald eyes was very envious and prone to thievery. He would take anything anyone else had, quickly forgetting the last thing that he took and/or destroyed. Helen, for some reason, called him "Crowley".

The one with small, beady, red eyes and a malicious face was very anger-prone. He seemed to enjoy beating up his "brothers" and other wise bullying them. Helen called him "Riley".

The thick set one with a rather piggish face and porpotions was prone to inactivity and louging around. He, all-in-all, seemed indifferent to everything. At first, Helen called him . . . "Congress", before deciding that "Lazybones" was better.

The one built like Larfleeze was exceedingly greedy, and attempted to hoard everything as his own. He got into fights with Crowley often. Helen called him "Donny", for some reason.

The fattest one of the lot was exceedingly gluttonous in all things, but food was something he particularly coveted. He would be the hardest one to enforce the "no food after midnight" rule. Helen called him "Rollo".

The last one proved to be a rather lecherous chauvinist, which was odd, considering how the Mogwai reproduce. It might have been cute, but Cloak just found it crude. Helen called him "Caligula".

"Helen," Cloak warned in scolding tone, "don't name them. Don't get too attached."

"What? Why?" Helen said.

"You know what we have to do now," Cloak said.

"Cloak!" Helen protested. "You can't be seriously suggesting that we --"

"Report it to the mods? Oh, yeah. I'm seriously suggesting it."

***

"Are you saying that these cute little things are a threat?" SuperNate said skeptically.

"Yes," Cloak said. "They are exceedingly difficult to take care of, and when they are in their easiest stage of life, this larval stage."

"They're bugs?" Richard asked.

"No." Cloak said. "They go through a metamorphosis, if they are fed after midnight."

"Into what?"

"Creatures of chaos," Cloak said, but elaborated no further.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2014, 08:40:00 PM

Hope I did not offend you, Saffa with my last comment. Granted I gave away what this book is going to be loosely based off of. Like the first book was loosely (extremely loose) based off of the "Death of Superman" storyline.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Daybreak Decision

The Mogwai were in small pet carriers with dark film around the holes to blot out any bright pight, even the rising sunlight as morning eked through the form cautious as a bandit. The other RAFians were beginning to stir within their beds.

Cloak noticed that Mowgli's "sons" seemed to despise him. The Realm Walker only could suspect what this means. The Mogwai were a curious species, which the Elements Master did not know was supernatural or alien-made in their creation, but that mattered little.

"Cloak," Richard said, after Cloak was persuaded to divulge more info, which he had already disclosed, "if what you are saying is true --"

"It is," Cloak said.

"Then there can be little recourse." Richard said heavily. "We cannot risk another fiasco. The Polarisoid was enough as is."

"But . . . but Mowgli isn't evil." Helen said.

"Yes, he's one in ten thousand." Cloak said, standing aloof with his arms folded in such a way to give him a very severe appearance. "And I mean that literally, Helen. Only one out of ten thousand Mogwai has such a temperment. Mowgli is in the minority."

The Realm Walker made eye contact with her.

"His progeny is not," Cloak said, and, as if on cue, Mohawk and the other six rocked their carriers violently. "The way is clear. I . . . I don't like advocating it. I don't like the idea. But they must be dealt with."

"You can't kill them! They didn't ask for --"

"Mowgli can go back to the shop where you and Shadow found him," Cloak said, revealing that he knew of their shopping trip. Of course, he was sidestepping the true question and the honesr accusation.

"And the others?" Helen said, hotly.

Cloak was silent, as he allowed it to stretch until it became palpably unpleasant. He continued to maintain his silence to drive home his point. But Helen was a fiery woman when she was riled -- Cloak could see why Parker held her in such high regard.

"And the others, Cloak?" she persisted. "Are you going to punish them for things that they might do? Kill them for what they might become? How can you be so heartless, so ruthless?"

"You haven't seen the creatures they might become." Cloak said, speaking at last. "But you know how easily they proliferate. How painful it is for the Mogwai in question. When a Mogwai turns into a gremlin, there's no turning back, no way to revert them. Harbor them, if you want, Helen. But know this -- you were warned. Warned of the danger these Mogwai possess."

Cloak turned his back on her, and walked as few steps away, before speaking over his shoulder, "They will go out of their way to eat after midnight, you know. Maybe not Mowgli, but the others would."

The Realm Walker strode off, with mincing steps.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 22, 2014, 09:54:49 PM

Oh no, it's alright, and I haven't seen it, lol.

PDF for the last book!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2014, 06:56:48 AM

Ah. And I had forgotten that there wasn't a PDF of the last book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Experience and Emotion

Helen was near-apocalyptic with indignation. Cloak was calling for the slaughter of these innocent creatures for things that they might do! Might do!! It was like punishing a dog before he bit the mailman! It was insane!

How could these cuties ever turn into the horrid gremlins that Cloak had described? These Mogwais were only a foot, give or take, tall and had human-like hands and toes. They were like Furbies, only cooler and less obnoxious. Their fur was rather luxurious and silky . . .

Although, Helen did not like the way Mohawk and the other six had ganged up on Mowgli. They were apt to beat him up and hit him for no discernible reason that she could find. Maybe it was like sibling rivalry, and they were competing with Mowgli for her attention? Could that be it?

But the seven seemed to have no interest in her at all, and they all seemed to hate Mowgli for no reason. Helen did not know what to honestly make of it, all she knew was that she was tired. All eight Mogwai seemed to have settled down, so she thought it was a safe time to sleep.

She absentmindedly kept them in their pet carriers, which they didn't seem to mind as much, during the day, as daylight had penetrated Helen's room.

***

Cloak should have expected such a reaction. Especially from one unfamiliar with Mogwai and gremlins. Cloak knew that Helen's newest pets would yearn to metamorphize into the grotesque, reptilian gremlins.

Mohawk, Crowley, Donny, Lazybones, Rollo, Caligula, and Riley.

These weren't on the minority Mogwai, like Mowgli. These seven had vice-like tendencies and were actually quite evil, if in a mischievous way as thus far. These weren't good-natured and benign, like their progenitor. They were trouble. They could not be allowed to metamorphize into their gremlin form, into their final life stage.

They cause chaos in that form, and they don't care if they kill someone. Yet, if you're unafraid of them, they seem to have no interest in you. It could be the maliciousness isn't intentional, but like a bunch of drunk frat guys. Still, either way, destruction is still destruction, and RAF's PR isn't exactly the best.

The worst thing that could happen now is if those seven pupate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 23, 2014, 07:13:57 AM

This is why I don't keep pets.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2014, 04:30:05 PM

It's not all bad. Maybe if you have a chihuahua or a Pomeranian . . . but cats aren't all that bad.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Carelessness

It went fine for three days, until Helen had to go out and do some Star Sapphire thing. It was going to be an overnight thing.

She made the grievous mistake of asking Rotiart to pet-sit. Helen was always trying to see the good in people, and was more than willing to be forgiving and offer second chances, but this decision was downright foolish. Rotiart had proven himself to be irresponsible time and time again, and had never shown any improvement, none whatsoever. Rotiart was one of the most careless beings in existence.

Naturally, Rotiart didn't bother listening to Helen when she was describing the three rules -- the three rules that were a must to follow. He did the stereotypical teenager thing of only half-listening while looking at his smartphone. Granted, he was a teenager, but that wasn't an excuse.

Rotiart mostly left the Mogwai to their own devices, feeding them once during the day. It was due to his own inherent sloth and irresponsible forgetfulness that he didn't give them water to drink. Rotiart would have made a bad pet-owner had the Mogwai been dogs or cats. Fortunately, they weren't -- though their fur did resemble that of miniature chihuahuas.

Rotiart, like most RAFians it would seem, did not consult the species database unless necessity demanded it. Even then, Rotiart probably would not even consult it then. He was a coward, a jerk, and a useless lump at the worst of times. Though the fact that he agreed to do this spoke to the fact that there was at least a little compassion in him.

That did not mean, however, that he took the job tasked him very seriously. He treated the Mogwais with indifference, turning a blind eye when Mohawk or one of his brethren hit Mowgli -- whereas Helen was very severe with them when they tried it with her present. They loved this newfound freedom to do as they please, although they had to do it during hours of momentary darkness, as Rotiart did not make any effort to block the intermittent sunshine on a day which couldn't quite decide if it wanted to be sunny or cloudy and rainy. It was as if Kyogre and Groudon were dueling with each other.

Then came midnight, and Rotiart was eating fried chicken. Yes, it was late but he was hungry, and he did not even consider that it would be just plain mean of him to eat in front of the Mogwais, when they can't eat after midnight. Rotiart didn't care.

Then Rollo decided to beg and cry for a drumstick. The other six soon followed suit, only Mowgli declined to do the same. Mowgli clearly knew what would happen if they ate anything at this late hour.

Rotiart did not.

The six soon were ravenously ravaging a chicken breast, two drumsticks, and two wings. Rotiart saw this, and didn't care. But then again, he ignored the rules Helen told him that he must follow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 23, 2014, 09:58:53 PM

Oh, cats don't really care. Left to their own devices they're fine.

I just don't particularly enjoy keeping up with a pet's every want, and cleaning up after them. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2014, 05:21:22 AM

I do prefer cats myself, when they behave themselves. My last one, Sheba, could be mischievous, but was downright affectionate toward the end (when my mother's neglect killed her).

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Problematic Pupatation

It is amazing just how people-- not just teenagers, but people of all ages -- can ignore or just simply not notice things happening within clear eyesight proximity. In this electronic age, where many people can lose themselves in their petty little gadgets with their glowing LED screens and whatnot*.

Then you have Rotiart.

He could be the poster child of this prevailing trend. This unrelenting apathy and disinterest in things outside of text on a screen or videos on YouTube.** Rotiart was so engrossed in his smartphone, neglecting the actions of Mogwai. Due to the late hour, he kept nodding off intermittently.

Yet, he didn't notice the cocoons, like dark granite or obsidian, forming at the foot of Helen's bed. It was hard to miss, and Mowgli had decided to try to get his attention. But he failed miserably, but the Mogwai would not be discouraged.

But it was no use. Rotiart was now cranking out Zs in earnest, and he would be woken. The Mogwai let out an exasperated sigh, glancing fearfully at the cocoons that stood as perverse monoliths to him. Rotiart couldn't care less, in any case. Yet, he would always find a way to wriggle, snake-like, from responsibility.

In any case, Rotiart's carelessness had just made things worse.

***

Cloak awoke suddenly from his sleep, dream forgotten. His body felt as if it were tingling with anxiety. He did not know why or the source of it. He looked outside and saw that sunlight had skillfully infiltrated his thread.

It was morning. The Mogwai would not be a problem during the morning. And, yet, something was wrong. He didn't know what could possibly be admiss. Helen had taken diligent care to strictly adhere to the three cardinal rules, which caused Mohawk's gang to really not like her too much.

Yet, judging from what he was sensing, there seemed to be something happening. Something bad. But Helen was so good about the three cardinal rules, why would she drop the ball so suddenly?

And . . . yet . . . there was something undeniably evil nearby. Cloak was sure of it.

---

* I'm well aware of how hypocritical that is for me to write. I have always wondered if we as a species are too reliant on technology, myself included.

** Again, I, myself, am guilty of this as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 24, 2014, 07:55:39 AM

Isn't it "pupation"? Or am I confused?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2014, 03:36:57 PM

Probably the former, and I'm just too lazy to change it.

Anyway, I dunno if I can post another chapter. I am exhausted and very sore all over -- probably because I'm working too hard -- so, all-in-all, my energy is very depleted right now.

:edit: It is remarkable what a power nap can accomplish. Anyway, I finished planning the chapters of Book CCCXLIX ("M'arillian Incursion"), and started on Book CCCL ("Die Danian").

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Rotiart, You Got Some 'Splainin' to Do

"Rotiart?" Saffa said to Helen. "You left them with Rotiart?!"

"Well, I thought he could handle it." Helen said.

"Rotiart couldn't handle a goldfish." Saffa snarled.

"Or a shot of raspberry schnapps." Cloak muttered, quoting TeamFourStar's eighteenth episode of Dragonball Z Abridged.

"How can you know that, Uncle?" Shadow asked. "Rotiart isn't old enough to drink."

"I didn't mean it like that, I was just referencing --" he sighed heavily, then decided, "you know what, never mind."

"Helen!" Saffa said, very reproachfully, despite Helen being older. "You know how irresponsible that guy is! How many times has alien threats penetrated the security we put into place to prevent such invasions, simply because Rotiart was shirking his responsibilities? Think, woman!"

"Saffa --"

"Helen, honestly," Cloak said, stepping in. "How'd you expect us to react? I told you that Mogwais are high-maintenance. Although you have done a rather impressive feat managing to care for them in the three days that you've had them, Rotiart is not nearly as dutiful. He would not be nearly as cautious."

"Are you talking about me?" Rotiart said, as the sun was beginning its descent. It was a rather quick day. "Oh, Helen, you're back. Can I have that twenty bucks now?"

Helen glowered at him. Her unusually cold, hard tone was very telling of how Rotiart ruined his second chance, as far as the Star Sapphire was concerned. "You left them alone in my thread? You left them alone and unsupervised in my thread? Without knowing for a fact if I was here or not?"

"I -- I knew you were here," Rotiart stammered, unprepared for Helen's rather sudden fury. "Really! Really, I did."

"You're lying," both Cloak and Shadow said, tonelessly.

"No, I'm not!" he protested.

"We can 'see' you're lying, Rotiart," Cloak said, eyes narrowed. "There is a physical reaction when humans lie. It requires a subtlety with Earthsight to detect, it is true. But we can tell when you're lying."

"B-but I'm not!"

"Save it," Cloak said, sweeping by the lazy boy, "let's go see Helen's thread ourselves. See if they're still Mogwai . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2014, 04:14:00 PM

Must be that pesky "modify-post" syndrome. Or maybe Saffa is just plain exhausted. I can't say that I don't know how that feels.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
GONE!

"Rotiart," Cloak said, voice trembling with effort it took to get and keep his emotions under control, "if you somehow get out being Banned for this MONUMENTAL blunder, I shall start calling you Starscream."

"I don't get it," Shadow said, knowing her uncle well enough to know that he was referencing something called a star scream. "What's a star scream? Something Estelore does when someone catches her in the shower?"

Cloak's grim and serious expression was not chipped at all by his neice's valiant stab at humor. Cloak pretty much knew what he was going to see when they entered Helen's thread. He still cannot believe she honestly thought the irresponsible, cowardly layabout would be a good pet-sitter. Maybe if he was a literal pet sitter, perhaps, but not in the conventional meaning.

They burst into the room and, all at once, Cloak's trepidation was validated. The pupae -- or rather, the cocoon shells were still affixed to the base that they had glued themselves to. But they were empty -- and whatever was inside had already left. Cloak supposed that gremlins were smart enough to work doors. Veil, if velociraptors coukd figure it out, why not gremlins?

Upon seeing both the broken-open cocoons and a cowering Mowgli, Shadow had only one inclination. She turned to her uncle, and spoke quite seriously, "We need Estelore."

***

The gremlins resembled their Mogwai stages very much, but with several distinct differences now. They had scaled, reptilian skin in shades of green, brown, red, and black. Their limbs were longer and just slightly thinner. They had dexterous hands, whose fingers were all tipped in claws. They all stood three feet tall now, and they had escaped the forum, in the falling darkness, to the city.

As they began to run rampant, an eeriely appropriate song (in lyrics, not tone) played:

Gremlins, gremlins,
No one ever should
Terrorize a neighborhood.
But gremlins just won't be undone
Playing pranks on everyone.
There's a race to be on top
The competition never stops.
Fixin' with the ladies' fan
Bein' uncharming never ends.
The gang would reign supreme.
And nobody cannot deny-yi-yi-yi.
Don't make that a mystery.
They always get by-yi-yi-yi.
So, join in the chaos jubilee.
The gremlins are monsters, in reality.
You'll find that in each calamity
The gremlin's superiority.
Oooooh-oooooh-ooooh.
Gremlins, gremlins,
No one ever should
Terrorize a neighborhood.
But gremlins won't be undone
You should realize that they can maim you.

Very creepy, very accurate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2014, 07:02:34 PM

Okay, I'm nearly halfway through with planning out Book CCCL ("Die Danian"), and I think it'll be a decent book.

. . .

Good god, 504 books . . . you know, there was a time when I thought that I wasn't the ambitious type. This . . . this has proved me really wrong on that account.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Seven Times . . . WHAT?!

"Esty?" Helen said. "Do you mean --"

"There isn't another option, Helen." Cloak said, making his resemblence to a tiger (the nonanthropomorphic kind) even more evident. "We must be proactive before they propagate to insane levels. There are, what, six billion humans on this planet? These gremlins could make just as many within days! Or even hours depending on the amount of water needed to continuously propagate. They reproduce far faster than the Heinlins! They don't die out of natural deaths, either -- they are fundamentally immortal in that aspect. The only way to be rid of them, is to kill them. We must take the necessary steps, the obligate actions."

"In short," Shadow said, summingnup her uncle's rant, "we need Estelore. We require her powers."

"It does seem a bit extreme," Saffa admitted.

"You haven't seen the chaos these things can do," Cloak said. "Only sunlight -- light from a nearby star -- can kill them. It's their Achilles heel."

***

Back in the city, the seven gremlins were no longer alone. They had found a water source.

Yes. A water source.

The gremlins had propagated just like Cloak had feared that they would. They were like a small army . . . no, worse. A small army of frat boys, partiers, and rioters. Three-foot embodiments of uninhibited, wild, chaotic energy.

No good could come of it.

While every one in ten thousand Mogwai will be pure of heart, the same did not hold true for gremlins. At least, from what is know of them.

No good would come of this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 25, 2014, 10:29:49 PM

Seven billion people, yeah.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2014, 04:56:52 PM

Ah.

New chapter. Yeah, it's a bit short, but it can't be helped right now. Tired.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Abject Chaos

Naturally, with this armada of miscreants, this fleet of fratboy gremlins, only one thing could follow. Absolute, unrestrained chaos. Fortunately, the local news station was the first plsce they hit. They got rid of the cameras, and bright studio lights by mesing with the cords and cables from the safety of the darkness. Only they glowing, demonically-red eyes of these gremlins could be seen -- although, that could have simply been a psychosomatic thing on the news team's part.

From there, it was utter pandemonium. The news anchors (although "propaganda anchors" would be more accurate) were screaming like four-year-old girls. Funny how empassioned these people can get when these type of things happen overseas or elsewhere -- somewhere foreign and not infringing upon their lifestyles, that way they can distance themselves from the genuine fear, the burden of immediate survival.

The gremlins, while still potentially deadly, will only kill when they find it amusing. They were almost like Malice in that regard, only Malice would not hesitate to kill when she was angry as well as when it served as a "teaching moment".

But all the gremlins cared about were hedonistic pursuits, and really nothing higher than that. They were rowdy and uncivilized, just like a -- no, perhaps it's best not to get too political here. There be much too much of that later.

***

"Where would they go?" Helen asked. "What will do?"

Shadow shrugged, as the call for Estelore went out, guessing, "Back up sewers, reverse street signs and steal everybody's left shoe (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Stitch)?"

"They're more dangerous than that," Cloak said, very seriously. "This isn't something to make light of. I once saw several gremlins overpower a mall Santa."

"It's not Christmastime, though," Shadow said. "Seriously, Uncle -- you're too serious."

Cloak said nothing for a while, before he recalled something he hadn't before. "We need to get the mechanical RAFians to safety."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 27, 2014, 03:26:58 AM

Fratboy gremlins... right out of a nightmare.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 27, 2014, 11:47:37 AM

Yeah . . . I know. I used be a housekeeper at a college. Still the worst mess that I have ever had to clean up was there.

New chapter. Shortish.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Tech Storage

"Since when has this forum turned into a gulag?" Sakki demanded.

"We're trying to keep you alive, Sakki." Cloak said.

"Save it, Realm Walker! I'm not afraid of three-foot-high ankle-biters!" Sakki said, mulishly.

"I'm inclined to side with Sakki on this," Oceanspray said. "Why are we in anymore danger than you?"

"Realm Walkers cannot be killed by Dweller hands," Cloak said. This was, in truth, oversimplifying it, but there will be time to get into this later on. "The gremlins cannot kill me or Shadow."

"And they can kill us?" Rocklobster said, scepticism heavy in his voice and tone.

"Eventually," Cloak said, bluntly. There was really no point in beating around the bush. "They will dismantle you, take you apart, component by component. They might reassemble you, but there's no guarantee that it would be a correct reassembly."

"I think you're confusing gremlins with that alien gremlin species (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Jury_Rigg) -- like that Jury Rigg guy." Shadow pointed out.

"There's alien gremlins now?" Sakki said.

"Different species," Cloak said.

"Cloak, we take care of ourselves," Oceanspray said, his right lower arm transforming into the arm gun, rather like Cyborg of Teen Titans, and back again, as if to demonstrate his point. "Besides, I thought that they didn't like bright light. My blasts are plenty bright!"

"And my sonic harmonics can handle things with those ears." Sakki said stubbornly.

"Which is why you are needed here, actually " Shadow said thoughtfully. "Make sure that everything's okay on the homefront."

"But --"

"Besides, when Estelore gets here," Cloak interrupted, "the gremlins will be a nonissue."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2014, 04:42:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Clash of Personalities

Cloak began to stroll away from the Bored Board, where he had left the mechanical RAFians. He had decided that they were cognizant enough to make their own choices. After all, what right did he truly have to sequester them like that? If they wanted to risk their lives . . . well, that was their prerogative.

Realistically, what right did he have in denying their freedom of choice, their freedom to act? Yes, he was trying to protect them from getting killed . . . by trying to strip them of making that decision for themselves. How is that any different from being a tyrant? It is certainly the line of thinking, of rationalizing the decisions to do such. It is a slippery slope. A very dangerous path to take, with no guarantees of staying on the moral high ground.

But who's to say what the moral high ground is? It certainly wasn't him, himself.

"Cloak, wait!"

Cloak stopped, as Helen caught up. He had a sneaking suspicion what this was going to be about. He really did not want to get into this with the Star Sapphire. He folded his arms as he waited impassively to be addressed again.

"Cloak, please," she said, "what ever happens, don't hurt them."

The Realm Walker said nothing, and was unsurprised.

"You know, Helen, your capacity to love is your greatest strength," he said. "It allows you to see the good in people, and give others second chances -- even when they do not deserve one."

Whatever reaction Helen was anticipating, this wasn't it. Cloak turned to face her, looking her directly in the eye.

"But it's also your greatest weakness, your fatal flaw." the Elements Master continued. "You refuse to believe the destruction that those you care about can do unchecked. You blind yourself recklessly."

Helen was visibly upset and offended. Cloak found that he did not really care all that much. Was he ruthless? Yes, he could be. Was he heartless? When it was necessary. He knew this, and he knew this was the trap that many Realm Walker fell into.

"Well --"

"I have a habit being ruthless? That I can be arrogant? That I have a tendency of holding grudges?" Cloak said, acknowledging his own flaws. "Yes, I have my flaws as well. I am not perfect. No one, despite claims to the opposite, no one is perfected. Everyone is flawed. Everyone."

Then Cloak walked away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 28, 2014, 05:14:00 AM

Anyone who's met Cupid can tell you that love is very dangerous indeed. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2014, 07:50:00 PM

Was that a "House of Hades" reference, Saffa? ;)

Anyway, I finished planning out the chapters of Book CCCL ("Die Danian"), and started working the chapters on Book CCCLI ("What If . . ."), which might be longer than the prerequisite twenty chapters. On that same token, it might be shorter, though I don't think this is as likely.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Star Light, Star Fight

Estelore had come back, having just quashed another scheme by Freddie. Seriously, that kid will be the end of her. End of her patience, end of her tolerance, end of her compassion . . .

Fortunately, she had an out from doing this when she received the call. She was just short of ripping the young star apart, before he flew away tittering like an idiot. The juvenile star was the bane of Estelore's existence, but at least she no longer had to make excuses for what she was doing.

She didn't like how it fell to her to clean up his messes, though. Although if she didn't . . . who would? She really didn't have a choice, if she wanted the universe kept intact and free from an overabundance of chaos. Still, it was draining on her spirit and tolerance. There was nothing else to do now, but give Freddie a steller spanking or some other form of corporal punishment.

But she'd cross that bridge when she got to it. For the moment, she was needed by her friends, who offered a respite from Freddie's shenanigans. She approached the planet at a slower pace, slowly shrinking and encapsulating herself in her usual avatar form -- a bright woman in a simple sundress in a beautiful sunny yellow with a matching hat with a floppy brim. She easily floated through the atmosphere, in a way that irresistibly recalled Princess Peach in both "Super Mario Bros 2" and the "Super Smash Bros." series, although it was strange how the atmosphere did not seem to even ruffle her dress as she rapidly decended through it.

She landed rather daintily, without so much as a grunt for bearing weight. It was actually reminiscent of Palutena's entrance in the fourth installment of the "Super Smash Bros." series, as she still emitted a soft glow from her skin, almost like Olympian divinity in the Dinsey multiverse. She looked around in the dark night, and saw that she was not at the forum, and this surprised her.

"Oh my," she muttered to herself, "I must have overshot the trajectory. That's never happened before, I don't think."

Behind her, there were several inhuman shrieks and screams. What she saw was one of the more vile, stomach-churning things imagineable. No, it wasn't Bill O'Reilly's face on the electronics store's window television display (though it was understandable)*, it was the gremlins malforming and melting and dying in Estelore's mere presence.

Estelore was not sure what make of it. What were these creatures and why did her presence make them die like this? It did not make any logical sense to her.

***

All of the gremlins were incinerated by Esty's stellar presence. All but one.

Mohawk had not been present, as he had ran out of popcorn earlier and had decided to go and procure some more. So he -- and he alone -- survived.

It wasn't over yet.

---

*Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Yet another slam at Fox News. Sorry, but I'm seriously not a fan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 28, 2014, 08:44:06 PM

Yes, it was. Pretty sure I haven't met him. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2014, 09:22:02 PM

Ah. New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Smell Ya Never

"Cloak! Shadow!" Esty called, having spotted four RAFians in silhouette, "Horse! Aquilai!"

It was the sum total hydrokinetics that the forum had to offer. Just these four. Their mission was quite obvious: stop any gremlins from getting wet by water. Water specifically, as they can touch snow without propagating for some reason. Saffa continually questioned this, as she found Cloak's explanantion of "It just works that way" somewhat lacking and unfulfilling as an answer.

Cloak, in truth, did not know why this was so, and he fully acknowledged and accepted this. The natural world was already full of strange, yet marvelous creatures (a lot of them -- such as the female-only species of lizards, the weta which can survive being frozen, the wrasse where the boss female becomes male when the male of their school dies, the paradoxical frog who is larger as a tadpole than as an adult -- found right here on Earth), so why would the supernatural world be any different with their biodiversity and resourceful creativity?

Cloak could not approach any nearer to Estelore until she moved away from the steaming pile of pus-colored residue that were, only a moment ago, gremlins. It smelled like a skunk's diaper, with an acrid hint of burning rubber. Not pleasant. Not in the least.

Although the scent of a living gremlin wasn't all that better. Kind of like a bathroom that's never been cleaned and "old people" smell -- but more pervasive, and yet subtler.

"What's up? What's going on?" the sentient star asked.

Shadow, Aquilai, and Horse exppained what was going on, but Cloak was bothered by something unrelated to the conversation. The winds had changed, and the others seemed unaware of this change, but Cloak's sense of smell was superior to the others, as Horse was in her human form.

"Cloak?" Esty asked, concerned.

"One got away," Cloak said, quickly sweeping in the direction he detected the scent. He sniffed and decided it was stronger in that direction.

"What?" Horse said.

"One gremlin escaped," the RAFian Realm Walker said, quickly. "This way. Quickly."

Cloak stalked off in that direction, really eptiomizing what his form was -- a tiger.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 28, 2014, 10:23:03 PM

Whoa, I did not realize it has been 18 chapters already.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2014, 06:05:21 PM

Gotta write. Dunno if I'm still gonna have a job tomorrow. I'm gonna be exhausted. They're really overworking housekeeping. :|

Anyway, I finished planning on Book CCCLI ("What If . . ."), and started on Book CCCLII ("Blackout"), where the power behind the back-up generator comes from, unless I chose to disclose it earlier.

New chapter. Shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Hydrokinetic Hijinks

Mohawk proceeded to a working water fountain in the middle of an overgrown, abandoned courtyard. He was well aware what would happen if he got wet. Only it was more . . . grotesque . . . when done as a gremlin instead of a Mogwai. The skin blisters and cracks and bubbles instead of shooting off some hairballs that grow into Mogwai. And they grow into gremlins, completely bypassing both the Mogwai and cocoon stages.

When Mohawk approached the water, he had fully intended on taking a dip. Intended on making more gremlins. Only this generation wouldn't be like crazed fratboys, oh no. They would be more like crazy Maenads -- you know, those devoted partiers who worshiped Dionysus, representing drunken revelries -- in their destructive mayhem.

But as the gremlin approached the water, it was as if the water itself was sentient and recoiled from the gremlin. Mohawk was perplexed by this, as he was intelligent enough to know that water did not do this naturally. The water floated away from him, becoming a cloud in the process. This dumbfounded the gremlin, though it was pretty obvious who was behind this.

Aquilai, Horse, Shadow and Cloak were bending the water to their will, and willing it away from the gremlin. Soon, Mohawk became wise to the deception and decided to try to outsmart them . . . and ran directly into Estelore.

He could not bear to be within such a close proximity to her, so his skin began to blister, and not in the way he wanted, and blacken. He melted into the pus-colored gelatinous goo, same as his other brethren.

Mohawk was no longer a threat. The gremlins were no longer a threat.

"That was convenient," Horse chirped cheerfully.

"I still don't think I understand the process behind this creature's biology," Esty said, thoughtfully. "How exactly does my presence prove detrimental to it? It is wasn't like I was trying to do it harm."

"I do not understand it myself," Aquilai shrugged, "by all the rules of biology --"

Then they two lapsed into a conversation of scientific speculation, even though the gremlins were more of supernatural origin than anything else.

"Helen's going to be upset." Shadow pointed out.

"Let her," Cloak said, curt and cross. "She'll have to get over it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2014, 07:57:15 PM

Still feeling some anxiety.

New chapter. Shortish.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Reclamation

"Was it really necessary?" Helen was asking. Again. This time, Cloak did not deign to answer. He knew this would be a sticking point between the two. The fact of the matter was that it was necessary. If left unchecked, the gremlins would have overrun the earth. Granted, they would die in direct sunlight, but their remains were far worse than they themselves were alive, in smell alone.

Was he ruthless? Yes. Was he completely heartless? No.

This had caused a little tiff between Helen and Parker, as he did not want to be drawn into the argument. But the truth was that Parker agreed with Cloak's actions. Helen had shrewdly guessed this.

But yet, Cloak was given pause to wonder . . . was he being just like Malice? Carelessly and recklessly demeaning lives as inconsequential? Was he being that manipulative? Was he heading down that path? His ruminations continued, even to the point when an old man (who looked an awful lot like a human Frogfucious or a human Mega Alakazam) came to the forum and he didn't notice.

The old man, as it turns out, was the proprietor of the shop that Shadow and Helen had visited so many days ago. Cloak stole an appraising glance at this newcomer. And he was sure that he wasn't exactly human, but he couldn't divine any species that he could be.

He came for Mowgli. It was an accident for him to leave the store, as something had frightened him into hiding in Helen's bag. Helen was exceedingly reluctant, and the store proprietor assured her that she took good care of Mowgli, but the world was not prepared for the Mogwai.

Cloak assured her that the man was sincere and he hadn't a trace of evil in him. Being a feline Realm Walker, he could sense if he was. Although reluctant, Helen handed over Mowgli to the man.

***

Meanwhile, Malice, who did not have any part of this whole gremlin ordeal, was busy in her makeshift workshop. She was feverishly building a machine, which she was actually making due to sheer boredom.

But she had idea, and her ideas nearly always turned into schemes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2014, 06:47:18 PM

New chapter.

BOOK LXXVII:
Rust Is Silence*
CHAPTER ONE:
Surprisingly Short Scheme

Cloak was still pondering his actions, and the misgivings of the appearance of such actions. He was always one of very much doubt, and a person of great fear. His core nature was that of a pacifist, and yet his actions were anything but pacifistic. How could he ever reconcile it.

"Who's the present for?" a voice said, bringing Cloak out of his reverie. He noticed the waist-high blue package with carmel-colored ribbons. It was Gaz, who was rightfully suspicious of the unexpected anonymous generousity. "Was there a card?"

"No card," Blaze said, ungainly getting on his hands and knees to check around the box.  "Cloak! Can you see what's inside this --"

Then, with unnecessary fanfare and confetti, the box opened to reveal a rather unimpressive item. It had a pot-like body with rather unimaginative designs upon it. On the sides of it were chariot wheels that were rather like "Beast Machines" Rattrap's wheel legs. It had no arms, but some sort of backpack-like plate that did not appear to serve any understandable purpose. Its head was rather like "Robots" Big Weld'shead, if Big Weld had a hat of Arabic design welded to his head. The thing was far from adorable. What Cloak didn't notice was that it had a big wind-up crank on its back.

"What happens if I turn . . . this?" Abby asked. She turned it, and, as expected, the automaton sprang to life.

"H-H-Hello everyone!" the automaton said, as the RAFians watched it wearily. The voice sounded similar to Jim Cummings's Gregarius (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Gregarius) voice, and yet a little of Brendan Meyer's Adam Young (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_Young) in it. "I am the humble and gregarious Gregory Ayreus. I thank you for your . . . hospitality."

Its neck telescoped out, and its got all mesmeric.

"You see an optometrist about that?" Genies said, drily droll.

It swivelled its head in a way only a robot can, even one designed in a valet motif. His eyes were still green with yellow swirls. It only served to make the Marks more pronounced on the RAFians, except Esty, Cloak and Yarin. It clearly was trying to mesmerize them, and was oblivious to how ineffective it was.

"You shall bow to the whim of the beautiful genius known as Malice," Greggy said.

The RAFians were unimpressed.

"You shall bow to the --"

"Oh, Cloak, will you shut that thing up already, or do I have to?" Esty said.

Cloak snapped his fingers and the automaton was just a twisted lump of metal and circuitry. Cloak looked suspicious at this . . . since when were Malice's schemes so easily foiled? Since when were that this poorly thought out? Why would she waste her resources in such a way?

***

Malice was onle dimly aware of the automaton's destruction. But it was only a trival loss, as far as she was considered. She knew very well that it wouldn't work, and that its demise was an inevitability, but it had served its purpose.

The RAFians may underestimate her now, underestimate her schemes in their complexity, may let their guard down. This was good, if it came true. She would need a great amount of time to get her true scheme going.

Gregory Ayreus was just supposed to be a distraction, a red herring of sorts.

---

*The title of this book actually references the last words spoken by Dinobot, "And the rest is silence." I think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2014, 09:02:46 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Specs and Remembrances

Cloak was reminiscing to himself . . . back when Shadow first saw RAF. All those Dweller Earth years ago. . . .

He was escorting his -- at the time -- incredibly shy neice, Shadow into the forum. She was curious, and her mom had allowed it.

Parker yawned, then sang, as the sun was coming up:

"The sun comes up,
The lamps go down.
The day begins in RAF town."

Alic opened her thread's windows, and sang:

"There's tea to brew
Pastries to bake. "

Then she walked over to Jack in a bed, then sang amused:

"And some that refuse to wake."

Shorty sang, gruffly:

"While cafe is stocked
And house-elves are fed."

Dasada sang:

"The midnight RAFians drift home to bed."

Terenia sang, prim and proper:

"School bells chime and call bells ring."

The RAFians sang, in a chorus:

"Rotiart whines!
Musicians sing!
What a day in RAF,
Come and see who's here!
Everyone knows someone.
They come from far and near."

But Cloaky soon realizes Shadow has gone (he hadn't had Earthsight at this point) and begins searching for her as Horse and Faerie get into antics of their own. The other RAFians continued:

"They bring their ease,
Their finest fleece,
To please the keenest eye!
And hope and pray
Someone will say
There's something they might defy!
We thank Richard and his mods aboard,
And kiss the ground for thread and board.
In RAF town!"

VisserZer0 sang:

"The Donators lie fast asleep."

Goom sang, brusquely:

"But some of us got thread floors to sweep!"

VisserZer0 and Goom sang:

"One day's like the day before."

Broken shrugged as he sang:

"Can't complain."

Duff sang, chinking the his glass:

"If there's no flame war!"

The RAFians sang:

"What a day in RAF town!
Everythings' for sale
cabbages and onions --"

Azure gasped, "Look up!"

Myitt sang, pointing:

"Who's that?
That creature up in the tree?"

Rotiart sang:

"It's not a tree!
It's moving . . . see?!"

Touquie sang:

"Good grief!
What can it be?"

Morfowt sang:

"Look there!
I swear --
She's flying through the air!"

Gaz exclaimed:

"She must be wild!"

SuperNate proclaimed:

"She's just a child!"

Cloaky, having determined his neice's location by the RAFians' attention, attempted to coax his neice, "Care to join me?  Here on the ground?  This instant?"

Shadow, still in the tree, sang:

"My heart is pounding like a drum.
I can't believe my eyes!
In RAF, RAFians seem to come
In every shape and size!
So many paths.
I wonder how they find their way?
So many posts,
I wonder what they really say!"

Shadow climbed to the top of the tree. She gazed out across the forum, and then sang:

"RAF is everything I've heard and more!
RAF is nothing like I've seen before!
Music and talking cats and threads that shine,
With flags flying higher than a pine!"

Jax sang:

"She seems so sweet.
She means us well."

V2113 sang, randomly:

"Size 20 feet!"

Kelly sang, addressing V2113:

"How can you tell?"

Rotiart sang:

"We'll rue this day,
You wait and see!"

Esty sang:

"What is to be or not to be."

Shadow, leaped from the tree, and dashed through the forum, singing, while her uncle attempted to keep up:

"How do they build their houses so dim and all?
Can this be all one tribe?
The things they sell, the things I smell,
I never could describe!
These cakes taste just like berries picked this very day!
The sound a lake makes still takes my breath away!
RAF's as busy as a hive of bees.
Oh, Mom would just love these trees!
Crowded and loud but so exciting too!
With colors I never even knew!"

The RAFians sang:

"What a day in RAF!
Nothing strange at all!"

Jack, having finally roused and dressed as Alic leads him away, sings:

"'Cept Cloak, who's maybe ten feet tall!"

The RAFians sang:

"This day's become a day no one is likely to forget.
A day we'll all remember as the day two worlds have met!"

Shadow sang:

"RAF is everything I've heard and more!
RAF Town is nothing like I've seen before!"

Pez whispered in song:

"The strength of ten,
That's what I heard."

Jess sang, addressing her admiration for Shadow bravery despite being so young.

"A brave young thing to venture here."

Shadow continued:

"Music and talking cats and roofs that shine!"

Ellimist sang:

"It will be an adventure!"

Shadow continued:

"And flags flying higher --"

Duff sang, addressing AniJen:

"Perhaps some brew to quench your thirst?"

Shadow continued:

"-- than a pine!"

The RAFians, except Cloak, sang:

"What a day in RAF history was made!
Take away the mystery, then you're not afraid.
We've seen a Walker girl!"

Shadow added:

"I've seen a world!"

The RAFians, except Cloak, sang:

"We never dreamed we'd see."

Shadow echoed:

"I never dreamed I'd see!"

Shadow and the RAFians sang together:

"What an extra special day.
Unique in truly every way.
How wonderful this RAF day
Turned out to be!"

Cloak smiled every time at this memory. It was a cherished one.

***

Meanwhile, a good and prudent distance away, a man was cobbling together a device. He used to be one of General Cannon's underlings, who loved being in his employ. This man had enhineered a device to create instantaneous iron oxidation, and had only gone so far as create specs for such a device.

But General Cannon quickly realized that the weapon could be used against the country (and more specifically him himself), so the good general cancelled the plans. And when this technician decided to complain, Cannon just cruelly criticized the project and the device itself.

This did not sit well with the man. It did not sit well with Dr. Rusty Oliver. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2014, 07:19:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Vengeance and Vindication

Rusty was holed up in his "workshop", which was a deteriorating studio apartment that housed the gremlins for a brief time. It was pretty unfit for human habitation, but Rusty didn't care really.

He was consumed with an insatiable thirst of vengeance and a lust of vindication. His device was worthy of notoriety, worthy of accolades. General Cannon and all the others . . . they were fools! The lot of them! They didn't bother to understand his genius. They were jealous! Jealous that they could never invent something so world-changing, could never engineer something so brillant!

But why just stop at iron oxidation? He wasn't thinking big enough. He was making a corrosion ray that could corrode each and every metal! He would show that puritanical dullard how wrong he was to ever doubt the GENIUS of Russel Baxter Oliver!!

He would do what Cannon could not, the egotistical nimrod. He would quell all of the country's enemies. He would remove the greatest threats. All because everyone is so dependant on metal, those plebeian vagrants on this soil . . . (he did not realize or acknowledge the sheer hypocrisy of this thought alone, as the device that he was constructing has some very important metal components) . . . this planet did not belong to them. They had no right to be here. They had no right to pollute this planet with their impurity and uncouth ways.

Cannon may have been many things -- a male chauvinist, a proponent of the military industrial complex at the cost of the living wage of civilian livelihoods, proponent of censorship and other reprehensible political ideologies -- but wven he had a line that he wouldn't cross. Granted, it was difficult to tell were that line was.

Rusty had no such lines, no such compunctions for restraint, and had the foresight if a spoiled four-year-old. He was so consumed with the, in his view, injustices of the past that he couldn't imagine a world outside vengeance and vindication. He could not imagine the future beyond that.

Hatred is a fire that hollows one out, and twists the hollowed remains into perverse parodies of their former selves. Hatred is not something someone should cling to, but it is often hard to let go of.

Cloak knows this firsthand, and still struggles with it. Rusty was consumed by it. He thirsted for it more then he craved water, food, sleep, shelter, or love. He thought of nothing else. He just lived to create the corroder, his term for his device, and only existed for revenge.

This could only end in tears.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 31, 2014, 12:10:00 PM

Yay, new book chapters! :D

PDF for the last one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2014, 07:13:13 PM

Thanks.

And I'll admit that this book may be schticky in some parts, but considering that I loosely based it off an episode of the 80's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Karma -- It's Not Just A Popularity Contest!*

Oliver had decided to enact his revenge, seemingly unaware that Cannon was dead. But he did realize that if he had his face on display that the law enforcement would get involved (although they would just defer it to the RAFians, as they were essentially government-approved and government-sponsored superheroes) and he didn't need to mire himself with the meaningless litigation of the puny-minded masses.

He crafted what could be seen as a decent amateur cosplay costume of the Shredder, although with purple gloves and sleeves and lacking the iconic cape. He wore a metal helmet with three backward-raking prongs with a removable met face plate. He also wore metal shoulder guards, shin guards, and grieves that each carried three hooked blades. He had nondescript black boots, black tights, an unnecessarily tight dark gray shirt, and metal neck guards. For being so disparaging of metal items earlier, he sure used a lot of it in his "supervillain" costume. All in all, the whole outfit looked comical rather than threatening.

He came to the city, armed with his oxidizer ray. He had intended for his entrance to be intimidating and the frowd of bystanders to be paralyzed with abject terror. He had been expecting screams and yells of fear. He had intended to look mighty and impressive.

The reaction of the populace was not so dramatic. Most just ignored the dilly costumed man, assuming that he was just on his way to some comic con or just a street performer. Some spoke a fleeting compliant, which Rusty just took as patronizing him. A few told him to get a real job, and tried to run him off the road (surprise surprise, most of them were the spoiled brats of the 1%). He was thoroughly disgruntled by this.

He happened upon an obviously-affluent young man about the age of sixteen wearing rather expensive clothing that was impeccably clean and unwrinkled. He was leaning on his sleek little sportscar.

"Yeah, a Porsche 918 Spyder," he was saying to his hangers-on, to people who were only friendly to him because he had money. He was apparently unaware of this little factoid. "After I totaled the last one, Mumsy and Dadums decided to get me a car that was a little cheaper and --"

He noticed Rusty, standing there, looking like a Comic Con runaway, and instead of acting his age, instead of acting with maturity, he wrinkled his nose in obvious distain. He had never met Rusty, who was at least twice this boy's age, but he assumed he knew everything already about Rusty with nothing but a singular glance.

"And what do you want, fashion reject?" he sniffed. He, like most of the 1% seemed blessfully unaware that it was people of Rusty's class that enabled them to live the comforts they had become accustomed to. Without the other 99%, they would be nothing, unable to survive on their own. "And keep your distance, you filthy commoner."

They were on a public street. But this boy thought he owned basically anything and was above the law. He had no integrity of his own, and Rusty didn't like this attitude. He aimed his corroder and every bit of metal on this flippant, arrogant boy's Porsche became corroded with a rust-like corrosion.

"WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU POOR LACKWIT?!" the brat raged. "DON'T YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON YOUR SUPERIOR, YOU -- OW!!"

This rich boy had seized Rusty's shoulder roughly, cutting his fingers accidentally on the blades. He decided that that was also Rusty's fault. He did not relinquish his grip


"You will turn around and obey me!" the little brat said, "You do as you are told, peasant!"

Rusty did turn around, and gave this arrogant little prep school bulky a flatter nose. Rusty had no qualms or regret doing this, and the boy was flat on his butt, nursing his nose, as Rusty stalked off, corroding every last bit of metal he came across.

---

*Meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 31, 2014, 11:29:22 PM

I share your distaste for the 1%.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2014, 01:14:33 PM

And, yet, without us of the 99%, would be completely unable to take care of themselves, unable to survive without the amenities to which they've become accustomed. I do believe they need us more than we need them.

Anyway, if anyone's curious, here's how the series is spread out across my notebooks:

• Sheets of loose paper: Book I to Book VIII
• First notebook: Book IX to Book LXXIX (Chapters 1 to 3)
• Second notebook: Book LXXIX (Chapters 4 to 20) to Book CLXXXV (Chapters 1 to16)
• Third notebook: Book CLXXXV (Chapters 17 to 20) to Book CCLXIII (Chapters 1 to 10)
• Fourth notebook: Book CCLXIII (Chapters 11 to 20) to Book CCCLIII (Chapters 1 to 9)
• Fifth notebook: Book CCCLIII (Chapters 10 to (?)) to (?)

In the first eight books were back when I thought that their would be ten books, max. Then I . . . I got ambitious.>:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 01, 2014, 01:24:19 PM

And I'm glad you did. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2014, 03:49:19 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
When There's Trouble, Who You Gonna Call?

But the rampage was not to last.

Realistically, one could not simply get away with corroding the city's metal with rust, or rust-like derivatives, without attracting some notice. And someone did notice. And someone contacted the authorities. And those authorities contacted --

There in silhouette, stood six figures, the sunlight flowing from behind them, and made them look either ominous or impressive, depending on you vantage point and point of view. The silhouettes were not unifrom, and each was different from the last.

Upon their palms was a soft blue light, only noticeable in the shadow of the silhouette. The six walked, almost sedately professional, toward Rusty, who realized a moment too late that he he didn't think of a pseudonym or an alias for this persona. "Shredder" was already pretty copyrighted, though why he should care about that when he ripped off most of the costume from the character was anyone's guess.

As the six came into better relief, they were revealed to be Cloak, Oceanspray, Sakki, Parker, Aquilai, and Nina. Rusty had basically been living under a rock for the past few years, and, as such, he did not know what the RAFians were. He just assumed that they were special forces, since all -- except Nina and possibly Cloak.-- definitely looked human. He assumed that those were costumes.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his face plate actually designed to distort his voice.

"That," Cloak said, cold and without emotion, "is what we should be asking."

"Do you realize just how many city ordinances and federal laws you just broke?" Parker asked.

"You don't know, either," Sakki muttered.

"Not in front of the perp!" Parker snarled quietly.

"Who are you?" Rusty said, wondering if they really held any authority and were not just play-acting.

"We are the ones who got called to stop your tantrum -- er, I mean, rampage." Nina said, calmly.

"What right have you tell me what to do?" Rusty challenged.

"And who's 'me'?" Aquilai asked, which caught Rusty off-guard.

"Ah, um, erm, Rust. Y-yeah, yeah, Rust All-Over."

"You can't be serious." Parker said. "Rusty Oliver? Cannon's minion?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 01, 2014, 04:49:26 PM

Wouldn't Oceanspray and Sakki be in danger of the corroder though?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2014, 08:14:36 PM

Very astute, Saffa. +1.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Casual Casualties

Rusty nonchalantly raised the corroder so that it was level with his arm when held horizontally. It looked, at first, like a generic blaster rifle, although evidently much lighter than normal as Rusty could heft it up, one-handed, without issue. The barrel wasn't circular but triangular in shape, but there was no real reason, functionally-speaking, other than general aesthetic. It looked rather clunky-looking, as well.

Cloak realized a split second beforehand that this was the wrong dispatching for about a third of their team. A serious miscalculation on their part. But it came far too late to react.

There was no discernible sound, but their felt that there should be one. It seemed to be like a pressure wave but it had a visible beam -- no, it was more of an visible energy pulse, several of them -- that was russet red in color.

It did not affect Cloak, as he wore no metal on his person. It corroded Nina's belt buckle, but that was all of her that held any scrap of metal she had in her possession. Aquilai's sonic screwdriver faired just as well (his TARDIS pendant, which contained his actual TARDIS, managed to escaped the corroder's pulse). Parker's armor froze fast, trapping Parker within as its gooey marshmallow center.

Oceanspray and Sakki's reactions were, as you would expect, far more severe. It was almost as if they had indirectly viewed the gaze of a basilisk. As if they were Petrified. They looked like victims of Medusa, in addition, to indirect victims of a basilisk.

"What the --"

"Gateburst!" Cloak cursed, furious with himself. "We should have known about this possible eventuality! I should have known!"

"What do we do now?" Nina asked, as Parker managed to activate the armor to switch armors, which ended the effects of the corroder. He looked shaken by the experience, which was understandable. Imagine being able to move one minute, and then suddenly entombed in a makeshift coffin the next. Terrifying, to say the least, unless you're a fool or possess a death wish.

"Cloak?" Nina prodded, as Aquilai looked round. "What do we do?"

"Die!" Rusty said, laughing at his own unfunny joke.

"Aquilai, Parker, and you take Oceanspray and Sakki back to the forum," Cloak said, speaking over his shoulder. "Make haste. Maybe they know a way to save them, or at least stablizing them. Give them a mandrake draught or something."

"And you?"

"I got this," Cloak said, locking his eyes on Rusy. Eyes trained on him like a tiger in long grass on a grazing deer.

"Alone?"

"I can handle him."

"Cloak, are you sure?" Parker asked, with a rather strained quality to his voice.

"Hurry." Cloak intoned, glancing at the two casualities . . . no. No, he mustn't think of them that way. . . . But it was hard seeing them . . . like that. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 02, 2014, 01:19:22 AM

Good heavens.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2014, 07:54:53 PM

I probably should apologize in advance if I don't get around to posting the new chapter. Just got a new Diancie (a Pokemon) today, and I was playing with it in X.

:edit: Found time.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Carbonite Copy

"Good heavens!" Saffa said, as she saw the state of Oceanspray and Sakki. Shadow, who had been looking for her uncle, trotted over. "Are they --"

Sbadow placed a hand on both of them, and could still detect the sparks of life within the rusted metal. They were feeble and fragile, though.

"They're alive," Shadow informed, adding, "Barely."

It was rather like the two were frozen in carbonite, and fortunate that this was the severity of the corroder. It could have been worse. It could have been fatal.

"Well, we must be grateful for small favors, then," Parker said, hefting the two back into standing position, looking like statues of themselves made from corrosion. It was no simple job, as the two were rather weighty. "Any idea what can revert them?"

"Unless you have a Fossilizer, I doubt it," Shadow mentioned. "I don't know exactly what a Fossilizer is, but I remember Uncle talking about them once."

"Greeeeeaaat," Faerie said, "and where are these Fossilizer things?"

"Reptilon," the young Realm Walker replied at once, "I -- I think."

"Wonderful," the faerie sighed.

"Wait, wouldn't a Fossilizer just turn things to stone? Presumably with a reverse setting." Saffa asked. And, unbeknownst to most, if not all, asssmbled there, it was true. "How would that apply to this situation?"

"Like I said, I don't know much about them." Shadow said.

"Moving on to the crisis at hand," Aquilai said, clearing his throat audibly. "We need to construct a way, or a device, to counteract that corrosion blaster that Rusty Oliver had."

Yarin hesitated before speaking up, "I may have something that could help."

"A microwave?" Shadow asked.

"It was not a microwave! It was a FOOD YIELD INCREASER." Yarin said, temper flaring. "And no, it has nothing to do with that! There are times when corrosion appears on my ship, through ordinary wear-and-tear and whatnot. So I have been devising a way to eliminate it. I have a prototype."

"Let me guess," Saffa teased, "flashlight?"

All six of Yarin's eyes narrowed at Saffa.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 02, 2014, 10:35:26 PM

:rofl2:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2014, 09:22:09 AM

;)
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
It Gets Nasty

"Die!" Rusty said, quite forgetting himself. He fired an energy pulse from the corroder at Cloak. It hit the Realm Walker, who did not flinch or react at all, again. Rusty had overlooked that the corroder only worked on metal, and Cloak was not made of metal. "Uh, die . . . please?"
 
Cloak was so disgusted at the pathetic man before him, he found himself unable to speak. Unable to tell this puny little man what he truly thought about him. He was only a "big man" when he had his weapon to back him up. When that weapon proved to be worthless against his foe, he quickly devolved back into a child. No, worse: a coward. Cloak curled his lip into a loose, but disapproving, snarl.
 
"Please?" Rusty said, not troubling to hide or obscure his cowardly meekness.
 
"You sicken me," Cloak said. "You could have potentially killed two of my friends, but you don't care. You have no concern for anyone's safety, but your own. You have no concern for anyone's fate, but your own."
 
"Y-You will obey me," he said, though with a tremble, a quiver, to his voice. This just disgusted Cloak all the more. It is one reason why he despised firearms and similar items. The weapons that could be wielded by literally anyone, even someone's that never wielded it before, and be used to kill someone. Then again, Cloak was a very jaded person at times. "I a-am all-powerful."
 
"And, apparently, you are also delusional," Cloak said coldly. "You know nothing of true power. You know nothing of the burden to hold it back, to pull your punches for fear of losing control. You know nothing. You are not all-powerful. You are only moderately a threat, and barely at that. And it's all because of that weapon of yours, for without it, you would be NOTHING."
 
If Cloak's lecture did anything, it was just make Rusty's drive and his determination stronger, make his resolve more inflexible. This was not Cloak's intent, but it all together didn't surprise him all that much.
 
"I'll show you," he snarled. It was so quiet that it was doubtful human ears couldn't pick it up. But Cloak was not a human, and wasn't quick enough on the uptake to realize just what Rusty meant by this.
 
He aimed the corroder, and Cloak misread his aim, thinking that he was taking another pot shot at the Elements Master. But Rusty's true aim was a mass of scaffolding that pedestrians were gathered by, watching the exchange between the two.
 
Why is that humans liked to gather around in spectator circles, like that? Was it some sort of long-forgotten instict or something? Did humans have some sort of innate curiosity about such thjngs? It didn't really make much sense, when you thought about it.
 
Rusty fired the corroder and it hit the scaffolding, which began to immediately buckle under its own weight. Cloak was greatly alarmed, especially because there were children within crushing range!
 
"Who's weak now?" Rusty said, cackling like he proved his point. He proved a point alright, just not the one he thought. "Ha HA! Who's weak now, buddy-boy?!"

Cloak wasn't really paying attention to Rusty's crowing. He twirled in an airbending maneuver and blasted the scaffolding away from the innocent bystanders, into an empty construction site that was fortunately nearby.

"What's the MATTER with you?!" a woman shrieked.

She wasn't addressing Cloak.

"Bow before me! The might Rust All-Over!"

"First," Cloak said, "disregard for life ISN'T strength -- I don't know how that line of thinking had ever come into being. Second, Rust All-Over? That's a stupid nom de plume, completely unimaginative."

"You're weak!"

"Child," Cloak said.

"You're weak!!"

Cloak decided not to reply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2014, 10:03:43 PM

Flipping through some of the old books, forgotten some of the old jokes. Still give me a laugh. I want to read all of them to my writing class now. But that would take a while -- and it's only an hour and half class. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
ENOUGH!!!

"You are weak!!!" Rusty insisted, making him sound like he had the maturity of a toddler that was unable to get their way. "You are pathetic!"

"First Light, it's like talking to a brick wall with you. Only the brick wall would see reason sooner," Cloak sighed. "Oliver -- I do not know how you could hold such juvenile, black-and-white beliefs at your age. There is more to life than strength and weakness, between being powerful and powerless. You're suppose to learn this as you grow, but you've allowed yourself to stagnate in the mire of your bitterne--"

"THERE HE IS!!! GET HIM!! DO YOU HEAR ME?! KILL -- er -- GET HIM!!" shouted a snobbish, drawling voice. Cloak did not know the owner, but just by the way he spoke, he knew he wasn't gonna like him. "AVENGE MY BIRTHDAY PORSCHE!!"

Cloak turned and glanced out of his left eye at the rather stubby teenager who clearly has never known a day's hard labor, much less an hour. Cloak really didn't like those 1% moochers, like this boy or, presumably, his parents. He most certainly has an ego problem.

"Do as I say, peasant!"

Cloak narrowed his eyes at the rich boy, and flicked his wrist in a go away gesture, which sent out a gust of wind (which he sent out deliberately) which was forcefull enough to cause the pathetic rich boy to fall on his keister in a rather humiliating way. After this distraction, Cloak turned his attention back to Oliver to duscover that he was trying to use the distraction to escape and continue his rampage.

"Get back over here!" Cloak exclaimed, now his sense trained on catching Rusy Oliver. He was a deer being pursued by a tiger. Cloak inevitably caught up with him, and overtook him.

"You won't kill me," he said.

"No one said anything about killing you. You're jumping to conclusions -- and it's a little early in the battle to come down to that." Cloak said.

"Then you'll let me go?" Rusty asked naively.

"Who said anything about that?" Cloak said, coldly. "You endangered lives with that scaffolding. You very well may have caused a dual murder. You must be held accountable for your actions, Oliver! You cannot get off scot-free for such things, Rusty."

"I -- I didn't do anything wrong," he said.

Cloak eyed Rusty curiously. He was acting meek again, not laughing like a megalomaniacal psychopath. Something was not on the up and up here. . . . Cloak was suspecting that Rusty may have a touch of bipolar, but hhe didn't know enough about it to be completely su--

"Die!" Rusty cried all of a sudden, making the meekness he appeared to suffer seem like nothing but a cruel ruse. Rusty fired the corroder, not at Cloak, but at the fire escape above him. But it was stable enough not to immediate collapse, giving Cloak enough time to devise a way to prevent any bystander casualties.

Cloak had managed to deal with that problem, but he really got fed up with this guy. Even Rusty's lame disguise had deteriorated, and his face -- looking like an older Rupert Grint merged with David Tennent -- was exposed. The Realm Walker was really getting P.o.'d about this.

Cloak reached out and and felt the metal within the corroder itself, and he crumbled it like tinfoil. The corroder was gone and useless now. But yet, it gave Cloak an uneasy, unsettled feeling -- it was too easy, Rusty's reaction too calm and dismissive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 03, 2014, 10:37:41 PM

The microwave has stuck through though. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 04, 2014, 07:00:58 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Oh, Wonderful!

Cloak was immediate suspicious. It could have been simply his paranoia or his jaded disposition, but something about Rusty Oliver taking it this well . . . too well.

"Oh no," Rusty said, unconvincingly, "my corroder."

Cloak narrowed his eyes, his body still as a hunting tiger. His tail tip twitched and flicked, as his gaze remained on Rusty Oliver. Cloak didn't buy it. He knew Rusty had something else up his sleeve, possibly another corroder. But there information told them that there was only one corroder.

And yet . . . Rusy's cavalier attitude seemed to suggest something else. Like he had something else planned, like --

"First Light." Cloak said. "You have another corroder, don't you, Oliver?"

Rusty smiled maliciously, as he pulled out a narrow-barrelled pistol rather like a handgun-sized "Noisy Cricket" from "Men in Black". "Oh, no, pally. Sadly, that is gone. But I'm not so stupid to have a single weapon. Meet the atomic disorganizer, or a.d., for short."

"Atomic disorganizer, eh?" Cloak said. Cloak had an idea what it did, but he didn't know if it was relegated to just metal, or not. He knew that it was a dangerous item, much too dangerous, especially in Oliver's undtable hands.

He leveled it at Cloak, who wasn't sure he could redirect the blast, because he could already feel the energy that it generated was different. Oliver fired the blast, and it wasn't as massive as you would think. A pinprick light blue spark of energy flew from the gun, with such remarkable speed that even Cloak didn't have the reaction time to dodge.

But, then again, Cloak wasn't even the target.

The spark of energy went within a nearby parked Prius a very ugly shade of lime green, and the metal within it, instead of rusting, melted into a molten, gelatinous goo. Fortunately, the car was unoccupied. Cloak looked round at Oliver, who wore a look of insane ecstasy. Cloak was not so much as disgusted as he was unable to fathom this human's thought processes.

How can such destruction, such mayhem, such chaos be so desirable to anyone? Even Malice would have some reservations about this . . . or have more finesse about it. But she didn't do anything that she didn't find entertaining, as screwed up as her sense of entertainment was. How could anyone find what Rusty was doing entertaining.

A second shot, a second car.

Rusty was close to laughing in a crazily giddy manner, like a little kid pulling what they consider a masterful prank that no one else considers funny.

"What," Cloak said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice, "is wrong with you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 04, 2014, 07:10:33 AM

I don't think Malice had anything to do with this guy?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2014, 07:23:36 AM

Nope. Malice won't be showing up for a while yet.

Sorry for not posting any new chapters, other than the one, yesterday. My friend let me borrow his Gameboy Color to play Pokemon TCG for GB, and it's proven rather addictive.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Reinforcements

Another blast. Bye-bye, parked SUV.

"Oh, this'll be great PR, right here, " Cloak grumbled.

He couldn't even ferrokinetically crush the blasted thing. As far as he could tell, it was solely made of durable plastic, not the cheap stuff. Cloak wasn't sure how he could get the weapon without harming the psychotic man. But there was looking like there was little option.

"Whoa, what'd we miss?" Gaz said, seeing the congealed slag that were cars moments before. Shadow, Gaz, Laserbeak, Dino, Blaze, Blue, and Underseen had come as reinforcements. Cloak, despite himself, rankled at the perceived implication that he could not handle someone like Oliver by himself.

Then again, Oliver did turn three cars into molten jello before they arrived. . . .

"Oliver has a thing against cars," Cloak said. He was unable to keep his hurt pride from his voice, but no one called him out on it. After all, they weren't as obnoxious as Rotiart. "Don't ask me why."

Suddenly, a spark shot from the gun -- the "gooifier", as Oliver had called it -- barely cleared Cloak's right shoulder and neck. It hit the brick of the building several feet behind him. Since it wasn't metal, it wasn't affected.

"Oh, yeah, it only affects metal, apparently." Cloak said.

"Metal? Laserbeak, go back to the forum." Gaz said, at once. But Laserbeak squawked in protest. "NOW, Beaky!"

The Cybertronian bird didn't like this one bit, and squawked obstinately.

"This isn't up for debate!" Gaz said, firmly. "Now, GO!!"

Laserbeak didn't go without a fight, and he did not go willingly. Of course, this made him a target . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 05, 2014, 11:22:29 AM

Noooooooo!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2014, 08:33:00 PM

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Saffa. Nothing's happened to Laserbeak. Yet.

Anyway, new book ideas!!

• Book DV: "Echidna's Children" -- The RAFians must face Echidna's most recent brood.
• Book DVI: "Typhoeus's Tantrum" -- Typhoeus goes on a rampage, and guess who has to stop the mega-giant?
• Book DVII: "Land Grab" -- An oligarchy tries to seize RAFian land. This leaves them with only one peaceful option.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything. Remember, titles are, as always, subject to change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Loss

Oliver watched the robotic bird began to fly away, and a devilish smile of pure maliciousness flited across his face. He took the gun and took aim, then fired it, in one fluid movement. His aim was dead on. If it connected, Laserbeak would be a gelatinous slag -- at least all the metal components.

And it would have connected, were it not for Blaze.

He had took flight, unsheathed the very sword (the blade of which glowed green with a hint of red) that Cloak had given him (and of which Blaze was so partial). Blaze had gotten faster than he was during the whole Richard's Horn episode, which was satisfying, actually. He managed to intercept the blast with the sword, which he deflect to the tip of the blade.

"Too bad," Blaze said, a gloating smile beginning to blossom upon his face. Then his sword felt inexplicably light. Too light. He looked down and was heart broken to see that the blade of his sword was . . . was dripping! The blade didn't exist anymore, and held just and empty hilt. There was smoke of an indescribable, unnatural color curling away from the spot were the sword's blade and its hilt met. Blaze cherished the sword because it fit him to a tee, it was part of his identity, and now it was gone -- mostly. "M-m-my sword . . . it w-was Walker tech, though. How --?"

"The tech wasn't the sword itself," Cloak said. "The tech was imbued in the metal, which is now swiftly evaporating away from it."

"B-but my . . ." Blaze said, his voice sounded like a glass smashed from the top of a forty-story building.

"Gone," Cloak said, as understanding as he could, given the circumstances.

"I-It can't be."

Great. Blaze was in denial. They really didn't have time for this, as Rusty had recovered and was eyeing Laserbeak, who did not listen to Gaz fully and was circling about a mile above. That Cybertronian bird was just too overprotective of Gaz. He freely ignored that he himself was in far more danger than Gaz was.

"BEAKY!!! LASERBEAK! You must go back! You must!!" Gaz impored. "You are in DANGER here, Beaky!!"

Suddenly it was like a vacuum had simultaneously sucked out all the sound, and everything was slowed down to the point that every microsecond was a minute long. It seemed like someone decided to go through this whole thing frame-by-frame.

Rusty took aim again and shot before anyone, even Cloak, could react, having been distracted by Blaze's denial of his wrecked sword. The pulse of light, the the small burst of light blue energy, was already in flight, accelerating towards its intended target.

"BEAKY, LOOK OUT!!!" Gaz shrieked with a heartwrenching scream.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 05, 2014, 11:09:07 PM

*eats fingernails*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2014, 05:28:34 AM

Yeah, there's gonna be more of that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Beaky Comes Out Ahead

The shot hit its mark.

"BEAKY!!!!" Gaz shrieked like a wounded animal.

Blaze had tried to fly to intercept, but he had reacted to slowly. He had managed to catch the avian Cybertronian's head, which did not suffer the fate of his body, having detatched somehow. But Laserbeak's body was molten, gelatinous slag now. He was in serious condition.

But he was not dead.

He still lived throuh his head alone. Mechanical beings tend to be resilient like that. But Gaz didn't realize this. She thought Laserbeak was dead, as she collapsed to her knees and cried openly. Her body wracked with each convulsive sob.

But it didn't take long for that grief and espair she felt to putrify into open hostility and burning hatred for Rusty Oliver. Cloak easily recognized this, and even he could barely hold her back, from tearing at the human with her bare hands. Somehow her face narrowed, her fangs became more prominent and there was something of a red glow in her eyes. Cloak swore silently that this was like the Buffyverse -- which he actually briefly visited once or twice.

"Gaz --"

"Get out of my way, Cloak!!" Gaz snarled. It sounded rather inhuman to Cloak's feline sensibilities, but he was not frightened or intimidated. "That . . . that . . . that MONSTER killed my beloved Beaky! I'll kill him!!"

Rusty had enough sense to get out of dodge, which infuriated Gaz all the more.

"LEMME GO, CLOAK!!! LEMME GO!!!" Gaz shrieked hysterically. "HE'S GETTING AWAY!!! HE KILLED BEAKY, AND HE'S GETTING AWAY!!!"

"He didn't kill Laserbeak," Blaze said. He resisted making an "ahead" joke, as it would be tactless to Gaz's obvious emotional distress. "His head survives."

"Shadow, Blaze. Take Gaz and -- and Laserbeak back to the forum. The rest of us will find Rusty." Cloak said, decisively. He bent over and whispered to neice, "Watch over her."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 06, 2014, 02:50:57 PM

My baby!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 06, 2014, 03:05:08 PM

:'( :'(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2014, 07:23:00 PM

Hey, overprotectiveness isn't always a good thing.

I may have to revise an earlier statement, as I overlooked something in the upcoming chapters that I denied before.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
We Can Rebuild Him

As the three left, with Gaz gently cradling Laserbeaks's head in her hands, Cloak and the others started to the furious search for Rusty in earnest. This had to end. It had to end, and end now.

He could not escape Dino's notice, and Dino coukd be intimidating without even trying, being a dinosaur. And he could easily be noticed by Cloak, Underseen, and Blue without him being the wiser. Blue's ninja training was basically based around the very idea of seeing without being seen. Underseen's shapeshifting and his sheer prowess at the ability made every sparrow, rat, and ****roach a possible betrayer. Cloak's Earthsight is unescapable in a city -- at least, before rush hour.

There was no escape for Rusty, and one would think that he'd have enough sense to NOT call attention to himself. But, for some reason, this didn't seem to occur to him, as he decided that as soon as he was out of immediate danger, to go back to carving out another swarth of destruction. Liquefying metal left, right, and center.

"What is wrong with him?" Dino wondered aloud, as the RAFians closed in, as Rusty continued his demented lust for destruction.

Cloak suddenly wondered . . .

***

"Don't worry, Gaz." Yarin said. "We successfully made a de-corroder, and we most xertainly can rebuild Laserbeak. Stronger, faster, with a brand new array of armaments."

Gaz was unresponsive. She was emotionally drained. She still felt numb, though not really depressed. Shadow stayed by her side, offering her the support that only Shadow could. But the young Elements Master's jokes and consoling only had a marginal effect, if anything.

"Gaz . . . ?" Aquilai inquired gently, greatly concerned.

"She'll be fine," Shadow said, with a confidence that her uncle would envy. "All she needs is time. Get Laserbeak up and in picture-perfect health, and she should come around. She's still convinced that he's dead."

"But his spark of life is still intact," Goom said, wearing horn-rimmed glassess for some reason. "Which, given what you told us, is remarkable in and of itself. Laserbeak has an amazing will to survive, despite such grievous injuries."

"I'm of the school of thought it is because of his bond to Gaz," Aquilai said, thoughtfully. "Theirs is one of the strongests bonds imaginable."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 06, 2014, 08:36:56 PM

Me acting like that cuz of a pet or something isn't outside the realm of possibility. I could totally see myself acting that way. The addition of vampire powers could be dangerous. lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2014, 09:57:17 PM

That's true of anyone who's ever owned a pet, I think, Gaz. The last two cats I had were ripped away from me brutally by death. But I digress.

Anyway, I've planned out thirteen chapters of Book CCCLIV ("Shoggoth and Papa").

New chapter. Shortish.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Swift Takedown

There he was, laughing like a maniac. There was assuredly something wrong with him. He was completely out of his mind one minute (like now), and lucid the next. He was blasting everything metal all willy-nilly, and all the time, wearing this big lunatic grin on his face, almost as if he was infected by the Joker's Joker Gas. It was little wonder why Cannon refused Oliver's designs, and did not trust the puny little man that much.

It was also strange how he never seemed to run out of ammo or fuel or whatever for the pistol took. It seemed to have a tireless, inexhaustible resource of ammo, but that really didn't make sense, if you considered the laws of physics and everything. But, then again, this was a universe that had vampires, wereferrets, and talking seals. And a rabid, giant Pikachu of questionable origin, as well.

Rusty turned to find another target to fire the gun at, only to have a "Destructo Disc"-like disc slice the barrel from its handle. The disc was a golden-scarlet. This took the psychopath by surprise, and put him at a distinct disadvantage. He looked around for the barrel, and found it a few feet away, and reached for it.

But immediately recoiled from it when a water moccasin slithered between the two, and hissed at him threateningly. Of course, Rusty didn't notice the blue "R" marking this snake had towards the end of his tail. The snake continued to hiss at him in a thoroughly uncharacteristic way.

But the barrell had disappeared in the darkness, by a figure who's form was distorted by the shadows. Rusty loses track of what happened to it, before discovering it in the threshold of an alleyway. He quickly crossed to it, only to watch as a three-digited reptilian foot slammed down, crushing the device beyond repair. The threat it posed was over.

The RAFians came into view, with Underseen only losing the serpentine aspects of the form he had assumed, and resuming his base form, though it may not have been his true form. Cloak had never remembered to ask.

The Realm Walker eyed the psychopath warily. He knew that Rusty had something else up his sleeve, as he was not acting.as a defeated man should. He was acting like a man who still had not played his ace yet.

"He should be searched," Underseen said, "we don't need any -- uh, what's he doing?"

"Oh, Gateburst," Cloak moaned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 06, 2014, 11:23:16 PM

Is he bipolar or something?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2014, 01:32:26 PM

More like increasing, advancing mental instability.

New chapter. Shortish, sorry.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Gauntlet Games

In their momentary distraction, believing all this nonsense was done, Rusty had donned some sort of weird gauntlet that superficially resembled Thanos's Infinity Gauntlet, only obsidian black, smaller, and worn on his right hand. There white studs where Thanos would have fitted the Infinity Gems, back when they existed.

"Oh, great. What does this one do?" Dino said, warily exasperated.

"Die!" Rusty shouted, looking quite insane. He held out his gauntlet-bearing hand, fingers splayed out, and a panel in the center of his palm opened to reveal an electronic "eye" of sorts. It fireda pink beam with another spiraling around the straight beam. It made a sound like the firing of the Medi-laser from the old "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon. Something like a rapid "zu-zu-zu-zu-zu-zu". Cloak smacked the beam away, as if it was a pesky mosquito. The asphalt was hit, but wasn't affected at all by the beam.

"Another device that affects metal, and only metal right?" the wary Realm Walker said. "Well, you're out of luck then. We aren't made of metal."

"You will die!" he claimed, with a psychotic laugh. It appeared that he wasn't really all that aware of reality truths anymore. Cloak was actually saddened by this obvious deterioration of Rusty Oliver's mental state. "You will DIIIIIIIIIE!"

"He . . . he did hear you, right?" Blue said, thoroughly perplexed.

"His sense of reality has been shattered somehow," Cloak guessed, as Dino easily blocked his aim of all metallic objects. She only missed once, and that trashcan was reduced to metal shavings.

Something Cloak found that he could undo with only moderate difficulty, due to his ferrokinesis. It wasn't identical to what it was before, but it was back to being a serviceable trashcan again, if not actually cleaner than before.

Rusty seemed to not notice that Dino was usuaing her considerable size to block his every shot. The beam didn't even warm her scaly hide. Yes, upon her rather intimidating face was a look of genuine concern. Rusty was obviously not in control of himself at the moment, and it seemed like he was deteriorating at indeterminate intervals. Surely there was some kind of medication for this.

But there was no time to worry about that now. Rusty still posed a significant danger to everyone else. They could not permit him to continue with his path of destruction. They were just remarably lucky that no one had been killed, though three of their number had come awfully close. Too close.

But Rusty would not come willingly, or stop of his own violation. There may be little recourse, little option, of what must be done.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2014, 08:53:55 PM

Okay, there is a slim chance that this book might be nineteen chapters long.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Ethical Choice?

"We need to end this," Cloak said seriously. "We . . . I may have to take . . . permanent measures. . . ."

"Cloak, it may not come down to that," Underseen said.

"First thing's first," Blue said, practically and pragmatically. "We need to disarm him of that gauntlet."

"We need to immobilize him, first." Cloak said.

"And soon!" Dino complained, still blocking the shots, though not really needing to move all that much. Dino wore a look of annoyance. "This has crossed the border into being real annoying!!"

Cloak trained his eyes on Rusty, and then the Elements Master terrakinetically forced up three slabs of earth around Rusty, pinioning his upper arms to his sides, allowing Blue to deftly and silently pluck the gauntlet off Rusty's hand. But Rusty was so far gone that he didn't even seem to notice. He seemed to lose all lucidity, consumed with delusions and hallucinations. It was as if he was post-Hundred Year War Azula, minus the firebending and cunning.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration.

"What do we do with this?" Blue asked. "I don't know what it's made of, but it doesn't appear to have any metal on it."

Cloak examined it, a bit surprised at the complexity of it. It was fabric, but woven from duraplastic strands. It almost looked hand-woven, too. Cloak looked around at Rusty, wondering if he was truly insane, or a truly gifted actor. Or something else at play that Cloak had not thought of.

He wondered again if he should make a, ah, permanent solution to this problem. The more he thought about, the more he realized he wouldn't be able to do it. It wasn't Rusty's fault that his mind was shattered like this, as Cloak realized if he was being less than genuine, he'd know. People cannot control there bodies to that degree, unless they are uniquely gifted actors, or beings of amorphous composition, like Limax, Polymorphs, Sludgepuppies and the like.

Cloak looked over at Rusty, still yelling and making generally incoherent noises, and he wondered if he was truly human. But . . . there'd be telltale signs if he was not who he said he was. If he was a Polymorph, he would have a floating saucer over his flhead, and Cloak was sure they couldn't mimic the shapes of others like Sludgepuppies and Limax. And if he was any of those species Cloak wouldn't have been able to restrain him in the way that he had.

So he was human. And he was crazy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 08, 2014, 12:03:05 AM

Great. Now what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2014, 04:38:37 PM

. . . Sorry, still feeling a little down. I need to write a little.

New chapter. Still two more to go. I think I can make twenty out of this.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Committed

Rusty was swiftly searched and found to not have any other invention, or anything that could conceivably be one. He was clean in that regard. But it was clear that his mind deteriorated beyond repair -- although Cloak hoped this appraising assumption was wrong.

The RAFians had arranged for Rusty to be picked up and put in a mental health facility -- oh, let's just call it what it is, an insane asylum. The RAFians had assured that the place was top-notch and exquisitely cleaned. He would get help there by mental health professionals and experts.

Cloak watched as Rusty was "helped" into a straitjacket and "escorted" into the back of "posh" van. The Realm Walker wondered . . . wondered if the guy could truly be rehabilitated. He hoped so. He hoped that Rusty could become a functioning member of society again.

He hoped.

***

"Well," came a voice, who was watching all this go down. "That resolved itself quicker than I had anticipated."

From the darkness of her new hideout, Malice stepped into the dappled light of the setting sun. Her hand was closed over something. Something that rattled when she moved her hand, but the semidarkness obscured what object this possibly was.

"I had expected this to stymie them for at least a few days. Maybe a couple of weeks, even." she said, speaking to an unresponsive Mauler. "This is . . . this is rather troubling, actually. I need another distraction. I need another venue to detract attention from my true plans."

Malice paced this way and that, pondering a diversionary, discretionary detractor. Something to occupy Cloak and his pet RAFians so they could not even think to interfere with her plan, her current goal. She would not let them spoil her fun this time.

Her fun. Fun.

It gave Malice an insideous idea. She smiled a smile to match her name, as she unwittingly dropped the rattling object in her hand. It was a single bottle of prescription pills, completely full. Antipsychotics. The name on the label was Rusty's.

Fun. Malice though again. It is about time that he got some . . . playmates.

Malice's cackles echoed ominously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2014, 08:58:50 PM

Still one more chapter go after this one.

My aunt is taking me out to celebrate my birthday tomorrow, after I get off at three (after going in at seven). I dunno if I can post a chapter then.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
New Life

A couple of days had passed since Rusy was committed and Cloak still questioned himself on the decision that he made. Was it the most humane decision? And who was he to make such a decision? Did he have any right? He was an outsider to this realm, though he had adopted it as his home. Did that give him any right?

As Cloak mulled this over his mind, he looked up. There he saw something that wiped those dark thoughts from his mind, as he couldn't help but smile at the sight of two creatures in joyous flight.

A bat and a bird, commiting to estatic barrel rolls and perilous dives. This flight eventually ended as Gaz landed, resuming her vampiric human form. Laserbeak, looking far better than fit as fiddle. Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin were true to their word, as they did rebuild Beaky. But, while his personality remained the same (albeit with better sense than before), his body was capable of much more. He had several more uses as he could transform into more things, thanks to a little Galvanic Mechmorph tech. He keep his primary form as a parrot -- a scarlet macaw, to be precise -- and his blaster transformation. He gained additional transformations into a simple camera, a claymore-type sword, and a shield like one wielded by a Spartan -- that is, an actual Spartan (as in someone from Sparta) and not a SPARTAN, like Parker.

Gaz wasn't all that fussed about the new features, to be honest. She was just glad her precious Beaky was okay. And it was remarkable how resilient the Cybertronian parrot was. That was a tough ordeal for anyone, mechanical or not, to go through. But to survive and bounce back like Laserbeak did, it was truly awe-inspiring.

Cloak could not help but smile, and it was a smile that he could not stow away and hide. Gaz's bond with Laserbeak had, if anything, gotten stronger. And yet, why did it fill the Realm Walker with a sort of wistful contemplation? Why did Cloak have this sense of foreboding? It did not make sense.

***

It turns out that what Cloak was sensing had nothing to do with Gaz and Laserbeak.

He sensed a duo of items that can be easily overlooked. It was a pair of dice, but, despite what may have been assumed, they were on seperate sides of the forum, and they were both on the one side up. The small, black indentation denoting the numerical value of one was in actuality a camera lens.

The RAFians were being watched. But for reasons unknown.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 09, 2014, 01:10:03 AM

Is this the last chapter or...?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2014, 04:34:02 AM

No. There is still one more.

:edit: My aunt is taking me out to celebrate my birthday tonight, after I get off at three (after going in at seven). I dunno if I can post a chapter then.

New chapter. Last chapter. Shortish.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Pestilential Persistence

"Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
RAFian power!
They're the world's most fearsome fighting team.(We're really hip!)
They're heroes, however, they're insane. (Hey - get a grip!)
When the evil Malice attacks,
These Forum nuts don't cut her no slack!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Faerie and Horse took all their sanity -- (Hey, give that back!)
Richard leads, Yarin makes machines, (That's a fact, Jack!)
Faerie is cool but rude, (Gimme a break!)
SuperNate is a RAF party dude! (Party!)
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
RAFian power!"

"Abby, seriously. Give it up." Cloak said.

"Never!" Abby said, in a deliberately overdramatically.

"It's never gonna happen," Cloak said. "Any studio would royally screw up it worse than 'Dragonball Evolution'."

***

In a dark room, a man was watching this, hidden in silhouette. He was humming the song to himself, too. It was strange, too. His head looked too big for his slim and slender build, and he wore a jester's hat, whose three points ended in bells. Even his curly shoes in ended in bells. He wore a ruff collar around his neck, a poofy blue shirt with lighter blue polka dots, bright yellow poofy shorts, and blue lycra tights. The only part of him that was uncovered were his hands.

"Excuse me," came a voice.

"How'd you get in here?" the man said. His mouth didn't move, and when he turned around his head was in silhouette. But it was clear that his head wasn't his his true head. For some odd reason he was wearing a mascot head whose face looked similar to that Cherifer boy's mascot head.

"Toyman," Malice's voice came like poisoned honey, "I presume?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 09, 2014, 06:28:14 AM

A great book, as always. And the PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2014, 07:26:15 PM

Thanks, but a complication has arose. My neighbor is moving away, and my internet will be shut off soon. So I won't be able post as frequently.

:edit: But I'll post as often as I can.

New chapter. Sorry for the brevity.
 

BOOK LXXVIII:
THE TOYMAN COMETH
CHAPTER ONE:
Young Dolls

It was a day or two since the whole Rusty deal, and everyone learned that you simply do not discuss him -- or so much as mention his name -- in Gaz's presence, lest whatever she's holding get balled up or broken or otherwise trashed as Gaz's anger was terrible. She didn't care that he was innocent by reason of insanity. He almost killed Beaky. That's all that mattered to her. It was black-and-white thinking, but she didn't care. Someone had to be held accountable for his actions. It was unfair, but Gaz was set against it.
 
Anyway, someone delivered several packages large enough that they could hold a man of average build, height and weight. Cloak counted eight packages, and the sender was addressed as "Jack 'Crackerjack' Napier". This alone was sufficient to cause Cloak suspicion, as it sounded too much like a pseudonym.
 
The wrappings were eventually torn away, and the boxes opened. Within were life-sized RAFian dolls. There were ones of Gaz, Phoenix, Rotiart, Parker, Terenia, Cloaky, Azzy, and Saffa. There didn't appear to be any more.
 
Cloak was leery of the things, these doll effigies. He knew there was more to them, as his mastery over metal allowed him to detect the metal endoskeletons beneath the doll veneer. Although the dolls appeared to be very realistic to the naked eye, careful and close observation would have said otherwise.
 
But the thing that puzzled him the most was that in their . . . their posteriors . . . contained what apparently four-slice toasters*. Was that a joke? If it was, it wasn't a very good or tactful one. Cloak . . . well, he decided not to point this out to anyone else.

"Oh, they're animatronic?" Parker said, as the dolls seemed to right themselves and introduce themselves as the RAFians themselves, though in a very odd way, twisting their heads and blinking rapidly with stupid smiles on their faces. Cloak found this most displeasing on the Cloak "doll", who's manufacturer seemed to think he was some sort of vulpine lizard thing. Cloak couldn't help but wonder if it was supposed to be a deliberate insult.

But the Realm Walker didn't trust these dolls, these automatons. It was far too suspicious, and there was no reason for the RAFians to receive gifts. In all the time that they've done what they've done, they've never received a gift that didn't turn around and bite them in the butt.

<I feel that we've been here before,> Shorty said, <have we been here?>

---

*Reference where the origin of this opening chapter came from -- "Mr. Roboto 2.0" episode of "Mr. Young".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2014, 05:29:21 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Replacement Fail

"Hello, everyone!" they spoke in unison.

<Oh my God, this is happening again,> Shorty said.

"We're hear to send a message from the Handsome Genius known as the Toy--"

"Cloak, what are you waiting for?" Parker said.

"The message," Cloak said. "Could be important. They're not going anywhere. They have metal endoskeletons."

"Too late." Saffa noted. Then her brow creased in perplexity as she watched the dolls turn and present their backsides to them. "Uh, what are they doing?"

"Uh, don't ask," Cloak said, swiftly mechbending them (he would hate himself later for it).

"Tell me," Saffa insisted.

"You don't want to know," Cloak said. Cloak was ferrokinetically twisting and warping the metal endoskeleton. The dolls plastic exteriors warped and twisted as well. It was rather disturbing to see.

"Will you stop that?" Dino said. "It's repugnant."

"The metal is more durable than I thought," Cloak said. "I underestimated them."

Within moments afterward, they were obliterated. Cloak took no satisfaction in it.

***

Toyman had used the dolls' eyes as cameras, which allowed him to view everything that happened. He still wore the same outfit that he wore when Malice came to him. Even the mascot head, for some reason known only to him himself. He tapped his chin -- or rather the mascot head's chin -- and his body language indicticated a pensive mood.

"Rather quick on the draw, these RAFians," Toyman said. His face was inscrutable -- as it was a mascot head (one of the old-school ones, not the one that has shutting eyes and moving mouths that you see nowadays in a few places). "Oh, what fun! I just have think of more toys to give them!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 10, 2014, 10:52:07 PM

Whoa, modify-post syndrome meant I missed the beginning of the book. Well, got there!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2014, 05:53:14 AM

Ah.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Trickets? Oh, Killer!

Parker was cleaning and doing daily maintenance on his armor. It wasn't really necessary, but it was something that he did when he was bored. He cherished his armor and associated weaponry, and constant maintenance and upkeep was paramount to Parker, whether it was truly necessary or not.

"Ssssssssssew!"

A pinprick of red light seared the area to Parker's left. Parker deftly donned his armor and rolled out of the way of a second shot. He scanned the area looking for his attacker, his would-be assassin.

There were three toy spacemen floatting around his room. Parker wondered idly how they got in here. The three fired their lasers, and they didn't even make a dent in his arm. He didn't even flinch. Parker supposed there was a limit the the amount of the power that could be put into these things, with their stupid toy veneers.

"Get out," Parker growled, pulling out his energy sword.

***

"What the hell is this?" Underseen said, groggily.

Underseen was battling what appeared to be killer silly putty. Underseen wasn't sure if it was a statement of the nature of his abilities. The silly putty did not deign an answer. But it was giving Underseen a run for his money as Underseen was feeling sluggish and sleepy, as the putty attacked him as he was taking a little cat nap (as a cat, no less).

"You can't talk, can you?" Underseen said, waking up a bit.

The silly putty slithered back over to Underseen, who assumed the form of a Vaxasaurian and punched it. It didn't work, but then Underseen shapeshifted his right hand into a Petrosapien crystal one, then further into a blade made of Petrosapien crystal. Then he tried to slash at the silly putty.

"This isn't working," Underseen said, reassuming his base form. Underseen's mind fully wakened now, as he put it to work. "I need to dissolve it."

He looked at the lake, and smiled. "I have an idea."

***

Bear yawned. The doll incident was pretty much a non-issue to him, and ever since it was a lazy day. He had hold himself into a little grove, a little covered area that had a very nice view of the lake and the auditorium in the distance.

"I wuv you!" came a statickly, cutesy, robotic voice. A teddy bear toddled into view on its stubby legs.

Bear had time to think, What?, before the saccharinely-toddling teddy bear toppled over. Normally, it would not be any big deal. But when the teddy bears are explosive . . .

Bear survived, but was even more confused.

"I wuv you!" came another voice.

Oh no, Bear thought.

"I wuv you!"

"I wuv you!" came another voice.

Who would think explosive teddy bears are fun? Bear thought.

BOOM! BOOM!

And now my fur's a mess, Bear said, unaware of just how he survived. How did these things get through Code Avalon?

***

More and more RAfians have had similar experiences, and they were dealt with swiftly. But no one -- with a possible exception of Demos, due to his masochistic demonic inclinations -- found the toys very enjoyable.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 11, 2014, 06:51:23 AM

One of the more annoying missions. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2014, 09:37:19 PM

Oh, you have no idea, Saffa. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Demand For a Product Recall

Naturally, after such things happened -- inside the forum itself, no less -- a meeting was in order. The RAFians assembled, and the RAFians compared notes.

In addition to Bear, Underseen, and Parker's ordeals, the other had their own encounters. Horse had to deal with a peculiar Pikachu doll with a hankering for seal flesh (which she insisted wasn't funny). Bladeh had to deal with a bouncing ball that just so happened to be, you know, explosive. Gaz had to deal with a toy robot with real lasers and blasters. Helen had to deal with some constricting Play-Doh. Saffa had to deal with a jumprope with some serpentine tendencies. Cloak was pestered by seemingly sentiet building blocks, which he, at first, assumed was a Segmentsapien.

Only Rotiart seemed to get off Scot free. Something that earned him the ire of a lot of other RAFians.

"Okay," Richard said. "Alright, settle down. Let's get the bases covered."

One by one, each RAFians spoke their piece about the gimmicky, toy-themed attack they encountered and suffered. All this came from no where.

"Okay," Richard said, pensively, after everyone said their piece. "This question now is what do we do about it."

"And," Cloak added, "how they bypassed Code Avalon."

"If I had to hazard a guess," Aquilai said, thoughtfully, "I would guess that due to their normally-perceived harmless toy forms hookwinked Code Avalon into believing that they were harmless. The Code Avalon system that is up and running endlessly is Code Avalon in its barebones package."

"Too right," Goom nodded. "The higher functions are activated when a prudent danger presents itself."

"Don't you have activate it manually?" Saffa asked.

"In most cases, yes." Yarin said. "But it has to be this way, becuase of the sheer power it demands in its most efficacious state."

"That sounds like a serious liability," Helen said.

"If you have a better way," Yarin said, unable to hide the defensiveness in his infliction, "I would love to hear it, Star Sapphire."

Before Helen could reply, a commotion was made as some strange somethings toddled upon the stage. They looked like the unholy offspring from the Teletubbies and Furbies. From what Cloak could see there were several, each a different color -- one was green and red, another was blue and red, another was solid yellow, one was golden yellow and silvery gray, one was a strange glittering crystal color, another was ruby red and sapphire blue, one was emerald green, another was fiery red and forest green, another was white (though its was actually translucent fur), one was pearly white, one was platinum blonde, and two were black and white.

"Oh, what now?" Gaz sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 12, 2014, 01:31:22 AM

Unholy offspring is right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2014, 05:22:15 AM

And you're about to see their purpose.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Interruption Interrogation

The three-foot abominations had a metal silver rectangle each on their abdomen. They have horns on their head that looked like upright cuneiform characters. Their faces were bare, inhumanly smooth, cream-colored slabs of plastic with big expressful eyes, bat-like ears, and a Teletubby overbite. They had Furby fur, bare arms, mitten-like thick hands, and stubby legs with two-toed feet.

"Those things are hideous," Saffa said.

The Teletubby/Furby toy abominations separated into two lines, and their belly rectangles lit up. Then the projected from them, and where the beams intersected, an image formed. It was just a lump of light at first, before the image became more and more defined as a three-dimentional hologram. Of course, that wasn't the strangest part.

It was a thin, slightly svelte man in a polka-dotted poofy shirt, poofy pants, lycra tights, a tutu-like ruff around his neck, curled elf shoes with bells on the toes. He also wore a mascot head similar to the mascot of the Cherifer boy, with a three-pointed jester hat with each point ending in a bell. Only his hands were bare.

"And I thought Rusty's --" Dino began.

"Don't say that name!" Gaz hissed.

"And I thought the corroder-guy's Shredder motif was bad," Dino said, reluctantly amending her statement.

"I wonder if this is a just a prerecorded message or two-way communication," Yarin said, rubbing his chin with his lower right hand as his top set of arms were folded.

"Why, it's two-way communication!" the Toyman said, exuberantly. "I am the Toyman."

"Gee, I never would have guessed," Cloak said.

"I hope you've enjoyed my toys," Toyman said, and there was subtle edge to his voice. Cloak wasn't sure anyone else caught it. "I hereby invite you to my toyroom. Here are the coordinates."

Silence met these words.

"And if we refuse?" Parker asked.

Toyman quickly refuted this, "Oh, you won't refuse."

There was no mistaking the threat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2014, 08:58:08 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
The Play Date

"Remind me," Sakki was saying, "why are we doing this again?"

"Would you rather Toyman find someone else to . . . eh, play with?" Parker said.

"And with someone innocent." Cloak added morosely. "We cannot in good conscience do that. You know how dangerous Toyman's 'toys' are, and what his idea of 'playing' is."

"Oh, you had to play the 'being noble' card," Sakki grumbled.

She, Parker, Cloak, Guy, KitsuneMarie, Underseen, Mithril, Goom, Hunter, Horse, and Guy went to the coordinates. It was a rather larger mission party than most were accustomed to, but everything insofar was just peachy. It made Cloak suspicious and antsy.

"I don't like this," Goom said. "It feels like at any moment a plumber's shoe will decend upon my wittle head."

"Be prepared, guys," Parker said, cautiously. "Since we're such a large group, chances Toyman will either try to pick us off one-by-one or separate us from each other."

"Or both." Guy added.

They came upon a strange abandoned area. It was a desolate wasteland type of area, but beneath their feet was what appeared to be a hardwood floor. This was odd because their was no walls or ceiling, nor any sign of where they could be. Cloak's superstitious paranoia was basically hitting him over the head, telling him that something was most definitely off.

"This can't be right," Marie said, examining the hardwood floor.

"Oh, but it is perfectly alright!" said an exuberant voice, as if the speaker was expecting great fun. "Not as many of you came as I hoped. Busy?"

It was obvious who the speaker was.

"Something like that," Mithril said, noncommittally.

"Oh, well, then. There is still fun to be had!" Toyman said, his exuberant tone dampened somewhat. "Come on down!"

"What?" Underseen said.

"Oh no," Cloak said, recognizing and realizing what was going to happen a split second before it happened. Holes appeared beneath the RAFians' feet in a way so similar to the ones that appeared when they confronted SAL SOMNUS.

They slid along tubes, separated from each other, precisely as Parker had warned. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 12, 2014, 10:41:21 PM

Don't split up, they said...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2014, 05:16:39 AM

Yep.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Front Line

Hunter landed with a thud. He wasn't a cat, so he didn't land on his feet. The butt of one of his guns poked him until he righted himself and got up. He looked around, and saw nothing. Nothing but a large featureless room . . . no, wait. There were trenches on each side, the one closest to him was mere inches behind him.

His eyesight was really no better than humans. But his hearing and olfactory senses were far from subpar. He couldn't really smell anything, but he could hear slight clicks and whatnot. He didn't know what it could be.

Then Hunter caught a whiff of something. An unfamiliar scent.

"Let's play!" cried a voice with a childlike enthusiasm. Toyman, obviously. "I know just the game!"

Hunter saw several wooden soldiers, lined up in a rigid line. Almost like a firing squad. This was a game?

"Let's get started. You get the first shot," Toyman said.

Hunter raised an eyebrow. Was he serious?

"Go on, then," Toyman prodded.

Hunter took aim, and fired his gun. One of the wooden soldiers fell into a sparking mess. They were, in reality, automatons. Mindless robots at the Toyman's beck and call. This made things easier, as all qualms Hunter had about doing this evaporated and his lupine predatory instinct took over.

"Now it's my turn," Toyman said.

"Oh, I don't think so." Hunter said, deftly taking aim. He just began to tear through the likes of these pseudo-wooden soldiers, until he ran out of ammo. But he wasn't out of weaponry, though.

"NO, NO, NO!!! YOU'RE CHEATING!!! STOP IT!!! STOP IT!!! STOP IT!! PLAY BY THE RULES!!!" Toyman screeched, as Hunter resorted to tooth and claw. "STOP CHEATING!!!"

Soon, the ground was littered with the refuse, detritus, and debris of the soldiers of pseudo-wood. Hunter wiped his mouth, panting like a canine. His eyes were alight with steely determination.

"I don't play by your rules, Toyman." Hunter growled. "Let me go. Let me go and face me. Face us as a man."

No answer. Hunter wasn't surprised.

Hunter hunted out an exit, and managed to locate one because of the Toyman's stale scent on it. He pried the door open and deftly made his way out. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 13, 2014, 12:24:49 PM

Don't tell me this is the SAL SOMNUS trick again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2014, 08:45:44 PM

Yes. No. Maybe.

It's one of those options. ;)

Anyway, new book ideas!

• Book DVIII: "Slimebiote Complications" -- A Slimebiote (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Slimebiote) gives RAF some problems.
• Book DIX: "The Problem with Boy Bands" -- The RAFians must deal with adolescent aliens disguised as humans . . . and in a very successful boy band.
• Book DX: "A.P. in College" -- The RAFians must deal with a symbiotic transneural converter.
• Book DXI: "Vessel Trafficking" -- The RAFians must take on a most perverse human trafficking ring. But not the kind of trafficking reasons that you would expect. Questionable continuity.
• Book DXII: "A Need For Speed" -- The RAFians must deal with a literal speed demon.

Remember, all titles are subject to change. And I don't think that I rehashed anything.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em, Sakki

Sakki bumped down rather unceremoniously on her rump. The shoot which she tumbled through was nowhere in sight. She stood up, dusted herself off, before really taking in her environment. She was standing in a circle of light, like a spotlight, only without any discernible source. The ground was colored the color of faded blue jeans, only a solid color. The environment outside this circle of light was difficult to see, if not down right impossible.

Sakki looked around, seeing nothing but inky blackness in the void outside this disc of light in which she stood. She muttered, "Oh, great. What fresh hell awaits me now?"

"Welcome to the ring, my friend!" came to the exuberant voice Sakki hated already. Suddenly the light disc expanded to show a boxing ring slightly smaller than the "Super Smash" for the 3DS. On the other corner was a red, boxy robot, like a life-sized rock'em sock'em robot. "There is you opponent! The rules of the game are --"

Sakki wasn't listening. The Toyman was literally playing games with her. Literally!! The embarrassment, the humiliation, was palpable. It was unbearable. You don't play games like this with Sakki. She was forthright with such things too.

"I don't care!" Sakki snarled. "I am not your toy to do with whatever you please! Let me out of this cage!"

"I can't!" the Toyman said, joyously jubilant. Obviously, he was blatantly ignoring Sakki's hostility. "I cannot let you out --"

"The hell you can't!"

"-- unless you win the game!" Toyman said, without pause. "Now, let's get started, shall we?"

"Hey, wait a cotton-pickin' minute here, I didn't agree to -- whoa!"

Sakki had no choice as the robot came out swinging like Little Mac. Sakki had dodged each blow, not even wanting this fight. Eventually, Sakki got so fed up, she acquiesced to the Toyman's game and made short work of the robot, using her sonics to fry its circuitry.

"No fair! You cheated!!" Toyman complained.

"I DON'T CARE!!" Sakki roared. "GET ME THE HECK OUTTA HERE, YOU PATHETIC MANCHILD!!!"

But it turned out that she had to find her own way out. She wasn't much happy about it, leveling death threats toward the Toyman.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2014, 05:32:14 PM

Modify-post syndrome?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Life-or-Death Tag

Horse flopped down hard on the ground, and groaned. She didn't know if she had broke anything, but knew that she had the breath knocked out of her. It was a few moments before she caught it again.

She looked around, with her bright pinniped eyes. Eyes that would make you wonder why and how anyone could mistreat seals. She took in her surroundings. It was dark, with objects just barely visable to her seal eyes, which was more or less akin to human eyesight. It soon was clear she was in an open area with randomly-sized columns set at irregular intervals, making some places more open and others more sheltered.

"This," Horse muttered, as she slipped and flopped on snow and ice that was inexplicably on the ground, "this does not bode well."

"Welcome, friend!" came an unnecessarily jovial voice. It was as if the Toyman had not been defied by both Hunter and Sakki. "I have a very special game awaiting you!"

"Oh, wonderful." Horse grumbled obviously.

"Glad to see that you're so excited!" Toyman said, estatically, apparently unaware of Horse's dry sarcasm. "Let's begin, then!"

From the snow rose a hulking silhouette. Well, hulking for a seal, anyway. It was a Pikachu's silhouette. But upon further examination, it had snow white fur, black stripes, black cheeks, black-tipped ears, and sapphire blue eyes. It was like the artic version of the Pootang . . . only slightly smaller, slightly more agile, and slightly faster.

"That game is," Toyman said, "TAG!"

"You cannot be serious," Horse scoffed. The Pootang ripoff charged her. "Ooooookay -- you are serious."

Horse deftly dodged the charge, using her hydrokinesis and cyrokinesis (establishing her belief that this snow and ice on the train is fake, because it was). Horse was in no mood to humor Toyman and play along with his little game. As she dodged his second charge, she unsheathed her Tempest Blade.

The Toyman wasn't happy about this. "Hey, NO FAIR!! Power-ups and items aren't allowed!! They were turned off!"

"You know what, you spoiled brat?" Horse said, slaying the pseudo-Pootang in a combination of backflips and single slicing stroke of the Tempest Blade. "You know what? Enough."

"CHEATER!! YOU CHEATED!! CHEATER!!" Toyman snarled. "YOU CHEATED!!"

"I DON'T CARE!!!" Horse shouted, thoroughly annoyed. "Call me a cheater all you want. I dont care. You will let me go, or you will regret it!"

No answer. Horse would have to find her own way out. This did not make her any happier.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 15, 2014, 01:06:13 AM

This is becoming a training sim.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2014, 04:39:54 PM

Nah. Our training sims are better.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Hide-and-Seek . . . TO THE EXTREME!

SPLAT!

Underseen hadn't been paying attention when he landed, and he went splat like a viscous, opaque goo. But he wasn't hurt or anything, as he pulled himself together and resumed his base shape.

"Ugh. I must remember never to do that again." he said, speaking as if he just passed gas. "I hate losing corporeal cohesiveness."

"Oooooooh! Oooooooh! Fun!" came a voice. "Again! Do it again!"

"Great, this guy again."

"Again!"

"I'm not your toy poodle!" Underseen snarled uncharacteristicall y. "I will not prance around doing stupid tricks!"

"Ah, that's fine, then," Toyman said, "we can get to the game sooner."

"Game? I never said that I want to play a --"

Suddenly, Underseen was surrounded on all sides by life-sized dolls with yellow, spherical heads without a face or any defining cephalic feature. The sizes differed both greatly and slightly, but other than that, they were all identical. Underseen was unable to discern one from the other by any other means other than size.

Underseen thought they looked like faceless, bald Miis.

"This is a game?" Underseen said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes! Hide-and-seek!"

"You are actually serious?"

"Yes! The goal is to find the face amongst the faceless." Toyman said, eagerly.

"But that's not --"

"Begin!"

Underseen groaned and muttered shifting around the forest of faceless, Simpsonized Miis. He found the face on three separate occasions. But the face vanished to a new Mii doll. Underseen decided there was a work around to this. He could just mimic a Mii doll with an empty face and then --

Wait -- what was that? That breeze?

"Don't give up n-- stay away from there!! No! Don't touch that!" Toyman yelled, as Underseen investigated the source of that musty breeze. He ignored Toyman. "Don't you ignore me!! Get back here an finish the game!! Hey!!"

But Underseen was already gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 16, 2014, 12:23:57 AM

He's not a very efficient designer, is he? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2014, 08:13:14 PM

More like he underestimated us. Sakki's temper, Horse's tolerance limit, Underseen's innate corporeal malleability, Mithril's . . . wait, we haven't gotten to him yet. The Toyman had expected us to come and actually enjoy the psychotic games he made, something no one would honestly enjoy.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Check, Mate

Mithril tumbled down the shoot, eventually making it to solid ground. He had managed to tumble and roll to his feet. He stayed crouched, tensed for action as he looked around. He peered into the gloom and nothing happened.

He hesitantly righted himself, trying to keep his guard up. He peered to his left and saw some ambient light over that way. He cautiously moved over that way, no sure if he was going the right way.

It was soon enough, though, that Mithril was sure he made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Be blinked in surprise, never having expected what he saw. He was sure that he had accidentally stepped onto the set of the "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone", the giant chessboard one.

One the side closest to him were chess pieces about five feet taller than him, appearing to have been carved out of obsidian, with silver accenting. Where on the far side of the room were chess pieces carved out what appeared to be marble, with gold accents. Kings, queens, knights, bishops, rooks, pawns . . . all were there.

"Greetings, friend!" said the Toyman, from a screen right above the white side of the board. It gave Mithril a very Ivo Robotnik or Dr. Eggman feel.

"I'm not your friend," Mithril said, calmly blunt.

The Toyman ignored this. "Let's play the game, then!"

"I'd rather not," Mithril said.

"Of course, you want to play!"

"No. I don't."

"No need to be coy, m'boy!" Toyman said. He wasn't listening to Mithril obviously. The Toyman moved one of his pawns forward, unaware how foolish it was to make the chess pieces from stone. "Now, m'boy, it's your turn!"

Now, Mithril may not have been as strong a terrakinetic as Cloak, but that did not mean he was a low-levelled one, either. And Mithril was in no mood to comply with the Toyman's demands, or games.

"Your turn!" Toyman prodded again.

"Fine." Mithril said. He focused his mind and suddenly the marble king and queen chess pieces shattered into messy chunks. "Checkmate."

"That's against the rules!"

"I don't care."

"You cheated!"

"I don't care."

"Cheater."

"I don't care," Mithril said, casually walking to the other side of the room, obliterating the two marble pawns who tried to stop him. "I'm going to find the others. Then I'm leaving."

He ignored the Toyman's indignant babbling, and forced the door open. Then he was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2014, 01:41:06 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Checkers of Death!!

Marie tumbled and landed rather undignified on her rump. But she was a fox, and such indignities tended to be overlooked. She righted herself upon her four feet, and gauged her surroundings with a scrutinizing, appraising eye. The chute seemed to have dumped her so unceremoniously into darkness. Now, her night vision wasn't the best, but her olfactory and auditory senses were top-notch. She didn't detect any threats.
 
She saw that there was a place were ambient light coming to her left a little ways ahead. Marie wasn't sure if she should trust it, but there were no other places out, so she really had no choice, since going back up the chute was pointless. The edge was too far up for her to reach, even if she tried to jump. She couldn't climb back up it, in any case.
 
Marie flicked her white-tipped vulpine tail, as she deigned to enter the room the light was issuing from. The room was large, with a life-sized checker board between her and the exit. It was already set for a game of checkers. It stood between her and the exit.  There seemed to be a moat of a glowing red substance. It couldn't be lava, as it would have been phenomenally hotter in here than it was. It was a strange viscous goo, glowing red. It was like a malicious form of mutagen made of rage and colloidal goop. . . . Wait, could it be lava?

"Welcome!" Toyman announced gregariously. Strange. One would think the escape of the others would have dampened his spirits. Perhaps the Toyman's psyche was like a toggle switch. "Take your place, if you please on the checkerboard."

Marie paused, thinking if there was a way around this, a loophole to exploit. She could not concoct one, so she deigned to acquiesce. She sat on one of the checkers on the first row, with her tail draped over the side in a exceedingly dignified way.

"Thank you, player!" Toyman said. "Now -- to make it more interesting . . ."

The pieces were on the black squares, but the red squares fell back to reveal lava -- or the same substance that was in the moat -- in the square's parts, in pits.

"Is that really necessary?" Marie said.

"You have no idea," Toyman said ominously.

"I disagree." Marie said, mind working at a fevered pace. She evaluated the distance from her spot to the exit, which had a small enough hole which appeared to be covered by a loose balsa wood board. Clearly, the Toyman doesn't think these traps and games out.

"I shall go first," Toyman said. He moved one piece forward. It was the perfect move. "Now, Foxy-Loxy, it's your turn."

"So it is," Marie said. She hoped her timing was right. She leaped from square to square until she reached the other side. She acted too fast for Toyman act or react. She burst through the board, which dazed her a bit. She pulled herself together and continued onward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 17, 2014, 02:45:58 PM

He's running out of ideas. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2014, 07:58:44 PM

Oh, he just saved the best for Chapter Sixteen. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Gin, Dummy!

Goom did not tumble down the chute like the others before him. He slid down it, as if it was simple green, Mario pipe. He hopped down from the chute, with simple and modest decorum. He took it all in stride. In fact, he was rather unimpressed.

He glanced around at his new surroundings. His eyes were able to penetrate the near gloom rather effortlessly. He saw a strange panel to his left, and he casually toddled over to it. He examined it rather dispassionately. Eventually, he went tsk-tsk-tsk, and began to mess around the control panel, then shut it.

"Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy," he sighed, as he toddled toward the dim light to his near-immediate right. He looked and saw a bland, featureless expanse. He couldn't see where the soft, warm light was coming from, but he regarded this very little.

"Welcome, little mushroom . . . thing." Toyman said.

"I am a Goomba," Goom said, indifferently. He spoke as if the Toyman was just some interesting curio. "You want to play a game, I believe?"

"Oh. Well, yes." Toyman said. "Gin rummy."

"Then let's begin."

Toyman was actually caught off guard at this. But then the holographic cards apeared right before them, as if they were facing Luxord or using those primitive Duel Disks of Seto Kaiba's. Goom wore a heavy-lidded, almost bored look. He was by no means an expert, but he easily trounced the Toyman.

Toyman was registered speechless at this unexpected event. Goom looked at him in a beignly disinterested way. He made no move towards the exit.

"Th-that's impossible!"

"Is it now?" Goom said, almost bored.

"Two out of three!" Toyman demanded.

Goom won all three.

"Three out of five!" Toyman demanded again.

Goom won all five.

"Five out of nine!" Toyman demanded.

"No, I don't think so." Goom said, truly bored now. "Not accustomed to games not rigged in your favor, I see."

"That is a dangerous accusation," Toyman said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Goom said, totally unintimidated and unimpressed, as he toddled to the exit and leaving. He ignored the Toyman's demands for more games. Goom had not set the controls in his favor, he just unrigged it so that the cards would not always come out in the Toyman's favor. It was random, Goom just happened to get lucky with his hands.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2014, 09:00:29 PM

Another six chapters before the book that I am most looking forward to writing. . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Red Hot Poker

Parker's leaving the chute wasn't all that dignified. It left him quicker than he had anticipated, and he went clattering into the wall opposite of the chute. Fortunately for him, no one saw. Well, almost no one.

"Oh, shut up, Tyr!" Parker snarled.

A pause.

"I said, shut up, Tyr."

Parker took stock of his surroundings and saw that he was in a cavern of some sort. There was little if any ambient light. The only real light was coming from his immediate left, and it had a reddish-orange tint to it. It had a very ominous feel to it.

So, naturally, Parker dove headfirst into the room. Only to find a room similar to the one that Goom was in. Only there was a single fold-up table with the Toyman sitting in the chair facing Parker. Parker wasn't so easily tricked. The flimsiest scans could detect that this Toyman was not the genuine article. This faux Toyman was just an automaton, a synthdroid, a replica. Not sentient at all.

"Welcome, player!"

Clearly, the Toyman was piloting this rather impressive double (although the hands were not as believable) remotely. Rather creepy, in one sense. But Parker wasn't one to put stock in such things.

"What do you want, manchild?" Parker said, harshly.

"Just to play a simple game," the replica said, clearly broadcasting the real Toyman's voice and infliction. "Just simple poker."

Before he answered, Parker (whose face was hidden behind his helmet thus making his expressions inscrutable to the Toyman) scrutinized and appraised the replica. Could it stand, or was it affixed to the chair? Could it give chase if it could stand? Could it prove to be any kind of threat? Parker decided that this replica posed him no threat, but he could not divine an exit that might not collapse the cavern upon them. He wasn't sure if he could survive such a cavern collapse. He rather not test it.

"Fine." Parker said, taking his seat. He knew there was going to be the outlandish stipulation -- this couldn't be a simple game of one-on-one poker.

"Oh, and for every chip you lose, the temperature of the room will go up ten degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing big," the Toybot said.

Parker knew it. He knew there would be some sort of stupid stipulation. But he wasn't worried, his armor would protect him. It would take a lot of heat for him to suffer from it.

From there, the game went rapidly. For every chip he collected, the exit revealed itself. Eventually, Parker won the game by busting the Toybot. Parker scrapped the fold-ip chair on the ground, and strolled to the exit as the replica slumped onto the table. Parker didn't care.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 18, 2014, 05:07:35 AM

Quote

Oh, he just saved the best for Chapter Sixteen. ;)

Nice subtle little fourth wall breach. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2014, 05:45:07 AM

Not really a fourth-wall breach. ;) But you'll find out in the next chapter.

New chapter. May be a bit short.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Monopolizin' the Board

Guy managed to land on his feet, though rather harder than he would like. He was sure that he broke his leg, but the pain soon passed, and he could walk just fine. Though he may have been a little beaten up and worse for wear.

He stumbled into a large room, which looked as if was carved out by Taxxons. There was a fold-out table and two fold-out chairs, one of which was occupied. On the table was what appeared to be a board game. Guy was surprised at it.

"Welcome, player," said the chair occupant.

"Toyman," Guy said.

"Yes and no," the chair's occupant replied. So, it was another replica.

Guy looked over the board, and said, "I don't think that Parker Brothers would appreciate their product being used in life-or-death game."

"Take a seat," it said. It wasn't a request. Guy mulled over his options quickly, and decided to acquiesce. They played, and Guy was puzzled by Toyman's play style. Hei would only buy the cheapest properties and would not buy the railroads or the utilities. Guy was wondering if the Toyman knew how to play this game right or it he was deliberately taking a dive.

Guy was dominating the game, and he wondered again if the Toyman (who was obviously controlling this replica) had ever played this game before. If not, why use it to try to one-over him. He wasn't exactly putting up a good fight.

Guy eventually pushed Toyman into bankruptcy in the game, winning it. The replica slumped over the table, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Guy was curious about the replica, the mechanics of it. But he fought his curosity, deciding that he had other, more pressing priorities.

He glanced back at it before heading out the exit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 18, 2014, 06:23:59 AM

I've always been bad at Monopoly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2014, 07:15:51 PM

It was the first game I taught Shadow to play. And she loved it. And I found it particularly enjoyable playing it. With her. My sister, Dagger, was too much of a cutthroat and always wanted to quit when it looked like she would lose.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Don't Play Games With Me

Cloak slid down the chute, and when he left the chute, he gave a somersault, spinning head-over-heel. When he landed it was in a dramatic way, with his left hand upon the ground, tail thrashing in a disconsolate way. He left a repressed snarl leave his lips, as he gazed suspiciously around at his surroundings. His Earthsight told him of no immediate threat, so he reared back up, placing his roughly four and half hundred pound weight upon his plantigrade feet. He wiggled his toes, alternatively sheathing and unsheathing his sharp, black claws.

The corridor wasn't completely dark, either. There was a light directly in front of him. Cloak narrowed his eyes, well aware of what was likely in the room beyond. He proceeded forward.

"Welcome, cloaked one!" Toyman said, not deigning to be there in person. "This game will be an obstacle course!"

"An obstacle course is not a game." Cloak said, voice colder than the surface of Pluto. "It could be a training exercise, but a game it is not."

"This is true," the Toyman conceded, "which is why it will be a race!"

Cloak was feeling thoroughly disgruntled. This pathetic little man had no idea what or who he was dealing with. Cloak immediately recognized the sheer arrogance of this thought and was ashamed for even having it.

The Toyman however was detailling the overly elaborate obstacle course. First, they (his "competitors" were basically the Alloys from "Super Smash Bros. Melee") would have to navigate a twisting ravine from the bottom, tread across a series of flimsy wooden planks which stretched across piranha-filled water, divine two electric switches from eighteen to open the gate to the next series of obstacles, navigate through thick vegetation,  navigate through a series of invisible walls, then navigate some warp panels, then answer riddles as lava threatens to over take them, and finally navigate some subterranean tunnels.

But that was just the first level of the course to navigate through. There were, from what Cloak could see, at least five more to come. He had a sneaking suspicion that the course was designed to never end, and, thus, would eventually start to repeat itself.

There would be no winner. Cloak found himself surprised that the Toyman could be capable of such subtlety. He had assumed that he was just a demented toy designer who allowed himself to go insane.

"Now," Toyman said, "on your mark . . ."

"No." Cloak said, as the Alloys crouched down.

". . . Get set. . . ."

"No," Cloak said, as the Alloys kicked their feet out in a runner's stance. It looked rather awkward for the Green Alloy, who had the body style of Kirby or Jigglypuff.

"GO!!!"

"I rather not, honestly." Cloak said, with scornful indifference. He stomped his foot and made a swiping motion with his right arm. The exit opened up.

"No, no, no, no, no! That's not part of the game!"

"Meh, take it up with my lawyer." Cloak said, flippantly nonchalant, as he brazenly exited despite the Toyman's constant and petulant cires of "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 19, 2014, 02:34:23 AM

Well that was a waste of space.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2014, 02:52:34 PM

What makes you think that it was even real? Was I being to subtle again, like with Itellsya? I guess I have a perchant to be TOO cryptic and vague at times. . . .

Anyway, my Internet is now officially gone at home. I don't want to be selfish and feel angry that I no longer have it -- I want to be glad that she is FINALLY doing something for herself. I swear that woman is that selfless.

So . . . sorry, no new chapter today. I'm just too tired to sit at this computer today.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 19, 2014, 03:32:48 PM

That's alright. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2014, 03:50:18 PM

Thank's for understanding. So, naturally, it might take a longer time for me to post chapters.

:edit: New chapter. May be short -- I am somewhat tired right now.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Flight of the Toyman

It was a little while before Cloak could make contact with the others. But when they all met, their voices overlapped each other in a rush to tell them about their experiences. The only one who didn't speak was Cloak, he stayed silent. His eyes were shut, using his Earthsight to its utmost capability, to divine a way out.
 
Cloak was always naturally serious, as a veneer covering the sheer amount of fear he felt. Despite outward appearances, Cloak was very susceptible to fear. Cloak was wise enough to know that absence of fear wasn't any better -- as fear prevents being with emotion from doing stupid things. Funny how it seems to have the opposite effect in some teenagers.
 
Cloak found the way out, tuning his own musings out, to tell the others about it. Cloak set aside all his musings, deciding that now was not the best time for it as he led the others out. But he wasn't about to let the Toyman escape, even it meant tracking him down himself.
 

***

Meanwhile, in a dark room that was only illuminated by many monitors mounted up against one wall, sat the Toyman. He had his "Cherifer Boy"-style character head still on. One would think that the would have taken it off by now, or at least fiddled with it. But it would appear that the guy forgot it was even on.

One would think that he would want to get the heck outta dodge when he saw the look Cloak gave the security feed. But no. No, the Toyman stayed and lagged behind and dallied. He was already too busy grousing on the "unfairness" of it all.

They had cheated! They didn't play fair! Even the Goomba and SPARTAN! They all cheated!!

He would make them regret cheating him out of his fun. Winning, after all, was everything to him. And they denied him that satisfaction! They were  . . . they were . . . they were . . .

They were big meanies! That's all they were!

THUMP!

A simple book had slid to the floor, but it was enough to scare the Toyman. He suddenly remembered the destructive capability of the RAFians. Remembered what they could do to him if they caught him. Another object slid from its hidden precipice, and hit the Toyman upon the noggin. He wasn't injured thanks to his character head, which cracked from the impact.

He spun from his office chair and sprinted down a badly lit corridor, which tore at his collar and loose, poofy harlequin clothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2014, 03:13:12 PM

Chapter! :D

Where did you get the internet from?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2014, 03:20:26 PM

Meridian, a place I go for my Creative Writing. I can't come every day though, they close at 4:30 and I get off at 3 usually. And sometimes, I'm tired, like right now, and have no energy for typing within that window.

Also there is an hour time limit before you are automatically logged out.

So I'll post chapters when, and if, I can. I mean, I am still planning out chapters. I have ideas for up to Book DXXIII (523), and I'll post them if I have the energy for them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 25, 2014, 03:26:48 PM

All right then. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2014, 03:54:19 PM

Okay, here's the new book ideas.
 

• Book DXIII: "The Beast of Decay" -- The RAFians must deal with a Time Beast.
• Book DXIV: "Wandering Minds" -- The RAFians must deal with two rather usual feuding boys.
• Book DXV: "Return of the Ultimate Assassin" -- The League of Assassins free the ultimate assassin from his incarceration.
• Book DXVI: "Head Cases" -- The RAFians must deal with creatures dismissed as the lore of vampires.
• Book DXVII: "Brain Soup for the Soul" -- The RAFians must confront two Anzati rivals, who prowl Earth.
• Book DXVIII; "Cocooned Mana" -- The RAFians get entangled in the conflict between the Anodytes and the "Asas".
• Book DXIX; "Cloak's Example" -- The Realm Walker Council claims that they are following Cloak's example of integrity.
• Book DXX: "Mental Flow" -- In a possible future, people are able to change bodies with each other as easily as people of today switch outfits. Outside of normal continuity.
• Book DXXI: "Boyhood Secrets" -- The RAFians must deal with a boy who has a power he abuses judiciously. The boy is no stranger to the RAFians.
• Book DXXII: "The Mayflower Mk II" -- The 99% finally get fed up with avarice and greed of the 1%.
• Book DXXIII: "The Reach of Emotions" -- Someone combines the characteristics of Reach beetles and the emotional spectrum.

Sorry, no chapter today, but this is something, right? Anyway, all titles subject to change, and a couple of the call back to previous books.

:edit: This is gonna have to tide you over. This place is closed tomorrow and Friday. I'm working both days, anyway.
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Where Do You Think You're Going?

The Toyman blinked blearily in the morning sun, but of course this was unseen by all, as his face was still covered up by the character head, which looked more beat up than before he went down that passageway in the dark, and the crack in it was more pronounced. His clothing was tattered, and his "head" was covered with what appeared disturbingly like Taxxon slime.
 
He looked around, ignoring the fact that character heads like the one he insisted on never taking off had a very limited range of vision. Something one should always remember when visiting a theme park with such lovable characters (;)) The Toyman, in his sheer arrogance, decided that everything was clear and it was safe for him to come trundling out of the little hidey-hole.
 
He walked hurriedly a little further, and walked smack dab in a wall. This cause the head to crack further, making it seem like a rather dangerous scar over his right "eye". The wall was earthen and he was certain that it wasn't there before. Must be the limited vision from this mascot head. Should he take it off? No. No, he would never take it off. He would never . . .

SMACK!

Another earthen wall popped up from nowhere! That was for CERTAIN wasn't there before!

The crack on the character head became even more pronounced, if he moved his head in such away it would break away from his head like an eggshell.

"Oh, leaving so soon, Toyman?" came a bored voice.

"We were under the impression that you wanted to play with us," came a coy voice.

"It's not so much fun," came an indifferent voice, "when you're being toyed with, is it?"

"Stop it!!" the Toyman shrieked, child-like. "Stop it!!!"

The RAFians stepped into view, all looking rather foreboding. Cloak was the last, and only his feline eyes shone from beneath the hood of his cloak, which swept over his body rather lankily. He glared at the Toyman, and saw a grown man in tattered clothing and a cracked mascot head.

"Time to take that thing off," Cloak said.

"Never!" Toyman said.

Cloak ****ed his head to the side, perplexed. Why was he so intent on holding on to the head? Sure, it was obviously rather high-quality -- or at least, was -- but why was he hiding behind it? Why was it so important? Was it like a security blanket?

"Never!" Toyman insisted again.

"Enough of this," Sakki said. And she took it off rather roughly before the Toyman could protest or struggle. Beneath was a grown man, matching his body. His face had a hint of Asian ancestry but his face was pale -- as if due to the lack of sunlight -- with short-cropped black hair. He had the look about him that he would be boyishly handsome but had allowed it to be atrophied by concealing it within the character head.

It was Guy who recognized him, from the news several years back, "Manfried Childs?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 30, 2014, 02:05:44 AM

Suddenly it turned into a Scooby-Doo episode. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 01, 2014, 11:45:34 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Hiding Behind the Character

"'Manfried Childs'?" Sakki s****ed. "His name is literally 'Man Childs'?"
 
Childs continued to try to conceal his face in the mascot head, but it had suffered too much damage. it wouldn't stay on his head.
 
"I don't remember hearing about him," Hunter said, as if Childs wasn't there. But, then again, Childs was more intent upon keeping the character head on, though it was impossible.
 
"The son of that toymaker, Gepetto Childs, who, I guess, spent all day in his father's shop watching him make toys." Guy said, guessing here and there. "According to the story, Gepetto dreamed of building a toy factory, but lack of capital prevented it. A mobster offered to bankroll Schott to build the toy factory, but unbeknownst to him, the mobster used it as a front for a numbers racket. The police eventually uncovered the scheme and the gangsters all fled, leaving the elder Childs take the fall for running the operation and falsely imprisoned for nonexistant embezzlement. Gepetto eventually died in prison, and Manfried was left on his own. I surmise he spent several years in abusive and neglectful foster homes, leaving him in a psychologically twisted state."
 
"So he spends his time making life-sized wind-up tanks, acid-spraying water pistols, and toy soldiers that carry real guns? Seriously?" Horse said. "This is like a perverse Scooby-Doo episode."
 
"How so?" Goom said, placidly.
 
 "That doesn't matter now," Parker said. "Why hide behind that ludicrous mascot mask?"

"Hark who's talking," Marie said.

"This is a helmet," Parker said, defensively.

Marie said nothing, but allowed the silence to drive home her point more.

"It is a helmet," he repeated mulishly.

Suddenly, Childs was stood up, arms and legs pinioned together by stone slabs. This caused the character head to tumble off in a rather pathetic fashion. Cloak did not look pleased with what he had to do.

"He was getting away," the Realm Walker explained.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 01, 2014, 12:54:32 PM

Isn't Geppetto from Pinocchio?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 02, 2014, 04:06:52 PM

Yep, Saffa. (Or is it "Deck", now? ;))
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Grow Up, Childs

"Let me go! Let me go! I didn't do nuthin' wrong!" Childs wailed like a baby. Cloak was starting to lose sympathy for the guy. "I didn't do NUTHIN' WRONG!!"

Mithril picked up the ruined character head.

"GIVE THAT BACK TO ME!!" Childs demanded, nearing temper tantrum levels.
 
"Don't get me started pal," Parker growled. Clearly, he was sharing Cloak's feelings of annoyance. "A couple years of psychiatric therapy would do you wonders."
 
"By credible therapists," Cloak commented darkly, as they bound the Toyman's hands and ankles. "Not those loons who think 'conversion therapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparative_Therapy)' or 'reparative therapy' are legitimate forms of therapy."
 
"Wow," Horse commented, "so dark so suddenly, Cloak. And on a completely different, barely-related tangent. What brought this on?"

Cloak said, surly, as Childs was taken away, "Just something I saw on the news the other day. About that congressional nominee."

"Still out of the blue, Cloak," Goom said.

"Not really," Cloak said, as they began the trek back.

"You're suggesting that Childs might be --"

"No, I'm not suggesting anything. Not really." Cloak said, thoughtfully. "Not about Childs anyway. His was a sad case. An absentee mother with a put-upon toymaker father."

Cloak fell silent for a moment, before continuing, "But Childs' case was not the only sad case."

"You're thinking about it again, aren't you?" Underseen said. "Your past?"

"I plead the fifth." Cloak said, repressively.

"Be glad you remember." Underseen muttered. He thought he had said it unheard by all, but Cloak heard. The Realm Walker gave him a quick, piercing, quizzical look but said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 02, 2014, 10:37:11 PM

Hehe, just keeping up the holiday tradition of Christmassy names. ;)

PDF!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 03, 2014, 03:48:14 PM

Thanks. You do me a great service, Deck -- dah, I mean, Saffa. ;)
 
New, possibly short, chapter. And, yes, I know, we jump into this rather quickly.
 

BOOK LXXIX:
RAFIAN IDOL
CHAPTER ONE:
Let's Bring Out Something A Little . . . New

"Everyone seems so down lately," Abby said.
 
"Well, the constant stream of psychopaths putting people's lives, and sometimes the world, in jeopardy will tend to take out the festivity from people," Saffa said, conversationally.
 
"We need to boost everyone's moral!" Abby declared. "We need to introduce some levity to the others!"
 
"Like what?" Cloak said. He had been brooding in his own thoughts more frequently than usual, and that's saying something.
 
"Something like your parodies, Cloak," Abby said.
 
"I don't know why I ever called them that," Cloak said, in a self-deprecating manner. "They're more song adaptations than anything else."
 
"Oh, cheer up, Cloak!" Abby said. Then she gave out a small gasp and smiled broadly. She had a sudden idea. "Say, Cloak, how about a contest?"
 
"You challenging me to something?" Cloak said, wearily.
 
"No, not you. But I think you should be a judge . . ." Abby's smile widened, and Cloak couldn't see how that was possible.
 
"Judge?" Cloak said, warily. "Judging what?"
 
"RAFian Idol!!" Abby cried out.
 
"What?" Cloak said, flatly.
 
"Trust me, it'll be great! You'll do great as the judge!"
 
"Fine. Then Horse and Blaze will be my co-judges."
 
"Huh?" Blaze said, rather comically.
 
"How'd we get dragged into this?" Horse groaned.
 
Cloak did something it felt that he hadn't in quite some time. He smiled.
 
"And Abby can emcee this mess." Cloak said, smirking mischieviously.
 
"I accept!" she said, which wasn't the reaction Cloak had been expecting. "And the judges will perform an exhibition song as well!"
 
"Wait, what?" Cloak, Horse and Blaze said, in unison.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 03, 2014, 04:07:24 PM

New, short, chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Preparations

From there, it was like rolling a boulder down a steep hill with the merest of pushes. The mods not only accepted the suggestion, but endorsed it. The other RAFians took to the idea like wildfire, but not all were willing to be a participant. Many just wished to be mere spectactors.

The training sim would be converted temporarily for it, allowing the performers more range with their chosen song adaptations. All who were accepted as participants were eager and determined to win. Naturally, Cloak, Blaze, Horse, and Abby could not enter, as they would be prerforming other functions. And Richard himself chose not to enter, choosing to enjoy it as a spectator.

There was a great amount of hype for this, and the downcast moods that the RAFians seemed to be in mere days before seemed to have evaporated with the anticipation. There were seventeen or eighteen known applicants, and each one was charged with making there own "music video" of sorts for their performance.

Abby was thoroughly enjoying her role in all this, throwing herself into the work.

"I think she's gone mad with power," Blaze said.

"What power? We're the judges!" Horse said.

"Don't mind being dragged into this now, do you, Horse?" Cloak teased.

"That was before I knew to what grand scale this would be!" Horse said, quite sincere and earnest. "I was afraid this was going to be one of those dinky American Idol ripoffs."

"It is called 'RAFian Idol', you know." Blaze pointed out.

"Schematics!"

"You mean 'semantics'," Cloak corrected.

"Whatever!" Horse said, in such a good mood that nothing could dampen it. "Don't forget we still have an exhibition song to sing ourselves!"

"I'm aware." Cloak said. "And I think I may have just the one. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 03, 2014, 09:47:05 PM

Oh, this is gonna be fun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2014, 04:00:38 PM

Now you can see why I was looking forward to it. This'll hafta tide you over until Monday. This place isn't open the weekend.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
The Exhibition Song

The lights came up and Abby welcomed all attendees for joining them and announced the details of the contest -- you know, standard "American Idol" fair and such. She also made this sound like this was the first of many more to come. Cloak wasn't so sure about that.
 
"Now, for the exhibition song from our judges!" Abby announced -- it was very weird to see her in those coattails and tux. She really didn't have to dress up that formally. She even wore white gloves with it!
 
"Blaze!"
 
The area was dark. Then two tremendous columns of flame errupted around him, and illuminated the djinn/angel hybrid. His eyes twinkled with benign mischieviousness, reflected in his smile as well.
 
"Horse!"
 
The area was darkened again, but then quickly illuminated by two spouts of water, which formed into a wall, a whirlpool of water. The water then froze and shattered, showing Horse in her "Infinity Armor", Tempest Blade touching the ground, with her hands crossed upon it, giving a cheeky smile.
 
"Aaaaaaaaand Cloak!"
 
The area was darkened again, and remained so for a few minutes. Suddenly, two amber eyes could be seen in the darkness, with a faint scarlet-gold glow. This glow steadily intensified until a burst of light was emitted and Cloak was revealed rather like when Avatar Aang first manifested Avatar Roku. Then a burst of sparkling light emitted over the crowd.
 
There was a cheer, that ebbed when the music started up, as the images behind them showed portraits of all the known RAFians. Cloak started things up.
 

"Heigh ho, do you know
The names of the RAF residents,
Who then became the active members
And got a view from the RAF HQ
Of this venue?"

Horse sang:

"Richard was the first, you see,
He once chopped down a cherry tree."

Blaze's turn:

"Member number two would be
Asmodeus and then number three --"

Cloak:

"Ash stayed up to write
The declaration late at night.
So she had a great big fight,
And they made her sleep on the couch all night."

Horse:
 

"Intrepid never had a son,
In the Flame War of Reply 1812."

Blaze:

'Phoenix's colossal fiery blows
Was bigger than his avatar shows."

Cloak:

"Ellimist was sixth in line
And then it's Jess, not in a bind."

Blaze:

"Shock, number eight,
Up for many a debate."

Cloak:

"Kelly, how do you praise?
She replies in how many days?"

Horse:

"Tyler, he liked country people."

Blaze:

"And after him, came Myitt's pull."

Cloak:

"Hunter liked have clams to smoke.
His wolf breath killed friends whenever he spoke." (;))

Horse:

"Reply eighteen-fifty, really nifty,
Kitkat's in!"

Cloak:

"Young and fierce was Esplin,
The man without a chin." (;))

Blaze:

"Follows next a period spannin',
Two long years with morfowt.
Then the fans starts shootin' canon
And we've got a 'Civil War'."

Then the three sang in a trio:

"A war, a war in RAF."

Cloak:

"Up to bat, comes old SuperNate linkin'."

Blaze:

"There's a guy who's really thinkin'!"

Horse:

"Kept the RAF from shrinkin'.
Saved the ship of RAF from sinkin'."

Blaze:

"B-RAD's next,
He had some slight defects." (;))

Cloak:
 

"Mr. Guy and his grant,
Who would scream and rave and rant." (;))

Horse:

"While drinking firewhiskey,
Although risky,
'Cause he'd spill it on his pants!"

Cloak:

"It's reply eighteen seventy-seven
And the RAFians would gloat,
But they're all amazed when Duff
Sails by in a large boat."

Blaze:

"DinoNothlit, someone really hated,
'Cause she was time-travel slated!"

Horse:

"Shanker gets instated,
What topics was it that he started?"

Blaze:

"For estrid, really phat,
Unafraid to tell where she stands at.
Then I came, and after that,
It's Tocade up to bat!"

Cloak:

"Whammy charged up the controversy hill."

Horse:

"And TobSie, she got the bill."

Cloak:

"In Reply 1913 -- "

And then they sang together:

"WildAtHeart comes next in the queue."

Cloak:

"Anna, next in line."

Blaze:

"It's RYTX; he does fine."

Horse:

"[And then in Reply nineteen twenty-nine,
The site crashes, and we find -- "

Cloak:

"It's Truth's big debut.
He plays the games and --"

Blaze:

"Mrlarry, member who
Signed up fifteen months ago."

Horse:

"Jax, weird little human,
Serves RAF a little and when he's done --"

Cloak:

"It's Anitiger13 who's got the power,
From reply nineteen fifty-three to reply nineteen sixty-one."

Blaze:

"Toominator had Camelot,
Then Blue took his spot."

Cloak:

"Qwerty, he gets caught,
And Zues770 fell down a lot!"

Horse:

"MCCCXXXVII liked topic trips."

Cloak:

"And Dameg's speeches' scripts,
All came from famous movie clips!
And OrcaMorph said "read my lips"."

Blaze:

"Now in RAF --"

Horse:

"There's Shorty and Ubaki."

Cloak:

"But active ones are plain to see."

Blaze:

"Parker, rocklobster and Faerie."

Cloak sang the conclusion:

"The next RAFian to lead the way?
Well, it just might be yourself one day.
Then Fox News will distort everything you say!"

Then the three sang together:

"So jump in your ship and fly away!"

The song ended, and there was applause. Cloak couldn't tell if it was sarcastic or earnest, as the three took their places at the judging table, set even with the stage's lip. Cloak knew the song adaptation of the Animaniacs' "President Song" wasn't very "historically-accurate", but he didn't care.

"Now," he announced, "let us truly begin."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 06, 2014, 12:10:34 AM

Hehe, this is a nice "History of RAF" guide.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2014, 09:22:45 AM

Not exactly, Saffa. There was some embellishments.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
First Performer

"Very well," Abby said. "Now, the very first participant to the contest is . . . Demos!"
 
Demos came upon the stage in his very finest silk suit, and the hologram took the form of the stereotypical Oval Office backdrop.

He spoke an introduction, as if he was giving a presidental speech, "-- And if there is any malcontents out there that think there's iota of hope, I will find you.

As someday, it may happen
That a victim must be found.
I've got a little list,
I've got a little list
Of slight offenders
Who might as well be underground.
And who never would be missed,
Who never would be missed!
There's the lazy kid with the baggy clothes
Who's not taking up any of the slack,
The girl you date who always gives you the flack,
The rich guy who cuts in front of every single line,
And anyone who attacks from behind,
And Bill O'Reilly's ineffective dermatologist.
May none of them be missed!!
May none of them be missed!!
There's the guy behind the news reporter waving like a fool,
And that inside-out mist, I've got that on the list.
And the fat kid smiling warmly while he's peeing in the pool.
He never would be missed, he never would be missed!
There's the foul-smelling boy
Who comes to school very "groovy",
And every bleeding member
Of the cast of "Fred the Movie".
And, while we're on the subject,
Fox deserves a whack,
For nearly giving the Simpsons
The friggin' sack.
And guys who, when you shake their hand,
Just bump you with their fist.
I don't think they'd be missed.
I'm sure they'd not be missed.
There's the guy who sits beside you
And keeps farting on the plane.
And Bieber's lyricist,
I've got him on the list!
There's the blonde who tells you loudly,
With a voice just like a knife,
"You know, someone should do a sitcom
Based around my life!"
The guy who watched the Fairly Oddparents in 2004,
And won't admit the darn thing isn't funny anymore!
And any-one and every-one
Who's ever made me [bleep]ed!!!
I've got them on the list!
May none of them be missed!!
May none of them be missed!!!"

The RAFians had their reaction, there was a bit a startled surprise at the song choice, but Cloak wasn't. The judges gave their reviews of it, and the votes were tabulated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2014, 10:00:19 AM

That was cheerful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2014, 11:09:03 AM

It's Demos. Whachya expect?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Second Performer

"Yes, yes, a particularly cheery choice, Demos," Abby said. "The next participant -- Gaz!"

Gaz appeared on the stage, with Laserbeak swaying on her shoulder. Gaz tapped her foot as she waited for the musical introduction to finish, so she can start to perform her at her cue. When it came, she looked up, and her teeth shone brightly, particularly her vampire fangs.

"Whenever I’m feeling lonely,
Sad as I can be,
All by myself on a uncharted island
In an endless sea.
What makes me happy,
Fills me up with glee.
Those bones in my jaw,
That don’t have a flaw,
My shiny fangs and me.
My shiny fangs that twinkle
Just like the stars in space!
My shiny fangs that sparkle
Adding beauty to my face!
My shiny fangs that glisten
Just like a RAFmas tree!
You know, they’d walk a mile,
Just to see my smile.
My shiny fangs and me.
Yes, they’re all so perfect,
So white and pearly.
Brush, gargle, rinse
A couple of breath mints.
My shiny fangs and me.
My shiny fangs so awesome,
Like your favorite song.
My shiny fangs, they blossom
So they’ll grow to be real strong.
My shiny fangs, I love them,
And they both love me.
Why should I talk to you,
When I have these two.
My shiny fangs and me.
My shiny fangs and me.
My shiny fangs that twinkle
Just like the stars in space.
My shiny fangs that sparkle
Adding beauty to my face!
My shiny fangs that glisten
Just like a RAFmas tree.
You know, they’d walk a mile,
Just to see my smile.
My shiny fangs and me.
My shiny fangs and me.
My shiny fangs and me!"

Then the music subsided and she took her bow -- which caused Laserbeak to pitch forward suddenly and caw in a disconsolate way.

Then the judges gave their reviews and such, as excitement built for the next participant. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2014, 11:19:05 AM

Why haven't we had vampires in toothpaste commercials yet?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2014, 11:21:49 AM

Haven't you seen the new Crest commercial? ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Third Performer

"Very nice, very nice," Abby said. "Now, give a round of applause for the next performer -- Ash!"

Ash, in the form a brunette Molly Weasley, appeared on the stage. She waited for the musical introduction to subside before launching into her chosen song.

"La-la-la-la-lasagna!
You want some lasagna magnifico?
Or maybe spaghetti?
Ay, you supper's all ready now, where you go?
Mama mia bambino!
Mama mia bambino, 'samatta you?
'Samatta you, 'samatta you?
You should taste my lasagna.
Ay, you no like my lasagna?
That's okay, too.
How about calzone?
Some nice minestrone?
It's good for you!
Have some marinara!
Have some marinara, I know you like!
I know you like, I know you like!
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
Would you like some zucchini?
Or my homemade linguine?
It's hard to beat.
Have more fettuccine.
Ay, you getting too skinny! You gotta to eat!
Ay, mange, mange!
Ay, you pass the lasagna.
Don't you get any on ya, you sloppy pig!
Have more ravioli.
You get rolly poly, nice and big.
Like your cousin Shorty
Shorty, Shorty, capisce paisan?
Capisce paisan? Capisce paisan?
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
Hey!
Hey!"

There was a fair smattering of applause before the judges said their pieces. Then the crowd got silent with anticipation for the next RAFian performer. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2014, 11:34:01 AM

Nope, the brand doesn't exist in India.

Now I want lasagna. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2014, 12:11:54 PM

Eh, it was a joke anyway. ;) I don't imagine we would have any vampire toothpast commercials outside of Halloween. We have an awful lot of watchdog groups here in America.

Anyway, new chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Fourth Performer

"Very good, Ash, very good!" Abby said. "Now, the next participant is -- Sakki!"

Sakki showed up, dressed in reds, blacks, and blues. She had her eyes shut, waiting for her cue in the midst of the musical introduction. When it came, they flew opened and she launched into her chosen song adaptation.

"When no one will listen
To what ya wanna say.
You're too small, too young.
You haven't begun
To learn the games that they play.
Don't sit around!
Just wish . . .
For it to be a better day!
Speak up, be heard, if ya don't say a word!
Everything will stay the same way.
If ya wanna change the way your life's arranged.
Then you have that choice
To be a star that you know you are.
Be loud, be proud and rejoice!
And find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you've got that choice.
Now go find your voice!
You see a person,
That you know you wanna meet.
Come on, stop messing around!
Get up off your seat.
They might see inside of you
The person you never knew!
He was in there all the time.
Now just let him through.
If you wanna change the way your life's arranged,
Then you have that choice
To be the star that you know you are.
Be loud, be proud and rejoice!
And find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you have that choice.
To find your voice!
Find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you've got that choice!
Now go find your voice!
And find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you've got that choice.
Now go find your voice!"

The song really did suit Sakki. A brief applause greeted the song, and died before the judges gave their piece.  Then the audience eagerly awaited the next participant. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2014, 11:47:59 PM

And it's quite a loud voice. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 09, 2014, 03:33:40 PM

True. But don't let HER hear you say that. ;)

Anyway, I'm curently on the fifth notebook and planning my way through Book CCCLXX ("The Saccharine Slime of Sublime").  And I have ideas for books up to Book DXXX -- I think.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Fifth Performer

"Very impressive, Sakki," Abby said, "now, next up on the roster -- Estrid!!"
 
It was very odd to see an Andalite tapping their right forehoof in tandem with a musical beat, but Estrid was doing just that.
 

<Q-U-E-E-N! I-C-K-Y!
The sound of her username
Makes the little RAFians cry!
Ahhhhhh!
Hey, Queenie,
You’re so, so icky.
Just the thought of being around you,
Makes me oh so sicky!
Oh Queen Icky,
Won’t you please explain
Why you get so much enjoyment out of causin’ RAFians pain?
Oh! Oh! Oh!
A chick who’s just plain mean.
A sour sweet-sixteen.
She’s a fire-breathing troll
In a pair of black jeans!
Ew! Ew!
Queenie, tell me true,
How’d we ever get the bad luck to be stuck with you?
Oh, Queenie, can I say one thing?
It’s your super total yuckiness that makes me wanna sing!
Queen Icky!
Ew! Ew!
Queen Icky!
Ew! Ew!
Queen Icky!>

Estrid's emnity with Queen was as well known and on par to Cloak's emnity with the Banned Queen, but the Realm Walker's was waning with time, whittling down to mere indifference. The things she had said had mattered very little compared to Cloak's mother's barbed remarks.

Anyway, the judges made their marks and each said their piece, and the audience eagerly awaited the next contender.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 09, 2014, 05:15:29 PM

Nice work on these! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 10, 2014, 12:08:30 AM

I'd like to see a tap-dancing Andalite. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2014, 03:44:15 PM

Didn't the Piper make them tap-dance?
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Sixth Performer

"Very good, Estrid, if not completely predictable," Abby said, obviously segueing to the next performer. "Now, next up is possibly our biggest performer, and I'm not talking only in name -- let's hear it for DinosaurNothlit!!"
 
Dino appeared onstage, in her compact form, obviously. She tapped her therapod foot in time with the musical introduction, before starting the song adaptation.
 

"R-A-F-I-A-N . . . Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N . . . Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N . . . Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
On the half shale, they're heroes galore.
In this day and age, who could ask for more?
The crime wave is high with muggings mysterious.
All FBI and detectives are furious,
'Cause they can't find the source,
Of this lethally evil force.
This is serious; so give me a quarter.
I was a witness, get me a reporter!
Call Saffa in on this case, and
You'd better hurry up, there's no time to waste!
We need help, like quick, on the double.
Have pity on the city -- man, it's in trouble!
We need heroes like the Lone Ranger.
When Tonto came pronto, when there was danger.
They didn't say they'd be there in half an hour,
'Cause they displayed . . . RAFian Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
Now our ace reporter was hot on the trail.
Determined to put these trolls in jail.
She spied the Banned and saw what happened,
But, before she knew it, she fell in a trap and got caught.
Yeah, she was all alone,
With no friends, and no phone.
Now, this was beyond her worst dreams,
'Cause she was cornered by some wayward teens.
Headed by Malice they were anything but good.
Misguided, unloved -- they called them trolls.
They could terrorize and be angry youth, and
They mugged the people who needed proof.
Then from out of the dark came an awesome sound!
Shouted "Cowabunga!" as they hit the ground.
From the field of weeds, the heroes rescued the flower
'Cause they possessed . . . RAFian Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians . . . POWER . . ."

Then Dino spoke in a deep bellow, "When you stand for what you believe in and find the strength to do what's right -- that's RAFIAN POWER!"
 
Then there was a brief musical intermission, that caused people to question whether the song was done or not, but their questions were soon swiftly answered when Dino sung again, holding an old timey microphone. Where did she get that prop from? She didn't have it a moment ago.

"Heroes on the half smell, they're on a mission.
When there's a battle got the enemy wishin'
That they stayed at home, instead of fightin'
These forum masters with moves like lightnin'.
They were once normal (;)), but now they're RAFian.
Terenia's the teacher so they are the students.
Horse, Blocky, Blade, and Faerie,
Make up the "Blue" team with one other fellow --
Cloaky.
Pizza's the food that's sure to please,
These species are into pepperoni and cheese.
Back to the story, it's not hard to find.
RAF's not just of the body, but of the mind.
Those are the words that their master instructed,
But a letter from Malice had Terenia abducted.
That was the last straw, spring into action.
Step on the trolls, now they're gonna lose traction.
Now this is for real, so you fight for justice,
Your resolve is hard, so you shout, 'They can't dust us off!
Like some old coffee table!'
Since you were born, you've been willing and able
To defeat the sneak, protect the weak,
Fight for rights and your freedom to speak.
Now the villain is chillin', so you take a stand.
Back to the wall, put your sword in you hand.
Remember the words of your teacher, your master:
'Evil moves fast, but RAF moves faster!'
Then light, shining from your illumination:
RAF versus Evil equals confrontation.
So, when you're in trouble, don't give in and go sour,
Try to rely on YOUR . . . RAFian Power!!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
R-A-F-I-A-N Power!
Hyperactive Insane RAFians!"

This led to some uproarious cheers. The judges waited for it to die down to say their piece, and the audience waited eagerly for the next contestant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 10, 2014, 10:42:44 PM

Hah! I thought I knew this number.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 11, 2014, 03:50:14 PM

"T-U-R-T-L-E Power", Saffa? That was the song that adaptation was based off of.
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Seventh Performer

"Very . . . long, Dino." Abby said.
 
"Don't make me eat you," Dino threatened.
 
"That'll disqualify you," Abby said, without missing a beat. Dino went offstage, glaring at Abby with jovial disapproval. "And now, the next performer -- Faerie!"
 
The stage decended into inky darkness, as the musical introduction began and a spotlight revealed Faerie. Revealed her doing something no one -- with the possible exception of Horse and Guy -- knew that she could do. She was riverdancing. Riverdancing until her cue came.
 

"I don't care about your karma.
I don't care about what's hip.
No RAFian newbie's gonna tell me what to do!
I won't swim in your Jacuzzi.
You can't make me settle down.
I'd rather kick and jump and bite and scratch
And scream until I'm blue!
I may as well be hyper,
As long as I'm still around,
'Cause I'll have lots of time to be laid back
When I'm six feet under ground!
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead)
When are you
RAFian cowboys
Gonna get it through your head?
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I can't stand the smell of incense.
I don't really like to jog.
No Justin Bieber eight-tracks in my car (ooh)!
I hate anything organic.
Even health food makes me sick.
You won't catch me sipping Perrier.
Down in some sushi bar.
I tell you, now's the time to go for
All the gusto you can grab.
You'll have plenty of time to be low key
When you're laid out on the slab!
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
When are you
RAFian cowboys
Gonna get it through your head?
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
Ow!"

There was a brief, all-intrumental musical interlude, before Faerie proceeded.

"I don't want no part of that vegetarian scene.
I won't buy me a pair of designer jeans.
No redwood hot tub to my name.
I got all that I want,
And if it's all the same to you,
I don't need a course in self-awareness
To find out who I am!
And I'd rather have a
a Big Mac or a Jumbo Jack
Than all the bean sprouts in Japan.
So don't ask me what I'm into.
I don't need to prove I'm cool.
I'll break your arm
If you ask me what's my sign.
I won't tell you where my head's at.
I don't need to see no shrink.
Psychosis may be in this year
But I'm really not that kind.
And I'm in no hurry to be casual.
In fact, I think I'll wait
Until I'm pushing up the daisies."

Then the music stopped abruptly, as Faerie spoke, "Like, wow, man, can you relate?"

Then the music started up again as if nothing happened.

"I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead).
I'll be mellow when I'm dead (I'll be mellow when I'm dead)."

There was a brief silence before the near-obligatory applause. This song was very apt in identifying who Faerie was as a person.

The judges said their piece and then the audience waited for the next participant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 11, 2014, 04:04:09 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Eighth Performer

"Very good, Faerie, very . . . apt." Abby said. "Now, our next contender is . . . Estelore!!"

The star appeared on the stage in such a flashy entrance that it could only be Estelore. She waited demurely on the stage as she patiently anticipated her cue. When it came, she sang:

"I know a man named Otis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Otis)
Who built a room, and his heart was filled with pride.
I said to Mr. Otis, 'What does your room do?'
He said, 'It goes from side-to-side.'
So I said, 'Mr. Otis, if you take my advice,
You’ll be the richest man in town.
You’ve gotta take that room that moves side-to-side,
And make it go up-and-down!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
I sincerely doubt that
The world could do without
My good advice.
A man named Mr. Waterman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Waterman) invented a tube.
He was sad, because it sprung a little leak.
He said, 'Darn it.  When I hold my tube up to a piece of paper,
The ink leaks out and makes a little streak.'
He said, 'I’ve got to find a way to stop that leak.
I start working on my leak-proof tube again.'
I said, 'Waterman, you idiot! Don’t stop that leak,
You just invented the fountain pen!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
I’m so worldly wise,
I should get the Nobel Prize for
Good advice.
Good old Henry Ford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford) was a hard-working man.
He worked all night and all day.
I said, 'Henry, whatcha doing?'
And Henry, he said, 'I’m inventing the Chevrolet.'
He said, 'I’ve already built twenty-five models.
One for each letter, from "A" to "Z".'
I said, 'Henry, you fool!
There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet!'
He said, 'Good heavens, I forgot the Model "T"!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
It’s helpful as can be,
And it’s absolutely free!
My good advice.
Oohka Magook was a Neaderthal man.
A very poorly educated soul.
He had a great big thing made of solid stone
And in the middle of it was a hole.
One day, he had to go from his cave in Natches
To his uncle’s cave in Mobile.
I said, 'Round off those corners and buy yourself a pair of tires
And Ooky, baby, that’s a wheel!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
Harvard offered me a Phi Beta Key,
For good advice.
Alexander Graham Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell) was building a fence
With some wood and a long piece of wire.
He said, 'There’s something strange goin’ on around here!
I keep hearing the voice of Uncle Mire!'
I said, 'Mr. Graham cracker,' – that was my little joke –
'With that wire, you’ve got the world in your power.
Just get a mouthpiece, and an earpiece, and a part in between
And you’ll sponsor the telephone hour!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
Every word you hear
Is the message of the year.
It’s good advice.
Christopher Columbus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus) was a seaman, second-class
When I told him that the Indies could be found
By sailing to the west, instead of sailing to the east.
I advised him that I thought the world was round.
I really thought so.
Then I sat him down to as dear Queen Isabelle
To pawn her jewels for all they’re worth.
Next day, he set sail, and as everyone knows,
He fell off the edge of the Earth.
Now, that was bad advice.
Bad advice.
Bad advice is just as the same as
Good advice.
Everyone makes occasional mistakes,
And that was –
Bad . . . advice!"

There was a fair smattering of laughter at the novelty song adaptation of Allan Sherman's "Good Advice", and barely at that.  No one was expect such an egotistical song from Estelore, a fact that she exploited.

The judges said their bit, and the audience awaited the next contender.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 11, 2014, 10:20:17 PM

This is so great. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 12, 2014, 03:49:33 PM

Okay -- rough day at work. I'm sorry, but I forgot my writing notes, and, as such, I can't post the next chapter today. But I'll post a few come Monday.

:edit: New book ideas.
 

• Book DXXIV: "Blaze of Glory" -- Blaze's backstory.
• Book DXXV: " A Boy and His Toys" -- The Toyman returns, seeking the Toys of Power.
• Book DXXVI: "Untethered" -- Abby becomes untethered by time.
• Book DXXVII: "A Backwards Life" -- An accident makes Saffa live her life backward.
• Book DXXVIII: "The Last Moreau" -- A Moreau attempts to turn the world into dragons, and control them.
• Book DXXIX: "Strength of Will" -- The Horn of Dragons falls into the wrong hands.
• Book DXXX: "A Cartel of Children" -- A criminal cartel perpetrates crimes while disguised as young children.
• Book DXXXI: "The Dark Spires" -- Dark Rings suppress the Marks and control RAFians.
• Book DXXXII: "Abject Pacifism" -- A group tries to use a potion that erases all violent intent to exterminate violence from the universe. An impossibility.
• Book DXXXIII: "A Trans-Species Problem" -- Twenty-five animals inexplicably become 100% human.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Ninth Performer

"Very good, Esty! A tad more egotistical than I had expect, but excellent choice!" Abby said. "Next up! Myitt and her host, Tara!"

Myitt stood on the stage, rather demurred. Behind her a three-dimensional model of a human brain -- Tara's brain, specifically -- was displayed. Then the musical cue triggered her into song, pointing to each part of the holographic brain.

'Neo-cortex, frontal lobe."

Then, in a very Yeerkish version of Tourrette's, Tara sang:

"Brain stem, brain stem!"

Then Myitt carried on as if nothing happened:

"Hippo-campus, neural node,
Right hemisphere.
Pons and cortex visual."

Tara repeated her line, as she would after every verse, before Myitt continued.

"Sylviun fissure, pineal, left hemisphere.
Cerebellum left.
Cerebellum right.
Synapse, hypothalamus.
Triaden-dendrite.
Axon-fibrous, matter gray.
Central-tegmantal path-way
Temporal lobe.
White-gormatter,
Forebrain, skull.
Brain stem, brain stem.
Central fissure, cord spinal
Bor-riato.
Piamater.
Men-ingeal vein.
Menulla-oblongotta and lobe limbic.
Micro-electrodes!"

Then she slid down the length of the stage, toward the audience, shouting, "The human brain!!"

From there, the usual happened -- the judges gave their piece, and the audience awaited the next performer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2014, 11:35:43 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Tenth Performer

"Very nice, Myitt. Very informational. Very educational." Abby said. "Hope that doesn't count against you. Now, next up! Slushie Man!"

Volumious purple smoke appeared on the stage obscuring everything. Only a lone figure was on the stage, vaguely lluminated from about 8:00. The music started rather suddenly with a pop, like someone popping up a sewer cap thing.
 

"Daring man of mystery,
Champion of right,
Swoops out of the shadows -- "

Slushie Man bursted into colorful view, revealing himself to be the lone figure. Although it was pretty obvious already.

"Slushie Man owns the night!
Somewhere some villian schemes
But his number's up!
3 . . . 2 . . . 1!
Slushie Man!
When there's trouble, you call the Man!
Slushie Man!
Let's get dangerous.
Slushie Man!
Slushie, Slushie Man!
Cloud of smoke and I appear,
the master of surprise!
Who's that cunning mind behind
That shadowy disguise?
Nobody knows for sure,
But the Banned guys are outta luck!
'Cause here comes --
Slushie Man!
Look out!
When there's trouble you call the Man!
Slushie Man!
Let's get dangerous!
Slushie Man!
You better watch out, you bad boys!
Slushie Man!"

Another rather boastful song choice. Would this count against him?

Anyway, the judges said their piece as the audience cheered somewhat and awaited the next contestant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2014, 11:50:50 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Tenth Performer

"Um . . . oh . . . 'kay . . ." Abby said, "Now, the next contender -- and he looks like he'll put up quite the fight -- Parker!"

Suddenly, a lively techno beat was heard and Parker began on his cue with precise timing:

"Every time you see me,
You lurkers turn and run.
I don't know what your problem is
I'm really super fun!
I'm a RAFian!
Not a great white gun.
I'm a RAFian!
I stay within the forum.
Come over to the RAFparty,
It's not that long a trip.
You'll be glad you made the effort
For my seventy-layer dip.
I like sharing delish pizza,
You see, I'm not so bad.
Do you like little puppies?
Demos makes them in his lab."

"SHHHHH! Not so loud!" Demos was clearly heard to say. Parker paid him no mind and continued with the song adaptation.

"I'm a RAFian!
Does someone need a chill pill?
My name's Parker,
I'm a RAFian.
La la la la lee.
La la la la lee,
Lee lu.
Let's share an energy soda,
And talk about our feelings.
But don't insult my helmet,
'Coz then I'll hit the ceiling!
I've got a laser!
And it's pointed at your planet.
It's my laser!
So, don't take me for granted.
I'm a RAFian!
Boom shaka-laka.
I'm a RAFian!
Skaka-laka-
Boom."

Helen shouted, "PARKER!!!!  YOU JUST BLEW UP PLUTO!!!"

It was a nice presentation. Nice visuals that recalled Marvin the Martian and old Tex Avery style cartoons. The judges made their scores and the audience eagerly waited the next contender -- shifting in their seats slightly, as it was a long time to be seated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2014, 12:03:57 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Eleventh Performer

"Very nice, Parker." Abby said. "Shock, you're up!"
 
Shock stood on the stage, as a guitar strummed a sad ballad. A very atypical choice already for Shock.
 

"We've been together for so very long.
But now things are changing, oh, I wonder what's wrong?
Seems you don't want me around.
The passion is gone and the flame's died down.
You used to think I was nice.
Now, you tell all your RAFfriends that I'm the Antichrist!
Oh, why did you disconnect the breaks in my car?
That kind of thing is hard to ignore.
Got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore.
I knew that we were having problems when
You put those Carvanhas in my bathtub again.
You're still the nightlight of my life.
Oh, Jess, darling, I'm beggin', won't you put down that knife?
You know, I even think it's kinda cute the way,
You toxify my coffee just a little each day.
I still remember the way that you laughed,
When you pushed me down that elevator shaft.
Oh, if you don't mind me asking, what's this poisonous Arbok
Doing in my underwear drawer?
Sometime I get to thinking . . .
You don't love me any more.
You slammed my face down on the barbecue grill.
Now, my scars are all healing, but my heart never will!
You set my house on fire.
You pulled out my chest hairs with an old pair of pliers.
Oh, you think that I'm ugly and you say that I'm cheap.
You scraped off my eyebrows while I was asleep.
You drilled a hole in my head!
Then you dumped me in a drainage ditch and left me for dead!
Oh, you know this really isn't like you at all.
You never acted this way before.
Jess, honey, something tells me you don't love me any more, oh no no.
Got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore."

"You think that song choice was funny?" came an unamused voice. "Well, do you?"

"Jess, it was just a joke!" Shock said.

"Sure it was. Get over here." Jess growled.

Shock, instead, ran away. Jess gave chase.

The judges each blinked, surprises quite evident in their faces.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2014, 12:24:12 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Twelfth Performer

"Does . . . does that mean Shock's disqualified?" Abby asked.
 
Cloak gave a noncommital shrug, and the other two judges gave no other acknowledgement of the question.
 
"Well . . . well, then," Abby said, struggling to get back into the usual flow of things, "Let's get this thing going again. We have one of our newest RAFians to perform next -- Guitarhero!!"
 
Guitarhero appeared on the stage with his signature guitar and began to strum it a bit before beginning his song:
 

"Dinosaur, every night I have the strangest dreams.
Dinosaur, listen to me, tell me what this means.
First, I'm goin' shoppin' in my underwear.
Then all of sudden I'm floating in midair!
My lips fall off and everybody starts to stare.
Donuts and hot dogs are flying everywhere!
Now, Dino, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!
Next comes the part that I won't ever forget.
Now, I'm bein' followed by these Yeerky spies.
They give me some velcro, and an order of flies.
Suddenly, I'm bowling on the Skrit Na Enterprise!
I fall down a hole and that's when I realize:
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
All right!
Dino, won't you tell me, am I going insane?
Was it something I ate, or something wrong with my brain?
See, I'm naked in church, when I meet you, Dinosaur.
Try to run, but my feet have been nailed to the floor!
Then a Gedd pushes me through a revolving door.
And I'm back in the very same place I was before!
Now, I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
And I can't bust out and I can't break free.
And it's gettin' just a little too stuffy here for me.
And I can't go home and I can't get loose.
And I try to escape, but it's just no use.
And I can't ever leave and I can't ever win.
And we're runnin' outta air, and the walls are closin' in!
And I can't go back and I can't get through!
But why won't that Andalite give me back that shoe I threw?
Come on, Andalite, come on!
Ow!
Dino, all those crazy dreams have started again!
That's right, I even wake up screaming now and then.
See, I'm coming home from work but I forgot my address.
I'm half an hour late for my RAFian test!
Then some slimy alien jumps out of my ears.
And I'm falling and falling and I guess you know the rest!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
N-n-n-night after night after night night night!
Then I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite (ya-ya ya-ya, ya-ya, ya, ya-ya)!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite (ya-ya ya-ya ya-ya ya-ya)!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite!"

Suffice it to say, it was a successful performance.

The judges said their piece, and the audience waited for the next performer to perform.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 15, 2014, 11:52:19 PM

Whoa, sudden inflow of chapters! :o

Haha, Parker and Guitarhero were fantastic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2014, 03:06:30 PM

It was my dayoff, you know. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Thirteenth Performer

"Exceptional, GH," Abby said. "Very good. Now, next up is a mod! But don't think that means he's guaranteed a win. Heeeeeere's Phoenix!"

The lights came up on Phoenix standing atop what appeared to be an old-timey carriage and an Arwing at the same time. It was a very strange juxtaposition.

Phoenix shouted, "Tally ho! Tally ho! Tally ho!" before singing in earnest;

"Am I on my way to Nottingham?
To Brittingham, to Buckingham?
Or any hammy hamlet by the sea?
No!
And now I'm on my way to Devonshire
To Lancashire, to Worcentershire?
I'm not so sure, we'll have to wait and see!
Oh!
Am I on my way to Dover
Or rolling merrily over
The jolly old road that goes to Plymouth --
Ho!
I'm merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Merrily on my way
To nowhere in particular!
I'm merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Merrily on my way!
Though the roads are perpendicular!
I'm always in a hurry.
I have no time to stall!
I've got to be there!
I've got to be there!
But where? I can't recall!
Whoop!
I'm merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Merrily on my way
And we're may be going to Devonshire
To Lancashire, to Worcentershire.
I'm not so sure, but
I got to be there!
I'm merrily on my way
To nowhere at all!"

And the audience didn't know what to make of this song choice.

The judges said their piece and the audience shifted to awaken their posteriors that had fallen asleep before the next contestant was introduced.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 16, 2014, 03:08:08 PM

Quote from: Deck the Hawks on December 15, 2014, 11:52:19 PM

Haha, Parker and Guitarhero were fantastic.

Of course I am ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2014, 03:09:15 PM

But will you win?  >:D

Or will I pull a Sopranos finale? ;)

:edit: Didn't mean to offend.

Or give too much away.

Now, in light of Gazzy's loss . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Fourteenth Performer

"Apparently Phoenix doesn't know whether he's coming or going," Abby said. "But, now, it's Kelly's turn to shine."

Kelly stood, demurred and refined, within the light of a single spotlight. Nothing more, nothing less. She looked at Gazzy:
 

"You get blue like everyone
But me, Blaze, Cloak, and Horse,
And everyone else can make your troubles go away
Blow away, there they go . . .
Cheer up, Gazzy.
Give us a smile.
What happened to the smile we used to know?
Don't you know your grin has always
Been our bit of sunshine;
Let that sunshine show . . .
Come on, Gazzy.
No need to frown.
Deep down, you know, tomorrow is your toy . . .
When the days get heavy,
Never pitter patter.
Up and at'em girl.
Some day, sweet as a song,
Gazzy's lucky day will come along.
'Til that day
You've got to stay strong, Gazzy.
Up on top is right where you belong,
Look up, Gazzy.
You'll see a star.
Just follow it and keep your dreams in view.
Pretty soon the sky is going to clear up.
Gazzy,
Cheer up, Gazzy, do
Cheer up, Gazzy.
We're glad you're you."

It was then that Kelly's intent was crystal clear. She had no intention of winning or anything competitively. She had noticed Gaz was a bit down, so she decided to cheer her up a bit.

Cloak thought this was an admirable action, though he did not know if Kelly's attempt to cheer Gaz up a little was successful. Especially because Gaz didn't look all that down during her performance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2014, 03:49:10 PM

Now the penultimate chapter of this book!

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Fifteenth Performer

"Very good, Kelly," Abby said, earnestly. "Now the final contender -- and you all probably saw this coming -- is none other than Visser 3. Or Esplin. Whichever it is."
 
The adult male Andalite appeared on the stage, looking imposing and impressive. Drums started playing, but the music didn't truly start until Esplin snapped his tail with a cracking sound.
 

<Let's get down to business
To defeat the Banned.
You're the saddest bunch
I ever met!
But you can BET
Before we're through --
Missy, I'll make a RAFian . . .
Out of you!
Tranquil as a forest.
But on fire within.
Once you find your center
you are sure to win!
You're a spineless, pale
pathetic lot,
And you haven't got a clue.
Somehow I'll make a RAFian
out of you!
Be a RAFian.
We must be swift as the coursing river.
Be a RAFian.
With all the force of a great typhoon.
Be a RAFian.
With all the strength of a raging fire.
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
Time is racing toward us 'til the Banned arrive
And we will survive.
I knew i'd make a RAFian out of you!
Be a RAFian.
We must be swift as the coursing river.
Be a RAFian.
With all the force of a great typhoon.
Be a RAFian.
With all the strength of a raging fire.
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!>

Then the lights on the stage suddenly went out. But this wasn't anything malicious -- it was just part of the performance. It was an unsurprising song choice for Esplin.

"Alrighty then, everyone!" Abby said, clasping her hands together dramatically. "Those were all the performers and their performances! In a minute, we shall know who the winners are!"

"What about the runnersup?" Cloak asked.

"Oh, no one cares about them," Abby teased.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 16, 2014, 11:18:39 PM

Oooh, results time!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 17, 2014, 03:57:10 PM

Results? Whoever said anything about results? ;)
 
Now the last chapter of this book!
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Results . . . Maybe

"Now," Abby intoned, overdramatically serious. It was almost too much. "Time to reveal who is . . . the first . . ."
 
"OUT WITH IT ALREADY!!" Saffa shouted, rather clearly.
 
"Oh, dear," Abby said, with feigned forgetfulness, "I have forgotten where I was. I must begin from the beginning."
 
"You can't be serious." Saffa's voice carried without effort.
 
"Now, where were we?" Abby said. She was clearly milking this, but even Ryan Seacrest wouldn't play the audience this long. "Oh, yes. Welcome to the first ever RAFian Idol! Tonight --"
 
"IT'S NOT FUNNY, ABBY!!" Sakki roared.
 
"It's kinda funny," Abby insisted undeterred.
 
Cloak's right ear twitched ever so slightly. He thought he had heard something completely unrelated to the events before them. It was like the howl of a large dog, or barghest of some sort. Cloak mentally dismissed the sound as it could be a stray from the borders of RAF.
 
"It's really not," Aquilai replied.
 
"We really would like to know the results now," Gaz said.
 
"Oh, I really hope I won," Guitarhero said, his guitar hanging over his back as if it was a claymore or a battleaxe.

"First Light, Abby!" Cloak said, exasperated. "First Light" basically was Realm Walker for "god". "Just read the blasted winner! People are going to get bedsores and they're not even in bed!"

"Arooooooooooo . . ."

Demos gulped quietly, barely noticeable. But Cloak noticed this brief movement.

"Alright, alright," Abby said.

"Awrrrroooooooooo . . ."

"Oh, no." Demos muttered. "He wouldn't . . ."

"Demos --" Cloak began.

"The winner is --" Abby said, unaware of this exchange.

"AWWWWRRRRROOOOOOO!!"

"The winner is G-- AHHH!"

Suddenly, a hellhound burst into the room, thinking that there were toys in here. He began to make all sorts of commotion, that all thoughts of the winner were briefly lost.

---

Okay, okay. I know that was mean of me, not giving you a direct answer. But it'll be reveal sometime in . . . a future book.

*sees his karma going down.*

Now cut that out!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 17, 2014, 10:43:20 PM

I literally threw my hands up at the climax. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2014, 03:40:25 PM

Couldn't resist. I'll try to get a chapter up later. Tired.

But here are some new book ideas to tide you over.

• Book DXXXIV: "Phantom Reflection" -- The RAFians face phantodecapods, who are able to disguise themselves and . . . more.
• Book DXXXV: "Reborn the Monster!" -- Mojo, from Mojoverse, accidentally resurrects an old forgotten foe from five, six years ago.

Tell me you're reactions, please.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 18, 2014, 11:18:44 PM

Well, they're not revealing much. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2014, 03:46:09 PM

As they are suppose to. ;)

Anyway, sorry for the lack of chapters, I kinda squandered the time I had voting in the RAFAwards and such.

:edit: I found time.

New book, new chapter.
 

BOOK LXXX:
SAVAGE HEART
CHAPTER ONE:
A Sweeping Success

After the whole hellhound debacle was solved, they announced the RAFian Idol winner was a tie. Both Gaz and Guitarhero won, and there was a particularly loud dissent from some of the newer RAFians who happened to be more mouth than brain -- some saying that used her vampiric wiles on the judges and some claiming Guitarhero had an unfair advantage due to his music-based powers.
 
Cloak ignored it all -- he hadn't even really wanted to do it in the first place. He hated being a judge. He never liked being in such a position. Especially considering he himself had no experience with songs, lyrics . . . yes, sure, he made several song adaptations in the "RAFize Songs" thread, but that, by no means, made him an expert. If anything it made him a plagiarist, he fretted.
 
His mind would not stop mulling over these fretful things, it buzzed and whirled like a beehive being swung around a pole. He wished that he would not dwell on these things, but he did it without conscious direction or cognitive awareness. He knew that he had a tendency to dwell on these things, these feelings of being slighted. Cloak was well aware that his fatal flaw was this capacity to hold grudges for long stretches of time. That or his arrogance -- at least, his perceived arrogance.
 
His mind clearly would not allow him to sleep this night. Cloak did not know why he felt so restless, so agitated. This wasn't anything that would worry him. He was just a judge in some song-and-dance game. He shouldn't have been this worked up over it. Something else had to be at play here. Something more.

But what?

Cloak shook his feline head. He was in his thread, sitting on his bed with it's navy blue colors -- suggested by his aunt, his mother's sister. The headboard and footboard were white, though with chipping paint. Cloak's tail thrashed about, betraying his hidden feelings of anxiety and fear.

Cloak shook his head again. He was being stupid. He was working himself up over nothing. They were fine.

***

But everything wasn't fine.

Old powers were stirring. Old powers that had slept for many, many years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia. They were stirring, straining the confines of their enclosure. Straining the barriers of their prisons.

But . . .

But what were they? And who sealed them away?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 19, 2014, 10:26:01 PM

Ah, rightful winners indeed! :D

PDF of that last:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2014, 11:47:39 AM

Thanks again, Saffa!

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
The Anthropterosaur

Deep inside a forgotten cavern, far below the one that the monster MP3 player had once resided in, comfortably enveloped and snugly ensconced within the dank darkness, something slumbered. It was like a plant bud, in its elliptical, egg-like shape. It was the same color of a Namekian, and roughly the size of a fairly tall man. One thing about this particular something was perfectly clear.
 
It was alive.
 
It was alive, but dormant. Nothing seemed to awaken it, or disturb its peace. It just continued it's quest to continue its relentless dozing. It was unknown for how long had it slumbered, or what would it take to awaken it, even a smidgen.
 
It wiggled slightly. It wiggled and jiggled and wriggled. The exterior unfolded, revealing that the said exterior was a pair of leathery wings -- pterodactyline wings attached to the creature's human-like arms, which ended in five fingers, which each bore a claw and one was an opposable thumb. The creature bore a broad, muscular chest, and two human-like legs which had five toes that each ended in a claw. He had a tail that snaked down between his legs with the tip shaped like a diamond.
 
His head was, perhaps, the most inhuman part of the creature. It had a pointed conical crest sticking out the back and the face was pulled out into a pterodactyline beak. He had pitiless pink eyes with yellow sclera. His face betrayed no inner kindness or mercy, which was good, because he hadn't any.
 
He possessed the power of hypnosis so powerful that it could possibly be classified as mind control, though not quite, and the power to absorb energy as a means of sustenance. He was a very dangerous individual, indeed, this anthropterosaur.
 
"I rise!" he said in a strangely deep, squawking voice. He stretched his limbs and tail to their full lengths, with his eyes closed and his maw opened in a rather awkward-looking yawn. "I rise. And I understand."
 
He proceeded with surprising swiftness to the location of the nearest light. He leaped out into daylight, apparently unbothered by the sudden brightness from coming the deepest darkness to brilliantly sunny day. The anthropterosaur didn't care as it inspected an old stone star fighter that was overgrown.

"Yes, I feel your desires, Master," the anthropterosaur said, not addressing the star fighter, though it appeared that way. "I know what I must do now. You can trust me to collect those he has marked."

There wasn't any pilot revealed as he cleared away the vines and overgrowth. He climbed in the oddly pristine fighter and powered it up, and flew away from the secluded spot.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 22, 2014, 11:50:46 AM

What fighter where? O.o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2014, 11:56:09 AM

All in good time, my dear Saffa. All in good time.

And I might post another chapter later, but I have a lot to do today -- like actually cleaning my apartment. . . .

:edit: New book ideas. (I'm working with a 30-minute limit on this computer -- if there are blanks spots, I'll fill them in when I can.)

• Book DXXXVI: "Cocoon of Devolution" -- A Moreau escapes prison, changed.
• Book DXXXVII: "Tempting the Moreau" -- Shenecron offers a Moreau a deal.
• Book DXXXVIII:"The Trident" -- The RAFians must stop a trident that can flood the world from falling into the wrong hands.
• Book DXXXIX: "The Fountain" -- The RAFians discover a fountain with a mystic ability.
• Book DXL: "Sigil Significance" -- Shenecron has his herald unleash the Dark Sigil Beasts.
• Book DXLI: "Let It Burn" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Sigil Beast of Cowardice.
• Book DXLII: "Becoming Bestial " -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Sigil Beast of Loneliness.
• Book DXLIII:"Pink is Out" -- The RAFians and Star Sapphires must deal with the Dark Sigil Beast of Hate.
• Book DXLIV:"A Plague of Hopelessness" -- The RAFians and Blue Lanterns must deal with the Dark Sigil Beast of Hopelessness.
• Book DXLV: "Speak Nothing But Lies" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Sigil Beast of Insincerity.
• Book DXLVI: "All-Consuming Darkness" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Sigil Beast of Darkness.
• Book DXLVII: "The RAF-Reaper" -- The RAFians deal with an entity that want to wipe them out -- the RAF-Reaper.
• Book DXLVIII: "Stellar Puberty" -- Freddie, Estelore's "nephew", goes through stellar puberty, where he becomes homicidally hostile.
• Book DXLIX: "Fugitive Demon" -- Shenecron loses his herald.
• Book DL: "When Bodysuits Aren't Bodysuits" -- The RAFians deal with some illicit bodysuits.
• Book DLI: "Everlost Again" -- The RAF-Reaper discovers Everlost, and decides to delete it. . . .

Tell me your thoughts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 22, 2014, 02:58:17 PM

Nice work, Cloaky! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2014, 03:51:38 PM

Thanks, Gazzy.
 
New chapter. Last chapter before the holidays -- won't be able to post again until Monday.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
The Herald's Gift

There was really no reason why the ship should have worked. This star fighter -- which looked like it was made of stone, but in reality it wasn't. In terms of design, it looked like it was cobbled together from the Sh'iar, Vulcans, the Mon Calamari, and ancient Galvans. It was built like a long-bodied roadster, color of granite and marble. It was propelled and supported by unknown means, which made it all the more confusing.
 
The star fighter continued to rocket toward its intended destination. Toward the location of the marked ones -- the ones who marked themselves with the enemy's symbol. . . .
 

***

Abby, Saffa, Faerie, Phoenix, Goom, Horse, Mithril, and Underseen were just returning from a very dangerous mission. Some profoundly foolish idiot thought he would have a couple of nexus (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nexu) as personal bodyguards. Nexus were rather feline in nature, with thick, black claws which could slice a human in half. They had long, sharp quills along their back, and a long, forked tail that was semi-prehensile. They had four eyes and a flat, spade-like head and a broad, wide maw that was filled with sharp teeth. They had a splayed, squat stance and fur rather like felines. They had extremely sharp instincts and reflexes, although they were known to tire easily, and often used swift movements to finish an enemy quickly, biting down and thrashing their head about to break their victim's neck.
 
They were exceedingly dangerous creatures. Just two proved to be a challenge for the RAFians dispatched on the mission. Abby and Saffa would have nearly been killed -- had they not had the foresight to acquire the dangerous beasts, putting them into the acquiring trance. It was a moment of opportunity, and they took it. But all eight showed signs of weariness and exhaustion. Subduing one nexu was a feat in and of itself, much less two.
 
They were taken unawares by a strange flying creature . . . the Herald of Garrotik . . .
 

***

"What happened here?" a voice demanded.
 
"Wh . . . what?" Saffa said groggily.
 
"Where are the others?" the voice said, not to be deterred.
 
"The others? Wh -- hey! Where are they?!" Saffa said, getting up. "Where did they go?"

Cloak spoke, "That's my question."

Then his ears perked as he turned and saw the ancient star fighter lift up quite a distance away, then jet away.

"What was that?" Abby asked.

"The kidnapper?" Saffa guessed.

"It's heading due south," Cloak noted. Then he turned to the girls, "You two know we have to follow it."

"Of course we know that, Cloak." Saffa said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 23, 2014, 10:40:27 PM

Wait, what? And where did Cloak come from?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2014, 09:19:44 AM

Jarring, eh? It'll be answered in the next chapter.

To tide you over until then, here are a couple of book ideas.

• Book DLII: "Party Time!" -- The RAFians must deal with a pair of ghosts seeking a hedonistic lifestyle.
• Book DLIII: "My Yeerk Thipp" -- A voluntary Controller boy is afraid of telling his mother about his Yeerk.
• Book DLIV: "Boom Blast" -- A man seeks to tangibly weaponize sound itself.

There. Tell me what you think, hopefully I didn't repeat any plotlines.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Jetsettin'

"There's Yarin already," Cloak said.  "He must have been listening into communications. He'll pick us up."

"Wait," Abby said, still groggily. "How'd you get here all of a sudden, Cloak?"

Cloak gave the human RAFian a long, piercing look, as if he suspected that she might be playing a joke or kidding, as humans are known to be apt to do at times.

"'All of a sudden'?" Cloak echoed, not taking his eyes off the direction that the ship went. "What do you mean 'all of a sudden'? You and Saffa have been out of communication for at least three of your hours. We got concerned and I came out to see what happened."

"Three hours?" Saffa inquired. "Seriously?"

"Why would I lie?" Cloak countered.

"It must have been the nexus --" Abby began.

"The what?" Cloak said, very seriously.

"Nexus." Saffa said. "They must have had some sort of sleep-inducing --"

"Why were you battling nexus?" Cloak demanded. "And just why was I not told of this?"

"You didn't know?"

"Does it sound like I knew?" Cloak said. "That was incredibly dangerous! You could have been killed. There is a reason why nexus aren't in zoos!"

"Have you ever handled --" Abby began.

"Someone ask for pickup?" Yarin interrupted unintentionally, as the door to the ship opened. Wild, Sakki, Gaz, and Shadow were already onboard.

"We'll get back to this later," Cloak told the other two. Then they followed the direction of the ship.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2014, 11:40:33 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Strapped and Trapped

"Yes, Master, I hear you," said Garrotik's Herald, the anthropterosaur. "I hear you, Master, I obey."
 
Garrotik's Herald had gathered the Infinity Blades -- the Tempest Blade, the Fissure Blade, the Damocles Blade, the Sun Blade, the Light Blade, and the Gale Blade -- and had stacked them rather like one would stack wood for a funeral pyre or a smile campfire. It was difficult to differentiate either one. It looked like they were obscuring something that could be an Odd Keystone, only about ten times bigger.
 
Their rightful owners were strapped with heavy chrome brackets to cold, steel, upright laboratory tables. Phoenix's was fire-proof, Underseen was incredibly rare tylee metal (which negated his shapeshifting), Faerie's was iron, while the others were plain and generic.
 
"They are ready, Master," Garrotik's Herald said, reverently.
 
"Wh . . . what are you doing?" Goom said groggily.
 
"Quiet, nonbeliever!" Garrotik's Herald snapped imperiously.
 
"Nonbeliever of what exactly?" Phoenix replied, semi-lucidly.

"Quiet, nonbeliever!" Garrotik's Herald snapped again. "The will of Garrotik commands it!"

"Garrotik can go and shove his will up his --" Faerie began crankily, before being cut off.

"You dare disrespect the majesty of Garrotik's divine will?!" the Herald snarled imperiously.

"Okay! We get it. Religious nut." Mithril said, sounding rather punch-drunk.

"The will of Garrotik is the only true path of enlightenment," the Herald said, rounding on Mithril briefly, before turning his back upon them all.

"But why do you need us?" Underseen asked.

The Herald remained silent, as if unconcerned with them now.

"Isn't it obvious?" Horse said, bitterly. "We're sacrifices to his pagan god."

"Oh, wonderful," Faerie said, bitterly rueful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2014, 12:19:39 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Silence and Speaking

The flight towards where the star fighter, the ship, the whatever it was went was smooth and uninterrupted. Cloak did not know whether this uneventful trip was a good or bad omen. All he knew was that he had the faintest disconcerting feeling that he could not explain, to himself or anyone else. He passed it off as pre-battle jitters -- although he had never really experienced pre-battle jitters to this extent before.

While the others talked about what could potentially lie before them, Cloak lapsed into a deeper, and deeper silence. This seemed to go unnoticed by the others, distracted by what possible dangers awaited them in whatever land they would land on.

"We're in the place humans call . . . Antartica." Yarin announced.

"What . . . in the . . . world?" Saffa asked, perplexed.

Cloak moved to see what she saw. He saw, hidden by all the ice and whatnot, a verdant jungle land. A land thoughly esconced and hidden by the harshness of the ice outside it's borders. The warm was given seemingly by the singular volcano seen in the distance.

"What is that?" Wild asked.

"Never mind that, how is that even possible?" Sakki asked.

Cloak narrowed his eyes, and said, very softly, "So . . . even here, the Savage Land exists. . . ."

***

"Hey! What are you doing to my sword?!" Faerie demanded.

Energy had began to gather on the sword, and was being siphoned off into whatever was beneath it. The more energy that was siphoned from each sword, the duller and more tarnished the blades were becoming.  The RAFians, who had become rather attached to their blades, strained and pulled at their bindings.

"Leave it alone!" Horse screamed, as if she was losing a part of herself.

"Stop it!" Mithril yelled with equal passion.

"Stop it!" Underseen agreed.

"Give it back!" Goom shouted.

"Give it here!" Phoenix called out.

"You'll destroy it!" Faerie cried out.

"That," the Herald said, "is the general idea."

This silenced all six for a moment.

"What?" Faerie said, flatly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 29, 2014, 10:51:59 PM

What on earth?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 30, 2014, 03:31:43 PM

Sorry about the lack of chapters today -- I'm just not feeling it today. Especially with the kind of day I had at work. . . .

Sorry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 30, 2014, 10:59:52 PM

That's alright. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2014, 04:07:52 PM

Thanks. :)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Garrotik's Story

The swords soon clattered to the dirt floor, revealing a stone head, chin level with the ground. It looked rather reminescent of MaloMyotismon and a moai (you know, those Easter Island heads). It had yellow marking around the eyes, and the eyes themselves looked rather like Olmec's from "Legends of the Hidden Temple" -- the Nickelodeon game show in the nineties. It was an overall hideous face, as well as a grotesque head of granite.
 
"Master! Master Garrotik!" his Herald cried out.
 
"His master has a face that not even his mother would love," Faerie said, with acidic sarcasm.
 
Garrotik's Herald smacked her on her temples with his right wing, snarling, "You will show respect to the One and Only Savior."
 
"You're kidding," Phoenix said, tonelessly.
 
"Your lord and master is an Easter Island head?" Goom asked, skeptically.
 
"Hold your tongues!" the Herald snapped. The swords were being slowly swallowed by the Earth around the statue.
 
"You regularly worship slabs of stone?" Horse asked, scathingly.
 
"You DARE to disresp--" the Herald snarled.
 
"They're not enough," said a deep voice, rather like that of the tiger head of the Cave of Wonders. "They expended too much energy in destroying their counterparts . . ."
 
"Master! Master, you waken!" the Herald said, with reverent fervor, Horse's barb quickly forgotten.
 
"Wonderful. Ol' Olmec-Head is awake," Faerie said, with an almost depressive irreverence.

"You think yourself tough, do you, faerie?" said the head.

"Tougher than you, Granite Brains," Faerie said, unimpressed.

"Oh, I see. You think me a parlor trick." the head said, knowingly. "I am Garrotik. And I am quite real. I was, at one time, much more majestic and mighty than the being you see before you. I had everything -- slaves, worshippers, power. Everything the strong, the mighty, the powerful, the all-seeing -- everything a god could want!! I was on the top of the world! I was the most benevolent --"

The RAFians reacted most disbelievingly at this.

"-- the most benevolent dictator any governmental body could have. And what happened? Some upstart thought to challenge me!! A creature from some unknown world had the gall to challenge me!! Garrotik the All-Knowing! Garrotik the All-Seeing! Garrotik --"

"Garrotik the Long-Winded." Phoenix added, snidely.

The talking head (though the mouth never moved) continued as if Phoenix said nothing, "Garrotik the Almighty! But this upstart gets lucky and manages to defeat me."

"And funny how your ego never gets smaller," Goom noted.

"Defeated me and locks me in this prison for countless eons!!" Garrotik raged. "Unable to move, unable to speak! He stole my power from me! He made me forgotten!"

"Not by me, Master Garrotik! Never by me!" his Herald said devoutly.

"And I'm fortunate for that," Garrotik said, rather uncharacteristicall y humble. Then he seemed distracted, as if he senses something, "He comes . . ."

***

Yarin's ship had found a tentative landing point, and everyone disembarked. Except Yarin. Yarin never wants to leave his ship. Cloak was the last one to exit the ship, and from the minute that his foot touched the earth of this Savage Land, he knew.

"Something's wrong," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Something's very, very wrong."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 31, 2014, 10:15:03 PM

Is it just me or do most gods have watermelon sized egos? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2015, 03:46:15 PM

To paraphrase Albert Brooks from "The Simpsons Movie":

"Of course! Have you ever tried being a god without an ego? It's boring! No one listens to you."

And sorry, but no chapter today. After my little fall (:mad: -- see "Totally Random Thoughts"), I'm not really feeling all that into it right now. And you'll have to wait until Monday for more. Sorry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 02, 2015, 10:32:24 PM

Damn, I hope you're okay. :hug:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2015, 11:27:31 AM

I'm fine, Saffa. Don't worry. I came up with a bevy of book ideas in the meantime:
 

• Book DLV: "Killer Kouches" -- The RAFians must deal with some maneating couches.
• Book DLVI: "Star Hole" -- A man makes accidental Horcruxes.
• Book DLVII: "Molecule-Base Mayhem!" -- The RAFians must deal with a man who can manipulate matter on a molecular basis.
• Book DLVIII: "No Place to Hyde" -- The RAFians must investigate allegations of high school athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.
• Book DLIX: "Blue's Clues" -- The RAFians must deal with a rival of Blue's.
• Book DLX: "Facing Your Feelings" -- The RAFians must help a man able to involuntarily take the form of whatever a target hates, fears, envies, hopes for, desires, compassionate about, or loves. He has no control over this ability.
• Book DLXI: "Worm of Doubt" -- The RAFians must battle a Worm of Doubt.
• Book DLXII: "Bounty: Hunter" -- A Shistavanen bounty hunter is after Hunter.
• Book DLXIII: "The Legion Swarm" -- Shenecron ressurrects an old RAFian foe.
• Book DLXIV: "Slag-Spoutin' Saurians" -- The Ssi-ruu hunt Cloak.
• Book DLXV: "The Corona Reges Elementi" -- The RAFians must obtain the Corona Reges Elementi first, before their opposition.
• Book DLXVI: "Hearts of the Elements" -- The RAFians must obtain the Hearts of the Elements before they attach themselves to a human host.
• Book DLXVII: "Lost Faith" -- The populace begins to lose faith in the RAFians.
• Book DLXVIII: "Impersonated Surrogacy" -- A man uses "Surrogacy" technology to manipulate things (like the economy, government, etc.) via fully-autonomous "Surrogates" planted in key positions of power.
• Book DLXIX: "KOH and Koh" -- Koh the Face-Stealer makes a pact with a Knight of Humanity grunt.
• Book DLXX: "Surrogacy Implants" -- A man uses "Surrogacy" implants to control and manipulate people. The RAFians must stop his scheming.

That's it, for now. I'm kicking around another idea, but I'll wait to post that until I hammer out the details. Remember titles are subject to change. Tell me what you think!

New chapter shortly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2015, 11:57:48 AM

For a moment I thought KOH meant potassium hydroxide and I was seriously wondering. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2015, 12:17:14 PM

Nah, just realized that the Knights of Humanity had the same basic initials as Koh.

New chapter. Might be a bit short.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
They Cry

Cloak stumbled abit as he took his second step on this Savage Land. He had never experienced something like this before. The very elements seemed in vicious turmoil, as if they themselves could feel literal pain. The air itself seemed to quiver unnaturally and vibrate with fear. The land itself seemed to tremble and tremor with fear and terror. The waters seemed to strink away from the source of these anomalies. More and more oddities seemed to be happening.
 
Cloak was nearly overwhelmed by it all. He remained on his feet but it felt as he was being yelled and pulled at from all sides. He could barely see straight. The elements themselves were alerting him to an imbalance. A dreadful imbalance that must be corrected --
 
"Uncle?"
 
A dreadful imbalance in the elements . . .
 
"Cloak?" Gaz said, but her voice sounded distorted to Cloak. "Cloak, what's wrong?"
 
A dreadful imbalance in nature . . .
 
Another voice, who's owner was distorted beyond the point of recognition. Cloak couldn't hear it, couldn't understand it. The elements crying out over the imbalance were too loud. Was Shadow experiencing this chaotic mess of sensory imput? Cloak was too disoriented, too confused, nearly overwhelmed to consider much on this.

"Cloak, nothing's happened yet," Saffa said, clearly concerned. "Everything's okay."

"No," Cloak said, managing to clear the cries of the elements to achieve cognitive thought. "Everything is most definitely not okay."

"Cloak --" Abby said, disconcerted with the serious and deliberate tone Cloak had taken.

"There is much wrong here . . ." Cloak said.

"Uncle, what are you --" Shadow began.

Cloak uncharacteristicall y ignored her. Shadow, while not accustomed to such frostiness, took it in stride, far more concerned with her uncle's rather irratic behavior.

"Uncle," Shadow said, again, her concern paramount.

But Cloak was too intent on ending this elemental imbalance that was somehow in effect just here, in the Savage Land.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2015, 04:08:42 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Gathering Strength

"IT MUST BE CORRECTED!" Cloak roared, his words intermingling a tiger's loudest, most primal roar. A swirl of air circled Cloak and buffeted the other RAFians away. Shadow was able to remain close due to her own Elemental Mastery. The other Five Element began to join Cloak in rings.
 
"Oh no," Abby said immediately. "Cloak's gone completely nutzo."
 
"No, he hasn't!" Shadow protested. "There is something odd here."
 
"But you're not getting as bent out of shape about it," Wild pointed out.
 
"My uncle has spent more time as an Elements Master," Shadow said, thoughtfully, though still concerned. "He must have some sensitivity to the Six Elements that I do not have."
 
"If he carries on like this," Saffa said in urgent tones, "we won't have to worry about the others -- they'll be killed like us."
 
"Uncle would never kill you guys!" Shadow protested swiftly. "You know that!"
 
"In his current state," Gaz pointed out, "I don't know about that."
 
"He would never do that," Shadow said, stubbornly. "No matter what state he's in."
 
"Look at it objectively, Shadow," Wild said. "Your uncle is in this -- TAKE COVER!!"
 

***

"Yes . . ." Garrotik muttered, quite forgetting his audience.
 
He was beginning to regain his strength -- albeit rather slower than he would have liked. But he had slumbered for so long, if he was honest with himself he didn't know if it was his former glory and power and might returning or just him coming out of his long somnolence and the grogginess of such a hibernation was wearing off.
 
"Yes . . ." Garrotik muttered again.
 
"Is this guy a god or a Megatron?" Faerie said sarcastically, voice flat.
 
"Master," the Herald squawked slavishly, "has your strength begin to return?"
 
"Yes," Garrotik said, ignoring the jeers of the restrained RAFians. "Yes, my power returns, my strength gathers. But slowly. Too slowly."
 
"What of them, my lord?" the Herald said, jerking his head in a most disconsolate and haughty way toward the bounded RAFians. "What of the infidels? The unbelievers?"

"They are of no concern to me, Herald." Garrotik said.

"Guess we're not sacrifices at all," Underseen said.

"I wish not to be impudent, my lord," the Herald said, oozing sycophancy. He did not finish his sentence.

"They are yours to have your pleasings with, Herald," Garrotik said in a highly dismissive way. The way a tyrant allows a starving slave a scrap of meat when they're full and fat. "It matters not to me. I have no need for these pitiful specimens."

"Pitiful?!" Faerie practically screamed. "You call us pitiful, Granite-Face?! Give me back my blade, and I'll show you just how 'pitiful' I am!!"

Garrotik's laugh was a cruel and nauseating thing. "Puny faerie, your Eternity Blades are long gone. Their minute energy was only sufficient to wake me up. You had drained their fable power long before I took that energy as my own!"

"You . . . you . . . you MONSTER!!" Horse raged suddenly.

"Yeah. What's your point?" Garrotik said, distractedly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 06, 2015, 08:40:21 PM

Oh dear. Now what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2015, 04:07:14 PM

Finished planning my way through "Project: Toon World", and have a bevy of new book ideas, which I'll probably post on Monday, when I have more time.
 
And, Saffa, you wanted to know now what, right? Well -- new chapter!
 

CHAPTER TEN:
The Confrontation

Cloak blasted by the others, scattering them, still encased in his sphere of wind. He had the other elements wrapped around the wind sphere in rings or tight orbits, like Orbitars from "Kid Icarus". Only Shadow remained standing after this, a bit speechless as her uncle's rather uncharacteristic recklessness.
 
"You still sure about your assumption, Shadow?" Gaz asked, peeking up to see if it was safe to stand.
 
"Yes." Shadow said, with unwavering, unerring conviction. Though it seemed to waver a bit when she spoke again, "He must sense something that I'm still too inexperienced to know."
 
"Who are you trying to convince," Sakki said, "us or yourself?"
 
Shadow said nothing, in rather perfect (albeit unintentional) mimicry of her uncle, if he were put in a similar situation.
 

***

"He comes," Garrotik said, his glowing eyes brightening excitedly.
 
The Herald held his leathery palm mere inches away from Faerie's cheek, and she looked rather ready to bite it, but not wanting to. She assumed it would taste like old, unwashed leather -- rather like a gym shoe. However, the Herald immediately forgot about what he was doing and turned to his master at the merest sound of his voice.

"He?" he squawked, still in that servile, sycophantic way. "Who he?"

"YOU . . ." thundered a powerful voice.

"Cloak!" Horse announced.

"Now you're in for it!" Underseen smirked, with a rather unusually large smirk.

"Cloak's gonna imprison you again!" Sakki sneered.

Again, Garrotik laughed that deep, disconcerting laugh. It carried far farther than it should have been able to carry. The Herald seemed to elate at its sound, while the RAFians (except Cloak) winced at.

"You pathetic peons," Garrotik said, with venomous relish, "you think that such a creature could imprison me? ME?!"

That laugh vibrated uncomfortably through the ground which seemed to shutter and sicken from it.

"YOU . . ." Cloak said, and it was rather strange to hear so much rage in his voice. "YOU caused this imbalance. There is only one way to correct it."

"Is there now?" Garrotik teased gaily.

"I must eliminate . . ." Cloak said, as if he was trying to convince himself more than anyone, "I must slay you."

"And what makes you think that you can?" Garrotik taunted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 07, 2015, 08:02:35 PM

Somehow I get the feeling that Cloak isn't quite Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 08, 2015, 03:58:09 PM

Well, how irritable would you be if you had the equivalent of sixty or so constant, consistent car alarms never stopping, Saffa? ;)
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Run! It's A Stampede!

"He nearly took our bleepin' heads off," Abby said, thoroughly irritated by it. That and she had absentmindedly dove into a mud puddle. At least, she hoped that it was a mud puddle. "Why is he even in this state to begin with?"
 
"There is some imbalance in the Six Elements," Shadow said simply.
 
"Yeah, we gathered that much," Sakki said. Then she added, pensively, "But there has to be more to it than that."
 
"What are you suggesting?" Wild asked.
 
"Think about it," Sakki said, thoughtfully, "think about just who was captured. Horse. Mithril. Goom. Phoenix. Underseen. Faerie."
 
"What's your point?" Saffa asked, always keen to not beat around the bush.
 
"I'll answer that with a question," Sakki said, not offended at all by Saffa's tone. "What do those six have in common? Other than being RAFians and bearing the Mark, that is."
 
A brief silence greeted these words, broken only by Saffa, who spoke with the tone of someone realizing something rather earth-shattering. "The Eternity Blades."
 
"Yep," Sakki continued. "Those six weren't chosen by chance. Whatever that thing was, it had planned this whole thing in advance. He had to have."
 
"Are you suggesting," Shadow said, "that he actually unleashed those nexus?"

"Unleashed, planted -- what is it?" Sakki began, before Shadow put up her hand.

"RUN!" she shouted suddenly.

"Why?" Abby asked.

"Just run!" Shadow said. "Or fly!"

The others complied, and they just barely missed being trampled by a stampede. It was a stampede of herbivorous megafauna. Megafauna thought to be extinct -- Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, etc. The frantic panic from the massive beasts was almost infectious.

The RAFians were eventually shunted to a small recess in the pathway's brush that allowed them a respite from fighting.

"But why are they stampeding?" Sakki asked. Then she turned round, and saw what could very well be the source of the fright. "Oh -- ask a stupid question . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 09, 2015, 08:31:41 AM

I'm so confused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2015, 03:56:22 PM

Yes, I suppose it's rather confusing right now. It's not for me simply because I know the outcome, or maybe that will be confusing too. I don't know, I haven't written it yet (yes, it's planned out, but not word-for-word.
 
New, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Battle is On!

"Take this!" Cloak said, sending out a beam of golden-scarlet energy, a powerful stream of water, and convulsions of fireballs in a rather impressive mimicry of Triple Finish (Pokemon Trainer's Final Smash in "Super Smash Bros. Brawl"). It was truly an awe-inspiring spectacle to any spectator (like the others who blundered into the midst of this attack, explaining why the stampede veered away from this spot, although not why they were stampeding in the first place).
 
Garrotik survived the attack, laughing hysterically, rather like Jafar.
 
Incensed, Cloak performed a midair "Mario Finale", which he fired two long tendrils of fire which were intertwined in a double helix form. Garrotik said nothing, and, being in the state that he was, his face was inscrutable. But the "Mario Finale" did not even singe the stone.
 
Cloak was beginning to see Garrotik's mere survival as a personal insult. Realm Walkers can be very proud, and Cloak was no exception to this.
 
Cloak's eyes became like golden-scarlet suns -- always a danger sign -- and he tossed some formles golden-scarlet energy into the sky which exploded into large energy meteors that rained down upon Garrotik. Each and everyone made an impact. But Garrotik still lived.

Again and again, Cloak attacked and fought and poured enough of himself into his attacks as to not cause collateral damage.  And again and again, Garrotik survived each volley. While Garrotik seemed to notice the activity of the volcano several miles away, Cloak did not. Cloak was still in his air sphere, ground untouched by his feet. He couldn't Earthsight until he did. And he was too focused on what he was doing to realize that that probably would be a prudent thing to do.

"Is this the limit to your power?" Garrotik taunted.

"I'll show you!" Cloak said, charging himself with all six elements. He charged forward, a massive force of power -- though the small, unconscioius part of him that remained rational, still held back the full potential of the attack to relegate the destruction to an isolated area around Garrotik. Contact was made, and smoke billowed around the statue head.

Cloak stood upon the ground, narrowing his eyes at the smoke that billowed around him. Surely that did it. Surely that ended this threat.

"Is this the limit to your power?" Garrotik repeated, through the smoke. "For the Catalyst, I was expecting more. For the Catalyst, I was expecting better."

"Impossible," Cloak croaked out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2015, 11:39:24 AM

As promised, new book ideas!
 

• Book DLXXI: "Morphing Masks" -- A man discovers a new way of identity theft -- a mask material with flesh memory capabilities.
• Book DLXXII: "Ancient Warriors of Garrotik" -- The RAFians learn about Garrotik's ten generals.
• Book DLXXIII: "Bastion Forms" -- The Warriors of Garrotik discover their Bastion Forms.
• Book DLXXIV: "Gotta Go Fast" -- The Warriors of Garrotik discover their Chase Forms.
• Book DLXXV: "Pursuit of Power" -- The Warriors of Garrotik discover their Attack Forms.
• Book DLXXVI: "The Warrior's True Purpose" -- The Warriors of Garrotik discover Garrotik's true purpose for them.
• Book DLXXVII: "Big Brother" -- Enemies of the RAFians attempt to discredit them with a "big brother" satellite.
• Book DLXXVIII: "Discredited" -- The man behind Morphing Masks comes up with a semi-new way of identity theft.
• Book DLXXIX: "Militants and Intrigue" -- The RAFians must prevent diminutive aliens from disrupting a delicate peace treaty signing.
• Book DLXXX: "Realistic Costuming" -- At a costuming event, a man attempts to sow chaos by turning everyone's costumes real.
• Book DLXXXI: "Severe Napoleon Complexes" -- The RAFians deal with microencelphalopoid s.
• Book DLXXXII: "Throwing His Hat into the Ring" -- The RAFians are dragged into a feud.
• Book DLXXXIII: "Tendrils of Romance" -- Underseen crushes on a Lenopan (Sludgepuppy (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Sludgepuppy)) girl, who has a terrible secret.
• Book DLXXXIV: "Shadows of Malevolence" -- The RAFians must contend with the Malevolence Shades.
• Book DLXXXV: "Bizarre Starfish" -- The RAFians must deal with Starro drones.
• Book DLXXXVI: "The Psycho Strangers" -- The RAFians are discovered by the Psycho Strangers, leader of the Phantom Stranger creatures.
• Book DLXXXVII: "Silver Blinding" -- The RAFians deal with the Silver Psycho Stranger.
• Book DLXXXVIII: "Black Outted" -- The RAFians deal with the Black Psycho Stranger.
• Book DLXXXIX: "Are You Yella?" -- The RAFians deal with the Yellow Psycho Stranger.
• Book DXC: "Untrue Blue" -- The RAFians deal with the Blue Psycho Stranger.
• Book DXCI: "Painting the Town Red" -- The RAFians deal with the Red Psycho Stranger.
• Book DXCII: "Plague Prelude" -- The Dark Medallions are found.
• Book DXCIII: 'Plague of Cowardice" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Cowardice and saurian rakghouls (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rakghoul).
• Book DXCIV: "Plague of Loneliness" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Loneliness and lupine rakghouls.
• Book DXCV: "Plague of Insincerity" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Insincerity and plant-themed rakghouls.
• Book DXCVI: "Plague of Hatred . . . Wait, Again?" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Hatred and avian rakghouls.
• Book DXCVII: "Plague of Unreliability" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Unreliability and marine-themed rakghouls.
• Book DXCVIII: "Plague of Hopelessness" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Hopelessness and rodent-themed rakghouls.
• Book DXCIX: "Plague of Darkness" -- The RAFians must deal with the Dark Medallion of Darkness and feline rakghouls.
• Book DC: "The Demon Duel" -- Shenecron has it out with his former Herald.

Which ends Year Six, and Year Seven begins here:
 

• Book DCI: "A.P.P.A" -- Despite hostile opposition, the RAFians manage to get the Alien Protection Protocol Act passed.
• Book DCII: "Opening Doors, Closing Minds" -- Two star-crossed alien lovers need RAFian help to protect them from the Knights of Humanity.
• Book DCIII: "Would-Be Assassins" -- The RAFians play bodyguards to an alien crown prince, disguised as an ordinary human high school student. They must protect him from assassination attempts.
• Book DCIV: "Star-Crossed Lovers" -- An alien man falls in love and marries a human, but fears that she'd leave him if she knew the truth.

There. I know it's a lot, and there's probably a few rehashes (or might appear that there are), but I think I can make 'em work.
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Dawning Realization

"Impossible?" Garrotik said, with mock incredulity. "For a god? No! No, nothing is impossible for a god!"
 
"You are not a god," Cloak snarled, as the others freed the bound RAFians. Cloak proved to be oblivious to this, he just attacked Garrotik again and again, with each volley doing nothing against the powerful entity imprisoned within the stone.
 
Cloak was not so easily deterred, as Shadow watched his efforts with something that was not quite awe, not quite worry.
 
In her observation, she noticed what her uncle had missed in his ardent, fervent crusade to bring balance to the elements. A certain something that was rather key, that was quite important.
 
"He's just making it worse," she said quietly.
 
"No kidding." Faerie said. "Garrotik isn't feeling his attacks!"
 
"No," Shadow insisted. "It's far worst than that, Faerie! Uncle's attacks are actually --"
 
A slight tremor under her feet went unnotice by everyone else. Shadow quickly looked over to the volcano, that was rather endemic to the landscape. Strangely, it's existence was easily forgotten. It caused the young Realm Walker disquiet and unnerved her for some reason she couldn't put her finger on.
 
"Cloak's attacks are actually what, Shadow?" Phoenix asked, although he had a shrewd idea where she was going with this.
 
'Uncle's attacks are doing nothing but strengthening Garrotik," Shadow said. "That's why they appear to have no negative effect on him. He's absorbing the elemental energy!"
 
"How is that even possible?" Saffa asked.

"How is half of the things we experience possible?" Sakki pointed out. "I think Shadow's right on this -- Garrotik isn't even flinching under that kind of punishment!"

"He's a stone head, he couldn't flinch if he wanted to." Abby countered.

"There's still not a scratch on him," Mithril said. "And if it is true that Cloak is just empowering Garrotik . . . I really don't want to think about what the ramifications of that could be."

"Maybe we could talk to whoever imprisoned him in the first place," Horse said, "maybe he'd know something about stopping him in his tracks."

"Great idea!" Faerie said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Any idea just who did that? Clearly Cloak didn't!"

Shadow wasn't paying attention to the arguments and debates. Something about that volcano was calling to her. She didn't know what. Was it the source of Garrotik's power? His weakness? What? But she knew something about it would eventually come into play.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 12, 2015, 11:45:55 AM

OMG the number of books. :o Looks like we get to know more about Garrotik in them!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2015, 03:55:17 PM

And yet -- I have more ideas. . . . Which will be posted at a later date.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Foolish Folly

"If that did not finish you," Cloak snarled, baring his teeth with each syllable, "then maybe, just maybe, the full might of the elements will!!"
 
This snapped Shadow out of her reverie. She could not believe that her uncle was being this reckless. This wasn't like the man she knew. He often warned her against such impetuous acts, and now he was losing control over his emotions, over himself. Yet the power before had seemed restrained, restricted.
 
The secret was that Garrotik's taunts had a subtlety to them that was very triggering to Cloak. It was the same kind of taunts that his mother had always favored. A subtlety that Cloak never really developed a good defense for other than distancing himself from. In allowing himself to be triggered in such a way, he allowed his baser emotions get the better of him, and he felt a need to lash out.
 
And the fact that the elemental imbalance was driving him absolutely batty didn't help matters either.
 
"Uncle, don't!" Shadow screamed as loudly as she could. But even that seemed insufficient to reach her uncle, in the throes of an emotional upheaval. She was bright enough to realize this, and then used her mastery over the Air element to amplify her voice, and shouted, as if through a bullhorn, "UNCLE, DON'T DO IT!! GARROTIK --"
 
Shadow never got to finish her explanation. Why? Because it was at that moment that Garrotik's Herald, the anthropterosaur, reappeared and attacked. Shadow had managed to sidestep his charge, making it look rather like it was an early Death Battle.
 
"Silence, whelp!" he snarled, which one could see as impressive -- as the Herald had no lips. "The Catalyst should be grateful to be of use to the Great Garrotik!!"
 
"Oh, will you shut up?!" Faerie roared. She clearly already had had enough of the Herald. "You are more long-winded that Lord High Stoneface there! And that's saying something!"

The Herald reached out to slap Faerie, but this time . . . ah, this time she wasn't restrained. And if there is one thing in all the universe that you don't want -- it's Faerie Larka mad at you.

Meanwhile, Cloak was charging up in his ultimate attack, in which he would use his elements at his full zenith . . . but even now, he couldn't bring himself to use his full might, his full power.

But it would prove to be sufficient enough as is. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 13, 2015, 10:12:48 PM

This isn't taking off the cloak, right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2015, 04:06:09 PM

No. No, he's not doing that. In the terms of the narrative, that never crossed my mind.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Problem with Fanaticism

Cloak realizes too late that his ultimate attack (well, ultimate-attack-without-causing-any-undue-collateral-damage attack) wasn't the brightest thing to do. For all his power, he achieved nothing but the exact opposite of his goal. Garrotik's form shifted and warped, almost as if Proteus had regained his powers (although he apparently was learning to cope without them and making real headway in his psychological treatments).
 
Garrotik's true form was noting like what his imprisoned form looked like.  His head was like MaloMyotismon (http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/MaloMyotismon), with similar shoulders in black and red, with Apocalymon (http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Apocalymon) hair at the back. He wore a cape that was like both Mr. Sinister and Jafar, who he resembled from the waist down. His arms resembled the sleeves and cuffs of Lucemon in his Chaos Mode, but the hands themselves were more akin to that of a Celestialsapien.  He possessed no pupils in his eyes and he emanated power and fear from his very form.

Cloak felt highly abashed by this figure rising from the ground, which seemed somewhat molten and loose, but was not.  Garrotik paid no mind to the environment, which seemed to get colder and harsher all at once. Cloak, overcome by shame and regret, failed to notice this -- but Shadow was quicker on the uptake. But she could not know what it could mean.

"Master! You have risen to your former glory! Huzzah!" his Herald celebrated.

"Not quite, Herald," Garrotik said.

The anthropterosaur stopped his jubilation, utterly perplexed. His master was standing, whole and free, at his considerable twelve feet height. The Herald was towered over by his Master, and the anthropterosaur never thought to feel fear, to feel panic. He was fanatically devoted to the monster before him, and could not ever conceive of a betrayal.

"But . . ." the Herald spoke, making his confusion all the more evident, "but . . . Master -- Master, I don't understand."

"I never expected you to," Garrotik snarled with a startling grimace upon his grotesque face. "But you have served me faithfully, and devotedly."

"Yes!" the Herald said, in paroxysms of devotion. "Yes! I serve you while imprisoned, and I shall serve you even now that you are freed!!"

"Yes, I believe you shall." Garrotik said, humbly. Then his arm shot out so quickly that only Cloak's eyes could track it. Garrotik gripped his Herald tightly in his fist, with a malevolent grin on his face, rather like a child using a magnifying glass on ants would have.

"Master! Have I displeased you?!" the Herald shrieked.

"No," Garrotik said. "But you've something I need."

And before the anthropterosaur could lodge further complaint, Garrotik absorbed the life from the pitiful creature. Then he absorbed his substance, so not even a dessicated corpse remained. The RAFians were rendered speechless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 14, 2015, 07:39:55 PM

That's the problem with false worship.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2015, 03:02:54 PM

It's the folly of any kind of fanaticism, especially to one person.
 
Sorry for the lack of chapters yesterday, I ran out of time. I'm rather irritated right now because of something at work, and I shan't go into it more than that.
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Ancient Warrior

Garrotik let out a peel of raucous, crazed laughter of which Jafar would be jealous. The sound carried a great distance and all life seemed to cower before him, except the RAFians. RAFians do not cower -- except Rotiart, of course. Garrotik held an aura of terror and fear -- he very well could have fathered Phobos and Deimos had it not been Ares.
 
"Free!" he elated. "Free to pursue revenge on he who imprisoned me."
 
"You wouldn't happen to want to say who that is?" Underseen said, with almost naive hope.
 
Garrotik ignored the shapeshifter. He stepped away from the spot where he reformed corporeally, and found himself staggering a bit. His breathing was a bit harsher and he felt bodily aches and pains. Garrotik was aware of the problem immediately. He was still cramped from his imprisonment, he reached over and -- in a rather eerie similarity to Syphoon -- absorbed a number of passing dinosaurs were weren't too big on the intelligence thing. A number had filtered over after the volcano had settled down a bit, much to their current detriment. He absorbed them like he was eating Skittles.
 
"Well," Sakki said, "we're boned."
 
Garrotik seemed to notice the RAFians were still present. "You still here?"
 
"You a problem with that?" Faerie said, with bravado she did not feel.
 
Garrotik did not react with anger, but indifference. "Your false bravado does no decieve me, fairy."
 
"WHAT DID YOU --" Faerie roared, her fury quickly outweighing her shocked awe.
 
"You puny nothings mean nothing to me," Garrotik continued, as if uninterrupted. "You aren't even worth my notice. The only one worth my attention is the Catalyst, but even he cannot hold it for long."

Garrotik seemed to be regaining his former strength and power with startling rapidity.

"You are beneath my concern. My only concern is for that ancient warrior, that foreign creature, that . . . that . . . that whelp that had the audacity to imprison a god like me!!"

Then Garrotik seemed to notice something about the RAFians. Something that piqued his interest, something he claimed only Cloak would be able to do moments before. "Whose Mark do you wear on your person?"

Silence.

"Answer me, you worthless ants!!"

Suddenly, Phoenix realized something. "You don't mean --"

"Me?" came a voice. "I believe so, Phoenix."

The RAFians whipped around to the source of the voice, and saw Richard standing there, with Helen at his left side, standing a little ways back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 17, 2015, 08:24:28 AM

What an entrance!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2015, 09:30:47 AM

Yep. Now, new book ideas. Again.
 

• Book DCV: "Rise of the Metallo Men" -- A criminal cartel "resurrects" seven of their number into the Metallo Men.
• Book DCVI: "Upgrade Achieved! Metallo Men & Chee" -- The Metallo Men gain the Chee's holographic tech, only inferior to the genuine article.
• Book DCVII: "Emotional Drives" -- The Metallo Men capture and house the Emotion Entities.
• Book DCVIII: "Metallo Memories" -- The Metallo Men resurface, amnesiacs.
• Book DCIX: "Robo-Flu" -- The RAFians deal with self-aware Roboenza.
• Book DCX: "Boys 2 Hostages" -- A boy band (consisting of disguised aliens in exosuits) are taken hostage.
• Book DCXI: "Political Prisoners" -- A group of diminutive militants are impaled upon their own sword, so to speak.
• Book DCXII: "My Brother's a Ghost" -- The Specter Ring is discovered.
• Book DCXIII: "Super Swarm" -- The RAFians must contend with the Hivechips again.
• Book DCXIV: "An Unwanted Veneer" -- An old foe of Underseen's resurfaces.
• Book DCXV: "Nesk-y Swarms" -- The hivechips achieve the Nesk-like ability to come together.
• Book DCXVI: "Oriface, Back in Action" -- Another foe of Underseen resurfaces.
• Book DCXVII: "Metallo Swarms" -- The Metallo Men resurface . . . as hivechips.
• Book DCXVIII: "Aw, Bleeder 'Ell" -- The last foe of Underseen resurfaces.
• Book DCXIX: "My Best Friend is a Parasite" -- A teen is transformed into a corporeal parasite.
• Book DCXX: "My Roommate Loves to Tag" -- A young adult is granted the power to inhabit other bodies, which he abuses.
• Book DCXXI: "My Sister is a Survivor" -- A young woman is granted the ability to survive potentially fatal predicaments.
• Book DCXXII: "My Nephews Are Beastie Boys" -- A woman's nephews are granted Beast Boy powers.
• Book DCXXIII: "My Grandson Molts Everywhere" -- A man's grandson is granted the ability to change his appearance by "molting".
• Book DCXXIV: "A Weakness" -- An old foe of the RAFians discover a weak link in their defenses.
• Book DCXXV: "In the Wrong Hands" -- Very dangerous people get their hands on Zirkonian mind plug tech.
• Book DCXXVI: "The Manipulated Candidate" -- Some of those aforementioned people try to use the tech for world conquest.
• Book DCXXVII: "The Incredible Shrinking Man" -- A man being to shrink inexplicably.
• Book DCXXVIII: "Long Confined, Recently Unbound" -- Karaz becomes attached to his prison bottle.
• Book DCXXIX: "Kidnapped!" -- A criminal cartel kidnaps an old foe of RAF and a tweenaged boy.
• Book DCXXX: "The Skinny Is . . ." -- The "boy" is returned to his mother.
• Book DCXXXI: "On the Street" -- The "boy" is returned to his mother again.
• Book DCXXXII: "Gettin' in His Face" -- The "boy" is returned to his mother again.
• Book DCXXXIII: "Goin' Dave" -- The "boy" is returned to his mother again.
• Book DCXXXIV: "Rendered" -- The "boy" is returned to his mother again.
• Book DCXXXV: "Plugged In" -- The boy is returned to his mother.

Titles may change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Battle of the Ancient Titans

"Whelp!" Garrotik said, regarding Richard. "Your efforts proved in vain!"
 
Richard was not rattled or worried. He remained calm and collected.
 
"Your endeavor was pointless!" Garrotik blustered grandoisely. "I am free."
 
"But you were imprisioned for centuries," Richard pointed out. "I say it was effective. Well, for the time being, anyway."
 
"'Centuries'? Wait -- just how old is Richard?" Saffa asked.
 
No one answered her. Everyone was staring in shocked silence. No one has ever seen Richard battle before, not really. And Garrotik was a self-proclaimed god. Saffa seemed a bit disappointed that her question went unanswered, and unheard.
 
"It was only a temporary solution!" Garrotik roared menacingly.
 
"It stymied you for centuries." Richard countered.
 
"Silence, Whelp!" Garrotik said, striking with his right arm. But somehow Richard wasn't there. He simply wasn't. It was inexplicable.
 
Then suddenly he was! He was moving like a blur to everyone but Cloak. But even Cloak was having a hard time tracking the battle of the two. He could only barely make it out every movement. Cloak had always considered that his power second only to Estelore's. The more he watched this battle, the more he was beginning to think that his initial judgement was mistaken. He was beginning to suspect that Richard himself was more powerful then either of them, but, for whatever reason, never accessed this power before now.
 
It was truly awe-inspiring, but neither one seemed to be triumphing over the other. Was Richard, like Cloak suspected, holding back his power?
 
There was collective gasp from the RAFians as Richard was evidently able to get close enough to lay his left hand upon Garrotik's face, giving him marks around his eyes rather like Sigma from the "Mega Man X" series. Garrotik staggered back as Richard landed lightly and daintily upon his feet.
 
"You . . ." Garrotik spluttered. "You . . ."
 
"Me me what?" Richard said, calmly flippant.
 
"You dared to attack a GOD?!" Garrotik roared with indignity. "A GOD?!?!"
 
That last outburst shook the trees, which Cloak noticed had seemed to begin to wilt. The trees looked rather sickly, he noticed. He couldn't imagine why, though.
 
"You gnawing at that bone again, Garrotik?" Richard said, with a bite of exasperation in it.

"What?" Garrotik snarled.

"Oh, come off it, Garrotik," Richard said, sounding impatient now. "You may be powerful, that I'll admit. But, Garrotik, you're about as much of a god as I am."

"I am a god!!" Garrotik roared loudly.

Cloak noticed that a lot of the trees were losing their leaves and becoming rather grayish in color.

"You can say you're a god all you want," Richard said, logically, "but that does not mean that you are one."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 19, 2015, 01:34:03 PM

Wait, so Richard is Gandalf now? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2015, 01:40:30 PM

Probably not, as I've never read "Lord of the Rings" -- although parodies of them have been literally everywhere.

Nah, I just wanted Richard to be as mysterious as he can be. Ever notice how I never go into specifics on what he looks like? (Or this could be a CFRSU.)

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Land of Desolation

From that point, the battle of these titans began their battle anew. Cloak could have watched -- although barely, it would have been like watching a video on fast forward -- his attention was instead drawn to the environment. The trees were becoming more and more barren, their bark was being bleached white. All this was happening at a disconcertingly rapid rate.
 
"I can't tell what's going on," Sakki asked, nervously. There had to be a lot at stake for her to be so nervous. "Who's winning? Richard or Mr. Psychopath?"
 
They did not notice the environment. How could they not notice the environment? The trees were withering and dying. The dinosaurs were aging rapidly into skeletally thin creatures, weak and feeble. Their cries eeriely muted and easily forgotten. This caused Cloak much disquiet . . . and yet . . .

And yet he noticed that the screaming of the elements that motivated him into the furious blitz upon Garrotik was gone, silenced. This perplexed the Realm Walker, as it did not appear to make sense. Before there was nothing visably wrong with the elements, if he recalled correctly, but now . . . now when the environment seems to becoming a wasteland. . . .

"I think Richard's winning," Underseen said.

"You can't see what's going on," Faerie accused.

"That's why I said 'I think'." Underseen replied.

Then Cloak's eyes widened.

"Uncle -- what is it?" Shadow said.

"This uncharted land . . . this 'Savage Land' . . ." Cloak muttered, still in shock at his realization.

"What about it?" Mithril said.

"It was manufactured," Cloak said, his voice still aghast.

That got their attention.

"What?" Goom said, surprise very evident. "What do you mean manufactured?"

"Garrotik's prison must have been an imperfect one, as he allowed some of his power to seep out of it to create this land." Cloak speculated quickly.

"Or that could have been Richard's original intent," Phoenix pointed out. "To siphon out his power."

"That would be very sloppy, though," Shadow countered.

"Anyway," Cloak said, desperate to get back on track, "regardless of the intent, it seeped out. Created this hot muggy land."

"It's not that hot," Sakki said.

"Not anymore," Faerie said, shivering a bit.

"Precisely, Garrotik is reappropriating the power he lost when it seeped out," Cloak said.

"But Richard can take him. I know he can!" Saffa said, completely sincere and earnest.

"Your faith in me is touching, Saffa," came a voice, "but, my strength wanes."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 21, 2015, 11:26:17 PM

Omg cliffhanger!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2015, 04:09:43 PM

It's not gonna really stop with the cliffhangers . . .

New chapter!
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Power of Unity

"What?!" Saffa said, rather unexpectedly loud.
 
"There is a reason why I don't usually expend this amount of energy," Richard explained. "It's great for a few moments, but mostly it's a late-battle technique. I forgot myself and jumped the gun."
 
"Like the Fighting-type move, Close Combat," Cloak mused.
 
"Uncle, this is serious!" Shadow said.
 
Richard stood in a fighting stance, but it was clear that his strength was ebbing. Even Richard had limits -- even in this brief "burst mode", if you will.
 
"Well," Faerie said, in an irresistible imitation of Bender Bending Rodriguez, "we're boned."
 
"You give up too easily," Cloak said.
 
"And you don't give up easily enough!" Faerie said, unable to resist the joke.
 
"Guys! This is serious!" Shadow said. "Garrotik is still alive, you know!"
 
Garrotik, as if he was waiting for reintroduction, laughed boisteriously.

"I'm beginning to hate that laugh," Abby said, irritably.

"What kept you?" Mithril said, brusquely.

"My dear Whelp," Garrotik intoned. "The centuries free as led you constrict your abilities! You allowed them to degenerate and atrophy! I consider myself . . . disappointed. You have crippled yourself, and gathered yourself up a pitiful fleet of weak nothings to protect yourself from me."

"I . . ." Richard said, unable to hide his exhaustion any longer. "I . . ."

"You are wrong," Underseen said. "Richard saw the true power of unity rather than the empty power of fear and tyranny."

"Oh," Garrotik said, affecting a surprised look, "it can speak."

"That's always been your problem, Garrotik," Richard said. "You love to make grandiose monologues with very little substance -- if at all -- in them. Yet, you always failed to listen to others. You always failed to be compassionate. It is little surprise that you haven't any friends."

"That's weakness," Garrotik spat, only to find himself with confronted with a series of glowing Marks.

"It's unity," the RAFians said, in unison.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 23, 2015, 12:40:09 AM

And it happens. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2015, 02:57:18 PM

The cliffhanger?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Garrotik's Parting Words

"Unity?" Garrotik sneered. "Unity is nothing! Pointless! Meaningless!"
 
He could not continue on his tirade, as a bevy of Unity Pulses merged into a powerful Unity Blast. Garrotik took it all as a punch to his gut. And, at first, it seemed as if he simply tanked the blow. But then he felt to a knee, and his body seemed to pixelate in a rather implausible fashion.
 
"It's over, Garrotik." Richard said. "I'm sorry that I could not have made it less painful for you. I regret that you continue upon your path of destruction, of fear, of power lust."
 
"And you are still a fool, Whelp," Garrotik said as his body began to disintergrate, feet first. It was slow enough for him to get out what he wanted to say. "You underestimate me time and time again. This is naught but a minor setback! I will be back."

"That's what they all say," Saffa pointed out.

"Who's 'they'?" Underseen asked.

"The supervillian types," Saffa answered swiftly.

"You are all fools then!" Garrotik said, with a gasp of pain. "My progeny and my generals will bring me back!!"

"Your Herald is gone," Phoenix said. "If you would remember, you absorbed him without a second thought."

"The anthropterosaur was of no consequence! He was a gnat to me. You kill gnats with nary a thought," Garrotik said, the disintegration wave across his body was at his waist now. "My generals are loyal to none but me!! And my progeny already know that you've killed one of their number."

He spoke about the death of one of his children in such a cavalier manner, it was as if someone reciting a recent weather report they've seen. Completely without emotion, just sheer arrogance and snottiness.

"What are you talking about?" Abby asked, knowing full well that Garrotik's answer would not be satisfying.

Garrotik laughed that laugh they all hated, before continuing, the disintegration wave just below his chest and elbows. "Like I'd ruin the surprise . . . like I'd ruin it just like that! You have no idea the powers that await you. You have no idea . . . you think you've won. But you've done nothing but delay the inevitable."

"Do the bad guys ever just die?" Faerie asked. She was still miffed about the Gale Blade. She was fond of that sword. "Must they go at the mouth like this, for pratically freakin' forever?"

"You have no idea. . . ." Garrotik said as the disintergration wave completely engulfed him and he burst into shiny gold fireworks. Yet his voice lingered on just for a moment or two, a hissing reminder, "No idea . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 24, 2015, 02:25:25 AM

So the whole BOOK was basically a cliffhanger. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 26, 2015, 08:01:44 PM

Oh, there'll be more books like that down the line.

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXI:
SLAVE ISLANDS AND JUGGERNAUTS
CHAPTER ONE:
What A Seal Does When She's Bored

Despite Garrotik's enigmatic words, nothing happened over the next few days. Other than the fact that the six RAFians who had lost their cherished Blades had to cope with no longer having them. This left them all rather cranky, but perhaps none more than Horse.

But Horse was smarter than Cloak in this aspect. She didn't brood and dwell upon her loss. She decided to do something a tad more constructive. She sang to the children at an elementary school presentation that she, Parker (disarmed, except for his armor), and Aquilai attended.

Parker really didn't like having to check his weapons before entering the auditorium. He felt anxiety without them, as if he were naked without them. But the kids were honoring, not only them, but all of RAF for what they do for them. So, the least Parker could do was go a few minutes unarmed for the sake of the hard work these tykes were doing for them.

Aquilai was feeling a bit ambivalent and slightly suspicious though.

Meanwhile, Horse sang:

"Well, I saw this thing come outta the sky,
It had one long horn, and one big eye.
I commenced to shaking,
And said, 'Oowhee,
'It looks like a purple RAFian Eater to me.'
It was a one-eyed, one-horned
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
A one-eyed, one-horned
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
It was a one-eyed, one-horned
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
Sure looks strange to me!
One eye!
Well, he came down to earth,
And lived in a tree.
I said, 'Mr. Purple RAFian Eater,
Don't eat me!'
I heard him say, in a voice so gruff,
'I wouldn't eat you, 'cause you're so tough.'
It was a one-eyed, one-horned
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
One-eyed, one-horned,
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
It was a one-eyed, one-horned
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
Sure looks strange to me!
One horn.
I said 'Mr. Purple RAFian Eater, what's your line?'
'He said eating purple RAFians, and it sure is fine
'But that's not the reason that I came to land
'I wanna get a job in a rock 'n roll band.'
Well, bless my soul,
Rock n' roll!
Flying purple RAFian Eater.
Injured toe,
Undergrowed,
Flying purple RAFian Eater.
Flying purple RAFian Eater,
Sure looks strange to me!
He swung from the tree,
And flit to the ground.
He started to rock,
Really rockin' around.
He wrote a crazy little ditty,
With a swinging tune!
Singing, 'Whoop-boob-a-do-boop,
'Ba-lop-bam-BOOM!'
Well, bless my soul,
Rock n' roll!
Flying purple RAFian Eater.
Injured toe,
Undergrowed,
Flying purple RAFian Eater.
Flying purple RAFian Eater,
Sure looks strange to me!
Then he went on his way,
And then what do you know?
I saw him last night
On a TV show!
He was blowing it out,
Really knocking 'em dead!
Playing rock n' roll music
Throught horn on his head!
It was a one-eyed, one-horned,
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
A one-eyed, one-horned,
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
A one-eyed, one-horned,
Flying, purple RAFian Eater.
Sure looks strange to me!
Well, bless my soul,
Rock n' roll,
Flying, purple RAFian Eater!
Injured toe,
Undergrowed.
Flying, purple RAFian Eater!
One-eyed, one-horned,
Flying, purple RAFian Eater!
Sure looks strange to me!
Yeah!
Sure looks strange to me!"

"That's not an original song," one of the snottier kids complained. "All you did was change 'people' with 'RAFian'."

Horse was quick in her rebuttal. "Kid, no one likes a smarty-pants. Besides, what kid doesn't get a kick out of a talkin' seal?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 27, 2015, 01:32:13 AM

Kids are such smartasses these days.

PDF of the last book!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2015, 08:49:40 PM

You know it.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Single-Purpose Facility

Whilst this was happening, elsewhere a top secret, maximum security prison was being breached with pitiful ease, without its guardians being any the wiser for it. These so-called professionals and "restraint experts" (seriously -- that's what they called themselves . . . pretentious, isn't it?) were dangerously overconfident in the security of this facility, the purpose of which was a closely-guarded secret.

Confidence can be a good thing sometimes. Overconfidence, however, is never a good thing. If they hadn't gotten so confident in their rather lax personnel and sophisticated tech, it might have never happened.

Through a metal dome of three-foot thick metal with a security door that's usually quite camoflaged to the door. This door was unclocked with a simple numerical password of 4-8-4-6-2-5, which allowed access into the next level.

The next level was a path covered with scraggly, curly ringlets of barbed wire. They were scattered everywhere, attached to the wall opposit the entrance. It was rather claustrophobic, as there was only about three, four, maybe five feet of clearance. There appeared to be no way pass the wire, but there was. It was a complicated little path of zigzaging, backtracking, climbing, descending . . . only someone who has either traveled the path before -- or someone really good at memorization -- could possibly make it without being horribly injured.

Then the trick was to enter when the entrance wasn't spewing some sort of effluence. It took a fair bit of timing, though most of the time the security detail cheated this by briefly altering the times this effluence goes off.

And still more obstacles lay ahead. Foam-like substances that increased the pressure felt by the intruder who did not possess the right badge or insigna for this level of clearance (and it was mostly technicians and the highest muckety-mucks who possessed this level of clearance -- for good reason).

For there is only one reason this facility was built, only the one. To house a single prisoner. One of so incredible might and fearsome ferocity that he can only be contained. Once he gains momentum, he cannot be stopped. He was the champion of Cyttorak, and held the demon's ruby in the form of crimson bands.

It housed the unstoppable Juggernaut.

And he had a visitor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2015, 09:56:19 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Crass and Crimson

The heart of the facility was a large cylindrical room, which graduated downward, almost like a lecturer's hall. At the center of the room was just a round, featureless metal circle with a control panel rather like an overlarge tablet attached via cylindrical pole to the ground. It only came chest-high and was colored black with gray buttons.

Only the Juggernaut's visitor was in the darkened room, and she had made sure that she was alone. Something somniferous in the staff's communal coffee, and boom. Instant privacy.

The mysterious visitor typed in some code into the the tablet console thing, and the floor before it rotated with a hydraulic hiss. Then a few more keystrokes and then a cylinder rose from the floor. It was slow, but it illuminated Malice, revealing her presence . . . though it may be rather obvious at this point.

It also illuminated the occupant in the tube, who was clearly in some type of suspended animation. He was built like an adult male Tetramand, though he was clearly human. His fists were the size of a car door, bound in crimson bands of some unknown substance. His clothing was crimson as well. He wore rather thick boots, which was, of course, crimson. His head was rather blocky with a thick, rather bovine nose and a heavy brow. He had his blonde hair in a crew cut.

"Mark Kane," Malice said, having knowledge of his birth name. "You shall make a wonderful minion."

She gave him another appraising look, smirking malevolently. Then she typed in a few more keystrokes, and the liquid keeping Mark in suspended animation began to drain out of the tube, and the Juggernaut woke, revealing his emerald green eyes. He looked around in a daze.

He realized that he restrained, and he strained, pushing his strength to its apex. The stone-metal matrix restraints struggled to keep their cohesiveness and strength. But they were soon overwhelmed by Mark's sheer determination to break free.

"I freed you," Malice said, calmly unimpressed. "You serve me now."

"Serve you?" Mark said, scornfully. "I'm the Juggernaut, bi--"

But an energy collar appeared around his throat, yanking him to eye level with Malice. Malice spoke with venomously honeyed tones, "Yes, yes, we've all heard that meme before, I think. It need not be referenced again."

"I . . . I serve no one!!" Mark choked out.

"Oh? What about . . . Cyttorak?" Malice said with feigned innocence.

"Who?"

"Oh, never mind, dearie," Malice said, conversationally impassive. She examined her claws in a bored manner, as she continued. "It's not really all that important."

Mark said nothing to this, as Malice didn't give him a chance.

"Now," Malice said, with the air of a woman getting down to business, "I have a job for you, Mark Kane. Yes, I know who you are really."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 27, 2015, 10:45:20 PM

Oh look who's back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2015, 04:44:13 PM

Hey, she is kinda the primary antagonist. Like Voldemort, like Visser Three, like . . . nope, not going to get politcal here. There'll be plenty of time for that much later.

New book ideas!

• Book DCXXXVI: "Black Market Brains" -- The RAFians must stop the Xenoninos from selling stolen brains on the black market . . . and discover why there is even a black market for brains.
• Book DCXXXVII: "In the Beginning . . ." -- Cloak explains Realm Walker history and theology.
• Book DCXXXVIII: "This Really Bites" -- The RAFians must deal with an odd sort of vampire.
• Book DCXXXIX: "Unzipped" -- A boy discovers a strange artifact, and, naturally, he abuses the power it grants him.
• Book DCXL: "Rise of the Revenants" -- The RAFians must defeat the Revenants.
• Book DCXLI: "CoR" -- Abby must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Cowardice.
• Book DCXLII: "LoR" -- Mithril must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Loneliness.
• Book DCXLIII: "NoR" -- Yarin must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Knowledge.
• Book DCXLIV: "HaR" -- Helen must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Hatred.
• Book DCXLV: "UnR" -- Saffa must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Unreliability.
• Book DCXLVI: "InR" -- Wild must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Insincerity.
• Book DCXLVII: "HoR" -- Blaze must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Hopelessness.
• Book DCXLVIII: "DaR" -- Shadow must deal with the Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Darkness.
• Book DCXLIX: "Wait -- You're New!" -- Cloak must deal with Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Unkindness.
• Book DCL: "Emissary of Chaos" -- Richard must deal with Revenant, Vermin, and Homunculus of Chaos.
• Book DCLI: "The Attribute-Eaters" -- The RAFians must battle creatures that can consume an individual's courage, friendships, knowledge, reliability, love, sincerity, hope, inner light, or kindness.
• Book DCLII: "In the Dark of the Night" -- The RAFians must save Richard from an old foe.
• Book DCLIII: "Phantom Consolidation" -- A man seeks to control and weaponize Everlost afterlights.

Titles are subjected to change. Let me know what you think.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
It's a Trap!

The assembly was flattering, in a way. Finally, all the struggle, all the turmoil, all the fluctuating PR standing was paying off. And yet . . . something struck Aquilai as odd. He didn't know what it could be, but did not voice it aloud. After all, it could just be nothing -- Parker and Horse weren't reacting to any of this with suspicion, why was he?

There seemed to be so much genuine appreciation from the kids, from the faculty, from the staff. So much gratuitous gratitude that it almost seemed . . . contrived, artificial. Fake. Aquilai just couldn't get past that, though he tried to tell himself it was just because the kids really didn't care that much, but had been indoctrinated by the adults, as children usually are.

As the current speaker (he couldn't tell if it was the principal, a teacher, an aide or some other staff person) droned on and on, he shifted his weight in his hardbacked chair. He thought he heard something clink ominously, like chains. He should have found that suspicious . . . and he did. He examined all the people glaround him, and was very disconcerted to discover every single one of them -- except Parker and Horse, of course -- possessed light green eyes.

This wasn't a real school, Aquilai realized. It was a set! They should have known better than this!!

"It's a trap!" Aquilai cried out.

Before Parker could scoff and Horse could spout a one-liner, golden chains appeared from nowhere and wrapped tightly alround all three. Parker revealed that he kept some weapons with him (when later questioned by Horse as to where he kept it, he replied, "I'd rather not say.") but the tech bomb came out of nowhere and shorted out his armor. He was bound like his fellows.

The students, the faculty, the staff -- all a lie. They were really disguised Limax, with rather strange, black collars on. They looked sad. Miserable. The collars, which must have some metamorphic properties themselves, must the source of the woe.

A voice, whose owner was shadowed and unseen by the RAFians, spoke, "Well done, Limax. Your usefulness has since ended. Goodbye."

Suddenly, the room flooded briefly (and Horse found that she couldn't access her hydrokinesis -- the chains were made of the tylee material) and the Limax were killed. The three RAFians looked horrorstruck.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 28, 2015, 10:13:53 PM

Wow. Talk about collateral damage.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2015, 06:42:55 PM

Oh, you best get used to that . . . for some of the darker books. Which, btw, I'm currently planning through Book #398.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Unstoppable Rampage

The Juggernaut listened to what Malice wanted, fully intending to ignore what she wanted. But, as it happens, what she wanted exactly paralleled what he wanted to do -- which let's just say was exactly what Rocksteady and Bebop wanted, what Tokka and Rahzar wanted.

He charged forward, a dome-like crimson helmet appearing on his shoulders, in the direction Malice indicated. He busted through the interior walls, leaving rather obvious holes. Within minutes, the Juggernaut penetrated the exterior wall with a cacophonious noise, the metal twisted outward.  It was rather amazing that the entire facility did not crumble to the ground. It still stood, although now without purpose, now that their one and only prisoner was no longer incarcerated and contained.

The Juggernaut ran and ran, gaining momentum. He was unstoppable when moving like this, friction and fatigue seemingly ineffective by some magical means. He would only stop when he chose to. Nothing stood in his way. Though admantium and N^th would just be thrown aside or trampled into the earth, not destroyed.

He would reach the city at any moment, and when he reached the city, he began to slow, plowing through several parked cars. Several expensive-looking cars. He didn't care, of course. He only stopped when he reached the heart of the city. He looked around here for a bit, and took in the sights.

But this did not seem to occupy his mind long enough. Simpy because he decided to tossing around cars, breaking storefronts, shattering windows. He loved hearing the people scream and flee from him. He enjoyed the power trip he felt. He never got such a rush before becoming the Juggernaut. He believed it was the best thing to ever happen to him, refusing to acknowledge the monster that he become.

He was always a little punk, and a bully. He wreaked property damage before he found the Ruby. He loved taking out his inner rage on people -- he didn't believe in innocence of any sort, that no one was truly innocent. He believed that they just haven't had the chance to make fun of him yet, or hurt him yet. So he decided to make them hurt first. It was a twisted sort of logic, if you could even call it logic.

He continued his rampage, allowing his rage to be vented on the city and private property. His destructive campaign aligned with Malice's desires and aims, but that was just mere coincidence that they coincided. Had they not, Mark Kane would have simply flippantly ignore Malice, ignorant of the fact that no one ignores Malice so flippantly.

This rampage would not go unchallenged. The police, the S.W.A.T., the military . . . he tossed them around like toys. This was no a job for them. It was a job for --

Guess.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 29, 2015, 10:59:14 PM

The Ruby? What Ruby?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2015, 05:20:15 AM

Not too big on X-Men, Saffa? Don't worry, you'll find out about it later on in the book.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Unacceptable

News reached the RAFian ears, unsurprisingly swift, and they knew at once that the ordinary law enforcement professionals would be unequipped to handle such a monster of a man. Cloak quickly volunteers, with Shadow insisting to tag along. Oceanspray, Yarin, and Gaz (with Laserbeak, of course) wouldn't allow them to do this alone.

They wasted no time, no words, and just hurried to the scene of the rampage. Cloak, upon viewing the whole spectacle with his own eyes, thought he recognized the huge guy in red. The Juggernaut . . . like in that other realm he visited as a child . . . did that also mean --

Cloak levitated a Buick thrown at him, rousing him from thoughtful, musing reverie. The Juggernaut threw it at them, clearly not seeing the five of them as anything even resembling a threat. He was so accustomed to people either fleeing from him, or being completely incapable of defending or protecting themselves from him. A complete punk, bully, and creep.

Cloak ferrokinetically lowered the car gently to ground, and turned to address the Juggernaut. "Stop this. Stop it now."

"Don't tell me what to do," he snarled.

Cloak had expected such a reaction, with just as much hostility. But Shadow, and the other RAFians apparently didn't expect this degree of hostility right off the bat. Cloak did not really react, keeping his body language inscrutable. The others' reactions weren't all that obvious, but more muted.

"You cannot do this," Cloak said, evenly. He wasn't in the mood to be trifled with. "You cannot just go on a rampage -- destroying things, terrifying the populace, causing general mayhem. You simply cannot. It is not acceptable."

"I can do whatever I like!" he snarled. "I have the power. The power to do as I please. And there is nothing -- NOTHING -- that you puny nothings can do to stop me!!"

"It is not acceptable," Cloak said, as if he were a reproving parent. "Your tantrum needs another medium, something less destructive and something more constructive."

"Shut up!" Juggernaut roared. "Stop acting like you know me! You DON'T!!"

"Uncle, I don't think that you can reason with him." Shadow said, shrewdly.

"You're probably right," Cloak conceded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 30, 2015, 10:57:58 AM

Nice guy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2015, 04:17:25 PM

Yes. Quite right.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Chains of Tylee

The three RAFians were quickly bound from the base of their necks to their ankles in the golden tylee chains. The tech bomb kept Parker's armor's tech from activating, which he was still in as the chains bound him a smidgen on the tight side. They were not gagged, though.

"Let us go!" Horse raged.

"Let us go!" Parker agreed.

"What do you want us for?" Aquilai asked.

The shadowy figure's expression was inscrutable, naturally. But when he spoke, he had a twisted jovial tone to it. "Oh, I think that Genosha would appreciate some new workers. Especially the superpowered RAFian set."

Silence.

The RAFians couldn't believe what they were hearing. This guy was speaking to them as if they were nothing more than property, without will or sentience of their own. As if they were lower beings than him. He was talking about selling them into slavery. Slavery in this Genosha place.

"You can't do this," Parker said. "It's illegal."

"Lots of things are illegal. Doesn't mean that it'll be enforced." the owner of the voice said, with a wry little chuckle. "But such naivete is refreshing, I'd admit."

"You can't be serious," Aquilai said, in a strained attempt to be pratical and logical. "You can't possibly get away with this."

"I have been getting away with it," the voice said, in a bored, unimpressed voice. "Been getting away with it for -- oh, quite some time now. Never been caught."

"Liar," Horse snarled. "Someone would have . . ."

"You forget how easy it is to get a politician, law enforcement, and whatnot to look the other way," the voice said, unconcernedly. "It just takes a little cha-ching."

"You --" Parker growled.

"Enough." the voice said. Then he addressed some unseen grunts. "Put those vibratium alloy muzzles on them."

"The others will find us!" Horse shouted. "You won't get away from this this time!!"

"Oh, them?" the voice said, with a malevolent, malicious sort of laugh. "They shall be too busy to even think about you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 31, 2015, 04:43:15 PM

Quote

"Lots of things are illegal. Doesn't mean that it'll be enforced."

This is basically the philosophy of my country.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2015, 07:01:58 PM

Mine, too, Saffa. And they try to keep it all hush-hush, but I presume it's like that everywhere where this is true.

Not to mention we have the reverse -- stupid, nonsensical laws. Like in some states, you can't hold office and be an atheist. But that's just me getting political again, sorry.

New, short chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Sold!

The three were handled very roughly. Parker and Aquilai were fitted (with the grunts not bothering with the RAFians' comfort) with faceplate-like gags that resembled that of Shredder, Optimus Prime, or the original Megazord. Horse was a bit like the more classic shape of a muzzle, except no openings, and when it was fastened on her (though she kept trying, and failing, to bite the fingers of the grunts) only her nose was left exposed.

Horse's normally adorable, round, pinniped eyes were filled with disconsolate indignation. Parker's glowering glare was filled with venomous hatred. Aquilai's however were darting here and there, looking at their environment in such an appraising way that it was clear that he was trying to concoct a solution, a way out of this prodigious predicament that they found themselves in. But there was nothing, nothing he could use to somehow devise a soluttion from. But he was a Time Lord -- not MacGyver.

"That was quick," the voice said, with malicious relish, "they paid more than I ever expected."

Then he stepped into the light, and the RAFians saw him for the first time. The guy looked like a Ken doll, dressed in blacks and grays. His hair and skin were rather like plastic, though he may have believed it was simply like porcelain. He may have thought he looked perfect, but it was disconcerting in actuality. The RAFians did not recognize him. They have never met.

"My source was right," he said, with a superstar smile that the RAFians thought was grossly inappropriate. "You RAFians are certainly a hot commodity!"

The three RAFians would have protested, only their vibranium alloy gags absorbed any sound they uttered. They had to consent to just glare mutinously at this slaver (someone who sells slaves). Yet, they did not recognize something very telling the slaver mentioned, but, then sgain, they had more present concerns at the moment.

"Have a wonderful time!" he said brightly. Then he quickly added sinisterly, "Serving your new masters in Genosha."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2015, 10:29:42 AM

Sorry if the little spiel before the last chapter offended anyone. I only caught the error just an hour later.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Comin' Through!!

"Juggernaut," Cloak said, in a final attempt at reason, "you must not do what I suspect you are planning. You must not, you cannot."

"Don't tell me what to do, pally," he growled.

Cloak sighed. He had hoped in vain that reason would work this time. But he could see that it was futile, the Juggernaut was without reason, without mercy, and without conscience.

"Then you must be stopped," Cloak said. Oceanspray's arm quickly folded into a Cyborg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_(comics))-like arm cannon, which he trained upon the Juggernaut, who looked deeply unconcerned.

The Juggernaut snorted with the utmost derision. "I'm the unstoppable Juggernaut, b--"

"Language!" Gaz scolded as Oceanspry fired, and batted the photon beam away, like a bothersome gnat. Oceanspray blinked in surprise, and reformed his arm from the cannon.

Laserbeak squawked at Gaz in an expectant way, to which she replied, "No, Beaky. Your Energon-based laser would not fair any better than Oceanspray's photon stream. Now, don't look at me like that! I don't need your attitude, Beaky!"

In response, Beaky squawked in a most disconsolate, surly way.

"Now, now, don't be like that!" Gaz said, attempting to prevent Laserbeak's more stubborn streak to surface.

The Juggernaut make a reproachful, retching sound. "You two are disgusting. I should pound you out of existance."

"Nice guy," Shadow muttered sarcastically, with narrowed, disapproving eyes -- the look her uncle usually gives such villains.

"He's pathetic," Oceanspray said. "A brute. One who only cares for power, one who freely abuses and unapologetically uses it for intimidation, domination, and cowing opponents int submission. He has no finesse. He has no substance. He is just another addict to power."

"I heard that!" the Juggernaut roared.

"And yet," Oceanspray replied, without missing a beat, "you comprehended none of it."

"You think you're so smart, dontcha?!" the Juggernaut seethed.

"You know --" Yarin began.

"You all think you're better than me, don't you?!" the Juggernaut snarled.

"-- I think that ticking off the Juggernaut --" Yarin said, in a valid attempt to continue his thought.

"Well, you're not!" the Juggernaut shouted.

"-- may not have been the wisest recourse!!" Yarin said, finishjn his thought.

Not having even heard or paid attention to Yarin, the Juggernaut roared. "And I'll show you how wrong you are!!!"

He lowered his head, squared his shoulder and charged. Cloak and Shadow attempted to raise stone walls to stop him in his tracks, but it,  naturally, didn't work. He just busted through all of them, with only the most minimal reduction to his speed, if that. The walls immediately collapsed in on themselves.

"Yep," Gaz agreed. "This approach was flawed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 02, 2015, 11:26:10 AM

I didn't find anything offensive there.

Wow, this guy is like some raging bull.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2015, 08:18:19 PM

I forgot to put "they" in the first sentence, changing the entire meaning of the sentence. And, yes, he is like that. But you have to admit, there are people like this. Actually, a lot in America it seems.

Anyway, I feeling the anxiety with taxes dying down, so I shall turn it into writing energy.

New chapter!
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Collateral Damage . . . Again

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" the Juggernaut roared.

"No kidding, Gaz!" Oceanspray said, resorting to rolling away from him, as the Juggernaut charged forward. "Yarin, can't you short out his mind or something?"

Yarin seemed to rankle at using his telepathic abilities in such a potentially lethal way, and elaborated, "Besides, he is shielded from even the weakest of telepathic probes. I can't imagine how or why --"

"It's his helmet." Cloak said at once. "If this Juggernaut is like the one in that other realm --"

"Other realm?" Gaz said at once. "What do you me--ahh!"

Gaz was trapped, close to being pinioned to the wall and the Juggernaut's shoulder. But she was a vampire, so she simply transfigured her body and clothing into gaseous mist and escaped him that way. Although Laserbeak did not see this at first, and dove at the Juggernaut's face, attempting to gouge his eyes out with his metallic talons. But the Juggernaut's helmet was most disobligingly preventing a single strike from succeeding.

It was then that Laserbeak's right leg was yanked, saving him from being swatted and swished flat by the Juggernaut. He was intending to snap at the fingers of whoever dared to stop him in his endeavor to wrecking his vengeance upon he who dared to attack Gaz. But it was Gaz herself who yanked him away.

"Will you stop being so recklessly stubborn?!" Gaz hissed, in sheer frustrated exasperation.

The Juggernaut changed targets, and aimed for Shadow. Shadow simply employed her simian athleticism and agility to leap unto his large, ample shoulders and somersaulted off in one swift movement. She landed daintily, and pivoted to see the Juggernaut moving away from her. This stirred Cloak's fury.

"Perhaps," Yarin said, pragmatically, "we should get him out of the slcity and into a place with less . . . uh . . . destructible?"

"Great idea." Oceanspray said.

"Yeah." Shadow said. "Any idea how?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 02, 2015, 11:44:03 PM

There's only more worry for Laserbeak with every book. >.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2015, 08:44:49 PM

Indeed. Just wait until Book-- er, never mind. That would be telling.

This thread has surpassed "GESB: OOC Discussion" thread in views. We're now the fourth most-viewed thread in the forum! I believe the term is :woot:.

New chapter . . . and there is a small chance that this book will exceed twenty chapters.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Like Animals, Like Property

"You three! In the back there!" came an arrogant, authoritative voice commanded. "Get out here!"

The three RAFians refused. They were ungagged, for the assumptive belief that their spirits, their wills had been broken during the overseas transit. Their arms were no longer pinioned to their sides, but their upper arms were chained to their waist, wrists chained together, thighs chained together, and shins chained together. (Horse was just in a tylee metal choke collar.)

They refused to allow themselves to be debased in such a way, to have their dignity stripped from them. They would not allow themselves to be humiliated in such a way. RAFians, on the whole, could be very prideful.

"Get out here!" came another voice, which had -- there's really no real delicate way to put this -- an arrogant redneck twang in it. "I won't tell you again so nicely!"

The RAFians were not intimidated by this. They had faced more fearsome dangers -- the viral ooze, Dark Phoenix, Evil Gaz, the Madre de Vampyra, Van Pyrrhas, Thanos, the Xenomorphic Brood, among others -- a redneck with a bloated ego wasn't about to intimidate them.

"Imma give you to the count of three!" he called out. "One!"

It took a lot more than this to break a RAFian's will.

"Two!"

It took a lot more than this to break a RAFian's spirit.

"Two and half!"

It took a lot more than this to break a RAFian's resolve.

"Two and three -- aw, the 'ell with it." the man said, clearly unaccustomed to having his issued ordered being disobeyed. He addressed the guard. "Go ahead and drag them out. Set them before me."

The three dragged roughly from the ship's hold, and unceremoniously dumped before the man with the authoritative voice. He was dressed in the stereotypical clothing one would expect from someone with this warden's mannerisms.

"Line them up!" the warden of this work camp ordered, and the RAFians were stood befor him. None would even look at him, they rankled at allowing themselves to be captured so easily. He began to pace before the RAFians, as well as the other kidnapped people, who wore morose, broken looks.

"Welcome to Genosha," he said, in an obvious preface of a long speech. "I dunno if you heard the rumors of our little island, but don't believe them. We'll make use of your unnatural abnormalities. As long as you do everything I say."

Parker curled his lip in a disgusted sneer. The warden saw this, and stopped in front of Parker. He was a thick, heavyset man with a thick, curly, unkempt beard and a full head shorter than the RAFian. Apparently, he decide to try and ride Parker -- pick on him specifically.

He addressed the RAFian, "Look at me when I speak to you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2015, 09:45:48 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Forced Humiliation and Learned Helplessness

"No," Parker said. It was rather remarkable how much loathing, how much resentment, how much disrespect the SPARTAN could fit into such a small utterance.

"Oh?" the Warden said, rankling at such flat out disobedience. "You rather look at my shoes?
THEN TAKE A GOOD LOOK!"

He stomped on Parker's chains, the ones binding his wrists, forcing him down. Frankily, it was remarkably how Lord Large-Gut could even lift his foot that high. Parker was now on his forearms and knees. He bristled at this humiliation.

"I know exactly who you are," the Warden said, foot still on Parker's chains. "Parker of Richard's Avenger Forum."

Parker's irritated sneer deepened. The Warden apparently was under the impression that he didn't make a mistake of what the "A" in RAF stood for.

"So strong-willed and uncompromising," the Warden continued without pause. "But don't worry, we'll rid you of that in no time. NOW, LOOK ME IN THE EYE!"

Parker gritted his teeth, but he heard the faint chink of metal and remembered that he wasn't by himself. He wasn't alone. That gave him the strength to endure. He would be able to  weather anything this madman would throw at him as long as he could feel the unity with the others.

Parker, albeit slowly, complied with the Warden's demand.

"See?" the Warden said, adopting a condescending tone of voice. "Isn't that better?"

Then he turned to address the neophyte slaves, in ringing tones, "I don't care what anomaly you carry, you will do as I say, or you will pay the price. You will -- ahhh!!"

Just when he began to pace, Parker used his chains and hands to trip him so that the Warden fell flat on his face. The guards rushed to his aid, with one asking, "Sir, are you okay?"

"I'm fine! Get these slaves to work and out of my sight!!" the Warden said, not attempting to hide his rage. Parker couldn't help but indulge himself in a small, smug smile. The three RAFians were fitted with strange gauntlets and collars. The chains would be used for other kidnap victims, as the gauntlets and collars allowed the Overseers to toggle the slaves' powers on and off. When off, they are no more powerful than baseline humans.

It was not human tech.

The RAFians quickly discovered that the other slaves have already given hope, their spirits broken. Their resolve shattered. Most just go to sleep at night hoping that they don't wake up in the morning.

It was not a pleasant working environment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 03, 2015, 10:27:59 PM

What exactly was the work though?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2015, 08:41:57 AM

Like in a forced labor camp. As well as powering the cities of Genosha, for the "higher" echelons of Genoshan society.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
New Tactics

The RAFians managed to lure the Juggernaut away from the city. It was easier than they anticipated. They just had to get him angry and have him follow them. Of course, this had the small caveat of allowing him to build up momentum. But it was a necessary evil to protect the people -- who had evacuated the other way.

It's little wonder why insurance rates were so high there.

They stopped in a wasteland, on the outskirts of the Bannedland territory. But they did not trespass. Thr Juggernaut blew past them into a cliffside face, which did not stop his momentum.

"I'm beginning to see a flaw in this plan " Yarin said.

"Ya think?" Gaz said. Laserbeak chirped, perched innocently on Gaz's shoulder. "Oh, quiet you. I am still quite cross with you."

The Juggernaut seemed magically impervious to inerta and friction. He just kept coming. The RAFians had expected to be inspired with a new tactic once they had to no longer worry about civilian safety.

"Yarin," Cloak said, "could you telepathically trigger him into a somnulent state?"

"No, the helmet --"

"Do you have the capability?" Cloak cut across.

Yarin hesitated. "I . . ."

"Do you?" Cloak insisted.

"I . . . I believe . . . that I -- I can," Yarin said, looking like Cloak did whenever he had to mechbend. Cloak felt guilt about what he was about ask of the Nyac. But if they weren't going to outright kill Juggernaut -- which Cloak wasn't even sure that they could even if they wanted to -- the next best option would be to contain the monster of a man. He could think of no other alternative. "But this all a moot point. No telepathy can penetrate that shielded helmet of his."

"Then our task is simple," Oceanspray said. "We need to get the helmet off."

Laserbeak squawked in alarm, and Gaz looked 'round. She said, "Uh, guys? The Juggernaut kind of has a monkey on his back."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 04, 2015, 01:47:38 PM

On the borders of Bannedland territory? That's not very far, is it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2015, 09:13:32 PM

Eh, far enough from the Banned headquarters (though "nest" probably would be more accurate), but close enough to RAF for reinforcements to come, if necessary.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Helmet's Off to You

"Shadow!" Cloak scolded. "Get down from there!"

Shadow did not listen to her uncle, but began to loosen the Juggernaut's helmet. She heard her uncle's concern, but she was in the perfect position right now. She was small enough to go unnoticed by the Juggernaut, possessing high agility, and mastery over the Metal element. She knew what she had to do, and her uncle's overprotectiveness would hinder the plan.

Impetuous? Perhaps. But her plan was succeeding. His helmet came free and tumbled to the ground. Shadow leaped off the Juggernaut's overlarge back, and seized the helmet. She uses her mastery over Metal to twist it until it could not be worn again.

"Now Yarin!"  she cried.

"It's not working!" Yarin said, after five minutes.

"Don't you think that I would think of that?" the Juggernaut sneered. He was wearing an odd stone-studded metal skullcap. "How do you think that I got captured before?"

"He was captured before?" Gaz said, in an aside.

"Evidentally," Oceanspray replied, in an aside too.

"Clearly, it was kept hush-hush by the muckety-mucks in the government," Cloak responded dryly. "The skullcap he's wearing. It's vibranium. Vibranium studded with psitonium."

"Those sound fake," Shadow said.

"They're real." Cloak said. "But clearly --"

They had to scatter as the Juggernaut charged them, his face now exposed. He wasn't very attractive, and he was little more than a raging bull. It must have been the Crimson Ruby of Cyttorak that prevented the Red Lanterns from claiming him.

"So," came a voice in their midst suddenly, "what's the hippity-hap?"

"Demos, when have you ever said that?" Cloak said, without looking. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Can't a demon just come out and possess a cow?" Demos said, flippantly.

"You're not in a cow."

"I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque*, okay?"

"More pressing concerns, guys!" Gaz reminded.

Demos noticed the Juggernaut , and pulled a face. "Ah, yes. Cyttorak's stooge."

"Say what?" Shadow said.

"Oh, yes, excuse me." Demos said, preening his silk suit. "Cytorrak's Exemplar."

He rolled his yellowed eyes at the last word. Clearly Demos did not think very highly of Cytorrak.

"Cytorrak exists in this realm, then." Cloak said, noting to himself. "So his Crimson Bands and the Crimson Ruby exists as well?"

"Why wouldn't they?" Demos asked, perplexed.

---

*Obligatory Bugs Bunny reference. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 04, 2015, 11:38:42 PM

Looks like the reinforcements are here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2015, 05:44:01 PM

Well, yes and no.

Anyway, I am currently planning my way through Book CD, which is looking to exceed the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
RAFians Unbound

Back at Genosha, Parker was tasked with quarrying rock with the other physically-inclined metahumans. He despised the work -- though maybe he would if he was paid and fed well for it and, of course, had a choice in the matter. He wasn't afraid of toil, he just chafed at the fact that he was being forced to do it at what was essentially gunpoint.

Aquilai was tasked with building and maintaining machinery. He didn't need his powers for it, but was threatened if he tried to sabotage the products, he would be killed. Apparently, his gauntlets were wired to an explosive stud in each one. They apparently were not aware of a Time Lord's regeneration ability. Though Aquilai wasn't keen on living through such an explosion. Still . . . he had a sneaking suspicion that they were lying about the explosives in his gauntlets, but he had smartly said nothing.

Horse was tasked with using water to separate metal ore from stone, to separate gemstones from mineral stones. Horse was permitted to use her hydrokinesis to do this, and she really got riled by this. She did not like being dictated when she could and couldn't use her abilities. Being a slave really chafed her.

All three did. Though they were separated -- deliberately so by their so-called "masters" -- they were united in this feeling, in this irritation. They were not able to speak to each other, as the Warden apparently aware that the three could possibly unite against him, and he was having a lovely life at the top. He was very comfortable and fat, simply by oppressing people he considered to be subhuman, not even worth the time of day.

But he made a grievous mistake by kidnapping RAFians, by buying them. The RAFians would not take this indignity lightly. He just bought a spark and brought it to a powder keg. And he knew it, though he tried to tell himself different . . . tried to ease his worries . . . they wouldn't do anything. They weren't anything special. They would break just like all the others. They would break, then they would be perfectly compliant. They would work and do everything that he would ask of them.

His worries were unfounded. Yes, that was it. Unfounded. His misgivings were just mere paranoia. Paranoia . . . nothing else but paranoia. He shouldn't lose sleep about it . . . but he did lose sleep about it. He just kept thinking about Parker's open defiance, and it really stood out to the Warden. Him and his compatriots . . .

Talk about buyer's remorse.

But the apparatus by which they turned powers on and off had a flaw. One that only three of the currently slaves possessed. It allowed them to deactivate the apparatuses binding their powers, though it looked to be still in good working order.

But, after all, the Genoshan slave masters and traders knew nothing about Unity Energy or the Marks . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2015, 09:32:17 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
RAFian-Run Riot

It didn't take the RAFians very long to realize that their power-suppressing devices were now faulty. They immediately did away with the gauntlets and assorted accumen.

"Ugh," Parker grunted. "I wonder wear they're hiding my armor."

"What?" Horse said.

"My armor! I had it when we were captured. That techbomb may have shorted out the systems then, but it should have rebooted by now."

"Parker, we have more pressing concerns!" Horse said, reproachfully.

"Hey, my armor is important to me!" Parker snarled. "I already have had someone steal the designs! I was just lucky that I somehow could absorb them, but I digress."

"What does this have to with anything? We need to get out of here." Horse said.

"No," Aquilai said, with surprising finality.

"What?" both said.

"We cannot just leave," the Time Lord said. "We cannot just abandon these poor metahumans. We cannot allow them to remain in slavery."

"Very well, Mr. Lincoln," Horse said, caustically, "what do you propose we do then?"

Aquilai eyed the seal, but let her acidic words slide. He knew that she was venting her frustration.

"I was thinking," Aquilai answered, after a prudent pause, "a riot."

***

"What's this?" the Warden snarled angrily. He addressed a nearby Overseer, "Get 'em back into their barracks!"

What he meant was "cells".

"Their powers are on!"

"Then turn them off, you idiot!"

But that was just not gonna happen. They cannot turn their powers off, the gauntlets were gone.

"What are you waiting for, dolt?!" the Warden snapped. "Turn them off!"

"I --"

BOOM!

More property damage.

"Sir, I can't!" the Overseer said, pleadingly.

"Don't be weak, fool!"

"No, sir, the controls won't work! The Control Gauntlets aren't being worn!"

"Oh, my God . . ." the Warden muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 05, 2015, 09:51:12 PM

He's a pretty weak guy to actually be able to break anybody.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2015, 07:56:20 PM

Eh, all tyrants are inherently weak. But, bear in mind, there's like 87 or so metahumans there. Some that have powerful (though inexperienced) active abilities.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Cyttorak and His Ruby

"Demos," Cloak said, at once, "where is the Crimson Ruby of Cyttorak?"

"Over there," Demos said. He pointed to the twisted remains of the Juggernaut's helmet.

Cloak was briefly nonplussed by this. Then he supposed that whoever this Juggernaut was before being being bestowed a fraction of Cyttorak's power by way of the Ruby was a very arrogant, possessive man. It should have been little surprise that he would want to keep it close.

"Why is the Ruby so important?" Gaz asked.

"Well, it may work differently in this realm," Cloak said, prefacing his explanation, "but I have been to another realm where a Cyttorak exists. In that realm, the Ruby is what made the Juggernaut a juggernaut."

"An Exemplar," Demos said. "The ruby -- or crystal, may be more accurate -- empowers whoever holds it, reciting a stupid command, and granting them part of Cytorrak's power. I always thought it was stupid. Them and their stupid Octoessence or whatever it is. Just a way to feed their already enormous egos."

A brief silence met these words, until Shadow said, "I think you got off on a tangent there."

"All I heard was blah, blah, blah, something about eight essences," Gaz said, flippantly.

"I heard all I needed to," Cloak said, fishing out the ruby from the helmet. It rather like the size of a small PokeBall, able to fit in the palm of a moderately-sized human comfortably. "This is his weakness."

"You're not going to do what I think you are, are you?" Demos said. All levity had left him.

Cloak said nothing, and didn't spare a look at the others. He levitated the ruby up in a golden-scarlet energy bubble.

He said, "Hosoeverway oldshay isthay emgay allshay ebay antedgray ethay owerpay ofay ethay Imsoncray Ystalcray ofay Ttorakcyay! Enceforthhay, ouyay owhay eadray esethay ordsway, allshay ecomebay . . . orevermorefay ... ay umanhay uggernautjay!"

Crimson energy was leeched out of the Juggernaut, who seemed to realize what was going on. He protested -- which was sounding more progressively like whining. He became thin, lanky, nerdy, and awkward. He couldn't be older than twenty-five, and he was bawling. He enjoyed his powers. Enjoyed them enough to freely abuse them.

"Pig latin?" Oceanspray inquired.

"Hey," Cloak said, with a shrug, "it worked."

The ruby, still ensconced in the energy orb, was now held by Cloak. Cloak sensed a rush of rage and power coming from his right. It wasn't the former Juggernaut, but someone knew.

"HOW DARE YOU?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2015, 08:59:17 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Genosha Jalopy

The RAFians allowed the metahumans to topple this fascist regime. They did not stop them. Even when Parker discovered his armor, which seemed to rejoice as he donned it, they did nothing. They helped neither hindered the metahumans, remaining ultimately neutral.

"Why don't you just install a vocal-imprinting calling system and be done with it?" Aquilai asked.

"I . . . am not . . . GizmoDuck," Parker grated. "I will not enable my armor to come to me by shouting 'blathering blatherskite'."

"How about 'Shazam', then?" Aquilai suggested, affecting an air of innocence.

Parker heaved a deeply glowering look at Aquilai, who put up his hands in mock surrender. Parker put his helmet and felt really complete. He had felt rather naked without his armor, and he was elated to be reunited with it.

"Doesn't it strike you as odd that it happened to be here?" Horse said. Her tone was quiet and thoughtful, as if something was bothering her unrelated to what she was saying. She was watching the brutal clashes between with the slave owners and the freed metahumans. "With little security? Minimal defenses?"

"What are you getting at?" Parker said.

"Horse, it can't be a trap," Aquilai said, practically. "These people were overreliant the gauntlets and things -- on metahuman labor and such. They are also preoccupied with the struggle to control the metahumans."

Horse said nothing for a moment, but looked away. Aquilai quickly surmised Horse's misgivings true source.

"Horse, it was inevitable," Aquilai said, gently pragmatic. "Those who oppress others will inevitably be disposed. Just societies cannot stand upon opprssion and still be taken seriously. Slavery will never stay silent eternally."

"But if anyone dies . . ." Horse said, looking down, "if anyone dies . . . we will be responsible for it."

The three began their travel away from Genosha. Helen and Sam was picking them up with their Lantern powers, and returning them to RAF. Aquilai continued to address Horse, "No, Horse. The responsibility does not lie with us. We did instruct them to kidnap metahumans because they did not want to do the direct, dirty work that comes from menial work. Because they did not want to use machines to do things that the metahumans did."

Horse said nothing. It sounded like empty words to her, but Aquilai was probably right. But it would take a while before she would come to terms with it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 08, 2015, 01:31:55 PM

Wow. That last chapter. So much grey.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2015, 08:20:02 PM

Uh, yeah . . . I'd get used to that, if I were you. . . . There are gonna be less light-hearted books down the line. That's as much as I can say without this becoming a spoiler.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Threats

"HOW DARE YOU?!" the voice rang out again.

Demos sighed heavily, as if bracing himself for a very unpleasant visitation with a crotchety old family member or family friend. He muttered, "And now ol' Red Dome comes a-calling."

"WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU?!" the voice thundered again. "WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU TO DEPOWER MY EXEMPLAR?!"

"Oh, will you knock it off with the 'scary voice' schtick already, Cyttorak?" Demos shouted, clearly annoyed. "That was old and cliche aft the seventeen thousandth time you've done it, Metalhead!"

It was at this disrespectful, flippant remark that Cyttorak showed himself. He resembled the Juggernaut a great deal, only totally and completely enclosed in crimson armor. He had no visible eyes or mouth. It was almost as if he was an off-world Prypiatosian-B (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Prypiatosian-B), in a containment suit. He stood several feet taller than the Juggernaut did, and had a more massive frame. And, yet, Cloak felt no intimidation by the creature, nor did his niece. Demos seemed just annoyed by it. The others seemed to treated it with apprehension and caution.

Honestly, Cloak suspected greatly that Cyttorak was secretly insecure, and was overcompensating for something. But he said nothing about it -- no need to exacerbate the situation in a negative way.

Cloak quickly realized that when he was musing Demos and Cytorrak were arguing. Bickering, really.

"You ignorant whelp!" Cytorrak snarled. "Don't disrespect your superiors!"

"Superiors? You seriously including yourself in that?" Demos snickered. "Like I'd ever consider someone with a poster of Cthulu in a polka dot bikini my superior."

"THAT . . . THAT . . . how do you know about -- er, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

"I was guessing," Demos said, smirking cheekily.

"INSUBORDINATE WHELP!"

"What is with malicious people and overusing the word 'whelp'?" Demos said, irreverently.

"YOU --"

"As entertaining as all this bickering is," Cloak said, showing the Ruby still encased in the golden-scarlet energy bubble. "Cyttorak, if you don't back off right now, I'll destroy the Ruby."

"You foolish mortal. You don't have the power." Cyttorak said, imperiously. He was attempting to intimidate Cloak, and was getting a little miffed when it didn't work.

"You don't know what I am, do you?" the Realm Walker said, realizing the truth at once. "Well, allow me to give you the brief highlights then. I am a master over the Six Elements -- Fire, Air, Water, Wood, Metal . . . and . . . Earth. And rubies are Earth."

"You're . . . you're bluffing!"

Cloak sioently wondered why he couldn't just make another one, why this particular one was so important. But he just gave the demon a heavy-lidded look and said, "Try me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 09, 2015, 04:49:42 AM

But would he? :O

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2015, 08:15:24 AM

You shall see.

Anyway, at this time of writing, Book CD ("The Ultimate Enemy") will be 28 chapters.

New chapter, last one of this book.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Swappin' Stories

"Stop milking the suspense, Cloak," Saffa scolded. "What happened then?"

"Cyttorak decided that his Ruby was too precious to lose, so he reluctantly acquiesced to our demands." Cloak said, thoughtfully.

"Wait," Abby said, perplexed deeply, "why would he just give up and go away to protect a ruby?"

"I can't say as to why, to be honest," Cloak said, wearily. "But it had to be of some importance, otherwise Cyttorak wouldn't have been so keen on protecting it."

"What about Mark Kane?" Underseen asked.

"Imprisoned," Gaz said, "for his crimes as the Juggernaut."

"Why didn't Cyttorak just give him the powers of the Juggernaut back?" Saffa asked.

"He probably feels affronted in some way by Kane," Demos said. "Cyttorak and his seven other fellows -- very easy to offend. Oftentimes, it is unintentional."

"You really don't like him, do you?" Aquilai asked the demon.

"No. No, I don't." Demos said. "Any more than Cloak likes Malice. There is a similar age disparity."

Cloak glanced at Horse, with concern. She was away from the group, at the northern-most point of the lake. She had what appeared to be a morose look on her face. She clearly was still fretting about Genosha -- they still have yet to settle down. It didn't help that some politicians were advocating invading Genosha to "help", though it is a transparent attempt to grab Genosha's resources.

"How is Horse doing?" Cloak asked Aquilai.

"She's suffering guilt still," Aquilai replied, somberly looking at Horse too. "She still feels responsible for, in part, causing the chaos there. We hadn't a choice -- we couldn't allow them to stay enslaved. They were kidnapped from their homes. They didn't ask to be there. They have a right to freedom."

"It sounds that Horse isn't the only one trying to reconcile a guilty conscience," Demos pointed out.

"Everything isn't black and white," Cloak said. "There are shades of gray -- DO NOT make that joke, Demos, I wasn't referring that book. I haven't even read it -- nor do I want to."

They sat there talking, unaware that Garrotik's prediction was slowly coming true, in part.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2015, 09:26:32 PM

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXII:
DETHRONING KINGS
CHAPTER ONE:
Garrotik's Children

In a time long forgotten, just before the grand battle that took place between the two titians on the primitive, primordial world, Garrotik trifled with things that should have not been messed with. This should surprise no one who has had the misfortune of sharing the company of such a being. Not because of his willingness to abuse his power, but from his sheer unpleasant personality . . . not much has changed over the years when Richard managed to use his own powers against him, without too much difficulty (but a burdensome amount of sheer effort).

Before all that, Garrotik possessed seventeen plates. Plates of ruby red, sapphire blue, electric yellow, forest green, brown, deep purple, pale orange, olive green, snow white, iridescent indigo, khaki tan, golden yellow, deep gray, violently violet, lustrous silver, midnight black, and a particularly frilly pink color. These plates were not extraordinary in any perceivable way, but Garrotik had made them special. Granted, these plates aren't the only things that he was toying around with, but that's another story*.

It wasn't really known or understood just how Garrotik came about it. But he somehow -- whether by arcane mysticism, powerful magic, or just sheer dumb luck -- he managed to instill life into these plates, imbibing them with the elements and personalities (although the latter was debatable). He deemed them to be the Lords and Ladies of these elements, proudly claiming no one could surpass them (though his conviction in this statement was questionable).

They all appeared as elemental hybrids of the Tengu Shredder's Oroku Saki state (http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Oroku_Saki_(2003_TV_series)) and the Foot Mystics (http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Foot_Mystics). These were their condensed and confined forms however, swaddled in all this armor. Their true forms were starkly different from each other.

These eighteen, though possessing no biology of their own, were proclaimed to be his children, a fact that they were, oftentimes, proud of. Then he decided that he would often pit him against each other, to earn the right of being his favorite, but he grew bored of this before long. It wasn't too long that he soon grew bored of his children as well.

But they weren't any the wiser, as he quickly sealed them back in to the plates again -- claiming that he was tired of looking at them. Mere moments later, he was confronted by Richard and wound up in his sorry state in the Antarctic.

---

*No point in getting ahead of ourselves. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 09, 2015, 09:57:54 PM

Really, how old is Richard? :O

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2015, 04:56:33 PM

Now, now, Saffa. The mystery is part of Richard's mystique. ;) Anyway, I have more book ideas:

• Book DCLIV: "Line of Sight" -- The RAFians must deal with a malevolence that hops from body to body by direct eye contact.
• Book DCLV: "Who's the Dummy?" -- The RAFians must deal with a parasitic ventriloquist dummy.
• Book DCLVI: "Meteorite Neophyte Parasites" -- The RAFians must deal with aliens who arrive on earth via a strange meteorite.
• Book DCLVII: "The RAFian Parable" -- Cloaky, Abby, and Azzy get caught in a scenario rather like in "The Stanley Parable".
• Book DCLVIII: "Undenied" -- An old foe breaks free of an unlikely prison.
• Book DCLIX: "Trophy Hunter" -- A man uses a Trophy Maker to turn innocent people into trophies, likes the collectible trophies in the Super Smash Bros universe.

Yes, I know that it's ambitious, all these books, but I do fully intend to write everyone of them, something that I will not waver on. Anyway, the titles are subject to change, and I don't think I rehashed anything. Tell me what you think.

New, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Awakening the Lord of Phantoms

Long after the battle between the two titans, their father and the one whose agelessness remained a mystery to the ages (it is speculated that even he himself doesn't know the reason). The seventeen plates were scattered to the winds.

The frilly pink one was believed to be lost to the ebbs and flows of time. The forest green one had been the first to awaken and release the son of Garrotik it contained. But his new lease on life was no to last. His father's incarcerator's minions had seen to it. They slain Regifloras without a second thought, and his forest green plate remains forevermore fractured and fragmented.

Meanwhile, three kids were encroaching upon a old graveyards with the obligatory creaky gates of rusted iron, gated in by old iron fences that had twisted and contorted slightly over the years with age. Two boys, one girl. The redhead girl was the shortest of the trio, and the boy with the curly, black hair and green eyes was the tallest. It was the blonde boy with blue eyes was the most stereotypically "kid next door" and the leader of the trio. They were a mischievous bunch -- they weren't supposed to be in this cemetery after hours, and they knew it.

"Guys, we're not supposed to be here!" the tall one said.

"Oh, grow up, Herb." the girl said, scornfully. "You are just scared of the ghosts."

"Except they don't exist." the other boy said. "It's about time you learned that, Herb. Jo is right, this is for your own good!"

"Wesley --" Herb began to protest.

"No. Nnno! You are gonna see for yourself that all that ghost stuff is superstitious hogwash." Wesley said, firmly.

Then he bumped a tombstone accidentally. It remained standing, though. But an indigo plate the size of a dinner platter was dislodged from its resting place. But in the infinitesimal moments before it would clatter to the ground and either shatter or just lay there, it folded out into a figure with the headpiece and plated cloak similar to that of a Foot Mystic, while its interior resembled the body of the Tengu Shredder in his Oroko Saki form. The spaces between the plates glowed with a deep indigo, ghostly light.

Needless to say, the kids did not stick around after Regiphaetos's armored feet touched the ground.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 11, 2015, 04:04:22 AM

There's one origin story cleared up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2015, 03:57:33 PM

Richard? Didn't I make it more vague? ;)

And -- oh! -- we're over 4,000 replies in this thread.

Now, new chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Lacking Information

Cloak's eyes snapped open. He usually was very cranky when his meditation was interrupted. But this was different. He sensed a power that was somewhat reminiscent Garrotik's, but nowhere near his level. It was more akin to Cloak's power level, more or less. It wasn't exact science this power-level-sensing schtick.

But it was enough to make him forget his crankiness, to make him stand and consider this new development. Whoever this power belonged to . . . it was not good.

And Cloak was not alone, all the other felines sensed it, too. They were on edge -- as they should be. . . .

***

The trio may have ran at the sight of the Lord of Phantoms, but that did not mean they escaped. They found themselves standing stock still after a few seconds -- they had nearly made it to the gate. But they weren't the ones that told their bodies to do that. They found that they could no longer move of their own accord anymore, they could not speak of their own accord, and their eyes were dilated.

They, rather stiffly, turned around and calmly, but rather rigidly, walked back to Regiphaetos. The trio did not want to do this, but they were unable to stop themselves from doing so. Their bodies were acting of their own accord!

"What manner of squishy beings are these?" Regiphaetos said, his voice rather like Pariah Dark (from "Danny Phantom"), upon seeing the three prepubescent humans. "Of the same species, yet with so much physiological differences. What are they called?"

"They are called 'humans', m'lord." Herb said, but he sounded as if he was speaking from the bottom of a deep well. His green eyes dilated, but having a small indigo light flashing every now and then from within the pupils. It was the same with the other two.

"Humans?" Regiphaetos said, tapping his headpiece thoughtfully. "This creatures could prove useful to me. Useful for the primary goal. . . ."

"What is your whim, my Lord?" Wesley said, sounding as if he were in a different, but equally deep well as Herb.

Regiphaetos said nothing for a moment. Then he addressed Wesley -- or, rather, whatever was possessing Wesley's body.

"You, eidolon imp," he said. Eidolon imps were the personal minions of Regiphaetos, separated and unaffiliated with the Eidolon Consciousness.

"Yes, my Lord?"

"Leave that fleshy sack."

"As you wish, my lord." he said, at once. It seemed as if Wesley's body should have shuttered or twitched or something like that. But nope. No physical reaction from the depossession. But Wesley's fear flooded it within moments of the depossession, and he wanted to run.

But, he didn't want to abandon his two friends. He hesitated, and, within moments, he lost control over his body. Regiphaetos decided to experience the human experience by briefly inhabiting a human body.

"Hmmmm . . ." Regiphaetos said, appraising the body. His voice was indistinguishable from the real Wesley's voice. Then he fell to the ground, trembling. "Eidolon imp, prepare to retake this 'human'."

When the switch happened, the Regiphaetos spoke, "Pathetic creatures. Unable to house me without endangering themselves with death. In any case, this was a momentary distraction. I nearly forgotten the real goal, in my curiosity about these creatures of flesh."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2015, 03:25:32 PM

Guess Saffa is busy.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Plate Hunters

"It appears that I will not be able to disguise myself, to ensconce myself in one of those fleshy sacks," the Lord of Phantoms said. "My momentary habitation of that human told me that he feared me."

"He still does, m'Lord," the Wesley-inhabiting eidolon imp said.

"As does this human," the Jo-inhabiting eidolon imp said.

"This one does, too," the Herb-inhabiting eidolon imp said.

"Yes," Regiphaetos said, thoughtfully, uninterested at the three from interrupting him. Then he made a sweeping motion with his left arm, and fourteen more eidolon imps materialized before him. "Yes, this should do."

He addressed the three that were ensconced within the kids, "You three may use those foolhardy humans that you're wearing as long as may be necessary. Discard them as soon as the circumstance calls for it. They are expendable."

Then he addressed all the seventeen eidolon imps gathered, "Now you -- all of you -- go! Procure the other plates, procure my sisters and brothers. Use whichever these saggy bags of flesh -- these 'humans' -- you need to complete this objective. Kill them if you have to. The plate acquisition is paramount. Your touch will not awaken them from the plates, I believe. It may take more to accomplish that."

His yellowish-orange eyes sparkled malevolently, and, from his manner of speaking, it was clear that he was now smiling, "My siblings are just lucky that I sleep so lightly."

No one dare make mention of the real time duration of his hibernative sleep.

"What are you waiting for? Go! Go go go! You already ruin the atmosphere by not doing so after I spoke!" Regiphaetos said. Apparently, he was feeling testy now.

***

Cloak could not relax. He could not calm down.

Just because the power level he sensed wasn't as strong as Garrotik's was the last time they met didn't mean that this couldn't have been him again. He could have risen again, just like last time. And it could be his fault again. . . .

Cloak was well aware that he wasn't thinking rationally, and he stopped himself from pacing like the anxious tiger that he was. He was letting his worry, his fear, his doubt get the better of him. He had to calm himself and look at this rationally.

While the power he had sensed could have possibly been Garrotik, by the very same token, it could very well not be him at all. The individual in question may very well have no connection to that foul beast. Cloak was getting himself worked up over what very well may be nothing. He could be jumping to negative conclusions without any real proof.

This . . . didn't work. The anxiety remained in Cloak's body, like some detestable parasite, gnawing on his body, mind and soul every so often.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2015, 09:33:56 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Plate Placement

Cloak was getting rather antsy, so he left his thread and stormed away, mind reeling with the possibilities. The terrible possibilities. He went to Yarin's ship, and he was clearing out some junk that had accumulated on it in the past few days.

The Nyac jumped as Cloak approached.

"Guilty conscience?" Cloak asked.

"That's entrapment," Yarin said, absently dodging the question.

"High-strung, then?"

"You walk too quietly, that's all," Yarin said, hefting a cardboard box in his lower set of arms. He held a broom in his upper right hand.

"I'm a tiger," Cloak said, a tad pedantically. "We all walk quietly. It's in our nature."

"Suuure, it is," the Nyac said, distractedly. He was clearly more interested in the housekeeping of his ship than the conversation. Normally, that might have irritated Cloak, but the Realm Walker was in a more ambivalent mood just now.

While Yarin when back to his rather thankless work of housekeeping*, though it was just the finite area of his ship, and it wasn't a particularly large ship. But Yarin didn't mind, as his ship was his absolute pride and joy. Without question.

Then Cloak noticed a strange violet plate the size of a serving platter, just laying haphazardly over a nearly overflowing, cubic, cardboard box. It puzzled him, as he had never seen it before, yet it seemed oddly familiar. It reminded him of one of Arceus's plates, to which the Pokemon's life is connected.

"Where'd you get the plate from?" Cloak asked.

"That? I dunno." Yarin said, turning to scrutinize the plate. "It's more like an armor plate. You had me thinking of a dinner plate."

"In any case," Cloak said, attempting to keep the conversation on point, "how'd it wind up here?"

The question wound up never being answered, as Cloak heard a subtle sound, a sound rather like a vacuum powering down, only quieter and nearly unnoticeable. Cloak looked around and saw, to his apocalyptic fury, that Code Avalon shut down.

"Who's on monitor duty?" he growled.

"Rotiart, I think." Yarin said in a tone Cloak was convinced was far too genial for the situation.

"Rotiart?" Cloak said. He tried not to seethe with rage. "ROTIART? Hasn't he proven himself too immature and derelict to duty to be entrusted with such responsibilities?!"

"I thought he could handle it," Yarin shrugged.

"WHAT?!" the Realm Walker's voice intermingled with a tiger's roar. "You vouched for him?"

"I thought he deserved a second chance."

"He's had at least seven 'second chances'! I don't know why -- who are you? What are you doing here?" Cloak said, attention snapping from Yarin to an intruder. It was teenager dressed like a punk or delinquent.

She said nothing, but snatched the plate and made a run for it. Cloak wasn't about to let her get away with this, and gave chase. He didn't know why, but he knew the plate shouldn't leave RAF custody.

When he eventually overtook her, he realized that she tripped and she seemed to be confused, not aware of where she was. Several minutes later, Code Avalon kicked back into activation. Cloak glowered at it for a bit, before throwing the girl an appraising look. She looked to be genuine in her confusion and her dazed state.

There could only be one conclusion: she was being controlled in some way. Whether by mind control or possession or some combination of the two, it was unclear at the moment. But there was one thing that was crystal clear.

The Plate was gone.

---

*As a housekeeper myself, I feel that I can say this. That housekeeping is one of the more thankless jobs in my country.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 12, 2015, 11:43:42 PM

Why is Rotiart even on the duty roster? ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2015, 08:07:28 PM

Second chances, Saffa, as he was showing some improvement, but nothing really big enough to warrant a leap. Helen was really behind giving him a second chance, in a way. Having a big heart can sometimes be a fatal flaw, if one is careless with that compassion.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Collection of Plates

While Rotiart's fate was left to the investigation by the mods (with both Cloak and Saffa livid that he was even on the duty roster due to his past shirking or flippancy of important responsibilities), the eidolon imps were busily searching for the plates.

The gray one was found in a quarry, and the eidolon imp used the body of the quarry's foreman to obtain it. But had to discard his body for a young schoolteacher when the foreman's quarrymen employees began to prove to be obstacles in bringing the plate to Regiphaetos. Then he had to duck into the body of a minor when the young woman's fiancee came up to be all lovey-dovey with her. Then it takes over the rock-climbing enthusiast when the minor's father begins to hinder his progress, and succeeds in presenting the gray plate to Regiphaetos.

At the same time, the sapphire blue plate was found in the deep end of an indoor pool. A different eidolon imp used the body of a ten-year-old girl to procure the plate, but then fumbles with it outside the pool, and, instead of dealing with this and the girl's three pretentious older sisters. The eidolon imp withdrew into a foppish dandy womanizer, and gave the woman he was romancing the cold shoulder when he went to retrieve the plate. It was a bad move as the woman happened to be loud, and unafraid to make a scene. So the eidolon imp ditched the womanizing scum and leaped into a suave, romanticizing guy. He easily retrieves the plate and begins to walk out. He accidentally drops the plate as he walked out, eventually retrieving it in the body of a luchador. Then it uses the body of a waiter to take the plate when it discovered the luchador body attracted too much unwanted attention for the eidolon imp's tastes. But the waiter's boss was a tyrannical piece of work, so the eidolon imp quickly abandoned the waiter's body in favor of a beach bum's. It found that this was easier for a while, until he left the beach, then he stuck out like a sore thumb. His body was deftly abandoned in favor of a stuffy, snobby chef. It was in this body that the eidolon imp succeeded in its endeavor to get the blue plate to Regiphaetos.

Scarcely a minute later, the electric yellow plate was discovered, in the electronics department of an old thrift store. A new eidolon imp discovered it, and used the body of a retired Army lieutenant to procure it. But when he tried to leave without paying for it, the eidolon imp -- in effort of trying to avoid unwanted attention -- set the plate on the counter and ditched the old soldier's body for the cashier's rocker-like body, complete with earring stud. He walked outside with the plate, before his supervisor came and told him to get get back inside, it wasn't time for his break. Then the supervisor became the eidolon imp's host, and he snatched the plate from the disoriented cashier. Then he walked away from the store before fumbling the plate with the supervisor's clumsy fingers. Cursing this, the eidolon imp abandons the elderly man's body for the supermodel who picked up the plate. However, when the paparazzi decided to target her, the eidolon imp deftly passed the plate to a confused nerdy kid in an engineer's jumpsuit. But the look of confusion on the kid's face evaporated as the eidolon imp ditched the supermodel for his body. Still inside the kid, he manages to present the plate to Regiphaetos.

A mere minute later, another eidolon imp discovered the forest green plate on a nature trail's path. Well, most of it anyway. It inhabited a young woman in a kimono-like attire, but not quite a kimono. She passed the plate shard to another girl, transferring the eidolon into that girl's body. She passed the plate to a waiter, and the eidolon imp took him, ditching the girl's body. The eidolon was hoping that he was throwing off his trail so that people would not be able to follow its progress. He passed the shard to an exiting patron and jumped from the waiter into the cane-utilizing retiree. It was in this old coot that he presented, with apprehension, the shard to Regiphaetos, who recognized what it meant after inspecting it.

The rest of the plates were found soon thereafter, with similar stories. The eidolon imps that controlled Wesley, Herb, and Jo had to abandon them fairly early on, before any of the three discovered any of the plates.

Soon, only one plate was missing, and one eidolon imp was dead. Demos had discovered this eidolon imp, and destroyed it without much thought, giving into his demon nature momentarily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 13, 2015, 11:02:28 PM

Which is why I tend to shut myself off from most emotion.

So Demos has a clue of what's going on, then?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2015, 08:10:12 PM

Nope. Demos just gave into a demonic impulse without thinking or considering.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Somnulent Siblings

With all the plates, barring one, in his collection, Regiphaetos was estatic. But he lifted up the green shard given to him by the eidolon imp-possessed retiree. In his other hand he had created an ectoplasmic construct in the shape of a figure remarkably similar to him, only with mossy edges to his plated cloak. It had a radioactive green color, but that was due to the ectoplasm. In real life, the plates on his cloak and around his head were as forest green as the plate, and his eyes were a burning, penetrating red.

"Alas, dear brother," Regiphaetos said, in a more detached way than reminiscent. "How could you have perished? What manner of being could have had the audacity to kill a son of Garrotik? I think I know. The murderers must be his, the one who murdered my father in cold ichor. This will not stand, but for now, you will remove those bloated flesh bags from my sight. Then you will go back to your dormant states until I call for you again."

They rushed to acquiesce to Regiphaetos's command. The Lord of Phantoms was impassionate and indifferent towards them. His concern lay with his brethren. He placed the plates rather delicately and reverently before him, in a semi-circle. Fourteen of them. He knew that his sister, Regimagus, was still lost, but he must release his siblings from their long sleep.

He touched the golden plate (found at an old airport) in a gentle, caressing way. Within four minutes, the plate unfolded into a similar form to Regiphaetos's current one only gold, with steam leaking from underneath the plates, and possessing aloof, silver eyes. It was the Lord of Air, aloof Regiatmos.

"Greetings, brother," Regiphaetos said, solumnly.

He touched the purple plate (found at a chemical plant) in the same gentle, caressing way. Within a minute, the plate unfolded into the same form as the other two, only with purple plates who seethed venom from the spaces betwixt the plates. His eyes were also plain yellow, like a "Wet Floor" sign. It was caustic Regitoxicos, Lord of Poison.

The Lord of Phantoms gave Regitoixcos the same pleasantry.

Then he touched the olive green plate (found in an abandoned wasp's nest) in the same manner. Within three minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as the other three, only with olive green plates with trails of spider silk streaming out from beneath the plates. His eyes were a pale red, not quite pink, color. It was the Lord of Swarms, Regientomos, who has the irritating habit of talking to himself and answering himself constantly.

Again, Regiphaetos gave this brother the same greeting.

Then Regiphaetos touched the silver plate (found in a metalworking building) in the same manner as the previous three. Within six minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with silver plates that clanked with every movement. Her eyes were the color of molten gold. It was the Lady of Metal, Regiferros. She was a being of steely determination, who never made unnecessary conversation.

Regiphaetos gave his obligatory greeting.

Then Phantoms Lord touched the brown plate (found in a cave) in the same manner as the predecessors. With five minutes, the plate unfolded into same as his fellows, only with brown plates and dust blown out with every movement. His eyes were Pepto-Bismol pink, and he had a very grounded personality. It was the Lord of Earth, Regiterras.

Regiphaetos gave his brother the standard greeting.

Then the Lord of Phantoms touched the ruby red plate (found in a smelting plant) in the same manner as the predecessors. Within five minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as her fellows, only with red plates which vents flames between the plates. Her eyes were a chemical green color. It was the Lady of Fire, Regipyros. She was a being of a fiery temper, which can rage out of control.

The Lord of Phantoms greeted this sister of his.

Then the Phantom Lord touched the sapphire plate in the same manner as the previous siblings. Within five minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as his fellows, only with blue plates and water leaking out between the plates. Her eyes were a bright orange, and possessed a very tempermental temperament. It was the Lady of Water, Regihydros.

Regiphaetos greeted his sister differentially.

Then Regiphaetos touched the electric yellow plate (found at a power plant) in the same manner as the previous siblings. Within four minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as his fellows, only with yellow plates and electrical discharges between the plates. His eyes were venomously purple, and he has a problem thinking around obstacles. He was Regielectros, Lord of Thunder.

The Phantom Lord gave his brother the standard greeting.

Then Lord of Phantoms touched the violet plate in the same manner as the previous siblings. Within six minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with violet and psionic concentric circles issuing from the plate with every movement. Her eyes were dark yellow, and she was intellectual and thoughtful, never making hasty movements. She had won most, if not all, the competitions between her and all of her siblings. She was the Lady of the Mind, Regineuros.

The Lord of Phantoms gave his sister the standard greeting.

Then Phantom Lord touched the snow white plate (found at an ice rink) in the same manner as the previous siblings. Within four minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with white plates and frost issuing between each plate periodically. His eyes were the darkest black, and he was cold, calculating. He was Regicryos, the Lord of Ice.

The Lord of Phantoms gave his brother the standard greeting.

Then Regiphaetos touched the tan khaki plate (found at in a dragon statue's mouth) in the same manner as the previous siblings. Within four minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with tan plates with toothed scales on the edges. Her eyes were filthy brown, and she was highly emotional, and prone to rages. She is not one for strategy, just brute force. She was the Lady of Dragons, Regidraco.

He gave his sister the standard greeting.

Then Phantom Lord touched the midnight black plate (found at an abandoned warehouse) in the same manner as the previous siblings. Within three minutes, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with black plates with deep shadows at the edges. Her eyes were soullessly, empty white and he tends to shy away from light, reveling in darkness. She was the Lady of Darkness, Regiumbra.

Regiphaetos gave his sister the standard greeting.

Then Lord of Phantoms touched the orange plate (found at a battlefield) in the same manner as the previous siblings. In an indeterminate amount of time, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with orange plates and battered edges. His eyes were sky blue and empty, and he revelled in the most banal battles and pointless fights. He was Regifisticuff, Lord of Battle.

Regiphaetos gave his brother the standard greeting.

Then Regiphaetos touched the gray plate in the same manner as the previous siblings. In an indeterminate amount of time, the plate unfolded into the same form as the others, only with gray plates and gravel shifting out of the plates with every movement. His eyes were a deep brown and he had a hard heart and stood his ground. He was Regilithos, the Lord of Stone.

Regiphaetos gave his brother the standard greeting. Then he turned to address all his siblings assembled. "Brothers! Sisters! We have much to discuss."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 15, 2015, 06:20:06 AM

Love the linguistic play. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2015, 03:50:02 PM

Linguistic play? Why, whatever do you mean? ;)

Anyway, new book ideas! Including a new arc of sorts.

• Book DCLX: "Mnemonic Overload" -- The RAFians must help a girl who simply remembers too much.
• Book DCLXI: "Unintended Intimacy" -- Two friends get closer than anyone would like. The RAFians are called in to help.
• Book DCLXII: "So Cold . . ." -- The RAFians must deal with a thermal vampire.
• Book DCLXIII: "Shocking Secrets" -- The RAFians must deal with an obnoxious electrokinetic electromorph.
• Book DCLXIV: "Reformatting Exosuits" -- A criminal cartel manufactures exosuits, in a most illegal way.
• Book DCLXV: "Demon Cure" -- A rumor of a cure for demonism is abound.
• Book DCLXVI: "Shenecron's Gambit" -- Shenecron makes his play, and the RAFians must interfere.

Remember, the titles are subject to change. And, yes, that's Book #666. Tell me what you think.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Game

"So, Father has perished," Regineuros said, thoughtfully. "By the same one who imprisoned him. Hmmm."

"The Father was weak!" Regidraco said, savagely. "Weak! Only the strong deserve to survive!"

"A fight?" Regifisticuff said, eagerly, as a child eagerly anticipating a pleasant time or a present. "It's been forever since I tasted a good battle!!"

"Is it necessary? Is there a more, uh, tastier way we could go about this?" Regientomos said, before launching into a Kreacher-like mutterings, only buzzing and incomprehensible speech.

"We are the children of Garrotik," Regielectros said, "those that slayed Father are children, proverbial children, of his imprisoner. It only make sense that we should slay them."

"YES!!" Regifisticuff yelled, absolutely elated. Meanwhile, Regidraco just laughed with a disconcerting hiss.

"We shall bring the battle to them, then!" Regipyros said, impassioned.

"Why should we fight them on their ground? Terrain they know better than us?" Regiterras said, practically.

"Coward!" Regifisticuff accused.

"Worse, killjoy!" Regidraco corrected.

"You really want to disgrace yourself by charge up to their doorstep?" Regicryos said, coldly. "If they want to fight me, these inconsequential insects --"

"Hey!" Regientomos protested the phrasing choice.

He was ignored as Regicryos talked over him sithout pause, "-- these inconsequential insects will have to come to my doorstep."

"And, pray tell, how do you propose we get them to come to our doorstep?" Regilithos said, voice hard. "Without any incentive, they would not come to us."

"The lust of battle will draw them!" Regifisticuff announced proudly.

"They're not that stupid," Regihydros sniped.

"It's not stupid!" Regifisticuff protested hotly.

"Enough!" Regineuros said. "But, on topic, I propose we institute the rules of the Death Game."

"For what purpose?" Regiterras asked.

"To see who will inherit the choicest parts of the planet atter we take it back from these odd creatures," Regineuros explained, rather manipulatively. "The fifteen place holder will get the crumbs and gristle."

One-by-one, they eventually nodded in agreement.

"But the question remains," Regiumbras said, darkly, "just how can we be sure that these creatures, this RAFians, will take us up on our offer of battle?"

"Oh," Regiphaetos said, with a sardonic lilt to his voice, "I think I have a way."

***

". . . Accept our challenge, and right a wrong." one of Garrotik's progeny said. Cloak could not tell which one was speaking. But he was very leery of them. "Accept our challenge. You have no choice."

"You never gave us a reason why we should indulge you in this petty competition," Cloak said brazenly, with narrowed eyes. "Nor why it will be three of us against just one of you."

"That was to make the competition more fair to you," the same speaker said, "otherwise, you'd stand no chance."

"And your ego could sink the Titanic alone," Saffa said, dryly.

"Again, you never said why we had to engage you in this," Parker said, arms crossed as tightly as Cloak's were. "Why we had to even bother with you at all."

"Oh, forgive me," the speaker said, with the air that he or she had not forgotten at all, "I forgot to mention our . . . our esteemed guests."

They saw images of several people, mostly prepubescent humans, which looked like they were being controlled by various means. These lunatics had hostages. Of course they had hostages.

"The first battle will be with Regilithos at the quarry," the speaker -- obviously, not Regilithos -- said, casually. "Choose your three champions and send them there."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 16, 2015, 02:50:12 AM

Of course Shenecron wrecks havoc in book 666. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2015, 04:22:49 PM

Yep.

Now, fair warning, this book will be over the requisite twenty chapters. Not by much, though. . . . Er, don't hold me to that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Rock Steady

The quarry was the very same place where the gray plate that held the dormant state of Regilithos. The quarry itself was essentially just a deep ravine, almost like a deep laceration into the earth. It connected to a cliff on both banks of the ravine. Off-white stone laid within the ravine and cliffsides. Other than that, there wasn't much to it.

And that's what made it so creepy. And suspicious.

Cloaky, Mithril, and Oceanspray arrived in the quarry, and there was a foreboding feeling all around.

"Wasn't this an active quarry?" Mithril asked.

"Yes." Oceanspray answered.

"Then . . . where is everyone?" he asked.

Cloak muttered, as if it was obvious, "Hostages."

"All of them?" Oceanspray said, skeptically. "We can't know that."

Cloak stopped and slowly looked at the robotic RAFian with irritated, narrowed eyes and folded arms.

"Unless you already had sensed them seismically," Oceanspray said. "You did Earthsight them, didn't you?"

"Yes. They're in that shack. In the fetal position," Cloak said. "I doubt the door is even locked."

"Mind controlled or possessed?" Mithril said, astutely extrapolating possible reasons for such a scenario.

"Can't tell that from Earthsight," Cloak said, succinctly. "But they have small, diamond-shaped, crystalline stones on their foreheads, so I surmise it's the former."

It was true, the crystalline stones -- the Suggestion Stones -- forcibly wipe a person's mind blank as long as it is attached to their foreheads, and they become very open to suggestion, rather like being Imperiused.

"Ah, very shrewd." came a voice which sound as powerful as an avalanche, and as hard as a mountain. "You're right, of course. Very good. For humans."

The RAFians all spoke at the same time.

"I'm not a human, per se." Oceanspray said, arm folding into his arm cannon.

"I'm not a human, I'm a Keeper! . . . Wait -- that sounded wrong." Mithril said.

"I'm not a human, I'm a Realm Walker, and my kind was old before you ever took your first step!!" Cloak snarled, taking immense offense at Regilithos's condescending tone.

Regilithos looked afronted by Cloak's tone, which he took as impudent, as he considered Cloak inferior. "How dare you speak to a superior in that way! I am the Lord of Stone, boy!"

"Stone is but one element!" Cloak roared back. Realm Walkers were a prideful species, and Cloak was not exempt from this. "I command a mastery over six!"

"Your boasts are pointless! You cannot fool me. No one being could have mastery over more than two elements at one lifetime." Regilithos countered.

"Feel like we've been sidelined, too?" Mithril asked Oceanspray.

"Kinda," Oceanspray answered, casually.

"Enough talk then!" Regilithos said, acting more like a rock that had been dislodged from a precipice and began rolling down a hill. He terrakinetically summoned a rock up from the ground the size of a rolled-up Arburian Pelarota, then he condensed and compacted the roughly spherical rock to the size of a beach ball.

Then, with a bunch of unnecessary flourishes of his arms and feet, he projected the rock forward. But the rock disintegrated into dust and sand before it would have made impact with Cloak.

"Pathetic," Cloak said, who hadn't moved an inch.

Regilithos tried again. And again, he failed.

"Are you just out of practice?" Cloak said, scathingly. "Let me help you out then."

Cloak extended his hand and closed it into a tight fist. Regilithos gray plated armor was crushed as the sides of the quarry ravine pinched together momentarily. When they separated Regilithos appeared to be nothing but gravel and gray plate shrapnel.

"Cloak!" Oceanspray complained, as he unfolded his hand out of his arm cannon. "You didn't leave any for us!"

"Don't jump to conclusions," Cloak said, eyes still on the remnants of Regilithos.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 16, 2015, 04:32:24 PM

Does every plate-lord get a different set of champions or...?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2015, 09:37:41 PM

Well, I don't think it's too big a spoiler to answer that, Saffa, so I will. Yes. Yes, they do. They each fight a different team of three RAFians.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Stone Unbound

There was a very Jafar-esque laugh that echoed around the quarry. Only Cloak looked unsurprised. Very much the contrary, this actually confirmed his suspicions. The plated cloak formwas just a confining form -- a Confined Form, if you will. It limits their abilities, and weakens what they can do. Forcing them to rely on minions that they summon, unless they didn't think of it, of course.

Regilithos was now unbound, and Regilithos Unbound was at least twice the size of his Confined form. He looked like a solely gray Ben Grimm (as the Thing), with gray, sharp-edged, angular luminous crystals protruding, Hork-Bajir-like, from his elbows, wrists, and knees. They also gave him five luminously gray, crystalline claws on each of his hand (with one opposable), and three claws on each of his three-toed feet. He had more inconsequential, more purely cosmetic crystal and gem growths in a very Doomsday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_(comics)) manner. His teeth were long, but blunt, like a Bastiodon.

All in all, not a very pleasant creature to look at.

"What is that?" Mithril said, repulsed.

"Is that Regilithos?" Oceanspray said.

"You said you wanted some," Cloak said, quietly. His eyes never left Regilithos Unbound. "Here's your chance. Chances are that he's stronger now, too."

"Gee, thanks." Oceanspray said, voice dripping with sarcasm like a leaky garbage bag.

Cloak shrugged, "Be wary of what you wish for. Now the battle truly begins."

"Lovely," Mithril said, less than thrilled.

The battle flowed quickly from there, though mostly long-ranged combat. The Unbound Lord of Stone terrakinetically heaved massive stone boulders at the RAFians which Cloak and Mithril terrakinetically reduced to dust and sand, while Oceanspray just blasted the lot of it. Within moments it came to midrange combat, which the RAFians managed to hold their own.

The problem came when they got in close. Regilithos made the mistake of allowing Cloak to get too close to him, and allowing him to basically terrakinetically shatter and explode every crystal on the Unbound Lord of Stone's body, allowing him to crack every gemstone, allowing him to injuring the Unbound Stone Lord severely.

"You're Garrotik's son, right?" Cloak said, backing off a bit.

"I'll . . . I'll kill you. . . ." Regilithos said. "I'll kill you . . . for . . . for what you did to . . . h-him."

"Such a pity," Cloak said. "You didn't have to follow his example."

The other two moved to attack, but Cloak held his hand up to bar them from proceeding. "No, it's over."

Right after the Realm Walker spoke, Regilithos exploded into gray energy that dissipated forevermore. It did not give Cloak any satisfaction to see, even after the Suggestion Stones had crumbled away from the hostages' foreheads.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2015, 09:03:53 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Splish-Splash

The next location was an indoor pool, and there was the ridiculous stipulation that Garrotik's children had forced. No three champions may face two of them.

The RAFians couldn't really argue. Not without risking the lives of the hostages, that is. So, they were forced to abide by their rules.

It was Shadow, Horse, and Aquilai that had elected to take on this child of Garrotik. Aquilai carried Horse, rather like Misty and her Togepi, only Horse was far less than thrilled about it.

"Okay, where's this piece of --" Horse said, rather disgruntled.

"Language, Horse. Shadow's still a minor." Aquilai said primly.

"Hey, I'm still older than either of you," Shadow countered.

"In actual terms, yes." Aquilai replied readily. "In relative terms, no."

"Wait a minute . . ." Horse said, who wasn't focusing on the back-and-forth between the two. "Are those the hostages? They certainly don't act like it."

"Their utter servility seems almost . . . obscene," Aquilai observed.

"Oceater is not obscene!!" a voice raged. "The Waters of Servility are infallible!"

"Nothing's infallible!" Horse protested. Then she addressed Aquilai, "Put me down."

"I am!" Regihydros said, proud and vain. "I am the sea, and the sea has no flaws!!"

"There's . . . There's going tp be no way to reason with her, is there?" Shadow said, wanely.

"You impudent child! You stupid, impudent child!!" Regihydros raged, causing the water in the pool to slosh angrily.

"Excuse me? 'Stupid'?" Shadow said, eeriely echoing her mother's mannerisms.

Then the battle went from there, with a certain viciousness on Regihydros's part. But she wound up frozen solid -- courtesy of RAF's resident seal -- and she was shattered by concerted efforts by Shadow and Aquilai.

"Yeah!" Horse said.

"Don't jump to conclusions," Shadow said, unknowingly and unintentionally echoing her uncle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 18, 2015, 02:47:08 AM

Isn't Horse still a minor too?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2015, 09:24:26 PM

Um . . . she's a seal, and that fact is overlooked?

. . .

You're not buying that excuse are you? Um . . . uh . . . distraction!

New chapter!
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Water Unbound

"We shattered her," Horse argued. "She's gone. How would --"

Then Jafar-like laughter rushed forth, like a tsunami flood.

"You've been a RAFian how long?" Shadow asked cheekily.

"Oh, shut up." Horse countered.

Regihydros Unbound was fairly human, but with piscine fins for ears. She wore sapphire blue arm guards, armored breastplate, and shoulderguards. Her legs were rather like an overlarge Pisccis Volann bodybuilder -- in the fact that they can merge together into a mermaid-esque tail. Her hair -- if you could call it that -- was a mass of writhing cephalopod tentacles, which she actually seemed to have sensation and tactile control over. She seemed to be quite a deal larger than her Confined form. As for her face -- it was harshly pointed and haughtily angled. Not very attractive.

"How d'ya like me now?" she sneered, her voice eeriely like Calmaramon. "Beautiful, no?"

"I'm inclined to agree," Aquilai said, to which Regihydros Unbound beamed -- which was more horrible then it just sneering (which could just be its default blank state). "You are definitely a 'beautiful no'."

"AQUILAI!" Shadow and Horse scolded.

"What?"

"Seriously? You don't know?" Shadow said.

"He's such a guy," Horse muttered.

"I'm going to try something," Shadow said. Then she went into the movements of her mother's special technique. Fluid energy rose around this heinously hideous creature in a double helix pattern. She looked momentary confused, before breaking the structure, tossing out vehemently venomous tirades about how Shadow was "making her look ugly".

Shadow bit back her retort that Regihydros Unbound didn't need her help for that.

The battle took up quickly from there. Horse found her self able to surf on any of Regihydros Unbound's water-based attacks (and they all were water-based). Shadow easily redirected the attacks with her own Water element mastery.

Regihydros Unbound moved into the pool's center. Moving into the center of her realm of control, of her power.

"Wait, there!" Aquilai cried, pointing to what appeared to be a crack in the ceiling. The Time Lord quickly eyed the hostages who, if they did not know better, would have guessed they were victims of Stockholm syndrome.

Aquilai did not have to say anything, as the hostages were now restrained by earth and ice barriers.

Then they cut into the ceiling, into a hidden electrical conduit, which caused some electrical wires to spill out . . . and touched Regihydros Unbound's back. And she was zapped. Then she disintegrated into a puddle of water, as the hostages looked as if they were coming out of a reverie, as the stone and ice barrier began to recede.

"That could have gone better," Shadow said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 18, 2015, 11:22:31 PM

Testosterone, eh? ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2015, 09:53:43 AM

Quoth my non-RAFian friend, "Bleh bleh bleh." ;) Anyways, I'm off today, and I'll try to get two chapters up, but don't hold me to that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Mad With Power

The next location was the power plant.

"They're getting a little on-the-nose with these locations," Sakki said, disparagingly. "I mean, we can already pretty much guess just what our enemy's 'lord' or 'lady' over from just that alone."

<How do you figure?> Esplin said, although wanely.

"Quarry, lord of stone. Indoor pool, lady of water. Power plant," Sakki explained in a dry, flat tone, "you tell me."

<You don't know that. It could be different this time.> Esplin argued.

"It's actually eerily silent here, aside from the assorted machinery noises," Myitt noticed.

<So what?> Esplin said, adopting some of the Andalite arrogance.

"So there are supposed to be hostages, Esplin." Sakki said, as.if explaining something very simple to someone very obtuse. She tended to get testy like this during the prelude to battle.

At a nearby sound, Myitt deftly withdrew her weapon -- a Dracon beam she modified herself (with her human host's assistance, of course). She plopped a device over right ear that resembled a BlueTooth/Scouter hybridization, and she began to scan the area, with its readouts.

"Is that really necessary?" Sakki said, critiquing her Scouter hybrid. "Do really need to be all Lara Croft right now?"

Then Sakki turned to the slight shuffling sound that Myitt had heard. Esplin just looked imperious and unimpressed, borderline overconfident in his abilities. Sakki relied on her sonics and hand-to-hand combat (of which she had her own unique style).

<What the -->

It was the employees of the plant, as well as what appeared to be a school tour, a field trip, as their appeared to be an uniformed woman heading a group of elementary-aged children. They all stood as if they were reeds on the banks of a pond in the slightest of winds. Their heads were looking forward, their eyes -- pupil, iris, and sclera -- were glowing yellow. Like the other progeny of Garrotik, this one had a way to control people. Yet they way they moved was freakishly similar to the animatronics at "Five Nights at Freddy's", only they were purely organic.

"That's," Sakki said, unable to keep the revulsion from her voice, "that's . . . Thst's really screwed up, that's what that is."

"The Dark Synapse is not screwed up," a haughty voice (which had an underlying digitized buzz to it, if you listened closely enough) protested. "It is elegant and masterful in its design."

It was Regielectros Confined who spoke. Obviously.

"Let me guess, you designed it." Myitt said, without missing a beat.

"Yes," Regielectros said, grandly. "but that does not make it any less tru--"

"Lemme guess," Sakki said, indifferently, interrupting the son of Garrotik. "'Lord' of Thunder?
Lightning? Static cling?"

Regielectros Confined's eyes burned with anger. "You dare to disrespect ME, mortal?!"

"Kinda comes with the job," Sakki contered flippantly.

<Are we done with this pointless banter yet?> Esplin grumbled. <Can we just obliterate this idiot already?>

Sakki feigned looking as if she was considering this, then shrugged her shoulders and said, "Okay."

"You puny nothings think you can stand up to the mighty Lord of Thund--" Regielectros Confined raged.

"Yak yak yak," Sakki said, dismissively. Then she blasted her sonic scream and found it worked rather like a Boomburst attack. It even cracked Regielectros Confined's armor, which Esplin compounded by morphs something large enough to stomp him, and Myitt fired with pinpoint accuracy at what she believed to be the weakest spot. And he collapsed as his armor fractured off him. He didn't even manage to fire off more than a couple of weak sparks.

<There. Done.> Esplin said, before turning to walk away.

"Hey!" Sakki called out. "What makes you think thwt we're done here?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 19, 2015, 01:15:28 PM

Sakki is basically RAF's battle-chirper. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2015, 04:54:52 PM

Every organisation needs one, Saffa, dontcha know. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Thunder Unbound

<He is finished, Sakki.> Esplin insisted. <To remain here, it is an exercise in futility, of stupid parano--"

Then a peel of Jafar-like laughter rent the air like a calamitous lighting strike.

"You were saying?" Sakki asked the Andalite-Controller, trying very hard not to be too smug about it.

<Oh, be silent,> Esplin responded huffily.

Regielectros Unbound rose up to his full height. He resembled a roughly anthropomorphic maned wolf with needle-sharp fur that had a bright, bioelectrical glow. His claws sparked everytime he flexed his hybrid paw-hands, including a stubby, almost vestigial opposable thumb on each one. On his back were wing-like appendages that appeared to be somewhere between Dunsparce's wings and those of Zekrom. These were hairless, and glowing of their own accord.

". . . A nightlight. He became a glorified nightlight." Sakki said drily.

"You DARE to mock me, mortal?!" Regielectros Unbound roared.

Sakki was unimpressed, and replied, "Well, someone has to do it. I mean, seriously."

"You IMPUDENT little --"

TSEEEEEEEEW!

"What?!" the son of Garrotik snarled. The shot had missed by inches. "Who dares?!"

"Don't you get tired of saying that?" Sakki said, as Esplin and Myitt stayed conspicuously quiet. "Really, Reg, you can think of better banter than the lame crap you been saying."

"DON'T CALL ME 'REG'!!!" Regielectros Unbound roared.

"Okay. How 'bout Reggie?" Sakki asked.

FWAP!

"Ah!" Regielectros gasped. Esplin's strike hit its mark quite remarkably well. Regielectros was, naturally, very livid about it. "You insignificant little nothings! You dare to attack me?!"

"Well, I thought that was the entire purpose of this exercise," Sakki said, conversationally, sbifting Regielectros Unbound's attention back onto her. "You and your psycho siblings wanted this little game, did you not?"

This seemed to suck some bravado from him, which he recovered and refined it into arrogance. "True, but you were not to --"

"Not to attack you without your say so?" Sakki said, predicting his response. She was deliberately maneuvering in such a way so that Regielectros Unbound's deep laceration was less guarded. "Tell me this then -- if you're so high and mighty, why do you require a handicap like that?"

Regielectros wanted to argue, but Sakki's logic was sound. And Myitt's aim was true.

TSEEEW!!

Regielectros Unbound did not roar or scream or anything. Awful silence was rendered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 20, 2015, 09:59:06 PM

So is this going to be more than 20 chapters or split into two books?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2015, 10:14:41 PM

More than twenty. Remember, I've planned these all out in advance. I mean, I'm apready planning the chapters for Book CDII. Granted, sometimes it changes when I actually write them. For instance, Abomination wasn't originally slated to die in Book L, I think it was.

But no more chapters tonight. Got to go to work in the morning.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Mind Games

The next location was a museum.

Yarin, Noelle, and Terenia walked rather sedately. They were not disguised, and only Terenia could pass as human without a disguise. The museum was so eerily quiet that even the gentle clopping of Noelle's hooves reverberated almost ominously.

<Where is everyone? Is this a human holiday?> Noelle asked, her tail quivering anxiously. Her stalk eyes were moving almost perpetually.

"Holiday? No," Terenia answered, "but there is probably a very good reason for the desertion of this museum. Perhaps they're simply in a nother part of it, a new exhibit, perchance."

"No, I cannot sense any other minds . . ." Yarin said. "Except for one."

"Very good, little telepath." Regineuros said. But she chose not to speak from her own mouth. The voice was a kid's.

The three RAFians came to a large room -- an atrium, really -- where the floor was littered eith skeletal reconstructions of long-dead beasts. But at the far end of the room, by a naked wall, were what the three could only assume were the museum's visitors or patrons or staff. Regineuros Confined stood before them.

It also appeared that a school group of indeterminate age were visiting on some sort of class trip. Possibly a different grade (or school altogether) than the one touring the power plant.

It was a boy who spoke. He had rather spiky, messy, brown hair, as if he were an anime character, and large, vacant, blue eyes. Though, upon observation of the rest of the group assembled, they all had vacant eyes. Yarin was the only one of the three that knew and remembered the Unimind incident, and this was something eerily similar.

"Very good to have made it here," a silver-haired boy said, though his face remained blank, body unusually stiff, like a mannequin, and his hazel eyes were vacant.

"It certainly took you long enough," said a brown-haired girl with dark, vacant eyes. Her body, too, was stiff like a mannequin's and her face, too, was blank -- devoid of emotion.

"I swear it's just as creepy as last time," Yarin muttered.

<Last time?> Noelle questioned.

"Later," Yarin stressed.

"Can you speak on your own?" Terenia said, with an almost academic weariness.

"Yes, I can," she replied, speaking through a burly man in khakis and a dark blue shirt. His eyes remained vacant as the others, and it was not monotone, though his blank face did not show it. Terenia had no idea if that was even physically possible.

"I just chose to refuse to deign to speak to you," she continued, switching to a teenaged girl with copious black hair and simple fashion choice. "Though I must ask --"

She switched to speaking to a blond boy, who was clearly small for his age, "How are you blocking my telepathic probes? How can you shield your minds from me like that? My mind is the apex mental compacity in all of creation. No mind is unreadable to me."

She switched to a frail-looking old man, "How'd you do it?"

The three RAFians said nothing, but stood their ground, undeterred by the creepiness of this daughter of Garrotik. They shared a glance with each other.

"Making plans, already?" Regineuros Confined said through a woman -- apparently a person on the museum's staff or one.of the kids' chaperones. "Tsk tsk tsk. Too bad it won't plan out."

"You can tell the future?" Terenia said, voice soaked through with skepticism.

"Yes," Regineuros lied, through a little redhead girl.

Noelle snorted at this very thought. <Maybe one possible future, if you're speaking the truth at all."

"I am," she said, speaking through all her hostages at once.

It was Terenia's turn to snort derisively. "You're confused. It's the past that's immutable, unchangeable. The future is full of possibilities, ever flowing, ever changing. We are not that foolish."

"Let's just get this thing done," Yarin said, wanely. "I think I may have left my Bunsen burner on at RAF."

Yarin tried to attack her telepathically, and found that she put up a better fight then he expected. But her control over the hostages began to wane slightly. Their eyes flickered between consciousness and vacancy. She couldn't divide her attention forever.

The fact that she was using the hostages in such a way could and would be used against her.

Yarin continued to telepathically push back against the Lady of the Mind, while Noelle was rapidly morphing into a Psycholeopterran and Terenia took out . . . a ruler. But Terenia spun the ruler like a baton and it expanded into a quarterstaff-sized, pole-like ruler. Terenia was deathly with her Ruler of Death.

The Lady of the Mind was equally distracted by Noelle (using the hypnotic powers of the Psycholeopterran) and Yarin (who did not relent in his telepathic assault), and Terenia wailed on her with this ruler-pole.

"Ruler of Death, extend!" Terenia said, before delivering the final blow, breaking Regineuros Confined and seemingly breaking her control over the hostages.

Terenia landed holding the ruler/quarterstaff behind her, as Noelle landed and demorphed.

"Don't get too complacent, it's not over," Yarin warned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2015, 04:24:37 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Mind Unbound

The hostages blinked and held their heads, ironing their foreheads, as if they were suffering mild migraines. They looked very disorientated.

<Uh . . . Yarin? You sure?> Noelle asked, with uncertainty.

"Yes!" the Nyac insisted.

Suddenly, all the hostages' bodies went rigid again. Maybe a little stiffer. Their eyes became vacant pools again. Arms dropped immediately to their sides. A Jafar-like peel of racuous, insane laughter rent from their mouths.

Wait, no!

It came from another source as well, far louder than the hostages.

"I should really thank you, you lot!" the chorus of voices announced proudly (though the hostages faces and body language remained passive and blank). Then the chorus made noises and grunts of appreciation. "I always hated being confined to that form!"

Regineuros Unbound was rather macrocephalic to an extreme degree, and the rest of her body, despite expectations, was not vestigial, but strangely strong and muscular. But her physical strength wasn't more than that of an average, modern-day human. She wore violet, metallic shoulderguards with a black leather cape and metal body armor rather like that of a French knight.

Her head was a pale violet and yellow eyes the size of standard-sized globes, with black triangular marks immediately above and below her eyes. She also possesses a spherical amethyst in her forehead, deep purplish-black lips, and had prominent, clefted chin. It was actually remarkable how she could walk with the dignity and undeserved sense of superiority, although she was probably telekinetically holding it up. This would be remarkable in and of itself as she retained control over like twenty humans, at the very least.

"Uh oh," Yarin said.

"Oh, she's no different than that guy with the Darwin gun," Terenia said, bracingly.

"That's not what I meant," the Nyac said, fretfully. "She's linked herself with the hostages."

<Yeah, we can see that,> Noelle said drily.

"No! She's interlaced her mind with them! Anything happens to her happens to them!"

Another Jafar-esque laugh in chorus.

<I'm really beginning to hate that laugh,> Noelle said testily.

"Can you undo it?" Terenia asked.

"Already on it, actually," Yarin noted. "Just distract her. Might make it both easier and faster."

It took about two or three hours for Yarin undo the mental lattice that Regineuros built as the firls battled her from all sides. Regineuros managed to telekinetically force them away with movements that appeared similar to the force push. You'd think with a head like that she wouldn't be so easily distracted, but Terenia has worked with kids, so she knows how to keep attention. Besides, being nearly whacked upside the head with an expanding ruler of death (she could feel its slipstream) and Noelle's Psycholeopterran morph hypnotic abilities tend to make it hard for anyone to concentrate.

"There, done!" Yarin announced, before turning his telepathic might at Regineuros Unbound herself. She found herself unable to cope with this onslaught, though she remained confused as to how they seemingly got so powerful in such a short time.

"Teamwork -- pity you and your ilk don't understand that." Terenia said, before delivering the final blow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 22, 2015, 03:18:45 PM

I love the Ruler of Death. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2015, 11:23:50 PM

Well, it makes her more of a force to be reckoned with and gives her some uniqueness to stand out against the others. The Ruler of Death actually came out from something from chat a long time ago, if I recall correctly.

Now, I have an awful lot of new book ideas. I may have rehashed some old plots, but I hope that I didn't. So, here they are:

• Book DCLXVII: "Return of [censored]" -- An old, nearly-forgotten foe returns to plague the lives of the RAFians yet again.
• Book DCLXVIII: "A Way In" -- Two old foes of RAF discover a way into the forum unnoticed by the RAFians themselves.
• Book DCLXIX: "Destruction From Within" -- The two "moles" are unmasked.
• Book DCLXX: "Not Today, Not Ever" -- The two "moles" meet their inevitable fate.
• Book DCLXXI: "Warrior Coins" -- A group of teenagers find the Warrior Coins, which have a very big caveat before using them.
• Book DCLXXII: "Thunder . . . Thunder . . . Thunder Coins!" -- A group of preteens find the Thunder Coins, unaware of the caveat of using them.
• Book DCLXXIII: "Go, Ninja, Go, Ninja -- Coins" -- A group of prepubescents find the Ninja Coin, and heartily abuse them.
• Book DCLXXIV: "Son of [censored]" -- [censored] and [censored] have a son, which reaches adolescence supernaturally fast, and calls himself Slayer of All Things (Slayer, for short).
• Book DCLXXV: "Thirst to Prove Himself" -- Slayer goes on a killing spree, trying to prove himself to his parents.
• Book DCLXXVI: "Wild Beasts" -- Wild meets some kindred spirits.
• Book DCLXXVII: "Rites of Initiation" -- The RAFians are targeted as assassination targets yet again, this time by mutant ninjas.
• Book DCLXXVIII: "Reptilon Relations" -- Earth-Reptilon relations begin to deteriorate.
• Book DCLXXIX: "Binding Magicks" -- An evil sorceress binds mythical beasts to newborn children, a forbidden, unconscionable act.
• Book DCLXXX: "The Beast Within" -- This sorceress then pulls a Circe, manifesting the beasts within people into the physical realm.
• Book DCLXXXI: "Sowing Distrust" -- RAF's enemies try to sow distrust and discontent among the RAFians.
• Book DCLXXXII: "TCG -- Tradeable Cataclysm Generators" -- Three kids accidentally release mythical beasts that were trapped in what they assumed to be playing cards.

Remember all titles are subject to change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 23, 2015, 12:27:56 AM

So many books! :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2015, 06:37:34 PM

And I fully intend to write each and every one.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Virulent Love

The next location was a chemical plant.

"I am getting an eerie making-of-the-Joker vibe here," AniDragon said.

"Just try not to fall into a vat of acid from a catwalk, then," Goom said, simply.

"Is that how it happened? I'm afraid I'm not caught up with villain origin stories." Kelly said benignly. "I never really got all that -- hey, what's that?"

The trio noticed a rather strange shuffling, and they saw the staff of this plant just standing there, their skin, hair, and clothing looking slimy and grimy. They were covered in something like a symbiote's slime, but only transpsrent enough to see the person beneath. And they seemed awake and aware of being used as such, if their fearful eyes were any indication. Their bodies were moving of their own accord, and there wasn't anything they could do about it.

"That's awful," Goom said, simoutaneously appalled by what happened (and is still happening) to them and sympathy for the victims.

"Yes, it is," Kelly agreed, before pressing on slowly. "But it wasn't what I was talking about . . ."

It was to the rather upbeat music that had began to play as a voice sang:

"Hit me one time.
Hit me twice.
Oh! Ah!
Oh, that's rather nice.
Virulent oil, virulent slime,
Virulent sludge,
Black clouds and noxious schmucks,
Grime beneath me, mmm,
Slime up above."

The male voice laughed evilly, followed by a very audible belch.

"Where is his manners?" Kelly asked primly, but the song continued anyway.

"I see this world and all the beasts in it.
I suck'em dry and spit'em out like spinach.
'Coz greedy corporate beings will always lend a hand
With the destruction of this worthless wild land.
And what a beautiful methodolgy they have provided,
To slice a patch of doom
With my sweet breath to guide it."

He laughed hysterically again. It was rather Jafar-like.

"Fithy earthen ground,
Poisoned rain pouring down
Like egg chowmein.
Grime beneath me,
Mmm, slime up above.
Ooh, you'll love my . . .
Virulent love."

"Huh," Goom said. "I thought they would be too high and mighty to sing."

"If you can call that singing," AniDragon noted. "I mean, he makes Justin Bieber sound actually credible as a singer."

Regitoxicos seemed to hear her and took that as a compliment, not because he admired Justin Bieber -- he did not even know who Mr. Ego was -- but he entertained the notion that he was the worst singer in the world, which he very well may have been.

"Yes!" he said. His speaking voice wasn't much better -- like listening to a donkey speak with both a sore, swollen throat and with a French-like accent. "Yes! I can control toxins of any form! Slime, grime, oil, acid, venoms -- all within my sphere of control as the Lord of Poison. Bad music and bad singing fall under musical poison, thus under my control, too."

"And you're insane." Kelly said.

"And I'm in-- HEY!" Regitoxicos said, realizing what he was about to say midway through.

From their the battle commenced, but was ended rather quickly when Regitoxicos Confined was apparently crushed under some large boulders.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 24, 2015, 11:11:24 AM

Ah, I was wondering when someone would start singing. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 24, 2015, 08:00:10 PM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Poison Unbound

"Don't suppose that he'd stay down, d'you?" AniDragon said, dryly.

The characteristic, Jafar-like peel of laughter reverberated around the plant.

"Answer your question?" Goomba replied tonelessly.

AniDragon sighed with weary annoyance, "Unfortunately."

"Look on the bright side, AniDragon," Kelly said, "maybe he won't sing again."

"Yeah, Kirby sang better," she agreed. "And when Kirby sings, everything dies."

"Aww! Thanks!!" Regitoxicos Unbound said, whose voice was now raspy alternating to gravelly. He was taking it as a compliment.

Regitoxicos Unbound's form was more fluid, more flowing, than his Confined form. He looked like Hexxus from "FernGully" and Sootani from the "Aladdin" television show. He was massive with prominent lips and a primarily bulky body made of acidic, venomous sludge, yet more organized and less chaotic than something like Raremon or Muk. He was not a very pretty sight . . . and he reveled in his hideousness.

He was . . . odd. But, in a strange way, it made sense. Poisons can be very odd themselves at times. Unpredictable. So, it would follow that one who claimed to be Lord of them would be rather unprecedented and erratic in his behavior. Or he could have just been just plain bonkers.

"Let's get this party started, then!" Regitoxicos Unbound said, in a way rather reminiscent of Deadpool. He juggled three softball-sized spheres of sludge, presumably the toxic kind. "Are you ready for this?!"

"I got this," Goom said, holding a wooden baseball bat . . . somehow.

"Where did you get that bat from?" Kelly asked.

AniDragon followed up with her own question three seconds after Kelly issued hers, "How are you holding that bat?"

"You two think that trival questions like that are necessary right now?" Goom said, deliberately sidestepping their questions.

"Batter up!" Regitoxicos Unbound announced gleefully. Then he pitched the sludge ball at Goom, who hit with a resounding CRACK. It was a home run hit, and Goom, despite himself, felt very smug about it.

"Second pitch!" Regitoxicos Unbound's enthusiasm did not ebb at all. With another resounding CRACK, Goom hit another home run. Goom was starting to wonder what the point behind this was.

The third pitch was the final one. Only there was no resounding crack, and the bat felt unusually light. Which was because each sludge ball had eatten through the thick wood of the bat, until the bat was in two pieces. Goom -- somehow -- dropped the broken bat.

"THAT was my favorite bat," Goom said. It was odd to see him so angry, as he so rarely got irate. "It was signed by my favorite player an all."

"Then why did you use it as a weapon?" AniDragon asked.

"Because shut up," Goom snapped.

Regitoxicos Unbound paid no mind to this exchange, and just hurled a beach ball-sized sludge ball at Kelly, who would not have enough time to dodge it. She did not try, but did not know why. She held out her hands and the sludge ball, mere moments before it would make contact with her, was immersed in a gold light.  The sludge ball became inert . . . inert and harmless.

"Uh . . ." Regitoxicos Unbound wasn't so flippant now. "Uh, can we talk about this?"

"Kelly, you can end this battle!"

"No really," she replied. "The sludge ball alone sapped me of a lot of energy."

"Then I'll just give you a boost," AniDragon said decisively.

"I'll stop! Seriously! It was, uh, it was all in good fun!" Regitoxicos Unbound said.

In response, AniDragon placed her hand on Kelly's shoulder and activated her power. Kelly strode to Regitoxicos Unbound, affected the appearance of fear . . . but the sense of fear was foreign to Garrotik's progeny.

They did what had to be done. Despite Regitoxicos hoping for it, the two lady RAFians did not forget the hostages, still mired in the goo.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 25, 2015, 04:10:41 AM

There was an Aladdin TV show? O.o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2015, 02:33:58 PM

Yes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(TV_series))

You'd probably find a similarity in the characters of Mirage and Chaos within the "Memoirs" characterization of Malice. I swear that must have been an unconscious thing.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Into the Fire

"A smelting plant. Why are all these kids of Garrotik at plants of some sort?" Shock groused. This was fairly normal when elder dragons like him got bored, apparently.

"Just lucky, I guess," Demos said, with unneeded brightness.

"And how did Garrotik have kids in the first place? Without a chick to --"

"Hey!" Demos protested.

"What? All I said --"

"Will you two PAY ATTENTION? Look over there. Something is moving . . ." Phoenix said, deadly serious. ". . . Moving over there."

There was a slight shuffling to at eleven o'clock and Phoenix's eyes were locked onto that movement. Apparently, it was part of his phoenix hybrid physiology, this visual acuity. Or he could have just been plain lucky.

"Wait -- that can't be this fire man or fire lady thing," Shock said, scrutinizing the movement. "They can't be that . . . oh, man. It's the hostages. It's the hostages, isn't it?"

"They have glowing red eyes," Phoenix said, just noticing.

"What's wrong with glowing eyes?" Demos demanded, and was promptly ignored.

"They are being controlled," Shock said.

"Took you long enough," came a haughty, impatient voice. "My flames would have been reduced smouldering embers if you took any longer."

"Hey!" Demos protested again.

It was Regipyros, Lady of Fire, obviously. The three RAFians locked eyes with her, and her appearance was not any different from what it was when she was awakened. Her mannerisms seemed slow at first, but escalated with surprising swiftness. Rather like how easily a mere controlled fire can erupt into a raging inferno with rather little effort or reaction time.

"Yes," the Lady of Fire said, sounding rather bored yet casual. "Yes, you are witnessing the elegance and grandiosity of Frellame. Frellame, the Hellish Fire of Mind Control."

"A little wordy," Phoenix critiqued.

"You actually needed to call it 'hellish'?" Demos criticized. "That isn't very creative."

"Nor is actually putting the word 'lame' in it," Shock observed, uncharacteristicall y passive, "the 'lame' jokes are all too plentiful and too easy to use."

Suddenly, flames shot up from Regipyros Confined with almost alarming rapidity. The RAFians were far too used to, too accustomed to this kind of thing to really be intimidated. If anything, they seemed only mildly concerned.

"Foolish mortals! You DARE to make light of my brillant creation?! You have the AUDACITY to mock me?! You have the UNMITIGATED GALL to belittle my great works?!" she roared in tremendous fury.

"Yeah," Phoenix said, unimpressed.

"Naturally," Shock agreed, smirking, as if he were mugging for a camera.

"Hmmm?" Demos said, as if he didn't hear the tirade, being far more interested in his silk suit.

"DIE!!!" she screamed, as she enveloped herself in a funnel of fire. Then she projected it at them, expecting their bodies to twist and burn, to crumple and blacken. She expected them to die.painfully.

But none of that happened. Demos and Phoenix simply redirected it back at her, and Shock, as a dragon, possessed fire-resistant scales. The daughter of Garrotik actually looked surprised by this. So surprised, her anger ebbed, like a fire extinguishing itself when it has nothing left to burn.

"I suppose," Phoenix said, "that it's our turn now?"

Shock blew fire from his mouth in the rather iconic dragon way, while the other two simply appeared to be firebending. The combined strength was enough to destroy Regipyros.

"Well," Demos said, dusting his  hands, "that was fun. Are we going now?"

"That was too easy," Phoenix said, knowingly.

Shock groaned,."Why did you have go and say that?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 25, 2015, 10:33:05 PM

She reminds me of Azula now. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on February 25, 2015, 10:56:09 PM

Still following this! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2015, 06:51:37 PM

Excellent, Gazzy.

Well, I actually based it more on what I perceive to be the behavior of fire, Saffa. Bryan and Mike could have done the same with Azula.

Anyway, I've been planning out Book CDVII ("Tempting the Parasite"), which will exceed twenty chapters at this time of writing. A fair few future books actually will as well. Book CDVII will be similar to "The First Master" in that there will be little to no RAFians in it (well, as of now). I won't say more here,because that would give a great deal away.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fire Unbound

FFFFFFFOOOOOOOOOOOO OOM!

A wall of fire came up, rather like first summoning Mushu in Kingdom Hearts. Then the fire itself defined its form as a Jafar-like laugh rent the air. Regipyros Unbound was like a Pyronite mixed with the Human Torch (though completely tethered to the ground and incapable of flight). Her entire body was wrapped tightly, was wreathed in flames, and she had talon-like claws on her human-like hands and her feet were far more like a Hork-Bajir's then a human's. She was only slightly taller than her Confined form.

"That's better," she said, her voice fluctuating due to the dancing flames that cocooned her so. Her voice actually had an Azula-esque lilt to it. "My flames are no longer contained! No longer restrained! I should really thank you."

Then she glared at the three.

"But I much rather kill you," she decided.

"Oh, what fun!" Demos declared.

"Shut up, Demos," Phoenix and Shock said, in unison.

"Burn, burn, burn -- burn to the ground!!" she declared.

"Oh . . . my . . . god. . . ." Shock moaned, after Regipyros repeated that for the thirteenth time. Word for word. "Guys . . . time to get serious. Stop pulling your punches."

"Awwwww," Demos said, sardonically, "you're no fun, Shock!"

"This isn't about fun, Demos!" Phoenix sighed.

From there, the fight got really vicious. It was difficult to see who was doing what with the flames and heat distorting any bystander vision. The hostages were, fortunately, at a safe distance.

Regipyros Unbound backed off, as she realized that she couldn't overpower these three with sheer force or wear them down with the heat from the flames. She wasn't the best strategist in the world, nor the bravest.

Her powerful pyrokinesis could not cause pain to these three creatures. She could not intimdate them. She was a brute of questionable sanity. She was also cowardly.

She willed the hostages to come over to her, to.protect her from any counterattack, but Phoenix saw through this tactic immediately and quickly closed the distance, closed the gap between them. He wished he still had his Sun Blade, as he ****ed back his arm and delivered a punch with all his physical strength. Demos was right behind, and Shock's claws bit into Regipyros Unbound's flesh and rended it.

The hostages blinked as Frellame dissipated into nothingness once more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 26, 2015, 10:23:37 PM

Well, you did put the word "lame" in it. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2015, 05:54:28 PM

Actually, Frellame (as well as Oceater and the Fractured Realms -- Terraseismo and the like) were all a part of a book series that I was working on during the end of high school. One that I abandoned when my mother enslaved me and then kicked me out. (Yes, the woman needs serious help -- which her narcissistic pride will never allow her to get, sad to say.)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Strings of Sand

"A cave," Parker said, as he, Ash, and Guy entered a cave whose opening was rather like the maw of the Leviathon where Ursula from "The Little Mermaid" dwelled. "A cave. That's a little on-the-nose, don't you think?"

"Yeah, who would want to come in here? Clearly, this earth elemental kid of Garrotik has hostages, but . . . who? Who would want to come to this drab, dank place like this? It's not like it's a prized, priceless vacation spot." Ash agreed.

"Who?" Guy echoed, thoughtfully. "Hard-core spelunkers, for one. Maybe a school-funded day trip, for kids studying a unit of geology or something. Maybe a couple of homeless people seeking out shelter -- affordable housing is a problem in the city and the accompanying suburbs."

"Point taken," Ash conceded.

"The deeper we go, the more I feel we're walking into a trap," Parker commented tersely as the proceeded further into the cave. Night vision was required now, and Guy and Parker used technological means to accomplish this, while Ash simply shapeshifted an adaptation to the dark. "I've learned to trust my gut. . . ."

"As you should," Guy said. "Especially considering all we have went through in our long tenure as RAFians."

Ash said nothing, as she gaped in horror. "Oh . . . my . . . God. . . ."

"What?" the two guys said, in unison.

"Take a look . . . nine o'clock." Ash said, unable to hide the aghast tone from her voice, as if she had wished that she hadn't seen what she did.

And, to be fair, it was grisly. Six or eight human beings were suspended from the ceiling by strings, tendrils of sand. One string was affixed to their heads, the bases of their necks, their upper and lower backs, their thighs, their lower legs, their lower arms, and their hands. They were like perverse marionettes, their eyes blank, unmoving, and and unfocused. They weren't suspended that high from the ground, as if someone was just waiting to put on a despicable puppet show.

"That's . . ." Guy began, unable to articulate how horrible, how utterly grotesque, this visage was. But someone came along to fill in his sentence.

"Lovely, right?" said an earthy, gravelly voice. "That's what you going to say, right? That my Sand Strings are lovely? They were meticulously hand-crafted, you know. The minds of these creatures are so easily manipulated, and controlled. I probably could puppet them, but I like them hanging there much better. Don't you?"

The darkness (and Parker's helmet) obscured the RAFians' looks of utter revoltion and massive disgust. Although Regiterras Confined did not care, if he did, indeed, know.

"Ah, I see." Regiterras said, conversationally. "The sheer loveliness of the Sand Strings have you speechless. I knew you'd enjoy them!"

It was Parker that spoke first. "You need to die. You need to die now."

"Oh?" Regiterras Confined said, unconcernedly.

Parker charged his dual fusion cannons, a la Samus Aran, while Guy fiddled with his Batman-esque utility belt and Ash was trying to select the most appropriate offensive form. But a single blast from Parker's dual cannons was sufficient enough to break Regiterras Confined.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 27, 2015, 10:08:36 PM

Wait, what's the difference between Regilithos and Regiterras?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2015, 07:59:15 PM

Not much in their Confined Forms, but they are much different in their Unbound states. As different as Gaara and Toph.

I based the children of Garrotik on Pokemon types, except the Normal-type, of course. And there is the Ground-type (Regiterras) and the Rock-type (Regilithos). If I mixed up the names in Regilithos chapters, then that is a CFRSU ("CloakedFigure Royally Screws-Up").

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Earth Unbound

Parker blew on his fusion cannon, trying to look all badass. Guy was still rummaging through his utility belt, which apparently had "magic satchel" properties, and Ash hesitated, having not yet chose a form she considered appropriate enough to battle such an enemy.

Then a crazed, Jafar-like laughter rent the new silence that occurred for three seconds. No one was surprised.

Regiterras had hard, brown, armored skin and his head was similar to a Greek Corinthian helmet, no visible mouths, with two armadillo-like ears on it. His arms contained jackhammer-like parts, which were also present on his hands and other places. He had a thick, muscular tail like a Talpaedan, four bony, human-like fingers and three mole-like toes ending in blunt claws. He possessed rather large, noticeable shoulder pads and two spikes jutted upwards from his chest with a another corresponding set on his helmet head. His legs were also a tad bulkier than a Talpaedan, and he had knuckledusters on his hands with brown claws on it and two nozzles between the blades.

"Cute," Ash said, caustically sarcastically.

"Don't mock me like that, mortal," Regiterras said, seriously.

"How should we mock you, then?" Parker replied, acidly flippant.

"Simple," Regiterras countered, "die."

"I rather not," Ash said, doing a backflip to avoid the sand tendril whip that Regiterras used from the two nozzles on his left hand's knuckleduster. As she backflipped, she shapeshifted into a cantankerous rancor, and slashed the tendril with her claws.

It cut through the tendril, but it regenerated just as fast as Demos could. Taken off guard, Ash was downed by another crack of the sand tendril whip, reverting her back to her base form, but she retained consciousness. She deftly shapeshifted into a Slamworm, and attempted to burrow into the ground, while Parker broke out his SPARTAN energy blade. It sliced the sand like a white-hot knife through butter.

And, all the while, Guy was still rifling through his belt.

Regiterras Unbound compacted the ground enough that Ash couldn't burrow through it, and she struck her head on the hardened ground with sufficient force to knock her loopy. She reverted to her base form.

"Guy!" Parker shouted tersely, wielding his energy sword rather like a slow, armored Jedi. "We would not be opposed to a little help!!"

"I'm working it!! I'm working on it!!" Guy said, his frenzied search becoming more desperate.

"Guy!" Parker said, very close to scolding tones, "I'm good now, but I will tire evetually! Will you stop searching that accursed fanny pack?!"

"I put something in here that -- ah!" Guy said, pulling out a round tin.

"BREATH MINTS?!" Parker roared with furious indignation. "YOU ARE WASTING TIME FOR A TIN OF GODFORSAKEN BREATH MINTS?!?!?!"

"Don't be fooled by mere appearances," Guy said, ripping the tin lid off and throwing the contents at Regiterras Unbound. Nothing happened at first, then there were rapid blue-colored explosions all over Regiterras body, freezing him solid. Guy explained, "Flash freeze bomb prototypes. I was working on the theory behind it when Goom and Yarin made these prototypes for me."

Parker struck Regiterras shattering him, and then he used his his fusion cannon to destroy the shard remnants. He addressed Guy, "Consider them field-tested."

"And a success," Ash said, still looking woozy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 01, 2015, 01:44:24 AM

I see that Jafar is the best ever reference for evil laughs. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2015, 09:13:44 PM

Eh, I just wanted to give some commonality, some common trait that linked them together as siblings. Besides -- no one does a crazed laugh better than Jonathan Freeman. Except maybe Mark Hamill's Joker.

But it's this (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1fwj8r6lc#/watch?list=PLCCdmKrMWYqbna0deTnG7BgVE_xaKj_dt&params=OAFIAVgO&v=Jpe7PBJvypE&mode=NORMAL) laugh that think of when I describe those laughs.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Aerial Assault

"An airport." Faerie said, as she, Gaz (in bat form), and Laserbeak flew just out the aircraft airspace. "An airport. They're really not hiding the powers of our opponent too much, aren't they?"

Gaz replied, in a squeaky, chiropteran voice, "The name 'Regiatmos' is very telling, too."

"I didn't know you could talk as a bat," Faerie observed.

"Oh, I can? I don't know what happened, then. I'm pretty sure I couldn't before . . ." Gaz said, almost distractedly, after Laserbeak made an insistent squawk. Faerie saw what the other two did.

"I did think it was odd that no planes were taking off," Faerie said, then she looked up, inspecting and scrutinizing the sky, as if she expected to see something. "No incoming flights either."

"An airport that's a ghost town? That sounds rather contradictory," Gaz pointed out.

Laserbeak squawked in a disconsolate, irritated way. As if he was saying, "Will you two shut up and see what I see?!"

"We see it, Beaky!" Gaz said, with her squeaky, chiropteran voice. "We see it! Don't get your casing in a bunch."

What they were seeing was people congregated upon the tarmac, with the pilotless planes, which looked rather forlorn without someone to pilot them. These people had blank, vacant eyes with discolored sclera. They appeared to not have a thought in their heads, and stood upon the tarmac bowing to an invisible (and nonexistent) wind. It was genuinely creepy, in a very creepypasta sort of way.

"Okay, so enough of this introductionary cutscene," Faerie said, caustically sarcastic, "where's the big bad we're supposed to whale on?"

"You poor, simple fools. Thinking you could defeat me. Me! The Lord of Air, the maeter of the skies!" came an airy, wispy, almost insubstantial voice. "My Breath Mist has taken hold of the creatures that scrimp and scurry upon the ground, bound to it, tethered to the rocks they hold dear. Yet you three insult me by being so foolish --"

"Lord of Air -- why am I surprised that he is so dang long-winded?" Faerie interrupted with a flat tone.

"You dare to mock -- dah!!" Regiatmos began, but Gaz discovered that she could use her chiropteran echolocation offensively, though just not to the effectiveness and power of Sakki. Sakki's sonics thoroughly eclipsed Gaz's, it was like comparing the Boomburst attack with the Supersonic attack, one is more accurate, more reliable, and more powerful. It didn't hurt Regiatmos, just proved to be really irritating.

It was sufficient enough to get Regiatmos Confined to start swiping at Gaz, who nimbly dodged. Faerie was desperate for something to do, but she didn't have her battleaxe or Gale Blade (which she still missed a great deal). And Gaz ran into problems when Regiatmos began to aerokinetically swipe.at Gaz, and the bat-ified vampire had trouble with them, being repeatedly buffeted by the currents.

Laserbeak thought that this just would not do, so he charged forward, rather Latios-like. He was alarmed to discover that he passed through Regiatmos as though he was mere vapor. Gaz and Faerie didn't look particularly surprised.

The two RAFgirls looked at each other, exchanging silent communication. Gaz translated back into human vampire form -- midair -- and into one of the smaller plane. Then she entered it as a vapor, and began to turn it on.

It was Faerie's cue.

She used magic make her touch supertangible -- a difficult technique to perform in and of itself. She grasped Regiatmos, which was difficult even with this magic, like trying to grasp a mass of slippery, slimy eels. But the grip was sufficient enough to enable the faerie to throw Regiatmos into the plane's engine turbine.

After about forty-five seconds, the engine powered down, and Gaz exited the plane. It appeared that Regiatmos was sliced to bits . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 02, 2015, 12:59:22 AM

This book is almost like a Megamorphs-type special for Memoirs. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2015, 12:35:40 PM

Oh? Is it because of the length? Because a fair few future books will exceed twenty chapters. As well as get rather more complicated than I originally planned when I came up with the premise . . . but we'll get to that when we get to it.
 
New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Air Unbound

The three just hovered in the air, waiting. They couldn't heel but feel as if they were buzzards eyeing a carcass. They knew that it wasn't over, as the Breath Mist still held its powerful sway over the hostages. The fact that all the planes were grounded and none were coming in, it just made the place all the more creepier. Gaz wondered idly about just how Regiatmos pulled that off -- possibly because of the high winds? There had to be a reason behind it all, and there had to be some disgruntled passengers on the other end.
 
Then the laugh rent the air, the laugh like Jafar first escaping his lamp in "The Return of Jafar".
 
"Took his sweet time," Faerie said, rather annoyed.
 
Regiatmos Unbound's body was shaped rather like a overlarge clarinet, only without the holes or keys, and a spherical head where the bell of the woodwind would be. The other end was tapered and the entire beast was a pale gold, while his wings were a deeper gold. He possessed many wings, wings of every type of physiology imagineable -- avian, chiropteran, insectoid, draconic, pterosaurian, etc. On its round head it possessed beady, avian eyes that were colored a bright, lustrous silver, almost as a direct contrast to the rest of its body. It possessed a serrated beak a quarter of its own length which had grooves on it that made it look rather like a drill bit when the beak was shut. He possessed no legs of any sort -- vestigial or functional -- on his thick, flexible, unyielding hide.
 
"Oh, great," Faerie said, snarkily, "a five-year-old's fanart of Falkor."
 
"You DARE to mock my Unbound form?!" Regiatmos roared.
 
"You don't know Faerie," Gaz said, almost conversationally. "Mocking is what she does."
 
"It's sort of my schtick," Faerie agreed.
 
"I have a question," Regiatmos said, which took the two by surprise (Laserbeak was wondering what was with all the talky-talk).
 
"What?" the two RAFgirl asked in unison. This wasn't the reaction they had anticipated.
 
"Die!" Regiatmos roared, charging them in an irresistibly reminiscent way of a Kindom Hearts final boss, final form.
 
"That's not really a quest--" Gaz squeaked in her batty voice, before being buffeted by the inordinately large slipstream around the beast. But she discovered that Regiatmos, somehow, was more substantial in his Unbound form than his Confined form.
 
And she was rather disgruntled to see that Laserbeak and Faerie did not seem to have been buffeted at all. But they, of course, have more flying experience than she did. She soon realized that she could ride the slipstream in a way that was advantageous to her, something that Faerie assumed was obvious.
 
"Okay, anyone have any bright idea on how to slay this thing?" Faerie asked, earnestly.
 
Laserbeak squawked.
 
"'Hitting him really hard' is not a viable stratagem, Beaky!" Gaz chided. "You are such a boy."
 
Laserbeak squawked again.
 
"Oh, okay. You're such a robot parrot boy," Gaz amended, and rolled her eyes -- and bats can't do that. Well, they can't speak either, but that's beside the point.
 
"Guys, how is this solving the dragon-bird-too-many-winged-thingy-charging-us-down-like-a-freight-train problem?" Faerie asked tersely.
 
Gaz considered -- and what she was considering was just plain loco. And Faerie didn't hesitate to tell her this when Gaz informed her of her idea.
 
"You got something better?"
 
Faerie said nothing.
 
"Thought not," Gaz squeaked. "Let's get this underway. Hold him as still as you can."
 
"Oh, yeah," Faerie muttered, voice saturated with sarcasm, "and what will I do with the rest of the afternoon? 'Coz this'll be that easy."
 
Faerie used what appeared to be a combination of Stopza and Imperimenta -- apparently, she didn't share Broken's qualm about mixing magicks. Either that, or it just looked like a combination of those two spells, and was a different type of immobilization magic entirely.  Either way, it wasn't really important to the matter at hand.
 
Gaz quickly landed on Regiatmos Unbound's back and shifted back into her vampiric human form, with Laserbeak right behind her. She ran as Laserbeak transformed into his alternate blaster mode, which Gaz caught midstride. Then she ran up to Regiatmos Unbound's head.
 
"I don't mean to rush you, Gaz," Faerie said, strain in her voice, "but HURRY UP!!"

Gaz ran until she reached Regiatmos Unbound's head. Then she pressed Laserbeak's barrel right at the base of his skull. Laserbeak's fire was about only as powerful as one of Parker's fusion cannons. So it would take her two shots, where Parker would only need one. She pressed Laserbeak's barrel even closer to Regiatmos's skull.

"SOME TIME TODAY WOULD BE GOOD!" Faerie shouted.

Gaz fired.

She immediately when to her bat mode and Laserbeak transformed back into his parrot mode. All three watched with as Regiatmos decended to the ground, evaporating in to energy, but in a rather cruder way than a Realm Walker.

They watched as all the hostages give a sudden exhalation and return to their senses.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 02, 2015, 04:21:32 PM

Yeah, pretty much because of the length.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2015, 10:27:13 PM

Ah.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle . . .

"I can't believe that we were shortlisted to go to this godforsaken jung-- Underseen, what are you doing?" Wild was saying. Wild was in his human form, looking rather worn.

"But . . . but I'm the bait!" Underseen said, unable to contain his childlike giggle (and he could make sound like a genuine child's giggle, due to being a shapeshifter). He had taken the form of a huge angus hamburger that looked very real and tempting.

"Stop that, it's not funny." the wereferret grumbled.

"It's a little funny," Empress Goose said. His voice was eerily similar to that of Wuya, from "Xiaolin Showdown", only masculine*. "Oh, come on, Wild. If you were any moodier, you'd be Cloak!"

Wild scowled, but said nothing.

"Oh, don't be that way!" Empress Goose chided. "C'mon, now --"

"Hey, look over there." Underseen said, having abandoned his hamburger form.

The two looked over in the direction he indicated, and saw what appeared to be a primitive village. They proceeded a little further, and they saw the village was abandoned. Or, rather, it looked abandoned.

Wild willed himself into his wereferret form, if only to use the enhanced senses in that form. "It's not abandoned. The smell of human is all over the place, and fresh."

"Then . . . then where --"

Then, as if to answer Underseen's uncompleted question, people filed out of the houses. It looked like, at most, twenty-something people. They were all in rather primitive-looking clothing, which was odd enough, considering how modernized the homes looked, although nothing really opulent. The people's eyes were blank, glazed over. As if they were Ken and Barbie dolls.

Wild noticed them first. The pulsating pustules on their necks, which pointed out to the other two, were a lustrous olive green. Empress Goose swept over closer to see what the pustules were -- and he immediately wished that he hadn't.

They were ticks. Big ticks. Big ticks that, somehow, were controlling the people like zombies. Like zombie puppets. Like . . . like the Heinlins.

Empress Goose and Underseen visibly recoiled at it, while Wild gave the neck ticks a disgusted bestial huff. The three RAFians remembered the hullabaloo with the Heinlins months ago.

"Alright. Alright! You had your fun, now stop milking the suspense." Wild called out.

"Who are you talking to?" Underseen asked.

"Who d'you think? The person that is holding these people hostage, just like his siblings." Wild said, rather testily. "Well?! Show yourself!"

"I'm standing right in front of you," Regientomos Confined said, calmly conversational. "You clearly don't understand the beauty, the necessity, of my swarms. My Compulsion Ticks have freed those people of their pesky affliction."

"Oh, realy?" Empress Goose said scornfully.

"Oh, yes," Regientomos Confined spoke as if it should have been obvious. "They had a nasty affliction. The affliction of free will. It's such a pity, really. Swarms understand how it is supposed to be. Everything -- mind, body, and soul -- should go for the betterment of the swarm, the colony, itself. It's such an intricate, yet simple concept."

"No, it isn't," Wild snarled, approaching Regientomos in a slow, deliberate way. "It is blunt, shortsighted concept. It is a concept that controlling people use as an excuse to manipulate the gullible and the stupid. It is a very poor thought out concept with all the intricacies of the simplest child's drawing."

"How dare you?" Regientomos growled. "How DARE you?! How DARE you marginalize and deride the intricate lattice of a swarm mentality? Of the perfect swarm?"

"Oh, just shut up and fight," Empress Goose said, tired of all the heavy dialogue.

From there the battle went relatively swiftly. It eventually ended with Underseen pulling a technique from Rock Kirby. He crushed Regientomos Confined under the rocky body that he currently adopted.

---

*Empress Goose's species from the list (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=2154.msg797041#msg797041) states that he's a body jumper. I have a way to work with that, and I hope he isn't offended (especially since I usually tap dance around it when he appeared previously).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 03, 2015, 10:36:56 PM

So whose body is he using now?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2015, 04:51:11 AM

Aw, dang it. I forgot to elaborate.

The general idea I had was that he was more like a combination of Jericho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(comics)) and a masculine Wuya (http://xiaolinpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Wuya). So he's not "wearing" anyone currently.

:edit: Sorry for not posting. Time got away from me today.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Swarm Unbound

"Please tell me that that's that," Underseen said, as soon as he resumed his base human form.

Wild said, "You know better than that, Underseen."

But Empress Goose said nothing, but floated there, looking at the hostages. The Compulsion Ticks were still active. Obviously, Regientomos wasn't destroyed -- which was proven when the Jafar-like laugh rent the air, though with an irritating buzz within it.

Regientomos Unbound stood up to his full height, and displayed a silhouette strikingly similar to Arukenimon with the horns like a male stag beetle, Scyther-like blades sprouting from his wrists, and a rhinoceros beetle horn sprouting from his back and arachnid abdomen. His eyes looked like multifaceted human eyes, with a soft, pale red glow.

"Thank you," he said, his voice more raspy with an odd clacking when he spoke. "Thank you for free me from that accursed encumbrance."

"'Emcumbrance' isn't a word," Wild said.

"Oh, sure, Wild," Empress Goose said, sarcastically. "Provoke him. That's a winning strategy."

"You got a better idea?" Wild said, as Underseen went ahead and impetuously engaged Retientomos without a second thought.

"Perhaps," Empress Goose said, quickly. "Listen -- after I do my thing, you two need to whale on him while he's distracted. I dunno if it'll even work."

"It leaves a lot to chance," Underseen observed.

"But it may work," Wild said. "Whatever happens, whatever the consequences, we'll deal with it then. But for now, getting rid of Bug Boy is the topmost priority. Go ahead, Goose."

Empress Goose sped toward the hostages, which just looked blankly ahead. In a way, this was worse than the Heinlin incursion. They at least kept up a facade, which made them dangerous and creepy -- but less creepy than this, somehow.

Empress Goose floated up behind one of the hostages -- a man in his prime -- whose clothing, or costume, or whatever didn't leave much to the imagination. Empress Goose sighed audibly, releasing some of his tensions. Even now, he wasn't sure this would work. He could hear the sounds of a vicious battle between Regientomos Unbound and his two allies. He had to do something. They were the distraction -- and so was he.

He jumped into the man's body, which he never liked doing without consent. But the man was not in any position to give or withhold consent, and Empress Goose was trying to help him in the most direct -- and intimate, one could argue -- way possible. The sensation was, for the first time in Empress Goose's memory, uncomfortable and hard. Usually he could slip in and out quite easily and comfortably, for both him and the target body. And the host minds generally always knew that he was there. At least, that's what Empress Goose said.

Anyway, he filled up the man's body and it was like trying to stand when you're crouched down in thorny briers. Empress Goose was not accustomed to such sensations, because of the aforementioned ease that usually accompanied his body jumping. That and he usually never inhabited a body for more than twenty minutes at most before getting tired of it. But it eventually worked as the body, while hosting Empress Goose's consciousness rejected the Compulsion Ticks. Empress Goose made sure to stomp the tick before pulling himself out of the body with his usual ease. He went through several more hostages, doing the same thing he did in the man's body.

This was sufficient enough to garner (and divide) Regientomos Unbound's attention. This made the battle easier for Underseen and Wild. The battle swiftly began to turn against him, and the two RAFians attacked in tandem as Empress Goose pulled out of the last hostage -- a twelve-year-old kid. This tandem attack was the killing blow.

"Well," Empress Goose said, feeling as if he had been scratched up, "that was unpleasant."

"Yes," Wild said, "it was."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2015, 09:57:06 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Clink, Clank

"What exactly is a metal foundry anyway?" Damien asked.

"Look 'round, Damien," Broken said, almost bored, "it should be obvious. It's a plast were they cast metal. In retrospect, I'm not sure my magicks will work here. I haven't tested them in such a locale."

"Why wouldn't they?" Gumby asked, looking thoroughly out of place.

"Reasons," Broken said, unintentionally repressively.

"You think this place is connected with that smelting place that Phoenix, Demos, and Shock went to?" Damien asked, conversationally.

"Who knows?" Gumby said. But then Gumby narrowed his eyes, noticing something odd. "I don't think it's safe to leave all this unattended."

"It's not," Broken said, drily. "Clearly the hostages are the foundry workers."

"That's probably 'em then," Damien said, jabbing his finger in their direction. "With the metal skullcaps?"

"The Control Caps," came a prim, steely voice. "If your going to refer to something, at least use the proper terminology."

"Lady of Metal, I take it?" Broken said, blithely. He sounded unimpressed. "Seriously, though, don't you and your siblings have something more constructive to do with your time? Must it always be conflict?"

"Yes," Regiferros Confined said cuttingly, on no uncertain terms.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Gumby said, holding up his hands. "Can't we talk? Can't we just hash out whatever our difference of opinion is?"

SLASH!! SLASH!!! SLASH!!!!

Gumby was repeatedly slashed into he was bits of gum strewn about. Regiferros Confined smirked smugly, as if they knew now that she means business. But the pieces of gum flew back together, rather like Majin Buu, and reintergrated into Gumby.

"Well," Gumby said, as if this was a minor inconvenience, though his tone betrayed his testy irritation. Just because it seemed that it didn't hurt, did not mean that it wasn't painful."well, that was uncalled for!"

"Thundaga!" Broken cried as he unleashed a magical lightning attack. It just served to electify the plates on Regiferros. Which she shrugged off momentarily.

Meanwhile, Damien was drawing furiously on a sketch pad. He recently discovered that he had the ability -- other than superhuman endurance and vacuum survival -- the ability of pictomancy. He could draw things and bring them to life for a short time. But if the drawing is destroyed, then so is the pictomancied creations.

But none of them survived Regiferros, revealing the fraility of the creations. But it didn't matter, Broken had an idea that he wasn't sure would work.

"Firaga Burst!!" Broken said, casting the fire spell that hit Regiferros square in the chest, superheating her.

"Not so easy, is it?" she gasped.

"Not done," Broken said. "Blizzaraga!"

The rapid cooling that came from the ice spell was sufficient enough to cause Regiferros's armor to buckle and fragment off her body. The three were too perceptive to know that it wasn't over yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 05, 2015, 10:27:31 PM

Oh dear, modify-post syndrome.

Isn't that all the plates?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2015, 06:16:56 PM

Nah. There's still Regidracos, Regicryos, Regiumbras, and Regiphaetos himself.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Metal Unbound

The usual, Jafar-esque peel of crazed laughter sounded again. The three RAFians were not intimidated. Or impressed.

"Seriously," Gumby said. "What exactly is so funny that these guys think it's necessary to cackle more than the Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Perhaps they have a weakness for old super villain cliches," Broken speculated as the three watched impassively as Regiferros reared up, and stood at her full and considerable height.

She was at least ten feet tall, and had the appearance of a Terminator (http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/T-800) endoskeleton in Zero (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Zero) armor. A broad, swordlike appendage was attached firmly to her right wrist, while her left hand fingers could elongate, like a T-1000 (http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/T-1000), into overlarge, icepick-like stabbing weapons. She clearly favored a more hands on approach in battle, and did not apear to have any means of defense.

"How d'ya like me now?" she said, stoically devious.

"Do we have to answer?" Damien asked.

In response, Regiferros leaped upon Gumby and began to literally rip the RAFian apart. Slashing and stabbing, slicing and dicing, cutting and cleaving until there was just bits of Gumby everywhere. Then she backflipped away, but even as she did Gumby was reconstituting himself, Majin Buu-like.

The minute Gumby's mouth and vocal cords reformed, he protested, "HEY!! It was DAMIEN who said that! This isn't funny! It isn't funny, I tell you! It isn't! It . . . wait, what are you -- oh, not again!!"

Regiferros Unbound apparently enjoyed sensations of ripping the gum guy apart. Gumby, however, didn't enjoy it as much as she did.

"HEY! LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU STEEL-COLD BI--" Gumby roared, before ducking another full-body dismemberment. She continued to target Gumby for some unknown reason, while ignoring Damien and Broken. Perhaps she saw Gumby as the bigger threat and wanted to eliminate him first because of it, perhaps she saw him as the weakest of the three and wanted to eliminate the easiest first, or perhaps -- just perhaps -- she was just plain insane.

"Hey! Guys! I would appreciate a little, oh, you know, HELP here?!" Gumby shouted, addressing the other two. "If you're not too BUSY or anything, 'kay?! But she's about to go all Terminator on me! AGAIN!!"

"Calm down," Broken said.

"Calm down?! Don't you DARE tell me to calm down!! You haven't been ripped apart by her. I have been twice now!!" Gumby raged. "So, no, Broken. I will not calm down!"

"Impedimenta!" Broken shouted, and it managed to slow her down. Gumby quickly scampered away, as Regiferros looked as if she was trying to move in molasses. She was fighting the spell.

"There, done!" Damien said, having ignored the exchanges between Broken and Gumby, hastily sketching in a sketchbook. He used his pictomancy to bring his sketches to life, as Broken's Impediment Jinx faded with a sound of shattering glass.

Suddenly, Regiferros was besieged by . . . a green origami bear, a yellow origami ape, a blue oraigami Chinese dragon, a pink origami turtle, and a red origami lion. Regiferros was taken aback at this, because she could not believe someone would send such frail creatures on her like attack dogs. She overcame her shock fairly quickly, and sliced the origami critters to shreds with a simple, single slash.

Gumby and Broken slowly turned their heads to look at Damien, who did not meet their eyes. He was furiously flipping through his sketchbook, only muttering, "Oops, wrong drawings."

His pictomancy thing was fairly new to him, he hadn't quite worked out all the caveats and limitations yet.

Broken shouted, "Reducto!"

Broken had intended to shatter Regiferros Unbound's wrist-mounted blade, but instead gor her entire right arm. She looked more annoyed than pained, though. But Broken noticed that her arm did not regenerate.

"Well, maybe now she'll leave me be," Gumby said, hopefully. She eyed him and extended her claws. "Oh, me and my big mouth."

But Broken followed through with several more Reductor Curses, until she was just a head. A head that was given the Kirby treatment when Damien summoned him from a picture. Regiferros was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 07, 2015, 12:10:07 AM

Hahaha, poor Gumby.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2015, 05:19:11 PM

Yes. Quite. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Ice, Ice, Baby

"An ice rink," Azzy said. "Another obvious clue to who we're fighting, as if we didn't already know."

"I never did like ice skating," Blaze said. "The ice couldn't handle me."

Az and Blue shared a look.

"What?" Blaze said, defensively. "My defense mechanism is counter to the nature of the ice!"

Neither Az or Blue said anything.

Deciding that time was due to change the subject, Blaze said, "So! Where's the hostages?"

A brief silence met his words.

This was a popular skating rink, at the height of their business day. The place should be a flurry of activity, full of shrieking laughter and amateurs falling on their bums. And yet . . . nothing. Nothing at all. The place was a ghost town. The house lights were off and only the light above the rink was on, with the three RAFians standing on the periphery of it.

"It's too quiet in here," Blue said, seriously. "It's like a cemetery."

"Ugh," Az shuttered, "nice comparison."

"But it's true." Blaze said, thoughtfully. "There's not even a guy driving a Zamboni on the ice."

"Wait!" Blue said suddenly. He pointed subtly. "There."

There was a mass of people sitting on a set of tiered seats, sitting as still as mannequins. Their eyes were frozen and pale, almost like cataracts. There was no outward sign of how or why.

"They're frozen," Az observed seriously.

"I'll thaw them," Blaze said. He was preparing to act.

"NO!" Az exclaimed, then continue firmly, "If you thaw them too quickly, it could -- I don't know the specifics, but there is a chance, a high probability -- that it could very possibly kill them. Too slowly could be equally as detrimental."

"Oookay, then," Blaze said, abandoning his plan, "then what do we do?"

"Oh, will you three get there already?" cried an annoyed, icy voice. He continued with a bite of impatience in his voice. "Or my Brain Freezers will thaw before you connect the dots!"

They turned to see Regicryos sitting on the ice, with crossed legs, looking rather bored by the whole proceedings. He clearly did not care for the "game" his siblings were so on about. He preferred to be left alone at the best of times, which is why he did not manipulate the hostages like puppets like his brethren were apt to do. He preferred his isolation, alone in a desolate tundra -- it was his idea of a vacation spot.

But no. No, he had to play their stupid, inane game. It was compulsory and mandatory for the progeny of Garrotik. Regicryos hated it, but considered that whether he won or lost, he'd get the isolation he craved.

"Let's get this over with," Regicryos said, standing up. "Either way, I'll get what I want."

The RAFians, not knowing Regicryos's motives and misreading his cold body language, interpreted this as talking smack about them not being challenges. To which they quickly protest, and Regicryos does not bother correcting their mistake. He didn't care.

The battle that took place was rather swift and impersonal, a stark contrast from the vicious conflicts of his brethren that battled before. Regicryos fired several cannonball-sized (and cannonball-weighted) snowballs at the RAFians, which Blue easily sliced through with his ninjabo, but nabbed the other two directly.

Regicryos dodged Blaze's fireballs with surprising athletics, almost like a waterbender. He blasted cryogenic beams of energy, which were deftly countered by Az. But Blaze had had enough and managed to get right up close to Regicryos, who had allowed his guard to fall. Then Blaze let loose the burning inferno that demonstrated the limits of his power (though he still had potential for more powerful pyrokinetic techniques).

Regicryos Confined was downed, as Blaze fluttered away, looking rather proud of himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 07, 2015, 11:47:30 PM

One source of fire is enough, then?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2015, 08:44:30 PM

Well, Blaze was in very close proximity and Blaze went nearly supernova. Yeah, it was sufficient.

Oh, now this is officially the longest Memoirs book. *clears throat* Thus far . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY:
Ice Unbound

"Blaze, don't be a fool," Blue reprimanded. "We're not done here, yet."

"But we beat --"

"Have you even paid attention to the previous battles?" Az asked, sincere. "We just broke his Confined Form, nothing else."

"Oh. Right," Blaze said, feeling that his flashy finisher move was wasted now.

Unlike his siblings, there was not Jafar-like peel of crazed laughter. When Regicryos rose from his shattered Confined Form state, he said nothing and made no sound at all. He just coldly and distantly rose to his full and considerable height. He had the icy skeletal body similar to Ice Titan, with translucent snowy "flesh" with a head similar to Marshmallow from "Frozen". He had icicle claws, and ice blades akin to Hork-Bajir blades, only these appeared to be retractable.

He said nothing, he did nothing but stare at them. He was waiting for them to make the first move, rather like Freeze Man in "Mega Man 7". The RAFians hesitated, taken aback by this approach. Regicryos was the only one of his siblings to employ it, they always made the first move, the first strike.

"Make your move," Regicryos said, his voice more husky than in his Confined Form.

The three RAFians narrowed their eyes suspiciously. This wasn't a turn-based RPG, but reality. This was a very odd stratagem to employ, with as straightforward as it is.

"What are you waiting for? Let's get this over with."

"You want to be killed?" Az said, genuinely surprised and perplexed.

"You assume you'll win?" he countered coldly. "You assume I would not resist? Well, allow me to disabuse you of that notion right now. I shall battle you to the fullest of my ability. I might win, I might not. In the grand scheme of things, it matters very little. I don't fear death -- only one incapable of dealing with their own mortality is capable of such a fear. I just want this battle over with. For no other reason but to return to my isolation. Win or lose, I'll get what I desire."

Then his glare intesified. "Now make your move or I shall shatter the brain of one of the hostages! Engage me in battle now!!"

The RAFians had no choice. Not really.

Blaze was the first one to comply by sending a volley of fireballs rwther wildly and haphazardly at Regicryos.

"Now's not the time for getting sloppy, Blaze," Blue scolded, using his ninjabo to either deflect or slash through Regicryos Unbound's attacks. Then he flung his right arm out for no apparent reason -- before it was revealed that Blue pulled a Batman, and had thrown explosive shurrikens that embedded themselves into Regicryos Unbound's chest and exploded violently. But Regicryos still stood, though he was clearly in pain.

Az was actually mostly just deflecting Regicryos's attacks with his own cryokinesis. Az even managed to redirect the attacks back at the son of Garrotik. But this seemed to have the opposite desired effect, as it seemed to heal him. Az abandoned this at once, which actually gave Blaze and opening to fire a ball of red flames into Regicryos's chest where it seemed to resonate within him.

Regicryos looked as if he were in pain, but he handled it in a rather nonchalant, knowing way. He didn't even plea with his life as Blue struck the final blow.

Regicryos had just gotten his wish.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 08, 2015, 10:49:11 PM

Wow, that was rather cold. bad pun very sorry

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2015, 06:25:32 PM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
Forgotten Fighter*

"Welcome," Guitarhero said, sardonically, "to Fight Club."
 
"Hilarious," Yunyun said, drily. She elected to flutter above the ground instead of walk.
 
"This is obviously a trap," Slushie Man said, seriously.
 
They were in an underground arena, with what appeared to be a wrestling arena ringed by steel-barred cage walls. These walls were at least twenty-five, thirty feet high, and perhaps fifty feet long. The only light around was being focused on this arena, whilst the three RAFians stood (Yunyun finally landed) in the darkness in the tiered seating around it. The door to the cage stood open, and everywhere else was abandoned.
 
"Where are the hostages?" Yunyun said, shrewdly apt. "How is this Regifisticuff controlling them?"
 
"It would appear," Slushie Man said slowly, eyeing a spot at roughly eleven o'clock from them, "that he beat them into submission."
 
The other two looked at the location Slushie Man eyed so intently. They blinked and were surprised. There were no mind control or manipulation here. It simply looked that Regifisticuff simply beat the stuffing out of them until he wont their loyalty and devotion -- or they were nearly dead. Most of them looked like the latter, to be honest.
 
"He has all the finesse and subtlety of a runaway semi truck, apparently," Guitarhero muttered.
 
"Hey, I heard that!" a voice cried out. It sound almost like the stereotypical "dumb voice" people tend to adopt when they are speaking for someone they consider to be rather dim.

"I don't really care," Slushie Man quipped.

"Come over here and say that!" Regifisticuffs said, stepping into the cage's center. His orange plated armor glinted under the bright light. But it really wasn't as impressive as brute like Regifisticuff would believe.

Guitarhero did not attempt to stifle his yawn, nor did Slushie hide his eye roll. Yunyun wore of unimpressed boredom.

"Don't disrespect me! Nobody disrespects me! Nobody disrespects me and lives! You here me?! YOU HEAR M--?!"

"Are you done yet?" Slushie Man said.

"You DARE show me disrespect?!" Regifisticuffs raged.

"You are such a child," Yunyun stated matter-of-factly.

"I'm not the child! You're the child!" Regifisticuff said, petulantly.

Yunyun sighed exasperately, as Slushie Man said, "If we engage you in a fight, will you please just shut up? All your whining is giving me a migrane!"

"I'm not whining!" Regifisticuffs whined.

"Ugh," Slushie Man groaned. He rubbed his temples, and said, "Let's get this over with."

The battle from there was fairly easy, as all the RAFians had to do keep their distance from him and attack long range -- Guitarhero with the sound waves from his beloved guitar (calling into question whether the power came from the guitar or Guitarhero himself), Slushie Man with his slushie "webbing", and Yunyun was using latent magical abilities via a card medium.

Soon enough, Regifisticuffs Confined's plate armor broke (mostly due to his own folly more than anything else).

---

*Reference for when I was planning out this book, doing the brief chapter synopses, I apparently forgot about Regifisticuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 10, 2015, 02:25:34 AM

Oh I forgot about him too. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2015, 05:40:31 PM

Ah. So I wasn't alone.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
Brawl Unbound

"I don't suppose that we could just go home now?" Yunyun said, ruffling her wings a bit. She had put her deck of special magic cards away. The spent cards would eventually return to her deck when the spells they depict recharge. "Right?"

"You know better than that," Slushie Man said, very seriously.

"Can't a winged elf dream?" Yunyun asked.

"Yes," Guitarhero said, giving a sardonic little smirk, "but just not right now."

There was crazed laughter, but it wasn't at all like Jafar. More like the raucous guffaw of a bully with the I/Q of three who was trying to imitate Jafar's laugh. The RAFians looked impassively unimpressed.

Regifisticuffs Unbound wasn't really pretty. He had orange, blistered skin and a a body plan rather like a mutated human/Tertramand hybrid. He had six disproportionate arms, six blue eyes (without pupils) of disproportionate sizes, ham-sized fists with sausage-like fingers and the grossest fingernails imaginable. His feet possessed no toes but five backward-raking spikes. His gaping maw looked as if was a gash lacerated his face. He lacked several teeth, and what teeth he did have was snaggletoothed.

"Wow," Guitarhero blurted, "we didn't do you any favors, did we?"

"What was that, little boy?" he growled, his voice somewhat more raspy and bestial.

"Wait, what? What did you just call me?" Guitarhero retorted. "'Little boy'? Seriously?"

"Wanna do sumthin' about it?" Regifisticuffs Unbound goaded rather amateurishly.

Guitarhero was surprised, despite himself, that Regifisticuffs Unbound would actually try to goad as a schoolyard bully would. Regifisticuffs really had no subtlety.

Yunyun was rubbing her forehead, as if praying for patience and Slushie Man was shaking his head pityingly.

"What?" Regifisticuffs said, genuinely not comprehending why they aren't fighting him, why they were just talking. "What's with the looks? What's with the yakety-yak? Fight me! Fight me, you -- uh, you -- foolish . . . foolish fools!"

"Clever," Yunyun said, acidly. This guy was really beginning to wear on her nerves.

"Fight me! Fight me, you . . . you twerps!"

Yunyun sighed heavily, and Slushie Man said, "If we must."

The RAFian utilized the same tactics as before -- keeping their distance and using projectiles and other long-range attacks --  and Regifisticuffs never got wise to it, though it angered him considerably.

"Time to finish this," Slushie Man said, decisively. "Ready?"

"Naw, I want to draw this out more," Guitarhero said, with almost-acidic sarcasm.

"I was ready an hour ago!" Yunyun said. She showed a card, and shouted, "Energy Chains!"

Energy of a cool blue coiled around Regifisticuffs (who shouted, "Stop doing that! That's cheating!") and Slushie flicked his hand in a very Spider-Man manner. This caused a spurt of slushie to cover all of Regifisticuffs' eyes, effectively blinding him.

"Time for some tunes!" Guitarhero said, strumming on his guitar. He played a wild, furious tune with destructive soundwaves, which he could narrow down to affect a singular target.

"Argh!! What is this noise?!" Regifisticuffs shouted.

That just made Guitarhero angry.

"Noise?! I'll show you NOISE!!!" he shouted furiously.

The music intensified to a rather supernatural degree.

"Stop it! Stop the noise!!"

"Don't stop, GH!" Yunyun replied, unsheathing the sword she had received from Cloak a year ago. She pulled out a card and tapped it with the sword (which had a subtle green glow). "Detonation Strike!"

Then she threw the sword, which succeed in impaling Regifisticuffs' topmost shoulder. Then the sword was driven deeper by Slushie Man's slushie "web" shot and Guitarhero's musical vibrations. Then, when it was driven up to the sword's hilt, it detonated. Taking out Regifisticuffs.

Yunyun nonchalantly picked up the undamaged sword, and sheathed it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 10, 2015, 09:50:18 PM

Ok, Regifisticuffs is officially my favorite character from anything ever. I really need to get around to reading this from the beginning. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2015, 09:00:52 AM

That's . . . that's gonna take a while, GH.

Anyway . . . new book ideas!

• Book DCLXXXIII: "Absentee Kids" -- The RAFians investigate the disappearnce of missing children
• Book DCLXXXIV: "Desperate Alliances" -- Two former enemies of the RAFians come to them in desperation to save their son.
• Book DCLXXXV: "Under His Hat" -- Two RAFian foes use a hat to steal and displace the souls of others.
• Book DCLXXXVI: "Myth Massacre" -- A RAFian foe unleashes a monster to destroy cultures by somehow destroying their myths.
• Book DCLXXXVII: "Terminate . . . Terminate . . ." -- The RAFians must uncover some techno-savvy assassins and terrorists.
• Book DCLXXXVIII: "Corporate Chameleon" -- The RAFians uncover a corporate spy by accident.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
Dragonslayers of Burn

"A misty moor," Dino grumbled. "It had to be a miserable, misty moor."

"It could be w--" Blocky began.

"DON'T SAY IT!" Dino snarled. "Those four words have a habit of jinxing whoever utters them."

EvilPinkDragon said nothing. She rarely says anything*, if at all.

"Well, then," Blocky said, "where is this son or daughter of -- wait. What is . . . what happened to these people?"

A group of people, children and adults alike, laid strewn upon the floor. Apparently, they were paralyzed -- completely paralyzed, save for their eyes. Which rolled around their heads, looking absolutely terrified. This disturbed all three RAFians.

"What . . . what . . . ?" was all that Dino could choke out.

EvilPinkDragon spied something on their foreheads, and pointed to it was with a clawed finger.

It was a dragon scale, shaped like a shield, and the size of a thumbnail of a particularly large human. It was adhered to their foreheads as if glued there. It was obviously the source of the paralysis.

"What are you doing to my treasure?!" a raspy, spitting voice shouted. "They're mine! You can't have them!"

"Regidracos," EvilPinkDragon said, "I presume."

"So, what about it?!" she snarled, coming into view. "Leave. They're MINE."

"No," Dino snarled, before issuing a deep, bellowing roar. "They aren't."

"They are mine! They're MINE!! Get away!! Get away now!!"

The three took immense care to step around the hostages, and begun to bear down on Regidracos. All three were larger than Regidracos, who didn't back down. But it was unclear if that was from sheer stupidity or acidic arrogance.

"Stop CROWDING me!! You don't fool me!! You want my treasure FOR YOURSELF!!" Regidracos snarled. Then she seemed to realize something, "Oh, you three are here for that stupid Death Game. Well, too bad!! I don't have time for stupid games. I need to protect my treasures. My precious --"

"Anyone else getting a Gollum vibe here?" Blocky said.

Regidracos was continuing her little tirade, unaware of Blocky's reference. She seemed to be talking to herself more than anyone else now.

"Uh," EvilPinkDragon said, "is she okay?"

". . . They're MINE! MINE, I tell you! MINE! MINE!! MINE!!! . . ."

"I am guessing," Blocky replied, "no."

"Let's get this over with." Dino said. She planted her foot squarely on Regidracos. Yet there was no squish sound.

---

*I know this is kind of a mean dig at her rarely posting anything, if at all (especially when I mostly only really post in this thread and Totally Random Thoughts at all anymore).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2015, 04:07:53 PM

Guess Saffa's busy.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
Dragon Unbound

"Oh, c'mon," Blocky said impatiently. "We all know that you're still alive."

"Yeah," Dino agreed, "stop milking the suspense! Come on out, and show yourself!"

Regidracos didn't comply. At first, but then she made an entrance very much like Maleficent (you know, the good one -- er, genuinely evil one). This was apt as her Unbound form was basically a tan color swap of her dragon form, only with a somewhat blunter snout, broader face, slightly larger eyes, and thicker limbs. She also lacked wings, as she was tethered to the ground.

She said, as she reared up to her full height, "Now shall you deal with me, O Mortals, and the powers of HELL!"

"Oh, it's not enough that you stole Dragon Maleficent's look," Dino said, rolling her eyes (which was very impressive in and of itself for a saurian species), "you also steal her dialogue."

"You poor, simple fools. Thinking you could beat me. ME! The Lady of Dragons!"

"Yep, no original dialogue," Blocky agreed.

"Die!" she said, blowing a supernatural, mystical kind of fire that was similar to Fiendfyre in color but not behavior. It wouldn't even penetrate Dino's ankylotyrannus shell -- which actually surprised her. Dino anticipated at least feeling it, causing the RAFian to reply, "Talk about a Bowser defense."

"Die!" she repeated, blowing the strange fire at EvilPinkDragon, who folded her wing in front of her, and found that the flames could not penetrate them. This surprised her as well, leading her to reply, "Exactly HOW did you become the Lady of Dragons?"

"By being the first one?" Block asked. The question was sincere.

"Is she even trying?" Dino asked. Again, the question was sincere.

"SHUT UP!!" Regidracos roared, slamming her considerable tail down several times in frustration. "SHUT UP!! I am the Lady of Dragons! All dragons! They all serve me! They have no choice but to give me their utter devotion and loyalty!"

Her attention snapped to Blocky and EvilPinkDragon.

"You two. You two serve me. Obey your Lady and Mistress."

The two dragons shared a "can you believe this crap?" look and each raised an incredulous eyebrow. Regidracos looked at them imperiously, expecting them to give their loyalty and devotion.

Blocky eyed Regidracos, and said, "Does the phrase 'go suck a lemon' hold any meaning for you?"

"What?!"

"'Go'. 'Suck'. 'A lemon'." Blocky said. "It's a pejorative phrase meaning --"

"I am your Lady! You live, you exist to serve me!" she raged. "It is your only purpose in life!! The only reason you exist!"

"And you're talking out of your backside," Dino said. "Guys, we've delayed this too long. Let's get this over with."

The two dragons blew fire at Regidracos, who was indignant with apoptotic rage. It didn't do much, but it took her attention off Dino. That wasn't exactly easy to do either. But it was enough. Dino took Regidracos's neck in her jaws and began to exert presure slowly, to be sure she couldn't escape. Then she swiftly exerted all her bite strength upon Regidracos's neck.

The Lady of Dragons was no more, and her "treasures" freed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2015, 07:28:48 PM

Two more of Garrotik's bratty kids to go.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
Darkness Falls

"Looks like this place was used for a rave at least once every week," Shanker noted. "And I've fed in some really seedy areas."

"It does stink of booze, smoke, and . . . other stenches." Marie said, her vulpine nose twitching. "Shanker, you frequent places like this?"

He shrugged, and said, "Hey, a vampire's gotta drink."

Super Nate knelt and examined the detritus of the abandoned, cavernous warehouse. It was actually a stone's throw away from Malice's old base of operations (she had pulled up roots and moved into another hidey-hole months ago). The overhead lights shed a sparse illumination over the place, making it feel rather like film noire.

"It's too quiet," Super Nate pointed out.

"Must you say that?" Marie sighed discontentedly. "Every time someone says a thing like that --"

"What's that?" Shanker said, more to himself than the other two, interrupting Marie.

But she continued anyway, "Whenever someone says something like that, it always gets noisy -- and potentially messy. Always."

"Guys, look over there." Shanker said, gesturing them from the circle of light.

"If you're gonna ask me what the fox says one more time . . ." Marie growled.

Super Nate smirked a boyishly handsome smile, although Marie was being quite serious.

"No, it's . . . it's the hostages," he said. He was serious, not aloof or indifferent. Clearly, what he saw disturbed him, which caused all levity or semblance to levity to evaporate with alarming rapidity.

There seemed to be numerous teenagers of every ethnicity, every size, every build, every background, male and female -- a fair few individuals. While it would be unremarkable under normal circumstances, each and every one were huddled into the fetal position, cast into a dark light, which was easy to go unnoticed in the dark, strangely enough.

"What . . . what is this?" Super Nate said, aghast.

"The Self Shadows," came a dark, yet bored voice. "They force out a person's inner darkness and forces them to relive their darkest moments repeatedly."

"Regiumbras, I presume?" Shanker said, succinctly. He was not willing to mince words.

"Yes," she said, with a disinterest that rankled Shanker. "Not that it really matters."

"You being emo isn't the same as being dark, you know," Shanker said, scathingly.

"Whatever," Regiumbras said.

"I wouldn't say 'emo' as much a 'nihilist'," Marie said.

"Semantics," Shanker countered.

"Whatever," Regiumbras said, bored.

"Oh, I hate you," Shanker said. Though it wasn't really clear if he was serious.

"Whatever."

"That's a lame catchphrase," Marie commented.

"Regiumbras!" Super Nate said, not joining into the ambivalence and levity. "Stop this, let the kids go."

"No," Regiumbras said.

"Then you're going down," he countered.

"Whatever," came her usual response.

The battle was furious (mostly because Regiumbras didn't seem to be trying too hard, if at all -- which angered the three RAFians). Naturally, because of Regiumbras's inherent indifference, she was getting dominated and her butt kicked.

Eventually, her plated Confined Form broke, far quicker than any of her siblings.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2015, 07:30:57 PM

About four or so more chapters to go.

Saffa hasn't been on for a couple days. Hope everything's okay.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
Darkness Unbound

"Now, it gets harder," Super Nate said, "prepare yourselves."

"Yeah," Marie said, "I think were as prepared as we're gonna get."

There was no Jafar-like crazed cackle. Just ominous, "Slender Man"-esque silence, as Regiumbras Unbound rose to her true height -- rather similar to the Darksyde Heartless from "Kingdom Hearts".

Her body was actually rather androgynous, appearing to be a cross between Slender Man and that marionette from "Five Nights at Freddy's". She possessed an inhumanly thin, tetrapod body, with limbs so thin that they should not be able to support her weight (yet they did). She did not possess hands or feet, but she possessed a mass of shadow tentacles on her back. Her face was a hard, featureless, black mask which her beady white eyes peered out of it.

The RAFians were not so flippant anymore. They felt the aura cast by Regiumbras Unbound, which caused them to feel tense -- as if they were in the middle of a horror video game.

"You made a grave mistake," Regiumbras said, her voice a female variation of LittleKuriboh's Slender Man voice with a dark, sinister edge. "You allowed me to take my Unbound Form."

Marie was the first to snap out of the tense reverie they were in. "And you made a mistake, too, Regiumbras."

"Which is?" the daughter of Garrotik replied, a sinister intonation in her voice.

Super Nate followed Marie in coming to his senses. "You challenged us."

"You are the challengers," she reminded.

Shanker came to his senses. "You forced our hands. Took hostages to insure that we fought you."

"And, yet," she said, and if she had a mouth, she would be smiling a knowing smile, "and, yet, you still know little."

"What are you -- make sense!" Super Nate demanded.

"Nah, I prefer to be enigmatic, actually," she said.

"Talk!" Shanker demanded, striking Regiumbras Unbound. She looked only mildly annoyed, but then again, Shanker pulled his strike.

"No."

"Talk!"

"No."

"Talk!"

"No."

This continued for some time, until Marie sighed an annoyed sigh, saying, "Boys!"

"Clearly, we won't get any information out of her," Super Nate said, quickly assessing the situation. "We must defeat her."

"Oh, we're not subject to television censors," Marie said, crankily. "Just say it like it is. We have to kill her."

From the battle began in earnest. While she was the one that took the shortest time to break the Confined Form of, she took the longest to destroy in her Unbound Form. Even the three RAFians weren't exactly sure how they did it, as they did it in absolute darkness.

But Regiumbras was gone, leaving on the enigmatic note that she was the last fighter, despite the RAFians knowing about Regiphaetos.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 15, 2015, 01:03:33 PM

Yeah, sorry about that, I was out of town with the place I was in having unbelievably crappy internet service. Thanks for the concern though. :)

Ooh, suspense! I wonder who takes Regiphaetos. Richard?

And GH, if you want to start the Memoirs series from the beginning, I have the PDFs of all the books written so far in a zip file. All you need to do is ask. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 15, 2015, 03:13:01 PM

Damn, I would definitely appreciate that if you could send them over.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2015, 04:33:26 PM

Ah. Glad you're okay, Saffa.

And you can PM me with any questions you might have, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:
The Real Goal?

"What's taking them so long?" Regiphaetos said. He was not referring to his siblings, nor his hostages. "Oh, they're dead."

He waited for a beat.

"WHY ARE THEY DEAD?!" he shrieked.*

"Maybe you shouldn't play a Death Game, then." Hunter said, impassively.

"What?!"

Apparently, Helen, Sam and Hunter caught Regiphaetos unawares. But the Lord of Phantoms was concerned with something else entirely, and, thus, his mind was elsewhere.

"You weren't expecting us?" Helen asked. "I'd be hurt if you and your siblings weren't such jerks."

"You have no idea what you're doing!" Regiphaetos raged. "You'll ruin everything!"

"Yeah," Sam shrugged, "we do that."

"So," Hunter said, arms folded, "you gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"I don't have time for this," the Lord of Phantoms snapped.

"The hard way, then." Hunter said, smirking rather smugly. He aimed his gun at Regiphaetos, trained it on him. The Lord of Phantoms wasn't intimidated, but seriously annoyed. He tried to escape, but Hunter fired his gun.

Regiphaetos was surprised that it hit him. Surprised that it hurt. But the shot just winged him in the weakest part of his plated armor.

Helen looked disconcerted a bit, as it was essentially an unprovoked attack.

"Salt-filled rounds," Hunter explained. "Now, I repeat, come quietly. We needn't resort to more violent means. That was a warning shot."

"I don't have time for this!" Regiphaetos snarled. He tried to walk away, but found his way blocked by a violet and green walls. Energy constructs. "Get out of my way!!"

"So you can take more hostages?" Helen said. "I don't know where you've hidden them, but all of your brothers and sisters took hostages. You, as their obvious leader, such be no different."

Despite himself and being pressed for time, he smiled to himself as he said, "Very clever, girl. Very clever. You are a credit to your mentally-feeble species. Your bodies are adequate for the needs of my eidolon imps, but really nothing else about you humans are truly remarkable."

"Where are the hostages?" Hunter asked seriously.

No answer as Regiphaetos inwardly considered his options. He really had no interest in fighting the RAFians, but they wouldn't let him go because they knew about the hostages. The three hostages -- not Wesley, Jo and Herb, though. Those kids' bodies were ditched early on.

"Talk!" Hunter roared. "I know there are hostages! I can smell them! But I cannot pinpoint the direction they are in -- and you know it becayse you are causing it! So, talk!"

Regiphaetos was concocting a plan, a scheme, to get himself out of this situation. He wasn't looking forward to it, though, it would be painful.

"Talk." Hunter said, his animalistic fury calming into humanistic rationality.

Smiling inwardly, Regiphaetos continued his silence. But Hunter withdrew his gun, proving he wasn't without conscience.

Then Regiphaetos began to subtly goad him, as well as Sam and Helen. Eventually, their emotions got the better of them. Twin Lantern blasts and twin gunshots of salt-filled ammunition.

They gave Regiphaetos exactly the out he wanted . . .

---

*Obligatory Dragonball Z Abridged reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2015, 09:42:13 PM

Okay . . . might be the longest book in the entire series.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:
From Host to Host

The three RAFians waited for a brief moment, but when nothing shifted, nothing moved in the slightest way, they immediately assumed that Regiphaetos went into his Unbound Form, but did not stick around. They did not know where he went, but knew that, as the Lord of Phantoms what his abilities may very well entail.

They quickly find the hostages. There were five teens, not the three believed by Regiphaetos himself: a willful, black-haired teen by the name of Jordan who was built like a linebacker and wore a principally green shirt with red accents; an angry, svelt teen by the name of Adam who wore red; a hopeful, likable teen by the name of Morris with short-cropped hair who wore blue with an orange-printed peace sign on it; a gossipy teen by the name of Jennifer who had naval-length blonde hair and a frilly, violet blouse; and, finally, an ambitious teen by the name of Bradley with short, densely curly, black hair and an orange shirt. The RAFians looked over these kids, who were moving as if they were waking up from either a long sleep, a drunken stupor, or both.

"Wh-what happened?" Morris had asked.

"Why are we right here?" Jennifer asked.

"How'd we get here?" Bradley asked.

"Where is here?" Adam demanded.

"What happened?" Jordan asked.

The three RAFians were not as much of fools as Regiphaetos and his minions believed. There was no question that all five were being puppeteered by Regiphaetos and four of his eidolon imps. But none of them could cast "expellocorpus" with any real effect, but that didn't matter. They had a way to accomplish this themselves, a technological way.

"You're not fooling anyone," Sam said.

"What?" Adam said.

"What do you mean?" Morris said, at once.

"What are you talking about?" Jordan said.

"You want to keep up the pretense?" Helen asked, raising her eyebrow skeptically.

"What pretense?" Morris said.

"Hunter," Sam said, "use the thing."

But Hunter was already pulling out a brown cloth bag, which had several small items that were the size of senzu beans. They were A.P. bombs -- anti-possession bombs. They worked like "expellocorpus" but for nonmagical RAFians. They work similarly to flashbang grenades, only not nearly as damaging. Not by a wide margin.

Hunter reached out and took out five bean-sized A.P. bombs, then threw them at the kids. They all shkuted protests, which stopped midway, turning into dazed moans. Four eidolon imps and their master were cast from the the teens, who were reduced to dazed states.

Regiphaetos's Unbound Form was revealed to be an indigo palette swap of Kibosh with yellow eyes, with a rather smokey appearance about him. He and his eidolon imps were as dazed as their unwilling hosts.

Unfortunately, this plan had a very noticeable hole in it. The three RAFians could not prevent repossession. They could only force dispossession. This proved to be a rather larger problem than they had anticipated.

Regiphaetos Unbound had recovered first, far quicker than the three had expected. Regiphaetos was quick on the uptake, and quickly repossessed Morris. Then he tried to escape with his "hostage suit". But the three RAFians used another A.P. bomb, casting him from Morris's body for the second time.

Regiphaetos recovered quicker than last time. This time he took over Jordan's body, but did not flee. He fished something out of the teen's pocket and revealed it to be a pocket knife. He flicked out the blade, and held it to his -- held it to Jordan's neck. Pressing it dangerously close to his jugular vein.

"Let me go," his spoke, using Jordan's voice, "or the boy dies. Your choice."

The RAFians didn't move, vaguely aware that the eidolon imps were recovering from their dazed states. If they didn't resolve this quickly, their problems will quadruple.

"Your choice," Regiphaetos intoned in Jordan's voice, "let me go, or this sack of flesh will get cold."

Sam would have made his move to make an energy construct around the pocketknife, but Helen beat him to the punch. She flung the pocketknife away, and Hunter threw another A.P. bomb. Regiphaetos was cast out -- and Hunter shot him so thoroughly with the salt ammunition and the other two kept Regiphaetos stationary.

It was over.

All of Garrotik's children were slain. All of his progeny were gone. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 15, 2015, 10:52:11 PM

Alright GH, I'll PM you later in the day.

Now what?

EDIT: Apparently I can't send attachments via PM ( :dull: ) so I'll just post it here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2015, 07:09:42 AM

Uh, Saffa? There's still one more chapter in Book 82 to go.

Whoo-kay, last chapter of this book.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:
RAF-Maniacs!

The RAFians reunited at the forum, telling their tales of what happened. Cloak, however, remained silent and brooding. He was in one of his moods. The dust settled from the encounters. It will remain to be the talk of the town for a while.

***

"It's time for RAF-Maniacs!
And we're zany to the max!
So, just sit back and relax.
You'll laugh 'til you collapse!
We're RAF-Maniacs!
Come join Blue and Duff,
And DinosaurNothlit
Just for fun,
We run around RAF a lot.
They lock us in the forum,
Whenever we get caught!
But we break loose,
And then vamoose,
And now you know the plot!
We're RAF-Maniacs!
Horse is cute and Sakki attacks.
Demos packs away the snacks,
While Esty tries to plays the sax!
We're RAF-Maniacs!
Meet Faerie and Claire, who want to rule the universe!
Tobias and RAFians flock together,
While Terenia whacks 'em with her purse.
Saffa chases Rotiart, while traycon sings a verse,
The writers flipped.
We have no script.
Why bother to rehearse?
We're RAF-Maniacs!
We have waffle stacks!
We're zany to the max!
There's baloney in their slacks!
We're animan-y!
Totally insaney!
Here's the forum's name-y!
R-A-F!
Those are the facts."

"Abby," Cloak said, praying for patience, "give it up! It isn't gonna happen. Blue already tried that with his 'R-A-F: The Animated Series'. He only managed to get it up on DeviantArt."

"Not to mention, some of the more, uh, 'knightly' viewers might see 'RAF-Maniacs' in a poorer light than you imagine," Saffa pointed out.

"People make controversy out of anything, ," Abby said, dismissively. "Like that woman who thought Jynx was a racist stereotype. People will find anything -- especially that which is taken out of context -- offensive. There isn't anything anyone can do about that."

"Abby," Cloak continued, "the point is --"

"The point is that it would be a very successful show! I know it would be!" Abby declared. "I'll show you. You'll see."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2015, 10:45:24 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXIII:
RAF -- THE TV SHOW
CHAPTER ONE:
Two Worlds, One Family

The aftermath of the whole Garrotik's progeny events still muddled about a bit, and, yet, Cloak was finding himself reflecting over his past again. As he remembered, and reflected upon, his coming to RAF, to escape the loneliness of his life and the misery of the burden his mother had foisted upon him. Coming to RAF where he discovered people who cared for his well-being in a way his mother had never had . . .

Then again, the sole reason for his creation in his mother's eyes may have simply been a means to control and manipulate his father.

Music came, unbidden and unasked for, but welcomed, though only heard by the Realm Walker.

Put your faith in what you most believe in.
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart.
Let fate decide.
To guide this life we see.
A paradise untouched by Walker hand,
Within this world blessed with love.
A simple life, they live in peace.
Softly tread the sand below your feet now --
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart.
Let fate decide.
To guide this life we see.
Beneath the shelter of the trees,
Only love can enter here.
A simple life, they live in peace.
Raise your head up.
Lift high the load.
Take strength from those that need you.
Build high the walls.
Build strong the beams.
A new life is waiting --
But danger's no stranger here."

Cloak involuntarily remembers how his mother cowed him into submission. How she neglected him, how she berated him for not perfectly performing the cleaning and cooking tasks given to him (without any regards to consent). How it became more and more clear that she did not love him unconditionally as a mother should, how it broke his heart and shattered his spirit. He was just free labor, a scapegoat that she could use.

Just like his father was before him.

No words describe a child's tears.
No words can heal a broken heart.
The dream is gone . . . but where there's hope . . ."

When she was away for a long stretch of time, Cloak escaped into the realms. He never really knew why he came to this particular area in the Prime Universe, he did not know what drew him here. But perhaps . . . perhaps something was calling out to him. . . .

Somewhere, something is calling for you.
Two worlds, one family.
Trust your heart.
Let fate decide.
To guide this life we see.

Cloak shook himself.

Why was he thing about these bad and sad times? That was a lifetime ago. He was free from all that. He was free . . . but was he? Was he really? If he kept dwelling on these awful traumas, was he freed at all?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 16, 2015, 02:23:48 PM

I sense major fourth wall breach coming up, lol.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2015, 05:28:08 PM

Not particularly, Saffa.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Ratings Gold!!

In a dark room, a large figure sat. He appeared to have a metal, scorpion-like body below his obese waist, human-like arms and fingers that were unusually long were he human. Everything else was obscured with shadow, save for his beady eyes and wide gaping maw, filled with rather large, flat teeth.* He possessed a mechanical tail that was scorpion-like but flat. He also possessed no spine, although, given his occupation of choice, that was rather unsurprising.

In strange, yet familiar, hands he held what appeared to be a high tech remote control. What he was watching . . . how did he get these images? It was inexplicable.

He was watching images of Cloak nearly getting killed by Abomination from nearly a year ago, their dealings with the viral ooze, Phoenix's dark possession by the mummudrai Mummudrai Eville, the incursion of the Technarchy Phalanx, Gaz succumbing to her darker self due to Madre de Vampyra's influence, Malice's directional stones, Horse going giant, and the RAFians dealings with the Lantern Corps.

"Interesting," he said, sounding intrigued.

Then he continued to watch video inexplicably from the formation of the Knights of Humanity, the incident with the Xenomorphic Brood, Malice gaining the Forbidden Arts, Rotiart trying to turn the RAFians against Cloak, the thing with Bibliophaetos, the debacle with the Skrull imposters, the incarceration by Collector, the evil RAFian clones, the Darwin Gun, the destruction of those two planets with rather life-changing results, and the confrontation with the Phobeest or Koh-It.

"Fascinating creatures," he muttered, his interest aroused.

The video somehow continued with the book-immersion ray, the evil MP3 player monster, Syphoon, the clash of the Eternity Stones and the Infinity Gems, the incursion of the Black Lantern rings, the dementors, the Music Miser, the Roboticizer, Richard's abduction, Malice's Transformers, Richard's Horn, Wild's battle with his feral nature, the Yautja's unsuccessful predations, Proteus, Cataclysm, and the Heinlin incursion.

"Ooo," he said, his interest rising.

The video continued, showing the nightmare-monger, the leprechaun, the pied piper, Freddy the star's wishing star hoax, Parker's armor agenda, the Hate Plague, the conflict of Helmacrons and Fmeks, RAF's brief paparazzi problem, Maul, the Black Mercy debacle, the so-called "Pain Reliever", the Veils, Shenecron and Demos's not-so-little tiff, the Unimind, the Plasmavore, the Eidolon Consciousness, the Arachnoids, Skinwalker (he bookmarked this video for future perusal), the mnemoraptors, SAL SOMNUS, Composite and Prodigy, the killer dolls, the saurian-transmogrification rays, Corruption, the symbiotes and the Xenophage, the Ectoplasmer, the Seekers, the Polarisoid and his camera, the gremlins, the oxidizer ray, the Toyman, Genosha, the Juggernaut, and, finally, Garrotik and his progeny.

"That settles it," the figure said. "I must have them! They're perfect for -- Helix! Helix!! GET IN HERE!! I have a job for you!!"

---

*(http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061215154718/marveldatabase/images/7/70/Mojo_%28Mojoverse%29_002.jpg) Similar to this guy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2015, 06:08:30 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Unprepared

Cloak had grown tired of sitting around brooding and musing in his thread, so he decided to take a little walk around the forum to clear his head, to try to stop him from plunge into that dark stupor that he was always in danger of when he thought of his mother and their rather dysfunctional, abusive relationship.

He walked from his thread, his cloak swept over him so none of his limbs or body could be seen. His head was bowed in thought, and he walked on shoulders squared but slumped somewhat. He was obviously still moody.

Cloak had to stop dwelling on his past. He knew he had to stop dwelling on it. But he found that he could not help himself, for whatever reason. Perhaps it was because he hadn't any really closure on the events that transpired. His mother would never admit guilt or fault for her actions, it was always someone else's fault, never hers. Her narcissism became more and more evident with age.

Cloak reflected on the guilt that he felt for believing every stupid little lie, every obverblown half-truth, every ludicrous assumption that his mother levelled at his father. He regretted that it took him this to realize and recognize this folly of his. He felt shame about accepting these lies without question, without pausing to think.

He had recently came to the conclusion that his mother never really care for him, even as a child. He came to the conclusion that he was nothing but a tool that his mother could use to manipulate his father . . . much like how she tried a similar tactic with Shadow to get abject obedience from him, lest he never see Shadow again. While his father wasn't perfect, he would actually cop to the fact he made a mistake and be big enough of a man to apologize for his actions. Whereas his mother would have made Cloak apologize to her.

Not to mention she told him the proper way to slash his wrists.

"She needs help," Cloak muttered to himself, "which she'll never g--"

His eyes widened suddenly, as a sudden . . . a sudden something appeared. It wasn't exactly evil, but it had a certain level of power Cloak recognized a low-levelled Saiyan. Cloak easily could track this disturbance, whatever it was.

RAF did not have its usual numbers on this day. Most of the RAFians were off on personal business or had family matters to attend to. Only Slushie Man, Blue, AniDragon, Faerie, Aquilai, Mr. Guy, Gaz, Parker, Horse, Underseen, Goom, Saffa, Abby, and Richard were currently milling about in the forum. Oh, and Cloak himself, of course.

But only Abby, Saffa, and Richard were present before this unwelcomed newcomer. Saffa and Abby were splayed upon the ground, as if they were just defeated and demorphed. Richard looked tired, and was trying reclaim some energy to continue the battle. He was still worn from his battle with Garrotik, and that was some time ago.

Then Cloak scrutinized this newcomer, this stranger. His first impression was a fusion of Spiral (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_(comics)) and Hoopa Unbound. She may have been a beautiful, young, human once, but any beauty she once had was gone now. She had an inhumanly long nose, red hair with a hairstyle like Akuma (http://streetfighter.wikia.com/wiki/Akuma), a forked tail,  and the rest resembled a lithe, semi-attractive woman with skin of deep caramel color. Her eyes -- including pupil, sclera and iris -- were solidly royal purple. She had two pairs of floating mechanical arm behind her which were entwined in a double helix and stored on her back when not in use.

She looked and saw Cloak, and seemed disturbed a bit, as she had a foot into a intra-realm portal, but perhaps a different dimension of the same realm. Cloak did not miss this, but did not think anything of it at the time.

This woman stepped through the portal, and Cloak quickly followed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 18, 2015, 06:23:40 AM

That was weird.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2015, 06:30:36 PM

Oh, the series will get weirder. When it isn't dark.

To think, in another seventeen books, Year One will be done.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Spineless Inspection

Cloak tucked and rolled when he exited the portal. He rolled to his feet with practiced ease as he bowled the woman abductor over. He quickly prepared to continue the battle, but the woman was not attacking. She got to her feet and was calmly walking away, u.til a loud, crude voice yelled loudly.

"Whaddya bring him here for, Helix?" it complained in the most obnoxious way imagineable. Cloak actually recognized something about that voice. "He could foul up the whole setup!"

"Mr. Jombo*, I couldn't help it! He jumped into the portal after me." she protested, as Cloak looked at the big boss man. And he was big, too. Obesely so.

"Irrelevant! Helix, just be glad that I don't send you back to the Slave Pits!"

Considerably larger than a human. The creature was humanoid with yellow skin, no hair, only three fingers on each hand (not counting the opposable thumb), no spine, and mostly atrophied legs. He sat on a mechanical plateform that was rather scorpion like.

"Sir, I --" Helix tried to protest.

Cloak knew of this species. And, by knowing this simple little fact, he knew where they were. He wasn't too pleased with it.

"DISMISSED! Go wash your hair or something. Daddy's gots business to do."

"Well," Gaz said, from behind laser bars. She didn't have Laserbeak with her (which was odd enough), and she looked rather naked without the robotic parrot. She and the others were watching from behind their own individual laser cages. "That eeriely creepy."

Gaz seemed to be more awake than the others, and Cloak was the only one not enclosed. He turned his attention to the environment and saw that they were on what could be easily mistaken for the Technodrome. It wasn't, it was just a place in the Mojoverse, which was like a suburb from the main part of the realm. It really was overly complicated.

This Jombo character appraised and scrutinized each and every RAFian he had. He spoke very much like Collector, as if they had no free will or rights. But it was hardly surprising, considering they got everything they had from slave labor.

Cloak stood up straight, and gave this Jombo a cold, icy glare. "A Spineless One."

"Namecalling, Cloak?" Horse said. "Care not to make him mad until we get out of this?"

"That's what his kind is called," Cloak said.

"And proud of it!" Jombo said, proudly.

"And they lack spines."

"I kind of gathered that," Mr. Guy said, drily.

"And they are all either network or television executives," Cloak added.

"You mean we've been captured by an insane television exec?" Goom said, genuinely surprised.

"An insane televison executive? That's a little redundant, Goom." Faerie said, dully. She took to confinement about as well as Cloak would have.

"It's a fate worse than death," Blue muttered acidly.

"Don't think you'll stay cooped up too long," Cloak said, eyeing the small remote-like device Jombo clasped tightly in his narrow hand.

---

*I know when I gave a brief synopsis of this book so long ago, I called him Mojo, but I decided to make it different so I could take liberties with his characterizations.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 18, 2015, 11:40:31 PM

Wait, who's here?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2015, 06:46:12 PM

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Saffa, but I'll try.

It is everyone but you, Abby, and Richard -- who didn't make through the portal in time. As far as the room, it's the aforementioned with Jombo and Helix, up until Jombo dismissed her.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Actors to Set! It's Nearly Showtime!

"What makes you think that?" Jombo said. "They are mine now. They are no longer your concern, Realm Walker."

"Give me that remote," Cloak said, disregarding how the Spineless One knew his species name when a vast majority of Realm Dwellers did not.

"You are in my world now, alien." Jombo said, with a veneer of oozy, oily confidence. "I make the rules here. You have no authority, no power here."

"You may know the name of my kind, o Spineless One," Cloak said, with slow fury. "But you make it very clear that you are still very ignorant of our capabilities. And you have no idea -- none -- what I am truly capable of!"

Realm Walkers like Cloak could be very prideful.

"You have no right to these Earthlings, or 'Earthers', if you prefer." Jombo said with practiced coolness. "You also have no right to be here, hear? So, go toddle off now."

"Oh, now he's done it," Underseen observed.

"RIGHTS?! YOU WANT TO TALK OF RIGHTS?!" Cloak exploded. As he did, his pwer level spiked dramatically, and the metal floor beneath them cracmed and writhed as the very air itself became uncomfortably agitated. But Cloak regained his composure before the elements could run rampent any further than that, by sheer force if will . . . and taking a couple of deep breaths. "What makes you have the right, Spineless Wonder? Hmm? What makes you think you have the right to kidnap innocent peoples from their world? They have done nothing . . ."

Then Cloak remembered something he had forgotten about the Spineless Ones' history and physiology.

"Oh, I see why you think you've the right, Jombo."  Cloak said, far calmer now. But his eyes were still narrowed in a reproachful glare. "But that still does not entitle you to kidnap any beings you deem worthwhile to be your slaves. Do you already have enough?"

"Oh, I have no interest in these beings as slaves, dear boy. Because, as you already stated, we have enough of those for the time being. We might even have a surplus, if there's been unauthorized breeding." Jombo said, conversationally. Cloak was finding this creature really rubbing him the wrong way. "No, I have other plans for these fine actors."

Cloak immediately caught his intent. "Give me that remote. Give it to me now."

The Realm Walker's demand was promptly ignored, and Jombo pointed it at the RAFians and clicked it. Pixelating domes appeared around each individual RAFian and when they dissipated they were gone.

"What?! What do you think --" Cloak said, his rage building.

"Ooh! Such chutzpah! Such moxie!" Jombo said, rather overselling it and hamming it up at the same time. "You don't need to leave at all! I have the perfect place for you!!"

"Oh, don't you even think --" Cloak began warningly.

ZAP!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 19, 2015, 11:24:58 PM

They're in a TV?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2015, 06:23:50 PM

Er, well, now we are. Mojoverse is still in the "real world", just an isolated and usually inaccessible area of the realm.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Spectacular Slushie Man

"Livin' on the edge,
Fighting crimes,
Spinning slush webs.
Swingin' from the highest ledge.
He can leap above my head.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
Villians on the rise
And the forum's near-demise.
Lookin' up with no surprise,
Arriving in nick of time.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
Spectacular, spectacular Slushie Man.
Spectacular, spectacular Slushie Man.
Spectacular . . .
Spectacular, spectacular Slushie Man.
Spectacular, spectacular Slushie Man."

"What the . . . ?" Slushie Man said, dazed. He looked around and was very surprised to discover that he was hanging upside-down on a dribble of slushie that had a stronger tensile strength than a steel cable. He was pretty sure his abilities weren't capable of producing slushie that strong.

<<Something's wrong here . . .>> came the strangest voice. It was like audible sound and thought-speak at the same time, yet like neither at the same time. It was the zenith of odd.

Slushie Man climbed the string of slushie to its anchoring point, attempting to grasp what was happening. His memories seemed foggy at best. All he could recall with really any kind of accuracy were things that couldn't possibly be true.

<<What?! No!! This is boring!! We're going to lose viewership!>> the voice complained loudly, but only Slushie seemed aware of it.  <<What's going on?!>>

Who was this guy, anyway?

Slushie heard the sounds of a monster on a rampage and screeching police cars. He hesitated a bit, then he was so thoroughly confused at his hesitation. What was going on here? He was the good guy, right? He was the hero of this story, right?

<<Are the mnemonic inhibitors finally back online yet? And the personality overide chip? Now, don't sass me, you!>>  the voice said, clearly addressing someone else.

What was going on here? Seriously -- what was going on here?

A bellowing roar of a titanic beast which wiped the concerns from Slushie's mind for the moment. It was time for pointlessly flashy heroics.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 21, 2015, 01:50:12 AM

So now he's Spiderman. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2015, 03:43:38 PM

No, he's the RAFian Spider-Man. That identifier makes all the difference in the world. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Where in the World Did Blue Go?

"Where is Blue, where did he go?
Where did he go!
Where on Earth can he be?
Tell me, where is Blue, where did he go?
Oh, where did he go?
Where on Earth can he be?
Where on Earth can he be?
Ooh, ooh, ooh!
Sphinx, Mona Lisa,
Leaning Tower of Pisa,
Bronx Zoo, Timbuktu,
Can you help us find a clue?
Oh, where is Blue, where did he go?
Where did he go?
Where on Earth can he be?
Where on Earth can he be?"

On the last line, it showed Blue escaping the program's two heroes, though he was the eponymous character of the series. He was a master ninja, thereby a master thief and assassin. Granted, the last two really weren't by choice.

Wait a minute, none of this was by choice. While he was a ninja, he was most certainly not a thief.

<<What is it with this thing? The mnemonic inhibitor and the personality override just went offline again!! This never has happened before! Never!>>

That voice -- it was all sorts of weird.

Blue shooked his head, the voice was immaterial. He slunk to the shadows. His head throbbing. He was Blue. He was the head of Villains' International League of Evil -- V.I.L.E. -- and . . . no, wait, that wasn't right. He wasn't the head of any such organization. That was wrong. He was a member of an organization, though . . .

<<No! I will not calm down!>> the voice snarled testily, clearly not addressing Blue.

Blue blackflipped away from his spot. He nearly was captured by Ivan and Zoe, the heroes of this series. He was getting careless, he told himself as he tossed down a smoke pellet, and vanished away.

<<Where'd he go?! Where'd he go?!>> the voice shrieked. <<It's too early for that!! The show wil come up short in time!! Fix it! Fix it!!>>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 22, 2015, 12:25:53 AM

That is the worst evil organization name ever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2015, 03:09:21 AM

Hey, I didn't come up with it. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
RAF Underground

"Triplets are born.
The forum awaits.
A seer warns of a deadly fate!
Give up your kiddies.
Separate.
Bide your time.
Lie in wait.
RAF Underground!
RAF Underground!
They made a vow that
Their mother will be found!
The young ones grow.
Learn what's right.
Leaders of the freedom fight!
They seek their mother.
She knows they do.
It is time if she only knew.
Will the prophecy come true?
RAF Underground.
RAF Underground!"

AniDragon stood, in a nondescript cloak, gazing at the dystopian mess that the world became after the Incursians' successful conquest of the planet. She is teary-eyed as she speak-sings:

"I long for my kids,
But I have to wait.
To act too soon
Could seal their fate!"

Then the camera or whatever was in charge of this image thing zoomed away from her as the rest of the title sequence continued.

"They made a vow their mother will be found.
RAF Underground!"

Then AniDragon blinked in a confused and perplexed manner. Why was she worrying about kids? She didn't have any kids. . . . Did she? This was very odd.

<<What?! NOOO!!! Not again!!>>

Okay, so that was odder.

<<I don't understand it! The mnemonic inhibitor and the personality override should be operating at peak efficiency! How could they possibly gotten so buggy?!>>

And so was that.

AniDragon held her head in her hands, as she began to have a throbbing headache, and a slight pain on her hand as a strange blue "R" glowed there painfully bright. She turned and dashed away, feeling the pain lessen.

<<Stop warning me that I'll break it, foolish woman! It already is! It won't work -- hey!! Hey!! Where are you going? Where do you think you're going? Go back here!>>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 22, 2015, 05:48:57 AM

I'm just trying to imagine AniDragon with kids now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2015, 06:10:55 PM

I honestly do not know if she has any IRL or not.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Faerie of Dares

"In another dimension, another time and space,
A parallel universe was fallin' on its face.
When out of the chaos, who else could it be,
But the mighty adventurers from R-A-F, see?
Faerie! Captain Faerie of dares!
Mutants and aliens and spores beware!
You're looking for adventure? Well, this is it,
With the indomitable faerie who will never quit!
I said, Faerie! Captain Faerie of dares!"

“And now, an update on Captain Faerie who dares and the Spore Wars!” said an Incursion televsion reporter.

"In the battle of the RAFverse, you don't know what's next,
You only know Mycelium have made it complex!
When you check out your scanner and the evil that it bodes,
There's only one course of action: Let's slay us some spore abodes!
Faerie! Captain Faerie of dare!
He goes where no ordinary RAFian would dare!
If your Righteous Indignation has suffered a hit,
And your photon accelerator's broken a bit,
And you're losing your mind, and you're having a fit,
Get the funky fresh faerie who can take care of it!
Faerie! Captain Faerie of dares!
You say Faerie? I said Faerie!
Faerie of dares!
Let's kill us some spore aboads!"

A brief episode title ("Mycelium Menace") appeared and vanished.

Faerie stood upon the bridge of the Righteous Indignation, taking a brief break from piloting it. She wore a blue uniform, with royal purple accenting. Usually a cape was part of the uniform, but she eschewed it for the comfort of her wings. She mused about the Mycelium menace a tad, before resuming her piloting duties.

<<Finally!! The mnemonic inhibitor and personality override are functioning perfectly a-->>

What was that? That voice.

<<Oh, crap.>>

It must have been a mind trick from the Mycelium. . . . But wait a minute. Something was wrong here. Faerie wasn't a captain of any legitimate sort. . . . She couldn't pilot spacecraft. . . . She didn't like firearms, as she preferred more personal weapons. But . . . hang on a moment . . . those things couldn't be true either.

<<Hmmm . . .>>

That stupid voice thing again!!

Faerie set the Righteous Indignation to adrift, as she clutched her head in her hands. This whole thing was given her an unholy migraine. She rubbed her temples -- augh! She didn't have time for this the Mycelium . . . the Mycelium . . . the Mycelium wasn't real.

<<Ratings are actually holding . . .>>

Ignore the voice. It's unimportant.

What if . . .what if none of this was real? What if she had been manipulated into believing . . . No one manipulates her. No one.

<<Hmmm . . . maybe I can use this to my advantage,>> the voice said, thoughtfully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2015, 05:00:00 AM

Okay, currently planning through Book CDXV ("Brainiac's Touch"). And I have a few new book ideas.

• Book DCLXXXIX: "Nontrix" -- The RAFians come upon a beign creature who has no form of its own.
• Book DCXC: "Boyish Angst" -- A third Pantrix is made.
• Book DCXCI: "A Rather Skuzzi Theft" -- The Slimebiote, Skuzzi, returns taking three items of power for himself.
• Book DCXCII: "Joiners" -- The RAFians must deal with "Joiner" model exosuits.
• Book DCXCIII: "Return of the Pack Leader" -- An old enemy returns with a pack of Warwolves. He tries to discredit RAF, but isn't as skilled as he think he is.
• Book DCXCIV: "A Step Back" -- An anti-alien world leader is elected, and manages to push through some discriminatory legislation that deems all non-Terran-borne species as illegal immigrants.

Remember, all titles are libel to change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
TARDIS Trio

The door to Aquilai's TARDIS opens, and he extends a welcoming hand to the viewer.

"Let's go, then," he said. This couldn't sound anymore seedy, but the show went with it. After all, an educational show has no time to deal with naggling little details like that.

"Go!
There they go,
Three kids surfing on the chronal continuum.
There they go!
Green mist fills the air,
The TARDIS can take them anywhere!
Go!
Go!
There they go,
Three kids transcending time
As a nine-to-five.
There they go,
You can catch a ride with the TARDIS Trio.
Go!
Traveling through history!
The TARDIS Trio.
Go!"

Aquilai took them as companions, more or less unaware of the potential creepiness factor in doing so. But, as he had no intention of harming them, this unseemly aspect of this could just be a product of the current hypersensitive time in which we live, where people are much too quick to jump to conclusions, regardless whether they have any basis in fact.

Aquilai showed them cavemen -- Cro-Magnon -- times. The Time Lord had to dispel the common fallacy that humans and dinosaurs had ever lived at the same time. The human species would have never -- in his opinion -- have evolved if dinosaurs coexisted with them. If they did, and survived as a species, chances were better that they would not be physiologically be the same today.

<<Hmmm . . . this seems to be going well. The ratings are low, though.>>

Aquilai blinked, but he then showed them buccaneer times, and gave a bunch of historical information in an entertaining manner. They seemed fascinated (but it could be because the script called for it), and Aquilai was laying down the law about piracy and things.

<<Educational shows can be boring, though,>> the voice said.

Aquilai looked around, perplexed. He was feeling ssomething was quite wrong. But he did not voice it. He looked at the kids -- the blonde one, the one with black hair and glasses, and the darker-skinned one. And he got a chill . . .

Aquilai slapped himself mentally, these were kids. They were twelve-year-olds. They weren't threats. They couldn't be. They just couldn't. . . .

<<Oh, not again!>>

Aquilai showed them the 1920s and laid down the law about the socioeconomic subjects of the area. Only now there was the slightest hesitation in his voice.

<<Doesn't matter, though.>> the voice said. <<I have him watched. Even if he goes against the script, at least I can be assured that the ratings will be good. My other players are there.>>

That couldn't be good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 23, 2015, 05:27:46 AM

So he's the First Doctor now. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 24, 2015, 03:00:55 AM

Yeah . . . that was kinda of the inspiration.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Lovely RAFians

"Dashing and daring.
Courageous and caring.
Faithful and friendly,
With some much to share.
All through the RAFforest
They sing out in chorus
Marching along as the song fills the air!
Funny RAFians!
Posting here and there and everywhere.
High adventure that's beyond compare.
They are the lovely RAFians!
Magic and mystery
Are part of their history.
Along with the secret
Of lovey-dovey juice.
Their legend is growing
They take pride in knowing.
That they fight for what's right
No matter what they do.
Lovely RAFians!
Posting here and there and everywhere.
High adventure that's beyond compare.
They are the lovely RAFians!
They are the lovely RAFians!"

Enter a world that was thoroughly saccharine-saturated. Every single thing was overly and overtly sweet and nice and dandy. It was as if the show was coveringnup the lack of substance with much too many flashy colors and crappy effects.

This show would have a worse effect than Faerie in the Care Bears universe did (it was an incident involving an interdimensional depth charge -- but that's a whole another story). It was a pandering mess that passes itself off as a children show.

Gaz and Guy came prancing into view, completely and utterly out-of-character. Guy still possed his utility belt, which clashed horribly (and quite noticeably) with the environment. Yet still had it.

They stopped prancing immediately after they found themselves doing so, feeling a fool about it. They looked at their over-cheery place, and felt distinctly nauseated.

<<Wait a minute. That belt. It's completely wrong for this series. Ruins the aesthetic we're goin' for. Not to mention -- the kiddies may get ideas. Unauthorized ideas.>> the voice said. <<Besides, "Bob the Builder" has already cornered that market.>>

"You hear that?" Guy asked.

"The scenery or Jombo?" Gaz replied.

"How --"

"The colors are loud," Gaz sighed.

<<No, no, no,>> Jombo said, not addressing either RAFian. He was speaking to himself, which he considered the only intelligent conversation he can get. <<The belt clashes too much with the beautiful aesthetic we're going with. It will have to go. Wardrobe!!>>

"They're not taking my belt," Guy snarled.

Gaz was tempted to make a joke about a matching shoes with the belt, but decided against as being to contrived and not funny.

<<Wardrobe!! WARDRO -- Where is she?!>>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 24, 2015, 04:11:22 AM

I cannot even imagine RAFians in that setting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2015, 03:28:42 AM

It happened once before, in "Intro Randomness".

New chapter, which I'll preface with acknowledgement that I am playing against type here. You'll see why if you read on.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Parker Man

"Who's that guy?
What's his name?
Is he cool? Is he lame?
(Oh, you're talkin' about whatshisname.)
Parker Man, Parker Man!
Is he lame, is he cool?
Is he breaking every rule?
Is he everybody's fool?
Parker Man, Parker Man!
Parker Man, Parker Man!
Marchin' in his own parade,
Parker Man.
He's like one in a MILLION.
Parker Man, Parker Man.
Much too cool for ninth grade.
Catch him if you can.
Parker Man.
Parker Man, Parker Man.
Marchin' in his own parade.
Parker Man.
He's like one in a MILLION.
Parker Man, Parker Man.
Much too cool for ninth grade.
No one's cooler than Parker Man!
He's own biggest fan,
Parker Man!"

"This," Parker commented. "This, this right here, is so wrong on many different layers and issues."

He was somehow sitting at a cheap classroom desk/chair combination in full SPARTAN armor.  The armor -- its wearer -- should have caused the thing to buckle under the weight, at least. Granted, the Walker tech made the armor lighter aomehow, these were cheap desks. Age would have made them more brittle, the metal bits had a fair degree of rust already present.

The next glaring discrepancy was that Parker was obviously not a ninth-grader, obviously not fourteen or fifteen years old, but a grown man in a suit that claimed its own walking arsenal.

It was rather like a MAD or All That sketch.

It was also rather odd that Jombo had chose not to comment on this, on the utter ludicrous nature of this show's obvious discrepancy. He did not complain nor comment on it, it was as if he had more pressing priorities to attend to.

Parker didn't know this, however.

"Could have sent me into something like 'Iron Man' or 'Supernatural' or 'Smallville' or something," Parker groused in seething undertones. "But nooooooo . . ."

"Parker! Care to share?" said the teacher.

Parker considered pointing his dual fusion cannons at her, saying, "Some untimely death? Sure, I'll be glad to share." But that was far too dark for him, and he just settled for a semi-polite "no, ma'am".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 25, 2015, 03:50:30 AM

Jombo's voice didn't sound here?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2015, 04:55:46 PM

Yep.

Now a song that I meant to put into a previous book but forgot about.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Yes, Horse . . . Again

"It happened just about a couple months ago.
She looked so sweet and harmless.
Tell me, how were we to know?
She got a little too close to the microwave and then, much to our surprise,
She grew to forty thousand times her original size!
She started mutatin' right before our eyes!
Oh, my!
Attack of the radioactive seal from a forum called RAF,
A seal from a distant place,
Man, oh man, you oughta hear her squeal!
Now, the whole wide world is her exercise wheel.
Attack of the radioactive seal from a forum called RAF!
The President, he's is a panic.
The Pentagon, they're in shock!
There's a team of research scientists,
They got 'em workin' 'round the clock.
Now the National Guard is out in the RAF backyard,
And the Marines'll be comin' around.
I hope they get cure this poor pinniped,
'Cause the property values are goin' way down now!
Attack of the radioactive seal from a forum called RAF!
She's back and she's lookin' for a snack!
And she's not that fond of Burger Kings or salad bars.
Attack of the radioactive seal from a forum called RAF!
Well, well, look at that seal, she's as big as a blimp!
And, now, the size of central park!
She's using telephone pole to pick her teeth!
She seems evil and nasty and she glows in the dark!
Oh, don't waste any more of your bullets, boys!
You know it just makes her mad when you shoot.
She's gonna stomp us into jelly and conquer the world!
But, you gotta admit, that seal really kinda cute, now.
Attack of the radioactive seal from a forum called RAF!
What a racquet she's makin', Cannon!
She keep me up at night playin' her electric guitars!
Listen to her squeal!
She think the whole world is her exercise wheel.
Attack of the radioactive seal from a forum called RAF!
Hey, Louis, you better watch your back!
Here comes that seal from RAF!
Well, well, it's called the --
Attack of the radioactive seal
From the forum --
The forum called RAF!"

"I'm giant," Horse said, discontentedly, "again?!"

She settled in her spot and refused to move an inch. She folded her flippers in a resolutely petulant way.

"Nope, nuh-huh. Not doing it. Not doing anything. Not gonna put up with being a forty-foot tall seal again. No way," she said, stubbornly petulant.

<<Stupid slave in wardrobe, gonna have to send it to a deeper pit, maybe one with a Phobeest in it,>> a voice muttered with all the sounds and airs of someone settling themselves down before a television screen. <<What, what's this? Why isn't there any rampaging? Why isn't there any screaming and gore?>>

Then he noticed Horse's body language and correctly interpreted it. This was surprising enough, actually.

<<Hey. Floppy seal thing. You are supposed to be rampaging! Causing property value to drop. You know, interesting things?>>

It was the first time Jombo decided to address a RAFian directly in these ridiculous shows with ludicrous premises.

"No."

<<Do it!>>

"No."

<<Do it!!>>

"Nnno."

<<Do it!!!>>

"Pffffft." Horse raspberried (wait, can seals even do that?), ending with sticking out her tongue, lifting her head and closing her eyes.

<<Girly,>> Jombo said, his tone malicious and threatening, "you don't want me as an enemy. Just do what I want.>>

"Oh, I'm so scared," Horse said, clearly unimpressed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2015, 03:05:16 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Things Are Not What They Appear

Underseen was standing in a strange place of scarlet mist and he could swear he was hearing the "off-air" drone for some reason. He didn't know what was going on, which left him understandably perplexed and confused.

Why was he sent to an off-air program? Because that's what happened, right? He couldn't think of any other alternative (other than he had gone completely bonkers, that is).

Then he heard a creepy laughter. Then four faces, all indistinct and shifty pushed and pulled their ways in and out of the misty mire. Yet they were similar to the representation of a Celestialsapien's personalities, but that wasn't always consistent. All four gave Underseen the chills, as if he should have known them, but didn't.

And, of course, they had a song to sing.

The first face sang:
 

"Things are not what they appear,
As tonight will make quite clear.
But what is real will be revealed,
The moment's not nearly near."

The second face sang:

"Things are never what they seem.
That will be this evening's theme!
A music sights for your delight,
Perhaps, a few to make you scream!"

Then the fourth face seen, who had a distinct, yet vague, resemblance to Ivan Ooze from that Power Rangers movie , sang:

"You'll be surprised to see whose disguise
Is the cleverest one of the lot!
After our show, the whole aether will know
Who's is pretending to be what they're not!
If a jester's grin or a dancer's spin
Should be pleasing, please say 'Yea'!"

The other three faces, noticeably smaller than the fourth, spoke in unison, "Yea!"

The fourth face sang:

"If a juggler's feat should be incomplete,
He's the one to greet with 'Nay'!"

The other three face said, united, "Nay!"

The fourth face sang:

"If the fools we see should look like you and me,
Then before the night goes by --
Ask why, why, why, why, why,
Why?"

The third face sang:

"Things are not what they appear
And the finest proof's right here!"

The first face sang:

"Things are never what they seem.
So, in keeping with our theme --"

The fourth face sang:

"Things are never what they seem."

"He's right, he's right!" the other three declared.

"Many don't say what they mean."

"He's right, he's right!"

"A shifting face is just the place
To hide an ugly scheme!
Only one thing's really clear!
Things are not what they appear!"

Then the scarlet mists FFFOOOOOOM'ed and then receded, leaving nothing but the bars of light of the "off-air" signal. Underseen was left with many questions.

Was what he saw true, or was some sort of manipulation by Jombo? But the familiarity of those four . . . did he imagine it? Was it all some sort of terrible deception, some sort of awful illusion?

Worse, what if it was real? What if it was about . . . about his . . . past?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2015, 04:00:02 PM

Guess Saffa's busy.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Might As Well Face It . . .

"You planned a trip to RAF,
Just to watch RAFians grow.
I understand how you must feel.
I can't deny they've got appeal."

Cloak heard this with narrowed eyes. He was standing in a dark void, backlit by a dull sepia light. His amber eyes stood out in the semi-darkness.

"Whoa!
You like them whether they are hungry or they're stuffed, oh yeah.
Better face the facts, it seems you can't get enough!
You know, you're gonna have to face it.
You're addicted to RAF!"

"You think you're funny, huh?" Cloak growled dangerously.

"Your greedy hands, your pouty lips,
Looks like you found the clips.
Your belly aches, your teeth grind,
Some newbies would blow your mind."

"Of course you think you're funny, Jombo," Cloak said, massaging his forehead with his right thumb, right index and middle finger.

"And you don't mind if they're not crooked.
You need your fix, I guess you're hooked.
And late at night you always dream
Of RAF and sour cream!"

"Wait just a gateburstin' minute here!" Cloak said, offended. "That wasn't me! That was the Pootang! . . . I . . . I think."

"Whoa, you like them even if they're lumpy or tough, oh yeah.
Whee, It's pretty obvoius to me you can't get enough.
You know you're gonna have to face it.
You're addicted to RAF!"

"I am not addicted." Cloak said, dismissively.

"Might as well face it, you're addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, you're addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, you're addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, you're addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, you're addicted to RAF!"

"Repetition does not make it truthful," Cloak countered.

"Ooh, yeah!"

"Did . . . did you just agree with me?" Cloak said, perplexed.

"I'm givin' up, it's just no use.
Another case of Internet-abuse.
What can I say, what can I do?
RAF bug has got me too, wa-hoo!"

"By the First Light," Cloak said, facepalming a bit. The last thing they would want was more attention by this Spineless One. Granted, it wasn't probably him singing -- the singer was actually good.

"Whee, I've often seen then whipped, but they just can't be beat!
Now I'm gonna have to face it.
I'm addicted to RAF!"

"I think this program just lost its point."

"Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!"

Cloak groaned. The last thing RAFians would need would be future encounters with this irritating, egomaniacal blob of flesh. The absolute last thing.

Rotiart was already plenty.

"Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!
Might as well face it, I'm addicted to RAF!"

Cloak was rubbing his temples, attempting steady himself from the sheer irritation he felt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2015, 03:20:47 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Cloak Walks Off

"We will be back after these messages," the stereotypical announcer said.

"'These Messages'," Cloak said, waspishly. He read the title, in a disgusted, "breaking-the-fourth-wall" sort of way. Then he quickly added, rather caustically, "oh, that's real clever, absolutely brilliant, Mojo."

<<That's Jombo!>>

"Whatever."

<<I'm ten times the man as that moron!! I rule the improperly-named Mojoverse!! I have the higher ratings!! I . . . I . . . I . . .>>

"I touched a nerve, didn't I?" Cloak said, his irritation lifting a bit at this.

<<Oh, shut up, you pea-brained piece of -->>

"Do you have any idea who you're talking to?" Cloak said, tone suddenly serious and severe.
The irritation had taken hold again.

<<Do you?!>> Jombo snarled, clearly losing his composure (if you can call it such). <<You forget who holds the strings here! You forget who controls your fate!!>>

"You overestimate yourself," Cloak said, cold and calm.

<<You underestimate me!>> Jombo spat. <<You cannot escape from this program. I can make any changes to it I deem fit! I can strip you of your percieved powers in an instant. You are powerful, but only with your abilities, your powers. Without them, you are at my mercy.>>

There was an audible "bleep-beep-bloop" sound.

<<There! Your powers are gone. You cannot stand against me!>>

"Don't you know anything about Realm Walkers?" Cloak asked, unintimidated.

<<I know everything! I know all about Realm Walkers!>>

"Do you now?" Cloak said, unimpressed.

<<Don't you take that tone with me!!>>

"Talk about having control issues," Cloak commented calmly.

<<What?!>>

"If you know so much about my kind," Cloak said, unfolding his arms, "then this shouldn't surprise you."

Cloak turned on his heel, swirled his cloak, and Walked out of the program.

<<WHAT?!>> Jombo raged. <<IMPOSSIBLE!>>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2015, 03:36:25 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Disappearing Stars

Jombo was still miffed from his yelling match with Cloak. But he was unnerved that he seemed to disappear from the program. This should be impossible. He had total control over each and every aspect of the Mojoverse! None question him. None disobeyed him. None resisted him. NONE!!!

The Realm Walker had to still be there. He just had to be. None can escape his whims. None can evade his desires. None can deny him. No one!!!

It was remarkable that Jombo managed to still reign over Mojoverse when he seemed to have the highest difficulty putting two and two together. Adding to the fact that he had seen images and video of Cloak Walking away and back (only one-sided, of course). Granted, it is possible that never comprehended what it was truly and just assumed that it was a form of teleportation instead of what amounted to be dimensional travel. He could never really understood the process of Walking, he only knew that Cloak possessed elemental powers.

And, yet, he still had the audacity to claim to know everything about Realm Walkers. In actuality and reality, he didn't really understand even the name. He did not know as much as he thought he did. He did not have as much control that he thought he did.

He flipped the channel. The off-air signal was still present, but Underseen was not. But apparently Jombo did not realize the shapeshifter was here in the first place, despite putting him there in the first place.

He flipped a channel again.

"What's this?!" he gasped, feeling outraged.

Horse was noticeably absent. There was no way that she could have left --

He flipped the channel again. Parker -- gone. Gaz and Guy -- gone. AniDragon -- gone! Faerie -- gone, too!! Blue -- absent. Slushie -- GONE. Aquilai -- VANISHED!!!

"WHAT?!" Jombo raged. "WHERE -- What about my RATINGS?!"

He eyed the three boys, the characters that were portrayed as Aquilai's companions. They looked rather scared. But, of course, they weren't boys at all.

"YOU THREE!" Jombo yelled at the top of his voice. "Warwolves! Tell me what happened or I'll repossess those skins I permitted you to have, that practically gift wrapped for you."

They described the events, and Jombo was not pleased at all.

"And why didn't you stop him?!"

"Sir -- sir, we couldn't!" the blond boy said.

"Couldn't," Jombo snarled, "or wouldn't?"

"We weren't able to move, sir!" the glasses-wearing one said, fretfully. "He somehow immobilized us!"

"He shouldn't be have been able to do that," Jombo said, more to himself than the three.

"There's a simple reason for that, you know," came a voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2015, 05:21:27 PM

:dull: Oh, people at Kindle or whoever is in charge of this stuff. Can't you just leave things alone? Must you change your format every few weeks? Why must you go out if your way to make my life harder, to make it harder for me to post chapters? Can't you at least give me, oh, I don't know -- an option to decline your updates, without any negative repercussions?

Why must you take your cues from Google?

Wait . . . I can get the weather report on my Kindle Fire? . . . Okay. Okay! That's a cool little feature. . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
On Demand, But Rejected

"What?! You?! It's not possible!" Jombo said.

"I'd say you need to stop thinking that," Cloak said. "But you're a televsion executive, so I imagine that you don't have much of an imagination."

"I concur," Parker said, giving a grim nod.

"Do we really do this banter thing?" Slushie Man said. "I'd much rather get this whole thing over with."

"I'm with Slushie on this," AniDragon said. "There's eleven of us -- and one of those eleven is Cloak -- and one of him. The invertebrate."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Jombo huffed.

"On you," Horse said, equally huffily, " it is."

"You are defenseless, blob," Faerie intoned. "You are no challenge to us. You can use your little remote to send us back -- but we'll just come back in a matter of moments. There is nothing you can do to stop us from leaving."

"And you won't come back to RAF," Blue said, astutely guessing what Jombo was thinking. "Will you, now?"

"I can do whatever I like!"

"You are --" Underseen said. But he never finished the thought, as with a resounding ZZZZZZZAP a laser blast blew a considerable-sized hole into the wall behind him. It was apparently an interior one, because it opened into an enclosed room instead of the red-tinted environment on the exterior of the place.

"That," Jombo said, warningly. "That was a warning shot."

"You think that intimidates me?" Cloak said, slowly approaching the Spineless One. He walked with deliberation, each step silent and soft, his cloak mincing with every one. "You think your little toy impresses me?"

ZZZZZZAP!!

Cloak timing was perfect, he swatted the blast away, as if it was a bothersome fly. Cloak was a little disappointed that he couldn't even feel it. It was clearly an unrefined design, like someone who throws rocks without any real talent or skill thinking himself equal or superior to a skilled, accomplished archer.

"Pathetic," Cloak said coldly.

"Y-You are staying!" Jombo stuttered, but clearly offset by this development.

"He has guts," Guy observed.

"Of course," Gaz replied, "he's all gut!"

"Are you going to make us?" Cloak said, slowly and deliberately.

"No," Blue agreed. "He won't. He'll just come back again and again to harass us."

"There is one way to stop him," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2015, 09:18:25 PM

. . .

Hope Saffa's okay.

. . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Sent to the Warwolves

"Cloak, isn't that a bit extreme?" Underseen said, unable fathom how that Cloak would jump to the extreme of killing the Spineless One so quickly.

"Oh," Cloak said, snapping his fingers and causing Jombo's mechanical arachnid-like legs to shatter into powder (at least all the metal bits) causing him to thump to the floor with one of the loudest THUMPs, "somehow, I don't think so."

The scorpion tail thrashed wildly, trying to take aim to shoot, but failing to track any targets. And, still, Cloak wasn't done yet. With a series of graceful, deceptively gentle movements Cloak pulled appart the the scorpion tail, component by component, revealing that it was purely mechanical, and not biomechanical, as suspected. Cloak rendered each metal component of this elaborate mechanism into powder.

When Cloak was done he stood up straight with only smallest of flourishes, and looked at Jombo. "I think that should do it."

"My plateform! What have you done?!"

"You should never tick off a Master of Metal, pal," Cloak said, indifferent. "You were the one that made the threats. You were the one who attempted to kidnap and enslave the RAFians -- with the curious omission of me -- and Richard himself, for that matter (apparently the Vox had more guts than you). You should have known that it would come down to this."

"You aren't leaving!! You can't!! My ratings will suffer."

"We really don't give a rat's you-know-what about your accursed ratings!" Faerie snarled. "You could have at least asked to have us come here. But no. No, you have to kidnap us. You have foist your demands upon us and expect us to obey."

"You have become too accustomed to slaves," Aquilai pointed out shrewdly. "You are so obviously unprepared to deal with people with strong wills that wish to keep freedom."

"Theres no way out of here," the Spineless One countered.

"What about that, then?" Guy said, pointing to an obvious portal rather like a full-length mirror mounted onto the wall with the bottom touching the ground.

"That's not a portal," he said, rather quickly.

"Then why does it read, 'Portal Door', above it, then?" Gaz asked, with a knowing look.

"Oh, you can read," he muttered quietly, but Cloak heard it easily. Then he blustered, "You will not be leaving!"

"You're in no position to stop us," Parker said bluntly.

"Oh, you think so?" he said with a tone that said plainly that he had an unplayed ace up his nonexistent sleeve. Then he shouted, "Helix! Helix!! Where the devil are you?! Helix!!! Get in here!! NOW!!!"

She straddled into the room, looking disgruntled and nonplussed at once. Then, when she saw the RAFians, she surmised what happened. She was annoyed by her boss at this development.

"Seriously?" Faerie said, through heavy-lidded eyes. She clearly wasn't impressed.

"Warwolves! Get in here!"

Creatures of some sort of mimetic metal, a lustrous silver metal, came prancing into the room like large dogs eager to obey their master. Their lower body was rather lupine, and their forearms were rather like humans ending in gargoyle-like claws. Their heads were rather avian in shape, without feathers, of course. They possessed yellow eyes. They were roughly the size of an average human male.

And there was the three boys from Aquilai's show.

"What are you three doing? Get out of those skins. I'm not goin' to replace them! If I have to, I'll take out of your hides!"

"Sorry, sir!" the blond one said.

Then the three appeared to projectile vomit a shapeless mass of lustrous silver metal. The boys themselves hollowed out, as the shapeless mass assumed more defined forms. Cloak could hear loud gasps around him. He wasn't surprised that he didn't hear screams, after their dealings with Skinwalker.

They tied their skins to their necks.

"We don't have time for your games, Jombo." Cloak said. Then, without even looking, he adressed the Time Lord, "Aquilai."

"Coordinates set. It was alarmingly simple and easy." he replied. "Could be a trap."

"He's in television," Mr. Guy said, dryly. "He isn't gonna be too smart. Remember the spate of reality shows we had?"

"Those are big!" Jombo said, momentarily forgetting what he was doing. But he seemed to recover relatively quickly. "Dah, I mean, attack!!"

Only Helix reacted and obeyed, albeit reluctantly. The Warwolves did nothing.

"Attack!"

Faerie handed Helix a sound defeat, apparently taking immense insult that she managed to capture the faerie.

"Attack!!!"

Nothing.

"Attack!!!!"

All of the RAFians but Cloak had walked through the opened portal.

"Why are you not attacking?!"

"Oh," Cloak said, lazily flinging a gold-edged scarlet energy crescent at the portal. Destroying it. "Oh, I believe that it's kind of my fault, that."

"What? Make sense!"

"The Warwolves are metal enough to have to bend to my will," Cloak said, left arm raised in a very nonchalant, bored manner. "They are hardly a threat. But more of a threat than you."

Cloak lowered his arm, while saying, "I'm gone."

Cloak Walked away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2015, 05:29:00 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Honest Truth

Jombo did not find a way to follow them back to RAF, at least for the past five days. Yet it continued to weigh on Cloak's mind. There was really no reason for it, but Cloak felt that there was still something left untied up, some sort of loose end left dangling. But he could not put his finger on it.

The other RAFians did not seem to be concerned about this like Cloak was, so maybe he was just being overly suspicious and paranoid. Perhaps he was making a mountain out of an anthill. Again.

And, yet . . .

***

"Really?" Shadow asked.

Her grandmother, Cloak's mother, Ursa, was telling her what happened when she kicked out her uncle from the house. But the story was completely made up and would easily fall apart at the flimsiest investigation, the merest attempt to fact-check.

"It's the unvarnished truth.
The naked truth.
Or my lightning strike me down!
It's the honest truth.
The sober truth.
Or may lightning strike me down!
It's the truth.
The whole truth and nothing but.
Tell you what.
Here's a written guarantee.
That it's the gospel truth.
The straight-up truth.
Or may lightning strike that key!
It's the truth.
The whole truth and nothing but.
Tell you what.
Ask about any loophole you see.
That it's the gospel truth.
The straight-out truth.
Or may lightning strike that sea!
I'm an honest bear.
Don't think me any other!
And that's the unvarnished truth.
The naked truth.
Or may lightning strke me down!
It's the honest truth.
The sober truth.
Or may lightning strike me down.
It's the truth.
The whole truth and nothing but.
The gospel truth.
The straight-out truth.
Or may lightning strike thee!"

And Shadow bought all this, as the dream ended.

***

Cloak woke up, ironing his forehead with the heel of his palms. He ran his fingers through his thick feline fur. He kicked his legs over the side of his bed, his tail tumping beside him. His breath was a bit ragged, but steady.

He reflected back to the dream. It was a reflection of a fear he had early on when he was exhiled from his family -- well, other than his aunt and cousins. He was fortunate to reconnect with Shadow and Faith, though his relationship with his mother was irreparable. Unsurprising, considering she once told him the proper way to take his own life.

He shook his head, as if to shake away these dark, negative thoughts. He really had to stop dwelling on this. He's free now. Free from her and all her manipulations. She can't hurt him anymore. She has no power kver him. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2015, 05:03:15 PM

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXIV:
THE SOULFUL DRINKER
CHAPTER ONE:
Monorail!

"Well, sir there's nothing on Earth quite like an electrified, bona-fide, six-car monorail!" said a oily salesman. He wore a loud, flannel shirt, khakis, and pennyloafers. Atop his carefully coufed blonde hair sat a straw hat. He had a blemish-free face and perfect teeth. His stormy gray eyes were alight with a certain spark. "What'd I say?"

"Monorail!" some of the newbies said, their sheer inexperience showing.

"What's it called?" the salesman intoned.

"Monorail." said two of the raspier-voiced newbies.

"That's right!  Monorail!" the oiliest salesman in the world said. Surprising that he wasn't one of those strange, extraterrestrial, porcupine-opossum species (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Argit%27s_Species).

RAFian newbies began to chant: "Monorail.  Monorail.  Monorail."

But one wasn't quite so easily convinced:

"I heard those things are awfully loud."

The conman sang:

"It glides as softly as a cloud."

"Is there a chance the track could bend?"

"Not on your life, my impromptu friend!"

"What about those poor slobs?"

She referred to the people in the city which was having some unemployment problems. Didn't help that the mayor was practically raising taxes (or at least trying to) on everything, and just the general politcial corruption that already blighted the countryside.

Con man replied, a little too smoothly:

"They'll be given cushy jobs!"

"Were you sent here by the devil?"

"No, good lady, I'm on the level."

Rotiart complained:

"The ring came off my pudding can."

The conman offered Rotiart a penknife.

"Then take my penknife, my good man!"

Then he conjured up a simple wooden, straight-backed piano somehow. He began to play with magical skill and when he sang, the newbies would chime in "Monorail! after each line.

"Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
What's it called?
Once again!"

Guitarhero was watching this with a look of utter bemusement and bewilderment on his face. His guitar was slung ever so carefully and gently on his back. The thing was far more pristine than a car enthusiast's car, and that was really saying something. He replied to this, unintentionally in song:

"But the city's still all cracked and broken."

Sorunome, who came out from her thread to see what the hullabaloo was about, replied dryly:

"Apparently, GH, the newbies have spoken."

The RAFian newbies sang:

"Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
MONORAIL!"

It was at this point Cloak himself left his thread, still dealing with that dream, the dream of an old, irrational fear. Then he looked at the hubbub and quickly surmised what when on, and he rapidly complained, "Oh, not another one!!"

Then he proceeded to evict the salesman from the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 31, 2015, 03:01:58 AM

... Why would you even need a monorail here? :orly:

And I'm back. Was out of town for a few days, sorry about that. And thanks for the chapters!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2015, 06:39:34 AM

We don't, but the conman was trying to convince us otherwise. And GH was pointing out that it would be really bad PR with the city if we did go through with it.

And glad to see you're okay.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Bump in the Night

It was just after sunset. Night was just getting settled in, and on a simple farm, a family was settling in as well. Their land was broad, and the fields were filled with crops, that were in the process of being harvested. The livestock was penned for the night, though a chicken refused to be in the coop.

The family inside the blue farmhouse with snow white trim were finishing up their lasagna dinner. There was a heavy-set man in blue jean overalls with a long-sleeved brown flannel shirt and a scraggly black beard flecked with gray. His wife and only daughter, who was only seven, wore dresses that recalled Belle from "Beauty and the Beast", one of sapphire blue and one of emerald green. His three sons were dress similarly to their father, the nine-year-old wore a long-sleeved green flannel shirt with grass stains and blue jean overalls, the twelve-year-old wore a long-sleeved red flannel shirt with a single small burn hole and blue jean overalls, and the sixteen-year-old wore a slightly-damp blue flannel shirt and blu jean overalls.

The family had their share of problems, but they were far from dysfunctional. They remained happy and their crops and livestock were really their only major concern. They were good people.

Which was really unfortunate.

Down a slightly sloping hill, a tremendous crash occured, just missing a pickup truck by a couple of feet. There was a lot of sound and light and fire. The impact crater was rather impressive, in a macabre way. It didn't fail to garner the family's attention.

The nine-year-old was the first one out to investigate, though his brothers weren't that far behind. It was really foolish of them to get close to the downed Andalite ship, as they were carrying a very dangerous cargo. The most dangerous cargo they ever carried. The Andalite crew died upon the impact, with the inertia dampeners clearly offline at the time of impact. None could react in time.

"What is that?" the sixteen-year-old asked cautiously.

"It's a spaceship!" the nine-year-old declared.

"Don't be stupid," the twelve-year-old sneered.

The nine-year-old did not get to retort, as something emerged from the ship. It was not an Andalite, as it glowed with a deep yellow glow. It was tough to say whether the creature was one of matter or one of energy or merely spectral in nature. It was large, roughly the size of a rancor.

It was comprised of a yellow flame-like energy that swirled around within its frame. It possessed one large, red eye in the center of its skull and a large mouth with jagged teeth. It walked on two long legs and has two arm-like feelers under its gaping maw.

"Who's the stupid one now?"

Apparently, it was still the nine-year-old boy. For the creature took notice of the three -- their parents and sister stayed on the porch of the farmhouse, watching the three, but too far away to hear conversation -- and the creature approached them with alarming rapidity. But the boys had no time for so much as even a preliminary scream.

Three deep green tendrils launched and snaked out of its mouth and adhered to the chest of each of the boys. From there, it siphoned the life from them. Their bodies showed no signs of this happening, though. They still appeared whole and untouched. With three simultaneous thuds, the boys' bodies fell, looking untouched, other than the whole of their eyes were glowing yellow. They were lifeless, basically.

The creature tranversed up the hill as the boys' parents and sister came up, but out of its range. But upon the creature's forehead it used the boys' images to beg for their help. This immobilized the three enough for the creature, the Spirit-Drinker (or Soul-Drinker, if you prefer), to close the distance and make a meal out of the three as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 31, 2015, 08:13:53 AM

This is seriously creepy.

PDFs of the last two books - yeah, missed one back there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2015, 04:34:53 PM

Oh, it won't stop getting creepy. Spirit-Drinkers are like that. Granted, there's only one . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
A Disturbance in the Kitty Force

Cloak's eyes widened suddenly.

"Just one day," he muttered. "Can't we just get a reprieve? Just once?"

"What's . . . what's going on, Cloak?" Guitarhero said, noticing this.

"It more trouble, isn't it?" Sorunome said.

FuBar and Bladeh yowled. Kitsi and Nero snarled.

"Oh, yeah," Cloak said. Cloak had suddenly felt quite cold, and he doesn't feel cold very often, what with his Mastery over the Fire element always at hand . . . despite his pyrophobia.

"Great evil?" Sorunome said, as if asking what Cloak's takeout order was.

"Great evil?" Guitarhero repeated, perplexed at the casual nature of this conversation.

"Great evil," Cloak confirmed.

"Specifics?"

"None at this time," Cloak said, clinically. "Cats can only sense the presence of evil, not the precise specifics."

"Call an assembly, then?"

"No, we do not know the specifics."

"I am getting the feeling that I'm missing something here," Guitarhero said, with an exasperated sigh.

Cloak noted, in a quiet, musing aside, "It's night. These things always happen at night. One has to wonder . . . why . . . why always at night?"

The Realm Walker shook his head, to clear it. This wasn't the time for philosophical musings or irreverent ponderings. It was time for seriousness.

"While we do not know the specifics, we do know something has happened --"

"Meeting in the auditorium," came Aquilai over the intercom.

"Yep," Guitarhero said, running his fingers apprehensively. "Something's most certainly going on."

***

"Approximately, an hour ago," Aquilai said, briefing them all, "the global sensors detected an incursion in planetary airspace."

"What kind of incursion?" Cloak questioned aptly.

"It appears to be some sort of crash landing. We have the rough coordinates." Aquilai said. "It also appears to be connected with a garbled bit of communication that we got. I know that I probably should have dismissed it as white noise, but --"

"You thought that it might be important," Saffa guessed. "Did it says anything intelligible?"

"Regrettably, I couldn't gather anything," the Time Lord admitted. "But it did seem to have a thought-speak-to-audio translator."

<What?> Noelle said, at once.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 31, 2015, 10:50:04 PM

So it was a hijacked Andalite ship?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2015, 03:31:04 AM

No, they just got careless with their cargo.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Cold, Dark, Dank

The family of six only wet the Spirit-Drinker's appetite. It had been so long since it had fed. It was a bit foolish, yes, in its haste upon the Andalite ship. But once its containment unit had been breached, it was mere child's play to wriggle its way out -- again, calling into question whether it was material or immaterial, whether it was substantial or insubstantial -- and, once out, it was absolutely famished.

But there were not nearly sufficient Andalites to satiate its massive hunger. Not nearly enough. However, without the Andalites there to pilot the craft, it quickly fell into a decaying orbit around Earth. It seemed like forever before it plummeted to the planet's surface. It was enough time for the creature (who had questionable sentience) to feel the pangs of hunger once more, and far more harshly than the dull pangs before it fed on the Andalites.

There were no more humans here, but the Spirit-Drinker was not without prey to feed on. The livestock seemed to be far more aware of the danger that this creature represented than the farmer's family did. There were loud squeals of terror and shrieks of horror. The horses panicked and kicked but it wasn't enough to free them.

The Spirit-Drinker usually did not prefer creature such as these. It found the more sentient a creature was, the more that both the quality and quantity was increased. Exponentially. But, the hunger made him not so choosy.

The barn was alight with sounds of abject terror. But, within minutes, there was a disturbing silence that followed. A dead silence that was just oozing finality, as it exited the barn without a sound. Its feet did not really make a mark upon the ground.

The Spirit-Drinker looked around, deciding that this place was too warm, too dry, and too open for its liking. It liked the darkness, though. Funny how such evil creatures were always partial to dark, dank places.

Its appetite satiated for the moment (which wouldn't last very long), it looked for an appropriate hidey-hole or burrow where it can rest and wait for its next hapless prey item to blunder within range. It could actively seek out things and people to eat, but it was feeling rather lazy.

And what worry did it have? It had never known fear, a real paralyzing fear. It had never met anything that could really destroy it, so it had all the arrogant confidence of an apex predator that knew it was an apex predator. Yes, it was to be feared, not to do the fearing.

It came upon the rusted-out entrance to the sewers. Dark, dank, and cold. It was the Spirit-Drinker's ideal home. It trundled into the entrance and scooted along, like a beetle beneath the bark of a tree.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2015, 08:19:42 AM

No April's Fools jokes here. Never been very fond of 'em.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
RAFian Investigators

Cloak, Shadow (against her uncle's better judgement), Faerie, Aquilai, Phoenix, Hunter, Nina, Goom, Parker, and Horse were sent to investigate this incursion. It was the one of the largest contingent ever sent by RAF for a mere investigation. It was telling that the Mods thought it was necessarily prudent to send so many (granted Shadow elected herself to go, and was not, technically-speaking, a RAFian).

"This the place?" Horse asked

"Well," Aquilai said, checking his data on his handheld, "it should be, if we're judging the trajectory from the point of atmospheric entry correctly."

"Which is a very wordy way of saying, 'yeah, probably'," Shadow said, impetuously scouting ahead.

"Shadow, don't go too far!" Cloak warned.

"Earthsight, Uncle!"

The elder Realm Walker came to the mistaken conclusion that she was always within his "sight" as long as she was touching earth. But he quickly realized that wasn't what she was getting at. She was telling him, in a way only she could, that he should have been using Earthsight.

When he did, he did not like what he "saw".

"There's no way anyone could survive this crash," Nina said, sadly. "All those Andalites . . ."

"There would only have been around ten, given the size of the craft," Parker said. "That's more than usual for an Andalite freighter."

"What are you saying?" Phoenix inquired of the SPARTAN.

"The cargo they had must have been something that was incredibly dangerous, and required a guard around it." he surmised. "The reason they used a nonmilitary spacecraft was probably because this cargo -- whatever it was -- was meant to be secret."

"Secret weapon?" Goom asked. "Lemme guess, a secret weapon of mass destruction."

"Plausibly," Parker said. "But let's worry about the interplanetary ramifications later, and let's see what this cargo is, and why all the secrecy was about."

"Whatever the cargo was," Hunter said, inspecting the wreckage, "it's not here anymore."

"What?" Faerie said.

"There seems to be some sort of warning, I guess." Hunter replied. "I can't be sure, I can't read Andalite."

"Are you sure that's Andalite script?" Nina asked, having joined him.

"It's not," Cloak said, dully. "It's Shi'ar."

"It's what?"

Cloak felt a chill. He had an inkling what this cargo was, but he hoped he was wrong. He continued to hope that they did not exist in this realm. They couldn't exist here . . . First Light, they better not exist here. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 01, 2015, 10:18:55 AM

Oh I still remember last time's April Fools' joke. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 01, 2015, 06:38:13 PM

Then you have one up on me. . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Pieces of the Puzzle

"Can't be," Cloak muttered. "Not this . . ."

"What do you mean by --" Hunter began before Shadow's shout.

"Uncle!! Here!"

Cloak deftly followed the younger Realm Walker's summons with a snappy gait of which Severus Snape would be proud. He was very serious, hoping Shadow's discovery would be one of little to no consequence.

He would be disappointed.

"Look," she said, quietly. All levity had left her . . . for she had found the family of six, laying forgotten, bodies unmarked. If not for the eyes, glowing yellow in their entirety, they would look like victims of Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse.

"What happened here?" Phoenix asked aghast.

"A creature had to have done this," Hunter said, sniffing the air, "the tracks are very shallow, so the creature must be very light. But that does not mean that it's not dangerous. The scent is both acrid and faint."

"What could do this?" Nina wondered aloud, having seeing the family of six and discovering the similarly-afflicted livestock.

"Spirit-Drinker," Cloak said, recognizing the evidence of the creature's handiwork on the victims at once. "I had hoped they didn't exist in this realm."

"You've seen this monster before?" Parker demanded.

"Have you ever seen an ankylosaur?" Cloak countered, not caring for the accusatory tone in Parker's voice. "In the flesh? With your own eyes?"

"Yes," the SPARTAN said tersely.

"Other than the Dinosaur Island thing," Cloak said, dismissively. "I hear about creatures through literature, media, first-hand accounts -- the same as any of you. I do not know which creatures exist in many realms and which are solely unique to one. Humans, for example, inhabit many of the realms, but do not in others. How was I to know Spirit-Drinkers could exist here? And, who knows, this one could be the very last of its kind."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Faerie said. "Simmer down, Cloak. We just want to know what we're up against. You have an idea of just that -- the rest of us don't."

It was then that Cloak elaborated on what he knew about Spirit-Drinkers. Suffice it to say, it wasn't much. But he placed emphasis on its feeding behavior -- that he was aware of, anyway.

"Kinda glad I have my armor, then," Parker said.

"It wouldn't matter if you were wearing Hulkbuster armor or stark naked," Cloak said. "Your armor won't protect you."

"But it's a titani--"

"Doesn't matter!" Cloak said. "In another realm, I saw video evidence of a cyborg with armor similar to yours became victimized by the creature."

Cloak took Parker's silence to mean that he didn't believe the Realm Walker.

"Shouldn't we follow the trail before it gets cold?" Hunter suggested pragmatically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 01, 2015, 10:51:13 PM

The fact that it can penetrate armour just makes it worse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2015, 03:08:14 PM

True, true.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Trails and Their Ends

Fortunately, the trail had not gone too cold. But only Cloak, Shadow, Horse, Hunter and Parker could follow the trail, as the others could not perceive it in any way. Granted, Parker needed his suit's tech to "see" the trail when he otherwise would be unable to. The trail was faint a difficult to trace even with Cloak, Shadow, Horse, and Hunter's bestial senses.

"Uncle? Are you o-- ?"

"This way," Cloak said, not-so-subtly deflecting her question. She had noticed a certain subtle harshness in her uncle's movements and movements, a slight harder tone in his voice when he spoke.

It scared her. It scared her, because she knew that her uncle was afraid. This fact alarmed her because her uncle never wore fear on his sleeve like this, he always kept his emotions to himself mostly.

She did not know the truth of why he had came to do that. It was be ause it was the only way to survive his mother. His mother who loved herself more than she loved any of her progeny. Cloak learned the hard way how quick Ursa would turn away her own children. He kept his emotions down, compressed and repressed, to immunize himself from the pain of this heartache.

The thing with Realm Walkers was that they didn't usually sport scarring of the kind that can be seen. Nearly all, if not all, the scars a Realm Walker bears cannot be seen. Cloak was no exception. Though being around his RAFian brethren was helping him heal, it wouldn't be an immediate solution, and he was apt to relapse into the dark thoughts every now and then.

"In there," Hunter pointed, taking a cautious sniff. "I'm fairly certain that it's in there."

"I concur," Horse said.

"The readings corroborates this," Parker said, arms folded loosely.

"Why a sewer?"

"It's dark. It's dank. It's cold." Cloak observed impassively. "Monstrous beasts like Spirit-Drinkers would undoubtedly seek out such environments, like black widows or the like."

"I'm getting a serious 'Outlast' vibe from this," Aquilai said. No one argued.

"Let's get this over with," Cloak said, entering the sewer, confident in his Earthsight ability to alert him of danger.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 02, 2015, 10:01:04 PM

It's been hard keeping up with babysitting this week. But I'm all caught up!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2015, 03:15:09 AM

I'm glad, Gazzy!

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
It Comes . . .

"Ew," Faerie groaned. "I honestly do not know how you guys can tolerate being down here. In the sewers."

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Nina chided good-naturedly. Still, Faerie gave her such a look that Nina was lucky that Faerie was not a basilisk.

"I honestly don't see what the problem is. This sewer is actually known for being one of the cleanest in the world." Goom said, calmly.

But ninja turtles and Goombas are at home in the sewers, and these sewers wererather unnecessarily expansive. The effluent water was kept separated from the bricked walkways on either side of the water. There were pipes inlaid overhead. The walls where the pipes connected were rather slimy beneath. But Goom was right, it was rather sanitary and clean -- for a sewer.

"Although this begs the question," Aquilai said, thoughtfully, "as to whom precisely does the cleaning of the sewer. Who keeps the upkeep of this sewer?"

No one answered or spoke until Cloak harshly dismissed it as irrelevant to their task at hand. But they found two maintenance workers who had symptoms identical to that of the family and livestock.

"It's definitely down here," Parker said, grimly.

They proceeded to wander around for a bit, when a disconcerting thought occurred to Cloak. One he tried to dismiss as easily as Aquilai's question.

The shallow footprints filled Cloak's mind. It led Cloak to wonder . . . maybe the Spirit-Drinker's footsteps were too light. This would cause a problem with Earthsight, as the ability was entirely dependent -- entirely dependant -- on vibration, on being able to "see" things from the aforementioned vibrations. If the vibration was too light . . .

But Cloak make his own vibrations, terrakinetic vibrations, like actively echolocating, but through the Earth. . . . However . . . the Spirit-Drinker's unique physiology . . . it may just absorb these vibrations . . .

If all this was true . . .

Cloak stopped walking. His face betraying his insecurity and fear. This realization scared him, and made him realize that perhaps, just perhaps, he was over-reliant on the ability. It might have made him a bit overconfident.

"Cloak," Horse said, full of concern. "Cloak, you're scaring me."

If it was true . . .

If it was true . . .

"Un--" Shadow hesitated, but plowed onward, "Uncle?"

If it was true . . . then that meant that the Spirit-Drinker . . . was very possibly . . . immune to Earthsight! This was seriously frightening for Cloak, who felt suddenly blind. Added to that was that Cloak wasn't sure if Realm Walkers were immune to the Spirit-Drinker feeding.

A pinprick on the back of Cloak's neck, and Cloak wheeled around to around eight o'clock. He quickly realized they had traversed to an area where the sewer waters did not penetrate, almost as if they themselves were afraid of the creature the RAFians saw barreling behind them.

The Spirit- Drinker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 03, 2015, 03:38:31 AM

Oh god the suspense!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2015, 07:26:50 PM

Yeah, there'll be plenty more of that.

Anyway, I currently finished planning out "RAFian Day", and I will move on to the next during lunch at work tomorrow . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Victims Scored

"There!" Cloak shouted, raising his right hand and forming an energy disc, rather like a Destructo Disc, only scarlet with gold at the edges. "Get ready, and keep your wits about you now!"

The Spirit-Drinker saw them with its Cyclopean eye and began to expel the tentacles from its fanged mouth as if it were belching out overlarge worms. Cloak tossed the rapidly rotating energy disc, which caused it to briefly slurp up the worm-like tentacle tongues.

This caused Cloak to blink, perplexed. That was far too easy.

But the Spirit-Drinker just spewed up the tentacles again, and they elongated and stretched toward the RAFians again. Cloak cursed himself for daring to think that it would be so simple to defeat such a creature.

"I got this," Parker said, confidently. Too confidently.

He blasted the Spirit-Drinker with his twin fusion cannons, and if it felt the blasts, the Spirit-Drinker didn't show it. Parker seemed to find this offensive, an affront to his suit's tech. So Parker poured it on, losing track of the point of the tentacles.

"Parker! Pay atten--" Cloak shouted before being interrupted by his niece.

"Nina!"

"Heeelp me . . ." The voice did not come from Nina's newly prone body, but the Spirit-Drinker's forehead. "RAFians . . . heeeeeelp meee . . ."

"Don't stop moving!" Cloak commanded.

Unfortunately, this whole thing simply paralyzed them with horrified shock. Aquilai and Phoenix were quickly the next victims. Cloak -- compartmentalizing his emotions -- threw several more energy discs, slicing the tentacles, causing the severed parts to evaporate as the part connected to creature regenerated within minutes.

"Get them out of danger!" Cloak commanded, hoping that he wasn't being bossy. "Goom, look out for them -- and watch your . . . PARKER, NO!!!"

Parker was the next victim. Cloak had to ferrokinetically move Parker into the magical "safe zone" Faerie had erected. It seemed that it could not penetrate magic. It was a limited weakness, but they had to be thankful for small favors.

Shadow shrieked suddenly, as a tentacle rapidly headed for her and she didn't have time to react. But a quicker reaction time won out, as a hand reached and snatched the tentacle out of the air. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 04, 2015, 02:12:41 AM

*eats fingernails*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2015, 03:19:21 PM

Keratin deficiency, Saffa? ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Elemental Fury

Shadow remained untouched as her uncle held the tentacle in his gloved hand with a vice-like grip. Cloak's life force energy remained where it was, which surprised the creature. Whether it was because Cloak could redirect energy, his Realm Walker physiology, or his sheer wrath at the creature, that anchored his life energy to himself was unclear.

Cloak's body began to pulse with alternating scarlet and golden pulses. His eyes weren't mere suns but quasars, with streams of scarlet golden energy flowed from the edges of his eyes. All of this was a danger sign, one the RAFians were well aware of by now.

"Aw, crap," Hunter said. "Cloak's going all Avatar State again."

"This could complicate things," Goom said, at once.

The Spirit-Drinker was perplexed, and a bit frustrated because Cloak still held the tentacle with an iron grip. It could not withdraw it back into its mouth.

"How can he hold it anyway?" Faerie asked.

"These type of rules always work differently when Realm Walkers are involved," Horse answered, huddled by the empty bodies of the RAFians. To see them that way, unmoving, glowing yellow eyes . . . it was all kinds of creepy.

The Spirit-Drinker, with a wretching, shrieking squeal, ripped the tentacle from Cloak's grip, though it appeared to have a handprint burn on it. It was eventually regenerated away, but the Spirit-Drinker looked at Cloak. It didn't press its attack, as it stared at Cloak. It tried to use the spirits of the RAFians to cry out for help again.

This was a very stupid move.

Cloak's fury reached a frightening pitch. The effluent water sloshed agitatedly as the air itself seemed to crackle. The bricked floor, walls, and ceiling began to tremble, causing sand to be dislodged.

"If he's not careful, he's gonna collapse the sewers." Faerie said.

"And cause a sinkhole for the city above," Hunter said.

"And give the Spirit-Drinkers more victims to snack on," Horse said.

"Hence my initial assessment," Goom said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 05, 2015, 01:55:01 AM

But you can't kill it now, can you?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2015, 02:57:28 AM

Oh, it isn't gonna be that easy.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
That's Never Happened Before

The Spirit-Drinker appeared to be slow on the uptake, but it was clearly hesitating. It had not met anyone or anything that could harm it in such a way. The Shi'ar had managed to capture it, learning of its weakness to admantium, but it did not fear them. It did not know what fear was. The Shi'ar tried to send to a barren world in hopes of starving the creature to death.

Irresponsible?

Possibly. But they did not see any other alternative to them. They did not know how to destroy the creature who caused several of their number to be victimized. Their tyrannical king (now disposed) had once used it as a beast of execution. Something the Spirit-Drinker didn't mind too much, as it was given food at rather regular (sometimes more than regular) intervals. But even then, it had questionable sentience.

What the Shi'ar never counted on was that a spacefaring race may have come upon it and not exercised caution. A race such as the Andalites -- the crew of the Andalite ship Tree Transport. That containment field outside the box should fail when it had last millenia beforehand. That the containment crate would rupture, allowing the creature escape and feed on all the Andalites onboard.

And in all that time, it has never once felt fear. Not once.

Then it was unleashed upon this planet, fully prepared to feast upon the elaborate banquet this planet had to offer. Nothing could stand up to its power, nothing could escape its pursuit. It was unstoppable.

Then this happened.

This strange creature came along and it seemed to be an unstoppable force. Nothing the Spirit-Drinker had ever encountered in its incredibly long life. It was the only one of its kind to its knowledge, and it never encountered a creature that stymied it like this.

Now the every elements -- the effulent water seethed and surged, the earth (bricks are earth) around them trembled before this creature, the metal in the pipes creaked and groaned ominiously, the area crackled with heat, and the very air encompassing them swirled, rushed and buffeted.

No other creature that it met did not have such power. And yet, it seemed somewhat restrained somehow.

The Spirit-Drinker recoiled from the creature as he began to move forward. What was this new feeling? What was this feeling that making it want to flee from this food? What was this horrid feeling?

It was fear.

The Spirit-Drinker was feeling fear. For the first time in millennia, it was feeling fear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2015, 08:23:27 PM

New book ideas!

• Book DCXCV: "A New Army" -- Two old foes of the RAFians gain an army of Bamfs and enslaved Neyaphem.
• Book DCXCVI: "One If By Red Dove, Two If By Knight" -- A clash of the Red Dove and the Knights.
• Book DCXCVII: "Power Vacuum" -- An organization experiences a power vacuum.
• Book DCXCVIII: "Two Walkers" -- An old foe returns, lusting for revenge against Cloak.
• Book DCXCIX: "Uneasy Alliances" -- An old foe teams up, reluctantly, with a trio of Slitheen.
• Book DCC: "Outted" -- A deception is repeatedly revealed.
• Book DCCI: "Captured" -- Red Dove's "collection".
• Book DCCII: "What If, Part 2" -- What-if scenarios from books #352 to #701.

Remember, all titles are subject to change.

New, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Flight of the Spirit-Drinker

Cloak's wrath was not abated. It could not be easily satiated. The chromatically-alternating aura around was not unlike that which surrounds a Super Saiyan, only Cloak's fur and cloak and general appearance remained identical when not in this state.

What was worse was all of Cloak's rationality was gone in this state, he was an entity of pure, chatoic emotion. It was frightening to see someone usually so calm and rigorously in control of himself, lose that control. It was not a pleasant sight for anyone to see.

The Spirit-Drinker's Cyclopean eye seemed to dilate as it seemed to recoil from Cloak. It held its two ostrich-like legs closer to its body, as if trying to appear smaller, more submissive. Like a beaten dog. It certainly looked more diminished like this, more . . . pathetic, somehow. Despite all it had done without conscience and morality, all it had done without a second thought, all its repugnant acts, it was actually . . . pitiful.

"Anyone notice that?" Hunter asked.

"If Cloak doesn't quit it, that we're all goners? I think we're kinda privy to that already, Hunter!" Faerie snarled unnecessarily.

"Uncle . . ." Shadow said, not replying to the others, but feeling a consuming concern for her uncle.

"I wasn't talking about that, Faerie!" Hunter growled right back. "The Spirit-Drinker. It looks like it's afraid of Cloak."

"I can't blame it on that," Horse replied. "Cloak is major scary right now."

Apparently, this all was too much for the Spirit-Drinker to take. It stood up and did an abrupt 180, and began to pad away. It was running away. It was seriously running away.

"WHERE THE VEIL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOIN'? HUH?!" Cloak roared.

"We're all gonna die," Hunter said.

"Thank you, Rattrap," Faerie sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 06, 2015, 03:47:47 AM

Scary.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2015, 07:30:08 AM

The story or the new book ideas? ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Sensible Shadow Smack

With a sheer crack mighty power, Cloak began to pursue the Spirit-Drinker with reckless abandon. He flew after it, rather Vegeta-like, unaware of the increasing risk of destablizing the whole of the sewers and, thereby, the city atop it. He had become phenomenally narrow-minded, overcome with his emotions.

"Uncle," Shadow repeated. Then her face became very determined.

Cloak sped along, nearing the turn that the Spirit-Drinker took. Cloak was determined to make the creature pay for its crimes. To make it knos the pain that it inflicted. But, at th moment, this was just a jumbled, tangled thought in his head without any real clarity or focus.

He would have taken the turn, too, had Shadow not interceded to stop him. She pulled back her hand when he was within range, and delivered an unholy smack that caused the very air to rush away from the two momentarily.

"Will you SNAP OUT OF IT?!" she demanded. This lead the conscious RAFians to be dumbfounded into silence.

"Wha . . ." Cloak sais, as if coming out of a reverie.

"Uh uh." Shadow said, very firmly. "You're not getting out of this so easily. You need to stop losing control every time that I'm in danger. I'm a big girl! I'm a Master of the Elements, too! You said so yourself. You can't just lose control like that!"

"I --"

"No, Uncle." Shadow said, more serious than Cloak had ever seen her. "This has really gone on quite enough."

Cloak was being lectured by an eleven-year-old*! Okay, in Dweller time, she was actually closer to 110 of their years, but that's beside the point.

"Uncle, you cannot just fly off the handle like that," Shadow said, allowing her concern and weariness to show through. "Do you realize what could have happened if you continued? This entire sewer network could have collapsed! That would cause the city above it to sink into the ground. You would not have only killed the RAFians down here, but countless number of Dweller lives would have been claimed as well."

Cloak was ashen-faced now. How could he have not seen this? How could have allowed himself to become so overwhelmed by his emotions that he was blinded to this simple fact? Cloak was ashamed, but he was always ashamed when he came out of that state.

"Another thing, Uncle." Shadow said, voice gentle and caring. Cloak had suddenly seen, quite unintentionally, how similar Shadow was to her mother, Cloak's elder sister. "If you did manage to kill it, how do you kniw the spirits, the life-force that it consumed would not disappear from the realm of life with it?"

Cloak said nothing for a bit.

"Just trust me on this one, my not-so-little Shadow," Cloak said, with a hint of affection his voice, "it will."

---

*In the terms of the story, she's eleven and won't be twelve until the books have a Roman numeral M in them somewhere (very ambitious). In reality, she's 14.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 06, 2015, 07:43:34 AM

I think even if I somehow meet Shadow IRL I'll have a hard time seeing her as anything other than 11. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2015, 02:41:10 PM

She might not be too pleased with that, though. ;) I mean, think about it, you're 14 and people keep thinking of you as a little kid, would you like that? But . . . but it think my foot somehow had gotten into my mouth, and I must extricate it.

So, in the interim, here's a new chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Indigestion

The Spirit-Drinker fled to a deeper part of the sewer that was eerily similar to Killer Croc's domain in "Batman: Arkham Asylum". It easily crossed the floating squares of wood that made tentative plateforms without even causing the boards to sink very much, if at all, in the water.

It fled very deep into the dank, dark, and cold sewers. It was the type of environment it thrived in, but it could not find solace in such a comforting place. It could not find peace in the fact that it fed. It usually held some kind of enjoyment from when it fed, in a joyous way that some would classify as "psychotic", that is if it was, indeed, truly sentient. It seemed to be, but it could just be near-sentient.

It had never felt this way before. It had never, ever felt as if it's survival was in jeopardy. That it could possibly lose its life to anyone's choosing but its own. This new feeling, this fear -- it didn't like it much. It hated the feeling with all the hatred of any Red Lantern, with more hatred than the Entity of Hate itself, the Butcher (which was still trapped in the Red Lantern Battery).

It was suppose to cause fear! It wasn't supposed to feel it!

Then it felt something else it never felt before. It wasn't fear, it was more physical, in a way. It was like a malady, one of which the Spirit-Drinker was seriously unfamiliar with. It's legs felt slow and heavy, and it's eye's color dulled. It was feeling . . . ill? How could it be feeling sick? In all it's millenia of life, it has never felt an illness, a sickness, or a single malady! Was this somehow connected to the fear it felt for the first time a scare number of moments ago?

How does any one put up with fear? Was this what it inflicted on others? Wait . . . what did it care of others? They were nothing but food. Nothing but nourishment. They weren't any more important than that. They weren't! None could stand against it. None, except --

It coughed.

What was that? It did not know. It had never coughed before. This had been a time for firsts for it, apparently. It coughed again. It was throatier and deeper this time. And it scared it even more, which seemed to simply exacerbate the waves of nausea. It didn't cough a third time, but retched. Retched so badly as to give foreshadowing of what would happen.

The fourth time was so violent that it accidentally vomited. It did not know what just happened, and the life force it just regurgitated did not stick around to allow it to figure out what just happened. Not that it had any consciousness to it, it was still "asleep", in a manner of speaking.

The Spirit-Drinker dismissed the whole thing, having not noticed the life force escape from its normally ironclad stomach. It was unprecedented, completely and totally unprecedented.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 06, 2015, 03:14:38 PM

Well, my height (or lack of) causes most people to ask me if I'm still in 12th grade, when I'm three years past it. :dull:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2015, 03:21:22 AM

Hope that I didn't offend, Saffa.

[spoiler=Behind the scenes note]This another book that I completely rewrote from my initial chapter plans, if anyone's interested. The initial plans had Malice and Abomination (yes, Abomination -- originally he wasn't planned to bite the big one in Book L).[/spoiler]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The New Wrinkle

The two Realm Walkers saw the something flit by faster than either of them could see. The others saw nothing. Cloak was perlexed at what it could be -- it was too quiet to be a bug, and moved with too much determination to be a simple trick of the light. What could it --

A sudden noise behind them. A gasp.

The two turned and ran towards the others, worried about what would happen now. But this wasn't a bad thing at all.

For it was Aquilai who gasped, and coughed repeatedly, as if dust got into his lungs. His eyes no longer glowed yellow and he was not immobile anymore. He was as he always was. He was no longer a victim of the Spirit-Drinker.

Aquilai struggled to sit up, feeling weakened, although his body was as untouched and pristine as it was before the Spirit-Drinker decided on a cup of Time Lord. He was dazed, dazed, and disoriented. It took him a moment before he could have a single thought that wasn't disjointed or scrambled.

"Wha . . ." he groaned.

"Whoa," Goom said, "take it easy now. Don't strain or stress yourself."

"He looks okay," Hunter said, seriously.

"Still, I'd like to have Kelly look him over." the Goomba said.

"Guys!" Faerie snapped. "Give him some room to breathe!"

"What happened?" the Time Lord moaned as he sat up. He was starting to feel better, and as he felt stronger, the fog of forgetfulness in his mind lifted slowly. He remembered vaguely about what it was like in the Spirit-Drinker's gullet. But that was a memory that wasn't clear because he -- everything that made him him -- was slowly being dissolved. The remnants of the Spirit-Drinker's previous victims were already dissolved beyond recovery . . . it was like being condemned to the belly of a Sarlacc. "Oh, I remember now."

"Rem-- . . . what happened?" Shadow asked, kindly and gently.

"I was Spirit-Drinker puke," the Time Lord said, harshly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 07, 2015, 04:38:15 AM

Oh no, you didn't.

Haha, love the behind the scenes note. Just shows how you write with the flow. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2015, 03:04:51 AM

Alrighty then! If you don't mind then, I'll put more behind-the-scenes (in spoiler tags) when ever pertinent. And yes, sometimes I have to go "offbook" for some books. And this current book may exceed twenty chapters.

Anyway, I'm currently planning my way through Book CDXX ("Animatronic Animosity").

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Sick With Fear

"It . . . regurgitated you?" Cloak said, perplexed.

"Don't rub it in," Aquilai said, dully.

"That isn't my intent, Time Lord," Cloak said. "In all the information I had on the Spirit-Drinker . . . not once did it mention that it could regurgitate the life forces, the cores, the essence or whatever."

"Why wouldn't it?" Goom asked.

"Yeah, do all species entries in the database need to describe that particular trait?" Faerie quipped.

"Others species don't feed the way a Spirit-Drinker does," Cloak countered without missing a beat.

Faerie didn't have a comeback at the ready as she did not expect Cloak to answer so quickly.

"The point is," Hunter pressed, "how we use this to our advantage?"

"To answer that question," Goom said, thoughtfully, "we must answer another -- what triggered the regurgitate response from it?"

"Illness? Overeating? Eating disorder?" Aquilai said, throwing out suggestions. "Fear?"

"Wait a minute . . . fear?" Shadow said. She looked at her uncle. "It was afraid of you."

"The Spirit-Drinker can feel fear?" Faerie asked.

***

The Spirit-Drinker found that it didn't like this current spot much better than the one with the RAFians. It was too easy, it felt, for the monster, the one that could hurt it, to find it. This spot wasn't safe.

It was a strange feeling, as it never feared for its safety before. It did not particularly care for it, but it would not go away. The more it wanted wanted the feelings to go away, the more they stubbornly remained, like willful, petulant children who did not want to leave a place of play.

It coughed. It ran acrossed the planks.

It retched. It turned, and continued to run across the planks.

Then, with a wet, sick sound, it vomited up two more essences. It padded along the bricked ground, paying no mind to the two essences it had vomited up (which deftly and rather haphazardly found their way back to their rightful homes of Phoenix and Nina). It just continued to try to run from the fear, ignoring the impossibility of such an endeavor. It's mind had no time for hunger right now when its very survival could be at stake!

It ran to a couple of wrought iron bars that blocked the sewer ways from an old semi-abandoned subway terminal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 08, 2015, 06:21:12 AM

Fear as a disease... hmm. There's some deep meaning in there somewhere.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2015, 05:58:56 PM

Perhaps.

[spoiler=Behind the scenes snippet]I actually got this idea (and this book is a loose parody of it) from this episode (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=1honej64b#/watch?v=Z3Ea--iwkaA) and this episode (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=1honej64b#/watch?v=B0hFUylzK6k) of the 90s series "X-Men". Granted, I did take some liberties.[/spoiler]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Subway Shenanigans

This subway stop was rarely used anymore, as it opened up nearby the abandoned warehouses where Malice once made her headquarters for a time, before her Tasmanian devil instincts told her to uproot and move elsewhere. The subway tunnel was within brisk walking distance, about a twenty-minute walk.

The fear clinged to the Spirit-Drinker like a deer tick to a white-tailed buck. It looked this way and that, as if the powerful monster that actually hurt it might come barreling out of the end of the corridor. This caused it to hyperventilate a bit -- another sensation it had never experienced before, as it was unclear if it even respirated -- its belly and gullet began to churn most painfully uncomfortable. Then the excruciating squeeze of the gut and it vomited up the last surviving essence (which returned to Parker).

The Spirit-Drinker managed to burn through the iron bars, which took a lot of energy, which is why it doesn't employ it very often. It would have feed again before long, the other reason why it was rather impracticable to employ this ability, but it would worry about that at a later date. When the worrisome creature was dead or simply no longer a threat.

But that joyous time was not this present time, and the danger still remained, paramount in its mind (or lack thereof). Its hunger could be satiated later. There will always be later. There always was a later. There would never be a time when there wasn't.

It looked around this semi-abandoned subway station, it was cleaner than it should have been from its disuse. The Spirit-Drinker heaved, but vomited nothing this time. Its previous victims had succumbed to it and ceased to exist.

It deftly stepped over the third rail -- the live third rail -- oblivious to its existence. It was cautious, afraid -- and the novelty of it did not wear off -- afraid of the beast who managed to hurt it. Millennia of life, of stealing life, and never had it come across a creature who could hurt it. Who made it fear for its life, who made it question the abject certainty of its survival.

What kind of creature was it? What kind of creature could possess the kind of power this creature did?

"You were right, Shadow," a voice said, "it did choose the righthand passage."

Oh no! The monster!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2015, 01:49:17 AM

The brief mention of Malice made me realize we haven't seen her in a while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2015, 03:56:30 AM

Oh, she'll show back up in the series. Uh, eventually.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Trapped

Shadow was gracious enough to not say "I told you so", but it was obviously quite tempting for her. Her simian instincts could the better of her just as easily as Cloak's feline instincts could, it was a common thing with Realm Walkers. Not many, if any, Dwellers were aware of this, however.

The Spirit-Drinker recoiled visibly and obviously at them. It looked around, desperate for a place to escape. The place was open, very much like the area where April O'Neil got mugged in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, only with slightly more debris. The subway trains sometime passed through this station, but they very rarely, if ever, stopped here. The Spirit-Drinker and the two Realm Walkers were no real danger of being ran over, standing on the tracks.

The Spirit-Drinker acted without thinking, and charged down the tunnel right behind it, only to crack its head on an invisible barrier that blocked its path.

"Oh, whoopsie," Faerie said, in mock apology, "oh, dearie me, I must have accidentally put down that magic barrier. So sorry!"

The Spirit-Drinker shot its tendrils from its mouth at her, only to have them splayed upon the barrier. It retracted them back into its mouth while giving Faerie a mutinous, ruinous look. Then it felt a chill go up its spine -- assuming that it had one of those. It knew the monster and the small one were watching it.

It knew enough that it couldn't target the small one without incurring the monster's wrath. It was trapped on all sides. There was no escape. The monster and his cohorts had seen to that. And it felt afraid. It was strange, too. It did not feel fear when the Shi'ar captured it, it felt anger, annoyance and hunger.

This was remarkably different from that occasion. This was one being that did not fear it, but hated it instead. This was not the way things should be, the tables were turned.

"This had gone on long enough," Cloak said, his feline tail flicking rather close to the third rail. He knew it was there, and was entertaining a thought. "Beast, you are a monster. You are a demon. There only one way to protect the world from the danger you present."

Cloak's face remained inscrutable, as, in the back of his mind, he questioned this tactic and his conclusion. Sentient or not, was he truly in the right? Was he becoming as ruthless as Malice? Was he losing his innate pacifism?

If they allowed the beast to escape unharmed and unmolested, it would be a potential six billion victims for it to snack on. It would be unconscionable to allow it to escape. Immoral. Unforgivable.

But it still gave Cloak pause, though he did not show it outwardly. How many wars, in countless realms, were started over a question morality, which is inherently subjective? Did they really have the right to judge creatures based on how nature made them? But that brought into question whether Spirit-Drinkers are borne of nature or some other process. Cloak did not know. He did not know enough of these creatures.

Did he have the right? The right of the judgment? The right of making such a decision?

But there was no choice. It was him that the creature feared. It was him that possessed the burdensome power, the heavy hand to do the deed. It was a choice of one life for billions of others.

There was no choice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2015, 05:33:19 AM

It's interesting to notice how as we go further and further into the books Cloak is forced to make the death call more and more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2015, 05:45:58 PM

Yes, [spoiler]and it probably won't be the last.[/spoiler]

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Third Rail

Cloak's flicked his tail toward the third rail. He was still considering his idea, but hesitating. He didn't like that he always seemed to be using his abilities to kill. He knew it had to be done, for the sake of the people on the surface and the people of this world, but it would weigh on him. Like Cataclysm's death at his hand.

"Shadow, no!"

But Cloak's warning came out too late as his niece's impetuous nature got the better of her and she fired two pulses of mauve and lavender energy. It missed the Spirit-Drinker very narrowly, but it had the decided drawback of drawing the beast's attention to the third rail. It gave it a wide birth.

"You were taking too long!" she countered. "This would have never been ended by just standing there, doing nothing!"

"I was waiting for the auspicious moment to present itself," Cloak said, the merest trace of a growl in his voice.

"When? January?"

Cloak held his tongue, forcing the counterargument to die there. The plan would have to be accelerated. Cloak forced himself to push aside his indecision and forced himself to act with deliberation. There was no choice.

It would not simply step on the live rail, aware of the potential danger it posed. Yet it did not fear the rail. It was really arrogant, in that respect. But that very rail was instrumental in Cloak's plan, with a method he has never tried before with the technique.

In any case . . . there was a backup plan.

Cloak touched the third rail with his tail and, instead of being electrocuted, he redirected the electricity up his tail, up to his stomach, divided it to travel up his arms and out his index and middle fingers of both of his hands, and fired the electricity in a concussive electrical pulses. His aim was more accurate than his niece's due to his time with the RAFians.

It had to be done.

He had to harden his heart. Ignore his questions of rights, of right and wrong, of possible repercussions and consequences. There was no time for it.

It had to be done.

Cloak deftly flicked his tail away from the rail, and the concussive blasts ended without their source. And Cloak saw that . . . it worked. The Spirit-Drinker was no more. Cloak wondered how Conductoids did this, he felt rather hollow inside. But whether that was from the exertion or the act was unclear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 10, 2015, 01:55:22 AM

I was watching the episode where Iroh redirects lightning just yesterday. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2015, 03:32:06 AM

;)

Before I start this chapter, I want say -- sorry, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Guitarhero's Rousing Song of Heroism

"Superbreath can come in fire, ice, or really bad.
Shrinking's a power, but it's kinda mad.
Shapeshifting into a snake can give folks quite a fright,
But only your heart will win us the fight!
There's portal creation and astral projection,
Telekinesis and dead resurrection.
With mind control, you're on a roll,
And -- if you're lucky -- flight!
But only your heart will win us the fight!
Who are you?
Just a man, or a superman?
The man we turn to with the plan!
Who are you?
Just a man, or a superman?
The man we turn to make the stand!
There's time travel, stretching, or even wallcrawling.
A sonic scream helps you with your Banned brawling.
Fists of steel can make you feel a heightened sense of might,
But only your heart can win us the fight!
Who are you?
Just a man, or a superman?
The man we turn to with the plan!
Who are you?
Just a man, or a superman?
The man we turn to make the stand!!"

Guitarhero was a bit out of breath when the song ended.

"What," Cloak said, "was that?"

"I call it," Guitarhero said, still obviously out of breath from singing and marching in place and whatnot, "'Guitarhero's Rousing Song of Heroism'!"

Then he noticed the rather lackluster effect it had on Cloak.

"You don't look roused."

"GH," Cloak said, "that's because it has nothing to do with what I'm feeling."

Cloak stopped because he realized his tone was far harsher than was his intent to be.

"Look, GH, I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind it, but I'm gonna need some time to my--"

"RAFians to the auditorium," Yarin said over the intercom, "briefing in the auditorium."

"Aw, Veil."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 10, 2015, 11:52:31 AM

You just don't understand my genius.
Also, astral projection? Time travel? Mind control? Either that's a massive coincidence, or you know I'm a huge fan of the album Crack the Skye. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2015, 01:21:01 PM

Coincidence. The song was adapted from Aquaman's Rousing Song of Heroism, from "Batman: The Brave and the Bold".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 10, 2015, 01:47:19 PM

Aw. I kind of like to believe that you did such intensive, stalker-like research on me to subtly invoke an album that I like. Maybe I'm overestimating your genius. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2015, 04:40:00 PM

;) Sorry to disappoint, GH!

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXV:
The Last Laugh
CHAPTER ONE:
I've Got the Ring!

"I've got the ring!" Saffa said, even though she didn't really. The hulking, buff brute who looked like a brunette Broly charged her.

"I've got the ring!" Underseen claimed fraudulently, and the bulky Broly brute charged toward him instead.

"I've got the ring!" Abby shouted, lying. She became the Broly beast's next target.

The ring in question possessed a very unique stone which was the size of a marble, set into a brass ring. This stone was unique in the fact that whoever wore -- wore, not simply touched -- whoever wore the ring was induced with megalomania.

Why it was sought out so badly by this beast of a man was anyone's guess. Possibly because the gem also granted him heightened intellect -- but at the cost of his sanity. The ring's current location was hard to track because it was changing hands so frequently.

Guitarhero had an idea. He strummed on his guitar, somehow remaining immaculate in the course of battle.

"I have the ring!
Yes, I have the ring!
I have the ring right here!"

Shadow shouted, "Everybody!"

RAFians and non-RAFians alike sang:

"I have the ring.
Everybody sing!
I have the ring right here!
I have the ring!
Yes, I have the ring!
I have the ring right here!
I have the ring!
Yes, I have the ring!
I have the ring right here!
I have the ring!
Yes, I have the ring!
I have the ring right here!
I have the ring!
Yes, I have the ring!
I have the ring right here!
I have the ring!
Yes, I have the ring!
I have the ring right here!"*

The hulking beast held his head, as if harboring the worst migraine ever. He quickly gave up and allowed himself to be arrested soon thereafter. But the ring was nowhere to be seen . . . Rotiart had thrown it down a rusty pipe. "Accidentally".

"Rotiart," Cloak growled. "You really need to shape up."

"You aren't the boss of me," Rotiart said. "You can't do anything to me."

Cloak glared at the teenager. He was really starting to think of the arrogant, little punk as the Starscream of RAF. AMAZING how long he managed to remain a RAFian just like how remarkable how long Starscream remained with the Decepticons. They both equated to each other in terms of cunning and strategies, which wasn't really saying to much about their intelligence.

"Let's go back," Cloak said, voice low.

---

*Source song (https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=SlwqBgxXQqE). Yes, I now the video is less then stellar but it's the only one that I could find that had the animation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2015, 02:56:46 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Ring Around the Lunatic

Meanwhile, in the sewers, lived a homeless man that was somehow clean-shaven when it was clear that he was down here for weeks. He was just exceedingly lucky that he never came across the Spirit-Drinker when it was on the loose.

He had lanky, flaccid, shoulder-length hair the color of rust and intense (to a creepy degree) blue eyes that were colder than the vacuum of space which were deeply set into his face. He had a very square jaw with a blunt nose. He wore a thick, tattered trench coat with a stained reddish-brown sweater beneath with blue jeans ripped here and there, with a knobby, hair-covered knee exposed. He wore no shoes and his toenails had a serious need of trimming.

He was reminiscing about . . . happier times (in his view, anyway):

Oh, sometimes, I think back to
When I was younger.
Life was so much simpler then.
Dad would be up at dawn
Spreading manure on the lawn,
Or maybe goin' fishin' again.
And Mom would be fixin' up somethin' in the kitchen,
Biscuits or hot apple pie.
And I'd spend the day in the basement
Torturing cats with a hacksaw
And pulling the wings of butterflies.
Those were the good ole days.
Those were the good ole days.
The years go by, but the memory stays.
And those were the good ole days.
I can still remember good ole Mr. Bender,
Who ran local grocery store.
Oh, he strolled down the aisle
With a big friendly smile.
He'd say "howdy" when you'd walk through the door.
Always treated me nice,
Gave me kindly advice,
I don't know why I set fire to his face.
Oh, I'll never forget the clay I bashed into his head.
Let me tell ya now,
Those were the good ole days.
Those were the good ole days.
The years go by, but the memory stays.
And those were the good ole days.
Do you remember sweet Stel?
She was my school romance.
She was nice to talk to and nice to smell.
So I took her to the homecoming dance.
Then I tied her to a chair
And shave off all her hair
And left here in the desert all alone.
Well, sometimes, in my dreams,
I can still hear the screams.
Oh, I wonder if she ever made it home!
I tell ya,
Those were the good ole days.
Those were the good ole days.
The years go by, but the memory stays.
And those were the good ole days.
Let me tell ya, buddy,
Those were the good ole days.
Those were the good ole days.
The years go by, but the memory stays.
And those were the good ole days.

He was obviously a psychotic lunatic. That pretty much went without saying. His name was Mark Napier, and he was a wanted man, obviously. He wandered until he came to be beneath a pipe.

THUNK!!

A ring hit him on the head with enough force that the stone in the ring became unset from it. The brass ring clattered to the ground, while the stone expanded to the size of a golf ball. The stone did not clatter to the ground, but was unintentionally absorbed by Napier. It bleached his skin chalk white, dyed his hair a clownish red and his lips a fluorescent green, blackened his finger and toenails, and the sclera of his eyes became black and his blue eyes became as fluorescent green as his lips.

He then picked up the brass fitting and put it on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 11, 2015, 09:24:58 AM

That colour scheme is like a reverse Joker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 11, 2015, 02:56:19 PM

So behind on this it isn't even funny. I don't even remember what book I was on. Crap. I'll just have to go back and read them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 11, 2015, 03:06:17 PM

I could mail you the PDFs if you want. What book are you up to?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2015, 06:24:32 PM

There's a reason for the Joker likeness.

And Abby, sorry, but I'm about it a bit harder for you.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
What A Gas!

"Just kill me, then!" Officer Cruz spat.

"And end all this that quickly?" Napier said, aghast. He now wore a lurid suit of much too bright colors, like a gangster that a My Little Pony threw up on. "Officer Cruz, I'm so disappointed in you! Where's the fun in that?"

Music unexpectedly aand inexplicably boomed out of nowhere.

"Do you really have sing?!" Officer Cruz said, with horror.

"You can be a goody two-shoes for the rest of your days,
You can listen to 'em say that 'crime never pays'.
You can follow every law and keep the rich man fat,
But why would you want to?
Where's the fun in that?
Where's the fun in thaaaaaat?"

Suddenly, voluminous amounts of gas the color of toxic waste blasted into the room out of nowhere. Napier was the only one who seemed unaffected by it, as he was the only one not coughing even once.

But he didn't stop his song.

"So, SMILE, dern ya, smile!
Everybody loves to grin.
Follow my lead!
Recite my creed!
Smile, dern ya, smile!
Don't listen to the dullards who say life is a bore.
Those fuddy-duddies spoil all my fun!
That's why I strive to eradicate gloom,
It's from THAT itch
That I made the switch
And chose my nomme de plume!
The Joke Meister!
There's the fun in that.
There's the fun in thaaaaaaat!
So, smile, dern ya, smile!
Everybody ought to laugh!
And so, with glee,
I do decree
Just smile! Dern ya, smile!
So when living gets a little rough,
And you find it hard to cope,
I'm the gent with just the STUFF
To fill you full of hope!!
Just smile, dern ya, smile!
Everybody needs a clown!
Now, with just one stroke,
The final joke!
Just smile, dern ya,
SMILE, dern ya, smile!!!
Everybody loves to grin.
Follow my lead!
Recite my creed!
Smile, dern ya, smile!!!"*

And there were smiles everywhere. They were lifeless and unmoving. They had bloodshot eyes with yellowed sclera, paled skin, reddish-black lips and a characteristic Joker smile. The gas cleared to see that "Joke Meister" was the only one standing.

"I see that my song really KILLED," he said, beginning to laugh the trademark Joker cackle.

---

*Source song (https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=F4zlC8jAISk).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 11, 2015, 09:34:38 PM

Honestly, this chapter had me lulzing pretty hard. Maybe that's because I'm just as psychotic as Napier. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 12, 2015, 01:19:21 AM

As the lingo at college goes, worsht joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2015, 04:57:07 PM

Well, Napier was supposed to be just as wacky as the Joker, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Investigations

Naturally, these deaths wouldn't have gone unnoticed.

Naturally, the RAFians were right on top of it. Cloak, Shadow, Parker, Saffa, Abby, and Underseen were the first to arrive on the scene. They flashed their Marks (except Shadow, who didn't have one, but made the gesture anyway), like police badges, and were allowed on the scene.

They ducked the yellow caution tape and proceeded further into the crime scene. Cloak felt a sudden chill that seemed unconnected with the environment. He could not think as to why, and it perplexed him greatly. He slowed his gait considerably, without the Realm Walker's notice.

"Uncle?"

"Cloaky, what do you see?" Parker said, at once.

"See?" the Elements Master said, absently. "Nothing . . ."

"What do you sense, then?" Saffa said, shrewdly.

"I . . ." Cloak answered distractedly, ". . . don't know."

"RAFians?" came a voice.

"Ah, Officer Ramirez," Parker said, greeting her warmly, and received an equally gracious greeting in return.

"Careful, Parker."Abby teased a little. "Don't want to make Helen jealous."

"So, what happened here, officer?" Saffa asked promptly.

"A massacre," she replied heavily. "Seven dead. Including . . . Gil."

"'Jungle' Cruz?"

"The very same," she said.

But Cloak's eyes locked on an inert form, and made a direct beeline for it. It was a body with some sort of tarp over it. Cloak sniffed -- the body reeked of death, but it was a stale smell, compared to if it was fresh.

Cloak had a hunch, but hoped he was wrong. His heart sank when he saw the victim's face. The iconic smile, the yellowed sclera, bloodshot eyes, the darkened lips, the pale skin stretched taut -- they were all symptoms Cloak recognized with grim horror.

"Gateburst," Cloak spat.

"Uncle, language!" Shadow said, with mock lecturing tones.

"Cloak, what is it?" Underseen said.

"Joker gas," he replied, with a disgusted sneer.

"What?! You knew about this toxin all the time?" Parker demanded at once. "How come you haven't come foreward with this information before now?!"

Cloak reared back to his full, and considerable height of about eight feet tall. "It was and still is in the database, along with the antidote."

Cloak looked down at the bodies being carted away.

"We need to get Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin on it." he added.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2015, 12:57:48 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Teeth Chattering

"Saffa. Abby." Cloak said, with a snap to his voice. Abby jumped a bit at being addressed in such a way. "Go back to the forum, get those three, and synthesize the antidote."

"Hey! Why do we have to go? Because we're girls?" Saffa countered, rather hotly.

"No, because you can breathe," Cloak replied, prepared for the protest. "Because you aren't wearing a self-contained suit of armor. Because you can't shapeshift mouths and things away for an indeterminate amount of time. Because you aren't aerokinetic. Enough reasons?"

Saffa's next protest died in her throat.

"How're you going to find where this perpetrator went?" Abby asked.

Cloak pointed in a most casual way. "I'm surprised you didn't hear or see them already."

The clattering of chattering teeth was suddenly thrown into sharper relief. They left a loose, but deliberate trail. The others scrutinized the trail, it was vague and obscure enough to escape notice of the police, who were trained to see such trails.

"Whoever this guy is," Shadow observed, as the two girls resentfully went to do as Cloak instructed, "he wants to be found."

"Or he's really inept at covering his tracks," Parker added.

"Or, quite possibly, both." Underseen commented. He had shapeshifted his nose and mouth away (and yet was perfectly able to speak normally). He still was in human form, only without a nose or a mouth. He looked rather like a younger Question with visible eyes.

Cloak opened his palm, absently aerokinetically manipulating a small wisp of wind, considering what lay before them. He would have had an idea of what they'd be up against if this was the Joker . . . but this clearly was not. The grisly nature could be a rough equivalent, and Cloak imagined that the killer -- who was likely immune to the gas somehow -- had an equitable malevolent glee and sense of macabre wackiness to that of the Joker of Realm #600.

"Let's get going," Cloak said, stepping toward the clattering, novelty teeth.

But when he approached it too closely, the minute toy leapt upon his sleeve and began to gnaw on it. It didn't even make a tear in the fabric, though it rather like a Mouser in a Ninja Turtle game on the Super Nintendo. Cloak imagined that could have actually damage a less sturdy material, but it was insufficient.

And easy to break apart, which was good in Cloak's eyes. All that clatter was rather irksome, he found.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 13, 2015, 05:40:25 PM

Quote from: Saffa on April 11, 2015, 03:06:17 PM

I could mail you the PDFs if you want. What book are you up to?

That's just it though. I don't even remember, nor can I check because my phone is still restricted. Maybe she can reset the restrictions password on it for me, and then I could tell you.

Also, liking these chapters Cloaky. 

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 13, 2015, 06:34:18 PM

What toy where?

Yeah, talk to your mum. Put on your best puppy dog eyes. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2015, 06:40:53 PM

Maybe I'm mistaken, but a search said that it was Book L -- er, Book 50, Abby. It's "Maul". It's back on page 184 or so, I believe.

And Saffa, if you mean the clattering teeth in the story, they're those windup novelty toys. It's basically a reference to the "Batman Arkham" video game series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 13, 2015, 07:34:23 PM

Oh cheese its that's way far back. I think I might be a bit further ahead of that, with Saffa-la sending me me PDFs but I don't remember.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 14, 2015, 12:59:46 AM

I'll check the last mail and send you from there. Still quite a lot though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2015, 03:18:57 AM

Anyway, I'm currently planning my way through "PETA -- Get A Life!". Nearly halfway through.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Over the Hills, Through the Woods

They travelled a great distance, over two hills thus far. And nothing of real note happened. The clattering teeth led the entire way, Parker taking care to destroy every one. They proved that they could be dangerous to the innocent, unprepared layman, considering how that one jumped on Cloak like a piranha.

Presumptuous? Perhaps.

They came upon a forest, and Cloak was suspicious. But Cloak was always suspicious.

"Was . . ." Underseen asked, uncertainly. "Was this forest always here?"

"Yes," Cloak said, "but why lead us here?"

"What's the big deal about this place?" Parker said.

"It feels similar . . ." Cloak said, trailing off.

"As?"

"Maul's island?" Shadow supplied inquiringly.

"Somewhat," Cloak said. "But different, but this isn't the general M.O. of the Jok-- never mind. It's immaterial. Let's get going."

"But the trail has dried up." Underseen said, as they crossed the threshold into the forest.

"PROTAGONIST!" came a voice. Cloak was certainly put in mind of Mark Hamill's Joker's voice, only slightly thicker and deeper. The sound seemed to come from the trees itself, and Cloak had difficult time finding the source.

"There," Parker pointed to a strange device. It looked like a bullhorn with a voluminous helium bag attached to the back. There must have been a camera attached to it somewhere, as the pronouncement did not seem to be recorded. And his choice of words to address them seemed odd, as well.

"PROTAGONISTS! Congratulations on finding my little trail! It certainly took you long enough."

"What is it do you want, clown?" Parker demanded coldly.

"Oh, how you've wounded me, Protagonist!" he said with a Joker cackle. "Surely, you see the beauty, the magnificant spectacle of my fun?"

"You're evading the question, psychopath," Cloak said, coldly.

"Awww . . . you don't see the great fun? The grand game?"

"It's the Toyman all over again." Cloak groaned, facepalming.

"With one key difference," Underseen pointed out. "This time, the villain succeeded in killing people."

"Oh! You do understand the magnificent game, then, dear Protagonist!" came the voice. "So, let's begin it anew!"

The bag split open and a gas hissed out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 14, 2015, 12:37:26 PM

Oh, lovely.

Here's the PDF for the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2015, 02:23:07 PM

Thanks, Saffa. Dunno if I'll post another chapter today. I am still incredibly livid at that CNA at work who clearly thinks his job is SO much more important than housekeeping.

:edit: Okay, I was wrong. I may very possibly need to find a new job, if that prick manages to get his wormy way. Anyway . . . new book ideas.

• Book DCCIII: "The Kid or the Miser" -- A pop idol has a secret, he is the "son" of a RAFian foe.
• Book DCCIV: "Metallo Men Masters" -- The RAFians must face old foes.
• Book DCCV: "Mecha Men Menace" -- Military mechas are purloined.

I don't think I rehashed anything -- though continuing some . . . er, that may be a spoiler. Anyway, the titles are subject to change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Monstrous Not-So-Micro Organisms

It wasn't Joker gas.

It was blue. It was a deliberate mislead, proven by the perp's hysterical cackle.

"Did I get you, my dear Protagonists?" he snickered before cackling again.

"I'm really starting to hate that laugh," Parker muttered.

"Agreed," the two Realm Walkers said in unison.

"Um," Underseen said, tapping Cloak's shoulder, "behind us."

There were several figures of a large size behind them. Cloak counted fourteen or fifteen that towered about ten feet tall, which meant they were taller than Cloak. They were transparent with waving tendrils, and each possessing a core of a different material, each resembling a single bloodshot eye the size of a basketball. They were overlarge microorganisms.

The cores (and physiological composition) consisted of silver (four tendrils), amber (four tendrils), bamboo (four tendrils), copper (two tendrils and cilia), granite (four tendrils and two spikes), iron (four tendrils), slate (four tendrils), jade (no tendrils or cilia at all), obsidian (four tendrils), coral (eight long flagellum), gold (four tendrils), bronze (two tendrils and cilia), marble (two tendrils and cilia), crystal (four tendrils), and platinum (four tendrils and two spikes). The way these cores floated in the cytoplasm was eerily similar to that of Yellow Devil (and its derivatives) from the various "Mega Man" series.

It was a rather interesting spectacle to see all of them, with both their uniqueness and their similarity. Yet, both Cloak and Parker gave them all scrutinizing looks. Shadow threw her uncle a perplexed look, because she had yet to suspect what he and Parker did.

"What do we do?" Underseen asked.

"Nothing," the RAFian Realm Walker said, passively.

"Right, let's get go-- wait, what?"

"It would be a waste, a folly." Cloak explained enigmatically.
 
"Uncle, you're overdoing the cryptic thing again." Shadow pointed out so shrewdly.

"My scans aren't showing anything her but us." Parker said. Then he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the device that the Joke Meister communicated with them through. "And Laughing Boy over there."

"'Laughing Boy'?" Joke Meister said, with obviously mock hurt. "Oh, dear, Protagonists, it's 'Joke Meister'."

The cackle followed.

"Maybe Broken can use a Silencing Charm on him," Cloak said. Then, addressing Underseen and Shadow, he said, "They're not real."

"What?" Underseen said.

"They have no weight, when they clearly appear to." Cloak said. "Their motions are cycling like a repeating video footage."

"Awww," Joke Meister said, "you ruined the j--"

CRACK!!

Parker had run through the device with his energy sword, replying, "Sorry. Sorry, but that guy was really starting to grind my last nerve."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2015, 04:09:23 PM

Still livid about that supercilious sack of . . . I will try to compose myself.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Exoskeletal Escapades

The giant microorganisms flickered once, twice, before vanishing completely.

"Holograms." Underseen said, nodding.

"Precisely," Cloak said, as they discovered a pathway nearby. "Holograms have no weight, they can't be Earthsighted, anymore than ghosts and creatures in flight can."

"How can we be sure this is the right way?" Shadow asked.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!" came a familiar cackle came echoing from the pathway.

"I withdraw my question," the younger Realm Walker said.

The trees began to arc over them in a most ominous way. Cloak was undaunted, focused on their goal at hand. Then they soon came across a device similar to the last one, only it looked like a bullhorn mounted on a blacked-out terrarium that was sealed completely. It was from this bullhorn that the cackle came from.

"PROTAGONISTS!" Joke Meister said gleefully. "You've got MOXIE!"

"What is moxie, anyway? What even is that?" Cloak said, wanely.

"Backbone, determination, and fortitude," Parker said, with an airy, bored demeanor. "Alternatively, initiative or skill."

"You're reading from Wiktionary, aren't you?"

Parker said nothing. He neither confirmed or denied it.

"How about another joke, dear Protagonists?" Joke Meister asked, with a low snicker.

The terrarium cracked open and scarlet gas uncoiled and unfurled from it with a hiss. Again, it wasn't Joker gas. It was almost as if he knew that it wouldn't work on them. Or he thought jerking them around like this was funny.

Probably the latter, judging by the frequent cackling of the Joke Meister.

The gas "solidified" -- if you could call it that -- into arthopod forms. From the gas, a giant wolf spider, a colossal leopard moth, an enormous dark-webbed ringlet butterfly, a gigantic hawkmoth, an immense praying mantis, a prodigious tick, a vast stag beetle, an overlarge lobster, a way-too-big antlion adult, a massive louse, and possibly more were formed.

"You disappoint me, Laughing Boy," Cloak said, deciding that to be a more fitting nomme de plume.

"'Joke Meister', Protagonist." There was the subtlest of hints of malice and warning in his voice now. Even his lauh seemed to have the dullest of edges to it now. The RAFians were hardly impressed.

"Like it matters," Cloak said, waspishly. "You think smoke monsters of gaseous emissions will frighten us? You disappoint me with your naivety."

As if to demonstrate, Shadow crossed her hands, palms toward her, and the flicked them out causing a blistering baby whirlwind to appear in front of her and travel forward to the giant, gaseous arthropods. As it moved forward, the bigger it got, creating quite a hole in the amassed arthropod army.

Then Cloak's eyes flashed, and he crossed his forearms. Then he flung his arms out, flicking his fingers ever so slightly. This created a torrent of mini-tornados that moved rather like Air Shooters (the weapon Air Man gives Mega Man after his destruction in "Mega Man 2"). This both dissipated the rest of the smoke arthropods and destroyed the Joke Meister's device.

"Show off," Shadow said, with mock huffiness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 15, 2015, 10:24:22 PM

Damn, I hope your job situation is sorted out soon. :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2015, 12:54:44 AM

Me too, Saffa.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Steamy Fishes, Kalamari, and Things

"Okay, so where do we go n--" Underseen began.

"PROTAGONISTS!!"

"You know, I'm just gonna stop asking." Underseen responded.

"Probably prudent," Parker said, stoically, as they followed the call to the next planted device.

"How'd he have time to plant all these devices?" Shadow asked. "How long was that trail here there? Much less where he synthesized these 'Fiendgas' things?"

"All good, relevant questions," Cloak said.

"'Fiendgas'?" Joke Meister said, with that irritatingly raucous cackle. "I LIKE it, Protagonist!"

"I am beginning to hate him." Underseen muttered.

"Oh, how you flatter me, Protagonist!" Joke Meister said, punctuating his statement with a sinister giggle. "So let me get the festivities started!"

And from the aquarium-like box an orange gas uncoiled and unfurled, forming shapes of cephalopods, skeleton fish, and things. Cloak could identify a couple of jellyfish, a giant scallop, a giant clam, a giant oyster, a giant seahorse, a giant sea dragon, a giant goldfish, a giant starfish, a giant carp, a giant ammonite, a giant nautilius, a giant female deep sea anglerfish, a giant pufferfish, a giant porcupine fish, a giant remora, a giant archer fish, a giant octopus, a giant skate, a manta ray, a giant mudskipper, a blobfish, a giant pirahna, a great white shark, a sawfish, a giant loach, a giant catfish, a giant bass, a giant hagfish, a giant moray eel, a giant discus fish, a sunfish, a giant sea slug, a hammerhead shark, a butterflyfish, a giant neon tetra, a giant flying fish, a giant angelfish, a giant electric eel, and a giant flounder. And those were only the ones that Cloak could identify -- oh, and a Dunkleosteus.

That cackle of Joker Meister sounded again . . . it was like auditory waterboarding. "Like my little joke?"

"Not particularly," Shadow said, dully.

The Joke Meister's entire demeanor flipped into a much more meancing one as if someone decided to toggle his switch.

"Watch yourself, Protagonist."

Cloak quickly shot a look at Parker, and he gave an agreeing nod. This Joke Meister guy might be more unhinged than they thought. It would be wise not to take him too lightly, especially because he proved that he had no qualms about killing.

"Shadow."

"On it."

They with concussive aerokinetic blasts very much like primary fire of Hurricane Tornado (or whatever it was called -- you know, the weapon X gets from Storm Eagle in the first "Mega Man X" game). This made short work fo these bestial smoke specters.

"Now what?" Shadow asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2015, 03:07:34 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Eye of Super-Newt

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

"Need you ask?" Cloak said.

"Someone had to," Shadow said, with a shrug.

Naturally, they followed the laugh to the newest terrarium/aquarium-bullhorn-camera device. The RAFians (and Shadow) looked upon it with waning tolerance. They were starting to find all this rather tiresome.

"Aw, Protagonists! Why so serious?"

Cloak eyes narrowed, but said nothing.

"C'mon, you pod of sourpusses! This is fun!" Joke Meister conjoled maniacally.

"Speak for yourself," Underseen said, dryly.

"I think he is," Shadow observed.

"Oh, c'mon! Maybe you don't understand yet," Joke Meister said. "Yes, here."

The terrarium/aquarium thing cracked open, and violet gas poured out. The smokey gas twisted and shaped itself into various gigantic frogs, newts, salamanders, and other amphibians.

"The Joker," Cloak muttered voicelessly, "he ain't."

Cloak, despite himself, found himself repeatedly disappointed. There was absolutely no challenge to it. Underseen and Parker were barely doing anything, through no fault of their own. Shadow and Cloak were more than enough to deal with these "Fiendgases". Which they proved yet again by the two Elemental Masters by using the Tornado Hold technique (from Tengu Man). The violet Fiendgas was dissipated without the two even breaking a sweat.

Cloak felt that this particular strategy -- if you could call it that -- was like Joke Meister was mixing themes. He was clearly imitating Joker, but yet it seemed that he was now dipping into Scarecrow territory. Yet his long term planning was more like Bebop and Rocksteady.

Cloak couldn't help but wonder if Laughing Boy was even trying. The "joke" he was playing had long since lost its surprise, its shock, its suspense. It was not the running gag that Laughing Boy seem to think that it was. It was tired. It was predictable. . . .

Which meant Jombo would be wanting a complete ten seasons of a reality show based on it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 17, 2015, 12:13:29 PM

Dang this guy is /really/ annoying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 17, 2015, 03:13:51 PM

That last line. :rofl2:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2015, 03:02:43 AM

Well, Abby, he's supposed be irritating. But Joker, he ain't. (Not that Joker was irritating.)

And, Saffa, that's precisely the reaction I wanted for that line. Besides . . . isn't it the truth of reality tv?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Saurian Smoke

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

"Couldn't you just Earthsight where this loser is?" Parker said, having destroyed the previous device.

"If we could do that," Cloak said, testily, "don't you think we would have already done it? Earthsight isn't infallible, you know. We have a specific range, and there is a chance that he isn't standing on earth. He could be standing on hardwood floors or something."

Just then the communicator buzzed them. It was Aquilai. He reported to them that they completed the cure, and tried to give it to hospitals and such -- but they couldn't just take it. Security reasons. They would have to wait for proper channels.

"Wonderful," Cloak said, tonelessly. "Let's get going and find this --"

The next word Cloak said couldn't be translated into Dweller language.

"Uncle, language!" Shadow chided.

She was so much like her mother, Cloak's sister, when she spoke like that.

"What took you so long, Protagonists?" Joke Meister said, with a sinister guffaw.

"Oh, shut the Veil up," Cloak said.

"What?" Joke Meister said, his voice turned menacing. Cloak was completely unintimidated, a feeling shared with the others.

"You heard me, Laughing Boy," Cloak said, his teeth gnashing with every word.

"It's 'Joke Meister'."

"Yeah," the Realm Walker said, in perfect mimicry of the Nostalgia Critic, "I don't care."

"You'll regret this disrespect," the clown criminal said, maliciously.

The terrarium connected to the bullhorn cracked open as the violet "Fiendgas" snaked out, almost as if it were sentient. It formed into giant turtles, giant lizards, dinosaurs, and other reptilian creatures. Cloak's eyes narrowed.

He formed two spheres of swirling air in his hands, then threw them at the "Fiendgas", and Shadow followed suit. Then a cyclonic explosion of wind dissipated and destroyed the "Fiendgas".

Then Parker took a pot shot at the device. He was displeased with the ease of the action.

"These stupid devices are destroyed by a single blast of my fusion cannons." Parker said, blowing nonexistant smoke from his cannons. "At half power. Even that seems excessive."

"Don't sound so disappointed," Underseen said, voice dull.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 19, 2015, 12:44:01 AM

Well he's the master of delays if nothing else.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2015, 03:23:47 AM

You have no idea how right you are, Saffa. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
For the Birds

"Whelp," Underseen said, "I suppose that we should look for the next device."

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

"That was easy," he replied.

"Have you got the wrong number!" the device said.

"Huh?" Shadow said, knitting her eyebrows together.

"Leave a message after the shriek," the Joke Meister said. There was a scream, and the terrarium cracked open and black "Fiendgas" uncoiled from within, seemingly writhing, shifting into avian, or proto-avian, shapes.

Cloak and Shadow easily dispelled the "Fiendgas", only this time without any flourish or technique. When Cloak saw this, he couldn't help but feel offended by it. The Joke Meister clearly thought these "Fiendgases" would be sufficient enough to encumber them. They were able to dispel them without trying!

"Easy, Uncle."

Had anyone else said that, Cloak would have jumped down there throats about it. Shadow knew just the right way to speak to make him smirk a little instead. Then a thought occurred to the Elements Master, and it was not a comforting one.

"He's on the move," he said, very seriously.

"We don't know that for sure," Parker said, pragmatically. "It could be his idea of a joke, pretending to be an answering machine."

"Think about what you just said, Parker," Cloak said. "No matter how insane you are, there's no joke in that."

"Laughing Boy isn't very smart, though," Shadow said. "All these devices haven't hindered us at all."

"He wouldn't be the first inept murderous villain we fought," Parker said, with a noncommittal shrug. "He could easily be a D-lister."

Cloak wasn't convinced.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2015, 04:52:45 AM

Okay, I'm currently planning my way through "RAFology".

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Parker Jumps the Gun Just a Bit

"How many more of these 'Fiendgas' things do we have take care of?" Cloak said, nettled.

"Tired, Uncle?"

"More like annoyed," Cloak replied swiftly.

"There's the next one," Underseen said, pointing.

"Let's get this over with," Cloak grumbled grumpily.

"Yes," Parker said, taking aim. "Let's."

Parker shot the device, befoe the bullhorn could play the Joke Meister's voice, before it could play his taunts. At first, it appeared to have also eliminated the "Fiendgas".

"And that's that," Parker said, getting rather dangerously complacent.

With a loud, angry hiss, green "Fiendgas" steamed up from the wreckage. Parker's face was concealed by his helmet, but Cloak suspected he had a slightly mollified look his face. Cloak decided not to press the point with him.

The "Fiendgas" curled and shifted into mammalian shapes, but the RAFians (and Shadow) weren't particularly fearful. But the way the "Fiendgas" undulated and writhed, Cloak came to a realization.

"It's not just  'Fiendgas'," Cloak said, shrewdly. "It's somehow transmuted into Joker gas. Don't inhale!"

He turned to his niece, and said, "Shadow?"

"I'm ready," she replied.

This time it wasn't just enough to dispell the gas, but dissipate it so that it wouldn't harm any innocents. It wouldn't be a display of power, but one of control, of finesse, of aerokinetic dexterity. It would be a challenge.

It took the better part of twenty minutes for the both of them to successfully neutralize the threat.

"Well, Uncle," Shadow said, worn and tired, "you wanted them to be a challenge."

"The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' comes to mind," Cloak said.

"So he put Joker gas in the last one --well, assuming that it was the last one." Underseen said. "I mean, since he did that, it clearly means that it was the last one."

A beat passed.

"Right?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 20, 2015, 08:04:24 AM

Of course not. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2015, 03:45:21 AM

Don't be so sure, Saffa. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Lull in the Action

"Not necessarily, Underseen," Cloak said, thoughtfully pensive, "it could have been a failsafe. To be sure that we didn't just go ahead and obliterate the devices before Laughing Boy got his say."

Cloak could almost hear Joke Meister yelling that his name was "Joke Meister", much like whenever someone brings up Yarin's microwave. Cloak dismissed it as that.

"While you very well may be correct, Underseen," Cloak continued, "the fact is that we just won't know for a fact if that's why there was Joker gas in this one. I doubt Laughing Boy would have told us straight out. He's clearly insane, and worse, murderous. We must take care with what we do next."

"Oh, I was just going to suggest that we go in there wearing boxers on our head, screaming like lunatics," Parker said, dryly.

"There is the problem of where this lunatic is," Shadow pointed out. "Uncle and I can't Earthsight the psycho, so that must mean that he's not on earth."

"Or simply not in our Earthsight radiuses," Cloak said. "In any case, we should make our next step soon."

But Parker had stopped paying attention, and was eyeing something in the distance. He stood stock still trying to discern it, but decided that he needed to switch to an armor with far better telescopic viewing tech. He blinked, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

Cloak was of enough sound mind to query about this sudden reaction.

"There!" Parker said, pointing at what appeared to be a pinprick in the distance. But it was rapidly approaching.

"Is that what I think it was?" Underseen asked.

"Deflating Drifblims!" Cloak shouted, as a shortened "Sam & Max"-ism.

"Uncle, that was corny."

"Never mind! No wonder we couldn't Earthsight him!" her uncle replied. "You were right, Shadow! He wasn't even touching the earth!"

"But . . . but how would he even know to do that? I was under the impression that it was not yet common knowledge for those outside RAF." said Underseen. "I mean, if it was someone we fought against regularly, then sure, it might be conceivable."

"I think the more pertinent question is," Parker said, eyes not leaving the spot where they spied this perverted prankster, "where he got the hot air balloon he's flying."

"Uh, guys, he's not flying it," Shadow said, noticing the erratic movements and the illogical increase in speed. "He's crashing it!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 21, 2015, 11:53:05 AM

FOOD YIELD INCREASER!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 21, 2015, 12:30:59 PM

I'm now going to start yelling "Deflating Drifblims!" at regular intervals. Either that or "Divebombing Dragonites!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2015, 03:30:04 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Face to Face

"And it's coming right for us!" Shadow added.

"Your trajectory is a bit off, Shadow," Parker said, stoically. "If he continues at this pace, with no interuptions or discrepancies or the like, he should land approximately six feet from here. At two o'clock."

"But it's six twenty-four," Underseen said.

"That," Cloak said, "is an old joke, even by Realm Walker standards."

"It wasn't a j-- oh, never mind. You're not buying it." Underseen said, with a wary shrug. "Are we even sure Laughing Boy is even in there?"

"It's Joke Meister!" came a small, faint, but clearly annoyed and irritated voice.

"Answer your question?" Cloak said.

"Yes," Underseen said, clearly having not heard Joke Meister's angry protestation, "I'd like an answer to my question."

"You didn't hear him then," Cloak said, sighing heavily. Cloak sometimes forgot that not all of his RAFian fellows had feline hearing as he did. "He is on that balloon. He heard you call him Laughing Boy. As you will remember, he did really care for that nomme de plume."

"Oh, wonderful," Underseen said.

CRASH!!!

"You were off, Parker." Cloak said, conversationally. "That's seven feet away."

"So sue me."

"With this country, that's probably entirely possible." Underseen said, uncharacteristicall y jaded. And that was Cloak's shtick.

"For the last time," Joke Meister growled, which easily transmogrified into a psychotic laugh, "it . . . is . . . Joke . . . MEISTER!!"

"Like it matters," Cloak said, terrakinetically moving slabs of earth that pinioned his arms to his sides. "You are at our mercy now, you clownish cretin. You can do nothing more to harm anyone anymore."

"You found all twenty-five bombs already, then?" he said, with only the mildest of shock. "Well, bravo, dear Protagonists. You're better than I thought."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2015, 03:32:30 PM

Surely that wasn't twenty five.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2015, 05:11:11 PM

Technically, we haven't even found one. I'd say more but, alas, spoilers.

Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCVI: "Abject Compliance" -- The RAFians must deal with compliance chips manufactured by an enemy.
• Book DCCVII: "Blackest Night" -- A continuation of "The Last RAFian" (thus out-of-continuity), the New RAFians must deal with Black Lantern RAFians.
• Book DCCVIII: "Brightest Day" -- A continuation of the last book (thus out-of-continuity as well), the New RAFians must protect the Entity from the mechanisms of the Black Lanterns.
• Book DCCIX: "Guitarhero Time!" -- GH encounters an old flame . . . who wants him dead.

There. All titles are subject to change. Let me know what you think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 22, 2015, 08:33:16 PM

Hmmmmm, I guess I'm excited for book DCCIX. I only have to wait a few hundred books! :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2015, 11:19:59 PM

But if I remember correctly from "The Last RAFian", the White Lanterns already got rid of that problem.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2015, 03:35:08 AM

Nah. Different book, Saffa. I think that the one that you're thinking of was in the main continuity.

Disclaimer: it might get a little dark in this chapter. New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
New Crisis

"What bombs?" Parker said at once.

"Oh? You didn't know already?" the Joke Meister said. "Oh, poo. I spoiled the surprise!"

"Relax, Parker. We must have knocked out at least six or seven of them already." Underseen said.

"Oh, really? Then whatcha doing in the forest?" he said, with mock curiosity and childlike tone of voice.

"That's where they were." Shadow said.

Then that switch in this madman's head was flipped from campily childlike to maliciously malevolent psychopath. "They're in the city, my Protagonist dumplin'."

"Where?" Parker said at once.

"Oh, come on, Protagonist!" Joke Meister chided with a deep-throated laugh. "You wouldn't want me to spoil the -- ugh!"

Parker, despite being roughly the same size as the Joke Meister, grasped his throat very firmly and very tightly.

"I asked you 'where'. Now TALK!!"

Cloak was quick on the uptake. "You know, you had better listen to him. You don't want to be a target when he's in one of his rages."

"What are you tal-- oof!" Underseen began before Shadow elbowed him in his ribs.

But the Joke Meister was already wise to this little good cop, bad cop deal.

"First time being the bad cop?" he said, flippantly addressing Parker. "Or is your first time being good cop?"

"Tell us what we want to know," Parker threatened. Then he pressed the tips of the fusion cannons that he wielded on this other arm to Joke Meister's head, which was grinning unconcernedly. "Tell us, or I'll get sarcastic."

"And do what?" Joke Meister said, calling Parker's bluff. ""Crushing my windpipe, asphyxiating me slowly? Decorating these lovely woods with my gray matter? Well, go on and do it buddy boy, let's see if you've the balls."

"Tell us --"

"Or what?" the Joke Meister said, cackling victoriously. "You'll kill me? Well, then how will you know where they are then, if I'm dead?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 23, 2015, 03:55:03 AM

Really love this chapter. It's pretty interesting to see Laughing Boy not - er, laughing for once.
Serious question, do you actually have over 700 book ideas for this? If so, I certainly applaud you for having even planned that much out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2015, 01:57:29 PM

Yes, GH.

There are ideas for 709 books (although, I just got done with planning out the chapters of Book CDXXV ("The Forbidden Ones") -- which I do right before work, when I'm waiting to clock in, and during my lunch break). This doesn't mean that I rigidly follow these brief chapter synopses, as I sometimes deviate from them considerably.

For instance, you know the book dealing with the progeny of Garrotik? In the chapter synopses that book was half as long as it turned out to be.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 23, 2015, 03:09:17 PM

*Applauds*
That is some crazy devotion right there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2015, 04:32:15 PM

*shrug* It's my therapy, as funny as that may sound. And, a lot of the time, I would just be staring at the wall, bored to death, if I didn't have this to work on before I clock in and at lunch break. And I try to post a minimum of one chapter every day. I don't always succeed now (being a housekeeper at what essentially is retirement home, of sorts, is a more tiring job then most people give it credit for).

In fact, not to sound immodest, I think that this is the longest ongoing fanfic here, not to mention the longest one in terms of thread length. . . . Which is why it may be daunting for new readers to just dive into, as some books reference previous events, and thus major spoilers of past books.

Which is one reason that that I can't reveal the title of the current book I'm planning out in its entirety ("Search For [spoiler!]"). Well, that, and Saffa would figuratively beat me over the head with an iron skillet. ;)

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Plan Unspoken

"Tick-tock, dear Protagonists!" Joke Meister said, with an abrupt return to his campy, goofy, but still malicious, attitude. "The clock's still running!"

"We're well aware." Cloak said, as none of the four made a move toward the city. This seemed to momentarily stymie the Joke Meister. This wasn't a part of his gloriously elegant scheme. It didn't make sense.

Silence stretched between the five as the seconds ticked away. Joke Meister was getting more confused and perplexed by the minute. These people were supposed to be the great heroes, and now they were just going to sacrifice the city for his self-admitted insane ambitions? It didn't make any sense!! Even to his own unhinged mind!

And still no one said anything!!

There was no possible humor that a mind even as deranged as the Joke Meister could find in this. These so-called heroes were going to leave the denizens of the city to die! They would die laughing from the Joker gas inside the bombs, sure, but they would die just the same!!

There was no fun in this. There was no good times to be had. How could these heroes, these Protagonists, be so heartless? How could they be so much crueler than Joke Meister? The mad clown was aghast and speechless at the sheer audacity. They were upstaging him! He was supposed to be the villain here!! They were stealing his thunder!!!

"WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?!" Joke Meister exploded, when he could not stand the silence any longer. "DON'T YOU REAL THAT YOU WASTED AN HOUR OF TIME?! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HEROES!!!"

The RAFians ignored this. All four looked unconcerned. If anything, they looked bored!! This incensed the crazed clown to an immense degree. How could they be so indifferent?! Especially about his magnum opus joke?! The gall!! The blasphemy!! His permanently etched grin was changed from one of genocidal jocularity to one of the utmost rage.

"I'M THE VILLAIN HERE!!! ME!!! HEAR ME?!?!" he raged.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Cloak said, indifferently. Then Cloak noticed the stoneless ring on the Joke Meister's hand. He put two and two together. "So, that's where it went."

"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME IN SUCH A DISRESPECTFUL WAY!!" Joke Meister shouted.

Cloak was about to repond, but his 3DS-like communicator alerted him to an incoming message. He took it, and the image of Cerulean's head was holographically projected from the screen.

"Got'em, Cerulean?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 24, 2015, 02:15:07 PM

I like how the villain here is defining a hero.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2015, 03:02:22 AM

Of course, Joke Meister's assertations are wrong. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Gotta Go Fast

Aquilai never terminated the communication when he was telling Cloak about the situation with the cure. At the Realm Walker's insistence, and operated under radio silence. He heard everything, and immediately sent Cerulean, the RAFians' resident speedster, to find and disable the bombs.

Cerulean wasn't one to take such a task, such an undertaking, very lightly. He streaked all over the city, and was frankly a little surprised how easy the first one was to find. He quickly when about defusing it, only to discover that it opened like a treasure chest. Inside lurked . . . sugar, spice, and a note that said "everything nice". Cerulean didn't see the humor.

The second one was just as easy to find, and Cerulean found that this ease disconcerted him. He went about defusing it as before, but then it cracked open length-wise. Snails and puppy dog tails. Cerulean wasn't entertained.

The third one was just as alarmingly easy to find as the other two. Cerulean was given pause by this, but he went to defuse it anyway. His reaction time would allow him to save himself and the locals, he felt. But he wasn't amused at the kittens and marzipan that was inside when it cracked open like a locket.

"This guy is seriously screwed up." he muttered before speeding off to the fourth one.

That one was full of expired candy. Correction -- stolen expired candy. Cerulean was starting to wonder if there were any actual bombs and not just the tale of a deranged psychopath.

And so on it went. It was when Cerulean came to the thirteenth bomb, and he was really irritated at this point. He was expecting this one to be a dud as well. However, he was wrong, and this was the real deal. And mere spitting distance from city hall, too.

Cerulean entertained the thought that maybe he shouldn't defuse it have a few less ineffectual politicians (which is a rather redundant description, when you think about it) to worry about. But he defused it anyway, and administered the cure to the compartment sacs that held the gas, rendering it inert.

As it turned out, out of the twenty-five only three were legitimate bombs. The rest were duds filled with really bad jokes. But it was done.

Cerulean took out his communicator and began to contact Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 25, 2015, 03:17:30 AM

I died at the "Stolen expired candy" part. I don't remember which one, but it reminds me of some cartoon I watched when I was a kid.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 25, 2015, 01:04:49 PM

Haha, I just watched the new Avengers movie today and this chapter reminded me of Quicksilver. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2015, 02:56:54 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Incarceration and Doubts

"Very well, Cerulean. Excellent job, per usual." Cloak said.

"YOU COULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN THEM ALL!!" Joke Meister raged.

"The perpetrator, I presume?"

"YOU'RE LYING!! You hafta be. YOU MUST BE LYING!! I PLANTED THEM IN VERY SECURE SPOTS!! FAR AWAY FROM ONE ANOTHER!! IT ISN'T HUMANLY POSSIBLE!!"

"Clearly, Laughing Boy, it is. Cerulean managed it just fine." Parker said, with a shrug.

"IT . . . IS . . . JOKE . . . MEISTER!!!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever." Cloak muttered indifferently, befire addressing Cerulean. "Can you put Aquilai on?"

"Yeah, sure." Cerulean said, with a casual shrug.

"Don't you ignore me," Joke Meister said, voice becoming softly malicious. He seemed to be trying to reach something behind the stained, threadbare, right side lapel. But he could not find what he was looking for. "What? Where is it? Where is it?"

"Oh, you were looking for this little toy?" Underseen said, holding what appeared to be a dandelion lapel flower thing with a tube leading to a rubber bulb that could be squeezed by hand. An acid flower.

"Hey! Give that back!"

"Don't think so, Laughing Boy," Underseen said, antagonizing him almost deliberately. "Besides, Cloak has more earth than you've acid. Your plan would have never worked."

"Yes, Cloak?" Aquilai said.

"We need the law of the city informed that we have captured a dangerous megalomaniac, and he needs to be detained in the most maximum security facility they have." Cloak said. He even had his doubts that that would stop him entirely if he wanted out. The Stone of Megalomania may not have increased his common sense or his maturity or his need for criminal artistry that makes sense to him alone, but it was obviously evident in increasing his intellect.

Cloak narrowed his eyes in a scrutinizing look at Joke Meister. He wondered just how much his intellect was increased. Cloak was well aware that he may have been very well zmarter than the Realm Walker himself. The thought sent shivers down his spine, to the very tip of his tail. But he said nothing about it.

The fact that Joke Meister didn't look disconcerted at all about his fate caused Cloak some misgivings. But Cloak, still accustomed to internalizing his emotions, did not show anything but stoic seriousness. But he eyed Joke Meister severely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 26, 2015, 04:28:57 AM

Smartassery is a Joker thing. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2015, 02:34:50 PM

True. Dunno if I will post another chapter today. Had another "I-want-give-two-weeks-notice-and-quit" day. Stupid lazy coworker wanting to loaf around and goof off, like he normally does. Only this time, I called him on it.

:edit: New book ideas.

• Book DCCX: "Hosting" -- All Emotional Entities simultaneously take the being they call the Steward as their host.
• Book DCCXI: "Unintentional Animosities" -- The Lantern Corps come to reclaim their Entities from the Steward.
• Book DCCXII: "Emotional Avatars" -- The Lantern Corps make Emotional Avatars, except the Orange Lantern.
• Book DCCXIII: "Rapid Recruitment" -- The Lantern Corps make rapid recruitments to to their ranks.
• Book DCCXIV: "Lady of Illusions" -- The RAFians must deal with a malicious illusionist called "the Deceiver".
• Book DCCXV: "Deceitful Love" -- Two recent enemies of RAF have a tumultuous relationship.
• Book DCCXVI: "Jailbreak" -- Three former adversaries seek asylum in RAF.

Remember, all titles are subject to change.

New chapter. May be a bit short.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Suspicious Slaying

Even as the Joke Meister was carted away to the maximum security prison -- charged with a plethora of murders, connected to several others (unbeknowst to them, he really had commited, but as Mark Napier) -- Cloak had misgivings. He wondered if old Laughing Boy had somehow had an escape plan. He may have had a scheme already on hand for this eventually.

The Stone of Megalomania was still -- presumably -- inside him. Cloak could not bring out, could not pull it out of Laughing Boy. It wasn't because of some pretentious, Saturday morning cartoon reasoning. He simply couldn't do it. This caused doubts to continued swirl and percolate inside him.

"Uncle."

He wanted to believe this was the best option available to them, but the fact of the matter was that there was one final option that the Realm Walker didn't want to consider. The most final option anyone could make. Even then, it wasn't permanent . . . the ordeal with the Black Lanterns should have taught him that.

"Uncle."

Nothing was ever permanent. The only thing that is absolutely certain to happen is change. His mind continued to dwell on these dark musings until the Joke Meister was well out of sight, and the resident Elements Master barely noticed. He tended to dwell on these things and pick them apart, overthink and amplify the negative aspects of things. It was almost a way of insulating him possible misfortune.

"Un-CULL!" Shadow said, with the tone she always used when she was mildly exasperated with her uncle.

"What?" Cloak said, coming out of his reverie of musings.

"I gotta go check in at home," she said.

"You have school tomorrow."

"Crud, you remembered." Shadow replied, with a cheeky smile.

***

A few days passed by since they incarcerated Joke Meister. It was a high profile case, and an open-and-shut one at that. He was sentenced to life incarceration, and he was bound up in a straitjacket, muzzled, and confined to a dolley. This may have seemed like overkill to those not familiar to the case, but the precautions were potentially prudent.

Then he was killed.

At least, it looked that way. The gunshot could have been faked. It would have been an needlessly elaborate faking, but "needlessly elaborate" was his thing. Cloak wasn't sure if this was a true slaying. Something about it shouted fake to him but, in all honesty, Cloak was being hyper paranoid about this. He recognized this and pulledbback a bit and calmed himself.

Whether he survived or not remained to be seen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 26, 2015, 10:57:17 PM

Damn. Ending left me a bit cold.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2015, 07:04:16 AM

Yeah, I suppose it would do that, Saffa. But we never see Joke Meister again in the series (at least at this point -- even he does it probably wouldn't be for eight years, in narrative time).

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

BOOK LXXXVI:
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD VILLAIN
CHAPTER ONE:
I Need to Know

Despite himself, Cloak found himself dwelling on his past, yet again. He knew consciously that he shouldn't be doing this, but he couldn't help it, on a subconscious level. He remembered the harsh tone his mother used.

He was now of the belief that the only reason that he was born was so his mother would have some leverage, some amount of control over his father. It may have sounded farfetched, sure. But she had tried a similar ploy with him and Shadow, using his love for his niece to manipulate him. Is it such an outlandish conclusion to assume the same may have been done to his father? With he and his sister, Dagger, as the weapons.

Cloak had often struggled with feelings of inadequacy and of not belonging. Before he found RAF.

"Will someone tell me where I belong?
Where I should go?
Can someone tell me where I’m going wrong?
I need to know.
Why does does she hurt me so?
If I can’t be what she wants of me . . .
What am I do do?
When can I be me?
The son she doesn't want to see?
There must be someone who understands out there. . . .
Somewhere.
When will I find a home?
A place where I belong. . . .
Surely there must be more like me . . .
Out there . . . somewhere. . . .
There must be somebody,
Just like me. . . .
Out there . . ."

And there was. Not just one, but many. Many people who know, like, and understand him, in addition to his aunt, Faith, and Shadow.

They are called RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2015, 04:54:42 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Parole From Reality

At an undisclosed prison, a small, pale, macrocephalic man was walking dimidly away from it. He had principally blond hair with red highlights and was rather like the volume of cotton candy. He had a rather large nose and overbite, with his front teeth being rather comically large. He wore rather drab clothing of a dark green, ag with the saddest-looking bowtie that you ever did see. While he was hatless, he had a particular obsession with hats. But that was far eclipsed by his obsession with "Alice in Wonderland", evidenced by a copy he kept an iron grip on as he continued walk out.

It was Jervis McDowall. A man without any real friends. It was odd that this story was considered newsworthy.

Jervis, as a technical designer and inventor who was very knowledgeable and skilled expertise in nanotechnology, had fallen in love with a coworker. Completely head over heels. And when this coworker, Alice, was dumped by her boyfriend, Jervis took this as an opportunity. He took her on the town, in a rather innocuous attempt to win her affections.

However, she misinterpreted these intentions, believing Jervis was only doing any of this to simply cheer her up. She informs him of this, and the short-statured man was heartbroken. Alice wasn't aware of just how heartbroken he was. She remained oblivious.

Jervis was of the belief that Alice was stringing him along. That she and all of his other coworkers were laughing about it. Laughing about it behind his back. He felt used and hollow. His face contorted with anger, with rage, with fury. Well, he was the office joke now, was he? The butt of every cruel joke at the metaphoric water cooler? The derision and the derogation of every employee and boss?

No.

No. No, he would not allow it to happen. He would make them all pay for what they done. He wouldn't allow them to mock him! He prepared to go into the office and shoot the place up. Only there was one thing that he had not anticipated.

A dinosaur dancing ballet.*

But he should have realized it, living in the city that was. The gun had clattered out of his hand and was stomped flat and useless by Dino, who unknowingly saved several lives. Jervis eventually was arrested, not for conspiracy or attempted murder or anything of the like. Instead he was charged with public intoxication (he wasn't given any sort of test, and whether he was or not was rather hard to discern) and disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to only a few days to a month.

But now that he was out, he found that he was quite a different man than the one who went into the clink. His sense of reality was skewed horribly. He believed the world should be like the Lewis Caroll book his obsessed over. He was completely distrustful of adults, trusting only kids. Although, his definition of "trust" was different from others. . . .

---

*Book XLIII. The Piper one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 27, 2015, 06:59:32 PM

Strangely enough, that's disturbingly similar to how I was around my sophomore year of high school (aside from his appearance). Paranoid, social anxiety, delusional, possibly bipolar . . . that's honestly really scary.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2015, 02:59:31 AM

I assure you that the actual inspiration for him is actually a lesser known DC character (at least, I assume that he is lesser known), GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Worry and Consternation

"Why is this treated as a high-profile story?" Sakki was asking.

"It's the news media," Asmo said, jadedly. "There's probably a story that some company or billionaire is leaning on them to bury."

"Such a pessimist." Abby chided.

"I prefer 'realist'," Asmo countered easily.

"He does have a point, you know." Chad said. "The news media is rarely completely unbiased, if ever. Like or not, they're run by people, people with strong opinions one way or the other."

"Doesn't mean it's right." Underseen put in.

"Of course it isn't," Asmo said. "No one said that it was. But that doesn't change the fact that corruption in government does exist."

"And has existed," Cloak spoke quietly, still thinking of that man, that Jervis McDowall. Something about him stuck out to him, but he did not know why. "Has existed long before the Realms themselves existed."

"Are you talking about governmental corruption, corporate corruption, media corruption, or the aye-aye?" Kelly said. She was hoping to get a smirk out of the Realm Walker, but Cloak doesn't really smile all that often. Well, unless Shadow's around.

"Why do you ask a question to which you already know the answer?" Cloak said, stiffly. Cloak in one of his broody moods.

Of course, this had the unintentional effect of killing the conversation. Cloak felt abashed and shameful a bit at this. He muttered a half-felt apology and used this as an excuse to excuse himself from the discussion. He left the thread and walked out upon the grounds.

He was angry with himself for a bit, for having this spurt of apathetic emotionlessness. There is a fine line between stoicism and being an arrogant prick. He believed he was being the latter and felt genuinely contrite. He did not know why was feeling so moody, so cranky.

Thoughts of that short man on the news media with slightly large head. That couldn't be it. That was nothing more than a relatively harmless miscreant. Not a threat. But then why did he feel this way? Why did he feel these burst of melancholy every so often? Whenever he did he would, without fail, dwell on his mothers and things not said that should have been.

UGH! He was not a teenager anymore! Angst should be left behind in adolescence. Yet here he was . . . still unable to cope, to reconcile his past. His traumas. Why was he so emotionally constipated?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 28, 2015, 03:53:04 PM

All caught up!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 29, 2015, 01:18:08 PM

And the PDF for the last one!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2015, 04:35:26 PM

Thanks, Saffa. Anf good, Gaz!

This book might be rewritten from my previous notes a bit.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Wonderland and the Runaways

"Rollo," a boy with dirty blonde hair who looked to be about ten or thereabouts, "I dunno about this."

"You heard them, Ricky! Telling us what to do. Talking to us like we're kids." Rollo groused. He was Ricky's peer in terms of age, but the most adventurous and ambitious of the two.

"But . . . we are kids, Rollo." Ricky said, trying to be reasonable.

"I'm not! I'm not a baby."

"You said 'kids', not 'babies'."

"Don't quibble."

"I don't think you know what that word means."

"Don't be stupid, Ricky. Of course I know what it means."

"What does it mean, then?"

"That's not important," Rollo said, brushing the question aside.

The two boys were runaways after having a fight with their respective guardians. They had entered the sewers of the city and were wandering around aimlessly down here. They were lost, but Ricky was far too proud, too arrogant, to admit it.

"Do you know where we're going, Rollo?" the boy said, sure that he saw black mold infested bricked wall before.

"You ask too many questions, Ricky." his fellow snapped.

"And you don't ask enough, Rollo." Ricky countered, coolly.

"Whatever," he replied, having no quips of his own to throw back. "Let's go this way."

Ricky was going to say something how every path looked the same and they were walking aimlessly in circles, but decided against it. He followed his black-haired cousin down the pathway, but he felt that it was against his better judgment.

They walked into an impossibility, an inplausibility, an mystery.

A beautiful verdant garden with topiaries, hedges and everything. Short grass beneath their feet certainly felt real, but this was not possible or even plausible. This kind of vegetation, whether neatly manicured or not, could not thrive like this in such a dark, dank, dirty place like a sewer.

In the middle of this garden was a long table with a long, somehow pristine tablecloth drapped ever so delicately, almost looks lovingly, over it. Upon this table sat a white ceramic teapot with decorative flower prints, with matching ceramic teacups with delicate floral patterns. Tea steamed from both the teapot and the cups.

Around this table sat kids, no older than they. A girl dress as Alice, a pair of twin boys dressed as the Tweedles, a girl drssed as the Queen of Hearts, a biy dressed as the March Hare, a four-year-old boy dressed as the dormouse, and a boy dressed as the White Rabbit. There was something unnatural about the way they sat, the way they looked with unfocused eyes . . .

Rollo didn't see how suspicious this whole thing was, and just saw it with hidden surprise. Ricky, however, was shrewd enough to know there was something off here. Something not right, but yet he said nothing. He wanted to, but he knew Ricky's retort, anticipated it.

"Oh, dear," came a rather goofy voice. It was Jervis McDowall, dressed as the Mad Hatter. "More runaways?"

Before Ricky could stop him, Rollo said, "How do you know that?"

Jervis motioned to the other kids, "You aren't the first runaways to come to my Wonderland."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 29, 2015, 10:52:48 PM

Okaaay. Suddenly creepy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2015, 03:15:26 AM

Eh, it's suppose to be.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Strict Dress Code

"But we're not st--" Ricky began.

"Wonderland, you say, mister?" Rollo said. As may have been established before, he hadn't much good sense and tended to act without thinking.

Ricky, however, overthought everything and had a fair bit of good sense that was usually overturned by peer pressure from Rollo. Ricky didn't have too many friends, due to his shy and almost secretive nature, due to the fact the other kids in his class just saw him as "that weird kid".

"Yes, that I did," Jervis said. "It's Mad Hatter, by the way. You may call me simply 'Hatter', if you prefer."

"So it's okay if we hang here for a while?" Rollo said.

Ricky was certain this was a bad idea, but Rollo wasn't about to listen to him or reason. Ricky was trying to devise a way to do it, but hesitated when he decided the only way was to be upfront. He didn't want Rollo to be angry with him.

"But, of course," Jervis said, permissively. "This Wonderland I've painstakingly built is a refuge for young, disenfranchised youths, such as yourself."

"Cool!" Rollo said.

Ricky thought it was anything but cool. But he said nothing.

"But there's just one thing," Jervis said, with a rather apologetic tone. "My Wonderland has a dress code. I'm afraid it's rather strict."

"Dress code?"

Ricky was wondering how Rollo could not have seen this coming. Ricky though it was rather obvious what the conditions of staying was. The other kids were already demonstrating it, and the blankness of their faces disturbed Ricky a great deal. Rollo was so interested by his own needs that he could realize what Ricky had already.

"I'm afraid so," Jervis said, in the same semi-apologetic tone.

"Rollo, perhaps we should go." Ricky said.

The angry glint in Jervis's eye did not escape Ricky's notice. But Rollo remain so very oblivious to it all. It couldn't be possible that Jervis was being that subtle, could it? Ricky began to doubt himself. Maybe he was misinterpreting the situation. Probably not likely, but still plausible . . .

"Don't worry, my poppets," Jervis said, with a note of eager urgency. "I can provide the appropriate dress to meet the requirements."

He said it a little too eagerly, Ricky thought. His fight or flight response was leaniheavily towards flight, but he couldn't bring himself to abandon Rollo. He didn't know how to convince Ricky how this was a bad idea, and he suspected they were pass the point of no return, as Jervis had cut off the only possible exit to get the "appropriate dress requirements".

A Cheshire cat costume, without a mask and a simply furred hood, and some child-sized period clothing. Ricky narrowed his eyes at this, and wondered sarcastically just why this guy would have said costumes just lying around.

"I'm not wearing that," Rollo said. "Neither of them!"

Ricky spoke in front of Jervis for the first time, "Me either."

"Tsk tsk tsk," Jervis clicked his tongue, while shaking his head. He pulled out two blank cards from his pocket and fanned them out. "Pity, that."

Now Ricky and Rollo were on the same page. Unfortunately, it was too late.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on April 30, 2015, 03:59:11 AM

. . . He is really scary. Yikes.

Oh my gosh your on book 80 something now. I remember back when you were on like book 30. Ahaha

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2015, 03:32:36 AM

Oh, there are scarier characters in future books, I think.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Missing Children

"Jaden White, age eight."

The photo showed a boy of stout stature, with some baby fat, who seemed to always be preoccupied with being prim and punctual.

"Harrison 'Harry' March, age eleven."

The photo showed a boy whose brown hair looked like one great, big tangle. He was never seen not smiling, if their information was correctly accurate.

"Duncan and Lincoln Gan, twins, age six."

The photographs showed two boys, Duncan being slightly pudgier than Lincoln. They both possessed sandy hair and crooked, mischievous smiles.

"Alicia Landers, age nine."

A picture of a pretty young lady with long, blonde hair who wore a black Alice band in it. She a blue blouse and blue jeans in the picture.

"Ruby Hart, age twelve."

A picture of a young, regal girl in red with her hair pulled back into a severe bun. She looked as if she was twelve going on thirty, if her haughiness was correctly interrupted from it.

"Dorian Avellanarius, age four."

The kid was adorable personified, with his mousey golden-brown hair and pointed face.

"And then the two newest ones," Aquilai proceeded, "Richard 'Ricky' Melbourne Edwards, age ten, and his paternal cousin, Rollo Vernon Edwards, age eleven. All missing for the pass three days and counting."

"This is interesting and all," Saffa said, "but, at the risk of sounding heartless, what does this have to do with us? This sounds like the jurisdiction of the police. Wouldn't we be overstepping our bounds, our authority, if we interfere with this case?"

"We can't be overstepping our bounds, because Commissioner James asked us to help out personally." Aquilai explained.

"But why?" Abby asked, perplexed.

"Just a hunch."

"Well, that's not vague or anything." Faerie said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2015, 06:15:29 PM

Oh, and Abby? I remember when the chapters that I planned out were all in a single notebook. I'm nearly to the sixth one now.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Unusual Compliance

The children and the Hatter sat around the table. Ricky was in period clothing and Rollo was in the Cheshire Cat costume, which hid the card lodged behind his right ear. His mind was wiped blank and his body moved about seemingly on its own accord.

However, Ricky's card did not seem to work. He still retained his faculties, his mind was still his own. His body still responded to his commands, and his commands only. But he was smart enough to know that he had to pretend that it had worked.

It wasn't easy. Ricky didn't consider himself much if an actor, but he didn't know what this Hatter guy would do if he found out the truth. Ricky forced himself to keep his face blank, forced his eyes to be stationary.

He couldn't help to wonder in the back of his mind as to just why his card -- a mind control card -- tucked behind his left ear wouldn't work. Was it faulty? Was there some delay installed in his? If that was true, why was the Hatter waiting to activate it? Did he want a witness? Then why not call Ricky out as a charlatan?

He would have to pretend. He would continue to have to pretend to be a mind slave. But he allowed the back of his mind to wonder. Why was the Hatter doing this? Why was he taking in all these runaways? They were essentially just living dolls. Empty and without conversation of their own. Is this what he considered good company to him?

"Ah, enjoy your tea, my poppets," Hatter said, grandly.

Puppets. He wanted to say puppets. Ricky thought. He was smart enough not to say it, though. He didn't want to give away that the mind control card wasn't working properly. But he didn't know how long he could keep up this pretense.

"Now, now, poppets. Don't be shy. Drink up." the Hatter said.

Yes, he knew that it was mind control. Somehow the Hatter was dominating the will and minds of the other runaways. He must have the controlling device on his person somewhere, but Ricky dared no to rake the Hatter with his eyes. Even that would be too much of a giveaway.

This was only a temporary lease of survival. Ricky was all too well aware of this. He would need to plan out a contingency for this, he knew. But he was ten years old, and had all the failings and trappings of a child that age, no matter how perceptive or intelligent as he may be. He would mess up eventually, as all kids are apt to do.

Only this time, he might not survive to learn from this failure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 02, 2015, 02:23:02 AM

Ricky is the Chosen One!

:P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2015, 02:59:07 AM

It's actually a bit more mundane than that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Loose Lead

"According to the information we have, all of the missing children appear to have gotten into big fights with their families," Yarin noted. "They ran away."

"Figures," Faerie said.

"They haven't been seen since." Yarin said.

"Foul play suspected, I suppose?" Parker said.

They were already en route, looking for some legitimate leads. It was rather a poor decision as they didn't really have much information to go off of. They just had the one: the homes of all the kids seemed to circle one area.

"They are still believed -- hoped -- to be alive." Yarin added.

"Why wouldn they want to return home?" Helen asked. "What could have been possibly said to make them feel in such a way?"

"In my experience," Cloak said in a quite voice that nonetheless carried, "plenty."

Silence.

No one argued. Those words, those four words, carried plenty of weight behind them. They knew of Cloak's past. He was as much of a runaway as these kids were. He could really understand what they were feeling. He certainly had a dysfunctional family life as a child, he knew the need to run to escape the pain incurred. As if distancing yourself from the source of the hurt, the hurt itself would be distanced.

This was a fallacy. Cloak knew this firsthand, though. He tried to ignore the pain, the neglect, the abuse, the sheer mental torture . . .

"Cloak, are you okay?" Helen asked after a few moments.

"Reasonably okay," Cloak said, repressively. But it was obvious that he was being less than truthful. "Let's find these kids --"

"Wait a minute," Parker said, with sudden inspiration. "Tyr, do the missing children's homes have some common location between them, some point that all have easy access to?"

A beat of silence.

"You cannot be serious."

Another beat of silence.

"Okay, okay. No need to get all hostile and snippy." Parker said. Then he addressed the others, "Sewers."

"You can't be serious." Faerie said.

"That's what I said," Parker observed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 02, 2015, 04:38:35 AM

It's always the sewers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2015, 03:00:30 AM

Well, not always.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Facade Failing

"Poppet, you're not drinking up," the Hatter said. He spoke genially enough, but it didn't reach his shrewd, searching eyes.

Ricky knew it was just a matter of time before he made a noticeable error. He forced himself not to jump at the Hatter's addressing tone. But he was ten and unaccustomed to sitting so still and stiffly for long periods of time. Ricky forced himself not to panic. He had to. If only for his survival.

This wasn't to say that he wasn't scared. He was terrorized and terrified.

He sipped his teacup primly as he could, trying to prevent his hands from trembling. He held the saucer in his other hand beneath the teacup. He gritted his teeth unseen by the Hatter, keeping his face blank. Keeping his face blank as if he was up against Koh, the Face-Stealer.

To top it off, the tea was a disgusting, watery sludge. Ricky thought this was very good evidence that the Hatter was trying to poison them. It churned his stomach, this hot leaf juice. Ricky was really starting to believe that it could be foul-tasting deliberately, but he had no real evidence of that.

But what this this whackjob want with them? What point did this serve? Why was it so important to him to indulge in this little fantasy of his? It all seemed so pointless, so useless.

"That's better, poppet." the Hatter said, thoughhis intense, cold stare did not leave Ricky. "It's almost time to shut the storybook for the night."

This guy had problems. Even a naive ten-year-old could see it.

"Yes. Yes, I do believe its time to turn in for the night." the Hatter decided firmly. "Off you go, my poppets."

Ricky followed the others' lead, following them to what amounted to a cold stone floor that was damp to the touch. It was more like a dungeon. Ricky was wondering if it was intentional.

He wanted to scream, but he had to settle for a mental scream of frustration, anger and exasperation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 03, 2015, 04:05:49 AM

Quote

hot leaf juice

(http://i.imgur.com/XS5LK.jpg?fb)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2015, 05:19:33 AM

 ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
An Unheard Cry is Heard

"I hate being down here again," Faerie said.

"There's nothing to fear," Yarin said, with Nyac pragmatism.

"Hey!" Faerie snapped like a bear trap. "You weren't down here with . . . with that . . . that thing. Sucking out peoples souls as if they were smoothies . . ."

"The Spirit-Drinker is dead, Fae." Parker said.

"Yes, that one is. That one." Faerie said. "Considering you had yours sucked out through your armor, I would think that you wouldn't be so flippant about it!"

"What?!" Helen said, her low, flat tone indicating that Parker wasn't exactly that truthful with her.

"Parker didn't tell you?" Cloak asked, already knowing the answer.

Helen's eyes bored in Parker so much that, despite being in armor, he quelled and squirmed a bit. "And just what did Parker not tell me?"

"Ooh, Parker's in trouble!" Faerie said, in a loud, carrying whisper as they stopped traversing the sewers momentarily. Despite herself, she couldn't help herself but grin. "I'd advise you to pick you next words very carefully, now, Parker."

He scowled at her, but weighed his next words.

"Uh . . ."

"Well?" Helen said, hands on her hips in a most authoritative, parental-like way.

While Parker tried to tell the story, spinning it so that he wouldn't make the situation worst or have her "ground" him (which wasn't what you may think it was), Yarin's six eyes fluttered. He heard something without really being able to hear it. It took him a moment to realize it was a mental scream of rage, frustration, and helplessness.

He lost interest in Parker's figurative tap dancing around the subject and Helen's calling him out on it. Yarin tried to locate the location of the mental scream, which was profoundly harder to do telepathically than by sound.

Cloak quickly noticed this, not finding the argument between Helen and Parker particularly interesting. "Yarin, what's up?"

"I telepathically heard a mental scream of despair," the Nyac replied.

This gave Parker a momentary reprieve, and he seized upon it. "Where did it come from?"

"That's what I'm trying to discover discern," Yarin said quietly.

"Don't think you're off the hook, Parker." Helen said, severely. " We'll finish this later, and until then, you're cut off, pal."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 04, 2015, 09:41:57 AM

Now why wouldn't you tell your girlfriend about your very own near death experience? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2015, 03:11:38 AM

He didn't want to worry her. Or something like that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
First Contact

Ricky was completely unaware that someone heard his silent scream. He was beginning to lose hope of ever get out of this place alive, much less with Rollo in tow. He still didn't understand why Rollo got so bent out of shape about being called that. It wasn't so offensive . . . and his father only said it out of frustration from Rollo's previous interaction from that other kid, the tattletale.

All his because Rollo refused to admit that he may have been wrong. His pride and arrogance led them both here. And just what exactly did they have to show for it? Rollo's very mind stolen from him, turning him into little but a living doll. His own fate was more unsure. Ricky knew that this whole facade hinged on his ability to act, to play a part,which he never saw himself as particularly good at. His mother always saw through him easily. Ricky surmised it was only because of the Hatter's deteriorated state of mind that he managed so far.

<Who are you?> came a voice.

Ricky was very lucky that the Hatter wasn't looking when he jerked very un-mind controlled-like. The boy was very certain that the thought was not his own. He fighting very hard against the impulse to panic.

<Calm yourself,> the voice said. Easier said than done. <I'm a friend.>

A likely story.

<Believe me on this, young human,> said the voice. <I'm a Nyac. And a RAFian.>

Yeah, right. He was ten, not stupid.

<I know its hard to believe that -- you're very right not to be so trusting, very wise for one of your age -- but we want save you and the other missing kids.>

<How do you know there are others? Unless you are in cahoots with that Mad Hatter guy!> he spat in thought. He was subconsciously venting all the pent-up aggression and frustration now that he had an outlet. <Stop trying to use me. If you know that the stupid mind control card doesn't work, why don't you just out me to your master?!>

<Makin' a lot of assumptions here,> the mental invader said. <None are true.>

<You can't fool me!>

<We are RAFians, and we have been working on the missing children case for quite skme time now, and I heard your scream. It was impossible not to hear it.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2015, 03:47:01 AM

I think Saffa must be in exams.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Objective: Find Missing Kids

"What is it, Yarin?" Cloak said, at once.

"A psychic scream, to put it bluntly." the Nyac said, distractedly.

"Like a symbiote?"

"No," he answered. "Not like a symbiote. Nor like a telepath, or you'd be able to 'hear' it, too. Not like private thought-speak either."

"So . . . what? What is it?" Faerie said. Her anxiety was still apparent. She really didn't like being underground like this, especially in this particular spot.

"The kids?" Parker guessed, with a subtle note of hope in his voice.

"One of them," Yarin said, his upper right hand touching his temple. "I can't seem to find the minds of the other children."

"I hope that doesn't mean what I think it does," the Realm Walker RAFian said.

"Me, too," the Nyac said.

Time passed as Yarin communicated with the kid.

"The kid is wise -- he doesn't believe things on face value." Yarin said. "He also is making a lot of rash assumptions . . ."

"Kids tend to do that," Cloak said.

"Mentioned something about someone called the Mad Hatter. And mind control cards -- which would explain why I can't find the minds of the other kids." Yarin said. He paused for a moment. "This kid refuses to be convinced that we're here to help. He staunchly believes we're in league with this Hatter guy."

"Unsurprisingly," Parker noted, "if you started hearing a disembodied voice from nowhere, would you just blindly follow it?"

A brief pause.

"Other than the Ned Flanders of the world, that is." he clarified.

"We can still follow the quote-unquote 'sound' of his mental voice to locate him," Yarin said. "At least, until we get Cloak within Earthsight range."

"Sounds like a plan " Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2015, 05:07:18 AM

Many new book ideas.

• Book DCXVII: "New Management" -- Two enemies take over two others and discover Weapon-Plus data cards.
• Book DCXVIII: "A New Savior" -- A new being called Elysium causes the RAFians to fall out of favor.
• Book DCXIX: "False Recollections" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon XCVI, an humanoid energy creature.
• Book DCXX: "Energy Osmosis" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon XVI, a dragon-like Leviathon.
• Book DCXXI: "Ship of No Return" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon L.
• Book DCXXII: "Regitech" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon XVI.
• Book DCXXIII: "Let It Burn" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon LXI.
• Book DCXXIV: "The Impaler" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon XI.
• Book DCXXV: "Grundy" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon XXII.
• Book DCXXVI: "Invulnerability Bug" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon LVI.
• Book DCXXVII: "Lightning Chaos" -- The RAFians must contend with Weapon XCI.

Titles are subject to change. Yes, this is sort of a "Weapon-Plus Arc".

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Closing In

"Oh, my dear poppets," a voice said, as the kids were laying down, mind controlled to sleep. While Ricky pretended to be under the Hatter's thrall, he was still lucid and well aware of his surroundings.

When the Hatter came in, he had to surpress a shiver of revulsion. He didn't know what the Hatter wanted with them. They wouldn't stay children forever. Would he lose interest in them then? And what was his obsession with "Alice in Wonderland"? And he never took off that hat . . .

<Where are you? We can't help you if we don't know where -->

<Shut up!>

<Ricky -->

<How'd you know my name?> he asked quickly. Yarin didn't reply immediately, but the boy was very quick on the uptake. <You're prying into my memories?! You don't have a right to do that!!>

<Ricky, we need to find -->

<That doesn't make it right!>

<Ricky, you need to calm down.>

<I will NOT calm down!> he roared mentally. <You are not the good guy! You are as bad as the Hatter jerk!>

That hurt the Nyac. Yarin knew he had to explain himself.

<I didn't paw through your memories. I read your file. Well, briefed on it.> Yarin said, gently. <As well as the files on Rollo, Jaden, Harry, Duncan, Lincoln, Alicia, Ruby, and Dorian. I took an educated guess on your identity.>

<An educated guess?> he asked, skeptical.

<Yes. I supposed that since you were the only one of the nine that had . . .>

<That I had what?> he said, defensively hostile.

<That you had Asperger syndrome.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 06, 2015, 02:56:22 PM

Oh man that is one helluva way to end a chapter. *mic drop*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2015, 03:13:26 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Denial

Ricky was silent for a moment, but when he "spoke" again. <You don't know what you're talking about.>

<There is no shame in it, Ricky.>

<Don't talk down to me like that!> Ricky snarled in blatant overreaction. <I am perfectly normal.>

<Having Asperger's is nothing to be ashamed of, Ricky. It's not abnormal.> Yarin said.

<I don't have -->

<You were officially diagnosed a few months ago,> Yarin said.

<No, I wasn't. I took the tests but they were, uh, inconclusive!>

<Ricky, you do yourself no favors by lying to yourself.>

<I'm not!>

But he was, and he knew he was. He refused to believe it because he did not want to believe it. He did not want to be different like this, didn't want to be the outsider at school, he didn't want to be that weird boy that the other kids mocked and teased. This would just give them more ammunition against him.

<You're not doing yourself any favors, Ricky.> Yarin intoned gently. <It also explains why the mind control cards don't work on you, but clearly works on the others. Your neural biochemistry is different from the others, which allows them to be subject to the mind control.>

<So what? I can't do anything to stop him. The Hatter will eventually find me out. I dunno what he'd do with me when he finds out.>

<But you are doing something to stop him.> Yarin said. <Just tell me where you are.>

<I couldn't answer that, even if I wanted to. Rollo and I got lost in the sewers and stumbled upon a tea garden, I think it's called.>

<Tea garden, you say?> Yarin said. <Hold on, we should be able to free you soon.>

<Yeah. Right.> Ricky said, with disinterested sarcasm and a dull tone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 07, 2015, 03:17:19 AM

I'm starting to get really invested in this one. I'd kinda like to see more of Ricky after this book, there's probably a lot more you can do with his character.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2015, 03:04:42 AM

Perhaps, GH. Perhaps.

New chapter. This chapter may get into some dark areas.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Facade Fumbled

"They're in some sort of tea garden," Yarin reported dutifully.

"Tea garden?" Faerie said, voice heavy with skepticism. "Seriously?"

"Down here?" Cloak said, equalling Faerie's skepticism. "There's no way that the plants necessary for such a garden could stay down here and live. I don't think they'd survive. Then again, I'm not a botanist."

"I'm with you on that, Cloak." Parker said. "You certainly aren't a botanist."

"Very funny," Cloak said dully, fighting an urge to ferrokinetically trip him up. Now wasn't the time for slapstick. Perhaps later, at a far more appropriate time.

"Cloak, are you within Earthsight range?" Yarin asked, pragmatically.

It turns out that he was. And he discovered something rather odd about this supposed tea garden.

"Well . . . that makes more sense, I suppose." the Realm Walker muttered.

"What is?" Faerie said, at once.

"Tell you on the way." Cloak said. "This way. Come on!"

***

"Such lovely little poppets," the Hatter said. He was much too close to them now. Ricky stayed stiff and still, eyes shut. He had to be careful not to clamp them shut, the Hatter would notice it.

Ricky was beginning to hear sounds that he was hoping that he was misinterpreting the meaning of which. And wish he could forget. He was just happy he didn't have to see anything.

Then Ricky realized. If this crusty old man came over and started to do the same or similiar to him. He would not be able to keep up the facade. He would no longer be able to maintain this charade. He would have to drop the pretense, as he would fight back against it. He would resist.

He would fail. He would have to abandon Rollo in order to save himself. He didn't want to do this. He didn't even want to come down here. He never wanted to stay here. He never wanted . . . he never wanted any of this!! All he wanted was all the stereotypical things you saw sitcom families have, for a boy his age. But no. When ever something good happens to him, ten more bad thjngs take their place!! Why did he never get his wa--

"No! Stop! Don't touch me! DON'T TOUCH ME!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 08, 2015, 04:55:19 AM

Oh my god.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2015, 03:04:35 AM

I did say we were going to hit a dark area.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Irate Ire

The Hatter recoiled at once. He had believed that this was one of his precious poppets, one of his coveted little dolls. To him, it was like a pet that had decided to turn against him and bit his hand.

But, in his heavily-skewed mind, it couldn't be because his mind control technology wasn't sufficiently equipped to deal with the mind of someone with Asperger's syndrome. He didn't even consider that. But, granted, he didn't know about this facet of Ricky's. That Ricky retain his own mind because of this fact.

"You defy me?" the Hatter said, speaking more like a mechanic looking for a problem in a small car.

"You bet your obscene, garish hat that I do, Hatty!" Ricky snarled, pulling as far away from the Hatter as possible. He was bracing himself for a fight . . . which he knew, on a visceral, bestial level, he would enjoy immensely.

"'Hatty'?" It was astonishing that 'Hatty' was the only thing that was taken from Ricky's exclamation. The Hatter was appraising Ricky like a broken car again. "The card may have blown out . . . but no, that's not possible, there would be damage of a noticeable degree. The others seem to be working properly, so the link-up failing can't be what happened. Maybe if I upped the power on the master control unit?"

He scratched his head very oddly, as if not to jostle his ludicrously flamboyant hat too much. Ricky noticed this almost immediately, but did not know what to make of it. Perhaps he should be looking for escape, a way to leave this horrid place. But Ricky was as stubborn as Cloak, and that was saying something.

But Ricky had already decided. He wasn't leaving here until, not only Rollo, but every other child was safe from this evil pedophile. He could assuage his conscience if he did leave and leave these other kids to the pleasings of this deranged man.

"Come here, poppet," the Hatter commanded.

Instead, Ricky reached up , grasped the card firmly from behind his ear and took it off. Ricky looked at the Hatter with the same amount of rage, of hste, and of discontent. He held the card in his hand, and crumpled it until the minute, intricate circuity within it cracked, popped, and crackled. The Hatter decided to take Ricky as a more legitimate threat right then and there.

"Do you have any idea what you just did, boy?!"

"I destroyed the card that failed to take control of my mind," Ricky said.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to make one of those cards?! How many materials thst I need?!"

"Do you have any idea of just how little I care?"

"Oh," the Hatter growled, advancing on the boy hostilely, "I'll MAKE you care!"

"Oh," came another voice, "I don't think you will be doing that, you lecherous loon. At all."

The last sentence was a threat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 09, 2015, 05:20:09 AM

What an entrance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 09, 2015, 11:42:19 AM

Please tell me it's curb-stomp time. Because I would enjoy that a lot.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2015, 03:53:20 PM

In due time, GH. In due time.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Coward's Defense

It was Parker who spoke. He seemed rather unintimidated by this lecherous, "Alice in Wonderland"-obsessive, little nerd. He was rather disappointed with the perceived lack of challenge. He wore this feeling very obviously in his body language.

"What's this?!" the Hatter demanded, grasping his hat in an almost fretful manner.

"You guys actually are RAFians," Ricky said, surprised awe evident in his voice. His eyes were on Cloak, who wasn't too sure that he cared for the attention, the hero worship. The Realm Walker was never too fond of the spotlight. Yet, some of his images had gotten onto television when the whole paparazzi thing happened. "Real RAFians."

"Looks like we have a fanboy," Faerie chortled quietly.

The boys, however, focused on the Hatter.

"What's all this, then?!" the Hatter said, fretfully twisting his hat on his head. "You dare to defy my sanctuary?! You dare to befoul my inner sanctum?"

"You just make me all kinds of sick," Parker spat with a distasteful sneer.

POW!!

Out of nowhere, a cannonball shot out of his hat. None of the RAFians moved an inch. Not a nanometer. The cannonball neared, looming to strike Cloak head-on. And still not one of them moved.

"Look out!!" Ricky shouted, but his warning was in vain.

The cannonball passed harmlessly through the Realm Walker. It wasn't real, but a hologram. The Hatter began to vigorously twist his hat on his head in a rather nervous way.

"You think we haven't dealt with holograms before?" Cloak said, his voice low as a tiger's growl. "You think a holographic tea garden would have fooled us?"

"You know NOTHING!"

Suddenly, the other eight kids stood up at once. He, without a single word, had them stand up, as the kids still possessed glassy, unfocused eyes. The Hatter's beady eyes gleamed out from beneath the moderate brim of his hat.

"Of course," Yarin said, quickly realizing what when on. "The neural interfaces had changed from requiring auditory imput to direct neural commands from the master interface control."

"Huh?" Ricky said.

"English, please, Yarin!" Faerie said, exasperatedly.

He was the one in my head, Ricky realized.

"That was English." the Nyac sniffed.

"He said that the master mind controlling thing is allowing Jervis McDowall there to control the kids doesn't require him to tell what to do aloud." Cloak summarised.

"So he's going to use them to attack us," Parker anticipated.

"Uh . . ." Ricky said, pointing. The eight kids were surrounding Jervis, a wall of flesh and innocence. A coward's shield.

"I'm really beginning not to like this guy," Faerie growled threateningly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 09, 2015, 05:08:44 PM

This is so good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 09, 2015, 07:23:44 PM

Disturbing, but good

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2015, 03:00:48 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Crumbling Defense

"You're in good company there, Fae," Cloak said. He scrutinized the situation, examining everything he could possibly ascertain. Jervis was just short enough to be hidden behind all the kids when he stooped over, which was naturally doing. His hat peeked over their heads though.

"The cards!" Ricky shouted at once, reminding them, trying to give the RAFians an edge. "The cards mind control them!"

"And removing them prematurely will cause their precious little heads to explode." the Hatter said at once.

"He's lying!!" Ricky insisted.

"I know." Cloak said, knowledgeably.

"Bothersome brat!" the Hatter seethed. "There is no way I'll allow you to get close enough. Each one of my poppets loves being under my thrall. Right, poppets?"

"Yes, Mr. Hat," they all said in the same monotone.

"I didn't know he could make them talk." Ricky said, looking disturbed.

"Jervis," Cloak said, " that was, perhaps, the most pathetic ploy I ever seen."

"What about that Fmek captain a couple months ago?" Parker asked.

"Okay, that was bad, too."

"You take me seriously!" Jervis whimpered.

"Or what? You'll hide behind  more children, you pathetic sack of pedophilic buzzard manure?" Faerie sneered. "Your scope of doing much is prety much nil."

He began to shuffle around, apparently looking for something. Yarin knew what it was immediately, and saw fit to correct what he saw. "Your cards won't work on us, McDowall, not with our Marks."

"We wasted enough time with this oaf," Cloak said, curt and serious. He flicked his wrist and held it as a gust of wind began to blow about the enclosed space. Yet, the cards remained stubbornly in place, especially the ones that were hidden by the costume hoods. But the Hatter's hat blew right off his head by the rising gust.

The kids stood like lifeless dolls, not anything like they were before. It was obvious why.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 10, 2015, 03:07:42 AM

It's the hat, isn't it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2015, 08:20:10 PM

Well, you're about to find out, Saffa.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Mercy

"GIVE ME THAT BACK!!" the Hatter said, carelessly knocking over some of the kids. Faerie was on it immediately. She deftly was removing the cards as carefully and hurriedly as she could. The Hatter didn't notice.

He was too focused on his hat. He clear had housed the neural interface within it. Surmising this quickly, Yarin telekinetically drew the hat to his upper right hand as if it was on a yo-yo. There he grasped it firmly, although Nyac grips were not like those of the Khoros Tetramands.

"Give that back!" Jervis snapped.

"As I thought," Yarin said, pulling out an inch-tall, millimeters-thick metallic ring with his lower left hand. "The neural interface. And apparently a telepathic probe nullifier. Also a holographic emitter -- looks like what I imagine a Chee's appendix would look like, assuming they have appendices. So, Cloak --"

"I SAID, GIVE IT BACK!!" Jervis screamed. He tried to lunge for it, but found himself being held fast and aloft, by some stone slabs pinioning his arms to his sides. He continued to wail, "GIVE IT BACK!!! GIVE IT BAAAAACK!!"

"Cloak, care to do the honors?" Yarin said, holding out the circuitry-imbibed metal ring to Cloak, who accepted it, and held it in his hand.

"Wait, what are you doing?" the Hatter said, stopping his wailing suddenly, realizing that something may happen to his neural interface. "What are you going to do with my -- NOOOOOO!!!!"

The ring crumbled to metal powder and twisted, distorted shrapnel.

"You had no right!!!" Jervis scream and screeched. "You had no right!!!"

"You want to talk of rights?" Cloak said, voice a dangerous hiss.

"Oh boy. Now he's in for it," Faerie said, rather exasperatedly, plucking the last card off of Dorian.

"Of all people, you want to talk of rights?!" the Realm Walker snarled, advancing on Jervis, in a slow and deliberate manner, his cloak mincing the air around him with each stride. "You take in kids, pretending to be some sort of affable benefactor or something, and force them to were your Wonderland costumes. If they refuse, you take their choice away. You take their choice away and force them to abide by your wishes and your pedophilic goals by functionally elimjnating their free will. I have an idea what you were doing to them, or planning on doing to them before we arrived.  What right do you have to screech and scream about infringed rights?"

Cloak quickly turned on his heel, the very sight of the Hatter was beginning to disgust him as to make the mere sight of him unbearable for fear of losing control over his emotions as he was nearing right now. He acknowledged this fact, and took several breaths to calm himself.

"Parker, contact the Commissioner and his men," Cloak said. "Then he can arrest this sickening piece of work."

"Already on it, Cloak." the SPARTAN replied. His face may have been shielded by his helmet, but by his tone of voice alone, Cloak could tell that Parker felt precisely the way that he himself did.

Cloak looked over his shoulder, and spoke very harshly to Jervis, "Feel fortunate, McDowall. Feel fortunate. Anyone else -- anyone -- would not be so merciful with you, after the heinous acts 'allegedly' committed by your dirty hand."

"No!" Ricky protested. "You can't let him get away that easy! He has to pay for what he's done!!"

Parker gave a mirthless chuckle, "Boy, he will. Inmates in prison aren't too fond of people who've done what he has done -- oh, wait, excuse me, 'allegedly' did. Rest well, boy, knowing that if the justice system doesn't punish him sufficiently, they will."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 10, 2015, 08:24:57 PM

I cannot tell you how satisfying this was to read. Awesome work!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2015, 04:20:11 AM

Yep. Now time for the conclusion, and I don't want to end on such a dour note. Hopefully, I haven't already use this song adaptation.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
United We Stand

Jervis was easily went to trial after everything came to light.

He never actually touched this kids, his defense argued, he never really committed the actions in a hostile manner. They couldn't work around the evidence that clearly showed he did it . . . Ricky and Yarin's brief, albeit unintentional, probe of the guy's mind to see if he was in his right mind. He was.

The defense decide to change tack then, and go after Ricky's credibility. The boy handled far better than some would have expected from a boy his age. The prosecutor called the defense out on some character assassination questions. Eventually, Ricky was asked to leave the witness box.

Then it was Cloak, Parker (who was required not to wear his armor, even though he felt rather naked without it), Faerie, and Yarin's turn to bear questioned. The defense tried to intimidate them, but, in all honesty, after all they faced, it seemed to be the most pathetic ploy ever conceived.

But, why not try? They knew they would never win this case.

And they didn't. McDowall was headed off to Blackgate. And the other inmates were known not really tolerate people of Jervis's conviction. . . .

***

A week or so later, RAFian were re-fortifying their unity. Through song.

"United we stand.
Now and forever
In truth.
Divided we fall.
Hand upon hand,
To Sister to Brother,
To Brother to Sister.
No one shall be greater than all.
United we stand.
Now and forever
In truth.
Divided we fall.
Hand upon hand.
Sister to sister.
Brother to brother.
No one shall be greater than all.
It's been many years, we celebrate
All that made our forum great.
Liberty and justice
For all.
United we stand.
Now and forever
In truth.
Divided we fall.
Hand upon hand.
To Sister to Brother,
To Brother to Sister.
No one shall be greater than all."

Guitarhero shouted, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Liberty!"

Blue shouted, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Justice!"

Phoenix shouted, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Trust!"

Estelore shouted, thrusting her Mark skyward, "Freedom!"

Genies shouted, thrusting her Mark skyward, "Peace!"

Cloak shouted, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Honor!"

Saffa shouted, thrusting her Mark skyward, "Goodness!"

Goom shouted, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Strength!"

SuperNate shouted, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Valor!"

Rotiart roared, thrusting his Mark skyward, "Me!"

There was a beat of silence at Rotiart's utterance. It was Saffa that broke it.

"What is wrong with you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2015, 10:51:20 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXVII:
SIGHT UNSEEN
CHAPTER ONE:
The Billionaire's Brain

"Of all the things we have to put up with, all the elaborate schemes we have foiled," Sakki groused. "This has got to be be, bar none, the most stupid scheme we have ever been involve with in foiling."

"Oh, stop your grousing, Sakki," Gaz said. "It could have been worse."

"Worse? We're fighting friggin' Mother Brain!!" Sakki snarled back.

It was only partially true. They were battling an overlarge brain in a jar filled with some strange, thick, water-colored liquid with two human eyeballs with attached optic nerves to the present brainstem. The brain could speak telepathically, and Cloak had no idea if Mother Brain was capable of such a feat.

"They" being Cloak, Shadow, Sakki, Gaz, Horse, Blaze, and Aquilai. It seemed like such a simple straightforward case to begin with.

From the information that they had, this brain used to belong to one Rex Rueggar, nicknamed "Rex Ruthless" by the media. He was a billionaire who died about a year or two ago. Before Ab decided to murder Cloak that one time.

But he had an odd post-mortum wish. He was very explicit and specific in his last wishes, and set in place perimeters to make sure that they were followed. He wished for his brain to be preserved in a special ****tail of chemicals of his own design. It allowed himself to survive the death of his body.

However, a bodiless existance was not one that he found particularly enjoyable, especially for a man of his station (which he had fought and backstabbed for), unearned status and undeserved riches. He decided that he did not like it, and what he did not like had to change. This he was accustomed to. He always got his way. Always. If anyone was inconvenienced, or harmed by his whims, well, that, in his view, was just too damn bad.

He preyed on a middle aged inventor, Anthony "Tony" Wayne, at his company (that he kept an iron fist on the office of when he was alive with the body he was born with, but was forcefully loosened with his demise). His was the body he would take for his own.

He already manipulated the minds of his wife (Adelene "Addie" Wayne) into a 1950s housewife, his ten-year-old son (Nicholas "Nicky" Wayne) a Brooklyn-accented troublemaker from"Oliver Twist", his teenaged daughter (Amy Wayne) a Swedish maiden a la "Heidi", and his immediate supervisor (Herbert Bing) in the stereotypical golf-playing goofball boss from any sitcom.

It was at this point the RAFians came in.

"You know," Horse said, having to freeze the brain's mind slaves in an icy enclosure, "perhaps we should have brought Yarin along."

The ground is what concerned Cloak. He did not like they way it was cracking. It was not earth, but hardwood flooring. Cloak found that repairing it with his mastery over the Wood Element was rather pointless because then it get cracked again just moments later. This was not good.

It wasn't good, because Cloak was fairly sure that there was some sort of chasm beneath this room.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2015, 03:01:09 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
An Energon Stash

The floor was swiftly becoming a major concern for Cloak. He and Shadow would not be able to stablize it any longer. Their attention was too divided as it was. The brain in the jar was stationary, and, apparently, perfectly oblivious to the possible danger that they were under.

Well, Gaz and Blaze were in less peril, as they could fly. Granted, Gaz had to be in bat or mist form for her to achieve anything remotely resembling flight.

The Wayne family were perfectly safe in their icy incarceration, securely held to the wall.

CREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAA AK . . .

Yeah, that wasn't obviously ominous at all.

But the others finally seem to realize the frayed nature of the formerly hardwood floor. It was going to start to buckle under their combined weight with the Mother Brain monster. Rex's brain was so bloated and large that it was the same size as Cloak himself, if not slightly bigger. The eyes on their nerve-stalks were the moderate size of beach balls, which he could fire concussive psionic blasts from. The jar seemed to be nothing more than plain glass, with no special reinforcement apparent. But it was quite obvious that that it was heavy. Really heavy.

CREEEEEE . . . EEEEEE . . . EEAA . . . AAAAAA . . . AAAAAAK!!!

"We're gonna go down, aren't we?" Shadow said, at once.

CREEEEEE . . . EEEEEE . . . EEAA . . . AAAAAA . . . AAAAAAK!!!

"I'd say that would be a fair assessment." Cloak said, resigned to it.

Then the floor gave out, collapsing beneath their feet. The jar and the RAFians tumbled down into a dark chasm. The jar shatters open, and the brain of Rex Rueggar began to slowly die, without being immersed in his detailed ****tail of chemicals, he could not sustain life. Within moments, he was dead.

For good, this time.

"I'd feel sorry about his death. If he wasn't such a abhorrent jacka--" Sakki spat.

"Sakki." Gaz said, ans Sakki just surly haunched her shoulders and glowered at the broken glass.

He could Earthsight that Tony had come to collect his family, and his boss, and take them to safety. Well, that's one loose end they wouldn't have to worry or fret about.

They moved onward in the circular expanse. The ceiling seemed a long distance overhead, but probably only a few feet. Then Cloak saw something that caused him to freeze in his tracks.

Energon.

Crystals and cubes. Red, orange, yellow, gold, green, blue, indigo, violet, black, silver, gray, and white. All volatile. Everywhere in this chasm. Dotted here and there but in a massive underground deposit.

Cloak was knowledgeable enough about energon to know that this was not a good thing. What was worst was that every single one of them was starting to glow, gathering energy. Cloak knew what was imminent. He only had time to quickly gather the others, say "Gateburst!" and try to throw up a shield.

Ba . . . BOOM.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 12, 2015, 03:19:07 PM

Anthony Wayne.

Really? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on May 12, 2015, 09:05:32 PM

No more homework means more time to stay caught up! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2015, 11:37:46 PM

Yep, Saffa. We'll never hear from him again. At the time of writing, anyway.

Excellent, Gazzy.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Darkness

Cloak came to quickly enough. All around him was blackness, but he already knew his surroundings. He found out about his surroundings via Earthsight, not regular sight. Regular sight was nothing but the inky blackness that came with absolute, abject darkness. In the back of his mind, he already knew.

His Earthsight seemed to be more sensitive, more accurate, its range drastically increased. He knew where the others were without having to see them with his eyes. All were still splayed on the ground, though Shadow was righting herself.

"Uncle . . ." Cloak could hear a note of fear in her voice.

"Settle, Shadow." Cloak said. "All will be well."

Cloak did not know why he spoke the Blue Lantern's slogan there, but instead of feeling a twinge of fear, like his neice, all he felt was a strange, odd sort of calmness and clarity. He was dimly aware of what happened, but it didn't stymie him.

"Uncle, I can't see."

"Nor can I," Cloak said, with the same serenity. "Not with my eyes, anyway. Hasn't your Earthsight increased in sensitivity?"

Shadow said nothing for a moment, and when she spoke, the tinge of fear was gone, "Yeah."

The others were stirring now. They did not feel the calmness, the clarity, the serenity that the Element Masters felt. Blaze seemed to be taking it the worst of everyone. He had his sword out and was swinging it willy-nilly. He had ignited it.

"Put that thing away, Blaze." Cloak said, calmly. "Before you hurt someone."

"What is this stuff, my sword hasn't illuminated anything!"

"I can't see anything, either," Aquilai said.

"Me neither," Gaz said, an edge of panic in his voice.

"Me either," Horse said. The panic was catching.

"I can't see!" Sakki said. The panic was infectious now, to everyone but the Realm Walkers.

"Calm yourselves," Cloak said, serenely.

"CALM DOWN?!" Sakki and Blaze shrieked. "We can't see!!!"

"And how is hysterical panicking going to accomplish anything?" Shadow asked, sincerely.

Silence, broken only by Aquilai.

"How did this happen? That explosion? How did it not kill us? It was.point-blank."

"Our bodies have a build-up of Energon energy, I surmise," Cloak speculated.

"But we're organic!" Blaze said. "Except Sakki, that is."

"Doesn't mean we are unaffected by it," Cloak said. "And (forgive me my immodesty) if it affects Shadow and me, what chance would you all have to be unaffected? I am just relieved that my energy shield managed to eliminate the lethality of it."

"Is it permanent?" Gaz said.

"I don't think so, no." Cloak said. "It should dissipate after a while. Faster if we get to Kelly and Yarin."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 13, 2015, 02:55:20 AM

So what does it do?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2015, 04:33:39 AM

Energon?

It's the fuel source of Cybertronians (read: Transformers), a well as the source of their ammunition. The crystals are a lot more unstable than the cubes, leading to explosions such as you've seen. The explosion could have killed us, had the energy shield I threw up hadn't blocked most of the blast.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Difficult Journey Ahead

"Kelly and Yarin? Are they going to pick us up?" Sakki asked, at once.

"I doubt it, Sakki," Aquilai said. "I can't speak for everyone, but that blast seems to have fried my communicator."

The others, except Shadow (who was an unofficial RAFian), confirmed this. All comunication was down.

Aquilai sighed, "Goom and Yarin will be livid when they hear. They're gonna say we were being careless."

"Well," Gaz said, "to be fair, we kinda were."

"I wish I realized just how dependant on sight I was," Horse said, more to herself than anyone else. When she spoke again, she addressed every one. "Just how are we supposed to get back to the forum, like this?"

"Yeah, there was like a meadow, a chemical plant, ruins,  a mine, a cove, and who knows what else between us and the forum." Sakki said.

"I would think the path forward was clear," Cloak said.

"How so?" Blaze said.

"We proceed forward."

"Cloak, perhaps you've forgotten already," Blaze said. "WE CAN'T SEE!!"

Cloak and Shadow made tethers of energy that linked them together. Gaz wanted to go all batty, but somehow the infusion of Energon energy prevented her transformation without undue excruciating pain*. So she decided against it.

"The journey will be long. It will be arduous. But we can do it. we have been through worse things." Cloak said to the others.

---

*Reference to the Beast Wars episode this book is loosely based off of.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2015, 03:00:39 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Mellow Meadow Melodies

"I don't like this," Blaze said agin, after they ventured from the slow-collapsing cave. He had his hands out in front of him, desperately probing for something to lean against, something to see.

"So you've said," Horse said, dryly.

"We've reached the meadow." Shadow announced. "It seems to be really pretty, from what Earthsight can tell me of it."

"Well, that's just wonderful," Blaze said, with caustic sarcasm.

The going was easy, relatively speaking. There were really no obstacles that were barring them from their destination. Still, they progressed slowly and cautiously. Blaze was becoming just beyond Rotiart in terms of unpleasantness. But the others knew he was just putting on a front for the fear of something he never thought he'd lose. His sight.

It was something that the sighted always took for granted. Never conceiving of a time when they would be without their vision. Never considering a time where they would have something so vitally integral, so vastly important, stripped away and denied to them.

It was a scary position to be in, no matter what species . . . what visually-dependant species you may be.

Cloak and Shadow were in a much different position. Unlike the others, they could see. In a way. Sakki and Gaz could possibly do something similar, by way of echolocation. Gaz, in her bat form (though her transformations were unbelievably painful), and Sakki's abilities granted her mastery over all sonics that she was capable of uttering, and hearing any sound uttered (though she, and the others, including Cloak, seemed unaware of this ability).

Cloak used his ears and nose to scrutinize their surroundings, in addition to his Earthsight. There were no trees, and the area was completely open. This made the others feel rather anxious and antsy. They were sitting ducks out here, but Cloak could not sense any danger.

He recognized that it was not impossible. The possible dangers could be airborne, unseen by his Earthsight. But it wouldn't elude his hearing, as the air was still and calm. There was no upwind and downwind for the moment, so Cloak's nose should have been able to pick up anything dangerous. Unless that danger . . . that danger had no scent, like a robot or something.

Cloak gave his head a quick shake. They had enough problems without him inventing more. They needed to press onward, toward the forum.

"Let's keep going," he said, urging them all forward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 14, 2015, 05:46:35 AM

Whoa, this is a really eye-opening look at things.

worst pun very sorry

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2015, 02:59:44 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Toxic Memories

They came upon an old chemical plant, and they made their way through it. Sure, they could go around it, but it was a consensus decision to go through it, as it would be far quicker. And they were all for expediency.

All was going well, until Cloak stopped stock still. He blinked as a forgotten memory surfaced suddenly, as if it had been trying to claw its way to the surface after all these Dweller months.

"Cloak, what is it?" Sakki said, after a moment. She was trying her hand at echolocation, and discovered Cloak's prone body language.

"That smell," the tiger Realm Walker said, vaguely, ". . . that smell. . . ."

"What smell?" Blaze said, rather more snottily than he intended. "I don't smell anything."

"Wait a minute . . ." Horse said, in subtle recognition, ". . . I think I can smell it, too."

"Me, too." Shadow said. "Barely."

"But what is that smell?" Horse said. "I can't place my flipper on it."

Cloak felt a shiver, and, despite the pointlessness of it, tried to suppress it. "The viral ooze."

"Oh, yeah!" Horse said, in benign realization. "But, wait -- it smells somewhat different from that."

"Somehow I feel like we're being left out of the conversation," Aquilai said, rather coyly.

"They're talking about smells. I'm not too terribly fussed," Gaz replied.

"Wait -- it also smells like Underseen. I think." Shadow said, perplexed.

"What?" Cloak and Horse said at once. Then they quickly agreed, though thoroughly confused themselves.

"Smells like . . . like Underseen? Seriously?" Sakki said. "What could this possibly mean?"

"I don't know," Cloak said, slowly and considering. Then he shook his head, as if shaking himself from a reverie. "But we need to prioritize. We need to fix our optical problem first, and deal with the implications of this afterward."

"You were the one who stopped us," Blaze pointed out, rather petulantly. Then he recognized this, and apologized for his crankiness.

"Let's get going and get out this place," Sakki suggested.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 15, 2015, 06:13:12 AM

What?! :rofl:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2015, 02:59:00 AM

I'd elaborate, Saffa, but then you'd hurt me. For spoilers. ;) Or am I just playing with your expectations? >:D

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ruined

They walked in silence after leaving the plant. Cloak had some misgivings about not ending that whole thing . . . but they did not know the extent of the operation or the potential ramifications of stopping it. It could have been a government-sponsored thing (and just because it may have been government-sponsored did not mean that it was on the up-and-up).

And, yet, Cloak's gut was telling him that they needed to go back . . . but he deliberately ignored it, pushed it to the back of his mind. He believed he may come to regret this decision, but he regretted many of his decisions in life (being a RAFian was most certainly was not one he regretted, not by a long shot).

"Are we where I think we are?" Aquilai asked.

Cloak paid more attention to the Earthsight "picture", taking in more "details" he wouldn't normally perceive in Earthsight. He relaxed ever so slightly. There was no danger, but they were not at the forum yet.

Well, not the modern forum, anyway.

They were standing on the site where the original forum once stood. It was nothing but ruins now, forgotten and abandoned. The site was still awash in forgotten memories and abandoned dreams. It was the birthplace of RAF.

"The original site," Gaz said, in hushed tones, such as one would take when entering someplace rather sacred. "The place where RAF was born."

This really shouldn't have been a surprise to them, as they passed through it on the way to the super-sized shack. But each took to the place with such surprising undue reverence, for what the spot represented to each of them for the creation and founding of RAF.

"Why'd we move?" Blaze asked.

"Yes, why abandon the original site?" Aquilai said, in a rather academic way. "I know why Cloak moved the current forum to our present location, but why abandon this spot?"

He tapped a mouldering structure that came up to his waist. It used to be a brick wall to a thread, reduced to being barely recognizable as such.

"The building remains are still here. Why weren't they moved like our current one?" the Time Lord continued.

"Because the change-over to the current forum and the last site was before my time with RAF," Cloak said. "And when I first came to RAF, my elemental mastery was really only academic and rather unpracticed. I didn't have the precision and control I have now."

Cloak said nothing for a moment, before saying, "But we should be moving on. We want to get to the forum before long."

"Why? You said it would dissipate naturally, and Kelly and Yarin would only expedite the process." Sakki said.

"That's not the problem," Cloak said. "Sooner or later, the Banned or Malice or the Knights or someone might catch wind of our predicament."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 16, 2015, 03:25:51 AM

Pretty sure it's haunted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2015, 06:01:47 PM

More like it had something to do with the Pootang . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Mountain Mayhem

"That shack was really out of the way," Sakki complained, when they were about four miles away from the original site.

"It was really out in the sticks," Horse agreed.

"Well, I suppose that was the point of founding RAF nearby," Aquilai said. "Security by remoteness."

"That's not fool-proof, though," Cloak noted, as they continued to make their way away from the old forum.

Cloak suspected that the reason that it was in ruins was not because it was haunted or anything like that. He supposed the reason was a bit more mundane. He postulated that with the birth of the Pootang (which was begotten from three parents -- Anna, Ken, and Tocade -- and Cloak really wasn't interested in the specifics) and it's irredeemable power and it's unrestrained ferocity and it's savage bestial nature . . . that probably lead to the original site's destruction and ruination.

Cloak realized that they were walking in silence for several minutes. Cloak came to the conclusion that they were thinking about the old ruins as well. The presence of the old site, the original site, certainly had an effect on them.

Now, they were in some nameless mountain ridge, trying ever so hard to get back to the forum, to get home. But even now, the energy energy was starting to dissipate, but not any really noticeable rate. The very Earth rotated faster than this Energon energy dissipated.

"Which way -- what was that?" Blaze said, calling attention to several grunts and groans coming from the forest they had exited. They couldn't see these creatures, but they were nine-feet tall humanoids with a single, Cyclopean eye, a bald head with a small, forward-raked horn large hands and feet with clawed fingers and toes.

"Trolls," Cloak said.

"The Banned?" Gaz said, concerned.

"No," Shadow said, at once. "These are larger, dumber, uglier (I assume), and smellier than Queen's minions."

"Oh, wonderful," Sakki said. "And this Energon energy stuff hasn't gone away yet."

"Don't panic. They haven't spotted us yet," Cloak said.

"UH! UH UH UH!!"

"Can we panic now?" Blaze said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 16, 2015, 06:25:27 PM

Oh, the Pootang! Wow, I nearly forgot about him, he's been quiet for a while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2015, 02:54:42 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
It's Mine

"Cloak! We cannot fight them off!" Aquilai said. "Not like this!"

"Yeah! I know you and Shadow may not have any problem fighting them being functionally blind, but --"

"I know, Sakki!" Cloak said. "I currently looking for an exit strategy!"

"An edit strategy?" Blaze said*. "What the bloody h--"

"An exit strategy!" Cloak enunciated. "An exit strat-- there! Shadow, with me!"

They opened a fissure in the ground, large enough for the lot of them. They yanked everyone into the fissure, sending everyone tumbling head over heel, screaming as if they were on the slide from hell. The Realm Walkers managed to seal the fissure before they tumbled on down.

When the tumbling stopped, silence was cast upon the RAFians, and Shadow. It took a while for them to gather their senses. They all stood shakily on their feet, and put their hands on the rough hewn walls.

"Well, I think I may have lost my lunch back there," Blaze said.

"Thanks for the image, Blaze." Horse said.

"Where are we?" Gaz said.

"A tunnel carved out for excavating auric material," Cloak said. "To put it bluntly, a 'gold mine'."

"Gold mine?" Sakki said, accidentally kicking an old forgotten oil lamp into a crevice, obscuring it from view. "There's gold here?"

"Don't let your avarice get the best of you, Sakki," Cloak warned. "The Orange Lanterns -- er, Lantern -- may seek to claim you as their own."

Cloak placed hand on the rough, rocky wall's surface.

"Besides," he continued, "there is none of it here. The gold's been played out, as they say. There are no active veins in this part of the mountain, as far as I can Earthsight."

"Oh."

"Where to go now? We didn't go underground to get to that shack," Gaz said, prudently.

"It's gonna be guesswork, isn't it?" Blaze asked.

Cloak and Shadow did not answer.

"This way," Cloak said.

"You sure?"

Cloak said, nothing, but glowered at Blaze. Before remembering that he couldn't see him.

---

*Based on a typo written in the above line. Thought it might be funny.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2015, 06:31:35 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Cave Comfort

They came to a small, cozy cave in a cove-like area. There was a familiarity to it, but none could put their finger on it. But it wasn't the forum.

"This isn't RAF," Horse said. "But why does it feel so familiar."

"I think . . ." Gaz said, hesitantly, "I think that this is where . . . where we sheltered you when you had the, uh, big problem."

"What big problem?" Blaze asked.

"When she grew to fifty-plus times her original size," Cloak said bluntly.

"Well, that means we're going the right way, then!" Sakki said. "Let's get g--uh."

Sakki nearly passed out. Cloak and Shadow easily and quickly recognized that they expended more energy than they thought with the oversized trolls. More energy than was probably prudent.

"No. No, Sakki, we shouldn't get going." Aquilai said, firmly. "And least not until we all recoup our energy some."

Sakki wanted to argue, but her body would not allow her to. So she slumped down against the wall and rested. The others followed suit, but this blindness with the silence made it seem like they were really alone, though the others were nearby.

A little distressed, Shadow sang:

"When the lights went down
And everyone was sleeping,
If I heard a sound,
Like things around me creeping,
She would wrap her tail around me
And tell me, "Don't be scared,"
And I knew that I was safe.
Because . . .
She's always there."

Yes, Faith was a good mother, Cloak noted. Far better than what the both of them got saddled with.

Sakki sang:

"When the storms would come
And things would seem so bad.
When I'd want to cry --"

She added, in speech, "Almost." Having said that she continued:

"I'd listen to my dad.
He'd promise that the rain would pass.
The day would soon be fair.
And I never was afraid,
Because . . .
He's always there."

They all sang in a chorus:

"Always there.
Someone you can count on,
To comfort you.
Always there,
Like a green forum valley,
You can come home to."

Cloak was sitting crossed-legged, apart and aloof, gazing of his blank eyes. He sang quietly:

"I remember now,
Like it was just yesterday.
Sage would hold me close,
And then I'd hear him say,
'You know, I'll never leave you,
You can find me everywhere.
I'm always there.'"

Hidden from the others by their literal blindness, a single tear falls from Cloak's eyea seared the ground slightly.

Then they sang out in chorus again:

"Always there.
Someone you can count on,
To comfort you.
Always there,
Like a green forum valley,
You can come home to."

The others nestle down to nap, and Cloak still "looks" off into space, before finally looking down.

"Always there . . ."

Then he followed suit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 18, 2015, 02:33:14 AM

Great. Now I feel homesick.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2015, 06:04:12 AM

Sorry 'bout that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Meanwhile, at the Forum . . .

"They're still not back yet," Saffa said, concerned.

"Relax, Saffa," Guitarhero said, placidly strumming his favorite guitar. "They're big boys -- and girls -- they can take care of themselves."

"No, Saffa's right," Abby said. "It was a simple mission. They should have been back by now. It was like six hours ago, seven or eight tops."

"Could it have gone south?" Underseen asked.

"That's a possibly for any mission," Parker said, pensively. "But I don't like it much either. There were seven of them -- counting Shadow -- that went. That should have been more than enough to secure the building and take down Rex Ruthless."

"There is always the possibility of complications," Helen said, biting her lip in a nervous, anxious way. "We all know this. But, if it went bad, why had they not gotten into contact with us? Isn't that common procedure, policy, or protocol?"

"Their communicators could have been damaged in some way," Goom postulated thoughtfully.

"They could be dead," Rotiart said, bluntly cavalier.

Of course, this was a bad idea, not because he was within earshot of the other RAFians, but he was within earshot of Laserbeak, whom Gaz firmly insisted stay behind. Laserbeak obeyed only reluctantly, because Gaz really put her foot down on this one.

So, naturally, Laserbeak was sick with worry about her, still as overprotective of her as ever. So Rotiart's carelessly crass comment was not taken lightly, and Laserbeak swooped down at Rotiart and began to peck him without mercy.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Rotiart protested loudly. "Knock it off! Leave me alone! Stop it!"

"Serves you right!" Saffa snarled. "Next time, watch your mouth! Think before you speak! I know that that is a challenge for you, but still!"

"Get it off!"

The rest of the RAFians decided to ignore him. He was getting his just desserts -- if you want to mouth off obnoxiously, then you take the consequential ramifications of such decisions. This was the lesson Rotiart never seemed to learn, or, at least, remember on a consistent basis.

"Get it off!!"

He ran off, being harassed by the Cybertronian parrot, until Laserbeak seemed to be satisfied that Rotiart lost his flippancy. He settled down in a rowan tree nearby the obnoxious teenager's hiding place, glaring at it and Rotiart mutinously.

"You could have helped me, you know," Rotiart said petulantly, addressing the others. But Laserbeak gave a threatening squawk, and Rotiart withdrew further into his hiding place -- fittingly enough, it was under a large rock.

"Okay," Saffa said, addressing the others, "is there anyway we can track them."

"Well, unless their communicators have been completely atomized, we should be able to track them by those." Goom guessed.

"But doesn't that mean the Banned, the Knights, Malice, or anyone of our increasing rogue's gallery could also track them?"

"I don't believe so," the Goomba noted, "it would require a complex triangulation requiring the use of the Mark, and --"

"We don't need the techno-babble," Parker said, more roughly than he intended, "if it is possible, we need to do it. They could be in jeopardy right now."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2015, 02:54:51 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Troll Annexation

"Interesting, very interesting . . ."

The giant trolls were not going to be left alone. Queen and the rest of the Banned had come to their home, looking to swell their army's ranks. Queen's near constant coups had caused her troll army to thin out a bit, and she did not like that. Not one bit.

It was somewhat of a challenge to bend these goliaths to her will and whims. Even she wasn't precisely sure how she managed it, but trolls tended to be not very big on the intelligence spectrum, and were easily manipulated.

Queen took some small sense of delight when these giants resisted her "charms". But they fell to her domination and control. But they were not loyal to her, they had no concept of such a thing. They told her everything.

"Blank, white eyes, you say?" she continued as she blithely interrogated them. "Well, this really unprecedented good news. There has been a disturbing lack of which in recent days, I must say."

Aloth's face was blank, and Yorick just rolled his eyes, arms folded tight. When Queen became haughty and over-the-top like this, she was practically unbearable. And it didn't help matters that Yorick was in a rather irritable mood.

"Yes," Queen continued. She loved monologuing, as clichéd as it was. "Yes, it is clear what we do now. Very clear."

"Go after the seven or eight blinded RAFians?" Yorick guessed, without any real conviction.

Queen gave Yorick a long, distainful, haughty look. Yorick quickly put two and two together, and, despite his initial instinct to just keep his mouth shut, he blurted out, "Queen, you cannot be serious."

"Oh, you know very well that I am," Queen said imperiously, taking offense at Yorick's tone.

"You do realize that it doesn't make any logical sense to do that?" Yorick said, not backing down this time. "I would make far more strategic sense this --"

"Don't you dare question my command?!" Queen shrieked.

"If you keep continually making decision that lack so much in coherent logic and defies all rational reason, well then, someone has to do it!" Yorick shot back.

Aloth was just watching this all play out as if he was at a tennis match.

"I am in charge here, Yorick!"

"I never agreed to that, Queen!" Yorick spat at once. "No one did! You came in and proclaimed yourself leader, the queen of the Banned. Pah! What a joke!"

"No," Queen said, her coice suddenly quiet, silky, and dangerous, "no, Yorick. There is more to that, and you know it. I am the Queen of the Banned because I have the power, the intellect, and the absolute right to it. It not only gives me the power to decide everything we do, but I also control the troll army. Directly. Can anyone else boast such a claim? No? I thought not."

She hadn't waited for Yorick's reply or rebuttal.

"ENOUGH." Queen said, super firmly, after she realized what Yorick's retort was. "My plan is great, just peachy. There are no gaping flaw in it."

"I see plenty, though," Yorick retorted.

"SILENCE!  Queen snarled.

"You first!" Yorick snarled back.

"Are you two gonna make out now or something?" Aloth said, watching the fight raptly, as if he were a kid with a free television, bowl of chips, and watching cartoons.

The two were repulsed at the very thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 19, 2015, 05:07:06 AM

:rofl2:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2015, 09:11:29 PM

Thanks, Saffa. I think. Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCXXVIII: "Resurrection Beast" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon XXXII.
• Book DCCXXIX: "Hand of Doomsday" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon CVI.
• Book DCCXXX: "The Light Knight" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon X.
• Book DCCXXXI: "Psychro Psycho" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon XIX.
• Book DCCXXXII: "Tech Tick" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon XXXIV.
• Book DCCXXXIII: "War Machine" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon XLII.
• Book DCCXXXIV: "Nightmare Boggart" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon XLVII.
• Book DCCXXXV: "Shadow Puppet" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon XLVIII.
• Book DCCXXXVI: "Splash Abyss" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon LXXIII.
• Book DCCXXXVII: "Blade Obsession" -- The RAFians deal with Weapon LXXIV.
• Book DCCXXXVIII: "Datacard Reclamation" -- The RAFians strive to recover the datacards.
• Book DCCXXXIX: "Oh, Mumsy and Daddy Dearest?" -- Slayer strives to kill his progenitors.
• Book DCCXL: "Miserly Mess" -- The Music Miser has a serious problem. . . .
• Book DCCXLI: "Favors Owed" -- Shenecron calls upon a favor.
• Book DCCXLII: "Shenecron's Spunky Offer" -- Shenecron sends his minions to several seemingly disconnected from each others.
• Book DCCXLIII: "Another Offer" -- Shenecron offers a trio a deal, a Hobson's choice.
• Book DCCXLIV: "Unwanted Attention" -- The Music Miser attracts unwanted attention.

Remember, all titles are subject to change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Moving On

The night passed quickly, it seemed. Daylight poured into the accommodating alcove, unnoticed by the blinded occupants. Shadow as the first one up, which was odd, since her uncle was usually up before the sunrise.

Shadow got a mischievous little thought. There was a stream nearby, and she needed to wake up her uncle and the others. Shadow couldn't help but smirk a simian smile at this prank idea.

She actually began to get up and go in that direction, smoothing out the cloak she had slept in on the way up. She tried to walk very quietly. She tried ever so hard. But before she even reached the mouth of the deep recess in which the rest slumbered, she heard --

"Don't even think about it, Shadow."

"Uncle?"

"I wasn't born yesterday, Shadow." Cloak said, getting up. He was a bit surprised that he no longer saw a deep blackness, he could make out the difference between light and dark, but still nothing really beyond that. "I pulled that trick on your Aunt Dagger once."

"Why?" Horse asked, blinking blearily.

"She needed to wake up for school, and she had annoyed me the night before." Cloak said, in a cavalier, conversational sort of way.

"School?" Sakki asked. "Realm Walkers have school?"

Cloak wore a look of perplexed incredulity, before remembering they couldn't see his expression. "Of course we do. Humans aren't the only species that educate their youngsters. Isn't this obvious?"

"I didn't mean it like that," Sakki said.

"We should get on our way," Cloak said, quickly, deliberately changing the subject.

They did so, and they had no idea what they were in for.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2015, 10:11:14 AM

This book may be shorter than the standard twenty chapters. But, considering the lengths of some of the past books (and some of the future ones), I think it'll balance out.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Well, This is Unprecedented

"Wait a second . . ." Horse said, blinking. "I can see color again."

"I didn't think seals could see color to begin with," Aquilai said.

"I'm not an ordinary seal -- unless you know of another one that can talk."

"Or bend water and/or ice to their will?" Cloak prompted.

"That too."

"The point remains, though," Blaze said. "I'm starting to see color, too. It's all blurry, indistinct blobs still, but still."

"The Energon is dissipating faster than I thought it would," Cloak said, almost academically, "this is unprecedented, but good."

"Unprecedented?" Sakki asked.

"I figured that it would take a while for it to do so. This was nust an educated guess on my part, as I wasn't aware there was any Energon on Earth . . . well, in this Realm, anyway. Or I may have forgotten, I'm unsure."

"Wait, faster?" Aquilai said. "Does that mean we don't need to return to the forum so urgently?"

"Possibly," Cloak said, vaguely, unsure of the ramifications of this whole Energon-based blindness thing.

"Could it be the fact that you can redirect energy, Uncle?" Shadow asked. "Your Marks link you. Could that play a part?"

"There is just one problem with that,"  Cloak answered. "You're gaining sight back as quickly as we are, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"But you don't have a Mark."

"Oh, yeah. Right."

"Anyway," Cloak said, with a rather abrupt change of demeanor, "we should be thankful for small favors. I don't know what caused the Energon dissipation acceleration -- could be the rest, could be distance from the site of the explosion, could be a number of other things, I cannot be sure -- but we need to press on. We need to get back to the forum."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 20, 2015, 02:15:36 PM

Of course the good thing is not really a good thing. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2015, 02:46:13 PM

Paranoid, Saffa? Good! Very good, considering this series. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Equip Spells

"Potestatem de quae accipiter. Potestatem de quae medusozoa. Potestatem de quae ursa*. You see, Yorick? You should never underestimate my plans," Queen said smugly, as she pressed her index finger on the left side of the chests of three of the giant trolls. Black tattoos of a hawk, a jellyfish, and a bear, each the size of a compact disc, were burned there. "Potestatem de quae corvus. Potestatem de quae pullus. Potestatem de quae lucanidae. Potestatem de quae dynastes hercules."

Tattoos of a crow, a crane, a stag beetle, and a Hercules beetle burned into the flesh of the lesft side of four more of the giant trolls.

"So what?" Yorick said, dismissively. "You're just giving them tattoos."

"Potestatem de quae centipes. Potestatem de quae colotes. Potestatem de quae scorpius. Potestatem de quae naja. Potestatem de quae bufo. Fool." Queen said, as she burned tattoos of a centipede, a gecko, a scorpion, a cobra, and a toad burned into the flesh of the left side of the chests of five more giant trolls. "These are animal sigils. They imbue the wearer of the sigil with the powers of the animal, as well as the inside of the animal mind. Potestatem de quae chelydridae. Potestatem de quae tigris. Potestatem de quae draconis avalon."

Three giant trolls gained the powers of the snapping turtle, of the tiger and of the Avalon dragon.

"Again," Yorick said, still flippant and persnickety, "so what?"

"Potestatem de quae phacochoerus africanus. Potestatem de quae bos. Potestatem de quae equus. Potestatem de quae hircus. Potestatem de quae mus. Potestatem de quae simia. Potestatem de quae canis. Potestatem de quae lepis. So it is powerful, difficult magic that no just anyone can do," Queen said haughtily, bestowing the powers of the warthog, of the ox, of the horse, of the goat, of the rat, of the monkey, of the dog, and of the rabbit, before finishing off the rest of the giant trolls. "Now, quiet your moronic doubts and allow me to finish the plan. Potestatem de quae mantodea. Potestatem de quae bison. Potestatem de quae manidae. Potestatem de quae murena. Potestatem de quae paguroidea. Potestatem de quae porcus. Potestatem de quae hystrix. Potestatem de quae papio. Potestatem de quae toxotes. Potestatem de quae corcodilus. Potestatem de quae strutionum. Potestatem de quae vulpes. Potestatem de quae lophiiformes."

She bestowed the powers of the praying mantis, of the buffalo, of the pangolin, of the eel, of the hermit crab, of the pig, of the porcupine, of the baboon, of the archerfish, of the crocodile, of the ostrich, of the fox, and of the anglerfish.

Queen looked a bit wiped out by the effort, but satisfied. Almost as if she thought victory was now assured, which was a very bad train of thought. as there was always a chance for a come-from-behind victory.

"There." she said. "There. We are ready, but I must rest."

"We can go without you, you know." Yorick said, disrespectfully and distainfully.

"No! Don't you DARE go early, Yorick." Queen snarled, fire in her eyes. "I won't have you foul this coup up again."

"You're blaming ME?!" he roared. "I'm not the one calling the shots -- unfortunately -- or making the poor decisions that ruin the whole thing! That would be YOU, Queenie!"

"We leave in four or five hours," Queen said, deliberately ignoring Yorick's assertion in an overtly obviously way. "We make NO move before then."

"Like we could," Yorick muttered mutinously. "You have control over the Horde."

---

*Latin translation by a Latin-to-English dictionary by Clea Translations. When one could not be found, the animal's binomial nomenclature was used.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 20, 2015, 03:29:52 PM

You sure it'll be less than 20 chapters? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2015, 02:40:33 AM

I did say 'may'. I looks like that it may reach twenty chapters now.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Clarification

Their vison was rapidly and steadily becoming clearer and they were becoming more able make out vague details. They all felt a warmness on their faces that was not uncomfortable. The Energon energy was now being slowly dissipated at ambient heat from their bodies, enabling their vision to clear.

But it was still slow. It was faster than before, sure, but that didn't mean it faded with near immediacy.

"It's fading away," Gaz said. "My vision is getting sharper."

Yes, their irises and sclera were now visable, while their pupils were still whited out by the Energon energy.

"Yes," Cloak said, "it's just a matter of time when our vision returns to us as it was before."

"Leaving us with a memory we won't soon forget," Blaze said. "At least, I won't."

"Yes," Aquilai agreed, "I don't think any of us will take our sight for granted again."

Cloak said nothing as he thought about this. The more he mulled it over, the more he realized that Aquilai wasn't completely accurate. True, some people would take an experience such as this as a life lesson, and that would be the right thing to do, surely. But it was far more likely that, despite how traumatic such an experience such as this was, would be forgotten, despite claims to the contrary. And once forgotten, vision would be taken for granted.

Or Cloak could simply be wrong and overthinking it all. He did have a tendacy to do that, after all.

The blindness was passing, their vision clearing all the time. It should have been a time for even the smallest sense of jubilation. So . . .why was Cloak feeling this unsettling feeling in his stomach? Why did he feel the poison of dread in his heart? It couldn't be something related to the blindness thing. It had to be something else.

Something else . . .

But what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2015, 02:53:58 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Horde

When the joyous occasion happened, the RAFians almost cried. Their sight returned in its entirety, and they greeted it with estatic jubilation. It was like a lost friend that was gone for centuries finally returned.

"I can see!" Blaze rejoiced. " I can see again!"

"So can I!" Gaz said.

Cloak and Shadow didn't share in with the celeberation. They were happy to have their vision back, sure, but they sensed something strange. Something neither of them had encountered before . . .

Shadow and Cloak walked, stalking low and carefully, toward the edge of cliff facing a bluff. They both travelled very quietly and stealthily, so much so that the others did not realize they had left until they witnessed the swooshing of their cloaks, cutting the air.

They were eventually stopped by the two Realm Walkers, who motioned them to quiet down. Then they peered over the cliff and saw something that surprised them. There was an unprecedented amount of trolls passing through the ravine at the bottom. Several of them seemed odd -- with bird-like wings, talons, claws, fur, and other really animalistic traits not normally associated with your average troll.

"That's . . . " Aquilai said, in awe, "not good."

"Understatement of the century," Sakki replied.

"What's the big deal?" Blaze said, dismissively. "They're just trolls. We beat them three times a week."

"Don't be a fool by getting complacent, Blaze," Cloak said reproachfully. "There's something out of the norm here."

"You're just paranoid."

"You're just complacent."

"In any case," Gaz said seriously, "we need to get to the forum. Which way would it be from here?"

"We're in the no-man's-land between the Bannedlands and the forum," Cloak said, analytically. "It can't be too far. There. That direction."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 22, 2015, 05:33:41 AM

It's going doooowwnn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2015, 05:51:43 PM

I suppose so. The next chapter may be up a little later than normal tomorrow. It will be up per usual tomorrow, if I can help it, though. Be sure to check back, and check my signature, because (lest anyone posts between now and that time) the next chapter will be in this post.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Into the Fray

"They're heading for the forum," Gaz said, with certainty.

"But how? How would they know where to find it after Cloak moved it after that whole paparazzi thing?" Aquilai inquired pensively. "How would they know this even the right direction?"

***

"I tell you this is the wrong way!" Yorick insisted testily.

"I know where I'm going, Yorick!" Queen snarled.

"No, you don't! You're guessing. I know the difference!" Yorick sniped.

"Oh, do be silent!" Queen spat.

"So," Aloth said, "when's the wedding?"

"Shut up!!" Queen and Yorick roared, punching Aloth hard, at the same time.

***

"I dunno," Blaze said, with a noncommittal shrug, "maybe one of the trolls was a paparazzo?"

Blaze suddenly regretted the regaining of their eyesight when he saw the looks the others gave him.

"What??" Blaze said, defensively. "It could happen."

"In any case, we should stop them," Cloak said, decisively.

"Question," Sakki said. "If we go down there to stop them, wouldn't that be basically advertising 'this is the way to RAF'?"

"If we don't do anything," Horse countered, "then they will get to the forum's doorstep, and they'd know in that way. Either way, they'll discover it."

"They may not go the right way after this point, though," Gaz pointed out. "They may veer off."

"Whether they do or don't, it will matter very little," Cloak said, his tail tip twitching in an agitated manner. "Because Queen will just try again. And again. And again. If she's anything, it's persistent. Best to nip this in the bud now."

"There's no water for me to bend down there," Aquilai observed. "I'll go on, and warn the others."

"Noted and agreed," Sakki said, rather rougher than she intended. "Let's do this."

Cloak stood, easily visible on the horizon. He stomped his foot and he punched out with his fists and arms parallel vertically. The ravine closed off, earth pinched together. The horde and their Banned masters looked up and saw, not only the silhouette of Cloak, but the silhouettes of Horse, Gaz, Sakki, Blaze, and Shadow.

"You!" Queen roared.

"You expecting, maybe, the Power Rangers?" Cloak said, flippantly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2015, 02:45:27 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Sigil Weakness

The RAFians leaped down, landing rather dramatically. They landed right in front of the horde, and stared down the Banned. Queen's anger and rage swiftly transmogrified into contemptuous smugness. She had her Horde, her Super-Trolls imbued with the Animal Sigils in addition to the sheer numbers of ordinary trolls (which weren't much to look at, to be honest).

"You are doomed," Queen said, her smugness oozing in her voice. "There is no way that you can beat my Super-Trolls."

"Same ol' bluster, huh?" Sakki said. "You really don't change, do you?"

Queen lost none of her smugness, but when she spoke again, anger had infiltrated her voice, "Attack!"

Okay, those Super-Trolls were more of a challenge than the RAFians had expected. But they handled themselves well, and were able to defend themselves. The Banned, still under the assumption that they were blind, were speechless.

Yorick was quickest to realize that they weren't, but Queen told him to shut up, that they were still blind. Though one had wonder if she was just saying this just to be contrary.

Horse, with a wave of a flipper, caused icicle daggers to fall on some of the Super-Trolls, striking the Animal Sigils on them quite unintentionally. Upon impact, the Animal Sigils vanished and caused the trolls to lose the gift that they provided, knocking them out in the process.

"The tattoos!" Horse announced. "Hit the tattoos!"

"Like the Z Putties," Cloak muttered to himself. No one noticed.

"What's this?!" Queen demanded, seeing what Horse did.

"The RAFian just depowered two of your 'Super'-Trolls," Yorick said, tonelessly, arms folded, leaning against the stone walls.

"I can see that!" Queen snapped.

"You asked." Yorick said, completely unintimidated.

"Oh, do shut up!!" Queen snarled.

In this brief exchange, the RAFians did away with the Animal Sigils and stood imperiously in a wide circle by the normal trolls and the three Banned. They weren't even winded.

"We beat your so-called 'Super-Trolls', Queen," Cloak said. "Now . . . how are we going to play this?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 23, 2015, 02:51:18 PM

Whup, missed the chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2015, 02:53:31 AM

Last chapter of this book.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Impracticality Personified

"I don't believe it," Broken was saying, shaking his head pityingly.

"It was like that, I tell you!" Sakki insisted angrily. Queen had decided to retreat, and the RAFians returned to the forum. Aquilai was explaining the situation to Broken, the only other RAFian present in the forum at that particular moment. Everyone else was out for other business. "If you don't want to beli--"

Broken held his hand up to stop Sakki from pursuing the thought. "You misunderstand me. I was marveling at Queen's utter stupidity."

"Oh."

"Stupid in what capacity, Broken?" Horse asked.

"Animal Sigils," Broken said.

"Animal Sigils?" Gaz queried.

"Animal Sigils." Broken confirmed.

"What 'bout them?" Blaze said, bluntly.

"You see," Broken said, in clear preface to what would apparently be a monologue, "the thing about Animal Sigils are that they are the utmost in impracticality. They are an easy enough spell to conjure, sure. Even a rank amateur in magic could accomplish what Queen did, if what you described is accurate. There is no guarantee those imbued with the Sigils would be obedient or predictable. It can be powerful, yes, the way a gun is powerful in the unwieldy hands of a toddler. There is no controlling the will of those burned with the Sigils."

"Queen seemed to be managing," Aquilai said.

"That doesn't mean that she was," Broken countered easily, as if he was waiting for this point to arise during his explanation. "Another reason for their impracticality is the ease of which they can be removed -- as you discovered quite quickly in your own -- and the fact that it takes a century's cool-down before they can be used again. We won't be seeing them again for a good long while."

"If they have such serious consequences," Sakki asked, "why even use them at all?"

"I think that's the point." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2015, 03:39:09 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXVIII:
DON'T LET IT SNOW
CHAPTER ONE:
Forum Cleaning

The RAFians sang as the cleaned the forum:

"Forum cleaning!
Forum cleaning!"

AniDragon sang:

"We deodorize and sanitize --"

AniDragon, Estelore, Kelly, and Myitt sang, in unison.

"And harmonize, too!"

The RAFians sang together.

"Forum cleaning!
Forum cleaning!
We're gonna make this forum
All shiny and new!
Forum cleaning!
Forum cleaning!"

Terenia sang:

"I'll sweep off this mat."

Duff sang:

"Forum cleaning!
Forum cleaning!"

Underseen sang:

"I'll vacuum this cat."

Bladeh shrieked, "GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU MADMAN!"

She didn't want her fur to get all poofy.

The RAFians sang:

"Forum cleaning!
Forum cleaning!"

FuBar sang:

"I found this dead rat."

Saffa sang:

"You'll find a lot of stuff
When you're forum cleaning!"

The RAFians sang:

"We've got a lot of junk that
We've just been dying to get rid of!
And there's so much garbage in this can
That it's about to blow the lid off!
Forum cleaning!
Forum cleaning!"

AniDragon sang:

"Our disinfecting prowess is second to none!"

Then she tilted her head, and appeared to be addressing the reader, "'Kay?" She wasn't though.

The RAFians sang:

"Forum cleaning.
Forum cleaning.
It's a sick, disgusting job . . .
Sick, disgusting job . . .
Sick, disgusting job . . .
Sick, disgusting job . . .
But it's gotta be done!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 24, 2015, 05:05:41 AM

Well, that ended on a cheerful note.

PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 24, 2015, 12:47:53 PM

Wow, not sure how I missed so many chapters. I guess that's what life does to you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2015, 05:05:06 PM

It happens, GH. (Okay, granted it can't for me, as I'm the one writing 'em, but I digress.)

Oh, Saffa? I didn't bring this up for fear of sounding demanding and/or because I assumed you were busy with finals and whatnot, but I think you missed the PDF of the last book . . . Book 86 . . . unless I'm very much mistaken.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Inquisitory Ifrit

Unsually (though realistically, it could be understandable) all this singing by the RAFians carried on the wind to a rather secluded icy place. Snow abounded everywhere, temperatures were below freezing, and chilly gusts blew around almost half-heartedly. Surely, no sentient creature would call this inhospitable place home, right?

Nope. A being of ice that recalled the image of Icicle from DC comics lived, and thrived here, if nit somewhat bored. He had a large head with spiky icicle hair, a large cartoonish nose, round blue eyes with yellowed scelra, thin limbs, club-like feet, narrow waist, wide shoulders, narrow hands, and long, thin fingers ending in tapering claws.

It was an ice ifrit.

A bit of a contradiction, as ifrits are usually associated with fire and the infernal realms, and not ice and tundras.

The ice ifrit was standing outside its icy domicile, in an eerily reenactment of the Grinch. One could almost hear Boris Karloff saying, "All the RAFians, down in RAF, loved singing a lot,/But the ice ifrit, that lived just north of RAF, did not." Except this would not be true. When this ice ifrit heard the singing, he greeted it, not with hostility, but curiosity.

What was this sound? he found himself thinking. He had been so alone for so very long, he was beginning tot believe that the he was the last sentient creature on the planet. The sound he heard . . . it was so very cheerful, so very jubilant. He could scarcely remember when he heard such a joyous sound, a sound that wasn't blustery winds or the sound of his own voice, which he had gone out of habit with using.

Such a sound, a sound that he felt as if he forgotten, had not remembered the sanctity of. He marveled in it even as it was now gone. Gone far too soon for the ifrit's liking. He had to hear the sound again, even if it was different subtly. He had to hear the confirmation that he wasn't the only being left in this world.

He had to find this sound again. There wasn't any arguing against it (granted, there was no one else around to argue against it). He would have to pick himself up and go down to the direction of this sound, this sound which only lasted for a brief thirty seconds.

He hadn't any belongings to worry about securing, but even if he did, no one came around here anyway. He had to find the sound. He had to be sure that he didn't imagine it. He had to be sure. He had to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2015, 04:59:58 AM

Please, God, no Let It Go parody.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2015, 05:05:48 AM

Eh, I already did that one in the Piper book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2015, 06:45:02 AM

Thank goodness. :P

Here's the PDF of book 86, if I missed it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2015, 08:56:30 AM

'Kay, thanks.

And, as sacrilegious as it may sound, I don't think that there will be any "Frozen" parodies in this book, as I've either already used a particular song, or already have it earmarked for a future book.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Cleaning Concussion

The cleaning was rapidly reaching its inevitable conclusion, but it proved that some RAFians couldn't help but show off how flashy and epic they could make such a menial chore.

Cloak, Horse and Aquilai were showing off by hydrokinetically givjng the Pootang a bath. Although, they had to be careful, as they used the Pootang's excess electrical energy as a sort of backup generator of sorts. The Pootang was not harmed in this, it was as beneficial to it as it was to the RAFians, as the excess electricity could build up causing the Pootang extreme discomfort, which would increase its emotional volatility and savage ferocity. They never anticipated that this very thing would actually pacify it to this degree, so that it spent most of the time, not raging, but snoozing! Yes, snoozing!

Naturally, Horse was elated at this as she was eaten far less often. So much so that she didn't mind giving the stinky, giant, feral Pikachu a bath. And it did not respond with anger so much as it was mild irritation. But it did not fight it, after all it felt good to be cleaned.

Meanwhile, Broken was using wandless magic and a "Scourgify Maxima" spell of his own invention to clean the more stubborn spots of the forum. He was walking around, almost lazily, casting this spell. It got the job done, though.

Underseen shapeshifted himself into one of those "Fantasia" brooms from the cartoon when Mickey was Yen Sid's pupil. He went through and swept up the forum, which was a rather remarkable feet considering have the time he was not touching the ground. He did fall once or twice, though.

However, Sakki was furious.

"YOU LAZY LUMP!!!" she screamed. It was enough to cause the very walls of the forum to vibrate. Still, it was good that she inhibited herself from using her full possible volume. But, that was, perhaps, because she could not be understood at that volume. "GET UP, YOU LAZY LUMP!!"

"Hey, gerroff!!" Rotiart protested like a juvenile. The piece of hay he had been chewing tumbled down, as his bare feet touched grass once more as Sakki had unceremoniously lifted him up roughly.

Sakki lowered her voice, but it was still quite audible to passersby, and her fury was still very palpable. "You lazy sack of -- you do realize everyone else is working?! And working hard, right?!*"

"You don't have the right to talk to me like this! You don't tell me what to do!" Rotiart countered with a rather feeble argument. "I make my own decisions, and I will do as I like!**"

"'Do as you like'? 'Do as you like'?! I have news for you, buddy-boy, this ain't a day camp. We have expectations of all our members and duties that have been attributed to all of them." Sakki snarled. "Don't like it? Ship out. Don't wanna ship out? Then get your hands dirty and work."

---

*Kinda echoing my feeling for a particular lazy worker at my job. He was even caught sleeping on the job!!!

**And this is similar, but not identical, to the tirade the aforementioned worker gave me when I called him out on his BS. He is about as likeable as Rotiart, though I created Rotiart before even meeting this loser. Tried to justify and validate his behavior by claiming that he's a "grown-ass man" that has "six kids". Just because I'm childless doesn't mean that he's better than me, like he clearly thinks. Wow, that turned into a rant. Sorry. But, yeah, I couldn't make his tirade fit for Rotiart because of that bit right there. Rotiart's like sixteen or seventeen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2015, 02:58:48 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Something Frigid This Way Comes

The ice ifrit began to scramble down towards the sound that intrigued him so. It was gone now, and the wind was so disobligingly confusing the ifrit where the sound could have come from. He continued forward, though. The snow was no barrier to his club-like feet, as he easily walked atop even the flimsiest snowdrifts with nary a worry or care.

He was just so ever focused on that sound. He had never been one to obsessive over stupid, petty things before, but this sound . . . that wonderful lilting tune . . . he had to know. He had to know its source, the source of the happiness, the cheerfulness that he heard in it. He never knew of such emotions, never such a possibility of feeling any more than isolation and feeling anything other than emotions one associates with isolation.

He had to find that . . . oh.

He had came to the boundary between his icy habitat and a slightly warmer climate.  He had never crossed this threshold, though he was aware of its existence. Here the snow gave way to gray stone which gave way in turn to green foliage.

Was it possible that the music came from that direction? He did not know. He did not if he could cross this threshold. He always assumed that there must have been some sort of mystical barrier or something. He never had a reason or inclination to leave his tundra.

Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps the music never came from that direct--

"You lazy lump! Get up, you lazy lump!"

He wasn't mistaken. It had been from that direction. He would have to cross the threshold from his realm of understanding into the unknown. Soon, curiosity outweighed prudence and he stepped over the threshold, discovering that there was no mystical wall or veil blocking his entry to the non-tundra terrain.

All this time, and there was really nothing barring him from leaving his tundra other than his own disinterest in the outside world. This moment of introspection was eventually subsumed by his curiosity, as it took over completely again.

Outside his tundra, everytime he moved a joint on his body, a puff of cold air was released. He was still at a fairly high altitude that it remain fairly unnoticeable. The ifrit did not notice the warmth at first, but was oblivious at the discomfort that awaited him ahead. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 26, 2015, 03:40:05 AM

I'm pretty sure he doesn't just melt like that. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2015, 08:26:48 PM

If he did, then this would be a prohibitively short book. Anyway, new book ideas!! (GH, you're gonna get your wish.)

• Book DCCXLV: "Bio-Heroes" -- Ricky finds and wears a very strange watch, a H.E.R.O. watch.
• Book DCCXLVI: "Jealously" -- Ricky finds an archenemy.
• Book DCCXLVII: "Clash of the H.E.R.O.s" -- Ricky fights his archenemy.
• Book DCCXLVIII: "A Powerful Old Foe" -- A fearfully powerful old foe is resurrected as a Black Lantern.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Species Report

Underseen was presenting the species report before a small group of RAFians

"It's an honor and a privilege, a duty I perform,
With due sense of decorum and with pride.
With deference and great respect, very much the norm.
(Plus a hint of sycophancy on the side.)
To lay before my fellows all the facts about this realm,
To fill them in on all the species news."

But Cloak was getting impatient, "Yes, yes, Underseen, get on with it!"

"In order that Richard stands sturdy at the helm,
Aware of all the fauna's latest clues."

Parker snapped, "Underseen! The species report!"

Underseen spluttered, "Er - yes, yes, - the species report.

Gedds* are going ape, faeries remain above it all.
Sentient stars remember, though just what I can't recall.
Dragons are snapping up fresh offers from the banks.
Showed interest in my nest egg but I quickly said, 'No thanks!'
We haven't paid the bills and the shinigami have a hunch --
Not everyone invited will be coming back from lunch!"

He chuckled nervously, before pressing on.

"This is the species report!
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I distort!
On the species report.
The Andalites have got a beef
About this season's grass.
The Chee have been thwarted
In attempts to save their gas.
Goombas in the red,
Chasing Realm Walkers.
Saffa is in this season's color,
Seen in all the herds!
Moving down the rank and file,
To near the bottom rung,
Far too many humans are
Quite frankly in the dung!
This is the species report!
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I distort!
On the species report.
This is the species report!
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I --"

He blinked, looking at something just out of the periphery of the assembled group.

"What's that?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 26, 2015, 10:29:27 PM

Certainly looking forward to seeing more of Ricky. The book with the Hatter was disappointingly insufficient when it came to the amount of ass-kickings he recieved.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 27, 2015, 03:10:31 AM

It's a long gap between books though, so I really wonder how he'll make his comeback. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2015, 01:39:50 PM

Gap. Rrriiiiiiight. :shifty eyes:

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Ifrit Inquiries

"What's what?" Parker said, at once. Then he looked and saw what Underseen saw. He blinked too.

"An ifrit," Demos said, sounding rather perplexed. "But as an ice elemental?"

"Usually a fire elemental, I suppose?" Saffa said, aptly.

"Usually," Demos confirmed.

"I'm standing right here, you know." the ifrit said. His voice was rather grating to the ears, Cloak found.

"So you are," Cloak said, slowly and quietly.

The Realm Walker did not know why, but the ifrit rubbed him the wrong way, though he seemingly had a gentle and genial nature. It could possibly because of the sudden temperature drop -- despite his form being that of an anthropomorphic Siberian tiger, Cloak wasn't the fond of the cold. He could endure it without complaint, but it didn't mean that he enjoyed it. And that his form created a disparity with his innate pacifism, though one could argue that it came from his travails and turmoil from his mother.

All around the ifrit the air was chilled, although his joints still gave out puffs of white air whenever he flexed or relaxed any voluntary muscles. "Is this where that sound came from?"

"What sound?" Saffa asked.

"The sound," he specified vaguely.

"How very descriptive," Cloak said, dryly stolid.

"Never mind that," Sakki said. "How'd you get in here with Code Avalon active . . .? Wait a minute . . ."

Sakki locked eyes on Rotiart, who was slinking away. Or trying to, anyway.

"Rotiart! You traitorous scum. What did you do?" Sakki said, in her usual stern matter, reserved for dealing with the likes of the little rat.

"I didn't do nothing!" he whined like a child half his age.

Cloak watched this, and could clearly see that Rotiart's security laxity and habitual dereliction of duty was beginning to be come a real problem. One that continually gets forgotten in light of more important priorities.

"I didn't do nothing, I tell you!"

"Is this where the sound came from?"

"Leave me alone, Sakki! I didn't do anything."

"Did the sound come from here?"

"Leave me alone!!"

"Did the sound come from you things?"

Cloak's eyes narrowed. This was going to be a long day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2015, 03:33:40 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Ifrit That Came Down From The Cold

"What precisely do want, uh -- do you have a name?" Saffa asked.

The ice ifrit looked at Saffa entirely too long, before saying, "Ifrit."

"Ifrit?" Saffa asked, a bit surprised.

"Yes," he said, "is it not sufficient?"

A minor distraction occurred then when Rotiart ran headlong into an oak tree, knocking him out. Sakki seemed to think that Rotiart was reasonably punished enough, and left to turn Code Avalon back on.

Saffa decided to use this diversion to return to her previous question, "Well, what is it that you are after, Ifrit?"

"The Sound," Ifrit repeated.

"Ever clear, ifrits," Demos said, dismissively, before making a point to walk away. Apparently, demons don't think well of ifrits, or Demos just didn't like this particular one.

"Is this where it originated?" Ifrit said, appearing not to have heard or seen Demos.

Cloak noticed clouds were gathering. Cloak immediately suspected the ifrit with such intensity that he startled himself with this sudden obduracy. He reasoned with himself that he inherited this stubborn intractability from his mother . . . but was he just making excuses for his actions, for his behaviors?

"You need to be more --" Parker began.

It started to snow.

"Uh," Parker said, put off by the sudden snowfall, "need to be more specific."

"The Sound," Ifrit repeated. Cloak thought his voice sounded wheezy and winded, and at the same time, rather sinister. "The strange, lilting utterances that are so novel, so new. Unlike anything that I have heard before on my tundra."

Cloak felt a sense of foreboding that he was sure was connected to this ifrit creature. He did not know why this ifrit elicited such feeling of hostility and near-fanaticism in him, but when he stepped back to analyze these feelings, he couldn't help but feel some fear in his behavior.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 28, 2015, 12:00:10 PM

Y'know, being from a tropical country, in normal situations I would have really appreciated the snow. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2015, 03:14:25 AM

Well, it gets real old here in the mountains.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Accumulation Unnoticed

"Cloak, do you really need to be all serious, doom-and-gloom right now?" Saffa said.

"The snow isn't stopping," the Realm Walker pointed out tacitly.

"Yes, but you know very well that's it's not that odd for this time of year." she said.

"It's accumulated to a foot," he pointed out stubbornly.

"Again," Guitarhero said, bundled up, without his characteristic guitar oddly enough, "like Saffa said, it's not out of the ordinary."

"It's started with the presence of the ifrit," the Elements Master insisted.

"Coincidence." Abby said, with a shrug.

"Maybe," Cloak said, "or maybe not."

"Cloak, you're really too suspicious." Gaz jibed teasingly.

The Realm Walker said nothing, just standing stoically and silent. An icy wind caused his Cloak to billow rather dramatically, accenting the RAFian's abject seriousness.

"Oh, Cloak," Saffa said, genially chastising. "Loosen up! Have some fun! Throw a snowball, or two!"

"Snow leads to ice," Cloak said, still quite serious. "Ice leads to slipping, to tough terrain to traverse."

They lapsed into a brief silence, before the Realm Walker broke it again.

"Consider carefully," he said, tone warning, "before you throw that snowball, Guitarhero."

"I'm not touching the earth, though," he protested, "how'd you --"

"You're crunching snow, compacting it, with each footstep." Cloak said swiftly.

***

The snowstorm had reached the city as well, but they were not taking it nearly as seriously -- at least a majority of the populace, anyway -- as the Realm Walker was. It was just business as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Hey!" Rollo cried out.

"Gotcha!" Ricky declared, making another snowball.

Rollo followed suit, but his was rather more hurriedly and poorly made. It felt apart midair, to Rollo's furious chagrin. Ricky nailed him again on his left shoulder, and Rollo wasn't too terribly pleased about it.

Rollo threw another, but the throw was rather too wide, and missed his cousin. Rollo was beginning to get upset and frustrated. Ricky was oblivious to how seriously his cousin was taking this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 29, 2015, 05:05:05 AM

I got a really good laugh out of this, since that's actually pretty accurate to how I would act in real life. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2015, 04:28:46 AM

Ah, good, then, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Everlasting Snowfall

The snowing would not stop.

The single foot of snowfall quickly turned into two. Then it turned into three. Then four. It seemed to taper off there for the moment. School was cancelled, naturally, to the schoolchildren's delight, to the chagrin of their parents (or guardians or whatever caretakers they had). The hardest working people in the country -- the middle class and the working poor -- were having trouble going to their jobs in the devoted, punctual way they usually did.

The children saw the snow merely as an instrument of fun and play. The adults saw it as a major inconvenience and irritant, screwing with their carefully laid plans. Dealing with cars that refused to start like teenagers on a school day.

Cloak obstinately refused to believe that this snowfall was just a coincidence coinciding with the arrival of the ifrit. Cloak didn't really believe in coincidences. Yes, that could be just his paranoia speaking, he knew it very well. It was really difficult to reconcile his suspicious, distrusting nature. Sure, he trusted Shadow, Faith, and the RAFians (at the thought of Rotiart, he amended that to most RAFians).

He noticed that the ifrit had not vacated the vicinity, despite having the answer to the question that had momentarily consumed him. He really had no reason to dally. No reason to stick around . . .

Cloak shook his head, to shake him out of his reverie. He really shouldn't be feeling such hostility towards this creature, he knew. But he did not know why he felt as he did. He did not usually feel such hostilities about creatures he just met, he believed. He surmised that he might just be feeling cranky.

And yet . . .

And yet, Cloak still had this nagging feeling. It was persistant and unrelenting, and Cloak was inclined to listen to it. He believed he had more reason to trust this instinct than the ifrit's motives. He didn't know why, but he was reminded of that leprechaun fiasco some months ago.

The ifrit did not seem bothered -- or surprised -- with the sudden snowfall. Perhaps Cloak was seeing more into this than he should have. But he was indecisive about whether he should act or not. Action or inaction, either would be a decision of which he would have to deal with the fallout and the ramifications of such a decision.

Cloak could kill the ifrit, he knew. But he resisted the temptation, he always tried to control his emotions with an iron fist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 30, 2015, 09:44:54 PM

It's a cool place, it'll only get colder,
Cloak's bundled up now, wait till the Ifrit gets closer,
But the RAFians would beg to differ,
Not a single one of them can see the big picture.

. . . I would think of more, but I'm way too lazy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2015, 02:58:35 AM

Nice, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Candid Admission

The snow was still not stopping.

Cloak sensed, he thought, that this unrelenting snowstorm was not naturally-occurring. He was manufactured, he thought. But the others wouldn't believe him. They knew that he was biased against the ifrit, that the Realm Walker suspected him. Perhaps he was wrong to do so, Cloak acknowledged to himself silently, perhaps he was wrong to immediately assume the worst of people that he had just met.

But he had to stick to his guns on this one. Especially because the RAFians had recently lost track of the ifrit. It was easy to do under these weather conditions. Cloak's Earthsight was fundamentally useless with all this snow separating him from the earthen ground, and he was well aware of this. After all they went through when they lost their sight, he couldn't help but felt a little cutoff.

"Do you think that I should still lighten up? Are you still enjoying the snow?" Cloak said, somewhat caustically, addressing Saffa, who slipped a bit on the inevitable ice that was generated from the snow.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said, dismissively. "You got me. Care to twist the knife some more?"

Cloak did not, his point was already made. To do anymore would be gloating, and Cloak had no interest in doing that.

"You guys looking Lord Freeze-Ya too?" Abby said, effectively declaring the ifrit guilty.

"I'm not really liking this," Underseen said. The cold weather was making his mimetic shapeshifting ability was slow and sluggish, and he wasn't particularly pleased with it. "And I think that's him over there."

"IFRIT!" Cloak bellowed, a tiger's roar intermingling with his voice.

"Thanks, Cloak!" It was Saffa's turn to be caustic. "I may never have the hiccups again!"

The ifrit turned around, undaunted and casual, as the quartet advanced on him. He was slightly shorter than Saffa, his forehead coming to her chin. Cloak, standing at about eight feet, towered over him, but he was not intimidated.

"Yes, Sound-Makers?"

"Did you bring this Ice Age upon us?" Cloak said, unable to keep the heated tone from his voice.

"Ice Age, you say?" it said, and Cloak noticed now his forehead came up to Saffa's eyeline. The growth wasn't obvious or really noticeable until you thought about it. "I like this term."

"Are you the culprit of this unnatural weather?" Abby said, in rather uncanny mimicry of Cloak. The Realm Walker was not amused.

"Unnatural?" he said, slowly. "You consider my Gift to you, my saving you from the unnatural uncomfortableness you were burdened with, unnatural?"

"I knew it," Cloak snarled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 31, 2015, 03:23:11 AM

I'm not that short. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2015, 03:29:43 AM

No, but the ifrit was.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
RAFians . . . On Ice

"Gift?" Underseen said, revulsion evident. "You call plunging us into a new Ice Age a Gift?!"

"Yes," Ifrit said, surprisingly simply.

"Burying everyone in snow, smothering them in ice," Cloak said, "I have some news for you, pal. We don't consider that a 'gift.'"

The ifrit did not bristle at this not-so-subtle criticism, he did not burn with anger. He did not really burn with any emotion, electing to remain cold and aloof.

"Then you are ungrateful," the ifrit said. Now Saffa came up to his chin. Yet his head never changed size.

"Hey!" Saffa said, voice loud as the crack of a bullwhip. "We never asked for your stupid present. Maybe a little was fine, but you are going way overboard with this, pal!"

"Overboard? I am doing no such thing," Ifrit said. "If you can't see the altruism in my actions, its your fault?"

"Altruism?!" Cloak bellowed again, a tiger's roar intermingling with his words. Rage was beginning to lick at his insides like a famished predatory beast. "Is that what you truly see this as?! Altruism?!"

 "Yes," Ifrit said, as if this was obvious. "I made the temperature more tolerable. I saved you from that stifling mess that you were suffering from before."

"Whoever SAID that we were suffering?!" Abby screamed in pure frustration. "Has even occurred to you that we thrive in the climate that was hear previously?"

"Impossible," Ifrit said, coldly. He was arrogantly refusing to be reasonable, though he wore only a look of mild disinterest upon his face. "No creature could thrive at those obscene temperatures."

"Fool!" Cloak muttered under his breath.

"It is you that is the fool," Ifrit said.

Cloak glared at the ifrit. They were now eye level. He spoke warningly, "Don't make me angry, Ifrit. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Ifrit scoffed, "Please."

The ifrit flicked his wrist and a stream of cold air, cryokinetic energy, came from his palm. There was no way to dodge, as Abridged Piccolo constantly insists, and all four RAFians wer frozen solid in rather shapeless blocks of ice.

Ifrit scoffed again, "Pathetic."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2015, 12:02:09 AM

Nice Hulk vibes Cloak. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2015, 03:00:17 AM

Thanks.

Now a couple of more book ideas. Hopefulley no rehashing, which is a very good problem at this point.

• Book DCCXLIX: "In-Laws" -- A female's parents come looking for her.
• Book DCCL: "Another Identity Thief" -- Someone seeks to steal Ricky's identity.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Burning Out

The ifrit left them as they were, misshapen blocks of ice. Frozen forever, unable to move, but still able to, somehow, function. Still self-aware. Still alive. The ifrit either didn't know about this, or knew and callously didn't care.

In any case, the ifrit was very much mistaken by doing this, as underestimating what a foe was capable of was always a mistake. Especially when that foe just happened to be a RAFian.

Especially when that foe just happened to be a Realm Walker.

Especially when that foe just happened to be an Elements Master, with the power of the Element of Fire, an element that can be just as fuelled by anger as any of the other five.

A loud roar that could carry for two miles erupted as Cloak had to use the Element of Fire to generate enough heat to burst explosively from the irregularly shaped ice tomb. He was absolutely livid. Fiercely angry.

But he managed to stay present enough to control and limit his power potential from going amuck. But he was still quite ticked off.

That piece of Veiled garbage had the nerve to freeze him solid! The impudence! The indignity! The unadulterated gall!

Cloak forced himself to close his eyes, to breathe, to calm down sufficiently enough to assess their situation calmly and rationally. It wasn't easy for someone used to putting a tight lid on their emotions, of bottling them up. He knew that he shouldn't do such, but it was already a deeply-ingrained defense mechanism.

First thing's first, he needed to defrost the other three, and he must do this carefully. He wished that Abby and Saffa had a cold weather morph -- to his knowledge, they had none. But never mind that now. He had to defrost them, and he did, forming a blowtorch-like flame with his index finger.

Sure, it may have been slow, but Cloak was aware how detrimental rapidly cooling a body of matter and then rapidly heating it up again could be. It would have to be slow and careful, lest he do irreparable damage . . . although, considering their morphing and shapeshifting abilities, this miht have proven to be a rather moot point.

Anyway, it took what seemed like forever, but he managed to free them. The trio looked absolutely livid, as they should, Cloak felt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 02, 2015, 08:42:58 AM

Wow, I get to be Captain America for 15 seconds. :P

Quote

A female's parents come looking for her.

That is the most vague spoiler-free summary I've ever seen. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2015, 03:34:00 AM

Oh, you wanted spoilers? Well, you see -- I was only joking, put away that skillet.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Frosty Reception

Saffa shivered, "G-g-great. I g-g-got to be an ice c-c-cube for f-f-fifteen seconds."

"Three, maybe four, hours, actually," Cloak said, holding flame in his hand sound the three could warm up.

"Wh-wh-what?!" Abby demanded. She was shivering, too.

"Wh-wh-why didn't you go and stop him?!" Underseen queried urgently.

Cloak was really tempted to make the flames half their current size just to spite them for such accusatory tones. Cloak managed to control his temper, he didn't know how though. He knew that this was a potential problem, however. He knew he must control his emotion, that he must never relinquish that control. It was a Sisyphian task, he was well-aware.

"I was frozen too, Underseen." Cloak said, with determined and deliberate calm. "I only freed myself by feeling incredible anger, channeled into the Element of Fire. I also had to be careful not to cause undue harm to any of you."

"We could j-j-just morph away the damage," Saffa said.

"Not if you were dead," Cloak said, quietly. The he pointed out something the others hadn't quite considered. "Besides, I'm not the only one with assets to give the ifrit pause, to give him a cause for alarm."

"Huh?" Abby said.

Cloak ticked them off on his fingers, while holding the flames in his other hand. "Blaze. Demos. Phoenix. Aquilai, if he regenerates again. Horse. Azzy. Broken, with magical fire and fire spells. Yunyun with her magic cards. Probably more than that, that I can't remember off-hand. We're well-prepared for anything that the ifrit can throw at us. I don't have to be the one to do everything."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Abby said, "but I don't want to miss all the action!"

***

"Hey, ice-prick!" Blaze shouted, addressing the ifrit.

"What is an 'ice-prick'?" the ifrit asked, not understanding the insult. This irritated the angel/djinn hybrid. "Does it require a glacier thorn?"

"You are so stupid," Blaze said, exasperated, facepalming quite openly. "It was an insult. I was calling you a name."

"But my name isn't 'ice-prick'," Ifrit said, still not getting it. "It is Ifrit."

"Oh, my god," Blaze said, facepalming harder.

"It's a sign of disrespect, you cretinous piece of . . ." Horse stopped herself to compose herself.

"Disrespect?" the ifrit said with mild surprise. Then his expression turned cold, ruthless, hard, and merciless. "You disrespect me? After all I've done for you? After I liberated you from that stifling, asphxiating unpleasantness?"

"Heat?" Phoenix inquired good-naturedly, though his annoyment was as great as the others. "You are against heat?"

"So the unpleasantness has a name," Ifrit said. Then an irritatingly smug smile appeared on his face. "Well, no matter, no matter. It will soon be nonexistent. Soon."

"Don't think so, pally," Blaze growled.

"Then," the ifrit said, pulling the same thing he pulled with Cloak, Abby, Saffa, and Underseen, "you're useless to me."

But he was surprised to discover that Blaze had shielded his body with fire-engulfed wings, and the ice blast failed, as it did not succeed in turning them into misshapen ice cubes.

"You think that we wouldn't have seen that coming?" Demos asked. "It's almost offensive."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 03, 2015, 10:36:56 AM

sorry

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2015, 03:02:33 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
An Ifrit Melt

"We give you another chance, ifrit," Phoenix said, in commanding tones as he dismissed the fiery phoenix avatar (a la Phoenix Force) around him with but a gesture. "This time, do not spurn it, if you wish us to remain on these rather tenuous amicable terms."

Phoenix stood up straighter, and he prepared for possible conflict, as he reissued their ultimatum. "Stop what you're doing --"

"And leave, preferably," Blaze imput rather rashly.

Phoenix proceeded as if he had not been interrupted, " -- and we won't have to resort to force. Please, consider reason over your snowy brand of terrorism."

"You dare to rebuke my gift?" Ifrit answered hotly.

"It is not seen as a gift," Phoenix said, attempting to negotiate. It was a rare opportunity that the RAFians could try such a peaceful route. It was an opportunity that was almost required to be taken. "You are burying people in snow and ice. You are not delivering a great service, as you seem to think you are. You are entombing people in snow and ice. We ask you and urge you --"

"Very strongly urge you," Horse commented.

"-- to reconsider what you are doing." Phoenix continued, still trying diplomacy. "There is no need for this to devolve into unneeded viol--"

"Ingrate," the ifrit interrupted, as he blasted them again, but Horse deflected it this time. He was being very hardheaded about this.

"We did try to be nice," the little seal said, as Phoenix gave a resigned sigh.

"I was hoping you'd see reason," Phoenix said. "Your options were limited. You're made of ice."

Phoenix looked up and at the ifrit, feeling regret. "You leave us little choice. Blaze. Demos. Together."

Three concussive blasts hit the ifrit straight in the chest. Melting him into oblivion. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 04, 2015, 03:11:47 AM

. . . Well that was sorta anticlimactic :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 04, 2015, 08:35:19 AM

Surely it isn't over yet :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2015, 03:02:06 AM

Ah -- Saffa's all too familiar with my writing. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Refrozen

"That's that," Phoenix said, as he turned to walk away.

"What about all this snow and ice?" Blaze said. Then he said, expressionlessly, "We're gonna have to take care of it ourselves aren't we?"

"Cloak can help when he gets here," the mod said, wearily. "But I understand what you're saying. It's a tall order."

"Az and I can lend a hand --" Horse said, before looking at her flipper as if she momentarily forgot she didn't have hands. "Or flipper, as the case may be."

"Don't we have someone else for clean-up?" Demos complained.

"Just because Rotiart tries it, Demos, doesn't mean whining works."

"Don't you know how much that STINGS?!" a voice behind them complained. It seemed to get deeper and deeper with every word.

"Impossible," Phoenix said.

"We're getting to the point where that word is losing all meaning," Horse pointed out, turning around.

"Sheesh," Blaze groused, as he turned as well. "Why can't anything be easy?"

Ifrit had managed to refreeze himself, not only back to his original size, but getting larger . . . and larger . . . and larger . . .

"Think he's over-compensating for something?" Blaze asked rhetorically.

"You dared to destroy me. You tried to kill me. You spurn my gracious gift." the ifrit boomed thunderously. He was at least twenty feet tall now.

"Can we talk about this?" Horse asked, not really intimidated.

Silence for a moment, before being followed by a quick "no" from the ifrit. The snowstorm increased in its intensity.

"Oh, wonderful," Blaze said, with dry sarcasm.

"You finally appreciate my work, my gift?" the ifrit said. Blaze facepalmed hard. ""It most certainly took you long enough! Such a pity that it's far too late for that. You tried to murder me. That is quite unacceptable."

"Oh, God," Blaze muttered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 05, 2015, 03:18:40 AM

See :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2015, 02:55:18 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Another Standoff

"Scatter!" Phoenix ordered, and only a split-second later did ice stalagmites erupted from where they had stood only moments before. Phoenix's mind raced. He would barrade himself later for daring to let his guard down. After all, he didn't have Cloak's Earthsight or Yarin's telepathic sensing.

"Ungrateful insects," Ifrit spat, seeing his intial attack fail.

"Um," Blaze said, "any idea how to put this guy down for good?"

"I'm . . ." Phoenix said, "I'm working on it."

The ifrit punched the ground between them, somehow gaining an additional five feet, with equalized humanoid porportions.

"The better question," Horse observed, "is how we stop this ifrit from growing. At this rate, he'll be fifty-feet tall in the next fifteen minutes or so."

"Glorious destruction," Demos said, almost hypnotised. He was falling to his demonic instincts. Well, he was, up until Phoenix slapped him, and allowed Demos to recollect his good sense again. "Thanks. I needed that."

Phoenix said, getting to the point, "We must fight ice with fire."

"Didn't that fail last time?" Blaze asked, taking to the air to get away from the ifrit's swipes, his body taking on a more jagged, feral appearance. He proved his aerial adeptness by effortlessly dodging these swipes.

"No," Phoenix said, "the ifrit just regenerated from it."

"And what exactly will stop it from doing it again?" Blaze asked, pointedly.

"Perhaps it's a limited number of times, like Time Lords," Phoenix said.

"'Perhaps'?" the angel/djinn hybrid echoed.

"Got something better?"

"Nope."

"Then shut up," Phoenix said, unable to stem his own irritation with the situation, "shut up and fire."

They blasted the ifrit as one again. Only this time . . . this time it wasn't enough. It still did serious damage, sure. But when it abated it regenerated faster and faster each time.

"Not," Blaze said, "working."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Horse said, snippily.

"Well, it isn't!" he protested.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 06, 2015, 03:40:01 AM

How do you stop this thing?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2015, 08:33:31 PM

Well, here's an idea.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
More Ingrates

"INGRATES!!" the ifrit roared.

"Is he losing sentience or something? He's acting more bestial," Horse observed.

SMASH!!

The snowdrift to her left exploded as it struck with the force of a head-on collision. Horse easily rode the snow to safety, blending in with it, being very difficult to spot.

"Bestial or not," Demos noted, "he's equally dangerous."

"Wait, what are those?"

The ifrit seemed to be bothered by bugs that appeared to buzz around his head. He tried to swat at them, but his limbs seemed far too slow. Or if he did make contact, they just phased through it.

They just circled his head, not unlike the flaming heads of Max from the last season of "Sam & Max" game. Phoenix was sure that irritating the ifrit was not the wisest thing for them to do right now.

<Sleeeeeeeeep,> one of the bugs said.

<Sleeeeeeeeeeeep,> the other agreed.

It was Saffa and Abby, of course. In Psycholeopterran morph. They were using the special power of Psycholeopterrans -- to release a gas and transmute it into concentric circles. Whether it had any effect was actually debateable.

And there, at the ifrit's feet, was a rancor, slashing at the creature's legs. The ifrit didn't seem to notice, as he regenerated rancor slash marks -- the deep gouges -- quickly enough. But still, Underseen tried his best, although another form probably would do better, but he stubbornly stuck to the rancor form.

"Ifrit," came a carrying voice. "You have done enough here. You must leave. You are not welcomed here."

It may have been hypocrisy on Cloak's part, for uttering these words, not being native to this world, this universe, this realm, at all. But no matter -- he would angst about it later, when there was time.

"INGRATES!!"

"Oh, SHUT UP!!!" Cloak roared, his patience far shorter than Phoenix's. Cloak funnelled two concussive blasts of fire from his palms. You know that Cloak would have be really annoyed to do this, considering his pyrophobia. "No one here is an ingrate!! No one asked you for your so-called 'gift'!! No one welcomes it!!"

"Cloak, we already tried that!!" Phoenix said.

"I gathered," Cloak said, swiftly. But the obstinate nature that was the hallmark of his family line had reasserted itself, and Cloak didn't not stop. His eyes flickered a scarlet-gold glow and back. He was starting to tap into the potential that always frightened him. "And I'm gonna give it a try."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 06, 2015, 09:46:00 PM

Ooh, we get a chapter early! Good thing too, this book has been really good so far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2015, 04:19:21 AM

Thanks.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Huh, Really?

Cloak let up momentarily, and watched the ifrit intently. He was watching and scrutinizing the ifrit very carefully. He didn't know why precisely what he was looking for, but he believed he would know it when he saw it.

"See, Cloak?" Blaze sniped, as the ifrit regenerated.

Cloak said nothing, still scrutinizing the ifrit very carefully. He noticed something very interesting that had to do with this regeneration. It was nothing like Demos's regeneration, or that of Aquilai's. The snow at the infrit's feet was far more shallow than the surrounding area.

And it seemed more shallow than mere moments before.

The Realm Walker narrowed his eyes at this, and then turned his attention back to the ifrit. That was it, wasn't it? The snow, the ice . . . it wasn't really regenerating, per se. He was just assimilating the snow, compressing it into ice to replenish the corporeal ice lost . . .

"I suppose that's clever," Cloak muttered, unimpressive. "He's using the snow and ice around him to heal himself. But that has a major flaw."

Horse got what Cloak was getting at. "And there's a finite amount of snow. And ice."

"It might be in limited supply," Phoenix pointed out, "but there's still plenty around. I don't know if we can get into a battle of attrition. We all have limited endurance. Even you, Cloak."

"I'm aware," Cloak said, hyper-focused. "But there is another away. We blast him --"

"Yeah, 'coz that worked so well last time," Blaze said, caustically sarcastic.
 
"We blast him," Cloak continued, the merest trace of a feline growl intermingled with his voice. "We blast him, and Horse and I will drain the water generated from the melted ice from him."

"I can hear you, you know," the ifrit said.

"Then what comes next will come as no surprise," Cloak said, without any hesitation.

Four continous streams of flame are blasted and hits the ifrit square in the chest. Cloak's eyes begin to glow scarlet-gold again, only steadier this time. He was unknowingly tapping into his potential again. Only to stop abruptly, still afraid of tapping into that potential, of the potential destructive capability of it.

Horse and Cloak also siphoned off the water, Horse going so far as separating the ifrit from any nearby snow.

It was working. The ifrit was shrinking down. Melting. Melting . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 07, 2015, 04:51:35 AM

SCIENCE!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2015, 03:42:11 PM

Saffa -- huh?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Vapor Talk

"There, done," Phoenix said.

"Don't be so quick," Cloak said, shrewdly. He narrowed his eyes and squinted around. "These things are hardly ever that easy."

"You call that easy?!" Blaze demanded.

Cloak did not answer, but waited. If his gut was right, the ifrit wasn't dead. At least, not in the conventional sense. They siphoned off the water, true, and they melted him into nothingness, but Cloak wasn't ready to accept victory just yet.

"Cloak, you're being too paranoid," Saffa said.

"Is he?" Demos asked. "That thing regenerated before when we thought we had 'im."

"If he revives . . ." Horse said. She let the thought hand in the air, implications abound in the chilled air.

"I don't think he will revive, per se," Cloak said.

"Care to explain for us mere mortals?" Underseen said, testily.

"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIngr atessssssssssssssss sssss . . ." came an almost ghostily wail.

"What the bloody Hell is . . . " Abby began.

"Ifrit," Cloak said, standing up straight, addressing the being before them as if he was an unpleasant acquaintence that he was just meeting anew. "I see you lost some weight."

The ifrit had no body of substance. He was now sentient water vapor, in the form of forgotten breath with an imprint of his face. The water vapor that had steamed out of his body when they were melting him and siphoning off the water.  This was all that was left, essentially a ghost that was lesser than an actual ghost.

"Yeah," Saffa noted with caustic sarcasm, "that's certainly not creepy, or anything."

"Yooooooou . . . iiiiiiiiiingraaaaaa aaaatessssssssssss . . ." he wailed again.

"Oh, knock off the ghost-speak schtick," Cloak said, annoyed. "Speak properly!"

"Oh, fine." the vapor said. "You lot are clearly more ungrateful than I thought initially."

"Again, we did not want your gift," Phoenix said, his last nerve being plucked by this creature. "It was not warranted, it was NOT welcomed!"

"Lies," the vapor dismissed. "Everyone worth their weight would love such a gift!"

"You are delusional," Abby scoffed.

"No matter!" the vapor snarled. "When I refreeze -- and I will refreeze -- I will give you such a pinch!!"

"But you'll be in the Artic by then," Underseen pointed out.

This took the ifrit vapor off-guard, "Really? How do you figure?"

Cloak gave a small hop with his back to the vapor, then he quickly turned on his heal, and held his arms out with his palms toward the vapor. The aerokinetic blast was gale force strength. Cloak's eyes were streaming the trails, the tongues of scarlet-gold energy.

When the vapor was gone, Cloak closed his eyes, causing the trailing energy to dissipate, and he placed his hand perpendicular to his chest, trying to calm himself down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2015, 04:37:36 AM

New, shortish chapter. End of this book.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Winter Wonderland Clean-Up

The snow melted partially, but some of a significant amount still stuck around, ever so stubbornly. It still was winter, after all. Snow was not all that uncommon at this time of year, but they really did not need the sheer volume that the ifrit was foisting upon them.

Still some of the more snow-happy RAFians sang:

"Thread bells ring, are you listenin'?
In the lane, snow is glistenin'.
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight.
Talkin' in a winter wonderland.
Gone away is the ifrit world.
Here to stay is a new bird.
He sings a love song,
As we stroll along.
Walkin' in a winter wonderland.
In the meadow, we can build a snow-RAFian
And pretend that he is Parson Dawson.
He'll say "Are you married?", we'll say, "No, man",
But you can do the job when you're in town.
Later on, we'll perspire
As we dream by the fire.
To face unafraid
The plans that we've made,
Talkin' in a winter wonderland."

Cloak scowled and glowered at this. No, not because of the song, but because how they seemed to be celebrating the snow. Cloak wasn't especially fond of snow, especially after the ifrit business.

The snow wasn't nearly as bad, though, now. The roads were clear and free to use, the schools (much to the schoolchildren's chagrin) were all open. It was time to put the artificial second ice age behind him . . .

But this Cloak. Cloak's mind tends to dwell on the past, whether he wanted it to or not. Cloak was still working on this personally disliked aspect, but things like that are not so easy to change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2015, 05:40:58 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK LXXXIX:
THE RACHEL TOXIN
CHAPTER ONE:
Return of the Ifrit

Even several days afterward, Cloak was still ruminating and reflecting on the whole ifrit thing. He questioned himself on he handled it, whether he overstepped his bounds or was quite within them. His broody introspection had taken up a majority of his time after he banished the ifrit.

He also contemplated the ifrit himself. How the icy ifrit had such a narrowed perception, refusing to see his actions as anything but benevolence. How he refused to see the negative ramifications of his actions. . . .

Then Cloak found himself thinking, was he really any better? He did not consider the consequences of his actions, especially when he acts on impulse. His own unstable emotions are a constant source of danger for anyone. Anyone who wasn't a Master of the Six Elements as well. . . .

Cloak stood in the forum, taking it all in. How it looked encrusted in snow, though the walkways were cleared and it was only about a foot or two deep. Cloak could see some of the younger RAFians had decided to have an impromptu snowball fight, and the Realm Walker was only marginally amused at this.

Suddenly, someone was approaching. Cloak sensed him before seeing him.

"YOU?!" the Realm Walker raged, as six tendrils of energy leaked from each of his eyes. He was royally ticked. "YOU?! YOU DARE TO RETURN HERE?!?!"

The snowball fight quickly ended, as the combatants turned to watch an enraged Cloak confront the ifrit again, who had decided to return against all better judgement. Even the ifrit recoiled from this reaction from Cloak.

"YOU DARE HAVE THE AUDACITY, THE GALL, TO RETURN HERE?!"

"Uh . . ." the ifrit said, retort forgotten. He had not expected such a strong, intense reaction.

"You shall regret your decision," Cloak said, voice calmer than he felt. Cloak ****ed back his right fist, then punched it forward, causing a concussive horizontal column of blue flame at the ifrit. The ifrit managed to lean out of the way, but about sixty percent of his entire left side was all that managed to survive of the area struck. His right side was spared, but the ifrit knew that Cloak wasn't playing around, especially as he did not seem to be able to regenerate it back.

He quickly ambled away, back to his tundra, never to return. He actually seemed to be terrified. Of Cloak.

Cloak, however, was looking at his hand in shock. He had never used blue flame before, as far as he could remember. He reasoned it had something to do with his emotional state, but this scared him. He knew blue fire was hotter than regular flame, and Cloak was still pyrophobic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 08, 2015, 07:55:08 AM

Wow, we've started off pretty quickly.

also this is possibly the most disastrous theme for a Memoirs Christmas special

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2015, 05:09:19 PM

Expect a lull, then, Saffa. ;)

Hmmm . . . perhaps "caveat lector" should be the series tagline. Hmmm . . .

New, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Manufactured Cowardice

Meanwhile, in a secret, underground headquarters of a criminal black market group that deals in with elixirs, potions and whatnot. Nearly all of their products were phony placebo potions and rip-offs.

They were naturally very secretive, and never stayed or dallied in one place for very long. Which was one reason that the RAFians never busted them up, as the RAFians would be well within their jurisdiction to do so, if any of their potions actually worked, that is.

If anything, this nameless group was just a traveling cartel of conmen. Their wares were barely on the radar of law enforcement, and was more of a caveat emptor -- "let the buyer beware" -- sort of deal. Most of their buyers generally do not believe or realize when they've been swindeled.

Heck, some of the vendors even believed their own hype.

Anyway, one of the member of this cartel, name of Albert Scorpio-Nok, was trying to devise a legitimate potion, despite a rather telling lack of knowledge in potioneering. Though he was skilled in chemistry, if not a bit bumbling and dimwitted in nature. Henry was a rather oily person, with a long, greasy ponytail. He also had rather blocky, clumsy fingers and a club-like feet.

He was trying to make a potion that would increase the fear of a victim who ingests or is injected with it. He seriously wanted to manufacture the essence of cowardice. He imagined a whole like of mind-altering potions after this one's imagined success. Manufactured loneliness. Manufactured unreliability. Manufactured impiety. Manufactured ignorance. Manufactured hatred.  Manufactured hopelessness. Manufactured darkness. If anything, Brandon was ambitious.

He had managed to synthesize enough of the potion that he believed to be finished. It was a bright, mustard yellow with the viscosity of runny eggs. It did not look like it would be very appetitizing to ingest. But Albert was certain that it would make him a fortunate . . .

But he would need to test it first. He already had a reputation for incompetance. He couldn't have this potion further that presumption, he just couldn't allow it. He had to be sure.

He decided. He would find test subjects, people who would never be missed. The perfect test subjects.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2015, 03:06:39 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Test Subjects Gone Wild

Albert managed to collect six young street people in ragged clothes on the simple promise of a hot meal. Whether or not Albert would renege on this deal after he got what he wanted, it wasn't really clear.

The six people had rather disseparate histories, and varied appearance, though all shared a state of haggardness that made them avoided and contempted by those with money and the compassionless. There names forgotten by those who could do something to help them out of their homeless hell. They had discovered food was not a right, not for people like them. These six were among the most deseparate for a good meal, and not the mere scraps that others discard.

They were the forgotten people, the ones abandoned by society.

Orion Prince. A burly, middle-aged man with thick arms and dark skin with a rather brutish expression set into his face. He fell from the middle class by being falsely accused of murdering a man, found innocent (though society had already convicted him), and then resulted in difficulty finding work because of this whole scandal thing.

Chester Tawr. A rail-thin, impetuous young man who has an unhealthy thirst for speed. He was in prison for street racing, and when he got out, he was unable to find work that was willing to hire him. He is very naive and gullible.

Ratso Trapp. A mousy, deminiuative man who was born homeless, to parents who abandoned him when he was five. He hated anyone that wasn't him, but he fell for the lure of a free meal just as the other five did. He is very snarky with caustic, wiethering humor.

Ryan Nox. A large, bulky former-computer technician who used to be in the CIA, who was framed and took the fall for the higher-ups there who did some real illegal stuff. He was blacklisted, essentially, from any job within the field and there were no openings elsewhere that he could get to, as he quickly lost his car and his house was foreclosed. He was considering commiting murder just so he could go to jail, and have a roof over his head. But he could never bring himself to do so.

Dylan Blott. A reformed criminal, who people never trusted. He got into an altercation with a bigoted police officer (which the RAFians had to deal with from time to time, but Dylan didn't have their resources) who provoked him so that the officer could come up with a complete BS reason to rearrest him. When he was released, the court of public opinion (thanks to biased media coverage) was against him, and it was practically impossible to get back on his feet from.

Arianna Zohr. A pilot who recovered from a plane crash, in which she nearly died. The company she worked for, however, turned on her and pursued litigation against her for causing the crash. They took her for all she was worth, proof of the corruption not only in the courts, but the government itself.

None of them ever suspected that the food they were given was tainted, was tampered with. They were starving, so they weren't picky. They did not remember what this kind of food tasted like, having to live off the forgotten and discarded remnants of the meals of others. Forced to live like jackals, who live off the scraps of lions and such.

It went just how Albert wanted it to. The six homeless stooges that he procured never realized that their hot meals was laced with his cowardice draught. He never paused to consider that they were already fearful -- derived from fear of survival and possible starvation -- so he would not know that it worked. Not really.

But he knew when he royally screwed it up. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 09, 2015, 03:30:08 AM

Loving the dark backgrounds. :D

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2015, 06:43:15 PM

Yeah, this'll be a pretty dark book. I dunno how many more goofy ones are left. I don't think they survive past Year 2 (Book CI to Book CC).

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Unexpected Consequences

Albert was very economical with the potion in the six homeless people's single meal, not using more than necessary. Using more could very well kill them, and what Albert was doing was already quite illegal . . . that is, sadly, if anyone really cared about these poor people. Unfortunately, not many people have that kind of empathy anymore.

The single meal provided was gone rather quickly, and the six were glad for the full bellies. They did not know that their food was spiked. They tasted nothing, although they might have if they had adequate food on a daily basis. They did not realize that something was quite wrong, and, at first neither did Albert.

Orion was quite pyrophobic and drowning He never learned how to swim, but after the meal, within minutes, he dived into a nearby lake. He no longer feared drowning. He no longer feared dying, so he became rather careless with his life, not caring if he did die . . . and he drowned.

Albert scribbled a note on a clipboard at this, unconcerned with the man's death.

Ariana was terrified of being never able to fly again, being taken advantage of, and of dying alone, without love. All erased by the meal, unafraid of anything. But her agression and hostility was heightened bit by bit. It did not seem to be metabolized away. But she did not kill herself, like Orion.

Albert made a note of this.

After the meal, Ryan became belligerently arrogant and undeniably brutish. Unafraid of hurting the feelings of others, unafraid to be impolite and emotionally hurtful. Unafraid of being physically hurtful. He actually went to pick a fight with something that he shouldn't have -- a speeding train. Ryan died, and there wasn't enough left of him to identify.

Albert, with a cold, unmoved heart, made a note of this on his clipboard.

Dylan was fearful of doing or being anything he considered dishonorable. His morality was tied to it, so that when the potion in his meal erased all his fears, he essentially removed of all morality. And that is what eventually got him killed, when he decided to tango with a grizzly bear.

Albert, with cold indifference in light of Dylan's death, just calmly made a not on his clipboard.

Chester and Ratso were also now fearless, but a fearless boardering on risky carelessness, but they managed to survive. But, like Ariana, their hostility and recklessness were being increased to near superhuman levels. It was surprising that Red Lantern rings weren't giving away Albert's position.

But the awful human being got what he wanted, and as far as he was concerned these test subjects . . . well, they were disposable. Expendable. Rubbish to be thrown away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2015, 08:39:34 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Swinger

Albert quickly disposed of the surviving three of the six affected, as they had outlived their usefulness to him. Albert really had no compassion or love for anyone but himself. Sadly, such selfishness was not unique to him. The whole cartel he was a part of was a classic demonstration of this aspect.

All Albert cared about was that now the black market cartel vendors would have to take him seriously. He was not as dimwitted or slow-witted as they said, as they mocked him behind his back. He was not as stupid or clumsy as they mocked. He was as valuable as any of them!

He had discovered a way to eliminate fear altogether! Granted, he discovered it by accident . . . granted, he was trying to amplify fear of the victims, but no matter. He just wouldn't mention that to the others, hoping they ignored his needless boasting three days previously.

But he would need a way to get the word out. It would need to be in a carefully controlled way. Here, he actually regretted his impulsive action of killing all the test subjects, although he only took care of three of them.

He had an idea. He would have to be exceptionally careful, he would have to put a lot of thought into how he should do this. . . .

***

"WHOOOO-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

High above, amongst the tallest skyscrapers of the city, a curly-haired, rotund man with a face like a prepubescent Jason Alexander was pulling a Spider-Man, despite being a regular ol' "flatscan" human -- a human with no powers, with no potential for having powers.

"WHAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

He seemed to be enjoying himself, ignoring the potential hazards of doing such without even the simplest safety device. This man, this Jebidah Avery, would not be doing this normally. He is a severe acrophobic.

Yet he wasn't acting like it.

"WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

This couldn't help but get noticed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2015, 05:07:02 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Downtime Interruption

"Uncle," Shadow said. She was wearing an ID mask that projected the appearance of a Latino eleven-year-old girl, with long raven hair. But the sparkle in her eye was all her own.

"I see it," he replied seriously. He too was wearing an ID mask that projected the appearance of a moderately-sized Caucasian man in his late twenties whose skin was one of the darker varieties. The projected appearance wore glasses and had short black hair and dark brown eyes.

The two Realm Walkers had come to visit the city, but in disguise so that they would not be recognized, so that they would not be gawked at. Cloak had never liked such attention, had never liked being in the spotlight. Given the nature of his powers, and his work with the RAFians, that had been happening more and more. So, he and Shadow had decided to go into the city in disguise.

"He's going to fall!" Shadow exclaimed.

"Yes," her uncle agreed, silently agreeing and resigning that they would have to do something. It would take the police at least thirty minutes to an hour to get to this part of the city.

Cloak watched him intently, trying to project the man's trajectory. Cloak tried to concoct a way to get him down safely.

"C'mon," Cloak said, getting up and sinking into shadows with his niece. The two removed and stored their ID masks on a pouch on their belts. They ran to rescue the man, after the man started to pendulum back the way he came, shrieking with joy like a madman.

Cloak knew it was a matter of time before. . .

"FIRST LIGHT!" Shadow screeched a simian screech. It was the Realm Walker equivalent of the human exclamation of "God".

Ol' Jeb was now plummeting to the ground, laughing gaily all the while.

***

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" Hutch Crowe, the leader of the black market cartel, addressed Albert. "What on God's green earth made you think that doing that was a GOOD IDEA?"

"Mr. Crowe," Albert said, voice more oily that an used car salesman. "I was just using that man as simple advertis--"

"You incredible FOOL!" Hutch roared. "You don't realize what you've done, do you?"

"I created a formulae for erasing fear," Albert countered swiftly.

"Pity you didn't use it on yourself, then!" Hutch returned with renewed viciousness. "I know about the increased hostility and recklessness -- you know, I wouldn't be surprised if you had used it on yourself, Scorpio!! Nok!! Whatever!!"

Albert recoiled and cowered a bit. Hutch was a great deal larger than him, and he was seriously ticked off.

"Your actions have endangered us," Hutch growled. "All of us."

"I have just netted you more clientele!" Albert protested.

"You brought our existence to the attention of the RAFians!" Hutch countered. "Do you have any idea how much more difficult that makes it for us? Do you even have any clue?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 10, 2015, 04:04:39 PM

Whoa, sudden chapters.

Surely anybody would know that any clearly underground organization doesn't do advertisments. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2015, 02:56:38 AM

Precisely, Saffa. Albert wasn't as bright or careful as he thought he was. And now I'm going "off-book" a bit, so I don't know if this book may exceed the requistite twenty. But don't hold me to that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Interviewed and Speculation

The man, Jeb, was rescued easily and taken away for observation. It was clear that he was under the influence of something. Some unknown substance . . . it did not give Cloak the warm fuzzies at all. Cloak ruminated on the possible ramifications of this new development. He pondered on the possible reason or delivery of such a thing. . . .

"Do you know anything new?" Cloak queried Officer Mikail Hayes, a friend and supporter of RAF.

Officer Hayes grunted, "Nope. Not until medical guys give him a once-over."

"Hmmm . . ."

"Although one point of note," he said. He was allowed to disclose this information to Cloak, because of his status as a RAFian, which was essentially part of the government at this point of time. "He was a very open acrophobic."

"Acrophobic?" Cloak said, sharply. "Are you certain?"

"That's what the report said," Officer Hayes said.

"He was doing . . . and yet . . ." Cloak said, unable to adequately articulate his racing thoughts.

"What's acrophobia?" Shadow asked.

"A severe dislike or fear of heights," her uncle answered immediately with a wave of his hand. "So he was obviously under the influence of something that either surpressed or eliminated -- at least, temporarily -- his fear response."

"Why?" Shadow asked.

"I don't know why myself," Cloak replied, folding his arms. "I've never really gotten the obsession with fearlessness that's so prevalent with so many species, including our own. Feeling fear isn't anything to be ashamed of. Feeling fear, while unpleasant, has its necessity -- it prevents people for doing stupid things."

"It can also be used against someone," Officer Hayes pointed out. "I've seen it used by a number of vile people, even those on the force."

Cloak noted the note of bitterness and revulsion in his voice as he spoke the last five words. He knew the officer found it disgusting when members of the police force used excessive force, and would brutalize the people that they were supposed to be protecting.

Changing the subject slightly, Cloak mused, "I doubt that the Sinestro Corps and Parallax would like a serum or a potion or a something to erase fear."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2015, 03:14:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Introspection and Infection

A few days had passed, and nothing happened associated with this incident. Cloak was pensive about it, he wondered just why allowing that one man, allowing Jeb, free. Was he not supposed to get out? Was allowing him swinging through the city supposed to send some sort of message?

Or was his captor, assuming there even was one, just too stupid to realize that this would attract attention. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps it was supposed to attract attention, but why?

Did it have something to with that black market that the RAFians heard scarce reports about? They didn't have much information on it, but none of the reports specified anything as serious as this. Cloak suspected that they dealt in potions, elixirs, and such that didn't actually work. Phony Polyjuice Potions, artificial aphrodisiacs, and the like. It could be potentially dangerous stuff . . . but they didn't really have enough evidence, sufficient proof, to warrant a raid, Cloak felt.

Besides, they only had the vaguest information of the whereabouts of their major headquarters location. They clearly moved around a lot. Cloak wasn't sure if they were really a threat -- caveat emptor, and all that.

Though one could make the argument that desperation could drive such choices, and the heartbreak it could bring when the buyer discovers that they had been had. But those stories never made it to the light of day, due to sheer embarrasment of being had.

It was complex and complex and convuluted.

***

Despite all the black market's precautions and meticulous security checks, somehow Faerie, Underseen, and Parker stumbled upon the headquarters of Hutch Crowe. It was an amazing coincidence -- though Parker was caught with his helmet off.

They were walking in what appeared to be an industrial carcus -- the stereotypical dark, dank and dreary place. It was rather like the elephant graveyard in "The Lion King" only in an industrial setting. It had the feeling of neglect and disuse, which belied the fact that it was, in fact, being used.

The three RAFians were briefed about the possible presence of a black market cartel within the premises, despite not knowing precisely where, but they had taken a wrong turn at Alberqueque, so to speak.

"Parker, for someone who so protective over his armor," Faerie said, her usual blunt, cutting way, "how could you possibly have lost your helmet?"

"Oh, shut up," Parker grumbled. Truth was he took it off and set it down for a minute and some miserable, insufferable urchin stole it. She was a ways off before Parker caught sight of her. Parker could barely put up with the embarrassment of the incident.

They had managed to blunder into a trap and were sprayed, as if they were cars at a carwash. It seemed to be an accident.

Seemed to be.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 12, 2015, 03:17:40 AM

Getting sprayed is their defence mechanism?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 12, 2015, 03:29:52 AM

Ugh, now memories of KA's weird obsession with skunks are coming back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2015, 03:15:58 PM

Not quite, Saffa.

And not that kind of spray, GH.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Unaffected . . . Right

Parker had managed to escape the spray, having discovered his helmet moments before and quickly put it on, but Faerie and Underseen was not as lucky. They inhaled some of the spray, accidentally. Then all of a sudden, the spraying ceased with astonishing abruptness.

The two did not seem affected, but there was a certain snappiness to their movements that Parker found unnerving. He suspected that they were more affected by what ever that spray, that aerosol delivery, was. He found it somewhat obvious that it was not mere water.

But he didn't know what it was, and Tyr wasn't being helpful. He was a little miffed at Parker for losing his helmet, for being so careless. Parker wasn't thrilled on the aspect on having to deal with Tyr's huffiness or the other two's increasing proclivity for carelessness and recklessness.

And Parker had to get everyone back to the forum.

***

"You dropped the helmet," Albert said coldly.

He was addressing the child thief, back to her. A little orphan girl dressed in a raggedy, gray dress and had snow-white hair. She couldn't be any older than eight. She looked rather harried, a bit malnourished, and potmarked.

She was afraid. She was afraid for her survival. This is what motivated her to thievery. She stole and worked for the cartel, but not of her free will, not really. She had no parents, no siblings, no relative to take care of her, to love her, to hold her . . . she was alone. All alone.

"I . . . I  . . . I didn't mean to! It was an accident, sir. Honest!! I didn't mean to!!" she blurted without really intending to. "I didn't mean it, sir. I didn't! I swear to you. I didn't . . . didn't realize -- I didn't realize that I dropped it, sir. Please, be merciful. Please!"

"Quite your babbling!" Albert said, sharply. "I don't care about your excuses, whelp!"

The thief girl cringed and recoiled at Albert's harsh, heartless words. He did not speak to her as if she were a child, but as if she were a piece of litter upon soiled ground.

"You're just fortunate that they still bumbled into the trap," Albert continued coldly. "My scheme may work out. Crowe would have to acknowledge me, to venerate me . . ."

"Sir . . . ?"

"Silence, you worthless beggar!" Albert snapped, ignoring the girl's tears. "Quit your crying, you useless vagabond!"

Albert finally turned around and glared at the girl, who flinched as if she was struck. She was too hurt to say anything -- she was eight, after all.

Albert spoke again, in a dangerously merciless tone, "You have outlived your usefulness, rat."

The girl's eyes widened as Albert's shadow fell upon her . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 12, 2015, 04:17:58 PM

Oh, wow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2015, 04:19:59 PM

Yep. And there are still books darker than that . . . somewhat.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
The Toxin

"What is wrong with you two?" Parker said, when he had to stop Faerie and Underseen from going off on a couple of punk kids. The teenagers foolishly thought that they could walk up and kick the two in the shins, and get away with it.

"Going off" was probably a rather generous term for it. They were going to kill the kids, who quickly backed away and backed off when they saw the intensity of the reaction. Parker could barely hold them back.

"Let go, SPARTAN!!" Faerie snarled. "Let me go!! I'm gonna give those little bastards what they deserve!!"

"WE do not do that!!" Parker countered. "You know this!"

"Well, it's about time that we do, SPARTAN!!" Underseen said, angrier than anyone has ever seen him be. "It's about time we stop putting up with this crap. It's about time we take the battle to them!"

"Them?" Parker said, rationally. "They're children!! Snot-nosed, yes, admittingly. But still children!!"

"Doesn't matter!!" both roared angrily. They struggled even harder against Parker's restraints. "Doesn't matter!! They die!! They die!!"

Parker was aghast at this radically uncharacteristic behavior. This was completely out of character. Neither one was this mindlessly violent and . . .

Wait. Of course.

"Tyr, the chemical that sprayed us," Parker said, "what was it?"

Tyr didn't reply.

"C'mon, Tyr!! I don't have time for the silent treatment, okay?!"

Silence.

"Okay, okay, okay!!" Parker snarled, as the other two resisted against the restraints harder. "I'm sorry, Tyr. I'm sorry! There. Happy? . . . That was uncalled for. . . . We are kind of pressed for time here, Tyr. . . ."

Silence.

"Don't be so petty!" Parker chastised.

Silence.

"I'm gonna purge you from my systems," Parker threatened. "Don't think that I can't".

Parker was momentarily distracted when Fair managed to get a wing and arm free. It took some time before Parker could re-restrain her. He was frankly amazed that the same kind of restraint worked on Underseen. He was sure that was because Underseen simply hadn't thought about shapeshifting his way out -- being too overcome with hostility and anger, all and any fear forgotten.

"An iragenesis toxin?" Parker spoke aloud. It was easier to think aloud with the effort of keeping the two RAFians from killing the punk kids. "A Rachel toxin, as it were."

He thought, but he was exhausted.

"What are the eventual effects, Tyr?"

Silence.

"That's . . . not good."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2015, 04:38:37 AM

New, possibly short, chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Jeb's Fate

Cloak was watching over Jeb's progress -- or lack thereof. He was no longer ambulatory, and he seemed to get weaker and weaker all the time. The nurses and C.N.A.s charged with taking care of him, despite not showing it outwardly, were not very fond with this particular patient. It wasn't through any real fault of his own, though, but he was a rather difficult patient -- hostile, abusive, and stubborn.

Cloak couldn't help but feel at least a bit sympathetic to their plight, and he knew it wasn't really Jeb's fault either. It was the result of whatever substance that still held its sway over him. And the substance was defined as being iragenetic -- anger-generating -- in nature.

It was informally called a Rachel toxin, after the Animorph in that book series that may have been a memoir or a work of fiction. Cloak never really looked much into that since coming to RAF, but that's not the matter than needed attention right now.

Cloak really didn't like the deterioration that this toxin seemed to wreak. And Jeb was only a single human. Cloak was not sure if it would affect all species -- and he included his own in this. He had never came upon a Rachel toxin.

Then Jeb became obligatorily bedridden. The Rachel toxin had taken that much from him. He had practically zero energy. Even someone who's species dies rather starkly differently than humans, Cloak could recognize that Jeb was dying. He could plainly see that it was a slow, painful death.

And there was nothing Cloak could do to stop it. Of all Cloak's abilities . . . healing wasn't one of them . . . Kelly and Yunyun both tried to stem the toxin with their healing abilities. But he wouldn't let them get close enough. Even in this practically prone state.

Cloak knew that if something wasn't done soon . . . if something wasn't done soon, Jeb would die. And he would not be in his right mind. One might say that it would be showing him mercy if they spare him this pain. But even if they did -- he wouldn't allow anyone to get close.

There wasn't anything anyone could do. Jeb was too far gone. There was no cure . . . for the moment. The RAFians had Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin working on a cure. The question was if it would be in time to save Jeb . . . and any others possibly afflicted.

***

When Cloak recieved news that Faerie and Underseen was infected, and related the information he had to Parker, he also recieved some more dire news.

Jeb had died mere moments before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 13, 2015, 10:21:08 AM

Oh god, edge of my seat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2015, 02:55:06 AM

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Crowe Consternation

"Albert! Get your butt in here, you stupid waste of space!" Crowe said, in ringing tones.

Albert abided, and entered the room. In his underwear and baby-blue undershirt. Crowe wanted to make sure that Albert would not try to infect him with his little concoction. The humiliation was a bonus, and perhaps this would make Crowe's point stick this time.

Albert did not speak. He knew that he was in deep trouble. Hutch Crowe doesn't make a point to make pointless meetings just to scare and intimidate his underlings. He sends his minions to do that. It was bad that he wanted to talk to Albert in person. In the dead of the night. When Albert was alone.

"I'm not happy, Bertie," Crowe said, rotund belly obvious. He seemed calm and composed, and Albert seemed to take a miniscule comfort in that fact. "Not. Happy."

"I haven't done anything --"

"I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO SPEAK!!" Crowe snapped, before returning to his composed state with disturbing and unnerving swiftness. "You have too much faith in your stupid little bile concoction. I cannot tell if you're careless or just plain stupid."

"I'm not --"

"DID I TELL YOU TO SPEAK?!"

"It's just --"

"DO NOT SPEAK UNTIL I GRANT YOU PERMISSION, WORM!!"

Albert fell silent. He wasn't going to be able to defend himself, to explain his actions. It would be pointless, anyway. Crowe wasn't interested in hearing explanations. There was only one possible conclusion for this meeting. Albert knew what it was. He could do nothing but accept.

"That's better, Bertie," Crowe said. "You have not done what I asked of you last we spoke."

Albert kept his face blank, despite the conflicting emotions deep within -- fear, anger and rage, positon jealously, and more.

"You have not done anything I so nicely asked of you," Crowe repeated. "You continued to work on your pet project that very nearly got us noticed by the RAFians, the fly in our collective ointment. Our arch-rivals*."

Albert wished that Crowe would just get on with it.

"And," Crowe said, "then you lead them right to our hideout."

"I sprayed them!" Albert protested. He couldn't help himself. "They haven't any fear now!"

"And you think that that's a good thing?" Crowe countered just as easily. "You have two RAFians that have no fear -- of anything, mind you -- and they are free to go on a warpath? You have unleashed a plague on us -- all of us -- and you don't even realize it!!"

"How do you even know that it was two RAFians?" Albert countered.

"Do you think that I don't have all lower-ranking members of this cartel under surveillance?" Crowe snapped. "Why do you think that there have been no rats here as of yet? Just how do think we managed to stay under the radar for so long?"

Albert had nothing to say to that.

"And then you," Crowe said, genuine anger showing through, "you, a pathetic little maggot who knows NOTHING, shows up thinking you know it all. Thinking that we actually need advertising. Advertising! Seriously!"

Albert began to feel anger lick at his insides. This was already humilating. Crowe didn't have to pile more on.

"You get careless, and not only let the RAFians bumble right to our doorstep, but you actually got some useless rugrat to do it for you, and she was a bigger disappointment than YOU are."

Albert clenched his teeth, and began to grind them.

"But I've had enough with your antics, Bertie," Crowe said, in summation, "good-bye."

A gunshot shattered the brief silence.

---

*And, yet, we didn't know about them, not really, before this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 14, 2015, 06:38:00 AM

So that footnote could be foreshadowing? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2015, 01:58:16 PM

As a good friend of mine from high school (name of Clint) once said:

"Maaaaaaybe."

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Cure

"Dah!" Aquilai cried out, frustatedly.

There recent concoction to reverse the toxin symptoms or render it inert proved inefficacious on both counts. The RAFian trio had tried several over the past few hours -- days, really -- and none had remotely any effect. It was an exercise in frustrated futility, it seemed. They had become so confident whenever such a thing came along, that they'd be able to cure it after a few tries.

This was taking more than a few tries. Even more than the whole thing with the Arachnoids (though don't ever bring it up with the three, it's kind of a sticking point). The three were equally frustrated, because nothing was working. Nothing. The toxin appeared to be with no cure.

But the three were agreed on this. There was no such thing as a toxin, as a disease, without a cure. Every toxin, every disease, has a cure. The ones that don't have one known was just because it hadn't been discovered yet.

They just hadn't discovered it yet. But they would. They must. . . .

"Wait a minute . . ." Yarin said, narrowing all six of his eyes. "I know I've seen a similar chemical structure to this toxin . . ."

"There could be a variety of chemicals with similar structures," Goom said. "Similar structures, but disseparate properties."

"Name four," Yarin said, obstinately.

"Not the point," Aquilai said, brusquely. "The fact of the matter is that we haven't discovered anything that could work. Only Kelly had marginal success with her healing ability, and we already discovered that anyone infected with this toxin wouldn't let Kelly close enough to allow her to use her ability on them."

"Not to mention that she cannot heal the psychological aspects of the infection," Goom pointed out. "She can only heal physical damage."

"Fine," Yarin conceded. Suddenly, all six eyes snapped open and wide -- a sudden realization. He snapped his fingers on both right hands. "The Joker Gas!"

***

"Please tell me that they know how to cure this," Parker said, completely worn and woebegone. "It was difficult enough to bring them back here."

"They're working on it, Parker," Helen said, soothingly. "They will come up with the cure, dear. They always do."

"That's what worries me," the SPARTAN muttered.

"What d'you mean, honey?" Helen said at once. Parker's reaction was not one that she expected.

"They've been successful, thus far," Parker said, "but no one's perfect. There will come one case where they are unable to find a cure."

"That was the Arachnoids, dear," Helen said.

"I suppose," Parker said, looking really weary. "It's still a lot of pressure to put on three guys -- they do the work of an entire laboratory of scientists."

"That's a bit of an exaggeration," Helen pointed out.

"Perhaps," the SPARTAN said, almost fretfully. "But I do think we expect rather a lot from them. Sure, they're our version of Donatello, of Forge, of Q --"

"I get the point, dear."

"Anyway, at the end of the day, they're still just three guys. It's a lot to put on their shoulders. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2015, 06:29:16 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Raven

Hutch Crowe, satisfied that he disposed of that filthy idiot, had decided to go ahead and have his dinner in his office. He decided that he would have a big plate of baked spaghetti, and he had it delivered to him by an underling that was fanatically devoted to him.

It was a bit arrogant of him, of course. Probably a bit on the stupid and careless side, as well. He was just that confidant in his power, his clout.

The pasta steamed a bit as he removed the cover, and the smell alone was tantalizing. His mouth watered a bit -- he hadn't really eaten anything all day. His stomach rumbled impatiently.

He sat down heavily behind his desk, as the rain pattered in the window behind him, almost as if the clouds were deadly assassins trying to kill him with raindrops. His comfortable winged-backed chair creaked under his considerable weight.

He lift his fork . . .

"Once upon a midnight dreary . . ." intoned a mysterious voice.

"What the h--?"

". . .while he pondered, weak and weary, . . ."

Crowe set down his fork in his spaghetti, with his stomach rumbling mutiniously at this action.

". . . Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten bores . . ."

"What are you --"

". . . While he nodded, nearly napping, . . ."

"Wait," he said, suddenly realizing that this voice was not familiar. "Who are you?"

". . . Suddenly, there came a tapping. . . ."

A low, but irritating tapping was sounded. Hutch wasn't pleased. He was annoyed.

"I asked you a question, intruder!" Hutch said, in ringing tones. "I expect an answer!"

". . . As if someone gently rapping, . . ."

"Don't you ignore me!!" Hutch raged, leaping to his feet, as the tapping was altered into a gentle rapping. This action upset the plate of spaghetti on the desk, causing it to tumble, forgotten, to the floor. "Don't you DARE ignore me!!"

". . . Rapping at his chamber door. . . ."

"You stop that, and answer me!" Hutch roared. "You hear me, you impudent, interloping intruder!"

". . . ''Tis some visitor,' he muttered, . . ."

"I said no such thing!! YOU ANSWER ME!!"

". . . 'Tapping at my chamber door -- . . ."

"Stop speaking in that drivel and ANSWER ME." he snarled. "WHO ARE YOU?!"

". . . 'Only this, and . . ."

"Will stop speaking in that stupid poem, and ANSWER ME!!" he said, almost equalling a Vegeta rage.

"Nothing more." said the cloaked figure that seemed to be born from the shadows right behind Hutch. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 14, 2015, 10:13:37 PM

Holy crap, this is getting real. I really need to stop missing chapters. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 15, 2015, 01:47:17 AM

SHE'S BAAAAAAACK

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2015, 05:37:55 AM

There's at least one every day, GH. ;)

And, Saffa, are you so sure about that?  8)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Blubberin' Butterball

"Don't you dare sneak up behind me!" Hutch said, turning around. He wasn't very athletic.

The hooded, cloaked figure did not answer, but loomed up as if he was death himself. The figure said nothing, but moved with slow deliberation and careful purpose. Though Hutch would deny this profusely, with violent abandon, he was intimidated. He was afraid, too, though he would deny it.

He was starting to worry that this figure might not just be a representative of death, but actually be death itself. It would not be surprising considering just how round he was around the middle. His heart must have been stretched to nearly breaking point, as is. He huffed and puffed when he had to walk from his makeshift office to his car -- it didn't take much for him to get out of breath.

Hutch, despite any and all outward appearances, was really a coward and a bully at heart. He didn't care for the welfare of those beneath him in the strict cartel hierarchy, but considered his own welfare paramount to anything else. He wasn't a welcomed personality, with a likeability factor of 0. They only put up with out of fear of retribution, fear upon penalty of pain and death.

Whether he really believed that he was a beloved leader (which he was -- to only the pathological devoted, that is), when, in reality, he was really nothing more than overgrown playground bully who never matured into something respectable (and never learned to say no to a powdered donut), though he tried to affect the appearance of respectability.

"Answer me," Hutch said, unable to hold on to his indignant anger. The looming figure stood eight feet tall, which was a full two and a half feet taller than the rotund bully. "Answer me, I say."

The figure said nothing.

"Answer me."

Nothing.

"Answer me . . ."

Silence.

"Please?"

Silence, but the intimidation factor seemed to increase.

"Pretty please?"

"Hutch Crowe," Cloak said, "I think 'Blubberin' Butterball' would be a more accurate name. But I digress"

"What?"

"You are the source of the Rachel toxin," Cloak accused coolly. "Head of a black market cartel."

"So?" he had managed to get belligerent again.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" Cloak said, calmly.

"Some idiot in a cloak," Hutch said, returning to his normal manner. Apparently, now that Cloak had spoke. Hutch had moved to clean up his spaghetti from the floor, considering still eating it. "Now, get out."

"You have no idea with who you're dealing with, do you?" Cloak said, actually smiling inwardly.

"A pathetic little man who thinks that he's scary," Hutch counters.

Cloak narrowed his eyes and gave a knowing smile. He knew the precisely the kind of man that Hutch was now.

"No, Butterball," Cloak said, calmly. "I am a RAFian."

The wave of fear flooded through Hutch again. He thought he wasn't showing it, but Cloak wasn't so easily fooled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2015, 02:59:56 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Cloak's Reasoning

"R-R-RAFian? RAFian, you say?"

Cloak could have made a sarcastic remark, but he said nothing. He scrutinized the room, wondering again if what he was after was here. He knew that it wouldn't be out in the open. It probably would have been jealously safeguarded.

"Wh-why are you here?"

Hutch would have naturally demanded to have it, assuming that he did not create the toxin himself. Cloak scrutinized the blubbering mess that was the big boss cartel that the RAFians had only the sketchiest information about.

"Why are you here?"

Hutch was getting irritated, but the Realm Walker didn't care. It was about time that Hutch started to take responsibility for his actions of a dubious legality, of the potential lives he either ruined or took.

"Answer -- !"

"Shut up." Cloak said, seriously.

"What?" Hutch snapped.

"I said, shut up." Cloak replied. "You're not calling the shots here. I am."

"You have --"

"You're the head of a criminal cartel and you are about to lecture me about rights?" Cloak said. "Yes, I know about the black market you run."

"Then what now?"

"What now?" Cloak answered slowly. "What now? My job was only to distract you, silly human."

"Wait, wait?"

"You still haven't put it together yet, I see." Cloak said. "You don't have the antidote here as well. Just as well, it's being synthesized as we speak."

"Make sense!!"

"You still don't get it?" Cloak said, not surpressing his mild surprise. "I only came ahead to be sure that you didn't flee before --"

The doors burst open and a mixed team of S.W.A.T. and RAFians came in, ready for a fight, if need be.

"Well, for that."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 16, 2015, 05:07:25 AM

Dang, Malice is quiet. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2015, 05:59:03 PM

Oh, she'll show back up sooner or later. Tomorrow's chapter might come a bit late. But don't hold me to that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Innoculations and Inspirations

"I don't believe it," Aquilai muttered.

"Don't believe what?' Goom asked, conversationally, somehow tucking away his glasses into what appeared to be hammerspace. No one ever seemed to question how Goombas are able to do things like this.

"I don't believe that it was this easy," the Time Lord elaborated. "That simple substitution of the Joker Gas formula -- and, by extent, the antidote -- made the curative."

"It was insideously simple," Yarin agreed. "Just change the formular just enough so death isn't from chemically-induced hilarity, but chemically-induced rage and hatred."

"Fortunate that we dealt with the Joke Meister before this happened, too," Goom noted.

At that, Aquilai rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yes . . ."

"How can you honestly think that?" Yarin said, knowingly.

"What?" Goom asked.

"You suspect that the Joke Meister is actually behind this?" Yarin said. "He's in that maximum security prison."

"Especially after the failed attempts to get him sent to that asylum," Goom pointed out. "Which is good, because the security there would be nothing but a game for him to get out of. He's too smart for that place."

"Yes, I know." Aquilai said. "But, still, I wonder . . ."

"Oh, you're probably worrying about nothing," Goom said. "You're starting to be as paranoid as Cloak, Aquilai."

"You take that back!" the Time Lord countered with mock offense.

They couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. Even Cloak admits to his perhaps excessive paranoia.

"So, how are Faerie and Underseen doing?" Aquilai asked.

"They're in good condition," Goom replied. "It was difficult enough to administer the cure to them. They were in full-on rages."

"Faerie is one of our fiercest fighters," Aquilai noted. "And Underseen is one of the most versitile. Yep. It wouldn't be an easy task to undertake."

"But we managed it," Yarin put in. "GH is truly the epitome of 'music soothes the savage beast'."

"That came out weird," Goom noted.

"Eh," Yarin said, with an indifferent sort of air.

It was true, though. The only reason they managed to get through to Faerie and Underseen was because of an off-the-cuff soothing ballad that GH played that managed to calm them down enough to allow the innoculation.

It was the only reason that Faerie and Underseen had lasted so long, as it was also discovered that Kelly and Yunyun's healing abilities were only a temporary solution. The curative was the only thing to render the toxin permanently inert, and able to be purged from their systems.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 16, 2015, 06:01:17 PM

I just decided to look at this.  :) It's interesting, a fanfic about RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 16, 2015, 07:35:09 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 16, 2015, 05:59:03 PM

It was true, though. The only reason they managed to get through to Faerie and Underseen was because of an off-the-cuff soothing ballad that GH played that managed to calm them down enough to allow the innoculation.

For some reason, this is the only song that I can think of when I read that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcCZ8QZzi-A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcCZ8QZzi-A)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 16, 2015, 07:42:33 PM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on June 16, 2015, 07:35:09 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 16, 2015, 05:59:03 PM

It was true, though. The only reason they managed to get through to Faerie and Underseen was because of an off-the-cuff soothing ballad that GH played that managed to calm them down enough to allow the innoculation.

For some reason, this is the only song that I can think of when I read that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcCZ8QZzi-A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcCZ8QZzi-A)

I heard that earlier on the radio. It was on some weird heavy metal station. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 16, 2015, 08:09:35 PM

What radio station plays Strapping Young Lad and why the hell don't I get that station where I live!?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 16, 2015, 09:41:13 PM

It was because my friend was messing with my presets. I turned on the radio, this started playing, and I was like wtf.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2015, 02:58:58 AM

Not much time before I have to get ready for work.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Gutted

Hutch's headquarters wasn't the only one who's -- ahem -- "businesses" was raided. Although, it was only the ones that had merchandise of a questionable nature. More vials of the Rachel toxin, some vials of Joker Gas in liquefied form, doxy dropping draughts, a single vial of sugar water labeled as a quantum virus, and more poisons, various toxins, and such.

It was actually remarkable that such a market could exist where people could obtain poisons and toxins of this nature. Remarkable . . . and frightening as well. How could such a market flourish like this without any knowledge of the law enforcement or government knowledge.

But perhaps, just perhaps, the government was well aware of the existance of it. Aware, and paid off to ignore it. The very idea . . . it was sadly very possible. Corruption with government is always a possibility, and no sentient species is immune.

Cloak knew this full well, as the Realm Walker Council was always corrupt. Always. Even if the Councilors had strong morals, strong values, strong convictions . . . they inevitably turned corrupt, as metal will always corrode if spent long enough if caustic atmospheres.

But Cloak was extremely jaded by his past experiences, both with his mother and the Council itself. He was mostly distrustful of his own species that weren't Shadow, Faith, his aunt, and a select few others.

And why would he trust them, or their motives? He was the subject of ridicule and scorn amongst them. Not many Realm Walkers actually Walk into the Realms, but none before Cloak made one his home, and dwelled there.

He knew of the Andalite Seerow. Cloak believed he could understand the Andalite's predictament, as his was relatively similiar. It could be said that he was to the RAFians what Seerow was to the Yeerks. He had even given tech to the RAFians -- Blaze, his sword, and Parker, his armor upgrade(s).

Cloak mused about this deeply, as he watched the black market being gutted terribly, and the vendors and proprietors of this dangerously murderous merchandise. All illegal.

Cloak watched as they were carted away for daring to sell such dangerous poisons and toxins. They would appeal the charges, if they had the meekest leg to stand on. Cloak wondered if the judges in those cases would be biased against or for them. He really didn't trust anyone in government to be free from corruption, and that included judges of any caliber -- from the high Supreme Court standard to the low Judge Judy standard.

The Realm Walker found himself wondering, also, how permanent a solution this would be. Just because this one black market was gutted did not mean that there weren't others, or that a new one wouldn't sprout back up from the ashes of this one.

There would be many unanswered questions from this. And Cloak wondered if this would be just like beheading a hydra head, like the trouble of so many other things. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2015, 03:46:36 PM

New, shortish chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
From the Ashes . . .

The ruins of what was Hutch's black market still smoldered -- in a figurative sense, of course -- for a few days. The area was free of their brand of shady dealings for a time.

But Cloak's assumption would prove correct.

Not all the vendors were arrested, not all the merchants had their merchandise confiscated. These were the ones that didn't deal with poisons and toxins and that whole shebang. These were the ones whose wares weren't illegal or dangerous per se. A fair few of these merchants' merchandise weren't harmful in the least, but they they didn't want their business well-publicized.

These included potions and concoctions and items of a questionable nature, which could cause harm societally, or culturally. And if there is one thing that was constant, is resistance against anything that changes society culturally.

That, and some of these items had the potential to wreak havoc in the interpersonal lives of others. But the RAFians wouldn't really have to worry about this until later, when someone from Broken's past . . . well, the time will come for that story.

In the end, the raid was only a temporary solution. Granted, this new underground market wasn't really a black market, per se, but it did have the groundwork to become a new black market in a couple of years.

***

Faerie and Underseen were on the mend, though their strength was completely sapped. Underseen was just fortunate to be able to maintain his shape, which was just vaguely human at the moment. As his strength returned, his form became more defined and more detailed.

They were very lucky, actually. They came very close to oblivion, as Cloak did when Ab (back when he was Abomination) came very close to killing Cloak, nearly a year ago. They were rapidly regaining strength, mostly due to the ministrations of Kelly and Goom.

But this whole event was unnerving for the RAFians as when Horse was poisoned by the Arachnoids. It once again revealed that RAF and the RAFians were not impregnable, were not invulnerable. The defenses of the forum and of the Mark could only go so far, and they must not assume or get complacent in it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2015, 04:30:25 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
F1

"Hey, listen!"

"Ugh," Malice grunted.

"Hey, listen!"

"Oh, shut up," she snapped.

"Hey, listen!"

"Go away!" Malice roared. She was very irritable. And alone.

"Hey, listen!"

Malice didn't know when this irksome viral fairy or virus soul or whatever it was decided to follow her, but it had made itself a rather big nuisance. And liability -- as it never shut up, with it's high, nasally voice. Malice said nothing and swept from the blank, empty room she was in.

"Hey, listen!"

Malice snapped her Tasmanian devil jaws at the hovering ball of light, something she wasn't accustomed to being reduced to doing. This little ball of irritation was really grinding on her nerves.

With this orb's incessant chattering, it was difficult to think, much less scheme. Malice couldn't make her plans and schemes with this nagging little bug.

"Hey, listen!"

"Will you kindly SHUT UP?!" Malice raged.

There was a small pause of silence. Glorious silence.

"Hey, listen!"

"UGH!!" Malice screamed in sheer frustration. The orb did not seem to listen.

". . . Hey! Listen!"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?!" Malice shrieked, not caring if it would attract attention. She was getting that frustrated.

"A body," the orb said, demonstrating the fact that it was, indeed, sentient.

"Oh, gee," Malice said, caustically, "that's such a small order, isn't it?"

Silence.

"You're not getting mine, idiot," Malice said. "Firstly, it's mine. Secondly, it's not even possible, if if I wanted to."

". . ."

"The answer is still no."

". . . Hey! Listen!"

"OH, SHUT UP!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2015, 03:47:01 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK XC:
VIRUS ALERT!
CHAPTER ONE:
F1-Fi-Fo-Fum Jack!

"Hey! Listen!"

Malice managed to ignore this, as she continued her work. Soon, very soon, she'd be rid of this nuisance. She worked very quickly and very hard,

"Hey! Listen!"

Malice wouldn't be surprised that this annoying ball of frustrating irritation hadn't any friends. It was so obnoxious.

"Hey! Listen!"

Nearly there. Nearly there. Nearly free of this pest.

"Hey! Listen!"

So close now. So very close.

"Hey! Listen!"

Just this one bit now. Just the one. . . .

"Hey! Listen!"

There. It was finished. Malice did not know or care whether it worked or not.

"Hey! Lis--"

"No, YOU listen." Malice snapped finally. She presented what appeared to be a softball-sized orb that resembled the ball form of the Winged Dragon of Ra. "This can get you a body. F1."

Of course, she didn't mention that it couldn't get F1 (pronounced "fi") into a Realm Walker. Just the lowly Dwellers -- let them deal with this stupid little pest. Let them deal with him, her, it, whatever. Let them put up with this idiotic nuisance.

F1 moved inside of the orb without a second thought, believing that it would keep her into a single body. It did not consider the fact that Malice would decide to screw it over. She made sure that the item would be Realm-bound.

Once F1 was inside, Malice locked it inside, trapping it forever. Then she pitched out of her hideout, and the orb itself looked like a minute Saiyan ship as it reached the city.

It lay forgotten in a snowdrift, in the city.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 18, 2015, 06:59:20 AM

Wait what. How long was I away? So many chapters! :o

Hehe, I like how you used the last chapter of the previous book like a post-credits scene going into the next one.

And Dylan, he's actually written 88 other books in the series before that one. If you want the PDFs of any, leave the message here. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 18, 2015, 09:37:10 AM

Quote from: Saffa on June 18, 2015, 06:59:20 AM

Wait what. How long was I away? So many chapters! :o

Hehe, I like how you used the last chapter of the previous book like a post-credits scene going into the next one.

And Dylan, he's actually written 88 other books in the series before that one. If you want the PDFs of any, leave the message here. :)

When did he start writing them? 88 is a big@ss number...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 18, 2015, 01:47:03 PM

January 18, 2012, from the date of the first post in the thread. It's not too late to start. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 18, 2015, 01:55:41 PM

I've been reading through the older Memoirs books, and I have to say they're certainly worth reading. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 18, 2015, 02:10:57 PM

I plan to do a re-read soon, once I have my exams out of the way. Seems that's all I ever have these days.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2015, 02:37:58 PM

I'll post a new chapter soon, if I have the energy. A really horrible day at work.

Quote from: Dpsb5 on June 18, 2015, 09:37:10 AM

Quote from: Saffa on June 18, 2015, 06:59:20 AM

Wait what. How long was I away? So many chapters! :o

Hehe, I like how you used the last chapter of the previous book like a post-credits scene going into the next one.

And Dylan, he's actually written 88 other books in the series before that one. If you want the PDFs of any, leave the message here. :)

When did he start writing them? 88 is a big@ss number...

It's actually 89 finished out of the 750 currently planned (with only 449 outlined). Each 100 books signifies a single year, narrative-time, i.e. Book I to Book C is one year, while Book CI to Book CC constitutes the next one chronologically.

Quote from: Saffa on June 18, 2015, 01:47:03 PM

January 18, 2012, from the date of the first post in the thread. It's not too late to start. :D

Well, that's the official date. Unofficially, it was actually a while before that when I started writing bits and pieces in my head. Then the SOPA thing came up, and I was afraid of litigious action against me for the RAFparodies.

I'm not so afraid now, as I don't make a dime off this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 18, 2015, 02:47:42 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 18, 2015, 02:37:58 PM

I'll post a new chapter soon, if I have the energy. A really horrible day at work.

Quote from: Dpsb5 on June 18, 2015, 09:37:10 AM

Quote from: Saffa on June 18, 2015, 06:59:20 AM

Wait what. How long was I away? So many chapters! :o

Hehe, I like how you used the last chapter of the previous book like a post-credits scene going into the next one.

And Dylan, he's actually written 88 other books in the series before that one. If you want the PDFs of any, leave the message here. :)

When did he start writing them? 88 is a big@ss number...

It's actually 89 finished out of the 750 currently planned (with only 449 outlined). Each 100 books signifies a single year, narrative-time, i.e. Book I to Book C is one year, while Book CI to Book CC constitutes the next one chronologically.

Quote from: Saffa on June 18, 2015, 01:47:03 PM

January 18, 2012, from the date of the first post in the thread. It's not too late to start. :D

Well, that's the official date. Unofficially, it was actually a while before that when I started writing bits and pieces in my head. Then the SOPA thing came up, and I was afraid of litigious action against me for the RAFparodies.

I'm not so afraid now, as I don't make a dime off this.

750 whoa! I tip my to you sir.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2015, 04:27:42 PM

Tip your . . . what, Dpsb?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Astound and Found

Cloak was still mulling over the whole Rachel toxin thing. A poison that increased anger and rage and hostility. He couldn't help but wonder if there were confused Red Lantern rings headed for Earth, only to stop partway because the Rachel toxin either took its fatal effect or was cured.

"Cloak?" Goom said. He was walking by, and Cloak really didn't feel like being disturbed. But he conceded silently that it was probably his fault for not going to his usual secluded spot in the forest -- or simply by sequestering himself inside his thread.

"Cloak?" Goom repeated.

"What is it, Goom?" Cloak said, surlier than he meant to. Cloak would normally have apologized for it, but Cloak was moody.

Goom blinked a bit, but let the unpleasant tone slide. "Cloak, you're not still thinking about the Hutch thing, are you?"

"It was only a temporary solution." Cloak said, repressively. "You do know that, right?"

"How so?" Goom said, patiently. "Hutch is gone."

"Doesn't mean someone else won't rise up to take his place," Cloak said. "All we did was create a power vacu-- aah!"

Cloak was interrupted by their Marks suddenly burning noticeably. It's never done this before, not like this. It was only a moment's pain, but Cloak and Goom looked aghast, as they met each other's eyes.

The Marks were not supposed to do this. They were supposed to be a means of protection.  Protection against possession, against chemical seduction, against memory manipulation and alteration, against mind control. It was not supposed to work like Harry Potter's scar.

"What brought that on?" Cloak said.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Goom said.

Cloak did not know. Realm Walkers, despite what some may posture to the contrary, do not know everything.

***

The orb that contained the virus F1 was not left lost.

It just so happened that a group of young kids were having a snowball fight nearby, and a bundled-up little boy who couldn't be more than six or seven years old found it by complete accident.

He was, as all children around his age and maturity, very curious. He did not know the risks of the device, even in this day and age of gadgetry. He reached out with his yellow-mittened hand to pick up the orb that encased the consciousness and spectral body of F1. He won't remember what happened next.

The orb glowed. Then it sank into into the boy's mitten, and then his hand. The boy's expression shifted swiftly from one of curiosity, to one of alarm, to one of fear, before changing to a pained expression. This expression lasted for about five minutes.

Then he wore a smug expression before he opened his eyes. The boy's consciousness was being rendered dormant in that five minutes and F1's consciousness was being asserted to become the dominant consciousness.

"I'm in my new body," F1 said, quietly rapturous, but the voice was that of the boy. Without any sort of distortion. "Mine."

The orb lived up to the name that Malice had given it.

The body-jacker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2015, 05:39:36 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
The Body-Jacker

"The exuberant ecstasy of seeing with eyes," F1 said quietly, relishing being corporeal. "The unbridled joy of hearing with ears. The unmeasured happiness of being able to smell -- in both senses of the word! The delectable rapture of being able to taste. The unparalleled pleasure of fleshing feeling and touch! The absolute delight of being able to speak! Speak more than a few single-syllable words!!"

It was incredibly odd seeing a seven-year-old kid waxing philosophical like this. And this was actually quite out of the ordinary for this boy. Michelangelo "Mike" Coleman.

"Mikey?" one of his friends, with blue mittens, asked, concerned. He was Leonardo "Leo" Clarke. Behind him stood Raphael "Raph" Paulsen (red mittens), Cody and Neil Jones (both wore gloves), Donatello "Donnie" Gordon (purple mittens), April Fishman (lilac gloves), and Starla Allen (mauve gloves)*. Leo spoke again, "Mikey. Hey, Mikey!!"

F1 apparently did not have access to Mikey's memories, as it did not seem to recognize Mikey's name. Or it could have been so blindly rejoicing in its new sensory ability to have either heard or care about being called.

Leo crossed over to F1, who had Mikey's back turned towards them. It was still revelling in the fact that it finally had a body of its own. Even though it wasn't a body of its own, since it decided to steal if from an innocent boy.

"Mikey, you need --" Leo began as he clapped his right hand on Mikey's shoulder. The body-jacker left Mikey's shoulder and entered Leo's forearm. Mikey looked as if he was coming out a reverie without any idea or inclination of what happened.

Leo's stricken expression quickly transmuted into a pained one. This time it took about a second less for F1's consciousness to assert itself as the dominant consciousness and render Leo's dormant.

F1 blinked Leo's eyes and got its bearings. Then it said, through Leo, while looking at Leo's mittened hands, "Well. That was unexpected."

"Whoa," Mikey said. "I think I may have zoned out."

There was a slight jostling in the group and F1 was bumped out of Leo and into Starla. This time it took nine seconds less time for F1 to assert itself as the dominant consciousness.

"Again, huh?" F1 said, with Starla's voice, as it curled her lips into an evil smile. "This could be fun."

F1 shot Starla's hand out and seized Raph's arm. The body-jacker switched soundlessly between the two, and in just over four and three-fourths minutes was the dominant consciousness in Raph's body.

"Yes!" it crowed, with Raph's voice. "This could be most fun, indeed!"

"What are you talking about --" April said, but F1 switched into her, which shut her up. And, in just under four and a half minutes, April's consciousness was dormant.

"This was what 'he' was talking about, girly," F1 said, with April's mouth, lips, and voice. This seemed funny to it. "And with each body . . ."

April's hand shot out and caught Cody's shoulder, and the body-jacker jumped bodies. And F1 jacked Cody's body. After a bit more than three and a half minutes, F1's consciousness superseded Cody's, which went dormant.

"With each body," F1 sneered in Cody's voice, "it gets easier to gain control."

Cody's elbow found Donnie's gut, which expelled the body-jacker from Cody's elbow into Donnie's gut. With a bit over two and a half minutes, F1 had control over Donnie's body. Complete and total control.

"To control the body," F1 continued from when it was in Cody. He laughed a deep, rather insane laugh. Rather creepy, coming from a seven-year-old.

"What is wrong with --" Neil began. He became the next target and host. Neil's body became totally F1's within a minute and a quarter. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong with him. Everything is so right."

Now Neil laughed rather malevolently.

"That creature was far kinder than I could have ever --"

Then Mrs. Jones had come up behind Neil and place his hand on his shoulder. This time, F1 didn't realize the body change until after it stop speaking. "Kinder than I could have ever imagined. She didn't just give me one body."

Then F1's body-jacker was funneled into Neil's older sister, Augustine, "She gave me them all!!"

---

*Kind of a hint where the idea for a body-jacker came from. Is it too subtle? Or is it too obvious? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 19, 2015, 12:20:11 AM

*I tip my hat to you sir
I am such a dumb@ss

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 19, 2015, 03:02:09 AM

Ah.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Caterwaul

"What was that all about?" Cloak wondered again.

"I'll tell you again, Cloak," Goom said, "I don't know."

"I was talking more to myself," Cloak elaborated. "And I do sense a certain kind of evil . . . but that sense is rather furiatingly vague."

"So I gather," Goom said.

"We must gather the other RAFians," Cloak said.

"Yes, this is just vague enough to warrant such!" Goom said, attempting to be funny. It wasn't working.

"There isn't any levity to be gotten from this situation," Cloak said, quite seriously.

"Oh, don't be so morose . . . oh, okay. You're right. Now's not the time." Goom said. "The Mark burned . . . there has to be a reason."

Probably tied into the evil Cloak sensed. He did not say it because he thought it was self-evident. Cloak's thoughts seemed to go everywhere at once and yet nowhere at the same time. He was simply puzzled about everything.

It turned out that the other feline RAFians sensed the same thing that Cloak did. It was a cat thing.

***

A boy whose hair was over-moussed and black, wearing black jeans, red boots, a blue zip-up jacket, and naked hands rolled his shoulders, with an ecstatic smile on his face, his large eyes closed.

"This body is nice," he said, inspecting it. "But I really can do better than a child, I --"

"-- Think."

It blinked new eyes. It had been bounced into a new body without realizing it at first. It was in a dark boy with messy hair with a green headband, brown leather boots with prominent cuffs, blue jeans, short-sleeved white shirt, and a vest with yellow trim. F1 examined this body, too.

"This one isn't that bad, either," F1 said, in the boy's voice, "but, in all honesty, I think that I can --"

"Do better." F1 continued, unaware that it switched bodies when its last body accidentally struck this one in the face with his hand. This one was a spiky-haired blond boy with blue sneakers, blue shorts, and a short-sleeved red shirt. F1 blinked, as she examined this new body. "I really must be --"

"-- More careful." F1 continued, realizing it switched again. He was in the body of another boy, this one a bit on the hefty side. He wore a khaki cap, a khaki shirt with a Boy Scout sash thing (complete with many merit badges), light brown socks, pennyloafers, a red bandanna, and brown shorts. "Whoa. It's really comfortable in this one. Like well-worn shoes."

Then F1 shot out a hand and touched another boy, causing the body-jacker to leap into him. The boy had messy hair, thick brown shoes, white socks, jean shorts, short-sleeved blue shirt, pale gray vest, and a brown satchel. "This one is very nice in a very different --"

"-- Way though." F1 said. Then it blinked, literally with new eyes. He was in a boy with brown hair in a stupid hairdo with blue jeans, red hi-tops, and a red, short-sleeved shirt with some sort of yellow insignia on it. The boy had touched his previous body. "Uh, no."

F1 touched the boy with the satchel again, and got comfortable in his body. "This one will do. At least for the moment."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 19, 2015, 07:02:09 PM

Ugh. That "Back Seat Moderating" thread is still rankling me . . . the sheer hypocrisy of it. . . .

Anyway, the new chapter tomorrow may come late.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
On the Scene

Normally, everyone else at RAF might not have taken Cloak's assertions of an evil nearby, in the city, had not the Mark burned. And had this been the first time something like this happened.

But the Marks had burned, and this wasn't the first time that RAF had encountered such a phenomenon of the felines sensing evil.

Cloak, FuBar, Bladeh, Aquilai, and Parker were quickly dispatched (Shadow decided all by herself to tag along) to investigate this occurance.

They stepped into the city (in disguise, of course, they didn't want to start a panic if they didn't have to . . . what? It wasn't stupid! . . . Okay, yes, the populace of the city should be used to this kind of thing by now, considering the events of the past year and beyond, but still). They looked around, disguised as humans (except Parker, who was essentially an enhanced human, and had his armor compartimentalized within a watch -- Walker tech, which Cloak wouldn't go in depth about), with FuBar and Bladeh disguised as pet cats.

"So," Parker said, rubbing the watch apprehensively. He felt naked without his armor. "So, what exactly are we looking for, exactly?"

"Settle down, SPARTAN," Cloak said. He was wearing the ID Mask that projected his usual holographic disguise.

"Well?"

"I don't know. Not exactly."

"How comforting." Parker retorted.

"We'll know it when we see it," Bladeh said.

"Did that cat just talk?" a bystander asked.

"Nope," Shadow said brightly, as they bypassed the bystander. "We need to hurry and --"

But Cloak was staring at the bystander with narrowed eyes . . . but he couldn't be sure . . . he stopped staring with his eyes, but kept track of the pedestrian with his Earthsight.

"Uncle?"

***

A hairy seaman? Didn't like.

A small Russian boy immigrant? Not really.

A shapely collegian? Not it's type.

A boy with ridiculously tall blonde hair? Comfortable, but not what it really wanted.

An United Postal Service delivery boy? It itched in some rather strange places.

A boy with slicked-back black hair? Felt uncomfortably tight, but in a good way.

A shopping teenage girl? Not quite what it was looking for in a body.

A ten-year-old boy in a white shirt (bisected with a black line), brown slacks and sneakers? Perhaps. It decided it would come back to this body if it could not find better.

A deminiutive burgular? Nah. Too much baggage.

A rail-thin, elderly man? No. Just . . . just no.

A costumed performer? Perhaps one with a less weedy-looking body.

A three-year-old boy? Nah. Just felt weak and squishy.

A skateboarding prepubescent? Nah. Too much risk.

A poncho-wearing woman? No. With that poncho? Seriously?

A muumuu-wearing little girl with a flower in her long raven hair? Hmmm . . . perhaps.

A gas station attendant? No way. No way he had a life it would find comfortable, not with that kind of pay.

A handy man? Hmmm . . . nah.

A businessman? Hmmm . . . it wasn't sure . . . it didn't know if it could live this body. It certainly was comfortable enough, if not a bit bony. Was this body the one? Was --

"Did that cat just talk?" it had to ask.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 19, 2015, 08:34:56 PM

Talking cats :kitty:? I guess I need to finishing reading the others to before that makes since.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 20, 2015, 01:26:50 AM

Welcome to RAF. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2015, 03:19:16 PM

Yeah, there's a whole species registry thread somewhere. I'd link it -- but I'm lazy right now.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Hopalong Little Body-Jacker

As the RAFians bypassed F1, inside the body of the businessman, hurrying away. F1 suddenly found itself inside a rosy-cheeked little boy with light red hair, big anime eyes who wore green slacks, orangish-brown shoes, a knit-cap, and a blue shirt with long yellow sleeves. As the other bodies F1 had inhabited, it did not know anything the rightful proprietor of this body's affliations. He could have been its previous host's son or other relative. But it did not care.

It examined this body and decided that it chafed a little. It wanted out, and its wish was granted when the boy in which it currently resided was jostled by a teenged punk dressed all in black with long greasy hair and spiked wrist bands.

Then it decided that this guy wasn't much better -- and it was inside this boy that a thought occurred to F1. Those four people (and perhaps their pet cats were in on it two), they were . . . they were . . .

"DAH!" F1 cursed, but not inside the punk teen. She was inside a ten-year-old boy with a blockish head in a white sweatshirt with a red short-sleeved shirt over it, khaki slacks, and sneakers. It was a nice body, to be sure, but the switch had interrupted its thoughts. Which was odd, as the body-jacker had switched bodies on F1 without conscious notice from the virus.

"What?" said the boy's companion, but F1 shrugged off the question. It was uncharacteristic of the boy on which it was currently squatting in. The boy's companion -- a simple but egotistical boy with big, expressive, blue eyes and thin lips. "Mack, what's wrong?"

"Shut up," F1 said, through Mack. F1 had no interest with Mack's companion as a possible home. "And go away."

"Mack," Mack's companion said, moving to place his hand on his friend's retreating shoulder, "what's -- oh, you idiot!"

F1 was now "wearing" Mack's companion.

F1 needed a moment's peace to consider! It was harder to concentrate now, for whatever reason. He tried to focus on those four and the two cats. Apparently, Mack's companion often ignored him as Mack treated F1's testiness as somewhat normal and day-to-day.

Those four and the cats . . . there was something about them. And that one . . . the one that stared . . . there was something about that, too. But what was --

"Will --" it said, testily. It now wore a young kindergartener girl with long light red hair in a ponytail and wore a simple pink dress and black dress shoes.

"-- You --" it continued, now in a different body. It was now another kindergartener girl with short black hair who wore a simple green dress and black dress shoes.

"-- Just --" it continued, now in the last body of the three jostling around. This one was also a kindergartener girl. Only she had blonde pigtails with who wore a simple blue dress and black dress shoes.

"-- Stop --" the black-haired girl said.

"-- Swapping --" the blonde girl said.

"-- Me --" the redhead said.

"-- Around --" the black-haired girl said.

"-- Like --" the redhead said.

"-- This!!" -- the black-haired girl screamed.

"-- I need --" the blonde said.

"-- to --" the redhead said.

"-- concentrate!!" the black-haired screamed.

"Stop it!!" an adult said, separating the three fighting friends. "Stop it right -- well, this is a better."

The adult was now playing host to F1.

"That was really not funny," it said, and the three girls thought that it was referring to them. They quickly and profusely apologized, not even really realizing that they didn't even know what they were fighting.

"I need to get --"

It now wore a boy with thick glasses, purple gloves, black pants, black shoes, and a lab coat. The boy clearly fancied himself a scientist.

"-- To get out of here. To get somewhere that I can think."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2015, 04:55:21 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Plausible and Implausible

It managed to get away from the hullabaloo (which did attract the RAFians' attention, and it wasn't ready for a second encounter from them, at least, until it had a better grasp of what they were). It was no longer in the boy-playing-scientist, but inside a teenaged truant.

"Those four," he said, with the boy's mouth, voice, and tongue. "And the cats. There was something about them . . . something. But what?"

The truant jerked as the body-jacker left him and entered into a rather twiggy twelve-year-old boy who shaves his head. The boy's consciousness immediately went dormant, as F1's consciousness easily became the dominant mind. It rolled the boy's shoulders as it adjusted to the newness of this body. It didn't really have to, just chose to.

"What makes them so different from all these?" he said aloud, referring to this and its past hosts. "What makes them so . . . wait a moment . . . ugh."

The body-jacker passed into a police officer.

"Are they truly different? Are they truly . . . special?"

"What?" said the officer's partner.

"Shut up," F1 replied, with the officer's voice, but none of his mannerisms.

"What?" the other officer said, offended. But F1 had abandoned the officer for a passing man with a pointed chin and hooked nose who wore a black cloak and a derby. F1 left the officer to deal with the fallout of its actions -- it didn't care how it turned out.

F1 was glancing at this man's hands as she walked, "driving" his body without any awareness from the rightful consciousness of this body.

"Perhaps," it said, with his voice, "just perhaps . . ."

Then, with a gasp, it was out. Thanks to the body-jacker, it was now inside a drunkard, immediately disliking it, simply for it's inebriated state. It found it absolutely repulsive.

It quickly jumped and jacked the body of round-headed boy with sparse hair (which he covered with a red cap). This boy wore a yellow shirt with a black zigzag around the middle, brown shorts, yellow socks, and brown loafers.

"Good grief," it said, when it had asserted its mental dominance, "that was a horrid body."

Then the body-jacker sent it into a nun, then quickly into little girl with a blue dress with moderate-length black hair thereafter, but it didn't mind this time, as it remembered it's idea.

"Perhaps," it said, with the girl's voice, but the mannerisms of someone significantly older. "Perhaps . . . I already discovered the body to make my permanent home. I must go and find it again."

It turned around, and contorted the girl's face into a pensive, thoughtful look. Then it found itself inside a tall teenager in a basketball jersey. It didn't mind, but twisted the boy's face into one of decisive determination . . . which was transferred to the teen's friends, as F1 body-hopped, deliberately not staying long in each body.

The body-jacker cannot tire out, and bodies can. F1 didn't care to experience that in its deliberation to get back. Or at least, that was its excuse.

From the last basketball player to a boy in a green sweatshirt, brown slacks, and a backward blue baseball cap. From that boy to a bride, to her groom, to a little boy dressed up as Pinocchio, to a stock car driver, to a boy in a black shirt, jean jacket, blue jeans, and baseball cap, to a kid in a yellow shirt, blue short, red shoes and an askew blue cap, to a --

***

"You think what you guys sense has anything thing to do with this?" Shadow asked, quietly.

They were investigating the triplets obvious fight and claims of a bouncing glowing orb.

"Possibly," Cloak said.

"Just 'possibly'?" Parker asked.

"It's not a precise thing," FuBar whispered in such a way that it could be misconstrued as coming from somewhere else.

"But something about it caught your attention," Aquilai observed, addressing Cloak. "What was it?"

"Not here," Cloak said, looking suspiciously around. And he wasn't just using his eyes to look around. "Some place less . . . open."

"Why?" Aquilai asked.

"Reasons," Cloak answered repressively. "And one very plausible one, I'm afraid. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 20, 2015, 09:34:19 PM

It's almost like the virus is sick. Such irony.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 20, 2015, 10:18:34 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 20, 2015, 03:19:16 PM

It examined this body and decided that it chafed a little. It wanted out, and its wish was granted when the boy in which it currently resided was jostled by a teenged punk dressed all in black with long greasy hair and spiked wrist bands.

Then it decided that this guy wasn't much better

Hey, what's wrong with being a punk?  :cry:
Also, the Charlie Brown joke left me rolling. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2015, 02:55:34 AM

Hey, the virus is judgemental.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
An Unseen Flaw

"A body-jacker," Cloak said, once they neared a nearly-deserted alley way.

The RAFians, and Shadow, were taken aback by the abruptness and swiftness of this response.

"A what?" Parker said, recovering first.

"A body-jacker," Cloak repeated. "I have only seen it once before. And never in this Realm."

"So Malice is behind this," Shadow said, astutely.

"But what is a body-jacker?" Bladeh asked.

"An orb -- or at least, an orb-like device -- that allows a consciousness to enter the body of another," Cloak said. "It suspends the rightful mind to the body for as long as the body-jacker is present within the being."

"Where did you see this?" FuBar asked,

"Realm number --"

"Never mind."

"And you think that the evil you guys sensed is -- ?" Aquilai said.

"Yes."

"So, this consciousness -- who or whatever it is -- could be inside of anyone?" Parker said, pretty much assuming the answer.

"Well, only the unMarked," Cloak said. "Our Marks should provide --"

"Hey, watch it!" Parker protested as a child approached him, and seized his hand.

A bright blue flash blinded everyone.

***

-- To a father of twins, to the mother, to one of the six-year-old boys, and, finally, to the other six-year-old twin. It was in this body that F1 spent more time than it had for a while.

With the boy's eyes, it saw the RAFians. It thought about the best way to approach the situation. It didn't stare at the RAFian, which (despite not knowing this) made Cloak not really suspect how close the virus was to them. But F1 didn't know something else that would cost her in the end.

It thought about how to get to the one in the center of the group, the one with the glasses. Perhaps the smaller one could be the way in. No, one of the older males was in the way.

Well, then it would simply use that one as its way to get inside the circle. It didn't think about how it would explain its presence there, as a child. It really didn't need to -- with a touch, it wouldn't be a child anymore.

It would not hesitate any more. It would go. Now.

"Hey! Watch it!" Parker protested as F1 seized his hand with the boy's hands.

Then there was a bright, brillant, blue flash. F1 was not only forbidden from entering and controlling Parker's body, but ejected from the boy's body as well. And, not only that, it was flung far from the scene. It landed with "WONG WONG WONG"-type sound.

It rolled into the shin of a tourist sitting on the ground, disappearing inside. F1 instantly assumed control and mental dominence of the fat, flabby body. It immediately got up and began to walk as far away as it could from the RAFians, now really realizing them as dangerous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2015, 06:42:50 PM

New book ideas.

• Book DCCLI: "Battling for Lucidity" -- A boy battles against an invading spirit from his body. It doesn't go as he plans, thanks to the inference of a RAFian. . . .
• Book DCCLII: "Swarm Summons" -- A homeless man gains the power to control swarms of manifested bugs.
• Book DCCLIII: "The Hydra Dragon" -- A rogue dragon kills others simply so it can grow other heads. The RAFians must intervene.
• Book DCCLIV: "Brainiac's Back" -- Brainiac returns with a very special ability.
• Book DCCLV: "Crystal Eyes" -- A sorcerer's peculiar necklace grants her some very powerful abilities.
• Book DCCLVI: "Faerie and the Magivampyra" -- Faerie encounters a monster that she had escaped from years before.
• Book DCCLVII: "Wings" -- A metahuman with orange wings seek to grow more.
• Book DCCLVIII: "Empath Mimicry" -- A metahuman who can psychically mimic abilities permanently cross paths with RAFians -- who he considers abominations.
• Book DCCLIX: "The New Phantovore" -- The RAFians must deal with another phantovore -- only, they knew this one before he was a phantovore.
• Book DCCLX: "Demon on Demon Violence" -- A demon and his bride kill demons and take their abilities for the demon's own.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Report on the Runaway

F1 was quick to abandon the tourist body when it could for a blonde teenage heartthrob.  It quickly assumed control and looked around. It had never felt this feeling before. It had never known fear.

Whatever it thought was fear, it was clearly wrong in so many ways. Those four, and their cats . . .

"Ugh."

F1 was now in a conspicuously tall redhead teenager. He was rail thin, lanky, and gangly. This teenager's face immediately contorted into that of fear and anxiety, which was suddenly palpable. F1 was scared . . .

"Ugh!"

F1 was now in a thickset, stout, teenage slacker (who has had many jobs, but slacked off at all of them). This teenager's fact contorted into a fearful and anxious look immediately. It was trying to make its way away from the RAFians, desperate to put some amount of distance.

"How I could --"

"-- Ever think that --" it now wore a teenaged songwriter in a dress.

"-- That ANY of them," it now wore an aspiring actress (who was really a nanny), "much less ONE of --"

"-- Of them could have --" it now wore a blonde fashionista (or whatever they were called). It kept the look of anxiety and worry, which was transferred to each body that the body-jacker translocated it to.

"-- Could have possibly have . . ." it now wore an attractively-thin, be-freckled, pale boy with tightly curled, short black hair.

". . . Possibly have thought . . . " it now wore a thin, dark boy, but it didn't care about the specifics.

". . .  That . . . that they . . . could be 'the one'." it now wore a dark girl with curly hair that was rather unnecessarily opulent.

"Have to get away . . ." it now wore a bulter as it strove to put distance between the RAFians and itself. "Have to get away . . ."

***

"Wait a minute," Parker said, flustered. "What just happened here?"

"The body-jacker," Cloak said, jumping to the only conclusion he had, "it must have tried to inhabit you, Parker."

"What?!" Parker said, with a flat tone that indicated his anger and frustration. Cloak could only imagine how invasive on an intimidate that would have felt. "What do you mean that it tried to inhabit me?!"

Cloak said nothing.

"But why didn't --" FuBar began, then stopped when he glanced around.

"Isn't it obvious?" Shadow asked, earnestly. "It's the Mark. The Mark makes body-jacking RAFians a major no-no."

"Wonderful," Parker said, still feeling dirty somehow.

"The point is," Aquilai said, "that it is now getting away from us. It is putting distance between us and itself, and it was hard enough to find it the first time."

"We didn't actually find it this last time," Bladeh pointed out.

"Details!" Shadow said, exaggeratedly exasperated. "Let's get going!"

Cloak had reservations about allowing Shadow tag along on this one, but he eventually relented.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2015, 07:05:53 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
The Obligatory Background Song

As the RAFians searched for the body-jacker, a song played in the background, but only Cloak and Shadow seemed to notice.

Hey,
Everyone, listen up!
Your attention, if you please!
We wanna give you a warning,
'Cause we found out this morning
'Bout a dangerous, insidious body-jackin' virus.
If you should anyone say the subject "Stinky Cheese",
Better not go taking your chances,
Under no circumstances,
Should you listen them or else it will . . .
Translate your documents into Swahili!
Make your TV record Twilight, see?
Neuter your pets
And give your laundry static cling!
(Look out!)
It's gonna make your computer screen freeze!
(Look out!)
It'll erase the Easter Eggs off your DVDs!
(Look out!)
It'll erase your hard drive and your backups too,
And the hard drive of anyone associated to you!
Body-jacker alert!
Flee immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message out to everybody!
Soon, very soon, it will make all the paint peel off your walls.
It'll make your keyboard all sticky,
Give your Furfrou a hickey,
And invest your cash in stock in EuroDisney!
Then it will tie up your phone making crank long distance calls!
It'll set your clocks back an hour
And start hogging the shower!
So just ignore him now, or else it will . . .
Decide to give you a permanent wedgie,
Legally change your name to Reggie,
Even mess up the pH balance in your pool!
(Look out!)
It's gonna melt your face right off your skull,
(Look out!)
And make your iPod only play Bieber bull,
(Look out!)
And tell you knock-knock jokes while you're trying to sleep,
(Look out!)
And make you physically attracted to sheep!
(Look out!)
It'll steal your identity and your credit cards,
(Look out!)
Buy you a warehouse full of pink leotards,
(Look out!)
Then cause a major Sario Rip in time and space
And leave a bunch of Twinkie wrappers all over the place!
That's right, it's a . . .
Body-jacker alert!
Flee immediately before someone gets hurt
Forward this message out to everybody!
Body-jacker alert!
Flee immediately before someone gets hurt
Forward this message on to everybody!
Warn all your friends, send this to everybody!
Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now!
Body-jacker alert!
Flee immediately before someone gets hurt
Forward this message out to everybody!
Body-jacker alert!
Flee immediately before someone gets hurt
Forward this message on to everybody!
Body-jacker alert!
Flee immediately before someone gets hurt
Forward this message on to everybody!
Warn all your friends, send this to everybody!
Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now!
What are you waiting for?
Just hurry up and send this to every RAFian you know!
Hit . . . send . . . right . . . NOW!!

Cloak shrugged it off, while Shadow looked a bit disturbed by the end of the song.

"Do you think it really did all that, Uncle?"

"Possibly," Cloak said, noncommittally.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 22, 2015, 02:14:15 AM

The obligatory background song. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2015, 04:34:41 PM

Yes. :D

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
On the Run

F1 had spent the intervining time resting inside the body of a boy -- Ty Rozelli. It did not know the boy's mannerisms or anything about his life, but only tried the flimsiest, most halfhearted attempts at mimicking them.

Mr. Rozelli was never around, always at work or doing something that pertained to work, so he never noticed. Not really.

Mrs. Rozelli was a homemaker, and was always there for Ty. But even she noticed a certain distancing effect the boy was effecting (which was actually F1's doing, as it did not wish for the body-jacker to take away from Ty so soon). She didn't like it, but instead of assuming that her young son's body had been hijacked (she didn't see the body-jacker pass into her son, after all, and there was no other possible proof), she just believed that her son was growing up. Although she fretted that it was too fast.

F1 mostly kept to Ty's room. F1 was, as she rationalized to herself, resting up. Resting up for a final flight from the RAFians. They were bound to have caught on to its abilities and goal by now. They were bound to come after it.

"It would be too generous to think that they would want to simply capture me," she said aloud, with Ty's voice.

"What's that, Ty, dear?" his mother asked pleasantly. She had been passing his open door with a basket of linen that needed doing.

"Nothing, mom." F1 replied rather more tonelessly and dully than Ty would usually have said it.

His mom seemed hurt by this tone, but hid it well. "Alright then."

She went about her homemaking and housekeeping duties -- which were far more difficult than people usually give them credit for. Just because you ain't collecting a check for it, doesn't mean that it isn't hard work.

"Stupid human," F1 said, referring to the boy's mother, indifferent if she was still within earshot. After all, it would never have to deal with any aftermath that it didn't want to. It could just body-jack someone else and leave the problem behind. Ty wasn't so fortunate in that aspect.

"They'll be wanting to kill me," Ty's mouth and voice said. Then he spied the pool boy had shown up for his job, though it was the middle of winter. Apparently, his mother got real, uh, "lonely", at times.

This was it's out.

***

Getting into wasn't as easy as the virus expected, but getting out of him was far easier.

But F1 would stay put within a single body for longer than two minutes, at most. From the pool boy came the body of a demolitions expert, then a female security guard,  and then into the bodies of various tourists, young and old, until it was sufficiently confident that its trail was cold.

It looked out through the eyes of teenaged brat with black hair and a lanky frame. It hoped that it would not be found inside this disrespectful teenager. Especially when had convinced itself that it was just a swell actor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2015, 03:07:37 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Possible Quarantine

"You do realize, though," Bladeh point out, "that whatever consciousness is in that body-jacker is probably aware of our goal?"

"Which is?" Shadow asked.

"To kill it," Parker said savagely.

"Whoa. Isn't that a bit extreme?" Bladeh asked. "Isn't capturing it a bit more humane?"

"Ask that of the songbird you had for breakfast," Parker countered.

Bladeh wanted to counter this argument apparently, but could not think of an argument she thought was solid enough to use.

"That's right," Parker said.

"Parker, stop picking on Bladeh," Cloak said. "I understand that you have every right to be moody, but snapping at us isn't going to accomplish anything."

Parker said nothing but scowled very obviously.

"Perhaps the city needs to be quarantined," Aquilai suggested with a sigh.

"Quarantine is out of the question," Cloak said. "While I do admit that it could very possibly work, there really would be no basis for it."

"What do you mean that there's --" Parker began hotly.

Cloak held his hand up, in a gesture that he wasn't done. "There's no basis for it because there is no guarantee that it is still even in the city. Why cause mass confusion and anxiety for something that very well may not be true."

Parker grunted, conceding the point.

"The fact of the matter is that we need to find the body-jacker first," Cloak continued. "It will be hard, though. Unless the controller of the body-jacker completely gives themselves away, there is no telling which body it resides in."

"So," Aquilai said, with the tone of summation, "we are presented with yet another Sisyphian task."

"In another words, it's like every Monday," FuBar clarified, albeit with a bit of exaggeration.

"That too."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 23, 2015, 04:38:24 AM

Parker seems a bit like he caught some of the Rachel toxin and its effects are working late.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2015, 03:06:07 PM

Interesting idea, Saffa. BTW, everyone does know why the Rachel toxin is named as such, right?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Jacking Trail

F1 took a momentary pause from its flight. It was actually in the suburbs on the other side of the city from the spot where it discovered its foolishness. It was amazing that was not further away, but there was still some momentary disorientation whenever it body-jacked a new body.

That included some directional confusion, exacerbated if the body-jacking was not intentional, and was just carried out because the prospective host body touched its current one. Especially if it was unaware of the body change initially.

So it didn't gain as much distance as it believed it did, as it did not have access to its host's memories, knowledge, or somnulent thoughts. It was not a Yeerk, after all.

It was currently inside a ginger-haired, middle-aged pilot, complete with a still camera. It was resting inside this grotesque body, inside this cartoonish disguise. It was longer than the requisite two minutes, looking around surreptitiously and suspiciously.

"They don't know who --"

"-- I'm in." it had brushed against a man in a Chevy. It passed through the other three occupants in the case, before leaving the final occupant for a child eating a drumstick. It moved the child's eyes with a guarded look, which the guardian did not seem to notice.

F1 was under the belief that it had put a lot of distance between it and the place it started. It was really only a block or two.

There was another reason for this, another reason for it not able to really leave the city beyond the suburbs.

***

"Do you have an inkling which direction it went?" Aquilai asked, rather pragmatically.

Cloak closed his eyes and opened up his other senses, while FuBar and Bladeh followed his lead. The sensing of evil that felines have was a very imprecise, vague ability.

Cloak had a feeling that Parker would not find this acceptable. He was reacting very hostile towards F1, but there was a very good reason for it. He felt violated by the body-jacker, though it couldn't enter him and take over as it did countless other humans. He still felt violated, and that made him feel a vulnerability that he did not care to feel. He never said anything about this, being very surly about it, covering it up. Cloak supposed that he could be wrong, but he didn't think he was.

"Well?" Parker said, heatedly.

"Calm yourself, Parker," Cloak said, almost serenely. This seemed to annoy the SPARTAN.

"How will we take care of this body-jacker?" Shadow asked thoughtfully.

"We destroy it," Cloak and Parker said, in unison.

Parker blinked in overt surprise. He didn't expect Cloak's support on this.

"But that could --" Shadow said.

"Kill the consciousness within," Cloak finished. "Yeah, I know."

"But --"

"The body-jacker is too dangerous an item," Cloak interrupted. "It cannot be allowed to exist. If the consciousness has a body of its own, it would simply be slingshot back to it."

"And if it doesn't?" Shadow challenged.

Cloak said nothing, but gave her a knowing look. A look that said that she already knew the answer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 23, 2015, 04:06:42 PM

Yeah, you gave the explanation in one of the chapters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2015, 03:43:35 AM

Ah.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Scent of Desperation

"We will do what must be done," Cloak said, not looking at Shadow. She was young. At eleven, most would not understand doing the necessary evil to stop a greater one. Cloak had to learn that for himself the hard way . . . when he slayed Cataclysm.

Still, no matter the benevolent or malevolent affiliation, the taking of a sentient life should not be so quickly and rashly decided. Cloak had never said anything about it, and he did not seem to even realize it himself, but he did feel some guilt for the eidolons in the Eidolon Consciousness. He knew the decision then to dispose of them had been his, and, as such, he bore the responsibility for their destruction. It would be an outright, bold-faced lie to deny that.

But now wasn't the time to dwell on past failures and done actions. Time was not on their side, as, even now, the body-jacker and its riding consciousness could be a quarter-way around the country. There really was no stopping it, and finding it was like finding a tiny ball bearing in the sands of the Sahara Desert. Quite the task to be burdened with.

Well, as they say, the journey of a thousand Realms begin with a single Walk.

"Wait . . ." FuBar said, sniffing. "Smell that?"

"I don't smell anything," Parker said.

"It's faint," Bladeh agreed with FuBar. It was clearly out of the olfactory range of anyone with a standard human-level sense of smell. "It's faint, but it is there."

"It's this way," Cloak said, having caught the scent himself. They followed it, but the strange thing (which made perfect sense) was that this scent was coming from multiple people. Obviously, these were people who, at least briefly, played host to F1.

"Wait, there's a certain . . . pungent-ness to it now," Bladeh said. "What is that?"

"Did that cat just talk?" a little boy who couldn't be older than three or four asked.

"Nope," Cloak said, brusquely, as their little troupe moved on.

"Seriously. What is that pungent odor that was added to this scent?" FuBar said.

A man looked at his coffee cup when heard FuBar, and he dumped the coffee out into a storm drain. Such a waste.

"Desperation, and fear," Cloak identified easily. "The smell is desperation. The creature's consciousness is afraid, and desperate."

"And we're gonna kill it." Shadow said dully.

"Damn straight we are," Parker said, fiercely.

"Careful, Parker," Cloak warned. "People might assume you were infected with the Rachel toxin."

"But you were the only not inoculated," the SPARTAN protested as there continued to track.

"The Rachel toxin is a Dweller-made poison." Cloak said. "It could never survive to make it to my ichor."

"You were affected by the Hate Plague," Parker countered mulishly.

"That wasn't a Dweller-made poison, obviously," Cloak countered easily. Although he questioned his reasoning, how sound his logic was. He said none of this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 24, 2015, 05:05:13 AM

Ooh, tensions, tensions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2015, 03:21:04 PM

New book ideas.

• Book DCCLXI: "Death Battle!" -- Cloak vs. Indomitus Rex and Dino vs. indomitus Rex.
• Book DCCLXII: "Indomitus Yellow" -- Two Indomitus Rexes attract unlikely, but unsurprising attention.
• Book DCCLXIII: "Survivor" -- Shenecron must find a host to incubate in or die.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Frenzied Flight, Resistance Realization

F1 was wearing a woman in a pantsuit and was at the edge of the suburbs. Beyond was the boundaries into the boonies. F1 wanted to go forward into that place, but it could not make the woman's foot move in that direction. It could not move her beyond the boundries of the city suburbs. It simply could not.

This puzzled it. It had never met with this kind of resistance before, and it looked as if it was a player character meeting an invisible map wall. F1 was sure that the host consciousness wasn't awake and resisting its control. She was still dormant . . .

So why was it unable to leave?

Perhaps it was simply some defect of the body itself. . . . Yes, that had to be it. It simply needed to --

"Auntie Claire!" came a young, whiny voice. "C'mon!"

It was the woman's nephew, Joey Hammond, the son of her brother, that she was supposed to be looking after. He was a thin, lanky boy with sandy blonde hair cut into a bowl haircut. His clothes hung rather loosely and limply from his rather angular frame.

"Auntie Claire! Wait up! Come back here!" he demanded, in his whiny, nasally voice. "Auntie Claire, what happened to you? You look fat . . . what a bratty little human this child is."

F1 was now wearing Joey's body as if it were nothing but a mascot suit with facial mimicry. F1 really didn't like it, likening it to being inside an awkwardly-shaped jungle gym. But that didn't matter if it could leave the boundaries of the --

Nope. Not even within this boy was it able to leave the boundaries of the suburbs. What was happening? Why couldn't it leave these suburbs?

"Those beings are still here," he said, with Joey's mouth. "And if I can't get out . . ."

"What are you talk about?" Claire asked.

"Shut up," F1 snapped with Joey's mouth.

Claire was scandalized and angry at this. "How dare you speak to me like that, Joseph Kennedy Hammond!!"

"Huh?" Joey said, confused and dazed. F1 had left him for an elderly gentleman, who also wasn't able to cross the threshold, despite already being over the threshold at the point of the body-jacking.

"That doesn't make any sense," F1 said, ignoring Claire reprimanding Joey for something that his body did, but he himself did not. F1 didn't care, completely indifferent to the pain and hurt it caused, somewhat intentionally. "This --"

Inside the body of a male security guard, "-- Is --"

Inside the body of a fifteen-year-old girl with curly, red hair, "-- Not --"

Inside the body of a prison guard, "-- Possibly --"

Inside the body of the criminal between the guards, "-- Right!! --"

Inside the body of the other prison guard, "-- There must --"

Inside the body of a female lawyer, "-- Be something --"

Inside the body of a pregnant woman, "-- more to this."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 24, 2015, 03:27:33 PM

The number of Jurassic references in this one post is unbelievable. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2015, 02:56:41 AM

Yep.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Narrowing the Noose

"Wait," Parker snapped. "Why are you stopping?"

"Easy, Parker," Aquilai said.

"Hilarious, Time Lord." Parker said, waspishly.

"Parker, you need to calm down," Cloak said seriously. "Frankly, this isn't like you to be this bloodthirsty."

Parker mulled over these words, and realized that the Realm Walker was right. He was being bloodthirsty. He had told himself that it was necessary to kill this thing, but it was about the intimate violation, the fear of someone using him (or his body) without his knowledge or permission. Something about it simply rubbed him the wrong way, but he couldn't put his finger on the precise reason.

He was covering up his fear of vulnerability with excess bravado and affected savagery. That was not right for him to do, it was childish. He grew a little angry with himself about it, but soon dismissed it. Being angry at himself was pointless, what was said was said.

"Now," Cloak said, interrupting the SPARTAN's thoughts. They had come to the suburbs which consisted of four or five blocks. "I think we can isolate it to these three blocks."

"That's still a lot of ground to cover," Shadow pointed out. "And Earthsight, in this circumstance, is useless in finding the body-jacker. Not to mention that it probably wouldn't be sticking around in the suburbs. It clearly wants distance, and it may very well not be here at all."

Both valid points. Cloak couldn't help but feel at least a little proud of Shadow for thinking logistically.

"True," Aquilai observed, "but we may be overlooking one thing."

"Which is?" FuBar asked.

"We assume that whatever consciousness resides within the body-jacker is fairly intelligent." the Time Lord said. "That assumption was made without any real evidence to back it up, or deny it."

"Or maybe it can't or won't leave the suburb?" Bladeh guessed.

"What makes you say that?" Parker asked.

"I assume that there aren't as many creature comforts as readily available out in the boonies," Bladeh said, with a feline shrug. "Besides, I can still sense it here. It's not really clear, but it's here, alright."

Cloak and FuBar concurred.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2015, 03:49:45 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Dawning Realizations

F1's mounting fear drained the color from the face of the male jogger that it was wearing. It was still trying to cross the threshold. The bodies themselves faced no such barrier, but if F1 inhabited the body they COULDN'T.

"This can't --"

"-- be true." it wore a mailman now.

"I h-have to --" it began as it wore a woman, it's fear leaking into the woman.

"-- T-to leave," it continued as it wore another woman.

"I c-can't . . ." it continued as it wore a male teacher with a noticeable gray beard.

"I c-can't stay here . . ." it continued inside an elementary school janitor.

"They're going to kill me," it cried tearfully inside a young, squirrelly boy. "They're going to kill me."

"I haven't done anything wrong!!" it declared inside an elementary school principal, and continued quiet and breathlessly, "I . . . haven't done . . . anything . . . wrong."

It wasn't exactly true, but F1 certainly thought that.

"Do I deserve death?" it asked from within another young boy. "Do I deserve to die?"

It had gone from abject terror to desperate bargaining.

"Have I no right to live?" it asked, almost heatedly, wearing a crane operator.

It could not get beyond the threshold still.

"Have I no right to be?" it asked, tonelessly, wearing a female teacher.

It tried to beat on the barrier that did not truly exist for its host body.

"Have I no right to exist?" it asked, in tears, wearing a young, thin, blonde boy. It had dropped the boy's body to his knees, and it shook its body with sobs.

"What have I done do to deserve this?" it demanded aloud, wearing a young girl. F1 had dropped her to her knees as well, putting a run in her stocking. She shook the girl's fist at the sky.

Then it shut her eyes, as if in quiet acceptance for the unavoidable, the inevitable.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 25, 2015, 04:22:13 AM

Great. Now we're getting virus feels.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on June 25, 2015, 02:07:02 PM

Random Question: Do I have to read all the books in order? Is there a countinuity?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 25, 2015, 02:24:54 PM

There is a general continuity, but mostly only referring events that happened in previous books that get referenced every now and then.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2015, 02:33:08 PM

Quote from: Saffa on June 25, 2015, 02:24:54 PM

There is a general continuity, but mostly only referring events that happened in previous books that get referenced every now and then.

Well . . . for now. It does get more involved and interconnected, more complex and complicated, in future books, I believe. Remember, I'm outlining Book 452 right now. That's Year 5, and we're still on Year 1 here.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Pop! Goes the Virus

Sniff, sniff.

"Smell that?" Cloak said.

"Smell what?" Shadow asked.

"Yeah," FuBar said, in response to Cloak.

"You know what it means, right?"

Bladeh nodded a feline nod, "The consciousness in the body-jacker is scared."

"Scared?" Parker asked. His tone had long lost its bloodthirst.

"It must know," Aquilai said.

"Know what exactly?" Shadow asked.

"Our objective," the Time Lord said, quite seriously. "And our intentions."

"Yes," said a boy with obviously-dyed blond hair. He wore loud parachute pants, red and white hi-tops, a plain pale yellow shirt, and a backwards red ball cap with a yellow brim. His name was Charlie Kelley, and he wore a dour expression. An expression one would expect from an adult, rather than a child. "I'm well aware."

Then another boy, one who wore a long-sleeved shirt with broad horizontal lines on it and gray slacks, bumped him playfully, believing him not to be fundamentally possessed. Charlie's body tensed momentarily as the body-jacker left him for the other boy, Adam Morgan. Adam's playful expression transmuted to a grim one with alarming rapidity. "What have I done? What have I done to warrant such a sentence? I have harmed no one. Everyone is just alive and well as they were when I left them."

"Adam, what are you talking about?" Charlie said, somewhat dazed.

F1 didn't answer him, but continued to address the RAFians. "Do I not have a right to exist? Do I not have a right to be? Do I have no rights whatsoever? Do I --"

Then F1 was transferred from Adam to a girl in a button-dosn blouse, with a heavy parka and red mittens on. Her name was Donna Lewis. F1 continued speaking as if there were no interruption, "-- Have any say in the matter? What about my wants, my needs, my rights?"

But Shadow was picking up on something, "What about the after?"

"The what?" F1 was back inside Charlie now.

"The after," the younger Realm Walker said. "What of the bodies you discard after you tire of them, or after you are done with your ring-around-the bodies schtick?"

"What of them?" it said, dismissively. It was now back in Adam.

"You dismiss them like day-old bread," Shadow said. "Yet you are asking us of your rights."

"You don't have any right to kill me," it said, now back in Charlie.

"You don't have any to judge me for who and what I am," it said, now wearing Donna.

"I cannot believe that I ever felt sympathy for you," Shadow said, revolted by this creature she found abhorrent. "You don't even care, do you? Don't even care if you leave them in a spot worse than when you found them."

"So?" it said, now wearing Adam again. The merry-go-round of bodies was starting to get a little hard to keep track of.

"'So'? 'So'?!" Shadow said, aghast.

But Parker ended the conversation early, by taking the shot when it offered itself. A shot only Parker would be able to make. No one noticed him releasing his armor to cover him. F1 was dead, but Parker took no satisfaction in the kill.

"Parker, you took an awful risk," Cloak said.

"It worked out."

"It was reckless."

"I had the shot. I had the opportunity. I took it." the SPARTAN said, surly. "There was no choice. The body-jacker had to be destroyed. I did what needed to be done, and --"

"And it most certainly took you long enough," a voice spoke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 26, 2015, 12:20:01 AM

He took the shot while F1 was passing between bodies? That is next level aim.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 26, 2015, 12:21:11 AM

I smell a plot twist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2015, 03:31:56 AM

Maybe.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Unusual Gratitude

"How come I'm not surprised?" Cloak asked rhetorically.

"You were expecting a fat Conservative with an obvious toupee?" Malice said, leaning nonchalantly on yew tree.

"Bit wordy," Aquilai commented on the comeback.

"Oh, shut up, Time Walker," Malice snapped.

"That's Time Lord," he corrected.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Malice said, flippantly, waving it away with a hand gesture. "I suppose a 'thank you' is in order."

A deafening silence.

"Pardon?" Parker asked.

"A 'thank you', man! A simple 'thank you'!"

"Is she being serious?" FuBar said, as confused as the rest.

"Quite, kitty."

"Don't you call me that!"

"You're playing us," Cloak said, shrewdly. "You trying to manipulate us, somehow."

"My, my, my!" Malice said, maliciously gregarious. "So suspicious, Cloak!! That's very good, being in your position."

"What do you really want, Malice?" Cloak said, tempted by his feline urge to attack. "Enough of these Veiled games."

"Games?" she said, with a girlish giggle. Cloak didn't think he could despise her any more, and she was proving him wrong at nearly every encounter. "I'm not playing games, hon."

A low tiger growl had escaped from Cloak's lips. This caused Malice even more pleasure, as she gave a big belly laugh, because she knew she was getting a rise out of the Elements Master.

"I was just saying 'thank you' for ridding me of that annoying pest," Malice said, with a malicious grin on her face. "That virus was just nonstop with its demand for a body. Never shut up about. Now it cannot pester me anymore! So, thanks!!"

The gratitude really wasn't welcomed.

"Hey, hey, hey. You're just lucky I made the body-jacker impossible to leave the suburbs or the city."

"You made . . ."

"That's riiiiiiight," Malice said, childishly, still smiling impishly. "I made the body-jacker, bound the virus inside and you have just slain that irritating pest for me."

Cloak just felt dirty, with that information.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 26, 2015, 03:54:17 AM

How do you even react to that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2015, 02:56:39 AM

You don't, I guess.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Sulks and Sucks

Cloak quickly got over his shock, and charged Malice, without a single thought. His mind unconsciously following his form's attack instincts. Every Realm Walker has these instincts, differing based solely and entirely on their forms.

Needless to say, Malice didn't stick around.

Cloak's rational mind takes dominance against his bestial nature once more, and he growls a bestial, feline growl before he stands upright again. He was just glad that he didn't lose control of his emotions, thus losing control of his powers.

"Cloak?" Aquilai asked.

"Uncle?" Shadow asked with equal concern.

"Let's go home," Cloak said, turning to leave, and then stalking away.

***

After Shadow return to her home with her parents in the Nexus, Cloak returned to his thread, and there, he brooded. He sulked.

Of course. Of course Malice was behind it. When hasn't she had a hand in something? Why had not paused to consider? Shadow had tried to get him to think it through, to not be so brash. And, in the end, he did exactly what Malice had wanted him and the RAFians to do in the first Veiled place.

The virus. That's what Malice called it. It was a virus.

It had no body of its own to return to after the destruction of the body-jacker. That much was readily evident. True, it was Parker who took the shot, and, frankly, got exceedingly lucky that his shot did what he wanted. A number of things could have gone wrong, including not only seriously injuring the kids, but possibly killing them.

Cloak found himself wishing that these things weren't so complicated. Wished that he could be a child again . . . but no. No, his childhood wasn't anymore a bed of roses than this was.

***

"Well," Malice said, aloud, to no one. Mega Maul and Ravage was no longer her lackeys, as they no longer lived. It really wasn't all too surprising. Malice doesn't tolerate company, good or bad, for very long. She is really fickle, murderously so, that way. "Now that I can work uninterrupted . . ."

Malice stopped her tinkering to listen. Listen to the blissful silence.

"Absolutely lovely," she said, rapturously. "No more incessant squawks about providing a body, no more bumnling buffoonery, no more traitorous weasels plotting behind my back."

She lapsed into silence once more.

"This is they way it was supposed to be," she said, "the way I am supposed to work. Alone and free of distractions. Plans without a chance of running afoul due to the actions of incompetent lackeys, being screwed or skewed up by the deliberate machinations of backstabbing would-be usurpers. All I have is my work and myself. Who could need anything more?"

She lapsed into a thoughtful silence once again.

"I should get back to work," she said, rather studiously, "this next scheme should really . . . suck."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2015, 03:52:28 AM

Knowing the synopsis of the next book, this does not look good.

PDF of this book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2015, 03:14:48 PM

Ah, yes. And yet this book won't be as dark as some future books. Some future out-of-continuity books will be especially dark. Thought, I suppose "RAFians Alive" had its dark moments.

New, shortish chapter.
 

BOOK XCI:
YOUTHFUL THIEF
CHAPTER ONE:
Saffa's a Swinging Gal

"Golf?" Cloak said, derisively. They were at a promotional event, trying to do a little public relations control. They were just fortunate no one saw Parker kill F1 from the wrong angle, as it could have looked like he was taking a shot at the kids. Cloak was less than thrilled. He never found sports -- of any species, really, including his own -- very engaging to watch. He couldn't fathom how this was true for humans. "How dull can we get?"

Saffa . . . Saffa didn't agree. "Dull? On the contrary!! The game of golf is a metaphor for life itself! Each hole represents a challenge. Each swing, a defining moment. Each --"

Cloak wasn't having any of it. "C'mon, Saffa, enough of this psychological mumbo-jumbo.*"

GH chimed in, "Yeah, sing your solo already!"

Understandably upset that the two ruined her song introduction, she pushed the two out of the lone camera's framing. Yeah, they were videotaping a song to preface the golfing tournament.

Saffa sang:

"I can swing with the swingers,
And I'm havin' a ball!
I always go for the green.
Yeah, I want it all!
RAF fits me to a tee,
I'm a swingin' gal
That's me!"

Cloak and Guitarhero chimed in:

"Even though life can be rough.
Our little Saffa's got the right stuff.
Never has her head in the sand."

Saffa protested, "Hey, let me sing my song firsthand!"

Then she switched to singing:

"I can swing with the swingers
And I'm havin' a ball!
I never putter around.
Yeah, I want it all!
I'm as RAFy as I can be,
I'm a swingin' gal,
That's me!
I'm as RAFy as I can be,
I'm a swingin' gal
That's me!"

From there, the event proceeded as you would expect it to.

---

*;) No offense intended.

** Song source. (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1lpadv3qt#/watch?v=YVTCdfmEzxc)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 27, 2015, 03:40:22 PM

Golf?! I've only ever swung an overly heavy cricket bat with marginal success. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2015, 04:09:37 PM

Eh, so the video will be heavily edited. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 27, 2015, 04:18:51 PM

I can tell already that this is going to be an . . . interesting book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2015, 07:09:24 PM

Yeah . . . anyway, a new chapter may come later than normal tomorrow.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
When I Was Your Age

"Get off my lawn!" miserly old Tobey Agrowch* shouted at some giggling kids of indeterminate ages. They laughed in away Agrowch found most irritating before they complied.

Tobey Agrowch was a man more of bone than of flesh. His long, protruberant nose, his haunched stance, his naked head -- all together they recalled a rather obstinate vulture or buzzard. His personality wasn't much different, as he made his living as a businessman at an insurance firm, who preyed on the weak and desperate. He much enjoyed his pastime giving his clients false hope, then quickly dashing them the moment they gave them up.

He was not a nice man.

When he retired (not that he really had much choice in the matter), he found himself miserable and alone. No woman -- golddigger or not -- wanted to be with a man who so revelled in the suffering and misfortune of others. No sane person would enjoy the company of such a man.

Deep down, Tobey knew this. It embittered him, but he did not blame himself for these faults. Of course not, that would be too honest, too real, too hard for him. He decided to blame it on everyone else instead.

Stupid kids, he thought savagely. Wasting their youth away, doing nothing useful. They don't know how good they have it. Why if I was younger . . .

Suddenly, music started up and Tobey imagined what he say to these whippersnappers.

"Let me tell you, sonny . . .
Let me set you straight.
You kids today ain't never had it rough!
Always had everthing handed you you on a silver plate.
You lazy brats think nothing's good enough.
Well, nobody ever, drove me to school when it was ninety degrees below.
We had to walk butt-naked through forty miles of snow!
Worked in the coal mine twenty two hours a day for just half a cent!
Had to sell my internal organs just to pay the rent!
When I was your age.  When I was your age.
When I was your age.  When I was your age.
Let me tell you something, you whiny little snot,
There's something wrong with all you kids today.
You just don't appreciate all the things you've got!
We were hungry, broke and miserable and we liked it fine that way!
There were seventy-three of us living in a cardboard box!
All I got for Christmas was a lousy bag of bawks.
Every night for dinner we had a big ol' clump of dirt.
If we were really good, we didn't get dessert!
When I was your age.  When I was your age.
When I was your age.  When I was your age.
Didn't have no cell phone, didn't have no ATM machine
All we had was a couple cans and a crummy piece of string!
Didn't have no swimming pool when I was just a lad.
Our neighbor's septic tank was the closet thing we had!
Didn't have no dental floss, had to use old rusty nails!
Didn't have Atari, we just poured salt on snails!
Didn't have not water bed, had to sleep on broken glass!
Didn't have no lawnmower, we used our teeth to mow the grass!
What's the matter now, sonny, you say you don't believe this junk?
You think my story's wearin' kinda thin?
I tell you one thing, I was never such a disrepectful punk!
Back in my time, we had a thing called 'discipline'.
Father would whoop us every night till a quarter after twelve.
Then he'd get too tired and he'd make us whoop ourselves.
Then he'd chop me into pieces and play frisbee with my brain!
And let me tell ya, brat, you never heard me complain!
When I was your age.  When I was your age.
When I was your age.  When I was your age.**"

And yes, those were rather gross exaggerations. Tobey never really suffered as a child, though his parents were never really the tender, doting people most would have expected. He was not a liked man, and as such, he never got a single gift after his childhood.

Which was why it was very odd that he got an unexpected package on his front step.

---

*Anyone want to hazard a guess as to where I got this name? :)

**Source song (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1lpadv3qt#/watch?v=EGHut3IlJ_Y).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 28, 2015, 02:45:08 AM

Exaggeration is an understatement. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2015, 03:04:12 AM

Yep.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Rise of the Erisraptor!

Tobey put on the skintight, midnight black costume within the package, which clung to his bony frame and left nothing to the imagination, not questioning who sent it him. He assumed that it was a long-overdue admirer who sent it, someone who finally understood his greatness. It wasn't anything like it, but more on that later.

He put on the metallic wings which attached to his arms, which allowed him flight due to a special dial on his belt which allowed him to use and "glide" on Earth's natural magnetic fields or some other sort of complex, possibly physic-breaking explanation. But he flew like a constipated buzzard -- nothing sleek, fast, and agile, like one might expect from a younger user.

The real wonder of this costume was the gauntlets with rather sharp-looking, raking talons at the fingertips. These talons are what would make Tobey dangerous, not because of the sharpness. Because they contained a certain siphoning technology, described to Tobey in the package, and he wasn't sure to believe it.

But he really wanted to.

Taking to the air to hunt an appropriate "test subject" (read: "victim"),  taking on the name of "Erisraptor", thinking about what the note tried to explain. The handwriting was difficult to read, almost as if the writer was in a hurry or deliberately making it difficult to read.

Something about a logarithmic formula about the difference age of him and his "test subject" and something about the years not used, and yada, yada, yada. He thought about this as he circled over the suburbs, like a vulture looking for carrion.

There! A seven-year-old boy! The perfect vict-- er, test subject.

Erisraptor seized the boy's arm, and activated the gauntlets. Both glowed with a white light, as the boy's body grew, his clothing ripping and tearing with the sudden mass gain, as Erisraptor's costume changed with him, until he was roughly twenty again. He tossed the geriatric child aside, and crowed loudly at his reclaimed (read: "stolen") youth as the newly-octogenarian child groaned quite audibly.

Erisraptor, the Youth Thief, took flight with far more agility and finesse than before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2015, 05:19:33 PM

Okay, this book might -- might -- be a bit longer than the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Serious Drawback

Erisraptor was elated.

He could not remember when he had last felt this good, had last felt this strong, had last felt this . . . this . . . this energized. It was something to be treasured, something to be adored, something to be cherished! He could not help himself from flying loop-de-loops and performing aeleron rolls, barrel rolls, and such midair with rather reckless abandon.

He could not believe that he was actually physically twenty-something again! Yet, he retained the mind and the knowledge of his previous aged self! It was absolutely wonderful! He did not care for the child he stole it from, he did not care what would become of the seven-year-old kid. He did not care what particular challenge the child would have had before he decided to reap the youth of the wee one.

"Ack!" Erisraptor sputtered suddenly. It was as if he had flown into a brick wall full speed. His body convulsed, experiencing wave after wave of pain. Not exactly an excruciating pain, but enough to get one's attention.

"No. No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no!" he cried out, desperate, nearly in tears. He was feeling -- literally feeling -- his stolen youth being leeched away from him. There was absolutely nothing he could to stop it from slipping away from him, try as he might.

No!! This couldn't be! He couldn't have lost this youth so quickly!! It couldn't have been so temporary! He had just barely got to enjoy the full extent of it!

Well, the solution now was simple. He would simply have to find another appropriate victim.

***

"We didn't know who else to turn to," a woman, the victim's mother, was saying. "We couldn't just take him to the hospital. They would never believe us."

"Yeah, we could never adequately explain how a seven-year-old suddenly became older than us," the boy's father put in. "We thought you'd be able to help -- they say that you deal with this kind of thing all the time. We didn't know what else we could do for Stevie."

"Don't worry about," Cloak said, stepping from the shadows.

"Really," Abby sighed with exasperation, "must you do that hiding in shadows thing?"

Cloak ignored her. "The truth of the matter is we do handle all sorts of bizarre cases and missions."

"I do believe that this qualifies," Gaz said. Laserbeak chirped on her shoulder, causing Gaz to give a weary, but affectionate sigh. "Always have to have the last word, don't you, Beaky?"

Laserbeak gave an affirmative squawk. Gaz sighed again.

"Cool bird," Stevie said, with a raspy, octogenarian voice. Then, with shrieks from his parents and looks of concern from the three assembled RAFians, Stevie glowed just as he did when Erisraptor stole his youth.

Cloak was the first to assess what was happening, "The boy's youth is returning."

"But how?" Abby asked.

"Whatever means that was used to take it," Cloak said, as if trying to riddle out a problem, "must only be for a temporary measure, hoarded for but a brief time. But I could be wrong, it could easily be another reason."

"I feel different," Stevie said, frowning a bit.

"Well, you're back to normal now, dear," his mother cooed. It made Cloak feel discomforted somehow, and Cloak knew precisely why -- he never felt a mother's love. Closest thing to it he had ever experienced came from Faith and his aunt, his mother's younger sister and second eldest of the six girls of Sage. Stevie's mother said, calmly and sweetly, "It was a very odd experience, I assume."

"Does your son have any reason why he would be targeted?" Abby asked.

"No," his father said, thinking it over, "no, I don't think so. There's the dyscalcula, but --"

Cloak had a suspicion. He pointed to an analogue clock on the wall.

"Stevie, what time is it?"

"Adventure time?"

"Hilarious." Cloak said, dryly. "Okay, let's try again. Which is larger, ten or six?"

"What's this trying to prove?" his father leaped in defensively. "Are you just going to humilia--"

"Ten."

This stopped his father midsentence. Stevie had difficultly telling which number was bigger than another, difficulty reading analogue clocks, difficulty working backward with time, as well as general mathematical difficulties. This was how he was diagnosed with dyscalculia.

"Stevie, you just --"

"It is as I suspected," the Realm Walker declared. "Whoever or whatever sucked away your son's youth, also took away his dyscalculia."

"Not that I'm displeased with it, but why didn't it come back with Stevie's youth?"

"I cannot say," Cloak said, folding his arms, and rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"You don't know," Gaz said immediately.

"That too."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 29, 2015, 12:14:33 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 28, 2015, 05:19:33 PM

Okay, this book might -- might -- be a bit longer than the requisite twenty chapters.

No problem with that. It certainly has an interesting premise so far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2015, 02:19:06 AM

Except that somehow never happens. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2015, 03:25:06 PM

Now, now, Saffa! There are some books that exceed the requisite twenty chapters.

Anyway, I read Chapters Eight through Twelve of "Passing the Torch" (Book IX, I believe) during my writing class today, and apparently, I forgot to tell them that it would be a blood bath. . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Next Victim

Erisraptor was still unaware of anything off with him. He was still unaware of taking Stevie's dyscalculia into himself, of how it was altering his judgment subtly. He ignored his new difficulties with numbers, brushing it aside with astoundingly improbable rationalizations.

All he concerned himself with was a victim. He was completely and deliberately unaware that he was becoming little more than a vampire, a vampire for youth. He wouldn't care anyway, just as long as he got his youth fix.

He spiraled over a high school stadium, where a football game was in progress. There was a parallel to be drawn between the actions seen in this football game with the headbutting of bighorned sheep and the like. With the grunts and oofs of the game, Erisraptor remained, hovering over it in tight circles, unable really to decide on which to one to take.

Were there fifteen of them down there? Thirteen*? Three? Thirteen? Twenty? Eight?

No, no, there was nothing wrong. He was just a bit confused. Wondering why this game was going on so inordinately long (it wasn't really).

All of a sudden, to Erisraptor's perceptions, the game was over and the high schoolers were milling around with after-game euphoria or after-game dysphoria or general indifference one way or the other. When did the game end?

No matter, no matter. All he need it was a victim.

He'll do.

***

"What happened here?" Underseen asked.

"I don't know," said a student, cradling the head of an octogenerian in the football regalia of the home time. "I don't know!"

"Calm yourself," Terenia said. "Just tell us what happened, don't worry about the how."

"This . . . this thing swooped down, and-and-and there was this light," the girl said, only slightly less hysterical, "and Moose was old!"

"Moose?" GH couldn't help himself.

"That's his name," she blubbered. "His nickname anyway, for being a beast on the field --"

"We gathered, dear," Terenia said, holding up a hand. "The fact remains --"

"How long ago did this happen?" GH asked, now all-business.

"I dunno," she said, calmer now, "an hour, maybe two?"

"Then why did it take --"

Suddenly, Moose started to glow. His youth was returning. His dyslexia, however, was not.

---

*Did I get your attention, Dino, dear? ;) >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 29, 2015, 03:39:40 PM

Oh yeah, I remember that book. Damn. Feels.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on June 29, 2015, 11:52:14 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 29, 2015, 03:25:06 PM

*Did I get your attention, Dino, dear? ;) >:D

Yeah, actually, you got my attention in the second chapter of this book, when you named the villain after me.  >:(

In light of that, can I please eat this one?  Pretty please?

But, the good news is, as you can probably tell since I'm actually posting, I've finally caught up with the narrative!  :D

Loving everything except the current villain's first name, as usual.  In the previous book, gotta tell ya, I immediately wanted F1 to die painfully as soon as I heard "Hey!  Listen!"  GOD I hate that stupid fairy body-jacker.

And can I say how awesome it was that I accidentally averted Jervis McDowall's initial rampage by dancing?  :XD:  Next time anybody criticizes my dancing skillz, I'm gonna be like, "Hey, these moves have saved lives."

Also, it's funny you mentioned the thirteen thing, because I was just thinking (waaaay back) during the Corruption episode, how my Corrupted self probably just stayed in my thread and counted out all of my possessions in neat little sets of thirteen.  Yep, that's why I wasn't in that book.  :P  Heh, sorry, I know that isn't even remotely relevant anymore, but you just reminded me that I'd thought that.

I think that's everything I wanted to comment on.  As per usual, I used the karma button to comment on anything I couldn't wait this long to comment on.  Of course, this time I managed to get myself a full year behind (sorry, life happened), so I was speed-reading so fast that I didn't want to be interrupted by giving karma too often.  Your books are just THAT addictive.  :)

I need to do a re-read, too.  I hardly remember the earlier books at all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2015, 01:21:36 AM

Thanks, Dino.

But, actually, Tobey Agrowch is a play on "to be a grouch".

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Obtusely Oblivious

NO!!!

That wasn't nearly long enough!! It was like ten minutes of youth. Ten minutes was hardly enough time!! Right?

No, of course it was an insufficient length of time. What was he thinking? Why did he seem to have such difficulty with the passage of time?

He couldn't possibly be having difficulty . . . how would that be possible? He never had difficulty with numbers and such before. He made his living on numbers. How could he be having . . . was it old age? Was that to blame?

In his elderly, geriatric state, he noticed that his eyes weren't what they used to be. After all, that sign couldn't have possibly read what he thought it did. Then again it was dark out . . .

Besides, he should be worried about this. He had to get his youth back! Even though it wasn't technically his, but he brushed that aside. He had the means to take it, so why shouldn't he use it?

He had every right to take the youth from these stupid kids! These kids who would waste it, who would squander it, who didn't know what they had! He would use it right!

He chose to ignore the fact that he just spent the time he had with the misappropriated youth in just the same frivolous ways that he condemned the rightful owners of. But he, like most hypocrites, don't believe his consternations and condemnations, by definition, cannot be applied to himself.

Erisraptor quickly tired of being old once again, and immediately went on a search for a new victim, unaware of how addictive this power had become to him. He was completely taken in by the pervasive desire to be young again, having experienced it once again, all too recently. It was like giving heroin to a druggie -- he had to have more time with youth. It was an all-consuming obsession.

And he didn't even realize it.

He needed his fix . . . he needed to experience youth again . . . he needed to be young again . . . he had to be young . . .

He never considered finding a way to make the youth transfer permanent, just to be young again. All thought, both rational and emotional, did not stem beyond this fact.

He needed a victim -- he no longer thought of them witht he more PC context of "test subject". He thought of them, not as victims, but prey. He was beginning to see people under the age of thirty as perfect prey, people between thirty and forty as less than ideal, people between forty-one and fifty as snacks if need be, and those older than fifty as useless, to-be-discarded trash. But he didn't realize this rather drastic change in perspective.

THERE!!

A squirrelly boy perched in a tree. The boy was scrawny with a sort of twitchy mannerisms one would expect from someone doing something that they knew he shouldn't. He had binoculars, and the tree was with visual distance with a window of a Victorian-style house.

The kid was a peeping tom.

Erisraptor didn't care. The peeper was young enough to be prey. Erisraptor needed prey. He desperately needed prey. He didn't even consider that he might gain the kid's perversions, he needed prey. He needed the youth.

He would do.

He would do well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on June 30, 2015, 09:09:55 PM

And the inevitable villain decay (in this case, almost in a literal sense) BEGINS.  :D

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 30, 2015, 01:21:36 AM

But, actually, Tobey Agrowch is a play on "to be a grouch".

 . . . I really ought to have spotted that one.  :facepalm:  Especially since one of my nicknames in high school was "To Be or Not To Be [Last Name]."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2015, 03:06:33 AM

Yep.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Next Step

"Saffa's reporting another victim," Yarin was saying. "Megan Hightower, age 14."

"That makes seven victims so far," Dino said.

"Steven 'Stevie' Daniels, age 7, dyscalculia. Morris 'Moose' J. Winkler, age 18, dyslexia. Rocky J. Weeds, age 16, charges of peeping. Milo Rottinoff, age 19, the only notable problem he had was mixing metaphors, which hardly a crime or something to be fussed about." SuperNate said, reading them off blandly, taking no pleasure in it. "Allison 'Allie' Grace, age 12, no problem of note. Nicholas 'Nick' Toriyama, age 12, no problem of note. And now Megan Hightower."

"What does it mean, though?" Blue asked. "There has got to be a reason, a purpose, all this."

"Not necessarily," Cloak said, in one of his thoroughly jaded moods. "There is a possibility that these all may be isolated cases --"

"Eyewitnesses say otherwise, though!" Shock interjected.

"May I finish what I was saying, Shock?" Cloak said, annoyed.

Shock fell silent, but didn't look abashed at all by his interjection.

"As I was saying," Cloak said, placing delicate emphasis on those words, "there is a possibility -- albeit very, very slim -- that these are isolated incidents. I doubt it, personally, but it should be said as we don't have much evidence against it. An eyewitness testimony can only go so far, and can be corrupted with time. And guilt."

Cloak paused briefly to marshall his thoughts as Yarin declared a Jaclyn Jillian, age twenty, was the newest victim. She had wildness to her that had the potential of being siphoned out of her with her youth, but there was no telling.

"But, as Shock obviously believes, and I'm inclined to believe myself, this was all down to a single perpetrator." Cloak continued. "I do not know how this . . . this . . . this erisraptor --"

"Eris-what?" Ash asked at once.

"Eris, as in the Greek -- or was it Roman? -- goddess of youth. And 'raptor' means 'thief', I believe. So, ergo, 'erisraptor'." Cloak said, quickly and differentially. "Anyway, as I was saying, I do not know how he -- or she -- came by this technology or power, but I'm sure it was not good. For all I know, Malice could have a hand in it."

"You think Malice is always involved," Rotiart said, snottily.

"That's because she usually is," Cloak replied easily. "In any case, I'm curious if this youth siphon, for want of a more proper term, works using actual years or relative years. Guess we'll find out in due time, I suppose."

"What does actual or relative years have to do with anything?" Abby asked.

"Perhaps nothing at all," Cloak said, thoughtfully.

"We're skirting around the bigger issue here," Gaz said. "And I don't mean that time Dino getting her head stuck in that --"

"That was the only time it happened and you know it!" Dino protested passionately.

"Moving on," Gaz said, as Laserbeak took flight and began to buzz around Dino's head, before returning to Gaz's shoulder. "The  bigger issue is the simple fact that we don't know who this Erisraptor is. Or how to make him stop."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 01, 2015, 04:29:54 AM

I see where Cloak is going with relative years. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2015, 06:41:55 AM

Do you now? ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Struggles With Oneself

Erisraptor took on a bit more than he could chew.

He was so encumbered with the perversions of Rocky to try to think coherently. He was unable to read correctly, which wasn't as big a problem as it would be with other people as he didn't enjoy reading, and usually paid no mind to signs and things. But the dyscalculia was especially debilitating to him.

Erisraptor was so encumbered that he could not enjoy the youth he stole. He could not revel in the youth. He was so weighed down with the problems and negetive aspects that he had siphoned out from his vicitms. Yet they remained with him.

He was quickly becoming little more than a mindless beast, knowing only one thing. That he had to "feed", had to take youth from others. Despite knowing in the back of his mind that he could be siphoning out something to make his life even worse. He was dimly aware to this, but he didn't care so much as getting his next youth fix.

He was an addict, fully in the throes of his addiction. He was unable to stop, even if he wanted to. He now physiologically and biologically needed it. Needed it.

Even now his current fix was starting to wear off. His body was aging back to its proper age. The first few times were completely painless, but now it was starting to get painful. Not quite excruciating, but still very noticeable and sharp.

Tobey Agrowch tried to reassert himself over his Erisraptor addiction. But it was easier said than done. It was a huge hurtle, and some could argue that he was too far gone. Tobey continued struggle against these siphoned diseases and proclivities, but it seemed utterly, utterly futile.

Suddenly, it felt as it as his entire body was cramping up, as the need for youth, the Craving came. He thirsted for youth. He acknowledged his new status as a youth vampire. These gauntlets weren't the liberators that he had once thought them to be, but traps -- trapping him in a neverending cycle, only truly experiencing youth in spurts.

Wait, there!!

Prey!!

Not only prey, but the brats that were on his lawn. They were the perfect prey, and he would feed on all of them. This would make the youth last longer, surely. And these brats had it coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 01, 2015, 07:24:17 AM

Damn, this is turning into an Alice in Chains song really fast :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2015, 04:04:30 PM

Don't know who that is. Not as much as a music expert.

New book ideas.

• Book DCCLXIV: "Search Your Feelings . . ." -- The RAFians must deal with Khan worms (http://supernatural.wikia.com/wiki/Khan_Worm) who possess very Van Pyrrhis tendencies.
• Book DCCLXV: "The Death Worm" -- The RAFians must deal with a very different type of Khan worm.

Don't think I rehashed anything. As always, the titles are subject to change. Anyway, the new chapter might come in late tomorrow.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Identity Confirmed

"Five more victims -- Jacob Ashmore, Rachel Nevin, Marco Cabrera, Cassandra Nascimento, and Tobias Ralph." Yarin reported. "There seems to have been someone who managed to make a brief video of the perpetrator."

"Put it on-screen," Richard asked, not really ordering.

The resolution of the video rather left a lot to be desired, as it wasn't all that distinct. But it illuminated several things. The erisraptor attacked from the air, not the ground. He -- unless this erisraptor was a rather masculine woman -- flew ungainly like a bloated buzzard unaccustomed to flight before the attack, but after the youth was siphoned from the victim -- he took all five in a single sitting, hopping to one after the other, which was unusual because the attack had been one victim at a time -- at which time the flight became smoother, more agile and skilled, and conveyed more power.

This told the RAFians a great already. And allowed them to get an approximation of the erisraptor's true identity.

Yet the suit, the wings, and the gauntlets . . . Cloak got the feeling that it wasn't human tech per se.

"Activating facial recognition software," Yarin said. "I know the image may be fairly grainy, but we might get lucky "

"Best to add a filter," Aquilai suggested. "I doubt this erisraptor would be any younger than thirty, forty years old. And even that is a conservative estimate."

"And filter out any predeceased subjects," Goom advised. "I'm fairly sure we aren't dealing with a Black Lantern, or zombie, or ghoul here."

"There, and now we wait for it to process." Yarin said, his four arms drooping a bit. Then the computer beeped and booped. "Huh. That was faster than expected. Looks like it could be one out of three men: A guy by the name of Tobey Agrowch. He was -- he's retired now --he was some kind of predatory insurance agent -- the kind that sells you policies, then reneges when you need it most."

"Nice guy," Cloak said caustically.

"Then there's Nero Pharr*," Yarin said, reading from the screen. It showed a thickset man with skin like it was slathered with sandpaper. He wore a three-piece suit and expression devoid of mercy. He had a wide, pointed nose, beady, pitiless eyes, and a wide flabby mouth. Not a friendly face. "A sharkish lawyer. A real cutthroat, and a real price-gouger. Retired to Acapulco, apparently."

"Doubt it's him, then," Dino said. "Why come here from Acapulco? We still have snow on the ground."

"Some people enjoy the cold," Aquilai pointed out.

"The build is slightly heavier, and he is stouter than the one in the video." Blue observed. "It cannot be him."

"The last one is Elka Fox**," Yarin said, as the screen showed a very vulpine human.

"Elka?" Rotiart said. "That's a girl's n--"

"Shut up, Rotiart," the RAFians assembled said in unison.

Yarin continued dumping the info. "He's made a career of misinformation. He made up statistics and what he called 'facts'. A truly contemptible man. Retired, made a fortune that he didn't earn or deserve."

Beep!

"And he just died. Prostate cancer." Yarin said, reading off the update.

"Well," Cloak said, "that narrows it down significantly."

---

*"Near or far".

** "Like a fox".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 01, 2015, 06:18:59 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on July 01, 2015, 03:06:33 AM

"And I don't mean that time Dino getting her head stuck in that --"

"That was the only time it happened and you know it!" Dino protested passionately.

I'm lying.  That was not the only time it happened.

Quote from: CloakedFigure on July 01, 2015, 04:04:30 PM

"Five more victims -- Jacob Ashmore, Rachel Nevin, Marco Cabrera, Cassandra Nascimento, and Tobias Ralph." Yarin reported.

Oho I see what you did there.  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 01, 2015, 09:25:28 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on July 01, 2015, 04:04:30 PM

Don't know who that is. Not as much as a music expert.

They're a really great band. Half the songs on their second album are about addiction. Actually, I can see them using an old person becoming addicted to stealing youth as a metaphor for smack.

Quote from: CloakedFigure on July 01, 2015, 04:04:30 PM

"Five more victims -- Jacob Ashmore, Rachel Nevin, Marco Cabrera, Cassandra Nascimento, and Tobias Ralph." Yarin reported. "There seems to have been someone who managed to make a brief video of the perpetrator."

What, no Ax Costanzo? Or would that not be subtle enough? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2015, 02:50:24 AM

Eh.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Thirst For Youth and Intel

"I m-must stop," Tobey said, "I'll go on being old ag-gain."

His body trembled. He was young again, for the moment at least. His assumption that multiple victims, taken in rapid succession rather than one per go, prolongs the time he experiences with his stolen youth. It also allows himself a brief respite from the savagely gnawing Cravings, and the painful return of the youth was becoming more and more painful, he believed, with each "feeding".

It was getting to be too much for the old (well, not at the moment) man. He had grown far too weary of the infernal yo-yo effect these "feedings" brought on. When this youth wears off, he knows just what will happen. The Cravings will take him over, possess him like a demon, the Erisraptor will rise once more to take down some prey, and be satisfied to let Tobey's revolted, rational mind surface. Despising what he became. Despising what he had allowed himself to become.

He sneered at himself, thinking that this whole Erisraptor shtick was divine punishment for his actions as an insurance agent. He did not and would not dispute that he did not deserve such punishment for taking such a sociopathic joy out of causing such suffering.

"Aaah!!"

Time was up. The youth was returning where it belonged. The process of having it leeched back out of him was painful. Excruciatingly so. It was rapidly getting to the point that he found himself wishing for death after each reversion. And more, and more, and more, each time, he swears that he will not feed again. That he'll stay old.

But every time, as is the case right now, the Cravings twist his mind to desire nothing more than his next fix.

And he was eyeing a middle school which was active and milling around with a plethora of prey for the Erisraptor.

He needed to feed . . .

***

"What do we have on Tobey Agrowch?" Cloak asked.

"Other than he's apparently a grouch?" Abby asked rhetorically.

"Not all that much is known about his background," Yarin said. "Especially since his Wikipedia article is usually heavily vandalized."

"Wait, he has a Wikipedia article?" Blue asked, surprised.

"There a brief scandal a while back," Yarin said, skimming the information. "But it isn't widely known as Justin Bieber's destructive antics had so thoroughly overshadowed it. Apparently, it was just a bad PR thing."

"Justin Bieber or Tobey?" Dino asked.

Yarin turned slowly, looking at the dino fusion with all six eyes, blinking them slowly in unison.

"Oh, okay. I get the point. Put that look away."

"Apparently, he spent his entire childhood studying, with no extracurriculars. His parents were not the most well-suited for parenthood as they kept his nose to the grindstone, and did not allow him to engage in any play of any sort. He was not allowed to read anything below  the level of Shakespeare. These accusations were not ever substantiated," Yarin said.

"So, he took out his childhood frustrations on his clients," Cloak summed up.

"I would seem that way. Even got fired from one firm for his mostly unfriendly approach." Yarin said. "How did --"

"Similar childhoods," Cloak said, noncommittally.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 02, 2015, 09:53:50 AM

I know that feel. Though in my case, it was grandparents.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2015, 03:28:18 AM

Yeah, I was nothing more than an extension of my mother, at least her eyes.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Designs

"A middle, or junior high, school was attacked," Yarin said. "Saffa, GH, and Underseen are already on-scene."

A brief pause.

"GH is reporting that they captured another image of the perpetrator," Yarin reported. "They didn't get there in time to capture the erisraptor."

"He escaped again?" Richard asked.

"Yes, he didn't linger." Yarin said. "Putting the image up on screen now."

The image showed the erisraptor flying away. The face was clearer than then the last one. I was very obvious that it was a younger Agrowch. He had russet read hair now.

"Saffa's reporting in again," Yarin said. "At least fifteen students were attacked in quick succession."

"This cannot stand," Richard said, feeling utter frustration. "But we cannot stretch ourselves too thin. There is no telling the next location where he will attack. We haven't a RAFian with precognition abilities."

Cloak said nothing, but was staring at the image. Particularly the gauntlets. It couldn't be . . . and yet . . .

"We have to send out more people," SuperNate said, "Three RAFians may not be enough."

And yet . . .

"We can't cover the entire city," Dino pointed out. "People will think we're putting the city on lockdown -- and I'm pretty sure we don't have that kind of authority. That might rise the hackles of those big government types."

And yet . . .

"We need to be proactive!" Parker declared. "We can't just sit here and do nothing."

And yet . . .

"Parker, Dino has a legitimate point. If we act en masse," Aquilai said, "then --"

"Politics be damned!" Parker erupted. "There is a crisis here!"

"It's hardly a crisis!" Helen countered. "The victims suffer a moment of terror, true, but it only a moment. And the effects are not permanent."

"That doesn't mean that it isn't --" Parker began to protest.

"Those gauntlets . . ." Cloak muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "And the wings and suit, too. . . ."

"What about them?" Parker said, a bit more huffy than he had intended.

"They're Walker tech, I believe," Cloak said. "At the very least, in part."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 03, 2015, 03:50:47 AM

That's a nice arguing scene. Very real.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2015, 04:21:31 PM

Thanks.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Encumbered and Desperation

"But that's impossible," Parker said, then added after a moment's hesitation, "isn't it?"

"Parker, you of all people, should know that it is quite possible." Cloak said. "Your very armor, the armor you are wearing right now, is imbued and imbibed with Walker tech. It's what enables your armor quick-change. As it allows Blase's blade to change into any melee weapon -- and a bow, apparently. It is quite possible."

"But they need a Realm Walker to give it to them, right?" Dino asked.

"You forget," Cloak said, quite seriously. "I'm not the only Realm Walker here."

"You mean --"

"Who else?" Cloak said, with a shrug of his shoulders.

***

"I-I gotta t-to st-t-top," Agrowch said, old again, shivering, with a stutter of someone "on the needle", so to speak. "I-I c-c-can't k-k-keep doing thi-is."

He huddled himself in a fetal position. Expecting, and fearing, the coming of the Erisraptor, the onslaught of the Cravings. With each Feeding, the Cravings got more powerful, more unable to resist. It was like the Erisraptor was a separate entity entirely, which possessed him from time to time with increasing frequency, as if these gauntlets . . .

The gauntlets . . .

They were the key to getting rid of this addiction. The key of getting free of this total body aches, of being wracked with pain every two hours or so. He needed to get rid of the gauntlets. To discard them. To throw them away. He didn't need them. He didn't need them. He didn't need them . . .

He . . . did . . . not . . .

He needed to feed! He needed to feed now! Right now! There was no time for delay! He had to go. Had to go now! Now! Now! Now! What was he doing?! Why was he waiting here?! He needed to FEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!

He took to the air. One was more than enough -- but thirty was never enough! They were all his to suck their delicious youth from! He would have them all.

They were all his to take!!

HIS!!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 03, 2015, 05:15:52 PM

Great, now he sounds like Galactus.

I thought Blaze's sword was broken in an earlier book?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2015, 05:37:32 PM

Chapter may come later than normal tomorrow. Got a bit too absorbed in rereading "RAFians Alive".

Quote from: Saffa on July 03, 2015, 05:15:52 PM

Great, now he sounds like Galactus.

Not quite what I was going for, though . . . especially considering future books. . . .

Quote from: Saffa on July 03, 2015, 05:15:52 PM

I thought Blaze's sword was broken in an earlier book?

True, I may have forgotten that (unless it was in "Passing the Torch", which doesn't count as it is outside the normal continuity), but that doesn't change the fact that it did, indeed, have Walker tech.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Losing Control and Opportunity Rises

Thirty victims.

Thirty more victims.

How many more before this Erisraptor, this entity of addiction inside Tobey Agrowch's mind, with be satisfied? Permanently satisfied?

The gauntlets. They need to go. They really needed to go. He needed to takek them off. Needed to remove the wings. The suit too. All three had poisoned him with this addiction. With this affliction.

He needed to remove the devices that enabled his addictions. He needed . . . no good! His hands were trembling too bad. And he was in his young form!! He was going on a downward spiral, and he was now desperately trying to claw himself from the hole he dig himself.

But he recognized it far too late. He was far too deep down in that hole and the sides are too steep to climb out of. It was all he could do to cling for dear life to the mephorical hole, but he ever slowly began to slip and scrap and slid down the side of the mephorical hole . . .

It was just a matter of time before he plummeted into the abyss below . . .

***

"We must do something!" Parker insisted.

"And so we shall," Richard said. "Once we have a plan."

Silence fell, an uneasy silence. Cloak hesitated before speaking. He was really acting on an assumption, as he noticed all of the victims had been human. This lead to Cloak's presumptive conclusion.

If he was wrong . . . he didn't want to think about it. It would be his fault. But they had no better options. He would have to bear the responsibility.

"Well? Anyone have any bright ideas?" Parker said, anxiously antsy.

"I believe," Cloak said, tentatively, "that I do."

"Great! What do we do?"

"No, Parker." Cloak said. "Not you."

"Why not?" the SPARTAN demanded.

"I would think it was obvious," the Elements Master said curtly.

"My armor --"

"Isn't impervious!" Cloak countered. "The specter spores got through. A ferrokinectic could knock you around like a ragdoll."

"You don't know that those gauntlets will get through --"

"Neither do you! Why take an unnecessary risk?" Cloak countered. "We don't need to take any more risks than absolutely necessary. No. Richard, Estelore, possibly Demos, and I --"

"Hi, Uncle!"

"-- And Shadow, I suppose, should go an install this trap."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2015, 04:34:44 AM

Are we making an assumption on Richard's age here, then? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2015, 04:01:56 PM

Well, to paraphrase Joker in "Batman: the Brave and the Bold":

"And reduce" our RAFfather "to a mere man?" Saffa, "my dear, I'm so disappointed in you. Where's the fun in that?" ;) (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1lvd2sbc#/watch?v=F4zlC8jAISk)

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Dusk Soar*

Once more young, and he should be for a few hours now, Erisraptor perched upon a rooftop, in almost roosting behavior. The Cravings satiated for a moment, Tobey Agrowch's true mind awoke, as Erisraptor became docile and dormant. At least for the moment.

"What have I become?" he said. He was very nearly weeping. "What have I allowed myself to become?"

His body shook in sobs. His mind . . . it was no longer the neat and prim place it used to be, but a disheveled, mess of a nightmare. It was in part of the mention dysfunctions and negative aspect and even diseases that he siphoned out when Erisraptor -- who he really thought of as a separate entity that dwelled within his mind. Erisraptor was now the one calling the shots, and Tobey had no control over it when the Cravings came. The Erisraptor took control over his actions and he was powerless to stop it.

He had tried to take gauntlets off again, but his hands trembled and shivered and shook too much to remove them safely. And still wanted to keep his hands. His sobs continued, unabated.

The wings, then. Make it harder for him to feed on the youth of others. Nope. Same problem. His hands shook just too much to allow him to undo the clasps and things. He started to sob harder, especially as he knew a Craving would not be long off now.

The suit. The suit then. It would have to go. He'd be naked, but he'd at least be free. For the few minutes before hypothermia kicked in -- it was still winter, after all. There wasn't anything to be done, he couldn't stop his hand shaking enough to grasp the zipper clasp. Much less pull it down.

His sobs shaking his body led smoothly into his body's convulsions as his purloined was being evaporated from his cells. It was blindingly painful now. He cursed the moment that he was stupid enough to put on this godforsaken suit, these stupid wings, and, most of all, these hellish gauntlets!!

Soon, it was over. He was old again. The Cravings would be coming on soon, he knew. He had to fight them this time. He had to ignore them. He had to . . .

He had to . . .

Had to . . .

FEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!

He launched himself into the air, and swooped over the nearby forest, as the sun began to set . . .

---

* "Dusknoir". A Pokemon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2015, 05:08:05 PM

This book could be used for an addiction avoidance and counselling programme. It really has that feel. Though, trigger warnings.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2015, 05:50:02 PM

Too right, on that one, Saffa. And that was kinda the angle I was going for. I just hope I don't over use it in the series . . .

And, as such, it's why I won't read this during my "Recovery in Creative Writing" class (the reason that I have Mondays off).

:edit: Tomorrow's new chapter may be later than normal tomorrow.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
It's a . . . You Know, Trap!

Tobey managed enough sway over Erisraptor to get it to swoop over the forest, before being quelled beneath the bulk of this monstrous construct in his mind. It took over once again, but Tobey hoped that this time there would be no victims. That the Cravings would be starved out of him. Had his rational mind had not been temporarily subsumed by this addiction personification, he would have continued to rue the day he donned this suit, wings and gauntlets.

How long ago was it? A week? Two? He couldn't even remember. Right now, he cared only about one thing. He needed his fix. He needed it desperately. He could not fight the Cravings. There was no winning against them. No point. Its futility was inevitable. Might as well just give into Erisraptor's whims.

There was nothing left. Tobey knew that he was nothing more than a shell of a man. There was no hope for him. None at all. Perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps he was reaping the consequences of his past decisions . . .

Wait . . .

There. A small girl with red hair and a cat shirt sitting on a stump. No parents around. No guardians of any sort, no one around. She was so foolishly alone! Her youth was his!! His!!!

Erisraptor stooped into a dive, and dove with an almost fanatical passion. He held his talon-tipped gauntlets out in front of him, greedily. The youth was just sitting there, waiting to be drained from this prey. She was so close now.

Closer . . .

Closer . . .

And closer still . . .

"D'ah!!"

He was in a shrub!! He was in a shrub!!!

How --? He was so thoroughly intangled in the shrub that he was unable to wriggle his way out, unable to thrash and force his way out. He was held fast, but that wasn't important.

It made no sense!! There was no girl anywhere! Where'd she go? Where'd she GO?!?! She was right here!! She could not have just disappeared like that!! She had to be here!!Her youth was his!! If he did not take it, it would putrify, it would expire!! It was his -- HIS!!!

"Thanks, Rocky." came a calm voice, then he addressed Tobey. "The erisraptor, I presume?"

"WHERE IS SHE?!?!?" Tobey erupted. "SHE WAS MINE!!! MINE!!!!!!!!!!"

"You, sir," came another male voice, "have problems."

"MINE!!!!!!!"

A female voice commented, "I don't think he really cares."

"MINE!!!!!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 04, 2015, 10:29:11 PM

Good lord man, you got issues.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2015, 03:02:45 AM

Are you talking about me or Tobey Agrowch?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Lashing Out

"Is he . . ." Shadow said, stepping into the dwindling light. "Is he  . . . okay?"

"The gauntlets have gone so far create a psychological and physiological need for the youth," Cloak said, observing Tobey Agrowch closely. "He has used it so much that he needs to drain youth just to feel normal."

"It's become a drug?" Estelore said, with surprised concern.

"WHERE IS SHE?!?!?!?" Erisraptor demanded again. "GIVE HER TO ME!!!"

"I see now. He wasn't attacking people from maliciousness, but because of this odd addiction." Richard said, looking over Tobey. Cloak could have been mistaken but he thought that he saw pity in the man's eyes. "Someone in such a state . . . such a pity . . ."

Erisraptor thrashed around within the thick shrub once again. The shrub had small thorns, which the suit protected Tobey from. Mostly, anyway, as his face was still exposed. His right hand was free if the shrub, though the rest of him was thoroughly ensconced within the shrub. This hand managed wrap around Cloak's arm.

Nothing happened.

"Impossible!" Tobey gasped.

Cloak shrugged off the hand, "Well, I believe it is safe now to assume that the guantlets work with actual years, instead of relative years."

"IMPOSSIBLE!!!" Tobey roared.

"Not so," Cloak said. "I may be twenty-seven by Realm Walker years, but by yours I'm 271, give or take the last digit."

"Huh?" Tobey asked, with a rather stupid grunt.

"I'm actually older than you," Cloak said, with exaggerated enunciation. "Your gauntlets won't work. On any of us, any of us assembled here. We're all older than you, in actual years. You have nothing to siphon out. There is no prey for you here. You're gonna hafta quit cold turkey."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 05, 2015, 07:11:54 AM

Tobey, of course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2015, 02:19:47 PM

That's what I thought. But I read that at four in the morning, so . . .

Anyway, I'll try to get a new chapter up, but work today has drained me. I need a nap.

:edit: Had a nap.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Gauntlets Gone

"GIVER 'ER OVER!! I . . . I need . . . I need the . . ." he raged, quickly devolving into a pant. "The youth . . . I need it . . . the youth. . . . Please . . ."

Cloak ****ed his head a bit after he heard this, giving this erisraptor a contemplating look. It seemed as if he was winding down into lucidity. This seemed very odd, when compared to the screaming hysterics of moments previous.

And he said "please". He hadn't said that before. Cloak took real notice of how emaciated that Tobey looked. He wondered how long had been since he ate something, as the youth didn't seem to be providing the same sustenance that real food offered. He looked like that beneath the suit would be a dried up, desiccated skeleton. He did not look healthy at all.

"Please . . ." he said. "I need it . . ."

Cloak surmised that the constant rejuvenation and re-aging had halted the negative effects of the potentially lethal consequences of the eating abstinence . . . and the possible diseases fhat he absorbed in his haste to be young again.

"Please . . ."

Cloak looked at this thin, haggard, dried-up man and came to the conclusion that he, too, was a victim of all this. But the only real difference was that he chose this.

"Help me . . ."

At least, it was his choice, at first. Before the addiction took hold. Before it managed to sink its claws inside this poor, pathetic man's psyche. Was he something to be reviled? Even in this sad, sad state?

"Please . . ."

Of everything this man had done, it began with his own selfishness. He didn't care if he had to take something that belonged to another as his own. Sure, it spiralled into a messs, and the victims were only truly victimized for a brief period. And when they recieved their youth that this man absconded with back, they discovered that it was without disabilities and negative aspects and diseases that the youth left with.

"Help me . . ."

But it wasn't done from selflessness. Tobey Agrowch has nvere been selfless in hisnlife, according to his file. Tobey simply didn't know about this aspect of the youth-siphoning gauntlets. Even when he did, the addiction to youth was already present in force. Compelling him to continue with his actions, despite being aware of the possible outcome.

"Please . . . help me. . . ."

The ultimate outcome.

"Please . . . help me."

"I shall," Cloak said, taking no enjoyment out what he was about to do. He knew the possible consequences, and he tried to prepare his heart for them.

He removed Tobey's gauntlets. Then he destroyed them ferrokinetically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2015, 06:58:36 PM

Yeah, your opinion of Tobey might change a bit, Saffa.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
An Inevitable Conclusion

Cloak had expected more resistance, more cursing and swearing. But Tobey had allowed him to remove the gauntlets, and looked rather indifferent to their destruction. It was a complete and absolute reversal to expectations. It was almost as if he had wanted them off.

It was like taking a needle from a hardcore druggie and having them not fight you at all for it. Absurd, it would seem in all livelihoods.

"Uh, guys?" Esty said, looking concerned. "He doesn't look too hot."

It was true. There was a slight rattle to Tobey's breathing and he appeared to be sweating profusely. He seemed to have lost the ability to speak coherently. He eyes looked horribly sunken in.

"This is happening too suddenly," Richard said, quite seriously. "If I'm correct, and I very well may not be, it should take far more time for such severe symptoms to show up."

Tobey gurgled in a most disconcerting way. His breath rattled a little more audibly.

"Is there . . . anything we can do?" Estelore said, in hushed tones.

Tobey's breath was rattling a bit more noticeably and there was a raspiness to it now. He was flat upon the ground now, no longer ensconced in shrubbery. Where once the suit fit him rather snugly and left little to the imagination, it now hung rather loosely to his horribly emaciated and desiccated frame. It was horrible, and the RAFians knew what was happening.

"Is he . . . ?" Shadow asked, realizing how rather naive it sounded.

"Yes, Shadow." Cloak said, solemnly. "Tobey Agrowch is dying."

"How?" she asked, before she could help herself.

"Overdose," he uncle said, still with his solemn body language. "I doubt even Kelly or Yunyun could help him now."

"In any case," Richard said, as Tobey's breath became more labored, "I doubt either one would be able to get here in time. Agrowch doesn't have much of that anyway."

"We're just going to watch him die?" Shadow asked. "Surely there something we can do fo him!"

"It's too late," Cloak said, as he heard the rattled breathing, the labored breathing, cease altogether. "He's already gone."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 05, 2015, 10:05:21 PM

Jesus. You weren't kidding when you said this book was gonna be dark.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 05, 2015, 11:10:18 PM

He was a much more complex character than I initially made him out to be.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2015, 03:46:42 AM

And it aint gonna be the only dark book, GH. Though the next one may be on the goofy side. I don't know, I've only outlined it, and I don't always stick to the outline.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Walkers Are Talkers

"We must notify his next of kin," Richard said at once, "alert a mortuary and a mortician and the like. The authorities as well."

"You know, that they will blame us for this, right?" Estelore said, with a sigh.

"Then that would be unfair," Shadow said, quietly.

"The media is hardly ever fair," Cloak said, jaded.

"Oh, the lovely contradictions," a bored voice said. "Cloak, his brat protege, and his minions conversing as if this were some big conspiracy! The irony is delicious."

"This was once of your schemes, wasn't it, Malice?" Cloak growled. He turned around and saw Malice, leaning on a woebegone sycamore tree on a slight hill that loomed over the four, her limp, flaccid, pale black cloak blustering a bit in the wind. "Wasn't it?"

"What does it matter if was or wasn't?" Malice said, eyes gleaming with her namesake. "In the end, does it really matter?"

"Gateburst you, Malice!!"

"Uncle. Language."

"Language be Veiled!" Cloak said, unintentionally snapping at her. "Malice, you have no right!"

"But, don't I?" she said, with infuriating condescending tones. "I can do what I like, you know."

"No, you can't! These are living, thinking, feeling beings! And you treat them as if they are dolls for you manipulate, as if their lives haven't any meaning whatsoever. As if they're expendable as long as you have your Veiled entertainment."

"Blah, blah, blah," Malice said, bored.

"Have you no compassion? Have you no integrity? Have you no common decency?"

She waved her free hand in a dismissive motion. "I prefer to live my life unfettered by such meaningless concepts."

"Meaningless?!" Cloak roared. "How can someone be so selfish, so self-centered, so crass?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Malice said, clearly not listening.

"Do you forget to whom you speak, you old crone?" Cloak said, uncharacteristicall y savage. "I am the grandson of Sage, and an Elements Master."

"What's your poi-- oh." Malice said, with donning realization that she was standing on earth and leaning on a tree, which was of the Wood element. She Walked away before another word was said.

Cloak still felt livid.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 06, 2015, 08:59:38 AM

This suddenly turned into a Delhi road rage. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2015, 04:32:43 PM

Right. Not in the best moods right now, which I can't go into. Not online anyway.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Loose End and Marie's Irritation

The RAFians had to bundle up Tobey's body tight, and sanitize the area where he died, because it was believed that he had siphoned out AIDS and similiar diseases from his victims. It could have been seen a virtuous, but it was known he didn't do it because of some sense of altruism. He was just merely in the thrall of his addiction.

The suit seemed to contain any bodily fluid that may have been expelled upon death, without any outward sign that he had soiled himself in anyway.

It was true that shameless propaganda shows (which stylized themselves as "news"), like anything in Fox News, decided that the RAFians deserved the blame, ignoring any facts to the contrary, per the norm for that type of broadcasting. They would rant about it for hours,to their too-slowly dwindling audiences.

Legitimate news sites, as well as Tobey's closest living relative, his estranged brother, were far more lenient and amicably fair with the RAFians. The family -- of lack thereof, really -- just wanted a quiet funeral, despite none of them really liking Tobey all that much. It was just one of the edicts of their belief system.

***

"Dog goes woof,
Cat goes meow,
Bird goes tweet,
And mouse goes squeak.
Cow goes moo,
Frog goes croak,
And the elephant goes toot.
Space ducks say 'quack! Quack!'
And fish go blub.
And Horse goes 'ow ow ow'!
But there's no sound,
That anyone knows,
WHAT DOES THE FOX S-- ack!"

"Oh, you want to know what we say, Rotiart?!" Marie said, tackling him down, teeth very close to his jugular. Marie, a fox by species, was really getting tired of being asked what do foxes say. "We say 'STOP THE EFFING 'ELL ASKING US THAT'!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2015, 02:56:07 AM

New chapter.
 

Book XCII:
CALENDAR CREEP
CHAPTER ONE:
Keep Me Guessin'

After heaviness of Tobey Agrowch's death, Cloak found himself thinking about happier times. He remembered training Shadow in the elements, which was not always the easiest or most pleasant times.

"You're headin' for disaster,
But this is your one best chance.
Though, little miss, here's some Elemental class.
I'll show you how to show the Banned
Who wears the pants.
This technique is smoother than ginseng --
Now, don't give me attitude!"

Shadow attempts the technique, a basic water elemental technique, but she fails spectacularly. Then again, she was, at this time, seven and a complete amateur at the elements.

When she failed, she gave her uncle a mulish look. One that he recognized from his own face when Sage was teaching him himself.

"I require a little convincing,
Then we'll chow down on some food."

Shadow improvises, trying to manipulate several elements at once, which she was not yet ready for, to her cost and humiliation.

"You're a goofball mademoiselle.
And that move doesn't gel.
But if I don't ask, you won't tell.
Keepin' me guessin'.
Keepin' me guessin'!
You think you don't need me,
But, Shadow, you'll be in a jam.
I didn't train you to mislead.
Don't walk that walk
Until you're a Master, like I am.
I'm ready to Elements coach you
To master these moves we do.
Take it from one that's wise,
Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes.
I see through your little white lies,
Still keepin' me guessin'!
Honey, listen to old Uncle, too,
Like a roach, they would smoosh you!
Shut your mouth, and master this 'fu.
Keepin' me guessin'.
This isn't the time to brag!
This technique isn't in the bag!
Don't turn this into a drag,
But still keepin' me guessin'!
See? Never say surrender!
You can make yourself a contender!
Don't cause another fenderbender!!
Keepin' me guessin'!
When the truth gets too depressin'
Teach yourself a lesson!
Read my lips and hear my expression!
Keep 'em guessin'!
Keep 'em guessin'!"

Cloak, in retrospect, supposed that he was a hard taskmaster and a strict teacher, but Shadow had succeeded in mastering all of the Six Elements before her eleventh birthday, a task no other Elements Master has been known to achieve. Even Cloak was about twenty before he had completely mastered the elements.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 07, 2015, 11:32:45 AM

Going by the description of this book, it's going to be quite amusing.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2015, 07:29:00 PM

Might not turn out the way you expect -- heck, it might not turn out to be the way I expect!

And the current book that I just finished outlining, Book DCLIV, will be a dark one, like Book XCI. And you guys might not like the --

*WHACK*

Ow! Okay, Saffa, no spoilers! Geez! ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
A Bad Day

It was a fairly regular, mundane day at the Day-to-Day calendar manufacturing plant. The place would certainly not win any awards for boosting the already dismal morale of the employees. They tended to be looked down upon by the upper echelons of society -- you know, the pricks that never so much as seen a hard day's labor. And, quite unfortunately, it was these types that were running the place.

The average joe might not think that such a job was stressless, but few would coherently fathom what kind and sheer amount of stress there was at a job such as this. The higher-ups often ignored the complaints and needs of their employees (as long as this didn't venture into illegal territory, then they took notice and often did wrong or ridiculously extreme to do to deal with it).

These rich brats did not care if their employees -- the "peasants", as they liked to think of them -- did not thrive or were happy with their employment. They were as harsh as they were legally allowed. Even then, they were outright abusive when "off-the-record". Their policies were more often than not made to cover their and screw over their employees, using loopholes and other such legal maneuvers.

The smarter, less naive workers knew this, but were unable to do anything about it. There was very little that they could do in this job market, in this economy. They had no choice but put up with this flagrant corruption, lest they not be able to make due with the few creature comforts they managed.

Is really any wonder that one of them would snap? Someone who's sanity wasn't all that stable to begin with.

Valen O. Day wasn't particularly the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to social interactions, but he was a moderately decent worker. He took the executives' abuse about as well as the others did, and all with a calm, introverted demeanor. He was also quite impatient. But he was a whiz with dates and all things pertaining to the calendar -- holidays, seasons, how the days of the week got their names, and other such trival facts.

While he was required to wear a uniform at work, outside of work he favored a certain overblown flashiness in attire and excessive exuberance in speech has made him the butt of many a joke among both the executives and his own coworkers.

Eventually, he got a little too overworked, and he snapped when someone who he ticked off called him "you calendar creep". He did not attack her but seemed to lose all semblence of sanity.

Deciding to get revenge on the world -- despite never really considering precisely what he was getting revenge for -- he donned a rather ridiculous calendar-themed costume with a "calendar cloak" which Cloak would abhor, calendar-themed top hat, monocle, and overlarge pencil as a cane.

And he believed people would take him seriously in that getup.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2015, 04:29:34 AM

Those puns though. And there can only be more coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2015, 06:04:47 AM

"Valen O. Day" actually came from "villain of the day".

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Real Ugly Face of Politics

It was a real mundane day, as Cloak, Parker, and Richard were standing outside the First National Bank of the city. Parker had his armor within the watch device, Richard appeared human enough without any need for any disguise, and Cloak wore the ID mask that projected a hologram of his usual holographic human appearance. The three were there because they suspected that something might happen here, but Cloak wasn't sure if it would be within their jurisdiction.

"We better not be wasting our time here," Cloak growled.

"Easy, Cloak." Richard said.

Cloak realized that he was letting his boredom getting him. Cloak didn't enjoy being bored. It tended to make him testy.

"Are we sure that tip was legit?" Parker asked.

"It could have come from Malice," Cloak postulated, "or a Knight, or some villian that we aren't yet privy to, who wants to make a name for themselves."

"Why would getting their butts kicked by us be making a name for themselves?"

"They, quite possibly, could not think that. They could be harboring a delusion that they could defeat us quite handily." Cloak said. "They could be assuming that they had more power than they do. Like that bloodbender a few of your months ago."

Before any more conversation could be had, a flashy figure appeared nearby. In a quilted calendar-themed costume with a similarly themed cloak and top hat and a pencil-shaped cane. He walked flamboyantly up to the bank, boldly and brazenly.

The RAFians were dumbfounded, but did nothing. Dressing up like a ludicrous lunatic wasn't illegal.

But he wasn't alone.

Behind him were some twisted, malformed mockery of the forty or fifty presidents of the country. The RAFians quickly lost their stunned states.

"The First National Bank!" this weirdo declared. "I, the Calendar Creep, will now rob you!"

"Seriously?" Parker said, summoning his armor via the nanotech watch as Cloak removes his ID mask.

"Yes!" Calendar Creep announced grandly. "I see my guest have arrived to bear witness to my first heist!"

"Wait --" Richard said, unsure about the seriousness of this.

"You were the one that tipped us off about a robbery here? You?" Cloak said, still trying to come to terms with the sheer incomprehensible nature of this whole thing.

"Yes! To witness my ascension to the most feared supervillain --"

"Are you bloody serious?" Parker said. "You do know who we are, right? You do the likes of the people we've fought?"

"Yes! Which is why my victory over you will catapault me to fame and --"

"You seriously cannot be this stupid," Parker said, bluntly.

"Especially since your atrocious hologram minions aren't real, and cannot help you at all," Cloak said, having Earthsighted the truth.

That seemed to take some swagger out of his step.

"What?"

Cloak saw what this meant, "You thought to take us on, and you didn't familiarize yourself with our most basic abilities?"

"You're a joke," Parker said, withdrawing his armor back into his nanotech watch. "And not worth our time."

"Sir," Richard said, more respectful than Calendar Creep really deserved, "you have yet to commit any crime. You can walk away from this, and you won't be arrested or punished. Do not fight us, you will not like the outcome. Walk away, sir. Just walk away."

The Calendar Creep's ostentacious personality seemed to evaporate into one of a striken shell of a man. He decided to listen to Richard as it would seem, but in reality, he decided that he needed more resources to take them on.

He wasn't done with his crazy ambitions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2015, 08:08:16 AM

Oh, wow. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2015, 09:41:36 AM

Well, he is based off of Calendar Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_Man), who is considered to be a third-rate supervillain.

Anyway, new book ideas!

• Book DCCLXVI: "Geometric Demons" -- The RAFians must deal with several dream demons, who each specialize in a different type of dream. They seek the location of "the Books".
• Book DCCLXVII: "[censored] Breaks Loose!" -- An old enemy of the RAFians gathers strength, eating some of his minions, but three escape.

Remember, the titles are subject to change.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Getting Schooled

Gaz, Terenia, and GH were nearby the school, dealing with some school-related business that had nothing to do with RAF. Initially. Then they were having some qualms about a certain member of the faculty who had the nerve to demand that anti-RAF propaganda be taught in the school's social studies classes -- and she was a math teacher!

"She cannot be serious about this," GH said, his guitar slung ever so carefully careless over his back. "What does anti-RAF propaganda have to do with calculus?"

"She does not want to teach it during math," Terenia said, wearing a very ugly look on her face, "she's demanding that the social studies teachers teach it in their classes."

"She can't do that, can she? Make demands of other departments, as if she were their boss?" GH said.

"No, she can't," Terenia said, "but that doesn't mean she isn't going to try. Didn't stop Laura Mallory from trying to ban Harry Potter without reading them."

"Wait, what does that last part --" GH began, but then something happened that rendered him dumbstruck.

A man dressed as a twelve-year-old came into view. His pants, shirt, quilted jacket, bookbag, belt, and even his shoes were all calendar-patterned.

"Is this some new fashion trend?" Gaz asked, with a snort of derision.

"Why are you asking me?" Terenia asked. The she added, after a brief pause, "And no, it's not."

"BACK TO SCHOOOOOOOL TIME!!" he said, unnecessarily loud and boisterous.

"It's winter," GH pointed out quietly. The Calendar Creep didn't seem to hear him.

"Come along now," Calendar Creep announced, with a flamboyance that indicated he didn't remember his last encounter with RAFians. Or simply chose to ignore it. He was gesturing towards the trollish dwarves he had dressed as grade-schoolers (and unconvincingly at that). "Time to go to school!"

"Okay -- I'm confused," GH said earnestly. "What's the point of this?"

"We're as confused as you are, GH," Terenia said. "Do they actually think that they will get inside the premises unnoticed?"

"There has to be more to this," Gaz said.

"I knew it!!" came a shriek.

Gaz and Terenia found themselves massaging their foreheads. They knew the owner of that shriek, and knew that it wasn't a source of danger but one of irritation. They turned to face the imminently more dangerous threat than the Calendar Creep.

"Who's that?" GH asked, seeing the short, stout woman with iron gray curls gathered up into a tight bun. She wore a thick but prudent skirt, a matching jacket, and white blouse. Her glasses gave the appearance of her having smaller eyes than she truly possessed. Her black, ludicrous-looking high heels clicked irritably as she strode angrily towards them.

"Euphoria Carson," Terenia said, with a disparaging tone, full of disgust.

"You mean Dysphoria Carson," Gaz corrected.

"M-M-Ms. Carson? She's still alive?" Calendar Creep said, fearfully. Apparently, Ms. Carson, the old spinster, used to be his old math teacher and he was as afraid of her then as he was now. He ran away, the dwarf trolls vanishing inexplicably.

"I knew you RAFians were trouble!" Euphoria Carson scolded, quite overstepping her bounds. She held no authority over them, though she apparently thought that she did. "You need to leave. You all need to leave. Now."

"You have no right to tell us to leave, Dysphoria," Gaz said.

"You know my name!" she said, tone condescending.

"Like it matters," Terenia said. "You need to get your head out of your backside, Carson. You have no authority to send us away. You are a math teacher, not the principal or the vice principal. You also have no right to dictate what the social studies teachers teach. You aren't on the school board, you are not the superintendent. You do not have the right to anything you've been doing. You're severely overstepping your bounds."

"I have every right to condemn everything that you and your depraved, sinful gang stand for!" she shot back sanctimoniously. "I will wake this people up to your profane unnaturalness."

The bickering did not stop there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2015, 03:58:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Bricks and Retreats

Demos, Shanker, and Wild approached the cemetery. They were going to investigate a possibility that Garrotik's progeny might be regenerating in their plate forms. Naturally, this was something that they would prefer to not happen, so these three were dispatched to see if there was any validity to this rumor.

"It was just a rumor," Shanker said, dismissively. "You shouldn't put too much stock in rumors."

"Rumors tend to have some basis in fact," Wild said. "Not entirely, but a little."

"Sometimes a lot," Demos said, "and yet rumors can sometimes prove to be entirely true."

"And sometimes they can turn out to be nothing more than complete horsesh-- hear that?" Shanker said, referring to a short skittering sound. But after that, nothing but a gusty wind. "I guess it was nothing."

"You know, if there wasn't so much snow and whatnot, it'd feel like we walked into a 'Thriller' video," Wild observed.

"You could say that about every cemetery," Shanker said. He sniffed. "We're not alone. I smell blood. Fresh. 'Heart still beating' fresh."

"And a human scent," Wild said, in his wereferret form. "Possibly kids screwing around in the cemetery. That's disrespectful, true, but maybe it accounts for the scent."

"Do we get to kill them?" Demos said, unable to help himself.

Shanker whapped him on the nose with an old newspaper, "No. Bad demon. Baaaaad demon."

"Hilarious," Demos replied dryly. Clearly he didn't think it actually was hilarious.

Suddenly, music piped up and a "ghost" with a calendar sheet sang:

"Boys and girls of every age,
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see.
This, our heist nature of Halloween."

"Uh . . ." all three RAFians said, stunned, as the song continued:

"This heist is Halloween, this heist is Halloween."

"But it isn't Halloween." Wild said.

"Pumpkin kiddies scream in the dead of night.
This is Halloween heist, everybody leave the scene.
Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright.
It's our heist, everybody scream!
In this heist of Halloween!"

"How do you steal a holiday?" Demos asked, not troubling to keep his voice down. He was still unheard.

"I am the one hiding under your bed,
Teeth razor sharp and eyes glowing red.
I am the one hiding under your stairs,
Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair."

"Hiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssssss . . ." Shanker hissed. This caused the Calendar Creep to scream like a little girl and run away, leaving his calendar bedsheet behind. Shanker blinked. He hadn't expected it to be so easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 08, 2015, 04:15:30 PM

I'm betting grumpy old lady shows up again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 08, 2015, 10:52:54 PM

Great, now I'm imagining Calendar Creep with the voice of Danny Elfman.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2015, 04:04:56 AM

Quote from: Saffa on July 08, 2015, 04:15:30 PM

I'm betting grumpy old lady shows up again.

Perhaps.

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on July 08, 2015, 10:52:54 PM

Great, now I'm imagining Calendar Creep with the voice of Danny Elfman.

More like Jame Hong, as his character of Chi-Fu from "Mulan", for me. Hence all the "scream like a little girl" references.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Toxic Turkeys and Ballistic Balloons

"Oh, Underseen, stop being such a baby!" Abby chided teasingly. "It's just a little shopping spree."

Saffa and Abby had dragged Underseen with them to the local mall, which wasn't anything real fancy compared to that of other cities. It was just a single story building with a rather sprawled out with stores here and there.

"First of all, guys don't usually go on shopping sprees unless they are dragged there," Underseen said, laden with their purchases. "Second of all, you saddled me with all of your bags!!"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Saffa teased. "There are only two boxes."

"And six bags!!"

"Well, we had a little holiday shopping that needed doing." Abby said.

"If you're having so much difficulty, shapeshift bigger," Saffa said, pragmatically.

"That's not the point! The principle of the matter is -- wait, what?" Underseen complained.

"Attention, shoppers!!" Calendar Creep announced. He was dressed in calendar-patterned pilgrim attire, and holding glistening, steaming turkey in his right gloved hand, and he carried what appeared to be an oxygen tank, with an odd hose welded to its side. "Die!!"

Underseen dropped the packages, secretly thankful for the excuse. He prepared to battle this new stranger. Meanwhile, Saffa's and Abby's scope of ability to do anything was severally limited as they couldn't morph their clothes and they would need their jackets and boots for the chilly weather outside. And there were too many people to take them off, and not only risk them getting stolen but potentially risk violating an indecency law, and not all the cops of this country were decent people.

The Calendar Creep threw the turkey like it was one of Green Goblin's s pumpkin bomb, and it exploded into a noxious goo which adhered fast to the place where it was landed. Underseen quickly shapeshifted into a Bengal tiger, and began to pad very quickly towards the Calendar Creep.

The Calendar Creep didn't scream like a little girl, but blasted a balloon, or at least, what looked like a balloon, with a ballistic trajectory. Underseen dodged by shapeshifting into a macaque, a monkey, and swung around and ambled around avoiding the ballistic balloons. Very smoothly, Underseen shapeshifted from a monkey to a Titanoboa, and began to coil around the Calendar Creep, who screamed like a macaque, but in terror rather than anger. His aim became more erratic.

Underseen found himself having to shapeshift into an eagle. He beat his wings against the Creep's face and the Creep shrieked a high-pitched shriek. His aim became even more erratic, so much so that Underseen had to shapeshift a mouse to get close again. Then he shapeshifted into a Chinese-style dragon and let out a roar which caused the Creep to wet his quilted pants. He clicked his weapon, but he was out of ammo.

He ran. He ran, leaving his toxic turkeys and ballistic balloon shooter behind, as Underseen reassumed his base form.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 09, 2015, 04:54:13 AM

Could've chucked diamonds at the guy, but that'll cause even more frenzy from the idiot locals. ::)

Although, if I was at the mall, you'd have to drag me out of the food court or bookstore more than anything. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2015, 07:08:32 PM

Noted. Anyway, since I'm posting this now, the next chapter will be later than usual.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Christmas Defeatings

"Ah, the Christmas decorations," said Ash, as they passed through the town square, "aren't they lovely?"

"Possibly," Blaze said, dryly, "if they weren't hanging since July."

"Oh, don't be such a grinch, Blaze!" Ash laughed blithely.

"What in the world --" Broken said, paying attention to a man in a calendar-print Santa Claus jacket and hat, with green slacks. He was carrying . . . was he serious? How could he just waltz in here carrying that thing?! What was wrong with him? What was wrong with this country that that was an acceptable thing?!

The Calendar Creep kept his slung item steady and at the ready when he belted out:

"You see, Valentine's is lovely, and my birthday is a bless,
New Year's is a lot of joys, and Arbor Day's the best!
Halloween's a horror, I guess, but I must confess
That I really don't like Christmas!
You see Flag Day is minimal, April Fool's is jokes galore,
Mardi Gras is an acquired taste, unless you own a candy store,
All these other holidays I can admit that I adore,
But I really don't like Christmas.
Now, it isn't that I hate it, at the most, I feel an intolerance,
But should I really just destroy it? I'll admit that I'm off the fence,
It makes me tense!
From the supervillain community, I'm sure to get elected,
But for Christmas I can summon all true invective,
Because what is there to like? I mean, it's really so subjective.
No, I really don't like Christmas.
I love puppy dogs and kittens, I love flowers in the spring,
Heck, I even love the sunshine and the birdies when they sing,
I can't work up animosity for almost anything.
Tell me why I don't like Christmas.
My childhood was atrocious, and Christmas was always that bad, you see,
So the most that I can muster is complete and total un-empathy.
What's wrong with me?
How can I prove that I'm an evil supervillain worth his salt,
When with a holiday so jolly I can't even halt?
If I was more ambitious, I'd launch a big assault.
I really don't like Christmas.
No, I really...
No, I really don't like Christmas!
I have an intense BURNING intolerance!"*

With that, he geared up his flamethrower and fired it at the tree in the center of the square. But Blaze got in the way, absorbing the flames into his wings. This engulfed them and gave him a slightly Moltres-like appearance.

The Calendar Creep shrieked like . . . oh, you probably already know by now. He, like the previous failed schemes (which were failed from the very onset), ran. Only this time, Blaze gave chase, the flames on his wings dissipating rather quickly during this flight.

"Wait a minute," Blaze said. He scanned everywhere before him and beneath him. "Where'd he go?"

Nowhere. He was nowhere in sight.

"How?!" Blaze blustered and raged. "How could I lose track of someone dressed like that?!"

---

*Song source (https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1m54gn29#/watch?v=MMgtRh2t0RA).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 10, 2015, 12:17:17 AM

He does have something more serious planned, right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2015, 03:13:29 AM

Serious? He's basically our version of the Box Ghost. Although . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
New Fear's Day

"Goom, how many times to I have to tell you?"

"I know, I know," the little goomba said, "you're not a taxi."

"How many times have gone over this now?"

"Ninety-two, I believe."

"Have I made myself clear each time?"

"Yes, yes, Dino. You have."

"Then why are you sitting on my snout?"

"I was seeing if you're awake," he said, in a cavalier way.

"Well, I'm awake," she said, with a grunt, "now get off."

She glared bleary-eyed at Rocklobster, growling grumpily, "You know about this, didn't you?"

"Hey, don't get me involved." he protested.

"Too late, Rocky, you're involved," Dino said teasingly.

Before Rocky could protest again, a man in a calendar-print, three-piece suit with horn-rimmed bifocals. He carried what appeared to be a scaled-down Saiyan pod in a cannon-like framework. As to what he planned to do with such a device in a secluded spot in the forest, which happened to one of Dino's favorite napping spots while at her full size (according to her, it is nice to "stretch out" for a while), as it takes conscious (sometimes unconscious) effort to maintain her condensed form, almost as if her size shifting was a muscle that fatigued every so often.

"What the --" Rocklobster's voice was incredulous.

"Happy New Year's Eve!" the Creep declared.

"It's not even Christmas yet," Goom noted.

The Creep paid him no mind, as he lit the unseen fuse of the Saiyan pod lookalike, "Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . ."

Dino got up.

"AAAAAHHH!!!" the Creep screamed in terror. "A dinosaur!"

Dino exhaled near the Saiyan pod mockup,and the fuse went out, as the Creep ran away as fast as he could.

"Why can't they all be that easy?" she sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2015, 02:53:54 AM

Although, a better question to ask is where he is getting these gadgets and costume changes.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Love Him, or Leave Him

Helen, Genies, and Azguard were at an ice skating rink. They were skating, naturally, with Az's cryokinesis somehow making him proficient at it.

"Why couldn't we just skate on the lake at the forum?" Genies said, sounding rather disgruntled.

"The ice is too thin there," Az said, knowingly.

"And you couldn't do anything about it?" she countered, tonelessly.

"Nothing permanent," he replied, vaguely.

"Oh, Steph, don't be such a sourpuss!" Helen chided good-naturedly.

"We don't all have power rings to catch us before our backside touches the ice," Genies countered. "I still wonder why we had to come here. We could have gone to the food court at the mall with Saffa and 'em, or to look town square's decoration with Ash and 'em. I mean, look! We're the only ones here!"

"So it just means we have the facility to ourselves," Az said, brightly.

"Ugh," Genies groaned.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" a voice declared.

"What the? Who is --" Genies said, turning to look at the person who spoke. Only to turn around immediately covering her eyes, declaring, "AAH!! MY EYES!! MY EYES!!"

This was because the Calendar Creep showed up and all he wore was a calendar-print diaper, a leather quiver, and a bow. Nothing else. And he wasn't much to look at -- scrawny and pasty white, short black hair on his head only, hairless elsewhere.

And the bow was not a toy. It was a legitimate bow, just not a compound one. The arrows were also not toys, though they were shaped like hearts, with indented part attached to the shaft, with the point being quite sharp. It was intended to be dangerous.

"Valentine's Day?" Az noticed. "It's not even Christmas."

The Creep ignored this, and took aim with his bow with an arrow from his quiver.

"Is he serious?" Helen asked, astounded. "Or is he just stupid?"

He let fly the poorly aimed arrow which missed all three without any of them moving an inch.

"Seriously?" Genies asked.

Another poorly-aimed arrow. It glanced off the ice and ricocheted behind the RAFians.

"I think he is," Az said, conversationally.

Yet another poorly-aimed arrow. It embedded its tip into the ice before the RAFians' feet, bending it and distorting it.

"This is just sad," Genies pointed out, pityingly.

The Creep ignored her, and fired another poorly-aimed arrow.

"What, did he go to the same school that taught Stormtroopers how to aim?" Helen asked caustically.

But apparently he had ran out of arrows and fled the scene.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Az noted.

THUD!! Genies had slipped and fell on her butt.

"OW!! Can we please go home now?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 11, 2015, 03:01:53 AM

That was hardly criminal, not counting the disastrous aim. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2015, 02:48:46 PM

Attempted murder, Saffa. He had genuine malicious intent, he intended to kill Steph, Helen, and Az.. Granted, it can't really be proven.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Fools Rush In, Creeps Rush Out

"I don't like being out in the open, perfectly exposed, like this," Blue said, speaking from his ninja sensibilities. He, SuperNate, and Faerie were walking in a toy store, because SuperNate was looking for a holiday gift for his niece. He wasn't about to settle for any old thing, either. It had to be, in SuperNate's view, absolutely perfect.

They were lucky, it was early enough in the season that the store wasn't an absolute madhouse, just as SuperNate had planned and hoped. The toy store, in this hour, was in a brief slump, so they basically had the place to themselves.

"Don't worry so much, Blue," SuperNate said. "All will be well."

"Besides, you're the one who wanted to tag along," Faerie said.

"I don't why, though," Blue said. "I just sensed . . . something. Something was going to happen."

"I thought that was Cloak's schtick," Faerie said, irreverently. Blue said nothing, which led Faerie to tease him again. "You gonna start wearing a cloak and spout exposition and whatnot?"

"You need observe more quip, Faerie," Blue said, calmly and simply, "over there, for instance."

A man in a calendar-print jacket, shirt, pants, dress shoes, and jester's hat was standing in the middle of the small, cramped, general atrium of the store. He held a whipped cream pie that was sickly green and seemed to sizzle a bit with each jostling movement.

"Is that the calendar man that the others were talking about?" SuperNate said, at once.

"If he's not, then he's one heck of an impersonator," Faerie replied dryly.

"Pay attention to the pie," Blue said, with shrewd observation.

"What about it?"

"It's acid," Blue said.

"How?" the other two said, emphatically.

"Dunno."

"APRIL FOOLS!!!" the Creep shouted in a very Quackerjack way.

"I don't think you understand the traditions of April Fools," SuperNate said, quickly.

He threw the pie . . . as if he never threw anything in his life. It flew from his hand and landed, face-down, two or three feet away. The pie sizzled, and ate through the floor.

"Ol' Jackie isn't gonna like that," Faerie said. Jack Christensen was the proprietor of the store, and Faerie was on amicable terms with him. "Nope, not gonna like it at all."

"Was that it? Seriously?" Blue said, actually flabbergasted. "Are friggin' jok-- okay! That's only cool when I do it!!"

The Calendar Creep had vanished before the pie had began to eat through the floor.

"Um," Faerie said, "what was the point of that?"

But SuperNate had his mind on something else, as he seized a product from a shelf, "Oh, she'll love this."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 12, 2015, 12:21:29 PM

I just realized how you're keeping in sync with the 100-books-is-one-year timeline. The time of year referred to in all the chapters is sometime in winter but not yet Christmastime, which is somewhere like November, which would fit for book 92.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2015, 02:35:07 PM

Yup. It's not gonna change either, I tend to stick to that as far as the chapter outlines go, and I'm currently planning Book . . . CDLVI, I think it is now. And as for this current book --

[spoiler=Behind-the-scenes snippet]I outlined this book and moved on to outlining the next some time before I made that decision. Originally, the Calendar Creep would attack on those days the holidays were on and he was more of a legitimate threat.[/spoiler]

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Bunny Eggs

"Horse, I don't think this is the right way back to the forum," Marie was saying. Hunter was carrying Horse much the same way Misty carried Togepi, only Hunter didn't look too thrilled with this arrangement.

"Sure it is!" the little seal declared, with her pinniped-brand of bravado. "Trust me!"

"Famous last words," Hunter said, dryly.

Horse lifted her head up to look at Hunter, and said, "You might want to consider where my tail is placed when making snarky comments, Hunter."

"You might want to consider that I can drop you at any moment of my choosing," he countered.

"Do that and I'll freeze your snout," Horse issued the mock threat with a teasing tone.

"Horse, are you sure this is the right way?" Marie asked, quite seriously. "I'm sure we've seen that bush before."

"Sure, I'm sure!" the little seal insisted.

"Well, I'm n-- wait. There's someone nearby." Marie replied.

Hunter sniffed the air. "That scent. It's human. And it's close by. Upwind."

"And lemme guess," Horse said, jaded, "he's the 'clubbing seals' type."

Hunter gave a teasing smirk, before returning to seriousness, "A scent cannot tell such things. Unless they have fresh blood on them, I suppose."

"Thanks for the image," Horse said, tonelessly.

"You're welcome."

"HAPPY EASTER!!!" this newcomer declared rather more loudly than necessary. He wore a calender-print bunny suit with an exposed face and a white domino mask (despite not wearing one before now, his identity easily discoverable). He carried an oddly colorful weapon that looked like a cross between a bazooka and a rocket launcher.

"It's not even Christmas yet," Horse said. "You'll just have to hold your horses. Uh -- not unlike what Hunter is currently doing right now by holding me."

"BANZAI!" the Calendar Creep, ignoring the talking seal. Hunter was forced to dive out of the way, with Horse still in his arms, rolling to his feet in the same movement.

"Did someone clone Parker again?" Horse said, sounding a little dizzy, as the color-dyed egg propelled from the overly-colorful bazooka smashed against a tree, revealing it contained a dull red concoction that proved highly adhesive. "Wait, was that gum?"

"Not funny, Horse," Marie said, her body tensing. She knew how hard it would be to get that stuff out of fur. She didn't want any embarrassing bald spots that would inevitably come from that.

"BANZAI!!"

Another miss, but Hunter dropped Horse just the same. And he didn't dodge. And he wasn't hit.

"BANZAI!!!"

Hunter withdrew his firearm with a practiced flourish and comfortable ease, as Horse said, mildly impressed, "Wow, his aim is worse than Rotiart's."

"BANZAI!!!!"

"Definitely worse than Rotiart," Marie agreed.

"BAN--" Click. "B-Ban--" Click. "Banzai?" Click.

"Don't think so, creep," Hunter said. He took aim, not for the Creep, but the handle of the bazooka. The most nonlethal shot he could make. Hunter's aim (though he would passionately deny it whenever the subject was approached) was second to only Parker's. "You're out of ammo."

Hunter fired, and the Creep was forced to drop the bazooka. He left it behind as he fled the scene. Hunter reholstered his weapon as he and Marie gave chase.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Horse shouted, tottering after the two. But the two had lost his trail rather quickly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2015, 08:02:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
In Dumber

Noelle, Sam, and Kelly were spending their spare time simply going to a movie. Only to find that they didn't really care for anything that the theater was playing. All three were disappointed, but then they saw a calendar-print snowman singing:

"Bees shall buzz.
People shall blow dandelion fuzz.
And I'll be doing whatever Creeps do, only dumber!
A drink in my hand,
My booty up against the burning sand,
Prob'ly getting gorgeously tanned, only dumber!
I'll finally see a summer breeze blow away a winter storm,
And find out what happens to Calendar Creeps when it gets warm.
And I can't wait to see,
What my enemies all think of me.
Just imagine how much cooler I'll be, if dumber!
Dah-dah, da-doo, a-bah-bah-bah bah-bah-boo.
The calendar and Creeps are both so intense,
Put 'em together, it just makes sense!
Rrr-raht da-daht dah-dah-dah dah-dah-dah dah dah doo.
Winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle,
But make me dumber and I'll be a . . . happy Calendar Creep!
When life gets rough, I like to hold on to my dream.
Of relaxing in the dumber sun, just lettin' off steam!
Oh, the sky will be blue.
And you guys will be there, too.
When I finally do what Creepy things do, only dumber!"

Then the guy in the suit, right on the street, took off the costume and simply wasn't there the next moment. The three RAFians blinked rapidly.

Noelle, in her human morph, was the first to break the silence, "Did you guys see that too?"

"Unfortunately," Kelly said.

"Eh," Sam said, with a shrug, "it could be worse. It could have been directed by M. Night Shyamalan or Uwe Boll."

"M. Night is a better human being, and the lesser of the two evils," Kelly said.

"Do you think that was that Calendar Creep guy the others reported?" Noelle said, with plenty of time still in morph. She was very conscious of the fact that she was in morph.

"I certainly hope not," Kelly said, "because that means that --"

"-- That we let him get away." Sam finished.

"Best get back to the forum," Noelle said, "besides, I have an hour and a half left in morph."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 12, 2015, 08:59:11 PM

Ok, PLEASE never refer to the Calendar Creep's "booty" again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2015, 04:34:42 AM

Noted.

This book might be slightly shorter than normal, a little less than the requisite twenty chapters. But you will know if I'm ending the book early by just aking a peek to the left there, my personal text.

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Inside a Creepy Lair

The Creep, wearing his calendar-print shirt, jeans, shoes, and white domino mask, pulled at a previously unseen belt of black leather with a gold buckle. Then he clicked a button on the buckle, and he vanished with a quiet crack.

Near instantaneously, he was in a massive, expansive room. It was not opulent, but was in a dilapidated state and poorly lit. The singular light that had a surviving light bulb (which was not on) swung a bit from the Creep's sudden appearance.

The warehouse room was not empty, and extremely drafty. It was not heated very well, and that was something that was under the "not good" heading during winter. But Valen O. Day, the Calendar Creep, didn't care. It suited his needs for the moment, so it served its purpose.

He had managed to procure a mattress, a pillow, and a couple of comforters. All hidden behind two large crates, unseen by any intruder who came into the warehouse by the front door.

He went ahead and bundled himself up in this nest-like bed, pulling the comforters over his head. He realized that he still had the domino mask on, so he popped it off and set it down beside his mattress. He prepared to sleep, sleep here again, squatting in a warehouse that he did not own, that was abandoned, that was forgotten.

Of course, the Creep wasn't the only squatter here, but the previous one had abandoned this warehouse as her headquarters a great deal of time previously. She didn't even realize that she had left behind some raw materials that the Creep was quick to capitalize on when he discovered this place, as he was now effectively homeless when he decided to become a supervillain, and a rather ineffectual one (though he remains oblivious to this fact) at that. His lease at his last place, in some irony, was still unbroken.

The holographic projector, the toxic turkeys, the ballistic balloon launcher, the flamethrower, the orb firework, the bow and the formerly-filled quiver, the acid pie, and the Easter egg bazooka -- they were all here when he got here. He just made a few alterations, and fixed them up a bit, although rather unskillfully.

But the Creep was confident that his little hiding spot, and his little nest within this hiding spot. Confident that it would never be discovered. Never considering that this place had a former proprietor, a former squatter that might be a little ticked of her stuff being used without her express permission.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 13, 2015, 10:22:44 AM

She collected all that stuff?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2015, 03:28:52 PM

Made, more like.

They're detritus of discarded schemes, Saffa. She doesn't always implement every scheme she has. Some don't make the cut.

Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCLXVIII: "Falling Out" -- Two RAFian foes have a tumultuous relationship, and the RAFians get sucked in.
• Book DCCLXIX: "The Fmek Reject" -- A Fmek retreats to Earth for sanctuary, which is seen as treason by other Fmeks.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Debatable

"He's dangerous," Genies said.

"You said that he missed you by a wide margin," GH said.

They were back in the forum, and they had called together a brief council. Not a forum-wide announcement, mind you. The Creep's potential threat level was a rather contested subject on both sides.

"Imagine if there were other people there at that time," she pointed out. "He may have been aiming for us, but he might have gotten someone else, someone he wasn't aiming for. That is why he's dangerous, if for no other reason but that."

"He has pitiful aim," Faerie said, "he has all the athletic prowess of Rotiart."

"Are you sure this guy is a legitimate threat though?" Parker asked.

"Didn't hear my point, Parker? The threat isn't because of --" Genies said, but Parker raised his hand to indicate that he wasn't finished.

"My point being, is this within our jurisdiction?" the SPARTAN said. "Can't the police force competently cope with a joke like this guy?"

"He had acid pies," Blue said.

"Pie. Singular." SuperNate corrected.

"Not to mention that little bunny bazooka he had," Horse said. Then she looked rather mutinously at Hunter and Marie. "And thanks again for leaving me behind, you two."

"And those ugly holograms he had," GH pointed out. "Assuming he programmed them himself, and didn't just take it from anyone else."

"Those pink-headed arrows," Helen noted. "And the bow. He had those, too."

"That ball firework thing, too," Dino added, with a slight harrumph -- she doesn't like her naptime to be interrupted, and she found that as a grievance with the Creep.

"And that flamethrower," Ash said. "He was going to torch a tree in the town square."

"Not to mention those sludge turkeys of his," Abby added.

"Don't forget his ballistic balloon launcher," Saffa put in. Then she had something occur to her, "My god, that sounds like a 90s action figure accessory."

"Again, why can't the cops cope with that?" Parker insisted. "Every report given was that he couldn't throw the acid pie to save his life, he couldn't shoot and hit his target at point-blank range, and he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. How does that necessitate it to our jurisdiction? I ask, not because I don't want to take action, but because that's how the media will ask, and they could quite easily turn the populace against us if the gullible are massive enough."

"The media be damned," Genies said, anger getting the better of her. "This guy is dangerous. He may not be dangerous like Malice or Queen, but his own ineptitude and incompetence, ironically enough, makes him dangerous!"

"Unfortunately, the media has a lot more power to wield than you give them credit for," Cloak said, speaking at last. "Jombo and the Spineless Ones are crystal-clear proof of just how far it can go. And how destructive it could be."

"I still want to know how he escaped me," Blase said, mulishly. "One second, I had him. The next second, he was gone with no trace."

There was a brief muttering of confirming agreement, followed by an uneasy silence. It was only broken by . . . er, Broken.

"It's almost as if he Apparated," the magic expert said.

"That would mean that he was versed in Potterian magic," Faerie said.

"Who said he wasn't?" Broken said, with a shrug.

"There really isn't any evidence on way or the other," Richard noted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 13, 2015, 04:00:57 PM

So the previous occupant was...? :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2015, 03:02:46 AM

Oh, I think you know.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Deductions

"The question should be where he's holding up, where he sleeps," Cloak said, with his usual quiet seriousness. "That would be where he stores his stolen or created gadgetry, as well as his workshop, if, indeed, he does make his own toys."

"And we haven't a clue where that could be." Genies said.

"Well, that's not entirely true," SuperNate said, "as we have not started to look for clues."

"Thank you for that, Confucius," Genies retorted acidly.

"As you wish, young one," he said, in deliberate self-mocking tones.

"He does have a point," Parker said, rubbing his chin, before realizing he was still wearing his helmet. "The task does seem daunting at first, but there are place we can eliminate."

"Like where?" Gaz asked.

"Places highly trafficked, for one," Blue said, thoughtfully. "With that fashion sense, he'd be easily noticeable. Someone would be bound to notice him if his lair was in a place where passersby were a common feature."

"I concur," Cloak and Richard said in unison, but Richard continued, "that eliminates a fair bit of ground to cover."

Cloak noticed that they seemed to assume they had jurisdiction in this matter. He kept this opinion to himself, though he wondered if he should.

"How can we be sure that he's still in the city?" Marie asked. "Couldn't he have his nest outside of the city, in another town perhaps, and he commutes to this one to commit his crimes?"

"What crimes, exactly, has he committed?" Saffa asked.

"Attempted murder, destruction of public and private property (if a store's floor is considered private property), attsmpted destruction of public property, attempted homicide," Terenia said, offhand,"and probably more then I can think of at the moment. So, yeah. He's not above reproach."

"My point still stands," Marie said, primly.

"Unless he has a teleporting device capable of long-range transport, like instantaneous transmission or something," Blue said, knowingly, "I don't see how. Unless he has a vehicle with cloaking technology. But that wouldn't fit with that flashy personality of his."

"But then that contradicts the whole 'not highly trafficked area' thing, doesn't it?" Hunter asked.

"Not really," Cloak put in, "not everyone can be 'on' like that. Everyone needs some time to themselves once and a while. Otherwise, I'd imagine it would be exhausting, being so flashy and extroverted."

"Well, where does that leave us? Which is the most isolated place in the city?" Helen asked.

"Best guess?" Cloak said. "Those abandoned warehouses."

"You mean that district that Malice used to have her headquarters in?" Parker asked.

"What better place to start than there?" the Realm Walker inquired earnestly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2015, 02:52:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Warehouse District Investigation

Instead of causing further mayhem or generally disturbing the peace, the Creep just milled around his warehouse home. He wondered if there was anymore toys that he could slightly tweak to be holiday-themed. Though he wasn't sure how to incorporate Labor Day into the form of a crime.

He came upon seven heavily damaged and fragmented exosuits. He looked around at the detritus around and delightfully discovered that there was enough scrap and whatnot to repair all seven. He may have not been very intelligent when it came to strategy and tactics, but he did possess an intuitive, inventive ingenuity that enabled him to repair all the items that he used.

He just didn't plan how to use them well. This is what makes him a joke. That and his fashion sense, which was almost criminal in its own right.

The Creep smiled creepily as he got to work repairing the exosuits, five of which appeared to be Arquillian in orgin (only with the human exterior peeled away) and two appeared to be Utrom in origin (without the synthetic human "skin").

He knew what he would make these things into. Day Droids.

***

Cloak, Esty, Wild, Blaze, Broken, Oceanspray, Faerie, and Aquilai went to investigate the warehouse, while other RAFians would investigate other viable options discussed. The RAFians quickly went up to the warehouse where Malice had hoarded herself and her schemes, before she indulged in her Tasmanian devil nature to move to a new den.

"I'm surprised that this place is still standing," Faerie said. "It looks like its home to all sorts of vermin."

"And the Creep is one of them," Blaze muttered gruffly.

"We don't know that for sure," Aquilai pointed out. "He might not be using this place as his lair at all."

"And he might," Cloak said. "Malice could have even come back, even though this lair was already compromised."

They opened the door, and Cloak noted how much this district reminded him of Nacrene City of the Unova region in the Pokemon realm. As soon as the door was open, they were quickly approached by seven figures, roughly six feet tall. Their eyes glowed red, and Cloak knew they were not biological.

"You'd think he wouldn't have made it so obvious," Faerie said, as she took note of the calendar pages that littered the floor. They were from calendars dated from 2000 to 2010.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 14, 2015, 03:14:26 PM

I'm trying to recall in which book I last saw the exosuits.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2015, 06:37:09 PM

"Minute Napoleons", I believe it was. Don't remember the number. I never remember the numbers, just the titles or content or both.

. . . Yeah, I don't have the strongest memory. Hence why I have the book outlines physically written down.

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Lackluster Battle

Estelore's natural stellar light, which she didn't think to suppress, illuminated the warehouse dimly. Cloak and Oceanspray didn't need it, and Cloak actually found it somewhat bothersome, though he didn't say it aloud. But a repressed snarl did escape his lips, though it was directed at the seven automatons.

"No, Cloak," Faerie said, firmly.

"What?"

"Don't mechbend them," she replied.

"Come again?"

"Don't rob us of the fun, Cloak!" she mock-scolded.

"You can't be serious," the Realm Walker said, very seriously.

"I'm quite so," Faerie said. "If you mechbend them, and destroy them with that, that would make the presence of the rest of us here very superfluous and --"

"Faerie, this isn't a game."

"Considering how much of a joke the Calendar Creep is," the faerie countered, "I am inclinded to disagree. We so rarely have a moment to enjoy a battle, what with the whole 'the-world-is-on-the-line' or the 'time-is-of-the-essence, rafe-against-the-clock' things interfering with it. Allow us to actually savor the certainty of victory this time."

"First light, Faerie!! You sound like a petulant child playing a video game." Cloak said, unable to confine his frustration anymore. "There is no high score for you to attain! There is a time for fun and a time for serious work! And this is a clear case of the latter."

"When have you ever had fun?" Faerie protested. "You're serious work all the time. You know what they say, Cloak. 'All work and no play makes you a dull boy' or something like that."

Before Cloak could retort, Estelore said, "As entertaining as your back-and-forth is, you two, I must tell you that I already took care of them."

The two looked over and saw seven steaming piles of slag.

"Aaaaaw!! Esty!" Faerie protested, as Cloak rolled his eyes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2015, 08:55:14 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Backed to a Corner

A sharp gasp.

It would have been unheard by human ears. But Cloak and Wild possessed superior hearing, and picked up on the faint sound instantly. They also picked up on something else too.

"Fear," Wild said at once. "Someone's here and they feel fear."

"I always hated the pungent odor," Cloak muttered. "I don't know how the Sinestro Corps can stand to be powered by that stuff."

"I don't smell anything," Oceanspray said.

"Count yourself lucky, then," Cloak said, moodily. Then his attention was grabbed as he turned his head in a direction to about 8 o'clock. He had easily Earthsighted a series of running steps with obviously no attempt to cushion them. "There! Follow me."

Cloak streaked onward, with all his feline grace, speed, and agility. Cloak knew he was on the right trail, as the odoriferous scent of fear became more and more obvious. And, frankly, rather noxious and nauseating. Cloak forced himself to stomach the stench, as they come closer and closer with what he assumed was the Calendar Creep.

"Recharge, dammit!" Cloak's acute hearing picked up. The voice was definitely male. And tense. And fearful. "Recharge already!!"

Cloak proceeded on hands and the balls of his feet, he was very feline in his movements when he did this. Cloak found that his tail tip twitching, as he was satiating his feline hunting instinct, but he would never cop to it when pressed.

"Why aren't you recharging?!" came the desperate cry. "Recharge! Recharge!! Recharge!!!"

It was the Calendar Creep. He was definitely in panic mode, but he did not hear Cloak's silent padding uo behind him. Cloak placed every footstep very carefully, not really knowing where he learned this. The feline Realm Walker noticed that the Creep had his back to him and Cloak could see that he was messing about with a device on his belt that also acted as a belt buckle.

Cloak couldn't help himself. A low growl had escaped his lips, just loud enough for the Creep to hear. The Calendar Creep jumped up and pressed his backside to the crate that he had been facing moments before. Cloak stood up, rearing to his full and substantial height.

"D-Don't k-kill m-me!" he said, oozing fear from every orifice. Cloak felt a stab of shame when saw this. He was afraid of him, and Cloak had used that to his advantage.

I truly am my mother's son, he thought ruefully, clenching his teeth at the thought.

"We haven't any intention of killing you," Estelore said, quite firmly. "But we do ask you to disarm yourself. Your gadgetry has great potential to kill others. You've been lucky thus far, lucky that no one has been injured or even killed."

"Th-They're mine," he said.

"Yours?!" came a haughty, disdainful voice. Female. "It was my stuff you've been using and making cruder. Really, silly human, you have no sense of elegance, no sense of subtlety."

"Malice," Cloak said coldly. "Why am I not surprised that you're involved?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 14, 2015, 11:53:03 PM

I fear for this guy now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2015, 04:51:14 AM

Oh, only if he really ticks off Malice. She's only miffed right now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Quiet Quarrel

"I have had nothing to with the scheming stupidity of this simpleton," Malice said, caustically. "Though I was always aware of his use of the items. But I allowed it."

"Wait, what?" the Creep said.

"I've put up with your ineptitude and eccentricities," Malice said, addressing the Creep directly now, "but I've only allowed you to carry on this long because I took a certain . . . delight in following your string of failures. But you've finally become tiresome."

"This coming from the woman who has a longer string of failures?" Blaze said, snarkily.

"Quiet, puny Dweller," Malice said, agressively dismissive.

"You don't tell me --"

"Easy, Blaze. You know how overinflated her ego is," Faerie said.

"Impudent Dweller," Malice sniffed.

"And proud of it!" Faerie said, sardonically.

"I shall deal with you later," Malice said, plucking the belt off the trembling Calendar Creep, addressing Faerie.

"And do what?" Cloak said. "Your scope of power isn't as vast as you like to pretend to be. Your quarrel is with me. Leave all others out of it."

"Yeah, you keep thinking that, Spawn of Sage's Spawn." Malice said, derisively. "You don't know me as well as you think you do."

"I'll take that as a compliment, then," Cloak shot back.

With Malice distracted, the Calendar Creep, since he no longer had his teleportation belt to use, tried to sneak away. Malice didn't appear to be aware of this, as she had turned partway to face Cloak.

"You are so arrogant little --"

"Funny how you can diagnose the problem in others," Cloak retorted.

The Calendar Creep began to creep and tiptoe away. Very slowly and very carefully.

"How dare you speak to me in such a disrespectful way?!" Malice said, in a scandalized tones.

"Disrespectful? You pathetic, hypocritical crone." Cloak said. "You have respect for no one but yourself, and you have the nerve to accuse someone else of disrespect? Really? What have you done to earn anyone's respect? We're all nothing but toys, but pawns, but chess pieces to you. You have no feelings for others beyond yourself."

The Calendar Creep creeped slowly still, gaining a fair distance between the Realm Walkers. His eyes were on two cloaked figures.

"Well, duh," Malice said.

The Creep's strides increased and quickened. He was nearly clear to make a mad dash to the door. . . .

"Malice," Cloak said. "you know how this is going end eventually."

"Yes," she agreed, "but it isn't going to be the way you think."

There! Freedom was just a mere sprint away!

"Malice," Cloak said, with narrowed eyes. "If you don't stop, you're going to end up like Cataclysm. Dead."

Malice got what Cloak was threatening. And it occurred to her that he was trying subtlety to tell her to repent her actions. She laughed heartily and maliciously. "I'm not Abomination, Cloak. You can't talk me into becoming one of the 'good' guys. I'm a bad girl. And I like being a bad girl."

The Creep began to sprint to the door, but was easily and swiftly caught by Estelore as Malice Walks away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 15, 2015, 11:29:20 AM

Well, that was an impressive monologue.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2015, 04:16:36 PM

Yep. Now the next chapter of the ninety-third book may be late tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Creep's Crib and Faerie's Special Item

The Creep didn't get off scot-free, which was actually refreshing. Granted, he didn't get as much time as he would have had he managed to seriously harm or even kill someone. But he did have a number of crimes to answer for.

Disturbing the peace, public property damage, attempted public property damage, attempted murder, attempted robbery . . . the list didn't include the crimes against fashion.

He was put in a minimum security prison, which made somewhat more a joke in the supervillainous circles. But he managed to take solace in one very minor thing.

His orange prison outfit was also a calendar-print one, which was intended as a joke.

***

Faerie was in her thread, alone. She didn't have the brooding sessions that Cloak usually indulged himself in. But she was hiding a secret in here. Something that she did not tell the others about.

She held the secret item in her hands, packaged in a long, thin box. It was about the size of an average cane, but it was far more dangerous than a cane. Far more dangerous. Faerie had never used this mysterious artifact, for she did not like the power it possessed.

With in her hands, she remembered how she had obtained it . . . and how its previous owner had found her, with it. This was before she became a RAFian, though.

"Well, hey, how ya doin', have a seat, have a drink.
Boy, it's good to see you, what can I say?
Whoa! Sorry, gotta run! We'll get together again.
Say, what was your name, anyway?
Well, I'm workin' on the problem.
I'll get back to ya soon.
. . . But don't try to call me.
I'll be in a meeting every afternoon.
For a year, maybe longer -- keep in touch!
Thanks for droppin' by, and have a nice day.
Uh, the check's in the mail.
You're beautiful. Don't ever change.
You know what I mean.
My guy will call your girl.
We'll talk, we'll do lunch,
Or leave a message on my machine.
So, sir, won't you resign
To an item decline?
The check's in the mail.
Would I lie to you?
Well, hey, wait a minute,
What's the matter, hold on,
You want me to fork over the loot?
You say you hate my guts?
You wanna take me to court?
And you got yourself a lawyer with a three-piece suit?
Well, I'm proud to say you're not
The only artifact critic of mine.
So, if you wanna sue me,
I'm afraid you're gonna have to wait in line.
Take a number, thanks for calling!
Who loves you?
Don't forget to read the fine print!
See, the check's in the mail.
You're beautiful. Don't ever change.
You know what I mean.
My guy will call your girl.
We'll talk, we'll do lunch,
Or leave a message on my machine
So, sir, won't you resign
To an item decline?
The check's in the mail.
Would I lie to you?
Aw, trust me!
The check's in the mail.
You're beautiful.
Don't ever change.
You know what I mean.
Why don't you leave a message with my girl?
I'll have lunch with your machine.
So, Salem, won't you resign
To an item decline?
The check's in the mail.
Would I lie to you?
The check's in the mail.
Would I lie to you?"

The original proprietor of the item did not seem to think that this was funny, and keep hounding the faerie for his stolen item. Faerie had no choice. She knew to what purposes that the original owner would use the item.

It wasn't for anything good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2015, 02:58:47 AM

New chapter.

BOOK XCIII:
THE BRAND
CHAPTER ONE:
Salem and Saberhagen

"Hello, mother."

Malice scowled at the boy who addressed him. It was his little joke, and one that Malice did not appreciate. She had always been childless, and even if she had mothered a child, she would either be an abusive or negligent parent. Malice had made a vow to herself to never have one.

"Hello, Klarion."

Now it was the boy's turn to scowl as he petulantly petted his American shorthair cat the color of shadows itself. It had intelligent yellow eyes, and the boy's appearance belied his true power. He was a being of magic, a child from Ledgerdomain, a realm of magic speculated to be the origin and source of all magic (this has of yet to be substantiated). The boy's attire was severely out of date. Something a child of his age would have worn a century or two ago, and in predominantly blacks and grayish-blue hues. His hair was like that of Mandark from "Dexter's Lab", with two locks curling up giving the impression of horns.

"I am not Klarion," he said, his voice had the barest trace of a snarl in it. Saberhagen hissed his master's discontent. "As you very well know. My name is Salem."

"Like that's any better," Malice said, crassly coy.

Saberhagen hissed a snarl, and Salem did nothing to silence his familiar. Malice found it nothing more than an irritating distraction. She was well aware that Salem brought him in an attempt to intimidate her. She was an anthropomorphic Tasmanian devil, not an idiot.

"If you called me her for nothing better than to antagonize and insult me," Salem said, with an elegance and refinement in his speaking that belied his age, "well, then, I have much better things to do with my time."

"I do have the information you seek," Malice said.

"Information? About my lost item, or the thieving faerie called Larka?" Salem said, interest aroused again.

"Perhaps a little of both," Malice said, deliberately vague. She was actually enjoying toying with him like this, knowing full well that he couldn't really do anything -- Realm Walkers were essentially magic-proof.

Salem, however, wasn't a real big fan of this game. He was rapidly finding it rather tiresome. "Okay, will you drop the pretense? Are you going to tell me what you want for the information or not?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2015, 05:33:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Auction Gala

"Ugh."

"Now, don't be like that, Uncle."

"Ugh." Cloak said again. He wore an ID mask, which projected his normal human form, only in a tux. Which he wasn't so fond of. He never liked dressing up all formally. Granted this wasn't exactly the same, but still.

"Now, now, Uncle." Shadow said bracingly. Her ID mask projected her normal human projection, only in a modest dress of royal purple, her projected black hair done up in a very fun hairdo, and black dress shoes. "You need to get out every now and then. C'mon now."

"Ugh."

"Now don't you start, Faerie." Horse said, glamoured to appear as a human in a glittering, formal, snow white dress, long flowing hair of the same color, and modest little white shoes. "This gala is just the ticket for a fun evening."

"Fun for who?" Faerie said tonelessly. She had glamoured herself to look impeccably human, in a glittery, emerald green dress and flat-heeled black shoes. She had also glamoured Horse, as well.

"Oh, come on, Fae, Cloak," Mr. Guy said, dressed in an attractively careless manner. He wore a tux, like Cloak's projection, but he seemed far more at ease about it then the Realm Walker. "It could be interesting."

Cloak curled his lip in disgust. He never liked formal events. Never. He never enjoyed events like this, with all the obnoxious pomp and circumstance. He did not like the constant judging of events of this nature, and he felt there would be a lot. And he was judged too often in his nearly thirty years -- er, that's in Nexusian time. If one was to go by the Dweller planet of Earth's time, it would be nearly three hundred years of judgement that Cloak had endured.

And it wasn't just the fear of judgement, it was that Cloak was never really too partial to crowds. That's one reason why, during any assembly of RAFians, he tended to stand off to the side, or to the back. The reason could be as simple as his tiger form, as tigers aren't the most sociable of animals.

But then another person came to the gala. An unchaperoned child, holding a black cat with rather intelligent yellow eyes. Cloak fixated on the cat, while Faerie fixated on the boy.

"Not him," she muttered, irritation evident. "Not him."

Nobody else heard her, though. The boy's gaze was just as fixated on her as hers was on him. His pale face, toped with his pitch-black hair, gave the appearance of an ugly, spooky, porcelain doll. His face was masking his unbelievable rancor at the faerie.

"That's no ordinary cat," Cloak muttered to himself. He was sure in his assumption.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2015, 12:05:46 AM

Just a heads up, I'll be out of town for the weekend from this evening until Monday morning, and while I will have my phone with me, I might not check into RAF too often. So, here's the PDF of the last book before I forget:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2015, 02:55:53 AM

Noted. Have fun!

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Terse Approximations

Salem only eyed Faerie for a moment, clearly relishing her discomfort and her flight-or-fight response, knowing full well that her scope of what she can do was exceedingly limited. Even the cat seemed aware of this conflict and relished it, same as his master.

The others did not know the history behind these two, and were a bit concerned by Faerie's demure reaction and lack of her usual bravado. It was rather out of character for her, and so they came to the only reasonable conclusion.

This strange newcomer was the reason. And yet, the cat is what held Cloak's attention. He knew the cat wasn't what it pretended to be. This benign state was just a disguise, he was sure. But a disguise for what? Cloak could not be sure. But the cat was far too intelligent to be a garden-variety housecat.

"Hello." the boy, Salem, said.

Faerie was fighting her desire to run, to check and see if the item was still secured, both physically and magically. She could not allow this boy to get it. At any cost. It would be far too dangerous. Too dangerous . . . far too dangerous . . .

"Larka, you have something of mine," Salem stated, without preamble. "I would very much like it back."

Faerie hesitated. Faerie never hesitated like that. "I don't know what you're talking about, kid."

Her attempt at her usual bravado actually felt fake. But only those that knew her would have detected it. Salem's face showed absolute seriousness, devoid of joviality and frivolity. He didn't like to play games, and he preferred to be cut and dry about everything. His bluntness was rather odd for someone who looked as young as he did.

"Larka, let's not play games." he said, firmly, as if he was the one calling the shots. "You know you have it. I know you have it. The transaction is a simple one. Give me the item, Larka."

"Will you stop calling me that? What was it? 'Klarion'?"

The boy's composure slipped just a bit. "My name is Salem, as you full well know, Larka!"

"My name is Faerie," Faerie said, genuine irritation showing in her tone.

"No, that is your species," Salem said. "And an inferior one at that."

"Well, that was unsurprisingly speciesist," Cloak noted.

"Give me what's mine, Larka."

"I do not have whatever you want," Faerie said. Cloak could tell that she was lying.

"That's the way you want to play it?" Salem said, quite seriously. "Fine. I shall take it from you. Even your human -- and seal -- pals will not be able to help you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2015, 03:47:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Faerie's Flight

Faerie dropped all pretense. "You don't know where it is."

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere," Salem said, but his face showed no emotion. "Now go get it and return it to me."

Faerie rankled at this. "You don't tell me what to do."

"I just did."

"Doesn't mean that I'm going to obey, you spoiled brat," Faerie countered.

Salem's tone grew cold, quiet, and demanding, "Get it. Give me what's mine."

"It isn't yours!" Faerie replied swiftly.

"Feel like we're missing something?" Horse asked rhetorically to the others.

Faerie continued into a tirade. "Just because you stole it doesn't make it yours! I have no intention on using it for my own personal gains, like I know you will. I'm just lucky I manage to get it away from you when I did, before you could use it with your full maliciousness.  With your full cruelty. With your full inhumanity."

"Give back what you took!" Salem said, petulant, losing his composure. He had dropped Saberhagen, who landed daintily to Salem's right side without complaint. "Give it back!"

"No!"

"Then I'll just have to take from you," Salem snarled.

"I don't have with me, you prepubescent idiot." Faerie said.

This was starting to garner unwanted attention. Neither Faerie or Salem wanted this, but Salem couldn't help but smile. Faerie noticed this and quickly realized what it meant. She quickly fled toward the forum as the boy vanished with a slight warbling whooshing sound, leavjng Saberhagen behind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 17, 2015, 05:10:26 AM

That cat reminds me of the cat we used to have years ago. We harboured a mutual hatred for each other.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2015, 06:56:52 PM

That ain't gonna last long, Saffa. And since I posting this now, tomorrow's chapter may come later than usual.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Nice Kitty . . .

"What was that about?" Mr. Guy asked.

But Cloak continued glare the cat, and saw that it began to glow in an eerie, supernatural light. His eyes glowed bright yellow, as if they were lit from behind.

"I knew that wasn't an ordinary cat," Cloak said, quietly.

Saberhagen grew to about six feet tall, taking the appearance of a yellow-eyed, black-furred Appoplexian -- without pants. He had four-fingered hands and three-toed feet. He had boned, quill-like black brows on his skull, over each one of his eyes, and he had a large, single retractable claw coming out of both wrists that was rather like the sickle claw from a velociraptor. Instead of keratin, the structure of the claw was mostly pure bone. The jaw was pronounced and had two yellowed fangs sticking out.

"Well, that was unexpected." Mr. Guy said.

"Yeah. We're really getting off our game," Horse added, still wearing her glamour provided by Faerie.

Saberhagen roared, and Cloak roared back, in challenge, ripping of his ID mask. Cloak was actually slightly larger than Saberhagen, but size doesn't always guarantee victory. Cloak's elemental might would indeed put him at an advantage, but he seemed to have forgotten about them for the moment, given into the throes of his animal form.

"This could be bad," Shadow said, immediately. She had assessed the situation quickly and glanced over to the other two. They had assessed the situation and reached the same conclusion as they did.

"Shadow, go along to the forum and help Faerie," Mr. Guy said, at once. "We will stay here and try to evacuate the gala if need be."

"If Uncle loses his lucidity, I will be the only one to bring him out of it," Shadow pointed out the problem with this plan. "Besides, if Faerie's at the forum, she should have plenty of backup there, right? It's not abandoned, right?"

"Good point." Horse conceded.

The roaring and snarling did not stop as the two bipedal felines did battle. Their hands were clasped firmly as they attempted to push each other back with their brute strength. Cloak clearly had superior strength, as he managed to throw it towards a back wall, a bricked wall, away from the entrance of the building the gala was held in. Cloak allowed himself a triumphant roar.

Saberhagen didn't like that, and decided to pull out his last trick.

He changed again. Doubling his size to about twelve feet tall. He had thicker fur everywhere except on his feet, hands, chest, neck, and lower jaw. He had two giant claws now on his hands rather than the one, and his fingers and toes now had small sickle claws. He now also had giant claws coming out from his elbows. He now had three, giant red spikes on his back that are covered long, thick, black mane. His face was black with flipped-up hair and sideburns, and his eyebrow quills were now a golden amber and sharp.

Saberhagen roared, and Cloak roared back, sounding somewhat meeker in comparison. Cloak tried to engage him battle again, but Saberhagen's brute strength actually surpassed Cloak's for the moment, as the change replenished Saberhagen's stamina, whereas Cloak did not have so much as a senzu bean.

Cloak would not be deterred. He prepared to engage him aga--

SMACK!! Shadow slapped him across the face.

"Stop screwing around, Uncle!" she scolded. "You're just going to exhaust yourself to death!"

Cloak was still momentarily dazed and stupefied.

"The cat is just a distraction, Uncle!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2015, 04:10:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Too Late

"STOP RIGHT THERE!!" Faerie screamed.

Salem was just leaving her thread, adding to the sense of violation. In his hand, he held the item, freed from its packaging and wrappings. Red magical mist curled over his hand as he gripped the thin shaft of the prized artifact. To the casual observer, it looked like an average, run-of-the-mill, black branding iron or a rubber stamp with an handle elongated into a shaft. The stamping end had two symbols resembling the Elder Futhark rune Odal and the Anglo-Saxon rune Ing, but not quite.

And, yet, that was one of the little idiosyncrasies to magical artifacts. They always look so mundane, so commonplace, that someone without foreknowledge of such an item would not know the kind of power they possess. And this branding iron has a very unique abiliy, one of which that was the reaso. Salem desired it so badly.

"I really should charge you with death -- dah, I mean theft -- for taking the Brand from me." Salem said pragmatically. "Now that I have taken what you took --"

"You stole in the first place from that wealthy, old dude." Faerie countered.

"He didn't deserve it," Salem said, without hesitation.

"It isn't yours!"

"It is now." Salem said, his grip tightening.

"Like Hell it is!!" Faerie roared, launching herself at Salem, who looked unconcerned and unintimidated. Salem vanished in a way that rather looked like a shimmer from "Charmed". Faerie, unable to stop her own momentum, slid along the ground, messing up her clothes, causing small tears here and there.

"No!" Faerie screamed to the seemingly abandoned forum. "No!"

Faerie was in crisis. She had succeeded for months in keeping the brand safe. Years, even. Faerie noticed that Salem didn't seem to age a single day, but that wasn't important. The band in that boy's hand is a very dangerous situation to be had.

But how did he get in? Code Avalon was up! Faerie looked around surreptitiously and suspeciously. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed that Code Avalon was down. It could be simply a bug, a malfuction, a hiccup in power, or . . .

It was Rotiart's turn for security detail again. This was still very a conversational move, and Faerie were one of the ones who thought that Rotiart shouldn't have gotten out of it because that would have been a reward, not a punishment.

She was regretting her arguments at the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2015, 10:09:45 AM

Hafta rest my back, so . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Uncage the Beast

Salem did not go very far, and he could quite clearly hear Faerie's panic-induced rageful tirades quickly dissolve into despair and depression. He took a savage, masochistic pleasure in it.

Serves her right, he thought maliciously. For stealing MY stuff. Turnaround is fair play, after all. No matter how cliche, the addage still works.

He walked on hard flooring of the rather constricted room. Through his magical connection with Saberhagen, he was marginally surprised to discover that his feline familiar was having difficulty defeating that loser with the cloak! Well, this was unprecedented.

So, Salem just imparted some of his own magic from his own magical reservoir to his familiar feline, allowing the further change. He tsk-tsk-tsked as he proceeded forward with his plan. He held the brand firmly in his right hand, his dominant hand.

The cage was largely unnecessary anymore since the beast within had mellowed out considerably. But it remained as a precaution, remaining fairly well-maintained despite the superfluous need for the cage. The cage bars had some sort of rubbery, purple lacquer painted rather liberally on them.

The beast was currently slumbering in the far corner of this cage, seemingly not minding the cage at all. It would occasionally give a snorting snore, but not be roused by it. It just shifted position, wiggled its long, black-tipped, yellow ear, and then peacefully slumbered on.

Yes, Salem thought, as an exuberant sense of excitment filled him. Like a greedy child at Christmastime, he eyed this beast hungrily. Its might soon will be his to command as he saw fit. Yes, this creature is worthy of being my beast. It will do as I say, without question, thanks to this reliquary!!

Salem approached the cage door, and examined it thoroughly, especially the lock. It looked like a simple combination lock, all metal with a black dial and white numbering. Salem spun it, and tried to put in 19-1-12-5-13, as the beast's ear gave the slightest of twitches.

Nope. Still locked.

He tried to put in 13-1-7-9-3. The beast seemed to be roused by this.

Nuh-uh. Still securely locked.

He tried to put in 16-15-15-20-1-14-7. The beast rose into a sitting position, as it blinked its glowing red eyes blearily. It was almost like it needed a cup of coffee to wake up in the morning.

After a fleeting moment where Salem thought he heard a click, but it was still locked. Now Salem was getting ticked off. He decided to magick the lock open.

"Kcolnu uoy diputs kcol!!" he shouted. But this caused some magical interference as the blocks came into effect, causing the spell to rebound on Salem. Fortunately, it didn't have much the terms of power, so Salem survived fhe feedback.

"Open, damn you!" he shrieked, attracting the Pootang's attention, and smacking the lock with the brand. The lock popped open and fell to the ground. "Uh . . . I meant to do that."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 20, 2015, 03:18:58 AM

Why is Rotiart still on the roster again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2015, 06:50:51 AM

Don't worry, Saffa, pretty soon . . . he won't be.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Branding the Beast

A lowl growl. The Pootang was getting crankier, irritated by this whimpy thing made out of toothpicks carrying a black toothpick waking it up from its nap. It didn't like being woken up prematurely, as it got real lazy lately.

Salem readied himself for the brutal charge that he was informed about. He was eager to witness firsthand the brutal savagery, the unrestrained ferocity, the sheer show of power. It was like someone watching a really good monster movie for the first time, at they pointjust before they reveal the monster in its full glory, when the viewer is not expecting or even considering disappointment.

The Pootang walked up the cage door while upright, taking its time. This languid walk caused some of the excitment to leave Salem like a slowly-deflating balloon. This was the fearsome monster Malice had described? Salem couldn't help but wonder if he hadn't been swindled on this account.

The Pootang approached Salem as imperously as he could. Its strides suggesting a ****y swagger. The beast wasn't impressed by the scrawny boy with the Mandark haircut. It felt that it could destroy the pathetic creature before him with minimal effort.

"Ha!" Salem shouted, as he leaped up pulling his arm back and the branding iron with it. He struck! When he landed, the magical mark appeared on the Pootang's forehead. Salem stood up, sniffed, and straightened out the Puritan-style clothing he was wearing, while the Pootang simply just stood as if it was going, "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh . . ."

"Come out." Salem commanded. Then he tapped his foot impatiently as the Pootang complied sedately. "Well, hurry it up!"

The Pootang complied, with a growl of dissonance.

"Now, now," Salem said, authoritatively, "none of that. None of that sass."

The Pootang complied, with a mutinous gleam in its eyes. Salem clapped his hand to the rabid Pikachu, and vanished with the monster to a destination known only to Salem himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2015, 05:05:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Conflicting Marks

The two appeared back in the center of the forum. A rather brazen move on Salem's part, as Faerie was still in the forum. Sure, she had given into despair, but she was stil as strong as she ever was. But Salem was acting on pure arrogance and a childish need to flaunt his victory.

"Come," he commanded to the Pootang, who growled in defiance but complied.

"Now, now. None of the sass, if you please."

They continued to walk to the exit, walk in an overtly sedate manner. Salem's sheer overconfidence and obvious ****iness was really evident in his decision to do this. This was a victory for him, and he believed that he needed a victory march. It wasn't much of a victory, this was true, but it was a big one to him. After all, he was just a boy, in body and behavior at the very least.

It had crossed the little witch boy's mind to use the Pootang as a mount, but he decided against this because he simply didn't feel like it right now. Besides . . . there was another reason that he wanted to go to the forum and walk serenely towards the exit. A punishment he sought to dole out.

Suddenly, a silhouette in the dim light. Salem reacted quickly without thinking, without considering. He wielded the brand rather like a dagger, held blade down. He plunged the brand on the forehead of this newcomer, assuming it to be Faerie. But it wasn't.

It was Demos.

Demos was branded as Pootang was, but Demos was sentient and possessed a Mark. The Pootang did not possess a Mark, and the question of its sentience was up for debate, which made its compliance to Salem all the easier. This struck an interesting quandary, as the Mark was supposed prevent such a controlling influence. Granted, it got a bit muddled in the case of Myitt, and her host Tara, and other Yeerk RAFians and such.

"You are under my control," Salem said, imperiously. "You must do as I say."

"That's debatable," Demos said, though he sounded pained.

"No sass, mister!"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"You must obey me, demon!"

"Whatever." Demos said. He was feeling pain due to the conflict between his brand mark and his Mark of a RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2015, 06:01:29 AM

Don't tell me the Mark breaks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2015, 12:00:05 PM

Hmmmm . . . can't say.

New book ideas!

• Book DCCLXX: "Usurpation of a Role" -- Another child is born into RAF.
• Book DCCLXXI: "Underseen's in Love" -- Underseen gets a love interest.
• Book DCCLXXII: "Wright Out of His Mind" -- An old foe of RAF gains a power that he can use anywhere.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Childish Chaos

Salem had taken the Pootang and Demos to the city, as night continued to fall. The street lamps had come on. Salem still managed to maintain his iron grip on the brand, and enabled his control (tenuous control in Demos's case). He allowed himself to cut loose a little, and be a child.

"Hurry up, you two!" Salem shouted.

"Yeah, yeah," Demos said, snarkily. "When I'm good and ready."

"Do not speak to me in such a way, demon."

"Make me," Demos replied, caustically.

Salem raised the brand.

"Oh," Demos said, "right."

Then they came upon an ice cream truck, parked in an alleyway. It looked abandoned, which would make sense, because who would want ice cream in this kind of frigid weather? They were nearing year's end, and it was still winter.

Salem didn't care. He was essentially a spoiled brat, though the way he acted and behaved at odd times, indicated otherwise. He ordered Demos and Pootang to crack it open, wanting vanilla ice cream, or something similar.

"Well?" Salem said. "What are you waiting for?"

The Pootang punched a hole in the side of the van, and teetered it so that it rested on two wheels, so that the treats within would tumble out. Nothing poured out.

"What?" Salem said, sounding haughty and scandalized at the same time. "What is this madness?"

"It's winter, little boy," Demos said acidly. He didn't seem too bothered by the cold, which could be considered on considering what Demos was. "Ice cream is a summer treat."

"How dare you disrespect me, you -- ooh, cake!" Salem began before being distracted by a cake store display. He turned to the two he branded. "You know what to do."

"Normally, I'd be up for a little mindless destruction," Demos said, as the Pootang immediately complied. "But, little boy, you take all the fun out of it."

"Stop calling me 'little boy'." Salem demanded, with threatening tones. But something was taken out the threat when one saw that his face below his eyes was smeared with frosting and cake crumbs.

Instead of being intimidated, Demos was just repulsed. It was at this moment, Saberhagen appeared out of nowhere, and leaped in Salem's waiting arms, worming his way to be around his neck, as if he were a fur to be worn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2015, 12:43:54 PM

So the brand worked in spite of the Mark?

Quote

Book DCCLXXI: "Underseen's in Love" -- Underseen gets a love interest.

And Saffa learns that jealousy is not actually a myth, and Memoirs becomes a sitcom. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2015, 06:03:59 PM

Not quite. It's more like thebranding is influencing Demos to obey Salem, not directly compelling him to do it. Namely it's only barely working. Demos, if he displayed sufficient willpower, could break it, but he is curious on how this whole thing with Salem will turn out, so that's why he's going along with it.

And now that I think of it, this book isn't as dark as I thought it would be. Not a bad thing, though. Especially considering some later books. Er, wait a minute . . . I may eat those words sooner than I thought . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Alerted

"Wait," Cloak said, peering around peevishly. "Where did he go?"

"Does it really matter, Cloak?" Mr. Guy said. "We're lucky that these rich bastards are so self-important dicks that they didn't notice the two large bipedal felines going at it outside their gala."

"Gee, dear brother," Horse said, affecting an innocent tone, "tell us how you really feel."

"Never mind that," Cloak said, not willing to be deterred. "He probably went back to that witch boy. The cat must be his familiar."

"Familiar what?" Shadow asked.

"Later," Cloak said, brushing the question aside. "I've got the cat's acrid scent. Let's go."

Cloak did not wait for them to give there consent to the spontaneously-made plan, but headed out immediately.

***

The antics of Salem and his two branded minions did not fail to attract the attention of the RAFians. Faerie quickly filled in the only other RAFians who weren't currently on missions of their own or on personal business: Broken, Gaz, Laserbeak, and Sakki.

"Why did you safeguard it?" Gaz said, as they dashed toward the coordinates.

"Um," Faerie said, sarcastically feigning ignorance, "because I didn't want this to happen?!"

Laserbeak squawked angrily in defense of Gaz.

"You misunderstand me, Faerie," Gaz said, keeping her cool. "What I meant is why you didn't just destroy the brand."

"This brand, I take it that it doesn't work like a Horcrux," Broken said.

"It's not a Horcrux," Faerie said, gliding in front of them. "It's just imbued -- or imbibed, I can't remember -- with some serious dark, chaotic magic."

"That's why simply destroying the item, the reliquary, housing the evil magic would be pointless." Broken said. "The magic itself would not be destroyed with the item. It would have to go somewhere."

"The magic itself is indestructible?" Sakki inquired.

"No, but it can be purified, transformed." Broken replied. "Or, if it could not find a suitable housing to contain it, it just might dissipate -- but that would be exceedingly unlikely."

"'Exceedingly unlikely' is our bread and butter," Gaz said dryly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 21, 2015, 11:29:53 PM

Sheesh, Guy. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2015, 04:20:56 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
On the Scene

The branded minions and Salem had finished with the cake store, and Salem went about looting toy stores, blowing up a movie theater sign showing a sequel that he didn't like, destroying a noisy car in desperat need of a muffler that annoyed him with the noise, and the like. This made them rather easy to find, as Salem had thrown caution to the wind as soon as he branded the Pootang.

"You've done enough damage for one night, young man," came a voice.

Salem looked around and immediately saw a figure silhouetted against a rising moon. The figure was obviously wearing a cloak. The figure leaped of the short, squat building and landed almost daintily in front of the boy.

Behind him was Mr. Guy and Horse. Shadow was standing in her uncle's shadow.

"You think that you're going to stop me?" the boy sneered at the very thought.

"Yes."

The smug smile on Salem's face evaporated. "No one's talked to me like that in so long."

"Then it was overdue." Cloak said, with a Batman-like seriousness. "And get used to it."

"I'd rather not! Teg eht tniop!!" Salem said, his smug smile returning.

Nothing happened.

"What?" Salem said, his smile pulling a Houdini again.

"Clearly, no one had informed you about Realm Walkers." Cloak said. "We're magic-proof."

"Well, this went south rather quickly," Salem said. "Slaves, get over here!"

The Pootang and Demos appeared at Salem's side.

"Demos, what do you think that you're doing?!" Sakki demanded, as her group arrived on scene.

Demos didn't answer, being too curious how all this would play out. The brand was subtly influencing this decision, otherwise Demos would have already attacked Salem, and threatened to dine on his entrails.

"Don't you dare ignore me, Demos!!" Sakki demanded.

"Attack!" Salem ordered his two minions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 22, 2015, 04:57:19 AM

Quote

Shadow was standing in her uncle's shadow.

This is so meta. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2015, 05:38:04 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Sakki's Slap

"Why aren't you attacking?!" Salem demanded of Demos.

"Oh, when I'm good and ready," Demos said, noncommittally.

"Now! Minion, now!"

"When I'm good and ready," Demos said, with a shrug.

"Don't you sass me!"

"Who's sassing?"

"UGH!!!"

Salem turned to the Pootang, and commanded, "Take 'em all down. Without mercy."

With an almighty roar, the Pootang charged forward, being reminiscent of the charge of a grizzly bear. The RAFians began to battle the Pootang, and it seems to go fairly well, in favor of the RAFians.

But then Saberhagen decided to enter the fray as well. And Salem imparted some of his magic reservoir into his familiar, resulting in the black Ultimate Appoplexian-like form. This complicated things on the RAFians' side. But they managed to hold their own. They were out-of-practice when battling the Pootang, having grown all too accustomed to its new docile demeanor.

Sakki wasn't fighting, though. She had just about enough of Demos standing on the sidelines, watching, waiting to see how everything played out. She strode directly towards, him, ****ing her hand back.

SLAP!!

Sakki had smacked Demos acrossed his left cheek with all the strength she could muster. The brand in Demos's forehead shattered, and all the influences that it had over him.

"What?!" Salem shouted, realizing what happened. Then Salem pour some of his magic reservoir into the brand and, thus, transferring it to the rabid Pikachu. Then he entered the fray himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 22, 2015, 05:44:54 AM

Whoa, huge influx of new chapters lately. Not that I'm complaining

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2015, 07:54:45 AM

All because I hurt my back at work and the doctor told me that I had to stay home, at least until my recheck later today, GH.

*doesn't look Gaz in the eye*

Um . . . sorry, Gaz. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Alas, Poor Laserbeak

The battle actually began to fair poorly for the RAFians.

The combination between the two brutes of the Pootang and Saberhagen, as well as the ranged combat of Salem seemed to prove to be a pretty solid team. Salem still held onto the branding iron, with a tight fist.

Cloak couldn't react fast enough to effectively enough to battle the two brutes, still feeling tired from his previous battle with Saberhagen. Whereas the feline familiar had recouped some energy when it transformed back into its housecat form. Cloak hadn't had such a method to recoup his energy and strength. He was the foe that Saberhagen primarily focused on.

Shadow tried to mimic her uncle, but found herself being forced to dodge too many times to be of any real offensive use to the battle. So, she played defense.

Horse was easily overlooked by Salem and Saberhagen, but the Pootang was well-versed in seeking seal prey. Though it, too, was out of practice in this endeavor.

Mr. Guy was doing the best he could with a found weapon, an old, forgotten, rusty pipe. But he wasn't making much headway. He had to be careful not to hit his allies, as thjs was a rather chaotic battle.

Broken was trying alleviate the problems that Salem was causing magically. Salem took childish offense at this, at Broken not letting him win. Broken wasn't impressed by Salem's whining.

Sakki had entered the fray, using a narrow-"beam" sonics on the three. It backfired as it just make them angrier and more irritated. However, Sakki wasn't a one-trick pony. She was a fairly adept hand-to-hand combat.

Demos was targeting Salem, for the indignity of branding him. Of course, he was risking being branded again. Demos was being brashly careless, and he knew it, but he was in the throes of his demonic nature.

Gaz was firing Laserbeak, in his gun mode, but did not make a single hit. Everyone was moving too much. She was reluctant to shoot an ally, and unwilling to take a shot that ran that risk. Unfortunately, she didn't notice that Saberhagen was going to bring down its twin claws down on Gaz, and Salem was aiming a large energy sphere at her.

With a squawk, Laserbeak transformed back into parrot mode and flew directly into the path of both. He took both attacks . . . and fell to the ground.

"Beaky!" Gaz shouted, her cry momentarily causing the battle to cease.

Laserbeak fell, broken.

"B-Beaky?" Gaz stammered.

Laserbeak laid on the ground, unmoving.

"Beaky?"

Dying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 22, 2015, 08:23:25 AM

NOOOOOOOO!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2015, 03:04:44 PM

Yeah . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Blind Rage, Unquashable Fury

"Beaky . . . n-no . . . Beaky . . . Beaky, p-please . . . n-no . . ."

For the first time, Gaz's voice sounded no only fragile, but as if it was shattering as she spoke. Laserbeak gave a weak, crackling chirp. He was definitely dying. Shadow approached Gaz cautiously, but Gaz didn't want comfort. She just wanted Beaky to be okay . . . and there was little way he could survive.

"Shhh . . . shhh . . . save your energy, Beaky," Gaz cooed, choking back sobs. "We'll get you put right . . .you'll b-be right as rain in no time."

A sob escaped the vampire, and once it did, a floodgate broke open and she could not stop. The rest of the RAFians bowed their heads in mourning silence, for one of their own. But Broken was nursing an idea . . .

"Oh, wah-wah," came a snooty, unimpressed voice. Salem, of course.

Gaz's eyes hardened with frightening rapidity. Her tears was replaced by a snarl of hatred that made her fangs look more pronounced than they really were. Cloak could sense Gaz's unadulterated anger and ire even from this distance away. He would not be surprised if a Red Lantern Corps power ring came down to try and claim Gaz as one of their own.

"YOU!!" Gaz roared, contorting her face in her wrath.

"Oh, my." Salem said, actually intimidated now. "Saberhagen! Electric Beast! Protect me!"

"There IS no protection from my wrath, little boy!!" Gaz roared as she jumped atop Saberhagen's head, and dodged a Pootang charge easily. "YOU did this, YOU shall reap the ultimate consequence of YOUR decision!!"

"Protect me!!" Salem said, in full-out whine, throwing his hands up in front of his face in fear.

Meanwhile, Broken wasn't convinced that Laserbeak's demise was set in stone yet. He used all his magical skill to not only remake Laserbeak, but make him better while retaining all those little things that made Laserbeak Beaky.

It was only a task a Sorcerer Supreme could undertake -- and, fortunately, Broken happened to be the Sorcerer Supreme. But it woulde be risky. Broken didn't even know it would work. If it didn't it would just cause Gaz more heartache than she felt now.

Meanwhile, Gaz was having difficulties just gettjng to Salem as he put up a energy bubble made of mana to protect himself from Gaz, who was fighting like a woman possessed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 22, 2015, 03:06:49 PM

Yeah, this is an unfortunate coincindence. :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 22, 2015, 06:57:56 PM

Wow, way to give me feels after work. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 22, 2015, 08:17:10 PM

So that's what you meant. Poor Beaky. He shall be avenged!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2015, 02:36:39 AM

And it was scripted (via book outline) to happen months ago. I did warn that the series would get darker -- and this book is canon.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Actions That Maybe Regrettable

Gaz was driven mad by her grief-fuelled rage and wrath. She began to pound away at the magical shield, with a tenacity one would expect from a Fury. But she was grieving, and, as such, she was also incredibly vulnerable.

Cloak watched and was a bit startled to see a bit of himself in the reaction Gaz gave. He knew all too well what dangers could come out of giving yourself over completely to your emotions. He feared that state where all control is lost, due to losing all control over his emotions.

He knew where it would end for her. Gaz would feel hollow and empty, feel a sort of learned hopelessness. Once in this sets in, despair usually isn't too far behind. Even if Gaz could get to Salem . . . if she succeeded in killing him, well . . . it would hang over her head. Knowing that she crossed that line . . . the Gaz they knew would be gone, and Evil Gaz would be reborn anew. Even without the presence of Madre de Vampyra.

Cloak knew that he must act -- but he had to admit, the little brat had it coming. He backhanded an approaching Saberhagen, as Gaz inadvertently elbowed the Pootang in the face which had sufficient force to render the rabid Pokemon unconscious, breaking the brand upon its forehead. Gaz kept hyperfocused on getting to Salem, who cowered within his magical shield.

Meanwhile, Broken was working with a myriad of spells in an effort to restore Laserbeak back to his former glory. It took immense concentration and tapping into most of his magic reservoir. It was going too slow for his liking, but it seemed to be working. And Laserbeak was still alive. Just barely.

Cloak had to stop Gaz before she did something that she would regret later. Sakki, Demos, Horse, and Mr. Guy were charged with taking the Pootang back to the forum, back to its cage.

But Saberhagen stood in the Realm Walker's way. And he wouldn't let Cloak to get pass. It would have been much wiser to get between Gaz and the magical barrier. Each blow seemed to take their toll on the boy's magic, draining it from his magic reservoir in increasing increments.

"Gaz, you have to stop!" Cloak shouted. Saberhagen still barred his path. Cloak really didn't have time for this. Cloak had enough of this beast. It was not a normal cat, the Elements Master reminded himself, but a supernatural familiar of a witch boy. He would use this as justification for slaying the beast, as he just did. He felt regret for what he did, sure, but his hand was forced.

"No, Cloak! He dies! He dies!! For killing Beaky!!" Gaz raged. "HE DIES!!"

"And, assuming you succeed," Cloak said. "Then what?"

Gaz stopped her assault, as she looked at Cloak. "What? What is that you said?"

"If you kill him, then what? Then what are you going to do?" Cloak said, strolling over to her. "Then what?"

Gaz said nothing.

"You continue down this road and you know what will happen," Cloak said, bluntly. "You will become Evil Gaz again. Is this miserably insufferable witch-boy really worth it?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 23, 2015, 02:54:39 AM

On the edge here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2015, 03:43:01 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Amazon Armor

"D-Don't hurt me!" Salem whimpered. "Saberhagen, help me!!"

Salem had to recall his magic from his familiar, so now he just resembled a regular, black Appoplexian. This was why his magical shield had not shattered already. Salem clasped tightly to the brand, as if it were a teddy bear. He trying hard to not cry, to be a tough guy. But he was failing. He still held back tears.

"Back off, kitty cat." Gaz warned.

Cloak glanced back, and summoned stone slabs from the ground, pinioning Saberhagen's arms to his side. Saberhagen's Appoplexian-like strength was insufficient to break these slabs. Cloak could have slain this creature, but he found that he didn't really wish to. Especially after how he had slain Cataclysm. He knew he wasn't perfect, but he never tried to be.

Gaz was calming down, but she was still quite despondent and inconsolable. Laserbeak was more than a robotic parrot to her. He was very much akin to being her familiar, and yet she did not feel any need to slay Saberhagen. That hatred was reserved for Salem himself.

"There, that should do -- ah!" Broken was saying to himself. He was delighted in tone. But Cloak and Gaz did not turn around, not knowing what the Sorcerer Supreme was up to. "It worked!"

Gaz heard Broken and was just about to turn around, to see what he was on about. Only to suddenly be adorn in armor -- golden armor with cobalt blue highlights. The armor looked like a combination of Spartan and Amazon armor -- helmet like a parrot, with a Spartan plume, a gold breastplate, gauntlets, shin guards, arm guards, and an armored skirt.

Naturally, Gaz was caught off-guard. Where did this armor come from? Then she felt a familiarity reverberate within the armor. Her very body felt a joy to be in contact with the armor, and vice versa.

No . . . no, she daren't believe it. It couldn't be.

"B-Beaky?" she said, voice trembling.

The armor seemed to confirm this fact, as well as increasing Gaz's strength and defenses, while lowering her speed and agility a bit. Broken had, in fact, healed Laserbeak, though he had inadvertently changed Laserbeak alternate form. Laserbeak now had a phoenix-like robot parrot form and the armor form for Gaz.

But he was alive. Completely and totally alive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2015, 02:56:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Misstep

"Mother," Salem whimpered in a small voice. He had allow terror to take him, as he was exhausting his magical reservoir. Soon, very soon, he wouldn't be able to so much as send out green and silver sparks.

Gaz was still rather stunned. She had believed with every fiber of her being that Laserbeak had died, had been murdered, had sacrificed himself for her. And yet, Broken had succeeded in snatching him from the very jaws of death, and brought him back to her. Gaz was, naturally, overcome with emotion at this.

Which was the precise moment when Salem's magical barrier collapsed in on itself and he was on his feet, though huddled against the ground. He didn't look like some tough guy, like he fancied himself to be. He looked like a child who bit off more than he could chew, even Saberhagen was unable to maintain its Appoplexian-like form, being reduce to an ordinary housecat form.

Salem seemed to have realized that Gaz wasn't going to leap at him and tear him to shreds or rend his flesh from his bones. So he managed to regain some of his former bravado, as he reminded himself that he still held the branding iron, and its magic was his to control.

He came upon an idea, as he saw the most powerful RAFian on the scene (in brute power, that is) and decided that if he could just get over there fast enough. . . .

He would just have to chance it. He grasped the brand firmly, and charged toward Cloak, feet pounding the pavement with each rapid step. He raised the brand, preparing to strike . . .

"Huh?"

Salem was taken unawares when Cloak easily sidestepped the boy's charge, grasped the branding iron and plucked it out of his surprised hands, as Salem stumbled forward, in one swift movement.

"What part of 'Realm Walkers are magic-proof' did you not understand, boy?" Cloak asked, in a rather unintentional Batman imitation. Cloak was fully aware what Salem's charge and his intent was about, and it annoyed the Elements Master.

Salem looked nettled for a moment, then discovered that he was no longer holding the branding iron. He whined, "Hey! That's mine!"

As Salem made to grab it, Cloak held it aloft, above his own head. There was no way that Salem would be able to jump roughly ten feet to reach it.

"Give it back! It's mine!" Salem said.

"Just because you took it from someone else, doesn't make it yours," Faerie remarked.

"Like you have any right to say that, thief!" Salem spat.

"Hypocrite," Faerie said, almost placidly bored.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 24, 2015, 03:46:28 AM

I am the vengeance. I am the night. I am... CLOAKED FIGURE!

Nah, not quite the same ring to it. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on July 24, 2015, 11:36:40 AM

Beaky! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2015, 04:06:39 PM

Yep.

I was going to work on more chapters, but I'm still bloody exhausted from work today.

:edit: Got a little energy back.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Magic-Housed Artifacts

Salem eventually tired of trying to jump up and reach the branding iron. So he decided on a different tact.

"You can't even use that artifact!" he claimed with a sneer. "Give it to someone who can!"

"I am not stupid, little boy," Cloak growled. "I know you will abuse this branding iron. You have already proven this. You think me a fool?"

"You can't even use it!" Salem shrieked.

"I haven't any intention to use it," Cloak said, wearily.

"Then give it --"

"And I've no intention on returning it to your greedy, abusive hands, boy!" Cloak roared. Salem quelled a bit under the Realm Walker's wrath. "I'm going to destroy it."

"You can't!"

"Watch me."

"You can't! It's indestructible!"

"Then why are you so afraid of me trying? Hmm?" Cloak said, his feline senses easily picking up the scent of fear and witnessing his nervous behavior. "If it really was indestructible . . ."

Salem seemed to hang on to every word, eyeing nothing but the branding iron.

". . . Then . . . could I . . . DO THIS?!" Cloak said, as he ferrokinetically reduced the branding iron to metallic dust and shrapnel.

"Cloak! Do you have any idea what you've done?!" Broken shouted.

"The magic was not broken with the branding iron," Faerie explained, in a rush, "the magic still exists! It has to go somewhere!!"

"And so it shall!" Cloak said.

"Ha!" Salem said, acting as if he knew about this beforehand. He raced towards the magical, red orb that had tongues if red magical energy whip out from it akin to that of solar flares in relation to the sun. Salem was intending on absorbing the magic into himself, then he wouldn't need the branding iron anymore.

But Cloak realized that Salem would try this, and moved to terrakinetically sink him into the ground. Only his neice managed that first.

"You've been a really naughty boy tonight, young man," Shadow said, affecting an authoritative tone of voice.

Cloak cleared his throat and said, "As I was saying, and so it shall. It shall go to Oblivion."

Clook glared at the miniature magical sun, and said, " Well, off with you, then!"

The magical orb appeared to collapse in on itself, and dissipate into nonbeing, into nothingness.

"No!!" Salem shrieked.

"And, now about you . . ." Cloak said, almost business-like, rounding on Salem.

"Uh-oh," Salem said, quite nervously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2015, 06:57:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Baddest

Salem was sent back -- effectively "deported", in a way -- to Ledgerdomain, where his actions and antics would be known. And he would be appropriately punished.

Aside from that, things pretty much returned to normal.

Cloak, not knowing why found himself thinking about the the various layers that make up realms -- the realm core, the material world, Everlost, the ghost zone, Ledgerdomain, the timeline cuticle, void space, and the realm cuticle. There were probably more layers to a realm, but Cloak was either unaware of them or simply forgot about their existance, as not all were easily perceptible.

Cloak shook his head. Why was he thinking of such things now? It was really out of nowhere.

***

Malice was well aware of Salem's essential deportation. She decided that it was enough to celebrate herself, as she never liked the brat. Though it was mere child's play to manipulate him for her own entertainment.

She manipulated him, like so many other people, through song.

"Listen, kid, I think you should know
Bad like me is the way to go.
Being nice is just for saps!
Being good is a handicap!
I'm bad, see?
You gotta be bad, like me.
Will do, you got that?
It takes total commitment to be entirely bad,
Imma tell ya about the fun I've had.
I got this far with just one rule,
Get to them, before they get to you.
Yeah, I'm a dirty devil*.
I run in the fast lane, see?"**

She cackled so hard that it suddenly devolved into a hacking cough. She stopped, and smiled broadly at the thought.

"Think a little game is in order for those RAFian imbeciles," she said, with a cruel smile lighting her face. "And I know just the person to facilitate this game."

A wild, malicious cackle rent the air.

---

*Tasmanian devil, remember?

** Source song (https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?list=PL274DC272588BB8BC&v=wBPWWLkjWpU)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 25, 2015, 02:35:33 AM

I have a feeling we're going to be exploring those realm layers as the books go on. Can't wait.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2015, 03:27:17 AM

Eventually.

New, shortish chapter.

BOOK XCIV:
VOID SPACE
CHAPTER ONE:
Rather Weighty

The RAFians were in the training room, training on different gravities. They were currently at twice Earth's gravity, and Cloak was the only one that seemed to be able to cope easily with it.  Cloak didn't like this type of training, though.

It was too likely to kill someone, if they're not careful. And not every species were like the Saiyans. They wouldn't get a sudden boost of power when they near death, they'd just be near death.

"Amping up to four times Earth's gravity," Goom said. That effectively quadrupled their weight.

Cloak experienced a momentary discomfort, as Gaz, Saffa, Blue, GH, and Dino especially were struggling with it. But there was a reason why Cloak wasn't really affected by the fluctuation in gravity.

"This . . . is hard." Dino said.

"I fail to see the point of this training." Cloak said, without any strain to his voice.

"How . . . are you . . . still standing?" Saffa asked.

"Do you think that, considering the thousands of millions of realms out there, that all the Earths in those realms have the standard gravity?" Cloak said, rather irreverently.

"Doesn't . . . answer . . . question." Dino said.

"Well," Cloak said, "it probably stems from the fact that Realm Walkers are essentially corporealized energy. I don't know for sure."

"Realm Walkers are really overpowered," Blue said, rather testily.

"Amping up to eight times Earth's grav--"

"NO, Goom." Cloak said. "I think we should end this simulation."

The others were silent, before each gave their ascent. The gravity was lifted, and Cloak only felt a momentary discomfort.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 25, 2015, 12:22:03 PM

I notice the book titles are beginning to differ a bit from their originally planned titles in the list.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 25, 2015, 02:35:09 PM

Taking a guitar into a gravity chamber can't be good for its neck :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2015, 02:51:58 PM

More like I made a mistake in the last chapter of the previous book, Saffa, and was too lazy to change it -- er, I mean, I decided to roll with it.

And, GH, it survived the training simulator, and your guitars are made of sterner stuff than ordinary guitars. What precisely? Well, that is your little secret, I think. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Projector

There was a scientist by the name of Dr. Emil Bradford Goode. He was an expert (though he will only admit to being knowledgeable and highly skilled) in theoretic multidimensional science. He worked in ignorance to the existence of Realm Walkers, preferring not to watch the news because of how much of it is horribly sensational and terribly macabre. Not to mention he was well aware how certain newspapers and television news could be biased, either overtly or covertly.

All he cared about was his work. He had no wife, no kids, no siblings, and his parents had long since passed away. All he had to him was his work. That's all that he had, and that's why it was so important to him.

Emil always meant well, but he came off as a bumbling, bungling fool. His naivete was, at times, charming and innocent, but, at others, irritating and dangerous. He had tanned skin with black hair, was of moderate height and was of a thin build. He wore a flannel shirt, blue jeans, black belt, and a pristine white lab coat.

He worked over a white device the size of an alligator snapping turtle, with a carapace the shape of a frisbee and a flat plastron. There were two "D"-shaped handles with gray grips towards the rear of the device, placed at a forty-five degree angle from each other. At the front of the device, where the vertex of the handles would be, there was a nozzle-like appendage that was not unlike a camera lens. It was built to be rather sturdy, and was of moderate weight -- not featherlight, but not excessively heavy.

It was a projector.

A projector into a black void of nothingness. No one has managed to breach this area of the realm, Goode was sure. Then again, he had no concept of the Realm Walkers.

He decided to call the nothingness area simply "void space", unaware that that just happened to be exactly what it was called. He was the only Dweller known to be able to penetrate the layer beyond Everlost, the Null Void, and the ghost zone. Even beyond the timeline cuticle. Enabling the Dwellers to access something no Dweller before has accessed. That no one before could even question whether or not they should have access to.

And, as the case with all inventions, despite the altruistic intents of the creator, there would always be one person -- one person at the barest minimum -- who would use the invention to hurt or harm people. With the onset of printed words, there came libelous words. With onset of the internet, there were viruses, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and a myriad of more things.

This invention would be no different.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2015, 08:11:36 PM

Ah, another 190 views and we'll be at 100,000 views. That's an accomplishment, I believe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Problem With Naivete

This invention wasn't one to stay under wraps for long.

A man in army general uniform with his four stars placed, rather noticeably, strolled right into Goode's ramshackle laboratory. The entry was unwarranted, unbidden, and unwelcomed. The man had black hair in a regulation crew-cut, beard stubble, a broad, blunt nose, small beady eyes, a thick build, and a large, square jaw. He had tanned skin, and a haughty air of condescending arrogance.

Dr. Goode was surprised, reacting rather benignly to this unlawful entry. Dr. Goode was far too good-natured to throw the intruder out. Especially when this newcomer seemed to be perfectly unarmed. And yet, somehow, something felt off about this guy. Something disingenuous, something deceptive, something manipulative about this guy.

"Civilian, I'm General John Jaxur," he said, without preamble.

"Dr. Emil Goode," Dr. Goode introduced himself, good-naturedly and benignly. "How may I help you?"

Dr. Goode was really stretching it by being this polite to someone who made an illegal entry, as he forced his way in. Even if you're part of the military, you cannot just enter someone's house unbidden and make demands of them, such in this way.

"I heard that you've made a portal generator," Gen. Jaxur said. "I've come to commandeer the device."

This was not the way policy sad to handle such things, especially because Jaxur was alone, and even his uniform was rather questionable. The general stars were actually on upside-down. But Dr. Goode did not know the intricacies of the policies and discipline coded with the military. He wouldn't be able to discover a fake as a true military man would have.

"Pardon?"

"I've come to collect the device," he repeated. "It's a matter of national security."

"Wait -- what?"

"I'm going to stop speaking nicely, Dr. Goode," he said, subtly suggesting a threat. "Give me the device."

Dr. Goode reluctantly relented, and handed the device over. Even though he had no legal obligation to do so. He didn't trust his gut on this one, and he just handed over a device that could be turned into a weapon.

To a guy who was obviously not a real army general. To a guy who was, in reality, a high-ranking Knight of Humanity. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 25, 2015, 10:36:16 PM

Oh, great. ::)

In the Saffa origin fic I'm working on, the Knights are actually starting out on a silent military re-infilitration campaign, shortly after the events of the first Knights book (Cannon's death etc). So I shouldn't be surprised. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2015, 05:50:03 PM

Ah. 'Kay.

I keep finding myself rereading Book LII ("RAFians Alive"). Clearly, it is one of my better books, I believe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Ultimatum By Knight

Static.

An image comes into view, blurry at first, due to the static. The image stabilized to reveal several figures clad in steel armor. Seven, eight figures total. Of various heights and builds. The one that was obviously Jaxur was in dead-center, though his identity was as ibscured as the rest.

"Attention, world." Jaxur said, in ringing tones. They had hijacked the airwaves to put out their message, which was actually quite illegal in this day and age. "Do we have your attention?"

Then Jaxur looked at someone beyond the camera, and spoke rather abusively, "What d'you mean the camera's not on? The red light's on. Well, fix it then. We need -- oh, it's on now? Took you long enough, you useless lump!"

Jaxur tried to recapture the megalomaniacal atmosphere of the video, but it was too late. It was already ruined. But that didn't stop this high-ranking Knight of Humanity from trying to sound all impressive and grand, when, in reality, it was quite the opposite. But, thrn again, all bigots try to sound more grandiose than they truly are, refusing to see just how pathetic they truly are.

"Attention, world." he repeated. "We are but a few Knights of Humanity. We are the ones  who protect you from the filth mucking up our paradise. The vermin who come here, unbidden and unwanted and unwelcome, and saturate our Eden with their abominable unnaturalness. They defile our world with their poisonous presences. They are the very sin of both nature and technology. They were not born here. They were not created here. They don't deserve to be here."

He gave a rather pregnant pause, in an obvious attempt to allow the tone of the message to sink in, when in reality most people had just shut off their televisions.

"The common terms for these blasphemous creatures are 'aliens' or 'extraterrestrials'," Jaxur continued. "Impure beasts that haven't any right to exist. Only the human race has the fortitude, the divine blessing, to live and survive, as well as all other Terran life we have dominion over."

Another brief pause. This was becoming habitually annoying.

"So," he droned on, "we, the Knights of Humanity, issue an ultimatum to all the non-Terran, alien filth polluting our beautious planet out there. Get the hell off Earth, or we will FORCE you to comply. You have no choice. You cannot refuse. You will leave or we will send you to a far less desirable place."

He paused briefly -- did he think he was William Shatner or something?

"That is all."

Static.

***

"They cannot be serious," Saffa snorted derisively.

"They would not go through all the trouble of pirating the airwaves if they had nothing," Aquilai pointed out.

"They probably just have another Andalite toilet or something, and think that they have some sort of super-weapon, again." Parker said, dismissively. "Just because they think they have some sort of end-all weapon doesn't mean that they do."

"Yeah, just because they despise aliens doesn't mean that they're above using their technology," Goom said, dryly. "These are fanatics that we're dealing with, remember."

"Hey, if the ends meet the means . . ." Helen said vaguely.

"I don't think you said that right," Parker teased. Helen ignored him.

"Do they actually think people will capitulate to them?" Cloak said, quietly. "They've shown time and time again what jokes they are. And, yet, never before had they pulled a stunt like this. They never issued an ultimatum -- granted, this was a vague one. But this is certainly a departure from their normally laughable and ineffectual tactics and strategy."

"You think something's up," Abby put in, shrewdly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 26, 2015, 11:19:38 PM

This has given me more inspiration for the fic, actually.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2015, 08:20:40 AM

Saffa, that's how Horse's "Revenge of the Banned" came to be, unless my information is faulty. She wasn't inspired by "Memoirs", but by the RAFparodies. All 801 of them. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Disappearances

The Knights apparently did not take to the ambivalent, indifferent reaction to their garrulous ultimatum. They did not like the fact that their ultimatum had a very low viewership. They did not like the objective fact that . . . that no one took them seriously.

Jaxur decided that this was a sign of disrespect. And this would not do, as no one, but no one disrespects him. They would just have to show people that they meant business. Yes, that's what they'd do.

They would take matters into their own hands. And, as with all lamebrain bigots, that was never a good thing.

***

"Tetramand adolescent, male. Kinecceleran adolescent, female. Pyronite adolescent, male. Osmosian adolescent, male. Methanosian adolescent, male. Anodyte adolescent, female. Human adult, male." Yarin read from a readout.

"And what do they have in common?" Saffa asked rhetorically.

"They're all adolescents?" Faerie answered irreverently. Then she conceded, "Well, except the human, that is."

"They've all disappeared," Cloak said. "The Knights are making good on their ultimatum."

"We don't know that," Helen said, at once. "It could be a veritable plethora of things we have yet to consider. They were teenagers, except for the human. They could simply have been runaways or something."

"Even if it wasn't the Knights, it wouldn't stop them from taking credit for it." Parker put in, jadedly.

"There is a correlation between the Knights' ultimatum and these disappearances," Cloak said. "They happened after a full thirty-six hours after the ultimatum was issued. No one took them seriously, as there was no mass exodus from the planet. Right, Yarin?"

"No spacecraft was detected by RAFian sensors," Yarin confirmed. "This is true."

"And I doubt that boom tubes were used," Cloak added.

"We would have registered the energy output, and boom tubes have a very unique energy output." Yarin put in.

"So, unless there was another method currently unknown to us," Cloak continued, "no one has left. Thereby no one has taken the Knights' threatening ultimatum seriously."

"There could simply be no aliens on planet at the moment," Saffa pointed out.

"Roughly 9.11% of the current population are foreign species," Yarin sniffed. "The numbers remain the same as the night before."

"Well, 9.11% of the current population are open aliens," Cloak corrected. "Malice is still in-universe, and I doubt that she would report her presence."

"I factored that in," Yarin said, sounding a little offended that he would not have taken this into account.

"The point still stands that we could have undocumented aliens here," Cloak said. "But we're getting off-track from the point. The Knights must feel that lack of compliance had forced their hand."

"But how can the Knights be causing people to disappear?" Underseen asked. "There hasn't been any trace of them since their disappearance."

"They could have kidnapped them," GH postulated, but then refuted his own suggestion, "but even that would have left evidence, however minute. Signs of a struggle, and whatnot. There was none of that was there?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 27, 2015, 08:30:40 AM

Whup, nearly had Modify-Post Syndrome. Good thing I came on to document the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2015, 02:37:15 AM

. . . But I didn't modify my post.  :huh:

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Meeting of Polar Opposites

"In any case, something must be done," Richard said.

"Storm their headquarters and take back the hostages?" Faerie suggested, as if she was only advocating a trip to the local grocery store. "Sounds good to me."

"I was actually thing of something a bit more . . . diplomatic," Richard said. "Perhaps we can settle this whole nonviolently, and come to a peaceful conclusion."

"You're serious?" Sakki said, skeptically.

"We always take the more hostile route," SuperNate considered, "we might come to a compromise, I suppose."

"Bigots do not compromise. Bigots do not capitulate." Parker said, bluntly. "They demand. They oppress. They are hostile towards peace. They thrive and live off of hatred."

"Parker, be optimisitic," Helen conjoled.

"I'd rather be realistic," he replied dryly.

"Just because you extend the olive branch doesn't mean that it won't be angrily slapped away," GH pointed out. "They may not choose to sit down at work on a peace deal."

"They may just use it to justify their claim, or may very well become even more fanatical," Cloak said, quietly thoughtful. "Bigots have already made the decision to close their minds to facts, choosing to believe that they are superior in all senses of the word, in every aspect. The chance of getting through that mire of bigotry, especially when we don't have the advantage, especially when we don't have a bargaining chip, is effectively nil."

<Cloak makes some valid points,> Esplin said, thoughtfully. <The effort to come to a peaceful conclusion seems like a long shot.>

"All we can do is hope for the best," SuperNate said. "I know it doesn't seem likely that they'll even acquiesce to a sit-down."

"We can send a delegation of RAFians," Richard said. "Mods and prestigious RAFians, to meet a delegation of theirs. We'll see if they comply."

***

Surprisingly enough, they did comply with the request.

Richard, SuperNate, Ash, Cloak, Parker, Abby, and Saffa went as the RAFian delegation, while the Knights sent their eight, still fully armored, helmets concealing their identities. There was a thick-set one (the one who spoke in the video), a thin, female Knight, one wearing an ornate ring that he fiddled with when idle, one wearing a locket or pocket watch with an ornate "KoH" on it, one that held a gold chalice for some reason, one that wore some sort of coronet atop her helmet, one that had engraved serpents on his armor, and one who looked like he barely made it into manhood by the size and build of him. All of their expressions were inscrutable, and they all possessed melee weapons. This Cloak knew without a doubt because he Earthsighted it.

"Let's get down to business," said the lead Knight. "First of all, you will filter your ranks of the vile alien scum that dwell --"

"We are here to discuss peace," Saffa said flatly.

"No," the lead Knight contradicted, "we're here to discuss your abject capitulation."

"We never said we would capitulate to inane demands," Parker said immediately.

"You will bow to our whims," the lead Knight threatened. "Or you will go to the Void."

Cloak took particular notice of the last word.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2015, 04:04:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ruminations and Meeting's End

The meeting quickly deteriorated after that.

The Knight had walked into the meeting expecting and believing the RAFians would capitulate and abide by their terms. Abide without question. That the RAFians had come to them to essentially get their "orders" from the Knights. In their utmost arrogance, in their undeserved sense of superiority, they thought they had some divine right to order the RAFians around.

The RAFians, Cloak in particular, did not enjoy being ordered around by these arrogant pieces of a compost heap with the collective intelligence of a mouse. The RAFians took their leave, but wasn't without drama.

The lead Knight angrily told them that they were not dismissed, and to get back to the table. The RAFians did not respond, but abjectly turned their backs on them.

"Don't turn your backs on us!" the lead Knight, Jaxur, shouted angrily at the percieved disrespect. "Get back here!! You were not dismissed!!"

They unsheathed their "hidden" weapons, and stood up. The RAFians looked unimpressed.

"Get back here, or leave in pieces," Jaxur threatened, holding out a broadsword. On either side, the others held out a variety of swords, except the manchild who held out a Peter Pan-like dagger.

"You do not know who you're trifling with," Cloak growled.

"Silence, filth," Jaxur said, as Cloak was the only real overt alien of the bunch.

Cloak didn't respond but flicked his wrist, and all eight Knights flew back to the far wall. The Knights made a very detrimental miscalculation by coming to this meeting in all-metal armor. Then made another when they decide to wear their bigotry right out on their sleeve, especially to someone who was a known ferrokinetic, especially when they were wearing all-metal armor.

The RAFians left, as the Knights were humiliated.

***

On the way back, Cloak ruminated on, not the goings-on at the laughable mess of a meeting, but on the word the lead Knight used.

"Void".

Cloak did not know why the word struck such a cord with him. He thought on this, he pondered on this. He did not like the conclusion that he reached. He hoped he was wrong. He really hoped that he was wrong.

No one known had even breached Everlost, though the ghost zone and Ledgerdomain has been breached before. . . . But none have breached the timeline cuticle. . . . except the occasional Time Lord inside a TARDIS . . .

So, is that farfetched that the Void Space was breached? But that was potentially incredibly dangerous. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 28, 2015, 04:08:31 AM

Then I must've missed it altogether. I'm getting old. :P

It's been a good few years, Saffa's definitely reconciled her history with the Knights. They've gotten a lot flashier since their silent days, though. Gold chalice? Really? ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2015, 02:42:24 AM

Oh, we broke the 100,000 view mark. Yay!

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Explanations

"They couldn't have," Cloak muttered.

"Couldn't have what?" Abby said, at once.

"Made a portal into Void Space," Cloak said.

"Excuse me, but 'Void Space'?" SuperNate asked. "What's that?"

"Yes, I shouldn't have expected you to know," Cloak said. "It's one of the many layers to a realm. Just like a cell is composed over various organelles, a realm is similiar."

"This is gonna be educational, isn't it?" Saffa said.

"The outer most part of the realm is the realm cuticle, the layer that only my kind can pass through as we please when we Walk." Cloak said, going into a flow with this information dump. "Within that is Void Space, the space between timelines. It is believed to be empty, full of nothingness and darkness."

"But don't you know already? Don't you pass through this 'Void Space' every time you Walk?" Parker asked, aptly.

"Yes," Cloak acknowledged, "but Walking is very nearly instantaneous. One doesn't meander when Walking."

"Ah," Parker said, in return acknowledgement.

"Anyway, beyond that, is the various timeline cuticles, which prevents the Void Space from intermingling with actual timelines. Only a sparce few Time Lords manage to penetrate this cuticle, if my information is not incorrect." Cloak said. "Within this timeline cuticle, it gets a bit more murky. I believe there may be a lot more layers, especially when one considers that all the Lantern Corps store their personal lanterns in pocket 'dimensions' until they need to charge their rings. But the ones I know about are Everlost (a place where only ghost children go for some reason), Ledgerdomain (I believe that is where Salem and Saberhagen may have come from), and the ghost zone (which is less picky about admittance than Everlost). Perhaps the places you call 'heaven' and 'hell', as well, could be included. But those are two layers Realm Walkers cannot enter for whatever reason."

He paused as they reached the forum.

"The last two parts of a realm -- the parts that I know of any way -- is the material world, in which we are dwelling in right now. Then the realm core."

"What's the realm core?" Saffa asked.

Cloak considered a moment before saying, "It's nothing. Nothing to be concerned about."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 29, 2015, 04:31:30 AM

Foreshadowing there?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2015, 02:38:11 AM

Foreshadowing, you say?

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Void of the Knights

The Knights stormed away from meeting site when they were free to move again. Naturally, they were thoroughly disgruntled about this humiliation. But did they acknowledge their mistake, their error? No, of course not.

They searched for the poor victims from who they would take their bigoted frustrations out on. Non-Terrans -- anyone who's species wasn't borne from Earth. If the individual was born on Earth, that was immaterial to the Knights. It had to be that their species originated from the planet to be acceptable -- and even if it was so, but the species was not human in the slightest, they would deny that they were a Terran-borne species.

But that was the thing with bigotry -- it's exclusively exclusive usually with little to no rhyme or reason, whereas the more egalitarian view of things tended to be more inclusive. It's also funny how quickly fear of "the other" can escalate into hatred and oppression. Funny how it can give rise to so many awful coalitions of people, with the Knights just being one of many groups espousing hatred and bigotry -- the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, the Council of Conservative Citizens, and possibly an endless amount of hate groups.

And all because someone happened to be different from the individuals in question dared to live, dared to simply exist. This also wasn't a trait strictly relegated to humans, either.

The Knight managed to unmask a disguised half-Saiyan, half-human child. They sucked him into Void Space with both his parents -- his (surprisingly calm and reserved) Saiyan father and his human mother. The Knights felt nothing about such an act, as they considered the human mother rather sinful and disgusting for breeding with a nonhuman -- disregarding that Saiyans resemble humans a great deal. Then again, bigots of this nature are all about perceived purity, even though that is, at most, a stupidly trivial thing to concern yourself with.

The Knights weren't above shoving humans who did not agree with their fanatical ideology into the Void Space either. They were rather hypocritical in this way.

Sadly enough, they weren't done.

Their victims grew to include a hidden Prypiatosian-B (inside a containment suit), disguised Ewok, a hidden Cerebrocrustacean, a disguised Vulcan, a hidden Aerophibian, and a disguised Zabrak. All shoved into the Void Space.

And the Knights were still not done.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 30, 2015, 04:09:35 AM

Quote

it's exclusively exclusive

Very eloquent, Cloaky. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2015, 04:13:21 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Action to Be Taken

"A male Saiyan. A female human. A male half-Saiyan/half-human hybrid. A male Prypiatosian-B, wearing a containment suit. A male Ewok. A male Cerebrocrustacean. A female Vulcan. A female Aerophibian. A male Zabrak." Yarin reported. "A male Appoplexian. A male Gimlinopithecus. Possibly more disappearances. No trace of a struggle was found, though this means nothing, as the Knights could have easily infiltrated the police and crime scene investigators."

"We have to act," Cloak said, at once. "To choose inaction, would be wrong at this point."

"Cloak's right," Faerie agreed. "If we choose not act, the Knights are going to sweep the Earth. They aren't even following their own ideology anymore!"

"How aren't they?" Helen asked.

"They are all about human superiority," Sakki answered. "But this the second human they 'disappeared'."

"They must have a projector of some sort," Cloak mused. "Given what we know . . . they are obviously using Void Space as some sort of incarceration place, for the crime of either not being Terran and daring to exist or opposing the Knights."

"So, they have finally realized their goal of becoming a legitimate threat," Saffa said, with a scowl. "Well, what's our next move?"

"A full frontal assault?" Parker suggested.

"No," Richard said. "That might just tip them off to our intentions. It might destroy whatever this projector is."

"Or they might destroy it themselves, just to spite us," Gaz put in.

"So, we go in by stealth." Ash said. "Sneak in and take the projector. Do some recon first."

"The projector could be bulky, like the shrinking machine from 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids'," Aquilai noted. "Something that wouldn't be easy to spirit away."

"Not to mention we have a responsibility to rescue the victims," GH said, altruistically.

Cloak wondered if he should mention that the Void Space is a place that wasn't really hospitable to life. Unless the species could survive in a vacuum, Cloak believed the people to be dead.

"Well, on that count, could you just Walk to this Void Space, Cloak?" Saffa asked.

"Can you morph directly to another morph?" Cloak answered with a question.

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2015, 02:36:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Baiting the Trap

The RAFians had decided on what they called "the Berenson Gambit".

They had set up some bait to draw the Knights in -- what appeared to be a Geochelone Aerio with an Arquillian perched on his shoulder like a parrot. Two of the most peaceful species known. Irresistible targets for the Knights to somehow vilify, and condemn.

It was almost too telling, but bigots tend to be on the stupid side, for the most part, because their own superiority complexes limit their thinking. But it does not mean that they are not dangerous, if only for their finite comprehension of those who are different.

The Knights, unable to resist this bait anymore than a shark or Taxxon could resist a blood trail, came sniffing around like a year-old pup who didn't know any better. They came in their full regalia, armor and all. It was a wonder if they even took that armor off at all, or even if they chose not to bathe because it required takjng off their armor, which they actually considered a tangible symbol of their species purity, their blood purity, or something stupid, foolishly obstinate, and asinine like that.

Then again, Parker had habit of keeping his armor on at most times as well, but the reason for that was a bit simpler. He was simply obsessed with it, though Helen's presence has dulled the edge of that obsession.

Anyway, the Knights began to stake out the area, proving that they could be tactical when they decided to turn their brains on. They didn't really notice the obvious flaw of these two aliens, but that was really fortunate. And it was what the RAFians were hoping for, what the RAFians were counting on, what the RAFians planning on.

Even Jaxur himself showed up.

With the Void Space projector.

They weren't hesitating on their ridiculous crusade. Proven when they didn't bother to question whether their natural disposition was benign or malignant, whether it was idealistic and altruistic or selfisb and cruel. All they knew was that they were sentient, and not human. In their rather limited view, humans are the only sentient species on the plan, despite this not being true.

They never questioned their actions or the ramifications and the consequences of said actions. It was a bit reckless on their part, true, but they didn't tend to think these things out. And the fact that they were doing this out in the open (granted, there was forest cover) meant that there was a greater likelihood that they actually had people in the police force.

But this was good.

"Alien filth!" Jaxur announced.

Very good.

"You are not welcomed on Earth!" Jaxur belted out in bellowing tones. "Be prepared to be put in your place! A place of nothing FOR a nothing!"

All according to plan. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2015, 03:55:46 AM

This book may have some connections with a future one.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Base Diversion

"Sir," a Knight with a gruff voice said, "I just got intel. This is a diversion."

Jaxur looked away from the projector slightly, and braced himself against a sudden wind that came from nowhere. Be glanced back, and saw the projector was fine.

"A diversion?" Jaxur repeated. "A diversion from what?"

"The base is being stormed by the alien filth and the filth supporters," the Knight said.

"What?!" Jaxur yelled. "How can the Castle be stormed?!"

The . . . Castle?

Yes, he was serious. That is what they called their base, their stronghold. They seemed to be unaware of how silly it sounded when spoken aloud, but then again, these are the people that went around in clunky all-metal armor like a child playing dress-up.

"Sir, that is just what the intel says." the knight said, rather noncommittally.

Jaxur seemed to be apoplectic with absolute, abject rage at this. But not at the Knight, but at the circumstance. But Jaxur did not want these two aliens to get away.

"How dire is the need at the Castle?" Jaxur said with a calm he did not feel.

"Our people are holding their own," the Knight said.

"Good," Jaxur said, his helmet unintentionally hiding his dung-eating grin. "They can hold their own for a bit longer, then. We will take care of this filth before we go to help our brothers and sisters."

In his megalomania, he did not notice the slight difference of the projector's weight and how the aim felt ever so slightly off. He aimed at the Geochelone Aerio and Arquillian, who trembled with an unseen wobble.

"Yes, sir," the Knight said.

He activated the portal projector, and did not notice how the portal seemed ever so slightly off-colored. The minute Arquillian and the turtle-like Geochelone Aerio were sucked in, protesting loudly in their native languages, despite not really being as accurate as it usually was. But this went unnoticed by the armored idiots.

"Good. Now let's get back to the Castle," Jaxur said.

After a few minutes, Cloak walked into the forest clearing, and he announced, "They're gone. Rocky, you can drop the pretense."

The area flickered as Rocklobster dropped the hologram, and commented, "Thst seemed to go well."

"Yes, it did." the Realm Walker said, before addressing the third RAFian. "Cerulean?"

"I got it," Cerulean said, hefting the projector. "Hopefully, Faerie's glamoured rock-with-handles will be able to sustain the illusion."

"Hey!" Faerie protested. "I know my stuff!"

"Now, all we can do is hope that Parker's team is successful," Cloak said, seriously. "As we move to rescue the victims."

"You sound like you don't believe that they may be alive," Rocklobster said, shrewdly.

"Activate the projector, Chee," Cloak said, surly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 31, 2015, 04:11:39 AM

They remind me of the knights from Monty Python. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2015, 05:19:39 PM

Never bothered to watch Monty Python, so I assure you I took no inspiration from it. Since I'm posting this now, tomorrow's chapter may come later than usual. Please don't go all "DBZA self-entitled fanboy brat" on me. (;) j/k)

Oh, and --

[spoiler=Behind the scenes tidbit.]In my original outline, Jaxur was actually a legit general, but still a Knight.[/spoiler]

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Putting Everything Right

Rocklobster said nothing more and did as he was instructed.

Meanwhile, Cloak created a scarlet-and-gold tether from his energy, which he used to bind himself to Cerulean and Faerie. The reasoning behind this was simple, Cloak wanted to ensure that they did not get separated, and could be yanked out if need be.

He supposed that he could simply Walk back, but he didn't know if he would be able to take passengers -- this hadn't ever really been tried. No Realm Walker dallied when Walking, and, far more often than not, zipped right through the Void Space, not even noticing it when Walking.

Soon enough, they saw an oval portal with crackling, yellow energy at the edges. It was calm and not sucking anything it. Inside was just blackness, nothing but an empty void -- and that was unsurprising, considering the name. The portal was just a doorway now.

"That pitiful Knight held down the button when a simple tap was all that was necessary," Rocklobster tsked, then addressed the others. "You can go through at any moment."

"Then let's get the lead out already!" Faerie said, never one to enjoy sitting around and doing nothing. With Faerie's bravado egging them on, Cloak secured the tether and the three jumped in.

***

En route to the Castle, Jaxur started to feel a bit suspicious.

These things were happening too close in proximity . . . they had found two alien pieces of filth and put them in their proper place. Could it be that these aliens and species-traitors thst call themselves RAFians -- a ludicrous name to be sure (despite thr name "Knights of Humanity" sounding like the villains of a Saturday morning cartoon show or some doomed-to-fail sci-fi drama) -- had realized the means in which they took to put these filthy invaders in their place?

They couldn't have taken the projector, as he had it here with him. He treated it eith the utmost care. The very idea that it wasn't was ludicrous. There was no doubt that it was the very same projector that he took from that naive scientist.

That scientist though . . .

The thought occured to Jaxur that the scientist was still alive. Still alive, and Jaxur didn't have the presence of mind to confiscate his notes. It would have been a good idea to do that, so they would be able to recreate it should the projector ever be stolen, damaged, or even destroyed. They only had this prototype. . . .

Jaxur decided that he would add it to his to-do list after they quelled this RAFian siege. Something to concern himself with later. Priorities. The Castle came first. Goode will come next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 01, 2015, 01:58:40 AM

Pretty sure that'll never happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2015, 02:42:46 AM

I know.

It's just those self-entitled "fan" brats whining about no new DBZA episode really irritated the hell outta me. I'm just glad none of the replies to "Memoirs" was anything like that (except that one time years ago, but never mind that).

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Purposely-Botched Battle

<Underseen and Ash have established telepathic contact, Parker,> Yarin reported. <They're coming with the head Knight.>

"So, they still haven't chosen a new King," Parker noted.

<This Jaxur guy is certainly close enough to be their King,> Yarin noted, maintaining silent communication.>

Parker acknowledged this with but a thought. He was only discharging his weapons at a fraction of their maximum potential. But he was trying very hard to conceal this fact from the Knights, as well as concealing the true nature of the attack. This was the diversion. This was to hold there attention whilst the others were rescuing the victims.

Parker's team consisted of Yarin, Saffa (currently in Tyrannopede morph), GH, Helen, Abby (in Mucillor morph), Sakki, Azguard, and Parker himself. Underseen and Ash were in disguise amongst the Knights' own ranks.

What Parker never realized was the challenge of not just overly decimating the Knights. Their base walls could have easily crumbled to one well-placed charged blast from his twin fusion cannons, but he had to hold that back. That wouldn't be good, as they were to try to give Cloak's team as much time as they could. Parker wasn't really sure he liked pulling his punches in such a way.

But it was necessary to continue the illusion, the deception.

Still it was rather embarrassing that the main force of the Knights were being stymied by a mere eight RAFians. It would be even more embarrassing if they knew these eight RAFians were holding back.

They had to make this look like this was a genuine attempt to take their base. They had to make it look like this battle was being botched without it being overtly deliberate. This was not as easy as it sounded, and it didn't sound very easy to begin with.

The Knights, including Jaxur, were none the wiser. The ddception had been very good, though Parker was having his doubts. He also didn't know which of thr Knight troops Underseen and Ash had so cleverly ensconced themselves. But all was going well for them, and none of the Knights were suspicious.

All was going according to plan . . . now . . . if they could keep up the pretense just a bit longer . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2015, 05:20:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Easy Fallback

Parker was finding it harder and harder to keep up the pretense. Part of him wanted to so desperately cut loose. But he knew that he could not,  he had make the Knights think that they were actually a match for him, let alone seven other RAFians.

But the difficulty was escalating exponentially. Parker would have to decide. Parker would have to make the call. He quickly assessed the situation. Pulling their punches was having a far more exhaustive effect on the others, and himself.

This will be a PR nightmare, Parker found himself thinking. They're never going to let us forget this embarrassment.

The others were obviously experiencing as much difficulty as Parker was. They were trying their best not to just outright decimate them. There was only one real choice left, and it wasn't the one that Parker really wanted to implement. The one he sorely wanted to implement.

It was the one that could potentially embarrass the forum. The one that the Knights would lord over them, their already considerably large egos inflated even more. But there was no choice. They gave Cloak's team as much time as they could -- Abby and Saffa had to demorph and remorph a few times. It should have been sufficient amount of time.

"Okay, guys," Parker said, aloud, mostly so the Knights could also hear. "Fall back!"

They did and the Knights cheered, apparently obvious to the fact that they had outnumbered the RAFians, three-to-one. Well, five-to-one, when Jaxur returned.

***

Cheers rent the sky. The Knights did not realize the true reasoning brhind this, buying the pretense hook, line, and sinker. Their cognitive prowess was very questionable at this point, but then again, was it really all that surprising?

But there was one Knight who was not as easily duped as his fellows.

Jaxur was judging the sudden retreat -- the retreat where the RAFians were holding their own. It was surprising that a Knight was not only this intelligent with this degree of foresight (but enough arrogance to stymie and sabotage himself in the grater scheme of things). Jaxur was a man with very little patience for frivolity and laziness, and he coukd be shrewd when he bothered to put his mind to it.

"Shut up, shut up, you fools," he said, in a way heavily reminiscent of Governor Radcliff in "Pocahontas. "They'll be back."

Jaxur continued his ponderings over it, when an idea suddenly occured to him. Perhaps, just perhaps, this siege wasn't all it appeared to be. Perhaps, just perhaps, there could be more to it. Something that they weren't privy to.

Jaxur eyed the projector with newly suspicious eyes. He was starting to put two and two together. He was starting to consider that the projector may not be the right one -- he started to speculate perhaps the two events were more related than he thought. The gears in his head were starting to turn. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 02, 2015, 12:44:10 AM

Well, the military had to have taught you something.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2015, 02:29:32 AM

Jaxur wasn't in the military, though. He just impersonated a general. He only was in my original outline, before I decided to change it.

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Recovery and Discovery

Void Space really lived up to its name.

There wasn't anything here but absolute, abject blackness. A suffocating darkness. But it was remarkable that no one had any respiratory distress or vacuum decompression or anything like that. Cloak was vulnerable here, as he was without the elements here. No earth beneath him, no air around him (which made the fact Faerie and Cerulean could respirate without any trouble or distress all the more strangely odd), no water, no wood, no metal, and, since there was no air, no fire could be generated.

The fact that Cerulean and Faerie could survive in this inhospitable, hostile environment was simply remarkable in and of itself. But they could not communicate with each other, as neither Faerie or Cerulean couldn't thought-speak, and their wasn't really sufficient light to see little more than their waists and the fleeting glimpses of hands and slight reflections of the tether light in their eyes.

The light given off by their energy tether was really insufficient to see where they were going. It was at this point that they realize just how daunting this task was going to be. Void Space was massive. It would be more tedious and time-consuming than finding a bone needle in a veritable mountain of haystacks. Very, very difficult.

Cloak was beginning to question the wisdom of coming in here without an actual plan to locate the people sucked into this space. It could take them hours to -- oh, there they were. Well, that was easy.

Maybe a little too easy. Cloak wasn't too quick to trust this good luck.

He blinked. Then he shook his head. No, it couldn't be what he thought. He just mistook . . . er, never mind. He looked at the victims, all balled up in the fetal position. They seemed to be unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. Cloak also couldn't shake the feeling that . . . nah, he was just imagining things.

It was amazing just how efficiently Cerluean, Faerie, and Cloak could work when they really couldn't communicate. They quickly gathered up the people, and hurriedly made their way to the exit. It took them far less time to get the exit and close the portal.

"How dare you?!" came an irritated voice. "You had no right in bringing back these filthy monsters!"

Cloak turned around and looked the Knight Jaxur in the eye. Jaxur had come alone. A foolish, arrogant mistake.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 02, 2015, 05:33:38 AM

So he's been coming and going all the while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2015, 06:29:33 PM

His intelligence? Yeah, that's the problem with bigots though. Their intelligence tends to fluctuate.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Nevermore

"You haven't any right to undo my righteous works!" Jaxur declared.

"Rights?" Cloak growled. He glared at Jaxur, and he was at least two feet shorter than the Realm Walker, but was fairly tall, for a human. "You want to talk of rights?"

"Oh, here we go," Faerie sighed, rubbing her forehead slightly.

"What right have you, Knight, to throw sentient beings into the void?" Cloak growled, advancing menacingly towards Jaxur. "What right do YOU have to marginalize, demean, terrorize, and even kill nonhuman sentient beings?"

"Please,"Jaxur said, rather stupidly dismissive, "it's not like they feel pain. It's not like they're people."

"He's not very smart, is he?" Cerulean said, with narrowed eyes.

"My money's on 'no'." Faerie commented.

"I cannot fathom how any being could be so crass . . . so inhumane . . . so arrogant . . ." Cloak said, laying a delicate emphasis over every single syllable. "So . . . intellectually barren. . . . So stupid."

"How dare you." Jaxur said, apparently not understanding that he had no leverage here. "How dare you speak to your superior like that, beast!"

Despite himself, Cloak snorted back a bark of laughter, which was better than Faerie, Cerulean, and Rocklobster who burst out in giggles at the sheer absurdity of this statement. "Superior? Seriously, Knight?"

"Mankind was given divine dominion over all beasts," Jaxur sniffed rather haughtily. "And all creatures who are not human are beasts. Thus, I have divine dominion over you."

"Are you trying to be ridiculous?" Faerie asked. "I mean that sincerely. Because you simply cannot be this stupid."

"Just return my projector, and I'll forget your transgressions," Jaxur said. "I might even consider to forgive such treachery."

"It's not treachery," Rocklobster stated, not having put up a holographic human disguise, because he simply did not think to do so, at the time. "Treachery is delibrate disregard of trust or faith -- you have neither trust nor faith in us. Or perhaps you mean we violated your confidence? We never had it to begin with. I repeat, we commited no treachery."

"Silence, inconsequential hunk of metal." Jaxur said, dimissively. "I'll forgive your treasonous actions and spiel -- just return my projector!"

"Our actions aren't treasonous," Cerulean pointed out, "we were never aligned to your cause, nor did you have any authority over us."

"I have divine dominion --"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah -- blah blah blah-ity blah." Faerie said, with her usual acid wit and irreverent sarcasm. "Just because you claim something, and use religious mumbo jumbo to attempt to justify it, doesn't make you right, Knighty-Knight. Fact is, you cannot demand anything of us."

It was at the point Jaxur decided to drop all pretense, drop the whole veneer of religious dogmatism. He simply demanded, "Give me back my projector."

"No." all four said.

Jaxur would not be denied, he removed his helmet. Another foolish move on his part -- the RAFians now could ID him, and they did. The man who had a habit of impersonating a soldier, impersonating a general. John Jacob Jaxur. The fact that he was a Knight was hardly surprising.

Jaxur ordered, "Give me back my projector. Now."

"If it's yours, Jaxur, truly yours," Rocklobster said, having uncovered an engraving upon the projector when he was operating it. "Then why is 'Property of Dr. Emil Bradford Goode' etched in its underside?"

Jaxur's eyes widened a bit at that, but his constant refrain only changed very slightly. "Give it to me!"

"No," Cloak said, very firmly. He addressed the Chee without even looking.  "Rocky, step away from the projector."

"Cloak, I thought we weren't giving it to him." Rocklobster protested.

"We're not," Cloak replied, quite seriously, as Rocklobster backed away. Cloak looked intently at the projector, cooled down after its rather brief use. Cloak hesitated for only a moment before he pulled back his arm and slammed a tree trunk-thick tendril of scarlet and gold energy down upon the machine. It was nothing more than twisted circuit boards, metal and plastic casing. Cloak used his Mastery over the Metal element to make it even more irreparable. "Nevermore will you be meddling in forces, with places, that you ought not."

"HOW DARE YOU!!" Jaxur shrieked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 02, 2015, 10:44:05 PM

I really love the way you wrote Jaxur. It may just be nicotine withdrawal, but I find myself genuinely pissed at every word he says. Good thing the Rocky and Faerie keep things lighthearted. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2015, 03:09:12 AM

Oh, you'll get ticked at him at least once more before the book is done. We're nearly done with the book now, as is, too.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Goode Kidnapping

Jaxur didn't stick around.

He was livid. Absolutely livid. How dare that cloaked idiot destroy his property! Heads would roll for this outrage! That cloaked twerp didn't know anything. The cloaked dunce didn't know what Jaxur's mission was. How truly noble, how truly righteous it was. His was a crusade, a noble quest! He walked the path of the hero! The only real hero the dullards and morons of this world didn't seem to comprehend!

But all was not lost to him.

The builder, the inventor, the creator -- he still lived. He would make another projector for Jaxur's glorious mission. He would do it. All Jaxur would have to do is go down to his lab and impersonate a general again. Goode would just hand over another prototype. One that was superior to the last. Yes, this would be good.

But wait . . . how would he validate his reappearance? He couldn't come right out and tell Goode that the prototype was destroyed. It would have made the news if the military had lost and destroyed such a device. Right?

No, he couldn't use the general ruse again. Goode may be naive, but he wasn't stupid enough to fall for the ruse a second time. Jaxur wouldn't be able to explain away the questions that Goode might have. At least not satisfactorily.

There was another option, though.

They would take Goode against his will. They would make him produce another projector, allowing him access to his notes in order to do it. Make him under threat of force. He will crumple like a piece of paper to their whims. Yes, this was the option for them to use.

He whipped out a flip phone and called the other Knights as he headed back to the Castle. He ordered the kidnapping of the good doctor, either unworried or unconcerned or unknowing about the potential legal backlash such a move would cause.

"-- And I expect him to be there by the time I return."

Jaxur fell silent as he listened to the Knight on the other end.

"I don't give a rat's . . . Look, Roger, just do it. And tell Donald that he better look the other way on this or he won't be getting any donations for his presidential campaign in a few years." Jaxur said, firmly and angrily. "I don't care! Just do it!"

Then he hung up and quickened his pace. Unaware that each step was essentially an announcement through a megaphone to Cloak's Earthsight. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 03, 2015, 03:16:05 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 03, 2015, 03:09:12 AM

"I don't give a rat's . . . Look, Roger, just do it. And tell Donald that he better look the other way on this or he won't be getting any donations for his presidential campaign in a few years." Jaxur said, firmly and angrily. "I don't care! Just do it!"

Donald Trump is a Knight of Humanity? That . . . actually makes a lot of sense. Please tell me that will somehow be a plotpoint in future books. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 03, 2015, 03:49:12 AM

I just had to +1 for that. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2015, 04:45:46 AM

I didn't say that he was . . . *twiddles thumbs innocently*

But no, it won't be a plotline. Well, at least, not right now. I don't always adhere so fervently to my outlines sometimes.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Goode Sacrifice

"I don't think you understand the situation, Goode," Jaxur said.

Goode was tied to a straight-backed wooden chair. He wasn't gagged, as so the Knights could get information out of him, or compliance. Only now Goode was perfectly wise to them. He knew Jaxur wasn't a true military general, though his impersonation was very convincing at first. But the more Goode thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that he had been hoodwinked.

Especially when he realized a childhood friend had disappeared. She had married a Saiyan, but this wasn't common knowledge. But Goode had managed to put two and two together, and realized his invention could have possibly have lead to her disappearance along with her family.

He felt distinctly aggrieved about this. He believed them to be dead, and he blamed himself for their deaths, along with an unknown amount of disappearance.

"I understand it just fine, thank you very much," he replied caustically.

"I don't think you do," Jaxur countered, rather imperiously, pacing in front of him, hands behind his back.

"I heard your ultimatum," Good said, sadness evident, his left eye revealed to be black, swollen and puffy. He had a small stream of blood dribbling from the right corner of his mouth. "I heard it. That was all the confirmation that I needed."

"Then you'd do well to side with the good guys," Jaxur said.

"I will," Goode argued. "When they get here."

Jaxur was incensed at this, but he managed to hold himself together. "Where are your notes on the void projector?"

Goode actually smiled at this. It looked painful. "Gone."

"What?" Jaxur said at once.

"Gone." Goode repeated, taking a savage enjoyment from the shocked look on Jaxur's face. "Destroyed."

"Destroyed? Destroyed how? By whom?" Jaxur said, fervently.

 "By me."

"What?!"

"I destroyed them," Goode went on, "because I knew someone else would try to use them as you had. I knew if the projector prototype was destroyed, you would come after me."

"Then you will just have to rebuild it yourself," Jaxur said, decisively.

"No," Goode decided.

"I don't think you understand," Jaxur said, "you're at the disadvantage here."

"But, am I?" Goode said, still with the painful smile.

"What do you mean?"

"You need me," the inventor pointed out, "you need me, but I don't need you."

"You will do as we say or --"

"Or what?" Goode pressed. "You'll kill me? Go ahead. Then try to get your void projector from me when I'm dead. Good luck."

Jaxur looked stymied, but recovered swiftly, conjuring another threat, but Goode predicted precisely what it was.

"Going to threat my family and friends?" Goode said, acidly. "Nice try. But I haven't any family. I have no children. No wife. No living parents. No family. And my friends were already killed by you and your ilk."

Jaxur was stupefied.

"Now," Goode said, with a snarl, "what advantage did you have over me again?"

Jaxur was incensed, and he struck out without thinking. Goode had sacrificed his life rather to allow the Knights the projector to use as a weapon again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2015, 11:22:35 AM

New book ideas.

• Book DCCLXXIII: "Domino Effect" -- A boy ghost uses spectral displacement.
• Book DCCLXXIV: "Soul Collector" -- A boy ghost collects pieces of a broken soul to Frankenstein them.
• Book DCCLXXV: "Cry Justicing" -- A boy Skinjacker goes to bring criminals to justice . . . before going too far and getting carried away with it.
• Book DCCLXXVI: "Healing From Within" -- A girl Skinjacker has the ability to heal the bodies she Skinjacks.

The titles may change. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Be A RAFian

It wasn't long before the RAFians got wind of Goode's death. As well as learned his refusal to help the Knights, and they learned the general kind of person we was from the Saiyan's human wife, and the Saiyan himself.

It was a saddening, somber experience, though they knew that the Knights no longer had the Void Space projector. But Goode's death kind of put a damper on the good news. A good man had sacrificed his life to keep the power of bigotry at bay.

It was a very noble, and selfless thing to do. It would not be forgotten so easily.

***

Cloak and Shadow, who was seven again for some reason, were standing admist a marshy wasteland. There was still some green here. It was the perfect place to train. Cloak sang*:

"Let's get down to business,
To protect the world."

But Shadow protested:

"But I don't think that I'm ready."

"Don't you be absurd.
You're the best pupil I've ever met,
And you can bet
Before we're through --
Shadow, I'll make a RAFian outta you!"

"But I'm only seven," Shadow protested, before Cloak threw a terrakinetically lifted rock at her, shouting "DODGE!", which she did immediately.

Meanwhile, a moderate distance away, but within visual range of the two Realm Walkers, Blue was training a newbie. He sang:

"Raise your hands to the sky,
To collect the ki."

Blue's student exclaimed, through song:

"Hey, I think I got it!"

Then he saw Shadow.

"Ooh, look! A monkey!"

Meanwhile, Asmo was giving far more questionable training. He favored the abridged Mr. Popo's teaching style. He sang, voice full of sadistic amusement of which the abridged Mr. Popo would have been proud:

"You're a spineless, pale, pathetic lot.
And you haven't got a clue.
Somehow, I'll make a RAFian outta you."

The four newbies under his care really didn't care for this training. They whine and complained, only for Asmo to declare, "Pecking order!"

"Oh, my god, this is worse than death," one complained under his breath.

"Hope Asmo doesn't screw with me," complained another.

"Man, I really hope to live through the day," another complained.

"What's wrong, maggots? Out of breath?" Asmo asked, apparently enjoying the complaints.

"I really need a keg of gin," the last one complained.

Back to Cloak:

"You must be as swift as coursing river."

"AAAAH!" Shadow cried out as she fell into a coursing river.

"With all the force of a great typhoon."

"Uncle, help!"

"With all the strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon."

Meanwhile, two Saiyan pods were racing forward, towards the Earth. One held Queen, the other accommodated Malice. Queen sang, in a husky voice:

"Time is racing forward,
Until we . . . arrive."

Malice countered:

"Shut the Veil up, Queen,
And you might . . . survive!"

"Malice, are we there yet?"

"No, Queen, no, we aren't."

"How 'bout now?"

"No! Gateburst it, Queen!"

Back to Asmo's students, Asmo sang as he tortured them with training:

"You must be swift as a coursing river,
With the force of a great typhoon,
With all the strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!"

Then Blue's student sang this last verse as well. Then, when he pulled off the technique he was learning, he exclaimed, "Hey, Blue, I did it!"

Blue replied, voice very noncommittal, "Awesome."

. . .

Cloak woke up, beary-eyed and groggy, and said, "I've been watching too much TeamFourStar, I guess."

---

*Source song: https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=V06DISKajss

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 03, 2015, 01:29:51 PM

The dark penultimate chapter and then the randomness of the final chapter really messed with my head. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2015, 03:11:17 PM

It was meant as a treacle cutter. In the original outline, it wasn't as dark as that, though.

New chapter.

BOOK XCV:
AN EPIC YARN
CHAPTER ONE:
A Jungle in Here

The RAFian had allowed a class trip to visit the forum, it was the last one the kids would have in the year. It was not yet their winter break, as theirs was not a year-round school. Yes, those existed.

The kids were bursting with excitement at the novelty of the trip. And because they were six-year-olds. One kid sang:

"This place is different
Than our own backyard."

A second, more cowardly, one sang:

"I hope we haven't gone too far."

A third excitedly sang:

"We're somewhere new
And we haven't a clue."

A fourth wrung Blue's hand, and then turned and sang, while Blue looked thoroughly nonplussed:

"I just met some guy named Blue."

A fifth child sang:

"This is a strange and mysterious place."

A sixth, weird kid sang:

"With a lot of yummy Alloys
For us to chase!"

The second child sang:

"We're walking
And we don't know where."

All of them sang:

"Ooh-wee!
It's a jungle in here!"

The second child, the more cautious of the bunch, sang:

"This place is really neat!"

The sixth kid sang:

"Lots of thingies for us to eat!"

The first child sang:

"Lots of furry things
Everywhere you stare."

Hunter, thinking that the kid was addressing him, said, "Huh?"

The fifth kid, deciding apparently to remind everyone of his maturity, sang:

"Feels like I got some
In my underwear!"

GH was disgusted, as he said, "'Kay, gross.  Just -- gross."

The first kid caught Shadow happen to brachiate to a tree where she sat, and he sang:

"A monkey swinging all around."

Shadow shrugged an indifferent shrug, "It's a monkey thing."

The fourth kid sang:

"I wonder if we're evergoing to get found?"

Demos loomed out of the darkness, with unintentional menace and malice, and said, "Yes."

The fourth kid ran away, screaming bloody murder, while Demos looked on, perplexed. "Was it something I said?"

Meanwhile, the third kid sang:

"We're having lots of fun.
Hey, look over there . . ."

Jess sniffed, "I'm not here to be gawked at."

The sixth kid sang:

"Great big lizard hanging from a tree."

Twig, a rather nomadic Hork-Bajir, said, "Oh, geez.  Can't I eat in peace?"

The second kid sang:

"I hope that it doesn't eat up me!"

Twig countered testily, "I'm a vegetarian!"

The fourth kid sang:

"Fat, big something looking me in the eye,
Look at that there fairy fly!"

Faerie was suddenly livid. She approached the kid, and got in her face. "WHAT. . . . DID. . . . YOU. . . . CALL. . . . ME . . .?"

Mr. Guy tried to diffuse the situation, saying, "Cut her a break, Fae.  She's a kid."

"That's no excuse!" Faerie spat. Then she composed herself, and allowed herself rationality again. ". . . Well, I suppose. . . ."

The fifth kid sang, addressed Raevyn, another nomadic RAFian, an avian one:

"Beautiful birdy, sing a song,
Tweet tweet!"

Raevyn seemed to consider before declining, "Eh, not today."

The second sang:

"I hope we don't expire here for long!"

Then they all sang:

"Look sharp,
It's a jungle in here!
Ooh-wee!
It's a jungle in here!"

"Cute kids," Saffa noted, in a noncommittal way, as they left. She never looked up from her textbook.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 03, 2015, 04:54:37 PM

Ugh, kids. Why is it kids.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 03, 2015, 06:37:12 PM

^ My sentiments exactly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2015, 02:37:50 AM

Which why you had no part in it, Saffa. ;)

It was a PR thing, anyway. Er -- that's supposed to be "public relations" and not "Power Rangers".

Now, I suppose this could be a lighter book then a lot of the recent ones -- but as I apparently have a habit of making them darker then I originally outline . . .

Anyway, four chapters up yesterday. All in all, I'd say that was productive.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Well, Yarn It!!

A sock laid discarded upon the sidewalk in a forgotten alley of the city. Despite the filthy environment, the sock appeared to be untouched by the dirt and grime. An impressive feat for a sock.

But this wasn't an ordinary sock. It was a container, rather like Rita Repulsa's trash can thing. Within was a creature that had the potential for being very dangerous, if not very large. It was a rather minute sorcerer with a Napoleon complex.

Soon, the sock was carelessly torn open and the foot and a half sorcerer was set free. He was made nearly entirely out of yarn, mounted to some fabric of an indeterminate nature. It was good that he was made out of yarn due to being a yarn sorcerer. He possessed a white moustache, a large, prominent button for a nose, two yellow pupils and a blue body with dull blue stripes. He wore a red hat with a purple band, and wielded two mahogany knitting needles, one with purple eyes, a sinister smile, and a single horn with the other possessing yellow eyes, two horns, and a displeased frown.

He looked as if he wanted to say, "Ah, after two thousand years, I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" or something along those lines. But it couldn't, not with it being as it was. It was not yet strong enough. Then it eyed the sock, and it began to unravel the sock, adding its magical yarn to itself. Its prison was becoming a power boost. It's prison was enabling it to quadruple in size, maybe even quintiple -- and that may not even be a word! He was roughly five feet tall and seven feet wide, and his scepter-like knitting needles were, somehow, large enough to be staffs.

Now he wielded sufficient power, with the sock's magic also coarsing through him. He used that power to make just one little alteration to the world . . .

***

"What the --"

Saffa had to finally look up from her textbook.

"Okay, who did this?" she demanded. She was made of yarn now! But just an outline with empty, transparent space between. As if someone who was making a portrait of her and being very economical with the lines. She wasn't sure she liked that. "I don't think it's funny. You can see right though me."

"You're a girl," Rotiart said, snottily, having been made yarn as well. "It's not that hard."

Saffa scowled, and moved to slap him, but accidentally sent out a yarn whip which attached to him. Saffa was surprised, and she whirled her hand, causing Rotiart -- or rather the yarn that made up Rotiart -- was shifted into a baseball as Saffa withdrew the yarin whip.

"THAT WAS UNCALLED FOR!" Rotiart whined.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 04, 2015, 04:16:35 AM

Slight innuendo there. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2015, 04:24:42 AM

:facepalm:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 04, 2015, 06:06:40 AM

Sorry, my brain is wired horribly ;D

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2015, 07:36:49 PM

It's okay. And thanks for the PDF, Saffa. I dunno, just the fact that "Memoirs" may be on someone's Kindle . . . it makes me feel a little prideful.

Anyway, since I'm posting this now, the next chapter may be posted a little later than normal tomorrow. Since I work tomorrow, and I'm not off again until Monday.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Power Adjustments

After Saffa's little discovery, it became clear that their powers did not work the same as they did when they weren't all, uh, "yarn-ified". Although Cloak and Shadow were just about the only ones who were not affected by this, ahem, "yarn-ification", their abilities seemed affected as well, as there was no longer any earth to manipulate or see through, just mixtures of fabrics, zippers, yarn, strings, and buttons. The only metal around was the pulli.g thing on the zippers and zipper teeth themselves. And the only true wood was some of the buttons. The aerokinesis manifested as silvery white yarn, the hydrokinesis manifested as either blue yarn or blue fabric swatches, and the pyrokinesis manifested as red and yellow yarn. Cloak wasn't sure he liked it, while Shadow thought it was kinda funny.

Saffa, Abby, and all the other morphers and shapeshifters found that their powers, more or less, worked with the same triggers, the same methods for the activation of the ability, but the process looked and felt entirely different and, somehow, wrong. Like unraveling themselves and remaking themselves.

GH's acoustic prowess was now manifested as translucent string formed in concentric circles, but, otherwise, pretty much the same. But he discovered he could "morph" his guitar! He couldnmake it into a literal axe, or a stylish hoverbike. He hadn't tried anything else yet.

Parker could fire yarnballs from his weaponry and use his energy sword just like before. It was only . . . they seemed far less badass when "yarn-ified". Suffice it to say, he wasn't fond of the "yarn-ification".

Power rings, such as Helen's worked pretty much the same, in principal. Only their constructs were made out of yarin and fabric and things instead of light. Helen didn't seem to mind all that much, though it was a bit disconcerting.

Sakki's sonics worked rather like GH's acoustics, but she swore she somehow gained a wider decibel range, being able to unfold her jaws to Exploud proportions. She, in constrast to the others, seemed to enjoy the "yarn-ification" because of this fact.

And so it went. The RAFians tried to acclimate to this whole new set of physics and whatnot. Yet, they remained in the dark about what caused this global change. What caused the Earth to be turned into essentially a patchwork quilt.

***

The yarn sorcerer, Spin-Yarn, looked at his accomplishment. He had succeeded in his transformation yarn magic. He could speak now, with a dual voice rather like that of a Celestialsapien.

But he had to rest. This act of yarn magic transmogrification drained a great deal of his power, of his strength. But he would regain his strength soon enough, and he knew of one thing he had not yet obtained. An item that would cinch his takeover.

He didn't quite know what he wanted Earth so terribly bad, or what he would do with it when he conquered it, but that wasn't the point. It was the actual act, the process, of conquering. That was the reason why he was doing this. He loved the act over overpowering a foe into submission.

He would savor the chase to the important artifact . . .  the acquiring, the obtaining of the Atlas String . . . he would lord it over all those who oppose him, as well as taking the power of the Atlas String. He would take it from the Alpha Stitch, and make it his . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 04, 2015, 10:21:10 PM

You keep interchanging yarn with Yarin. In the signature too. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2015, 03:26:33 AM

Gah! Thought I got them all.

Mental tick, I guess.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Making Minions

But Spin-Yarn was not yet strong enough. The millennia it had spent locked up within that magical sock, which he took its power as his own. But he felt that power wasn't sufficient for what he wanted.

Besides, he was the big yarn boss. He should have minions to do his bidding for him. Sure he could take control over the populace -- which would make for a rather easy victory. But Spin-Yarn did want victory to be that easy. He didn't want all the challenge to be removed from the conquest.

But, more than that, he felt that having minions would give him a certain prestige. He liked having a prestige above others, and, like most egotistical villains, he wasn't above vanity. He wasn't above the perceptions of grandeur, even when none truly exist.

So, he would make minions. Out of yarn, strings, and buttons, of course. Naturally. He wouldn't make them too smart, as they miht question why they had to take orders from him. He wouldn't make them too independent, because they might go against his wishes or even rebel against him. He wouldn't make them too powerful, because of obvious reasons. He would make them extremely loyal, to an almost religious fanaticism, to ensure that they do what he asked, what he ordered, of them.

First, he created a large, thick-bodied, green dragon, with a string tongue tipped with a red button and minute wings. He gave it button eyes. He gave this dragon the standard dragon abilities -- fire breath, flight (despite its wings were too small to allow for it), and such. Spin-Yarn gave it the name of Foom Fang.

Second, he created a red-orange phoenix, with an appearance reminiscent to Dyna Blade (of the Kirby universe), with a orangish-red crest and orangish-red tail feathers. Its wings are completely shrouded in flames. It has an orange beak, orange talons, and yellow eyes. It also had the green button on its chest. Spin-Yarn gave it the name of Inferno Wing.

Third, he created a predigitation-like magician with an orange jack-o-lantern for a head, complete with glaring purple eyes and an evil grin. It wore a monochromatic cape with a green bowtie. It also wears a black top hat with a brown band and a red rose on it. It appeared to have no arms or legs, but it has a wand that it uses to determine and conjure his attacks with . . . slot reels. Spin-Yarn gave it the name Slot Magician.

Fourth, he created a giant blue and white squid with purple eyes. It has a yellow unibrow and a giant mouth. It has numerous tentacles, but he only uses three to attack at one time. Its appearance can change to that of a stout, green octopus. Spin-Yarn gave it the name of Snare Cephalopod.

Spin-Yarn sat back, and thought these four minions were good for now. He would be able to have an easier time finding the Atlas String. These four minions were powerful, in their own right, but still subpar compared to their lord and master. Spin-Yarn considered if they were enough. Perhaps the prudent course would be to make more, but he tired. He expended enough energy already.

But then he managed to snag another potential minion. His name was Yarin.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 05, 2015, 07:13:04 AM

You did that on purpose, didn't you? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2015, 01:59:51 PM

Yes, but not in the way you think. It was in the book outline I wrote months ago, maybe even back in 2013, 2014. But, yes, Yarin was chosen because his name is one letter away from yarn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on August 05, 2015, 04:18:45 PM

Whoa.
This... this is big.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 05, 2015, 04:21:26 PM

Yep, this is a part of RAFian history, little one. It's nearly 3 am I'll explain it some other day but I have PDFs of all the complete titles okay good night

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2015, 02:40:38 AM

Part of RAF history? Huh. Never thought of it like that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Atlas String

Spin-Yarn looked over his new minions, and a disgruntled Yarin. He analyzed their strengths, and refused to acknowledge that they had any weaknesses. And he believed that Yarin was under his control, as the "yarnified" Nyac glared at the yarn sorcerer with all six of his tiny button eyes.

Spin-Yarn closed his eyes to try and divine the location of the Atlas String's location. When he took it from the Alpha Stitch, this world unravel into pieces. Yes, the Alpha Stitch was quite literally thonly thing holding Patchwork Earth together. And Spin-Yarn still wanted it for his own. He would just recollect the raw materials from the unraveled world and remake it as he saw fit. And the Altas String would replete him with so much yarn magic . . . the mere thought of it was tantalizing.

He saw a flash of hilly green yarn and fabric. Was it here? Possibly. He sent Foom Fang to check it out and investigate. As well as guard the area from anyone who would take the Atlas String for themselves.

Then he saw a volcanic island of blacks and reds and yellows. Was it here? Plausible. He sent Inferno Wing to go and secure it for him, if present.

Then he saw a tropical island, surrounded by gentle waves. A potential tourist trap. Not likely that it would be here. But still . . . he sent Snare Cephalopod there to secure it for him.

Then he saw rows of slot machines. He quickly sent Slot Magician to Vegas to secure the Atlas String. It could have easily been hidden there.

Then he saw ice -- a tundra of some sort. He sent Yarin -- with yarn strings to treat him like some sort of marionette - to secure it for him. Yarin was not as helpless as Spin-Yarn believed, as he sent out a telepathic plea for help.

But Spin-Yarn had another minion that he didn't reveal to the others. One that he was inspired to make a yarn mock-up after the being who had imprisoned him in the sock to begin with. The horrible creature. The vile creature.

The creature in a cloak . . .

He sent him to a place where spacecraft are made. The Atlas String would be there, possibly. And this minion, this Mockup, would go and secure it for him. If it was there at all.

All the pieces were in place. Now Spin-Yarn can go on his more leisurely search for the String. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 06, 2015, 02:42:24 AM

I'm guessing he can't speak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2015, 03:52:05 AM

Oh, he can, he just doesn't do it much.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
String Search

"Where did Yarn -- d'ah! I mean, Yarin, go?" Saffa had asked. She had been the first person to notice his absence. "He hardly ever leaves the forum, outside of a mission."

"Especially with the Knights getting bolder every day," Parker said, surly. The "yarn-ification" had made the SPARTAN cranky. "That Jaxur guy is still out there. Hell, he's probably Head Lunatic by now."

"At least, they are officially listed as a hate group now," Helen pointed out. She held Parker's hand. "That's something."

"It's the tiniest bone they could throw us," Parker curled his lip in disgust.

"On another point," Cloak said, and Parker glowered jealously at the Realm Walker, who wasn't "yarn-ified", due his nature as a Realm Walker. "We should find the source of this global 'yarn-ification'. I have my suspicions, but they have yet to be substantiated."

"It must be powerful," GH said, thoughtfully. "To manage to change the whole world lke this."

"And within minutes, too," Saffa noted.

"But how, exactly?" Aquilai said. He dared not release his beloved TARDIS, and see it "yarn-ified". "How was the entire world changed, much less so quickly."

It was then when Yarin's telepathic plea of help was heard. He also imparted what he heard from Spin-Yarn's plans. The yarn sorcerer ran a bit at the mouth about them, seemingly unaware of the possible implications of being so open with his schemes. Then again, he didn't know about Yarin's innate telepathy, which worked exactly the same as before.

He informed the RAFians about the Alpha Stitch, about the Atlas String, about the locations he heard before he was sent away, and about Spin-Yarn himself.

"'Yarn sorcerer'?" Faerie snorted. "Seriously? That's a thing?"

"So says the fairy," Rotiart said.

"I will unravel you," Faerie growled.

"I think our course of action is clear," Richard said, interrupting Faerie's rage. When Richard spoke, people listen. Unless they were Knights. Or conservative fanaticists. "We need to find this Atlas String and this Alpha Stitch before this Yin-Yarn -- er, sorry, before this Spin-Yarn does."

He paused a bit, before continuing, "I believe teams of three need to be sent to each location. As well as the Cape."

"The Cape? The Space Center?" Gaz asked. "Why?"

"Hunch," Richard said.

Meanwhile, Spin-Yarn was working on a hunch of his own. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 06, 2015, 10:30:57 AM

 8) Awwww, yeah, gh is going to Vegas!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2015, 02:44:57 AM

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, GH!

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Rolling, Stringy Hills

Cloak, Shadow, and Blocky wented to the grassy knoll area. Which was rather odd-looking, all "yarn-ified". Cloak would not admit it out loud, but he felt half-blind. This "yarn-ified" grass and what passed as earth did not suit him at all. Cloak felt like he was missing a limb, cut off from his favorite element. He imagined that this is was Saiyans must feel like when their tails get cut off.

Not to mention that scents were now virtually nonexistent. That just felt wrong to Cloak. This realm, the Prime Universe, the one where all others are spun off from -- was always a universe of smells, whether attractively aromatic or offensively odoriferous. To be wiped clean of that, it just felt plain wrong.

Shadow seemed to acclimate to it much easier than her uncle. But that made sense, as she never favored one element over the other. She was far more balanced in that way, even though her Earthsight was cut off as well. She seemed to be more cheery and upbeat, in stark contrast to her brooding and moody uncle.

Blocky, however, was inscrutable in body language and face. He was feeling rather indifferent to the "yarn-ification", having no strong opinion one way or the other. It was a thing. They need to adapt and deal with it, and that was all.

They had to find this Atlas String thing, and secure it. But this place was big, and they didn't know much about this String, it could very well be the size of a python or the size of a single strand of string. It could be buried fifty miles below what passed for ground here, or hidden fifty miles in the sky above them. The three really realized just how little that they really --

"Not today!" Cloak shouted whirling around, batting a yarnball fireball away. You might think Cloak would feel a feline attraction to the yarnball, tempted to bat it around like a domestic cat would. He did not. "We got in--"

But Blocky snapped into immediate action. He launched himself at Foom Fang, his claws and teeth meeting Foom Fang's. The battle was surprisingly vicious, and Blocky seemingly able to tell that this was not a "real" dragon. That it did not really have a mind of its own, that it was nothing but a tool.

Cloak and Shadow did nothing, could do nothing. Blocky was entwined with Foom Fang, and each strike was either blocked or parried, from either party. If either Realm Walker were to act, they would risk harming Block. Their hands were tied.

Within moments, Blocky got the upper hand, and his claws and teeth bit into the hide of Foom Fang. Blocky maintained his advantage, and proceeded to snap his jaws upon the neck of Spin-Yarin's minion. He held on until Foom Fang deteriorate in a mound of green yarn.

"Blocky," Cloak said. "What was that about?"

"I . . ." he panted, "I dunno. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2015, 02:33:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Back to 80

"Never thought that I'd be back here again," Phoenix said, moodily. "More to the point -- I assumed that it was destroyed."

Phoenix was with Demos and Parker, and they were in a yarn representation of the Savage Land. Only without the vegetation.

"Although it's a lot different than I remember," the mod said, thoughtfully.

"Because it's, um, YARN now?" Demos said, irreverently.

"NO, because there isn't any greenery, just black ash -- er, black ash yarn, anyway. And yellowing plant matter -- er, yellowing plant matter string." Phoenix said. He facepalmed a bit, before replying, "God, I'll be glad when all this 'yarn-ification' business is behind us."

"There are worse things," Parker said. "But how are we supposed to find this magic yarn or whatever it is?"

"No idea," Phoenix admitted.

"That's encouraging," Parker replied dryly.

"Well, I would it would be simple," Demos shrugged.

"How so?" Phoenix replied.

"It's probably what ol' hot wings over there is guarding," Demos said, pointing casually to Inferno Wing. "Unless it's a local?"

Inferno Wing gave a deafening squawk as it took to the air. It circled almost lazily above them, and this irritated Parker. He saw it as a sign of disrespect, as if the buzzard-like phoenix didn't consider him -- or him, Demos and Phoenix, rather -- a legitimate threat.

He caused the twin fusion cannons to come up from his armor's right gauntlet, but groaned with irritation when he noticed that it was more saccharine than badass. He would welcome when the world was no longer "yarn-ified".

With a shriek, Inferno Wing dived down, attempting to knock the trio down, but they were more surefooted than to succumb to that weak tactic. Demos was the only one who looked, not only unconcerned, but, frankly, bored.

"Demos! You better start taking this seriously or I will deftly spill coffee on your favorite silk suit!!!" Parker snarled.

"Now that's not fair!" the demon protested.

"Enough, you two," Phoenix said. "It's coming for another pass!"

"Triple Finish?" Demos suggested nonchalantly, referring to the Pokemon Trainer's Final Smash in Brawl.

"If it gets us out of here any faster, fine by me!" Parker snarled.

Inferno Wing was hit by the red and white streamers of yarn as it attempted a third pass. It was a direct hit, and it caused it to collapse into thread.

***

Spin-Yarn thought he location the true location if the Atlas String. He hovered over the yarn ocean, sure that it was down there. Down deep in the ocean, binding it to the land, industrial,  ice and other patches that made up the Earth. It was down there . . .

And yet Spin-Yarn hesitated. He had no reason to. It was yarn water, it would not unravel him or cause him to float atop if he attempted to dive further down. Yet he still hesitated.

The reason for this hesitation was simple. Spin-Yarn was afraid. Afraid of the ocean waters.

Although he would never admit it to anyone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 08, 2015, 03:15:46 AM

What, the ocean isn't yarn?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2015, 04:10:23 AM

It is.

But Spin-Yarn remembers when it wasn't. It's a total psychosomatic thing. A paralyzing fear doesn't go away easily and is never rational.

Hope that explains it.

:edit: Since I'm posting this now, the daily chapter tomorrow may be a little later than normal. Alas work and all that jazz.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Hello Mali!

"Hurrumph."

"Oh, don't be that way." Horse chided. "Enjoy this island. It may not be Maui, but it's Mali!"

"Hurrumph."

"You're being petulant," Aquilai said, patiently.

"Hurrunph."

"GH, what precisely did you think you would be doing at Vegas?" Horse said, practically. "Playin' the slots? Seriously, GH, you wouldn't have the time. The sooner we find the blasted string the better."

"There is still the Spin-Yarn character to deal with." Aquilai said.

"Oh, what threat could he be without this string thing?" Horse said, bracingly.

"He turned the whole world into a child's rainy day activity," GH said dully. "I think that's a sufficient enough threat."

"Touche," Horse conceded. Then she noticed something in the water. "Wait -- what's that?"

"All too fresh kalamari?" GH asked dryly, as Snare Cephalopod surfaced from the "yarn-ified" ocean in an overly dramatic way. "I was kidding, you know."

Horse slipped into the water, and Aquilai solidified water into an ice boogie board of sorts. They were going to battle the Snare Cephalopod in the water. GH thought this was a rather bad idea, personally. The water is where it would be at its strongest, not that the waterbending Time Lord or the hydrokinetic seal weren't powerful in their own right, but none would have a real advantage of the other.

GH pulled his guitar from being slung over his shoulder, and he came up with an idea. He raised his hand, and began to play. He played a guitar version of "Aloha 'Oe", with surprising proficiency considering he wasn't sure of the lyrics and only knew the tune of the famous song of Liliuokalani.

Snare Cephalopod wasn't a fan.

He made a beeline toward GH, who played the tune relentlessly, but Snare Cephalopod was stopped and impeded by Horse and Aquilai. Snare Cephalopod was only focused on GH, and this gave the two RAFians around it the advantage.

They took it and Snare Cephalopod was no more.

"What possible gripe could it have with 'Aloha 'Oe'?" Aquilai asked, coming ashore.

"Yeah, it wasn't like GH was playing something by Justin Bieber," Horse concurred.

"Oh, God, no," GH exclaimed, revolted by the mere idea.

***

Spin-Yarn continued to hover the the "yarn-ified" ocean. He had no reason to fear it now. No reason whatsoever. . . .

And yet he continued to hesitate. This fear was causing him to question himself, as the "yarn-ified" ocean still acted and functioned like the normal ocean. This was enough to stymie him from his goal.

He tried to fight this paralyzing fear, but doing such a thing was not an easy feat to accomplish. He thought ruefully that he should have sent Snare Cephalopod here instead of that island, the one they called Mali.

It wasn't real water, but yarn, he tried to convince himself, it was a result of his own endeavors. He must go down. He must collect the String!! He must!!

He . . . must . . . !!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 09, 2015, 03:13:54 AM

I have to assume that the beginning of this chapter was just a reaction to my previous statements. :P Besides, slots are for people with no skill, poker is where it's at! Says the guy who has never been to a casino in his life.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2015, 07:09:54 PM

You assume correctly. Well, for the most part.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Casino Yarn Zone

"I still don't know why people are attracted to this gaudy place," Faerie said, surly. "All the glittering neon signs and what not -- it looks worse 'yarn-ified'."

"I'm inclined to agree," Underseen said. "It's a wonder anyone can sleep in this city."

"Who sleeps in Vegas?" the faerie quipped.

"Can we focus here?" Broken said.

"We don't know what this Alfalfa Sitch --" Faerie began.

"Alpha Stitch," Broken corrected.

"Like it matters," Faerie recovered quickly. "We don't have any idea what this Alpha Stitch or Atlas String looks like."

"Faerie has a point there." Underseen said. "That does seem like a valuable piece of intel to not have when being dispatched to a mission."

"We've gone off of less before," Broken said.

"Yeah, well . . ." Faeries said, feeling rather nettled. Then they heard a rustling. "Wait. Hear that?"

***

Success!

Spin-Yarn had managed to overcome his deliberating fear of the "yarn-ified" ocean. Overcame it and took the plunge. But he found that there was a similar if not identical problem with buoyancy that the ordinary ocean would have given him.

But no matter, no matter.

He had taken the fist tentative step, the hardest step of all, all he needed now was the unbridled determination to achieve his goal. To reach it with decisive determination and unmatched dignity.

But this buoyancy thing was proving to be more of a hindrance thanbhe intially thought. Every bit of progress he made, it seemed that he was pushed at least halfway to twice the distance backwards.

It was enough to make him want to tear out his hair. If he had hair, that is.

***

"Sorry, pal, but not this time," Underseen said, able to wiggle free from being bound to a bomb. This was the third time that the Slot Magician had tried to pull this on him. The first time he had taken the trio by surprise, and managed to tie them up behind a red curtain.

It varied its attacks by the slot machines, and by what and how they lined up. Three cartoon bombs line up and he'd try the bomb trick. Three swords and he'd attack directly with close-quarters combat like melee and hand-to-hand combat attacks. Three shields and he'd fight defensively for a time. Three staffs and he'd resort to using long- to mid-range combat, deoending on what the terrain would allow. If they didn't line up at all, it would hesitate. This allowed the RAFians a free shot, as Slot Magician seemed uninterested in attacking unless the slot machines three images lined up either straight across or diagonally.

This hesitation didn't happen as frequently as you may think. But when it did, the RAFians made sure their attacks count, especially when Broken discovered that he could magically manipulate the slot machine to make the hesitations happen more often.

Within moments afterward, Slot Magician was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 10, 2015, 02:11:08 AM

It's such a relief when the villains aren't monologuing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2015, 04:07:47 AM

Yeah, Spin-Yarn isn't much of a talker.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Strings Attached

"I'm starting to think that I should have gone to Mali or even back to tye Savage Land." Sakki said. "I hate all this ice and --"

"Say," Green Lantern Sam said suddenly, unintentionally interrupting Sakki's griping. "Isn't this tundra . . ."

"What? C'mon, out with it, Greenie, the cold is making me cranky!" Sakki snapped.

"I don't think it's the cold doing that, to be honest," Oceanspray said.

"Oh, be quiet, Cyborg," Sakki retorted, likening Oceanspray to the DC Comics character.

"Isn't this the same tundra as the ifrit?" Sam asked again.

"God, I hope not," Sakki and Oceanspray spoke at the same moment.

"In any case, we should not dally for very much longer," Sakki said, "in case the little bastard shows up again."

<You should not have come, guys,> Yarin reached out telepathically.

"Wait, why?" Sam asked, near immediately.

<Because he wil make me attack you,> the Nyac explained.

"But the Mark prevents mind control, I thought," Oceanspray said.

<He's not controlling me by mind control,> Yarin said, distaste evident. Yarin was ushered into view, being controlled like a marionette, strings attached to each of his wrists and both of his ankles.

"Oh, my God," Sakki said, rather irreverently, "they've turned him into Pinocchio."

***

Deeper now . . . must go deeper . . .

It would be on the seabed, yes. Right there. There would be nowhere else for it to be. Spin-Yarn knew deep down with yarn that made him up, that that's where he'd find the Alpha Stitch, that's where he'd find the Atlas String.

Such power . . . it made him nearly salivate with sheer anticipation. . . . Such power, and it was very nearly his. . . . He would take the Atlas String into himself as he took the thread, the string that made up his prison into himself to make himself stronger.

And when he did that, not only would there be no one powerful enough to stop him, he could remake this world as.he saw fit. He could even merge with global patches if he had the inkling or desire to do so. . . .

Nearly there . . . nearly there . . . nearly there . . .

***

"That's one string down!" Oceanspray said.

It wasn't a real challenge to fight Yarin like this. The marionette strings could not force the Nyac to use any of his telepathic or telekinetic abilities against the RAFians, as his Mark saw to that. So Yarin basically sat there doing nothing, except when the strings forced him to take a swipe at the others. But Yarin's physical strength was pretty much on par to an average human, and Sakki and Oceanspray's hides were far too tough to be hurt by that, while Sam, as a Green Lantern, was a long- to mid-ranged fighter.

And they had just managed to free Yarin's left ankle. Not really too helpful at the moment, but they were only one sixth of the way down.

"Got one," Faerie said, having removed the string attatched to Yarin's other ankle, which cause to sizzle and disintergrate from existence.

"Me too," Oceanspray noted, as he took care of the string attached to Yarin's upper right wrist.

"Snip. Snip," Sam commented as he used a green light construct (which was "yarn-ified", naturally) of scissors to cut the string attached to Yarin's lower left wrist. Then he did away with the other two strings.

"Showoff," Sakki said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 10, 2015, 09:06:34 AM

I'm just glad he wasn't doing the creepy Ultron "there are no strings on me" dialogue.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2015, 03:42:11 PM

Ah. Okay, since I'm posting this now, the new one tomorrow may come later on than normal.

New book ideas.

• Book DCLXXVII: "Instant Transmission Demons" -- An old RAFian foe discovers demons who can ride on wireless signals, and tries to decide if he can use them.
• Book DCLXXVIII: "Corporatist Interests" -- A corporatist has a rather big secret.
• Book DCLXXIX: "Famous Faces" -- An impersonator makes mischief that vary from harmless to criminal.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Isn't That -- ?

<Shouldn't we be in human morph?> Noelle asked.

<We have more present concerns,> Esplin said. <It doesn't mean anyone will remember this.>

"Besides this is an official RAF mission, after all," AniDragon said. "Wait -- over there . . . is that . . . ?"

<It can't be,> Noelle said, <He's back at the first location.>

<Besides,> Esplin said, <the whole body porportions are off. Cloak is obviously feline, Shadow is obviously simian, Malice is obviously some sort of marsupial.>

"Oh, you only know that because Cloak told you," AniDragon teased, as Esplin glared at her with a single stalk eye.

<This one is clearly reptilian.> Esplin said.

But it wasn't reptilian at all. It was more of a bipedal avian.

<The only thing that it is clearly is a Realm Walker, Esplin.> Noelle scolded good-naturedly. <We still don't know much about Cloak's species, despite what he has already shared with us, which would be considered treasonous by Andalite military standards.>

Esplin made as close to a harrumph sound that Andalites could generate, and Noelle just savored this victory privately.

"He's coming closer," AniDragon pointed out. "It's definately not Cloak -- not with those piercing eyes."

<In any case, it's a fake,> Noelle pointed out. <This "yarn-ification" doesn't affect them, remember.>

<Lucky them,> Esplin said, moodily. He liked it about as much as Cloak did, though Cloak wasn't made of yarn, string and buttons now like Esplin.

The mockup proved to have powers rather like Cloak's -- except they worked with yarn and things -- despite the dact that Spin-Yarn had never before met Cloak. This proved to be a tad problematic, as none of the three could match that level of brute power with brute power.

<This is impossible!> Esplin raged. <That thing has all the powers of Cloak! Hiw can we possibly slay it?>

<Yes, it does,> Noelle said, <but it has far more weaknesses to exploit.>

<Like what?> Esplin said, rather disgruntlex.

Noelle looked at the faux Realm Walker and said, <Like this.>

FWAAAAAP!!

She used her tail blade to slice through a structural bit of yarn that caused this monstrous mockup to collapse intk useless yarn, string, and buttons.

"That was too easy," AniDragon noted.

***

Spin-Yarn was getting closer all the time, but was finding this push-back heavily irritating. He would have been there already if not for it! He would never admit it, but he was tiring. He decided that he would have to recall his minions. But they were not showing up on his senses? Why weren't his minions showing up?!

Oh, they were all dead. . . .

WHY WERE THEY DEAD?!*

Spin-Yarin could only come to a single conclusion. And it was one that scared him far more than the "yarn-ified" ocean. This single thought terrified him in such a way that nothing -- nothing! -- else could.

"I'm not going back," he muttered to himself, revealing his capacity to speak was there, he just elected not to most of the time. "I will NOT go back."

He was almost there . . . he was so incredibly close that he could almost feel his body vibrate with the power of that Atlas String . . .

---

*Obligatory Abridged Frieza reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 10, 2015, 03:49:17 PM

Did yarn just cut through yarn?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2015, 03:51:08 PM

More like a button-half cutting through yarn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 10, 2015, 03:57:54 PM

Saffa sent me all the PDFs I needed to read so I'll probably be binge reading them all soon. XD Yay

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2015, 02:21:21 AM

Glad to hear it, Abby. :) How many did you have to go?

I might rewrite the ending from my original outline. I rarely do that, though.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Shake, Shake, Shake -- Shake Earth's Booty

Spin-Yarn kept puing deeper and deeper in the ocean. He couldn't help but feel a little livid. His minions were destroyed! Destroyed utterly! The power expended to create them and vive them some semblance of life had returned to him upon their destruction, but that wasn't the issue that irked him so much.

The fact that someone had the sheer audacity to destroy one minion of his, let alone all of them. That they had the gall to even challenge their sovereignty, to challenge his sovereignty. This is what the yarn sorcerer found intolerable, inconceivable, disrespectful. Spin-Yarn was like any megalomaniacal madman in the fact that he thought highly of himself and lowly of others, even eschewing anything resembling friendship or love.

Deeper and deeper he went as he thought about this, getting incensed with every foot he travelled. He never had to worry about taking a breath -- he didn't breathe, he didn't need to.
He didn't need to eat or to sleep, either. Yet he was allowing himself to be consumed. Consumed by rage and powerlust.

There!

There! That had to be it. It just had to be. Just had to be the Alpha Stitch. It looked too much like it to not be it!! It had to be it. And . . . inside . . . inside would be the Atlas String.

Spin-Yarn could have gone ahead and absorbed it into his being. He could have made the patches that made up the world separate and flow off aimlessly in the vastness of space, waiting for him to arrange them as he saw fit. To remake the world to suit his choosing, and even becoming the new Atlas String himself, the master binder of the world.

But he stopped short of taking the Altas String for himself. He considered all the possibilities. He flicked the string with one of his staffs, and it caused the entire world to shake rather dangerously. This confirmed Spin-Yarn's assumption.

Still he did not take his prize for himself. He considered. If he took the Atlas String now, those infernal infidels, those treacherous traitors, would potentially die and go unpunished for their treasonous transgressions. They would escape his wrath in death.

This would not do, Spin-Yarn decided. This simply would not do. They must be punished, they must be made to pay for their actions. They could not simply go scot-free.

He made several devices made of balls of yarn, to deliver his message. Spin-Yarn would expect nothing less than abject obedience, absolute subjection, and unquestioning servility. These demands were not negotiable.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 11, 2015, 02:24:32 AM

Where did that chapter name even come from. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 11, 2015, 02:39:42 AM

Uhm. Too many Cloaky. A good twenty or so at least XD I have to search and remember where I was. I don't think I was caught up originally. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2015, 01:44:39 PM

Oh!

And I don't make it any easier, do I? ;)

:edit: New book ideas! (Now you know what I think about on the walk to and from work.)

• Book DCCLXXX: "All Hope Dies" -- A being preys on Adara, the blue Entity of Hope.
• Book DCCLXXXI: "Love Lost" -- The same being preys on the Predator, the violet Entity of Love.
• Book DCCLXXXII: "Rage Forgotten" -- The same being preys on the Butcher, the red Entity of Rage.
• Book DCCLXXXIII: "Greedy No Needy" -- The same being preys on Ophidian, the orange Entity of Avarice.
• Book DCCLXXXIV: "Without Compassion" -- The same being preys on Proselyte, the indigo Entity of Compassion.
• Book DCCLXXXV: "The Last One . . ." -- The same being preys on Parallax, the yellow Entity of Fear. This being does not go after Ion (the green Entity of Will) as it does not consider willpower an emotion.
• Book DCCLXXXVI: "The Entity-Eater" -- The same being takes on the name of Entity-Eater and declares himself ruler of the universe.
• Book DCCLXXXVII: "The Steward Rises" -- But the Steward threatens the Entity-Eater's rule.

Don't think I rehashed anything. I'm calling this the "Entity-Eater Arc".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 11, 2015, 02:08:43 PM

How long of a walk do you have?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2015, 02:56:06 PM

Twenty minute walk. Give or take.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 11, 2015, 03:06:00 PM

Dang. Well I will be sure to catch up

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2015, 04:12:38 PM

But, alas, I won't be making it easy for you.

Anyway, since I'm posting this now, tomorrow's may come a little later.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Of Realm Walkers and Spin-Yarn

The RAFians regrouped back at the forum, not having found Alpha Stitch or the Atlas String at any of the locations. A majority was beginning to think that they were just distractions, the deliberation of which was arguable.

They were hotly debating this, with a sparce few RAFians not being as respectful of the views of others as they should be. Rotiart was a notable example of that.

"Well, that amounted to nothing," Rotiart sniffed.

"We destroyed the minions of Spin-Yarn and freed Yarin," Cloak said. "I believe that's sufficient enough to not be called nothing."

"Not to mention that faux Realm Walker," AniDragon said.

"What?" Cloak said promptly, with a snap in his voice. This was news to him. "What fake Realm Walker?"

<We fought a yarn-manufactured creature in the shape of a Realm Walker.> Noelle said.

"But why would he do that?" Saffa asked. "Why would he want to make a minion in the shape of a Realm Walker?"

"Cloak, did you do something or know something with this Spin-Yarn character?" Abby asked.

"I have never met him before," Cloak said, rather overly serious.

"And there are other Realm Walkers, too." Shadow pointed out.

"Malice, the Walker formerly known as Abomination, Cataclysm, Corruption, Collector -- I'm probably missing someone, but yeah, that pretty much backs up Shadow's point," Gaz said, listing them off on her fingers. "But the question remains. Spin-Yarn clearly knows of your species, Cloak, Shadow. Is there any individual you know who would have had dealings with such a creature?"

"Aside from Malice?" the feline Realm Walker asked, still so serious. "No."

"That's not really a fair question." Shadow said.

"Actually, it was," her uncle said, though he appreciated her coming to his defense just the same. "The bigger, and better, question was where was Spin-Yarn before now. Surely, he would have done this before if he could. Perhaps he was contained somehow."

"If he was contained, then he could be again," Aquilai said.

"If he was," GH repeated. "If. We don't know that for a fact. We don't know anything about this Spin-Yarn, or his possible relationship to some unknown Realm Walker (which, in and of itself, is another assumption). We know nothing concrete. All we're doing right now is waiting in inaction, whilst we speak in conjecture and speculation. We need to --"

The Earth shook violently.

"Oh, crapbaskets," Helen said.

"He's found the Atlas String," Underseen said, as the tremors ceased as quickly as they started.

"We need to act fast," Cloak said. "But -- I . . . I need to go talk to someone."

"I'll go, too." Shadow said.

"No," her uncle said firmly. "This I need to see to myself."

"But --"

"Please, Shadow," her uncle actually pleaded, "don't argue."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2015, 02:35:31 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Yarn Magician's Message

On that enigmatic note (and before Shadow could talk him out of it, as well), Cloak Walked away from the forum. His destination unknown to everyone, including Shadow, who did not know what to make of this rebuff.

Suddenly, the tremors began again. Spin-Yarn was twanging the Atlas String once more. There was really no reason for it, other than a simple show of force to increase his credibility as a legitimate threat amongst the people of the world. As if the transmogrification of the world into a rainy day activity was somehow insufficient.

"Would he just STOP that?!" Saffa snarled. "Is it just bloody necessary or something?!"

"It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'playin' the world'!" GH cried, desperately trying to stablize himself.

"But that's not a phrase!" Genies declared, as the tremors winded down slowly.

"Semantics," GH decided.

Then three strands of coiled yarn flew into the forum, unbothered by the low-levelled Code Avalon, looking very much like a ocean blue, faceless Combee. The three coils detatched from each other and the first one uncoiled and undulated itself into a word -- "This" -- written in cursive, or "joint-up", writing. The second and third strands of coiled yarn followed suit, undulating and recoiling into the words "is" and "Spin-Yarn", written in cursive.

It was obvious what this was. Spin-Yarn was sending a message -- literally this time. His voice -- a rather grating sound -- spoke the words, reverberating through the blue strands of yarn. For the fourth word, the first string undulated again into the new word so that the strands of yarn were essentially captions for his speech.

"This is Spin-Yarn. I am at the Alpha Stitch, which houses the Atlas String. This String is what binds your -- our -- world together. The tremors you assuredly felt? They were mere plucks of the Atlas String. Imagine how much power that I'd wield if I had absorbed it into my being? I'd gain the power to do as I please while this planet breaks apart. This so gives me the option to remake it as I see fit. Now, why am I telling you all this? Well, I suppose I have a weakness for the classical sort of villainy, so forgive the indulgence."

"Why are villains always so dang long-winded?" Sakki sighed.

But Spin-Yarn was not yet through.

"But just why haven't I done so yet? Well, the reasoning is simple. You dared to destroy my minions. The audacity of that unholy mistake will cost you dearly. But in time, in time. Just for the moment, I will settle for abject obedience to any and every edict I issue, no matter whether or not they make sense to you personally. You will not question these edicts, and you will not question me or my interests. You will proselytize my will and uphold my every whim. This is not an option. This is not a request. This is a law unto all of you."

"Oh," Abby said, "he's one of those villains."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2015, 03:53:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Wheeza

Cloak had gone back to the Nexus. He knew he would be ostracized if any other Realm Walker saw him, so he stuck to the shadows. The person he sought out was here, she was another Realm Walker.

She was his aunt. His mother's younger sister, his grandfather's second eldest daughter. Wheeza. The one that helped him recover some of the trauma when he was kicked out by his mother -- simply for the crime of his mother not liking his cooking of the stew dinner. . . .* She helped him out the suicidal thoughts that he had, back when he was the most defeated man in the Nexus . . .

And there was a reason that he didn't want Shadow to come. He did not know how they would react to each other . . . probably a stupid concern, but one he had nonetheless. His aunt was like him, estranged from the rest of his family, barring Shadow and Faith. He hadn't spoken to Dagger and her husband and daughter in a very long time. His mother had dismissed them both as "losers", when she herself was the biggest loser of all . . .

The house was at the end of a steep, down incline, after going up an incline before evening out. It was a rural, heavily forested area.

He knocked on the door to the single-story home. It was his cousin's house, he apparently had asked his mother live there with him. He had a decent one. Not everyone was so lucky.

Wheeza has answered the door. While Cloak was a feline Realm Walker, his aunt was a canine Realm Walker, specifically a German shepard.**

"Cloak! What's up?"

"Sorry to bother you, Wheeza," Cloak said, rather modestly, "but you're the only one that I know that knits or crochets."

"Ah. I think I know where this is going," she said. "Come in, come in."

Cloak couldn't help but wonder about that, but he followed her inside. His cousin and his wife were both currently at work, and his aunt was off. They walked to directly straight from the door, then took a right, crossing the threshold into his aunt's room.

"Spin-Yarn, right?" she asked. "I think that his sock was left in the Prime Universe, where you made your home."

"How do you know about Spin-Yarn?"

"Your grandfather told me all about him," Wheeza answered. But, before Cloak could ask, she replied, "years ago. He told me about him."

"How did he --"

"He created the sock that he ensnared him in," his aunt answered.

---

* An oversimplification of what happened, perhaps. In any case, it was a confrontation was inevitable to happen, and the beef stew was just the catalyst, I suppose . . .

** A reference to my aunt's innate loyalty, as well as the fact that she used to have a German shepard that passed away when I was 15.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 12, 2015, 04:16:50 AM

Spin-Yarn was much better off when he wasn't talking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 12, 2015, 09:46:31 AM

I will catch up soon-ish. I have a good twenty-something books to read still, but each book only takes me about twenty minutes to read.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2015, 01:43:35 PM

So, are you saying that I should make 'em longer, Abby? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 12, 2015, 01:50:05 PM

She might not be saying that, but I'll say it. You totally should make the memoirs books longer. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 12, 2015, 02:01:29 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 12, 2015, 01:43:35 PM

So, are you saying that I should make 'em longer, Abby? ;)

Sure! :XD: I wouldn't mind longer Memoirs books. :rofl:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2015, 02:29:12 PM

Well, that has already been a trend with the books that I've been outlining recently. But twenty chapters is usually the requisite chapter number I go by.

I'm currently outlining "Am I Blue?" which is basically Blue's backstory book, but I usually don't know how many chapters that they'll be until I outline them. Sometimes it's more, rarely it's less, it all depends on the story.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Sock It to Me

"He what?"

"Yes, he visited the Prime Universe time to time," Wheeza said, realizing quite quickly that Cloak had not known this. Her tone was soft and gentle, with a crack of good humor in it. "Granted, he didn't spend nearly as much time as you do -- now, don't go think I put any stock in those ludicrous beliefs of the smaller-minded Walkers. I know why you stay there. You found a niche, a place to belong. You found friends that you know you can trust. That's all any being could wish for."

"Thank you for your kindness, Wheeza. I know what they say if me," Cloak said, in an uncharacteristicall y small voice. "But do you know how to make another garment to incarcerate Spin-Yarn?"

"Funny you should ask," she said, getting up. "I happened to be thinking about Daddy one day a couple of weeks ago. Between you and me, he was really never good at crocheting or knitting."

Well, that explained how Spin-Yarn managed to escape.

"So, I wondered," she continued to explain, "knowing your grandfather as I do, what would happen if the sock he made got destroyed. I knew he used a rather looser weave than was prudent, but I figured he knew better than me. I was still a child, then, after all."

"A child?"

"Yes," Wheeza confirmed, "I was about, oh, six or seven when he made it."

So Spin-Yarn had spent at least five thousand years, Dweller time, inside that sock. No wonder he didn't speak much -- it must have smelled horribly in all that time. Geesh -- no wonder he was evil. Then again, he would have had to be plenty evil before to warrant Sage to incarcerate him -- but a sock? Really? Were there no better options?

"Anyway," Wheeza said, with a snap to her voice, bring out a single sock thst had Realm Walker script all over it, "on a whim, I went ahead and crocheted this. It should be sufficient to trap the little guy. Almost seems a pity that such a tiny guy had to be so evil."

"Well, he was trapped in a sock," Cloak.pointed out. "And he is about be again."

"Yes, he's about come full circle," she said. "Well, good luck with you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2015, 06:43:51 PM

Tomorrow's chapter may be a bit later than normal.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Rebellion? That is So Sixties!*

Spin-Yarin knew his messages were sent out, and they were automatically translated into whatever primitive language these stupid apes and miscellaneous masses of nothings spoke. He wondered idly if they even understood his message, though he believed that he dumbed it down sufficiently enough.

He waited for their capitulation. It shouldn't really take long. The earthquakes should have garnered him plenty of credibility to follow through on his threats. But this inherent arrogance, like all stereotyped villains, would come to bite him in the end. If he was practical, if he was pragmatic, he woukd have realized that it was far better to follow through with his initial plans for the Atlas String, instead of this whole "hold-the-world-hostage" scheme of his.

Honestly, it reduced him to the level of Saturday morning cartoon villain. Especially when he decided to be all egomaniacal, nearing megalomania (although not quite there), about all this. In his arrogance, he had permitted himself to become foolish and, yes, even a little naive. It was naive to expect that people would just so readily give up their freedoms and rights to a tinhorn dictator with childlike schemes and aspirations.

Few may be tricked into doing such, some may sacrifice it for others, but this was not like any of those scenarios. Spin-Yarn just sat near the Atlas String, futilely waiting for the abject capitulation. He waited . . . and waited . . . and waited for the sign of global surrender.

But what he got was the very thjng that he warned everyone not to do. Warned not to do it, or he would allow this world to, quite literally, fall apart. He was incensed that they did not take him up on what he saw as a generous offer.

The people of the world rebelled. And the RAFians were leading the charge with Shadow in tow. All of which seemed to be unconcerned with being underwater, as none struggled to breathe beneath the yarn waves. Shadow, Saffa, guitarhero, Abby, Dino, Phoenix, Horse, Aquilai, Blue, and Richard stood as the frontline of the vanguard of this Rebellion.

"You DARE to DEFY me?!" Spin-Yarn demanded.

"Wow." Shadow said, rather cheekily. "He sounds like Malice."

"If she guzzled with razor blades and lemon juice," Saffa grumbled, knowing full well that Shadow was referring to his manner of speaking.

"You DARE to MOCK me?!" Spin-Yarn demanded.

"Yes. Yes, I do." Saffa said, quite honestly.

"What do you think you can do?" Spin-Yarn spat. "I hold all the cards here. You have leverage, no power over me. I can absorb the Atlas String at any time of my choosing."

"Then why haven't you?" GH asked, already suspecting the answer.

"That's immaterial," the yarn magician snapped.

"That's plenty of material, actually," GH noted.

"SILENCE!" Spin-Yarn roared. Apparently, he didn't like others contradicting him. "You can do NOTHING!! You CAN'T stop me!! You can't even KILL me!!"

"Perhaps not," came a voice behind him, standing between him and the Alpha Stitch, "but they can distract you."

---

* Yes, that's a Fairly Oddparents reference. Back before that stupid fairy dog was a regular.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 12, 2015, 09:11:16 PM

Those yarn puns though. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2015, 02:32:38 AM

Puns? :huh: Wait -- oh.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Talk to the Sock

"Distract me? What could you possibly --" Spin-Yarn took notice of Cloak. Especially his piercing eyes -- which weren't as piercing as his grandfather's, but still there was a certain familiarity to it. "YOU!!"

"You mistake me for my grandfather," Cloak said, unable to hide the note of pride in his voice at the very thought of being compared to his grandfather. "The pale mockup you constructed could not measure up to him."

"You cannot do anything to stop me, either. Even your grandfather couldn't kill me. You have no leverage." Spin-Yarn said quickly, almost as if he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. "Uh, could you move?"

"No."

"It makes no difference if you do!" Spin-Yarn said, and Cloak was suspecting that this guy was mostly bluster. "You still have no leverage over me!!"

"Oh?"

"Yes!! There is nothing you can do to st-- wh-what is that?"

"Oh, just a simple sock," Cloak said, coyly. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, though."

Spin-Yarn didn't seem to be convinced. He was finally being smart, and Cloak gave a quick sidelong look to Shadow, and she got the message easily and quickly. She worked to get everyone to safety, as the yarn ocean would soon no longer be yarn.

"Wh-what do you plan to do with it?"

"Oh, what can one to with a sock missing its matching pair?" Cloak said, subtly hinting that he knew where he other sock that contained Spin-Yarn went. Cloak allowed the silence to grow between the two of them, and Spin-Yarn never stopped eyeing the sock. Cloak waited until everyone was in safety, knowing full well that he had Spin-Yarn's entire attention due to this sock.

Of course, Cloak wasn't without more tricks.

The Realm Walker threw the sock at Spin-Yarin who shrieked like a terrified child, as the sock landed upon his button nose -- outting itself as an ordinary, mundane sock with no magical qualities whatsoever.

"Why you little --"

"You are hardly one to call anyone 'little'." Cloak said, pulling the real magical sock from his cloak. It had a powerful aura around it, an aura that Spin-Yarn did not seem to recognize. To his costs, as it did levitate above Cloak's palm, and it swiftly absorbed the yarn magician without so much as a surprised word of.protest from him.

Cloak swore the sock even burped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 13, 2015, 03:00:44 AM

That fake sock made me laugh pretty hard XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2015, 04:00:08 AM

Excellent, GH.

. . .

Damn, every time I see your sig, GH, it makes me hungry. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Rendering Reality

With Spin-Yarn gone, reality reformed and remade itself back as it should be. Reality rendered itself back to material matter. People became flesh and sinew again, machines became metal casing and circuit boards again, and so on.

Of course, RAF wasn't venerated for their role in this by the loudest, most obnoxious voices in politics and whatnot chose to actually blame them for it, and they were just covering their butts.

Naturally, it wasn't true. But politics don't always deal in facts, but deals in emotion. Some people don't care about facts as long as they have someone to hate, someone to scapegoat. It's a sad truth, but there really are people like that in the world. Heck, the Red Lanterns are probably 80% these kind of people -- but that is a generalization, one could say.

There is no such thing as universal popularity, and it is a foolish endeavor to seek it out.

***

Cloak held the sock, which squirmed in a most disconcerting way. The yarn magician Spin-Yarn was still alive within the sock . . . for the time being, anyway. Cloak knew that this sock was stronger than the last, but there was always a chance that he could escape again.

This could not be allowed to happen.

Cloak knew what had to happen. It did not please him what must occur, what he must do to ensure this never came to pass. He could not allow it to happen again . . .

Was it ruthless? Was it arrogant? Was it . . . was it wrong?

Possibly yes to all three. But he would do what he must, despite the later viewpoints on the action.

He sent the sock through the Veil. Literally.

***

Aboard a spacecraft, a slight cloaked figure strode up to another, who sat imperiously in a straight-backed chair with gold accents. He had fold his hands in front of him, elbows on his thighs, and he rested his chin atop his fingers.

"What do you want?" he said, in a bored, flat-toned voice.

"Now, now, Gamesmaster," came a honeyed voice. "Is that any way to speak to the person who broke you out of prison? The person who provided this ship for you? The latter of which was not easy to acquire."

"So you want gratitude? A 'thank you'?" Gamesmaster said, sounding rather ungrateful.

"No," the figure said. "No, that isn't my reasoning for coming."

"Then what is your reason for this visit, Malice?"

"Oh," Malice said, coyly, "just to give you a 'head's up' of a couple contenders . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 13, 2015, 04:15:54 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 13, 2015, 04:00:08 AM

Damn, every time I see your sig, GH, it makes me hungry. . . .

Which was exactly the point of my putting a picture the delicious bunzuh in there ;)
Damn it, now I'm hungry too.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 13, 2015, 06:22:48 AM

Your sig is pure evil.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2015, 04:57:14 PM

New book, new chapter.

BOOK XCVI:
GLADIATORS
CHAPTER ONE:
Obstacles and Complaints

Saffa was running. She was in human form, and the light was dim. Much too dim for her liking. But she hadn't time to complain.

"Zzzzzzt!"

A beed drone buzzed her, but she managed to avoid it, by pure chance. That wasn't supposed to be here.

"Zzzzt!"

"Zzzzt!"

"Zzzzt!"

More? Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful. These weren't supposed to be here either. Soon, seconds later, the swarm passed. Saffa did not hesitate to run to her destination again. She climbed into a circular passageway, only to press herself to the ground. The high-pressure jet of water would have taken her head off! And three more jets of high-pressure wated followed.

This wasn't supposed to be here!! Saffa was growing increasingly irritated. As she scrambled to her feet as she headed down an adjacent passageway at one o'clock. She did not know when another jet of that high-pressure water would come.

Suddenly, egg-shaped devices dropped from the ceiling as the passageway opened up. These were new. They weren't supposed to be new. The stone eggs glowed in a very Electrode way.

"Oh, god."

Successive explosions rocked the passageway. But when the smoke cleared, Saffa had gone and a Psycholeopterran was in her place, intangible. But then Saffa swiftly demorphed, resting for only a minute, before continuing her trek.

"Whoa!!"

Saffa stopped short. There was a concussive blast of fire to the left. Then to the right. Then back to the left. Then back to the right. Pause. Then the pattern started up again. The RAFian was beginning to get seriously miffed. This wasn't supposed to be here either.

"Zzzzzzeeeeeee," came a lazy sound.

"Oh, not this again!" Saffa said, deftly morphing Tyrannopede, and using the web to embed the whizzing shurrikens. Saffa continued on, demorphing as she ran. The fact that she wasn't showing any exhaustion was an impressive feat in and of itself.

Then she came to a dead end, and several incendiary blasts at her, going from red to blue. But Saffa had reflectively morphed a Cdabdozer, and was fortunate enough that her skin was the first thing to change. She powered through as she completed the morph.

<That was a dick move!!> Saffa complained loudly as the passageway vanished, revealing it all to be an obstacle course, a training sim. Saffa swiftly demorphed and she was livid.

"Seven-point-two-zero minutes," Terenia said. "Not your best time, Saffa."

"It's not my fault!" Saffa protested angrily. "Goom put new traps in the tunnel!"

"Of course," Goom said. "Gotta keep you on your toes. And it's not easy for someone without hands!"

"Blue, it's your turn."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 14, 2015, 12:05:17 AM

I'm glad you got my swearing on point. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2015, 02:40:27 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Gamemaster

Gamemaster was a chimpanzee-form Realm Walker. He was also a criminal for using Dwellers in gladiatorial matches. But it was considered really no worse than ****fighting or dogfighting to the average Realm Walker citizen. The ones that see Dwellers as lesser, inferior creatures.

He was believed to have been executed by being pushed through the Oblivion Veil by the general population. They had no idea that he was broken out of the Oblivion Gate -- they were still under the false belief that no one had ever escaped from the place. Just how Malice managed to cover up this prison break was uncertain, but she managed it just the same.

Malice had provided him a ship that looked like a clunky hybridization of a Pool Ship, Frieza's ship, and Slix Vigma's ship, with a propulsion system like a Saiyan pod. The ship was quite sizeable and, despite the apparent clunkiness, the ship was well-maintained by computer and cleaning robots. The ship contained five essential parts -- Gamemaster's quarters (which also housed the control room), the arena, the incarceration cages for the fighters, a teleportation transmitter room (which also served as a brief orientation room for the new kidnapped fighters), and the engine room which had an additional "repurposing" room.

He had escaped the Oblivion Gate at the same time as Collector, the magpie-form Realm Walker, now since past. Gamemaster was aware of it, but felt little about it. All he cared about was the gladiatorial matches, and finding new fighters.

He mostly preferred sentient fighters, but was willing to use nonsentient animals as well, if they were sufficiently monstrous enough. So far, he had only seven beasts he found suitable -- a fire-breathing saurian/simian creature called a Shear (http://evolve.wikia.com/wiki/Shear) Goliath (http://evolve.wikia.com/wiki/Goliath), an Acklay (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Acklay), a bio-electrical Lovecraftian beast called a Shear Kraken (http://evolve.wikia.com/wiki/Kraken), a Nexu, a bladed stealth hunter called a Shear Wraith (http://evolve.wikia.com/wiki/Wraith) who bore some similarities with Ectonurites in body shape, a Reek (http://starwars.wikia.com/Reek) which had been fed meat, and a large, tongue-grabbing creature called a Shear Behemoth (http://evolve.wikia.com/wiki/Behemoth). Gamemaster basically used these creatures to help weed out the weaker species that he picks off as fighters.

In the intervening time, Gamemaster had collected quite a number of species as fighters. He entertained himself with the fights, sometimes to the death, if it either tickled his fancy,as punishment, or he needed to make room in the cellblock. He never had to do the latter, but he was prepared to. He fed these fighters rather disgusting slop that every race, every species found repugnant.

And, all the while, he considered Malice's suggestion. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 14, 2015, 05:07:44 AM

Quote from: Saffa on August 14, 2015, 12:05:17 AM

I'm glad you got my swearing on point. ;)

Dear God, just imagine if Cloak included the amount of swearing that you and I both do. Memoirs would turn into a Tarantino film very fast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 14, 2015, 06:33:51 AM

I f***ing swear, lol.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2015, 04:07:09 PM

I curse a lot, too. Granted, it's Realm Walker curses.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
All I Really Want For RAFmas

The forum was decorating for the holidays. They were near the end of the Dweller year, and Cloak wasn't surprised to see that several holidays were there to coincide with it, but he didn't really care to decorate his thread for a simple seasonal thing.

Cloak had wondered if there was too much materialism with this season. But he mused on this silently. He noticed the RAFians were not immune from the avarice of the season, and they sung about it, with Asmo singing in a voice rather eeriely similar to Abridged Mr. Popo:

"Jessica Biel and Megan Fox,
Not another pair of woolen socks,
Is all I want for RAFmas!"

Cloak said, tonelessly, "Well, that's just not practical."

Tocade sang:

"Spending a week in Mexico,
With no chores in tow,
Is all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Asmo said, dropping the Mr. Popo voice, "Aw, that sounds terrible -- I mean, terrrific.  How about you guys?"

Goom sang:

"I would like a pair of skates.
Then I'd go out skating.
But I really don't know how to skate!"

Horse sang:

"I want a Lexus all in pink --"

Mr. Guy screamed, "NOOOOOO!!!! SEALS DO NOT -- I repeat, DO NOT -- DRIVE!!!"

Rotiart sang, quietly, so no one heard him, except possibly Demos:

"Just a dad who didn't drink."

Demos sang:

"Oh, and that reminds me,
Twelve kegs of fear!"

RAFians, excluding Cloak, sang:

"All these happy wishes,
And lots of RAFmas cheer
Is all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Cloak replied dryly, "Santa's really got his work cut out for him."

Blue said, with a smirk, "Oh, we ain't even gotten started yet."

Hunter sang:

"I want to tour the Spanish coast."

Slushie Man sang:

"Lunch with Thuy Trang's ghost."

Hunter and Slushie both sang:

"Is what I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Then Hunter realized what Slushie Man sang, and replied, "Wait, what?"

"Never mind, keep going," Slushie said.

Estelore sang:

"Everything as I've said."

Rotiart, still barely audible, sang:

"A softer voice in my head."

Estelore, quite audibly, and Rotiart, still barely heard, both sang:

"Is what I really want for RAFmas this year."

Demos sang:

"Yellow cake uranium --
Never mind the reason."

FuBar sang:

"I'd like chutes and ladders
And a yarn ball!"

Cloak couldn't help himself. He had to ask. So, he sang:

"Doesn't this seem like too much stuff?"

Tyler sang, rather hostilely:

"Who are you?  It's not enough."

Shock added:

"Buddy boy, I got your RAFmas right here!"

The RAFians, excluding Cloak, sang:

"All these happy wishes,
And lots of RAFmas cheer
Is all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Cloaky said, earnestly, "I'm just saying it seems a bit excessive."

Noelle said, <Oh, get off your soapbox, Cloak!  It's RAFmas!>

Estrid said, <And RAFmas is about gettin'.  Everyone in RAF knows that!>

Ouroboros sang:

"Pokemon trainers with no restraint,
To battle me until I faint,
Is all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Kelly sang:

"Platinum-plated silverware."

Parker was being irritated by being stared at by kid visitors the forum.

"Just one day when kids don't stare."

Kelly and Parker sang:

"Is all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Parker ****ed his fusion cannon, causing the kid visitors to flee. Faerie facepalmed at the potential PR problems this would cause.

Queen sang loudly from the Bannedlands, so she was principally unheard:

"If you celebrate RAFmas at all,
I will go to court and sue your butt!"

Yarin sang:

"Wouldn't I love some tinkerer joy?"

Horse sang, holding her Suck-A-Matic:

"All the sanity you hold dear!"

The RAFians, excluding Cloak, sang:

"All these happy wishes,
And lots of RAFmas cheer
Is all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Dameg sang:

"I want a golden hair comb."

Estrid sang:

<And a ship with a dome.>

Dameg and Estrid both sang:

"That's all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Block said:

"I want a brand new labyrinth hedge."

Shadow, holding a PokeBall with a Oshawott within, sang:

"I would like Ozzie to learn Water Pledge."

Block and Shadow both sang:

"That's all I really want for RAFmas this year!"

Then the number abruptly stopped.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 14, 2015, 04:24:54 PM

Quote

"Just a dad who didn't drink."

It's not an excuse for being an ass, though. I know a lot of people who really need to separate themselves from their parents behaviour wise and be their own person.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2015, 04:33:06 PM

There's actually more to it. That was just a glaring generalization on my part. But was it intentional? Or am I just being deliberately misleading? Also, why did the song stop abruptly?

;)  >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 14, 2015, 05:22:45 PM

You're getting very good at this evil thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 14, 2015, 11:03:45 PM

I kinda feel bad for Rotiart, but at the same time I agree with Saffa

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2015, 03:05:55 AM

Oh, you will feel wor-- er, never mind.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Taken

The song had ended abruptly when a certain something loomed right above RAF, and Code Avalon was on its lowest setting! It was only useful in keeping the Pootang in on this setting.

The clouds obscured the belly of this ship so those on the ground could not see them, but Gamemaster was at the helm, located in close proximity to his quarters -- in fact, one had to  pass the helm just to reach his quarters. He was piloting the gargantuan ship with surprising dexterity and competence.

He was pleased -- really pleased -- to see that Malice's information was correct. This forum place, this RAF, was just a banquet of species to choose from. But which ones would be the best for his games?

Meanwhile, on the ground, the RAFians were aware something was amiss. Rotiart was, naturally, nowhere to be found. The RAFians weren't surprised that something new like this came along. It had been an eventful year, thus far.

Saffa. Gone.

There was no sound. No muffled protests or machinery sounding. Just a flash of pale yellow light. There was no way the others, not even Cerulean, could have reacted in time. But Saffa was soon to be in good company.

Underseen. Gone.

The RAFians barely had time to register the shock.

Helen. Gone.

Parker was livid when realized. But he was more livid with himself more than anything else.

Sam, the Green Lantern. Gone.

This was getting bad.

Guitarhero. Gone.

RAFians were being abducted left and right!! And they did not have sufficient reaction time to escape or even process what was happening. Until it was too late. This was part of the fun that Gamemaster took in finding and kidnapping his gladiators. He loved to see the brief moment of shock as they are, from their perspective, instantaneously teleported aboard his ship into the orientation room.

He was about to do it to Gaz and Laserbeak, when he noticed Cloak. He did not only notice him, but he recognized him. Not because they knew each other, as they were not peers -- Gamemaster was the same age as the RAFian Realm Walker's mother. Rather, Gamemaster knew him by pedigree and deed.

Gamemaster knew Cloak was the descendant of Master Avatar, and of the great Master Sage, who was his maternal grandfather. Gamemaster also knew for a fact that Cloak had slew Cataclysm, a Realm Walker older and more powerful than the chimp Walker. Given these facts, Gamemaster was terrified of Cloak, and what he could potentially do.

He didn't want to end up like Cataclysm.

He ended up booking it out of there, keeping the five RAFians on board. Unaware that Cloak would undoubtedly come for them. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 15, 2015, 03:08:39 AM

Ew, I have to be stuck on a spacecraft with Saffa? ;) :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 15, 2015, 03:45:06 AM

Ew, I have to be stuck on a spacecraft with gh?! :P ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2015, 03:47:06 AM

Uh . . . don't forget how big the ship is. There is enough room to have a coliseum, cages, and such. It is at least as big as a Pool Ship . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 15, 2015, 03:48:55 AM

Clooooaaaak, she's breathing on me!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 15, 2015, 05:38:46 AM

So I'm Darth Vader now? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2015, 04:23:10 PM

:XD:

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
It's Like a "B" Movie

Deciding to put his new "toys" to the test, he separated the five and pitted Saffa against the Shear Goliath, GH was pitted against Acklay, Sam was pitted against the Shear Kraken, Helen was pitted against the Shear Wraith, and Underseen was pitted again the Shear Behemoth. This was to test them, to see if they were worth the trouble of collecting them.

Underseen used his shapeshifting to overpower the Behemoth, and subdue him. But he did not kill it.

Saffa acquired the Goliath to distract it, managed to morph Crabdozer, and subdued the Goliath, its flame breath unable to affect her morph's craggy, pachydermic hide.

Helen made short work of the Shear Wraith, reciting the Star Sapphire oath beneath her breath the entire time.

GH enchanted the Acklay with an impromptu rock ballad, and it seemed to seriously enjoy the sound, the music. GH never had to touch it.

Sam didn't even give the Shear Kraken a chance to attack. He shouted the Green Lantern oath as he managed to subdued it with his ring.

All five had proved their worth to Gamemaster, though they really didn't care about getting his approval. They were soon all thrown in individual cells.

"You see, you never quite know what he's goin' to do!" an Amperi (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Amperi), who sounded like Peter Lorre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lorre), said, "He's so spontaneous."

"Well, how do we escape?" Saffa demanded.

This was apparently quite the wrong thing to say.

"You hear that guys?" the Lorre-esque Amperi said, scoffing with derision, "They want to know how to escape!!"

All the gladiators, no two alike, laughed hysterically. Saffa glowered. She didn't like being laughed at.

They sang:

"Watch yourself!
Don't fall off from the Shelf!"

A female Askajian (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Askajian) sang:

"You must be the new guys in town."

Helen sang:

"What's that sound?
Is someone moving 'round?"

The Amperi sang:

"Sit down for a spell!
You don't look so well."

But, apparently, an Arachnichimp (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Arachnichimp) thouht that he was being addressed:

"Wait a minute! I feel great!
You just leave yourself to fate!
You might as well just hang around."

A Galilean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galilean) and a  Geochelone Aerio (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Geochelone_Aerio) sang:

"It's too late.
You've got to cooperate."

The Amperi sang:

"Just try to relax.
It's a ship of wax!"

Not literally, of course. It was just a play on "house of wax".

The Geochelone Aerio, an Anodite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Anodite), and a Pyronite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Pyronite) sang:

"Oh, I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I remember the Transylian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Transylian) Styne.
Shivers up my spine.
Whoa-oooooooooh!"

Saffa sang:

"I'm for getting out of here."

The three replied back in chorus with the other gladiators:

"No need to shout, my dear!
No-oooooooooh!
Who will go
To the arena down below?
Trouble is a-bubblin' in the brew
And while you're down there, Mr. Compete suffice
Will give you good advice.
He'll know what to do.
You just tell him "Boo!"
He will put the voodoo
In the stew I'm telling you!
It's like a movie,
It's a 'B' movie show!
It's like a movie,
It's a 'B' movie show!"

Saffa sang:

"This is weird!"

GH sang, gesturing dramatically:

"It's much worse than I feared!"

Helen sang:

"I'll close my eyes and make it disappear!"

Then all three sang:

"This is strange!"

A Gourmand (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Gourmand) sang:

"It ain't home on the range."

Then all of the gladiators sang:

"You just tell Mr. Compete
That you got cold feet!"

The RAFians sang:

"There goes the sun; here comes the night.
Somebody turn on the light!
Somebody tell me that fate has been kind."

The gladiators sang:

"You can't go out!
You are out of your mind!
It's like a movie,
It's a 'B' movie show!
It's like a movie,
It's a 'B' movie show!
Aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaah!
Aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaah!
Aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaah!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Knock it off," Gamemaster's disembodied voice said, through the ship's intercom. He did not say anything more.

The abject silence afterward was eerie.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 15, 2015, 11:08:43 PM

He just likes to suck the joy out of everything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2015, 02:24:19 AM

Just wait . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Follow That -- Hey, Where'd It Go?

"Quick! Follow that --" Cloak began.

"What was that thing?" Abby interrupted, unintentionally.

"A ship, obviously," Cloak said, impatient. "A spacecraft. And we need to --"

"Spacecraft? Of what design?" Parker asked.

"Does it really Gateburst matters?!" Cloak growled, the earth starting to crack at his feet. "We have to follow it before we lose it! We may not be able to track it!"

"All in-atmosphere spacecraft leaves vapor trails," Yarin said, knowingly. "We can simply just follow that."

"Seriously, Yarin?" Cloak said. "You do not know for a fact that all spacecraft does -- why am I arguing semantics? We have go. We have to follow it."

"Wait, that's impossible," Yarin said, speaking to himself more to anyone else. "The vapor trail is most gone. We cannot track it, wherever it went!"

Cloak could gloat, but he thought it more prudent to calm himself down, to allow better control over his emotions and his powers over the elements. He forced himself to think . . .

"Couldn't you just track their mana or something, Cloak?" Rotiart said snottily, in an irritating drawl.

"I'm a Realm Walker, Rotiart, not an Anodite!" Cloak said, with caustic candor. Rotiart cowered away from Cloak, losing all his bravado. The Elements Master found himself indifferent.

"How could we track them then?" Gaz asked. "There has to be a way."

Yet, despite himself, Cloak was wondering why the ship left so abruptly. Why just abduct five RAFians? Why not them all? There had to be a reason. It left as if whoever was piloting that ship was afraid that they had trained a Dracon cannon on them, and it could do major damage to it. The RAFians had no such weapon, much less on trained on the ship.

So why flee so quickly?

"We could track them by their Marks," Aquilai suggested, with a shrug.

"That sounds plausible," Goom said, thoughtfully.

"Assemble a team, then," Richard nodded. "Leave as soon as possible."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2015, 07:30:12 PM

Yay! This is now the third-most viewed thread on the forum!!

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
New Battles

"The time for the gladiatorial matches has come yet again," Gamemaster said, over the intercom. Yet his voice carried no emotion, and betrayed none. "These matches are a no-holds barred bouts, where the loser will be . . . repurposed."

"That don't sound good," GH said, at once.

"It isn't," the Amperi intoned gravely.

"What is it?" Helen asked.

"Pray you never find out, Earth thing," said a Kree warrior.

"The first battle will be," Gamemaster announced, "the unarmed female human!"

Saffa sudde ly found herself in the arena. She had no sensation of being moved or teleported or whatever. She really didn't like that.

"Versus!" Gamemaster announced. "The male Wookiee!"

A wookiee with hair as black as Saffa's own materialized instantaneously across Saffa. The Wookiee looked at her distrustfully, but he looked like he didn't want to fight her. Saffa felt much the same way, personally. But the Wookiee knew that he must, because he seemed aware of what repurposed meant, and clearly did not want to be repurposed.

The wookiee charged forward in an attack, but Saffa, experienced with such things from her time as a RAFian, knew that the being's heart wasn't in it, so she dodged it with little difficulty. The wookiee was kidnapped from Kashyyyk so long ago that he feared never seeing it again.

But he would not be repurposed. He had to fight. He had to battle this young human who he towered over, who his brute strength greatly eclipsed. But he would not dishonor himself by becoming a madclaw. He would not use his retractable claws. He would not become a madclaw.

Saffa was taking the defensive, with the wookiee taking the offensive. The thought of acquiring him had crossed the RAFian's mind, but the wookiee would not sit still long enough to allow her to make tactile contact long enough to acquire him.

Saffa would have to get large. Larger than the wookiee, large enough to possibly overpower him, or, at least, take him by surprise. The fact that she managed to survive this long as a human was really a testament to how much the wookiee did not want to fight, rather than her durability.

Saffa quickly morphed into a creature this wookiee had never met. She morphed a Tyrannopede, which was actually one of her favorite combat morphs. The wookiee had never met such a thing, nor someone able to do as Saffa did. It backed away, to assess this new threat.

<I'm . . . I'm sorry,> Saffa said. Then she wrapped the wookiee up in a cocoon of silk. This was enough to declare Saffa the winner, as she demorphed. The wookiee would no longer participate in the gladiatorial arena, he was going to get repurposed. The last thing that she was thing before she was instantly whisked away to her cage was that she hated Gamemaster.

***

Next up was Sam, the Green Lantern. His opponent was a Shi'ar warrior, an evolutionary throwback with wings, who thought Sam was insane because he could dream, because he could be creative. It was the very nature of the constructs he made with the green light from his ring.

Sam really didn't care for the claims that he was insane, that he was tainted. But this warrior was a product of the society of the Shi'ar people, and he was armed with an energy-based weapon that wasn't anything like a Shredder or a dracon or a flashlight (;)).

He flew up on his wings, following Sam, who recited his oath to himself, as he attacked the Shi'ar warrior. "In brightest day --"

"Give up your taint!"

"-- in blackest night --"

"Regain sanity!"

"-- no evil will escape my sight."

"You're evil!" he roared as he swooped toward Sam, only to be swatted down by a green energy construct of a flyswatter.

"Let those who worship evil's might . . ." Sam said, dodging the energy discharge from the Shi'ar's weapon.

"Like you!!" the Shi'ar warrior snarled savagely.

"Beware my power . . ." Sam said, pulling back his ring arm, as his ring poured out green energy.

"What?!"

"GREEN LANTERN'S MIGHT!!!" Sam shouted, grinding the Shi'ar warrior into the ground. It was decided then that this warrior would be the one to be repurposed. Sam was suddenly reutned to his cell, as his reward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 16, 2015, 08:01:34 PM

Dang. That's hard to do, especially if you don't know what's going to happen to them. :/

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 16, 2015, 08:40:06 PM

Really interested to find out what's gonna happen to the warriors who are "re-purposed." Also excited to see Shadow's battle, that should be fun. Damn it, stop making me invested in this!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2015, 07:15:26 AM

Sorry 'bout not posting the next chapter yet. Still workin' on it. Still cannot believe how close we are to entering Year 2 (which starts at Book CI) of the series, although I'm already outlining books in Year 5.

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on August 16, 2015, 08:01:34 PM

Dang. That's hard to do, especially if you don't know what's going to happen to them. :/

Precisely. Although I, as the writer, already know . . . and it's kinda dark.

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on August 16, 2015, 08:40:06 PM

Really interested to find out what's gonna happen to the warriors who are "re-purposed."

And you will, eventually. It will be revealed.

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on August 16, 2015, 08:40:06 PM

Also excited to see Shadow's battle, that should be fun.

Huh? Shadow's not one of the contenders. Did I screw up somewhere?

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on August 16, 2015, 08:40:06 PM

Damn it, stop making me invested in this!

B-b-but that's the point! ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 17, 2015, 08:36:13 AM

I don't remember Shadow being in there either. :orly: gh, get some sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 17, 2015, 10:19:01 AM

Quote from: Saffa on August 17, 2015, 08:36:13 AM

I don't remember Shadow being in there either. :orly: gh, get some sleep.

Ugh, I have no idea why I thought Shadow was there. This is what happens when my sleep os horribly interrupted two nights in a row.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 17, 2015, 10:41:04 AM

I haven't read Memoirs in so long I actually forgot how much I love your writing style. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2015, 04:46:47 PM

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on August 17, 2015, 10:41:04 AM

I haven't read Memoirs in so long I actually forgot how much I love your writing style. XD

Second time I heard this today, the first being in my Creative Writing class.

Anyway, sorry for the delay, but you'll see why soon. New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Battles for Everyone

"Oh, that is SO not fair!!" the RAFian complained to deaf ears.

GH was next up, guitar upon his back. And the match was completely unfair.

Why?

His opponent was a Kryptonian, that's why. A Kryptonian who had the benefit of being ensconced in light from a yellow sun. He had all the powers of one, but the question of whether he had absorbed enough to bring it to virtually limitless power remained to be seen.

He looked at GH with an arrogant little flip of his head, and immediately dismissed him as a threat or a challenge. GH, while pragmatic enough know that the Kryptonian certainly had facts on his side in this one, was a little miffed at being written off so easily.

Even so, GH wasn't sure how he would be able to beat a friggin' Kryptonian! All he had was his guitar. . . . Wait a minute . . . that could be his saving grace . . .

He grabbed his guitar and pulled it to his front, causing the Kryptonian in his sheer arrogance to laugh, and spoke in a dismissive tone, in Kryptonian -- which was somehow electronically translated into English: "HA! You going to sing me a song, little boy?"

"Something like that, yeah," GH muttered, ignoring the insult, strumming and tuning the guitar very quickly.

The Kryptonian began to walk languidly toward the RAFian, overconfident that his superhuman speed was not necessary to defeat GH. The Kryptonian was very overconfident in his abilities, and, rather ironically, it would work to his disadvantage.

GH began to play some triumphant guitar music, which caused the Kryptonian to hesitate. Because he enjoyed the music, enjoyed the victorious nature of it. This was precisely what GH wanted. He may not have the superpowers of this Kryptonian, but he could think. And he can play.

He was very subtle in the change of the music. He made it turn rather dour and bittersweet, making the Kryptonian think about things that he missed sorely. GH continued and made the music sound mournful and sad. This made the Kryptonian feel utter despair and collapse to his knees.

GH was declared the winner, and he stopped playing. The Kryptonian looked up, having forgotten about the match. He was outraged that he was tricked, at tried to attack GH, but it was too late. He was moved to be . . . repurposed.

"Clever, GH," Saffa had muttered. "Let's hope you never go evil."

***

Underseen was next up. When he saw his opponent, he knew he was in for a real fight, as he recognized the ridged forehead, the black hair, the characteristic aggression, and a couple of imposing-looking weapons. His opponent's face looked rather stony and inscrutable.

Underseen was already weary of this gladiatorial shtick, whereas the Klingon seemed to take at least some enjoyment out of it. But Underseen saw that it was just a veneer he projected. He saw it as great dishonor to be captured as he was by Gamemaster, who denied him to be able to take his own life by a special collar attached to his throat. Gamemaster always did that with potentially "problematic" species.

The battle started, and Underseen noticed that the Klingon had a slight heaviness in his movements, almost as if he was between irate anger and depression -- it was hard to tell, his face remained inscrutable.

He clearly did not want be here. Underseen doubted than any of the gladiators, except that arrogant Krytonian perhaps, had actually wanted to be here. The Klingon was under the impression that he would never die with honor now. He regarded his life without purpose now, without meaning. He would welcome death.

Underseen just wasn't the person to give it to him. He just wasn't as bloodthirsty as something like that would require.

But the Klingon was practically begging for it, finding the percieved dishonor of capture a worse burden to bear. He wished for death, and he told Underseen as much underneath his breath. But Underseen did not speak Klingon.

But Gamemaster did. And he was not pleased. He decided to give the Klingon a worse fate. He was going to repurpose him.

Underseen was the winner . . . and all he did was dodge three attacks. He felt sorry for the Klingon, not animosity.

***

Helen was up next.

Her opponent was a large, bluish-grey, ichthyoreptilian creature with fairly long arms, three-fingered hands and short legs that end in stumps. He had four shark-like fins and sharp teeth, as well as small, squinted eyes and a black stripe around their eyes and face. Behind his eyes were pronounced scales and what appeared to be gills. A Polar Manzardill from X'elli.

She dodged his first ice breath, and she decided to follow Sam's strategy, as she assessed that Polar Manzardills weren't very fast and couldn't fly.

"For hearts long lost and full of fright --"

"What?" her opponent asked as she weaved around his second shot. A puff of cold air issued from his mouth with every word he spoke.

"-- For those alone in blackest night --"

"What are you -- oh, I see. It's like that other human with the ring," her opponent said.

"-- Come take our ring and join in our fight --" Helen mumbled.

"Only pink." the Polar Manzardill continued his thought.

"-- Love conquers all --"

"Freeze." the Polar Manzardill said, actually succeeding in freezing her.

But a violent explosion of violet light, as she roared, "-- WITH VIOLET LIGHT!!!"

Helen fired a powerful concussive blast of violet light at the Polar Manzardill, sufficiently knocking him out, leaving him to be repurposed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 17, 2015, 05:13:53 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 17, 2015, 04:46:47 PM

He grabbed his guitar and pulled it to his front, causing the Kryptonian in his sheer arrogance to laugh, and spoke in a dismissive tone, in Kryptonian -- which was somehow electronically translated into English: "HA! You going to sing me a song, little boy?"

What's with everyone calling me that? First Regifisticuff, now this Kryptonian. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2015, 05:18:40 PM

Brute mentality. That is the limit to their creativity, and, because it would offend them, they believe that it offends everyone. Especially people that they don't consider a threat.

Anyway, the next chapter may come later on tomorrow, after work.

:edit: New book ideas.

• Book DCCLXXXVIII: "A Symbiotic Reach" -- The RAFians must deal with a hybridization of symbiotes and Reach beetles.
• Book DCCLXXXIX: "The Invisible Family" -- A father, a mother, and a child become inexplicably invisible.

There. Still working on the new chapter.

:edit: Done. New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
No Rest For the Weary

The RAFians won their first bouts with sentient beings, and they all won. Yet it was mostly hollow victories, as they still did not know precisely what repurposing was. From what the other kidnapped gladiators' intonations indicated, it was not an at all good or desirable outcome.

But their resting would not last for long, or, at least, as long as they would have personally liked. This battles were grueling for most, if not all, participants involved, but Gamemaster didn't care. As far as he was concerned, they were Realm Dwellers, and that made them lesser beings by definition. The concept of them having equal rights to a Realm Walker was patently ludicrous and utterly ridiculous in his eyes. He saw them as nothing more than a source of amusement, like a little boy playing with action figures.

He didn't even broadcast or record the match ups or the matches themselves. These matches were solely for his own entertainment -- for him only, no one else.

The next batch of matches were to come -- the matches would increase with frequency until he found "replacement" fighters. Yet he never seemed to run short of them.

Underseen battled a Polymorph (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Polymorph). The Polymorph was a gelatinous, unicellular humanoid with a pointed head and an asymmetrical, drippy amoeba-like shape. Atop it's head was an anti-gravity generator in the firm of a minute flying saucer. It was because of this device that the goopy sentient being could survive heavier atmospheres.

It was also its greatest weakness, as Underseen was easily able to take advantage of. The Polymorph was going to be repurposed.

***

Helen was next and she was getting cranky. Her opponet was a Petrosapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Petrosapien), a creature made of a green, diamond-like material. He are a little taller than an average human, with four digits on their hands and none on their feet. He looked as if he did not even want to be in this fight, and that it wasn't the first match he had to do.

"Look, Earth girl," he said, in a rather husky sort of voice, "I'm sure you're a good person, but I'm not about to be repurposed. I'll try and make this as swift and painless as I can -- maybe I can save you from the repurposing chamber."

"How?"

"There is only one way," he said, cracking his knuckles almost in a repentant way. "And I think you're smart enough to know what way that is."

She was.

"Sorry, pal. I don't have any intention on dying," she said, blasting him with all her might, the back of her mind concerned with her ring's charge. But she managed to charge it during the brief respite, having managed to pull her personal lantern from the pocket universe it resided (which actually looked like colorful pimples from Void Space). "Or being repurposed, for that matter."

She blasted the Petrosapien with violet light. But he had held up his hands and generated crystal in his hands so it looked like he was using the secondary fire of Ice Shield. This refracted and reflected the violet energy right back at the Star Sapphire, which took her by surprise.

She did not act fast enough, and was downed by her own blast. She was defeated. She was going to be repurposed.

***

Sam was next.

His opponent was a small, white creature whose body is a living amplifier. He was actually living sonic waves contained within a silicon suit with a square appendage resembling an MP3 player behind his back with a port on it - decorated with a 10 symbol and what looks like cassette tapes on his lower legs. He had circle-shaped indents on the back of his hands. The inside of his mouth is green with lines that give it the appearance of an amplifier. It was an adolescent Sonorosian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Sonorosian).

As the battle began, the Sonorosian immediately replicated himself tenfold, but Sam took to the air, watching the Sonorosian wearily. They attempted to knock him out of the air -- it didn't work. Sam made a green construct of headphone -- noise-cancelling headphones -- and placed them over his own ears.

The Sonorosian's sonics were now ineffective against Sam, as his green aura afforded him some blunt force damage from them. Sam made a green construct of a javelin and threw the javelin construct with uncanny (and sheer luck) accuracy.

The Sonorosian's replicants merged back with him, and he felt defeated. He would be repurposed. Sam was surprised that it was so easy.

***

GH was next.

His opponent was a silicon-based lifeform made of highly durable crystal. Most of his body is covered in a protective silicon-based rock, while the exposed crystal was magenta. He have purple bodies, legs and arms with several black lines and dots on them. He also sported magenta shards all over their body -- six on his back, two on his chest and one on top of his small, narrow, purple head, resembling a horn. He also has one large, cyclopean eye. He was a Crystalsapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Crystalspaien).

GH was emboldened by his success with the Kryptonian -- though he did not know why everyone always seemed call him a little boy. He did not look that young, did he?

He unshouldered his guitar.

"You will not win against me like you did against the Kryptonian, boy," the Crystalsapien said.

"Oh, I wouldn't count your chickens just yet," GH said, deftly deferential, quickly tuning the guitar appropriately, as he had a sudden inspiration.

"What?"

"Nothing," GH said, swiftly. He strummed a little tune, and the Crystalsapien blasted a multicolored blast at him. GH deftly dodged it, while still strumming, proving that his training at RAF was invaluable.

He lifted his arm dramatically, and then began to play a very loud, very obnoxious heavy metal number, with a wee bit of grunge thrown in, which the Crystalsapien did not seem to like. The frequency of the music wasn't as erratic as it seemed. It caused the Crystalsapien's body to vibrate in a very discomforting manner. It actually seemed to make the magenta pieces to crack, and forced him to his knees.

GH was declared the winner, and the Crystalsapien was going to be repurposed.

***

Saffa as up, and her opponent was an Osmosian.

Due to RAF's previous experience with Psyphoon, she defeated him handily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 18, 2015, 12:29:08 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 17, 2015, 05:18:40 PM

He lifted his arm dramatically, and then began to play a very loud, very obnoxious heavy metal number, with a wee bit of grunge thrown in, which the Crystalsapien did not seem to like.

This. So much this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2FrBSUMXkA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2FrBSUMXkA)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2015, 07:13:05 PM

;)

Anyway . . . yeah, this is gonna get really dark really fast. There's your disclaimer.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Repurposing of the Worthless

Helen was transported into a horrid place.

It was predominated by a singular white light that cast everything in shadow. She quickly realized that she was on a conveyor of some sort, and watched with horror as a Thep Khufan (http://http;//ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Thep_Khufan) fell into the light. She was consumed. Judging by the obvious agony in her scream -- it was not painless, it was not quick. But nothing was left behind.

Whatever this thing was, it was like the Ssi-ruu (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ssi-ruu)'s entechment (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Entechment) technology, only more elaborate and expansive. Gamemaster's idea of repurposing his fighters . . . was to entech them into powering his ship and everything aboard it!! To use, not only their life force, but their whole being to power it. Not even a single mote of the being survived the process.

It was ghastly.

Helen floated up, her ring still possessing enough juice to pull it off. She watched everything that happened next with horror.

A Skakoan (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Skakoan), whoss breathing apparatus and pressure suit were damaged irreparably, sang:

"I can't take this kind of pressure!
I must confess one more dusty road
Would be just a road too long."

He was "repurposed". Helen looked away, as the other beings waiting to be "repurposed" sang in chorus:

"Worthless."

A female Kineceleran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kineceleran) with a broken and mangled left leg sang:

"I just can't, I just can't,
I just can't seem to get started!
Don't have the heart to live in that fast lane,
All that has passed and gone."

Helen looked away again. She could not ignore the agonizing scream.

"Worthless."

<And there is nothing you can do about it.> a nameless male Andalite said.

"Worthless."

"Pardon me while I panic!" a male Gamorrean said.

"Worthless, worthless, worthless . . . "

An exhausted Anodite sang:

"I came from Mor' Otesi (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Mor'_Otesi).
And I got my kicks out on Trade Route 66.
Every ship stop from T-K (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/T-K) to Io.
Undertown to Old Petropia (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Petropia).
From Appoplexia (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Appolexia) and east of Revonnah (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Revonnah).
From Aldabra (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Aldabra) to Terradino (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Terradino)."

Helen turned away, but she could not block out the Anodite's scream. What could she do? The entechment machine terrified her . . .

"Worthless."

A male Citrakayah (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Citrakayah), with a broken foot, sang:

"I once ran the Intergalactic 500.
I must confess I'm impressed how I did it,
I wonder how close that I came.
Now I get a sinking sensation,
I was the top of the line, out of sight; out of mind,
So much for fortune and fame!"

The scream caused Helen to cover her ears, but it was insufficient to block it out. Then a Thundara native sang:

"Once took a Appoplexian to a wedding,
Once took a Appoplexian to a wedding,
He kept forgetting, his loneliness letting
His thoughts turn to home and we turned . . ."

Helen found herself curling into a fetal position. She knew that she should do something, but she was at a loss of what. She was becoming an emotional wreck.

An exceedingly roughed-up male Chimera Sui Generis (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Chimera_Sui_Generis) sang:

"I put a man into a graveyard,
I beg your pardon, it's quite hard enough,
Just living with the stuff I have learned."

The Chimera Sui Generis did not scream, but the silence was just as horrible. Helen had to do something to stop this. Surely, it was in her power. Surely . . .

"Worthless."

Then a Tetramand (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Tetramand) with three broken arma and a sprained ankle sang.

"Once flew a surfer to sunset.
There were bikinis and buns,
There were weenies.
The Merlinisapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Merlinisapien) just couldn't forget."

That scream! It was too much to handle! Too much to bear! Helen was sure that she'd lose her sanity in here. Hearing the screams of the others. At least, until her ring ran out of power. Then it would be her screaming.

She could only thing if one thing, her saving grace. She spoke only one word, desperately reaching out for him.

"Parker . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 18, 2015, 09:38:08 PM

Ooooowwww feeeeeeellsssss
That huuurts Cloaky

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 19, 2015, 12:00:42 PM

Damn. This is bad.

Oh, and I forgot to upload the PDF of the last one, so here it is:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2015, 02:18:54 PM

Yes. And thanks once again, Saffa!

New book ideas.

• Book DCCXC: "Mark-Destroyers" -- The RAFians come across a strange parastitic creature that has the capability of breaking their Marks.
• Book DCCXCI: "Lichen Likening" -- The RAFians discover an ancient secret about several celebrities.
• Book DCCXCII: "Sins of the Father" -- The RAFians must face a strange creature -- the Progeny-Hopper.
• Book DCCXCIII: "First Time Capture" -- The RAFians must rescue a quantum lichen.
• Book DCCXCIV: "Chakra-Blocked" -- A parasite can block the chakras of people, and the RAFians must find a solution.

All titles are not final, and may be changed or altered. Tell me what you think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 19, 2015, 02:20:21 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 19, 2015, 02:18:54 PM

• Book DCCXCI: "Lichen Likening" -- The RAFians discover an ancient secret about several celebrities.

So, the RAFians discover the Illuminati? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2015, 05:59:42 PM

Uh, no. The Illuminati analogue is in a different book.

Anyway, I'm sorry, but I don't think that I can post up a daily chapter today. Time just got away from me, as well as I got called into work earlier today, which required me to take a nap when I made it home.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Verily, Verily on Our Way

"This isn't working!"

"Calm down, Parker," Phoenix said.

They were on Yarin's ship, and the team consisted of Shadow, Cloak, Parker, Abby, Gaz with Laserbeak, and Phoenix, with Yarin piloting. They were trying to trace the others by their Marks, but this was a rather tenuous tactic. The Marks themselves tended to be untraceable, as one of their many protections, and odds of trying to track the others by them are effectively nil.

"No. I will not bloody calm down!" Parker said, approaching very dangerously near hysterics. "My girlfriend is in possible danger and I am --"

"Hysterical." Cloak supplied unwanted and unbidden. "Parker, you're allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement."

"And you don't allow yourself to feel emotion at all!" Parker retorted, rather savagely.

Cloak could have been incensed, could have been offended, but the Realm Walker found that he was not. It actually surprised him a bit. Probably because he knew it to be true.

"You know very well why I keep my emotions in check," Cloak said, tonelessly. "You do Helen no favors by being hysterical and panicking. It does nothing constructive or helpful. So, Parker, calm down or do not expect us to take you seriously."

"Don't you lecture me, Walker," Parker said, deathly serious.

"Well, someone had to," Gaz said, as Laserbeak gave a concurring squawk. Parker glared at her, which she returned with one of exasperation, "Parker, we're your friends. More to the point, we actually do care about the others, too."

"And that includes Helen too, Parker," Abby said.

"Hurrumph," Parker said, rather petulantly.

"Don't be like that," Shadow said.

Parker growled and turned his back on them. Only to discover . . . something very . . . odd.

***

Meanwhile, at the gladiator ship, Underseen lost a match with a Necrofriggian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Chill), who froze him solid. Underseen was sent to be repurposed.

Helen managed to save him from this fate as much as she could. She continued to think of Parker . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2015, 03:19:39 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Down, Down, Dooby Do Down*

Gamemaster watched the matches from a private box, and the fighters only got a good amount of sleep when he did. Realm Walkers require sleep, like many other species, though not all dream.

He was well aware of the entechment of his old, discarded fighters, having instituted the policy as he didn't want the bodies to accumulate. This was one way that Realm Walkers used to try to prove their innate "superiority" to Realm Dwellers. As Gamemaster's own species do not leave behind corpses, unless counts the cloak. The chimpanzee-form Realm Walker found this facet of Dweller life -- or death, rather, was really uncouth.

He used this as part of his justification in what he was doing. He saw what he was doing as nothing more severe as a ****fight, apparently unaware how a grievous and horrible that pasttime is. But Gamemaster didn't care, as he considered Dwellers as on would consider an ant.

Yet he feared Cloak. He knew of Cloak slaying Cataclysm, though he did not have the details of what happened. Perhaps if he did, he would have dump the five RAFians as soon as he picked them up. Perhaps if he did, he would have deliberately steered clear of Earth. He also believed Cloak slayed Collector -- Malice had deliberately misled him on that account.

Gamemaster started to wonder if he was really safe from the grandson of Sage. As long as he remained in the Prime Universe, there was always the risk of running into him . . . and Gamemaster could not stand up to him, he knew, Cloak's powers greatly eclipsed his own. Though Gamemaster's powera were sufficient to keep his fighters in line.

Gamemaster shook himself from his worry. There was no way that Cloak could find him. He had no way to find him . . . he was bound to the planet . . . the slayer of Cataclysm and Collector could not touch him . . .

***

Sam was having a difficult match.

He was battling a particularly battle-hardened Conductoid (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Conductoid). Sam found that he couldn't use concussive blasts without it being absorbed and redirected back at him. All his other constructs seemed to do only marginal damage at best.

He needed to come up with a new strategy. Only he couldn't -- as he was going to get repurposed. . . .

---

*Got that from a Garfield comic strip.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 20, 2015, 04:01:35 PM

Wow, what a nice guy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2015, 04:03:13 PM

Yeah, and, unfortunately, it's not an uncommon mindset in the Nexus.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 20, 2015, 07:53:42 PM

EW, now Saffa and I are the ONLY RAFians on the spacecraft (who aren't in the queue for being repurposed)!?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 02:19:31 AM

Yes.

Gonna deviate a bit from my outline -- but, then again, I already have. The original contenders were Underseen, Faerie, Sakki, Azguard, and Ash until I changed my mind for everyone except Underseen.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Battle Hardened

So far, Saffa and GH had faired surprisingly well against opponents that seemed to outmatch them in several conceivable ways. And simply due to their own innate cleverness, their training at RAF, and just a little luck they survived. Even when Gamemaster decided that apparently enough fighters have been repurposed, and were just returned to their cells after their defeat.

Everyone was encouraged to jeer at them for their losses. Not many of the fighters took Gamemaster up on this offer, only the really competitive species.

Saffa had used her morph versatility and clever tactics to take her foes off-guard, and take them down. Outside the Shear Goliath, she never thought to acquire the DNA of her opponents to add to her morph repertoire. Although it wasn't like her opponents really gave her time to do it, and she usually had to morph near immediately, or risk being repurposed, or defeated.

And Saffa wasn't one to give up or allow herself to be defeated so easily.

GH, on the other hand, tended to use a sneakier tactic. He would make his opponents think that he was a simple one-trick pony, and then completely turn the tables on them at the last moment. And when the opponent thought that they were wise to his trick, he threw them another curve ball.

But still they were both lucky. Lucky that their opponents were not used to foes as the two RAFians like them.

Unfortunately, there was a reason behind this.

***

Helen was embarrassed to admit it.

She had forgotten this ability. Forgotten the ability that all Star Sapphires had. She was even more embarrassed when Sam, a Green Lantern, had to remind her. She had allowed her fear at the entechment machine to completely unnerve her . . . but that's rather understandable.

Using her ring, she called upon her deep-seated love. Her love for Parker. She allowed her heart to reach out to him. She opened a portal to Parker, to allow him to come to her . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 21, 2015, 10:07:17 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on August 19, 2015, 02:18:54 PM

• Book DCCXC: "Mark-Destroyers" -- The RAFians come across a strange parastitic creature that has the capability of breaking their Marks.

Dang. This one sounds really freaking cool.

Yay Parker!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 02:11:29 PM

Thought it might be intriguing.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Gathering

Saffa and GH hadn't a match for awhile.

They were not aware of any ulterior motives on the part of Gamemaster, who kept his motivations from the fighters. But why would he confide his plans in beings he considered to be mere insects? The fact that they possessed blood instead of ichor, like Realm Walkers, disgusted him. It was as if a human discovering that a creature had no blood but worms instead, or something similar.

Saffa and GH took what little enjoyment they could out of this "break", but they did not know if they would whisked out into battle. They were not given any warning before their mandatory participation in a battle, and not given notice about who or what their opponent was. That would involve work that Gamemaster was just not interested in doing, and it would force him see his fighters as thinking, feeling beings, something he wasn't interested in doing in the least.

The other fighters seemed to know something about this, but said nothing. It was as if they were afraid of mentioning it. As if there was a fear of a heavy reprisal for telling the two of the fact of their next opponents would be.

Gamemaster wanted them to go into the next battle unprepared and unaware . . .

***

Parker wasn't the only one that came through the portal. Cloak, Shadow, Phoenix, Abby, and Gaz with her Laserbeak armor came too.  They landed on the ground as the portal dissipated into nothingness.

Parker was in a violet light sphere, but Helen wasn't fast enough for the others. Gaz's Laserbeak armor actually afforded her flight, though. Cloak landed daintily on his feet, while Abby and Shadow fell on their butts. Cloak was a cat after all.

"Not fair," Shadow complained, a bit miffed on how her uncle didn't fall on his butt.

"Well, that was embarrassing," Abby said.

Cloak wasn't paying attention to that, for he had immediately noticed the entechment machine. He had only read about them briefly, and not in great detail, but he was sure that was what this was. He quickly realized that they were standing on some sort of conveyor belt -- he wasn't sure if he could stop it from moving, and wondered if it was a pointless exercise.

He didn't know if entechment would work on Realm Walkers. He didn't really want to find out. Even academically. He noticed Parker, Helen, Underseen, and Sam floating above the conveyor belt, with Gaz hovering, and he formed an energy disc beneath his feet as Shadow did the same.

"Hey! What about me!" Abby protested. "I can't fly! . . . Well, yes, I can, when in morph, but that's beside the p-- ahhh!"

Cloak had hoisted her up on to his disc, which he enlarged to accommodate. She looked rather rumpled at the sudden lift.

"You could have said something, you know," Abby sighed.

"Quite," Cloak said, more interested in the entechment device. Not as fascinated as Yarin would undoubtedly be -- which reminded him.

"No one tell Yarin of this device," Cloak said.

"Eh, it would be one way to get him to forget about his microwave," Parker said, hand around Helen.

The RAFians could practically hear a nonpresent Yarin shouting, "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 21, 2015, 02:24:24 PM

And the next opponent is . . .
[spoiler]BARNEY THE DINOSAUR[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 21, 2015, 04:07:12 PM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on August 21, 2015, 02:24:24 PM

And the next opponent is . . .
[spoiler]BARNEY THE DINOSAUR[/spoiler]

That would be rather terrifying.

I still laugh every time the FYI is mentioned. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 04:11:50 PM

Quote from: AbbyBabbles (Abbles) on August 21, 2015, 04:07:12 PM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on August 21, 2015, 02:24:24 PM

And the next opponent is . . .
[spoiler]BARNEY THE DINOSAUR[/spoiler]

That would be rather terrifying.

But wrong. And I worried that I made too obvious. ;) >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 21, 2015, 04:18:11 PM

You always worry about that but honestly you never actually do. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 05:36:16 PM

Eh, I'm consistent then. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Let Us Out!

"How do we get out of here?" Abby asked.

"If we knew that," Sak said, testily, "do you think that we would still be here?"

"No need to bite my head off," Abby replied defensively. "Where's Saffa and GH?"

"Still in the gladiatorial ring or the cells ringing it," Underseen said. "They haven't lost yet. We did."

"So this is a gladitorial ship," Cloak said, and already he had a sneaking suspicion who was kidnapping these beings. But he didn't really have enough evidence to make a solid conclusion. "I wonder . . ."

"Wonder what?" Helen demanded sharply.

"Gamemaster," Cloak said.

"But he's in the Oblivion Gate," Shadow said.

"It's the same deal as with Collector," Cloak said. "Clearly there was an escape that the Council doesn't want anybody to know about. Could have been at the same time as Collector for all I know."

"Oh."

"How does that help us leave this dank death pit?" Abby said.

"How about there?" Gaz said, pointing to a shoot whose ends seemed to have swollen shut, as if it was some sort of sphincter. "Cloak and Shadow can pop that thing open --"

"If they could do that, that alien with the floating metal head (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Biosovortian) would have managed it when he tried." Underseen pointed out.

Cloak nodded, unsurprised. He looked at the sphincter thing. "It is likely supertangible as well, to prevent phasing out. So you might as well back out of Psycholeopterran morph, Abby."

<Aw, nuts.> she muttered as she complied.

"It has probably been treated with a variety of ways to account for a variety of abilities of a variety of species that he uses as fighters," Cloak said, thinking aloud. "But there may be one way -- something that Gamemaster, if it is indeed him, did not account for."

"And what is that?" Gaz asked.

"Other Realm Walkers," Cloak said, with a deliberative finality, "Shadow, shield them."

She complied, but asked, "What are you going to to do?"

"Something potentially dangerous and catastrophic," he answered simply, floating up to sphincter alone, fingers at the hem of his cloak's hood. Prepared to lower it very minutely. . . .

***

"You cannot be serious," Saffa and GH said simultaneously.

Their next opponents?

Each other.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 21, 2015, 05:59:27 PM

I was lying down and reading and then I sat up.

You cannot be serious.

Also, some Saffa concept art I drew up at 2 am because I couldn't sleep. One for each power. And combat boots. :D There's a lot more detailed look if you click on the image.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 06:14:40 PM

Excellent, Saffa!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 21, 2015, 06:44:11 PM

Amazing Saffa!!

And crap I kinda should've seen that coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 21, 2015, 07:03:07 PM

Thanks, guys :D

Yeah, I'm still mad at the plot twist. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 07:17:01 PM

Oh, there's another twist, but you're gonna have to wait until tomorrow, my time, for it. For now I have to go to bed, because I have to go to work in the morning.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 21, 2015, 07:28:31 PM

Stoooppppp Cloaky you're tormenting me

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 21, 2015, 07:47:16 PM

Holy crap Saffa, that is awesome!
And Cloak, I think we had this discussion before. I can't keep checking RAF when I'm at work, so stop making these so damn good. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2015, 07:52:20 PM

Alrighty, Abby, the chapter after this one will be written after work, then.

Sorry, GH, can't be helped. I've actually been looking forward to writing this particular book for a while.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Surprise!!

Saffa and GH stared each other down. Each one worried about hurting the other, and sure that they could get an easy victory from the other. Although neither said it outright.

"Match . . . begin!"

"What? You mean you're being legit?" GH said, certain that this was jusf some sort of joke.

"You mean he's serious?" Saffa asked, incredulous.

They stood motionless for more than a minute. They made no effort to battle with each other, the direct center of the battle arena between the two, equidistant from the two. The two were still suffering from the shock from being presented with the opponent that they least expected.

"Battle," Gamemaster ordered, deathly stern, "now."

But, just then, a furious plume of smoke or sand -- it was difficult to tell -- funneled upward in a spiralling plume about the diameter of a monster truck wheel. A myriad of voices cried out, strangely amplified, somehow.

"We are the terror that flaps in the night!"

"What the deuce?" Gamemaster demanded. "I did not will this. Nothing happens on this ship without my say so!"

"We are that neighbor who wakes you at three a.m. with loud music." the chorus of voices sounded off again, ignoring Gamemaster.

"You dare defy me?!" Gamemaster shouted, having decided to come down in person. Not too surprising as the the arena and cells made up a majority of the ship, with the entechment machine and the engines taking up the second most room. "Who dares?! Who has the energy?!*"

As the owners of the voices made themselves known as Cloak, Shadow, Sam, Underseen, Parker, Phoenix, Helen, Abby, and Gaz, they shouted. "We are the RAFians amuck!"

Gamemaster was none too pleased about the interruption that he had no foreknowledge of. He did not like being in control of every little, minute action on this ship. "You insolent, ungrateful insects! You dare to interrupt the efficient little schedule I have for these matches? You have no rights here!!"

"And who are you to decide that?!" Cloak roared, a tirade ready to spew forth from him. "You are the one with no right to do what you've been doing, Gamemaster, you chimp chump!! You are the one who has no right to steal beings from their homes, to rip them from their homes and families, to take them away from all they know and love, just so they can battle to the death in your little pit arena!! This is why you were tossed into the Oblivion Gate to begin with!!"

"Don't dare you talk back to me, you stupid . . . st-t-tupid . . . st-t-tupe . . ." Gamemaster said, before he recognized Cloak. Recognized him and allowed fear to over take him. "Um . . ."

Gamemaster looked throughly terrified. His eyes began to dart around fervently. Until he suddenly said "Bye!" and fled like the coward he was.

"Not so fast, you chimpanzee charlatan!" Cloak roared, easily assending to his balcony and giving chase.

---

*Essentially Realm Walker for "Who has the balls?".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 21, 2015, 08:01:13 PM

It's hilarious how scared of Cloajy he is. And go to sleep so you can work!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2015, 03:46:31 AM

Well, he is a chimp. And Cloak is a tiger. So there's that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Big Gamemaster Hunting

"What do we do now?" Saffa said.

"We let Cloak take care of Gamemaster," Parker said, taking command, "the rest of us take control of the ship. From there, we return as many of these kidnapped beings to their rightful homes as we can."

There a deafening cheer at this, as the people in the cells could hear the conversation below. All of them would prefer to go home instead stay here in constant battle and substandard food.

"But," Saffa said, concerned with the logistics of such an endeavor, "there are over eight hundred people, and that's a conservative estimate, it would take forever."

"He did in the span of a year or so," Parker said, "if he was freed at the same time as a Collector, that is."

"Uh, since no one will be, uh, 'repurposed'," the word left a bitter taste in Underseen's mouth, "the ship will eventually run out of fuel."

"I called ahead." Parker said. "Our version of Mogo is on her way."

"Huh?" GH said.

***

Cloak landed upon the balcony with a feline grace and silence. He swept further into in the balcony and through the threshold of the door at the back. Cloak's footfalls were soft and soundless, he didn't see Gamemaster, but could hear his slapping footfalls, smell his pungent scent, and "see" him with Earthsight.

One would think that he would make an effort to not make his location so obvious. Granted, he may not know of Cloak's Earthsighf ability, hut he surely knew of his acute hearing that came from him being a tiger-form Realm Walker.

He came to a corridor beyond the door. He took the left side of the corridor. He prowled and streaked, finding the dim lighting here to his advantage. It did seem odd to have dim lighting here, his night vision is on par of that of humans, and Cloak's feline eyes easily penetrated the gloom.

He kept close to the trail. He would overtake Gamemaster at this rate, with ridiculous ease.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 22, 2015, 07:44:16 AM

Three chapters left, yep, still enough time for that plot twist of yours. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 22, 2015, 08:33:04 AM

Oh always. Cloaky is way good at that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2015, 01:27:10 PM

Quote from: Saffa on August 22, 2015, 07:44:16 AM

Three chapters left, yep, still enough time for that plot twist of yours. :P

The fact that you didn't have to fight GH was the twist. Sorry about the bluntness, I just had a really difficult day at work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 22, 2015, 02:13:10 PM

I'll be honest, that fight sounded like it would have been a lot of fun to read. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2015, 06:26:21 PM

Hey, there's gotta be some mystery. Some things that you have to wonder what would happen.

Now, since I'm posting this now, the next chapter probably will be after work tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
C is for Coward

Gamemaster fled from his balcony in utter terror, unaware and currently indifferent to how weak this made him look to his "toys", as Gamemaster considered his kidnapped gladiators little more than that. They were nothing but intruments of entertainment to him, and nothing more. To him, they were not people with histories and lives before he had kidnapped them, just beings to fight for his amusement.

He really wasn't any different from Malice in this regard.

He wasn't accustomed to being the one who felt terror, but the one who inspired it. He got drunk off the feeling, he loved it. Now that he was feeling it, he was finding it highly undesirable, he found.

"Grrrrrr . . ."

Gamemaster foolishly gave away his position with a chimpanzee shriek. That was a feline growl! It was definitely feline! Gamemaster shrieked again and ran harder. But soon enough he was cornered, with no where else to go.

Gamemaster began to quake in his cloak, wringing his hands, as well as the hem of his cloak, agitatedly. This made him seem rather oily and sycophantic, not the detached overlord that he had affected not more than thirty minutes ago.

Then, lurking somewhere in the dim light, unseen by Gamemaster's admittingly crappy night vision, was Cloak. Approaching closer, and closer, and closer all the while, hidden ensconced in the shadows. His footsteps made no sound, and the suspense was causing Gamemaster to crack.

Then, quite suddenly, Cloak's eyes glowed in the dim light. It was like a jumpscare for the pretentious primate. Cloak was indifferent to his fear, still finding the scent odiferously pungent. A Garbodor would be more fragrant in his opinion.

"You've shown your true colors, Gamemaster," Cloak growled. "Not the big man that you fancied yourself to be. Just a craven coward playing big. I have very little patience with cowardice, Gamemaster."

"D-d-don't k-k-kill me," the chimpanzee whimpered.

"In all good sense, I probably should," Cloak said, curling his lip in disgust, and panting with the sheer effort of keeping his emotions under control. "It's no less than what you deserve, to be sure. But I'm not heartless, like you. I possess mercy in my heart."

Cloak's fearsome glare intensified.

"Killing you will not satisfy me, I admit," he continued, "but may be the Council will get their heads out of their collective backsides and see that they were wrong about your demise."

Gamemaster's terror seemed to slowly seep out of his body and evaporate.

"But you killed Cataclysm," he said.

"I did." Cloak confirmed. "It was not a decison I made lightly. It was a decision that still weighs on my mind to this very day."

"You killed Collector." Gamemaster said. It sounded like an accusation.

"I did not," Cloak said, very openly. "That was Malice."

Gamemaster looked at Cloak with a very odd look on his face. After a long moment, he said, "Why was I ever afraid of you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 22, 2015, 07:14:00 PM

Oh crap. This is gonna get interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2015, 03:23:00 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Ideals Clash is in Session

"Is that a challenge?" Cloak said, wearily unimpressed.

"You better believe it," the chimp said cheekily.

Cloak sighed, "First Light, I thought you had some modicum of intelligence, Gamemaster."

"I do. I am far stronger than you," he said.

Cloak easily understood what he was getting at, and sighed again at the sheer stupidity of it. "Why do the naive and morally corrupt believe that disregarding life directly equates to strength? Why do the naive and morally corrupt think that sacrificing a life is an easy thing to accomplish without a second thought? Gamemaster, just because you view the lives of those that you kidnap and enslave as worthless does not make you the stronger person here. Just because you are callous enouh to throw away their lives without a second thought, unrepentant, does not make you stronger or superior. That is a fallacy."

"And making lectures and posturing doesn't make you stronger," he countered. "Save your smugness, feline Walker, for you are your grandfather's embarrassment."

"You go too far, primate Walker," Cloak said, growling intimidatingly. He had not meant to growl, but Gamemaster had pushed a button he shouldn't have. "You have seemed to forgotten that I'm master of the Six Elements. I can crush your C.S.I. into nothingness with minimal effort."

Cloak had to stop and reassert control over his emotions, but he was breathing heavily from spurting anger.

"But you won't, will you?" the chimp said, smirking smugly.

"You'd be surprised what you can live through," Cloak snarled the threat.

"Is that a threat?" Gamemaster said, lighter than Cloak's tone warranted.

"Yes," Cloak said, roughly. Then he snapped his fingers and Gamemaster's feet were encased and embedded in the metal flooring. He could not free himself. "But, better yet, I'll bring you to the Council, corrupt as they may be. They'd be forced to see that they were wrong. They might even believe that --"

"Ugh!!"

An energy blade had appeared in Gamemaster's chest. The ape collapsed into energy, leaving only a cloak behind. Cloak was momentarily surprised before he cursed his allowing himself to become so narrow sighted in his lambasting of the chimp, and forgetting to observe his Metalsight. That mindset was problematic for Cloak.

"Sorry, Cloak. I can't let you -- whoa!"

Cloak fired an aerokinetic blast at Malice, furious at her impeding him, once again, from presenting positive proof that the Council was wrong. Not to mention that he was trying very hard to keep control over himself.

"Touched a nerve?" Malice said, infuriatingly coy.

Cloak said nothing, but felt an irate irritation at Malice. He wanted to hurt her . . . but, deep down, despite what outrage he felt, he knew that he couldn't kill her. It was hard enough to deal with slaying Cataclysm.

Malice quickly Walked away, and Cloak couldn't help but feel a little residual lividness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 23, 2015, 03:30:24 AM

DAMN, this chapter was intense. Too bad Gamemaster had to die, he was a cool, if sadly realistic, villain.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 23, 2015, 05:29:09 AM

Oh my god.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 23, 2015, 07:53:22 AM

Dam. I forget that Malice has like "perfect" timing when it comes to stuff like this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2015, 05:15:07 PM

It's always wonderful when you see the precise reactions you want and are expecting after posting a chapter. And yes, this is the last chapter of this book. And I know the last bit is nust slightly evil.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Loose Ends

Estelore decided to undertake the responsibility to return all the former combatants to their former homes, based off of their species. This would take a while, unless Estelore found some sort of "home" button for the various species collected across the Prime Universe. She was willing do sacrifice her time and energy in this endeavor.

The other RAFians returned to the forum on Yarin's ship.

"So," the Nyac said, "anything interesting happened in there?"

A beat of abject silence.

"No," Cloak said, almost too forcibly, "no, nothing at all."

He shot a look at everyone to remember not to mention the entechment machine to the Nyac.

***

Malice, however, was none the worse for wear after her encounter with Cloak. Instead she was practically giddy about it. It was odd, seeing this new spring in her step. But she recently rediscovered the thrill of irritating Cloak and watching events that she spurred into motion come to their inevitable conclusion. Though one could make the argument that she was getting rather careless with her antics.

Or she could just be insane.

She was currently hurriedly burying what appeared to be a black box with ornate gold trim. She wasn't burying it to hide it though . . . she wanted it found, yes, but not by the weary-eyed owner of the box. It was some Titan who owned it . . . and Malice rather an innocent find the box and open it without an idea of what lurked within . . .

***

"Y'know," Saffa said, conversationally. It was a rather blustery winter day, and she and GH were bundled up tight. "It was fortunate that the others showed up when they did."

"Yeah," GH agreed, his favorite guitar slung over his back in the most carefully careless way, "it is. I would have destroyed you, otherwise."

Saffa stopped walking immediately. Her tone was dangerous. "What?"

"Oh, c'mon, Saffa, you know it's obviously true."

"No, it is not true," she replied heatedly, "obvious or not. If anything, I would destroy you."

GH snorted, "Surely, you jest!"

Saffa glowered at him, but GH wasn't quelled under it. Saffa decided that only one thing would settle this.

"You. Me. Danger Room. Five minutes." she growled dangerously. "Prepare to die -- or lose, I should say."

"We shall see who wins, Saffa!" GH countered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 23, 2015, 10:09:54 PM

In all fairness, Saffa could probably wipe the floor with my dead body if she wanted to. You mentioned that my tactics mostly involved faking the other combatants out, and being another RAFian, I'd imagine Saffa'd probably know all my tricks. Plus, there's that pesky morphing thing that I've heard about. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2015, 10:22:29 PM

Doesn't mean that you can't have a little bravado. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 23, 2015, 10:26:08 PM

Wait . . . was I being humble in that last post? OH GOD, SOMETHING'S POSSESSED ME! THE MARK ISN'T WORKING!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 23, 2015, 11:56:14 PM

:XD: Omgs gh, you are too much.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 24, 2015, 01:35:23 AM

The morphing's not the only trick I have up my sleeve. ;) Although Cloaky's worked that out brilliantly for me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2015, 07:00:13 AM

Did I now? ;)

New chapter.

BOOK XCVII:
THE BOX
CHAPTER ONE:
Uncovering

Two young boys, both from fairly affluent families, were walking along the beach. Their names were Dan Aplistia and Don Oburluk, and they were dressed rather preppy. They had escaped their nannies and came to thus beach where they felt safe. Don's father was just another generic, rich businessman that was never home, and his mother was a busy socialite. They only gave him enough to not be charged with child neglect. The overall effect was that Dan tended to overeat to compensate for this overt lack of love, obvious or subtle, in his life.

Meanwhile, while Dan's parents had similar parenting skills (or lack thereof), and their fathers were actually worked for the same company, they gave him whatever he wanted to placate him. This had the effect of making him spoiled, and making him expect not to have to work hard for anything. He was very possessive and controlling, and whatever he had was never good enough. He had to have more -- he always had to have more. He was lucky that Orange Lanterns do not recruit, or else he might very well possess an orange ring.

But considering how their family continually lobbied the government for programs and policies that would allow him and his fellows to make exorbitant profits at the expense of the middle-class and poor. And somehow the policies and programs go through.

It was remarkable that Dan and Don were friends, considering how much their personalities could clash. But they tended to compliment each other more times than not, though it was clear that Dan was the leader of the two and Don was the follower. But no matter how you sliced it, it was a toxic friendship.

They were talking about stupid inane political things, but they were really too young to really understand the concepts about what they were talking about. They were just really parroting their parents, what little they saw of them anyway.

Anyway, the two were walking out on the beach, nearby where Malice buried the box in loose sand. A corner edge peeked out of the sand, which was a semi-deliberate move on Malice's part. Though these kids were far from innocent, though that was more of a "sins of the father" thing.

Dan was the one who saw it first. He ran to it, easily unearthing the box.

"What is it, Dan?" Don asked.

"Mine!" Dan declared, selfishly.

"Hey!"

"What's mine is mine!" Dan said. Apparently, this sudden shift in his attitude was nothing new, according to his friend's reaction. "And mine and mine and mine, and mine, and mine!"

Dan dashed away.

"Not yours!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Don said, indignantly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 24, 2015, 07:44:47 AM

What a shady book title.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2015, 01:03:19 PM

Oh, the reasoning should be clear soon enough.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Box Opening

Don, the husky nine-year-old boy, couldn't chase after Dan for very long. Don panted, wiping his sweaty brown hair out of his eyes, before deciding that it wasn't important enough to warrant such effort that he already exerted. Even though he was nine years old, it looked as if he was wearing a meerkat atop his noggin. He thought it was a good look.

He was wrong, of course.

He narrowed his dark brown eyes at the direction that Dan was headed. He was heading home. Don decided he didn't need this. He went home, hoping to find something to eat.

***

Dan had already made to his home, and was already setting the box down on his bed. In his unnecessary greed, he failed to recognize the dangers of taking a box that you don't know the contents of. The dangers of bringing it home, and opening it.

There could always be a number of potentially dangerous things inside. Anthrax. Dynamite with fuse alit, possibly. A deadly germ. Incriminating evidence. Anything along those lines.

But he was nine. Such concepts don't usually occur to the average nine-year-old, especially the reckless and greedy ones, such as Dan. The box was light, almost as if it were empty. But Dan refused to believe that it was just an empty box. Yet, there was also an indescribable heaviness to it that was difficult to explain.

It was about the size of two moderately-sized music boxes placed side-by-side. The front of the box seemed to have an elaborate lock on it -- it wasn't engaged. Only a minor latch remained.

Dan did not imagine all the dangerous things that could lurk within the box. He did not concieve that it could possibly affect him in any negative light. He was sure the box held gold, jewels, and other assorted such valuables. It was rather naive of him to believe such, but, again, he was nine.

He quickly, with building anticipation, unlatched the front of the box. Nothing happened. Nothing interesting or noticeable, anyway.

He placed both hands atop the lip and pulled it open. . . .

Suddenly, seven brilliant plumes of colored smoke burst forth. The violet one burst forth in a stretching, almost longingly way. The yellow one burst forth, rather overindulging in the spiralling exit. The orange one burst forth in a rather erratic way, as if looking at all the shiny knicknacks. The blue one burst forth rather lazily, as if it was too much effort. The red one burst forth like a rocket, with great anger. The green one burst forth, apparently trying to lap the others. The indigo burst forth in a rather haughty, conceited manner.

After that, they seemed to vanished, and the box was empty. Dan felt incredibly gypped.

The fact of the matter was they did not immediately. But solidified into rather spectral forms that were unseen by humans.

The red one solidified into a reddish-black, muscular, humanoid body, standing roughly eight feet in height with a pair of long, curved antennae coming out of the top of its head, not unlike overlong bull horns, and four shorter antennaes coming out of the back of its head. The antennae on top of its head have wide bases and become narrower as they become longer. Its demonic head was bovine in shape. It has small, glowing green eyes, black gums, and sharp, black teeth in its broad mouth. It was Ira. Wrath.

The orange one solidified into an orangish-black, muscular, humanoid body, standing on par with Ira, with a pair of long, serpentine antennae coming out of the top of its head and four shorter serpentine antennae coming out of the back of its head. The antennae on top of its head have wide bases and become narrower as they become longer. Its demonic head bares some resemblance to that of an andaconda. It has small, glowing blue eyes, black gums, and sharp, black teeth in its triangular head. It was Avaritia. Greed.

The yellow one solidified into a yellowish-black, muscular, humanoid body, standing on par with its fellows, with a pair of long, insect-like antennae coming out of the top of its head and four shorter ones coming out of the back of its head. The antennae on top of its head have narrow bases. Its demonic head bares a humanoid insect. It has small, glowing yellow eyes, blue gums, and sharp, black teeth which can fold out like a Predator's mouth. It was Gula. Gluttony.

The green one solidified into a green-black, muscular, humanoid body, standing on par with its fellows with a pair of long, smooth antennae coming out of the top of its head and four shorter ones coming out of the back of its head. The antennae on top of its head have wide bases and become narrower as they become longer and sunction-cupped on the underside. Its demonic head is rather cetacean in appearance. It has small, glowing red eyes, black gums, and needle-like, sharp, black teeth. It was Invidia. Envy.

The blue one solidified into a bluish-black, muscular, humanoid body, t was the same size as its fellows and a pair of long, feathery plume-like antennae coming out of the top of its head and four shorter ones coming out of the back of its head. The antennae on top of its head have wide bases and become narrower as they become longer and tapered. Its demonic head was avian. It has small, glowing orange eyes, black gums, and sharp, triangular teeth filling its bill.  It was Acedia. Sloth.

The indigo one solidified into a indigo-black, muscular, humanoid body, at the same height as the others with a pair of long, crooked tentacles coming out of the top of its head and four shorter ones coming out of the back of its head. The tentacles on top of its head have wide bases and become narrower as they become longer and spiked. Its demonic head bears a certain Cthulu resemblance. It has small, glowing yellow eyes, black gums, and a cephalopod beak. It was Superbia. Pride.

The violet one solidfied into a violet-black, muscular, humanoid body, standing at eight feet in height with a pair of long, crooked antennae coming out of the top of its head and four shorter ones coming out of the back of its head. The antennae on top of its head have wide bases and become narrower as they become longer and crooked. Its demonic head bore some resemblance to that of a Blue Eyes White Dragon. It has small, glowing brown eyes, black gums, and sharp, black teeth. It was Luxuria. Lust.

All but Avaritia vanished to parts unknown. Avaritia did not for a very simple reason.

It had already found what it was after.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 24, 2015, 02:41:23 PM

I see where you got Don from.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2015, 03:12:09 AM

It was the mentioning the meerkat-for-hair, wasn't it? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Sensing the Boxed Evils

Cloak was in the forest nearby the forum. It was very near dusk, and the sun was beginning its decent into the horizon. Cloak could help but chuckle at the perspective of it all, as the sun itself wasn't truly setting, but just the planet turning ever so slowly away from it. That what everything tends to boil down to in the end. Perspective.

Yes, Cloak rejoiced in this nice quiet spot. Here he could meditate and quiet his mind, untangle the mess his mind was in during some of the more mind-tangling missions. He could come here when he needed to be alone and --

"Hiya, uncle!"

"Shadow -- I'm meditating," Cloak said, failing to keep a smile from his face.

"You're not meditating, you're napping. I know the difference!" she said, cheekily.

He couldn't stay irritated at her. His smile deepened, despite himself. Shadow emulated this, happy that she managed to get her uncle to crack a smile -- not always an easy task. Cloak tended to be very serious, and getting him to smile could be an arduous endeavor.

Suddenly, Cloak had a sneaking suspicion. His monkey niece could be quite mischievous at times.

"Did you finish all your homework?" he asked, slyly.

"Uh," she replied, telling Cloak that he had hit the nail on the head, "I . . . I love you?"

Cloak couldn't help himself, but he laughed at that response. "Shadow, you know better than to shirk your responsibilities like that."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going." she said, with a smile.

Cloak found himself considering the possibility that the real reason that Shadow popped in on him was to check up on him. She might have worried that the whole Gamemaster-Malice thing would have an negative effect on him. Clearly, he had said or done something that must have caused her some concern.

Suddenly, he felt as if he was punched in the gut. He felt a twinge in his right ankle. He had no idea what brought this on.

He was not alone in this. Demos, Cornson, Bladeh, FuBar, Yarin, and more RAFians who either could sense evil, or telepathic, or had some personal experience with great evil like this sensed it as well.

But no one precisely knew what was the cause.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2015, 04:27:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Such a Greedy Boy . . .

About nine months ago, it was Dan's ninth birthday.

"Happy birthday, Dan!" Don said, genially, presenting him a small present with blue wrappings and orange ribbons. He was already nine at that point.

Dan ripped open the present, to discover it was something sentimental rather than expensive.

Don asked, "Do you like it?"

Dan said, before transitioning into song:

Hmm . . .
You've given me a birthday gift.
You've really given my day a lift.
Oh, wow! A baby pic of you and me.
But I have to tell you a little somethin' now.
And I'm trying to find the right word how,
While your gift was thoughtful,
It was also chintzy.
But I can remedy the situation,
So you can avoid future humiliation,
If you would just follow these few gift-giving guidelines!
Buy me something made of solid gold,
Because homemade sweaters just leaves me cold.
Think in term of things that are expensive.
A coffee mug that says 'My Best Friend'
Will find a new home in my rubbish bin.
And if you knit me a scarf,
I'll bury it in the graveyard."

"Now pay attention," Dan said, as he displayed several items on a projector screen. He continued:

"Chintzy, chintzy, chintzy, chintzy, not chintzy.
Chintzy, chintzy, chintzy, chintzy, very chintzy."

He picked up a calendar that Don had made for Dan previously.

"This gift has a hot date with my paper shredder.
Buy me a jacuzzi filled with caviar,
Or a diamond-encrusted rocket car.
And, when in doubt, try a briefcase full of money.
Try to stay away from arts and crafts,
I don't want your homemade bubblebath,
And cookies are better when they're made by professionals.
Buy me a ranch with a million long-horned steers,
Or a mansion filled with crystal chandeliers,
Or a simple army tank,
Would be met with heartfelt thanks.
Because that is something that I drive to the grocery store."

Don said, getting into the song, "Oh, I get it!"

In unison, they sang, as they went through more images:

"Chintzy, chintzy, chintzy, chintzy -- "

"Not chintzy." Don declared, to which Dan replied, "Good!"

Then they sang some more, as they went through more images:

"Chintzy, chintzy, chintzy, chintzy --"

"Very chintzy." Don said, to shich Dan replied, "Yes!"

Dan continued:

"That's why I'm setting fire to the photo you gave me.
So, I'm glad I can help you out,
This is what friendship's all about!
But the next gift that you bring should require a trailer.
So, before a new day dawns,
Maybe cash in your savings bonds,
And buy me a present . . . that is not . . . CHINTZYYYYYYYYYYYYY Y!!!"

"Whew!" Don said at the song's conclusion.

"Ahem." Dan said, rather expectantly, "You still owe me a birthday present."

***

Yes, that was just one greedy memory of many of this boy. Avaritia, Unboxed Evil of Greed knew this boy was the perfect host to adhere himself to. Now, the newly Unboxed Evils did not possess legs, like humans, but rather ghost-like tails, not unlike Casper or a Dusknoir. When they adhered to a host, the tip of that tail is adhered to the prospective host's navel. Even after being adhered to a host, Avaritia remained hovering behind them.

The host is none the wiser of the adherence, and remains in control of their falculties, even when the Unboxed Evil "consumes" them. It was a bit of a misnomer, but it was when the Unboxed Evil took control over them, as Avaritia was quick to demonstrate.

It pushed its right arm into the boy's matching arm, which caused Dan to become dull and complacent, his eyes unfocused and pupils dilated. His left arm just hung loosely, almost as if dead, flopping as the body moved. Avaritia pushed its other arm up Dan's spine and into his skull. Dan's eyes remained the same and his face blank of all and any emotion.

Avaritias bent Dan's right arm whilst his left dangled, as if numb. It could use its antennae to loosely animate the arm, but Dan was alone, as he often was, and it didn't want to. Avaritia flexed the fingers, enjoying the experience.

"It has been so long since I had adhered to anyone," Avaritia said, through Dan, using his voice. This was one of the limits of this host adherence thing, they can only speak in the language or languages their host knows, though they can speak with a vocabulary the hosts do not possess ordinarily. And when they speak, it was just an open-and-shut movement with no lip articulation whatsoever. These adhered hosts, when "consumed", had the facial animation range of a basic Muppet. "So long. So long since I been free. . . ."

Of course, while the Unboxed Evils may be perfectly invisible to those with human-level eyesight or weaker, it was perfectly obvious that something was off with Dan, at least when he was "consumed" by Greed. But the thing was -- the Unboxed Evils, while able, don't keep their hosts in this "consumed" form. Proved by the fact that, after a few moments, Avaritia pulled its arms out of the boy, returning control to the boy who remained oblivious to his body being occupied in such a way, or the fact that Greed had adhered itself to him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2015, 04:33:38 PM

What just happened.

I think I should read that again at some time that is not 3 am.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2015, 06:07:01 PM

And when it's 3 a.m. for me, it's afternoon for you. ;) Yep, it's still August 25 here. And I'm babbling. Maybe I need sleep, too.

Quote

Book XCVII: "The Box" -- The RAFians must cage thirteen Revenants released from Pandora's Box -- each representing and amplifying a particular feeling (i.e. hatred), while looking for the perfect host.

Yeah, this was before I wrote the outline of this book. There aren't gonna be 13, but seven.

:edit: Since I'm posting this now, the next chapter will probably be after work tomorrow. That'll probably be wround 1 AM your time, Saffa.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A Tipping of the Hat

Cloak was still recovering from that sense, he had met up with Demos (who had just inexplicably possessed a cow*), Saffa (who had just returned from class), and falc0, an intelligent, allegedly morph-capable kestral (who was preening himself after a a particularly difficult kill, perched in a sycamore tree) just outside the forum.

"Hiya Cl-- what's wrong?" Saffa said, switching tack mid-sentence.

"Moo." Demos commented.

"Again, Demos?" Cloak said. "What's your thing about being beef?"

"Yeah, don't you know thwt it's what's for dinner?" Saffa said, rather wanely. She was weary enough to make her a little loopy. "Or however that slogan went."

"Moooooooooooo . . ."

"You know that I don't speak cow," Cloak sighed.

Demos looked at Saffa.

"Moo?"

"Now that's just racist," Saffa said. "Or speciesist, I don't know. It was a long, exhausting day. Give me a break."

"Moooooooooooo . . ."

"Don't hand me that," Saffa said, guessing what he was saying. Then she facepalmed. "I'm talking to a cow."

"Nothing wrong with that," Cloak said, recalling a particularly friendly bovine Realm Walker acquaintance from his grade school days.

"Moo!"

"In any case, I think that this has gone on long enough," she replied. She slapped Demos's bovine backside, "Get out of ther Demos!"

"Moo!"

"Did you just say no?"

"Moo!"

"Fine." Saffa said, placing her hand on the cow's tough hide, and began to acquire it. Demos really didn't care for the trance-like state that came with the acquiring of DNA. The cow vomited up and belched up black smoke which quickly solidified into Demos, wearing a rather rumpled silk suit.

"That," Demos sniffed, "was unnecessary."

"You think I want a cow morph? I mean, when am I ever going to use it?" Saffa countered. "You could have simply --"

"Mooo." Demos said. He hadn't possessed the cow again -- which had just wandered off in an sort of dazed stupidity.

"Hilari--"

Cloak whipped around suddenly, launching a scarlet-gold energy tether at some unseen foe, with falc0 shrieked in alarm, but not because the tether shot feet away from his tree. But that's because he saw what apparently only Saffa could not see.

"Cloak! What's the deal!"

Falc0 gave her a skeptical glare, as if he couldn't believe she could not see what was so obviously there.

Meanwhile, he had just tethered something with a head like Cthulu, with tentacles atop its head, and no legs. It was Superbia. Pride.

Cloak's innate pride, coming from a very prideful family and species, had attracted it, but it could never adhere to Cloak. Realm Walkers don't have navels. They are hatched from Life-Light Eggs, not developed in a mother's womb.

"Superbia?" Demos gasped, as he got a better look at it. "But . . . that's . . . that's not possible."

"How so?" falc0 said**, speaking for the first time in a while. It managed to break free of the energy tether, and vanish away.

"It was in the Box!" Demos proclaimed.

"The . . . the Box?" Saffa asked. "That sounds like a rather shady item."

"Wait a minute . . ." falc0 said, slowly.

"This box," Cloak said, rounded on Demos. "Is it the box that I think it is?"

Demos looked strained, and said, "It was supposed to be in the Box . . . Pandora's Box."

---

* Just a little something Demos would do in chat sometimes, in the days when he was, you know, active.

** We have a talking seal. A talking kestral shouldn't be all that farfetched.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 25, 2015, 11:17:00 PM

Yeah, and he's Chinese, too. Random fact.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2015, 03:44:47 AM

Okay . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Madness of the C.E.O.

Meanwhile, Luxuria had searched fora host to adhere itself to. It scouted a C.E.O. with a rather lecherous reputation. Considered to be a very poor C.E.O. by the lowest echelons of his company, and his board. But he was also the owner of the company. His name was Oscar Jeremiah Steele.

His assistant, Zachary Zu, was not very impressed with his boss. If he didn't need this job, he'd probably quit. Zu wasn't too happy with all the blatant corruption in the corporation either.

Oscar said, before translating into song:

"Zu, why am I not loved?
I am that rare and awesome thing!
I'm every inch a king.
Yet I feel a twinge of doubt,
As I go walk about."

A trio of hired goons, inexplicably dressed as '50s gangsters, came in. Came in, unasked and unbidden. There was two male and one female human -- Bonnie, Clyde, and Ed.

"Hey, boss!" one shouted. But Steele continued:

"When my name is whispered with or without pride,
Is this talk of love or regicide?"

Bonnie asked, "Reggie who?"

Steele continued as if he wasn't interrupted.

"Tell me I'm adored.
Please tell me I'm adored."

Clyde said, "Hey, boss!"

Steele, irritated, said, "Oh, what is it?"

Clyde said, "We got a bone to pick with you."

Bonnie said, "There's no food, no water . . ."

Clyde said, "Yeah. It's dinnertime, and there ain't no stinkin' entrées!"

Steele snapped, "Oh, you and your petty complaints! You don't know what real hunger is. Day after day it gnaws at the very core of my being. Ingrates! If it weren't for me, you'd be beating off rats for your next bite!"

Then the three sang, sycophantically:

"Yeah, you're our savior, thanks a bunch!
But how about some lunch?
My bones have moved to where they've never been!
They are on the outside looking in!"

"Are you blaming me?!" Steele demanded.

"Oh no!" the three denied, "It's dietary department!"

"Ah." Steele said, apparently satisfied with this.

The trio sang:

"You are so adored.
Oh, you are so adored."

"That's more like it!" Steele declared.

Then the trio sang:

"But what I'd give for one more hit
Of mac and cheese with kielbasa,
Or maybe a pig on the spit . . ."

"Oh, how I miss Felix!" Zu blurted, unable contain himself.

"Felix?! Felix?! How dare you!" Steele growled, as the trio scampered away. "I told you never to mention that name!"

"Note taken. I shall never mention "m-m-m" again." Zu spoke meekly.

"Even in death, his shadow looms over me." Steele said, wearily. Then he thought he saw Felix. "There he is! No! There he is! And there!"

"Calm yourself, Sir, or you'll get another one of your splitting headaches!" Zu declared.

Steele sang:

"I am perfectly fine!
I'm better than Felix was.
I'm revered!
I am reviled.
I'm idolized!
I am despised.
I'm keeping calm--
I'm going wild!
I tell myself I'm fine.
Yes, I am -- no, you're not!
Yes, I am -- no, you're not,
I tell myself I'm fine.
No, you're not -- yes, I am!
No, you're not -- yes I am!
No, you're not!
Yes, no, yes, no, who am I talking to...?"

"Oh, pull yourself together, Sir!" Zu said.

"Oh, very well." Steele said. "Zu? Zu, Zu, Zu . . . ?"

"Yes, Sir?" Zu said, wanely.

"Nobody loved me," Steele whined, "there's the rub, not even as a kid! What did my brother have that I don't have?"

"Do you want the short list or the long?" Zu said.

"Whatever!" Steele said, dully.

"Well, he had adoring employees . . . a loving family . . . a devoted wife . . ." Zu said, listing them off on his fingers.

"That's it! I need a wife!"

"A what?"

"A wife, man! A wife! Without a wife, what am I? A dead end, no line, no descendants, no future! With a wife, I'll have kids . . ." Steele said, "Immortality will be mine! Immortality will be mine!"

A worker, dressed all prim and proper, named Thalia came into the overly opulent office. "Steele."

"Ah, Thalia . . . your timing couldn't have been more perfect." he said. Then his voice turned lecherous. "My, how you've grown!"

"Steele, you have got to do something. We're being forced to be overworked!"

"She's got those assets feminine."

"You're the boss. Control the executives!"

"I have to make her mine!"

"You're destroying the company."

"Nobility in every gene!"

"If we don't stop now. . . don't you see. . . ."

"She has to be my queen."

". . . There's still a chance for things to be all right again . . ."

"Come, sweet Thalia,
It's written in the stars!"

"What are you doing? Are you listening to me?"

"We'll create a host of little terrors!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Tell me I'm adored."

"Get away from me!"

"Tell me I'm adored -- "

SMACK!!

Steele grunted, "Oh, Thalia . . . you know how I loathe violence. . . . One way or another, you will be mine."

"Never, Steele. Never!" she declared as she fled.

"You belong to me!
You all belong to me!"

Luxuria had made its decision. It adhered to Steele and briefly "consumed" him, before pulljng back out. Yes, this host would do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 26, 2015, 03:50:15 AM

. . . Exactly how much acid did I drop before reading this chapter?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 26, 2015, 04:14:43 AM

I'll have whatever you're having. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2015, 04:18:50 AM

I do suppose that it is a bit surreal.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Blow His Stack

Ira, the Unboxed Evil of Wrath, was scouting a host, and he found a particular man named Dylan Rosenbaum.

Dylan Rosenbaum was a small fellow with a big mouth and a prominent, rounded, bulbous nose. He has a temper as short as he is, often drawing his guns on anyone who dares to defy him -- if he guns, that is. He wears a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. He was reckless, very stubborn, and hates it when he's wrong. He possesses a mean and somewhat vindictive streak.

Currently, he was reciting his life story in an effort to stem his anger, his wrath. He had anger issues, obviously.

"I had a toy train when I was young
But a wheel fell off and it wouldn't run.
And oooooohh!!!
I blew my stack!
Daddy sent me to school, but things got weird.
When the kids made fun of my long, red beard.
And oooooohh!!!
I blew my stack!
The Merchant Marine kept my temper at bay.
Until a seal looked at me the wrong way.
And oooooohh!!!
I blew my stack!
Aw, man!
So I worked at the library. Peaceful place.
But people kept turning their books in late.
And oooooohh!!!
I blew my stack!
Well, I try to stay calm, cool as ice.
But somebody says something that's just not nice.
Deep inside I just don't feel right.
I'm like a walking stick of lit dynamite.
I'm about to blow, you better go!
You're about to guest star on the "Blow My Stack Show"
Show, show!
Anger management class says "count to 10".
But I only get to three and then...
Guess what?
I blow my stack!"

Ira wasted no time and adhered itself to Rosenbaum. It "consumed" him briefly and then oulled back out Rosenbaum's body.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 26, 2015, 07:05:48 AM

I'm surprised I didn't attract Sloth, but then again, I work a lot more as a RAFian than as a student. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2015, 07:27:46 PM

Yeah, getting 10,000 posts isn't easy work.

Well, unless you're Steph. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Pandora's Panic

Oh, the embarrassment.

Several millenia of success, of having reclaimed all the Evils of the Box, of having somewhat undone the damage her curiosity had done. She didn't have any curiosity of what lay within the box. She knew. She knew full well.

And she would keep them there. She would guard the Box personally. She didn't know when precisely it changed from a jar to a box, but she didn't sweat the semantics. Things were bound to change over such a length of time, even she did. She didn't even remember if she used to be a mortal or was always a Titan, but she didn't consider that really all that important to remember.

All that mattered was that the Box never be opened again. That the Evils contained within never be released up on the Earth ever again. She could not allow her mistake to be repeated.

And through all these years, she never let her guard down. Not once. Not ever.

Then she started getting into that show* -- one that she refused to say out loud, due to it being such a guilty pleasure -- and she started to get lax on her guarding of the Box . . . but the show was just that good! She just had to know what happened next. She had to know.

It turns out her curiosity had never really, truly left her. But she was allowing it to consume her, allowing it to occupy her thoughts most times. She knew of the dangers of such a powerful curiosity, but she could not help herself.

It was during this show -- which she totally got too into, going as far as to yell at the television she had about the characters moves and motivations. This was the moment that her security with the box was at its most lax.

And Malice easily capitalised on it. While she was in one of her rants at her television, Malice stole into the room, and took the Box without any notice whatsoever. When the show ended, Pandora was panicky and fretful when she quickly discovered what happened.

She swiftly abandoned her tower home, and fled to the streets, desperately and fruitlessly looking for her Box. It was almost futile, as it could be anywhere. . . . But, suddenly, she knew. She knew that it had been opened.

"Pandora, I presume?" said a cloaked figure to her right. His right palm held some sort of glowing sigil. He was accompanied by an odd-looking dinosaur, a rather disgruntled kestral, an armored vampire, a demon with a fondness of silk suits, and two humans, one with a guitar slung over his shoulder who looked as if he was yanked out of bed and the other looking more prim and proper.

"Who wants to know?"

"Oh, now she's careful!" the demon said, stuffily.

"Demos," the cloaked figure said, and the demon was silenced.

"We need your Box," the prim human said -- a female. "We happened to have come upon one the Eviks that was supposed to be in it. I g-guess."

"Mortals cannot see the Evils," she said, haughtily.

"Oh, lose the tone, girl," the vampire said. "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone, and all that."

Pandora said nothing, humbled by a vampire.

"You don't have it, do you?" the cloaked one said.

---

* I kept this deliberately vague. What show was it? Well, that's up to your imagination. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 26, 2015, 08:10:05 PM

The 700 Club? Keeping Up With the Kardashians?





The O'Reilly Factor?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 26, 2015, 08:58:30 PM

Desperate Housewives. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2015, 03:12:22 AM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on August 26, 2015, 08:10:05 PM

The 700 Club?

*shutters* I hate that show -- and, of course, most of the residents watch it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Lazybones

There were two people living in a small two-story house that was basically falling apart. Whether it lived up to building codes enough to be habitable was questionable. The first person, the owner and breadwinner of the household was a severe, uncompromising, and uptight single mother. A large, manly woman, she possessed a chiseled face, as if hewn from stone itself, with her dark brown hair drawn up into a tight bun.

The second person was a lanky, rail-thin teenager who had apparently inherited his mother's hair color, but his hair was greasy, limp, and messy. He had an upturned face, with beady, bleary, brown eyes and a head shaped like potato. He possessed long fingers but stubby toes.

His mother was very harsh on her son, who had developed an advanced state of lethargy. He did not have to do much to remain where he was. And he only did as much as he needed to to stay out of his domineering mother's ire. But he much rather spend his time, lazing around, doing nothing. Eating and sleeping. He truly was a lazy person, as he was old enough to hold a job, but he was too lazy to actually look for work.

It was a point of contention between the two, as his mother had to work as both a housekeeper and a waitress to make ends meet. She implored him to get a job (though she came across as incredibly hostile and overbearing, which exacerbated the boy's sense of learned helplessness, although it was more akin to actual laziness, a stuborn, obstinate sort of laziness), and was irritated with him.

They did not have a very stable relationship. They seemed to always be arguing, but fortunately his mother never attacked him, or pulled his hair, or hit him. But this sheer sloth made him an attractive host for Acedia. Sloth itself.

It "consumed" him when his mother was at one of her jobs. Acedia took longer to pull out from controlling the teenager like a Muppet than the others, due to its own nature.

***

Pandora said nothing.

"Your silence says everything," Cloak said, dryly.

"I . . . misplaced it." she lied.

"You don't lie very often, do you?" Dino asked.

Pandora looked deeply offended, though why was odd. What Dino said should have been considered a compliment.

"Where is it?" falc0 said, trying to get to the point. "Forget the 'how' or 'why' for now. The point is that is gone."

"And opened," Demos said.

Pandora was hoping that she was wrong in sensing that it had opened.

"Yes. Pride tried to attack me." Cloak said.

"Superbia?" Pandora asked, immediately. Then she realized something. "You saw it?"

"I'm not human," Cloak said. "And nothing -- nothing -- is invisible to my kind, to Realm Walkers."

Pandora didn't seem to understand this, not truly. But there were more important things to concern herself with right now. The Box needed to be found. It needed to be found now. She could sense its presence, how close it was, like a bloodhound or a bear on a scent trail. She could sense it faintly, and these strange creatures accompanying the two mortals could be helpful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 27, 2015, 07:45:25 AM

Finally got the PDF of this amaze book up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2015, 06:44:07 PM

Since I'm posting this now, the next chapter will probably be up after work tomorrow.

New book idea.

• Book DCCXCV: "Yu Jin" -- The backstory of Empress Goose and a childhood friend, Yu Jin.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Don Excessive

Meanwhile, Dan's friend (for want of a more appropriate term), Don was oblivious to his fate, being adhered to by Avaritia, the Unboxed Evil of Greed. Little did Don know . . .

Whenever he was alone -- and that was more frequent than he cared for -- his stomach spoke to him. Well, it didn't really speak . . . as so much that it sang:

Eat, Donnie, eat!
Eat with all your might!
Eat that pasta!
Eat it fasta!
'Til it's outta sight.
('Til it's outta sight.)
Munch, Donnie, munch!
Come on, let's do lunch!
Make your belly
Mozzarelli.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
(Crunch, crunch, crunch.)
Cheese, salami, ham and Swiss,
Whole-wheat, rye, and white!
Slices tomatoes!
Tons of mayo!
Love at first bite.
Donnie, you're an awesome eater!
Yes, you are the top!
Butter better, bitter batter.
You don't have to stop!
Double-stack it!
You can hack it!
Yum, Donnie, yum!
Don't you miss a crumb!
Add a dinner!
You're the winner!
Don't you pause or you'll get thinner!
More, Donnie, more!!
Till you can't fit through the door!
EAT, DONNIE, EAT!!
CHOW, CHOW, CHOW!!!*

He always seemed to give into these overeating, gluttonous urges. He did not know why he suffered with them. He knew that he was fat -- he was constantly teased for it in his stuffy private school. It could possibly because he was dealing with some really serious abandonment issues, or could be because he was just a pig.

But he was chosen as the host of Gula, the Unboxed Evil of Gluttony. As with the others, Gula briefly "consumed" him, before pulling out. It was hesitant about this at first, not wishing to relinquish control so easily over its young host.

---

* Source song: https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1ogbyy4sl#/watch?v=GN4oxvaiSMs

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 27, 2015, 07:45:07 PM

This would have been a perfect place for that food song that I wrote :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2015, 07:54:39 PM

Sorry, forgot about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 27, 2015, 08:05:39 PM

I was kidding anyway, y'know. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2015, 04:05:19 AM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Impossibly Envious

There were a pair of stepsisters, one the very image of attractiveness, and the other was rather mannish. The attractive stepsister was Venus Pearl, and the mannish stepsister was Monica Gorgo. Gorgo's mother had married Venus's father, and they seemed to love each other, though there was an unmistakeable veneer of fakeness about it.

Venus tried to be a good stepsister to Monica, but Monica felt envious of Venus, which she refused to acknowledge, even to herself. Monica absolutely refused to see Venus as beautiful, as anything other than a spindly, frail figure, as anything but a pathetic, weak figure.

As it turned out, Venus was courted by a young man, Marshall Townsend, and Monica wasn't too terribly happy about this. She found her self hiding in the bushes as she was thinking in song.

Why would a fellow want a girl like her?
A frail and fluffy beauty?
Why can't a fellow once prefer
A solid girl, like me?
She's a frothy little bauble,
With a flimsy kind of charm.
And, with very little trouble,
I can do her serious harm!
Oh! Oh!
Whywould a fellow want a girl like her?
So obviously unusual?
Why can't a fellow once prefer
A usual girl like me?
Her face is exquisite, I suppose.
But no more exquisite than my toes.
Her skin may be delicate and soft,
But no one really knows.
Her neck is longer than a swan's.
She's only as dainty as a daisy.
She's only as graceful as a bird.
So why is the fellow going crazy?!!!
Oh, why would a fellow want a girl like her?
A girl who's merely lovely?
Why can't a fellow once prefer
A girl who's merely me?
She's a frothy little bauble
With a frilly sort of air.
And, with very little trouble,
I could pull out all her hair!
Why would a fellow want a girl like her?
A girl who's merely lovely?
Why can't a fellow once prefer
A girl who's merely me?
What's the matter with the man?
What's the matter with the man?
What's the matter with the man?!!!*

Her sheer envy attracted Invidia, the Unboxed Evil of Envy. It quickly adhered to her, and when she was alone, it quickly "consumed" her, before pulling back out.

***

"Are you sure about this?" Cloak asked Pandora.

"Yes, it is this way," Pandora said. She was sensing the location of the box. Unfortunately, it was as vague as the feline ability to sense evil. "Yes."

"Are trying to convince us," Saffa said, "or yourself?"

Pandora said nothing, leaving a very pregnant pause.

"Okay, point taken."

"What the --" Pandora said, spying something lying half-buried in the sand. She dashed over to the item in question. She deftly lifted it out of the sand, and shook the more stubborn particles of sand from the object.

"Is that -- ?" falc0 asked.

"The Box," Pandora confirmed. "It's empty. Even Elpis, Hope, is gone. Wait -- no, there she is."

Cloak frowned. Dino looked thoughtful. GH looked rather disgruntled. Gaz looked pensive. Demos looked indifferent. Saffa looked perplexed.

"That was too easy," Cloak said, suspiciously.

---

* Source song: https://m.youtube.com/?#/results?q=Stepsisters%20Lament%20%22lyrics%22&sm=3

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 28, 2015, 04:41:16 AM

Is this the song you were talking about?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2015, 01:57:25 PM

No, it was the "Eat, Donnie, Eat" one. It was also used as "Eat, Horse, Eat" in "The Radioactive Seal From a Forum Called RAF".

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Pride and Prejudice

A very prideful, vain woman by the name of Betty Mitchell, a Knight sympathizer, was just waking up. She had her teased, pale red hair in curlers. She wore an overly fluffy, pink housecoat and demurred slippers to match.

As she got ready for the day, she made her hubris known as she sang:

"Girl, we've got work to do!
Pass me the paint and glue.
Perfection isn't easy,
But it's me!!!
When one knows the world is watching,
One does what one must.
Some minor adjustments, darling.
Not for my vanity, but for all humanity!
Each little step, a pose.
See how the breeding shows, uh!
Sometimes it's too much,
For even me!
But when all the world says, "Yes",
Then who am I to say, "No"?
Don't ask a dowdy girl to strut like a show girl.
No, girl, you need a pro!
Not a blemish or a flaw!
Take a peek at that jaw!
La dee da da!
Abject perfection becomes me, n'est-ce pas?
Unrivaled, unruffled!
I'm beauty unleashed, yeah!
Jaws drop - hearts stop!
So classic and classy - we're not talking Lassie!
And ahh! Ahh! Ooh!
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
Though many covet my bone and bows,
They're barking up the wrong tree!
You pretty kids all over the city,
I have your hearts and you have my pity!
Pretty is nice, but still,
It's just pretty.
Perfection, my dears,
Is me!"*

Superbia went for her without a second thought. Betty became her host, as Superbia adhered to here and briefly "consumed" her. But it pulled out of "consuming" her just like the others. Best to have someone who cannot be telepathically probed to give away their existence. Some might believe, some might not, but the believers might prove to be exceedingly dangerous.

***

"Well, we have the Box now -- Pandora's Box, of all things -- so . . . what do we do now?"

"Suck the Evils back inside," Pandora said, examining the Box closely.

"How exactly?" Dino interjected. When a dinosaur speaks, you listen. "Just how are we gonna suck them inside?"

"I switched the little switch from 'spew' to 'suck'," Pandora explained. "I knew that this was going to come and bite me in the butt."

"Why did you put a switch on it?!" Saffa demanded.

"Don't question my methods, mortal," she growled.

"How about I do?" Cloak said, clear defiance and underlying threat in his voice.

Pandora said nothing, but Cloak wasn't sure if it was because Cloak intimidated her or because she wasn't sure that she could bully him or outpower him.

---

* Source song: https://m.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=1oi2cj1ob#/watch?v=-M6UYwaYRqw

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 28, 2015, 11:03:09 PM

Lol, Saffa is me, that's the precise question I would ask, while going "White people. :dull: " on the inside. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 28, 2015, 11:38:24 PM

OK, I friggin' love Pandora in this. Made me laugh more than a couple times.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2015, 02:16:28 AM

:D

May be a tad over twenty chapters. May.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Workin' Things Out

"The question is still pertinent, Pandora," Cloak prompted, dangerously quiet.

"I don't know, okay?" Pandora said with obvious and overt sense of deep-seated embarassment. "I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know why -- there was a period were I was fascinated with toggle switches -- they had just been invented, you know, and now everyone takes them for granted and --"

"You're babbling." Cloak pointed out, bluntly. "In any case, we now know the how and presumably the why."

"But we don't know how to find them," Dino said. "These Evil things -- am I right to assume that they have no scent?"

"They're incorporeal," falc0 said. "But you'd probably won't be able to see them, Dino. Human-level vision and below are incapable of seeing them. I can, though. So can Cloak. So can Demos, for some reason -- they might be related for all I --"

"How dare you!" Demos said, deeply offended at the mere implication of being related at all to these Unboxed Evils. "Just because I'm of the demonic persuasion doesn't mean that I am related to every bloody evil thing!! Next thing you know, you'll be claiming that Malice is my grandmother!!"

"Touchy," Saffa commented. Then she paused, and shuttered. "Malice. As a grandma."

"She's childless, unless she hooked up with someone since her incarceration in the Oblivion Gate," Cloak said, flatly and quickly, "but we're getting off on a tangent here. The topic was how we could track these evil translocating entities."

Pandora said nothing.

"You can't track them, can you?" GH said, aptly.

"Insolent mortals," Pandora grumbled.

"I take that as a 'no' then," GH said without any hostility.

"Ugh," Pandora continued, "because these stupid mortals stealing and opening the Box . . . now I'm gonna miss the next episode of --"

"Weren't you the first one to open the Box?" Demos asked rhetorically.

Pandora looked daggers at Demos. She didn't appreciate the reminder.

"The fact of the matter," Cloak said, focusing everyone on the task, instead of exacerbating the hostilities felt,  "of how we will find these Evils?"

"Get lucky?" Demos asked, irreverently.

"You know," Saffa sighed, "he's probably right."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2015, 02:19:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Encountering Envy

Suddenly, a woman stalked by, a mannish sort of woman with limp, flaccid black hair. She wore an emerald green dress that swished around her rather like Darth Vader's cape. She saw the Box, felt a stabbing pain in her navel, which only lessened when she turned on her heel and walked away.

But Cloak and falc0 saw. They were not so easily fooled.

"Invidia," Demos said.

The woman didn't seem to hear this, but Envy itself did. It quickly "consumed" Monica, its host. It forced its right arm down hers all the way up to its shoulder, forced its other arm all the way up to her skull. It stabbed its tail further into the woman, taking control over her legs. Her left arm hung limpy at her side. Invidia was doing this for self-preservation.

"I wish I didn't see that," Gaz said, repulsed. Laserbeak, in his armor form, communicated his revulsion, too.

"It isn't really so much possession, as . . . puppeteering," Cloak said, as he prevented the "consumed" Monica from escaping, very subtly. A wall of erth blocking an alleyway, as the group walked rather sedately to her.

The "consumed" Monica rounded on the group. The unfocused eyes and blank face was, admittingly, creepy.

"I will not go back," Invidia said, through Monica. The way her mouth just opened and closed without any lip movement was not only disingenuous to the way that human species speaks, but slightly disconcerting. "I will not go back."

"You do not have any choice in the matter, Invidia," Pandora said, attempting to affect an impressive manner. Cloak just thought that it was a childish attempt.

"I will kill this mortal," Invidia said, indicating Monica.

"She has been consumed by Envy," Pandora said. "It's an acceptable loss."

"'Acceptable' loss?" Cloak questioned, with a severe tone. "Let's get one thing here straight -- wait a minute -- expellocorpus!"

Invidia was forced to, not only stop "consuming" Monica, but also unadhere to her.

"Back you go," Pandora said, sucking Envy into the box.

Meanwhile, Monica was regaining conciousness, and discovered that Invidia had also siphoned every last bit of envy from her. Saffa and GH helped her to her feet as she stumbled a bit, completely nonplussed at everything that has happened. Then the two RAFians began to lead her away.

"Now, Pandora," Cloak said, rounding on her, "as I was saying, we will not write off Dwellers."

"They are just distractions," Pandora countered.

"Funny how now you're interested in distractions," Dino said. "Wasn't that the very thing that got us into this mess to begin with?"

Pandora glowered at the Ankylotyrannus, but said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2015, 06:12:18 PM

Today has been a very good day for chapters, I guess. Now this next chapter may touch upon a very, um, horrible subject. Tastefully done, hopefully.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Lecherous Lust Lure

"One of them is nearby," Cloak said, swishing his tail like a tiger right before the hunt. "I can feel their ev--"

A shriek and a hard slap was heard.

Cloak was head off to the sound's direction in a snap, with the others following, with Dino teailing behind because if her larger size. Even in her compact form, it was awkward for her to move around, and she simply could not get into the smaller alleyways and such. Fortunately, she need not worry a bit about that.

They found their target rather easily. Or rather, he found them. Or, much rather, found Gaz. He did not know about her vampiric nature, or her hyperly overprotective Cybertronian parrot, only he found her alluring and Steele, having been adhered to by Luxuria, the Unboxed Evil of Lust, had his restraint rendered brittle or almost nonexistent.

So, you can pretty much guess why Gaz decided to slap him. With all of her strength. If Steele hadn't been adhered to, Gaz could have very well killed him. But he still got off easy, compared what Laserbeak would have done to him. Gaz, rather reluctantly, called Laserbeak off before too much damage was inflicted.

"God, you disgust me." Gaz said.

"How about a little sugar? Come on, you know you want it!" Steele was saying, and Luxuria was allowing this to go on. It hadn't noticed the Box.

"Can I kill him?" Demos said, rather like a child asking their parent if they can get a toy from a store.

"Yes!" Gaz said, her revulsion evident. Laserbeak got as close to Steele without leaving Gaz, making hissing noises, like an angry cat.

"His actions aren't his own," falc0 said. "He's being influenced by what I guess to be Lust."

"He isn't 'consumed'," Saffa said, revealing herself to be just as revolted. "He is accountable for his actions."

"But killing him would be a bit overkill," the kestral pointed out.

"Easy for you to say!" Gaz snapped. "He isn't trying to touch you!!"

"Luxuria, come back." Pandora demanded, with a commanding tone of voice, holding the Box outward. Luxuria seemed to realize that the Box was there and swiftly "consume" Steele.

"You cannot have me," Luxuria spoke through Steele, though his lips were not animated. "This human will save me from the Box. You cannot kill him."

"Speak for yourself!" Gaz snarled disgruntled.

"He is expendable," Pandora said.

Cloak was going to protest about these protestations, but he found himself unable. He did not like anyone -- he didn't care who they were, or who they thought they were -- no one, but no one had the right to treat women like objects, like slabs of unfeeling meat. Cloak not only frowned on such practices and beliefs, he completely disavowed it and condemned it voraciously.

But could he, in all good consciousness, permit the sacrifice of this contemptible man just because these behaviors?

The decision was harder than it seemed.

"Expellocorpus."

Luxuria was sped away from Steele, taking all lust and lecherous ways with it. Pandora sucked him into the Box. But, this time, no one helped him up. No one helped him away. He just lay, semi-conscious on the pavement. Alive, but reviled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 30, 2015, 01:43:29 AM

Wow. I was half-expecting either you or Gaz to headbutt this guy into a brick wall or punch a hole in his stomach or something. Very nicely done. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 30, 2015, 04:27:22 AM

Ah, something we're used to here. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2015, 03:58:05 PM

*winces*

Sorry to hear that, Saffa.

And, GH, Laserbeak would get to him before either of us could have done anything. He just really lucked out on that circumstance. Don't forget how overprotective he is. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Guttural Glutton

"Two down, five more to go!" Pandora said, with more excitement than any of the RAFians thought prudent from the current situation. Cloak was still wondering if he made the right decision with Steele. "At this rate, all of them will be back in the Box by supper time!"

The RAFians said nothing. None of them were finding themselves particularly fond of her. Their alliance was mostly, if not wholly, due to a singular mutual interest, to bring the Evils back into the Box. Never mind the fact that they were released in the first place due to Pandora's own reckless carelessness.

Cloak's ears twitched as he heard a sort of snuffling sound, almost like a bear pawing though a dumpster. Apparently, falc0 heard it too as he went off, leaving his tenuous perch on a horizonal awning to take flight to the sound of the noise. Cloak followed suit, his feet padding so very quietly forward.

Dino's footsteps, even her compact form weren't that quiet, and were the loudest of them. The others footsteps were not silenced, and they freely slapped on the pavement.

It was coming from a dumpster. A heavy bin of rusting metal and chipping brackish green paint. There was sounds of chomping and eating and feasting coming from within. Clearly, a dumpster diver.

"All this for a dumpster diver?" Gaz said.

"Gross," Saffa said.

"More and more people are forced to do that every day," GH noted, "or they go hungry."

"The guy in there isn't going hungry," falc0 noted, rather harsher than he intended. "He looks as if he could do without a meal or two."

"That's rather mean of you, falc0," Demos said. "I approve!"

"And he has an Evil adhered him," falc0 said, "a yellowish-black one."

"Gula," Pandora said immediately, hefting up the Box. "Gluttony."

"Pandora, you must remember," Cloak said, severely, "we are not sacrificing anyone because of your carelessness."

"Carelessness?!" Pandora exclaimed in indignant tones. "When have I been careless?"

"I'd say losing the Box in the first place, for starters." GH said.

"Silence, mortal."

"No," Cloak growled at her, "how's about you be silent? It because of you that this whole thing happened to begin with. You'd think that would have taught you a little humility, especially because everyone knows that this isn't the first time this has happened on your watch."

Pandora said nothing, but her face betrayed her offense about the rebuke. Cloak found that he really didn't care, and the others looked as if they expected a fight between the two, before Pandora eventually submitted.

From the dumpster came some rather guttural sounds, before a head popped up. Cloak initially thought that someone threw away a blonde meerkat, that the boy in the dumpster had on his head. But no, it was his actual hairstyle, if you could call it a hairstyle. Anyway, the boy was unnaturally plump. His limbs were quite noticeably skinny and his head lacked any wobbly jowls one would have expected. One would think that he was just wearing a rather bad fatsuit.

He wore a white long-sleeved shirt with a loose, blue shirt over it and blue sweatpants. Of course, it would look just lovely -- if it wasn't covered with trashy grime and smeared with dumpster yuck. Not very attractive in the least.

"Wait, isn't that the son of Oswald Oburluk?" Demos asked, conversationally.

"Who?" GH inquired indifferently.

"Oh, he is the guy trying to lower minimum wage," Demos said, cavalierly.

"What does this have to do with anything?" Saffa said. "We can get the kid's backstory later, but, right now, we have other business to attend to. Like getting Gluttony back into the Box!"

"He has already been consumed," falc0 pointed out. "He was consumed all the while. Thr dumpster flap there prevented me from seeing."

"Bkx?" Don said, incomprehensibly and unintelligibly. He had gross things in his mouth. This was a very ugly side to gluttony.

"Expellocorpus." Cloak said, almost conversationally. Gula was completely unaware, and that cost it. It was quickly slurped back into the Box, taking all of Don's gluttonous tendencies with it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 30, 2015, 04:08:49 PM

Might as well go hawk.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2015, 08:03:16 AM

Not yet, Saffa. The next one won't be all that difficult to find. And, well, to be honest, you'll see where I stand on the subject of guns. But, if you read all the previous books, you can pretty much already guess where that is.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Raging Wrath

BLAM!

Cloak curled his lip in disgust as he quickly moved toward the sound, with the others hot on his heel. Seriously -- he thought he could feel Dino's breath on the back of his neck.

BLAM! BLAM!

They had to quicken their pace. Cloak found himself thinking about the invention the humans called guns. Cloak saw them as horribly archaic and primitive, and he could not understand or even understand the lust some humans have over them. Why love such a device that was made to kill others without any skill? Why covet such a horrible invention made to rip others away from their loved ones?

It wasn't like a sword or an axe, as if you are unskilled with them, you would have a very slim chance of kill another, unless, of course, that was your intent. There haven't been any accidental stabbings to Cloak's knowledge, no accidental decapitations from swords and axes or guillotines. Just how many accidental shootings have there been? In this country alone, much less the world?

BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!

Cloak decided his musings would have to wait, and, instead, finding the lunatic firing a gun indiscriminately. Which only furthered the Realm Walker's intense dislike for the crude, uncivilized weapons. How is it that there wasn't even the most meager of background checks for such deadly devices? They license people to drive cars -- which you have to have on you when you drive or face litigation of some sort -- and yet, not to own and operate guns?

It was not a technology Realm Walkers had or empoyed -- they really didn't need to, as their own innate abilities superseded them. Not all of them felt as negatively as Cloak, however, the ones that didn't had a deep, burning indifference.

They came to the would-be shooter, a redhaired man with a short stature and a Yosemite Sam mentality. He wore a very livid look on his face, and his gray eyes glinted with malevolent anger. It wouldn't be surprising if the Red Lanterns tried to claim him as their own.

"How come I'm not surprised?" Saffa asked rhetorically.

"Ira," Pandora said, immediately identifying the Evil, as Rosenbaum was reloading his cartoonish pistols. "Wrath."

It was remarkable that he hadn't shot anyone. The street was empty, abandoned. The only damage was purely cosmetic to the surrounding buildings. Ira was clearly amplifying Rosenbaum's wrath and ire. The reasoning behind this wasn't clear, and it even seemed detrimental to the Evil.

Suddenly, the metal in the gun crumpled, like tissue paper. It twisted and warped into the point of being absolutely, and unquestionably unusuable. This probably wasn't a very good idea in the long run, as Cloak could be seen as having destroyed evidence, and probably be construed to be such by the querulous. But Cloak couldn't help himself -- he detested guns, and could not stand seeing what this one in particular was being used for.

He'd deal with the querulent masses later, as well as the querulant gun enthusiasts who are offended with Cloak's destruction of a firearm. Cloak had more pressing priorities right now.

"Ira!" Pandora called.

Ira heard this and wasted no time in "consuming" his host, this Rosenbaum. It was clear that the only reason that it did this was so that it could speak directly to them. It seemed to relish what Rosenbaum was doing.

"You cannot stop me, mortals." he said, making Rosenbaum's emotionless, blank face seem oddly sinister. Even though his lips were not animated*. "I am finally free, and no one, but no one, will ever send me back!!"

"Are you sure about that?" Saffa asked. She may not be able to Ira itself, but she could very easily hear Rosenbaum's voice, and see the rather unnaturalness of his gesticulations, his blank face, his unfocused eyes . . . she could easily see the creepiness of the scene. "Really sure?"

"Yes!"

"Cloak? What are you waiting for?" GH asked.

"What?"

"Expellocorpus," Cloak said, almost languidly.

Ira was shot from Rosenbaum's body, taking all his rage and wrath with it. Pandora deftly sucked Ira into the Box without another word.

---

* If it isn't clear about this, yes, it was partially based on the fact that a lot a Muppets do not have lip articulation and such, but the general genesis of this idea came from an episode of "Austin & Ally", which I used have on as background noise sometimes, in where the titular character Austin get electrocuted and imagines a future of all white and such -- and eventually an "Austinbot" is introduced. That's really where I got most of this idea from. I thought it would be sufficiently creepy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2015, 03:55:02 AM

New book ideas.

• Book DCCXCVI: "Bug Wars" -- The RAFians find themselves drawn into the middle of a war between Bugs and the Geonosians.
• Book DCCXCVII: "Gestalt Crystals" -- The RAFians find themselves dealing with some unusual crystals.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Slow Sloth

"Only Superbia, Acedia, and Avaritia remain free," Pandora said. "Pride, Sloth, and Greed, in layman's terms."

"And we don't have any idea where they could be," Dino said. "Those three seem smarter than their fellows."

"Falc0, do you think you fly up for some aerial reconnaissance?" Cloak asked.

"Maybe," he said, speaking rather pointedly at Saffa. "With help. Like someone with a bird morph."

Saffa said nothing for only a minute, before exclaiming, "Oh, right! I can do that, I have a hawk morph."

With her rather more flashy morphs she acquired, including her favorite combat morph, a Tyrannopede, she had all but forgotten her hawk morph.

"Yes," falc0 said. "Now morph and lets find these three losers."

"Yeesh, who drenched your mouse in swamp water?" she countered, as she was morphed to red-tailed hawk. <No need to be so snippy.>

The two took off to search the inevitably adhered hosts of the Evils. Chances are they would be actively engaged in acts of greed, pride, or sloth. And, Saffa realized quickly, she could actually see the Evils themselves while in a morph such as this.

<We better find them soon . . . who know the kind of damage that they can do?>

"I think we've already nailed the most destructive one," falc0 said, thoughtfully. "Wrath."

<Doesn't mean the others aren't dangerous,> Saffa warned.

"Even Sloth?"

Saffa paused, and thought about that for a moment. Then she conceded, <Okay, maybe not Sloth so much, but Greed and Pride could still be highly destructive.>

"Speaking of Sloth," falc0 said, looking at nine o'clock, "see that bluish glow over there?"

<What about it?>

"I'm sure that it's an Evil," he elaborated. "The way that it seems to be in one place and not moving? I guessing that it's Sloth."

<I'm going in for a cautionary glance, then. Be ready to signal the others when I give the word.> Saffa said, deftly swooping over the area. She confirmed that it was an Evil, and it seemed to be reclined on the stairs if the stoop, noting them to be uglier than she thought. The host was a teenaged boy, and Sloth had already "consumed" him, and falc0 and Saff went to the others and brougt them to the place, as Saffa morphed back.

"Acedia," Pandora confirmed.

"Go away," Sloth said, speaking through the somnulent teen. "He's sleeping."

"Get up," Cloak said. He never had much patience for laziness. Exhaustion was different, however.

"No, he's sleeping."

"Then how is he talking? Why is is unfocused eyes opened?" Gaz said.

Sloth sat up the teenage boy, and Cloak said, almost bored, "Expellocorpus." Acedia flew away from the teen, taking all the boy's laziness and sloth with him. Pandora sucked it up into the Box.

"Now we only have two more to go." Dino said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 01, 2015, 05:07:43 AM

Good ol' hawk.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2015, 03:05:20 AM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Grievous Guitar Greed

"Only Avaritia and Superbia remain," Pandora said. Cloak still did not like the twittering excitement in her voice, but he said nothing, though he did give her a brief glare that she did not see.

"Saffa. Falc0." he said instead. "If you please."

Saffa remorphed hawk, knowing that she'll probably have to do this again to find the second Evil, after they find whatever the next on they find. She could help but wonder why Cloak couldn't just Earthsight whoever these two Evils had adhered to, before reasoning that the Evils were just not "Earthsightable", as they were not touching the ground, and, being insubstantial, would have no weight to them, invalidating any potential of them being seen through the Earth.

Saffa and falc0 took to the air once more. They rode upon thermals, and Saffa was mildly surprised that she could remember how to fly properly as a hawk rather than a Psycholeopterran. Granted, the hawk brain handled the logistics of the flight.

But their minds were soon full with the mission at hand. Despite what one might expect, the two did not see anything -- they heard it, first.

"MINE!!!"

"I think that would be Greed," falc0 commented unnecessarily.

<Ya think?> Saffa teased.

"Hey! That's not yours, boy!" came an angry voice.

"MINE!!"

"We better get the others and handle this before it gets ugly." falc0 said.

<Already on it,> Saffa replied.

"Not until you pay for it, its not!" declared the same irate voice.

"MINE!!!"

"Wait, I know you -- you're that Aplistia boy, aren't you?"

"MINE!!!"

BOINK!

"No, it's mine. Now you're banned from this store. Get lost, rich boy," the gruff voice said. Then it grumbled, "Some of us work for a living."

Within moments, the other RAFians and Pandora were on the scene. Saffa had swiftly demorphed in such a way one would wonder if she wasn't an esteen. She didn't want to become a hawk nothlit, not that there was anything wrong with that.

"MI--" Dan began, before realizing he had an audience. The RAFians and Pandora could easily see the Greed Evil adhered to the young redhead boy. Avaritia did not seem to realize this group had the Box with them, but seemed to be enjoying Dan's amplified greed and avarice.

Cloak found himself wondering what Ophidian the Tempter, the orange Entity of Avarice with which Agent Orange gets his power from, thought of this creature. Being the Entity of Avarice, he would not want to share the title, Cloak surmised. But as he was trapped within the Orange Lantern Battery, it should matter very little.

Dan had caught sight of GH's most precious and most favorite guitar. And, under the influence of Evil, he wanted it. He really wanted it. So, he decided to claim it as his own.

"MINE!!!"

"Don't think so," GH said, very coldly.

"MINE!!!"

"No, it's not." GH said, coolly calm.

"MINE!!"

"Can we please stop drawing this -- hey!"

Dan had seized GH's hand. The one that his Mark was on.

"MINE!!!"

"No, that's mine!" GH said, roughly, wrenching his hand away from the Evil-adhered boy. "Cloak, what are you wait-- dah!!"

Dan had seized his hand again, seemingly entranced by the Mark. GH roughly reclaimed his palm, and glowered at the Realm Walker.

"Oh, you're enjoying this, aren't you?" he accused. "Hurry up, Walker!"

Cloak smirked a bit, as Dan tried to seize GH's hand again, becoming rather like Gollum in a way, and he said, "Expellocorpus." He spoke the word, at the very moment that Avaritia tried to "consume" Dan.

Dan had all of his greed and avarice leeched from him as Avaritia was flung away. It was quickly sucked back into the Box.

"Now the strongest one remains," Pandora said, strangely serious.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 02, 2015, 03:12:50 AM

Veeeeery unrealistic, Cloaky. It's obvious that I would have blasted that rich bastard into the next county for even thinking of touching one of my babies. And there would have been quite a few harsh words toward you as well. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2015, 03:25:09 AM

He's still nine.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 02, 2015, 03:31:48 AM

Doesn't matter. Nobody lays a finger on my guitars. And you're certainly not innocent for letting it happen!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2015, 05:16:37 PM

But he didn't touch your guitar. He was distracted by your Mark, and wanted that instead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 02, 2015, 07:19:45 PM

. . . Wow, how did I somehow mistake my wrist for the guitar? Maybe I should learn to read a little better before leaving stupid comments. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2015, 07:41:43 PM

Well, it was, admittingly, vaguely written.

:edit: This book will be over twenty chapters. Maybe just by one, maybe not.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Pride Problems

"Strongest one?" Gaz said, at once. "Pride?"

"The hardest Evil to beat," Pandora said, in a more solemn manner than the RAFians had seen from her. "Pride tends to be a very selfish thing, whereas an act of selflessness would have been able to weaken the others, not so with pride."

"Any reason that you waited to say this until now?" Saffa asked pointedly, before turning to GH and saying, "oh, enough grumbling about your guitar, GH! The kid didn't even touch it."

"There are finger marks!!"

"Those are yours," falc0 said, with his piercing eyesight able to see every loop and swirl of the fingerprints from this angle.

"No, they aren't!" GH protested.

"To think," Saffa retorted, in faux harsh way, "that I thought you were being mature about the whole thing."

GH glowered at Saffa, who shrugged it off. She was about to gloatingly mention who won when they battled right after the gladiator episode, but Cloak irritably interceded.

"Can we focus?!" Cloak said. The little outburst cause the very ground to tremble, asif there were merely an oncoming stampede of gnu, or wildebeests. It stopped abruptly when Cloak managed to regain his composure. "Going back to Saffa's original question, why are just now informing us of this tidbit of knowledge? This would have been useful five or six Evils ago."

"The way we're going about this is working," Pandora said, rather simply. "I didn't see any reason to bring it up, as such. Besides, the fact that they were returned to the Box after I . . . after I made the . . . the Mistake . . . should have already told you that there was another way to break the adherence."

"You've done this before." Dino said, summing up.

"Isn't that obvious?" Pandora said, quietly, showing a more vulnerable side to herself, one the RAFians hadn't seen before now.

Cloak easily recognized now that the haughty and arrogant posturing . . . it was a cover for an underlying insecurity, an underlying guilt. She couldn't help her addictive curiosity, it was just a facet of herself that she had to learn to live with. She felt guilty at allowing the Box to escape her possession, she felt self-anger at allowing it to come to pass and at allowing it to be open a second time. And more conflicting emotions enoug to make one wonder why she wasn't exploding.

Cloak was feeling some guilt himself. He had been essentially bullying her, to get her to do as they pleased. As a victim of bullying of himself, it shamed him with that knowledge he was a victimizer as well.

"We need to find Suburbia," Saffa said.

"Superbia," Demos and Pandora corrected.

"Whatever," Saffa said.

"I don't think it would be too hard to find," Dino said, thoughtfully. "I don't believe Pride hides all that well. I mean it is defined as the quality or state of being proud, right? Inordinate amount self-esteem. An unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, rank, or whatever, which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve and contempt of others often, am I right?"

"Still we can't really expect to see it, adhered to a host or not, consumed host or not, simply strutting down the --" Gaz said, before being interrupted.

"There," falc0 said at once.

"How devilishly convenient," Demos commented benignly.

Betty Mitchell was already "consumed" by Superbia, and managed to strut down the street. Yet it didn't look as jerky and awkward as its six fellows. The movements looked far more natural, more unnoticeable that something was not right there. Pride, after all.

Superbia had her chest puffed out proudly. And it saw the RAFians. Unlike the others, Pride was confident (perhaps overconfident) that it could handle them. It was, after all, the strongest of all of the Evils.

"Go ahead," it said, with Bette's voice and mouth. Now this was just like its fellows. There was no lip articulation. It was just like that of the simplest animatronic, like a mere Muppet. "Go ahead and try to suck me into that Box. You can't do it."

"Expellocorpus," Cloak said.

This time was different. Pride was only forced to "unconsume" Bette, but was still adhered to her. She was quickly "consumed" again. The RAFians were stunned, while Pandora looked downcast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 03, 2015, 04:28:20 AM

Laughed my ass off at the beginning. I guess I really do need to read better before commenting, otherwise I'll make myself out to be even more of a whiny doofus, as demonstrated here. :P

Also, holy crap this is getting awesome. I can only imagine if Pride had somehow managed to consume Cloak. That would have been absolutely disastrous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 03, 2015, 07:36:31 AM

And that can be your alternate "What If?" book. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2015, 02:46:57 PM

Yeah . . . 'bout that, guys . . . it would never work.

All the Evils require a host with a navel, a bellybutton, to adhere to. Realm Walkers do not have bellybuttons. They do not because they never have had umbilical cords, outside the metaphoric sense, because they are hatched from Life Light Eggs, and not born in the traditional placental mammalian way, as humans are. There would be nothing for the Evil to adhere to, as that's the only spot they can, the only place they are able.

In any case, Realm Walkers are immune to possession of Dwellers, and the Evils still count as Dwellers.

Sorry, I didn't mean for this to sound like a lecture, but I got a little "lecture-y" there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 03, 2015, 02:56:25 PM

Yeah, I knew that. That's why I said "If Pride had somehow managed to consume . . ." :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2015, 02:57:28 PM

Then it's my turn to be chagrined.

:edit: Since I'm posting this now, the next chapter might have to come after work tomorrow. My third day in a row, and I'm not even halfway through yet. It's now eight days in a row. Ugh.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Pride Priority

"Well," Cloak said, oddly composed considering how abashed he felt, "that could have gone better."

"Oh, you think?!" falc0 snapped.

"Watch yourself, chicken nuggets," Cloak warned, allowing a tiger growl to intermingle with the words. He was feeling a bit testy, apparently.

"I should have known it wouldn't have been so easy," Pandora said, cursing her own naivety.

"How do you beat Pride?" Dino asked. She was still in her compact form.

"How indeed!" Superbia crowed, through Bette.

"No one asked you," Dino sniffed.

"Well, Pride can be hurt," Cloak noted, slowly.

"No, I can't." Superbia said, coyly.

"You stay out of this," Gaz snapped, which just caused it laugh a belly laugh through Bette. Then she addressed the other, "Once injured, Pride tends to become very brittle."

"Hey!" Superbia protested. But it was ignored.

"But how are we going to injure it?" Saffa asked pointedly. "Without harming the woman, its host?"

This stymied them.

"Remember, our priority should be the separation of the two," Saffa continued, "then the Box can do the rest."

"I'm standing right here, y'know," Superbia pointed out.

"Seriously?" Demos asked, looking at the others with mild surprise. "I thought it was obvious."

"Well, don't keep up the suspense, then," GH said, snippily, still miffed over the kid thinking about touching his guitar, his baby, "tell us your grand idea."

Demos didn't react at the subtle hostility in GH's tone, and said, "Pride gains power from being the sole victor."

"A little less cryptic, if you please," falc0 said.

"Pride hardly ever comes from a group," Demos said.

"Spit it out, or I'm eating you here and now," Dino threatened.

"He's saying to use our Unity Energy," Cloak said, dryly. "Pride comes before the fall or whatever. Let's just Unity Blast this thing already."

"You really think that will work?" GH asked.

"Go a better idea?"

"Nope," he said, earnestly.

"Then let's get to it." Cloak said.

The RAFians moved as one. The Unity Energy stemmed from Dino's forehead, falc0's breastbone (so it was pretty much like a kestral Unibeam), and the palms from the others. The Unity Energy caused Pride pain, but Bette was unaware and unharmed.

However, Superbia was still adhered to Bette!

"EXPELLOCORPUS!" Cloak shouted at once, a tiger roar intermingling with the word.

Superbia was flung away from Bette, taking all her vanity and hubris with it. Superbia looked as if this was impossible. Pandora was just as quick on the uptake as Cloak was, as she used the Box to suck it back inside with Pride's silent scream.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 03, 2015, 11:59:39 PM

Well, that was dramatic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2015, 03:11:59 AM

Last chapter of the book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Added Precaution

"And that's all of them, sealed away," Pandora said, latching the Box with determined finality. "Nevermore to leave."

"Yeah, about that," Cloak said, "I think there is still something more that needs doing."

"What do you mean?" Pandora asked, perplexed.

"Just that I have a problem with the precautions of this box," the Realm Walker elaborated. "It was open twice now."

"What are you getting at?" Pandora asked, defensiveness edging into her voice.

Cloak had produced a sphere of molten-looking metal, with a rippling surface.

"Where did you get that?" Saffa asked, rather blunt.

"That is immaterial," Cloak said.

"I disagree." GH said. And Cloak was irresistibly reminded of the Abridged Jayden Yuki.

Cloak did answer, but placed the metal upon the Box, forcing it to cover every inch of the Box. Every curve, every seam.

"Pure molten adamantium," Cloak said, forcing the metal to harden into its unbreakable state. "Hardened into invulnerability. Now the Box, quite literally, cannot be opened."

Pandora's reaction was not one of anger and outrage that Cloak had expectex, that he anticipated, that he braced himself for. Her reaction was, in fact, quite the opposite. Her shoulders sagged as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from them, and she laughed a rather giddy-sounding laugh -- the laugh of someone who had never felt true freedom.

"I never have . . . never have . . ." she stammered. She was actually close to tears, tears of pure, unadulterated joy. "I never have to worry about it . . ."

Her voice choked up with emotion.

"Um," falc0 said, "not to be a doubting Thomas or anything, but no precaution, no matter how thorough and elaborate, is infallible."

Crickets.

"Way to kill the mood, falc0," Demos commented, actually indifferent to the whole matter.

***

"You know, Cloak, I've been wondering," GH said.

Cloak eyed GH wearily, suspicious of where this was headed. "About?"

"Realm Walkers don't have bellybuttons, right?"

"Yes, I've established that already," Cloak said. This follow-up question was confirming his suspicions.

"So," GH continued slowly, "I was wondering . . ."

Cloak said nothing. GH was walking into dangerous territory.

"Are Realm Walkers like Namekians?"

Cloak knew precisely what GH was getting at, but he said, anyway, "In what capacity?"

"Well . . . you know," GH said, appearing to squirm a bit. "You know what, forget I asked."

"Gladly."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 04, 2015, 03:16:36 AM

I wish I could say I understood the last part of this chapter, but that's unfortunately not the case. BRB, gonna watch through DBZA just to get that joke. :P

Also, it's gonna be weird without Saffa posting the new PDFs. :(

Also also, 500 get :D

*Edit* Oh. OH. In the middle of episode 7. I get it now :XD:

Eunuchs!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2015, 04:16:33 AM

Perhaps this (http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?list=PL6EC7B047181AD013&params=OAFIAVgI&v=Ui0mRLYZwYc&mode=NORMAL) would be helpful, GH?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 04, 2015, 04:18:23 AM

Link doesn't work. Doesn't really matter though; I edited my previous post while you were typing this one. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 04, 2015, 03:37:00 PM

Before I disappear for however long I do, thought I'd drop in and leave the PDF of the last book. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2015, 03:52:47 PM

Thanks, Saffa. I promise that we won't be on Book D (500) when you get back!

New chapter.

BOOK XCVIII:
FROM THE SHADOWS
CHAPTER ONE:
Black and Blue

"There was a man from the Nexus,
On an energy disc, he rode,
Defending the defenseless,
It's to him I sing this ode.
With the elements of justice,
He struck down every foe.
Safety for our families,
It's this to him we owe.
Black and blue, black and blue,
The man from the Nexus
Wore the black and blue.
He fought the vilest villains,
Too numerous to list.
Rendering his verdict,
With glove-covered fists.
Descending from the night sky,
His scalloped cloak would flow.
Those who broke the law deserve
The punches he would throw.
Black and blue, black and blue,
The man from Gotham
Wore the black and blue.
But beneath the hood
Was just a man,
Same as you and me,
His true face he could never share,
A secret identity.
But why endure this lone crusade,
Fight a fight you just can't win?
If asked, the cat would tell you -- "

"Enough, GH," Cloak said, unmoved. He couldn't take the song's inaccuracies -- he wore gray and his cloak was black. Though it was only his main body color of his clothing beneath his cloak.

"Wh-whatever do you m-mean?"

"You're not getting them back," the Realm Walker said, firmly.

"I wasn't --"

"You gave them to me because you wanted to quit." Cloak said.

"Uh, yeah, about that . . ."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No," Cloak said. "You made me promise. No matter how much you beg and plead, to not give you back your, uh, cigarettes, I think they're called. And I intend to keep it."

"C'mon, Cloak!"

"Rotiart's touching your guitar," Cloak replied.

"What?!" GH shouted, whipping around to find -- no one there. When he turned to confront Cloak about it, the Realm Walker was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 04, 2015, 06:40:44 PM

Oh my god. I actually laughed out loud at that :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2015, 01:40:29 PM

Well, that was the reaction that was hoping for, GH! The +1 was a pleasant surprise though. ;D

Anyway, considering how exhausting this week has been, I may not be posting chapters as frequently as I usually do. At least not until my schedule gets more normal.

And I think I figured out why the link didn't work. I'm on a Kindle Fire. Mobile. You must be using an actual computer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 05, 2015, 02:30:38 PM

Yeah, the link worked on my phone. It must be mobile-only or something.
And dont worry about the new chapters being slower. We'll live . . . I hope.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2015, 02:41:05 PM

After this coming week, my schedule should normalize. Working eight days straight -- it wears you out, especially when you have to clean thirty rooms in six and a half hours. Very difficult, very trying, very exhausting.

:edit: New book idea.

• Book DCCXCVIII: "The Huntsclan" -- Blocky and Shock must deal with the Huntsclan.
• Book DCCXCIX: "A Headache" -- The RAFians must deal with an intelligence-consuming creature.
• Book DCCC: "Metal Muncher Swarm" -- The RAFians must deal with Scraplets.
• Book DCCCI: "Outcast" -- A surviving eidolon from the Eidolon Consciousness is eventually flees the RAFians, one in particular.
• Book DCCCII: "Star Meet World" -- Esty gets a potential love interest.

Don't think I repeated anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Shadow Stalkers

The moonlight streamed into RAF. It was an ordinary night, an unusually still wintry night. Much welcomed after the whole Pandora's Box fiasco. A night of restful sleep, undisturbed and uninterrupted.

But it wasn't as uneventful as it would seem.

Several creatures, vaguely humanoid in appearance, stole into the forum, somehow able to bypass Code Avalon. They were completely two-dimensional, amorphous beings. Their eyes was simply absent of substance. They were living shadows, but not technically shadows. Not anymore. They were Umbraraptors, more commonly referred to as Shadow Stalkers. It was these beings who invented shadow travel.

So what did these creatures want?

The shadows, the sheut, of living beings.

Why?

The reason was the simplest of reasons. This was how these Umbraraptors, these Shadow Stalkers propagate and proliferate. They had to steal shadows to essentially make more Shadow Stalkers.

Now, not every shadow they take can become a Shadow Stalker. There apparently are some sort of perimeters required that are unknown to even the Shadow Stalkers themselves. But, then again, the Shadow Stalkers can only be considered sentient by the loosest definitions. They live only to proliferate, to propagate.

One could argue all life has that as their most basic motivation, but the way these creatures do it was rather dark and sinister. As for the people that they steal these shadows from . . . they grow progressively weaker and weaker without their shadows. If the shadow is not returned in a timely manner, they grow progressively more catatonic or simply lethargic. If not returned within a seven-two hour period . . . death follows.

All in all, despite being rarely known about, they are potentially very, very dangerous Dark creatures.

And they were now in RAF.

Unnoticed.

Hence why they managed to steal the shadows of Gaz, Guy, Underseen, Sakki, Faerie, and Azguard while they slumbered, unaware of the precarious situation that their lives were now in.

And it probably have gone unnoticed, had they not tried to take Cloak's shadow. In the attempt, they had inadvertently roused the Realm Walker, whose natural bioluminescence (which comes from his technical status at an energy being) frightened them. Naturally, his cloak blocks this bioluminescence when he wears it, and it is this light that causes the realm to simultaneously disintegrate, incinerate, and melt away when uncloaked. Because of this, Realm Walkers, when they are without a cloak, are technically shadowless.

As Cloak doesn't commonly sleep in his cloak, as his thread is lined with the very same fabric that make up his cloak, they made a mistake just trying to get into his thread, before recoiling noisily at the Realm Walker's natural bioluminous corona.

It was enough to rouse Cloak, which made him rather cranky, as they fled with their stolen shadows.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 06, 2015, 03:27:35 AM

Cloak . . . what have you done to me. For the past THREE DAYS, I have been doing nothing but watching through DBZA. And now that I'm caught up, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE. I HOPE YOU'RE GODDAMN PLEASED.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2015, 01:46:23 PM

Nice try, GH. I'm not giving your cigarettes back. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 06, 2015, 01:52:14 PM

That is the least of my worries right now. And I can't believe I am saying that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2015, 01:56:41 PM

Ah.

Sorry, no chapters today, I think. Much too tired. Maybe later if -- and only if -- I have the energy for it.

:edit: Managed to find the energy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Dreams and Riddles

Cloak stood in a void of black emptiness.

He knew what this was. This was the most lucid kind of dream, almost a kind of vision of sorts. Cloak did not know why he could do this, but had suspected it somehow came from his paternal bloodline, but he hadn't any proof of this. Just this conjecture.

"Now the stupid riddle that doesn't mean anything, right?" Cloak said, voice echoing back rather ominously, as words began to scribble there way into existence in Realm Walker script.

THEY COME TO TAKE WHAT SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN,
LIVES OF THE LIVING THEY HAVE FORSAKEN.
TOWARD STICKS YOU MUST PROMPTLY AND SWIFTLY TRAVEL,
BEFORE THEIR THREADS OF LIFE BEGIN TO QUICKLY UNRAVEL.
WHEN THE MIRROR OF KHIONE STARTS TO SHATTER,
THE IMPALED LOSE SENSE OF ALL THINGS THAT MATTER.
WHAT IS KNOWN AND WHAT IS UNKNOWN SHALL RENDER UNDERSTANDING,
WHETHER SEEN AS A GOOD OR BAD THING, NOT WITHSTANDING.
TEN FORGOTTEN WARRIOR FACES
WILL PUT THE HEROES THROUGH THEIR PACES.
BEWARE THE WOMAN OF TWO DIMENSIONS,
SHE WILL INTRODUCE NEW TENSIONS.
THEN THE PLAGUES WILL BE UNLEASHED AND TURN,
AND THEY ARE OF GRAVE CONCERN.
FORGOTTEN FOES RESURFACE ONCE MORE, WITHOUT AND WITHIN
WITH NEW THIRST FOR VENGEANCE AND IN NEW SKIN.
THEN COME THE POACHERS OF TOOTH AND SCALE,
SAVE THE FLAME-BREATHERS WITHOUT FAIL.
IN THE DARK, FORBIDDEN FOREST LURKS THOSE WHO HUNT UNTIL DAWN,
CREATURES WHICH ARE IMMUNE TO REASON, UNDERSTANDING AND BRAWN.

"Yep," Cloak said, with weary acknowledgement, "doesn't mean a thing to me."

That was when Cloak was suddenly roused.

***

He was awake enough to notice the Shadow Stalkers scamper away. When his sense had caught up with him, he was immediately concerned. How did they get in here?! The fabric was supposed to be airtight enough to be sure that Cloak's power corona did cause irreparable damage to the realm!

Wait . . .

Cloak looked around, and realized that outside his innate, natural bioluminescence was shadow and darkness. It wasn't nearly enough light to illuminate the entire room, unless he poured his natural energy into it. It was a strange contradiction, considering what it would be like without the fabric-lined walls and door of his personal domicile.

These creatures, which Cloak had never met before or had any concept of, clearly they were capable of shadow-travel. That is, traveling through shadows. That must be how they got in, not only Cloak's thread, but the forum itself.

The first four lines of the riddle came back to the Elements Master, and he wondered. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2015, 07:50:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Dire Discovery

"What you're saying is physically impossible," Aquilai said.

"Use your eyes, man! Look! See for yourself!" Saffa shouted. She pointed rather wildly to the absence of shadows on Gaz, Az, Guy, Sakki, Faerie, and Underseen. Already fatigue had set in for the three.

"But . . . it's impossible," he blustered.

"There are many things that has happened to us, time walker, that would be considered impossible by the layman." Cloak said, cloaked and leaving his thread. "Even in only the past Dweller year alone."

He looked over the six, who looked as if they were steadily getting weaker. He scrutinized the situation.

"What do you make of it?" GH asked. He clearly had hope that Cloak knew of the creature or being who perpetrated such an impossible feat. "What did this to them?"

"I do not know," the Realm Walker stated, very clearly. "I do not know of any creature that could do this. I'd admit . . . I didn't think this was possible. But we've solved twelve impossible things before breakfast before."

"When was this?" Sakki asked.

"Not the time, VOLCAROID," the Elements Master said, seriously. His mind went back to riddle in his lucid dream.

They've come to take what should not be taken.

The shadows. The shadows were taken. The sheut of these RAFians.

But, no! It couldn't be! That was ridiculous! Such things were utter cliches, used by politicians and the religious as propaganda for their agendas. They were not true, they could not possibly be true. Only fervent fools and the hopelessly gullible buy into that sort of supernatural gobbledygook without question.

Cloak's eyes flashed as he observed the shadowless began to wobble ever so slightly. "Get them to the infirmary. Now."

"Cloak, we're f-fine," Gaz said, faintly. Laserbeak screeched reproachfully at her. He knew better than to believe Gaz's attempted minimization of what they were going through, and he didn't like Gaz doing that. "It is t-true, B-Beaky. It's t-true --"

Lives of the living they have foresaken.

Cloak thought angrily to himself, Shut up.

"You guys do look a little green behind the gills," Abby said, concerned. "Perhaps you should have Kelly check you guys out."

Laserbeak clicked his beak insistently and expectantly at Gaz. He was absolutely admanent that Gaz comply with this. Laserbeak was clearly very worried about her. They were taken to the infirmary, but no other objection was raised.

Cloak felt a knot in his stomach. He did not know why or how he knew -- but he felt that they were on a strict time limit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2015, 07:51:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Ticking Clock

"We have to do something," Cloak said.

Kelly had noticed and diagnosed a steady decline in the strength of the six. Her innate healing abilities was able to stem the decline but not for very long. Not very long at all.

"We are," Abby insisted. "We're doing all we can."

"No," Cloak disagreed quietly, "there is one more thing we can do. If the dream was true. . . ."

"What dream?" GH asked.

"The point is," Cloak said, deliberately dodging the question, "there may be a way to stop these Shadow Stalkers and return the pilfered shadows they procured."

"You didn't answer my question." GH said, astutely.

"Yes, GH, thst is indeed true. Now," Cloak said, brushing it aside, "we need to assemble a team to go after these Shadow Stalkers*."

"Cloak, you still --" GH began.

"Shadow Stalkers?" Saffa interrupted unintentionally. "I thought you didn't know what they were."

"I don't," Cloak clarified. "'Shadow Stalkers' are a name I gave them. I know they are skittish, as they fled when I roused. They didn't take my shadow, my sheut as the Ancient Egyptians would say."

"Like having no bellybuttons, do Realm Walkers have no shadows?" GH asked, smartly, his previous question forgotten.

"Depends on what you mean by shadow," Cloak said, rather enigmatically.

"Huh?"

"Realm Walkers are a bioluminescent species, due our being borne of energy, it is true. Outside of our cloaks, we have as much shadows as an undisguised Anodite or a Prypiatosian-B outside a containment suit." Cloak explained. "But if we are talking about sheut, the part of the soul in Egyptian mytholgy that is representative of the subject's legacy, that is an entirely different issue."

"And you didn't know what cigarettes were called," GH muttered quietly in disbelief. Cloak heard him anyway, but said nothing.

"In any case, we should get a team together -- a team with some illumination- and light-based powers --and head out." Cloak said, bluntly. "Then we need to get going. The clock is already ticking against us."

"Go? Go where?" Abby said.

"The river," Cloak said, quietly serious, "the River Styx."

---

* In the original outline for this book, these were just referred to as Umbraraptors, but I quickly grew found of using Shadow Stalkers, as it just sounds better to me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 09, 2015, 12:36:48 PM

A Memoirs book based on ancient mythology? This is gonna be good. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2015, 07:11:39 PM

More like a mishmash of mythologies. Although I may very well contradict myself later on . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Styx to Be You

They had arrived at the river, which fed into a cave. "They" being Cloak, Shadow, Sam, Helen, Demos, and Phoenix.

Cloak knew that the Styx was one of five rivers that led into the Greco-Roman idea of an underworld. Whether their stories were true or not, it did not matter. But it did give Cloak some pause.

Realm Walkers may be able to go many places, but there are many that they just are not. The top of Olympus, Asguard, theological Heaven, the Forge of Creation, theological Hell . . . Cloak had only mentioned this to the RAFians but once. That was a long time ago, and he never told them why. He, himself, wasn't entirely sure.

Anyway, the river Styx, the river of hatred, was just the most well-known. The others were the Lethe (the river of forgetfulness) the Cocytus (the river of lamentation and wailing), the Phlegethon (the river of fire) and the Acheron (the river of sorrow). These might seem like ordinary rivers on the surface, to the casual observer, to some one who allows themselves not to see truth in what is.

But they were not.

Cloak could already tell this as the reflections in the river seemed to undulate and twist I to images. Images of Malice, of Cataclysm, of Corruption, of his own mother . . . people that he still harbored a hatred for, even though he tried to deny it from some, though one in particular he was lying to himself about not hating any longer. But more images twisted into awful relief upon the water's surface.

Cloak couldn't help but reflect how fortunate it was that water cannot wear a Red Lantern ring.

The other RAFians and Shadow seemed aware of this odd little power of the river, though Cloak had his curiosity of what it was that they saw, but he said nothing. Such information should be disclosed at a time of the owner's own discretion, not by unending and unswerving prompts.

"Let's get going," Cloak said, feeling rather surly. "We haven't very much time to go on as is."

"But, Uncle, are you sure that --" Shadow said, addressing a problem that Cloak had already had already assessed.

"I'm sure." he said, rather bluntly. Then he turned his mind fully on the rigarole of the arduous task that laid before them. "Let's percieve -- er, proceed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 10, 2015, 06:57:58 AM

Good to come back after a while and read new chapters! :D

I have a feeling there's gonna be quite a bit of confusion addressing shadows, the Shadow Stalkers, and Shadow. :XD:

And I like how every book is giving Saffa further opportunity to develop her "ohmygod white people I ****ing swear" face. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 10, 2015, 10:01:58 AM

Saffa! *Hugs*
And hey, not all white people are crazy.  >:(

OK, yeah we are.  :crazy:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 10, 2015, 10:31:40 AM

Why do you think we take all your jobs? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2015, 03:56:23 PM

Glad to see you back, Saffa, m'dear!

Quote from: Saffa on September 10, 2015, 06:57:58 AM

I have a feeling there's gonna be quite a bit of confusion addressing shadows, the Shadow Stalkers, and Shadow. :XD:

Sounds ripe for a "Who's On First"-type of joke. Perhaps.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ghosts of Denial

The darkness of the cave soon became all encompassing. The green and violet glows from the ring-bearers and the fiery glows between Phoenix and Demos dimly illuminated, while Cloak was out in front, his feline eyes easily penetrating the gloom. They had left the bank of the river Styx, and walked rather perpendicular to it.

They did not really have any good reason why, but Cloak didn't think that these Shadow Stalkers were minions of Hades or Pluto, if either one even existed in this realm. The darkness here was oppressive, to human eyes. Cloak wasn't too fussed about the darkness.

Suddenly, a gray mist surrounded them, and three-dimensionally rendered images became condensed from them. They were clearly not real, but the simulation was eeriely breathtaking. The scenes they depicted were not happy or positive ones.

Each image before each RAFian was uniquely individual, and could be seen by the others. It showed each one of scenes from their histories where they had denied the truth from themselves. It showed them the reality they knew to be untrue. The perceptions they used to convince themselves of the false truths, to ignore the reality of the situations.

Cloak saw the illusion of his mother actually loving him and "saving" him from his father who "never loved him". Cloak narrowed his eyes at this. He knew it was a lie . . . now, he did anyway. Years ago, when he was still under his mother roof, he actually believed this. She led him to this conclusion, of course.

He didn't like it being thrown back into his face like this.

"ENOUGH!" he roared, shaking the cave a bit. But it did not collapse or anything, but it was frightening for the others who thought that it might. The misty shapes quickly dissipated into nothingness once more and they continued on, though Cloak seemed in a bad temper.

***

"This one is rather interesting, it's true," came a woman's deep, haunting voice.

The room was utter darkness save for two orbs which the one of the left showed the RAFians, as if on a black-and-white television, and the other showed the Shadow Stalkers, with their looted shadows.

"It is as I told you," came a more familiar voice, as the stooped, cloaked form of Malice came into view.

"As it is, as it is," the woman Malice spoke to said, rather airy and noncommittal. "But I still do not trust you, Stranger."

"Very wise of you, Melinoë (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinoe)," Malice said, with honeyed tones. "Very wise indeed."

"Do not debase my intellect so, Stranger." Melinoë said, very seriously, almost gravely. "I do not and will not appreciate such attempts to manipulate me."

"I wasn't trying to manipulate you, O Matron of Madness," Malice said, almost sycophantic.

"Don't lie to me, Stranger."

"But, O Queen of the Shadow Stalkers, they shall come for you. They shall come to take your kingdom of the Shadow Realm." said Malice, boldly lying. She had to stop herself from even so much as smirking at the very idea that Melinoë's kingdom was considered a "realm".

"You are being ridiculous," Melinoë scoffed. "None, save Nyx herself, can take my realm from me. These creatures, while admittingly intriguing, have no such ability to take from me what's rightfully mine."

"Of course, O Purveyor of Nightmares, of course," Malice said, with skillful deception, "but that does not mean that they won't try, though."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2015, 03:12:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Chapter Title? . . . Er, I Forgot

"How are the Peter Pans?" GH asked Kelly.

"Peter Pans" was shorthand for "Peter Pan Syndrome", obviously referring to the six that were rendered shadowless. It may have been in poor taste, but they did not object. In fact, they did not seem to do much of anything.

"I've done what I can to stabilize their condition," Kelly said heavily. Then she looked wearily at her hands, as if ever so slightly disappointed by them. "But my healing abilities are not infallible, and, sad to say, they are not without their limits."

"You are doing everything that you can," Richard said, "no one can aske any more of you."

Kelly touched the cheek of Underseen, the way a doting nurse would, and sighed heavily, "But there condition will deteriorate. That's not a guess, that is a fact. I can slow it as best as I can, but unless their shadows are returned to them . . ."

Kelly let the sentence hang, and turned her head away. That said more than enough.

"How long?" Saffa asked, solemnly.

"Four days, maybe five, if I maintain these ministrations." Kelly said sadly.

"Cloak's team will prevail," Super Nate said, with almost absurd certainty. "Just have a little faith in them."

***

They soon came across a river, milky white and as smooth as a pearl. The river of forgetfulness. Lethe.

The RAFians stood before it, and felt an odd enticement. How nice it would be not to be burdened with the knowledge, the memories that their lives provided for them. What euphoria there would be if they didn't have these pesky memories weighing them down. Hiw freeing it would be.

Cloak and Shadow were the least affected, due to being Realm Walkers. The Marks provided the others enough sense not to drink from the river, as well as enough sense not to enter the river itself. But the attraction was strangely attractive . . . oddly intoxicating . . . mysteriously seductive . . .

"SNAP OUTTA IT!!" Cloak snapped.

"Wha . . ." Sam said, dazed.

"Let's get a move on," Cloak said bluntly. "Forget about the river."

Shadow tittered, at the unintentional joke. Cloak just let out a repressive growl, not seeing the humor in it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 11, 2015, 05:32:21 AM

Malice's flattery levels are over 9000. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2015, 03:04:55 AM

But of course.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Spirits of Anger

The RAFians continued onward, passing by the river Lethe. Passing by the minor incandescence of the pearly, milky white river. Cloak couldn't quite understand why forgetting who you are would be a good thing.

He supposed for spirits who went for reincarnation who were required to drink from the river would be a good thing. But they were not spirits awaiting reincarnation. They needed their memories . . . they needed to remember their identities . . . they mustn't forget themselves just like that. . . .

Cloak slowly realized that the very idea of the Lethe scared him. He did not want to lose himself like that, because he already came very close to losing himself . . . back when he was in his mother's house . . .

No. He wasn't going to allow his mind to go back there. Not now. Now wasn't the time.

Suddenly, the gray mist started to coil around them, and Cloak found himself getting annoyed. This would be the denial thing all over again, he decided, as the mist began to solidify into images, into scenes, which would show the RAFians past experiences with anger.

But not wrathful anger, like that upon which Ira, the Boxed Evil of Wrath, thrived on and sought out. No, but anger formed and congealed from frustration. Frustration often propagates anger.

Before Cloak, the mist coiled and writhed and undulated in a most disconcerting, almost blasphemous way, as the images rose up from it.

He saw himself, struggling to do "chores" for his mother. Clean the foyer. Do the dishes. Take out the garbage. Clean out the refridgerator. Mow the lawn. Do the laundry. And more. And more on top of that. Always finding a flaw, no matter how minute, and treating it like nuclear winter had happened on his watch. Never being satisfied with anything.

Yes, it was maddening. Frustratingly so. But he had come to accept . . . but did he? Did he really accept that that had happened to him? If he did, why did he constantlh think back to these things? He knew the mere memories of these events caused him pain. Why did he feel this ludicrous need to dwell upon them? Why did he obsess with overanalyzing every gesture made, every word spoken, every facet of it? Did he really, truly accept it?

He knew the answer.

If there were more images beyond the first few, Cloak missed them entirely. But he had enough these images. He had had enough of being toyed with. He would not be baited like this. He was a tiger! He was the one that did the toying, he shouldn't have been a victim of it!

"Enough of this," he said, far calmer than he felt. The mist dissipated as the others used his voice to break their trances.

Without another word, the moved on.

***

"These mortals are quite resilient," Melinoë commented, voice rather wispy, like a fleeting spirit. "Quite resilient indeed."

"Don't underestimate them, O Insanity Invoker," Malice said, far more skillfully than it would appear to the casual observer. "They cannot withstand your, as the mortals put it, 'A game', dear Matron of Madness."

"You do not tell me what to do, Stranger," Melinoë threatened, indifferently idle.

"Of course, of course," Malice said, being cunningly pliant, "it was only my intent to warn you. I have had crossed paths with these particular mortals before, Ms. Melinoë. I believe I know them, their motivations and driving forces."

"They are nothing," Melinoë said, dismissively. "Insects which I can crush beneath my heel at any time of my choosing. I just have not chose to do such as of yet."

"Of course, of course," Malice said, placatingly. "I did not mean to insinuate otherwise, O Queen of the Shadow Stalkers."

Melinoë said nothing. But she did not object from Malice's company, seeing her as a simple toady. Which is precisely what Malice wanted to her to see the Realm Walker octogenarian as.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2015, 08:01:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Burning River

"Sundown," Saffa said, unable to keep disappointment from her voice. "Sundown and they're still not back."

"Give them time," GH said.

"Unfortunately," Abby commented, "time is one luxury we cannot afford."

Rotiart was there as well, though some distance away, looking at the setting sun. But he, rather unlike himself, said nothing. He wasn't snarky or sarcastic. He was serious and solemn, as if at the bedside of a dying loved one. It was a depth that he rarely showed, much less this openly.

His irritating and annoying antics more or less served as a cover for his insecurities. His laziness, however, he had no excuse for. He just preferred to do what he wanted, when he wanted. His selfishness and arrogance were just a part his personality, and that would not change as many times as he was humbled by Saffa or Sakki or another RAFian.

He was aware of their antagonism. And, in his view, it was unjustified, as he tended not to acknowledge his failings. Yet, it wasn't quite narcissism. He was aware of his own cowardice, but he did not like this aspect of himself, anymore than any of the others did. He had tried of late to stem this, but it was not an easy task.

He was also insecure, very insecure. He hadn't any really flashy powers like the Realm Walker or the star. He had no morphing ability -- knowing his luck, he was probably allergic to it.

He knew that the others saw him as useless, as worthless, as deadweight. He did not like this. He knew he had to do something to change this standing. If he didn't, he may have to go back. Back to his father's place . . .

He couldn't do that. Especially when he drank. Especially when he drank himself into a stupor. He didn't ever want to go back. His father was the only biological family he had, and he didn't like this fact. He knew his father, wearing that stained white wife-beater shirt, and those tattered blue jeans, would be indifferent to his absence. It had been at least a year and a half since he had fled that place.

He would not be going back. He had to make this work. He had to . . .

***

"That river . . ." Demos said, his voice somewhere between disgusted awe and revolted reverence.

"The Phlegethon," Cloak said, sure that he was mispronouncing it.

"Whatever," Demos said, dismissively, "it's a river of Fiendfyre."

"That's nice," Shadow said, dryly sarcastic.

"Ugh," Demos said. He clearly still saw Friendfyre as a pyrokinetic's crutch, as a weakness. As a shortcut. It disgusted him. He despised it with every fiber of his being.

"Seems too flashy," Phoenix said.

"Without any substance," Demos said, testily, "without any finesse."

"So, Demos," Sam asked, "how do you really feel about it?"

Demos glowered at the Green Lantern.

"Okay, then."

"Let's get going," Cloak said, moving beyond the river.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 12, 2015, 08:14:58 PM

Damn. Right in the feels there

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2015, 04:54:47 PM

I thought I'd just flesh him out a bit . . . considering . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Bargaining Ghosts

Cloak was beginning to get concerned. How long had they been down here? How stupid of him to allow himself to lose track of time! It could be have been two, three, four days already! Realm Walkers were not like Andalites in the fact they did not have an internal clock that they can use to track time perfectly. No, they were as flawed as any human in this aspect.

When the gray mist heralding the arrival of spirits of some obscure or obvious emotion or aspect came, Cloak was less than enthused to entertain it. His temper was already stretched dangerously thin and taut, ready to snap at any point. He tried to be calm, collected, and composed but it wasn't all that easy, especially under this kind of duress.

The fact it turned out that the gray mist decided to solidify into the most irritating, annoying ghosts imaginable. The kind that tried to desperately bargain and beg for things. Most them were begging to be returned back to life. Even begging to "wear" their bodies for a while, just as long as it took them to leave the cavern.

After a few moments of this grating bargaining and begging, Cloak, despite himself, lost it.

"NO, YOU MAY BLOODY NOT!!" he roared, a tiger's roar intermingling with his voice. "NO YOU CAN NOT!! NO! NO! NO!"

When this did not end the infuriatingly persistent chatter, Cloak roared so loudly that loose dirt tumbled down from the ceiling. He didn't care. He was passed that point. The duress had gotten to him, and he couldn't help but come forth, though it was an amazing feat in and of itself that he didn't go all "Wrath of the Avatar" on everyone.

"The answer is still no," Cloak said, regaining his composure, while breathing heavily. "Now . . . GET LOST!!"

But that wasn't enough for them get the picture, so Cloak (surprised that Shadow had stepped in to help -- she was annoyed by them as well) began to tear them apart aerokinetically. Then Demos and Phoenix ignited them, which surprised Cloak -- he didn't think that the mist was flammable.

But he hadn't lost sight of the goal. He said, "Let's get going."

***

"Hmmm . . . I may owe them for doing that," Melinoë said.

"What?" Malice said, briefly dropping her sycophantic manner. Melinoë did not appear to take notice. Indeed, her eyes never left the viewing orbs, her head never turned to even acknowledge Malice's presence, which made Malice's demurred, subservient act all the easier.

Yet why Malice was doing this at all, playing the stooge, was still unclear. She didn't seem to get anything out of it, either. There had to be a reason that she would debase herself like this, as she would never do it unless it serviced her in some way.

And Melinoë would seem to be oblivious to it all.

"I never did like those spirits personally," Melinoë commented, ignoring Malice's outburst with a dismissive recklessness. Malice quickly returned to her subservience facade, capitalizing on this.

"Yes, Lady of Ghosts," Malice said, playing to Melinoë's ego. And she had an ego of considerable size -- one could even call it "unbelievably bloated".

"But, intriguing, still," she said, thoughtfully, "they will soon overtake my umbraraptors. I wonder how they will work to undo what they have done."

"Ms. Melinoë?" Malice said, very careful not convey the annoyed anger she felt. She did not like the route that Melinoë was taking in this now. Malice would have to very subtly influence and manipulate her into the more appropriate reaction.

If Melinoë turned on Malice, what would need to be done would be clear. Malice would do what she did to Collector, Gamesmaster, Abomination, and countless others. She would kill the immortal goddess.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 14, 2015, 01:19:39 AM

Uh, but she's kinda immortal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 14, 2015, 02:05:15 AM

Come on, Saffles, when has that ever stopped anyone?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2015, 07:52:18 AM

Or maybe there's more to it . . .

Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCCIII: "Until Daylight" -- A few RAFians must deal with Blackwood Wendigos.
• Book DCCCIV: "The Mad Majin" --The RAFians must deal with an insane Majin.
• Book DCCCV: "Ins and Outs" -- The RAFians must deal with a bodiless, centuries-old sorcerer.
• Book DCCCVI: "Pierce's Night Blights" -- A toddler must deal with creatures called Night Blights.

I don't think that I repeated or rehashed anything. Tell me what you think!
New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Wailing Address

The Peter Pans had lapsed into untalkative lethargy. They were approaching being utterly catatonic far too fast as Kelly would have light as night fell with rather sudden abruptness.

Kelly didn't stop her ministrations, but it seemed that all she could do was simply slow the process of deterioration, not stop it. She didn't like that her healing abilities were limited in this way.

If they . . . if they . . .

Well, if the inevitable happened, Kelly would take it very hard. She would have been very hard on herself in any of them were . . . were . . . were lost. She had to be able to more to stem this! She had to be able to do more!!

But she couldn't. Her hands were, figuratively, tied. She was already doing as much as she could in this, and didn't know what more she could do for the Peter Panned RAFians.

What could she do?

"Please hurry," she murmured, as if the shadow-seeking RAFians could hear her.

***

"Is that all that wailing really necessary?" Sam asked, covering his ears.

"WHAT?" Helen asked, her hands clamped over her ears.

It did not do much to raise Cloak's mood. The waters of the Cocytus did not show them moments of lamentations in their lives, like most of the rivers previously. It just wailed loudly, which apparently could only be heard by the living.

It was an irritating distinction.

"Ugh," he said. "Let's hurry up and clear this place. We have got to be getting close to those Shadow Stalkers."

"You don't know that, though," Demos said, who seemed not to mind the wailing. Demons were apparently immune from its irritation.

"Don't try me, demon," Cloak growled testily.

"But you don't." Demos persisted.

"Cloak and Shadow can Earthsight --" Helen began.

"Since when does shadows, like the Shadow Stalkers themselves, have weight?" Demos pointed out, seemingly unaware of how maddening the Cocytus's wailing was becoming. "If I remember the events with the Spirit-Drinker correctly, Cloak could barely Earthsight that thing."

"Immaterial," Cloak said, nettled. "Shut up, and let's get a move on."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 14, 2015, 09:24:53 AM

That pun. "Immaterial". Hehe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2015, 08:11:50 PM

And an unintentional one at that. Now, since I'm posting this now, the next one will hafta be atter work tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Depression and Dupes

They continued on, expecting to either come upon the river of sorrow, Acheron, or being besieged by more spirits. They were still on a ticking clock. Each tick, each tock,  each second was another bullet fired against them.

Cloak really did not like time crunches. They were stressful and made him anxious. And moody. And testy.

Suddenly, the gray mist curled around them again, and this greatly irked the Realm Walker. The gray mist coiled and shifted and formed into images of times of great depression and sadness in the lives of the respective viewing RAFians, and Shadow. Cloak was feeling thoroughly irritable -- in his relatively short life lived this far, there had been many . . . too many instances of depression in his life.

So bad it was, that, in some cases, he had considered suicide . . . believed wrongly that no one would have ever missed him if he did . . . but Shadow, though she did not know it, had saved him from that fate. He found himself unable to commit the act . . . because of her, because he didn't want to hurt her emotionally as he himself had been wounded. He could not do that to her. He simply could not.

He felt so alone in those days. Isolated. He still spent each night hoping that he would simply just not wake up in the morning. He found himself tired of life, tired of being belittled and debased on a constant and consistent basis. When persistently called something over and over again, you eventually come to believe it, even if it's simply not true. He was the most defeated person in the world . . . he . . . he . . .

"ENOUGH!!!" Cloak roared, taking a stance as if he was a Saiyan going Super Saiyan. He calmed and collected himself before he could lose control of both himself and his powers. But his anger had dissipated the mist, and the others had had similar reactions, as they saw things that made them depressed -- even Demos.

"Let's hurry up and get this over with," Cloak said, moodily.

"Agreed," Phoenix replied, rather wearily.

***

"Impressive," Melinoë said, in a cool manner. "If I must say."

"O Queen of the Shadow Stalkers, you sound as if you're coming to admire them," Malice said, in a rather Umbridge-like way.

"They've surprised me, it is true," Melinoë said, not looking at Malice. She did not notice that Malice was taking some materials deftly and without being seen. Melinoë continued without interruption, "Most in their shoes would have given up and returned to their homes by now, and allowed their loved ones to perish. There is usually a limit to how much a person is willing to do for someone that they claimed to love, to care about. These beings have not. They have lasted until well past nightfall, and still the continue onwards. They will overtake my Shadow Stalkers at any point now."

Malice said nothing, as she was already working on her next deadly scheme. Melinoë didn't seem to notice or care about the Realm Walker's silence.

"My Shadow Stalkers may not even make it to me," Melinoë observed aloud. "Thereby the shadows may not be turned into my subjects, as only can I turn them, if I think them worthy. The shadows might returned, and, on the surface, this may not seem to be a productive use of my subjects' time, but it may prove to be a valuable learning experience. For.me."

Malice, unseen by Melinoë, rolled her eyes as if to say, Thank you, Ms. Late Exposition.

"This shall be interesting, I think," Melinoë commented.

"I think we can agree on that," Malice said, too quietly for Melinoë to hear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2015, 07:54:26 PM

I wonder if anyone has noticed what the gray mist spirits were based off of. Denial . . . anger . . . bargaining . . . depression . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Nobody Knows the Sorrow I've Seen

Rotiart was feeling down.

Yes, he actually worried about the Peter Pans -- but he could not bring himself to acknowledge this with the others (besides, they'd probably think he was being smart or snarky). But, despite himself, he couldn't help but wonder what if it had happened to him. If had happened to him . . . would the others go to lengths to save him. He liked to thjnk so, but the nagging worm of doubt was already there, eating its way through certainty.

No. He would just have to prove himself. He would just have to show that he was up to scratch. He would just have to show that he could be as useful as anyone else, a valued member of this team . . .

The problem with this was that he was, in actuality, a crap fighter. He was a lousy shot with a firearm. He was all butterfingers with melee weapons. He knew no martial arts and, as such, his hand-to-hand combat was severely limited to limp-wristed slaps and ineffectual kicks. He was basically like Hercule's shameful son when it came to combat.

Rotiart knew this all too well, and he sought to change it. But the question was whether or not his resolve would be strong enough actually stick to this.

***

"That's the last river," Cloak said, "Acheron. River of sorrow."

"So it has the last few M. Night movies in it?" Helen asked, dryly.

"How is that sorrow?" Shadow asked.

"Ever seen 'The Last Airbender'?" Helen asked.

"Eh, 'Dragonball Evolution' was worse." Demos said, with a shrug.

Seeing where this was beginning to head, and he headed it off, "C'mon, guys. Let's not get into circular arguments. You guys can decide whether it's duck season or rabbit season later."

"Killjoy," Demos said, with faux petulance.

The river decided to show them scenes of their greatest sorrows in its reflections. The RAFians only gave it a slight glance before moving on. They were all too aware that they could get too immersed in looking.

They just proceeded forward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 15, 2015, 08:11:54 PM

Ohhhhh, now I'm seeing the pattern!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 16, 2015, 12:19:28 AM

OHHHHH.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2015, 05:55:30 AM

Oh. Apparently not. I'm genuinely surprised.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
'Bout Time

The Shadow Stalkers had no idea that they were being followed. Perhaps, if they did, they wouldn't be so sedate in achieving their objective. Perhaps, if they did, they would have tried to conceal their trails.

But Shadow Stalkers were barely even sentient, with the intelligences that go with it, as intelligence and sentience tend to parallel each other, and go together like peanut butter and jelly.

They continued, almost mindlessly, on their way to their queen. They hurried, in a sedate way, to their mistress, their queen. They only knew that she was able to transmute stolen shadows into more Shadow Stalkers, and that her word, her demands, were absolute and required abject, unwavering obedience.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by green and violet light. Then it was interminged with mauve, scarlet, lavender, and gold. The brightness was almost painful to the Shadow Stalkers, but not quite. They didn't feel pain in the same way fully sentient creatures did, being creatures made, not of matter or energy, but of shadow, of darkness, of the absence of light, of forgotten legacies.

But they could not escape, they could not go to their mistress. They could not add to their number. And there wasn't very many of them to begin with.

"That's far enough," came a tough, commanding voice.

The Shadow Stalkers turned to see the being that they saw as an abomination. The creature of light, and another one, smaller and more demure. Abominations! The both of them!

There were two more, one ensconced in a green aura and another in a violet one. Purveyors of pain! Shadowless!

The last two were ensconced in flame, preventing any shadows from being seen. Heliopaths! Dangerous creatures!

There were no shadows that they could dive into to shadow travel away from here. These six seemed to be aware of that little ability of shadow-travel. There was no escap from them. No escape at all.

"You've stolen something from us that we would really like back," the one with the violet aura said.

The Shadow Stalkers did not understand the concept of theft, in the fact that they did not understand the usual concept of ownership, not really. Though they were protecting their ill-begotten shadows with selfish, Gollum-like devotion, it wasn't really any by concept of ownership.

"And, now, what do you have to say for yourselves?" Sam said, unnervingly imperialistic.

But, of course, Shadow Stalkers cannot speak.

"Give them back," Cloak growled.

The Shadow Stalkers recoiled to the center of the room. There were seven of them.

"That wasn't a request," the Realm Walker threatened.

The Shadow Stalkers didn't react.

"We're not going to be so nice for very much longer."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 16, 2015, 06:46:50 AM

Ooh, epic explosion time!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2015, 05:56:39 PM

Not so fast, Saffa. Now, since I'm posting this now, the next chapter will probably be after work tomorrow -- probably early in the morning for you, Saffa, and afternoon for you, GH.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Progress or Lack Thereof

Rotiart began his training to become a better fighter. He told no one, and the only one who knew anything was the training sim computer. More than likely a foolhardy and reckless decision, but Rotiart wasn't in the habit of thinking these things out, led by his own arrogant impetuousness and his pompous demeanor. Yet his deep-seated insecurities remained, and he believed if he went to the others for help, it would being admitting weakness, and he refused to be that weak. Though he would acknowledge that he isn't the strongest in combat, that's one reason that he was always quick to run away.

And his training scores tended to reflect that.

In the projectile-firing sim, out of ten targets, four of which were actually stationary, he got zero of them. Though he did get close to one of the moving ones. But it was a sheer accident and completely unintentional.

In the hand-to-hand combat sim, he was seriously trounced by the lowest level opponent. It was an embarrassment, but you had to hand it to the kid. He just got up and tried it again. He had never been this active, having preferred to loaf around and snooze on the job. And, yet, he decided to do it at a time that no one would notice.

The other RAFians were much too worried about the Peter Pans who were beginning to stop being responsive. There was much worry about them, and Rotiart's self-imposed quest to better himself could have been seen as him being petulantly selfish, something he had been accused of beforehand. But Rotiart, like everyone else (usually), has layers, and he doesn't allow others to see beneath the outermost layer of a pompous jerk, as a way to protect himself, as a way to insulate himself.

Also, the fact that he was majorly failing at the simplest levels of the sim was another factor. Especially because Parker always trains with these things at level fifty or so, and Cloak does too (at least when he consented to even use the training sims at all -- they tended to bore him easily).

He was easily disarmed in the melee combat training sim. He was disarmed within minutes -- even quicker than Lion-O and the Sword of Omens. Rotiart wasn't daunted, though. He grit his teeth, and set his resolve. He would not be useless anymore. He would not be worthless anymore. He would not . . .

He would prove himself. Prove himself to the others. But, most importantly, prove himself to himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2015, 06:42:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Parting of Ways

"Interesting," Melinoë said, as if she was a merely a television viewer. "I did not see that coming. They have my Shadow Stalkers thoroughly and perfectly trapped. I would not think it possible."

She chuckled, as if she were watching a bloodsport and she had ice in her veins. And, quite apparently, she liked talking aloud and monologuing. She was clearly unware of the glaring weaknesses of such proclivities, as Malice was apt to exploit at the earliest convenience. Melinoë also liked to have her ego stroked, as Malice proved this whole time.

But, soon enough, Melinoë began to allow suspicions to get the better of her when she heard a slight scraping noise behind her. She actually had the bright idea to actually turn and look at Malice, tearing her attention away from the viewing orbs.

"What do you think you are doing?!" she demanded, in scandalized tones.

It was Malice's turn to not look at Melinoë as she went about collecting Melinoë's possessions that she required for her next scheme. She was not ashamed of the now-blatant theft.

"I SAID, what do you think YOU ARE DOING?!" Melinoë demanded, with an indignant stamp of her foot.

"Procuring what I require," Malice said, having instantaneously dropped the sycophantic manner. She spoke in a cold, clear, blunt tone of voice. If Melinoë was taken aback by this abrupt change, she didn't show it.

"Well, put it back!!" she demanded like a rich socialite speaking to the help. "Put it ALL back!! Right this instant!"

"No."

"What?" This actually took her by surprise. "What did you say to me?"

"No. It's what people say when they mean the opposite of 'yes'."

"I KNOW what 'no' MEANS!!!" Melinoë shouted, outraged.

Malice was indifferent. She shift her weight a bit and moved to leave.

"You GET back here! RIGHT NOW!!! You GET back here, and put them BACK!!"

"No."

"YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME, YOU MISERABLE MORTAL!!"

"Mortal?" Malice said, conversationally. "You mean, 'human', don't you?"

Malice turned around and walked sedately toward her without any fear whatsoever. This actually unnerved her. Unsurprisingly, as it would unnerve anyone.

"Permit me to . . .educate you, then." Malice said, her cloak making mincing motions, rather like a guillotine. "I am not a human. Nor am I goddess -- not one of, heh, your caliber, anyway. My name is Malice."

"Ugh!"

Malice had ran her through with an energy blade. Like how she killed Collector. And the Realm Walker once known as Abomination. And Gamesmaster.

"This . . . isn't . . . possible," she gasped. "I . . . am . . . immortal!"

"Immortal, eh?" Malice said, savagely. "Then why are you dying?"

There was no response that Melinoë could make to that as she collapsed into gray mist. Melinoë was effectively dead. Malice left without any regard or remorse for her actions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 16, 2015, 07:05:28 PM

The dialogue between these two was the best part of this book so far. Awesome work :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 17, 2015, 02:06:21 AM

Lol yes, gotta hand it to Malice, she has some great lines.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2015, 03:05:45 AM

:D

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Return of the Shadows

"You tempt our collective patiences, Shadow Stalkers," Cloak growled. "You are going to force our hand."

The Shadow Stalkers couldn't reply. They don't talk -- because they can't.

"Give us back the shadows you took, and you walk out of here alive."

This was no idle threat. Cloak meant every savage word. He was sick to death of this place already. He did not like having his emotions dragged out like, nor did he care for the sheer amount of grief these Veiled* creatures had caused not only him and the five others but the Peter Pans back at the forum as well.

This needed to end. And end in such a way that Shadow Stalkers would not simply go and do this all over again. They need to save the Peter Pans, sure, but they also needed to prevent it from ever happening again.

And, alas, that may come down to a single conclusion. Cloak knew it, was aware of it, and had already accepted the potential fallout. He didn't like it, but he saw no other way out. He would bear the responsibility.

"Hand them over," Phoenix said.

He knew the eventual outcome here too, apparently. And he didn't want Cloak to shoulder all the blame.

Suddenly, the Shadow Stalkers seemed to spasm. They released the shadows, which rubberbanded back to their rightful places, but it was clear from their reactions, that it was not intentional. This took the five RAFians, and Shadow, by surprise. They hadn't even attacked.

Their bodies spasmed. They writhed. It was a rather . . . unpleasant . . . thing to watch. And, yet, there wasn't anything they could do to stop it. The Shadow Stalkers were dying in the most violent and horrible way imaginable.

The RAFians had no way to knowing, but the Shadow Stalkers' lives were connected to that of their queen. With Melinoë dead, then so were they.

But the RAFians, and Shadow, were ones who bore witness to it.

---

*Realm Walker for "damned".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2015, 04:31:40 AM

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Scheme Coming Together

Malice was back the Alcatraz-like prison that she had used to imprison the RAFians. She wasn't planning to use most of it, as she was only occupying a cordoned off area. She cordoned it off herself to make sure no nosy kids came poking around this prison.

She had all the pieces for his next scheme. Granted, she had to find another edifice for the major part of her scheme, but this would do for now. She had them all sedated, and, with the items taken from Melinoë's den, she had a way of controlling these creatures.

She had secretly marvelled at the myriad of species this one classification had. Some she found could be very useful to her, and some that she considered superfluous. She would use them as lambs to the slaughter.

She managed to gather about thirty or so "inmates", many who were no happy with being prisoners. Those were the ones who were more heavily sedated. Those were the ones she thought might be more useful to her.

She worked diligently, working on what appeared to be small belts or collars. She was attaching what appeared to be silver spikes. None very sharp, but possessing a small nanotechnology, which carried what appeared to be some sort chemical ****tail, and what appeared to be magic. Technology and magic had the propensity to be a volatile combo.

But that would work to her advantage. It would help making her inmates more . . . controllable. They were nothing more than mice to her, insects that could be killed without a moment's notice. They were plenty dangerous, of course, but that was to humans and similar species.

Malice was a Realm Walker. Nothing the Dwellers could have could hope to kill a Walker. She was very confident in this fact. Only a Realm Walker can kill a Realm Walker. So she had no fear of these creatures, and she allowed them enough food to keep them fit, but no more. She wanted them vicious.

She was planning on using them for a very important purpose, and it was important for her to keep them healthy. Granted, she wasn't feeding them their usual diets, but something akin to a sensu bean smoothie. Where she got the senzu beans, or a derivative of which, was a mystery in and of itself.

This was one of her more elaborate schemes, and she knew it. It had to be very careful and planned. Nothing could go wrong. She would succeed this time. This time . . .

She will succeed in killing a RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 17, 2015, 05:18:47 AM

Yeah, I had the synopses of most of the books saved, so I knew this would be coming. You put the spoiler in there. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2015, 03:25:23 PM

Not all the readers are as devoted as you, Saffa. ;) They might not see it as a spoiler. In any case, it probably isn't gonna be what you think it is.

I'll post the last chapter soon. Ish. I have a quick errand to run and then I'll be back, toot suite, and begin working on it.

:edit: Yes, I Wikipedia'd for this this chapter.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Carnival of the RAFians

The former Peter Pans were on the mend. Quickly recovering, and getting stronger with every passing day. But the overall morale of the forum was not the best. They did not know how or why the Shadow Stalkers died. It was this uncertainty that loomed over them, tinted every thought.

GH, however, thought this was not acceptable. That this was not an acceptable atmosphere for the forum. He sought to change this. He managed to organize an event for that very night. It was, naturally, inside the auditorium.

He spoke in rhyme after he played a considerable riff on his beloved guitar. He intended to lift the spirits of the others and, by gum, he was going to do it!

"This is a new composition which features
A random assortment of all RAFian creatures.
You'll find that it's not quite exactly the same
As the one by the guy with "Weird" in his name.
So to fill in this void in the RAFian Kingdom
I'll read some new verses. I'm not gonna sing them.
So kindly shut up and I'll narrate for you.
Carnival of the RAFians."

Then he played another riff on his guitar, this one rather like a ballad.

"The Andalite is a curious creature.
If you're grass, then he's likely to eat cha.
Although morphing make them look kinda hideous,
They're still listed first in the RAF 'encyclopeous'."

Then he played a tune rather like funk on his guitar.

"I love to watch the faeries just hovering for hours.
They look like birds pollinating flowers.
Yet, I feel sorry for the little faerie birds,
They always have to hum, because they never learned the words."

"Pffft," Faerie said, in an audible whisper, "of course we know the words."

A smattering of giggles followed this. GH didn't mind this interruption, as this was precisely his goal. Lifting the pall that had been cast over the forum.

GH continued with a tune in the style similar to the one known as "gangsta", before continuing.

"I've learned a few things in my life about Yeerks, not snails,
They don't care for oatmeal and they leave icky trails.
It's pretty darn hard to tell one from the utter
And Varnoxes like 'em with garlic and butter."

GH did a jazz-like riff before continuing.

"Deep in the murky swamp, lives the dragon.
His policy is first to chomp, and then login.
Although his lifestyle may seem crass,
I really wouldn't knock it,
He'd never wear a shirt that has a yuppie on the pocket."

GH did a riff in a style most similar to a polka.

"Geeks are such reprehensible things,
Some critics, I'm told, call them nerds with wings.
They terrorize folks with their constant dive-bombing,
Which some find distasteful, and some quite alarming.
But still, they fulfill a valuable need,
They give bullies something to bleed."

GH played another riff, this time rock 'n' roll style.

"The Shinigami are not a friendly creatures
That fact they're always proving.
It seems that the creature's favorite dish features
Anything that's moving.
They'll chew you face off in a flash
Or cheat you if you let them.
So, never loan 'em any cash,
and be careful when you pet 'em."

GH played a reggae-like riff.

"Some think that the vampires are a pest,
But that's the supernatural creature I like best.
I love the way the run in fright,
When they see dawn's early light.
And when I spike them to the ground,
They may pleasant whooshing sound."

GH played a ska-like riff.

"I could tell you a story about Aliciania,
But, just at the moment, I don't really wanna."

GH went into an acid rock-like riff.

"The life of the demon is one long, sick joke.
He hangs around, waiting for something to croak.
Then picks the carcass right down to the bone.
Sounds like one or two Knights I've known."

"Realm Walkers are just people in cloaks coarse,
Except for their powers, of course.
Realm Walkers are just a myth,
Which is to say that they don't existh."

"Cute," Cloak said, with an acerbic edge, as GH played a cajun-like riff.

"Seals are slimy carnivorous beasts,
In pastures, you might find them grazing.
Their fangs measure 23-inches, at least.
Their antlers are simply amazing.
Sometimes they would bury their head in the sand,
They are our main source of pork, ham, and bacon.
But, then again, on the other hand,
I could be completely mistaken."

Horse was speechless, until the last bit, as GH played a riff that was like downtempo music.

"Well, it's getting late, so I suppose
We should be drawing to a close.
Besides my voice is sounding hoarse
And even my rhymes are getting worse.
Poor Yarin is in the dumps,
He's worn his fingers to stumps!
So, farewell, this parody is through,
Now, go find something else to do."

And, like that, the impromptu concert ended.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 17, 2015, 06:56:32 PM

*Begins slow clap*
What, nobody else!? Ungrateful bunch of pricks. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 17, 2015, 09:53:45 PM

Nope. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2015, 03:03:46 AM

New chapter.

BOOK XCIX:
GRIMM PERSPECTIVES
CHAPTER ONE:
Recuperation

"How d'ya feel?" GH asked Underseen.

It has been a few days since the whole Shadow Stalker thing, and just three days after GH scintillating concert. He didn't think much of the lackluster reception it seemed to get initially. But he quickly saw that it had its desired effect. The morbid atmosphere had evaporated, and the other RAFians were far more cheery before his impromptu concert.

Well, except Cloak. He was never what you call "cheery". Blunt and serious, sure. But cheery? Not a chance in the world.

"Never better," Underseen replied. Then he, quite needlessly, demonstrated by shapeshifting into Beast and Cyclops from X-Men. Then he hiccuped in his base form, and accidentally shapeshifted in a boy with an incredible likeness to both a young Hayden Christensen and a young Jake Lloyd at the same time. This was unintentional, and Underseen experienced skme embarrassment for it. "Uh, you didn't see that."

***

Meanwhile, Cloak found himself thinking, despite himself, back to when he was kicked out of his mother's house, out of the family -- that side, anyway. He remembered all too clear. Though he tried his best to forget, to suppress. He knew he needed to let all this go . . .

Yet his mind still went to these memories. These unpleasant memories. This one was right after she kicked him out, before he decided to go to RAF.

"The Nexus is cold, the Walkers are cloak-bare
The trees blow in the wind that's everywhere.
We all move on, so we can survive.
The Nexus snow is so deep
The ursine Walkers all sleep
To keep themselves alive.
They do what they must, for now,
And trust in their plan.
I trust in mine
Someday, I might find
Who I am!
But -- where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear.
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go
From here?
My world has changed, and so have I.
I've learned to choose and even learned to say good-bye.
The path ahead, so hard to see.
It winds and bends
But where it ends
Depends on only me.
In my heart,
I don't feel part
Of so much I've known
Now it seems to start
A new life on my own!
But, where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear.
Which is the voice I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go
From here?"

Cloak had decided to take up permanent residence in the Prime Universe, becoming a joke to the rest of his species. But, in the end, Cloak didn't mind, as he found himself unable to tolerate the pretentiousness of his species.

He was home here. He was recuperating from all the traumas and trials that his narcissistic mother put him through. Recuperating slowly. Too slowly, possibly.

Then he looked at a newspaper, and noticed an article on thirty or so missing persons. How had he not noticed this before? Thirty people don't just up and disappear in that relatively short time-frame. Something was going on here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2015, 03:21:29 PM

Yeah, I'll be a bit more upfront in this chapter.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Control Collared

"Don't fight me on this," Malice said, threateningly. She was putting one of her specialized collars around the neck of one of these creatures, these Wesen, as they called themselves. It would have been difficult in catching them, though Realm Walkers could easily see them when they "woged (http://grimm.wikia.com/wiki/Woge)" as they put it., but couldn't sense them as easily as a Grimm could.

Fortunately, she found one, something called an Endezeichen Grimm (a sort of Wesen form of a Knight of Humanity), to use against these Wesen. It was child's play to find the other thirty or so wesen. A lot of them feared this ruthless, merciless Grimm, this Jeremiah Baker. He now boasted a control collar himself.

Malice walked through and took inventory of her controlled captives. With the control collars on, their eyes -- pupils, sclera, and irises in their entirety -- glowed red. They were forced into absolute obedience, abject subservience, and obligatory servility to Malice's whims. So long as they wore the collars. The collars also kept them in a woged state due to the items that Malice stole from Melinoë.

Anyway, Malice strolled sedately, taking inventory of the captured Wesen -- and Jeremiah:

The lupine Blutbad male, who she had to kill the grizzled father to take the adult son.

The vulpine Fuchsbau female. She was a tricky, clever one.

The hag-like Hexenbiest, which are all female as the males are called something else, which Malice didn't bother learning. She was rather hideous, in Malice's opinion.

The jaguar-like Balam male. He was rather stupidly daring.

The bee-like Mellifer male. It was actually easier than she expected.

The porcine Bauerschwein male. This was an easy catch.

The smilodon-like Mauvis Dentes male. This was a difficult catch that Malice relished.

The coyote-like Coyotl male. He was a known human-eater, though more of a scavenger than anything else.

The leonine Löwen male. This was also a difficult capture which Malice relished.

The dragon-like Dämonfeuer male. This one was a difficult catch.

The serpentine Lausenchlange male. He was a bit unusual for his kind for not being a constricting killer, but preferring to be a vicious biter.

The badger-like Drang-Zorn male. This was a difficult catch, but one that Malice did not relish.

The ursine Jägerbar male. Another difficult capture.

The beaver-like Eisbiber male. Another easy capture.

A chelonian Geno Innocuo male. Another easy capture.

The polar bear-like Gefrierengeber male. A difficult capture.

The vulture-like Geier female. A capture of moderate difficulty.

The bovine Mordstier male. A difficult, but ultimately successful, capture.

The goat-like Ziegevolk male. A moderately difficult capture, but one Malice didn't take any real pride in.

The chiropteran Murciélago male. A fairly easy capture.

The troll-like Hässlich male. A difficult capture.

The rat-like Reinigen male. An easy capture.

The sasquatch-like Wilderrmann male. A difficult capture, but one Malice took great pride in.

The murine, or mouse-like, Mauzhertz female. A ruthlessly easy capture.

The eaglelike Steinadler male. A capture of moderate difficulty.

The jackal-like Schakal female. A capture of some difficulty.

The porcupine-like Stangebär female. A capture of fair ease.

The avian Seltenvogel female. A capture of indeterminate difficulty.

The crocodilian Skalenzahne male. A capture of immense difficulty.

She continued to walk amongst the blank-faced wesen. They didn't have a thought that she didn't expressly give them. She had to use a special hormone she discovered to keep them in this woged state.

She considered again, and she came to the conclusion that not just one RAFian would die. A good many would.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2015, 07:45:06 PM

Since I'm posting this now, the next chapter will probably be late tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Bloodsport

Cloak was deeply concerned about the pandemic of disappearance that no one seemed too fussed with. The news media seemed far more concerned with meaningless fluff pieces or some "controversies" that were downright comical -- a "war" on Christmas, the skin color of Santa Claus, and other such trival nonsense. Hiw can they just write off thirty-plus people?

The answer was simple, Cloak thought bitterly, they weren't big names, they weren't celebrities or politician or the like. Was it just the fact of all governments were so corrupted? Even Realm Walker Council was never the same twice -- there were always different members on the Council whenever Cloak had dealings with them. And it hadn't even been a full year in the next yet -- not even a tenth if the way!

He should probably just learn to accept it. With government, no matter the species, corruption is inevitable and an utopia an unfortunate impossibility. Cloak allowed his jaded nature to take hold as he prowled around the forum, checking the perimeter, and such while the others sought out more languid pursuits.

It was then Cloak was distracted from his peevish mood by the mere fact that Malice was hailing them on their communications. Cloak, despite himself, was surprised. He didn't think she knew how to do that -- though, in retrospect, this was kind of stupid on his part as she built a roboticizer from scratch and by herself.

"Cloak, I know you can hear me," she was saying, examining her claws as if she had just fioed them, and speaking in a very Divatox (http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/Divatox) manner. She also deliberately addressed Cloak himself instead of Richard. But then again, she subscribed to the "Walkers are better than Dwellers" mentality. "And I have an offer that you simply cannot refuse."

"Really?" Cloak said, with narrowed eyes. He was actually testing if this was an actual two-way conversation or simply a pre-recorded message. It was the former. "And if I should refuse?"

"Oh, millions shall die, extensive property damage will ensue, property rates will skyrocket," she said, conversationally, with an almost bored intonation. "And I know you well enough to know that you're just too noble of heart to allow something like that to happen under your watch when you can do something about it. Such a trite weakness for heroics."

Cloak said nothing, but had to fight down an urge to bare his fangs. He would be giving Malice precisely what she wanted.

"And what is it you want, Malice?" Cloak said, his voice unfiltered from the sheer revulsion he felt for speaking with this terrorist filth. He knew that she was doing this for no other reason than entertainment on her part.

"Oh, for you to watch your Dweller pets die in the most savage ways possible," she replied airily. "But, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here's how it will go. Come to this location, bring thirty or so RAFians with you -- as fighters, not spectators -- to the a pit arena of my choosing. We'll see if your puny RAFian pets are superior to my champions!"

Cloak said nothing for a while, before he spat, "Bloodsport. I honestly never thought you'd stoop as low as commiting bloodsport."

"Never underestimate me. And don't forget the consequences for standing me up on this," she said, tone finally serious. "You will be there. You will. Or I shall make good on my threat."

Silence hung around the forum.

"'Kay, bye!" Malice said, suddenly cheery as she terminated the communications.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 18, 2015, 09:03:43 PM

My GOD, Malice is just so delightfully evil. I seriously can't get enough of her. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2015, 12:49:39 AM

Are those Wesen names derivative from something?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2015, 03:07:14 AM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on September 18, 2015, 09:03:43 PM

My GOD, Malice is just so delightfully evil. I seriously can't get enough of her. :P

:D

Quote from: Saffa on September 19, 2015, 12:49:39 AM

Are those Wesen names derivative from something?

They're mostly German in origin. But I didn't come up with them, obviously, as I included a link to a Grimm wiki. ;)

Yeah, and this book will be longer than the requisite twenty chapters, although it might be a bit obvious by now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Wesen Hunter and the Elements Master

The thirty or so RAFians came to the subterranean pit arena. They were Marie, Hunter, Faerie, Broken, Dino (in her compact form, of course), Green Lantern Sam, Phoenix, Underseen, Rotiart (of his own volation), Ash, Demos, Shadow (okay, technically not a RAFian), Wild, Bear, Nina, Rad, Blocky, Horse, Goom, Shanker, Sakki, Gaz, Damien, Blue, Aquilai, FuBar, Bladeh, Gumby, Blaze, Parker, and Raeyvn. Malice was seemingly pleased.

"Excellent," she said happily, as Cloak glowered at the octogenarian. "Now we will do this in one-on-one battles to the death. Do not hold back if you don't want to be killed."

Cloak said nothing, but he yearned to attack Malice directly. But he was pretty sure there was a precaution she took about it. He just continued to glare at this old woman.

"Now," she said with a snap in her voice, "choose your first fighter."

Cloak stood and walked away from the others leaping into the pit.

"No, Cloak, RAFians only," Malice said.

"You forget. I am a RAFian." Cloak said, acidly.

"Very well, your funeral." she said, flippantly. "Speaking figuratively, of course."

Suddenly, the gate opened and the Grimm walked out, like a mindless drone. Cloak noticed his cloaked visage. He recognized the face as Jeremiah Baker -- one of those insane Ted Nuget-types. He was involved in some litigation some time ago for illegally hunting on government lands and other similar charges. He has even been suspefted of murder. In short, the guy was no angel.

His eyes were red. Glowing red in there entirely. Cloak was quick enough to know that Jeremiah was being controlled. He scanned the Grimm's personage, looking to see how he was being controlled.

"Begin," Malice called out, and Cloak rankled a bit at how she was calling the shots.

Cloak didn't move, as the Grimm, as Jeremiah, charged forward to attack him with a short silver dagger. A silver dagger. A metal dagger. Cloak sighed with weary exasperation.

Jeremiah was surprised when the dagger was wrested from his hand, which held with a strength superior to that of an ordinary human. It was a this moment Cloak realized that he probably should be taking this match far more seriously.

The Grimm charged again, only to find his feet mired in the earthen floor. Soon he was mired up to his waist. Then he was stuck fast. He tried to free himself, only to discover his hands trapped elbow-deep in the ground. He tried to muscle his way free, but the earth seemed to get tougher with each try.

Then Cloak saw it. A collar that controlled him. One of black leather and iron spikes, which may have been hollow. The Elements Master easily removed it, claiming victory.

"Now kill him," Malice said.

"No," Cloak said, figuring out Malice's threat. "I see your entire plan now."

"You betrayed me, you ****!" Jeremiah roared angrily.

Cloak couldn't blame him for being angry. He could, however, blame him for being gullible.

"I will make good with my threat." Malice said.

"No, you won't." Cloak said. "You may have like thirty people like him, but a defeat is a defeat. Death is unnecessary. The next match is up."

Cloak moved the Grimm, still encased in earth, to be picked up by the local law enforcement, and, presumably, by other Grimms who aren't so favorable with Mr. Baker's methods.

"Send out your next challenger," Cloak said, climbing back up, relishing in the fact that Malice realized that she wasn't as in control of this as she thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2015, 06:52:22 AM

Ah, gh, I see we're audience this time around.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 19, 2015, 12:34:42 PM

Ah :( Still, better than getting our asses kicked.

Also, I just noticed that Demos is mentioned twice. Might wanna fix that, Cloaky :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2015, 12:54:12 PM

Careful, he might throw you in now :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 19, 2015, 12:56:45 PM

XD Aw, shiggity

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2015, 03:25:25 PM

"Throw" him in . . . hmmmm . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 19, 2015, 04:42:01 PM

I am not responsible for any bodily injury caused to gh. *backs away slowly*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2015, 04:54:50 PM

:XD:

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Big, the Bad, the . . .

"Fine," Malice said, managing to keep a smug composure. "I'll play by your rules. But you cannot battle again, Cloak. No repeat battles. Let's keep this thing fresh."

"I'll go," Hunter said, dropping down and unholstering his gun with a flourish and Malice smiled. She wanted this to be a battle to the death, either way. She held no love for these wesen -- she didn't even know what love is, not really.

She chose to have Hunter fight the Blutbad, whose name was Brandon Dawkins, a simple postman. Malice had to kill his father Michael Jay Dawkins, a detective, to capture Brandon, who was full-grown when captured. Brandon looked basically like the stereotyped image of a wolfman. He retained a lot of his human features in his woged state, barring the pointed teeth, long curved claws, and burning red eyes, though this one had the usual glowing eyes that showed them to be a victim of a control collar. He also had heavy musculature in the lumbar regions.

Upon seeing him, Cloak felt an odd surge of agression that he easily suppressed. He did not know why. But apparently it was a cat thing as Blade and FuBar were clearly feeling the same thing.

"Well, he looks strong, I have to hand you that," Hunter said, rather flippantly. "But this is no contest."

Malice said nothing, but "Begin."

Brandon, the Blutbad, charged forward, but Hunter simply took aim with his gun and fired a total of three or four bullets, all of which appeared to miss Brandon completely.

Malice crowed, "You missed! He was three feet jn front of you and you --"

"And so did you, Malice," Cloak said. It was his turn to be smug.

The bullets were not intended to harm Brandon, but shoot through the leather on the control collar. Which flopped to the ground.

Brandon blinked as he wozily woke up as if he were in a midwinter's night dream. Then he turned and saw Malice.

"You controlled me! Monster! You killed my --" Brandon growled, still woged out. He made to climb out and reach Malice, who stood, looking more inconvenienced than intimidated.

"Yes, yes, I killed your father," Malice interrupted, differentially, "What is it with you Dwellers, anyway? I killed my father too, but you don't see me whining about it!"*

Then she swung and energy blade, decapitating the Bludbad in one slash. Then she used her energy to throw him aside, leaving the field clear once more.

---

* Click this (https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=XiDqX_TI7nQ). It's the source of that perfect line. As well as perfectly true to Malice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 19, 2015, 09:05:28 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 19, 2015, 03:25:25 PM

"Throw" him in . . . hmmmm . . .

. . . I don't think I like the tone of that post.

Quote from: Saffa on September 19, 2015, 04:42:01 PM

I am not responsible for any bodily injury caused to gh. *backs away slowly*

Or that one. Especially that one. I'd like to keep grievous bodily harm to a minimum, thank you very much. Yeah feel free to quote that ****.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2015, 04:18:42 AM

;)

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Whichever is Cleverer

"You heartless --" Cloak said trailing off into an indecipherable tiger growl. It must have been some expletive in the Realm Walker language that doesn't translate into English.

"Ooh, language, dearie," Malice said, with absolutely no remorse whatsoever. "You mustn't speak to your elders in such a way.

"You really get off on being a monster, don't you?" Cloak said.

"Oh, isn't that obvious by now?" Malice said, drenched with insincerity. "Now send out your next challenger, and we can end these quips before they get too sour."

"That'd be me, then, " Marie said, leaping nimbly down with a grace one would associate with felines rather than canines. She stood with vulpine dignity, as she waited for her opponent.

Malice then let through the controlled Fuchsbau female, Megyn Reynard, a black market trader. She had long, orange fur, as well white patches all over their body. Their facial features are relatively human, save for being slightly more pointed. She has sharp canine teeth, vulpine ears, vulpine eyes (which glowed red due to the control collar), and a black, vulpine nose. Her hair was long and human-like. Obviously, a fox wesen.

Malice said, "Begin."

Marie braced herself, as Megyn charged forward, jaws open. Marie leapt to the side, and nipped at Megyn, who dodged. But Marie, apparently, was more agile than the Fuchsbau. She nipped at Megyn's heel, and she lashed out with a kick, whichmissed Marie by inches. But it gave Marie the opening that she was looking for.

She sprinted up the Fuchsbau, and nipped at the control collar, not allowing her to be thrown off until she chewed through the leather. Which she did, and the collar flopped upon the ground, freeing the Fuchsbau -- who, when her faculties returned, fled. Fuchsbau didn't like confrontation.

"Done," Marie said, with quiet dignity. Cloak helped her back up to the others. Malice frowned deeply. She did not like the fact that she was losing her own challenge. Three challengers and not a single RAFian death. The only deaths were by her hand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 20, 2015, 04:20:32 AM

That line, oh my god. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2015, 10:01:17 PM

If you're talking about the line I think you are, Saffa, yes. Yes, it is very good. I actually was looking for a place to put it in. Also to drop in the fact that Malice did, in fact, killed her father, which I suppose, when you consider the natural aggressiveness of Tasmanian devils and Malice's overall disposition, it's probably not all that surprising.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Water Won't Melt Her

"Well," Malice said, apparently allowing the Fuchsbau escape, as if she didn't care about that particular wesen, "that was a disappointing battle."

Cloak said nothing, but noted how she let the Fuchsbau go without batting an eye. He narrowed his own at his foe's outright callousness and carelessness. She was completely indifferent to some wesen but perfectly happy slaying others herself. Somehow, this wasn't at all surprising, but it was still revolting.

But Cloak still couldn't help but wonder why . . . why was she doing this? What was her ultimate goal? It couldn't be this. It couldn't have been as simple as gladitorial fights. That was already done, a scheme come past.

"Alright now, dearies," Malice said, sitting up straighter in her straight-backed, throne-like chair. Cloak was really hating her calling them "dearies". "Who's up next?"

CRACK!!

Broken had decided to Apparate (flawlessly, mind you) into the arena. "That would be me," he said, dramatically.

"Another RAFian with a weakness for the dramatic," Malice said, appraisingly blithe, "no wonder you enjoy their company, Cloak."

The challenger Malice sent out was the Hexenbiest.  The RAFians couldn't help but recoil at the corpse-like visage that was Kimberly Davison. Apparently, when woged, Hexenbiest looked rather zombie-like. She was a county clerk, normally, but she got into a spot of bother recently, which Cloak wasn't really caught up on -- something about her acting like a victim even though she was obviously not one. But the politics of that was neither here nor there.

"Battle begin," Malice said. Cloak found him rankling at the fact that she started each match. But Cloak was more busy trying to riddle out her real motives behind this.

Kimberly seemed able to smell magic on Broken, so much so that she acted as if she was near the dumpster of a long-term care facility*. Broken wouldn't be able to make any sneak attacks -- although that wasn't really his style.

The Hexenbiest shrieked, a sound Cloak found himself really not caring for, and a plume of flame was launched at Broken. It wasn't the kind of pyrokinetic feat that Demos, Blaze, Phoenix, Shadow, or Cloak were capable of, so amateurish as it was painful.

"Aguamenti." Broken said, with a casual flick of his wrist. A spray of water materialized dousing the fire easily. He wasn't really impressed, and was wondering idly whether she was a below average Hexenbiest or the norm, in terms of abilities.

Then suddenly Broken's feet felt like they were leaving the ground. He immediately knew that it must have been some form of telekinesis, which was not as intimidating as an Uxorite's telekinesis. He immediately twisted so that be was facing the Hexenbiest, so that he was facing Kimberly, and he shouted as he focused, "Graviga!"

Kimberly lost hers as she was lifted into the ground, and Broken was released from her telekinesis, and he landed on his feet roughly. He looked at Kimberly and tried to think of a plan of attack. Which was why having Graviga end was highly inconvenient.

"Stopza!" he cried.

Kimberly was frozen in place, unable to move in the slightest. She wouldn't be stuck like this for long, though. Broken dashed up and removed the control collar. Then Stopza decided that was a prime time to end.

But Kimberly seemed to still be loyal to Malice! She continued to press the attack, forcing Broken to slay her. He did not like it -- but it was him or her. And, after all, this was real life and not a Saturday morning cartoon**.

Kimberly Davison was dead, and Broken was not taking it very lightly.

---

* As a housekeeper at a long-term care facility, I can attest that this smells firmly under the "bad" category, but it could be worse, I suppose.

** Do these still exist anymore? I don't have cable (not to mention I work weekend mornings), so I can't check that way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 21, 2015, 12:59:46 AM

I dunno. Don't have a TV.

I see where you got the reference from, thanks for killing her :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2015, 05:20:32 AM

Right.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Will and Won't

"Excellent," Malice said, clapping her hands together in such a junvenile way that it belied her age, "excellent, now both sides have blood on their hands."

Cloak gave a low growl, as Broken glowered at Malice. This just caused her to laugh inappropriately raucous.

"Next challenger!" she called.

Sam slammed his ring into his personal Battery, reciting his oath, recharging his ring. Then he flew into ring, and crossed his arm. He said nothing, assuming that it was obvious that he would be next.

"And now mine!" Malice said. She was taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in this, revelling in the bloodsport of it.

The Balam, Clint Nicholls, came out. He was a former detective, fired for becoming too obsessive with his cases and rather stupidly, recklessly daring. He had purplish fur over his head and body, but like many Wesen, his hair however was still human. He had distinct, stripe-like spots similar to those of a jaguar or a leopard. The color of their fur seems to change depending on the brightness of their surrounding. He had two sharp, jaguar-like fangs.

Sam wasn't deterred. This wasn't exactly a fair fight. Clint doesn't have a Lantern ring, so it put Sam at a distinct advantage. It didn't really feel all that fair.

Clint, the Balam, roared, bearing his fangs. Sam wasn't intimidated. His ring could protect him from anything this wesen could dish out. It wasn't a fair matchup.

"Begin," Malice said, smilingas though she was thoroughly entertained. And she was. Cloak was wondering if this, indeed, was the whole of her scheme.

To Sam's credit, he made it quick. He quickly and, with only the merest difficulty, successfully removed the collar. The Balam seemed to be very confused, perplexed, and dazed.

"Now kill him," Malice.

"Excuse me?" Clint asked, still disoriented, but lucid enough to understand that

"I don't take orders from you," Sam said, seriously.

"Kill him." Malice insisted.

"No, I won't."

"Don't defy me."

"I don't work for you."

"Do it."

"No."

Malice opened.her mouth to speak, but Cloak cut across her. "You lost this battle, Malice. Are we going to continue this pointless exercise, or are we going to do something of substance?"

Malice used her energy to kill Clint anyway, and said, "Fine. If you don't have the fortitude to finish the job."

"Disregarding life is not strength, Malice, but the opposite," Cloak lectured, feeling sorry for the poor Balam that was now having his body lifted from the arena and put in a . . . a . . . a corpse pile. "Eighty years, and you still do not get this simple concept?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2015, 11:44:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Roasted

"It's not that I don't get it," Malice said, flippant and indifferent, "it's more like that I don't abide by such pathetic ideologies."

"That doesn't make sense," Broken pointed out.

"And I care that you think that because . . ." Malice said, trailing off, prompting a reply that never came. "Nothing to say? No quips?"

"Oh, shut the Veil up, Malice," Cloak growled. She was starting to grind his last nerve.

"Hit a nerve, did I?" Malice said, with faux surprise. She laughed a laugh to match her name. "Well, then, let's get this show on the road. Choose your --"

"It's me. Just shut up and we can get this damn thing over with," Phoenix snarled. Apparently, Malice was working his last nerve as well.

"Alright, then, Firebird," Malice said.

"It's 'Phoenix', and you damn well know it." the mod growled.

"Whatever," Malice said. "Here's your opponent."

It was the porcine Bauerschwein named Colin Pyg, a bullied daylaborer whose coworkers, and some of his haughtier superiors, have derisively nicked named "Porky Pyg" or just plain "Porky". While it was true that he wasn't on the skinny side, it was still in poor taste. Especially when one considered that he tended to be the most diligent and hard-working of the lot.

When woged out like he was, he had a porcine snout, pointed ears, a wrinkled face, and boar-like tusks. He was a pig Wesen, although Colin seemed to be really clean compared to the gluttonous, slovenly stereotype associated with pigs. It could be considered an insult, but Phoenix kept a cool head.

Cloak had to hand it to him. He wasn't so sure that he would have managed to keep a cool head at the percieved slight.

"Begin," Malice said.

Phoenix decided to eschew any unnecessary use of fire. It was not Colin's fault that he had the misfortunate of wearing one of Malice's control collar. Phoenix easily dodged a charge-and-bite maneuver, noting that Colin did not seem at all stronger than an ordinary human the size and build of what, presumably, his human form was.

But those tusks were obviously sharp, and not desirous anywhere near Phoenix's flesh. Phoenix had to be careful -- noting how similar to fighting a Controller this was. How similar this was to the whole Heinlin incident.

Phoenix discovered an opportunity presented to him when Colin tried the same manuever again, Phoenix managed to twist in such a way that the bite missed him, but he pulled the collar off with his momentum, thermokinetically weakening the metal latch. The control collar then flopped off, rather pathetically.

Colin blinked, though he was still woged, and his more benign nature surfaced.

"Very good, Firebird," Malice said.

"Wha . . ." Colin said, dazed, his woge not having wore off yet, though it became unviewable by those with human-range eyesight.

"It. Is. 'Phoenix." he growled with gritted teeth, addressing Malice.

"Whatever," Malice said, with an indifferent shrug. "The point is thwt you did a good job."

"I don't need, or want, your praise, you crotchety old hag." Phoenix snarled. He has rarely shown this much overt anger.

"Ooh, a temper! You trying to outdo Cloak, dearie?" Malice said, flippantly.

"I'll just be going," Colin said, starting to come out of his woge. He looked for a way out, as he said, "Don't mind me . . ."

"Not so fast, piggy," Malice said. "This little piggy won't be going 'wee' all the way home."

Colin sighed and winced noticeably at the bad anecdote.

Malice addressed Phoenix, "Roast this suckling pig."

"No," Phoenix said, stubbornly intransigent.

"Excuse me?" both Colin and Malice said at the same time, but with entirely different connotations.

"I said, no, hag," Phoenix said, speaking directly and openly with Malice. Then he addressed Colin, now looking like a babyfaced and slightly piggy man, a full-grown man. "Leave this place. Escape."

"Nope," Malice said, "he don't leave here alive."

"That's not your decision to make Malice," Phoenix and Cloak said, in accidental unison. Both had deflected Malice's attempt to decapitate poor Colin, who fled, squealing. But he was still alive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 21, 2015, 12:20:35 PM

Pigs are actually one of the cleanest animals on earth, lol.

And ooh, it's getting intense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2015, 03:06:28 AM

Yeah, I knew that actually. But I didn't make up the stereotype.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Tricky Techniques

All Malice said crassly in reply was, "Yeah, I don't care."

"Stop your stalling, Malice," Cloak said, arms crossed, "we've deigned to play your little game. Now let's get on with it so we can put this ridiculous affair behind us."

"My," Malice said, coyly, "are you not having fun, dearie?"

Cloak curled his lip in disgust. Cloak was beginning to consider rending Malice apart with his own claws. But then no one in the Nexus would believe him that she was alive . . . but . . . the temptation . . .

"I'm up next," Ash said, unintentionally defusing the situation. "Let's get this show on the road, already."

"Oh, eager to lose your head, are you?" Malice grimaced cheekily.

"Says the one whose previous challengers -- all of them -- have lost up to this point?" Ash pointed out, easily.

Malice expression soured, but that faded away quickly enough. So quick that Cloak was starting to believe that either Malice was more cold and calculating than he thought or she was bona fide insane. Quite possibly both.

"You challenger, Malice." Ash prompted.

"Fine," Malice said, with a certain steeliness to her voice that certainly wasn't there before. "Here he comes."

It was the Coyotl by the name of Paulie Nahuatl, a mean, nasty, all-around bully who was a high-level grunt of the street gang called the Pack, a group of canine wesen. He has canine fur, their elongated snout of a canine, canid ears, razor sharp teeth, and orangish eyes.

He snapped his jaws at Ash, but she was hardly impressed. The RAFians have come up against the likes of Psyphoon, Madre de Vampyra, and Corruption. Poor Paulie there was hardly a comparison.

"Be--"

"Begin, yeah, we know," Cloak said. "Will you shut up?"

Malice said nothing, but sat on her chair with an uppity air, and an upturned nose. She was apparently not having fun anymore. But when the two combatants began, they had her full attention.

It wasn't really all that exciting, either. Ash easily undid the latch on the control collar, using movements not unlike Dusk Nobodies. The collar flopped to the ground, but that didn't stop Paulie from deciding to take a snap at Ash.

"Pal, if you want to live and see tomorrow," Ash said, but he caught sight of Ash's Mark and realized immediately what she was. It immediately sobered him up from his disorientation.

"Oh, god. A RAFian!" he said. He fled at the very first opportunity.

"I guess we RAFians have a reputation," Marie said.

"Yeah," Faerie said, "as complete badasses."

"Oh, please," Malice scoffed dismissively.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2015, 05:01:09 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Dragonbreath

"That is just an opinion you are having," Faerie said, with an equally dismissive sniff.

"Whatever," Malice spoke, irreverently indifferent. "Send out or next challenger or whatever."

Demos walked towards the lip where it sunk down into the pit. He caused a piller of fire to sprout up, and he used it as an elevator to go to the arena floor. Then he brushed off his powder blue silk suit, which complimented and contrasted his beat red demon skin nicely. He also wore white gloves that made him look rather like those cartoon characters who never take off their gloves.

"And, now, my opponent?" Demos said, as if he was asking a barista for a latte.

The Dämonfeuer, Damon Burns,  came out. He was welder by day, murderous man-eater by night. And yet, the police never seemed to be able to find out what happened with those "mysterious" disappearances. He was also obsessed with hoarding copper. Damon, when woged, had a green and scaly hide, a flattened nose, fiery eyes, human-like ears, and a large crown of horns on his head.

"Be--" Malice began to say, but the match was already underway.

Damon breathed his napalm-like fire breath at Demos. Demos bats it aside, not bothered by it, his own innate pyrokinesis provided the demon protection from fire. His suit, however was not prrotected.

"Hey! My suit!" Demos exclaimed, before glaring at Damon, "Do you have any idea how much suits like this cost?!"

Demos had stopped being so complacent now, and was taking the battle far more seriously. Why he ever thought a silk suit was appropriate attire for a battle, no would ever know. The battle, however, wasn't faring well for Demos as Damon was clearly stronger physically had possessed more brute force. But Demos could match any damage incurred with his Wolverine-scale regeneration.

His silk suit wasn't as fortunate, as he regeneration could heal Demos's body, but not his clothing. It wasn't pristine as used to be, but stained, ripped, and torn. He was livid at this, though he had many suits, of different colors, but he had grown fond of this one.

"Okay," Demos said, gnashing his teeth. He was unaccustomed to being this angry. "You die now."

He wasn't being cute. He was absolutely sincere.

Damon belched out smoke into the arena, and Demos blew it away with a funnel of fire, which didn't seem possible. Demos curled his lip in utter dislike towards Damon. Upon seeing the ugly look on Demos's face, Cloak wondered if they should pull him back a little, as Demos was giving into his demonic tendencies.

Despite how much Damon had going for him, Demos was without mercy and without morals in this state. He was the epitome of ruthlessness whilst in this state. Only Blaze, the mods, Cloak, and Estelore could exert any control, or check him in this state.

Damon was cruelly murdered, the control collar forgotten. Demos slayed this dragon -- rather, dragon-man -- and he did it without remorse or regret. Cloak, however, felt it for the both of them, for not stopping Demos, who was calming down.

"Oh, excellent!" Malice cheered. "How wonderfully vicious!!"

Cloak scowled, as Demos returned to the others. He was still fuming for a bit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2015, 06:55:30 AM

Gonna be 36 chapters, at least.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Yellow and Black

Demos was still a little huffy when he took stock of the damage of his silk suit. It didn't really look like so much as a suit as it did commoner's rags. He was very sensitive about this fact.

But Cloak decided that it was best in this case to be blunt. "Demos, it was your own fault for wearing a silk suit to a battle that you were very aware that you'd participate in."

"Shut up," he grumbled moodily.

"Don't forget who you're talking to, Demos," Cloak said, seriously but gently so. Demos said nothing, apparently capitulating.

"Oh, don't be that way!" Malice said, enthusiastically. "He was delightfully vicious and menacingly merciless!!"

Each cackle made Demos feel worse about losing control. He now had some idea what Cloak had to go through, to make sure he keeps himself under control. He hated himself for doing it, no matter how much he tried to rationalize it. He had gave into his demon side, and he had allowed it voluntarily.

"Now," Malice said, clapping her hands, apparently re-energized by the horrible carnage. "Choose your next --"

"Catch up already," Wild said. He had slithered and slinked into the arena in his wereferret form, before reverting back to his human form. "It's me."

"Impudent lycanthrope," Malice said, as a mere passing jibe. "Fine. Here comes my champion. And he is a fierce one."

The Drang-Zorn, by the name of Neville MacMillan. He was a herbologist with a short temper, thus he was easily enraged and prone to violence. He had black fur all over his body, badger-like features, razor-sharp, needle-like teeth, and large claws, which happened to be quite suitable for digging. The spiked collar that controled him made him look even more dangerous.

"Of course," Wild sighed openly. "I get the really fierce-looking one."

"B--" Malice began.

"Oh, shut up," Wild muttered. Malice heard him, and growled. Cloak laughed.

Wild moved into his wereferret form, which he knew was probably was insufficient to the Drang-Zorn's brute strength. But his agility and speed should be a match of it, Wild thought quickly.

Neville charged forward, his powerful maw open to sever Wild's flesh and bone with a tremendous bite. But Wild easily dodged it, actually surprised with just how slow, relatively, he was compared to Wild's wereferret form. Wild was finding dodging Neville easy -- too easy. He was doing something that was not unlike a weasel war dance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_war_dance), a series of frenzied sideways and backwards hops with an arched back and his tail frizzy.

But all this served to just make Neville apoplectic with rage, itching to tear and rip into Wild, who kept calm and collected. While Wild kept his mind about him, Neville completely lost it with his rage. Not even Malice could control him, control collar or not.

Malice realized this a bit late on the uptake. All she said in response was "Well, that wasn't in the plan."

Neville turned towards her and attacked her, as well as he can, disregarding the control collar on his neck which tried to force him to back off. But Malice was unconcerned, and before Neville got anywhere close she sliced him bodily with her energy blade, completely bisecting him symmetrically.

Neville was dead. The match was over.

"Disappointing," Malice said, not even out of breath.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 23, 2015, 07:16:22 AM

Quote

Cloak laughed.

:o :o :o

My word, 36 chapters, that's like the book series equivalent of a season finale.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2015, 07:26:06 AM

Well, more and more of the later books tend to have more than the requisite twenty chapters. For instance, the one I'm currently outlining (#477) is already nearly thirty chapters long.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Dam It!

"That was wholly unnecessary," Wild said, looking at the bisected sides with almost appalled bewilderment, as he climbing back up.

"Oh, please," Malice said, "if it was necessary, where would the fun be?"

"You masochistic --"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Malice said, indifferently, looking at her claws idly. "Send out your next challenger and be done with it."

Rad climbed down with careful agility, claiming to be the RAFians' next combatant, complete with her Zat holstered. She was expecting some big, scary bruiser as her opponenet.

Malice sent out an Eisbiber by the name of Jason Biber, an architect who hates it when people mistake his name for that of Justin Bieber especially considering that he's twice the pretty boy pop star's age -- assuming the Onion wasn't accidentally true about Bieber . . .

Anyway, Jason had a coat of dull golden fur all over his body. Although it became part of his fur, his scalp and facial hair still stands out. His noses is black and he has beaver-like whiskers. He was a bit of a coward at heart, but he possessed a love of building that could not be suppressed.

Rad, a rather proud RAFian, was actually a little miffed at this choice. She was capable of taking down more dangerous foes than a simple man-beaver! Both Tok'ra symbiote and human host were in abject agreement on this one, at the utter slap in the face that this implicated.

"You do realize how much of an insult this, Malice?" Rad spoke, tone of voice easily conveying her offense.

"Like it matters," Malice said. "I'm basically just throwing these wesen at you alphabetically."

"Why?" Cloak blurted. Malice's methodology was just so nonsensical that it'd leave the credulous dumbfounded.

"Kicks?" Malice replied in a bored kind of way.

Rad frowned deeply, unholstered her Zat, and fired it once, all in one swift, practiced movement. Malice lost a bit of her ambivalence, as she did not tell them to begin. But she recovered from this easily enough, as the control collar flopped to the ground like a desiccated three-day-old fish. Jason did not stck around, and fled promptly like the smart Eisbiber that he was.

"There. Done." Rad said, dryly. "What a nail-biting battle."

"Whatever," Malice said, now laying upon his throne like chair in a most flippant way that clear said that she wasn't really all that entertained.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 24, 2015, 10:06:26 AM

Whup, nearly missed this chapter. Good thing I showed up to post the PDF of the previous book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2015, 03:38:37 AM

Thanks once again, Saffa! :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Grin and Polar Bear It

Malice yawned as Rad climbed back up to the others, grumbling at her match being too easy. Wild was a bit miffed that Rad was taking it this way, he would have loved his match to be as easy.

"Next challenger?" Malice said, as if bored. Cloak found himself wondering why she went about this whole if she was starting to lose interest. Cloak suspected her of an ulterior motive that he was simply not privy to.

Horse, obviously tryjng to show off, created an Iceman-like slide so she could slide down towards the arena. Afterword, she raised her flippers as if to say a grand "Ta-da!!" But she was greatly miffed when no one seemed very impressed by it.

Malice chose to send out the polar bear-like Gefrierengeber, Paul R. Barrington, who isolationist lifestyle in the frigid areas had led to very little knowledge about him. Just hoe Malice managed to find him, much less collar him, was a mystery to all but her.

"Be--"

There was a sound like "FFFFOOM!!" and, suddenly, the Gefrierengeber was encased in ice. Encased and immovable.

"Easy-peasy," Horse said, proudly.

But the ice cracked, and the Gefrierengeber broke out with an ursine roar. All Horse did was made him mad. Horse wasn't stupid, she knew that she would have a hard going against this beast, as polar bears tend to eat seals. And she had no reason not to believe that Gefrierengebers were not the same.

So Horse had to become merciless. But it was mostly stemming from fear of being consumed -- although one might wonder why she still had this fear, considering the number of times the Pootang had eaten her whole and she had always come out of that without a scratch. Not physically anyway.

She launched volley sfter volley after volley of icicle spears. She didn't really care if she hurt him, she just didn't want to be eaten. She didn't want to be killed. So, naturally, she was relentless in her attack.

The Gefrierengeber did not even get a chance to counterattack, not really, as the icicle spears would tear through him ever so often. One was caught fast to the collar's latching mechanism. The second volley forced the icicle deeper into the latch assembly, as well as beginning to bite into his neck. The third volley froze the latch solid. The fourth volley caused the latch to shatter. The control collar snaked off his throat.

But the volleys began to take their toll, as his white-appearing fur was beginning to be stained red. Horse felt somewhat aggrieved, but not too much so, because she was sure that, with or without the collar, he'd want to eat her. Perhaps she was a bit hysterical, but she had enough of being eaten.

Paul, the Gefrierengeber, had eventually succumbed to the injury on his neck, as well as the cuts and injuries elsewhere due to the icicle spear volleys. He died.

"Well, that was surprisingly savage," Malice said cheerily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 25, 2015, 03:51:08 AM

"Paul R. Barrington"

. . . I'm sorry, I try to feel sympathy for this person, but that name prevents me from doing so. Either he changed his name to be a pun, or he was named that at birth and refused to change it. In either case, this person is absolute dirt for having such a punny name. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2015, 03:02:12 PM

He's an isolationist, GH. He lived alone and kept to himself. So he never really had to use his name all that much. But, yes, it is punny, I'd admit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 25, 2015, 03:05:41 PM

Eh, I guess it's somewhat forgivable, then. ;)

Actually, the only reason that I took so much offense to that is because my stepmom (who I'm not really fond of, TBH) has a stuffed polar bear in her car who's named, you guessed it, Paul R. Bear. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2015, 03:09:31 AM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Circlin' Buzzard

Horse ice-bridged herself up to the others. Now that it was over, Horse was starting to second guess her choices. She was wondering if she overdid it.

Malice added Barrington's corpse to the pile, and asked, "Next?"

Cloak found himself wondering again just what Malice was getting out of this. She seemed wholly unconcerned with her champions failing. Did she have some sort of ulterior motive? If she did, what could it possibly be? Cloak could not imagine what it was, but he was absolutely sure that it could not be anything good.

"Anytime now," Malice prompted, languidly.

Block flapped down, bringing to mind a icy white and blue Charizard landing in the arena, only Block, while being a dragon, only vaguely -- very vaguely -- resembled a Charizard. "It's me. Let's get this over with."

Malice's champion was a vulture-like Geier, Mandy Wright, a mortician. She had elongated hands with sharo talons. Her feet have additional talon on their heel, making attacks from the air more effective. She has a hook-like nose, resembling a vulture's beak, and have dark black eyes. She has an innate ability to move through trees and are very adept at ambushing her prey in forest terrain.

She appeared to be no stronger than ordinary humans but she was certainly much more agile and far faster. While other Geier might have had avian wings, Mandy, however, did not. And ambush wasn't really an option in this arena with craggy walls and no cover, forest or otherwise.

Block just stood there, looking far more at home than the Geier. He was wondering if this was at all a fair --

With a sudden shriek, Mandy launched herself at Block, who was surprised by it, not having expected the swiftness of it -- and because Malice didn't try to say "Begin" this time. Block jerked his head out of the way in time. He realized that he shouldn't have underestimated his opponent -- but cut him a break, he had never met a Geier before.

Mandy may have struggled on the terrain, especially the craggy walls, but that did not make her any less dangerous. However, she apparentally liked circling around Block's head, using the craggy sides of the battle arena to her limited advantage. She'd circle around, and shriek as she tried to attack Block from behind.

After this failed the fifth time, you'd think she'd try a new tactic, a new strategy. Nope. She liked being oredictable it seemed, and Block could easily defend against that. It was a decent tactic had she not overused and over-relied on it.

In the end, Blocky just backhanded her, without even looking. Sure, it could have been consiered a "badass" move, but at this point, Blocky was far too annoyed to care. He had knocked her into unconciousness, but could easily remove the collar.

"Awww," Malice said, trying to affect a sugary sweet demeanor, "you didn't finish the job."

Block rounded on her, in her direction as she continued.

"If you haven't the fortitude, dragon," Malice crowed, "then I will complete your task for you!"

Malice quickly used her energy to decapitate the Geier and added her to the corpse pile, which was now starting to attract flies.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2015, 06:29:33 PM

Hard to believe that we're nearing the end of Year 1 in the narrative. The last book of Year 1 will be the next one. Still hard to believe at this moment.

Since I am posting this now, the next chapter will most likely be much later tomorrow -- after work.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Aw, Shell

Block flapped back up to the others. He still had mixed feelings about the Geier. About whether or not she deserved death. He wasn't sure either way, and it troubled him.

"My, my, my," Malice said, tsking, "not many of you Dwellers have guts to really commit to these battles to the death. And, you too, Cloak."

"Shut the Veil up, Malice," Cloak said, distractedly. He was still trying to divine her ulterior motive. He was sure there was one now. Sure that she wouldn't go through all this pomp and circumstance for nothing.

"Ooh, not very friendly," Malice teased coyly. Cloak frowned deeply, still trying to riddle out her true motive. There had to be an ulterior motive to this. There had to be.

Nina showed off by running and somersaulted into the arena, landing daintily with more pose, grace and athleticism than one would expect for a turtle. Granted, she was a mutant turtle with some ninjitsu (which was a very clear and distinct style different from Blue's, as her's tended to be more upfront). "I'm ready for whatever you have, Malice."

"Oh, I think I have just the one, Shellback," Malice said, with a sinister smile.

"Don't call me that."

"Alright, Shellback, whatever you want," Malice said, deliberately aggravating.

"Ugh," Nina said in reply.

Nina's opponent was a Geno Innocuo, Logan Clarke, a simple bookkeeper. His skin was scaly, his face was tortoise-like, and he had blunt claws, which are used, not as offensive weapons, but for digging. He had no actual shell, but a shell-like scale pattern on his back. Logan was intelligent, compassionate, shy, and pacifistic. But his control collar forced him to abandon all these qualities.

Nina could somehow sense that this was not a violent soul, and she knew that she had to hold back a little. But the battle began, and it was clear that he was not a warrior as he was far too slow, bulky, and telegraphed his attacks a little too obviously. Nina was focused upon the collar, knowing that she must take that out of the equation.

Logan lumbered forward, basically shouting how unpracticed, unprepared, and untrained for combat. It was rather sad and pathetic, like the bullied kid who refuses to stand up for himself finally snaps and finds himself inadequate. It wasn't something Nina took pride in.

But she took the opportunity that presented itself. She struck only once. And the control collar later flopped to the ground. Logan was freed, and unharmed.

"Run. Now," Nina breathed.

"Tonight, I dine on turtle soup," Malice said, sending a flat, arrow-shaped blade of energy into the arena, to kill Logan, who immediately took Nina's suggestion and fled. The arrow blade missed -- due to Cloak's interference, who managed to react in time.

"Enough, Malice. It is done. The match is over. Nina, come back up."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 26, 2015, 09:18:11 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on September 26, 2015, 06:29:33 PM

Logan was intelligent, compassionate, shy, and pacifistic. But his control collar forced him to abandon all these qualities.

Wow . . . uh, there are a couple Logans that I can think of who most of those adjectives wouldn't apply to. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2015, 04:00:18 AM

Was one once played by Hugh Jackman? ;)

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Cross to Bear

Nina climbed back up rather more nimbly than expected.

"Cloak, Cloak, Cloak," Malice said, "I thought you were not to interfere."

"Shut the Veil up," Cloak repeated his constant refrain.

Malice laughed. She was the only one taking any enjoyment out of this. "Next challenger?"

Bear tumbled down into the arena rather clumsily, so that it almost looked like an accident. But he glared at Malice in such a way that it was clewr that it was deliberate on his part. Bear did not speak, at least, not much.

Malice sent out her next challenger, a Jägerbar named Dan Adams, who was a divorce lawyer by profession. He had brown fur over his face, head, arms, and shoulders, but not over their chest. He has ursine ears, snout, and fangs. He also had impressive ursine claws. Physically, Dan was superhumanly strong and very fast. However, he is weaker than a Grimm. Additionally, his sharp, ursine claws are able to leave big imprints in wood. He was a fairly good tracker and hunter. Also he possessed an enhanced sense of smell. He was also brutal and savage, by nature. He was also responsible for the deaths of three humans during his coming-of-age ritual male Jägerbar have, thought rare in modern times. His family were traditionalists, though.

The battle was savage, Bear was bigger, but they were more or less on the same scale of strength. Claw and tooth clashed, roars filled the entire room. Neither seemed to get the advantage over the other for more than a few seconds.

Eventually, Bear got lucky with a fortunate slash, which removed the control collar. It flopped to the ground, uselessly inert. But Dan just suffered from a more severe woge thst made him into a real bear, so that it was difficult to distinguish the two. The battle became ever more vicious, and the only way to tell the difference between the two was Bear's Mark un the underside of his right front paw.

But, eventually, Bear struck the Jägerbar so hard that his lower jaw was ripped from Dan's body and Bear took this advantage to kill him. He didn't want to, but he was left with very few options.

"How wonderfully savage!" Malice said, clapping gleefully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 27, 2015, 04:08:19 AM

One of them may have been played by Hugh Jackman. The other may or may not be this dumbass (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=5211) right here. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 27, 2015, 10:28:46 AM

Yeah, that one was the first one I guessed. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2015, 06:56:12 PM

Ah.

Anyway, I discovered that there were two Chapter Fours, so I went ahead an corrected that. I'll start working on the next chapter shortly. It will be a very important one, too, perhaps.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 27, 2015, 07:34:35 PM

Ooh, exciting!

Just curious, are you planning anything special for book 100?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2015, 10:02:51 PM

Nope, not really.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Surprise Twist

Bear glowered at Malice, and managed to amble up the vertical sides of the sunken arena, with help from Cloak and Sam. Bear still had the Jägerbar's blood on fur, and he didn't like the reminder.

"Oh, cheer up, Bear-Boy! You did spendidly!" Malice said, glowing with enjoyment, as she added the Jägerbar's body to the rotting pile. "Next!"

Rotiart stepped up, though his timidness and hesitation seeped through the brave and courageous veneer that he had propped up rather shakily. It was clear that he was terrified and much wished that he never said anything. But he felt that he must do this. He as been too much of a coward and a louse. He needed to prove his worth, no to the others but to himself. He needed to do this. He had to. He had to.

He climbed down to the arena, armed with nothing but a generic sword that was, in truth, too long, too heavy, and too awkward for his unfamiliar hand. He also had a holstered Shredder-like gun, despite being the worst shot of all the RAFians. He really was the Dan Hibiki or Hercule of the RAFians.

He touched the arena floor with timid trepidation. Deep in his gut, he knew thst this wasn't going to go well, but he ignored that. His bravado had long since left him behind. His arrogance was completely forgotten. His haughtiness evaporated.

Malice's next victim, however, was the serpentine Lauenschlange by the name of Lucas Penn, a lesser politican. He was completely ensconced in yellowish-gray scales with a slight boa-like pattern on them. He also had sharp fangs, a forked tongue, and slit pupils, and no hair. He was naturally stronger than humans and able to casually overpower humans and Mauzhertz. He was very stealthy, allowing them to sneak up on his victims, which was actually suitable for his chosen profession, believe it or not. He was also naturally aggressive, but also cowardly and unethical.

Rotiart was, naturally, intimidated, but he hid it to continue to affect his mask of bravery, though it was obvious that he was terrified. His ray gun shook as he unholstered it and fired, missing by a wide margin.

Then he began to shoot wildly, and Cloak decided to pull him out of there. He was clearly panicking, and Cloak could help but rebuke himself for permitting this to happen. But even Cloak could see the difference in Rotiart's demeanor, and wanted to give him the chance . . . it was foolish. Foolish on both of their parts.

This wasn't going to end well.

The ray gun ran out very quickly, with the wild shots that never hit anything other than the arena's wall. And Lucas never moved, not one inch. Rotiart really could not hit the broad side of a barn. In the end, Rotiart threw the gun, which was only moderately heavy, and it just had a glancing blow to the ocular lob of the Lauenschlange, which only served to annoy him.

Lucas did not even move to attack, mostly because Malice did not give the okay, but Rotiart was clearly not ready for this battle, but he refused to be taken out of the battle by Cloak. He would win. He had to. He was not useless. He was not worthless. He could contribute. He didn't have to have others look after him.

He held the blade in his left hand, prepared to battle. He was easily disarmed, though, as the
Lauenschlange was given to okay to engage. Rotiart really stood no chance.

"Rotiart, I'm pulling you --" Cloak said.

"NO! Let me do this!!" Rotiart said defiantly, with a quaver in his voice.

"Rotiart. You don't stand --"

"No interference, Elements Master!" Malice said, suddenly severe. "These are battles to the death!"

"I don't -- Rotiart!!" Cloak exclaimed.

He was too late. The Lauenschlange had already gone in for the attack. He bit off Rotiart's hand. He lacerated Rotiart's skin with his fangs, causing him to start to bleed out. Rotiart's legs were next, chewed straight off. Rotiat looked rather like Anakin Skywalker right before he donned the Darth Vader suit. Only with a cuts instead of burns.

Rotiart moved and moaned and groaned with pain. Then he moved no more. He was dead. By all stretches of the imagination, Cloak not fathom him still living. And somehow, the fact that Dwellers left behind their bodies when they died, somehow disturbed him. And, despite all his faults, Cloak would have never wanted this for anyone.

"Excellent!" Malice squealed. Then she decapitated the Lauenschlange, saying, "Well, your usefulness has ended."

Rotiart. Dead. It was hard to fathom. But his body had vanished . . . Malice kust have added it to her corpse pile. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 27, 2015, 10:09:09 PM

. . . Holy ****. Cloak, you can't do this. You can't build up a character and then just kill him off like that. God damn it, I FIGURED THIS WOULD HAPPEN, AND I STILL HAVE THE FEELS.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 28, 2015, 02:44:33 AM

GOD DAMNIT THIS IS NOT THE FIRST THING I WANTED TO READ IN THE MORNING OH GOD THE FEELS

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2015, 04:02:01 AM

I did warn you that a RAFian would die. . . .

*looks like he was going to say more, but declines.*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 28, 2015, 04:47:13 AM

Yes but I was kinda expecting that to be the end of the book. Well played. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2015, 05:36:39 AM

Well, I suppose we can gather the Dragonballs . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Lion Around

"Alrighty then," Malice said, inappropriately jovial, "let's get a move on shall we?"

The RAFians, still surprised at the abrupt suddenness and the utter brutality of Rotiart's death, said nothing.

"Oh, come now," Malice said, ambivalently reproachful, "we mustn't be sore losers! Choose your next challenger!"

Cloak glared at Malice, about to go off on her. But Underseen had already made his way to the arena. He was as incensed at the others, despite not particularly liking Rotiart in the first place.

"Underseen, no. We need to --"

"I know what I'm doing, Cloak," Underseen said, anger in his tone. But the anger was not directed at Cloak, but at another Realm Walker. "And, whatever this opponent, I will make Malice pay."

"Ooh, big words, little Dweller, big words." Malice said, coolly.

Malice then sent out a Löwen by the name of Earl Irons, a leading industrialist. He was naturally aggressive, furious, competitive, vicious, and prone to violence. He had black, large, bushy manes. He has razor sharp claws and teeth, and he generally kill his victims by biting their necks or slashing their throats. He is incredibly strong and much faster than humans, quite able to casually overpower and kill humans. He is capable of leonine jumps and able to move with incredible stealth, allowing him to sneak up on his victims (which was actually pretty useless in this arena).

But the Löwen was still at a disadvantage. He did not have the versatility of Underseen, who could quite literally adapt to anything that Earl throws at him. Not to mention Earl's biological weaponry could do little to Underseen's form repertoire.

"Is that the best you got, Malice?" Underseen said, unimpressed.

The Löwen roared in reply.

Underseen easily got around to his back by quickly shapeshifting into a small bird, and upon landing on his back, quickly shapeshifted into an anaconda, and began to constrict Earl, pinioning his hands to his side before he could react.

Cloak thought it was shameful. Felines, or feline facsimiles, unable to react in the time that Underseen gave the Löwen? Shameful! Absolutely shameful!

Underseen easily crushed him into submission. The control collar wasn't really thought of, but it was rather karmic for Earl, considering how many lives he had ruined because of his greed, because of his arcanine need for power and domination. Underseen squeezed harder with every exhale that Earl took, making it harder for him to fil his lungs again, weakening him with every exhale. Strength is nothing if you can't breath, if you can't respirate.

Within several tense moments, Underseen released his grip, shapeshifted back to his base form, and walked away. The Löwen had been crushed to death.

"It is done," Underseen said, acidly, addressing Malice, "your perverse game continues, you devil."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2015, 07:53:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Dino and Knifetooth

Underseen would have want to attack Malice directly, but she had erected an energy forcefield around herself, so similar to how Cloak has done so many times before.

Meanwhile, Cloak was glaring at Malice as she was clearing the arena of the Löwen corpse. Was her goal as simple as that? Was her goal just simply to kill the RAFians? She was only successful with Rotiart. Was her goal really that simple? That cut-and-dry? What if there was no ulterior motive?

Dino leaped into the area, which was surprising, considering most of the RAFians assumed that she was too heavy, even in her compact form, to jump. And she was jn her compact form, as the area and the arena itself were too small to accommodate her true size. She roared, "I'm up next, Malice, BRING IT ON!!!"

"Very well, dinosaur," Malice said, unintimidated.

Malice sent out a smilodon-like Mauvais Dentes named Diego Donaldson, an "enforcer" with friminal ties. He has gray fur over his head and arms, with black stripes and enormous teeth capable of leaving puncture wounds in his victims up to an inch in diameter. He was incredibly strong creature, able to casually overpower grown men. He was also highly agile, fast, and stealthy, and he has razor sharp teeth and claws that he uses to kill. When he kills, he lacerates his victims and bite their necks. He is also very durable: one was able to take multiple punches to the head without much reaction. He would even go so far as eating his victim.

He had a reputation for baiting his victims before killing them, enjoying tricking and deceiving their opponents, much like cats. He had no qualms endangering innocent bystanders if that would bring him much closer to his designated target or targets.

Diego roared, and Dino returned the roar. Her roar, however, was far more fierce and intimidating. Diego leapt up and tried to bite and slash Dino's leathery, saurian neck. But she wasn't a stationary target, and she managed to dodge this attack and ram her head into the lumbar region of Diego's back. She managed to do it with enough force that he most certainly felt it, as he was having a difficulty standing up without pain.

Dino was still, even in her compact form, bigger than Diego. Big enough that she could have eaten him in three bites, as opposed to the singular bite it would take at her true size. Her skin was too tough for his claws to penetrate easily, and his fangs would be able to do damage, but not really enough to kill Dino. Also if he had gotten atop her ankylosaurid shell, she would not really would not be able to do anything, except try to roll over, which could lead to the classic turtling scenario.

Of course, Diego shouldn't have only been watching her mouth of tyrannosaurid teeth. You see, Dino is dangerous on both ends, not unlike a Seviper in this capacity.

Dino had slugged Diego with her ankylosaurid club tail, and that sent him crashing into the arena wall. From there, he slumped to the ground, motionless. Not too surprising, as Dino can swing that tail with sufficient force to break a tyrannosaur's thigh bone.

The match was done, but Dino tried to go after Malice, but the forcefield came up and all Dino had to show for it was a chipped tooth. She regretfully returned to the audience area -- somehow. Cloak didn't see how.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2015, 02:53:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

"Oh, I see how it is, now." Malice said, her eyes twinkling with malicious mischievousness. "All I needed to do for you to take these battles to the death seriously was kill one of your number. Well, if that's all I had to do to gain credibility as a threat, I would have done that at the start!"

"I swear Malice, one of these days," Cloak growled, "I will slay you just as I slayed Cataclysm."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Malice said, indifferent to the idle threat, looking at her claws in an idle, unconvinced manner. "You keep saying that. And yet, here I am, still alive. You cannot bring yourself to kill me -- Cataclysm was just a fluke, I doubt it was ever intentional on your part. You don't have the guts, the fortitude to take a life."

"Taking a life, disregarding a life -- this is not strength," Cloak said, "valuing life is not weakness. This is a simple concept -- one you seem quite unable to comprehend, Malice. And, for that, I find you a pitiable creature. One that I had hoped there would be some measure of redeeming qualities. But I cannot believe that any longer. You have no redeemable qualities. You will never seek redemption. You are a lost cause."

"As are you, Cloak. As are you." Malice countered, although it was rather sloppy. "You parlay with these Dwellers -- befriend them! Like one of these humans calling insects friends! They are nothing more useful than pawns and entertainment."

"Then why did you --"

"Oh, enough talking aready? Alright? I'll go next if it means the end to all this stupid monologuing!" Faerie said, irritably. When she got antsy, she got annoyed. She brought out a battleade-halberd hybrid that she forged from what remained of her Gale Blade and her old battleaxe. "Send out your next stupid challenger so I can get rid of him and give you a taste of your own medicine!"

Malice chose to use the Mellifer by the name of Thomas Combs, a beekeeper. He had large, blue compound eyes, his mouth had external, articulated mandibles, and antennae on his forehead. He had superhumanly strong, and possessed a bioluminescent apitoxin from a Mellifer stinger (which was a Jules Verne-like injection device).

Thomas had no real natural aggression, unless provoked, but Faerie had easily disarmed him of his stinger, and crushed it beneath her heel as she glared at him. Faerie had the capabilityof being quite formidably intimidating when she was riled, and that seemed to be an almost supernatural ability, as it seemed to be able to seep beneath the power of the control collar. Which she quickly plucked off.

"Leave. Now." She commanded.

Thomas wasn't fool enough to go against Faerie's demands, and he quickly capitulated and complied. The Mellifer was gone.

"Well, that was disappointing," Malice said, sourly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 29, 2015, 12:07:03 PM

It says something that Faerie reacted a lot less aggressively than Horse, when you'd expect it to be the other way round...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2015, 02:40:34 PM

Well, they have layers, as we all do. Good point, nonetheless, Saffa, I didn't realize it myself. But Horse was rather hysterical because polar bears tend to prey on seals, like her, and she didn't want to experience being eaten or killed. Faerie had no such worries with the Mellifer.

Sorry if I came off pompous here.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
That's Bull!

Faerie flung her axe/halberd at Malice, but it was deflected by the energy shield, and Faerie snatched up her weapon. Faerie flew back up to the others, knowing that her attack Malice was doomed to failure from the start.

"Oh, give it up," Malice said. "Your Dweller pets can't kill me, Cloak. Surely, you've illuminated them of this fact?"

"'Illuminated'? I think you misused that," Cloak said, caustically.

"Like it matters," Malice said. "Next challenger! Next!"

Goom flipped about, not unlike a Jedi of Yoda's species, and landed in the arena with far more impressive agility than Cloak thought Goombas were capable of. He didn't appear to have any weapons, and Cloak wondered and worried and fretted that Goom might follow Rotiart's footsteps.

In response, Malice sent out the bovine Mordstier by the name of Taran Minos, a daylaborer. He has large, but dull horns that range in span from 23" to 35", floppy bovine ears, and a bovine muzzle. The nose was flattened, and his eyes glow red. His feet were hooves, allowing him to run very quickly. He can deliver a powerful shove when he charges. His skin is thicker than body armor.

Taran charged Goom, who easily flipped out of the way with an agility that belied his size and lack of arms. Cloak realized that Goom had actually had an advantage. He was a small target, and, as such, he was harder to hit. And Goom had known this all along. He hadn't thought of a way to defeat this opponent though.

But Goom was a person who preferred to think these things out, and this particular Mordstier was the opposite, rushing in without thinking, and then reacting from that. This gave Goom another weapon to use against Taran.

Goom had leaped and landed squarely upon Taran's noggin. He had decided to go for the Hermes-Argus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_Panoptes) Gambit.

"You know, we really do not need to be fighting like this," he replied in his most boring and his most droning tone of voice. "We could be talking about the weather. I once saw a cloud shaped like a --"

And he continued in that vein for a while. He kept making his voice deliberately boring and droning. And Taran's eyes began to droop. Goom was doing a Cuthbert Binns impression with commendation. Taran may have been brutishly strong, but he hadn't a defense for this strategy.

So, why didn't Malice step in? Yell or shout something to wake up Taran? Be cause the strategy was working on her too. And a fair few of the RAFians, but Cloak quickly realized the strategy and was impressed. He would have never thought of it, personally. Leave it to Goom to think outside the box!

Eventually, Taran collapse in a drowsy stupor due to the dronjng speech from the Goomba, who swiftly and deftly removed the control collar. Then he leaped up in flips and charges back up to the others, having claimed victory.

"You cheated!" Malice shouted -- yet, the Mordstier did not stir. This just angered Malice enough to slay the bovin Wesen herself and dispose the corpse into the pile.

"Hey, some battle with brute strength and bully tactics," Goom said, "but the rest of us use our minds, in conjunction with resourcefulness and strategy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2015, 09:17:27 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Gaz Gets A Little Batty

"That was a pathetic attempt, Cloak!!" Malice said, incensed at the tepid ease Goom had with her challenger. Who she killed for no reason. By her own energy, by her own hand. And, yet, she was basically blaming Cloak for Goom's successful strategy. "That was unworthy of you!"

"You think I really care what you think of me, you old hag?" Cloak said, distain etched every corner of his voice. "Stop your transference. I do not dictate the tactics and stratagems of my fellow RAFians. They are thinking, feeling, autonomous beings. They are no mere toys for you to do with which what you will."

"Blah, blah, blah," Malice said. "Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?"

"I am not wrong, Malice," Cloak said, voice actually placid and even, "and you will eventually come to see that. I hope it will not be too late for you to achieve some atonement."

"First Light," Malice snorted, "do you even hear yourself?"

"Oh, shut up, hag," Gaz said, stepping in. How she got away from Laserbeak's watchful eye was a mystery. "I'm up next, so chose your next challenger."

In response, Malice sent out the Murciélago by the name of Michael Silverwing, a tempermental and selfish pop artist. He had glowing red eyes, leathery brown skin, chiropteran features, razor-sharp claws, webbed hands, and vicious rows of teeth. He has the ability to produce a sonic shriek, that is usually fatal to humans. He also possessed keen hearing. He was also more agile than humans, able to walk away after jumping out of a two story window onto solid concrete with no visible wounds. He does not appear to be any stronger than a normal human, but he is quite fast and agile.

"Batty?" Gaz said, confident and a bit ****y. "Batty Koda?"

In response, the Murciélago, this Michael Silverwing, opened his mouth and shrieked. Cloak just managed to throw up an energy barrier to deaden the power of the shriek. He likened it to a Howler's howl . . . but different in an indescribable way, and possessing more raw brute power. He couldn't put Gaz behind it because he couldn't react in time.

But, as it turns out, it was unnecessary. Gaz seemed to be unaffected at all by the shriek, although it did seem to take her by surprise. Seeing this, Michael resorted to his claws, and he began to slash at Gaz, who turned into mist with each attempt, and materialized again either a few feet away, to his immediate right or left, or directly behind him. She was wearing him down by doing this, and she knew this.

When she fought in earnest, she quickly discovered she surpassed him in brute strength. She swifty beat him, which was a stark contrast with Goom's battle. Malice added him to the corpse pile -- making sure that he was a corpse first.

Gaz returned to the audience area.

"That's better, Cloak." Malice sniffed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 29, 2015, 11:43:57 PM

Just trying to imagine a goomba waddling about in a battle arena itself is hilarious.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2015, 05:55:36 AM

Yeah. Though I do imagine Goom moving like Yoda during his battle with Palpatine.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Horsepower

"Next challenger," Malice said, seemingly in a better mood. Cloak looked at her, trying discern some clue to her underlying plan. He was sure that there was one there. Somewhere. But he still could not fathom what it was.

Damien leaped rather recklessly into the arena. And Cloak realize he did not know, or remember the nature of his powers. All he knew is Damien had a habit of recklessness, and he hoped that wouldn't prove disastrous here.

The Malice chooses her champion a Nuckelavee by the name of Ma Runner, a "free-spirited hipster" by "profession". Her appearance resembles that of a skinless horse's head with black blood pulsing through transparent veins, her muscles and sinews also being visible. She has a long mane of hair, equine teeth, grayed skin, and hooves. She had lose her hair, her head was more equine, and she had equine musculature. She was a physically strong and able to hold her own against a Grimm. She was also quick and stealthy. When attacking in her Wesen form, she used her hoof-like hands (all the fingers with the exception of the thumbs) as blunt weapons, which combined with her impressive strength, are at least capable of leaving large dents in the outer hull of car trailers. She was stealthy, quiet, and calm, who approaches tasks logically. She had no qualms with stealing or murder as long as it helps them to succeed in their appointed task. She also possesses incredible determination and would rather die than fail at her tasks. She seemed honorable in that she only goes after the intended target and leaves all bystanders unharmed.

Damien allowed himself a childish snicker, "Horsey."

Ma Runner did not react. Her control collar was wiping away all coherent thought.

"Really, no remark for that? Alright then," Damien said, rather Max-like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_&_Max) in his delivery. "Let's just get this started."

Ma Runner blew out air from her nostrils in a very audible exhale. Damien was finding himself not really like this kind of silent treatment.

Damien whipped out his sketchbook and began to sketch something with adept swiftness, every line being very economical. Then he used his pictomancy to bring the drawing to life, and Ma Runner was bound by admantium chains, which not even she could break. She huffed and puffed, trying to break them. But admantium is one of the strongest substances around, and only a scant few ways can break it.

Damien leisurely walked over and removed the control collar, making Ma Runner blink confusingly, as she looked surprised to be in chains.

"You lose," Damien said, as he climbed back up.

Malice, in a fit of temper, killed Ma Runner. She added her to the considerable corpse pile. She was killing most of her champions, and she didn't care.

"A lackluster performance, I must say," Malice said, as Damien destroyed the drawing of the chains, causing them to become nonexistent.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 30, 2015, 06:39:50 AM

RAF Comix comes to mind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2015, 02:49:55 PM

'Kay.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
The Rat, the Cat, the . . . What?

"Lackluster?!" Damien cried offended. Then he paused to consider, and then he concided, "I suppose it wasn't very entertaining, I guess."

"Next," Malice drawled, in a very bored, dry way.

FuBar snaked and coiled on the way down to the arena with the grace and poise that only a feline could muster. "I take one whatever you have next."

Paradoxically, Malice chose the rat-like Reinigen named Vincent Pettigrew, who was, oddly enough, a musical prodigy, for the next combatant. He had dark eyes, large rodentlike ears, pointed faces with enlarged incisors. While he didn't have superhuman strength, he was quick and light on his feet. He also seems to have greater endurance than ordinary humans. He was able to utilize his musical abilities to mesmerize and control rats, similar to the way Mellifers can control bees.

He also was not being the least bit picky about what he eats. He was a peaceful creature but are nowhere near meek or cowardly as one may think. He was very cautious in the presence of stronger Wesen and non-Wesen beings. Despite being cautious and generally non-violent, Vincent can be very temperamental. If a he loses his temper, he will lash out violently against their offenders. He also has a tendency to hold grudges.

"But . . . but . . . but . . . I'm a cat!" FuBar said, though Vincent was a roughly man-sized man-rat. And bigger than he was.

"So?" Malice said, with drawling condescension.

"You challenger is a rat!"

"Reinigen, actually." Malice said, carelessly indifferent. "But that doesn't matter. Begin the battle."

FuBar found himself prowling toward Vincent, cautious but confident. His ears were back, flat against his head. He was only slightly larger than the average tomcat, but he still was smaller than Vincent. FuBar's scope for damage was actually severely limited.

From there, the battle went rather alarmingly quick. Cloak wasn't sure how FuBar managed it, but he managed to kill Vincent -- giving into the feline instinct to hunt and kill vermin, Cloak supposed, without regarding the fact that he himself was a feline and he never really felt the need to kill. Thiught he did feel the need to hunt occasionally, which he usually did during missions as a RAFian, such like with the Plasmavore.

FuBar returned to the viewing area, looking rather proud. The others were looking at him in a new light, and he took this moment to wash his face in the usual cat fashion.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 30, 2015, 03:00:16 PM

Juuuuuust like the pied piper led rats through the streets, we dance like the marionettes, swaying to the symphony OF THE RAFIANS.

Sorry, been listening to Megadeth lately. Insert comparison to David here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 30, 2015, 03:18:49 PM

You talk of David... and that chapter featured a rat... WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 30, 2015, 03:25:56 PM

And his cat was named Megadeth. And FuBar is a cat.
I feel like there's something clever to be said, but I can't be bothered to figure it out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on September 30, 2015, 03:48:50 PM

Me neither. Plus it's 2 am.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2015, 05:12:48 PM

On a different tangent, I don't remember who asked it, but someone -- a long time ago -- asked me where I got the idea for Van Pyrrhus from. It was from this episode -- "The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner" -- of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"

Yes, I'm trolling for new book ideas. . . . Although I'm probably ahead of myself as is. ;)

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Playing Cat and Mouse

"Impressively vicious," Malice said, a bit grudgingly. FuBar just continued to wash his face in the usual housecat way, without comment. "Don't ignore me."

FuBar ignored her.

"Why you impudent -- never mind, you're beneath my notice." Malice said, aggressively at first, then dismissive.

"Let's skip the posturing, then," Bladeh said, already waiting patiently in the arena. "I'm up next. Where's yours?"

Malice again paradoxically chose a murine Mauzhertz named Minnie Mortimersen, a minor level beta tester by profession somehow. She had beady eyes, small whiskers jutting out from a pointed nose, large murine ears, and oversized incisors. She was very timid and exceedingly cowardly, oftentimes afraid of her own shadow. She was very predictable, friendly, and meek.

"Uh," Bladeh said, perplexed. Even with a control collad around her neck, she didn't look like she wanted to fight. She looked like she wanted to run away, but the collar was preventing her from following thst course of action. "Are you sure about this match, Malice?"

"Shut up and fight," Malice snarled, misinterpreting Baldeh's question as if she was afraid of losing. Bladeh had no doubt about a RAFian victory, considering that Minnie was already cowering.

Bladeh looked at the cowering Mauzhertz, and she couldn't help but feel pity towards the shivering, shaking form before her. Bladeh could not bring herself to kill her . . . but that control collar . . . it would have to go.

Bladeh walked up gently, letting out a gentle purr, which caused Minnie to squeak like a mouse as she trembled. Bladeh nuzzled her neck, and began to chew through the leather of the control collar. Within moments, the collar flopped off and Minnie shrieked. Then she fled as quickly as she could, before Malice could languidly kill her.

"Eh," Malice shrugged, unconcernedly, "no big loss."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2015, 04:11:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
You Lying Jackal

"Disappointingly merciful," Malice said with distain.

"Thank you," Bladeh said, choosing to take that a s a compliment. Malice just frowned deeply, though her glare was fierce.

"Just choose your next combatant," Malice snapped.

"Um, hello? Already down here." Blaze said, arms folded. "Hurry up and chose your guy, already!"

Malice had selected and chose the Schakal named Jaclyn "Jackie" Wagner, a jewel thief and a notorious infantivore. She had a short wide nose, a heavy brow, and large canine ears. She had fur across her bodies and also a large, thick mane under her chins that extends to their sideburns. She also possess a prognathism (or underbite) and sharp, thin teeth, which are strong enough to rip a man's throat out. Jackie was both stronger and faster than humans. She also possesses very quick reflexes. Physically, she was able to hold out in a fight with a Grimm, much longer than most Wesen manage. She also possesses much greater durability than humans, but can still be killed by handguns. She has been proven to be naturally aggressive, cruel, and violent, and she will let nothing stand in the way of her goals.

"Wow," Blaze said. "She ugly."

She didn't seem to like that comment. But Blaze . . . didn't care. Jackie moved in to attack, and Blaze seemed able dodge every strike. Whether it was because of his djinn or angel ancestry remained to be seen. Blaze did not even attack, staying on the defensive. He could sense the darkness in the Schakal, but did not react to it, not really.

"You done yet?" Blaze asked, in a rather Vegeta-like manner.

As turns out, no, no she was not. She continued her attack, and Blaze continued dodging each and every strike. It was fortuitous that he had trained in the simulator a battle similar to this.

"Dah!"

He had miscalculated, just for a fraction of a second. Jackie had managed to draw blood, with a scratch on Blaze's wrist. He decided that the time for games has ended. He turned around, blasted three-quarters of the arena with flame. It was enveloped in fire. There was no way that she could survive.

And she didn't, as her charred skeleton fell to the ground.

"Death Battle, this ain't," Cloak muttered to himself.

"Nice," Malice said, approvingly. She appreciated the sudden violentness that occured as she preferred the "finer" things in life.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 01, 2015, 04:14:53 PM

Minnie Mouse. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2015, 06:50:39 PM

You were expecting maybe Jeri? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Let's All Fight Like the Birdies, Beat By Beat*

Breathing heavily due to the rage built up inside of him finally unleashed, Blaze felt a certain uncomfortable hollowness at his callow actions. But he wasn't left with much of a choice . . . he had to . . . no. No, he didn't have to die. Blaze not only jumped the gun and acted without thinking, but it cost someone his life. Granted, he was a jewel thief -- a criminal -- but that wasn't any excuse.

"Oh, stop your grousing boy," Malice said, dismissively. "Any more of thwt, and you'd be neck-and-neck with Cloak for sheer stupidness. You don't know that you don't grieve for the weak, but you must either punish them severely or kill them to simplify things."

"First Light, Malice! You are so heartless!"

"Better than being a bleeding heart," Malice countered swiftly.

"First Light! You're evil." Cloak snarled.

"What's your point?" Malice said bored.

"Uh, guys? Your argument is really fine and all, but I'm ready for the next opponent." Raevyn said, perched quite pleasantly on arena floor.

Malice chose the Seltenvogel named Avery Cage, a freelance writer. She had a multi-colored head and beak, and she had glittering golden eyes. She was not very strong, given Seltenvogels' long history of captivity, and she was easy prey for stronger Wesen.

This was no match.

Raevyn was battle-hardened by her time with as a RAFian. Avery was a bird in a gilded cage, figuratively speaking, never having the same kind of training or battles or experience Raevyn had. She wasn't treated the best, because a cage, no matter how gilded or nice or posh, is a cage still.

Raevyn hesitated. She could literally sense that there wasn't a drop of darkness in this person. Sure, she may have been a little naive, a tad unsure, but where were the crimes in that? This woman defined the term innocent. Raevyn could not bring herself to attack her . . .

But that wouldn't stop her from going all Abe Lincoln on her.

Raevyn hopped over and began to nip at the collar. But then Avery seemed to writhe, and Raevyn thought that she might have nipped Avery without intending to. Then Raevyn realized that Avery was having difficulty breathing. Raevyn came to the conclusion thwt the collar must be choking her!

Raevyn went at it agin, with an even more fervent urgency, and the collar flopped off. Raevyn was relieved, but only for a moment, because there was something like tumorous growth on her throat. Unbeknownst to the avian RAFian, it was an Unbezahlbar. And Unbezahlbar are rare golden "eggs" produced once in a Seltenvogel's lifetime, atter a diet of orms and milk. They are highly valuable, and the delivery from the throat is an extremely dangerous and delicate task. If not removed . . . the Seltenvogel would die by asphyxiation.

Raevyn did not know how to do it properly, nor were any of the other RAFians able to do emergency surgery. There was too much risk to killing her for the lump now in her throat. Raevyn was at a lost of what to do.

Within moments . . . it no longer mattered.

"Ugh. Disappointing." Malice said, with disgust, adding Avery to the corpse pile.

---

* I don't really expect anyone to really get this reference, as it is rather obscure. It is referencing an old song lyric that I remember from one of those "Disney Sing-Along" videos. Dunno if they're still making them though. The song in question is "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing", specifically the lyric "Let's sing like the birdies sing: tweet, tweet, tweet".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2015, 05:53:38 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
What a Croc!

Raevyn flew up and tried to rake Malice with her talons, but she could not penetrate Malice's energy shield. Eventually Raevyn backed off when she began to tire.

"Really?" Malice said, with a bored drawl. "You know you can't kill me. Why bother trying?"

"I could hurt you," Raevyn breathed savagely. "I could make you bleed."

Malice laughed in a way that was both inappropriate and full of mirth, "You overestimate your abilities, little Dweller!"

"And here we are again," Cloak said. "Here again, with you, once more, underestimsting and undervaluing these RAFians."

"Whatever," Malice said, with an indifferent shrug. "Choose the next fighter."

Parker leapt into the arena, and there felt as if there should have been some mild clanking with such extreme movements and exertion, but his armor proved more silent. He stood confidently, as he said, "I'm here. Choose your loser."

Against this RAFian, Malice chose the Skalenzahne named Waylon Stephenson, a former cage fighter turned cannibal. He has greenish-yellow crocodilian scutes all over their body. Instead of outer ears, he just possess two holes, one on either side of his head. He has a short snout, and his mouth contains razor sharp teeth, which he can use to rip his food to pieces. His scales go over his whole body. He also has sharp reptilian claws, which can also casually rip humans to pieces. He is incredibly strong and durable creatures having thick crocodile-like skin. He also can heal a lot faster, and can take much more serious wounds, than humans can.

"Great. A Killer Croc knockoff," Parker said dryly.

Waylon gave a lowing crocodilian roar, and he charged forward rather faster than Parker had anticipated, and he bit onto the SPARTAN's  left forearm. While his teeth could not penetrate Parker's armor, he did ruin the finish by scraping against the armor's surface, making a sound not unlike nails on a chalkboard. This did not endear Parker to him, as it took a while to get this armor as polished as it was.

"Oh . . . you didn't just do that," Parker said, conveying a lot of anger.

Waylon snarled in response, and slashed Parker's chest, which just scratched his armor. This did not make the SPARTAN happy.

"Seriously?!"

Waylon tried to scratch him again, but Parker wasn't having it. He activated his dual fusion cannons, one which resembled Megatron's and the other resembled Galvatron's. He punched Waylon in the gut with the arm that supported these fusion cannons, and he fired them both, point-blank range.

Waylon stumbled back, hole in his gut that went all they way through. The fact that he was still alive was impressive as it was, the fact that he was still standing was a feat in and of itself.

But Parker used his energy blade to separate Waylon's head from his body. He was dead.

"Again, disappointing," Malice said, adding Waylon's head and body to the considerable corpse pile.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 02, 2015, 07:44:23 AM

Raevyn quoting Batman. Nice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2015, 07:53:22 AM

Wait. What?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 02, 2015, 10:44:41 AM

It's a dialogue he says in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman film. "Tell me, do you bleed? You will."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2015, 07:18:15 PM

Oh.

Sorry about the lackluster response. I just found out something very disappointing, but I'm not sure how much of it that I am at liberty to say. . . . If it goes south -- I may be on hiatus for a while. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
Quickly Quashed Quills

"Disappointingly short," Malice sighed in a way, which made her seem more like an angsty teenager than a creepy octogenarian. "But kudos on the violent end."

"I don't want your praise or your critiques, you old bat," Parker said, unusually aggressive and disrespectful.

Malice wasn't so easily offended, but the attitude actually amused her. But then she was wasn't what you'd call mentally stable.

"So, who do you have next?" Malice said, inappropriately blithe.

"Me," Gumby said, simply.

"Hmmmm . . ."

Malice thought that a Stangebär named Krista Prickley, an outdoors-woman, would be a suitable combatant against Gumby. She had an impressively thick coat of colored quills, or spines, which could be used for both armor and camouflage. The color of these quills seems to fluctuate between black and grey. Even between woges, they appear able to change color. These quills cover up the majority of her limbs and also sprout out of the top of her heads, interspersing her hair. The spines' consistency seems to be adjustable, since they visibly didn't damage any clothes she was wearing. She had large sharp black claws and dark eyes, and her skin was reddish in color. She is generally peaceable and docile, but not cowardly in any sense of the word.

"Hmmm . . . pointy." Gumby surmised.

"You have an impressive grasp on the obvious, boy," Malice said dryly.

"Thank you," Gumby said, aware that Malice intended that as an insult, but chose to take it as a compliment. He thought

"Ugh," Malice replied, rolling her eyes.

Krista shook her head and dislodged several quills that flew at Gumby, as if she had just used a Pin Missile attack. Gumby knew this kind of attack was coming and was easily prepared for it. He made holes in his gummy body, allowing each quill to pass harmlessly through, clattering harmlessly upon the ground.

"Seriously?" Gumby said, flippantly. "Didn't you read my file?"

"Such insolence," Malice tsked. "You'll come to regret that, young Dweller."

"Will I now?" Gumby smirked cheekily. Around his finger, he twirled the control collar around his finger ****ily.

"What? How'd you -- ?" Malice said, surprised.

"Oh, that. It's not important." Gumby said, dimissively. He did not elaborate because he liked the surprise and shock it caused. Then he addressed Krista out of the side of his mouth, "Run."

She did, and she did before Malice overcame her shock at the suddenness of the battle's end. Gumby, meanwhile made his way back to the top.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 02, 2015, 08:23:16 PM

Sorry to hear that, Cloak. Here's hoping that everything goes well :)
I've probably said it before, but if you need someone to vent to, I'll be here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on October 02, 2015, 08:36:56 PM

Hope everything is ok.

I'm still following this! Things have been crazy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 03, 2015, 01:18:17 AM

Me too, as always. Hope everything works out. :hug:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2015, 12:49:07 PM

Yeah . . .  it's not really any better today . . . being accused of something you didn't do (and know you didn't do) . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
Eagle-Eyed

"Do you guys just not get the whole 'battle to the death' thing?" Malice said.

"We understand it just fine, Malice. We just reject the very idea of it," Cloak said. Cloak eyed Demos, who was still seething over his suit. "Well, most of us."

"Pathetic."

"Showing mercy isn't pathetic, Malice," Cloak countered. "Mercy is just a concept that you just choose to refuse to understand. And what you refuse to understand, you dismiss. You disparage. You disregard."

Malice said nothing, but scowled.

"Just because you dismiss an ideal doesn't mean it is without merit," Cloak continued his lecture, "it doesn't mean that it's a worthless concept. If you took time to understand it, you might be --"

"Choose your next challenger." Malice interrupted, having had enough of this spiel.

"I'm up," Aquilai said, using waterbending to get into the arena.

Malice selected and decided on sending out the Steinadler named Avery Hawke, a soldier. He had muzzle-like face and a beak-like nose. He had sparse, feather-like hair all over their body, retaining his human hair color. His eyes were an extremely pale yellowish-green color. He has exceptional vision, as a result of having five times more visual sensory cells per millimeter of the retina than humans. He also has special colored oils in his eyes that reflect certain wavelengths of light. These special ocular biological factors endow him with near perfect night vision and a whole host of other ocular abilities. He was an incredibly fast creature, appearing as a blur when he runs. He didn't appear to be superhumanly strong but are a rather durable creature. He has protoreceptor proteins that allow them to perceive magnetic fields, which is apparently done by turning his head. He was known for his ability to poker-facedly exhibit simultaneous friendliness and sternness, so it is impossible to tell whose side one is on. He has high intellect and good intuition . . . when he wasn't collared.

"Well, this could be problematic." Aquilai said.

"Scared, little Dweller?" Malice taunted.

"I wouldn't go that far," Aquilai said, with quiet ambivalence.

"Oh? Well, you seemed to have --"

"It's water, Malice." Aquilai said, brusquely. "I'm a waterbender."

"I don't care what you do in you free time, Dweller," Malice said, deliberately misinterpreting the term.

Aquilai was distracted by this, but he had frozen the water, making it difficult for anyone to run on it -- as Avery found out when he tried to run on it. He slipped and fell directly on his rump, in a rather comical and comedic way. Then he was shocked to find himself encased in ice, his beak-like nose encased as well, preventing him from turning his head at all. It was child's play to unlatch the collar.

Then the ice retreated from the Steinadler and he quickly gathered his senses. Avery did not continue his attack on Aquilai, and turned his attention towards Malice.  He pressed the attack against her, only to be bisected vertically and symmetrically. Dead.

"Funny how they always seem to think that they stand a chance when they turn against me," Malice said, "it's sad, really."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2015, 06:17:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
Sassed and Quashed

"Maybe you and I should duel, then, Malice?" Cloak said, seriously and blunt.

"Nah," Malice said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Not worth it."

Cloak said nothing, but smiled inwardly, despite himself. Malice was covering up the fact that she didn't want to face Cloak in an one-on-one fight -- a direct fight. He would destroy her through sheer power. She knew this, and he knew this.

Though one would question why he drew it out, why did he just not kill her and get it over with. And those are the people who think taking a life, no matter how evil and vile, is an easy thing. Those are the people who have never taken a life, like how he took Cataclysm's. It is quite different killing someone of a different species, but killing someone of your own . . . that always seems to have a greater complexity to it for some reason.

"Who's next, then?" Malice asked.

Suddenly, Cloak discovered that a log was standing beside him where Blue was standing moments before. It was his favorite ninja trick.

"Me," Blue said, giving his most badass delivery. It was only ruined briefly from a yawn from Malice, which irked him.

Malice chose the brutish Wildermann named Patrick Henderson, an outdoorsman. His hair was hominid in form, except it has a second outer layer covered in small spines. The outer layer is supported by a single-helical structure. He has an ape-like face, including a strong protruding jaw with enlarged canines. He was incredibly strong and are more than capable of tearing a full grown man to shreds. He was incredibly fast for their size and are capable of traversing large distances in a short amount of time. While he had high levels of stamina and pain tolerance, he was no more durable than humans. Patrick was a friendly loner who enjoyed camping a great deal. He feared his own anger, not unlike Cloak himself.

But he was controlled by Malice, which meant any pacifism would be negated. But Blue was not without a tactical mind. He knew the entire lynch pin of this match was the control collar. He needn't kill Patrick, which of course would be physically easily, but morally bankrupt, Blue felt. The way would be simpler than Malice even suspected.

"Attack." Malice said, with a maliciously sardonic grin plastered upon her face.

"If you insist," Blue said, throwing three shurrikens at Patrick's neck, which hit one after the other.

"Such a worthless, weak attack," Malice said, distainfully ecstatic.

"You assume much, Realm Walker," Blue said, simply.

The control collar flopped down to the ground after in snaked its way off Patrick's neck. Each shurriken had sliced through the leather of the collar, chopping through it with each one until the leather was severed and cut.

"Ugh." Malice huffed dismissively. She blasted a hole through Patrick's chest, killing him. Then she added his body to the smelly, rotting pile of corpses. Blue, meanwhile, appeared back into the viewing area, replacing his log. "This is how it's done."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2015, 07:30:50 PM

Two or three chapters to go. Hopefully . . . this won't be . . . be the last book. . . .  :'( I don't want to be. But if this thing goes south . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
Trolled

"Malice, if you need violence to enforce your ideals, then your ideals are worthless.” Cloak said, stating some proverb he heard somewhere.

"Don't quote Nexus proverbs at me, boy," Malice snapped harshly. "Proverbs said by Walkers who didn't know what they were talking about."

Cloak said nothing, but eyed Malice. She may try to wave away facts, but the thing about facts is that they have a nasty habit of continually resurfacing no matter how hard you try to bury them, no matter how hard you try to ignore them. Malice would have to fact facts sooner or later -- granted, she may have chosen to run away or ignore them for eighty-odd years (uh, that's eight hundred-odd years, in Dweller time).

Deciding a change of subject was in order, Malice declared, "Where's your next fighter?"

"I'm right here," Sakki said, standing upon the arena floor. She had her hands folded, head tilted, and tapping her foot rather impatiently.

Malice, only having two possible candidates to select from, retaliated this choice with the Hässlich Reilly St. John, a professional bridge inspector.

He was generally a large and bulky creature. He had leathery skin, a large nose, and sharp, needle-like fangs. He also had creases running through his forehead and large goblin-like ears. His skin tone was also a tan color. He was stronger than humans and was able to match blows with a Grimm. He appeared to be as strong as Blutbaden, but they are not as fast. He was also incredibly durable. He was able to take multiple shots from a handgun before it becoming life-threatening, as well as knife wounds and excessive blunt force. However, he was still as vulnerable as a human to other methods of death, such as beheading or having a crossbow bolt hit his in the neck. He also didn't get tired easily. He possesses his great strength and durability regardless if he woges or not.

He carried a scythe whose blade appeared to made with an alloy of enchanted gold, celestial bronze, and steel with a handle of roughly-hewn mahogany.

"Huh." Sakki said, sizing up this brute. "Should I be flattered by you sending this monster after me?"

"I only had two choices." Malice said.

"Still," Sakki said.

"Oh, shut up and fight." Malice said testily.

"Oh, if you insist," Sakki said, blithely flippant. The she whistled, utilizing her sonics, which knocked the scythe out of the Hässlich's hand. She caught the scythe and drove the blade deep enough into the earth that Reilly would have to play all "Sword in the Stone" to get it out.

Malice pouted about this, and Cloak quickly noticed.

Then Sakki let loose a wide-range sonic attack, that caused the Hässlin to sink to his knees in pain. Blood began to trickle out of his ears. He was incapacitated for the moment. But it gave Sakki plenty enough time to relieve him of his control collar.

When Reilly regained his senses, and realized that he was free, he seized his scythe handle and easily wrenched it from the ground, unlike how Sakki expected it to go, and she was a little disappointed by this, but she hid it well. Or as well as she could.

Reilly roared as he jumped up, and attempted to attack Malice . . . who sighed, and sliced him into quarters using her energy. Then she added him to the rotting pile of forgotten flesh and bone and sinew.

"Pitiful." she chided.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 03, 2015, 10:00:53 PM

"Sword in the Sword"? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2015, 12:34:58 AM

Fixed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 04, 2015, 12:37:16 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 03, 2015, 07:30:50 PM

Two or three chapters to go. Hopefully . . . this won't be . . . be the last book. . . .  :'( I don't want to be. But if this thing goes south . . .

You know, if **** goes down, you can always have Saffa ghost-write ;)

Just kidding, of course. I'd be disappointed, but if real life keeps you from writing Memoirs, don't feel like you have to. You gotta make sure to look after yourself, Cloaky. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2015, 06:00:52 AM

Thanks, GH. I do appreciate it. Right now, I'm trying not to assume the worst, trying not to giving into despair, into depression.

One or two more chapters to go. Hopefully, there will be more. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
Got Your Goat

"And this will be the last battle," Malice said.

The only two who haven't battled on the RAFian side were Shanker and Shadow. They had a choice, Malice did not.

"I'm up," Shanker said, already on the arena floor.

"Hey! I didn't get a turn!" Shadow protested.

"Quiet, Shadow." Cloak said, gently with a stern finality. He had his arms folded over his chest as he glared at Malice. He then turned his attention to the arena.

"But Uncle --"

"This is not a game, Shadow. You know that." Cloak said, seriously. "Remember . . . remember what happened to Rotiart."

Shadow felt abashed at her protest, she onew that she should have taken this more seriously.

Malice sent out her last Wesen slave, the Ziegevolk named Grover Selenus, a lackluster game show host on a dying game show. He has hair over most of his body, his face was flat, and his ears were pointed. Like actual goats, he had small horns just above his foreheads and beards on his chins. The skin on the backs of his hands was black, giving them a very passing resemblance to hooves. Oddly, despite being goat-like, he had fangs. He had superhuman agility, speed, and are able to jump decent heights and distances when woged.  Some of these abilities appear to extend into his human form. For a time after eating certain toads, he could produce a pheromone to make others open to suggestion. He was a manipulative and arrogant sort, but mostly harmless.

However, this pheromone seemed to have quite a different effect upon vampires, like Shanker. He seemed to enter into a feral, bestial bloodlust state. The Mark could only block so much. It wasn't without its faults, as the incident with Evil Gaz so long ago proved. And it could be broken.

Shanker's face contorted as his fangs extended, and his eyes glowed red, as if he was a female Gargoyle. His thirst reached a fever pitch -- and the caprine Wesen wasn't safe. He could not hide. He could not escape, even if there was a place to hide. Shanker could smell the pheronmone.

Shanker tried to suppress this bloodthirst by sheer force of will, but it was not easy. Gaz could smell the pheromone, too, but it didn't seem to have the same effect. Maybe it didn't affect all vampires the same, but maybe there was another reason. Maybe Gaz had already fed before coming and thus was not affected as such.

Shanker could not restrain himself, and he lashed out. He easily overpowered Grover, and exposed his neck, his veins. He couldn't help himself. Shanker fed. He drained Grover, his thirst only quenched when all the blood was drained from the Ziegevolk. When he came out of this reverie, he found himseld disgusted with what he's done. All the steos he had taken so he didn't feed on live victims . . . having to use V8 juice as a substitute, one of many he's concocted. . . .

"Very good," Malice said, adding the desiccated corpse to the pile. "I suppose I should thank you, you fools."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 04, 2015, 06:12:14 AM

I see where you got the name from. Now I'm waiting to see what Shadow's gonna do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2015, 08:04:49 AM

Uh, the battles are over. This is the penultimate chapter of the book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
Malice's Underlying Goal

"What?" Cloak said sharply.

"Despite your inability to grasp the concept of 'battle to the death'," Malice said, "enough blood has been collected. Enough blood, flesh, and bone collected."

"What are you talking about?"

Malice belted out the perfect evil laugh. Joker and Jafar would have been jealous -- she must have lracticed in-between of scheming plots and manipulating beings that she considered lesser.

"Answer me, Malice!"

"Nah, I don't think I will," Malice said differentially flippant. Cloak heard an unnatural hissing and frothing noise. "But I'll ask you this, though. Why do you think I went through all this trouble?"

"For the same reason you do anything within this realm," Cloak answered contemptuously. "For your own sick, twisted sense of entertainment."

The hissing and frothing was becoming distracting.

"Well, yes, in part." Malice admitted, coyly. "But there actually was another reason. One that had better work. And work the way I expect it to."

"Being unnecessarily cryptic," Aquilai noted.

"Silence, Time Walker," Malice said, authoritatively. She, naturally, ignored the fact that she had no right to speak to them in such a way. She had no authority over them.

The hissing and frothing increased in frequency and agitation becoming annoyingly distracting. Cloak should have realized that this meant something -- Shadow recognized it at once. She tugged gently on her uncle's sleeve in an insistent, persistent manner.

"What is it, Shadow?" Cloak said, huffily. His words were harsher than he intended. Shadow didn't take it to heart, and just pointed.

The hissing and frothing picked up pace, and Cloak saw that it came from the corpse pile. The pile was compacting and condensing, somehow. It was shifting shape, glowing with magical sparkles, blacker than Void Space.

"It's black magic!" Broken declared. "I cannot determine the type or what the function of it could possibly be, but it is DEFINITELY black magic. Or Dark magic, if you prefer."

"Oh, you'll know what it does in due time, little Dweller," Malice said, leaving her throne-like chair, and crossing over the writhing, shrinking mass that was the former corpse pile. Soon it appeared to disappear completely, but Malice bent over and picked up something that Cloak could not see or Earthsight properly. She swiftly pocketed it, and turned to address Cloak.

"Thanks for the fun, Cloaksy!" Malice said, coyly. "Tootle-loo!"

Before Cloak could stop her, she Walked away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 04, 2015, 09:10:11 AM

Naturally, when you said blood, flesh and bone, the first thing I thought of was when Voldemort came back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2015, 09:58:58 AM

Last chapter of the book. Writing is the only thing helping me keep my sanity right now.

New long chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
Loose Ends

"You cannot be serious," Saffa said immediately. "He must be somewhere. Cowering."

"I saw him dismembered with my own eyes, Saffa," Sakki said, uncharacteristicall y somber. "He died. He tried to brave, in the end. But . . . he was no match against that snake-man."

"This can't be true." Saffa said, as GH remained dumbfounded. "He . . . he can't be dead."

"He is," Sakki said. "Denial of the fact will not help anyone. I mean, I had no love for the boy, but . . . he didn't deserve to die like that."

Saffa was distinctly aggrieved. She felt pangs of guilt. "I was always so mean to him."

"As was I, dear Saffa," Sakki said.

"I know it is somewhat taboo to speak ill of the dead," GH said, finding his voice again, "but he really didn't give you much option to be mean. Yes, it is sad that he died, I don't mean to take away from that. But he was responsible for his actions. Up until recently, he was lazy and careless."

GH paused for a moment to hear any protests, but when he did not, he pressed on.

"But, in the end, he was trying very hard to redeem himself. In death, he succeeded, I think."

But Sakki wasn't completely sold. "We should have never let him go in. He wasn't ready. He wasn't trained enough. Cloak tried to . . . but Rotiart wouldn't let him. He was trying to prove himself. And he got killed for it."

"It wasn't your fault," Saffa said.

"Wasn't it?" Sakki replied, guiltily.

***

Cloak knew it.

He was in his thread, brooding, as Shadow had returned home. She didn't live in the Prime Universe as he did.

He knew it. He knew that Malice had some sort of ulterior motive. He could not think of just what that motive could be. In fact, he still didn't know what that motive could be. He still didn't know what magical object that Malice went through all this trouble to get was. Or whether it was truly worth the amount of effort to get it.

And Rotiart . . .

Rotiart . . .

He should have never been there. Cloak should have said no. He should have refused Rotiart's inclusion. He knew that it was going to be a bloodsport. He knew this. Rotiart's death . . . his blood . . . they were on his gloved hands. It was squarely his fault and no one else's. He should have pulled him out of the arena. He should have ignored the boy's protests. He should have . . .

He should have done a number of things. Should have. But didn't.

He knew he should have done something . . . he knew it . . .

***

This had better been worth the trouble. It had been a hassle to collect the necessary spells and ingredients (for both the spells and the control collars) from Melinoë. It had been arduous collecting the Wesen and putting on the control collars. Organizing the bloodsport arena, where she had to provide most of the corpses herself.

She pulled out the magical object out of an inner pocket of her cloak, the very same object generated from the sacrifice of flesh, bone, and blood. Although she seemed to lack the uneasiness thst Realm Walkers felt at seeing corpses. Realm Walkers do not leave corpses, nor can Realm Walker zombies exist because of this little fact.

The spell wasn't to ressurect anyone, though. She had no one she wanted to resurrect. She had no siblings. She had no friends. And she killed both of her parents in cold ichor. She only thought of herself. She held no love for Ab, for Rumor, for Ravage, for Mega-Maul. She didn't care about any of them. She didn't even understand the concept of love or loyalty. She only saw others as tools to be manipulated or used.

She looked at the object again. It was a card, like a trading card used children's card games. It was colored darkly on both sides. Its function was a mystery to all but Malice. She grinned as it gave off a purplish-black glow. . . .

***

A groan. Followed by a moan. Swirling vision made the room look like a tie-dyed shirt . . . that was in constant, perpetual motion. The dizziness and fuzziness were overwhelming.

"Where . . ." said a confused, disoriented voice. "Where . . . am I?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 04, 2015, 10:51:28 AM

GAAAAH CLIFFHANGER

But man, the feels. Very well written chapter, Cloaky. :D I say though, shouldn't someone have to find where Rotiart came from, even if they didn't know about his difficult home life, just to give the word? Could be a subplot of sorts. Just an idea.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2015, 01:28:00 PM

Hmmmmm . . . intriguing . . . interesting . . . +1, Saffa . . . hmmmm . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 04, 2015, 02:29:58 PM

Happy to supply. ;) And here's the PDF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2015, 03:46:58 PM

Thanks. As always, Saffa, it is appreciated.

But do you know what it is time for? The last book of Year 1! I . . . I hope that I can finish it.

New chapter.

BOOK C:
LOOP-DE-LOOP
CHAPTER ONE:
New Year's Eve

It was the last day of the year. The Dweller year, anyway. It was more like the end of a month for Realm Walkers. They hadn't even reached the end of the first quarter of a Nexus year (which is about two and half Dweller Earth years, approximately). So, Cloak was just about the only RAFian not celebrating.

The others were looking forward to firing fireworks at the stroke of midnight. Cloak wasn't particularly enthused. He never liked fireworks, to be honest. Too loud and too flashy for his tastes. But he understood why they desperately needed this, considering the bloodsport's events. And Rotiart's death. They needed some time to be jolly, jovial and roll about in frivolity.

But Cloak had never allowed himself to be that happy. In his experience, anytime he experienced such joy, the powers-that-be very frequently saw him cut down and that happiness taken from him, because apparently he wasn't permitted to be happy. He was to be scapegoat of everyone in existence, apparently.

But he decided that Rotiart's family needed to know. He knew practically nothing of Rotiart's past, though. Nor did he know his real name, assuming "Rotiart" was a chosen name very much like "Cloak" was for him. But, still, an effort had to be made. His next of kin had to be notified. . . .

He went to the archive, and looked up Rotiart's file. He had been a RAFian for scarcely two and a half years, roughly. He was sixteen . . . at his time of death. Beyond that he really didn't have much to go on.

He wasn't here when Rotiart first came to the forum. That was back when his mother was actively trying to prevent him from going to RAF . . . back when he called her ramshackled dilapidated mess of a house "home". Cloak shook his head violently. He didn't like remembering those times. They were so painful . . . so much so that he prayed every night that he would not wake up the following morning. Back when he thought death would provide him the only freedom.

Shadow and Faith were the only lights in this darkness, beacons of hope from the swampy mire of depression and self-loathing. A quagmire he wished not to ever revisit.

But he discovered a video of his arrival . . .

***

It was a cold November night. The sky was dark with clouds heavy with rain or snow -- the weather hadn't decided which yet.

The lone figure of Rotiart, then fourteen, was rushing toward the forum. He wore a green hoodie, dark blue jeans, monochromatic hi-tops, and a simple leather belt. All his clothes showed a great deal of wear and tear, but he did not care. He had no bags or bookbags or suitcases or anything with him. But he didn't seem to care. It was clear that he was running away from something.

He entered the grounds, as big, fat drops of cold rain began to pummel the ground, quickly snatched up by Richard. He asked him his name, and he gave them "Rotiart", apparently unaware that it was "traitor" backwards.

***

Cloak had to play the video again, scrutinizing it very closely. Trying to determine the direction that he came from, and taking note that Rotiart seemed to have be hurt in some benign way.

Cloak felt a stab of guilt. He was never exactly easy on the kid. And he might have been abused just as much as he was. Granted, he was never physically abused -- but he was intellectually, psychologically, and verbally abused. By his own mother. The guilt increased as he realized that he should have recognized the signs.

But if he ever did, he chose to ignore them. Rotiart's sheer overconfidence and grating arrogance made it easy. However, like all things, there was probably a reason behind it, one Cloak was not privy to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 04, 2015, 09:58:28 PM

So, I got kinda bored and wrote this up. It was done in the span of about 15 minutes so it's kinda (read: really) crap, but meh.

[spoiler]Here from Cloak's hilltop view,
Here from the wild dream come true.
Party as RAFians, we do,
With karma and posts never few.

But I, I would wish it all away.
If I thought we could have you one more day.

When Malice and hers had us down,
Combatting the Wessen she found.
Arrogant all the way down,
Up to our necks soon to drown.

But you changed that all for us,
Lifted us up, turned us 'round.

So I . . .

I would,
And I would,
If I could,
Wish it away,
Wish it all away.
Wanna wish it all away,
No pressure could hold, sway,
Or justify our actions toward you, Rotiart.

So if I could I'd wish it all away,
If I knew that all this would take you away.
You, the scapegoat, bastard, yet our martyr,
Just trying to give you one more day.

Damn my mind!
Damn my mind if it should compromise a spirit,
Thoughts and words should drive you down,
You might be better gone.

Shine on forever,
Shine on misunderstood son.
Shine on upon the RAFians,
Shine until we all become one.

Divided, we're withering away.
Without you, we're withering away,
Shine on upon the many, light our way,
Misunderstood son.

Sing in union.

Speak in union,
So, as we survive,
Another day and season,
Silence, Malice,
Save your poison,
Malice, silence,
Stay out of our way![/spoiler]

Source song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF0lVn3n12I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF0lVn3n12I)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Quaf on October 05, 2015, 02:23:01 AM

That sounds so cool gh!

Onto Book C already. Jeez.
Hypothetically, I could catch up in 9 days seeing how it took me 1 day to read the first ten books, but let's be real, I don't have enough commitment for that. I am reading them, slowly but surely. One day I'll catch up.

One day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 05, 2015, 02:50:48 AM

Oh man, I completely forgot to send you the books. I am so sorry, I got caught up in exam week and just forgot. :/ You'll have to keep reminding me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Quaf on October 05, 2015, 04:56:06 AM

Oh no it's  fine, I can easily just read them here. I think exams are more important :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2015, 06:25:38 AM

Quote from: Quaf on October 05, 2015, 02:23:01 AM

That sounds so cool gh!

Onto Book C already. Jeez.
Hypothetically, I could catch up in 9 days seeing how it took me 1 day to read the first ten books, but let's be real, I don't have enough commitment for that. I am reading them, slowly but surely. One day I'll catch up.

One day.

Yeah, 'bout that . . . the chapters of later books tend to be rather longer (well, most times, I think) and not all of them are just twenty chapters long (which for some reason puts me to thinking about Weird Al's "This Song is Six Words Long").

Just a quick warning.

And that's 100 out of 808 (yeah, I haven't posted the last two book ideas yet). So that's essentially nine years the series spans thus far.

And now I'm rambling and haven't posted the daily chapter yet. . . .

New, shortish chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
She Plays a Magic Card

"This had better work," Malice said, holding the card.

The only reason why she was hesitating, though she would never admit it,  she was afraid. Afraid that she went through all this trouble, and this magic would not live up to its promises. She went through so much trouble, endured so much tedium.

It had to work. It had better work.

There could be no more hesitation now. She had to enact her latest scheme. She could not put it off anymore, it would either work or it won't. It was as simple and clear cut as that. She held the card aloft, not unlike the any of the duelist in the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise, who are summoning a powerful monster, or their signature one.

"Tempus loramenta." she spoke.

Nothing happened.

"Tempus loramenta!"

Wind started to pick up as the card gave a puny glow.

"Tempest loramenta!!"

Wind strength increase marginally as the card gave off a weak purplish-black aura.

"Tempest loramenta!!!"

The wind strength increased more, as the card gave off a moderate purplish-black aura. The wind began to swirl around the card almost half-heartedly.

"TEMPEST LORAMENTA!!!"

The wind strength picked up in speed and strength again, as the card's glow became even more stronger.

"TEMPEST LORAMENTA!!! TEMPEST LORAMENTA!!!"

The wind spiraled around the card, and the card's glow increased in its intensity. This went on for a few more minutes with the wind's strength and speed increasing porportionally to the card's increasing luminescence.

Malice was invoking some powerful magic for some purpose known only to her, for some reasoning known only to her. Chances are she went through this kind of trouble because she was expecting some big reward.

Whatever the function of the magical card, it seemed to be taking effect as darkness started to envelope them all. As the magical card seemed to muffle and smother them all . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 05, 2015, 08:24:02 AM

Was Tempus supposed to change spelling in the middle there? I'll have to edit it for the PDF accordingly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2015, 09:29:02 AM

Actually, it wasn't, it was a CFRSU.

. . .

"CloakFigure Royally Screws Up".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 05, 2015, 12:05:20 PM

It is now my headcanon that Malice has a dragon fetish and sounds like Brock from Pokemon. Also she has a lot of money.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2015, 12:49:26 PM

Nah.

She doesn't play card games, she prefers to play mind games, actually.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Richard's Analysis

Cloak decided that he had to go and ask Richard about that night. Qnd he had thought it best to do it before the sun went down. As it was a little past noon, he had little worry of that.

"Richard," Cloak said, as Richard was at his thread. "I need a word."

He nodded and invited Cloak into his thread, something no many people get to see. Not because Richard forebade it but because no one ever thought to ask. Cloak was, despite himself, surprised at the thread's interior.

He was expecting it to look more ostentatious and opulent than it was. It wasn't barren, but nor was it cluttered, like Cloak's thread could be at times. Especially when he was in one of his moods. Every was very fashionable, in a timeless way, and his room was actually decorated very economically, nothing really extraneous.

"What did you want to know, Cloak?" Richard said. Then, after a moment's hesitation, the founder of RAF asked, "Is this about Rotiart?"

"Yes," Cloak said, with earnest honesty. "We need to find his next of kin to inform him of his . . . his demise."

Richard sighed, "Don't think that I haven't thought about it, Cloak. But I don't know any more than you do on that. The night that he came to RAF, he said nothing about where he came from. He would fall into silence or change the subject whenever it was approached."

Cloak said nothing, taking a moment to digest this news. He knew that Richard wouldn't outright lie to him. It wasn't the type of guy he was. Though he was obviously a guy who has seen a lot, some of which that he'd rather not see.

"But," Richard said, breaking the silence that had fallen, "I could tell right away that he was running away from something. The way he was terrified to return from wherever he hailed from, his refusal of disclosing even the most basic facts about himself -- even I am not sure of his real name, as I am inclined to doubt that Rotiart was his true name. But seeing him that night . . . I could tell. I know it sounds strange, but his geetures, his mannerisms, the way he kept curling into a fetal position . . . it was an assumption, to be sure. But it seemed so obvious . . . I could tell it was a bad situation he had escaped from."

"Bad situation?" Cloak said, a bit sharper than he intended. "Bad how?"

"I think," Richard said, as if he was picking his phrasing carefully, "that you, of all people, know how Rotiart's situation was bad."

"What are you saying?"

Richard said nothing, knowing Cloak knew precisely what he was saying. But Cloak wasn't ready to believe it. In the end, Richard conceded to explain.

"Possibly the chief reason that he never got Banned, after all those antics," Richard said. "Perhaps I was soft, perhaps I was naïve, perhaps it was special treatment. But I could tell . . ."

"You could tell what?" Cloak prompted.

"I could tell," Richard said, with some sadness, "that Rotiart was abused."

"What?"

"I have no substantive proof," Richard said, "only circumstantial evidence."

Cloak fell into a guilty silence.

"But I have reason to believe that it was a combination of neglect and abuse of the physical, intellectual, psychological, and verbal variety." Richard said, somberly. "I admit my suspicions of this are one reason I was reticent to reveal this, one reason that I was hesitant to Ban him."

Richard heaved a sigh that sounded lke he held it for years.

"Yes, I'm aware that he was downright intolerable at times," he continued. "Arrogant and full of himself. But this one instnace, in this one instance, I saw him at his most vulnerable. He wasn't any of those things, not really. He was a good person -- one who felt that he had to cover up his own feelings of inadequacy with over-the-top bravado, and chose to hide his anxiety under an all-too- convincing veneer of sloth."

Claok said nothing. He never really thought of Rotiart as a smart-mouthed, little prick. But, even when people seem one-dimensional to us, there are usually layers that go unseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 05, 2015, 09:33:08 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 05, 2015, 12:49:26 PM

Claok said nothing. He never really thought of Rotiart as a smart-mouthed, little prick. But, even when people seem one-dimensional to us, there are usually layers that go unseen.

Gonna be honest, that one . . . kinda hit me right in the gut. Amazing chapter, Cloaky. I think I kinda prefer the character pieces like this over the bigger action moments. Those are good as well, but damn man, I think this was some of the best writing I've seen from you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 05, 2015, 11:38:53 PM

What he said. Damn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2015, 03:07:32 PM

Thanks. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Temporal Anomaly

Cloak left Richard's thread, mind full of the information. Rotiart was just like him, in the fact both of them were abused. But there was still so much unknown, and, despite himself, Cloak was curious. It's a bit of a hazard with being a cat, anthropomorphized or not.

He spent a good number of hours pondering this, and decided that the right thing still needed to be done. Just because Rotiart was as abused as Cloak was did not mean his entire family were perpetrators. Perhaps just a single parent was the source, as it was for Cloak.

He informed the others of his intentions.

"But Cloak you have no idea where to start," GH pointed out.

"I have a general direction of where Rotiart came from." Cloak said.

"That's not really much of a lead," Abby reminded hesitantly.

"No, it is not. That much I'll admit," Cloak said. "It may seem impossible, but it is something that must be done. Would you like it if your loved ones did not know of your death?"

"You're make a lot of assumptions, though, Cloak." Saffa said, pragmatically. "You don't know if he even has any living relatives, or if . . ."

Saffa trailed off, but Cloak finished her thought for her, "Or if they even would care. Yes, I know. But we have a duty, a responsibility, to do right by him. Considering how . . . you know."

"Yes," Saffa agreed, "but there's so much unknown. It won't be easy Cloak."

"You could help," Cloak said. Saffa looked hesitant . . . she, like many of the others, was looking forward to the fireworks and the festive celebrations to follow the coming of a new Dweller year. Cloak didn't feel the obligation to the celebrations, as it still only felt like a month to him, as it take another nine years or so, Dweller time, for the Nexus to one year. Cloak decided to take the pressure off. "But you can help me tomorrow. You and the others need the frivolity of this holiday of yours. I don't. I'll start investigating this foday, and you can join me the following day. Don't worry about -- and, more importantly, don't feel obligated. This is my 'white whale', so to speak, for the time being. Don't worry, though -- I'll keep my communicator on me."

With that, Cloak left RAF. The sun was still out, but it was late afternoon. Evening and dusk would fall just outside of an hour. Cloak wasn't concerned. He had the night vision of a tiger, not to mention Earthsight. Darkness was no barrier to him.

He stalked into the wilderness that separated RAF from the city, reasoning that Rotiart's home must be there. He had to reorient himself, as the location of the forum had changed since the time that Rotiart had first came to RAF, due to those pestilential paparazzi. Cloak was so intent on his goal he had lost track of time.

When he came out of this hyperfocused state, he realized that it was dark out, stars twinkling cheekily in the night sky. Cloak couldn't help but crack a smile, when considered that the Nexus never had anything like this. Everything in the Nexus was bioluminescent, so nighttime, darkness, they weren't really fears that the Realm Walkers had.

But, no, he scolded himself. He mustn't get sidetracked. He had to . . . suddenly doubts began to creep into his resolve. He felt sick. Physically nauseated.

Then he looked around his environment again, noticjng several things that were off. The sky, which had been clear and cloudless before, was now clouded over, with bits of starlight poking through here and there. It was impossible. It was cloudless a second before. Clouds cannot move that fast -- unless there was a force manipulating them.

But that wasn't all. The ground was soggy as opposed to slightly damp like was just a moment before. Cloak would be able to tell if the water was instantly siphoned out -- but it would take far longer than a second to do as such!

Cloak shook his head. He'd figure it out later. He had a mission to accomplish first.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2015, 08:31:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Time Lord Assessment

"Aquilai, what are you doing?" Aila asked.

"What do you think I'm doing, Ms. Frizzle?" he replied, swiftly.

"Don't call me that," Aila said, severely. "You know what I think of that theory.*"

"Can't you take a joke?"

"Yes," Aila said, "when it's funny."

Aquilai did not answer but continued to tinker on the underside of a console inside his beloved TARDIS. He was only doing maintenance and cleaning, because fortunately it did not require repair. His TARDIS was his baby, like Parker's armor was to Parker (but don't tell Helen that -- she already knows) and like Yarin's ship was to the Nyac. Aquilai cherished it as much as a man loves an expensive sports car. When he wasn't on a mission, training, or traveling through time, he is usually doing this.

"Aquilai." Aila said sharply.

"What?!" Aquilai said, just as sharply, with a touche of irritation.

"Do you think this is really --"

"I'm not going to the fireworks." Aquilai said, bluntly.

Aila had no romantic interest in Aquilai, seeing him as nothing more than a brother. A brother of the same species. But still, the abject rejection stung. She knew that Aquilai did not mean to hurt her feelings, but the blunt crassness of his tone is what stung.

"Look, Aila," said Aquilai, moving out from underneath the console and sitting up, "it's nothing against you, but I could never really find fireworks all that enjoyable. In my view, you seen them once, you've seen them all. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, but it's simply how I --"

He was interrupted when the TARDIS rocked a bit. It almost felt as if they were traveling backward. In a chronal sense. Both Time Lords knew that.

"Did you --"

"No," Aquilai said, at once. "I didn't activate the chronal travel function. That . . . that was . . . well, I dunno what that was!"

"Could it be a time loop?" Aila said. "I heard of them before . . ."

"God, I hope not." Aquilai replied heavily. "I wouldn't know the first thing to do to break it."

---

* Channel Frederator theory.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 06, 2015, 11:31:49 PM

*Let's Do The Time Warp Again plays*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2015, 05:46:38 AM

Dunno that song, I'm afraid.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Time Ignored

Cloak continued upon his self-imposed mission. If you asked him a month ago -- Walker or Dweller month, it doesn't matter -- that he would be so arduously looking for Rotiart's next of kin, Cloak knew he wouldn't have believed you. But it had to be done. This was the first actual death in RAF -- the time Ab took over the forum nearly a year ago and almost killed him didn't count. Didn't count because he almost killed him. Almost.

Cloak found himself in the business area of the city, and the streets were more or less deserted. Cloak was not surprised. It was late -- or early, as the case may be. The only people that were up this early were people who work early or the people who just want to run red lights with near impunity. Or both.

Cloak had stuck to the ambient shadows, by instinct, if nothing else. He stalked around, astonded how the city bounced back from the last time that it was in turmoil and chaotic. Cloak considered just how much of a target this place was. He couldn't help but wonder why people kept coming here to stay, to live. It had to have been like Gotham without Batman.

Perhaps the rent was dirt cheap, Cloak found himself musing. Perhaps they had jobs that they couldn't leave, either because of lack of opportunity or because of duty and loyalty to an employer. There weren't too many open jobs in the country -- even in this city, considering the number of weirdos, freaks, and monsters that ravage it occasionally.

Anyway, Cloak continued to sneak and stalk his way towards the residential district, heading toward the suburbs. He still remained oblivious to the temporal loop that happened. He had dismissed his nauseated sensation hours ago as nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. He didn't even think about it in any more depth than that.

He reasoned the reason that drove him so arduously to do something about this, to do right by someone he used not care a lick about.  It was guilt. Well, mostly guilt. His integrity also drove this, that motivated this Realm Walker. But his guilt was prominent. Odd how if Rotiart had survived, he would not feel the least bit guilty. But with his death, Cloak was driven to learn more about the boy, to understand him. A motivation he would not have if Rotiart was alive.

There was a strange contradiction in that.

Cloak stood upon a street light, looking around, wondering which house would have been likely to have housed Rotiart and his family. All these suburb houses looked alike. The same yellow paint, the same silver trim, all two stories tall. The only way to tell the difference was the black numbers on the left side of the of the front door. Each house had a single-car garage.

Then there was the outskirts, the outlying buildings that weren't kept up nearly as well as the houses in suburbs. Perhaps Rotiart lived over there. The only way to know for sure was basically go door-to-door and ask. Cloak was glad that he had the foresight to have brougt a picture of Rotiart.

He leaped down, as the first rays of dawn began to creep over the snow-laden ground. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2015, 06:05:00 AM

Still no word . . . fortunately I saved up 4 months worth of rent in the bank for an event such as this. Sometimes, being frugal is a very good thing.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Something Wrong Here

"Aquilai, do you know where Cloak got to?" Saffa asked.

"He went to notify Rotiart's next of kin," Aila said, perplexed. "You said he told you last night."

"No, I didn't." Saffa protested. "He was in his thread last night, brooding or sulking or whatever."

"No, he did it, choosing not to go to the fireworks." Aquilai said, wiping his hands on a gray cloth.

"Um, hello? That's not until tonight?" Saffa said.

"What? No, it's not. That was yesterday!"

"I'm telling you that it's not until tonight!"

"No, it was --"

"Enough, Aila," Aquilai said, quickly diffusing the situation. "It's clear that it's December 31st again."

"What do mean by 'again'?" Saffa asked.

"It is obvious now that we are currently in a temporal loop, like a record that skips on the player. Or some other analogy that I can't think of at the moment."

"Wait, temporal loop?" Saffa asked.

"Yes." Aquilai assessed quickly. "Looks like this day, December 31st, will repeat over and over again until whatever mechanism is forcing this is stopped or destroyed."

"You can't be serious," Saffa said, skeptically.

"So says the human with the ability to become an alien super-pedator at will," Aquilai pointed out. "Who is addressing two beings with dual hearts and machines that can travel through time, and can shield the inhabitants from temporal effects. Inquiring about an energy being in a cloak who can control the elements with his mind and will."

"Okay! Okay! Point made." Saffa capitulated. "But what can we do about it?"

"Well, clearly Cloak is somehow immune to the temporal replays," Aila said, "probably due to his Realm Walker physiology, but we are not. We are subject to it. Unless --"

"Unless we are shielded by a TARDIS," Aquilai supplied. "Cloak clearly isn't 'reset' upon the temporal reversal like everyone else, either."

"Reset? What do you mean -- oh." Saffa said. "So, every night, at 11:30, we have to file into your TARDIS?"

"It's not big enough to fit the whole forum!" the Time Lord protested.

"But enough to fit you, me, Aila, and possibly two or three more RAFians, yes?" she asked, rather impishly. "Hmmm?"

"Yes, but what are you getting at?"

"You honestly don't see what she's getting at, Aquilai?" Aila said. Then she shared a look with Saffa that clearly said, Boys are so hopeless.

"Hey! I saw that!" Aquilai said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 08, 2015, 06:10:58 AM

So it's not bigger on the inside? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2015, 06:17:59 AM

It is. But room for like 4,000 RAFians? Besides, Aquilai would probably have an anxiety attack if it became overcrowded. Then there is the the problem of getting thsm inside in a timely manner, and keeping track of them all . . . or maybe everything above is nothingg more than a humongous cop-out on my part. ;)

:edit: Oh, correction: 485 RAFians (486, counting Helen). The rest were lurkers. My bad. Lurkers don't exist, not really, in this continuity. And some of the RAFians, like Ken and Anna and Kelran, aren't present (there's a reason why). But still, that's a substantial number.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 08, 2015, 07:20:44 AM

Damn, you did the math. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2015, 09:32:36 PM

Eh, all I did was go to the member list, sorted it by the rank, found the boundary between the real RAFians and the lurkers, and did simple math with the number said atop the list.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Forgotten Picture

Cloak stuck to the shadows, as the hesitant light of dawn seemed to only sluggishly bring itself around. Cloak quickly realized that he could easily be mistaken for a monster if remained as is. Especially if some the residents in this suburb were Knights, or Knight sympathizers.

Fortunately, he had anticipated something like this may have come up, and he bought an ID mask. When he put it on, it projected an image of a young human male, with short black hair, a day-old beard, glasses with silver frames that were black on the ear pieces, a dark gray shirt with black cuffs, thick black jacket, well-worn blue jeans, and white sneakers with black trim and yellow highlights. The ID mask somehow was able to mask Cloak's eight-foot-tall frame into a five-foot, ten-inch one.

He looked human now, but that did not help the fact that he was loitering around rather aimlessly. Any one of these houses could be the one that housed Rotiart's family . . . although, in Cloak's gut, it wasn't really all that likely. These homes were a little too nice and comfortable. Somehow Cloak did not think that Rotiart would have lived in such moderate opulence. It didn't look like the types of homes that would harbor . . .

But that's thing, wasn't it? It didn't matter how nice or shabby the homes looked on the outside. Thst didn't mean that abuse didn't take place. He should have known that firsthand. Though his mother's house eventually fell into disrepair and an outright dilapidated state, it looked just fine when he was a child, though it was out of the way. . . .

Cloak walked down the sidewalk, and the neighbors just assumed that he was a guy going to work -- this surprised Cloak a bit. What, with all the fearmongering a certain "news" channels does. But, no, the residents here had far more prescient concerns -- getting to work on a timely basis, doing errands, and the like. The children were determined to fill the day with snowball fights and sledding and all the other childish shenanigans that came with winter before they had to go back to the drudgery of school and schoolwork in five or six days' time.

Cloak thought that he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth --a very odd Dweller saying, by the way -- and he should continue to look for the house, for Rotiart's family. It was a duty, cinsidering the manner in which their son, brother, cousin, nephew, grandson died. Cloak was once more reminded just how little they knew about Rotiart. Sure, he came off as a selfish, immate brat -- but he was covering for his lack of confidence with excess bravado. This was rather novel to Cloak, who covered up his self-consciousness about his own inaccuracy by pulling inward, internalizing and burying his emotions and feelings. And this was all subconscious.

Huh? What was that?

He spied some piece of paper lost in a snow bank. He pulled it out and discovered that it was a photograph. Something like a Polaroid. On it, was a severe, thick-bodied man with a week-old beard in a vaguely militaristic outfit -- possibly fake and fabricated and unofficial -- holding a dark-haired toddler. The boy looked not quite unhappy, but definitely not a giggly, silly child that he should be.

It was clear that this child was Rotiart, about fourteen or fifteen years ago. The man was clearly his father or uncle or older brother. Clearly his guardian in some capacity. And he didn't seem too pleased by it.

Cloaked up, instantly, suspicious. This could be a planted photo. It showed no signs of being exposed to the elements. The colors and image were still clear and sharp. There seemed to be only the most minute wear and tear on it. It was clearly old, but not that old.

But . . . still . . . it was a lead . . . he would have to be careful.

He looked around again, seeing that he was at the most southwestern point of the suburbs, and he wondered if he should go door-to-door with the picture. All he could hope for was that this wasn't just a false lead. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 09, 2015, 04:46:15 AM

IT'S A TRAP!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2015, 04:56:51 AM

Is it now?

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Time Roulette, Go!

"Hey, let go!" GH complained as she practically dragged him, Abby, and Underseen to Aquilai's TARDIS.

"I wanted to see the fireworks!" Abby protested. "Gaz and Parker worked very hard to set it all up."

"What's so important?" Underseen asked, trotting behind them.

"Just get in," Saffa said, brashly, "explanations will come in there."

Saffa wouldn't elaborate until all of them were inside, and the door was shut.

"Wow," Underseen said. "It's bigger in here than on the outside."

"That what she s--" GH began, before Saffa muffled him with her hand.

"Uh-uh. None of that," she scolded.

"None of what?" Underseen asked.

"Never mind," GH said, a bit waspishly. "Why did you drag us in here? And do all TARDISes have throwrugs there?"

"That gaudy thing wasn't my idea," Aquilai said.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to add a little color to this drab interior." Aila sniffed.

"By mugging a clown?" Aquilai offered, dryly sardonic.

"Well!"

"Enough!" Saffa said. "I promised explanations. The reason I dragged you here because we're under a time loop."

"Seriously?" GH said skeptically.

"This RAF, remember, GH," Abby said. "This kind of thing? Just an average Tuesday night."

"But it's not Tuesday," Underseen said.

"It's a figure of speech, Underseen!"

"Uh . . . I knew that," he replied.

"How is that possible?" Underseen asked.

"I do not know," Aquilai said. "It would have to take an extraordinary amount of power to reverse time, even as brief as a day. But not strong enough to reverse the flow of time completely."

"Is that possible? To completely reverse the flow of time, I mean." Abby said.

"Theoretically," Aila answered. "But that would take an immense amount of power, like a travelling TARDIS blowing up or something."

At the mention of the TARDIS, it began to rock a little before for settling down.

"That wouldn't be sufficient," Aquilai said. "Maybe if like six did in rapid succession. But that's speculation."

"Are you trying to start something, Aquilai?" Aila inquired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2015, 09:48:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Has Anybody Seen This Guy?

It was getting late, and Cloak was getting tired. He had essentially stayed up all night the night before. He retreated to the nearby forest, and terrakinetically carved out a cave in which to slumber the night away.

He also stowed his ID mask away, inside an interior pocket in his cloak. Naturally, this cause the hologram projected around himself to dissipate and vanish. Anyone who managed to look over, and come in beyond the tree line, would see Cloak as a Realm Walker.

He wasn't foolish enough to not think that he would be undisturbed had he left the "mouth" of the cave open, so he shut it. It would had entombed him had he not been a terrakinectic or a Realm Walker, and he wouldn't have been nearly as comfortable. He fell asleep rather quickly, proving that he was far more tired than he thought.

***

Cloak dreamed that Rotiart, as a toddler, as a young child, running around these suburbs. He seemed to be exceedingly reluctant to return home, which appeared to be in the direction of the outskirts.

It would make sense. Those homes tended to be more disrepair than those of the suburbs, and, thus, a more difficult life for Rotiart. Could this dream also be telling him that Rotiart was a frequent runaway? If he was as abused as Cloak himself, the Realm Walker wouldn't -- and couldn't -- blame him. There numerous times when Cloak himself had seriously considered running away, of escaping. But he was afraid of never seeing Shadow again.

That was the reason that he stuck it out. The reason he put up with all his mother's crap, all her narcissistic tendencies, all her neglect.

Perhaps Rotiart did not have such a person in his life to stick it out for. First Light . . . if that was the case . . . it was remarkable that he didn't just take his own life. It was horrible, as Cloak knew firsthand . . .

***

When he awoke the next morning and left his makeshift shelter, he reverted the area back to the way it was before he came there. Then he deftly put back on his ID mask, so no one mistakes him for a dementor or something.

He was being rather narrow-minded, and did not notice how the residents were repeating every movement, every gesture, every conversation, every argument exactly with the ones made yesterday. Cloak was too hyperfocused.

In his mind, as he went door-to-door, showing the residents the picture, and asking about the man in the picture, he sang:

I've got to get it together,
Got to use my minds.
I've got to find this guy.
And there's not much time.
I've got to travel light,
And go place to place.
Askin' everybody,
"Have you seen this face?"
Has anybody seen this guy?
Seen him at all?
Has anybody seen this guy?
He's about this tall.
Sorry to say, but the boy has died.
Has anybody seen this guy?
Here's a little picture,
For a quick reminder,
I'm hopin' you might have a clue.
Does he look a little bit like someone you know?
Does he look a little bit like you?
Has anybody seen this guy?
Has anybody seen him at all?
Has anybody seen this guy?
He's about this tall.
Sorry to say, but the boy has died.
Has anybody seen this guy?
Has anybody seen this guy?

But no one had seen him. No one.

Then again, a lot of things could happen in fourteen or fifteen years. He certainly not the same person he was fourteen or fifteen years ago (Nexus years, of course). And a lot has happened since then.

Cloak ****ed his head towards the outskirts of the suburbs. There were houses there, though further spread out. Perhaps there . . . perhaps there . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 09, 2015, 10:44:21 AM

Has Cloak not noticed the temporal loop yet?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 09, 2015, 12:05:33 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 09, 2015, 04:56:51 AM

"That what she s--" GH began, before Saffa muffled him with her hand.

Wait... Is this implying that Memoirs gh is straight? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 09, 2015, 12:38:20 PM

Nah, he might just mean that as a jab at Underseen. Who is straight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2015, 01:39:55 PM

*with mock indignation*

Hey, everyone else makes a "that's what she said" joke. And I can't?

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
This is Going to Get Monotonous . . .

"Um, we are going to, uh, actually do, uh, something to stop this time loop, right? Uh, rather than sit here, and, uh, do nothing?" GH said.

"Okay, GH, what was that?" Saffa said, akimbo (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/akimbo), head ****ed as if GH was a strange species of animal that she hadn't quite figured out yet.

"A Jeff Goldblum impression," GH said, being perfectly honest.

"Correction: a bad Jeff Goldblum impression," Saffa teased.

"Why Jeff Goldblum?" Abby asked.

"It was a line paraphrased from 'Jurassic Park', okay?" GH said, nettled. "The point that I was trying to make was what exactly are we going to do about this temporal loop? We've just been sitting in here and doing nothing for hours!"

"So, what's your brilliant idea, then?" Aila countered.

GH fell silent.

"That's what I thought." she replied smugly.

"The point still stands." Saffa said. "How do we stop this temporal loop."

"I don't know." Aquilai said.

"What?" Abby said sharply. "I thought two you know all about all this time-related crud!"

"I'm a Time Lord, not a chronokinetic!" Aquilai protested.

"Even our knowledge is limited!" Aila protested as well.

"Can't you track the source of the temporal loop? It would have to be awfully powerful to rewind time every day twenty-four hours. That's not something even broken could accomplish on his own, I don't think." Underseen pondered.

Aquilai shrugged, "I suppose that it's possible. I have never tried before . . ."

He swiftly frossed to the console, and began to type commands in. He wasn't too expectant that it would work, to be honest. But he was pleasantly surprised to discover a signal of a strong temporal energy signature.

"There," he said.

Saffa peered around his shoulder. "That's a good distance away. Wait -- is that the warehouse district?"

"I believe so."

"Why am I not surprised?" Saffa asked rhetorically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 10, 2015, 07:53:01 AM

. . . Checkmate.

Ok that's Independence Day not Jurassic Park. Whatever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2015, 11:01:37 AM

Eh, it could've been worse. You could have shouted at someone to get up on the hydra's back. Over and over and over again;) Okay, that was Kingdom Hearts 2, and had nothing to do with Jeff Goldblum.

Quote from: Saffa on October 09, 2015, 10:44:21 AM

Has Cloak not noticed the temporal loop yet?

And yes, Cloak has not noticed the temporal loop. It is a reference to me when I get hyperfocused on something. I tend to lose track of things around me, including time itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The House

He had reached the house. And Cloak could not believe his eyes. It was a mirror image. A mirror image with deliberate flaws. It was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, single-story house.

The hill leading to the house sloped upward, instead of down. The dirt driveway sloped upward at the left and the righthand side of the loop was eroding away down the center. Trees grew in the middle of the loop, grew wild and untamed. There were bushes and trees everywhere, all wild and untamed. The hill sloped downward from the right side of the eroding side of the loop, and there long grass the color of straw grew stubbornly there. The lawn hadn't been mowed for quite a while, as the most stubbornly hardy grass shoot poked up ibstinately from the snow.

Cloak hesistated. The house. The house . . . was like someone took a mirror to the house he had lived in with his mother and made a mirror image of it. The breakfast nook -- which Cloak never had understood the fascination with -- was on the left side of the house instead of the right. The front porch had a partially rusted swinging couch on it, with white paint flecking off. The porch was wooden boards and the porch was cluttered rather horribly with sun-dried, forgotten equipment with leaves in it. The porch was covered, so no snow covered the clutter. An electric lawn mower was here, its battery presumably stored within. The walls to the right was tiered like stairs. The roof looked leaky, just like his mother's house.

The wall to the left was encrusted with ivy and overgrown plants, one of the ivy vines reaching up to just barely not touching the roof. There was an above-ground pool with a metal siding painted blue. The water within the poorly-maintained, forgotten pool was like a frosen swamp. This was also the side with the fuse box, the flip-top cover of which would not shut more than forty-five degrees.

On the other side was a shed where forgotten detritus of the years was stored to rot into nothingness. The back porch was not covered, and it was covered with snow, and beneath that was a layer of leaves that remained caked to the wood. And all around were trees, surrounding this dilapidated homestead not unlike the hair upon a man's face.

It was eeriely similar*. . . .

One look at this house, and one may have assumed that it was abandoned. But there was a pristine truck colored red with bands of blue. With white stars inthe blue bands. The owner of the truck had also painted the rear window of his truck -- a practice the Realm Walker never understood, as it seemed rather dangerous to him --as well as a flag mounted in the back. It was not a good flag.**

But this truck permitted Cloak to know the kind of man that he would be dealing with. He wasn't expecting him to be really pleasant. But if he was the right guy . . . Cloak thought he had an idea of just why Rotiart left. He felt another pang of guilt of how he treated him, before he knocked on the door. . . .

---

*Yes, this is what the house looked like when I left.

**And this is completely fabricated. I honestly do not know someone with such a truck, but it would not surprise me if one such truck existed. And I think you know what the flag and symbolism was, though I was deliberately vague about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2015, 08:08:42 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Slowly, Now, Slowly

Aquilai managed to get a portable scanner that looked rather like the PK meter from the "Ghostbusters" franchise. Then he shooed everyone out of his TARDIS and he shrunk it down and returned it to its pendant form.

"Okay, we go this way." Aquilai said, and they took off in that direction.

"We know where the warehouse district is, though," Underseen pointed out, earnestly.

"Okay -- I'm taking bets now." GH said, guitar slung carefully over his shoulder.

"Bets?" Saffa asked. "Bets for what?"

"Who the mastermind behind this is," GH said, grinning broadly. "I got fifty on Malice."

"Oh, c'mon, GH," Saffa said, "we all know who's behind it!"

"Malice?"

"Who else?"

GH hesitated a bit, before saying, "Robocop?"

Saffa slapped him upside the head, playfully.

"Hey!" he complained.

"I have a question," Abby said.

"Shoot," Aila said.

"Bang." GH said.

"Hilarious," Aila said, dryly, then addressing Abby, "what is it?"

"When we get there," Abby said, as they stopped, "just how do we stop it?"

Silence.

"Okay . . . that answers that." she said, correctly interpreting the silence.

"We'll come up with something," Saffa said, confidently.

"Somehow,"  GH said, "that's not comforting."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 11, 2015, 04:18:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Confrontation

KNOCK. KNOCK.

Cloak not expected the response.

"WHO THE 'ELL CAN THAT BE?!"

Was this guy always this hostile? Cloak tried his best not to make snap judgements. But between his obviously gentlemanly behavior, the truck, that crude flag, and the dilapidated mess of a house . . . it was hard not to make one or two snap judgements.

"IT HAD BETTER BE GOOD!! At this hour . . ."

It was scarcely six o'clock in the evening. Cloak knew that his projected form from his ID mask made him look younger -- ah, younger respectively -- than his true age. He wondered if this would prove to be a problem. But, no matter.

Cloak noticed the door, painted brown, had a rather noticeable gap beneath it. He wondered idly if the interior was like his mothers house -- drafty with rear part of the house having the wall come away from the floor. There were times where Cloak had to sleep with two or three blankets atop himself just to stay warm, when he had to sleep in the living room due to his room being all moldy -- or the Realm Walker equivalent of mold, anyway. All in all, it was a horrible place to live -- not really fit for habitation, unless you happened to be a vermin-form Realm Walker.

The door swung open very easily, and Cloak saw the man from the photo, although with several noticeable differences, wearing a stained, white wife-beater and boxers with hearts on them. He was balding and he had let himself go, having put on a very noticeable amount of wait. He seemed to be missing a number of teeth, and wore a very haughty, very ugly look upon his face.

Cloak's original assessment was proving itself to be correct. This wasn't going to be pleasant.

"What the hell to you want?" he asked, aggressively.

"Do you have a son, sir?" Cloak said respectively.

"What business is it of yours?"

"Please, sir, answer the question." Cloak said, evenly.

"Fine. I had a brat of a kid, yes. But the lousy ingrate ran away years ago!" he snarled. His aggression was wholly unnecessary. But Cloak could tell why he was being so aggressive with a single sniff, detecting copious amount of alcohol on the man's breath. He could be drunk, but drunk enough to not remember this exchange? Who knew? He continued, "Lousy kid. Disrespectful, you know. Insubordinate. No respect for his father! Always talked back! God knows how many times that I had to get the belt out . . ."

Cloak suddenly remembered great big welts on Rotiart after he came to RAF in the video. They were half-healed, but they were still there. Cloak was finding himself not liking this man, but he hid his feelings, as he was expert in doing.

"His mother ran away and left me alone with the boy, you know," he said. Cloak wondered why he was being so open. Just how much alcohol did this guy have? "Just up and left me with him at the hospital! I never heard from that **** again. Ditched me, and left me with that disappointment son!"

"He's dead," Cloak said, tonelessly. It could have been seen as rather blunt, but such subtleties were lost on this man. And, if Cloak had expected an emotional response, like tears or grieving, he was sorely disappointed.

"Good!" he said, savagely. "Good! The world is better off without that S.O.B.! Throw the body to the wolves, I say!"

Cloak said nothing. He scolded himself for expecting any other reaction. He knew that this man was abusive. He knew what he was likely to find, but yet he altruistically was hoping for different.

Then the man hiccuped, turned around, and shut the door behind him. Cloak heard, felt, and Earthsighted a massive thud. He had passed out right behind the door. Cloak frowned with distaste as he took his leave.

That did not go as he expected, but he fulfilled his duty. He can return to RAF now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 11, 2015, 11:04:55 AM

Way too many people like that in my area. That depiction was all too accurate, Cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 11, 2015, 08:36:12 PM

Now you see why Rotiart was so eager to leave.

• Book DCCCVII: "Possessed By Feelings" -- The RAFians must deal with some specialized spirits.
• Book DCCCVIII: "The Shambling Dead" -- The RAFians must deal with "shamblers".

Hopefully, I'll be able to write these. My anxiety is mounting though . . . if this investigation doesn't get some resolution soon, the stress and anxiety is going to give me a heart attack.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Weakening

As it turned out, if this temporal loop was Malice's master plan, she seemed to bore of it rather quickly. She was going through book after book, searching for something known only to her. But all the books contain star charts and astronomy information.

She seemed to have discovered something hse found remarkably interesting, that she had put on the back burner for this whole temporal loop thing. The entire reason she did this, aside from the entertainment value, was so she would essentially have limitless time to think up some more schemes. She managed to get one RAFian killed, and she had decided that, although slow, it was probably best to do it that way. That was she could maximize the plan she could inflict.

It would serve them right. Punishment -- granted, it was entertaining punishment -- for daring to defy her. For daring not to capitulate. . . . Well, this was just an excuse, she recognized, an excuse for her to do all these heinous, malicious things. But she would never admit it aloud, unless she decided to allow herself to on a whim.

She could be very mercurial in values at the best of times.  She only did things when she wanted to, and she obviously had no qualms about killing others, even those of her own species.

And despite all this, she ignored that the magic card's power was stumbling. It was not as powerful as it was before the first temporal loop. With each loop its power seemed to drop marginally, so that it was not noticeable at first. But then again, Malice had seemed to lose interest even faster.

She became keenly interested one particular place on the star chart. The problem would be finding transportation to it, to this indolent Gossamer place. She ignored the weakening magic of the card, despite the cost it took to even get the blasted card to begin with. Callously forgetting the lives sacrificed to obtain such a card.

It just proved that Malice had only concerned herself with one life, and that was her own. All others were superfluous and extraneous to her. The way she saw it, they -- Dweller or Walker -- only existed for her to manipulate and use to her own ends and intentions. She had no qualms about even killing her own mother and father. She had no siblings, or she would probably have killed them as well.

She had grown so indifferent about the card, she decided that it was time to change "dens". She packed up the few things she considered important into a satchel that an Undetectable Extension Charm imbibed into it. She stowed it under cloak -- somehow. Then she left.

And she left the card behind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 12, 2015, 03:07:31 AM

Oh man, I hope all that **** gets cleared up fast. You really don't deserve it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2015, 06:45:33 AM

Story of my life. But thanks for your support, Saffa. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do genuinely appreciate it, and I mean that sincerely.

:edit: New book ideas. Essentially a mini-arc of sorts.

• Book DCCCIX: "The Reigning Raptors" -- A mysterious force sends Power Ranger-like shabtis after the RAFians.
• Book DCCCX: "As All Courage Dies . . ." -- The RAFians must face the saurian Animiraptor.
• Book DCCCXI: "As All Friendships Die . . ." -- The RAFians must face the lupine Amicitiaraptor.
• Book DCCCXII: "As All Sincerity Dies . . ." -- The RAFians must face the botanical Sinceritasraptor.
• Book DCCCXIII: "As All Knowledge Dies . . ." -- The RAFians must face the insectoid Scientiamraptor.
• Book DCCCXIV: "As All Reliability Dies . . ." -- The RAFians must face the pinniped Firmitateraptor.
• Book DCCCXV: "As All Love Dies . . ." -- The RAFians must face the avian Amorraptor.
• Book DCCCXVI: "As All Hope Dies -- Again . . ." -- The RAFians must face the rodentlike Spesraptor.
• Book DCCCXVII: "As All Goodness Dies . . ." -- The RAFians must face thd feline Bonumraptor.
• Book DCCCXVIII: "Duff, the Magic RAFian" -- Three bedtime stories that Duff (in-story Duff) does not approve of. (;))

All titles subject to change. Tell me what you think -- and I know some of them may seem like I'm rehashing old storylines, and hopefully I'm not. And hopefully I get to write them, or even outline them.

:edit:

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Parallels

Cloak had retreated back to the forest, where he allowed himself time to mull everything over, as he prepared to camp out for the night, though he probably needn't to do so. He probably could easily make it back to RAF, to his thread, from here.

He thought on how every came about. On just how much he had learned. He had no idea just how Rotiart's life paralleled his own so much. Granted, there were things that were dissimilar, but, surprisingly, they were in the minority.

One bad parent . . .

For him, it was his mother, who saw him as nothing but an extension of herself, as is common for narcissists, and she wondered why he was so serious all the time, ignoring just how hard she was on him (for she did not understand just how miserable he was -- he could talk to his aunt Wheeza, his sister Faith, or even Shadow about it, but not her). It was ironic that she could not understand the feelings of others, yet she was in the nursing profession.

For Rotiart, it was his father, his horribly racist and xenophobic father, who reveled in his ignorance. His father did not care for the feelings of his son, as a man who thought men were supposed to be insensitive and cruel, interpreting them as strong and manly.

An absent parent . . .

For him, his mother chased his father away and made him think that it was his fault, that his father did not want him. That he did not love him. But Cloak was not only his only son, but he was also his father's firstborn (Faith had a different father than he did). Granted, his father was not a perfect man, but he would admit to his imperfections and flaws and mistakes, something his mother was seemingly incapable of, due to her pride and hubris problems. Theirs, father and son, was not an easy one in any case because they were also very different in personally with his father being a bit more extroverted than his son. But he tried. He tried make his marriage to Ursa work. He tried to be a decent father to Cloak. It shamed the Realm Walker that it took him this long to realize it.

For Rotiart, he never knew his mother. He never had any influence from her. He didn't even have a letter. His mother did not even attempt to contact him, he was just a mistake to her. Something that should have never been. But because of her deep-seated beliefs, she did not abort him, but abandoned him at birth. It didn't make a lick of sense, but not everything does in this world.

But the most glaring difference was that Cloak's mother threw him out, and Rotiart ran away of his own accord.

Cloak, despite what he may say outwardly, was scared of leaving his mother's house, despite being treated like garbage and repeatedly wondering why he kept returning after his periodic sojourns to RAF. He was afraid of leaving all that he knew . . . afraid of never seeing Shadow or Faith again, even though they did not live in the house (it was a favorite threat of his mother's, and Cloak had reason to believe she used him in such a way with his father). Even mere hours afterwards, he wanted to go back . . . but he recognized it as the very same symptom that made abused women want to return to their abusers. It was a very difficult feeling to overcome.

Rotiart had the foresight to escape upon his own violation. Perhaps he had nothing tethering down as Cloak had. Perhaps he had just gone beyond the part of caring. He just knew that he had to get away . . . Cloak wish that he knew enough to do that. If he had . . . he would have saved himself a lot of heartache.

And of course, it was during these ruminations that he final recognized the temporal loops for what they were, deciding to actually pay attention to the wave of nausea that washed over him and dissipated alarmingly quick.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2015, 04:50:14 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Meeting Up

"I think its over," Aquilai said, opening his TARDIS door to the morning's early light. "Well, at least for now."

"Time's still looping, Aquilai," Saffa said. "It's not over."

"Uh, Saffa?" GH said.

"What?"

"Your hair," GH said, with a meek point.

"What about it?" Saffa replied, a little cranky. She had a severe case of bedhead, rather like Toph in the "Avatar: the Last Airbender" episode "Tales of Ba Sing Seh". GH was actually afraid to say more -- more out of decorum than anything else. So, he let it drop, as Aquilai opened the door to the outside.

"You know all this time loop crap is starting to get monotonous," Abby said. From the way she said it, it was apparent that she, for whatever reason, did not have a restful night's sleep. "I hope that we can stop it today."

"Just how do think we can do that?" Saffa said, surly. "Something that powerful may not be able to be destroyed by us."

"Oh, don't count yourself out so easily," came a voice, "you're far stronger than you give yourself credit for."

"Cloak? I thought you were --"

"Telling Rotiart's next of kin -- which only consisted of his father, apparently -- of his death," Cloak supplied. "I did. He didn't care. I could see why he ran away from that . . . that 'home'."

"That's . . ." Abby said aghast, unable to finish her thought. Saffa just looked down, no doubt feeling the same guilt thst Cloak did.

"Let's destroy the source of the temporal loops," Aquilai suggested pragmatically. "It's close by."

"Yes, yes, the warehouse district, we know." Saffa said.

"Really we should call it the 'criminal hideout' district, with just how many of them are abandoned." Underseen mused as they headed out.

"But why are they abandoned?" Ailia asked.

"You try paying to heat a building, to support a building like that in this economy," GH pointed out sardonically. "You know how most executives are such cutthroat pennypinchers."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2015, 09:53:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Unguarded? Suspicious!

"My god, this is so cliché," Saffa said. Her bedhead had decided to settle down. Cloak was glad that he did have that problem, having feline fur instead of hair, though he didn't say out loud. He didn't want to antagonize. "The abandoned warehouse hideout? That is such a Saturday morning cartoon villain standard."

"You can't deny that our lives are right out of a Saturday morning cartoon," Abby noted. "When you consider all the crap we've been in over the last year or so."

"Why are you guys haunched over like that?" Cloak asked.

"Keep your voice down!" Abby hissed.

"Guys, with exception of a few mice and assorted insects and other arthropods, there isn't anyone here," the Realm Walker said, rather bluntly.

"How can you be so sure of --" Aila began, before she saw that Cloak was staring at her with a slightly reproachful look. Then she realised her faux pa, and corrected herself, "Oh, right! Earthsight. Sorry!"

"Why would Malice just up and leave the source of her latest scheme?" GH said.

Cloak thought it over, and came to the conclusion he could see. "But there lies your answer right there. 'Her latest scheme'. She has clearly bored of her current plan and, quite possibly, has already moved on to her next one."

"That seems a bit . . ." Abby began, trying to find the right term, "wishy-washy, I guess."

"It's a bit flighty, a bit cagey, I suppose," Cloak replied. "I do not pretend to understand her. Things that I think I know about her, she decides to flip around, twist or alter these once concrete things."

They came to the warehouse door, and creaked it open, as Cloak added, "And I think she does it deliberately."

"Why would she do it deliberately?" Underseen asked.

"For kicks, probably," GH shrugged.

"What the gung-ho guitar player said," Cloak said, nodding towards GH. "What's wrong, Aquilai?"

"This signal . . . it's weaker than it was yesterday," the Time Lord said, both perplexed and curious.

"I thought it was in here, though!" Saffa proclaimed. "This warehouse can't be that big!"

"I don't think has anything to do with distance," Cloak said.

Aquilai saw where Cloak was going with this, and nodded in agreement. "It's getting weaker."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2015, 09:33:04 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Well, That Was Anticlimactic

"Weakening?" Underseen asked.

"It makes sense," Aila said. "While whatever device is doing this may have been very powerful before the first temporal, the amount if energy must have taken a powerful amount of energy. And if the the object's energy was finite . . ."

"If it was finite," Aquilai finished, "it would eventually run out."

"Which means us coming here was completely pointless," Abby pointed out aptly.

"Not necessarily," Cloak said. "I choose to see it as an opportunity. Malice was obviously behind this. Perhaps she got careless and left something behind, a clue to her next scheme."

They proceeded further and further into the warehouse, which was actually surprisingly sizeable. Cloak wondered idly if this was a TARDIS, as it seemed to be larger on the inside then on the outside. But his Earthsight easily disproved it, it was just an optical illusion, due to how empty and derelict the warehouse felt.

"Wait, do you think that object that Malice made from the corpse pile during . . . during our fights with the Wesen," Underseen said, thinking aloud. "Could that be the magical object that Malice made? The one that did this temporal loop thing?"

"She needed thirty or so dead bodies to create a magical artifact to cause time to loop?" Aquilai asked.

"That sounds like really dark stuff," Saffa remarked. "Really dark magic."

"We can consult Broken and Faerie about the possible ramifications of it later." Cloak said, peering around the dingy dim warehouse. Then he pointed, able to sense the temporal/magical energy, narrowing down their search. But the energy signature was dwindling. "There."

They walked to the place were the black card hovered, alone and forgotten. Everything else was empty. Nothing else here could point them to the direction of her next scheme and the card's light was more purple than black, and it was sputtering. It was clear that it did not have sufficient energy to reverse time again.

"Well," Saffa said, "who'da guess that this would eventually work itself out without any interference from us whatsoever?"

"Man, that's anticlimactic," GH said.

"Don't complain," Abby said, "it's actually a bit nice that it's gonna resolve by itself. A bit less responsibility for us."

The card's energy was then depleted and it crumbled away, blowing in the breeze like petals from a black rose, eventually collapsing into a brackish black ash. Cloak looking at it began to wonder . . . what if this was merely a tactic to give Malice more time to plan out her next scheme or schemes? What if that was the reason that she seemed to forget about it so easily?

Clearly, this was her hideout, and she had a habit of changing her "dens", as due to her Tasmanian devil form. And clearly changed to a different "den". She must have known that they would eventually locate this one, as she knew that he was also not affected by the time loops as she herself wasn't. Cloak could never really divine her motivations or mindsets too easily, as she tended to thing remarkably different from him.

The RAFians returned to the forum, and, yet, Cloak found himself . . . uneasy. But he did not know or understand why.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 14, 2015, 02:19:26 PM

Sorry for not checking in earlier, life suddenly got crazy and a whole lot of things to do just got dumped on me. Nice to finally check in, though. Though tomorrow presumes to be even worse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2015, 02:25:18 PM

I assumed as much, to be honest, Saffa.

And, after I post the next chapter, it'll be official. Year 1, story-wise, will be over. And it'll 100 books done!

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
End of the Year

This time the end of the year festivities went off without a hitch. The fireworks went off at the stroke of midnight. It may have been pretty and entertaining and all that.

Cloak would not know. He didn't attend the fireworks. He never liked fireworks. Much too loud and ostentatious for his tastes. He did not know why he saw them as tawdry and overly flashy, but he did.

He remained within his thread, pondering over recent events. He attempted to try to divine Malice's ultimate goal. He did not know why he was so unable to let things go and so unable to not dwell over things, but it is just what he did.

And he kept coming back to his guilt. His guilt over Rotiart's death. He had hoped that, somehow, Rotiart was not dead. That he had, somehow, survived. It absolutely, ridiculously ludicrous, of course. He was there. There was no way that he could have escaped unnoticed by all.

There didn't seem any substance for this naive hope to adhere onto.

***

Cloak was in an obvious dream, and he was lucid, it seemed.

"Cloooooooak . . ."

An eerie voice whose source he could not locate at first.

"Clooooooaaaaaaak . . ."

The voice called out, and Cloak thought it sounded familiar.

"Cloooooooooaaaaaaaa aaaaak . . ."

Then Cloak recognized it.

"Rotiart?"

"Clooooak," the disembodied voice of Rotiart said, "why didn't you save me?"

"I . . . I tried! I . . . what the Veil?"

Now Cloak was sure this Rotiart was a dream construct. He appeared to have a T-800 body with Rotiart's face. He wore dark sunglasses, a rather unique-looking derby hat, and a gaudy necklace of three vaguely manta ray-like things made of metal. These things weren't exactly big, about the quarter the size of an Heinlin. He wore three watch-like devices that resembled the prototype Omnitrix, the "Alien Force" variety of the Omnitrix, and the ture Omnitrix. All in all, a very unappealing design.

"You're . . . not Rotiart."

But, in reply, the fashion abomination in front of him, his eyes glowed a sickly green, seen from even behind the sunglasses, and spoke in a voice that was not a voice. Spoke in silence that was not silence. Cloak couldn't explain it, but dreams often did not make sense. But with each line, that was somehow communicated, this dream construct of a gawdy Rotiart faded all the more.

"THE FIRST YEAR DIES,
AS THE SECOND WILL RISE.
THERE WILL BE A CREATURE WITH NO PEER,
THE USUAL TACTICS WILL WRONG YOU STEER,
THIS STRANGE BEASTS WILL NOT BE BEAT,
LEST YOU EMPLOY THE BOY'S FEAT.
THEN COME VISITORS OF SAURIAN DESCENT,
AND A CHANGE OF A FRIEND WILL CEMENT.
MANY WILL BE CRAMPED WITHIN ONE,
IMPOSSIBLE CAN IT BE UNDONE.
THE ADVANCES OF A WITCH WILL BE SPURNED,
HER ENMITY AND WRATH WILL BE WELL-EARNED.
ENTOMBED WITHIN ARTIFACTS MIGHT,
ONE'S PAST MAY COME TO LIGHT.
BEWARE THE XENOPHOBE'S HATE,
ALIEN ASYLUM IT WILL NOT SATE.
THE SKIN-WALKERS WILL BE CAUGHT,
LEST MAD MEN ARE FOUGHT.
THEN COMES THE OUTCAST,
OF ITS KIND, IT IS THE LAST."

Then, with sudden abruptness, the dream ended.

***

Cloak awoke. Awoke to the first day of the new Dweller year. He blinked a bit.

"That was surreal," he muttered, commenting on the dream.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 14, 2015, 03:20:39 PM

*Claps*

Amazing way to end the first year, Cloaky! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 14, 2015, 03:30:38 PM

And he gave us a Marvel-post-credits-scene-style next-year preview, too. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2015, 09:33:07 PM

"Next year", you say?

Anyway, I'll post the new chapter of the first book tomorrow, when I see if I still have my job or not. It'll be a full two weeks since I haven't worked, and I would need to reapply to get my job back, losing any vacation time I accrued. Complete BS, I know. But this is America, and execs and such don't care about screwing over the little guy.

At least I got through Book 100.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 14, 2015, 09:48:08 PM

Good luck with everything, Cloaky!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2015, 04:05:53 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CI:
GET 'EM, SHAW
CHAPTER ONE:
Demos Gets Crabdozed

There was an uproar in the middle of a cafe pavilion.

It was a beast that towered over humans. She was a huge, mineral-based life form with a cancrine body and a rhinocerosid face. She walked on six cancrine legs and has spikes on her legs. She has a long horn and small ears. She has a dark purple and gray color scheme with sunken red eyes. She was at least as fast as an Arachnichimp, and she could exist comfortably inside a vacuum. She possessed all the strength and durability that her size suggested. Mere walls were not a problem for her horn, and fire could not touch her, could not harm her. Which made sense, as she ate Pyronites.

It was a Crabdozer.

But it was not Abby, Saffa, nor Noelle in morph. 'Tis a wild female Crabdozer, and there really wasn't a reason for her to be there. They weren't anywhere near the Pyros system. The nearest game reserve wasn't anywhere nearby, by RAFian request. There really was no reason for this Crabdozer's presence on this person.

The only person that seemed to stop it was Demos. A pyrokinectic.

Demos attempted, at first, to parboil it with his pyrokinesis, apparently unaware that they can extinguish Pyronites' fiery bodies within their own mouths. Fire isn't gonna bother her. And, due to the fact that Saffa, Abby, and Noelle can morph a Crabdozer, and the fact that they eat Pyronites, Demos had no excuse for not knowing this.

In all honesty, Demos could not do anything to stop a Crabdozer. He relied heavily on his pyrokinesis in battle, and that was absolutely useless here. The Crabdozer had a significant size, speed, and durability advantage.

But Demos had an ability that he didn't really use all that frequently. His body quickly dissolved and collapsed into black smoke, silk suit and all. The black smoke that was Demos streamed into the Crabdozer's mouth, into the Crabdozer's body. He had possessed her, and her eyes turned black momentarily.

But he couldn't remain in control. These few minutes was apparently all he could manage. It was like the Yeerk part of a Taxxon-Controller, Demos tried to reassert himself. But the sheer ferality, the overwhelming bestiality, of the alien beast eventually shoved his consciousness aside each time,

Suddenly, the sound of a hard rock tune played. The Crabdozer's violent tendacies began to ebb, and she began to become more docile. Docile enough for Demos to reassert control enough so he could make her go into a transport cage, as well as realized just how she got there.

She was an illegal pet. An illegal pet "owned" by some rich bastard who had no idea what he was doing by harboring such a beast. In dreadful conditions, too. Demos managed to pry the location from the Crabdozer's mind before vomiting himself out. He had left the Crabdozer's body, feeling more serious and dour than flippant and overconfident that he was feeling before he possessed the Pyros system beast.

Sakki, however, wasn't too thrilled with Demos's choices.

"What, on god's green earth, were you thinking?!" she said, after giving Demos a hard slap upon his left cheek, causing his head to whip to the right a bit. "Do have any idea just how dangerous it was to take on a Crabdozer -- a creature immune to fire, at that -- alone?!"

"Sakki --"

"No! No, don't 'Sakki' me!!" Sakki said, not disguising her fury now. "Do have any idea how you have easily killed yourself? If GH and I hadn't showed up when we did --"

"Crabdozers love hard rock," GH was heard to muse, "who knew?"

"-- you would be DEAD had we not been dispatched, had Yarin not had the foresight . . ."

Demos would be in the doghouse for a while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 15, 2015, 07:04:53 AM

What a random start to the year.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 15, 2015, 09:01:15 PM

For some bizarre reason, I can't read this without imagining me and Sakki arriving on a surfboard, riding a giant wave that appeared literally out of nowhere. I have a strange imagination, I know. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2015, 09:31:37 PM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on October 15, 2015, 09:01:15 PM

I have a strange imagination, I know. :P

You've read these books. You know I have one too. ;)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Hard-Won Trophy

Malice had made it to Gossamer, a planet outside of the Milky Way. Just how she managed was a mystery, although aimless Walking was a real, although highly reckless, possibility. The planet was basically like a Transylvanian village with stone castles in a sweeping swath across the landscape.

But these castles only interested Malice for one reason. Their occupants. They were creaturea that were, to put it ever so bluntly, hairy, orange monsters. Their rectangular bodies are perched on two giant tennis shoe-like feet, and their heart-shaped faces are composed of only two small, oval eyes and a wide mouth filled with human-like teeth and appears to disappear when they shut it. They also possess two hulking arms ending in dirty, yellow-clawed fingers. When held against their sides, these arms seem to vanish completely. The monsters' main trait, however, is bright, thick, coarse, tangled orange hair that covers the entirety of their body, barring their eyes, fingernails, and tennis shoe-like feet.

These were the Gossamers, the dominant species on this planet, although technically a rare one, and for whom the planet is named. They were a peaceful, quiet race, despite what their nine, ten-foot height and intimidating stature would have you believe. They were not xenophobic, though they would pretend if they feel their personal space encroached upon. They habored no hate for outsiders, but they preferred to keep to themselves, preferred to stay on Gossamer. They had no real individuality to speak of, as they did not possess any individualized names. They are all called Gossamer, and, aside for reproduction reasons and means, preferred a heavily solitary lifestyle. They had no agriculture, no currency, no real culture as the term is known by outsiders. The children are expected to fend for themselves immedately after "hatching" from a hairball-like egg.

They were a simple, honest species, not too different from an average Hork-Bajir, in this aspect. Only they value their privacy so incredibly that it is paramount and tantamount to everything else, it is given the highest priority.

This is what made it so easy for Malice to isolate one. Their hearing was about as good as humans, and their olfactory sense was as strong as a human's as well. Their night-vision was a bit better than humans, though. She found herself able to easily able to wrap a control collar around its waist -- it was impossible to tell whether they are male or female -- because it didn't really have a head to speak of. It was remarkable that she did this without activating its ability.

She put bracers around its wrist, which looked remarkably like the Tele-Bracers Battlegear item from that "Chaotic" television show. Using them, she teleported with her Gossamer -- "Pet" -- back to the forum, wondering if time was still looping. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 16, 2015, 12:52:13 AM

Didn't this not work once? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2015, 03:02:43 AM

Oh, Gossamers have an ability that the Wesen didn't. A rather passive, but dangerous ability.

:edit: Okay, more behind-the-scenes notes!

[spoiler]Originally, this chapter would feature a new character called Klownboy, who would resemble Clown Man, from Mega Man 8, in both appearance and powers. He would have essentially been a "neo-Rotiart", but thjs was back when Rotiart was still a two-note pony. There's also a couple more reasons as to why he's not included, as you'll find out in future books, sometime in Year 2 and 3, possibly Year 4 or 5, I think.[/spoiler]

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Unforgettable Dreams

Cloak was in his thread, ruminating on the events of the past year and beyond. And his mind kept coming back to the same thing. Rotiart's death. And hiw similar Rotiart's childhood was to his own.

Cloak remembered what it was like leaving his mother's house, leaving all he knew. She didn't prepare him for anything in the outside world, in the world outside their little bubble. Though she isolated him and he felt incredible loneliness. Cloak couldn't help but wonder if Rotiart wasn't the same when he lived at his father's house. He wondered if Rotiart . . . if he had nightmares about the place even after he had left.

Cloak did. And he still remembered them all too clearly.

The first one etched in his memory was that of a dark room. It was the main living area of the house, with the ceiling and roof being deceptively higher than one would expect, seeing it from the outside. This was a combination living room and dining room area, with the kitchen directly to the left. Cloak was very familiar with this kitchen as he had to do a bulk, if not all, of the cooking and dishes. Beyond the wall and directly to the ldft of the living room was basically just cluttered space that could have once been office space.

This large open room (which had the back wall separating from the floor due, what Cloak assumed, to rot) was dark, the only light coming from the front porch light, which streamed in and illuminated the lacquered wooden dining room table. Cloak was there, in silhouette, with a sense of utmost urgency.

He was trying to secure and grab his stuff, the material objects that he had to leave behind when he was kicked out this house. When he was, essentially, kicked out of this family. He was hurriedly trying to gather up everything, before his mother got there and walked down the sloped dirt road to the front door. The dream ended with that sense of urgency, but really no closure or resolution to it at all.

But that was merely the first of three dreams that he remembered due to this incident.

The second consisted of a deluge happening right outside his mother's house. There he stood with mother, Faith, and Shadow. His mother was dictating hoe they would go about saving themselves. The females would go to higher ground, but Cloak wasn't permitted to go with. He was to break up large, gray stones, not unlike the Strength boulders in Pokemon Black and White, while they went. With floodwaters arrival near imminent. Cloak, naturally, refused this command. His mother then told him that he was breaking her heart, and Cloak harshly retorting that she already broke his.

But the third one was, perhaps, the most simple, most desperate, and most primal one of the three.

It was just him and his mother. There was no discernable backgrounds at all. In it, Cloak was, quite literally, begging his mother to get help. Begging her to get help for her rampant narcissism. Begging and pleading her, only to systemstically and arrogantly dismissed with each plea. She needed help, but that the thing. You cannot force some to get help for things like narcissism. They have to want it, they have to want to be rehabilitated. If they don't, which far more the norm than the alternative, then it would be just a waste of time and energy.

Yes, despite himself, despite the rage and frustration that he occasionally felt towards her, in the end, Cloak just felt sorry for her. She had to have everything go her way, she just simply had, and according to his aunt, Wheeza, she was like this even as a child. She severe control issues, which could have been the cause of her narcissism, and a manipulative personality. Yet she would never seek help for these things. She was far too proud to do it.

And no matter how you sliced it, Cloak was still her son. Nothing would or could change that.The fact his mother was a horrible woman like that . . . he first, when he was in Realm Walker equivalent of high school, denied it. Denied that anything was wrong. Then, later on, as things progressed, he felt hot anger at her, which eventually led him to wish for death to come to him, to free him from the prison thst she made from him. Now he just oscillated from sadness to acceptance, occasionally rising bsck to anger again.

And he wondered if Rotiart ever had these dreams like he did, or anaylzed his abusive parent, like Cloak was apt to do to excess, or if he simply felt sadden when he realized how unhappy they were.

---

[spoiler=More behind-the-scenes stuff.]Yes, these were actual, legitimate dreams I had. These were three of the most memorable ones.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2015, 09:10:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Turmoil Respite

Soon enough, Cloak tired of stewing in his thread. His musings having actually caused him some anxiety. It was enough to cause him to pace around the room. He hand decided he needed to get out of his stuffy thread and do something to get this anxious energy out. There was one way he could think of to get this energy out.

There was a spot on the forum grounds that had become known as Cloak's training spot. It wasn't as sheltered as his usual meditation spot. Probably for good reason, as this was his usual spot for training in the elements. Earth . . . wood . . . fire . . . air . . . water . . . wood . . . not to mention his mastery over using his energy offensively and defensively. He was hoping that through exertion his anxiety, his turmoil, and his heaviness on his heart would evaporate, or at least lighten. But they were like hardened plaque, easy to get but difficult to remove.

Even during his self-imposed training regiments, he favored the Earth element. He did not know enouh about his Element Master ancestors enough to say for sure if this was common, to have a certain inclination to a particular element. And Cloak did not know why the element resonated with him so much. It his Earthsight was always more accurate that sensing vibrations through metal or wood, and he supposed this Earth synergy or whatever was probably the reason why.

"Nice try, Shadow," Cloak said suddenly, apparently to no one. "But you have to do better than that, if you want to get me."

It was a game that they had ever since she was little. One would hide and wait to ambush (read: scare) the other when they least expected it.* Shadow had managed to succeed once or twice, but her uncle stubbornly and playfully refuses to acknowledge it.

"Aww," Shadow said, clearly disappointed. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Your approach was good," her uncle replied. "But you got a bit careless, and approached too close to the water, and I could see your reflection. Then you stopped disguising your footsteps, making Earthsight easy."

"Oh." she said. "Okay."

Cloak frowned and looked southward, having felt an odd sort of presence coming from that direction. When Yarin decided that a RAFian investigation team (which don't drag their feet on their obligations**) would need to be dispatched. Cloak went along with Shadow, Aquilai, Saffa, Abby, and GH.

---

*A real game I played with Shadow since she was a toddler. One time she even -- no, I can't say that. She'd kill me if she ever found out that I said anything about that. But, in the end, she actually got pretty good at it too (though I never admited when she did succeed in scaring me).

** You know where this is coming from.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 17, 2015, 11:59:32 AM

The usual suspects.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2015, 07:18:19 PM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Surprise Attack

They went swiftly to a quarry area, surrounded by the forest. Cloak traveled on foot, leading Aquilai, Saffa, and Abby, with GH bringing up the rear. Shadow, however, decided to follow her simian instincts, and she went by tree. She was a far superior climber to her uncle*, and she could travel as a pretty impressive clip.

"Don't get too far in ahead, Shadow!" Cloak cautioned.

"You worry too much, Uncle!"

"Don't get careless!" Cloak called back, sternly. "Like before!"

Shadow dropped down into the quarry, before anyone else arrived, heedless of her uncle's numerous warnings. But she was a still a kid -- eleven years old (uh, 110 to 111 in Dweller Earth years). She had always been an adventurous exovert, as opposed to her more introverted uncle who was overly and, sometimes, obsessively cautious. But Cloak's more mindful, deliberate movements had come from his background, his history. History of which was shielded or distorted for her benefit, but not by her but the people around her, presumably.

"Aah!!" Shadow screamed.

Malice had seized her just as Cloak came down into the quarry with the others. Cloak immediately saw this and the very earth beneath his feet began to crack and tremble.

"Oh, no," Abby said.

"She took Shadow," Aquilai said, stating the obvious.

"She shouldna done that," Saffa said.

"What'd I miss?" GH asked.

"Let. Her. Go." Cloak ordered, with commanding tones. "NOW!"

"Nah, I don't think I will," Malice said, as she bound Shadow with her black-and-purple energy.

"Does she have a death wish, or something?" GH asked.

"All signs point to yes," Aquilai said.

---

* This is true in real life, as well. When Shadow was younger, she could climb high up in a short, stubby tree in her front yard, while I could only stay at the base.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 18, 2015, 01:21:07 AM

I'm pretty sure Shadow can handle her own.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2015, 08:22:32 AM

Usually yes. But, remember, she was ambushed.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Malice's Pet

"Last chance, Malice." Cloak said.

"Why doesn't Shadow free herself? She is an Elements Master, too, isn't she?" GH pointed out.

"She isn't as volatile as Cloak, I guess," Aquilai said.

"That doesn't answer my question," GH insisted.

"Fine, Malice. You had your chance," Cloak said, teeth gnashing with every word. He saw that Shadow looked rather punch-drunk, and saw that she was clearly disoriented. Malice must have done something to elicit such a reaction, like have punched Shadow's head or something.

Cloak fired a "Kamehameha"-like concussive blast of golden-scarlet energy. It was fired with pinpoint accuracy. It would not harm Shadow, but it would knock Malice back and possibly hurt her.

"Shaw!" Malice said. "To me!"

The Gossamer had blocked the pathway of of the concussive beam, but wasn't blocking it, per se. The scarlet-gold energy snaked across the Gossamer -- which Malice decided that "Pet" was too glib of a name for it, not that she was attached to it, but it was going to reflect upon her -- and that energy was lost beneath mire of orange hair.

Cloak was a bit in shock about it. He didn't know that these creatures existed, but, then again, most sentient beings did not know of the existence of such species, considering that they were not a spacefaring species. But clearly they were like Conductoids, in the fact that they were apparently immune to energy-based attacks. But they didn't seem to be able to redirect them.

"It got bigger!" Abby exlaimed.

So it increased its mass with the energy it took in? That did not bode well.

"Well, then," Aquilai said, "we must avoid energy-based attacks."

Malice gave a laugh of which the Joker would have envious.

"Clearly, there's something else that we don't know about," GH said.

<Just shut up and get ready,> Saffa said, having decided to morph the Shear Goliath. It didn't look all that pretty in the sunlight.

<Let's get this done,> Abby said, having morphed a Rancor, after briefly considering morphing a Nexu before settling on the Rancor.

"Let's not be so --" Cloak said, but the two girls charged forward with their melee morphs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 18, 2015, 09:45:36 AM

Reckless? Violent? Rachel-like? :P

And PDF for the last book:

:edit: I completely forgot whether I uploaded the PDF for book 99 so I had uploaded that instead of 100. But anyway, since my memory is more unreliable than the Indian Railways, here's both books. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2015, 08:58:53 PM

Either way, thanks!

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Kinetic Uselessness

The two girls charged forward, with GH not far behind, his guitar having turned into a a literal axe -- a handy little ability for when melee combat is called for. Unfortunately, this, wasn't one of those times.

" . . . so . . . so hasty. . . ." Cloak said, unable to finish his protest.

This attack backfired when each blow did not inflict damage. The momentum, the physical exertion, and the knietic energy imparted from the melee attacks . . . somehow the Gossamer absorbed it all. It increased its size and stature with each one, until it towered over them all and GH, Saffa, and Abby collapsed upon the ground. The girls were barely able to complete their demorph. They were exhausted.

"Kinetic absorption, too," Cloak muttered. "Is there any way to beat this thing?"

"Maybe we shouldn't be focused on that," Aquilai said, analytically. "It's obviously being controlled --"

"-- I gathered that much, thanks. --"

"-- which means that instead of focusing on the creature being controlled (clearly, against its will), we should focus on the means of control."

"Like during the Wesen fights," Cloak said, quickly. "Of course."

"Too . . . tired to . . . to move here . . ." Saffa said, having heard the entirety of the  conversation between the Realm Walker and the time walker.

"There isn't any reason to be speaking like William Shatner," GH said, "we're just as tired, Saffa, and we're not talking like that."

"Oh, sure," she said, sitting up, every part her yelling at her in protest for doing so, "suck every bit of drama out of it."

"Wait," Cloak said, seriously. He was ignoring the huge beast of a creature for them, who just aimply stood there, and didn't react. Simply because Malice hadn't yet told him to either attack or relax. There was a reason behind it.

Cloak scanned the scene. When he did not see what he wanted to or expected he scanned the surroundings again. He did this at least six or seven times more, getting angrier and angrier with each search.

"WHERE. IS. MALICE?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 19, 2015, 03:53:45 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 18, 2015, 08:58:53 PM

The two girls charged forward, with GH not far behind, his guitar having turned into a a literal axe -- a handy little ability for when melee combat is called for.

Well, that's just ridiculous. Obviously, the only way this could happen is if my guitars were be made of some sort of unobtainium for the neck to withstand the insane forces that would come from swinging it, and the sides of the body would have to come off to . . . reveal . . . ax blades. . . .

OK I take it back. That's not ridiculous, it's just plain badass.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2015, 01:56:27 PM

Eh, my idea is that your guitar, for the sake of expedient simplicity, is essentially like your personal Keyblade. You can use it for music, combat, and transport, changing it so that it is suited for these jobs. Without you there, it would revert to an ordinary guitar.

Currently working on the new chapter as we speak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 19, 2015, 02:01:49 PM

OK, never mind what I said. THAT is badass.

Kinda off-topic, but I really do need to get my hands on a copy of Kingdom Hearts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2015, 03:45:48 PM

Glad you approve. :D

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
When I'm the Conqueror of RAF

Malice threw Shadow down on the ground, which managed to shock her back to consciousness. She was on her feet in seconds, quickly realizing what happened the moment she saw Malice in close proximity to her. Shadow felt a series of quick jabs of embarrisment, knowing that she had allowed her innate impetuousness to get her captured and knocked out. She felt utter humilation.

Malice smiled, knowing full well that she had embarrassed the young Realm Walker. Malice could have gloated, could have rubbed salt into the wound, but, rather uncharacteristicall y, she said nothing. She smiled with clear and deliberate maliciousness.

This irritated the simian Realm Walker. When Malice continued to say nothing, Shadow was infuriated into speech. The elements remained calm, however, as she demonstrated less emotional volatility than her uncle. Far less, as she didn't run away from her emotions as he did.

"Why don't you leave me alone? Why don't you leave RAF alone? Why don't you leave my uncle alone? And, well, why don't you leave these Dwellers alone?" Shadow berated.

Malice said, her tone clearly manipulative, "But you don't understand, m'dear. They need me."

"Say what?" Shadow said, not expecting this answer, and completely disbelieving of her claim all the while. "Are you honestly serious?"

"Now, his land needs improving.
It's just too impossibly odd.
Someone needs to get some changes moving,
And I'm just the woman for the job!
Now, don't you ever wonder about his land?
How everything's upside down?
The creatures are so crazy in their RAF land.
They don't know that it's turned around!
Everything's all askew.
But I could change a thing or two!
And . . .
Don't you ever wonder about his land?
How everything is so confused?
Everything's disorganized in that land.
There should be just a few strict rules.
Everything's turned around.
Someone needs to tone it down!
And . . .
Wouldn't it be wonderful if that land
Were underneath a metal dome?
The traffic would be minimized in his land,
With everyone banned from this home.
Lands and creatures well in hand.
We'll make the colors much more bland.
With everything at my command.
When I'm the conqueror of RAFLand.
When I'm the conqueror of RAFLand."

There was a resounding silence that followed the end of this song.

"What. Was. That," Shadow said.

"What? Can't I get a villain song once and a while?" Malice said, with faux affront. "It's been forever since I last got one!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2015, 09:40:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Overlooked

"Big deal," Shadow said, flippantly. She almost sounded as belligerent as her uncle could be, which Malice surprisingly didn't take any offense to this attitude. Mostly because Malice was angling behind her, with rather creepily creeper vibes.

Malice had drawn a control collar around Shadow's as if she was about to put a necklace on her. It lost none of its creeper vibes. However, Shadow was deeply offended. She used her mastery over the Metal elements to tear and rip it to shreds.

"How dare you?!" Shadow said, losing her usually pleasant, vivacious demeanor.

"Mind your elders, girl!" Malice said, allowing her frustration and anger to filter through her facade.

"I do," Shadow said, "but you haven't done anything to have earn respect. You just got old."

"You insolent Hatchling!" Malice roared. "You forget that I hold all the cards here. You are at my mercy. Your uncle and his pets are at the mercy of Shaw, my pet, who is unbeatable!! There is nothing either one of you can do to stop me!"

"Makin' a lot of assumptions there," Shadow observed.

"Shut up, you stupid child," Malice said, atrabilious, as she radioed an order through Shaw's collar tag. "Shaw. Attack. Do not rest until they are dead."

Shadow glared stubbornly at Malice, clenching jaw. She had the family hallmark of obstinacy. She wasn't about to lie down and allow Malice to get away with this.

***

"SHADOW!!" Cloak was raging. The elements were beginning to become as agitated as Cloak was. This was not good as loose debris and detritus was being flung, albeit unintentionally, at Shaw and it was absorbing the kinetic impacts, though they weren't really much to comment on. But it grew a millimeter with each minor impact. "SHADOW!!"

"This cannot be good," GH said, forcing himself to stand on his feet, his guitar still in its axe form. "He's just going to make things worse if he doesn't calm down."

"SHADOW!!"

"He's just gearing up before he loses total control," Saffa said, pulling herself up to standing. She didn't have the energy to morph yet, though. "It'll be like Garrotik's island all over again."

"No," Aquilai said, "worse than that."

"He can get worse?"

"SHADOW!!"

"You have no idea," Aquilai said. "He has never utilized his full power, you know that."

Abby nodded, "He was always afraid to go to his absolute zenith."

"SHADOW!!"

"He needs to stop it -- that Shaw thing." GH said, seriously and practical. "If that thing chooses to attack us . . ."

"SHA --"

SLAP!!

"CLOAKY!!" Saffa yelled. She had slapped him, across the face, her hand never dipping beneath the hood, keeping it whole and undamaged. Even if it did, she could just morph and demorph to regenerate. "Cloaky. You need to SNAP out of this."

A silent, stressful pause elapsed.

"NOW, Cloak!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 19, 2015, 09:51:14 PM

Holy ****, this is getting intense.

Also, Shadows attitude. I LOVE it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 19, 2015, 10:12:50 PM

I regret nothing. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2015, 03:26:57 PM

Perfect reaction, Saffa. I think I might work it into a chapter . . . ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Shadow of Strength

"You stay here," Malice said, very harsh and strict. She clearly was expecting Shadow to obey, to capitulate. She's clearly never raised a kid before. "Stay here, and do not touch a thing."

"Yeah, that's not happening," Shadow said. She was never this disrespectful, usually, but Malice had no reason to expect respect. Or obedience for that matter.

"Girl, do as you are told!"

"No."

"Do as I command!"

"I'm not one of your lackeys, Malice," Shadow said, obstinate, "the answer is still no."

"You don't have a choice in this matter." Malice said.

"And, yet, I do." Shadow countered easily. She wasn't about to back down from Malice, whose bite was as bad as her bark sometimes, but oftentimes, not. "I have  a choice, as long as I choose to have one."

"You --"

"I nothing!" Shadow said, demonstrating the same force that her uncle could display. Only in her case,  it was far more controlled and less volatile. "You aren't my mother, you aren't my uncle. You are not any member of my family. You are not in any position of power here. You have NO authority over me."

"Your uncle's life hangs in the balance," Malice said, savagely. Getting, Shadow felt, far too close to her. "My Shaw will kill him with his little pets --"

"Wow."

"Yes," Malice said, proudly, "now you see that I mean bus--"

"Uncle was right," Shadow interrupted. "You really don't think these things through."

"What?!" Malice demanded, in scandalized tones.

"You've overlooked several things," Shadow said.

"You lying, insolant --"

"Bye!" Shadow said, in a manner very similar to her ancestor, Avatar. Unseen by Malice, Shadow had vanished into the earth and was already making her way back to her uncle and the other RAFians.

"What? You're not going --" Malice snarled, before realizing very quickly that she was talking to herself. "Where'd you go?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 20, 2015, 03:49:03 PM

Told you she'd get by on her own. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2015, 08:46:09 PM

Yep. Now, in an effort to reduce my anxiety and worry, here's a new chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Move to Attack

"Saffa, you do realize just how dangerous --" Aquilai began, before Saffa, matter-of-factly, cut across him.

"I regret nothing." Then she turned to address Cloak. "Cloaky. You need to snap of it. Now."

Cloak seemed to still be in a bit of shock. He had failed to protect Shadow. He had failed her. He had failed. She was taken away from him again. There wasn't anything he could do. He did not know where she was. Had no idea what Malice was doing to her. He could do nothing to help . . .

"Cloak. Don't make me slap --"

He was helpless. Helpless to help her. Helpless to help anyone. He just hurt everyone that he touched. . . . He just hurt . . .

"The big ugly is moving!" Abby said. "And attacking!"

A scuffle was heard, while Cloak was having his emotional crisis. Saffa knew that he would be needed, otherwise he would become a potential liability. Though she did not say it or even really want to acknowledge it, but it was true.

"Cloak! I will slap you again, if you don't kindly pull yourself together and snap out of it!!"

"He's getting bigger!" GH warned, on his feet, his guitar in its axe form. It had been able to absorb the kinetic energy generated by its own blows. Making it bigger with every punch it both throws and takes. "This ain't good!"

There was a crunching sound as Aquilai was trying to waterbend ice around the Gossamer, trying to immobilize it, as fighting back only served to make it bigger and stronger. It broke the ice before any progress could be ascertained.

"Cloak! C'mon!!"

Hurting. He could only hurt. . . .

"Cloak, PLEASE!" Saffa said, sounding almost as if she was begging for lucidity and rationality to be restored to him. "We need you!! You hear me, Cloak? You. Are. NEEDED!!"

There was a sound, like glass shattering.

"We can't keep this up!" Aquilai shouted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 21, 2015, 06:58:30 AM

This is absolutely how I'd react in this situation, actually. "Oh my god, screw your emotions! We need some rationality here or we're all dead! Oh **** this, I'm doing it myself." :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2015, 06:32:20 PM

Excellent.

Sorry for the lateness of the next chapter (I'm still working on it), but time got away from me today.

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Priorities

The Gossamer began to lurch forward. It didn't appear to be very fast, but that could be because it was the size of an adolescent tyrannosaur now. It's movements seemed slow and sluggish from the RAFians perspective, and yet it seemed to be getting bigger with each impact, regardless of whether it was its own or by the actions of RAF. Direct attacks, be it physical or projectile, were not only ineffective, but detrimental to the RAFians' success.

But they were at a loss. What could they do? Nothing they were capable of seemed to be able to help. They couldn't attack without it gaining strength and size. They couldn't defend without it gaining strength and size. There seemed to be nothing they can do.

"Aquilai has the right idea," Cloak said.

"Cloak!" Saffa said. "It's about friggin' time!"

Cloak had decided to ignore this. He quickly assessed the situation, "We need to somehow restrict its movement. We need to prevent it from absorbing the kinetic energy."

"Thanks, Sherlock," GH said, testily, still using his guitar in his axe form. "We would have never thought to figure that out!"

Cloak said nothing, but he didn't take these remarks personally. Or at least he tried not to. He could easily think of two ways they possibly could easily subdue the creature. Both of which he could do, one that Aquilai was possibly capable of (at a full moon) and the other was one that only he had the possible ability to do. But  he did not suggest them, because of the sheer utter dark techniques they were. Hopefully, it wouldn't have to come to that.

"And just how do we accomplish that?" Abby said, dodging a swung fist from Shaw. "Not all of us have passive abilities!"

Cloak assessed this. He found himself unable to not consider the two dark abilities . . . no. No, he must not stoop to these temptation to use them. He must not allow sway from his inner darkness.

"Just keep doing what we're doing!" Saffa declared. "Maybe we can wear it out."

She was mistaken. Gossamer do not tire. At least, not in the conventional sense. The more they move, the more energy they exert, that uses up the energy that they have absorbed. It was one reason why Gossamer have a rather sedentary lives, as this also the energy that nourishes them, at least in part.

Cloak thought he saw this when it moved to strike GH. Perhaps that was a way?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 21, 2015, 08:21:04 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 21, 2015, 06:32:20 PM

Cloak thought he saw this when it moved to strike GH. Perhaps that was a way?

If anybody suggests, "Hey, let's just let this behemoth beat the tar out of gh," I swear I'm killing you all in your sleep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2015, 08:28:30 PM

That wasn't my intention, GH, but you're so getting a +1. I really needed that laugh.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Dangerous Dismissals

"Where is she?" Malice demanded, refusing to believe that Shadow was miles away, nearing the place where she could reunite with her uncle, fighting the Gossamer. "Where is she?"

Malice looked rather deranged, so her sanity was once again called into question.  She was so keen to have Shadow under her thumb so she could have a bargaining chip with Cloak. She neglected to remember that Shadow had elemental mastery, just like her uncle. It was only weaker than his due to her youth, but she was just as skillful. Only she didn't have a predilection for any element, unlike her uncle, her teacher.

But Malice, in her sheer arrogance and burdening superciliousness, refused to believe that she made a mistake. Or even admit to it when she had made one. It was rather sad, actually.

"Where IS she?" Malice said, with an edge of panic to her voice.

She had never kidnapped Shadow from right beneath Cloak's nose before. Never. She knew that she was in some serious crap now. She knew that she had crossed a line with Cloak by doing this, and she had acted against her better judgement anyway. Cloak could never be brought to kill her, because of that shameful weakness of mercy.

This, however, was before Cloak had killed her ancestor, Cataclysm. He had done that . . . and, yet, she still lived in later confrontations with the volatile Elements Master. She lived . . . because Cloak was still burdened with that cancerous quality of mercy. Even killing her verbally-abusive ancestor had not cut away that gangreneous attribute from him.

She stopped her desperate, and inevitably fruitless search, to ponder and consider this. She dropped the threadbare pillow that she held as if she was expecting Shadow to be hiding under it, like a bug.

She has killed a number of her own kind -- Collector, Gamesmaster, Abomination, Corruption, her own parents, possibly more than she could have think of off the top of her head. . . . And, yet, never felt bad nor any qualms about doing such. She wouldn't hesitate to do it again, in the future. This is why he just could not understand the concept of mercy. If you had power to flaunt, why would you not abuse it with reckless abandon? If you had the authority, why not throw your weight around all the time?

Malice's face contorted with disgust, Shadow's escape somewhat forgotten. And her mind continued to dwell upon this sudden, and persistant, fixation of hers.

How coukd these people be so foolish? There was nothing more important than power, and those too stupid and childish to seek it out! Family. Friendship. Sincerity. Altruism. All absurd concepts by those too idiotic, too distracted from the ultimate goal of life. The goal to dominate, to conquer, to oppress and deregulate!! Why can't these deluded children see this? Why can't they understand this simple concept?

Then she remembered what had agitated her in the first place. Cloak's wrath and ire was bound to reach a peak with her. He may not be so reticient to slay her for her transgressions. Her life may hang in the balance, as she knew that she could not survive when it came to blows against the Elements Master.

She would have to distract him.

"Shaw," Malice said contacting her very favorite pet, "belay the last order, and head to the city. Kill as many of the populace there as you can. Do not hesitate. Do not succumb to compassion. Kill. Every. Last. One."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2015, 10:42:54 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
What Are We? Chopped Liver?

The battle was a stalemate, in the loosest of terms.

Everything that the RAFians threw at the Gossamer, Shaw, he was able to absorb the kinetic energy of. But he seemed to have stopped growing in size. But not brute strength and power, which continued to grow with each kinetic impact it absorbed.

"Why hasn't the collar popped off or something yet?" Saffa asked.

"What does it matter?!" GH screamed in frustration. He was dodging frantically, unable to do anything without making the situation worse. "Its giving a serious beatdown here!!"

"It matters," Saffa replied dangerously, "that if it popped off the threat would have been ended! And it is still on it! Even though it's practically the size of a duplex!"

"We do not know the natural disposition of this creature had without the collar," Aquilai said. "It could possibly be wor-- hey! Watch it!"

Aquilai had to dodge another strike, by rolling and tumbling out of the way.

"Worse?" Abby said. "How could it be any worse?!"

"I can imagine," Cloak said. He was still holding back the two possibilities, fearing the darkness required to use them. "But there is also still the problem of just getting close enough to take if off. It swipes at us before we can, and this kinetic absorption . . . it's a real problem."

"Nice summation," Saffa said, caustically sardonic. "But it doesn't help us take this thing down. For every bit of energy it exerts, it always manages to recoup it!"

"There must be a cap to just how much it can absorb!" Aquilai insisted. "Being able to absorb things without end, without limit, like that is physically impossible."

"Didn't stop Syphoon," Saffa pointed out quietly.

No one could really argue the point. None of them would really forget that event, as it demonstrated that there were threats out there that the RAFians couldn't outright stop singlehandedly.

But then, Shaw seemed to lose interest in them in the most abrupt way possible. It turned away from thek and began to head to their left. It was suddenly as if the RAFian didn't exist, and, in the simplistic mind of the Gossamer, they had ceased to exist.

"Did . . . did we bore it? Or something?" Abby asked incredulously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 22, 2015, 11:01:53 PM

Control collar malfunction?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 22, 2015, 11:16:17 PM

I doubt it

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 21, 2015, 08:28:30 PM

"Shaw," Malice said contacting her very favorite pet, "belay the last order, and head to the city. Kill as many of the populace there as you can. Do not hesitate. Do not succumb to compassion. Kill. Every. Last. One."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 23, 2015, 12:31:46 AM

Oh right, completely forgot about that. Was reading the chapter in a horribly boring lecture. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 07:13:20 AM

Yep.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Joined Up

"Why did he decide to stop beating on us?" GH said, cracking his neck as he returned his guitar to its guitar form, and strapped it over his back. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

"It got new orders," Cloak said, flicking his right ear beneath the hood of his cloak. "I couldn't hear the specifics, but I'm sure that I heard Malice's voice."

"Have you guys noticed just which direction that it was headed?" Aquilai sighed.

"What about it?" Saffa asked.

Abby's eyes widened. "The city. It's heading for the city!"

"What?" GH said, reasonably alarmed. "If it goes there, then it . . . it could very well . . ."

"Kill every single resident of that city," Cloak supplied, a bit more blunt than he intended. "And it will the mercy and compassion of a Dementor."

"I thought they didn't have any," GH said.

"Precisely," the Realm Walker retorted.

"It's getting away," Abby pointed out.

"Well, then we should follow it, then," Shadow said, out of nowhere.

"Shadow!" Cloak said, rushing to his neice's side. "You escaped Malice!"

"Hey, I can take care of myself." Shadow smirked cheekily. "Besides, Malice isn't as smart as she thinks she is."

"I've been saying that for a while," Cloak noted.

"While this reunion is tearjerking and all," Saffa interjected, "this Shaw thing is getting away, and it has enough power to just murder everyone in the city. We need to get a move on!"

"I thought Malice was insane," Shadow commented, as they moved, as one, toward the city. Cue the "X-Men" theme song. "I guess this proves it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 01:09:44 PM

Oh, and now this is the second-most viewed thread. Beating out "Totally Random Thoughts". For the moment.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Panic in the Streets

Shaw had made it to the city before the RAFians, just as the last rays of the sun were going to be extinguished for the night. The street lamps were all on, and the primary source of illumination.

Shaw ambled and shuffled slowly to the threshold of the city, where rural met urban. It had taken Malice's orders to mean only the urban places, and so, disregarded the suburbs. The thing about Gossamer was that they weren't very fast, unless they were scared, but they could cover ground reasonably well.

Had Shaw been at his normal, default size, he might have been dismissed as a person in a costume, like those mascots on Times Square or the like. Though that would be a novelty here, as people didn't really do that -- well, outside of Halloween, that is.

But he wasn't at his default size, but he was noticeably smaller than what he when he was battling the RAFians. He had expended more energy than he took in. Thereby, shrinking bodily, and the control collar with him. He still wore the remnants of the telebracers on his wrist, with them shifting to match his mass.

And one would think the denizens of the city would have been used to such occurrences by now. But there they were. Panicking and fleeing from the twelve-foot monster, who did not roar and attack until it crossed the threshold into the city. Again, the question of just why these people decided to make a home in a city in which such things are becoming increasingly commonplace, despite the dirt-cheap rent.

It proceeded to to try to seize a victim to kill with its massive arms and rend them, unsuccessfully, with its pointed, human-like nails. But the fact of the matter is Gossamer weren't really a predatory species, and not exactly equipped for killing humans in any other way than bludgeoning to death or by ascending to a massive size and using that size to crush them.

But then it came across a barrier in the form of a sudden earth wall. It wasn't too bright, as it walked directly into the said wall. It managed to absorb the kinetic impact of that and grew half a foot, but the wall did not deteriorate at all. And it was surprised to discover that its feet and legs were thorughly encased in ice. They were made immobile.

"Not so fast, buddrow," Shadow said.

"You were going to murder people," Cloak said, as GH returned his guitar from its hoverbike form, and back into his axe form. "We cannot permit this."

The Gossamer's eyes were blank, which kind of ruined the drama of this entrance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 23, 2015, 01:40:45 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 23, 2015, 01:09:44 PM

Oh, and now this is the second-most viewed thread. Beating out "Totally Random Thoughts". For the moment.

Holy **** man, that is awesome! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 02:01:01 PM

Thanks! The only one with more views is a thread that I guess is somewhat defunct. Something about the GESB.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Simple Solution

"Um, Cloak?" Aquilai asked. "How are we going to defeat when it has already been established that we can't without making either energy or kinetic impacts?"

"Kinda making this up as I fo along," Cloak confessed.

"Yeah, those kind of plans always work," Saffa said, with unintentional acidic tones.

"You got something better?" Cloak replied in kind.

Saffa blinked. "Well, that shut me up."

Cloak couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. He had decided that they had more present problems to deal with to worry about something like that.

"Wait, you haven't tried --" Shadow began, before acrobatically dodging an attack from Shaw. Apparently, it had been given permission to kill the RAFians or he interpreted his orders as if they applied the RAFians as well, now that they were in the confines of the city.

The RAFians scrambled to dodging it, afraid to fight back and giving the Gossamer more energy, kinetic or otherwise. Cloak was seriously considering allowing himself to debase himself and steep to the point of using . . . those two abilities. Those two awful abilities that he had never used before, but had a sneaking suspicion that he could use . . .

"Guys! The solution is simple! All we need --"

Shadow had to dodge again, this time by rolling. Shaw was moving too slow and sluggish to even really match Shadow's speed, agility and dexterity.

Cloak found himself seriously considering bloodbending -- an ability used to manipulate the water within a living body and able to manipulate the bodies of the victim, basically the organic variant of metalbending -- and breathbending -- the ability to aerokinetically pull the breath out of someone's lungs, usually involving of creating a vacuum around the victim's head. Both very dark abilities. Cloak gave himself a very strong mental slap. How could he even be considering using such abilities? He didn't even know if he could do them. Especially as blodbending usually requires there to be a full moon.

"There's a simple solution to all of this," Shadow said. "All GH --"

She had to dodge once more by somersaulting out of the way, a bit miffed at being unable to finish her thought.

"WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT?!" Shadow shouted, a simian shriek interminged with her words.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 23, 2015, 03:00:35 PM

It's a bit hard to beat Totally Random Thoughts. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 07:24:23 PM

Exactly.

I don't expect to keep it come next RAFparty.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Play On, Little GH, Play On!

"Wait a minute, Shadow!" GH said. "'All me' what?"

"All you have to do is," Shadow said, determined not to be interrupted now, "is play."

"Play? What on earth are you --"

"Music!" Shadow said, in almost comical exasperation. "Use that guitar of yours for its intended purpose!!"

"Oh." he replied, returning his guitar to its default form. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Just hurry up and play!" Saffa said, as Shaw nearly grabbed her by her hair. "This thing is seriously working my last nerve!"

GH strummed a bit, think of a song to play . . .

"I moved up the city recently,
Where the Banned and trolls dream.
Wanna infiltrate some Knightly place,
And topple their regime.
Those men in armor with matching suitcases
Where everything's on a need-to-know basis.
Knights got that swagger.
Everyone with a broken dagger.
I'm really kind of nervous.
But I'm really kinda wishin'
For an undercover mission.
Because when that red alert came on the radio
And I put my communicator on,
Got dark sunglasses on,
And I have my guitar drawn.
Gonna get my sunglasses,
Chill pills, some classified dossier.
Tapping the phones, like yea.
Shredding papers, like yea.
Got my eyes right on
The enemy guys
I got to neutralize today.
Yeah . . . It's a party in the RAF today.
Yeah . . . It's a party in the RAF today.
Tim done a couple of crazy things
That almost got him dismissed.
Like terminate some aliens
That weren't even on the list.
Burn that microfilm, buddy, will you?
I'd tell you why, but then I'd have to kill you.
You need a trollish confession?
We can start a Bieber session.
No hurry on the billionaire dictator,
We'll deal with 'em later.
'Coz when she walks into my laser sights
And the silencer was on.
And the silencer was on.
And another target was gone.
Yeah, We got RAF Ops
All over the world.
Interrogating the scum of the earth,
We'll break them by the break of day.
Yeah . . . It's a party in the RAF today.
Yeah . . . It's a party in the RAF today.
Need a city to stabilize?
Look no further!
We're your guys!
We got snazzy suits and ties.
And a better dental plan than the MIB guys!
You better put your hands up and get into the van,
Or else you'll get blown away!
Stickin' to 'em, like yea.
Unbrainwashin' 'em, like yea.
Laying beatdowns' the folks we don't like
You're probably gonna be okay.
Yeah . . . It's a party in the RAF today.
Yeah . . . It's a party in the RAF today."

"I'm not sure if that was an appropriate song choice," Abby said.

"Unless you're gonna give me a Grammy, I don't care," GH replied flippantly.

"The point is," Cloak said, trying to defuse any escalation, "that it worked."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 23, 2015, 08:00:33 PM

... Did I just defeat an alien with a Miley Cyrus parody?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 09:43:35 PM

No! A song adaptation of a Weird Al parody of a Miley Cyrus song. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
You're So Tiny!

"It's so tiny!" Shadow cooed.

"It looks so adorable!" Abby joined in.

"Forget it," GH and Cloak said in unison.

"What?" Abby said.

"But, un-CULL . . ." Shadow said, trying the whole "batting-eyes" schtick.

"You are not keeping it," Cloak said, scrutinizing the Gossamer who was a few feet tall, roughly two feet. The remenants of the telebracers had tumbled off with a clunk, with the control collar falling off moments later. "We don't another ordeal like with the Taxxon."

"I was a kid!" Shadow protested. "I didn't know they were sentient!"

"Shadow, it was a humongous worm with many legs." Cloak said. "I don't understand the attraction."

"It was hurt," she said mulishly. "It needed my help."

"Shadow, I told you of their cannibalistic nature will quickly devolve into autophagia given the opportunity."

"How do you expect her to understand that?" GH said. "I barely did."

"Given the chance Taxxons will eat themselves," Cloak said, "given into their Sisyphian hunger."

"Must you always use big words?" Saffa said, a mischievous smile playing around her face.

"Ugh." Cloak said, deciding to change the subject. "We need to find a way to bring this little guy back to his home."

"And that would be?" Abby asked.

"I dunno," Cloak said. "I've never met these creatures before. . . . In this realm."

"What do you mean by that?" Saffa said, quickly observing Cloak's choice of words. "'In this realm'?"

"A lot of realms have, well, what you might call species redundancies. Nearly all of the realms that I have been to tended have a species of human in it. For what reason, I cannot say." Cloak explained. "But the very nature of the realms can vary from one to the other. The ones I've been to have been very similar, I'd admit."

"He's so cute," Abby said affectionately, referencing the Gossamer, who was asleep whilst standing up on its little tennis shoe-like feet. "Especially when he isn't being controlled by a megalomaniacal Realm Walker."

"You keep saying the realms that you've been to," GH said, "haven't you been to them all yet?"

Shadow giggled a bit at that, while Cloak replied seriously, "GH, that's an impossibility. There are more realms than there are stars in your sky. By a wide margin. No Realm Walker has seen them all, at least none in recorded Walker history."

"Oh."

"I think that I can bring this little guy home, using my TARDIS." Aquilai said, thoughtfully. "I managed to pry the coordinates from those bracer devices. I assume that they're a teleportation devices."

"Telebracers. Yes, they are."

"Right," Aquilai nodded. "Just as I suspected then. These coordinates are probably the location of this little fellow's home. I will just take him there, straight away."

"Take GH with you," Cloak said. "In case of Shaw, as Malice called him, decides to get big again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 23, 2015, 10:07:52 PM

So, wait, how exactly did that song shrink Shaw down?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 10:44:02 PM

It was actually constantly expending energy, only when it was attacking it was able to recoup the energy lost. The song prevented it from attacking, because it was enjoying it. So it shrank down. The reason that it was smaller than normal was because, well, it expended more energy than it usually does.

. . .

It makes sense! I assure you it does! ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 23, 2015, 10:55:58 PM

But how could ANYTHING enjoy a Miley Cyrus track? Let alone ME doing one? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2015, 11:32:00 PM

Technically, it was a Weird Al track. He's a bit like Rumplestiltskin, he can turn anything into gold. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Efficiency and Antics

"I still cannot believe that worked," GH said, as he went into Aquilai's TARDIS. He carried the Gossamer in an adequate cage made of a vibranium alloy, that had a touch of tylee metal in it.

"Come, GH! Time's a-wasting!!" Aquilai prompted.

"Isn't this a time machine?" GH countered. "Doesn't that mean we can take our time, arrive there in no time? Literally no time?"

"It's a time machine and a spacecraft, in the fact that it can be any time and any place, it's true," Aquilai said. "Just get a move on! I don't want to lose the coordinates."

GH sighed, as he hustled, and said, "Fine."

They were gone and then they returned five minutes later. With GH and Aquilai looking as if no time passed, but Saffa decided to have a little fun.

"What took you two so long?!"

"What? We were only gone for like two minutes." Aquilai said.

"No, it's been twenty years!" Saffa contradicted.

"Then why do you look exactly the same?" GH said, shrewdly.

"Oh, uh, future technology?" she said, obviously making it up on the fly.

"Suuuuure," GH replied.

"Dang it," Saffa said, smirking.

***

"Freddy!" Estelore called out in a stellar language. "Freddy! Freddy! Where the devil are you?!"

Freddy was really grinding her last nerve. She was really tiring over his "games", as he called it. The wishing star lie . . . he tried it again on numerous occasions, only to have each one fail due to the interference of his "Aunty Estelore".

Freddy was frustrated with her as well, for routinely spoiling his fun. What did he care if the stupid natives actually thought that wishing stars was a thing? It was funny to see them to wish with all their hearts for something that they don't get. He enjoyed crushing their hopes and dreams like that. Sure, it was cruel, but he was given leeway because he was a child (though the truth was because the natives could do nothing to stop him, as he never played his "games" with any civilizations that could pose even the most minute of threats to him.

But Estelore was the only one who simply would not allow him any leeway for his antics. She would not accept his excuses, she would not leave him alone. She would no t leave him to his games.

Then he discovered some strange phenomena: several space-borne mycorrhizoid spores, presented as small, icy ovoids. They were all free-floating around some barren rock in the Rukbat system, in the Oort Cloud.

Freddy, had he not been in star form, he would have smiled a smile of malicious mischievousness. This was not a good sign. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 24, 2015, 10:56:46 AM

Oh god, I actually sang the damn song.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2015, 01:30:03 PM

:XD:

Amazing though, the fact that this thread had exceed my inital goal of only 5 books. That's roughly twenty times the number of books that I initially intended. . . . Goes to show, I guess.

New chapter.

BOOK CII:
Threadfall
CHAPTER ONE:
Tyrannopeded and Hypnoticked Off

Dino was lurking within the forest, prowling rather aimlessly. She had a sudden wanderlust in her that she couldn't explain. She prowled the forest, potentially giving a couple of campers heart attacks. It was like an all-too real version of "Jurassic Park". Dino did not seem notice this, because she had her mind set on this little power walk she was taking.

She seemed to be enjoying herself. Enjoying feeling the dirt beneath her therapod feet, even wiggling them a bit with each step. She realized that she had been so busy with RAF over the past year and this slice of the new one, that she hadn't really stopped to enjoy the little things. The twittering of birds, the sunlight dappling through the upper canopy, the bubbling water in that brook over there . . .

Then she realized that she wasn't alone. She whipped her head around to see this newcomer. It had a segmented, purple and gray body, and a red head somewhere between that of a carnotaurus or a tyrannosaurus, with a horn on her forehead. It had four legs and six small arms with two clawed fingers on all them, feet and hands.

It was Saffa's favorite morph. A Tyrannopede, albeit a tad shorter than the one Saffa acquired. That could be because of a number of reasons -- maybe because male Tyrannopedes are smaller than females, or maybe this one was a tad younger than Saffa's morph, or maybe it was just an individual difference and nothing more.

Dino and the Tyrannopede eyed each other. Dino wasn't sure if this was Abby, Saffa, or Noelle, but then wondered why they would be in morph? There wasn't a reason for it. There were no active missions . . .

With a roar, the Tyrannopede sprayed web at Dino with the nozzle-like horn. But Dino took a step back, and was missed altogether. This clarified matters. Abby, Saffa, and Noelle would not attack unprovoked. Okay, maybe Abby and Noelle might, because they haven't really morphed a Tyrannopede with as much frequency as Saffa, as it is one of her favorites.

Suddenly, Dino roared with indignity. Her small arms were pinioned at her side by the web. But it was effectively pointless, though uncomfortable for her, as she very rarely, if at all, used those arms.

Dino swung her tail, slamming it into the front left leg of the Tyrannopede, breaking it, when another showed up. And this one was slightly bigger than the first. Wonderful.

But the second had used its web to wrap up the first one and immobilize it completely. The first seemed to have been taken unawares, as the second roared.

<Sorry that you had to go through this, Dino.>

"Saffa?"

<No, I'm a magical Tyrannopede. Catch me and I shall grant you and wish you -->

"Not in the mood, Saffa!"

<Testy, testy.> Saffa said. <Anyway, don't worry. We'll take this guy to a preserve, and give the guy who had it in his private zoo a hefty fine. This was a guy who thought a simple glass container would hold a Psycholeopterran. I mean, really? A glass container?>

***

Ghost was having a good time haunting a billionaire named Ronald Rosch, nicknamed by Ghost as "Ronald Rump", by manipulating his luck for the worse, causing trival hurts and inconveniences, but nothing life-threatening. He saw it as a way for some karmic payback, as this was a guy advocating for reducing minimum wage when it was difficult enough to live off it as is.

But, as it turns out, he has had his own private zoo, a personal menagerie. They consisted of an escaped Tyrannopede, a Rancor, an escaped Psycholeopterran, a Buglizard, a Mucillator, a Terrancula, and more, possibly. He worked very hard to keep it hush-hush.

Ghost stumbled upon this fact when he was chased by a Psycholeopterran, who mistook him for a Necrofriggan, their primary prey. Now, Psycholeopterrans are large insectoid creatures resembling a bee or moth. They are purplish-grey in color, have sharp fangs, four legs, two sharp teeth, a dual-stinger on its tail, two antennae on its head, and four wings.

It was here that Ghost discovered that a lot of the billionaire's secret menagerie had managed to escape due to the rich bastard's utter lack of knowledge of these creatures. . . .

Ghost led the Psycholeopterrans back to the forum, and to tell the other RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 24, 2015, 01:41:55 PM

I think there's been enough movies that's shown you never lock the evil thing in a glass cage. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 24, 2015, 01:48:29 PM

"Ronald Rump."

Real subtle, Cloaky :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2015, 06:51:44 PM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on October 24, 2015, 01:48:29 PM

"Ronald Rump."

Real subtle, Cloaky :P

Well, I wasn't really trying to be subtle.

Quote from: Saffa on October 24, 2015, 01:41:55 PM

I think there's been enough movies that's shown you never lock the evil thing in a glass cage. :P

Well, it could have worked -- if the glass was supertangible. The Psycholeopterran easily phased through it.

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Prank Like No Other

Fred collected the spores, careful not to melt their icy coverings, as they are reactivated by passage through the atmosphere. He could sense the thread-like strings within, which had floated down to the Pernese surface in sheets, tangles and clumps. The size of a single strand within the ovoid spores are comparable to long, silver strands of yarn. However, while feeding, these creatures grow visibly.

They are composed of complex proteins, Freddy guessed, that allow these creatures to consume any carbon-based substance through direct physical contact, as well as providing wriggling mobility. Contact with this creature by a carbon-based creatures leave marks not dissimilar to a chemical burn.

These creatures have no brain and no sentience. The majority of these creatures die after landing, due to starvation. However, if these creatures survive to begin its feeding cycle on the organic component of soil, the result is a burrow that multiplies extremely rapidly. A single burrow can devastate multiple square miles of land before perishing, according what Freddy saw upon the apparently uninhabited Pernese land.

Freddy thought that these creatures would be perfect for the ultimate prank. Of course, his idea of a mere prank did not match what other species would consider a prank. He looked over his proverbial shoulder. Estelore was not in sight. She would have undoubtly stopped his fun.

Freddy quickly gathered up a bunch of of the spores, a batch more than he had gathered up. He had to hurry. That old fuddy-duddy would interfere in his pranking plan. She seriously had no sense of humor. It was sad really.

Freddy hurried out of Rukbat system, and just in time, too. Because Estelore had came bustling into the system, rather like a harried mother. She knew that Freddy was up to something. He had been too quiet. He was prone to malevolent mischief. How can he be so careless about the consequences of his actions? She was never so reckless when she was his age.

Why couldn't he see how harmful and hurtful his malicious pranks are? Why is it so difficult for him to understand? He had to be here. Somewhere . . .

Then the Oort Cloud seemed to attract her attention for a reason that not even she could explain.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 25, 2015, 03:16:04 PM

Oh, bloody brilliant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2015, 03:29:46 PM

Oh, there's a defense. But, first -- here are some book ideas.

• Book DCCCXIX: "Faux News' Friend" -- The RAFians confront the living embodiment of propaganda.
• Book DCCCXX: "Synthoid Batteries" -- Cloak is captured by Synthoids, can Shadow save him in time?
• Book DCCCXXI: "And Back to the Show!" -- The RAFians are caught between the sibling rivalry of two Pugnavores.
• Book DCCCXXII: "Revenge of the Dream Weaver" -- The RAFians are targeted by a vengeful Nemuina.

There. Hopefully, I didn't rehash an old plotline. Assuming, of course, that I ever get to write these books . . .

:edit:

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Hellish Rain

Cloak, Blaze, Blocky and Demos were in the forested area between the city and the forum. They were standing in a remote, but open meadow. They were looking for the escaped creatures from the billionaire's menagerie. Rosch could not really cover it up, though he tried.

The animals remaining within the menagerie were either very dangerous, potentially dangerous, or very endangered, as was the case with the Psycholeopterran. Some of the domesticated animals were outright stolen, like the Ziboson which belonged to the Tetramand king's youngest daughter. There was no way that Rosch could wiggle out of that without starting an intergalactic incident, and angry Tetramands can be a scary thing, being superhumanly strong and durable with four arms. So Rosch thought it would be safer to face his punishment in a Terran justice system, where he might get a slap on the wrist (not likely, with a Galvan prosecutor).

The animals in his menagerie would be returned to their rightful place -- the Rodilia Dentia, Dravek, and Dasypodidae were sent back to Turrawuste, the Sand Ripper and the princess's Ziboson were sent back to Khoros, and so on and so forth. Noelle, Saffa, and Abby acquiring five new morphs in the process, though highly-situational morphs.

But the Slamworm, the Terroranchula, the Mucillator, the Buglizard, and the drakon were still at large. But, surprisingly enough, there were no reported sightings.

Cloak and Blocky sensed it before they saw it. It was like a silvery rain about to come to the city. But it was no rain, this both RAFians were sure. They did not need Yarin's alert, having detected the DNA of the mindless creatures falling through the atmosphere. These wriggling, writhing sausages were about four inches by ten feet, and they were falling in sheets of clumps.

Cloak recognized them as once -- another realm held such creatures as well -- as Blocky bugled a call Cloak had never heard Block make. Cloak realized that Block must have a long-forgotten instinct about these creatures, about this Thread, much like many humans have innate instincts to adapt to whatever environment they can.

"Demos, stay on the ground, and burn every single strand of that silver string creatures, of that Thread, you see. Before it touches the ground." Cloak said, as Block was already flapping to meet the Thread, apparently not noting or caring that Shock and EvilPinkDragon were coming from the forum to fight this same threat. "Do not go overboard. Limit the collateral damage as much as possible. You hear me?"

"Aw, you're no fun!"

Cloak gave Demos a light punch to the face, cracking a horn, which regenerated quickly enough.

"This isn't the time to joke!" the Realm Walker said, severely, as Blaze had already taken to the air. "Do you understand me? Thread can devour a creature the size and mass as a cow in mere moments. It can make this world barren if enough of them burrow into the ground."

It wasn't precisely true, as sea life would be prefectly safe, as Thread drowns remarkably quick. But the point was still made as Cloak formed his energy disc up and went to help out the dragons using the one element he despised over the others.

Demos rubbed his cheek, though the pain had long since vanished. He said, in a small hurt voice, "That was unnecessary."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2015, 09:21:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Wheel of Morality, Spin, Spin, Spin

During the fierce battle the dragons, Blaze, and Cloak were having with the Thread, it was seen quite differently among the populace of the city -- as seeing a Realm Walker on an energy and three dragons flaming Thread would hardly go unnoticed.

Several hidden Knights, clad in military-grade armor in the shape of medieval armor, complete with helmets of the same motif, took immediate notice and immediate leaped to the wrong conclusion.

"They are invading!" one declared.

"Oh, dear," another gasped.

"We knew that these miserable sympathizers would lead to our downfall!" a third said, heatedly.

"This is why we Knights are here!" a fourth added on, with equal passion and delusion.

"We will save the rightful denizens of this planet from these squatters and invaders!!" a fourth agreed with a deluded grandeur. "We will not lose our God-given sovereignty!"

"But just how do you intend us to do that, though?" the second replied. "The logistics are already a nightmare . . ."

The other four glared venomously at him, for poking holes in their grandiose plot, their deluded scheme. These guys were armchair racists, couch xenophobics. They expected to get credit when the Knights claim victory (and whenever they do it is often distorted and twisted to fit their narrative), though these particular five don't lift a finger and do anything that they claim should be done.

They were old fogies, unable to cope with change, unable to comprehend a change in the status quo, and not able to fathom changjng opinions. That is the reason why they were Knights, although none in real high rank.

***

On the other side of the city, there happened to be a religious fanatic, who was traveling with friends. They had decided to go on a bit a shopping spree, making a day out of it. They were enjoying the freedom and having enough money to do so, clearly not feeling the crunch that the minimum wage workers don't get to enjoy very often. Or ever.

Anyway, the religious fantatic happened to look up, her arms laden with solid-colored bags colored pink, red, yellow, green, and black. She quickly dropped them as she took what she saw above as some sort of divine sign of some sort of rapture or something . . . nonsensical.

She yelled out in prostrations of ecstasy, believing that she would be floating up bodily or something. She was shouting with glee -- looking rather insane, clearly misquoting whatever religion she claimed to belong to.

Her friends, religious but not to this exaggerated extent, looked at her as if she had cracked. They clearly thought that she had lost her mind, and were embarrassed at the scene that she was making.

"This woman does not represent us," one of them replied to a staring onlooker. They didn't want to throw their friend under the bus like that, but she had lost all sense of decorum, and this was quite embarrassing enough as is.

***

A short distance away, there was a conspiracy theorist who used to work in politics, before becoming a professional blogger. He always take offense when being referred to as a conspiracy theorist, even though it was true.

He had seen the battle with the Thread above the city, with Demos darting about beneath it taking potshots at any Thread strands that may have excaped the firebreath and fire blasts above. Fortunately it was not many.

This wrinkly blob of skin had decided that this was an obvious sign of the end of the world, complete with demons running amok. Of course, he can't be bothered with offering verifiable proof (which some of the bloggers, who have no problem with actually fact-checking, were quite irritated with him with), instead preferring to use flawed logic, strawman arguments, anecdotal fallacies, and the like. As well as ignoring the fact that people have been predicting the end of the world since time immemorial.

***

Within moments, the three dragons, Blaze, and Cloak had cleared away the Thread as the Threadfall seemed to have ended. Cloak quickly scouted the area to be absolutely sure. Eventually he was satisfied that none had been left, and there were no burrows.

He returned back to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 26, 2015, 12:20:25 AM

Yeah, nothing ends in four chapters. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2015, 08:11:28 AM

Still so tempting to be a troll and put up "Book CIII" above this chapter . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Cloak Played "Infinite Explanations"!

Back at the forum, Cloak still felt restless, worried that maybe he didn't check hard enough, that he had missed a Thread burrow. The anxiety and uncertainty ate him up, though he knew, deep down, that he covered every square inch of the place.

Then he started to wonder if the city was the only place that was affected. If it was, then they were exceedingly lucky. If not, then they should start scouring the world. The oceans and lakes and ponds would not be a real concern, of course, nor the more arid and frigid areas of the planet perhaps.

But Cloak couldn't escape the feeling that perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn't doing enough to stop the Thread.

Naturally, a meeting was called in the auditorium, to discuss this new threat.

"If Cloak hadn't been so quick to act," Blaze said, "as well as the RAFian dragons and myself, the string things would have hit the ground. Cloak seemed emphatic that they should not do that."

"They shouldn't," Cloak said.

"Why?" Sakki said. "Why was it so important? And how do you know about these stringy things?"

"They are identical to a creature that I observed from another realm," Cloak said. "They are called Thread."

"Well, given what we call our quarters, that could be a bit confusing," Saffa said, before Cloak launched into a lecture about these creatures.

"Thread are thin, silvery, filaments of a space-borne spore that devours all organic matter that it touches. A planet in the Rukbar system, I think it was, called Pern or something experiences this deadly organism rains down from their sky periodically. They remain dormant in inner-system space as a small, icy ovoid, but are reactivated by passage through the atmosphere, by heat and atmospheric friction. This burns off the outer shell and releases thread-like strings which float down to the surface in sheets, tangles and clumps. And while they feed, Thread grows visibly."

"Oh, this sounds pleasant," GH said, in a sarcastic aside, before Cloak continued the lecture.

"Structurally, they are composed of a lot of thin, tightly-wound filaments within a very fine outer shell, or film, if you prefer. I think it's complex proteins that allow Thread to consume any substance -- er, carbon-based substance, that is -- through direct physical contact, as well as providing wriggling mobility. Contact with Thread results in something the natives of that other realm dubbed "Threadscore", which looked similar to a chemical burn."

"Interesting," Yarin said.

"Don't even think about it," Abby said, at once.

"What?"

"You aren't collecting some for study."

"But . . . it can be useful," the Nyac protested.

Almost as if in response, Cloak said, "A small clump of Thread can devour a fully-grown cow in mere moments. Feeding Thread grow rapidly, pulsating with sickly grey and green colors as it does. The exterior shell thickens with growth, and Thread dies from the inside out -- which might suggest that the Thread's explosive consumption may interfere with its metabolism. The shell thickens and hardens in death, while the interior undergoes a sort of unravelling or melting process that leaves a foul stench that I'll never forget. Water drowns Thread quickly, however, leaving behind nothing but a soggy, bubbling mess."

". . . How do you know all this?" GH asked. "You are starting to sound like a Wikipedia article."

Cloak glared at him a bit, then sighed before pressing on.

"They have no brain and are not sentient. The majority of Thread tends dies after landing, starving to death. However, if Thread survives to begin its feeding cycle on the organic component of soil, the result is a burrow that multiplies alarming rapidity. Think of how the Heinlin spread. A single burrow, from what I can remember, can devastate multiple square miles of land before perishing."

"Now I understand why you punched me," Demos said. "I still think it was a bit unnecessary though."

"I disagree," Sakki teased.

"Close examination, from the examiners of that realm, of Thread ovoids under inert conditions -- that is, near-vacuum pressures and subzero temperatures -- revealled an ice shell embedded with cometary matter (you know, rocks and dirt), requiring specialized glass tools to cut. Their dissection revealed a mass of tightly wound fibers, tubes, and yellow goo (possibly, liquid helium). The captured Thread ovoids, when exposed to warm laboratory conditions, exploded into a writhing, devouring mass that later melts into a dead puddle after a short time without sufficient food."

"Well," Saffa said, "that was a rather large info dump, wasn't it?"

"Hilarious," Cloak said dryly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2015, 09:46:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Tensions Run High

"And I don't know why we went up to battle it," Blocky said. "It was almost as if I was . . . was on automatic, or something."

"It was a deep-seated instinct," Shock said. "Long buried and forgotten."

"Why do we have such instincts, though?" EvilPinkDragon asked, pensively.

"I do not know," Shock said, in his usual surly manner, "nor do I care. It's enough that we do. And if we feel this compulsion, other dragons will, too."

"Ah, so we don't have to worry about global --" Saffa began before Shock cut across her.

"Dragon numbers are not numerous," he said, bluntly. "Not as numerous as humans, anyway. One reason dragons aren't seen -- er, aren't seen, usually. Some can even disguise themselves as humans. Some, not all. Just like not all dragons have dragonbreath -- flame breath."

"Well, in any case, it's over. And in record time, too." Underseen said.

"Don't be so quick," Cloak said, ever cautious, ever vigilant. "Nothing's ever so easy. Nothing . . ."

"So . . . the only way to kill this Thread thing -- sidenote: Saffa's right, that's gonna get confusing -- the only way to kill this Thread thing is to burn it? Other than trying to starve it, I mean." Phoenix said. "I should have been there."

"Aquilai too," Sakki said, teasingly, and with a straight face. "You can firebend."

"No, I can't!" Aquilai protested. "I'm waterbender. I would have to regenerate first before I became a firebender."

"You need help with that, then?" Sakki said, coyly.

Aquilai was not amused. "You're not being funny, Sakki."

"Oh, c'mon, you big baby," Sakki said, facetiously.

Aquilai didn't find Sakki's overt flippancy at, what essentially was, his death. He may be able to regenerate but that doesn't mean the circumstances of the death didn't hurt. And he made sure that Sakki knew this and the possible implications of this insensitivity of hers.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I wasn't being very nice. I'll admit it," she said said, raising her hands in a symbolic sign of surrender and capitulation.

"The point is," Cloak said, diverting attention to the task that he was sure to soon be at hand, "that there may be more Threadfalls. We should be prep--"

Then he was interrupted when Blocky, Shock, and EvilPinkDragon started bugling of their own accord. It was like a reflex, not somethkng they consciously controlled.

Cloak sighed and finished his statement, "Be prepared."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 27, 2015, 04:57:41 AM

I'll admit, I read that whole Wikipedia dump in a droning news reporter voice. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 27, 2015, 03:16:42 PM

*chuckle.*

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Scored and Bored

Cloak, the three dragons, Blaze, Phoenix, and any other pyrokinetic or pyrotechnic RAFian that the forum had were rushed into battle. Saffa even helped, as her Sheer Goliath morph was a fire-breather, only she had to be careful as she didn't really want to become a nothlit (granted, there are worse things to be stuck as, like a flea, a male angler fish, or a politician).

The RAFians wanted to be sure to be as thorough as they could be. If just one strand of Thread made it to fertile soil, it could cause an ecological disaster undreamed of for a selected area. If more found their way into the soil . . . it was a topic that was preferable to not consider lightly.

Soon, the air was alight with fire. The RAFians were being ruthlessly efficient in destroying the alien organism. They did not hesitate, and they did not stop. Not until they were sure every strand was gone.

Of course, the plane that came by seemed to have wiped some out, but not because of impact or whatnot. But in that it prevented them from eating carbon-based "foodstuffs", and they quickly starved. Naturally, the human (or, at least, they looked human) pilots were nonplussed, obviously never having encountered such creatures like Thread before.

Parker had quickly scanned the ordinary 747 for the presence of persistant strands of thread, and he was satisfied that they all had been exterminated. He went back to help, using fire and heat-themed weaponry.

Phoenix got "Threadscored", leaving a linear burn mark acrossing his left cheek. His cheek became swathed in flames and the mark vanished. It was fortunate that this was the only Threadscore that happened during this battle.

It was quite a distraction for the people down below in the city. Many of whom did not seem to have the good sense to go to the safety of their homes, instead came out to see the battle -- though it was a rather one-sided battle, so much so that the word "battle" seemed to be hyperbole -- and watch all the flashy bangs and flumes of fire.

***

Meanwhile, above the Earth, revolving in tandem with the planet, was Freddy. He was starting to pout like a spoiled brat who wasn't getting what he wanted, when he wanted. He had expected to come to this planet and spread his spores -- uh, that doesn't sound right, does it?

Anyway, he was finding thst spreading the Thread to this planet rather boring. He had expected at least some resistence, and, looking at remnants of a satellite-based defensive grid, he felt disappointed. He felt as if he was denied a treat that he very much desired.

And, what was more, the denizens of the planet were not reacting how he thought they would. He was expecting a result as if he was merely playing "Plague, Inc.", as if toying with lives like this was a mere game and the lives he would ruin were mere footnotes in some comic book anthology. He did not see them as real people with lives and feelings and histories and minds of their own.

He had this young child mentality of only his feelings, of only his thoughts, of only his wants, of only his needs mattered. Granted, before he came into contact with Estelore, he spent the majority of his life in this little bubble where he, and only he mattered. Estelore's efforts to reach him, to teach him the truths that he willfully and wontonly flouted. He thought the very ideas Esy tried to instruct funny and laughable.

But he was finding himself growing more and more bored with this prank. It really wasn't as good as his usual wishing star prank. That was more entertaining than this. His interest was quickly slipping.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2015, 12:29:31 AM

What do I listen to when I write these chapters? Why the Opinionated Animorph Book Guides, by our own poparena! . . . Sometimes.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Blame Game

And whilst the RAFians work so very hard and so very diligently to eliminate the Thread, their reputations were being called into question, and the masses (although that is being fairly generous) were being misled. There was a fair bit of xenophobic sentiment in the city, though still a minority, as proven by the mere existence of the Knights of Humanity, which was popular within these circles, despite being generally incompetent and self-grandizing.

Of course, that didn't stop a particularly loud, conspiratorial, wannabe disc jockey from using his radio show as his own personal forum. His name was Bern Bridges*, a thick-bodied man with stubby limbs, who had a face with prominent jowls and face like that Grumpy Cat meme. He was a very confrontational, very proud, and very narrow-minded man, which, sadly, was a personality becoming more and more prevalent these days.

He had a radio show, in which he talked about subjects using wrong or made-up figures and facts. He had became an expert on spinning facts (or lack thereof), and many logical fallacies.

". . .These people -- for want of a more appropriate term -- are in our skies, defiling it with flame. For no discernable purpose."

He either could not see the Thread or chose not to see it.

"They were responsible for countless burns on many of the populace. And this, dear listeners --"

Yeah, all twelve of them.

"-- is not the only transgression these people have incurred upon us. They had unleashed that viral ooze upon us about a year ago now. The y did it without remorse! If you remember, it buried parts of the city. These people, who call themselves RAFians, which should be considered an affront to the Royal Air Force by definition, were also responsible for destabilizing the country of Geosha."

He paused to take a drink of his water, the dry-throated slimeball. He continued in this vein for all of the RAFian mission that had involved the city -- including the Skrull invasion, the Heinlin invasion, the ice ifrit, etc. He proceeded to blame the RAFians for it all, when their responsibility in those matters was dubious at best.

"Not to mention the fact that these vigilantes had ransacked the home of a humble public servant, Ronald Rosch," he continued, proving himself to be a horrid human being. "They ransacked it. They hadn't a search warrant or an arrest warrant for him, but just waltzed in and took his property."

Of course, the RAFians did have a warrant, and, of course, Bern chose not to mention that the "property" taken were the creatures in his private menagerie. Bern Bridges was an obvious propaganda peddler. But, sadly, while his listeners wouldn't have been much of a threat, but the narrative was not too different from the prejudiced propaganda that the airwaves were often inundated with.

And RAF's PR standings were already shaky at best.

---

*Yes, I know it's a bit on the nose (and because I know either GH or Saffa will call me out if I didn't mention it ;), but it conveys all thst needs to about this character, am I right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 28, 2015, 12:37:15 AM

I had to laugh at loud at the footnote. I totally was going to say something if you didn't put that in there. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2015, 10:13:31 AM

 ^-^ I knew it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Will of the People

Bern Bridges was only one of a persistent few that was engaging in this type of slander and character assassination. Instead of venerating the RAFian, they criticized and debased and derided and derogated them. The worst infraction, though, was that they did not have facts to back up their claims, but instead resorted to and employed gossip, false dichotomies, equivocation, circular reasoning, strawmen, tautology, arguments from ignorance (woefully prevalent), false premises, foundational bias, ad hoc reasoning, arguments from personal incredulity (seemingly a favorite tactic), slippery slope arguments, hasty generalizations, "correlation implies causation" fallacies, non sequiturs, creative math (mostly involving death counts), arguments from "authority", outright (and sometimes outrageous) lies, man-on-the-street interviews (which the interviewer asks leading questions), ad hominem arguments, quote mining, appeals to the majority, and just plain nonsense. It was a lot of tactics to use, but a smart person would be able to see through them, and realize the utter lack of substance. But the stupid or naive would be very easily swayed.

However, there was another thing to account for. Something that had gone unnoticed in the adventures and travails of the past year and beyond.

There was a sense of resentment. Resentment towards the the RAFians, who a fair few were beginning to believe were responsible for giving their city a Gotham City Syndrome. The rent was dirt cheap, sure. But was it really worth it in the long run? There was an escalated chance of them being possessed, mind controlled, transformed, or even killed in this city. The RAFians brought such dangers to city whether they literally did or simply just attracted it here. They did not think that the RAFians were adept at protect them from threats.

The lack of RAFian transparency may have also played a factor -- the city's populace didn't even know about the Pootang or Yarin's spacecraft or Aquilai's TARDIS.

But, to counterpoint this feeling, there was a side who believed that the RAFians were the only ones equipped to defend them from threats outside the police force. Outside of outright militarizing the police, which would be an outright mistake to do. There are police officers who already abuse their authority and power, and they did not need tanks and what not.

***

The Threadfall soon ended, and the RAFians returned to their forum, to prepare for the next fall. As well as divine how the Thread came to be here, because Cloak, Yarin, and Aquilai were emphatic that they were not indigenous to this star system.

There had to be a reason that thread had come this far. They decided to contact Esty to see if she could see how they were coming to Earth. Sure, Yarin could go up in his ship to look around, but he was needed to work logistics with Aquilai and Goom.

Then they became aware of the resentment of some of the citizens. They became aware of Bridges show.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2015, 01:09:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Fickle and Rankle

"What the bloody hell?!" GH, Sakki, Saffa, Faerie, and Parker roared in unintentional unison. They had caught some of Bern Bridges's broadcast, which was surprising in and of itself, considering he was using a rather dying medium. Suffice it to say, they weren't tooterribly pleased with what he was saying, especially the inaccurate conjecture and the outright lies.

Cloak, however, wasn't all that surprised at the fickle nature of the masses.

He had endured similar treatment, similar slanderous and libelous remarks, similar character assassination. His name was more than likely going though the same thing in the Nexus. But that did not make him ambivalent to this news.

"Those ingrates!" Sakki roared. She had to be more careful, as she nearly activated her sonics in her rage. "We risk our lives protecting them from God knows what, and they have the nerve to turn on us?!"

"We would never going to be universally popular," Cloak said, without emotion. "To expect such a thing, it's pointless."

"How can you say that so calmly?" Faerie said, clearly incensed. "They are character assassinating us, and you pull back? Aren't you angry by this?"

"It's upsetting to be sure, yes," Cloak said, not exactly answering the question.

"You're not answering the question," Saffa pointed out shrewdly.

"Just drop it," Cloak said. "They are going to believe whatever they choose to believe. Yelling or nagging at them will not change their opinion. Not once they've made their minds up."

"I can believe you're going to let this --" Sakki pressed.

"You think that this is the first time I have had people assassinate my character?! My integrity?!" Cloak said, in a stunted explosion of emotion. "My name is a joke in the Nexus. They think me a weirdo, a shameful dishonor to my venerable grandfather. Why? Because I rather spend my time with Dweller that can be honest with me and give a Gateburst care about me and my well-being!"

Cloak breathed, calming himself down.

"For being exceedingly tired and weary of the rampant governmental corruption of the Council, not to mention the prevalent anti-Dweller sentiment. They would choose to see you as insects -- I refuse to buy into that ideology. So, they, in turn, deride my reputation, scorn my decisions, and sneer my name as an expletive."

He paused, allowing the silence to become nearly suffocating.

"I am the Realm Walker variation of Seerow," Cloak said, quietly, as the dragons bugled once more.

***

"Get outta town, monsters!" a man yelled.

"Bern Bridges's right! You're no good!" a shrill woman shouted, as a group of six humans closed in on Saffa and Demos.

"Yeah!" another man yelled. "Stay away from us humans!"

"We don't want your kind here!" the same woman from before shrieked.

"I don't think they like us, Saffa," Demos said, with a coy tone.

<Demos,> Saffa scolded, <no.>

"Just a little immolation?"

<NO, Demos.> Saffa said, firmly. <Ignore them. We have a job to do, and, whether these fact-fearing fools want to believe it or not, we have tk save their ungrateful lives.>

"Aw," Demos said, almost whining, "you're no fun, Saffa."

<And you're not doing our PR any favors by speaking like that,> Saffa countered, as he continued upon her work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 29, 2015, 06:41:44 AM

Huh? I'm in morph? I assume I'm hawk, then. Quiet surveillance.

I think I'll use the points in the previous chapter the next time my local nerd gang has a Batman or Civil War debate. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2015, 07:03:47 AM

No, you're in Sheer Goliath morph, due to it being your only morph with fire capabilities. It's another Threadfall, remember. Which makes being in the air without having fire capabilities or being completely ensconced within metal highly dangerous. If thread can devour a cow within moments, imagine what they could do to a hawk with the same lenght of time . . .

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Duties

Estelore was still inspecting the the Oort Cloud, discovering that there were strange creatures there in  dormant state. She wondered how she had never noticed these before. Granted, it was easy to miss.

But she wondered what these strange spores were. They didn't look to be dangerous, floating there in the Cloud. Of course, that didn't mean that they were harmless. Esty was wise enouh to know that. After all, a Yeerk alone didn't look threatening, but allow it a host and it can spread its species like a secret plague. Proving again that judging how dangerous something was by appearance was a very foolish thing to do.

Then she got the communication from the others. They were asking her about something called the Thread. She wasn't familiar with the species, she was afraid. Then Cloak had provided her a description, in a clipped and blunt way. She knew by his tone how serious this was, and she suspected that the creatures inside the Cloud to be some how related.

Then she remembered why she came here in the first place. Freddy. She needed to find him and stop him from getting into his malicious mischief. Stop him from being such a brat . . .

Yet the others needed her. And needed her quite direly, it would seem.

She was torn, but she had a decision to make. And she made it, hoping that she would be forgiven for her choice.

***

Demos and Saffa, still in Sheer Goliath morph (having only required to demorph and remorph at least once during this Threadfall), remained on the ground to make sure the Thread wouldn't make it to the ground. They were the insurances, especially because this was a heavy Threadfall.

However, one thing did not make things any easier.

"Are you absolutely sure that I can't immolate them?" Demos said, as the six "protesters" (for want of a more accurate term) had decided to follow the two around. Had decided to distract and harass them from their duty and their obligation. "Not even a little?"

<Please, Demos,> Saffa said, with a strained voice. <Don't tempt me.>

"I'm a demon," Demos said, brightly. "It's what we do."

<Hilarious,> Saffa said, dryly, <now get back to work.>

They lapsed int silence briefly, before something occured to Saffa.

<And be mindful of those protesters,> Saffa said. <They may not care about their own safety, but we must take steps to keep them out of danger.>

"They're not gonna like that," Demos noted, dutifully burning Thread strands overlooked by the aerial battlers.

<They'll get over it,> Saffa said, with a rather savage finality.

***

Cloak was in the thick of things with Phoenix, Parker (using his thermal and fire-based weaponry, using his Falcon Armor to fly, although he wasn't as fast or agile as the others in flight), Blocky, Shock, EvilPinkDragon, Blaze, and other pyrokinetic or pyrotechnic-utilizing RAFians. Cloak, unable to truly fly as his grandfather, due to his being a feline Realm Walker.
He was "flying" upon a golden-scarlet energy disc beneath his feet.

He had to keep his mind on the battle, maintaining the disc, and blasting the Thread with the flame issuing from his fist. He had to also monitor just how much he used, and how hot he allowed it to get. He did not want to risk going full power -- he did not know the upper limits of his power over the fire element. There was a chance that he could make it hot enough to ignite the atmosphere.

Cloak hoped that he was seriously mistaken about this. He hoped he wasn't that powerful, he already feared his sheer power enough as is.

But Cloak was glad for the distraction. The whole Bern Bridges thing had brougt out the resentment in him that he never knew -- that he never realized -- that he had. But it was long-held, because of the slander and misinformation he knew was going on in the Nexus. He pretended that he wasn't aware of it, he lied to himself that it wasn't going on. But, that was about as good as burying his emotions. He was aware of this but . . .

Whoa!

He nearly go a face full of Thread. They would have disintergrated, incinerated and melted away simoutaneously, of course. But there was still the shock of something coming toward your face. He blasted the clump before it reached his face.

He needed to get his mind back into the battle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2015, 02:55:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Brief Respite

The Threadfall ended, and the RAFians returned. They were not pleased to see that Bern Bridges was still at it, actually gaining some sort of negative notoriety. Cloak wore a soured look on his face.

He had expected this realm to be a resprite from all that mudslinging crap. But, no, there were still those miserable slimeballs with no intergrity and willing to do anything to discredit those who they don't agree with, regardless of whether or not that they were -- factually -- in the right. The whole ordeal was frustrating. Not to mention a bit depressing.

They sacrifice their time, their energy, and, sometimes, their very lives to keep the people of this world safe. And, all the while, the people actually resented them for doing it. They didn't do what they did for recognition, but because it was the right thing to do. And now they learn the populace never wanted them to do it at all.

Vigilantes. That was the new buzzword that Bern Bridges had decided to use to label them. As well as going so far as to call them treasonous vigilante, thought they were funded by the government to handle things the normal police couldn't handle, and things that couldn't be handled in a militaristic way (which rankled some of the more violence-prone citizens and soldiers).

It was amazing just how easily the masses could be misled, when facts were presented to them. It was astonishing how they could resist the truth, even if they were given all the facts, not wanting to abandon their preconceived notions. It was sad how these people allowed themselves to be so susceptible to manipulation by a moderately-skilled orator. The Realm Walker masses in the Nexus weren't any different, really.

But Cloak was relieved to discover that this was not an unopposed movement. There others voices, just as loud, shouting and decrying these fanatics. But, unlike these people who run solely of emotions (though they heavily dispute such a claim), thes proponents used cold rational thoughts and indisputable facts, which they refused to allow to be swept under the rug.

But Cloak couldn't help but wonder if this division was truly a good thing. Unified, people are stronger, but universal unification, universal popularity, it was an impossibility. There was always going to be that one person, that one "hater" as the phrase goes. Cloak told himself that he had best remember that for the future, so that he doesn't take these things so personally.

He had a rather restless night, but he rested up enough. The dragon RAFians were bugling again. There was another Threadfall. Time to do their duty.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on October 29, 2015, 10:03:34 PM

Well, I don't mind being Daredevil. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2015, 10:36:52 PM

Huh? How so? If it's a reference to the Netflix show, I must admit I never seen it. I've always been more of an X-Men guy anyway.

Oh, new chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Burning Thread At Both Ends

Cloak ascended back into the sky, preparing to dodge and weave and burn. Fortunately, he did not have to worry about hurting the others, as they were heavily resistant or outright immune to fire-based attacks. He was glad that he wasn't alone in this, sure that he would not be able to prevent all the Thread falling to the Earth. He may have been powerful, but he was still one individual.

They all dodged and weaved expertly, sith practiced ease. Some may have called it exciting, but, truth be told, it was a kind of excitement that Cloak would rather do without. But even with all this exertion and heavy task at hand, Cloak couldn't stop the back of his mind from thinking. No matter how he tried to focus on the task at hand -- his hyperfocus not taking effect. Perhaps because his mind was so full, mwybe because he felt a little disheartened from the ingraciousness tha the some of the populace were giving them.

His mind started to suspect that Malice was behind this. She was just about behind everything of this nature that happened to them. But there was something just a bit off about that. This seemed a little too overt . . . okay, granted, the Gossamer was overt, too, but that was different. When she was so obvious she would come out of hiding and start monologuing like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. She had a weakness for such monloguing, and strutting around grandiosely.

This was seriously not her MO. But, if not her, then who? Who? Who was behind this?

***

<Are you bloody serious?!> Saffa roared. She was back in her Sheer Goliath morph again <Don't they even REALIZE the danger they keep putting themselves in?!>

This time it was twelve people following them, some of them chikdren who didn't know any better. These people were endangering their own kids. Some of them held crudely-made signs which read things of a reprehensible nature.

"Maybe if they're devoured by the Thread, they'll have misgivings," Demos said, smiling like a maniac. That demonic nature can get the better of him sometimes.

<Don't tempt me like that,> Saffa warned wanely. <Even though it's probably true.>

"Watch your left," Demos said.

They continued their work as they endured the jeers and accusations of the twelve dim-witted protesters. They did not question why they numbered only twelve (with a couple of children, who did not seem to be truly aware of what they were protesting),  and not more. The reason was simple. The others had some self-preservation instincts. And good sense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2015, 04:05:19 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Greenry Tantrum

Through all these Threadfalls, Freddy hovered in a tight orbit, but careful not to influence the planet. That would ruin his fun. He orbited the planet in tandem with its rotation, controlling his gravity, though it was unclear if it was conscious or subconscious. Or even if stars had a subconscious.

He had allowed the Thread he collected to fall down on the precise spot where he thought the forum was at -- unaware that he was off-target. He controlled the amount that fell, and controlled it very judiciously. Then, after allowing Thread to fall, he would watch. He would watch, expecting to see the green turn to brown as the greenry was devoured by the Thread, like starving piranhas, which he imagined fell, unimpeded to the ground. He didn't care if the thread happened to eat throug any innocent people, as long as they got his prank.

It was starting to become obvious that Freddy clearly got his morality from a Howler, in addition to their ideas of games, only in a more indirect, psychologically-tormenting manner.

Freddy was watching eagerly, as if he was just playing "Plague, Inc." or something. As if he had expected it to spread, spreading a swath of destruction and devastion in its wake. But Thread do not quite work in the way that Freddy was expecting. They have the potential to cause massive amount of injury and property damage. But they didn't spread like the star boy wanted them to.

Freddy was continuing to watch the planet, but he was getting impatient. The land was still green! What was taking so long?! The prank was floundering! It wasn't gonna be funny!

Of course, Freddy refused to believe that it wasn't funny to begin with. He refused to see that no one, other than himself, found his pranks hurtful. He was just having his fun. He was allowed to have fun. He was still a kid. He was older than most elderly of planet-dwelling species, but he was still a kid in the terms of stellar biology, still a prepubescent sentient star.

It was no excuse, but it was his just the same.

He started to get antsy and anxious. Any minute now, just any minute now, was his constant mental refrain. But wasn't long before anxiousness and impatience mixed volatilely into anger.

"What the bloody hell is taking so long?!" he roared in the stellar language known by all sentient stars. He was unwittingly allowing his irritation to be heard by all, though only very few would understand the stellar language as it was not spoken language per se. "Hurry up already!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2015, 10:34:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Meanwhile, Back At the Forum

The pyrokinetic and pyrotechnic-utilizing RAFians were still fighting the Thread over the city. And it was only the city for some reason. And still no word from Estelore.

Aquilai, Goom, Yarin, and every one of the mods were working the logistics, but the rest of the RAFians were not sitting on their hands. They were just working on another mission, rather unrelated.

This was being spearheaded by Abby and GH, as they couldn't fight the Thread as Abby had no fire-based morphs and GH had no pyrotechnic abilities of his own, all he had was his guitar. Neither wanted to sit around and do nothing, and they had not forgotten about the escapees from Ronald Rosch's personal menagerie.

The Slamworm. Native of Terraexcava, and the predatory species of the bipedal, armored, sentient Talpaedans.

The drakon. Origin presumably unknown. Capabilities uncertain.

The Mucilator from a currently disclosed planet. The natural predators of a undisclosed bipedal, sentient insectoid species.

The Terroranchula, from another currently undisclosed planet. The natural predators of a small, tetrapedal, sentient insectoid species.

The Buglizard. Hailing from Lepidopterra, and the predatory species of the sentient insectoid Lepidopterrans.

But GH was certain that there were probably more undocumented escapes. Like perhaps a Vicetopus from Encephalonus IV or a Panuncian from Hathor or a Root Shark from Aranhaschimmia. They did learn that Rosch got these creatures from his menagerie by a male Zaroffian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Zaroffian) called Khredatr, which was pronounced like "creditor". He had disguised himself as human as to avoid suspicion for this illicit activity, and to go unnoticed amongst the populace. He used a lower-quality ID mask, but it was different from Cloak's.

Rosch would not care, as long as he got what he wanted. And he enjoyed of owning such powerful, fierce, and fearsome creatures in his menagerie, under the foolish notiin that he could control these wild creatures, many of which could kill him without a second thought. It's the same reason why lamentable fools think that lions and tigers can be good pets, when they were wild animals. Only this is a horrid exaggeration of such a line of thinking.

Anyway, Abby, GH, Gaz, Blue, Helen, Underseen, Faerie, Az, and Horse were among the RAFians who were scouring the nearby areas for these missing megafauna, for these missing predators. They didn't forget, and this what they were doing while the others were fightingbthe Thread.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2015, 11:48:31 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
You Got Some 'Splainin' to Do, Young Star!!

"Why?!" Freddy roared, in their stellar language. "Why the hell is it taking it so long?!"

"Why is what taking so long?" said a voice behind him.

"By beady strings! They were supposed to spread across the planet!" Freddy said, apparently not realizing that the voice was actually speaking, though in that strange, nonsensical stellar language. "The green was supposed to turn brown!! The prank would have been absolute perfect!!"

"You wanted to defoliate the planet?" said the voice, with a reproving, disapproving tone.

"No!! I wanted to get rid of all the plants!!" the pre-adolescent star fumed. "Get rid of them all, athen they'd have to replant them all!! It would have been hilarious!!"

"Hilarious?" the voice chided dangerously. "You think that mass starvation and food scarcity will be funny?"

"Oh, it wouldn't be that bad," Freddy said, dismissively.

"How do you figure?"

"It just wouldn't."

"So, you don't know."

"Like it matters," Freddy dismissed arrogantly. "They are lesser beings, in any case. In the grand scheme of things, they don't matter. No one will miss 'em, if they were gone. This is just a backwater planet. Their star isn't even sentient."

"Sentient stars rarely take on planets, if ever," the voice said, knowingly.

"And how would you bloody well --" Freddy said, suddenly realizing that he was having a conversation with someone else. He turned around, to see Estelore hovering behind him, looking very displeased with Freddy. "Uh . . ."

Freddy suddenly changed his demeanor to a child caught in wrongdoing, caught in willful and deliberate wrongdoing. He was immediately sheepish and shy, in his adopted aunt's presence.

"What do you think you're doing?" Estelore said, barely containing her discontent. Though she was doing a far better job than Cloak would have. "Let me answer that FOR you, Fred. You were bring a plague to a planet with no other purpose but for your entertainment. Am I right?"

"It was just a harmless prank!!" Freddy protested.

"The term 'harmless' implies that no one is currently or will be or had been hurt," Estelore said severely. "Your actions were NOT harmless. Just calling it so does not make it true. You know this. And, yet, you still bring these spores to Earth."

"Earth?" Freddy said, suddenly fearful. He couldn't remember if he had remembered if this was Earth or not, but he knew this would not have pleased his Auntie Estelore.

"Yes." Estelore said, very seriously. "EARTH."

Freddy had nothing to say, but was feeling very nervous.

"Yes, you know, the planet that you pulled your wishing star scam on?" Estelore said. The amount of control whe was keeping over her temper was admirable. "I didn't think that was funny then, and the fact that all your 'pranks' recently have had increasing maliciousness that I find quite disquieting."

Freddy was silent, and if he could sweat as he was, he would be sweating bullets.

"Well?" Estelore prompted. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Um . . ."

"'Um' what?" Esty demanded.

"Um . . . 'bye!"

And Freddy fled.

"Hey! GET BACK HERE!" Estelore shouted, temper flaring.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 31, 2015, 02:19:39 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on October 30, 2015, 11:48:31 PM

"You wanted to defoliate the planet?" said the voice, with a reproving, disapproving tone.

"No!! I wanted to get rid of all the plants!!" the pre-adolescent star fumed.

OK, I lol'd pretty damn hard at that. Also, Esty is starting to get a little . . . scary.

Also also, gh doing something . . . intelligent? Must have been talked into it by Abby. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2015, 03:45:08 PM

Excellent, GH. That is the reaction that I wanted from that one bit between the stars. And yes, even Estelore has her limits.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
End of Thread, Unexplained

And, quite suddenly, the Thread was gone. At least, it appeared to be gone. Cloak wasn't satisfied quite yet. He quickly scrutinized every bit of sky he could and every piece of ground (though the latter was easier because of Earthsight). He wasn't alone in this, as the others were doing scrutinizing of their own.

After a span of about two hours, the RAFians were content that every last bit of Thread was eradicated. Yet, Cloak couldn't help but wonder about the what-ifs. But the truth of the matter was he was worrying about nothing. No Thread survived. He hadn't anything to worry about, but Cloak had a nasty habit of sweating details when it wasn't necessary.

They returned to the forum, to find Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin confirming that the Thread on bioscans.

"Bioscans?" Cloak said.

"Yes," Yarin said.

"If we had such technology at our disposal, why didn't we use it before now?" he asked.

"It wasn't operational until now." Yarin said, with a hearty sniff.

"Hey, you know, that could have been -- oh, I don't know -- useful in our mission." GH said testily.

"The bioscanner is not yet portable," Yarin explained, as Goom and Aquilai nodded as they checked their printouts. "We are trying to work them into the next communicator update. The last one was grossly out-of-date."

"Ah, so you finally gave up trying to recreate your microwave?" Saffa asked.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!" the Nyac snarled, as Saffa chuckled. "And, for the time being, I have."

"'For the time being'?" Cloak noted questioningly.

Yarin looked like he had made a Freudian slip. "Uh, that is to say --"

"Now isn't the time," Richard said. "We have other priorities. The Thread have been eliminated, yes?"

"That's right," Shock affirmed.

"Good," the head mod nodded. "Estelore called in, saying she was literally chasing the cause of the Threadfall. But did not elaborate."

"That sounded ominous," Abby said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2015, 10:04:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Catch Him If You Can, Estelore!

Fred fled away as fast as he could.

It was now that he felt the panic the fear his "prank" victims felt, only in a more direct way. But he did not make this connection. He just knew that Estelore far eclipsed him in terms of power, endurance, durability, and experience.

But that didn't make her better thand me! he thought as he raced beyond the nonsentient star of Pyros. She thinks she knows everything!

As he continued to flee, he swung around Lepidopterra and then Terradino. Estelore, though, managed to keep in step -- er, figuratively speaking, of course -- with him. She would not be shaken so easily, but Freddy didn't give up.

He blew by Encephalous IV, barely even noticing it. He took a right between Galvan Prime and Galvan B, hoping that doing that would buy him time to lose his adoptive aunt. He hurried toward the planet of Hathor, he was expending a lot of his energy fleeing. But he had to get away from her, until the time in which she would forget the transgression.

But Estelore doesn't forget things like that very easily. She pursued him, but she took mind kf her energy levels and expended enough that she woukd still he able to give chase. She was essentially heing the tortoise while her bratty adoptive nephew had taken the role of the hare.

Freddy, hidden behind the planet of Anodine, peeks beyond it to see that Estelore was still coming, relentless and undeterred. Freddy was frightened and astonished by this. She should have tired by now! He must certainly was! He had to run again, he had to keep going until she tired out.

Estelore did not called out for Fred to stop or to get back here. She knew that he would not heed her calls, so it would be a waste of energy and also give away her position. She knew that he would not leave the galaxy. There were the rocky ergovores on the edge of the known galaxy -- just a tad beyond.

Ergovores. Nonsentient beasts of malleable, living rock that feed off of energy. Some of the larger ones could "eat" smaller stars, though they prefer the dying ones. They were scarce in number, fortunately enough. There may just have been one in existence for all she knew. She never travelled there, so it could have all been a farce.

Freddy looked around frantically, he was out in the open, near the asteroid field around planet Xenon. He could not see her, but that didn't mean that she couldn't be close by. He search and scrutinizing almost hysterically. As he was doing this, he was backing up.

Until he backed up into something. He assumed it was an asteroid, as he was planning on hiding there, encapsulating himself into his human-like avatar, dimming his starlight. He had expected what he bumped into to start to drift away from him, as debris in space often did.

But it did not. It would not move. The object held him very firmly.

"You're right behind me, aren't you?" he said, with defeated tones.

"Yes." Estelore said, gripping Freddy firmly, in a stellar gesture similar to  pulling him by the ear. "Now, you're going to take responsibility for your actions."

Estelore looked at him, severely.

"Whether you want to, or not." she finished.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2015, 08:34:19 AM

Hope Saffa's okay.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Say You're Sorry!

"Estelore just called in again," Aquilai reported, walking out of Communications, as Yarin had relieved him. "She said she caught the culprit."

"Lemme guess," Abby said, dryly, "it was that bratty nephew of hers?"

They looked up and saw two figures floating downward. One hovered down in a way reminiscent to Mary Poppins or Princess Peach, whilst holding the ear of what appeared to be a twelve-year-old or so blonde boy. They landed daintily.

"Ow! Leggo, Auntie Estelore!"

"And have you speed away, running away from taking responsibility for your actions, Freddy?" she replied, quite seriously and more severe than the RAFians had ever heard her. Everyone has there breaking points, and Fred there had made Estelore approach hers. "I think not."

"I won't! I won't!" he protested. "I promise!"

"Unfortunately for you, Freddy," Estelore said, "your promise have come to mean nothing."

"But I mean it this time!"

"And you meant it -- at least, said you did -- with Vulpin. But it's now basically a wasteland. As well as a plethora of other times that I rather not get into right now, you know the ones." Estelore said, with scolding tones. She seized his avatar's arm after releasing the ear. "You think of these malicious acts as 'pranks'. Well, let me tell you, little boy, they aren't pranks. They are not games. These are real lives that you are meddling with here. They are NOT your playthings to do with what you please."

The RAFians looked at Freddy. His avatar form looked twice the age he looked last year. It was rather inconsistent with what he looked like from the last time they saw him. It wasn't really clear why that was, unless the stars could age up their avatars as much as they wanted, perhaps limited to how old they actually were. After all, when Saffa, Abby, and Underseen first saw him, he looked almost elfin, even with pointed, swept ears.

"What do you want from me?!" Freddy yelled.

"Apologize," Estelore said.

Freddy stop struggling, and looked at her. "What?"

"Accept the responsibility for your actions, and apologize to the ones that you harmed," Estelore said. "And be sincere."

"Sorry." It was quick and overtly insincere. It was the best that any one would get out of him. "There. Happy?"

"I said sincere, Freddy."

"Estelore, it's pointless," Cloak said, gently rational and stubbornly logical. "He doesn't truly feel aggrieved for what he's done. And you cannot force someone to feel sincerity, unless you can outright manipulate emotions. Even then, it'll be false and fake, which invalidates the whole point of the apology to begin with."

"Besides," Helen pointed out, "it's the people in the city that the deserve the apology more."

Estelore still looked harried, but turned to Freddy, "You're not getting off Scot-free for this Freddy."

She never disclosed which punishment she chose to give Freddy, and they never found out what it was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2015, 11:25:48 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Slamdown

With the whole Thread business taken care of, the RAFians turned to the mission that GH and Abby spearheaded. The bioscan tech was still not ready to be ported into the communicators, so they had to search the old fashion way. It was not really all that appealing when a potentially easier way existed . . . uh, somewhat.

Cloak didn't care. He was willing work his hardest, and he was rather known to be rather pigheaded and obstinate when he set his mind to something. It was a family trait that he inherited from his mother.

Cloak found himself on a sandy terrain  -- or it would have been were it not still winter -- in the quarry where they met and battle with Shaw. Snow still clung to the landscape as if afraid someone would take the land from them. He got to thinking, using what he could recollected about the missing monsters that were on the list.

The Buglizard would probably be accustomed to warmer weather, as Lepidopterra was a swamp planet. But then again, swamps have winters on Earth, who is to say that they don't there? He's never visited. But he knew that Buglizards preferred dark caves, and there were none nearby where he stood. In any case, if they were downwind of him, they probably already had his scent. If it was downwind.

He didn't know anything about the Terroranchula's or the  Mucillator's or the drakon's homeworlds, not even their names, so he couldn't conjecture about how they'd fair in a Terran winter. He didn't know if they would survive or perish.

He turned his thoughts to the Slamworm, as the wintry wind blew and caused his cloak to billow behind him rather dramatically. It's homeworld, Terraexcava, was a sandy, desert-like world if he was not mistaken. It would not fair well in a Terran winter like this. He had find this one -- and possibly the Buglizard -- otherwise they'd have to deal with corpses rather than living, breathing creatures.

But where were they?

A rumble from beneath him, and Cloak managed to easily dodge out of the way, but something was wrong. This was far too weak for it to be the Slamworm. At least, a healthy Slamworm.  Cloak turned and saw the Slamworm, and he felt nothing but sympathy and sorrow for the poor beast.

It was far too thin, apparently unable to find a Talpaedan or sufficient substitution nutrients to not suffer such malnutrition. It was already poorly fed by Rosch. Cloak couldn't help but just feel bad for the creature, especially when he looked at its eyes, recognizing the wild, desperate look in it.

He had gone through a period of starvation before. It got so bad sometimes that he would pass out -- that was when he lived in his mother's house and she lived with Faith and Shadow. She would occasionally send him currency to get food, but it was a long trek to go to that store. Sometimes . . . sometimes he didn't have it in him to walk that distance away . . . no. No, he would not dwell on that. He must let it go.

The Slamworm let out a weak, hoarse roar, as it tried to attack Cloak again, but it was just a tad slower than before. Cloak looked at this creature, and he saw himself. This poor creature was as abused as he was. It had known cruelty that no one should know.

It collapsed upon the ground, breathing rather labored. It was unable to move, its eyes dimming. Cloak was alarmed, recognizing these signs immediately. He quickly summoned the others upon speaking into the communicator, urging them to hurry.

The Slamworm's life was ebbing away. It's strength was waning, fading. Cloak placed a hand on its beak-like snout, and they looked at each other in the eye. The Slamworm seemed to understand that it was dying, that Cloak was offering comfort. But this could just be Cloak assignjng sentient traits to a nonsentient creature, but he didn't care.

Despite the RAFians' best efforts, the Slamworm did not leave the quarry alive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2015, 09:04:17 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

BOOK CIII:
THE SIREN
CHAPTER ONE:
Frozen and Hard

Blue flipped away, landing on his feet with only the briefs of sounds, and he turned towards his opponent. It was a fast, gray-skinned beast which was as tough as a rock, and it had purplish-pink patches of an extremely adhesive gel around its jowls, wrists, belly, back, and hindlegs. There could possibly be more place, but Blue wasn't paying attention. It was a Mucillator*, or at least, the name Blue knew them by.

Mucilator were usually fat, but this one wasn't. Its skin hung off its body a bit looser on then it should have. It wasn't as thin and malnourished as the Slamworm was indicating that it either had a slower metabolism, was better able to survive or adapt to the cold, or had found a source of nutrition that was just sufficient to keep it alive this long. Or maybe, just maybe, all three.

The Mucilator's forked, ribbon-like tongue lolled limply from its gaping maw. It certainly didn't look all that healthy. Blue couldn't really tell if it was surviving the cold weather on its own, but he could see the malnutrition in it. Blue would feel sorry for it -- if it wasn't trying to kill and eat him.

The cold weather had rendered its gel-like adhesive sacs basically useless, having froze the gel that made up the sac. Sure, it was still sticky, but not in the way it was biologically designed to. Clearly, they were evolutionarily designed for warmer weather, as Blue could walk upon these sacs, even to the point of using them as platforms, though a bit unreliable for platforming.

Within moments, Blue easily subdued the weakened beast, and the others managed to save it in time, unlike the Slamworm. They would ship it to some xeno-veternarians and xeno-biologists to save its life, and restore it to a nature preserve. It would survive, Blue felt, though it probably wouldn't forget the abuse or neglect that it suffered at the hands of Rosch, a man so insecure in his masculinity that he needed to parade big, fiercesome beasts to compensate for this insecurity. It was sad, really.

Especially when you consider how these beasts suffered at his hands, all because they were fierce-looking and savage. Because they were the way that nature had inclined, and they were caged because of this, because of some man thinking that he had compensate for not being "manly" enough.

Then again, it could have been worse. Rosch could have killed them and mounted their heads on his mantle like trophies -- although it is debatable which was worse a swift death or years of abuse and neglect. . . .

---

*(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/9/94/Mucilator_dt.png/revision/latest?cb=20141129012323)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2015, 03:18:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Island of the Sirens

Sirens have been depicted and seen as birds with large women's heads, avian feathers and scaly feet in anquity, but the siren's true form is that of a hideous, hairless, vaguely-humanoid monstrosity with gaunt, inhuman facial features. They are able to take on multiple forms to deceive their prey -- humans -- usually transforming into a person that matches their victims' desire, such as a lover, friend or anything else that person may long for. Sirens can alter the perceptions into anyone befitting their target, so they can get close to their victims and infect them with their essence. Because a siren's true visage can be revealled by a mirror, it's possible that this is not genuine shape-shifting, but rather just a form of affecting the perceptions of the humans around them.

By using a pseudo-venom gland in their mouths, they can infect people with large doses of the hormone oxytocin or at the very least, one similar or derivative to it. Victims with this much of the hormone in their systems experience an intense euphoria and pseudo-love for the creature that extends beyond just the physical realms. They feel as if they truly love the monster to their cores and need, and desire, whatever the creature says it does for itself, and, as acts of love and devotion, the ensnared are willing to carry out drastic, most usually violent and deadly, requests simply for the asking. These terrible acts are usually perpetrated against those the victim loved before being infected -- just to prove just how much they love the siren. Once these acts of violence are enacted (or even just as they've just begun), the siren "gets bored" and immediately vanishes, leaving their victims emotionally broken to deal with the consequences of their own actions.

The compulsion is so powerful that they do these things regardless of personal beliefs, desires, morals or of the consequences resulting from said acts. Not even being fully aware of the siren's nature can prevent this.

While there are exceptions, sirens don't feed on humans, technically. Instead, they feel an intense rush of pleasure and exhilaration when their victims carry out atrocities against other loved ones. Like the people they infect, the intense feelings of euphoria do not last long and they quickly grow bored with their targets and venture off to find others.

Sirens can also read the minds of their targets, learning what it is that person desires and yearns for in others. Then it gives that to them, though through illusion. This includes not just physical characteristics, but also mental ones.

In ancient times, they lived on islands and forced sailors to chase them, driving their ships onto the rocks. During those times, they were bound ever so tightly to their islands, marooned and magically tied. But over the centuries those bindings of magic failed andships came to the island.  But they require a deserted island to reproduce, so their numbers are severely limited, by good fortune.

A young siren, called Alluria, was hatched upon a small island, alone, in a forgotten clutch. Its siblings had not survive to hatching, as sirens were born in clutches of one to three lumpy eggs. She was the only surviver of its generation.

It had managed to get onto a seaworthy vessel by imitating and mimicking a young damsel, picked from the captain's mind. She -- it -- left the island upon which it hatched. Off to cause more chaos in the world. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 02, 2015, 03:31:46 PM

For some reason, I have a feeling this book is gonna go somewhere cool. I have no idea why. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2015, 06:48:32 PM

Won't really know until it's written.

New chapter.

. . .

And . . . sorry, GH, I . . . I couldn't resist.

CHAPTER THREE:
Dreams and Dangers

"Ahem!" Ash cleared her throat.

"Oh, here we go," Estelore said. She was sitting with Cloak and Richard, as Ash sang, with a white top hat and cane.

"Superamigos is what we're called,
But really that is bogus!"

Then Aquilai sang:

"At best, we say we are work colleagues,
No matter how you coach us!"

Then, together, they sang:

"There's really only three of you,
The rest of us are tokens!"

Then they pointed to Rocklobster, Kaizer, Yarin, and Broken as they lined up.

"Robot! Fish! And alien! A male hocus-pocus!"

Then Sam sang:

"If Superamigos is what we are,
Then come and help me move!"

The Sakki sang:

"I asked if you could come and feed my cat,
You left to save the Louve!"

Myitt sang:

"I asked if you drive me to the airport,
You said, 'best to call a cab'.
So, how are we the superamigos?"

Blaze interjected:

"Here, let me take a stab."

He flicked an meek flame arrow from his bow, as Blue took up the song.

"Superamigos is just a name!
On Spacebook, you won't poke us."

Then, in a chorus, everyone sang:

"It all about the Unity dues,
Which really kinda a joke to us."

Then Shock put in:

" Your members change so frequently,
Commitment is a sham, see?"

Faerie sang:

"You say you don't charge minors,
But then you bill Dpsb!"

Blaze intoned:

"Superamigos are there for you,
They always got your back!"

Then GH sang:

"And, yet, clearly you said nothing
When I went out dressed like that (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=10444.msg891182#msg891182)*!"

Gaz sang:

"I was really strapped for cash, it was really, really tight.
But asking you for money seems to be your Kryptonite!"

They sang, in chorus:

"Sure, we saved the world and all, plus all the other Earths."

Then Helen sang:

"But sit through 'Twilight' with me,
And you would really prove your worth."

Cerulean sang:

"But that's what Superamigos are for, sing Yarin Jones!"

"If you would only change the name,
This place would feel like home!"

Then they sang, all together:

"If you would only change the name,
This place would feel like home!"

"Huh?"

Cloak awoke on his bed, in his thread. He grunted, "Great. Now I'm dreaming in non sequiturs."

***

Meanwhile, under the cover of darkness, the siren known as Alluria stepped onto the mainland, as the captain of the ship was shaking in paroxysms of grief. Apparently, in order to prove his love for this supernatural siren (unaware that "she" wasn't a "she" -- or a "he" for that matter -- or that "she" wasn't even human), he killed his trusted and loved -- platonically -- copilot of the ship.

Alluria stepped lightly and serenely from its first steps upon the mainland. It looked around and marveled. It was going to enjoy it here. Gonna enjoying creating some of the darkest kinds of chaos.

It chuckled a dark and slightly sinister way, unaware that it was being watched. Watched by someone that it cannot disguise itself from. By someone it cannot affect. . . .

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=52ZJOawHi5o (https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=52ZJOawHi5o)

*Sorry again, GH. I . . . I just couldn't resist, even thouh I know its a mean swipe . . . but then again, the whole adaptation is . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 02, 2015, 09:32:48 PM

I laughed. Really, I kinda opened myself up to it when I posted those pictures. :P

Still waiting on that bathtub full of coffee, though. . . . ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2015, 03:31:01 PM

As I said, I couldn't reaist. ;D

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Bloodsport

But the siren wasn't done with its fun, unaware that its movements and actions were being closely monitored by someone, some being, that it had no knowledge of and was ever so blissfully unaware of.

In the guise of a pretty young thing, she managed to convince an older teenager to murder his father and severely harm two of his three siblings. The siren easily dropped the disguise after the elation had passed.

Then, in the guise of a teen hearthrob, he managed to convince three normally-close sisters to kill each other, and severely harm a fourth, the "runt", as they put it. The siren had dropped the guise and remained unseen by the trio during the bloody quarrel.

Then, in the guise of rather promiscuous-looking woman with a melodious voice, it managed to convince an hard-as-nails Army man to kill his old Army buddy without much effort. It really savered this one, as there had been a great deal of brotherly love between the two, and a trust that was very strong until this betrayal.

Then, disguised as a young boy, it managed to convince a young girl to commit matricide -- convinced her to kill her own mother. He -- it -- watched this both enthralled and embroiled vicariously with the horrid act. Then it got bored, and dropped the disguise, which actually had a somewhat musical quality, almost like the antithesis, the pllar opposite, to the bouncy, whimsical music of the Fairy Godmother in Disney's "Cinderella".

Then, again disguised a boy, an adolescent one this time, coerces a young woman to poison her father, conjoles her to commit patricide. But, when she comes to talk to her "love", she discovers him gone.

Alluria had disguised herself as a kindly man, and conjoled a girl to kill her neglectful parents, which Alluria did not realize were abusive. This did not give it the high that it was looking for, as the girl was emotionally broken before Alluria even came into the picture. Alluria didn't stick around.

It decided to coerce a riddle-loving man to kill his protege. But he fails, and Alluria lost interest quite quickly. This puts a rift between the man and the said protege, something that would always be there.

Alluria chose its next victim rather quickly. It was an ambituous, if not a little neglectful, father of one. It disguised itself as a man in a suit, telling the man that he could get a promotion -- if he killed his only son. The man does so without a second thought, but was panicked when he both realized what he did and the man in the suit vanished.

The next victim Alluria chose was a rather . . . ample-bodied woman, but it can seem to get any response out of her, as she appeared to have no discontent with anything, and she couldn't seem to be controlled. The siren had never known anyone to be able to resist the songs and words of sirens, and found this very disquieting.

Alluria decided to switch victims. It seduced a man, but then realized that he had no loved ones, having been on his own, isolated from everyone, of his own violation. Alluria completely lost interest in him, and turned him away.

It then turned a cape-wearing man, conjoling him to kill his favorite cousin. The man was going to do it, but it was rather like a man under the Imperius Curse, and not of his violation. And he was fighting it, proving himself to be a being of incredible willpower. Alluria was surprised. This was also unprecedented, and it did not like it, believing that its chemical venom was not good enough.

It chose another victim. A ten-year-old boy. It gets him to assault his friendly rival, a battle to the death. They are broken up before anything could really come out of it.

More victims were to come. A police officer. An entomologist. A vivacious schoolgirl crybaby. A mythologist. An overweight, shirtless brawler. A demure schoolgirl. A cold, icy man. The cousin of the caped man. A masked wrestler. And a dark, long-haired young woman.

In a new district, Alluria discovered new victims. A schoolteacher. A surfer. An electrician. A fiery teenager. A mundane father. An aviation expert. A pair of twins. A dandy and his mentor. A punkish man. A spirited young woman. A matronly woman. A bare-chested sailor. And a geologist.

Alluria decided that this was indeed worth leaving its birth island.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 04, 2015, 07:59:18 AM

I'm alive! Don't worry, there was lots of workload, but it didn't finish me off... yet! And I've finally caught up. Damn, the ending of the last book though. :'(

I'm a few PDFs behind, but I'll get to those once I'm back home and my to-do list is cleared.

And happy birthday, again! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 04, 2015, 08:55:19 AM

Quote from: Saffa on November 04, 2015, 07:59:18 AM

Damn, the ending of the last book though. :'(

Yeah, but it probably isn't an all too surprising consequence, considering how animals in such menageries were mistreated and malnourished. Yeah, it was a very bad place for them, as they were nothing but trophies to Rosch. And, of course, Rosch (and people like him, because, god knows, there are) would use this as better than mounting their heads to their mantle (which I never got the point of, but I guess some people need to prove their masculinity, as ridiculous as it may sound).

Quote from: Saffa on November 04, 2015, 07:59:18 AM

And happy birthday, again! :D

Thanks!

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Rated G . . . For Gratuitous

The siren, this Alluria, was completely without scruples or morality, though it found them useful tools against her human prey. It wasn't about stop its hunt for victims just because what it was doing was wrong.

Its next victims included a miner, a forest recluse, a mixed martial artist with a bandaged nose, a luchador, a mannish woman with a thick French accent, another miner, a bubbly teenager in pigtails, an amateur rocker, an entomologist, an elderly woman, a bookish bespectacled man, a clown, and a calm, demurred woman.

"Oh," came a voice, viewing this from a rather comically impractical crystal ball, "how . . . interesting."

The speaker watched Alluria's next spurt of victims. Waiter triplets. A cheeky homemaker. A flamboyant artist. An aloof supermodel. A serious tycoon. A ditzy teenager. A methodical actor. A hard-working man. A little girl with a lot of black hair. A horror writer with a superficial resemblance to Velma of "Scooby Doo". A pseudo-vampire (a man acting out all the vampire tropes, despiting not being one). A sleepy young woman with a lot of blonde hair. A loud mixed martial artist. And a lecher who has a habit of mixing up names.

"Such a lack of rectitude," said the speaker, "it's rather refreshing, actually. What with all the moralizing, weak fools there in this day and generation."

Then the speaker watched passively as Alluria continued to victimize her prey. A photographer. A rock-climber. A rollar skater. An elderly man with a cane. A young, inventive boy. A rather creepy, fairy-like woman. A "psychic" (a conwoman that Yarin despises, if fact). A heavy set man. An aloof woman with rose-tinted glasses. A motherly octogenarian. A man who insisted on wearing a suit of armor. A volatile cook. And a fashionable A-list actress.

"This is very good," the owner of the voice said, leaning into the light of the crystal ball, for want of a better term. The owner of the voice was, rather unsurprisingly, Malice. "Very good, indeed."

 She returned to the shadows, with a laugh that would not been out of place issuing from the Joker's mouth. Her maliciousness was outright and, indeed, overt.

"This allows me enough time to complete my next scheme," she said, smiling sinisterly. "Good thing, too. This will take extreme eye to detail. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2015, 09:38:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Not Unnoticed

All the siren's pleasings did not go unnoticed by law enforcement. But a majority of the law enforcement officials mostly dismissed these cases as having any links to each other, despite accounts of similar "imaginary friends", to use their term, but they did not take it serious, believing it only to be a feeble excuse for the actions.

One could argue that they were excuses, though their actions were obviously manipulated. It was a rather sticky issue when all information was known. The siren only persuaded, conjoled, and convinced them to commit their actions. Granted, Alluria's venom makes its victim far more open to persuasion, so much so that it is arguable whether it's borderline mind control.

Soon enough, the RAFians became aware of this. And the question of whether it was their jurisdiction arose quickly. It wasn't as cut and dry as the thread or the Heinlin menace or Proteus or the like, this one was a lot more subtle and difficult to navigate the politics of. It would be very bad PR for them if they overstepped their bounds on this one. And thanks to people like Bern Bridges, their PR is rather frail and feeble enough as is.

Then the footage came.

It so happened that someone happened to catch Alluria on camera, while disguised as a ten-year-old boy. Most of the RAFians saw just a dark-haired ten-year-old with hazel eyes and a red-and-white ball cap, Cloak saw Alluria for what it really was. It's not very easy to deceive a Realm Walker in such a way.

"Wait," Cloak said, seeing the footage, "there."

"It's a kid," Sakki said, bluntly, "so?"

"No. It's not." he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know what that thing, not really, but I know one thing. It wasn't human." Cloak said.

"Looks like a kid to me," Saffa said.

"Saffa. How many times have gone against creatures or being that look like kids, but really aren't?" Abby said. "Parasites. Ghosts and possession. Illusions. Mind control. We dealt with them all, and there were kids -- as well as adults and the elderly -- involved in that."

Then Cloak realized that he recognized the creature, albeit vaguely. He looked at the footage again, which was replaying on a constant loop. He scrutinized what he saw very seriously. Could be . . . ?

"A siren," Cloak murmured. "A supernatural siren."

"What? What was that?" Aquilai asked.

"It's a siren."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2015, 12:04:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
A Veritable Smorgasbord

Meanwhile, GH was sitting on the edge of a fountain of white marble, or some facsimile, sending water cascading up. The water collected in the basin glittered with the mounds of discarded coins, pennies mostly. GH had his back to it, guitar on his lap, mind deep in thought.

GH thought these fountains would have been shut off because of the cold, but he was thinking this idly. His mind was still on the Slamworm they were unale to save. And he was thinking about the Buglizard, Terroranchula, and drakon still to be found. He had no idea where they were, and he feared that they might end up like the Slamworm. He felt pity for the ceature, sure. But he also felt a deep sadness -- no creature deserved to be treated in such a way, in such a overly harsh and needlessly cruel way.

"Hello," came a voice. An unfamiliar, but not altogether unpleasant one.

"Hiya," GH said, a bit gruffer than he intended. He wasn't exactly in the mood for conversation.

The person who approached him did not seem to notice and he finally looked up at her. She had dark, raven hair a deep caramel skin, though she was was bundled up rather prudently. Her lips were full and a deep red. But her eyes . . . they were like cavernous tunnels that might swallow you up without a second thought.

She smiled a smile that glittered as much as the water behind him. Her face betrayed no element of malice . . . but her eyes . . . and there seemed to be an unheard song playing somewhere. GH was aware of all this, but in a detached sort of way, as if he were a Controller, only without a Yeerk.

She sat down. She was much too close. GH wanted her to back away.

"What's your name?" she asked sweetly.

GH said nothing. He could feel something about her that he really didn't like, something that made him feel rather nervous and anxious. Not to mention that certain aspects about her reminded him of . . . of her . . . and with the memory of her came memories of what happened then. They were not pleasant times.

The woman, she was beautiful too, chuckled pleasantly. She seemed to have no malice. Why was every instinct GH possessed telling him to get away and maintained some distance? Could it be that she looked like . . .

"My name is Alexandrite Alluria," she said, sticking out a hand, in a good-natured way. GH couldn't se any harm in shaking the hand, as, after all, he did not about the threat of a supernatural siren about. "And you are?"

GH eyed the hand wearily, not knowing why. Like a dog that had a cruel master, that was offered sudden kindness. But this was a simple handshake. What dangers could there be from that?

He resched out, unconciously with the hand inscribed with his Mark. Alexandrite seemed to be normal. Nothing seemed to be out of the usual. And yet . . .

She screamed.

She screamed when GH touched his Mark to her flesh. She quickly released, showing her hand was smoking with blue smoke, which was curling from GH's hand as well, but he wasn't harmed at all. He was more perplexed than anything.

Then he noticed somethjng rather conspicuous. Alexandrite's hand no longer looked human. In fact she looked like a patchwork of the human disguise Alexandrite and the siren Alluria. And the human parts looked like they were merely a costume the siren beneath was addorned in. Within moments, it decided to do away with the illusionary human costume, and rather than attack GH, it fled. Fled because it remembered what happened to its hand, which was still charred, but healing slowly. Very slowly.

Gh didn't stick around either. He went straight back to the forum, to tell the others of this. Then he remembered that his guitar could turn into a hoverbike, not unlike Terra, Aqua, or Ventus with their Keyblades, then he used that to get back faster.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 05, 2015, 12:44:59 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 05, 2015, 12:04:10 PM

GH said nothing. He could feel something about her that he really didn't like, something that made him feel rather nervous and anxious. Not to mention that certain aspects about her reminded him of . . . of her . . . and with the memory of her came memories of what happened then. They were not pleasant times.

The woman, she was beautiful too, chuckled pleasantly. She seemed to have no malice. Why was every instinct GH possessed telling him to get away and maintained some distance? Could it be that she looked like . . .

Ooh, could this be foreshadowing? Me likey!

Even though the idea of me being with a woman is pretty unlikely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2015, 01:18:20 PM

I'd tell you, GH. But Saffa has that skillet . . . ;)

Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCCXXIII: "A Spike of Control" -- The RAFians must battle someone who is half human, and half M'arrillian.
• Book DCCCXXIV: "Blue's Students" -- A clan of ninjas come to RAF, to learn from Blue.
• Book DCCCXXV: "Preeminence Presence" -- The RAFians must fight the Preeminence.
• Book DCCCXXVI: "And Her Mate . . ." -- And then they must face her mate, Diagon.

All titles are subject change. Lemme know what you think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 05, 2015, 01:28:21 PM

Ooooh, interesting!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2015, 03:29:40 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Requiem of Reflection

The siren, Alluria, ran away from the town square. From that terrifying creature. It had never known fear, not really. It had grown to assume that nothing could hurt it, that it would not be able to be found out, that none of its victims happened to look at a simple mirror or reflection before falling under Alluria's sway, under her enigmatic thrall.

It had grown complacent and overconfident, and, in doing so, it had grown arrogant and careless. It could see that now, or, at least, it thought it could.

It looked at its hand, so unlike a human hand normally, with the corpse-gray skin and unusually thin fingers. It was not gray right now, but blackened and crinkled with heat. It was healing, to be true, but far slower than it should.

What was it about that creature that it could retard its healing? Injuries like this should have healed up moments ago. As it was, this hand was useless in this state. The skin still very tender and hot to the touch. Hand joints were uncomfotably stiff . . . perhaps due to the venom it had secreted onto its hand. It did that so that a simple handshake would have put the stupid human under its thrall! It would have worked! It should have worked! Why didn't it work?

Whatever those creatures were they were to be avoided. But sirens could be an officious breed, and rather stubborn with what they did. It decided that it required a few more victims that it could gictimize would help heal its hand quicker. It made no sense, even if it was, indeed, true.

It disguised itself as an authority figure, something that an ambitious, reckless boy secretly and unconsciously desired. Alluria, going by the nomme de plume of Jim Leedur, convinced this ten-year-old boy that his companions are standing jn his way and needed to be removed. That he need to kill them. "He" brushed the boy's neck sith "his" uninjured hand, infecting the boy with the toxin.

Easily swayed, this boy went and tried to commit it. He didn't succeed, but Alluria didn't stick around to see. It had already gotten what it wanted, and the friendship of the trio of friends were fissured and fractured, and Alluria didn't care.

After discarding the appearance and persona of Jim Leedur, Alluria looked at its hand, and saw it had indeed healed up progressively faster than it would have without it. It needed to do this. It found secreting its venom via palms, fingertips, and salvia to be the easiest ways to inoculate victims with its venom.

That creature must be an anomaly. Possessing some sort of allergic reaction to its venom. Wait, that didn't make sense. That human-looking creature must have cause it to have an allergic reaction to . . . its own . . . venom. That didn't make anymore sense than before, though.

Alluria decided to ignore these queries, and continue to do was it was supernaturally designed to do. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 05, 2015, 10:27:02 PM

To be fair, I tend to have this effect on a lot of people.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2015, 11:26:14 PM

Ah there is at least one fictional entity . . . all right, Saffa, put it away. I won't indulge in any spoilers.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Reports and Second Chances

"Charles Horace Kelley. Adam Silenus Morgan." Goom said, with weary clinical demeanor. "Brutally murdered by one Bella Donna Lewis."

"They couldn't be any other than ten," Saffa remarked. "What the actual hell?"

Parker, however, felt a surge of guilt, though he bore no responsibility. He recognized the profiles of these three kids. As did Cloak, Aquilai, FuBar, and Bladeh.

"Does the report say anything more?" Cloak said.

"Just that little Donna claimed that she did it because a boy she liked asked her to," Goom said. "She claims she didn't know what she was doing, that she wasn't in control of herself."

"Just like anyone in that position would claim," RYTX replied dismissively. "Feeble excuses as well."

"She's ten, RYTX, or close enough to count as ten," Abby said. "Everyone's naive and unrealistically hopeful at that age."

"No matter the species," Cloak muttered to himself.

"Guys, it's so obvious," GH said. "It's that . . . that . . . that thing that I told you about. That thing who I nearly burned her -- its -- hand off with my Mark."

"Interesting," Saffa said, sincerely.

"What did you see after?" Cloak said, at once. "The girl who you shook hands with."

"Oh, yea--" someone was about cheer, rather lecherously, thinking it to be really bad innuendo.

"Silence." Cloak snapped, his irritation getting the better of him. "Continue, GH."

He did, and Cloak knew immediately what they were up against.

"A siren," he said.

"Say what?" GH said. "I thouht that sirens were suppose to be beautiful women who sung just as bueautifully, luring people to get killed upon the rocks in the seas near their islands. Wow, that was wordier then I thought."

"They are," Cloak said. "Time to brief you on what I know."

"By looking it up on Wikipedia?" Saffa inquired, with a mischievous smile.

"Shut up."

***

Meanwhile, Ash was not at the forum, but going about her own business. She was not aware of the presence of a siren, as she decided to go and be a bit of a mallrat for a while. No, not literally a mall rat.

She had simply sat down on the low, titled wall of the planter that was in the center of the wide corridor. She was trying to decide if she needed anything else here before she would be needed at the forum. They were kind of due for a Malice plot or scheme by now.

"Hello, there," came a male voice. Ash didn't bother looking up. She didn't want to give this guy anymore incentive to hit on her, and hoped that he could take a hint.

He couldn't.

He sat down next turn her, too close. Was he drunk or just plain stupid? He was trying to press himself closer. She scooted away, keeping her distance. He just scooted closer. She scooted away. He scooted even closer.

Ash's last nerve was being worked, and she lost it.

"Hey jerk!" Ash said, irritated. Yeah, he may have been pretty, but he was clearly an arrogant, persistant misogynist incapable of taking a hint. "Take a friggin' hin--"

"AAAAHH!" he screamed, having seen her palm as she pointed an accusatory finger towards him. He fled, leaving a very surprised Ash behind.

"Wha . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 06, 2015, 12:03:03 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 05, 2015, 11:26:14 PM

Ah there is at least one fictional entity . . . all right, Saffa, put it away. I won't indulge in any spoilers.

. . . You just love teasing that stuff, don't you. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 06, 2015, 12:39:27 AM

He really can't help himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2015, 04:05:46 PM

Why, I don't know whatever you could mean. ;)

Oh, and I guess you guys haven't guessed tyat Charlie, Adam, and Donna were from a previous book yet? Because they were.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Convening the Council

"So, Ash has had an encounter with the siren as well," Yarin had reported, having recieved her communication. "We really need to do something about this."

"Yeah, I'm surprised that idiots like Bern Bridges haven't started blaming us for the deaths or the severely injured." Faerie said, dryly, with her arms folded over her chest.

"He has," Saffa pointed out, indicating a muted monitor.

"Wonderful," Faerie said, facepalming a little.

"What exactly can we do?" Kelly said. "We can't through its disguise, unless we touch it with our Mark."

"Simple, we can show it our Mark. Whoever runs away like a little pansy will be our guy." Parker suggested.

"I don't think it'll be that easy," Abby said, thoughtfully.

"Yes, surely -- no, Parker, that 'don't-call-me-Shirley' joke is overused -- surely, it would be smart enough to be more discreet after these two encounters. More careful." Cloak said thoughtfully.

"How can you be so sure about that?" GH asked.

"Fear is a powerful motivator," Cloak said. "Or demotivator, as the case may be."

<Unless causing such things have an addictive quality for the siren,> Noelle said. <Addiction can drive people to do things they normally would not. It can change their behavior, change their mindset, change their outlook, depending on their dependency on whatever they should be addicted to. Let us not forget Tobey Agrowch.>

Acknowledging nods greeted this, when Noelle finished thought-speaking.

"Right," Richard said, "before we move any further, I do think we should consider our plan of action very thoroughly. One misstep, and we can make a grave mistake. One reckless move can undo us."

"Yeah, our PR image ain't the greatest right now," Sakki said, dryly. She gave a sidelong glance to the monitor that had Bern Bridges's frozen visage that marred the screen. She added, "What's left of it, anyway."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2015, 12:05:21 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Siren Succumbing

The terror that Alluria felt soon evaporated as soon as he -- it -- got a sufficient distance away. Another creature with one of those accursed marks. It looked at its hand, which was very nearly healed up, but the memory was fresh. If there were two, perhaps there were more. . . . And if there were more . . .

No.no, it was being ridiculous. It was an isolated incident. It just didn't exercise prudence in choosing victims. It misread them both, and it took them too lightly. It must remember not to do that again. It must be more cautious in choosing its next victim.

There. That girl. Her name? Valerie. Valerie Thomas. She had a brother . . . Ian Thomas. She pretended to be annoyed by him and that she hated him, but, deep down, she loved him as any sister would. There were arguments, sure, but they always got over them.

Huh. There was a discrepancy in her mind, in her memory. But that required delving deeper into her mind than Alluria could go. Alluria wasn't a Nyac or an Amperi, atter all. Hmmm . . . a car crash about six months ago. She and Ian very nearly died. But she served, although her joints were stiffer and she lost about half of the use of her left hand, she was reasonally okay. Ian was much the same, though he was now an eleven-year-old who had to walk with a cane and a limp.*

So much pertinent information that it could use to its advantage. Valerie's beauty was compromised by the accident, and she was not looked at as being a beauty, but merely glanced at with pity. She felt even more self-conscious about looks. That would be the venue that it would use.

It disguised itself at a tall, handsome, teen heartthrob. He had carefully quaffed hair, an unblemished appearance and visage, and a warm countenance. "He" affected a winning smile as he strolled right up to her, flirting with her. She allowed it. So "he" preceded further, and she permitted it. He brushed his hand against her skin causng her flinch and tremble a bit at the touch. But the venom took instantaneous effect, making Valerie open to suggestion and persuasion.

Alluria was subtle in its persuasion. It made it seem as they couldn't be together because of her brother and his best friend, Chazz Mitchell, would be getting in the way. They would need to go. Need to go away . . . permanently.

She was racked with indecision about it, but Alluria turned on the charm, and convinced her that there were no other way. It did it slowly, carefully, and with finesse. Valerie had her mind made up, and she went to act upon it, to commit both murder and fraternicide.

Alluria had already gotten what it wanted, so it didn't stick around. Didn't stick around to see that Valerie . . . couldn't go through with it.

---

*Okay, you guys know where these two come from? Which book?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 07, 2015, 12:08:40 AM

Ugh, that just reminds me how badly I need to catch up

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 07, 2015, 05:23:20 AM

How far back are you going with the names? :o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2015, 07:10:17 AM

"Virus Alert" and "Beyond the Veils".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 07, 2015, 07:54:50 AM

Whoa, that's really way back.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2015, 08:09:17 AM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Dangerous Target

Assuming that it had successfully goaded Valerie into killing her brother and his friend, unaware of her getting cold feet right before commiting the act, and being unable to doe what "he" wanted, it was feeling enthused, having discarded the teen heartthrob appearance, and remaining invisible to the naked human eye.

Then it spotted a potential victim. It was a rather baby-faced man with a day-old beard, silver-rimmed glasses in front of closed eyes, and black, lanky hair. He had a rounded head, rounded ears, and moderate build. He wore a thick black jacket, thick black gloves, a horizontal-striped shirt, blue jeans, and white shoes with black laces. He was leaning on the bricked wall of an alleyway.

Alluria tried to discern from this new victim what the perfect guise would be to manipulate this guy. It was surprised. It couldn't draw a single thing. It was like there was this impossible force field or something blocking and shielding even the most superficial thoughts in his head. This hasn't happened before.

This should have scared it, but it just perplexed it. It believed something must be wrong, or off with its power. It wasn't aware that his would-be victim was perfectly aware of its presence. It wasn't aware just how dangerous this target would be.

Alluria was at a lost of what disguise to use. This was important. This was the best way to get close enough to manipulate the victims. One could say, "Why not choose someone different?" Truth was that Alluria didn't possess that kind of practicality. It never changed vicitms, barring the encounters with the two RAFians, before getting them to kill, or take the initiative to kill and took pride in this fact. Took stupid pride. Hubris.

It decided to go with a standard, cookie-cutter, stereotypical "pretty girl" disguise. Decided to go with the "dipsy, airhead blonde" personality. But this was all guess work, as it did not have any clues from this victim's mind. This could be seen as rather stupidly dangerous.

"Hey, there, boy," it said, with a full-on valley girl infliction.

The man looked up and looked straight at "her", and Alluria was visibly disturbed. It was like he was looking right through it. But it tried to keep up the facade, but it faltered when the man spoke.

"You're really going through with this, then, are you?" he said, his tone low and dangerous.

"What -- ?"

"I know what you are," he said, still with those piercing, penetrating eyes. Alluria was starting to feel uncomfortable. "I can see you for what you are, siren."

Alluria was taken back at this.

"You do not know what I am, do you, siren?" he said. Then he reached up held his face firmly, and pulled off the ID mask, disappearing into the darkness of the alley. All Alluria could see was the amber eyes of some eight-foot-tall creature. Alluria did not have any presence of mind to be afraid, or run or anything.

"My name is Cloak, siren," the creature said. "And you're going to be brought to justice for your crimes."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 07, 2015, 09:00:08 AM

So badass.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2015, 06:37:25 PM

 ;D

Feeling a little anxiety, so . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Captured and Interrogated

"Wha --" Alluria gaped as it dropped its disguise, so that it would appear that Cloak wasn't talking to anyone.

"Ah," Cloak said, calmly and in control. "You're still confused."

Alluria said nothing, but gaped open-mouthed (and it wasn't the least bit attractive) at the Realm Walker. Cloak was nothing like it had ever seen before, and it was stunned by him. Cloak wasn't exactly prepared for this outcome, having expected it to fight him or flee, not gawk at him like he was some incomprehensible thing. But, still, this was an advantage.

"I am a Realm Walker, siren," Cloak said, ever so subtly making sure that the siren was hanging on every word. He was waiting for the right moment to present itself. "You are powerless against my kind. Your venom does nothing to us. You can't even touch us. Literally. You cannot probe our minds for disguise ideas. Your disguises mean nothing to us, as we can see through any of them. There is nothing you can do about it."

At this, Alluria tried to run away, to flee like a little -- er, never mind. Only to realize that its feet were submerged in the earth, into the concrete (which is Earth technically), to halfway up its calves. It was unable to move.

"You can't do this," it said. Its true voice sounded rather like a hissing, squawking Gollum. Not really a pleasant sound, which was ironic, in a way, given hiw the myths described sirens. "You can't!"

"An odd protest coming from you," Cloak said, dryly quiet, "given what you've done."

"I've only done what's in my nature!" it protested louder. It would have been more convincing if its voice wasn't quavering and it didn't sound like was grasping at straws. "It's . . . it's what I was born and bred to do."

"Doesn't make it right," Cloak said, with the same silky calmness. Alluria found it maddening.

"Who are you to make that decision?" it argued. "Who made you the arbiter of what's right and what's wrong? Manipulating humans is my nature. Besides, I'm not the one who actually killed anyone!"

"You compelled others to do it for you," Cloak said.

Alluria looked around frantically, knowing that its arguments weren't holding water with the creature. It was just doing what it was supernaturally designed to! How was that wrong? How did that make it any different from any other animal?

Truth was animals killed and ate their prey, but sirens like Alluria did not. They subsisted on pain and misery. Specifically, the pain, heartbreak, and misery of their own doing. Eventually, it would amount in it going into a state where they would seduce a human where they would need to propagate their species.

"Why?"

"What?" Alluria said.

"I want to hear why," Cloak said, "in your own words, I want to hear why you feel the need to do this."

"I . . . I don't know! It's just what I was born and bred to do!" Alluria said, nearly shouting. "My kind --"

"Ah. Your kind." Cloak said, as if he were goading it to say something that shouldn't have. "There are more of you."

Alluria was left speechless at this. It believed that Cloak's goal was to exterminate its kind, that his goal was siren genocide.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2015, 07:24:46 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
No Escape

"You can't keep me here!!" Alluria raged, pulling on its legs only to cause itself to sink crotch-deep into the concrete. "Stop that! You can't keep me here!"

Cloak noted the fear in its voice, which was borderline hysterical. Cloak only replied with a calm, "Can't I?"

Alluria tried struggling some more, and sunk waist deep, but did not sink any more. It was desperate to get away, sure that Cloak would kill it. And it was sure that Cloak was very capable of doing it, too.

"How many?" the Realm Walker inquired.

"What?" Alluria was confused. Did he mean how many victims it had, or hoe many sirens there were? In any case, it mattered very little, as it did not know on both counts.

"You heard me, siren," Cloak said. There wasn't any decipherable emotion in his tone, nor any overt malice or aggression.

But an idea came to Alluria, it would turn the tables. This new creature might be able to see through its disguises, but that didn't mean the passersby would be able to. Alluria quickly adopted the form of a thin man with short black hair on a rather flat-topped head. It projected this man in a dark gray suit with a tie to match, and a long-sleeved dress shirt beneath it.

"Hey! H-Hey!!" "he" called out to a passerby, hoping to be noticed.

"That won't work, siren," Cloak said. The calmness with which the Realm Walker spoke was starting to become grating on the siren. Aluria refused to believe him, and tried again, this time adopting the form of a young boy with freckles and a mop of red hair. "He" wore blue jean overalls and a white, long-sleeved shirt with thin, blue horizontal stripes with blue cuffs at the wrists and neckline.

"H-Hey!! Help! Help me!!"

"Nice try," Cloak said, with mocking tones. Then his tone went flat. "I told you that that wouldn't work."

Alluria ignored him. Instead, it shifted to the form of a limber, twelve-year-old gymnast, wearing a red shirt and dark blue jeans. It had long brunette hair and a thin frame, as well as pleading, puppy dog eyes.

"H-Help me! Help me please!"

"You just plain do not listen, do you?" Cloak sighed.

This did not work any better than the first two times. Alluria was desperate, and not thinking well. It decided to disguise itself as a high-ranking politician. It usually avoided this, as it was harder to do things of the nature sirens do without being caught. Being caught was considered amateurish by other sirens, and Alluria was dreading being seen like that as it was definiteky caught.

"Thst won't work, siren. They cannot see you." Cloak said. He didn't acknowledge the presence of Rocklobster, preferring to keep him hidden, and prevent Alluria from coming up with an escape plan. He wasn't quite done pumping the siren for information.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2015, 11:11:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Not Forthcoming

Alluria dropped the disguise, looking rather deflated. There was no way that it could get out of this. No way that it could wiggle and wriggle and worm its way out of this. It couldn't run away from this conflict.

"Now that you seem to have realized that you have no leverage," Cloak said, rather crisply, "answer my questions."

Alluria said nothing. It had basically gave up. Gave up and gave into despair. It was a horrible thing to do. With despair comes an intense feeling of hopelessness and futility. It makes you want to coil up into the fetal position and cry at the sheer unfairness of it all.

"Stop that," Cloak said, rather harshly and coldly. "Considering what you have done, you do not have the . . ."

Cloak realized what he was saying, and was disgusted with himself. If he allowed himself to be that heartless, he'd be no better than Malice. He already demonstrated an intense amount of arrogance already, and heartlessness, as well. But this creature had indirectly, but knowingly caused the death and grievous injuries of many. To many this behavior would be justified and rightful, but yet he started to question his methods.

Alluria seemed to sense his doubt, and decided to try and use that to get out. But before it could so much as muster even the most minute utterance, Cloak's expression hardened, his eyes set.

They needed this information. This was the best way to get it. It wasn't ideal, but the information wasn't able to be gathered any other way. . . . Any other RAFian would not be able to see through the siren's disguise as easily as Cloak.

"Answer the question," Cloak said, cold and emotionless. "How many of you are there?"

Ah, that's what he wanted. Siren numbers. But why? That wasn't clear to Alluria, and this wasn't going as well as Cloak wanted.

"Siren!" Cloak said harshly. He hated himself for it, but this was necessary to mitigate the damage Alluria's kind made. It wasn't just because people like Bern Bridges were quick to blame RAFians for it. "Answer the question, if you will."

"I DON'T KNOW!!" Alluria roared.

Since it was waist-deep in earth, it was easy to discern if it was lying. It wasn't. But there was the argument that the siren's biology, supernatural though it was, could be markedly different from humans or other mundane-natural creatures.

Cloak narrowed his eyes. A decision now had to be made, a decision which would lead other decisions that were equally important. And the fallout would potentially be explosive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2015, 02:46:45 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Quandaries

This left Cloak with a serious quandary.

He could let it go, but there was absolutely no guarantee that it wouldn't victimize more people. It was more likely than not that it would, and Cloak could not permit that. It already had too many victims, Cloak assumed, and it would be unconscionable to allow it to victimize more. Not to mention he didn't want Bern Bridges to be actually right, although he blamed them anyway.

He could keep it imprisoned, but that left the question of where. It would be a very bad idea to imprison it with the Pootang and the lifeless doll body of Bucky. They didn't need it influencing the Pootang, especially when they discovered the way to calm it down to near tameness and docility. And just because it was imprisoned didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

He could have Broken Transfigure it into something else, something more controllable, something less. Like a raven, perhaps. Or a flobberworm. But that seemed . . . wrong somehow. Not to mention, while Cloak's knowledge of magic isn't as extensive as Broken's, he did not know how permanent this state would be. The last thing that they'd need is if the Transfiguration wore off.

And, perhaps, the simplest, but far from easiest, opinion was to slay the monster in cold blood, or in his case, cold ichor. It may have seemed to be the less complex of the current options, and seemed to be the go-to option. But Cloak didn't think so. He considered the possible ramifications and consequences of doing such. The Realm Walker was sure there would be. They may not even be able to die, or stay dead for that matter.

The question still hung in the air. Should he be as humane as possible or should he throw the book at it? Then there was the question of the other members of its species. How would they be handled?

So many things to consider . . .

"Are you done deciding my future yet?" Alluria said, with bitter spite. "Deciding my fate?"

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloak?" Rocklobster prompted quietly.

"What was that?" Alluria said, sharply.

Cloak allowed a soft growl, indicating that Alluria should shut up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 08, 2015, 02:53:26 PM

Oh my god, the suspense is friggin killing me

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 09, 2015, 12:01:40 AM

These mind games were so good. :D

I had actually forgotten where Bucky the doll had come from, so I had to go back and re-read. It was book LXVII, "Be A Doll". At the end of that book though, Bucky is still alive, but in the chapter here, you mention he's lifeless. Did he actually die as the year went by or is that just referring to the doll body?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2015, 08:12:01 AM

The latter.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Decision Time

Cloak's indecision could not stand any longer. A choice had to be made, and he couldn't put it off any longer. His choice had to have some finality to it.

"Are you going to to keep me in suspense?" Alluria said. Now it was trying to manipulate him, even though he wasn't infected with its venom, which was a impossibility as a Realm Walker body would be very hostile towards the venom. "Or are you going to actually do something?"

Cloak said nothing. He had made his decision, but hadn't let Alluria know. Alluria was still in the dark, but had come to the conclusion that Cloak didn't have any intention on killing it. It surmised that if he was, he would have already done so. This had made it ambivalent and unconcerned with the Realm Walker, replacing the fear and terror it had.

It was a fool to do so.

"Yes, I have made my decision." Cloak said. Then he muttered in a sidelong sort of way, "You might want to turn away, Rocky. This won't be pleasant."

Suddenly, before Alluria realized what was going on, it was navel-deep in earth with its hands wrist-deep in the earth. It was chest-deep and elbow-deep into the earth before it became aware of what was happening. It tried to struggle, but it wasn't any use and soon it was shoulders-deep.

"St-stop!" it exclaimed with a shuttering scream. It was now neck-deep in the ground. "Pl-please!"

It didn't want to die. Perhaps that meant that it could die. Perhaps that meant that it would be permanent.

No matter.

"You m-monster!" it cried out as the ground had swallowed it up to it's chin so that it to tilt its head up to still be able to breathe. Assuming that it could or even needed to breathe, and it didn't just do that so that it could still be heard. "You c-cold-hearted m-monster!!"

Cloak said nothing. He didn't throw out any hackneyed philosophies or witty one-liners, he just remained silent. He knew what he was about to do, and he took absolutely no pleasure in it, seeing it as something that had to be done, that must be done.

Alluria was going to say something more, but then it was completely submerged into the ground, which smoothed over as if there was nothing there. But Cloak wasn't done.

Cloak placed his hands on his chest, parallel to each other, and perpendicular to his chest. He stood up straight, and took a deep breath, calming his nerves. Then he slowly moved his hands until they pressed against each other, and he felt a scream through Earthsight that only he knew about.

He had buried the siren and crushed it to death.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 09, 2015, 04:10:51 PM

. . . Damn. That was unnervingly brutal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2015, 04:15:44 PM

Yes, it was. Cloak can be brutal when feels he needs to be. Then he questions his decision endlessly.

Anyway, still working on the next chapter, which will have a lot of callbacks to previous books. You have been warned. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Shouldering the Blame

"Can you believe these people?" Bern Bridges was saying on his rinky-dink show that had a surprisingly loyal fanbase, however small it was. "They murder people, cause grievous injury to them, and yet our government does nothing -- nothing -- to stop them!"

He paused to take a drink of his water -- though it was probably vodka, in actuality. It was hard to tell, his cup wasn't translucent.

"Don't believe me? Well, I have a list of names here of lives harmed by these monsters, for want of a better term." Bern was saying, setting his jowls aquiver. "Louis Russell Cannon -- lost his commission in the army for defending us from these hellish jackanapes. And what happened to him? They killed him."

He didn't know about Horse getting massive -- or just deliberately avoided mentioning it, as then he would have to bring up the fact that Cannon acted without orders or sanction. Nor did he mention (or perhaps because he did not know) that it was personal for him, as he hated Parker for "stealing" Helen from him, though there was a significant age gap, and Helen didn't like him romantically. They also didn't kill him. Parker didn't kill him. Just how he died was still unclear, but none of this was mentioned.

"Then Harry Jamal Mason*," Bern said, "found unconscious at the site of a dilapidated circus, which should still be torn down. He was muttering nonsense about possessive book narratives and whatever. Clearly, insane ramblings of a traumatized youth. He could not be reached for comment about these monsters traumatized him."

Harry was the victim of Bibliophaetos. One that the RAFians had forgotten. . . . Could there be more?

"And there is a Mr. Luigi Linguine*," Bern said in that annoyingly "I'm-Always-Right" tone and diction. "Forever asleep due to creatures that they -- those you-know-whats in the government --let run amuck. What do they do to help him out of the coma? The coma that they put him into? Nothing.

"And, about Brian Simon Savage**," Bern continued, blathering on some more. "Disappeared without a trace. Suspicious fire engulfed his home. General consensus says that he faked his death and that he's still out there, somewhere. I submit that this is not true, and the truth is that these monsters, that these RAFians, killed him and covered it up. Now ask yourself, why would do that? What do they have to hide?"

Bern's strawmanning was evident and, really, not that strong when you looked at it.

"And the former children's entertainer, Catherine Gabrielle Daniels***," Bern said. "She lost her business due to these RAFian monsters, and she isn't the only one. They constantly destroy our city, and for what? Nothing. We'd be very well left alone, but, nooooo, they have to constantly push and provoke. Well, they've provoked me, and they haven't faced anything like me!"

Funny how he didn't just elaborate on just how RAFians were responsible for Cathy Daniels's business failing. The truth was that she left children's entertainment to go into law school, and she just hadn't passed the bar yet.

"Redford Victor James Lee, Brendan Lucas Prichard, and Callum Nathan Ketchum****," Bern said again. The guy loved the sound of his own voice. "Three thuggish kids who have these RAFians to thank for their delinquency! See? Not even our children are safe from these monsters! Hear me, dear listeners, when I emphatically say that these RAFians are not good guys. They are not role models. We need to protect our children from this menace. They even are documented to have usurped the position of the Head of Security at the White House itself! Former Major Chuck Norris Touchécrag**** had made copious documents detailing their treasonous acts."

He took a swig of water, before ending it off.

"But we're out of time for this day, good listeners," he said. "But tune in next time for more hidden truths and little known facts about this RAF place. Until then, listeners, good night."

***

Cloak and Rocklobster returned to the forum. Cloak wasn't particularly pleased with what he had done. Yes, it was brutal. But it was necessary, right? Perhaps just the crushing bit was a tad much. Perhaps the premature burial was just sufficient. But crushing it was more human than letting it die of asphyxiation, right?

He was not a cruel man, by nature, but how else could you describe how he executed the siren? He shouldn't have done it. He didn't consider how horrible it was. How inhumane. He regretted his actions. He remembered what it was like when he bore his darkness on the outside, instead of burying inside, when he was under the "negative touch" of Corruption. He knew he had a darkness in him, a darkness he always worked to suppress. Every had such a darkness inside them.

Well, except for Shadow. And the Seven Princesses of Heart, if they were real.

Guilt and regret mixed within him, a great noxious concoction. It left him feeling hollow, and empty. He could come up with all sorts of excuses, a barrel full of rationalizations, an armoire lies told to oneself. It would do no good either way.

"Cloak," Rocklobster said, noticing his internal self-deprecation.

"What?" the Realm Walker snapped. His tone was far harsher than he intended.

"Whoa, there. Don't take out your frustrations on me, Cloak," Rocklobster said, peaceably. "I saw the decision you made. It was a difficult one, and, whatever you may be thinking, you didn't make it lightly. That much was evident. Despite whatever misgivings and regrets you might be having right now, the decision was made and the action commited. It cannot be taken back. You must get pass this."

Cloak wanted to say something scathing about the Chee's hardwired pacifism, but couldn't bring himself to it.

---

*Book 15.

**Book 23.

*** Book 25.

****Book 40.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2015, 12:31:26 AM

New chapter.

. . .

Okay, yes, it can be considered filler, I suppose.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Faerie Gets Buglizard-ed

With the whole siren thing sorted out, though Cloak inisisted that there might be more to deal with, despite not seeing any or having any relevant spikes in serious injuries and murders, the RAFians reverted to their other mission, which was still active. Faerie was on the job, even during this whole siren debacle.

There were three beasts, three known beasts, that were still on the loose. The Terroranchula, the Buglizard, and the drakon. And Faerie was going in this kind of blind. She wasn't all that familiar with their abilities, as the RAFian morphers did not possess a drakon morph, and the ones that had a Buglizard and a Terroranchula didn't really use them all that much, if at all.

Faerie fluttered quietly through the nearby forest, glittering with a crisp, January snow. She looked around and wondered what creature she would discover first -- as she had already decided that she would discover one of these beasts, dead or alive. Though she was getting the feeling that the latter was more likely than the former.

Wait. There. Tracks.

She landed by the tracks to determine what precisely it was. She was, self-admittingly, not that much of a tracker. She was more of a direct girl -- direct, with combat connotations. Anyway, she scrutinized the track.

It was rather blunt sort of mark with three claw marks coming off it. It was about three times as wide as her foot. She saw were the tracks led, and there was some sort of sweeping line, a tail perhaps. This had to be Buglizard tracks, as the information she had, albeit limited, that was the only one of the three that could possibly fit these prints.

She hurried, hoping the thing was still alive. Her information stated that it came from a marshy swamp planet. This was not really an ideal, or even appropriate, environment for such a creature.

She caught up with the creature fairly easily. It had a white, black and red color scheme, and it had a black head which dons a white patch on each side of its head. Located on these, it had four beady red eyes, two on one side and two on the other. It had sharp teeth and the gums were protruded in lower jaw. It had a row of red spikes running down her back, which also has a black stripe. The Buglizard had four legs with black feet, each ending in three crimson claws which are strong enough to allow it cling to the underside of the hull of a spacecraft, and a tail with a prehensile, red-marked tip. The tail seemed to be drooping due to the weather, which caused the sweeping marks upon the snow.

It would normally possess enhanced reflexes and agility, making it aptly suited for hunting Lepidopterrans. But the cold seemed to have dulled these reflexes and severely reduced its agility. It seemed very awkward, crunching through the snow.

Buglizards are capable of spraying a yellow fog, simultaneously eliminating a Lepidopterran's wide vision and their mucus traps. But this cold air, and cold gusts of wind made thwt ability functionally useless.

Buglizards have enhanced strength, enough to throw an Orishan (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Orishan) with ease. But it was clear, this hostile environment, of which it was not adapted for, that the wintry weather was sapping this strength from it.

A Buglizard's sense of smell is powerful, so it was aware of Faerie as soon as she was upwind. But it seemed . . . put out. Indifferent. Weakened and malnourished. Not enough Lepidopterrans to feast upon, and it didn't have the energy to see Faerie as potential prey, though it was clearly starving.

"Guys? You need to come here quickly!" Faerie said, calling it. "The Buglizard is going to die if we don't do something!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 10, 2015, 02:03:01 AM

How'd I miss Chapter 18 when it was posted?  :huh:

And gee, thanks for making me feel bad for not getting any but one of those references to other books. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2015, 04:09:11 PM

Saffa and I call it "modify post" syndrome.

New chapter. . . . Sorry, GH, more callbacks.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Whoa, What Do You Really Think?

"And we're back," Bern Bridges was saying. "And we'll further delve into the crimes of these supposed heroes that idiots have been bandying on about."

He made a point to take a drink from his water.

"Valerie Thomas and Charles Mitchell." he said, jowls quivering almost hypnotically. "They were in a car crash last year, and I submit to you that it was the RAFians responsible. They pulled the car into that oncoming lane, and left these poor kids to die."

It was an outright lie. There were a copious amount of proof that it was because Valerie wasn't paying attention to the road. Alluria had misinterpreted what it saw, because it was actually Ian's best friend Chazz that was in the car with her when it crashed.

"Ian Thomas, Ms. Thomas's brother," Berns spoke again, his swiveling chair squeaking in protest at the brief movement. "Found unconscious on his bed, abandoned by his best friend and elder sister. Why? Why did they leave him behind, and yet have no memory of doing such? I submit that they were being controlled, manipulated, to do so. Controlled by the RAFians! Who aren't content unless they are underminding our way of life!"

Wow. So close to the truth to hurdle off in a random, and dangerous, direction. Honestly, it was a wonder why he didn't mention that Czarnian, Bolo. But Bern was probably as xenophobic as any Knight, and thereby would hate portraying an alien like Bolo in any sort of sympathetic light.

"Then there was Mary Susan and Gary Stuart Smith," he droned on, "orphans, whose parents were slain by rather suspicious means. I submit to you that it was the RAFians that led to the death of these good, law-abiding citizens!"

Again, not the truth. The orphans' parents actually abandoned them, and left them to survive on the streets, without any knowledge of what had happened to them, as they were too young to remember.

"Donald and Yvonne Keyes," Bern said again, apparently most of his listeners probably just had him on as background noise. Unheard and unheeded. "Proprietors of evil protests -- they support blasphemous things that I won't go into here -- and who led them down this path? These monsters that call themselves RAFians!"

They were proactive, it's true. But they were proactive in equal rights, civil rights, and such, and vocally disapproving of income inequality, the benefits the rich 1% use to oppress and keep down the 99%. But, to people like Bern Bridges, this was a horrible, disgraceful act.

"Ivan Clyde Skinner," Bern said, crisply. "Disappeared under mysterious circumstances, suppositively. Nothing was ever found of him. The RAFians didn't claim that they had anything to do with him. Coincidence? I think not!"

And that was about as substantive as a ghost.

"Harry Aloysius Gulliver. Ronald Alastor Sheldon. Nolan Theodore Brody." Bern said, although it sounded like he was eating while he was reciting this. "Found with their respective skins missing. Yet reports show that they was seen before the believed time of death. Reason for this inconsistency? A RAFian clearly ate the skins and impersonated as them until they didn't want to anymore!"

Again, close to the truth, but then misses the mark majorly. But it was clear that this man did not want to mill about the truth, but mere anti-RAF propaganda.

"Dillion Chalmers, and, notably, Dustin Ross," Bern said, almost drunkenly, "yet another couple of mysterious disappearances connected to the RAFians!"

He did not elaborate further than the accusation.

"Charles Horace Kelley. Adam Silenus Morgan. Bella Donna Lewis." he said, blaisely naming names. "The first two dead at the hands of the third. Clear cut, right? No! Little Donna said that she was coerced by another. And I submit to you, that it was one of these shape-changing RAFians! That's why she couldn't identify the person who convinced her to kill her two best friends!"

He made a point of drink some water again.

"That's all of the names I have right now, but fear not. I shall dig up some more matters that these RAFians try to bury, like that hole in the ozone layer of theirs!"

***

"Excellent," Malice was saying to herself, in her dark warehouse lair illuminated by a single gooseneck lamp. Talking to yourself is an occupational hazard of being by yourself for exceedly extended periods of time. "Really good. I shall know everything, everything that I didn't know before. Granted, that's not that much."

She cackled maliously.

"But it will all be mine again," Malice said, "like the Unimind. It will all be mine again . . . only a bit more . . . invasive

She had created something that looked like an overweight Gladius ship, only in severe minature. And it was alive, possessing six microfilament-like legs. It was exceedingly mobile, agile, and easy to be missed. And she had not just created one, but a swarm. A horrid, Borg-like nanochip horde, with her, naturally, as its queen.

"Let's see if they can stand up against this . . . assimilation." Malice said, grinning wickedly. "Resistance shall be . . . wait, is that cliche? Oh, never mind. I just ruined the moment."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2015, 10:15:37 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CIV:
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
CHAPTER ONE:
Underseen Has a Bug Problem

Underseen was no real fan of winter. It always made him feel rather stiff and he felt that it slowed down his shapeshifting fluidity. He also felt that it increased the difficulty of shapeshifting, making each transition feel stiff and off. It could have been a psychosomatic thing, he didn't know.

He was out here looking for the Terroranchula and drakon. He hoped to be as unlucky a Faerie and Blue. They had managed to save the Mucilator and Buglizard. Last he heard, they were doing well and acclimating just find in their reserves.

Underseen just happened to stumble upon the large insectoid creature. It looked like a giant tetrapod arachnid with a body akin to a silverfish with four pincers with one claw on each and a silver-colored exoskeleton, the lower half of her legs and back of her head is covered with light brown or olive hair. It had reptilian head with a wide, gaping, open mouth grimace. Its eyes were red and had black slits which resembled that of a Gimlinopithecus. It was the Terroranchula.

It didn't look as worse off as the others were, but it was clearly starving, as it more than likely could not find enoughsuitable sustenance to keep it well-fed and healthy.underseen could tell right away, by its wild eyes, it was consumed with hunger.

It couldn't eat Underseen, but it was clearly malnourished. Underseen couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the beast. But he quickly got over that when it began to attack him, clearly desperate for food, as it tended to be scarce in this season. The attack was slow and with reduced accuracy.

Underseen was not very easy to hit due to his very nature as a shapeshifter. But he had to keep his mind on several things at once. He was trying to contact the forum, as well as dodging the attacks while trying to devise a way to subdue it without harming it. It was only acting out of hunger, otherwise it would not have an interest in Underseen.

Underseen was proving to be slippery, as every blow was missed by the Terroranchula. Every time Underseen thought he had immobilized the bug, it managed to wiggle free. Underseen found this to be monotonous and just generally annoying. But he did notice the more it attacked, the more it slowed down. It never tried to use its energy webs, as it couldn't muster sufficient energy to form them.

Eventually, the Terroranchula collapsed as its energy ran out. But, fortunately, the others came and began to bind it and prepared it to be moved to a reserve.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 10, 2015, 11:31:40 PM

I was going to comment earlier but then I forgot. Damn, I did not see the kill coming in the last book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2015, 05:52:35 AM

Yeah . . . and it isn't the worse one the series will have to offer, I think. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Contrast

Malice continued her tinkering. She was making more of the Gladius-like chips. These chips were actually a hybridization of Nanochips, from the Ben 10 universe, and Borg nanoprobes, of the Star Trek universe. Yes, she was essentially becoming "Malice-enstein".

Malice could control the swarm with her mind, and found that each one was easier to create than the last. The swarm had no autonomy, no will, no emotion of their own. And all of them were under her thumb, figuratively speaking. She could manipulate them at will, as she demonstrated by causing the swarm to bubble and froth up, a metallic gray waterspout. She caused it to undulate, and manipulated it into a variety of different forms -- a sphere, a pyramid shape, a cube, a heart shape, a star shape, and a diamond shape.

She cackled at this. She had plans for this swarm. She would eliminate free will. She would eliminate individuality. In her mind, there should only be one will, one individual, one independent mind. She wanted it be like when she had taken the Unimind. She knew that she couldn't just go and take it again, mostly because she never liked using the same scheme twice, although he had no quarrel with using similar schemes.

***

GH was playing his guitar as every one was enjoying the monthly RAFparty. Except Cloak. He was brooding in his thread. He still was second-guessing his actions, still feeling remorse for them.

Anyway, they sang uproariously:

"Join the applause!
Clap with the claws!
Open the jaws and sing!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Music and RAFpartying!
Join the applause!
Clap with the claws!
Open the jaws and sing!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Music and RAFpartying!"

Then GH took center stage, and sang, while playing his guitar very enthusiastically:

"When I was a young RAFian,
Some days had their own frustrations.
I follow along and sing the same old song!
One day, I had the notion,
That I could compose a song ocean!
So I took command
And now I'm leader of the band!"

Then the RAFians sang in chorus:

"Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Don't be such a clam!
Open up and jam!"

It was almost as if they were speaking to Cloak. Anyway, GH sang solo:

"I'm older and yes, much wiser.
A musical improviser!
This RAFian in his prime
Is young enough to be having a good time!"

Then the rest of the RAFians joined in:

"Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Don't be such a clam!
Open up and jam!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Come on out of your shell!
Let the music do its spell!
Join the applause!
Clap with the claws!
Open the jaws and sing!
Dis is de life!
Dis is de life!
Music and RAFpartying!
This is the life!
This is the life!
Music and RAFpartying!"

The jovial and frivolity of independent thought and free will were slathered throughout the song. The sheer joy out of complementary personalities, and the socializing. RAFparties are usually quite festive events.

Cloak, however, wasn't in a very festive, celebratory mood, as of late. He was pretty much the only one that didn't attend. Well, except Estelore, who was probably chasing Freddy somewhere out amongst the stars.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 11, 2015, 05:56:48 AM

For some reason, I just imagine someone yelling "THIS IS THE LAMEST PUNK BAND EVER!"

Also holy hell why am I still awake?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2015, 05:58:54 AM

Insomnia?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 11, 2015, 05:59:49 AM

Or an eternally messed up sleep schedule. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 11, 2015, 08:34:34 AM

Quote

"I'm older and yes, much wiser.

[citation needed]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2015, 10:11:53 PM

What? Is this Wikipedia? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Engineered Plague

Malice had gathered these nanoprobes/nanochips which she called her "Malevolence", but called them "nanites" when not referring to the hive mind of which she was the queen of. She placed them into an interior pocket of her cloak.

She placed her outdate ID mask, one that Earthsight could easily see through, and put it on. It projected an image of an old hag -- long, tangled, silver hair, thick eyebrows, gray unpitying eyes and dark rings around her hem. Her nose was projected to be long and crooked, with a beak-like protuburance, with a large wart, and she only has one visible tooth on her bottom jaw. Her hands were projected to be gnarled and have pointed, dirty fingernails. She was projected to have a black, cowled robe with the hanging sleeves of a black gown, and she wore the same kind of black cloak she actually wore. She also seemed to be projected in wear black slipper-like shoes. This was her default projected form, very much like the one Cloak used to intice Alluria was his default. It was actually pretty reminiscent of herself as a human.

She stalked from her new hideout in an abandoned husk of a forgotten hotel, appearing to clutched her cloak even tighter around her. She walked with a swift gait away, looking to see if someone saw her. She was looking for a test victim for her Malevolence plague. She wasn't sure that they wouldn't create implants, like the Borg, as she didn't want that. At least not yet, they had to still be uncover, until global domination was assured.

She came across a homeless man, bundled up thickly against the January weather. He had a thick, tangled, curly, dirty, gray beard with a threadbare knitted cap pulled low over his brow. He looked rather like a hybridization of Santa Claus and a lion. He had a thick body, sturdy legs but a rather stumbling gait. Whether it was becaue of alcoholism or because of a poorly-healed broken leg was unclear.

He would do.

Malice allowed a small swarm from her cloak to flood the man with the nanites. He could offer no resistance. He was too weakened from the weather, from insufficient foodstuffs, from insufficient clean water. He was taken easily, and control was usurped from his body within a few moments. He was the first victim of the Malevolence, and no implants appeared dermally or subdermally. It seemed that it was working precisely the way that Malice wanted. No one would guess that this man was infected.

Malice decided to keep a close eye on --

"Hand over all yer valuables, lady!" came a swarmy, tough voice behind her. Malice wasn't impressed or intimidated. She didn't even turn around.

Another voice piped up, "My friend asked you a question, b--"

"Oh, I heard," Malice croaked out, turning around of her own volation to witness her would-be muggers. The swarmy voiced one looked rather like a warthog, with his beady eyes, piggy nose, and wide mouth. He wore a red sleeveless shirt, black jeans and hi-tops. He possessed a high mowawk colored purple and he wore a pair of sunglasses, even in this darkness.

His friend was thick bodied with little neck, short blond hair, and a rather stupid look on his jowly face. He wore a short-sleeved, pale yellow shirt, army camouflage pants, and army boots. Malice assumed that he was a military reject or something.

"Apparently, you didn't!" Mr. Warthog said. "Fork over your jewelry and valuables."

They didn't even have any sort of gun or anything. It was really sad. They could have at least painted their fingers gunmetal gray or something. At least show that much effort.

"You want what I have?" Malice said, feigning forgetfulness.

"Yes, you old bat!" Mr. Military Reject said.

Malice dropped the brief facade, smiling maliciously, "As you wish!"

The two became the next two victims of the Malevolence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 11, 2015, 10:50:18 PM

Of course she'd name it after herself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2015, 09:31:39 AM

Well, she didn't exactly name it after herself.

• Book DCCCXXVII: "The Ing Thing" -- The RAFians must deal with a horde of Ing.
• Book DCCCXXVIII "Heinlin There" -- The RAFians discover an albino Heinlin.

Titles subject to change. Let me know what you think!

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Assimilation Assault

But Malice had sights on more than three victims. She observed these three for the next three days, and found that she liked the results. They had no exterior dermal implants, and no subdermal implants either. Though she discovered that it made an internal implant that eliminated their need to eat and drink, only requiring momentary charging from any light source, anywhere from every three days or even six days, depending on exertion. But their will, their identity, was completely usurped and subsumed by the Malevolence.

Malice then allowed her three out in the city, to "recruit" more. By assimilation, of course. The victims were infected fast and unnoticed. An entomologist. A geologist. A streetfighter. A gardener. An electrical engineer. A debutante. A criminalologist. A psychologist. An aeronautics engineer. A cryogenics technician. A parapsycholgical. A firefighter. A toxicologist. A mythologist. A lifeguard. A seismologist.  A metal worker. A schoolteacher. All taken. All taken without their notice.

It was at this point that Malice allowed some marginal autonomy by allowing them to use air transmission or the more direct way of assimilation tubules. But she kept an iron grip over them, lest she lose control over this technological, artificially-made plague. But the degree of control she was trying to maintain . . .

Soon, a quarter of the city's populace had been assimilated into the Malevolence. This was going along at a rather brisk, rapid pace.

However, more and more were still taken. More and more had the control over their bodies usurped. Their wills undermined and stolen. Their individuality ripped from them, unless it was necessary to maintain their cover. Their memories and knowledge stolen to be used and taken by the Malevolence and Malice herself. Malice smirked at this. As she was knowing everything from a myriad of different perspectives, and she was formulating a way to use this information to her advantage.

Soon, she had half of the population of the city under her control, by way of the Malevolence. And still, none of them had subdermal or dermal implants exposed. But all of them had the internal implant that allowed them to go without food, though they could still eat if necessary, if they couldn't be recharged.

But, about this time, Malice began to wonder . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 12, 2015, 10:57:39 AM

The number of books... *collapses*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2015, 10:58:37 AM

What? It's only over 800. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 12, 2015, 11:01:58 AM

Should I make the reference...? Should I not …? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2015, 12:25:44 PM

Well . . . I did word it that way deliberately . . .

BTW, Saffa, I hate to ask, but I do in a hopefully respectful manner. Are you still doing PDFs? Or are you just really busy of late? I apologize if this sounds demanding.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Close to Conquered and Contrite

More and more were taken. With internal implants that looked vaguely like black gears, that freed them from the need of eating, unless it helped them maintain their cover. This was Malice's mandate to the Malevolence. However, she seemed unaware of how potentially dangerous it was to allow the Malevolence even this small bit of autonomy.

Soon, a little over three-quarters of the city were taken -- politicians, wage slaves, adults, children, men, women, gay, straight, there was no distinction. All were taken and sought after equally. Onky a scarce few seemed to be immune, and those were dismissed as worthless or killed. Or smart enough to pretend to be killed or already dead, as these Malevolence drines did not replace an eye with an ocular implant as the Borg would have.

It was rather shameful that the RAFians seemed unaware of this. Something that Bern Bridges was quick to point out. He was safe from assimilation because he operated his show out of his home, which was in a rather remote place. Despite all his big talk and wild accusations, he really was, in his heart of hearts, a coward.

But, finally, the RAFians discovered this outbreak. It was a rather remarkable find with how unnervingly and unerringly surreptitious the Malevolence was being about this invasion. Even the Yeerks and the Heinlins didn't work this fast or efficiently. Especially when the RAFians usually monitored such things very closely. This time they really dropped the ball.

And they didn't have Rotiart to blame for it.

"What is this?" Aquilai asked. "And why haven't we picked it up?"

"We don't regularly bioscan the citizens of the city," Yarin said, crossly. "Nor do I make a habit of scanning them telepathically. Not that I can from this distance without some augmentation."

"I wasn't suggesting or implying anything of the sort!" the Time Lord replied, heatedly.

"Well, how else could we have known?" Yarin shot back. "Regular scans rarely, if ever, go subdermally. Even then, it's not like the technology can't be fooled!"

"Guys, guys, guys!" Goom said, trying to defuse the situation. "C'mon, now. We don't need another incident like the one with GH and that bathtub of coffee.*"

It worked, but there was still tension.

"We still have people out in the field," Yarin said, voice carrying some of that tension.

"The Mark should protect them," Aquilai said, confidently.

"Actually," Goom said, not really liking the overdependence they have developed on the Marks, "I don't know about that."

Aquilai and Yarin spoke at the same time. "What?"

---

*And, lo, the "Memoirs" version of DBZA's "the Jockstrap Incident" joke. Although way more benign, if I'm not mistaken. Hey, who knows, might become a running gag, like Yarin's microwave. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 12, 2015, 07:16:55 PM

:D :D :D :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 13, 2015, 02:03:05 AM

YES! IT HAPPENS!

About the PDFs, funny you should ask, I was actually in the middle of doing them. :P And here they are:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2015, 02:07:15 AM

It is kinda of funny that you left off at Book 100, Saffa.

. . .

I really should be getting to bed. Got an appointment with Supportive Employment at 9:30 and that's about seven and a half hours from now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 13, 2015, 02:30:27 AM

Yeah, I found the attached book 100 somewhere while I was scanning through chapters, so it's there.

Hope that goes well, Cloaky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2015, 01:10:28 PM

It did, I think.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Casualties

Still on the look out for that drakon, the most dangerous of the beasts from Rosch's menagerie, Faerie, GH, Horse, Mithril, Sakki, Guy, and Gaz were searching for it in the dingy grimy part of the city that had a distinct feeling of neglect and maintenance kept to an absolute minimum, if at all.

They did not know about the threat. The three at communications barely understood it, but it was dangerous. This also couldn't have came at a worst time with communications, as the unique dampness of this place tended to short out the signals. It was an occupational risk, but the RAFians were, despite themselves, somewhat complacent about it, depending on their Marks to protect them from anything.

But that over-reliance to the Mark was a mistake. It had proven time and time again that it didn't prevent diseases and plagues and venoms and things. The Mark was not perfect, not infallible, and could be broke. It had broken twice* before.

They didn't expect to see the lonely figure of a stooped woman in a cloak, standing as if she was in a cylindrical sandstorm, not unlike Miles Upshur in the DLC for Outlast. They knew immediately the identity of this woman, as she was not disposed to wear her ID mask.

Malice.

But what was this swarm around her? It undulated in a most mesmerizing manner. It didn't matter, the Mark would protect them, they were sure of it. There were seven of them and one of her. They surely could overpower her, the Realm Walker.

Malice smiled a smile to match her chosen moniker, and simply pointed with her right hand, and the swarm converged into seven tendrils and flew towards the RAFians. They tried to fend off the swarm, but only Gaz seemed to have any success by sublimating into a gaseous state, which was sufficient enough to evade them. The others couldn't react fast enough, and the swarms forced their ways into their bodies either by their navel or abdomen. The RAFians weren't able to stop it, having allowed themselves to get complacent about their Mark protecting them. But this assimilation was different from what the Mark was developed for. It was more like a disease, a disease that could usurp control over their body and add their minds to the Malevolence.

But the Mark wasn't completely useless and out classed. It forbid their involuntary joining of the Malevolence, and would allow them to lose their identities unless they chose to let them go. Even assimilated, the Mark allowed the RAFians to keep their minds, memories, identities, and loyalties intact. However, that was the limit of what it could do. It could not stop the nanites from infect them.

They all struggled to resist the assimilation, but they could not. And if the they stressed their Marks too much they risked them breaking. . . .

"I expected as much," Malice said, as Gaz watched from the shadows. She had managed to escape this pseudo-assimilation. "But that's why this batch of nanites were specially developed for you RAFians and your infernal Marks."

Suddenly, a subdermal implant bursted into being a dermal one right in the hole in their "R"-shaped Marks in a circular starburst pattern. It actually prevented the Mark from breaking but also suppressed its usual capabilities, so it allowed Malice some rudimentary control over them.

"Ah, you still struggle? Excellent. Your struggles make it more interesting for me," she said, "more entertaining for me. I shall remember this fondly . . . and I'm glad that I prepared for it."

The six shuttered as they fought against the nanites, which still tried to take complete control and add them to the Malevolence. The Mark still pregented them from being added from the collective, but they were losing control over their own bodies. It was a terrifying experience.

"Activate the phobic implant," Malice said, clearly relishing this.

A metallic yellow dermal implant blossomed from their skin at the base of their spines. They were flooded with feelings of fear. Yet they struggled, as Gaz put her hand on her mouth.

"Ha ha ha! Yes!" Malice crowed, taking a sadistic pleasure in this. "Activate the beguiltic implant!"

Gaz couldn't see where this dermal implant came out from, but she really didn't want to know, but felt as if she was obligated to bear witness to this horror. Bear witness as these six RAFians were filled with feelings of guilt. But, still they struggled on.

"Activate the shaming implant," Malice said, almost gleefully.

From their stomachs, or navels if they had them, a metallic green implant blossomed up, almost as if it were a time-lapsed daisy. It flooded them with feelings of shame. Gaz winced, feeling some shame herself that she wasn't doing anything to help them. But she did not know what she could do. . . .

"Activate the gravic implant," Malice said, almost giddy.

Over their hearts, a metallic violet implant blossomed up like flower. It flooded them with feelings of grief. Gaz's mind whirled. Ther had to be something she could do. Just . . . something . . .

"Activate the lying implant," Malice said, restraining her excitement a tad.

From their respective throats, a metallic indigo implant blossomed up. This one filled them with lies, so many that discerning the truth was very difficult. Gaz could tell that the others' wills were beginning to weaken, allowing Malice more control over them.

"Activate the hallucinogenic implant," Malice said, really liking this turn of events.

From their foreheads sprouted a metallic orange implant that filled their heads with illusions. Gaz let out a little gasp, unheard due to Malice's cackle. This severely reduced the resistance of her RAFian victims. Though they would never join the Malevolence collective.

"Now, let's finish this," Malice said, practically shaking with excitement. She would finally win, and this time, not be bored with the aftermath. "Activate the primer implant!"

A metallic red implant blossomed from the crest of their heads. This caused Malice to have total control over them, down to being able to even speak through them like a puppet if she so chose. The RAFians could still struggle against it, but it was a Sisyphian task. They were still very much aware, but burdened with excessive fear, guilt, shame, grief, lies, and hallucinogenic illusions. It would be very difficult.

They were hers.

Gaz had to flee. She had to warn the others. She had to warn thst they were not safe. The Mark was now a liability, as the implant covering these RAFians' Mark enabled Malice to trace other Marks. The others needed to know!!

---

* I know what you may be thinking, but no. No, it is not a mistake.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 13, 2015, 11:49:44 PM

No, I remember that book. And oh god, this chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2015, 06:57:10 PM

I was actually referring to that time and one you -- well, never mind. Sorry for not posting the new chapter yet, time got away from me today. I'm still working on it. Writing it, I mean.

Expect a long chapter.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Fear and Fire

"You're not listening to me!" Gaz was saying. She was somewhat hysterical. "GH. Horse. Faerie. Sakki. Mithril. And G-Guy. Malice has control over all of them!"

"Impossible," Demos said, dismissively. "Our Marks, remember?"

"You're still not listening to me!" Gaz roared in frustration. How could she make them understand? How could she make them see the very real danger that this presented them? "I'm serious about what I saw!!"

"Gaz," Richard said, calmly and diplomatically. They were still out in the field, and Gaz felt completely unsafe here, and not because the sun was rising. She wasn't that kind of vampire, anyway. "Gaz, calm down and see reason."

"I am seeing reason!" Gaz protested insistently. "I'm trying to warn you of --"

"Gaz! Gaz, what you describe is impossible," Hunter said. "Nothing can bypass the Mark, you must hav just not seen --"

"I know what I saw Hunter," Gaz said, her frustration begining to transmute into anger. "Malice has assimilated them into some sort of -- of collective!"

It wasn't exactly true. Malice had control over their bodies, it's true. Malice had access to their thoughts and memories, it's true. But they weren't, however, part of the Malevolence collective. Their minds remained separate and their individuality retained, but bogged down with fear. With guilt. With shame. With lies. With hallucinations. It would be difficult to fight through all those layers to resurface and take back control.

"Gaz, you're being ridiculous," Demos said, with his arms folded, "the Mark is nigh on impregnable."

"No, it's not!" she countered. "They broke once before! During that whole Techarchy-Phalanx thing!"

It was then Gaz truly realized just how complacent and dependant on the Mark they were.  That they all were. And they hadn't even had it for a year yet!

SNAP!

A twig snapped. They were here! Faerie. GH. Horse. Mithril. Guy! They were all here!

"What's wrong with them? What are those metal flower things on them?" Hunter asked.

"Seriously?!" Gaz roared angrily. "I quite literally just got done telling you!"

They approached closer, speaking in a strangled, gluttral sort of voice, "We are the Malevolence. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

Gaz hoped she had imagined that. It was very freaky and creepy, especially from the mouths of her friends. Especially, though she was unaware of the fact, the RAFians were not part of the Malevolence. She knew that she alone could not resist them offensively, but could defensively. She noticed, however, the assimilation tubules that sprouted from the implant that blocked their Marks. They would have a grip that bit. Literally bit!

"We have to run," Gaz said, trying and failing to force her fear down. She was creeped out that much. "We have to get out of here! Hurry!"

"Don't be so hasty --" Phoenix said, fairly, before Gaz interrupted him.

"Didn't you hear me before?!" she said somewhat hysterically. "The Mark won't protect us! Think 'Walking Dead', Phoenix!"

"We don't -- ah! Faerie!" Hunter was about to protest, before Faerie seized his upper arm. With her Marked hand. Gaz was horrified, and hating herself for writing hik off as lost.

"Guys! Hunter's been assimilated!" Faerie said, as the dermal chakra implants began to appear on Hunter's body, poking through his fur. "We gotta . . . gotta . . . gotta . . ."

But GH had seized Phoenix with his Mark hand, Sakki had seized Demos with her Mark hand, and Mithril had seized Richard with his Mark hand. All of them. They were all infected with nanites. She teared up as she went to bat mode, and began to fly off, hating herself for it, and narrowly have missed being assimilated by Horse.

But Phoenix, Demos, and Richard were not assimilated at all. Richard was forced into a comatose state, while Phoenix and Demos's natural physiologies rejected the nanites, and destroyed them with fire. They escaped into the forest, but just barely, leaving the rejected slag that once were nanites behind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 14, 2015, 08:29:06 PM

Ok, I am so going to use that "we are the malevolence" monologue in a song.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2015, 09:17:22 PM

And, so, the Cycle of Creativity continues. . . . ;)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Shapes and Shifting

Gaz flew.

And she flew, flew, flew. But the memories would not be left behind in the dust. She wanted to forget. Oh, how she would like to forget. Where was a Mnemoraptor when she needed one?

Eventually, she had to land, and return to her humanoid form, tears reforming in her eyes. She happened to land in afield in which Noelle was grazing. Saffa, Abby, Underseen, Ash, Cerulean and Parker were there as well. Gaz couldn't help but wonder about this grouping as it seemed somewhat mismatched.

<Parker, don't you have enough armaments on your armor? Why do you want another weapon?> Noelle was saying conversatiinally placid. <It strikes me as a bit of overkill.>

"It's just a Shredder," Parker said, with a shrug of his shoulder. "And the more versatile a person can be in battle, the more opinions he has to victory."

<You're not really here for a Shredder, are you?> Noelle said, perceptively.

"Ooh, busted." Saffa said, with a smirk.

"Does this have something to do with Helen?" Underseen asked.

"No." This answer was quick. Too quick.

"Trouble in paradise?" Abby teased.

Parker was glad that he was wearing his helmet.

"Ooh, you're blushing!" Saffa teased.

"How d'you know that? He's wearing a helmet." Cerulean asked.

"Woman's intuition," Ash said, as Parker gave an exasperated sigh. But he was afforded a distraction in Gaz, which they all noticed. And it was clear that she was distraught. The six dashed and hurried to her side.

"Get away," she said, voice sounding hoarse, "we need to get away. Need to g-get away . . . g-get away . . ."

"Gaz, you're not making sense," Cerulean said.

"They will come," she said. It seemed like she was speaking to herself more than anyone else. She was also clearly exhausted and weakened. "They will come."

"Who?" Abby demanded gently. "Who will come?"

"They," Gaz said, rather nonsensically.

"Well, that clears it up," Saffa said, dryly droll.

Gaz was super tired, so much so, that she could barely lift her head. She had poured all her energy in getting away. She was glad Laserbeak wasn't here. Not because of his rash overprotectiveness, but because she knew that not even he would be safe from Malice's Malevolence.

"They . . . they turned," Gaz said. "Dangerous. Marks . . . useless."

"<Gaz, slow down,> Noelle conjoled. <Who are 'they'?"

"Others."

"I think we're missing something translation," Ash said

"Others. Turned." Gaz said. It was becoming a trial to just keep her eyes open. "Assimilated."

"Assimilated? Underseen said at once. "What do mean by 'assimilated'?"

"Gone. All gone." she muttered. She was babbling, really. "Puppets. Empty."

"I think thst we're having two different conversations right now," Ash observed.

"Dangerous. Coming. Soon," she said as she began to babble her way into an exhaustion-induced unconsciousness.

"Any idea what that was about?" Parker asked.

"No idea." Cerulean said.

"Prob'bly that," Saffa said, seeing the assimilated RAFians walking towards them. She was reflectively morphing to Psycholeopterran morph. If her Tyrannopede morph is her go-to morph for battle, her Psycholeopterran morph was her go-to morph for defense and evasion, mostly because of its hypnotic capabilities and intangibility capability.

Abby and Noelle saw this, and decided to join her in their own respective Psycholeopterran morphs. Parker was perplexed. All he detected was the signatures of the RAFians. But wait. He noticed a slight discrepancy . . .

"Oh, sh-- Cerulean. Underseen. Ash." Parker said. "Take Gaz and run."

"But why?" Ash asked. "What's going on?"

<Nothing good.> Saffa said, her solemnity masking her fear.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2015, 04:44:55 PM

MAY be a little longer than twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
They Come

"But why?" Cerulean said. "There's no danger her--"

"Don't argue!" Parker yelled. The stress of urgency needed to be communicated with as few words as possible. "Remember Gaz's words."

"They didn't make sense." Underseen said.

Fortunately, the assimilated did not run. This gave them time. But it still left them with a quandary. They would pull punches, for fear of harming their friends, though they haven't any control over their bodies.

<Underseen,> Saffa said, unintentionally terse, <just do it.>

<They come,> Noelle noticed.

<Why isn't the Mark stopping this?> Abby asked, as Cerulean hefted up Gaz, and sped to the forum, still a hidden bastion for the RAFians. <It's supposed to prevent things like this!>

"Didn't stop that vampire business last year." Ash pointed out.

"Or Horse's poisoning by that Arachnoid," Parker added.

"Or --" Underseen began.

<Alight, alright,> Abby conceded, <point taken. The Mark isn't infallible. Got it.>

Then they came. Shuffling along at a tepid, languid place. The flower-like dermal chakra implants gleaming in a most sinister manner, looking as if they were blemishes gone awry.

<GH,> Saffa said, sadly, noticing him first.

"Horse," Parker said, noticing the seal first.

"E-way re-ay e-thay Alevolence-may. Our-yay iological-bay d-anay echnological-tay istinctiveness-day ill-way e-bay dded-ay o-tay ur-oay n-oway. Our-yay ulture-cay ill-yay dapt-ay o-tay ervice-say us-ay. Esistance-ray is-ay utile-fay."

<Anyone else heard that?> Saffa asked.

"Heard what?" Parker asked.

<Never mind,> Saffa said.

But, suddenly, Horse was behind him, and extended her assimilation tubules into his ankle. Fortunately, his armor was completely self-contained, so Parker's flesh wasn't touched. But, on the other hand, the assimilation tubules also served as computer interface. So, while Parker wasn't assimilated, at all, his armor -- and Tyr -- were. His metallic skin that was his armor became a prison as bad as an iron maiden. Parker couldn't move of his own accord anymore, but his voice was still his own! But he was still entombed in his own armor! It was like he was infected by a Reach Beetle, or a Controller, or a victim of a symbiote.

GH infected Underseen and Mithril infected Ash. However, they were not assimilated. At all. Their forms just undulated and the nanites, condensed in ball bearings a half-inch in diameter fell from them as their malleable bodies rejected the introduced nanites.

Helpless from within his own armor, Parker yelled, "Get away! Everyone get away!"

They, albeit reluctantly, complied. And Parker resigned himself to the knowledge that he would be assimilated as soon as his armor removed the helmet, exposing the naked flesh of his head. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and he rsigned himself to his fate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 15, 2015, 07:37:04 PM

Pig Latin? Really? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2015, 07:38:03 PM

Would you rather tiger Latin? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
You Wouldn't Want to Mess With Me

Malice bore witness to all of this with her mind's eye. As she was connefted to the Malevolence collective, as their queen. Unfortunately, she was the only Realm Walker able as the nanites could not survive in Realm Walker ichor-stream.

But she was very confident that she had basically already won, and she was elated enough to indulge herself in a little song:

"With one wave of my hand
You know who's in command.
I'm the quintessential queen of all I see!
I keep a potion in my purse,
That's worse than any curse!
No, you wouldn't want to mess with me!
Take a barracuda's nose
And a half dozen ninja turtle toes,
And the venom of a sea anemone,
Eye of Agamotto, tech of Stewie!
Stir the goop until it's gooey!
That's my favorite rancid recipe!
No, you wouldn't want to mess with me!"

Now she indulged herself into a cackling fit. Despite her song, she wasn't concocting any such potion. One could make the argument that, by being the Malevolence's queen, Malice's psyche had been fractured in an irreparable way, but there was no way to really substantiate this notion.

"Make way, I'm in charge!
Your fate is looming large.
It won't do you any good to flee.
My machinations never fail.
So you'd better watch your tail!
No, you wouldn't want to mess with me!
When you think I'm on the brink of going under,
I've a way of coming out on top!
Oh, my darling applicants,
I always get just want I want.
And I want this mucky luck to stop!
I'm the mistress of mystique,
With a slender slim physique!
I'm an idol in the circle of infamy!
I admit I'm quite a catch,
But I've never met my match!
So, you shouldn't test the best!
'Cause you couldn't stand the stress!
No, you wouldn't want to mess!
With me!"

Yes, she was a tad egotistical. And this song echoed throughout the Malevolence collective, becoming a somewhat pseudo-marching song, briefly replacing the whole "We are the Malevolence" spiel, which they now stated openly, as Malice decided to drop all pretense. Considering she only took over one city over who knows how many exist, it coukd be a bit premature.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/?reload=2&rdm=1s4usx1r#/watch?v=aGp1479XJzo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 16, 2015, 01:28:33 AM

Funny how the computer student was the only one who heard the Pig Latin.

I'm a pretty hopeless computer student but still

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2015, 08:50:26 AM

Honestly, I didn't know that when I posted the chapter. Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCCXXIX: "The Chakra Relics" -- The RAFians must race against a terrible foe to obtain the Chakra Relics.
• Book DCCCXXX: "RAFSlayer" -- The same terrible foe discovers a way to resurrect all of the RAFians' slain foes, and merges them, fuses them, into one singular being.
• Book DCCCXXXI: "Bad Influences" -- A beast is hypnotizing children into being naughty and misbehaving. The RAFians must stop this. Yes, even Saffa.
• Book DCCCXXXII: "A Steal-Life" -- The RAFians must deal with a portrait that steals the life force of who it depicts.

Hope I didn't rehash anything. If I did, I'll find a way to make it work, I hope.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 16, 2015, 09:46:39 AM

Heh, I was just updating the list as this post came out. Was behind quite a few titles.

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 16, 2015, 08:50:26 AM

• Book DCCCXXXI: "Bad Influences" -- A beast is hypnotizing children into being naughty and misbehaving. The RAFians must stop this. Yes, even Saffa.

goddamnit

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2015, 06:25:42 PM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Search and Ambush

Helen, Sam, Blocky, and Oceanspray were still searching for the drakon. They were looking in what could be considered to be the slums of the city, as the forest and warehouse district had been thoroughly searched already.

"It's pointless," Oceanspray was saying. "It's not here."

"We don't know that," Helen said, quickly. "Not for sure."

"It could be dead for all we know."

"Sam!" Helen said, reproachfully.

"Well, it could," Sam said, with an indifferent shrug. "Who knows if a drakon can survive in weather such as this?"

"Our information has that it is very difficult to kill," Oceanspray said. "Somehow I doubt the elements would get to it in such a manner."

"I only know of four varieties of drakon," Blocky said. "The Aethiopian from Africa. The Lydian from Lydia. The Thebian from Thebes. And the Maeonian from Turkey."

"Wait," Helen said. "You mean it isn't an alien beast?"

Blocky looked at her as if she should have already known this, as if it were obvious. "Yeah. I mean, obviously, Earth can boast some fearsome creatures, too, you know."

"Yeah, well --" Helen blustered before being interrupted by Sam.

"What's going on over there?"

"We are the Malevolence." came a chime of monotone voices.

"What does that mean? What's the Malevolence?" Oceanspray said.

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own." The chime of voices was getting louder.

"Oh. That type of creepazoid," Blocky said, with dawning realization, thouh no real concept of what the Malevolence really was. "Why can't we ever seem to complete a mission before getting handed a new one?"

They were still getting louder. "Your culture will adapt service us."

"This doesn't sound good," Sam said.

Then the firet of the Malevolence drones showed up. Some seemed to have the dermal chakra implants, while some lacked them. Their eyes were vacant and rather glassy. It was as if their bodies were moving of their own accord.

"Resistance is futile."

Oh, and they were dressed as the cast of a high school presentation of "The Wizard of Oz", complete with rather superb costuming, which probably would have looked stellar (for a high school play) if these poor cast members were not a part of the Malevolence collective. They shuffled closer, nit running, almost if they didn't want to damage their costukes any more than they already had.

"We are the Malevolence."

This actually stunned the four RAFians in their tracks. Whatever they had anticipated, this wasn't it. This front line of Malevolence drones were adolescents, high school adolescents, dressed as Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and so on. Apparently, they were assimilated right before, during, or right atter their performance and hadn't any personality or identity enough to change out of their theatrical costumes.

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own." they said in that monotone, manner-of-fact way, many voices issuing from every single mouth. "Your culture wil adapt to service us."

"I'm thinking a big 'no' on that," Oceanspray said.

"Resistance is futile." came their reply.

"Nope," Sam said, with gusto.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2015, 10:15:57 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Unseen Pricks

"We are the Malevolence. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

"That," Helen noted, "is becoming monotonous."

"We are the Malevolence."

"Yeah, we got that," Sam said. It would have been prudent of them to run away, but they didn't know the danger they were in. Communications had yet to inform them of this threat, as Yarin, Goom, and Aquilai were not aware of the nature of the threat as of yet. Phoenix and Demos had not called it in yet, and Cerulean had just arrived with Gaz at the forum. "What's their deal?"

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

"And are they on some sort of unending loop?" Blocky wondered aloud. "Or do think that 'learning through repetition' thing is true to a fanatically religious extent?"

"Your culture will adapt to service us."

"Hey! Ow!" Blocky protested, as a boy in the Tin Man theatrical costume, face painted silver, probed him and penetrated his flesh by putting the assimilation tubules between Block's scales. He had infected the dragon.

"What's wrong, Blocky?" Sam said at once, an aura of green light enveloping him instantly, as he floated up.

"What did that kid in the Tin Man costume do to him?" Helen said, following suit. Then she shrieked when the dermal chakra implants bursted from his skin and scales. He was assimilated, but in body only. His mind remained separate, isolated, burdened with fear, shame, guilt, illusions, and hallucinations. His body recited the same refrain as the others.

"Wait, what about --" Sam said, before noticing Oceanspray's systems had already been hacked and assimilated. Sam finished his thought with a disheartened, "Oh."

"We got to go back to the forum," Helen said, ruefully decisive. Her voice was full of grief. "There's nothing we can do for them now."

The two ring-bearers looked at their fallen comrades, the two, and, hating themselves for it, flew to the forum. Nobody liked feeling this helpless, least of all any RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 17, 2015, 12:34:03 AM

:edit:

The exams bored me to tears, so I drew up Photoshop for even more procrastination. I had done this banner-thing years ago in Paint way before I opened PS for the first time:

(https://40.media.tumblr.com/04e62a71554f348c30455aac8b7803a3/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo1_500.png)

So I took it now and improved upon it a bit, played around with brushes and fonts and made banners for all the Years that are planned out in the series so far. :D

Year 2
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/a4c63b04a2bb8964340dba25066d1888/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo2_400.jpg)

Year 3
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/3a60e5b0925e02257753045bca44bff6/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo4_400.jpg)

Year 4
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/c87e2dc8fe8f67d7d52876cf4adb3a65/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo3_400.jpg)

Year 5
(https://36.media.tumblr.com/221142f8669893bdb15a2f4a45fca829/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo5_400.jpg)

Year 6
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/bd06d30d732c40df5c16b0e998f968e4/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo6_400.jpg)

Year 7
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/b3f44e9066105d66b18468713f725ab1/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo7_400.jpg)

Year 8
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/73d5a01e665afa2ff87ada3ef9cb0675/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo8_400.jpg)

Year 9
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/7520a47ff5acd485b0c15aa8d555c4bf/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo9_400.jpg)

I didn't really go with a specific theme in mind for the years (from the book summaries), though I suppose gh has already accounted for the coffee stains on Year 2. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 17, 2015, 04:03:12 PM

I am so gonna put one of those in my sig when I get home.

Still not removing the Cinnabons though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2015, 04:04:18 PM

You never cease to surprise me in such pleasant ways, Saffa!  ;D

I want those to be official. Can you incorporate them in some way into the PDFs? If it's not too much?

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Awareness

"Seriously?" Blue asked, having taken a call from the guys in the dispatch part of Communications. "You're really serious about this?"

"Hmmm . . ." Cloak said, pensively. "If I have heard your description correctly, Aquilai, it sounds like what we're dealing with may very well be a hybridization of --"

He stopped speaking, having heard something with his feline hearing.

"We are the Malevolence."

Bladeh and FuBar heard it, too.

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

"Heard it that time," Blue acknowledged, having ended the Aquilai's verbal communiqué. "What are they?"

"I don't . . . I don't know!" FuBar said, somewhat freaking.

"Calm yourself," Cloak said, calm and rational.

"Your culture will adapt to service us," came the voices again.

"What are they?" Bladeh asked, as they still were not in sight, in this twilight gloom. "I still . . . I still can't see anything."

"I can," Cloak said, Earthsighting the crepuscular creatures. "From what my Earth tells me its a group of a few people. My guess is, due to the information presented to us is that it is some matter of a gestalt mind, a collective."

"Resistance is futile." came the chorus of monotone voices.

"And I'm believing that it's a hybridization," Cloak continued to elaborate, "though I haven't any proof, I am of the belief that these things are hybridizations of nanochips and Borg nanoprobes."

"We are the Malevolence," the chorus of voices insisted.

"Meaning?" Blue said.

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

"Meaning that I have reason to believe that this hive mind aspect of them, I believe that they need to assimilate others into this gestalt collective," Cloak said.

"Your culture will adapt to service us," the monotone voices intoned.

"At least our Marks protects us from it," FuBar said, the hair on his back raising up, his tail fur jumping up.

"Resistance is futile."

"You are getting complacent by over-relying on your Marks," Cloak said, reprovingly. "It is not infallible."

"We are the Malevolence."

"You're not saying what I think you are, are you?" Blue said, at once.

Cloak didn't need to saying as they shuffled into view. Clearly, assimilated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 17, 2015, 07:53:03 PM

Thanks! It's always nice to brighten people's day with whatever you don't suck at doing :D Yeah, I can put them into the header of every upcoming PDF.

Those Cinnabons. Pure evil.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 17, 2015, 08:41:30 PM

Glad you're still mad about them! >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 17, 2015, 09:00:28 PM

Still following this when class reading and time allow. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2015, 09:07:14 PM

Quote from: Saffa on November 17, 2015, 07:53:03 PM

Thanks! It's always nice to brighten people's day with whatever you don't suck at doing :D Yeah, I can put them into the header of every upcoming PDF.

Excellent. Thanks!

Quote from: Gaz on November 17, 2015, 09:00:28 PM

Still following this when class reading and time allow. :D

Great!

:edit: Yeah . . . this may be longer than the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Bending

"You mean RAFians can be assimilated, too?!" Bladeh demanded with a feline screech.

"We are the Malevolence."

"Your own eyes can tell you that," Cloak said snappishly, "as I've said before, the Marks are fallible. They have been broken once before, during the Phalanx thing."

"Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own."

"No need to get touchy, Cloak," Blue said, evenly.

"Your culture will adapt to service us."

"That, however," Bladeh said, referring to the assimilated RAFians constant refrain, "is getting to be a touch annoying."

"It's appears to be on a contant loop," Blue replied. "Perhaps designed as a means of intimidation?"

"Don't you get it?" FuBar said, rather hysterically. "They're going to assimilate us too!!"

Of course, Cloak's natural physiology made this quite impossible, as well as the fact that Realm Walkers are notoriously difficult to control and nigh on impossible to capture involuntarily.

"And you just thought I'd sit idly back and allow that to happen when I'm present to actually do something about it?" Cloak asked, rather tartly.

"What can you --" FuBar began without thinking, before remembering the nature of Cloak's powers.

"The nanites are metal," Cloak said.

"But wouldn't that be like trying to manipulate grains of sand suspended in a watery concoction under a tarp that you're not allowed to peak beneath?" Blue queried.

"I can do it." Cloak said, confidently.

"And, if you can't?" Blue said, without missing a beat. "Even you have your limits, Cloak."

"I can do this," Cloak repeated. He didn't need Blue echoing his own doubts. He didn't even need to think about what he may have to do.

"Resistance is futile."

"Yeah?" Cloak challenged. "You may want to reconsider that statement!"

Cloak found himself focusing and he was able to halt their movements, albeit rather jerkily. It took every bit of his hyperfocus the Realm Walker possessed. It was very difficult, precisely how Blue described.

"Bad idea, Cloaky," came the chorus of voices. The intonation and lilt of the crowd voices was familiar . . . of course. Who else? Who else would be behind this? Cloak wouldn't have been surprised if Malice's voice issued from the nanites themselves. "Stopping the nanites won't save your friends."

Cloak said nothing. He needed to focus, to concentrate on doing what he was --

"Careful, dear Cloaky," Malice taunted gleefully. "You might inadvertently cause a blood clot in one of your beloved RAFians here. In trying to save your pets, you very well might end up killing them!!"

Her cackle incensed Cloak, causing his power level to start to spike.

"Ooh," Malice mockdd most irritatingly, "the scary eyes."

Cloak found himself coming to a decision. He didn't want to do it. Commiting to it would be committing to going down a very dark path. He felt his reluctance, but necessity required him to forgo this hesitation.

"Malice," Cloak said, voice taut with tension, "you force me to do something that I really don't want to do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 17, 2015, 11:24:40 PM

. . . Please don't say you're going to play "Barbie Girl" on repeat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2015, 11:34:36 PM

You'll find out soon enough, GH.  >:D

[spoiler=Behind-the-scenes]And I'm rather off-script from my original outline on this book, but it's clearly made for a more engaging story. Originally, Malice would have played a more minimal part of the book, and Queen and the Banned would have been involved somehow.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 17, 2015, 11:50:14 PM

I'm sorry, I can't seem focus on what you said when you spell my name like that. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2015, 11:54:50 PM

Oh. Ugh. Damn over-reliance on auto-capitalization. Or maybe I need to go to bed. Anyway, I fixed it.

:edit: Yeah, another cliffhanger, sorry.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Dark Technique

"Cloak, you're not going to --" Bladeh said, shocked.

Cloak shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and she gasped. She thought she saw where this was going. She believed that Cloak was going to . . .

"Cloak, are you going to do what I think you are?" FuBar asked.

Cloak said nothing. He was trying to muster up the strength to do what he felt needed to be done. Then, with a sharp intake of air, his stance changed, and his mivements became more fluid.

"Cloak, you can't kill them!!" Bladeh screeched a feline yowl.

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloak, killing them won't solve anything!!"

Cloak said nothing as he continued to focus, as the others noticed that the bodies of the others were stiffening, rendering them immobile.

"Cloak! You can't kill them!"

"I'm not," Cloak said, without any emotion or tone to his voice. He never lost his focus, his concentration.

"Then . . . w-what . . . w-what a-are you doing to them?" Blue said, unnerved.

Cloak said nothing, feeling shame.

"Cloak?" FuBar prompted.

"I'm mechbending Sakki and Oceanspray," Cloak said, quietly.

"But the other RAFians can't be mechbent," Blue said, astutely.

Cloak said nothing for a moment, hating himself for admitting it. "No, but they can be bloodbent."

Silence.

"Bloodbent?" Blue echoed the term.

"It's a dark technique know to waterbending," Cloak said, feeling as if he wanted to cry, "usually requiring a full moon, it allows the hydrokinetic ability to manipulate the fluid in one's body, water-based fluids."

"I . . . I didn't know that you could do this," FuBar said.

"I didn't want to," Cloak said. "But I didn't know any other way to save them without outright hurting them. I'm . . . not proud of it."

Cloak noticed something, though. They were being unusually calm and inert. They were still alive, he knew that, but it was like their bodies were given no instructions to move, blink, or speak.

"They've been cut off from Malice," Bladeh said, just as Cloak was realizing.

"Yes," Blue agreed. "But why?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 18, 2015, 02:43:39 AM

Oh god. I thought he'd actually do it.

OR WILL HE.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2015, 05:07:51 PM

Oh, you find out. But, first, some new book ideas.

• Book DCCCXXXIII: "Squatting Threats, Hidden Symbiotes" -- A renegade Yeerk looks to restart up the Council of Thirteen with itself at its head, tries to forcibly recruit another hosted Yeerk, who has a voluntary host.
• Book DCCCXXXIV: "Dpsb Depowered?!" -- When it seems that Dpsb has been depowered, he reveals his backstory.
• Book DCCCXXXV: "Gauntlets of Infinity, Weapons of Eternity" -- The Infinity Gems and Eternity Blades turn up again in some radically new forms.
• Book DCCCXXXVI: "I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My own" -- The RAFians must destroy the yellow Reality Gauntlet.
• Book DCCCXXXVII: "Soul Power!" -- The RAFians must destroy the green Soul Gauntlet.
• Book DCCCXXXVIII: "Time of His Life" -- The RAFians must destroy the orange Time Gauntlet.
• Book DCCCXXXIX: "A Space Case" -- The RAFians must destroy the purple Space Gauntlet.
• Book DCCCXL: "A Mind's Eye" -- The RAFians must destroy the blue Mind Gauntlet.
• Book DCCCXLI: "Power Switch" -- The RAFians must destroy the red Power Gauntlet.

All titles subject to change. Don't think that I rehashed anything.

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Quarantined

"It seems to be holding," Aquilai said, fingers flying over the keyboards. "The quarantine barrier is running at peak efficiency."

"No deterioration to be seen," Goom said, scrutinizing the monitors very closely. "How is that Purger coming along, Yarin?"

"As well as can be expected, Goom," Yarin said. "Just keep the forum and city on lockdown until we can purge this viral assimilation pandemic."

"The city and surrounding areas," the Goomba confirmed. "Only the uninfected can pass through."

"How can you be sure about that?" Aquilai asked, working just as diligently as his compatriots. "How can we be absolutely sure that this Malevolence is destroyed?"

"You talking about the gestalt mind or the actual nanites?" the Nyac asked, all four arms whipping about at an almost frenetic, frenzied pace. "In any case, the neural collective, this gestalt mindset, must be broken up first, as simply purging their bodies of the nanites."

"More as what happens if we overlook one drone." the Time Lord said, expressing a deep concern.

"Cloak," Goom said.

"What about him?" Yarin said.

"He would be able to sense the implants," Goom said. "They're obviously metallic in nature."

"And if he can't?"

"Oh, you're just mad that he won't let you work on your microwave," Goom said, dismissively.

"FOOD YIELD INCR-- oh, what's the point?" Yarin said, moodily. He had to gut his precious invention to get the materials for the Purger. The idea was to shrink the nanites out of existance, but the effectiveness of such a ploy was up in the air, as it had yet to be tested.

Then Goom took a call from Blue, and was informed that Cloak was holding back the infected RAFians with mechbending and bloodbending. Yarin would be going there first with the Purger, though he would be one of the more dangerous RAFians to be assimilated, due to his inherent telepathy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2015, 09:04:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Probe

"Sure took your sweet time getting here, Nyac," Cloak said, rather crosser than he felt.

"Sorry," Yarin apologized swiftly in response, "had to be sure the Purger was functional."

"Well, best get down to business," Blue said. "Cloak can't keep this up forever."

"First, I must detangle their minds," Yarin warned. "Or the result may be that are rendered vegetables for the rest of their natural lives."

"Whatever you're going to do, Nyac," Cloak growled, "JUST DO IT!!"

Yeah . . . Cloak didn't like bloodbending and mechbending. He didn't like how dirty it made him feel. He considered them techniques of cowards, madmen, and sadists.

"Alright, alright. Give me a second." Yarin said calmly, before telepathically diving into GH's noggin.

***

Yarin saw GH's mindscape to be rather chaotic, but in an aesthetically-pleasing way somehow. Yarin wasn't too surprised when music started up, and GH sang:

"Sometimes I really wanna be alone . . .
But that's one state I'm never in . . .
Because I know that I've got millions upon millions
Of tiny, one-celled nanites living beneath my skin!
(Nanites!) I rub and scrub until my flesh is raw and bleeding!
(Nanites!) But they just come right back again.
(Nanites!) I can't even see 'em, but I know they're up to something!
Hey, don't touch that - you don't know where it's been!
They've infested me!
They're inside of me!
Can't get 'em outta me!
I'm infested with . . . (Microscopic nanites!)
What do they want from me?
What'll they do to me?
There's no escape for me.
I'm crawling with . . . (Microscopic nanites!)
Now if I ever dare to go to sleep,
That's when they start their sneak attack!
In the morning, I wake up in utter horror,
To find my mind was sent away to pack!
(Nanites!) Can't get those parasitic creatures outta my face!
(Nanites!) And there's more comin' every day.
(Nanites!) I never said that they could camp out in my body!
I wish they'd pack their tiny little bags and move away!
They've infested me!
They're inside of me!
Can't get 'em outta me!
I'm infested with . . . (Microscopic nanites!)
What do they want from me?
What'll they do to me?
There's no escape for me!
I'm crawling with . . . (Microscopic nanites!)
(Nanites!)
(Nanites!)
(Nanites!)
(Nanites!)
(Nanites!) They're creepin' around my shorts.
They're under the bathroom sink.
(Nanites!) They're ridin' inside that car.
They're swimmin' in every drink.
(Nanites!) They're hidin' inside my toes.
They're lurkin' in every kiss.
(Nanites!) I've got 'em way up my nose.
In every orifice.
(Nanites!) I'm gonna show them who's boss!
I'm gonna get even yet!
(Nanites!) Just gimme some EMP spray!
Just hand me a magnetic towelette!
(Nanites!) Don't tell me I'm paranoid!
I know that they're after me!
(Nanites!) Look under the microscope!
See??
They've infested me!
They're inside of me!
Can't get 'em outta me!
I'm infested with . . . (Microscopic nanites!)
What do they want from me?
What'll they do to me?
There's no escape for me.
I'm crawling with . . . (Microscopic nanites!)
(Nanites!) They're all over me.
(Nanites!) I can feel 'em all over me
(Nanites!) In every part of me
(Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
(Nanites!) I know they're watching me!
(Nanites!) They're always watching me.
(Nanites!) They're comin' after me.
(Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
Won't somebody help me?? (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
Please somebody help me! (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
You've got to believe me! (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
They're out to get me. (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
They wanna control me! (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
They wanna destroy me! (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
They're tryin' to kill me! (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)
It kind of upsets me . . . (Nanites!) (Microscopic nanites!)"

"Interesting," Yarin said, "but, altogether unsurprising that GH has a musical mind."

Yarin went about his work trying to stablize the RAFian's mind. Well, stabilize it to normalcy. (;))

***

It was an arduous process, but Yarin penetrated each mind, to etablize each for the separation -- though discovering that they were not connected to the Malevolence. So, it was easier than it would have been, as their minds weren't tangled up in each other. He basically was severing any control Malice could exert over their bodies.

Then he pulled out the Purger, which looked vaguely Triceraton or Kraang in design, and blasted each RAFian causing thr implants to crumble away, not shrink. But the overall effect was the desired one.

But each RAFian would need time to recover, as Cloak released his hold on them quickly. He hated doing that, and hoped to never do it again.

"Cloak," Yarin asked, very seriously. "Are all traces --"

"All traces of the nanites and implants are gone," Cloak answered, with a rough-sounding voice. "But we're not done. There's still the city left."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 18, 2015, 09:08:43 PM

XD You just had to adapt Weird Al's NIN style parody to play in my head, didn't you? Well done.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2015, 09:10:57 PM

Nah. I just thought it had a similar subject matter. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 18, 2015, 09:12:36 PM

Oh :P Still, a Nine Inch Nails type of song playing in my head is incredibly appropriate.

. . . Damn it, now you've got "Germs" stuck in my head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2015, 09:14:08 PM

Better than nanites, right? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 18, 2015, 09:15:17 PM

I'm less disappointed that you made that pun than the fact that I didn't see it coming. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 18, 2015, 11:36:09 PM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Freeing the Impenetrable City

Cloak, Dpsb, and Yarin passed beneath the quarantine shield without a hitch. Dpsb was wielding the Purger, as Yarin would work to detangle the minds, effectively nullifying the existence of the gestalt Malevolence collective. Cloak would obviously immobilize them using bloodbending and mechbending. He wasn't too happy with it, but he understood the necessity of such an action.

"Yeah! Let's do this," Dpsb said, youthful enthusiasm surfacing.

"Don't get complacent," Cloak said, sternly and gravely serious. "That's what got the others in their predicament."

Dpsb looked a little perturbed at Cloak's intensity, which Cloak, himself, chose to ignore.

"Don't take it too personally," Yarin said, addressing the RAFian youth. "Cloak's just in one of his moods."

Cloak did not react to this. He was far to focused on which must be done, and just how much he wasn't looking forward to it. So much power inherent within him, so much power at his fingertips. Too much. Despite what those without the kind of power Cloak could wield might think, such power was not a luxury to be enjoyed, but a burden in which to be managed, to be careful to not allow it to corrupt you.

Cloak still remembered what happened when he was touched by Corruption. It still scared him, the amount of damage he could have done. And here he was again, forced to use one of the darkest abilities he possessed. He was just thankful that there would never ever be a scenario where he would have to utilize breathbending.

If Yarin and Dpsb were chatting to each other, Cloak had stopped paying attention, trying to focus on the task at hand. He knew he would find the entire experience unpleasant and hate himself for even using the ability.

"We are the Malevolence," came the chorus of voices. The mental entanglement known as the Malevolence was still aftive here, even cut off from Malice, because she allowed them more autonomy than she allowed the RAFian drones.

Immediately, Cloak bloodbent them all. Every afflicted man, woman, and child. He was right, he hated himself for doing it. Cloak kept them all still and stationary, trying to keep them from harm as much as he could.

"This is just as tricky as I thought that it would be," Yarin said, more to himself than anyone else.

"Is it still doable?" Dpsb asked.

"Oh, it's certainly doable," Yarin said, "just difficult."

It took the three the better part of the day and the evening to dwindle the numbers into nothing. To free the entire city, though whether or not any of them remembered was still up in the air.

The quarantine was lifted, and the three returned to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2015, 12:11:41 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Malice's Ambivalence

"No . . ."

Malice felt that her control slipping. She had managed to gain full control over the city. Full control!! She had enough bodies in which to take another, neighboring city or town! She was going to play "connect-the-dots" with the cities of this planet, before it fell to her. Then she'd expand outward, taking all species. Making them all hers.

But it was slipping.

Ninety percent of the city was still hers.

"No, no, no," she muttered.

Eighty-one percent was now hers.

"How is this happening?" she wondered, confused.

Seventy-two percent.

"I can't reach them," Malice said. "I can't speak through them."

Sixty-three percent.

"I can't see through their eyes anymore."

Fifty-four percent.

"I can't hear through their ears anymore."

Forty-five percent.

"I can't smell with their noses anymore."

Thirty-six percent.

"I can't taste what they taste anymore."

Twenty-seven percent.

"I can't feel what they touch anymore."

Eighteen percent.

"I'm losing them."

Nine percent.

"It's such a pity that I couldn't care less," Malice said, casually.

Three percent.

"It was a good scheme," Malice said, thoughtfully, as the Malevolence reached zero percent of the population with no deaths, surprisingly enough. She fell into silence as she thought this scheme over.

"Perhaps, just perhaps," she said, thinking aloud to no one, "that I have been just too hands-on with my schemes and plans. Perhaps I should work more discreetly, more indirectly, more behind-the-scenes."

She lapsed into silence, as she continued to ponder this, completely dismissing the dead and defunct Malevolence and its eradicated nanites. One coukd ask why she just didn't try again with this scheme, just altering a few key points. But the fact of the matter was she didn't use the same scheme twice, in precisely the same methodology, because she would find it boring.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 19, 2015, 09:37:00 AM

Whoops, modify-post syndrome caught me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2015, 12:04:02 PM

Ah.

New chapter. Last chapter of Book #104.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Drakon Lean and Dpsb's Secret

Dpsb was flying around, looking for the drakon. With this whole Malevolence collective thjng behind them, the RAFians continued to look for the last escapee from Rosch's menagerie, something the billionaire playboy got jailed for. And, surprisingly, without bail.

Dpsb guessed that the city took public endangerment very seriously. Apt, considering that public endangerment was a real and prescient concern, as well as becoming so commonplace nowadays as to be rather trite. Dpsb was given pause to wonder if they, the RAFians, were in part responsible for attracting these weirdos and things to the city as Bern Bridges all-too-readily and quickly expounded upon in his radio show.

Dpsb searched in his assigned section of the city and forest rather diligently, but found that couldn't find what he was --

Wait a moment. What was that?

A large dash of color against the white snow. It was a deep, poisonous green. It was definitely the drakon, Dpsb thought, though he did not know exactly what a drakon looked like or the type of condition this one would be in. From what he remembered about the descriptions, the drakon was a warm-weather animal, and serpentine in morphology. He tried to remember the briefing. Some drakons breathe fire, though most don't. Some drakons spit acidic venom. All drakons have extremely hard plate-like scales on their skin. Most drakons can paralyze you with their eyes. And they were notoriously and extremely hard to kill. He hoped he was remembering that right. The prospect of returning to school after winter break ended had occupied his mind during that briefing, as he'd have to go back --

No, not the time to think about that.

Dpsb landed rather daintly without a sound, in front of a cranky-looking drakon. Perhaps drakons hibernate during the winter, like other reptiles? Or was it different because it was a warm-weather animal, like the others? In any case, it looked uncomfortable and disgruntled. And hungry.

It glared directly at Dpsb, but he wasn't paralyzed. He wondered if that was a sign of his courage or if the drakon's powers were being sapped by the cold and the snow. Was it weaker than normal? Malnourished?

It struck at Dpsb, but missed. He hadn't moved, and the attempt looked almost half-hearted. Dpsb was smart enough to know what this signaled. The drakon was weakening. It must not have possessed fire breath or it would have been able to warm itself, or perhaps it was extinguished, and that was the reason it managed to survive this long. But Dpsb recalled something else about the drakon -- it was a maneater.

He would have to quickly subdue the creature, as it would be another blow to RAF's PR if it managed to gulp down any of the populace. Dpsb had to subdue it, and, by the looks of thjngs, that wouldn't be too hard.

It struck again, but, this time, Dpsb was caught in its jaws. But it's jaw strength was insufficient to close on the RAFian, who possessed Herculean strength. Didn't help that the cold was sapping its strength. The icy wind didn't help matters, either.

All it could muster was embers and cinders, and it was tapped out of its caustic venom, its acidic salvia. It pressed Dbsp against a snowy rock, and all Dpsb could think of was to shout, "SHAZAM!" and a bolt of lighning pierced the sky. It struck the drakon and Dpsb.

Suddenly, Dpsb noticed a conspicuous lack of resistance. And he backed away, to discover that the drakon was dying. Only it wasn't dying like any natural beast, it was dying like a supernatural one. It was being to hollow into a skin of scales.

And Dpsb's true age as a minor was revealled. He quickly shouted "SHAZAM" and reverted into his known form. And he wondered how he would report this to the others, and if he had kept his secret.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 19, 2015, 12:57:13 PM

... What just happened.

I need background. How can Dpsb fly. WHAT IS THIS CHAPTER.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2015, 01:06:30 PM

Oh, he's a very special boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Marvel_(DC_Comics)#Powers_and_abilities).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 19, 2015, 01:51:59 PM

You gotta be kidding me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2015, 02:02:53 PM

Nope. But more on that in "Dbsp Depowered?!" (#834).

New chapter.

BOOK CV:
TITAN VENOM
CHAPTER ONE:
Frosty the Killer Snowman

"Oh my God," Saffa was saying though gritted teeth. "It's not bad enough that we have to put up with things like the Technarchy, symbiotes, Thread, and the occasional rogue Realm Walker, oh no. We have to get attacked by these things!"

"That bathtub of coffee doesn't seem so crazy now, does it?" GH said, with an impish grin.

"Nope," Cloak said, "still doesn't make sense."

"Speaking of things that don't make sense," Saffa said, "how is that a thing?!"

The line of killer snowmen lined up again, each ten feet tall with the stereotypical three balls making up their body with the smallest being their head. They had three coal buttons on each of their midsections, animated sticks for arms and hands, frostbitten carrots for noses, emotionless black coals for eyes. They had flappy mouths liked with sharpened coal teeth. They were alive, hostile and dangerous -- to non-RAFians.

Their snowy bodies were caked with dirt and grim on the bottommost ball, and they seemed to be tinged pink on some of their upper sections, but Cloak hoped that he was just mistaking that for something else, otherwise . . .

"They're killer snowmen," Abby said, matter-of-fact. "What's the big deal?"

"It's just the utter ludicrousity of it," Saffa said. "And I'm not even sure 'ludicrousity' is a word."

"I would have thought you'd be used to it by now," Cloak said. "It's been at least a year since we've been chugging along like this."

"Surely there have been more . . . uh, more gimmicky missions other than this, right?" GH asked.

"Can't think of any off the top of my head," Cloak said, "but let's just go ahead and end this, and stop playing around with the ice ifrit's little belated Christmas gifts. Prepare yourselves."

Cloak used his mastery over the Fire element to reduce all these killer snowmen into mere puddles and he was surprised how quick this was. It was over.

"Well, that was a nice little diversion," GH said.

"You're still not getting your cigarettes back," Cloak replied.

"Damn."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 19, 2015, 09:38:30 PM

More of the bathtub jokes plz? They are absolutely beautiful. :P

Also, I'd assume those cigarettes would have gone stale by now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2015, 11:29:16 PM

Eh, Realm Walkers don't smoke, so we don't know a lot about it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Serum

Malice had came upon the formula to a very unique serum. It was toxic green in color, and had a rather average and mediocre viscosity. She was not planning on using it on herself, of course. She wasn't that dense.

But she chose not to disseminate it herself. That would be too direct, and she felt that's one reason why her previous scheme failed. She had to be more hands-off, more discreet, and more indirect. Fortunately, she knew enough of human nature to know that they could be greedy, greedy, greedy little things.

She could use that. She could use that to advantage.

She stole into a seedy research facility, it was named "Family First, R&D" or some other iverly saccharine thing that belayed it's true, rather questionable, policies and overall nature. Here she planted the cylindrical container, rather like a transparent thermos, upon the desk of one of the put-upon workers. Then she vanished from the place.

This should prove to be entertaining. Yes, very entertaining indeed.

***

It didn't take long for this canister to be noticed.

"What's this?" said one of the underpaid workers, looking at the canister. He didn't know what it contained, but was curious about it. He thought it resembled that fatal drug called Venom, though with noticeable discrepancies.

"Manny Glottis!" demanded a commanding voice. "What do you have there?"

"Nunya," Manny said, in reply.

"Nunya? What this 'nunya'?" this swaggering, fat man with a thin mustache spoke in very arrogant tones.

"It's nunya," Manny said, "as in 'nunya business', Dominic."

"Don't you speak to me like that, boy!" Dominic spat.

"You aren't my boss, Sluggard," Manny challenged, resorting to the formalities of referring to people by their surnames. "You're not even my supervisor. Just because you've written a few adoxographies doesn't me that you're hot --"

BAM!

Sluggard just fatally shot Glottis, without a moment's hesitation or a second thought. Manny was the only one that never walked around on eggshells around this creep, the heir to the Poltroon fortune. Unfortunately, this fortune would probably protect him from any charges, as the 1% of this country mostly get slaps on the wrists for this kind of thing, while the book was thrown at the poor.

Dominic Sluggard ****ed the gun again, in challenge, as he said, "So, anyone else gonna get mouthy?"

No one said anything. They knew that the Poltroon family, who Sluggard was maternally related to, and the only current heir to the fortune. It didn't make any real sense how thst worked, as he did not bear their name. The Poltroon family were reknown for not being really useful, their fortune coming from the stock market and the black market, and thst was the only known venues.

It also was speculated they had ties with the Knights of Humanity, which have never been officially substantiated.

"That's what I thought," he said, sneeringly. "Now that there's no dispute who owns that, and who owns you, analyze the chemical composition. Find out what it does. If you need test subjects, the streets are littered with plenty."

He paused as Manny Glottis's body was taken away and his murder in the process of being covered up. It seemed that Sluggard was untouchable, and he most certainly thought that he was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 20, 2015, 04:49:32 AM

Lovely naming schemes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2015, 06:19:09 AM

Well --

Sluggard
1. A person who is lazy, stupid, or idle by habit.
2. A person slow to begin necessary work, a slothful person.
3. A fearful or cowardly person, a poltroon.

Poltroon --An ignoble or total coward; a dastard; a mean-spirited wretch.

Glottis -- got from Grim Fandango.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Titan Tests

The workers had collected a few homeless people to test this unknown chemical on. They didn't discriminate. They were willing to take homeless men, women, and children in, on the promise of a hot meal and a cot to sleep in for the night.

The smarter ones knew to avoid Trogan horse-type of offers like this. But, like with all conceivable groups, not all of them were smart. At least seven people, starved and malnourished, desperate for a bite to eat, took them up on their offer.

They got their meals, but then they were strapped up and their extraneous outer coverinfs removed so that the serum could be injected into their shoulders. It was just a small amount per each street person. Some scientists had qualms, but most didn't, explaining just how seedy this facility was.

Four of the homeless people couldn't survive the sudden release of endorphin and adrenaline. The shock to the system was far too much for them to handle, and they died a painful death.

The surving three however, survived. Their bodies ballooned up to Bane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bane_(DC_Comics))-like proportions. It also caused extreme facial and muscular disfigurement,.even to the point of uncovering and exposing their spinal colum, which grows some Lugia-like plating along it. The shock to their system and the painful transformation had rendered them functionally insane, and in almost animalistic, bestial way.

Their strength was amplified in proportion with their muscle growth, naturally. Their restraints could barely hold them, otherwise all the scientists would all be dead. Shooting them wouldn't do much, as their healling processes were accelerated. They also had no loyalty.

They presented their findings to Sluggard, and he was pleased with most of it.

"How controllable are they?" Sluggard asked.

The scientists were fearful. They didn't want to give an answer that would get them shot.

"I believe I asked a question," Sluggard said dangerously.

"Well, um, sir," a quaking man said, stepping forward, "um, they are . . . they aren't."

BAM! THUD!

"Now," Sluggard said, blowing the smoke away from the barrel of his gun, "what was that answer?"

No one said anything.

"I thought so," Dominic Sluggard said. Then he looked disparagingly at the lifeless body on the ground. "Now, figure out a way to control those inoculated with the serum, and get rid of this filth."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2015, 08:44:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Titan Thugs

Eventually they discovered a way for them to be controlled by attaching a device that appeared similar to the "Amplifier" Equip Spell card from "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and bracelets/bracer things that was somewhere between Wonder Woman's bracelets ("Bracelets of Submission") and the Genie's golden cuffs. These cuff-bracelet-bracer things were chained to a collar that resembled a reinforced control collar. This allowed Sluggard alone control over these behemoths which towered over the scientists and Sluggard's usual thugs.

Sluggard had no aspirations for global conquest or anything of that nature. The only reason he wanted control over these horrid brutes was purely for monetary gain. To increase his already exorbitant wealth, which he had already garnered by basically stealing it from the poor and middle class, like those in his 1% echelon. He operated fully under the philosophies of "greed is good" and "whoever has the gold makes the rules".

He also believed strongly in the fact that he was effectively untouchable. He believed strongly that he and his desires were above the law, and he was frankly entitled to do just whatever he pleased. This was his world, he believed, other people just lived in it.

However, he, in his sheer arrogance, tended to be stupid and sloppy at times. He wasn't as smart as he liked to imagine himself to be. He was having his monstrous thugs rob stores of high-end products and jewelry, unaware if he was leaving clues about his connection to the robberies. He was so assured that he would simply buy off whatever judge, lawyer, cop, or politician to help him seem like the victim instead of the victimizer.

Of course, what he failed to realize was that not everyone would be so easily swayed by money. That not everyone would compromise their intergrity and morality for a quick payoff. He believed that every man, woman, and child had their price, and he would easily be able to buy their silence. Heck, he just murdered two people in the last two days and not so much as an investigation was started, his two victims apparently not important enough to be of any concern to law enforcement. Which Sluggard may or may not have greased their palms.

His thugs, infused with what he decided to call Titan, were causing extensive property damage and stealing property. And yet, the cops did not intervene. And yet, they were not called in. Perhaps it was a good thing, too, as they would be ill-equipped to deal with these titans.

And Sluggard had secured the secrecy from the scientists as well. It was really simple -- all he had to do was threaten to cut out their tongues and feed them the severed appendage. And he wasn't above doing just that. He ruled over these people with fear -- it was a wonder why he didn't attract a Sinestro Corps ring.

But he clearly had no fear of repercussions for his actions, no matter how heinous. It would always inevitably get spun into being from "affluenza", like that was an excuse that held up any logical water.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2015, 10:14:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Call on the RAFians

This kind of damage did not go unnoticed, by both the populace and the RAFians. There was a conspicuous lack of intervention by police. If any showed up, it was woefully insufficient for the case. They were bandying some ludicrous story about gangbangers or whatnot -- Cloak wasn't paying attention to the cover story, as he was far too accustom to this act of propaganda as it was particularly favored by some of the more crotchety Coucils.

Naturally, Richard dispatched a team to investigate, since the local law enforcement apparently didn't think enough to investigate (and those good cops that wanted to were told off for it, as Police Chief Hasselback was in Sluggard's pocket -- figuratively speaking, of course). He chose Cloak, Underseen, Ash, Saffa, Sakki, and Dpsb.

They readied to go, when --

"When there's trouble you know who to call -- the RAFians!
From their HQ, they can see it all.  The RAFians!
When there's evil on the attack,
You can rest knowing they got your back.
'Cuz when the world needs heroes on patrol,  the RAFians GO!
With their superpowers they unite.  The RAFians!
Never met a villain that they liked.  The RAFians!
They've got the bad guys on the run.
They never stop ‘till the job gets done.
'Cuz when the world is losin' all control,
The RAFians GO!  The RAFians GO!
One, two, three, four, GO!  The RAFians!"

"Are you done, GH?" Cloak said, without even looking up from his task.

"Well, it was supposed to be a 'in-transit' sort of song," he explained.

"With that, we had better get going then." the Realm Walker said, stoically.

"Wait," Faerie said, "you do realize that the police might think that we're overstepping our bounds here. You know, exceeding our authority."

"Then they should have decided to do some investigating," Parker piped up, savagely. He had about as much patience for political and societal corruption as Cloak did.

"They probably were paid off," Cloak replied, jaded and dark. "Corruption like this, it was old before the Earth bore life."

"Cloak, we gotta go." Saffa said. "God knows that we're probably gonna hafta shoulder the blame for it, thanks to idiots like that Bridges guy."

Cloak nodded, heart heavy, and said, "Let's go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 20, 2015, 10:35:53 PM

Shouldn't this be chapter 5?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2015, 10:46:39 PM

Oh! Yeah.

Well, out of 105 books, I've only made that mistake twice (maybe three times). That's good, I guess.

:edit: Stupid auto-capitalization. Made me sound huffier than I intended.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Investigators Inquiry

The six RAFians arrived on the scene, to find it deserted. The few stragglers around shot them venomous looks.

"Uh," Dpsb said, "why are they looking at us like that?"

Saffa sighed heavily, "Isn't obvious? They already blame us for the damage."

"But we didn't do anything!" Dpsb protested.

"Welcome to being a scapegoat," Cloak said, dully, as he examined the extent to the damage that the Titan thugs caused, though he did not know what caused it. "Member for years . . ."

"What?"

"Never mind," Cloak said, quickly and repressively.

"This damage is extensive." Sakki pointed out. "The door is just a massive hole. And the other businesses have similar holes. And they're huge."

"All the immigrant Tetramands here are law-abiding though," Underseen said, "not that there are very many of them on-planet."

"No," Cloak said, continuing to examine the scene. "A Tetramand would a bit more sloppy than this, and noticed."

"Who couldn't have noticed this?" Ash asked. "Even a blind man would have been bound to notice all the noise that this would cause."

"There's something more to this," Cloak said. "Something that we're not seeing."

Sniff. Sniff.

"That scent," Cloak said. "That smells like Venom."

"What's that?"

"An illegal chemical," Cloak said. "Venom is a highly addictive super-steroid. The drug is usually injected in a constant supply into the base of the neck, and it would instantly transform someone into a huge, hulking mass of unbridled physical strength comparable to a Tetramand with only two beefy arms. However, as the drug wore off or when the user was cut off from its constant supply, their body will return to its original state with unnerving rapidity or sometimes even weaker than their original strength. It would be at this point the user would suffer from massive, debilitating withdrawal. Usually accompanied by terrifying hallucinations."

"How do you know so much about it?" Dbsp asked.

"Wikipedia, probably," Saffa said, blithely.

"It actually comes from seeing it in action," Cloak said, standing up, for he had been examining the rubble upon the floor. "In another Realm, though."

"Another Realm? You slut," Sakki teased. "I thought this Realm and you hand something special."

Cloak was not amused.

"Wait, you said it was illegal," Dpsb said, "then that must mean that it's rare."

"I believe so," Cloak said, "I imagine that it's not easy formula to duplicate or manufacture. But I do not know for sure."

"But why take it all?"

"Ignorance," Underseen said. "The user may not know what it could do, or the consequences."

"Or might not care," Ash pointed out. "They may not even care about the ramifications as long as it satisfies what they want then and there. Not to mention that there are some people who are just not good in thinking 'if-then'."

"And, of course, unlawfulness also has the nasty downside of encouraging downplayed overindulgence." Cloak said. "Or the use of far more dangerous and, sometimes, more volatile chemicals or substances."

"So, it's a big gray area. Got it." Dbsp said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on November 21, 2015, 12:47:27 PM

Quote from: Saffa on November 19, 2015, 12:57:13 PM

... What just happened.

I need background. How can Dpsb fly. WHAT IS THIS CHAPTER.

Outside of Acting and drawing and reading and hanging out with friends and ****posting on 4chan and reddit, flying is very fond hobby of mine
(http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/The_d55570_2389197.gif)
also,

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 19, 2015, 12:04:02 PM

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Drakon Lean and Dpsb's Secret

IZZ MAE :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2015, 02:48:30 PM

O . . . kay . . . Dbsp. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Attempted Payoff

"Still," Ash said, still obviously disconcerted, "there should be more people around. This is quite the spectacle. Surely, the proprietors would be around seeing the damage to their businesses? But no one. It's a ghost town."

"They could be scared," Safa said, looking at the rubble now that Cloak had finished his examinations of it. "All the security cameras seemed to have been destroyed, as well."

"Someone had to be directing this," Dpsb said. "This is just too systematic to be just a wild, crazed man hopped up on Venom."

"He has a point," Sakki said. "Look. The dry cleaner, the laundromat, the carwash -- all untouched. But the electronics store, the jewellers, the bank, the car lot -- all vandalized and robbed. All the high-end stores. And the low-end ones completely unbothered and unharmed."

"Hmmm . . ." Cloak said, thinking about another possibly, about a more devious scheme. "Perhaps whoever is truly behind this wishes to frame --"

"Excuse me," came a reedy sort of voice.

 All six RAFians turned to look at a man who quite possibly be a grown-up Randall Weems from Disney's "Recess" -- curly, low-cut hair, broad mouth, stooped posture. He was dressed in a black suit and tie, holding a briefcase almost ludicrous covetousness. Think Gollum and that ring, or whatever.

"Well?" Sakki said. "Out with it."

"My employer asks if you don't investigate this, this happening." he said in a smarmy sort of manner that rankled the RAFians. "If you would just look the other way, just ignore it, he can make worth your while."

Silence.

"Seriously?" Sakki said, dryly sarcastic.

"Oh, very much so, miss." the reedy guy said, oblivious to the nature kf the question.

"Are you actually trying to pull this?" Saffa asked, with a raised eyebrow. "Are you aftually trying to bribe us?"

"Oh, miss!" the reedy guy said. "'Bribe' is a strong word. We'd prefer to call it a 'reasonable monetary transaction'."

"Don't try to spin this, pal," Cloak growled. The reedy man actually took a step back. Cloak could be intimidating when he got like this. "I know your ilk. Spinning torture as 'advanced interrogation techniques'. Spinning bribery as 'donations'. Spinning corporate welfare as necessary."

Cloak stalked closer, just close enough that the reedy man coukd make out his feline face without being in danger from being inadvertently killed by Cloak's Realm Walker corona, his Realm Walker aura.

"Listen, bub, we RAFians don't play like that." he said, with the other five nodding approval. "We can't be bought off. We do not bow down to rich, lazy, no-good," -- he let out a fierce snarl that was a Realm Walker curse that was untranslatable in English -- "like your Veiled employer can get away with what he pleases. Everyone needs to be held accountable for their actions. Regardless of their personal wealth or celebrity."

"If you continue to investigate here," the weedy man said, taking a more formal, yet hostile, stance, "he shall not be responsible for your deaths -- er, fates."

"Was that a threat?" Ash asked, voice echoing Cloak's contempt. But the man was walking away. Cloak had to fight a feline urge to chase him down and bring him down like the pig that he was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 21, 2015, 03:28:22 PM

Lovely chap.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on November 21, 2015, 03:44:26 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 21, 2015, 02:48:30 PM

O . . . kay . . . Dbsp. . . .

I just needed a reason to post that bad greenscreen gif

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2015, 09:22:14 PM

Uh, if you say so.

Anyway, I'd like to register my amasement that we're a hundred books beyond how long I thought this series would go on for nearly four years ago. I guess sometimes ambition is a good thing.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Sad Truth

The reedy man, a gofer for Sluggard, stopped and spoke over his shoulder, "Do not say that you weren't warned."

Then he continued off on his merry way, taking out a rather expensive-looking smart phone. A gift from Sluggard to ensure his loyalty, especially since Reed E. MCReederson over there had the loyalty of a toaster oven. He made a call to his benefactor, his employer, and, from there, left the eyeline of the RAFians, as he turned around the corner of a building as the morning sun glared and blared down, unforgivably bright.

"Warned?" Dbsp asked. "What could he possibly mean by --"

"BEHIND US!!" Cloak shouted suddenly. He had seen the danger via Earthsight long before it lumbered into view. Each step they took was like a deafening air siren to Earthsight. "Keep on your toes, everyone."

"Oof!" Dpsb was caught in the chest by one of their wild swings and sent into the side of the riht hand bricked building. He fell to the ground, but was up second later, saying in a rather Milhouse Van Housen way, "I'm okay."

"Good to hear it," Underseen said, in an almost perfunctory way, as he focused on the battle. He was trying to thjnk of a form in which to battle these three. In the end, he settled on a Tetramand while Ash went to a Vaxasaurian form. "I think we know why this area of the city is abandoned now."

Dbsp shook his head to clear it a bit, then flew up, and dived down in a classic Superman-fashion. Only to be barely avoid another swipe. He didn't care to become one with the side of a building again.

"Dodge!" Cloak roared, unintentionally sounding like the DBZA Piccolo. Cloak was utilizing his feline speed and agility to its absolute zenith, by dodging and weaving through the three giants' myriad of bestial attacks. Whatever concoction they were on, it lessened their intelligence. He was momentarily distracted when he noticed the exposed vertebrae and the muscular and facial disfiguration.

This was not Venom.

<Cloak, look out!> Saffa cried. She had morphed Psycholeopterran, the perfect defense against these creatures. Cloak was forced to execute a move that only a feline could pull off, with their flexible spines and tails as a balance, while Saffa used her Psycholeopterran hypnosis abilities to still and pacify the three thugs.

But it didn't hold for long, but they didn't press the attack. The three slumped to the ground, their breathing rough and ragged as they began to shrink back down. Cloak was horrified, as the greenish tinge to the three confirmed his suspicions, as their control devices fell of with resounding clanks and thuds.

"Oh, no," the Realm Walker said aghast.

The three infected individuals, bare-chested, and naked from the knees down. From their beards and debris caught in there hair, it lead to the assumption that these three were street people. They were coughing, and it seemed that their health was deterioriating before their eyes, almost like at time lapse video.

"This isn't Venom," Cloak said.

"What?" Sakki said at once.

"This what is it?" Ash said.

"It looks like a derivative of Venom that I saw in the other Realm," Cloak said, as their breathing became really labored and shallow. Far faster than Cloak was expecting. "It was called Titan. It was more potent than Venom. It was also more fatal."

The three breathed no more. They were turned into monsters just because they misjudged the kindness of others, because they were not weary, or because they were just that hungry. In the end, it didn't matter, any way you sliced it, they did not deserve this. These poor forgotten, dehumanized individuals.

Cloak felt bad because he knew, if they were homeless and destitute, they may very well not have any family that would know or care about their sad fate. Whether they chose it or not, they did not deserve such a fate.

The silence stretched as the sun galloped higher and higher in the sky. It was Dbsp who broke it.

"Why?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2015, 10:12:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Expendables

"Uh, sir, an unexpected circumstance has come up," the reedy man said, after he witnessed the death of the three Titan thugs, "it turns out the inoculated concoction has a time limit."

Sluggard was displeased at this news. "How so, David?"

"After a time, they shrink down, and --"

"And what, Donaldson?" Sluggard asked forcibly.

"And they die," David replied, matter-of-factly. "The cloaked one was saying that it was apparently fatal."

"This isn't really a viable concern. I still have Titan, and an near-inexhaustible resource of subjects," Sluggard said, dismissing this as worry. "Subjects that no one would miss."

"Yes, sir," David said, a bit sycophantically.

"Still," Sluggard said, thinking aloud. He only waxed on thoughtfully like this to David Donaldson only, what amounted to his second-in-command. "Still this oversight was significant. I'll have to do something about it."

David had an idea what he meant by that.

"So, they did not take the payoff, did they?" Sluggard said, in a more casual way. "Even a small sum of one million?"

He did not think how infuriatingly worded that sentence was to the common people and the poor. He never did, because he just saw them as mere riffraff. They were just names and numbers to him, the only part of him he gave a rodent's rear about, as he could get money from them, and all you had to do is sign a check to make them go away.

"No, sir," David said, differentially. "They seemed very hostile to the idea. Almost seemed as if the mere offer was offensive."

"Oh, they're people of 'integrity', are they?" Sluggard sneered. He rolled his eyes at the very idea. He thought people like that were losers and fools. Everyone had their price, these RAFians were surely no different. "Ridiculous people to be ridiculed. 'Revolutionary' wanna-bes."

David said nothing, but let Sluggard go off on this tangent.

Eventually, Sluggard stopped his tirade, and replied, "Anyway, good work, David. I have to go and find why my scientists either overlooked this little snafu or willfully withheld information from me. Looks like having my own personal army is not in the cards. For now. But, at least, I can have a couple of enforcers on hand with suitable assets should I need them. Very good. Dismissed."

Then he hung up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 22, 2015, 03:09:08 AM

It's funny, because in India, it's often the other way round. The rich don't usually give a **** because they already have everything anyway. The poor are convinced that their life is **** and they can't do much more about it, so they get into every bad dealing possible. They'd be more likely to have utter disregard for everyone else around them because of that "I have nothing so I'll wallow in self pity" complex.

Just thoughts from what I've grown up with.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2015, 07:16:10 AM

Actually, America is heading in that direction. Especially if we get a warmonger for president next year. America hasn't been a democracy for a long time. We're an oligarchy and a plutocracy. "Whoever has the gold makes the rules".

The affluent only care about us when voting time comes 'round. Dunno if it's likewise in India.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Cures and Exploitation

"I cannot answer that, Dbsp," Cloak said, "but a cure exists, I put it into the database myself. I had no idea it existed in this Realm, though."

"What if some of the ingredients don't?" Dbsp said.

"We'll cross that bridge if we get to it," Cloak said, decisively. "But I believe all the necessary ingredients exist in this realm. It's actually a simple formula that the lab boys could synthesize in no time."

But Saffa knew Cloak better than that, so she prompted, "But what?"

"But there's this one plant whose pollen spores are necessary to facilitate the chemical binding, I believe," Cloak said. "It's rare, usually."

"Usually?" Sakki asked.

"I doesn't exist here, does it?" Underseen asked.

"Actually, it does." Cloak said. "I saw it a while ago, when we fought the Spirit-Drinker."

"None of us were there. Other than you." Underseen pointed out.

"It was in the sewer," Cloak said.

"Wonderful," Saffa said.

***

"Think of as . . . as incentive," Sluggard said, lazily casual, as he blew off the barrel of his faithful gun. "Incentive to not withhold information from me again. Or overlook anything again."

"We didn't know!" a scientist protested, then immediately put his hand on his mouth, terrified. He was sure that he was going to get shot.

"Care to rephrase that?" Sluggard drawled, in an almost bored way.

The scientist stammered many hurried apologies, and prostrated himself upon Sluggard's shoes. Sluggard enjoyed every bit of this. He got a masochistic thrill from it, though he would never admit it aloud.

Sluggard was also secretly glad. His gun was empty, and he did not want to reload in front of these people, to present even the merest sign of weakness. He knew that they'd capitalize on it, if he had.

"Make sure it doesn't happen again," Sluggard said. "I want seven Enforcers by this time tommorrow afternoon."

Then he kicked the prone, lifeless body that he shot. "And get rid of this garbage while you're at it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2015, 03:39:39 PM

New chapter. Sorry about that brevity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Sewer Savage

"Ugh," Sakki was saying.

"If you don't like it, you can always go back to the forum," Cloak said, prowling into the sewer, the entrance only mere feet behind him. He was immediately flooded with memories of their chase of the Spirit-Drinker, but he ignore it.

"And miss out on this? Not likely."

"Probably would have been prudent to bring along Faerie or Horse or Parker -- someone else who has been down and seen the plant," Ash said.

"You don't think I'm capable of finding it?" Cloak challenged, moodily.

"I did not say that," Ash countered easily. Cloak was in one of his moods, and she was very well aware of this. But she nothing further, assuming that this just might further antagonize the Realm Walker.

Cloak stalked cantankerously further into the sewer, without another word. He really hadn't any excuse for this sudden mood swing, but he just put it to lack of sleep. He was having nightmares about having used bloodbending. He could understand just how the unscrupulous and amoral would be able to use such an ability without any negative consequences. It weighed a lot more on someone with ethics and values and morals.

Yes, one could say that he really hadn't any choice in using the ability, that his hand was forced. But that didn't change the fact that Cloak did not like it, that he detested it so thoroughly. That he had hated himself for even thinking of doing that instead of coming up with some alternate solution.

The RAFians continued to walk further into the sewer in silence. The labyrinthine passageways and catacomb feel of the bricked tunnels and walls had something of a forboding tension to them. If Cloak noticed this, he deftly ignored it. He had his mind on other matters, more prioritized matters.

He walked in a haunched position, not unlike Wolverine when he had his claws extended. Almost as if he was ready to pounce on the plant when they came to it. As if he anticipated someone would try to stop them.

He was expecting Malice to be directly behind this whole thing. But . . . if she was, she'd make sure thst they knew. She was vain that way. It could possibly have nothing to do with her. That was always possible.

"C'mon," Cloak urged the others when he felt that they were srarting to lag behind.

"What's the rush?" Dbsp asked.

Cloak said nothing, too focused on the goal at hand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 22, 2015, 03:47:59 PM

Well, there's lots of different types of affluent people. The only affluent people who do use that voting-time mentality are the politicians,since every caste and religious group is a vote bank for them. The other affluent people just fund the politicians. They don't interfere with anything below that because it's not necessary. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2015, 03:50:09 PM

Ah.

It just seems to me that they just want to punish the poor for daring to be born poor. But I guess Americans can't hold a monopoly on that line of thinking.

. . .

This book is getting too political, isn't it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 22, 2015, 03:50:58 PM

It is. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2015, 05:58:19 PM

Yeah. And it'll probably not be the first. And it's probably already really clear where I am, politically. Not to mention what I think of politics, considering the state of the Realm Walker Council. Remember how many times they've changed Councilors, and it hasn't even been a full Nexus year!

. . .

No, it's not because I forgot which Councilors were there beforehand! How could you suggest such a thing! ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Crocodile Bling

It didn't take long before they located the plant. It was ground-growing pod, with bing fleshy petals, not unlike a Rafflesia, the largest (and certainly one of the most stinky) flowers found on the plant. Fortunately, this plant was not as big, but clearly shared some ancestry with it. The fleshy petals were not red, but a vibrant yellow when blossoming. It wasn't very big with it was closed up into a pod, no bigger than an ordinary football, with a somewhat similar shape.

It wasn't going to be enouh spores in it, they would need about two or three more, which he knew would be nearby. Though he wasn't very botanically gifted, he knew that these plants usually grew in threes or fours, conviently enough. But there was no telling how far away the other pods would be.

They didn't have time for a lengthy search. Malice should whould have used the Titan on more hapless victims, leading to their inevitable deaths. They needed to have a stock of the cure ready, as well as give some stock to the local hospitals to use, if they would accept it, because he knew some wouldn't.

They approached the plant swiftly, but Cloak was starting to get uncomfortable. This was starting to be too easy. Far too easy. If he knew Malice like he thought he did, she would have set up some sort of booby trap or misdirection or distraction or ambush. Of course, the prudent thing would have been to destroy the flower pods, but Malice liked the sport of it. Though that didn't mean that she wouldn't have tampered with it beforehand. They'd have to worry about that later.

"Cloak," Ash said, "we should also take some of the spores or seeds or whatever, so we can continue to make a cure if needed."

"Agreed," the Realm Walker said, though he still sounded uneasy.

"What's wrong?" Dpsb said.

"I know," Sakki said, "it's too easy, isn't it? It just feels like there'd be some sort of test or challenge or trial in order to get the spores."

"Or a booby trap," Saffa said.

"Or a misdirection," Underseen added.

"Or," Cloak said, aware of the new prescence, "an ambush."

It was a gigantic crocodile, like a modern-day Deinosuchus. A Deinosuchus with . . .  with bling. Some sort of chest plate amulet thing around its neck.

"A petsuchos," Cloak said. But he didn't know much beyond the name.

"A son of Sobek?" Dpsb asked.

The other five looked at him.

"Hey, I know things too!" he protested at this reaction.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 22, 2015, 11:05:51 PM

WORD UP, VEX!!!

Sorry, had to make the obvious Sonic the Hedgehog joke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2015, 11:07:11 PM

Quote from: guitarhero01234 on November 22, 2015, 11:05:51 PM

WORD UP, VEX!!!

Sorry, had to make the obvious Sonic the Hedgehog joke.

One that I should have seen coming, too.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
New Batch of Thugs

The scientists tried to persuade more homeless people into their clutches, but they were having difficult recruiting them. Just because they had to live on the streets did not automatically make them stupid and unperceptive. The ones that might have been interested knew of the previous people who went for a hot meal, and never came back. They distrusted these scientists.

They were close to just kidnapping them, when they reached a quandary -- where would they draw the line to save their necks? What line would they be willing to cross? What they were already planning on doing to these poor people was already reprehensible. Would they go so far as to kidnap these forgotten masses just to make sure they still live at the end of the day?

More to the point, why were they still doing this? They should escape the city. Run away where Sluggard would never find them. But, no . . . no, that would never work. Several had already tried that. He found them before they could finish packing. They were trapped, and trapped in the worst possible way. Yes, it was a learned helplessness, but that can quite often be very potent and long-lasting than anything more physical.

It was with a mixture of fear, despair, and self-loathing that they followed through with their orders. They collected a homeless child, a mentally-unstable woman, a crack addict, a man with frostbite damage to his feet, a wrongfully-charged sex offender, a partially paralyzed man, a recreational marijuana smoker, a convicted arsonist, a depressed loser, a baby-drowner, a heroin addict, a HIV-positive person, a suicidal man, a scaly-skinned man, a woman on oxygen, and a masochist -- all people who either escaped jail, discharged from prison and unable to get or hold a job, or had their lives ruined by the system and were cast away, forgotten. Homeless and pariahs. Help declined, needs ignored.

They were all innoculated and all but seven dies within moments. These scientists would have a lot to answer for, and they can't really use any excuse for their actions, though they were already punishing themselves for what they were doing. Hating ehat they were doing, what Sluggard was importuning them for.

They harnessed the seven like they did with the first three. The seven who survived was the suicidal man, the arsonist, the pot smoker, the addle-minded baby-drowner, the partially paralyzed man, the woman on oxygen, and the mentally-unstable woman. But soon, when the Titan took hold, they'd remember none of this. Their death warrants already signed, and they would have no one to mourn them. They'd be forgotten within a week.

'Tis a sad fate to anyone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 23, 2015, 09:44:15 AM

Don't think I uploaded the PDF for book 104 yet, so here it is.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2015, 10:20:38 PM

Thanks.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Pod Racers

Cloak was remember more about the creature. It was incredibly strong, probably being able to destroy homes and cars with ruthless ease. It was able "sweat" water from its scaly hide, and only control it to a small degree. And, while wearing the necklace amulet thing, the crocodile is completely impossible to kill, and would simply heal itself when injured.

Dpsb was detailing this to the others, almost as if he was reading the Realm Walker's mind. Of course, he wasn't -- it was just a coincidence.

Cloak looked at the "bling" around the petsuchos's neck, with narrowed eyes. The petsuchos's necklace was an ostentatious elaborate collar of gold chains and precious stones. Sobek's name was inscribed upon it in the form of hieroglyph, with a clasp above these hieroglyphs.

"What's the plan, then?" Sakki asked.

"You guys cut around from either side," Cloak said. "Get pass it in any way you can. Fly. Morph. Somersault. Just get over it, and get the spores, seeds, and sap, just in case."

"And you?" Saffa asked.

"I shall be distracting the petsuchos," the Realm Walker said, simply. "It may be able to influence the water it sweats out, but I can do more than influence it."

There was a low, rolling roar. The petsuchos was gearing up for an attack, and was preparing a lunge.

"Hurry," Cloak said. "The time to act is now. We may not get such an opportunity later. Go now."

"You heard the man," Saffa said, quickly morphing hawk. She was rather neglecting this particular morph, and it would service her needs just fine. <Let's get this done.>

The other five easily bypassed the petsuchos, who was unaware of this because the very water it generated was starting wrap around it, pinioning its limbs to its body, holding it fast. Leaving it virtually defenseless.

While Cloak lacked the finesse Horse had for her aligned element, he made up for in raw, brute power. The petsuchos roared its dissatisfaction with this circumstance, snapping its jaws in demonstration of its discontent.

"Wow," Cloak muttered to himself, "feisty beast. This isn't gonna be as simple and cut-and-dry as I thought."

The struggle wasn't over, but then sudden inspiration hit the Realm Walker. Cloak used the water to also bind its jaws shut, leaving the nostrils untouched. Cloak thrn began to work on undoing the clasp around the neck of the petsuchos while maintaining control iver the water it produced. Talk about your multitasking.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Dylan on November 23, 2015, 10:59:09 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 22, 2015, 05:58:19 PM

"A son of Sobek?" Dpsb asked.

The other five looked at him.

"Hey, I know things too!" he protested at this reaction.

I actually know what that is and I learned it in the weirdest way possible. There used to be this show on Nickelodeon called House of Anubis. It was a soap-opera/mystery about an American girl  who goes to a British boarding school haunted by Egyptian gods. Probably not the best thing to learn about Egypt from, buuuuuut it helped me pass my Egyptian mythology test in 6th grade.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 23, 2015, 11:54:38 PM

Hey, I'm no better, Dpsb. I got it from a Rick Riordan book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Border Line

"These are . . . sufficient." Sluggard said.

He did not say "Good job." or "Good work." but he did not shoot them dead. He considered that reward enough. He examined these new assets of his, their minds and wills bent to his. He was sefretly pleased, but had worn an veneer of detached interest. They wre strknger than the last batch of three Titan thugs.

"They will do," Sluggard said, feigning indifference. "For now."

He considred his next move briefly. This was actually a remarkable feat in and of itself, as he usually gave orders off the cuff and never fully considered the repercussions of his actions. But why would he? He's never been punished for any of his transgressions. He was essentially a bratty manchild with power and influence. A volatile ****tail if there ever was one.

"I have a target for them," ol' Dominic Sluggard said, with a smirk of childish glee breaking out on his face despite the detatched impression he was tried to play up.

***

And that's how RAF had the seven goliaths pounding on the Code Avalon force field at dinnertime. The RAFians however didn't consider it much of a threat, as they obviously could not get through the force field.

"I got this," GH said, shouldering guitar off and pulling it into playing position, strumming a few chords. Then he sang

"This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
Can't think of any new lyrics.
No, I never wrote down the lyrics.
So, I’ll just sing any old lyrics
That come to mind, kids.
You really need words,
A whole bunch of rhyming words.
You gotta write too many words.
To do it, to do it, to do it,
To do it, to do it, to do it right, kid.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
I know that you’re probably sore,
That I didn’t invent anything more.
I just didn’t get to complete it.
So, I’ll just repeat it.
This cover is just seven words long.
(Seven words long.)
This cover is just seven words long.
(Seven words long.)
Oh, I don’t make a lotta money.
They pay me nothing, honey.
I said, they pay me nothing, honey.
To play this cover.
I gotta fill time.
Three minutes worth of time.
Oh, how will I ever fill so much time?
I’ll throw in a solo,
A solo, a solo,
A solo, a solo here.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover is just seven words long.
This cover has got nothing to say.
But I’m posting it anyway!
I know, if I put my mind to it,
I know I could find an adequate rhyme here.
Oh, you gotta have a music,
You need really catchy music!
This cover has plenty of music.
But just seven words, kid.
And so, I’ll type them over,
And over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
Seven words long.
Seven words long.
Seven words long.
Seven words long.
Seven words long.
Seven words long.
This cover is seven words long.
It’s just seven words long!"

"It didn't do anything," Faerie said dryly.

"Made me feel better," GH said, smirking impishly.

"They were dancing," Genies pointed out.

"You call that dancing?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 23, 2015, 11:58:48 PM

My headcanon for this chapter is that it was gh (the character)'s first foray into psychedelic drugs. It explains a lot. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2015, 12:02:31 AM

Nah. Sleep deprivation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 24, 2015, 12:18:42 AM

Go to bed, Cloaky!

. . . OK, I have no right to say that :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2015, 12:25:17 AM

No, I mean you. In the terms of the story. But yeah, I need to go to bed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2015, 02:44:46 AM

Both of you need to sleep. :P

Dylan, that is the greatest "how I passed an exam by pure fluke" story ever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 24, 2015, 03:02:42 AM

Quote from: Saffa on November 24, 2015, 02:44:46 AM

Both of you need to sleep. :P

I refuse your ridiculous suggestion. It's barely even 3 in the morning!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2015, 03:38:42 AM

*sigh* I made that mistake last night. Nearly dozed off while writing my exam paper this morning.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2015, 10:17:25 AM

Um . . . "sleep is for the weak"?

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Collections and Clattering

"Got it!" Saffa cried, managing to get a vial of sap, a little baggy of spores (which were the minute seeds of the plant).

"Got it!" Underseen said in reply.

"Got it!" Ash answered.

"Got it!" Sakki agreed.

"Got it!" Dpsb said, distantly. He went to the plant that was the furthest away, but managed ot obtain all the necessary items.

Then, just the five were reconvening, a deafening clatter caused the whole place, the bricks in the floor, ceiling, and walls, to reverberate in the most unnerving way.

"What was that?" Sakki said, in eerie imitation of Ashley from "Until Dawn".

***

Cloak continued with his task, fumbling around with the clasp of the petsuchos's amulet necklace thing whilst still hydrokinetically keeping it still, immobile, and jaws firmly shut. It could still influence the water, but not to the extent that Cloak could, and he was rekeved that he didn't have to resort to bloodbending. Although wasn't sure if that worked on creatures of a supernatural nature.

The petsuchos was very keen to let its malcontent known, but Cloak ignored its debacchations as he continued his work. This clasp was really far too unnecessarily intricate to have been an artifact of Sobek, Cloak found himself thinking. He focused on the task, though the petsuchos's body rumbled with ire.

With a click, the necklace amulet thing quickly snaked off of the petsuchos's neck and landed on the floor with a resounding clatter. And the petsuchos was now a baby alligator. It felt like that there should have been a pop, or a snap, or some other sort of sound, but there wasn't one.

The newly-reverted alligator didn't seem too pleased with this new arrangement, and snapped at Cloak as he lifted it by its tail to place it away from the amulet necklace thing. It tried to scuttle its way back to the necklace, now mass-shifted to fit the baby alligator's neck. But Cloak had lifted and he ferrokinetically caused the metal to curl and warp in his palm. He distorted it until all the magic was essentially wrung out of it, then he balled it up as the baby alligator chirped its disapproval. He tossed it away, as the others arrived.

"Got it?" he asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2015, 01:29:45 PM

Awww.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2015, 04:37:32 PM

Awww?  >:D Does someone want a little pet? A little alligator named Leatherhead? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 24, 2015, 04:53:31 PM

Make that 2 of us  :kitty:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 24, 2015, 05:09:45 PM

Well I've never been a dog or cat person, and I've always kept some lizards around to keep the room insect free. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2015, 05:11:13 PM

Hmmmm . . . *strokes chin thoughtfully* . . . I'm seriously considering it . . . hmmmmm . . .

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Falling in Line

"They're still pounding at the threshold," GH said.

"But Code Avalon is still holding," Genies said. "Man, that thing can be inconsistent about its durability sometimes."

"Hey!" Yarin protested. He was responsible, in part, for the creation of Code Avalon. He had come over to see the spectacle.

"I thought these things were supposed to be strong," Faerie said, almost as if she were disapointed. "They can't even break through the Code Avalon barrier."

"I wonder if they're even trying," Parker said, having come to see what all the pounding and thumping noises were. He had to admit that he wasn't all too surprised to see another menacing force at their doorstep demanding to be let in. It wasn't the first time. "Assuming that any part of their identity isn't forsaken or subsumed by the Titan."

The others had all been briefed about the Titan super-steroid as Cloak's team went to look for the plant pods in the sewer. Aquilai, Yarin, and Goom had already finished the cure, it only needed the sap and spores from the plant.

"Wait." Parker said, his shrewd gaze catching something that would have been easy to kiss or overlook. His face was hidden beneath his helmet, but he wore a look of compassionate empathy as he saw each of the Titan thugs' bodies spasm in the most subtlest of ways. "The Titan is about to take full effect, if my information is right."

He took no pleasure in saying such. He knew when the Titan toxin, as he decided to think of it, took full effect, death wasn't too far away. But he hoped that the Titan entry in the database was mistaken. He didn't wish death upon these people, they clearly did not have any choice in the manner of what they became. Why else would the be wearing such accessories?

The seven Titan thugs collapsed to the ground. Their bodies shaking and colvulsing slightly, slick with sweat as their bodies began to shrink in size and muscle mass. All seven had a gray tinge with green-colored veins that was pread through as if they walked into green cobwebs.

"This . . ." GH stammered. "This . . . this is . . ."

"Awful," Genies supplied.

"Go get Kelly," Parker said, at once, as Yarin quickly complied. "Maybe she could heal --"

"Parker, I don't think that it'll be that easy." Faerie said. "Otherwise, Cloak wouldn't have taken a team to the sewers."

"Maybe we can just wait a bit for --" GH began.

"We do not know how much time they have left." Parker said, bluntly. "And perhaps Kelly can stem the toxic effects of the super-steroid until the cure is complete."

Parker turned to find not only Kelly hustling forward, grasping her jacket against the frigid wind, with AniDragon hurrying along behind her. It may be necessary for AniDrsgon to boost Kelly's healing ability, which may prove efficacious.

It may not be much, but it was all they could do at the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2015, 12:43:58 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Leatherhead

"No."

"Oh, c'mon, Cloak." Saffa said. "He's cute."

"No."

"What harm can he do?"

"He is a juvenile," Cloak said, sounding rather cold and calculated. "We'll see if you have that same attitude when he's thirteen, fourteen feet long and weighing eight hundred pounds to half a ton."

"Oh, little Leatherhead wouldn't do anything like that," Saffa said. And the minute crocodilian chirped in response, as if agreeing to her.

"Oh no, " Cloak said. "You named him. You're gonna start to get attached to him now."

"GH would love him," Saffa said, as if this was a selling point. "He said he wanted a pet."

"Then get him a puppy!" Cloak said, exasperatedly. "Leatherhead is a wild animal. That doesn't just go away overnight."

"I'm well aware of that, Cloaky," Saffa said, with dignity. "But little Leatherhead is not an ordinary alligator. He's more intelligent -- how else do you explain him trying to get back to the petsuchos necklace again, trying to put it back on again?"

Leatherhead chirped a rather obnoxious sort of chirp, and lifted his nose in the air, almost.like if saying "hrmph". Saffa had a point on this, as Leatherhead seemed to be more intelligent than an ordinary crocodile, maybe even sentient. Cloak surmised it probably had something to do with having being a petsuchos in the first place, but he hadn't any proof.

"He's still a wild animal," Cloak said. "He may not be dangerous now, but he will in time. He'll be at least six feet long at maturity."

"If he were an ordinary alligator, I'd agree with you," Saffa said. "But he clearly has the intelligence of a child of equivalent age, I can see that. Why can't you?"

Cloak said nothing.

"Look, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Ash said, mediating, "we need to get these samples back to RAF. And we really shouldn't dally."

Cloak grunt an ascent at this, though he felt that it was against his better judgement. Although no one seemed to notice this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 25, 2015, 12:51:08 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on November 25, 2015, 12:43:58 AM

"GH would love him," Saffa said, as if this was a selling point. "He said he wanted a pet."

"Then get him a puppy!" Cloak said, exasperatedly.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY KARMA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 25, 2015, 01:53:56 PM

MINE AS WELL

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2015, 11:15:22 PM

O . . . kay. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Not Enough

"No!" Kelly yelled.

She was working herself ragged, trying to save the seven. She hadn't expected Titan to be such a resilient toxin. It was almost as if it was conceived to last three long video game storylines. (;))

"Why can't this ever be enough?" Kelly complained in muttering tones, her exhaustion starting to poke through her facade. She was getting upset with rather persnickety nature of her healing abilities, feeling that it was becoming more of a liability than help. "It seems more and more every day that I can't really heal anyone."

She was hoping that Cloak's team arrived soon. She was just delaying the inevitable. Slowing down the unavoidable conclusion. Death's scythe already hung precariously over all seven, and Kelly was just giving them borrowed time. And she could do it indefinitely.

If she even stopped her ministrations even for a moment longer than necessary, then the seven may very well die. It was only these ministrations that were keeping them alive. It was really no different from being brain-dead but still on life support.

So, Kelly had to be honest with herself, after a while. It became clear that she was only keeping their bodies alive, but the spark of personality -- called it their soul or their mind or their conscienceness, whatever you prefer -- was long gone. They would just be prone and idle, even though their hearts may still beat and their lungs still inflate with breath, but what had made them them had left.

Kelly knew that she couldn't do this forever. She would tire eventually. She could burn out her powers in undertaking such a task. It was an exercise in futility, but Kelly did not like thinking in such terms, believing it to be a callous and heartless way of thinking. Ruthless. But, there was the fact that it was true.

It went against every instinct she had, but she had to let them die. There was no curing them. They were already dead, and she wasn't making matters better or easier. She, with a heavy heart, watched them die, ensuring it was a painless as possible.

Within moments, they were all gone. But the cruelest irony was that the cure was just completed at that moment, when it was of no use. Kelly felt no anger or ill will towards Cloak or his team. Sometimes, these things just happen, despite how much you do not like or want for it to happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 25, 2015, 11:20:04 PM

. . . Holy ****. It's not easy to give me the sadfaces as much as that did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2015, 12:20:05 AM

Probably not gonna be the only chapter to do that.

New chapter. Last chapter of this book. And we're a hundred books more than what I had originally planned out for this series, all the way back in 2012.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
An Unfriendly Visit

"What? What about the Titan thugs?" Sluggard said, speaking on a newfangled smart phone. "Oh, they're all dead. Why are they dead?!"

He paused to listen to a longwinded explanation, inaudible with any real clarity from this side  of the conversation but him. He was clearly not too pleased with this development. He had intended for these Titan thugs to go in an destroy RAF with ruthless ease. He didn't know nor accounted for Code Avalon. He didn't know about the Pootang, so how could he know about the precautions for the beast?

"Never mind!" he yelled into the phone. "Just make another batch! This time make sure that there are fifteen that survive, or I shall make you rue the very day you left your mother's womb!!"

He hung up in a rather aggressive manner, as he leaned forward on his expensive, solid mahogany desk, sitting in his high-backed, cushy chair of the reddest velvet. He wore overly lavish and opulent clothing that cost more than most of the 99% ever had in their bank accounts. The worst part was that he was obnoxious about. He had the thick heavy curtains drawn, so the room was cast into darkness, with only a small, kitschy lamp illuminating the room.

Sluggard felt no nyctophobia, the dark was comfortable to him.

"I think you'll find that hard to accomplish," came a icy cold voice.

"What?!" Sluggard said, outraged that someone dare violate the sanctity of his inner sanctum. "Who the hell are you?! How'd you get in here?! Explain yourself!!"

The voice did not reply.

"I said --"

"I'm well aware what you said." the voice cut in, with biting tone. "You're not calling the shots here, Sluggard. I know you have become accustomed to being the head honcho, but you do not order me around. You haven't any sovereignty over me, and I do not fear you."

Sluggard reached for his gun, only to find metal shavings and a handle.

"And you react to the sudden loss of control with violence. Predictable," the voice said, tone reproachful. The voice was starting to grate on the overly plump man.

"What do you want?" Sluggard hissed.

"It's time you faced the consequences for careless, violent acts," the voice said. "And face justice for your murders."

"You can't touch me," Sluggard said, immediately and reflexively.

"You keep thinking that," came the voice's cold reply.

Sluggard actually worried at this. What did this person have on him that he could express this so candidly? Did he not cover his tracks well enough? Did someone talk?

"As for the Titan," the voice said, "even now the formula is being deleted from your mainframe, wiped from the memory of your scientists (many of which have decided to leave your employ on their own volition, by the way), and all tangible samples being neutralized into harmlessness."

"What?!" Sluggard roared. His rage was building. "You had no right!! That was my property!! You had no right!!!!"

"I didn't?" the voice said, acidly. "You want to talk of rights, you, a murderous Veiled monster? What right have you to shoot indiscriminately, for the purposes of inspiring fear and compliance? What right have to take people off the street to transform them into your own personal army, regardless of whether or not they consented to it, whether or not they survived the transformation? All that blood is on your hands, Dominic Sluggard. Your hands."

"Who are you?!" Sluggard demanded.

No answer.

"Answer me!!"

The voice did not acquiesce.

"Answer me!!"

Silence.

Sluggard quickly crossed over to his heavy curtains and parted them, letting in some of the late afternoon light, which penetrated the darkness, chasing it away. There was no one there. It wasn't possible.

It couldn't be possible!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 26, 2015, 02:14:51 AM

This is becoming a habit of yours. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2015, 07:05:14 AM

Batman-itis?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 26, 2015, 08:11:22 AM

Yes. That. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2015, 10:05:22 AM

We all have our weaknesses. And I have a weakness for Batman-style theatrics. ;)

New chapter.

BOOK CVI:
A STONY GLAZE
CHAPTER ONE:
A Hot Rave

The RAFians were dispatched to works security at a Pyronite rave. Cloak, Horse, Aquilai, Azzy, Saffa, and Abby were on guard duty, while GH was allowed to perform for them. The security team was to make sure that the Pyronites did not get out of hand. They didn't need the fiery aliens igniting the atmosphere. One alone may not be able to, but a large group of this pyrokinetic species?

Saffa and Abby both had Crabdozer morphs, and would morph if things really got out of hand. But only if. It might cause a panic as Crabdozers are the natural predators of Pyronites.

Anyway, GH played:

"You can torture me
With Donnie and Marie music.
You can play some music of Barry Manilow.
Or you can play some schlock
Like music of New Kids on the Block.
Or any Village People music you know,
Or play music of Vanilla Ice.
Hey, you can play them twice.
And you can play the Bee Gees music any day.
But, Mr. DJ, please.
I'm beggin' on my knees
I just can't take no more music of Billy Ray!
Don't play that music.
That achy breaky music.
The most annoying music I know.
And if you play that music,
That achy breaky music,
I might blow up my guitar, yo!
Ooo . . .
You can clear the room
By playin' music of Debbie Boon,
Or crank your Abba Record music until dawn.
Oh, I can even hear
Music of Slim Whitman or Zamfir.
Don't mind a Yoko Ono music marathon.
Or play some music of Tiffany
On 8-track or CD,
Or scrape your fingernails across the board!
Or tie me to a chair,
And kick me down the stairs!
Just please don't play that stupid music no more
Don't play that music.
That achy breaky music.
You know I hate that music a bunch.
And if you play that music,
That nauseating music,
It might just make me lose my lunch.
Ooo . . .
Don't play that music,
That achy breaky music,
I think its driving me insane!
Oh, please don't play that music,
That irritating music,
I'd rather have a pitchfork in my brain!
Don't play that music,
That achy breaky music,
The most annoying music I know!
And if you play that music,
That achy breaky music,
I might blow up my guitar, too!
Ooo-woo . . . !"

And so it went. Nothing too bad happened, nothing that couldn't be fixed. It was nice to have something go on well, without a hitch. Especially since what happened a few days ago.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 26, 2015, 10:13:09 AM

... we're bouncers now?

Ah yes, the glamourous life of a superhero.

PDF for the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2015, 06:32:30 PM

Well, the ordinary law enforcement was ill-equipped to deal with it got out of hand. We are far better equipped.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Venomous Vials

Malice was aware how Sluggard had failed her, without him being any the wiser. Malice decided that being indirect in that manner was just too unpredictable and uncontrolled. Granted, that's precisely the reason she opted for the strategy in the first place.

But she didn't dwell on past schemes. They were boring. She was always conceiving new plots and schemes, ones that would entertain her. She was a very fickle octogenarian, as she watched Sluggard's arrest on the evening news with a rather indifferent manner. After all, she only provided the Titan. She keft no instructions on what to do with it, or what its function was. All those were Sluggard's decisions.

She never told him to pull the trigger and brutally murder those people in cold blood. She didn't tell him to persuade and trick hapless street people into becoming his test subjects, then members of his own personal army.

Stupid fool thought he was untouchable, and got careless with that notion. If he were truoy untouchable, he would have been smarter with what he did. But he opted for the Visser 3 methodology of dealing with underlings. Malice understood such a policy of dealing with subordinates, who she believed to be as expendable as Sluggard did. But she believed him to be stupid and moronic, though usually employing the same methods as him.

In any case, she had moved on to her next plan, her next plot, her next scheme. She was pouring some slate gray, translucent liquid into a small, squat, pink bottle one might keep a bath oil in. She smiled as she poured, her gloves protecting her from any potential spills, or splash back.

In any case, it would be slow-acting and she had the cure on hand, should she ever need it. She was confident that it wouldn't harm or affect her kind, but she could use the cure as blackmail. And she knew just where to ship this bottle to, packaged with legitimate bath oils to disguise its nefarious purpose.

***

GH returned to his thread and he was greeted with an excited chirp from Leatherhead. He had become GH's pet, despite Cloak's sincere reservations and better judgement. GH found that he acted rather like a puppy than a baby alligator, but he didn't mind. He tended to affectionately call him "LH".

He kept Leatherhead in a terrarium that, from Leatherhead's perspective, was spacious and opulent. It had everything he wanted, and GH was sure Leatherhead was happy. He was as fond of Leatherhead as Gaz was with Beaky.

Little did GH realize the changes Leatherhead would bring. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 26, 2015, 06:35:33 PM

gh... lh.

:facepalm:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 26, 2015, 06:49:46 PM

I can already tell that this is gonna go somewhere beautiful. :P

I'm kinda confused though; how did Saffa not end up with Leatherhead? She's the one that begged to bring him back to RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2015, 10:16:23 PM

He liked you more, and she wanted to give him to you as a gift, anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 26, 2015, 10:55:07 PM

Ahh, ok. Certainly not complaining, though. I want a pet croc now IRL.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2015, 08:03:34 AM

I was afraid of that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Dangerous Care Package

In the dark of the night, the package was delivered to the forum. It had a yellow loofah, a tall red bottle of some sort of shampoo, a shorter orange bottle of some ort of conditioner, a shorter, green bottle of some sort of body wash, a small blue tub of shea butter, a squatter, indigo tub of some sort of lotion, and a pink bottle of a bath oil. They all sat in a wicker basket, wrapped up in clear plastic with white and black ribbons.

The delivery should have been seen as suspicious, as it was obviously designed to be a Valentine's gift and that was still about a month away, give or take. But no one one seemed to have taken notice of it.

Except Raeyvn.

The care basket did not have a card with it, so it wasn't addressed toward anyone. Raevyn took it for herself, and went to her thread immediately hence. She used the loofah -- which was admirable, considering her avian physiology, and each of the bottles. She found the shea butter a little too harsh for her liking, and the shampoo and conditioner were a tad too watery for her liking. The body wash was a bit too thick for her liking, as well. The lotion burned in the most inappropriate way. Only the bath oil was decent, though she found the slate gray color a bit odd.

She examined herself after the rapid indulgence of the care packages. She was none the worse for wear, but she dismissed the rest as being cheap knockoffs, and decided that the bath oil was anything of worth from it.

***

Malice was watching, almost voyeuristic, through a small, undetectable camera in the basket's handle. She was pleased with the results, with Raevyn's sheer ignorance of what she had done. She had done somethjng that might allow Malice to blackmail her witb the cure.

She had poured a lithomorphogenic toxin into the bottle. It was a slow-acting toxin. It would slowly transmute Raevyn into stone, bit by bit, until she's a petrified statue. It would be a slow, excruciating process, but Malice wouldn't have it any other way.

She could make her move at any moment, at her discretion, at her whim. But . . . what was this? She hadn't expected this development.

"Oh, this shall be interesting," she muttered to herself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 28, 2015, 04:30:33 AM

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN USE STUFF THAT WAS RANDOMLY LEFT ON YOUR DOORSTEP?!!?!????!

*cue Saffa's trademark "white people" eyeroll*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2015, 10:26:58 AM

Well, technically, she's a "birdy", as per the Species List when I outlined this book initially. How did she open the stuff and use it? Well, the same way Iago did in the "Aladdin" episode this was based off of.

And the next chapter will have to wait until a little after 7, my time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 28, 2015, 10:39:51 AM

How is not the question. Why is. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2015, 08:43:59 PM

Naivete, I suppose. Raevyn hasn't been on that many missions (and hasn't been on the forum in forever, now that I think of it), so she's a bit, well, naive, I guess. Sorry, I'm tired.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Well, That Bites

There really is no rest for the weary, even for the RAFians. (Saffa was even once heard to retort, "Avengers, eat your heart out.")

A gigantic, hunchbacked creature composed entirely of stone with broad, long arms was lumbering in through the city, but clearly had no interest in the metal of the city, like Garfield and raisins. But its mere presence was causing a disturbance.

One that people like Bern Bridges would inevitably blame on them.

"A Rock Chewer," Cloak identified.

<Looks like a Jubba-Jubba with a big head,> Esplin said, derisively.

"What d'you know of this creature?" GH asked, Leatherhead perched on his right shoulder.

"GH, you do realize that you won't be able to keep him forever, right?"

"Stop sidestepping the question. Spill." GH said seriously.

Cloak sighed. He didn't like how close the two were getting, when he knew the inevitable conclusion.

"Fine. Truth of the matter is I don't know anything about Rock Chewers other than the fact that they are composed stone and they consume it as well."

"Well, the question of cannibalism must be thrown out there," a nameless RAFian asked. And he was ignored.

"He seems to be uninterested in the city itself," Aquilai noted. "But seems to be looking for something."

"Isn't it obvious, guys?" Saffa said. "It's going to the quarry."

Silence.

"Seriously? You didn't see it?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

"It doesn't look evil or at all hostile," Dpsb noticed. "It problably just was feeling a little peckish."

This on in this vein for sometime as Raevyn watched quietly from her perch. Suddenly felt something very wrong happen. When she looked down at her left foot, she saw something that alarmed her a great deal. It would alarm anyone a great deal if it happened to them.

She fluttered away from the others so they wouldn't see, so Cloak wouldn't be able to sense it. She flew, sputtered, flustered away, cursing her naive nature, immediately blaming the bath oil and things.

Her rightmost talon on her left foot. It was solid stone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2015, 10:39:13 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Malice Has Her Eye On The Birdy

Raevyn felt ashamed for her brashness with the bath oils, conditioner, and whatnot. She should have been more cautious. That's why no one got to it before she did. Everyone else had the sense to not welcome gifts from unseen donators. Why did she fall for it? Why did she not think about the consequences? And she knew it had to have been in one of the bottles in the care package. She could not say which one precisely did it, but she was intelligent enough to know that it had been her bathing with the items of said care basket.

Raevyn jerked her head up, from this seething, seeping pool of self-pity, when she heard something. Whistling. A woman whistling. That tune . . . what was it? It most certainly sounded familiar.

Ah-ha! It was "The Farmer in the Dell". And, yet, it sounded ominous and sinister. For the last bit, it was sung aloud:

"The birdy flies alone.
The birdy flies alone.
Heigh-ho, the derry-o . . .
The birdy flies alone."

"Who's there?!" Raevyn demanded.

"My," came a coy, condescending voice, the whistler's dry, drawling voice, "you are new to this, aren't you?"

Raevyn didn't appreciate the implication. Or the attitude. But she was a bit distracted as her entire left foot turned to slate-gray stone.

"Ah," said the unimpressed voice, "so you were the one who enjoyed my little care package. I especially loved the bath oil. Did you, dearie? I hope so, m'dear. It was my very own special blend."

Funny, how the speaker could make that sound very sinister.

"Who are you?" Raevyn asked. She hoped her suspicions were wrong.

"Haven't figured it out yet, dearie? Such a shame," the speaker said. The speaker walked lazily into view, revealling that it was, unsurprisingly, Malice. Raevyn's hopes were dashed. She wasn't stupid, she knew who Malice was.

"What do you want?" Raevyn replied, acidly.

"Oh, you've cut me to the quick!" Malice said, with an overdramatic gasp, to accentuate her sarcasm. Raevyn glared at her, her foot clunking quite noticeably whenever she shifted weight. Malice continued, gloatingly, "You'll continue your petrification slowly, very slowy. When it's complete, you'll be trapped in a static body of stone, incapable of movement, unable to breathe. Eventually, your mind will begin to fade away to nothing, leaving behind a statuary of a forgotten RAFian."

Malice paused, savoring having Raevyn in her power. Malice was addicted to such power trips.

"Not to mention there's a Rock Chewer on the loose, so you might become a lovely hors d'oeuvres for it," Malice said, relishing the monologue. "But I have a little trinket here, a little vial. I can cure you, but you must do what I want."

Raevyn couldn't believe it. Or maybe she could. Malice actually believed that she would betray the RAFians. Raevyn glowered at Malice, who seemed to be too entralled with the theatrics of her monologue.

"You shall be my spy," Malice crowed. "A replacement for my last inside man. Just say yes, and -- WHERE THE VEIL ARE YOU GOING?!"

But Raevyn was too busy winging away. Away from Malice, away from the RAFians, away from everyone. It was time for her to accept her inevitable fate . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2015, 09:47:04 AM

New book ideas!

• Book DCCCXLII: "The Seasonal Swords" -- The RAFians must secure the Swords of the Seasons -- the Sword of Summer, the Sword of Autumn, the Sword of Winter, and the Sword of Spring.
• Book DCCCXLIII: "Coattails" -- The RAFians must deal with a spectral doppelganger, who gets in over his head.
• Book DCCCXLIV: "Ghost Riding" -- The RAFians must deal with a ghost called Rider, and another called Malefic.

All titles are subject to change, and are not final. I don't think that I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Recent Realizations

The Rock Biter, or Rock Chewer if you prefer, quietly lumbered out of the city, with only most minimal damage that was only cosmetic in nature, not structural. It didn't seem interested in the stones that made up the concrete, acting as if it thought of them much like a lactose-intolerant person thinks of milk.

It left people in a state of shock, but no one was hurt by pacific, gentle giant. The cosmetic damge was really only nickel-and-dime stuff, nothing real extensive. However, the forest stood between him and the quarry, and the trees were much too closely packed together for him to easily navigate around, and if he barrelled through, he would surely snap many a tree in his path.

It did not want this, so he slowly began to lumber around the forest, in a very sedate, loping gait, much like a Bigfoot. It would take him longer to get to the quarry by this route, but it didn't want to dislodge birds and other critters from their homes and nests, and he would much preferred if all the trees within would stay in one piece. It was a gentle soul with pacifist nature, so out-and-out violence was not something that it desired, if it could help.

***

Raevyn continued to fly away from both Malice and the RAFians. She still cursed her naivete for indulging in that accursed care basket. She was allowing herself to feel despair, which deepened everytime she looked at her petrified foot. Despite the fact that RAF was lrobably the best place for her right now.

Part of her, that selfish bit that every sentient being possessed (yes, even Realm Walker -- perhaps even especially Realm Walkers), that part her wondered if she should have taken Malice's offer. If she should have . . .

No. No, she can't allow herself to think that way. She would never turn traitor against them. Even Rotiart -- though it was his name backwards -- never betrayed them. She wouldn't sink so low. She wasn't Itellsya. She wasn't.

She would have to go somewhere safe. There wasn't anything she could do. She was helpless. She had to just accept the inevitable. Her fate was to be some sort of statuary, where she would eventually cease to be.

"Ugh!" she grunted. Her flight had become harder. Her entire left leg had turned to slate-gray stone. A rocky drumstick. She had to land. And she did, within Cloak's Earthsight radius.

***

The minute Raevyn set down, it send out minute vibrations. It barely activated Earthsight, but Cloak "see" it just the same. Just barely. But this just confused him, as he was unaware of the care package.

"Oh, that thing?" Saffa said, surprised. "Someone actually took it? I thought it might have been dangerous."

"But you still left it out there?" Terenia asked.

"Yeah, I didn't think anyone would actually use it," she explained. "Trojan Horse, and all that."

"I think Raevyn might have," Cloak said. "It's probably still in her thread."

"What makes you say that?" Abby asked.

"I sensed a small stone landing on the ground," Cloak said. "It was shaped, if I'm correct, like a bird's leg."

"Wha--?" GH said. Leatherhead looked invested, as well.

"One of the chemicals in the care package must have been a disguised lithomorphogenic agent," the Realm Walker speculated.

"A what?" Underseen asked.

"A chemical agent that turns things to stone," Cloak said. "Which leaves the obvious perpetrator."

"Malice?" GH asked.

"Who else?" Saffa said, with a shrug.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 29, 2015, 09:50:29 AM

Guessing she sent out the Rock-Chewer too?

Quote

Book DCCCXLII: "The Seasonal Swords" -- The RAFians must secure the Swords of the Seasons -- the Sword of Summer, the Sword of Autumn, the Sword of Winter, and the Sword of Spring.

This sounds like Game of Thrones. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2015, 09:57:22 AM

Quote from: Saffa on November 29, 2015, 09:50:29 AM

Guessing she sent out the Rock-Chewer too?

She may have a hand in it.

Quote from: Saffa on November 29, 2015, 09:50:29 AM

Quote

Book DCCCXLII: "The Seasonal Swords" -- The RAFians must secure the Swords of the Seasons -- the Sword of Summer, the Sword of Autumn, the Sword of Winter, and the Sword of Spring.

This sounds like Game of Thrones. :P

Actually it came from Riordan's new series, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asguard. I've never seen the Game of Thrones.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on November 29, 2015, 10:31:23 AM

Damn, I have to get my hands on the ebook for that one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2015, 10:37:57 AM

It's a long one.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
A Proximity Problem

Raevyn had found herself a little thicket to hide herself in. There, she did possibly the worst thing that someone could ever do in her position.

She felt despair. The thing about despair is that it works like quicksand. The more you mire yourself in it, the quicker it drags you down to your most basic instincts. And it's far harder to pull yourself out than it is to go in.

It's easy to wallow in despair and depression, what's hard is to pull yourself out of such a state of mind. It has to be a conscious effort, where as melancholy and despair can be fell into with or without conscious thought. It can blind you to your environment, make you oblivious to that around you, even if it something necessary for survival.

Despair is a method for shutting down from the world.* It can be a very dangerous thing to feel for one's well-being.

Raevyn was allowing herself to fall into that trap, that gooey mire of despair and depression. One would have wonder if she would be able to claw her way back out. Which only lead her further down when her pelvic area turned to stone so that she looked like a Vullaby (http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-xy/629.shtml) with a prosethic, immobile, stone left leg.

But, in Raevyn's case, it was also bad, because her hiding place was a little too close to the open. A little too close to the pathway that the Rock Biter, or Rock Chewer if you prefer, was slowly lumbering on. They would pass in close proximity towards each other.

Closer . . .

Closer . . .

Closer still . . .

Until the Rock Biter, or Rock Chewer, passed her by, much like the Frito or Cheeto that invariably finds its way between the couch cushions, to the unawares of the person gobbling them down. But Raevyn remained unaware of the precarious proximity that she was in to a creature who was very dangerous to her.

***

"A rock ifrit," Cloak said, having identified the bottle. "This bottle contains rock ifrit venom."

"Ifrit? You mean like that ice ifrit?" Saffa said, at once.

"Kind of," Cloak said. "But different clade of creature. This one I believe is rather nonsentient. I could be mistaken, though. It wouldn't be the first time."

"It's in the database," Parker said, showing a holographic representation of the beast. It had an ugly, pugnacious face, with two fangs protruding up from the sides of its mouth and which the upper part was like a bird's beak. It had moderate-sized eyes, with bags around them, flared ears reminiscent of a Raichu, and a quadrupedal form, with tiny, chiropteran, vestigial wings. It's body was thick and solid, with a tiny saurian tail.

"'Summoned with a teal, curlicue horn'," Parker read, "'the Horn of the Rock Ifrit.' Another horn thing? How many of them are in this thing?"

"Don't we have a more pressing concern?" Saffa said.

"The Rock Biter?" GH asked.

"No!" Saffa said, exasperatedly. "Raevyn! C'mon, people!!"

---

*I know it sounds harsh, but I felt despair before. Probably many more times that I chose to forget.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 01, 2015, 12:06:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Urgency and Emergency

"Saffa's right," Cloak said. "We must act quickly. The database describes a cure for the lithomorphogenic agents in the rock ifrit's venom."

"I'll get the lab boys on it," Parker said, at once, with purpose in his tone and gait.

"Excellent," Cloak said, with a snap in his voice. "I'll take GH -- no, the former petsuchos cannot come, GH, don't bring him -- Faerie, Demos, Mithril, and Saffa with me to get to our lost RAFian."

"Why can't LH come with?" GH protested.

"Too dangerous," Cloak said, bluntly and succinctly.

"Laserbeak accompanies Gaz on missions," GH said, petulantly.

"Do you really want to do this now?" Cloak said. "Laserbeak can fly, GH. He is not a baby. Leatherhead, as he is, would be more of a liability than help."

Cloak paused, as GH looked as if he wanted to argue the point, but Cloak swiftly cut him off.

"We can argue about it later. But, just now, we have to prioritize our conflicts." Cloak said. "We do not know if Raevyn is in immediate danger, or simply in proximity to danger. If we're lucky she's still --"

"Alive?"

"Organic," Cloak said. "I do not know how fast the venom works, but I onow it can turn organic tissue into solid stone. We're gonna have to rsce against a clock that's been ticking against us, against Raevyn, ever since she presumably used those toiletry things. The bath oils and whatnot."

Cloak sighed heavily.

"Raevyn is running out of time."

***

Raevyn still was huddled and bunkered down in her little hiding spot, away from prying eyes. Unnoticed by all but the most studious observers. She was resigned to her fate, which she decided was inevitable and immutable. Her despair was a murky mire thate continually sunk herself into, making it harder and harder to pull herself free from.

When her tail feathers solidified into a single plate of slate-gray stone, it serviced only to deepen her melancholy. She didn't see a way out of this. She felt so helpless. She felt so hollow and empty.

She felt that she was doomed to be a statuary. Doomed . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 02, 2015, 05:13:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Tests and Quests

"Can either of you get a fix on her?" Faerie said, addressing Cloak and Mithril, as they pushed through the forest. She was referencing an elemental sensing ability any terrakinetic had the capability to access. Raevyn's body was becoming stone. So this should work on her stone parts.

"I . . . I . . ." Mithril stammered.

"Got her," Cloak said, closing his eyes focusing on sensing the stone of Raevyn's body and Earthsight. And he made a beeline for the location, only to have the way blocked off.

"What is that?" Saffa asked.

It looked like a pale gray wall. But it was a shin, with a stone foot of the same color on the end. Within moments, it lifted and pounded the ground minutes lster, at least a yard's length away.

"Question withdrawn," Saffa said.

"Where is Raevyn?" GH said, keeping them on track.

"On the move," Cloak said. "Her hiding spot is empty."

"So, she knows of the danger of the Rock Chewer?" Faerie asked.

"That," Cloak said, sighed heavily, "I cannot say."

"Which way did she go?" Saffa asked.

"Unless I'm mistaken," Cloak said, "northwest."

***

Doomed. Doomed for all time.

There was no hope. No cure.

Her other leg was gone. Stone now.

No hope.

She labored to lug her newly heavy body into the air, her stone lower body weighing her down. In more ways than one.

No cure.

She was sure her condition couldn't be reversed, though Malice indicated that it was, with bandying about with that stoppered green bottle. Raevyn believed it to be a lie, a placebo concocted by Malice to get her to do some dirty work for her, to get her to be the new Rumor.

No hope.

It could have even been poison in that bottle. It wouldn't have been out of character for her. She'd think it was funny. She always thout such things were funny.

She would have to leave. She would not burden herself upon the others. She simply would not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 02, 2015, 09:47:51 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Ticking Clock and Malice Shenanigans

The six felt the ticking clock. The sands of time was slipping through their fingers.
 
"We're running out of time," Faerie said. "We should take to the air."
 
"You're the only one that can fly," Demos pointed out.
 
"Cloak can ride that energy disc thing. Saffa can morph. GH can turn his guitar into a hoverbike." Faerie pointed out.
 
"And Demos and me?" Mithril asked.
 
"Hitch a ride with GH or Cloak," she replied. "If we don't hurry, we'll have a petrified birdy."
 
"Leaving so soon?" came a coy, drawling voice. "Aw, I'm so hurt."
 
It was Malice, leaning against a dying birch tree.
 
"What d'you want?" Cloak said, tone dryly acidic.
 
"Oooh, not very friendly," she cooed. "Is that any way to speak to a superior being?"

At this, Cloak scoffed disparagingly, "A superior being? You?"

Malice dropped her cavalier, coy demeanor instantly. When she spoke, her tone was nasty. "What are you implying, you worthless welp?"

"I'm not implying anything, you obtuse octogenarian," Cloak said, in his usual blunt manner. "Any of these RAFian Dwellers alone are worth a million of you."

"How DARE you!!" Malice raged. "I am a GOD to these INSECTS!! How DARE equate THEIR worth to MINE!!"

"I think you touched a nerve," GH said, in a carrying whisper.

"I WAS going to let you have this cure for the ifrit's venom," Malice said. A likely story. "But, now? I think I'm just going to smash it to the ground!!"

She didn't know that Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin were already working on it. She moved to smash it to the ground, while Cloak did not react. He knew Malice better than this. And he knew that if whatever she had in the bottle was actually important she wouldn't have been this reckless with it. If it was of any true importance, she would never have pulled this, not even play-acting.

She hesitated, almost as if she had briefly let her emotions get the better of her. Cloak, however, wasn't buying it. Cloak frowned deeply, realizing Malice was just running out Raevyn's clock. They hadn't time for these shenanigans!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 03, 2015, 12:35:38 AM

Time to split up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 03, 2015, 09:51:09 AM

Not quite.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Honeyed and Instincts

Malice was holding the green bottle, stoppered with a wax seal, which she touted as the cure to the lithomorphogenic agents in the rock ifrit's venom. Cloak didn't believe it, as his narrowed eyes and scowl. It was just too easy, but they were wasting time. He didn't know how long it would take for someone of Raevyn's body mass to be transfigured into stone.

Just then, something mottled brown and green streaked toward the bottle which was being held loosely, at Malice's side now, as she knelt. She was gearing up to smash it again, apparently secretly enjoying the theatrics of this.

She didn't expect firm jaws to close around the bottle and, by merit of sheer momentum, wrest it from her clutches.

"GH, I told you no!" Cloak protested.

Leatherhead, with the bottle precariously in his mouth, somehow begain to tottle over to GH. But it was clear that he didn't have a very good grip, and the bottle was threatening to be dropped. Malice made wild snatching motion at Leatherhead, only managing to get him to drop the bottle, which was quickly caught up by Saffa. Malice nearly had captured the tiny former petsuchos thricebut he managed to slip away at the last moment, before rejoining GH. On the fourth attempt, Cloak had to blast Malice in the face with scarlet gold energy.

Malice was outraged, but Walked away.

"Nice going, LH!" GH said, proudly. Leatherhead seemed to swell with pride as well.

"GH, if we weren't pressed for time," Cloak growled.

"Hey, he saved the day!" he protested.

"And he could have quite easily have been captured by Malice! If she did, you better have hoped that she would have killed him, because we all know just what she was capable of. She would have experimented on him, and turned him into something you wouldn't even recognize! Leatherhead can't escape as easily as Laserbeak can. And half the time, Gaz tries to leave him home."

"Cloak," Saffa said, derailing his tirade, "I don't think this is a cure. More like honeyed saltwater."

"Not too surprising, I'm afraid." he replied. "But, keep it, just in case in the off-chance that Malice was being truthful."

Then he sensed something.

"Oh, what now?" he muttered.

***

As the rockification continued to encapsulate her chest, leaving only her head, neck, and wings organic, Raevyn fluttered away from her hiding spot. She did so in a mindless, unfocused way. She was so deep in her own head, in her own problems, that she was losing awareness of her surroundings.

This was never a good idea. But especially in Raevyn's case . . . as she was attracting the attention of the Rock Biter. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 03, 2015, 02:10:37 PM

Honestly, I'm amazed I managed to keep Leatherhead hidden that whole time. What, was I keeping him under my shirt or something?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2015, 12:30:16 PM

He hid away inside your guitar. ;) You didn't extend that whole "no-touchy the guitar" rule to him.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Tasty Morsel . . .

Raevyn continued to flutter about aimlessly, oblivious to the present danger with her basically, and unintentionally, flaunting her newly stony body. The fact that she was still managing to keep herself aloft spoke volumes about her sheer endurance and stamina. Her wings began to strain against the weight, but she found that she didn't care.

She ignored the screaming muscles in her wings. She wouldn't feel it soon enough she knew, her fate sealed, her doom certain, her hope evaporated. Hopelessness is a horrible thing to feel, resignation to an inevitable fate. But it is when it's mixed with despair and depression when it becomes a potent, self-destructive ****tail that is a danger in its own right.

She was unaware of the presence or existence of the Rock-Biter. Even if she was, there was a chance that she might very well hasten her her own end. But that is what that viciously venomous ****tail of depression, despair, and hopelessness ultimately culminates to. Suicidal tendencies.

By a unique series of circumstances, Raevyn was conveniently approaching the ruins of old RAF, the location of the first site, before they achieved their modern status quo as monster hunters and general, all-around superheroes. It was before Raevyn's time, but she did not care or acknowledge this as she executed a standard glide.

She was finding herself even more mired in the quicksand that was depression, and, as such, she wasn't really paying attention where she was going. Or the fact that the Rock Biter was lumbering after her, following her. Pursuing her. Why? Clearly there were plenty of more filling meals for it to feast upon. Well, if a tyrannosaur can choose to eat a person over a freshly slain sauropod . . .*

Raevyn was gliding low over the ground, when her right wing turned to stone, and her flightplan deteriorated quickly and collapsed. She was effectively helpless now as she managed to pull herself into the threshold of a nearby building. But it was a rather halfhearted attempt. Only her left wing, neck, and head were non-stone now.

This did nothing to help her self-esteem.

---

*Yes, that's a swipe at Megamorphs 2.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2015, 01:52:29 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Curative Creativity

"That's no good," Goom said, "it just turned pink and gummy."

"Acknowledged," Yarin said, trying another concoction before deciding, "nope, that turns it red with acid burns. Not desirable at all."

"And this one just turns it blue and a semi-solid state," Goom said.

"This one just turns it purple and slimy," Yarin noted.

Goom gave acknowledging nod, then indicated another potion, "And this orange one just multiplies the appendages it touches."

"The yellow one just makes it stink to high heaven," Yarin commented.

"The green one solidified, so it's useless," Goom said.

"Uh, guys?" Aquilai piped up, after noticing the numerous samples and concoctions.

"Yes?"

"What?"

"You do know the formula was in the database, right?"

Silence.

"You did check first, right?"

A churlish silence elapsed.

"Okay, you didn't," Aquilai sighed. "C'mon, guys, let's stop playing around."

"We weren't playing around," Yarin protested.

"You don't want to be barred lab access, do you?" Aquilai cautioned. "Like Demos?"

"I wasn't making fiends!" the Nyac protested further. "I would never --"

"Make a mass-increasing microwave?" Aquilai asked.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!" Yarin practically shrieked. He was very defensive about his microwave. "And that mass increase was a fluke!"

"To be fair," Goom said, "at least, it wasn't like that incident with the bathtub of hot coffee."

"True," Aquilai conceded. " I still don't know how GH survived that."

The cure was done, suddenly. Yarin remarked, "Wow. That was quick."

"It looks like saltwater with honey in it," Goom said, analytically. "Are you sure about this being the cure?"

"That's what has in the database," Aquilai said. Then they tested on the last sample subjected to the bath oil. It worked.

"Well, that was surprising," Goom said.

But Aquilai was calling for Cerulean.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 04, 2015, 10:35:54 PM

The FYI and bathtub have been mentioned in the same chapter. It was fate. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2015, 11:57:43 PM

Which gives me pause to wonder if there's enough material to give "Memoirs" its very own wiki.

. . .

Nah. That would be presumptuous, I think. Or possibly pretentious.

Anyway, new chapter tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 05, 2015, 12:00:27 AM

I've considered making a TVTropes page, but nobody would see it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2015, 07:49:13 AM

Eh, probably should wait until Year 9 anyway.

Just curious, to loyal readers of "Memoirs", which is your favorite book?

New book ideas.

• Book DCCCXLV: "Judge, Jury, and Executioner" -- The RAFians must deal with the Ethereal, who will judge RAF as worthy or destroy it.
• Book DCCCXLVI: "Skeleton Sucker" -- The RAFians must deal with a creature that can suck the skeleton out of a creature with an endoskeleton.

Titles are subject to change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Discovery

Raevyn only flapped down and watched. Watched as the Stone Biter approached closer and closer with its slow lumbering gait. Watched as it began to lower its head toward her rather conspicuous hiding place, as if it were a glutton on the lookout for a stray M&M or Skittle that was lost between the folds of a couch.

Then it stopped, and stood up, rather jerkily.

"I truly am sorry, Mr. Rock Biter," a voice said, as a cloaked figure stepped into view. "I do not want to do this to you, but I cannot allow you snack on our comrade."

Cloak did not like doing this, and its correlation to mechbending didn't make it all the much better, either. But Cloak had to manipulate the being's craggy body away from Raevyn, though Cloak wished that there was another way.

"I know that you're a gentle soul, and do not mean us or anyone harm," Cloak continued, placidly, placatingly. Apologetically. "I know that this is not your world, your realm. I know you feel out of place here, but I will return you to your rightful place."

GH (with Leatherhead riding inside his guitar), Saffa, Demos, Faerie, and Mithril swarmed into the old forum site. Raevyn was here, Cloak assured them. But the Rock Biter was occupying his time, and he couldn't give them directions to the poor little birdy.

"The old forum," Faerie said, an unusual tone of reverent awe in her voice. "Where it all started."

"Were you here before?" GH asked, as Leatherhead chirped. "When it all happened?"

Faerie shook her head, "Before my time."

"It was before all of our times," Demos said, brusquely. He had momentarily managed to, surprisingly enough, suppress his demonic nature, which would have revelled in this situation, which afforded him some clarity of thought. "We have to find Raevyn. She doesn't have much time now."

It was always a struggle for him, reconciling his his demonic inclinations, just like how Cloak struggled to reconcile his emotions. But whereas Cloak feared his emotions, the extremes that they could go, Demos had to deal with the demonic sense of ambivalence during times of crisis.

"Well, then," Saffa said. "Let's get started."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2015, 09:27:09 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Cerulean's Gotta Go Fast

"Here is the cure," Aquilai said. "Find the others. Find them before

Cerulean nodded as Aquilai handed him the cure.

Go-go-go-go-go-go-go!
Gotta go fast!
Gotta go fast!
Gotta go fast!
Gotta go faster, faster, faster, faster, faster!
Movin' the speed of sound.
Quickest RAFian around.
Got ourselves a situation.
Stuck in an old location.
With a satisfactory explanation.
No time for relaxation!
Go-go-go-go-go-go-go!
Don't think! Don't blink!
Go go g-g-g-g-go!
Go go g-g-g-g-go!
Cerulean, he's on the run.
Cerulean, he's number one.
Cerulean -- he's getting a text!
So watch out for Cure X!
Gotta go fast! (Cerulean!)
Gotta go fast! (Cerulean!)
Gotta go fast! (Cerulean!)
Gotta go faster, faster, faster, faster, faster!
Go go go g-g-g-g-go!
Go go go g-g-g-g-go!
Cure . . . X!

Cerulean speed through to the location on the text, as apparently, the signal from the others communicators were down, or scrambled, briefly. He eventually found them in the ruins of old RAF.

He delivered the cure, and saw that the Rock Biter was being Walked back to its native Realm by Cloak. It looked exhausting for the Realm Walker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 05, 2015, 09:43:45 AM

Goddamnit. The number of times that song has appeared in crack videos of running scenes from Marvel movies... means it got stuck in my head. :P

Favorite book? Has to be The First Master. Couple of darker ones would come second.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2015, 05:28:55 AM

Ah, yes. I remember you mentioned the First Master as your favorite before, Saffa.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Walking the Rock Biter

Cloak had never done anything like it. He had never even considered Walking with a creature the size of the Rock Biter before. It was like pulling a full-loaded minivan as an average human, very difficult. Exceedingly difficult.

Cloak had also worried. Worried if by doing so may have caused some kind of rupture within the realm. Whether it was in the timeline cuticle, the realm cuticle, the material world, Everlost, the ghost zone, Ledgerdomain, the void space, or whatever, he was sure. He was certain that the realm core, the place where the Celestialsapiens dwell, was perfectly fine, he was sure.

Things would have to be of the uptmost seriousness for the realm core to be threatened, as without that, the realm would have no foundation. The realm would lose its support, and, in theory, become unWalkable. And, again, in theory, it would essentially trap the Realm Walkers would were currently in the realm, or tok up residence. It wouldn't take long for reality itself to dtart to unravel. But fortunately, it's practically impossible to destroy or damage the realm core, not to mention it has the Celestialsapiens protecting it, as it is not only their dwelling place, but also their birthplace.

All this was on Cloak's mind as he briefly brought, the Rock Biter to the Nexus before diving into the next realm, hoping it was the right one. Shadow was always better at navigating the realms than he was. He could find the Prime Universe reasonably okay, but he was only vaguely aware of the Rock Biter's home realm.

He hoped that he would be lucky. But even if he wasn't, he wouldn't rest until he could return this gentle giant back to his rightful realm. The pacifist lithovore deserved at least that much respect and dignity. No matter how exhausting it was for Cloak. He ignored his exhaustion, trying to do right.

Fortunately, he Walked into the right realm. He had returned the Rock-Chewer to his rightful realm. Suddenly, he realized just hiw and why it was so easy to pry the cure from Malice's hand. She was as exhausted as he was now. That bottle . . . could it be the actual cure, and not some misdirection or outright lie of Malice's?

***

Raevyn just laid there, resigned to her fate. Her neck had just transformed into stone. She wished for it to be over already. She was finding that this slow, gradual descent into nonexistence and nonbeing rather grating and excruciating, in a way.

Soon her head would become stone. Then her beak would follow. Then last would be her eyes. Her soul -- or whatever the culmination of her being was -- would linger for a time before dissipating, like a fire that had burned itself out.

She heard something.

"I don't think we should use Malice's concoction, though," a voice said.

Who was that?

Who cared? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

"They look the same, though," came another voice.

Meaningless.

"Yeah, so does vodka and water, but it doesn't mean they're same," came a third voice.

Whatever. In the grand scheme of things, it did not matter much. It was pointless. Everything was pointless. Why struggle? Why waste the energy?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2015, 11:08:21 PM

[spoiler=Sorry -- Hafta Indulge Myself]

Did you ever hear
Of that terrible year,
Way back befor Dpsb was RAFborne?
When Cloak took a holiday?
On the night before RAFmas morn?
It was a year without Memoirs.
A RAFmas Eve so sad.
It was a year without Memoirs.
The worst we ever had.
Cloak woke up one day,
Looking tuckered and gray,
And this is what he said.
"I could sure use some rest,
I’m not feeling my best."
And he yawned as he took to his bed.
There’ll be a year without Memoirs.
"I’m sure they won’t miss me."
There’ll be a year without Memoirs.
Next to our RAFmas tree.
He slept through the day,
As the hours ticked away,
And the time was drawing near.
And the RAFians, they cried,
They thought Cloak had died.
Every eye shed a blue RAFmas tear.
It was a year without Memoirs.
A RAFmas Eve so sad.
It was a year without Memoirs.
The worse we’ve ever had.

[/spoiler]

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Eye on the Birdy

Raevyn was oblivious of her fellow RAFians' efforts. She was just resigned to her fate, her future as being nothing but an overgrown paperweight. The thought was quite bitter, but that was to be expected. Raevyn saw no way out of her situation. She believed that it was incurable, and some beliefs are difficult to break, even if they haven't any basis in fact.

She felt a creeping lack of sensation in her head and face. She did not need to be told. She knew what was happening. Her head and face were becoming stone. She couldn't feel anything at all except from her eyes and beak. She didn't react. She had gone pass the point of caring. She knew that this would happen, so she just let it. She did not resist. She did try to impede its progress.

Then again, there was very little that she could do in her position, in this circumstance. She had no articulation in her body other than her eyes and beak. Her vocal cords were stone now,so she could not speak. It was a wonder that she was even alive, all her internal organs, save her eyeballs andd tongue, were stone now. She no longer had a heart that beat, a stomach that grumbled, lungs with which to breath. Even her brain now was stone. This made no physical sense, as she should have been dead ages ago from a medical standpoint.

This did not improve her mood.

There she sat, an impassive slate-gray statue with living eyes and beak. There she sat, as she waited impatiently for nonexistence. If she could find solace in one thing -- and there wasn't much that she could find solace in -- was that they would have her stone body as a reminder to never be so hasty and trusting in gifts from strangers. Her foolishness could be used as a teaching experience.

Has that what it has come down to? All her life, her experiences? Her joys, her sadnesses? Her fears, angers, and disgusts? Her . . . everything? Just so she could serve as skme bizarre visual aid against making rash decisions?

First Avery Ice disappears, the Rotiart dies, and now . . . now she'll be some statuary relic of her former self. Is every RAFian going to be offed in some way, one-by-one? Until none survive?

She could not stop her mind from pursuing these negative thoughts like a kitten with a ball of yarn. She felt hard press to feel anything, and not just because she had a body of stone, solid stone. She felt lazily ambivalent and indifferent to everything. She was founding herself just wishing that it would hurry up and finish the job.

"She's over here!" a voice nearby called.

Raevyn found herself thinking, So what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 07, 2015, 03:30:00 AM

Well, the carol's not entirely wrong. :P

And since when did you start popping up in chat?

Yeah, I stalk the history. I stalk a lot of things. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2015, 06:25:43 AM

Since last night.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 07, 2015, 08:29:03 AM

Wait, Cloaky's been in chat? Well, I know that I'm never gonna get to bed like ever now. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2015, 08:46:01 AM

It's not like I've never been in chat before. I used to all the time -- before Memoirs, and I was still working on the RAFize Songs thread. The only reason I haven't before last night was because I forgot my password. So I can't sign in as Cloak or CloakedFigure anymore.

And before I ever used the chat, apparently there was someone already on there with my name, impersonating me.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Great Expectations

"This is bad," Saffa said, with a sense of urgency that she reserved for only moments like this. "The clock is really against us right now."

"But which one was the cure?" Demos said. "Both bottles look the same!"

"You mixed up the two?!" Faerie demanded.

"It's not my fault!!" Demos protested, somewhat lamely.

"Augh!" the faerie proclaimed in frustration. "I swear it's like working with sprites!"

She paused as she thought about what she said.

"Never mind, it isn't that annoying," she amended.

"Why did you give them both to Demos to hold anyway?" came a tuckered and tired voice. It was Cloak. Even his body language said quite clearly just how exhausted he was. "Why wasn't Saffa holding one, like she was when I left, and Cerulean holding one?"

None seemed to come up with an answer they thought satisfactory.

"Time is of the essence," Cloak continued. "Though not ideal, we'll have to risk one of them."

"But what if Malice's one isn't what she said it was?" Mithril protested.

Raevyn's beak turned to stone.

"Like I said," Cloak impressed, "it's not ideal. But necessity is trying caution. It's an unfortunate circumstance, to be sure, but we have few options."

"Just use one already!" Saffa shrieked. "Before it's too late to do anything!"

Demos quickly and deftly dumped the contents over Raevyn, who shut her eyes, not daring to believe, not daring to hope. It was already a forgone circumstance in her eyes.

And speaking of eyes . . . they began to turn to stone. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 07, 2015, 09:39:36 AM

Quote

Augh!" the faerie proclaimed in frustration. "I swear it's like working with sprites!"

She paused as she thought about what she said.

"Never mind, it isn't that annoying," she amended.

Knowing what some future books are about... nice foreshadowing. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2015, 11:42:41 PM

Just wait.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
. . . And I Live Again!*

"It . . . it . . . it . . ." Saffa stammered.

"Didn't work," Faerie supplied bluntly.

Leatherhead chirped defiantly. He clearly thought that the RAFians were leaping to conclusions.

"Quiet down now, LH," GH said.

But the crocodile was smarter than the average crocodile, anx chirped defiantly again.

"Don't be like that," GH chided.

"He has the right idea," Cloak said, sensing the changes with the stone statue that was once Raevyn. "There is more happening that meets the eye."

"I don't see anything," Faerie said.

"Mithril?" Cloak said, rounding on him. "Do you sense it, too?"

"I . . . I . . . I . . . that's to say, uh," he stammered. He did not like being on the spot like that. "I guess."

Suddenly, Raevyn's eyes snapped open, glowing white as emerald green lines streaked down her stone body. It was as if it was sheer will made energy, almost like the energy utilized by a Green Lantern ring. The lines were really cracks. Cracks in what appeared to be a stone exoskeleton. These cracks quickly spider-webbed outward, across her stone body.

With a piercing shriek, she spread her wings and clenched her talons as she shook and sloughed off her stone "skin", not unlike a gargoyle from a clan. She was back to normal, completely cured.

She dared not believe that she was actually cured. If she could, she probably would be bawling. She was so sure that her condition was inoperable and incurable. She had allowed herself the descent into the cold, careless mire of despreasion and despair. She had allowed her hope to leave her like an exorcised spirit. Now she knew a joy she never thought she'd ever know again. The feeling of her hope and relief spreading through her, down every feather, to the very tip of her talons, it really was indescribable.

"Be sure that stays catalogued," Cloak noted. "Let's go home."

---

* Reference to that old Disney show, "Gargoyles". I still think it kicked ass. Excuse my language, please.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2015, 05:01:21 AM

That was dramatic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2015, 10:09:30 PM

It happens. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Strongman Security and Song Strumming

"Why do we have to do this?" Saffa grumbled.

The RAFians were called on once again for something that could seem trivial on the surface. A strongman competitition. They were not the judges, just security.

"You don't know the vainity of some of these species," Cloak said. "Tetramands, Vaxasaurians, and First Light knows how many more."

"That's all fine and dandy," Saffa said, nettled, "but why do we have to work security? Who knows id we're needed for a mission or something?"

"Don't be that way, Saffa!" Dpsb said, bracingly. He was wearing his superhero regalia that reminded Cloak of Shazam, but with inversed colors. Greens, silvers, and blacks were the color scheme. "It could be fun."

"Then you and I have some very different definitions of fun, Dpsb," Saffa said, tonelessly. "This is just gonna be some boneheaded people insecure about their masculinity posing and strutting like they're hot stuff, or giving themselves hernias or something by trying to lift up weights they have no business lifting or whatever. I hardly call that entertainment."

"Must be a guy thing, then," Dpsb said.

"This isn't a sport, Dpsb. It's essentially the male equivalent of beauty contests," Cloak said, bluntly, as he prepared for what he assumed would be an afternoon of sheer tedium. Then a Vaxasaurian participant picked a fight with a gloating Tetramand. A fight was about to break out.

"Hey! Hey hey hey!" Cloak shouted, rather parentally, "You two knock that off!"

"Maybe this'll be interesting after all," Saffa muttered, with a wicked smile on her face.

***

Meanwhile, GH was in his thread. He was just lounging on his bed, as the room was taken in semi-darkness. There were thing and bits strewn about, but he was a bachelor. Thst kind of thing was to be expected. He had his guitar and he was strumming out a tune that Leatherhead was tapping his tail to, and bobbing his head rhythmically.

GH sang:

"Down in the forum, all the RAFians were makin' toys
For the good little girls and good little boys.
When the boss busted in, nearly scared them half to death.
Had rifle in his hand and cheap whiskey on his breath.
From his head to his boots, he was covered with ammo.
Like a disgruntled RAFtide Rambo.
He smiled as he said, with a twinkle in his eye,
'Merry RAFmas to all --
now, you're all going to DIE!'
The night Richard went crazy.
The night Richard went insane.
Realized he'd been gettin' a raw deal,
Something finally must have snapped in his brain.
Well, the forum is gone now, he decided to bomb it.
Everywhere you'll find pieces of Cloaky and Nothlit.
And he tied up his mods and held the house-elves hostage.
And he ground up poor Parker into RAF saugage!
He got Abby and Azguard with an old German luger.
And he slashed up Cerulean just like Freddie Kruegar!
And he picked up a flamethrower and he barbequed Nohensen,
And he took a big bite and said 'It tastes just like chicken!'
The night Richard went crazy.
The night Richard went nuts.
Now you can hardly walk around RAF,
Without steppin' in RAFian guts.
There's the National Guard and the FBI.
There's a van from they Eyewitness News,
And helicopters circlin' around in the sky.
And the bullets are flying,
The body count's rising,
And everyone's dyin' to known, oh, Richard, why?
My, my, my, my, my, my,
You used to be such a jolly guy!
Yes, Horse, now Richard's doing time,
In a forum prison for his infamous crime.
Hey, little seal, now don't you cry no more tears!
He'll be out with good behavior . . . in 700 more years.
But now SuperNate's in therapy and Gaz is still nervous.
And the RAFians all got jobs at the postal service!
And they say Queen, she's on the phone every night,
With her lawyer, negotiating the movie rights!
They're talkin' bout -- the night Richard went crazy!
The night Richard flipped.
Broke his back for some uppity members.
Sounds to me like he was tired of gettin' gypped.
Whoa, the night Richard went crazy!
The night Richard went insane!
Realized he'd been gettin' a raw deal,
Something finally must have snapped in his brain!
Whoa, something finally must have snapped in his brain
Tell ya, something finally must have snapped . . . in his brain."

Then he continued strumming as he stared off into space. Leatherhead didn't mind, of course, he enjoyed it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 08, 2015, 10:17:46 PM

That is totally something I'd sing while just sitting in my room bored. :P

Also, I know that's an adaptation of a Weird Al song, but it really reminds me of the Psychostick Christmas EP. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_aa0eaTZ0s)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 08, 2015, 10:38:08 PM

Hah, spot on, pretty sure that's exactly how an interaction between me and Dpsb would go down in real life. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 09, 2015, 07:13:30 AM

Good, then. ;)

New chapter. Warning: this chapter may be a little dour.
 

BOOK CVII:
WHIRLING DERVISHES
CHAPTER ONE:
Lagoon Party

"Again?" Saffa said.

"The life of a RAFian isn't an easy one," Abby said.

"It's just another security job," Cloak said. "And a Pisccis Volann lagoon party."

"Why are we even doing this?" Saffa said.

"Because they requested we work security," Underseen said. "They've been having trouble from the Knights."

"Just like the Pyronite rave and that strongman competition," Cloak noted. "We were fortunate that they decided not to show up there. They've become little more than terrorists recently."

"I shutter to think shat they may have done at that school," Abby noted.

"They claim that that shooter was unaffiliated to them," Cloak said, as the Pisccis Volann partied about in this sheltered lagoon, having a good old time. "But that could be just them trying to distance themselves Kevin Kyle Kelley."

"'The Triple K Killer'," Saffa acknowledged, as they watched the younger Pisccis Volann muck about, having a good old time. "Though he, fortunately, never killed anyone. But it didn't stop media sensationalism, however."

"Bern Bridges isn't helping matters, either," Cloak said, scanning the lagoon with both his eyes and his Earthsight. "Claiming that we should have somehow intervened, blatantly ignoring that Terenia and Gaz put him down before he could take anyone out. Before any heartache could happen. Though they couldn't stop him from taking his own life, which Bridges tried to turn around and make it their fault. Ugh."

"Anyone know just why he even went through with this plan to shoot up the school?" Abby asked.

"Who knows anymore?" Underseen said. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was things like media that doesn't fact-check. You saw that . . . that 'manifesto' of his?"

"I haven't had the pleasure," Saffa said, speaking the last word sourly.

"No," Abby said.

"Count yourself lucky then," Cloak said.

"Yeah," Underseen agreed. "Some of the most vile, vitriolic stuff ever. Full of fact distortion, outright fabrications, straw men, and . . . ugh. It was the utmost filthy thing I ever seen, and I've fought the Knights."

"With the grandiose missions involving Malice's schemes and supernatural and alien creatures," Saffa spoke thoughtfully, " you always tend to forgot that people like this exist. People who stew in their bigoted hatred until they, like a volcanic eruption, reach that breaking point. Either unable or unwilling to learn the facts, believing false and fabricated information with an almost religious devotion . . . I doubt he was first, or last, to be mislead like this."

"Heavy," Underseen commented.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 09, 2015, 07:28:45 AM

Very subtle. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 09, 2015, 07:32:00 AM

*shrugs* Eh.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Someone's Watching You . . .

Soon, the party ended and the RAFian services no longer was required. So, the four began to trek to the forum. They walked, minds still full of the conversation.

Cloak was reminded heavily of why he despised guns. They were uncivil devices that anyone could use to kill with little to no skill, and that was their only purpose. He had never wielded one, and had no desire do so, even if he didn't have his control over the Six Elements and his own natural energy abilities. Even if he was powerless, he wouldn't wield one.

He did not know just where his distaste for such weaponry came from, but he did possess it. He just found them so crass, with no real subtlety or finesse. The spate of events similar to that of the so-called 'Triple-K Killer' probably played a part. He never understood this fascination humans seemed to have with guns. With things made only to kill . . . why not have pet black mambas slither around lose in your domicile, or have a pet funnel-web spider ride around on your shoulder, or hold a poison dart frog a fingerless gloved hand?

Humans. What an enigma.

Although, Cloak was given pause as he thought about it. Was his kind really any different? True, they may not have a love of guns, as Realm Walkers haven't any real need for them, but they can easily turn a blind eye to tragedy just as easily as the humans can. Look at the Council. Fully willing to ignore break-outs from the Oblivion Gate. Willing to ignore that Malice was on the loose.

And, in their willful and wonton ignorance, they had potentially endangered those who they were charged to not only govern, but protect. But Council corruption was inevitable. It was inevitable for them to eventually covet their seat of power rather than do their jobs. It was one reason that Cloak refused their offer so long ago.

The four continued to walk in silence for a bit, before Cloak stopped. He turned around and looked behind them.

"Cloak, what is it?" Abby said, at once.

Cloak said nothing, but he had sensed something. Something that he had difficulty describing. He knew one thing though. They were being watched. Just by what, though, he could not really say. He just did not like this feeling of many eyes on him. He did not like the spotlight, and actively avoided any thing that would garner fame.

"Cloak?" Underseen prompted.

Cloak continued to stare at some point behind them, scanning it intently. Did that bush move? No . . . no, he must've imagined it. But the nagging tug in the pit of his stomach would not leave him be.

"Cloak!" Saffa yelled, getting his attention. "What's up?"

"N-nothing," Cloak said, but his tone was obviously unsure. Then he spoke in a firmer tone. "It's nothing."

But something had obviously unsettled him, but he chose to ignore it, as they made their way back to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2015, 03:56:13 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
They Followed Them to RAF One Day . . .

The feeling did not abandon Cloak like he had hoped.

It persisted. It lingered. Cloak fought the urge to turn around again, because the same thing would just happen again. He would not be able to see whatever it was that was following them. Had he put his mind to it, he woukd have had all of them fly to the forum. Cloak could ride one of his energy discs, and the other three could shift into flying forms. But even that was no guarantee that they'd lose their pursuers.

He presumed that whoever was following them was not invisible. His Realm Walker eyes would not be so easily deceived. He could see through things like Invisibility Cloaks and magical glamours, as all Realm Walkers can. There's not much, if anything, that Realm Walker eyes cannot see through. The illusions of a Black Mercy is one of them.

Cloak shuddered at that thought. He still remembered his dream world -- it was not something you'd easily forgot. A world where you have everything that you'd ever want . . . every deep desire of one's heart . . . is it any wonder why many victims of the Black Mercy never want the parasite, the predator, removed. Sometimes, the fantasy is better than reality. It may not be real, but it is real to the victim, until the Black Mercy sucks them dry. Even then, the fantasy doesn't last forever. Nothing is forever.

Cloak really wished this tugging feeling his abdomen would go away. He was sensing something, something that could hide in such away that his Earthsight was useless. He was, again, forced to recognize just how dependent on his Earthsight he was. He was effectively halfblind without it. He could Metalsight and Woodsight some, but not to the acute degree of his Earthsight, as he uses that far more often.

But he assuaged any misgivings he had with the knowledge that Code Avalon would more than likely prevent whatever creature or creatures that caused the Realm Walker this disquiet from crossing the forum's threshold. Especially if they were malicious little creatures, like imps or Death Battle haters. He should put these concerns and nagging senses behind him.

However, Cloak was right to worry. They were being watched. Being watched, and pursued, by some of the most irritating creatures imaginable. And Code Avalon didn't stop them from entering. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2015, 09:02:22 PM

This is gonna have to tide you over until Saturday, sorry.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
They Come

When the quartet walked into the forum, they saw GH doing his best Kurt Cobain impression, which thoroughly nonplussed Cloak, and he was singing.

"What is this song all about?
Can't figure any lyrics out.
How do the words to it go?
I wish you'd tell me, I don't know.
Don't know, don't know, don't know, I don't know
Don't know, don't know, don't know . . .
Now I'm babblin'' and I'm screamin'
And I don't know what I'm singin'.
Crank the volume, ears are bleedin'!
I still don't know what I'm singin'.
I'm so loud and incoherent!
Boy, this oughta bug your parents.
Yeah!
It's unintel-ligible.
I just can't get it through my skull.
It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss
With all these marbles in my mouth!
Don't know, don't know, don't know, I don't know
Don't know, don't know, don't know . . .
Well, I don't sound like Madonna
Here I am now, it's my nirvana.
Sing distinctly? I don't wanna!
Stop waving that paddle.
I must remember this for battle!
Yeah!
And I forgot the next verse.
Oh well, I guess it pays to rehearse.
The lyric sheet's so hard to find . . .
What are the words? Oh, never mind!
Don't know, don't know, don't know, oh no
Don't know, don't know, don't know . . .
Well, I'm yellin' and I'm playin'.
But I don't know what I'm sayin'
What's the message I'm conveyin'?
Can you tell me what I'm singin'?
Do have you got some idea?
Didn't think so -- well, I'll see ya!
Sayonara, sayonara,
Ayonawa, odinawa,
Odinaya, yodinaya,
Yadda, yadda, yaaah, yaaah,
Ayaayaaaah!"

"GH," Saffa said, succinctly, "just how much sleep have you had?"

GH's reply was rather sheepish, "Uh, three."

"Three what, perchance?"

"Uh . . . hours."

"Go. Sleep. Now," Saffa insisted.

Then something barged into the forum, almost as if they were a swarm of locusts. Excelt they were about the size of a mouse. They were almost like multicolored doxies, only with wings more like butterflies or moths in physiology. They had furry humanoid bodies, not unlike doll-sized Grinches. They had faces akin to that of a gremlin, with bushy hair that one could assume was a bad wig or a Trump haircut and big, batlike ears. They had big, expressive, almost-anime eyes. They wore no clothing, but their thick fur was what kept them warm.

"Puking pixies!" Faerie spat. "Not them. Please, lord, not them. Anything but them!"

Cloak found himself immediately disliking them because of their incessant giggles and high-pitched voices grated on him easily. He didn't know why they illicted such a hostile reaction in Faerie, thought.

"What are they?" Abby asked.

Faerie couldn't help but speak with derisive disgust, " Sprites. Absolutely, and without a single doubt, the most annoying species in existence!"

The sprites themselves seemed oblivious to this proclamation, and seemed to live only for fun times. The incessant chattering noise that was their giggled made Cloak want to swat at them.

"Oh, they don't seem so bad," Saffa said.

"Hey! Listen!" one pronounced.

"Hey! Listen!" another agreed.

"Hey! Listen!" another added.

"I changed my mind. Kill them. Kill them with fire," Saffa said, dryly, immediately following this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 10, 2015, 09:17:01 PM

Oh, god, the sprites are Navi. Yeah, I can see why you built up their obnoxious. . . ness. . . . Is that a word?

Quote from: CloakedFigure on December 10, 2015, 09:02:22 PM

When the quartet walked into the forum, they saw GH doing his best Kurt Cobain impression, which thoroughly nonplussed Cloak, and he was singing.

. . . So I did copious amounts of heroin and played a Fender Jaguar? I can only endorse one of those activities, and it's the one that doesn't involve injecting opiates intravenously.

Actually, jokes aside, I think I do a pretty decent Kurt Cobain impression, if I say so myself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 10, 2015, 10:50:01 PM

Oh, god, they're like children on trains. Especially in second class.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 11, 2015, 10:41:25 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Fun. Right.

"Very funny, Saffa," Abby said.

"I'm serious," Saffa said, completely deadpan. "Very serious."

"I'm not too far from agreeing," Cloak said.

Then one sprite giggled -- how Cloak hated that sound  -- then flew with alarming rapidly in a rather large, but tight circle to lift GH up. But the flight path was in control of GH and not the sprite. The sprite was essentially allowing him to fly.

"Woo!" he exclaimed. "These sprites are alright!"

"No. No, they are not." Faerie said.

"That sounds a little speciesist," Underseen noted.

"You don't know them like I do," Faerie said, smacking one away.

"How do you know them?" Quaf said.

"I . . . I rather not talk about it," Faerie said, repressively.

"Oh, c'mon, Faerie," Sorunome conjoled. Then she addressed a sprite, "Uh, no. No, thank you, I can fly on my own, thanks." Then, as the sprite flew away looking disappointed and dejected, she returned to conjole Faerie, but was cut of by the faerie herself.

"I said no, Sorunome!" Faerie said, very firmly. "These sprites may seem like fun in the short-term, but, mark my words, the novelty will soon wear off. And it will wear off."

She stared around to see no one but Cloak and Saffa really paying attention to her.

"Mark my words," she finished, somewhat lamely. "It starts off with fun and games, then the sun sets . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 12, 2015, 07:35:06 AM

Finally got off work for the weekend and got the PDF up. Next time I'm just taking this thing with me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 12, 2015, 08:16:19 AM

Thank you kindly. :)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
A Serious Drawback

"Get any closer to me, and you won't be leaving here alive, sprite," Cloak said, as one approached him cheekily. He was in a very irritable mood right now. "Don't tempt me, pal. Go. Away."

"Come sun up," Faerie said, "the honeymoon will be over."

"What d'you mean exactly?" Saffa asked.

"You'll find out soon enough," Faerie said, unintentionally ominious. "You'll find out at daybreak."

"You don't have to be so cryptic, you know," Saffa said.

***

The RAFians had to explain the sprites that they had to sleep at night, as the sun was beginning his slow descent into its nightly slumber. But the sprites were not done having fun, and was wondering why everyone had been slowing down, apparently utterly unfamiliar with the concept of exhaustion.

Apparently, sprites can go on and on forever, with no sign of whatever their source of sustenance was. This was considered highly suspect by Cloak, but Cloak had had problems with suspicion and paranoia. He was being very guarded with these sprite people.

This seemed unfathomable by species well aware of the fact exhaustion exist. It seemed to to be a bit of interspecies disconnect, of sort. They had to explain that sleeping ends during the daytime, and, when pressed, they had to explain that was when the sun came back up. They seemed somewhat satisfied with that explanation, perhaps a little too satisfied.

Yeah, that wouldn't come to bite them in the butt in the end.

***

Naturally, at daybreak, with the excpetion of Faerie, Cloak, and Saffa, all RAFians were awakened by excited sprites, giggling like schoolgirls. They were having as much fun as the RAFians the day previously, and they eagerly keen to restart that fun.

What they didn't anticipate was the RAFian grogginess. They seemed to ignored that, and were very eager for everyone to get up. Suddenly, the sprite popularity, as Faerie predicted, began to plummet. But another day of fun flying about and things, quickly put it out of their collective minds.

Cloak didn't understand this. It was obvious that they'd just do this again tomorrow, right? But he just chalked it up to one of those idiosyncrasies that he'd never be able to grasp.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 12, 2015, 09:37:58 AM

That's it, the next thing I'm drawing is Saffa's "white people" eyeroll. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2015, 11:47:24 AM

Draw me and gh! ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Fun Becomes Done

The next few days Cloak, Saffa, and Faerie found grating. The house-elves were not too thrilled with the sprites either, but they had work to do. They could not be bothered with being annoyed, the place needed to be cleaned and such. Cloak had to admire their dedication.

The others were starting to feel the same, slowly but surely. The flying games started to become old and tired, but the sprites remained blissfully ignorant of this change, oblivious whilst reveling about in their childish glee. Their childlike naivety led the sprites to overlook and not notice the RAFians reluctance to their games.

"Alright, alright," Dino said, her tone not betraying her annoyance, "Sprinkles, put me down now."

"Sprinkles?" Saffa expression due to hearing such an overly-saccharine name was priceless. Then Sprinkles started jabbering that annoying, high-pitched voice, that she agreed with Cloak on being grating. The game of "Twenty Thousand Questions" never really appealed to her. "Oh, shut it already!"

While they were still giving Cloak a wide birth, they did not hold the same kind of . . . of fear that they had of Cloak. The Realm Walker clearly radiated a power that they did not want to trifle with, or perhaps they just sensed his natural Walker corona.

"Get. Away. From. Me," Faerie said, with gnashing teeth dangerously, addressing a puke green sprite. "Or I shall not be responsible FOR MY ACTIONS!!"

The feeling seemed to be catching. The others were really liking be woken up at the crack of dawn every morning. After a while, that starts to wear on people. Their feelings toward the sprites were frosty and threadbare, at most, now. But the sprites remained blissfully oblivious of this waning popularity.

It was only a matter of time before someone snapped.

Meanwhile, Cloak was still in one of his moods. He was rather prone to lashing out when he got like this, and he usually isolated himself, stole himself away from everyone. Also because he was very close to incinerating those sprites, though it probably was not undue.

He spent this time doing what he usually did during these timespans. Introspection.

Cloak, despite all appearances to the contrary, was a gentle soul. He never liked killing, and believed it not to be as easy as the inexperienced believed it to be. It was one reason that he never really used his power at its full zenith. Wait . . . that was not exactly accurate, was it? When he was under the influence of the Touch of Corruption, inflicted on him by the son of Cataclysm, he lost all his compunction to pacifism, lost all the fear of his admittingly massive power. He felt shame to admit that, under the influence of the Touch, he actually reveled in such power, losing every ounce of compassion he possessed. He felt that was his greatest shame, and was just thankful that Faith and Shadow were there to stop him . . .

He looked at his black gloved right hand, as he stood alone in his thread. He again found himself wondering if he was really worthy of this burden of power. Wondering if he was wielding it was wisely. Wondering . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 14, 2015, 12:45:10 AM

Well I'm not really that skilled at drawing animals (yet), so Realm Walkers may be a bit of a problem. :P

Also, where did the black glove come from?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 14, 2015, 12:54:21 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on December 13, 2015, 11:47:24 AM

Draw me and gh! ;)

Quote from: Saffa on December 14, 2015, 12:45:10 AM

Well I'm not really that skilled at drawing animals (yet), so Realm Walkers may be a bit of a problem. :P

I'm sure it would turn out better than drawing me, at least. Your hand would just fall off in protest as soon as you'd start to draw my face. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2015, 04:11:33 AM

Quote from: Saffa on December 14, 2015, 12:45:10 AM

Also, where did the black glove come from?

It's part of my normal Realm Walker attire. The other hand is gloved too.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Get Lost!!

"Hey! Listen! Hey, listen! Hey, listen! " a voicd was saying.

GH groaned and uttered an audible, frustrated sigh.

"C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!" a sprite declared. "Get up, get up, get up!"

GH groaned again and defiantly turned over in his bed. He had difficulty going to sleep last night, as the sprite decided to go through his things during the dead of the night, and it wasn't too discrete about it.

"The sun is coming up! It's time to play! It's sunrise!" the sprite insisted excitedly. "The sun is coming back! Sorta."

GH threw his pillow at the sprite, who still did not seem to get the message, thinking that this was a semi-new game, as GH did it the day preciously as well, but had hit Leatherhead by mistake. Leatherhead had apparently decided that this was the sprite's fault, and, in so following this belief, would snap at the spindly limbs of the creatures if they got within range.

"C'mon, friend! It is time to play!"

"Go away, Cupcake," GH muttered.

"C'mon!" the sprite whined. There was a soft twang sound, and GH's eyes snapped open as anger seethed violently within him.

GH flung his legs over his bed in a very angry and hostile manner. Cupcake remained oblivious to this irritation on the part of the RAFian, instead it thought that it had successfully conjoled GH into playing with it.

"Yay!"

"Knock it off!" GH snarled harshly. He didn't care how severe and cross he sounded. He was tired of being woken up at the crack of dawn. "Get. Out."

"What?"

"I said, GET OUT!!" GH roared harshly. He had snapped. "I MEAN it this time!! Get the BLOODY HELL out of my thread!!"

Cupcake looked a bit hurt at his tone, but clearly did not seem to understand. But GH's tirade was not done. He was very fed up.

"I will NOT be getting up at the fracking crack of dawn anymorw!! I will have some time to myself, to do as I please!! Go away, Cupcake! Just go away! Get the hell out of here!! You wore out your welcome!! You wore it out a long time ago!! I've tried to be nice, but that's over now. Now, get!! Lost!!"

***

There were similar reactions from the other RAFians, except Cloak, Faerie, Saffa, and Estelore (who wasn't even present). And, yet, the sprites still did not get it. They did not understand nor comprehend that the RAFians were exceedingly annoyed with them. They just wanted to play. Was that so wrong?

Saffa surveyed these reactions rather placidly from her own thread, decorated in her unique tastes. She couldn't help but wonder what took the others so long to come to the conclusion that these sprites were very annoying.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 14, 2015, 08:23:47 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on December 14, 2015, 04:11:33 AM

"I will NOT be getting up at the fracking crack of dawn anymorw!! I will have some time to myself, to do as I please!!

Pretty much my reaction when I graduated high school. :P

Also, if you're implying that the Sprite broke a string on a guitar (which I think you are), there is no way it would be leaving this encounter alive.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2015, 09:14:18 PM

Naw, just stepped on and tripped over on of the strings. Your guitar is as iconic to you as my cloak is to me, so I wouldn't destroy any part of it.

. . .

*sinister look* This year anyway.

. . .

God, I've been overdoing it with Markiplier Prop Hunt videos.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 15, 2015, 12:17:43 AM

As a person who usually prefers waking at the very healthy hour of 12 pm, I feel you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2015, 10:32:04 PM

Sorry about the lack of a new chapter. It was a busy day for me, and so will tomorrow.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Again?

But the sprites still were have trouble understanding the concept that the RAFians were fed up with them. They tended have simplistic minds, with naive, overbearing personalities. As well as stupidly saccharine names.

"You need to leave," Cloak said, very bluntly. "You have worn out your welcome, sprites. You have also overstayed that welcome. You need to leave."

Still the concept was apparently too massive for their simple minds.

"People do not appreciate being woken up at the crack of dawn," Faerie said, as the sprites recoiled as she flew closer, in a slow, dignified manner. "People do not appreciate the montony of your flight games when they end with the same result, day in, day out. Your very voices are quite grating on some of us, as well."

Still, they did not seem to get it.

"Look." GH said, guitar safely hung from his back, with Leatherhead on his shoulder. "This is our place. Not yours. And you, all of you, sprites have worn your welcomes until they were threadbare. We have tired of your monotonous games and your infernal antics. Get lost. Get lost and never return."

Still the sprites seemed confused and nonplussed.

"What GH is saying is --" Abby attempted to translate.

"LEAVE!!" GH interrupted loudly and indiscretely. "Just LEAVE!! Go back to wherever you call home and leave us to ours!"

The sprites hesitated.

"God, these guys are more dense than that ice ifrit," Saffa noted.

"You're mean," a pink, frilly sprite said.

Saffa rolled her eyes in indifference. Then she was secretly shocked when they actually left the forum.

"Whoa. They finally got it." Dino said, surprised.

"Are they really gone?" Dpsb said, incredulous. "F-For good?"

"Probably not," Cloak replied, ever the pessimist.

"Cloak's right," Faerie said. "That was too easy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2015, 11:09:45 PM

I'll update my sig tomorrow.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Petulant Pests

Cloak was an adolescent. And he was sitting in a pale yellow car in the style of G1 Arcee's vehicle form. Cloak was not driving upon this garish rainbow road in a void of darkness, but his father was. Brute whistled brightly, before singing:

"Do ya need a break from modern livin'?
Do ya long to shed your weary load?
If your nerves are raw,
And your brain is fried,
Just grab a friend and take a ride!
Together, upon the open realm!"

Cloak replied, in a snappish, grouchy manner.

"All in all, I'd rather have detention.
All in all, I'd rather eat a Politoed.
And Dad drives like such a klutz*
That I'm about to hurl my guts
Directly upon the pen realm!"

His father continued:

"There's nothin' can upset me
'Cause now we're on our way!
Our trusty map will guide us straight and true.
When I see that rainbow highway, I could cry!"

Cloak added:

"Ya know, that's funny, so could I!"

Both sang:

"Just bein' out on the open realm."

Then Saffa, Abby, and Sakki popped out of a pianist's piano that he was playing on the bed of a beat-up pickup truck.

"Howdy boys!
Is this the way to Asheville?"

The gorilla-form Realm Walker, Monger, spoke with a choleric intonation.

"Watch it, Mac!
Or you'll be gettin' towed!"

Malice passed by, in the back of a prison truck, singing:

"I'm in no hurry to arrive
'Cause I'll be turnin' ninety-five
The next time I see the open realm!

Then a Skitty riding a Wailord scooted by somehow, as the Skitty sang:

"Just a week of rest and relaxtion."

"Yeah!" the Wailord agreed.

Then the Skitty sang:

"And the odd romantic episode."

Dagger, Cloak's younger sister, sang, as she sped by:

"Look out, you dirtbags!
Eat my dust!
From now on, I own the open realm!"

But the song never got to be completed, as Cloak's Earthsight blared to him, rousing him from his sleep, more noticeable than ten alarms set to four a.m. Something was most certainly happening, and Cloak had an idea that the pixies -- er, the sprites -- were involved. He could tell through his Earthsight what was happening, able to feel the very dirt itself.

They were no longer tethered to the ground. RAF was aloft, without really any rhyme or reason, only that it rose up like Angel Island, only they didn't have a Master Emerald.

---

*It's true. My dad can be a rather reckless driver.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 16, 2015, 11:16:57 PM

Well, that's enough shrooms for tonight.

Also, loving the hot Skitty on Wailord action. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 16, 2015, 11:43:07 PM

Wasn't the title "Petulant Pests" used somewhere else or am I hallucinating?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 17, 2015, 10:08:26 AM

Quote from: gh on December 16, 2015, 11:16:57 PM

Well, that's enough shrooms for tonight.

Cloak was sleeping. Dreaming. But I fixed it to make it a bit more clear.

Quote from: gh on December 16, 2015, 11:16:57 PM

Also, loving the hot Skitty on Wailord action. :P

Well, it fits doesn't it?

. . .

Wait . . . that came out wrong.

Quote from: Saffa on December 16, 2015, 11:43:07 PM

Wasn't the title "Petulant Pests" used somewhere else or am I hallucinating?

Possibly. Some chapter titles are liabel to be the same, as I don't memorize them. :shrug:

God knows I've used the "It's A Trap!" chapter title a number of times.

:edit: Sorry for the delay.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
No Means No!

Cloak still was a bit groggy, but he was becoming more and more awake with each step. With each step, his Earthsight told him again and again that RAF was no longer connected with the ground, other than the floating mound upon which the forum's buildings stood. The Board Bored building, the auditorium, the Media Area building, the mess hall, the General Board building, the infirmary, the Animorphs Section complex, the personal thread buildings (the housing building, in another words -- the dormitories, so to speak), the nearby lake, and the maintenance and administrative buildings . . . all intact. Even Pootang's prison (although it was more like a habitat, if anything) was still intact as well and Code Avalon was still in place. It was like Asteroid M and Angel Island mashed together.

Cloak was the first one to arrive and analyze the scene. They were quite a distance up, above the clouds, but still well within the atmosphere. He knew the sprites were annoying and grating on one's patience, but he never bothered to fathom just how spiteful they could be. Cloak noted the impressive stamina they possessed to have hefted up what essentially amounted to a mountaintop, though Cloak surmised it could just be due to sheer magic, an art that he, admittingly, had little knowledge with.

He wondered, about a half-hour later, just why no one else was showing up to notice this. Then again, it was still dark out. The sun has not yet rose. Cloak had a habit of being a bit of an early-riser anyway.

Soon enough, the others started to filter out of their threads, and seemed unaware of the change at first. But it was readily noticeable by slightly thinner atmosphere and by the sprites everywhere, each wearing a spiteful look on its face.

"Now you hafta play with us," one sneered. A bright orange one.

"And if we say no?" Faerie growled.

"You won't!" another said, colored a metalic blue.

"Hopin' you're not hedging your bets on that one, Hon," Faerie said, dryly.

"Come!" said one the color of a Twinkie. "Come come come come come come!"

"It's time to play!!" said one the color of a doxy. "Playtime!! Now!!"

"No," Cloak said, standing with his feet apart, cloak billowing melodramatically.

"It's playtime. It is time to play." Said another of indefinate fur color. Its tone was supossed to be dark and intimidating, but came off laughable with that squeaky voice of its. "Or else."

"Don't you threaten me, pipsqueak." Cloak growled. "No means no. We all have had far enough of your antics. Now, listen to me. We do not want to play with you. We haven't any interest in it. You shall leave without any resistance. No means no."

"Play with us," a pinky, frilly sprite spoke. "Or else."

There was no mistaking the threat in that line. Cloak didn't take kindly to threats.

"Or else! Or else! Or else!" It had now become a rather beignly sinister chant for the sprites. "Or else! Or else! Or else!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 18, 2015, 09:23:03 AM

Good thing I stalk the chat history, or I would've missed this chapter. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2015, 09:38:30 AM

Exactly why I put it there.  ;D

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Peskipiksi Nomi!

"Or else! Or else! Or else!"

"Or else what?"

"Or else! Or else! Or else!"

"Isn't it obvious, Dpsb?" Cloak said, staring at the gyrating sprites coldy as they continued their chant.

"Or else! Or else! Or else!"

"Is what obvious?"

"Or else! Or else! Or else!"

"SHUT UP!!" Saffa and GH roared, the sprites' grating chant having pushed them too far.

"OR ELSE! OR ELSE! OR ELSE!" It just served to make them louder and more obnoxious. Both Saffa and GH facepalmed hard.

"We're hovering in midair, maybe fifty or a hundred of your miles," Cloak said.

"OR ELSE! OR ELSE! OR ELSE!!"

"But . . . it doesn't look like we're --"

"OR ELSE! OR ELSE! OR ELSE!!

"-- The landmass itself is floating. Not unlike how they supported the nonflier RAFians for the past couple days."

"OR ELSE! OR ELSE! OR ELSE!!"

"So we're basically screwed, right?" GH said. "If we don't give in, they let us drop to our doom, right?"

"OR ELSE! OR ELSE! OR ELSE!!"

"You insult me, GH." Cloak said, quietly, though his voice was lost in the sprites' loud, cacophonous chant.

"OR ELSE! OR ELSE! OR ELSE!!"

"ENOUGH!!" Cloak roared a roar that could be heard for two miles. The sprites piped down. "Sprites. It is time you left. And left for good."

"But they are holding up the forum!" Dino protested.

"Some of us can't fly!" Goom protested.

"What?" the sprite called Sprinkles spluttered.

"You heard me." Cloak said. "Let it drop."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 18, 2015, 11:00:18 PM

OH MY GAAAWWWDDDD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2015, 07:39:06 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Landmass Levitation

Saffa's response was an elegant one.

"OH MY GAAAWWWDDDD!"

"You don't want us to drop your home," a sprite called Rainbow said. Cloak really was not liking these overly saccharine names. "You'd die when you fall."

"But will we fall?" Cloak countered, wiggling his toes and smirking mischievously.

"Why is it when he smiles like that I get a chill up my spine?" GH said.

"Because you're a pansy?" Abby teased.

"Hey!" he protested.

"We are holding you up," a sprite called Flower said. "We stop. You fall."

"Oh, really?" he said, unimpressed, examining his black gloved hand almost indifferent, as he addressed the swarm of millions. "Are you sure about that assertion, sprite? I think your plan to unify your home with ours has a gaping flaw in it."

"No flaw!" Cupcake said, with hearty, virulent dispute.

"Perfect plan!" Rainbow replied.

"Is it now?" Cloak said, with mock surprise. "When you are not holding up the forum?"

"We are!" a sprite called Sugar said.

"No." Cloak said, firmer now. "You are not."

"Lies!" Several sprites hissed out.

"But it is true," Cloak said. "If you are so confident that you are holding the forum up, stop supporting it for the briefest of seconds. Let it dip, let it fall."

"Cloak, are you sure about this?" Saffa said, anxiously.

"I know what I'm doing Saffa." Cloak replied calmly, over his shoulder. He hadn't moved from his spot an inch. And he had good reason for it.

"You're crazy," Sprinkles said.

"Indulge me," Cloak said, with a steely glint in his eye. "Just stop for a moment."

With some hesitation and trepidation, they acquiesced. But the forum did not fall. It remained hovering there, seemingly unsupported.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2015, 09:23:44 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Wising Up

"Impossible!" Rainbow gasped.

The forum remained intact, hovering pleasantly and benignly. It remained stationary, not rotating at all. All the building remained intact and undamaged, even cosmetically.

"How?" Cupcake said.

But the RAFians understood what was going on, and they watched Cloak intently, wondering how he was going to play this.

"See?" Cloak said, with a snap to his tone. "You weren't supporting anything. Otherwise, the landmass and buildings probably would not be intact."

The last bit was a bit of conjecture, but the bluster might work in their favor. But it was best not to play all of his cards just yet, he felt. He had to keep it hidden that he --

"You." came the reply of a sprite named Muffin. It's tone and body language was accusatory and angry. "You did this. Somehow."

Cloak played it cool, "Did I now?"

"Yes!" it proclaimed. "Why do you want to take our fun from us?!"

"Your fun." Cloak repeated harshly. It was a deliberate harshness as his eyes became golden-scarlet suns. "Your fun. You attempt to kidnap all of us, hold us hostage, just so we can bend to your whims. You have no concerns for our wants and our needs. No, in your constant search of 'fun', you completely disregard them for your own wants and needs."

Silence.

"I initially thought of you sprites as irritating creatures unaware of just how annoying they are," Cloak continued, voice low and constant. "But now I see an underlying truth. Yours is a selfish species, an ethnocentric one. Though one could argue that of any species, I suppose. I just hope at least one sect of your species is not like this, I hate to make sweeping generalizations about this."

Silence. They didn't understand what Cloak was saying. This frustrated the Realm Walker.

"They don't understand a word you're saying, Cloak," Faerie said.

"I realized that, Faerie, thanks." Cloak said, rather more curt than he intended.

"Whatever you're doing, stop it!" a sprite called Cake (though it is unknown if it is a liar) demanded.

"No," Cloak said coolly.

"Stop it!" a sprite named Cinnamon yelled.

"Hmmm," Cloak said, as the forum started to slowly, subtly sink beneath the clouds once more. "If you insist."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 19, 2015, 10:28:13 PM

Well, you have done this before, after all.

Heh, chucked at the Cake. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2015, 08:14:54 AM

You chucked what at the Cake? ;)

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Down, Up, Down, Down . . .

The clouds rushed over the landmass, like a frothing sea. It was almost a recreation of the sinking of Atlantis. The forum was being slowly lowered from this strange flooring of cloud. And, all the while, the sprites stared, dumbstruck and immobilized from sheer shock.

And, all through this, Cloak did not move, did not flinch, did not react. He had his arms folded to his chest in a relaxed sort of way, and an almost bored look on his face. To him, the descent wasn't at all frightening, as he was was in conscious control over it. The other RAFians were a bit more nervous, understandably.

The forum was quickly submerging beneath the clouds, and was completely below the clouds before the sprites reacted. They dove down, and began to whirl, to circle around the forum in a whirling dervish. They were trying to pull it back up again. Cloak had foreseen this, but it annoyed him just the same.

The sprites managed to make the landmass rise somewhat. Cloak could see that he would have to exercise more of his power in order to accomplish what he wanted. This was demonstrated when  a single tongue of golden scarlet energy flew from the edge of each of his eyes, almost like tears.

Of course, the sprites weren't going to stop trying to prevent Cloak from returning RAF to its rightful spot. And they quickly realized that they could not stop the momentum of the landmass, now that Cloak increased the amount of power that he was putting behind it. It was clear that they were no match, in terms of sheer power, as Cloak was still only using a fraction of his power. Mostly because tapping into his full potential actually terrified the Realm Walker.

So the sprites decided that the best option was to attack Cloak, to separate him from the ground, and he was aware of them coming to this conclusion.

They shot down, a comet of magical energy, only to be repulsed by a pulse of aerokinetically thrown wind. But this had the unfortunate circumstance causing the forum to lurch downward six feet before Cloak "caught" it.

It was no good -- safely lowering the forum back down to the ground and battling the sprites took too much concentration to do at the same time, even if he tapped into more of his power. He only had so much focus.

And, even so, he was only one man.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 20, 2015, 08:54:07 AM

... I meant to type "chuckled". My phone has a brain of its own.

Cloak could use some backup.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2015, 09:39:54 AM

Funny you should say 'backup' . . .

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Pop, Pop, Pop

The sprites were regrouping for another attack, only they weren't going to be repelled by Cloak.

"Oh, I have had just about ENOUGH of you!!" Faerie roared in frustrated annoyance. She was accompanied by an agreeing hawk shriek.

Faerie and Saffa began to mercilessly pop the sprites out of the sky. But it didn't escape Cloak's notice that neither had actually killed the sprites. They weren't so cold-hearted to do so, though it was, admittingly, tempting to do such.

But the two women weren't the only RAFians getting into the fight. Helen and Sam were using their respective green and violet constructs to push the sprites away, popping them out the sky. Parker was using his Falco Armor, which allowed him to fly, though not indefinitely, and taking potshots at the sprites . . . and arguing with Tyr in a very much Iron Man-Jarvis way. The three RAFian dragons took to the air, lighting the sprites heinies aflame.

Meanwhile, Cloak concentrated on putting forum back on terra firma, carefully, concentrating intently. It was much easier now, now that the others had managed to get the pestilential sprites off his back.

Noelle and Abby managed to use their Psycholeopterran morphs to entrance a fraction of the sprites with their hypnotic abilities. Laserbeak and bat-Gaz were weaving in and out of the sprites, disorienting them. GH was playing a heavy metal version of "Flight of the Valkyries", which didn't seem possible, and it scared the sprites away. Leatherhead was tapping his tail in time with the music.

Slowly, now. Cloak thought, focused. But not too slow. Not too fast. Steady speed. Steady.

Empress Goose sowed even more confusion amongst the sprites by essentially body surfing sprite to sprite. Phoenix flew up engulfed in flames, with hopes of intimidating the sprites, but instead having them mistake him for the sun. Dpsb flew up, and tried to get all the sprites in his slipstream, to further disorient them.

More and more RAFians joined the fray, the ones that could fly unassisted. Cloak appreciated this, as he concentrated to lower the forum and to do it right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 20, 2015, 10:52:11 AM

I was thinking more "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," but that works too. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2015, 11:25:03 PM

Ah. 'Kay.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Slowly Now . . .

They were at least a thousand feet up now. Cloak was allowing the forum to fall at about five, ten feet per hour. With the others holding off the sprites, that made this job infinitely easier by scads. He was tempted to speed up the descent, get this over with sooner. But that would have proven disastrous.

Nine hundred feet up.

So tempted. So sorely tempted to increase the speed of the descent. But that might lead to foreseen and unforeseen consequences and ramifications. He must strive to lessen bith of those.

Nine hundred and twenty-five feet up.

He mustn't get impatient. He must not give in to the easiest path. It woukd be easy to just slam the forum down to the ground, but that would just destroy it. He would not allow that.

Eight hundred and seventy-five feet up.

Seven hundred and fifty feet up.

The temptation . . . the temptation to give in to the easy path was undeniably great. He wasn't at the limits of his power, but it was still hard work. Very hard work. It would be easy to give up, but the easy path was usually the path not worth taking. The hard path of arduous and usually painstaking work is usually the one that bears the most fruit.

Seven hundred feet up.

Six hundred and fifty-four feet up.

Six hundred and forty-two feet up.

Not too fast now. Not too slow either. Careful . . . cautiously . . . must not be careless. Must not be reckless.

Six hundred and thirty-one feet up.

Six hundred and twenty-three feet up.

Six hundred feet up.

Five hundred and sixty feet up.

Steady . . . steady . . . steady now. . . . Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't get reckless. Don't get careless. Steady . . . steady . . . steady . . .

Five hundred and forty-five feet up.

Five hundred and thirty feet up.

Five hundred and fifteen feet up.

Five hundred feet up.

Not long now . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2015, 12:20:17 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Landfall

Five hundred feet up.

So close now . . .

Four and thirty-two feet up.

So very close to being done with this task. So close . . .

Three and twenty-one feet up.

Not long now . . .

Two hundred and ten feet up.

Soon . . .

One hundred feet up.

Very soon now . . .

Eighty-four feet up.

Gently now . . .

Fifty-nine feet up.

Nearly there . . .

Thirty-four feet up.

Sixteen feet up.

Nine feet up.

Three feet up.

There! Touchdown! The forum was back on its foundation! Cloak quickly fused the base of the forum back to the land of the foundation upon which it sat. The forum was now safely moored to the foundation upon which it belonged, Cloak did not have to waste the terrakinetic energy keeping it aloft.

He turned his sights on the sprites who managed to elude the others, who landed and glared at the sprites.

"You're mean!" a sprite called Eclair said snottily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 21, 2015, 02:32:32 AM

Now can they leave? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2015, 08:50:16 AM

I would answer, but that's what this new chapter is for.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Was That a Threat?

"You're mean. You're mean. You're mean."

It had become a new chant for the sprites. But, by this point, every single RAFian, from the newbies to the veterans, had quite enough of this.

"You're mean. You're mean. You're mean."

"SILENCE" Cloak roared.

"You're mean. You're mean. You're mean."

Cloak sliced his arm through the air in a diagonal manner, and caused a crescent of air to come out and down no less than six sprites. Whether they were simply unconscious or dead was unclear.

Abject silence fell, as the six sprites moved n a very stilted, stunned, and disoriented way.

"Now do you irritating pests get it?!" Cloak said, unable to keep the anger from his voice. "You are not welcome here!! Go away!!"

"Wh-what do you want us to do?" the sprite called Sweetheart said.

"LEAVE!!"GH said, as Saffa facepalmed. "Just how much clearer do we have to make it before you get the picture?!"

"I d-don't underst-stand," the sprite called Frosting said, sounding teary-eyed. "Wh-what do you want us to do?"

"Fly," Cloak said, with a growl to his voice. "Fly away, and never return."

"Wh-wh-what?" another sprite, called Confection, said.

Cloak's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Leave now. Don't ever return. Or else we shan't be so merciful."

"Huh?" Sprinkles said.

"Leave," Cloak warned. "Or it shall be a sprite slaughter."

Silence at this dark warning.

"I am not kidding," the Realm Walker said, very seriously, his eyes like golden scarlet suns. "And I am not someone that you would want to cross, sprites. You have only seen a mere fraction of what I'm capable of. Believe me."

The sprites hesitated for only a moment. Then they rushed away, a bright comet of light. They were gone, and, with luck, they were gone for good.

"That," Gaz said, concerned, "was rather dark for you, Cloak."

"It was necessary," Cloak replied, turning away from the spot where the sprites fled. He chose to ignore the heavy hush that had befallen the forum, and just continued to walk to his thread for a much-needed rest.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 21, 2015, 09:02:12 AM

Well, it was coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2015, 08:42:34 PM

Yep. New book ideas.

• Book DCCCXLVII: "Cheat Codes" -- The RAFians must deal with an odd relic that allows reality "cheat codes".
• Book DCCCXLVIII: "Prop Hunt" -- The RAFians must deal with tsukumogami-like creatures.
• Book DCCCXLIX: "Bizarre . . ." -- The RAFians must deal with Bizarro versions of themselves.
• Book DCCCL: "Gemini Ghosts" -- The RAFians must deal with gemini ghosts.
• Book DCCCLI: "Swords of Concealing Darkness" -- The RAFians must deal with some very odd swords.
• Book DCCCLII: "Runaway Helms" -- The RAFians must deal with some strange helmets.
• Book DCCCLIII: "Strange Bedfellows" -- Old enemies of RAF make an uneasy alliance with daemonites.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Planchakule Problems

Cloak isolated himself from the excited frivolity that came from the celebration of the departure of the sprites. He wasn't in a particularly festive mood, at the moment, brooding here in the deserted alleyways of RAF.

But he quickly caught sight of something. It was a small, crimson red, devil-like creature who bore a close resemblance to an imp. It was very small, but it seemed to be a little taller than a Galvan, but smaller than a Gourmand. It's yellowed eyes had black pupils, its ears were spiked, and it possessed a prominent, big nose. There was a apike on it's chin and near each one of its eyes. It wore an aviator's outfit with an ascot of blacks and greens.

Cloak recognized the species, but didn't know the name exactly. He thought it was something like Planchakule. But it that didn't matter. Having a Planchakule here, especially unnoticed, was quite dangerous. They were quite known for dismantling things, and breaking them with reckless abandon. And, while they can fix them, these measures usually do not last very long.

Cloak gave chase, like a tiger hunting a pig.

"I finally made it through RAF school.
Somehow I made it through.
I'm just a newbie,
I still make a mistake or two.
I was last in my class,
Barely passed at the RAF institute.
Now I'm trying to avoid, yeah I'm trying to avoid
A malpractice suit."

The Planchakule targeted Oceanspray, who was enjoying the celebration, unaware of the imminent danger he was in. The Planchakule was muttering, "Disassemble, disassemble, disassemble, break, break, break!"

"Not today, you don't," Cloak muttered back, and used an aerokinetic suction technique to pull the Planchakule away from the android RAFian. Oceanspray didn't even realize just how close he came from being disassembled. But the Planchakule took off again.

"Hey!" Cloak protested quietly. The others had earned this celebration.

"Hey, like a RAFian,
Postin' for the very first time!
Like a RAFian,
Topic lurking is my line.
Better give this all your attention, newbies.
This thread's fading fast.
Complications have set in.
Don't know how long it'll last.
Let me see, that poll.
Here we go - time to post.
I'll pull the topic inside out, pull the topic inside out,
And forget what the original topic was!"

The Realm Walker discovered the Planchakule going inside the hanger where Yarin's ship and Aquilai's TARDIS were. And the two were here with their respective conveyances. The Planchakule went to Yarin's ship first.

"No!" Cloak shouted.

But this was a feint, as he suddenly changed direction and headed for Aquilai's TARDIS. And, all the while, they heard:

"Like a RAFian, hey,
Postin' for the very first time!
Like a RAFian,
Here's a waiver for you to sign
Your life away.
Oh, oh, oh!
My threads die, yeah, my threads die --
Before the users can post!
Like a RAFian, hey,
Postin' for the very first time!
Like a RAFian,
Got your topics on my mind.
Like a RAFian, ooh, like a RAFian,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, woe, oh!
Ooh, baby, yeah!
I can read your posts
All the time!"

"GH, you're drunk," Saffa said.

"So?" GH slurred.

Meanwhile, Cloak was unsuccessful in capturing the Planchakule before it made it's way into the TARDIS, with Aquilai complaining about it, naturally.

"Don't touch that!"

"Disassemble, disassemble, disassemble!!"

"No!!"

"Break, break, break!!"

"Get that thing out of here!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 21, 2015, 09:26:35 PM

Ah, Like a Surgeon. Pretty sure that was the first Weird Al song that I ever heard. Either that or one of the Michael Jackson parodies.

Not sure what the point of that parody was, though. Really didn't have much to do with the rest of the chapter. Was I really that drunk? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2015, 09:33:34 PM

Oh? Didn't know that. I think the next book will center more on Yarin then his Nyac species . . . hmmm . . . well, we won't know until I write it!

:edit: New chapter.
 

BOOK CVIII:
DESTROY ALL . . . WHAT?
CHAPTER ONE:
Contest of Gastronomic Giants

Aquilai was livid, but the Planchakule was eventually captured. His TARDIS was . . . well, it was worse for wear. He spent all his time grumbling how that it would take him weeks -- weeks! -- to repair the damage. He was . . . was not going to be sociable for a good long while.

Meanwhile, the RAFians were called in to make sure that an eating contest between a Murk Gourmand and an . . . Cloak thought they were called Oryctini.

Gourmands, as a species, were divided into two groups, the Perk and Murk Gourmands. Perk Gourmands are green all over, with a darker shade of green on the top of their head, and the same color all over their backs and hands. They have very crooked teeth that appear outside the top of their mouth, forming an over-bite, and they wear metal cups on their heads like helmets, and fight with spoons. Murk Gourmands, on the other hand, Murk Gourmands are swampy-green, have tan bellies and muzzles, black digits and black-green spots on their tails, limbs, hips and back. Their eyes are sharper and lack pupils. Also, their teeth are more aligned with visibly sharp canine teeth that appear outside the bottom of their mouth in an underbite. They wear metal saucers to protect their heads and fight with forks.

As for the Oryctini, or whatever their true name was, had its upper lip completely covered by his lower lip, with sharp teeth, a blue tongue, and his horn that forks at the top, reminiscent to that of a Japanese rhinoceros beetle. He had two toes on his feet, and spikes on his arms and back of his legs. He has a dark green, almost black, shell on his back and armor of the same color.

Cloak, GH, and Gaz were the ones that responded. Saffa had actually refused*, not wanting to do yet another security job.

However, GH was getting into the full swing of things.

"Eat, guys, eat!
Eat with all your might!
Eat that pasta!
Eat it fasta!
'Til it's outta sight.
('Til it's outta sight.)
Munch, guys, munch!
Come on, let's do lunch!
Make your belly
Mozzarelli.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
(Crunch, crunch, crunch.)
Cheese, salami, ham and Swiss,
Whole-wheat, rye, and white!
Slices tomatoes!
Tons of mayo!
Love at first bite.
Guys, you're awesome eaters!
Yes, you are the top!
Butter better, bitter batter.
You don't have to stop!
Double-stack it!
You can hack it!
Yum, guys, yum!
Don't you miss a crumb!
Add a dinner!
You're the winner!
Don't you pause or you'll get thinner!
More, guys, more!!
Till you can't fit through the door!
EAT, GUYS, EAT!!
CHOW, CHOW, CHOW!!!"**

"I think we lost GH," Gaz commented benignly.

"Oh, nah," Cloak said, "he's just like that.*"

---

* ;)

** Yeah, yeah, yeah, third time I used this source song. So sue me. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 21, 2015, 11:00:20 PM

gh singing a song about food? Pshh, that would never happen. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 22, 2015, 12:10:25 AM

Yeah, and you'd never compose a full melody for one, oh no. :P

Of course I refused. I wanted to sleep. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 22, 2015, 12:33:31 AM

And he would never, under any circumstances, drop a link to a rough, crappy demo of said song. (https://soundcloud.com/gh_music/dinner-time-unfinished)

Yeah, I know you've probably heard it by now, but if you haven't. . . . ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2015, 08:32:58 AM

. . . Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
First Furon

A saucer-like spacecraft approached the Earth. It held skme resemblance to a Skrit Na frieghter but the similarities were all just superficial. The saucer hesitated just above the planet's atmosphere, almost to make sure that it was the right planet. But, in the end, it decided that, yes, this was the correct planet.

It surveyed this planet, the nearby city, the forest, and . . . was that -- it assumed that it was a military base. It set down in a covered meadow, looking almost blasphemous in the waning dappled light.

From the saucer, came a hairless, greyish-blue humanoid with large eyes and a large cranium. It has circles on the sides of their craniums (where human ears would normally be located) that glow with energy. It's eyes are reflective, with no true eye color. It possessed three fingers with one thumb and the same foot size. It also had wrinkled skin.

It was a creature called a Furon, from the planet of the same name, and his name was Trichomonas. Trike, for short. He was armed with some sort of blaster and jetpack. And he was searching for . . . something . . .

***

Cloak sensed it at once. But he did not know what precisely what he was sensing. All he could tell was that it was an evil of a sociopathic sort.

He should have known that they would not have gotten much of a respite from the last major ordeal, the one with those pesky sprites.

But he wasn't prepared for a creature or thing that felt like Malice, but so clearly not. Cloak honestly did not know what to make of it. Was it just a mutant whose powers just manifested? A dangerous technological device that they would eventually end up destroying? A possible scout for an invading alien species?

Whatever it was, he wouldn't discover its identity sitting here in his thread. He would have to be proactive. He donned his cloak, and left his thread, to seek out whatever this threat would be. And he was sure that it was a threat.

***

But Cloak was not the only one to sense the Furon's arrival. Yarin sensed it too, and his demeanor changed in an instant. All six eyes of his darkened as a remembered anger came back to him.

"A Furon," he muttered at once, able to sense Trike's psychic imprint, though he was a good distance away. The Nyac gritted his teeth as an old anger seeped back into him. His kind, the Nyac, have had a bad relationship with the Furon. "A Furon. Here?"

He immediately went to the RAFian sensors, programming them with the basic codes for the Furon cloaking technology. If you could call it technology. Furon technology was always, he found, much cruder than the elegance of Nyac technology, sloppier than the curious indeterminate and irreverent nature of Realm Walker tech, the understated simplicity of Time Lord tech . . .

Yes, Yarin was a tech snob.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 23, 2015, 12:06:59 AM

So they look like literally every 90s bobblehead depiction of aliens ever? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2015, 07:02:15 AM

Actually, they look like this:

(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/destroyallhumans/images/d/db/Crypto_2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111223220908)

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Disguising and Hiding

The Furon, with a voice, intonation, and word choice of Jack Nicholson, was talking to his handler, Micropox (Pox, for short), and Pox was giving Trike his orders. And Pox spoke with a voice like Richard Horvitz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Steven_Horvitz) when he commanded Trike to collect human brainstems on the assumption that humans contain a miniscule amount Furon DNA, and Furons are currently unable to propagate naturally, relying on cloning, due to overuse of nuclear weapons apparently.

Trike displayed a certain glee and glimmer of eagerness at the mere thought of wrecking havoc, destroying things, and, with a certain relish, at the possibility of humiliating the human population. He also had a penchant for alcohol, smoking, gambling, and other such qualities. His Furon mind possessed the power of telekinesis, cortex telepathy (but greatly inferior to Nyac telepathy), hypnotizing people, and, naturally, disguising himself as a human, called "Holobobbing".

He carried a rifle like weapon that appeared to discharge some sort of electrical or energy-based ammunition and his jetpack was clearly alien in design.

Anyway, Trike used his weapon to kill a homless man with a long, tangled beard and ratty clothing, collecting his brainstem, then "Holobobbing" him. It essentially means that he produced a psionically and, somehow, holographically projected the image atop himself so that the humans, or near-humans, would see him as the homeless man. Not only would they see him as the homeless man, they would hear him as the homeless man.

But he can't keep up a Holobob forever, though he could prolong it by cortex mind reading. Still, it wasn't something that could be managed forever. He managed to procure another two brainstems, whilst Holobobbing a thin man in a black, pinstriped suit. But, by his mind reading, Trike learned of a very interesting thing, something that may proven an obstacle to his, and the Furon, plans.

It was a place called a fore-um. . . . And there was a Nyac here. Somewhere.

This could prove to be a problem. One that he, Trike, would have to take care of before he he could collect sufficient brainstems for his mission. . . .

***

Cloak was deciding if he should use his ID mask to project his usual human form -- a bespectacled young adult human with black hair and dark eyes -- or remain appearing as he was. But then an announcement sounded.

Yarin was calling a meeting. Cloak wondered if it was related to what he had sensed, but reasoned that it would have been too much of a coincidence otherwise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 23, 2015, 02:25:28 PM

You know, I need to play Destroy All Humans one of these days. I actually haven't been able to find a copy of it. Like, ever.

*Goes back to GTA: San Andreas*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2015, 11:16:24 PM

Technically, I never played it. I am just spamming their wikia for research. The next chapter is going to be long.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Nyac-Furon Relations

"This," Yarin said, with a harsh edge to his voice only noticeable to but a few RAFians, "is a Furon."

He showed a the 3-D model of the creature in motion, and behaviors associated by the creature. Yarin tried to keep his voice even, but it was clear that he was holding back some hostile emotions toward the species.

"Furons are hairless greyish-blue humanoids with large eyes and large craniums. They have circles on the sides of their craniums (where human ears would normally be located) that glow with energy. All Furons have reflective eyes with no true eye color, three fingers with one thumb and the same foot size. The males have wrinkled skin, while the females have smooth, pale skin and lack the aforementioned light circles. Furons are noted for being small, frail creatures; they are easily reduced to paste when smacked into a wall. To make up for this lack of resilience, Furons have developed personal energy-shielding technology. Though they are not physically strong, Furon warriors are able to carry around very big guns with no trouble at all."

Yarin paused to compose himself, before doggedly, determinedly proceeding.

"Furons appear to share some characteristics with humans, such as being able to breathe oxygen. The Furon lifespan is supposedly about five hundred years, but they can clone themselves, so they are effectively immortal. Furon, their world's name, is a barren world. Water is scarce, and as such, Furons lack the ability to swim. It is possible there is frozen or even liquid water under the surface of their planet, though it can be speculated that alternative forms of life may be able to use ammonia or liquid methane as a solvent."

"Whatever," Sakki said, irreverently.

"Their society can be quite cruel. Most Furons are very xenophobic and think little of wiping out entire races, enslaving them, or using them as toys. The species-wide ability to read minds forces some Furons to always tell the truth if encountering another Furon. Yet, they are inferior to Nyac mental prowess."

"Like a certain Nyac's predilection for making biggifying microwaves?" Saffa teased.

Yarin continued, "The Furon population is split into different ranks. There are leaders, scientists, workers, and soldiers, though there's little biological difference between each group. Large heads are prized by the Furons and are seen as status symbols, possibly signifying brain power."

"Wow." Saffa said, legitimately surprised. "Really are serious about this."

Almost as if he didn't hear her, Yarin continued, "There tech is quite advanced, though most of their technological efforts are solely focused on military applications. The Furons are also very skilled in the field of biotechnology, though it's only used for modifying their own bodies by giving themselves stronger mental powers. Cloning is also an area the Furons have mastered, allowing them to clone themselves in order to attain immortality."

"Sorry, but what is the point of this info dump?" Cloak said. He didn't want Yarin to start elaborating on Furon hygiene next.

"There is a Furon here," Yarin said, "on planet."

"So, uh," GH said, "what's your beef with them?"

"They invaded Nya once," Yarin said, getting a bitter nostalgic glint his eye. Oh, yeah. It was gonna be a flashback.

***

The Furon Emperor was singing about the Nyacs:

"What can you expect from filthy little heathens?
Their whole disgusting race is like a curse!
Their hearts are liberally bled!
They're only good when dead!
They're vermin, as I said, and worse!"

The Furons assembled sang:

"They're savages!
Savages!"

The Furon Emperor sang:

"Not even Furon!"

The riled-up Furons sang:

"Savages! Savages!"

The Furon Emperor said:

"Drive them from our shore!
They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil.
We must sound the drums of war!"

The gathered Furons sang:

"They're savages!
Savages!
Dirty shrieking devils!"

Then all of the Furons sang:

"Now we sound the drums of war!"

Meanwhile, in the Nyac camp, the Nyac leader sang.

"This is what we feared.
The Furon is a demon.
The only thing they feel at all is greed."

Another, more wizened, Nyac sang:

"Beneath that wrinkly hide, there's emptiness inside."

The Nyacs sang:

"I wonder if they even bleed.
They're savages!
Savages!"

All the Nyacs sang:

"Not even Nyac!
Savages! Savages!"

The Nyac sang:

"Killers at the core."

The wizened Nyac sang:

"They're different from us,
which means they can't be trusted."

The Nyac leader sang:

"We must sound the drums of war."

The Nyacs sang:

"They're savages!
Savages!
Then we sound the drums of war."

The Furons sang:

"Savages! Savages!"

One Furon shouted "Let's go kill a few, men!"

The Nyacs sang:

"Savages! Savages!"

The Furon Emperor:

"Now it's up to you, men!"

All sang:

"Savages! Savages!
Not even Furon/Nyac!
Now we sound the drums of war!"

***

"How'd you know about the parts you weren't there for?" Saffa said.

"Shush!" GH said.

"Don't you shush me!"

"Enough, you two," Cloak said. "Let him finish."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 24, 2015, 12:33:39 AM

Ah, someone else has taken over the Wikipedia dump. ;)

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 24, 2015, 09:03:01 AM

Well, it was only fair to give someone else an opportunity. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Briefing and Debriefing

Yarin went back to his flashback with little or no acknowledgement of the interlude. He remembered feeling conflicted about the impending war, and devised a way -- a possible, but untested device -- to stop it, when he sensed the two sides were about to clash.

The Furon Emperor sang:

"This will be the day."

Then he commanded, "Let's go, Furons!"

The Nyac leader said:

"This will be the morning."

His Nyac troops sang:

"We will see them dying in the dust."

Yarin sang:

"I don't know what I can do.
Still, I know I've got to try."

The Furons and their Emperor sang:

"Now we make them pay."

Yarin:

"Time for my feet to fly."

The Nyacs:

"Now without a warning."

Yarin:

"Time for help my heart to be be great."

The Nyac troops:

"Now we leave 'em blood and bone and rust."

Both the Furons and the Nyacs sang:

"It's them or us."

Yarin:

"Please don't let it be too late . . ."

The Furons and the Nyac troops sang:

"They're just a bunch of filthy, stinking . . ."

The Nyac troops sang:

"Savages!"

The Furons sang:

"Savages!"

"Demons!"

"Devils!"

The Furon Emperor roared, "Kill them!"

The Nyac troops:

"Savages!"

The Furons:

"Savages!"

The Furon Emperor and the Furons sang:

"What are we waiting for?!"

All, but Yarin, sang:

"Destroy their evil race until there's not a trace left!"

Yarin:

"How loud are the drums of the war?"

Everyone else sang:

"We will sound the drums of war! Savages! Savages!
Now we sound the drums of war! Savages! Savages!"

The Furons and the Nyacs sang:

"Now we see what comes of trying to be chums.
Now we sound the drums of . . . "

Yarin:

"Is this the death of all I love carried in the drumming of . . ."

Everyone sang:

"War!"

Then Yarin threw his circular device, which opened into a more octagonal shape, and a brillant white flash iluminated the area . . .

***

"And, after the big bang?" Saffa asked.

Yarin said, nothing, but stoically continued to detail the dangers of Furons.

"You're avoiding the question . . ." Saffa sighed.

"He knows," Cloak said, sure of this assessment.

"He's hiding something again? Like his microwave?"

Still no reaction from the Nyac. Saffa scowled.

"No," Cloak said, shrewdly, "no, I think it's more something that he he doesn't want to admit to himself."

Cloak suspected the device may have been responsible for the genetic instability of the Furons, but knew too little to say for sure.

***

Meanwhile, Trike the Furon had abandoned his Holobob of the suit-and-tie guy for one of an eight-year-old boy. The Holobob disguise had dark brown eyes, black hair, rosy cheeks, and thick black banana-shaped eyebrows. He wears a green bandana around his head. His skin is lightly tanned. He has an orange waistcoat (with a collar and both a purple line and each couple buttons on both sides) over his black ripped V-neck T-shirt with a white crossed lace on his neckline. He also sports a brown waistband, gold-colored trousers, and gray bucket-top boots with silver buckles and "L" insignias on the bucket tops. And he also Holobobbed the boy's wooden sword.

He used this disguise to collect another four brainstems, and literally "debrief" a guy. And he could use his disguise's apparent age as an excuse for such immaturity. He was having fun, so much si he nearly forgot about the presence of a Nyac on-planet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2015, 06:28:48 PM

You know, Yarin will probably be angry with me because of this book . . . Then again, he said that all Nyacs are principally scientists by profession, so . . . what is science if not pushing the envelope?

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Mayhem and Maim 'Im

Following Yarin's spiel about the Furons and the evils of Furons, the RAFians recieved a report. Twelve humans have been either found dead or missing:

Seth Wiliams, a hospital patient. Missing.

Rick Rollins, an high-up muckety-muck at an auction house. Missing.

Vernon Logan, a man who was caught up in a bitterly nasty divorce and a battle of child custody. Missing.

Chase Samuels, a homeless man in a heavy, orange jumpsuit. Missing.

Bonnie Carson, a criminal woman infatuated with Clyde Robertson. Missing.

Andre Granger, a manipulative man who gets his jollies out of inciting anger and rage in others. Dead.

Clyde Robertson, a criminal man infatuated with Bonnie Carson. Missing.

Al Clement, a businessman in the field of computer and console gaming. Dead.

Paige Booker, a simple social worker. Missing.

Holly Halliwell, a stoic club owner. Wife of Wyatt Halliwell. Missing.

Jacob Cameron, a vivacious eight-year-old boy who liked dressing up as a pirate. Missing.

Wyatt Halliwell, a middle school English teacher. Missing.

It was quite the list, as Goom read it aloud -- Aquilai was too busy grousing and working on his TARDIS to care much. Ten disappearances, and two confirmed deaths. The RAFians were such old hands at this kind of thing by now, they knew at once something was up. And Yarin hit the nail on the head immediately.

"It's the Furon," he said at once, knowing he was right in his accusation. "It's trying to collect human brainstems."

"That doesn't make any sense," Saffa pointed out. "Why would the Furon do that?"

"I have already told you," the Nyac said, clearly anxious to move out, clearly eager to maim the Furon, which seemed to be a stark counterpoint to his usual benign personality. Cloak was a bit alarmed to see the kind of anxious anger and unbridled hostility in his eyes. Cloak actually knew something about that, something that, even now, he was trying to work through.

"You said that they think little of genocide, and that they have some characteristics similar to humans," Saffa countered. "Nothing about why they would want brainstems, much less human brainstems."

There was something almost . . . uneasy . . . in Yarin's eyes.

"They believe it to contain a small part of Furon DNA," he said, quickly.

"And just why," Cloak said, voice soft and silky, "do they believe that?"

"I don't like what you're inferring, Realm Walker."

"Then don't sidestep the question."

"I'm not sidestepping."

"Yes, you are."

"I am not!"

Cloak said nothing.

"I'm not!" the Nyac insisted.

Cloak continued his silence.

"I'm not!"

"True," Cloak said. "Now you're stalling."

"Fine!" Yarin spat angrily. "It wasn't my idea. It was the Nyac's highest command who decided to plant that little misconception into the Furons. We were tired of their occupation of Nya, and we couldn't eliminate them without doing irreparable damage to Nya. They are so much like that ****roaches on this planet."

"So you turned them on us," Saffa said, none too pleased. "First that damn microwave of yours, and now this. Yarin -- whose side are you really on?"

Yarin hid his hurt from the implication, but Cloak saw it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2015, 10:12:01 PM

Merry Christmas!

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Keen Interests

"Guys, someone's gotta go investigate these disappearances," Dpsb said, uneasily poking his way into the conversation.

"I'll go," Yarin said, at once.

"No." It was Cloak who spoke. There was a resounding silence after the Realm Walker's pronouncement, as Saffa still glowered at the Nyac. After all, Yarin did not refute her claim.

"What?"

"No, Yarin. You're too close to this," Cloak said.

"That's never stopped you when you're too close to a mission!" Yarin protested.

Cloak said nothing in acknowledgement of this statement.

"You're silence says everything," Yarin growled. "You're not the boss here, you know. You're not even a mod!"

Cloak could have threatened him. He could have intimidated him. He could have straight up attacked him. But, honestly? Cloak wasn't in the mood. He wasn't in the mood to argue or fight or shout. There was a job to do, and they were just wasting their time bickering amongst each other.

"Fine," Cloak said, coolly. It was very evident that Cloak was trying to keep his cool. "Do as you wish, Nyac."

Cloak turned to leave, with Saffa, GH, and Dpsb wordlessly following him out of the forum.

***

Trike was disappointed to learn that none of the brainstems had the genetic material that they were looking for.

"What d'ya mean that these aren't the genetic sequencers we're lookin' for?" Trike complained. He probably should strive to not be so loud. He was kind of out in the open, in front of his saucer. It wasn't even really disguised.

"I meant just what I said, Trichomonas," sniffed Pox. "The precise gene sequences we require weren't in those specific genomes."

"You sayin' that I have been wasting my time out here, wastin' these stupid apes?" Trike said.

"Oh, you know you love it," Pox said.

"True," Trike admitted, a rare moment of Furon humility. If you could call it that. "But I wanna do it my way, Micropox, not yours."

"Semantics, Tichomonas, semantics."

"I'll semantics you, if you send me off on another wild goose chase," Trike threatened.

"I don't know why you try the innuendo, Trichomonas," Pox sighed, "when you know I can't do anything about it."

"Don't be cute with me, Pox!" Trike said, a hair trigger presenting itself. "I will slag you."

"Oh, Trichomonas, you do enjoy your little joke. You know I have backed myself up with my Holopox device." Pox said, differentially.

"You and your corny gizmos."

"Which you are carrying," Pox pointed out.

"Poindexter," Trike grunted.

"Oh. Perhaps you're not up to it? Perhaps Cordyceps would be a willing replacement for your mission. I am in contact with her, you know." Pox said, with a breezy sort of voice.

"Alright! Alright, you infernal nag," Trike grumbled huffily. "I'll bring in your stinkin' brainstems."

With that, Trike left the saucer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 26, 2015, 12:20:57 AM

Love the subtle Star Wars reference. And I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU RICK ROLLED US

And I loved that Cloak-Yarin exchange - nice little dialogue when tensions rise, people say what they're really thinking. Didn't think this book would have a darker tone to it, but surprise. Awesome. :D

Merry Christmas to you too! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2015, 12:33:41 AM

Star Wars reference?

Oh, and yeah, that darker tone wasn't in the original outline (which I first made years ago -- a little less than four years or so, if I'm accurate.), that just how the story's turning out. Sometimes, the story just writes itself. Thrn again "Destroy All Humans" is kinda dark, I suppose. After all, it's about an alien taking over the Earth and succeeding, if I'm not mistaken.

And I was trying to be subtle with the Rick Roll!  ;D

And thanks!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 26, 2015, 01:12:48 AM

Quote

these are not the genetic sequencers we're lookin' for

:P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2015, 01:18:31 AM

Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.

Gotta go to bed, I guess. Damn insomnia.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Disguise Debaucle

Yarin had chose not to accompany them. That didn't mean that he wasn't going to go off on his own to find and the Furon and . . . Cloak didn't want to know. He'd be happy in his ignorance of the fact of whatever Yarin decided to do. Was that a lazy answer? Perhaps, but Cloak didn't really care at the moment, as long as Yarin didn't get in the way of their investigation.

Yes, Cloak realized the double standard, and the arrogance he was setting himself up for with that line of thinking, but he couldn't be bothered with the semantics right now. Thry had a job to do, and would deal with whatever fallout comes to be at a later date. Yes, he was procrastinating the consequences, but his mind was a little too full right now to think about it any great detail.

And yet, his heart still nagged him. He felt guilt for how he spoke to Yarin, and could help but go over their last interaction and pick it apart, prying even the most minute detail from it. No. No, he couldn't be doing this right now. He shouldn't be doing this right now.

They came to a mound of a strange ash. Cloak thought it odd and highly suspect that these piles of ash had not been investigated. Granted, there wasn't really a lot of ash. You could fit this particular mound into a mason jar, so it may have simply been overlooked and not willfully neglected. Local law enforcement didn't have the kind of training the RAFians had, so they may have been a little out of their league.

It was little wonder why the RAFians get called in for things like this.

Then Cloak sensed it, as not a word passed amongst those present. He looked directly at what most onlookers would assume to be a stereotypical hippie. Bellbottoms, sandals (which was ridiculous in this weather), white shirt, green vest, peace-symbol medallions, thick column of facial hair, long hair that trailed down his back, and literal rose-colored glasses. The man had a long thin nose, and a wiry frame. But this was not what Cloak saw.

He saw the details of the man, of course, but as a ghostly afterimage. He saw the Furon thoroughly ensconced in the disguise as someone would gaze through a window. He was not fooled by the Holobob, and he felt the predatory feline instincts queue up inside him. He tried to ignore these hunting instincts.

"So foolish," Cloak growled, more animalistic than anything else.

"What is?" Dpsb said.

"Why are you looking at that . . ." GH said, then his eyes narrowed.

"Wow." Saffa commented. "That's a good disguise. I can't tell that he's the Furon. It's almost as if he morphed."

Cloak only processed this in a semiconscious way. He had his eyes locked on the Furon, knowing him to be responsible for these tragedies, though he really hadn't any tangible proof. Cloak stalked towards him, very feline in his movements -- every one deliberate and focused.

"Wh-What are you doing?" the Furon said, affecting a weak-willed human personality. At least, it was affected in his disguise's voice, which was weird because Cloak heard it overlayed with the Furon's true monotone voice. The Realm Walker could tell that he didn't feel the fear he pretended to, despite being really unable to emote as a Furon. "Wha do you want?"

Well, it could be understandable if the Furon was afraid, seeing an eight-foot-tall, cloaked tiger-man start to bear down on you, closing distance with remarkable silence and speed. But Furons tend to be an arrogant and conceit bunch, so Trike felt no fear.

"Stop! D-Don't come any c-closer! Or I'll . . . I'll . . ."

"Drop the act, Furon." Cloak growled, a tiger growl intermingling with his words.

"What did you call me? 'Furon'? What's th--"

Dpsb, Saffa, GH, and Leatherhead (yes, Leatherhead) started to have some doubts.

"I can see through your disguise, you idiot." Cloak said, almost menacingly. "But, no matter, no matter. You want to keep up this facade? Fine. You can't maintain you holographic projection forever."

The projection's face went blank, almost as if it were noting but a mannequin.

"So, you have a simple choice." Cloak spoke in a low voice. "Drop the pretense, and disguise, and we can get this over with. Or we can play the attrition game. The choice is yours."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2015, 10:44:41 PM

Might be a bit long than the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Ch-Ch-Changes

There seemed to be a stalemate. Cloqk could have attacked him at any moment, of course, but that woukd have resulted in tremendous backlash on the part of the RAFians by the public. Bern Bridges was alreqdy engaging in a virulent smear campaign, which, fortunately, had no real footing in the minds of the people. So, Cloak was content to play this little game -- perhaps he had allowed his feline instincts some reign after all.

The Furon seemed to try to think of a way out of this. If he revealed himself to these people that would pretty much make getting Micropox's accursed brainstems nigh near impossible, and it was hard enough to do without being noticed. He still kept his disguise's face as vacant qnd unemotional as a mannequin's, though whether or not he realized it was questionable.

All the RAFians had to do was wait out the clock. This time they held all the cards. So, the Furon tried to read their minds. He couldn't read Cloak's mind, due to his Realm Walker physiology, which (though he would vehemently deny it) scared him. So, he tried the others, only to discover some odd interference.

"You," he said, addressing Dpsb. His Holobobbed form mimicked his deadpan, monotone delivery, though the voice was human not Furon. "Call off your pet and I won't tell them your secret."

Cloak, incensed, snarled, "I am pet to no one, Furon."

"Call him off, or I will reveal your secret." Trike called out.His Holobob was close to failing. "Now, boy!"

But then his Holobob failed, and the Furon beneath such high resolution veneer was revealed. Saffa was tempted to compare it with Chee holograms, but thought better of it.

"Stupid, fecking --" Trike raged, as he blasted some sort of energy discharge from his weapon, which Cloak blithely caught with little fanfare. Then he condensed it as a child would with modeling clay, and replyed with an irreverent, "Play-Doh."

Then he threw at at the Furon as Leatherhead threaded through his feet, until the Furon resorted to using his jetpack. Putting him in range of the thrown and returned energy discharge.

This caused a few colloidal droplets to rain down on Leatherhead, who was finding himself dealing eith a sappy tree branch. GH had freed him befor the first globule landed on the juvenile alligator, but no one seemed to notice this. Not even GH, as the Furon tried to attack them again and flee towards his saucer.

Cloak had vanished beneath the ground. GH branished his guitar, which glowed with energy down the length of it and transformed into its hoverbike state. Saffa was flying in hawk morph -- her Psycholeopterran morph was to too bulky and slow for her needs. Dpsb simply flew, feeling uneasy about the secret he had yet to disclose.

***

The Furon was headed directly for his saucer, elated that he escaped such a powerful creature's wrath, though embarrassed that he couldn't beat it. It wasn't gonna be something that he would brag about. His path to the saucer was clear. But what was that standing atop it?

"You'd think you'd land your saucer in some place, I don't know, inconspicuous?" it said.

<You cannot be serious,> a dismissive, telepathic voice said. It appeared to come from the roosting bird to his left, but that wasn't possible. This backward species didn't have snatching tech. <It is seriously out in the open.>

"Well, it is weakness to exploit." GH said, arriving in style, to the Furon's right.

"Let me --" Dpsb said, unable to hide a childish eagerness.

Cloak dug his fingers into the saucer's hull, the metal yielding towards the Master of the Metal element. He ripped it in two. The entire saucer. Ripped into halves. It caused the saucer to explode. Unbeknowst to the RAFians, killing Micropox. It didn't occur to Cloak that there might be two Furons. He didn't take the time to Metalsight the interior of the saucer.

"Do you have any idea --"

But there was a bellowing roar, but it sounded more odd than terrifying. Then a rush of greenish-brown and Trike was lifted into the air by a strange creature.

Saffa was finishing morphing back, with only bits of hawk remaining around her hairline, and she was reconsidering morphing back. But she noticed something about this humanoid creature. "Is that . . ."

After the creature killed Trike, it seemed to calm down, holding its head. It was humanoid, the size of a six-year-old human child, with a broad, thick tail behind it. It possessed sharp claws and an elongated mouth filled with teeth. But its eyes . . . there was an innocence and a mischievousness behind them.

GH actually dropped his guitar in sheer shock. He couldn't believe it. None of the RAFians could. All were dumbfounded at this unexpected happening.

"L . . . Leatherhead?" GH said, voice but a whisper.

Leatherhead looked up at him and said, ". . . Daddy?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 26, 2015, 10:49:24 PM

. . . Just take my karma.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 27, 2015, 12:23:54 AM

I'm sitting at a table full of relatives and I'm trying very very hard not to let out a manic laugh at that ending. :awesome:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2015, 12:28:17 AM

;D

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Meanwhile!

While that bombshell was happen, Yarin was investigating another city. He was sure that there would be more than one location, more than one point of invasion. It just made logical sense. That way if one city is compromised, then the whole invasion isn't totally compromised, and it could continue, if in an infiltration way.

Yarin remembered the feeling of a Furon mind. He remembered seeing nothing but conceited overconfidence and sadistic masochism. He would never forget how tainted and dirty and fragile their minds felt. The fragility that he helped cultivate with that Reproduction Destabilizing Unit of his. He had only ever made that one and he had felt a guilt for ever using it.

Though he would never admit it to himself, but this is one reason that he so ardently wishes for validation for his Food Yield Increaser. To prove that he could create something good to atone for this great mistake of his. He never relished what he did, and he never approved of the Nyac government deciding to plant the thouht that the Furon's salvation lies in the brainstems of the dominant species of this mudball.

He was still in ship, scanning for Furon saucers. Yarin could help but muse on these happenings. He never forgave himself for causing the genetic damage to the Furon genome, preventing them from being able to reproduce, forcing them to utilize cloning and mind transference to perpetuate their species. It was all his fault. It was his fool's endeavor, blinded by indignant rage and righteous anger. He had always displaced that fury onto the very species that he unintentionally --

But that wasn't true, was it? He had made the device to hurt the Furons. To hurt them for defiling his homeland, his homeworld. For invading Nya with the intention of conquering it. For causing the genocides of countless of other species. He had wanted to harm them. He had wanted to maim them.

And he did. He did it under the banner of self-preservation. He told himself that it was for the greater good. He told himself . . . but it was all lies, wasn't it? The worst kind of lie. A self-deceiving lie.

What he did was an awful act. No manner the reason, he would lose in courts of decency. How must his actions have looked to impartial third parties? He thought he knew. And he felt a bit more self-loathing for it.

But no matter, no matter. What is past is past, what is done is done. The past is gone and immutable, and there can be no changing it. He did what he did, and there was no changing it now. He had to get his preoccupied mind back on the task at hand.

"I knew it," he said, when his scans uncovered a Furon saucer coming into the planet's atmosphere. He maneuvered his ship into an attack position, and pursued the saucer, apparently undetected.

He fired the first shot, and it lanced into the saucer's hull, leaving a very angry burn mark on the saucer. This time Yarin was the one who took the initiative. This time it was the Nyac who attacked first. This time it was the Nyac who was the aggressor.

Despite himself, Yarin savored these factors.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 27, 2015, 01:53:53 AM

It's eerie how many parallels to the real world - the victim minority pushing back against their aggressor who sees it differently - can be drawn from stories like this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2015, 01:56:41 PM

Well, the Nyac aren't technically a minority, but your point still stands, Saffa. :) Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book DCCCLIV: "The Clockwork Syndrome" -- The RAFians must find a cure to a strange malady.
• Book DCCCLV: "Hostage Snatching" -- The RAFians must deal with an unscrupulous man, claiming to be a human/Furon hybrid.
• Book DCCCLVI: "A Wandmaker is Broken" -- Broken finds a new passion.
• Book DCCCLVII: "Body Benders" -- The RAFians get drawn in again to the antics of four ghosts, who are addicted to the living.

There. Don't think I have rehashed anything, but, if I did, I think I can work around it.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Decisive Dogfight

The saucer turned around -- or at least, Yarin assumed that it did. It was difficult to tell at this vantage point. It seemed to hesitate, seemingly recognizing the ship as Nyac in design. It remained idle for a few long minutes, as Yarin waited with oppressed glee. He would send a message to the Furons with this victory.

They would learn that they couldn't just indiscriminately attack innocent civilizations. They would learn that their genocidal tendacies were abhorrent. They would learn. They would.

But that was thing about violence and vendettas. They have a dangerous habit of consuming their holders with vitriolic hatred and fiery wrath, pushing all else out of their minds and hearts. They know nothing else but hatred and anger, which, in turn, leads to suffering. It was a very dangerous path to go down. Very dangerous indeed.

One could excuse, to at least try to excuse, their actions with a veneer a selflessness and doing it for the greater good. But boil away that veneer, and what's beneath is just a thirst for revenge and hatred. It atrophies one's soul . . .

During this sudden self-refleftion, the Furon saucer had fired its self-entitled "death ray". Yarin's ship shields had blocked the majority of it. And what little got through didn't even tickle the hull of Yarin's ship.

"You'd think they'd update their weaponry in fifty, sixty years or so." Yarin mumbled. Or perhaps the Furons thought so little of the resistance the Earth could put up that they decided to not send any of their "A-game" ships and weaponry. Yarin couldn't help but feel a little disappointed at the thought.

It was a game of superiority in the Nyac's subconscious. A way of proving hiw much better Nyacs were to Furons. But he wasn't really aware of this, and was just acting in a way he thought right.

The next death ray blast was fully absorbed by the shields, which did not falter at all. This dogfight was going to be over quickly. This Furon saucer clearly was a junker with a fresh coat of paint. Yarin couldn't prevent the disappointment from flooding him, like an ice-cold venom.

The Furons would learn nothing from the destruction of this ship. It was a junker. They wouldn't even care about it. Who knows? There very well might not even be a real Furon pilot inside. It could be being flown remotely. Any thrill he got from this battle had left him, leaving feeling listless and empty.

He powered his weapons, and fired. He was aiming to destroy the saucer, and he succeeded, apparently forgetting about the Furon mind he had sensed earlier. He was being reckless, and he didn't even realize it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2015, 09:28:22 PM

Yep. Likihood of exceeding twenty chapters is increasing . . . ever so much.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
I Will Survive!

Cordyceps, Cordy for short, happened to be on that saucer that Yarin indiscriminately slagged. Unlike Yarin, she was genuinely trying to destroy his ship with this outdated technology. Yet the Furons refused to admit their spacefaring tech was somewhat outdated, considering they spending more time and funds on cloning and weaponry. One would assume that they saw their saucers as weapons, but apparently they were far too confident with the efficaciousness of their saucers, without any real concrete reason.

When it became clear that she was going to lose the saucer, she gathered all the tech she could inside a sixth-dimensional bag, something she stole from Nya, and abandoned ship. She floated down to the planet's surface, using her jetpack and the saucer's explosion to cover her escape.

Once on the ground, she took out her Snatcher device. She couldn't Holobob, but this was infinitely better and far more useful. She had also inherited Trike's mission to collect brainstems, and she had to be clever and smart about it. Not leaving any trails for anyone to follow.

Cordy had always thought that Trike was inept and a loser. In fact, she was pretty much sure that all males of every species was like that. Since she had never met a species like a Namekian, she assumed all species had two genders. And she favored a matriarchy over a patriarchy.

She looked around. She was too exposed, even in this forest. It was too cold for her liking, really. And she was obviously no human. She couldn't complete her objective without stealth. Here is where the Holobob would have been useful, but the Snatcher was infinitely more useful, if not a bit persnickety.

She did not like the snow on the ground. It might alert prospectives to her presence. She reached out telepathically, which didn't have the range of a Nyac, and was a bit impetuous as any ol' Nyac could sense such a thing. But she discovered that to her left, there were three adolescents with a young adult human. She didn't know enough about humans or their mentalities to distinguish if they were male or female, but if there was a female there, she would choose that one.

She approached the camp, slowly and cautiously, making liberal use of her jetpack when needed. Good. She appeared to be unnoticed. She place a hand to her head to scan their minds, which was all that she could do at the moment. Furons were unable to penetrate the deeper recesses of another mind, unless the target was voluntary, unlike the relepathic finesse of Nyac. It was why they initiated the invasion of Nya. Sheer jealousy over their telepathic prowess. They had arrogantly assumed that they were a weak, pacifist race. They were wrong.

Between this telepathic scanning and snatches of human speech, she managed to gather a few nuggets of information.

Sally Rath. That was the leader of this little troop. She was an adult female. Sassy in nature, but with a naivety that could be exploitable. She could be a good candidate. After all, she was female. And females were the superior gender. Everyone knew that. Any one who didn't was an idiot.

Stevie Naylor. The smallest and possibly the weakest one of the group. He was a human adolescent male. He was fraught with insecurities and vulnerabilities. He would fall easily, but he could be a good candidate to divine the weaknesses of the others.

Dylan Peladeau. The most emotionally volatile of the group, though not really "out-of-control", "murderous" sort of volatile. He was also clearly the strongest body and will. But his buttons could be pushed easily, but he might be the most difficult canditate to use for infiltration. He might even be able to alert the others.

Jonah Phillips. The most benign of the group. A hanger-on. A voice of "reason" -- in another words, he contributed nothing worthwhile to the group, according to Furon sensibilities. Yet, he wasn't the weak link, but he was still weak.

Cordy needed to make a choice of her disguise. Her choice was natural, and she had a way of making it unseen by her fellows. Granted, the tech was still untested and in its infancy, so this would be more of a test than objective completion. She was about to make her move when her decision was made for her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2015, 12:00:22 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
First Snatch

"Dylan, go get some more firewood," Sally instructed.

"Hey, Wuss!" Dylan said, addressing meek Stevie. "Get us some firewood."

Sally sighed, shaking her head. "Dylan, I told you to get it."

"And I told Wuss." Dylan said, aggressively. Then he threw a pebble at Stevie. "Go on, Wuss!"

Instead of asserting himself, like he should've, he complied with little resistance. He demonstrated this submissiveness and subservience, proving himself basically the omega male of the group. If he had asserted himself, the group dynamic may have been different. He, unbeknownst to him, was heading in Cordy's direction.

Cordy wasn't particularly happy. Stevie wasn't the prospective candidate that she wanted, but she found herself curious. Were human males really as useless as male Furons? She was well out of sight of the other humans and she waited until Stevie was out of sight of the others too.

Her hand flew to her head and a beam of psionic energy launched from her forehead into Stevie's. Right between his eyes. There was a brief struggle before Cordy was enveloped in the psionic energy and drawn inside Stevie's body, bag and all. Stevie's body lurched, shoulders rolling forward, chin bobbed to his chest. Before immediately righting himself, but with Cordy in full and absolute control of the teenager's body.

"Well, at least one of Micropox's blasted gadgets works from the start," she spoke through Stevie. To Realm Walker ears, her hostile, aggressive, monotone Furon voice would be heard more audibly than Stevie's voice. But to everyone else, she sounded just like Stevie. Well, aside from tone of voice and infliction that is. But now that she body snatched Stevie, was able to delve into more than just surface thoughts (which had functionally ceased, as his true mind was in a suspended animated state, like a drugged stupor). She was able to delve into his memories, but she was restricted to only his recent memories of the past four days. She wondered if this was true for all prospectives -- her term for potential snatching victims -- or if it varied with all of them. "Well, that's interesting."

Then she realized that she could feel a strange pulsing feeling in her -- no, his -- adominal area, beneath his ribs, but above the area where is legs met his body. Right behind that indention on his belly. What was that? It was disconcerting. It had seemed strong at first, but was now seeming to get weaker. Was it this human resisting her control? Possibly, though this human was one of the meeker samples of the species, she was sure.

Yes, the pulsating was weakening, she decided, as she walked Stevie back to his group, with the full intention of impersonating him. She notice that the pulsating was getting weaker incrementally, gradually, and couldn't figure out precisely why.

"Hey! Where's the firewood, you prick?" Dylan demanded aggressively.

Cordy did not feel like playing meek to such an inferior species, not to mention an inferior gender. (She ignored the fact that she inhabited a male body currently). She narrowed Stevie's eyes, curled his lip in disgust.

"What's that?" Dylan snarled. "I didn't quite hear you."

"Oh, shut up, you useless sack of flesh," Cordy snarled right back. The pulsing was barely noticeable now. "You want firewood? Get off your backside and get it yourself."

Dylan sidled right up next to Cordy, and punched Stevie's gut. Hard.

"Don't you ever speak to me like that. Ever. Again." Dylan said, punctuating the last two words with two addition punches. The pulsating abruptly stopped and there was no sound, but if elt like their should have been a popping sound.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 28, 2015, 12:29:11 AM

Hey, I don't blame her. Any time you tell a young male to do something, they just start talking. Being the only woman on a board, you notice these things. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2015, 02:53:00 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Realizations

Sally screamed.

"Wha . . ." Dylan said, not really grasping what had happened.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Jonah demanded.

Cordyceps had popped out of Stevie's body, but not of her own volition. She was forced out with Stevie's death. A death that he wouldn't ever remember . . . because, well, he was dead. Cordy quickly sent out a brainwave that induced euphoria in the human brains, by inducing them to release endorphins. She wasn't sure if it would work, but was relieved when it did.

The three quickly forgot about Cordy, lost in euphoria, almost as if they were under the influence of a psychedelic drug or something similar. Cordy knew that this state wouldn't last long, but they wouldn't remember anything up to ten minutes. She moved to snatch Sally, after quickly and diligently gathering up Stevie's brainstem.

She was going to snatch the clearly superior female, but the benign male got in the way and the psionic beam instead connected to him just moments before rhe euphoria inducement was beginning to wear off.

Jonah's shoulder rolled foward as his chin briefly touched his chest before bobbing back up with Cordy in charge. She felt the pulsating in his stomach, and realized what it was. She spoke aloud to herself, just as the euphoria inducement was wearing off and the other two were "coming down", "So the pulsing is the lifeforce of the host. Good to know."

She knew that if she was to keep her cover, she would have to pretend to be human. It was necessary not to call attention to herself. . . .

***

Oh, crapbaskets. Yarin thought suddenly. He had suddenly remembered that he had managed to scan the mind of a Furon inside that derelict saucer. He was so keen on his self-analysis that he had allow that little detail to completely slip his mind.

It was rather embarrassing. Something that he expected that he wouldn't be entirely truthful to the other RAFians about. But he still had to clean up the mess that he had neglected.  He landed his ship in the nearest landing zone. He quickly disembarked, and scanned for any local minds. Fortunately, humans and Furons were not protected from his telepathic scan as  Realm Walkers were.

He couldn't sense anything. This did not bode well.

He walked, looking very concerned. If anyone perished, their blood would be on his four negligent hands . . . please . . . please don't let anyone have perished at the hands of the Furon . . .

When the Nyac came to the next clearing, his heart dropped with alarming ragpidity. There, upon the snow-strewn ground, were three prone forms. Motionless. Blue and cold to the touch. Lifeless. Dead.

He was too late to save these three poor adolescent humans. But he couldn't tell their cause of death. It wasn't anything physical that he could see. It was some sort of tech he wasn't familiar with. Of this, he was sure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 28, 2015, 03:07:50 PM

Damn, this book is awesome so far. Sorry I haven't been replying, but I really don't have much to say. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2015, 12:01:04 AM

It's okay.

I Don know if it's clear but all this stuff with Yarin takes place at the same time as the stuff with me, Saffa, Gh, Dpsb, and Leatherhead.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A New Wrinkle

Sally didn't fare any better than her charges. While Cordy managed to keep her alive far longer than the other three (pretty much affirming Cordy's assertion of female superiority, in her mind). And Cordy was learning hiw to preserve that pulsing sensation, her host's lifeforce. But she wasn't perfect. Eventually Sally's body failed under the strain of the Furon's occupation.

Cordy, in usual Furon fashion, felt no guilt in Sally's passing, but frustration that she happened to die at a rather inopportune timeframe. Though she collected Sally's brainstem just the same. Cordy was out in the open, and prone to blowing her cover. She couldn't afford to be picky about her host, she would have to deign to take a male if such an opportunity presented itself.

And it did, but she wasn't particularly happy about it. But he was alone, and unaware and unwary. There were no situation more opportune than this. She could not pass it up.

Once safely ensconced inside his noggin, she learned that his name was Chico Preston, basically a laid-backed saxophonist who had fallen on hard, difficult times. He was essentially a drifter now, never staying in one city too long, refusing to panhandle for money, though he would be lying if there wasn't any temptation.

Though he survived longer than expected, he wasn't going to be a long-term host. He was useless as a means to mine pertinent information, and his body itself was aftually in poor health. He actually was secretly hoping for the sweet release of death, which Cordy unintentionally and indifferently provided. She was cast out, and seen.

While she quickly, quietly, and calmly collected Chico's brainstem, her observer had procured something from a hiding place. Whatever it was she didn't concern herself with. She really hadn't any means of really attacking anymore. She hadn't any real weaponry that was up-to-date, only ridiculous outdated models who efficacious she found querent with, but there was little she could do. The Emperor was an idiot for not entrusting her with this mission alone.

BAM!

The bullet grazed her arm, but it still hurt like hell. It wasn't going to be fatal, but the graze was good enough to cause some significant blood loss. Now she had another reason to snatch another dirty ape. Maybe while lodged comfortably inside their minds and bodies, her true self, her own lifeforce could heal.

"G-Get away!" came a trembling voice holding a revolver. It was a teenager, a particularly nerdy one who clearly never had fired a weapon in his life. If he had, Cordy would have been dead where she stood. "D-Don't come any cl-closer!!"

Cordy held her shoulder with one hand, as she psychically induced his brain to release the endorphins.

"Get b-back, I s-say! I will shoo . . ." It was then that the endorphins made their way through his body, leaving him complacent and unresisting. Cordy easily snatched him, Miles Harris. "This can't go on. I'm just barely keeping my cover. There has to be an easier way that I'm overlooking. At least my blasted should no longer hurts. I just have to keep this scrawny weakling alive whilst I heal."

He -- she -- stood up examining the handgun, rather uncharacteristicall y for Miles (who hated guns for the most part), and examined it with the practiced ease of an old military hand, which honestly looked rather odd for someone of Miles' true deposition. Then she pocketed it, realizing she was paying attention to the pulsating in Miles' belly, and discovered that it was weakening with alarming rapidity.

"What?!" she demanded aloud. "Is this human really that we--"

It was like a burp. It was like a burp when she popped out of his dying body. She discovered that her shoulder had healed up quite a deal, but not completely. It still twinged quite noticeably and distractingly, but the healing had been enhanced. It was obvious. She had unconsciously stolen Miles' lifeforce energy and utilized it to heal herself. She understood it immediately.

But she was at the same problem as before -- until she snatched the body of an obnoxious boy named Louie Flores, Jr. who witnessed Miles' death and the Furon popping out of his body. She decided to be as careful as she could. But she knew he wouldn't last long, as she was still wounded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 29, 2015, 12:59:35 AM

Quote

A death that he wouldn't ever remember . . . because, well, he was dead.

::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 29, 2015, 01:38:15 AM

Honestly, that sounds like a line that I'd write. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2015, 09:36:33 AM

It was gniwodahserof.

;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Trails

Cordy was right in her assumption, in that the boy only managed to serviced her for about two Terran hours before his lifeforce was extinguished. She coldheartedly collected Louis's brainstem, and was relieved to discover that this was unseen.

But she needed to thoroughly ensconce inside the mind and body of a human, or risk blowing her cover. She managed to insofar keep her presence, her very existence, a closely-held secret. Anyone who knew about her presence was either dead or inhabit by her to use as her meat puppet. Other then the Nyac, of course.

But she inhabited no one at the moment. She was naked, in a sense. Then she came across a baker who liked making square pies. She had her back to Cordy, but Cordy was still able to snatch her, with the psionic beam connect with the base of the skull of the woman, of Michelle King.

It was with Michelle that Cordy discovered how to keep the lifeforce relatively strong. She just had to scan the minds of other humans ever so often. If she was diligent about this, she could stay inside Michelle indefinitely.

But then, she felt something that filled her. Though she would vehemently deny it, it was fear. Fear of the Nyac. She wasn't sure how well this disguise would work against a Nyac. Even if they had this technology back during their invasion of Nya, they probably wouldn't have used it anyway. Their telepathy would have not only made it difficult, maybe even impossible to snatch in the first place, not to mention unmasking them.

Cordy released Melissa, actually leaving her alive accidentally, and fleeing the scene. She eventually snatches a cheerleader named Taylor Montana. Cordy, hiwever finds herself disgruntled when she discovers just how much of a goody-twoshoes Taylor was. But it was a good, and necessary disguise, she thought. And she pretended to be Taylor, but hated every moment of it. The pretentious and supercilious atmosphere of her and her friends was grating on Cordy, and it was telling.

When Cordy had enough, she deftly popped out of Taylor. She would have killed her and collected her brainstem, but that would leave a clear trail, Cordy thought, and she didn't want to give the Nyac and more clues than was necessary. Though she never considered that Nyac telepathic prowess could penetrate a mind deeper than she could, which was a folly.

So she decided to snatch a precocious prankster named Breanna Hathaway. She, despite herself, found herself really liking this human's mind. While not as malicious as Cordy would have liked, there was a certain apathy and selfishness present within the child that Cordy found . . . comfortably pleasant. Breanna was almost like a juvenile human version of herself. Cordy would most definitely strive to keep this human alive, as well as wear her as much as she could.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2015, 09:48:05 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Tracking and Tailing

During this, however, Yarin was no slouch.

Yarin had followed Cordy's route with surprising, and alarming, accuracy. Yarin never had utilized psychometry, placing about as much stock in that as Cloak did with prophecies and wish-granting. He dismissed as that which only gullible people of the mold of Sybill Trelawney would aspire to, and it wasn't without good reason.

Yarin was not usually one for outrageous flights of emotion, though he could easily be offended when people refferred to his Food Yield Increaser was dismissively referred to as nothing more than an ordinary microwave. They clearly had not realized just how much good such a device could present to this world, where some populations were so skeletally thin and hungry . . . he could take a small bit of food and make it large enough for an entire village to feed on. It was the answer to world hunger, but clearly no one but him saw it as such. Only he had the vision for such revolutionary things.

But, back to the matter at hand, he found the trail disturbingly easy to follow. The Furon did not even bother to cover up the psionic residue she left behind. Yes, it was faint at places, but that did not mean it was unnoticeable. But still . . . It was strange. Almost as if she were holding a bucket full of psionic energy, and, as she walked, some spilled out from the slight jostling one has when one walks.

This confused the Nyac for a moment or two. When he had reached the city, he felt his heart drop again. It was almost as if it was plunging into a deeper and deeper abyss. The city! The city was full of possible and potential victims of the Furon. Besides which, she could use thwt "Holobob" -- a stupid name for such a technology, he felt -- device to disguise herself as human. He wouldn't be able to distinguish her from another human.

But she couldn't shield her mind. No Furon could, not really. It was how the Nyacs were always prepared for their next attack, though they couldn't pinpoint everything in Furon minds, for minds -- even one as simplistic at a Furon's -- were like buzzing beehives and thoughts were not etched upon the interiors of skulls. There was more refinement to telepathy than that, and it was kind of offensive for anyone to oversimplify it as such.

Yarin discovered Chico Preston's motionless body. She was here, Yarin knew, as Chico's lifeless body was soaked in her psionic residue. Even then, it wasn't something most telepaths would be able to pick up on, only those trained in the ability. But Yarin was confused . . . no Furon weapon or psychic ineptitudes could lead to this much residue. It didn't make sense. . . .

He would follow the trail. That was the only way. That's where the answers would be . . . where they had to be. But he had to do it without drawing attention to himself. Humans were still not as hospitable as one may think to alien species, as the Knight prove rather regularly. He put on an ID mask, whic projected a different human form than Cloak's usual disguise. Yarin's projected image was that of a tall, nondescript human in unremarkable clothing.

Yarin didn't really like wearing this thing. It wasn't as comfortable as one may think. Btu that was a minor complaint in comparison to Yarin's mission now.

He soon found Miles' body . . . but he couldn't inspect the body as the police was there. Granted, he could flash his Mark and they might allow him. But he scanned these particular police officers and found that they probably wouldn't taken him too seriously, as they harbored clear xenophobic tendencies. And this wasn't buried deep within their minds, but lurking just below the surface of their mindscapes.

But Yarin could tell, even from this distance, that this boy, this Miles, was reeking with as much psionic residue as Chico was. Yarin was still perplexed by this. How was this possible? Furons do not such capabilities. Could they have actually made advancements since their failed invasion of Nya? Despite himself, Yarin was resistant to the idea.

This was but a stop in the trail, Yarin quickly realized. He had to continue following it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2015, 10:58:57 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Closing In . . .

Yarin quickly found Louie's inert form, discovering the very same residue, which cannot be seen with eyes, but with telepathy. But, unlike Miles, the police had apparently decided that Louie wasn't important as Miles, as they apparently seemed to ignore him, leaving him lying in a dirty, dingy alleyway. Yarin was disturbed by this selective servicing, but he, unfortunately, hadn't any time to do anything about it.

He had to find the Furon. And find it fast, before more innocent beings -- even children -- are sacrificed to feed this Furon misconception. A misconception that the Nyacs, that his kind, had fostered, unaware of the ramifications, the true consequences, of that decision. And he stood by and said nothing, did nothing, about it. But what could do? He was a young adult, he wasn't in a position of power. He couldn't have said anything or done anything about it. But . . . still . . . he could have thought about more than he had before coming to this mudball, and becoming a RAFian. He had never gave it a second thought. Before now.

He came to a spot, and there appeared to be no one here, and the trail became rather disjointed. Why? Why did . . . Questions for later. It seemed to lead to a woman . . . named Michelle . . . Michelle King. She had a span of her memory blacked out, Yarin saw telepathically as he probed her mind in a passive, unintrusive manner. He didn't know how that could possibly . . .

Then an idea occurred to him. But, no . . . that cannot be. It simply cannot be. It . . . it still remained to be seen. He mustn't rely on conjecture and speculation. He needed facts. Hard, undeniable facts. He couldn't believe anything not backed up by facts . . . or maybe he was just in denial.

In any case, he had to move forward. The information surely lay ahead, perhaps even the Furon itself.

He followed the trail to a school, which he did not go in as the trail lead to the sunken stadium of the school. It was currently empty, perhaps because of the time of day or the particular day it was, Yarin did not know. But he knew that the trail, while it lingered here (and the name Taylor Montana floated towards him for some reason) it eventually branched out elsewhere.

Naturally, the Nyac was going to follow that. This Furon was rather unfortunate that it never learned to shield its mind. But its misfortunate was Yarin's good luck.

***

Cordy had lost sight of her mission.

What did she care about brainstems? Was it really necessary to collect them? Or was it some lame wild goose chase the Furon Emperor decided to send them out on? It was pointless and futile anyway.

Besides, she was really enjoying being Breanna. She never expected it to be so enjoyable. She never had expected it to be so much fun. As she looked back, life as a Furon warrior was woefully dull compared to this. Conquering was a thrill for the first couple of times, but then it lost all its novelty, all its nuance.

She was very diligent in maintaining the girl's lifeforce, knowing that she couldn't stay snatched in a dead body. Otherwise she probably wouldn't have been so bothered by it. She still held no compunction of killing . . . although . . .

No. No, it wasn't anything to kill a lower -- er, a lesser species. Er . . . no. No, humans were a lesser species. Why was she suddenly doubting that? No. No, it couldn't be that. She had only spent seven hours in this girl. This body. This . . . This, uh, costume. That's right. It was, uh, nothing more than a disguise! Yes, that's right. A . . . a disguise.

She was nothing to Breanna. No, her name was Cordyceps. Cordyceps. Not Breanna. Cordyceps.

Cordyceps . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 29, 2015, 11:32:55 PM

This is starting to give me Taylor flashbacks. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 30, 2015, 12:15:23 AM

Good lord, yes.

I'm really eager to know what will happen to Cordy now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 30, 2015, 06:55:24 AM

Well, then, here's a bit more of that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Proximity Madness

Her name was Breanna -- no! Cordyceps! Her name was Cordyceps. Cordyceps!

She quickly realized what was happening. Her thoughts were staring to intermingle with this girl. Cordyceps started to get mad at Breanna, even though the girl was not at fault, and she was just covering up her fear. She was losing herself to this girl, and it scared her. And she didn't like being scared.

She stopped maintaining this girl's lifeforce as a consequence, even going so far as to try to expedite the girl's demise. And for what? All because the Furon was scared. Scared of losing, of forgetting her identity.

Of course, she didn't realize just how close Yarin was getting to her. She never learned how to shield her thoughts. Just another reason to fuel the Nyac preconception of Furons as telepathic amateurs.

Eventually, Breanna died swiftly and Cordy popped out, satisfied at punishing the girl for daring to make her almost forget herself, to make her almost lose her identity, ignoring the fact that Breanna actually had no conscious choice in the matter. Breanna did not will it to happen, she was in a suspended animation-like state while Cordy was inhabiting her, and Cordy knew this, but refused to accept it.

However, she did this right in front of Yarin, who was shielding his thoughts, and she was not aware of his presence. So much so that she even tried to snatch his body -- which Yarin managed to perceive correctly. And this offended him greatly.

"You dare, Furon?!" Yarin roared.

Cordy looked a bit confused. How'd this human know about Furons? No matter he would have to be killed . . . but she didn't have any means to do with her right now. She would have to hide until an opportunity presented itself. Cordy left the site, apparently forgetting to collect Breanna's brainstem. Apparently. Its deliberacy was questionable, actually.

She made liberal use of her jetpack to put distance between her and Yarin. Quickly, she projected her swapping beam to a brown-eyed, brown-haired boy of ten years. He wore a long-sleeved purple flannel shirt, dark blue jeans with a black belt with a brass buckle, and hi-tops. He had a rather square head and a flat face. His shoulders rolled forward and his chin touched his chest. She quickly snatched him, and hiding from that strange human.

This time, while she maintained his lifeforce, she allowed a measured bit to evaporate at a consistent rate. In this way, she wouldn't risk losing herself to the boy's mind. That combined with her general misandry should keep her identity, her sense of self, safe from mixing with, from interlacing with, the boy's psyche.

But that strange human . . .

He followed her. Somehow, someway, he followed her. But, Cordy reasoned, he was looking for a Furon, not a human boy. He did not witness her take this body. She was safe in this disguise. She could walk right pass him without him even noticing. She could blend in, keep up the facade until she found a way to deal with him.

She walked up and was about to pass him, when she felt pressure on the boy's shoulder. She hadn't expected this, so she jumped. Or rather, the boy jumped. And what he said next had chilled her blood, or rather the boy's blood.

"Leave the boy, Furon," Yarin said. "Leave him of your own volition, or I shall have to make you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 30, 2015, 10:07:09 AM

Yep. Gonna be more than twenty chapters.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Confrontation

"What?" she said, though to the Nyac's ears, she sounded like the boy, Nicholas Thomas. But Yarin was also a RAFian and not so easily bamboozled. "What are you talking about?"

"Leave the Thomas boy," Yarin said, able to have plucked the name from Cordycep's mind as she had plucked it from Nicholas's own mind. "Leave now, and leave Nicholas out of this."

"I am Nicholas," she insisted, attempting to maintain the masquerade. But Yarin was many things, but easily swayed was not one of them.

"Do not attempt to play me for a fool, Furon!" Yarin scolded, removing his ID mask angrily, causing his human projection to fade away at once. He knew the Furon's name, but refused to use it, to humanize it. "You do not decieve me! Your thoughts are not even shielded from other telepaths! You just prove again and again how insufferably naive and arrogant all Furons are!! You think nothing of those that you kill. Not even children are special enough to warrant your slightest concern!! You are all a species without compassion, whose only concerns are with your selfish pursuits."

Cordy was speechless. But it wasn't the words that had reached her, as she wore a shocked look upon Nicholas's face.

"And even now, you have nothing to say for yourself. Nothing to excuse or explain your utter hypocrisy!" Yarin said, continuing to harangue her. "No one to blame, accuse or accost! You just endeavor to do something that, in the long run, will do nothing to help you!! You are collecting the neural tissue for nothing! It won't fix the genetic instability. It won't."

But none of these words got through Cordy, who still remwined inside Nicholas, controlling every movement and every thought. Cordy, having neglected Yarin's words, dropped all pretense of being Nicholas, as she contorted his face into a look of unfathomable rage.

"Nyac! You foul, loathsome, evil, little insect!!" she declared. Yarin noted how odd this must have looked to an bystander -- if there were any here, that is -- for him to be berated by a human child. Not to mention how contradictory it was for a Furon to call a Nyac "little", when Nyacs were more or less double Furon size. "You are not fit to lick my boots! You are a cowardly race of deceitful jackanapes --"

"Need I remind you, Furon," Yarin said, coldly, "that you are the one cowering inside the body of a human child. That you, a Furon, tried to pass yourself off as said child to elude me."

"Bah! I thought you were a nosy human!"

"Then why bother running? If all non-Furon species are expendable as the Furon creed demands?" Yarin said.

"How do you know that?" she said quickly, as a hiss from a snake.

"How many times do I have to mention that you Furons don't shield your minds as you ought before it sinks into your heads?" the Nyac replied easily. "Furons! An empire of ignorance. A bastion of stagnation. A garden of xenophobic propaganda."

"You know nothing!" she spat.

"I know a great deal," Yarin said, calmly, but with intense eyes. "Leave the boy. Now. He has no part in this."

"Make m-- ugggghhh . . ."

The boy's face, once contorted with rage, suddenly went slack and his eyes glossed over. Then he felt at a diagonal as Cordy popped out. It wasn't intentional on her part, she hadn't even realized how careless she had gotten with the boy's lifeforce. Nicholas Thomas was dead, and he never knew how his last moments, the last moments he was bodily alive, were about berating an alien being he had never really seen.

"As cold and heartless as ever," Yarin said, with caustic venom. "Such a typical Furon!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 30, 2015, 04:54:51 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
A Battle of Ideals

"Those are admirable qualities, Nyac!" Cordy countered, matching Yarin's anger. "Bleeding hearts like yourself are a weakness!! A weakness to be culled away from the species to make it stronger, purer!"

"You are deluded." Nyac said, still with the caustic venom. "And all Furons are as well, if their view is as narrow as that which you have just expounded. You clearly know nothing about weaknesses and strengths. Devaluing, disregarding and dismissing lives does not make one strong, just like valuing life does not make one weak."

"You're deluded!" Cordy snarled back.

"Oh, I see." Yarin said, with an indifferent monotone sort of voice. "It is no wonder that you draw comfort from inhabiting children. You are a child yourself. You chose to see the world as black-and-white, seeing Furons as the good guys by definition, seeing that your kind can do no wrong. Those are the ideals of a child!"

"No, you're the child, Nyac!" Cordy countered. "The fact of life is that it's kill or BE killed."

"That's a gross oversimplification of everything there is to have about living," Yarin said. He shook his head, as if his anger had transmuted and transformed into great pity. "Furons have no subtlety, do they? You bash through everything with hyper-aggression and careless recklessness. It surprises me little that you had little success pretending to be human. The Hathaways were clearly aware something was . . . off with Breanna."

"Shut up about that," Cordy warned.

"Oh? Still touting the 'kill or be killed' motto, and, yet, when I bring up Breanna . . ." Yarin said.

"Silence, you insignificant ignoramus!" she roared as she attacked Yarin, who dodged each blow easily, able to  quite literally read the intended strike's position.

"Ah," Yarin said, once Cordy stopped. "When you can't refute an argument, you resort to violence. How childish. Did you get a politician to teach you that stratagem?"

At this, Cordy, filled anew with anger, furiously attacked Yarin again, who again did not strike her, but just easily dodged her attacks.

"Stop that!!" she cried out in frustration.

"Stop what?" Yarin said, with feigned ignorance.

"Stop evading me and let me kill you!!"

"Well, when you put it like that," Yarin said, "no."

She let out a scream of frustration.

"Did I touch a nerve?" Yarin asked, benignly coy.

"If you not going to let me kill you," Cordy said, angrily, "then stop with the foreplay. Kill me and be done with it already!!"

Yarin's answer was firm. "No."

"WHY NOT?!" she demanded.

"Because it would not satisfy me, I'm afraid." Yarin said. "I do confess that when I first shot down your saucer, nothing would please me more than to end your existence right then and there. For what your kind tried to to my homeworld, Nya."

Yarin allowed a pregnant pause, before continuing.

"But what I did was no better," he continued, quietly. "It was I who made you unable to reproduce naturally. It was my fault that you now have to clone yourselves to perpetuate your species. It was not my intent, not really, to do it. But it happened, and it was at my hands."

"What?! You?!" Cordyceps demanded.

"But you consider yourself lucky," Yarin said. "Had you invaded Anur Phaetos, Anodyne, or any place similar . . . and they'd have conquered you instead."

"Whereas you have condemned us to a slow death." Cordy sneered. "Unless we collect more brainstems. These humans will just have to get over it. They have something we need."

"Haven't I already told you?" Yarin said. "That is a lie. The brainstems contain nothing that you can use to stabilize your genome. At most, all you can do is make a hybrid, and, even then, it would be of questionable viability."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 31, 2015, 05:50:20 AM

I'm actually not sure which side to take here.

Or I'd just get them both off if I could. Like we say in my city, translated - "don't fight in front of my house, fight in front of the neighbour's house" :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2015, 08:40:30 AM

Quote from: Saffa on December 31, 2015, 05:50:20 AM

I'm actually not sure which side to take here.

Which is what I wanted. :)

I read some of Yarin's old posts thst basically all Nyacs are scientists. And I was attempting to use them to demonstrate the dangers of blind ambition and curiosity in science without the benefit of any perspective to limit and caution the unfettered advancements of such without any consideration for possible consequences or ramifications.

I hope that came across in the story.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Defeat

"Why should I trust you?" Cordy demanded.

"I can ask you the same question, Furon," Yarin said, with an abrupt change to his former imperious attitude.

"You Nyacs." Cordy spat. "So pernicious. Holier-than-thou. Bleeding hearts. You're as savage as us, but you're 'savages with a heart'. Kill people than cry over them."

"You don't anything about Nyacs." Yarin said, with a cold monotone. "And you Furons are culpable of more crimes than any Nyac! Unlawful invasion. Unlawful infiltration of an innocent planet. Unlawful --"

"We are not bound to your laws!" Cordy said. "You have no right to enforce them upon me!"

"You are the invader here, Furon," Yarin countered.

"And just where is YOUR visa, then, Nyac?" Cordy replied with a snarl.

"I am not the aggressor here, Furon. You are."

"Oh, so just because I'm a Furon and, just because we don't mesh with your ideology and philosophy bullet point by bullet point, we're the bad guys by definition?" Cordy roared. "You Nyacs are no angels!"

"You were the ones who invaded my homeland, not the other way around!"

"We do the galaxy a favor! We rid it of the weaker species so the galaxy! We are the pruners! We cut away the blighted portions --"

"And what give you the right to make such judgements?!" Yarin said, losing his cool. "What gives you the right to be the divine arbiter of such things?!"

"We are the first species!"

"You are not." Yarin said, seeing where this was going. "Not even Nyacs were the first species. I have met a member of the first species, and his niece."

"Than you have been misled, idiot. Everyone knows that Furons came first. That Furons are the rightful --"

BAM!

"What?" Cordy said. She had been shot in the crest of her head. It was just a grazing though. Both she and Yarin had been so absorbed in their argument, they had ignored their environment. It was a very easy thing to do when you get into a very heated argument, and no species known has ever really been immune to this, unless they were really apathetic.

BAM! BAM!

Cordy was shot her shoulder and the base of her spine.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Now cordy was shot in her thigh, stomach, chest, and throat.

BAM!

One final shot right between her large reflective eyes. Cordy was dead, and she couldn't be returned in a new clone body, so she was fundamentally dead. Permanently. And it wasn't Yarin's doing at all, as her killer stepped from the shadows, but Yarin had sensed his mind immediately after Cordy's death.

"One piece of alien filth down," said the shooter, a big, hairy, beefy man with long, tanged brown hair and a beard to match. He wore what was colloquially known as a "wife-beater", a white one, some rather tattered-looking blue jeans with a hole at the left knee, no shoes, and a trucker hat. Like Cordy, he had no mental defenses, but Yarin could see that it was pointless to read his mind, as the guy spoke whatever was on his mind, and the guy most certainly wasn't a nuclear physicist. His name was Johnny. Johnny Boyd.

"You're next, you nudist prick," he said, addressing Yarin.

Yarin was about to have that. He telepathically triggered sleep in Johnny's brain, and he fell over, not discharging his weapon, fortunately enough. Yarin saw from his mind that, while he wasn't an official member of thr Knights, he harbored Knight sympathies. It was a bit disheartening, that even the Knights had sympathisers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 31, 2015, 10:26:18 AM

Damn. I was a little surprised by how sudden that was, but I can't say it was a bad choice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on December 31, 2015, 10:32:29 AM

Got the Cassie reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 31, 2015, 10:35:19 AM

I was thinking of pointing that out, but I thought it might have just been coincidence. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2015, 01:49:41 PM

I assure you, GH, it wasn't a coincidence.

Still working on the next chapter. The next book, however, I'll admit that I'm not particularly looking forward to write because I know it's probably gonna be a difficult one.

:edit: New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Loose Threads

Yarin was still dealing with the ramifications of what that meant. He sequestered, Cloak-like, himself to his own threat, which was littered with its usual flooring of forgotten and discarded papers, pondering on what just happened.

He had never once, never truly examined the culpability of his species actions before now. Not really. He could see how presumptuous they were when they believed they were being truly altruistic. It is the folly of any civilization that believes that merely diverting the threat from their home, that it has been dealt with foevermore, and they do not bear any kind of responsibility for the lives and races that their former threat ravages.

The Nyac were not without sin in the Nyac-Furon war, as Yarin was forced to see. It was remarkable how different things looked from another's perspective. He realized how single-minded and pigheaded that even he himself could get.

Granted, it did not change his view that Furons had a very simplistic and black-and-white world view, which was very limited and narrow at the same time. Yarin, despite open hostility and mutual emnity he still felt towards the Furons, he could not help but pity them for this. All the splendor that was pleasant and wonderful in the world . . . and the Furons just saw things to destroy, to tramp underfoot, to conquer. What a sad existence such warlike species must live -- especially if death, destruction, and killing is all they know, when much loftier, more peaceful ideals and professions exist. How can you not pity them for that?

However, it isn't any better when an established civilization grows complacent with their power, like his kind -- like he himself -- had. When a civilization choses to declare that they are the good guys, by definition, and can do no wrong. That complacency, that arrogance, tends to slowly and gradually replace competence and genuine good will, after a civilization has set a number of years and the bile of corruption, thr virus thst degrades and decays integrity with selfishness and singular self-interest.

Cloak seemed to think that corruption was an inevitability in any system of government. Simple conjecture from that followed that corruption would inevitably precede a government's collapse, and the economy with it. Yarin had to admit he could see the logic in such an argument, as well as see how it could connect with Nyac's government, as well as practically every other democratic government, but he refused to believe any givernment was beyond saving. He chose to be optimistic in that, starkly contrasting Cloak, the self-admitted local pessimist.

Sure, there were governments that were broken, whether a little or a lot, but that did not necessarily mean that they could not be fixed. No, they were far from being a fargone conclusion. And all things can be fixed.

***

Cerulean was afforded a bit of a distraction in all this.

A Kineceleran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kineceleran) and a Citrakayah (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Citrakayah) had gotten into an argument. They were fiercely debating who was faster. Cerulean assumed they were arguing about who was a faster runner, rather than . . . other areas.

Cerulean could see why he was called in though. This was escalating. If someone didn't intercede, this would become a shoving match. Shoving matches, if left to fester, invariably led to blows. The blows would invariably lead to an all-out brawl. He had to nip this in the bud.

"The solution to your problem is simple," Cerulean said. Bith the Kineceleran and the Citrakayah wore looks of mulish defiance, dislike and enmity contouring their features. "Just have a race. Simple."

They did, but it ended with a surprising conclusion. The winner was . . . Cerulean?

***

GH was introducing Leatherhead to RAF, or reintroducing him, rather. And, of course, he did it through song:

"Welcome, my friend, to RAF.
Here, have a flower on me.
Forget where you're from.
You're in RAF!
Child, come!
I'll show you that RAFian joie de vivre!
RAF holds the key to your heart.
And all of RAF plays a part!"

Shanker and Dameg sang:

"Just stroll two by two
Down what we call 'la rue'."

The other RAFians, other than Cloak, Cerulean, and Yarin, joined GH:

"And soon all RAF
Will be singing to you!
Ooh La La!
Ooh La La!
Ooh La La!"

Helen sang, ending it with a kiss with Parker:

"RAF holds the key to l'amour!"

Wild sang:

"And not even Freud knows the cure!"

Faerie said:

"There's love in the air!"

Saffa sang:

"At the RAF Follies Begere!"

Gaz sang:

"We RAFians have it down to an art!"

RAFians sang:

"RAF hold the key to your heart!"

GH sang:

"When you're feeling blue,
Come to Le RAF Moulin.
When your heart says don't,
The RAFians say do!"

The female RAFians sang:

"When you think you can't,
You'll find you can can!"

RAFians sang:

"RAF holds the key
To your heart!"

Azzy sang:

"You'll be 'tres jolie' and so smart!"

Dino sang:

"Come, dance through the night."

Broken sang:

"And forget all your woes."

GH and RAFians sang:

"The forum of light --"

Dbsp sang:

"Where a rose is a rose!"

GH and the other RAFians sang:

"And one never knows
What will start!
RAF . . .
Holds the key . . .
To your . . .
Heart!"

Then song ended with a strong flourish and Leatherhead looked beside himself with joy at the song and acceptance. Aquilai even provided him with a small lab coat thst gave him a superficial appearance similarity to a kiddified Lizard from Marvel Comics.

"Guys?" Cloak said, in reference to the song choice. "You do realize that Valentine's Day isn't for about two of your weeks, right? I mean, give or take."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2015, 11:32:27 PM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CVIII:
REVERSE FLOW
CHAPTER ONE:
Different Kinds of Problems

"What is it with people smuggling weird and dangerous aliens on this planet?" Saffa huffed. "Don't we have enough to do as it is?"

She was referring to a monstrous creature with a brown colored-body with a derpy smile and vacant-looking eyes on its face. It had a row of black spikes running down their back and multiple limbs. Its mouth was frothing with corrosive acid and it had jagged teeth.

"What is that thing, anyway?"

"It's a Screegit," Cloak said.

"You know everything, don't you?" Parker said.

Cloak ignored the comment, "Screegits are very dangerous in nitrogen-rich atmospheres."

"Like Earth," Underseen said.

"Like Earth," Cloak agreed. "Outside such an atmosphere, they're like cuddly stuffed animal toys that children are so fond of."

"So, the smuggler didn't know this." Abby summed up.

"Other than that," Parker prompted, in his direct manner, "what are the Screegit's capabilities? And, more importantly, weaknesses?"

"Exceedingly durable. Fundamentally fireproof."

"Those don't sound like weaknesses."

"Because they aren't," Cloak said, voice and infliction blunt. "The only weakness I know is for it to be in an atmosphere without nitrogen."

"Then just suck all the nitrogen away from it," Saffa said, as if this would be easy and simple.

Cloak looked her, raising an eyebrow incredulously. "Do you have any idea how fine of a control that such a feat would require? Like trying to collect a specific couple of spurts of water from raging rapids."

"Wonderful," Parker said. Then he turned to Helen, "Honey, do you think you make a particular, impromptu construct?"

"Of course!" she proclaimed. She looked at the Screegit, and, despite it all, she still thought the thing looked cute.

***

GH was trying to get a fussy Leatherhead to eat his dinner when he didn't want to. He was essentially six years old, in human terms.

"How come you're always such a fussy reptile-man?
Don't want no Captain Crunch, don't want no Raisin Bran.
Well, don't you know that other kids are starving in farway land?
So eat it, just eat it!
Don't want to argue, I don't want to debate!
Don't want to hear about what kind of food you hate!
You won't get no dessert 'till you clean off your plate!
So eat it!
Don't you tell me you're full.
Just eat it! Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!
Get yourself an egg and beat it!
Have some more turkey, have some more pie.
It doesn't matter if it's boiled or fried.
Just eat it, eat it, just eat it, eat it!
Just eat it, eat it, just eat it, eat it, ooh!
Your table manners are some cryin' shame.
You're playin' with your food, this ain't some kind of game!
Now, if you starve to death, you'll just have yourself to blame.
So eat it, just eat it!
You better listen, better do what you're told.
You haven't even touched your tater tot casserole.
You better chow down or it's gonna get cold.
So eat it!
I don't care if you're full.
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Open up your mouth and feed it!
Have some more yogurt, have some more spam.
It doesn't matter it it's fresh or canned.
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Don't you make me repeat it!
Have a banana, have a whole bunch!
It doesn't matter what you had for lunch!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
If it's gettin' cold, reheat it.
Have a big dinner, have a light snack.
If you don't like it, you can't send it back!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Get yourself an egg and beat it!
Have some more chicken, have some more pie.
It doesn't matter if it's boiled or fried!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Don't you make me repeat it.
Have a banana, have a whole bunch.
It doesn't matter what you had for lunch.
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!"

". . . No!" Leatherhead said, stubbornly.

"Well," GH said, with a noncommittal shrug, "I tried."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 01, 2016, 01:28:46 AM

Just makes me wonder what exactly I was trying to get LH to eat. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 01, 2016, 02:07:28 AM

(http://i.imgur.com/j75vIc8.png)

:P

PDF for the last book. Which was great.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 01, 2016, 10:15:57 AM

 ;D

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Grousing

"Stupid . . . idiotic . . ." Aquilai was grousing angrily. "Piece of . . . stupid . . . "

"Oh, quit your grousing," Cloak said. "It's been a hard night for all of us. Especially GH -- he should have never tried to make LH eat those brussel sprouts. He just lucky that LH didn't attack him -- surprisingly timid for an alligator."

Aquilai didn't hear him. Sure, stopped from his grousing to bestow that lab coat to Leatherhead, but he immediately resumed as he returned to try to repair his TARDIS. His TARDIS was as important to as GH's guitar was to him, and Aquilai was just as obsessed with his TARDIS. More, if possible.

"Stupid demon, messing up my TARDIS," Aquilai mumbled heatedly.

"It wasn't a demon. It was an alien to this planet. I think it was called a Planchakule, and it comes from a junkyard planet." Cloak said. Then he perceived something from the Time Lord. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

"Stupid demonic creature," Aquilai muttered mutinously. "Breaking my beloved TARDIS . . ."

"You're . . . not going to let this go, are you?

"Damnable, condemnable, piece of --" Aquilai muttered, followed by a string of curses.

"Nope," the Realm Walker said, with a sigh, "no, I don't think you will."

There was sparking that Cloak actually felt uncomfortable about. The Realm Walker didn't know why he felt such a way, though. He also didn't like the way that Aquilai seemed obvious about it.

The sparking seemed to it increase in volatility and frequency. This unnerved Cloak, and he still did not know why. But Aquilai didn't seemed too fussed about it . . . but he seemed more focused on other things.

"Uh, Aquilai?"

"Stupid little prick, messing up my TARDIS," Aquilai was muttering, paying Cloak no mind. "Useless, worthless monster . . ."

"Uh, Aquilai?" Cloak prompted.

The sparking seemed to intensify. And Aquilai remained oblivious. He never even acknowledged Cloak's presence when he first came into his TARDIS. He remained so ever focused on fixing the Planchakule's damage, and fixing it as quickly and efficiently as he could, physically. He would not sleep or eat if he wasn't required to.

"Aquilai!" Cloak said, sharply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 01, 2016, 09:10:19 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Blast to Last

"AQUILAI!" Cloak roared, as the sparking became to furious, intense, and dangerous to be ignored -- except by those devoted to ignoring danger signs and the overly driven -- so that Cloak had to shield his eyes from it. "Will you stop your grousing and PAY ATTENTION?!"

"WHAT?" Aquilai said, irritated, as if forcibly coming out of a reverie that he swiftly wished to retun to. "What is so damn important that --"

"Open your eyes, will you?" Cloak said, apparently infected by some of Aquilai's anger. "There is some sort of energy discharge going off over there. It's increasing in intensity exponentially!"

"I'll get to it, once I'm finished fixing this console here!" Aquilai said, mulishly moody. "I really enough to do without you --"

"I didn't do anything, Time Walker," Cloak said angrily. It was a Realm Walker term for Time Lords. "That's an influx of temporal energy. I'm sure of it."

Aquilai said nothing. He had gone back to work repairing the console.

"Aquilai."

Nothing.

"Aquilai.

Still nothing.

"Don't you Gateburst ignore me," Cloak snarled.

Aquilais said nothing still, so Cloak yanked him roughly from beneath the console. He then held him up and forced him to see the discharging.

"That is the priority here, friend." Cloak said, waiting a moment before putting Aquilai down. "That is just gonna keep building and building until it reaches critical --"

"I'm aware."

"Don't you dare go back to that console." Cloak warned. "This requires your attention first. I have seen something like this occur in another realm before."

Aquilai did not seem as interested in it as Cloak was, frankly. This was frustrating the Realm Walker, and, despite himself, he had habit of turning towards anger when frustrated, like his mother. He had gotten better at controlling it though. But Aquilai was not making it easy.

"Time Walker," Cloak said, forcing himself to be patient. "If not stemmed, if not nipped in the bud, the temporal energy could cause disastrous --"

BOOM!

Cloak just had time enough to think, Oh, wonderful, before witnessing Aquilai regenerate into the Second Aquilai. Had to be some sort of record. Usually he'd be Seventh or Eighth Aquilai before year's end, had his clock not fundamentally been reset during the whole youth thing.

There something wrong, though. Cloak could feel it to his core.

This wasn't helped when he saw Aquilai degenerate back into the First Aquilai.

"What the -- ?"

Cloak sihed huffily, as he watched as Aquilai was forced to retrace his steps, like someone clicking rewind on a VCR. Only he seemed to be aware of it. Cloak, being a Realm Walker, wasn't affected. But there was a silhoette that looked like a fabric burn who was his silhouette, if he were wearing a cloak. It imitated everything that he did up until the point of the big boom. Cloak knew why. A Realm Walker can only exist bodily in one place at any given time. There aren't multiple versions of Realm Walkers in other alternstive timelines. There has, and always will be, just one Cloak.

"What's happening?!" Aquilai demanded. "How -- what -- ?"

"It's crystal clear what happened!" Cloak replied. "The temporal energy built up to an explosive level, enough to cause time to flow backward instead of normally!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 02, 2016, 12:06:22 AM

Oh, I really have to concentrate on this one. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2016, 12:12:58 AM

Yes, as I've said before, it's gonna be a tough, if not time-consuming book to write. Especially because I may have to rewrite the ending. And it might be less than the requisite twenty chapters. And, of course, the next one deals with death.

. . .

That wasn't a spoiler, Saffa. Put the skillet away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 02, 2016, 02:05:48 AM

I just looked at the list again.

*shifty eyes*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 02, 2016, 03:26:51 AM

Somewhat off-topic, but my cat is screaming because she doesn't want to eat the type of food that I gave her. Kinda resembles chapter 1 of this book . . . :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2016, 10:01:43 AM

If you say so, GH. ;)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Heading Back to Year 1*

"That's ridiculous!" Aquilai said. But they were back in the middle of song number that GH was using to reintroduce Leatherhead back to the forum.

Then they were seperated. While Cloak was still in the forum, when his "burn silhouette" was off dealing with Trike, the Furon. Cloak was quickly realizing something was very wrong. Even more so than usual.

This was stuff that was dealt with days ago. And time had proceeded backward in a matter of, from his perspective, minutes. This was not a very auspicious happenstance. If it continued . . .

Oh, yeah. The Gourmand-Orcytini eating contest. It looked very odd going in reverse. Like it was a vomitting contest instead of an eating contest. Cloak found it very odd. . . .

Oh, for the love of the First Light. Not the sprites again. They were even annoying this way. It was like nails-on-a-chalkboard evolved to new torturous heights. He had to put his hands over his ears, and try not to writhe the sheer irritation their sped-up words caused. . . .

Then the time that Raevyn was turning to stone due to her reckless use of bath oils from an unknown benefactor. Something she was very reticent and hesitant to allow happen again. But with the time stream like this, she had no idea what was going on. Only Cloak and Aquilai seemed to be functionally aware of the reverse flow of time. . . .

He knew that he had to find a way out if thus situation, a way to fix it . . . but no ideas came to him . . .

Oh no. The Titan serum victims. It was horrible to see them in their deteriorated state, but equally as odd when their condition suddenly improved and they became threats. Cloak watched this all as if some viewer with a broken remote and VCR. As if he had a reality remote and the rewind button was stuck . . .

First Light, not that moment. Not the moment at he was forced to use bloodbending. He shoukd have known this was coming. Why did he walk out here? He wasn't bound to the reverse flow like everyone else was. Why did he force these kind of things on himself? Was his subconscious telling him just how bad of a person he was? He immediately turned on his heel and went to the city . . .

Wrong move. He had to see his "burn silhouette" slowly, tortuously killing the siren. He witnessed, first-hand, just how cold, how ruthless, how . . . evil . . . it appeared. He felt a fair amount of guilt about it. At the time, it seemed like the only solution to a difficult problem. But now? Now, the little gnawing worm of doubt ate at Cloak's conviction of it being the right thing to do . . . he acted rashly . . . the fact that it went backwards did not lessen this impact. . . .

Then he looked up and saw the RAFians flitting through the sky with Demos and Saffa inhaling spontaneously erupting fire. It was flaming Thread, but in reverse. Cloak remembered this all too clearly, as it was the first time the RAFians really got acquainted with Bern Bridges' piddly little radio show. . . .

Then he saw the Gossamer. The Gossamer called Shaw (by Malice). It was quite odd to see a panic going on in reverse. Very disconcerting. This whole reversal of time flow thjng had made Cloak feel rather nauseated, but he chose to ignore it. It wasn't nearly that bad. He watched as Shaw walked backwards from the city. . . .

Cloak blinked. It seemed that the time flow was on some sort of time skip. They were at the start of the year again . . . back when Cloak realized that he and Rotiart had more in common than he thought. . . .

Cloak pulled himself out of these thoughts. He needed to discover a way to stop this and put time back on the right direction. Aquilai was helpless to give him any sort of assistance. There wasn't anyone to help . . . except . . . maybe . . .

---

* Yeah, this a little meta. So sue me. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2016, 10:30:49 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
End of the Year Shenanigans

Cloak was feeling a little nettled. He knew he had to stop this reversal of time somehow, but didn't know how. He was pacing in the forum. Except for that one, really difficult way. And the difficulty was only due to the --

Cloak was distracted, by the RAFians coming into the forum -- or rather leaving walking backward. And Cloak realized what this was. This was the aftermath of Rotiart's death, and having to tell the others that weren't there about it. About . . . his . . . death . . .

It occurred to Cloak that maybe he could go and prevent his . . . but no. That wouldn't work. Not with time moving backward. Add to the fact that he wasn't sure of any sort of scope he would have to alter things. And he was not omniscient. He did not know what would happen by preventing Rotiart's death, as heartless as it sounds. When meddling with time, there was always a catch. Always. And he . . . didn't want to be responsible for any negative ramifications. Time travel always made him sick, which is why he never enjoyed it and always declined when offered. In any case, it was too late, he allowed the chance, the moment, to pass in the blink of an eye. . . .

Then the umbraraptors and missing shadows debacle. Cloak remembered it too well. He didn't need a reminder. . . .

Oh, not that whole Pandora Box business again! Cloak still had mixed feelings about Pandora. . . .

Wait, why were Saffa and GH squaring off like that? Was this right after that gladiator thing with Gamesmaster? Yep. Soon, the team would be taken ip to the ship where Malice would kill Gamesmaster . . . which got Cloak to wonder what she was doing during all this. She couldn't and wouldn't be affected, just like he wasn't. Whatever she was up to Cloak knew that it couldn't be anything good. . . .

Huh? Oh, right. The yarn-ification. It was rwther bizarre to see in reverse, but everythjng was bizarre seen in reverse. And only he and Aquilai were aware of it. . . .

What was this? Oh, right. The Void Space projector. He wondered idly if that would ever come into play again, should he and Aquilai fix this whole mess. . . .

Oh, he remembered this. Salem's magical brand. They hadn't seen hide nor hair of the boy since. Cloak did not trouble himself with remembering it to clearly. He need to put time back right. But how? . . .

Oh. Yeah. This guy. The crazy Calendar Creep, ineffectual and easy dismissed. Really, a pathetic, Gilderoy Lockhart-type of person. It was actually kind of hard not to pity him. . . .

Oh, no. The man who got addicted to youth. Erisraptor. Cloak could understand how an old man would like being young again, but he should have weighed the cons when he contracted their debilitating diseases and defects of others. But . . . he was addicted. His was a sad story. . .

. . . Great. This. Back where Malice played him for both a patsy and a fool. Where he and the other RAFians slayed a virus who had annoyed Malice. Granted, the virus was bound inside a body-jacker, and kept stealing bodies, but still . . .

Cloak needed to end this. He really did . . . but he could only come with one possible conclusion. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 03, 2016, 03:56:15 PM

#ThrowbackThursdayButNotActuallyThursday

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2016, 07:26:06 PM

Kinda of. I'm just waiting until a past book where I'll "break sequence". Dino will be happy, I think.

New book ideas!

• Book DCCCLVIII: "Knightly Germ Warefare" -- The Knights resort to germ warefare, claiming that their biological weapons are harmless against humans and Terran life.
• Book DCCCLIX:"Disregarded Ramifications" -- They were wrong.
• Book DCCCLX:"Dire Wraiths" -- The RAFians face Dire Wraiths.

Don't think I repeated anything. All titles subject to change.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Contemplation Complications

Cloak really couldn't deal with this much longer . . . there had to be a solution. The inly other thing that he could conceive of doing would basically be to  --

His attention was stolen by watching the others -- and his "burn silhouette" -- deal with the Rachel Toxin. Cloak absently wondered if there was any potential for the toxin to resurface, before he remembered that the Titan formula probably had it as its template, unless he was simply misremembering something. He remembered thst it was quite the ordeal. . . .

No, he must remain focusd on the task at hand. Maybe if he talked to a Chronian . . . but they seem rather prickish, as a species characteristic. Cloak was aware that this was a sweeping generalization and shameful conjecture, but he needed to be pragmatic. They surely wouldn't help, and they very well might not even care. . . .

Oh, the time where he lose his sight with the others. He wasn't affected by it again, but his "burn silhouette" double was. It was very strange viewing it in this third-person sort of view. It was like his life was becoming a Gateburstin' clip show.

Maybe if he asked the Chronosapiens, perhaps they'd help. Hopefully, this wouldn't be beyond their powers. But they may not be as helpful as Cloak hoped as they did engage in the Time War with the Chronians. Although, they may not remember that.

Everything seemed relatively peaceful, but Cloak remembered this was when they had to search for those kidnapped kids. And they found them in the lair of that preverted madman with the mind-controlling cards and unhealthy obsession with "Alice in Wonderland". Cloak would have rather forgotten him, as the mere thought of him rankled the Realm Walker. He stuttered to think what that guy would have done . . .

Cloak needed to focus here. He needed to figure a way to get back on track. Because if it didn't stop going backwards, so his friends would be unborn. That is, regress back into infanthood, and be . . . unbirthed. Then entire species would die off simply by being devolved. And that will keep going untill all life on this planet ceases. Then it presumably doing the same on other planets -- whose to say that this reverse time thing is only relegated to Earth? But that was all speculation and conjecture.

He looked around and noticed what appeared to Cerulean planting several bombs whose counters were counting up. Cloak could barely see him do it and he wonders if the reversing time was accelerating. He certainly hoped not.

That would prove to be disastrous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2016, 12:16:16 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Inner Conflict

Cloak couldn't think of any way around it. He would have to somehow go --

He blinked and realized that he was at the point of time when they had to deal with that Spirit-Drinker. And he nearly lost his mind with fury when he went after it. He still remembered what he felt about the Spirit-Drinker. He remembered wanting to kill it, he remembered that anger. Looking back now, it shamed him.

Focus. Cloak. Focus on the true problem.

He realized that this was the point that they were in Mojoworld for those stupid television shows. Which led him to wonder, was Mojoworld suffering this, too? If not, did the RAFians just . . . stop existing for the time period sent there? Cloak couldn't help himself from shuttering at the thought. Being killed is one thing, nonexistence is quite another. It was not a pleasant concept to consider.

Uh! Cloak furiously reminded himself that he should have been considering something else. Still the only being that could possibly help with this situation . . . but there were barriers to going about . . .

He was distracted when he noticed that this was the point they were fighting the progeny of Garrotik. That was an expansive mission. He had so many . . . all of them as deprived and heartless as their progenitor. They were savage battles . . . but they all wre -- were -- dead.

Cloak forcibly turned his mind to the situation at hand. It was hard, like being mesmerized by a new episode of a show that you really like. And Cloak had the problem of feline curosity to contend with, which he managed from time to time. He tried to think of the way around the obstacles that he perceived . . .

He watched as the whole Juggernaut thing happened in reverse. Presumably the Genosha thing was happening as well. . . .

He . . . he would have to break the rules. He woukd have to violate the rules set forth in --

He was immediately distracted by the realization of Garrotik having been reborn via the time reversal, and Cloak wondered if he was aware of the state of the universe at the moment. But if even Richard did not . . .

He really had to find a way to undo this, if he was mistaken. Last thing they needed would be Garrotik again, alive and healthy. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 04, 2016, 07:35:24 AM

Seriously? That could happen? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2016, 07:11:39 PM

No. No, it is not. Cloak is allowing his nagging worries and apprehensive fears get the better of him on that one.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Indecision and Distractions

Granted, the chnaces of that happening were nil, at best. Hopefully, he wasn't mistaken. He had to be confident that the monster wouldn't reappear. Atter all, his progeny and Ruchard himself seemed unaware of it. . . .

Oh . . . huh . . . right. "RAFian Idol". Looking back, that seemed like nothing more than a distraction, but an entertaining one. However, listening to them in reverse, just hurt his ears. Just a series of annoying squeaks and squeals.

Cloak tried to pull his attention from the spectacle for reversing time. He had to get everything back to normal, and he was the only one with autonomy with time like this to do anything about it.

Behind Cloak the whole debacle with the Toyman was playing, but in reverse. Cloak wondered what his story was since his defeat at their hands. Hopefully, he got the help he needed. Hopefully, he didn't resist the help. Thing was, in situations of mental health, the one way for someone to get better is for that someone to want to get better, otherwise it would be a moot effort.

Back to the problem at hand, Cloak didn't know if breaking the treaty -- again -- would be wise. But it might be the only way . . .

Oh, right. The corroder gun. Gaz still harbored a deep hatred and resentment towards Rusty, despite knowing that he was off his meds. Such feelings don't go away immediately, and have a stubborn habit of lingering when they should have been resolved. Cloak knew this . . . firsthand.

Cloak thought about the problem at hand again, and wondered if he was even still alive. He may very well be the only one that could help in this situation. The question was . . .

He was distracted by the gremlins running rampant around. Then he remembered that event, and found himself not being too terribly fond of them. And he remembered Rotiart's irresponsibility, which, considering knowing his eventual fate, showed this in a new, somber light.

Focus, Cloak!!

Oh, no. Not the Gateburstin' Polarisoid. Cloak found himself not liking their culture of basically stealing their vacationing spots and take them back to their homeworld. He considered that little more than kidnapping and theft, though, as an outsider himself, he probably did not have a right, himself, to be so judgemental.

Cloak couldn't allow himself to continue to get distracted by this glorified clip show. But it was difficult. Very difficult.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2016, 09:54:44 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
A Ticking Clock

Very difficult, indeed. But Cloak had to strive --

Oh, this was when they fought Regiflora, before they knew he was the progency of Garrotik. Before they knew the dangerous monster that was Garrotik. It was odd, knowing this now, but watching the RAFians and his "burn silhouette" ignorant in this fact, fighting him. Granted, it was backwards, but the point still stands.

Gah! Cloak! You need to focus on the task at ha--

Oh, yes. The Seekers. What a bunch of lovely tinheads they were. Even with their superior numbers, they could squash RAF and the RAFians. It was kind of pathetic on their part, but it wasn't their fault. Perhaps if Malice allowed a bit more autonomy in them . . . but Malice was ever the control freak. . . .

Which made him wonder again, what was Malice doing during this? She was just as immune to its effects as he was. She had to have notice by now.

Oh, that ectoplasmer thing. Cloak couldn't remember the proper name of it. It was one the less memorable missions. Well, not for the four RAFians who became geist wraiths, obviously, but there was so much that had happened since.

No. No! Cloak berated himself. Why was he being distracted so easily? Was his feline inclinations? His feline curiosity had always been something that he tried to master . . .

Oh no. The Xenophage. That he remembered easily. A terrifying creature with no morals, no qualms. All it desired was to seek out its favorite foodstuff -- symbiotes -- but wouldn't hesitate to eat human children. A horrible, shapeshifting creature. . .

Cloak, he berated himself again, this isn't helping. He was just allowing the time flow backward. It would be just a mstter of time before his "burn silhouette" stopped appearing altogether.

Oh, wait a moment . . . that wasn't his "burn silhouette". It was much too small, and he didn't have two. It wasn't Malice but a distant relative. Corruption. He wasn't here, obviously, becaue he was dead. He was beyond the Veil. But the thought of Corruption caused Cloak's ichor to boil. He remembered what happened when his touch reversed his personality. The mere remembrance of it incensed him.

No. No, Cloak, he scolded himself, do not get sidetracked from your goal. You know what you must do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2016, 11:36:07 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Time Trickling Down

He know what had to be done . . . but did not know any means to achieve it. He would have to leave the --

Huh, what was . . . oh. The Dinosaur Island incident. He nearly forgot about that incident. Which was kinda of funny, considering the widespread dino-ification. It was actually a testament to the weird sort of missions that RAFians are involved with to forget such a thing that would tend to stick out in the memories of the average joe.

But then came the unusual calm for a couple of weeks. Cloak thought he watched some show about capturing and summoning cards, but he didn't remember the name. It was quite rare for them to have downtime like this. Very rare indeed.

Huh? Oh, right. The means to end this major time anomaly. To fix this, he needed to travel toward . . . toward . . .

Oh . . . the Bucky business. Cloak thought there was a sentient or possessed ventriloquist doll involved as well. He thought about that. Yep. A RAFian's life is a weird one, without a question.

Wait . . . he needed to travel to . . . to . . .

This didn't make sense. What was happening? Time seemed to be flowing slower, but still faster than it should be. And in reverse. Wha . . . wait. The Merging. They had just blasted through that as if they were a car on a dirt road. It smoothed out, and time still moved quickly, but a bit slower and somewhat more stable than before.

Yet Cloak seemed to a bit addled, and he struggled to collect his thoughts together. He needed to stop this. He needed to get to . . .

Cloak blinked it was very strange to see himself in Prodigy. Or was that Composite? Eh, didn't matter. He didn't remember his time in that fused form. He may have, when he was split from . . . whoever, but those memories faded as memories tend to do at times.

He couldn't keep allowing himself to get distracted like this. Though he had to admit, it felt.more like he was stalling, as if he were waiting for a particular event. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2016, 02:21:36 AM

Where is Aila?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2016, 09:32:57 AM

She wouldn't do anymore than Aquilai. Cloak is only immune because of his Realm Walker physiology.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Stalling

Yes, he was waiting for a particular event. It could be considered reckless and possibly futile but it was necessary. It was the only way he could see to get the help that he needed. It was the only way to talk to him.

Oh, right. The whole SAL SOMNUS thing. The guy wasn't really all that threatening. If anything he was funny, as he thought demonic penguins were frightening. And the funniest thing, was that it was legitimate in that it believed that.

Not the event he was waiting for.

And this was the mnemorator thing. The Memory Thieves. Cloak found himself not liking the creatures, though they were effectively harmless as it took a powerful amount of will to motivate them to do anything.

Still not the proper event that Cloak was looking for.

Hmmm . . . oh, yes. Skinwalker. That was a creepy case. A guy able to steal the skin of another via some sort of black magic, wear the skin as if it was on its original and rightful form. Somehow he could also mimic their voice, but not their memories. Cloak shuttered as he wondered what would have happened if Skinwalker had employed a Mnemoraptor. . . . Hopefully, they would never have to find out.

But not the event that Cloak was waiting for.

And the Arachnoids. The Arachnoids from Venoxica. . . . Cloak remembered not being fond of them, especially the males. Cloak was never fond of scorpions, and male Arachnoids greatly resembled one.

Thankfully, it wasn't the event he was looking for.

Oh. The Eidolon Consciousness. Cloak felt a stab of guilt of how fanatical he was to get rid of them. Granted, in the end they were actively stealing the bodies of celebrities, but it didn't make his action any more in the right. He did not know why he was so certain that they all had to die . . . they weren't like quantum lichen.

It wasn't the event he was waiting for, in any case. He was waiting for the event, to meet with someone none of the other RAFians had met. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2016, 11:34:12 AM

HOLD ON. I was copy pasting the chapters to the doc for making the PDF, and I didn't notice this then but I noticed it now when doing the spellcheck:

In Chapter Three

Quote from: Cloaky

Cloak just had time enough to think, Oh, wonderful, before witnessing Aquilai regenerate into the Second Aquilai. Had to be some sort of record. Usually he'd be Seventh or Eighth Aquilai before year's end, had his clock not fundamentally been reset during the whole youth thing.

There something wrong, though. Cloak could feel it to his core.

This wasn't helped when he saw Aquilai degenerate back into the First Aquilai.

I've been keeping track of both Aquilai's and Aila's regenerations, like any good Doctor Who fan would, and as far as I know, this is when their regenerations last happened:

Aquilai
First - Book 1-6
Second - Book 6-16
Third - Book 16-46
Fourth - Book 46-

Aila
First - Book 1-6
Second - Book 6-46

where by "First" I mean first appearance of Aquilai/Aila in Memoirs therefore counting as the first known incarnation of that Time Lord.

So technically, (since a regeneration is so significant it would definitely take up at least one to two chapters and someone would notice) Aquilai was the Fourth Aquilai before the mishap with the TARDIS occurred - that's going by my calculations, which may have eroded over time with the sheer number of books - so am I missing something or was that a CFSU for Chapter Three? And did any new regenerations happen lately for either of them? My memory has a, well, weathering tendency. Alzheimer's running in the blood, pretty scary. But I like keeping track of these things. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2016, 11:58:18 AM

Cloak was exaggerating about the Seventh or Eighth Aquilai.

And remember, in "Sins of Youth" (Book 59), he regressed back to the First Aquilai. And he was the First Aquilai, even when he aged up, from that point on. ;)

But, honestly, I'm glad you remembered, since I don't have Aquilai himself to keep track. Because, yes, I do forget.

:edit: New chapter. Sorry about the brevity. Heck, this book might only last fifteen chapters if I can't find a way to stretch it without it being too much filler . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Getting Closer

He need to talk to . . . to the . . . to . . .

Hmmm . . . oh, yes. Back when the rest of the RAFians were reduced to five-year-olds, and Aquilai and Aila's regeneration cycle thing reset back to their first incarnations.* He was soon back to the Fourth Aquilai and the Second Aila again. It was very strange how this temporal reversal was working.

Still not the event he was waiting for. He just hoped that he wasn't mistaken about it.

Oh, he remembered this case, this mission. How could he not? A Plasmavore is not something to forget. He remembered tailling it . . . which was very odd to see in reverse, though it was his "burn silhouette" doing it.

Yet again, not what he was waiting for.

Cloak watched as time actually seemed to slow to normal proportions, only backward. Then it seemed to white out suddenly. Everything seemed to vanish, as Cloak was standing a void with the "burn silhouettes" of him and his niece.

Then there he was. The person that very well might be the solution to all this mess. He wasn't human, of course. No human had the powers or technology to overturn this, not that he knew of, anyway.

"Mr. Cloak?" he said, apparently possessing the same knowledge what happened since six or seven months ago. "What has happened? Why has the universe been destroyed once more?"

"There is a lot to go over my friend," Cloak said. He smiled warmly at his Celestialsapien fellow. "Anomaly."

---

*Yes, that's exactly where we are in going backwards through the books. It was just a coincidence that you brought that up when you did. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2016, 01:20:37 PM

Wait. Who's Anomaly again?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2016, 01:41:22 PM

Oh, you'll probably remember him from this chapter.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Anomaly

Anomaly appeared to be impassive, but all Celestialsapien appeared to be impassive. But was mostly due to their dual personalities conflicting with each other. It was a check to their impressive power.

Celestialsapiens are silhouette-like humanoids that can range from any size. Their bodies are black with white outlines and have white star-like dots scattered inside them. Their heads can possess either a black flaming tip with stars inside, two long horns on the sides of their head, or three trident-like horns on their forehead. Their face only consists of white pupil-less eyes, but occasionally they can sport facial hair colored the same as their bodies such as a beard. Also Celestialsapiens tend to have a rather large size.

They are able to manipulate very fabric of the universe -- but their powers cannot exceed beyind their realm or even reach into the Void Space. They are more powerful than a star in the fact that can manipulate reality, but they are not infallible. No being truly is infallible.

They prefer to sequester themselves within what they call the Forge of Creation, rather than mess about in the "petty goings-on" in the universe at large, so it wouldn't be any surprise that they didn't know about the time reversal and the fact that, if at least one Celestial doesn't do something, time itself with flow into nothingness. The universe would go poof.

Anomaly was different, though. He only possessed a single personality, never having developed a secondary one. That's why he decided to call himself Anomaly, and why he seemed so timid and formal, he was a outcast. Or maybe he lived a lonely life considering not many Celestialsapiens can even move unless both personalities agree upon it.

"Talk about what, precisely, Mr. Cloak?" Anomaly said, in his usual respectful manner.

"There was an accident," Cloak said, at once.

"The Time War?" he asked.

"No, no, nothing like that," Cloak said. "Well, okay maybe a little."

"How so, Mr. Cloak?"

"There was an alien -- I think it's called a Planchakule -- that broke into the forum, it broke a friend's TARDIS," Cloak said, attempting to explain the situation. "It seemed just cosmetic at first. But then there was an overinflux of temporal energy. Then there was a massive blast of temporal energy."

"Sound dangerous, Mr. Cloak," Anomaly said, differentially.

"It caused time to flow backward," Cloak said, in agreement. "Back to this point."

"I see," Anomaly said, respectfully.

"So, that's where you come in," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 05, 2016, 11:23:52 PM

Ah. Now I remember him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2016, 12:09:44 AM

Good, good. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Bump in the Road

Anomaly had expected this to come up. He looked rather uncomfortable about it, as he looked rather sheepishly timid.

"Forgive me if I've misunderstood your request, Mr. Cloak," he said, "but you want me to fix this?"

"It is within your power, right?"

"It . . . I . . ." he said. It was rather strange to see a creature with this much power look so vulnerable. Cloak saw himself in Anomaly. "I . . . dunno . . ."

"Did you get in trouble with whatever the Celestialsapien form of government is?" Cloak asked. "For remaking the universe last time?"

The time flow wasn't a problem here. Time wasn't flowing at all. It was at a complete standstill. Nothing but white void, which Cloak assumed to be the outskirts of the realm core. What the Celestialsapiens called the Forge of Creation.

Anomaly did say anything, but looked rather sheepish and shy.

"What?" Cloak asked, at one. "What happened?"

He looked hesitant to say anything.

"Anomaly, just be honest with me," he said. "That's all I ask."

"I . . . I didn't get in trouble, Mr. Cloak," he admitted. He was fully matured, but he was deferring to Cloak as if he were an authority figure. Cloak wasn't too sure that he liked it very much. "It's . . . it's just . . ."

"You're afraid of being caught," Cloak said, knowingly.

Anomaly sighed heavily, "Yes."

"Especially because Realm Walkers, like me, are not allowed in the Forge of Creation." Cloak said, opting to use the Celestialsapien term. "Because of that treaty. Which one could argue that I am already violating, by just floating here."

This, shockingly, did nothing to alleviate Anomaly's concerns.

"The universe has been destroyed. Again. It could be hardly your fault, Anomaly," Cloak reasoned. "If you recreated it as it was, you would be technically upholding the terms of the treaty."

"That doesn't make any sense, Friend Cloak," he said.

"Perhaps not," Cloak said, "but there is a loophole in that treaty somewhere that we could exploit to keep you out of any trouble. First Light knows that politicians do it all the time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2016, 09:48:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Assuaging Anomaly's Anxieties

Anomaly didn't look convinced.

"Look, Anomaly, you are not a bad guy," Cloak said. "But the universe has basically collapsed in upon itself once again. This is a . . . a . . . unusual circumstance."

"Twice within a span of two years, Friend Cloak," Anomaly said. "Once might be overlooked. Twice? That's . . . that's a bit stickier."

"They can't really fault you for recreating the universe after such a cataclysm, right?"

Cloak immediately realized that wasn't true when he remembered that, in another realm, the Celeetialsapiens in that realm to another to court for precisely the same reason. But then again, he was only punished by having to pay several pieces of Taedenite, their currency he assumed.

Anomwly didn't answer, but Cloak could sense the uncertainty in him. And, again, Cloak saw himself in the timid Celestialsapien. And he also felt a pang of guilt. He was manipulating Anomaly. He was manipulating him in a way not too unlike the way Malice manipulates others to her own selfish ends, not too different from the way that his mother manipulated him. Was he really any better than them for it?

"What is it, Friend Cloak?" Anomaly said, having noticed Cloak's repentant, regretful body language.

Cloak sighed. He had allowed his.problems to motivate him to try and manipulate an innocent soul. He was ashamed to admit that, even to himself.

"Friend Cloak?" Anomaly prompted.

A little over half a year -- er, five years, in Dweller Earth time -- he had spent with the RAFians, and now . . . now he wondered if really had learned anything.

"Are you alright? Friend Cloak?" he said.

"Sorry, Anomaly," Cloak said. "I've been selfish . . ."

"What?"

"I had concerned myself with my problems only, and only did not lend yours the respect and credence it deserved. I'm sorry." Cloak said. "Sorry that I was being selfish."

Cloak could not discern Anomaly's disposition from his inscrutable face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 06, 2016, 10:28:07 AM

Well, that took a turn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 06, 2016, 07:27:34 PM

Oh goodness do I have a lot to catch up on. Way to keep on these Cloaky! I'll have to catch up after all the craziness goes away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2016, 07:29:33 PM

Yeah, especially because I have ideas for over 800. ;)

Anyway, still workin' on Chapter 15. Probably gonna end with this book being the shortest one out of all 109.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A Secret

"I disagree, Friend Cloak," Anomaly said, after a few minutes of considering. "Forgive me, but I believe your request wasn't selfish. Naturally, your concerns were not for yourself, and not me, but for your friends lost."

Cloak had not expected this response.

"Their opinion cannot be spoken for, with the universe in this state." Anomaly said, almost pensively. "While they technically can be put back as they once where, they do technically no longer exist."

"That doesn't mean that they don't matter, though," Cloak asserted, though he felt a pang of sadness as he thought of them. Well, except for maybe the one.

"I did not mean to imply they did, Friend Cloak," Anomaly said, very sincerely. "Forgive me, but I was just pointing out a technicality."

He lapsed into a thoughtful silence, as Cloak looked around the white void, seeing no other Celestialsapiens. But he wasn't surprised. The void was vast and he had finite vision, as he had no earth with which to Earthsight, no metal to Metalsight. His eyesight may have been superior to human vision, which was a fact, but it was not infallible.

And he knew the reason why they didn't come over immediately from where they were, wherever that was, because they were not able to such unless both personalities were in agreement, and always spoke with two synchronized voices. If they didn't, they remained immobile and an encumbrance. Apparently unaware of their environment, while their duel personalities debate and bicker.

Anomaly did not know such debilitating drawbacks, and seemed to be actually sad about it. The reasoning was obvious, however. He was an outcast that had more individuality and paradoxically more personality than the others, but he was lonely. Not many other Celestialsapiens move or even speak.

"Forgive me, Friend Cloak," Anomaly said, "I don't think your request would be a problem, I don't think it would violate the Omniverse Protection Act."

"Then why are you apologizing? I don't think I understand, Anomaly," Cloak said.

"I am sorry, because," he said, almost if it was costing him something to be honest, "because my reluctance was . . . was not because I couldn't do it, legally. It was because . . . because . . ."

He lapsed into a sheepish silence. But Cloak got the gist, he thought.

"Because you were lonely," Cloak said. "You were lonely and . . . you didn't cause the reversal of time, did you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2016, 12:00:53 AM

Okay, I think this is the meat of this book now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Means and Motive

"No!" Anomaly protested earnestly. Cloak thought he sounded genuine. Cloak sincerely wanted to believe that he was genuine. "No, I didn't! From what you told me, it was just an accident."

Cloak wanted to believe him. He really did. But his innate paranoia wouldn't allow him to leave the subject alone without a sound, solid answer. His suspicious nature would not allow the subject to drop.

"Please, Friend Cloak . . ."

Cloak said nothing. He kept his face inscrutable and blank. He had to be wrong. He had to be. He knew it in his heart. . . . But facts were facts. And thing about facts are, no matter how you try to distort them, they still remain, they linger, waiting to be discovered. No one could manage to bury the truth forever . . . but Cloak chose to look at this practically and pragmatically.

"Please . . ."

Anomaly had the motive, the motivation. He knew that were the universe destroyed again, that Cloak would be standing -- er, floating -- here. With him. He was lonely . . . quite lonely. Cloak understood that. He had experienced such loneliness firsthand. No one around to talk to, to understand, to love, to feel loved . . . he understood the loneliness of being an outcast as well. He was an outcast for being different as well, being an Elements Master and choosing to habitate with Realm Dwellers. But, honestly, the arrogance and pretentiousness and supercilious natures of the Realm Walker majority wears thin very quickly, not to mention the holier-than-thou attitudes a majority have toward Realm Dwellers, that gets old fast.

"Friend Cloak, please believe me. . . ."

Anomaly had the means to do it. It wasn't beyond the extent of his his powers or his abilities to accomplish. Cloak did not know what they couldn't accomplish. He did not the upper limit of Celestialsapien reality-warping abilities. He knew that a single one can recreate a universe, and surmised that it may take more to destroy a universe. But he did not know this for sure, for fact.

"I didn't do it, Friend Cloak," Anomaly insisted earnestly.

He took all these facts and weighed them all equally by relevance.

"Please, believe me, Friend Cloak," the Celestialsapien said, emphatically and sincerely.

"I do, Anomaly." Cloak said, having made his decision. " I do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2016, 12:41:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Remaking What Was

"You do?" Anomaly said, sounding relieved.

"I do," Cloak said, sticking to his decision, though his inner critic was picking apart the flaws in such a decision. But he made his decision, and he would stick to it.

"Thank you," Anomaly said.

"Since it wouldn't be against the Omniverse Protection Act," Cloak said, slowly, "do you think that you could recreate the universe?"

"Yes . . . but . . ."

Then an idea occurred to Cloak. "You can keep an eye on the universe, after you make it. Become this Realm's Watcher."

"Watcher?"

Cloak had gotten the idea from a species in another Realm, the Watchers. They were one of the oldest species in their Realm, and humanoid in form, with unusually large heads, though they apparently, as cosmic beings, were able to manipulate their own molecules. They were committed to observing and compiling knowledge on all aspects of their universe, preferably without any interference. This policy of non-interference of theirs was due to a well-meaning attempt by the Watchers to bestow knowledge on another, more primitive race, which resulted in the aforementioned race destroying itself.

"Someone who passively watches over the universe and ensures that this would never become necessary again," Cloak said. "To protect the universe from such threats."

Cloak could tell that Anomaly seemed very taken with the idea.

"But only interfere in the direst of circumstances," Anomaly mused.

"You look like this idea appeals to you," Cloak said.

"Because it does," he said, voice full of more purpose than he had last time. "But let's make everything as it it was. . . . except for the Planchakule -- at least that's what I assume that he or she was called -- getting anywhere near the TARDIS. Or else this will just happen all over again."

He closed his hand and said, with a resounding sound, "Motion carried!"

Then he drew his hand in a clockwise circle, and Cloak's vision suddenly exploded into a flurry f furious color and blurred shapes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2016, 08:49:41 AM

New chapter. Penultimate one of this book.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Doubt

Everything was as it should be.

Aquiali's TARDIS was never attacked by the Planchakule, and, as such, he had no memory of the time reversal. Rotiart was still dead. Skinwalker and the like were still dead. So not everything was all happy-go-lucky.

Yet Cloak had his doubts.

Doubts about his decision to trust Anomaly. Doubts about his suggestion to Anomaly. Fears that he may have made a worse situation down the line. And, of course, he was the only one who remembered everything in its entirety.

He worried and fretted whether or not his decision was a good one. True, everything was perfect and just the way it was supposed to be. Even the nitty-gritty, unpleasant things were intact -- the Knights' hatred and fear of the "other" and the bigotry derived from that was in tact, resident blowhard Bern Bridges was still making outrageous claims with little merit or verification. There was still a wage disparity between the 99% and the uber-rich 1%. Racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, narcissism, and such still existed.

Considering the alternative was no universe at all, you had to take the good with the bad. Otherwise, the world would be overly saccharine and just not real.

And, yet, Cloak felt . . . dissatisfied, in a sense, somehow. He did not know why. It made no sense. But, then again, he was rarely happy. So, perhaps that was the reason.

***

"What was that?
What was what?
What was that?
What was what?
Where, what, where, where,
What was that?!
SHH!"

Pause from the RAFians singing in an ensemble.

"Quick before the RAFParty ends!"

Parker shouted, "Clear!"

"Post a thread-a,
Post, post a thread-a.
When you're done,
You post another thread-a.
Post a thread-a,
Post a thread-a,
Quick before the RAFParty ends!
Post, post a thread-a.
Post, post a thread-a.
You could post
And never get done.
Post a thread-a.
Post, post a thread-a.
What was that?!"

Pause.

"Quick before the RAFParty ends!
Post a thread-a is what we do,
Life's a post, we dig that, too.
Posta thread is what we sing,
Post a thread is everything.
Text and smilies are a RAFian's friend,
Always more around every page's bend!
And when you get to your post's end,
Hallelujah, let's post again!
Post!
Post a thread-a,
Post, post a thread-a,
When it's done,
You post a bigger post!
Post a thread-a,
Post, post a thread-a.
What was that?!"

Pause, as Richard strolled by.

"Quick before RAFParty ends!"

"Post!" GH declared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2016, 02:19:20 PM

Ooh -- so close. Last chapter of this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Malice Business

Meanwhile, Malice remained oblivious to all this goings on in the realm.

She saw to it that the current Realm Walker Council -- which had been reasonably good, considering they were really all that experienced with their posts, and not as greedy and selfish as fheir predecessors -- were replaced by people she thought that she could manipulate far easier, while disguised as a goat-form Realm Walker, using an ID mask.

Funny how no one ever considered an application of an ID mask like this in the Nexus. At least, before now.

Just how Malice unseated the previous council was unclear and a mystery, but it was quite possible she used misinformation and propaganda that they couldn't disprove satisfactorily to the people of the Nexus. The caustic damage that rumor and speculation can wrought is rather legendary.

She placed first a female snake-form Realm Walker with a wicked tongue, metaphorically-speaking, on the council . . . but, no, it wasn't Cloak's younger sister. Though she would be ambitious enough for the job, but she wouldn't have been a puppet to Malice, even disguised as a goat Realm Walker. This snake Realm Walker, however, was a bit less hostile and more flexible in her scruples.

She placed second a male leopard-form Realm Walker on the Council. He was naive, but stubborn. Easily-swayed, yet resilient. He would bend, but not break, to Malice's whims.

She placed third a male, ursine Realm Walker on the Council. He was powerful, yes, but he possessed a lot of inner darkness. Darkness that Mqlice, in her guise of course, could manipulate easily.

She placed fourth a male unicorn Realm Walker on the Council. He had allowed himself to succumb to the darkness inside his heart once, and had been fighting it off ever since. He was pretty much gonna be used as a "flag", using the misconception that unicorns, and unicorn-form Realm Walkers, could do no wrong.

She placed fifth and finally a vixen Realm Walker on the Council. It was not Faith. But this one would be a wild card that Malice might come to regret placing upon the council.

She had her puppets in place, so she was basically free to do as she pleased in the Nexus, as long as she wore her disguise. And she felt validated and vindicated through this underhanded political corruption. It was a coup, but it remained to be seen whether or not this grouping would last.

Especially as Malice got bored fairly easily with this, considering the ease she did this due to the diseased and rotting way the Realm Walker system tended to work. Soon enough, she quickly abandoned her scheme, even though it had worked and had seemed to continue to work, to torment Cloak and his RAFians some more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2016, 09:17:09 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CX:
DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY
CHAPTER ONE:
GH's Minstrel Ditty

"Tra-la-la!
We’ve got a pass of gold,
To lead us into times of old.
Pray let this weird minstrel be your guide!
Come see what treasures wait inside.
The wee lass, she had a hound,
‘Twas not allowed on the ground
Of this wondrous RAFfestival most merry.
But good Sir Hunter, he let her go,
Though he was clearly dealt a blow.
A blow most pay-ay-ay-ay-ay-nful and sad.
He felt dreadful, awful, and bad."

Hunter groaned dejectedly, as he walked away. Meanwhile, Cloak was blinking.

"Wha . . ."

"Don't ask," Saffa supplied, "just don't ask."

GH gave a theatrical gasp, and addressed Abby, Gaz and Genies:

"Beware, m’ladies, of the beast
Whose come to spoil the RAFian feast.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la."

Leatherhead roared, or tried to, as GH mimed fleeing in terror. Cloak looked at Saffa, who sighed resignly.

"The wee lass was all alone,
Upon her RAFaward throne.
Not one single friend to help her."

"Alright, already!" Saff said, getting annoyed.

Leatherhead smacked himself into the table right beside Saffa, falling over, looking somewhat confused, but unharmed.

"Brave Saffa, she slew the deadly beast.
Huzzah, Saffa, huzzah!
Although oddly-shaped and very small,
Saffa did not ignore the call.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Hey!"

Saffa was glaring daggers at GH. Leatherhead got up, rubbing his head. GH gave a theatrical gasp of fright.

"Oh, woe to all in west or east.
Saffa has failed to slay the beast!
She’s blundered, floundered, flopped.
Her incompetence shan’t be topped. --"

Suddenly, Saffa the girl was gone. Saffa the Shear Goliath was in her place. She was really irritated.

"Over the line?" GH asked.

<Way over the line,> Saffa agreed.

---

*Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RBi46T1BnJo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 07, 2016, 09:57:37 PM

. . . What just happened?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 08, 2016, 12:11:22 AM

Exactly.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Job Dissatisfaction

He wore a black cloak. It was his job uniform, and he wasn't sure that he particularly liked it. It was more like a hooded robe. Honestly, he didn't see why he had to. Especially in these modern days. Chiron got to were a suit -- not these stuffy robe cloak things.

He approached his first client of the day. It was an old man, asleep on his bed. The cloaked person was relieved. It was rarely this easy. This was good, considering how understaffed -- the old man flatlined and died. His spirit, soul, mind or whatever you wish to term it, left for whatever was beyond. This figure would not know -- he has never been, nor did he possess any curiosity about it.

His next client was not as simple and clean. It was a pyrophobic woman paralyzed with fear in a burning house. She was the next client upon his list, but she was not quiet ready. He had to wait but a moment or two before she was ready for the release he offered. It was not pleasant, very few were.

His following client was a surfer who wasn't particularly good. He had had his neck snapped on a hidden stone ledge, and he was offered immediate release. His spirit went wherever spirits went to. It wasn't his job to made sure they went to the other side. Not technically.

The next client he had was buried alive. Air was running out quickly. Too quickly. He wasn't gonna get free. His arms were thoroughly pinioned to his side. The figure had to ignore any feelings of altruism. He had to be basically heartless in his job, as he was performing a necessary function. He ended suffering. And yet there was a certain . . . unpleasantness to this business that prevented it from being a fulfilling -- oh, there. He's ready to be released. He obliged, as he was obligated.

He trudged toward his next client, feeling thoroughly aggrieved. It was someone who decided to jump out of a plane without a parachute. The lesson here was to never go skydiving while drunk. He released him the moment of impact. Ugh . . . they never appreciated what he did. He did a necessary service! It was essential to balance of things . . . talk about having a thankless job.

The part that broke the camel's back when he had to release people en masse in a mass shooting where a disturbed man had gotten his hands on a few high-magazine rifles. It was not an easy task to do, and no one was even grateful.to him for doing it!! All the angry, mutinous glares of the souls, or whatever the proper term for them was, as they lingered or went on.

Not one thankful! Even the ones who actively chose their moment of release! Their moment of death! Millenia he's been at this, and every soul or whatever blamed him for their poor decisions! Or instead of the people who were truly responsible!! Do they have any any idea just how much more they'd suffer had he not interceded? How much more pain they'd have to endure had he not released them from their prisons of matter?

No, of course not. But that doesn't matter to them. They assume that they know everything. They always assume that they have nothing to learn. The surreptitious arrogance! The conceited presumption!! The sanctimonious . . .

You know what? he thought angrily. I'm done!!

He collapsed his scythe and pocketed it.

Millenia I've been at this, now, he thought savagely. And I've never took a sjngle break! I've worked so hard, so diligently, and for what? I don't get any respect. People either fear or hate me for doing my job. A job that I've been doing FLAWLESSLY for century upon century!!

Then he spoke aloud.

"I have had enough. They can get someone else to do it from now on. They won't have Death to kick around anymore!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 08, 2016, 12:39:27 AM

Great, now you've made me want to listen to every Death album.

. . . PUUUULLLL THE PLUUUGGGG!!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 08, 2016, 03:56:44 PM

. . . And I have no idea who they are. This book is based off an episode of The Outer Limits.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Breaking News

"Well, they did it!" Bern Bridges said. "I don't know how they royally screwed this up, but they did! These RAFians, media darlings as they are, have wrought the beginning ofunending torment for good poeple like you, dear listeners, and me!"

He paused, as his jowls still quivered, to partake in his drink some.

"Death has gone from our world, listeners," he said. How he could have said that with a straight face was anyone's guess, but he spoke it with such total pedantic authority, which would make the gullible believe him immediately. "Even Death itself has been n offended enough to forsake us!! Now, I don't expect you to believe me, so I'll give some evidence."

And he prattled off a list of things that could be easily argued against as either coincidence or Bern Bridges reading too much into. But he chose to present it as undeniable proof of his thesis, thst Death is no longer doing his, or her, job. And that it was, somehow, the RAFians' fault. One had to wonder whether or not he actually worked on being so infernally difficult to listen to. Or being such a caustic personality*.

"Now, I know my opponents will come up with a whole littany of excuses to disprove these facts," he wheezed. He was yelling and screaming a few moments ago, as people who haven't the substance to back up their claims and policies often do. As the people who don't have a metaphorical leg to stand on are often inclined to resort to. "But none of there excuses -- none -- hold water. None are viable. I won't waste your time -- or mine -- by going though them."

In another words, he couldn't. Classic Bern Bridges misdirection.

"But this, dear listeners, is why we must do something about this RAFian menace!" he declared, setting his jowls aquiver once more. "We cannot allow their kind from continually interfering with our way of life! We managed things just fine before they came here! Well, listeners, I've said my piece, and I leave you to the capable hands of -- those two idiots."

***

But it was true. Death would not come, no matter what. Bern Bridges may have been a blowhard and nearly always wrong, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

A couple of teenagers impale themselves on the stone teeth of a dragon statue when they learn of the deathlessness state of the world. They had taken it to mean that they couldn't be hurt. Just because deathlessness occurs does not mean that invulnerability occurs as well. Just because you can't die does not mean you can't feel pain and you can't be maimed. They did not die, of course, though they woukd have had Death himself not decided that he was due a vacation. They were in incredible pain, pain that they would have to suffer through.

A teenager allowed himself to be buried alive, knowing that he wouldn't die. But that did not eliminate the fear. And, with such an inescapable fear, comes trauma. Just because you can't die, it doesn't eliminate the fear of death overnight. That fear is ingrained biologically in most species. In most individuals.

A teenager who was to be a sacrificed in some satanic, pagan ritual by those he once called friends, didn't die. And this painstaking ruse his "friends" worked to craft began to unravel. They weren't satanists or anything, they were just play acting. And they just wanted to kill this teenager, and when he didn't die, they panicked and left.

Another teenager, having heard about the deathlessness and assumed that made him basically Superman, decided to prove it by . . . lighting himself on fire. All he proved was just how bad of an idea this was, and he was severely burned. And in agony, suffering. And nothing to end that suffering.

Yet another teenager, no longer fearing death, swam a loch in search for the monster living there and, had death existed, he would have drowned. He didn't find anything, by came up to discover that he had numerous problems with his body, including having is left lung ruptured. Just because you can't die, doesn't mean you're immune from negative consequences.

More and more such scenarios occurred, whether due to carelessness, recklessness, or sheer dumb luck. They all suffered, and there would be no end to their suffering.

---

*Is this too on the nose? Considering who Bern Bridges is somewhat based off of?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2016, 12:01:31 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Council

"Is this real?"

"Are we really immortal?"

"That means we're invincible, then!"

"Don't be stupid. One does not mean the other."

"Don't call me stupid!"

"I will call it how I see it."

"I'll kill you for that insult!"

"You can't! No. You literally can't."

"Settle! Settle down, everyone," Richard said. The mods had called an assembly to brief the RAFians of this new discovery. "We called this meeting to discuss what we can do about this new event. It would appear to that no one . . . uh, that no one can . . . can, um, die."

There was no getting over how stupid that sounded, no matter which why it was put. The concept of death was so ingrained in any society of beings who can die, no matter how long-lived they were. It was not a foreign concept to them.

Cloak himself held no fear of death, no held any desire for immortality outside the metaphorical kind as in immortality through a legacy. He never understood the attraction for literal immortality. He would find it boring after the first decade, or century in Dweller Earth terms. And if he hated one thing, it was being bored.

"You can't be serious," Parker said, dismissively.

"I assure you, Parker," Richard said, calmly and evenly, "we wouldn't have called this meeting if we didn't have evidence on the subject matter. A number of incidents should have ended in the victim's death, if the reports of their injuries are accurate. The government believed that this was our territory."

"Yeah, I doubt this is a problem your average police officer can solve," Saffa noted.

"But can we?" Sam said. "I will do whatever I must, but I must know -- what exactly can we do about this."

"I have a theory," Cloak said. "I postulate that perhaps there is a personification of death itself."

"That's stupid," Parker said, with acerbic dismissal.

"So says the guy in the spaceman outfit," Cloak retorted easily, before continuing. "And this personification has stopped performing his -- or her or it, as the case may be -- duty."

"Assuming that's right," Abby said, "why would he, she, it, whatever, want to quit?"

Cloak took a brief moment to consider, "Perhaps he felt . . . underappreciated."

"What makes you say that?"

"Would you be happy to meet death?" Cloak asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 09, 2016, 01:09:30 AM

And then Death got a job at Texas Roadhouse and quickly realized that things are no different. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2016, 07:45:33 PM

Housekeeping at a long-term facility wasn't much better. Especially considering how much nepotism the administrator had. Then again, Death had already visited the place a few times --

Wow. That got dark. Sorry!

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Goin' Fishin'

Death himself was sitting on a pier with a yew fishing rod, whose line was a mixture thread of sphinx hair, unicorn hair, and thestral hair intertwined with each other almost imperceptibly. Death found himself favoring this instrument rather than the typical scythe that he was expected to be seen with.

He had disposed with his usual uniform, in favor of a pair of black slacks, black shoes, a white shirt with a black sports jacket. He did not appear to be the rail-thin, Jafar-like character mostly seen in caricature. He was a little hefty, a little balding -- more like what one would assume of Dionysus or Jason Alexander. He did not look like the embodiment, the personification, of death itself, with this easily-overlooked, unassuming, if.not somewhat morose form.

It was about time he took some down time. The offices of death had been severely understaffed for eons, with him being the only member! Eh, the office stuff was all metaphorical anyway. He was the personification of death, and it was all he had ever known. But how can someone do what they need to do, when all they get is resentment and uncloseted hatred? Sure, he could be aloof, turn the other cheek, and pretend that it didn't bother him. That's how he got through the first few million years. It was easy as those creatures didn't attain sentience -- at least as far as he knew.

But then, more recently actually, when you looked at the scale of things, it had been harder. He had to harden his heart, knowing that he was just doing as his job description demanded. There was no joy in it. No satisfaction. It was just something that needed to be done. But no one was ever grateful for it. No one was ever satisfied, especially with the finality of it.

No. He definitely needed a break. . . .

Then why was this injustice dominating his thoughts? He came here to relax, to release some pent-up frustrations. Yet, he kept coming back to dwell upon these embittered memories and unhappy thoughts. Why? Why was he doing that? It was preventing him from enjoying himself.

He had to let it go . . . but it was not an easy thing to do. Death isn't suppose to hold grudges, and he knew that. But he couldn't help the fact that he carried a grudge on how unfair his lot in existence. He couldn't help but feel hard-done-by, and wronged. He tried to be what people expected him to be -- cold, unfeeling, and without mercy or morals. But the truth was, that wasn't him.

He actually did feel for the souls he released. Some of them deserved what they got, he felt, but others, more than the former by far, didn't. But his jib called for a certain ruthlessness that he did not like having. He knew that these were people with lives and loved ones. But . . . his job was to stop them from suffering the ceaseless pain they would have felt otherwise.

Not to mention, that it was part of the natural order. Immortality was a myth, and all things will die eventually. And, considering that he was Death, it would be him who reaps them all. It did not fill him with a masochistic glee, as some are wont to expect. Then, when all is said and dead, he would reap himself.

What a sad life, or death, or some twilight of the two, he had led to this point. He felt depressed . . .

And, to top it off, he still hadn't caught a single fish!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2016, 09:34:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Seeking Death

"Cloak," Abby said, looking at a man whose leg was mangled by a metal bear trap, "we don't even know what we're looking for."

Cloak said nothing. He noticed a few noticeably battered teenagers on a skating halfpipe to his right as he stalked forward.

"Cloak, it's a good point," Sam said.

Claok said nothing, but continued the pursuit. He tried to ignore the maimed body parts and the howls of suffering. He never did like seeing people suffer, which probably why his hyperfocus kicked in.

"Cloak, are you listening?" Gaz asked.

He wasn't. Not really. His hyperfocus clearly in gear, and he believed that he would be able to sense this personification of death, this avatar of death. He felt that he, she, or it -- whatever -- would not look like the expected stereotype one would have on such a being. He hadn't any proof of this.

"Cloak!" Abby shouted.

Cloak didn't react. He was like a tiger hunting prey, a tiger with hyperfocus. But, then he noticed something that he almost missed. He looked directly at Sam.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Me? Yes. Why?"

Cloak said nothing, but eyed him suspiciously with narrowed eyes. He was floating above the ground, so Cloak couldn't use his Earthsight to discern whether or not he was lying, and Cloak couldn't help but wonder if this was deliberate. And he couldn't help but wonder if there was somethjng that Sam wasn't telling them . . .

But he hardly could accuse others if keeping secrets.

Meanwhile, there was a man in a green cloak, green gloves, green boots, and green shorts. He was barechested with chalk-white skin. He stood atop of a building, arms folded across his chest. He was a powerful being. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2016, 11:04:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Thwarted Relaxation

Death, meanwhile, whas unaware that he was being sought out by the RAFians or watched by the green-clad individual. But this was mostly because of willful ignorance, as Death has an omnipresence unmatched by any being, except possibly one other, assuming thst it even existed.

But apparently it was like the ringer on a cellphone and could be turned off, as Death had evidently done.

He still hadn't caught a fish. These ones seemed too intelligent, and none too suicidal. And, try as he might, Death could not stop himself from grousing on the injustices of his job, wallowing in his self-pity. This was really too much -- far too much -- responsibility for one being to shoulder . . . even if he had the omnipresent ability to be everywhere at once.

Let someone else do it for a change! Let someone else get kicked around for once! Let someone else take the slanderous abuse, the profane curses, the selfish indignity from the clients of the job! Let them FINALLY understand then!!

Ever since the dawn of his existence, he had this job. And, until now, he had done it without complaint, without rancor. But millenia of ungrateful souls scapegoating him for their failings was absolutely bound to wear down the toughest being, no matter who they were!! Being Death was, without a doubt, the most thankless job in the world.

He didn't even escort thrm to the afterlife! They didn't have to go onward -- wherever that was -- if they didn't want to! Yet he was blamed for their misfortune, just the same!! He just released them, reduced the amount of suffering that they would have been forced to endure. He would have appreciated a simple "thank you" at least once a millenia or two, but no.

All he ever heard was denial. They believe that he made a mistake -- Death cannot make a mistake, as much as he wish he could -- or clean to the delusion that they were just dreaming or something of the like. This was the most common reaction he found. Whether they got over this or still clung to to their petty little delusions, he never could find out because he would inevitably be alerted to the "need" of another client. He suspected they either accepted it and moved on, or lingered as ghosts. Perhaps forming skme sort of spectral society -- perhaps one who clung to their delusions that they justified possession, which, despite what the movies would tell you, is not as easy as it seems -- but it didn't concern him if they did or not. It was their business, not his.

Or anger. This was more common than denial. The "Why me?!", the "It's not fair!!", the "How can this happen to me?!", the "This is your fault!!", and the "Why would this happen?!" crowd. These were the most infuriating types. But they only pestered him for mere moments. He suspected that these spirit, if they did not go on, became poltergeists. He had no proof this, but, in retrospect, he really didn't want any.

Or bargaining. This was not common, but not unheard of. These were the more irritating ones. These were the ones that sought him out, hoping that he would make deals to return them to life. Deals of which, he had no interest in, even if he had power to do that. He released them from their bodies, he did not return them. Why was that such a difficult concept to comprehend? He suspected that these were the thieves and con artists of the spirit world, but he did not know for sure. He could not help but notice that these people tended to be the people who, in life, were most afraid of him.

Or depressive sadness. These . . . oh, it made his heart ache just thinking of them. They just allow despair to overtake them. The lucky ones manage to go on. But the others . . . they because what ghost hunters call "residual hauntings". They lose their sense of self in their despair. Some of the really unlucky ones evaporate into mist. . . .

Then there were the ones who took the news quiet acceptance. These were a strange bunch, whose motives Death preferred to not consider. These were the people would lived fulfilling lives or people, who in life, . . . sought him out. Usually emotionally distraught and those who think and believe that they're doing the world a favor. By seeking his release.

He drew in his line. This clearly wasn't working. He needed to find a way to relax. As he did this, he thought of Melinoë. It was her job to manage all these spirits who refused to go on. He wondered why she was being so lax in it of late.

He shrugged, as he shouldered his fishing rod, and walked away from the pier.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 11, 2016, 01:10:12 PM

Ah, so this is indirectly Malice's fault. Of course.

I'm back, and I can finally sit down and read, and wow, just wow. The ending of the last book was great (and I understood the reference), and now this book is so meta it's amazing. Ironic that I'm reading this on the day of one of my all time favourite musician's death, but I do enjoy reading about the mechanics of death like this.

And I have a theory about what might happen, considering the blurb you've given us, but I'll keep it to myself, as it can bring feels...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2016, 03:00:09 PM

Hmmmm . . . can't say what I want to. Spoilers.

New book ideas.

• Book DCCCLXI: "Return of the Gray Lady" -- A woman with an axe to grind with Malice shows up.
• Book DCCCLXII: "Poltergeist Pandemonium" -- The RAFians must deal with an influx of poltergeists.
• Book DCCCLXIII: "False Promises" -- The Bargin Hunters, a clade of spirits, search for a particular item due to a promise made to them.
• Book DCCCLXIV: "Possessive Pandemic" -- The Specter Society invade a school where a particular pandemic breaks out.
• Book DCCCLXV: "The New Pariah" -- A new Queen of Ghosts surfaces.
• Book DCCCLXVI: "Monkey Business" -- The RAFians have to battle a couple of Ozaru.
• Book DCCCLXVII: "Ectonurite Shenanigans" -- Saffa acquires an Ectonurite, without realizing the complications that come from it . . .
• Book DCCCLXVIII: "Potential" -- The RAFians race to procure a very special mirror, which shows them at their ultimate potential.

All titles subjected to change. I don't believe that I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Frayed Nerves

Cloak still eyed Sam wearily. He couldn't confirm his suspicions, and had no proof to back them up, but he was sure that Sam wasn't being entirely truthful. But Cloak focused on the task at hand.

"We're just wandering around aimlessly," Abby said.

Cloak said nothing, but pressed forward stubbornly.

"Cloak! We don't even know what we're looking for!" Gaz complained.

"Yes," Cloak said, at last, "I do."

"How?"

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloak, how?" Abby added on.

The tiger Realm Walker continued his silence in a rather pointed way.

"This isn't the first time you've sought out Death, is it?" Sam asked, almost knowingly.

Cloak hesitated a bit, before continuing onward as if nothing was said. And, for a while, nothing was said. They pressed on further, not really knowing where they were headed, as their goal was rather aimless at this point.

"Cloak . . . ?" Abby said, tentatively.

The Realm Walker ignored her.

". . . Cloaky . . ." Abby tried again, still tentative.

Cloak only gave the briefest of indications that he heard her. He knew that she wanted to ask just why he sought out Death. The reason was probably obvious, but he rather to not have to spill that particular point.

"Cloak," Sam tried, "it was because of . . . of your grandfather, right?"

Cloak said nothing but stalked onward.

"You wanted answers about his death, right?" Sam continued.

Cloak continued to say nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2016, 09:28:13 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Spectre

Cloak's dour mood seemed to deepen ever more.

"Cloak --" Abby said, gently.

"I think that we should split up," Cloak said suddenly. He didn't really know why he felt so moody, but it usually happened when he felt overwhelmed or a desire for isolation.

"Cloaky," Gaz said, kindly, " you can't just push us away."

"We won't find Death clumped together like this," Cloak said, very seriously. "We need to separate. Fan out."

"Cloak, you're not going to do yourself any --"

"It's decided then," Cloak said, before he began to stalk off.

"That would be a mistake," came a voice. It sounded like Mark Hamill. Cloak didn't care. He continued to stalk away from the other and this newcomer. He hadn't even realized how personal this mission had become to him.

"Do not walk away from me, tiger," the voice said. Cloak could mistake the harsh commanding tone of the voice. He felt outrage at the utter gall of this man thinking he coukd order Cloak around like a nauhty child!

Cloak turned on his heel, and confronted the newcomer. He saw an average sized human male with chalk white skin. He wore shin-hugging boots, shorts, gloves and a hooded cloak, all green. The hood of his cloak was pulled over his head and cast the upper parts of his face in shadow.

Now, this was really too much.

"If you're gonna try to steal my look," Cloak said, deciding to not comment on all the green and the chalk white skin, "at the very least, do it right."

"You dare to speak to me in such an indolent manner?!"

"Oh, First Light." Cloak said, facepalming. "You're one of those kinds of antagonists."

"You do realize that I could turn you into a mouse?"

"You don't know a thing about Realm Walkers, d'you?"

"It makes little --"

Cloak launched a golden scarlet pulse of energy from his fist.

"I've had enough sanctimonious jerks to last me a lifetime," Cloak said.

"You dare to strike the Wrath of God?!"

"Oh, for --" the Realm Walker term Cloak used did not translate properly into English, so it sounded like a swift snarl, "--'s sake, is that actually a thing now?

"Cloak, do thing antagonizing the guy is the right thing to do?" Abby asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 11, 2016, 11:27:47 PM

Think that arrogance needs a bit of a check? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2016, 06:19:41 PM

Me? Or him?

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Antagonism

"Do not challenge me, mortal."

"Oh, no. Dressing like me? I can tolerate that to an extent." Cloak said. It was clear that Cloa was incensed. If he wasn't careful, he would lose control. "But stealing my lines?! That is a major no-no!!"

"When you speak to me, you will speak with reverence and respect, mortal!"

"I'll speak you in any way and manner I deem fit!" Cloak countered not backing down.

"My patience wanes! I will turn you into --"

"Then shut up and do it already!" Cloak said, refusing to back down. "First Light! Why'd you have to be the archetype that never knows when to shut up!"

Cloak roared out in frustration, but continued before the green-clad being could speak again.

"Why couldn't you be like the Spectre of that other realm?" Cloak said, with a rather provoked sigh of irritation. "At least he wasn't so pretentious, so utterly full of himself!"

"Guys," Sam said, "Cloak is providing us a distraction."

"You dare to mock --" the Spectre fumed.

"What? That makes no sense," Gaz said.

"Yes," Cloak said, emphatically. "Yes, I'm mocking you. Don't like it? Then stop being a sanftimonious jerk!!"

"Yes, it does!" Sam insisted.

Cloak and Spectre were close to coming to blows.

"Sam, I'm not too --" Abby said.

The two powerful beings were indeed about to clash.

"Second thought," Abby said, as she was a little too close for comfort to the battle, "let's go, Sam. Gaz."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2016, 12:29:31 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Clash and Dash

The three headed away from the climatic battle of the two powerful beings. The three weren't about to become collateral damage. Though they were seeking Death, ironically enough, when they could have met him by staying put, were this epidemic deathlessness not running rampant.

"I hope Cloak didn't bite off more than he could chew," Gaz said.

"He'll be fine," Abby said, though her confidence in that statement faltered when they heard a loud, sickening crunch.

Sam, unseen by the girls, clutched his chest, his breath ragged for a moment before he managed to suppress the pain from whatever happened. They were preoccupied with the sickening noises of the battle that even carried this far. He was relieved when the pain lessened, and that neither one of the girls noticed.

He did know why he wanted to keep this a secret, or even what was causing him such pain. He just felt that he wouldn't want to be in a hospital bed, with Kelly unable to do anything. But, more importantly, he feared what it was, and he was making excuses, lying to himself about it.

Though Cloak sensed it, due to his feline senses no doubt. He had deliberately floated over the ground to prevent Claok's Earthsight from outting him . . . what was he worrying about? It was probably nothing. Just due to the chilly weather. That's all.

***

"The guilty must be punished for their crimes," said the Spectre, causing debris whip around Cloak in a tornado. "So says the spirit of vengeance."

"And who makes the determination of guilt, then?" Cloak countered, using his aerokinetic madtery to still the air, causing the debris to falter and fall. "Oh, right. I forgot. You claim to be the rage or wrath of your particular deity. Right."

He attemted to turn the Realm Walker into a fossil, but failed. To which Cloak, with a shrewd idea of ehat he was attempting, said, "How many times are you going to try that before you figure out that it won't work."

Cloak had decided to forego using any of the tangible elements, like Earth, Metal, or wood, against him, as he clearly has the power of intangibility. And lacked a moral compass. Cloak blasted him with air and fire. Which actually seemed to bother him.

But it was his own innate energy, the type of energy any Realm Walker could use to varying effect, that seemed to have the greatest effect.

"You claim to be the spirit of vengeance," Cloak said, throwing the title back at him scornfully, as well as a crescent of energy. "But I personally think your more like a minion of Ah Puch or minion of Nemesis."

This apparently went over his head. Apparently, he didn't know thst Ach Puch was a Mesopotamian god of decay or that Nemesis was the Greek goddess of revenge. This didn't help the certain impatience thst Cloak had.

"Ugh." Cloak grumbled, as he slammed the Spectre down with his energy. Some omnipotent being, he thought harshly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 13, 2016, 01:59:50 PM

Wait Spectre what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2016, 03:04:36 PM

This Spectre. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(comics)) Well, not exactly. The Spectre in this realm is actually a bit more benign in terms of powers -- he's basically the fourth most powerful being. . . .

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Death Sense

Cloak's battle with Spectre did not go unnoticed. But most did not care, as they had allowed and permitted themselves to be maimed, mistakingly believing that deathlessness equated to invulnerability. Such misery often takes center stage in one's mind, so other things, no matter how major, are tended to be placed on the back burner. These are the ones who cry out for Death.

But, this time, Death ignored the pleads. He has done it before, to a particulary stubborn soul, so he would do it again, but on a larger scale. He had really had enough. Maybe by now they saw how important his job was. Maybe now, when they're suffering from unimaginable pain, from their careless maiming of themselves (he assuming that this would be the case), maybe -- just maybe they could see how necessary his job was.

But he didn't hold out too much hope, though. The these mortals -- including those love-lived beings called gods -- could be incredibly and stubbornly stupid about such things. Yet they were still young species . . .

All Death knew was that he was tired with it. Tired and frustrated. But who can he talk to? In the end, he would have to reap everyone. Even the one he would have relations with. Although he could be be a he or she, beings like him could be any gender they so chose. But that was neither here nor there.

He knew, with some chagrin, that the one was searching for him. He had not searched for him for so long, and that was relieving. He was tiring of the constant pleads to see him, for him to release him from his pain. Only his pain . . . it could be mitigated far easier than resorting to seeking his release. This is why Death ignored the pleas.

He was aware of the group, and that the former seeker was a part of that group. He anticipated why they would come to him, unbidden, unsummoned, unbeseeched. Funny, he found himself thinking savagely, how people are just never satisfied. They complain at him for doing his job, and yet, complain still when he does not. Never, ever satisfied.

Well, he was done. He was sick of it. Sick of it all. Centuries he has been at it, doing his duty diligently and without complaint. But now, now he had complaints of his own that needed addressing. He was tired of being expected to do his job and not have a single complaint, and, while everyone else can be revered and respected, he was reviled, hated, and disrespected.

Granted, there were those souls that were thankful for him doing his job, but they were far too sparse amongst the millions and billions that die every year. Prattling on and on about how their fate, most of which was self-inflicted by the consequence or ramification of their own actions or decisions, as unfair, unjust, or simply mistaken! He just released who was on his client list. He didn't chose who was on the list! That was not even his job!!

Oh, and that Spectre miscreant. He wasn't very fond of him, as he had an odious self-righteousness that was off-putting to most people. The thing need a host to tie it to this earthy plane -- but not a material host. A spirit, a ghost, the remnant of one that he, Death, had released. It couldn't be just an echo of a person -- otherwise, the result would be what the egophobic reality hopper is currently doing battle. And eventually that echo would vanish and the Spectre would essentially be banished to some place that Death had never bothered discovering where it was.

As for thespectral hosts, as far as Death was concerned, whether a spirit wanted to move on or not was their business, not his. And, to his knowledge, the spirit had to agree to be Spectre's host, and couldn't be involuntary. Free will and all.

Thr Spectre had no chance against the egophobic being, were he not so afraid of his own power -- but then, he wouldn't be egophobic.

. . . They draw closer. He prepared himself to give them the bad news.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2016, 01:36:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Mission Schmission

Death could sense them coming as easily as Clotho spun thread, as easily as Lachesis measured thread, as easily as Atropos cut thread. He found himself musing that in that scenario, would he beconsidered the Atropos's "abhorred shears"? He had never personally met any of the Moirai, so he wasn't even sure if their existence was legitimate or not. It didn't matter, when the time came, they would be released as everyone else, assuming they did, in fact exist.

But, that was a moot point. That time would not come for a long while yet. He needn't be pondering such things when they were currently of little concern and importance. He need to prepare himself for the inevitable questions, the guaranteed inquiries. It wouldn't the first time someone tried to conjole and coax him. Tried to manipulate Death itself.

"You took your time in getting here," he said, as Sam, Abby, and Gaz arrived. His tone wasn't impatient or accusatory, but genially and worn. He was prepared for the coaxing, the conjoling, the attempted manipulation. "It's such a pity that it was for not."

He gazed at each of them in turn. He looked at Abby as if he knew something about some farflung future event, something that he may be involved with her timeline in the future. Sooner than she may think. But he said nothing, leaving Abby feeling rather insecure for some reason she could not fathom.

Thrn his penetrating gaze fell upon Gaz, who felt as if she was being x-rayed. Her vampiric nature technically makes her undead, but that did not make her immune from his release. But it was an interesting oddity. Like with Abby, he said nothing.

His gaze lingered a bit longer on Sam. There really was no reason for it, and Death's face was inscrutable. Again, he said nothing, and kept his obsidian-like eyes hard. Death was not weak, he wasn't supposed to be anyway. He was supposed to be hard, unyielding, and someone not to trifle with.

"You're . . ." Sam said, unsure.

"Death. Yes, quite right." he said. He knew what this reaction was about. "Not what you were expecting, I suppose?"

"Uh, kinda," Gaz said.

"Ah, yes," Death said, acknowledging this. "The whole 'rail-thin, black-robed, black-cloaked, hooded figure with a scythe and skull face' schtick. It's kind of a stereotype."

"We, uh, we didn't mean to offend." Abby said, unsure how to play this.

Death waved the apology away, "That's okay, that's okay. Best we get this farce over with. You've come to try to convince me to go back to my thankless duty. Well, then, I'm sorry to disappoint you."

The RAFians were expecting some wiggle room to convince him. They were not expecting to be shut down so quickly, so firmly.

"Sorry to disappoint you, you lot," Death repeated. "But I will not resume my duties. Someone else can be Death, be embodiment of it. Let someone else be the personification of death. I've done it for eons. I have done it perfectly. I have done it without complaint. I've never recieved so much as a 'thank you'. Ever tried doing a job that no one even thinks anything of you? Where no one appreciates anything you do? Where you constantly are the subject of blame? Where you are consistently the object of ire or terror?"

The trio fell into silence, unsure of how to phrase their answer -- if they had one at all.

"We . . . we have a . . . a mission." Sam said.

"Mission schmission," Death snort dismissively. "I have wanted to quit this lousy gig a millenia ago, but I couldn't just up and leave. Yes, it's a concept some beings have a difficult time understanding, but it's gotten to the point of being ridiculous."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 14, 2016, 06:56:39 AM

Welp, by opening that Wikipedia link I might have just discovered the plot this book is following.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2016, 04:16:51 PM

Oh, really? *sly smile*

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Negotiations

"But . . . but . . ." Abby spluttered.

"But nothing!" Death said. "My decision is final. Too many eons of thanklessness has wrought this."

"But you're . . . you're needed." Gaz said, unable to prevent from coming out rather lamely.

"Yes, and you only noticed just how important it was when I stopped doing it," Death said, rather hotly. "Again, I repeat my points. Do you what if feels like to be constantly blamed and scapegoated? To be hated for doing it? To be feared for being what you are?"

"Yes," came a voice.

Cloak had joined them, having defeated the Spectre. He stared down Death, who didn't look at that pleased to see him. Not because he was afraid, but for another reason.

"So, you come and seek me out again, cloaked one," Death said.

Cloak said nothing. Nothing to support or disprove this assertion.

"Cloak . . ." Gaz said, "what does he mean that you're seeking out Death again?"

"He's referencing the fact that, when I was living under my mother's roof, I orayed and pleaded every night not to wake up ever again. Only Shadow and her mother ever mitigated this feeling," Cloak said, matter-of-factly, with a cold sort of tone. "Back when I was . . . when I was a different man."

"I did wonder why you stopped your pleas," Death said. "But I didn't really have the motivation to look into it. That was your business, cloaked one."

"Death, you need to resume your duty," Cloak said, in an abrupt change back to the issue at hand.

Death, however, was prepared for this abrupt change. "As I told your friends, reality hopper, I will not do it. I tire of all the thanklessness of it."

"Thankless or not, it still must be done."

"Yes, by someone else," Death replied.

"You're Death," Cloak countered, "no one else can do it. No one else can read or make sense of your list. Not even a Realm Walker."

Death said nothing this time.

"You are a necessity." Cloak said, quite plainly. "Without you, the natural order of things just cannot work. The cycle of renewal is broken without you. It may seem thankless on the spot surface, but you serve a function just as important as any other."

Death still said nothing. He knit his brow together in quiet contemplation.

"You are the father of hope," Cloak said. "Hope would not exist without death. Adara and the Blue Lanterns owe you that."

"But what about the Black Lanterns?" Sam muttered.

"Do not mention those abominations!" Death cried out passionately. "They pervert my duties as Death! Lead astray by the would-be usurper Nekron!!"

"I thought that you wanted someone else to do your job for you," Gaz said, without missing a beat. "Perhaps --"

"Do you know what you suggest, child?!" Death said, with indignant outrage. "Nekron has no respect for the balance of things! He wants to expedite the ending darkness before its rightful time! He shan't usurp my position! He cannot! To do so would be catastrophic!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2016, 09:57:45 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A Unforeseen Condition

"I cannot fathom how you would even imagine to suggest a thing!" Death blustered.

"Well, you said you wanted someone else to do the job," Sam pointed out. "You did not specify who exactly."

"Not him!" Death said, emphatically. "Anyone but -- oh, real cute. Real friggin' cute. You played me."

"Who, us?" Cloak said, not at all convincingly.

"Though such duplicitous actions do irritate me," Death said, "the points raised -- raised by myself unknowingly, I admit -- are still valid. I did not consider Nekron."

"So, you'll go back to work, then?" Gaz said, hopefully.

"It all depends," Death said, enigmatic.

"Depends?" Abby said, at once. "Depends on what?"

"Well, while I must admit, there is a backlog of people who must be released from their suffering," Death said, not answering the question, "it does depend on one thing . . ."

"On what, exactly?" Gaz asked.

Death said nothing.

"Stop milking the suspense and tells us, already." Cloak said, dryly.

"Depending on you." Death said.

"I meant with more clarity," Cloak said, with a dry delivery.

"Depending on whether you are willing to sacrifice one your own," Death said.

"I'll be the sacrifice," Cloak said immediately, before anyone could say anything more.

"Dear boy," Death said, "I never said that you got to choose."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 14, 2016, 10:31:01 PM

If the sacrifice ends up being Leatherhead, I swear, I will kill Death.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2016, 10:48:17 PM

Nope.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Top of the List

"You choose then?" Cloak said, tone subtly acerbic. He tried not to feel anger, to suppress the mounting ire felt. It would just complicate this exchange.

"No," Death said, very evenly. Cloak could not tell whether he appreciated him keeping his anger at bay. It probably didn't even matter, really. "I never choose any of my clients."

This perplexed all four RAFians.

"Then how d'you know who your next, um, next client is?" Gaz asked.

Death looked at her with a weary, withering look, with a worn sigh accompanying it. He knew what term she was going to use instead of client. "I have a little list."

"You're not gonna sing, are you?" Cloak said, immediately.

To his surprise, Death laughed. "Ah, humor. How I have missed that. In this line of work, there is very, very little legity, if any at all."

He pulled a device out of a breast pocket, which resembled some sort of hybrid between a blackberry and a smartphone. It had a silvery case, instead of the expected black coloring.

"Anyway, the list always changes," he continues. "As the cases and circumstances change or alter. Some names that are on the top of list don't always stay their next time I check the list. Yes, there is a backlog, but there's a new name atop the list."

"One of us?" Abby asked. "Us four?"

"Yes," Death answered.

The four looked at each other, saying nothing. They couldn't help but wonder whose name was on the list. Each of them would be willing to sacrifice themselves, but would they be able to idly standby and watch the lifeline of one of the others be cut?

Clo came the closest to death, when the Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination nearly killed him. In that event, he had gone on Epiphany Road, with the shade of his grandfather, Sage, guiding him. He didn't know where Death fit into that -- though it could have been that Death didn't exist as an actualized personification or embodiment in thst previous universe. But was just irrelevant conjecture and moot speculation.

"Well?" Death prompted.

It took the four a fair bit of time to summon up their courage, to gather every last bit of bravery they possessed.

"We're ready," Cloak said.

"Who is it?" Sam asked. It took him every ounce of will he possessed to ask. His ring glowed with the green light of willpower. "Whose name is atop the list?"

Death looked at Sam with a pensive seriousness. Then he addressed Sam directly, "Yours."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2016, 12:06:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A RAFian Dies

Sam wore a look of shock, which matched the others. He didn't want to believe . . . he didn't want . . . that pain suddenly struck sharply again. That pain . . . where did it come from? He didn't like the angry pain surging into his extremities. He couldn't hide it anymore. He didn't know why. He didn't even know why he had it . . .

"Just do me one thing first, Death," Sam said.

"Oh no," Death moaned, "a Bargainer. Anything but a Bargainer."

Sam ignored this, and gazed at his Mark as he looked up as he doubled over in pain. "I just want to know why."

"Now you are a Denyer?" Death said, with genuine surprise. "No one has really gone backward in the scale, they usually pick one and commit."

Sam ignored this, as this time the pain wasn't dissipating. "I accept my fate, Death. A reprise from this pain would be lovely, but I need to know."

"Need to know why?" Death said, with weary, irritated sigh.

"The cause."

"The cause?"

"The cause of this pain. I just want to know the cause." Sam said. "Just, please, give me this closure."

"I'm omnipresent," Death said, "not omniscient."

"But . . . you know." Sam said, sure of this.

Death hesitated, before answering, "Yes. It happened during your battle with the Balam."

"But . . . that doesn't . . . that doesn't make any . . . any sense." Sam said, but it was ckear the pain was becoming intense. "It was quick. The fight was quick."

"You're right," Death said. "I confused species names. It was the battle ith the Sh'iar. She used a dangerous type of disease that could lie dormanent for years, with no telling when it could activate if ever. It was in her talons."

"Then why didn't it infect anyone else?" Gaz asked.

"It was not communicable," Death said. "I'm not as versed in such a virus. Only the end effects. I'm sorry, I cannot tell you more, because I do not know more."

"Dah!" Sam said, falling over in the fetal position, wracked with pain. His ring sensed this apparently, and flew from his finger revealing his street clothes, abandoning its former master. "Okay. Th-that's plenty, Death. P-please, d-do it."

He wasn't stuttering from fear but from pain. Death swept over to Sam, and, with but a touch, Sam felt pain no more. His body collapsed into a sulfuric sand. Cloak cleansed the sand of the disease in the way only a Realm Walker could, though it may have seemed sacrilege to the humans to disintergrate the body into nothing. But had to be done to insure no transmission to others. Abby and Gaz did not object.

Even Sam's spirit himself didn't protest. He turned toward Death, and said a very sincere, "Thank you." Then he vanished without a trace.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 15, 2016, 12:09:34 AM

. . . Damn. That was . . . I don't even know how to put it. Awesome job is all I can say.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2016, 12:48:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Dare to Be Stupid

The RAFians had to return back to the forum, with this heavy news. It was just like with Rotiart all over again. It wasn't even three months apart from each other. It was just February, and then this happened. Cloak wondered idly, in retrospect, if they could have prevented the death . . . if Sam really had to die.

When they arrived somberly into the forum, to find that GH was boisterously singing with Leatherhead on a bass of his very own.

"Put down your chainsaw, Parker, and listen to me.
It's time for us to join in the fight.
It's time to let your babies grow up to be Beastie Boys.
It's time to let the bedbugs bite.
You better put all your eggs in one basket.
You better count your crocs before they hatch.
You better sell some wine before it's time.
You better find yourself an itch to scratch.
You better call Faerie a fairy to her face.
And get your butt handed to you all over the place.
Stick your head in Yarin's microwave and get yourself a tan."

"FOOD YIELD IN-- oh, what's the point?" Yarin protested.

"Talk with your mouth full.
Bite the hand that feeds you.
Bite on more than you chew.
What can you do?
Dare to be stupid!
Take some wooden nickels.
Look for Mr. Guy.
Get your computer working now.
I'll show you how,
You can dare to be stupid!
You can turn the other cheek.
You can just give up the ship.
You can eat a bunch of sushi and forget to leave a tip!
Dare to be stupid!
Come on and dare to be stupid.
It's so easy to do.
Dare to be stupid!
We're all waiting for you,
Let's go!
It's time to make a mountain out of an anthill.
So can I have a volunteer?
There's no more time for crying over spilled milk.
Now it's time for crying in your beer!
Settle down, raise a family, join the PETA today.
Buy some sensible shoes and a Chevrolet.
And party 'till you're broke and they drive you away.
It's okay, you can dare to be stupid.
It's like spitting on a fish.
It's like barking up a tree.
It's like I said you gotta buy one if you wanna get one free.
Dare to be stupid (yes).
Why don't you dare to be stupid.
It's so easy to do.
Dare to be stupid.
We're all waiting for you.
Dare to be stupid.
Burn your candle at both ends.
Look at Horse in the mouth."

"Hey! Stop! Not -- fun-nee!" Horse said, as someone tried to shove their head into Horse's mouth.

"Mashed potatoes can be your friends.
You can be a coffee achiever.
You can sit around the house and watch 'Leave It To Beaver'.
The future's up to you.
So, what you gonna do?
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
What did I say?
Dare to be stupid!
Tell me, what did I say?
Dare to be stupid!
It's alright!
Dare to be stupid!
We can be stupid all night!
Dare to be stupid!
Come on, join the crowd!
Dare to be stupid!
Shout it out loud!
Dare to be stupid!
I can't hear you!!
Dare to be stupid!
OK, I can hear you now.
Dare to be stupid!
Let's go!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!
Dare to be stupid!"

Then he noticed Abby, Gaz, and Cloak. "Hey, guys! Wh-why the long faces?"

"We have some somber news to report," Abby said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 15, 2016, 01:01:16 AM

You know, I would complain about my character acting like a complete idiot, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that just happened, but I've done that sort of thing in real life before. Multiple times. Yes, I'm an idiot. :P

 :edit: Also, I have to imagine that LH's bass looks something like this:

(http://www.conklinguitars.com/custom_shop_basses/bass_pictures/custom_11_string_bass_cocobolo_neck_thru/custom_11_string_bass_cocobolo_neck_thru_1_large.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 15, 2016, 01:13:44 AM

Well, at least he got that right, then. :P

Damn. That was... incredible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2016, 08:26:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The New Spectre

"Seriously?" Saffa said. "First Rotiart, now Sam? . . . I shutter to think who will be next."

"There's a happy thought," Abby replied somberly.

"I should known something was wrong," Cloak said. "I could sense something was off with Sam. Though it makes sense now why he refused to touch the ground when I asked him about it. I would have sensed that he was lying immediately with my Earthsight."

"But why didn't he come to me at the infirmary?" Kelly asked. "I might have been able to heal him. I might have been able to help."

"Forgive my bluntness, Kelly," Cloak said, "but your powers are not infallible. However, it is just the same that he may have either been ashamed or afraid to show weakness. I cannot say for sure."

"How did he manage to survive this long with this disease?" GH asked. "The gladiator business was a long time ago."

"I suspect -- and I haven't any evidence to prove or disprove this -- that he used the green light of willpower to stem the effects of the disease." Cloak said, contemplating the question. "I do not know if he did it as a conscious or unconscious decision. Green Lanterns are selected by their wills to overcome fear. I think Sam embodied that ideal well."

A resounding silence met these words, a silence of mourning. Which happened to be disturbed by the appearance a guy in a green cloak that Cloak immediately recognized as the Spectre.

"You?!" Cloak said. He did not know where this sudden rage came from. "You dare invade the sanctity of this forum, Spectre?!"

"Why, of course," came a voice. It was not the Spectre's voice. This was a new Spectre. But that voice . . . it was not . . . it was not possible. Despite himself, Cloak's mouth dropped open in surprise, followed suit by the others. He raised a hand that had the iconic RAFian "R" on it -- the Mark of RAFian. "I am a member, after all."

The Spectre turned around and instead of the costuming that the previous Spectre wore, he had his Green Lantern uniform, despite no longer having a power ring anymore, with white replacing the black parts, and his skin being chalk white.

"Sam?!" Gaz exclaimed.

"You're the new Spectre?" Abby said.

"You're the new host?" Cloak said. "You're the moral compass of the Spectre?"

"Yes, I am the Spectre now."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 15, 2016, 10:01:34 AM

Well, that has been his username for quite a while now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2016, 07:48:04 PM

Which is why Spectre was in this book at all. ;) Originally, before I even outlined this book, Spectre had nothing to do with it, and no one died. Then Spectre changed his username and I got the idea.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
What Kind of RAFian Are You?

Despite the shock of this revelation, RAF soon returned to its own brand of zaniness and attractive craziness.

GH, of course, was breaking out into song. Again.

"What kind of RAFian are you?
How do you do the things you do?
Share with me your secrets deep inside.
What kind of RAFian are you?
Are you loyal through and through?
Do you have a heart that's true?
What kind of RAFian are you?
Take your normal-type like biggly Duff,
Against the ghostly Spectre the battle's real tough!
Yeah, Thunderbolt's a great Electric attack,
'Til you get ground down by Cloak's wake!
What kind of RAFian are you?
How do you do the things you do?
Don't ya bug me with a Knight, see.
For an intelligent-type the win's easy.
Good luck with the Saffs and the sass.
Make one wrong move and she'll kick your grass.
What kind of RAFian are you?
How do you do the things you do?
Share with me your secrets deep inside.
What kind of RAFian are you?
Are you loyal through and through?
Do you have a heart that's true?
What kind of RAFian are you?
Reach higher with fire - Demos, go on!
Think twice about ice to be number one.
Water's in order if you wanna be slick.
Yarin is the best bet when you get psychic!
What kind of RAFian are you
How do you do the things you do?
Slushie Man's the key for your fighting mood
And you can rock 'n roll with the Mr. Guy dude
Blocky comes first when you choose dragon alphabetically.
But evolution's the solution if you're gonna win!
What kind of RAFian are you?
How do you do the things you do?
Share with me your secrets deep inside.
What kind of RAFian are you?
Are you loyal through and through?
Do you have a heart that's true?
What kind of RAFian are you?
What kind of RAFian are you?
How do you do the things you do?
Share with me your secrets deep inside.
What kind of RAFian are you?
Are you loyal through and through?
Do you have a heart that's true?
What kind of RAFian are you?"

Leatherhead clapped his hands happily. He was entertained by this. GH was proud.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 15, 2016, 08:38:06 PM

Obviously, I'm a bug-type Pok- I mean, RAFian. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2016, 09:30:51 PM

Of course, you got a +1 for thst, GH. And sorry, GH, I couldn't rest this chapter.

New chapter.

BOOK CXI:
HIGH STAKES
CHAPTER ONE:
GH Sings Another Song

"Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the
corner of the basement half a block down the street from Jerry's Bait shop, you know the place. Well, anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just peachy!

Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning, my stepmother would make me a big bowl of 'liberty sauce'* for breakfast.

Awww - Big bowl of 'liberty sauce'! Every single mornin'! It was driving me crazy!

I said to my stepmom, I said, 'Hey, what's with all the, ugh, 'liberty sauce?'

And my dear, sweet stepmother, she just looked at my like a cow looks at an oncoming train. And she leaned right down next to me. And she said, "IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!"

And then she tied me to the wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth! And force fed me nothing but sauerkraut until I was eighteen and a half years old!

That's when I swore that someday, someday I would get outta that basement and travel to a magical, far away place where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm dew, and the towels are oh so fluffy! Where the Controllers and Andalites play their ukuleles all day long and anyone on the street will glady shave your back for a nickel

Wacka wacka doodoo yeah!

Well, let me tell you, people, it wasn't long at all before my dream came true. Because the very next day, a local radio station had this contest to see who could correctly guess the number of molecules in a jar of Joltik.I was off by three, but I still won the grand prize. That's right, a first class one-way ticket to --

Richard's Animorph Forum!
Richard's Animorph Forum!

Oh yeah, you know, I'd never been on a real airplane before and I gotta tell ya, it was really great! Except that I had to sit between two large Hork-Bajir with excruciatingly severe body odor And the Gourmand in back of me kept throwin' up the whole time. The flight attendants ran out of Mountain Dew and salted peanuts and the in-flight movie was Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore.

And, oh yeah, three of the airplane engines burned out and we went into a tailspin and crashed into a hillside and the plane exploded in a giant fireball and everybody died! Except for me. You know why?

'Cause I had my tray table up,
And my seat back in the full upright position!
Had my tray table up,
And my seat back in the full upright position!
Had my tray table up,
And my seat back in the full upright position!

Ah ha ha ha! Ah ha ha! Ahhhh!

So I crawled from the twisted, burnin' wreckage, I crawled on my hands and knees for three full days! Draggin' along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag, and my precious guitar and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark PokeDex! But finally I arrived at the world famous RAF Holiday Inn where the towels are oh so fluffy! And you can eat your soup right out of the ashtrays if you wanna. It's OK, they're clean!

Well, I checked into my room and I turned down the A/C and I turned on the Spectre Vision and I'm just about to eat that little chocolate mint on my pillow that I love so very, very much when suddenly, there's a knock on the door.

Well now, who could that be?

I say "Who is it?"

No answer.

"Who is it?"

There's no answer.

"WHO IS IT?"

They're not sayin' anything!

So, finally I go over and I open the door and just as I suspected. It's some big Quetzalcoatlus Skybax -- oh man, I hate it when I'm right! So anyway, she bursts into my room and she grabs my lucky PokeDex.
And I'm like 'Hey, you can't have that! That PokeDex's been just like a PokeDex to me!"

And she's like 'Tough.'

And I'm like 'Give it!'

And she's like 'Make me!'

And I'm like ''Kay!'

So I grabbed her leg and she grabbed my esophagus, and I bit off her wing and she chewed off my eyebrows, and I took out her appendix and she gave me a colonic irrigation! Yes indeed, you better believe it! And somehow in the middle of it all, the phone got knocked off the hook and twenty seconds later, I heard a familiar voice. And you know what it said? I'll tell you what it said!

It said,
'If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.
'If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator.
'If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.
'If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator.'

In RAF! RAF!

Well, to cut a long story short, she got away with my PokeDex. But I made a a solemn vow right then and there that I would not rest. I would not sleep for an instant until the strange creature was brought to justice. But first, I decided to buy some donuts.

So I got in my car and I drove over to the donut shop, and I walked on up to the guy behind the counter and he says "Yeah, what do ya want?"

I said, 'You got any glazed donuts?'

He said, 'No, we're outta glazed donuts!'

I said, 'Well, you got any jelly donuts?'

He said, 'No, we're outta jelly donuts!'

I said, 'You got any Bavarian cream-filled donuts?'

He said, 'No, we're outta Bavarian cream-filled donuts!'

I said, 'You got any cinnamon rolls?'

He said, 'No, we're outta cinnamon rolls!'

I said, 'You got any apple fritters?'

He said, 'No, we're outta apple fritters!'

I said, 'You got any bear claws?'

He said, 'Wait a minute, I'll go check! . . . No, we're outta bear claws!'

I said, 'Well, in that case - in that case, what do you have?'

He says, 'All I got right now is this box of one dozen starving, crazed Sneasels.'

I said, 'OK, I'll take that.'

So he hands me the box and I open up the lid and the Sneasels jump out and they immediately latch onto my face and start bitin' me all over!"

He made a bunch of rabid gnawing sounds.

"Oh man, they were just going nuts! They were tearin' me apart! You know, I think it was just about that time that a little ditty started goin' through my head. I believe it went a little something like this . . ."

GH just started to scream and yell in the most obnoxious ways imaginable, before continuing.

"But that's just the way things go!

In RAF! RAF!

Anyway, things really started lookin' up for me, because about a week later, I finally achieved my lifelong dream. That's right, I got me a part-time job at The Sizzler! I even made employee of the month after I put that grease fire out with my face! Aw, yeah, everybody was pretty jealous of me after that. I was gettin' a lot of attitude!

OK, like one time, I was out in the parking lot tryin' to remove my excess earwax with a golf pencil. When I see this guy tryin' to carry a big ol' sofa up the stairs all by himself. So I, I say to him, I say 'Hey, you want me to help you with that?'

And he just rolls his eyes and goes, 'Nooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw.'

So I did.

And then he gets all indignant on me! He's like 'Hey, man, I was just being sarcastic!'

Well, that's just great. How was I supposed to know that? I'm not a mind reader for cryin' out loud. Besides, now he's got a really cute nickname -- Torso-Boy! So what's he complaining about?

Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote. This guy comes up to me on the street and says he hasn't had a bite in three days. Well, I knew what he meant, but just to be funny, I took a big bite out of his jugular vein And he's yellin' and screamin' and bleeding all over, and I'm like 'Hey, come on, don'tcha get it?'

But he just keeps rolling around on the sidewalk, bleeding, and screaming. You know, just completely missing the irony of the whole situation. Man, some people just can't take a joke, you know?

Anyway, um, um, where was I? Kinda lost my train of thought

Uh, well, uh, okay.Anyway I, I know it's kinda been a roundabout way of saying it, but I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is . . .

I . . . hate . . . sauerkraut!

That's all I'm really tryin' to say. And, by the way, if one day you happen to wake up and find yourself in an existential quandary, full of loathing and self-doubt, and wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful meaningless existence. At least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that somewhere out there in this crazy mixed-up universe of ours, there's still a little place called --

RAF!
RAF!
RAF, RAF!
RAF, RAF!
RAF, RAF!
RAF, RAF!

RAF, RAF, RAF, RAF!
RAF, RAF, RAF, RAF!
RAF, RAF, RAF, RAF!
RAF, RAF, RAF, RAF!

RAF . . ."

"GH," Cloak said. "I know you're lying."

"Why I don't know what you could possibly mean," GH said, wearing a disingenuous, impish smile.

"I can't believe you're pulling this again," Cloak replied.

The smile vanished from GH's face. "What?"

"One more thing!" Cloak said, in a passable imitation of Uncle from Jackie Chan Adventures. TWACK! Cloak smacked him upside the head. "Hand them over."

GH handed his cigarettes over.

"Let's not have to do this again," Cloak said. "Remember, you wanted to quit."

"Can I withdraw that desire?"

"Nnnno."

Cloak walked off.

---

* Reference to the ludicrous trend of renaming food (usually without any idea of the etymology of the word to begin with) for stupid political reasons. "Liberty sauce" was sauerkraut, and "freedom fries" were French fries (which derived from shortening "Frenched fried potatoes", which was how they were made).

Song Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oe5gaCxWOkg

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 15, 2016, 09:51:22 PM

Gotta say, I loved the title. And the reference to 2 of my favorite Pokemon. And the Albuquerque adaptation. Screw it, this whole chapter was great. Only issue that I take with it is that I hate Mountain Dew. Like, a lot. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 16, 2016, 01:40:35 AM

Wait, freedom fries are actually a thing? I thought it was an America joke created by the internet. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2016, 08:14:22 AM

We have a lot of stupid people, Saffa.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Golden Warrior and the Wharf Kid

Blaze stood on a flat, level ground, holding a sword loosely at his side. This sword was different from the one that Cloak had given to him, as this one, as he had made this particular one himself. It may not have been as perfect, but the RAFian took a certain pride in it, because of the hard work he put into it. Wrough from ordinary steel which was perfectly balanced in his hands.

He saw his opponent. He was clad in armor of a pure gold color, and it was like Parker's in that it appeared to be entirely self-contained. But, unlike Parker, he never removed his helmet, almost as if he was ashamed of how he looked. But, then again, that wasn't all that surprising, as this was Chrysaor. Brother of Pegasus. Son of Medusa.

He wielded a sword of enchanted gold, which Blaze wasn't intimidated by it. He had made sure to include a certain special feature to his sword -- he could superheat the blade without harming the hilt at all.

The two did not speak. They did not exchange witty banter. They hesitated only for a moment or two, before they crossed blades. The battle was on.

***

Upon a misty moor, a figure stood, isolated. The gusty wind blew the dark cloak she wore as if trying to remove it. She drew it closer as she strode from the warf. And she strode with purpose. She knew why had come, knew her purpose.

She would kill the Mother of Vampires.

Vampire slaying is what she does. It was what she trained for since childhood, since infancy. She breathed, slept, and dreamt vampire slaying. Yet she was rather ambitious. She couldn't have been any older than sixteen or any younger than fourteen, and she was here, stepping off the wooden planks of the wharf, seeking the Mother of all Vampires.

Madre de Vampyra.

She heard the rumors of her demise, of course.  But she didn't believe them. Not a single one. They were nothing but conjecture. Useless speculation. No proof of a done deed! And he was expected to believe these tales of the death of the Mother of Vampires as legitimate? Puh-lease.

She knew her destination. She knew her way. She knew her path -- she would follow it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 16, 2016, 04:04:31 PM

Whoa, this is a lot of things happening at once.

PDF of the last book. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2016, 07:37:50 PM

Yep. Perhaps not if I can keep the main focus of the story interesting . . . hmmm . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
News on the Wing

Shanker was away from the forum. He was a vampire, and vampires had to feed. Evn the good ones. He couldn't stomach the BloodLites anymore. He wanted something a little bit more fresh . . . he didn't know how Gaz could stomach that stuff day in, day out. He needed to taste the free-flowing liquid of life . . . the warm dampness of life . . . the --

No. No! He mustn't allow himself to give into that baser instinct. He was a RAFian. He couldn't go around attacking people, tempting though it was. Though he did not voice it, he was jealous of Gaz, for being able to completely dominate her vampiric nature, something he still struggled with from time to time. He was was the one who sired her, and yet, she had done something that he could not. Something that he hadn't managed to do yet. What was the secret?

He slurped the BloodLite he had brought with him, and put on a disgusted face. It was cold. It was the equivalent of having a very warm beer. He could not understand how Gaz could drink this stuff without flinching. Without stretching.

"Shanker?" came a quavery voice.

"Aidan?" Shanker replied, recognizing the voice. It was the vampire who sired him, an eternity ago it seemed. Things between them were . . . complicated. "What's up?"

"Zoë. Jason. Martinique. Lexie."

"What about them?"

"They're dead, Shanker."

This alarmed Shanker. Those four were his "blood siblings", other sires of Aidan. This wasn't very good, as there wasn't that many vampires in the world as Hollywood would have you believe. They were, if anything, a super-minority.

"Vampire hunters?" Shanker guessed.

"That's what it appeared to be at first," Aidan said, his fretful worry obvious. "But then I heard word that there was a girl of indeterminate age asking about . . ."

"About?"

"About . . . Mother."

"Madre de Vampyra?"

"D'you know any other Mother? Any other queen of all vampires?" Aidan said, caustically.

Shanker looked as if he was going to answer, and answer with rueful sarcasm. But he stopped himself, and remained silent about that particular subject. "But she's dead. Why would this person be interested in a pile of forgotten ash? Especially a vampire hunter?"

Shanker said the last two words as an expletive, as Aidan wore look of mixed displeasure at disrespect to their dearly departed queen and distaste for the aforementioned queen. Aidan looked as if he chose his next words carefully. "I don't think was an ordinary vampire hunter."

"Then what? Then what was inquiring, Aidan."

"A Slayer."

What color existed in Shanker's face drained out very quickly. "A S-S-Slayer?"

"I believe so."

"But they . . . they're extinct!"

"One must've survived," Aidan said simply. He turned to leave, but paused only to say, "Watch yourself, and that sire of yours, Shanker. You know how dangerous Slayers can be."

"You don't need to remind me, Aidan." Shanker said, storming away from his sire. He glanced at his Mark briefly, which Aidan did not know about, and went batty to get to the forum faster.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 17, 2016, 02:24:12 AM

Sire?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2016, 10:57:20 AM

I wasn't expecting such a strong reaction. Yes, Shanker's sire. Gaz. Shanker is who turned Gaz, if I'm not mistaken.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Unwise and Reckless

"Daphne," came a commanding, cantankerous sort of voice. "Where were you?"

"Like it matters," said the teen moodily.

"You bet your a--" the voice's owner, a crotchety man in a puke green cardigan and brown slack began angrily, before he forced himself to calm down. "Daphne, you can't blow off training. As the Slayer, you may have formidable fighting prowess naturally, but if you do not train they will atrophy."

"Whatever," Daphne said, affecting indifference rather skillfully.

Being the Slayer, which only one exists in the world at a time, also afforded her superhuman strength, superhuman agility, enhanced speed, superhuman resilience, superhuman regeneration, superhuman awareness, prophetic dreams, and characteristic loneliness. But she didn't care about that. She found it hard to care about anything but slaying vampires and demons and the like. She had no thoughts of a future beyond that. She subconsciously knew that this was a problem, which lead to her unhappiness for months.

"Daphne," the man said, his voice now full of consternstion instead of ire. "Daphne --"

"Go away," she snapped.

"Now, Daphne," he began, almost placatingly.

"No, Uncle Jarvis!" she snarled. "I don't want to train. I want to be left alone!"

She slammed the door, almost ripping it from its hinges. But the door slam could be heard from quite a distance away, but that was mostly due to the building's natual acoustics than the strength of the slam.

Jarvis sighed heavily, muttering, "Daphne . . ."

She wasn't always so volatile. She was very amiable and accommodating a scarce week ago. She was reasonably happy, even having been activated as the Slayer. She was the knly child of a couple of humble orthodontists. They were unaware of their daughter's activation as a Slayer, they did not discern any difference as it was very, very subtle.

Jarvis found himself remembering his niece's birth, and the joy his little brother and his wife had, never knowing that she would become the Slayer. Even as a Watcher -- a member of a secret organization, the Watchers' Council, which seeks to prepare the Slayer to fight demonic forces, not to be confused with that noninterventionist alien species -- he didn't expect the next Slayer to be his brother's only daughter. Much less that he would be assigned to her, which was actually flirting with dismissal from the Watchers' Council, because he wasn't supposed to be as attached to her as he was.

Jarvis, though he didn't say it aloud, disapproved how arrogant and egocentric the Council was -- but they had not succumbed to the regular cycle of coming into power, becoming rampently unpopular, subsequently impeached, then replaced nearly to the degree of the Realm Walker Council. Still he didn't approve of them seeing Slayers as mere tools instead of people and their ethically dubious methods. But he tended to tread carefully around them, especially cause he consciously left things out of the diary he was to keep, chronicling Daphne's training and victories.

He feared for her. He knew the Council woild try to put her through the Cruciamentum, a test where they suppress her abilities through a drug. It was supposively to test her intelligence and practical abilities. Jarvis knew better, he thought. He believed it to be actually a gladitorial blood sport. He would not be allowed to intervene . . . he knew he would defy that rule.

Anyway, shortly after activation, there was a car accident with Daphne and her parents in one car, and Nathan Futon*, a spoilt rich brat driving (and driving drunk) an overly-expensive and unnecessarily-ostentatious red sports car. All of three survived, and even the idiotic drunk teenager. Daphne was unmolested, due to her Slayer durability. But there was really no reason for her parents to still be alive. They were horribly maimed, wracked with constant pain. Unable to die . . .

To add insult to injury, Nathan tried to sue them for the crash, though it was him who ran the light. . . . Fortunately, not all judges are swayed by the "affluenza defense". Jarvis, being Daphne's legal guardian now, was reluctant to tell her. Especially cinsidering her parents had just passed away several days ago** . . .

---

*Yes, a blatant analogue for Ethan Couch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch), the prick.

** Yes, because Death started doing his job again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2016, 09:43:11 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Daphne Dangerous

Daphne was consumed with the urge, the thrill to hunt for vampires. And demons to a lesser extent. She didn't realize that her uncle was doing her best to help her hold onto her humanity, because if she continually gave into this bloodlust without a fight, eventually it would overtake her and make he naught but an animal. A powerful animal.

She was obsessed with Madre de Vampyra. She considered her the Big Bad of vampires, and she was right. Had Madre not been dead, and she was dead. Madre no longer possessed a Black Lantern ring, and she could not come back by any means on the books. But, even when told this by the vamps that she slayed, she refused to believe it. She was obstinate in this belief, and would not be swayed from it, no matter how wrong she was.

She had come to be restless every time she thought about it. It riled her up at the very thought, at the very moment she imagined taking down the queen of all vampires. She was not dead as far as Daphne was concerned, and this made her dangerous, not only to others but it made her a danger to herself.

One could make the argument that her parents final depature from this world had unhinged her, given her a psychosis, had made her reckless and careless, and made her have a deathwish. And all of the above could very well be true.

She was not only volatile, but irrational and overly wrathful, murderously so. She had snuck out of the house shortly hafter being snippy with Jarvis. She had waited for him to go to bed, then crept from the house. She need to quench her slaying thirst, which seemed to, in her, override the Slayer instinct to protect. She had donned her cloak again, and climbed down a tree as nimbly as a squirrel.

Although she didn't know that Jarvis was aware of this. But he felt as if he was powerless to stop her from doing what she wanted to. He was afraid that he may have to call the Council on his own niece. He didn't want to do it, but he may be.left with little choice. He feared his niece would lose her humanity . . .and he's tried to tell her as such, but she always cut him off before he could.

Anyway, she went out into the night, sesrching for her prey. She would have a kill this night. Her agitation wouldn't be sated if she didn't. But if one thing was good -- she would never harm an innocent. Her instinct was against that. But, thing was, not every human was an innocent. And, in this day and age, there were plenty that weren't innocent. Daphne was a loose cannon and she she was free and unrstrained, unfettered by clarity of mind and an alarming ambiguity towards true justice.

She dashed into a city, killing a vampire who betrayed a human confidence. She took an inordinate amount of pleasure in it, feeling regret only when she realized that she didn't interrogate him over Madre de Vampyra. She would not forget next time. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 18, 2016, 01:00:36 AM

Creepy woman.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2016, 01:09:39 AM

Girl. She's sixteen. Though it's tough to pin her age by appearance alone.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Desperate Pressing

"Gaz!" Shanker said sharply. "Gaz, you're not taking this seriously!"

"So what?" Gaz said, flippantly, as Laserbeak eyed Shanker intently. The Cybertronian bird was ready to attack Shanker if he made one false move toward Gaz. Perhaps that's why Gaz didn't lend Shanker's dire warnings the appropriate amount of attention it deserved. "Some dinosaur rock back has it out for vampires?"

"The Slayer is not a dinosaur rock band!" Shanker exclaimed. "She is a girl!"

Gaz snickered. "You're afraid of a little girl?"

"I didn't call her that!" Shanker said. He seemed to be getting hysterical. He took a moment to compose himself. "Gaz, you don't appear to appreciate the gravity of the situation."

"It can't be worse than anything we've fought before," Gaz said, dismissively. "We faced things like memory-snatchers, shadow-stealers, and the like. I even talked to Death himself just a week, week and half ago! And you want me to worry aout some prissy girl?"

"Slayers are about as prissy as Faerie or Sakki or Saffa," Shanker replied dryly.

"Eh, semantics." Gaz said, with a shrug.

"Gaz, this is serious." Shanker said, frustration in his voice. Gaz was not getting it. "Slayers are dangerous. Killing our kind is a game to them. Killing our people is fun for them!"

"So, basically, what you're saying is, once a generation, a Malice is born." Gaz summed up.

"Stop being so goddamn flippant!" Shanker roared, which caused Laserbeak to land between him and Gaz. Beaky then proceeded to peck viciously at his hand. "Ah! Petulant pest!"

"Do not speak about Beaky in that way," Gaz threatened.

"Then finally take the threat seriously!" Shanker countered.

"What threat?" Gaz countered hotly. "We are safe here. A girl -- I don't care how supposedly special she is -- penetrate all the defenses RAF has."

"You know those defenses are unreliable at best!" Shanker pointed out.

"They're still sufficient," Gaz said, confidently. "There's no need for a friggin' panic attack."

"You don't understand. You don't understand." Shanker said with palpable consternation.

"Why does this one girl got you so ruffled?" Gaz asked, almost pedantic.

"You weren't my only sire," Shanker said quickly, as if he wished to get the unpleasantness iver as soon as he could.

"What?"

"That's right," Shanker said. "You had a brother. A blood brother."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I had my reasons."

"Where is he?"

"I said that you had a blood brother," Shanker clarified. "You cannot meet him, just as you cannot meet Mother."

"Madre de Vampyra is dead."

"And so is your blood brother," Shanker said. "He was as flippant as you are being right now. He was killed by the last Slayer."

"What happened to her?"

"She took on Mother. She was ill-prepared and undertrained." Shanker said. "But Slayers are not to be underestimated."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 18, 2016, 01:14:03 AM

I'm going to break metalhead law and say that yes, Slayer is a crappy Dinosaur rock band. Nothing they released after 1984 is worth listening to, IMO. Also, don't think I didn't catch the reference to Animorphs 25 ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 18, 2016, 10:58:19 AM

Makes sense that I don't take teen vampire hunters seriously. Never did watch Buffy. lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2016, 07:23:28 AM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Unintentional Eavesdropper

Ugh, Cloak thought, disgruntled, why couldn't have Gaz and Shanker have selected a more spot spot for their little chitchat?

He had heard everything. He wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but they were talking to plainly, to loudly for him not to notice, for him not to hear. Perhaps they thought the chilly February weather would blot out their voices. If they did, they were sorely mistaken as the air, while still frigid, was still. And Cloak's feline hearing was very acute.

He had come out here every now and again to clear his mind, and basically "clear his chakras" if that guru in that one realm was right about the term. Identify the fear, the shame, the guilt, the grief, the self-told lies, the pessimistic illusions he felt over the past year. He had done this periodically over the last month, feeling like it would help him better control his abilities, and keep them in check. It did seem to be working, as it seemed to give him some piece of mind, but it wasn't perfect, as life, no matter the realm, tended to be messy.

And this conversation of Gaz and Shanker's was incontrovertible proof of that little fact.

Cloak had to admit that he knew of the Slayers, but by name only. His knowledge of them, especially how they functioned in this Realm, was woefully superficial and lacking. He wasn't aware that they were an actual, legitimate threat.

Well, not to him, personally, as he was not a vampire, not could he ever be one. Realm Walkers and vampirism are just incapable, due to the whole cloak requirement thing. If that wasn't a factor, well, he didn't know.

Anyway, he knew a bit more than Shanker let on to Gaz. He knew it would probably be a teenager, which he could understand Shanker conveniently forgetting to mention, and thus possessing the volatile emotions of a teenager. Unless this Slayer person was like him, and suppressed their emotions, as he was doing even now.

But, still, as much alike as humans could be to Realm Walkers (excluding the obvious physiological differences, of course), Cloak didn't know them perfectly. Some human behavior still baffled him, though he was usually too proud to admit this -- he had inherited this from his mother's side of the family.

Cloak did not know if the Slayer would ever come here though. Because whether or not she believes it to be true, Madre de Vampyra is dead. Proven when she came back and died again as a Black Lantern.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2016, 08:18:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Choices

It was almost as if Daphne could smell vampires and whatever nest they tend to congregate at. She was back wearing the cloak with the ornate trim. She didn't want to be recognised so easily. She was determined to find one vamp who would not protect Madre de Vampyra. One who would lie and say that she was dead. She was under the impression that vampires were like bugs, and needed a queen to function. That they needed a queen to have any functionality, that they had some sort of hive mind that would shut down without a queen. Therefore, the queen, Madre de Vampyra, must still be alive.

Of course, she was wrong, and her reasoning was flawed. However, that tends to go hand and hand with her age. When teenagers, some people tend to believe that they are always right, no matter the evidence to the otherwise. There are unique cases and circumstances when this isn't true -- and just a sweeping stereotype -- but this wasn't one of them.

Daphne carried a wooden stake that appeared to be crafted from wood from a holly tree, and it was her favorite weapon, and, like most Slayers, did not use firearms. Not too surprising, given her usual manner of prey item.

***

Jarvis couldn't do this anymore.

He couldn't just wait up for Daphne to do her thing and come back home. She was too headstrong. She wasn't adequately trained. She wasn't thinking straight. When she was like this, she was a danger to humans as well as vampires and demons, a danger to the innocent as well as the malevolent, a danger to herself as much as anyone else.

She wasn't just the Slayer, and he wasn't just her Watcher. He was her uncle and she was his niece. They were the only blood relatives they had. He couldn't shut off his compassion, his familial love for her. He couldn't pretend to be aloof and indifferent any longer.

The Watchers' Council would not like his actions, but you know what? The Council be damned. He already lost his parents, his brother and his sister-in-law. He wasn't about to lose his niece. Not by a long shot, not while he still drew breath.

Daphne wasn't a tool, as the Council saw her. She was a person. A person with thoughts of her own, with feelings of her own. She was not some mindless, soulless automaton to be aimed and unleashed at the Council's merest whim! She was not obligated to follow their agenda.

He put on his coat and donned a hat akin to the one Jacksepticeye wears, and he opened the front door to the chilly February evening. He would find her and be there for her. He would take a more active roll. He wouldn't be her Watcher, he would be her uncle. It was about time someone stepped up, and he should have done it the moment he became her legal guardian.

He was aware that by doing this, by effectively abandoning his "post", he had basically labelled himself a rogue Watcher. His thought at this was bitter and dismissive.

So what.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2016, 12:53:45 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Wrong Answers and Mayhem

"Whoa, there, girlie," said a broad, stout man who towered above the slight figure befor him. He foulded his bare, thick, overly muscular arms in front of him imperiously. He had a rather froggy face, with a wide flappy mouth, beady eyes and a hairless head. He wore questionably artistically-ripped jeans, a stained white shirt that for some reason was referred to as a wife-beater, and a jean jacket with ripped-off sleeves. "Gonna need to see some I.D."

He was the bouncer to the little known club called, "Fangs U", which apparently had a number of double entendres in its name, but the slight figure appeared not to care. Fangs U had a history for only servicing a highly selective clientele, which no one disclosed what said clientele was.

The slight figure in the black cloak with ornate calligraphy on the trim and a blood red underside spoke clearly, but devoid of any discernible emotion, "Move out of my way, and you may live for another night."

The bouncer, upon hearing this, burst into deep belly laughter. He wasn't afraid of anything, as he constantly reminded everyone. He was too used to using his size to intimidate others, in addition to his other abilities. "Nice try, girly. But no entry. Go to the end of the line."

"Allow me entry," the figure said, in what was obviously a threatening tone, "I will not repeat myself a third time."

"Go to the end of the line," the bouncer said, matching the threatening tone in the cloaked girl's voice. "Or just get lost, I don't care. But you are not going inside, girly."

"So be it," she said. "But I did give you fair warning."

***

No one inside heard the commotion or screams from outside. They did not know to be weary of the slight figure, did not know the danger she posed. The clientele of this club was obvious once inside. It was made to cater to vampires primarily, with the odd demon or two popping in occasionally.

The vampires were of all imaginable body types -- thick, thin, stout, tall, fat, skinny, and more. They were all talking cavorting freely and unrestrained. They were downing BloodLite and some were drunkenly singing sea shanties. Hiw a vampire got drunk was unknown but there was a fair few here that were.

This figure, this stranger sidled up to a vampire with gray hair cut short, and spoke with an effeminate tone. He wore a gray undershirt and blue scrubs --a clear indication that he was a certified nursing aide, and a careless one at that. What CNA comes down to a club in their scrubs? He wore his fangs extended almost lazily.

"I have a question for you," the stranger said.

"Shoot," he said.

"Not if I don't have to," this stranger quipped, "answer me this: where . . . is . . . Madre de Vampyra?"

"Where have you been, kid?" he said, with withering dismissal. "Mother's dead. She's been for about a year now."

"Stop protecting her," the stranger snapped.

"What? I'm not protecting no one," he said, brusquely.

"I asked nicely," the stranger insisted.

"Yeah? Well, go f--"

Then his eyes widened as he realized that he had been staked fatally. Daphne had disposed of the cloak and, before anyone could cry out "Slayer!",  she had gone to work on the patrons and staff of the club.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 20, 2016, 12:56:47 AM

Well, that was impolite. She didn't even let him finish his sentence!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2016, 09:45:14 AM

She's a teenager. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Passing the Buck

There was one vampire left in the club. The place was literally littered with mounds of ash. He was unable to escape, and he looked quite beat up. It would have been embarrassing if she was an ordinary teenager. But she was obviously not. She was the Slayer. The monster in the form of a teenager.

"I'll ask you again, vampire," Daphne said, dangerously.

"She's dead. She's been dead for about a year! Maybe a little longer!" Aidan cried out terrified. He didn't want to die. He didn't. "It's the truth, Slayer, I swear!"

"Wrong answer," she said, punctuated the sentence with a punch. Aiden was thankful that it didn't kill him. "Now STOP protecting her."

"I'm not!" Aidan protested. "I'm not!"

"Stop lying vampire, or I will end you!" Daphne snapped, sounding almost sadistic. She was head down a dark, dark path. "Now, tell the truth! WHERE IS SHE?!"

"She's -- she's dead. That the truth, Slayer! I swear on the life of my sire and grandsire!" Aidan said.

"Wrong answer," she said, punctuating it with another punch. "Don't lie to me again. Do not make me ask again -- where is she?!"

Aidan thought fast, and he lied, "She's in a forum. A forum over the way by --"

And aaidan gave her directions to RAF. He sold out Shanker and Gaz to save his own life.

"Thank you," the Slayer said. "Now, was thst so hard?"

Then she went ahead and staked him anyway.

***

Shanker felt a great deal of anxiety in the forum, and that anxiety manifested itself as agitated restlessless. He didn't want to die. He knew he could not stand up to the Slayer. He wasn't the strongest vampire (but he was by no means the weakest) and the Slayer had slayed stronger vampires than him.

"Oh, settle down," Gaz said, reproachfully.

"Don't you get it? The Slayer had staked an entire nigthclub!" Shanker said, having discovered this after the Slayer had left, because he was needing a drink. He had no idea thst Aiden had sold him out. Or was dead. "She is that dangerous. She is like a keg of nitroglycerin waiting to go off."

"We're safe here, Shanker," Gaz said, with a calmness and serenity that Shanker thought was obscene. "Stop worrying so much."

"How can you be so calm?! We're in danger!!" Shanker said, fretfully.

"This Slayer, whoever she may be, would not be able penetrate the forum's defenses, Shanker." Gaz said, sipping nonchalantly from her drink. "We're safe."

"Don't be so complacent!" Shanker warned. "No defense is impenetrable!"

"Well, then it's a good thing that RAF doesn't have just a singular defense." Gaz said, simply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2016, 09:24:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Misled and Trail Dead

And so it went, Daphne grabbed her cloak and wrapped it around herself after beating the vampire ash out of it. Then she stalked around to the door, and exited without bothering to shut the door. She had her directions to where she believed the Madre de Vampyra dwelt.

She found what to be a very overgrown path, but she discovered a well-worn path betwixt three trees, one with a ruby, sapphire and emerald each. It was very difficult to see, unless you either knew it was there or more tenacious than the moet tenacious being in the realm. Daphne, as evidenced by a club full of vamps, isn't the type to give up very easily.

The trail was well-hidden and appeared to be very daunting. But that had never stopped her before. She would find the Mother of all Vampires, the Queen of all Vampires. She would find her, defeat her, and then kill her. Then all this would be over. There would be no more need for Slayers, because vampires would be, she believed, extinct. The queen, she thought, was the lynch pin holding the whole thing together. If she slayed this First Vampire, this Alpha Vampire, the others woukd either be killed or cured.

It was, in truth, a naive and childish hope. But Daphne, despite her tough as nails exterior, was still just a kid. A confused, emotional teenager. However, unbeknowst her, she was going directly to someone who might be able to help her . . .

***

Her uncle was continuing his dogged pursuit of her. And he had to hand it to her. She was good at covering her tracks. He was finding difficulty finding a trace of her. He was relieved that she hadn't gone to a dive bar called the "Trip-Trap", or something like that -- it was hard to read the sign -- which was a knowing vamire gathering place, though not exclusive to vampires and other malignant sort of creatures.

Still he searched for Daphne, fearing that any moment now that . . . that he would come upon her prone, motionless body. Broken and bloodied. He forced himself not to tear up. He forced himself to be strong. There was no evidence of anything like that. She had been lucky thus far, he determined. He shouldn't have heen so lenient with on her training. She wasn't ready for something of the magnitude that she was after.

He knew she was after something big, but did not know precisely what. But he knew her well enough to know that she had the family's hallmark, a fatal flaw -- overconfidence mixed with being headstrong and high ambitions, a dangerous ****tail to have in any one person. Especially when that person is the Slayer.

He came upon the "Fang U" club completely by accident. And kne look was all thst he needed to see that his niece had, indeed, been here. Mounds of ash and dust covered the exterior, as if a sudden and inexplicable sandstorm came through, and decided to die here. Jarvis was wise and learned enough to recognize vampire ash. And there was a lot of this ash here -- too much for a single vampire, unless that vampire was the size of a godly colossus.

No, this was a killing field. And only a Slayer was able to kill vampires this efficiently. He looked inside the club, from the idly swinging open door. It was the same deal, but even more ash here. This was clearly a nest. And clearly Daphne wiped them all out.

If she wasn't careful she would lose her humanity . . . he had to hurry up and find her. But . . .

Where?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 20, 2016, 09:44:41 PM

Really liking this so far. Has a bit of a subtle "he who fights monsters" sort of vibe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2016, 11:21:56 PM

;)

To think, I thought her storybwas gonna be boring.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Impenetrable Campus

The path was certainly overgrown. Branches slapped her face with cold, slimy leaves. Thorny bushes poked and scratched her, and pulled on her clothing. The ground was loose and infirm, except around plant roots. But she still plowed her way through them all . . . only to face plant into a very shallow stream.

It was cold. It was wet. It didn't matter. Only one thing mattered. She gripped her slightly damp stake of holly tree wood. Her favored weapon for fighting vampires. It was all she required, it was all she needed. She was so close to fulfilling her destiny, so close to being a normal girl again. So close . . .

She pulled herself up and staggered to the others side of the babbling brooke, and she wore a determined look with unyielding eyes, as stormy as the clouds threatening precipitation overhead. Her hair was an unruly mess with bits of twigs and leaves in it, making her look rather like a feral animal.

She continuedd to push her way through the underbrush, no longer certain that there was a path here. But that was an extraneous detail, superfluous. All she had to do . . . all she had to do is kill Madre de Vampyra. The Mother, the Queen . . . .

Her grip on her wooden stake galvanized to an iron grip, as her palms and hands sweated in anticipation. She was focused entirely on her goal, not the naggling details of going about doing it. They were unnecessary. To be ignored. To be kept to the periphery of thought.

The thick forest overgrowth seemed to thin out slightly. She instictively followed this, and found that that it opened up into a sunny field before a wall at least ten, fifteen feet high. The wall exterior was behind a forcefield that had to be looked at a certain way to be visible.

But she did not see this forcefield, due to her severe tunnel vision. She just saw the opening archway in the wall, which was unblocked and unencumbered. And unguarded. This was too good to be true.

She dashed full tilt at the archway, only to smack headlong into the forcefield that she wasn't aware of being there.

"Thing about tunnel vision," a voice said to her right, "it always comes around to bite you in the butt."

She was on her feet in minutes, and she thew her stake at the stranger's heart. But the stake stayed frozen, in midair. The stranger didn't move. It was as if the stake just gave up halfway there and decided to break physics as well. This only elicited a sigh of resignation from the stranger.

"I'm a Realm Walker, child," came the figure, in a surprisingly calm and even manner. "I'm not a vampire. I cannot be 'slayed' by you, Slayer or not."

She looked as if she were planning to attack him, and he replied immediately, "Do not waste your energy, child. You cannot defeat me."

She ignored him, and prepared to spring at him, only to discover her arms pinioned to her side and her feet no longer touching the ground. She wasn't too terribly comfortable, but she was in no lethal danger. Not immediately, anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2016, 12:14:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Slayer?

"Lemme go!" Daphne snarled.

"No," Cloak said. "At least, not until you calm down and allow yourself to clear your thoughts."

"Lemme go," Daphne threatened.

"No."

"Stop protecting Madre de Vampyra, and let me fulfill my destiny!"

"That would be difficult," Cloak said, sitting upon an earthen chair, "as Madre de Vampyra was killed a little more than a year ago."

"Lies!"

"You can chose not to believe it, but that does not mean that it is not tr--"

"We ain't afraid of nothin'. (We ain't afraid.)
We ain't afraid. (Oooooooh.)
We ain't afraid of nothin'.
We ain't afraid, (oh, oh, we are not afraid.)
We ain't afraid of nothin'.
We ain't afraid (ooh).
We ain't afraid of nothin'.
We ain't afraid (ooh, ooh)."

"GH, can you go sing somewhere else?"

"(Oooooo!) Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer!
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, we ain't afraid y'all, we ain't afraid!
(I ain't afraid, I ain't afraid!)
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer! (Big bad Slayer!)
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, we ain't afraid y'all, we ain't afraid! (Who's afraid of her?)"

"GH, you aren't helping."

"Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer!
(I ain't afraid, I ain't afraid!)
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, we ain't afraid (oh) y'all, we ain't afraid (oh)!
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer!
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, we ain't afraid y'all, we ain't afraid, uh!
Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer!
(We ain't afraid of nothin', we ain't afraid!)"

"GH!"

"Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, we ain't afraid (oh) y'all, we ain't (oh) afraid!
(We ain't afraid of nothin', we ain't afraid!)
(We are not afraid,) Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer, the big bad Slayer!
(We ain't afraid of nothin', we ain't afraid)
(We are not afraid) Who's afraid of the big bad Slayer, we ain't afraid y'all, we ain't afraid!
(Who's afraid of her?)"

"Excuse me," Cloak said, sighing heavily, addressing Daphne.

Golden-scarlet enveloped GH and took him over the wall into the forum proper, and properly dumped him in the lake. Cloak could hear GH's protest of "Not cool!"

Then Cloak turned to Daphne, and said, cordially, "Now. Where were we?"

---

Song lyrics: here (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Who's%20Afraid%20of%20the%20Big%20Bad%20Wolf%3F)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2016, 07:52:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Stonewalled

"Now," Cloak said, almost conversationally. "What sre you really here for?"

"Save your stupid twaddle for someone else, Walker!" Daphne spat savagely. But Cloak did not get angry, but sympathetic. "Let me out of this damnable thing!"

"Such anger," Cloak said, commenting on a likeness he noted. "Such rage."

"Let me go!" Daphne continued to rage, not hearing Cloak, who looked on with a sad expression upon his face. "I have to kill her. I have to kill the Vampire Queen!"

"But it is as I have told you." Cloak said, losing none of his poise. "You cannot kill what's already dead. Unless we're talking Black Lanterns, because that complicates things."

"Lies!"

"How so?"

"What?"

"How is that a lie?" Cloak said, calmly and almost serenely. Daphne didn't reply. She couldn't come up with anything to back up what she believed. It made her a right bit better than people like Bern Bridges and Bill O'Reilly. "If you can't say precisely how it is a lie, doesn't it follow that there might be truth in it?"

"No." she said, stonewalling.

Cloak looked at her, easily recognizing something readily similar. If he could stop her from doing that . . . perhaps she could avoid the trauma that . . .

"How so?" Cloak replied pleasantly.

"Let me go," she said, apparently unable to conjure a suitable argument.

"When you less of a danger to yourself and others, Daphne," Cloak said.

"How'd you know my name?"

"Oh, your uncle -- Jarvis, I think it was -- called us to see if we saw you." Cloak answered easily and benignly. "Seemed to think that you might be losing yourself to your ambition, to your obsession."

"He worries too much," she snapped.

"Or, perhaps, he sees your descent into darkness easier than you do," Cloak suggested gently.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she snarled.

"Trust me, child," Cloak said, firmly but solemnly, "I do. For I have had my own descent into such darkness."

Silence brewed at this statement.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2016, 12:02:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A Break in Fanaticism

The silent spanned longer, and Daphne seemed uncomfortable by the silence, whereas Cloak did not seem fazed.

"What do you mean by that?" her tone was no longer as harsh, as abrasive, as she was before.

"You aren't the only one who has to battle inner darkness," Cloak said. He did not talk down to her. He had always hated that when he was a teenager. He was often talked about as if he wasn't there. He wasn't fond of that, as well. "We all have had darknesses within us that threathened to consume us. Some succeed in managing it, even dispelling it. Others -- they are engulfed by it. They become without scruples, without values, without . . .  without mercy."

"You mean me, don't you?" she said, she wasn't even fighting her restraints anymore. Cloak had garnered her undivided attention.

"Well, not yet, young Daphne," Cloak said. "But if you continue upon the path thst you've laid out for yourself, one of destruction without mercy or remorse, and that very well be your fate."

"And how do you know this?" she said. The roughness and coarseness of her voice was smoothjng over and became more genial. Her natural tone of voice, her humanity triumphing over a savage nature. Again, Cloak could understand this perfectly. She had to master her Slayer savagery just like he had to master the brute force and unadulterated power of the Elements. "How do you know all this?"

"You want my story, I take it," Cloak said. "Very well. I can tell you've felt similar pain that I have felt."

"My parents --" she blurted before she could stop herself.

"You lost them, didn't you?"

"Please, don't talk about them," she said, lashing out not jn anger but sadness. Cloak could practically feel it.

"You cannot hide from you feelings, Daphne," Cloak said. "I have tried it myself. Suprressing your emotions, bottling up the anger and rage at the unfairness of it all. But doing that will do you no favors."

"I don't want to talk about it." she said.

"As you wish," Cloak said.

"Did you . . ." she stopped herself again.

"No, I didn't lose my parents." Cloak said. "At least, I think my father is still alive. My mom had chased him away, and made me think it my fault for him doing so. That was about a hundred of your years ago."

"My years?"

"Yes," Cloak said, "one Nexus year is equivalent to ten Earth years."

"You're an alien?"

"In a manner of speaking," Cloak said, nonchalantly, as Daphne looked awestruck. She must have been rather sheltered, considering the sheer amount of alien invasions over the past year.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 22, 2016, 06:02:47 AM

That gh bit... :rofl:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2016, 08:47:07 AM

And I have had that scene in my head since about Chapter 8. It wasn't a part of the original outline.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Vulnerability

Silence had once again blossomed.

"Aliens exist?"

"Yes." Cloak said. Part of him wanted to call her on how she could not know this with the Heilin and Skrull invasions of just last year. He did not want to be antagonistic.

Silence once again blossomed, and Cloak believed that Daphne was losing her fanaticism about Madre de Vampyra, and beginning to actually allowing herself to feel. It was slow, of course. But she had clearly closed off her feelings -- because they probably would overwhelming for her. Cloak understood this, as he had done the same himself.

"Your mother chased your father way?"

"Yes," Cloak said candidly. "And she told me the proper way to slash my wrists."

"What?"

"Yes," Cloak replied, matter-of-factly, "I already had the knife at my wrists, though. But that did not change the fact she still tried to goad me into doing it. Then she sneered 'I knew you couldn't do it' before stalking off."

"She . . ."

"Yes. I was no longer of any use to her by then," Cloak said, as if just a statement of fact, which it was. "As such, I needed to be thrown away."

"Thrown away?"

"Yes, Daphne. You see, my mother is -- or was, I don't know if she's still alive -- an incurable narcissist. Everything was about her, only her and no one else. She had severe control and anger issues. My younger sister isn't much better."

"Why did you -- why didn't you -- uh . . ."

"Go through with it? It was truly the nadir of my life, despite everything that has happened since," Cloak said. "But why? My older sister -- my favorite sister -- and her daughter. They were not there. But their mere presence in my life gave me a light that I'm not even sure they know about. I could not harm them in that way by going through it. I love them too much to do that to them."

Silence once again bloomed between the two. Daphne didn't even seem to realize that she was no longer being restrained.

"And thought my parents dying was bad."

"We all have our darknesses," Cloak said. "It does not diminish or invalidate them. We all have our struggles to get pass."

Cloak paused as he looked at Daphne.

"I am only guessing, but you have not allowed yourself to mourn their death, have you?" Cloak said, gently.

"I . . . I . . . don't know . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 22, 2016, 03:39:08 PM

One of the exceptions where talking the antagonist down does work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2016, 09:15:50 PM

:noncommittal shrug: Sometimes, it works.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity. Next one will be longer . . . or not. I think I might slightly extend this beyond the requisite twenty chapters.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Confusion

"That's quite alright," Cloak said. "Deapite being th the Slayer, you are still a teenager, not some mindless weapon for someone to aim and unleash at will. You are a teenager, and such confusion, I hear, is common at your age."

"You hear?"

"Yes, when I was a teenager, I didn't have such confusions." Cloak admitted. "My mother made most, if not all, of my decisions for me. But I was not innocent in this, for I had allowed her to do so."

"How is that your fault?"

"Inaction is a decision, young one," Cloak said. "Doing nothing is a decision that can have negative outcomes, easily. Nothing in this world, or any other, is so cut and dry, not really."

Then he looked upon the young slayer, confused and conflicted.

"But I can sense that you are still conflicted," Cloak said.

"I am . . ." she said, not knowing why she was opening up to this stranger. Perhaps it was his calm understanding or his soothing words, but point was that she was opening up. Something she did not do since her activating as the "Chosen One", the Slayer of her generation.

"Life is messy, if I remember that guru (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Guru_Pathik) correctly," Cloak said, thoughtfully. "Something about energy being blocked and chakras (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Chakras) . . ."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Daphne said, earnest.

"Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on chakras," Cloak said, with a shrug. "But they are similar to the stop offs on Epiphany Road -- and, well, it might help you. I try to meditate and 'unlock the chakras' semi-frequently, myself."

"I still don't know what you said," Daphne said, slowly, "but if it can help me from not feeling so goddamn miserable all the time . . . well . . . where do we start?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2016, 10:04:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Earth Chakra

The two sat opposite each other, Daphne's clothing having been mended magically by Broken, who stood off to the side, watching this, curious. And even her uncle had arrived by this time, but allowed this to proceed, hoping it would help. Both had their eyes closed, meditating.

"Where do we start?" Daphne said.

"We shall start at the Earth Chakra, located at the base of the spine," Cloak said, though he was uncertain abiut the details of this. "It deals with survival, and is blocked with fear."

"Fear?"

"Yes," Cloak said. "Lay your fears before you."

"I'm not afraid of anything."

"Daphne," Cloak said, unintentionally sounding like a parent, "this won't do you any good if you're not honest with yourself."

She took a deep breath, and said, "Okay."

"Lay your fears before you." Cloak intoned. "What do you fear the most?"

She hesitated before speaking again.

"I'm not good enough," she said, seeing herself in a vision as a substandard Slayer. "A hindrance to my parents, and Uncle Jarvis."

Jarvis made to protest this, but Broken stopped him. This was about Daphne.

"Fear of failure is common," Cloak said. "It is an insecurity manifested as a fear. And we all have a tendency to see ourselves as lesser than we often are. Often many with this fear seek to overachieve and drive themselves into the ground. This is not healthy, and, oftentimes, untrue. In your case, it is untrue.

"Surrender that fear. Let your fear flow down the proverbial creek."

Daphne took a deep breath, and let out a breath of relief.

"You have unblocked, unlocked (whatever), your Earth Chakra," Cloaky said.

"Let's continue," Daphne said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 22, 2016, 10:06:07 PM

. . . And then gh pops in playing show tunes, right? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 23, 2016, 12:48:04 AM

You better not. I remember this particular episode, and it was beautiful. And a nice little nod to our culture as well. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2016, 04:35:27 AM

Yeah, I'll admit that "The Guru" (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/The_Guru) is where I first heard of chakras, ignorant of anything about them. And it's that episode that this "opening chakras" spiel comes from, and referenced at least twice before in the series.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Water Chakra

"Next?" Daphne asked, as Horse, Mithril, and GH joined Jarvis and Broken in watching this rather so-so spectacle.

"Next is the Water Chakra, which deals with pleasure, and is blocked with guilt." Cloak said. "Now, look at all the guilt with burdens you so. What do you blame yourself for?"

There was a deep silence as Daphne considered, with her eyes cloaked.

"My parents died, and I survived." Daphne said, finally.

"Survivor's guilt is not an uncommon thing," Cloak said. "But it is not your fault. Accept the reality that this happened, but do not let them cloud and poison you. If you are to be a positive influence on the world, you need to forgive yourself."

"I . . . I can't . . ."

"You must." Cloak said. "You need to forgive yourself. I know that it is not an easy task, especially upon someone who has the burden of being a Slayer. But you must be able to forgive yourself."

It took some time and coaxing before Daphne managed to take a deep breath and exhaled rather heavily.

"Congratulations," Cloak said. "You have opened your Water Chakra."

***

Meanwhile, Gaz and Shanker watched this from afar, and Shanker wasn't pleased.

"Why is Cloak helping that monster?!" Shanker demanded hotly.

"Well," Gaz said, with certain amusement, "you could go down and demand an answer from him."

Shanker glared at Gaz with narrowed eyes.

"That monster killed every last vampire in Fangs U!" Shanker countered, not addressing the question posed.

"'Fangs U'? Who came up that name? A string of kindergartners?" Gaz said, sardonically.

"You're missing the point!" Shanker said. "She is a murderer! She killed with reckless abandon, and without remorse!"

"Were you there?" Gaz asked.

"What?"

"Were you there?" Gaz repeated.

"No, but --"

"Then how could you possibly know that she is a murderer?"

This stymied Shanker, but Gaz decided to answer for him.

"You assumed she commited those atrocities. You assumed that she is a monster, simply because she's the Slayer." Gaz said with a succinct finality. "And that she may be all you expound, but she is also a teenager. She is susceptible to the emotions and two-dimensional thinking that all teenagers are vulnerable to."

"That's no excuse for being a genocidal monster!" Shanker said.

"You already have your mind made up on her guilt," Gaz pointed out. "She could very well be innocent."

"Slayers are not innocent," Shanker said, mulishly. "Not now, not ever."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 23, 2016, 08:25:11 AM

This is not good. DAMMIT SHANKER YOU'LL RUIN EVERYTHING

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2016, 12:07:49 PM

Hmmmm . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fire Chakra

"What's next?" Daphne asked.

"It is the Fire Chakra, located in the stomach." Cloak said. "This chakra deals with willpower, and is blocked by shame."

"Wait, then where is the Water Chakra located?" GH asked, as Phoenix joined them. Cloak ignored him.

He addressed Daphne, "Now. What are you ashamed of?"

She fell silent for a moment as she considered.

"I murdered an entire club of vampires," Daphne said, actually questioning the morality of that decision, and feeling shame for it. "I broke the nest. No Slayer had done it such a way before. I lost myself. I lost my humanity."

Jarvis looked away at this. In his view, that wasn't Daphne's fault at all, but his. It wasn't, nor should have, been her shame. It was his. And his alone. He hadn't trained her on the subtleties of Slayers. They were only supposed to slay creatures of evil, and there some vampires that were turned against their will.

"I will abandon my Slayer duties. I will never vampire hunt again," she said. But her tone was indecisive.

"You will never find balance in yourself if you deny this part of your life. You are the Slayer and, therefore, you are a vampire hunter. But you understand now that there are good vampires and bad ones, and that will shape your outlook in this from this day forward."

Daphne still had her eyes closed, but she seemed uncertain. "Others won't see it hat way . . ."

"Universal popularity is an impossibility," Cloak said. "And one that only the unwise and gullible seek out, Daphne. You cannot control what others think of you. You can only change what you think of yourself."

This seemed to soothe Daphne somewhat.

"You've recognized your shame," Cloak said. "Now let it go, let it flow down the proverbial creek."

She took a deep breath, and then exhaled, feeling lighter upon doing so.

"You have opened your Fire Chakra." Cloak said.

"You still haven't answered my question," GH said, petulantly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 23, 2016, 12:25:53 PM

OMG gh SHHHHHH

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2016, 04:23:14 PM

Again I'm left to wonder if the tone of Year 2 is different from Year 1. Perhaps a darker feel? Eh, maybe not so much yet.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Air Chakra

"Next?" Daphne asked, as Saffa, Abby, and Faerie came to see what was going on. GH was pouting, though it was hard to say if he was pouting like because he genuinely was, or just playing a part expected of him.

"The Air Chakra," Cloak said. "It is located in the heart. It deals with love and is blocked by grief."

"I haven't any --"

"You haven't allowed yourself to feel it," Cloak said, sagely. "You, very much like myself, ran from it. You need to permit yourself to feel grief. It is okay to feel, Daphne. Every sentient beings -- and I wager most nonsentient creatures -- can feel. It's what you do with the emotions which dictate their destructive potential, whether for good or for evil."

She said nothing.

"Allow you yourself to feel," Cloak intoned.

She did. Tears flowed from her eye, and Cloak waited a prudent time before continuing, "You have indeed felt a great loss. But love is a form of energy, which the Star Sapphires actually weaponized, in a way. But I digress. Anyway, your parents' love for you has not left this world. It still lingers inside of your heart, and as it does, they will not be forgotten."

She took a deep breath, and felt even lighter after she exhaled. She wiped away the tears that had fallen.

"You have opened your Air Chakra," Cloak said.

***

"Enough of this," Shanker said, moving toward the entrance way threshold.

"Where do you think you're going?" Gaz said, latching onto his wrist with a surprisingly vice-like grip. "You're not going to interrupt her from opening those chakrams, or whatever they're call, are you?!"

"How can you defend her, you traitorous wench?!" Shanker roared.

"She is a teenager!"

"She is a murderer, Gaz!!"

"I'll have you know, I have heard of the vampire facility that she  . . . uh, cleared out." Gaz said. "It was filled with the most villainous, most amoral pieces of scum in the tri-state area. As well as vampires that were still harbored an undying devotion to Madre de Vampyra."

"Your point?" Shanker said, trying to wrench his wrist from Gaz said.

"My point?" Gaz repeated, aghast. "Has your bigoted hatred of Slayers blinded you so much? Has forced you to see the world in a monochromatic way? Why are you refusing to acknowledge the shades of gray in this situation."

"You don't understand." Shanker spat angrily.

"I understand more than you think," Gaz countered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 23, 2016, 08:30:13 PM

Damn, way to give me the feels right after work. Also, was that a Phineas and Ferb reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2016, 10:49:38 PM

What reference?

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Sound Chakra

"Which one's next?" She asked as Yarin had decided to join them to see what all the hullabaloo was about.

"The fifth in the chain is the Sound Chakra, located in the throat. It deals with truth and is blocked by lies. The ones we tell ourselves." Cloak said.

Daphne was silent for longer than before, as she considered.

"I'm," she said, feeling almost too self-aware, "I'm expendable. If I die, I will just be replaced by the next Slayer in line, with no one to remember, care about, miss, or mourn me."

Cloak waited a bit before speaking himself. He knew this feeling, this belief well. It came back to his mother again. He had felt so downtrodden, so worthless (which she didn't hesitate to remind him when he could complete a task to her impossible standards, or some plan of hers backfired), so useless (again, as Ursa constantly reminded him when she was irritable or tipsy) thst he honestly believed that no one would miss him if he were gone. He had come to believe that he was such a burden on everyone's lives, that he honestly questioned whether they genuinely cared about his well-being or if it was all a farce.

And it turns out, Daphne felt the same way. But hopefully it was not because her mother negatively reinforced those beliefs. Cloak wouldn't have wished that kind of abuse and misery upon his worst enemy. It was just enough that he managed to escape toxic environment.

"But you are not," Cloak said, firmly, perhaps not choosing his words as carefully as he should. "You are a valued person, you have every right to exist. You are not expendable. You would be missed. You uncle cares about you. You would be missed. Do not allow yourself to be swayed from that truth."

Daphne took a deep breath. She exhaled as she felt her burden lift.

"Great job, Daphne," Cloak said. "You've opened your Sound Chakra."

***

"Do you now?" Shanker said. "You didn't see how ruthless Slayers are!"

"I see you making gross generalizations!" Gaz countered.

"They killed your blood brother! Don't you care?!"

"I've never even met him!" Gaz countered skillfully. "How am I supposed to care about someone that I don't know a single thing about, other than the fact he was my 'blood brother'! I don't know if he even existed! I don't know if he's nothing but a ploy by you to manipulate me into hating Slayers for no adequately explained reason!"

"'No adequately --' I told you! That was a perfectly acceptable explanation!" Shanker disputed.

"No, it wasn't!" Gaz said. "You you being narrow-minded! You giving yourself complete and total tunnel vision on this issue. You refuse to consider any possibilities that conflict with your intial belief!"

"No!" Shanker shot back. "You are too open-minded. You allow yourself to be decieved easily and without any resistance!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2016, 12:10:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Light Chakra

"Which one is next?" Daphne said.

"The Light Chakra, located in the center of the forehead." Cloao said. "It deals with insight and is blocked by illusion."

"Illusion?" Daphne inquired.

"Such as the illusion that the world is monochromatic," Cloak said, voice steady and calm, "the world is not as black and white as others would have you believe."

"I . . . I don't understand."

"There are those that refuse to believe that the 'other' is anything but evil," Cloak said, "this is black and white thinking. All sentient beings are capable of thinking for themselves, making their own decisions. Everyone has a past, one that shaped them into what they are today. And by seperating them as the 'other' and refusing to see them as anything but a monster, refusing to understand their motives, understand their feelings and thoughts, it is the epitome of black and white thinking."

"I've . . . I've done that."

"We all have, Daphne, at one point or another in our lives."

"Who did you -- I'm sorry." she said, changing direction midsentence, afraid she may have offended the Realm Walker.

"He like to call himself grandoise names like Apocalypse or Armaggedon, but I gave him the name that stuck, " Cloak said, deciding on full disclosure. "I called him Abomination. I believed him to be evil. I didn't really know anything about him, other than he was a playground bully in adult form. But the more we conflicted, the more I saw myself in him. I realized there was more to him then my preconceptions."

"What happened to him?"

"He was in service to a woman who held no scruples and only loosest sense of morality imaginable." Cloak replied. "He started to question his loyalty to her. He eventually turned against her and, in response, she killed him without a second thought or remorse."

She wore a look of surprise.

"Just because there are gray areas, it doesn't mean that white or black are nonexistent," Cloak said, calmly and genially.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 24, 2016, 02:38:56 AM

Shanker needs a slap right about now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2016, 11:27:46 AM

Hmmm . . . anyway, new book ideas!

• Book DCCCLXIX: "Leatherhead Lonely" -- Leatherhead is lonely, as there isn't any other humanoid crocodiles for him to relate to. Meanwhile, another RAFian gets a ward.
• Book DCCCLXX: "Characteristic Chaos" -- A witch steals characteristics from people and then turns around and extorts her victims who want them back.
• Book DCCCLXXI: "Stranded at Sea" -- Noelle and Saffa are stranded on a mostly ocean, uncharted world. They have to acquire several morphs to survive.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything.

[spoiler]Book 871 brings the morph count -- that is to say, how many different morphs they have accessible to them -- of Saffa and Noelle to 24 and 20 respectively.[/spoiler]

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Last Chakra, Unopened

"Next?"

"There is no next," Cloak said.

"Wait, Cloak," Saffa said. "What about the Thought Chakra?"

"What's the Thought Chakra?" Daphne asked.

Cloak sighed deeply, "It's the one chakra that I never sought to open."

"But why?" GH asked.

"It deals with pure cosmic energy, and is blocked by earthly attachments." Cloak elaborated.

"You don't want to give up earthly attachments?" Yarin asked.

"You know that they don't truly disappear, right?" Saffa inquired.

"There's more to it than that," Faerie said, shrewdly. "If you opened it, you would be given full access and control over your powers, right?"

"I do not know," Cloak said. "I do not want to know."

"Why?" Abby asked, perplexed. "If it would allow you more control over the elements?"

"With greater power, the greater chance of corruption," Cloak said. "The stronger the temptation to misuse the elements would be. It's bad enough thst I am strong enough to bloodbend, breathbend, and mechbend."

Daphne and Jarvis did not understand any of those techniques.

"You're imposing a weakness upon yourself?" Daphne said.

"There should be a limit, a cap, to the amount of.power one being can have," Cloak philosophised. "Unlimited power, corrupts unlimitedly. I'm already powerful enough. I do not seek more, I do not need to."

"Are you a god?" Jarvis asked.

"Do not refer to me as that, please." Cloak said. "I do not want the comparison, nor appreciate, to the Asguardians, Olympians, and the like."

Jarvis seemed confused by this reply.

"But this isn't about me," Cloak said. "It's about you, Daphne. Do you want this chakra opened? I don't know if I could help you with it."

"I feel okay now," she said. Then she made her decision. "I don't think that that will be necessary."

Shes tood up, dusted herself off, and thanked Cloak for his time and help. Then she left with Jarvis.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2016, 06:33:53 PM

New chapter. Last one of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
The Shanker Slap Fallout

"You slapped me!" Shanker complained. "You actually slapped me!"

"And Imma do again if you don't knock it off, Shanker!" Gaz said, very crossly.

"Knock what off?!" Shanker said. "I'm not betraying my whole kind!"

"There you go with generalizations again!"

"Why is it so damn difficult for you to see a duck for a duck?!"

"What?"

"If it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, then it's a duck!"

"Any reason why Shanker is going on in non sequiturs?" Cloak asked.

"And YOU . . . !" Shanker said, pointing an accusing finger at him. The whole scene was so laughable that Cloak couldn't help but see the likenesses of Shanker and Sokka during their Hundred-Year War.

"What is on about, Gaz?" Cloak asked.

"He's upset that you helped out the Slayer," Gaz said. "Apparently his prior sire was killed by her predecessor, and not her. He seems to have forgotten that little factoid."

He opened his mouth to protest, but could not think of one that he thought accurate protrayed his view. He flapped his mouth rather comically, before he gave a huffy snarl of irritation.

Cloak was unintimidated, and watched this rather placidly.

"Shanker, you can get all huffy you want," Sakki started, "but you can't justify the slaying of a sixteen-year-old girl."

"It's not like she chose this life," Saffa put in. "We did when we became RAFians."

"Tell that Kelran. And  jmnar." Shanker spat. "Or tray!"

"Who?" GH asked.

"Exactly!" Shanker said. "There were countless others who were lost to us long before Rotiart got killed."

With that Shanker moodily stalked away.

***

Malice was working on her next scheme, but she was very careful about it this. She had to find the perfect victim, so she could take the maximum enjoyment, and entertainment from this scheme. She needed to find a human who embodied chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. A difficult task to do in these times.

She wanted to savor the process of turning patience into wrath, into being unmerciful, insufferability, and impatience.

She wanted relish the process of turning charity into avarice, into unwillful, selfishness, cowardice, and greedy.

She wanted to delight in turning diligence into sloth, into unethicality, crookedness, moral weakness, effortlessness, and impersistent.

She wanted to masochistically enjoy turning kindness into envy, into dissatisfaction, disloyalty, dispassionate, and immortality.

She wanted to revel in turning temperance into gluttony, into inhumaneness, injustice, dishonor, and over-indulgence.

She wanted to carouse in turning humility into pride, into cowardice, immodesty, irreverence, and egoism.

She wanted to savor turning chastity into lust, into impurity, foolishness, stupidity, and dishonesty.

And, while she was doing all this, she would be altering her victim physically. How she would do this was only known to the octogenarian Realm Walker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2016, 10:34:01 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXII:
LOUSY HOUSING MARKET
CHAPTER ONE:
The RAFian Report

"It's an honor and a privilege, a duty I perform.
With due sense of decorum and with pride!
With deference and great respect very much the norm!
(Plus a hint of sycophancy on the side.)
To lay before my friend all the facts about this Realm,
To fill him in on all the RAFly news."

"Yes, yes, GH," Cloak said with a clipped tone, indicating his iritation, "get on with it!"

"In order that His Cloakiness stands sturdy at the helm,
Aware of all the RAFian's latest views."

"GH . . ."

"Er -- yes, Cloak -- the RAFian report,

You-know-who is going ape, smartgirl remains above it all.
Estelore remembers, though just what I can't recall.
Leatherhead is snapping up fresh offers from the banks
Showed interes in my guitar but I quickly said, "No thanks!"
We haven't counted up the sim kills and the NFS has a hunch
Not everyone invited will be coming back from lunch!
This is the RAFian report.
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I distort
On the RAFian report!"

"What are you doing, son?" Cloa said, addressing Leatherhead.

"Being sneaky," the young crocodilian mutant replied.

"Let an old pro show you how it's done, then."

GH was too engrossed in his song to notice this exchange. He strummed a few notes on his guitar before singing in a Broadway-style sort of performance.

"Horse has got a beef
About this Pootang's gas.
Terenia has been thwarted
In attempts to get Saffa to save her sass.
Liz is in the pink,
FuBar's chasing solitary birds.
Saffron is theis season's color
Seen in all the herds.
Moving down the rank and file,
To near the bottom rung,
Far too many politicians are
Quite frankly in the dung!"

Cloak spoke to Leatherhead, "Stay low to the ground. Shh, not a sound. Take it slow. One more step, then pounce!"

"Yeah, stay low!" Leatherhead agreed.

"This is the RAFian report!
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I distort
On the RAFian report!"

"Aaaah!!" GH yelled startled as Leatherhead startled him.

All three sang:

"This is the RAFian report!
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I distort
On the RAFian report!"

The music stopped and Cloak declared, addressing GH, "You're not getting your cigarettes back."

"Dammit!" came his reply.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RNYRHiNhtbI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 24, 2016, 11:07:10 PM

I have a feeling Shanker'll be brooding over that for a while.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2016, 11:15:39 PM

Eh, perhaps. Anyway, dunno when I can post tomorrow, assuming the places I have appointments to are still open. And I'll be very busy Tuesday (still a bit nervous about it).

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Out With the Old

"Well, sir, there's nothing on Earth quite like a bona-fide, House of the Future! What'd I say?" said a man trying to "draft" the RAFians into testing it out. His name was Eric Zachary Velocimortis.

Shorty declared, "House of the Future!"

"What's it called?" Velocimortis questioned.

Estrid announced, "House of the Future!"

"That's right!  House of the Future!" Velocimortis cried out.

The RAFians began to chant: "House of the Future.  Future.  Future."

DinoNothlit inquired, "I heard those things are awfully loud."

"It settles as softly as a cloud."

Azguard asked: "Is there a chance the foundation could bend?"

"Not on your life, my impromptu friend!"

Blue wondered, "What about those poor slobs?"

"They'll be given cushy jobs!"

Demos demanded: "Were you sent here by the devil?"

"No, good sir, I'm on the level."

GH said, as a non sequitur, "The ring came off my pudding can."

"Take my penknife, my good man! Throw up your hands and raise your voice!"

The RAFians shouted, "House of the Future!"

"What's it called?"

The RAFians shouted again, "House of the Future!"

"Once again!"

The RAFians shouted: "House of the Future! House of the Future! House of the Future! House of the Future! HOUSE OF THE FUTURE!!"

"Well," Cloak said, with dry sarcasm. "There's the kiss of death."

"This isn't gonna end well, is it?" Underseen asked rhetorically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 25, 2016, 12:33:39 AM

Day two into gh's non-stop shroom trip and things are not going well . . . ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 25, 2016, 01:04:22 AM

What just happened? :P

Edit: PDF for the last book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 25, 2016, 06:28:10 PM

Thanks for the PDF!

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Breaking Physics

"I cannot believe we were suckered into this," Sakki said mulishly.

"He was very persuasive!" Az said, defensively.

"By stealing a song from 'The Simpsons? Gimme a break." Saki countered.

"A break?" Az said, uncharacteristicall y violent. "That can be arranged you know."

"That was not what I meant and you know it," Sakki replied.

"Oh, settle down, you two." Gaz said, bracingly.

"Why was Mr. Velocimortis so insistant that we come to this so-called 'House of the Future'?" Underseen wondered aloud.

"Oh, don't be so suspicious! It's an excuse for a vacation!" GH said, jovially.

"It's a trap," Cloak muttered. "It's gotta be a trap."

"I hate it when he says that!" GH complained.

He was really having too much fun and was being too happy.

"GH, were you in my thread again?" Cloak said, very seriously.

Suddenly, GH wasn't so jovial anymore. "Noooo . . ."

"I can tell that you're lying," Cloak said, teasing very subtly. He knew that GH wasn't lying, but he allowed him to sweat a bit, despite the chill in the air. "You actually fell for that, didn't you?"

"Not cool, Cloak," GH protested.

"We're there," Underseen said.

The building alone was rather unimpressive, though Cloak thought it looked unnecessarily opulent and prohibitively expensive, built to excess. It looked to be a three-story Victorian home with white outdoor paneling and black trim. It couldn't have been any bigger than your average Victorian house.

Cloak could not explain the sudden feeling of dread and consternation he felt, as thry proceeded to the doorstep. Nobody else seemed to sense or be aware of anything, so perhaps he was just being paranoid.

However, he got what he believed to be the answer when he crossed the threshold after GH, and saw that the interior proportions did not match up with the exterior dimensions. The inside was far bigger than the outside.

"This house breaks physics!" Az exclaimed.

"Not really," Cloak said. "I believe Aquilai's TARDIS functions on the same principal."

"Where is Mr. Velocimortis?" Underseen asked, prudently. "He wanted us here so badly. Now he's nowhere to be seen."

"Well, we can always leave if he --"

The door slammed shut suddenly with a snap. And of it's own accord.

"Great. It's gonna be one of those kind of adventures," GH commented.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 26, 2016, 01:30:07 AM

What is this, a horror movie with countdown deaths?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 26, 2016, 07:34:15 AM

Well . . . that would be telling, wouldn't it? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Hall After Hall After Hall . . .

"Maybe it was supposed to do that?" Az said, in a stilted, uncertain manner.

"Az, there's optimism," Sakki said, evenly, "then there's blind optimism."

"I don't like this," Cloak said, his tail thrashing like mad, a clear indicator of his agitation. AHe glanced at the expanse they were in, at the red walla with violet trim. The whole thing screamed trap. Yet they had blundered in of their own foolish volition.

"Calm down, Cloak," Underseen said. "You can just Earthsight our way out of this labyrinth."

"There's no earth in here," Cloak said, turning around while haunched over. He really looked like a caged big cat who is really unaccustomed to being locked up. Though part of that has to do with his Realm Walker sensibilities. Realm Walkers, as a species, are accustomed to coming and going as they please. While he was sure that he could simply Walk out of this Pithole*, he wasn't willing to abandon the other. "No metal either. I can't Airsight or anything like that."

"Um," GH said, "where'd the front door go?"

"What?" Gaz and Sakki said sharply.

The door had evidently melted into the wall behind it. They were trapped in this (so-far) benign Hallway of Horrors.

"Get the feeling that someone doesn't want us to leave?" Gaz asked rhetorically.

"Yeah. Majorly." Cloak said. "But the bigger question is why."

"Maybe they get their rocks off at watching people run around mazes like rats?" GH suggested, unintentionally crass.

"GH!" Gaz admonished.

"What?" he replied, nonplussed.

"I don't think we should stay in one spot," Az said. "There might be a Minotaur or something that's gonna chase us."

---

*A Realm Walker term for "hellhole".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2016, 06:33:21 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Suspicions

"Must be some sort of plastic that absorbs vibrations," Cloak said. "Vibranium plastic, as it were. There's a scary thought."

"What's vibranium?" Gaz asked.

"A metal that can absorb sound. I think." Cloak said. He felt lost without his Earthsight, he was once again reminded just how dependent he was on it.

"And still no appearance by our mysterious benefactor, either," Sakki said, scolded.

"There could be a good reason behind it," Az said, without any real faith in this assertion.

"You don't believe that," GH said, knowingly.

"Perhaps not," Az said, but he did not elaborate any further on this, and allowed the subject to drop.

"Ugh, I don't like this," Cloak said.

"You said that already," Sakki said.

"I don't like not being able to Earthsight," Cloak said, continuing as if he hadn't heard her. "I feel blind without it."

"Now you know how we felt those months ago," Sakki said, snarkily.

"Of course I do," Cloak snarled, irritable, "as I was there, Sakki."

"Settle down, guys," Gaz said, placatingly. "Tensions need not rise to aggressive hostilities. Let's just calm down."

"Remind me to thank Mr. E. Z. Velocimortis for a simply wonderful time." GH said, with caustic sarcasm. "But I don't think I'll be signing off on this attraction."

"'E. Z. Velocimortis?" Cloak said, upon sudden inspiration. "E-Z Velocimortis. . . . E-Z Fast-mortis. . . . E-Z Fast-death. . . . Easy, fast death. Why didn't I see this before now?"

"I . . ." Az said. Then he sighed heavily. "Okay, I'll admit it. I was hoodwinked."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 27, 2016, 09:43:38 AM

Yeah, I thought the name was dodgy.

And yeah, vibranium absorbs vibrations. Hence the name.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2016, 09:14:29 PM

Since I'm posting this now, the next one probably won't be until late tomorrow (my time, obviously).

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Gaz is Outtie*

"Wait a moment," GH said, looking around suddenly.

"What?" Cloak said sharply, looking around, whipping his head from left and right. Gaz was truly gone, vanished without a trace. There was no scream or anything alerting them to her spontaneous absence, before GH noticed that she wasn't present. "What the Veil happened? She was standing there not more than teo seconds ago."

"You'd think that she woukd have screamed or something," Sakki said, searching the scarlet walls.

"Perhaps there wasn't time," Underseen suggested, searching the walls.

"I think we're being messed with," GH said, eyeing a wall suspiciously.

"Of course someone's messing with us GH!" Sakki snapped. "The front door melting into the wall was enough to prove that!"

"Hey! Don't talk to me like that!" the guitar warrior protested heatedly.

"ENOUGH," Cloak said, causing the air around the RAFians to crackle ominously. "This bickering isn't constructive in the least. We need a plan of action."

"Such as?" Az asked.

Cloak paused. He was considering, formulating his answer.

"No magical answer?" Sakki said, snarkily, revealing her discontent.

"Let's itemize," Cloak said, ignoring Sakki's jibe. "We need to find a way out of here, and we need to find Gaz."

"Yeah, about that, Cloak?" Underseen said, with uncertainity etched in his voice. "I think we found her."

Cloak looked up.

"And nine extra," GH added.

And, indeed, there were ten Gazs. Each one identical to the last, down to the hair, clothing, and disposition.

"This could be a problem," Cloak said.

---

*I think I've been watching too much jacksepticeye (https://m.youtube.com/user/jacksepticeye). ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 27, 2016, 11:00:24 PM

I KNEW IT.

Or not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2016, 06:10:31 AM

If you say so, Saffa. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Worst is Yet to Come

"You underestimate me, Cloak," Sakki said. Then she gave a series of ten sharp whistles. Each only didn't last but ten seconds. Each and every one of the Gazs distorted, rippling as if reflections in a stream.

"It didn't take long for the downfall. Poor little vampire.
Now isn't it sad, kiddies?
Too bad about that hill!
You're off to the trap-filled hallway, and I'm glad you're looking glum!
Cause, oh, oh, oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
Oh, oh, oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
These kids don't look so good around the gills!
The forest is crawling with goblins.
They're deadly! They're creepy!
They're tough!
Their passion is mass destruction.
I think they breathe fire and stuff!
They chew up unlucky children like so many pieces of gum.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
Oh, oh, oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
Be very afraid, little kiddies!
You babes, be filled with gloom!
No dollies or dancing flatwear in the hallway of your doom!
You'll wish you were in the attic, in the dark, without a crumb!
Oh, oh oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
Oh, oh, oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
Your nerves are jarred. Your heart beats hard.
Like a kettle drum!
You're hearing shrieks and eerie squeaks!
Where is that one coming from?!
It's worse than we imagined! Are you sucking your thumb?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, the worst is yet to come!
Oh! Oh! Oh! OH! The worst is yet to come!"

"We trapped inside a living house." Az said, quick on the uptake.

"That's absolutely and completely bonkers," GH added.

"A typical Thursday morning for a RAFian," Sakki said dryly, as the Gaz holograms shivered and shimmered out of existence.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YFc3xHTTcEY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2016, 07:35:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Investigative Survivalism

The house voice fell silent.

Cloak saw this house voice as sort of an anti-Aivas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Weyrs_of_Pern). As loopy as he was sane, as irrational as he was rational, as hysterical as he was calm. All in all, it was not a good omen, as the RAFians were trapped within the endless twisted and coiling corridors, and the red walls did not alleviate this ominous sense.

Then Cloak came up with an realization. "This isn't a house."

"No kidding," Sakki said.

"It isn't a house, but a Perplexahedron (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Perplexahedron)." Cloak said. "A place of impossibility and traps. Though the colors are more vibrsnt the the last ones I visited.

"Well, that fits, then," Az said.

Suddenly, five corridors appeared before them. One orange with indigo trim, one yellow with blue trim, one solid green, one blue with yellow trim, and one indigo with orange trim. The orange corridor turned grandually to the left, the indigo hallway turned steeply to the right, the yellow corridor sloped downward, the blue one sloped upward, and the green on was a straight away.

"It looks like we're going to have to split up," Cloak said.

"Are you crazy?" GH said. "This is a clear attempt to divide and conquer!"

"Got any better ideas?"

"Stay together as a group and investigate the corridors one by one," GH suggested.

"And if the exit closed like the front door?" Cloak asked.

"Oh, um, didn't think about that," GH said.

"I know it isn't ideal, GH," Cloak said. "But we've but a few options."

With that, GH took the orange corrdior.

Az took the blue corridor.

Sakki took the indigo corridor.

Underseen took the yellow corridor.

And, finally, Cloak took the green corridor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 28, 2016, 01:40:36 PM

"Alright, gh, just remember: there's no such thing as Creed. There's no such - OH GOD, IT'S SCOTT STAPP!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2016, 07:37:09 PM

Sorry, don't understand the references. But, then again, I'm exhausted. I'm sure the weather is a factor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 28, 2016, 10:48:54 PM

Even if you don't know about Creed, I think this video might entertain you. :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNJsN6VcLwY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNJsN6VcLwY)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2016, 08:10:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Sheath

Az climbed up the blue corridor, which seemed to get steeper with every step. He had glanced back after climbing up this steep corridor, and, like Cloak surmised, the doorway into the corridor had pinched itself shut horizontally, without a sound.

Az did not like how steep that this corridor was becoming. It was at least on 84 degree incline, when it started out on like a sixteen degree incline. He eventually tumbled into a strangely spacious room, that was lit rather dimmer than Az would have preferred.

The steep corridor emptied into a room in a way that recalled a saucepan. The threshold was mounted way above the floor. It had at least a twenty-foot drop to the floor, and, through the dim light, Az could make out something along the far wall. He didn't know what it was, but he was also sure if he went into the room itself this corridor will seal itself against him.

It was a contest between Az's curiosity and his prudence, and he was evenly split between the two. But, eventually, curiosity won out. He slithered his body into the room, dropping from the corridor's threshold, and crafting an ice bridge, a la Iceman, spiralling down to the floor. He looked up and saw that he was right in his assumption, as the corridor opening had pinched shut, causing the light in the room to become paradoxically brighter.

Az decided that he would discover a way out after he satisfied his curiosity. He went to the object that had captured his attention. But, upon closer examination, he jumped back. It appeared to a corpse, in a crumpled heap. But as Az watched the heap warily he realized there was an odd familiarity to it.

Then he looked closer, and saw that it wasn't a corpse. At least, not in the conventional sense. It was a pile of . . . well, it wasn't metal per se, appeared to be some sort of organ-mimicking plastic of some sort. Az didn't know how else to describe it. Then came to the strange automaton's face.

It was E. Z. Velocimortis.

Here, empty and forgotten. Az began to realize. E. Z. Velocimortis wasn't a robot, wasn't an exosuit piloted by a dead Arquillan or Fmek, or anything like that. It was an empty vessel, a sheath in which . . . in which the house could animate as if life. The house used it to lure them here . . .

"Oh, dearie me," came the house's voice. "You weren't supposed to see this."

"You led me here!" Az protested.

"Enjoy your swim," the house replied.

"What?" Az yipped.

Suddenly, the room started to flood. It was at his ankles within seconds.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 29, 2016, 08:24:53 AM

This is crazy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2016, 07:54:49 PM

Indeed.

Although what's crazier is that I'm somehow maintaining my post schedule despite being exhausted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 30, 2016, 02:07:32 AM

You don't need to push yourself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2016, 05:35:23 AM

That's the thing. I'm really not.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Gaz, Where Are You?

"Did someone get the number of that Mucillator that hit me?" Gaz groaned. She gazed around, discovering herself in a dark, dark room. Gaz's vampirism afforded her suitable night vision. Her eyes penetrated the darkness and saw that she was in a rather bare, barren room.

She immediately rose into a sitting position, taking inventory of herself. She was unharmed, though dead tired and a little sore at her joints. Whatever happened, she had survived it. She always seemed to be able to survive these things, though she avoided thinking that, so she could avoid becoming complacent, which is more dangerous than the average person might expect.

Looking around once more, expecting to see just an endless expanse of walls without corners. The circular room lacked a door and was rather like being inside a kettle drum. The walls were even the color of tarnished bronze and secondhand brass.

Oh? What's that? Gaz thought.

She quickly crossed to the computer console inset into the wall. It lit up at her approach, which caused her to back away until her eyes adjusted to the light. Then she strode up the console and found a keyboard attached, with a circular monitor.

"Interesing," Gaz murmured as ashe eased her hands over the keyboard. "Maybe I can get some answers here . . ."

She typed with a steady but cautious beat. She had a naggling feeling that someone was watching what she was doing over her shoulder. But when she looked, there was no one else in the room with her. She wasn't particularly fond of that feeling, being knowingly spied on. And it just would not go away.

She tried to ignore it, as there was nothing she could do about it. She keyed in a few inquiries into the computer of questionable design. This house had a sovereign computerized system in control of it.

Well, Gaz thought caustically, no duh.

But it gave her a name. A.I.E. -- Artificial Intelligence Entity or Artificial Intelligence Experiment. Pronounced as "aye-ee". But she couldn't glean anymore information than that. The rest of the text had quickly devolved into indecipherable gobbledygook.

"You did a no-no," chimed in the voice of A.I.E. "You must be punished."

"Wait -- what?" Gaz said, as the ceiling overhead seemed to be suddenly perforated with holes. Which exuded a perfectly conical spike each, whose tips were tinged with a substance of green and black. Poison.

They began to rain down on her, with new ones spawning to replace the old.

"Overreact much?" Gaz reacted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on January 30, 2016, 08:39:00 AM

Well, that's no good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2016, 07:13:53 AM

Well, it's a death trap. They're usually no good. But I kid, Gazzy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Squish-Squash

Underseen had started by walking down the yellow corridor. It quickly became him sliding down the corridor as it unexpectedly and inexplixably shifted the steepness randomly. It started out at a modest one-degree decline. Then it quickly went to a steep fifty-degree incline. Underseen couldn't stop his slide, his descent, into . . . into God knows what.

He was powerless to stop his slide, as he couldn't form a coherent thought. He required a certain amount of thought and willpower to shapeshift. At least, on a conscious level. And his own curiosity was an impairment. He was curious to see what was at the end of this corridor.

He had come down into a room that was like a big, square box with the walls, ceiling, and floor were rather unnaturally flat, and felt rather metal-like, though not quite. Underseen looked around and noticed that the walls, ceiling, and floor had an oddly sinister sheen. It looked . . . wet. The room also smelled rather abysmal, like the main room of a slaughterhouse.

A feeling of foreboding and a trickle of dread threathened to overtake him.

It was only expounded upon seeing the crushed detris of . . . of . . . of . . . past visitors. Crushed black glassess frames, visceria, crushed ballpoint pen, crumpled forgotten clothing. A badge . . . that belonged to one Officer Justice. Underseen never really had much of an interpersonal relationship with her, but he knew of her and her flawless reputation.

She . . . she must have come here, suspicious of the disappearances . . . that went unnoticed, unreported, or forgotten. Perhaps all three. He felt some guilt that they, as RAFians did nothing about this before now. That they knew nothing about this.

"Oh, dearie me," A.I.E. said, with unconvincing regret and drolly dry tone of voice. "You weren't supposed to find this."

"You lead me here," Underseen accused, though it was not entirely true.

"I must crush you."

"Say what?" Underseen said, before he thought, Say, are those walls getting smaller? Is the room getting longer or -- oh.

He didn't know how he was going to get out of this one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 01, 2016, 06:00:33 AM

Oh man, I remember Officer Justice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2016, 07:05:04 PM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Where No One Can Hear Your Screams

Sakki travelled in the indigo corridor, regretting her decision immensely. It was dirty. It was filthy. Honestly, the sewer was cleaner. The corridor made no sense, as if the spatial dimensions were grossly distorted. It smelled foul, and it felt oppressive inside it.

She was quite eager to leave it it, but this eagerness was edged with trepidation and anxiety as to just where this would open out into. Hopefully, not more of this vile mucky walls and abhorrent smells.

"Boy, did I ever make the wrong decision," Sakki muttered murderously. But she still continued forward doggedly. "I don't know why I'm even putting myself through this crap."

It was only more putrid the further she went.

"House of the Future, my Aunt Sally!" Sakki spat. It was easy to do in this area. "This is just . . . oh, FINALLY."

The corridor opened up into a very odd room, as the rancid corridor closed itself off from the room. Sakki was not sorry to see it go. She was just glad she gotten none of that putrid goop and vileness on her, in and of itself a miracle.

She looked around at her new surroundings. She was standing on a catwalk that looked rickety, but it was actually quite sturdy. It was deceptively offputting, almost as if it was by design.

The walls above, below, and and around were accordioned. There was absolutely no echo here, which there should be. They were sound absorption paneling. Sakki was quick on the uptake. Someone was trying to render her powerless.

She noticed some sort of computer console. It was situated in the middle of the catwalk, and seemed to stand out. She crossed over to it, the catwalk not making a sound, which Sakki didn't like. It should have made a sound, anything else was creepy.

She deftly accessed the console and couldn't make heads or tails of the first bit of the data she found on it. So, she dismissed it. She continued on untils she came to something that she actually could read.

Turns out that whatever this house intelligence was, it used to be benign, passive, nearly timid, and almost fastidiously polite. So, what happened to make her rather like a GLaDOS with all charm of of a spoilt child? What happened to make her delight in death, fear, shame, guilt, grief, and deception?

The answer was surprisingly simple.

It was a virus. A virus introduced into house's mainframe A.I. Sakki easily suspected who was to blame. Because, after all, wasn't she always?

"Tsk tsk tsk," came the house voice. Sakki rankled as the console powered down immediately and seemed to retract somehow into the catwalk itself. "Tsk tsk tsk. Curiosity is a sin, dearie."

"No, it isn't!" Sakki protested, and in her indignation, she was apparently unaware the accordioned panels were straightening out, making a surprisingly seamless surface above, below and all around. "Curiosity is not a sin!!"

The voice was silent, and Sakki, in her protesting outrage, did not notice the echoes that were occurring. That she was standing in a huge echo chamber.

If she activated her sonics at all . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2016, 12:33:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Have You Taken Leave of Your Senses, A.I.E.?

GH proceeded down the orange corridor, finding it rather bland and boring. The sound of his footsteps echoed a little, but were largely ignored. It wasn't all too unpleasant though. Just plain and . . . ugh.

GH was never one to enjoy being bored. Heck, he was playing parent to a mutant alligator child! That was never boring. Never. Especially since he gave him his own bass guitar and was teaching him to play. Leather was proving to be a surprisingly good and proficient student. Perhaps GH would give him some drums -- er, no. He wasn't a masochist. He enjoyed sleeping. Perhaps just a keytar or something.

GH continued his nonchalant pacing, finding the path rather peaceful and uneventful. Then again, he had not gone out of his way to present himself as a threat, and he decided to continue as such. Perhaps he would continue to be lucky. He could really do with some luck. It would be really nice.

Then the room opened up into a cavernous, sonorous room. He stood on a catwalk, the rightmost side, as the corridor closed up behind him. He felt rather unimpressed. It was another square cube of a room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were of a featureless metal of some sort.

Halfway on the catwalk was a console. GH, despite the goofy, crazy demeanor he sometimes showed, was not an idiot. He knew that he was supposed to access the console and nothing would happen until he did. He couldn't help but liken it to the limitations of a video game. It wasn't a turgid concept.

"Blahity blah blah blah . . ." he muttered, as irreverent as ever, as ignored the illegible bits of the data. He kept tapping at the attached touchscreen, almost impatiently, the brief novelty wearing off rather quicker than he would have liked.

Then he got to a area that he could make sense of. As it turns out, this whole House of the Future spiel was supposed to be an amusement park attraction. GH couldn't help but snorting in derision. Yeah. Real amusing.

"Alert! Alert!" the house voice droned.

"What now?" GH said, suddenly moody.

"Contraband detected." the voice continued its droning speech. "Please present your contraband for incineration."

GH said nothing, and did not visibly react.

"Please present your contraband."

GH remained unmoving.

"Present your contraband."

GH narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow in anger.

"Present your --"

"I don't have any contraband!" GH snapped, seeing where this was headed.

"You wear it on your back," the voice said.

GH unshouldered his guitar, transforming it into its axe form with a flash of light reminiscent of summoning a Keyblade.

"Then you and me? We're gonna have problems," GH growled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2016, 01:34:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With

Cloak continued down the green corridor, which did not vary in the least, and just continued forward. He walked with a calm, diligent purpose, with a nonchalant exterior. Within, he was rife with insecurity, uncertainty, trepidation, and anxiety. But he was meticulous in not allowing this show outwardly. Didn't want to show weakness.

Suddenly, a blade revolved out of the wall high, then low. Cloak dodged it by ducking the first, and jumping over the next. Then he stopped short of one and leaped through another, and landed unscathed. He was prepared for traps, and expected some inane commentary from the house's voice. Which never came. So he proceeded normally.

Then the electrodes came out and attempted to electrocute and electrify him. He nonchalantly redirected them back at the electrodes, destroying them, as he continued on his less-than-merry way.

Then several stone ball bearings were shot his way and he didn't even flinch as he held out his right arm to guard against the brunt of this attack. This attack was foolish as it provided Cloak with weapons that he didn't have before. The house was providing him with ammo! This was either a very stupid move on its part, or a very cunning play to lure Cloak into a trap by allowing him a moment of hubris, a very dangerous thing to have on his part.

Not going to work. . . . Well, not going to work, this time.

Cloak pressed on. Then he came to a part of the corridor that trundled around, like a front-loading washing machine. Cloak, despite himself, found himself disappointed. This wasn't a trap. This was a mere obstacle, and one that was easily overcomed as well. He just leaped through it, landing daintily with feline grace.

Cloak didn't allow himself to relax his guard, not even in the slightest. Which was good, because the floor was rising to meet the ceiling, and squeeze and crush him in the process. He simply leaped off, slid beneath part of the ceiling that was extending to kiss the ground. Rose up his energy barrier when the two walls attempted to meet and crush him in the middle. They couldn't break his energy shield, though. They fell, mangled.

Without a second thought, Cloak proceeded onward, as two panels in the walls before him opened up, and water nozzles extended. They fired a highly concentrated stream of water each, under high pressure.  Cloak pulled the water to his left, turned with jets of water obeying his wordless commands like loyal puppies, and then he extended both arms and the jets of water destroyed their own spout sources. Cloak only cracked his neck as he proceeded forward.

Soon, two more spickets were extended from small panels in the walls, mounted high up, near the ceiling, and pointed downward. Fire dangled like spittle and snot from a fussy toddler. As Cloak approached, it issued a test flame, a warning shot. Without so much as breaking stride, Cloak used the earthen remnants of the previous trap to destroy these fire spickets.

Soon enough he make his way into a room, and was not surprised to see the corridor seal itself off upon him crossing the threshold. The room were a bleached white room whose surfaces were unnaturally smooth, and clean. But Cloak paid no mind to it, and accessed the console inset in the furthest corner away from the corner the corridor let him out in.

The console only confirmed what he suspected. Malice had had a hand in this whole house thing. Uploading something, presumably a virus, into this computer's mainframe and networking, corrupting the artificial intelligence of the house.

"Tsk tsk tsk," came the voice."You sh--"

"Shut up," Cloak said, without hesitation.

"Pardon?"

"Shut. Up," Cloak growled.

"How dare you sp--"

"Shut the Veil up," Cloak said.

"Fine. Die."

A panel from each wall opened up and fans started to suck the air out of the room.

"No," Cloak said, defiantly.

The very air halted and did not move at all. The fans sucked on nothing.

"You have no idea who you're messing with," Cloak accused, " do you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 03, 2016, 02:20:02 AM

. . . That was quite possibly the most badass moment I've seen in Memoirs. Someone, please, animate this chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 03, 2016, 03:51:59 AM

Ooh, useless fact. Did you know the Romans have a goddess of the sewers?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2016, 10:18:39 AM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on February 03, 2016, 02:20:02 AM

. . . That was quite possibly the most badass moment I've seen in Memoirs. Someone, please, animate this chapter.

Here, here! That chapter probably came from me binge-watching "The Legend of Korra".

Quote from: Saffa on February 03, 2016, 03:51:59 AM

Ooh, useless fact. Did you know the Romans have a goddess of the sewers?

This has been another . . . useless fact. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RSEd_TDXfb0)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Reunions

Cloak, in irritated anger, blasted his way through a wall. The wall gave way easily, and opened into some sort of entrance hall deal, a main lobby, with a grand staircase dominating the background. The design of the staircase was not unlike the one in the Biltmore House in terms of design. But it didn't apear to lead anywhere but the ceiling.

There were blasts and hisses and soon he was met by the others. Az rising up from the floor,  Gaz entering from somewhere as a haze and reforming into a corporeal form, Underseen oozed down into the room as an opaque goo before reforming into his recognizable form, Sakki busted in from the wall on the left, and GH burst in from the wall on the right.

It didn't make much sense, especially as Az went up and Underseen went down. But that was the thing with Perplexahedron was that it, by design, didn't make sense, that it confused and addled those within it. That it was a living tesseract, essentially.

They rejoiced in their meeting, and exchanged stories of ehat happened during their separation. Cloak went first, and told them of the traps in the green hallway that he faced. And how he refused to accept the house's -- A.I.E., Gaz corrected -- death trap, and blew his way into this room. He confirmed that Malice had a hand in this somehow,and explained the image he saw of her doing something to the mainframe.

"It was a virus," Sakki said. "That's what I found out, anyway. Then A.I.E. locked me into an echo chamber, stranded on a catwalk. I couldn't use my sonics, which I was sorely tempted to do. Instead I discovered the sound-absorbing paneling she used, at least on the other side of the catwalk was brittle and frail. It looked almost deliberate. I was ripped them away, and then used my sonics on the hole and the echoes actually helped me burst through the wall and landed me into this room."

"All I found was her name," Gaz said. "Artificial Intelligence Entity or Artifical Intelligence Experiment. A.I.E. Then poisoned spikes began to rain down from the ceiling. But apparently A.I.E. forgotten that I could go all misty. But given how little she actually knows, it's hardly surprising. So, I filtered into this room and reformed."

"I found out that E. Z. Velocimortis wasn't a real," Az said. "He was quite literally an empty suit. A sheath for A.I.E. to occupy to lure people here with persuasive rhetoric and song-and-dance. Then she tried to drown me by flooding the room. She didn't know about my cryokinesis. I froze the pipes that water was coming in from. They burst, and I was launched into the ceiling, and I dug my way here."

"I found out that this entire place was intended as an amusement part attraction," GH said. "though I don't know why. I couldn't think of a less fun place. Okay, maybe Congress. Anyway, I had to hack my way into this room, from that room lined with that strange metal."

"Probably vibranium," Cloak noted.

"Maybe," GH shrugged.

"I found out that we weren't the first to investigate this house," Underseen said, solemnly. "I found viscera on the ceiling and floor, as well as a number of crushed detris of former investigators. Including a police badge."

"Who did it belong to?" Gaz asked.

"Officer Justice," Underseen said.

A resounding silence met these words.

"Who?" GH asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2016, 08:57:29 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Down, Down, Down

Cloak suddenly realized that this flooring was marble. A cheap-looking and cracked marble, but still marble. Which meant that he could Earthsight again. He was estatic about this. He had felt cut off without it.

Then he noticed something the next time he took a footstep. He saw it as an oddity, a curiosity. Sakki seemed to have noticed, or sensed something as well.

"YOU STAY AWAY FROM THERE!!" A.I.E.'s voice sounded loudly, sounding at once, very cross and forceful, as Cloao and Sakki began to stride toward the left side of the grand staircase.

"You don't want us to go any further?" Cloak said, innocently, as he Earthsighted a hidden staircase beneath the grand staircase. The opulent, grandiose grand staircase was a distraction away from this more drab, simple staircase.

"No!!!"

"Good to know," Cloak said. To the others, he said, "Let's go onward, shall we?"

"I TOLD YOU NO!!!"

"Yeah, we know," GH replied in indifferently as he defiantly descended the staircase.

"I FORBID IT!!!"

"Yeah," Sakki said, dryly, with a drolly impassive face, as she descended the staircase right after GH, "we don't care."

"STAY OUT OF THERE!!!"

"Not gonna happen," Az quipped honestly.

"STOP THIS NOW!!!"

"I intend to," Underseen said, his tone uncharacteristicall y acidic, as he descended the stairs. The things he saw in that death trap clearly left an indelible mark upon the RAFian.

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!!"

"I do, and you know it, don't you, A.I.E.?" Gaz said, as she decended down the stairs.

"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

"You tried that already," Cloak said, not turning his head. "You failed. Not once. Not twice. But six times."

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!!"

"I think," Cloak said, voice low, level, and dangerous, "you'll find that we can."

Then the Realm Walker swept down the staircase.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2016, 09:51:35 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Processing . . . Processing . . .

The room below was as you might expect. It was painted in earth tones, so it looked as if it was buried into the earth. Only the cream-colored floor and ceiling were smooth, polished, and shiny. The room was surprisingly well-lit, though as if through a dingy filter.

In the center of the room was something that could have easily been mistaken for a Dalek who was mounted to the floor and blinded. On this "Dalek platform" was a bulky box, with a singular, circular, red-glowing, robotic eye.

"The main processor room, I take it?" Sakki said, in her usual casually irreverent way.

"If it's not, it really looks like one," GH said.

"Leave." A.I.E. growled. But it did not come from the walls, but the glowing eye.

"And if we don't?" Underseen asked, very seriously.

"You will leave."

"Don't think that's in the cards, mate," Az said.

"You must leave."

"Oh, we must, must we?" Cloak said, acerbic. "And, enlighten us, A.I.E., why is that, precisely?"

Silence for a beat, before A.I.E. replied, "Leave this place."

"She's vulnerable here," Gaz said. "That's why she's so desperate for us not to be in here. Here, she's at our mercy."

"Leave." the AI said. "This will be your last warning."

"She thinks she has an ace up her nonexistent sleeve," GH observed. "That's why she's so self-confident."

"Do not say you were not warned," A.I.E. said, sinisterly.

Suddenly, a cascade of metallic tentacles fell from the ceiling, to seize the RAFians. Only to backfire in a major way. Cloak easily took control of them and rended them to nothing.

"The old titanium tentacles from the ceiling bit?" Cloak said, with an ironic smirk. "A.I.E, perhaps no one has informed you yet, but this isn't the eighties anymore."

The eye seemed to burn with hatred and anger. Interesting, considering things like that robotic eye were usually devoid of emotions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 03, 2016, 11:10:15 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 03, 2016, 09:51:35 PM

Suddenly, a cascade of metallic tentacles fell from the ceiling, to seize the RAFians.

For a minute, I thought this was going to turn into a very, very different book.

. . . I need to stop internetting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2016, 11:40:27 AM

C'mon, GH, you know I don't write that kind of stuff. ;) It was actually a reference to the '80s TMNT, the episode where they went to that futuristic recycling center.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Now, Now! None of That!

"You think you're really something, don't you, fleshbag?" A.I.E. snarled.

Cloak said nothing, but eyed her. It was clear that the Dalek-like podium on which the device housing her consciousness was clearly the core main processor for the entire house, the entire Perplexahedron. It was the lynch pin for this whole thing.

Apparently, this was not lost on A.I.E.

"Don't even think about it," she growled.

"You're out of tricks, A.I.E.," Gaz said, reasonably.

"Oh, am I?" she said, in a haughty screech. "I still have a trick or two up my sleeve!"

"You don't have sleeves," GH said.

"Semantics!"

"Give it up, A.I.E." Underseen said, crossly, having folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "You lost. Get over it."

"Activating self-destruct sequence," she said.

"Wait, what?" Az said quickly.

"Initializing . . . processing . . . processing . . ."

"Is this for real?"  GH said, unable to conceal his bewilderment.

"The detonation of this facility will proceed in ten . . ."

"So," Sakki said, "this is a thing now."

"Nine . . ."

"Shouldn't we be leaving?" Az asked. "You know, evacuating?"

"Eight . . ."

Silence.

"Seven . . ."

"Guys." Az prompted.

"Six . . ."

"We are in no danger, Az." Sakki said.

"What?" Az asked.

"Five . . ."

"What amusement park attraction comes with a legitimate self-destruct feature, Az?" Cloak said.

"Four . . ."

"Maybe she installed --" Az said.

"Three . . ."

"She couldn't even install flashing red lights," Gaz said, dismissively. "She's lying."

"Two . . ."

"But what if she's not?"

"One."

"She is." Cloak said, with a resounding finality.

"Dammit," A.I.E. was heard to say.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2016, 08:57:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A Memory or Two to Take

"You'll never deactivate me," A.I.E. threatened, as the front panel swung open by Sakki's hand and endeavors. There were twenty-six slots occupied with a board, a glowing white circuit board.

"Oh, really? Why is that?" Cloak said, affecting mild surprise.

"Because you have to remove the boards in a specific order, or they will be locked into place!"

Underseen narrowed his eyes suspicious of this sudden forthcoming of information. Cloak was suspicious, too, but he compartmentalized and internalized it.

"And just what order would that be?" Cloak asked, his gentleness sounded almost genuine. He was being manipulative, and he knew it. He hated himself for it. But he was his mother's son, after all.

"X-ray, India, Romeo, eagle, tango, papa, alpha, hotel, Charlie," she said.

"That's just gibberish!" GH said.

"Not really." Cloak said. "Third one from the right first, then the eighth, then the first, then the sixteenth, then the twentieth, then the fifth, then the eighteenth, then the twenty-fourth last. She thought she was being clever."

"How'd you get that from gibberish?" Az asked.

"It was a phonetic alphabet," Cloak said, as he successfully started pulling out circuit boards, presumably A.I.E.'s memory. "But she spoke it backwards to try to trip us up. There are twenty-six slots, and teenty-six letters in your alphabet. And you read from right to left, so that's probably how this is situ--"

Then A.I.E. yelled something that sounded very drunk and very trollish. And it wasn't very polite. Yep, not very polite at all.

"Great, you turned her into a YouTube commenter." GH said, pausing to listen to more vitriol from.A.I.E. "Oh! Got to remember to write that one down."

"There it's done," Cloak said, as pulled out the last board. The whole facility powered down and became lifeless, as a convenient exterior popped open from their left.

"What a remarkable cowinky-dink," Gaz said.

"'Cowinky-dink'? This ain't the eighties, you know." Sakki said, grumpily.

"That was too easy," Underseen said. "There's gotta be more at play here."

"Let's just be thankful for small favors, and be done with it." Az said, as they left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 04, 2016, 09:59:36 PM

Oh, the dialogue in this chapter. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2016, 11:57:46 PM

Glad you enjoyed it.  :D

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Who Are You?

Cloak looked around. He was standing in some crystal catacombs. Alone. He didn't know why, though . . .

This was another one of those lucid dreams, wasn't it?

He heard a voice singing, and followed it.

"Thanks for the high tide,
Thanks for the seaside,
Thanks for the light at high noon.
Thanks for the lightning,
Thanks for the singing.
Thanks the First Light,
And Fate Soon.
Thanks for the red dawn,
Grass that we walk upon,
Thanks for the river's whispered tune.
Thanks for the Wind Brother,
Thanks for the Earth Mother.
Thanks to the First Light,
And Fate Soon.
Thanks to the First Light,
And Fate Soon.
Hey-ya, hey-ya, hey-ya-a-a!
Hey-ya, hey-ya, hey-ya-a-a!"

Cloak had cautiously padded to this area and saw a mass of crystals -- reds, blues, greens, yellows, purples, pinks, and colors that defied explanation.

It wasn't long before he saw the singing voice's owner. It was another Realm Walker, a lupine one. A wolf whose fur was like molten moonlight. She was deftly rearranging crystals.

"Hello, there, young one," the voice was melodious and feminine. Her tone was kind, like one would adopt when there was a skittish child around. "There's no need to lurk in doorways."

"Who are you?" Cloak said.

"A Truth Dreamer, like you," she said, calmly sitting with her legs crossed. She seemed so powerful in her calmness, in her genteel demeanor.

"I'm no such thing," Cloak said.

"Oh, then that's why I'm not afraid of you," she said, though it didn't sound as offensive as it would appear. "Why should I be afraid of one who does not know who he is?"

"I know who I am. I am Cloak, Master of the Six Elements and son of Ursa and Brute. Descendant of Master Avatar. And I am a veteran RAFian." Cloak retorted, then growled. "Now, again, who are you?"

"I am Aniyu," she said, having winced a bit when Cloak mentioned his dad's name, "daughter of Farsight and Perspective, both simple Walkers. This answer tells use what we are, but not who, at least not entirely."

"What do you mean?" Cloak said, before altering his question to inquire about she was doing with those crystals. Suddenly, she used the crystals to refract a beam of light to illuminate the entire room.

"I am shedding light, where darkness lies. When every Walker hatches, a guide stands beside them."

"Why?"

"To light their way through the dark, long night. And sing them songs to guide them."

"Why is that?"

"Because each of us has a destiny that sets us all apart.
The path is different for you and me,
But thr journey begins in the heart.
You must go to the east, go to the west,
The road is rocky and the way is far.
It's a dangerous trail, a difficult quest,
If you want know who you really are . . .
There are voices all around you,
To comfort and to guide you.
Fathers and teachers,
Powerful creatures.
And a voice that sings inside you.
Or you can turn back around,
Run along home.
Back to the place where your RAFians are.
Perhaps that is best,
You need the rest.
Who wants to go on a ridiculous quest?
Unless you want to know,
You truly want to know,
Unless you want to know . . .
Who you really are.
Who are you? Who are you?
Who are you? Who are you?
Who are you? Who are you?
Who are you? Who are you?"

"Aniyu," Cloak said, " Aniyu, are you my father's --"

But she was gone, and Cloak had woke up, wondering what that was about. He was deeply confused.

***

From the shell of the former House of the Future, which was slated for demolition, a prone figure clawed its way out. Only its left mechanical arm was functional, as the legs below the knees were mangled and useless, and it was missing the lower part of its right arm. It was a robotic endoskeleton.

It clawed its way from the building, in the dark of the night, horribly conspicuous to anyone who would see. It was odd that no one did, and it got off scot free . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 05, 2016, 04:19:27 AM

YOUR FATHER'S WHAT??????

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2016, 07:56:43 AM

All in due time, Saffa. All in due time. Anyway, book ideas.

• Book DCCCLXXII: "Puppet Reversal" -- The RAFians must deal with pupavampyras.
• Book DCCCLXXIII: "Return of Brainie" -- Two RAFian enemies merge together and become one.
• Book DCCCLXXIV: "An Insider" -- A young man finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXV: "A New Queenie" -- There's a new Borg Queen.
• Book DCCCLXXVI: "Mosaic Murder" -- Another person finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXVII: "WMI" -- The RAFians become aware of WMI -- Weapons of Mass Infiltration.
• Book DCCCLXXVIII: "Blender" -- Another person finds a special suit.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Lemme know what you think.

New chapter.

BOOK CXIII:
QUIET!
CHAPTER ONE:
Quite a Nightmare

Cloak was on the side of a sheer bioluminescent cliff. He dug his claws into the side of it, feeling his exhaustion like he never felt before. He slid down, itwas the Veil behind him. If he slid down, down in to it, certain death would be assured.

He had looked up, and saw his mother. Just sitting on the precipice, without the Oblivion vwte so much in sight. That should have been a clue about the nonreality of this situstion, of this place. Cloak attempt to pull himself up, but found that he hadn't the strength.

He called out to his mother. "Mother! . . . Mother, please help me!"

He slid down a bit again, as he struggled to stay on the cliff and not fall through the Veil. He didn't want to die, not like this. He was within reach of his mother's hand, if she would just proffer it. . .

But she didn't. She, instead lasted out, and dug her ursine claws into the back of his hands, causing his hands to bleed with his golden ichor. The pain of the betrayal was far more hurtful than the actual physical damage inflicted. This was his mother. Someone he was supposed to love, trust, and honor unconditionally. And, yet, he never got any of those in return, not really.

"Long live the RAFian," she snarled in a deep, husky voice. Cloak's eyes widened as he realized what she was about to. His own mother. His own mother betrayed him. His own mother was about to kill him.

She pulled his claws from the cliff face, and free her own claws easily. She had just killed her own son. Her only son. The betrayal . . . it was hard to believe, to acknowledge. He would be cast through the Veil, never to return.

Then he landed on a strange net, as everything else seeemed to melt away. The net was actually interwoven with names: Shadow. Faith. Saffa. GH. Gaz. And more and more names. He was not alone. If he was dead, or lost, he would be missed.

He was not worthless and expendable.

***

Cloak awoke. It wasn't the first time he had the dream, but he couldn't help but be a little disappointed. He had hoped to see Aniyu again. He was sure that she was his paternal ancestor, a side of of his family he knew next to nothing about. A side of his family that he was immensely curious about.

Was she a contemporary of his grandfather, Master Sage?

Or was she a contemporary of his maternal ancestor, Master Guardian?

Or maybe she was a contemporary with the First Master, Master Avatar?

Or maybe she was even further back?

Or maybe she wasn't real at all, and just a strange mental conetruct he created for whatever reason.

So many questions. Too many.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2016, 09:23:45 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Trying to Study Here

At a small home, an especially studious woman was studying spell books. She was a sorcerer's apprentice of sorts, though mostly self-taught. Her name was Spellman. Melissa Spellman.

Melissa did not like being interrupted in learning her spells. Unfortunately, she happened to live in a rather noisy part of the suburbs. It got so bad, she started to sing:

"Quiet!
All I want is quiet,
No reason to deny it,
I can't take that riot,
Quiet! QUIET! QUIET!!!"

She tried to find a quieter spot in her home, but alas, to no avail. She sang:

"Let me clarify it,
The noise, I can't defy it,
I simply will not buy it.
Give me quiet! QUIET! QUIET!!!"

She fled her house, with her spellbooks in her bag, careful to not allow her more religiously conservative neighbors see the leatherbound books. She would go to the library, there was an isolated corner where she could focus.

But the library was right next to a parade that was in full swig for some reason. It was February. Valentine's Day was not a parade-worthy holiday!

"Not to nullify it,
I just won't stand by it.
It's time now to bye-bye it.
I want quiet! QUIET! QUIET!!!"

She fled to a forest glade, where she had expected it to be quiet and serene. But the arguing birds seemed to have other ideas, and were relentless in their squawks and chittering.

"QUIET!!!!
I want quiet! QUIET! QUIET!!!
This search I can't deny it
To find some peace and quiet.
I'll search both low and high, it
Must be quiet! QUIET! QUIET!!!"

As she shouted, a burst of magical light irradiated from her and washed over the world. She collapsed to tbe ground, unconscious.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2016, 08:55:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Magic Gone Awry

Melissa hadn't intended to use magic in this way. She hadn't even realized she had cast any spell, much less one this powerful.

She had muted the world. At least, the world as she knew it, from her perspective. No one could utter a sound. Nothing could make a sound, obnoxious or benign. It was almost as if everyone was deaf.

It was probably frightening to those accustomed to being able to hear. To be deprived of a sense that one needs, or feels as if it was needed, it was a scary thing.

It could be seen as positive, though.

No more did people have to listen to the street corner preachers, proselytizing in loud, obnoxious, conceited voices. No longer were their boastful words with vitrolic rhetoric they can not comprehend, though they pretend to, be heard. These people, vainglorious with themselves more than the teachings and scriptures they tout, were finally silenced. Outside social media, anyway.*

Elitist rhetoric against the downtrodden was blissfully not heard. People, like Bern Bridges, could not spread and distribute their vitriolic venom, which was devoid of any substance and bloated with spin and rumor. Outside social media, again.

Rumors, outside social media, that is, either died outright or was on severe life support. This gave a bit of a respite for the victims of it, as the rumors could only spread through nonauditory mediums.

But, with every positive, there are always negatives.

With everything muted, life was harder for emergency workers, as their emergency vehicle sirens could not be heard. This caused mass confusion amongst drivers and pedestrians. It was very unfortunate for them, as this whole muted thing just complicated their lives unnecessarily.

Television and YouTube suffered a bit, as their shows and videos were basically visual only. Which severely limited some of the entertainment value of some shows. Radio shows were completely pointless in this muted environment.

Schooling by teachers was a foregone conclusion, as the techers could not lecture their classes. They had to resort to the Dolores Umbridge style of teaching, which had limited effect as not all students can learn that way easily. Some require practicality in order to learn effectively.

But Melissa remained oblivious to all of this, as she continued to study. She was basically a self-taught sorceress, technically called a "sorcerer's apprentice", though she was not actually apprenticed to anyone. She found her magic almost vestigial for her liking, unaware of her spell of silence.

---

*Referencing something that happened in my city years and years ago. It still annoys me that they were so religiously intolerant, but freedom of speech and all that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 06, 2016, 09:13:42 AM

I don't blame her. I've shouted at several people over the past few days because they were making way too much unnecessary noise. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 06, 2016, 11:30:50 AM

Meanwhile, gh goes completely insane ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2016, 08:08:19 PM

Probably.

Yeah, there probably won't be a chapter tonight. My apologies. Just not feeling up to it right now, energy-wise. But I shall work on it tomorrow.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Mental Ballad of Cloaky

Cloak had retreated to his usual forested meditation spot. He wanted to answer the questions, the mystery behind Aniyu and possibly his father's side of his family. Was there something unique to his side? Did he truly inherit something . . . special . . . from his side of the family? Like how he inherited the elements from his maternal grandfather, via his mother, who was not an Elements Master like himself?

He had to know. So he meditated, hoping for a vision. And what he got was a song adaptation. Sung by GH's voice.

"There once was a Realm Walker.
His name was Cloaky.
An interdimensional skipper,
The girls found him cute.
He sailed through realities
To find the elusive Aniyu,
Then come back to RAF
With a bounty of loot. "

Then the voices of Sakki and Saffa chimed in.

"Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Oh, happy Cloaky,
Starting your journey
With hardly a care.
Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Strong, brave Cloaky,
You'll find Aniyu,
You just don't know where."

The GH's voice continued as Cloak was deeply unamused.

"He crossed the Atlantic
And spotted a figure,
'It's the Aniyu at last!'
But then someone shouted,
'Hey, this is Giratina!'
Cloaky got cranky
And collapsed Turnback Cave."

Saffa and Sakki's joined GH's again.

"Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Settle down, Cloaky!
Put down that glowin' hand!
There's no time to despair!
Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Keep trying, Cloaky.
You'll find Aniyu,
You just don't know where!"

Then GH's voice went back to a solo again.

"A great storm arose
In the underwater universe and
At last land was sighted.
Cloaky was happy,
But then someone shouted,
'Hey, this is Atlantis!'"

Then the ladies' voices joined GH's once more.

"Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Cheer up, Cloaky!
Check out your infini-map,
And don't tear out your hair!
Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Keep trying, Cloaky!
You'll find Aniyu,
You just don't know where."

Then GH went solo once more, and Cloak was starting to get annoyed by this lucid dream of a vision.

"It took him five months
But they crossed into a new world.
He spotted a land
That was dotted with palms.
Cloaky proclaimed,
'Yes! There's Aniyu!'
But then someone shouted,
'I think its just napalms.'"

"Ay-yi-yi-yi.
Oops, Cloaky,
Your fun little quest's
Become a nightmare!
Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Keep trying, Cloaky,
You'll find Aniyu,
You just don't know where."

"He sailed due west
To the warring worlds.
Cloaky was pleased
As the natives drew near.
But then someone shouted
'I think they're attacking!'
Cloaky said,
'. . . What?'
And he nearly got hit by a spear."

Then all three sang, in unison.

"Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
You made it with nary a care,
It really not fair.
Whoopie ti-yi-yo.
Oh, Cloaky, Aniyu
Was right over there."

"Wait, what?" Cloak said, who made to pursue her, but then the vision decided to end.

***

"GATEBURST!" Cloak cursed, venting his frustrations auditorily.

Then Cloak realized that something was very off. Something very disconcerting. Aside from his momentary vulgarity, there was no other sound that rent the sky. This should not have been possible, and he clearly wasn't affected, which made the Realm Walker believe whatever caused this to magical in origin. Realm Walkers are like magic Teflon -- magic never sticks to them, if it affect them directly at all.

Still, something would have to be done . . .

But how to call a meeting when there was no guarantee that he would be able to be heard? This magic may have rendered the afflicted deaf as well as mute.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 07, 2016, 01:10:13 AM

. . . Well, that was surreal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 07, 2016, 07:15:32 AM

God damnit, gh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2016, 09:55:21 PM

Oh, it will be slow going.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Talks of Magicks

<How come Cloak, Broken, Faerie, and Richard don't have to use this telepathic link thing?> GH complained, referring to the link that Yarin had telepathically set up, using the Marks as a limiting factor. Those without a Mark could not "hear" the conversation. The Andalites were not terribly unconvinced by this, as they thought-spoke naturally. <How come they can talk just fine?>

"Because whatever caused this muting thing is obviously magical in nature," Cloak said. He had to mollify himself internally a little, reminding himself that the voice in that vision of his was just a mental construct that happened to imitate GH's voice precisely. "My kind are magic-proof."

<Realm Walkers are immune to everything,> Parker thought jadedly.

Indeed, the only way to truly defeat a Realm Walker was to exploit their personality flaws and quirks, and be quite skillful and clever at it. It was not an easy thing to do, admittingly. But Cloak ignored the jibe, as he was not too sure if Parker was aware that that particular thought wasn't private.

"So, the mute spell is magical in nature, which explains why Broken and I aren't affected," Faerie said, with the air of someone wanting to get things back on track. "We have personal magical protections that protect us from such passive, yet invasive magicks."

<Gee, thanks for sharing that protection with us,> Az said, grumpily.

"I'm afraid I didn't hear that, Az," Faerie said, with a very dangerous tone, "would you care to repeat it?"

Az thought nothing. At least, not publicly.

"That's what I thought," she said, finishing with a harsh glower.

"Point is," Broken said, attempting to refocus the conversation at the task at hand, "the source of the spell, and its caster."

"You don't think it was just one caster?" Cloak inquired. "Are you suggesting a coven of witches or something?"

<That's a cheery thought,> Saffa thought dryly.

"Not necessarily, Cloakster*," Broken said, thoughtfully, finger on his chin. "It could be a single spellcaster --"

"Using a powerful magical artifact?" Faerie supplied, clearly not liking the implication. "There aren't many artifacts that I know of with this kind of power. Unless its a book. God help us if its one of those fancy, old magic books."

<Why is that?> Gaz asked.

"Magic books are honestly the most common magical artifact," Faerie said.

"And their magical power are very variable, almost unstable in this variation." Broken said.

<It isn't the first time we came up against a magical book before,> Horse pointed out. <Remember Bibliophaetos?>

"That was . . . different." Broken said. "That book wasn't a magic book per se, it was a spirit prison. An intelligence inhabited the book, able to direct its magicks. True magic books have no such intelligences. If the magicks from these books are unleashed, but undirected, unfocused, or unrestrained . . . it could prove to be catastrophic."

---

*Reference to the fact that he had once called me this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 07, 2016, 10:33:16 PM

OH MY GOD, it's a reference to a previous book that I actually got! *Stands up and pumps fist through the ceiling* Oh, ****.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2016, 05:30:05 PM

Well, with you catching up on the series, it was bound to happen sometime. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Unfocused, But Tenacious

And through it all, Melissa remained oblivious to the silence. As the caster, the spell had no bearing on her speech snd communication. She only noticed how her magical reservoir seemed to drain quicker than normal. But she did not make the connection to the sudden silence thst gripped everyone.

It was one thing to be oblivioue to such matters, it was quite another when you are this focused on yourself. It could be likened to selfishness and conceit.

She was trying to teach herself some Potterian magic, at the moment, having learned some Enix magic (though only Cure, Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder, as the other spells didn't really capture her interest all that much). Potterian magic was practically impossible for a neophyte sorceress to do without a wand or some sort of forcusing instrument. But Melissa did not know this -- there was a lot she didn't know, and she tended to disregard things she didn't consider essential to her magical education.

She was trying to learn the Full-Body Binding Spell, Petrificus totalus, but was getting frustrated with how she didn't seem to be getting it. She was unaware that it was because of the silence spell, the muting spell that she cast that drew her power to maintain. Nor was she aware that the book was amplifying her natural magical abilities, though it was still in a wild and unfocused manner, hence why she couldn't get the spell to do what she wanted it to do. It didn't help that her target, her black cat named Nikki, was (understandably) less than cooperative.

She tried again several more times, before deciding to try another spell, her frustration getting to her. She decided on the Stunning Spell, Stupefy. And to compound her frustrations, Nikki would have none of this anymore, unable to meow in protest. She quickly streaked away and hid under and cedar armoire.

"Oh, come now, Nikki," Melissa chided, "don't be that way."

Nikki would have yowled a protest if she could.

"Good idea, Nik," Melissa said, with a sardonic smile, "perhaps I should learn that Summoning Charm. Now what was the incantation again?"

Nikki pressed her back against the wall. The black cat wished Melissa never started learning magicks, granted that allowed Nikki herself greater intelligence than other cats, as that was one of the first magicks Melissa learned, which was not a very well looked upon spell in societal convention of magic-users, for some reason. Nikki was intelligent, sure, but she could not speak the human language, though she apparently could understand it.

"Ah." Melissa said. "Accio Nikki!"

Nothing happened.

"Accio Nikki!"

Nothing.

"Accio Nikki."

Bupkiss. Melissa was starting to get annoyed.

"Accio cat."

Nada. Now Nikki was annoyed by not being referred to by name. She let her displeasure known by swiping her paw from beneath the armoire with horn-shaped legs. Unfortunately, this had the effect of being cute rather than intimidating.

"Accio!"

Zip.

"Accio, dammit!"

Now, Nikki was amused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 08, 2016, 11:57:21 PM

Oh look, another amusing sidekick. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2016, 08:31:16 AM

Yep. And another spur-of-the-moment one. . . . Wait, they all may have been . . . hmmmm . . .

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
That Was Random

The magicks that Melissa was using was starting to destabilize in some rather strange, and unique ways. One could marvel at how powerful Melissa seemed, but she unwittingly was using her magic books to amplify her magical ability. It was had the potential for becoming very dangerous, as she would not, and does not, know how control this magical force, the power.

An imaginative girl, muted as everyone else, was shrunken down to the size of a Barbie doll. Naturally, she didn't like this, especially as it reversed itself at random intervals, and reinstated itself at random as well.

A snarky, but still mute, boy was inexplicably transformed into a mute donkey.

A candelabra, a carriage clock, a teapot, a teacup, a feather duster, and a wardrobe gained monstrous life, which eventually left them, only to return at unexpected moments.

A vain, but muted, woman was turned into a horrid-looking hag.

A troop of monkeys turned into horses, camels, sports cars, and other things. But this particular spell had no sticking to it, as they revert and change bacm at inexplicable times.

A lifeless puppet was given temporary life, which was taken away in spurts, before becoming lifeless once more.

A very angry man was turned temporary into a beast, one that appeared to be a mixure of a wolf, a bear, and a lion with bison horns. He switches back after six hours, and then, presumably, back again after six hours.

A cantankerous, contentious couple were suddenly transformed into frogs. It wore off about every three hours, before reoccuring the next three hours.

A narcoleptic woman was enchanted into a deep sleep, unable to be waken, even by true love's kiss. It as if she took a Draught of Living Death, and a powerfully brewed on as well.

Another imaginative girl was grown to gigantic proportions, and she didn't like this much, as it was too easy for her to cause damage -- especially because she was a self-admittingly klutzy. It didn't help that she shrank back and grew again at random.

And more and more happened. None of the magicks were pleasant for the people afflicted by it, as the transformations were not like Disney transformations. They were painful, as this magicks was unfocused and unrestrained, amplified by the leather-bound books.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2016, 11:23:53 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Broken Fixes, Faerie Forensics

Naturally, the RAFians were dispatched, but only Broken and Faerie were currently capable to deal with it, being the only magically-inclined RAFians currently on active-duty roster. They went to investigate, alone.

Broken was able to clear up the mess in a thrice, but more happened.

"Is this what I think it is?" Faerie asked.

"The magic destablizing into a chaotic mess?" Broken inquired.

"Yep," the faerie sighed. "This magic . . . it's amateurish. Careless. Sloppy. Reckless."

"It has no control, no restraint." Broken noted. "No direction."

"And on top of the muting spell, as well." Farrie added. "Who could have possibly be the spellbinder behind this magic."

"My guess? A neophyte," Broken suggested.

But Faerie was resistant to this. "A neophyte? Someone new to magic? I dunno about that, Broken."

"You said it yourself, Faerie," Broken said, simply, "the magic was amateurish, sloppy, and careless. A neophyte is usually all of those things or at least one."

"A neophyte cannot be this powerful," she said, dismissive of the very idea.

"Perhaps not," Broken said, amiably. "But perhaps -- just hear me out on this, Faerie -- maybe, just maybe, whoever is behind this, has found an antiquity that functions as a magical repository of sorts."

"It gonna be a book, isn't it?"

"Probably."

"Ugh. I know that it's not the same thing, but magic books always remind me of that creepy Bibliophaetos." Faerie said, wanely. "Books should not have faces."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2016, 12:00:37 AM

New chapter. Again, sorry for the brevity.

CHAPTER NINE:
Melissa and Nikki

"Accio! Acci-- oh, forget it." she said.

Nikki was relieved, but soon realized that she wasn't out of the woods yet. She was still a possible a practice magic target. Surely, this qualified as animal abuse? Surely, the SPCA, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, would side with her on this one.

But, then again, Melissa didn't mean anything by it. She wasn't trying to harm Nikki, and the mature cat knew this. Melissa may be a bit overly enthusiastic and a bit overbearing at times, she was a good kid. Nikki did feel a certain need to safeguard Melissa, though the cat got frustrated with her from time to time, Nikki saw Melissa not as her master but her ward. She watched out for the poor, backwards human.

What was she doing now? She had given up on the Summoning Spell, as well as the Full-Body Bind Spell and the Stunning Spell. Alas poor human, she gave up far too soon, in the humble cat's opinion. She got frustrated and flustered too easily, Nikki felt. Such a precocious little scamp . . .

Melissa was looking up new spells, and she displayed good judgement and fortitude in deciding to go out of her way to NOT learn the Kiling Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Imperius Curse. Those three curses went against everything she stood for, as a human being.

She did not like the absolute control over another that the Imperius Curse promised. She was not a very controlling person, more of a free spirit. Vivacious and lively, bursting with excitable energy. She would never imagine imposing her will over someone else in this way. She wasn't sure if she could do it, even if or when she ever had need for it.

She was a gentle soul, and she could not bring herself to feel the anger and hatred that the Cruciatus Curse required. She couldn't bear to torture anyone. She could not fathom such a person that would revel, masochistically and sadistically, in torturing others. Her compassion and empathy would render her unable to use this curse effectively. Not that she would ever want to.

The last one, whe actually recoiled from. She never killed anyone. She was proud of that fact. Perhaps it was a bit naive, but she held fast to this belief. Killing -- and killing in cold, calculating blood -- was a reprehensible act, especially if the murderer feels no remorse for their actions. Melissa could not imagine such a person. Perhaps she had lived a really sheltered life.

So, Melissa started to search for a few more spells to try out. She flipped through the book with almost reckless abandon.

Suddenly, Nikki was alarmed, while Melissa seemed oblivious to anything out of the ordinary. But the cat knew something was wrong. Really wrong. Not about the forced silence everyone but a scarce few were forced to endure. Something else, something very off about Nikki's self-anointed ward.

And Nikki was worried. Very worried, indeed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 10, 2016, 12:16:01 AM

Damn cliffhangers. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 10, 2016, 12:51:45 AM

Cats are never ever humble. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2016, 10:44:04 AM

Doesn't mean that they can't think that they are being humble, though. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Dangers of Overextending Oneself

Melissa continued her search through the huge leather-bound book, though she appeared to be searching with less vigor. Her eyes seemed to unfocus and then refocus, with her oblivious to any change.

But Nikki wasn't so oblivious. She knew something was very wrong. And she hated that her scope of doing anything about it was effectively nil. She couldn't even meow a warning. She was at a lost of what to do, and she had come out of her hiding spot from beneath the armoire.

Nikki could sense Melissa's energy waning. It must be because the magicks she was using, that she was studying from that stupid book. That stupid book . . . it may have allowed her, Nikki, more comprehension and intelligence than that of an average cat, but it would have been worth it to lose her ward in the process.

The book must be siphoning off her magical energy to use for its own purposes. The book was evil, Nikki decided. Maybe if she destroyed the book somehow, her Melissa would become better, maybe she would reclaim her magical energy again.

Nikki slithered over Melissa, with every intention of clawing the book to smithereens. She would destroy the source of what was making her Melissa weak. She was going to --

"High there, stranger," Melissa said, gently and kindly. In the way that Nikki always liked to be spoken to with.

Melissa gently scooped Nikki up and held her close, in the way that always made Nikki feel comfortable and safe. Though she she would never say it aloud (and due the fact that she only spoke Cat and not Human, though she understood Human), she loved this strange creature who walked on her hind legs.

But, even here, Nikki could tells something was wrong. She could sense Melissa weakening, albeit very slowly and incrementally. So slow and incrementally that it was essentially unnoticed by Melissa herself.

Melissa had to have done something, something which was burning out her magical reservoir. And when that burns out . . .

***

"It's getting more and more unstable and out of control," Faerie noted, as she and Broken continued to try to fid things. "What a time for Yunyun to be out of town on personal business."

"I doubt our task ahead would be any easier even with her help," Broken said, pessimistically dour. "Such inexperise at controlling their magical ability . . ."

"Their abilities are being grossly magnified." Faerie said, analytically. "The only person that would be capable of this kind of chaos is a disciple of Apophis, or --"

"The Sorcerer Supreme?"

"Perhaps, Broken, perhaps." Faerie said, rather noncommitally. "Still that would require copious amounts of magical artifacts, and you know it."

"I think we're beat around the bush here," Broken said, "there's another reason that we really need to find this neophyte witch or wizard or whatever the appropriate term they choose to identify themselves as."

"We really are getting too PC," Faerie grumbled.

"Eventually, this kind of magic will burn out the neophyte's magic reservoir," Broken elaborated, as if Faerie's comment maligning PC culture was not uttered. "And when that's burned out --"

"Their life force will be next," Faerie finished. "If this doesn't stop, they will not only overtax, overextend, and exhaust their magical powers . . . they will die."

"Yes," Broken confirmed, "and I rather not have that on my conscience, Faerie, so we best hurry and discover them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2016, 07:54:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Ticking Clock

"There has got to be a better way to find this kid," Faerie grumbled.

"This is the only lead we have, Faerie," Broken pointed out.

They were following the chaotic, unstable magic. They were under the belief that it would get stronger or more frequent around the source of the magic, namely the neophyte spellbinder. It wasn't the best lead, to be sure, but it was all they had st the moment.

"Still sucks," Faerie said. Then they both fell silent as they continued bringing order to this chaotic magic. The silence was actually deafening. "This silence spell worked a little bit too well."

"Indeed," Broken said. "It's a bit surprising that the denizens of the city have found a way to adapt to it."

It was true, with everything rendered mute, most of the citizens assumed that they themselves had been rendered deaf, unaware anyone else was afflicted. It was a demonstration at the innate self-importance that people tend to have, whether or not they are aware of it themselves.

They have gone to relying on flashing lights to notice emergency vehicles, and pedestrians were paying more attention, other senses more acute to compensate. Radio was effectively killed, though, which was a boon to the people as idiots like Bern Bridges were effectively silenced, meaning his misinformation and anti-RAFian propaganda wasn't being heard.

But that was just covering-up the gaping sores that abhorrent people like Bern Bridges were, reveling about in hatred and ignorance. People who are unwilling to use actual facts, and instead peddle in lies and misdirection, claiming to be truths and facts. The question really was if they truly believed this schlock or were just paid to believe it.

If they were paid, one would have to ask, why, whoever their payers were, saw RAF as such a threat as to require so much propaganda, so much mudslinging, so much smearing of their reputation.

"This," Faerie said, "this is starting to get difficult to manage."

"But it must mean we're getting close," Broken said, mulishly.

"Unless this is a false trail," Faerie said, upon sudden inspiration, "or these events happen completely randomly in pockets instead of being like a broken seam."

Broken said nothing.

"Broken, it's a legitimate concern," Faerie said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 11, 2016, 08:22:06 AM

I sense foreshadowing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2016, 08:37:39 PM

Perhaps.

Sorry that there won't be a chapter today. A lot of things came up and I got real busy. I might be able to post later on tomorrow, but depends on how tired I am.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Tiring

Melissa, who barely felt any fatique since she cast the silence spell, suddenly felt a suitable amount of exhaustion. An exhaustion she could not ignore. She could not begin to guess where this tiredness came from.

Nikki knew Melissa finally realized something was up, and, even now, she could not so much as meow or purr to comfort her. Nikki felt Melissa's arms begin to sag beneath her. Nikki's mouth still worked furiously to meow concernedly, but no sound came out.

This time, however, Melissa noticed. But she was perplexed, because she still did not realize that she cast a spell.

"Nikki, what's wrong?"

Feline faces are actually more expressive than one might expect. And Nikki's expression clearly said, Human, you are hopeless. Nikki leaped from Melissa's arms, and streaked toward a closed window, and looked back at Melissa. Clearly Nikki wanted Melissa to follow her.

Melissa acquiesced, and threw the window open. Nikki did not jump out and escape, but allowed Melissa to witness the world outside her window. Allowed her to hear the resounding, droning silence. This perplexed her.

There should be the sounds matching the bustling city outside her apartment window. Especially in this part of town. There wasn't anything, and Melissa felt a sudden dizziness and she found that she really needed to sit down, or she was going to fall down, or collapse.

But it wasn't about the realization of the Silence Spell, but because she was starting to burn through her magical reservoir. But she was still a magical amateur, and, as such, did not know anything about a magical reservoir, per se. There were a plethora of other dangers that she was very, very ignorant of.

Nikki joined her on Melissa's rather threadbare bed, with thin sheets and a floral-print comforter. Her apartment wasn't exactly the best, the cream of the crop, but she liked it well enough. Sure, the neighborhood wasn't exactly . . . idyllic, but it was good enough for her, and the rent was cheap.

"Did I . . . did I cause this . . ." Melissa said, a sudden weariness in her voice. "Did I cast . . . was the silence . . . a spell?"

Nikki now was very agitated. Melissa was now visibily weakening. But the scope of what Nikki could do was seriously limited.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2016, 11:33:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Cunning Trickster

Cloak was back in his secluded meditation spot. Perhaps it wasn't the most productive means to with his time. Perhaps it was wrong with the whole silence spell thing going around, but the fact of the matter was there was little that he could do about it. Realm Walkers couldn't really use magic, aside from the occasional "Expellocorpus", which one could argue isn't really true magic. So, he was sort of out of his league on this one -- something he had a tough time admitting to.

So, he decided to try and see if he could get another vision of Aniyu. He was sure she was an ancestor of his, a paternal ancestor. Sure that she was contacting him in much the same way his grandfather, his mother's father, used to contact him.

His father's side of the family was such a mystery to him. He knew next to nothing about them. He only saw his paternal grandfather when he was really too young to remember, and spoken to him once when he was fifteen. His mother had a hand in preventing contact, he felt, control freak that she was. So, naturally, he burned with curiosity about that side of his family. The enigma, the mystery . . .

He found himself on a strange landscape thoroughly ensconced in plain, white, featureless fog. Only a single dirt path lied ahead, unimpeded by the fog, but only for a yard or two. But, clearly in view, was a lupine Realm Walker whose cloak was as snow white as her fur.

"Aniyu?" Cloak said.

Aniyu gave no indication that she noticed Cloak's presence, though he was sure that she did. Suddenly, she was engulfed inside the gas, and her silhouette was gone before Cloak could call out, "Wait! No! Don't go!"

Cloak stumbled and ambled forward and he seemed to enter into a clear area, a perfect circle, which followed him as he moved. Gateburst! He was so close to finding out answers! So close!

He dwelled on this fact for a bit, then he heard, "Hello, handsome."

Behind him, a vulpine Realm Walker stood, almost seductively, in a violet cloak. She seemed overly promiscuous, even by Realm Walker standards. Cloak didn't trust her. Foxes, including vulpine Realm Walkers, are well-known for being clever and cunning.

"I can help you for what you're looking for, hon," she said.

Cloak's eyes narrowed. He hadn't mentioned that he was looking for something.

"Oh, don't be all paranoid, hon!" she said, her voice strangely alluring. "Just had a look on your face, is all."

Cloak didn't trust this.

"Let me help, dearie," she insisted.

Cloak said nothing, and the silence stretched until it spiralled into awkwardness.

"I don't bite, hon. C'mere. I'll help you," she said. It was very convincing, but Cloak's troubled past was giving him trust issues. "Trust me. I'm just wanting to help."

"I'm sure you are," Cloak said, with subtle sarcasm. "Like a hinkypunk in a bog."

"I'm not entirely sure what a hinkypunk is," the vulpine Realm Walker said, innocently, "but, yes. I only want to help you."

"To find Wolfblitzer, the black wolf?" Cloak said.

"Yes," she replied.

She didn't fall for the trap Cloak had laid, rather inexpertly. But Cloak thought he knew enough about this stranger.

"It won't work, Trickster," he said as he continued to look for Aniyu, only to see his environment to be rushing backwards as he he opened his eyes to the msterial world, having his vision quest broken for the time being.

His communicator was going off, vibrating rather inconveniently. Cloak couldn't help but feel annoyed.

"What d'ya want?" Cloak said, rather rudely.

"Cloak?" Broken said, with no mention or acknowledgment of the Realm Walker's rudeness. "I need you procure something of the utmost importance. It's rather imperative, if we arrive late. If it's too late, then --"

"Stop beating around the bush," Cloak said, crankily. "What do you need?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 13, 2016, 11:54:56 PM

So, would that be fifteen in Dweller years?

Also, so many jokes I could make relating to the fox Realm Walker. But since you mentioned the clearing being "a perfect circle," my mind got stuck on this song. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VdnEQVBPIw) It's about falling in love with a stripper.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2016, 07:29:30 AM

Realm Walker years, actually.

And the fox was an illusion, not a prostitute. She was a trickster, a test. Put that skillet down, Saffa, it wasn't a spoiler. ;)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Trailling Spectulation

"This is starting to get real annoying," Faerie said, dully.

They were cleaning up some of the unrestrained magic, which appeared to be granting more and more cartoonish effects to inanimate objects. It was getting more and more chaotic and dangerous as they proceeded. Especially because they were silenced, as well.

"Well, I got through to Cloak," Broken said. "He sounded cranky."

"He's Cloak. He's always cranky." Faerie said, dryly. "Did you give him your grocery list?"

"Yeah. He said he would gather the herbs," Broken said, wearily. "I'm still hoping that we don't need them."

"I think, at this point, that is a foregone hope, Broken."

"I can still hope," Broken countered. Then, after a beat of considering, he replied, "They are clearly using some sort of magical artifact to amplify their magical power."

"I thought we already established the likelihood of that," Faerie said. Then, after clearing up some bit of chatoic msgic that demanded her full attention,  she continued, "It's obvious that she must be using an artifact of some sort. No one, short of --"

"The Sorcerer Supreme?" Broken supplied.

"Yeah, him," Faerie said, with a roll of her eyes. Then she proceeded with point she was trying to make, "No one short of him has the kind of power to do this without a powerful artifact or talisman."

"Not to mention the danger of mixing magicks," Broken said. "This neophyte doesn't know about that."

"It's like a child playing with the remote to a nuke," Faerie said. Broken thought the comparison was apt, if not a bit simplistic.

Silence fell between the two, as they cleaned up the residual chaotic magic, the unrestrained magic, the misdirected and directionless magic.

"What if it's a grimoire?" Broken asked.

"What?" Faerie said, taken off guard by this.

"A grimoire," Broken said, as if this was a question that knotted his stomach. "A book of instructions in the use of magic or alchemy. Especially summoning demons."

"Demos might see the 'summoning demons' thing as a bit racist," Faerie said. "They always seem to come and go as they wish."

"Faerie, we only know two demons." Broken said. "Demos and his half-brother."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever," Faerie said, waving this away. "Let's get going."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 14, 2016, 08:56:34 AM

I'm giggling at the Sorcerer Supreme gag. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2016, 09:56:10 PM

Hope you're not expecting Dr. Strange, though. He's not the Sorcerer Supreme in this continuity and I believe I blithely revealed who it was in a previous book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Meeting Up

"I'm starting to think a mixing of magicks is happening," Faerie said.

"What makes you say that?" Broken inquired.

BOOM!!

"Call it a hunch," she replied.

"It could be just someone who ate a large bean burrito," Broken tried to quip, but his timing was all wrong.

"Leave the one-liners to the experts, kid," the faerie said.

Bah-BOOM!!

"We probably shouuld do something about that." she added, almost as an afterthought.

"Just what precisely, though?" Broken asked. "It's difficult to discern the type of magicks at play here. We --"

Bah-BOOM BOOM BOOM!!

"We might just be exacerbating the situation," Broken said. "Mixing more magic into it will only heighten the volatility of the magic already mixing."

Bah-BOOOM!!!

"We have to do something, Broken. People can be hurt by this."

"Our hands our tied, Faerie," Broken said. He wasn't too pleased with having to say it. But this is the problem with mixing msgicks of different types. Potterian and Enix and whatnot.

"Then the solution is simple," came a voice, "cut this problem off at its root."

"Cloak," Broken said, welcomingly, "you've procured the herbs?"

"Need you ask?" Cloak said, presenting a satchel not unlike the one the male player character carries in Pokémon X or Y. "Complete with a Smilodyte satchel."

"What's a Smilodyte?" Faerie asked.

"It's not important," the Realm Walker said, waving the question away. He pointed to a rather conspicuous sinuous tentacle of magical energy, that had a clear source. "Why not follow that?"

It was then that Cloak paused to wonder whether or not Broken or Faerie could actually see the anfractuous tendril of magical energy of indeterminate color.

BOOM!!!!

"We should get going, methinks," Cloak said, pleasantly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 14, 2016, 10:08:10 PM

Lol, of course not. Isn't it Broken?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2016, 11:17:29 PM

More on that later.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Converging

"There. That building," Cloak said. "Six windows up, eighth from the left."

Cloak had not taken time to notice the details of the building. It was not a very appealing place to live. It was little more than a rat-infested tenement thst looked rather shabby and dilapidated. The building was a dingy brown, with the paneling missing in places. Faerie and Broken was not so oblivious, however.

The RAF stormed into the poorly-lit, grungy lobby. There was a woman sitting at the front desk, with her shoes -- which appeared to be torture devices to whomever would try to wear them, and gave the appearance of hooved feet -- perched atop the desk, as she leaned back on her chair, obnoxiously popping pink bubblegum (soundless, though) as she filed her claw-like nails, painted a green so dark it was nearly black. She had horribly teasex black hair, a frumpy face, and a little to much make-up on -- so that it was remarkable she wasn't mistaken for Bozo.

She paid no mind to the RAFians as they raced for the fifth floor, and Cloak suspected that she would have allowed them up even without the spell of silence. He got the feeling that she didn't realky do her job, but still collected a paycheck, albeit it a very meager one.

They raced down the hallway to Apartment 68A, and found the door was locked. It wasn't exactly the sturdiest-looking one either. But it was stable enough to function as a door.

Cloak rapped the door smartly. No answer. He wasn't surprised, as the knocks were muted. He should have considered that.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" Faerie called out in a manner befitting Lin Bei Fong. "RAFians. Open up."

No answer.

"Hello?" Broken tried.

Nothing.

"Sorry, guys, but the time for pleasantries has ended. This needs to stop, and needs to stop now." Cloak said, touching the door. He felt the metal deadbolt, though he could not see it with his eyes, and he used his ferrokinesis, his Mastery over the Metal element, to turn the deadbolt, to unlock it. He did the same to secondary lock, and soon the door saung inwards.

"Way to go, Sly Cooper," Faerie said, sardonically.

Cloak growled unintentionally. He was still a little moody and a lot cranky. Upon stepping into the single room studio apartment, they saw a girl, eighteen or nineteen, by the look of her, passed out upon her twin-sized bed.

"Broken!" Faerie exclaimed

"Already on it!" Broken said, already usjng the herbs to make some sort of herbal tea of sorts.

"I . . . I can smell her . . . dying. Her scent is changing." Cloak said. Then he noticed a black cat looking forelorn and miserable. She seemed much more aware than ordinary cats.

"This should revive her," Broken said, as he started to feed her the tea. It didn't appear to work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 15, 2016, 03:55:00 AM

Oh my god. What is this suspense why.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2016, 05:12:31 PM

Yep. Three more chapters to go.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Book Burning

"Broken, it's not working," Faerie said.

"It will! Give it time!" Broken insisted.

"Time isn't a luxury we can afford right now," Faerie said.

"That book might be problematic," Cloak said, seeing monstrous magical tendrils coming off it, in a rather malevolent display.

"It is a grimoire!" Faerie said.

Cloak was familiar with the word, but did not know much in-depth about it. He was still a novice in the terms of magic.

"Broken, it's exhausted her magical reservoir and is putting her life in jeopardy!" Faerie said, after just the merest moments of initial shock.

"D'you think I don't know that?!" Broken said, tersely. His frustrations were starting to show, and his statment brooked no protest. "This tea is useless while that book is still active! The more it replenishes her, the more that damned book will siphon off!"

"So, what? Close the book?" Cloak said. "Or just all-out destroy it?"

Broken appeared to be too harried to have heard properly. He would not allow this neophyte sorceress to perish like this. Not when there was something -- and there had to be something -- that he could do to prevent it. One could argue that this was a test of Broken's probity, but other could say that it was a test of his compassion.

"Cloak," Faerie said, in Broken's stead, "you're a Master of the Fire element, yes?"

Cloak looked a little aggrieved at this little factoid, still struggling with his pyrophobia, but also perplexed at why Faerie would ask. She already knew the answer. "Yes, but you know this already, Faerie."

"Yeah, I do know," Faerie said, in a snarky tone she reserved for only when she was stressed out. "Burn the book!"

Burn the book. It was almost sacrilege to a bibliophile. But Cloak was all too aware of the necessary implications of this. And so, despite his lingering pyrophobia, he acquiesced and complied.

The book burned, shrivelling into ashes at an unusually quick pace. Cloak grew suspicious at this, but didn't know anything to be done about it. Then the ash blew outside the open window into the February afternoon, whose clouds threatened precipitation.

But it no longer could siphon or leech off of Melissa anymore. Meaning tbat the herbal tea now could take, and replenish her lost energy a magical reserve.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2016, 09:44:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Resuscitation and Familiars

"There," Broken said, "her condition is stabilizing for the time being."

Nikki leaped up on the bed, her red flea collar standing out against her midnight black fur, and she sat at Melissa's shoulder, her round, golden eyes were intelligent and aware, and she placed her left forepaw on Melissa's shoulder, as if to reassure her.

This was not lost on Broken, who instantly surmised what was up with Nikki. "Oh . . . she made a familiar."

Nikki removed her paw from Melissa as she huffed a silent hurrumph of disapproval, as if to say, If anyone's a familiar here, the girl is my familiar. But the silence spell was still in effect, albeit with a weakened range, limited to only the city block.

"Familiar?" Cloak inquired.

"An attendant animal or spirit," Broken elaborated. "They usually display an intelligence above a normal animal, and an attachment and a deep loyalty to a magic user. A single magic user. Sometimes, it happens without knowledge to the magic user, once they forge a powerful bond with an animal or spirit. An unbreakable bond."

"A human magic user," Faerie corrected dryly.

Nikki turn her head to the side, looking at no one, because even she knew that it was true, though she was born an ordinary cat. And born a stray, until Melissa found her and adopted her. Sure, the apartment was threadbare and very sparcely decorated, but it was a home when Melissa was there.

"Like Saberhagan?" Faerie said, flatly.

"That was a unique case," Broken said, "from what I know."

"Just because you're the Sorcerer Supreme doesn't mean you know everything, Broken," Faerie said, and Cloak was puzzled by this sudden hostility.

"I never said that I did," Broken said, evenly and calmly. This just seemed to irritate Faerie, though she said nothing more. She seemed to be just as huffy as Nikki was moments before, and Cloak couldn't imagine why, but he did not pursue the subject, though it did bewilder him.

Broken looked as if he may have pursued the subject, had Melissa not groaned, causing Broken to remark, "She's coming around now."

Faerie still looked a little huffy, perhaps because she was constantly overlooked in favor of Broken as the expert on various magicks? Possibly.

"What happened?" Melissa said, somnulent.

"Do not worry, you shall be fine," Broken said gently.

You might think that Melissa be concerned by three strangers in her apartment, with the door ajar. But she had recognized Broken immediately which immediately woke her up.

"I know you!" she proclaimed. Faerie glowered at this reaction, at the fact that evidently Broken had a reputation akin to Albus Dumbledore in the magical community. Could it be possibly envy or jealousy that motivated this reaction in the faerie? "You're the Sorcerer Supreme!"

Broken hesitated a bit, not really enjoying this semi-celebrity status, befoe replying, "That I am."

Melissa was beginning to gush, but Broken stopped her prematurely as Faerie crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, discontent.

"But there is something that needs to be done, Melissa," Broken said, having gotten her name from her gushing, "there is a spell that you may not have been aware of casting."

Faerie had left the room.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2016, 11:17:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Soundless No More

"What?" Melissa asked.

"You cast a spell of silence," Broken said, kindly. "My colleague and I weren't affected because of innate magical protections. My colleague in the cloak -- well, he is biologically magic-proof."

"I don't understand," she admitted.

Broken nodded, knowingly, "I know that there is much for you to understand, Melissa, but this is a spell only you can undo. You have unintentionally sealed it from being undone by anyone else."

"I did?"

"It's actually more common from magical neophytes -- those new to their craft -- than you might think, though the grimoire you were using had grossly magnified this."

"Grimoire?"

"The large, leather-bound book you were using," Broken explained. "It was siphoning off your magical reserves, then your life force after that was exhausted. We had to destroy it to save your life. It would have leeched every bit of life in you, and only stopping ehen there was nothing left."

"Oh. Thanks! I - I think." Melissa said. "How do I undo the silence spell? I don't even remember casting it."

"Did you say or do anything really passionate? Something really emotionally charged?" Broken asked. "Untrained magic is often linked to emotions."

Melissa's expression brightened with surprise.

"You remember something, I take it?"

She got up as music began. Clearly, the spell was breaking already.

"I thought I wanted quiet
I thought I could apply it.
But now that I have tried it . . .
I'm sick and tired of quiet!"

There was a silent BOOM, which was an odd experience that Broken did not seem too surprised about.

***

Cloak had gone after Faerie. She had gone outside, leaning over a railing.

"Go away," she said, upon his aprroach.

Cloak did not. But he gave her her distance.

"Please, Cloak," Faerie said. "Just go away."

"Not with you like this," Cloak said. "You are vulnerable."

"No, I'm not!"

"Faerie, I see through that bravado." Cloak said. "I see the struggles that are similar to the ones I've faced."

"Cloak . . . I'm . . ."

Cloak allowed her to go on at her own pace. He did not challenge or encourage her, as such things could have been easily misinterpreted, and she was libel to lash out in such a state.

"I . . . please, Cloak, just leave me alone," Faerie said.

"As you wish," Cloak said, wondering if he was doing right by her, "but, just allow me this one warning. Don't close yourself off to people. Don't close yourself off or distance from your emotions. It is very difficult to come bwck from that once you do."

With thst, Cloak left Faerie alone with her thoughts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 15, 2016, 11:21:21 PM

That ending . . . Man, you really know how to hit me in the feels.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2016, 12:54:59 AM

And now for an ending chapter that I think you're gonna like, GH. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Who!

From that point on, Melissa became Broken's apprentice. He would teach her how to control, refine, and wield her magic. An offer she eagerly accepted. And, by doing such, she became a RAFian herself. Something else she was excited about, having heard about the heroic exploits of the RAFians.

And, being a RAFian, she got her own thread that she quickly moved herself and Nikki into. Nikki appraised it and found it only suitable. She was a hard cat to please.

***

Cloak was trying to meditate, when a bunch of ne'er-do-wells decided to do an impromptu concert to celebrate the end of silence.

"Can you watch me? Can you listen to me? Can you smell me? Can you hear me?!" a bad crooner sang, as his bad played on with varying levels of amateurish skill.

"Unfortunately, yes!" Cloak roared, crankily. GH was standing beside him, cigarette dangling dangerously in his mouth, looking perfectly at ease. "GH, what's the name of the group, playing on stage?"

"Who."

"The name of the group."

"Who."

"The group on stage."

"Who."

"The group playing on stage."

"Who."

"You're starting to sound like a Hoothoot, GH," Cloak said.

"Who is on stage!" GH insisted.

"That's what I'm asking you," Cloak answered, "who's on stage?"

"That's what I said!"

"You said who?"

"I sure did."

"So tell the name."

"Who."

"The name of the group."

"Who."

"The group on stage."

"Who."

"The name of the band on stage."

"Who!"

"You're doing the Hoothoot thing again!"

"I am not!" GH protested. "I'm just telling you Who is on stage!"

"So, tell me."

"Who!"

"The name of the group."

"Who!"

"The group on stage."

"Who!"

"That's what I'm asking you!"

"And I'm telling you the answer!"

"Wait, GH, let's start over." Cloak said, trying not to get frustrated. "Is there a band on stage?"

"Yes."

"Does that band have a name?"

"Yes."

"D'you know the name of that band?"

"Yes."

"Then tell me the name of the band on stage."

"Who."

"The name of the band."

"Who."

"The band on stage!"

"Who!"

"The band playin' on stage!"

"Who!"

"That's what I want to know!!"

"I'm telling you!"

"Who is on stage?"

"Yes."

"Who is?"

"Yes."

"Oh, so the name of the band is 'Yes.'"

"No, Cloaky, Yes isn't even at this concert."

"Then who is on stage?"

"Yes."

"Who is?"

"Yes."

"That's what I just said," Cloak said, "Yes is on stage."

"No, Yes isn't here, Who is."

"What are you asking me for?!"

"I'm not!"

"Wait! Let's try this again." Cloak said, mastering his frustration. "Do you see the band on stage?"

"No, I don't see The Band, that's a different group entirely." GH stated, matter-of-factly.

"On stage, GH. Look! See the band?"

"No, I don't."

"Get rid of that cigarette -- we'll be talking about that later --and look," Cloak said, insistently. "Now, look! See the band?"

"No, that's not The Band," GH disagreed, "The Band is preforming later on. Who's on stage."

"You tell me."

"Who."

"The name of the group on stage."

"Who."

"The name of the group!"

"Who!"

"THE GROUP ON STAGE!!"

"WHO!!"

"THE BAND!!"

"No, The Band is performing later, right now we're listening to Who!"

"THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!!!"* Cloak shouted. Then he recinsidered, and said, "You know what? Forget it."

He stormed away to his thread.

---

*Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mdqv5xIsFLM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 16, 2016, 01:59:08 AM

I know this is almost a word-for-word adaptation of the Animaniacs sketch, but I loved it so much I had to give karma. For the record, the song that I'm pretty sure they were parodying ("See Me Touch Me") is really the only Who song regularly played on the radio that I don't like. I do like me some Yes, though. :P

Also, considering that the Animaniacs sketch pretty obviously takes place at Woodstock, can we be sure that it was tobacco in that cigarette and not something else? Actually, that would explain a lot of my antics in Memoirs ;)

No I have never smoked actually weed or done any illegal drugs, for that matter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2016, 11:00:44 AM

Nah, just tobacco. It's a crazy enough universe.

New chapter.

BOOK CXIV:
THE BUREAU
CHAPTER ONE:
The Headless RAFian

At a bonfire, despite still being Februrary, Phoenix sang a campfire song:

"Just gather 'round and I'll elucidate
What goes on outside when it gets late.
Along, about midnight, the RAFghosts and Birdies,
They get together for their RAFly jamboree.
There's RAFians with horns and saucer eyes.
Some with fangs about this size.
Some are phat and some are grim.
And some don't even wear their skin.
I'm telling you, sibs, it's a frightful sight
To see what goes on RAFoween night.
When the RAFians have a midnight jamboree,
They break it up with foolish glee.
RAFians can be bad, but the one that's cursed,
It's the Headless RAFman, he's the worst!
That right, he's a fright on RAFoween night!
But when he goes a goggin' 'cross the land,
Holdin' his noggin in his hand.
Banned take one look and moan,
And hit the road for part unknown.
Beware, take care, he rides alone.
And there's no RAFians like a RAFian whose spurned.
They don't like him, and he's really burned.
He swears to the longest day he's dead.
He'll show them that he can get a head.
They say he's tired of his flamin' top.
He's got a yern to make a swap.
So he rides one night each year
To find a head in the hollow here.
Now he likes them little,
He likes them big.
Part in the middle, or a wig.
Black or white or even red.
With a hip-hop and a clippity-clop,
He's out lookin' for a top to chop.
So don't stop to figure out a plan.
You can't reason with a headless man!
Now if you doubt this tale is so,
I met that RAFian just a year ago.
Now, I didn't stop for a second look.
But made for the bridge that spans the brook.
FOr once you've crossed that bridge, my friend,
The RAFian is through, his power ends.
So when you're riding home tonight,
Make for the bridge with all your might.
He'll be down in the hollow there.
He needs your head, look out, beware --
With a hip-hop and a clippity-clop,
He's out lookin' for a top to chop.
So don't stop to figure out a plan.
You can't reason with a headless man!"

"Is that real?" Dpsb asked.

"Of course not," Cloak said, dismissively. "It's just a myth. Just a fable or a tall story."

"Doesn't mean it can't be true," Saffa said.

"You're just being contrary," Cloak said, stoically.

"Doesn't invalidate my argument," Saffa said, with an indifferent shrug.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 16, 2016, 02:11:37 PM

Goddamn, what gh said, that chapter really got to me. That conflict in the last few was played out very well. Turned out to be a great book, this. :)

And here's the PDF:

Also, new book title sounds like some George Orwell stuff. Very ominous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2016, 09:20:07 PM

Thanks.

Though I don't know about this book being Orwellian, as it is loosely based on an episode from "Eerie, Indiana".

Anyway, new book ideas. And, yes, I know that they are more vague than usual. Some of them, anyway.

• Book DCCCLXXIX: "Hyper Time" -- An abusive boy finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXX: "Different Dimension Suit" -- A shy boy finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXXI: "Dream Dropper" -- A dreamer finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXXII: "An Old Foe" -- The RAFian reminiscence about dispelling a Mor-Taxan invasion nearly twelve years or so ago.
• Book DCCCLXXXIII: "Contentions" -- The RAFians are drawn into a conflict between the Highbreed and the Mor-Taxans.
• Book DCCCLXXXIV: "Cryog Me a River" -- A villainous foe of RAF tries to instigate a war between the RAFians and the Cryog.
• Book DCCCLXXXV: "Strength Suit" -- A bullying victim finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXXVI: "Sky Suit" -- A thrillseeker finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXXVII: "Sea Suit" -- A swimmer finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXXVIII: "Soil Suit" -- A dirty person finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCLXXXIX: "The 'Porter" -- A flighty person finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXC: "Shadowed Man" -- An often overlooked prankster finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCI: "Mnemonic Wanderer" -- An amnesiac finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCII: "Silenced No More" -- A mute teen finds a very special suit.

Don't think I rehashed any plotlines, and all titles are subject to change at any time. At this point, it is quite easy to do. But as I've said before, I do intend to write all of these books, even though I don't make a dime off 'em.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Lost RAFians

After the bonfire, Cloak went to the archives. He was feeling a bit on the nostalgic side, and was watching old videos of older missions. Including some RAFians that were all but forgotten, and unknown to some of the newer RAFians.

"Who are they?" asked a voice.

Dspb, Saffa, and GH had joined him.

"That's Kelran, a RAFian gryphon. And traycon." Cloak said. "And Ken. And Anna."

"I don't know them." Saffa said, as Hylian Dan appeared on the archived footage.

"You wouldn't," Cloak said, looking at footage of CounterInstinct and RYTX having a spirited discussion, as RAFians are apt to do. "They were . . . lost, before you joined up."

"They don't have Marks." Dspb said, looking a footage clearly displaying Leafy's open palms.

"They were lost to us before the Marks came into being," Cloak said, as Taiyoh was discussing something, looking thoughtful.

"You keep saying lost," GH said, as Cloak snapped the footage off. "Are they dead?"

Cloak was silent for a moment or two, before replying, "I cannot answer that which I do not know."

"You could said, 'I don't know', too, Cloak." Saffa teased. "There's such a thing as being too cryptic."

Cloak said nothing, but that was because his mind was on the RAFians whose statuses were unknown. Gafrash, Ken, Anna, Kelran, tray, and the rest . . . they did not know whatever became of them. The old guard . . . Cloak remembered them fondly. . . .

"Cloak?" GH asked. "Are you okay?"

Cloak didn't like not knowing ehwt happened to them, these venerable RAFians. He felt guilt and shame never finding out what became of them. He had just assumed they moved on with their lives, and put the whole missions and such behind them. RAFians do do this from time to time.

But they never drop out of contact, off the radar, as these lost ones did. He and the other RAFians had gotten so busy, so obsessed with other missions of greater priority, that . . . eventually . . . they were forgotten by almost all. They were lost to RAF.

And, Cloak was quick to realize, no one was immune. He, himself, could just as easily be lost . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2016, 12:50:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Well, That Was . . . Usually Unprecedented

The next day, Cloak was feeling particularly restless. He could not decide on anything to do, and paced around. He did not know the cause of this restlessness, but knew that he must excise it as soon as he could.

He left the forum, but told no one. They would all assume that he was in one of his moods, which was undeniably true. He left his thread, his footfalls quiet as his feline nature and physiology made them such. He did not head to the forest, to meditate. He would not search for Aniyu right now, as he knew that it would only end up in frustration.

So, he donned his ID mask, projecting his usual human image over his form, making him appear to be three feet shorter than he really was, and a whole lot meeker than he took truly was. He wasn't aware by affecting this appearance that he might be making himself into a target, because he had allowed himself to become comfortable with people giving him his space.

Thos was rather dangerous to Cloak, who had a habit of being guarded with things. It was careless and reckless of him. He was dimly aware of this, but he really didn't care. He was restless and irritable, as he manuevered around the city.

He passed an electronics store where Bern Bridges was on the television, which was odd because Cloak was under the impression that he had a radio show, not a tv show. He was spout off his usual bile-filled bilge which had no factual basis, thouh he pretended that it was unshakable proof of RAF's culpability in everything conspiratorially happening in the world. Not a word of truth in his entire spiel. But what angered Cloak most was the crowd watchingnit and nodding as if Bridges was presneting some good points when it was just vile vomit of thr most repugnant kind.

And people just chose to believe that as truth. They chose to believe it as truth because they wanted to believe it was true. Emotion over rationality, whereas Cloak's rationality usually always superseded his emotions, which were, at most times, kept under lock and key.

Cloak had stopped in an alleyway, to compose himself. To take a deep breath, and remind himself that not everyone was a slave politically to their emotions, and some cared more about actual facts rather the spin placed on them.

It happened with a single footstep. He had accidentally Earthsighted a network of tunnels beneath the city that he never "saw" before with Earthsight, all leading to a single cavernous room that seemed to be some sort of perverse storage depot. This shocked him, because he thought he knew everything about the city's geography, both abive and below ground. How could he have possibly this? It couldn't have possibly have been new. There could not be this much progress for this system of tunnels in a span of two months let alone one.

"Hands where we can see them, boyo," came a voice with a really bad Irish accent. Obviously, something to disguise their voice, and not very well, at that. "Obey and no one need get hurt."

He sounded as if he really wanted Cloak to disobey them. Cloak knew that these guys would immediately renege on this if he complied. And Cloak was really not in the mood for this.

"Now, now," the guy with the bad Irish accent said again. Cloak saw that he wore a yellow ski mask, where only his blue eyes were visible. Cloak found it very difficult to feel intimidated in this situation. "We don't want to get hurt, now do we?"

"Yes," Cloak said, indulging in the feline inclination to play with their targets. Not that he considered these would-be muggers food, or a threat. "I'd imagine that you'd really wouldn't want to be hurt."

"He thinks he's clever, he does," said one of the three would-be muggers, this onenin a blue ski mask, speaking with a dreadfully bad ****ney accent. "He isn't right in the head, this one."

"Let's see if he bleeds," said the one in the red ski mask. He spoke with a very poor southern drawl. "Let's see if he bleeds."

Cloak was irritated by these very bad accents, and yet, part of him was very amused by the fact that these three thought they could mug him. Granted, his ID mask hid his identity of being a nonhuman, but the fact that three had no idea with what and who they they were dealing with amused the Realm Walker, despite himself.

"Not yet, Larry," Yellow Mask said.

Larry? Cloak thought. That had better be a pseudonym, or these three are dumber than I thought.

"Lemme," he said, savagely in a deranged manner. He dropped the not-so-subtle southern drawl, that that he was trying to use to disguise his rather distinctive voice. Cloak could tell that this Larry guy had a sadistic, masochistic personality, and Cloak wondered about his sanity. "Lemme, lemme, lemme . . ."

"Not yet," Yellow Mask said, maintaining that pathetically bad Irish accent. Then he addressed Cloak, "Give us your valuables, pal."

Cloak's eyes glinted dangerously, but the three guffawing, grimacing idiots did not get this as a warning sign. "You really haven't any idea who you're dealing with, do you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 17, 2016, 01:21:17 AM

Forgot to mention this earlier, but now I read all of Bern Bridges' outbursts in JK Simmons' voice. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2016, 07:07:02 PM

Well, that's a bit odd, considering the person I based Bern Bridges on is a lot fatter and a lot more obnoxious than J. K. Simmons.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Suspicions

"So," Saffa said, as she and the others heard what happened, "what did you do then?"

Cloak recalled this. Recalled driving the three into the ground like tent spikes, and leaving them there for the police to figure out what to do with them. He was aware that there were some pro-RAFian cops, but, as logic would dictate, there were anti-RAFian cops as well.

"I grounded them," Cloak said.

"In what way?" Saffa asked shrewdly.

"Now, about the new tunnels that I Earthsighted," Cloak said, obviously deflecting the issue, "I find it highly suspicious."

"Cloak, I will not be dissuaded so easily," Saffa said, with a withering glower that would cause even the bravest men to quiver with fear.

"Isn't it possible that you just haven't noticed them before?" Abby said. "You are rarely in the city when not actively on a mission, and thus have your mind focused on the task at hand."

Cloak said nothing for a moment. Realm Walkers tended to be a prideful species, and Cloak was not immune to this facet. He replied slowly, "It . . . it is possible. I . . . I suppose."

Cloak realized how prideful he sounded, and he felt shameful for it.

"I think there is a bigger question here," Wild said. "The question isn't so much as how, but why. From your description Cloak, these tunnels are not natural in origin, and you said that you Earthsighted an underground depository of some sort, right?"

"That I did," Cloak said.

"What exactly is a depository for?" Wild continued, speaking rhetorically. "What is stored there?"

"Looked like junk to me," Cloak added.

"That just brings up the question of why have a depository for junk?" Aquilai chimed in.

"Geez, this sounds like the plot for a '90s kid show." GH commented. No one appeared to pay him any mind.

"There is just too little information for us to make any salient conclusions," Terenia said, thoughtfully. "Too little information to go off."

"Then the solution is simple," Dpsb said, " we're just gonna hafta investigate it ourselves!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2016, 08:52:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Do or Do Not, There is No Try

Silence met Dspb's words.

"What?" he said, sounding a bit defensive.

"He does have a point, you know," Cloak said. "There needs to be an investigation on this."

"Why?" Sakki asked.

Cloak began to say something, but stopped when he realized he couldn't make a reasonable argument for going. Not one that he felt that was sound enough to suffice. He couldn't really say because he wanted to or because he had a hunch, he felt.

"Cloaky," Horse said, "there isn't a reason for us to investigate. It could, and probably would, be seen as us exceeding our authority."

"And god knows that our PR is in the proverbial toilet, thanks to Bern Bridges, the loudmouth whose more sourdough than man," Faerie said, dully.

Cloak remained silent, as he tried to conceive of a better argument than what he currently had. He did not know why this was so important to him, but he felt that it was a necessary excursion. Or maybe it was just his feline curiosity getting the better of him. Or maybe it was something else. Who knows?

"I actually think thst Cloak is right," GH said.

"GH . . ." Mr. Guy said.

"No," he said, more firmly. "I know you think that I'm just some lovable goofball -- and I am -- but I can be serious when the time calls for it. This happens to be one of those times."

"We can't just go and investigate," Mr. Guy said. "It may very well be outside our jurisdiction."

"And if it is? And if we don't act immediately on it? Even preemptively?" Saffa said. "No matter how you slice it, there is gonna be some political blowback. Regardless of action or inaction, we will have to foot the blame. I'm not saying that it's fair, by any means, but politics and public opinion are rarely fair."

"Saffa, such a decision isn't something to be taken lightly," Steph said.

"I'm not saying it is," Saffa said. "But I'd much rather be seen doing something, than doing nothing and being dismissive about a potential threat."

"But we don't know that it's a threat," Aquilai said. "We would get marred as interventionists."

"Not if this network of tunnels and storage depository is not perfectly legal," GH countered. "You're assuming that the existence of this actually is legal. What if it is not?"

"And if it is?" Aila asked.

"I doesn't matter what we do," Cloak said, "some people will always find it dubious. Some people will always choose to ignore the facts, a few with great gusto. We won't achieve universal popularity -- that's an impossibility. There will always be people who question our methods, our positions, our integrity, whether with or without reason to. Bern Bridges proves this daily."

Silence met the Realm Walker's words, as everyone appeared to mull this over.

"People will believe whatever they want to believe." Cloak continued. "There is no changing that. You might becable to convince some people of the truth, but there will always be those who resist, those who refuse to.acknowledge any legitimacy to it. But we cannot allow that to impede our goal of granting the people safety just the same. We do. Or we do not. Each choice -- as inaction is a choice as well -- has potentially detrimental political ramifications."

Silence again, but this time Cloak did not break it as it stretched on and on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 18, 2016, 11:03:35 AM

Heh, chapter title.

Nice speech.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 18, 2016, 12:22:29 PM

Really liked this chapter. Cloaky's speech was great, and Saffa and I just tore **** up. *High fives*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 18, 2016, 01:10:04 PM

Living up to that RAFaward. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2016, 09:20:44 PM

I actually forgot about that RAFaward.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
They Get Lost

It was decided to sent the average mission contingent to investigate. It consisted of Cloak, Dpsb, GH, Hunter, Saffa, and Helen. All they had to do now was find an opening, and entranceway into the tunnels.

Cloak passed something that he did not notice before. It was a missing child poster, and he felt a sense of sadness. It was a boy called Lee Johns, who was missing from his bed about a week or two ago. The boy's picture showed a child with a big build, sandy hair, an impish glint in his eye, and a broad smile. He was really a cute kid, and it was a shame that he was missing and lost.

He remembered when his believed that his mother turned Faith and Shadow against him, thought they hated him. He remembered how his heart felt like it had shattered, how he . . .

No. No, this was not the time for dwelling on that. He must move on. He closed his eyes and used his Earthsight. He was looking for an entrance, and he remarked to himself this was like finding an entryway to the Yeerk Pool. Yeerks seemed to have a proclivity for keeping their Pools in darkened caves and whatnot, unless in times of emergency. At least that's what the RAFian Yeerks seemed to prefer, even the opening of it being a secret known only amongst them. But Cloak knew it was in some proximity to the Archives, only a bit deeper down.

But that was a bit of a disjointed non sequitur. Time to focus on the task at hand.

They were passed by a nondescript man in a pretty standard delivery man getup. Everything about him was so forgettable, it was almost as if it was intentional. Cloak felt something that he didn't like about the guy, but he didn't know why he felt this sudden hostile reaction to a guy he just met. He did not know why this guy just rubbed him the wrong way.

Then he was gone and Cloak was glad.

"This is just an ordinary alleyway," Dpsb said.

"Dylan, Dylan, Dylan," GH said, in his usual jovial manner, "you've been a RAFian long enough to know by now, everything is not what it seems."

"There," Cloak said, pointing to a bricked wall. "That's a false wall. It covers up the entryway to the tun-- no, wait, they're more like chutes than true tunnels."

"How's that any different?" Saffa asked.

"You're about to find out," Cloak said, pushing open the false wall. It opened inward, and the wall was actually heavier than Cloak had anticipated. It would need to be held open.

"Why do I hafta go first?"

"You know what they say, Saffs," GH said, "ladies first."

BONK!!

"Hey! You didn't have to hit me, Saffa!"

"It was an accident. I'm sorry," Saffa said, unconvincingly, as she slid down the chute into whatever this depository was.

"No, you aren't," GH accused, as he slid down after her.

Hunter was next, with Helen following after. Then Dpsb went after. Cloak was last to follow, sliding down the chute not unlike Disney's interpretation of Tarzan.

"Aaah!" an elderly, miserly man yelled in shock. Then he composed himself, and said, "Don't do that again, you lot. You almost gave me a coronary."

"What the --?" Dspb spluttered.

"There are no words," GH said.

"Welcome," the old guy said, wearing a sun visor, "to the Bureau . . . of Lost."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 18, 2016, 10:07:11 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 18, 2016, 09:20:44 PM

"There are no words," GH said.

Okay, how the hell did you know that was something I say all the friggin' time in real life? There's no way you're not stalking me. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2016, 10:11:44 PM

I believe you said it once or twice in chat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 18, 2016, 10:14:39 PM

I don't recall saying it, but it's possible. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 19, 2016, 08:39:37 AM

Quote

"You're about to find out," Cloak said, Paul pushing open the false wall.

Who's Paul?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2016, 10:00:04 AM

A typo. Goddamn virtual keyboard.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Bureau of Lost

The whole area was dark, dimly lit by a light colored a cool blue, with a bit of yellow light here and there. But what was more concerning was the mounds and mounds of stacked merchandise in wooden crates. Further Earthsight confirmed that it was indeed junk. Old and forgotten, miscellaneous and many.

The man who welcomed them had a shock of white hair, a clean-shaven face, a sun visor, black gloved hands, a long black coat, gray sweater vest, white dress shirt, and block loafers. He also had some necklaces around his neck that almost made him seem like a homeless man, if his clothes weren't so clean and polished.

"The Bureau of Lost?" Helen repeated. "Like a federal lost and found?"

"Did you ever hear me utter any variation of that word? 'Found'?" he said, saying the word with great distaste.

"You steal the possessions of others," Cloak said, "and you're not even selling it. You're just stacking it here."

"STEALING?!" he said. Cloak saw his nametag said Hermes Hamstern (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hamstern#German). Then Hoard muttered, "When I took this job, they said not expect any gratitude!"

"Well, that's precisely what you're doing, pal!" Saffa said, unafraid to back down.

"I'm a certified misappropriation engineer!" Hamstern argued.

"Get that certification off a cereal box?" GH asked, pseudo-innocently.

Hamstern swelled like an angry Jigglypuff, but said nothing.

"This can't be legal." Hunter said.

"Of course, it's perfectly legal!" Hamstern snarled. "How do you think we recovered from the depression?"

"You're insane." Helen said, speaking simultaneously with Saffa, who said, "That makes no sense."

"Of course, it makes perfect sense!" Hamstern said, completely ignoring Helen. "If not for us, people would hold on to their belongings until they wore out. And thing do something ridiculous -- like getting them fixed!"

"Yep. You're definitely insane," GH said, agreeing with Helen's assessment. "I doubt losing things stimulates the government."

Hamstern did not deign to reply to this assertion. But he continued to mill around.

"I think we've seen enough," Cloak said. He was fully intending on looking up this Hermes Hamstern person, considering reporting him to the proper authorities. "We'll be going now."

"Go?" Hamstern said, aw if this was a preposterous notion. "I can't let you go topside! There mustn't be any chance of our service being known to the public at large. Imagine them in these halls, whining about lost dolls, moaning about lost change?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 19, 2016, 10:22:01 AM

Well, to be fair, before the Great War the rich were really in over their heads with their possessions. And they had too many. The divide was ridiculously large.

Then again I don't think Hamstern was an economics buff. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2016, 07:37:50 AM

Great War?

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Divided

"You can't let us go topside?" Cloak said, rounding on Hamstern with a deliberate slowness, his cloak slicing through the air like a pendulum guillotine with his slow strides toward Hamstern. It was a visual cue of danger. Danger to Hamstern.

Realm Walkers are very much accustomed to coming and going as they pleased. Cloak was no exception. One reason that the Oblivion Gate was considered tk be a very harsh punishment, as they were restrained from doing just that.

"Of course!" Hamstern said, piddling around some pile of junk. "No, no, no, not topside."

Cloak allowed a tense, terse silence, which Hamstern seemed to be oblivious to. Cloak growled dangerly, "You have no idea the powers with which you meddle, do you."

Hamstern said nothing, and had seemed to vanish amongst the stacked junk. He did not reappear, so he considered Cloak of little threat. This irritated him more, despite himself. There was a real danger of Cloak levelling the entire place, unoess the situation was defused.

"Cloak, you need to calm down," Helen said.

Didn't work.

"GH, do the thing!" Saffa said, in a very Varrick (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Varrick) way.

GH unshouldered his guitar and played a quick, novel tune. A tune that managed to speak to the Realm Walker. A tune that managed to calm him down, and allow himself to retain control and composure over himself.

"We should explore this place a bit first," Dpsb said. "There might be things of interest here."

"No looting, Dylan," Helen said.

"I wasn't gonna --"

"Dylan . . ."

"No, really! I wasn't --"

"I can tell you're lying," Cloak said, with a halfhearted smirk.

"Oh, okay!" Dpsb.grumbled.

"You're supposed to be a good guy," Hunter teased, "and good guys don't loot."

Dpbs gave Hunter a look. And it was a good thing that Dpsb wasn't a basilisk.

"I suppose that we should split up," Helen said, "if we want to be thorough about this."

"Isn't splitting up a bad idea?" GH said.

"You scared of ol' Hamstern?" Dpsb teased.

"Don't make me slap you, Dylan." GH countered.

So they split up into different directions, and.proceeded with their investigation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 20, 2016, 07:41:47 AM

I seem to be the only one who ever objects to splitting up. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2016, 07:44:05 AM

Well, you have common sense. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 20, 2016, 07:45:47 AM

Well, that's debatable. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 20, 2016, 08:46:22 AM

Great War = World War I

And YAASSS I GET A VARRICK IMPERSONATION. ;D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2016, 12:14:36 AM

Oh. Guess that i didn't need to link it to the wiki then.

New book ideas! Yes again.

• Book DCCCXCIII: "Speed Suit" -- A husky boy finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCIV: "Size Matters" -- A small boy finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCV: "Acoustically Armed" -- A rival of GH's finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCVI: "Powers of Persuasion" -- A slick, oily man finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCVII: "Polygraph Man" -- An anarchist finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCVIII: "Luck of the . . . Perish" -- An unlucky loser finds a very special suit.
• Book DCCCXCIX: "Persistent Papparazzo" -- A paparazzo finds a very special suit.
• Book CM: "Glitchy" -- A gamer finds a very special suit.

Year 10.

• Book CMI: "Melt With You" -- A very angry, but misinformed, youth finds a very special suit.
• Book CMII: "One-Man Army" -- A friendless man finds a very special suit.
• Book CMIII: "Heart Swap" -- A lonely boy finds a very special suit.
• Book CMIV: "You're Getting Sleepy . . ." -- A failed hypnotist finds a very special suit.
• Book CMV: "Mumsy Dearest" -- An old foe and a notorious hag unite in a very uncomfortable relationship, and the RAFians must stop them.

Don't think I rehashed anything, but if I did, I'll find a way to work around it. I think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 21, 2016, 12:32:49 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 21, 2016, 12:14:36 AM

• Book DCCCXCV: "Acoustically Armed" -- A rival of GH's finds a very special suit.

UGH WHY DO ALL THE BOOKS THAT HAVE MY BACKSTORY HAVE TO BE SO FAR IN THE FUTURE? :P

Also, I can only imagine that this rival is Chad Kroeger from Nickelback.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2016, 11:05:43 AM

Consequence of me not thinkin' them up earlier.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Lost and Forgotten Plotlines

Saffa walked cautiously upon her chosen path. But she walked resolutely, with deliberation. She didn't really know what to make of this place. She knew rich people had a tendacy to horde things, like wealth for instance. But this? This was ridiculous.

Thee had to be more people than Hamstern involved. There is no way he could have amassed this much junk, unless he had been doing this since the forties. Although, in this world, anything was possible. And the guy was clearly insane, if what he thought what he was doing was a stimulus to the economy, since he clearly targeted the average man, and than the rich who could affrord to lose some things, but they hold onto in their sheer, unmitigated avarice.

She looked at these crates of forgotten, lost things, and wondered if they were still missed. She cursed the lighting in this place. It made the whole Bureau take on a very "Scooby Doo"-like feel, but not in a comedic way.

Eventually Saffa came upon and open wooden crate with papers haphazardly stacked. She was beneath one of the intermittent yellow lights that afforded her enough light to read. Curiosity got the better of her and she looked into the crate and began reading the papers, which some showed signs of being crumbled up, as if their writer discarded them and later came to regret this decision. Some of team looked pristine, but still lost and forgotten.

Saffa read through them.

A story about a boy trying to protect his younger brother from mind-stealing aliens . . .

A "Lilo & Stitch" story parodying "The Lord of the Rings". . . .

As she read on, she saw more and.more abandoned or forgotten plotlines. Plotlines that would have drastically change the stoies had they been included, or just marginally distasteful way.

This led Saffa to winder just how he managed to obtain these. Did he go rooting through garbage? Or was it something else? Saffa became sure that Hamstern had others helping him in this ludicrous venture. He had to have underlings or minions or something to help him in this . . .

Good god, what is this was funded by the government? Governments are not immune from corruption -- and it would be stupidly naive to believe any were -- and they have had a history of pulling stupid, covert things like this. Pulling them without considering the consequence- -- or that could just be unused plotline that she was reading. But it still had truth in it.

She went through more and more abandoned plotlines, and she could see why many of them were abandined -- they little to no sense, they completely ruined an established character, they jumped the shark (several times), they were completely predictable and trite, too dialogue-heavy and devoid of emotion, just poorly written, and a whole host of other reasons.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 21, 2016, 11:48:34 AM

Nice, if I poke about some more I might just find half of the second Avengers movie. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2016, 10:10:13 PM

Perhaps. ;)

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TEN:
Lost and Forgotten Media

Dpsb walked (deciding not to fly, using the powers of Shazam) he looked around at the mounds of crates. He wondered how people could have simply owned so much stuff, much less lost them. It seemed like too much stuff.

He didn't even know how big this room was. Were there more rooms beyond this one? How many walkways formed by these towering, stacked crates were there beyond this one he walked? An infinite amount? Was that even physically possible?

"What's this?" He picked up an odd sort of device of magnetic tape technology, which was for audio storage. An 8-track tape, in surprisely good condition. It must have been -- ahem -- "lost" when it was fairly new and unused. Or it was made new for whatever reason.

Dpsb discovered several other 8-track tapes, but not in as good of condition. Not by a long shot. One had a buildup of some substance called Capstan, while another had Capstan wear. Another had a head misalignment. Yet another was missing a sensing foil. Others weredamaged and neglected, but Dpsb didn't care to find out just how, finding the 8-track tapes old, archaic, and distasteful.

He moved on, like evetually everyone else did, from the 8-track tapes. And they were forgotten and lost once more.

He found a bunch of old and discarded cassette tapes. Many of them had tangled up messes of the magnetic tape where the audio was stored, where the tape players "ate" the tape. It was the inevitable fate for an often-listened-to cassette tape. Dpsb didn't hold much interest in them, with their tape-y afros.

Then he came upon an open crate with enough caseless CDs to single a small house or lean-to. They didn't seem to have any printing on them, which didn't mean anything really. They could have just labelless "mix tapes" that have been forgotten and lost. Perhaps deliberately.

And more and more did Dpsb discover old, antiquated media players. He felt very out of his element. And the fact that the dim blue light was starting to grate on his nerves wasn't helping matters.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 22, 2016, 03:44:53 AM

Yeah, this should've been gh's area, he would've never left. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 22, 2016, 03:47:54 AM

Funnily enough, I collect CDs, have a passing interest in vinyl (I have a few dozen records), and have been meaning to start collecting cassette tapes, but have never even seen an 8-track in real life. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 22, 2016, 03:59:44 AM

WHAAAAAT?! I have a bunch of those sitting at home! My dad used to record songs on them while he was in college. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 22, 2016, 04:00:33 AM

. . . What albums do you have?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 22, 2016, 04:06:29 AM

I have no idea. There is a **** ton of cassettes sitting at home that I haven't fully looked through yet. Mostly because the cassette player needs to be fixed. :P The ones my dad made were random mix tapes though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2016, 05:20:50 PM

Oh, had plans of a more specific type with GH's area. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Lost and Forgotten Music

GH had taken his own route, but he couldn't help but fume a little. Had no one else seen horror movies? Not that this was a horror movie, but still! Splitting up is the worst possible thing you can do in these situations, even despite having powers! Why wasn't that obvious to his fellow RAFians? Had they gotten so confident with their abilities that crossed the line into hubris?

Dah! It was probably true, as hubris is a real present danger of infecting those with a good deal of power. But there was nothing he could do about it, he felt. Well, sure, he could play music to manipulate the feelings of others, but, while that wasn't a direct way of controlling others like say a Yeerk or a Heinlin would, GH wasn't really too fond of being used as sort of a music box. There was more to him than "soother of savage beasts".

Though, now that he thought about it, he did like the title. "GH, the Soother of Savage Beasts". It did have a ring to it that was appealing, in a way.

As he walked, he noticed that his chosen walkway was filled with music. Lost and forgotten music.

"Lost and forgotten with good reason," he muttered to himself. He did not particularly care for this kind of music, happening to know a lot of varied works of artists and whatnot, and he was a bit of a music connoisseur, in this regard, with a discriminating taste.

"What's this?" he said, discovering an old recording. Recorded on a VHS no less! He found a working VHS player and old television already hooked up. He popped the tape in, and found that the video quality and audio quality were . . . acceptable.

He saw several people that he did not recognize singing. Somehow he wasn't surprised. And how was he to know that they were lost and/or forgotten RAFians?

They sang:

"Remember the RAFians
You loved yesterday?
Where did they go?
Did they pass away?
Was it drugs or car crash?
Or a tune-up gone wrong?
No, they're right here
And singing this adapted song!"

Anna sang:

"My name is Anna. I shake up this forum!"

Ken sang:

"Remember me, dude?
I am Ken, and -- um . . . "

These lost RAFians sang:

"We're the RAFians
You thought were dead.
Like Jax and Kelran, as we've said.
The Bureau's the place
That we all have found.
We took Animorphs
And made it a town."

Toominator sang:

"What can I say?
Sorry for the delay.
I'll do three posts a day!"

Taiyoh sang:

"Taiyoh doesn't sleep in the ground.
Yes, I'm alive and I'm making my sounds."

The lost RAFians sang:

"So, sit back, relax, and watch this never-ending revue --"

Gafrash sang:

"Be prepared for the replay as this revue is due!"

They started the song over again. No, it wasn't being replayed -- VHS tapes required you rewind the tape for that. They just kept singing it over and over again, until they were too tired to so much as stand up again.

What was this? GH found himself wondering incredulously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 22, 2016, 09:08:27 PM

BRB, changing my profile.

Also, it better not have been certain music that I was discussing yesterday that was playing on the walkway. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2016, 12:09:07 PM

Hmmm . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Lost and Forgotten Love

Helen walked her chosen walkway, eschewing any need to fly, reasoning that it was to save her ring power. She was currently at 98%, and it was sufficient enough for her needs here, she thought.

But as she walked she saw things -- damaged photos, discarded and forgotten items such as teddy bears clutching big fluffy hearts and other kitschy, schmaltzy gifts, items of a maudlin or bathetic nature, among other things she'd rather not describe. To Helen, it represented those in love who tried too hard to woo or court their desired mate.

These were the people, she mused, that were desperate for love, for acceptance, or maybe even repentance for a past misdeed. And if all this stuff was here, lost and forgotten, then clearly there current attempt had failed. But she knew, from her experiences will creppy old Louis Cannon, who was some considerable years her senior, some people just did not get the message. Cannon went so far as to kill himself . . .

She shuttered a bit. She didn't like thinking about that.

Then there were the items of a scandalously scurrilous nature. Items that were aimed to, by their very design, harm the person or the person's reputation to whom they were given. By their very natures, these items were vile, despicable, morally bankrupt, and evil. Helen found them absolutely repugnant, without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. She repugned these very actions of scorned lovers, which she was certain what these were, which she found to be unnecessarily hateful and mean. Clearly, from people accustomed to getting their way, and she had no love for such people.

These, Helen thought, were the people who, yes, were accustomed to getting what they want, but also were abusive and controlling. This were often powerful people who could use that influence to harm others, if they didn't reciprocate their feelings. These were some of the most despicable people who did not understand the true path, the true power of love. The Zamarons were once like this, Helen had heard. . . .

Then Helen came to a part of a walkway, and she stopped. Here were broken toys, but clearly cherished ones. The paints and whatnot where worn in places, but it was clear that these toys were very much loved by the children who had owned them, and some did not appear broken, in terms of functionality, but were clearly frequently played with when they were with their child.

Helen wanted to believe at these toys' stories were as simple as their child grew up and put childish things away, but, sadly, in this day and age, the story was just as likely to be darker than that scenario. An older sibling breaks the toy as a form of retribution, the toy was the only love that a child felt from a parent or parents who held no love for the child and saw him or her as an inconvenience (something that she, thankfully, never experienced, but knew to be true, as she heard about Cloak's past).

She looked up and down this walkway. So many crates of so many items . . . were their stories happy or sad? Would their stories ever be told?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 23, 2016, 12:20:36 PM

Knowing Star Sapphires, she better keep moving.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2016, 09:57:09 PM

Helen is tough.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Lost and Forgotten Species

Hunter prowled his chosen walkway, like a lone wolf on the prowl. Walking through these paths was really reminiscent of walking a labyrinth, though hopefully without any Minotaurs. Hunter supposed that Hamstern -- or Hamster-Boy, as Hunter preferred to think of him -- could count, but he wasn't particularly fearsome, and he wouldn't savagely devour him if he encountered the geriatric "misappropriation engineer".

It was a while before Hunter stopped to notice the items around him. A stuffed bird about twice the height of Hunter, at least. It had purple feathers and gray skin, four green eyes. It had a long beak with sharp teeth. It was a mock-up of Omnivoracious, so good that it looked taxidermied, a creature that Hunter hasn't ever met, nor would ever meet. It was extinct, and was the predator of the small, frog-like Galvans, one of the most intelligent species known.

Hunter wouldn't admit it, but the big bird had scared him. The life-sized Omnivoracious mock-up could do massive damage to Hunter, and he wasn't nearly as smart as a Galvan, a species of scientists and Einsteins.

He passed by an odd canine-like marsupial with stripes on its hindquarters and a stiff tail. It was taxidermied. It was a thylacine, and believed by many to be extinct. This particular one was about fifty inches long, not including the tail. Hunter, however, couldn't be bothered to examine it, just giving it a slight scrutiny before moving on.

Hunter walked by a odd, three-foot-tall flightless bird with a thick, long beak with brownish or greyish plumage. It did not really resemble its stereotypical design, this dodo mock-up. Like the thylacine, Hunter only afforded it the merest of glances, before pressing on.

He passed more and more mock-ups or taxidermied specimens of lost and forgotten species by mankind, which were extinct or rare by man's own hand. Some only extinct in the wild, others practically extinct already save for a few surviving members, insufficient for saving the species. A Haast's eagle, a Guam flying fox, a great auk, a Formosan clouded leopard, an eastern Sumatran rhinoceros, a dwarf hutia, Chatham fernbird, a Chadwick Beach cotton mouse, Caucasian wisent, a Carpathian wisent, a Carolina parakeet, Cape lion, bushwren, a bubal hartebeest, a Barbary lion, an auroch, a bluebuck, an Atlas bear, a Bali tiger, a big-eared hopping mouse, a bulldog rat, a California grizzly bear, a Caribbean monk seal, a Caspian tiger, a Cebu warty pig, a Chatham bellbird, a dusky seaside sparrow, an eastern elk, a Falkland Islands wolf, a Goff's southeastern pocket gopher, a Gull Island vole, a Hemigrapsus estellinensis . . . far too many.

And many humans, the average Joes, are only aware of but a few of these unfortunate species. Or just plain indifferent to their fatal plight. It was amazing just how self-centered some humans can be, amazing how much denial they can have about things like this and proven scientific fact.

Hunter was trying his best not to think about this. He needed to focus on the task at hand. The task . . . which was? What exactly was he looking for? Why did they split up again? Did they even discuss this, or go out on a mere whim?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 24, 2016, 12:21:28 AM

Did you Wikipedia "list of extinct species"? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 24, 2016, 08:22:22 AM

Maaaaaaybe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Lost and Forgotten Friends

Cloak walked through his chosen path. He walked forward, without looking back but once or twice. He saw the detritus of forgotten friendships and evidence of lost items of said friendships. Whether the friendships were ended because they just drifted away amicably, or if something came befween them and they split hostilely. In any case, it was of very little importance to the Realm Walker.

But then he started to remember back at the tailor end of his schooling days, roughly the Realm Walker variation of high school. He remembered that he wasn't alone. He did have friends . . . friends that he had drifted away from.

Reason, a rare human-form Realm Walker, who, years later, had encouraged him to get away from his mother, to get away from that toxic environment. Cloak regreted that it took himself so long to take heed to his sage council.

Cloudjaguar, a jaguar-form Realm Walker, a surprisingly energetic friend that Cloak can't recall ever frowning. He always seemed to be the funny man to Cloak's straight man.

Starjaguar, a melanistic jaguar-form Realm Walker, a stalwart, dependable friend. Cloak thought he became something like a firefighter after schooling.

Niteleopard, a melanistic leopard-form Realm Walker, a lively, energetic friend. Cloak remembered that he had a certain optimism to him.

Ozuma, a puma-form Realm Walker, a highly individualistic, loyal friend. Cloak and her did not get along at first . . . Cloak still didn't know how they buried the hatchet and became friends, but they did.

Whiteer, a white-tailed deer-form Realm Walker, who was a good friend, though Cloak wasn't particularly close to him. He had the opposite power of Corruption, and his touch could free the possessed from their possessors. He was Cloak's initial inspiration behind the Mark.

Belectro, a grizzly bear-form Realm Walker, who actually a friendship that seemed very contradictory, on the surface. But Cloak found it a good friendship, until they just drifted away after schooling. He had some electrokinetic abilities, but he didn't seem all that interested in exercising them.

Blazon, a bison-form Realm Walker, a spirited friend who really contrasted Cloak's stoicism. He wasn't as restrained and reserved as Cloak, and tended to throw himself into things. He had some pyrokinetic potential, but he never seemed too interested in developing it to the extent Cloak had to to earn the title of Elements Master.

Wavefin, a dolphin-form Realm Walker, a bright, optimistic, spiritual woman. She was very kind to Cloak, which he always appreciated. She had hydrokinetic abilities, but she didn't seem to have an interest in developing it at all.

Bravelephant, an elephant-form Realm Walker, a steady, down-to-earth friend. He was very pragmatic, perhaps moreso than Cloak. He had some illusion capability, but he never liked using the ability, as he prefered to be more "what you see is what you get" about himself.

Genest, a red fox-form Realm Walker, a clever, nonconfrontational, but deeply religious, friend. He had weather-influencing abilities, which he had used to full effect once. He didn't like to overuse this ability.

Invisiram, a ram-form Realm Walker, a headstrong, brave friend. He had invisibly abilities, but he never really bothered to use this ability very often. Only to escape really embarrassing situations once or twice.

Rhymetal, a black rhinoceros-form, a good friend, though Cloak and he did not see eye-to-eye on some ideological issues. He had the potential to have ferrokinetic abilities, but either appeared unaware of this fact, or indifferent.

Turthyme, a turtle-form, a good friend, if a bit a demurred. She had the ability to see timelines of others, but she never liked to used this ability, given hie potentially intrusive she perceived it.

All friends of his. All drifted away after schooling. And, yet, none knew the trials and tribulations he was going though at that time. His mother had just basically forced his father to leave, made Cloak himself believe that it was because that he didn't want to be a dad (which now Cloak seriously doubts the validity of), and basically live in a household with a veneer of love, but never anything beyond that, really.

These friends of his should have made him feel loved during schooling, but they didn't, not really. Simply because he did not know what that was . . . not until Shadow hatched from her Life-Light Egg, anyway.

So caught up in his thoughts as he was, he nearly missed what he had arrived at, by sheer accident. And he could not believe his eyes.

"Kelran?" he asked suddenly as he saw the Gryphon's prone form, alive and healthy, not in the least bit emaciated as one would think, given how long he had been away from RAF. But he wasn't alone. "Anna? Ken? Traycon? Gafrash? Taiyoh? Adeon? Toom? Morfowt?"

They were all here. Laying on the floor, like evacuated exosuits or life-sized dolls or something. It didn't make sense. Why? Why were they like this?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2016, 12:52:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Findings

Cloak could not rouse them. It was almost as if their minds were wiped. Why? Why were they like this? They didn't have Marks, they didn't benefit from its protections, albeit somewhat flawed protections.

Cloak kept trying before it became clear that it was not working, that this endeavor was fruitless and pointless to persist in it. But he wasn't about to leave here, this ludicrous and economically-dubious Bureau of Lost, without his fellow RAFians. As far as he was concerned, they were still RAFians, as they only took a leave of absence. They weren't Banned or denounced their membership, they were just merely retired, if anything.

Whatever the problem was, Cloak was going to require another perspective. Fortunately, he knew that the RAFians -- the ones he came down he with -- were around here in the Bureau somewhere.

Cloak inhaled deeply, and unleashed a roar. It was a tiger's roar, and could be heard for a two-mile radius. But then he thought that that wasn't the best of ideas. They probably wouldn't be able to find him by sound. At least, not by a single roar, at least.

He decided that a visual cue might have been more prudent. He generated a powerful golden-scarlet orb of energy, that overpowered the dim blue light with its golden-scarlet light. The orb eventually elongated and twisted itself into the RAFian "R". It would be a beacon for the RAFians to assemble to.

Or he hoped so.

***

Hunter was still mulling over their motives. He filled his mind with with thise aimless thoughts that pretended to have purpose, just so he wouldn't think about all those taxidermied animals or stunningly real mock-ups.

But his mind seemed resolute in dwelling on them, and he didn't know why. Perhaps it was his inner predator dwelling on potential prey? Great -- if it was, then his inner predator was stupid. They were dead and not for eating.

Hunter's ears picked up suddenly.

He had heard something, but it happened so suddenly but didn't last long enough for him to discern what it was. He thought it was a roar, but that couldn't be possible. Could it? Hunter supposed that it could have been Cloak, but why would he roar? Why would he need to?

The he saw Cloak's signal flare, and began to head in that direction immediately.

***

Helen was feeling sad about this lost loves, and found herself doing something she always did to make herself feel better. She thought of Parker, and everything else she loved. Then she spoke.

"For hearts long lost and full of fright . . ."

It wasn't working, sadness was building up, but, as love can be connected to sadness, it did not affect her ring. However, Helen rather not dwell in those feelings. Not in this place. Not here.

"For those alone in blackest night . . ."

Yes, she was reminding herself that love lost, while still a terrible thing, does happen, but it does not mean that it'll always happen to her. She was a Star Sapphire. She was a guardian of love, a wielder of the violet light . . .

"Accept our ring and join our fight."

Was that a roar? Nah. Couldn't be.

"Love conquers all -- with violet light!"

She raised her ring fist to the sky, as some violrt light burst forth from it. Then she noticed Cloak little signal, and immediately flew there.

***

GH rewound and watched the video again, still trying to understand just what it was about. Just what in God's ne were they doing? And why were they doing it over and over again? It was a VHs taoe, and they didn't have a looping feature that DVDs did. The people in the video did it deliberately over again and again, until they could no longer do it. Why?

GH wasn't stupid, despite what some people may have thought of him. He didn't care about what they thought, though. That was immaterial, superfluous, and extraneous. He knew this video was evidence to something, but he didn't know what. Clearly, it was important for them to repeatedly do the song number . . . but GH couldn't think of a reason behind it that he found satisfactory.

And who were these people anyway? He felt as if he should know of them, but he didn't. It was just bound to drive him crazy if he didn't find out why he felt this way. He was so caught up in this thst he didn't notice Cloak's roar. But Cloak's flare grabbed his attention.

"What now?" he grunted irrtiably, as he popped out the tape and took it with him as he headed over to Cloak's location.

***

The blue light was still too dim for Dpsb's liking. He was feeling very moody about it, but it couldn't be helped, so why bother continuing to grouse about it? But, he had to admit, it was rather boring here. He should have picked another walkway, he decided.

He found himself hovering about a foot off the ground before he caught himself. He was most pleased when he hewrd Cloak's roar and saw his beacon. He flew up and over, and made a beeline straight for him.

***

Saffa, curiosity having gotten the better of her, decided to root around to see if there was a lost or forgotten plotline from a movie sequel she had thought of. But she discovered a portable DVD player, which was turned on. Inquisitive, she pressed the play button. . . .

"Who controls the council of the town?
Who keeps the secular system down?
We do, we do!
Who keeps Atlas off the maps?
Who keeps the corruption under wraps?
We do, we do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Kanye West a star?
We do, we do!
Who scorns the alien blight?
Who rigs every awards night?
We do, we do!"

"So," Saffa said, "a full confessional of the Knights' many, many crimes. This is coming with me."

Then Saffa saw Cloak's flare.

"What fresh hell awaits now?" she wondered aloud.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 25, 2016, 01:23:56 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 25, 2016, 12:52:39 AM

GH wasn't stupid, despite what some people may have thought of him. He didn't care about what they thought, though. That was immaterial, superfluous, and extraneous.

You know, I think that's the first time I've seen my mindset actually put into words. :P

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 25, 2016, 12:52:39 AM

"What fresh hell awaits now?" she wondered aloud.

I feel like that's an Animorphs quote. Is that an Animorphs quote?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2016, 07:41:19 AM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on February 25, 2016, 01:23:56 AM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on February 25, 2016, 12:52:39 AM

"What fresh hell awaits now?" she wondered aloud.

I feel like that's an Animorphs quote. Is that an Animorphs quote?

Nope.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
RAFian Rendezvous

Cloak maintained the flare with practiced ease, waiting for the others to arrive. It began to occur to him that this might not only garner the attention of the others, but Hamstern might take notice of it as well.

But even if he did, what did matter? Hamstern wasn't a real threat. He could not keep them here. Not a chance. Not a chance in . . .

He glanced at the motionless forms of his friends. Did they really want to be here like this? Like mindless mannequins, like abandoned exosuits? He looked at each of them, with a solemn, stoic looks. How did they come to this place? Why didn't they leave? Surely, Hamstern couldn't stop them if they wanted out. Surely, they didn't want to languish here.

"What . . . ?" a wavering voice said. "What is this?"

"The reason that I had summoned you and the others here, Hunter."Cloak said, as Dpsb and Helen arrived and landed. Then he added, for Helen and Dpsb's benefit, "These are lost RAFians."

"They're creepy," Dpsb said, as GH arrived, carrying a black VHS tape for some reason.

"They don't have Marks," Helen observed, as Saffa strode up to them, carrying a silvery gray portable DVD player in her hands, with the cord wrapped around it.

"They were lost before the implementation of the Marks." Cloak said, ending the flare with a snap of his hands.

"Aw," Dpsb said, when the bright golden-scarlet light faded with the beacon.

"Wait, I recognize some of these guys," GH said, as he went to examine Ken's prone form. The guitarist was silence as he considered. Then he eyes widened as he realized why he recognized. "It is them."

"Them? What d'you mean?" Dpsb said, at once.

GH held up the unlabeled VHS tape, "This. Is there a VCR and TV nearby?"

"No," Cloak answered.

"Oh," GH said, but he wasn't deterred. "Well, it showed these guys singing a song over and over again. Until collapsed from exhaustion . . ."

GH looked over to them again.

"We're sure they're alive, right?" he asked, very seriously.

"They live," Hunter said. "Cloak and I would have been able to smell if they had."

"And they would be decomposing right now as well if they were."

"Juet what do you think you're doing?" came a huffy voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 25, 2016, 11:08:19 AM

Busted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2016, 11:17:41 AM

Yeah, just not in the way you think. And it looks like this book just might be longer than the requisite twenty chapters. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Confrontation

"Just what do you think that you are doing?" Hamstern's demanding voice was not what the RAFians wanted to hear at that particular moment. Cloak, in particular, rankled against being addressed as if he were a naughty child.

"What do we think we are doing?" Cloak said, his voice a soft, mincing tone. The other RAFians looked at each other, knowing that this was a warning sign, that Cloak was very near rage, though he managed to keep his emotions, his powers, in check. He repeated, "What do we think we're doing?"

Cloak approached Hamstern in a rather silkily menacing way. Greater men than the "misappropriation engineer" would have quailed under such intimidation. Cloak was furious, to be sure, but he was mastering that emotion so that his powers don't go out of control. He didn't have Shadow with him to help stem them.

"You c-c-can't attack me!" he said, slightly hysterical. "That'd be assault on a public official!"

"You're not a public anything," Saffa said, scornful. "No one knows what you're doing down here."

"I meant government official," Hamstern said, speaking very crosy to Saffa, but trying to keep distance between Cloak and himself.

"I can tell you're lying," Cloak growled quietly. "You're not affiliated with government at all, are you?"

"I am!!! I am!!!" he shrieked incessantly.

"Liar," Cloak said, voice soft but dangerous. "You just arbitrarily decided to kidnap RAFians, did you?"

"I didn't kidnap anyone!"

"You didn't let them leave, did you?" Helen accused.

"Of course not! We can't risk our service being revealed!"

"That's kidnapping, pal." Hunter said.

"It is not!" Hamstern countered.

"Unlawful incarceration, then," Hunter amended.

"It is not, it --"

"I don't care how you rationalize it," Cloak snarled. "What, in the name of the First Light, did you DO TO THEM?!"

"I didn't do any--"

"Don't lie to me, Hamstern," Cloak warned. "Speak the truth."

"I am!"

Cloak growled, to allow him to realize Cloak meant business. Cloak was tempted to left the man to his eye level, at least two or three feet off the ground for him. Hamstern was seriously irritating him.

"Now . . . answer the question. Do not lie. I will know."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 26, 2016, 12:09:15 PM

How has he not fainted yet? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2016, 07:52:42 PM

Like this . . .

And, yep, this book's gonna definitely be over twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Lost Selves

"They came down here, they were lost," Hamstern said, looking close to fainting.

"Faint, and I'll eat you," Cloak bluffed.

Hamstern gulped, then ploughed ahead with his narrative. "They wanted to leave, but I couldn't allow it. I have the only way out, only my living biometrics allow anyone to go topside. Only Al is topside --"

"Don't get sidetracked," Hunter said.

"Well, they did want to stay here, and I couldn't allow our services being known. I c-couldn't allow it." Hamstern said, quailing a bit under the look Cloak gave him. "Th-th-they never attacked me, though. They just sang that stupid song, over and over and over and over again. Sang until they collapsed."

"Get to the point, Lodgepoole, I mean, Hamstern," Cloak said.

"Well, I couldn't have that. I couldn't work without that blasted noise," he said.

"Your work stealing," Helen said.

"I am not a thief!"

"You're taking things from people without their consent or knowledge," Dpsb said, "that happens to be the definition of stealing."

"That . . . that's an oversimplification!" Hamstern spluttered.

"That's a matter of debate," Saffa said.

"Get back to the explanation," Cloak said. "Stop the flowery speech."

"Flowery speech? What flowery speech?"

"Dylan, you're not helping," GH said, in a gentle rebuke.

"It was difficult -- nigh on impossible! -- to do my work with that incessant noise!! The noise, noise, noise!" Hamstern said, making his resemblance to the Grinch rather uncanny. "But I wiped from them what made them make the noise, once I did that, it was finally peaceful."

"You wiped their minds," GH assumed, eyes widening.

"They simply lost themselves," Hamstern answered smoothly, and suddenly he reminded Cloak more of Gilderoy Lockhart. He started to reach into his coat, speaking as he did so, "Which now, regrettably, you must --"

But he was swiftly disarmed by Cloak, as Hamstern's weapon was mostly metal. It looked like the memory-erasing gun from "Gravity Falls", only with a curlicue lightbulb instead of oblong one.

"Did you honestly think that I didn't know you had this on you?" Cloak said, with a slight sneer. "I was waiting to see if you had the gall to try to use it. You disappointed me, Hamstern."

"Cloak, you could have told us!" Hunter said.

"You have a weakness for the dramatic," Saffa sighed wearily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2016, 09:31:38 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Memory Capsules

"Where are the memory capsules, Hamstern?"

"I dunno."

"Did you forget already?" Cloak growled. "I can tell when you are lying."

"I'm not lying!"

"Why continue this exercise in futility?" Cloak said. "Tell us where they are."

Hamstern babbled on a bit, revealing nothing.

"Stop your babbling!" Cloak scolded. "Tell us where they are!"

Hamstern seemed fretful, but then he something seemed to occur to him, and he calmed down. He began to turn, but before he could, Cloak stomped his right foot, and raised his fists in parallel uppercut motions. Hamstern found himself trapped in a hole in the ground, hands high enough to touch his cheeks but arms pinioned to his side, his shouldered haunched. There was no way he could free himself without help.

"Running away, Hamstern?" Cloak said. "We can't have that."

"Lemme go!"

"All you had to do is tell us where the memory capsules are," Cloak said, pragmatically. "You will not benefit from denying us this information."

"They're over there!" he said, furiously jabbing his thumb into his shoulder -- clearly indicating that it was in the pathway behind them.

"See? Now, was that so hard?" Helen said, sweetly, as if she was speaking to an over-emotional toddler.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Hermes Hamstern said, irritably. "Now let me go."

"Not until we corroborate what you claimed," Cloak said. "You may not have believed you were lying, but that doesn't mean that they are there."

"You can't do this!! Lemme go!! Lemme go!!"

"Ironic," GH said, "ain't it?"

Then they left Hamstern and went to retrieve the capsules.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2016, 08:22:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Possibilities

As Cloak went with others to find the capsules, he considered the possibilities, the options they had before them, should Hamstern prove uncooperative. And it was a very likely scenario.

As they entered the pathway, Helen could put him one of those Star Sapphire violet crystal chrysalis things, which would force him to feel love. But this option was time-costly, and Helen would never do it, as she opposed that practice with every moral fiber of her being. Even asking her do it was enough to warrant her enmity, at least for the time being.

They continued along, not finding anything, as Cloak continued to consider.

Hunter could hold him at gunpoint, and force him that way. But he wouldn't like that, as it would him feel dirty, like some common criminal or one of those trigger-happy, impotent "gun enthusiasts". Sure, Hunter likes his guns, but not to obsessive levels. He would not do it, now would Cloak ever ask him, as he particularly had a distaste for firearms.

Dpsb pointed out a bronze or brass statue, arms outstretched, with various circular indentations that held several cylinders not unlike giant e-cigarettes, as Cloak continued considered.

Dpsb could bully him into complying, using his strength, his powers, to try to coerce Hamstern into compliance. But, again, that wasn't any good. Dpsb, by his very nature, wasn't a bully. He wasn't a ruthless as Cloak could be, and this sense of idealism had the habit of both grounding and inspiring his fellow RAFians. He wouldn't bully Hamstern.

They saw the cylinders were clearly marked with the names of the RAFians. These cylinders held the very culmination of the lost RAFians beings. It was a bit surprising that their bodies had not decayed at all or were desiccated or anything given the time they were lost from RAF, but now, they may be able to undo what Hamstern has done. Cloak still considered the possibilities thst they had before them..

GH could manipulate Hamstern musically, and have him, in a state of music-induced bliss, open the door for them. But, then again, GH's music, while powerful, did not have that degree of fine control. It wasn't mind control. The music could speak to you, affect your emotions, but it cannot directly affect the actions or predilections of others. But it still might work.

They deftly collected the memory capsules, treating them gingerly, as if they were newborn children. These were very precious and instrumental in bringing their RAFian brothers and sisters back from to coherent thought and sentient thought. And Cloak considered one final circumstance.

Saffa. She would be the lynchpin in this whole thing. Hamstern said that only his living biometrics would allow anyone to escape his hoarding place. He did not say that it had to be him, himself, to activate them. Saffa could acquire him, morph him, than open the door themselves. This would be asking a lot of Saffa as she would have to spend the time in the body of an old man, two things which she was not. Cloak didn't know if she would ever agree to this, but they may not have any choice in the matter . . . unless . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 29, 2016, 12:51:31 PM

It actually would be a dicey matter. I think I told you about it before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 29, 2016, 10:25:37 PM

There are other possibilities. Some that I didn't mention.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Upload Yours!

"This is a sticky question," GH said, breaking the silence, "but how do we put these back into the lost RAFians?"

Cloak pulled out the memory erasure gun, "This. It has a reverse setting."

"Why do all of these things have reverse settings?" Saffa said.

"In cases when their own devices are turned against them, I surmise," Cloak said, with a snap in his voice. He preemptively inserted a memory capsule, a mnemonic cartridge, into the memory erasure gun, as he reversed the polarity. He surprised himself by knowing just how to do this properly -- but then again this gun was apparently incredibly user-friendly. Kinda made it a double-edged sword, as dangerous to the owner as the victim. There were apparently no safeguards on it . . . Cloak wondered if this was just some device that got "misplaced" or "lost" or a device of Hamstern's own design.

No matter, no matter. Priorities. Priorities come first. The other RAFians, the "lost" ones. They needed to revert them back to who and what they were. This was the only way.

They would worry about their exit, their escape, at a more appropriate time. This took precedence.

Cloak noted that the mnemonic capsule that he loaded into the gun was marked as "Kelran". How Hamstern knew all their names was beyond him, but it was immaterial and unimportant with the current goal at hand.

"There you are," came the huffy, pernicious voice of Hamstern, who was looking over his shoulder, not without difficulty. "You got what you wanted. You corroborated me. Now, let me go!! I have work to do!"

"When I'm good and ready," Cloak growled. This could be seen as a bit cruel on Cloak's part, but when you've taken into account what Hamstern has done, and done without the least bit of remorse, it seemed less so. "You'll be back to your thievery soon enough."

"I'M NOT STEALING!!!" Hamstern roared.

"Yeah, yeah," Hunter said, indifferently, "shut up."

"Don't you speak --" Hamstern began heatedly.

"Mind you," Cloak said, not even bothering to turn around and look at him, "I could still crush you like a grape."

He gulped and said nothing more.

And the RAFians went about uploading the memories, the personalities, the everything that made them them into the RAFians. Kelran was first.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2016, 12:17:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Well . . . That Complicates Things a Bit

It went along swimmingly, as Hamstern seemed rather disgruntled. Kelran was first, and as soon as he gained consciousness, a Mark blared to life on his right hand with little notice to the gryphon. The others tried to  ease him from his cloud of confusion.

They worked swiftly, Cloak being very studious not to mistake one cartridge for another. He was sure that they wouldn't appreciate the mix-up, and he was being extremely cautious, working so diligently and efficiently.

Tray. Done.

Ken. Done.

Taiyoh. Done.

Cloak didn't say anything aloud about how pleased he was with this going so swimmingly. Things have a tendency not to like to do that for the RAFians.

Anna. Done.

Toominator. Done.

Gafrash. Done.

Yet, Cloak's innate paranoia told him that this was too easy. That there was too little resistance. He put it out of his mind. This task was too important to become unfocused.

More and more lost RAFians regained themselves, "finding" themselves. Until the very last one, Think, regained himself. Then Cloak deftly dropped the memory erasure gun into Dpsb's hands.

It was now time to see if they could get Hamstern's cooperation. Hopefully, he would not give them any trouble. But he was silently resenting the fact that Cloak was returning what was lost. He found it a dirty, contemptible crime. He had never returned anything before. He did not like it, and yet, he still could not see what he was doing as stealing. He still saw it as economic stimulation, which was actually quite laughable. Hamstern actually had tears of frustration in his eyes, as he knew there wasn't anything he could do about this.

"Hamstern!" Cloak called, and the white-haired man flinched noticeably. "We need to talk about how you're going to let us out of here."

"No." he said, frustrated tears falling from his face. "Kill me if you must, but I will not let you topside. I c-can't. This work is just too imp--"

Suddenly, a white light lanced forward and hit Hamstern, as Cloak cried out, "What the duece?!"

"It's not my fault!" Dpsb declared, at once, clasping the memory erasure gun in such a way that it was very self-evident that he had just caught it. And in his rush to so, he reversed the polarities. "It was an accident! I swear!"

In Dpsb's attempts to right his wrong, the gun crumpled and became completely useless. Hamstern was gone. And gone for good.

"Well, this is problematic," Helen commented.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 01, 2016, 01:02:27 AM

Now what? We blow it up?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2016, 10:18:17 PM

New book idea.

• Book CMVI: "Tattoo Taboos" -- Fifteen twelve-year-olds gain inexplicable tatoos.
• Book CMVII: "Gossip Squirrels" -- The RAF must deal with Ratatoskr.
• Book CMVIII: "Big, Bad Boss" -- The RAFians must deal with a Krang/Oktigi hybrid.
• Book CMIX: "Godhead" -- The RAFians must deal with the so-called "New Gods".
• Book CMX: "Unity and Freedom" -- The RAFians must deal with spiral parasites.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Well, What Now?

"DYLAN!!" Saffa and GH cried out in unison.

"It's not my fault!" he protested.

"What's going on?" Ken asked, groggily. Helen swooped into tell him, though Ken was unfamiliar with Helen, Helen having become a RAFian long after he had retired from being a RAFian.

Hamstern was still living, but he was now nothing more than a body with no consciousness, a vessel with no mind or spirit, a blank, empty thing. They could still use his biometrics, but they would also have to explain to law enforcement and the public just what went down.

Cloak quickly and deftly freed Hamstern from the hole that the Realm Walker had restrained him with. Hamstern was a deplorable person, yes, but he did not deserve this. No one did. To have everything that made up a person, their memories, their personalities, their beliefs and opinions, just gone. And gone so easily, so recklessly.

It was good that the memory erasure gun was disabled beyond repair. It was too dangerous to exist, in the Realm Walker's opinion. Hamstern just flopped there, down to the floor, almost as if he were nothing but a life-sized, organic doll. Cloak sealed up the hole, managing to Earthsight the exit in the process. He maintained a somber disposition though.

"Kelran," Cloak's tone had lost all the sharpness that he employed when addressing Hamstern, "would you mind taking Hamstern?"

Kelran lifted him, and began to carry him in a firefighter's lift, or whatever the term was. His wings quivered slightly, showing that he remembered him, and his refusal at allowing the lost RAFians' freedom. He also treated the guy a little roughly, not really too sympathetic to his fate, as he nearly inflicted the same on him without any remorse or regret.

"How are we going to use his biometrics?" Saffa asked, pointedly, "I don't want to have to morph him."

"It won't come to that," Cloak said. "I should have Earthsighted it sooner. The exit is a simple metal doorway."

"We never found a doorway," Toom said, "and believe me we should have."

"What's Earthsight?" Ken asked, rather sheepishly.

"It's well concealed," Cloak answered promptly. "And Earthsight is an ability I have to be able to 'see' through the earth, by feeling the vibrations through an earthen medium and interpreting them as visual data."

"Huh? Never mind, I'm sorry I asked," Ken replied.

Cloak didn't take that personally. "It just around here. There."

Cloak moved a false rock wall aside revealing a metal door with a bunch of biometric scanning devices.

"How are we -- ?" Anna began.

But Cloak stopped not more than seven feet from the large, heavy door. He did not bother with biometric stuff, he just ended his arms to the right, perpendicular to the ground. He curled his fingers into claws and the thick, metal door's left side crumpled like tinfoil. Then he made one swift, fierce movement to his right, ferrokinetically tearing the door from its hinges and crumpled like balled up aluminium foil. The crumpled mess of a door leaned uncomfortably to the side.

"Let's go," Cloak said, stalking rrom the abhorrent place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2016, 07:35:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Aftermath and Etiquette

The Bureau was finished, naturally. The authorities were going about returning the stolen items to the rightful owners, proving that this wasn't a government-funded service like Hamstern insisted. Fortunately, he kept meticulous files on each item. Even the RAFians he kidnapped, that he held against their will, had their own files, which had severely dehumanized them, and spoke of them as if they were lifeless items, without wills or autonomy of their own.

Hamstern himself was, in turn, interred in a small, isolated hospital. He was still in his comatose state. They wouldn't believe that he would never come out this coma, and held out false hope.

Naturally, when Bern Bridges got wind of this, he did what he did best. He launched into a vicious, virulent tirade of vitriolic rhetoric of how the RAFians were at fault. And, of course, it showed Bridges aversion to facts, and just the emotional nonsense that seemed to speak to the dull-witted and gullible. But that was per normal, for the fathead shockjock.

The formerly lost RAFians, now Marked, had decided to remain retired. They had put their time in, and now had other interests that they wanted to explore, that they wanted to delve into. The other RAFians allowed this, with heavy hearts.

But once a RAFian, always a RAFian.

But GH had a spot of bother. As it turns out, Leatherhead wasn't exactly behaving himself in his absence. The others had insisted on him tesching the mutant alligator child etiquette.

It wasn't as easy as it sounded.

"When you walk into a RAFparty
It's a formal universe . . ."

"Yeah!" GH said, happily.

"So, you jump up on your host
And, with a kiss, say 'Hello, Nurse!'"

"No!" GH facepalmed.

"Remember that good diction
Reflects so well on you . . ."

"Yeah!" GH said brightly.

"So practice all your vowel sounds
By saying 'AEIOUUUUU'!"

"No!" GH moaned.

"To use the right utensil
Is one of etiquette's demands . . ."

"Uuuuuggghhhh . . ." GH groaned.

"So, I recommend you throw them out
And eat with your hands!
A salad fork . . .
A dinner fork . . .
A butter knife . . .
A water glass . . .
A soup spoon . . .
A dinner knife . . .
A fork for eating pickled bass . . .
An oyster fork, dessert spoon, a napkin, and a finger bowl,
A dinner spoon, a salad knife, a bread plate for your dinner roll!
I've heard the rules you need to know to make that social climb
But I'd rather spend our energy on having a good time!"

GH groaned as he facepalmed, as Leatherhead remained oblivious, "Why can't anything ever be easy?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 02, 2016, 11:34:06 AM

Question of the century right there. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 02, 2016, 11:35:17 AM

Damn, that was a twist of fate I did not see coming. Hamstern, that is.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2016, 08:32:45 PM

*nods*

Just a warning, this chapter, last of this book, will be a bit on the dark side.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Fears and Sadism

"Oh, now this looks familiar," Cloak's mother was saying. She was sitting on a cliff, as Shadow was hanging from a cliff. She looked older . . . the scene was disturbingly similar to Cloak's nightmare. Shadow's grandmother, Cloak's mother, chuckled as she spoke again, "oh, I remember."

Then her tone became serious.

"This is just they way your uncle looked before he died," she said. Then she buried her ursine claws into Shadow's monkey paws, which cause her a shriek of pain. "And now my little secret --"

She leaned close to Shadow's ear, and said,"I killed Elements Master Cloak."

Then she made to fling Shadow off --

"No!!" Cloak roared, as the entire scene evaporated into nothingness. It wasn't real. "No! No no no no!"

"You're scared!"came a hissy, raspy voice. It belonged to a wolverine Realm Walker in a yellow cloak. "You're frightened! You're afraid!"

Cloak was silent but his heavy breathing. But, when he spoke, it was full of strength and vigor. "I am scared. I am frightened. I am afraid."

Cloak looked up and looked the wolverine in the eye, and continued, "But not of you. I am scared of my mother using Shadow like she used me. Frightened of my mother using Shadow as a weapon against me, by turning her against me, as she did with me me and my own father."

Cloak stood up straight and tall, squared his shoulders, and he said, "That is what I fear. Not you."

The wolverine Realm Walker smiled a disconcerting, toothy grin, as she was enveloped in the mist around them.

"Wait! Where is Aniyu?" Cloak called out. "Tell me! TELL ME!!!"

But she was gone, and Cloak was out of leads.

***

"Please," came a weary, pleading voice. That of a child. "Stop hurting me."

"Oh," came the sound of a cruel, disappointed voice, "you still have some virtue left within you. Such a pity. That means we must continue another round."

"No! Please, no!" the boy beseeched, hoping to find some compassion in his tormentor. But she had none.

"Alas, still too polite." The cruel voice was as trenchant and brutal as any monster this boy knew.

The boy screamed in pain as his tormentor had pressed a button which caused him excruciating pain, unlike any the child had ever felt before. What did he ever do to deserve this kind of punishment? What possible sin could he have perpetrated that would warrant such --

She pushed the button again. The emaciated child shrieked again, his sandy hair plastered to his face and head due to the heavy level of sweat that was being issued from him in copious amounts, and looking far too thin for his frame.

"Why . . . wh-why . . . ?" the boy begged, attempting an entreaty to stop his pain and torment.

She pushed the button again, before deigning to reply, "Why? Well, my dear boy, the answer is simple."

She stepped into the light revealing herself, unsurprisingly, to be Malice. She activated button yet again, before continuing, apparently getting a sadomasochistic thrill from it, "Why, to prove that it can be done, dear boy!"

She pressed the button again. There seemed to be no reason behind it.

"Turning virtue into vice, turning selflessness into selfishness," Malice said, almost bored. "Breaking your will, breaking your very sanity -- now that's just fun."

She pressed the button again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2016, 12:07:14 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXV:
TO TELL THE TRUTH
CHAPTER ONE:
The RAFian Song

It was a crisp, February morning, and Bern Bridges was sleeping at his radio station. He awoke suddenly and sang:

"One Monday mornin', I got up late,
And there were these RAFians outside the gate.
The guard tried to stop them, but he had no luck.
The RAFians got free and they run amok.
I don't know what to say. The RAFians won't do."

Ash, GH, and Underseen, the RAFians in question, sang:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges repeated:

"I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

The trio repeated:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges sang:

"My office was run by the station nurse.
I came downstairs and what could be worse?
The RAFians was doing a crazy dance.
They put buggies in my underpants.
I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

The trio repeated the chorus:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges sang:

"RAFians dance, then I dance, too."

Then the three repeated the chorus:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges sang another verse:

"I ran outside to get a schtick,
But I'm telling you, friends, those RAFians was quick,
'Cause when I returned, much to my disgrace,
Those RAFians had the nurse in a fond embrace!"

She sang:

"I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

GH sang:

"For a cigarette, I'll give you a clue."

Underseen sang:

"I didn't know your eyes were blue."

"Boys," Ash said, with a shrug to the audience, "go fig."

Bridges sang:

"I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Then he fled to his home. Once there, he sang:

"I went to my bath for a shower and shave.
Them RAFians gonna put me into my grave!
The entire bathroom was laid to waste,
And they shaved my head with minty toothpaste!
I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

The trio sang the chorus:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges declared:

"They're crazy nutso! I'm tellin' you!"

The trio sang again:

"Don't know what to say the monkeys won't do."

Bridges sang again:

"Well, by this time, I was feelin' dread.
They was usin' a shoebrush to shine me head.
I asked them to leave, but they stayed around.
They pulled the chain, and, WHEE, I went down!
I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

The trio sang:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges sang:

"Call my lawyer! I'm ready to sue!"

The trio, who Bridges thought he had managed to elude, sang:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges ran away, screaming in frustration. Then he sang:

"Well, my patience ran out and I'm telling you sure,
Tomorrow, I show those RAFians the door!
And, if they don't leave, I'm inviting you
To my house for dumplings and RAFian stew!
I don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

The trio sang:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges sang:

"Now I'm in the stew. Aw, pooh."

The trio sang:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do."

Bridges sang, as he fked the scene:

"Watch out for RAFians! I'm telling you!"

The trio ended the song singing:

"Don't know what to say the RAFians won't do.
We're not monkeys, we're just cuckoo!
Don't know what to say! The RAFians won't do!"

SNAP!!

"Melissa, wake up!" came an impatient voice. It was Broken. "I know History of Magic is a boring field, but do try and pay atrention, at least, please?"

---

* Source song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CKY5zHILK00

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 03, 2016, 12:17:15 AM

I was gonna comment something along the lines of the improbability of me "embracing" a woman, but the song being a dream kinda ruins the joke. :P

Also, damn that chapter 25 was dark. Loved it. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2016, 09:54:34 PM

And, yet, still not the future dark moment that I keep referencing. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Too Advanced

"Melissa, what is that?" Broken said, referring to reused two-liter bottle that rolled from her bookbag. The contents sloshed around in an almost sluggish manner. At a glance it may have looked like water, but upon closer inspection you could see the silvery, yet brackish, tint to it.

"That? Nothing," she said, the slight quaver in her voice lending doubt to her sincerity of the statement.

Broken sighed heavily, as if he received disappointing news, and said, "Dear girl, do you even know what Legilimency is?"

"'Legitimacy'?"

"No, Legilimency, Melissa, Legilimency." Broken said. "The magical art of penetrating the mind of another, sifting through their memories, hearing their thoughts, and yadda yadda yadda."

"Mind-reading?"

"That's a tad bit of an oversimplification, but, essentially, yes," Broken said. "Granted, I Don have the finesse and expertise about such matters as Yarin does when it comes to invading minds, but I'm a sufficient Legilimens to know when I'm being lied to."

"I wasn't --"

"Melissa." Broken said, with a tone so authoritative that sounded almost unnatural coming from him. "You know better."

"I -- I didn't do --"

"You are not ready for brewing potions like Veritaserum!" Broken said, rather harshly. "You have no business brewing such a thing. You're not at that skill level yet. You had barely just learned the basics!"

"I made it just fine!" Melissa protested.

"You took shortcuts," Broken said, critical. "This could not have been made in a full-moon cycle. It is not clear or colorless as it should be. You were too impatient for results. You were heavy-handed with the ingredients. And a number of other problems. This isn't Veritaserum. It's mock Veritaserum soup."

Melissa's face reddened with anger. But she said nothing, nothing about the harsh criticisms.

"Not to mention," Broken said, who seemed to be oblivious to his own harshness, "Veritaserum is very strictly regulated. Feel fortunate that this isn't real Veritaserum, as the penalties could be dire if it were to be reported."

Melissa felt angry tears well up in her eyes, and she hated herself for involuntarily showing that sign of weakness. This wasn't the reaction she had expected from this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2016, 07:47:38 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Volatility

This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all. Her teacher (the actual Sorcerer Supreme!) wasn't supposed to be so harsh, so unyielding, so . . . so . . . so not Dumbledore-y.

Melissa took the mock Veritaserum, and ran out on Broken, hiding her tears. She hadn't expect this tutelage to have gone so poorly. She couldn't handle her own disappointment at this. She was expecting some tutelage that you would see on television, but it was never gonna be that saccharine and Full House-like.

It didn't help that she got frustrated easily and had a tendency to give up when she got so frustrated. It was one thing that made her magical skill stagnated so much. When she reached an obstacle that she could not easily overcome, could not go around, she usually gave up. She did not meet the challenge, she ran away from it, seeking the easy path. It remarkable thst she managed to get herself an apartment in her pre-RAFian days with this odd little predilection.

She ran from the forum, wrapping her blue, puffy coat around her. She didn't even seem to realize that she was still carrying the mock Veritaserum with her. It was almost as if she was on automatic. She fled into the city, and she ran and ran and ran. She ran as if she could distance herself from her own problems, her own inadequacies, her own failures.

She questioned her decision to learn from Broken, her decision to become his apprentice. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, she acknowledged, and she had allowed herself to believe that it was going to be some fairytale montage and she would be a powerful sorceress in a month.

She didn't acknowledge how unrealistic this was. She didn't want to acknowledge it, she wanted to romanticize this into one of those stupidly saccharine movies. Her disillusionment was inevitable.

***

"I'm not sure if I'm the right person to advise you about this, Broken. Perhaps Terenia would have better insight."

"I don't know if Terenia teaches people one-on-one on a regular basis, though," Broken said.

"And what made you think that I do?"

"Cloak, you trained Shadow in the Elements," Broken said. "And she's now a Master, like you."

"That is different," Cloak countered gently, "Shadow is the only daughter of my favorite sister. The bond of uncle and neice was already there. I was there when she was just a Hatchling. She knew me from thst young and tender age, and I knew the best way to encourage and challenge her, having babysat her when she was younger, too young to be trained. You and Melissa have only known each other scarcely a week or two."

"So, I was too harsh on her?"

"Perhaps," Cloak said, noncommittally. "You do not yet know each others strengths and weaknesses of each other. You each have your flaws, as we all do, but you have yet to learn each others. I am not going to say it's gonna be easy, but if you this situation to work, you're going to have to, well, work for it."

"That's what I've been trying to do!"

"Then, remember this," Cloak said, placidly, "too much at once can lead to someone feeling overwhelmed. From what you told me, I'm of the of the opinion thst she was thrying to impress you."

"Impress me? By making an illicit substance like Veritaserum. She was trying to impress me by making Veritaserum."

"In my opinion," Cloak said, "yes."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 04, 2016, 03:05:07 PM

Whoa, how did I miss this many chapters?!

What an auspicious start. I'm expecting a song about now. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2016, 12:03:02 AM

Quote from: Saffa on March 04, 2016, 03:05:07 PM

I'm expecting a song about now. :P

Well . . . then who am I to disappoint?  ;D

But I must warn you. This chapter is a bit on the dark side.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Poor Child

Melissa had sat down in the entry way of an alley. The same alley that Androvex and Gynecovyx took over the bodies of the young boys named Chaz and Ian. But, how could she have known this? It wasn't exactly well-known knowledge. She sat there and allowed herself to break down into tears, not caring who saw her.

She, however, failed to take into account that the city had dangers. Dangers of the sort that were rather mundane than the ones that the RAFians usually had to confront. But they were still things to be wary of.

Melissa was about to learn this the hard way as two guys, as slimy and oily as eels, saddled up on either side of her, one blonde and one black-haired.

"Poor, sweet child." the blonde said.

"She has a very serious problem, hasn’t she?" the black-haired one said, addressing his friend.

"Hmm, if only --"

"-- there were something --"

"-- we could do."

"Who are you two?" Melissa said, rather naive.

They sang:

"Sweet child, poor child.
So tragic, so misunderstood.
Dear child, sad child.
Life’s looking,
Shall we say,
not good.
No.
Who will ease her woes and worries?
Who will help get her man?
Sweet child. Perhaps the Lascivia brothers can!"

"Who?" Melissa asked. Then she got wise to the Lascivia brothers being the two uncomfortably close to her on either side, singing, and said, "Oh."

"They know your dreams."

"Uh . . . erm . . ." Melissa stammered.

"They'll grant your prayer."

"Please," Melissa said, worming away from the vise that was the two Brothers Lascivia, "I have to go!"

They would not have that.

"They've cast a charm.
A tiny spell.
Why the alarm?
No one will tell
No one will care.
It’s your affair."

Suddenly, there was a crinkly shattering sound, whose source wasn't obvious. But Michael and Donald Lascivia, who wanted Melissa lasciviously, did not appear to notice, their minds, their dirty, single-tracked minds, were on other things. And they were determined to get what they were after, regardless of whether or not Melissa was consenting . . .

"Sweet child,
Dear child
Poor child.
Sad child.
We’ll bring you to their lair right now!
Bet in half a sec,
Your princes and you are reconciled.
Sweet child."

"Petrificus totalus!" Melissa cried. "Locomotor mortis!"

Donald Lascivia was hit by the Leg-Locker Curse, while his brother was hit by the Full-Body Bind Curse.

"Incarcerous!" Melissa said, attempting and failing at conjuring binding ropes or chains around Donald.

"Wh-what are you?" he asked, as a shimmering mist, an almost magical fog ensconced them and proceed to do so rapidly for the entire city.

"What did you think you would get away with?" Melissa growled, already very much aware what they wanted. She didn't expect Donald to reply so honestly and openly, though it appeared he didn't intend to, and it just slipped out.

The blows that Melissa gave them rendered using a Stunning Spell completely moot.

Then she discovered the two liter bottle thst she had her Veritaserum attempt in had exploded, and was now empty. But how was she to know that it was now an aerosol and already airborne?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 05, 2016, 01:00:27 PM

Not quite so dark when you expect it every time you leave the house.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2016, 10:08:07 PM

Did you morph to Tyrannopede and scare any of them off? . . . You ate them, didn't you? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Truth Hurts

Melissa scooped up the remains if her two liter bottle than held her potion. She may have naive, and a little ambitious, not to mention a little blindly enterprising, but she was no idiot. She knew enough to put two and two together.

She had to go back and tell the others. Go back . . . and tell them . . . tell them what? This was her fault, her mistake . . . it would be her duty to clean it up. She . . . she couldn't . . . she had to fix this herself. She had to . . . to . . . to . . .

She had no idea how or where to start.

***

As the Veritaserum mist expanded to encompass the city, a couple were sitting on a park bench. The man clearly did not look at all comfortable, but this was lost on his cuddly mate. He clearly was repressing a lot for the sake of this particular woman, Carly Ignara. He was clearly trying to be a nice guy, this Al Podavlénije.* He heavily resisted her cuddling, and she remained oblivious.

"What do you think of our relationship?" Carly said, coyly, out of the blue.

Something within Al snapped. Maybe it was the Veritaserum mist, or maybe it was because he had had enough of this, or maybe it was a combination of the two. In any case, he broke out into song:

"You tell a joke and forget the punchline.
Why you always wastin' my time?
Hey, just trust me, you just disgust me!
You hair's a mess and your make-up's crusty!
I don't know too many females,
Who make a habit of biting their toenails.
Whoa-oh, every time you call, you drive me up the wall!
Dear, just the sight of you makes my flesh crawl.
I'm sure we'd be happy together,
If only one little thing weren't true.
Oh, I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
You drink the milk right from the carton.
What are you, in pre-kindergarten?
You're burpin' everywhere, foulin' up the air!
Then you use my razor to shave your back hair!
You don't have an ounce of class!
You're just one big pain in the . . . neck!
How much more can I take now? Give me a break now!
You even snore when you're wide awake now!
You tell all your friends we're the perfect couple.
Well, maybe you should get a clue!
'Cause I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
You're so nauseatin'!
I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
And, when you softly call my name,
It's like listenin' to that squeaky chalk sound!
And when you look at me that special way,
It's hard for me to keep my lunch down!
And when you askin' me what I'm thinkin', dear, usually I'm thinkin'
How I'd really like to tie your head completely up in duck tape,
So I wouldn't have to listen to you asking me those stupid questions
Over and over again!
Well, that disgusting noise you make when you laugh
Gives me a throbbing migraine!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!)
Until you came along I never dated anyone
This low on the food chain!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!)
You've got ungodly body odor!
You've got the hair of a boxing promoter!
Yeah, your teeth are all yellow, your butt's made of Jell-O,
You woke up in a puddle, droolin' on your pillow!
I hate the way you crack your knuckles!
I hate your whiny, hen girlfriends, too!
But mostly I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
Really now, you're aggravatin'!
I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
Not to mention irritatin'!
I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
Well, now won't you give my best regards to Satan!
I-yi-yi-yi-yi,
I'm so sick of you!
I'm so sick of you!
I'm so sick of you!
I'm so sick of you!
You make me sick!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you, now!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you, now!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you, now!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you, now!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you, now!
(Can't stand you, I just can't stand you!) I'm so sick of you, now!"

Carly broke into tears and ran off, leaving Al to have mixed feelings about this action, though he wasn't too sure what made him do it. He felt bad for hurting Carly, but, conversely, glad that he got what he needed to off his chest.

They, naturally, broke up.

***

While that had happened, a couple, who had a falling out, were calling quits. They were Hillary Sheal and Basil Hässlich*. Basil resorted to a bitter song about it:

"Aahh . . .
Well I heard that you're leavin' (leavin'),
Gonna leave me far behind (so far behind).
'Coz you found a brand new lover,
You decided that I'm not your kind (aahh..).
So I pulled (I pulled) your name out (name out) of my Rolodex (oohh..)
And I tore all your pictures in two.
And I burned down the soda shop where we used to go,
Just because it reminds me of you (dippity dippity doo)!
That's right (that's right)! You ain't gonna see me cryin'!
I'm glad (I'm glad) that you found somebody new!
'Cause I'd rather spend eternity eating shards of broken glass,
Than spend one more minute with you!!
I guess I might seem kinda bitter.
You got me feeling down in the dumps.
'Coz you stranded all alone in the gas station,
And I have to use the self-service pumps!
Oh, so let me help you with that suitcase.
You ain't (you ain't) gonna break my heart in two!
'Coz I'd rather get a hundred billion paper cuts on my face
Than spend one more minute with you!
I'd rather rip out my entrails with a fork
Than watch you going out with other men!
I'd rather slam my fingers in a door (yeah)
Again and again and again and again and again!
Oh, can't you see what I'm tryin' to say, dearest...
I'd rather have my blood sucked out by the leeches (leeches)!
Shove an crowbar under a toenail or two!
I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in a long-term care facility with my tongue
Than spend one more minute with you!
Yes, I'd rather jump naked on a huge pile of push tacks,
Or stick my nostrils together with crazy glue!
I'd rather dive into a swimming pool filled with double-edged razor blades
Than spend one more minute with you!
I'd rather rip my lungs out of my ribcage with my bare hands
And then throw them on the floor and stomp on it 'till I die!
Than spend one more minute with you!!"

They parted on less-than-ideal terms, though Basil spoke the truth about how he felt.

***

Meanwhile, an insecure woman, Kim Odio, was asking her womanizing boyfriend, Cal Romano, if he really loved her. He answered in song, truthfully, though with some double talk.

"Oh, I couldn't live a single day without you!
Actually, on second thought, I suppose I could.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, honeycakes, you're the greatest!
Well, I guess you're pretty good.
Now, it seems to me I'm relatively lucky.
I know I probably couldn't ask for too much more.
I honestly can say you're an above average lady!
You're almost just what I've been looking for
You're sorta everything I ever wanted.
You're not perfect, but I love you somehow.
You're the woman that I've always dreamed of!
Well, not really, but you're good enough for now.
You're pretty close to what I've always hoped for,
That's why my love for you is barely strong.
And I swear I'm never gonna leave you, sweetness,
At least 'til something better comes along.
'Cause you're sort of everything I ever wanted.
You're not perfect, but I love you somehow.
You're the woman that I've always dreamed of!
Well, not really, but you're good enough for now.
No, not really, but you're good enough for now."

She either wasn't particularly smart or did not want to face single life, as she seemed to settle for this as an adequate and honest answer. Though one could make the argument that this was just a facade to hide the true hurt she felt, but, if it was, she hid it really well.

---

Source songs: Here (https://youtube.com/watch?v=r4TgMU7a1Qk), here (https://youtube.com/watch?v=yWhpk-8QLFQ), and here (https://youtube.com/watch?v=9LsjUXMZzF8).

*Yes, I'm heavily abusing Wiktionary's translation feature.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2016, 12:28:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Great Dictator

At a political town hall meeting, a short, stocky politician named Ivo Egbert was standing after having his campaign endored by a rail-thin, lanky man named Charles Snively. Ivo was bald, wearing glasses with round frames, thick-bodied with thin lrgs and big feet. He had a rather outlandish auburn handlebar moustache. He also had unsually large head. Meanwhile, Charles had a rather unfortunate resemblance to Slender Man, which made him the butt of many a joke.

When Egbert was questioned about foreign policy, as the Veritaserum mist enveloped all attending. And suddenly, Egbert launched into song.

"Voldemort, Visser One, Zerif, and me, the Brawn,
We all have this one thing in common: we are into world domination."

Then Snively interjected.

"It's a new sensation, try it and you'll feel elation."

Then Ivo took over.

"It's the gift to give the guy who wants everything."

"Military takeovers!"

"Governmental makeovers!"

"Coup d'état will be confined!"

"It keeps your country occupied.
Look here at this dotted line,
As overlord, I could combine
And make this all one sovereign state."

"Oh, Overlord, you are so great!"

"I'll sew up this divided planet.
My regime will surely span it.
I'll learn the language if I must."

"You will gain the people's trust."

"I'll let them join my coterie."

"And you can buy their loyalty."

"There are several formulae I would like to use for domination,
And to get the maximum effect out of a hapless, helpless nation.
Crabmeat or magnetic shoes,
Mind-controlling pink tutus,
Or a giant signal tower to telecast my mental power.
Think big, not small!"

"Dominoes will start to fall!"

"And then I can,
Be the mouse who conquers man.
So, if you have a calculator,
You can be a great dictator.
Let each country that you covet equal X."

"You're gonna love it!"

"Multiply by Y not try it,
If the people start to riot,
You can always say that they are just a bunch of kooks.
People just need to be led!"

"By a guy with a big head!"

"To their weaknesses, they'll succumb!"

"If you give them chewing gum!"

"It may bother them a bit."

"But they'll soon get over it!"

"They won't whine when I'm the Czar of all that we see, near and far!"

This is why some politicians need the ability to lie, as the truth of their motives can be a bit on the scary side. Fortunately, it appeared that Ivo wouldn't be getting that governor's position -- that is, if the voting populace recognized that he was speaking the truth, the undeniable truth due to the Veritasrum mist. But humans . . . a very stubborn species, very stubbrn indeed.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SGUqwaORfbU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 06, 2016, 01:08:17 AM

Ya take a mortal man, and put him in control. . . .

Also, Ivo Egbert? Hm, I wonder who that's supposed to be. . . ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2016, 12:46:10 AM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Awareness

"Well," Saffa said, with a snap to her voice, as the televised song of Egbert and Snively ended, "that was certainly novel. A politician telling the unabashed truth. If I didn't know better, I'd question whether Corruption really died."

Cloak shot her a baleful and dirty look. He didn't need another reminder of yet another failed attempt of his to capture of a supposed "dead" Realm Walker like Corruption, to present him to corrupted idiots of the Realm Walker government, as proof that Malice was not dead. While his mother was a big part of him leaving the Nexus, of turning his back on it, the Council's corruption (and its inevitable proclivity to greed and corruption) was another major factor. He was a government malcontent in this manner, and he was aware of it.

He continued in this introspection as Saffa remained oblivious as she was not looking in his general direction, but at the television screen in the Media Board building. They had returned to some of the town hall moderators asking questions that Cloak personally found completely irrelevant.

"That mist, though," Broken said, more to himself than anyone else, "something about that mist . . ."

"What about it?" Abby said, unconcernedly.

"It is not normal mist, that's what," he replied knowingly. "It looks magical in nature, but I can't decide whaf exactly is its cause."

"Maybe Melissa knows," Cloak said.

"What makes you say that?" Broken asked.

"She standing right behind the door," Cloak gestured. "I can sense her anxiety from here."

"Melissa?"

She entered the room, having abandoned her idea of having to handle this herself. She showed some real maturity from this, but she was still intimidated. She seemed very uncomfortable in her skin, and seemed to half-regret her decision. She wondered if she should have followed through with her initial assessment of fixing this herself.

But . . . she didn't know how or where to even start. It would be an impossibility and completely implausible for her to do it by herself, and she knew it.

"Melissa, what do you know about this mist?"

Melissa was hesitant, before sighing. Then she blurted out, "It's all my fault."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 07, 2016, 12:59:16 AM

You said corruption a lot. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2016, 08:27:36 PM

Yes. Yes, I did.

New book ideas.

• Book CMXI: "Return of the Black Lanterns" -- A Mormo ressurects the Black Lantern Corps.
• Book CMXII: "Touchy, Touchy" -- The RAFians try to help a terrified Osmosian.
• Book CMXIII: "Goom's Rivalry" -- Goom's rival arrives at the forum.

Don't think that I rehashed anything. Let me know what you think!

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
You Can't Handle the Truth!!

"Your fault?" Broken said at once. "But how --"

She tried to meet his eyes, but found that she couldn't, so her gaze returned to the floor. She did not know where these feelings of shame and guilt came from precisely, but she felt them overly-judiciously. She felt very anxious, as Broken seemed to understand everything at once.

"Your mock Veritaserum," he said, quietly. "But you sealed in a bottle. It was well-sealed, as well. How could it --"

Melissa broke into fearful tears when she thought of what the two Lascivia brothers had intended to do to her, had she not had means to defend and protect herself. And she cried for their previous victims, as she was sure there was.

"Melissa?" Broken's tone wasn't hard or severe. His tone was as kind and as gentle as the situation called for. "Melissa . . . what . . . what happened?"

Melissa finally managed to meet Broken's eyes with her watery, teary eyes. Then she started to regale everyone present with her tale. . . .

***

And while all this was happening the city was ensconced in the Veritaserum mist, which meant that no one who wasn't magical, or prepared and skilled Occlumency, could lie.

Both parents of a small child confessed to the boy that his birth was a mistake and an accident, and could stop it from coming out. But it was the truth, at least, as both parents saw it. The boy fled from the people that apparently didn't want him . . .

The parents of a small girl, who was overlooked by them in favor or her glamorous, older siblings, had confessed that they did, in fact, love them more. But t wasn't really clear if their crass answers to her query was due to the Veritaserum mist or lack of common sense.

A man was discharged from his military position because he had lied about his age to enlist. He was actually underage, too youn to enlist, though he looked older. This was a result of being questioned under the effects of the Veritaserum mist, which compelled him to tell the truth, but it was clear that he was fighting it.

Another man was driven from town when, under the effects of Veritaserum mist, he admitted to being a peeping tom, when questioned about his plans for the night, in public.

Another man revealed himself to be member of an assassin's guild that a certain RAFian has had a history with. He confirmed his killings and those of his daughter. All because of the Veritaserum mist.

A woman -- a self-proclaimed psychic in the vein of Ms. Cleo and Yuri Geller -- outted herself as a fraud and charlatan due to the Veritaserum mist. It was quite by accident, as she was called up by some douchey teenager who asked if she was real, and she was compelled and forced to be truthful.

A man with a fondness of riddles was forced to admit whrn he didn't know the answer to one, much to his embarrassment.

And another poltician was forced, by the Veritaserum mist, to confess that he no only had links to organized crime, but they were even his donors. He struggled against revealing it, but did just the same.

An heiress was forced to abandon the airhead persona that she had adopted to get people to underestimate her, proving her true intelligence. While thst wasn't somethjng to be ashamed or embarassed, she was. But considering how heartless her father was, it was probably not too surprising she had this persona as a coping mechanism, to ignore her father's overt neglect and indifference.

A Dan Hibiki-type of characterhad to admit the only reason he opened a martial arts dojo was for the money, and he was overtly disappointed at the considerable like of revenue.

And an old fraud passing herself off as a medium to con desperate, gullible people out of their money was forced, due solely to the Veritaserum mist, to come out with the truth, which led to a conspicuous downward spike in her profits.

And a has-been actor admitted to taking illicit substances and several suicide attempts, and just generally being unhappy. Though this may not have been prompted by the Veritaserum mist, it was difficult to tell.

And a neighborhood bully revealed to be really insecure about his own self-worth, so he took it on others, transferring mentally the qualities he most hated about himself onto them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2016, 04:45:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
For Good, For Bad

More and more was this inability to tell even the whitest of lies was causing strife and turmoil. If there was any positive consequences of this Veritaserum mist, it was so thoroughly overshadowed by the negative.

A police officer confessed to his blatant corruption and abuse of power, which was already evident.

A boy admitted to having some eco-terroristic tendencies and proclivities.

A girl admitted to pretending to cry to manipulate others and get her way.

Another boy confessed his suicidal tendencies, and he was immediately given help. One of the positive things that the Veritaserum mist wrought, but it was few and far between.

A flappy man opened a dojo and he had to confess that he didn't know a thing about martial arts, street fighting or anything. He was compelled to admit that he was a charlatan and a fake.

A demurred, studious, reserved woman was allowed, due to the Veritaserum mist, to tell what her heckling classmates what she really thought of them, which in turn humiliated them into silence.

A cold, embittered man outted himself as a racist, sexist, and all-in-all horrible bigot, due to this Veritaserum mist. This alienated him from most -- but not all -- of his neighbors.

A promiscuous woman was forced by the Veritaserum mist to confirm that she had slept around to her rather flighty boyfriend, who demanded that he was his chosen mate's first . . . this led to a downward spiral of the dysfunctional relationship decending into the depths of misery.

A professional wrestler reveals the secret complexities and theatrics of the sport, though not saying whether it was fake or not.

Then a particularly evil woman was compelled to admit that she was a black widow, a woman who marries a man, kills him, declare it was an accident, and move on to the next victim, after securing the wealth of the previous one.

***

"I'm sorry," Melissa said, sincerely, as she completely her story, including her speculatikn that her emotions had busted the two-liter bottle, and, perhaps, transfigured it into a mist.

But Broken, Cloak, Saffa, and Abby dismissed the apology as unnecessary.

"It's hardly your fault," Broken said. "If you didn't do what you did -- well, I'd rather not think about it, to be honest."

"But it was my Veritaserum that caused all of this," Melissa said.

"But it wasn't Veritaserum," Broken said, without any asperity in his tone. When Melissa made to tearfully protest, Broken intercepted it with gentle alacrity, "Please, do not misunderstand me, my apprentice. What I meant was that Veritaserum does not have the ability to become an aerosol mist, like yours did. While it may share some properties with Veritaserum, whatever this mist is, it is not Veritaserum, but something new entirely."

"Veritaserumist?" Melissa said. "Truth Mist?"

"As good a name as any," Broken said.

"But just what do we do about it?" Cloak said, piping up from his corner.

"What do you mean? Everyone's telling the truth now. That's a good thing, isn't it?" Melissa asked.

"Perhaps on paper it is," Cloak said, his voice firm and serious. "But believing that only good can come out something like this is a bit naive, Melissa. I know you're still young --"

"I'm eighteen-years-old!" she protested. "I'm not a child!"

"I didn't say you were," Cloak said, oddly placid.  "I said that you were young."

"You're not that much older," she countered, evidently feeling defensive.

"Melissa, he's over two hundred and fifty years your senior, in our years," Abby said.

The girl looked nonplussed.

"Realm Walker years are equivalent to ten of --" Saffa began.

"Never mind all that, it's not important," Cloak said. "This Truth Mist cannot remain hanging around. It will plunge the city in to sheer and abject chaos."

"How can you be so sure about that, though?" Melissa persisted.

"The truth," Cloak said, unintentionally dramatic, "is not always painless."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2016, 12:39:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Talk of Antidotes, Song of Confessions

"I don't . . . what did you mean by --" Melissa said.

"It's immaterial," Cloak said, using his favorite phrase to dodge questions he rather not answer, "the point is how we can neutralize this Truth Mist. Veritaserum has an antidote, right? Broken?"

"For Veritaserum, yes," Broken said. "But, again, Truth Mist is not Veritaserum, but something new entirely."

"But Veritaserum was its basis, yes?"

"Not . . . not quite," Broken said, struggling not to be overly and overtly harsh on Melissa and her concoction. But he knew very well what the Realm Walker was getting at. "An antidote could be synthesized, it's true. But, taking into account the numerous unknown variables, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to do."

"We've done impossible things before," Saffa pointed out.

"This," Broken said, quite seriously, "is different. We have no leads, no starting off points. Melissa has said that she didn't know what happened precisely to make the Truth Mist as it is, in its current state. Failing that, who knows how long it would take to find the proper antidote to this?"

Melissa shrunk away from the cinversation, feeling horribly, horribly reaponsible for this.

"We have to stop this somehow," Cloak said stubbornly.

"If you have a faster alternative, Realm Walker," Broken said, getting rather testy, "I would love to hear it."

***

Meanwhile, the chaos of being unable to deal in mistruths continued, and the societal and cultural chaos that went with it continued as well.

A man was singing to his girlfriend:

"These are my confessions.
Just when I thought I said all I can say,
I came up with more secrets to tell you today,
These are my confessions.
First, I told you 'bout the skunk furry that I was cheatin' with?
Then I mentioned she's havin' my kid?
That's not all, now I recall more, you see,
So I'll give you all three of my confessions.
Now this gon' be the hardest thing I think I ever had to do.
Gonna tell you everything I left out, before you toodle-loo.
Like, remember when I told you that I knew Mandy Moore (Mandy Moore)?
That's a lie, I don't know what I said that for.
I borrowed your chopsticks from you ,without asking,
Oh, and I tried out your back hair trimmer, too.
And by the way, your 'Pokemon Diamond' version is really cubic zirconium.
I killed your Nuzlock Goldeen accidentally, just replaced it with another one.
These are my confessions.
Just when I thought I said all I can say,
I need to get some things off my chest right away!
These are my confessions.
Slipped my mind the last two times, silly me,
Now I guess I gotta give you all three of my confessions.
Threw up on your cat last time I had too much to drink,
There've been times when I peed in your sink.
Don't know why but you and I should agree,
That belongs in all three of my confessions.
Honey, forgive me, I'm still trying to figure out
Why I used your toothbrush to clean off the bathroom grout!
Oh, and sometimes in private,
Really like to dress up like Justin Bieber
And spank myself with a leek stick, (leek stick).
My boss thinks I'm a jerk, didn't get that raise,
I haven't changed my mind in twenty-seven days.
And when I'm kissing you I fantasize you're a Poké,
I'm so sorry Bridget, I mean Debbie!
These are my confessions.
Just when I thought I said all I can say,
I got a few more secrets I'd like to convey.
These are my confessions.
Slipped my mind the last two times, silly me,
Now I guess I gotta give you all three of my confessions.
Gave you buttered toast I dropped and picked up off the floor.
FYI, it was not a dinosaur (not a dinosaur).
Whoops, my bad!
(Hope you're not sore at me!)
But you'll be madder at me when I finish all three of my confessions."

Then he switched to regular, though somber speech, saying, "You don't know how hard it is for me to tell you this, but you remember that shirt you got me for my birthday? Well, I returned it for store credit. That thing was hideous, what on Earth were you smoking? Oh, B-T-W, I wasn't really sick last week. I just didn't want to go to your stupid office picnic. Oh, and when I told you at breakfast we were all out of Apple Jacks, what I meant was . . . there was only enough left for me. . . . Sorry."

Then he switched to song again:

"These are my confessions.
Just when I thought I said all I can say,
I thought of some more things that should scare you away.
These are my confessions.
Slipped my mind the last two times, silly me,
I guess I gotta give you all three of my confessions.
Once I blew my nose and then I wiped it on your mat.
And I lied, yes, that dress makes you look fat!
Anyway, I shouldn't say anymore,
'Til I give you all four of my confessions!"

Then he switched back to spoken word, saying, "I mean, I'm just getting started here. I'm not even halfway down the list! This thing could go on for . . . hey! Hey, where are you goin'?"

For his girlfriend had rose and quickly crossed to the door.

"Honey?"

She exited the room with a quick snap to the door.

The man was still nonplussed, "What? Was it something I said?"

No reply came back. No response could be seen or heard, from behind the door. The man was only left to say, in a rather misogynistic manner, "Women . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 09, 2016, 01:01:34 PM

So, the truth really is out there.

...

I'll excuse myself now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2016, 07:53:40 AM

;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Sampling the Mist

"Boys, boys, boys!" Saffa said, defusing the situation as only she could -- with wry sarcasm and acerbic humor. "There's no need to get all tense and all that. You two or overlooking a simple solution that could alleviate this."

"What?" the two irascible RAFians said, rather snappishly.

"Hey, no need for that tone," Saffa said, asserting herself easily. She allowed the briefest of pauses before stating her solution, "Guys, just go and get a sample of the mist and concoct the antidote from that."

"I've already sent Cerulean out to collect some samples," Abby said, coming away from the door. She had crossed to the door when Broken and Cloak were having their difference of opinion.

"But we don't know how long it'll take!" Broken protested profusely.

"If Goom, Yarin, and Aquilai can do it in a span of a few hours --"

"They are three, I am one," Broken said, testily.

"But," Melissa spoke up, her voice quiet and timid, "there will be two working on the antidote."

***

Meanwhile, the city's quiescence had seemed to be instantly changed into chaos. There were fights, arguments, emotions running high. It was remarkable how much damage, how much hurt, how much pain, simply speaking the unvarnished truth.

The naked truth, the honest feelings.

Yet chaos spewed forth when it was told. These honest feelings of likes and dislikes caused people to feel so horrible about themselves. Surely, it couldn't be all negative, Cerulean found himself thinking as he filled up one bag with the Truth Mist.

The sober truth, the earnest beliefs.

Funny. Funny how beliefs can be so hurtful. The old adage that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" was flawed logic. Words can and do hurt, no matter whether truthful or lies concocted to wound. And words leave no physical mark, but they can leave marks upon one's psyche. And beliefs can be the culmination of such vitriolic lies, and such beliefs are difficult to dissuade with facts, by the more stubborn lot of society.

The gospel truth, the unchanging attitudes.

Interesting. Interesting how stubborn, inborn attitudes become more pronounced when any deception was taken off the table. How overt their bigotry and hate became, especially when the niceties of societal decorum of hiding such ugly things becomes moot.

The straight-up truth, the straightforward thoughts.

Fascinating how violent, how destructive, how volatile people could be when all filters were removed. How candidly they wore their thoughts on their sleeves, how overtly they wore their emotions. And how by doing such proved to be dangerous and volatile.

Cerulean had collected several bags of the Mist, which seemed to contiually span outwards, but didn't seem to be losing any potency. Having seen the disarray and chaos of the city, unable to tell even the whitest of lies, unable to spare people's feelings . . .

The truth was about to be out there . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2016, 12:03:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Labels and Samples

"Here's the samples," Cerulean said, handing them over.

"You didn't need to get so many," Melissa said, almost tentatively.

Broken indulged himself with a small smile, "Apprentice Spellman, your optimism is decidedly refreshing. But make no mistake, we will problem make mistakes. We will probably take risks, make miscalculations, and (it's very likely) get messy."

"And he's Ms. Frizzle now," Abby smirked impishly. Saffa allowed a small smile, while Broken and Cloak looked less than amused.

"Wait, I thought it was 'Mrs.' Frizzle," Cerulean interjected.

"No, no, it's 'Ms.'" Abby corrected.

"What does this have to do with anything?" Cloak said, seriously and humorlessly, as Broken and Melissa had already taken their leave. The three looked at him, noting his surly behavior.

"Cloak," Saffa said, knowingly and compassionately, "what's going on?"

The Realm Walker said nothing, and simply turned his back on them. He didn't want to talk about it. About his frustrations with this paternal ancestor of his, of Aniyu. He kept silent on his frustrations with a Realm Walker long dead.

He didn't know why it was so important to him, and he would never be able articulate it aloud. But it was. And the fact that he he didn't know why, this uncertainty was maddening for him.

Perhaps it was because Aniyu was paternal ancestor of his. And Cloak knew nothing about his father's family. His mother, Ursa, wouldn't have it when he was younger. He only knew her side well, and that just the way she wanted it, the incurable selfish narcissist.

He had never even met his paternal uncles, and he suppositively had two of them. Uncles related to him by ichor, his father's older and younger brother. He didn't even really know their names. And he only spoke to his paternal grandfather once, when he was fifteen. A conversation long since forgotten.

"Cloak . . .?" Abby prompted.

"It's nothing," Cloak said, repressively. Then he left the room, and the board building entirely, before going to his thread.

Cloak knew he might be labelled as an emo for this, but he didn't really care. The thoughts of others who live to disparage others mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. And they are usually the people who the worst thing to happen to them was having a poorly-timed pimple and other such trival matters.

He would just wait for Broken and Melissa to come up the antidote, and innoculate the mist with it. While he didn't like deceptions and lies, the mist also prevented the most meager lies crafted to spare the feelings of others. And hurt feelings often lead to anger. And anger leads to hatred. And hatred often led to hostility and violence. And violence led to suffering.

It had to be stopped. But there wasn't anything the feline Realm Walker could do at this point to stop it . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2016, 10:06:49 PM

Buttload of new book ideas.

• Book CMXIV: "A Touch of Silver" -- The RAFians must help an argentokinetic.
• Book CMXV: "Jockeying For Position" -- The RAFians must deal with creatures called Spine Jockeys.
• Book CMXVI: "Not Very Sharp" -- A sharp-witted boy, who hides his intelligence, finds a very special suit.
• Book CMXVII: "Punch Drunk" -- A recovering alcoholic finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXVIII: "A Joint Venture" -- An orthopedist finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXIX: "For the Birds" -- A birdwatcher finds a very special phleobotium suit.
• Book CMXX: "Filth" -- A dirty man finds a very special phlebotinum suit.
• Book CMXXI: "Glutton For Nourishment" -- A greedy boy finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXII: "This is Not the Thread You're Looking For" -- A fashion designer/fashionista finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXIII: "Frag!" -- A demolitions expert finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXIV: "Fungus Amongst Us" -- A fungologist fjnds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXV: "Gene Domination" -- A geneticist finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXVI: "Blood-Stained Glass" -- Twins find two very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXVII: "Kinetic Potential" -- A pacifist finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXVIII: "This Isn't Logical" -- A political campaigner finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXIX: "Sign By the Dotted Line . . ." A businessman finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXX: "The Muscle Man" -- A muscle-bound man finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXXI: "You've Got a Lot of Nerve" -- A neurologist finds a very special phlebotium suit.
• Book CMXXXII: "The . . . Pain . . ." -- A masochistic CNA (certified nursing assistsnt) finds a very special phlebotium suit.

All titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Process

Melissa and Broken went swiftly to work, as apprentice and teacher. It was in this that they happened to develop a rather cordial, platonic relationship. But their task still laid before them, weighing on them.

They tried to Transfigure the Mist -- FOOM!

A burst of yellow, green, and red smoke beget a raincloud over Broken's head, which eventually rained itself out. On his head. He wasn't too thrilled about it.

They tried to heat it up using Firaga -- very dangerous in mixing magicks, but Broken was really hoping for a miracle -- FOOM!

A burst of purple, red, and green smoke and Melissa abruptly took on the appearance of the Queen of England.

"What?" she inquired, as the illusion thst manifested began to evaporate away in odd strips.

"Nothing," Broken lied.

They tried to Charm it -- FOOM!!

A burst of yellow, green, and purple smoke and suddenly Melissa let loose a tremendous roar-like burp. She said, in an embarrassed timid voice, "Excuse me."

They tried to cool and coalesce it with Blizzaga --FOOM!!

A burst of purple, red, and yellow smoke and suddenly the Mist were rather disgusting-looking marshmallows.

"Don't think the housekeeping elves will be too happy with that," Broken muttered, "it's stuck to the table."

"'Houskeeping elves'?" Melissa queried.

"House-elves," Broken clarifed, before saying, " let's press on."

They tried to curse it -- FOOM!!!

A burst of purple, red, and orange smoke, and suddenly Melissa was a mouse, but Broken muttered some incantation and reverted her to her normal form.

"Let's no do that again, please," Melissa said.

They tried to use electrolysis on it with Thundaga -- FOOM!!!

A burst of orange, green, and yellow smoke, and suddenly it was raining brains. Broken quickly Vanished the brains, and ended the spell with but an incantation.

"Brain storming," Melissa said, more to herself than anyone else.

They tried to Vanish it -- FOOM!!!!

A burst of purple, green, and blue smoke, and, suddenly, Broken was invisible. But he became visible again with a wave of his hand and a mumbled incantation. No more did they dwell upon it.

The tried using Aeroga on it -- FOOM!!!!!

A burst of purple, orange, and green smoke and Broken had to stamp out a fire on his coat.

"This doesn't leave this room," Broken said.

"My lips are sealed." Melissa said, indulging herself in a furtive smile.

More and more they tried, but they seemed unable to get more than simple, although comical, side effects. Broken didn't like that this was taking so long. They didn't know how long it would be before that Mist spread to the whole world. . . .

Broken was also having doubts about his own magical ability, and qualms of whether or not he was up to this challenge.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 11, 2016, 01:38:00 PM

Heh, you went full Yoda back there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2016, 08:12:33 PM

:huh:

Anyway, sorry for the delay.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Agitation and Restlessness

You are needed . . .

Focus . . .

They need you . . .

Focus now, Cloak . . .

You are letting them down . . .

Focus . . .

You are shirking your responsibilities . . .

It was no good. He couldn't meditate. His mind was too busy, buzzing with distracted thoughts, irritating memories, and the like. Focus of the sort required was just short of impossible.

And if he couldn't meditate, he couldn't find Aniyu, couldn't find out more of his father's side of the family. He burned with curiosity about that, which could possibly be a failing due to his feline form and nature. In any case, it didn't matter as he would not he able to do it while this whole Truth Mist thing was going on.

His condemnable sense of duty would not allow him to just ignore it. He was always a worrywart and took everything as his responsibility. Again, probably due to his past working hard to appease his mother in any way, and never succeeding to reach her high, lofty standards.

He had to do something to help with the effort.

But Realm Walkers, if anything, are only rudimentary magic-users, if anything. Cloak supposed that can from them being essentially magic teflon. Granted, he managed to use "expellocorpus", but that wasn't really a recognized spell by whoever's authority it was to officially recognize such things as legitimate.

He left his thread, as he strode toward the boundary of the forum, thinking and pondering the extent of what he could do. He wasn't accustomed to being unable to help, though he wasn't capable of doing everything.

Doesn't mean that he wouldn't try, though.

He may not be able to stop it, but maybe he could contain it somehow. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2016, 09:19:38 PM

Now, the daily chapter tomorrow will come later. Roughly 6:30 or 7:00 my time.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Synthesis Successful and the Voice of Vitriol

"Wait," Melissa said, acknowledging the two's lastest concoction, "no flashes. No bangs. No spontaneous combustion."

"Let's not talk about that last one," Broken said, clothes still steaming. Then, in the same breath, he changed tact, "but, yes. It does appear that we found a way to neutralize the Truth Mist."

"We wouldn't have made this kind of head way if we didn't go off the Veritaserum antidote you had," Melissa said. "We probably should have started with that, Cody."

They were on first name terms now, due to a mutual respect.

"I wanted to cover all the bases," Broken said. "Granted, it probably was against my better judgement to mix magicks. Fortunately, the volatility wasn't particularly . . . explosive."

"Was that a real consideration?" Melissa inquired.

"Possibly," Broken replied vaguely. "But now that we have this, we must find the best way to innoculate it into the Truth Mist. We don't want it spreading any further."

"Allowing deception to exist again," Melissa said, admitting some doubt.

"No spell or potion is absolute or infallible," Broken said. "There would always something or someone that could get around it. Infallibility is a ruse, Melissa. Everyone and everything is fallible. The Truth Mist is no exception."

"How can you be so sure?" she asked, earnestly.

***

What was amazing, though, was Bern Bridges was still able to make his vitriolic, specious rants without any ill effect. All his anti-RAF propaganda, all his fallacious arguments, all his erroneous factoids -- none of it seemed affected by the Truth Mist.

How could this be?

The answer to that question was simple, as the Truth Mist disabled any deception, not really forcing the absolute truth unless directly confronted and asked accordingly. Also, it was possibly because he "drank the Kool-Aid". That is to say, that he honestly and earestly believed every word he uttered about the RAFians. This perception meant that, in his view, he wasn't lying, despite the numerous illogical errors, surreptitious assumptions, and shaky conclusions in his assertions.

This proved the fundamental Achilles' heel in both Veritaserum and this Truth Mist. Both took the truth to be rather subjective, based on the individual perception of the individual in question.

Though it could just be proof of just how warped Bridges' mind was, that his perception of the truth was grossly off-kilter. Yeah, that was more likely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2016, 08:03:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Containment Considerations

Cloak had formed a golden-scarlet energy disc. He stood upon it, and flew over the city, in the hopes of seeing the spread of this Veritaserumist, this Truth Mist. He was trying to see how viable it would be to try to contain it.

It was a bit disheartening. At least 96.2% of the city was covered by the Truth Mist. It was inconceivable that this mist came from a simple two-liter bottle. Came from such a bottle and expanded so much so quickly. It almost like an invasive animal or plant which had no natural checks and proliferated with astonishingly rapidity, like kudzu.

Cloak considered the course of action he should take.

He could not enclose the city in earthen wall, as it would essentially blocking every city dweller inside the city. With the Mist. It might, though unlikely, contain the Mist, but the denizens of the city were not likely to see it that way. That was out.

The same thing with anything metal or his own bichromatic energy. That was out.

He would not use the Fire Element, he could not use the Fire Element. He did not know if the Mist, despite the term "mist", was either flammable or explosive. It would most likely not go over well. Not to mention his innate pyrophobia.

Maybe if the Mist was water-based he could halt it that way, using that avenue. . . . He tried, but it was potion droplets suspended in air. And Cloak had no mastery over potions, not like he had mastery and command over the Six Elements. Granted, he didn't really try (perhaps if he used his powers at their absolute zenith, but he was too afraid to ever go to that level).

Perhaps if he could generate trees from the ground to filter out the Mist? He never really formed fully-formed trees like that plan would have to account for. And he wasn't even sure if a tree could filter out the Truth Mist, so it would have been an exercise in futility in that scenario.

The last consideration that he conceived was rather more simple. A simple aerokinetic dome. But he was sure that there ramifications and consequences that he did not see as of yet of committing to such a tactic.

He hesitated . . .

***

"This all a part of the RAFian agenda," the obese Bern Bridges said, setting his jowly face aquiver. His genuine belief in his own faulty, specious, fallacious facts protecting him from being effectively silenced for the Truth Mist for very long. He couldn't go off on a tangent that he knew was deceitful or not entirely true, that much was true. But it did not stop him from extrapolating from conclusions that he wholeheartedly believed to be truthful, though they were not the absolute truth. "I know this for a fact! All this chaos, it's due to their cr-- their delib-- their actions."

It was amazing how he managed to stay on the air, considering his ratings were essentially in the toilet. He had a small -- very small -- fanbase. Most only listened to him as background noise, and a sparse few took what he said as gospel truth, usually the older set.

"They planned for this accursed mist permeating our beloved city," he said. "Tthey have no in-- they do not want to protect us. That is a fallacy. They want to stop our way of life, they want to usurp all that we value. They cause all these problems to blight our city so they can prance in and look like heroes, when really they are the villains of the story."

He paused to take a drink of water before launching into another pointless tirade that sparce people would listen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 12, 2016, 09:18:06 AM

His point is actually valid sometimes. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2016, 07:41:30 PM

It's hit or miss, really.

Sorry, there might not be a chapter tomorrow. I'm still a little livid.

[spoiler=All the rage]My mother sent me a friend request on FaceBook. After all the sh-- er, crap, that she put me through, did she honestly think I would accept?

She used and abused me.

She told me the proper way to slash my wrists.

She kicked me out of the holy use when the beef stew I made to her specifications did not meet her standards.

She constantly scapegoated me.

She doesn't even have the right to use my last name, the surname of my father.

She kept me from him and that side of my family, made me think that he left because of me.

She hurt me so much, and she knows how much she hurt me, and she expects me to actually WANT to contact her? That I would want her back in my life to manipulate and use me some more? She used Shadow as a weapon to manipulate me, just like she used me to manipulwte my father!!

I will not go back. I will not go back to being the friggin' doormat I was all those years ago.[/spoiler]

Sorry, had to vent. This was very emotional for me.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 12, 2016, 08:51:46 PM

I'll be in chat when I get home, if you want to talk. I'll probably be there in an hour or two

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2016, 09:29:39 PM

Sorry, I hafta go to bed earlier tonight because of that blasted Daylight Savings Time thing. But according to my aunt ("Wheeza") its just a thing FaceBook does. Somehow I doubt it, but you never know.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Long Contained

An air dome had formed over the city, forcing the Mist to stay within the city limits. The denizens seemed to see it as a curiosity, but didn't see it as a threat, just an odd natural phenomena.

But it wasn't natural, not technically. It was Cloak, naturally, with a single stream of golden-scarlet energy coming from the edge of each one of his eyes, almost like tears. He was containing the Mist, and succeeding in this endeavor.

Cloak, however, was worried. He wasn't sure if he could maintain this air dome at this current level of power. He was concerned with having to tap into a higher level of his power, and he feared the possible upper limits of his abilities, though he did not know what that upper limit was. He wasn't too sure he wanted to know.

But the main goal of this task was clear. Prevent the Mist from expanding beyond these boundaries he had just crafted. He had to keep it contained . . . he had to . . . he had to. . . .

***

"YOU SEE?" Bridges practically screamed into his microphone. "It isn't bad enough that they had proprigated that truth-inducing gas --and, listen to me now, because I am not lying (as thanks to the RAFians I can't) -- this is the absolute truth. The RAFians are NOT heroes. They are a gang. A gang of thugs. Thugs who espouse vigilante justice!"

He slurped his drink rather loudly and crassly. So much so it sounded as if he was getting drunk, and, in a way, he was. Drunk on his own perception of power, and intoxicated by the sound of his own voice.

"Now they are trapping us in our city with this noxious gas, which is probably p-- . . . probably po-- . . . probably pois--"

He wasn't able to get that last bit out because it was a lie and a deception and he knew it. He quickly recovered well enough, to continue his impassioned schlock.

"Now, the big why." he continued. "The sixty-four million dollar question -- why is it so important for them to stop us," he was obviously not talking about the voting public but his conservationist party, the upper crust of it, "why is so important for them to prevent us from usng deception? I'll tell you, my dear listeners," he intoned conspiratorially, "they're paranoid. They are afraid, dear listeners! Afraid of us lying to them and them being none the wiser!"

He slurped his drink again, seemingly getting thoroughly sauced.

"Being able to lie is our God-given right! These RAFians don't have a right to take it from us!" Bridges said, forcefully. His words were starting to slur as he went off-air, then completely passing out, laying nearly-lifeless in his swiveling chair.

Yep. Bern Bridges was a paragon of political prowess.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2016, 06:15:43 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A Dehumidifier?

"You could have let someone know about your little plan, Cloak," Broken chided.

"I'm still a tiger," Cloak said, "I could still eat you."

"He's . . . he's kidding," Meliss said, uncertain, "right?"

"I can never be sure," Broken said vaguely, setting down a strange boxy device that Cloak had never seen before.

"Is that -- ?"

"A makeshift magical device that will inoculate the Mist with the antidote," Broken said.

"Looks like a dehumidifier," Cloak said, dryly.

"Cloak, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not Yarin," Broken said, distractedly, "I'm not gonna scream at you to call it a Food Yield Increaser or something."

"Aww," Cloak said, sardonically, "killjoy."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Broken said. "Let's get this done, then."

"I'd like to push the button," Melissa said, and Cloak had a strange image of Melissa as Baby Plucky. He pushed the thought from his mind.

"Cloak, if you can funnel the Mist into the device? It might expedite the process," Broken said.

Cloak, despite his anxiety, tapped into the the next level of power, as another tongue of golden-scarlet energy streamed from his eyes. He had to do this to ensure he had sufficient finite control over his aerokinesis. He was worried that he may have to to the third level, and the higher the level he goes, the easier that it is to lose control. And that was the source of his egophobia, his fear of his own powers. He was terrified of losing control, losing control of himself, of his emotions, of his powers. He was powerful enough to cause plenty of damage . . . too much damage.

"Cloak? If you would, please?" Broken prompted.

Cloak acquiesced, causing a wind tendril to extend from the air dome. Then he funneled into the dehumidifier device.

"This is gonna take some time, isn't it?" Melissa inquired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 13, 2016, 06:20:29 AM

Meanwhile, gh begins making the popcorn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2016, 06:23:03 AM

Nah. He's looking to kill whoever taught Leatherhead "This is the Song That Never Ends".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 13, 2016, 06:47:15 AM

YEAH, NO KIDDING. Does anybody have some headphones? Or better yet, a friggin' muzzle?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2016, 07:04:56 AM

Lol.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Crisis Complete

Cloak supposed that it must have been tedious for the other two, but he had to focus on the task at hand.

About nine percent done . . .

He had to exercise control. Exercise control . . . lest his power run rampant and out of control . . .

About eighteen percent finished now . . .

Cloak was concerned what they'd do if they ran out of the antidote. . . .

About twenty-seven percent finished now . . .

They haven't ran out of antidote yet, and Cloak believed thst was a good sign. He wanted to believe that it was a good omen . . .

About forty-five percent finished now . . .

Cloak supposed that Broken could always use the Replenishing Charm in the event that the antidote ran out. . . .

About seventy-two percent done . . .

It was going along swimmingly. As such, Cloak was expecting something to go wrong. . . .

About eighty-one percent done . . .

So close . . . so close . . . so close now . . .

About ninety percent done now . . .

So very close now . . . and . . .

It was done.

***

Tap, tap.

Bridges was being pooked and prodded with a broom handle. He was still in a drunken stupor. He wasn't gonna be roused anytime soon.

***

"Stop," came the exhausted, tortured voice of Lee Johns. "Just . . . stop."

"Ah! No 'please', then?" Malice said, cruelly. "At last, some perceptible progress!"

"Just . . . why are you doing this?"

"I've already told you, dear boy," Malice said, dismissively. "I shan't explain it again."

"Why . . . why me?" he panted. No one should have endured the torture this poor boy has. It was a wonder that his sanity was still intact. "Why . . . me?!"

"Why you?" Malice said, inappropriately blithe. "Why not?"

"Let . . . lemme go," he begged, as Malice injected a green liquid in a syringe into Lee's shoulder. He shuttered uncontrollably minutes after, before stopping. "What . . . did . . . you . . . do . . . to . . . me?"

"Oh," she said, cavalier, "we shall see soon enough, I think."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 13, 2016, 07:17:20 AM

The tension is real

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2016, 11:52:16 PM

But you'll have to wait until the next book to see.

Now, new chapter. Last one of this book.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Inner Knowing and GH

He was in a red and black expanse. A void of nothingness.

Cloak looked around, and saw nothing of note. He couldn't help but feel deeply disappointed. He was meditating and hoping to find Aniyu. He burned with curiosity, bursting with questions about his father's side of the family. He still knew nothing of that side of his family, and he sought to rectify this.

Behind him, a "Y"-shaped portal opened, and a newcomer stepped through. Cloak caught the person's scent and his eyes widened, pupils dilated into feline slits. He knew that scent. He knew it for nearly thirty years before she threw him away, when he was, in her view, no longer of any use to her.

He turned around slowly, and growled, "You."

"Is that anyway to talk to your mother?" the voice said. She still sounded the same as he remembered. Just as conceited, just as impossible to please. Cloak's innards were roiling with many emotions. Hatred, fear, sadness, pity . . . all conflicting and entangling the next. But anger . . . that was the predominate force here, as tendrils of energy began to stake their way from Cloak's eyes without him even being aware of it.

"I am no longer under your thumb," growled the Elements Master, more bestial than anything else. He prowled closer to her, like an injured animal seeking retribution. "I can speak to you in any way I deem appropriate."

"You will show me respect!"

"I am." Cloak snarled. "I'm showing you all the respect that you deserve,all the respect you have earned: none."

She seemed to be aware that Cloak was approaching her in much the way a tiger would approach prey, prey to take down and kill. He was tempted. He was sorely tempted. This was the woman who caused him an enormous amount of pain and suffering. He was essentially enslaved to her, more or less, for ten years. Ten years Nexus time! That was a century, in Dweller time.

"You wouldn't kill your old mother, would you now?"

Cloak reared to his full and considerable height, and yet, his mother was still larger than him due to her being an ursine Realm Walker, a grizzly bear, to be specific. He looked at her, still full of anger, hatred, and bitterness.

He shut his eyes, and took a deep breath, steadying himself. Then he snaoped them open, and addressed his mother -- or, rather, the oneirokinetic construct that appeared to be his mother -- and said, quite distinctly and quite plain, "No."

"What?"

"No, Mother," Cloa said. Where there was edtreme  anger and hatred before, it had been inexplicably replaced and exchanged for extreme sadness and pity. Despite everything she put him through . . . despite how condemnable a person she was . . . there was one fact, one unassailable, ever-present fact that would never go away.

She was still his mother. Nothing would change that. Nothing could.

"No, Mother," Cloa repeated, as he turned away, continuing, "I'm not like you."

Cloak walked away, unaware that the void had changed to blue and white as the oneirokinetic construct of his mother vanished instantaneously, nor Aniyu emerging from an "X"-shaped portal, watching him as Cloak came out of his meditation, momentarily severing their link.

***

"Guitarhero was a mighty man,
The kind of man you'd never disrespect!
He stood 10 foot tall, wore sunglasses,
And he had a third Mark on the back of his neck!
He ate his own weight in carbon
And excreted diamonds every day!
He could throw you down a flight of stairs,
But you still would love him anyway.
Yeah, you know you'd love him anyway!
Guitarhero won the Tour de RAF
With two flat tires and a missin' chain.
He trained an Ekans to do his laundry,
I'm tellin' you the man was insane.
He could rip out your beatin' heart
And show it to you right before you died!
Every day, he'd make the host of The Apprentice
Give him a piggyback ride.
Yeah, a two-hour piggyback ride!
Giddyup, Donnie!
Ninja Warrior, Master Of The Skies!
He could melt your brain with his laser beam eyes!
Oh yeah! Oh yeah!
He had his very own line at the DMV,
Oh yeah, that was somethin' to see, I tell ya!
Guitarhero sold his toenail clippings
As a potent aphrodisiac
He ran a five-minute mile, blindfolded,
With an engine block strapped to his back.
He could eat more frozen waffles
Than any other RAFian I know!
Once he fell off an Iskoort building
And he barely even stubbed his toe.
Had a tiny little scratch on his toe.
Didn't even hurt!
Guitarhero figured out cold fusion,
But he never ever told a soul.
I've seen the man unhinge his jaw
And swallow a gyro whole.
He'd bash your face in with a shovel,
If you didn't treat him like a star,
'Cause you can spit in the wind or tug Cloak's cloak,
But, Lord knows, you just don't mess around with GH.
No, no, no!
Talkin' bout GH!
Ohh!"

"A pet project, GH?" Saffa said, smirking impishly.

GH nearly dropped his guitar. He hadn't expect a distraction or interruption at this time.

"Or did I interrupt something a bit more . . . intimate?" Saffa teased nonchalantly.

"What d'you want, Saffa?" GH said crankily.

"There's no need to be like that," Saffa said, rather bracingly.

"How else would I be toward the person who taught Leatherhead that infernal song?"

"You can't prove that," she said, smirking like a naughty child.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 14, 2016, 01:16:51 AM

Holy ****, you just keep pilong on the layers to this Aniyu thing. I love it.

Also, I should know, being, well, me, but what the hell was I doing?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 14, 2016, 03:59:04 AM

I'm trying not to burst out laughing in class here. :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2016, 12:10:30 PM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on March 14, 2016, 01:16:51 AM

Holy ****, you just keep [piling] on the layers to this Aniyu thing. I love it.

Yep, that's gonna persist, at least for a while.

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on March 14, 2016, 01:16:51 AM

Also, I should know, being, well, me, but what the hell was I doing?

You know very well what. ;)

A self-indulgent, personal song.  :angel:

Quote from: Saffa on March 14, 2016, 03:59:04 AM

I'm trying not to burst out laughing in class here. :XD:

 ;D

New chapter.

BOOK CXVI:
SKIN CRAWLERS
CHAPTER ONE:
RAFian Nights and RAFian Meditates

"Follow me to a place where incredible feats
Are routine every hour or so,
Where enchantment runs rampant!
Yes, wild in the streets!
Open Sesame, here we go!
RAFian nights,
Like RAFian days,
They tease and excite,
Take off and take flight,
They shock and amaze!
RAFian nights,
Like RAFian days,
More often than not
Are hotter than hot,
In a lot of good ways.
Pack your shield!
Pack your sword!
You won't ever get bored,
Though get beaten or gored,
You might.
Come on down.
Stop on by.
Hop a carpet and fly,
To another RAFian night,
RAFian night!"

"Daddy," Leatherhead said, "do you have to sing that every time we come back to the forum?"

"Did you have to sing  'This is the Sing That Never Ends' for six hours straight?" GH countered, exaggerating a bit.

"I said I was sorry!" Leatherhead protested.

***

Cloak was meditating. He still wanted answers, but he was afraid of allowing the emotional turnoil that he had long buried to resurface again. He wanted to find Aniyu again, wanted to know . . . wanted . . .

"Aniyu," Cloak called out. "Aniyu, please."

Nothing. Just a void devoid of color and texture.

"Aniyu." Cloak called out again. "Let's end this farce, Aniyu. Let's end it!"

Nothing.

"Aniyu, c'mon!"

Silence.

"Aniyu, I have questions!"

Not even a cricket chirp sounded.

"Questions only you can answer!"

Silence persisted.

"Aniyu, please!!"

No one answered.

"Aniyu . . ."

Ever silent.

". . . Please. . . ."

Nothing.

Cloak took the message and pulled himself back into reality . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 14, 2016, 12:48:50 PM

For some reason the first thing that popped into my head at the book title was Nightcrawler. I need sleep.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2016, 04:48:34 PM

Oh, this book is infinitely more disturbing than Kurt Wagner could hope to be. ;)

It's about to get creepy. You have been warned.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Malice Disassemble*

Malice was setting down an empty, clean syringe. She was very satisfied with what she was doing. The sounds of what was going on behind her did not bother her at all, to the point that she was perfectly able to ignore them. Able to ignore the poor boy's discomfiture.

She did not even turn around to see what had become of her victim, what her experimentation had wrought. She knew what would happen already, of course, and she planned for it accordingly.

The boy was now silent, and she knew just why. She took great elation out of knowing that she succeeded in breaking the boy. She didn't think there was really anything to it, and she had a sadomasochistic enjoyment of the entire process.

She was entealled at turning an unusually selfless boy into an extremely selfish boy. She had converted all the goodness into meanness and sin. All his charity, his chastity, his diligence, his humility, his kindness, his patience, his temperance had been turned into envy, gluttony, greed, hubris, lust, sloth, and wrath. All his courage, friendliness, sincerity, reliability, love, hope, respectfulness and inner light was converted into cowardice, unfriendliness, insincerity, unreliability, hatred, disrespectfulness, hopelessness, and inner darkness. Malice only marveled how relatively easy it was to do, to break him. It was three weeks, max.

She would claim her trophy of this scheme momentarily.

She felt a bug crawl up her leg, beneath her cloak. It killed instantly when it got up enough where her Realm Walker corona was not blocked by her cloak. The strangest thing about this was that she allowed it, when anyone else's instead would be to crush the bug, to get it off.

She seemed to be obvious about a mass of bugs scuttling and skittering away from her, as if they were aware and cognizant of what happened to one of their kind, though it should have been beyond their ken (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_one%27s_ken#English). Malice seemed be aware of this but only mildly interested in it, if at all. At least a hundred or so of these pests fled from the Tasmanian devil-form Realm Walker.

After a prudent time, she checked on the boy, but he was in no fit state. What was on the flat table was little more than a flesh-toned lycra suit, like you see in those party store television advertisements, with an attached sandy blonde wig and realistic facial features. This suit was in a pale yellow shirt, blue jeans, and worn tennis shoes. The suit felt like real skin to the touch . . .

Because it was.

That serum had somehow skinned Lee, not unlike Skinwalker's power, only his innards were somehow gone, as if Malice had Vanished them. But one thing was clear.

Lee Johns was gone, and he was not coming back.

Malice swiftly and deftly grabbed up the forgotten skin, still wearing the clothing he had basically deflated in. It was unknown if this skin could be worn, like Skinwalker's victim's skins were, but there wasn't any use in that avenue for Malice. Even if the skin was wearable, Realm Walkers such as she could not wear the skin and masquerade around as Lee. The skin would have been destroyed even if she tried. Her motives about it were really vague at this point . . . maybe it was just a trophy, and nothing more, nothing less.

---

*"Short Circuit" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2016, 12:01:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Bum-Bah-Bum-Bum-Bum

But those hundred or so insects were not normal insects. They were black in color and they had bioluminescent eyes that they seemed to be able to turn on and off at will. One individual insect had a black bodies witha head segment and a thorax. They had a general arachnid appearance, but they possessed ten legs, not eight.

And there were a hundred of them, of various sizes. The largest being the size of a quarter and the smallest being the size of dime. But the thing about these insects, they had a single mind -- a single mind with a gestalt body.

That mind was disoriented. He had gone through a major change. He remembered . . . he remembered that he used to be . . . used to be . . .

While his mind was intact his memories before his transformation into the Hundred was deteriorating. He could remember everything afterward, but before? Before the change . . . it was . . . was . . . it was exceedingly difficult.

He thought he remembered his name . . . uhhh . . . it began with . . . with a . . . with a "L". No, wait. Maybe it was a "T". Or was it "E"? "3"? He . . . couldn't remember. Was he even human, like ever? Ye-- . . . he couldn't answer that. He could no longer remember. He could no longer . . .

Did it even matter? He was what he was. A mass of bugs, a swarm of arachnoid organisms, driven by a singular consciousness. That was all he needed to know. He, in all his constituent parts, was of the paramount importance.

He had fled, slipping through the cracks of the building, in to a dark, dank alleyway. He liked it here, as it was an environment his kind could thrive.it was actually a warm day, with the sun starting its daily decent in the sky. Night would soon come, and Hundred would enjoy that. He would be able to stretch out his constituent parts, though, now that he thought about it, it wasn't really so bad, being bunched up like this. It allowed him more fine control over his constituent parts.

It was being out in the open that he really didn't like. In the open, in the daylight, and in plain sight, these were the things that he didn't like. He must remember to avoid these things. He must -- wait, what was that?

It was a bum. Really, the person epitomized the stereotype -- dirty, tangled beard, knit cap, dirty trenchcoat, threadbare sweater and cardigan, slacks, fingerless gloves, bindle or blanket roll, shoes with holes -- the whole shebang. He swayed on his feet, the opened bottle of whiskey in his left hand was three-quarters drained. He was not only drunk, he was hammered.

That would make this easy, Hundred found himself thinking. Then he found himself wondering just what would be so easy, before he realized what he possibly could do, as the bum passed out directly into the alleyway floor.

Hundred swarmed his constituent parts down the walls to the the alleyway floor, right next to the somnulent man. Then Hundred streamed into the man's ears, nostrils, mouth and . . . other orifices. When the constituent parts came to an impeding obstacle, like flesh or internal organs, they just devoured them, leaving empty space behind. But these constituent parts did not touch the epidermis in any way, just cleared out everything else, hollowing out the poor man.

He didn't even have a chance to scream, before Hundred took him.

The man stood up, but he was little more than a skin being inhabited by bugs, thouh he looked as he would in life. And Hundred could mimic his voice perfectly. He was estatic. He felt powerful. And no one would know about his occupation of this skin -- not unlike Skinwalker.

"I did it," he said, in impeccable imitation of the bum's voice and mannerisms. No one would be able to tell the difference. No average joe would be able to discern that this bum was dead, and killed in one of the most creepily vile and intimate ways, and would easily overlook him as they usually did for homeless people like himself.

"Hey, Craig," said a blond kid. He had the unmistakable signs of living on the street though clearly being in his late teens or early twenties.

Hundred could not access the more poignant points of the man's memories, just enough not to arouse too much suspicion, and even then, it was cursory and tempermentally temporary.

The homeless teen ****ed his head as he looked at Hundred's victim, though the teen had no idea. "Craig, are you --"

But "Craig" lunged at the boy, wrapping his skin's mouth over the teen's muffling his scremas a Hundred took him as his second skin, abandoning the bum's skin as if it was an empty burlap sack. Taking this second victim made Hundred feel even stronger than before. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 15, 2016, 12:08:55 AM

. . . Holy ****. That was genuinely disturbing.

I love it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 15, 2016, 01:04:07 AM

Bloody hell.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2016, 03:16:13 PM

Indeed.

In case you're wondering, Hundred is Lee Johns (and I don think that's a spoiler at this point, though it might just seem obvious to me as the writer), but he was based off of Carl King (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Carl_King_(Earth-616)), an obscure Spider-Man villain.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Awareness and Unawares

Cloak felt irritation. He couldn't make contact with Aniyu still. Yeah, she was a long-dead Realm Walker, like the first Elements Master, one of his ancestors on his mother's side, Master Avatar. But he had a feeling that he was somehow connecting to her beyond the Veil.

Which, he had to admit, he thought was impossible. But he had managed. He had managed, but had no idea how he was able to breach the Veil in this way. Perhaps all this was his imagination . . . perhaps Aniyu did not even exist at all . . . perhaps she was just a mental construct representing his yearning to find out about his paternal lineage . . . or perhaps, just perhaps, Cloak was a complete and utter fool . . .

He felt thoroughly displeased and disappointed, though not at all angry, which surprised him. He just felt as if she was waiting for something, waiting for him to do something.

But what? What could it --

Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, every muscle tensed, his ears and nose on hyperalert. He know he sensed something, something evil somehere. But he couldn't begin to guess at its meaning.

Cloak hated how infernally vague that sense was. . . .

***

A boy was watching a television screen in a display window of an electronics store. The boy, about twelve or thirteen, wore a blue and white hat, with a blue brim and a blue tree on the front. He had somewhat messy brown hair and relatively pale skin, and his nose was a bit darker hue than the rest of his face. His eyes were brown with noticeable bags underneath. He wore a navy blue hooded vest, (which had an inner pockets on both sides) a reddish-orange t-shirt, gray shorts, white socks (each with a red stripe), black sneakers, and a gray digital wristwatch on his left wrist.

There was something off about him, but the casual passerby would have never noticed or sensed the truth. Most people don't really attune to their senses any more than is necessary.

"Hey, dweeb," the kid's moody, apathetic, sixteen- or seventeen-year-old brother said, pulling up in a rather ramshackled rust bucket of a van, whose black paint was chipping noticeably. He had shaggy black hair in a typical eye-covering "emo style" hairdo, pale skin and several piercings in his ears. He wore tight skinny jeans with a keychain attached to the pocket, and a light black hoodie with a picture of a red bleeding heart with stitches on it, along with black fingerless gloves. He wore black flat shoes with white bottoms and he had a sparse stubble (two strands of small hairs) on his chin, and a few blemishes scattered around his face. "Hey! Dweeb! I'm talking to you!"

The boy looked around, his face remarkably blank and placid. Almost as if it were a porcelain mask. The teenager apparently wasn't too swift on the uptake, as he saw nothing wrong with this.

"Dweeb, stop looking at me and get your butt in," he said, opening the passenger side door. "Mom wants us back home ASA-- hey! What are you doing, nimrod?!"

The "dweeb" had bypassed the passenger seat and gone to the windowless back. Then, before his brother could protest, he bit him on the neck. Then, with surprising strength, the boy pulled the poisoned and incapacitated teenager into the dark back of the van, which only rocked very slightly.

After a few tense moments, the teenager retook his place at the driver's seat, looking slightly thinner than he was just moments before, before ballooning to his proper medium-sized build.

"That place," he murmured to no one, his voice unmistakable for the teen's, "that forum. I have to go there. I want to be a RAFian. I wanna be a hero . . ."

It wasn't enough for Hundred to wear a RAFian, that would mean he was wearing a RAFian, it wouldn't mean that he was one . . . he did not know where this desire came from, just like he didn't know where his compulsion to victimize others and wear their skins came from, but he knew one thing, the only thing that he could remember from Before. A simple, childish desire . . .

"I wanna be a hero . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2016, 10:53:43 AM

If anyone's interested, "Lee Johns" = "Legions".

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Something Wrong Here

Cloak had arrived at the entrance of the forum. There was an impossible something that attracted him to the spot. Saffa, GH, Gaz, and Underseen were gathered around a very perculiar individual.

With every step, Cloak realized the truth.

"Look, pal," GH said, his iconic guitar shouldered, and then laying flat against his back, "it doesn't work like that. You can't just come here and demand to join."

"Tell me how do I become a h . . . a -- a RAFian?" the pale boy said. "Tell me. I'll do anything asked of me."

"What's going on here?" Cloak asked, very seriously, as per his norm.

"This kid came crashing in here, uninvited, demanding to join," Gaz said. Then she continued, uncharacteristicall y jaded and suspicious. "For all we know, he may just want the Mark."

Cloak took a step with his plantigrade feet, feeling every vibration he could through the Earth itself, as well as using his Earthsight to determine the truth of the teen's words.

"What are you?" Cloak said.

An uncomfortable silence stretched for a bit before the teen answered, and the teen seemed intimidated by Cloak.

"Wh-what d-do you m-mean?" he said, and Cloak thought he heard a scared, skittering sound issue from the boy. "I'm . . . I'm a human."

"No," Cloak growled, suddenly encasing the boy in a golden-scarlet bubble. "No, you aren't."

"Cloak, what are you doing?!" Underseen demanded, which the Realm Walker ignored.

"Your mass does not match your dimensions," Cloak said, explaining himself. "Every step is not as heavy as it should be. And every step, my Earthsight registers as if you nothing more than shifting sand in a burlap bag."

"And I smell no blood in you," Gaz added.

"You cannot be human. At least, not purely human. So, I ask again, what are you?"

"I'm hu--"

"I've already explained why that cannot be, with Gaz," Cloak said. The bubble seemed to shrink ever so slightly. "So that fabrication, that deception, will not work to your advantage. So, answer the Gateburst question!"

The teen seemed stymied, and seemed unable to come up with a plausible lie. He seemed to try find a way to maintain the facade, but found that he couldn't. Hundred knew the jig was up as he sighed.

Then he opened his mouth wide, declaring himself as the Hundred, as his eyes went glassy an rolled up into his head. Then Hundred's constituent parts streamed out of his mouth, leading to several reactions from the RAFians, except Cloak, who looked unsurprised.

Saffa screamed, Gaz looked sick, and Underseen's form became opaque in color before he managed to right it. GH prompy threw up in a nearby bush -- and made a note never to eat so much again, although how could he ever expect this?

Cloak had expected this because he was aware of an isolated incident happening in another Realm. An obscure one, at that. Cloak narrowed his eyes, at the skin. It was evident that the skin was not artificial in origin.

Cloak allowed it to flutter to the ground, keeping Hundred in the bubble, sure that he didn't over look anything. Then, perhaps wrongly, incinerated the contents of the bubble with the Element of Fire.

Cloak had spared the skin as to give the families something to verify their loved one's passing. Although now that he considered it, now that the Hundred was dead, it may have been more of a slap in the face to them. They would surely be in denial at this, at leadt at first. Then the denial will subvert into anger, then into bargaining, than into sadness. But acceptance may never come.

He couldn't imagine having such a thing happen your family member. And, if he was honest with himself, he didn't want to.

But they had to right by them, even though one RAFians was jeering and calling it "PC culture". Cloak ignored -- he was an idiot, anyway. Amazing how someone found a way to out-Rotiart Rotiart.

But Cloak should have been more diligent.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 16, 2016, 11:43:29 AM

You know, my reaction was probably more effective than you'd think, when you consider that I actually haven't thrown up once since I was in middle school.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2016, 06:18:39 PM

Speaking of which, I don't think that there is gonna be another new chapter today, as I'm feeling rather ill right now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 16, 2016, 07:01:30 PM

Sorry to hear that :( Feel better soon!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2016, 09:29:34 PM

I do, apparently it was just a momentary bug that I had to get out of my system. Or I'm Wolverine and didn't know it.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIX:
Tricky

But Hundred was not dead. One of his constituent parts had managed to escape by staying behind in the skin. It was in this way that it escaped immolation and incineration. One could say that this was an ingenius self-preservation tactic, while another could say it was just a happy mistake on Hundred's part, as he was not truly dead. At the last moment, while everyone was distracted by the burning of his other constituent parts, he fled the forum as the small arthropod now encapsulated the entirety of Hundred's consciousness, with no seemingly ill effect.

Hundred was now One.

One did not like being one. He was so small, helpless, and vulnerable. He was not safe in the open. He could not hide himself in a skin, not as One. He didn't care about the lives he took, but he only cared about his own survival, his own wants, his own desires. Considering what he was like before Malice got to him, he had fallen a great deal.

He had managed to make it back to a dank alleyway. Not the same place where he took his first skin, but one that he found it comfortable just the same. But he was still One. He would never be a hero, or a RAFian like this. The cloaked one would be as problematic as the last one, the one who . . . who did what, exactly? It hurt to remember, to try. So, he refrained.

Then he felt a strange thugging sensation, while suddenly simultaneously suffering from a headache and nausea. He did not know why or how, only knowing the discomfort and inconvenience of the sensations.

Then he realized soon that he had regenerated more of his constituent parts. More than a hundred. More than five hundred. There was at least a thousand of constituent parts now. He was no longer Hundred, but Thousand!

He had replicated not unlike a Sonorosian or Splixson or Panunsian. Yet it cost him some the strength and energy that he had in abundance when he was Hundred. He was hungry. Collectively hungry. And he needed a skin in which to sheath all his constituent parts.

Fortunately, he would be able to satiate both needs in one go . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 16, 2016, 09:50:37 PM

What the hell?! How?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2016, 09:58:32 PM

The ****tail Malice had in the syringe it had a little bit of Spixson (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Splixson) in it, manipulated by her, just enough to grant him exaggerated "Multiple Man" powers. As a result, it drains him of his strength and power, requiring him to take more victims to replenish it.

Alternatively, one could say that he "steals" mass from Z-space. *shrug*

Er, not buying this, are you?

:edit:

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Concerns

"I haven't thrown up like that since middle school," GH moaned, feeling a little weak-kneed. "But seeing that? It was just so -- so -- there are no words."

"It was vile," Saffa said, looking sick herself.

"Cloak, why do you look . . . unsurprised?" Underseen asked.

"You've seen something like . . . like that before, haven't you?" Gaz said, knowingly.

"Yes," Cloak answered honestly and wearily. "But not in this Realm. It was in another, and it was an isolated, obscure occurrence. Not many people native to the Realm itself knew about it, I believe. If any but one."

Cloak sighed, before continuing, "I should have known that it would be a matter of time before something like this would happen here. A lot of the creatures we've seen -- a lot, but not all -- are also native to other Realms I visited in the past. Granted, the same could be said of humans, as well, but I digress."

"What?" GH asked.

"Didn't you know? Humans are one of the more common Dweller species found throughout the Realms." Cloak said, with mild surprise. "The ones I've personally visited, anyway."

"Going back to that swarm creature in that other Realm," Gaz said, "what was his story?"

"He was a bully to one of the superbeings of that Realm, before he got his power," Cloak elaborated, "name of Carl King, if I'm not mistaken. He was consumed by jealously, as he witnessed the gaining of the superbeing's powers, and he insisted that it should have been him. He ate the radioactive spider that gave this superbeing his powers."

"Sounds like bad judgement," Saffa commented.

"It didn't give the powers he wanted," Cloak said.

"I'm surprised it didn't kill him," Gaz said.

"He became a swarm of spiders inside his own skin," Cloak continued. "A corporeally gestalt creature with a hive mind consciousness. He took his mother's skin after this happened. Then his father."

"What?" Underseen said.

"He eventually confronted this superbeing, and he was electocuted accidently," Cloak said. "But one bug survived. Only to be squished underfoot by an unaware passerby."

"So, you think that this applies to Hundred?" Gaz said.

"But he's dead," Saffa said.

"So is Spectre," Cloak countered.

***

Thousand felt his old strength returning, strength and energy that was stored and saved away, should he need to replicate again. It was due to the manipulated Splixson DNA in the serum ****tail that she had injected him with, thiugh he wasn't aware of this, as he only ten or so when he was kidnapped. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary, as he wore the skin of a frat boy pledge.

The rest of the fraternity was reduced to skins, and some visiting sorority girls as well. There was at least twenty skins laying around the fraternity house, like forgotten clothing. Thousand showed his utter disregard for his victims as he relished in his new strength, which bordered -- or even exceeded -- superhuman strength. It is this strength he lost when he replicated. He did not know if he had a limit to the number of times that he could replicate, but he did not bother to think about that, though he was actually relying on it.

"That's better," he spoke aloud, if only to break the oppressive silence of the house.

Then he considered his situation. He still desperately wanted to be a hero, and, to him, that meant being a RAFian. He may no longer be human, he still had the mentality of a human child, and thus made rather naive mistakes. But he does learn from them, and, as such, he learned that he couldn't just rush in and demand to be made a RAFian. He had to be more careful about this.

But he was certain that he would eventually get what he wanted. He would. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2016, 05:21:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Naivety and Dangerous Mist

"You can't, dear," Helen said, caringly, to a small boy who had wandered to RAF. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and wore dark blue pajamas with yellow duckies on them that was purple at the cuffs and neck.

"Why not?" the lost boy whined.

"You're too young, little fella," Helen said, as Parker, Saffa, and Gaz came strolling up, with Cloak a few steps behind.

"What?" the boy's voice was no longer whiny. It was serious, and flat-toned. "Then what on God's green earth do i have to do to join?!"

That wasn't the vernacular expected of a boy this age.

"What's going --" Gaz said, before sniffing. She immediately addressed Cloak. "Cloak, we need you front and center."

"What?" Helen said, here Star Sapphire glow bursting around her, without cinscious thought. "He's just a little boy. Lost, perhaps. But no more alarm than thaf."

The boy seemed to think that this was a proper time to break down and bawl. But this was a ruse. He no longer had tear ducts in which to produce tears, and as such couldn't really cry convincingly. But he had a ulterior motive for doing this.

"He has no blood," Gaz said, unusually blunt. "Just like the first one. If he did, I would be able to smell it. And I doubt he has ichor, like Cloak."

Cloak confirmed this, "Yes, and my Earthsight yields the same thing about the swarm-worn skin of that teenager. His mass does not match up with his appearance. And I can actually since the evil from him."

"Evil? I'm not evil." he said, keeping up the facade. He still pretended to be bawling despite the conspicuous absence of tears. Though the words were sincere in his mind, though not truthful objectively. "I'm not!! I'm not evil!!"

"Drop the pretense, Hundred," Cloak said, dryly contemptuous, "you're not fooling anyone."

He tried to maintain the deception despite this, only abandoning it when it became very obvious that no one was convinced of what he was trying to sell. When he spoke, he sounded a few year older thna he was, but only in word choice, his voice still matched his skin. "Very well, then. And it's Thousand, now."

Cloak narrowed his eyes, as that was also the name of the Carl King from that other realm gave himself. But King did not have the ability to replicate, as this. There was more to this Thousand, Cloak suspected. He also couldn't help but suspect that Malice was behind this, though he had no proof other than his paranoia.

"What do you want, then, Thousand?" Parker said. He was wearing his full armor regalia, but didn't seem to intimidate Thousand.

Thousand did not deign to answer, instead he vomited up his constituent parts, deating the boy to nothing but a skin. They made a beeline for Gaz, who shrieked and immediately went to her mist mode. This was rather fortuitously auspicious, as the mist that comprised this form of Gaz's seem to affect the Thousand constituency rather like a pesticide, somehow, considering it did not show this effect on any other arthropod.

Thousand immediately recoiled his constituent parts that were not killed by Gaz's mist, and prepared to flee the forum, which was a bad move as it gave Cloak ample time to collect them all, the living ones, into a whirlwind of air, which he then ignited. The new Thousand was now a bunch of burning embers or ash.

"You did it," Parker said.

"Not quite," Cloak said, "unless there are more than one of these hive-minded beings, which I doubt, that means that it was the same one from before. Check everywhere. Make sure that none of the arachnoid spiders that made up Thousand died. Parker, scan the entire forum for them. I don't care about the specifics of your armor's specks, just do it."

"Wait the hell?" Saffa said, still looking at the place where the young boy vomited up the bugs, "How? It was dead."

"At a later time, Saffa," Cloak said, "we have more pressing concerns. We have to nip this in the bud now. If it could replicate like that once, it can most assuredky do it again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2016, 10:10:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Recoup and Regroup

Thousand was no longer a thousand strong, he was now Two. He had pretended to bawl so long so he could deftly remove these particular constituent parts in case the rest had to be sacrificed so that he would still survive. As the others were incinerated, he fled in these meager two constituent parts.

He knew that this was necessary when he saw that cloaked figure. Just like the other one. The one who may have done something to him Before, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that. The desire to be a hero, to be a RAFian, became an obsession. One that consumed his every thought, though he did not know why.

It was almost if he was programmed to desire it. And almost as if programmed to think he needed to appear human to do so. But Two was not nearly as strong as Thousand. He needed to replicate, but he was finding difficulty do it.

He thought, with a lurch to his stomachs and sinking hearts, that maybe the replication was just a one-time use thing. Maybe he had gotten careless and reckless, thinking that he could just regenerate again. Perhaps it was because of that toxic mist?

Dammit. If that were true, he would never accomplish goal! He would never be a hero! He would never be a RAFian!

He came across another homeless person, a woman with ratty, flyaway hair. Her clothes were torn and threadbare, and she was rail-thin and bony, to an almost skeletal degree. Her lanky, flaccid hair, sunken eyes, and pale complexion would have brought to mind the stereotypical image of a banshee. She was clearly malnourished and starving. She spent her days wishing for death, wishing to forget her troubled life.

Two helped her out in this, though his intention was quite different from a mercy kill. Two discovered, after making a skin from her, inadvertently relieving her of her pain, though in the most disturbing way possible, that by doing so was sufficient enough to give them the strength and energy to duplicate, to replicate again.

But he was not Thousand anymore, but Million.

***

"If Thousand survived, he isn't at this forum." Parker said, bluntly.

"That's not our only problem," Mr. Guy said. "Remember how Mitch and Carly Roberts reacted when we presented Joseph Todd Robert's skin to them?"

"And they told us about their other son -- Jason, I think it was -- his skin was found in Joseph's van. What about them?"

"They went to Bernard Bridges," Saffa said dully.

"What?" Cloak said sharply. "Why?"

"They've decided that we, that RAF, was somehow at fault," Abby said. "That we skinned them for some perverse experiments. There was a faternity that lost a lot of their members to this thing as well. Most of them, actually. They are trying to scapegoat us for that as well."

"Hey! Don't you dare look at me like that!" Demos protested, at once. "I don't experiment like that."

"But that's not true," Dpsb said. "Are people really that stupid to believe such ridiculous things?"

"People believe what they want to believe," Cloak said, quietly, thinking of his species back in the Nexus, "humans are no exception."

"What about Les and Leslie Carey," Helen asked, "what did they think when they found out little Tommy was a skin?"

"They didn't seem to care all that much, to be honest," Underseen said. "It almost seemed like they were relieved."

"Not all parents are the stereotypical loving bastions as one might believe," Cloak said, waxing philosophical. "If only Tommy didn't have to go in such a vile, sinister manner . . . by a selfish, self-indulgent conglomeration of a creature. . . ."

"Great," Faerie said, in her usual caustic manner, "we might have missed a bit of Thousand, and our PR image is in the toilet. Wonderful. Bloody wonderful."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2016, 03:45:54 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
PR Hell and Strengthening

Million decided to hold off on his goal so that he could gather strength again. He needed to feed again. He manages to maneuver his constituent parts into the nearby building, abandoning the skin he wore.

There was a small wedding going on. And Million should have recognized these people. The groom was Eugene Johns -- Lee's elder brother, marrying his childhood sweetheart Aphrodite Jennings. His mother, Angela, and his father, Dillon, were seated on the groom's side with other assorted relatives, and Aphrodite's mother Gabrielle, father Devin, sister Hera, and brother-in-law Dan sat on the other side, with their side of the family. Aphrodite's little nephew, Tucker, was the ring bearer, and Lee and Eugene's smallest cousin, Gwendolyn, was the flower girl.

Tucker was Million's first victim. Then Gwendolyn. Then the parents . . . until the very moment that Million aftually inhabited both Aphrodite and his own brother, Eugene. He didn't even recognize them as family. But only as a means to get stronger, and access more energy.

But he inhabited two skins at once, and was able to make them appear as they would if they were still alive, and he was able to puppeteer the both of them in tandem, as well. He didn't know that doing that would even be a possibility.

This opened more avenues for him. But he decided he probably should practice, as he was unable to stop the rather annoying habit of each skin he wore speaking a single word back and forth when he wanted to speak and address others.

But he will achieve his goal . . . but was it his . . . dah! Didn't matter!

***

"PR hell," Faerie said, rubbing her temples, "that's what this is. Pure and simple. PR hell."

"They cannot do this!" GH protested. "There is no truth in anything they're saying about us! They're pulling their so-called facts outta of their --"

"What do you guys knew about this Lee Johns kid?" Cloak said, ignoring the obvious anti-RAF propaganda.

"Where did you get that name from?" Saffa asked.

"They name him as the first victim, his skin was found," Cloak said, pondering over this quandry. "But something about it, it strikes me as strange. Lee was missing when we were dealing with that Bureau nonsense. I saw the 'Missing' poster just outside the entry point we used."

"You're just being paranoid, Cloak," Sakki said, dismissively.

"Honestly, I think it does bear some investigation." Spectre said. "At least, a little."

"I think it would just be a waste of time and resources," Sakki said, harshly dismissive.

"Or not," Parker said, "it may lead to some closure about this Thousand thing."

"Assuming he's actually dead." Saffa pointed out. "We thought he was dead once."

"It's just a hunch," Cloak said. "It may lead nowhere, but it just might lead somewhere as well."

"Stunning logic, there, Cloak," Sakki said, dryly, "conversely we could screw up and have the media delivering more hit pieces on us. Hell, I could wallpaper my thread with the ones that are already circulating out there."

"That we cannot do anything about," Mr. Guy said. "We can present the people with facts and figures and the like, but there will always be those that refuse to believe it, and reject the truth. I mean, there are still people who believe the Earth is flat! In modern times! People who believe the world is only six thousand years old!"

"We're getting derailed from the topic at hand," Richard said. "Since there is some contention with this decision, I put it to a forum-wide vote. For or against. Choose and choose wisely."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2016, 10:07:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Investigation and the Thing

With a swift vote, it was decided that an investigation was called for. Underseen, Ash, Blue, and Cloak (despite insisting that he needed to stay lest Thousand returned).

"Uh uh," Sakki said, authoritatively. "You championed this waste of time and effort. You get to go along with the investigative team."

"But if and when Thousand shows up again," Cloak began.

"It'll be none of your concern," Sorunome said, gently and friendly. "Honestly, Cloaky, you worry too much. Let your guard down a little."

Cloak spoke very seriously, "No. When you let your guard down . . . er, never mind. Fine. Fine. But Parker? Gaz? You keep all unMarked newcomers under surveillance, would you?"

Sakki shook her head, befie walking away, as Gaz said, "Will do, Cloak."

Parker replied seconds later, "Don't even worry about it."

That was kind of like asking a dog not to bark. But Cloak acknowledged the solidarity shown, and, albeit still reluctantly, went on with the other.

***

It was several hours since the investigative team left, and the afternoon was wearing on. But Parker, Gaz, and even Saffa and GH were on the look out, both actually wearing Scouters (http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Scouter). Or they at least looked like Scouters.

Sakki was still as irreverent as ever, though she still thought this entire exercise would yield nothing. She was sure that she wasn't alone in this sentiment and resented that she was the only one to speak up about it.

"Excuse me," said a handsome, young man in his mid-to-late twenties, "is there a registry here?"

"What?" Oceanspray asked.

"We'd like to join up," a young woman said, evidently the young man's spouse. "Where can we enroll, or register, or something?"

"I'm not the right person to . . ." Oceanspray, the android, had stopped the scan to the biometrics of the two, as he felt something off about this, just by the way they spoke and the underlying, slightly monotone sort of tone to their voices, almost imperceptibly.

Saffa, Parker, GH, and Gaz immediately came over.

"What are you two?" Oceanspray said, very seriously. "Declare your species, if you will, please."

"Human," they said, in disturbing unison.

"Liar," Gaz said. Then she stopped before the two, and spoke with a rather accusatory tone, "You have no blood. It's you again, isn't it, Thousand?"

"You're in two skins? Is Thousand a species?" GH asked. "Like really perverse Nesk?"

"We -- I'm no loner Thousand," both spoke in unison, sounding reminiscent of those twins in "The Shining". "I am Million!"

"This is a thing now?" Saffa asked, wearily. "Why? Why is this a thing?"

Million hesitated for some reason, and looked as if they were almost . . . inert. As if they were almost grotesque mannequins. It was stilted moment, as if some movie editor made an obvious cut and there was not-so-subtle skip in the flow of said movie.

Saffa did not miss this act, and immediately began to scan the ground for stray arachnids, but could not find any. She really had enough of this Million guy, or whatever nomenclature he chose next time.

It was at this time that Million began to vomit up the bugs that were his constituent parts. But this time, Parker and Oceanspray did not waste any preamble -- Parker fired his Megatron/Galvatron fusion cannons while Oceanspray fired charged shots from his arm cannon.

Milion was obliterated, leaving three small craters where the shots had impacted.

"Done," Oceanspray said, with a tone of finality.

"For now." GH added, ominously.

"Seriously," Saffa demanded, "why is this a thing?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2016, 04:29:47 PM

Guess Saffa isn't fond of this book. *shrug*

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Investigation and Replication

"So, let's see if I got this straight," Ash said, democratically, "not only is the kid, Lee Johns missing, but the rest of his family is as well?"

"No," Underseen said. "They were skins. Littered over the floor like dirty, forgotten, and discarded laundry."

"Thousand was there," Cloak summed up.

"What about Skinwalker?" Blue pointed. "Couldn't they be old victims of his?"

"No," Underseen said, shaking his head, "Dillion and Angela Johns were on the local news some time ago, a couple of weeks, tops. They were looking for Lee, and he had just gone missing, if I'm not mistaken."

"Which lends credence to Cloak's hunch," Ash said.

"It could dispute it just the same." Blue said, shrugging noncommittally. "Seriously, no matter the subject or fact, people can -- and some will -- in any direction that they choose.

"Was Lee's skin found there?" Cloak inquired.

"I don't think so," Underseen said, "has it even been found? Isn't he still missing?"

"I thought that one of the news outlets was declaring that it was found," Cloak said.

"Yeah, Faux News," Blue said, scathingly.

"Oh. So, it hadn't been found yet," Cloak said.

"Cloak, what are you thinking?" Ash prompted.

"I have no proof," Cloak said, slowly, "or real undeniable evidence, only speculation and hunches."

"Spit it out, Cloak," Blue said.

"I suspect that Lee," Cloak said, slowly, as if hoping to spot any glaring inconsistencies, "that Lee is Thousand."

***

Million had managed to escape,even under Saffa's scrutinizing glare, during the momentary immobilization of the two skins he was puppeteering, only he was no longer a million strong, but merely four strong. He was now Four, and his petulant attitude certainly acted like it.

He had never expected that it was this difficult to accomplish the first thing of his goals! He should already be a hero! He should already be a RAFian! Why were they so resistent? Why were they so stubborn about this? Why were they so ardently obstinate obstructing his eventual destiny to be the hero of heroes? Why were they so deadset on preventing and denying him his right to fulfill this destiny?

It shouldn't have been this hard. It should have been this hard! He deserved this. He deserved this! He certainly had earned it by know, right? Earned his seat at the table of gods, of heroes! Why hasn't he been given it yet? He has done nothing, in his view, wrong. He had demonstrated his powers, his strength, his resilience, his adaptability, hadn't he?

No matter. No matter.

He would begin anew. He first would need to amass new constituent parts, but he could not do it spontaneously again. That appeared to be a one-off ability. He would need to feed first before he could replicate in sufficient numbers to try and reapply, ignoring the fact the RAFians had thrice rejected his requests and demands to be a member. Ignoring that such deception was a factor in such rejection.

Four found himself in a dirty bathroom of some dive bar, oft forgotten to all but the more shady characters and destitute. He was not out of place here, as there were many other bugs hidden in the walls, floor, and ceiling.

Four was feeling hungry, though, and it wasn't too difficult to find a suitable victim. A thick-bodied man with face stubble and a shiny, bald head, and reflective sunglasses.
He wore a black shirt that looked stretched taut over his considerable belly, over which he wora jean jacket with sheared off sleeves. He also wore black jeans and thick, worn, brown boots. Yeah, he had the looks of one tough customer, who came to the bathroom to -- well, you know what he was after.

He went in, unaware of the danger that lurked there, somewhat innocuously. When he came out . . . he was now piloted and puppeteered by Billion.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 19, 2016, 09:17:57 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on March 19, 2016, 04:29:47 PM

A thick-bodied man with face stubble and a shiny, bald head, and reflective sunglasses. He wore a black shirt that looked stretched taut over his considerable belly, over which he wora jean jacket with sheared off sleeves. He also wore black jeans and thick, worn, brown boots.

gh in 20 years? ;)

Also, billion? Oh, this is gonna be a problem . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 20, 2016, 04:40:17 AM

Haha, sorry, I've had to clear up a very annoying project this week so I decided to save up the chapters to read when I got free.

What gh said. This is ridiculous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2016, 07:28:12 AM

Ah. 'Kay.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Forgotten and the Next Lead

Billion didn't stop with this Hell's Angel wannabe. Reducing one victim to a skin, to a shell for him to puppeteer and inhabit and impersonate wasn't enough for him to feel satisfied. He didn't even give it a second thought this victim may have had a family -- a wife, a child, a sibling, parents -- that lived and cared about him.

Billion was quite literally incapable of conceptualizing such things. His torture from Malice was evident, though the transformation process into his current form was more than likely unhelpful from recovering from this practically programmed mindset. He was fundamentally unable to feel compassion or live anymore, and he saw others, except the RAFians, as mere NPCs in the basest sense -- namely beings with no feelings, no worth, as mere exploitable fodder to achieve his ends.

One, knowing Malice's transgressions, might make the argument that it really wasn't Lee's fault he became Billion, but that did not change the fact that his aftions, his decisions as Hundred, Thousand, Million, and Billion were ones of his own autonomous free will, even though he may have been "programmed" to do it through manipulative, torturous, and chemical means.

Soon, all of the Hell's Angel wannabe's cadre of biker roughnecks were mere skins -- as well as the very few patrons and female bartender -- on the floor, with Billion inhabiting the last biker and his lady, as he had gotten used to "wearing" two skins at once.

"Yes," said the biker's mouth and gravely voice, "this should do nicely."

"I have sufficient strength now," said his lady, now Billion as well, and her voice was very much like that of Harley Quinn. "And if they don't make me a member this time --"

"I'll just have to make them," he said, through the biker's skin and voice, "by force if necessary."

***

"Cloak, this reeks of a trap," Blue cautioned.

"I'm aware of that, Blue," Cloak said. "But we're clear. There isn't anyone or anything -- other than indigenous wildlife -- around in my entire Earthsight range."

"Doesn't mean that there can't be a trap," Blue said. "Not all traps are manned."

"Again, I'm aware," Cloak said. "But this is the most logical step to go."

The four stood on a hill overlooking the rather plain-looking, simple townhouse that was owned by the Johns' before their . . . before their unfortunate condition. Their homestead was clearly a place, before recent events, that was full of love, laughter, and good times. Cloak could almost see them etched onto the very land itself.

But now . . . now there a sense of ominous finality and emptiness to the place, as if just newly abandoned. However, Cloak was certain that that's where answers to Thousand lay. It was an obvious trap, but the bait was too enticing to pass up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 20, 2016, 09:51:08 PM

*nervously eats popcorn*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2016, 06:32:02 AM

That's not popcorn. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Do the Thing!

"Let me in!" commanded a nasally, reedy voice, waving around a thick, hardcover textbook, or overly-complicated  manual of some sort, as if he was convinced that that was threatening. "Let me be a member or you'll be sorry!"

Silence, as the gate of RAF remained unperturbed.

"You'd had better let me in," came another voice, but this one sounded rather like he was laidback -- or stoned. He brandished a . . . can opener. Surely, he thought that it must have looked threatening. "Or I shall have to use force."

No answer.

"And you wouldn't want me to use force!" came a rather demented, psychopathic-sounding voice. She had some ditzy sweetness to her voice. She was the only on of the three that wielded what coud be considered an actual weapon -- a shiny, polished scalpel.

The nasally voice belonged to a thin, stereotypically-nerdy teenager in a white dress shirt with the requisite pocket protector, black jeans with red suspenders, brown pennyloafers, and black, thick-framed glasses.

The stoned voice belonged to a thick-bodied, stout teenager in a black shirt with a printed flaming skull on it and indecipherable lettering on the back, brown shorts, and flipflops. He had a large, flat nose, and thick, blsck, curly hair that obscured his eyes.

The psychotic voice belonged to a teenaged girl with a ballerina's physique and stiff, blonde hair, and held out her arms when she walked. She wore white knee-high socks, black shoes, a flannel skirt, a teal sweater, and a pink Alice band. One of her eyes appeared to be larger than the other.

The RAFians clearly didn't think of these three as a threat, even though they were not making any questions about who they were. "They" were really a "he". A "he" named Billion. And he wasn't wasting any time with any deceptions. He desperately wanted to be a member, wanted the be the hero.

But here's the thing -- even if he did become a RAFian, he would only manage to make it up to the term "antihero" or "antivillain", but never hero. Because he took lives indiscriminately and overtly, without any obvious remorse or regret. Hardly the material of heroes.

And it was also because of the fact that this whole skin business was too close to the Skinwalker mission for comfort . . .

Creeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaak . . .

***

"Wait, Cloak," Ash said, "before we dive into this, perhaps we should at least give some thought about how we can do this with attracting as much negative media attention as we would by just rushing in."

Cloak was sorely tempted to disregard everything Ash had just said, and just foolishly and stubbornly and obstinately charging onward, ignoring all the potential dangers and politics. Just to complete the goal, the mission.

He did Earthsight the whole property, of course. But that didn't mean that it was without fault. If there were people their, they would have to be suspended in midair, or on a medium which was not of earthen in composition. Nor metal, because Cloak could Metalsight. Wood probably would work, as Cloak never bothered to try and see if he could "Woodsight".

It would be a PR nightmare if it was found out that they broke down the front door to enter. Breaking and entering and all that. Although it seemed like all but the tabloids were against them.

These were all but a few possibilities of the possible holes in this plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2016, 10:05:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Unexpected

They just ended up strolling right up to the front door.

Blue had many protestations about doing this, as it severely went against his ninja training to just casually walk up to a door in this open a space, much less an unfamiliar space. Ash and Underseen were quick to agree as this whole thing smelled like a trap. Their PR didn't really need to suffer another hit. Their approval rating . . . well, it wasn't in intensive care yet, but still was a concern.

But they remained silent assuming Cloak's instincts would be right about this. Cloak tried the doorknob. It was locked and deadbolted. Cloak used his Earthsight to determine again that the house was empty.

Cloak now felt some reluctance, as he knew what this would signify to others, especially the general populace, if they knew the degree of fine control he had over his abilities. He ferrokinetically twisted the deadbolt lock so that it unbolted the door, and then he ferrokinetically twisted the lock so that the door was now fully unlocked and entry was possible.

Cloak didn't waste time by waiting to see and judge the others' reactions. He just turned the brass doorknob and creaked the door open. Opening it into a dark room, which Cloak's feline eyes had no problem penetrating.

A voice called out, one that he recognized, one they all recognized, "Why, hello, handsome."

***

Creeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaak.

In the dark of the night, it was a wonder why Billion ever thought the RAFians would open the gates for him. They refused to use diplomacy because of the Skinwalker mission, which still held bad memories for the RAFians involved.

Although he had done away with the use of deception, Billion still had the simplistic nativity of a child. Just because you try and try again, it will not guarantee your success. At least, if you go about Billin's way of doing things. He still refused to see how killing these people was wrong. He had no morality, which was not an admirable quality, despite what corrupt governments would have you believe.

"Let me join right now! I am Billion! I will be the greatest h-- RAFian there ever was!"

"Billion, now, is it?" Saffa said. She was irritable from something that happened during on of her recent debates. Her opponent kept lying about the facts, which she didn't really care for. That and she was having difficulty sleeping. "Look, you need to stop hurting people."

"I'm not," he replied in tri-vocal harmony.

"Those human suits by those MIB guys, then?" Saffa said, full of caustic sarcasm. "For those aliens who want to look innocuous? You know what, never mind. I know very well what those are. You killed those three teenagers, and came here, all entitled and everything, demanding to be a made a member, disregarding that that your lack of morality is a factor of our refusal to permit your joining!"

All three slack-jawed looks just served to annoy her.

"Enough of this," she said, testily. She swiftly began to morph. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 22, 2016, 04:53:39 AM

AW YEAH DRAMATIC ENTRANCE.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2016, 10:19:06 AM

 :D

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Malice and Goliath

Cloak thought, embittered, that he shouldn't have been surprised by this now. Malice sat on a square of her own energy, black and bloodred, with something flesh-colored on her lap. Cloak unsconsciously bared his fangs at the sight of her, feeling an enormous feeling of hate.

"What?" she said, with exaggerated propriety, as the overhead lights when on with a clap, "No 'hello' for an old friend, Cloak? Didn't your dear mother teach you any manners?"

"Easy, Cloak, easy," Ash said at once.

Malice laughed a laugh that equaled her namesake, then completely foregoing her prudish veneer, almost if to coy from the thing draped so carelessly across her lap, "What is this, Master Cloak? Mommy issues?"

He wanted to rip her head off. Yet, he remained in control of his powers. His innate pacifism refusing his anger to access the power. Something that probably would not have happened a year ago, Dweller time.

***

Saffa quickly grew to being just south of seventy feet tall, becoming thirty tons heavier. Her skin became thicker, and rather leather-like, in texture. Her head became more rounded and well-armored.

Her eyes were pushed back into her head and became animalistic. Her tongue became long and thin while a large pair of mandibles on her lower jaw formed. Her eyes and mouth began to glow a bright scarlet, as if a fire had ignited within her, starting at her neck and travelled all the way down to her chest area, which had been morphed into the muscular frame and chest of a Shear Goliath, as her neck grew several overlapping scale-like plates of armor that resembled glowing scarlet gills.

She grew a tail, tipped with a cluster of spikes. Her feet became toeless momentarily before four new toes were reissued as another four -- two in the center, a smaller dewclaw-like toe on the outside and an additional toe that juts backwards, making the distinctive Shear Goliath footprint. Her pinkies shriveled up as her other fingers were issued a thick claw as the morph completed.

Saffa fought the pervasive desire to roar. She knew the other RAFians would not appreciate it in the slightest, given the progressing hour. Heck, the only one up at this hour would probably only be GH, who has a bit of an ongoing relationship with insomnia.

"Impossible!" Billion said, with three voices.

<Considering what you do, Billion,> Saffa said, with acerbic tones, <the fact that I can do this shouldn't be so surprising.>

"You'll . . . you'll l-let me . . . let m-me in," he stammered, in all three voices, ". . . let m-me in, or -- or else!"

<You're serious?> Saffa said, dully. She was able to control this morph's instincts as it was not her first time morphing them. Then her tone turned to coyly angry, as she spoke, <You have no idea what a Shear Goliath can do, do you?>

The three that were Billion tried to flee, not abandoning his stolen skins, foolishly not thinking about it. But how could he know that Shear Goliaths have a running speed at roughly twenty-four feet per second? That's 1,440 feet per minute.

There was really no contest.

---

- Saffa morphed this: (http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/evolve/images/5/57/Goliath_Portrait.png/revision/latest?cb=20141102050108)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2016, 12:25:12 PM

New book ideas.

• Book CMXXXIII: "Vroom Vroom?" -- A gearhead finds a very special suit.
• Book CMXXXIV: "The Last Suit" -- The last special suit is found.
• Book CMXXXV: "The Phlebotium Suit #Infinity" -- All of the suits are combined into one.
• Book CMXXXVI: "The Extortionist" -- A corrupte moneylender takes more than interest for unpaid debts.
• Book CMXXXVII: "The Would-Be Robin Hood" -- A plutokinetic decides the 1% have done enough.
• Book CMXXXVIII: "Materialistic Beings" -- The RAFians deal with an Appellaxian incursion.
• Book CMXXXIX: "Abby's Attraction" -- Abby gets a love interest.

Titles may change. Still Year 10.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Burn and Turn

<Running is futile, Billion,> Saffa said, easily outstripping the three that were Billion.

"You won't kill me," Billion said, through the nerdy teen skin.

<You leave me with little option,> Saffa said, seriously. She wasn't even out of breath. <As it's incredibly evident that you'll just continuing killing others. That, in addition of lacking morality, you lack compassion and empathy.>

"Don't lecture me," he said, through the pscyhotic-sounding girl, "I know what I'm doing, and I'm not doing anything wrong."

<And that's why you'll never be a RAFian,> Saffa said. <You are incapable of knowing right from wrong. You've caused so much pain, which you somehow got the blame placed on us for.>

"I had nothing --" the stout teen said, before inexplicably vomiting up the arthropod constituent parts that made up Billion. He did this with the other two as well, and attempted to swarm over the land to escape Saffa's Shear Goliath morph.

This was futile, as Saffa crushed aome underfoot, then opened her jaws and belched fire out, incinerating the bugs that made up Billion. Only after a momentary hesitation.

It was only when she was satisfied that all were gone, she started back to RAF, only demorphing when she was beyond the gates.

***

Malice was glad that she had managed to get a rise out of Cloak, as her sanctimonious little smirk showed. Cloak found himself really hating Malice, but he tried to suppress the feelings. Now was not the time for him to lose control, to let loose.

"Aw, isn't it so sweet?" Malice said, with a girlish giggle, which was a bit disconcerting coming from this particular octogenarian Realm Walker. Then she dropped the faux sweetness from her mocking voice, and said, "You have to get your pet Dwellers to reel you in. Disgraceful."

"I can obliterate you n an instant," Cloak snarled, without pausing to think. He was having a hard time surpressing his emotions. If he lost control now . . . he didn't even want to consider the possible ramifications. No, he had to stay in control of himself. He had to.

The other three didn't have as much difficulty nit taking it personally. Then again, their powers and abilities were not tied to their emotions as Cloak's were.

"Why, Malice?" Ash asked.

Malice gave her a contemptuous look, but did not deign to answer.

"Why?" Cloak said, answering for her, with his eyes burning into Malice. "Because she's a lonely, hateful, old crone who thinks everyone should be as miserable as she is."

Malice narrowed her eyes and scowled, before changing tact and saying, " Talking about me, or your dear old Mum, dearie?"

But this backfired. By not answering the indirect challenge directly, Cloao knew he hit upon an old insecurity of the old crone. But before more could come out of this exchange, Blue asked, "What's in your lap, Malice?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2016, 05:00:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The One and Only Lee

But even with 999,999,999 of the bugs incinerated to ash, one single constituent part remained, the biggest one of the lot, which was about the size of a quarter. He was back to being the one again. And he hated being One.

It made him far weaker, far less effective as a threat, far more vulnerable. He felt so . . . so exposed. So helpless. So . . . alone . . . without his swarm, outside a suitable skin.

No matter, no matter. These feelings were easily alleviated. He would pick a proper host and multiply. Multiply into Trillion! Into . . .

But what would be the point?

His efforts continued to be repeatedly unrecognized by the RAFians, his abilities' efficacy continuously ignored, his resilience routinely dismissed. It was already amazing that he remained as persistent as he did, but now he was feeling greatly disheartened as he hugged the cool, damp wall of the alleyway.

He hid in the darkest corner, as he thought about what Saffa said to him. He wished he could disregard everything she said. Everything about him told him that he should, and that he should find another prospective host and become Trillion! He should . . .

He wanted to be a hero . . .

He wanted to be a RAFian . . .

He wanted it so much more than anything he knew. He basically knew nothing else. He did not know why he had this desire . . . he paused to consider this fact. If he didn't know why he had this desire, could it be that the desire wasn't really his? Could be some one that some implanted into him during the Beforetime?

He stopped to consider . . .

He looked at his ten legs, or at least as well as he could. He considered his size, his predilections . . . could it be that . . . that this wasn't what he was meant to be? Could be that he was something . . . something else entirely in the Beforetime? Could it be that he was more than just a mere swarm?

Why did he do the things that he did? Why did he reduce so many people to mere skins? For strength and to replicate, he answered himself. But then why did he need the strength and need to replicate into ridiculous numbers? Why did . . .

His mind hurt. It was beginning to hurt really bad.

***

"Oh, this little thing?" Malice said, with faux modesty. "Just a little . . . trophy . . . that I procured a few of your days ago."

Cloak was getting tired of this coy facade Malice was putting on and dropping faster than a costume change at Vegas. He was getting very irritable.

"Trophy, is it, Malice?" Cloak growled, arms folded and eyes narrowed to slits, speaking with scathing sarcastic insincerity. He had a shrewd idea of what was in Malice's lap, but he wasn't going to say it out loud. He didn't want to be right.

"Oh, just a little souvenir, you know," she said, in an inappropriately pleasant, casual tone. She lifted the item from her lap and held it by its brown scruffy hair, allowing it to dangle towards the floor.

It was a skin, as Cloak knew it would be. But his fears were proved prescient. Though his skin was wrinkled and folded as if he were made of fabric, with his mouth hole was agape to the dark, empty void within, the identity was still clear as crystal.

It was Lee. Lee Johns.

So he was either a victim of Billion, or he actually was Billion himself. But which one?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2016, 06:27:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Dark Thoughts and Black Markets

His head ached very badly, and he felt very sore at it.

He looked at himself and thought about what he'd become. He was little more than a parasite, a movie monster. He was sure that he wasn't like this in the Beforetime. He was sure that he loved himself, and others. But now? Now, he didn't love himself. He had come to hate what he was, what he's done. He came to loathe himself. He came to despise himself.

And, yet, the pain his head still would diminish.

It probably would if he gave into his instincts and found a host, then replicated again. Would stop if he became Trillion. It was a serious temptation, to just stop the pain his head, in his mind. To become a h--

Except he wouldn't, he reminded himself. He wouldn't be a hero, or a RAFian, if he committed to the same old tactic. He couldn't give in to the desire, the need -- no matter if even his head exploded from the migraine that he was electing to suffer through.

Then the pain went up to eleven.

He actually cried out, but it went unheard by others as it came out as but an anguished squeak to those with human levels of hearing. The temptation to skin and replicate increased expotentially with stab of pain.

He . . . he couldn't!

One wouldn't hurt would it?

No! No . . . he . . . he would not! He . . . he would not do it again!

Was one life really worth enduring this pain?

Yes! He mustn't do it. He . . . mustn't! He . . .

His will was beginning to deteriorate. The pain was mastering his will. The hunger was abetting the pain. . . .

No! He must be strong! What he had been doing as Hundred . . . as Thousand . . . as Million . . . as Billion . . . it was WRONG! It . . . No! It wasn't right! It . . .

They deserved it, didn't they? They were stupid enough to --

No! There was no justifying it!

But he had every right to --

He let out anguished squeak, stumbling like a drunkard into the broad dawning daylight. This was half-hoping to be squished by an unsuspecting passerby's boot. Perhaps, in death, he would find his answers and freedom from this excruciating pain! Some relief!

Pain and hunger . . . they were corroding his will. They were exerting themselves over his will, which was beginning to crumble.

Please . . . just let someone squish him, and end this torment. Please . . . please . . . please . . . please, a quick death like that. . . . Death would be preferable to being this . . . this monster. . . . Please . . .

THUNK!

He was suddenly surrounded on all sides by glass. Glass he couldn't penetrate! He was turned head over end and suddenly the ground was glass as well! No! They were to.squish him! Not entomb him in glass!

No! The hunger -- the pain -- they still gnaw at him!! No!! It was supposed to be a quick death!! Not a slow one by starving in a glass cylinder!!

No!!

***

"What did you do?" Ash said, clearly nauseated by the sight of the skin, and what it could possibly mean.

"Oh?" Malice said, with mock surprise. "Can't a girl just kidnap an overly saccharine, stupidly pious boy and break his mind and spirit?"

"What did you do to him?" Cloak demanded, voice steady, though the walls seemed to tremble. "What did you do to turn him into Billion?"

"Billion?" Malice ridiculed, tossing Lee's forgotten skin at them, and it was caught by Blue. "Pish-posh, dearie, he's probably 'Trillion' by now. That chemical ****tail I injected him with worked wonders! Such a pity that I didn't write down the formula. Hmmm . . . and I can't, for the life of me, remember what it was."

"What do you get out of this, Malice?" Cloak asked, managing to hide his true confusion at this whole scheme. "What's your endgame?"

"Uh uh," Malice said, wagging her finger, playfully reproachful, "dear boy, you know better about giving away spoilers, don't you?"

"I am not in the mood for your jokes, Malice!" Cloak snarled. "What are you really after?!"

"Oh, let's just say, that the black market will have a new supply of bodysuits, methinks," she said, not really saying anything worthwhile.

"What do you MEAN by --"

"Tootles!" Malice said, cheekily.

"No, you don't!" Cloak snarled, attempting to seize her by the arm, but it was too late. She had Walked away.

"Gateburst!" Cloak fumed, frustrated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 22, 2016, 07:07:00 PM

Holy ****, that bit with One was intense. I'm friggin' anxious to read the rest, now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2016, 07:15:16 PM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on March 22, 2016, 07:07:00 PM

Holy ****, that bit with One was intense. I'm friggin' anxious to read the rest, now.

Then I apologize in advance.

Fifth new chapter today.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Roll Credits!

The RAFians returned the forum, to discover that all the skins that were discovered had vanished, and that they were footing the blame for it. That meant that their approval rating was in the proverbial toilet.

"Oh, wonderful," Cloak grumbled as he went to his thread.

***

Standing before a closed theater curtain, out on the apron of the stage, Helen stood and she sang to Parker, who stood at her side.

"I waited all my life,
Lived it by the book.
Now I know that’s not my story.
You take me as I am.
Love me as I look,
Standing here in all my glory.
I am sweetness.
I am quotable.
I am a Sapphire princess.
I am capable.
I’m a mess of contradictions in a dress.
I am sassy.
I can be sappy.
When I’m with you.
I am happy.
This is my story."

Parker sang:

"You laugh at all my jokes.
You don’t mind that I’m not always classy."

Both sang:

"We make a perfect pair.
So in love and so crassly
We are RAFians.
We delight in being scary!"

Duff joined with the other two:

"We are merry.
We have bold and
Brand-new stories
To be told.
We will write them.
We will tell them.
You will hear them.
You will even smell them!
This is our stories."

Parker spoke, "And that is how the last mission of RAF came to a conclusion and how I came to live at the forum with a beautiful RAFian."

Duff added, "And another RAFian."

Myitt added, "And a Yeerked human!"

FuBar put in, "And a very handsome cat nothlit!"

Tocade added, "And a Smurfette!"

Faerie souht fit to add, "And a kick-butt faerie!"

Dino piped up, "And a dinosaur hybrid!"

Richard declared, "And the father of the forum!"

Blocky, Shock, and PinkEvilDragon added, in unison, "And dragons!"

Phoenix sang:

"What makes us special . . ."

FuBar sang:

"What makes us special . . ."

The RAFians sang:

"What makes us special . . ."

Phoenix sang:

"What makes us special . . ."

FuBar sang:

"What makes us special . . ."

The RAFians sang:

"What makes us special . . .
Makes us strong!
We are RAFians,
Complete with a kick-butt faerie!
We are weirdos!"

Ash sang:

"I’m an Aries!"

The RAFians sang:

"We’re a giant
Whitman’s Sampler
Here to try.
We are nutty.
We won’t quit it.
We aren’t hobbits --
Well, most of us --
With bad habits.
We’re a screwy,
But delighted
Crazy stew.
We’re different and united.
You are us and we are you.
This is our parody.
This is our parody.
This is our parody."

Leatherhead declared, with a childish giggle like the six-year-old he was,"God bless us!  Everyone!"

The RAFians ended with:

"The end!"

Then credits began to roll before their faces . . .

"A CloakedFigure Production"
"Directed by Cloak"
"Produced by Cloak and Saffa"
"Edited by Saffa"
"Semi-Original Score by GH"

And more and more . . . and then . . . and then . . .

Then GH's eyes opened blearily, still in a semi-somulent state, as Leatherhead was singing:

". . . This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
A few people started singing it,
Never knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it, 'coz--"

"Leatherhead!" GH said sharply. Then he promptly fell out of his bed, before he contured in his scolding, "Leatherhead, what did I tell you about singing that song?"

Leatherhead looked like a naughty child caught in wrongdoing, as he pretty much was. "Sorry, Daddy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 22, 2016, 07:35:44 PM

Wait . . . Cloaky made a movie?  :huh: Or was I just having a fever dream or something?

And that final bit. BRB, gotta recover my sides from the stratosphere.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2016, 07:37:10 PM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on March 22, 2016, 07:35:44 PM

Wait . . . Cloaky made a movie?  :huh: Or was I just having a fever dream or something?

It was a dream. Don't worry, I'll go back make it clearer . . .

New chapter.

BOOK CXVII:
SCHOOL OF STEPFORD LIES
CHAPTER ONE:
Lack of Closure

Cloak sat in his thread, trying to meditate, trying to.reach Aniyu once more. But it was no good. He couldn't focus his mind on it. It was just too full from the recent events. Full of questions, questions that remained unanswered.

What happened to Billion, or Trillion, or whatever nomme de plume he had chosen now?

Saffa had filled everyone in on the events of that night three nights ago. But he had not resurfaced and no new empty skins had been discovered. No credible disappearances that matched anything like that spate of "skinnings", for want of a better term, that were accredited to Lee John's altered state.

The RAFians didn't know, and big media certainly wasn't gonna help them discover it, they were too busy lambasting them for imagined crimes they perpetrated. Cloak suspected they even made up a majority of them themselves to get ratings and other such nonsense.

Where did all those formerly discovered skins go to, also?

They couldn't have just gotten up and walked away -- it would have been immensely creepy if they had, though. Someone had to have taken them. But why exactly? Why would they want skins, skins of people murdered that callously and crassly discarded like yesterday's newspapers?

That black market Malice mentioned?

What precisely was it a black market for? Cloak didn't know any black markets nearby, and it would have to be nearby to get all those skins away like that, as quickly and completely as they did. But where? Perhaps they could lead a contingent of RAFians there, wherever it was, and . . .

No. No, that wouldn't work.

Not with the present climate so hostile towards RAFians at the moment. The news outlets these days were just nothing more that propaganda mills, Cloak thought to himself, bitterly. Realm Walkers didn't have things like television, so propaganda usually happened by paper or word of mouth. It was frustrating, hearing blatant lies about you and your friends that you know ade false, but no one will listen or even hear of it . . .

No. No, he had to stop thinking about that. He didn't want to work himself up into a rage. That would be pointless. A futile waste of energy. But questions still milled around his head, but less like a beehive, and more like a line at the DMV.

What was Malice getting out of this?

She would have gone through all this trouble for nothing, right? She had to gotten something out of it. She had to. But what? What could it possibly be? Surely, it couldn't be as simple as discrediting the RAFians? That couldn't be it. That was too simplistic for her. Maybe Queen would have been satisfied with such a thing, but Malice? No. She was working towards something. But what? What was she working towards? To what ends?

So many questions.

Too many questions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 23, 2016, 04:23:05 PM

Alright! Caught up, coupla things.

(a) That bit with One where he was battling with himself on the inside - that was amazing. Gave it +1. I actually thought it very akin to the struggle an addict or substance abuser might go through if and when they contemplate whether pushing themselves further into the spiral for pain or pleasure is worth it after all. Looking at it that way, damn well executed.

(b) Damn, two subplots now! But I like how you've clearly demarcated that the Aniyu subplot is still within the boundaries of Cloak's own head, while the black market is the sort of ground level subplot that's running with the monster of the week. This is gonna be good. You only just keep getting better and better. :D

Also, heads up: I'll be leaving for a three-day cultural festival at a college out of town Thursday night, and since I'll be trying to conserve mobile data as much as possible I'll probably be off RAF for the next few days. But I'll be back for the chapter dump without a doubt. :D I'll get the PDF up right before I leave.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2016, 04:52:46 PM

Actually I wanted the Aniyu thing to no different from when Cloak contacted his grandfather in earlier books -- (oh, my god, were they really four years ago?) -- and "in his head" has the connotation that it isn't real, which, in the terms of the narrative, it is. He's just contacting Aniyu instead of Sage, and she's basically testing him.

But, then again, I'm reminded of this:

Quote from: Albus Dumbledore, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Chapter 35, page 723

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

So, yeah, it's kind of the same deal that's going on between Dumbledore and Harry here, only with Realm Walkers, and more emotional "red tape" I suppose.

Funny when you consider that Aniyu was not part of my original outline, though the black market thing was.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Nancy Stepford

It was with some trepidation that Terenia went back to the school she taught at. She had a life outside RAF, after all. But the hesitation remained with the current hostility towards the RAFians. She even wore a flesh-colored brace over her right hand and wrist to hide her Mark.

She didn't want to incite anything. She just wanted to teach.

She was sure that this undue hostility and scapegoating would end as time went on, as people forgot about it, as the fervent sensationalism died down. All she hqd to do was do her job, keep her nose clean, lie low, and it would all just die down. She needn't worry about being scapegoated at school. None of her fellow teachers or the adminidtrators knew that she was a RAFian, at least she assumed and hoped.

But her boss, the principal, called her over to him soon after she arrived at the school. It was several minutes before the first bell, so she wouldn't have been late to her own class. She noticed him wearing some strange, black, thick-rimmed glasses. She thought that he didn't need glasses. But he was a pompous, older gentleman who meant well, with a bloated body that said that he was relatively well-off, or that's the image he was attsmpting to portray of himself.

The principal just wanted to introduce her to the new school nurse. She, in contrast, was alarmingly svelte and wore a nurse uniform you miht expect someone from the twenties to wear when working as a nurse. Including those odd white hats. This rather out-of-the-ordinary appearance momentarily stupidfied Terenia, as she was introduced to this woman's name, Nancy Stepford.

"How do you do, Nurse Stepford," Terenia said, with reasonable politeness.

"Nurse Nancy, if you will!" she replied, so nauseatingly chipper.

Terenia, despite herself, was finding herself not really liking Nurse Nancy at all, but she didn't understand why. She had only spoken five words. Why was this dislike so sudden and so intense? Perhaps her experience from being a RAFian was telling her something, or maybe she was just being high-strung after the events of the past few days.

The sound of thr first bell brought Terenia back to the present and she excused herself so she could dash back to her classroom, putting the whole thing out of her mind. She was sure that she was overreacting. Everything was fine . . .

Everything would be fine . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2016, 09:44:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Now, That's Downright Screwy

It was an uneventful few days, and Terenia was glad for it. She needed the getaway from impossible things that the RAFians usually dealt with. She needed to deal with just minor problems again, not huge groundbreaking, stop-the-bad-guy-from-taking-over-the-world problems. She need a different kind of stress, different and less extreme sort of stress.

It was wonderful.

Then she noticed something that she hadn't before. The students, at least some of them anyway, were wearing the same glasses that the principle had. Which were similar to the ones Nurse Nancy wore, though her frames swept up into little points, giving them a rather unique, if not downright hideous, look.

She blinked. How had she not noticed this before? Was this just one of those student fads that would eventually pass out if vogue? But then she noticed that even some of the staff were wearing them besides the principal. Terenia did not know why, but this was very disconcerting to her.

Then she noticed that the arts classes -- music, art, creative writing, and any other class that demanded that brand of creativity and imagination -- they were looking rather thinner than usual. The teachers were still at the helm, though looking rather uneasy at the lightening of their classes. And apparently their budget was starting to diminish, as one of the teachers confessed to her in an aside.

This concerned the covert RAFian. But could it just possibly be a coincidence? Her instincts, honed by her time as a RAFian, told her that something was most certainly up.

Then she noticed a flyer taped to the white-painted cinderblock wall. This surprised her as she was sure that it was not there the day before. It read:

Attention students and staff,

Starting this Tuesday, Nurse Nancy Stepford will be giving out free eye examinations.
These examinations will be mandatory and compulsory.
No one will be exempt.

The schedule for the examination schedule will be as follows:

Then it ended in a table with examination schedules.

Terenia was perturbed, as Tuesday was yesterday. Something about this screamed to her that it wasn't right. But she hadn't any real information about it. Then she thought about the students behavior, the students who wore the glasses.

Once artistic and imaginative students, chock full of creativity and life, had been reduced to drones, only concerned with improving their test scores. They seemed to eschew all things a causual person might consider even a little fun. They seemed little more than academic zombies.

How had this happened right beneath her nose? She was a RAFian! She should have known better! She should have been able to stop this before --

A thick, meaty hand squeezed her shoulder. She turned round, to see the hand belonged to her principal, her boss, as he indicated that it was her turn. Her turn for an eye examination.

It couldn't be that bad right? It was just an eye examination. Right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2016, 11:08:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
This Is An Eye Exam?

Terenia wondered about how the chair could fit in here, in this small and rather cramped room. It seemed to be circular in design, thought that could have been just an optical illusion. The chair looked like standard fair chair stock, but it was the machine attached to the chair that Terenia found worrisome, though she held her tongue.

The machine attached looked sinister to her, but she could see how it could look innocuous to those who haven't the experience she did with the weird and unusual. She wasn't sure if she should go through with whatever Nurse Nancy had planned, or just find some way to weasel out of this . . . but it was mandatory, and doing that could cost her her job here. But that could be grounds for a wrongful dismissal lawsuit . . . but, with how broken the justice system in this country is, chances are that such a lawsuit may prove to be a farce, depending on her lawyer and the prosecutor.

It wasn't worth it, she decided. She would comply unless Nurse Nancy did something too fishy for Terenia's liking. Then she would do what ever she would have to do to escape the madwoman's clutches. She know this may be stupid, but there wasn't an alternative that she liked. She had allowed herself to get trapped in this situation, though she seemed to be repeatedly presented with a Hibson's choice, a choice that is no choice.

"Please," Nurse Nancy said, still chipper, but Terenia thought she sense an undercurrent of something else, something disparaging, "have a seat."

Terenia waited for but a moment before complying. The eye testing device was fitted on her face, and she saw an uber realistic hologram image of Nancy's face, spouting some stupid rhetoric about how fun is bad and pointless and useless, which Terenia ignored easily.

She was about to write this whole thing off as a mere propaganda mill, when something really unusual happened. A lot of surreal swirls and things started to happen in bulky visor thing. She felt her Mark grow warm inexplicably, but not so warm that it was uncomfortable. She was perplexed at what was happening.

"All work and no play," came a digitized version of the school nurse's voice, "makes you a good girl."

What the bloody hell -- ?

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

Huh -- ?

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

Wait a minute here.

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

She knew what this was.

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

This was hypnotism. Those students --

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

-- And the staff as well --

"All work and no play makes youna good girl."

-- All of them with those glasses --

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

All hypnotized. All of them.

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

But wasn't it affecting her?

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

Like at all?

"All work and no play makes you a good girl."

Oh . . . of course. The Mark. The Mark was keeping her safe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 24, 2016, 12:52:01 AM

Yeah, not creepy at all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 24, 2016, 09:15:35 PM

Yep. And she's really a sad story, when you think about it. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Deception and Backstory

Terenia reasoned that Nancy wouldn't like it if she knew that her hypnotism didn't work on her. She didn't know about her RAFian membership, and Terenia thought it best to keep it that way. She needn't to show her hand too quickly, as that would be a rather stupid play . . .

This seemed to be a long process, as Terenia was finding herself getting bored. She struggled to affect the appearance of being hypnotized, though it wasn't working. She had to make this believable . . . her life may depend on it. She did not know Nancy's plan, but she did not think that it was anything good.

"There," she said. Terenia had to quickly hide her dislike for the school nurse. She looked at Terenia, and then she prompted, "All work and no fun --"

"Make me a good girl," Terenia said, overselling it a bit. Nancy did not appear to notice, and appeared satisfied with Terenia.

Nancy handed her the same black glasses and the covert RAFian put them on. She had to hide her surprise swiftly, as it appeared. The lenses of the glasses was simple window glass. Terenia was quick enough on the uptake to know that the glasses were simply a way for Nancy to mark those that she had hypnotized, though Terenia thought this was borderline brainwashing, in a way.

She was glad, so very much so, to leave Nancy's office. Where Terenia was once off-put at Nancy's presence, she was now creeped out. Especially when she saw just how many students and staff had these glasses on, when she saw the dwindling numbers of students in art classes, music classes, creative writng classes, and the like.

This isn't what the school experience was supposed to be.

Sure, on some days it can seem like torturous doldrums, but there are good days were the kids get to express themselves creatively, through art, music, writing or some other medium. Where they get to be themselves.

Terenia quickly, but not too quickly as to arouse suspicion from the nurse, made her way away from the school. She headed directly to RAF. This most definitely sounded like their jurisdiction.

***

Another poor soul cleansed, Nurse Nancy thought. And soon this entire school will be cleansed from what they call 'fun'. Such untethered minds that need a firm grounding in reality. It will be done. It.will be complete.

Nurse Nancy saw this as her crusade, and it was currently unknown whether her credentials as a school nurse were valid. Or even existent. She just knew that her righteous crusade against all things fun was . . . yeah, she was insane. But a coherent sort of insane.

How did she get it into her head that anything remotely fun was bad and evil? Well, it was when she was younger and, unbeknowst to her, her parents weren't particularly good ones. She was punished most severely any time that she indulged in anything that an average child would consider fun. She was not allowed to do that, she was forced to focus on her studies.

This warped her psyche into thinking that all fun, as described by others, was bad and evil. She became fanatical about good test scores, and derided and distained others who indulged in fun activities, seeing it as their minds adrift and aimless whilst hers was firmly anchored and grounded.

But it had gotten to the point that it wasn't just good enough for her to be grounded and anchored, in her view of course, but she thought that everyone should be as well. Completely dismissing the fact that while she was perfectly in her rights to be like this if she wished, to think like this if she wished, she had no right to force this upon others. This was completely disegarded, and she saw herself instead as the savior of these poor lost souls . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2016, 07:08:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Terenia's Tale is Told

"I'm serious," Terenia said, "that's what happened."

"If she just wanted to strip people of fun times, why doesn't she just become a math teacher?" GH asked. He almost sounded serious.

"What's math, Daddy?" Leatherhead inquired.

"Nothing for you to worry about yet, LH," GH said, doting on his charge. It was difficult to tell if he was joking or not.

"This isn't time for jokes! I'm serious! Something really dastardly is going on here. If Nancy Stepford can hypnotize enough people, she could control the --"

"Settle down, Terenia," Cloak said, gently. "We aren't questioning the the veracity of your account."

"Well, it should be scientifically questionable," Aquilai pointed out, "hypnosis doesn't --"

"Aquilai?" Cloak asked.

"Yes?"

"What's that on your hand?"

"My Mark?"

"And what does that Mark mean you are?"

"A RAFian?" Aquilai had no idea where Cloak was going with this.

"And how long have you been a RAFian?" Cloak asked. But then he plowed ahead before Aquilai could answer, "Answer: long enough to know that just about anything possible."

Aquilai fell silent.

"But why is she so against fun?" Saffa asked.

"She's insane, what else is there to know?" said an obnoxious RAFian. This RAFian didn't often bother to understand things, dismissing anything that he didn't as stupid and unimportant, thinking that he was just plain smarter and superior to everyone. He wasn't nearly as liked as he thought. "We don't need to know anymore than that."

"Just because you don't want to know any deeper meaning doesn't mean there isn't any," Saffa sniffed, with quiet dignity. "I swear, you have no depth, As--"

"We're getting off-topic here," Terenia insisted. "We need to something. It's just a matter of time before Nancy conquers my school, and who knows how many schools she's taken before coming to mine?"

"Who cares?" said Mr. Obnoxious.

"If you don't care so much," GH said testily, "then leave already! Don't take part in this meeting, Mr. I-Know-So-Much-More-Than-You."

"Guys, guys, guys!" Abby said. "We need to focus on the Nurse Nancy problem."

"I dunno what we can really do about it," Phoenix said, honestly. "How do we break someone out of the hypnosis? Honestly, it sounds more like brainwashing than mere hypnosis, in my opinion. Can it be broken? How would we go about this?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2016, 07:12:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Freedom Five

"We need to something, I don't know what, but something needs to be done." Terenia said, rather fervently. "I'm not even sure that I can go back safely. If she discovers that her hypnotism didn't work on me . . ."

"Let's look at this pragmatically," Saffa suggested. "What is the worst that could happen if she did? She doesn't know about the Mark, it wouldn't be effective."

"Doesn't mean the whole ordeal can't be traumatic," Cloak said, thoughtfully. "Do not know what the process entailed, but just because something can't work doesn't mean that it cannot affect someone psychologically, whether they want it to or not."

"It's just a matter before my school falls," Terenia said, deliberately neglecting to mention her discomfort during the "eye exam". Instead, she voiced another concern to her. "Who knows how many came before and fell before Nancy Stepford?"

"It couldn't have gone too far," Aquilai said, thoughtfully. "Or we would would have heard about it before now. From what you described, Terenia, it would have been such a stark contrast that surely the media outlets would have found out themselves and reported on it."

"With the rampent corruption in this country?" GH snorted. "News media misrepresents the news all the time. Look at Fox News."

"Touché," Aquilai said, "though one would have to wonder, assuming that they are misrepresenting the news, or simply deliberately and wantonly ignoring it, why. Why would they do that? What would they get out of it? Even Fox News has a reason for misrepresenting the news -- general demagoguery. What would they get from covering up Stepford's brainwashing scheme?"

"The brainwashed, the hypnotized, whatever, wore glasses with dark frames and window glass," Terenia said, "I don't know how many if any people in media wore those."

Mr. Guy replied, with a noncommittal shrug, "Perhaps that's exactly why. She didn't want to show her hand too quickly."

"Or the mainstream media are just that incompetent at their jobs," Cloak said, quietly severe. Then he said, "But we're losing sight the problem again. The question remains. How do we stop Stepford?"

***

Terenia's school had fallen.

Nancy had fundamentally brainwashed everyone -- well, almost -- and Terenia's absence was not even noticed (courtesy of Rocklobster, who relayed this news to the others). The art rooms, the band rooms, the literature room, all the creative arts rooms . . . all empty and abandoned. Forgotten.

But not all the students were truly brainwashed. Five had deduced that something was going on. Something wrong, and something potentially dangerous. So they managed to steal five pairs of Nancy's faux glasses, and pretend that they been hypnotized. Nancy bought it hook, line, and sinker.

They survived with their minds untampered with, and completely lucid. They were determined to take back their school from that batty old school nurse. Their names were Shawn Hobbes, Boris James, Chris Hawke, Brooke Barrington, and Nadia Wolfe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 26, 2016, 07:46:48 PM

I could be wrong, but didn't you use the gag of using the TV actors' names before?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2016, 07:48:53 PM

Nope. At least, not like this.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Takin' It Personally

"It's a tall order," Phoenix said, "as we don't know the extent of control she has over the students. Is it just brainwashing-hypnosis or mind control-hypnosis? Rocky hasn't reported back on that."

"Rocky? What's he doing?" Terenia asked, sharply and at once.

"Keeping an eye on Stepford, and maintaining your presence, so that no one's the wiser." Richard explained. "He is not ensconced inside the hologram, but projecting it remotely. Its less dangerous if a hologram gets found out."

"But what if he does?" GH asked. "He's not intangible."

"This ain't his first rodeo," Dino commented, benignly and confidently, "he knows what he's doing."

Terenia seemed sorrowful, "If she succeeds in this -- this horrid endeavor . . . that will spell the end to the creative arts in schools."

"Creative arts?" GH said, sharply. Leatherhead flinched at this, not having expected such a pointed response. "Like --"

"Yes, GH," Terenia said, "that includes music classes."

"She doesn't like music?" he demanded quietly.

"Well, music is considered fun," Terenia answered, "and Stepford, rather like a tyrant, is against all things considered fun. So, yes."

"This just got personal," GH growled.

***

The five were still at the school, noticing how Nancy had conquered it so thoroughly. They had to hold back there feelings and indignation when they were pretty much forced to attend Nancy's last day at the school assembly.

"Hello, dearies," Nancy said, nauseatingly sweet, "I'm so glad to see that all of you have tethered yourself firmly the the indisputable and concrete. No longer lost in the flotsam of mediocrity and plainness."

Shawn was a willful boy, and that made him absolutely determined to end her stranglehold on the school. It would not stand as long as he was around and lucid. But he had to hide this, keep his face blank, and not allow his anger to show.

"And adhere yourself to a good foundation of education and promptness and studiousness you must!" she droned on. School nurses don't usually have this much power. "Without the distractions that the unfettered call art or creativity or music to buffet you and tear you away from your rooted spot.

Brooke was an intimidating force of a woman who never appreciated a single dumb blonde joke in her life. Nancy made a mistake crossing Brooke.

"However, my little poppits," Nancy said, "it's with a heavy heart and mind that tell you this. I will not be staying on as your school nurse."

Chris was a peaceful, hopeful guy, but he would not stand for what Nancy was doing. She was essentially stripping away the free will, the choice, of others. If your point of view is really all that grand, why do this?

"I must go and pursue my God-given quest to bring . . . ocular fitness . . . to the poor masses, awash in their aimless jetsam."

Nadia was a passive, loving person, but she didn't like how Nancy seemed so driven to sap the very souls out these students. She believed that creativity and imagination of music, art, literature, and invention to be one of the hallmarks of human civilization, and this Stepford cow was coming in and siphoning that away from them, bleating about nonsensical things.

"It is my sincerest wish, my poppets," she continued to her captive audience, "that you go and spread the word. Have others anchor themselves fully to the foundation of discipline, obedience, and education. Together, we can save everyone."

Boris was a very compassionate teen, but with a tough-as-nails exterior. He wouldn't abide by this, as he also knew that such a society, where human beings could not express themselves creatively or inventively would not be able to stand. It would stagnate and collapse. No one could cordon off their emotions, their feelings, forever. Humans, by their very nature, were creative and inventive, and suppressing that would be detrimental instead of beneficial.

"I appreciate all the progress made here, poppets," Nancy said. The word "poppets" was starting to lose all meaning. "And, until we meet again, 'all work and no fun' --"

The auditorium audience replied, "-- Makes us good boys." or "-- Makes us good girls."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 27, 2016, 10:15:17 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on March 26, 2016, 07:48:53 PM

"This just got personal," GH growled.

Battle music? Battle music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDm8VrFrUf0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDm8VrFrUf0)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2016, 07:54:31 AM

Uh, sure . . . ;) . . .

New book ideas!

• Book CMXL: "Cancellite Cancer" -- A shapeshifting-cancellation spray is developed.
• Book CMXLI: "Buddy Boy" -- The RAFians must deal with a malevolent, sentient mask.
• Book CMXLII: "Axon Powers" -- The RAFians are pulled into a conflict between the Borg, the Yzutang Vong, and the Axons.
• Book CMXLIII: "Hello Dolly!" -- The RAFians must deal with a womanchild that can turn people into dolls.
• Book CMXLIV: "Suits Them" -- The RAFians must procure the Suit of Cups, Suit of Swords, Suit of Coins, and the Suit of Staves.
• Book CMXLV: "Mask-in-a-Can" -- A covert device is discovered by a child, and the RAFians get drawn into the conflict.
• Book CMXLVI: "Powerless" -- During a particularly gruelling battle, Cloak loses his connection with the elements. He is unable to use any of them, making him rather powerless, aside from his natural ergokinesis, possessed by all Realm Walkers.
• Book CMXLVII: "Earth" -- Cloak struggles to regain his terrakinesis and Earthsight again.
• Book CMXLVIII: "Metal" -- Cloak struggles to regain his ferrokinesis and Metalsight again.
• Book CMXLIX: "Fire" -- Cloak struggles to regain his pyrokinesis, despite his pyrophobia.
• Book CML: "Air" -- Cloak struggles to regain his aerokinesis.
• Book CMLI: "Water" -- Cloak struggles to regain his hydrokinesis.
• Book CMLII: "Wood" -- Cloak struggles to regain his xylokinesis. Cloak completes his quest.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Melissa's Cure For What Ails Ya

"How do we undo all this, though?" Saffa asked. "There has to be a way to do this without any undue harm to the poor people brainwashed by this woman."

Melissa snapped her fingers, upon sudden inspiration. "Boggarts!"

"Come again?" Helen said.

A overt snicker was heard.

"Oh, grow up." Helen and Saffa chastised caustically.

"Melissa, boggarts are essentially just bogeymen -- literally, bogeymen," Broken said. "I fail to see the connection between boggarts and this Stepford woman."

Music started up.

"Melissa, this isn't necessary," Broken reacted.

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh
'Til they all fall down on the floor."

"I still fail to see how --" Broken said, as the other RAFians made similar remarks.

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh
Un till their bellies get all sore.
Let them 'ha'. Let them 'ho'.
Let them roar. Let them go!"

"I have doubts about that, Melissa."

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them "hee". Let them "haw".
Let them hoot, hollar and guffaw."

"I'm not convinced."

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh
'Til their eyes go all red."

"Still not convinced."

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh
'Til they tottle off to bed.
Let them chuckle and howl,
Let them grunt.  Let them growl."

"I still have doubts about this, Melissa."

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!"

"You won't give up easily on this," Broken noted, "I'll give you that."

"Let them snicker and snort,
Giggle, cackle and cavort."

Broken sighed.

"Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!
Let them laugh!"

Silence greeted the end of song, save for GH's sncere applause, while Leatherhead looked disappointed at the song's end.

"I don't know, Melissa," Broken said.

"I think she has something, actually," Richard said, thoughtfully.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2016, 09:49:33 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Pack and Back

Nancy was in her office, happily packing her things. Whereas a normal person would be happily humming to themselves, Nancy Stepford was perfectly silent. Being a boring person as she was, she had very few belongings in which she decorated her office, most of which was dominated by the machine.

The few belongings that she had decorated her office with were all gray, smooth and featureless. They only really functioned by being intruments in which to suck fun out of the atmosphere of the office, as if fun was some vile mosquito that was an everpresent pest to the school nurse.

She had accepted another job, again as a school nurse, at another school. She had already "corrected" the "vision" of a bulk of the administrative staff. That would make it easier to ingratiate herself amongst the staff, personnel, and student body. She already had one school liberated from frivolous distraction, from aimless indecision. She allowed these people, staff and students, some anchorage to the firm foundation of reality.

Now she could spread her noble gospel of -- well, she didn't have a real name for it, but it was a grand gospel, nonetheless. Imagine when she strips this world such feckless vocations like artistry, fiction, sports, and music. Such things like imagination and innovation were outdated and obsolete, and needed to be done away with.

She was doing a very good job at doing just that.

***

The group of five, covertly calling them the Freedom Five, or "FF" for short.

They discovered what Melissa had speculated to be true, but tricky. The major factor behind this was that while instigating a laugh was key, everyone had their own senses of humor. And, even though they were brainwashed, they were not robbed of their individuality, which was the major flaw in Nancy's gospel scheme.

The five had to plan how to take advantage of this, because the student they discovered this with was immediately reverted back to his brainwashed state when Nurse Nancy uttered, "All work and no fun --"

Causing the boy to give the usual reply, "-- Makes me a good boy."

The Freedom Five didn't like this setback. They had discovered a potential weapon to end the suppression of creativity and innovation, only to have it prove to be a scalpel on a Glyptodon shell.

But . . . still . . . still, there had to be some way to exploit this flaw without it returning so quickly. Somehow . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2016, 01:34:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Problematical Progressions

The Freedom Five had to be careful.

They did not know why the brainwashing, the hypnosis, took no hold on them, but they couldn't allow it to be found out. They all hated it, but only complied due to sheer necessity. They wanted to keep their lucidity, and keep their minds intact.

Boris had to give up video games, which he was actually heavily addicted to (in fact, he wanted to be a developer when he left school). He was a competent gamer in all genres, though he usually preferred the ones that more cerebral storylines and voice acting. And he could be a condescending and pretentious when it came to the subject of video games, which usually belied his compassionate nature.

Nadia could not express herself by drawing, by sketching. She did not like having to bottle up her art, but only did so from necessity. She never drew things as they were, but as she wished they were. It was a reason all her sketches, all her paintings, were so incredibly detailed and presented a certain sense of longing, not unlike seeing the reflection of the Mirror of Erised.

Chris couldn't be allowed to daydream without giving away the fact that he retained his creativity and imagination. He was an incurable dreamer, and used that in his writings, though he kept those secret and would not show them to anyone, even his own mother. Not because they were lewd or explicit or anything of that nature, he was just extremely self-conscious about them, fearing them to be not very good.

Brooke had to control her anger, which made her quite intimidating. She didn't like the fact that she was now basically required to wear these drab colors of black and white, on a school uniform that not even she could make look good. This caused her to feel a lot of resentment that s tried desperately not show outwardly. She was a very . . . volatile personality.

Shawn, however, was the most balanced emotionally of the lot, actually affecting a veneer of emotionlessness. He was quite willful, and wouldn't submit under normal circumstances unless he could use as a ploy to gain an advantage. But that isn't to say that he doesn't know when to let up and leave things be, he's willfull, not obstinate. He was having the easiest time pretending to be as brainwashed as the others in his school, though he was no fan of it.

***

"Assuming that your assumption is correct, Melissa," Cloak said, "humor tends to be a very subjective thing. We have no concrete information that this brainwashing strips them of their individuality, so it remains subjective. How do you suggest we go about inciting laughter?"

"Well," that obnoxious RAFian began, "you can --"

"Ways that are viable and relevant to the situation at hand," Cloak clarified sharply. "There has to be a way to exploit that, assuming Melissa is right."

"And if she isn't?" Dylan asked, looking rather apologetically at Melissa.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Broken said. "While I must admit, I still have my doubts, I cannot deny that it's a strong possibility, as it really goes against Stepford's whole anti-fun rhetoric. For what is laughter but an expression of fun and happiness?"

"Assuming that fun and happiness go hand-in-hand, of course," said the obnoxious RAFian snottily. No one paid him any attention.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2016, 06:41:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Whoop-Bomp-A-Doo-Dump

The relationships of the Freedom Five were not really all that stable, either. Nadia held a crush on Shawn, who was crushing on her as well, but neither of them would bring themselves to admit it. Brooke had decided that Chris was her boyfriend, though he didn't really want to be, but he was too timid and intimidated by her to disagree. Only Boris didn't feel any romantic pressures, although he displayed no real interest in romance, almost as if he was afraid to feel love, as if he came from a family of dysfunction -- no one really knew, as he outright refused to talk about it.

Shawn was effectively the leader as the more balanced of the extremes the others were at. He also was the one that had a connection to the others -- Chris and Boris was his best friends, Brooke didn't scare him like the others and she was his somewhat-estranged step-sister, and Nadia was essentially his love interest. Chris got alon reasonably well with everyone but Brooke, though she had laid claim to him as her mate -- her words, actually. Boris felt pretty neutral around everyone, and wasn't too intimidated by Brooke. Nadia tried to be friendly to everyone, but Brooke tried her nerves, though they never mentioned it.

Brooke's harshness was due to the fact that she was essentially alone her entire life, throuh no fault of her own. Her mother had divorced both her birth father and Shawn's dad, and was always working. She felt incredible resentment at this, and it manifested as hostility and anger.

But no one said being a teenager was easy.

However, most people did not have to deal with a deranged school nurse brainwashing the staff and student body of their school, so that would naturally complicate things.

"Whomp-bomp-a-do-dump," Boris murmured, unpon sudden inspiration.

All within earshot, those still under the brainwashing, burst into squeaky giggles. Their minds "untethered" and free once more. Boris had not expected this kind of positive outcome. And he spoke it again, louder.

More did it become undone.

But, just before she was to leave for the final time, Nancy prompted over the school-wide intercom, "Children and staff: all work and no play --"

And they were under again.

"Damn it all," Brooke cursed quietly. "Damn it all to hell."

***

"Perhap just a mere funny word?" Underseen suggested, with a shrug.

"That's stupid," said the obnoxious RAFian.

"If you haven't anything to contribute but irrelevant snarkiness, you can leave," Cloak said, "and let the grown-ups talk."

Cloak never used to be at odds with this RAFian in question. But then they discovered that their political views contrasted stringly, so the Realm Walker had a hard time not likening him to the rather fascist ideologues in the Nexus. They were one of the reasons he had no interest in returning to the Nexus.

The obnoxious one spouted out some more of his condescending, hateful rhetoric, but at this point, Cloak had had enough and ignored him, though wondering how he ever got it into his head that being so dislikeable and abhorrent a person was so attractive to him.

In many ways, he would have preferred the company of Rotiart to this particular RAFian.

Anyway, the others were continuing to debate on what to do, and Cloak was finding himself feeling restless at the inaction. Whatever they did, they would need to start being more proactive. Whatever they did, they would have to act.

Before it was too late.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2016, 11:01:59 PM

Well, my 3DS broke, so I guess I'll be writing more chapters . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
War of Words

But Shawn disagreed with Brooke's assessment. "No, it's something. We can use 'whomp-bomp-a-do-dump'," -- a bunch of squeaky laughs broke out from those who heard the word -- "to undo the brainwashing."

"What's the friggin' point?!" Brooke said agressively. "What's the effin' point if it doesn't stick?!"

"Repetition," Shawn said, unintimidated, as the other three shrunk away. "Simple repetition, Brooke. She may be able to re-brainwash them, but we can reverse it with far less effort than her."

"She only has to issue a trigger phrase," Brooke snarled.

"And we only have to say a single, funny, polysyllablic word," Shawn said, smoothly. Brooke was accustomed to people backing down from her by now, and was losing some of her edge. "And it will far harder for her to find us than us to find her. We have camouflage within the student body, with the mandatory student uniforms."

"These horrid monochromatic rags," she growled. She really didn't like the idea of school uniforms, or uniformity as a concept, really.

"But they are our protection from detection," Shawn countered easily. He felt that he had to keep a cool head, for obvious reasons. His step-sister, he knew, had a lot of anger within her, which others sensed, and feared about her. "We can work without the nurse being any the wiser."

Then his tone turned firm, his jaw set, his eyes hard, his gaze on his step-sister. "As long as none of us do anything stupid to jeopardize this."

"What. Are. You. Implying?" Brooke said, her tone frostier than the surface of Pluto.

"Dude, are you sure that direct provocation is the best course of action?" Chris said, timidly.

"Silence, mate," Brooke ordered, as Chris meekly complied. She used "mate" as a pejorative term. She clearly wasn't so much of a feminist as a misandrist, a man-hater. "Answer me, Shawnie . . . what were you implying?"

"You know perfectly well what I was implying, Brooke," Shawn said, unimpressed. "You have a volatile temper. You barely have a temperance of it. Frankily, I'm surprised that you haven't outted us and cost us our freedom yet."

Brooke exploded into fearsome temper, but, fortunately, it was after hours, and Nancy Stepford was already gone. But Brooke didn't scare Shawn and he easily evaded her lunge. Then, with but a few jabs, he basically chi-blocked her.

"Brooke," Shawn said, "you do not scare me. You do not intimidate me. And you never will."

"I'll be kill you, Shawn," Brooke spat savagely. "When this is all over, I will --"

"No," Shawn said, walking away, "no, you won't."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 29, 2016, 11:14:24 PM

Goddamn, your 3DS broke? Dude, get that **** repaired ASAP.

I'm really liking these characters a lot. Any chance they're gonna show up after this book?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 08:28:11 AM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on March 29, 2016, 11:14:24 PM

Goddamn, your 3DS broke? Dude, get that **** repaired ASAP.

I am. It's not like it doesn't function, the back is coming up off it and I just don't have a small enough screwdriver for the screws.

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on March 29, 2016, 11:14:24 PM

I'm really liking these characters a lot. Any chance they're gonna show up after this book?

. . . Perhaps.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Helllllllllo, Nurse!

"Don't you walk away from me!!" Brooke raged.

Shawn stopped, turned around, and glanced at Brooke almost piteously. "Brooke, anger and wrath are not your friend. You're going down a dangerous path if you don't learn to control your emotions instead of having them control you."

"Shut up!" Brooke snarled, barely able to srand up, her chi lines evidently still blocked. "You don't know anything, Shawn! You don't know anything!"

The other three shrunk away from Brooke. She was really getting out of control, and there wasn't really anything to be done to stop her. She was lost in her anger and her emotion. Of course, this wasn't unnoticed.

"All work and no fun," prompted a voice behind them. Nurse Nancy, as it turned out hadn't left yet. Shawn, Nadia, Chris, and Boris towed the line and maintained the facade, though Nurse Nancy was getting wise to them at this point. Especially because Brooke refused to go along with it anymore, and, despite the feeling not returning to her extremities, tried to attack Nurse Nancy, who stepped back in surprise. This was not the response she expected.

"I think someone needs a check-up," she replied. "Ms. Barrington, if you will?"

"No! I will damn well not sit in that fu--"

Suddenly, two pinpoints of light -- one yellow, one red -- streaked into the room, causing everyone to lapse into silence.

The red one spoke, revealing itself to be a ring, "Brooke Barrington of Earth, you have great rage in your heart."

While at the same time the yellow ring said, "Brooke Barrington of Earth, you have the ability to instill great fear."

Brooke, given the choice between rage and fear, chose fear. She accepted the yellow ring, and the red ring left to scan for another being of great rage.

"Welcome to the Sinestro Corps," her new ring said, as she donned the yellow-and-black uniform of a Sinestro Corpsman. With the symbol of the Sinestro Corps flashing in her eyes in yellow energy, almost entranced, she lifted her ring high to the sky and spoke aloud:

"In blackest day, in brightest night,
Beware your fears made into light.
Let those who try to stop what's right,
Burn like his power . . . Sinestro's might!"

Then she left the room like a bullet, heading to Qward, though the destination was unknown to her. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 30, 2016, 09:06:55 AM

Oh... Damn, I was not expecting that

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 09:10:00 AM

Excellent.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Ring-a-Ding

Nancy frowned at that. She wasn't only anti-fun, she was anti-color, believing only monochromatic colors of black and white as proper. Just black and white, no gray. Which was apt, considering her general world outlook. Though she could tolerate red, for some reason.

"You four," Nurse Nancy said, rounding on them. She may have lost that one student to the aether of distraction purposelessness, but she would not abide by have more follow the example. "All fun and no work -- dah! I mean, all work and no fun --"

"Please, Ms. Stepford," Nadia said, suddenly, dropping the pretense. She spoke earnestly, and from the heart. "You surely cannot truly believe that fun is such an evil thing. That creativity and innovation are such bad things. Surely, you know things like art and music and literature -- they're all expressions of the most heartfelt love and passion."

"Love deals nothing but pain," Nancy said, quietly.

"You're wrong, Ms. Stepford." Nadia said firmly. "You're wrong. Love is about putting others needs before your own. Love is about thinking of the happiness of others above your own. Love is --"

Suddenly, a violet ring came shooting into the room, stopping right before Nadia, causing her to lose track of what she was saying.

"Nadia Wolf of Earth," the violet ring said, "you have great love in your heart."

She allowed the ring to slide itself over her finger, as it said, "Welcome to the Star Sapphires."

Then, as she shifted her clothes into the Star Sapphire regalia, she lifted her ring to the sky and recited:

"For hearts long lost and full of fright,
For those alone in blackest night,
Accept our ring and join our fight,
Love conquers all-- with violet light!"

Then Star Sapphire Nadia left for training on Zamaron, much to the indignation and fury of Nancy. Nancy couldn't believe that she had "let" another one slip through her fingers! In her mind, she was providing them with the ultimate gift! Why did those to spurn it like this?!

"Don't you see, Nurse Stepford?" Chris said, though his tone was more caustic than Nadia's was. "Do you see yet how your crusade is not the noble and quest you imagined?"

"Don't talk about matters of which you know very little, boy," Nancy said, repressively imperialistic.

"I know far more than you give me credit for, Stepford!" Chris countered. "Do have any idea how much you have hurt these people? Creativity is not a force that should be bottled and confined to predetermined strictures. Creativity, by its very nature, has dangerous and exciting verve. Imagination allows us to envision a better future than what we have currently. But depriving us of that, of depriving us of creativity, imagination, and innovation, you cause us to stagnate and rot, not only as a culture, but as a species! You're not helping us, you're hurting us!"

Chris only paused for a breath before continuing, desperately hoping beyond hope, "By denying us these things, Ms. Stepford, you rob our generation of hope for a better --"

Suddenly, there was a blue ring in front of Chris.

"Christopher Hawke of Earth, you have great hope in your heart," it said, as he accepted the ring, "welcome to the Blue Lantern Corps."

He lifted the ringed hand to the sky in a fist and recited:

"In fearful day, in raging night,
With strong hearts full, our souls ignite,
When all seems lost in the War of Light,
Look to the stars -- for hope burns bright!"

Then he was off to Odym for training.

Nancy did not like these colored rings coming and stealing her students.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 30, 2016, 10:11:55 AM

Wow, I did not expect that at all, either. That was an excellent twist, and I was already getting to like these characters, so I hope they show up again - in fact, will Helen meet Nadia at some point?

Also, I see where that book series of Cloak losing his connection to the elements is inspired from. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 30, 2016, 11:25:27 AM

I would link to the album Colors by Between the Buried and Me, but I can't stand that album, so I think I'll just skip that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 30, 2016, 11:37:28 AM

Actually I was going for the end of Legend of Korra season 2, but okay. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 12:49:45 PM

Actually, it was the storyline where Superman lost his powers that inspired it, but now that consider what you said, Saffa . . .

Quote from: Saffa on March 30, 2016, 10:11:55 AM

- in fact, will Helen meet Nadia at some point?

Oh, I have plans about that . . . or, at least, one.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Now, That's Just Distracting!

"How dare those rings take away my students," Nancy fumed. "When I was just about to retether them to reality."

"Are we nothing more than collectibles for you?" Boris said, his outrage belied by his calm words. "Are we naught but mere trophies to you? I gave you some benefit of the doubt that at least you thought you were doing the right thing, although in a horribly misguided manner. But you think that little of us?"

Nancy didn't deign to reply.

"I see," Boris said, shrewdly, as Shawn stood beside him as a sign of solidarity. "You claim to want us to be 'tethered', to be 'grounded', when in reality we are nothing more than.pawns in a greater scheme of yours. You're not just anti-fun, anti-color, and anti-imagination, you're an outright fascist. A totalitarian. Devoid of compassion or empathy. Your emotions are the only ones that matter, and screw anyone else for having emotions and not being mindless drones."

Boris was not able to disparate his words and emotion now.

"Ms. Stepford," Boris said, with a croak of cry in his voice, "we are not mindless automatons. We are not just names on a piece of paper given tangible form. We are people. People with minds and wills and hearts and souls all our own. We have our own thoughts, our own feelings, our own --"

Suddenly, an indigo ring shot in and hovered in front of Boris.

"Boris James, you have great compassion in your heart," it said, as he accepted the ring and suddenly looked very Mowgli in Indigo Tribesman garb. "Welcome to the Indigo Tribe."

Then he raised his ring to the sky, while inexplicably holding an Indigo Tribe staff in his other hand, and recited:

"Tor lorek san, bor nakka mur,
Natromo faan tornek wot ur.
Ter Lantern ker lo Abin Sur,
Taan lek lek nok -- Formorrow Sur!"

Then he headed to Nok, for training. Nancy didn't really like this.

"You," she demanded of Shawn, "you aren't going anywhere."

"You can't enforce that demand," Shawn said.

"You're not going anywhere."

"You don't scare me, Nancy," Shawn said, forgetting to be respectful, "your brainwashing machine didn't work on me before, it won't again. And I'm doubt that I'm the only one with the will--"

A green ring was just noticed by Shawn. And this wasn't just any old Green Lantern ring.

"Shawn Hobbes of Earth," it said, just like how it told its former master. Sam. The interim weilder proved willful, but stupid. He died rather quickly by simply showboating. "You have great will to overcome fear."

Shawn stretched out his hand to accept the ring, but Nancy lunged at the ring. In the end, however, she failed. Shawn made a fist with his ring hand and lifted it aloft and recited:

"In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power . . . Green Lantern's light!"

Then he was taken to Oa, to train.

"No!" Nancy fumed. "At least, I have the other students nice and --"

"Yeah," came an irreverent voice, "about that. The other people you brainwashed? Under your control? Not so much anymore."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 30, 2016, 01:36:49 PM

Somehow, I'm imagining that dramatic entrance to be gh. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 30, 2016, 01:39:55 PM

Well, I haven't had a dramatic entrance in Memoirs yet. I guess it was bound to happen eventually. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 03:14:34 PM

Dramatic entrance? Well . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
You're Batty!

"What? Who're you?" Nancy demanded, turning to see that it was, in fact, GH who spoke. GH wore his favorite guitar slung over his back, which Nancy saw as an outrageous, blasphemous thing. "How dare you bring that thing in this place of academics?!"

"Lady, you really know how to foul up a first impression," GH sad, scathingly.

"Had over that contraband, and I will look the other way on this flagrant disregard for the established rules."

"Oh, bad move," Saffa noted quietly as she, Cloak, Abby, and Underseen watched this exchange.

"You? Touch my guitar?" GH said, scornfully, "lady, you have surely taken leave of your senses."

"Hand it over," Nancy said, holding out an expectant hand.

In response, GH unshouldered his guitar, leaving the strap still on and strummed a few defiant chords. Nancy looked both scandalized and infuriated at this deliberate defiance of her demand.

"What are you doing?!" Nancy said, in ringing tones. "Hand over that instrument of destruction!"

"Lady, you have no idea," Cloak said, allowing himself an indulgent smirk, as GH's music concluded a brief intro before he sang:

"Your name is Batty,
Your logic is erratic.
Potato in a jacket!
Toys in the attic!
I rock and you ramble.
Your brain is scrambled!
Wrapped like an animal, but you're a mammal!
You've been brain-fried, electrified,
Infected and objectified,
Vivisectified and fed pesticide!
Your face is all cut up,
'Cause your arrogance's all shut up!
Nurse! You need a checkup from the neck up!
You're batty!
You used and abused them!
Battered and bruised them!
Red wires, green wires,
Stuck em' right through them!
So, hear my RAFy word,
And exercise a little prudence, man,
When dealing with . . . RAFians."

Cloak moaned and facepalmed at the last three lines, knowing that if it was videotaped that the likes of Bern Bridges and Fox News and whatnot would take it out of context, whether deliberately or not didn't really matter, or viciously edit it to say something that it did not stay.

Nancy was furious at this. She almost vibrated with rage and wrath. She was, in her mind, most certainly NOT batty! She was a noble crusade -- and she was trying to consolidate her power over the school, why else had she been so reluctant to move on.

No! No! It was all wrong! She was right in her actions!! She was always right!! It was everyone else that was wrong!! The whole world was wrong!! It WAS!!!

"If you won't give me that filthy artifact of sloth," Nancy snarled, almost more bestially than human, "then I will just have to take it instead!!"

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wtuKoD1Wbvg

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 30, 2016, 03:21:41 PM

This cannot end well for Nancy . . . :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 03:50:04 PM

You have no idea. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Nancy's Tantrum

GH's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Lady, you ain't touching my guitar."

"Then I'll just take from you!!"

"I repeat, you old hag," GH said, not being so nice and polite anymore, "you ain't touching my guitar."

"Hand it over you lazy good-for-nothing!!"

GH easily sidestepped her lunge, and kept his guitar out of her reach. Nancy had abandoned all pretense and all dignity. GH's guitar had become a symbol to her, a symbol of everything that was wrong with the world, displaying just about everything that was wrong with her instead.

GH found himself not being so much as angry (though he was still plenty miffed at her, she was trying to destroy his guitar, and there was no way he couldn't take that personally) as pitying to her.

"Give it to me!!!"

Yeah . . . GH wouldn't be doing that.

"Give it to me!!!"

GH and the other RAFians were surprised to hear some cry in her voice. She was clearly having some sort of meltdown or nervous breakdown. But it did not stem her anger or wrath. She was allowing it to fill her up, displacing anything else.

"Gimme that piece of --"

"No!" GH said, kicking his leg at her get her off his pants cuff. "Gerroff!!"

"Give it . . ."

"No."

"Give it to me . . ."

She was breathless now. She was overexerting herself, but she had a fanatical zeal, an obsessive hatred. She  also didn't seem to notice that the red pinprick of light that had been attracted to her fascistic wrath. Even when it spoke to her, she seemed to ignore it, obsessed with destroying GH's guitar.

"Nancy Stepford of Earth, you have great rage in your heart," it said, but she did not seem to realize that it was slipping itself on her finger, "you belong to the the Red Lantern Corps."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 07:34:06 PM

One more chapter to go. Yeah, I know there isn't gonna be a lot of closure to this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Nancy's Rage

"Well," Saffa said, as everything spilled outside, "that ain't good."

"Uh, guys?" GH said, as Nancy vomited up the napalm blood that all neophyte Red Lanterns do. "Some help would not be discouraged!"

But Nancy seemed to lose all sentience and basically became a creature of pure rage and wrath. She had lost a lucidity.

"Gateburst," Cloak said, "Neophyte Red Lanterns lose all lucidity, and became wild beasts of anger."

With a tremendous roar, she vomited up the crimson napalm blood again, which nearly hit Abby. The stray hairs on her head that got in the way of the blast smoldered in a most ominous way.

"Okay, enough exposition and backstory, Cloak," Saffa said, having to twist and contort herself uncomfortably to dodge another vomit blast of crimson napalm fire. "How the bloody hell do we beat her?!"

"A quick solution will be appreciated! Greatly appreciated!" GH said, as he strummed a powerful force which created a music-based construct of a gigantic fist that pummeled her, but it missed a few times. "I'm not kidding here!!"

"Other than Blue Lantern," Cloak said, "and outright murder, I don't know what to tell you."

"Oh, thank you, Cloak!" GH snapped angrily, still trying to fend off a rage-empowered Nancy Stepford, unfettered by sentience and consumed with anger. "That was really helpful."

"Surely, there is another way -- and if you use that tired 'and don't call me Shirley joke, imma cut ya -- Cloak," Abby said.

Suddenly, a golden-scarlet orb encased Nancy. She scrambled along the sides of the sphere not unlike a Black Forest wendigo. It was rather creepy. She vomited the napalm blood, and Cloak actually felt as if it was a caustic, acidic slime.

"Enough of this," Cloa said, his eyes golden-scarlet suns. "To Ysmalt with you."

Cloak crossed his palms in front of his face, his Mark clearly etched through his glove, as he felt the others behind him. With a grunt of great effort and force, he pushed his hands forward, palms still crossed. This launched Nancy not unlike the way it happens in Super Smash Bros., with a manner rather like a billard ball. Cloak did not look away until Nancy twinkled, in the darkening sky.

GH shouldered his guitar, huffing, "Show-off."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2016, 08:18:29 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Not Over It

"Uncle? Uncle?" came a voice, in the dusty gorge, as a black cloak fluttered down to the ground. She didn't see the method of how here uncle died, but she knew that this was his cloak. "No . . . no . . ."

She didn't want to believe it. She did not want to believe her uncle was dead. In desperation, as she caught his cloak, she cried out, "HELP!!! HELP!!! . . . Help . . . somebody . . . anybody . . ." -- she sniffed -- " . . . help."

The dust cleared enough to see a large figure strolling nearer, with Shadow unaware of it.

Cloak's mother Ursa spoke, "Shadow?"

Shadow turned around, to see her grandmother, unaware that she had flung her uncle off the cliff face.

"Shadow? What have you done?"

"Th-the stampede -- h-he tried to to save me," she stammered, distraught. "I-it was an accident, I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Of course, of course, you didn't," she said pulling her grandaughter in to a bearhug. "No one ever means for these things to happen."

Shadow cried openly now, in to her grandmother's cloak.

"But the RAFian is dead." Ursa said dully and blunt. Shadow looked up at her grandmother's ursine face.

"If it weren't for you, he'd still be alive." Ursa lied, as Shadow looked crestfallen. Then, with insideous inspiration, she added, "Oh, what would your mother think?"

"What should I do?"

Ursa's smile was not all that reassuring --

"Aniyu, ENOUGH!!" Cloak roared, an actual tiger roar intermingling with his voice.

At this outburst, the scenery dissolved into the pale blue void it was once before, and Aniyu sitting comfortably on a stone slab. She loomed rather sagely at Cloak.

"Young one," she said, in the gentlests of scoldings, "you shall never progress anywhere if you keep electing to run away from these hurt feelings."

"I didn't run away," Cloak said. "I'm over it."

"Lying to yourself is oftentimes far worse than lying to others," Aniyu said, wisely. "Ironic, given how you can detect the lies of others, but not the ones you tell yourself."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cloak said, surly and repressive.

"You don't, do you now?" Aniyu asked.

Cloak said nothing.

"This one event has tied up and twisted up your energy," Aniyu explained patiently. "If you hang on to this grudge, if you hold on to all this pain and hurt, you will never reach your full potential, your full power zenith."

"You say that as if it's a bad thing," Cloak said, broodily. "I'm too powerful as is."

"If you maintain that attitude, young one," Aniyu cautioned, "the elements may very well abandon you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2016, 07:19:33 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXVIII:
OL' SALTY
CHAPTER ONE:
RAFfamily Harmony

We play our song together
A happy melody.
It always sound much better
In RAFfamily harmony!
Seal plays the bongo drums.
GH plays the big guitar.
Esty plays the violin.
Oh, what pretty sounds they are.
We play our song together
A happy melody.
It always sound much better
In RAFfamily harmony!
Ash plays the xylophone.
Saffa plays the saxophone.
Broken plays the silver flute.
Oh, what lovely, lilting tones.
We play our song together,
A happy melody.
It always sound much better
In RAFfamily harmony!
Dylan plays the slide trombone.
Marie plays piano.
Block plays the tambourine.
With love, they make the music flow.
We play our song together
A happy melody.
It always sound much better
In RAFfamily harmony!

It was a much needed distraction from the events of the past few months, especially as the month of February was now dying, and winter was on its last legs . . . er, hopefully.

Although, Cloak found himself imagining Richard sprinting out his thread -- which no one had seen the interior of -- and singing:

"Good morning, RAF, I say!
I have a feeling it's gonna be a wonderful day!
The sun and the sky has a smile on its face
And shining a salute to the RAFian race!
Oh boy, it's great to say!
Good morning, RAF today!"

But Cloak shook head to ckear the imagined scene away. He knew the real reason he was trying to involve himself in the RAFian frivolity. The was avoiding the subject Aniyu was presenting him with.

He was running away again.

---

Source songs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lnJeJOA8Wkw and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BJrYaviMDNs

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on March 31, 2016, 08:05:17 AM

Man, you really need to get your 3DS fixed if I have to catch up on all these chapters. :P

Did not expect that ending for Nancy, tbh. Also, that last chapter felt very like the Lion King. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2016, 11:11:20 PM

Good, as that was what the first part of the last chapter was based off of. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Thirsty Crystal

A poor girl named Liliana* was in a desert with her father, wearing rather generic and stereotypical desert clothing. Her family were driven to poverty and isolation, but it wasn't anything they did, but simply because how they looked. They were called many pejorative things and other things that you simply don't hear in polite conversation. Most, if not all, were outright lies or bigoted misconceptions to marginalize and dehumanize her, her father, her mother, and her little brother.

Just because their beliefs and traditions were not what these people considered mainstream did not mean that she was inherently evil, or a terrorist, which seemed to be their favorite slanderous term. They intended it to hurt, and it did. Fearing for his life and that of his wife and children, her father had them move away to this desolate little spot of . . .

They did not have much money, and a lot of the shopkeeps nearby weren't very hospitable to them, having assumed the reason for the move was not out of fear for safety, but because they were hiding something that they did not want to be found out, generally assumed (quite wrongly, of course) to be terrorist activities.

The whole thing was enough to make her cry with utter frustration. If these people, some of which she though she knew well and got along with, thought they would condone such evil, horrid act . . . then they didn't know them at all. And then the people who didn't, the people who wanted to believe the worst of them because just they simply looked different, just because their beliefs were different? There were no words for them -- especially as many, if not most of them were hypocrites, as they were also closeted Knights, known terrorists.

The whole thing wasn't fair. They had done nothing wrong. Their greatest crime was not saying, "good morning", to one of their neighbors on a brisk, rainy day. They weren't bad people, yet there were those ill-informed bigots flaunting their arrogant ignorance proudly, as if it were patriotic.

They were good people!! Why should they have to live on the fringes, just because some awful people who just want to persecute the imagined demons in the "other" are incapable of learning how to coexist? It wasn't . . . it . . . it was . . . it just wasn't fair . . .

So, Liliana, taking some initiative, was looking for possible things that they could sell. She wasn't stealing though, she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't sacrifice her dignity to be reduced to simple thievery. It would proving those bigoted monsters right. No, she'd much rather deny them that satisfaction. She would find something useful, in these arid wilds.

She had found a cave open that she thought might be promising. She hesitated for a moment, when she considered how upset and angry her father may get with her, especially since she was out here alone, in the wilds, where danger abounds. There could be dangers like scorpions and snakes and whatnot in the small cave opening. Did the potential reward outweigh the risks?

In all honesty, no, it didn't. But Liliana was twelve, and a dangerously-impetuous one at that. She entered the low-ceilinged cave, and made her way to the end, all the while thinking that she was being incredibly stupid, but desperation can make stupid things seem very viable. When she reached the end, when she was sure that she'd disturb a rattlesnake, she found an odd, dusty, dirty crystal.

She grabbed it, and discover that it felt heavy in her hand. She grasped it easily and began to make her way out of the cave . . . to her worried and angry father, who was standing right outside the cave's mouth.

---

* Loosely based on her (http://secretsaturdays.wikia.com/wiki/Wadi). Though her personality is gonna be different.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2016, 06:17:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Dry, Dry, Dry World

"Lili, why did you go down there?" her father demanded. His eyes raked over her, making sure that there were no bites or injuries. When he was satisfied that she wasn't harmed, he continued, "Do you have any idea what could have been down there? You could have been bitten by a rattlesnake, stung by a scorpion, or something even worse!!"

She knew that he only spoke harshly for fear of her safety. She knew that he cared deeply for his daughter, and that she had not only frightened and worried him with her disappearance. She felt a little aggrieved about her actions now, remorse for causing her father more duress than she should have.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she said, informally.

"What do you have there, Liliana?"  he said, having calmed down.

"A crystal of some kind," she replied, looking it in her hand. "I thought we could sell it to get some money for food or some other necessity."

"Perhaps," her father said, but he didn't all that sincerely convinced.

"It could, Dad!" Liliana insisted earnestly. "It just needs to be cleaned up a bit, that's all!"

She dashed toward a nearby river, flowing in direct contradiction of the arid surroundings, almost like a lonely, open road -- desolate, deserted, and alone. It wound and curved in a very artistic way -- Liliana loved it.

She bent down and submerged the crystal in the water, with every intention on cleaning it. But she jumped up and away from the water, as it turned to salt. Then entire river was swiftly turning to hard salt. Completely undrinkable and unusable.

Liliana choked back a sob. Her favorite river . . . reduced to a motionless river of table salt. What did she do?! she berated herself viciously, What did she DO?! Her favorite spot in this desolate land, and she turned it to salt!! Why didn't she just leave well enough alone?!

But then she realized that she had more pressing concerns, as a fist composed completely out of salt, broke through the surface of the salt-ified river, as a raspy, gravelly voiced called out, "I thirst!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2016, 12:38:53 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Impossible!

"Young one."

Aniyu's voice was impatient with a touch of scolding in it. Cloak didn't answer. He didn't ask for Aniyu to invwde his dreams.

"Young one, you beseeched me here, and now you run from me?"

Cloak turned his back to her obstinately. As he did that, he was reduced from being an adult Realm Walker to being a cub, proving just how childish he was being.

"Young one . . . Cloak, you can't keep running from this," she intoned, her scolding, impatient tone giving way to a compassionate, knowing one. "You can't keep burying it. It won't go away like that. It'll continue to resurface again and again. It'll keep causing you pain, like an incurable disease that goes into remission from time to time."

Cloak still did not turn around. He still did not look at Aniyu.

"Cloak, dear," she said, persistently coaxing him, "the only way for you to get past this -- truly get passed this -- is to confront it. Acknowledge it. Accept it. Learn from it."

Cloak remained silent.

"It's the only way to truly stop the pain, and the only way to truly recover," Aniyu said.

At last Cloak spoke, but he remained in his cub form, his eyes shut tightly, unwanted tears streaming down his face "It's impossible."

***

"Impossible!" Aquilai was heard to complain.

"Yes, yes, 'impossible' is just a usual Saturday morning for us," GH quipped.

"The world's waterways are turning to . . . to . . . to salt!"

"So, Situation 760 B, then?" GH said, flippantly.

"Get serious here, Logan," Saffa said.

"Don't call me that," GH said.

"GH, consider the potential ramifications of such a thing," Goom said. "This whole planet depends on water. It powers our weather patterns. It facilitates one major method of travel. Not to mention that, Terran life at least, requires it to live."

"How'd this happen in the first place?" Yarin asked.

"Why? Gonna make another microwave based on this?" Saffa said, unable to help herself.

"It was not a microwave, it was a FOOD YIELD INCREASER!" Yarin sniffed, though his irritation leaked through his aloof tone. "In any case, my point still stands."

"We can worry about the 'how it began' thing later," Phoenix said. "Now we should worry about stemming it from expanding to all water on Earth."

A beat of silence.

"Any idea on how we can accomplish that?" Gaz asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 02, 2016, 02:05:14 PM

Calling me by my real name is almost as bad as calling me capital gh. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2016, 09:06:26 PM

Since I feel had by the lack of SuMo information, here's a new chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
He Rises! He Thirsts!

From the left fist that emerged from the salt river came a wrist, a lower arm, and the upper arm. Then a shoulder emerged. Then the head came out of the salt river, a horrible skull-like head with his salt skin stretched taut across his bald head, and sunken eyes and pointed teeth. With his head free, he extricated his other arm and managed to pull the rest of himself free of the salt. He was bare-chested, with a kilt-sort of clothing of ancient Egyptian design.

Liliana and her family were considerably and understandably dumbfounded. They were motionless, rooted to the spot, with incredulity and shock. Who could have guessed that the crystal she found would have turned the water into salt and become the horrid man composed completely of salt.

"I thirst!!" he screamed, in that horrible rapsy, gravelly voice, as if he had known moisture for a very long time. "I thirst!!"

Then this salt man took notice of the family of pariahs. He shuffled towards them.

Liliana thought she knew terror. She thought she lived through the worst that this world could offer -- and what she survived through was not by any means good -- but nothing like this. The salt man was beyond her worst dreams, and she did not know why. Or why she felt such dread when she saw his outstretched right hand.

"The Eterno*?" she heard her father mutter fearfully. "It's . . . impossible. It was just a myth . . ."

The Eterno's hand touched her father, and at the point of contact her father was turned into a salt statue.

"Not enough," the Eterno moan in that awful voice of its. "I still thirst!!"

Her brother and mother was next. Liliana watched in horror. Abject, unadulterated horror. She was nearly frozen in terror, and would have been the nedt victim, if her flight-or-fight instinct kicked in hard -- and she knew that she could not fight this creature.

So she ran.

She ran and ran and ran. But the images would not escape her mind's eye. It was seared into her subconscious. Her eyes filled with tears as she realized that she was now orphaned, that she lost the three people in this world who meant the absolute most to her. Now she had no one.

She was alone. She had no one. Not anymore.

"I thirst!!" the salt man screamed hoarsely.

How she hated herself for releasing that monster from the crystal. There had to be a way to rectify this. It was her fault. It was her responsibility to set it right. But how?

"I thirst!!"

"The tree." she muttered suddenly. The realization hit her so that she stopped running as her eyes widened with dawning idea. The tree. That had to be it. It had be the thing to stop this monster. "The tree . . . but where --"

"I thirst!!" the Eterno announced suddenly, right behind Liliana. How'd he manage to close the gap so quickly? . . . Because she stood still too long. She allowed him to catch up. He placed his right hand on her back and she felt herself become encrusted in salt.

Her last thoughts were very self-deprecating, as she continued to blame herself for this egregious mistake . . .

---

*(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/powerlisting/images/1/17/Eterno.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131002071057)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2016, 07:22:02 AM

New book ideas!

• Book CMLIII: "Dance, Dance, Revolution" -- Cloak gets on the bad side of a dames blanches.
• Book CMLIV: "What the Devil?!" -- The RAFians deal with a pack of Jersey devils.
• Book CMLV: "Van-Pyres" -- The RAFians must deal with fuel-eating Terrorcons.
• Book CMLVI: "Cyber-Forming" -- A fraction of aliens wish to cyber-form Earth. The RAFians cannot allow this.
• Book CMLVII: "Talented Thieves" -- Two individuals are capable of stealing the talents (not superpowers) of others in very different manners.
• Book CMLVIII: "Terrorborgs" -- A hybrid of Terrorcons and the Borg arises.
• Book CMLIX: "Galactic Epidemic" -- The Terrorborgs become a plague upon the galaxy.
• Book CMLX: "Undone" -- The plague of Terrcons ends with the apparent end of three RAFians.
• Book CMLXI: "Intuitive Augmentation" -- A girl is able to permanently copy the talents (not powers) of others with but a touch.

All titles are subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Village Lost

"I still thirst!!" said the salt man Eterno, as he lurched towards a nomadic village. He felt an incredible thirst, as he continually vocalized, but, rather like Tantalus, was unable to secure any sort of relief for it.

There would be no satisfying it, save for one thing.

The Eterno wasn't always like this however, as the little part of him that didn't focus on his intense, all-consuming thirst contemplated. And remembered . . .

Centuries ago, he was perfectly human, though he long forgotten the name he used then. He was once a warrior king, whose thirst for power would not, could not be quenched. So he sought the Methuselah Tree, the tree that was said to make all the water on earth.

He crossed the threshold of the nomadic village. The thirst ached in him. He turned a quarter of the village into salt statues, proclaiming and whining about his thirst. He still remembered his past . . .

He failed to get to the Methuselah Tree, of course. And he was instead entombed in salt by the tree's protectors, the centiscarabs, who caused an earthquake. As time passed, he became pure salt.

Back in the present, he had turned seventy-five percent of the village into salt statues. Yet, his thirst had not abated. This infernal thirst!! The Eterno's previous lust for power had become a literal thirst, driving him to search for water to drink, even from the bodies of others, but unable to as his salty skin absorbs it. His thirst . . . his everlasting thirst . . . it was a fate worst than death!!

The village was now all statues of salt. And yet his thirst was no satisfied. He didn't care that his existence was causing the oceans of the world into salt, it made no never mind to him. All he cared about quenching and satisfying his thirst. That was his only concern, and everything else was superfluous and extraneous.

He was so thirsty . . .

***

"Impossible, is it?" Aniyu asked, her gentle tone unchanged. "How do you know it an impossibility if you have never tried?"

"It's impossible," Cloak said, still in cub form, still with a child's voice. He was still being childish.

"Again, if you have never tried," Aniyu said, with impossible patience, "then how do you know it's an impossibility?"

"It is," Cloak said, stubbornly.

"Even the deepest wounds can heal," Aniyu said. "But you have to allow it to come to pass."

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, a bite of concern in her voice now, "the more you resist this, the more you hold on to this grudge -- recovery, true recovery, cannot begin."

Cloak said nothing, and would not look at Aniyu.

"Cloak --"

He woke up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2016, 11:09:58 PM

Coupla more ideas.

• Book CMLXII: "Two That Don't Go Together" -- The RAFians deal with a rampaging and powerful vaewolf.
• Book CMLXIII: "The Rakshasa" -- Saffa deals with a savage rakshasa.
• Book CMLXIV: "Saffa's . . . Getting Married?!" -- A rogue gandhava tries to force Saffa into marriage.

Titles may change. Don't think I repeated anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Deciding the Course of Action

"What's going on?" Cloak asked groggily.

"Just world-wide armaggedon, Sleeping Beauty!" Aquilai said, testily.

"There's no need for snark," Cloak said, calmly.

"No? While you were away for your cat nap, all the waters of the world are turning into salt!" Aquilai spat, still quite moody. Aquilai had expected Cloak to say, "Impossible" or some derivative of that, but the Elements Master did not. He didn't look too impressed.

"We've seen stranger things," Cloak said, rather placidly.

"If we don't do something, the world will be waterless," Goom intoned, "the plants would wither and die, the herbivores would be next, then the carnivores will expire last. Earth will become barren and lifeless."

"There's always a solution," Cloak said.

"And a ticking clock," GH added.

"And here?" Aquilai asked harshly. Cloak looked at him with dull realization of why he was so testy. He was a Time Lord, yes, but he was a waterbender, as well. A waterbender, but not a bloodbender. If the waters of the world becomes salt, he would basically and essentially lose his bending. "I still cannot believe how . . . how . . . how cavalier you're all being about this!!"

"Uh, guys?" Yarin said, his six eyes blinking with alarming rapidity. "You're not going to believe this."

Yarin showed them a rather grainy image of the salt statues of the village. Cloak couldn't help but think that this looked familiar to him, somehow. As if it happened in another Realm that he bore witness to? That was a possibility . . .

But was there a solution that they found? If they did, if this indeed happened in another Realm he had visited, he couldn't remember it. And there was something else . . . something that he felt that he should remember. Something quite important.

Hopefully, he was mistaken about this, and he was just being paranoid.

***

The thirst . . .

It was an all-consuming obsession. He was just so very thirsty . . . so . . . very . . . THIRSTY. . . .

Every time he tried to satiate it, every time he tried to slake it, every single time he tried to quench this horrid thirst, it failed. This abominable thirst was his curse. His curse . .. his everlasting thirst . . . would he ever be freed from it? Would he be condemned to suffer like this forever?

But for every curse . . . for every curse . . . there had to be a cure, r-right? So, logic . . . logic followed that there should have . . . have been a cure for . . . for . . . for his condition. A cure . . . relief . . . blessed relief. Freedom from this thirst. . . .

The tree . . .

He stopped in his footsteps. The tree . . . the Methuselah Tree . . .

The sap from the tree. That would be the only salvation he could hope for. The Methuselah Sap, it would the only thing to quench this thirst. It could be his only hope . . .

But the question remained. How. How would he get to the tree, and how would he even find the damn thing to betin with.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2016, 02:30:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
RAFian Response

"Is this a result of the salt transmogrification of the world's water supply?" Yarin asked openly, with an almost academic curiosity. "Were these statues even once people?"

"The looks of terror on their faces . . . even with the grainy resolution of this video, you can easily make them out," Saffa said, her tone aghast. "I don't that kind of terror is so easily replicated."

"There are douchebags who would do this kind of thing, Saffa," GH said, with a rather sour but dour sort of tone, "to carved terrified statues out of sand. They would think that it's funny."

And before the obnoxious RAFian could speak, he was swiftly silenced by the others present.

"In any case, that does not answer the question how they came to be there," Phoenix said. "They could have been transformed people."

"Transformed by what, though?" Cloak said, mostly to himself. Then he addressed the others, and said, "And so I think we need to assess the situation on-site."

"Wait? What?" Abby said.

"We need to send an investigative team to assess the damages and see what we can do." Cloak said.

"Wouldn't that that be overstepping our jurisdiction?" Gaz asked.

"The world's water supply is turning into salt," Saffa reminded dully, "I think it's fair to say that it's in our jurisdiction."

"I'm going," Cloak said.

"Not without me, you aren't," Goom said. "You'll need my diagnosis intruments and expertise."

"I'm in," Faerie and Demos said at once, causing the former to eye the latter suspiciously and the latter to smirk innocently nonchalant.

"Count me in," Dino said. "I dunno what I can contribute, but I've sat out on too many missions now."

"I'm in, too." Parker said. "Tyr and I can help Goom with the analysis process."

"I'm out," Gaz said, "though I really want to be in on this one. That much direct sunlight? Even for a daywalking vamp like me, it'd make me uncomfortable."

"Understood, and noted," Cloak said. Then he turned to the team, "Get your necessary equipment, Goom. It seems we have another ticking clock upon us."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2016, 06:50:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Analysis and Ambushed

Goom and Parker were already analyzing the statues that were Liliana's family, mistaking them for the villager's that were suffering from the same fate.

"Wait a minute," Parker said, surprised.

"Interesting," Goom said, with almost professional acumen, "this salination process is solely exoskeletal with the sufferers induced into some sort of suspended animated state. But they're still . . . alive. I haven't seen anything like this before."

Cloak hesitated for a moment, before saying, "I have."

The briefest of silences met these words.

"I think we would all like to hear that account, Cloaky," Dino said, looming over them all.

"It was in a different Realm," Cloak prefaced, "but something there happened similar to this. Only it wasn't by the water turned to solid salt. It was by --"

"I THIRST!!!" came a strangled, hoarse roar of frustration and desperation.

"Eterno," Cloak said quickly, gazing immediately at this new threat.

"Eterno, what?" Faerie said, confused. Then she saw the Eterno. "What is that thing?"

"I THIRST!!"

"Some sort of salt man," Goom remarked astutely.

"Thanks for that incredible assessment, Goom," Faerie said, slightly annoyed.

"Whatever you do," Cloak said, voice hushed but very stern, "do not let him touch you with his right hand."

"What about his left?" Demos asked, smiling like a madman, allowing his inner malevolent demonic nature to surface. Then he asserted control over it, and became saner.

"Never mind that! Keep your eyes on his right!!" Cloak said quickly as the salt man approached their group faster than Cloak was expecting. He was afraid that there might have been such a creature behind the salt statuary here. He had been reckless. "Make sure he doesn't touch you! Or you'll -- probably -- end up like them!!"

He jabbed his finger over his shoulder toward the salt statuary family, and the point was driven home. But it was at this moment that a realization hit him.

"Dino! Get in your compacted form! Now! Don't arg--" Cloak snapped.

But it was too late. The Eterno was there already and he had his hand -- his right hand -- upon Dino's left leg and it was already begin the salination process. The salt exoskeleton was already nearly complete before she even knew what was going on, before Cloak had even entertained the poaaibility!!

"DINO!!" the RAFians screamed.

"I THIRST!!" was the Eterno's reply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 04, 2016, 07:34:40 PM

Oh god. **** just got real

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2016, 11:27:15 PM

Well, for the most fleeting of moments.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Thirst Evermore

"I THIRST!!"

"Shut up!" Cloak snarled. His eyes were flickering from his normal amber to golden-scarlet suns. He was trying to master his emotions.

"How'd he even sneak up on us?!" Faerie demanded.

"Parker! You're too close!!" Goom warned.

"Don't worry," Parker said, confidently, "my armor --"

"Can't protect you from everything!" Cloak scolded openly.

Goom swiftly agreed, saying, "Look at those statues! Their clothing were encased in salt too. His touch may only leave an exoskeletal salt shell, but it goes down to to the epidermal layer and it is only then where the salination process ceases! You saw the instruments indicating as much!!"

But Parker was very much like Cloak himself, in that he could be more pigheaded than he had good sense to be. He was sure that his armor would protect him from --

"I THIRST!!"

"Dah!"

The Eterno had clamped onto Parker's leg with an unexpectedly strong grip, which inexplicably loosened. But the cause soon became clear -- Cloak and Demos were hurling fire at the Eterno which seemed to cause his thirst to worsen beyond the point of tolerability. The two pyrokinetics sent the beast, the monster, away. They at least had a weapon against it.

And Parker was wrong. Though he was not fully encased in the salt exoskeleton, his.right leg was, from toe to thigh, was encased in the salt, which did not encroach on any further part of his body. His armor most definitely did not protect him from the salt man's strange saltifying touch.

"I tried to warn you," Cloak groused. "I tried to warn you. But did you listen?"

"Cloak!" Faerie scolded the Realm Walker on his tactlessness.

"I can't feel it," Parker said. "It's not like it's numb or anything. I literally can't feel it. It's . . . it's like it's . . . it's dead."

Cloak bit back a scathing retort, and said, "I think the only cure it the sap from the Methuselah Tree."

"The what tree?" Demos asked.

"I've heard of that tree," Faerie said. "Supposively the source of all water on Earth. But its a myth."

"A lot of things are myths," Cloak said. "Doesn't mean a nugget or two in them can't be true."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2016, 08:35:44 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Preparations to Be Made

"Phoenix, Blaze, and Yarin are coming," Cloak said. "They'll guard Dino and Parked while we go and try to find the Methuselah Tree."

"I don't need guarding," Parker growled.

"Your mobility is greatly reduced and limited," Cloak said, coldly pragmatic. "Your sense of balance is endangered. You will need someone to watch your back, as well as a pyrokinetic to keep you and Dino safe, if the Eterno comes back. If he came back without one, your leg would be the least of your worries, SPARTAN."

Parker grumbled, but couldn't find anything to protest. The logic was sound enough.

"Where is the Methuselah Tree?" Goom asked.

"If that other Realm was anything like the Prime Universe," Cloak said, "than it's that way. But we must wait until Yarin, Phoenix, and Blaze arrive."

"There they are now," Faerie said.

But only Phoenix and Blaze came down, as Yarin remained his ship. He would give the surrounding area a thorough sweep.

"What exactly is this salt man you talked about?" Blaze asked.

"The Eterno," Cloak said. "Said to be a warrior-king in your ancient times, with a thirst for power. Said, in the lust of power, to have sought out the Methuselah Tree."

"Wait, isn't that what we're going to try to do?" Demos asked.

"It's just a legend," Goom dismissed. "Doesn't mean it's true."

"Doesn't mean it isn't either," Demos countered.

"Intention can be a factor," Faerie said. "Some magicks work by the quester's intentions."

"Well, it isn't like the tree isn't guarded," Cloak said, "The creatures are called centiscarabs. I think. I have only seen them once, and, even then, it was a mere glimpse. I think they looked like giant silverfish, if I'm remember correctly. But it may very well be different in this Realm, I'll admit."

"Why was it important for pyrokinetics, specifically, to come?" Phoenix asked.

"The Eterno, was it?" Faerie looked over at Cloak, who nodded, "well, he apparently suffers from a great thirst, but is unable to drink, turning the water into salt or his salt body absorbs it before he could quench it. Fire -- or, more importantly, the heat, I think -- exacerbates this, causing him to flee, to fee some relief."

"Guys, we really should be going," Goom insisted. "We don't know if we have a ticking clock before us."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 05, 2016, 04:08:11 PM

Hey Cloaky, apologies for my absence - it's exam week, so I've been popping in and out of RAF and basically hoarding chapters again. The major portion will get over in two days, though, at which point I can sit and have a nice long read. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2016, 04:53:44 PM

I assumed it was for a good reason like that, actually.

:edit: MOST VIEWED THREAD ON RAF!!! At least for the moment.  ;D ;D ;D

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
On Course to the Tree

And so off they went, but it still seemed like an effort in futility. They didn't even know where to start -- which was fortunate, in a way, because if they didn't, then the Eterno did not know either.

But that still presented a little problem, because Cloak's Earthsight seemed a little on the fuzzy side in the sand, and he wasn't even sure he could Earthsight through salt. He wasn't even sure it classified as earth, although he knew it was a mineral. He never had a chance to try it out.

They came to the cave where Liliana found the salt crystal, which was where the Eterno was presumed to have ventured forth from within. That cave was low to the ground, but wide, almost like the maw of a desert-dwelling monster. The RAFians, however were on the opposite bank of the river, now solidly salt, that snaked between them and the cave.

It was about a forty-five degree to a ninety degree angle from this cave tha Cloak noticed something, and something nagged at him. He ignored the nagging feeling in order to prioritize the thing he noticed. A bunch of debris cast a shadow that looked coincidentally like a stag beetle, seen from above. But hidden within that shadow was a narrow cave opening. It was quite easily missed to the casual viewer, who wasn't a Master of Earth.

"Over here, guys," Cloak motioned to the others.

He had to basically point it out, by wiggling into the narrow opening, which was a crevice, really. A crack, a chip in the stone wall. But once inside the chamber proved to be, in actuality, a spacious tunnel where they could all walk comfortably. The tunnel looked almost carved out, as if someone used a terraformer from "Subnautica".

"Let's get going," Goom said, leading the way.

But Cloak hesitated. He looked at the opening and had an instinct to shut and seal it. He silently debated on whether he should do it, eventually concluding that he shouldn't. He decided that it was well-hidden enough, and he was just being paranoid. Yet, it still nagged him.

They went onward, and yet, it still nagged at Cloak, making him feel an anxiety that he hid from the others. They pressed on, until they came to an impasse, at a beach-like setting.

"Well," Faerie said, "where now?"

"That rock formation," Goom said, "the one that looks like a fiddler crab. There's a river flowing into it."

Looking at the direction Goom indicated, then she observed, "That doesn't look like a fiddler crab."

"You're looking at it at the wrong angle, then," he said, matter-of-fact.

"No need to be snotty about it," Faerie sniffed, as they proceed forward. Cloak hesitated a moment, and looked back as if expecting an unwanted intrusion, but none came. He felt sure there would be one, but there wasn't anyone there . . .

Pity, he never thought to Earthsight.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2016, 09:21:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Still On the Trail

They continued alone this beach-like setting, until in branched out into an enclosed rainforest feel. There was thick foliage, and it was open to the sun with stone walls curved and curled around them protectively.

"The Methuselah Tree is supposed to be hidden exceptionally well, right?" Demos said, looking rather awkward in the direct sunlight. "This open sky seems counterintuitive to that."

"I don't know," Faerie said, thoughtfully, fluttering along, "it isn't like that Eterno guy can fly or anything like that. And these stone walls are smooth -- unclimbable."

Cloak shot a look over his shoulder. He didn't know why, but he felt like they were being followed. And his misgivings about not sealing that crack grew exponentially, and his anxiety increased in kind.

"Cloaky, what's wrong?" Goom asked.

"Nothing," Cloak lied, eyeing the way they came wearily. It wasn't unnoticed, as they had reached a mossy tree stump with a broken bit pointing to a downward-sloping, fully-enclosed tunnel among a myriad of other paths that they could take. It didn't take a genius to figure out the correct way to go.

They travelled into the path the moss tree indicated, losing sight of the river altogether. Demos seemed more at home now, back into the confines of a tunnel. Perhaps that is one reason why demons like possessing things and people, because they like being confined? Nah, it was probably nothing.

Yet, Cloak kept looking behind them, expecting -- dreading to see if they might see Eterno, but it was heating up in here, and only Cloak and Demos seemed not to notice. Eventually the tunnel opened into a boiling lake of lava, with a small bridge of stone that forced them to all walk, one by one, across it.

"Which way?" Goom wondered.

"Hold on," Cloak said, looking back, " I knew we were being followed."

Cloak stomped his foot, swinging it and his arms to the right, causing the bridge to pivot to the right, resting on this side of the lake of lava. Leaving a very angry Eterno on the other side of the lake of lava -- trapped.

"YOU CHEATS!! YOU LIARS!!" he roared.

"Oh, shut up," Cloak said, turning around as the Eterno realized the heat was unbearable. The Eterno backed away and disappeared up the corridor, back from whence he came.

"Now which way is on?" Faerie asked, motioning to three pathways. A puff of smoke that appeared similar to a naval mine issued and dissipated from the lefthand one. After a momentary pause of silence, Faerie said, "That way, then?"

"Ever get the feeling that we're being led?" Demos asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2016, 11:04:00 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Journey's Last Legs

They went through the tunnel to find that the tunnel end in a shaft to open sky. The translation from tunnel to shaft was shaped rather like a "J". A ring of shiny stones twinkled at the mouth of this pit fall.

The walls were thick, semi-smooth stone. Very, very difficult to climb, for most species. But the RAFians came this far. They weren't about to give up, and Goom was the first to act, moving surprisingly quick for even a Goomba. He actually wall-jumped with alarmingly success. Cloak used his usual energy disc, and Demos blasted fire from the bottoms of his shoes and his fist, rocketing his way up to the top. Faerie . . . well, Faerie had wings naturally. She flew up simply.

When each passed by the glittering, twinkling gems, each RAFian felt a tingling sensation that didn't hurt, but was just beneath their even noticing. It was almost as if they were being scanned.

When they reached the top they found a lovely little glade, guarded by Dugtrio-like protrusions that seemed to possess angry, judgemental glares. In the center was a rather beautiful, silver-leaved tree with golden bark. Or could have just been Cloak's own perception of the tree.

Around the tree, lying by the tree's roots, like dogs on the rug in front of a fireplace, were creatures Cloak assumed to be the centiscarabs*. They had long bodies like centipedes, but large jaws and mandibles. They had segmented antennae and what appeared to be vestigial wings. They had clawed appendages coming off their backside. It was impossible to tell whether or not they were sleeping with their large, fixed eyes.

The four approached the tree, trying to hide their awe. They all knew what this tree was. It was quite obviously the Methuselah Tree. Cloak didn't know what he had expected, but it was most certainly not this.

"You may approach closer," the centiscarabs said. Cloak did not know that they could speak, especially considering how their jaws and mandibles did not indicate such an ability. And both spoke with the very same intonation and cadence as the other, they were identical. "You've proven yourselves worthy."

"They talk," Goom said, awe in his voice very evident.

"It's not the centiscarabs speaking," Cloak said, with hushed respectability, " it's the Methuselah Tree itself!"

---

*(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/secretsaturdays/images/4/4b/34678_%283%29.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090421024753)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2016, 07:14:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Tree and It's Mouthpieces

"It's true," the Tree spoke through its protectors again. "I am what you call the Methuselah Tree. The metaphysical embodiment of all the waters of this world."

The centiscarabs reared up a bit, swaying back and forth a little.

"You've passed the tests with flying colors," it said. "You've correctly followed the signs here, and you have been scanned and analyzed. You four do not thirst for power."

The centiscarabs swayed and looked -- at least, they faced Goom.

"Small one," it said, "you thirst for knowledge and burst with curiosity, but not power, status, and influence. You seek knowledge for the sake of  your personal discovery, and there is nothing wrong or evil in it, especially because you know some lines that ought not be crossed."

The centiscarabs swayed again, this time addressing Faerie.

"Winged faerie," it said, through its protectors, "you haven't any need for power, status, or influence, you thirst, instead, for adventure. You prefer action to inaction, you prefer to be proactive instead inactive."

The centiscarabs swayed again, this time addressing Demos.

"Demon," it said, through its guardians, "you do not have a thirst for power, status, or influence. You, instead, thirst for redemption. Redemption from your inclinations as a demon, struggling with an innate malevolence that comes from being a demon. Do not give up, you are doing well."

The centiscarabs swayed again, this time addressing Cloak himself.

"Cloaked one," it said again, through its guardians, "you are quite the opposite of one who would seek the power of my sap. You do not seek power, but refuse and deny hour own. You thirst for balance. You thirst for acceptance. You thirst for . . . love."

The other three look st Cloak, who appeared to be very stone-faced, while he was overwhelmed and roiling with contradictory emotions inside. He was order externally, but chaos internally.

"But there is another reason we've come, Methuselah Tree," Cloak said, "the world's waters -- they're turning to salt. And we need, not only a way to reverse that, but a way to undo the touch of the Eterno."

"The Eterno," the Methuselah Tree sounded wistful, regretful. "Ah, I remember him. A warrior-king, known then as Contentio* the Conqueror, he tried to find me, for the sole purpose of controlling me, of dictating which nations could or could not get my waters. It would bring entire empires to their knees."

It seemed to sigh sadly.

"I could not allow this," the Methuselah Tree said, "I sent my guardians to stymie him. I admit I do know just how he became an Eterno, but he is the only one that I to have become one."

"How do we save those who have been touched by him?" Faerie asked.

The Methuselah Tree seemed to think about this, before addressing Goom, "Knowledge-Seeker, take this blossom. But be careful. Visitors, even the most worthy, are only allowed to this place once. Sadly, this is not negotiable, but not by me, by the very nature of this place."

The RAFians seemed more aware of the angry glares coming from the Dugtrio-like structures around them.

"Dear Seeker of Knowledge," the Methuselah Tree said, almost as a way of farewell, "you shall know the prudent course. Adieu."

---

* "Contenio" is apparently Latin for "selfish".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 06, 2016, 08:16:06 AM

Decided to screw studying and read the whole book instead. What a great idea! This book is so exciting. Reminds me a lot of something out of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. ;D

And congrats on highest viewed! :party:

Quote

Book CMLXIII: "The Rakshasa" -- Saffa deals with a savage rakshasa.
Book CMLXIV: "Saffa's . . . Getting Married?!" -- A rogue gandhava tries to force Saffa into marriage.

Oh look, two things I recognize from my culture! Rakshasa basically means demon in Sanskrit, and the second one is basically every Indian twenty-something's extended family. :P

And the PDFs for the last three books, which I missed out on posting the last time:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2016, 08:47:48 AM

Yeah, I came upon those terms, rakshasa (http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Rakshasa_Physiology) and gandharva (http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Gandharva_Physiology) (i misspelled it when I wrote out the book synopses), on the Superpower wiki, which some times I go onto for book ideas. I also thought the idea of anyone forcing you into marriage as funny, because I'd imagine they'd get walloped.

And this book was basically inspired by the episode "Eterno", from the first season of the Secret Saturdays.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 06, 2016, 11:48:10 AM

Yeah, my dad's doing the (metaphorical) walloping on my behalf in my absence. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2016, 06:35:11 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Glade Gone

The note of finality in the Tree's two-part voice was unmistakable and undeniable. It was dismissing them, but in as polite a way that it could. The RAFians could take a hint, with Goom somehow holding the blossom, which looked very much like a hybridization of a lily pad and a lotus blossom, with a dazzling design of whites and pinks. It's scent was wonderful as well, as well as being so remarkable as to defy explanation.

As they turned to leave, the glade seemed to have been replaced by a barren, circular palette of land, dusty brown and desolate.

"Is this like the Fidelius Charm?" Faerie asked.

"No," Cloak said, "my kind can see right through such things. No, the Methuselah Tree is gone from this place. Presumably to another place with all new traps and aigns and pathways."

"It doesn't matter, in any case," Demos said, "we can't go back."

Cloak bit back a retort. Realm Walkers, while accustomed to being able to go anywhere they please, could not venture into some places. Like Heaven or Hell, because something about their own energy reacts like you try to force two sides of a magnet of the same polarity together -- it just can't be done.

And then there's the Forge of Creation. They are under treaty with the Celestialsapiens not to cross into that territory. Cloak only counted himself as lucky that they seem unaware of how that has been breached on two occasions, through no fault of Cloak's own.

Cloak was about to let Realm Walker pride and Realm Walker vanity skew him into saying something that very well may not have been true. He didn't know for a fact, if he could return to the Methuselah Tree whenever he wished, but knew it would not be able to deceive his eyes.

"This blossom," Goom said, analyzing it with his instruments, as they walked on, the path they took having changed and altered since their trip to the the Tree. "The water in it -- such wonderful properties. Best of all, I think it just might be able to reproduced."

"Reproduced?" Demos asked.

"Well, I can't be entirely sure," Goom admitted, "not until I get to the lab and examine the data, but it should be doable, I think."

"Well, that's good," Faerie said, allowing herself a sigh of relief. "Some good news, at last."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2016, 07:26:59 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
YOINK!

"I'm transmitting the data over to Aquilai, at the lab," Goom said.

"Why?" Faerie asked.

"In case something happens to me or this data before we can see if it can be replicated, if need be."

"The blossom should be enough, right?"

"Somehow, I doubt it Demos," Goom said. "The Methuselah Tree must have already known this, and yet, it gave us this blossom. Just this blossom. It had to have an ulterior motive."

"Do you honestly think it thought that far in the future?" Demos said. He clearly didn't believe that it did.

"Perhaps," Cloak said, "but our goal remains the same. We have to find the others and revive them. Then those other people, and the village, then the waters of the world."

They proceeded in silence for a bit, before Faerie said, "You know, I'm a bit surprised that we haven't ran into that Eterno guy yet. I would have expected him to show up by now."

"I THIRST!!" came a scream in reply.

"You just had to say something, didn't you?" Cloak sighed.

"I THIRST!!" the scream commented.

"Hey, I didn't know that he'd show up right after I mentioned him!!" Faerie protested.

Suddenly, Goom let out a scream of fright and terror, as the Eterno lifted him up with his left hand, snatching at the flower with his right hand, whcih caused Goom to wriggle with supreme vigor.

"'Ey! Lemme go!!" Goom said. He was being held upside-down.

And yet, the Eterno had managed to take the flower blossom from him without touching him -- Goom fearing his touch. The Eterno knew where this blossom had come from. He knew what it spelt to him.

But it wasn't power that he was after, of course.

He deftly dropped Goom, having lost all interest in the Goomba. Goom quickly scurried away from the Eterno. Terrified of becoming a salt statue, Goom continued to keep his distance from the Eterno.

Demos and Cloak didn't dare to use their pyrokinesis at the Eterno for fear of damaging the flower. But the Eterno didn't pay them any mind. His mind was solely on the flower, more precious to him than gold. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2016, 09:22:16 PM

New book ideas!

• Book CMLXV: "God of Destruction" -- Cloak is given a label he rejects.
• Book CMLXVI: "Cursed Eyes" -- The RAFians fail to prevent the kidnapping of seven kids.
• Book CMLXVII: "Eyes Full of Hate" -- A boy is cursed with a killing glare when he feels hate or rage.
• Book CMLXVIII: "Eyes Full of Love" -- A girl is cursed with a killing glare when she feels love.
• Book CMLXIX: "Eyes Full of Greed" -- A girl is cursed with a killing glare when she feels greed and avarice.
• Book CMLXX: "Eyes Full of Compassion" -- A boy is cursed with a killing glare when he feels compassion.
• Book CMLXXI: "Eyes Full of Fear" -- A boy is cursed with a killing glare when he feels intense fear.
• Book CMLXXII: "Eyes Full of Hope" -- A girl is cursed with a killing glare when she feels intense hope.
• Book CMLXXIII: "Eyes Full of Defiance" -- A boy is cursed eith a kiing glare when he feels defiant.

Titles are subject to change. Don't think that I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Eterno's End

For Eterno, for Contentio (a name he had long forgotten), this was the culmination of all his hopes and desires. More precious than the purest gold. From the moment that he arose from that salt-ified river, it was this very conclusion that filled him with determination. He had suffered from this incredibly cruel, unrelentingly insistent thirst.

He, of course, did not think he deserved such a horrible fate, though he would be completely indifferent if it befell someone else. Contentio was a man who has never known love, compassion, or kindness, as he had never recieved any of it himself. And, since he did not know what they were like, as he had never felt them.

And so he became little more than a pirate. Taking that which was not his and claiming them as his own. From there he succeeded in his first conquest -- he assassinated the king very discreetly and covertly and overthrew the corrupted government of a kingdom, proclaiming himself as not only the new king, but the mightest warrior of the kingdom as well.

He was not a good ruler. He was a tyrant, and ruled with an iron fist. He killed dissenters overtly and through assassination. He was a man without morals, without principals (though that didn't mean he didn't foist crude principals upon those he conquered). He was just gaining more and more power, for the sole sake of more power.

He had even tried his hand at magic, as black magic, in particular, seemed to interest himmlst, but soon found that he had little patience and aptitude for it, and so slew his teacher. Then he outlawed practicing magic, black or white -- didn't matter, throughout the lands he conquered. Punishment for defying this order was not only death, but a sensationally gruesome death.

And that was the way he ruled his tyranny, if there was something that he couldn't do or get the hang of, he slew or assassinated the person who could and outlawed the thing in question. So, naturally, he had to put down a number of rebellions, but always saw them as inconsequential. Mere day trips, nothing to be concerned with.

Then he heard of the Methuselah Tree. The tree where all the world waters came from.

Whoever controlled that tree controlled the world. It was far too tempting for him to pass up. That power under his control? The world would be begging for subjugation!! The world would be at his feet!! He would be the most powerful man in the world!! He would have been able to deny his enemies waters, and he would watch with malicious enjoyment as they whethered and died as their livestock and crops did the same!! He would have had it all!

Then he falls. He somehow became . . . this.

He did not deserve this. He did not deserve to become this walking monstrocity with an unquenchable thirst. It was a heresy to the mighty man, the powerful warrior, the terrifying king he was!! This fate was truly most undeserving!!

Now . . . now it ends.

He lifted the blossom high in the air, and squeezed it. Inexplicably causing some water to trickle out, into the Eterno's mouth. He dissolved away, with a refreshed, "Ahhhhh . . ."

Eterno was dead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2016, 09:07:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Solutions

The RAFians watched with incredulous awe as the Eterno, as the person who was once Contentio, dissolved into nothingness. They all bore witness to the death of the creature, his thirst finally quenched, and finally able to pass on.

"Well," Demos said, "he's going home."

"Heaven?" Faerie asked, already knowing that she was wrong.

"No," Demos confirmed, answering the rhetorical question anyway.

"This presents us with a problem, though," Cloak said, pragmatically. "The blossom has been drained. We could have used that Methuselah Tree water to free the others . . ."

"Somehow, I doubt it, Cloak, if it held that little," Faerie said. "But I can't imagine why it would guve us so --"

Goom's communicator vibrated, indicating an incoming call. "Yes, Aquilai?"

Cloak's ears were acute enough to pick up Aquilai on the other side.

"Goom? That data you sent me," Aquilai.said, without preamble. "It's absolutely incredible. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. It is so --"

"Stop gushing," Goom said, very seriously, "can it be replicated?"

"What?"

"Can it be replicated?" Goom repeated. "It's essential to undo the salinification of the world's water supply, and to free the people -- and Dino and Parker's leg -- from that salt exoskeleton they have when the Eterno touched them."

"Wait, what about Dino? And Parker's leg?" Aquilai said. "And what's an eterno?"

"Later!" Goom said, with uncharacteristic bite of impatience. "Priorities, Time Lord! Priorities! Can the water in the data be replicated??"

"Yes," Aquilai said, disconcerted a bit by the intensity of the question, "quite easily, actually."

"Good, then," Goom said, "go ahead and replicate it. We need to get the entire forum on this. That water can solve everything."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2016, 09:56:20 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Saved and Strut

Once armed with an ample amount of the Methuselah Water, each and every RAFians went to work. First Dino and Parker were freed, then the villagers, Liliana's family, and finally Liliana herself.

Then it was the waters themselves that were reverted back to normal. It was as if nothing every happened, as the aquatic life were just put in suspended animation, not unlike from Dino and the villagers.

It took them all of seventy-two hours, but the deed was done in the end. The waters were back to being waters, and the people were no longer statues. All was as it should be.

The crisis was over.

***

Naturally, with the crisis over, a celebration was in order, and GH took upon himself to organize the music for the event.

Gh prompted, "One -- two -- three, and --"

Saffa, Faerie, Abby, and Gaz said, "Hey!"

GH said, "That was good.  One more time, girls. You ready?  Let's do it.  Now!"

"Hey!"

GH chortled as the music began in earnest. He then sang:

"Here we go everybody.
Okay, time to move.
Put your body in the groove,
RAFians here in this bungalow.
Oh, here we go.
Right, left, right, left, right,
Stretch up to your highest height!
One, two,
Say what?
Forum-floor strut!
Now the Yeerks can get a bit excited
When da dragons can't keep their big mouths shut
When they're dancing, they are all united!
You can spot them on the bottom
As they do the forum-floor strut!
Lean back, turn around.
Feel the beat that's going down.
One, two, oh, say what?
Hey, man!
Forum-floor strut!
Oh hey, me and you --
See us drop and stop on cue.
Stop! Say what?
Ha! Forum-floor strut!
Would you check out that old crazy arbiter?
Jammin' out of his old lazy rut.
He says, 'Hey, don't you be a party pooper!
Get your rear in gear 'cause here, my dear
We do the forum-floor strut!'"

The only one, pretty much, who was not celebrating, but present at the forum, was Cloak. The frivolity and uproarious nature of the celebration made the feline Realm Walker feel uncomfortable.

Cloak was never a real "party dude". His reserved, stoic, and serious nature conflicted seriously with that aspect. Cloak spent his time wondering if he should try to make contact with Aniyu, but not really wanting to.

She would force him to confront the pain he had worked so hard, endeavored so arduously, exerted himself so assiduously to bury and forget. He didn't want to open the old wound.

He didn't . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2016, 10:21:18 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXIX:
THE GREAT RACE
CHAPTER ONE:
Sakki Amuck

In a cartoon's title sequence and opening scene suggested that Sakki was to star as a musketeer, who boldly acted out an action scene with a fencing foil. As she thrusts the foil and advances, the background abruptly disappeared, leaving a plain white screen. Confused by this, Sakki turns to the animator and asks him to complete the scenery.

However, instead of a castle from the original scene, the animator paints a scene that is totally irrelevant from the previous one. Sakki returned and started to repeat her musketeer opening, but quickly notices the different background. Unamused, she walks off screen and returns acting out the new scene. A few seconds later, the scene segues into a winter backdrop. Sakki notices and is not amused.

Sakki deftly changes into winter clothes off-screen, and skis through the snow (to the tune of"Jingle Bells") and into a Hawaiian setting. Still dutifully going through the changes, Sakkk comes back in Hawaiian garb. After a couple of bars of "Farewell To Three" on ukulele, Sakki ends up back in an empty, white background.

Sakki tries to reason with the animator that cartoons should have scenery, she becomes completely erased and redrawn as a cowgirl with a guitar. Sakki tries to play it but there is nothing but silence. She requests sound with a sign and is granted with various non-guitar sound effects. Then Sakki also finds herself briefly generating random sound effects before finally blowing her top and shouting angrily at the animator.

" -- AND I'VE NEVER BEEN SO HUMILIATED IN ALL MY LIFE!!"

Regaining her composure, Sakki demands some new scenery and is given an amateurish line-art cityscape background in pencil. Sakki demanda color, prompting the animator to slap various colors and patterns all over him.

"NOT ME, YOU SLOP ARTIST!!"

All but Sakki's face is erased and upon asking where the rest of her was, she is redrawn as a bizarre mismatched animal with a "screwball" flag on its tail. As Sakki walks off (wondering to himself if she wasn't living up to his contract and if she hadn't been keeping herself trim), he becomes suspicious of his new form until the animator creates a mirror and Sakki scolds the animator upon seeing her hideous self.

"EEK! You know better than that!"

Everything is erased and Sakki is redrawn again, this time as a sailor. She begins to sing "The Song of the Marines" as the animator draws an ocean scene with an island in the background. Upon realizing that she has been left in thin air and surrounded by nothing but water, Sakki falls into the ocean and surfaces on the distant island where she asks for a closeup, only to have the camera zoom up close to her eyes.

As Sakki tries once again to negotiate with the animator to have an understanding, the black screen frame falls on her. After failing to keep the frame up with a stick, Sakki goes ballistic and rips apart the black background. Now at the end of his rope, Sakki demands, "Now let's get this picture started!"

So the camera does an iris-out to black, followed by "The End" slide which Sakki frustratingly pushes off camera. Sakki suggests that he and the animator go their separate ways and (hoping, against hope, that nothing further will happen) begins a dance routine which is quickly interrupted when the film runs out of alignment, resulting in two Sakkis on the screen. They argue with each other and almost start a fight, but one Sakki is erased just as the other throws a punch.

The animator then turns akki into a pilot and draws him into an airplane. The RAFian excitedly flies around until a mountain is drawn in his path. The plane crashes off-screen, leaving Sakki with nothing but the plane's steering wheel and windshield. She "bails" out of the plane's remains and floats downward with his parachute which is replaced with an anvil. Crashing to the ground, a disoriented Sakki hammers the anvil while dizzily reciting "The Village Blacksmith". The artist changes the anvil into an artillery shell which explodes after a few more hammer strikes.

Sakki finally snaps and angrily demands that the animator reveal himself. He does, but not until after he draws a door around Sakki and closes it on him. The camera draws back and reveals the guilty party to be Mithril at a drawing table, who turns around and says to the audience: "Ain't I a stinker?"

***

"Nice recreation, guys," Cloak said, having finished the video.

"Recreation?" GH asked.

"A recreation of 'Duck Amuck', starring Daffy Duck," Cloak explained.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 07, 2016, 12:26:21 PM

. . . What the hell just happened?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2016, 08:50:04 PM

Looney Tunes, GH.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The RAF Festival

The celebration continued a few days later, when it became clear that there wasn't any more pressing concerns. It was amazing that Sakki and Mithril could make such an entertaining recreation of "Duck Amuck", a Daffy Duck cartoon. It was a great way to kick of the festival.

The mods had even organized a race, which they had Cloak and Aquilai build the courses with their tech and the elements. Of course, this naturally meant that they were not eligible to enter the race, not that Cloak would have been interested in participating anyway.

"Fourteen tracks may be a bit much," Cloak said, seriously.

"It's basically a triathlon," Aquilai said, jovially. It starkly contrasted Cloak's dour, moody expression. "The change-up in the scenery will add some oomph to the race."

Cloak said nothing, and continued to scowl.

"Oh, cheer up, grumpy!" Aquilai said, bracingly cheerful.

Cloak kept his dour demeanor. He wasn't sleeping well, and it was starting to show in his waking hours. He was moodier and more brooding than usual -- and that was saying something. It was not unnoticeable, either.

"Is . . . is everything okay?" Aquilai asked, gentle concern in his tone.

"I'm fine," the Realm Walker said, repressively.

"Cloaky," Aquilai said, coaxingly, "you don't need to --"

"I said 'I'm fine'." Cloak said.

"Cloaky --"

"Don't push me on this, Time Lord," Cloak growled.

"Fine, fine," Aquilai said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Keep your feeling bottled up."

Cloak said nothing. His sleep problems were coming from his desire, both consciously and subconsciously, to avoid Aniyu. He was running from his problems, but he wanted to keep that pain buried, where it belonged. Where . . . it belonged.

Aniyu would want him to forgive Ursa for all she's done . . . but she didn't deserve forgiveness. She hadn't earned it. She hadn't . . . she didn't . . . he couldn't do it. He couldn't forgive her. The wounds . . . they were too deep. Too deep to be healed. Too deep for the inflicter to be forgiven.

It was impossible to forgive her. Impossible . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2016, 11:16:46 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Selection Method

There was a wooden stage that over looked the sparkling lake. This was really a perfect sort of day for this festival. There was a podium of a lacquered brown and a pedestal with a stone goblet churning with blue flames.

Yes, they got that idea from that wizard competition between Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beaubaxons.

Anyway, the idea was that whoever wanted to.participate in the race would just put their name into the goblet, like at that tournament thing. The goblet would just pick the names completely at random and cast a magical light on the selected. There were no real rules locking it, which Cloak thought it was a mistake, as Leatherhead put his name in, and he thought that he was too young. Cloak believed that GH was being too lenient with him on this. But Cloak was also very cranky.

"Welcome!! Welcome, RAFians!" Richard called, but Cloak was eyeing a section of the crowd suspiciously. The movement underfoot and his incessant insomnia was making it difficult to utilize his Earthsight properly. But his instincts were telling him something was up. "Welcome to the first-ever RAF Fest!"

A cheer went up, but Cloak did not join it. He kept.eyeing thst one spot. He thought he saw someone with a drab cloak on. A suspicious character . . .

"Now that you've all had ample time to supply your names for the Great RAFian Race," Richard announced, MC'ing the event, "the time for the Selection Goblet to give us the names of the racers aprroaches closer. Plenty of time to go over the rules of the race."

Cloak stared at the other cloaked person, and he had the feeling that, unlike Cloak, he or she was trying to obscure their identity. There had to be a reason why.

"By submitting your name to be a racer, you are magically obligated to compete," Richard said, "but you know this already. The race will commence over fourteen different tracks, with a brief resting period between. No powers or items of a destructive capacity are to be used, and the use of grapples, like grappling hooks and what not, are expressly forbidden. You are not to attack or maim your fellow racers, or face immediate disqualification."

Cloak keep his gaze on this intruder, and he could tell that this intruder was trying to get out of the way of this intense glare.

"Well, I think that's all," Richard said, as the Goblet's fire turned scarlet. "And now it's time to select the racers!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 07, 2016, 11:21:24 PM

So is this gonna be based on that Harry Potter book or something? Because that's the last HP movie that I remember anything about, and if this is based on that, I have a feeling it's gonna be awesome :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2016, 11:52:12 PM

No, it's not gonna be based on HP GoF, that was just the way that they selected racers.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Tantrums

"The first racer," Richard said, as the recipient was bathed in a soft blue light, "is Parker!!"

Cloak continued to stare suspiciously at the guy in the cloak who was trying to keep a low profile.

"The second racer," Richard said, "is Abby!"

Cloak wondered what could this person possibly want here.

"The third racer," Richard said, "is Gaz!"

Cloak dismissed the idea that the suspicious individual was here to simply disrupt the events. That would be so . . . stupid a scheme, really.

"The fourth racer," Richard announced, "is Yarin!"

Cloak couldn't help but wonder what nefarious goals the stranger intended. Surely, he or she intended something against the forum's interests.

"The fifth racer," Richard announced, "is Broken!"

Cloak had a moment of recognition as a Richard said, "The sixth racer is --"

The stranger was lit with a bloodred light, as he threw back his hood, revealling his identity to all, as Richard was unable to keep the surprise in his voice, "ALOTH?!"

The Banned looked thrilled with himself. He had managed to con his way into the race. But why? Why would he even bother? There was no reward to it. No reward to winning it, except bragging rights.

"He's not a RAFian!! He can't be a racer!!" Saffa complained.

"But his name came out of the Goblet," Richard said, resigned, "he's obligated to race until he crosses the finish line or is disqualified. Rules are rules."

"Yeah, rules are rules!! And when I win," Aloth said, sounding rather like an immature child, "I will unBan Queen and myself!"

"He cannot be serious," Cloak said, flatly and audibly.

"But I am! When I'm made a mod," Aloth said, "I will have the power to do just that!!"

"There are just so many things wrong with that line of thinking," Phoenix said, "not to mention, that the winner of the race just gets --"

Suddenly, the Goblet revealed the final racer: Cerulean.

"NO!! NO!!" Aloth tantrumed. "NO FAIR!! I DEMAND A RECOUNT!!"

But the fire of the Goblet had gone out, and would not reignite until another Selection is needed.

"He was chosen fair and square," Richard said, placidly with a small smile, "he has every right to race, and is now obligated to."

"Yeah," Cloak said, indulging himself with a smile, "rules are rules, after all, Aloth."

Aloth shot Cloak a sour look.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 08, 2016, 12:25:04 AM

Oh damn, I can certainly say I wasn't expecting that one. Awesome friggin' plot twist. Although, I'm a little disappointed Leatherhead didn't get chosen. Oh well, I guess that's just an excuse for us to go out and get ice cream :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2016, 08:10:31 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The RAFians Are Approaching the Starting Line

It was a bit before the first part of the race on simplest course of the fourteen, so the racers could brace and prepare for it and the thirteen after.

Meanwhile, GH took Leatherhead for some ice cream, to stop his crocodile tears (he was a crocodile, after all). He was very gentle about allowing Leatherhead feel the disappointment, and explaining that, sometimes, disappointment is going to happen, and he was teaching him the proper way to deal with it.

Cerulean was getting dangerously overconfident and ****y, Cloak noticed. Yes, he had superhuman speed, but ****iness had a way of making one careless and reckless. Confidence can be a good thing, overconfidence is never a good thing.

Then there was Aloth. He was just nearly as ****y, and Cloak thought he knew why.

"You know that Aloth will cheat at the first opportunity he gets, right?" Aquilai said, in an aside to Cloak, who stood to his left.

"Obviously," Cloak said, in a perfect imitation of Alan Rickman's Snape drawl.

"How do you think he'll do it?" Aquilai said, conversationally.

"I can't really say," Cloak said, "but look at that smug expression on his face. The fact that he thinks his victory is assured -- more than ordinary overconfidence. He has something planned. I cannot say what I do not know, but he has something planned."

"You think he'd attack the others to win?"

"I wouldn't put it pass him," Cloak said, with a sigh, "but even if he won, it won't matter. The winner only gets --"

Cloak stopped as it appeared six of the seven were approaching the starting line.

"Where's Cerulean?"

"He said, that he was going to give the others a head start on every track," Aquilai said.

Cloak groaned as he facepalmed. "Confidence is one thing, but overconfidence? That's quite another."

"It'll prove itself a detriment to him," Aquilai said, "but no one can talk him out of it."

"Imagine how embarrassing it would be if Aloth won?" Cloak said, dully. "Especially because he actually --"

"Oh, look, it's starting," Aquilai noticed passively.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 08, 2016, 01:06:15 PM

I enjoy the little hook about the Grand Prize you keep dropping. Most amusing. :XD:

Nice Dumbledore impersonation, Richard.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2016, 04:13:42 PM

Quote from: Saffa on April 08, 2016, 01:06:15 PM

I enjoy the little hook about the Grand Prize you keep dropping. Most amusing. :XD:

*winces visibly*

Uh, then I probably shouldn't hype it up anymore, otherwise it might be seen as a complete letdown . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Track One -- The Simple One

The first track was, of course, the easiest.

It was very open, which would allow the spectators easy viewing. It started out with a small hill, leading to a slightly steeper hill. Following that was brief water obstacle, followed by another one after a brief sprint. A brisk sprint after that, was a earthen wall that was ten feet high, and two feet thick, that the racers would have to either climb over or burrow through. Then another brief sprint to three descending, tiered steps. Then after a small ascension in slope unto extremely uneven ground, from which it would an all-out run to the finish line.

And, yes, this was the easiest course.

"Get ready." Nate called to the racers. "Get set."

FWEEEEEET!! went his whistle, and the six racers were off, with Cerulean giving everyone a ten second head start, still confident in his victory.

Gaz took and early lead, followed closely by Abby and Yarin. Broken was not far behind, with Parker just behind him, and Aloth taking up the rear. They were making good time, except Aloth.

Just before they got to the first water hazard, Gaz felt a strange tugging and found that Aloth was now in the lead!! It wasn't possible. Aloth wasn't a speedster. How . . . ?
Questions for later, she decided.

They plowed through the first water hazard, then the second, and already Aloth was falling behind again. Then came the wall. Gaz just misted her way through the unseen cracks and crevices and continued with the race. Abby had deftly morphed a Psycholeopterran while running -- an impressive feat in and of itself -- and just phased through the wall, before demorphing back to human and continuing to race. Yarin elected to climb it, allowing himself to be overtaken by Broken and Parker. Broken just magically flew over the wall and continued to run, while Parker just climbed it like a beast.

Yarin had made it to the top, and was dropping down when he felt a tug on his right shoulder, right were his lower arm and upper arm met. It wasn't a pleasant sensation.
He put out of his mind and decided -- hey! How'd Aloth manage to over take him?! He's in last place now!!

Yarin was tempted to probe his mind telepathically as he ran, but he didn't, because that may have disqualified him. And he really wanted those bragging rights. Maybe it would stop people from referring to his Food Yield Increaser as a microwave. Any similarity was just superficial, and he could not understand why no one got that.

By the time Gaz made it to the uneven ground and Yarin had just overtaken Aloth, a blur of pure speed just came over the wall and was barrelling to the finish line. Within another second or two, Cerulean was standing sipping on something that could have been a mimosa or whatever it was called.

Gaz felt the tugg on her shoulder and found that Aloth had usurped second place from her, so that she came in third, Abby came in fourth, Broken came in fifth, Parker came in sixth, and Yarin came in last.

From Cloak's vantage point, he couldn't see how, but he knew that Aloth had just cheated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2016, 07:21:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Track Two -- the Tunnel Track

The second track was considerably more involved than the first.

It consisted of first a small hill preceding some uneven ground. From there, after a brisk sprint, the track proceeded into a downward sloping tunnel with an uneven ceiling. The floor levelled off briefly from the entrance, be for opening into a wide chamber where the racers had an option to continue running on the ground, which dropped off suddenly, or run around and platform on some wooden pallets supported by wooden beams, before both routes merged into uneven ground which soon narrowed into a winding vertical tunnel. Then it terminated into a straightforward path with uneven ground before coming to an upper path, which opened into the air and a lower path. When both paths united once more, it was a straight shot to the finish line.

The racers approached the starting line with Yarin and Gaz giving Aloth the stink eye. They were sure he was cheating, but they had no proof or evidence of it.

"On your mark," SuperNate said, "get set."

FWEEEEEEEEET!! The whistle announced the start of the race, and they took off.

This time Parker dominated, with Gaz and Abby not to far behind. Broken and Yarin were behind him, and Aloth was trailing last. And this remained so as they descended down the tunnels. Parker thought that he felt a tug on his shoulder, but ignored it. He needed to have his mind in the game.

Wait, how did Aloth overtake him? No matter, no matter. He would take back the lead. Parker and the other RAFians continued to power through the course. Parker was overtaken by Gaz, Abby, Broken and Yarin when the course opened up into the large chamber, as Parker chose to take the path that followed the ground, thinking that way would be the shortest.

He was slightly mistaken, but he didn't pay too dearly for this misjudgment. The others didn't overtake him too badly, and he was ahead of Aloth. Parker allowed himself a small smile at this as he powered through, keeping his lead on the Banned.

Abby was now in the lead, as they came to the forked path -- up or straight ahead. Abby, Gaz, and Yarin went up, Broken, Parker, and Aloth went to the straight ahead path.

There was a blur and a whoosh, and Cerulean already claimed first place, with Broken about to -- no, Aloth! Aloth managed to make second place again! With Broken in third, Parker in fourth, Abby in fifth, Yarin in sixth, and Gaz in last.

Now Broken suspected Aloth of cheating as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 09, 2016, 11:35:00 PM

*happily sips iced coffee in reclining chair as a spectator*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2016, 07:59:54 PM

Sorry that this is so late.

Anyway, I've been watching Jacksepticeye play through a game called "Quantum Break", and makes me envision what a Memoirs game would look like with those kind of graphics. . . .

Anyway, new book ideas! Hopefully, I haven't rehashed anything:

• Book CMLXXIV: "What? FuBar is Evolving!!" -- Fubar becomes a nekomata.
• Book CMLXXV: "Senri Sensei" -- FuBar befriends a Senri, a type of yokai.
• Book CMLXXVI: "Beast Bots" -- The RAFians must defeat a bunch of robots disguised as realistic animals.
• Book CMLXXVII: "Power Randomizer" -- Several RAFians have their abilities swapped with each other.

Titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Track Three -- The Complicated One

The third track began with a steep climb up a hill, before evening and levelling out for a brief stint. Then came a sheer drop which they had to go down -- not far, though -- which terminated in flat ground that was walled off except for a narrower tunnel, which was expected for the racers to make bigger. From there, they had to traverse up a shaft with spiked walls and a spiked ceiling leading to the mouth of the tunnel. After the mouth of the tunnel was a water obstacle with square lily pad-like pallets that the racers could leap frog off of, platforming their way onward. After this, they come to an area that looks suspiciously like a dead end. The idea was for them to burrow down into the earth until the found the next leg of the course. Next was an open area blocked off by two walls, just one foot thick, but there was a tunnel above the first one to completely bypass it. But the second wall had to be destroyed. Then came another shaft, which made it into a U-turn tunnel. Proceeding onward from that came a water obstacle that they had to swim through in order to complete. Once done with that, it was winding path onward. Then a choice lf two shafts to climb up, an easy one with handholds and footholds, and another without. From there it was just a straight shot to the finish line.

The racers approached the starting line,  with Broken, Yarin, and Gaz giving Aloth the stink eye. While Cerulean was sitting on a beach chair, which was starting get old as far as the other racers were concerned.

With the shrill FWEEEEEET of SuperNate's whistle, the six racers leaped into action, and, to no one's surprise, Aloth was trailing everyone. The steep hill wasn't really an obstacle for the RAFians, given the number of missions they go on within a single month, yet alone the year. Aloth did not have this advantage, but he didn't need it, as he had his "secret weapon".

Abby was in the lead, and about to drop down the first shaft, but suddenly felt a tug, pulling her back, and somehow Aloth was in front of her!! Impossible!! He was in last place!! It was impossible!! That little twerp was cheating!!

Abby's determination deepened. She would beat that cheating little so-and-so. She pushed herself further, landed in the narrow passage, deftly morphing to Psycholeopterran, and completely phasing through the obstacle, not realky caring how the others would find their way through. She was still in second, but steady closing onto Aloth.

Aloth was stymied by what appeared to be a dead end. Abby knew better though, and defty remorphed back into a Psycholeopterran, and just phased through the ground to the next leg of the course, where she demorphed, no in the lead. Even Cerulean wouldn't be able to get through that, no matter how quick he was.

Abby continued the race, but unfortunately for her and her lead, Parker was right after her, and he couldn't go intangible. He had to dig his way through, and Aloth allowed him. Allowed him to do the work for the Banned.

It was a fairly fair race, until they reached the two shafts, and Aloth was bringing up the rear yet again, and Gaz and Abby were trading the lead. In -- quite literally --a blink of an eye, Cerulean had secured the first place spot. Gaz and Abby were now vying for second, Parker a close fourth, and Yarin and Broken were vying for fifth.

Abby managed to pull a head of Gaz, but felt a tugging in her shoulder, and Aloth was ahead of her!!!

"You motherf--" Abby said, before censuring herself.

Aloth had managed to secure second place again, while Gaz and Abby tied for third, Parker won fifth, and Yarin and Broken tied for sixth.

Abby was still quite miffed. Now she knew, without a shred of doubt (and evidence), that Aloth was cheating. If not for Cerulean, he would have won the last three tracks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2016, 05:56:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Track Four -- The Urban One

This track had an urban setting and motif.

It began with flat, level, asphalt ground towards two sharp curves, with the second one leading to a gradual incline. This quickly lead towards another sharp turn, which, in turn, lead to a steep incline. This lead directly into a sharp turn, littered with bumpers, which were intenxed to bump the racers and momentarily disorient them. From there it was sheer dropoff to the next part of the course. Shortly after this, the terrain became just less sticky than fly paper, except for a near-invisible path. This lead to another sharp turn, where it is a straight shot to the finish line.

This may have seem simpler than the previous two courses, but there was a very cogent amount of enemies littered around the course. These were allowed to be attacked by the racers, especially if it impeded their path, as there were verying sizes of them. But, still, the course was rather straightforward enough.

All of ther other racers were giving Aloth the evil eye now, but instead of being perturbed by it, he seemed to bask in it. Even Rotiart would have the decency to look abashed for this, even he . . . but he was dead, wasn't he? It . . . it didn't matter anymore.

FWEEEEEEEEEET!!

And they were off.

Broken was using Reducto nonverbally to clear his way. Abby was using her agility and morphing to dodge these land-based enemies rather destroying them. Gaz was of the same mindset, using her gaseous form to dodge and evade these enemies. Yarin managed to divine their weak points, using his knowledge of tech, and destroyed them that way and in that manner. And Parker decided to eschew any munitions and decided that he preferred a more . . . tactile methodology to taking on these enemies, using his energy sword.

And Aloth? Aloth just bundled and blustered his way through, like a more clumsy and accident-prone Ron Stoppable (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Ron_Stoppable). It was amazing how he was able to continue the race as he did this. He almost looked drunk.

The RAFians, seeing this, decided that he wasn't a legitimate threat anymore, and continued on. But that was a mistake, as Abby rediscovered as she took the lead, past the sticky terrain. Only for Aloth to, somehow overtake her!! She had never felt the tug in her shoulder this time.

"How are you doing that?!"

All she got was a smug smile in reply, though that faltered when Cerulean blew by, stealing first place, with Aloth in second, Abby in a close third, Gaz in fourth, and Parker, Broken, and Yarin tying for fifth.

"Aloth!" Abby fumed. "I know you're cheating. I don't know how, but I know you're cheating!"

Aloth had heard her, and what irritated her more was he didn't lose that smug swagger he had, as he said, "That's a serious accusation to make, dear Abigail. Have any proof of it?"

Abby seethed. She longed to punch him, but knew that would be seen as nothing more than bad sportsmanship. Her hands were shaking with her ire and rage. She seriously considered being disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct and just going ahead and punching him. It was a serious temptation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2016, 11:07:22 PM

New book ideas. Don't think I rehashed anything.

• Book CMLXXVIII: "The First Light Cometh" -- Cloak sees the supposed "Second Coming of the First Light".
• Book CMLXXIX: "Choose Your Venom" -- The RAFians must deal with artificial symbiotes.
• Book CMLXXX: "Hidden Agendas" -- An old foe uses a speed demon against the RAFians.
• Book CMLXXXI: "Possessed By Music" -- The RAFians must deal with symphosentiences.

Titles are subjected to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Track Five -- The Mountain One

The fifth track was in a mountainous setting, with dirt terrain.

The track began with a brisk start with a gradual turn, leading to the rest of the mine-infested course. These weren't mines in the most literal sense of the word, but objects that would severely disorient a racer, forcing them to stop for a second or two. There was a cannon (which fired beanbags) that could be avoided easily, if the racer in question was paying attention to what they were doing. Shortly after the beanbag cannon, the course dipped down as it turned sharply. The course turned into an almost "C" shape. There were quicksand traps dotted here and there which was visible, but just barely. But they were not deep at all. They were just there to slow down the racers, not kill them. After that, there was a jump, which the racers had to -- well, jump. The finish line was right after a curve.

The other RAFians gave Aloth the stink eye as they all approached the starting line. Cerulean was still not taking this seriously, and being real complacent about his abilities. This, his fellow RAFians found, was starting to get real old, real fast.

Abby was still seething, swearing that an opportunity to take Aloth better not arise, or else she just might have to take it. And the other racers weren't far away from the same conclusion. But Aloth seemed to be absolutely obvious to the extent of this enmity, but simply assumed that he had them scared.

Aloth was never the most intelligent being in the world. Even by human standards.

FWEEEEEET!!

The racers all started of strong, dodging and weaving the mines. Except Aloth. He practically bumbled into each one, but seemed unaffected by them. Parker managed to get into the lead, tanking the mines that he did not manage to avoid. The others had to be a bit more careful.

Parker began confident in his potential vic-- well, that mine was difficult to tank. It managed to disorient him a little. Maybe he was losing some of his innate endurance. It didn't --

Aloth!! He had overtaken the Parker! How?! HOW is this even possible?!

Cerulean had already taken first, and Aloth aready completed his jump. Parker was running full tilt, with Gaz, Broken, and Abby not that far behind. After Parker landed -- and landed hard -- but he was also overtaken by both girls, and tied it up with Broken. Yarin was lagging behind.

Aloth was second -- yet again. Gaz and Abby were tied with second, Parker and Broken and Parker took fourth, and Yarin took last. Aloth basked in the nonexistent fanfare and cheers for him.

"He's definitely cheating," Parker grumbled. Then a pause as he listened to Tyr's commentary, and then grumbled, "Sure, now you agree with me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2016, 09:14:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Track Six -- The Crystal One

The sixth track was in a subterranean setting, with dirt terrain. Crystals littered the course everywhere, acting as obstacles.

The track started out with a straightaway path, terminating in a curve where after a brief sprint, they had to watch out for a slick, icy floor and a growing crystal coming from the left following that. Then, after a brief stretch, came a long stretch of the slippery terrain ending in another crystal trap shortly thereafter. Then came a steep curve, which allowed the racers ro race up the walls if they had sufficient momentum. Then came a jump, which if they fell would just land them in an earlier part of the track quite able to continue, though in presumably last place. It would be a far better idea to make the jump. Another three crystal traps followed with the first appearing right after a gradual curve and another curve being around the last one. Traversing of the slick terrain again, they would have to deal with to more crystal traps, on coming from the left first, and another coming from the left. Then the course split into two pathways, one leading to the finish line, and the other leading to a false path with no finish line, but loops the track forcing the unwary racer to redo the entire course again. And there was no way to tell which path was the right one, which was part of course's test of the racers.

While the RAFians were approaching the starting line, as Saffa had gone to replenish her iced coffee, having drained her current drink. There was a noticeable gap between the five RAFians (Cerulean was still ****y) and the single Banned.

GH and Leatherhead had returned to the spectator stands with their ice cream as SuperNate blew the whistle with a sharp FWEEEEEET!! And off they went.

Parker continued to power through, shattering the crystals by tanking the spikes, while the other RAFians dodged them. Aloth just ran into them, and was buffered by them, slowing him down considerably.

Parker had once again managed to get into the lead, and he had decided that he would not get complacent this time. He would -- a blur sped by him. Cerulean. Cerulean had already claimed first place.

Yarin had managed to get into overtake Parker when he slipped a bit on one of the slick areas. When he fell on the slick area, when he tried to proceed, he was overtaken by Broken, Gaz, and Abby, who bypassed the slick areas by wall-bouncing.

Yarin was to the jump, and was in midleap when he found himself tumbling down into the gap onto the earlier part of the course. He found himself uttering Nyac curses, feeling incensed. He went from first to last in a span of a few seconds!! He would have made that jump!!

He crossed the finish line after everyone else in what felt like an eternity later, shen it was really only ten, fifteen minutes. Cerulean was first, of course. Aloth was second, despite having taken the wrong turn before turning around and getting second . . . somehow. Gaz was third, Parker was fourth, Abby was fifth, and Broken was sixth. Yarin was last.

Yarin glowered at Aloth. The temptation to telepathically paw through his mind very tempting. But he would, naturally, be aware of it, and presumably report him. And Yarin wanted those bragging rights. . . .

"Aloth," Saffa said, squinting her eyes. "I'm very sure that he's cheating."

GH watched Leatherhead enthusiastically eating his ice cream, befire saying, "That's hardly surprising, though."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2016, 10:26:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Track Seven -- The Toy Factory One

The final track of the day (the other seven would be picked up tomorrow) was one of a toy factory motif and setting. It had panels that would be neutral and not affect the racers in any way, positive or negative. But with the push of a button that the racers can run over, the panels can change from neutral to green (which boosts the racer's top speed and endurance), red (which slows them down considerably), translucent blue (which makes them slippery).

The track started out as being rather straightforward until the first curve, where the end segment of the course was rather like a "P" with two small patches of these changing tiles. Then, through an archway, they come to an entire chamber of these tiles, which are mostly unavoidable barring one, almost imperceptible, path through them. This was repeated for the next three chamber-like rooms, so that seemed the floor consisted of more changeable tiles than regular normal tiles. It continued this way until the curve that led to the finish line.

As the RAFians approached the starting line, they all gave Aloth a deep glowering look. He seemed to love the emnity, seemed to think that being hated like this made him cool and popular -- a horribly immature and childish thing to think. But Aloth made Rotiart seem tolerable by comparison.

But the racers were not the only ones giving Aloth the dirtiest of looks. Saffa nad GH glowered at him as well, as Leatherhead hummed "I Love Rocky Road", but Aloth enjoyed playing the heel.

FWEEEEEEET!!

And they were off! Parker powered through, with the others close behind, and Aloth trailing conspicuously behind. They all found the changing tiles inconsequential, but that was on their neutral state.

Then Aloth tripped the tile change switch button.

This changed the tiles to green acceleration pads, which caused the race to really heat up . . . but Cerulean had already taken first place. The others were nowhere near close to completing the course.

Aloth accidentally tripped the tile change switch button again.

This changed the tiles to red slow-down pads. Aloth, however, did not seem to be affected by it, and easily managed to make second place, with Abby in third, Yarin in fourth, Broken in fifth, Gaz in sixth, and Parker in last.

Yeah, they didn't like this course very much.

However, this was the last course of the day. The next seven would take place tomorrow. This would allow the racers a few hours to rest and eat and whatnot. Aloth, however, was not welcome to sleep, eat or whatever in the forum. He would have to sleep outside the gates in a tent.

The magical contract did not force the RAFians to offer him room and board. So . . . they didn't.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2016, 12:15:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Eavesdropper

"LH," GH said, as night had fallen, "it's time for your bath."

GH could hear him giggle. He was hiding. If he were honest, GH really didn't care for this particular game of Leatherhead's. It didn't help that Leatherhead's bath time just happened to be right after the race on the seventh track concluded.

He was finding that his patience was straining at this point. Leatherhead had been very good all day, he had even earn his ice cream! And now . . . he chose to act up. He knew it was very important to keep his scales clean, right? GH had instilled that in the mutant crocodile, right? GH didn't want him to get scale rot or something.

"LH," GH said more firmly, before realizing the thread door was opened, and opened wide. He could not hear giggling anymore, but GH was not a happy camper by this sheer disrespect for his authority. He grumbled to himself, "Oh, Jesus, Leatherhead, I am so not in the mood for this right now."

GH gave his thread a cursory look to make sure that he wasn't hiding, but a anthropomorphic crocodile the size and maturity of a six-year-old isn't that easily missed. Or one would think. Leather could be really good at hiding when he wanted to be, something GH thought might be more difficult when Leatherhead is his age and adult.

But it wasn't too hard to find him, once GH closed his thread and locked it. He had found Leatherhead listening in on Aloth. He was -- you guessed it -- singing:

"Don't really care for chasing skirts.
Never was keen on booze.
Don't take cocaine or that "Mary-Jane",
No, I get drunk on boos!
Because . . .
You've got to love to be hated.
Find the good in being bad.
Oh, the crowd is full of gentlemen,
But they've paid to see the cad!
Yes, it's a hoot, a kick, a gas,
When you're the villain of the show.
Once you wear black you never go back,
It's a high to be loathed.
Chucky, O'Reilly, Megatron,
Laura Mallory, Donkey Kong.
Vader, Nader, Simon Legree.
Terminators 1, 2 and 3.
Iago, Joker, Voldemort.
Ethan Couch finally in court.
Mr. Burns and Skeletor,
Keep your good guys! What a snore!
When it's your head they wanna sever,
And your blood they wanna shed,
You know you're gonna live forever,
If everybody wants you dead!
So, listen up, because I've been given,
The best advice anyone'll ever know.
So feel the thrill, I know you will,
It's a high to be loathed!"

"Who is he talking to?" GH wondered quietly, causing Leatherhead to jump in surprise. Aloth did not hear or notice him. But the two seemed to notice how he seemed to be checkinv on and coiling some odd sort of cable device, only visible in the undulating firelight, and only just. It was tipped with something that looked like a kunai or derivative.

It was a grapple. And that was against the rules. He was cheating like everyone expected. But that grapple was the only proof. It was far too dark, the lighting too poor to take a picture of any reputable resolution to be able to be verifiable proof. This could not stand.

But how to prove it?

---

Source song. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLyE7M3Ru8oeWaz7UAIwpeLo2R_jZ4OR_f&params=OAFIAVjQAg%253D%253D&v=SRrAELby068&mode=NORMAL)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 13, 2016, 12:27:37 PM

"And then gh ran over, yelling 'Whassup, ****es!' and yanked the grapple out of Aloth's hands. And then something about more ice cream."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 13, 2016, 01:45:10 PM

Well, I never leave anywhere without my phone, so snap, camera, instant proof. Goddamnit, gh. :P

Also how in the name of all that's holy do you come up with these tracks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 13, 2016, 01:59:59 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on April 13, 2016, 12:15:07 PM

But that grapple was the only proof. It was far too dark, the lighting too poor to take a picture of any reputable resolution to be able to be verifiable proof.

I'm assuming that's why I didn't take a picture

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2016, 04:16:20 PM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on April 13, 2016, 01:59:59 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on April 13, 2016, 12:15:07 PM

But that grapple was the only proof. It was far too dark, the lighting too poor to take a picture of any reputable resolution to be able to be verifiable proof.

I'm assuming that's why I didn't take a picture

Yes, it is. Not to mention the grapple itself is already difficult to make out with the naked eye. It would look like Aloth is essentially pantomiming coiling a rope if the light was better.

Quote from: Saffa on April 13, 2016, 01:45:10 PM

Also how in the name of all that's holy do you come up with these tracks.

Except the first three, the names are clues to the tracks' basis. And I did base all the tracks off actual racing courses from an obscure racing game. . . . The first three from a less obscure one.

Oh, and more book ideas.

• Book CMLXXXII: "The Mimic, the Pretender" -- A Realm Walker pretender impersonates Cloak.
• Book CMLXXXIII: "Enhansitol" -- The RAFians must try to save three victims of Enhansitol.
• Book CMLXXXIV: "Cloak, This is Your Life!" -- It's Cloak's birthday and he gets roasted.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Let me know what you think!

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Track Eight -- the Tundra One

GH had returned to his thread, not really sure that he saw what he did. It could have been a trick of the light, and Aloth could be really crazy. He wasn't even talking to anyo--

Oh, he was probably communicating with the other Banned. Probably their leader, the self-proclaimed "Almighty" Queen. But Aloth thought he would have the power to unBan the Banned. He never realized the prize wasn't anything but b--

"Leatherhead, where do you think you're going?" GH said, sharply addressing his charge.

"Bed," he answered innocently.

"Did you think I forgot?" GH asked. "Bath time, mister. March!"

***

The first track of this, the final day, was of a tundra motif. The grounds were literally littered with manufactured ice and pitfalls that if a racer was to slide into practically guaranteed last place by the time the racer climbed out.

The course began with a simple straight away, with a gradual curve with a pit on the far side and a meridan between the far side and the inner side, providing some defense against it if a racer stuck to the inside of the curve. Then it proceeded normally, until a big square pit right smack dab in the middle of the course, but the sides had plenty of clearance, but it was surrounded with the slickest ice for the unwary racers who past it. Then there a brief jaunt inside a cavernous tunnel, before back out into open air. Then course continues normally, until a massive pitfall on the right, but plenty of clearance on the left to bypass it. Then the course becomes rather twisty and almost sadistic before coming to another meridian that's icy on the left side but not on the right. Then a long narrow path in which the left half is a pitfall and the the left side is solid. Then came the chasm that ran diagonally to the path, with a small sinew of land connecting the two. Then atter a short turn, and an easy-to-avoid pitfall, was the finish line.

The RAFians quickly lined up -- including Cerulean this time -- and Aloth didn't seem all that flippant this time. This just proved that Cerulean was starting to take this seriously. Yes, it was about time.

FWEEEEET!!

And they were off, but before any of them took their second step, Cerulean had already left the starting line, and -- promptly fell into a pitfall. But before any of the other racers could make any more headway, Cerulean was out and had crossed the finish line as the rest of them . . . fell into the first pitfall, with Parker pulling a Raphael and yelling,"Damn!"

Abby, however narrowly avoided fall, but was dragged in when Aloth used his invisible tether to swap positions, a la "Speedrunners". No one could see the tether, so they could not suspect Aloth of cheating, especially as it left no tangible marks.

Aloth continued with impunity until the RAFians got out and easily overtook him . . . only to slide into the next pitfall. Where Aloth used the same trick, but on Yarin this time. This would not endear him to the RAFians, and he knew it perfectly well. And so it continued, until the Banned was in the lead, and nearly taking second place.

Then he fell into the last pitfall, his tether useless, as there wasn't another competitor around for it to latch onto. So, while Abby claimed second, he hit the bottom.of the pit fall. As Broken claimed third, he picked himself up, and dusted himself off. As Gaz claimed fourth, he touched the rock face. He began to climb as Yarin claimed fifth, and pulled himself out as Parker claimed sixth.

For the first time, Aloth claimed last place.

"Serves the cheating bastard right," GH muttered, rather mutinously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2016, 12:14:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Track Nine -- the Canyon One

The ninth one was in a canyon setting, with streaming water, which made the terrain a bit trickier to traverse.

The course began with a straightaway path, with a sharp, 90-degree turn within eyeline of the racers. This part divulged into a jump on the lefthand side or a simple continuwtion of the course down a slig slope. Both paths lead to the same place, inudated with water. This led to a small, "S"-shaped turn, leading into a more twisty route, dotted here and there with flowing water. Then it let to an open area with trickles of water and hidden mines before narrowing into a twisting pattern again. This led to a wide open area, with a sharp turn to the finish line, a brisk sprint away.

There was a sense of satisfaction that Aloth actually came in last, and Aloth actually felt abashed, his bravado having taken a serious hit. Most, if not all, the RAFians, racers or not, thought it was high time that he was taken down a peg.

Aloth was really the heel in this whole event, and he loved that aspect, but some of the fun had gone from the entire experience for him, but no one cared. Nobody cared ennough tk even correct him in his misunderstanding of the grand prize. It wasn't what he thought it was simply --

FWEEEEEEEEET!!

And they were off. Aloth was trailing again, and Cerulean had already completed the course. His superhuman speed was really making this less of a contest but rather a battle for second place and on. As long as Cerulean is fit to race, there was no chance for Aloth to win. Cerulean was the RAFians' safety card.

Aloth was able to use his tether liberally to manage get into and maintain his second place standing. And, all the while, he thought about the situation. If Cerulean was still in the picture, there would be no way for him to win, even though Cerulean had already won have of the courses, thereby having a perfect score thus far.

Cerulean is a problem, Aloth thought as he managed to secure third place, as Gaz managed to squeak by him without his notice. He would have to be taken out of the equation. He would have to have an . . . an accident.

Cerulean had basically locked in 57% of the win. There was very little chance that his scheme would work in delivering him the overall win. Cerulean had already essentially win, and the rest of the courses were a mere formality at this point. But there was a chance that something might come up in later courses to overturn this extreme lead, and they had to commit to the other courses. Aloth didn't bother to learn this, and just thougt the last one was the one to really be concerned with.

Cerulean's flawless victories were making him the target of a desperate Banned, one desperate to win, no matter the costs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 14, 2016, 01:07:50 AM

For some reason, I keep thinking the prize is going to be like the end of this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfSwEaeOsJE)

[spoiler]And now, it is time for your reward! A gift certificate . . . TO THE CRACKER BARREL![/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2016, 04:56:47 PM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on April 14, 2016, 01:07:50 AM

For some reason, I keep thinking the prize is going to be like the end of this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfSwEaeOsJE)

[spoiler]And now, it is time for your reward! A gift certificate . . . TO THE CRACKER BARREL![/spoiler]

Probably an apt instinct. Although I remember Esty once suggesting if one was to make a drinking game out of the plot twists in Memoirs, it'd result in organ failure . . . ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Track Ten -- the Arms Factory One

The next track was in an munitions factory setting. Parker actually blended into this setting surprisingly well. This course was littlered with acceleration and deceleration zones which sped up and slowed down the racers respectively.

This course started off with a straightway path, which inevitably led to a forty-five-degree curves which led two acceleration zones as the area narrowed into a "d"-like shap befor coming to another curve. Just around the curve was a red deceleration zone, which was, in all honesty, kinda hard to miss. From there, the racers enter a covered area full of acceleration and deceleration zones with only a tiny, one-tile wide path free from the zones. Exiting this area led to a ninety-degree turn into two acceleration zones, which led a upward-sloping tunnel with an acceleration zone in it. This lead to another "d"-shaped area where there was a big deceleration zone and a strip of an acceleration zone. Beyond this was another deceleration zone on the right.
Then two beanbag cannons firing on opposite sides beyond this. Then a curve with three strips of acceleration zones placed perpendicular to the course, then it was a straight shot to the finish line.

The RAFians -- and Aloth -- lined up at the starting line, the RAFians wearing rather uncharacteristicall y contemptuous looks when they glanced over at Aloth. The young Banned did not really like this as much as being loathed. It wasn't really like being hated, the scorn was different, less appealing. More humiliating. It was bad enough his communication with Queen the night before wasn't exactly the most . . . compassionate, on her part.

FWEEEEEEEEET!!

And, once again, they were off.

This course seemed to be partly problematic for Cerulean, particularly the deceleration zones. They earned his ire, as he couldn't lock in the first place as easily. He would have to actually work for it this time. He couldn't get ****y.

Aloth was unable to use his tether because walls continually got in his way. Not to mention that when ever he managed to get a good shot, the intended target coincidentally managed to twist or move out the way, oblivious to this fact. The Banned was increasingly irritated by this. It was as if the very course itself was aware of his cheating ways and working against him, preventing him from cheating.

But he couldn't come right out and complain about it, as it would disqualify him, and deny him the power, he believed, to unBan him and Queen. Yorick had left the Bannedlands about six months ago, give or take. Word was he went to work for some spineless tv producer named Jumbo or something ridiculous like that.

But, just like that the race finished, and Cerulean actually didn't get first place, but second, due to proliferation of the deceleration zones.it was Parker that came in first, and Aloth, due to his emotional distractions, was last.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2016, 11:25:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Track Eleven -- the Flying Fortress One

The next track had a futuristic, floating fortress motif and setting. Another course that Parker actually fit quite well into, thematically. Though it seemed to have a rather bad case of explosions, which happened here and there, seemingly completely at random.

The course started out like the previous ones with a straightaway path. Then it curved at a forty-five-degree angle, and then another likewise curve. Beyond that were two deceleration fields, that looked rather like scarlet rust spots. Then a sharp turn to a field of ice, which had no safe path through it -- the racers would have to tread on it, regarless if they wanted to or not. Beyond this was a road that was ice on the left side and a deceleration zone on the right. It was a Hobson's choice, in that, in order to proceed further, they would have to choose either one side, the other, or straight down the middle where both meet (both, in other words). Then, behind this, was yet another rust spot-like deceleration zone before a turn. The turn emptied out intot a "d"-shaped area with a median. From there, the course got really windy and, when it straightened out, it became even more treacherous. Pools of water appeared on the course, and they were not shallow. These pools transmogrified into a field of ice, then the road hecame windy and filled with nonlethal mines, before leading to the straightaway to the finish line.

This . . . this was the toughest course because of just how many things were going on.

None of the racers looked at each other, no one noticed Aloth's failed and covert attempt to shiv Cerulean, not even the RAFian himself. Aloth would not get another chance because --

FWEEEEEET!!

Also because the shiv was embedded into the ground, almost unnoticeable. Anyway, they were off and to say that no one was affected by the traps was an understatement.

Parker hated the ice and water segments, as he failed to anticipate them accurately and the fact that they seemed to ruin the buff on his armor anytime that he fell.

Cerulean was verbally spouting vulgarities at the deceleration zones, which caused him to lose a significant amount of his speed. He only came in first by a hair.

Gaz, Abby, Yarin and Broken were seriously not liking the explosions.

And Aloth? Aloth wasn't liking the fact the walls were interfering with his grapple tether, as it has to have a straight line to be able to work, he couldn't bounce it off walls an such without severely reducing its effectiveness. He couldn't cheat, he couldn't take out the main threat to Queen's scheme -- as it really wasn't his. This whole thing was becoming impossible!!

There were still three more courses to go, and they all were easier than this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 14, 2016, 11:44:34 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on April 14, 2016, 11:25:19 PM

None of the racers looked at each other, no one noticed Aloth's failed and covert attempt to shiv Cerulean

Well. I can certainly say I didn't expect Aloth to attempt murder. I don't know why, but still.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2016, 09:41:38 AM

Well, not necessarily murder, but more to incapacitate. Also, Aloth is fraught with desperation and stress -- he ain't thinking clearly.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Track Twelve -- the Rural One

The twelfth track was in a rural setting and motif. It was, in all honesty, frankly refreshing, given how stressful and chaotic the last track was.

The course began like the others with a straightaway path forward before a turn. Shortly after that turn was another. Then another straightaway to another turn, where the racers would decend a moderately steep hill. Then they were to round abother turn, while avoiding the wall place immediately thereatter, almost as a dick move. Then round another corner while avoiding another two similarly placed walls. Then another when moving to another straight part of the course, where another wall needed to be avoided. Then nothing eventful, except for yet another curve to be rounded. Followed by three more. Then a hill to traverse, then three more freestanding walls to avoid. Then another turn, and a straight line to the finish line.

The RAFians, and Aloth, gathered at the starting line. Aloth glaring at the rest of them now, especially Cerulean. He would have tried to shiv him again, but he had lost his shank, or else he would try again and again until the race was over or until he succeeded in incapacitating him -- and Aloth considered death the ultimate incapacitation, though he really did not know himself if that would have been his intention, though the RAFians would surely see it that way.

FWEEEEEEEEET!!

And they were off, and Aloth was able to use his invisible, "Speedrunners"-like grapple tether to cheat as easily as he did the previous day. This improved his mood -- and ****iness -- considerably. Thouh it would not work on Cerulean who moved too fast for Aloth to use the item effectively.

So, naturally, he came in second, after Cerulean.

"God dammit!" GH cursed in a rage. Then he looked at Leatherhead, and said, "Don't say that, it's a grown-up word."

"A'ight, Daddy," Leatherhead said, brightly.

"What is it, Logan?" said a voice from his left.

"Don't call me that, Riya," GH said at once.

"Fine, fine," Saffa said, throwing her hands up in mock surrender. "What's got your so up in arms?"

"Aloth is cheating!!"

"I think we all pretty much assume that he is," Saffa said evenly.

"I'm not assuming!" GH exclaimed. "I know that he is!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2016, 11:53:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Track Thirteen -- the Space One

The next track, the penultimate one, was in a space setting and motif. It was disorienting, but not as tough as the fortress one.

The course started off going straight and sloping upward, guarded by two beanbag cannons faceing each other,before briefly evening out. Then it sloped upward again, and levelled out at the crest of the slope, which immediately led into a sharp turn. The turn was a sharp, "C"-shaped curve, before leveling out into a straight path. Before going into another turn which sloped downward. The path then split into two paths, one right and one left. Both sides were filled with mines that appeared as if they were floating in midair. Shortly after both paths joined up again, there was another turn. Then another that sloped downward at a surprisingly steep angle. Then another "C"-shaped turn which led right to the finish line.

The racers gathered at the starting line, as GH and Saffa briefly shelved their conversation. It was strange, as the racers expect to fall or float through this course. Only Broken seemed mildly comfortable with the course, the others, Aloth included, found themselves not really liking it.

FWEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!

And they were off. It was very disconcerting to take a step and feel a solid surface there when you saw nothing but a starry void. It felt unnatural and impossible. But Broken, being the Sorcerer Supreme of this Realm, had witnessed more incomprehensible things than this. You could have said the same of the other RAFians, but Broken has seen magical monsters and effects more bizarre than this.

Broken soon commanded a lead, which was saying something because Cerulean was in this race. But he was disoriented as the others, and Broken was acting like he made a similiar trek before, thus was accustomed to this type of setting. Broken actually won while Cerulean came in a close second. Then Gaz, Abby, Parker and Aloth followed.

"At least he didn't manage to use it this time," GH said, returning to his grousing.

"What? Who use what?" Saffa asked, thoroughly nonplussed.

"Aloth," GH said, "him using that invisible tether, grapple thing."

"Wait a moment," Saffa said, swiftly, "what tether grapple thing?"

"It's something that LH and I saw him have last night," GH explained.

"Doesn't mean he used it," Saffa said, though it was clear that she didn't really believe it. GH looked slowly toward Saffa, who immediately got the message. "Okay, okay. That's stupid, I know. But you know that's the argument that he's going to us, if he's found out."

"Then we will just ask him why he had it on his person in the first place during the race," GH countrred swiftly.

"Unless he's found out outside of the race," Saffa said, sagely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 16, 2016, 12:41:47 AM

Still waiting for my "WHASSUP, ****ES!" moment. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2016, 07:54:44 AM

You'll be waiting awhile then. ;)

And this book will exceed the usual prerequisite twenty chapters, although not by much. And that Cloak isn't actually watching these races (due to IRL me finding races, watching them anyway, boring). ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Track Fourteen -- the Final One

The last track took place just as the sun was beginning its daily descent. This course was fraught with well-hidden columns that extended up at unexpected and unpredictable moments. This course was unique from the others in that had a figure-eight style course, with just one splotch of a deceleration zone, Cerulean's reviled enemy.

The racers lined up on the line, all well aware that this was the last course. Aloth, in particular, gritted his teeth. He apparently labored under the dubious belief that the score only really mattered in this particular race, and the other courses were basically padding. He did not seem to realize the races were cumulative scores, the points gathered were added together, not standalone. But then again, Aloth was never the sharpest tool in the shed.

Aloth had made up his mind. He would not bother to shiv or shank Cerulean, but he would become ruthless with his tether, and use it more often than he used to. He had to win this race. It was very imperative to win. He didn't want to imagine breaking the news to Queen that he had failed. She was livid that Yorick had defied her and went to work for that Jombo or Jumbo or whatever his name was. She was apocalyptic with rage at the perceived betrayal that he didn't bow to her will.

He was afraid what she would do to him if he failed. He feared her wrath, which can be frightful and intimidating. He had to win . . . he just had to!

FWEEEEEEEEEEEET!

And they were off, and Cerulean was in the lead, naturally. Only for Aloth to get lucky and manage to tether him into a deceleration zone, allowing Aloth to get into first place for the moment.

Whenever Aloth got in a bit of trouble with a trap, he tethered one his competitors to switch their place. He tended to choose Cerulean above the others, but missed more often than he succeeded.

He eventually won by a hair. Just by a hair.

"I won?" Aloth asked. Then he realized and he gave a whoop, "I won! I did it! I'm the greatest! Next stop, mod seat! I'm RAF mod for a day!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2016, 11:42:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
And the Winner is --

"Uh-uh-uh, Aloth," SuperNate said. "Cerulean won twleve courses out of the fourteen. You just won one."

"What?!" Aloth demanded as the other RAFians, including GH, Leatherhead, and Saffa, evacuated the stands.

"Cerulean is the winner," SuperNate declared, though none of the RAFians were really all that surprised.

"No!" Aloth protested brattily. "I won, fair and square!!"

"FAIR AND SQUARE?!?! HA!!" came the outraged voices of GH, Broken, Abby, Parker, Cerulean, Yarin, and Gaz. "ALOTH, YOU CHEATED!!"

"Hey, who you gonna believe?" Aloth said. "Them or me?"

"Guess," said a surly voice behind him, and had backed up into Cloak. It was the Realm Walker who spoke crankily. As Aloth fell, Cloak had grabbed his tether grapple. Aloth scrambled to his feet as he fled back to the Bannedlands.

Cloak examined the tether, "A bungee rope in a sheath weaved from sphinx and demiguise hair. Invisible to everyone but me."

"Why would even go through all this trouble to begin with?" YeerkSalad said. "Didn't he know the only prize was bragging rights?"

"And fifty karma points," Richard said.

A deafening silence befell everyone present.

"Did I neglect to mention that?" the head mod said, feigning ignorance.

***

"Oh, what am I going to do?" Aloth fretted as he paced in front of Queen's chamber door. Hers was the only room that wasn't in any significant disrepair. "I can't tell Queen that I lost the race. She'll clobber me!"

He pause momentarily before he came up with an idea, "I know! I can tell her that I couldn't be a mod because -- no. That'll never work."

"ALOTH!!" Queen roared his summons.

Aloth didn't hesitate to appear in Queen's spacious room. It actually functioned as a small apartment, with her sleeping area right behind her mskeshift throne, which she sat on grandoisely.

"You c-called, Almighty Queen?" Aloth said, timidly.

"Come closer, Aloth," she said. It sounded less creepy then it would seem. "I have something for you."

"You mean," Aloth said, tentative hope permeating his voice, "you're not mad at me?"

"You did your best, Aloth," she said, getting up from her thone, and crossing to a covered-up item. "And, even though your best wasn't nearly good enough, I'd like to present you with this."

"A present? For me?" Aloth said, not wise enough to see where this was headed. "What is it? What is it?"

Queen removed the tarp to reveal a rather cheap-looking treadmill.

"It looks great! It's just my size, too! It's something that I've always wanted!" Aloth declared. Then he inquired, much quieter, "What is it?"

Queen snarled, "A guarantee!"

Then she threw Aloth down in it, and activated a flamethrower function. "That next time, you will be the winner of the race!! And you have the whole year to practice!"

Yep, Queen was laboring under the false assumption that there was gonna be a race next year. She was bound to be disappointed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on April 16, 2016, 11:57:13 PM

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ay

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 17, 2016, 12:29:06 AM

That was friggin' beautiful :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2016, 09:44:32 AM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on April 17, 2016, 12:29:06 AM

That was friggin' beautiful :P

Thanks. I think.

Quote from: YeerkSalad on April 16, 2016, 11:57:13 PM

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Why do I think of sarcasm whenever I see someone post some something like that?

New chapter. Last one of Book CXIX.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
The First Step

And what was Cloak doing throughout the whole race this second day?

He was sleeping. Yes, sleeping. He slept through the entire rest of the race, up to his appearance at the end there.

He was in his dreamspace, with his ancestor Aniyu, again. And he appeared to be a cub, a child even younger than Leatherhead, again.

"You cannot keep running from your pain, Cloak," she said. "It will scar over, it is true, but it would never truly heal."

Cloak's reply was petulant. "So what?"

"Cloak," Aniyu's tone was firm, but gentle at the same time. "You cannot reach your true potential, you cannot be truly free, until you actually face this. You cannot run from you pain forever. It will just hurt you the more that you refuse to face it."

"I . . . can't."

"Can't," Aniyu asked, "or won't?"

"What's the diffenece?"

"You know the difference, Cloak."

Cloak lapsed into silence.

"I know that you resist change," Aniyu said, before being interrupted by Cloak's swift protest.

"No, I'm not!"

"Then why do you want to hold on to this pain, this grudge?"

Cloak didn't have an answer for that. It took him a while to speak again, unaccustomed to being challenged in such a way.

"I'm not saying that it will be easy," she said. "Very little is worth doing if it is easy."

They lapsed into silence once more.

"Fine, then," he said, taking a deep breath, "Fine. Let's do this, and get it over with."

She gestured to her right, Cloak's left, and suddenly Cloak noticed a bunch of thorny vines, twisted and entangled so much that they were a single, solid form, there.

"As I said," Aniyu replied, "it won't be easy. There's a lot there, a lot of layers. To get to the inner most ones, we have to go through the surface ones."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2016, 10:55:22 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXX:
APE ESCAPE
CHAPTER ONE:
The DNAlien and Anger

"This first layer seemes to be knotted up by anger," Aniyu said, having gotten up and gone over the wall of thorny vines. It shook rather ominously as she touch them. "Cloak, you have to come to terms with your anger towards your mother."

There was a lot of it to go through. As Cloak remembered all the moments in his life where he had felt anger towards Ursa, felt grievances that went unacknowledged by his mother.

The time she claimed that he was not smart enough to participate in a trivia show.

The many times she called him useless or worthless.

The times that she was never satisified with all the work he did for her because her standards were just too high.

The refusal to allow him to go to birthday parties of the other kids when he was young . . .

The constant negative comparisons between him and his father. He now would much rather be like his father than his mother.

The constant refusal to allow Cloak have any autonomy of his own.

Tell him the proper way to kill himself . . . clearly indicating just how little she thought of him. He knew if he had gone throuh with it . . . and he had a funrral . . . she would turn it into being about her, instead of him.

All of his life, it was NEVER about him, not ever, but ALWAYS about HER. Always about what SHE wanted, never about what he wanted. Always . . .

As he remembered each memory, they appeared, tinted in red, upon the thorns. They had startling resolutions. Cloak ignored the angry tears in his eyes.

"Yes," Aniyu said, "you do have legitimate reasons for your ire. But it does not well to hold on to this anger. It has happened. It was not good, but has since past. Let your anger out, but then forgive and forget."

"There is no forgiveness for what she's done!"

"And," Aniyu said, simply, "there cannot be any healing for you until you do."

***

Larry Dunn, one of the trio who tried to mug Cloak to his folly, had fallen on hard times, having lost his home to foreclosure and not having a job, because he had kade his living with mugging, and his two "friends" had sold him out. He was homeless and penniless.

And he blamed Cloak for it. He felt horrible hatred for Cloak, and the RAFians, by extension. He wanted to destroy them, wanted them to writhe, wanted them to . . .

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and when he turned around, he found his face full of a single, small, purple squid-like creature with a singular eye containing a red pupil, a small black slit iris and green sclera. It had six tentacles, a visible brain and a black line which runs down the center, around its eye and mouth.

It was a Xenocyte*, a parasitic creature whose only purpose was to turn their hists jnto DNAliens. Human DNAliens have light brown humanoid bodies with black hands and feet with a Xenocyte like head. They could spit goo from their mutated mouths.

Larry Dunn was now a human DNAlien**, his will and mind subverted to whomever controlled the Xenocyte.

---

* (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/b/b2/Xenocitesimiansays.png/revision/latest?cb=20120627153720)

** (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/e/e2/DNAlien.png/revision/latest?cb=20140501204424)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 17, 2016, 12:05:34 PM

Heh, that was a great finish. And the Aniyu stuff is getting intense now, damn. Feely ****.

PDF of the last book:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on April 17, 2016, 02:42:06 PM

Would someone please explain who Aniyu is? And wait, when did Cloak get mugged?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2016, 07:23:14 PM

Yeah, jumping into the middle of a series is risky business, Salad. ;)

Cloak was failed to be mugged in the book, "The Bureau", and Aniyu is Cloak's long dead ancestor, communing with him from Beyond the Veil.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on April 17, 2016, 07:53:09 PM

I see. Thanks!

Is Aniyu based on any factual stuff, or is she completely made up?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2016, 07:54:53 PM

Fictional.

And, sorry guys, but no more chapters today. I'm more tired that I thought, as such, chances are that I'm gonna be asleep within the hour . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 18, 2016, 01:08:36 AM

You have a lot to catch up on, Salad. Contact me for any PDF needs though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2016, 07:28:36 AM

And just to add on to that -- a book idea.

• Book CMLXXXV: "Leave It to the Bone Beavers" -- The RAFians must deal with some demonic beavers . . .

Don't think that I rehashed this. Remember, all titles are subject to change.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 18, 2016, 07:37:48 AM

Wait a second, this book is called Ape Escape?

BRB, gonna go play one of my favorite games of all time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2016, 07:41:25 AM

Yep. But it's gonna be more of a parody of another franchise . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Caged and Confrontation

At a zoo, where the term "zoo" and "low-budget" were just loose definitions, there was a chimpanzee, an orangutan, and a gorilla. These three had an odd peculiarity that set them apart from other chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas. Intelligence. On par with humans, or even surpassing it.

And, yet, they lived in utter squalor, as these "zoo administrators" cared far more for their bottom line and profit than actually taking care of their animal attractions. Their exhibits were rarely cleaned, and they were fed bare minimum every day. It was less of a zoo, but more of an animal gulag.

The environment was ripe for fostering anti-human sentiment amongst the three. The sentiment had be sowed and taken root with alarming rapidity. Though given the filthy living conditions, the fact that "zoo" management considered there animals lesser creatures put here for no other reason than human entertainment, the general sickly heath conditions of most if not all of the animals, is this really all that surprising?

Thoughts of a rebellion stirred within the chimpanzee (named Julius), the orangutan (named Maestro), and the gorilla (named Brutus).

***

YeerkSalad was investigating an incident with Cloak, GH, and Yarin. The two more experienced RAFians stood stoic and almost aloof in their investigation, while YeerkSalad exuded more excited exuberance than the other two.

"Settle down, Salad," Cloak said, "it's just a routine inspection."

"Yeah," GH said, sardonically irreverent, "you gotta pace yourself."

"Don't be such killjoys," Salad said daringly, flexing his bionic arms in anticipation for some action. "Field work is were all the excitement is."

"Chances are nothing out of the ordinary will happen, Salad," Yarin said, rather stiffly. "It wouldn't be logical to get your hopes up for action."

That's when Larry Dunn, the DNAlien decided to show up, spitting the goo all DNAliens can spit at them. All four dodged, and Salad looked eager to prove himself.

"A DNAlien?" Cloak identified. "Here?"

"You know what these things are?" Yarin demanded.

"BANZAI!!" Salad yelled as he entered the fray early.

"In retrospect," Yarin noted, "we probably shouldn't have let him train with Parker."
"It's Cloak," GH said, wryly, "he knows everything."

"That's not true, GH, and you know it!" Cloak countered. Then he proceeded, "DNAliens can be reverted to normal by DNA repair devices. They are weak to heat and fire, except the Pyronite DNAliens. Human DNAliens, like this one, are also weak to high frequency sound."

"Yeah," GH said, with a little smirk and wink, "you don't know anything, do you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 18, 2016, 11:14:40 AM

That zoo sounds like a place that I would vandalize or something. And by "vandalize," I mean break into and free all the animals indigenous to the local area and leave cryptic graffiti in their place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2016, 11:39:28 AM

Kinda the point. . . . But an understandable reaction.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Abuse and G.I.F.s

This "zoo" was also committing more than mere neglect to their animals. Some of the staff members outright abused them, beating them if they dared to express some of their indignity at this type of cruelty and imprisonment.

They had their self-worth questioned.

They had to wonder what on earth they did to deserve such abominable treatment. What had they done to earn such wanton punishment.

Julius, Maestro, and Brutus knew better than this however. They would not be beaten down. Their spirits would not break. Their resolve would not be dissolved. They would not be kept down.

Julius, being the smallest physically of the three, found a way out of his cage, but he hid this knowledge from his jailors, though he wasn't against sharing it with his two friends -- the always-thinking Maestro and the brutish Brutus. And he had discovered a secret -- a secret concoction that was intended to cure dementia and Alzheimer's in elderly humans. For humans, it's only a temporary cure.

For apes, however . . .

***

Cloak shot GH a glowering look, which caused his smirk to grow into a mischievous smile. Then the DNAlien spat the goo between the two, and Cloak couldn't help but think that was supposed to be some sort of personal attack.

"Well," GH said, "that was rude."

"C'mon! Let's fight this thing!" YeerkSalad said. "C'mon! C'mon!"

"Salad --" Yarin said, before he was distracted by the goo.

Cloak fired a blast of fire to get the DNAlien to back off, deliberately missing, with GH playing some high-pitched music.

"Yarin, you've been working on a genetic identifier and rebuilder, right?"

"Genetic Identifier and Fixer," Yarin correct, "G.I.F., for short."

"GIF? Really?" GH said. "You and your stupid contraption names."

Yarin shot GH a withering, scathing look.

"Use it on the DNAlien," Cloak said.

"There's some provisos with the --"

"JUST DO IT!!!" Cloak roared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 18, 2016, 01:01:44 PM

ALWAYS ABOVE, ALWAYS ALONE! REAFFIRM: THIS IS THE PLANET OF THE APES! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhH5Nna41J4)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2016, 01:17:14 PM

Yes, yes, that's what this book is loosely based on, Planet of the Apes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on April 18, 2016, 05:19:16 PM

1. BANZAIIIIIII!
2. I used to be obsessed with POTA. Thanks for the nostalgia!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2016, 11:14:15 PM

Right. Aftually took me a moment to realize that POTA was "Planet of the Apes". Need to go to bed. But first --

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Permeating and Impracticality

Julius had stolen some of the chemical, and it was rather appallingly easy. The so-called "caretakers" did not really take care of them, but sat in their break room until the mandatory feeding time, and the food was usually bland and tasteless. And, oftentimes, it was gross and foul-tasting. Or slimy and vile-tasting. Or unpleasantly chalky and irritatingly gritty. The water they were given to drink often went dry.

The filth of their square asphalt habitats accumulated rather subversively. There was no way that these conditions were legal. They were cruel in their neglect.

It was clear that this predominantly ape-filled zoo was staffed by the undesirable dregs of human society, who only care about moneyband revenue. The precise type of zoo that should not exist, but quite sadly and unfortunate for the animals interred there, they do.

But Julius found himself able to endure such hardahip by imagining the future, and by knowing that he was actively resisting his tormentors and jailors. He wasn't going be in this dingy, dirt-infested hovel for very much longer. He would not allow these arrogantly speciesist and insatiable avarice quarter much longer.

Maestro tended to stew in his discontent, always having been a very cerebral being, thinking through everything with cold logic and almost detached emotion. He made no mistake, if no action was taken, he would stay here forever. He didn't want that, but he wanted to make sure the logistics of escape, or possible takeover, was perfectly sound before proceeding with anything.

Brutus was basically full of restrained rage, and it was odd that he hadn't already attracted a Red Lantern ring. He was a very angry person, a very difficult person to be around. He only deferred to Julius and Maestro, simply because both were smarter than him, but no less sentient.

When night came about, and their tormentors left and the evening guard was asleep, Julius broke out of his cage and innoculated all apes of the zoo with the Alzheimer's cure . . .

***

"Cloak, I must register my hesitation is because --"

"Yadin, JUST DO IT!!" Cloak snarled. "The human part of the DNAlien is as much of a victim as any other! We can't justify just killing it!"

"Cloak, there is a proviso or two about --"

"Yarin, will you shut up," GH said, irritated now, "and listen to him?!"

Yarin sighed, and took aim. He fired, and hit the target, hitting the DNAlien right in Xenocyte. And Larry Dunn was seperated from the Xenocyte, freeing him from the control of the Xenocyte -- a nonsentient creature. Bith the Xenocyte and Larry seemed dazed, and Cloak wasted no time. He flung his right arm back and created a golden-scarlet scythe, bringing down it upon the Xenocyte killing it.

"How many more shots do you have in that G.I.F.?" Cloak asked. "When there's one Xenocyte, there are usually more."

"None," Yarin said.

"What?!"

"That was what I was trying to tell you!" Yarin said, exasperated. "The G.I.F.s are only good for one shot. They are practically useless after."

"That's impractical!" YeerkSalad said, the novelty of the mission having clearly worn off.

"I never said it was practical!!" Yarin countered defensively, cradling his contraption almost as if it were a child. "It's a work-in-progress!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2016, 07:25:40 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Outbreak

It didn't take long for the chemical to permeate the ape enclosures. It didn't take long for it to take effect, to take permanent hold. It increased the ape's intelligences to human levels, if not surpassing it.

And they became angry. Very angry. As they realized just how deplorable their living conditions were, just how poor their treatment was, just how much abuse they've endured. They were disconsolate with rage.

And, honestly, could you blame them for their ire?

Julius had escaped his enclosure, for the final time. He had released Maestro from his, who strolled and knuckle-walked in an almost sedate, thoughtful way. The world was open for him, and he deferred to Julius as a leader, acting almost as an advisor or mentor. The Julius released Brutus, and he quick reined him in. Brutus deferred to Julius's authority, but he could barely contain his anger. His anger at the indignity of what he had to go through.

Then they went through the cages and released the other apes, who had similarly augmented intelligences. Julius had made himself a small army of seventy apes. Seventy apes in such deplorable conditions. Many of which were not known to regulatory body (who was allegedly was bribed to look the other way on this in such a way where they could claim plausible deniability, even though it was not plausible but rather ludicrous).

The night guard, however, should not be so flippant with his job, so lax with doing with his job. He had the door opened and unlocked, and he was actually sleeping on the job. He wasn't a small man, either. He was a big, thick-bodied with beady eyes, bald head, poorly shaven face, and puffy cheeks.

He was the only person in the place during this time of night. And it was quite unfortunate for him. As Julius's forces did not hesitate, and he lost his life this night. All this, and minimum wage, too.

***

"Are you serious?" YeerkSalad asked. "That's like 'Planet of the Apes'."

"Art often imitates reality," Cloak said, thoughtfully, "and sometimes reality imitates art."

"You chose one heck of a time to be a philosopher," GH teased.

They had returned from the field when they were unable to locate any more Xenocytes. This caused Cloak some silent disquiet, as he knew that there was bound to be more. He knew that they came from the planet Augstaka, used by the xenocidal Atasians (under the moniker of Highbreed) to try and take others out with him as they died out, due to their view of racial purity. They had since been forced out of such beliefs when their DNA were infused with DNA from the Codon Stream. At least, that's how it worked in the other realm. Maybe that wasn't the case here.

Still, Cloak had a sneaking suspicion that the Atasians (or Highbreed, if you would) had no idea about the existence of Xenocytes on Earth. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was a certain antagonistic octogenarian Realm Walker was actually responsible.

"This is most certainly our jurisdiction," Parker said, critically analytical, "as those primates have had . . . well, something done to them. They were smarter than ordinary monkeys."

"Don't call them monkeys," Cloak said, "they don't have tails."

"What?"

"Monkeys have tails, apes do not," Cloak said. "Stop using the two words interchangeably."

"Why are we quibbling about this?" GH asked, unusually serious, as if this reminded him of something unpleasant. "Those apes just killed someone, and I doubt that they'll stop at that just one. We need to focus here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2016, 03:34:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Chemical and the Raid

Once freed, Julius had the notion of adding more and more apes to his army. He would liberate them from the internment sites that the humans called zoo. He'd draft them into his army, have a force a million or more strong!!

But, first, he would need more of the neuro-stimulator chemical. The aerosol variation would be the most efficacious to his goals, to his aims. He sought to dethrone one ape species who got a little too big for their britches with -- well, with every other ape species left in existence.

If every chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, and every other ape became fully intelligent -- on par or surpassing their genetic relatives that called themselves human beings. Well, they are ape beings! Better -- they were the Ape Coalition!! Soon to be the Grand Ape Army!!

But, in these grandiose ideas for the future, Julius neglected to think one pervasive problem. Discounting the RAFians and their myriad of powered individuals could crush them within an instant -- Cloak, Richard, Esty, and Spectre, especially -- that was an extreme, even the ordinary militaristic might would be quite sufficient enough put down Julius's insurrection. The apes may be powerful, but the humans were better armed. They even have nukes.

Julius just couldn't match that. He, and his forces, were actually at a severe disadvantage, simply because of this stockpile of weaponry. And it wasn't like they were easy to access, especially at military installations. Or, at least, one would hope.

Not to mention there are some zoos and animal refuges that do not mistreat their animals, and actually do treat their animals with love and respect. Julius would find such a thing laughable. Maestro would find it improbable and implausible. Brutus would scoff and scorn such an idea. All three hated humans with all their heart, and nothing would sway them.

But first thing's first, Julius had to acquire more of the neuro-stimulator aerosol. At most, right now, he had a small militia, not an army. He would require an army to take back the world from the filthy humans, that evolutionary deadend! So arrogant in their perceived superiority!! Claiming dominion over he, Julius, and his ilk. Julius was a thinking being. He wasn't a possession. He and his kind were not property!! They had rights, just like any other.living being!!

He needed that chemical, and only one factory that produces it was nearby. Close enough for them to penetrate. Close enough for them to get in and out. Close enough for them to raid. . . .

It had a decent stock of the chemical, Julius hoped, and that Maestro confirmed. It was time to start the revolution to take back the world from Homo sapiens. It was the apes' birthright. It was their turn again.

Julius actually spoke, with a primal grunt, "Let's go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2016, 09:02:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Surprise!!

Slowly, silently, and stealthily, the apes stole into the empty building. They executed the maneuvers almost like a well-trained S.W.A.T. team. They were feeling very confident in what they were doing. Very confident.

Too confident.

POW!

Suddenly, two spotlights covered the empty warehouse in a cool blue light, silhouetting two figures. With several more, barely visible, in the dark. Ape eyes have about as much night vision as human eyes -- barely surprising, considering that humans are an offshoot of apes themselves.

Dylan and YeerkSalad sang:

"By the Mark of RAF . . ."

"What are you two doing?" Aquilai asked, seriously.

Dylan sang:

"So, you think you've got friends in high places
With the power to put us on the run.
Well, forgive us these smiles on our faces.
You'll know what power is when we are done . . ."

"Oh, my god . . ." Gaz said, facepalming. But Cloak had beaten her to the punch. He was facepalming since the first musical bar.

Both Dylan and YeerkSalad sang:

"You're playing with the RAFians now!
Playing with the RAFians now. . . .
Ev'ry spell and gesture,
Tells you who's the bester!
You're playing with the RAFians now!"

"Well," Parker said, heavily, "there goes the element of surprise."

Both sang:

"You're playing with the RAFians now!
You're playing with the RAFians now!
Stop this foolish mission!
Watch a true tactician!
Give an exhibition how!
You're playing with the RAFians now!
By the Mark of RAF. . . .
You're playing with the RAFians now!
You're playing with the RAFians now!
By the Mark of RAF, you little cuss,
You will kneel before us!
Kneel to our splendorous power . . .
You put up a front!
You put up a fight!
And just to show we feel no spite.
You can be our acolyte!
But first, ape, it's time to bow!
Kowtow!
Or it's your own grave you'll dig, ape!
You're playing with the RAFians now!
Playing with the RAFians --
Now!"

The apes stood perplexed, while Cloak groaned.

"What?" Dylan and YeerkSalad said, in unison.

---

*Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hH5y71hOvk0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 19, 2016, 09:25:18 PM

Hmph. Take it from a master, there's a time and place for musical numbers. Being accosted by sentient apes is not one of these situations. Shameful display, you two. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2016, 12:18:59 AM

But, you have to admit, it was quite the entrance. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Negotiations -- NOT!!

"Bow?" Julius said, though he practically spat the words, voice full of indignant fury, "Bow? Bow to humans?!"

"I," Cloak said, with dignity, "am not a human. Anymore than you are."

"And, despite appearances, neither am I," Aquilai said.

"I was," Gaz said, "once upon a time."

"I'm a VOLCAROID, not a human," Sakki sniffed with dignity.

"I'm a cyborg," YeerkSalad said. Then he inquired sincerely, "Does that count or not?"

"What's wrong with being human?" Dylan asked, almost defensively.

"What's right with being human?" Julius snarled. "Humans are just mere sacks of pure, undistilled malevolence. They are cruelty personified. Neglectful and greedy!"

"Stereotypes," Parker said. "Gross generalizations."

"Wrong," Julius argued. "what I said were the truths that you try to hide, that you deny! All of you are unworthy --"

Unsure how to respectfully address this leader ape, and he did not know Julius's name. "Sir," he decided, "you waste your time trying to distract us. The chemicals you seek are not here."

"You lie!!" Julius growled, his body language tautened with hostility. "You're as untrustworthy as the filthy humans! You will die as well!"

"Do not challenge us," Cloak warned, his voice weary and resigned. "It never ends well."

"We can kick all your collective butts!" YeerkSalad proclaimed.

"While, I appreciate the enthusiasm, Salad," Cloak said, "your bravado isn't exactly being helpful right now."

It wasn't a scolding, but YeerkSalad did fall silent, his normal exuberance actually seemed somewhat . . . diminished. It wasn't Cloak's intent, but he was feeling dolefully ambivalent at the chimpanzee's emphantic genocidal beliefs. The Realm Walker had hoped that they could solve this diplomatically. He had hoped that they could solve this without hostility or violence.

It looked like he wouldn't be getting his wish. And it was this realization that filled him, not with anger, but with sorrow and disappointment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 20, 2016, 12:32:08 AM

Laying your - guilt and pain - on people that had no part - in the molding - of a life - that creates its destruction . . .

LIES!!!

[spoiler](http://www.guitarworld.com/sites/default/files/public/death_human_2.jpg)

Strangely appropriate that both the lyrics and album title are pertinent.[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2016, 09:57:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Tense Hostility

But that didn't mean Cloak wasn't going to not to try just a little more diplomacy, though he was aware of its potential futility. But they had to try, otherwise what was the point of them being more than some stupid brutes -- that was what Queen had to work with, not the RAFians.

"Please," Cloak said, with the tone of a man attempting to defuse a tense, volatile situation, "don't make a decision you'll regret. You're the leader of the rest of these apes. You must consider their well-being before your own, before your own goals and aims. You and your force of seventy or so apes cannot stand against us."

"You shouldn't underestimate us, human," Julius growled.

"I am not a human," Cloak said, evenly and without condescension. "And I do not underestimate you. It speaks well for you that you managed to get this far. But it was for naught. I understand your anger. But anger is not your friend right now. Anger will cloud your thoughts and judgement. It will light a fire that will be very difficult to extinguish, a fire that will threaten to consume you."

Julius seemed to take this speech as being pejorative.

"How dare you talk down to me like that?" Julius snarled. "I am not some simple minded yokel. Just because I am not a human like you --"

"I am not a human," Cloak cut across Julius, with a bite of impatience. "I have never been a human. I am a Realm Walker."

"Like it matters what you decide to call yourself," Julius said, dismissively. In his mind, Cloak was a human despite anything he said. He could not see Cloak's tail and ignored his amber eyes that had briefly pulsed with golden-scarlet energy. He ignored Cloak's dyslogistic look. "But, know this, you time is at an end here."

"Julius," Maestro said, "the chemical is truly not here. Our information was faulty. There is no logic in us dallying here any longer, there is nothing her for us any longer. I advise we pull out."

"What?!" Brutus protested loudly. "Maestro, we haven't even fought anyone yet!!"

"Catering to a need to bust heads is not a logical use of our time, Brutus," Maestro advised, almost detached. "Not to mention a waste of energy that could be put toward other, far more rewarding endeavors."

Julius seemed to mull this over as the RAFians watched this exchange through shrewd eyes. Julius considered his situation, with his limited militia. There was no chemical here. All this talk and pointless rhetoric would get them no further to their ultimate goal of retaking the planet from their usurpers.

"But we can take them, Julius!!" Brutus insisted, differing to the smallest ape of the three. "We can smash them! Smash them to bits! We can destroy them in an instant!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2016, 10:34:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Chimpanzee's Decision

Julius carefully weighed his options.

"We can take them!!" Brutus insisted.

"It would be a waste of time, energy, and apepower," Maestro countered, benignly.

Julius took this into account, not knowing that there was a reason for the RAFian silence. . . .

"C'mon, Julius! If we wipe 'em out, it'll send a message to the rest of the humans!"

"Or we could lose some of our force in the process," Maestro countered easily, "and, logically and pragmatically, we cannot afford the loss. Our victory or failure could depend on just one ape."

Julius considered this. He could lead his apes into a complete apeslaughter or save them to fight another day. They were unarmed, and only one of the humans seemed to be armed, in that metallic suit of his.

"Julius, c'mon!" Brutus insisted, voice full of giddy anticipation. "Show some backbone!"

"There's no logic in dawdling here," Maestro said, with detached emotion. "The chemical we seek is in a different building. We were mislead to be here."

"Misled by you!" Brutus accused. But he would never attack Maestro with anything but words.

"My information was faulty," Maestro said, with remarkable cool, "but at least I was able to read the information. Can you make such a claim, Brutus?"

Brutus grunted, so tempted roar in anger, but he was smart enough to know that wouldn't prove his point. But it irritated him, but most things seemed to irritate him.

Julius looked from side to side at each of his militia-apes, and to Maestro and to Brutus.

"We pull out," Julius said.

"What? No!" Brutus protested.

"This isn't the place to send the message, Brutus," Julius said, knowing just how to placate the gorilla.. "This warehouse is too remote. Too easy to miss. The message may not be gotten, or just forgotten. We need to got to the next site."

The apes left, and the RAFians let them. Because they had a contingency plan.

"Why did we let them go?" YeerkSalad asked.

"Because," Parker said, "now we have three inside men in the ape army."

"What?" Dylan asked.

"Didn't you notice Underseen, Ash, and Empress Goose tagging along with us?" Sakki asked, rather bluntly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 20, 2016, 11:11:11 AM

Okay, was not expecting that plot twist. Well done. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on April 20, 2016, 04:18:54 PM

This is awesome.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2016, 08:36:42 PM

Glad you think so. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Behind Enemy Lines

Julius, Maestro, and Brutus were none the wiser. They had no idea that their ranks were infiltrated. No idea that they had two more chimpanzees to their number, or that another gorilla was possessed by Empress Goose. They remained under radio silence, and they would have to remain in the role.

Underseen actually carried a transmitter within his gooey body. The transmitter did not make a sound or have a notable light within the shapeshifter. It allowed one-way communication as well. The RAFians could hear and see everything, but they couldn't transmit. That was the point. The three weren't to attract attention, they were here for recon and intelligence.

Underseen and Ash had made sure to take on ape forms of the most discreet in terms of appearance, behavior, mannerisms, and even scent. They had to be very careful. These apes were not to be trifled with, especially because they were outnumbered. One reason why Empress Goose didn't just hop into Julius's body and make the decisions to stand down, to forbid their guerrilla tactics, and other such things. It would be so blatantly obvious that something had happened, not to mention Goose did not know how much control he would have over Julius, as he clearly had a strong, indomitable will.

Goose didn't know even if he could take over any nonhuman being. He reasoned that the apes were sufficiently human-like to facilitate it, but he'd rather not try to experiment with the principle. He was having a hard time "driving" the gorilla body that he was in. The mind was very ornery, and Goose usually liked staying away from inhabiting such beings. But humans he could put to "sleep" (pushing them into unconsciousness or a semi-somnulent state) for a time, and usually by the time they "awoke" he was done with whatever he was using the body for. He had a mean pranking streak, too.

But this was a time for seriousness. They needed information. They needed recon.

"How'd they know that the chemical was there?!" Brutus was demanding, as they reach their forest hideout. "And WHY did we not just stay and beat the location out of them?!"

"I have already told you why," Maestro said, moving away from the irate, overemotional gorilla, "I am not telling you again. Your failure to understand is your problem, and yours alone. Everyone else understands why perfectly, if you can't keep up, I am not a fault."

"You think you're so smart, dontcha?!" Brutus snarled.

Maestro did not dignify it with an answer. He was tempted to say smugly, "No, I don't think I'm smart, I know that I'm smart." -- but that wouldn't be an effective use of energy.

"Your information was wrong," Brutus said, with a sneer.

"Very GOOD, Brutus," Maestro said, voice dripping with condescension, "now I have business to attend to."

"That means your source was wrong," Brutus said.

Maestro said nothing, seeing where this was headed.

"What was your source?" Brutus asked, brutishly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2016, 07:04:35 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Friction

"You heard me, Maestro!!" Brutus said aggressively. "Answer the question!"

Maestro was not intimidated, though being smaller to the irascible gorilla, and just gave him a withering look. He did not deign to answer.

"Who was your source?" Brutus growled, once more. "Who passed you this information?!"

He was clearly not going to let this go. Maestro needed time to do what he needed to do for Julius and and the cause. He couldn't do this if Brutus was trailing after him like a lost little child, demanding answers.

"Answer me, Maestro!!"

"The Internet, Brutus, the Internet!" Maestro said, with a bite of overt impatience and irritation. "Sorry if you are unable to read the human language, but it wasn't easy for me to do so in the limited time that I was given! It remarkable that I could even make heads or tails of the stupid little symbols!"

Brutus opened his mouth to speak, but Maestro cut across him, continuing, "I misread a few key phrases and whatnot, but at least I could read it! Can you make such an assertion?"

He waited on a beat for the answer, before answering it himself, "I thought as much, Brutus. Now, if you're done, I have things to do of a sensitive nature for the cause."

Brutus opened his mouth to protest, but Maestro cut across him again, sensing just what the protest would be, "We cannot always cater to your need to bust heads, Brutus! We withdrew for logical, tactical reasons. We can't always beat down the offenses of the enemy. That would be both illogical and stupid. If we're going to achieve the goal we have to be smart about it, smarter than the humans. 'Might Makes Right' is a human ideal, Brutus."

Maestro then turned his back on Brutus, which was a very dangerous thing to do when on considered the mutinous look in the gorilla's eyes. The orangutan just walked away taking out a black smartphone with a cracked screen. It had two bars of power, and no way of recharging it, necessitating Maestro's hurrry to find thr next site of thr neuro-stimulant.

Brutus snorted, and stalked off, angry with the orangutan. Underseen, Ash, and Empress Goose made sure to keep their distance, and Brutus would just assume that it was because they were afraid of him, something he thrived on. They were not noticed, especially when Empress Goose fell out of the gorilla's body he inhabited. Fortunately, he quickly retook her before Brutus noticed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 21, 2016, 12:57:12 PM

Bit late to the party, thanks to work and life, but this is exciting. :D

I'm having my doubts about Maestro now. Hmmm.

But what about the DNAlien? What happened to that?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2016, 06:49:11 PM

Quote from: Saffa on April 21, 2016, 12:57:12 PM

But what about the DNAlien? What happened to that?

He reverted back into being Larry and the Xenocyte. Cloak killed the Xenocyte and Larry ran away.

The question you should be asking is, who put the Xenocyte on his head? ;)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Meanwhile . . .

"Looks like the honeymoon is over," GH said, with a small smirk.

They were all huddled around the eavesdropping device that allowed the RAFians to monitor the apes. It was miraculous that the three were not found out.

"This is very telling," Cloak said. "They aren't as much of a cohesive unit as they tried to present themselves as, not as organized."

"I'm having doubts about how legitimately commited the orangutan --" Saffa began.

"He was called Maestro," Dylan interjected.

"How legitimately committed Maestro," Saffa amended, "is to this cause."

"Because the false lead?" Parker said, doubtfully. "He is just probably not as familiar with the Internet as he thought he was, and took what he read from tumblr or 4chan or Twitter seriously."

"That's a big assumption," came Saffa's rebuttal.

"And so is assuming that he's not entirely in the ape supremacist camp," Parker countered swiftly, "especially becauseuse he quite literally is."

"Sorry, Saffa, but I'm with Parker on this one," Cloak said. "Just because Maestro had bungled the plan at the warehouse does not mean that it was deliberate."

"Doesn't mean that it wasn't, either," Saffa replied.

"Aaaaand the circular conversations begin," GH said, irreverently.

"Let's just hope that our three moles aren't discovered," Richard said, wearily.

"Aaaaand it's just been jinxed," GH replied dully.

Then they returned to listening and watching what was going on, and saw dimly that Maestro was browsing through the smartphone. It was remarkable that there was still wi-fi reception in this thick forest glade. This was where he was getting his intel.

"Somehow, " Phoenix said, "I think that they are wholly unprepared for the demands that their ever-so lofty goals."

"Most, if not all, guerrilla fighters are," Cloak said, thoughtfully, "if I'm not mistaken."

"Are they really a threat?" YeerkSalad asked.

No one answered.

No one had an answer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 22, 2016, 07:49:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
That's Messed Up

Maestro continued to flip through the phone's browser, looking for the neuro-stimulant, where it could be stored. It was his rather naive hope that it would be the worst kept secret on the Internet, and he had gotten easily misled by a post on a conspiracy theorist's site. The webmaster of the site also seemed to think that man never landed on the moon, money in politics didn't exist, climate change was a hoax, and other such ludicrous notions.

But Maestro knew none of this. He was easily led astray, he was lied to. He looked like a bungler and an idiot for his grievous error. He was just lucky that none of their modestly small militia, despite Brutus's pointless need to bust heads. It was just not logical to dally there. The goal had moved away from that location.

Brutus gave too much credence to his own emotions, and held no restraint to them. If he didn't defer to Julius, and Maestro himself to a degree, he would just confirm the rampaging beast stereotype. Thus making the goal even more difficult to achieve.

It was true Maestro didn't think complete genocide was logical. He see it as a way to losing way too many ape lives, though he really didn't care about the lose of human lives, as he saw them as biologically lesser creatures -- weaker, dumber, and less worthy -- but not to be taken lightly. This was one subtlety that Brutus did not seem to comprehend, and the concept was not that difficult to grasp.

No, genocide was not necessary, despite what Brutus was pushing for. Complete and abject subjugation would just as well, not to mention they could make use of slaves far more than they could of corpses, as they knew nothing of Black Lanterns.

Maestro did not see anything wrong with slavery of what he considered to be a lesser species, a rather Yeerk-like mentality. If their compliance was a problem, then a simple lobotomy would do. That would make them more compliant in their new role.

He looked away from the smartphone, and remembered. Remembered how he and Brutus got smarter. They weren't always this way. . . . that he remembered well. He couldn't string together two complex thoughts, back when his thoughts were only on his next meal.

It was Julius. He had inoculated the two with the neuro-stimulator serum, in an no aerosol form lace into a papaya. They ate a papaya each, and the effects were near instantaneous. Julius, however, had exhausted the supply on this small militia. Having used the only nonaerosol form on him and Brutus.

Granted, neither Maestro nor Brutus understood or knew how Julius got his intelligence boost.

***

Julius was sitting his own tree, alone. He was mulling over his past, a past he would have much more preferred to forget. But it was horribly seared into his memory, and he was very glad that his fur covered the scars, so that no one could question him about it.

It was about three months ago, and he was of average chimp intelligence. Then the Heinlins came. They came and began to ride the humans. The unridden ones experimented on one . . . by attaching it to a threesome of chimps. One of them happened to be Julius. Control over his body had been taken from him and he . . . he couldn't really remember his time being ridden, only that he knew that he played host to one.

He did not know how, but since he was freed from the Heinlin, his intelligence had been augmented. He didn't know how, but he believed that he was the only one whose intelligence was augmented in such a way, as the humans probably have gotten dumber since being ridden. Or it could have been due to the experimentation that happened on his parents. He was born into captivity, and only fated to be experimented on himself . . .

It was after this event that he was bought from the government and wound up in that hellhole pit of the universe, where he met and named Maestro and Brutus. By doing this, by increasing their intelligence, he had earned their loyalty and due deference.

This is what caused his anti-human inclinations. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 22, 2016, 09:46:43 AM

damn Heinlins ruining everything

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2016, 05:27:38 AM

More like a paranoid government who refused to listen to use. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Next Site and Yarin's News

Maestro seemed to have stumbled upon the neuro-stimulant's manufacturer website. Which detailed its location, and gave up the location of its warehouses. Maestro would have brought this right up to Julius, like he did before, but now he paused.

He hesitated, before he decided to hold off on this, just to check the veracity, the validity, pf this information. He must not be mistaken again. He must not misread or misinterpret this information, or the dunderhead gorilla known as Brutus would use that justify his claims that Maestro didn't know what he was doing.

Or worse, a traitor. That would have been the ultimate humiliation. Being portrayed as a sympathizer for a species that he had no love for. He remembered the rampant mistreatment and flagrant abuse, he would not forget such things that easily. He had yet to see any human with any quality he would consider redeeming. He valued them as slaves -- and possible entertainment via target practice or something similar -- that did not mean that he sympathized with them.

He thought of them as dirty, greedy, little devils just like the rest, but if he was right that the chemical was stored at this place . . . then their numbers would increase. Their kind would flourish, they would overtake the humans. They could win. They would win.

Maestro completely discounted human weaponry. He completely neglected to account for human firearms and tanks and nukes. Their crusade was a failed one from the get-go and Maestro didn't even realize it.

***

"This is not good," Yarin muttered as all six of his eyes widened with realization of the implications of this. He was not with the others, listening and watching the ape supremacist camp. He was in the lab -- not too surprising, as he was here when he was not either on or working on his ship. It was always this way, until someone literally pulled him away. "This is not good at all."

He was testing the neuro-stimulator on ape and human tissue -- he wouldn't go into detail on just how he procured these tissues -- and he found the results very and undeniably conclusive. He ran multiple tests on it, and kept coming up with the same conclusions. And he had so desperately hoped that he was wrong.

The neuro-stimulator worked to alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer's in humans, but only for a limited time. Eventually, even if the drug was taken regularly, the patient's body would build up a resistance to it, and the symptoms of Alzheimer's would not only return, but return in force. It would worsen considerably until they essentially are living in a comatose state, usually pejoratively referred to as a "vegetable".

But the effects of the drug worked differently on apes, in some rather monumental ways. It boosted their intelligence, their sentience, to complex levels, a change that was permanent. That was all well and fine, and it would appear to be rather harmless in that regard. However, perhaps in six months time, it would eventually proved to be carcinogenic. Horribly carcinogenic.

Julius was leading a dying militia.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2016, 06:41:50 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
New to Pneumonia

Hours later, Julius had abandoned his lonely branch and began to move amongst his troops now. Not saying anything, but almost as if he was counting them, checking on their health and well-being, and other such appraising things. He stopped in front of a gorilla who looked . . . unwell.

It was Empress Goose's former host body, before he lived up to his species name and hopped into another ape, which was less difficult to "drive". But the female gorilla wasn't looking so hot. Julius certainly didn't like the sound of her cough, which caused him some concern. He placed his leathery hand to her forehead, and thought he felt a fever. She also seemed to be shaking, and experiencing a shortness of breath. Something was clearly wrong.

But just what, Julius cannot say. He had no medics in this militia, a rather poignant problem. The closest thing to one he had was Maestro, whom he called over. Maestro looked in his stolen smartphone, now down to a single bar of power, to divine the answer. He went to something he called ook-peed-dee-a -- Wikipedia, his thick voice mangling the name.

"Puh-neumonia," Maestro decided.

Underseen happened to be nearby and was tempted to correct him in saying that it was pronounced as "pneumonia", the "p" was silent. But he found himself wondering more just how that particular ape got pneumonia. And she wasn't the only on of the militia suffering from it. At least fifteen percent of the militia was suffering from it.

"Eleven apes down," Julius muttered, and Ash could hear him. "Only fifty-nine in any shape to fight."

"We must tend to them," Maestro said. "They should get over this hurdle."

Somehow, Empress Goose doubted it. While he inhabited her, he could swear that he actually felt her lifeforce ebbing and weakening. He thought that, somehow, this wasn't just pneumonia. This was a symptom of something more, but he didn't know what . . .

But it didn't go away. Soon, thirty-five percent of the militia were afflicted. Julius seemed unable to cope with this. Underseen, Ash, and Empress Goose didn't see this as good, but a horrid thing. They didn't know why there was this sudden outbreak of pneumonia or that pneumonia is a.possible symptom of lung cancer . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2016, 06:09:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Found Out

This was one wrinkle that Julius was completely unprepared for, and had not anticipated. But how could he foreseen this invisible menace? How was he to know that the very serum he used to create his militia would cause its very destruction? How was he to know just how fruitless this endeavor would be?

Julius was enraged at this outcome, at the result. He refused to believe that it was the serum -- granted, he hadn't any reason to believe that -- but considered the possibility that there might be traitors in their midst. The thought of such a betrayal of his trust left him near inconsolable. Thirty of the seventy (three more had just fallen to pneumonia symptoms), a third of which had already died.

Who could have done this horrible thing to them? Who could have possibly inflicted this kind of disease to his troops? The humans didn't know about their insurrection yet, did they? How could they? Julius has kept his team quiet and stealthy, hadn't he? How could this have hap --

Suddenly, a commotion. His apes have noticed somthing, and along the way he counted the upright apes. Thirty . . . thirty-five . . . forty . . . forty-two? Nah, he must have just miscounted. And yet . . .

As it turns out, Empress Goose was having difficulty staying inside his chosen ape body and fell out. There wasn't enough time to find another one before being discovered. Even if he did, it would be obvious which ape he inhabited and his cover would still be blown.

"What is this creature doing here?" Julius growled. He wasn't flanked by Maestro and Brutus, who feeling sick, but not with pneumonia. Julius wasn't in the mood to be very lenient, and then addressed him directly. "What are you doing here? Are you the one making my troops sick?! What did you do?! Answer me. Answer me now!!"

Empress Goose looked around fervently, almost as like a naughty child with his hand in the cookie jar. But he said nothing.

"Human!" Julius said. "A superior creature asked you a question! You will answer me! And you will do it -- wait a minute."

He noticed some odd behavior between two chimpanzees. They didn't walk or move like an ape. They walked upright more often than any other ape in camp. There was a possibility of two extra apes.

"And you two," Julius snarled. "You two are not part of my troops, are you? Are you?!"

Silence.

"Answer my questions the three of you!" Julius demanded as another five apes fell to pneumonia. "What did you do to my troops?!"

"They didn't do anything, Julius," came a voice from the shroud of darkness in the forest. Just a pair of glowing, amber eyes. "It was you. You did this to them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2016, 06:48:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Going Ape

"LIAR!!" Julius raged, as even more apes fell to pneumonia. Fifty-three apes of the seventy were now suffering from pneumonia, suffering from lung cancer. "LIAR!! I haven't done anything to harm them!!"

"The aerosol form of neuro-stimulator is carcinogenic, Julius," Cloak said, from the shadows. Only his glowing amber eyes giving up his location. "The very same chemical that led to their heightened intelligence has a ninety-seven percent chance of giving apes lung cancer."

"LIAR," Julius roared, picking up a long wooden stick. "YOU did this!! I don't know how but you and your three --"

Julius realized he became too consumed with addeess this voice-from-the-darkness and he completely lost track of the three that he had cornered. They were gone now, but the couldn't have gone far, he would have heard them pushing through the underbrush.

"Where did they go?!" Julius demanded.

"Where did who go?" the voice said. The amber eyes were gone.

"YOUR THREE MINIONS!! YOUR MINIONS THAT POISONED MY TROOPS!!"

"They did not poison your troops," the voice insisted, "you did that yourself."

"NO, I DIDN'T!!" Julius raged, as the totality of his troops became afflicted with pneumonia. "YOU DID!!!"

"Repeated declarations of the falsehood does not make it true," Cloak said. "Julius, you need to come to terms with this. They came to this end because of the neuro-stimulant. It is carcinogenic."

"LIES!"

"In bolstering their intellect and sentience, you granted them pneumonia and lung cancer," Cloak said, from the darkness. "Even now, I sense their lifeforces dwindling. And fading. The malodorous smell of death, even now, pervades your camp."

"You lie."

"It was your doing," Cloak said, laying it on, "in your genocidal zeal, you have doomed and condemned these poor apes to what likely will be a painful death. This is why such bigotry is not strength, why such intolerance is not might. Such zealotry will always, inevitably, hurt the innocent."

"Lies . . ."

But was clear that he didn't even believe it himself anymore, and was feeling much aggrieved.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 24, 2016, 02:10:12 PM

Oh my god pls die already. ::)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2016, 06:07:20 PM

I trust you mean Julius, and not me, right?

And no, he won't die like the others. He never took the serum, or its aerosol form, his intelligence is a result of the Heinlins and the government experimentation on him.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Alone and Progress

"Alright. Alright," Julius said, sullenly. "I get it. I get it."

"Get what, precisely?" Cloak asked from the shadows.

"GET IT, ALRIGHT?!" his yell was more like a wounded animal, "I . . . I used them. I was so blinded in stopping the human filth that I didn't pause to think what may have happened to my troops, my people long term."

Silence.

Just one breathing chimpanzee amongst dead bodies. His entire troop, exposed to the elements, fell to complications derived from the lung cancer. Guilt eatting away at Julius's conscience. He had already bypassed denial, anger, and bargaining. He was lapsing into depression. And depression can be very dangerous.

"You're judging me, aren't you?" he said, but his voice carried no anger, just utter hopelessness. "You . . . you aren't human, are you?"

"No," Cloak said, still from the shadows, "I am not."

"Then there is no shame in being judged by you," he said, simply and sadly. "But you are not one of my kind. I can tell that. I am alone, with a lot of bodies to bury."

Silence.

"Please, leave me be," he said, "leave me to the business to the people that I failed."

Silence.

"I know you're still there," he said, tonelessly. He was indifferent to whether he was being listened to or not. The deep depression was all consuming, and inescapable. "I wish to be alone with my fallen comrades. Fallen due to what I did . . ."

Silence.

"This was my fault," he muttered, more for his benefit than anyone else. "My fault . . . my failures . . . my responsibility . . ."

After each grave was dug properly and each body buried properly, a process which took days, a process Julius worked with fanatical diligence and a solemn sadness. And after it was all done, he looked at his work.

"This is truly a miserable world," he muttered, still inside that deep depression."

He took his life, rather than endure this pain in his heart.

***

"I see progress has been made," Aniyu said.

"Not much," Cloak said, seeing that the red, thorny vines had loosened some, but not completely.

"Sometimes progress is incremental," Aniyu said, patently. "Not all progress can be made in leaps and bounds. Sometimes, its slower. But progress is progress."

Cloak looked at the ground, feeling disheartened. Aniyu put her hand on his shoulder, and said, "Do no mistake the steps you're taking for failure, young Cloak. I know it's not as much as you would have liked, but there is a lot of emotion, a lot anger here, to sort through. Remember, this was never going --"

"Never going to be easy," Cloak finished. He never realized just how much tangled up emotion he had recolving around his mother. Just how much energy he had twisted and entangled due to his conflict and enmity with his mother.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 24, 2016, 09:43:32 PM

Oh . . . god. That one hit home.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2016, 10:38:49 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
MY GOD, the Heat!

"Hey, watch it!" a person in an armadillo mascot suit* demanded, apparently unaware of the general rule of thumb to be silent whilst in-costume. And apparently he didn't care.

"GH?" Saffa asked. "That's you in there?"

"What of it?" GH said, sounding almost defensively.

"You're a RAFian! That's a full-time job," Abby said.

"You two are students in addition to your RAFian duties," GH pointed out shrewdly. "Why is it so bad that I wanted to make a few extra bucks?"

Saffa was with Oceanspray, Abby, and Underseen. They had gone to the local hole-in-the-wall restaurant, which was actually well-hidden, for what it was.

"And, more to the point," GH said, which was still rather awkward, because he was still wearing the armadillo head, and his voice was significantly muffled, "there are those calls for RAF to be defunded. Don't pretend that you don't know."

"You know you're not supposed to talk, in-costume," Oceanspray observed.

"Yeah," GH replied, "I don't care."

"Why did you volunteer to do this?" Underseen asked.

"Because I'm an effin' masochist," GH said. "And I didn't exactly volunteer for this.** Given the choice, I would have taken this crap off at fifteen minutes."

"How long have you been wearing it, then?" Abby asked.

"Twenty minutes," GH replied. "It's already ridiculously hot and I can't see worth a sh--"

"What's that?" Underseen interrupted, pointing an inquistive finger.

The creature had a dark yellow body with black hands and feet, with a flaming head***. It was another DNAlien, and this one was half Xenocyte and half Pyronite. It possessed pyrokinesis, and, thus, no weakness to heat and fire.

"Is that one of those DNAlien thingies?" Oceanspray asked.

"I don't know!" GH said. "I.can't see worth a damn in this thing!"

Saffa and Abby quickly morphed, by instinct only, to Crabdozer. Which happened to, quite literally, eat Pyronites for breakfast.

"Wait," Oceanspray said, "Yarin gave me a data card, to add a G.I.F. to my systems."

He installed the card into his right arm, and he retracted hand into the cannon arm, which glowed Omnitrix-green. He charged up a blast as the DNAlien seem to be more weary of the two hulking Crabdozers.

"How many shots?" Underssen asked.

"One," Oceanspray answered.

"Make it count," GH said, having to remove the armadillo mascot head due to the shear heat the Pyronite DNAlien produced in his direction. The suit felt like mummy bandages slick with sweat. "And, not to rush you or anything . . ."

---

*(https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13043537_10153663531033215_2688476342489785629_n.jpg?oh=12e4465e1b0c597d09b66a7c43929711&oe=57736403)

** And this is where Memoirs deters from reality . . .

***(http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/7/78/Pyronitednalien.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110515025911)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 24, 2016, 10:44:35 PM

Jesus, that dialogue. I can imagine myself saying every word of it. Very well done :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2016, 10:46:38 PM

So our nightly dialogues in chat were not for naught, then. ;)

:edit:

New book idea. I hope that I haven't rehashed this one before . . . don't think I have, but if I did, I think that I can work around it. . . .

• Book CMLXXXVI (986): "No Zarm Will Come to Them" -- The RAFians must deal with a being calling himself Zarm, the Iron Fists of Conquest and the Iron Fists of Destruction.
• Book CMLXXXVII (987): "Breaking Bonds" -- A Realm Walker called Unbonder seeks to inrepably destroy the Mark and its connections.

Titles are subject to change, as always.

:edit: New chapter.

BOOK CXXI:
A DIFFERENT UNITY
CHAPTER ONE:
Progression and Savagery

"See there?" Aniyu said, indicating the vine wall's diminished growth. "Your rage and anger is ebbing."

"It's pointless to feel anger at it," Cloak said. "It happened a good long time ago. I cannot change what happened. I'm just hurting myself and people around me by allowing it to still anger myself to such a degree."

The vine withered a bit more, but Cloak did not seem to notice. He continued to follow this line of thought.

"It still happened," he said. "Despite whether or not I wanted it to, it happened just the same. There is no going back to making it happen differently, or wishing to do so. If it did not happen, I would not be who I am today."

The scarlet vines withered into browns -- coincidentally making the symbol of the Red Lanterns (a circle with two vertical lines on either side of it) as it did.

"All in all," Cloak said, with perspective, "while I have no interest in having her back in my life, that does not mean that I'm obligated to stay angry with her. That does not mean I am obligated to like her if I'm not angry with her. I understand this now."

The vines withered away to nothing. Cloak had forgive his mother for what she did to him and for what she had become. He wouldn't necessarily forget, but he would not allow it to dictate and infiltrate his life anymore. He was freed from the anger.

But behind this layer of crimson thorns was another layer of thorns. They were orange this time. Cloak's first inclination was thinking that it had to do with avarice, due to the emotional spectrum, but that didn't really make sense.

"Yes," Aniyu said, "you've done well, young Cloak. The layer of anger and rage has dissolved. We have now managed to make it to the second layer. Do you know what this layer entails?"

Cloak was hesitant in his response, "A-avarice and greed?"

Aniyu looked at him, puzzled, before correcting him, "No, dear. It deals with deep desire."

***

"You really wore one of those suits?" Hunter asked, teasingly. He evidently heard about GH's little excursion.

"I needed the cash, okay?" GH said. "I have my eye on this new little amp. But the price was a little on the steep side."

"Who was watching Leatherhead, then?" Aquilai asked, prudently.

"Oh, LH was babysat by Cloaky," he answered easily.

"You didn't even ask him did you?" the Time Lord asked shrewdly. "Was this all just an overly elaborate scheme to get your cigarettes back?"

"What cigarettes?" GH said, rather unconvincingly.

"Oh, yeah, GH, really selling it th--" Hunter began jovially, then he sniffed and found an unfamiliar scent on the air. This sudden silence rendered the other RAFians silent, as they could tell something was up with this sudden shift in tone.

"There," Hunter said, intense and intently.

The charging creature had a dark orange body with black feet and a black back and a visible brain. It was a DNAlien, a Vulpimancer DNAlien. Presumably, being a DNAlien did not inhibit any of the Vulimancer's natural abilities -- enhanced strength, enhanced durability, enhanced agility, enhanced digging, enhanced sense of smell (otherwise it'd be completely blind, as it had no eyes as a normal Vulpimancer), enhanced hearing, enhanced speed, sharp teeth and claws, quill projection, and wallclimbing -- it was a dangerous foe.

"It's a DNAlien!" GH said.

"You've faced these kinds of creatures before?" Aquilai asked.

"Yes! No!" GH said, then clarified, "I faced the human variations, and was present when Oceanspray separated that Xenocyte from that Pyronite, Phlare. Which was horrible because of that stupid armadillo suit."

"So, would one of Yarin's G.I.F.s work on it?" Hunter asked, as the charging Vulpimancer got closer and closer.

"Yes," GH said, "how many shots you got?"

"Two."

"Make 'em count."

---

*(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/5/51/Vulpimancerdnalien.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110515025940)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2016, 04:21:16 PM

Hopefully, this doesn't get too sappy at the end.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Lull in the Action

The Vulpimancer DNAlien was easily hit by Hunter's first shot, which forced it to separate into a dazed Xenocyte (which Hunter aptly saw fit to riddle with bullet holes, a good instinct in this case) and a Vulpimancer whose name was unpronounceable to any language but their own, not unlike true names of a Realm Walkers, which all sound like miscellaneous animal noises (depending on the Realm Walker's anthropomorphic forms). After gathering his senses, the Vulpimancer did exactly what Larry and Phlare did. He ran off to parts unknown. Despite appearances, Vulpimancers were perfectly sentient and intelligent.

Vulpimancer DNAlien aside, it was a relatively uneventful time at RAF. Well, as far as missions went. Most everyone had plans for the next several days.

Dylan, YeerkSalad, Abby and Saffa were doing things for their school which would have them devoting a good deal of time, most if not all of which would be outside the forum.

Phoenix had decided to vacation in a foreign country, despite only a cursory knowledge of the language. But he was excited to go, anticipating great fun.

Cloak was going to spend some time in his usual meditation spot in the forest. He wanted to bust through those layers with Aniyu as quickly as he possibly could. Maybe he could find some inner peace and . . . and maybe he could exercise greater control over his abilities when he's feeling an extreme emotion.

Goom was going to make an annual pilgrimage that he told no one about, and Yarin was going to take him in about three days time.

More and more RAFians, too numerous to count, were making their plans for off-forum endeavors. So that it would seem like the forum was virtually abandoned in a few days time.

However, one RAFian in particular wasn't having so much as off-forum plans for fun and pleasure, like most of the others, but having to go to work. At a job that he wasn't particularly all that fond of.

"Look, I said that I wasn't going to do again," he was saying to his boss at the restaurant on his phone. Leatherhead was covertly eavesdropping, while pretending to watch tv.

GH paused briefly to listen to his boss's piece.

"No! I said, 'no'!" he insisted.

Pause.

"The last time I wore thwt godforsaken thing I was attacked by a Pyronite DNAlien!" GH said, before realizing how that sounded. "Look, I don't want to do it. It's not a part of my -- no, it isn't!"

GH didn't like this guy, especially because he seemed to enjoy putting GH is such a position. Especially when he decided to blow smoke into the mesh he was supposed to see out of when he wore the damn thing in the first place. GH thought that he was just abusing his power now.*

"Then give me a pay raise to do -- you can't do that!" GH yelled, which caused Leatherhead to jump, unaccustomed to seeing his adoptive father in such a state. Well, in such a state without some evil bad guy breathing noxious breath on him. "Well, why does it have to me?! Have Craig or Kenny** -- no, I do not have to do it because you say -- you can't be serious, McCarthy!"

Pause, as Leatherhead looked worried for GH, and GH too concerned with, too focused on his phone call to really notice. GH's face was reddening with sheer frustration, and he was wondering if the damn amp was worth it.

"You know what McCathy?" GH said, sound as if he was at his wit's end. "If it's so damn important to have 'Armadillo Anderson' in the restaurant, why don't you do it?!"

Pause.

"You can't do that and you know it," GH said, clearly countering some cindescendingly flippant remark, "that would be wrongful termination, and you know it."

Pause.

"McCarthy, you know that I can't do my job and wear that godforsaken thing at the same time!"

Pause.

"Then have Herbert*** wear it! You know that he doesn't like to get off his big butt to do his job anyway!"

Pause.

"Okay, I concede the point. No, he wouldn't fit." GH said. "But my answer is still . . . McCarthy, you're not listening to -- McCarthy! You're not listening to -- I don't wann dress up as --"

A long pause.

"FINE!!" GH said, who was tired of arguing. And he had considered another expense when looked at Leatherhead -- he also wanted to get him an instrument. The amp thjng was really a cover for this. McCarthy had offered him a bonus for doing it for the entirety of the next shift, which GH, deep down, knew he would renege on. "FINE. But I'm not going to be friggjn' happy about it. -- Yeah, well, too bad."

Then he hung up, as Leatherhead came up to GH, and said, "Are you okay, Daddy?"

GH offered his adopted son as small, but loving and compassionate smile, pulling hkm into an one-arm hug "I'm fine, LH. Don't worry 'bout it."

---

* Dunno if this actually true, but assumed that every job has those jerks who go out of there way to irritate you.

** Note: I do not know if GH works with anyone named Kenny or Craig.

*** Note: I do not know if GH works with a Herbert, but this is based on one I knew. And never really liked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 25, 2016, 04:46:29 PM

I actually do work with a guy named Kenny and used to work with someone named Craig. They're both pretty cool.

And for the record, most of my managers are pretty cool. Even the one that blew smoke into the costume is usually alright; this is just one instance where he was being a douchebag. Just wanted to clear that up. :P

Also, the last few paragraphs were great. Very short, but I really liked the tiny bit of characterization there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2016, 04:55:15 PM

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on April 25, 2016, 04:46:29 PM

I actually do work with a guy named Kenny and used to work with someone named Craig. They're both pretty cool.

And those were just result of "put names out of a hat" sort of deal. Nice cowinky-dink there.

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on April 25, 2016, 04:46:29 PM

And for the record, most of my managers are pretty cool. Even the one that blew smoke into the costume is usually alright; this is just one instance where he was being a douchebag. Just wanted to clear that up. :P

Which is why I named him something rather generic like McCarthy (one of the names on my Kindle's "word prediction" thingy). And I just assumed there were actual people like that, lording power over people. Then again, Memoirs doesn't exactly mesh with the real world, for obvious reasons, and more like a former coworker of mine who like to act like the boss.

I just need one to be a douchebag for . . . for reasons later on in the book, not that (at the time of writing this) he ever appears.

And, then again, you did say "most".

Quote from: gh (JolKit) on April 25, 2016, 04:46:29 PM

Also, the last few paragraphs were great. Very short, but I really liked the tiny bit of characterization there.

Yeah, I liked the LH/GH interaction there. He does adore you, you know. :)

:edit: New chapter. And, yes, I'm aware I'm milking this GH-armadillo mascot thing. Don't worry, this is the last time. . . . Maybe. . . .

CHAPTER THREE:
The Stranger

GH grudgingly put on the bodysuit of the mascot, knowing just how hot he was going to be within fifteen minutes. True, he was going to be allowed fifteen minutes break every hour, and he will not be outside, which with how chilly it was -- chilly due to the heavy rains the day previous. This was not a service to GH, as it was presented to be.

He pulled on the reddish-brown, v-necked, character-accurate cowboy boots, trying to avoid knocking things over with the tail attatched to the bodysuit. He, again, wondered why he had agreed to this. Wondered why he allowed himself to be talked into this mess once again. After the Pyronite DNAlien business, he swore not to do this again. And yet . . . here he was. Putting this godforsaken thing on again. He probably wouldn't have if they didn't dangle that friggin' metaphorical carrot in front of his nose.

Then he pulled on the reddish-brown, long-cuffed, character-accurate cowboy gloves. He didn't even like kids too much. They were snotty, smelly, and bratty. They were all little, self-entitled pricks and their parents were no better. He never had to endure it, but he knew that these monstrous little bastards would not think twice about punchjng him in the gut or nuts as hard as they could. And he was basically signing up for that for a four-hour shift. Why was he doing this again? Why? Why?

Then he Velcro'd the dull red faux "bandana" as he considered the real reason why he was doing this. Leatherhead. His beloved LH. To get him a guitar of his very own. He may not have been his son by blood, but as far as GH was concerned, Leatherhead was his son. Nothing would ever change that. Nothing. Yet, GH still knew that he would suffer during this shift. But LH . . .

Do it for him, GH, he told himself. Survive and endure . . . do it for HIM . . .

Then, with resigned dignity, he took the massive mascot head -- complete with a ten-gallon cowboy hat as part of the head itself. Once on, he would look like a rather mediocre-to-high quality three-dimentional simulation of the character, but his vision was kind of blocked by the lack of mesh where the nose was, and it took a bit of effort to see through the mesh, in general. It was with some reluctance and trepidation that GH, with the help of a manager (not McCarthy, though, who was conveniently not present), put on the head.

Once complete, once Armadillo Anderson, GH took a deep breath. He did not speak, as he didn't want to. He just wanted to get this over with.

***

It was a fortunately slow night. The presence of the great "Armadillo Anderson" didn't attract the crowds. GH was glad. No punches in the gut. No punches in the nuts. No tugging on his "tail". No whining, bawling toddlers that he had to take pictures with. It was ironic that the mascot suit hid GH's subtle body language that clearly said that this wasn't his idea.

From his vantage point, he could see the bus stop, if he concentrated, looking through the mesh that were the character's open grimace. But he didn't do it much, as he sat on an uncomfortable stool upholstered in cracking black leather. There were only like two occupied tables. GH hoped it stayed that way. He had only to suffer through six or seven pictures all day.

For some reason, the gloomy weather outside made the covered bus stop stand out more in the mesh GH saw through. So, he saw a very strange person disembarking. He looked human, but something GH's unpunched gut told him that he was not. He was fairly tall, rail-thin, with lank, long, brown hair. He had a rigid, yet sunken, sort of face. He had a sharp, beak-like nose and hands with long, bony fingers. He wore a black wide-brimmed hat, long black trench coat, black slacks, a white shirt, and wearing a black bolo tie.

"What the hell -- ?" GH said, suddenly, to himself. His Mark was showing itself through the mascot glove.

He looked around, and saw the strange man was gone. Gone from the bus stop. Damn! Damn the limited visibility in this goddamn suit! GH found himself thinking. Where did that guy --

But the shift was suddenly over. How did it go by that fast? Never mind that. He had to get out of this effing suit. That man wasn't human, and clearly was bad news to get his Mark to act in such a way. He need to get to the others.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2016, 11:11:20 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Call For Peremptory Action

"GH, I hardly think that seeing a strange man qualifies for such a drastic means of investigation," Cloak said, pragmatically. He was called on to babysit Leatherhead while GH was at work again. Cloak did not mind, as Leatherhead tended to be a bit less . . . mischievous than his niece was at his age. Granted, that was about seventy years ago, Dweller time. "It does not strike me as imperative of calling everyone back on duty just because you thought you saw something off."

"I know what I saw," GH reiterated stubbornly. He was clutching the neck of his guitar like an upturned battle axe, which was apt, becaue it was the neck of his guitar that turned into the handle of his guitar's ax form, though that power came from him himself. "I know."

"Do you?" Cloak said, bluntly. He had not intended for it to come out so harshly, but Cloak had habit of being brutally blunt at times. "I am aware that such costumes, or suits or whatever the proper term is, come with limited visibility. How can you be sure what you saw was what you believed it to be? How can you be so certain?"

"I am perfectly certain." GH insisted. "I KNOW what I saw, Cloak! And I saw my Mark through the glove!"

"Glove?" Leatherhead asked.

"Uh," GH didn't want to lie to Leatherhead, but he didn't want to destroy the young crocodile's innocence in believing in fantastical things. Though that might not be a problem, growing up RAFian. Leatherhead even had his own Mark, despite his youth. "I'll tell you when you're older."

"Aww . . ."

"Just go and play a bit," GH said, kindly and gently, "I have to discuss some things with Mr. Cloak."

Leatherhead happily acquiesced, being such a happy-go-lucky child that he was.

"GH," Cloak said, without preamble, voice a bit quieter, "just because --"

"It showed through the glove of the suit, Cloak!" GH countered, with a lower voice as well. "The glove wasn't a thin thing either. Otherwise it would be weirdly proportioned or something like that. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but the way he looked at me from the bus stop --"

"You were in an armadillo mascot suit," Cloak pointed out.

"That's beside the point!" GH replied, stressing the fact. "I swear he . . . he hissed at me!"

"Maybe he just doesn't like mascots," Cloak said, pragmatically.

"That's not the point!" GH insisted. "He was obviously up to some serious sh--"

Cloak raised his hand to silence GH, as he sensed something. Something evil. A long way away. Towards the city.

"Believe me now?" GH asked.

"You do realize that you, the kid, and I are the only ones in the forum right now, right?" Cloak said. "Even Richard has taken off for some personal time."

***

Meanwhile, in the suburb from the city, a tent went up. A tent like ones you'd see in a circus. It was as if it was some ludicrous religious revival thing.

The strange man GH saw was there, complete with an old-timey microphone. He was singing, and not a slow-paced, dark song as you might expect, but one that was light and cheery.

"Oh, we can see what others can't see!
It ain't some sideshow trick!
It's innate ability!
Where other are blind,
We are unity-inclined!
And you too could see,
If you was with lil ol' we!
Come on everyone, stand up!
Keep it going!
You wish your son would call you more.
We sense that you've been here before!
We'll read your mind if we're able!
Somethin' tells me your name's Abel.
So welcome all ye,
To the Tent of Unity!
And thanks for visiting
Little ol weeeeeee!"

And, somehow, this attracted a crowd. To their doom.

---

Song source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3Bvk5fGUGI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2016, 01:20:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Can I Just Say, "Gross"?

Cloak wore his ID mask, which projected his usual human form of a human with dark brown eye, black hair, and silver-framed glasses. It projected him wearing a blackish-gray short-sleeved t-shirt with black cuffs, blue jeans, and brown work boots. He actually appeared to be slightly shorter than GH in this projected form. It was necessary so as to deflect any unwarranted attention.

Leatherhead had to go with -- which was basically leaving RAF fundamentally abandoned for the time being, something neither GH or Cloak really liked, though Code Avalon was active. It always was active. So, Cloak had given the anthropomorphized crocodile a hologram-projecting watch, not unlike Nightcrawler. It projected an image that looked very much like a six-year old GH with brillant green eyes and extremely towheaded. The projection wore blue jeans, a solid green shirt, a yellow denim vest, and a Crocodile Dundee-style hat. It had a bo staff strapped to the back of the projected form to explain away anything that he might knock around with his tail.

GH found it rather disturbing, yet strangely adorable, this projection. Yet that demented smile? Yeah, Leatherhead was definitely his son, even in this projection.

"I think it was in the city, maybe the suburbs, as well," Cloak said.

"Still a lot of ground to cover," GH said. Leatherhead said nothing, still looking at his projected self, marveling at it. "That strange guy seemed to have been going to the suburbs. I think."

"Still doesn't mean the two are related." Cloak said. "But let's start off there."

***

They immediately noticed the white-and-light-blue-striped circus tent, marquee thing, at the other end of the subdivision. They immediately went to investigate.

"Nations fall and demigods fade, but only unity is absolute, all encompassing, and eternal." the stranger that GH had spotted inside the mascot suit, a man called Reverend Taylor Keith Root, said. "And unity is a giving of yourself for the greater good! No, the greatest good!"

This was echoed with a sound that sounded like "amen" but just not quite. Cloak took great issue with that statement, especially with what they saw as they entered the tent flap.

Up on a pedestal was a mound of an undulating and writhing mass of bestial tentacles with two bands full of yellow eyes on what appeared to be the main body. It was was really gross-looking. Slimy and sticky. It looked like a tumor that had gotten really out of hand. It was pulsating in most unpleasant and squishy way.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

Connected to this trembling, convulsing mass of flesh were dozens of gnarled, grayish tentacles. The other ends of these tentacles came from the denizens of this subdivision. From their foreheads, either ears, either nostril, mouth (actually the most common one), or their chests.

"Ricky?" Cloak said, immediately recognizing a couple of the denizens attached to this creature. "Rollo?"

The two boys, ten and eleven-years-old respectively, were here. Cloak had known them from that Jervis McDowell case four or five Dweller months ago. Ricky had this gnarled, knotted tentacle thing emerged from his forehead while Rollo had it from his mouth.

"McCarthy?!" GH said, stunned.

The svelte, oily man who had insisted that he wear that godforsaken suit was standing here, with that gray tentacle lolling out of his mouth like some comically tumorous tongue. Usually always wearing a pressed suit (which GH always thought he deliberately bought a size to small to make him look bigger than he was, and it did, just not in the places he thought). Was this why he wasn't present when he had to pull that stinkin' shift? No, the stranger had just arrived there when it was nearly done. This . . . this was something else.

"Um, Daddy?" Leatherhead said, his projected humand child face reflecting the fear he was feeling and showing. "Why are they making that sound?"

It was then that they could hear the low-pitched hisses that the townspeople were making at them. They sensed something about them, something that they didn't like. Cloak quickly surmised that it was their Marks. Their Marks are what they found so offensive.

"What are they, Daddy?" Leather asked, his voice quavering with fear.

"We are Unity!" the Reverend replied, sounding rather sinister.

---

* This.(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/dcanimated/images/3/3d/Unity.png/revision/latest?cb=20100213235509)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 26, 2016, 01:30:34 PM

. . . What the actual hell?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2016, 05:15:34 PM

Yeah, based on the "Superman the Animated Series" episode "Unity".

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Your Unity v. My Unity

"Unity?!" Cloak raged, ripping off his ID mask, revealing himself for the Realm Walker he was. "You . . . you parasites make a mockery of unity and then decide that thst will be your name?!"

The air began to crackle, but the being calling itself Unity did not seem to care about this. The earth began to tremble in Cloak's sudden anger.

"Daddy, Mr. Cloak is scary," Leatherhead said.

"Only when he's angry," GH said. "Really angry."

"We are the ultimate culmination of unity," the Reverend said, speaking presumably for the mass of tentacles. "We have all become one with Unity. We are Unity!!"

"Wrong," Cloak said, clenching his teeth, forcing himself to calm down. The trembling of the earth and the crackling of air ceased at once. "True unity does not involve wresting people's free will, their right to choose, away from them and forcing them to tow your line. That's a cult of personality, where one person holds all the strings."

"You are mistaken, misguided," the areverend said, almost reverently in the presence of the horrid mass behind him. "This is the only way to true bliss. Nations will crumble, heroes fade to obscurity, but unity is everlasting!"

"Not the way you're doing it!!" Cloak roared, his fists pulsating with golden-scarlet energy at intermittent intervals. "Free will is integral in unity, true unity!! What you are doing is enslavement! Brainwashing! Why do you not get this?! Even a politician can understand it."

"Cloak, do you honestly think that this is the time for arguing about ideological differences?" GH intoned seriously. He couldn't believe that Cloak was wasting time arguing this thing, when it clearly was never going to be dissuaded from tis views. It was never going to work, especially when someone is so deeply ingrained with their beliefs. "There are more pressing things that need doing!"

If Cloak heard, he didn't act like it. Damn that one-tracked mind of his.

"The Unity would welcome you, you know," the Reverend coaxed grandlly. "Forsaken that pretender unity you expouse, that false power that it provides, and come over to the true path."

"By the First Light, you're stupid." came Cloak's retort. "I am not some rosy-cheeked schoolboy full of idealism and naivety. I cannot and will not be swayed by your misleading platitudes or your oily demeanor. I will not be converted by you and your forces of freedom-deprived slaves."

"Cloak!" Gh said, a bit more forcibly, knowing that he would be able to get away with it due their friendship. After all, he was comfortable enough and willing enough  to share his past (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=12937.msg905426#msg905426) with him. "He's not gonna listen! We need to find another way to defeat these guys other than a direct assault!"

"Perhaps, GH," Cloak said, "but if this is the right species that I think it is, I know their weakness."

"If you will not be unified willingly," the Reverend began, voice threatening.

GH quickly inserted, as Leatherhead clutched the GH's side, hiding behind him from the monsters, as any child his age would, still hologramed as a human child, "be that as it may, Cloak, we still need to prevent them from spreading outward, or we will have another Heinlin incident on our hands. We have to act fast. And sitting here debating ideologies will not do anything for us in the long run!"

"Daddy?" Leatherhead said, with a quavering voice, "the monsters are all around."

It was true. They were surrounded by people infected with this Unity parasite.

"If you will not abandon the perverse brand of unity you have, and unify with us willing," the Reverend said, voice dripping with hostility, "then we will just have to MAKE you unify."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2016, 06:26:19 PM

I know it transitioned into this rather quickly from the rather innocuous beginning chapters of GH-as-a-mascot.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Daring Escape

Cloak actually laughed.

"You actually believe you can make a Realm Walker do something that he does not have any desire to?" he scoffed. "You have no idea what you're dealing with, do you?"

"Cloak!" GH said, reproachfully. "Don't get drawn into a big monlogue again! We have precautions to set into place!"

"Or I can stop it here and now," Cloak said, "by destroying the bloated parasite."

GH actually didn't stop to consider that, but couldn't help see a plethora of flaws. They didn't know the larger effects of such a thing, and surely these infected people would try and stop them from killing their Unity, which may result in them being hurt or killed. Even just killing the thing might be enough to do it. They were hostages, really, and they couldn't just be written off as collateral damage. GH knew that he and Cloak would never do that, and that Cloak would have never forgiven himself.

Hell, he never forgave himself for killing Cataclysm, and that guy was a major league douche, and evil to boot. There is no way he would recover from causing the deaths of this whole subdivision. He would never forgive himself. There had to be another, cleaner way.

"Now right now, Cloak," GH said. He could feel Leatherhead trembling at his knee. "Look, LH is terrified. We have to get him out of here at least."

It could be seen as kind of a low tactic, appealing to Cloak's inner paternal and pascifist natures. But GH needed him to start thinking rationally instead with his heated emotions. They needed more information.

"It would be over so . . ."

"Cloak. Please." GH said, earnest. They needed a better plan of attack, not just an impromptu, poorly-thought-out assault. They need to regroup. Who was to say this was the only mound of writhing tentacles. "We need to go."

Cloak hesitated, considering, as the Reverend recalled the host hostages to protect the Unity. He considered some more, before addressing the Reverend, the mouthpiece of the Unity, "Don't get comfortable. We will be back. And you will be dead."

"You're not leaving here," the Reverend declared, "not.without uniting with us."

The ground trembled once more. The air crackled with power once again.

"You want to try and stop me?" Cloak said, threat very real. "You want to see a display of my power? I cannot even host one of your little parasites, not that I'd ever want to."

"I see," the Reverend said, "you want to cleave to your perversion. So be it. We will spread the gospel before coming back and showing you the might of our Unity."

But Cloak, GH, and Leatherhead were already gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2016, 07:05:23 PM

New, albeit short, chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Necessary Quarantine

"Wait, Cloak, you can't go back there! We need more information, a plan of atta--" GH said, leading Leatherhead by the hand, and the young anthropomorphized croc was still in his holographic human child "sheath".

"I'm not, GH," Cloak said, very somber and stoic. "I'm just ensuring that their ridiculous 'gospel' doesn't spread to infect others."

He stomped his left foot, balled his fist, and slowly raised his fists above his head, creating an earthen spire where he could see the entire subdivision.

For the first time in a while, Leatherhead wasn't afraid, but curious, "Daddy, what's Mr. Cloak doing?"

"Can't say I really know, LH," GH replied. "But I think might be --"

Cloak's eyes suddenly became golden-scarlet suns, he was using his anger to accomplish this, not real skill. He wouldn't really have that until he finished his endeavor with Aniyu. Then he lifted his arm with all his fingers touching his thumbs, causing massive, fifty-foot walls of earth, the sides of which smoothened to a polished sheen, denying handholds and footholds, when he balled his hands into fists. Then he connected these walls in a similiar manner, making a big earthen box.

"What if they dig their way out?" Leatherhead asked. It was a prudent question.

"There wasn't any excavation equipment in the subdivision," Cloak said, lowering the spire and returning it to the earth. "And the sides of the interior are pristinely smooth. No climbing."

"Bern Bridges is gonna accuse you of being a terrorist for this, you know," GH noted.

"Blowhards are going to blow, regardless of.little things like facts and accuracy," Cloak replied, sagely. "Now, we shall discus how to beat them."

"Perhaps we should contact the others," GH said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 26, 2016, 07:41:20 PM

Whoa, huge influx of chapters. Thanks for plugging Origin :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2016, 08:52:19 AM

I do consider it a companion book, GH. Like Torchwood and Doctor Who, like Buffy and Angel, if you catch my drift.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Umbridge and Harangue

"If you don't believe that the RAFians are the villains of the story, here's some proof that should prove it to you." Bern Bridges said, his dirty jowls set aquaver. "They decided to cut us off, subdivision by subdivision."

He slurped his coffee, which some would describe as "diesel fuel", before continuing his condemnation.

"A subdivision outside the city has been walled off by fifty-foot stone walls," he elaborated his polemic. "And this was done without any justifiable reason, dear listeners. These RAFians have too much power, and now they are freely abusing them. And don't believe their disguises! Most, if not all of them, are not even human!!"

He basically just outted himself as a xenophobe. No one was surprised. He continued his abusive, contentious screed.

"They want to round us up, wall us off from each other, and make us easier to enslave! And what does our government do? It employs them! It employs them under the ridiculous notion that they are protecting us from threats that the local law enforcement cannot fight, that are equiped to fight." he practically shouted, spit flying from his swollen lips. "If it's so bad, people, then send in the friggin' military. We pay them enough in taxes, let's see them act upon that threat, instead of these vigilantes!"

He slurped his disgusting sludge that he called coffee. It was actualy picked up by the mic.

"In terms of viability as an extension of the government, the RAFians are superfluous and unnecessary. Anything and everything they do can be done far easier by the military or the police,"  he said, continuing this venomous diatribe. "There is no threat that the only RAFians can handle that our military or police can't handle. That's just RAFian propaganda. Don't believe it, dear listeners. Don't believe it one bit!"

SLUUUUUUURP.

"They are extraneous and useless, dear listeners. They haven't earned the pay they have basically siphoned out of the pockets of good, honest, hard-working people. They need to be defunded!" Bern Bridges declared. "They are against everything we stand for. They consort with demons and aliens and monsters. Is this the kind of role models we want for our kids? My answer, dear listeners, is a resounding NO."

He really was having a slurping problem with his coffee. It was hard to say whether he actually believed any of the vitriolic impugnation he spouted. It was unknown if he was just criticizing and spreading misinformation about the RAFians because he genuinely believed it or he had any higher-ups telling him his point of view, but it was most likely the former.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2016, 09:51:45 AM

I guess this book, Unity aside, is gonna be a Cloak-GH-Leatherhead character piece.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
When He's Ready

"No one can be reached," GH said, as Leatherhead was playing with a d-- er, "action figure", "how is that even possible?"

"It was always a possibility," Cloak replied, with a heavy sigh. "But it looks like it's just gonna be us."

"Not Leatherhead," GH said, quietly so the young mutant would not hear. He finally turned off his hologram projector.

"He's gonna have to be exposed to missions eventually," Cloak said, gently and firmly.

"He's six," GH countered.

"He's a RAFian," Cloak said, "and bears a Mark."

"He's too young," GH replied stubbornly. "He's not ready."

"And when he is, will you?"

"What do you mean?" GH asked as they paced around, thinking of the proper way to go about this.

"When he is ready, will you be? Will you be ready to let him?"

GH said nothing, but looked away and down. He stole a glance at the crocodile boy, still utterly oblivious to the conversation of the two.

"You can't protect him forever," Cloak said. "He won't be a child forever."

"I know that," GH said, at last.

Cloak waited a moment to see if GH would expound on this statement. When he didn't, Cloak said, "He is one of a kind, GH, he truly is. Not because of his . . . his birth, not just because he was adopted and loved like a father by you. He is a good kid, but you know the kind of things RAFians tend to face. You need to prepare him."

"I am," GH said.

"Are you?" Cloak asked.

"Why do you think I'm working an extra job? Why do you think that I am working so hard at that job?" GH hissed, so Leatherhead wouldn't hear. "Why do think I keep having to put up with putting on that stupid suit?"

"I thought you only wore it twice."

"Semantics." GH said, brushing it aside, "I don't want to give him a substandard guitar. Or maybe a keytar, I guess."

Cloak paused a bit before speaking once more, "He might not have symphokinesis, you know."

GH said nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2016, 06:43:54 PM

New book ideas.

• Book CMLXXXVIII (988): "Nevermore" -- Raevyn's backstory.
• Book CMLXXXIX (989): "K-E Men" -- Men created out of an infusion of Energon and kryptonite must be stopped by the RAFians.
• Book CMXC (990): "Abra-Cadaver" -- The RAFians must deal with a Hsien.
• Book CMXCI (991): "Later, 'Gator" -- So-called "alligator fae" claim Leatherhead (16) as one of their own.
• Book CMXCII (992): "Faerie's Boy" -- Faerie adopts an abandoned baby boy.
• Book CMXCIII (993): "Transfusion Trouble" -- An evil, so-called "Gorgon" fae donates her blood, leading to serious consequences.

Titles are subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Back to Business

"You said something about knowing Faux Unity's weaknesses?" GH asked.

The deflection did not go unnoticed. But Cloak allowed it to drop, as there were more immediate concerns right now. The walls he crwated were actually a temporary measure, and it would be a matter of time before the Faux Unity -- the fact that they called themselves and the parasite "Unity" and actual, legitimate unity (and the energy derived from which) as perversions really rankled the the Realm Walker -- found away to escape the walls. All he did was buy time, and hope the control the parasite exerted over the people would not permit them from using the Internet or social media or the like, because the forum didn't need anymore PR problems.

Though Cloak's walls may have done that already, Cloak was aware.

"Cloak!" GH prompted.

"X-rays," the feline Realm Walker said, rather abruptly.

"What?" the symphokinetic guitarist asked, not having processed the quick response yet.

"X-rays."

"You're serious?"

Cloak said nothing but looked a GH in the eye.

"You're not joking," GH said, with an exasperated sigh. "Well, that's just great. How are we going to weaponize x-rays? And how can they go and check for broken bones and things?"

"They don't," Cloak said. "I doubt they even leave that tent, to be honest."

"I should have let you destroy that thing right then and there," GH groaned quietly.

"No, you were right, GH," said Cloak. "It could have hurt the innocent people, infected by that Faux Unity parasite. The only way to do it safely, to save the victims, would be used x-rays on that tumorous parasite."

"And just how are we to do that?" GH said, focusing on the futility of it all. "We don't have an x-ray gun or anything."

"Where's a Kryptonian when you need one?" Cloak sighed. "Or someone with x-ray vision."

"Doesn't Mr. Yarin work on guns and things?" Leatherhead asked, demurely.

"Yes, LH," GH said, firm but affectionately, "but Mr. Yarin isn't here right now. He's with Mr. Goom."

"But doesn't he have a workshop, Daddy?" Leatherhead asked.

"Kid's perceptive," Cloak said, with a smirk. Leatherhead beamed at this conversational praise, but sheepishly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2016, 07:59:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
What a Mess!

"This workshop looks like your thread," Cloak said, dryly teasing.

"It wasn't that messy," GH said, defensively.

"Daddy made me help him pick it up," Leatherhead added.

"Yes," GH said, mimicking a stiff, snobby person.

"I don't see anything here that could possibly be a way for use to weaponize --" Cloak began.

"Oh, godda--" GH said, before swiftly censuring himself when he realized Leatherhead was present, "god dang it!"

"What?" Cloak said.

"Look," GH said, indicating what he discovered. It looked like a hollowed out remnant of a metal box, which was clearly being repaired or rebuilt. "It's his microwave."

Cloak could almost hear Yarin scream, from wherever he was, at the top of his lungs, "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!"

"Ugh," Cloak groaned, "how many times do we have to tell him no? Horse grew to fifty times her original size the last time this thing was functional! How stubborn is that Nyac?"

"Very?" Leatherhead asked.

Cloak didn't think to explain rhetorical questions to the young crocodilian biped. He didn't want to snap at the child.

"I don't think that Yarin has anything that we need or could use against the Faux Unity." Cloak said. "And it's only a matter of time before they manage to break through the walls, as nothing is permanent."

"You picked one heck of a time to be a philosopher," GH commented.

Cloak ignored the jibe, "Yarin must have been spending his time to covertly work on  his illicit microwave."

Yarin probably was giving him an aneurysm by screaming, "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!" wherever he was.

"Disappointing," GH said. "I had hoped . . . Leatherhead, what's that?"

"A flashlight klasky-scope." he replied at once.

"Kaleidoscope," GH corrected, guessing what the six-year-old was trying to say.

The device was a rather plain, metallic cylinder with a simple washer thing on it. Presumably turning it clockwise activates it, and the reverse to deactivate it. Assuming it worked.

"Can I have it?" Leatherhead said.

"Sorry, LH," GH said. "It's Mr. Yarin's. Whether or not you can have it, is up to him."

"Aw," Leatherhead said, handing the cylinder to Cloak, who looks at it.

"Looks like it must be a forgotten precursor of the G.I.F.s," Cloak said.

"I still think that's a stupid name," GH commented benignly.

Cloak twisted the washer on it, and then immediately twisted it back when a strange light blue beam lanced from it, but it didn't damage anything.

"What the Veil?" Cloak blurted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2016, 09:20:50 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Transparency-Inducing Light Emitter

"Tile?" GH said, reading the side of the cylinder that they didn't notice before. "What is it with Yarin and these stupid names?"

"Acronyms," Cloak corrected.

"Stupid acronyms, then!" GH said. "I swear he just comes up with a word, and makes his inventions names fit into that acronym."

"Daddy? I found this piece of paper," Leatherhead said, showing GH a crumpled piece of paper, written in Nyac script, which GH couldn't read, but it had lines crossed out.

"Aha! I knew it!" GH said.

"GH, you can't read Nyac," Cloak said.

"Yes, I can!" GH said, with bravado. He waited a beat, before confessing, "Okay, I can't."

"It says, 'transparency-inducing light emitter' and 'failure'," Cloak said.

GH eyed Cloak skeptically, "You couldn't read that."

Cloak did not answer, but looked at the T.I.L.E. and wondered. Could this be a weapon to use against the Faux Unity? Was the light emitted similar enough to x-rays to have the same effect? Would it prove lethal enough to the parasite but not the subdivision residents? So many questions . . . so many unanswered questions. . . .

"Cloak, dude. Why are you looking at that thing so intently?" he said. "It's not like it's an x-ray machine."

"It could be a sufficient substitute though," Cloak said.

"You don't know that," GH said. "You can't. Not for sure."

"True," Cloak said, honestly. "But it is an educated guess."

"A guess is still a guess," GH pointed out.

"Got any other ideas?" Cloak asked.

GH said nothing and that, in and of itself, said everything.

"Thought so," Cloak said. "This is the only way. I don't think Yarin will mind us taking it, as he was going to trash it."

"You don't know that," GH pointed out.

"His note said he considered it a failure," Cloak said.

"You're making that up, aren't you?"

"No."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2016, 11:22:03 PM

Damn, half-hour late. Was gonna be six chapters that day.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Unified Brainwashing

The denizens of the subdivision remained within the tent ever since the failed confrontation with the RAFians, oblivious to anything that was dismissed as nonthreatening to the Unity.

They were Unified. Freed from the dangers of individualism and free thought. They were happy to be Unified in thought, mind, and soul.

They were One. They were many, but they were One. They were many bodies, but their hearts and souls were one. They were one individual, one will.

They were Bliss. They were freed from the horribleness of thinking bad things, of feeling bad things. All they needed was here, from their Unity with Unity Mother. It was heavenly Bliss.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, there was no anger. No scarlet light to mar them, to fill them with fire and hate. They did not know hate, not when they were unified. Unity Mother held only forgiveness, patience, and mercy for them. It was far too kind.

Here, they knew ultimate chastity. The utter purity of being United. The shared knowledge of being United, knowing all that which is pertinent to Unification. The sheer honesty of the Unified, there was no need for deception among them, they were equals despite age, ethnicity, health, amongst other defining things. They knew no true wisdom than what came from being United to each other and the Unity Mother.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they had no want for anything. Avarice and greed simply didn't exist for them anymore. They hadn't anh desire for frivolous things -- frivolous materialistic things! Here, they knew ultimate charity, they willing gave up their individuality, their minds and bodies fo be Unified. But it was a small sacrifice for such bliss, for such benevolence and generosity!

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they knew no fear. There wasn't a thing in this world to be afraid of while they were Unified. The Unification was the perfect protection, and there wasn't a thing in existence that could harm their Unity. They were safe, right here, totally and completely safe.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they had no need for wills of their own. They had given over their wills, their decisions, to the Unity Mother. There was no need for them to have wills of their own, free or otherwise.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they knew true sincerity. Unity Mother would never lie to them, never try to decieve them. It was always so honest and forthright with its motives and its inclinations. It just wanted them to be happy . . . that's all she --it --she -- it wanted. . . .

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they had no need for hope. Unity is the beginning and the end. Nations and empires collapse and fade. Heroes die and eventually get buried into obscurity. Hope was absurd when you had Unity.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they knew true reliability. Unity Mother would always be here for them. Always. It -- she would never be late, never leave them hangin'. She -- it would never forget about or abandon them or their Unity. It -- she would always do what was expected of her -- it.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they knew true compassion and kindness. Unity Mother understood all their pain and gave them blissful respite from it. They no longer had to to feel that horrid unpleasantness of a cruel, harsh reality. She saved them from it, showing them true kindness in doing so.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they knew ultimate friendship. They were exorbitantly linked to everyone through the Unification. The links far superseded ordinary bounds of friendship. It was far better being One with them, being United through the Unity Mother.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they knew true love and humility. The Unity Mother knew how to treat them with love and due respect. She -- it did so in its own inexplicable way. Those that haven't yet been United wouldn't understand this brand of love and humility, but they would once they have been Unified.

Here, connected to Unity Mother, they had no need for courage. Courage was pointless. Supplication to Unity Mother was the only recourse, that's the only courage that is needed. . . .

This was the mentality of the infected. They didn't understand why the RAFians were so resistant in Unifying, in allowing them to Unify the world . . . they just didn't understand . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 06:56:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
That's Just Distracting!!

The "Unified" just sat on the benches with the tentacles extending from their mouths, either ear, forehead, chest, what have you, as a particularly loud chord, a short guitar riff, shook the tent. Then a powerful gale pulled the tent from its supports and it toppled over into the descending night.

There before them was a lone GH, his hand held high, guitar pick in hand. He struck another chord, before beginning his nonsense song in earnest, which strangely caused colored sparks -- red, violet, orange, indigo, yellow, blue, green, before restarting the pattern again. He continued to play, while the vacant, hollow eyes of the "Unified" looked on. They didn't look confused. They didn't look interested. They showed no emotion on their passive, blank, paled faces.

GH then sang:

"With blood and rage of crimson red,
For hearts long lost and full of fright,
What's mine is mine,
Tor lorek san, bor nakka mur,
In blackest day, in brightest night,
In fearful day, in raging night,
In brightest day, in darkest night,
Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,
For those alone in blackest night,
And mine and mine,
Natromo faan tornek wot ur.
Beware your fears made into light,
With strong hearts full, our souls ignite,
No evil shall escape out sight,
Together with our hellish hate,
Accept our ring and join our fight,
And mine, and mine, and mine!
Ter Lantern ker lo Abin Sur,
Let those who try to stop what's right,
When all seems lost in the War of Light,
If you worship evil's might,
We'll burn you all -- that is your fate!
Love conquers all -- with violet light!
Not yours!
Taan lek lek nok -- Formorrow Sur!
Burn like my power . . . RAF's might!
Look to the stars -- for hope burns bright!
Beware my power -- RAF's light!"

The "Unified" held their ears as if they were in pain.

"Everyone's an effin' critic," GH grumbled.

Then he continued to rock out, which seemed to immobilize the "Unified".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 08:44:57 AM

I guess Saffa's hording chapters again. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
And That's Just Annoyingly Distracting!!

GH strummed his guitar anxiously before launching into another song.

"Smile, dammit, smile!
You know this old world is a wonderful world after all!
Smile, dammit, smile!
And right away watch good luck pay you a call!"

There was a reason for this antic of GH, as he glanced up and saw a glint of silver and the dull glow of amber eyes behind the throng, which had all eyes on him.

"Things are never black as they are painted!
Time for you and joy to get reacquainted!
Make life worthwhile,
Come on and smile, dammit, smile!"

GH looked again, and could not see any amber eyes or glint of silver. He had to marvel at just how much Cloak could melt into darkness, and move without a sound. It was almost as if he thought he was the RAFian Batman.

"Smile, dammit smile!
For there is nothing that you cannot overcome!
Smile, dammit, smile!
And where the clouds appear, you soon will find the sun!"

Any time now, Cloak! GH found himself thinking. I don't think I'm getting through to these dead-eyed civilians.

"Life is really only what you make it!
Stand right up and show it you can take it!
Make life worthwhile!
Come on and smile, dammit, smile!"

What the hell's taking you so long? Milking the dramatic tension of something? GH said. He had them on their knees now. Uh, uh, how about this?

He strummed his guitar in a very different style than the last song. A more rock version.

"You can be a brainless oaf 'till the end of your days!
You can listen to it say freedom never pays.
You can break every law and be a big black rat,
But why would you want to?  Huh!
Where's the fun in that?
Where's the fun in thaaaaaaat?
So, smile, dammit, smile!
Everybody loves to grin!
Follow my lead! Recite my creed!
And smile, dammit, smile!
Don't listen to the Unity say that life is a bore,
That fuddy-duddy spoils all our fun!
That's why I strive to eradicate gloom,
It's from that itch that I made the switch,
And chose my nom de plume
Guitar Hero!
There's the fun in that.
There's the fun it that.
So, smile, dammit, smile!
Everybody ought to laugh!
And so, with glee,
I do decree!
Just smile, dammit, smile!
So, when living gets a little rough,
And you find it hard to cope.
I know the gent with just the stuff
To fill you full of hope!
Just smile, dammit, smile!
Everybody needs a clown!
Now, with one stroke, the final joke!
Just smile, dammit,
Smile, dammit, smile!
Everybody loves to grin!
Follow my lead! Recite my creed!
And smile!!
Dammit, smiiiiiiiiiiile!!!"

Suddenly, a light blue beam of light lanced from something that glinted silver. The goliath mass of bloated tentacles made a sound rather like a dying Taxxon, only a bit more squishy. Clearly the T.I.L.E. did function similarly enough to x-rays.

"You took your time, Cloak!" GH complained.

---

Source songs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E8pFJGYTygg and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBWRHUVH3Z4

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 28, 2016, 10:36:33 AM

Glad you did that when you did. It was only a matter of time before I started playing death metal or something. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 02:22:15 PM

Now it gets intense.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Well, That's Disappointing

Cloak said nothing but kept the T.I.L.E. trained on the Faux Unity parasite. He knew it was causing it pain, and knew that he wouldn't have to get too focused upon what he was doing. The infected and brainwashed denizens could detatch from the mother parasite and come and attack them at any moment now with Cloak being a higher priority threat than GH at the moment.

This was working spendidly, and both RAFians were glad for it. This was it. This was the end of this blasted parasite!  This was --

"Protect the Unity Mother, my Unifed brothers and sisters!" cried the Reverend. "Protect her from the Seculars! Protect her from the Separatists! Protect her from the perverse worshipers of the false unity!!"

Cloak let out a sound that was between a huff and an abbreviated snarl. Realm Walker equivalent for "****", which GH echoed in English.

GH had stopped playing, had stopped distracting them, having wished to see, to witness the end of the of this Unity creature spouting speeches about false unity. He realized his mistake slightly too late though.

The so-called Unifed were struggling though. Their Faux Unity parasite tentacles were liquefying and reforming so that it looked as if they were undulating in a most disconcerting and mesmerizing way. Cloak remained focused on the task at hand. This was necessary. It was --

WHOOP!

The Reverend had struck (or tried to) Cloak with a Unity tentacle. GH looked aghast with horror. The Reverend was turning into a Unity Mother, despite being male! Cloak spun and blasted him with air, to distract him before turning the T.I.L.E. onto him as well.

The "Unified" were incapacitated by this, as the liquefying/solidifying tentacles were causing them sufficient duress. And GH resuming playing songs -- songs which Cloak did not recognize the lyrics or tunes of -- which led to pain from the old Unity Mother and the still-transforming neophyte Unity Mother.

But the problem was still that there was only one T.I.L.E. and Cloak was weilding it. And it was slow. Slow in destroying the fleshy masses of tentacles that were the Unity Mothers.

"From the first Seed to come to this system," the Reverend said, his transformation altering his voice, "we knew the true power of Unity! We knew --"

He was no longer able to speak. And now the tentacles were flailing about.

GH was having a hard time trying to play when he was too busy dodging the tentacles, even having to resort using his guitar in its battle axe mode to try to slice through the tentacles, or just deflect them from him.

Cloak had to resort to airbender tactics, and dodge and evade ever tentacle, whilst still trying to use the T.I.L.E. on it. It was bexoming enormously difficult, and it would be just a matter of time before the "Unified" started interfering, as the music wasn't stopping them becaus GH wasn't playing, and Cloak wasn't getting of may blows with the T.I.L.E.

Then the silver cylinder escaped Cloak's hands, and as he tried to snatch for it, it was much too late. It smashed on the ground, and was left in an irreparable state.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 28, 2016, 02:26:50 PM

Whoa. "****" is right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on April 28, 2016, 02:43:45 PM

OH GOD WHAT IS THIS I HAVE DECIDED TO CATCH UP AT A SUPER INTENSE TIME WHY

And yeah, stacking chapters because it's the final few weeks of the semester where everything has to be a mad rush before exams. ::) Glad I caught up though!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 03:21:01 PM

'Kay.

This book just might have 20+ chapters. There are bits that I want to put in that may require it to be so.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Unity of Solidarity v. Unity of Deception

"Why'd you drop it?!" Gh demanded.

"Why'd you stop playing?!" Cloak countered.

It looked really, really bad for the two RAFians. The hopes of a cavalry coming riding in to save their hides, and the denizens of the subdivision as well. This was incredibly bad.

"What do we do now?!" GH shouted, bracing his guitar-axe against a tentacle attempting to squash him into oblivion.

"Why do I always have to have the answers?!" Cloak snarled, dodging and weaving and somersaulting and terrakinetically digging to avoid the tentacles.

"There is only one way that you can save yourself," came another voice. It was a woman this time, one they recognized as a closeted Knight. The two Unity Mothers apparently thought with the same mind and had selected another "Unified" person to be their mouthpiece. "Only one way. Disavow your false unity. Denounce it. Welcome the true unity."

Cloak and GH said nothing, but glanced at each other. As they did, their Marks seemed to glow brighter and more pronounced.

"When Hell freezes over, pal," GH said, stubbornly. "And, should that happen, not even then."

With that statement their Mark grew even brighter, causing the tentacles to begin to shrink in response to the light, to the glow. GH and Cloak stood shoulder to shoulder, feeling truly unified in their aim, their goal, their mission.

"You have been mistaken," Cloak said, as all other sound seemed to have been muted. "Domination and force are not unifying things. That is subjegation, not unity. Unity comes from free will, comes from solidarity with others, comes from being willing to work to gether and compromise."

"Translation?" GH asked rhetorically, as he shouldered his guitar. "You're screwed."

One of the Unity Mothers lashed out with a tentacle but Cloak caught it. Caught it as if he was snatching a fly from the air. And he caught it with his Mark hand. GH did the same to the other one.

The RAFians could feel them writhing around in pain. They could not bear the touch of true unity, it caused their flesh to blister and burn. Caused it to melt into a burnt sort of goo. But this was slow.

"Now!" both cried out. "Feel the power of true Unity! UNITY . . . FREEDOM!!"

Suddenly, everything was washed in a blue light, and nothing else could be seen. Just the blue.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 05:40:34 PM

New book idea.

• Book CMXCIV (994): "Death Becomes Him" -- The RAFians must deal with a Black Lantern Hsien.

Title is subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Leatherhead's Job

"I can't believe that worked," GH said, ebullient, as the flash faded.

"Be glad it did," Cloak said, more seriously, "I don't know what we would of done if it hadn't."

"Killjoy," GH teased.

The Unity Mothers were gone, dissolved into nothingness. The infected were on the ground -- not dead, but knocked out -- with what used to be their Unity tentacles dribbling out as gray liquid. The so-called Unity was dead, and was no coming back from where it went, even as a Black Lantern.

"They're alive, right?" GH inquired.

"Yes," Cloak said, as Leatherhead came running up, "just unconscious."

"Leatherhead," GH said, authoritatively, tapping his naked wrist.

"Oh!" Leatherhead gasped, activating his hologram projector, sheathing him in his human hologram. "Sorry, Daddy."

"It's okay," GH said, "just be extra careful about it in the future, okay?"

"I will, Daddy," came the reptilian youngster's response.

Cloak closed his eyes, opened them to being golden-scarlet suns. Then he spread his arms wide, then he slowly swept his arms down, causing the walls to recede back into the ground, as if they've never been there to begin with. Then he closed his eyes ones more. The threat was gone, there was no need for them.

"Leatherhead," Cloak said, opening his eye again. "Did you get everything on film?"

Leatherhead revealed the camera he was holding. It wasn't on, but the lens cap was still off.

"Up until I climbed down, Mr. Cloak," he replied. He had been video taping, completely hidden, on one of the subdivision roofs. Many people do not realize that he could be quite a competent climber.

"Good job, LH," GH said, beaming. And Leatherhead beamed right back.

"Good," Cloak said, "we have proof of our reasoning for the wall. If charges are filed --"

"I think we need to 'leak' it to the Internet," GH said. "Then the people won't have to take the government's word for it. Because they may just try to supress it just so they can indict us. Remember, not everyone in government are our friends."

"I'm well aware," Cloak said, "and I wasn't suggesting sending them the original copy."

"Yeah, I know, but you know that Bern Brid-- oh, look. Everyone's starting to come around now." GH said. "Even McCarthy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 06:26:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Aftermath

"And here's the RAFians attempt to spin what they did in that subdivision," Bern Bridges droned. "There is a video circulating on the internet, dear listeners, and I tell you this: it was fabricated. It's fake and edited."

He had no proof of this, nor could he be bothered to show any substantial proof.

"They are trying to save their butts, dear listeners. They knew that we knew that they were imposing their rule on us. That's why they took down their wall. That's the reason they tore it down! They knew! My dear listeners, they knew that we were wise to them and their antics. They knew!"

SLUUUUUUUUURP.

"The RAFians, as I've said time and time again, are not heroes. They are not investigators, veterans or the like. They are arsonists, witches, serial killers, werewolves, demons, vampires, murderers -- nothing more than a mafia upon our society that we need to swiftly expunge! A tumorous limb that needs to be amputated, dear listeners."

SLUUUUUUUUUUUURP.

"I had recently came across another questionable murder, with strong connections to one of those self-proclaimed heroes." Bridges spoke with a deliberate conspiratorial tone. "This victim's name happened to be Dimitri. Dimitri --"

***

"I saved your effin' life, McCarthy!!" GH roared into his phone. McCarthy was trying to manipulate GH into wearing the Armadillo Anderson suit again. "Don't give me that!! You know very well what happened!! I saved you from a fate worse than death!!"

Pause.

"You're abusing your power, McCarthy," GH said.

Pause.

"You're abusing your authority!"

Pause.

"You can't force me. Not this time, McCarthy." GH said. "Why not let Andy? He actually wants to wear it."

Pause.

"McCarthy, you seriously power-tripping here," GH said.

Pause.

"Andy said that he WANTED to wear the goddamn thing!!" GH roared.

Pause.

"If it's so important, then why don't you wear it?" GH said. "No, McCarthy, you are not too import--"

Pause.

"That's it. I'm talking to Rosie. This has really gone too far." GH said, angrily, deciding to report him to his superior, a very fair and austere woman named Rosalind "Rosie" Ferris with incredible integrity. And the only real person that McCarthy feared, other than his own mother, who was dead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 28, 2016, 06:57:59 PM

Oh, ****. The end of that Bern Bridges segment... **** gon get real

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2016, 07:01:13 PM

Not really. He was pulling it out of his butt -- guessing, really.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Desire

GH was working, whilst Cerulean had easily dealt with a Kinecceleran DNAlien with a single shot from a G.I.F. (they were getting more reliable), and Saffa was babysitting Leatherhead, who had taken to calling her Auntie Saffa. She couldn't help but be fond of the kid, especially since he knew how to get her to laugh.

Anyway, GH was at work -- NOT wearing the Armadillo Anderson suit. Although, neither was Andy, who was friendly with GH. Platonically though, although GH caught himself . . .

But there was someone wearing it, and sitting on the designate stool. Someone who had some kid pull at the head and gloves and tail, an obnoxious brat who attempted to remove the head and run away with it. Someone who was punched hard in the gut and kicked hard in the nuts by a couple of kids who wanted to seem cool by doing so. It was a very bad day for Armadillo Anderson.

And that is why GH couldn't help himself from smiling a bit. The guy in the suit actually really deserved this kind of treatment. It was almost like some sort of karmic payback, for someone who usually flaunted his authority, someone who abused his power. Someone who was all about appearances, and cknsidered wearing the costume beneath him.

The guy in the mascot suit was McCarthy. It was this or termination, and he chose this indignity.

***

Images of how he wished his relationship with his mother was were flashing before him, a realistic as photographs, as tangible as holograms. He could not bear to look at the images.

"Please, Aniyu," he said, almost tearfully. It reminded him of the world the Black Mercy created for him about nine Dweller months ago. "Please, no more."

"Cloak," Aniyu said, gently, "you must --"

"I know!" Cloak said, sounding like a wounded animal. This wasn't his intention. "Aniyu, I -- I know. It's just that . . . it's just that I . . . I've wanted that for so long."

Cloak took a shuttering breath.

"A mother that didn't keep me at arm's length," Cloak said, "a mother who act as if my opinion mattered . . . as if I mattered . . ."

Aniyu nodded, "I can understand your pain, Cloak," she said, "but holding on to these desires, refusing to admit the true to yourself -- it will just hurt you in the long run. You must accept things as they are. It's fine to wish these things, but not to desperately cling to them and let them poison you and your energy."

"I . . ." Cloak began, but couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2016, 07:13:01 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXII:
THE GREAT BRAIN ROBBERY
CHAPTER ONE:
Strength of Desire

As Yarin took care of a Tetramand DNAlien, GH continued to go to his second job. McCarthy had bungled up, and abused his power right in front of Rosie, who took deep umbrage at this flagrant abuse of authority.

It was not the first time. He actually was written up for it a couple of times, the times when he was caught, which he made sure the others like GH and Andy were unaware and ignorant of. Rosie had had enough. She terminated him, and replaced him with Kenny, a diligent, demure person who doesn't speak anymore words than necessary.

GH was disappointed, as Andy slapped his hand on his back, a sign of friendly solidarity. But it sent butterflies through GH's stomach, despite himself. He decided that they were meaningless, as he considered the possibility that the reason that Rosie didn't choose him was because his status as a RAFian, which didn't have a real high favorability at the moment, in this political climate. Rosie didn't hold that against him, and he actually suspected that she was supportive of the group, but wasn't allowed to come right out and say it.

Anyway, Kenny, on rather friendly terms with with Andy and GH, actually pranked them a little. He told GH that he had to wear the Armadillo Anderson suit the next shift. GH was outraged and Andy disappointed (he always wanted to be one of those Disney walkabout characters, but he was intimidated by auditioning). But these feeling of outrage and disappointment quickly evaporated, when Kenny laughed deeply, and it became obvious that he wasn't really serious.

"You got me," GH accused, as GH noticed Andy's emerald green eyes twinkling. GH pulled his gaze away from him, wondering why he was doing this.

"Andy, d'you think you can wear it for the next shift?" Kenny said, with a knowing smirk on his face.

"You bet your butt I can," he replied, with a small, shy smile. Suddenly, GH wondered if it was a little warm in the restaurant, he forced himself to work on the task at hand.

***

"You need to let it go, Cloak," said Aniyu, simply.

"I'm trying . . ." Cloak said, on his knees.

"I know that it's hard," Aniyu said, gently. "But this must be done if any progress is to be made."

Cloak said nothing. It was hard to let go what he thought his mother should be, to let go of the family life that he had so ardently desired for so long. After he was no longer in the "cute" stage of development when he was a cub, she kept him at arm's length, uninterested in him as a person. Leaving him wanting, wanting for a parent-child connection, one she denied him because she was either too full of herself or disappointed that he wasn't female like his sisters, Cloak wasn't sure.

But he couldn't let go of this wish. This wish for things to have gone over better. But, the fact of the matter was that he was the son of a complete and utter narcissist. Nothing was gonna change that. Nothing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2016, 10:37:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Malicious Liaisons and Attractions

It was dark and dank, at what appeared to be some sort of colonial pier. The night was wrought with mist and spooky manner. A cloaked figure stood in silhoutte against the misy moor, almost like a specter or some inhuman agent of evil.

When another figure appeared, it was more comical in appearance, almost ruining the dark and gritty atmosphere of the situation. This tall, gangly figure wore a filthy, hideous-looking smock, a tye-dyed shower cap, a black jacket, black slacks and pennyloafers. He possesses a cybernetic left eye and had a prosthetic claw for a left hand and lower arm.

"You," said the cold, indifferent voice of the hooded, cloaked figure, "are late, Martin Ekzacto."

"A thousand apologies, my patient friend," he said. "And it's Dr. Ekzacto."

"Yes, and I'm sure you got that doctorate at an accredited school, too," the cloaked figure said, scathingly. "You know why we have gathered here this day."

"Actually, no, I don't," he said in a voice very like Dr. Ficklestein from "Nightmare Before Christmas". "You said something about allowing me to -- live my dream?"

Malice stepped into the light, and said, "Oh, yes, something like that, I think."

If Ekzacto was aware of Malice's innate malevolence, he didn't show it, but eager said, "Then let's get started shall we?"

***

GH continued to go about his job, stealing glances at Andy every so often. The difference between him and McCarthy (and even GH himself) in the suit was remarkable. Really very remarkable.

It was clear that neither GH and McCarthy wanted to do it. Their body language and GH's flagrant disregard for the silence rule that was a given for all mascots was felt by the patrons and the kiddies. They became more hostile and aggressive to match.

Andy wasn't that way. Not at all. He wouldn't sit down, he went and interacted with all the kids and families. He did not speak, and the kids didn't seem afraid. Some even shrieked with delight. Sure, there was the obnoxious kid or two, but Andy managed to easily dodge their blows, and GH wondered how he could do that. He knew how the visibility in that suit sucked.

But he had work to do. He had to focus on that. But he couldn't help but look, just once -- no! He had to focus on his work! He had to . . . but, god, it was difficult. He didn't know why he was doing this. Not consciously, anyway.

GH wasn't neglecting his duties, of course, but everytime he walked by or Andy moved by him, he couldn't help but notice. And he, despite himself, found himself looking a secind too long each and every time.

But he subconsciously knew. He knew, subconsciously, just why he felt so hot under the collar around Andy. His subconscious knew what his conscious mind refused to pick up on.

He was crushing. Crushing on Andy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 29, 2016, 10:42:28 AM

D'awwwwwww :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2016, 10:06:52 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Ah-Choo

In a lonely, desolate tower, Dr. Ekzacto had strapped a kid with a tinfoil hat on. The kid was stout, little neck, and large, prominent feet. He appeared to be wearing footie pajamas.

"Young man," Ekzacto said, "I'm afraid you have a very serious mental malady. The problem originates in this general area -- here -- in what we in the medical profession call the brain. You see, boy, it's just no good! Sorry to be so blunt, but you have a travesty of insanity!"

"What's wrong with my brain, doctor?" the impressionable lad asked.

"How should I know? I'm a dentist!" Ekzacto said. "But here's what I do know. If a tooth is bad, you pull it!"

"What are you getting at?" the boy asked.

"Yep," Ekzacto said, rushing to get his surgical supplies as he continued, "that brain's gotta come out, son. It the quickest way to cure what you got! Insanity of the mind!"

The boy's protests fell on deaf ears, as Ekzacto waved them away.

"Now," he said, "this will only hurt until your brain comes flying out."

Then he sprayed the boy's face with some sort of glowing green sneezing powder and the boy . . . sneezed out his brain. Ekzacto picked up the brain with a covetous look, before considering the body, which asked, "TV?"

"Shillar!" he cried to his mentally-vacant, hunchbacked assistant, "as much as Fox News needs the ratings, send that body downstairs for processing!"

***

"Red Ketchum, 10. Ethan Jameson, 11. Kris Taylor, 12. Brendan Birch, 13. May Birch, 13." Yarin said. "Those are the names we have of missing kids believed to have been kidnapped."

"Kidnapped by what, exactly?" Cloak said.

Helen had glanced at GH at this moment, and she smiled, apparently recognizing something that the ultimate guitarist that he himself refused to see. He was tempted to say, "What?"

"And why?" Saffa asked. Neither of them noticed the knowing look Helen was giving GH. "Why kidnap these kids?"

"Was there any link between them?" Abby asked.

"None," Yarin said, "as far as we can tell."

"There has to be some correlation," Gaz said thoughtfully. Laserbeak squawked. "No, Beaky, I don't think its because of that."

She didn't elaborate on what he said, so that the others assumed that it was something lewd or irrelevant. They didn't want elaboration on that.

"Perhaps not a tangible correlation, but an intangible one?" Spectre speculated.

"Possible," Cloak answered, "but that opens it to being a complete myriad of possibilities. Possibilities that we cannot begin to guess at without more concrete information."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2016, 07:28:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Blame Game

"And here we are again, dear listeners," the ugly monolith known as Bern Bridges said. "Missing kids -- Red Ketchum. Ethan Jameson. Kris Taylor. Brendan and May Birch. Lief Trevor. Lucas Diamond. Dawn Donaldson. Lyra Hart. Hilbert Black. Hilda White. Nate and Rosa Grey. Calem Xavier. Serena Youngblood."

It was unknown just how many of those he made up, because he assuredly made up a couple.

"All missing. All kidnapped." he intoned conspiratorially. "And who kidnapped these innocent children do you ask? The answer is very simple, dear listeners. The RAFians -- those vigilantes are now, once again, robbing us of our children! Not to mention that I have it under good authority that several of the RAFians themselves are underage!"

SLUUUUUUUUURP.

"What we have here, dear listeners," he said, with the same conspiratorial tone, "is a cesspool of corruption. Much worse, it is a government-funded cesspool! They need to be defunded! I don't know about you, dear listeners, but I don't want my tax dollars to go to such a vile vigilante group when our police or military services can do just fine. They are extraneous, superfluous!"

He pounded his meaty fist on the table.

"Unnecessary!" he declared, spittle flying from his lips. "They don't have a right to exist in this unified form. They are lying and manipulating us, dear listeners. Don't believe the anecdotes or the ridiculous ruses that these creatures and people are heroes. Actions speak louder than words, dear listeners! Their actions have been anything but heroic!! They throw away lives like no one's business. And they don't care!! They don't care, dear leaders. They don't care about me, they don't care about you, they don't care about your children."

SLUUUUUUUUUURP.

"Don't believe the hype, dear listeners, don't fall prey to the veneer of heroics that seem to be on the surface. They are criminals. Consorting with demons, aliens, witches, werewolves and the like." he said, dropping the conspiratorial tone abruptly. "They posture themselves as heroes, but they would abandon you in a second that it wasn't in their self-interest! They would abandon you without a second thougt, dear listeners, the mere moment it is against their self-interest."

SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR P.

"A few days ago, maybe a week, a video they took went viral," he acknowledged pompously, "I have it on good authority to say that that video was faked. There wasn't a scrap of proof in it, just really amateurish and hackneyed CGI. It was grossly doctored, and you're an absolute idiot if you take it at face value, if you believe it to be true."

SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UURP!

"If you argue that thst video was true, I will only say this, GROW UP and STOP allowing yourself to be so easily swayed." he said, as if he was the authority of such things. "But that's all the time we have to today, dear listeners. I shall see you here tomorrow, then. Goodbye, and God bless."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2016, 11:12:20 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Bait

Out in a deserted avenue stood a boy between The ages of twelve and thirteen. He wore a brillant blue cast on his right arm and hand (indicating a broken hand), pressed khaki slacks, white shirt with a pocket protector, and thick-framed glasses. His sapphire blue eyes were hidden behind the glint of his glasses, but projected a certain strength of mind and will, and his stringy, limp hair looked as if it was a barber's blooper. He was incredibly tall for his age, rail thin and not muscular in the least.

And there he stood, looking scared and nervous, clutching a book -- "A Brief History of Timel -- like armor, holding it tightly to his chest. Didn't help that it was rather chilly out and he wasn't exactly dressed for the occasion. He looked rather out of place on this abandoned, bricked street corner.

That's when the car pulled up, blacker than night with silver hubcaps. The window was drawn down just a inch or less. The driver a man, or a woman with a husky masculine voice, spoke, "Need a ride, son?"

The boy looked apprehensive at the offer. He clearly was a long way from home, and didn't fancy getting there on foot. Granted, that didn't answer he got here in the first place. But he hesitated.

"Now, now, boy," he or she said, "I don't mind. I don't mind at all."

Still he hesitated, as breezy as it was at this cool time of year. He knew better. He knew not to accept rides from strangers. He knew that. But his resolve was dissolving with each wind gust.

"C'mon, now, son" he or she said, "it's far too cold to be walking out there. Especially without a jacket. Lemme take ya on home."

This wasn't right. He didn't know this person. He didn't even know of he or she was a he or she. He could not see her face, as the windows appeared to be tinted to an illegal degree. It was so very tempting. . . . But no. No, he must refuse. He didn't know this person. He --

"Son, are you sure you don't want a ride? It's getting dark out. Might even rain." the driver said, still refusing to show his or her face. The driver only waited for a moment more of hesitation from the boy. "Well, then, if you're sure . . ."

"No, wait!" the boy said. He had a sort of like a cross between Mandark from "Dexter's Lab" and a nasally teenager. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

With that, he got into the card and they sped off, but not into the direction the boy's supposed home, but a very obvious detour. But this was not unnoticed, as two figures were watching from a rooftop. They had watched the kidnapping and done nothing to stop it.

The taller one said, "He's in."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2016, 02:56:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Taking and Tracing

"This isn't the right way," the boy said. "I said my turn off was on the left."

The driver said nothing, and the boy, who was seated in the backseat on the passenger side, thought he felt his seat belt, both the lap belt and the shoulder belt, tighten unusually.

"Ma'am?" the boy asked. The belts were uncomfortably tight now, as if they were trying to bind him to the seat. This wasn't going at all the way he would have liked, or at least that's what the driver believed. Things were not what they appeared. When the boy spoke again, his glasses tumbled to the edge of his nose as his voice sounded rather constricted, "Ma'am?"

No reply. The boy could not see out of the window very well, but knew this was not the path to his home. Or that's what the driver had been led to believe, as the boy was complaining about it.

Suddenly, a semi-opaque partition separated the front seat from the back and all windows were up. The backseat was permeated with a knock out gas the color of toxic waste. The boy was knocked out, his book and glasses dropping to the car floor with a clatter and a heavy THUNK.

Once the gas cleared, siphoned out of the area, having served its purpose, the driver stopped the car and then lowered the partition all the way. Unsurprisingly, it was Ekzacto's hunchbacked assistant, Shillar. She had graying blonde, flyaway hair and wore a rather large muumuu in a pink floral print design and what appeared to be mismatched oven mitts, and lacy socks with orthopedic shoes. Her natural voice was a deep, masculine voice, so it was easy for her to be mistaken as one.

She wasn't quite as mindless as she appeared, but she had unwavering loyalty to Dr. Ekzacto, which is why he made her in such a way. But she wasn't smart enough to discover the ruse. . . .

***

"Got the coordinates?" Cerulean asked Cloak as they stood on the building.

"The tracker that Underseen took is broadcasting at these coordinates," Cloak said, giving Cerulean the coordinates. "It's stopped, but there is no reason yet to believe that it is the HQ."

"You think they have some sort of citadel island?"

"As cliché as it is," Cloak replied, "yes. Yes, I do."

"These villains really have no originality, do they?" Cerulean inquired.

"Eh," Cloak said, with a shrug, keeping a diligent eye on the transmitter, "there's no accounting for villainous tradition, I guess."

"Should I get going?" Cerulean asked.

"Yes," Cloak said. "But don't be seen. That is imperative."

And the speedster sped off to do his duty. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2016, 05:20:33 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
To the Island

Shillar picked up the boy that Underseen was disguised as, began to lug him to the pier, showing her uncommonly prodigious strength. Underseen wasn't as knocked out as he would appear, as he was still quite conscious. He was just pretending so as to sell it toward this single-minded hunchback, as he did not know their base of operations were. The fact that he still held his shape was a key to his continued consciousness.

Shillar wasn't aware of Underseen's true identity, she was just aware of the one that he just conjurered up with this form. Shillar did whatever her boss told her to do, despite of the morality of it or not, and all she knew was that he wanted brains, good, strong, powerful brains. So why she was kidnapping children, whose brains weren't done maturing, was anyone's guess. Might be because of her rather rudimentary intelligence, although that would just be conjecture.

In any case, she lugged him from the pier and into a small rowboat. Underseen was sorely tempted to groan just to see her panic at the very thought of him coming round, but that very well might have screwed up the mission, so he abstained. But pretending to be knocked out? It was rather dull, tedious work. He might have even drifted in and out of sleep, which silently alarmed him because he worried that he may have reverted to a white, gelatinous form.

But, to his silent relief, he didn't. He had maintained his form consistency and density. Fortunately, he must have exercised some subconscious control over his shapeshifting. This was truly a relief.

Finally, the boat bumped onto some bank or shoreline -- Underseen dared not open his eyes or alter his form in the slightest to see which exactly. All he knew is that he had the transmitter, the transponder, safely tucked away inside his from, like he did with the whole fiasco with the ape army. Shillar seemed blissfully unaware of this, and Underseen was glad.

"Gas not worn off yet," she muttered, though Underseen could hear perfectly. He wondered if most of her captives had been coming out of being knocked out by now, he thought to prolong the facade, just to be on the safe side. He drew confidence that the tracking device and the transmitter was working fine.

***

Cerulean had arrived at the car, and, like predicted, Underseen and his kidnapper were gone. This was good. Everything was proceeding like planned. He examined the parked car, seemingly abandoned, and found the things that he had expected. Illegally tinted windows, a poor parking job, those kind of things.

Cerulean's job wasn't to follow Underseen and his kidnapper to whatever citadel they were going to. That's why Underseen was carrying the tracker chip. His job was take their vehicle out of the equation. He looked at the license plate, and it read "EKZACTO!" which Cerulean could not begin to guess the story behind. He wasn't particularly sure that he wanted to.

He opened the door, surprised that they were unlocked, and saw the gas nozzles, cleverly hidden in the upholstery. They clearly could be retracted into the seats in front, but haven't been yet. Cerulean looked to see that the keys were still in the ignition, and he was dumbfounded by this. He would had assumed that they would take some protective precautions!

It had to have been a trap! They must have been betrayed! This was way too easy!

He sped away from the car, to what he felt was a safe distance away. But nothing had happened. He hesitated and waited a few minutes, waited to see if anything happened. Waited . . .

Still nothing happened. Cerulean was cautious, due to his experience as a RAFian. But it was now perfectly clear that nothing was going to happen. It was just the driver's grievous oversight. It would cost them dearly.

Their misstep was his advantage. He would have to exploit it while he could. It was time to call in local law enforcement, but it would have to be an anonymous tip, given how demonized and maligned RAFians were right now. As crazy and inane as it sounds, it would be considered a stigma to take such a tip from a RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2016, 06:59:36 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Impounded and Bound

As it turned out, the car was stolen -- though not reported so until recently -- and illegally modified. The license plate was actually legit, though, and they managed to find who it was registered to.

A dead man. No, a literally dead man.

It was registered to one Morceau "Morry" Bullei. A former General in the army, and actually a contemporary of Louis Cannon. The two did not get along, and he had recently died of complications due to a brain aneurysm. Then he had his name stolen to register a license plate with.

Anyway, the police repossessed the car and impounded it, notifying the true owners, though having trouble reaching them momentarily.

His job done, having prevented the kidnapper from possessing transportation so they could continue abducting more kids, Cerulean returned to the forum. But, on the brief trip there, questions nagged at him.

What if they possessed more than one vehicle? Possible, but doubtful. But it was really possible . . . but he had discovered Underseen's book and glasses props, so this was the right car, but what if they had more than one to evade capture?

What if he had found the wrong one and their was another kidnapper on the loose? Farfetched, but it had the slimmest of plausibilities, nonetheless.

What if the kidnappers paid off some dirty cop? It was possible. They do exist in the local police force. And most, if not all, sported an anti-RAF attitude.

What if they found out the tip came from a RAFian? What would happen then? This he didn't have a satisfactory answer to, that gave him pause, but he decided that all he could do right now was to hope for the best . . .

***

Shillar hauled Underseen, still maintaining his tweenager boy disguise and still pretending to be knocked out, up the many deteriorating floors to Ekzacto's tower base. Many of the lower floors had massive holes and gaps in it, making it look like a platformer game more than a stable dwelling place.

It didn't surprise him that Shillar didn't bring her boss kids in bulk, but it still didn't make sense why she would do it one-at-a-time. She would just have to go right back down and fetch another one from the mainland when whoever her boss was done with him.

It seemed inefficient, though Underseen had no intention on enlightening her to this. His objective wasn't to make them more efficient kidnappers, but locate their HQ. This would allow the others to come here as the cavalry. He was also to find out just what they were doing with these kids.

Suddenly, Underseen felt like he was being dumped into a chair, strapped down tightly. Underseen thought it was safe to pretend to come around.

"Huh? . . . Wha . . ." he said, deliberately slurring his words a little. He did this to effect coming out of a drugged state. He blinked believably blurrily. "Where are my glasses?"

"Shillar, is this a suitable brain?" said a strange man.

"Yessir," she said, placatingly, her voice inexplicably high-pitched now. "It's a really strong one."

There was no way she could know this for a fact. She was clearly just trying to please her master, even if she had to outright lie to him. He clearly did not force her to abjectly honest with him, because evidently he also used her to mill flagrant flattery and praising platitudes.

"Well, we shall see about that!" Ekzacto declared. "Now, little boy, we need you inhalevery dee-- where'd he go?"

Underseen was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2016, 08:13:44 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Brains, Brains, the Musical Fruit

"Where'd he go, Shillar? Where did he go?!"

Yeah, this guy wasn't very mentally stable. Underseen reflected as he hid, quite expertly, in the guise of a small turtle in the most hidden and shadowy corner of the room. Which was odd as the room was round.

"I -- I dunno, Master!" she cried plaintively.

"We needed that, Shillar!" Ekzacto cried. "We needed his brain!!"

"I know, Master, I know!" she said, her terror making her palliative words ineffective. "I'll . . . I'll go find you a replacement brain!!"

Ekzacto's mood swung from being in the throes of anxious anger to calmly contemplative. Yeah, this guy was not the most stable person around.

"Make sure it's a strong one this time," he said. "Selling those suits on the black market can only bring in so much, you know."

"Yes, Master. I know, Master!" she said, servile and slavish.

"You know without powerful brains, full of psychic potential, the Think Tanks and the Train of Thought are mere pipe dreams!" he monologued. Underseen wondered why every villain seems to enjoy that nonsense. "Imagine the world where such monstrous armaments are wondrously functional? Imagine such a beautifully dystopian world. Nicely post-apocalyptic and everything!"

That settles it, Underseen observed from his little corner of the world, this guy is TOTALLY insane!

"It's a sweet dream, Master," Shillar said sycophantically.

"What? You still here?" Ekzacto said, dismissively. "You were supposed to be getting me a new brain, Shillar!! I would use yours, but I need strong and powerful ones. So, get going!!"

She was hasty to comply with this direct order, leaving Underseen to wonder if she was enchanted to be obedient like a house-elf, because she didn't seem to be under the Imperius Curse, but Underseen wasn't an expert.

"Brains! Brains! The musical fruit!" Ekzacto "sang". "The more you have, the more you woot!"

Underseen rolled his turtle eyes, in annoyance. The tracking device was still intact and transmitting their coordinates. And Ekzafto was still none the wiser for it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2016, 09:14:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Dude, Where's My Car?

Shillar quickly climbed down the crumbling building infrastructure. She had not given any mind to the abusive words of her master, grateful to being in his employ. She would have never betrayed him, the though of which actually never crossed her limited mind. She didn't have a thought, didn't have an opinion, didn't have a stance, on anything that wasn't given to her.

She had clinked open the wrought iron gate, and left the old abandoned sanitorium. She decended the staircase to the shoreline, to the two-person rowboat. The real reason she went and got them one-at-a-time. She would probably be able to bring more if she could just take their brains out directly and then bring them to Ekzacto. But the insane dentist demanded to be the one to do it, as he wanted that . . . pleasure.

Shillar, as mentioned, didn't have a thought about this, as Ekzacto didn't give her one on this topic. So she didn't mind the trek, the platforming that she was required to do to get down to this boat. But there was a major problem with needing to be given specific instruction, because some things are incredibly obvious that Ekzacto neglected to give Shillar the specific instructions to that -- like taking car keys with her and locking the car doors.

As she docked the rowboat, and left the oars inside the rowboat. She turned on her voice distorter, which made it difficult to tell whether her voice was a man or a heavily-masculine woman. Then she looked around, and was confused.

The car wasn't here.

This didn't make sense to her. She parked it here. It should be here. Yet it was not. She needed it to be here. Yet it was not. She needed to it to procure more brains for the doctor. But it was not here.

"Lose something?" came a disdainful voice.

She did not answer. She had a mission, a duty, an objective, to accomplish. Answering anonymous voices was not part of it. She had to get a new brain for the doctor. She neded the car to do that. She wasn't as accustomed to being stymied like this as you may expect.

"Lose something?" the goice repeated, and Shillar ignored it. "Like . . . a car?"

Now, the voice had her attention, as it could be seen as an addendum to her objective. She couldn't see who the voice belonged to, but that wasn't important. This person knew where her car was.

"Where is it?" she said, in that husky-but-strangely-androgynous voice. The voice did not answer question. She demanded, "I said, 'where is it'?!"

No answer, but she saw at roughly ten o'clock to where she was facing flashing blue and red lights. She wasn't given a thought as to what those things were or what they represented.

But, fortunately for her, she didn't resist arrest, which would work in her favor. At least a bit, especially when it was clear that she wasn't competent enough to stand trial.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2016, 03:36:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Cavalry Readies

Cloak watched as Shillar was taken away in handcuffs, not competent enough to understand her wrongdoing, while Cloak hidden in shadow. He looked at the tower, their next goal. That's were they had to go next.

Cloak looked at his team, for all of the RAFians heard Ekzacto's rambling about Think Tanks and the Train of Thought. The Realm Walker's glance passed from one to the the other.

Hunter. He was armed with his usual two guns, and looked confident in his abilities.

Aquilai. He looked prim and proper, armed only with his sonic screwdriver.

Helen. Her Star Sapphire ring was fully charged and she was ready to kick butt.

Dino. She was in her compact form, as the tower would not support her full weight and length.

Dylan. His small cape was blowing in the breeze and he had a rather childish bravado about him.

Damien. He had a very special pen out which he wouldn't elaborate on its purpose, just referring to it as a very special pen.

Finally, GH. He looked distracted as Helen gave him that same annoying look that he was coming to despise. What did she know that he didn't?

Cloak said, "Time to go and end this."

***

"What's this, here?" Ekzacto said, suddenly. Underseen had been discovered. "A turtle managed to penetrate my defenses?"

Underseen fell back on keeping up the pretense. It worked once, who's to say it wouldn't work once more?

"Oh, little turtle," he said, almost affectionately.

Underseen marveled on how well this was working. He wasn't really putting forth an effort to keep up the pretense. All he had to do was pretend like he didn't understand a word that Ekzacto said. That all he had to --

Sudden movement!

Underseen hadn't anticipated it. He hadn't seen it coming. He cursed his foolish complacency, as he curled up into his shell, hoping that Ekzacto would just assume that he was just any old turtle.

"Tonight, I dine on turtle soup."

Oh, wonderful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2016, 07:28:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Storming the Asylum

Undersen couldn't allow himself to become soup naturally, so he shapeshifted into a Helmacron, which easily allowed himself to slip from Ekzacto's grip. And somehow he kept a hand on the tracking device. Then Underseen managed to transform into a turtledive and fly out of the tower, circle it a bit before landing on the ground around Cloak's team.

Ekzacto was coming down the flight of stairs, and then upon a rickety elevator. It was a rather anticlimatic entrance, but not everything in life can be seriously dramatic and daring. It did seem to take forever though.

"Shillar!" he cried out in anger and frustration. "How'd these interlopers get in here?! Shillar!!"

Silence, as no one answered him, which did not please him any great deal.

"Shillar!! Where the devil are you?! SHILLAR!!!"

"Arrested," Cloak said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried across the desolate yard of the crumbling, antiquated, abandoned building.

"What?" Ekzacto snapped.

"You heard me," Cloak said, stepping forward as his fellows readied themselves for battle. They were not foolish enough to be taken off guard by his eccentric dress or his maniac movements and gestures. They were experienced in these kinds of things, in the procedure. "She was arrested, and your kidnapping car was impounded. You cannot kidnape anymore children, you rank pedophile."

To this, Ekzacto laughed. It was an insane laugh of which Jafar would have sued for copyright.

"He's . . . not all there, is he?" GH asked, as this reaction was not what he was anticipating. He, like the others, were expecting the usual bad guy bluster and ideological monologues. This was not any of that.

"Yes, GH," Underseen said, "he's quite insane."

"'Pedophile'? You think me a pedophile?" he said, scornfully. "You poor, unfortunate dolts!"

"Watch yourself, human," Cloak warned.

"I have no interest in those kids," he declared, with a maniacal laugh. "It was their brains that I was after! There bodies were processed to sell at the black market. The money was necessary to finance the ultimate goal."

"Black market?" Helen said, aghast.

"Processed?" Aquilai asked. "How? And to what ends?"

"What ultimate goal?" Hunter said.

"I don't think I wanna eat him anymore," Dino commented.

"I needed their brains for my arsenal," Ekzacto crowed belligerently. "They shall both power and pilot my tanks! Prepare the way for the Train of Thought!"

"Why children?" Helen asked, her revulsion permeating her voice and tone. "Why are you using children?"

"I needed them strong-minded, strong-willed, and powerful," Ekzacto said, enjoying revealing his plan, unaware that his shower cap had toppled off his head, revealing a bald head. "I needed them full of imagination, before life began to beat them down. Imagination translates into psychic power far easier than you may think."

"He can't be serious, right?" Dino asked.

"I think he is," Damien said, seriously. "Or he thinks he is."

"I just had to wipe any of those disgusting filth from them, those pesky memories. Like black mold, they were." he said, enjoying this far more than he should. "Without those memories, they were open to be molded into being killers, loyal only to me. Well, me and my matron."

Matron.

The RAFians all had a shrewd idea who that was.

"She's baaaaaaaack," GH commented.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2016, 08:15:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
He Really Likes to Talk

"These tanks are really awesome, too," he said, almost as if the RAFians were a captive audience. "Really incredible and cool, too!"

"Um, why are we just standing around?" Dino asked.

"They have really cool psychic blast cannons, which can really cause damage without causing any undue collateral damage," he continued, unaware of the fact the RAFians weren't really paying attention.

"He's not really a threat," Aquilai answered.

"They can levitate, too! Really! Actual levitation of up to six feet!" Ekzacto exclaimed, dementedly.

"Dino's right," Helen said, "we should at least incapacitate him."

"They all have flamethrowers, too!" Ekzacto went on, glowing with pride. "Can you believe it? Actual flamethrowers!!"

"Look at him, Helen," GH pointed out, "he's already incapacitated."

"They can also read their enemy's minds! They can even see them through their eyes!" Ekzacto spoke with manic energy.

"I meant, restrain him somehow," Helen said.

"They can even chuck out these yellow energy bombs," Ekzacto said, with a rather mad glint in his eye. "They induce disorientation and confusion to any within their target radius!"

"He's not a real threat," Aquilai repeated.

"And they project powerful psychic and technological shields," he said, with questionable lucidity. "And they are impenetrable!"

"Yeah, he is," Helen said, contradicting the Time Lord, before clarifying, "to himself. A danger to himself."

"And they can use telekinesis!" Ekzacto declared, his lucidity still in question. "They can lift anything under two hundred pounds and throw it!"

"Alright, enough of this," Cloak said, having entertained this far enough. "Let's get this --"

"And they can become completely invisible," Ekzacto said, suddenly sounding and looking quite lucid. And there were several loud thumps around them. Cloak knew instantly, but they deactivated their invisibility. And there were the tanks, the Think Tanks, surrounding them all.

Ekzacto stepped back into the rickety elevator and went back up to the top, as he said, "Have fun."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2016, 06:43:30 AM

Saffa's gonna have a lot of chapters to catch up on.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Think Tanks

There were sixteen of them.

Each was the size of Dino in her compact form (which she swiftly abandoned). They all were shaped rather like the head of the Brain, from "Pinky and the Brain", with glowing, red, robotic eyes and a tank barrel coming right out of the "forehead" of the Brain. Atop this mockup head, almost like a fez, was a transparent, capsule dome which each contained a brain. They looked more grayer than Cloak had expected.

"Gateburst silent levitation," Cloak cursed.

"We're boned, aren't we?" GH said, hand held high, pick in hand. He was aware the limited things he could do.

"Not if I say anything about it!" Dino said, uncharacteristicall y savage. She immediately went for the nearest tank, and opened her massive jaws to bite down, to buckle the hull plating. But she was blocked by the forcefield shield, she couldn't even scratch the shield. So she swung her ankylosaurid tail at the shield, to bludgeon it. "Okay, this'll be a bit harder than I anticipated."

GH was playing his heart out, but there was absolutely no effect. The brain pilots had all their memories leeched out, being literally brain-washed. They had no memory of  emotion, and did not know to feel. And, in any case, they couldn't hear, as the tanks didn't really have any audio receptors.

"GH!" Damien said, having tossed what appeared to be a disco ball. He drew it in midair with thar special pen of his. "Hit it!"

GH grasps the neck of guitar, changing it into its axe form with a surge of magical light, and then struck the ball. With a clank, it hit one of the tanks, and hovered in midair, casing a strange energy down on them. Whatever it was intended to, it wasn't working.

"A Groovitron, Damien?" Cloak muttered. "Really?"

Helen blasted them with her ring, but those godforesaken shields blocked each blast.

Aquilai was waterbending water from a water skin he cared around with him ever sense he had been deaged (which reset his regeneration count, so he's the First Aquilai again)  He never had learned how to bloodbend, which he would refuse to learn anyway, and these tanks had no blood, just brains, really. But he had trouble getting through the shielding, as well.

Dylan flew over to his selected tank, punching the tank. Or trying to, anyway. He wasn't able to get through the shields. He wasn't too happy about it, and he was getting frustrated.

Hunter took potshots at the Tanks, but they cannot get through the shielding. His guns couldn't get through the shielding. He was wasting ammo, and he didn't have an unlimited store of it. He found himself wishing that he did, though.

The tanks looked to be impenetrable, just as Ekzacto claimed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2016, 09:02:09 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Shields Down

Cloak hadn't made an attack, just dodged the flamethrower bursts and psionic blasts as the others did. The tanks were made of metal . . . no, wait. They were Antarctic vibranium -- antimetal. How did he manage to procure so much of the material? Cloak was under the impression that such a material was not common in this realm, if it existed at all.

He reasoned that the Antarctic vibranium was just hull plating, as there was obvious electronics and if that antimetal went all the way through, that wouldn't really be possible, Cloak reasoned.

"Cloak!" GH roared. "DO SOMETHING!"

Cloak looked around and saw GH somehow got atop one and was riding it rather like a bucking bronco. Cloak didn't want to know just how he managed that.

"Clooooooooooooooooo oooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaak!!" GH said, as the tank decided to rotate as if it was using a Gyro Ball attack. "Stoooooooooooop thiiiiiiiiiiiis thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin g!!"

Cloak leaped toward the bucking tank, and he projected the shield again, which enclosed over GH. This surprised him, actually, as he assumed he was sitting atop it. Cloak wreathed his claws in golden-scarlet energy, and he dug them into the shielding, like a tiger digging them into its prey. And the thing about feline claws is that they are designed to pull themselves further into what they have impaled. So, Cloak's claws had made their way through the shielding (with Cloak marveling on how thin the shield actually was), and pulled his hands apart. This was enough to shatter the shielding for this one tank.

"Aquilai!" Cloak called. "Over here! Now!"

Aquilai acquiesced, didging fire and psychic blasts.

"Whatcha need?"

"Disconnect this brain from the tank," Cloak said, more authoritatively then he intended, "then do it for the rest of the tanks while the others have 'em distracted. I'll shredbmore of their shields, but remember, these are innocent brains they deserve to live until they are reunited with their proper bodies."

"Recranialized," GH suggested, looking a bit worn.

"I got this," Aquilai, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. To what purpose, Cloak didn't know. There were still fifteen tanks for him to deal with. He went off to take care of that.

He ripped their shields to shreds, proving that they were not actually as impenetrable at Ekzacto believed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 03, 2016, 10:06:36 AM

Just a normal day in the life of gh ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2016, 09:07:06 PM

Any RAFian, really.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Short Work

Meanwhile, Damien had drawn up something he called a "fourth-dimensional bag", which essentially functioned like a magic satchel, and he and GH were gathering up the "brain jars" into it after Aquilai safely detached them. This effectively made the tanks useless and inert.

"Alright," Cloak said, "next thing to do is to make sure that these things don't fall into the wrong hands."

"How?" Underseen asked.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry," Cloak said. "But the rest of you go ahead and apprehend that cackling psychopath. Don't hesitate."

"Um, Cloak . . ." Dino said. Even in her compacted form, the elevator would not be kind to her or her saurian weight.

"Dino and I will take care of this," Cloak swiftly amended. "Then I'll -- sorry, Dino -- then I'll be along shortly thereafter."

They acquiesced, and either took the elevator or simply flew up to the tower.

"Sometimes being a big dinosaur really sucks," Dino groused.

"Take heart," Cloak said. "We all have our limitations."

"Thank you, Mr. Being-Without-Limits," Dino said, unable to conceal her bitterness.

"Despite appearances," Cloak said, "even I have limits."

"Like what?"

"My business," Cloak said, repressively. "Now, to take care of the tanks."

Cloak extended his arms, and then slow moved his hands closer together. Crushing the tanks into a crumpled ball of metal and whatnot. Cloak continued to crunch and compact them together, until he created a solid ball of metal the size of a laundry hamper. Utterly useless to anyone as a weapon of mass destruction.

"Yeah, you have limits, alright," Dino said, sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Cloak didn't know she could do that in such a saurian form, but he didn't deign to answer.

"Make sure he doesn't come out here," Cloak said, deflecting the previous subject, "I'm goin' up."

Dino said nothing, feeling rather moody, but acknowledged it with a curt nod.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2016, 10:24:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Mastermind is . . . You-Know-Who

With the RAFians in the circular tower room with Dr. Ekzacto, it was rather cramped, and everything behind the demented dentist shrouded in darkness.

"It's over," Helen said. "Come quietly."

"Please don't," Dylan said, cracking his knuckles.

"Parker isn't training with you anymore," Helen said, firmly. "Neither is Demos."

"Wait a minute," Hunter said, sensing something was wrong.

"Is he . . . is he okay?" Aquilai said, eyeing the demented dentist with concern. The dentist had not moved an inch since they arrived. He had not spoken once. He did not even seem to be breathing.

"Is he even breathing?!" GH asked, appraisingly.

Then Ekzacto's head tumbled from his shoulders, and rolled to a stop in front of Damien's left shoe.

"Yeah," Damien said, "I think he's dead."

"What was your first clue?" GH asked rhetorically.

Damien gave the head a small, swift kick, sending it rolling towards his body, which was no slumping to the ground, dead. "That," Damien answered, despite knowing it was a rhetorical question.

"Who -- ?"

"Such a pity," came a cruel, cool voice who clearly took delight in the murder. "And he came so highly recommended. Ho hum."

"I know that voice," Aquilai said.

"Oh, you know who it is, Aquilai," GH said, pragmatically, "who else schemes like this against us?"

"Bern Bridges?" Damien asked.

"No, the other one," GH said.

"Chuck Norris?"

GH gave him a look so dirty that Damien was lucky that GH wasn't Medusa.

"Malice," Cloak said, making his presence known to the others.

"Cloaky, dear," Malice said with venomous honeyed tones. "You've trained your little Dweller pets in remedial deductive reasoning!"

"Shut up, Malice," Cloak growled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 03, 2016, 10:27:25 PM

Funny that, since I actually do really hate Chuck Norris jokes :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2016, 08:36:50 AM

Which is why Chuck Norris v. Sega Sanchiro is one Death Battle I don't watch too frequently.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Wily Malice

"Oh, hit a nerve, little Cloaky?" she taunted.

Cloak said nothing.

"What's the matter, little Cloaky? Cat got your tongue?"

"Why?" Cloak said, seriously, as the others were still looking at the dead dentist. Malice had killed him in cold ichor.

"What?"

"Why are you doing this?" Cloak said, voice completely dull and mirthless.

"Because I can!" she declared.

"That's not an answer," Cloak countered.

"But it is, dear little Cloaky!" she said. "I do this because I can, because it's fun and entertaining to me. There is no deeper motivations. You don't know the endless joy, the unbridled ecstasy, of coming up with a scheme that confounds and perplexes you. The Dwellers are just rats, but enjoyable to watch them either suffer or overcome, either one is entertaining, I think. I have no other reason."

"That is completely asinine."

"Eh, each to their own, then," she shrugged, completely unintimidated.

"The Dwellers aren't your toys, Malice," Cloak said. "They are living, thinking ,feeling people, just as you and I. Why is that so hard for your clade of Realm Walkers to understand? You cannot just meddle with and upturn their lives like you do."

"Meddling, am I?" Malice said, being coyly vitriolic. "What about you, little Cloak? You meddle in the affairs of Dwellers just as much as I do. Perhaps more! You have far more day-to-day contact sith them than I do. Your mere presence in there lives is meddling. So, you cannot call me a meddler without being a hypocrite."

Cloak said nothing. He couldn't come up with an argument he found suitable.

"Don't listen to her Cloak," GH intoned. "You aren't anything like her."

"Oh, your pet is talking out of order, little Cloaky, I think you need to disipline it." Malice said, with a smile to match her name.

"'It'? Really?" GH said, with scathing derision.

Malice said nothing, as Dylan had had just about enough of this. He charged forward, either not knowing that Realm Walkers can only be killed by other Realm Walkers or simply forgetting that fact. He punch Malice square in the jaw, and . . . have it spring up like a jack-in-box. She pulled a Dr. Wily.

"It's not the real Malice," Cloak said. "That's why she was so candid with her thoughts."

"She Doombot-ed us?" Damien asked, aghast.

"Essentially," Cloak said, crushing the mockup into a metal sphere the size of ball bearing. "But we're not done here, yet. We need to find the bodies that belong to the brains in those jars."

"To recranialize them, right?" GH asked.

"Right," Cloak agreed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2016, 05:14:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Dino's Dreadful Discovery

Not content to just sit around and do nothing, Dino decided to begin her own investigation. While the others were off confonting that demented dentist, she would discover what happened to the kidnapped victim's bodies. She would prove that she could still pull her weight on this mission.

She prowled toward some area of the island that didn't smell so desiccated and neglected. As she approached, she started to smell other . . . things. Things that were both fresher than anything around, but newly stale, if that makes any sense. That scent . . . it made her stomach plummet, but she did not know why.

Then she nosed her way into a rather enclosed workshop, whose garage door was large enouh for her to fit her compacted form into. The scent led her here, but what was here?

She looked around, her vision not exactly the most acute in the world, and the lightning inside here was terrible to boot. But that scent. She did not know why, but, though stale, it reminded her of something.

Then it suddenly hit her. Skinwalker. Warwolves. Billion. That smell.

"What didja find, Dino?" Dylan asked. The others had caught up to her.

"I don't know, I can't see much."

"Count yourself lucky, then," Cloak said darkly, as Damien found a light switch which sparked the three overhead lamps into life rather ominously. The others wished to not have seen what Cloak's feline eyes had easily penetrated the semidarkness to spot.

It was essentially a taxidermy studio. Only the skins weren't animals and they weren't affixed to anything. They were just skinsuits, not unlike those of Skinwalker, the Warwolves, or Billion. And it was clear that they were at one time living beings.

This is what Ekzacto meant by processing. And this what he meant by selling them on the black market. Selling them, with new identities, to the highest bidder, to people who wanted to relive childhood again.

It was a truly barbaric act, one of which the implications were not lost on the RAFians. Especially because other than Serena Younblood's empty skin, they had

***

GH began his shift the next day with his mind full. He was still thinking about the implications of the last mission, about just how many families will have to be without their loved ones, how many will be mired in the uncertainty of knowing their fate. How much pain and anquish must they feel?

GH was almost mechanically doing his job, going from muscle memory and such, without really taking in anything, unless he had to.

No one was dressed as Armadillo Anderson today, and it was only moderately busy. Nothing too terribly bad. Yet GH was distracted, mind full.

"Whoa," Andy said, as GH nearly crashed into him. "Careful there, Lewis."

"Andy? What are you doing here?" GH asked. He felt a little fluttered, but he refused to acknowledge it. "I thought you were off."

"Oh, I came by to pick up the new schedule," he said, "but are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You look distracted."

"It's . . . nothing," GH said, being less than honest.

"Oh," he said, apparently gathering some insincerity from GH's tone but didn't push him on it. "Well, see you in three days then."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2016, 06:03:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Desire and Selfishness

"I'm trying!" Cloak said to Aniyu. Cloak was doing this while Faerie was off fighting a Lepidopterran DNAlien. He was starting to think she got of easy.

"I didn't say you weren't, Cloak," Aniyu said, evenly.

"I know," he said, sounding more like a child than an adult.

"But you need to let this go," she intoned again. "It's okay to have desires, but not to obsessively cling to them."

Cloak said nothing.

"You must accept that life is not as idealistic as you wish," Aniyu said. "Things will happen that conflict with what you wish of these things. People, regardless of their species, race, or gender, possess flaws. Everyone has them, and desiring an unrealistic standard --"

"It wasn't an unrealistic standard!" Cloak said, responding with anger. The orange, thorny vines briefly turned scarlet before reverting to bright orange. "All I wanted was a loving mother. She stopped when I stopped being cute. She wanted the cub, not the tiger. The child, not the man."

"Yes," Aniyu said, calmly. "But she is a flawed being, just as you and I."

Cloak said nothing.

"It is fairly common for children, from a young age, to put their parents up on pedestals," she continued. "This way of viewing them can persist into adulthood. But they are as flawed as you and I. It takes a wise man or woman to see this."

Cloak said nothing, but pondered on this.

***

"Red?" said a woman, Ms. Ketchum.

She was desperate to see her son again. She felt very much aggrieved for her lax parenting, considering she was a single-parent. She just wanted Red to have more freedom than she did as a girl. She condemned herself for being too permissive.

So when she saw a boy with black hair, blue jeans, sneakers, black shirt and blue jean jacket . . . he looked so much like him! It . . . it had to be him! It just had to be! Her mistake didn't cause him his life! She could be forgiven. She could have her son back. He was alive! She knew it!

"Red?" she said, positively palpable with hope, as she walked up to him. She even tentatively touched his shoulder, as the boy had his back to her.

"Who?" the boy said, turning around. Even his face resembled Red's a great deal. He could have been his twin. The boy spoke with a very disrespectful tone, "Lady, my name's Ash."

"Oh," Ms Ketchum said, taken aback, "Sorry. My mistake."

The she walked away as the boy looked at her with an almost lecherous stare. Something your average ten-year-old did not have for a number of years. This was not any ordinary ten-year-old.

As the kid turned to go to his home, a lowly apartment in a less . . . glamorous part of the city, it is revealed that he really wasn't a kid, as he stopped into a private bathroom, and Larry Dunn stepped out instead.

The kid actually was Red. His skin, anyway. And Larry was just wearing his skin like a costume or one of those morphsuit things. For no other reason but to be a kid again. He bought it (with stolen money) from the black market, and used it rather frequently.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2016, 06:35:42 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

BOOK CXXIII:
THE BOUNTY HUNTER
CHAPTER ONE:
Desires Conquered and Unacknowledged

"Alright," Cloak said, with a heavy sigh, "alright. I get it."

He was back with Aniyu.

"Desires can either be fulfilled or unfulfilled," he continued. "Those that go unfulfilled, those that involve a person changing, will just weigh me down. A person can only change if they want to change. No one can force them."

Cloak took a deep sigh, as the thorny vine brambles when from a bright orange to a duller and duller shade with each word.

"Oh no," Cloak said immediately, when saw what was behind the orange thorns. It was bright yellow thorny brambles.

"This layer," Aniyu said, "will have to do with --"

"Fear." Cloak finished.

***

As Horse Was battling Piscces Volann DNAlien, GH was in his thread, teaching Leatherhead to play a keytar. He would have rather he have learned drums or something, but Leatherhead wanted to learn the keytar.

Yet, part of his mind lingered. Lingered on Andy's last words.

"See you in three days."

Remembered the slight crook in his lips as he gave that small smile. The way his hair moved and sm--

No, it was a ploy. He was probably a Yeerk whose mission was to get close to him or something. Some way to get close to RAF and the RAFians to . . . to . . .

No, he didn't know GH was a RAFian. GH hid his Mark from him. Especially prudent considering RAF's less-than-favorable standing. And their schedules didn't allow them to see each other at work for the next three days, this was true.

It wasn't anything to be lingered on. But why was he? Why could he be . . . no, that wasn't the reason. It couldn't be. Not especially after Dimitri . . .

"Daddy? What's wrong?" Leatherhead asked, having watched him with concern.

"Nothing, LH," he replied, with feigned geniality. "It's nothing."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2016, 07:27:42 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Tsul 'Kalu

"I have a job for you," said a distainful voice. It was a distorted voice that sounded as if it came from one of those voice modulator things.

The voice was addressing a humanoid creature with a rather canine face, slanted eyes like a cat, and a rather gigantic stature. This creature carried a crossbow, a blowdart and blowgun, tomahawk, a strange flute that could produce sonic waves, and probably more unseen weaponry. The creature was kneeling before his employer. He was not an alien, but as Terran as any human. But he was not human. He was a Tsul 'Kalu.

"I have a few items for you to procure," the distainful voice said.

If the Tsul 'Kalu rankled at this, he did not show it.

"They all are at a certain site," the voice said. "It's called RAF."

The Tsul 'Kalu gave no indication he understood this, as he said nothing.

"I require the armor of the SPARTAN," he said. "He calls himself Parker."

A sudden picture -- a grainy, in-motion picture -- of Parker, in full-armor.

"I also require the head of the VOLCAROID," he said, "it's call Sakki."

He was shown a rather unflattering picture of Sakki. She went to beat up the paparazzo who took it shortly after it was taken.

"Next up, the tail-blade of an Andalite," he said. "She calls herself Noelle."

He was shown a picture of Noelle, taken by another paparazzo. She was in her natural Andalite form, feeding.

"Next, there's a talking seal there. I want her pelt," he said. "She calls herself Horse."

He was shown a picture of Horse lazing about, in the lake on the grounds and campus of RAF. The picture was taking with a cracked lens, as the paparazzo didn't learn his lesson from Sakki.

"Finally, there is a guy there wearing a black cloak. I want that cloak." he said. "He calls himself, heh, Cloak."

The only photo he had of Cloak was one of entirely black, save for the glowing amber feline eyes.

"You collect all these items for me," the Tsul 'Kalu's client said, "you'll get your usual fee for each one individually, but if you bring me all of them, you'll get forty percent more."

The Tsul 'Kalu stood up, and bowed. By bowing, he accepted the terms of the bounty. Well, if you could call it a bounty. Then the Tsul 'Kalu left to collect his bounty.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2016, 08:19:57 AM

New chapter. Again, sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Employer

After the Tsul 'Kalu left, his employer revealed himself to have been in the dark room, wearing a black morphsuit thing. He was going to make himself nigh on impossible to see. The Tsul 'Kalu may have had acute eyesight.

But his employer had layered his disguise, as he revealed as he grabbed his belongs as he left his room, and, after making sure that he wasn't watched, entered a private bathroom. He was obviously a child in suit, even proven when he took it off.

But things are never what they seem. This child used to be Brendan Birch. His brain still existed, returned to his mother and father. But his body . . .

He pulled at his mouth, and at his skin, and he sloughed it off. Revealing that he was being worn by Dominic Sluggard, wearing a Slitheen compresion field generator. He had bought Brendan's skin off the black market, but he operates under the name of "Rudy" while wearing Brendan's skin. In case he ever runs into Mr. and Mrs. Birch, who still pine away for their children . . . Brendan and his sister, May.

Sluggard quickly stowed away Brendan's skin, and took out a second one. He was wealthy enough to be able to purchase a second one. Granted he wouldn't be able to get that Rolls Royce now, but it was worth it. And they better last a long time, for what he paid for them.

He quickly pulled on this new skin, which used to be known as Gulliver Dogan, but he's been using the name of "Mark" while where in his skin. This was the first of Ekzacto's victims, and his brain was delivered to his father, who was now totally alone. He pressed his hands on his face to be sure that I would stay, which was actually a moot action, and then he got dressed, and made sure to stuff everything else back into his bag.

Then he walked out, as "Mark", shouldering his bag. Why disguise himself to fund bounty hunter? Well, it was all a matter of appearance. He had to be squeaky clean after that Titan serum fiasco two months ago, to separate him from that mess. That's why he didn't hesitate to buy these two children suits, as they would providing him the perfect cover, as no one ever expects kids, in his view.

No one expects kids to hire bounty hunters. Granted, people could follow a paper trail back to him if the black market ever fails or if he is investigated. He had asked for a receipt, though the product was called an "alt id", which is still pretty obvious shat it means.

And, granted, Sluggard had no intention on paying the Tsul 'Kalu. He would take the items that he secured for him, then was planning on turning around and stiffing him on it.

Sluggard had already proven his selfishness, and his cruelty, with the whole Titan debacle, and that hasn't changed.

He quickly approached his manison, and snuck into a hidden area where he stripped out of the suit, and put on his clothes, before proceeding to his luxurious mansion. One that he inherited, not earned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2016, 07:33:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Horse Furious

Horse was just resting on the shore of the lake, half in the water, half out. She was just enjoying the day, though the others thought it was a bit chilly, Horse had no problems with it. She enjoyed the dappled light thst was coming through the heavily forested cover of the forum.

Being a seal, sometimes had perks, she felt, as she continued her lounging. She even dozed off once or twice. How nice it was, not having to fight off an alien invasion, or stop a supervillain from turning the entire world into tofu or something, for once. They had downtime, and dammit, she was going to enjoy it.

Suddenly, she felt as if she was being lifted up by her tail. She quickly opened her eyes to see the Tsul 'Kalu had grasped her firmly by the tail. She didn't know what the Tsul 'Kalu was, but she did know that it was interrupting her downtime, which she was determined to enjoy.

"Hey, buddrow," Horse said, as the lake water itself actually reached out and grasped the Tsul 'Kalu himself, causing him to drop Horse in surprise. "I want to enjoy my time off. Now, go away please."

Horse acknowledged that clearly Code Avalon was down. Again. Horse quickly translated the water into solid ice,leaving the Tsul 'Kalu one free arm. And access to that flute thing of his.

"Are we done here, yet?" Horse asked, giving the Tsul 'Kasu a withering look. "Or do you really have to make me kill you? I rather not, you know."

The Tsul 'Kalu glared at her stubbornly, and put his flute to his mouth and played one-handedly. A remarkable feat, in and of itself. The sound was sufficient to shatter the ice.

"Lemme guess, you taught GH music," Horse said, dryly. "You wanna go again, little big man?"

The Tsul 'Kalu said nothing, but stared at Horse with that intimidating stare. He appeared to be weighing his options, deciding upon the best course of action. He eyed Horse appraisingly, which she found that she did not like much. It was almost as if he was eying her chi lines or something.

He flung a concealed ball, which expanded out into a net, which she tried to escape into the water to evade, but seals are awkward to move on land. She was easily netted and had difficulty moving.

"You think it's gonna be that easy, think again!" Horse shouted, as she hydrokinetically pulled water from the lake to freeze the net into becoming brittle, and shattering it to pieces. "You want to capture me, buddrow? Put a little more effort into it!"

The Tsul 'Kalu seemed to reconsider his options. He decided that this wasn't worth it for the moment. His employer did not specify an order in which to obtain the items. He could come after the seal later. The seal that he wasn't informed about her hydrokinesis and cryokinesis. No time for bitterness, he would just find another item on the list.

He disappeared into the forest, as Horse huffed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2016, 11:07:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
No Morphing Zone

Noelle was mind her own business, intent on nothing but grazing a bit, trampling the grass underfoot. Like Horse, she was diligently enjoying the downtime, having a graze. She decided that she had had her fill, so she slowed her gallop, feeling invigorated.

She stopped using her stalk eyes to scan her environment, getting complacent in the certainty of RAFian security. It was foolish, of course, but Noelle was a fallable being like any other. Even her tail was a bit more lax in its ready position.

She should have been more aware.

She felt someone take firm hold of her tail. She glared with a rear-facing eye stalk at the Tsul 'Kalu, who had grasped her tail with one hand. The audacity! The unmitigated gall of it! It was deeply offensive to her to have her tail touched in such a rough, unwelcomed manner.

<I don't know who or what you are,> she said, her thought-speak "voice" terse with anger. <But unhand my tail at once!>

The Tsul 'Kalu ignored her, took out a gun, and fired several odd-looking orbs that orbited around her in a most unsavory manner. They were generating a strange energy field, making it feel rather like a cocoon.

<What the --> Noelle blurted.

Then the Tsul 'Kalu took out a knife, and his intention became clear. Noelle tried to kick him with her hind legs, but the orb cocoon prevented her from doing such. She tried to struggle against it as the Tsul 'Kalu raised the knife high.

Morph. She had to morph.

But she . . . she couldn't! She couldn't morph! The orbs were generating some kind of morph dampening field. She couldn't morph while they were active! She couldn't kick! She couldn't do anything to stop him! She was helpless!!

<Please, whatever you are,> she said. Yes, she was pleading, and she hated herself for resorting to begging. <Please don't do this. I beg of you.>

The Tsul 'Kalu seemed to hesitate for a moment before his resolve hardened him as he tightened his grip upon the knife.

<PLEASE> Noelled begged. She wasn't afraid of being a vecol, as she could just morph it back, but the societal significance of tail-blades were still with her, as is the humiliation of having it cut off. <If you have any decency in you, if you have any compassion whatsoever, please don't do this!!"

The Tsul 'Kalu hesitated, but then brought the knife down severing Noelle's tail from her body. Noelle's scream of bloody murder wasn't solely from pain, but it was from the embarrassment and shame of it.

The Tsul 'Kalu recalled the orbs, and walked away with Noelle's tail, blade and all. He did not ever look back, and Noelle morphed to her human form, wracked with tears and sobs. Even when she demorphed and had her tail back, that did not take away the shame of having lost her tail in such a manner.

She was also feeling embarrassed and humiliated. She eventually demorphed back, and her tail was there, renewed and regenerated. But the shame Nd humiliation lingered persistently, like a stalker ex-boyfriend.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 05, 2016, 11:36:03 PM

Oh, god. That was honestly really brutal. Not that that's a bad thing at all, just wasn't expecting it

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2016, 10:23:31 AM

Yeah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Silenced

Sakki was enjoying her downtime by reading a book beneath a birch tree. It was a book that she was meaning to read for a while, but she had been busy, with the missions and all.

She enjoyed the dappled light and the warm, pleasant weather. It was the first time in a good long while that she was able to enjoy such a day. Such a slow, easygoing day.

Pity that it wasn't going to last long.

She tossed her book aside, as a knife embedded in the birch tree behind her. She rolled to her right as this happened. She tumbled to her feet ready for battle.

"God, I should have known that I wouldn't be allowed to have too much time off," she replied jadedly, as the Tsul 'Kalu retrieved his knife, demonstrating a rather impressive amount of strength. Sakki addressed him, "So, what're you? What's your story?"

She didn't know about Noelle's tail, as the Tsul 'Kalu didn't appear to have it on his person. So, that's why she wasn't as hostile as she would have been had he carried it with him, instead of spiriting it away somewhere.

"What? Not talkative? No sweeping monologues of how you're going to beat me? No overly-bigoted ideologies?" Sakki asked. "Well, this is new."

The Tsul 'Kalu threw the knife again, which Sakki dodged easily. She unfolded her mouth to unleash her sonic scream. The Tsul 'Kalu was not prepared for this. He had to cup his hands over his ears, giving Sakki ample time to deliver a swift kick to his thigh and then twist around and deliver a headshot kick with her other leg, before landing rather daintily and gracefully, like a cat.

The Tsul 'Kalu did not go down, but he became more weary. More cautious and less reckless. His employer wanted her head -- literally -- and he hasn't failed but once to procure what he was after. And that once was Horse.

"Not so ****y now, are ya, you hairy bast--" Sakki said, before having to dodge a sudden punch. Apparently, the Tsul 'Kali decided to forgo conventional weaponry for mere fisticuffs. "Okay, enough talking, more smashing. Got it."

This was kind of a mistake on her part. The same that the Tsul 'Kalu made in first picking this battle with her, and Horse. She had underestimated her opponent. He was faster and stronger than she had anticipated, then she had accounted for.

He quickly dodged her strikes, getting behind her, and delivering several quick jabs to her back. It was a feeling like she never knew before. She had never been chi-bocked before, as it was unclear whether or not VOLCAROIDs even had chi to begin with.

She fell in a state of oscillating unconsconsciousness and semiconsciousness. She wondered idly, almost drunkenly, if she would die this day. Die unceremoniously, and slowly. She couldn't . . .

The Tsul 'Kalu stood above her, dagger poised, ready to drop it to decapitate her. Yet he hesitated. This wasn't like the Andalite, who could live without her tail. He dismissed any psychological trauma he might have inflicted as weakness or unimportant, as it was not him enduring such a trauma. And, yet, he still hesitated.

This was his mistake.

For Sakki regained consciousness with an alarming rapidity, and she gave the Tsul 'Kalu a well-deserved scissor kick to the face and chest. Before flipping away, and landing a safe distance away, while still maintaining visual contact with the bounty hunter. The Tsul 'Kalu wasn't prepared for this kind of resiliency.

He went to use the immobilization beads, as he did for Noelle. But Sakki unleashed her sonic scream, which cased them to drop to the ground. The Tsul 'Kalu quickly recalled them, and looked at the VOLCAROID with new eyes.

"Not as easy as you thought, is it?" Sakki growled. All levity had left her. When the Tsul 'Kalu tried the chi-blocking trick again, Sakki blocked him. "I'm not a video game boss. The same tactic won't work over and over again!!"

The Tsul 'Kalu seemed to consider this, weighing his options once more. Eventually he decided that he would go and collect the other items first, and then come back for her head. He retreated.

"Yeah! That's what I thought!" Sakki roared. "Run away, you lily-livered coward!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2016, 05:48:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Um . . . Don't Disturb Them

Parker and Helen decided a nice picnic date was in order for their downtime. Granted, Parker insisted on wearing his armor, and Helen forgave him his eccentricities. They rolled the black-and-red-checkered blanket out upon the grass, beneath a lovely willow tree (though a bowtruckle eyed them warily). They had stocked their pic-a-nic basket with all the usual amenities -- sandwiches (PB & J), baggies of chips, and the like. Their beverages were in a red-topped cooler set beside this iconic picnic basket.

Unfortunately, they did not know that their beverages were tainted. That this idyllic little picnic of theirs was sabotaged. And, as Parker had his helmet off, and Helen in his sights, he could not hear Tyr's warnings and misgivings about this.

No, the drinks were not poisoned. Far from it, actually. They were tainted with a potent tonic that functioned as a quick-acting aphrodisiac. The tonic's ingredients were tough to to come by, and its manufacture was not for people who avoided tedious tasks at all costs. It was not simple to make or distill or mature. Only one who has apothecary-based hobbies might have been interested enough to make it.

Once they downed their tainted drinks, their conversation stilted before stopping altogether. They looked at each other, with both their faces reddening from heat. It only took them a second before they abandoned their picnic without a second thought peeling off to one of their threads.

Parker quickly stripped off his armor as they entered Helen's thread with a snap of a slam of the thread door. Then they . . . well, there's really no need to go into detail about it. Let's just say that they were plenty, uh, focused on each other. Their thread door creaked open and they, uh, didn't notice. The Tsul 'Kalu gathered Parker's quickly forgotten armor and left.

But that isn't all said and done.

Despite his condemnation of the concept, Parker had an Extremis-like program installed into his armor called Drawback, despite the obvious negative connotation of it. It's function was evident after Helen and Parker were finished.

Parker, with but a thought, summoned his armor back to him, Gizmo Duck-style, from the Tsul 'Kalu's unwilling clutches. The bounty hunter did need want to let it go, but had not anticipated this new little wrinkle. That was becoming an irritating constant his current endeavors.

The Tsul 'Kalu needed some time to reconsider. Some time go about this smartly. All he procured thus far was the Andalite's tail. There had to be more that he missed. He need to regroup.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2016, 07:19:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!

The Tsul 'Kali retreated to a quiet place, to mull things over and to formulate a plan of attack. He needed the seal's pelt, the armor, the VOLCAROID's head, and that thing's cloak (the picture shown to him wasn't particularly helpful). He needed this. He needed the six fees, and the forty-percent bonus. He needed that money . . . if he didn't, he wouldn't have been a bounty hunter to begin with.

Then he noticed something, something that interested him greatly.

"Now, LH, this is a G chord," came a voice, "give it a try."

GH was taking this downtime to teach Leatherhead how to play, though the crocodilian child was playing with a keytar, which was black streaked with green. Leatherhead was displaying some talent, but raw and untrained. GH was gonna do his best to teach him what he knew.

Neither knew that the Tsul 'Kalu was watching them. He was thinking that Leather might have been Cloak, though their eyes were nothing alike. Cloak's eyes were an amber color, where as Leatherhead's eyes were far more yellow than amber. But the Tsul 'Kalu was a bit desperate . . .

GH had set down his guitar on the grass beside them. He touched it, lovingly, before continuing the lesson. The Tsul 'Kalu eyed the guitar . . . it was a really nice guitar. . . . It might be worth his fee to his employer, who seemed to want items from the RAFians. . . . He might get another fee . . . he should get a good fee from it . . .

But he'd worry about that later. He had to procure it first. From what he saw, that shouldn't be too difficult. He appeared to have left it unattended, and just remembered he did have a grappling device, not unlike Link's hookshot.

He fired it and it managed to hook onto the neck of the guitar, and GH apparently did not notice. The grapple began to retract, and the reaction was immediate. GH seized the grapple and twisted it. This happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that the grapple was twisted out of Tsul 'Kalu's hands. It continued to retract, drawing the short staff to GH.

"WHO HAS THE BALLS?!?!" he roared.

Leatherhead stood behind him, slightly to the left, curious and confused.

"SHOW YOURSELF!!!" he demanded. "C'MON OUT AND SHOW ME HOW MUCH OF A FRIGGIN' BIG MAN YOU ARE!!!"

The Tsul 'Kalu did not.

GH was still quite incensed, as he pried the hooks of the grappling hooks off the neck of his guitar. He was breathing heavily, and his blood pressure was probably dangerously high. GH gripped the neck of his guitar, causing a cool light course through it and transformed into its double-bladed battle axe form.

"Don't wanna come out, Big Man?" GH said, savagely, "Fine. Imma come and find YOU!!"

But he was suddenly distracted when Leatherhead saying, "Daaaaaaddy!"

GH turned to see that Leatherhead had tried to copy his adoptive daddy and grasped the neck of his keytar and had it transform into a halberd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halberd). But it was unwieldy and awkward in Leatherhead's unexperienced hands. His tail wasn't helping his balance -- he was a crocodile and not a cat, after all -- and he fell over backward. This caused him to let go of the halberd and, in doing so, reverted it back.

But this fall was enough to scare him to tears. GH moved to console him, pausing only to say to his would-be thief, "Next time, Sly Cooper, you're mine."

Then he went to Leatherhead, "Shhh, shhh, it's okay, it's okay, LH. It will just take a little training, is all. . . . There, there . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2016, 05:07:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Sluggard's Mentors

Sluggard was sitting his favorite easy chair, with his back to the roaring fire from his fireplace, after he ensured that his skinsuit hiding place was secured and obscured from prying eyes.

When, quite suddenly, the fire went out, drenching the entire place in darkness. Then came the heckling laughs as two ghosts wreathed in chains and cashboxes and locks appeared, and Sluggard recognized them. Charles and David Roch. Horrible rich people who thought with selfishness and purely monetary goals, before dying unloved and not missed.

They exchanged several words with Sluggard, before launching into a song:

"We're Roch and Roch,
Avarice and greed.
We took advantage of the poor,
Just punished the needy!
We specialized in doling out pain,
Spreading fear and doubt.
And if you couldn't pay the rent,
we simply threw you out."

"There was the year we evicted the entire orphanarium!" Chucky Roch said.

"I remember the little tykes all standing in the snow bank." Davey Roch said.

"With their little frost-bitten teddy bears!" Chucky said, before launching back into their song again.

"We're Roch and Roch,
Our hearts were painted black.
We should have known our evil deeds would put us both in shackles.
Captive, bound, we're triple-ironed,
Exhausted by the wait.
As freedom comes from compassion,
So, prison comes with hate.
We're Roch and Roch, whooooooa.
We're Roch and Roch, whooooooa."

"But my friends, you were not unfeeling towards your fellow men." Sluggard said, with as much respect as the man was capable of.

"True, there was something about mankind we loved." Davey considered.

"I think it was their money!" answered Chucky.

"Doomed, Sluggard! You're doomed for all time!
Your future is a horror story, written by your crimes.
Your chains are forged, by what you say and do."

Then locks and cashboxes sang:

"So, have your fun when life is done, an unholy terror waits for you."

"Why these horrid chains?" Sluggard asked.

"Oooooh, the chains." Chucky cried.

"We forged these chains in life by our acts of greed. You wear such a chain yourself!" Davey explained.

"Humbug! Speak comfort to me friends." Sluggard said, dismissively.

"Comfort! Aaahhhh!" both said, with a mirthless laugh, before ending their song.

"We're Roch and Roch, whoooooa.
We're Roch and Roch, whoooooa.
We're Roch and Roch, whoooooa.
Change!"

***

Sluggard awoke, discovering himself twisted in his blanket, looking more disheveled than normal. He almost thought he was wearing one of his skinsuit disguises, but he had those in a secret area. And he only had the two, prohibitively expensive as they were.

"Bah! What a rubbish dream," he muttered, clearly having not been impacted by it at all.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VsiKOJOXMJU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2016, 11:02:31 PM

New book ideas.

• Book CMXCV (995): "Adversity Adversary" -- The RAFians face a Realm Walker called Adversity.
• Book CMXCVI (996): "The Parasite King" -- The RAFians face a person who can control any parasite, regardless of the parasite's sentience.
• Book CMXCVII (997): "Will Crusher" -- The RAFians must deal with a mutant woman that can sap the wills of others. Even Green Lanterns.
• Book CMXCVIII (998): "So Very Tired" -- A bookie can manipulate fatigue in athletes, obtaining money fradulently.
• Book CMXCIX (999): "You're Insane!" -- A rogue Nyac (whom Yarin knows) steals the sanity from people.
• Book M (1000): "Slow Down!" -- A young mutant can manipulate inertia, and the RAFians must help her cope.

May have rehashed a couple of stories, but that's it for Year 10.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
He Who Will Not Be Restrained

Cloak was in his favorite meditation spot. He was trying to contact Aniyu again, though not without trepidation. Despite what he would say to the opposite, his mother was a very scary woman. Despite being full-grown, he did hold some fear from her.

Fear of her taking RAF from him.

Fear of her taking Shadow away from him.

Fear of her turning Shadow against him.

Fear of her enslaving him again.

Fear of her hurting him. Again.

He was always well aware of this fear, and his mother, in his view, thrived on that fear. It was a fear that he always had, though he tried to, like most of his emotions, suppress and forget. This fear usually was also the cause of his anger as well.

Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open, and pivoted into a handstand, generating a small cyclone of air by doing so, before springing to his feet, landing daintily, like the cat he was. He glared into a direction that was roughly eight o'clock from where he was sitting. His eyes did not move did not dally from that particular spot.

"It's not so easy to sneak up on a Realm Walker, fool!" Cloak spat angrily. "Not to mention, one with Earthsight!"

No reaction.

"I know what you are, you know," Cloak said, indulging himself on his feline instincts. "Are you gonna come on out, Tsul 'Kalu, or am I gonna have to come in there and find you?"

No reaction.

"So be it." Cloak snarled, vanishing into the earth.

The Tsul 'Kalu was, indeed, watching all this take place, but had no idea what Cloak did. He did not know of Cloak's elemental mastery, nor the sheer power the one RAFian possessed. He didn't realize just how screwed he was.

Suddenly, the ground beneath him started to give way -- it was almost as if Cloak used Dig! Cloak emerged from the ground, in a Shoryuken execution stance. Then he landed silently, and gracefully.

"Are we done with the games, then?" he asked, serious and intense. But then the Tsul 'Kalu used the immobilization beads on Cloak. Or tried to. Cloak sighed, "I guess not."

The metal orbs stopped in midair as Cloak held an open palm outward. Then he balled that hand into a fist, and all the little metal orbs were reduced to metal powder. The Tsul 'Kalu looked surprised at this -- and he was really starting to question whether or not this bounty was really worth it.

"Are you done with this foolish exercise in futility?" Cloak said, his anger having dissipated by now, replaced with weary vexation. "You cannot capture me, Tsul 'Kalu. You waste both our time and energy just trying. Leave this place. Tsul 'Kalu are an honorable people, this I know. Just leave this place and give me your word that you shan't ever -- First Light, you're not gonna make this easy, are you?"

For the Tsul 'Kalu had taken off, using the forest as cover. But it was a moot point. Cloak "saw" every footstep through the vibrations in the earth. Cloak sighed as he shook his head, pityingly and ruthful. But he was now presented with a choice.

Should he follow the Tsul 'Kalu or report this with the others?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2016, 08:07:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Conflict of Interests

This was getting ridiculous, the Tsul 'Kalu found itself thinking. This was supposed to be a SIMPLE job! An easy way to get a massive payday.

He looked around and scrutinized his surrounding to make sure that powerful creature in the cloak wasn't following him. He hadn't seen the full potential of that creature's power, he knew. Despite his caution, he was severely miffed.

His employer knew how dangerous these creatures were! All he managed to get was the Andalite's tail, and only because she was off-guard. He was just lucky in that instance! There were so many things that could have gone wrong, and he was just lucky that the immobilization beads had generated a field that blocked morphing or he could have seriously injured.

The Tsul 'Kalu was starting to suspect that his employer knew how impossible that this bounty was. That's why he offered so much for these items. But why? Why did he want these items so badly?

He was only a bounty hunter because of his wife. His wife . . . she was ill. He needed to buy medicine for her, as well as a human disguise in order to obtain it. If he showed up with money as he looked, he would either be refused service or accused of theft. Or worse, have them take away his human bride and forbid him from seeing her ever again.

But, really, was what he doing really any different than theft?

He remembered the Andalites screams as he brutally removed her tail. He hated himself for doing it, but he had no choice. He needed this payday. He had to do it for his wife, who loved him dearly as well. He . . . would he ever be able to look that pure, innocent face everyday knowing what he had become in order to save her? Would she ever see him the same way?

He became a bounty hunter to make ends meet. To make sure that his wife is cared for. He could not provide her with a child, so he did his best to make up for it. It wasn't like they lived uncomfortably, but it wasn't exactly thousand-room mansions and elaborate villas. It was a small cottage up in the woods, seldomly visited, as her parents didn't approve of the marriage, and his passed on a long time ago.

But it still didn't make him happy about what he had to do. He had to do a lot of things that he was not proud of. A lot of things that he would never forgive himself for. A lot of things that he, in his mind, just could not rationalize away. But it was his burden to bear, and his burden alone . . .

The pelt . . .

The head . . .

The armor . . .

The cloak . . .

He needed them all. He had the tail, which he had perserved. Only with them all would he get the bonus. He needed that bonus. He needed that bonus for her. Her condition was stabilized, but it wouldn't stay that way for long. He needed that medicine. In order to get it, he needed these items.

He would have to stop being Mr. Nice Tsul 'Kalu.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2016, 08:05:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Pelt

No hesitation. No mercy.

He could not have any hesitation or mercy this time.

The battle was a bit more straightforward this time. This time he would not fail. He would take her pelt. He would be ruthless in his endeavor.

She threw water and ice at him. Only this time he was prepared for it. He armed himself with a thermal blade, which stayed hot, even underwater. It melted ice very effectively.

Horse dodged his attacks, but she was still awkward on land. She tried to hobble to the lakeside shore, seriously missing her old Tempest Blade. The Tsul 'Kalu used his arsenal to keep her away from the lake, but failed to keep her away, as she used her hydrokinesis to help her reach the safeties of the waters, as Tsul 'Kalu are a firmly terrestrial species. Even if he tried to swim out to catch her, he wasn't sure he was fast enough in the water.

He fired the net into the water, trawling for Horse, eventually catching her with rather less resistance than he had anticipated. He thought nothing of it, too focused on what he must do. And already hating himself for it.

If it was an consolation, he made it a quick death. He ended it quickly, without pain. Then he quickly skinned and cleaned her pelt. Then he left to find the head, the armor, or the cloak.

***

But all was not what it appeared to be.

What the Tsul 'Kalu thought to be Horse wasn't her at all. Just a faux fur coat glamoured to look like her, and it was apparently one of surprising effectiveness, as Horse herself commented, "How bizarre! It's really unnerving and strange to see yourself being skinned and having your pelt cleaned when you're a good ten, fifteen feet away from it. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I like having my skin and fur where it belongs."

"Yes," Yarin said, somberly. He had read the Tsul 'Kalu's mind and knew his travails. And saw this as an opportunity of not only freeing him from his employer, and just seeing who his employer was. "Melissa has come a long way in such a short amount of time."

The Tsul 'Kalu, of course, knew nothing about this, as he would not have listened anyway. Though he was motivated by what could be seen as selfless motives, the way he went about accomplishing it could be seen as heartless and selfish. Such counterintuitive complexity.

"Everything is in place now," Yarin said.

Horse finished, "Let's just hope he doesn't get wise to us in the meantime, then. Those glamours do have a limited lifespan."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2016, 03:21:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Head

No mercy. No hesitation. No remorse.

He would do what he must. He would what he had to do. He wished that he didn't, but there was no time for that. He must be ruthless. He must be hard. He must be relentless. He must succeed.

There she was. He would have to approach this very carefully. He knew about her sonics now. He knew of her being a capable hand-to-hand fighter. He couldn't reveal himself too early. He had to be cautious, weighing each step heavily. He treaded the terrain carefully, cautiously, aware of every stick and leaf. Aware that so much as bending a blade of grass could give him away, could out his position.

This RAFian was not to be trifled with.

The Tsul 'Kalu watched her intently, giving off a strange stalkerish vibe. Sakki seemed absorbed into her smartphone. Too absorbed. This was good fortune for the Tsul 'Kalu, who didn't stop to think, didn't pause to wonder, just why it was so fortuitous for him. He was a desperate being, and desperation has an odd ability to cause people to overlook things.

When he struck, it was quick and unexpected. He held Sakki's neck in the crook of his arm, which would choke out your average human. Naturally, Sakki dropped her phone, cracking the touchscreen on a rock. But Sakki didn't seem to react to this.

Without hesitating a minute, the Tsul 'Kalu took out his knife and severed her neck, allowing her lifeless, immobile body -- useless to him, and uninterested by him -- to fall rather pathetically. He took her head and perserved it with the pelt and the tail, as he set off to.procure the last two items on his list: the armor and the cloak.

***

"That phone was expensive," Sakki snarled with gritted teeth, seething.

"Would you have rather have donated your actual head for the cause?" Aquilai aked rhetorically, with an impish sort of smile on his face as the Tsul 'Kalu disappeared with the glamoured soccer ball. Sakki responded without words, but a very scathing look. "Hey, don't look at me like that. Phones can be fixed. Or upgraded to a new one."

"That's not the point," the VOLCAROID growled.

"Then what is your point?" Aquilai asked, pleasantly.

Sakki said nothing, still grousing.

"Oh, don't be that way," Aquilai chided, as Sakki had retrieved her broken phone, before retreating back to the safe watching distance. "See? Perfectly salvageable."

Sakki gave him a dark, jaded look, and said nothing.

"Okay, okay," Aquilai acquiesced, "no more talking."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2016, 07:40:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Armor

No mercy. No regret. No hesitation. No remorse.

Failure is not an option. Failure will not be tolerated.

Now . . . where was the armored one? If he had to, the Tsul 'Kalu was more than willing to kill the armored one and peel the armor off. His employer never specified that they had to be spotless.

Then again, he didn't specify a lot of things. But now was no time for bitterness. There would be time for that later. Later, when his beloved flower, his beloved Dahlia, is well again. He just had to see her smile again . . . he had to . . .

He kept to the shadows, sneaking with the gusts of wind. It was still quite chilly out. The wind provided him excellent sound coverage, making his feet stepping on twigs and leaves more muffled, thus left unheard.

Then there was the evidence. Evidence that Helen and Parker had more . . . epicurean plans in mind, given just how . . . never mind. Apparently that aphrodisiac he gave them had long-lasting effects on one's libido. The Tsul 'Kalu gave no more than a passing thought as he looked and searched for the armor. It didn't take long to find, and it was laying out in the open, ripe for the taking.

Anyone else, in different circumstances, might have easily thought of it as a trap. But desperation is a funny thing like that. The Tsul 'Kalu just saw this as a lucky break, and eagerly and almost greddily snatched up the armor, discovering that it was far lighter than he had expected it to be. After he snatched up, listening hard to see if the two were still . . . occupied, in their thread, and when he was satisfied with the rather present sounds, he quickly and steathily spirited away the armor.

He felt elated! Just the cloak and he would be able to save his darling Dahlia! Things were looking up!!

***

"You think he bought it?" Helen asked.

"I still don't know why we couldn't do it for real," Parker pouted.

"Don't be that way, dear heart," she said, sweetly and kindly, "you know why we had to."

Parker couldn't prevent himself from pouting.

"It's not like he took your real armor dearest," she said, soothingly. "It was just glamoured tin cans and string."

"I know," he said, and even to his ears he sounded petulant.

"Cheer up, dearest," Helen said, coaxingly. She touched him, almost seductively. "We can have our fun after we complete this mission."

Parker smiled, eyes twinkling, "Okay, my little violet firefly."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2016, 09:04:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Cloak

The Tsul 'Kalu was feeling enthused. He just need one more item, though probably the most difficult on to procure. But he had succeeded in procuring the tail, the head, the pelt, and the armor!! The cloak is the last item . . . then he will get a massive payday. A payday to get his darling flower, his beloved Dahlia well again. He would be able to see her smile again.

Now, where was the cloaked one?

A sudden spire of earth appeared before him, surprising him. He blinked, realizing that there would be no sneaking up on this creature. He would be seriously tested with this one. He had to show his utmost athleticism and acrobatics, demonstrate the abject limits of his strength and endurance.

He had keenly managed to dodge several spires, never pausing to question why they never skewer him and gave him plenty of warning, telegraphing where they would appear. He just assumed it was his physical adeptness and never guessed, never entertained, that he was being led to a particular spot.

He saw the cloaked one seated upon a flat rock, and he didn't seem aware of the presence of the Tsul 'Kalu. He thought that this was an excellent opportunity, an act of providence. But he had to be careful about this, he knew that the cloaked one was dangerous.

But, eventually, he threw caution to the wind, snatched the cloak and didn't question, but was privately grateful, that it came away easily. Nothing happened, reality itself didn't start to melt away and burn. Cloak didn't move, as it wasn't Cloak, but a generic mannequin. But the Tsul 'Kalu, too high on his perceived success, didn't even notice this rather obvious and overt oversight.

He didn't care. He would be able to cure his darling Dahlia. She would smile again, and fill him full of unbridled joy again! His happiness with Dahlia was assured.

***

"How'd he not catch on yet?" GH asked.

"His mind is clearly on other matters," Cloak said, still wearing his true cloak. The one the Tsul 'Kalu had was just an average, throwaway Dweller cloak. Granted only Realm Walkers, and some RAFians, would be able to tell the difference. "Distraction and desperation often prove to be disastrous."

"Disastrous for who?" GH asked.

"That remains to be seen," Cloak said.

"Why do you aways have to be so damn mysterious?" GH teased.

"Hey, I happen to like my mystique," Cloak said. Though it was hard to tell if this was a sincere, earnest protest or just a dry, wry joke. But then Cloak was all business. "I'm going. Rocky, Salad, Underseen, and Ash ready?"

"Yes," GH said, "I wish I could go."

"You know you, Saffa, and Abby have to watch Kelly and Goom's back."

"I know," GH said, "it's just gonna be so BORING!"

"But necessary," Cloak said seriously, preparing to go with the others. "Oh, GH?"

"Yeah?"

"Hand 'em over," Cloak said, holding out an expectant hand.

"Hand what over?"

Cloak said nothing, but gave an impatient gesture with his hand. GH couldn't feign ignorance any longer, and handed over his half-empty pack of cigarettes.

"Couldn't I just have just the one?"

"No."

Cloak left a miffed GH.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2016, 02:47:36 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Presenting the Bounties

The Tsul 'Kalu was back into that cavernous room, with his employer in darkness, on a platform balcony thing high above his head, and in shadow. There were yellow lines that indicated a large double door right behind him. The Tsul 'Kalu was spotlighted. Literally spotlighted.

"Have you procured all of the bounty items, Tsul 'Kalu?" came the indifferent drawl of the employer, obviously using a voice scrambler to sound similar to Jigsaw from those "Saw" movies. But if the Tsul 'Kalu knew what that was, he said nothing of it. "Well? Have you?"

The Tsul 'Kalu placed a slightly desiccated Andalite tail, and he actually spoke, spoke with a thick, husky voice, "The tail and tail-blade of the Andalite called Noelle."

The tail had its own spotlight. It didn't look pleasant, but disgusting, but it was what his employer asked for.

The Tsul 'Kalu placed the "pelt" down, "The pelt of the seal called Horse."

The pelt had its own spotlight, like Noelle's severed tail. The glamour faltered for a second before maintaining. No one seemed to have noticed.

The Tsul 'Kalu placed the "head" down, and the glamour slipped slightly, but no one noticed, "The head of the VOLCAROID called Sakki."

The head got its own spotlight, and the glamour maintained.

The Tsul 'Kalu placed the "armor" down, and the glamour wobbled imperceptibly. "The armor from the SPARTAN called Parker."

The armor got its own spotlight, and the armor wasn't as shiny as it should be, as Parker kept his true armor well-maintained and polished. It was a hobby, really. Although, one could throw out the word "obsession", as well.

Then the Tsul 'Kalu set down the garden-variety cloak, and said, "The cloak of the creature called Cloak."

This last item got the last spotlight.

"Very well," his employer said. "Then --"

Then the glamours on the pelt, head, and armor failed in a flash of magical light.

"WHAT'S THIS?!" his employer yelled, almost forgetting to activate the voice scrambler, almost "outting" himself. "YOU DARED TO DECEIVE ME?! YOU INTENDED TO CON ME?! YOU AREN'T GETTING A NICKEL, TSUL 'KALU!!"

"You're not fooling anyone," came a voice from the darkness, not the Tsul 'Kalu's. "You had no intention on paying him anything. You wanted him to get killed, and his blood to be on our hands."

Cloak swept into the spotlight, as the others remained hidden in the darkness.

"Too bad for you that we suspected something like this," Cloak said. He didn't mention it was due to Yarin's telepathic probe that they had gleaned most of their information. But he did not need to know that. "Now, thanks to our little trick, we have found you."

"Too bad that I'm not sticking around," he said, but on the last word the voice scrambler broke (Cloak's handiwork) and revealed himself to be a kid. Sluggard's disguise was still intact, they would never pin it down to him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2016, 06:58:35 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Get Over Here!

But as he turned to exit through the two double doors that led away from this large, usually atrium. Only to find that the doors were swallowed up by the rough, poorly-stuccoed walls. He frantically patted wall, all along the balcony, his only means of escape cut off. He didn't seem so intimidating to him now.

His breathing was shallow and he was sounding more like a frightened child, despite being disguised as one. He was trapped in here. Trapped in here, with them. There was no way that he could overpower them.

"Please! I need the money! My wife --"

"Oh, yes, Dahlia, was it?" Cloak said, addressing the Tsul 'Kalu. "Kelly and Goom are making progress with healing her of that illness, given their last report."

This stymied the Tsul 'Kalu. "What?"

"One of my friends happens to be a telepath, Mr. Rainflower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyranthes)," Cloak said, "and you weren't really being all that secretive with your thoughts, friend. He "heard" your plight, and we took steps to help you rectify it without you being the wiser, apparently. Don't worry, Dahlia will be on her feet by the time we get you back to her."

This seemed to be too much for the Tsul 'Kalu. He knelt, almost beside himself with relief. But then he felt the crushing weight of what he had done.

Cloak left him to it, as he had other concerns. Cloak ergokinetically plucked up the employer from his balcony and set him in front of them. The small form was clad in one of those black full-body suits, as he scrambled to his feet with his pack, and attempted to run, only to discover that his feet have been submerged into the floor. He was stuck. He couldn't move them at all. Cloak then forced two spires of earth to pinion each of his wrists together.

"It's time we all got answers I think," Cloak said.

"You can't do this," the employer muttered. Cloak heard, but the Tsul 'Kalu, Mr. Rainflower, did not seem to hear. The Realm Walker's eyes narrowed, suspecting who this was, despite the obvious body frame differences.

Cloak ferrokinetically unzipped the hood of the suit, roughly pulling down the mask, revealing the apparent face of a thirteen-year-old boy. Cloak's eyes narrowed further. He was always a skeptic.

"A child?!" Mr. Rainflower declared, deeply surprised. "I was taking orders from some petulant child?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2016, 08:28:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Employer Unmasked

"Child?" Cloak said, quietly scathing, "Hardly."

"I'm sorry, I really am!" Sluggard said, playing up his disguise. "I didn't mean any harm by it, really I didn't!"

"You really did have no intention on paying me, did you?" Mr. Rainflower said, voice tinged with understandable anger.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Rainflower," Sluggard said, keeping up the act, with rather legitimate realism. "I just wanted those things. I couldn't get them myself, so --"

"So, you lied and manipulated me," the Tsul 'Kalu said, with reasonable irritation. "You played on my desperation to cure my beloved Dahlia to get me to do the dirty work? And you think that just because you're a child that that makes it any better, boy?"

"He's not a child," Cloak said.

"I know.I've been naughty, but I'm --" he said.

"-- A crappy liar," Cloak finished. "You think that I haven't seen pictures of Ekzacto's victims? That I don't know that he skinned them and sold them at a black market? I did not think that they would allow people to go all Skinwalker in them, but I am not free nor immune from oversight, obviously."

Sluggard had not understood any of this, but he decided to continue to keep up the facade.

"Mister, I don't know what --"

"Drop the pretense. You may wear the skin of Brendan Birch --"

"I'm Rudy," he interrupted, "Rudy . . . uh, Giuliani."

Cloak paused, eying him very seriously. He knew that he just made up that last name on the spot.

"This skin is Brendan Birch," Cloak said. "His parents have his brain, but to see their son's skin being worn as a costume, as a disguise, by some horrid --"

"I'm Rudy!" he protested hysterically.

"You're lying," Cloak said. "When you lie, there's a physical reaction -- perspiration . . .
fluctuations in blood pressure . . . the like. I can sense them, through the earth. You're lying."

"No, I'm no--urff!"

Cloak had ergokinetically stuffed energy into the boy's mouth, loosening up the skin -- this would not be possible unless he was wearing a skin. He used the energy to force him to slough off the face of Brendan Birch.

Beneath was Gulliver Dugan's face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2016, 09:27:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Employer's True Face

"Why would a child disguise himself as another child?" Mr. Rainflower asked.

"Because he's not a child," Cloak said, stubbornly.

"Look, I know I lied to you about my name," he said, "my real name is Mark. Mark Dennis Mann."

"'Mark Dennis Mann'?" Cloak repeated. It was clear that he didn't think thwt he was being serious.

"Yes, that's it," he said. "Now can you let me go?"

"You're still a pathetic liar," Cloak said. "And you evidentally don't listen very well. I just told you. I can tell when you're lying. That skin belongs to Gulliver Dugan. His father will be wanting it back."

"I'm not Gulley! I'm Mark!"

"I never called him Gulley," Cloak noted smartly.

"I thought you said Gulley, nothing more," he replied irritatedly.

"Why does he look like a child then?" Mr. Rainflower asked, addressing Cloak.

"Because he layered his disguises," Cloak said, forcing the second skin suit's face to slough off Dominic Sluggard's true face. And he wasn't a real looker by any stretch of the imagination. "Two child skin suits, that black, skintight spandex abomination, and the voice changer."

"I would have never guessed," Mr. Rainflower said, realization dawning in him. "If I went after him in vengeance, if he betrayed me . . ."

"He did betray you," Underseen said, from the shadows. Mr. Rainflower didn't react, so he much have knew that the others were there, hidden in the darkness. Ash, Rocky, Salad, and Underseen had wandered into the light. "He had no intention on paying you a cent."

"Sorry for the deception, by the way," Ash said, "we've been trying to pin this piece of filth a long time for that whole Titan formula thing."

"He may have even poisoned Dahlia himself to get you desperate enough to work for him." Rocky noted. "He can apparently be truly Machiavellian when he really wants to be."

"Yeah, I did it," Sluggard snarled imperiously, which looked strange with him having his bloated adult head atop the body of a much thinner thirteen-year-old boy. "And I'd gladly do again. Your lives are meaningless cimpared to my own. You all should have to get diwn and suck my --

Mr. Rainflower knocked him out, but it was clear that he was holding back a desire to do more. "I have enough sins already to atone for, I do not need to add another." came his explanation. "I will not allow vengeance to consume me."

"Wise," Cloak said. Then he addressed the others, "Guys? I think it's high time that Mr. Rainflower here saw his wife."

"Dahlia . . ." he said, with an almost wistful whisper.

"You guys go," Cloak said, "Imma make sure this sack of Garbodor gets his just desserts, by the local law enforcement."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 11, 2016, 10:03:29 PM

Quote from: CloakedFigure on May 11, 2016, 09:27:26 PM

"Yeah, I did it," Sluggard snarled imperiously, which looked strange with him having his bloated adult head atop the body of a much thinner thirteen-year-old boy. "And I'd gladly do again. Your lives are meaningless cimpared to my own. You all should have to get diwn and suck my --

. . . Shoes?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2016, 07:10:16 AM

. . . Sure. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Joyous Reunions and Questionable Justice

"Dahlia," Mr. Rainflower said, almost as if he couldn't believe just how well she was doing.

"Gladiolus!" she said, hugging him with every bit energy she could.

Dahlia looked rather like a hippie, almost like a female Shaggy from Scooby Doo, only more mellow and braver. She had a personality that just made you want to be around her. It was little wonder why Gladiolus loved her so deeply. Even her long, golden hair appeared to be woven from sunlight matched his earthy brown fur.

"I thought I may have lost you," Gladiolus said, an obvious crack in his voice.

"You're stuck with me for a little bit longer, my dear Gladiolus," she said, lovingly. She smiled that smile that he always loved. He could drink her in enough. His darling Dahlia, here and healthy once more. There was nothing more important to him. Nothing.

She gave him strength, but he wasn't sure if she knew just how much strength that she gave him. They would never be able to conceive a child, even a hybrid child. But thst was fine, perfectly fine. They had each other. That's all they needed.

After that, the RAFians did not intrude upon them any longer, and took their from the happy couple. A couple who preferred their privacy.

***

"You cannot be serious," Cloak was saying to a television screen.

Sluggard was indicted, but his defense team was using that STUPID affluenza defense. It was a serious sticking point to the Realm Walker, as he considered affluenza a ridiculously weak defense, and yet the judge considered it! He legitimately considered it!

It was a cop-out! It was like killing a person you stalked and then turning around and claiming self-defense, and having it believed!! It was a weak defense and it was being taken seriously.

Cloak already knew where this was going. He already knew that Judge Hannity -- Judge Hand-It-To-Me -- was gonna fold and cave in to this "defense", and Cloak was disgusted by this. He turned off the teoevision, already knowing the conclusion.

This government was just as corrupt as the Council, perhaps slightly less.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2016, 09:06:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Fears

"Cloak, you must," Aniyu said.

"Do I?" Cloak said. He was up and walking around, anxiously. He much rather have fought that Arburian Pelarota DNAlien that Mithril had fought.

"You cannot get rid of this layer," Aniyu said, simply, "unless you confront the fear that you felt at your mother's feet."

"I . . ."

"You've come this far, Cloak," Aniyu said, "it'd be a shame to come all this far to be stymied here."

"I . . . I can't . . ." Cloak said, suddenly a cub again. "I . . . can't go through all that fear again. I . . . I'm . . . I'm over it."

"Are you?" Aniyu asked.

Cloak hoped she wouldn't ask that. He was hoping that she wouldn't have called him out like that. He should have known better.

"Cloak, I never said that this was gonna be easy," Aniyu said. "But, think about it, are the easy things in life really worth doing? Is the easy way always the right way?"

Cloak couldn't say anything. His mother was a very scary, fearsome woman. He could never see just what his father ever saw in her, but he didn't know anything about their meeting, whether or not it was his mother, Ursa, that decided that they were dating, whether his father had any say in the matter.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, firmly, "if you are to untangle your energy, you must face this. You cannot have complete control over yourself without untangling your energy."

"Without unlocking my chakras?" Cloak said, wryly and mirthlessly.

"That's different, and you know it."

***

GH and Andy happened to be working on the same shift again. Andy wasn't wearing the Armadillo Anderson suit, though. He was working as a server, and GH didn't know why he felt so . . . discombobulated around him. Or rather he did, deep down, but didn't want to acknowledge it.

Oh, no.

Helen and Parker came into the restaurant. It must have been their date night. Parker looked weird without his armor -- Helen must've put her foot down. GH felt apprehension, as Helen always gave him that annoyingly knowing look. She wouldn't elaborate on why.

GH didn't really appreciate this, but otherwise, the night was unusually uneventful. This was something of which he was grateful for. He was also grateful to be able to spend more time around Andy, and thought Andy felt the same.

Yet, part of him started to feel afraid. Afraid of getting too close. Why were thoughts of Dimitri flooding his mind right now? It didn't make any sense.

"Lew?" Andy asked, but GH said nothing.

He did not know why he felt so afraid all of a sudden. He had felt so comfortable . . . so right . . . why did it scare him? Andy was just a friend. Nothing less, nothing more. Why did he feel so afraid of him suddenly?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2016, 09:44:50 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXIV:
NEW CONTROLLERS
CHAPTER ONE:
He Won't Say He's in Love

GH was back at the forum, learning of Mithril now fighting a Florauna DNAlien, and he was approached by Helen. GH didn't seem to realize that the Star Sapphire was approaching him. Didn't consider what she powered her ring on.

"What's the matter with me?" GH said, moodily. "You'd think a guy would learn."

Light music began to play, almost as if it was coming from GH.

"If there's a prize for rotten judgement,
I guess I've already won that.
No man is worth the aggravation.
That's ancient history.
Been there, done that!"

But Helen interjected:

"Who d'you think you're kiddin'?
He's the earth and heaven to ya.
Try to keep it hidden?
Honey, I can see right through ya.
Boy, you can't conceal it.
I know how you feel,
And who you're thinking of!"

GH disagreed:

"No chance, no way!
I won't say it, no, no!"

Helen tried again

"You swoon, you sigh,
Why deny it? Uh-oh!"

GH refused:

"It's too cliché!
I won't say I'm in love!
I thought my heart had learned its lesson.
It feels so good when you start out . . .
My head is screaming "Get a grip, GH!"
Unless you're dying to rip your heart out!
Ohhh . . . !"

But Helen was relentless:

"You keep on denying
Who you are and how you're feeling.
Boy, I'm not buying.
Hon, I saw you hit the ceiling.
Face it like a grown-up.
When you gonna own up
That you got, got, got it bad?"

GH was stubborn:

"No chance, no way!
I won't say it, no, no!"

"Give up, give in,
Check the grin; you're in love!!"

GH was adamant:

"This scene won't play!
I won't say I'm in love!"

Helen was equally as adamant:

"You're doin' flips, read my lips:
You're in love!"

GH wasn't having any of it:

"You're way off base, I won't say it!
GET OFF my case, I won't say it!"

Helen was persistent:

"Boy, don't be proud,
It's okay, you're in love!"

GH sang quietly to himself:

"Ohh . . .
At least, out loud,
I won't say I'm in love."

But Helen heard him. And smiled.

"I really wish you would stop it with that look," GH said.

---

*Source song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl0DMTlwLw4

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2016, 11:05:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Illegal Aliens

A littany of painful images of his at him, pulling his fur and ears* when he wasn't abjectly compliant with her dominating will and abusive admonishments. She could easily have become a Sinestro Corpswoman, if Realm Walkers were even able to be one.

He remembered the terror he felt at even so much as causing her ire, because he knew that he would become the outlet to that rage. She often highly criticized everything he did, and nothing he did ever met her lofty standards. She always yelled snd debased him. Even now, there was a part of him that was afraid of her, and he was grown and away.

It was almost too much for Cloak to handle, to relive through. He felt every ounce of fear he felt then. It was a funny thjng -- how trauma liked to linger, how it fed anger, fear, and despair. If it goes away, it does so only at its own convenience and no one else's.

"Cloak, I know it's difficult," Aniyu said, "but you must allow yourself to feel and understand it."

Too much . . . too much fear . . . it was so long ago, it felt. Back when he felt that if he let his mother down, she'd be angry, regardless of whether or not Cloak had any culpability in the thing that caused her wrath. She just took things out on him, whenever she had a bad day. Dagger and Brute had the right idea in dumping her, Cloak felt. He had not ever spoken to her since the day he had the audacity to stand up for himself, despite the abuse. And she kicks him out, not only out of the house, but out of the family.

But he found a new one, didn't he? He found one that enjoyed his company, and enjoyed him for being himself. He didn't have debase himself for them, didn't have be overtly subservient.

But still . . . he ran from his problems. He didn't confront them. He ran and buried his problems. He allowed his fear not only to control him, but motivate him . . .

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. He had Earthsighted a crash via an impact tremor that seemed unfelt by anyone else. He immediately travelled to the spot where he Earthsighted it.

***

From the crash site, came six short, sapient bipeds. They were tridactyl organisms --possessing three phalanges on each limb - and a six-limb physiology. Two of these limb sets are set up as arms with hands with the final set being digitigrade legs. Their ears curl around in a relatively-tight spiral before extending straight out from the head. The smallest was the only one that did not possess claws, but fingers were each digit separated into secondary fingers.

They were Zirkonians. And they had designs on conquering the Earth.

They really didn't know what they were up against.

***

"Lew?"

"Andy?" GH said, completely unprepared. He had his guitar slung over his back. He had hoped for some alone time to sort out his feelings and repercussions of such.

"You left so quickly the other day," he explained. "I was just wondering if anything was okay."

God, he was a nice guy. GH started to consider that maybe, just maybe, he might have a . . . no! He can't start thinking like that. He couldn't get into a relationship right now. He didn't know what Leatherhead or Andy would make of each other. And with all the weirdness GH goes through on a regular basis, that would be enough to scare Andy off. Not to mention he would have to admit to Andy that he lied to him about his name, that his name isn't Lewis, but Logan. He would have to reveal all of his dark secrets.

Besides, he didn't even know if Andy . . . if Andy played for his team.

"Lewis, I don't know how to say this exactly, but I kinda --" he began before giving a small yelp, falling to the ground, convulsing.

"Andy!"

---

* In real life, it was my hair.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2016, 06:54:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Plugged and Puppeted

"Andy!" GH said, starting towards him. He thought that he was having a seizure. "Andy, speak to me!"

Then GH stopped when saw the knee-high creature come up right next to Andy, and put a Bluetooth-like device on his ear. He was manipulating some strange device in his hands, and speaking in a language that he didn't understand. Eventually tapping his Bluetooth-like device.

Andy twisted and convulsed on the ground as a strange static sound was barely heard. GH was confused by all this. What fresh hell was this?

"Testing," Andy said suddenly. The creature smiled, showing pointed teeth. Then he righted himself in a most unnatural way, then he addressed GH, "You humanoid subject, we are the Zirkonian species."

GH felt outrage. That creature! That Zirkonian thing! It was not only using Andy as a puppet but a translator! But how?! Wait a minute -- "we"?

"And we hereby claim your luscious planet for our own," Andy said, though it was clear the words weren't his. He approached GH, who backed away, not wanting to hurt Andy. "You have a choice of eternal enslavement or instantaneous death."

GH paused, and gave a look that said, "Seriously?"

He reached out to grab GH, but GH was too experienced with his time as a RAFian to allow that. However, with every word, ever mechanical step, it hurt GH. He was feeling responsible for Andy's fate as this puppet.

Then he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on edge, and felt his Mark become more prominent. He turned to see a small metallic dart just hovering there. Then it folded into a "V" shape and then dropped to the the ground.

"Cloak?" GH said.

Then he saw the Zirkonian behind him, holding a blunt-barrelled gun, which he fired another dart, which hit the ground. What were those things?

"ROOOOOOOOOOWWWWWRRR RRRR!!!"

Cloak appeared, ripping the Zirkonian from the tree, throwing him into the weeds. Then he found a second and attacked. He eschewed using the elements. They weren't necessary -- he was eight feet tall, roughly four times the height of the Zirkonians. Using the elements would have been overkill.

GH was suddenly seized from behind.

"Andy, don't do this." GH said.

"Silence, humanoid subject. Your bleating is pointless. This planet will be ours."

Cloak seemed to have noticed this, understanding what happened by seeing Andy and his rather stiff movements and blank vacant eyes, and said, "Blast! I was too late."

Then he tossed a third and fourth Zirkonian into the weeds, alive but knocked out. "Zirkonians! Why'd it have to be Zirkonians?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2016, 07:37:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Stalemate

"You know what these things are?" GH demanded.

"Where'd the fifth one go?" Cloak said, not exactly dodging the question. Then he saw the one controlling Andy was riding on his back. The other four gathered around Andy, who's glassy, blank eyes hurt GH.

"Cloak, what did they do to him?" GH demanded. "It had something to do with those metal darts, didn't it?"

"Late, GH. We have to stop them from --"

One threw a device that looked like an egg-like device, that when thrown had the retractable spires with pods on the end extend and floated around, casting a blue glow around in a finite area.

"What the hell?" GH said, as he started to float up in the anti-gravitational field. Cloak did not float up, as he was terrakinetically adhering to the ground, as his cloak billowed up around of him, almost making him appear that he was in slow motion. Cloak, stop this crazy thing!"

"Have fun, humanoid subjects!" Andy said. It hurt GH knowing those words weren't his own. That he was being controlled, only because he had come to see him. And he started to feel guilty about lying to him, lying to him even about his own name. He . . . he did like the guy. And it was his fault that this happened.

"Cloak! Stop this crazy thing!" GH yelled.

Cloak made visual contact with the anti-gravitational field generator. He charged his golden energy in his hand, before firing a blast.

"You missed!! How could you miss?! It was three feet in front of you!!"

Cloak fired another blast.

"Hey! You were aiming for me that time!!"

"Maybe."

"Now, that's just rude!!"

Cloak fired another blast and took out the anti-gravitational field generator, which caused the anti-gravitational field to soon dissipate. GH fell to the ground roughly, and he got up, brushing himself off.

GH looked at the direction that Andy left, "Andy . . ."

Then he got angry. He directed it at Cloak. "You could have saved him!"

"Or I could have accidentally killed him," Cloak said, seriously. He was not matching GH's anger. He understood the anger. The anger that came with helplessness. "To extract the plug, I would need Kelly here, to heal any complications that may come up."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2016, 06:03:23 PM

New book ideas. Yeah, I know. I'm going way overboard, but I write these ideas down when I get them. Can't bottle up my creativity. Who knows if I'll ever get to 'em, but here, Year 11:

• Book MI: "Banishment" -- Cloak is officially banished from the Nexus and forbidden to Walk.
• Book MII: "The Black Pact" -- The Anabis makes a pact with a long-forgotten foe of the RAFians, whom they thought long gone.
• Book MIII: "Crite Gripes" -- The city is infested with Crites.
• Book MIV: "Frat Party" -- The RAFians must keep an alien frat party from becoming too . . . boisterous.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Sorry about my ambition.

Anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Report!

"You still could have saved him," GH accused petulantly.

"I'm not arguing with you on this, GH," Cloak said, very seriously. His tone reflected how dangerous he could be if he so chose to be. "I've told you why I could not just arbitrarily remove the mind control plug from his brain or skull or whatever."

Cloak could swear that GH was pouting.

"Knock that off, we have to report in."

"Alright then, let's go."

"Not like that," Cloak said, "Zirkonians are, at most, a minimalistic threat."

"I beg to differ."

"The mind control plugs require a controller to use. And there were only five of them, possibly a sixth one -- a more benign engineer." Cloak said, thinking fast. "So they would only be able to plug, and use, at most five more people. And these plugs won't work on prepubescents of your species, according to that other realm."

"Wait, these things don't work on kids? That's their only limitation?" GH said, with scathing skepticism.

"The mind control plugs, yes," Cloak said, coolly. "But that's not their only weapon in their arsenal, if I recall correctly."

"Yeah, yeah, the anti-gravity doohickey." GH replied flippantly.

"And their re-bigulator," Cloak muttered.

"Their what?"

"It's a stature-amplification device," Cloak elaborated.

"English, Cloak," GH said, a bit testy.

"Think Yarin's microwave," Cloak said, getting a feeling that somewhere Yarin was screaming, "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!"

GH stopped being so flippant.

"But the giant size is actually its intended effect," Cloak said. "Zirkonians are conquerors because of it."

"Do we need back-up?" GH asked. He was serious now.

"They haven't found it yet," Cloak said. "Or they would have already grossly abused it by now."

"What do you mean by 'haven't found it yet'?" GH asked, but Cloak was already on his communicator giving a report to the others.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 14, 2016, 09:59:17 PM

Sorry I haven't been responding lately; I've been both really busy and really burned out on . . . well, everything, really. Just wondering, where did the last few chapters take place? It's never really mentioned, unless I missed something. I assume it wasn't somewhere that other people would be, for obvious reasons. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2016, 10:03:44 PM

Isolated bit of forest. You wanted to be alone when this little snafu happened. And, no, it wasn't mentioned. I kept it deliberately vague.

The Zirkonians had retreated to somewhere more remote for the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 14, 2016, 10:05:50 PM

Ah, ok :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2016, 11:00:12 PM

 :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Zirkonians, Meet the Zirkonians

"How do I turn this creature off?" the Zirkonian controlling Andy said, speaking Zirkon, still wearing the Bluetooth-like device, still holding the the controller. Andy repeated everything he said, translated into English. This Zirkonian was the leader, a male, and his name was Bipas (pronounced as "bypass"). He was a bit stouter than the others, and a bit more heavyset, as well. "How? How? How?"

He addressed the smaller Zirkonian, the engineer named Dek, who stammered an answer. He seemed far more beign and far less malevolent. He seemed very meek in regard to the other, more dominating personalities. Well, except for the two Zirkonian grunts, Unt and Gru, who appeared to be just mindless soldiers for this campaign. They did not appear to have any personality to speak of, like an establishment politician.

The weapons specialist, Tek, a old hand at this kind of thing and gruff, unlikable sort, laughed at this, seeing Dek being verbally castigated by Bipas again. Tek was the one who fired the mind control plug impant into Andy, while Bipas controlled him. Tek always relished the brutal treatment that Dek always seemed to get, though he nowhere deserved all the flack he got.

The female warrior Rapier, the only female in the unit, seemed to be disgusted and bored hy everything. She wanted action, but easily lapsed into fretful distraction when presented with inaction. She found Bipas's constant excoriations of Dek to be, not in poor taste and abusive, but a flagrant waste of time and energy. Time and energy that could be expended on far more important ventures. Anything else was pointless.

"This button here, nerd?" Bipas said. "Nerd" was one of Bipas's favorite nicknames for Dek. Before Dek could protest that that wasn't the "pause" button that Bipas was after, it would deactivated the mind control implant, the "plug" as it was colloquially known by this unit of Zirkonians. "Okay!"

He pressed the button. Andy's head snapped down and back up, and he reached lucidity. And with that lucidity came confusion. "Wha . . ."

Then Bipas pressed the button again and Andy's head snapped down and back again. He was being controlled by the controller again. Bipas bashed Dek about the head for Bipas's own mistake.

"Now how do I pause this humanoid subject?!" Bipas demanded, as Rapier gave an impatient scoff at this. She was getting more bored by the minute. As Bipas was still wearing the Bluetooth-like device -- colloquially known as simply the "earpiece" -- so Andy repeated every word translated into English. "This button? Oh, yes. Yes, I knew that."

A spasm raced through Andy as his head dipped to chest then raised again with a goofy look on his face. None of the Zirkonians seemed to give this any mind.

"Can we actually do something worthwhile now, Bipas?" Rapier said, with a witheringly indifferent tone. "Playing with your little toys might be interesting to you, but I'm incredibly bored!"

"Oh, settle down, princess," Tek said, dismissively.

"You wanna go, sharpshooter?" Rapier replied quickly and easily, tapping a claw on his shoulder.

The exchange was almost flirtatious. As if the hostile and combative nature of it was attractive to them. It was not lost on the two, but they remained stoic about it.

Throughout this, Unt and Gru remained standing at attention, saying nothing without being directly addressed, not moving unless directed to do such. They were stiff and rigid in their movements. They were just expected to be mindless cogs of conquest.

"We can't do anything until the nerd over there fixes the grower radar," Bipas snarled, bullyingly. "Isn't that right, Dek?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2016, 09:20:40 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Idle Ramifications

Dek meekly stammered an answer.

"Fix the radar, dork!" Bipas snarled to Dek, as he turned to address the others. "Meanwhile, while we're waiting for the nerd to do that, we can, heh, adopt a few more humanoid subjects."

"Why bother?" Rapier said, scornfully.

"Have a little fun, princess," Tek teased. Rapier wasn't a princess, of course. It was just a benignly derogatory name for Zirkonian females.

"What purpose does it serve?" Rapier quarreled. "How does it further the mission?"

"You said you were bored, Rapier," Bipas said, with a wide, flappy smile full of staggeredly-placed pointed teeth. "Imagine the selection we can have."

"Commander Bipas," Tek said, formally, "need I remind you that we only have six of alienware controllers and earpieces. One of each which are already currently in use."

"Fine," Bipas huffed, "we will get five of the choicest specimens to control."

"But why? What purpose can they possibly serve?" Rapier contested. "Thes weak, flabby creatures?"

"They can increase our mobility," Bipas said, "note how much faster I got here than you when we used that gravity grenade back there."

"That's not much of a plus," she said mulishly. "Besides, you already have a humanoid subject to puppet."

"Which I no longer fancy." Then he threw his earpiece and controller at Dek, accidentally activating it, and "unpausing" Andy. "The dork can keep this puppet. I want something a bit more . . . impressive. Cooler."

Then Bipas snapped, "Unt! Gru! Come!"

They didn't hesitate to comply. They were soldiers. Their individual wills did not matter anymore them. They no longer thought for themselves. It was almost as if they were lobotomized.

When they were gone, Dek put on the earpiece and looked up at Andy, understanding what this was. Dek, unlike the others, had no heart for conquest. But he had a wife and three children to support back home. He had no choice.

"I'm sorry," he said, aggrieved, with Andy repeating it with the same sorrowful inflection and regretful intonation. Dek looked away, and did not even look at Andy. "I'm sorry, hu-man."

Dek picked up the controller and had Andy sit down,  closed his eyes before "pausing" him. Dek wished that he could deactivate the plug and allow him to get away. But the plug would still be in his head, and able to be reactivated at any moment. And he wouldn't been able to translate to him his regret at doing this. His English wasn't very good, and Bipas had discarded the book angrily after failing to understand it or speK it correctly.

"I truly am sorry, hu-man," Dek said, as Andy remained on "pause". It was as if he were crying, but he could allow Bipas to see, though he wasn't here right now. Dek could get in real trouble for sympathizing with a to-be-conquered species. Bipas already thought him soft. "I . . . I truly am."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2016, 06:53:33 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
New Meat

A twenty-something, would-be rocker with startling red hair, bushy eyebrows, freckles and gray eyes stood in his garage strumming out on an electric guitar to looked far more expensive the the garage itself. He imaged himself as being very audacious and popular, whether or not it was true remained to be seen.

He wore artistically-ripped black jeans, brown loafers, a leather jacket with a considerable ruff at the collar, and a length of chain from the right sight. He also wore a shirt with a red Shazam lightning bolt on it.

His name was Eddy Massa, though his rather unimaginative stage name was Brock Starr.

He seemed oblivious to everything around him, as he played. He wasn't exactly pro, and he did have any of GH's music-based abilities. He was just an average human skilled at music, particularly rock and its derivatives.

Then he felt a pinprick on the back of his neck and that was the last thing that he remembered, as fell, convulsing.

"Testing," Eddy's mouth, tongue and voice said, as he stopped convulsing. Then he stood up as if being pulled on invisible wires, legs completely straight, just like Andy did. "This subject is far better than the first one. I'll take it!"

It wasn't Eddy speaking, obviously, though his tongue, mouth and voice shaped the words, he wasn't the one saying them. Bipas had chosing Eddy to be his human proxy. Bipas turned to the other Zirkonians to address them, which Eddy translated into English without even looking at them, "Go find your subject proxies. I'll meet you back at the fallback spot with the nerd. Dork should have the radar up and running by now."

Hiding comfortably within a backpack -- no need in alarming the populace of their presence before they find the grower and before the fleet arrive -- he controlled Eddy to move, rather stilted at first, to go to the spot where Dek was, leaving behind Eddy's expensive guitar and his garage door wide open.

***

A debutante was wearing a luxiorious dress that brought out the blue in her eyes, and had her blonde hair done up in elaborate curls and ringlets. She wore a southern belle sort of hat. She tended to be cold and aloof to others, especially if they were not as financially well-off as she and hers were.

Her name was Bella Flower, only heiress of the Flower Estate.

When she sat down in the cool shade, she removed her hat to make sure she hadn't damaged it or dirtied it up. This was a mistake as she felt a prinprick on hrr neck as the plug too full effect.

Tek offered thr earpiece and controller to Rapier, who looked offended at the mere suggestion of having this hoity-toity human noblewoman as her proxy. She was a warrior, not a pampered princess.

"Unt!" Tek commanded, tossing him the controller and earpiece. He did not hesitate to accept the items, placing the earpiece on his ear at once. "Good, return to Commander Bipas with your proxy."

He made Bella replace her hat, hiding him, as he said, "Yes, sir!" with Bella translating it into English with the exact same inflection and intonation.

***

A D-list celebrity who imagines herself as a pop star was sing at some rinky-dink stage in some forgotten part of the city. She had dyed her hair pink and wore pink contact lenses, thinking it made her look adorable -- it didn't. She never had ascertained the type of fame she wanted, but often deluded herself into thinking that she was just some famous celebrity who had fallen into obscurity. She mostly spent her days wearing pink, frilly things and leeching off friends and family.

Her name was Kylie Nuttet.

She didn't even feel the pinprick on her neck, though she collapsed to the table she was on, before the plug took full control.

"Tek, if you offer me one of these frilly, pathetic subjects as my proxy again, I'm gonna decapitate you," Rapier said, warningly, as Tek again offered a controller and earpiece. Rapier wanted a tough, strong proxy, not these dainty, frail ones.

"Fine, then. Gru!" Tek said, handing over both items to Gru instead. Gru put the earpiece on his ear, and used the controller to empty Kylie's well-worn bag. He jumped inside, the moment that Tek instructed him to rendezvous with Bipas and Unt.

***

A thin, but muscular collegian wrestler was wearing a yellow wrestling uniform with the headgear, and he was resting alone in the locker room, mulling over a match in which he won, but felt that he did so on a mere technicality. He ruffled his blonde hair, as he looked at the ground, with his stormy grey eyes, fully exposing the back of his neck.

His name was Steve Durst.

He never even noticed the pinprick in his neck. He fell over, convulsing on the floor, until the plug took full effect. For this one, Rapier snatched the earpiece and controller from Tek. And, of course, when she spoke, Steve spoke with the same intonation and infleftion, translated into English.

"Finally, a proxy worthy of me," Rapier said, slipping into his bag "I can't tell if this one's a male or female though. It doesn't matter. Get a proxy for yourself, Tek, and we'll reconvene at the precious coordinates."

***

A med student was walking down a deserted part of the street, looking like a bespectacled Professor Oak, look worn. It was almost as if he heard some really bad news or was fretting about upcoming test. He had starlingly green eyes and black hair.

His name was Sammy Brown. And he was Tek's proxy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2016, 10:12:47 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Frictions

"Cloak," GH said, "you still haven't answered my question."

"Zirkonians send their stature amplification trans-mat ahead before their scouting teams," Cloak said. "At least, they do in that other Realm."

"That's stupid," GH commented.

"I didn't say it was a smart tactic," Cloak replied, "especially considering the staggered nature of the two incursions."

"When did the trans-mat thjngy come?"

"I do not know," Cloak answered, "so I cannot say."

They walked in silence, with Cloak traversing the forested terrain easier than GH, who took it slow. It was almost like some strange variation of "The Jungle Book" with GH as Mowgli and Cloak as Bagherra. Neither spoke a word, but GH was becoming anxious.

"I don't think this is the way they took with Andy," GH said.

"We're not looking for him." Cloak said, with a finality to his voice. "At least, I'm not."

"What?" GH said, sharply.

"I never said that I was looking for him," Cloak said, matter-of-factly, before briefly disappearing down a mild incline.

"He needs our help, Cloak!"

"I am aware, GH." Cloak said, dryly, as he attempted to probe the earth with his Earthsight.

"You're abandoning him!"

Cloak glared at his fellow RAFian, "I have priorities, GH. You're allowing your emotions to control your better judgement."

"I am not! He needs m-- us!"

The hasty correction was not lost on Cloak.

"You fancy him," Cloak said.

"Don't judge me," GH said, testily.

"I'm not judging you for it," Cloak said, "at least not in the way you think. You fancy him, that makes this personal for you. Which makes it more difficult for you to think straight, to think objectively."

"I'm thinking just fine, Cloak!"

"Are you?" Cloak said, he didn't even turn to look at him, as he continued onward. "The primary threat is the re-bigulator."

"That's still a stupid name." GH commented. "Yarin probably just found that damn thing already and made his microwave --"

Somewhere, Yarin must've been screaming, "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!"

"-- from it."

Cloak stopped so suddenly, GH walked into him, falling down on his butt. Cloak's eyes were wide, almost as if surprised that it would have been so simple.

"What?" GH asked.

"That's . . ." Cloak stammered quietly, "that's BRILLANT."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2016, 08:51:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Re-Bigulator Radar

Dek finished work on the radar, and he felt great guilt over what he's done. Andy was now his proxy, though not by either's choice. Dek wanted to release him from his control, but he knew that he would be beat by Bipas for doing that. And this time, that might kill him. Seriously -- Bipas might kill him for such a thing. He did not want to widow his wife and leave his children fatherless.

"Dek!" a voice that didn't sound like Bipas, but was him nonetheless, rent the quiet serene forest. It was then that Dek saw Bipas's proxy, Eddy. From Dek's knowledge, and he was the most knowledgeable about Earth culture of the six, this human woukd be considered "cool" and "popular", according to modern trends in their guidebook. Bipas had left Eddy's bag and kept him immobile as he spoke, eith Eddy translating Zirkon into English. "Dork, you had better had repaired the radar. You've had plenty of time!"

"Yes, sir, I did," Dek stammered. "It's . . . It's all ready to --"

"Why isn't your proxy on? Why did you pause it?" Bipas demanded, having found something to criticize Dek on. It was at this point the Gru and Unt appeared with their female proxies. They appeared very stiff and said nothing as they extricated themsleves from the women's bags, and continued not to speak, waiting to be addressed. "Unpause your proxy, nerd!"

Gru and Unt showed no emotion at witnessing this flagrant bullying behavior, neither enjoyment or distain. They just stood at attention, controllers in their right hand. It was as if they did not have a thought that wasn't given to them.

"Do it, dork," Bipas snarled, with Eddy speaking the same words in English, with the same intonation and infliction.

Although Dek hated himself for it, he unpaused Andy. He was still wearing the earpiece, having never took it off. Dek also wondered why it was so important that Bipas not release this particular human from their enslavement . . . before deciding its because Bipas was a control freak. Not knowing about GH's particular attachment to him.

It was at this point that Rapier showed up with Steve under her thumb. She still had him wearing his yellow wrestling leotard thing and head gear, she hadn't made him change or anythng. She didn't care really, but she liked having a tough proxy, if she was going to have a proxy at all.

"Is the radar ready, dork?" Bipas said, Eddy repeating him.

"Y-yes, s-sir," Dek said, with Andy perfectly parroting him, infliction and and intonation.

"Well, then, where. Is. It?" Bipas said, dangerously with Eddy mimicking him, as Tek showed up with Sammy, hidden in his bookbag.

"Th-that w-way," Dek said, pointing, with Andy imitating his words, but not gestures, perfectly.

"Then let's get going," Bipas said, hopping back into Eddy's bag. "And, nerd, you're coming with, so get into your proxy's bag."

Dek hadn't noticed that Andy was wearing a backpack. Didn't know why.

They moved, fundamentally "disguised" as humans now, toward the site of the grower. All six were unaware of just how difficult that this was gonna be.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2016, 02:38:56 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Grilling the Nyac

"I don't know what you're talking about." Yarin said.

"You're lying," Cloak said, matter-of-factly.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Yarin protested again. "The technology within the food yield increaeer was solely Nyac tech. Nothing else."

"You're lying." Cloak repeated, with an air of abject certainty.

"I'm not," Yarin insisted, turning his back to Cloak, while the Nyac mixed chemicals from two different glass test tubes.

"You are," Cloak said. "Perhaps, next time, when you lie, you try not standing on the ground. Maybe then I won't be able to call you out so easily."

"Duly noted, and I wasn't lying," Yarin said,

"Look here, Yarin!" GH was losing his temper. "The Zirkonians are here! They took over someone I -- er, took over a dear friend of mine! They're here after that re-bigulator thingamajig."

"I don't see how that applies --" Yarin said, setting down the test tubes with the graying liquids within swirling around slowly.

"Lies," Cloak identified.

"You don't know that," Yarin sniffed.

"You can't read my mind, Yarin," Cloak said, "not the other way around. Now. Where did you find the stature-amplification trans-mat?"

"I didn't," he said.

"Ah. So, where'd you store it?"

"I didn't," he lied.

"Hmmm . . . so, you used it in your microwave, did you?"

"I did not," he lied, giving it away when he did not scream, "FOOD YIELD INCREASER!"

"So was it the original that was destroyed, or the one you're currently working on in secret in your secret lab?"

"Wait, how do you know about that?" the Nyac asked.

"Internet?" GH offered.

"You really thought putting a secret lab underground would hide it from me, Yarin? Me? Really?"

"Yeah, kinda a royal eff-up there," GH said.

Yarin glowered at the both of them.

"You should know what was inside, though! It's lead-lined and --"

"'Lead-lined'?" Cloak repeated. "Do think me a Kryptonian or something, Yarin? I do not see it with x-ray vision, but with Earthsight. You know this!"

"Guys! Off-track," GH prompted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2016, 07:53:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Trepidation

Dek was still frought with apprehension about what he was doing. He was allowing himself to become a monster. Hiw would he ever be able to look his children in the eyes again, knowing what he was, what he's done. This wasn't right. Zirkonian or not, they did not have the right to do this, to subvert another's free will. There was no excuse for this.

Yet he walked Andy, who stared blankly onward. The controller did not allow the Zirkonians to emote through their proxies -- no, Dek thought bitterly, not proxies. Slaves. Hostages. He found himself hating himself more and more with each and every step that Andy took.

How could the other five be so morally bankrupt? How could they just dismiss the obvious sentience of these creatures? How can they see them as lower, base creatures when they had a language of their own, and created so many things, like the backpack in which he resided, nestled so safely among a spare pare of jeans and other miscellaneous things.

Why was this even needed? Dek found himself wondering. Zirkon wasn't really that bad of a planet, and truth be told, this lush planet wasn't really as lush as he was led to believe. Was conquest really necessary? Was all this effort and subterfuge even worth it?

These hu-mans . . . they could be very good people. They could have heen allies instead of a conquered species. Instead of slaves. Dek hated himself for what he was doing to this human, he knew that Gru and Unt didn't mind this because they were consummate soldiers, and had practically given up any sense of self for it. Dek couldn't understand why that was a good thing. He believed to be horribly pyrrhic to sacrifice your sense of self just so you can be a single cog in an invasion force.

Which reminded him, the Zirkonian fleet would be here soon, expecting them to have reclaimed the grower. It did not fill him with joy.

***

"Guys! Off-track," GH said.

"Yarin, the point is we need to be sure," Cloak said. "And that would be a lot easier -- a lot easier without the half-truths, the evasions, the deceptions. You remember how well that went with Demos, right?"

"I'm not making fiends," Yarin said, testily, fire in all six eyes, "I'm not making fiends, encapsulating them into colorful balls, then losing them all to the winds."

"No, you repeat past mistakes when they prove to be folly, " Cloak said. "Stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that the idea is flawed. Arrogantly dismissing any negative reprecussions of such actions."

"I do not," Yarin protested angrily.

"Then why are you so ardently rebuilding your microwave?" Cloak countered.

"FOOD YIELD INCREASER!!!" Yarin yelled. "It would have ended world hunger! There wouldn't even be a need to increase food production. We just increase the yield of the plants, but increasing the size of the food in question!"

"Thereby possibly causing a population explosion," Cloak pointed out, "far more that the ecosystem could ever possibly cope with. There are already six or seven billion humans alone on this planet. And it can barely support that amount as is."

Yarin looked dismissive of this.

"Also, one could make the argument that the planet isn't even supporting it, with world hunger still a very present problem." Cloak continued.

"Which the F.Y.I. would rectify!"

"Or complicate." Cloak said. "Or exacerbate."

"Guys!!" GH cried.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2016, 09:39:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Routine

Unlike Dek, Tek had no compuction about operating the hu-mans like puppets. It wasn't the first time he did something like this to a larger sentient, sapient species. He always liked this part of the invasion. He liked puppeteering proxies like this, like new toys. It's one reason he eagerly signs up for recon missions, and never argued with the idea of sending the grower mat to the planet first, staggering the invasion. Yeah, this was like this third invasion, and the first two were destroyed. The natives weren't that smart, and he didn't know the names of the inhabitants, as he never bothered to learn them. Both invasions and victories were far too short-lived for his liking.

He enjoyed plugging the natives with the implant plug. He loved the rush of power he got from exerting absolute and abject control over another being. Probably another reason why he had never been married. That and he was an unbearable douche at the best of times, reveling in being an absolute prick to people when they really don't deserve it. He believed himself to be the only smart person awash in a sea of stupidity and incompetence, and that just fed into his arrogance, which he just attributed as objective experience.

He walked Sammy without compunction or sympathy, as the hu-man's eyes were blank and unfocused.. He didn't understand sympathy or compassion, not really. He often derided it with outright scorn and abject dislike. The strongest should prevail over the weak, he opined. The smart should oppress the stupid, he opined. The flexible and adaptable should truimph over the rigid and unchanging, he opined. Disregard for life was a sign of strength, he opined. Anyone who dared to disagree with these viewpoints were met with disrespect and derision, usually by way of caustic remarks and acidic sarcasm. And that was only if he thought it was wanted of a reply, but usually thought things were beneath his notice.

He also enjoyed bearing witness to bullying, the more severe the more entertaining for him. He took a masochistic pleasure in it, though he would not gossip about it, but this is why he respected Bipas, seeing him brutalize Dek who he saw as small, weak, and stupid. He saw Dek as deserving what got because of his weakness, his shameful, shameful weakness.

He also enjoyed calling Rapier "princess" simply because he knew she doesn't like it. That's the only reason that he persists in the nickname. Despite thinking that he is quite the "ladies' man", when it couldn't be further from the truth, he was unmarried and childless, as no female Zirkonian would have him. He would have to plug them, which is illegal in Zirkonian society, outside of strict military means.

He dreaded the coming of the fleet, but not reasons of human sympathy or compassion, but because that would mean that victory was assured and certain. And all this would be over until the next mission.

***

"Guys!!" GH cried.

"You don't know that, Cloak," Yarin challenged. "You cannot know that. Not for certain."

"And you won't even entertain the possibility!" Cloak counter.

"And they're not listening to me," GH said, wanely, "wonderful."

"Because it's a farfetched possibility, Cloak!" Yarin argued.

"But you admit that it is, in fact, a possibility," Cloak replied swiftly. "Solving one problem leads to many others. Others you must consider before making an impossible situation more so. Something that you seem to have problems with doing!"

"I cannot believe that you, of all people, are arguing FOR world hunger!" Yarin said.

"Don't you try to pull that Fox New spin crap on me, Nyac!!" Cloak snarled, having to steady his breathing, lest work himself into a state. "You know for a fact that I'm not arguing for world hunger! I'm arguing against your lack of foresight and forethought! It would be different if humans were a spacefaring race, or if there weren't already several safety questions around your microwave and --"

Yarin opened his mouth to give his usual protest, but Cloak was not having it anymore.

"Your MICROWAVE!!" Cloak snarled. "The very same device that made Horse a giant almost a year ago, and nearly ended up in her death."

"I fixed that malfunction!"

"Suuuure, you did!!"

GH unshouldered his guitar, and said simply, "I tried to be nice."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2016, 08:03:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Ambivalence

Rapier was glad to not be bored anymore. She had no qualms about controlling and puppeting the hu-mans. They were worthless little insects, though she would deny it was fun enslaving and controlling her proxy. She was just happy that her proxy was a tough creature, not one of those frail, dainty creatures that the grunts had as their proxies.

Not many females go into the Zirkonian military, the most profitable career choice of her species. She was one of the few, and sought to separate herself from the rest. She didn't have the kind of experience as Tek did for this kind of thing, having only been on one invasion before, and it didn't exactly go smoothly, though they emerged victorious. She couldn't even be bothered to remember the species name, but they were the reptilian pirates' species that the RAFians faced during their battles with the Xenomorphic Brood, or XBs. They conquered the species, except the pirates that became the victims of the XBs.

She walked Steve, still wearing his wrestling outfit and headgear. Rapier didn't really care about human fashion or societal norms. Those were things to be crushed beneath their heels. The Zirkonians would take the only worthwhile of the species, and, as far as Rapier is concerned, that was only the weapon capabilities. She was sorely disappointed at the pirate species's weaponry, which were mostly unusable by the Zirkonians because, even if they use the growers, they were unable to be wielded by them, due to their rather awkward tridactyl hands were incapable with the pentadactyl hands of this unnamed pirate species. So they just had completely enslave them, but the process to do such Rapier found incredibly boring and far too easy.

These humans were different. They seemed to a bit more resilient than that species. They would give a good struggle. They would lose, of course, as it should be. All species shall fall to Zirkonians, there was no question about that, in Rapier's mind.

But Rapier wasn't a fool, she knew she could use flirtation and her gender to get her way when she wanted to. Then again, she disdained anyone who used such tactics, making her rather hypocritical in this regard. She was also an opportunist, though a deeply Zirkonian loyalist, though not quick to buy into the propaganda.

She lived for this kind of conquest. She lived for this kind of tactic, for ambush and battle. She loved what she did, loved every moment of it. Though she was secretly saddened that the fleet was on their way. That meant this mission was nearly at its end, and who knew when they would find another planet worth conquering?

***

GH unshouldered his guitar, and said simply, "I tried to be nice."

The two continued to argue, even as GH spent a few precious seconds making sure his guitar was still perfectly tuned. It was, as GH checks that at least once a day, bare minimum.

"Sorry, baby," GH apologized quietly to his guitar, as the two stubbornly continued their argument.

Then GH played. And he played intentionally bad and discordant.

The two immediately stopped their arguing to hold their ears. GH only persisted for a moment or two, before stopping completely.

"What was that about?!" Yarin demanded.

"You two wouldn't listen to me!" GH said, incensed. "You're getting really offtrack and losing sight of the friggin' goal!"

The two said nothing, so GH continued.

"The question of the viability of Yarin's microwave -- shut up, Yarin, and let me finish! -- is NOT the issue here. The issue is whether or not you found that stupid stature-amplification thingy. And I think we pretty much established -- I'm not through, Yarin! -- that you did, indeed, find it and incorporated it into your microwave -- Yarin, I said that I wasn't through! -- and the fact that the Zirkonians are here, and they are seeking it out, assuredly. They have a hostage, a slave, under their control. They could gotten more for all I know, but the point is, they'll be be after your microwave -- oh, get over it! No one's gonna call it that! Accept it and move on!"

GH was a little out of breath, at the end of this monologue.

"Right," Cloak said, with dignity. "Which is why we need to insure that they don't get it. I'm not sure if it would be as bad as the Fmeks, but the fact of the matter is that it would be dangerous nonetheless."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2016, 07:13:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Self-Importance

Bipas was elated as he always was during these type of missions. Granted, he didn't get into his position of power by his personality or, really, any merit. He had greased some palms to get to this position, and managed to keep it after the subjugation of the pirate Reptoids, the remaining Contrarians, nearly-extinct Lysuns, and the rare Chiropteraluna, as well as the extermination of the obscure Smilodites, the popular Florastrix, the popular Heliofelis, and the unpopular Aquapinnipeds. All successful Zirkonian conquests, although some feel that Bipas just made up some of them, like the Smilodites, just to bolster his reputation.

Bipas was giddy as he walked Eddy. He was eager to add humans and Earth to that list, though he didn't care if it was as slaves or another extermination. But, then again, he had no idea the obstacle that RAF could prove, ignorant how big of a monkey wrench they can throw in to Bipas's campaign.

But Bipas was an arrogant, self-righteous blowhard of a bully. He refused to believe the possibility that he could ever be beat. He thought he was entitled to enslave or eradicate any race in the galaxy he chose to. He didn't consider any other species sentient -- capable of complex thought or feelings -- other than Zirkonians, and even then, he treated his own kind with aggression and abuse. Well, except those that he saw as really useful as Tek and Rapier. Though he was useful to Bipas, he did not like Dek at all. Especially after Dek uttered a one-liner that embarassed the Zirkonian commander, a one-liner that Dek didn't even remember making. He wasn't above threatening Dek's wife and kids, as well.

The reason he became a commander was for not altruistic nonsense, but because of the thrill of conquest, the elation of triumphing over others, the uproarious kick of crushing people beneath his heel, the sheer excitment of bending the will of others to his own . . . it's what Bipas lived for. He didn't care if he happened to prove to be abusive in his endeavors, as long as it gave him what he wanted.

It was a rather apt comparison to make between Bipas himself and the Zirkonian empire. Both were bullies and thinking that they were always in the right in everything that they did. They were bullies ripe for a rude awakening.

***

"Right," Cloak said, with dignity. "Which is why we need to insure that they don't get it. I'm not sure if it would be as bad as the Fmeks, but the fact of the matter is that it would be dangerous nonetheless."

"I did take anything! The F.Y.I. is nothing but pure Nyac tech --"

"-- Taken from the Zirkonians," Cloak interjected.

"-- Taken from the -- DAH!! Don't do that!" Yarin said, irritated.

"So you admit it, then?" Cloak asked.

"I admitted nothing!"

"Then where did the growing tech come from?"

"It's Nyac tech!" Yarin said, a tone of pride in his voice. But Cloak saw through it, saw through the posturing.

"Yarin. Enough. No one is buying that rhetoric," Cloak said. "Please be candid with us. The Zirkonians are here. They will be looking for it."

Yarin said nothing.

"Yarin! Swallow your damn pride and tell us what we need to know!!" GH raged. He was still concerned for Andy. "We don't have time for this sh--"

"Alright," Yarin said, quietly and darkly. "Yes, I did find the trans-mat device. It wasn't anything like I've seen before. I had never conceived of a way to amplify size. I saw it as the ultimate answer for world hunger. Make the food yield larger by increasing the mass of the food itself. It could help a lot of people."

Yarin paused, expecting Cloak to interrupt. He didn't.

"I brought it back here," Yarin continued, "I took it apart, and reverse engineered it into the food yield increaser. The components of the original device were destroyed during the Black Lantern event -- I'm not exactly sure how, though."

"When did you find it?" Cloak asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2016, 10:22:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Empty

Gru and Unt were grunts. Soldiers without a sense of self or even an identity beyond there names. They had allowed the Zirkonian military to take that away from them. They had their.personalities stripped from them. They were grunts. That was their only purpose, they didn't remember who they were before joining the military. They were cogs, cogs of pure loyalty and dedication and devotion to furthering the Zirkonian Empire and their goals, their agendas.

This was in part because they were criminals before their time as grunts. At least, what Zironians consider criminal, anyway.

Unt was a criminal by human standards as well as Zirkonians. He had no morality -- horribly bigoted, violet to a disturbing degree, and dangerous even to other Zirkonians. While they applaud that kind of immortality normally, this was actually too much even for them. They didn't want to put him in an invasion force because, while bloodthirsty and without scruples, he was completely uncontrollable. He would not listen to a superior officer's orders or rules. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and he did not have any morals or values that he lived by. He had no remorse or regret about anything that he did. So he was incarcerated, and then "processed" to make him compliant -- they basically erased all that he was, his personality, his memories, from his brain and replaced it with a more loyal, controllable personality. He was little more than an organic robot now.

Gru was more of a political prisoner than a criminal, in human sensibilities, however. He did not agree with the conquering mentality of his species. And he tended to be very vocal about his governmental malcontent. He was trying to get real change moving in Zirkon, and seemed to have limited success, which the planet's establishment worked very hard to suppress through propaganda and mudslinging. So, they came up with a good deterrent -- they arrested Gru and "processed" him to have undying loyalty to the empirical regime with unfailing devotion, essentially killing the malcontent movement on the homeworld.

Puppeteering their hu-mans, despite basically being brainwashed puppets themselves, they walked Belle and Kylie with mechanical precision. They hadn't a thought of their own anymore . . .

***

"When did you find it?" Cloak asked.

Yarin hesitated.

"Yarin," GH prompted.

"A little more than a year ago," Yarin confessed quietly, "after the viral ooze incident*."

Silence set in for a bit. Cloak resisted his urge to interrogate the Nyac and let that go.

"Are you sure the original parts are.gone?" GH asked.

"Destroyed and twisted beyond compare," Yarin asked.

"How?" GH said.

"I don't know," Yarin said.

"Yarin," GH warned.

"He's being truthful," Cloak said.

"Oh," GH said.

"It happened while you guys were seeking that Great Power to kill thst Black Lantern Central Battery thing**." Yarin said. "I do not know why or how. There was evidently a fire during my absence, burning a couple of important blueprints and items, like -- well, it's not important, the prototypes were failures anyway."

"Yeah, nothing suspicious about that," GH said, dryly.

---

* Book 2.

** Book 28.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2016, 11:29:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Doorstep

"What reason do you have to question my --" Yarin said, before getting distracted, "what the devil?"

He had sensed psychically something really strange.

Six dormant minds, human, from what he could tell. Not really dormant, more like suppressed into dormancy. He couldn't activate these minds from here, he found. It was funny how that never seems to work. There must be some technological means in which these minds were being suppressed into dormancy. Or maybe so magical or mystical means. He was certain that it was mind control and not something like possession or seduction or anything like that.

Aside from these six, he could sense and probe four others, the remaining two were too maimed to probe . . . or were they blank? Yarin couldn't tell, and that unsettled him, though he said nothing about it. He could sense one reluctant mind, someone who didn't want to be here, who didn't want to do this. He sensed the second mind full of himself in a very narcissistic way. He sensed the third mind full of temporary, fickle exhilaration. He sensed the last mind to be full of thoughts of self-indulgent glory and self-important rewards.

He didn't dare risk a deeper probe, or that might alert them to his awareness of their presence and their proxy hostages, their proxy slaves.

Yarin wasn't the only one aware. There was a serious drawback of walking their proxies -- they were walking. Which meant that they were making impacts, vibrations to be detected by anyone with Earthsight. Not to mention one as adept as Cloak was.

"They're here," Cloak said.

"Those are the Zirkonians?" Yarin asked. "They have human proxies?"

"Proxies?" GH asked, taking notice of the plural. "As in more than one?"

"Yes," Cloak said, sounding grave and somber, "the Zirkonians have added more victims to their repertoire."

***

"Are you sure this is the place where the grower is?" "Eddy" demanded of "Andy", while having a blank face and empty eyes.

"Th-the r-radar ind-indicates that its th-there," "Andy" stuttered with naked fear, while having a blank face and empty eyes.

"You had better be right, you little twerp," "Steve" said, aggressively, while having a blank face and empty eyes. "I do not want to think what would have wasted my time for a wild -- no translation available -- chase."

Steve's voice became less harsh and cruel when he said "no translation available".

"Not good enough for you, princess?" "Sammy" said scornfully, with empty eyes and a blank face. "Your time too precious or something?"

"Don't think I won't kill your proxy to get at you, Tek," "Steve" said, blank-faced and empty-eyed. "Just give me an excuse."

"What is this?" "Eddy" demanded angrily, with an expressionless face. He was commenting on the barely visible Code Avalon. Then, with a face lacking any facial emotion, "Eddy" accused "Andy", "You knew of this forcefield, didn't you?!"

"Andy" protested, with a blank expression, "No, s-sir! I d-didn't! I s-sincerely d-didn't!!"

"Eddy" threatened with an unimpressed expression,  "You better be sure of that, dork! If you are lying to me, not only will you feel my wrath, but your proxy would be subjected to my ire as well."

"I assure you," "Andy said, voice trembling, though his face was a featureless mask, "the grower is in there."

"Please be wrong," "Sammy" said, with a sardonic little twist to it, despite his face literally betraying no emotion. "It'll be quite entertaining."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2016, 08:01:06 AM

Yeah, this book might exceed the usual requisite twnety chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
What the -- ?

"Deactivate the shield thing," "Eddy said, eyes unfocused, and he did not ever turn his his head. "Do it, dork!"

"I -- I c-can't!" "Andy" said.

"You dare to defy -- what the deuce?!"

Suddenly, the Zirkonians weren't in bags, but on the ground, flat on their butts, all crying out in surprise. They didn't see what dumped them out, it was almost as if it was a ghost or something.

"What happened?" Rapier demanded, with "Steve" echoing her tone and infliction, though his face was blank. "What happened?!"

"I . . . I dunno," Tek admitted, with "Sam" echoing her tone and infliction, with empty eyes and a slack face. It took him something to admit that -- he did not like to admit thst he was wrong or didn't know anything. "I can't say."

"Well, ex--" Bipas began before realizing that that Eddy was not parroting him. He did not know why, as he tapped his earpiece, until he realized the earpiece wasn't there. He cried out, "What?!"

"Who stole my earpiece?!" Tek demanded, with Steve, naturally, not repearing him, just staring blankly ahead.

"Don't at me, you gnodgnid!" Rapier snarled. She was angry. "Mine is gone, too!"

Gru and Unt just stood, mindlessly, the consummate Zirkonian soldier . . . with their minds and personalities stripped from them. Their earpieces were also gone, but they didn't react at all. Whereas Dek was secretly glad his was gone as well.

Suddenly, a slight whirring sound, and Eddy wore a dopey look on his face. He was on pause. And Bipas didn't do that. In fact, he didn't even have his controller anymore. This, naturally outraged him.

Another slight whirring sound and Steve now wore a silly look on his face. He was on pause. Rapier didn't do or want this. She was livid at this, as she clenched her fists, realizing for the first time that she no longer held the controller. She looked around, and could not find it.

Yet another slight whirring sound and Sammy now wore a stupid look on his face. He was on pause. Tek was apocalyptic with anger. He hadn't meant for that -- and he realized that he was not only not holding the controller, but he had lost the plug gun. They couldn't make any more proxies, could not get any other humans under their control. He was deeply embarrassed to admit it, though.

A fourth slight whirring sound and Bella now wore a dumb look on her face. She was on pause. Unt did not react, his hands empty. He had no emotions, no thought, unless given to him by his superior officer.

A fifth slight whirring sound and Kylie now wore a daft look on her face. She was on pause. Gru did not react, his hands as empty as Unt's. He felt and thought nothing, as Bipas hadn't given him anything to feel or think.

A final slight whirring sound and Andy now wore the same derpy look on his face as before. He was on pause again. Dek's hands were empty, and he was secretly glad. He was actually starting to like these humans, and sympathy for a subjugated race -- and the Zirkonians already considered humans a subjugated race -- was considered a crime on Zirkon. If Dek was honest, he would have been arrested as a traitorous sympathizer. The government didn't take kindly to such people.

"Well," came a ****y sort of voice, atop the wall around this entryway, "THAT was inordinately easy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2016, 09:11:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Proxy Prisoners

"Well," came Cerulean's voice, atop the wall around this entryway, "THAT was inordinately easy."

"Who are you?!" Bipas demanded, but Cerulean didn't understand Zirkon. He intended used his communicator as a translator, but needed a bit more to enable real-time translation. "You dare to defy my orders, hu-man?!"

Whether or not Cerulean was indeed a human, Cerulean didn't seem fit to correct them, as he had enough to began to translate in real-time.

"Answer me, you dimwitted biped!"

"And if I don't?" Cerulean drawled, flippant. It was clear that he didn't feel intimidated by the Zirkonians. "If I decided that you're not the boss of me?"

"Do you know who I am?!" Bipas raged at this blatant disrespect. All were supposed to be intimidated and impressed by the great Commander Bipas! Commander Bipas, Conquerer of Worlds! "Don't know you knownwhat I am you backwater hick? I'm Commander Bipas!"

"And?" Cerulean said, unimpressed.

"I'm the Conqueror of Worlds!" the Zirkonian raged.

"Oh, another one of those," Cerulean said, still unimpressed.

"You will respect me, hu-man!!"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever," Cerulean said, checking a text on his communicator. He even seemed to wobble for a second, before stopping and appearing perfectly solid again.

"Respect me, or I'll kill our hu-man proxies!"

Dek almost outted himself as a sympathizer by his horrified expression at this, but the others (except Gru and Unt, of course) didn't notice because they were focused on the speedster RAFian.

But Cerulean's reaction was not one Bipas was anticipating. Cerulean smiled broadly and cheekily, "What proxies?"

Bipas spluttered indignantly, "These proxies! Right here!"

"Sir, there's no one there," Dek said.

And it was true. Their six human proxies were gone.

"Impossible!"

"Impossible?" Cerulean asked, coyly, "Well, welcome to RAF! Where the impossible is possible."

Bipas roared with frustration. They hadn't even found the grower and now they lost their proxies, earpieces, and controllers! If the fleet came now . . . if came now, he'd be humiliated!!

He looked up, the he felt his stomach plummet from sheer embarrassment. The fleet was here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2016, 10:08:27 AM

Okay, this book will exceed twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
How Embarrassing For You

Cerulean looked up at the darkening sky, indifferently and unconcernedly. He had no further instruction, as he knew he was supposed to get the proxies to Cloak and Kelly, to free them of the plug, while Yarin would try to patch up any psychological trauma.

Dek was feeling mixed and anxious. He did not want this planet to be conquered, and he did not want to be done in by his own people. He was at an impasse, both a cultural and moral impasse.

Tek was grumpy, as he knew he would get hell for his failures on this planet. He knew he would get flack when it was due to the incompetence of their oh-so-fearless leader. Now he would have to endure the humiliation and be the butt of so many jokes because of Bipas's fanatical stupidity, because of his childish need for recognition! It would be unbearable. . . .

Rapier was aloof, not revealing her true feelings about this. She felt as if they failed their mission objectives. This was her first time in doing so, so she was a little testy about. She felt that she could have succeeded if she had done this entire mission by herself. She didn't need this egotistical leader, this soft, ineffectual engineer, the two mindless drones, and the arrogant narcissist over there. They all just weighed her down, just held her back, from what was an assured victory!! She hated them all for it. For the humiliation, this blemish on her impeccable record. It was maddening!

Gru and Unt did not have any reaction whatsoever to this. They did not care, as it had been ordered yet for them to care about it, and even then it would be difficult considering their "programming".

Bipas was disconsolate with outrage and frustration. Seven incursions he led, seven invasions, seven!! Every one of them was successful!! This was just going to be another notch in his belt!! Another accomplishment, another achievement to be acknowledged and celebrated!! He would be going back to Zircon a failure and a disgrace. And he didn't even choose this blasted planet to conquer!! That was his higher-up that make that decision, whi chose him for this fruitless endeavor. Now that the fleet was here, his incompetence here will supercede all his past accomplishments and achievements. No one will remember his great successes at the past seven worlds, oh no. They'll just remember this glaring failure! Even when the fleet takes this planet, he would be a laughingstock in the history books of this particular moment in time! The humiliation and fall from grace will be all-encompassing. . . .

"Ah, yes, about that," Cerulean said, conversationally, "we thought that you guys might have tried to pull this. So . . . we called in our biggest gun."

And already the fleet was disappearing. Running away. The Zirkonians did not dare to believe it.

"Yeah," Cerulean said, indifferently examining his fingernails, speaking in a matter-of-fact manner, "Estelore there wasn't too terribly pleased with your little invasion force."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2016, 09:28:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Aftermath

It went rather smoothly for the RAFians from there, though Wild had to battle a Loboan DNAlien. The Zirkonians had to sign a peace accord with Earth, as well as release Dek, his wife, and their children from Zirkon. They wanted to make a new home on Earth, because Dek also wanted to make restitution to Andy and his family, though Andy remained oblivious to what happened to him.

So, Dek, his wife Pik, his sons Jok, Nak, and his daughter Juk were made RAFians, although GH felt rather hostile towards him, while Leatherhead was ecstatic that there were more kids, as Nak was roughly his age, although Zirkonians aged only slightly faster than Realm Walkers. Dek knew he would have to make amends to GH, who wasn't really feeling all that forgiving. But he grudgingly allowed Leatherhead to play with Nak, who had trouble making friends on Zirkon (while his brother really didn't like the ruthlessness of his peers and kept to himself, an outsider). Juk was really too young to understand these sort of things.

<GH,> Noelle said, <if I can forgive Gladiolus for what he did -- and it was not easy, mind you -- surely you can forgive Dek?>

GH said nothing, but watched protectively as Leatherhead played with Nak, even teaching him some English. GH didn't think he would ever forgive Dek for what he did to Andy. It was unfair though, as he didn't plug Andy, as it was Tek. But GH didn't know this, and wouldn't believe it if Dek tried to explain it to him.

He had his mind made up, and this was his truth. And when that happens, nothing can change it, it's just basic human psychology, Noelle guessed, as she moved away to graze.

***

Ursa was growling a younger, more insecure Cloak.

"Why did you do that?" she growled throatily.

"I'm sorry," Cloak said, clearly intimidated.

"I warned you never to DO that!!"

"I didn't mean any harm," Cloak said, shrinking away from his ursine mother.

"DO REALIZE WHAT YOU COULD HAVE DONE?!?!"

"Please," Cloak said, shrinking further away, "please, mother. Stop."

"GET OUT!!" she roared in response.

"No," Cloak whimpered. This was his mother someone he was supposed to trust. Someone who was supposed to love him unconditionally. But all he knew from her was misery, and fear. "Please, mother."

"GEEEEEEEEEET . . . OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT!!"

And she stalked toward him, ursine claws at the ready. Ready to strike her second child, her only son. Ready to --

"ANIYU, ENOUGH!!!" Cloak said. He was on the floor, shuttering from the long-suppressed fear. If there was only one person in all of creation Cloak truly feared . . . it was that woman. "Please, Aniyu, enough."

"Cloak," Aniyu said, not unkind or harsh in the least. "I know its hard. But you have to confront this, or you'll never be free of it."

"I know. I KNOW!!" Cloak said, frustrated. "It's just . . . just . . ."

Cloak had no answer. He just shuttered from the pure, unadulterated fear he felt.

***

GH was back at work, the first time that he was scheduled to work the same shift as Andy since he was Dek's puppet. GH couldn't find him, and he was never tardy to work. He worked as hard as GH did. This wasn't like him.

Then he noticed that "Armadillo Anderson" was greeting kids and posing for pictures. GH felt a sense of relief, Andy's ordeal did not keep him down. GH knew that Andy was more resilient than an ordinary person.

When "Armadillo Anderson" came back into the kitchen, GH walked up and asked, "Andy? Are you in there?"

But when the head came off, GH was disappointed.

"Nope," Craig said. "He called in today."

"Called in?" GH repeated, concerned. He told himself it was because Andy was a friend . . . and that GH secretly was attracted to him, which he refused to admit aloud. "Did he mention why?"

"Dunno," Craig said. "Not his secretary."

GH wasn't too thrilled about Craig's unhelpfulness, but then he considered.

"How long were you in that suit?" GH asked.

"'Bout an hour," Craig said. "Lost count."

GH was immediately more keen to cut Craig some slack, but he was still concerned about Andy. This wasn't like him. He would have never skipped out on work like this. Something was wrong.

But what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2016, 09:30:26 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXV:
CREEPING CRYSTAL
CHAPTER ONE:
The Runaround

As Gumby fought a Theo Khufan DNAlien, GH was pounding the pavement. He was off from work tonight, and so was Andy. GH had decided to pay Andy a visit, and try to get some answers for his odd, unusual behavior.

He believed he knew his home, as he delivered him back here himself after the mind plug was removed. But things have an annoying habit of looking so different in the dark from daytime. GH was confident that he could find the place.

And so he did.

But when Andy answered the door, he looked a bit more disheveled than he usually did. It was a shock to GH. He knew Dek wasn't still controlling him, as he witnessed the plug being removed himself. Something else was going on here.

"Lewis?" Andy asked. "You . . . you can't be here. Not right now."

"What? Andy, what's going on?" GH said, fighting an odd desire to confess everything to Andy. "What's wrong?"

Andy hesitated, not opening the door more than the sliver that it was opened to. He looked down, not meeting GH's eye. Something was definitely up.

"Andy, what's wrong?" GH said. "You know you can tell me."

Andy blushed, though he played it off with a shrug. "I . . . can't."

"Sure, you can," GH said.

Andy looked at him, "No, I can't."

GH wasn't the only one hiding something, and he wondered if Andy knew he was hiding something. If he knew that Lewis wasn't his real name.

"Why?" GH pressed.

"Thanks for checking up on me, Lew," Andy said, as made to snap the door shut, "I do appreciate it. See you at work on Monday."

GH was nonplussed at this. This was totally out of character for Andy. He wasn't this secretive and secluded. Something was definitely up, but GH could not begin to imagine what. As he walked away, he knew that he couldn't just continually nag him about it. That wouldn't do anything but cause him to clam up further.

But GH couldn't help himself, but worry about Andy. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2016, 05:43:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Drive

John Jaxur was a mess. The whole Void Space generator was his ticket to power, but now? Now he was back to being a lowly Knight grunt. The kind of grunt that always had a Zubat or Poochyena. A low-level Zubat or Poochyena.

Demoted! Demoted for his failure! It wasn't even his fault that projector got destroyed. It wasn't his fault that that . . . that Goode fellow refused to recreate it. It wasn't his fault when he executed him for his noncompliance! He had no choice!

He supposed he should count himself lucky to still be allowed to call himself a Knight and wear the regalia. But it was a fall from grace, and it was a hard fall. But it was still humiliating. Demeaning! Mortifying! Disgraced! He knew that he was the laughingstock of the whole organization.

Jaxur was in a dark, dank, forgotten warehouse, trying to escape the subtle and not-so-subtle jeers, the sneers behind his back, the mockings to his face . . . it was horrible. It was almost too much to bear.

He milled around the layers of forgotten and abandoned goods, which was rotting away, collapsing into dust or otherwise covered in a thick layer of dust. The place reeked of being ancient, and falling apart. Jaxur wouldn't be surprised if there was black mold here.

Then he came upon a dust-covered, dust-colored, rather bullet-shaped thing. The sides seemed to have been a smooth granite or other such material. It was only marred by a single hole, one shaped like a "+". It looked rather like a keyhole.

What was this? What could this possibly be?

Wait -- these runes . . . no, it was writing. But what did it say? It was difficult to make out. "Th_ Cr_st__ Dr_ve". That was the best he could make out, and he tried to riddle out what it meant.

He decided to try the second one first. "Druve"? "Drave"? "Dreve"? "Drove"? Oh, wait. Of course. It had to be "Drive".

The first was was more diffiicult as there were three letters missing, instead of one. "Crusty"? No, one letter too little. "Crast"? That wasn't even a word! "Crest"? Not enough letters. "Crested"? It fitted, but didn't make sense, as what the heck was a "crested drive"? Um . . . "Cost"? Not enough letters. "Costly"? "Costly drive"? That made more sense, but Jaxur somehow thought that it was wrong.

Bah!

What did it matter? This could possibly be weaponized like the Void Space projector? If it could, then he'd be back on top again! He would be able rid this world of the filth that defiled it. Granted, he didn't know what it did, but Jaxur's reckless ambitions and desperate hopes had blinded him to this.

But he would first need the key.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2016, 06:06:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Fear and Core

Ursa had seized Cloak by the ear, and she yanked hard. So hard that he was sure that she would have ripped it off.

"You listen to me."

"Mother, please," Cloak said. He was in tears.

"You do not speak to me in that way," she said. She was upset that he couldn't find the item she wanted at the shop. She was already miffed that neither Shadow or him wanted to rub her feet after a trip. Cloak had made a mistake of delivering her bad news. His mother never took bad news well, and she always used him as a scapegoat.

How did his father endure this for seventeen years?

"Get out." she said, releasing his ear. "GET OUT!!!"

Cloak had fallen to the floor, curling his body up into a fetal position, terrifed of his mother, but also hurt and angry. It wasn't possible to tell which he felt more. His mother had left him at the side of the road back to their hovel. He would have to walk the hour's trek back. She was covert in her abuse, so no one really noticed.

One female Realm Walker stopped to see if he was alright, she apparently bore witness. Cloak didn't even remember what she looked like, but he declined her kindness, feeling distraught, anger and fear.

And Shadow had witnessed this.

And Shadow was with her.

And, at any moment, she could turn Shadow against him. Make her hate him. That was a different kind of fear. A fear that often leads to depression.

"Aniyu," Cloak said. His voice trembled. Using Shadow, or her relationship with her uncle rather, to manipulate Cloak was a favorite tactic of hers. After all, she used it with him against her father. "Please . . ."

"No, Cloak," Aniyu said, firmly. "Don't run from this. Face it. Overcome it."

"I-I-I can't," Cloak stammered.

"You can," Aniyu said.

But suddenly Cloak's eyes popped open, as he sensed something . . . powerful. As if some mighty machine had just moved around in a somniferous state.

***

Jaxur looked around the mouldering old warehouse. That key had to be here. Somewhere.

But where?

Jaxur had no earthly idea what this thing did or even if he whould be messing with it at all, but he was not in a right frame of mind, as saturated as it was with self-pity and anger. All he knew was if he could get it to work and if it was something that he could weaponize, he would be back on top again.

He noticed a small hollow space some feet away, and he quickly crossed to it. Inside he found what appeared to be a key, only the key hadn't any teeth on the end. It had a decorative handle and and simple shaft that was metal, but looked wooden. Jaxur failed to notice the four slits spaced even around this key core.

He took it and jammed it into the Drive. Nothing happened. It was at this moment that Jaxur noticed the four slits, realizing that the key had four missing spokes that would need to be found before the damn device would work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2016, 10:22:44 PM

Rereading an old book for class, I cam up this:

Quote from: CloakedFigure on June 06, 2012, 10:03:52 AM

Then again, probably won't be 767 books . . .

Oh, how naive I was . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Divining Spoke Locations

Jaxur quickly removed the key core, immensely disappointed. He was tempted to, in his frustration,  just angrily throw the key across the deteriorating warehouse floor. But he didn't. He didn't know why, but he didn't.

It was like a veil of clarity was being washed upon him. Clearly, the key needed other fragments of itself. The four groves at the tip and along the side? For the spokes. Was it picky about which spokes went into which? Fortunately, with his new grunt status, his new superiors weren't that interested in him or his endeavors. He would have to report in eventually, but he could put that off for a while. If anyone asks, he would just BS them, and most of the other grunts would have either believed it or completely indifferent.

This was more important. Though he didn't know why, he sensed great power from this lump of stone. He could simply be hedging all his hopes on this one thing, and that could prove to be disastrous for him. But he didn't care, he was throwing caution to the wind.

Maybe it would settle for surrogate spokes? Not the actual ones?

He carefully slid in some really thin pieces of bark, to see if that worked, but they were incinerated to ash the moment his intent became known. He cursed a rather vulgar human word, and he resisted another impulse to thrown the godforsaken thing.

But then the key projected four different images that it took Jaxur some time to sort out. He pocketed the key, which ended the projections. It was getting late and he had to check in with his superiors, or else they might not by his BS. He wouldn't tell them about the key or the drive yet.

As he went, he tried to detangle the four images burned into his mind. A small, roughly-bricked lean-to type of dwelling. A desert. A watery cave. A forgotten, flooded city.

The images were so clear, yet still jumbled. He would know them if he saw them again. He tried to put them on the back burner, and focus on dealing with his superior -- a favorite of ol' Loose Cannon himself. He felt an enmity with the guy, who revelled and enjoyed Jakur's pain and humiliation. This guy liked throwing his weight around, but was smart enough to weasel out of any failure in ways that Jaxur couldn't. Despite being horribly xenophobic -- a prerequisite for the Knights, basically -- but he had a sense of honor and integrity, though questionable at times. Of course, it was twisted and distorted by his xenophobia.

"Squire Jaxur," he said, placing deliberate emphasis on the title, "report."

"Yes, Ebenezer," Jaxur said, unable to hide his contempt.

"What?" Ebenezer snarled, not missing a moment to derogate and deride Jaxur. And John Jaxur knew it. "You dare to disrespect me like that, boy?"

Jaxur was actually older, and looked so.

"Sorry, Sir Schultz," Jaxur said. He was trying very hard not to sneer. If he hadn't fallen from grace, this sorry piece of work would be a friggin' Squire. This was humiliating, having to kneel before a person half his age, who profited from his failure. It was maddening.

But, as he thought of the key hidden perfectly in his pocket, not all was lost to him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2016, 10:01:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Ack! A Shack!

After having to suffer through the ignoble indigity and horrid humilition, not for the first time since his disgrace, Jaxur went on an "unauthorized" mission. He remembered those four images very plainly.

The shack.

The desert.

The cave.

The forgotten city.

They were starting to serious untangle now, and Jaxur was able to see the shack clearly. It was built low to the ground, built of brick, with only a solitary window on the door side as it was built into a hill. Probably for defense reasons. It looked more like a forgotten bomb shelter than a shack, really. The door was thick and heavy, and the window looked reinforced.

Jaxur gasped as this image clarity became very crisp. He didn't know how or why, but he didn't care. His ambitions were clouding his good judgement. He diving into a destructive narcissism, a dangerous thing to do. His aspirations were becoming grandiose, pursuing power at any cost for the sake of power, devaluing and exploiting others without remorse, and generally being inconsiderate of others . . . all signs of destructive narcissism.

The minute he woke up, he immediately went to the location he believed the spoke to be. He discovered rather quickly he could use the key as a sort of dowsing rod to locate the shack. It was surprisingly easy.

He quickly crossed the hilly ground, to the thick oak door, which creaked open ominously. He walked in boldly and crassly, as if he owned the place, finding the lighting rather less than desirable. He followed the key as his dowsing rod to find, hopefully finding the spoke.

He was irritated that he had to solve puzzles to proceed further, as the key indicated most insistently. The first one had something to do with manipulating weights to open a secret staircase, then finding a secret panel, then having to manipulate a pillar puzzle, mimicking an old faded diagram.

The spoke was inside. It was plane of pristine crystal of the most verdant green imaginable. The key hovered of its own accord, as the spoke slid into the slit easily and perfectly. Then the key, with this spoke, flew back into his hand, and he felt a happy warmth with it there. He quickly pocketed it and left.

He had to report to Sir Smultz again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2016, 06:17:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Desert, Mine

Screw it, Jaxur thought, when considered going to report in. Screw the Knights. The humiliation isn't worth it.

Jaxur kept driving, right out of the city and far away.

I give an eff if they throw me out, he thought savagely. I'm not obligated to be in their little club. I'm obligated to take this abuse, this humiliation. They can take this and shove it up their --

The key seemed to activate again -- the green spoke apparently allowing it a greater radius of sensitivity to the spoke. Jaxur stopped his car, tore off his Knight regalia and abandoned it without second thought or regret or remorse.

Why I'd ever want to associate with that pack of pretentious pricks, I don't know. Jaxur thought, with self-derision. After all I've done for them, they backstab me like that.

He followed the key downward, in a rather hidden cave. No, it wasn't a cave. There were stairs and the walls were a little to smooth and straight-cut to be naturally formed. And there were were crudely-crafted wooden stairs descending lower into the cavern tappering off to the right, in a "J" shape.

He followed stairs, to mouldering wooden dais. Jaxur was starting to see why the mine was abandoned. All the ore here was tapped out. Hence why the mine existed, but no tools and things were left behind, hence there wasn't some emergency causing them to have evacuated the place. Nor were there any bodies or things like that.

Jaxur was a bit leery and iffy about stepping upon the dais, afraid that it would crumble beneath his weight. He took a tentative step onto the dais and was pleasantly surprised to see that appeared to be quite stable. It didn't crumble under his weight, but bore it easily.

Jaxur consulted the key again. It pointed him to another staircase that Jaxur hadn't noticed there before. He followed the the key's incessant direction, and eventually came to find the spoke in a forgotten pile of sand. The spoke flew to the key, which floated of its own accord. A solid plane of crystal colored a fiery red emerged from the pile of sand, and it inserted itself in the slit to the right of the green one. Then the key flew back into the hand of Jaxur.

Jaxur smiled. That was two spokes now, without any resistance or anyone trying to stop him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2016, 04:49:03 AM

FINALLY all caught up! And I like this thing you've introduced in the latest book: villain turning on villains.

And dang, the dark ending to The Great Brain Robbery. Should've seen that coming, but hit you all the same.

Also, the whole public-against-the-RAFians, they-need-regulation thing... yeah, knowing what movie you watched last, I see where this is coming from... and I love it. ;)

AND BOY DO I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2016, 05:07:40 AM

Well, that they "they-need-regulation" thing actually came from US politics -- which I recently lost a friend over (she's in the Cult of Hillary).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 25, 2016, 05:12:59 AM

Which is pretty much influencing a lot of stories recently. We're all doomed, aren't we?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2016, 05:39:04 AM

Pretty much.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Underground Lake

Ugh.

He blocked Nezer Schultz's number. He had to, as Schultz was blowing up his phone wonder where the hell he was. As far as Jaxur was concerned, he was no longer a Knight. He was still a xenophobic prick of a man, but not a Knight.

Nezer was trying to get ahold of him because of the Zirkonian fleet above the earth was seen earlier and not entirely unnoticed. Of course, Nezer had no idea that Estelore was already took care of it, though this would outrage any Knight, as Estelore wasn't born on Earth. Though, to be honest, no one knew where Estelore was born, aside from the star herself.

But John Jaxur was oblivious to all this. Even if he did, he didn't care. He had to complete the key, and start the device. He didn't know what it did, but he just knew he had to do this. Just knew he had to activate the device, it became an obsession. He never paused to see where this obsession came from, how it came to be, he remained oblivious to this.

He walked until the key was activated. He used the key as a dowsing rod once more, and walked without looking at anything else. He was back in the desert, outside of the mine. He didn't like the desert, too dry, arid, and desolate for his liking. But he didn't like it any more when he came to a hanging bridge (without handrails) that bridged the gape from this edge to the calabra or a plateau with a single crater.

How he ever made it across he would never know. But he did, only to discover that at the floor of this plateau craterous indention was three lakes, and there was some deteriorating, tiered steps down to it. The key was deftly pointing to one in particular. So, it seemed obvious which path to take. The leftmost lake.

He dived into it and swam. He swam to the bottom and darted into an underwater cave. The cave turned out to be a tunnel. He didn't know how deep or how long the tunnel would go, and he didn't bring any rebreathers or the like. So he was attempting this in a single breath. Some would say that was very stupid, and they'd be very right to do so.

But Jaxur didn't give any thought to this, so great was his ambition, his hope, his aspirations. He just blindly followed wherever the key pointed him to. It's how he navigated the labyrinthine tunnels -- yes, tunnels, as the single tunnel interconnected itself several times. Yet he managed to navigate and emerge in an underground lake -- complete with a shore and shoreline -- all in a single breath. It was an impressive feat in and of itself.

He walked upon the black stone of the underground cave. His black jeans were heavy and burdensome, his shirt clung to him, and his beard was dripping. But he didn't care. There was another spoke here, and the key was already homing in on it. He did not hesitate but followed the directions that the key directed to him.

Soon the key hovered out of his hand suddenly, and he smiled. He knew the spoke was nearby, and he watched with baited breath as the single plane of crystal colored watery blue slited into place to the right of the verdant green one. Then the key flew back to Jaxur's hand.

His smile deepened. He had three spokes, just one more left before the power of the device was his. Just one more.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2016, 07:14:05 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Forgotten

The last one would take the longest.

Jaxur crossed over so much land, only pausing because he absolutely had to -- you know, eating and sleeping and the like. But only when they couldn't be ignored. Enough time passed as he followed the key, more like a compass whose needle is honing in on the last spoke.

Soon desert gave way into forest, which offered him some fresh meals in terms of fruit and nuts and things. But he only cared enough to satisfy the gnawing hunger, and then pursued his quest. His beard had grown longer and scraggly, and he just didn't care. His hygiene was questionable, but, again, he didn't care. He looked rather like a vagrant. He just followed the key, and the key led him through the forest, which was quite easy to get lost in.

He found a low stone structure. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some sort of ancient temple. Incan or Aztec, in design, it appeared. It was strewn with leaf clutter and such things, which seemed odd in March. Or was it April? No matter, no matter. Jaxur saw that the key indicated that he should go in, and he complied.

He saw that it was a literal city, with a crumbling domed wall above them. The buildings were all mouldering, ruinous, and deteriorating. Jaxur noticed several of the buildings appeared to be multistory and may have even been residential. But that was inconsequential and pointless.

The key was pointing to the town square, and he hurried to that location. Once there, the key spun him around to what appeared a roughly square hole in the ground. It was clearly where a building once stood. Jaxur looked down, and found that it was difficult to see. He jumped down, and found that it was a bit further down than he thought. But he, fortunately, didn't seem to have hurt himself in doing so. He felt a bit churlish to realize that there was some decending stairs to his left.

But the key began to hover of its own accord, and a plate of crysral colored electric yellow slid itself into the final empty slit. The key was now complete. Jaxur grinned giddily, as he greedily grasped onto it.

His power, his weapon, was nearly at hand. He was nearly back at the top again, despite looking like a vagrant, Jaxur was certain that this was his ticket. His ticket to the top, yes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2016, 06:46:35 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
You're Too Late!!

Jaxur grasped the key tightly. He really needn't have, as his hand was adhered to the key itself. It would not let go, as if it was a Portkey. He was transmuted into blue light and shot off intot the sky, hand gripping tightly upon the key.

The key, acting exactly like a Portkey, had returned him back to the warehouse. Jaxur felt his excitement surge again, despite not knowing what it would do. He never considered that there might be any negetative ramifications for going through with this.

Yeah, he really didn't think this through.

He had landed and reformed from the blue light a few paces away from the smooth, bullet-shaped device. With the "+"-shaped keyhole. The path now was beautifully clear and simple. He felt the rush of Machiavellian delight, of assuredly being right, of the certainty of triumph and guarantees of victory. So close now. Easily within his grasp.

He couldn't help but to milk every moment, to savor it, to remember it for later, where he can reminisce of it fondly. This was gonna be a good moment for him, he was sure of it. This was the only reason for his hesitation.

He thrusted the key up to its handle in the keyhole.

"NO!!!" came the shouts. But Jaxur had tuned out everything but this. This was the only thing important to him right now. He didn't acknowledge the sudden arrival of Saffa, GH, Abby, Underseen, and Cloak. They were not important. Not to mention that they were far too late.

"Don't do it!!" Abby yelled.

"You don't know what it'll do!!" Underseen proclaimed.

"Neither do we, to be fair," GH pointed out.

"GH!" Saffa scolded.

"What?"

"Not in front of the psychotic madman!"

"He isn't even paying us any any attention," Cloak said.

All this happening as they were quickly approaching Jaxur, but there was no way they could get there in time. There was no way they could stop him before he turned the key and activated the device. No way . . .

Well, there was one way, if Cloak was a ruthless sort of person. But bloodbending is never the first thing that enters his mind at this. They could have also killed him before he turned the key.

But they didn't and he turned the key.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2016, 09:20:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Encapsulating and Escaping

The Crystal Drive hummed as it activated.

"Yes! The power of the device is mine!" Jaxur said.

Cloak recognized his scent, but could not place it with a name.

"You don't even know what it does!" Saffa protested.

"Shut up, alien-lover," Jaxur snarled, looking like some deranged beast. "All I know is this device, this weapon is mine."

"You can't know that it's a weapon." GH argued.

"It is! It is, you stupid filth sympathizer, and it's mine!!" Jaxur said, rather crazed. "And I'll finally be back on top!"

Then it clicked. Cloak declared, "Jaxur. The Void Space projector. That was you!"

"Don't you dare mention that to me, you cloaked menace!" he spat. "After you took my last weapon away from me! When you hadn't any right to do so!!"

"Rights? You want to talk of rights?" Cloak asked.

"Here, we go," Saffa said.

"Um, guys?" Underseen and GH said, in unison.

"What right have you, and you alone, to dictate who can and cannot live here? What right have you, and you alone, to dictate who is worthy enough to live? What right have you to send people into Void Space, a space between timelines that you know very, very little about?" Cloak said. "You pompous little man. You haven't any right to do what you were posturing! Aliens do exist, and they are --"

"GUYS!!" GH said emphatically, as he noticed several nozzles having come out of the Crystal Drive. "Can we FOCUS?!"

"You do not give me orders, Aberration," Jaxur snarled. "Aberrations" were what the Knights called humans with so-called "unnatural" powers. It wasn't a really flattering term. GH, however, didn't much care -- he had more pressing concerns. "The Drive is mine. Mine to control and use as I see f--"

BOOM!

The Device apparently had just gave a kick, and around it, in a ten-inch radius, the soil, wood, everything was turned into taydenite crystal, or just encased in it, it was difficult to tell. But that ten inches soon became fifteen, then twenty. It was picking up speed, and Jaxur was already taken and crystalized completely, mid-argument. Frozen like a taydenite statue.

And the wave was coming toward the RAFians.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 26, 2016, 10:01:45 AM

Jeez, Cloaky, you need to work on your monologue timing. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2016, 08:37:18 PM

We're both hard-headed.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Crystal Flower

Four screams rent the area.

"Oh, will you four stop your bawling?" came Cloak's impatient voice. "We need to open communications with RAF."

Then the RAFians realized that they were inside a golden-scarlet energy bubble made by Cloak. He had deflected the crystallization wave over them, encapsulating them in taydenite. Entombing them.

Cloak snapped his fingers impatiently, "C'MON!! Come-come-c'mon!! I can't drop the shield, or the taydenite might decide to cave in and crush us."

Saffa quickly made the call, told them to be prepared for the wave, and GH worried about Leatherhead -- he was being babysat by Dino, who was finding herself becoming fond of the little guy -- and GH imagined the taydenite creeping over Code Avalon, and blocking out the sun, entombing the forum forever. GH was scared in that regard, but he tried not to show it.

"Appears to be a Petrosapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Petrosapien) Terraforming Drive," Cloak said, "I never understood the technology behind it though. But I believe it was meant to recreate Petrotopia, their destroyed home world."

"We have to get out of here," Abby said, beginning to morph to her Psycholeopterran morph, with Saffa following suit. Abby, no longer having adequate mouthparts now, switched to thought-speak, <We'll send reinforcements to get you guys out of here.>

"You offend me, Abby," Cloak said, voice quiet but it carried nonetheless. "Taydenite is crystal. And crystal is Earth."

Suddenly, Cloak winced, as GH had spontaneously decided to play. And he played it loud. The taydenite wall collapsed backward and the walls collapsed outward, apparently carried on the sound waves themselves.

"That felt gooooood," GH said, stretching and flexing his fingers. "I've been soing too many melee things recently."

"A little more warning would have been helpful," Cloak said.

"Hey, it worked didn't it?"

Abby and Saffa were swiftly demorphing, as the looked around their surroundings. They seemed to be on some massive crystal flower, with two towering stamen and large plated petals.

"It's still going," Cloak said. "It's going too fast. If we don't hurry, it will engulf the entire planet before tomorroe morning."

The other four moved away, but Cloak asked, "where are you going?"

"RAF," Underseen said, surprised. Wasn't it obvious?

"No," Cloak said, "well, you can if you really want to, but that won't stop this. We need to go to the Citadel."

"Citadel?" Saffa asked.

"The Crystal Citadel," Cloak said.

"Of course it is," GH said, rather grumpily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2016, 07:27:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
State of Emergency

"This is a state of emergency," came the news commentator. "We have to urge everyone to stay in their homes with their windows closed. There is a crystalizing wave of energy approaching the city, urban areas first, but rural areas are not any safer."

The news commentator paused a bit to sip his water before continuing. He wasn't anything like Bern Bridges, he was not at all pompous and egotistical in his rhetoric.

"This is not a hoax, people," he said, although in this city, it was more believable to be true than most. "This Crystal Wave will turn you into crystal if you allow it, but you'll be safe indoors. Do not take this lightly. There is no cure for this crystal wave yet, so I very ardently advise you not to get complacent. You all need to take this seriously. These are dangerous times and you must exercise due diligence in this matter."

He sipped his water again.

"There is no word on the source of this crystal wave," he said, "the authorities have no further leads at this time. Please remember, stay indoors."

***

"What if Code Avalon isn't enough, Auntie Dino?" Leatherhead asked.

"Don't worry, little one," Dino said, motherly, "it will be. It always is."

"How can you be sure?"

"Have faith, little one," Dino said. She was going to say more, but already the taydenite was beginning to creep over Code Avalon. It started on the right side and began to creep so much that there was a ten-foot high wall.

It was not gonna take long before the sun was lost to them and they'd be completely entombed.

"Auntie Dino," Leatherhead said, "what about Daddy?"

"Don't you worry abot him," Dino replied, remarkably gentle and kind, "GH knows how to take care of himself. Anyway, he's with Mister Cloak, Miss Saffa, Miss Abby, and Mister Underseen. He's not alone, Leatherhead."

Leatherhead still looked unconvinced.

***

"And again we're back to the RAFian agenda," Bern Bridges said. He took a sip of his "coffee" and continued his harangue. "They're not satisfied with interfering with our way of life, oh no. Now they caused this so-called Crystal Wave, and have yet to make a statement accepting their responsibility in this. And, dear listeners, do not doubt that these monsters have had a hand in this whole mess. They've had a hand in all the tragedies that have befell our great city, which I have told you all about on this show before."

She slurped his "coffee" in the most loud and obnoxious way possible.

"Yes," he said, resuming, sounding a bit tipsy. "They are reason for the homeless epidemic in this country, my friends. They are the reason why the middle class is shrinking and disappearing. And they do nothing to help. They cause property values to plummet, while prices skyrocket. It is RAF's doing. It's their fault. It's all their fault."

Bridges was sauced again. And he had an open mike.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2016, 06:23:19 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Pause and Resolve

The others had decided not to return to the forum, and stick by the Realm Walker as a sign of solidarity. Cloak appreciated it, but had a pause himself. He had a qualm about his action, he wondered if he should be stemming the wave instead of doing this.

But it made sense to be proactive, right?

But this thought kept nagging at him as the five pressed onward. However, as they did, Cloak was starting to wonder if the Drive had some limited sentience, as it seemed to try to prevent their progress forward.

Walls inexplicably appeared from the ground that Cloak busted through.

Pitfalls inexplicably opened in the ground that Cloak closed.

Spikes protruded inexplicably from the ground that GH musically shattered.

"I think the Drive knows," Underseen said, managing to evade every spike, pitfall, and wall. "Or whatever is behind this."

"How come I get the feeling that there should be a bunch Unown chanting their name?" GH said.

No one answered him, as the attacks seemed to pick up in frequency. They were far too busy dealing with them. However, unbeknownst to them, by distracting the drive, thereby slowing down the crystallization process. Thereby making Cloak's qualm meaningless, though, he was unaware of this.

But, eventually, they made it to the base of the citadel -- the crystal plant's "stamen" -- and the spikes, pitfalls, and walls stopped forming, stopped impeding him.

"Okay," Saffa said, "now what?"

***

Mithril had taken upon himself, as the only other RAFian terrakinetic, aside from Cloak, to try and stem the Crystal Wave. But he was one and he didn't have the raw power Cloak did.

But he did his best.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2016, 07:05:45 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Breaking and Entering

"We break in," Cloak said, touching the smooth taydenite. He recoiled sightly as the crystallization energy surged toward where he had touched.

"Somehow," Abby said, "I don't think it's gonna be so easy."

"It'll be easy enough," Cloak said. Then he gave a little hop, and then mimed parting a curtain, causing the citadel wall to crack and pop as it gave way to Cloak's terrakinesis. "See? No prob--"

Suddenly, the crystalization energy swept in and blugged the hole, making it look like it scabbed over.

"You were saying?" GH said.

Cloak scowled at this.

"This could be a problem," Saffa said.

"Ya think?" GH said.

"Don't be so sarcastic, Logan," Saffa teased.

"Don't call me that!" GH snarled. "How'd you find out my real name anyway?"

"FaceBook," Saffa answered wirh a dry, sardonic wit.

"Still here, guys," Abby said, remind the two of their presence.

"We're getting in," Cloak growled, "regardless of whether the Citadel wants us to or not!!"

Cloak ripped a hole into the citadel again, and this time didn't relent. Any time the crystallization energy tried to fix it, he just made the hole bigger.

"What are you four waiting for?!" Cloak roared. "Get in!!"

"And get crystallized?" Underseen protested. "No thank you!"

"I got it," GH said, unshouldering his guitar. He then began to play riff after riff, as concentric circles of energy came out through his guitar, allow Underseen and the girls to pass inside of the Citadel.

Then Cloak picked up GH bodily and leaped through the opening that quickly sealed shut after them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2016, 07:38:01 AM

This book will be more than the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
First Layer of Defense

"Getting a serious 'Five Nights At Freddy's' vibe here," Underseen said. He had taken the form of an aye-aye and perched on Abby's back.

They were in a myriad of of labyrinthine hallways of solid taydenite crystal, cutting off all light from outside. The light was a deep scarlet and brown, and was the only light that the others could see. The darkness was no barrier to Cloak, whose feline eyes reflected the dim light like any other cat's eyes would.

"We're not alone here," Cloak said. It was strange, he was Earthsighting with more clarity than he had anticipated. He saw a creature of taydenite, roughly ursine. It had no bottom jaw leaving his skeleton's upper set of snaggleteeth, as well as no left ear. It has one luminous pupil in each eye socket.

"What's that?" GH said, as Underseen cringed behind Abby. GH referred white light washing into the hallway.

"God, you're adorable when you cower," Abby said.

"You don't see it like I do," Underseen said, as if he was expecting a a legit jumpscare.

Then the creature of taydenite had rounded the corner, and the RAFians saw that its eyes functioned like flashlights. They did not run, they did not flee. But human instinct was tugging at the others to go. The instinct was difficult to ignore, especially after the creature roared and charged forward, it luminescent eyes causing light to dance on the smooth taydenite walls.

The instinct to run overcame the other RAFians when the fearsome beast roared again, but Cloak did not move. He only ever truly feared on person, and this taydenite creature was not her. He was not impressed or intimidated. He raised his hand against the creature, and the creature was terrakinetically lifted off the ground.

"You don't need to run anymore," Cloak said, coolly.

"We weren't running," GH said quickly. "We were, uh, stretching our legs. It is rather cramped in here, you know."

Cloak said nothing to this, as his attention was currently occupied by the hideous abomination in front of them. It was almost like a zombie Freddy Fazbear made of taydenite. Its roar was still terrifying, despite not being able to do anything.

"Enough of this," Cloak said, tiring of this, "Begone with you."

Then he condensed the creature into a single lump of taydenite, and projected him to the far wall. Then he navigated his way through the labyrinthine hallways to get to the Crystal Citadel's next layer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on May 31, 2016, 02:47:44 AM

Lots of books going over twenty chapters these days. Are you increasing the limit? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on May 31, 2016, 03:48:27 AM

It is a little ambitious. I'm liking the longer books :)

So I got incredibly bored tonight and decided to draw a little cartoon version of Memoirs gh.

(http://i.imgur.com/miQ2dHg.jpg)

Keep in mind I'm a terrible artist and haven't even doodled anything since high school art class, so I'm aware it's not great by any means. The hand in particular looks just plain awful, and the same arm is at a questionable angle. Regardless, I was bored and figured you guys might like it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2016, 06:20:56 AM

Quote from: Saffa on May 31, 2016, 02:47:44 AM

Lots of books going over twenty chapters these days. Are you increasing the limit? ;)

Only when I feel it necessary, but twenty is always gonna be the main.

Quote from: gh (Coffee King) on May 31, 2016, 03:48:27 AM

It is a little ambitious. I'm liking the longer books :)

So I got incredibly bored tonight and decided to draw a little cartoon version of Memoirs gh.

(http://i.imgur.com/miQ2dHg.jpg)

Keep in mind I'm a terrible artist and haven't even doodled anything since high school art class, so I'm aware it's not great by any means. The hand in particular looks just plain awful, and the same arm is at a questionable angle. Regardless, I was bored and figured you guys might like it.

To be honest, I always had imagined it something like this:

(https://i.imgur.com/z4Dvj5j.png)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Second Layer of Defense

Cloak stopped when they descended and after Cloak broke open a wall. Underseen had switched to the form of a small elf owl, and perched upon GH's shoulder. If GH minded, he didn't say anything. He didn't spasm out of control calling Underseen his god either, so his feelings could have been mixed.*

They clearly had crossed into the second layer, which had the distinct feeling of a basement. This place was awash in blue and purple light. With one step on to this place, Cloak immediately knew that they were no longer alone.

"Another one?" GH asked.

"Gonna stretch your legs again?" Cloak asked, smirking at his little joke. GH scowled deeply at him. "Yes, there's another one."

Cloak searched with Earthsight until he found it again. This second taydenite creature lacked a left arm, which was replaced by tenuous bits of taydenite spouting out of its shoulder. It's right arm was reduced to a withered gray taydenite skeleton. It seemed to have two rows of teeth on the bottom jaw, as it appeared to be missing the upper third of its head. It's inner set of teeth are noticeably much smaller than the outmost set of teeth. It had tenuous bits of taydenite dangling down from its forehead, or lack thereof, covering some of this creature's head. It had somewhat dim, glowing red eyes. It had rather lapin taydenite ears atop its head, with one torn in half.

"One, two, Freddy's coming for you," Saffa intoned, "three, four --"

"Enough, Saffs," GH said. "This is creepy enough."

"Can't handle it?" she teased.

"Hey, you ran, too!" GH countered.

"I thought you were stretching your legs," Cloak said.

"Dah, I was!!" GH said, trying for a hasty recovery. It was comical in a way only GH manage effectively. But it was an ephemeral moment, as it was soon replaced by sudden shrieks and a panicked hoot by Underseen. Cloak felt no such compunction, because, after all, these taydenite creatures were no match or him.

Though it occurred to him, that maybe they had the power to --

Whoa! It decided to show up quick! Cloak heard the thumping of the footsteps of the creature long before GH, Abby, and Saffa. Underseen had owl hearing, so he probably heard it, too.

Cloak saw it first, and it had its singular fist pulled back into a preemptive punch, but Cloak wasn't about to have any of it. He did with this one what he did with the last one, and flung into the far side of the hallway, and turned into a lump of taydenite in the process.

"I dunno how many more of these jumpscares that I can handle," Abby said, hold her hand over her heart, which was beating as fast as if it was trying to escape her body. "Please tell me that we're nearly there."

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloaky, please? Pretty please?"

"I'm not going to lie to you," Cloak said. Then he pressed on.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2016, 05:27:11 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Third Layer of Defense

Then they ascended until the taydenite hallways seemed to be more attic-like than basement-like. Underseen changed into a small bat, and clung to Saffa's shoulder, which she found to feel very strange and disconcerting. And that was all fine and dandy for all of three seconds, before Abby screamed.

All she saw was the white glowing eyes, while Cloak could "see" much more of the creature. It was roughly anthropomorphically vulpine in shape, though rather skeletal, with a hook for a right hand, no tail, a long snout filled with razor-sharp teeth, and remarkably quick on its feet. It was actually quite frightening.

Suddenly, its blank white eyes became a violent shade of red and it galloped with astonishing rapidity towards the RAFians, with a fearsomely terrifying roar. Directly for Saffa in particular.

"CLOAKY, DO SOMETHING!!" Saffa shrieked, unaware that she was able to deflect this taydenite beast unconsciously. It was not to the degree that Cloak was able, though. "CLOAKY!!"

Cloak quickly slingshot it to the otherside of the hallway, coalescing it into a lump of taydenite, inert and harmless. Cloak gave Saffa a brief look, for he had noticed her able to deflect the creature, albeit the ability seemed a tad atrophied. Cloak had always just assumed Saffa was just a morph-capable human, and not paused to think that she may have had more abilities outside that.

Cloak realized that he did not know just how Saffa and Abby had come to obtain their morphing abilities. He had never asked. But he would hesitate to do so now, as he believed it would just be him being nosy. There were some things about himself, things that he didn't necessarily like, that he wasn't very open about. Why should Saffa or anyone else be any different?

"Thanks, Cloak," Saffa gasped, somehow not knowing the look Cloak had given her, despite his reflective feline eyes. "My heart is going a mile a minute."

Cloak said nothing about what he noticed, but proceed forward. They had to be nearing the end of these defenses.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 01, 2016, 05:46:41 AM

I shall explain. In due time. Although considering it's the holidays I should probably get on that since I already have an outline in mind. :P

And oh my god, gh, that drawing is so cute. :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2016, 06:21:50 AM

Ah, good, good.

And that drawing does have a certain FOP style.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Final Layer of Defense

They came to an area that was still dark to human eyes. Its boundaries were lit with yellow light, and there weren't hallways anymore, but tree-like pillars of taydenite with a far more open feeling.

"Oh, I don't like this," Underseen said, in a squeaky voice. He had changed to the form of a small luna moth with a four and a half inch wingspan. He was perched on Cloak's back.

"Is that why you're perched on me?" Cloak said, rather dully.

"I plead the fifth," Underseen said, in his squeaky voice.

"Of course you do," Cloak muttered.

"I dunno, I'm kinda with Underseen on this," Abby said. "At least the enclosed space was, I don't know, more secure."

"This allows more escape options," Saffa said.

"And allows more attack options," GH pointed out.

"Pessmist," Saffa chided.

"No, realist," GH countered.

"What is that?" Abby said, sounding rather like Ashley from "Until Dawn".

She was referring to two glowing white eyes. Cloak's Earthsight easily unmasked the creature as anthropomorphically avian. It had no bottom jaw and hollow eye sockets, which the glowing white lights resided. It had no arms, just mangled remnants of arms. It looked rather terrifying.

"What is it waiting for?" Saffa asked.

"Don't tempt --"

Then the roar. Then it sprinted toward them. Sprinted toward them to attack them. Saffa managed to unwittingly trip up the creature, and it fell. Cloak quickly forced it to coalesce into a harmless lump of taydenite.

"PLEASE," Abby said, "please tell me that that was the last one."

"Looks like it," Cloak said. "But it will only get all the more harder from here."

"Of course it does."

They proceeded deeper, towards the Citadel Core.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 01, 2016, 10:37:11 AM

Thanks, guys :)

Really liked the last couple chapters. I'm pretty eager to see what this stuff with Saffa is gonna build to

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2016, 06:29:10 AM

Okay, new chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Citadel Core

They entered the Citadel Core room, in a deeply domed room, with the drive floating at the center. It was still generating the wave, the pale blue energy generating the pale green crystallized material. The room was rather like Technodome in design.

"Okay. We're here." Underseen said, back in his human form. "Now what?"

"Destroy it?" GH guessed.

"That might not stop the Crystallization Wave," Cloak said. "Who knows? It might exacerbate it."

"How?" Abby asked.

Cloak did not elaborate, as the Crystallization Wave snapped like lightning. He looked at the situation, and tried to analyze it for a solution, while the others did that same.

"That key is still in it," GH said.

"So we just turn it off?" Underseen asked.

"Simple, but effective. I like it." Saffa said.

With a snap, part of the crystallization energy was flung between the RAFians, but Cloak managed to redirect it back at the Drive, which wasn't affected. And it happened once more, and again Cloak redirected it.

"But easier said than done," Cloak said.

"And no guarantee that it will even work," Abby added.

"Got anything better?" GH asked.

Neither Cloak or Abby said anything, with Cloak continuing to redirect or deflect the crystallization energy strikes.

"Didn't think so," GH said, smugly. Then he shrieked after a crystallization strike almost hit his right foot.

"Oopsie," Cloak said. "Sorry."

"No, you're not." GH said, mulishly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2016, 07:28:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Key Moment

"Okay, then," Abby said, "how do we even get up there?"

"Especially because I can't keep deflecting and redirecting these crystallization strikes forever," Cloak said, hoping not to sound glib. "I'm already starting to wear out."

"We need to ground it somehow," Saffa said, astute. "We're not fliers -- unless Abby and I morph or Underseen shapeshifts. Even then --"

Cloak had missed a crystallization energy strike, and she had to dodge. The Elements Master was starting to tire, and he was starting to show it.

"GH, do the thing!" Saffa shouted.

GH unshouldered his guitar, and strummed aimlessly a bit, while he thought of a song. Then he thought of one, as he played a slight rock introduction.

"You hear the screeching of a Noctowl,
You hear the wind begin to howl,
You know there's RAFians on the prowl,
And it's mission time again,
It's got you running though the night,
It's mission time again,
And you just might die of fright,
It's mission time,
You hear the beating of your heart,
You know the screaming's gonna start!
Here comes the really scary part,
'Cause it's mission time again!
It's got you running through the night,
It's mission time again,
Oh, you just might die of fright,
It's mission time."

The crystallization energy had abated with the music. He played a guitar interlude.

Underseen leaped at the opportunity, shapeshifting into a lion, transitioning into a bat. He was winging towards the Drive, toward the Crystal Key.

"All the trees begin to moan,
And the RAFians grunt and groan,
Menacing faces full of grime,
Don't you know it's mission time?
And it's mission time again,
It's got you running through the night,
Yes, it's mission time again,
Oh, you just might die of fright,
It's mission time!!!!"

As GH finished, Underseen landed on the Drive, just inches away from the Key, and transitioned to a small monkey -- a Capuchin monkey to be specific. He was trying to cling onto the Drive, which still revolved at a good clip. It was not easy.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GkNask_pMKo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2016, 08:28:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Turn It Off!

"Why hasn't he turned it off yet?" Abby asked.

"It's rotating too fast," Cloak said, "it's just enough that he is managing to keep his hold."

"The energy is starting to stir up again," Saffa said. "GH! We need another song!"

GH just sang a song he just thought of.

"When no one will listen
To what ya wanna say.
You're too dumb, too young.
You haven't begun
To learn the games that they play."

The Drive began to slow, but Underseen still had to cling on for dear life. He was wondering how well he thought this through.

"Don't sit around
And just wish
For it to be a better day!
Speak up! Be heard!
If ya don't say a word,
Everything will stay the same way."

The Drive slowed down more but Underseen couldn't risk losing his grip. He could shapeshifting into something else, of course, but everything else he thought of didn't have opposable thumbs.

"If ya wanna change the way your life's arranged,
Then you have that choice!
To be a star that you know you are.
Be loud, be proud and rejoice!
And find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you've got that choice.
Now go find your voice!"

The Drive began to slow its rotation considerably now. Underseen found it safe to relax his grip a smidgen.

"You see a boy or girl,
That you know you wanna meet.
Come on, stop messing around!
Get up off your seat!
They might see inside of you.
The superhero that you never knew.
He was in there all the time.
Now just let him through."

Underseen tentatively released his handhold with his left hand, and then began to reach for the Key. . . .

"If you wanna change the way your life's arranged,
Then you have that choice.
To be the star that you know you are.
Be loud be proud and rejoice!
And find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you have that choice.
To find your voice!"

It was just at his currently-simian fingertips. He would have to scoot a bit to the left to be able to grasp the Key handle. . . .

"Find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you've got that choice!
Now go find your voice!"

There! Underseen grabbed the handle, and turned it as GH finishd up.

"And find your voice!
Just find your voice!
You know you've got that choice.
Now go find your voice!"

Ka-THUNK.

Underseen removed the Crystal Key and deftly shapeshifted into a long-necked bird, and passed it off to Cloak. The Realm Walker shattered the key as the Crystallization Wave began to recede with alarming rapidity to the Drive, which was destroyed when the Wave reached it.

"Ooh," Abby said, "look at the pretty sparkles."

Cloak couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or sincere.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2016, 07:15:39 PM

Now, meet the Memoirs version of the Cabbage Merchant (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Cabbage_merchant).  >:D

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Full Reversion

Fortunately, the Crystallization Wave never got too far. It never crossed an ocean, in any case. And it withdrew very quickly, even quicker than its spread. The taydenite taken back with the Wave, which was unfortunate, considering just how much taydenite was worth.

Of course, one little rich-boy prick by the name of Donald Couch, which happened to be driving in his cherry red expensive car, decided that the warnings were for the poor people --the "peasants", as he chose to think of them. He decided the Crystallization Wave was just a bunch of nonsense, and that his rich daddy would bail him out of anything.

Naturally, he was trapped in taydenite, encapsulated within his car. This had left Couch livid and apocalyptic with rage. But he couldn't do anything about it, and he was completely and totally unaccustomed to not getting what he wanted, the pampered, self-entitled, spoiled little "prince".

He was whining about it all the while, despite the fact that no one but he himself could hear the mutinous whines. And the world was grateful for that little favor. He had missed a couple of meals, and, to someone accustomed to exquisite feasts, it made him downright unbearable to be around.

But, of course, in Donnie's minute mind, it couldn't possibly be his fault. He most certainly wasn't accountable for anything that he did. It was everyone else's fault. Everyone else. It wasn't his. It couldn't have been his.

Of course, with the taydenite issue, that was partially true. But no one told him to flagrantly ignore the warnings as for being for what he perceived to be lesser people. His arrogance and insistence on being able to do whatever he wished, despite any ramifications or consequences.

He never learned. He never learned from his actions, having been rather coddled and sheltered. He was completely selfish, materialistically greedy, and rather friendless. He drove recklessly, spent money like it was water, and denigrated others if they held less wealth and didn't live as lavishly.

As the taydenite retreated and receded, he was furious but elated. But then he saw the state of his car.

"MY CAR!!!" he shrieked.

Its paint job was horribly scratched up, and the roof was showing stress marks on it. No other car had such damage, as they chose not to ignore the warnings and took steps to prevent damage to their cars and other assorted vehicles.

Donnie was the only one who was flippant enough to completely and totally disregard them. So he was now paying the price.

But, of course, in his mind, he wasn't the responsible party.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2016, 08:50:33 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Gone and Terror

"Is Andy home?" GH asked.

The portly man with little neck looked at GH with an imperious, drunken glare, and said that his son (he spat the word son) wasn't there. Then he uttered a homophobic slur, describing his own son. GH couldn't say he was all that surprised that a man of this intellectual stature was homophobic.

"Where is he, if I may ask?" GH said, politely, despite wanting to give the guy a right cross to his jugular. "Killing them with kindness" seemed to appropriate way to go here.

"I don't know, do I?" he snarled, rosary dangling haphazardly. Apparently, he took his son's sexuality as a personal affront. "I don't care where the little f--"

"Thank you for your time," GH said, leaving as politely as he could. It was taking him all his self-control not to slug the man. When he was a sufficient distance away from the homophobe.

No wonder Andy didn't want GH there! How must he have suffered from such a parent. Parents? Was his mother as bad? GH couldn't imagine such an abusive parenting. He would most certainly not disown Leatherhead for something as banal as this.

Poor Andy. GH never knew, would never guess. He hid this horrendous home life well, Andy did. But worry did not leave GH. Andy had nowhere to go now. Where would he go? Where could he go? GH may have been . . . Andy was his friend. He needed to be there for him in this trying time.

Oh, where were you, Andy? Where on Earth can you be? GH had nothing -- no leads, no clues. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

***

"I consider myself a reasonable Realm Walker," Ursa said, "I set certain rules, and I expect them to be obeyed."

"But --"

"Is it true you made contact with Dwellers?"

Cloak felt fear again. It was commonplace whilst in his mother's company.

"Contact between Walkers and Dwellers is strictly forbidden!" Ursa snapped before Cloak could answer. "Son, you know that! Everyone knows that!"

It was not true, but that never stopped Ursa in one of her rages.

"Mother, they're my friends!!" Cloak blurted, before shrinking before the hard, imperious Ursa threw his way.

"No . . ." she seethed. "have you lost your senses completely?! They're Dwellers! You're a Walker!"

Cloak didn't care for the distinction, knowing that it was just speciesism, but said nothing. There is a reason that his mother was so feared by him. But Ursa correctly interpreted his silence.

"So help me, boy, I am going to get through to you," Ursa said, reaching for Cloak, "and if if this is the only way -- then so be it!"

She had taken ahold of his right ear, and pulled on it hard. Then --

"ANIYU, STOP!!" Cloak shouted. This was intense for him. Why couldn't he be battling a Transylian DNAlien, like Ghost?

"Cloak, I know it's hard," Aniyu said, gently. "I know it's painful. But you must face this. You must face it, or else this will keep holding you back."

"I know, I know," Cloak said, breathing heavily, "I know."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2016, 09:12:12 PM

New book ideas.

• Book MV (1005): "Pretenders!!" -- A small group of Ixtl pose as Realm Walkers, despite being Dwellers, believed to be from Void Space.
• Book MVI (1006): "Renegade" -- A Kylothian comes to claim asylum on Earth, but she actually has other plans.
• Book MVII (1007): "Blaze's Bullies" -- A group of Grigori, believed by Blaze to be extinct, come for Blaze.

All titles subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

BOOK CXXVI:
THE ELEMENT FEEDER
CHAPTER ONE:
Answers and Unclouded Eyes

GH was still worried about Andy, but he moved on with his life as well as he could. Yet Andy remained in the back of his mind, and wondering what became of him. Wondering if he was okay. Wondering if he was even . . .

No. No, he didn't need to be thinking like that right now. If he allowed himself to think that way, it would open the floodgates of negative thinking, abject anxiety, and frenetic worrying. He couldn't have permitted himself to think in such a manner.

"Daddy?" Leatherhead asked, as Dek took his children to his thread. The little anthropomorphic crocodilian sounded concerned. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, LH," GH said, kindly. But he couldn't really hide his worry, but Leatherhead was a bit too naive and young to pick up on it anymore. "Don't worry 'bout it."

Then he took out his phone -- the one he used for personal reasons, unlike Cloak who only had and used his communicator -- and checked his FaceBook. He was surprised to see that Andy had posted. This assuaged his worries instantly about Andy's state. He was most certainly alive!!

GH swiftly read through the post and was confused. His profile had said that he was now working for Disney as a "cast member", which GH knew that that was what all Disney employees were called. But why was saying he was friends with the Tweedles, Lauchpad, and Genie? Was he just friends with those actors?

GH decided to message him about it.

***

"Remember, Cloak," Aniyu said, as Cloak faced a larger-than-life energy construct of his mother, grossly distorted by Cloak's own fear of her, "look with unclouded eyes."

Cloak looked at the distorted, monstrous construct of his mother. It looked genuinely terrifying. It was difficult not to cower from it, and cowering would not do him any good. He wished he was with Dino, battling that Gourmand DNAlien. It would have been a lot easier.

"Unclouded eyes," Aniyu intoned.

"I told you never to do that!!" the construct yelled, voice distorted by the fear Cloak felt to be thunderous and monstrous. Cloak flinched. "Have you lost your senses completely?!"

"Cloak!" Aniyu said, knowing that Cloak was wavering. "Look at it objectively. Look at it truthfully."

Cloak closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. As he did, the yellow thorny plants blocking his access from his true zenith of power began to wilt and wither.

"Long live the RAFian!" the construct hissed.

"You," Cloak said. There wasn't a trace of fear in his voice now. His voice was cold but steady, not brittle but strong. "I see you."

The distortions vanished from the energy construct of his mother, whom he was addressing, showing her true form as the ursine Realm Walker that she was. It was revelatory, an epiphany, for Cloak.

"I see you as you are," Cloak said. "A petty old spinster that has control issues. One who isn't above using violence and hurtful language to garner what she thinks is owed her."

Cloak took another deep breath. The vines collapsed into nothingness, but Cloak wasn't done.

"I am done with you, mother," he said. "I wash my hands of you. I want nothing more to do with you."

"But, Cloak," Aniyu said, "this wasn't the final layer to get through."

"What?"

Cloak went over to see what she meant. Behind the yellow thorns was another wall of thorny plants, only a verdant green this time.

"This wall looks like it will deal with --" Aniyu began before Cloak finished her thought for her.

"Disgust."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2016, 09:50:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Egg

Meanwhile, in the Knights' HQ, they were up to no good. They were flagrantly breaking their own ideological rule that everything non-Terran was bad as they were manipulating some unknown genetic sample, from some unknown species. They were all secretly hoping that it was Realm Walker genetic material, oblivious to the fact that a Realm Walker's genetic material was more immaterial than material. An overly complex and complicated energy sequence was what consisted as their variation of DNA, but the Knights were (rather willingly and wantonly) unaware of this.

Their great effort, their grand endeavor, only yielded something infinitely less impressive. Something the Knight scientists -- really a contradictory term if there was one -- found to be incredibly disappointing.

It was an egg. A plain, colorless egg that was only a half inch in diameter.

All their time and energy spent on this project . . . wasted! Wasted on a fruitless effort, an assiduous, sedulous failure!! It was a complete letdown. With that disappointment came frustration, anger, and passing the buck.

But they didn't realize the inherent dangers of the creature whose egg they just created as the egg's white shell faded to violet. Then it progressed into indigo. Then blue. Then green. . . .

***

Meanwhile, at RAF, LH and Nak were having fun in the forum. GH, who had managed to forgive the Zirkonians, couldn't help but strum as he sang:

"Taming the tides, swarming the seas
Beware Banned, drop to your knee!
Defending their friends and enemies!
As big as a whale (but with a much smaller tail).
Facing the foe with our fearless glutes!
Daring the dastards to put up their dukes!
Great globs of gore, they'll storm the shore!
And seek the unknown, then will they go home?
Titanic LH and Daring Nak,
Adventurers-slash-RAFians!
Titanic LH and Daring Nak!
Adventurers-slash-RAFians!
Our gallant quest to do their best
And smile for their adorers!
They'll save the day and make a splash!
They'll LH and Daring Nak!
They'll clobber those monsters with their clammy claws!
They'll sever those monsters with their savage jaws
The battle is fierce and mercifully brief,
The conquering heroes return as kings of the reef!
They'll dine with the best, dressed with a flair!
Climb every mountain because it's there!
Come on, follow me,
They'll make history!
To courage, to us, the Mark or bust!
Titanic LH and Daring Nak!
Adventurers-slash-RAFians!
Titanic LH and Daring Nak!
Adventurers-slash-RAFians!
We'll save the day and make a splash!
Titanic LH, and Daring Nak!!"

Then he ended the song, and glanced over to Leatherhead. Then he made a mad dash for him, "No, no, no! Leatherhead, you get that out of your mouth!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2016, 07:17:06 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Gassy Hatching

The egg was still green and half an inch in diameter. It quickly faded into yellow, then orange, then a deep crimson, and, finally, black.

What was remarkable was that the Knight scientists did not notice this at all. If they did, they just wrote it off as nothing. They never even bothered to dispose of it after they deemed it a failure, which was very sloppy on their part.

The black egg shook slightly. No one noticed.

It shook again a few minutes later. Still no one noticed.

It shook again, quicker this time. No one was around to see it, as everyone went home and the lab was dark. Only moonlight filtered into the room, the chilled night air filtered into the cold, sterile room.

The egg cracked. The crack deepened with each following second. And ended up with a pale yellow creature flopped out. It was difficult to tell if the creature was substantive or insubstantial, material or immaterial, energy or matter. It had a single deep purple eye and a single flagella-like leg. It measured a single inch long. It was a creature without a name, without an identifiable species. It had single proboscis which was the only mouth it had.

It could float unassisted, and it was hungry. It went to forgotten glass of water -- very careless and sloppy of the scientist staff, though that was hardly surprising -- and drank the whole thing down. Then it -- and there's no polite way to really put this -- it farts the oxygen out. It only cared about the hydrogen, as it apparently was hydrophageous.

Hunger satisfied for the moment, this creature, this Element-Eater, slipped out of the lab through the open window and was on the loose.

***

Cloak's eyes snapped open.

He felt the fur on his neck stand up on end. He sensed an evil, but it wasn't a deliberate sort of evil. It was a mindless sort of evil, like a force of nature.

This perplexed Cloak a bit. He interpreted it to be like the Spirit-Drinker, but decidedly different. But Cloak could not tell in what regard was it different, but knew that it was. His tail twitched, and he felt a need to prowl, to hunt for this thing, whatever it was.

But he hesitated. He probably should go tell the others first.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2016, 09:03:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Metamorphosis or Two

This creature, this Element-Eater, had dined on the hydrogen in the environment that it could. Its appetite was implacable, it would seem. It would excrete any other element that it had to ingest to extract the hydrogen.

It wasn't above eating living, organic creatures that it could overpower to eat so it could extract the hydrogen in its digestive system. It was gluttonous in its search for hydrogen to consume. This also made it rather pyrophobic, until a time where it shut its overlarge eye and wrapped its flagellum-like leg around itself basically turning it into a mound a flesh -- if you could call it flesh -- essentially forming a cocoon, which ballooned up to two inches in diameter.

It was changing colors into a deep chartreuse color, as two human-like brown eyes opened as two frog-like hindlegs with two webbed, Greninja-like toes grew out of its posterior end and two proboscises sprouted from the other end. It no longer craved hydrogen, it had evolved that away. Now it hungered for the lightest noble gas -- helium.

It still could hover, but tended to use its frog-like legs to "swim" through the air. It's movement was almost sedate, as if very confident that it could find all the helium it need to ingest, even though it was really not all that plausible for the creature to metabolize helium, being a noble gas. But this was a world of impossibilities.

The Element Eater left to sedately garner its next meal.

***

"I dunno, Cloak," GH said, "I could do with more information than a gut feeling."

"First Light, why are we going through this again?" Cloak said, a tad irritably. "We all know that when we felines sense something like that, it means something's ways up. When hasn't it been?"

"When you claimed Justin Bieber killed Rebecca Black in a monstrous knockout (http://deathbattle.wikia.com/wiki/Justin_Bieber_VS_Rebecca_Black)," Saffa said, "or was it the other way around?"

"That was a Death Battle, and you know it," Cloak snarled.

"Cloak, calm down," Abby said. "This can't be good for your blood pressure."

"I have no blood," Cloak said, frustrated. He felt that he wasn't getting his point across very well.

"Your ichor pressure, then," Abby amended, a bit exasperated. "You know what I mean."

***

Apparently, the Element-Eater had consumed sufficient helium that it became a wad of flesh, if it could be called flesh. It darkened to a deep bloodred. It was cocooned up, eyes shut, as it ballooned up to three inches. The three emerald green, human-like eyes opened, two on the bottom and one on top. A mouth lined with sharp teeth unzipped open as three thin legs with club-feet grew out of its soft, squishy body.

After a few moments, its body hardened to a hard exoskeleton, with a hard metallic sheen. It had no intention on eating helium anymore. It desired and hungered for lithium now. But it could not hover and levitate anymore, but it was quick to anger and agitation, as well as fearing water.

It immediately found lithium-containing granite, and immediately gobbled it down, excreting all elements that weren't lithium. It traveled quickly awayto find more lithium for it to consume. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2016, 07:33:11 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Gluttony, Sheer Gluttony

Soon enough, the Element Eater had enough of lithium as it quickly molted its metallic exoskeleton and cocooned itself into a wad of flesh again. It lightened in color until it was a very pale green and ballooned to four inches long.

Then it opened four human-like, deep maroon eyes, arranged like a square, as four legs issued from its body as its metallic exoskeleton hardened. The limbs were thick, like tree trunks, with two-toed feet with metallic claws tipping them. It had a wide mouth full of strong, needle-like teeth.

It craved beryllium now. And it was eating its way through some old, forgotten radio equipment. Which, as it turns out, belongs to a certain old school car that a prick who has the name Donald Couch currently owned.

"My car! Who effed up my radio?!"

He should feel grateful, as beryllium oxide is carcinogenic. But this kid hasn't been grateful for anything in his life.

***

"I'm certain that something is up," Cloak said, mulishly stubborn.

"But, with no real information to go on," Saffa said, practically, "what exactly can we do?"

"We have to do something," Cloak said. He thought he heard a very low, very faint hum. It was an almost electrical sort of hum.

"Cloak, you're being irrational," Abby said. "How are we to do anything when we don't know what we're up against, when we don't even have a location?"

Cloak said nothing. The hum was getting harder to ignore.

"Cloak, we have nothing to go on," GH said. "And anytime that I'm the voice of reason, you know that it's serious."

Cloak was going to say something, but that hum was becoming distracting.

***

With alarming rapidity, the Element Eater had found and consumed sufficient amount of beryllium. It shed its metallic exoskeleton, as it wadded itself into a mass of writhing flesh, ballooning up to five inches. It darkened to a dull green color. Then it opened its five pink, human-like eyes, arranged in a pentagonal pattern, above a wide, lipless mouth with needle teeth in the center of its body. It grew five thick legs, rather like Quintapeds, ending in three blunt claws. Then it grew pachydermic skin.

It was moderately aggressive, and surprisingly quick. It's temperament could switch on a dime, making it dangerous, for its diminutive size.

It had had enough of beryllium, and was after boron now, as it had long left Couch's car, leaving the radio broken beyond repair, by just breaking into and out of it. It craved boron now, proven as it began to scarf down a box of borax, excreting the non-boron elements out. . . .

***

"Cloak?" Abby asked.

Cloak didn't answer. The humming was becoming annoyingly distracting.

"Cloak?" GH and Saffa chimed in, together.

Cloak said nothing. The humming . . . the humming . . .

"Cloak? Um, Cloak? You okay?" GH asked.

Wait, the humming. It was a breadcrumb. A trail to follow.

Cloak didn't hesitate, he left immediately to follow it, only semi-aware that the others were following him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 09, 2016, 07:42:00 PM

I'm guessing it's gonna go for carbon next?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2016, 04:39:20 PM

Oh, you'll see.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Strange Encounters of the Disappointing Kind

"Hey, Cloak!" Abby cried.

"Cloak, hold up a minute!" Saffa shouted.

"Man, that guy can really move when he wants to." GH panted as he readjusted his guitar on his back as they tried to catch up with the feline Realm Walker. He was starting to sweat where the strap was.

"He's a tiger, isn't he?" Saffa said, feeling that they were most definitely gonna lose his trail now. "I've read that they can go fifty, sixty kilometers per hour before tiring. Cloak must have the same capability."

"Kilometers?" GH asked.

"Thirty to forty miles per hour," Abby translated, as Saffa looked a bit exasperated, "but more to the point, we have to find him."

"Easier said than done," Saffa pointed out. "If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be."

"Who said that he doesn't want to be found?" GH asked.

"I certainly didn't," came a voice. They came upon Cloak, rather suddenly, that Saffa gasped in surprise. But he didn't look at them, but had his amber eyes trained upon something flying -- hovering -- erratically in the air. It was eight inches long, pale yellow, with eight deep indigo eyes that were human-like and arranged in two rows, and eight dangling, useless legs which ended in six wispy, fibrous toes. It also had three siphons which constituted a mouth for it.

"What is that thing?" Saffa asked.

"I still can't believe you guys can't hear it," Cloak said. "It is the source of the almost electrical humming I heard."

"But what is it?" Abby asked.

"I can say that which I do not know," Cloak said.

"You could just say 'I don't know'," GH commented benignly. "Besides, it doesn't look too dangerous."

"Neither does a Yeerk or Heilin," Cloak said, darkly, "until they get a host."

"You're saying that this thing is a parasite?" GH said, skeptically.

"No, I'm saying you completely missed my point."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 10, 2016, 05:26:10 PM

So, everything is 8 now. So that means it's up to . . . oxygen, if I remember right?

. . . Oh crap.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2016, 10:44:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Creature Lost

"Wait, where'd it go?!" Abby declared.

"What the deuce?" Cloak said, a feline snarl intermingling with his words. Then he let out a Realm Walker curseword that sounded like nothing more than an angry snarl to his Dweller friends.

"Cloak, just wait a minute before you take off a-- . . . and he's gone." GH said, as Cloak took off in the direction of the ringing hums.

"He doesn't like to mince words, I guess?" Abby said, with a shrug, as all three made to follow Cloak.

"This is the guy that has a predilection for monologuing rants!!" Saffa countered.

"I did say 'I guess'," Abby said, with dignity.

"I heard that," Cloak said, quietly. He had stopped short so suddenly that GH crashed into him and fell over while Cloak remained standing. His ears were twitching as much as his tail tip. He was listening intently, sniffing the air -- despite this creature, whatever it was, not having an apparent scent -- and he could not locate a scent trail.

The three indulged in a human instinct to give a hunting predator, like the tiger that Cloak was, a wide radius. Cloak resorted to his well-relied-upon Earthsight. But it was difficult as there were a lot of competing vibrations to sort out to find out where this creature was. Cloak was certain that this creature was the evil he sensed.

But using Earthsight to try and find an airborne target was actually, not surprisingly, a rather stupid move. But Cloak was desperate to find this thing before it could harm someone. And he genuinely did not believe that it was harmless in the least.

"Cloak, it's harmless," Abby said, though her voice betrayed her. She wasn't as convinced of that as she tried to espouse.

"You don't know that," Cloak said, voice unintentionally going all Batman on them.

"And you don't know that it's dangerous," she countered.

"I can sense a malevolence from it," Cloak said.

"Sure you do," Saffa said, skeptical.

Cloak stood up straight, rearing up to his full eight-foot height. Then he turned his head slowly toward Saffa. Turning his amber eyes to her.

"I did," Cloak said, seriously. "True, it wasn't the deliberate, premeditated evil of Malice. Nor the indifferent, flippant evil of Sluggard and his surrogates. It was araw, bestial sort of evil. The kind of evil thst comes from a mindless monster." 

"You're making all this up, aren't you?" GH said, almost hopefully. The creature they saw, harmless or not, gave him the willies.

"No," Cloak said with a chilling finality.

Then he saw a pale creature emerge parallel to them. This thirteen-inch creature with pale gray, metallic skin walked upon three Taxxon-like legs tipped with three claws. It had broad, lipless mouth full of needle-like teeth. It also had thirteen human-like eyes colored a deep brown arranged in two rows.

"There it is," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2016, 08:05:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Deceptively Dangerous

"Cloak," Saffa said, with an air of trying to patiently reason with a very emotional toddler, "that doesn't look at all like the creature we saw."

"Neither do you look like yourself when you morph Psycholeopterran or Shear Goliath," Cloak countered. "And neither does Underseen if he doesn't want to look like his human self."

"What are you getting at?" GH asked.

There was a crinkling sound and a sort of "snuff snuff" sound. The creature was eating some discarded, crumpled up aluminum foil.

"It's . . . eating aluminum?" Abby questioned, completely nonplussed. "How is that even possible without it hurting it?"

Cloak stopped to consider, though his eyes never left the creature. He could only come to one conclusion, but found it rather farfetched.

"Ah eeyah!" GH winced as he heard the sound of chewing the aluminium foil. It felt as if he was chewing it himself. "Can someone get it to stop it?"

But apparently it had finished its foil snack, and went in search for more aluminum to ingest. It waddled off, and out of Cloak's eyesight, but not out of range of his Earthsight.

"Still looks harmless to me," Abby said.

"Wait until it metamorphizes into something that seeks out an element that composes your bodies," Cloak said. "Then it'll be dangerous."

"'Until it meta--', I think a little elaboration is in order, Cloak." GH said, perplexed.

"I have no concrete proof," Cloak said, starting to pursue the creature as he was having trouble Earthsight, "but I think this creature eats only a single element. When it metamorphizes it feasts upon a different element. An Element Eater, not to put too fine a point on it."

"Aluminum has an atomic number of thirteen," GH said, "and the creature had at least thirteen legs and eyes."

His three fellow looked at him, impressed.

"Hey, I'm smart!" he protested.

***

But the Element Eater was metamorphizing again. This time it was pale brown with twenty-one pink eyes arranged into three rows of seven eyes, with twenty-one rippling legs ending in two claws. It possessed a large mouth with rows of sinister teeth.

It had an aggressive disposition, and search for its new elemental foodstuff. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 11, 2016, 08:38:45 PM

Actually, when I was in middle or high school and got incredibly bored, I would try to memorize the periodic table. I got up to . . . nickel (28), if I remember right.

I'm a nerd, I know.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2016, 07:06:38 AM

Noted. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Thirty-Two Eyes

Cloak noticed that the electronic humming that signified the creature to his ears had briefly changed timbre, pitch, and tone. It seemed, at first, to be too subtle to notice. He was surprised when he realized that it was.

"The humming changed," Cloak said.

"I still don't hear anything," GH said.

"You have human hearing," Cloak said, at once.

The tone, timbre, and pitch of the humming returned to normal. It was almost unnoticeable, you had to actually be looking for it to notice it. Cloak had a thought about it.

"It must have metamorphized," Cloak said. It was the only thing that Cloak could come up with to explain it.

"What if it gets larger with every metamorphosis?" Abby asked.

Cloak had considered it, and it made sense. And it worried him. If the Element Eater managed to metamorphize to the point where it craved Ununoctium, or whatever it was called, the element woth the atomic number of 118. It would possibly mean thatit would be 9'5", roughly. Bigger than Cloak himself, albeit slightly.

"Then," Cloak said, "we have to stop it before it gets to far down the periodic table."

"What do you mean 'down the periodic table'?" Abby said, almost as if she was hoping Cloak didn't mean what she thought that he did.

"We've seen it twice now," GH answered. "And the second time it had more legs, more eyes than the last. I'm pretty sure that it was feeding on oxygen when we first saw it as it had eight legs and eyes, and oxygen has the atomic number of eight. Then it ate aluminum, which is further down the periodic table."

Pause.

"Okay, guys, the looks are getting rather grating now," he replied in response to the almost dumbfounded looks on their faces. "The joke's been over a long while now."

Cloak's ears perked up. He heard the hum fluctuation again. It was metamorphizing again. It was just gonna get bigger.

***

The Element Eater was indeed metamorphizing.

It was now two and two-thirds feet long and had pachydermic pale green skin with thirty-two deep strawberry red eyes, arranged into four rows of eight eyes. It also had thirty-two tentacle legs, each tipped with five claws. It had a wide mouth with teeth like that of a blender.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2016, 09:48:20 PM

Tomorrow's chapter may be late.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Conflict With the Connoisseur

"We have to make haste," Cloak said, going after the Element Eater, tailing it by the deep, electronic hum that no human ear could hear, "we don't want it to metamorphize eating one of the radioactive elements like plutonium or uranium."

"But it would just eat them, right? It wouldn't harm anyone right?" Abby asked.

"No, it appears to take on the properties of that which it likes to ingest." Cloak said. "So it itself would become radioactive."

"You're overlooking one thing, though, Cloak," Saffa said. "Consider where the creature would have to go in order to have those kinds of elements to eat."

"Well," GH said, "this got amped up to eleven rather quickly."

"It'll be amped up to a hundred and eleven if we don't find the Gateburst thing," Cloak said. Then he listened and then uttered a Realm Walker curse that did not translate into Realm Walker languages. "It's metamorphizing again!"

It was GH's turn for a choice expletive. "Again?"

"So soon?!" Abby gasped.

"At this point it will be beyond indium within the hour!" Saffa declared.

She wasn't wrong, you know. It had metamorphized beyond indium. It was now a light yellow with fifty-three dark purple eyes arranged in five rows of ten, with the extra three atop three stalks. It had a needle-like teeth as narrow as syringes, and fifty-three legs which were like centipede legs except that they ended seven claws each. It was also a little longer than four feet. No longer a small nuisance, but capable of legitimately harming someone.

And Cloak had just found it.

"There!" he proclaimed, as made his way to it.

It didn't seem to be afraid or intimidated by Cloak. If anything, it was as if it was saying, "I'm looking for iodine, eff off."

Cloak, though he didn't voice it at the time, didn't like this attitude from it. He was too used to being ignored by his narcissistic mother, and he really didn't like it. He was almost tempted to say, "Don't you dare ignore me."

But he supposed that they have the element of surprise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2016, 07:29:01 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Form . . . Change!

After snacking on some iodized salt, which only contained trace amounts of the element that it craved as it excreted the salt without the iodine in it, it apparently was sufficient enough to trigger another metamorphosis.

"What it doing?" Abby asked, though she already knew, as the Element Eater curled into a ball and became a wad of litht yellow flesh.

Cloak utter the untranslatable Realm Walker expletive, as the creature darkened to a dull green. "It's metamorphizing. Come. We have to cover ground."

"Could you just kill it? Right now? With any one of the six elements?" GH asked as it ballooned to seven and a third feet long.

"It's an Element Eater, GH," Cloak said, as the Element Eater opened eight-five firetruck-red eyes arranged in six rows of fourteen with the remaining eye on a short stalk . "That may just present it with the very element that in now requires to feed upon."

"What about fire, then?" Saffa asked, quick on the uptake, as the creature grew eighty-five rippling legs ending in seven sharp, rending claws. "Fire isn't a chemical element, but a form of energy."

Cloak hesitated, which allowed the Elements Eater to reveal its wide mouth full of rending teeth. "Fire might not work, considering it clearly takes properties of the elements that it feasts itself upon. Some conduct heat, some don't. And I do not know the properties of every element."

"Eighty-five? Technium? Antimony?" GH said. "Can't remember."

"Astatine," Saffa said.

"You Googled that on your phone," GH accused.

Saffa's reply was cut off when it saw the lot of them, and despite its previous harmless and benign nature, it seemed scads more aggressive and hostile. It was because of the rarity of astatine, the rarest naturally-occuring elements.

It roared as it charged them, only being slightly smaller than Cloak himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2016, 07:02:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
No! Baaaaaaaad Element Eater! Bad!

The RAFians hadn't any astatine in them or on them. This charge wasn't about food or sustenance, but merely an intimidation tactic. Due to the rarity of astatine, it became very territorial and fierce. And it saw the RAFians as threats, which wasn't a wrong assessment, per se.

Cloak projected a golden-scarlet energy shield with a swipe of his left hand, leaving the creature to slam headlong into it. It stunned itself by doing this, leaving it vulnerable for a few moments.

But the RAFians hesitated. They didn't know how to kill this creature. Anything they used might have the element that it sought in it. They did not know what had astatine   in it or not. Could they take such a risk? Could they afford to be reckless at such a juncture?

"Hey! Where you going?" GH said, as the Element Eater shuffled off in a daze. "Where you going mother--"

"We need to capture it, before it finds sufficient astatine to metamorphize again." Cloak said at once.

"What stopped you from just encasing it in an energy bubble and leaving it it as simple as that?" GH asked. Suddenly, a branch smacked him good upon the backside when it seemed only to bend in the wind. But there was no wind. "Ow!"

"Let's stop playing around, GH," Cloak said, urging the others forward. "Come! Before it metamorphizes again. It's becoming difficult to Earthsight it."

"Why?" Abby asked.

"Background vibrations," Cloak said, as they moved. "And it has light footsteps for its size."

They continued, until Cloak stopped and said, "Gateburst! It is metamorphizing!"

"How?!" Saffa demanded. "Astatine is not a common element!!"

"And that could be it," Cloak said, darkly. "It may have felt that it exhausted its supply and is going to metamorphize to get a more available element."

"Oh, my god," Abby said. "It's just going to get bigger!"

"Our concerns are more grave than that, Abby," GH said. "Surely, its to the radioactive elements now. Meaning that it itself might be radioactive."

"And might unintentionally lead to the meltdowns of nuclear power plants," Saffa said.

***

The Element Eater was a mass of flesh that ballooned up to seven and a half feet long. It was hot pink in color with ninety-one deep brown eyes arranged into seven rows of thirteen eyes. He gained a gnashing mouth which gave it a sinister grimace. It gained a strange hodgepodge of legs, ninety-one in number, each ending in two claws.

It was after proactinium now, an immediate product of nuclear fission of thorium to uranium, emitting beta radiation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2016, 08:22:33 AM

Might not be twenty chapters this time.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Cloak's Decision

"There it is," Cloak said. But even he could sense the beta radiation coming off the creature, a property it had taken from its desired elemental meal, proactinium.

The others made to move forward, but Cloak stopped them. None of them were wearing aluminum plating, or some derivative, and their clothing would hardly serve as a deterrent. It was dangerous, Cloak felt, for them to be even this close. He, himself, however, was not in any danger, given his species didn't have DNA and beta radiation could cause spontaneous mutations. Even cancer. The Realm Walker genetic code was a bit more complicated than deoxyribonucleic acid, being essentially an energy being.

Granted, the beta particle would have to actually strike DNA for this to happen, but Cloak wasn't sure about this, though aware that it might have been in use in radiation therapy. He knew that it would be neutron radiation (which apparently causes other things to become radioactive, even living tissue), or gamma rays (which would be certainly lethal), or alpha rays (which can be stopped with a sheet of paper). But that was neither here nor there.

"What is it, Cloak?" Abby asked.

"The creature is emitting beta radiation," Cloak said. "I must go in alone."

"Why? Won't it hurt --"

"I'm a Realm Walker, remember, Abby," Cloak said seriously. "A being of energy, essentially. I have no deoxyribonucleic acid for the stray neutrinos or positrons to affect and afflict. It cannot mutate my genetic code. It cannot give me cancer. But it can for you three. And, who knows? It might affect you girls' morphing ability, I don't know."

"You still shouldn't do this alone," GH said stubbornly, fingering the neck of his alder guitar.

"Not many RAFians are impervious to radiation," Cloak said, still refusing to allow the three to proceed any further.  "Parker's armor most likely can block it, but he off on a mission with Helen. Estelore by her very stellar physiology could survive easily, but she's who know how many billion miles away, on one of her galactic sojourns. Oceanspray? Blaze? HannibalMoon? Sam/Spectre? Demos? All on other missions, or PR campaigns. It has to be me."

Cloak erected an energy barrier, a domed energy bubble, encapsulating him and his opponent. There was an ulterior reason for this, but he had hoped that it would not come to that. It might mean a visit from those swaggering pea****s on the Council, unless they got impeached and overthrown. Again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2016, 06:07:42 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
You and Me, Nowhere to Go

Cloak walked into the area finding the Element Eater, desperate to escape. There was no proactinium in here for it to eat. It was hungry for it. It needed it. It was ravenous. It was hostile. It was aggressive. It was angry.

Cloak had no fear of the creature, but he was not complacent or arrogant about it. He did not swagger up against the brute, which was just about his size, only with more legs and eyes.

"You cannot escape," Cloak said, fully aware that this creature was not sentient, and could not answer him back. "It is futile to continue trying."

Naturally, the beast didn't stop trying, not recognizing Cloak words for what they were. It wasn't really understood if it was even capable. But, it didn't matter, this creature was dangerous. Cloak would do what must be done.

But his gentler instincts couldn't help but feel pity for the thing. It was just doing what it was biologically programmed to do, and, in doing so, had made itself a threat to every living thing on this planet with deoxyribonucleic acid as the mode to carry their gentic information. And thing about this realm, and this planet, was that most organic lifeforms, if not all, had DNA. But it was hardly the creature's fault.

Cloak watched as it still tried to escape the golden-scarlet dome that Cloak had erected. He knew that it couldn't but couldn't help but wonder if it was feeling fear, feeling apprehension, feeling trepidation. He wondered if it was even capable of feeling at all.

"There is no escape, creature," Cloak said, pointlessly. "No escape, but the sweet embrace of Death himself."

Cloak had met Death, so it was rather awkward to phrase it like that.

It suddenly realized that Cloak was there, as it turned all of its many eyes towards him. No protactinium . . . it was so very hungry. It could tell that Cloak had none of it in him or on him, but . . . it was so hungry . . .

"Don't do it," Cloak said, knowing what was going to happen, predicting its thoughts. "You won't like the results."

Naturally, the Elements Eater did not respond, did not understand or recognized the words or the import of the message. It shucked off beta radiation like profuse sweat. It thudded all its many legs as it charged forward to attack. Through Earthsight it was almost like it was a one-creature-stampede.

Cloak easily sidestepped the charge with little effort. This just enraged the beast, causing the beta radiation to increase dramatically. Cloak wondered if it would downgrade to elements with smaller atomic nuclei, but he somehow doubted it.

He sidestepped another charge. This was too easy, if Cloak kept playing it defensively like this. He would have to attack. He would have to slay this poor creature for doing what nature programmed it to do . . .

He would have to harden his heart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2016, 06:55:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Pulling Punches

Better said than done.

He still, even now, questioned his decision to slay Cataclysm, questioned his ruthlessness with killing the siren, and more of his more questionable choices. They weighed on him years afterward, whether or not he wanted it to.

It charged again, and Cloak dodged easily. The Element Eater was surprisingly fast for its size, mass, and hodgepodge of legs, but yet too slow for Cloak's feline reaction times. Yet Cloak was reluctant to strike back.

He was able to be all brave and determined and committed when he was with the others, yet he was being rather hesitant when it came down to it, when he considered all the facets of the creature. He had no idea that it was an artificially-created creature, that it was designed, not by nature, but mere random chance. Though one could claim that's all of evolution is, change by random chance of an alteration, a mutation, in someone's DNA.

Cloak somersaulted over the creature, as he was mulling all this over. He firmly pulled himself out of his thoughts. This was no time to have an existential crisis of sorts. He . . . he had to harden his heart. He had to be ruthless. He had to attack. And he couldn't hold back. He must not hold back . . . he must not . . .

It charged again, only this time to be greeted with a giant  fist straight to the face. He flung his hand back, forming a tendril of golden-scarlet energy, and slammed it down on the Element Eater. But he was still holding back, pulling his punches.

Killing in cold blood isn't exactly an easy act, not when you're a person that feels anything other than anger, hatred, fear, or selfishness. Even like this. Cloak didn't even remember how he managed to kill the siren without so many qualms . . .

He pressed his attack, with the Element Eater backing away now. Something about this, attacking it in this way, just felt wrong to Cloak. Just felt like something out of his character, something that was just not him.

But he had to this. He was the only one who can.

But he had to harden his heart. He was the only one who could do this.

But he had to be ruthless. He was the only one who could do this.

He continued to press his attack, resorting to energy blasts now, causing the creature to flee. Cloak, secretly hating himself for it inspiring fear in another in such a way. He didn't like this . . .

Perhaps it would be best if he ended this quickly, as he fiddled nervously with the clasp on his cloak. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2016, 06:00:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
What Do You You Think You're Doing?!

He narrowed the dome, so that only he and the Element Eater were present. No innocent tree or bush in the way, no innocent woodland creature also trapped within the confines of it. This would be the easiest way for him to deal with it.

It did cross his mind that it might be considered cruel and heartless to do this. Cloak had no idea if it would be fast and painless or fast and painful. Cloak could not really bear to see how it seemed to be cowering before him. He did not like to witness its cringing before him. It made him feel like some sort of warlord or something.

It was cringing so much that it seemed to blur. Its color seemed to drain out of it as it closed all of its eyes. Its legs seemed to retract into into its body. And the eyes and mouth seemed to have sealed over . . .

"Gateburst!!" Cloak spat.

Cloak had neglected to take into account the humming noise. Failing to notice how its constant drone shifted ever so slightly. It was metamorphizing again. For the final time.

He could still drop his cloak, but he watched the creature transfigure itself into its final form. With a hundred and eighteen black eyes, a hundred and eighteen mismatched legs, and a rather unusual mouth, a strange proboscis. Oh, and it was just under ten feet tall.

"Ununoctium," Cloak guessed, "or oganesson, whatever. Definitely radioactive, considering it's artificial nature."

There was little point in saying this aloud, but Cloak didn't care. He missed his chance at exploiting the creature's moment of vulnerability. One could possibly chalk it up to feline curiosity or not wanted to kill it in such an exposed state, or just plain, sheer stupidity on his part. In any case, his hesitation had allowed the creature to trigger its last metamorphosis.

Cloak found himself being livid and enraged with himself. He was too concerned with the aftermath of what needed to be done. Too concerned with the politics of it, too concerned with the trivial matters surrounding it.

It had to be done. And it had to be done now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2016, 06:33:31 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Enough of This

The Element Eater roared a rather tinny roar. Cloak followed suit, his roar sounded more throaty by comparison. But there was a standoff between the two, broken when the Elements Eater charged him and Cloak somersaulted over it, springing up from the ground and the creature's centauroid back. He landed daintily behind the creature.

Then he slammed a golden-scarlet tentacle into the creature, knocking it off its feet. But it quickly got to its many feet, snarling a strangled-sounded growl. But Cloak would not up his attack.

He whipped it viciously with a water whip, not unlike a waterbender. But any injury done seemed to heal up, to seal up, fairly easily, despite it not have been fed at all.

Cloak brutally impaled it with a spire of earth, not unlike an earthbender. But when he withdrew and retracted the earth, the creature got back up, the hole healing into an actual hole in the creature. Cloak wondered if it truly had any internal organs.

Cloak swallowed his pyrophobia, and blasted it with it the sheer force of flames he could muster. But his pyrophobia still tempered his hand, the power of this flame. But, apparently, it was not flammable or combustible, as the fire did not seem to affect it as it would were it human.

Cloak spun around, pulling the air around him, and blasted it with hurricane gales. It caused it to tumble head over many feet, to the edge of the dome, which Cloak still maintained.

Cloak stood on the other side, watching his foe warily. This creature was surprising resilient, which would present a problem. If he was any other species, that was. The Element Eater would not be getting out of this dome alive.

"It is time," Cloak said, solemnly, "to end this debacle."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2016, 09:03:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Time to End This

"It is time," Cloak had said, "to end this debacle.

Naturally, the creature held no understanding of these words, but was collapsed on its side. It wasn't a feint. It had exhausted all its energy, and it couldn't even metamorphize to recoup any energy. It couldn't even downgrade to a lower form, as that would just make it smaller, and less of a threat, supposing that it even could.

Cloak narrowed the dome further. He wanted to keep the collateral damage at a bare minimum. Or maybe negated completely. He added an energy floor to the dome, so it was just him and the Elements Eater. No collateral damage.

The Element Eater appeared to breathe heavily, which Cloak wouldn't take as ironclad proof that the creature breathes. But that was not important now, as he walked the three steps toward the creature.

Cloak reached for the strong clasp on his cloak, mostly unseen by his Dweller friends. The creature whimpered, but Cloak would not allow his sympathies to sway him from this. It had to be done. It had to be.

Cloak deftly unclasped it, and his cloak fell away. His corona flared, unsuppressed.

***

"What d'you think going on in there?" GH asked.

The three were still standing where Cloak left them. They were watching intently, wondering, worrying. They could not see through the energy dome, and so couldn't see the goings on.

"He shrank the dome twice," Abby said. "There's probably a good reason."

"We won't know," Saffa reasoned, "not until he drops the dome."

"What if he can't beat it?" Abby asked.

GH snorted at the idea. "Cloak? Please, Abby."

"We don't know where it came from," Abby said, "for all we know, it could have come from the Universal Nexus. You know, Cloak's homeworld."

"Wouldn't it need to be wearing a cloak, then?" GH asked.

"The Black Mercies didn't," Saffa said, darkly.

Then the dome evaporated, and only Cloak stood there, alone. His cloak was on, and he wore a morose, contemplative look on his face.

"It's done," he said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2016, 10:00:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
You Like RAF?

As Parker took on a Splixson DNAlien, GH was making a promotional vid for RAF.

"You like RAF?" he asked the camera. "I'm mad about RAF."

Music started up.

"Now, RAF is a wonderful thing, you see.
Every RAFian has their own personality.
You just take a look and instantly
You know a RAFian is whatcha wanna be!"

He strummed a little as images began to flood the screen of the RAF campus -- the AFC building (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?board=2.0), the ARP building (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?board=6.0), and the AFFA building (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?board=5.0). Then GH picked up the song:

"You like RAF? I'm mad about RAF!
Now say that I wanted I really liked what I see,
I just click this and, magically,
There something fantastic that comes over me,
Understand, my little chickadee?"

Images of the spacious auditorium, the immaculate mess hall, the stretching grounds, the placid lake were shown before GH continued.

"You like RAF? I'm mad about RAF!
Now some of these RAFians aren't mad at all.
Some are quite reserved.
Some are quiet and small.
Some are more daring, they laugh at fate!
Its a matter of taste, but it's really great!"

Shots of the General Building, the archives, and more. Soon enough, however, GH continued his song into completion.

"You like RAF? I'm mad about RAF!
Now its amazing how RAF can emphasis your style,
You can go high-fashion, you can go hog wild!
RAF's for everyone all over the world!
RAF's for boys! RAF's for girls!
RAF's for the workin' man!
RAF's for fun!
RAF's for the winter!
RAF's for the sun!
RAF's for the Hunters!
RAF's for the game!
RAF's for the little girl who lives down the lane!
You like RAF? I'M MAD ABOUT RAF!!"

After the vid ended, GH inquired, "So, what did you think?"

Abby and Saffa exchanged a brief glance before responding. GH noticed.

"It's good, GH, but --" Abby said.

"But?" GH repeated.

"But people are just going to think that it's propaganda," Saffa said, choosing not to mince words and be blunt. "I don't think it'll help our PR standings like you hope."

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NJkg_9536PU (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NJkg_9536PU)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2016, 09:28:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Disgust

"What did you think about what I would do if you did that and died? Hmmm? What would happen to me then, huh?"

"What about me, huh? I work my butt off and what do I come home to?"

Those were two of the mildest jibes from his mother. The rest were just as self-serving, just as selfish, just as . . . condescending.

Ever since he reached young adulthood, roughly 180 Dweller Earth years, he had been plagued with how to service his mother. He had unwittingly fed into her narcissism in this decade (century, Dweller time) spent in her company. He wasn't allowed to show any emotion practically, a habit he only recently started to get out of. He was desperate for parental approval, but he never got any from her. No matter how assiduously and diligently he worked to get it, he never did. And, despite what she said to the contrary, he did try -- it just was never up to scratch in her eyes.

When he realized that nothing he did would ever be good enough, he lost motivation to do things to his very best ability. Why bother when she was going to spot some flaw, some fallacy, some imperfection in every single thing he did? She would never be satisfied, never be appeased, with his endeavors at the monumental chorework sat before him. She would never help him unless it meant immediate benefits for her in some way. He was really a Cinderfella. . . .

All this led, not only to disgust for his mother, but deep resentment. As his sister, Dagger, said once so long ago, "It's always about her."

As so it was, and according to his aunt, Wheeza, she was always that way. Cloak couldn't say that he was really surprised at this, considering his mother's irritatingly inflated ego. She never thought about her actions as they would affect others, never knew how desperately her only son wanted to die while living with her, with no escape. Cut off from basically every one he knew from school, who had gone on to do other things. And yet he was here -- stuck with her.

"Cloak," Aniyu prompted.

How do you reconcile so many years of disgust, resentment, and dislike? Was it even truly possible? He had thought that he was over this. But it was a lie. A lie that he told himself for far too long. He wasn't over this. He wasn't and he wondered if he ever would.

She also could never be corrected when she was in one of her cranky moods. If she was, she would pull his ear for daring to defy her. Cloak wasn't a son to her, but some sort of live-in servant. No, a slave.

Actually, now that he thought of it, it actually oscillated. Most days he was nothing but a lowly slave. Others, far fewer, were as if his mother considered him a pet, a creature of subpar intelligence to her own. Those were the good days when she wasn't so verbally abusive to him.

She took so many opportunities away from him, and then turned around and told him to grow up. But Cloak knew that he wasn't entirely innocent in this, he was complacent in the fact that he so blindly let her do such. He had let her . . . let himself reject so many opportunities. It was his fault just as much as hers, on that one count. This he would admit, though with some difficulty.

He didn't only feel disgust with his mother, but he also felt it with himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2016, 09:32:18 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXVII:
VENGEANCE
CHAPTER ONE:
Hard to Let Go

GH was just getting back from having to deal with an Opticoid DNAlien, when he looked up Andy on his social media. He had since learned what the whole "being friends with" characters meant. He felt a little sheepish that he didn't figure it out sooner.

But then he saw something that caused his heart to sink.

"In a relationship."

Andy was in a relationship. With a guy. With a guy that was the complete reverse of what GH was. Stocky, with repulsively bulging muscles. So much hair on his body that he could pass for a dwarf Sasquatch. GH thought the guy was really ugly as well, wondering if he even worked at the same place as Andy.

GH felt heartbroken and felt like crying. But he had no one to blame but himself, as he did not make his move when he had the chance. He felt much regret as he thought to himself in song:

In a perfect world,
One I've never known,
We would never need to face the world alone.
They can have the world.
I'm create my own.
I may not be brave or strong or smart,
But somewhere in my secret heart,
I know,
Love will find a way.
Anywhere, I go, I'm home.
If he was there beside me . . .
Like dark turning into day,
Somehow I'll come through.
Now that I've become blue,
Love will find a way.
I was so afraid.
Now I realize
That I was wrong,
And so love never dies
There's a perfect world,
Shining in my eyes.
And if only you could feel it too
The happiness I feel with you.
You'd know,
Love will find a way.
Anywhere we go,
We're home,
If we are there together. . . .
Like dark turning into day,
Somehow we'll come through.
Now that I've become blue,
Love will find a way,
I know love will find a way. . . .

"Daddy?" Leatherhead asked. "What's wrong?"

This snapped GH out of his bitter, rather stalkerish song. He shoved such dark thoughts where they belonged -- outside of his mind.

"Nothing, LH," GH said, gently parental, "it's . . . nothing."

***

"Cloak, you know why your energy is tied up here, am I right?" Aniyu asked, gently but shrewdly.

"Because of disgust," Cloak said, quietly.

"You know that there's more to it than that, Cloak," Aniyu said, gently.

"Yes . . ." Cloak said. "The disgust I have for her has intermingled and meshed and entangled with the disgust I have with myself."

"Now you know what you need to do, Cloak," the lupine Realm Walker said.

Cloak said nothing.

"You need not only forgive Ursa for her transgressions that disgust you so," Aniyu explained, in a quiet but instructive tone, "but you need to also forgive yourself. Only then can you clear these vines, only then can you free your energy from these blockages."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2016, 06:14:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
No Mercy, No Regret

Sluggard had succeeded in using the affluenza defense during his indictment back during the aftermath of the bounty hunter thing. Granted, the Rainflowers haven't been heard from since, but Sluggard happened to be up to his old tricks yet again. The skins of Gulliver Dugan and Brendan Birch, their families still unaware of this fact as it conveniently never came out in court, going to show that some of the people in positions of power really do no care about the people that they are paid to service.

Anyway, Sluggard would gloat about this to his yesman underlings, who he was confident would never have the balls to turn on him and betray this trust. He was truly a reprehensible man, never having any remorse, any mercy, for his actions. Simply because he had never had to deal with any consequence or ramification of his despicable decisions.

He still had Brendan's and Gulliver's skins, though he dyed Brendan's hair red and shaved off all Gulliver's hair, as to sort of disguise them. But he had ascertained sufficient funds to get him a third one, a thin, athletic, blond-haired teenager with green eyes. This skin was "made from scratch" and was not one of Ekzacto's. But he didn't care, as he passed off these personas as his "sons", but never outright said it, as he used them to spy on his employees.

He actually considered cornering the market on the skins, as well. Ekzacto was out of the equation, and he was a notable creator of quality skins. Sluggard knew this firsthand, of course, having two of them in his possession.

"What the hell?" he blurted when he heard the clip clop of horse hooves. He was in his penthouse suite. On the top floor of his hotel building. And these hoofbeats were coming from the outside the building. It was night so it was a bit scary to begin with.

Suddenly, a horse made of hellfire appeared in front of him, with a rider. A rider in spiked leather and a flame skull for a head. The rider jumped down, and never taking his eye sockets off Sluggard.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Sluggard demanded. Then he decided that he didn't care, and ordered, "Never mind. Get out of my penthouse!"

But the ghostly equestrian just stared into Sluggard, and Sluggard was unnerved, as he locked eyes with this spectral intruder, feeling as if he was looking deep into Sluggard's soul. This was a very bad mistake, but unlike his previous mistakes, there would have a serious ramification, a deadly consequence.

The spirit of hellfire spoke for the first time, "Feel the pain that you inflicted."

Then he fired beams of what could have been concentrated hellfire or simple energy into into Sluggard's eyes. This penance stare was burning Sluggard's soul, which was already rotting. When the beams ended,  Sluggard collapsed, lifeless. Dead.

This Ghost Rider rode away on his hellfire horse. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 19, 2016, 08:00:39 PM

New book ideas. I know it's ambitious. I don't care. ;)

• Book MVIII (1,008): "What a Nekross to Bear" -- The RAFians confront some Nekross.
• Book MIX (1,009): "Paradox Forgotten" -- Two RAFian foe's make an unholy alliance with a creature from Abby's future. . . .
• Book MXI (1,010): "Some Unfortunate News" -- Dylan and GH offend a Skraaldian.

Though I must admit I considered ending the series at Book M, but I got more ideas, and it snowballed, and -- well, if you're a regular reader, well then, you know.


New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Death Notice

When news of Dominic Sluggard's death became known, there was a flurry of media attention. He left no will, believing that he would always have time or would live forever. There were numerous people clamoring to claim a right to his still-substantial fortunate, claiming to be his rightful heir or heiress. It wasn't known if they had knowledge of the Gulliver, Brendan, and blonde teen skins, as no one else made a claim for those.

Many of them never cared for Sluggard's company. Most, if not all, were not able to tolerate his dominating demeanor, but only willing to turn around and claim connections they denounced earlier because of their greed. They only wanted his money, but did not care or mourn his death. No one loved Dominic Sluggard the man, but everyone loved his fortune, because they were hoping that it would be theirs. He was not missed. It was sad and pitiable, really.

But the conspiracy nuts had to take a bite of the apple, too. They thought that he wasn't just killed, but murdered, and murdered intentionally. Who did they blame? Why, the RAFians, of course. Bern Bridges led them in that line of thinking, despite have only the flimsiest "proof" imaginable. They had to use incredible amounts of mental gymnastics to validate their points, which even the everyman could see was stretching logic to its breaking point.

But the fact remained. The fact that absolutely no one knew just how he died.

***

Demos was watching the news with unusually, uncharacteristicall y rapt attention. He said nothing during it but it was clear that he either knew precisely what was going on or at least suspected.

After the news story ended, Demos looked rather ruffled, but he was, fortunately, alone. He looked rather paler in the face than normal.

"Zarathos," he muttered to himself. Then it became clear that Demos was actually afraid. Afraid and full of anxiety. "Consumer of souls . . . he must have been bound to a mortal being. That . . . that's the only way . . . the only way. . . ."

Demos was actually wringing his hands fretfully, something he hadn't a habit of doing regularly. Zarathos was clearly someone powerful, someone demonic. Someone frightening.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2016, 03:05:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Penance Stare

But the Ghost Rider wasn't done yet, though it was unclear whether Zarathos or the mortal he was forcibly bonded to was in the driver's seat. But it was clear that they had no interest in harming the innocent, though this didn't mesh with Zarathos's lengthy record.

The Ghost Rider used his Penance Stare upon a genocidal cultist who had managed to shoot up a place, but spared a bullet from himself. He lived while his victims did not. Until the Ghost Rider caught up with him.

His next target and victim was an unhinged, dumpy woman with a fondness for the color red. She was guilty of a few decapitatings of late, and remarkably quick to anger. This resulted in her soul burned to ash.

His next target was a smooth talking underground fight promoter/manager. He did not care if his clientele died in doing what they were in the ring . . . with an electrified cage around it. He was motivated by greed and vengeance, and he was indifferent to those who died in his stead, as long as he got paid. Until his met his end by the Ghost Rider's stare.

His target after that was a poacher who was rather reckless with their poaching activities and managed to accidentally shoot a local while on safari, but managed to wriggle out of accountability for it. He felt no remorse, as he was illegally hunting protected animals. But the Ghost Rider found him in the end, and turned his soul to ash.

Then the Ghost Rider turned his sights upon a person the next few cities over, onto a man who targeted mall Santas (out of season now that it was early April) and anyone in a mascot suit. He had been arrested and was awaiting trial, having killed at least three known mascot performers, though he claimed fifty-four despite not nearly having enough people working as mascots who fit the criteria and were murdered to substantiate this claim. He was just boasting, feeling proud of himself for it. He wasn't feeling so proud now, as his soul was now ash.

Then the Ghost Rider turned his attention to an accused rapist, suspected of actually killing one woman. He had no remorse for her death, and was inappropriately cavalier about it. He wasn't so much any more, as his soul was now ash.

Then Ghost Rider, in another city a considerable distance from the one that has the closest proximity to RAF, targeted Jervis McDowall, who was in hiding. But the Ghost Rider lost interest, like a bloodhound losing a scent due to disinterest or discovering a stronger scent. The Mad Hatter had survived this brush with death, despite his horrid acts, he never spilt blood. He never killed, though he threatened it without hesitation.

The Ghost Rider revealed the stronger "scent" that got his attention was a notorious pirate, who did not hesitate to maim or kill those in his way. He ruled his crew with an iron fist, through fear and cruelty. His tyranny so ended with his soul transfigured to ash.

The final victim Ghost Rider had targeted -- Joke Meister.

"Oh, my dear friend," Joke Meister said, upon the Ghost Rider's appearance, "you seem to be a bit hotheaded."

He laughed raucously.

"Feel the pain you've caused," he said, gravely, as he approached the Joke Meister in his cell.

"Don't be so grim, friend!" the Joke Meister laughed. "Have a laugh! It's good for the soul, you know."

"It's time for you to feel --"

"Oh, not on the first date, you brute," Joke Meister said crudely. Then he burst in sinisterly raucous laughter.

"-- feel penance."

"Penance? Sorry, but I only have two pence."

"Look into my eyes," Ghost Rider said.

"What eyes?" Joke Meister said, flippantly.

The Penance Stare connected, but the Joke Meister's soul was not turned to ash. On the contrary, he seemed to have enjoyed the experience. He was actually disappointed when Ghost Rider left.

"Aw, no more?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2016, 07:51:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Stares and Manipulation

While he couldn't use his Penance Stare on the Joke Meister, a man so insane, so masochistic, that he actually enjoyed the sensation. It would seem the fact that he enjoyed it immunized him to it. And granted it wouldn't work on species, like Vulpimancers, that lacked eyes.

The Ghost Rider's next victim was a general who loved battle in secretly sadistic way. He was willing to kill people indiscriminately, but only when he had at least a semi-credible cover to cover his butt. But he took an inappropriate amount of joy in killing brown people. The Ghost Rider reduced his soul to ash, leaving his body untouched.

The next visit was to a very abusive drunk. Rotiart's single father. Turns out he wasn't very squeaky clean. He had been guilty of drunkenly slaying a few people, but he hadn't ever been convicted but once, but was acquitted on lack of evidence. But the Ghost Rider knew, sensed the innocent blood on him, and used his Penance Stare on him, turning his soul to ash.

The next visit was another sleazy fight promoter.

After that, it was jealous cast member at an amusement park who was responsible for the "accident" of another, who was thrown under and ran over by a float. He did not survive, and it most certainly looked like an error. But it was intentional. And the jealous cast member had his soul turned to ash.

A manchild was his next victim, who killed his roommate when the roommate had the audacity to change the channel when the manchild was monopolizing the television, watching a marathon of his favorite show, which was actually a vapid, mind-numbing, modern-day show. So, this manchild shot his roommate in the back of the head for his "transgression". And he had his soul turned to ash for his.

His next target was a drag queen who manipulated people into killing for him, but the innocent blood was on his hands as well, despite thinking he was clean. And his soul became ash because of it.

His next target was another pirate.

After that, his victim was another killer rapist.

Then came a furry-hater who went a little too far.

Then a petulant prince, an heir apparent, who would kill off underlings without a second thought. Not to mention he was guilty of fratricide, slaying his elder brother who would inherit the throne before him.

His next victim? Malice.

"Feel the pain," he said, as he used his Penance Stare on her, "of those you have slain."

"And if I don't want to?" Malice said, sounding almost bored. "What then?"

"Feel the sin," he said, "and burn."

"Ehhhh, I don't think I will," she said, breaking the Stare by projecting her energy through her eyes, forcing the Ghost Rider to break off the Stare. "Your powers won't work on a Realm Walker, you Dweller dolts."

The Ghost Rider broke this off, and promptly swung himself upon his hellfire horse.

"But I do know of a place that might be of interest to you," she said, manipulatively, with a sinister smile on her face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2016, 02:39:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Fear and Embarrassment

Zarathos, Demos thought, why'd it have to be Zarathos?

Demos was in his thread, his lair so to speak.

It was bad enough that I misplaced my babies, my creature capsules. he thought, remembering Maul's "siblings". Which was funny in a sense, considering everyone else forgot about them, it seemed. Now he's come. A literal soul eater.

Thing about souls to demons was that, while demons didn't have one of their own (Demos was an exception), they were treated like currency by other demons. Having copious amounts of souls allowed a demon prestige, notability, and notoriety, no unlike a billionaire in the current political climate. But there were a number of strings attached to this -- the souls couldn't be living souls, and yadda yadda yadda.

It was one reason why Zarathos was so feared, as he was essentially a wealth-eater. But somehow, Demos did not know how or why (he didn't really keep up with Hell politics), but somehow Zarathos was forced into servitude of another demon, he thought. He didn't know the veracity of this, though, as he was not there and this information was secondhand.

All he knew is that Zarathos had a habit of being bonded to the soul of a mortal. Or was it just the mortal body he was bound to? Demos couldn't remember which it was, but dismissed it as unimportant. What was important was that whoever the bonded mortal was became the Ghost Rider could, if the rumor was true, turn souls to ash, if they have innocent blood on their hands.

And Demos knew that if he came after him, the Ghost Rider would out a rather embarrassing secret Demos was keeping. A secret he much rather keep, other than the fact that he was pretty much the only demon with an actual, living, legitimate soul of his own. He was ostracized by other demons for it, as it afforded him a conscience. A conscience that was constantly at odds with his demonic nature. A secret he found so mortifying that he didn't want any other demons or even the other RAFians to know.

He sat in his thread, his lair where he felt the safest, mulling it over, picking it apart. He was brooding and feeling rather anxious and moody. He oscillated from sitting to pacing every few moments or so.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2016, 03:19:06 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Involuntarily Bonded

A young equestrian Nicholas Friedrich was a normal teenager. Despite his hobby of choice, he came from a middle class family, and was riding due to a scholarship -- a surprisingly shady scholarship. It allowed him to go to a prestigious (read: "prohibitively expensive") Ivy League school, full of pretentious little pricks who thought they were the greatest things since sliced bread. And their precious little egos were stroked and fed to overindulgence.

The school had questionable accreditation in many eyes, but Mr. And Mrs. Friedrich were desperate for their son to have a good education, like most parents are nowadays. And Nicholas had good grades, but he himself wondered whether those grades were actually legitimate, when he considered other factors. He was a MVP, if that term could apply, in equestrian competitions. He wondered if the professors were just trying to placate him, and if they were truly an ivy league college.

He didn't verbalize any of his doubts, his suspicions. He didn't want to jeopardize his scholarship. He didn't even know what he did to earn the scholarship, but couldn't be bothered with wondering about that. He had it. He didn't want to lose it.

But, due to the modest means of his parents, the rich, pampered princesses and pricks made him an outcast. They did not use his name, instead of referring to him as "the charity case", treating him as a brainless peasant despite having a few more brain cells than they themselves possessed.

He managed to deal with all this with astounding patience and dignity. It was rather astounding the amount of crap he had to put up with, and yet still remain near the top of his class. He refused to join any fraternity, though, spending his time studying or with the equestrian team -- who weren't nearly as hard on him as the "popular" pricks.

But then the bubble burst.

His parents died -- he was sure that they were murdered, because they were outspoken against the establishment government, and would not "fall in line" with them. And they were seen as a danger to it, he was certain. He noticed that the students at the college, even some on the equestrian team, seemed to ramp up the hatred, the abuse. Not surprisingly their family were entrenched in the establishment, making their fortunes from it. Only one or two stayed on good terms with him, and even they faced stiff reprisals not only from the students but faculty and staff as well.

Yet he managed to suffer through this torment, and still managed to maintain his good grades, miraculously. None of the faculty had made unfair garnishment to his grades. Yet, anyway.

But the horse he was riding -- Fire Star -- got spooked during one of his equestrian event. It threw him, something the chestnut mare never did before. She didn't spook easily. It was sabotage -- someone spooked Fire Star deliberately, to punish Nicholas for his parents' "crimes". He broken his left arm severely, and his left leg wasn't in much better condition.

He was taken to the hospital too late, and the damage was deemed irreparable. He couldn't be an equestrian, so he lost his scholarship. He had lost everything he once held dear. He had nothing.

Then the demon came. The demon came and forcibly bound Zarathos to him, body and soul. The demon made him into the Ghost Rider. And that demon's name?

Shenecron.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2016, 06:46:57 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Approaching the Bastion

Nicholas hadn't any choice in the matter. He was tricked into it. By Shenecron himself, in the guise of an old crone with a large, bulbous nose and prominent, pointed chin. He had deliberately come to Nicholas in a moment of weakness, as he was so skilled at doing. He managed to convince Nicholas to sign something that he didn't happen to mention was a contract, and Nicholas, in this momentary weakness, did not think to read the actual piece of paper before he arbitrarily signed it.

With that, Shenecron's homely disguise melted away revealing a more draconic form, terrifying Nicholas. Shenecron wasted no time in summoning Zarathos to his side, and forced him into Nicholas's body. He bonded him to Nicholas's body, his soul, his mind. His clothing became black leather with spikes and chains. He also wore black leather gloves. His head became skeletal, wreathed and enveloped in hellfire.

Nicholas was in the driver's seat for the most part. But it wasn't as if Zarathos had no influence. However, his influence was mostly manifested as urges. Powerful urges. But Nicholas rarely left his Ghost Rider form, because he reasoned that Nicholas Friedrich was effectively dead with, he believed, no one to mourn him. He was just masking the pain he still felt at the sheer betrayal of those he would have considered friends. He allowed himself to be subsumed by the Ghost Rider identity, allowed himself to embrace the Spirit of Vengeance thing, even though technically Sam/Spectre held that title.

It was actually Nicholas who chose the victims, and Zarathos just influenced how he went about it. Zarathos was the one who sensed, who "smelled", the innocent blood on their target's hands, allowing Nicholas to find these people who spilt innocent blood. It was actually Nicholas's decision to use the Stare instead of indulging in Zarathos desire to just absorb them, which would have allowed the demon to eat the soul. Nicholas, his memories of his parents still intact refused and resisted the urge assiduously.

He was riding his hell fire horse at full gallop. The hellfire horse reminded him of Fire Star, his favorite horse to ride as an equestrian, and helped him keep his thoughts coherent and remain firmly in the driver's seat of his body.

Zarathos didn't appreciated at living in such a suppressed and oppressed manner. Though bonded to this mortal involuntarily, he could still try to manipulate him. But this Nicholas Friedrich was a stubborn and willful mortal. It surprised Zarathos, as he never knew a soul this strong before.

"My car!!" came the protest of Donald Couch.

Hellfire Star, as he starting thinking of this infernokinetic construct of an equine form, had trotted over a very expensive-looking black Ferrari with yellow painted flames on the sides. It was garish, but Couch thought that it looked cool. Granted it didn't look all that nice right now with hoofprints burned into the paint and metal with the windows having melted hoofprints in them.

Neither Nicholas nor Zarathos really cared about Couch's first world problem. Couch was rich enough to fix it, of course, but it was now imperfect. And that was absolutely unacceptable to Couch.

"Hey! Get back here, peasant!" Couch roared. He didn't have much common sense, and he liked using the term "peasant" anyone of insufficient wealth to his parents. "Get the -- wh-wh-why is your head on fire?"

Couch didn't push his luck then, proving he had some modicum of good sense. Or at least a strong self-preservation instinct. He hid in his imperfect Ferrari, cowering from the Ghost Rider, who was actually very indifferent to the pampered little brat. So, he ignored him. He hadn't spilt innocent blood, though he did support in oppressing the "lower" classes.

He was nearing the bastion. Nearing the one that the strange, but malicious, creature informed him about. He was nearing RAF. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2016, 07:21:11 AM

New book ideas.

• Book MXI (1,011): "Yin-Yang" -- The RAFians must deal with twins that can change morality.
• Book MXII (1,012): "Tracking the Curupira" -- Cloak tracks a curupira. . . .
• Book MXIII (1,013): "Horse and the Encantado" -- Horse is entranced by an encantado.
• Book MXIV (1,014): "Garudas? Naga." -- The RAFians are drawn into a garuda-naga war.

There. Don't think that I rehashed anything. If I did, I'll figure out someway to make it new, I guess.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER NINE:
Penetrating the Barriers

"How much longer is Code Avalon be down?" Demos asked. He tried to hide his anxiety, his fear. He wasn't hiding them very well.

"Another hour or so," Aquilai said, who was working with Goom and Yarin to maintain the system. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Demos lied.

Cloak looked at him. He knew the demon was lying, although it didn't take Earthsight to see that. But the Realm Walker said nothing, but kept eyeing him, observing his movements with scrutiny of a tiger.

But Cloak's attention was taken away when his ears picked up a faint clip-clop of hoofbeats of a moderately-size horse. It was clearly approaching. While Code Avalon was down.

Demos seemed to understand what this meant a few moments later when he could hear the hoofbeats himself. And he seemed to be having paroxysms of terror. Cloak found himself curious (a hazard of being a feline-form Realm Walker) about why Demos would be reacting so strongly to some simple hoofbeats.

It became too much for the demon, and he dashed out of the communications room, where the electrical short for Code Avalon was. Cloak gave pursuit, like a cat who sighted a mouse. He saw something he immediately recognized as a Ghost Rider, something he had seen from another Realm.

"Zarathos," Demos said, though it was technically a whimper. Zarathos was a more powerful demon that he. Or, at least, Zarathos was in his glory days when he was unbounded and free. He still rankled at being bonded to a mortal that he couldn't control, that he couldn't really manipulate. Although he managed to turn Nicholas from the ideal of "protect the innocent" to "punish the guilty". This afforded Zarathos a small amount of satisfaction, though hardly sufficient for the demon.

"Stand aside, demon," the Ghost Rider (Nicholas, of course, and not Zarathos) said. "You have spilt no innocent blood."

Demos . . . actually felt embarrassed by this, as Zarathos was silently laughing at Demos. Demons who haven't killed an innocent at least once was considered much like a stereotypical nerd in high school. Something to be mocked, something to be ostracized over.

"I'm not here for you," Nicholas said, as the Ghost Rider. "I'm here for the one called Cloak."

Cloak narrowed his eyes, seeing where this was going.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2016, 08:48:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Beg to Differ-ential

"And just why do you want me?" Cloak said, feigning coyness.

"Feel you sin," he said, approaching Cloak without preamble.

"Sin?" Cloak repeated, still feigning the coyness. "Care to be specific?"

Nicholas, indulging in Zarathos's urging, said nothing and proceeded to walk forward.

"Pride? I suppose I can't argue that I have been prideful." Cloak continued, starting to feel genuinely coy. "Sloth? Well . . . perhaps."

Nicholas still said nothing. Cloak wasn't intimidated.

"Greed? Not nearly as much as Larfleeze. Or Wall Street." Cloak said, edging into flippancy. "Wrath? I've been known to indulge, but hasn't everybody?"

Nicholas just continued to shuffled closer.

"Envy? I suppose I've indulged some times in my youth, but not really that much anymore." Cloak said, irreverently. "Gluttony? Hmmm, does a glutton for punishment count?"

Nicholas said nothing, and continued to shuffle closer, attempted to look Cloak directly in the eye. Cloak wasn't really cooperating.

"Lust? Hardly." Cloak said, voice betraying his boredom now. He thought this whole thing was laughable. The Ghost Rider's stare -- yes, Cloak was aware of the Penance Stare -- wouldn't affect him, and he would be able to redirect right back at him.

"Feel your sins," Nicholas said, as he initiated the Stare, only to be lasted back with powerful golden-scarlet energy beams from Cloak's own eyes. It was more powerful than Cloak had expected.

GH, Leatherhead, Gaz, Laserbeak, Parker, Helen and Dek had come over to watch the spectacle. GH exclaimed, "Whoa, Cloak! I didn't know that you could do that!"

"Neither did I," Cloak said, admitting that there were some facets about himself that even he himself was unaware of.

"You're . . ." Nicholas said, and, for once he spoke without the Ghost Rider distorting to his voice. But it soon showed up again, disguising his voice, but both Demos and Cloak heard it. "You're one of those strange creature. Like the stout one with a voice like a steel trap."

"Malice," Cloak said at once. "I should have known."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2016, 11:02:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Scrutiny

"What now?" Parker said.

Nicholas, as the Ghost Rider, looked around, hoping to detect innocent blood on the hands on any of the assembled RAFians. Cloak's hands were technically clean, unless one considered the siren and Cataclysm innocent. And the eidolans didn't have blood, innocent or not, to even be spilled. But then Cloak remembered.

All those innocent creatures, implanted with eggs of the Xenomorphic Brood. He had literally ripped the ship they were on apart. He did not usually like to exercise that much power. He preferred to put that much power into a different tier than he normally wielded. He felt aggrieved by it, but he had shamed himself in the fact that, until this moment, he had forgotten them. Had he had a hand in more innocent deaths? Had he been directly responsible for some? Would Malice have killed Ekzacto, Collecter, Gamemaster, and who knew how many more if not to hurt him in some way? If not to try to make a point to him for shatever reasoning she had on that particular day?

Nicholas's eye sockets did not dally on Helen, her hands were clean of innocent blood.

On Parker, he hesitated. Parker killed F1. But she hadn't any blood, innocent or not, to spill in the first place. So it couldn't be on his hands in anything other than a figurative sense. If you think F1 could be even considered an innocent, given her disregard with the bodies she shucked. Parker wasn't afraid, his eyes were hidden behind his visor, and he was confident in his armor's protection.

But eventually Nicholas turned his eye sockets to Laserbeak, who glared back mutinously defiant. Nicholas apparently considered Laserbeak to either be soulless or an electronic soul not being equitable to a organic being's soul. Laserbeak seemed to sense this kind of dismissal from Nicholas and Zarathos, and he shrieked a defiant parrot caw.

Then Nicholas locked eyes with Gaz. Despite Gaz resorting to drinking a vampiric blood supplement -- "Blood Lite" -- so that she won't have to actually feed and prey on real people. She didn't mind the powers of a vampire, but she didn't like the predatory aspect of it. But, yet, when she was Dark Gaz, she had spilt innocent blood left, right, and center. Granted, she didn't let the blood spilt fall the floor. She drank it. But she wasn't in her own mind, she was being controlled by Madre de Vampyra. So the innocent blood was on her hands, not Gaz's, technically.

Apparently, this technicality was sufficient enough for Nicholas, though Zarathos railed against it. He felt like he was missing out, for every sinned soul, when they are turned to ash, it was Zarathos feeding. Partially. Just barely enough to satiate him.

Then he eyed Leatherhead, and saw that not only were his hands clean, he was an innocent himself. Leatherhead looked puzzled and confused, not aware of just what precisely was going on.

Then he looked at GH. He stopped and he began to stare GH down. GH thought he knew why. Dimitri. GH wasn't sure that he would be considered innocent, as he did not consider himself innocent in it.

"Feel your sin, boy," Nicholas said, despite not being more than three or four years older.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 23, 2016, 11:06:30 PM

I refuse to "feel my sin" when others are around. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2016, 11:15:01 AM

Not that sin.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Conflict Anew

"But I don't wanna feel my sin," GH said.

"Not that kind of sin, GH," Demos said, in a quick aside.

"Oh," GH said, though it was evident that he knew precisely what the Ghost Rider was talking about. Dimitri. God, would that ever stop cropping up to haunt him?

"You have the blood of an innocent on your hands," Nicholas said, voice sounding oddly ethereal now. "Feel your sin --"

"GH, don't look him in the eye!"

"What eyes?"

"Eye sockets, then!" Cloak roared, stepping into action immediately. He cartwheeled over, generating an aerokinetic blast that separated the two. Then he leaped in and fired a pyrokinetic blast at the Ghost Rider like a firebender. It was quite impressive given his pyrophobia. "Gaz, Parker! Take GH to safety. Leatherhead, Laserbeak, go with him."

"What about you?" Leatherhead asked.

"Mr. Cloak can take care of him," Parker said, in a moment of solidarity, "c'mon, kid, we gotta make tracks."

"Do not attempt to stop me," Ghost Rider said. It was questionable if Zarathos was managing to speak through Ghost Rider Nicholas before Nicholas reasserted control again.

"Pal," Cloak growled, "you have no IDEA who you're trifling with."

In response, Nicholas fired a blast of hellfire which Cloak deflected to his right. He didn't like the feel of the hellfire, though. It felt . . . dirty. Corrupted. The Ghost Rider punched out a few more blasts of concentrated hellfire, which Cloak easily deflected. Deflected to the left, left, right, left, left, left, right, left . . .

Tired of this seemingly impenetrable defense Cloak was putting on, Nicholas whipped out a length of chain, and was proceeding to use it like a whip. Cloak managed to defend against it, until he swept it on the ground, knocking the Realm Walker over is an almost ridiculous way.

But Cloak was a cat, and landed on his feet with all the grace of one. Only now he was mad, though keeping his emotions in check. This was becoming somewhat easier, but Cloak never really noticed.

When the Ghost Rider tried to pull a Scorpion "Get-Over-Here!" technique, instead having his chain wrap around Cloak's arm like he intend, Cloak seized the chain. His eyes were like suns now.

"You have royally screwed up," Cloak said with a growl.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2016, 09:25:46 PM

Saffa's gonna have a lot of catching up to do, isn't she?

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Playing the Defusion Spell Card

"You haven't any idea the powers you are meddling with, boy." Ghost Rider snarled.

"Boy?!" Cloak said, eyes flaring back up to suns, "You dare call me boy?! I am at least two hundred a fifty of your years older you!!"

"Zarathos is older," Demos said, from the peanut gallery.

"Why are you still here?!" Cloak said, grumpily irate.

Demos took no offense at this, but said nothing more as the battle between the two continued. And, if anything, it escalated. The battle became rather intense with the risk of collateral damage rising.

It shamed Cloak to admit that it took him this long to realize the danger of this. He had allowed this battle to go on too long. Granted, he was really holding back his.power because he was afraid of the sheer power of it. Although, unbeknownst to the Realm Walker, Nicholas was doing pretty much the same thing, because Zarathis was fighting harder than ever before for control over his body, for control over Nicholas himself.

Cloak had to stop this from causing casualties. If it keeps escalating like this, that would be an inevitability. But he didn't know how to stop the Ghost Rider, didn't know how to kill him if it came down to it.

"There is no escape from punishment," Nicholas said, "only eternal suffering for your sins, your crimes."

"And who are you to be the arbiter of the punishment?" Cloak countered swiftly. "Who appointed you judge, jury, and executioner?"

"Sins must be punished," came his reply, dodging the question.

Cloak didn't reply. It would be pointless. This guy clearly had a one-tracked mind, convinced of his righteousness. It was like he was a member of that cult that masqueraded as a church and protested funerals. They were like Teflon to reason and compassion, and so was the Ghost Rider.

"There is only one solution that I can see from this." Cloak said. "Zarathos and the kid must be separated."

"Cloak, no! You can't!" Demos protested.

"Try me," Cloak challenged. Then he belted out the next word at the top of his voice, so that people two miles away could hear it, "Expellicorpus!"

Nothing happened.

"No, Cloak, when I said that you couldn't it wasn't a challenge to your power," Demos said, with far more patience than he felt, "what I meant was that you literally can't. Zarathos isn't possessing the mortal -- making 'Expellicorpus' useless, by the by -- but fused to his soul or body, possibly both."

Why the Ghost Rider was just standing there allowing them to exposit was distracting to Cloak. But Zarathos within him seemed to be trying to exert more than just influence over Nicholas, and Nicholas resisting his attempts to take the driver's seat away from him.

"Besides, even if it was possible," Demos said, "Zarathos is a very dangerous demon, and one that is older than even you. Older than Malice, even. The mortal is probably the only thing holding him back from more malicious things."

"Be that as it may," Cloak said, "I may have another solution."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 25, 2016, 03:53:08 AM

Yep, I just walked in here and HOLY **** THIS IS INTENSE!! Love it. Gives me a reason to keep the hiatus off. ;)

Great last book, by the way, and yeah, I can safely add that I was also a periodic table nerd in school, so no, gh, I didn't google astatine. :P

And also:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2016, 05:10:35 AM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Another Possible Solution

"Cloak! No!" Demos protested. "These are demonic matters which you are not very versed in. You might end up making it worse or make the Rider or Zarathos himself more powerful!"

But Cloak was a stubborn sort, and some could say that bordered dangerously on becoming sheer arrogance. He was confident in this next solution to neutralize their threat. To his knowledge, it could very well kill the mortal to which Zarathos was fused, body and soul, with. This could wind up freeing the demon, something that Zarathos would like very much.

Demos was right, though. Cloak might have been versed in a variety of alien species he had met from Walking throughout the Realms (though visiting all the Realms was a statistical impossibility for one Realm Walker alone), but he wasn't nearly as versed in demonology and demonic matters. Realm Walkers aren't even able to go into Hell (or Heaven, for that matter). There were theories about this of course, but no concrete fact. The prevailing theory was the energies in both places acted repelled Realm Walker energy like same-side magnets.

"It will work," Cloak said, with the stubbornness his family was known for. It was their hallmark, really.

"You don't know that, Cloak!" Demos countered.

"Trust me," Cloak said. It was getting to be a cliché.

"No, Cloak, trust me on this," Demos insisted. "You know it's serious when I'm the voice of reason, Cloak!"

"It'll work," Cloak said, obstinately.

"You can't KNOW that!!" Demos insisted again.

Cloak took a stance and raised his arms as glowing golden-scarlet energy surrounded the Rider in a double helix pattern. Then he made sweeping movements with his arms, using Faith's technique. It did nothing, except seemingly dislodge a memory and seemingly unify Nicholas and Zarathos in a singular mission.

"Cloak, I told you that we didn't know what would happen," Demos said, frustrated now.

"You cannot stop the Spirit of Vengeance, boy," the Rider said.

"Well, then we're gonna have a problem," said a voice from nowhere. It wasn't Cloak nor Demos who spoke. "Aren't we?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2016, 06:47:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Battle Usurper

It was Sam, host of the Spectre, who spoke. He had clearly taken umbrage at the Rider claiming to be the Spirit of Vengeance, when the Spectre itself held that title. It wasn't about to let any old superpowered individual take it away from him.

"Sam! I can handle this," Cloak said, miffed.

"No. No, you can't." Demos contradicted.

"Shut up, Demos. No one asked you." Cloak snapped moodily.

"I got this, Cloak," Spectre said.

Cloak wanted to argue, but could easily see the futility of putting forth the effort of arguing his case. This caused Cloak to feel a modicum of oppobrium and scorn. Cloak felt no guilt from his obloquy towards Demos, but he was so sure that he could do it.

"I'm the Spirit of Vengeance!" the Rider spouted suddenly, almost as if reminding the RAFians that he, or they, were still there.

"No," Spectre said, quite austere, "I am."

"No, we -- I am!"

"No, me."

"No, me!"

"No, me!"

"Well," Demos said, flippantly, "that was mature."

"Shut up!" both said.

"Demos, do you realize the sheer amount of collateral damage that will occur if these two clash?" Cloak said.

"The Rider doesn't have a chance," Demos said. "Even with Zarathos being what he is."

"Did you just not hear a word I said?" Cloak asked. "Don't you realize the damage that a clash between these two could cause."

"No more than you did," Demos answered.

Cloak felt a deep sense of shame, but did not say anything about it.

"Besides," Demos said, "this battle will be incredibly one-sided."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2016, 07:57:54 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
One-Sided

"My point still --" Cloak began, as the two began to fight. The force of Spectre's blow caused air to rush forward and Cloak attempted to limit any consequential collateral damage. This filled his priority list in this, as limiting the collateral damage could also limit possible causalities.

Spectre wasn't like the Rider in that Sam wasn't holding back the spirit of the Spectre, who was following his direction without question or argument, while Nicholas was struggling to hold back Zarathos, forbidding him free rein. Cloak understood that, except the elements and his own emotions were not sentient.

The Rider seemed to be a real disadvantage, as Demos predicted. Spectre was completely overpowering him. And people thought Cloak was OP. It really was one-sided, but the Rider still had one trump card. One he hadn't considered using, hadn't remembered he had during the heat of the battle.

He was being beat down by Spectre, who was starting to become overconfident and ****y with this battle. Overconfidence and ****iness were a dangerous ****tail to have, and Spectre had took it.

"Feel your sin," the Ghost Rider said, firing his Penance Stare into Spectre's eyes. "Suffer eternal punishment for it."

Sam could feel the Penance Stare. He did have innocent blood on his hands, although he never intended to harm those gladiators on Gamemaster's ship. He had no choice. But they were "repurposed" in the entechment chamber. Because of him. He had no choice in the matter, but it was by his hand, his ring, that they fell to their deaths. He bore some responsibility for it, he felt. Then again, were their hands clean of innocent blood themselves?

Spectre wasn't much better. He had killed many in the name of his role as the Spirit of Vengeance. He claimed that he was the personification of the rage of some omnipotent, omnipresent god, but that wasn't ever really substantiated. Many of the dead were not innocent, but not all of them were guilty. These were the ones that got caught in the crossfire.

But he could resist the Stare turning his or Sam's soul to ash. He was able to break the Stare much like Malice and Cloak were able to. Only now, the Spectre was mad, and so was Sam, though he did feel a modicum of fear as well.

"IMPOSTER!!! IMPERSONATOR!!!!" Spectre and Sam roared. "YOU DARE TO --"

"FEEL YOUR SIN!! FEEL THE ETERNAL PUNISHMENT!!!!"

"Feel like we've been sidelined, eh, Cloak?" Demos asked.

"Busy here, Demos!" Cloak said, tersely. Cloak was working hard to rectify all and any collateral damage and prevent any potential causalities. It was not an easy endeavor.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on June 26, 2016, 04:59:50 AM

Hold up. Are they still fighting indoors?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2016, 07:25:49 AM

No. They were never indoors. Goom, Aquilai, and Yarin were inside the communications room, but Cloak and Demos dashed out when they heard Hellfire Star's hoofbeats.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
RIP or, You Know, Not

The battle of the two egotistical Spirits of Vengeance were at a fever pitch, if this didn't stop the whole of the forum could be levelled. Cloak could manage to keep it from fall apart for a while, but he was still only one person. One who was starting to get very annoyed.

"You are a mortal fused with a demon, yes?" Spectre asked.

"Feel the eternal punishment for your crimes!" came his reply.

"Then I shall rip the demon from you," Spectre answered.

"That's," Demos said, quietly, "not possible."

Didn't mean that Spectre wouldn't try, though. They danced around the grounds of the forum, with Spectre trying to lay hands on Ghost Rider, to rip Zarathos out, all the while he was trying to use his Penance Stare again and again on Spectre, despite not working the first time.

"First Light!" Cloak snarled, ever increasingly annoyed and frustrated. As if it wasn't difficult enough to prevent all the collateral damage, especially when Spectre saw fit to increase his size -- something Cloak didn't remember him to be capable of before -- making Cloak's endeavors all the more difficult.

The battle against David and Goliath there was going to to reach an awful conclusion one way or another. Cloak just hoped the buildings of RAF would remain in one piece. Fortunately, RAF was more or less empty due to it being a rather mission-heavy day for the others -- the Knight have heightened their xenophobic activities, and the RAfians had to be there to stop them. Didn't stop people like Bern Bridges from labelling them as vigilantes, even though they were the only organization fit to handle the things that have come up -- alien invasions and the like.

Eventually, the Spectre managed to get ahold of the Ghost Rider, and attempted to pull Zarathos out of the mortal. Demos was shocked in that Spectre actually seemed to be succeeding and Zarathos was excited instead of fearful. He wanted to be freed from that meddling mortal and his less-than-impressive body.

He immediately stopped helping Nicholas, who would likely die from this, while Zarathos wouldn't. His power and energy may be diminished significantly, but he wouldn't be dead. And he would be free from the mortal, would no longer be bound to him. Would be able to have some say in his actions.

"Sam, stop!" Cloak said, realizing this at the same time as Demos, who was terrified at the thought of an unregulated Zarathos. "You'll just exacerbate the problem!"

Sam, and by extension the Spectre, stopped and Zarathos sprung back into Nicholas's body, immensely and immediately livid that his chance at freedom was taken from him, stolen! He was trapped inside this gawky twenty-something body again. Without any say in what is said, what is done. Trapped! Trapped forevermore! Trapped at the discretions and indiscretions of what amounted to be a child! Trapped with no power but to simply urge the boy to indulge in what he wanted, urges that could fully be ignored. What did he ever do to deserve this?

No. No, he would not accept this. He would not allow it. He would not allow himself to be pigeonholed by the boy again. He was far older and far more powerful than an ordinary human twenty-something. He would not go silently into the aether of this child's psyche. He would not.

"I will not go back!" the Ghost Rider roared. But it was not Nicholas who spoke.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2016, 08:22:48 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Zarathos's Driving Now

The Ghost Rider paused, then let out a raucous peel of laughter. Zarathos was now easily suppressing Nicholas and his will. He was fully aware of this, but, like Zarathos before, could not act of his own accord, could not speak of his own accord. But only urge Zarathos was was easily and freely ignored.

This was better than being legitimately freed in some senses to Zarathos. Now this vapid boy could feel what if felt like. Being marginalized. Being ignored. Having your needs not being met. Being helpless to do anything. Now he gets to feel it all.

"I should thank you, faux Spirit of Vengeance," the Ghost Rider said, his tone and delivery distinctly different from before.

"This ain't good," Demos said, extremely perceptive.

"Wonderful," Cloak said, dryly sarcastic.

"I'm finally free and finally autonomous from that weak little mortal boy!" he crowed.

"But he's still bound to the kid's body," Cloak observed. "He isn't free of it."

"Allow him his delusions," Demos advised. "There may be an opportunity for us to exploit in it."

"Yes, Nicholas -- yes, I know your name. Yes, boy," Zarathos crowed maniacally, "feel the helplessness. Feel it, boy! FEEL it!! Let the sorrow grow! Let it fill you. It's nectar to me."

The Spectre was just standing there, watching this dissociative episode of the Ghost Rider. It was odd because Spectre and Sam more or less were in agreement with what they do, Sam guiding Spectre in ethics and morality, but not in a domineering sort of way.

"Now, Nicky-boy," Zarathos said, "I'll show you how it's done!"

"Oh, wonderful," Cloak said, as the battle between the two continued anew.

"If we're gonna do something, Cloak, we had better do it soon." Demos said. "It's starting to get like you fought Garrotik."

"How'd you know about that?" Cloak said sharply.

"Cloak. Priorities." Demos said, effectively dodging the question. But he wasn't wrong.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2016, 06:54:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Well, That Came Out of Nowhere

The clash was monumentally and potentially destructive. Had Cloak not been there to severely limit the collateral damage, there wouldn't have been a forum anymore. This was getting ridiculous.

At least when Cloak was battling Garrotik, there weren't any buildings around. Even the trees and creatures were unharmed, by him, anyway.

"Demos," Cloak said, feeling the strain and exhaustion beginning to take an overt toll on him, "I have an idea, but you're gonna hafta get something. And quick!"

Cloak swiftly elaborated on what was needed and Demos hurried to retrieve it. Cloak wondered how much longer he could manage to keep all the damage to a minimum. He was just one person, after all. The third most powerful RAFian, true, but he was still one person.

It was just all he could do to keep the forum in one piece. Zarathos didn't care, naturally, about the forum and Sam/Spectre were too focused, too involved, too occupied by the fight to stop and consider the kind of damage that he could do to the forum himself. Fortunately, Cloak was able to mitigate this, although some cosmetic damage did escape his notice.

The Ghost Rider tried to use his Penance Stare over and over again, apparently trying to use it as a concussive blast, a la Scott Summers ("Cyclops", who didn't exist in this Realm). Zarathos was taking an inordinate, inappropriate amount of enjoyment in this battle. He even laughed maniacally from time to time, making him sound rather insane.

"Demos, what Veil is taking you so long?" Cloak muttered, in a mutinous manner. "It's not like it was -- aw, [Realm Walker expletive that sounded like a snarl]."

Cloak had to protect the General Building, in the Media area of it. Spectre, in his massive size mode, nearly fell into it. It was only because of Cloak's endeavors that the building didn't fold like a house of cards.

"Demos, where bloody Veil are you?!" Cloak cursed, as the Ghost Rider fired his Penance Stare again, with masochistic glee.

Suddenly, a small, round, reflective item flew up in the path of Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. It was a mirror, and it didn't show the reflection of the Ghost Rider, but Zarathos himself. And Zarathos was not a pretty person.

The Penance Stare was reflected by the Mirror of Truth, and seemingly energized by it. The Penance Stare hit Zarathos, and instead of being immune to his own Penance Stare, Zarathos was turned to ash, freeing Nicholas. It also depowered him.

Cloak caught the Mirror of Truth, as Demos spoke, nonplussed, "Zarathos is dead? And so easily?"

Nicholas seemed to have mixed emotions about this, but he walked off and out of the forum . . . just as Code Avalon bubbled back to life.

"Of course," Cloak said, moodily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2016, 08:00:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Disgust and Good Company

"Cloak," Aniyu prompted.

"I know," Cloak said, at once. Underseen gets to fight a Spheroid DNAlien and he's here doing this. Underseen had it easier.

"Cloak, dear," Aniyu said, gentle and kind, "you need to forgive yourself. You cannot control the actions or decisions of your mother, but you do not have let it bog you down."

Cloak said nothing.

"I know it's hard, but you must forgive, not only her indiscretions and poor decisions," Aniyu intoned, "but you must forgive yourself."

Cloak remained silent, as he looked away.

"Forgiveness of others is hard," Aniyu said, waxing philosophic, "but easy when it comes down to forgiving yourself."

Cloak said nothing, and would not meet her eye.

"It's not going to be an easy thing to do, Cloak," Aniyu said, gently, "but you must if we are to make any progress here."

***

GH was with Leatherhead, his adopted son, and they were playing. LH was really happy, and GH found himself thinking, in song:

You and me, together, we'll be
Forever, you'll see.
We two can be good company,
You and me.
Yes, together, we two.
Together, that's you
Forever with me,
We'll always be good company,
You and me.
Yes, together we'll be.

Then GH was training LH on his keytar while GH played his favorite guitar. The jam session wasn't exactly star material, but LH was still green -- er, he was still new at playing the keytar. He sang again in thought:

You and me, together, we'll be
Forever, you'll see.
We two can be good company,
You and me.
Yes, together, we two.
Together, that's you
Forever with me,
We'll always be good company,
You and me.
Yes, together we'll be.

Now they were training with the weaponized forms of their instruments, GH with his guitar battleax and Leatherhead with his keytar halbried. The weapon was still a little too unwieldy and heavy in the young crocodilian mutants hands, but he was handling it better and better. GH wonder if maybe he should teach Leatherhead about good judgement first, handing a weapon like this to a six-year-old.

But he was thinking in song:

You and me, together, we'll be
Forever, you'll see.
We'll always be good company,
You and me.
Just wait and see!

Their bond was a close one, despite it not being even a year since they've known each other.

---

SONG SOURCE: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JPSfhQkrzEI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2016, 04:51:43 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXVIII:
HEADHUNTERS
CHAPTER ONE:
Self-Forgiveness and the RAFy Creatures

Mithril was battling a Nosedeenian DNAlien, and Cloak was back here again. But it was necessary. He had to do this. He had to do this to, simply and bluntly put, to better himself. To lift these weights off his shoulders, to unburden himself from this baggage.

Cloak shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He exhaled this breathe slowly feeling the disgust and animosity flow out as he sensed the woody vines wilt and dissicate.

"There is nothing I can do to change the past," Cloak said, addressing himself more than Aniyu, though she didn't mind a bit. "What's done is done. There's going back to change it, to alter it. What's happened happened, and that's an empirical truth. I forgive her for her poor decisions pertaining to me. I forgive myself for my inaction when those decisions affected me directly. It happened. Dwelling on it will not change it. Continually feeling disgust about will not do me any good. I accept it now."

The green vines withered into nothingness reveal a deep blue wall of thorny vines behind the green ones. Cloak knew what these would represent.

"Sadness."

***

Another school field trip came to the forum, and the RAFians made a big production of it.

"We are the RAFy creatures,
We're very pleased to meet ya's!
Señors y señoritas, too.
The RAFians we feature,
You know would never eat'cha!"

"Stop that, Shock!" Terenia scolded, wapping his snout with a rolled-up newspaper. Shock was acting as if he was a maneater.

"They were probably dry and tough, anyway," Shock said, earning him another wap from the newspaper.

Dino sang:

"We sing so very sweet to you . . ."

Then the rest sang:

"Welcome to RAF (RAF RAF)!
With all the laughs (laughs laughs)!
And the tiger, too (too too)!
Welcome to YOU-YOU-YOU!"

GH, Dylan, and Yeerk Salad sang:

"So, show some self-reliance!
Come in and see out clients
But don't fear giant Pikachu attacks!
You'll learn about pylons,
And thread tie-ins,
And maybe learn some RAF facts.
So, wipe off your glasses so you can see,
The dinosaur, the monkey and the birdy,
Dek contrary, annunaki, RAFian Bear is all hairy,
Cerulean, GH, Broken and 'gator,
Xan and the JFalcon very similar to the scary faerie,
Nina and the tortoises, Horse and her purposes,
Nice, ice, these, Goose --
Welcome to YOU-YOU-YOU!"

GH stuck a stubby pencil behind his ear as he held up a piece of paper.

"We are the RAFY creatures,
We're very pleased to meet ya's.
I haven't written this verse yet . . .
But, uh, I will write it,
And it will sound much better
Than when we had 'wet wet wet'."

Then they ended the performance with the last verse:

"Welcome to RAF (RAF RAF)!
With all the laughs (laughs laughs)!
And the tiger, too (too too)!
Welcome to YOU-YOU-YOU!"

The kids weren't exactly appreciative. It seemed as if they had a five second attention span.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4MCdaTK1BaU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2016, 11:34:11 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Brain and Heart, Sold Separately

A disembodied wizard who called himself Kapok Selfalohart was an average magic adept. Years ago, he suffered an accident when used his own power against himself, rather like a toddler playing with a loaded gun. He had decapitated himself, but both his torso and head remained alive but separate.

His head was ruled by his brain, cold logic and rational practicality. And motivated by sheer malevolence and hungered for power. The head had a pointed chin, an almost skeletal head, sunken eyes, a hooked nose, thin black eyebrows, and some sort of ceremonial headdress of blacks and purples. He spoke with a voice and mannerisms akin to that of Tim Curry.

His torso was ruled by emotions -- hope, courage, compassion, and love, in particular. It was motivated by virtue and morality. It was content to enjoy the simpler things, though wasn't afraid to fight for the things it held dear. It was a wide-shouldered body, with thick, bare, python-like arms and an emblem at the left side that blinked when the heart "spoke". The heart, as the torso was known, wore a black cape, a dark purple sleeveless shirt, puffy pants of the same color, and dull gold pointed shoes.

The two extreme of any one person. It was unknown what Selfalohart was like before his bumbling mistake, but it was surely not either one of these extremes, but some sort of compromised between them.

And as it turned out, the head of Selfalohart managed to trick some unwary kids -- and a dog -- into reuniting him with his body and locking it into a shackle, not unlike a metal choker. Then he promptly disposed of the kids, having not lost his malevolence. He transfigured them into a lizard, a cat, a songbird, a fish, and a bone. It was painful as well.

The head of Selfalohart dominating his heart, claiming that if his body didn't hold all of his magical power that he wouldn't have bothered. He claimed that emotions were worthless, that they were corruptions to pure thought, as if they were filthy little things.

Selfalohart liked to act as if he ruled a country, a land, but he did not. He liked the grandiose thoughts and the ambition, but he was still quite connected to reality, and able to plan for his delusions of grandeur to become reality.

But he was wise and smart enough to know that there was one thing that stood in his way of conquest. He knew of them from their legend and tales of fairness of heart. All could be useful to him, or at least made to see his way of thinking, without the taint of emotion. . . .

He would go to RAF.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2016, 08:38:29 AM

Still concerned with the name change thing on the forum . . .

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER THREE:
Desperately Despot

Selfalohart meandered for just a bit in his torso's home, relishing having his full power back. Lamenting the fact that his body, his heart, was the one that possessed it all. In Selfalohart's head's mind it was was illogical and completely stupid for his emotional torso to have this power. Such power belonged to strong minds, unfettered by feelings. Such power should have been fuelled and control by incredibly high intellects such has his head's, not the nagging whims of an emotional heart. It was not a fair distribution of power, with his head having none and his body having them all.

But no matter, no matter. He rectified that injustice.

"Hey, old dude! No one said that you could look at my car!" Donald Couch said, with caustic asperity. He was standing in front of a lurid orange Audi. "That's gonna cost ya fifty bucks."

Selfalohart just gave him a baleful look of disgust and revulsion. He had been considering freeing up the boy's mind from the leeches of emotion, but he saw now that his mind had already festered beyond the point of recovery. He hadn't any intelligence of any notable worth anyway. Selfalohart had no interest in the boy.

The emblem on Selfalohart's chest flashed red multiple times, indicating that his heart was resisting, was struggling against his head's dominance. This caused some amusement to Selfalohart's head.

"Fifty bucks, old man!" Couch insisted thuggishly. "Cough it up!"

Selfalohart curled his lip in disgust, and proceeded to walk away, not bothering to comply with Couch's demand, to comply to Couch's bullying.

"Hey!" Couch shouted. "Don't walk away from me old man! You need to pay up!"

Had Selfalohart had truly been whole, with his heart and brain working together as with most other people, he would have warned Couch despite repeated evidence that he was too stupid to take heed. Logic would dictate that he wouldn't listen to the warning either.

Selfalohart whipped around, held out his arm, stiff as a board, with his hand parallel to the ground and all fingers fully extended. A blast of magenta-colored magic fired from his hand and easily connecting with the Audi's door. The blast crumpled it without effort.

"MY CAR!!" Couch screamed as Selfalohart nonchalantly continued on his way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2016, 08:38:28 AM

Well, with Ash on the case, my anxiety has subsided somewhat.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
He Will Not Be Denied

Selfalohart had strolled right up to the walls of the RAF grounds. RAF's location was really the worst-kept secret in all the world. The bubble of Code Avalon prevented his entry, as he placed a hand on it, and it wouldn't pass through. Only one with a Mark could pass through Code Avalon when it was at this level of alert.

"Harrumph," Selfalohart grumbled, "smart, I suppose."

He place his outstretched hands atop each other, palms touching. His hands glowed a very noticeable cyan color. A matching cyan glow appeared on the pinkish tint of Code Avalon. He slow raised his top hand as he lowered his bottom hand, which caused a matching hole to appear into Code Avalon. He continued to do this until Code Avalon broke with an audible shattering sound.

This, naturally, garnered the RAFians' attention.

Dino loomed from the dappled light of the trees. She was at her full, and quite considerable height. She saw the newcomer, and knew he was the cause as Selfalohart crossed the threshold into the forum, bold as brass. And he walked, with a confidently arrogant swagger in his step, toward Dino.

But it was at this point that Phoenix, Gaz, and Broken appeared as well. Cloak was there as well, but Selfalohart couldn't see him, as he was expertly hidden in the brush and shadows. Magic-wielder or not, Cloak knew how to pull a Batman.

"Kapok Selfalohart?" Broken said. He clearly knew of this buff magician.

"Ah, Cody, was it?" Selfalohart drawled. He was almost indifferent in the conversation.

Broken looked as if he was perplexed.

"I suppose that Zak should be around, if you're --" Selfalohart said, as Broken's expression darkened. "Oh, yes. I had forgotten."

"You're supposed to be dead," Broken said, tone flat.

"Am I, now?" Selfalohart asked, uninterested.

"You decapitated yourself," the RAFian wizard elaborated.

"That was a fallacy. In reality, I liberated my mind," he said, with a bored, drawling tone. The emblem on his chest pulsated again -- his heart was struggling against him again. "I freed myself from the taint of emotion. You cannot imagine the liberty one feels when they excise the venomous contamination of emotion, the unbridled independence from virulent feelings."

"So, in essence," Cloak said, quietly, having easily and successfully snuck around and behind Selfalohart without him even noticing or aware of his presence, "you are stupid."

This actually took him unaware, as he didn't expect this, and it did surprised him, though he showed no emotion.

"Stupid?" he repeated. Though his words were indignant, they still carried no emotion, but it did carry smugness and arrogance. "How dare you make such an assumption! My intelligence vastly eclipses your own!"

"Intelligence and arrogance are not the same thing," Cloak said. "And I believe you just got angry. Anger is an emotion, you know."

"I do not feel the taint," he said. "My intelligence is quite unencumbered."

"Using big words is not a definite sign of intelligence," Cloak said, smoothly, "but a childish play at sounding smart."

"You should be thanking me," he said, coldly.

"Is that anger, I hear?" Cloak said.

"Thank you?" Gaz said, with a snort. "Why would we be doing that?"

"Because I've come to free you of your taint!"

Cloak suddenly lost his relaxed demeanor as he tensed. He had an idea of what he was planning. Though he was forced to recall the episode with Van Pyrrhus. He launched himself at Selfalohart, but missed as he turned around, as if he foresaw the attack. Cloak did a somersault and landed on his feet.

"Time to cleanse you all," he said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2016, 04:39:16 PM

Another long chapter. Still hyped over the seven new Pokes. Especially Vikavolt.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Taking Their Heads Off

"Kapok, what are you doing?" Broken asked, as Selfalohart followed the same motions he used to shatter Code Avalon.

"Cleansing you from your abhorrent taint," he said, as the cyan glow around his hands appeared around the necks of Gaz, Dino, Phoenix, and Broken. But Cloak only managed to push Broken out of the way as the glow appeared around his neck instead. "Since you have clear need for my assistance."

Cloak crossed his arms in front of his face, as if blocking whatever Selfalohart was doing, before flinging his arms down strongly, dissipating the cyan glow from him. Realm Walkers, Teflon for magic.

Unfortunately, this took too much time. Selfalohart's hands were already parted and moving away from each other. Cloak was a bit perplexed about this, but then he looked at the other three, his concern grew.

Their heads had parted company with their shoulders. Selfalohart had decapitated them!! He had killed them!! He had murdered them!! Cloak felt anger and rage seething within him. This miserable warlock killed three RAFians, three of his friends. His energy pulsed from him waves of gold and scarlet.

"You allow yourself to be contaminated?" Selfalohart asked, emotionlessly. He was addressing Cloak.

"This isn't good," Broken said. Then he inspected the bodiless heads and the headless bodies further. He was surprised with what he found.

"You DARE intrude upon the sanctity of our forum, our HOME," Cloak said, as the trees became to move ominously as storm clouds appeared to gather. Cloak could not manipulate weather, so it was a remarkable coincidence. "You DARE to come here, and you have the unmitigated AUDACITY to LECTURE us about emotions? You dare to come here to FOIST your ideals upon us?!"

Cloak was roiling into a full rage, a towering temper. The ground was even beginning to quake warningly. The trees were beginning to creak and groan in a most disconcerting manner. The winds began to pick up. It began to drizzle, though every drop was subconsciously and hydrokinetically moved away from Cloak's personage.

"What is this?" Selfalohart demanded.

"What is it now, Kapok?" Cloak said, savagely. "Feeling FEAR now, are you?"

"Uh, Cloak?" Broken interjected.

"NOT NOW!" Cloak roared, an actual tiger roar underlying his voice, his amber eyes not leaving Selfalohart. Cloak given into his feline predatory instincts -- something that occasionally happens with Realm Walkers, depending on what form they are. He didn't suppress a growl, while Selfalohart looked on with dull surprise. "Now. You are going to leave here. You are --"

Cloak batted away a magenta blast of magical energy as if it was yarn ball. The next he deflected away with a backhand flick of his wrist. Cloak wasn't really all that impressed with it.

"If that's all you can muster --"

Cloak snuffed out one with the palm of his hand. He felt the inerta of it, but it was really not that big of a deal. Cloak was, after all, essentially a being of coruporealized energy. He knew how to deal with such attacks.

"Pathetic," Cloak said, not hiding his disgust. "You're not even trying."

"Yes, I am, you dunderous --"

"'Dunderous' isn't a word. You only said that to try to sound smart," Cloak said, at once.

"Yes, it is! Just because you don't know it --"

"And I thought the Toyman was childish," Cloak said, tone icy. "You're trying to force a dichotomy upon us -- and yourself -- that cannot exist stably. Emotion can be destructive, it is true. But it can also be creative."

"That is a contradiction."

"The world's made of contradictions!" Cloak refuted. "Good, evil. Hot, cold. Dry, wet. Yin, yang."

"You don't know what your talking about," he insisted.

"And you're about to blast off again." Cloak said.

"What?" Selfalohart said. Cloak had succeeded in perplexing him.

Cloak stomped his foot, and Selfalohart sunk down into a square-shaped hole. Then he punched the sky, and the ground beneath Selfalohart rushed up, like a spring, causing him to fly bodily out of the forum and great distance away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 01, 2016, 05:23:42 AM

Whoa. Badass.

I hope the forum title change has a simple explanation after all and not something drastic that might affect Memoirs canon...

And PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 01, 2016, 05:27:15 AM

At this point, I think even gh would be like, "whoa, Cloaky. Chillax." :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2016, 06:42:45 AM

Yeah, Cloak doesn't "chillax". ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Talking Heads

"Are ready to listen to me now, Cloak?" Broken said. He sounded a bit miffed. Cloak couldn't blame him, but said nothing on the issue. "They're not dead."

"But they've been decapitated," Cloak said.

"Yes," Gaz agreed. Or rather her head agreed while her body stood leaning against a tree. There was no blood, no gore. The place that you would have expected a gaping wound just had flesh over it, as if there heads and torsos were always headless and bodiless. "It's a quite unusual sensation, as well."

When she spoke, there was no emotion, no inflection to speak of, to her voice. There bodies seemed less restrained when emoting. It was not hard to put two and two together.

"Yes, perfectly strange," Dino said, in an almost detached academic way. "And, by known laws of physics, it should be impossible. Magic, I suppose?"

"Something's really wrong here," Broken said.

Phoenix's torso emphatically gestured to where his head would be.

"Yes, the fact that we have become separated from our bodies would most definitely indicate something amiss," Phoenix's head stated, "but I must admit, I do feel like I'm thinking with far more clarity then I did when I was encumbered with my body."

Cloak found this a wholly undesirable turn, because he thought he could see where this would go.

"The heads are all brain," Cloak noted, "and the torsos are all emotion. This should not be."

"There's more to it, Cloak," Broken said. "The brainy bits are governed by cold, impersonal logic, not morality. They don't care for anyone anymore, as that's an emotion. They just think. Their minds now probe things that is morally questionable."

Broken glanced at the heads, which did not dispute this. Probably because there was no logic in refuting the truth. Though being deceitful wasn't an emotion.

Sparing a glance at the headless torsos, he continued, "The torsos have morality but no perspective in it. They are unable to see -- pardon the term, please -- anything outside the white and black of it. They are unable to see a bigger picture, or imagine anything outside the short term."

"And you got this from the few moments that I was talking to Selfalohart?" Cloak said, dryly.

"You were monologuing, Cloak," Broken corrected. "You do have a habit of that, you know?"

"You were about to make a point?" Cloak replied, coldly.

"My point was already made." Broken said, quite calm and collected. "But we should look to see if we can reattach the heads to their torsos."

"I suppose we can turn to Aquilai, Goom, and Yarin for an answer." Cloak suggested seriously.

"This isn't a technological problem though," Broken said. "It's a magical one. Lemme get Faerie and Yunyun on the case."

"But we do not wish to be attached," Gaz's head said. "I'm thinking with far more clarity than before."

"Indeed," Phoenix's head agreed. "I much rather not be muddled up with emotions again."

"Yes, we choose not be rejoined." Dino's head said.

"Oh, really?" Cloak said. His voice and tone seemed to suck the warmth from the area. "Too bad."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2016, 06:57:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Magical Malady Mess and Chillax Cloak

"Broken," Faerie said, with austere asperity, "you do understand the inherent danger in doing this, right?"

"I know what I'm doing, Faerie," Broken said. "We have to reattach the heads to the torsos. We have to undo what Kapok has done, we have to revert Phoenix, Gaz, and Dino back to normal."

"Broken, you are aware of the danger in such an endeavor, right? The dangers and instability of mixing magicks?" Yunyun said.

"We have to try," Broken insisted.

"As long as you recognized the potential fallout," Faerie said. She gave a heavy sigh, "well then, let's get to work."

***

"Cloak?" GH said, having discovered Cloak's private mediation spot.

Cloak's amber eyes snapped open, appearing to glow in the low light, with an involuntary growl, and GH felt some instinctive trepidation.

"Cloak," GH repeated.

"What do you want, Logan?" Cloak said.

GH's expression soured a bit, but he let it slide. He didn't like using his real name. Whereas Dwellers couldn't pronounce a Realm Walker's true name, as they could not really mimic their language.

"What do you want?" Cloak said, moodily. "I don't have your cigarettes."

"I don't want them," GH said, with dignity . . . before promptly tripping over an exposed root. GH was tempted to accuse Cloak of doing that deliberately, but was smart enough to realize that it would not do him any good. "Cloak, I heard about your actions with that headhunter guy."

"What your point?" Cloak said. GH could easily sense some hostility from the Realm Walker.

"My point was that, from how I have it, you seemed to be a bit unstable during the conflict."

Cloak said nothing.

"Cloak," GH said, "I'm your friend. You can trust me."

"I wish to be alone, GH," Cloak said, wanely. His amber eyes seemed to vanish -- he had shut his eyes.

"Alright, then," GH said, clearly seeing that Cloak was in no mood to talk. He scrambled out of the dark, shadowy grove and left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2016, 06:05:12 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Shifting Sights

Selfalohart had survived the fall, due to his magical nature. He would have been embarrassed, but Kapok firmly placed that the emotion category. He was a bit chagrined, though he would not admit it. He -- Kapok's head, that is to say -- was a very prideful being. His pride was only matched by his malevolence. He stood with his heart emblem pulsing in complaint.

"Silence, Heart." Selfalohart snapped. "I'm in control now. Get used to it."

Selfalohart looked around, to found himself (of him-selves) on the luscious grounds of a "modestly" opulent estate. The vast lawns were a verdant green, which made since as winter ended a while ago. The whole grounds seemed to want to push just how rich the owners were by sheer opulence and unnecessarily lavishness. So much so that it was more gaudy than anything else.

And in the center was a castle. A literal castle. Not a mansion, but an actual multi-levelled castle. The tapestries upon the castle were emerald green with the symbols of the Knights of Humanity symbols in silver. It wasn't inconspicuous in the least. Selfalohart quickly summed up that the fools that stay and manage this castle were not very long on coherent logic or that they had given themselves over to the taint of feelings and emotions.

Either way, he would have to clean this up. Cleanse these poor,.unfortunate souls of that which is muddying up them.

"Stop complaining, Heart," Selfalohart said, aloud, chastising his other self. "You had the chance to clean up this mess, but chose not to. Foolish body and your useless compassion. Honestly, what purpose does it serve, Heart? Feelings are worthless."

He strolled, bold as brass, right up to the door of the castle. He was surprised, as he was expecting a drawbridge and a moat. Selfalohart suspect that they couldn't afford it, or were too cheap. The door was flanked by two guards in full Knight regalia, so that they even looked like ornamental decoration until they moved. They shifted and crossed their halberds to prevent entry.

Selfalohart had to confess himself unimpressed by this. He could have tried to reason to them, to appeal to their higher faculties, but Selfalohart's head knew the pointlessness of such an endeavor. He just chose liberation over anything else, and so he took their heads off.

Then he killed their bodies -- his magical blasts easily penetrating their armor. The heads felt nothing, as they were incapable of feeling emotion anymore and they didn't want to be reunited with their bodies anyway. They were thinking with clarity, free of emotion and morality.

Selfalohart then entered the castle, unimpeded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 03, 2016, 08:33:53 AM

"Killed their bodies"?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2016, 06:26:44 PM

Their torsos. He decapitated them like Phoenix, Dino, and Gaz. The heads are alive but their torsos (i.e. their hearts, their emotions) are no longer.

:edit:New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Kingdom Taken

It didn't take very long.

For what? For Kapok Selfalohart to completely dominate and take over the castle. And claim it as his own. He had used his magic to decapitate (he prefer to think of it as liberating their poor minds from the taint of emotion and feelings) each and every Knight present at the castle. Then he dealt with and disposed of the torsos, the bodies, in a crudely crass, horridly harsh, and wholly unsympathetic manner. He was devoid of compassion and love, as they were emotions.

Now he had an edifice in which to launch his crusade.

His crusade to eliminate the taint, now that he had his body back. Now that he was deliberately shackled to it. Now that he dominated his heart, as it should be, in his view.

He didn't see the hypocrisy in his rhetoric. It was because he chose not to. He chose to ignore it, because it was currently inconvenient for him to acknowledge it. If any one would ask (which none of the Knights' literal talking heads would do, as none were all that bright to begin with), he would have said that it was a necessary evil, as he was fundamentally powerless when separated from his body. He required it to set the Cleansing in motion.

The Cleansing -- the eradication of the Great Contamination, paving the the way to the Grand Purification. His inherent malevolence had given way to overtly radical fanaticism. In a way, it was a basic lateral move.

He found himself also disappointed with the Knights. Without their feelings and emotions to fuel their passion, they weren't very interesting to listen to. Even they couldn't find logic in their pseudo-logic to justify their xenophobic hatred. Even then, they weren't terribly smart, though their minds were free of the taint of emotion. Selfalohart would have more scintillating conversations with a tapestry.

He was not happy. Then again, he considered happiness purposeless, as it was nothing more than a feeling, a taint to the pristine mind.  But he would be lying of he said that he was satisfied with this marginal little conquest. He did this with minimal effort, simply because these Knights of Humanity, as they liked to call themselves, never thought that their castle would ever be under siege, let alone from a powerful wizard like himself. Never even entertained the possibility! Of course, Selfalohart spun this as being because of detrimental emotions and useless feelings mucking up everything.

And, yet, Selfalohart felt restless. Was this his Heart somehow rebelling in some unknown way? Was it responsible for this dissatisfaction he felt? Yes. Yes, that must be it. He must not allow it to distract him. He must keep his eyes on the goal, at the tasks at hand. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2016, 07:56:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Dire News

"I've tried every spell -- every charm, jinx, hex, and curse -- that I know of," Broken said, looking rather sweaty and disheveled. "Curaga does nothing. Transfiguration doesn't help -- and transfiguration is difficult enough to start with. Nothing works."

"Faerie magic isn't much better, either," Faerie said. "Nothing I do seems to make it any better. I still don't understand how Phoenix turned blue as a blueberry."

It was temporary, as Phoenix returned to his natural coloration moments later.

"I don't think that a cure is in the cards," Yunyun said, going through her magical deck of cards. It replenishes after each battle, with completely different cards each time. It's the magic of the deck, but she has "decked" herself before. "None of these are particularly helpful. Such a pity that that 'Heart of the Cards' thing isn't a real thing."

"We've exhausted all of our magical know-how," Faerie said, in summation, "so, you two know the implications of this, right?"

No one wanted to say it. The silence stretched as the elephant in the room stayed there, unaddressed.

"Nothing we do helps, nothing we do reverses Kapok's magic. Nothing." Yunyun said, with reluctant finality.

"Do we get a say in the matter?" Dino's head asked, irritated.

They were ignored. They couldn't make this decision in their current dichotomous state, a dangerous duality.

"There is only one way to make this right," Broken said. "And it won't be easy. Not to break the news or to do."

The three looked at each other, with significant looks. They know that they would have to deliver news that no one wanted to hear.

"I think we have a right to have a voice in this matter!" Gaz insisted.

Her protest was ignored. She was only speaking from one half of a whole, and her torso seemed to not be as against this as her head was.

"The person that can undo this," Broken said, at last, though the three knew it, but didn't want to say it. "The only person who can undo this . . . is Kapok himself."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2016, 11:19:19 PM

Might be nineteen chapters long.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Storming the Castle

The RAFians had gotten a report of a nearby Knight HQ had been laid siege to. By one person. A man with a metal collar and magical powers. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

Cloak was going, but he refused to take anyone else. When pressed, he allowed Underseen and Ash to come with him. He believed their natures as shapeshifters may have provided them some immunity to Selfalohart's decapitation magic. He refused Broken, Yunyun, and Faerie because he didn't need or want any unnecessary casualties.

"Real subtle, this place," Underseen said.

They were standing on the grounds, sticking to the shadows as the sun was slowly setting. It was an auspicious thing, as it allowed them to move with stealth and cunning.

"Well, the Knights aren't really known for their keen and penetrating minds," Cloak said, broadly. "It should be child's play to get inside."

"I can't be that easy," Ash said, skeptically.

"We shall soon see," Cloak said. "Stay inconspicuous. If he sees me, fine. There's not much that he can do to me, if anything. He'd be expecting me to come alone, because his ego is just like that."

"Stereotypical supervillain," Ash noted. "Got it."

"Let's go," Underseen suggested.

With that, they swept into the castle. They weren't impeded at all. There was no resistance. None whatsoever. This did not sit well with any of the trio.

They cross the threshold, expecting a trap. Underseen and Ash had gone from his view, as he had requested. If he couldn't see them, then Selfalohart wouldn't be able to. They were his backup. Just in case something happened to cause this to go south for him, which was always possible.

He passed down a long corridor with torches. Only the fixtures weren't holding torches, but something that was unlit. Unfortunately, Cloak's feline eyes easily penetrated the gloom. He could see the grisly, macabre sight.

Heads were mounted on these fixtures. Not impaled or anything. Nor were they dead. They were the victims of Selfalohart's "purification", but they were not smart enough for scintillating conversation. Selfalohart, or rather his emotionless head, quickly tired of them and the less-than-ideal answers they gave to his constant inquiry barrages. So he condemned them to life here.

It was unnerving. Cloak hoped that Ash and Undersen were keeping pace behind him as he proceeded, sticking to the shadows.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2016, 02:48:17 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Throne Room for Un-Improvement

Cloak came upon the threshold to a wide, spacious room. It was supported by a few fat columns that went thematically with the room. There was a red carpet which rolled up to a golden throne encrusted with rubies, sapphires, and garnets and whose seat was a cushy, very comfortable velvet. Cloak could tell that the room was ordinarily empty, but there were headless bodies strewn about, bloodied and lifeless.

Oh, and a treasure chest. It contained rubies, sapphires, garnets, emeralds, yellow diamonds, blue diamonds, pink diamonds, rose quartz gems, pink diamonds, pearls, rainbow quartz gems, sardonyx gems, platinum bars, gold bars, silver bars, amethysts, sugillite gems, opals, alexandrite gems, jasper gems, peridot gems, lapis lazuli, and malachite gems. And this was only what Cloak could see. This was clearly how the Knights funded their activities and could afford this opulent castle and it's attached grounds' landscaping. Whether wealth was legitimate or stolen remained to be seen.

And on the throne, Selfalohart lounged. He looked rather like a disaffected teenager more than an adult when he did that. With all of his grand plans why was he just laying around here, admiss the corpses upon the ground?

Hoping that Underseen and Ash were in place, Cloak stepped into view.

"You were not given permission for an audience," Selfalohart said.

Cloak said nothing, though he did silently note that Selfalohart's head's ego seemed to have grown three sizes too big.

"You are dismissed. Leave now." said the megalomaniacal head of Selfalohart. "I haven't time for your backwards thinking and interference."

Cloak said nothing. He had to admit, he was amused by this bluster.

"Have you gone deaf, monster?" he said. He clearly thought that "monster" was an offensive name to call Cloak. "I said that you are dismissed. I have things to put into motion. More important things to deal with."

"You expect me to believe that?" Cloak said, coolly unimpressed.

"Don't address me without my express permission, monster," Selfalohart snapped.

Cloak wasn't intimidated. Apparently, Selfalohart either had a short memory or his defeat over so many Knights of Humanity had severely bloated his ego and confidence to ridiculous levels. Cloak was hedging on the latter.

"Are you serious?" Cloak said, with icy coolness.

"Don't dare defy me, monster," Selfalohart threatened. "The bodies that litter the floor should be an indicator of how a battle with me will go down."

"It does serve as an indicator," Cloak said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried in the vast room. "It indicates that you have no idea who you're dealing with."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2016, 03:28:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Stronger Than You

"Why? Because you used a cheap tactic to disguise your weakness? I will liberate that stupid forum of yours." Selfalohart's head spat. "Quit embarrassing yourself! I've seen you for what you really are."

Cloak chuckled and chortled at this, which appeared to annoy Selfalohart. Then he replied, "No, you haven't."

Music started up.

"What this? Where's that music coming from?" Selfalohart said. He almost sounded mad. "This isn't logical!!"

"I'm Cloak, the only RAFian Realm Walker.
And I'm never going down at the hands of the likes of you because I'm so much better.
And every part of me is saying 'Go get him.'
This Realm Walker ain't gonna follow your rules.
Come at me without any of your magic, you tool.
Let's go, just me and you.
This schtick is too much to chew.
Go ahead and try and hit me if you're able.
Can't you see that magic is off the table?
I can see you hate the way emotion and my power intermingle.
But I think you're just mad 'cause you're always single.
And you're not gonna stop what RAF's made together.
The world's is gonna stay like this forever.
If you break it apart, we'll just come back newer.
And we'll always be twice the man that you are.
The forum is made
O-o-o-o-of
Un-i-i-i-ity!
O-o-o-o-of
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!"

They were battling during the song, and not of Selfalohart's magic was helping him in the least.

"Stop it!" he snarled. Again, he almost sounded as if he was . . . mad. "Stop singing! It makes no sense! It makes no sense to sing during a battle!!"

"Pity you've never met GH, then," Cloak said, flippantly.

From there the Battle intensified, proving that Selfalohart was holding back at RAF. He was testing Cloak, the Realm Walker supposed.

"You allow your emotions too much free rein!!" he roared. "You're weak!"

Cloak, in response:

"This is who we RAFians are.
This is who I am.
And if you think you can stop me,
Then you need to think again.
'Cause I have a feeling,
And RAF will never end,
And I won't let you hurt my forum,
And I won't let you hurt my friends.
Go ahead and try and hit me if you're able.
Can't you see that your magic is disabled?
I know you think I'm not something you're afraid of,
'Cause you think that you've seen what I'm made of.
But I am even more than what you think I am.
The Master of the Six Elements is what I am.
I am their fury.
I am their patience.
I have determination.
We have
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
And it's stronger than you.
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
And it's stronger than you.
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
And it's stronger than you.
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!
Un-i-i-i-ity!"

At the last note, Cloak felt the unity of the others with him, feeling the Unity gather at his Mark. And he blasted Selfalohart with a Unity Blast, with two other Blasts lancing out from nowhere. All three hit Selfalohart.

---

*Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ct0Sq57u4c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2016, 09:55:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Insistence

Yet, Selfalohart managed to survive that. But it was purely due to his magical nature and the RAFians' intent wasn't to kill him anyway. Just a display of power. The trio of Unity Blasts had burned away his shirt and hat, revealing the neck brace-like choker he wore, the heart emblem mounted to his chest, and metal bracelet things on his wrists.

"You didn't . . . you didn't prove anything," he said, with a harsh, raspy voice.

"So you must be rather pigheaded," Cloak said. He wasn't even out of breath, not really. "That was just a demonstration. My power can far eclipse what was shown you."

This was a little braggy, but Cloak was to the point beyond caring. He couldn't see Underseen or Ash, but he knew they were here. Somewhere. He hoped that they would adhere to the plan.

"Don't try to play me for a sap!" Selfalohart snapped hostilely.

"Dost my ears deceive me?" Cloak said, with deliberate over-the-top acting. "Dost I detect anger in your voice?"

"My mind is perfectly clear!" Selfalohart insisted. It was clear that he wasn't as divorced from his emotions as he thought anymore. He was feeling emotions without even realizing it. Existing as a living bodiless head and a living headless torso was a affront to nature as they knew it. It was an imbalance, and, with the head and body being in such close proximity to each other, it was making the division of the logical-minded, malevolent head and the emotion-driven, benign torso to fracture, although they were not connected physically. They were not fusing, but the stark differences were starting blur. The head was still in control and malevolent, but he was starting to feel emotion. This would not cure them of the magical decapitation, but just blur the lines. "Don't you mock me!!"

Cloak dropped the hammy acting, and returned to his serious disposition. "Your forced dichotomy is falling apart. You are no longer purely brain. You're reacting with anger."

"I am not!!" Selfalohart said, voice laden with unbridled ire he was unprepared and unaware of. "I am uncontaminated!!"

"Lie to yourself, or don't," Cloak said, "I really don't care."

"I'm not the one doing the lying here!" Selfalohart said, unaware that the barriers between the two were breaking down. "You don't know anything!! ANYTHING. You don't KNOW anything!!"

"That's not pseudo-anger, Kapok," Cloak called him out. "That was real, legitimate anger."

"BE SILENT!!" he roared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2016, 09:21:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Collar Concern

"'Be silent'?" Cloak repeated, with smirking snort. "Seriously, Kapok. Do you think that would actually work?"

Selfalohart's heart emblem glowed with pulses. His heart was rebelling against his head, but his head remained in stalwart control. But his head wasn't immune to feelings that he thought he was. He felt anger. He was feeling anger. But he refused to admit it, refused to accept it, refused to even acknowledge it.

"SILENCE, MONSTER!!" he roared.

"Immune to emotion are you?" Cloak said.

"I am free of the taint!!" he roared. Cloak was surprised that he wasn't red in the face. "I feel none of those illogical feelings, those useless emotions!!"

"You're angry." Cloak pointed out. "Anger is an emotion."

"I am not!!" he raged. Naturally, he would feel one of the most volatile emotions. "I am perfectly fine! My thoughts are clear as crystal!!"

"Are they?" Cloak asked, simply.

"Don't you speak to me with such temerity!!" Selfalohart's head snarled. "How dare you have the effrontery to claim such a thing?!"

"Are you listening to your own hysterics?" Cloak said, calmly castigating him.

"Shut up!"

"Ah, don't have an argument, now?" Cloak said, eyes were focused on his head, but they kept slipping down to his metal collar. "Don't have some hackneyed rhetoric to justify shoving your forced dichotomy down our collective throats? No comeback? No non sequiturs?"

Cloak kept eyeing the collar, which Selfalohart remained unaware of somehow.

"No straw man arguments? No arguments from your so-called authority? No futile appeals to the majority?" Cloak said. "No foundational bias? No ad hominem arguments? No quote mining?"

Selfalohart, disheveled though he looked, still wore his malevolent arrogance and misappropriated anger on his heavily-line face.

"No red herrings? No arguments from ignorance? No begging the question?" Cloak continued caustically, grilling Selfalohart. "No arguments from personal incredulity? No equivocation? No tautologies?"

Selfalohart placed his hand upon his metal choker, which now that Cloak looked at it, looked more like a shackle. It was almost as if he was unconsciously checking to see if it was still there.

"No more false premise-based arguments, huh? Done with the slippery slope, eh? Not gonna indulge in just plain nonsense anymore?" Cloak said, as Selfalohart's rage grew. "No ad hoc reasoning, then? No more 'correlation implies causation' arguments, hmm? No outright lies?"

Selfalohart took his hand off his collar, almost as if he was afraid of calling attention to it. Afraid. Fear. Another emotion.

Cloak narrowed his eyes. "Nice collar."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 06, 2016, 09:26:40 AM

"gh would probably like it, you know. That boy has a weird sense of fashion." :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2016, 07:55:10 AM

The collar isn't about fashion, though.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
You Shouldn't Have Said That

"Don't touch it, monster!!" Selphalohart's head said. Clearly, some of the torso's emotions were leaking into his head and, Cloak supposed, some of the head's cold, indifferent logic was leaking into the torso. Yet, the torso still continued to try to rebel against the head, apparently being fundamentally good and benevolent, while the head was fundamentally evil and malevolent. "Don't come anywhere near it!!"

Cloak did not seem to react at this overly hostile reaction. Just took note of it, as he found himself suspecting that Selfalohart's head contained all the darkness of that the wizard had while the torso contained all the light. Those did not seem to be mixing as the emotions and logic were.

"Do not touch it," Selfalohart snarled.

He didn't realize he was calling attention to the precise thing that he didn't want to call attention to.

"Why is it so important, then?" Cloak said, although he thought he already knew why he was so defensive about it.

"It isn't," Selfalohart said quickly. Too quickly.

"It isn't, is it?" Cloak said, smoothly. "Is that metal?"

Cloak already knew that it was metal, albeit a metal alloy that he was unfamiliar with. Enchanted, perhaps.

"It's not important," he said, almost hysterically repressive.

"Oh, really?" Cloak said, coolly calm, with heavy-lidded eyes. "Then why continually call attention to it?"

"I'm not," he argued, despite the clear contradictory evidence. "I'm not!"

"What would happen if it were . . . removed?" Cloak said, not losing his cool.

"You can't remove it!!" he declared shrilly.

"Is that a challenge?"

The heart emblem on his chest flashed with alarming frequency. Selfalohart's heart was eager for liberation from his evil, malevolent head.

"You can't!!"

"Try me."

"I won't let you get close enough to do anything," he said, eyes bulging in his madness. "Besides you don't have the key."

"Do you know what elements constitute the Six Elements?" Cloak said, rather placidly.

"What?" Selfalohart's head snapped. He wasn't prepared for this sudden segway.

"The Six Elements are constituted from the elements of fire, air, water, wood, earth, and . . . metal." Cloak said. "And I am the Master of these elements."

Selfalohart's head and Selfalohart's heart both got the point. While Selfalohart's heart rejoiced at the thought, while his head dreaded it. He had the power now. He had his power. He would not lose it. He would not lose it!!

"Let's end this," Cloak said.

"NOOO!!" Selfalohart's head screamed, firing a concussive blast of magical energy at Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2016, 09:05:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
POP!! Goes the Collar

It was like trying to use a Kamehameha against Superman. Cloak was unaffected by the blast due to its magical nature. He was pushed back a bit, simply due to the inertial impact of the blast. But Cloak walked through it, without concern.

"You can't do this!!" he yelled, still desperately putting all of his power into the blast. But it was magical in nature, and Realm Walkers are magic Teflon. "You can't!!"

"Watch me," Cloak said, stopping five feet from him. Cloak raised his hand.

"No!! Stop!! You don't know what you're doing!! You . . . you . . . CLOD!!" he shouted.

"Oh, nice tactic," Cloak said, acerbically. "Trying to insult me to get me to comply with you. I think Bern Bridges might steal it from you."

Cloak snapped his fingers. There was small pop that was heard, and the collar slithered down to the ground, landing with a small, almost inaudible CLUNK. But Selfalohart's hands had secured his head to his body.

"I will not lose my power!"

"You sound like an establishment politician," Cloak said.

"Hilarious," Selfalohart said, scornfully. He continued to have his hands firmly gripped upon his head. "I will not relinquish what is rightfully mine!! I will simply put the collar back on!!"

"About that," Cloak said. He snapped his fingers again. The collar fractured in a grid-like pattern. "It's broken."

"No!!" Selfalohart's head roared. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

"An idea, yeah," Cloak said, a bit flippant.

"I can't do this forever!!" he raged.

"Exactly," Cloak said, folding his arms, expectant. He had considered using bloodbending to force him to lower his arms, but he quickly banished the thought. He would just have to wait for his arms to tire. It shouldn't take too long.

"Underseen, Ash," Cloak announced, "I think we're done here."

The two RAFians appeared by his side in their base forms.

"No wonder you beat me!! You had help!!" he said. He took on hand off his head to point an accusatory finger.

"Actually --" Ash began.

But Cloak interrupted her, "Let him think whatever he wants. It won't change anything to correct him. People -- Walkers and Dwellers -- can be remarkably stubborn when they deeply believe something to be true. Despite facts present to them that directly contradicts and counters said belief."

"You don't know me!!" Selfalohart roared. He had removed both hands from his head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2016, 09:59:50 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Liberation Day

"You don't know . . . know . . . me . . ." Selfalohart's head said, feeling a sudden absence of feelings, of emotions. He would describe it clarity instead of absence of emotion. It was a sensation he welcomed.

He only realized that he was separated from his torso when he tumbled to the ground, as his torso fell to his knees as if he saw the face of some obscure or personal deity. As if he had had some sort of miracle worked for him.

Selfalohart's head was thrilled -- or as thrilled as one could be whilst devoid of emotion -- that he no longer felt the taint of those problematic feelings anymore. His mind was, in his view, no longer contaminated. But, as a counterpoint, he was now powerless. All his magic was locked up in his torso, in his heart. All his magic was locked up and selfishly hogged by his light side.

Selfalohart's head found that he no longer cared. He saw and remembered how these ingrates -- bitterness wasn't an emotion -- didn't care for nor appreciated his grand gift. He was giving them the gift of clarity, whilst giving himself the gift of power. He did not believe that his endeavors or he himself was selfish. No, in his mind, that was an impossibility. He instead believed himself to be fairly generous, even if these mindless plebeians did not see his true generosity, his noble sacrifice of having to suffering the taint of emotions to liberate others from theirs.

Since no one appreciated his endeavors, was there any logical reason in pursuing? Was there any real credible reason to proceed, to continue? No. No, there was not. He was even losing his powerlust. If the magic wanted to stay with his useless body, fine. So be it. Let it waste and misuse it. He didn't care anymore. He just wanted to be left alone. He never wanted to see his body again.

He just wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He just wanted to be alone. Until the day he died. He didn't even mind that he was sent rolling across the floor with an absentminded and accidental kick from Underseen. He came to rest with his head in a dirty corner of the corner of the shadow, thoroughly ensconced in shadow. He found it not too bad a place.

Although his nose was now itchy . . .

***

In his gratitude, Selfalohart's body was more than willing to help revert Phoenix, Gaz, and Dink back to normal. He felt that he needed to make up for the actions he was forced to commit under his evil head's control. He claimed things were logical when they really weren't.

What he forced his heart to do, it wasn't logical. It was masochism in a way, as it pained his heart to commit all of those heinous acts. He may not have any control over his actions, thus no technical accountability or responsibility for them, but that did not change the fact that it happened. With his hands. The blood of all of those Knights were on his hands, as the head had no hands to get bloodied.

He would do what he could to undo and mitigate all the evil his malignant tumor of a head brought into the world. He would mitigate the darkness, and put even more light into the world. This would he his endeavor, his mission, his goal. His retribution. He would have to, as he would never be forgiven for his actions while under the thrall of his sinister head. Others might have forgiven these actions, but he would never forgive himself for them.

He easily undid what his head did to the three RAFians, and begged silently (as he hadn't a mouth) for their forgiveness, feeling very aggrieved.  The three RAFians were slow to forgive, but they eventually did. But Cloak could see that Selfalohart's heart, while accepting their forgiveness, did not forgive himself. Cloak could recognize it, because he could recognize it in himself.

Selfalohart's heart would have a long journey ahead of him, to rectify the sins and atrocities of his evil head. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2016, 05:28:21 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
I Need to Know

In a darkened room, a cool blue light follows an anthropomorphic tiger cub of a indeterminate, but young, age. He wore a black cloak with the hood down. Looked severely stricken with a sense of melancholy. He sang, sadly:

"Will someone tell me where I belong?
Where I should go?
Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong?
I need to know.
Why does she think I would hurt the ones I love?
Why would hurt them?
If I can't be what she wants of me . . .
What am I to do?
When will I be me?
The son that she won't see?
There must be someone who understands out there. . . .
Somewhere.
When will I find a home?
A place where I belong. . . .
Surely there must be more like me . . .
Out there . . . somewhere. . . .
There must be somebody,
Just like me. . . .
Out there . . ."

"Aniyu, ENOUGH!!" Cloak said. He didn't hide his tears. He almost wished that he was fighting that Polar Manzardrill DNAlien with Horse. His voice cracked as he said, softly, "Please, Aniyu. Enough."

It was bad enough living through it once. The deep sadness, the all-encompassing depression, the icy feeling of loneliness. The cold certainty that someone that you know is supposed to love you unconditionally, to care for your well-being, to have your best interests at heart . . . doesn't.

Granted, it wasn't nearly so evident and obvious when he was a child, when he was very naive. He never realized how little his mother cared for him as a person until he was significantly older. She only saw him as an extension of herself. An appendage whose compliance was not only expected but demanded.

Cloak had spent ten years, Realm Walker time, roughly, wishing for death to release him from his imprisonment. He felt as if he had nothing. It was just the mere idea of even hurting Shadow, and even Faith, that prevented him from taking his own life. He had been deeply mired in a depressive sadness. And every day, it sucked him down more and more. Only Shadow's presence had liberated him from it.

"Cloak," Aniyu said. "You cannot allow the sadness of the past to mire you into depression."

Cloak said nothing. He was leaned over, braced against a wall. Tears were still streaming down his face.

"Cloak, you must face this." Aniyu said, gentle but firm.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QuYXcNjqB6c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2016, 06:04:50 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Music of Laughter

Cloak's dour mood the next day did not go unnoticed by GH. He decided that the Realm Walker needed to cheer up. He played his guitar and sang to Cloak:

"Cloaky, I'm so confused.
I tell a joke, you're not amused!
Given the choice I know you'll choose
The music of laughter!
All the creatures in RAF, you see,
Beast by beast, they all agree.
'Tis no sweeter harmony
Than the music of laughter!
'Coz the giggle and the chuckle and the ha-ha-ha!
Only make the joy come faster!
'Coz the giggle and the chuckle and the ha-ha-ha!
'Tis a phrase any RAFian can muster
That's the music of laughter!
Like the pounding forum beat,
It's the common language we speak!
'Tis that rhythm that makes life complete!
The music of laughter!
Stop the quiet, undue peace,
This serious stuff shall now cease!
With the wonderful release
Of the music of laughter!
Cos the giggle and the chuckle and the ha-ha-ha!
Only make the joy come faster!
Cos the giggle and the chuckle and the ha-ha-ha!
'Tis a phrase any RAFian can muster.
Oh, the music of laughter!
'Coz the giggle and the chuckle and the ha-ha-ha!
Only make the joy come faster!
'Coz the giggle and the chuckle and the ha-ha-ha!
'Tis a phrase any RAFian can muster.
That's the music of laughter!
Once it's found you,
It's around you,
Sticks to flounder all around you.
The music of laughter!
Like the pounding forum beat,
It's the common language we speak.
'Tis the rhythm that makes life complete.
The music of laughter!"

But Cloak had moodily retreated to his thread with nary a word or smile. It would be something that he would have to work out himself.

---

*Song Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auWDphiRY80

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2016, 08:01:52 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXIX:
THE COLOR PURPLE, MAN!
CHAPTER ONE:
Deep Sadness

"You are worthless, you are worthless, and don't forget!" a representation of Ursa was saying to Cloak, "You are worthless!"

Cloak shut his eyes and turned away.

"You are useless, you are useless, and don't forget!" she said again. "You are useless!"

Cloak braced himself upon a low wall, whose very existence was for this express purpose. He thought that Blue had it easy battling a Methanosian DNAlien.

"You are are valueless, you are valueless, and don't forget," she said. "You are valueless!"

Granted this didn't happen in such a blunt manner in real life, in real time. But it was essentially the message that she sent to him for so many years . . .

"You are stupid! You are stupid! And don't forget -- you are stupid! (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMqZB10o8o)" she said again, sounding rather childish.

"You are a loser, you are a loser, and don't forget," she said again, "you are a loser!"

"Enough," Cloak said, swiping a hand, his rarely-used claws extended, through the image of his mother. "Enough . . ."

"Cloak, you must rise above this mire." Aniyu said. "It's the only way to clear the blockage of your energy, of your power."

"I KNOW THAT!!" Cloak snapped. He still had tears in his eyes. "Don't you think that I know that?"

Aniyu said nothing, but she wasn't affronted or anything. She just took this outburst in stride.

"I know . . ." Cloak said, a bit stilted and weak.

"It's was never going to be easy, Cloak," the fellow Truth Dreamer said, gently. "But you can do this. I have every faith in your ability to do so."

Cloak wasn't as sure . . .

***

Meanwhile, a controlling man found himself searching for his girlfriend that had fled from him, as he was evidently a very abusive man in addition to being very controlling. He chased her to the chemical plant where she worked.

The man became rather homicidal with anger for her making him chase her for so long. He was furious that she dared to even consider the thought, to even entertain the notion, of leaving him. He was determined to make her regret it, determined to punish her for even thinking of the possibility of leaving him.

He had so often dehumanized her to the point of considering her more property than person. Considering her his property, like a table or microwave. Her feelings didn't matter to him, she had no say in anything really. The couple were childless because this man, Zebadiah "Zeb" Wisteria. Also, his victim didn't want to have a child with him, didn't want to bring a child into this.

Zeb had caught up with her . . . and ended her life with his bare hands. She was finally free of him -- though, unfortunately, it took death to do so. Zeb, however, did not get away so easily. He was submerged in a chemical that bleached his skin, hair, and clothing purple.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2016, 06:52:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Purple Persuasion

"Trust in me,
Just in me,
Shut your mind off
and trust in me.
Your will can sleep
Safe and sound,
Knowing that I
Am around.
Slip into mental slumber,
Sail on a silver mist,
Slowly and surely your senses
Will cease to resist.
Trust in me,
And just in me,
Shut your mind,
And trust in me . . . . . ."

Zeb Wisteria was speaking, in a singsong tone, to a female secretary who seemed to have a fondness for wearing red. Her blue irises suddenly became a subtle and pervasive purple, but you would have to be looking for it to really see it. This allowed Zeb to manipulate the woman into allowing him into the office of Mayor Joseph Lahren. A rather unpopular mayor

He wore a smug smile, upon his purple face. His clothes are always purple, as well. He was actually grateful to who he still considered an ungrateful harlot, as it resulted in him gaining his powers.

He was able produce chemical pheromones which, when inhaled or absorbed through the skin, allow him to control others' actions by verbal suggestions. The effects only lasted as long as he is physically present and are somehow keyed to his voice and speech-pattern. Whenever he departs, the level of pheromones is reduced within his victims at various rates (dependent upon their metabolisms), and then the victims regain full cognizance of self.

Zeb quickly discovered that he could influence hundreds of people at one time, and his victims can be controlled to perform actions against their will. He also seemed to have some control over the release of his pheromones into the atmosphere, as he was able to walk hidden among crowds without influencing everybody.

"Ah, Mr. Mayor," Zeb said, gregariously, entering his office.

"Who the hell are you?! Who let you in here?!" Lahren said, irritability radiating off him. Zeb lost none of his poise or cool, just smiled that annoyingly smug smile. "Never mind! Get the hell . . . the hell . . . the . . ."

"That's better," Zeb said, with a snap to his voice. "Your will is mine, now."

Ol' Joe Lahren did not argue. Because he couldn't. He had insufficient will to break Zeb's control over him.

"No, I have a little project that I need your stamp of approval on," he said enigmatically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2016, 09:05:57 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Hostile Relations

Zeb had accomplished his goal, at least for the moment. But he discovered a fly in the ointment, and this just would not do. It would not do at all. It would need to be rectified.

***

"What?!" GH demanded, having showed up for his shift.

"You're fired," his manager said.

GH, in his swelling anger, did not really notice how off he sounded. He didn't notice how slightly stilted his voice was. Nor that his irises were now purple instead of the deep green they were normally.

"For what reason?!"

The manager seemed to struggle a bit, but when his smartphone lit up with a purple screen, this struggle seemed lost.

"Because I said so," he replied repressively.

"That's not a good reason!" GH countered. After all the creatures and monsters he faced in his time as a RAFian, he was hardly afraid of his balding, bespectacled manager and his little paunch. He faced far scarier things just being a gladiator in Gamesmaster little game. "You can't just fire me without a good reason!! I am always on time! I do my work! I even wore that stupid Armadillo Anderson costume!! TWICE!! You can't fire me just because 'you say so'!! That's wrongful termination!! I could sue you for it!!"

His manager seemed to struggle with an answer, before saying, "Lewis, you are dismissed."

"Why?!" GH demanded.

"Because," he said, still apparently struggling, before his phone lit up purple again, "because you have dangerous associations. You are dismissed. Bye."

GH did not argue -- saw it as pointless to continue the disagreement -- before storming out. He was fired! And he didn't do anything wrong!! He was livid and apoplectic with rage.

***

"You cannot be serious," Saffa said seriously. She eyed her dean, staring him down.

"I'm quite serious," he said. His irises were usually brown, but they were a very subtle purple now. "You're expelled."

"For what reason?" Saffa demanded. "My marks aren't that bad. I'm now a rowdy mess like some others students or that stupid college student stereotype. This is out of the blue."

"You have a week to pack up your things and move out of your dorm." he said, ignoring her comments. His phone was on his desk, and it held a purple light.

"I don't have a dorm," Saffa said, bluntly. It was true, she slept in her thread and commuted to the college. She preferred it this way, as she had finally gotten her thread just the way she liked it.

"Fine, then this will be easier," the dean, Dean Winchester*, said with a snap in his voice. "If you will kindly vacate the premises."

"What's wrong with your eyes?" Saffa said, noticing the purple.

"I didn't ask for your judgements, Ms. --"

"Fine. What you're doing is illegal," Saffa fumed, as she turned to leave. "You can't just expell students without cause. I have paid your ridiculous tuition and the astronomical costs for your books. The only thing reasonably priced is the food, and I think you get it cheap. You'll be hearing from my lawyer."

Saffa, with great dignity, walked out of the dean's office. She wanted to cry from the sheer stupidity of it all, but was determined not to give him the satisfaction.

***

Cloak was tranquil -- or trying to be. After all this layer-breaking with Aniyu, he was finding himself rather stressed. He was desperately trying to calm himself down. He was practicing with the elements.

Fire . . . drive and passion. Preempting attacks with your own.

Water . . . change and adaptation. Redirecting attack back to the attacker.

Wood . . . building on the old with the new. Passive resistance.

Earth . . . stable and sturdy. Blocking attacks, before launching your own.

Metal . . . dangerous and unyielding. Enduring attacks.

Air . . . evasion and avoidance. Dodging attacks.

United in one being, the Elements Master. That's how his grandfather, Master Sage, had always described it to him. He tried to remember this as he tried to find some serenity.

CRACK!!

It was a small noise. From behind Cloak, he could hear a bunch of bumbling humans. He only felt a momentary gratitude that this was not his private meditation spot in the woods. That spot would remain untouched and unmolested by these interlopers.

They were hunters, with purple eyes. Cloak recognized this, he thought. He knew that these hunters were being controlled. And they appeared to be searching for him, specifically. But they made a dreadful mistake.

They made Cloak aware of their presence. They would never get him now. . . .

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2016, 07:17:59 AM

New book ideas.

• Book MXV (1,015): "Crowning Achievement Hunters" -- Seventeen crowns become active.
• Book MXVI (1,016): "Iron Crown" -- The Corona Metallos is discovered.
• Book MXVII (1,017): "Magic Crown" -- The Corona Magicka is discovered.
• Book MXVIII (1,018): "Meadow Crown" -- The Corona Floras is discovered.
• Book MXIX (1,019): "Sky Crown" -- The Corona Aeros is discovered.
• Book MXX (1,020): "Flame Crown" -- The Corona Pyros is discovered.
• Book MXXI (1,021): "Splash Crown" -- The Corona Hydros is discovered.
• Book MXXII (1,022): "Mind Crown" -- The Corona Neuros is discovered.
• Book MXXIII (1,023): "Spooky Crown" -- The Corona Phaetos is discovered.
• Book MXXIV (1,024): "Insect Crown" -- The Corona Entomos is discovered.
• Book MXXV (1,025): "Zap Crown" -- The Corona Electros is discovered.
• Book MXXVI (1,026): "Draco Crown" -- The Corona Draco is discovered.
• Book MXXVII (1,027): "Stone Crown" -- The Corona Lithos is discovered.
• Book MXXVIII (1,028): "Toxic Crown" -- The Corona Toxicos is discovered.
• Book MXXIX (1,029): "Earth Crown" -- The Corona Terras is discovered.
• Book MXXX (1,030): "Fist Crown" -- The Corona Fisticuff is discovered.
• Book MXXXI (1,031): "Icicle Crown" -- The Corona Cryos is discovered.
• Book MXXXII (1,032): "Dread Crown" -- The Corona Umbras is discovered.
• Book MXXXIII (1,033): "Crowns Gathering" -- The Crowns gather forgotten relics. . . .
• Book MXXXIV (1,034): "Fu . . . sion . . . HA!!" -- An old foe returns, in the form of a Lovecraftian monster.
• Book MXXXV (1,035): "To Protect the World From Devastation" -- The RAFians must destroy this monster . . . from within.
• Book MXXXVI (1,036): "Whistleblower Anonymous" -- The RAFians become aware of a safe haven for corporate whistleblowers, but it isn't what it appears to be.
• Book MXXXVII (1,037): "The Springtrap" -- A dangerous device lands in irresponsible hands.

Remember, all titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Story of My Life

A purple-eyed police officer had gathered all the RAFians that happened to be in the city. He said,  "Alright, when I call your name step forward. FuBar, the cat."

FuBar fibbed obviously, "I'm not a cat, I'm a real boy."

The purple-eyed officer said, "That's your patch of mud down there."

FuBar said, before transitioning into song:

"Oh, dropped on a swamp. Man, I tell you sometimes being a RAFian sucks catnip.

Life is disappointing,
Woe is what I know.
Outted by my toes,
That's just how it goes,
For poor FuBar.  So --
Story of my life,
Always doomed to fail.
Cheated by a fox,
Swallowed by a whale.
That's the story of my life, oh yeah,
That's the story of my life."

Yarin added:

"Strife is never ending."

The officer barked, "Chad!"

Chad sang:

"Banished from the town!"

The officer barked, "Horse!"

Horse sang:

"They dragged me from the pond."

Broken sang:

"They broke my magic wand."

Shock, Blocky, and EvilPinkDragon:

"They blew our condos down."

The officer barked: "Rachel!"

Gaz sang:

"Life is but a witch hunt."

Alic sang:

"Patty's in the mud,
Patty's in distress."

Parker sang, referring to his helmet:

"They ridiculed my hat."

Shock, Blocky, and EvilPinkDragon sang:

"They said that we were fat."

Kelly sang, wearing a torn dress:

"They tore my cotton insaney dress,
And called me a hot and granny mess."

The officer barked: "Faerie!"

RAFians sang:

"Story of my life.
Booted from ball
Told to go away."

Goom sang:

"Tumbled off a wall!"

The RAFians sang:

"That's the story of my life."

The officer snarled, "You're late, you 'shifter twit."

Ash sang:

"That's the story of my life."

The officer laughed, as he said, "Have fun, you guys."

The RAFians sang:

"That's the story of my life."

"And, remember, if we find you back in the city, you will be executed." the officer said, before leaving.

The RAFians sang:

"I always dreamed I'd get a happy ending."

Gaz sang:

"And this right here,
Not how it goes."

FuBar harrumphed, "This is worse than that case of that rabies disease I caught in Tijuana!"

"What?" Bladeh asked.

"Don't ask," FuBar replied.

The RAFians sang:

"Story of my life,
All the wasted prayers.
All the broken dreams."

Kelly, Mr. Guy, and Whammy sang:

"All the broken chairs."

The RAFians sang:

"All the damage done."

Kelly, Mr. Guy, and Whammy sang:

"All the busted beds."

The RAFians sang:

"All the shattered falls."

Kelly, Mr. Guy, and Whammy said:

"Bird poo on our heads."

The RAFians sang:

"That's the story of my life, yes sir.
That's the story of my life, oi vei.
That's the story of my
Life!"

FuBar declared, "Crap!"

"Was that really necessary?" Cloak asked. "We still have the forum, it's not the end of the world."

---

* Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fgYUTQBFhBs

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2016, 07:24:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Troubling Times

"And he had these purple eyes," Saffa was explaining. "I know that they were supposed to be brown."

"And my former manager had purple eyes, too . . ." GH said, thoughtfully, "now that I think of it."

"Whatever it is," Yarin said, "the effects are quantifiable. A radius can be determined."

"And we have," Aquilai said, ruffling up his papers, his findings. "It seems that the radius has only eclipsed the city locality. People within this radius will have their minds, their personalities, their very wills subverted for whoever is behind this."

"Why does he seem to have it out for us, then?" Quaf asked.

Cloak said nothing, but raised his hand slowly. The hand where the stylized "R" glowed a deep blue. His Mark.

"Our Marks?"

"Yes," Cloak said. "That has to be it. Whoever, or whatever, is doing this must have some serious issues with control. He or she or they or whatever must not have been pleased to discover that we cannot be controlled like everyone else of moderate will."

"So my manager really didn't fire me?" GH said.

"And I'm not really expelled?" Saffa asked, a second after GH started to speak.

"I cannot say about that," Cloak said. "But while the city is the thrall in whoever's behind this would most likely make it stick."

"Wonderful," GH said.

"But the point is," Faerie said, "how did the radius get so big so fast? At this rate it could go global!"

"And only but a few species would naturally be immune," Cloak said, "I'm guessing Realm Walkers of course, then Cerebrocrustations, Galvans, Vulcans, Galvanic Mechamorphs, Techadons, Chee, Aerophibians, Ectonurites, Toydarians, Amperi --"

"Enough, Cloak," Blue said. "You've made your point."

"My question still stands," Faerie said, sounding a bit annoyed.

"Cellphones, I would guess," Dameg said.

"How would you come to that conclusion?" Mr. Guy asked, in an almost academically curious way.

"The cellpone towers. There. There. And there." she said, pointing to several images obtained. "Look closely. I don't think that those boxy things are supposed to be there."

"Whoa," GH said, "nice catch."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2016, 09:04:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Forgotten Relics

"What's this?" Yarin said, peering blearily upon a screen. Then his eyes widened. "Someone's attempting to access the O.W.N. satellite network!"

"But I thought it went ka-phlooey when Richard went M.I.A.," Saffa said.

"What does 'O.W.N.' stand for?" Dylan asked.

"It's been so long," Cloak said, "I've forgotten.*"

"It's been less than a year for you, hasn't it?" GH said. "How come --"

"Don't push me, Logan," Cloak said.

"Don't call me that," GH snarled.

"Can we FOCUS?!" Sakki snapped. "Wasn't the O.W.N. satellites destroyed beyond repair?"

"Yes, it was," Yarin confirmed, still scrutinizing the readouts.

"Then how is it sending data?" Salad asked, perplexed.

"I . . ." the Nyac stammered.

"Don't know," an obnoxious RAFian said, snottily. "Of course, you don't."

"Shut up, you --" Cloak said, uttering a Realm Walker expletive that did not translate into English. "If you're not going to be helpful, you can leave right now."

He left, after coming up with a flimsy argument, and arrogantly thinking he told off Cloak. Cloak was indifferent to this -- he never liked this RAFian personally. But the had bigger issues to deal with right now, instead of some unlikeable prick that think he's the First Light's gift to everyone.

"Is it possible that they are being repaired?" Saffa asked, pragmatically. "Is that within the realm of reason at all?"

"No, it isn't," Yarin said, unable to keep the shock from his voice. "They were smashed up and completely irreparable."

"Then how'd we retrieve this data?" Dylan asked again.

"I can't answer that," Yarin confessed, "I don't know."

"Could be someone's still trying to use them, and managed to activate a long-dormant component," Saffa speculated. "Or possibly they tried to access the O.W.N. satellites and their signal got redirected here?"

"Or," Cloak said, seriously, his jaded disposition prominent, "it was a hackneyed attempt at a smokescreen."

---

*Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even I have forgotten what it stands for. "Omnipresent-something-Network", I think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2016, 07:12:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ticking Clock

Suddenly, Yarin's four arms became like a whirling dervish. He had noticed something odd that he missed before. Even though Dameg had pointed it out already, Yarin was monitoring several cellphone towers. He discovered something discouraging.

"More of those boxes are appearing on the cell phone towers," he announced. "They're widening the sphere of influence."

"How much globally?" Blue asked, seriously.

"Eight-point-three-six-four-three percent," Yarin reported. "Thus far."

"That gives us some time, then," Parker said.

"Eight-point-seven-eight percent," Yarin reported.

"We need a plan," Cloak said.

"These people are under the thrall of this purple glow thingamajig," Faerie reminded. "They'll probably resist anything we do to stop it, just to prolong it."

"Nine-point-six-five-four percent," Yarin reported.

"Our Marks and Code Avalon will protect us," Chad said, "but if this goes global, if we fail to stop it, how long will our bubble of safety last? We need to nip it in the bud, before it becomes a hundred percent. Everyone uses cellphones, except perhaps in poorer countries."

"Nine-point-seven percent," Yarin reported, almost as if to reinforce Chad's point.

"Why are we still talking about this? We should be doing something!" Abby said.

"Great! Any idea what?" GH asked.

Abby didn't have an answer.

"The answer should be obvious," Parker said. "Dismantle and disarm those boxes."

"'Disarm'?" Helen asked. "Parker, you don't actually think that they might be bombs, do you?"

"At this point, it wouldn't surprise me." Parker said, bluntly.

"Me either," Cloak said. "But I think them being bombs would be counterintuitive to what whoever is behind is after. Which it appears to be, as horribly clichéd as it is,  global domination."

"Of course!" Parker said, with a heavy sigh.

"Nine-point-eight-zero-eight percent," Yarin interrupted, "and we're getting a message from Mayor Lahren."

"A mayor so corrupt he could run for the Council," Cloak said, acidly. He still had tenuous feelings with the ever-changing Realm Walker Council. "What does he want?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2016, 11:06:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Order Up

"What does it say, Yarin?" Parker said. "What does the bloated egomaniac want now?"

"Some overly righteous rhetoric that someone with half a brain cell could see right through," Yarin said, reading through the long, pompous electronic letter. He wore a look that clearly said how disgusted he was with the despicable letter. "Geez, what a load of bile."

"Enough of the commentary, Yarin," Cloak said, testily. "What does it say?!"

"It is a request," Yarin said, " a demand, really. An order."

"Order of what?" Quaf asked.

Yarin seemed to hesitate, almost as if he couldn't believe he was about to utter what he was. "An order of dismissal."

"A WHAT?!" everyone seemed to shout at the same time.

"He wants us to disband immediately," Yarin said, with a tone that conveyed both disgust and astonishment. "Or he'll take litigious action."

"Let him," Kelly said, flatly.

The other RAFians looked at her, as she elaborated, "Lahren hasn't the power nor the jurisdiction to issue such an order. The order of dismissal is illegal, not to mention grievously over stepping his bounds."

"They can't order us to disband, then?" Dylan asked.

"Not at this level of government, no," Kelly said. "They don't have the authority."

"This level of government," Cloak observed.

"What are you implying?" GH asked.

Kelly got what he was getting at. "Yes, perhaps if this was taken to the federal level, then maybe they would have sufficient authority to break up RAF."

"And render us homeless," Saffa noted.

"The ramifications could be more dire than that," Goom said.

Cloak tensed as he considered what Goom was suggesting.

"What? What?" Salad said, utterly confused. "How can the consequences be more dire than homelessness?"

"Tell them," Goom said, addressing Cloak.

"The dissolution of the forum might, just might, break the Marks." Cloak said, as the purple coverage became 15.1%.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 12, 2016, 11:12:48 PM

I feel we should go to . . . Purple Alert. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p97166Yt4X4)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2016, 08:49:52 PM

Um, sure. I guess.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Blockade

A resounding silence followed, only interrupted when Yarin said, "Eighteen-point-one-seven percent. The forum is a quarter subsumed in the purple sphere of influence. Code Avalon still holding."

"This is really serious, isn't it?" GH asked.

"Inarguably," Saffa said.

"Twenty-point-eight-two-one percent," Yarin said. "Half of the forum is now subsumed."

"We should do something about this," Abby said.

"But what, exactly?" Faerie said. "We could go an dismantle all those boxes on the cellphone towers, sure, but those still under the thrall of this purple stuff will be trying to lynch us."

She eyed Demos, who had a smile on his face, as if a thought was occurring to him.

"Control you're demonic impulses, Demos," she said, "we can't go around smacking them, even if they are being controlled by some unknown entity or party. They're, as strange and odd as it may sound, still innocents in this. Even Lahren."

"When they get word of our dissent," Cloak said, "they'll make a move to try to force and foist the order upon us."

"Twenty-three-point-eight-four-one percent. The forum is three-quarters subsumed, and Code Avalon is holding strong."

"What makes you say that, Cloak?" GH asked.

"You have never met any of the Councilors on the Realm Walker Council, so I wouldn't expect you to know," Cloak said, with a heavy sigh, "but legislators accustomed with getting what they want will stoop to any low, despite its illegality, and act as if it is well within their power, their authority, their jurisdiction. And pretend that it's perfectly within the confines of the law. I just hope that your government, the human government of this nation, is not so corrupt."

Silence elapsed at this, as Yarin stated, "Twenty-five-point-nine-three-two percent. The forum is covered. Code Avalon still holding strong."

Cloak's ears twitched ever so slightly. He heard it before most everyone else: TWOK-TWOK-TWOK-TWOK-TWOK-TWOK!! Very obviously a helicopter rotor. And there was more than one.

"Helicopters are infringing RAFian airspace," Yarin said. "And all roads to and from the forum have been blocked by a police barricade."

"That can't be legal," Gaz said.

"It isn't," Kelly said, dryly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2016, 05:35:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Decisive Action

"We have to do something," Abby said.

"But what, precisely, can do?" Faerie counted again.

"Go after the guy behind this," Cloak said, seriously. "He is, or they are, probably at his home. Or his office."

"Why those places, specifically?" Phoenix asked.

"Whoever or whomever is behind this would surely want to keep the mayor under their thumb," Cloak said, "at least, until they managed to ensure a person in a more powerful position, like a governor or a celebrity."

"What do you have in mind?" Parker asked.

"Three teams," Cloak said. "Yarin's team -- with the objective to try and free up the wills of those in the blockade. Aquilai's team -- with the objective to disarm and render those influence-expansion box devices inoperable. And, finally, my team -- cutting this off at the source, or sources. Hopefully, by the careful coordination of these three teams we can end this quickly, without any harm to anyone."

He looked at Goom, "If you would monitor things from here, Goom, we could get this plan underway."

"I will," the demurred Goomba said.

"Any objections?" Cloak asked to the forum at large. There were none -- well, except for the obnoxious one, but no one took him seriously. "Okay, good."

"Thirty-six-point-eight-five-one-two percent of the world is covered," Goom said, peering at the screen that Yarin had vacated. "And the blockade is still in full force."

"And still illegal," Kelly muttered.

"Yarin. Aquilai." Cloak barked. "Choose your teams, and choose wisely. Saffa. Underseen. AniDragon. Parker. Ash. You're with me, if you're able and willing."

"This seems a bit reckless, Cloak," Faerie noted. "I approve."

"Got them chosen?" Cloak said, ignoring Faerie and addressing Aquilai and Yarin. "Good. Let's get going. The clock is ticking."

"Thirty-seven-point-six-three-three percent, Code Avalon still holding," Goom agreed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2016, 07:36:42 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Run the Blockade

Yarin had chosen GH, Kelly, Melissa, Yunyun, and Broken for his team. They would not only try to cure these poor people of their mind control and brainwashing, but also allow Cloak's team and Aquilai's team (consisting of Dylan, YeerkSalad, Az, Horse, and Mr. Guy) to bust through this blockade.

Cloak's team and Aquilai's team managed to easily bust through the blockade when Yarin used his telepathy, the magic-users wielding their magic, and GH playing, using his symphokinesis:

"We're up! We're down!
We're in! They're out!
We're all about!
We're far! We're near!
We're gone! We're here!
We're quick and slick!
We're really sincere!"

This, coupled with the efforts of the other four, caused the purple eyes to flicker to their natural color. But they always settle back on purple. GH played on:

"Beware! Beware!"

Kelly was becoming increasingly frustrated, as GH played on:

"We RAFians are very confuzle.
We RAFians very sly, sly, sly, sly!
We come in ones and twoozles
But if we so choozles
Before your eyes you'll see them multiply-ply-ply-ply!"

Kelly's powers weren't working. It was only working on their physical wounds. She could not heal mental and psychological wounds. GH played on.

"We're extraordinary, so better be wary!
If sanity's what you covet,
You'll find that we love it!"

Kelly was feeling furious with herself. She knew of this limitation with her powers. She knew this! GH played on.

"Beware! Beware!"

Kelly had hoped that this would be the exception to the rule. That her powers could somehow heal these people of the purple influence. She was wrong and furious with herself for allowing herself to falsely believe this.

Meanwhile, GH played on.

"We're extraordinary, so better be wary!
If sanity's what you covet,
You'll find that we love it."

The eyes kept flickering, but they didn't make any headway, and Kelly couldn't help but feel useless. Dead weight. Yet, GH still played on.

"We're up! We're down!
We're in! We're out!
We're all about!
We're far! We're near!
We're gone! We're here!
We're quick and slick!
We're totally sincere!"

Kelly realized that she could have a use. She would be the white mage, the cleric, on this team. She would keep the others healthy, and they could battle. It wasn't a glorious role to have, but it was one that she excellently equipped for.

And GH finished:

"Beware! Beware! Beware! Beware! Beware!!!"

"Fory-nine-point-three-seven-four-eight-three-four percent," Goom's voice crackled over communications.

---

*Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CLnADKgurvc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2016, 06:23:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Like a Hydra

"Fifty-five-point-four-five-six-five-six-three-eight percent," Goom's voice crackled on the communications.

"Half of the world already?" Dylan asked. It was strange to see him so deathly serious.

"We have our work cut out for us," Mr. Guy said, already working on a box with Salad and Aquilai.

"Don't worry, we got your back," Az said, as he, Dylan, and Horse fanned out behind them. The three were watching in different directions for problems. "Just do what you got to do."

Suddenly, there was a sound like a car backfiring, as smoke briefly issued from the box as it fell to the ground. A section of the purple faded away, but it was small compared to the sea of purple around them.

"There. We need to head off to the next one." Aquilai said, shoving the crumpled box remains into a bag with an Undetectable Expansion Charm that Broken put on it at Aquilai's request. "Goom?"

"Fifty-eight-point-seven-two-six-five-seven percent," Goom reported.

"Damn it all," Aquilai muttered. "We need to pick up the pace, fellows."

"Is even worth it?" Dylan asked. "It seems so impossible."

"We've done the impossible before," Mr. Guy said, matter-of-factly, as they quickly transitioned to the next box on the next cellphone tower and began working.. "This is no different."

"But the odds . . ."

"What about them?" Aquilai asked.

"They seems so stacked against us," Dylan said, as if confessing a knotted concern.

"Isn't the first time," Horse said, dryly.

"Not to mention we only have three people working on this, one at a time, who knows how many whoever's behind this has on this," Az pointed out. "We're the underdogs."

This box was done. They took care of disposing it, and moved on to a third one.

"Goom?" Aquilai queried.

"Sixty-point-seven-seven-seven-one-five percent," Goom reported.

It was disheartening, to say the least, but Aquilai would not allow his team to give up. This was quite necessary, unless Cloak's team takes out the people or person behind this. They worked on this third one in silence, and soon it was done. They took care of the remnants.

"Goom?" Aquilai inquired.

"Sixty-four-point-nine-seven-eight-seven-two-one percent," the Goomba replied.

Aquilai sighed heavily in response.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2016, 08:11:27 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Stealth

Cloak's team, at his urging, stuck to the shadows. Which was a bit easier than one might think, as the deep purple light afforded them plenty of shadows to hide in. Parker didn't like this, though. He didn't really like sneaking around like this. He was always a more straightforward kind of person, while Cloak's feline nature left him to feel comfortable doing this.

Parker had insisted if they do this, then they had better do it silently. That they should use hand motions and gestures to communicate. That they shouldn't speak or draw attention to themselves. And he insisted that they carry methods for disguising themselves as humans -- for AniDragon and Cloak, himself. As they were the only two who couldn't look human without external or technological assistance. Both had ID masks.

But they would only go that route if they had no choice.

They snuck and slinked around the city until they came to city hall and the mayor's office. And they quickly discover that Wisteria wasn't there, though they still didn't know who they were looking for. Parker, with Tyr, quickly discovered that they could track the pheromones that Wisteria exuded and somehow was able to turn into wireless signals.

They quickly and swiftly followed the trail of the pheromones exhaust, as it were. It lead to the overly opulent mayor's manor. Cloak had to choke back his abject disgust at the sight of the overtly pretentious flaunting of their wealth. Cloak had never liked this kind of showy ostentation -- it always struck him as basically the rich and wealthy needing to tell everyone just how extravagantly well-off they are, for their own validation of their importance. It's sad and pathetic, really, when you thought about it -- the insecurity of not being well-known for one's wealth, the obsessive need to parade one's wealth as if it were a snobby poodle . . . Cloak had always preferred the simpler pleasures of life, and the greedy ways of the rich nonplussed him.

Parker deftly switched to one of his auxiliary armors -- Cloak had forgotten the names of them -- which allowed him some chameleon-like camouflage for a time. It had to be charged between uses, hence one reason why he didn't rely on it very much.

They easily penetrated the ornate kissing gates carved from the finest gold. It was child's play for a ferrokinetic of Cloak's caliber. He returned it and ferrokinetically locked it. No one would suspect that it was ever tampered with. Parker thought it was wholly unnecessary, but Cloak was cautious to the point of paranoia.

They were in, and they were hot on Wisteria's careless trail as the influence coverage grew to 70.674911% . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2016, 05:28:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Meanwhile . . .

"What makes someone special?
I suppose it all depends,
It's what's unique in each of us,
That we all share as friends!
The difference is our differences.
Maybe small or great.
Variety add spice to life,
So we should celebrate!
In unity.
Unity.
You're you, I'm me!
Together we
Can live In unity!"

The song seemed to only have a marginal effect, if anything. The others didn't seem to make much headway, either.

"If there was only one note,
How boring life would be?
I'm glad there are so many notes
In many different keys!
I hear each voice singing,
With a special quality,
And when we sing together we
Bring music everywhere, you see!
In unity.
Unity
You're you, I'm me
Together we
Can live in unity."

Still having a debatably marginal effect for their effort in this endeavor. But as GH sang, his Mark glowed. Glowed brighter and brighter. . . .

"In unity.
Unity.
You're you, I'm me.
Together we
Can live in unity.
In unity.
Unity.
You're you, I'm me.
Together we
Can live in unity.
You're you, I'm me
Together we
Can live in unity!"

All of the RAFians' Marks began to glow brightly, but only Kelly seemed to take notice of this.

***

"Sixty-three-point-nine-seven-six-one-one-one-eight percent," Goom said.

"I think he's being a little too specific," Horse said, in a casual aside.

"Thanks for the report, Goom," Aquilai said, before addressing his team, feeling a spark of hope. "We're starting to make a dent in this influence expansion field. We cannot dally to pat ourselves on our collective backs now. We must continue. We might even reduce it back down to zero percent."

"Working on three at a time really worked," Salad noted.

"Enough congratulations," Aquilai said, with a bright, yet subdued, smile. "Let's get to work."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2016, 08:38:30 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Grotesque Opulence

The entrance was unguarded. Whoever was behind this was proving to be too overconfident in their safety, arrogantly so. They were so complacent in their own security they did not even seem to have any security devices active or security personnel on duty. So much so that it felt like a trap, an overly elaborate trap.

They opened the large, expensively-lacquered mahogany kissing doors. They parted with an ominous CREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAA AAAK. It opened to startling silence, to a large entrance hall with a grand staircase to their left with intricately-designed and diligently-shined banisters. There was a hallway straight ahead of them, and an empty room to their right -- the dining hall.

The darkness caused by the purple light made everything seem very ominous as the lights within were turned off. It wasn't a problem for Cloak's eyes or Parker's helmet. But that wasn't the ominous thing, which Cloak quickly discovered through Earthsight.

There was barebones housekeeping staff in the estate. It was the same deal with the kitchens and the dietary staff. The mansion was essentially a ghost house, nearly empty, devoid of activity.

AniDragon looked apprehensive, her Pemalite eyes not very strong in the dark. Saffa was feeling much the same way, but she was confident that she had a morph if any danger made itself known. Underseen and Ash were feeling much the same way. Parker was trying to relocate the gaseous emissions that had led them to this place to begin with.

Cloak's left ear twitched. He heard a sound that none of the others, aside from AniDragon, did not seem to hear. He was accustomed to this, as his hearing was more acute than normal humans. But Cloak didn't understand the sounds, the giggling and the puffs of breath.

But AniDragon, by the look on her face, seemed to understand what was going on. And she was either embarrassed or disgusted, Cloak couldn't tell which. He also didn't know why the sounds would elicit such a reaction. Then he had a notion, which seemed the only plausible thing.

Dwellers are just so messy sometimes, he found himself thinking, with somewhat astounded tones.

The team went for the confrontation with the people or singular person behind this. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2016, 08:12:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Back to Halfway

"Goom?" Aquilai queried.

"Fifty-four-point-one-seven-four-seven-one-four percent," the Goomba answered.

"Good. We're making some headway," Mr. Guy noted, taking care of another box.

"Doesn't seem so impossible now, does it?" Horse asked, with an impish little smile.

"Fifty-two-point-seven-six-eight-five-eight percent," Goom remarked.

"Yes, it does look promising," Aquilai agreed, "but we mustn't let up, we mustn't slack off. Here's the next cell towers to go."

***

"Higitus Figitus zumbablazon
I want your attention everyone!
We need to leave. Come on, let's go.
No no, not you! Marked are always first, you know.
Hockety pockety wockety wack!
Abracabra dabra nack!
Shrink in size very small!
We've got to save enough room for all!
Higitus figitus migitus mum!
Pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!
Cicero, you belong to the Cs!
Alphabetical order please!
Ali-i-ca-fez bal-a-ca-zez!
Malacamez meripides!
Diminish diminish dictionary!
Those words in my vocabulary!
Hockety pockety wockety wrun!
That's the way we have to run.
Higitus figitus migitus mum!
Pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!
Higitus Figitus zoomacazam
Now see here, Kelly, you're getting rough
The poor old Yarin is cracked enough!
Hockety pockety wockety wack!
Odds and ends and bric a brac!
Higitus figitus migitus mum,
Pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um.
Higitus figitus migitus mum,
Pres-ti-dig-i-ton-i-um!"

SLAP!

"Hey!" GH complained. "Geez! What was that for?!"

"For mocking my master and me," Melissa said, quite seriously.

"Hey, you try to come up with a song on the spot like this. Ain't as easy as you think it is!"

---

*Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7bd5YUEOwlE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2016, 09:11:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Purple Man Pleads

Cloak was the first of their small cavalcade of RAFians to stalk up the unnecessarily extravagant staircase on the second floor. The hallway that it lead to was also needlessly exorbitant and excessive. All the chairs were velvet, and cushy. Just kindling from the chair would be enough to feed a moderately-sized orphanage. This disgusted Cloak.

A door to their left swung open with an unnerving audacity with an insolent abruptness. Light flooded the corridor that was black with darkness. Out of it strode a man with an undue ****y swagger. He wore purple pants, sans the belt, and he was shirtless. Oh, his skin, hair, and eyes were purple. As purple as the surrounding mists that made up the influence area.

He didn't see them in the darkness, and he seemed full of the overconfident machismo of a braggadocio, a smug braggart. He seemed to not even entertain the idea that he could be touched here. It was such a stupid concept one had to wonder how he got so comfortable in arrogance.

And, honestly, he wasn't much to look at.

"Dah!!" he screamed. Then he demanded, "Who are you?!"

He finally noticed them. Really, it took him long enough to do so. The RAFians said nothing, but glared down at him imperiously. Their faces obscured and obfuscated by the darkness. Parker gave an inhuman impression, with his helmet not showing his face. AniDragon and Cloak's eyes glowing ominously, reflecting the light.

"You defy me?" Wisteria said. "Impossible. Tell me who you are!! Zebadiah Wisteria, the Purple Man, commands it!"

Ominous silence. Wisteria was getting creeped out by it. There was a definite "Five Nights At Freddy's 4" vibe in the whole thing. Sweat began to bead anew upon his purple flesh, as Wisteria felt fear. He had to be able to control these intruders. He could influence everyone in this sphere of influence, much less at this close proximity to him. He didn't know that his spheres of influence were now deteriorating rapidly.

"You still defy me? How can you . . ." he said, then he caught sight of Saffa's Mark. His eyes widened, revealing that his sclera was still white, only his irises remained purple. "Nooooo . . . you can't be . . . you're blocked off with a blockade. There's no way out or in there. . . ."

"You behind this, then?" Parker said, using a colder tone than he has ever used.

"You should be obeying me!! Everyone obeys me!!" Wisteria raged. "You CANNOT be defying like this."

"That answers that then," Cloak said, speaking lowly and slowly. "This makes things simple."

"We take him out, we take out the purpleness," Parker said, rather stiffly.

"Underseen, Ash," Cloak said, and the shapeshifters became a couple of boa constrictors and wrapped around his body, holding him in place. Wisteria felt fear again. He did not like being afraid.

"Pl--" he did not like pleading either, much less pleading for his life. "Pl-please d-don't k-k-kill me."

"Why, Mr. Wisteria," Saffa said, actually disguising her voice to an Umbridge-like tenor, "whoever said that we were going to kill you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2016, 06:16:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Bleached

"Three-six-point-three percent," Goom said, as Aquilai's team worked without comment. "Twenty-seven-point-five percent."

They continued to make their progress, freeing up Wisteria's little soldiers from adhering and activating more boxes. They were travelling place to place on ice bridges formed by Horse and Az, very Iceman-like.

They were were heartened with their success, as the percentage kept lowering at a rapid pace. It was just a matter of time now.

"Eighteen-point-seven percent," Goom reported. "Nine-point-nine percent."

"All going well," Aquilai said, with a smile, as they zoomed off to the last few boxes that remained.

***

"What?" Wisteria said.

"Killing you will be completely unnecessary," Cloak said.

"Then let me go!!" he demanded. He was clearly accustomed to having his orders, his demands, followed with complete and utter compliance. So it was a novel experience for him to have been defied so brazenly.

"Eventually," Cloak said, then he turned as silvery moonlight began to stream through the window at the end of the hall, the purple gone, "AniDragon? If you will?"

AniDragon walked up and placed her left hand onto his chest and he right on his forehead.

"You DARE to lay a hand on me, monster?!" Wisteria raged. "Remove your grubby paws from me!!"

AniDragon did not comply, which outraged Wisteria.

"Do as I command, beast!!" Wisteria ordered angrily.

But AniDragin'eyes glowed a bluish-white in response as Wisteria's eyes seemed to bulge out of his head. His eyes even seemed to glow purple. Eventually it got to the point where it appeared that AniDragon was draining the purple from Wisteria. That she was bleaching it from his skin and hair. He was regaining his normal pasty complexion with brownish-black hair. He was losing his powers of persuasion that bordered on the line to direct mind control, although could be considered an indirect form of it.

She was essentially energybending him. She was binding his powers. She was neutralizing the threat without killing him. She was making him powerless. And he didn't even realize what was happening, only that he felt weakened by this.

Eventually, she broke contact, and it was done. Ash and Underseen released him, and he looked at his hands, surprised to see that they were no longer purple. He demanded, "Wha--what did you do to me?"

"Took away your powers." AniDragon said. "You can't use it to hurt anyone ever again."

Then she, and the other RAFians, pulled a Batman and vanished into the darkness the moment Wisteria looked away. Then the bedroom door snapped shut, as the woman within had gained her sensibilities. She had quickly surmised what Wisteria did to her, and she called the cops.

Wisteria had barely escaped the estate with his life and freedom intact.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2016, 08:12:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
After Today

"Logan! Logan, wait up!" GH's dad came running up, holding a sack lunch. "You forgot your lunch."

He gave GH a peck on the cheek and said, "have a good day."

The kids who saw immediately began to laugh at him.

"They've been laughin' since I can't remember,
But they're not gonna laugh anymore.
No more "Logan the Geek",
No more "Doof of the Week",
Like before . . . !"

Brynna (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=12937.msg906447#msg906447) sang:

"No more stupid tests 'til September!"

Dimitri (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=12937.msg906407#msg906407) sang:

"No more lookin' at losers like him!"

TJ (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=12937.msg905456#msg905456) sang:

"No more havin' to cheat!"

Calvin (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=12937.msg905456#msg905456) sang:

"No more mystery meat!"

YeerkSalad sang:

"No more gym!"

Dylan sang:

"No more gym!"

Quaf sang:

"No more gym!"

Abby sang:

"NO MORE GYM!"

Gaz sang:

"Gonna move to the mall!"

Horse sang:

"Gonna live in the pool!"

GH sang:

"Gonna talk to Andy,
And not feel like a fool!"

The chorus sang:

"'Cause . . .
After today, I'm gonna be cruisin'!"

GH sang:

"After today, he'll be mine!"

The chorus sang:

"After today, my brains'll be snoozing!"

GH sang:

"If I don't faint, I'll be fine!"

Helen sang:

"I've got forty more minutes,
Of Home Economics . . ."

Parker sang:

"Then down with the textbooks . . ."

Dino sang:

"And up with the comics!"

GH sang:

"Just think of all the time I've been losin',
Finding the right thing to say!"

GH and the chorus sang:

"But things'll be goin' my way . . ."

The chorus sang:

"After today!"

Andy walked right by GH, without seeming to notice him. GH sang:

"He looked right through me,
And who could blame him?
I need a new me,
Plus some positive proof
That I'm not just a doof!
And . . . "

GH sang with the chorus:

"After today, I'm gonna be cruisin'."

Saffa sang:

"No more pep rallies to cut, blech!"

GH and the chorus sang:

"After today, my brains'll be snoozin'!"

A talking Snorlax sang:

"I'm gonna sit on my butt."

GH sang:

"I've got less than an hour,
And when this is ended,
I'll either be famous . . ."

Bern Bridges sang:

"Or you'll be suspended!"

GH and the chorus sang:

"Just think of all the time I've been losin'
Waiting until I could could say . . .
Gonna be on my own,
Kiss the parents good-bye!
Gonna party from now
'til the end of July!
Things'll be goin' my way,
After today!!!"

GH sang:

"I wish that this was the day,
After today."

"Daddy?" said a voice. "Daddy, are you okay?"

"LH? What's wrong? GH said, groggily.

"You were singing in your sleep," he said. "Something like 'Napper Hooray'. What does that mean?"

"It's just gibberish, don't worry about it." GH said, checking the time. "I've got to get ready for work now, LH, so you be a good boy for Mr. Cloak, you hear?"

"Yes, Daddy."

***

Meanwhile, Wisteria was miserable. The cunning and manipulation that he had before his accident, before he got his powers, had diminished and atrophied since his acquisition of them. He had become oh so reliant on those powers. After he lost them, he couldn't step up his game to control and.manipulate others, and he hated it, though he always believed himself to be in the right.

So he tried to recreate the accident. Tried to recreate the acquisition of his powers.

He really shouldn't have, as it was a one-in-a-million shot. He wasn't as lucky this time, and it killed him. And sadly enough, he would not be missed.

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIFa94fD3c (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIFa94fD3c)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2016, 09:24:33 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Sad Reflections

A much younger cub sat looking at a basin of water, at his reflection. He was alone, and huddled up in a corner of the room. He had never felt more miserable, while Dino was battling a Vaxasaurian DNAlien.

"Look at me,
I will never pass for a perfect son,
Or a perfect Realm Walker.
Can it be . . .
I'm not meant to play this part?
Now I see,
That if I were truly to be myself,
I would break my mother's heart.
Who is that tiger I see,
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I don't know?"

His reflection in the basin shifted to a more modern one, reflecting the Cloak of fourteen, fifteen years afterward. He slashed his furred hand through it with claws extended upon the last lyric. He didn't see the difference in the reflection, it was just a metaphorical thing that an older Cloak saw.

"Somehow I cannot hide,
Who i am, though I've tried.
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?"

Then the younger Cloak faded away, as the elder one came into more prominence, into more clarity. He had tears streaking his feline face, so much that it almost looked like he had cheetah markings.

"Cloak?" Aniyu said, gently.

But Cloak was still feeling the sadness he felt then. It was overwhelming. He felt as if the ground was opening up into an abyss. The abyss of fetid despair. He didn't move. He didn't . . .

"Cloak!" Aniyu said, genuinely alarmed now. The abyss threatened to consume him once more. Cloak was having a hard time caring. He found that he would embrace death if it came. He . . .

He fell.

He would succumb. He would succumb to the despair. He would feel the loneliness. He would feel the hopelessness of it all. Then he would soon feel nothing at all. Nothing but the icy touch of despair.

But golden threads had appeared, and grasped his right hand and wrist tightly and supportive. The threads looked so delicate and fine that they might have snapped at the slightest torsion. Cloak could make out names, names that made up the threads.

Shadow . . .

Faith . . .

Wheeza . . .

Gaz . . .

Underseen . . .

More and more he couldn't read, but he was keenly aware of their presence. It was them that were preventing him from falling into despair -- uh, literally. It was them that were giving him hope. It was their support that was enabling him to get back upon his feet as the gaping maw of despair closed, disappointed, beneath him.

Aniyu looked visibly relieved. Though technically dead, and long since so, she still cared for her descendant.

"I understand now," Cloak said, with a clarity he hadn't had moments before. "I cannot wallow in the miseries of the past. I must move on and not allow it to weigh me down. I have people who love me, who respect me, who care about me, even when my mother didn't."

The blue thorny vine wall withered and died, revealing the iridescent indigo one right behind it. Cloak knew what it represented.

"Neglect." he replied.

---

*Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=16Vylr6XjEM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2016, 08:03:22 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXX:
THE NEMETRIX BEETLE
CHAPTER ONE:
Neglect

Cloak, as a young cub, had his mother's attention, even when his serpentine-form sister was formed and hatched. His mother was willing to pay attention to him when he was still young and cute, like why human seek out kittens and puppies. But, soon enough, as Ursa did with all things, the novelty wore off.

She began to utilize a hands-off approach to parenting, leaving Cloak to himself. Cloak had enjoyed this for a bit before realizing he couldn't have a real conversation with her. He couldn't get her approval, no matter how hard he tried. Even when she chased away his father, Brute, the wolfhound-form Walker, descendant of the Truth Dreamer, Aniyu, though his father -- who Ursa had made Cloak hate (a  guilt that he still harbored in his heart of hearts). It just got slightly more blatant.

He worked cleaning their shack of home, which was falling apart in a dilapidated mess and he was charged with preventing that from happening while she did nothing to help. While she was never satisfied with his work, with his endeavor. So, naturally, Cloak wouldn't be as motivated to work his best, knowing that she would always find fault.

She never knew how much he wished for death. She never knew how much he wanted to escape from her. She never knew how damaging her neglect of his needs was. She never understood how every time she opened her mouth she undermined and undercut his self-confidence. Either that, or she just didn't care.

"Cloak?" Aniyu asked, gently.

She refused to allow him to attend any other kid's birthday parties when he was a cub, when he was a Hatchling, (something he wouldn't discover until he had cut her from his life, until he had excluded and exhiled her from it) for "fear" of him being ostracized like she supposedly was as her age. She wasn't, of this Cloak was sure. She had a habit playing the victim, or playing the hero -- though the some could say her son was the same way, much to his consternation.

Cloak had long since came to the conclusion that the neglect she gave him was clear and patent proof that she didn't love him. Proof that she saw him as nothing but a tool. A tool to control his father, and later on, free labor. She apparently never thought she was obligated to treat him like a thinking, feeling person. She always seemed to disregard his feelings in favor of her own. Her feelings were always paramount to everyone else's. Hers were the only ones to matter . . .

"Cloak?" Aniyu prompted.

His child-parent relationship was entirely one-sided. His mother demanded respect and appreciation while giving none in return. She only thought of herself, and clearly only saw Cloak as an extension of herself, a tool to be used at her earliest convenience, a helpless servant to cook, to clean, to slave over her without any resentment or anger for it. There was no love in the relationship, as there never was in an abusive, neglectful one such as theirs.

Cloak was sure that he would have been better off with his father rather than his mother. He was not only his father's only son, he was his firstborn. Faith was actually only his sister through his mother -- the only thing, Cloak believed, that was good about his biological relationship to Ursa -- and Faith was her oldest child, and favorite. Granted, he was not his father's favorite, per se. That was Dagger. He was only ever Shadow's favorite. . . .

"Cloak . . ." Aniyu prompted again, but Cloak didn't answer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2016, 11:19:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Union of Two Techs

Two objects were hurtling from space down to the planet. They were of similar size and each had a forty-five degree trajectory from the other with Earth as the vertex. They were approaching a blistering speed, origins unknown.

One appeared to be a collar with a watch-like piece to it. This tech appeared to be Cerebrocrustacean in design, but clearly modeled on superior Galvan tech. It seemed to have a sort of DNA directory, only containing genetic samples of an Anurian Baskurr, a Crabdozer, a Mucillator, a Slamworm, a Terroranchula, a Buglizard, a Panunsian, a Tyrannopede, a Vicetopus, an Omnivoracious, and a Psycholeopterran. It did not appear to have any A.I. in it, nor was it able to do anything on its own. It was a Nemetrix.

The other object was a curious light blue one in the shape of a overlarge beetle. It was a Scarab, a living weapon engineered by the Reach with undeniable loyalty to them . It's singular goal was, if a planet's natives had reached a sufficient technological level, to bond with a native and overwrite their personality with the Reach's programming. Making a ready-made infiltrator for the Reach's purposes. It could, supposedly, absorb energy, manipulate vibrational frequencies, independent locomotion, fly under its own power, and had pincers that could cut through metal. It supposedly afforded whomever it bonded with superhuman strength, flight, energy projection, costume creation, and other abilities.

But, as it turns out, the vertex of the angle they were approaching the Earth was actually several million miles above the surface and they were headed right for each other. The collision was inevitable.

They smashed each other with incredible force, but some strange and mysterious happened. The two objects were not destroyed, as the expected outcome would be in such a violent collision.

Instead of breaking apart, the two items fused together into one single object. It appeared to become a Bug Badge from Kalos with the symbol of the Nemetrix beneath. It had, in this short time, achieved something that resembled sentience, an artificial sentience so to speak, but purely by accident instead of design.

It began to show independent thought as well as it continued to plummet towards the planet. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2016, 04:53:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Landfall

It wasn't long before this sentient object, this Nemetrix Beetle, broke into the Earth's atmosphere. It's sentience became fully-fledged, although it seemed rather somnolent than self-aware, more confused then thoughtful.

When it made impact with the ground, even at such speed that it was going, there was only the smallest and unnoticeable of impact craters. It was so small it was wonder that it didn't burn up in the atmosphere, but the Nemetrix Beetle was a hearty thing, apparently. Any link to the Reach was cleanly severed, though. And its loyalty to them now was questionable, at best.

Moments after it landed, after apparently resting, it levitated up as light blue and deep red light generated from it into the form of a female light blue Anubian Baskurr with deep red highlights. It was rather like the human constructs of a Gem (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Gems), as the Nemetrix Beetle basically made the Anubian Baskurr its base form, with the beetle part of it sitting at its -- at her throat, like a choker or a skintight collar.

She got up wobbly on her four feet. She had never had legs before, much less feet. She never had a body before, although technically this body of hers was nothing more than a hard light construct, not unlike the energy constructs of the various Lantern Corps. She soon realized how to walk, and then run soon after.

Then she detected strong deoxyribonucleic acid signatures that were not in her directory to her left. She had landed outside a zoo, and fortunately it wasn't busy at all at the moment. Not that she would have cared, as she trotted in.

She first came to a gorilla habitat, and yellow light lanced from her eyes as she scanned the first specimen she saw. The light did not harm the animal, but confused it. But he eventually shrugged it off and forgot about it.

Then she came to the grizzly enclosure, and spied the lazy looking beasts and scanned a specimen she found suitable. The grizzly was annoyed by it, but was feeling too lazy to do anything about it.

When she came by the wolf enclosure, she scanned a gray wolf . . . that actually had black fur. The wolf didn't see her scan her, so the female wolf didn't react.

As she scanned a jaguar, a crocodile, a black rhinoceros, a polar bear, a Siberian tiger, a cheetah, a water buffalo, an African elephant, and an anaconda, she found herself inexplicably despising the so-called intelligent life on this planet. Maybe it was glitch in her systems, maybe an organic component went bad, who know precisely the reason? But was clear was that she was coming to hate the sapient, intelligent species.

She clearly felt a kinship and admiration for the nonsapient, nonsentient lifeforms. She clearly favored them, and held an animosity for sentient life, despite the hypocrisy of being a sentient lifeform herself. She felt that they didn't have a right to cage up these beasts and parade them around for humiliating entertainment. She was perfectly fine if they wanted to do that themselves, but not when they forced what the Nemetrix Beetle perceived as Superior Creatures, because she was of the opinion that intelligence, sentience, and technology were perversions. Again, unaware of the hypocrisy of it all considering its origins and that I contained all three.

She decided what her lifelong endeavor would be. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2016, 07:25:49 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
It's Over, Isn't It?

GH was staring out of the window of his thread whilst Leatherhead slept. He was feeling down as he just realized, via social media that Andy was no longer single. He was dating a guy who was "friends" with that Disney Jr. pirate kid, Fake or Jake or whatever. It didn't matter to GH.

Apparently, being essentially what amounts to a superhero -- a guitar and musically-themed one, at that -- wasn't enough to garner Andy's attention. Though he didn't know about GH's affiliation with RAF, as he kept it secret. He also kept his very name secret from him . . .

He sang quietly:

"I was good with the men
Who would come into his life now and again.
I was fine 'cause I knew
That they didn't really matter until him.
I was good until he came
And I fought it like it was all some silly game
Over him, hoping he'd choose.
After all those months, I never thought I'd lose.
It's over, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it over?
It's over, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it over?
He won, and he chose you, and he loved you, and he's gone.
It's over, isn't it? Why can't I move on?
War and glory, reinvention.
Fusion, freedom, his attention,
Out in daylight, my potential,
Bold, precise, just plain mental,
Who am I now in this world without him?
Petty and dull with the nerve to doubt him?
What does it matter, it's already done.
Now I've got to be there for my son.
It's over, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it over?
It's over, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it over?
He won, and he chose him, and he loved him, and he's gone.
It's over, isn't it? Why can't I move on?
It's over, isn't it? Why can't I move on?"

He deftly moved back over to his laptop and logged out of his social media site. He had to wipe away some heartbroken tears, as he didn't want to explain them to Leatherhead if he awoke. He may have only known Andy for a few months, but he had nursed a strong crush on him.

"Who am I kidding?" he said, bitterly, and quietly, as to not wake the six-year-old anthropomorphic crocodilian sleeping so peaceably. "Something can't be over if it was never started to begin with."

Then the announcement of something occurring nearby a zoo woke Leatherhead up.

---

*Source song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8hzS2FA8dIE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2016, 10:08:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Report!

"Approximately eighty-five Earth minutes ago," Yarin began.

"For god's sake, Yarin, just omit the 'Earth' modifier," GH said, grumpily. He had left Leatherhead to practice his keytar in their thread. Helen was supervising him -- scaring Parker a bit. Not because Leatherhead was particularly dangerous or that she couldn't handle herself, but it could mean that she . . . that she could want one of her own. . . . But he kept this to himself. "It makes you sound pedantic."

Yarin took offense at this, but chose to ignore it. He had more.pressing concerns. He continued with the briefing.

"Something wrong, GH?" Saffa asked.

"I'm fine," he said. He couldn't keep the bitter tone from his voice and Cloak, who he was standing to the right of, could easily tell that he was lying. But Cloak did not vocally acknowledge it.

"GH, I think --"

"Leave him alone, Saffa," Cloak said, calmly. "Whatever it is, he'll sort it out when he is ready to."

Then Cloak saw the image that Yarin managed to snag of the creature that arrived from the impact so minute that it barely registered in the forum's sensors. It showed a creature that looked like a cross between dog and a dinosaur with some feline features. They have a light blue-colored body with deep red stripes. It had a saurian skull with a jagged upper jaw, yellow eyes and pointed ears. It had a small pointed chain of teal plates protruding from its spine, which extended out to form a short, somewhat stiff tail. It had three pointed toes on each leg and its hind legs are longer than its forelegs.

"That's an odd color for a Anubian Baskurr," Cloak noted, recognizing the species at once.

"What's an Anubian Baskurr?" YeerkSalad queried quickly.

"A nonsentient species from a planet that I don't know the name or environment of," Cloak elaborated. "Although they're supposed to be a darker blue with black stripes."

GH raised an eyebrow, "So it's a shiny Anubian Baskurr?"

"It's not a Pokemon," Cloak said, dully.

"So, is it a threat?" Dylan asked.

Cloak eyed the beetle choker on its neck, wary due to the last time they had to deal with something like a scarce few days ago.

"The answer of that question, Dylan, is entirely subjective," Cloak said, not really answering his question. Dylan was about to point this out until it was decided right then and there that Cloak, Dino, Horse, Underseen, Aquilai, and GH would be dispatched to deal with this.

"Isn't this overkill?" Abby asked, almost rhetorically. "It's just lost space dog, isn't it?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2016, 08:12:02 PM

Sorry for the lateness of this, but here's the new chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
First Contact

Given the current climate of the PR of the RAFians, Cloak thought it would be prudent to disguise themselves as humans, but that would be incredibly difficult for Horse and Dino, who were decidedly not human, as they were not anthropomorphic like Cloak, like all Realm Walkers tended to be. With his cloak on, it.was.difficult to discern him as anything but human, though he wore his ID mask that projected his usual human hologram form.

"Nice, Cloak," Dino said, subtly acerbic, "what about Seal and me, then? We can't exactly pretend to be humans."

"Leashes?" GH said, with a noncommital shrug. "Claim you're our pet dinosaur and seal?"

"Don't make me eat you, guitar and all, GH," Dino growled.

"Priorities, people," Aquilai prompted. "Hopefully, it will just be an in-and-out, five-minutes-tops sort of mission."

"Doubtful," Cloak said, seriously.

"Don't be so pessimistic," Aquilai declared.

"I'm not," the Realm Walker replied simply. "I'm being realistic."

"That's debatable," Aquilai said, with a heavy sigh.

Ignoring this, Cloak observed, "The Anubian Baskurr approaches."

And, indeed, the Nemetrix Beetle was padding ever so sedately towards them.

"Query: Are you intelligent?" she said, with a cool, indifferent female voice.

"Anubian Baskurrs can talk?" Horse asked, seemingly unaware of the irony in such an inquiry.

"No," Cloak said, "no, they can't."

"Invalid response." the Nemetrix Beetle said, apparently not reaching full enough autonomy yet to not use the computer talk.

"Why is it talking like that?" Dino asked.

"It must be computerized, somehow," Aquilai suggested.

"Oh, no," Horse said, fretfully, "not another Roboticizer?"

"No," Cloak said. He didn't know how or why he was so certain, though. "No, this is different."

"Invalid response. Reissuing query." she said. "Query: Are you intelligent?"

"Clearly this thing isn't," GH said crassly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2016, 08:23:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Brutal Clash

"That's harsh, GH," Underseen said.

"I calls them like I sees them," GH said, with a shrug.

"Invalid response. Initializing assessment." she said. "Assessment concluded. Assessment: You are intelligent."

"Well, duh," Horse said.

"This presents an error." she said. "Errors must be corrected."

"Anyone else see where this is going, too?" Dino asked.

"Solution: extermination."

"And now she's a Dalek," Aquilai sighed.

"Initializing combat protocols," she said.

"How difficult could this be?" Dino said.

But her Anubian Baskurr form faded into energy, leaving only the beetle on her throat visible. She became a light blue polar bear with deep red claws, and attacked Horse. Only to be headbutted out of the way by Dino, in her considerable height.

The Nemetrix Beetle, with a blinding flash of yellow, suddenly became a Tyrannopede of light blue and deep red. She fired out the webbing out of the nozzle on her forehead and wrapped up Dino so thoroughly that she felt with cacophonous thud upon the ground. The web was strong than a Vaxasaurian, Tyrannopede's primary prey, could break. It was giving the Ankylotyrannus nasty flashbacks to some lost friends of hers -- ones she hadn't thought about in years . . .

The Nemetrix Beetle deftly changed into a light blue African elephant with deep red toenails and tusks. She charged Cloak, who punched the ground in a Rakuhouha technique of which Zero (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Zero) would have been proud. Only he didn't send out a wave of energy, he caused a fissure to open beneath the Nemetrix Beetle, causing her to fall into a chasm of which she could easily jump out.

"Cloak! She can jump out of that!" GH admonished.

"Not until she changes form," Cloak said. "Elephants can't jump."

"How so?" Aquilai asked.

"It's the way their feet are built. They're pillars meant to support their massive weight. It doesn't allow for jumping." Cloak explained.

"Is this the time?" GH said, snarkily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2016, 07:03:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Invitation

The battle when through several iterations of this, with very little collateral damage and no one was hurt. This was fortunate because it had the potential to escalate to something more dramatic very easily and very quickly.

"Assessment initializing," the Nemetrix Beetle said, back in her Anubian Baskurr form, apparently her base form. "Assessment completed. This one is wholly unprepared for this conflict. Success at three-point-eight-four-zero-six-three-eight-two percent likelihood of occurring."

"That's a high estimate," Cloak said, harshly. He cracked his knuckles threateningly.

"Searching for solutions . . . searching . . . searching . . ." she said.

"Now's our chance," Horse said. "Attack with everything!"

"Solution found. Probable outcome of success: ninety-four-point-two-eight-six-seven-zero-one-two percent." she said, as Horse uttered a Dweller expletive. "Solution enacted."

Then she ran away.

"Hey!! Come back here you lily-livered . . . uh, whatever you are!" Dino said, beginning to give chase.

"Anubian Baskurr," Underseen corrected.

"Whatever!" Dino snarled, as she kept thundering after the Nemetrix Beetle.

***

"Sir, we're receiving a transmission," said a government worker of some indeterminate rank.

"From whom?" said a man in charge.

"Unknown," the former replied, "but they request an audience with the planet's leaders."

"Very well," the latter said, "put them through."

"Hello, the people of Earth!" said a humanoid creature without any nose or hair. He wore what appeared to be a dark blue helmet He also appeared to be a cybernetic insectoid humanoid. "We are the Reach. We hear that you have a problem that we might be able to rectify."

"Which problem is that?" another person in charge snapped.

"Well, it isn't a problem yet," the Reach Negotiator said, "but it will be if they target Earth, as we believe they will."

"Stop talking in circles," piped another man in charge. "Spit it out and be done with it!"

"We, the Reach," the Negotiator said, unnecessarily dramatic, "have reason to believe that your planet has been targeted by the Exodia Armada."

"You made that up," a woman in charge accused.

"Oh, no, my dear. The Exodia Warlords aren't anything to trifle with lightly, and their Armada is just as dangerous. They've destroyed whole planets on a whim, or over a disagreement where the local populace didn't directly capitulate to their demands." the Negotiator said. "We can help you. We can help you prevent your own extinction, but we cannot without your agreement. Too much life in the universe has been lost due to those savages, who imagine themselves as gods. But we cannot help you if you do not invite us to aid you in this."

And some how this moved a majority of those in power to offer an invitation to the Reach. Something that outraged Sam when he found out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2016, 05:11:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Spectre Speeches

"I can't believe they're swallowing this," Sam, the Spectre, said, pacing in an agitated way. "Politician these days are just far too stupid, too naive, too gullible for their own good!"

"What's the big deal, Sam?" YeerkSalad said. "The Reach really do seem peaceful."

"Don't be duped, Salad!" Sam said, his Spectre cape flaring out due to his sudden emotion. "The Reach is just using their pretty rhetoric to pull the wool over everyone's collective eyes."

"They just want to protect us from the Exodia Armada," Dylan interjected.

"Which doesn't exist!!" Sam spat.

"How do you know that?" the obnoxious RAFian said. "Do you know every damn species in this galaxy? In this whole universe?"

He didn't need to be such a raging douche, but he couldn't help himself. He didn't seem to be aware of the potential ramifications of his attitude, that Spectre had it in his power to seriously shiv him with paper airplanes and other such unimaginable feats that make mundane objects fatally dangerous weapons.

Fortunately, Sam decided to let it slide. This obnoxious RAFian was more mouth than brain, and Sam was well aware of his habit to talk first, think later.

"The Reach are conquers," Sam said again, keeping his voice as calm as he could, but it still carried a lot of anger, but something more, a deep pain only scabbed over by time. "Years ago, they warred with the Green Lanterns. I was one of the Lanterns there. I lost several good friends during that conflict."

A silencing hush fell upon those who gathered and heard this. Sam continued with his story.

"Eventually, it was settled with a treaty," he said, sounding almost bitter, "but they only abide by it on the surface. They can only come to a planet if they were invited to, as you just saw happen on the news. But they circumvent this treaty by sending cybernetic beetles to the planet they intend to conquer, and they bond to a local host, taking them over, turning them into sleeper agents, infiltration agents. Men on the inside."

"But they didn't do anything like that." Dylan pointed out.

"Dylan, they're not gonna parade around what they were planning on what they were planning on doing." Sam said. "They're a lot more subtle than that. They still have plausible deniability when it comes to these scarabs, and they designed it that way."

He took a deep breath, ending with his summation, "They are not to be trusted."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2016, 11:08:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Path We Blaze

"Look out, new path, here we come!
Brave intrepid, and then some!
Pioneers of maximum audacity,
Whose resumes show that we're just the team
To live where others merely dream,
Building up our head of steam
On the path we blaze!
Changing legend into fact,
We shall ride into RAFhistory,
Turning myth into truth!
We shall surely gaze,
On the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery.
All will be revealed
On the thread we blaze!
RAFparadise is close at hand,
Shangri-RAF, the promised land."

Demos and Blue were in a small submersible prototype that Yarin had been working on. It had two concave windows on either side and looked rather like a goldfish. When Blue tried to inquire about why a goldfish, Yarin took a wretch to his ear, or tried to. They were looking for hidden Reach armadas.

After the musical pause, the duo sang again:

"Quite unusual nowadays.
In the adult, behold an inner child,
On the path we blaze!
The path we blaze,
Is a road we charted.
Through sea incognita,
To a golden time.
No place for the weary traveler,
To be fainthearted.
We're part of a scrumptious grand design.
Change legend into fact,
We shall ride into history.
Turning myth into truth.
We shall surely gaze
On the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery.
All will be revealed
On the path we blaze!"

"STOP SINGING AND REMEMBER YOUR MISSION!!" Yarin shouted angrily, voice crackling on the communications on the imperfected dashboard. "Do you see any Reach ships?!"

"No, not yet. I dunno why you wanted us here for this mission," Blue said.

"Irrelevant," Yarin said, dismissively.

"D'you think he's getting off on ordering us around?" Demo asked in a loud stage whisper.

"I heard that," Yarin commented testily.

"Yeah, I know," Demos said, brightly.

"Still nothing, Yarin," Blue said, ending the call, "we'll report in when we have any news of note."

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gzq8212yMpY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2016, 10:18:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Um . . . Hi?

"Still nothing, Yarin," Blue said, warily.

"Yeah, dude," Demos said, flippantly, "go eat a cookie or something. We'll let you know if we find something."

Yarin didn't particularly care for the fact that Demos did not seem to be taking this seriously at all. He said nothing, but glowered as if they would be able to see it over the communications.

"Demos, this could be important," Blue said, with a bite of impatience. "There could be a Reach armada here."

"There also could be no armada," Demos said, carelessly.

Blue looked at him, "You've been hanging around GH too much, haven't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Demos said, with a bark of gregarious laughter. "But they say that music soothes the savage Beast!"

"Ugh," Blue said.

"Oh, lighten up, Blue," Demos said, a bit more seriously. "This is a wild goose chase, and you know it."

"You don't know that," Blue said.

"Oh, loosen up, Blue," Demos said. "Remember that con we pulled on those trolls years ago?"

Blue recalled . . .

***

Blue was disguised as an old sage. He was just competent at this particular ninja art of disguise at this point in time, when he was still a relatively fresh RAFian.

Demos was singing in an huckster-style of voice:

"He'll solve your problems,
Predict the future,
He'll work things out,
So that they're bound to suit ya.
He'll read your stars,
And he'll read your mind.
And he'll find a way to
Make everthing alright.
Here's the chance of a lifetime!
Now don't you say no!
An educational, informational
Magic mystery show!"

Blue sang:

"A conjuration,
A celebration!
So, let's start the party!"

Demos sang:

"Here's the chance of a lifetime!
Now don't you say no!
A revelation, a super station!
A magical mystery show!"

Blue sang:

"Lights are dim."

A voice, lurking in the shadows, quietly spoke with a small growl, "What's goin' on here? . . ."

Blue sang:

"Things are drastic.
Just see me,
And it's all fantastic!"

The voice, quietly and dryly, asked rhetorically, "Really?"

Demos sang:

"As for payment --"

The voice spoke again, still quietly, "Payment?"

Demos continued:

"-- He's elastic.
He takes cash,
Coupons, and plastic."

The trolls gathered sang with Demos:

"Now, here's the chance of a life time,
That by now you should know.
An educational, informational,
Magical mystery show."

Demos sang to Blue, in an aside:

"What could be more perfect,
For a couple of old pals?
We provide the mumbo-jumbo,
They provide the clams!"

Then he sung with crowd of trolls:

"This the chance of a lifetime,
Now don't let it go!
A recreational, controversial
Magic mystery show!"

Blue sang:

"A functionary,
Imaginary,
Apothecary . . ."

And it was then that a branch, seemingly of its own accord, came down and ruined Blue's disguise as he was walking by.

The troll crowd sang:

"The chance of a lifetime,
Find out what you should know!
A confrontational, conformational
Magic mystery show!"

Then they realized the jig was up. But trolls are amongst some of the dumber species in existence. But Blue and Demos had seen who was responsible for the farce going south. Cloak himself.

Demos said, quickly, "Blue, let's get the heck outta here!"

"Perhaps next time, you won't con the gullible!" Cloak declared.*

***

"The one that Cloak came in a put the kibosh on? Yes, Demos, I remember." Blue said, sounding rather bitter. "I still don't know how you talked me into that."

"Oh, you had fun and you know it," Demos said, dismissively.

"I regretted it ever since," Blue said.

"Fine. If you want to tell yourself that, fine" Demos said, with a shrug.

"Demos, turn to your right." Blue said, deathly serious.

"What?" Demos said, complacent. Then he became more serious as he saw. "They haven't seen us yet, have they?"

He was referring to the armada of Reach ships hiding in the darkness. One turned to face them.

"Yeah-huh," Blue said. "This is gonna hurt, isn't it?"

"Probably," Demos said.

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-cELrmsLs (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-cELrmsLs)

* Based off of this (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=471.msg305591#msg305591). Albeit more, uh, tame.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2016, 09:52:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Fallout and Battle

Silence fell.

"Blue! Demos!" Yarin demanded. "Come in."

The hush that fell amongst the other RAFians present -- Saffa, Abby, Melissa, Broken, Ash, Parker and Helen -- was absolute.

"Come in, Blue and Demos!" Yarin ordered. His voice had a tinge of desperation to it.

Silence. Not even crackly communication static.

"Are . . ." Melissa said, looking to her mentor and Sorcerer Supreme, voice unsure, "are they . . . dead?"

"Blue! Demos! Come in!!" Yarin insisted. There was an edge of panic to his voice now.

They did not answer.

As Yarin made to yell again, Parker interceded. "Yarin, that won't do any good. If they could, they would have called back. The Reach Armada must have --"

"Please don't say it," Helen said, already tearing up. "Please, Parker."

"They may have survived," Parker said, serious and sincere. "They may have survived, but are left with no way to communicate with us."

"With that armada?" Yarin said, going over the images last sent to them. "There is really no likelihood of . . ."

"You never know," Parker said. "Over a year ago, we all thought Cloak had died, when Abomination attacked here for the first time. But he came back."

"That was different," Ash said, not daring to hope.

"Was it?" Parker asked rhetorically.

***

A stream of Tyrannopede silk shot toward a distracted Cloak only to be frozen by Horse and shattered by GH's guitar in its battleaxe form. Then he charged the Nemetrix Beetle with his battleaxe guitar held aloft, only for the Nemetrix Beetle to change deftly into a Mucillator, and GH was heading for one of the gooey sacs. His momentum would allow him to stop in time.

But Cloak used his mastery over the Air element to suck GH out of that situation and cause him to land rudely and roughly on his bottom, his guitar-battleaxe clattering a few feet away, reverting to its base guitar shape. GH quickly and deftly got it back into his possession, witnessing the Nemetrix Beetle go Psycholeopterran and try to mesmerize Aquilai only to be smacked out of the air by Dino's clubbed tail. Dino roar only signified her success, and served to tell everyone where they were.

Then she went into her Terroranchula form, and tried to web Underseen, who skillfully shapeshifted into a gnat and escaped before resuming his base form. The Nemetrix Beetle was then stomped on by Dino with her massive tyrannosaur feet. The Nemetrix Beetle escaped by becoming a Psycholeopterran again and going intangible (a handy ability considering that Necrofriggins can and Psycholeopterrans prey on them).

Then she deftly becomes a Buglizard. She spread a noxious gas around herself that enabled Buglizards to dissolve Lepidopterran goo. Underseen knew this, and had apprehension about approaching the Nemetrix Beetle, considering his physiology. But this wasn't really a worry with a Master of the Air Element on your side, as Cloak easily blew away the gas and dissipated it. Then Dino came in and snatched the Buglizard into her jaws. As she was about to bite down, the Nemetrix Beetle pulled the Psycholeopterran trick again.

Only this time, she phased into the ground and emerged as a Slamworm. This was actually a very stupid move as Earth was Cloak's preferred element. Cloak slammed a fist down on the ground and the Slamworm was vomited up from the ground, resuming its Anubian Baskurr form.

Then it ran away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 27, 2016, 02:30:16 AM

Finally caught up! :D Yikes, cliffhanger.

Loved the Purple Man book - I loved the Jessica Jones Netflix series, which the Purple Man is the villain of, so I ended up reading all his lines in David Tennant's voice. :P Always knew this day would come, am I still expelled or nah? :P

I'll get the PDFs up once I'm done with class. :)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2016, 05:07:17 AM

Oh, you were re-enrolled, and the dean did everything he could to sweep it under the rug. As he found it embarrassing.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Ceremonious Interruption

"Welcome, my fellow --" a politician said in front of a podium, whose voice was drowned out by a strange roar that seemed to come out of nowhere, but nothing seemed to come of it, so she thought nothing of and plowed onward. "We are here to welcome the Reach's Ambassador to Earth."

There was a smattering of disinterested applause. Clearly, no one was really passionate about this capitulation and accepting of the Reach's proclaimed help. None of the people were really for it, but the politicians had sighted a political opportunity and they jumped at it. Politicians, especially the corrupt kind, are woefully predictable sometimes.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," the Reach Ambassador said, with an oily, gregarious charm that perceptive people would have picked up on the artificialness of. "Thank you all for such a warm welcome to your lovely planet! May this be a humble beginning to a great Reach-human peaceful, diplomatic relationship. All the better to 'Reach' for a better tomorrow! Now, we have much to discuss before the Exodia Armada gets here, my friends."

"Like your hidden armada beneath the ocean?" a skeptical and critical voice called out.

"Please, sir, save all questions for the end," the Ambassador said, recovering from the surprise that there was knowledge of the Armada with practiced ease, which was not lost on the most observant of viewers. "Let's press on, then shall we?"

Then, at the prompting of her mother, a little girl walked up to the stage, and the Ambassador walked down to her, and knelt to her eye level.

"Greetings, young one," the Ambassador said, still remarkable that people didn't notice how oily this whole thing was. "Do you have a question?"

She was hesitant, clutching her stuffed bear fretfully, "I thought the RAFians protected the Earth. Won't they stop the Exodia Army?"

The Reach Ambassador gave a sigh (which sounded like a pompous, theatrical sigh), "I know of these RAFians. But I also know they are no match for the Exodia Armada, dear young one. Even the strongest of their number would be in grave jeopardy, and they would still serve to jeopardize your entire populace."

If the girl understood any of this, she didn't show it.

"But it makes me wonder why they seem to attract so many outer space bullies to your planet," the Ambassador continued. "But the Armada is a bully too big for them to handle."

Funny. You didn't specify which armada. came a voice only the Ambassador heard. He ignored it.

"But your new friends, the Reach, are here to protect you!" he said, to mild applause and whoop here and there.

"From an imaginary threat that you just made up," came a cantankerous voice.

"Now, the thing to know about the Exodia Armada --"

But he was interrupted when an oddly-colored Anubian Baskurr came running towards him.

"Reach? The father people of one of my constituent parts." the Nemetrix Beetle said, finally growing sufficient enough to stop the computer-speak. "And intelligent. And sentient. All sentient beings must die!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on July 27, 2016, 03:06:10 PM

Tcha. So much for vigilante. Although that would actually probably make me a vigilante vigilante. :P

I just read the original Blue and Demos chat, and I've been laughing for five minutes.

Also, here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2016, 09:46:43 PM

Quote from: Saffa on July 27, 2016, 03:06:10 PM

I just read the original Blue and Demos chat, and I've been laughing for five minutes.

Ah, yes, the "Golden Age", so to speak, of RAF.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Interruption Intermission

The Nemetrix noticed the people gathered, watching this press conference ceremony, and declared, "ALL sentient lifeforms must be exterminated."

The people were looking at the Ambassador with a new, unfavorable light. Some people were just easy to sway that way, and some were a little more stubbornly mired in their preconceptions and their own personal narratives, regardless of whether they were morally right or wrong, it was their truth. Some were actually siding with the Ambassador, of course, as happens with these things.

"Th-that's not Reach technology," the Ambassador said, attempting to recover, lying fervently to keep the Reach being seen in a positive light. He was trying ever so desperately. "It's obviously Cerebrocrustacean in design and execution! They obviously wish to sabotage Reach-human relations!! This incursion is clear and undeniable proof!"

"That you're an incurable liar?" came a cool, yet contemptuous voice, as the Nemetrix Beetle took on her Tyrannopede form and clearly intended to cocoon all the populace present, including the Ambassador.

"What? Who calls me a liar?!" the Ambassador said. "Who has the audacity to impugn my autho-- er, my reputation?!"

He almost slipped up and said "authority", which might not have gone over well the human populace. The Ambassador did not know if humans were touchy about such things, which one possible reason that the Reach were so dependent on the Beetles. They weren't just their inside men, but their moles, their reconnaissance, of a planet deemed suitable for conquest.

The Nemetrix Beetle fired a rapid fire of the Tyrannopede webbing that functioned much like impact webbing. But Cloak came in, surfing on earth, creating a wall of earth, blocking the webbing from cocooning anyone. Then he hopped down from the barrier, protecting the populace, ever the finicky bunch, and executed a right hook which sent a "Guile Sonicboom" projectile of golden-scarlet energy at the Nemetrix Beetle, which disturbed its form somewhat, causing it to ripple some.

Addressing the Ambassador, as Dino was playing taxi once more to the others, Cloak said, "That would be me, Reach. I have that audacity."

"And who are you?" the Ambassador demanded. "What gives you the right to interrupt this ceremony?!"

"Ceremony?" Cloak asked, as Dino ordered everyone to get off her back. "Oh, so there was."

The Nemetrix Beetle seemed to have success in stabilizing her form, and Cloak did not know what brought on this sudden change.

"Who are you?!" the Ambassador demanded. "Why did you dare impugn my --"

"Your authority?" Cloak said, dryly and unimpressed.

"I wasn't going to say that," the Ambassador contested hotly.

"You keep tellin' yourself that," Cloak said, flippantly, eyes on the Nemetrix Beetle, as GH moved his favorite guitar pick through his fingers in a surprisingly intimidating and deceptively threatening manner. "I don't even need Earthsight to see through your oily rhetoric to witness the boldfaced lies beneath you oh-so-carefully crafted veneer of altruism and protectionism."

"You have no proof that I don't speak the proof!" the Ambassador said, before realizing he had worded that wrong. "You know what I mean! You haven't any proof of duplicity!!"

"Really? Mr. Ambassador?" came a familiar voice. "I'm inclined to disagree."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2016, 09:13:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Starlight, Star Might, First Star I See Tonight

"Who -- what the devil?!" the Ambassador demanded, as Estelore dropped each and every warship of the Reach Armada onto the ground. She had tethered and lashed them together with stellar energy tendrils. "Impossible!"

"Not really," Yarin said, stepping forward and removing his ID mask. "Since all your Armada -- yes, your Armada Reach Ambassador, don't try to deny it! - all decided to go after a mouse without considering that it just might be baiting a trap."

It was true. Yarin piloted his ship to act as bait (while also trying to look for wreckage of the submersible without diving into the water) for the Armada. And, like an interested fish, they all rose to the bait. They all rose out of the water, cloaked. Yarin kept them interested, kept them believing him to be a threat to their secrecy.

Once they were all out, Estelore took care of the rest. When she gathered them up, it naturally terrified them, even.if she maintained her human avatar throughout. And when she lashed them together ever so tightly, she cracked the hulls on each of them enough to damage the internal circuitry without snapping them in two, with an earnest-sounding "oopsie", though she was not sorry in the least bit.

Then she had come to this ceremony to dump the useless scrap on the ground. Each ship even appeared to be unmanned. At least, now in retrospect, she hoped that they were unmanned, because no Reach wormed their way from the wreckage. These ships would never fly again.

"Your subterfuge has failed, oh Mr. Ambassador," Cloak said, with a mocking tone on the last word. "You have failed."

"Yeah, what was part two of your grand design?" GH asked, sardonically. "A carbonated drink laced with mind control additives? I'm afraid that --"

"No product placement, GH," Cloak said, severely.

"Awwwww . . ." was his reply.

"So, Mr. Ambassador," Cloak said, ignoring GH's disappointment, "it's your move. What will you do now? Fight? You have no chance. Flee? You'll look like the coward that you are, but you'll live with humiliation suffered here. The choice is yours."

The Ambassador looked furious.

"You've lost here. You've lost before you could even begin. Remember that," Cloak said seriously. "Go. Do not prolong this, do not drag it out. Be pragmatic."

The Ambassador said, "Fine. This isn't over."

He boarded the ship that he arrived in, a benign-looking ship, that he had claimed had no weapons. Cloak didn't believe that for a minute.

"But it is," Cloak said. "Esty?"

"I'll make sure they're well outside the system," she said, with an acknowledging nod.

When they had left, Cloak heard a strangled, sputtering noise. He looked at the Nemetrix Beetle and said, "Oh, right. That's a thing."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2016, 03:03:51 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Corrupted Beetle

"Um, what's wrong with it?" Underseen asked. "I don't think that's normal."

The Nemetrix Beetle's form seemed to destabilize again. She seemed to desperately try to stabilize it again, but was failing. She strived to try any of the forms in her database, but not even the strongest was sufficient to stabilize her form. And she tried so ever hard.

"What's going on?" Horse asked.

Cloak didn't have an answer, as the Nemetrix seemed wracked with pain. She was trying to hard to stabilize her form. But she was failing each and every time.

"This . . ." GH said, "this is kinda horrible to watch."

Then Cloak saw it. The beetle on front was cracked, and cracked quite noticeably. And it was behaving like a corrupted Gem, a species that Cloak had only a superficial knowledge of. The corporeal construct began to shift and mutate, as it seemed to become an amalgam of the non-Terran animals in her database.

"This ain't good, is it?" Horse said.

The Nemetrix Beetle had the a thick body of a Slamworm, the sticky sacs of Mucillator, the tail and legs of a Buglizard, the head nozzle and lower legs (between the Buglizard) of Tyrannopede, the head and forelegs of a Terroranchula, the tentacles of a Vicetopus, and the beak of a Omnivoracious.

"Nope. Definitely not good," Horse said.

"Everyone," Cloak said, calling for the others' attention. Though he didn't take his eyes off The Nemetrix Beetle. "Evacuate the populace behind this earthen barrier I made. Get them to safety. I'll handle this."

"Cloak," Aquilai said, "what if it proves too much --"

Cloak quelled the question with a look. Then he locked his eyes on the Nemetrix Beetle, who seemed to lose the ability to talk. Who seemed to lose intelligence and sentience by the moment. Cloak spoke softly, in a voice that nonetheless carried, "Go to it."

And they did, leaving Cloak to stare down the corrupted mess that was the Nemetrix Beetle. The evacuation began immediately.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2016, 11:02:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Beast Abhors

"Are you sure you want this?" Cloak said, as a brave gust of wind buffeted his cloak so that it blew and billowed around him, adding much to the tense atmosphere. "If you challenge me, Reach Beetle, it will not end pretty. For you, anyway."

The Nemetrix Beetle's response was not with words, but a guttural, inhuman hiss as a green substance drooled and dripped from her dangerous Omnivoracious beak. Clearly her intelligence and sentience were deteriorating at an alarming rate. And, at this rate, there will none in a matter of minutes. But this only seemed to increase her savage demeanor and aggressive hostility exponentially.

It would not be an easy battle, as the Nemetrix Beetle was easily three, four times larger than the feline Realm Walker, but Cloak remained unafraid. In his time with RAF, he faced far more fearsome foes. Garrotik, for example.

The Nemetrix Beetle hissed another threat, and, despite what it claimed to endeavor to achieve, Cloak felt bad for her. She never asked to be born from the fusion of two dissimilar techs. Techs of an interstellar conquering species and a species with an inferiority complex to Galvans. She didn't ask to be garnered her temporary sentience and self-awareness. And now here she was, little more than a fearsome, vicious beast. No longer did she possess a mind or will of her own. She was a slave to bestial instinct.

Cloak realized soon enough that, due to this feral state, she wouldn't be reasoned with. She couldn't be reasoned with. She was too far gone.

"First Light," Cloak said, actually feeling a bit guilty about what he was going to commence doing. He believed the Gems called it "poofing", only in this case, it was going to be permanent. "First Light, may I be forgiven for what I'm about to do."

Cloak would take no pleasure in this. Who possibly could? Who, with a conscience, could enjoy the pain this creature? Enjoy snuffing out their life? Who could be that ruthless and callous? Cloak just wasn't that type of person. The Nemetrix Beetle, especially now, was not only a danger to everyone around her, but to herself as well.

Cloak would make as quick and painless as he could. He could be that merciful. It was then that the Nemetrix Beetle lunged at him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2016, 06:25:09 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Shatter Poof

The mismatched amalgam of alien parts that was the Nemetrix Beetle shambled forth into a charge that Cloak easily dodged. He dodged the several that followed. He was fighting his own reluctance. He never relished killing. Sure, he's always done things that had to be done, so maybe he was ruthless in that regard. But I didn't mean that he ever enjoyed it. The eidolon consciousness, that siren, Cataclysm . . . just but a few lives he ended. . . . There probably more at this point that he chose to not remember.

But he was procrastinating about inevitable final moment. It would do him no good if he persisted. He must nip his hesitation, his reluctance, in bud and do.what had to be done, what must be done. He must stop resorting to airbender tactics of avoid and evade. He must be proactive about this. But it was hard because he knew that he would hate himself for it later.

He kept.dodging the shambling lunges of the ramshackled creature of alien.parts before him. His last hit, before the Ambassador left, must have been what destabilized its form. It had cracked the bug charm thing at its throat, the thing that looked like a Bug Badge. Cloak knew that was a weakness, not unlike Lord Zedd's putty cannon fodder.

Better now then never, he thought as he formed energy blades on his hands his right one gold and his left one scarlet. He turned his head with disgust at himself when he remembered just how Collector died, how the-Walker-formerly-known-as-Abomination died, how Cataclysm died, how Gamesmaster died . . .

Focus, he scolded himself. This had to be done, as he heard another strangled-sounding hiss, and it had to be done to free the Nemetrix Beetle from her torture. Though her intelligence had so reduced he wasn't sure that she'd even recognize it.

It was a clean slice from both of Cloak's energy blades, which extended from his hands in a rather Wolverine-like fashion. But after he poofed the Nemetrix Beetle, they evaporated away. Cloak was no proud of this, as the beetle clattered to the earthen ground. But this wasn't over yet. It could reform as long as that was still around.

Cloak raised his hands, and two small slabs of earth followed suit. Then he clapped his hands once, and the slabs of earth shattered and crushed the beetle into bits. There was no shriek, no cry, no sound whatsoever, though it felt as if there should be.

The Nemetrix Beetle was dead. Cloak gathered the remains into a golden-scarlet energy bubble. Just in case. Then he returned to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2016, 09:02:20 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Mr. Cloaky!

When Cloak returned to RAF, GH greeted him with something that the Realm Walker thought was wholly unnecessary and inappropriate.

"Make way for Mr. Cloaky!
Say hey! It's Mr. Cloaky!
Hey! Clear the way in the old bizarre!
Hey, you!
Let us through! It's a bright RAFian star!
Oh, come! Be the first on your block to meet his eye!
Make way!
Here he comes!
Ring bells! Bang the drums!
Are you gonna love this guy!"

Cloak was really not in the mood for this.

"Mr. Cloaky!
Fabulous he!
Cloaky the undefeated!
Genuflect,
Show some respect!
Down on one knee!
Now, try your best to stay calm.
Brush up your Sunday aplomb,
Then come and meet his spectacular coterie!"

"GH . . ."

"Mr. Cloaky!
Mighty is he!
Mr. Undefeated.
Strong as ten
Regular men,
Definitely!
He faced the galloping hordes
A hundred bad guys with swords
Who sent those goons to their lords?
Why, Mr. Cloak!"

Cloak wasn't really that comfortable being the center of attention like this. He did not like being a spectacle. In this manner, anyway.

"He's got seventy-five shiny Pokemon.
Don't they look lovely?
Purple pea****s, he's got fifty-three
Fabulous. I love the feathers.
When it comes to shiny Pokemon,
Has he got a zoo?
I'm telling you,
It's a world-class menagerie!"

Cloak was starting to suspect that GH was just looking for an excuse to have a lavish song number. It would make sense, as this would be simply too much just to get his cigarettes back.

"Mr. Cloak!
Handsome is he,
Cloakh of RAF!
Adjust your veil and prepare,
To gawk and grovel and stare at Mr. Cloaky!"

Cloak glanced around to see that, really, no one was paying attention, and GH was just being his zany self. If he had an ulterior motive, Cloak couldn't surmise what it was.

"He's got seventy-five rare Pokemon shinies.
He's got the shinies!
Let's see the shinies!
And to view them he charges no fee!
He's generous, so generous!
Mr. Cloaky!"

"Are you drunk again, GH?" Cloak realized.

"Mr. Cloaky!
Abjectly he!
Unbeatable!"

Cloak thought he did detect alcohol on his friend's breath.

"With sixty Donphan,
Gogoat galore
With his Beartics and Terrakion,
A brass band and more!
With his forty fakers,
His books and bakers
His Altaria that warbles on key
Make way --
For Mr. Cloaky!!"

Yep, GH was definitely drunk again. As to why he was, Cloak couldn't begin to hazard a guess, but he slapped GH, pulling it so he wasn't using his full strength nor had his claws unsheathed. He could have done irreparable harm otherwise.

"Snap out of it, Logan!" Cloak said, quietly. "Sober up."

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aEryAoLfnAA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2016, 11:04:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
I'm Still Here

"I am a question to the world
Not an answer to be heard
Or a person that's held in your arms."

A younger Cloak was sitting at the edge of his bed, as his mother flitted about, as if he wasn't there. Probably just as well, he reminded her too much of his father anyway. The son of a woman who had two failed marriages under belt, and refused to admit that she had any fault in them failing.

"And what do you think you'd ever say --
I won't listen anyway.
You don't know me!
And I'll never be what you want me to be . . . "

Cloak still felt so much resentment at this point. His mother thought she knew everything about him, when in reality she knew very little. Dagger wasn't much better.

"And what do you think you understand?
I'm a boy -- no, I'm a man!
You can't take me and throw me away.
And how can you learn what I never shown?
Yeah, you stand here on your own.
You don't know me!
'Cause I'm not here . . . "

Images of Ursa's carless and wanton negligence of her only son. His was father wasn't completely innocent of this, either. Faith was Ursa's favorite, and Dagger was Brute's favorite. Cloak was, and was always, the odd man out . . .

"And I want a moment to be real.
Want to touch things but don't wanna feel.
Wanna hold on and feel like I belong.
And how can she want me to change?
She's the one that stays the same.
She doesn't know me,
'Cause I'm not there . . . "

It could have been worse, though, Cloak supposed. He got presents on his birthday and holidays, but those seemed just perfunctory -- societal obligations, and nothing more. There was no love given, no compassion tendered. It was empty and materialistic.

"And you can't see the things they always see . . .
All you wanted I couldn't be . . .
You don't know me,
But I'm not afraid,
And I want to tell you who I am.
You can't break me . . .
As long as I know who I am."

Cloak, the real Cloak, was crying. The effects of neglect of one's parents is often more pervasive than the common layman gives it credit for. It's is not something easily overcome. The pain can go very deep.

"And I want a moment to be real.
Numb the pain, I don't wanna feel.
Wanna hold on, and feel I belong.
And how can she want me to change
She's the one that stays the same.
She can't see me,
But I'm still here."

It was harsh feeling neglected and unloved. Especially by a more who cared more about herself than anyone else. Her feelings were only ones that mattered. Her wants were only ones that mattered. Her needs were the only ones that mattered.

Really, was it any wonder why Cloak always thought so little of his safety, of his own wants and needs? Is it really all that surprising that he wasn't happy living with his mother and her stupid conditional love?

"She can't tell me who to be,
'Cause I'm not what she sees.
Yeah, the world is still sleepin'
while I keep on dreaming for me,
And her words are just vitriol and lies . . .
That I'll never believe . . . again . . ."

Is it really all that surprising that he wasn't happy living with his mother and her stupid conditional love? He always believed that parents were supposed to love their children unconditionally -- as in, without conditions. His mother was never like that. She only saw him as a tool for interest, until he wasn't needed anymore, then she just stopped caring about him.

And it still hurt.

"And I want a moment to be real
Want to touch things I don't feel
Wanna hold on, and feel I belong
And how can you say I'll never change
They're the ones that stay the same
I'm the one now . . .
'Cause I'm still here . . .
I'm the one . . .
'Cause I'm still here . . .
I'm still here . . .
I'm still here . . .
I'm still here . . . "

It was still very, very, very painful.

"Cloak?" Aniyu spoke gently.

Cloak said nothing. He was overwhelmed with the pain of this, as tears streamed down his face. He really wasn't anything to her, to Ursa. He wasn't a person to her. And that acknowledgement was painful in its own right. . . .

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AMGXq9_IQBQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 29, 2016, 11:36:35 AM

Yeah, like I could ever play guitar drunk. Or sing coherently, for that matter. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2016, 01:27:09 PM

It's a lesser known superpower. ;) j/k

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXI:
IT'S TOUGH TO BE A MOD
CHAPTER ONE:
Through Unclouded Eyes

"This was a mistake," Cloak said, at last. "I should have never tried this."

"No, Cloak!" Aniyu said, in a surprisingly motherly way. "Don't given to despair."

"I wasn't worth the time and effort you put into this. I'm sorry," Cloak said, sounding morose. "I'm not worth anything."

"No, Cloak," Aniyu said, then she sang:

"A single thread in a tapestry,
Through its color brightly shine,
Can never see its purpose
In the pattern of the grand design.
And the stone that sits on the very top
Of the mountain's mighty face --
Does it think it's more important
Than the stones that form the base?
So how can you see what your life is worth
Or where your value lies?
You can never see through deceiving eyes.
You must look at your life --
Look at your life with unclouded eyes!
Lai-la-lai . . .
A lake of gold in the desert sand
Is less than a cool fresh spring.
And to one lost sheep, a shepherd boy
Is greater than the richest king."

A scene appeared showing Ursa kicking Cloak out of the house, because she could not handle him actually standing up for himself instead of resuming his meek stance. He never returned, nor has ever sought to return. This happened as Aniyu sang:

"If a man lose everything he owns,
Has he truly lost his worth?"

Then the scene shifted to Cloak sitting next to GH and Saffa, shooting the breeze with Gaz, Phoenix, YeerkSalad, Dylan and Quaf. It was a particularly lovely day out that day. They hadn't any missions on that day, it was just a lazy Sunday.

Aniyu smiled as she sang:

"Or is it the beginning
Of a new and brighter birth?"

Cloak turned to look at his paternal ancestor.

"So how do you measure the worth of a man
In wealth or strength or size?
In how much he gained or how much he gave?
The answer will come, Cloak,
The answer will come to him who tries
To look at his life with unclouded eyes.
No life can escape being blown about
By the winds of change and chance,
And though you never know all the steps,
You must learn to join the dance!
You must learn to join the dance!
Lai-la-lai . . .
So how do you judge what a man is worth
By what he builds or buys?
You can never see with your fettered eyes
Look with unclouded eyes!
Look at your life,
Look at your life,
Look at your life with unclouded eyes."

Then the indigo vines withered and fell away, as Cloak felt reassured of his.worth and his place. But then his dream, vision thingy changed and he saw two lone figures struggling their way from the sea. One was visibly red and the other wore obvious blue garb.

Cloak's eyes snapped open.

"They're alive."

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G8p5n2vtz7Q

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2016, 07:48:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Searching . . . Searching . . .

"Yarin --"

"We're close, Goom!" the Nyac said, almost fanatical with zeal. "Any moment now we'll find them."

"Be pragmatic here, Yarin," Aquilai said, gently.

"Any minute now, guys!" Yarin said, almost desperately.

This was no facade, either. Yarin felt a desperate deep desire to find Blue and Demos. Despite his track record, he wasn't trying to recover his submersible prototype. He had the schematics for that, and it could always be rebuilt and even improved upon. Blue and Demos had no such luxury.

The Nyac also felt extremely guilty and responsible for what happened. But he had no idea that there was an actual armada. He had built the submersible so that it resembled an Earth fish, and assumed that the Reach would just assume that it was one. It was a mistake to make the "eyes" windows though, he didn't think about that liability.

But if Blue and Demos were, in fact dead . . . if they were . . . it would be his fault. Entirely his fault, the Nyac felt. But he refused to believe that they could not somehow have survived. They had to . . . they just had to . . . they didn't die ignominious deaths. They were alive they had to be.

"Yarin, you have to accept the fact that --" Goom began.

"They can't be dead, Goom." Yarin said, piloting his ship rather dangerously, without submerging it into the water. His voice betrayed his exhaustion and anxiety. "They can't be gone."

"Time to face facts, I'm afraid, Yarin," Aquilai said, softly. "They're not here. And they're not here because --"

"Continental drift!" Yarin said, with the air of a man grasping at straws. "I forgot to take into account continental drift!"

"He's sure stubborn when he wants to be," Goom sighed.

Aquilai took firm hold of Yarin's upper shoulders, and was to the point of shaking him. "You need to SNAP OUT OF THIS, Yarin."

"I just need to vector in some new coordinates and --"

This time, Aquilai did shake him.

"Yarin!! COME TO YOUR SENSES!!" Aquilai said. "It's been a week now. If they were still amongst the living, we would have located them by now, for certain!"

Yarin made to argue, and Aquilai nearly slapped him.

"No! No, Yarin." he said, incensed. "You are becoming obsessed. If Blue and Demos survived the blast from the Reach warship, and that's a big if, then they'll find some way to contact us. But we can't spend anymore time out here looking for a white whale that may never show up again."

It was cold. It was ruthless.

It was necessary.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2016, 06:03:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Spoutin' Off

"Don't compare me to Ahab, Time Lord," Yarin said, irritated at the comparison. "I know what I'm doing. We're close to find them!"

"You said that every hour of every day for past week," Goom said. He was exaggerating, of course. Yarin didn't say anything the hours when he slept. "And we still have yet to locate them."

"We're close," Yarin said, stubbornly.

"No, Yarin," Aquilai disagreed, releasing the Nyac. "No, we're not."

"Any moment now, we'll --"

"Yarin, give it up." Goom said, pragmatically. "I want to believe that they're alive as much as you do, but it's time to face facts. They're more likely dead than alive. In either case, we cannot find them. We do not have the time or manpower to search every square inch of the ocean."

"Not to mention that you've barely slept or eaten anything, Yarin," Aquilai said. "You're even looking a bit emaciated. Yarin, you need to end your obsession with this."

"It's my fault . . ." Yarin said, quietly to himself. "I have to find them. . . . My fault . . ."

"You feel guilty. Fine. But there is nothing to be gained by this. There is nothing to be gained by driving yourself into the dirt like this." Aquilai said. "There are other ways of dealing with your guilt than this, Yarin."

"Um, guys?" Goom said, looking out of the ****pit.

"But . . . I have to find them. I . . . I have to . . ." Yarin said, wearing his guilt out on his sleeve.

"I hate to be so blunt about this, Yarin, but -- you can't. You tried and failed." Aquilai said, quite seriously. "It is madness to continue something that is this futile."

"Guys?" Goom prompted again.

"I . . . I c-can't. I have to find them. M-my f-fault. It's my f-fault," Yarin said, sounding rather damaged psychologically, overburdened with guilt.

"Yarin, pull it together," Aquilai said, bracingly, "stop blaming yourself. That's hardly healthy."

Guys!!" Goom shouted.

"What?" both asked.

"Water spout, dead ahead!!" the Goomba shouted.

"Oh, wonderful," Yarin said, snapping out his reverie.

"Get us out of here, Yarin!" Aquilai demanded.

This time Yarin listened, and piloted his ship well outside the water spout's range and back to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2016, 06:16:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Stranded

A week ago, Blue and Demos were clutching bits of the shattered submersible's hull for dear life as the ocean rocked, rolled, and roiled around them. Their energy, their strength was being steadily sapped away. Neither could really afford a fully-conked-out sleep, but they managed momentary periods of rest every twenty minutes or so.

Both desperately pined for land. They didn't have the strength to clutch onto life any longer, not waterlogged in this wet hellhole. They clung to the submersible debris without either uttering so much as a syllable of a word. They hadn't the energy to waste for it. Not to mention that they, themselves, were wasting away. They were out here for god knows how long without a scrap of food or a drop of drinkable water. They would be emaciated and dehydrated before long if they did not find land soon.

But, fortunately, they did not stay in the drink too long. They soon washed up on a sandy beach. And there they lay for a good long while, while the sun dried off their sopping clothes.

"Another silk suit," Demos complained hoarsely and dramatically, "destroyed beyond repair."

"Oh, shut up, Demos," Blue said, grumpily.

After that, they just lay there in silence, dozing off and on for next few moments. Eventually, they got up when hunger and thirst began to basically throttle them, so they headed into the forest that begun where the beach ended.

There they found a bevy of succulent fruit that appeased both their hunger and thirst. They quickly ate several, discarding the cores (and help spreading the plant's seeds in the process). This could have been a stupid idea, because, for all they knew, the fruit could have been poisonous. It wasn't, but it was a possibility.

With their hunger satiated and their thirst slaked, they sat back down on the warm sand to allow their still-damp clothes and bodies to dry. Whilst doing this, they mulled over their options. They had no communications -- that was lost with the submersible. They had no way to contact the form, nor did they have any way to contact them. They were undeniably stranded.

But they had plenty of that fruit to survive on, at least for a while. And now, they would wait. Wait for rescue. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 01, 2016, 01:06:31 PM

Robinson Bluesoe!

And PDF:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2016, 03:49:07 AM

Something like that, I suppose.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Impromptu Exploration

"Well," Demos said, after a while, "I'm going to explore the island."

"Demos, it's far more prudent for us to stay in one spot," Blue said, pragmatically.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Demos said, unconcernedly.

"Demos!" Blue said.

"Don't henpeck me, Blue," Demos said, already drawing a considerable distance from the ninja.

Blue felt slightly offended at the implication of him being an overbearing or nagging personality. But he was a prudent person, and what Demos was doing was just being reckless and careless.

"I'm not henpecking you," Blue said, with considerable and admirable dignity. "I'm just warning you against being so reckless, Demos! You're acting without thinking. Again."

"What's that? What did you say, Blue?" Demos said, indifferently, feigning deafness. "I'm afraid I can't hear ya."

Blue was irritated, but proceeded to chase after Demos, though part of Blue wondered why the hell he should bother. Let Demos fall to his own carelessness and recklessness. Maybe he'd learn some humility.

. . . A humble demon. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be the day.

"Demos!" Blue said, continually getting slapped in the face by the lush vegetation. They were clearly somewhere close to the equator, given how warm and muggy it was at this particular time of year. "Demos, do use your common sense!!"

Demos did not deign to answer, still feigning deafness.

"Ugh," Blue grumbled. "I swear that I'm gonna throttle him."

Blue continued his pursuit of the flighty demon, cursing the fact that he probably should abandon him to his own impetuousness. But Blue's isn't the kind of person who likes leaving a friend for dead. Which was ironic for someone trained by the League of Assassins.

"Demos!" Blue called out again, ignoring the chittering and chattering birds would seemed to want to give their imput on the situation. "Demos! This isn't a game!!"

Blue was really getting fed up with this feigned deafness nonsense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2016, 07:15:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Monolith

"Demos, I swear to god, if you don't stop acting like you can't hear me, so help me --" Blue said, pushing his way through the underbrush. He hadn't taken his usual weapons and bags of ninja tricks with him in the submersible, so he was pretty much unarmed, aside from his ninjitsu. Blue allowed himself a growl of frustration when he saw that Demos had -- somehow -- put some considerable distance away from each other. Yeah, that most certainly fell under the bracket of irritating.

Following him was not any fun. Blue found himself insisting on taking his ninjabo with him. Or at least even a measly shurriken. But no. He had to leave them all in his thread. And, of course, he needed them. Why does that always seem to happen? When you don't need something, you always seem to have it, but when you need it, it's nowhere to be found!

Blue had to continue to push through the vegetation, which seemed to grow thicker and thicker the further he pushed on, the further inland he went. How Demos was able to do this without being as hassled with this as he was . . . then again, Demos was a demon. He was probably using some demon power.

Eventually, he caught up with Demos, who was peering intently over something. Demos noticed Blue's presence without so much as an acknowledging glance.

"Blue, c'mere." Demos said, all levity left him. "Take a look at this."

Blue did and his reaction was lethally laced with sarcasm, "Oh my god! A giant rock! (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3QMfCE_1R9U)"

"Look on the rock," Demos said, not caring for the acidic sarcasm.

Upon the stone was something that looked rough-hewn at first, but giving it more than just a cursory look. The markings were indelible and expertly hewn, though there were missing bits and pieces betraying the age of the monolith. It showed two benevolent figures, one with devil horns, walking into a village. The missing bits and pieces made it difficult to decipher the rest.

"It foretells the Dairy Queen incident," Demos said.

"It most certainly does not," Blue said at once. "And we said that we would never speak of it again. It didn't work wonders for our public relations."

"We were off-duty," Demos said, with an indifferent shrug. Disregard for such potential death and loss was a demonic impulse that Demos was working to curb. He didn't catch this particular sentiment as immoral, though. "And no one was hurt."

"Just be glad that the likes of Bern Bridges haven't gotten their grubby mitts on evidence of it," Blue said. He wasn't all that particularly proud of his actions. They had done the Dairy Queen incident on impulse, and impulse alone. He had allowed himself to be talked into it by Demos, and has come to regret it ever since.

"We weren't doing anything wrong," Demos said, airily.

"We ro-- you know, never mind. We need to go back to the beach and wait for the others to find us." Blue said.

"No," Demos said. "This monolith tells of a story that I want to check out the veracity of."

"That's reckless." Blue.said.

"The good kind, then."Demo and said

Blue glowered at Demos.

"There's a map on it," Demos said. He had investigated a small alcove and discovered a small scroll of remarkably preserved paper. It was, indeed, a map. But to where? That was unknown.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2016, 07:14:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Chasing a Waterfall

"There!" Blue said, his irritation building a head of steam for the past few hours that they followed the map. Blue was sure they were following the damn thing for at least a week. "There! You see?! We spent days -- DAYS -- following that stupid of yours! Pushing through all this thick vegetation just to find a cave with a bird-shaped hole."

Demos seemed to pay this outburst no mind, and kept looking back at the map, as if he was afraid of missing something.

"But is that it? Oh-ho-ho-ho no. Then we ford a friggin' leech-infested river." Blue went on, unable to keep his cool any longer. It's really admirable that he managed this long. "Then the next one with carnivorous piranhas! Piranhas! I nearly had my keister bitten!"

Demos seemed not to be paying Blue the least bit of attention.

"Then the hot spring with the homicidal monkeys!" Blue raged. "Fortunately, I talked you out of from bathing in it, because they'd probably steal our clothes and murder us if we tried to get them back!"

Demos seemed to continue to ignore his complaints.

"Nor the fact that we were lost for a day and a half!!" Blue snarled, continuing his tirade. "Then that cliff with the pillars? Completely impossible to exist naturally, but unnecessarily dangerous as well!"

Demos wasn't paying attention.

"The crying statue head in the mountain was there, I'd admit. So was the bat-belching cave like an alligators mouth, but this?" Blue said, gesturing to the waterfall directly before them with a rather bullet-shaped slab of stone in front of them, that Demos was consulting every so often. "This should prove that it's a friggin wild goose chase!!"

"There could be a path behind the waterfall," Demos said, pragmatically.

"How'd I let myself get suckered into this?" Blue asked rhetorically. His irritation was starting to transmogrify into resigned acceptance. "Chasing waterfalls?"

Of course, this is when a small, lithe female troll with icy blue skin and snow white hair burst from the waterfall running full tilt. It was almost as if she was trying to avoid something.

"Well, didn't expect that." Demos said, calmly.

Then two hulking mountains of men -- well, male trolls -- with beat red skin and long ebony hair stalked angrily and hostilely from the waterfall, giving chase to the troll woman.

"Well, you don't see that every day," Blue commented warily.

The two bulky brutes managed to each seize an arm of the female, not even noticing the two RAFians, and the female -- due to feeling hostility and aggression, apparently -- had her blue skin burn into beat red skin and her hair colored the deepest of ebony. Neither of the RAFians said anything as the two male trolls dragged the female, who clearly wanted to escape from wherever they were going back to now.

"Told you you that there may have been a path behind the waterfall."

"Shut up, Demos."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2016, 12:10:45 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Demos, Get Back Here!

"Wait! Demos! Where do think you're going?!" Blue demanded at once, unintentionally sounding rather like a parent, as Demos charged through the waterfall. Demos ignored the logical demands from the grounded ninja, as he ran full tilt down the path behind and came to immense troll metropolis, more comfortable to live in than the trolls in the Bannedlands, which is why being sent there to live is considered such a punitive thing.

Demos, in his glee and excitement, as he ran down to the metropolis, sang as he tried to absorb everything.

"What's this? What's this?
There's reds and blues everywhere!
What's this?
There's gold things in the air!
What's this?
I can't believe my eyes!
I must be dreaming!
Wake up, Demos, this isn't fair!
What's this?"

"Demos!" Blue shouted, reluctantly following Demos. He felt so exposed. He rather have stuck to the shadows, rather than be in the metaphorical spotlight right now. But Demos.seemed blissfully unaware of this. Or the attention that he was garnering.

"What's this? What's this?
There's something very wrong!
What's this?
There's trolls singing songs!"

"Demos! Will you kindly knock it off?!" Blue said through gritted teeth, but Demos continued with his song.

"What's this?
The streets are lined with
Red and blue trolls laughing.
Everybody seems so happy!
Have I possibly gone daffy?
What is this?
What's this?"

"'Daffy' is certainly one word for it," Blue said, still feeling very uncomfortable.

"There's children throwing mudballs
Instead of throwing heads!
They're busy building buildings,
And absolutely no one's dead!

"Just wait until I get my hands on you, Demos, then," Blue growled, not understanding why he can't catch up to Demos.

"Oh, look.
What's this?
They're hanging gold, they kiss.
Why that looks so unique. Inspired!
They're gathering around to hear a story
Roasting their nuts on a fire!
What's this?
They're covering the houses with tiny little things
They've got golden beads on strings
And there's a smile on everyone,
So, now, correct me if I'm wrong --
This looks like fun!
This looks like fun
Oh, is this the truest of truth dish?
What's this?"

"Will you bloody well come here?!" Blue snarled. Demos did not comply.

"The Banned are all missing,
And the Super Trolls can't be found!
And in their place there seems to be,
Good feeling all around!
Instead of screams, I swear,
I can hear music in the air
The smell of cakes and pies
Are absolutely everywhere!
The sights, the sounds!
They're everywhere and all around!
I've never felt so good before!
This empty place inside of me is filling up!
I simply cannot get enough!
I want it, oh, I want it!
Oh, I want it for my own!
I've got to know!
I've got to know!
What is this place that I have found?
What is this?"

Demos looked up at a sign, and seemingly was able to read it, as he said, "Neo Ogygia? Hmmm. . . ."

"You demonic dope!" Blue said, frustration mangling his words. "You see the unnecessary attention you drew?!"

"It was just a song," Demos said, noncommittally, with a shrug of his shoulders. Besides, look.

"They're . . . worshiping us?" Blue said, as a majority of them bent over in reverence.

"We're mods to them," Demos said, with a smile. Blue never liked it when he smiled like that.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPblZa10_Pk

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 04, 2016, 05:12:58 AM

Is this gonna be used to deter people from applying for staff? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2016, 05:29:05 AM

Nah. It just based around the movie, "Road to El Dorado". And the song "It's Tough to Be a God".

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Professional RAFian

"Mods?" Blue said with a derisive snort. "We're not mods."

"Maybe not in RAF, but here?" Demos said, soaking in the worshipping trolls. "They think we're gods -- er, mods!"

"This somehow feels sacrilegious or blasphemous or something like that," Blue said. "We're not -- if Richard and the real mods here about this, it could have serious . . ."

"Go with it, Blue!" Demos said, enthusiastically, quieting Blue's qualms momentarily as he sung to these trolls:

"When I was just a lad looking for my true vocation
My mother said, 'Now, son, this choice deserves deliberation.
Though you could be a doctor or perhaps a financier,
My boy, why not consider a more challenging career?'
Hey, ho, ho!
You'll cruise to foreign shores,
And you'll keep your mind and body sound
By working out of doors!
True friendship and adventure are what we can't live without!
And when you're a professional RAFian . . .
That's what the job's about.
Now, take our CloakedFigure; the Walkers all despise him,
But to the RAFians he's a hero and they idolize him!
It's how you look at RAFians that makes them bad or good
And I see us as members of a noble brotherhood!
Hey, ho, ho!
We're honorable men and women.
And before we lose our tempers we will always count to ten!
On occasion, there may be monsters you have to execute,
But when you're a professional RAFian,
You don't have to wear a suit!"

"What?" Blue asked, thoroughly nonplussed.

"Just go with it," Demos said, before continuing his song.

"I could have been a surgeon.
I like taking things apart!
I could have been a lawyer,
But I just had too much heart.
Some say that RAFians kill and should be feared and hated,
But I say we're victims of bad press; it's all exaggerated!
We'd never stab you in the back, we'd never lie or cheat!
We're just about the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet!
Hey, ho, ho!
It's one for all for one!
And we'll share-and-share-alike with you and love you like a son!
We're gentlemen of fortune and that's what we're proud to be,
And when you're a professional RAFian . . .
You'll be honest, brave, and free!
The soul of decency!
You'll be loyal and fair and on the square
And most importantly —
When you're a professional RAFian . . .
You're always in the best of company!"

"Seriously, Demos?" Blue said.

"C'mon, Blue. Have a little fun!"

"Do you know the amount of trouble we could into?" Blue said. "I still remember the con on the Bannedlands. I still remember the Dairy Queen Incident."

"Relax, Blue, old boy!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrj8EZm9ca8

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2016, 10:08:11 AM

Third new chapter of the day. I promise the next chapters will lay off the song adaptations.

CHAPTER TEN:
Title Drop

That night, the surprisingly amicable troll chief, Chief H'ryv D'tn, decided to throw a large, elaborate feast in the RAFians honor, dubbing them officially as mods. The whole festivities were led by Priestess Br'ttyn H'll'yr.

Blue and Demos were given chance to bathe and change into clean attire, though Neo Ogygian clothing was provided, not their preferred outfits, as the Neo Ogygians had no way to replicate them.

When the two RAFians emerged from their rather extravagant lodgings, Blue sang:

"I hardly think I'm qualified
To come across all sanctified.
I just don't cut it with the cherubim."

"Blue, what are you talking about?!" Demos interjected, then sang:

"There, again, they're on their knees.
Being worshipped is a breeze!
Which rather suits us in the interim."

Blue perked up a bit, singing:

"Interim, interim,
It's me and him!"

The both sang, as the approached the esplanade, gently cutting through a forming crowd:

"It's tough to be a mod.
Tread where trolls haven't trod."

Demos distracted the crowds with feats of pyrokinetic skill and mastery, as Blue sang:

"Be deified when, really, you're a sham!"

Then both sang:

"Be an object of devotion.
Be the subject of psalms."

Demos sang as he and Blue sat upon a gold statuary of their heads. These trolls were quick in construction.

"It's a rather touching notion.
All those prayers and those salaams."

Blue sang:

"And who am I to bridle
If I'm forced to be an idol?
If they say that I'm a mod
Then that's what I am!"

Then he sang in an aside to Demos as they watched three hulking troll males slice into watermelons, preparing them to serve:

"What's more, if we don't comply
With the locals' wishes,
I can see us being sacrificed,
Or stuffed."

"You have a point there. Very good thinking." Demos said. "So, let's be mods!"

Then he sang:

"The perks are great!
This place is on our plates.
Local feelings should not be rebuffed!"

Demos sang:

"Never rebuffed.
I never rebuffed a local feeling,
No, my friend!"

Then both sang:

"It's tough to be a mod.
But if you get the people's nod,
Count your blessings --
Yeah, keep 'em sweet --
That's our great advice!
Be a symbol of perfection!
Be a legend!
Be a cult!
Take their praise.
Take a collection
As the multitudes exalt."

Demos:

"Don a supernatural habit."

Blue:

"We'd be crazy not to grab it!"

Demos said, "You got it!"

Then both sang the final verse:

"So, sign on two new mods
For paradise!
Par-a-dise!"

A brief silence follows, before Blue asked, "What if Cloak finds out? He found out about both the con job and the Dairy Queen Incident."

"Oh, how is he supposed to find us here? On this remote island?" Demos asked.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dotsOGOLOHY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2016, 05:25:50 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Interrogation

"I'm not here to play games, Calypso," Cloak said, seriously.

"Why do want to know where Ogygia is?" she asked him. She had been imprisoned on the island for so long, she just wanted to forget about it. She was free now. Finally free. And she just wanted to live like a mortal, a hard-working mortal. "It's not even there anymore. It's existence was reliant on my presence there, dwelling there."

"There's something more," Cloak said. He didn't know why he felt so certain. He just had a gut feeling, after he heard from Yarin where the submersible was located with the Reach Armada. He knew it was near Ogygia, from the coordinates, his grandfather having visited there for an hour or two once roughly sixty Nexus years ago. And his grandfather never Walked often. Not nearly as much as his grandson and inheritor of his elemental abilities. "Something you're hiding from me."

"Why would I ever do --"

"Spit it out," Cloak growled. He was getting testy.

"Walker, I don't know what --"

"There's another island, isn't there?" Cloak said, almost as if he could use Legimency.

"I never said that there was --"

"Where is it?" Cloak said, using his Earthsight as an impromptu polygraph. "Near Avalon?"

"Why are you --" Calypso said, unaware of her body betraying her in this manner.

"No? Was it near Ogygia?" Cloak asked, not.questioning how she knew this.

"I don't know," Calypso said, with irritation.

"Hmmmm, so it is," Cloak said, divining the truth. "Thank you for your help, Calypso. Maybe next time you can work on being a better liar."

With that Cloak swept from the room, as Calypso made a quiet huffing noise at the insult, and made a beeline for where old Ogygia was, which was where the Neo Ogygia island was now. He was absolutely certain and confident that's where Blue and Demos were.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 06, 2016, 11:39:13 AM

I think you posted the same chapter twice? O.o

Also, have we met Calypso in Memoirs continuity before? I don't remember T_T

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2016, 05:41:33 PM

Quote from: Saffa on August 06, 2016, 11:39:13 AM

I think you posted the same chapter twice? O.o

Fixed. I don't know why I did that.

Quote from: Saffa on August 06, 2016, 11:39:13 AM

Also, have we met Calypso in Memoirs continuity before? I don't remember T_T

No. You're probably thinking of the one in the Percy Jackson series.

Cloak was aware of her existence, though.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Demo's Good Advice

"I know a man named Otis
Who built a room, and his heart was filled with pride.
I said to Mr. Otis, 'What does your room do?'
He said, 'It goes from side-to-side.'
So I said, 'Mr. Otis, if you take my advice,
'You’ll be the richest man in town.
'You’ve gotta take that room that moves side-to-side,
'And make it go up-and-down!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
I sincerely doubt that
The world could do without
My good advice.
A man named Mr. Waterman invented a tube.
He was sad, because it sprung a little leak.
He said, 'Darn it.  When I hold my tube up to a piece of paper,
'The ink leaks out and makes a little streak.'
He said, 'I’ve got to find a way to stop that leak.
'I start working on my leak-proof tube again.'
I said, 'Waterman, you idiot! Don’t stop that leak,
'You just invented the fountain pen!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
I’m so worldly wise,
I should get the Nobel Prize for
Good advice.
Good old Henry Ford was a hardworking man.
He worked all night and all day.
I said, 'Henry, whatcha doing?'
And Henry, he said, 'I’m inventing the Chevrolet.'
He said, 'I’ve already built twenty-five models.
One for each letter, from "A" to "Z".'
I said, 'Henry, you fool!
'There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet!'
He said, 'Good heavens, I forgot the Model "T"!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
It’s helpful as can be,
And it’s absolutely free!
My good advice.
Oohka Magook was a Neanderthal man.
A very poorly educated soul.
He had a great big thing made of solid stone
And in the middle of it was a hole.
One day, he had to go from his cave in Natches
To his uncle’s cave in Mobile.
I said, 'Round off those corners and buy yourself a pair of tires
And Ooky, baby, that’s a wheel!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
Harvard offered me a Phi Beta key,
For good advice.
Alexander Graham Bell was building a fence
With some wood and a long piece of wire.
He said, “There’s something strange goin’ on around here!
I keep hearing the voice of Uncle Mire!
I said, 'Mr. Graham,'
'With that wire, you’ve got the world in your power!
'Just get a mouthpiece, and an earpiece, and a part in between
'And you’ll sponsor the telephone hour!'
And that was good advice.
Good advice.
Good advice costs nothing
And it’s worth the price.
Every word you hear
Is the message of the year.
It’s good advice.
Christopher Columbus was a seaman, second-class
When I told him that the Indies could be found
By sailing to the west, instead of sailing to the east.
I advised him that I thought the world was round.
I really thought so.
Then I sat him down to as dear Queen Isabelle
To pawn her jewels for all they’re worth.
Next day, he set sail, and as everyone knows,
He fell off the edge of the Earth.
Now, that was bad advice.
Bad advice.
Bad advice is just as the same as
Good advice.
Everyone makes occasional mistakes,
And that was –
Bad . . . advice!"

"Demos," Blue said, somewhat pedantic, "these peopls have no idea who those people are."

"So what? It makes for a good story," Demos said. Then added, "And song."

"The mods should play ball!" Priestess Br'ttyn H'll'yr announced suddenly, taking the two by surprise and introducing them to a grand pitch with two stone walls and a stone circular hoop high, high up on one side. It was very Mesoamerican, very pok-a-tok.

Then she snapped her fingers and fifteen monstrous mountains of troll males came galloping to the area. Blue and Demos, despite not really showing it, felt somewhat intimidated. They weren't villains like the Gossamer Shaw or anything but they were intimidating in their own right.

Priestess Br'ttyn H'll'yr spoke, "My mods, these men are the finest ball players in the city. Fifteen of them . . . against the two of you."

Demos looked at him as if he couldn't be serious. Blue just facepalmed.

"I do realize that it's a bit uneven," she said, "but I do hope that they'll challenge you enough to make the game . . . interesting. PLAY BALL!!"

Then she addressed the two, "CRUSH them into dust. Heh heh. Enjoy!"

---

Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dzp4gnxgWxc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2016, 06:21:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Cloak Comes Closer

Cloak felt the loose grains of sand beneath his feet. He looked around the remote isolated environment. This was the island of New Ogygia. He was sure of it.

What he wasn't sure of was whether Blue and Demos had made it here. There was no evidence . . . the he spied the shrapnel of the submersible that the two clearly had clung to for all they were worth. . . . But it still didn't validate that they were even here. His Earthsight on the sand was an irritating series of blurs, due to the sands accursed shifty nature.

If the two RAFians were here, it must have been a while ago. Any scents he caught that were remotely like theirs were old and stale. It seemed like an insurmountable task to track them down, but he felt that he was more than capable for it, despite the overwhelming futility it seemed to possess. He came from stubborn stock, something his mother's side of the family was known for, he felt.

He quickly left the sandy beach, and immediately his Earthsight bloomed into clarity. All things have weaknesses and strengths, and Cloak's Earthsight was no different. But, unlike Toph Beifong, he could also see in the usually manner. And far better than a human, especially at night and in darkness.

He saw through his Earthsight the monolith where Demos got his map, and easily made his way there, unlike the other two RAFians some time before. It was most due to his feline nature and this was a habitat that was prime real estate for such an animal, though he didn't much care for the mugginess and heat.

One quick, cursory look at the monolith, at the picture inscribed upon it, was enough for Cloak to conclude that they must be here. He also saw unmistakable markings of their presence and the trail they took. And, though it may have just been wishful thinking, he thought he could catch faint traces of their scents.

In the trail that took Blue and Demos hours upon days to travel through, Cloak transversed it in a thrice, utilizing his feline physiology to its fullest, as well as some elements manipulation.

In practically no time at all, Cloak was standing in front of the waterfall that guarded the city of New Ogygia. Only Cloak knew, from Earthsight, at the start that there was a tunnel behind it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2016, 10:22:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
And . . . There Goes the Ballgame . . .

After the awkwardness in the beginning of the game, Blue and Demos discovered the trick to playing the game. Simply by using their skills honed in the Danger Room of the RAFian training facility, it made the ball game surprisingly simple.

And, when the novelty wore off, a lot less fun. It wasn't a real challenge, especially with Demos's pyrokinesis. There was no drama, no nail-biting close race to the most points or whatever. There was no enthralling challenge to it, no competitive excitement to it, no thrilling verve to it. In short, it was woefully boring.

To the fifteen trolls, the two RAFians, and the crowd amassed to watch alike, it was much like a soda that lost its carbonation, a pan of bacon without sizzle, a world with out color or sound. It was becoming the height of tedium.

Blue and Demos were considering, in tandem, using their nonexistent "mod powers" to call an end to the game, when the priestess decided that a split second before they decided to say something.

"The mods -- unsurprisingly -- won!!" she declared, sounding as pompous and oily as ever. Then she turned to address the two RAFians, "My mods, congratulations on your victory."

The fifteen mountains of trolls knelt, arms forward, heads down. As if waiting for something, as if counting seconds passing by.

"Now, you will, of course," she said, sounding rather sycophantic, "have the losing team -- sacrificed?"

Demos blinked in surprise, as Blue snorted, "What? Have them what?"

"Sacrificed, my mod, sacrificed!" she said, inappropriately excited. "To -- to your glory."

"Too bad, Priestess," Blue said, as Demos had to squelch a demon impulse to tell him to shut up. "Forget the sacrifices. We don't want any -- any -- sacrifices!"

"But the sacred writings -- all of the sacred writings say that you will devour the wicked!" she said, sounding rather like pedantic, religious, fundamentalist zealot. "And the unrighteous!"

"Well, I don't see anyone here who fits that description," Blue said. Demos writhed. Blue whispered, "Oh, stop it now, you don't count."

This seemed to take this quite poorly. "W-well, as Speaker of the Mods, it would be my privilege to . . . point . . . them . . . out."

"We can speak for ourselves quite fine without you, thank you very much," Demos sniffed. "Suffice it to say, I don't think New Ogygia or her.people has any requirement or need really, from you."

"There shall be no sacrifices," Blue cried out in ringing tones. "Not now, not ever."

"You've been given a pink slip," Demos said.

The Priestess stormed away in frustration and humiliation.

"You do realize that's probably gonna come back and bite us in the backside, right?" Blue said.

"Oh, indubitably," Demos said, unconcernedly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2016, 04:27:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Of Truth and of Trust

With that taken care of, the two retired to their accommodations for the evening. They were well aware of just how this could come back and bite their collective backsides, but that was a worry for another day. They would deal with it then.

They had just shut the door, and breathed a sigh of relief, when it happened.

"A stirring display of nobility," came a familiar voice from the dark shadows, untouched by the light. The two leaped out of their skins, jangling the jewelry that they were expected to wear. With that, Cloak stepped into the light, but his black cloak still blended him into the shadows. "But do you think that you can honestly lead them on like this for long?"

"Cloak! H-how'd you get here?" Demos said.

Cloak didn't reply. Silence stretched uncomfortably, though Cloak showed no sign of it. His face remained as inscrutable as ever. No one broke the tension until Cloak spoke again.

"That," he said, "is immaterial. The question is how long before this blows up in your face."

The two RAFians, despite knowing the validity of this point, didn't really care fore how Cloak framed it.

"How d'you know that it even will?" Blue said obstinately.

"Yeah, they love us," Demos added.

"But do they trust you?" Cloak said. "They think you gods --"

"They think us mods," Blue corrected.

"It is clear that, to this society, that one is identical to the other," Cloak replied easily, well aware of this argument. "The truth always comes out, whether you want to or not. True, it may take days. Months. Years. Decades. Or even millenia. But it always comes out. It never stays buried forever."

"Who says that we cannot be mods?" Demos said, in a rather gutsy, challenging way.

"In this society, that would be claiming that you are gods." Cloak said, cool and almost emotionless. "You both know that's patently not true. You are no more gods than I am."

"We could be," Demos said, stubbornly.

"You're allowing the adulation and adoration to warp your sense of reality," the Realm Walker said. His cool tone of realism was grating on the two. "If you continue to not only lie to them, but yourselves, it will only end in tears and -- if you're truly unfortunate -- bloodshed."

"It won't come to that," Blue argued.

"Really, Blue?" Cloak said, with a snap of impatience. "Just precisely how much longer do you think that you'll be able to keep up this farce? Just how much longer do you think you can keep pretending to be something you're not? Soon, everything will feel artificial and hollow. Everything that you enjoy now will lose its luster of novelty, everything will seem less fulfilling and empty."

Silence met his words.

"You don't want to believe me?" Cloak said, correctly interpreting their silence, "Fine. So be it. Let the others believe that you two are dead. Yarin is beside himself with grief, because he feels responsible for your supposed deaths. The others are similarly and summarily mourning you, and you two are here, alive. More concerned with luxury and materialistic pursuits than them."

Cloak waited for a response. None came.

"Fine," he growled. "Indulge in your selfishness. Do you think that leading these poor, naive people on like this is an admirable thing? You two disappoint me. Disappoint me greatly."

And with that Cloak was gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2016, 09:54:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Ramblings of a Mad Priestess

"I should have known," the Priestess muttered, as her nameless lackey stirred a frothing potion in some sort of in-ground caldron in front of a stone jaguar thing of a Mesoamerican style. The potion was a toxic green color, but held no odor or overt maliciousness to it. The Priestess paced around, almost as if she was a pampered princess who was refused something for the first time in her spoilt life. "They aren't mods."

He lackey paid her no mind, and just kept stirring the concoction at her behest. It was almost as if he was lobotomized.

"I should've known," she repeated savagely, as she perused some forgotten sheaves of primitive parchment. "The sacred writings told that the mods would glow in the dark. And their skin have the faintest odor of lavender. And they thirst -- thirst -- for blood."

She gave an angry huff.

"Those two -- whatever they may be -- are not mods." she growled, as she groused. "And they had the nerve to dismiss me from New Ogygia. The gall!"

Her lackey just continued to stir the concoction nonchalantly, saying nothing, wearing an amicable look on his face. The Priestess looked up at the stone jaguar, impatiently.

"It isn't working, J'r'ym B'nr!" she snapped at her dull-witted lackey. He said nothing to her, not a word, and he did not look at her, not a glance. His face was blank, whether this was deliberate or if he was mentally deficient in some way was unclear. "Why isn't working?!"

She did not want him to answer (and he didn't, as he proceeded on, methodically with the task assigned him), but just wanted to rage and yell and tantrum. She didn't want to admit fault either, as it was her that proclaimed Blue and Demos mods prematurely, without consulting the sacred writings. She saw them fit the descriptions of the mods that would usher them into a new age, and sort of jumped the gun.

But she was the type of person who, somehow, was never at fault, and always deserved special treatment and special rights. It was just natural for her to progress into being the spiritual leader of her people -- even though she was a tyrannical leader, at that. Cruel, brutal, and unyielding. No one was sorry when she was dismissed from her duties.

But they weren't mods. As far as she was concerned that made their decision -- their ruling -- invalid and inconsequential. She was not dismissed by a mod, but by a pretender! A fake! A charlatan! They fooled everyone, but, in her mind, their most grievous mistake was tricking her.

"Why isn't this working?!" she demanded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2016, 12:04:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
An "Accidental" Sacrifice

"Why isn't this working?" she said, less hysterically frustrated. "All the ingredients are here."

From here, her muttering was unintelligible, but it sounded like she was listing of ingredients that couldn't possibly be ingredients in a magical brew. Silken fabric. Charcoal. Holy water. The seed of some remote jungle plant. A glowrock (which he didn't know was an electrically-charged, magnetic stone). Fine-grained sand. A poison dart frog. A dangerous bug with no name. Spectral ooze. The pelt of some nameless mammal. The scale and claw of some nameless reptile. A feather of a nameless bird. A glowing crystal. A nameless fish. Some gold ore. A knife. Some unknown powdery dust. All dissolved into the green goo with the viscosity of milk.

"What is missing?" she mumbled fretfully. "What?"

She resorted to examining every sheaf of parchment again, despite the low quality and ancientness of it. Then she came to the one thing that she overlooked. A parchment she had barely even glanced over beforehand, in her zeal to oust the false mods. She now looked at it with dawning realization of how stupid she was to overlook this.

She looked up to see J'r'ym B'nr still stirring the inset cauldron, oblivious to the danger that now presented itself to his safety. The Priestess strode confidently up to him, and casually and accidentally-on-purpose bumped him into the large cauldron. He did not surface, as the hungry concoction claimed him as its property and dissolved him. The liquid bubbled and frothed and turned a brighter hue of green.

Then the liquid ran through a track, unseen by the darkness of the area, to the stone jaguar statue. Soon, the statue absorbed all of the liquid, not a trace of it remained, nor a trace of J'r'ym remained. The inlaid cauldron was empty, as the Priestess doubled over as if in excruciating pain.

Green lines began to trace themselves over her body, almost as if she had absorbed the Jade Orb from HeartGold and SoulSilver. Her pained screams and grunts quite suddenly changed into maniac laughter. It was rather disturbing and unsettling to watch, as nothing about it seemed right nor natural.

She snapped her head up and her eyes were solidly white. You could not see her pupils or irises. It made her look possessed, but she was the one in control and she could manipulate the jaguar around like a magical marionette.

"Yessss . . ." she said, and her voice was distorted to that of a deep, monstrous timbre. "Now, I shall go show those idiots that those false mods are imposters!"

With that she took the building-sized animated jaguar statue back to the city of New Ogygia. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2016, 05:19:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Party Pooper

"Blue, lighten up," Demos said bracingly. The celebration was going on for a second day, as the leftover needed to be eaten something like that. Demos didn't pay attention to the particulars. "Cloak thinks he knows everything. But he doesn't."

Blue said nothing, as the frivolity continued for their new people. They still bore their Marks, however. Those did not break in the slightest, as they didn't renounce their alliance to RAF, though they were basically turning their back on them.

It was this that was causing Blue to have misgivings. Several of Cloak's points hit home, though Blue didn't show it. The celebration seemed less jubilant to him, less vibrant, less festive. The had already begun to lose its frivolous luster of novelty, the cracks in the facade were getting wider, and apparently only Blue was noticing them. He could not stop seeing them, breaking apart the veneer that moments before he was unable to see through. He was disillusioned, and uncomfortable with this role now.

He was a ninja. Ninjas were out in the spotlight like this, they stuck to the shadows and obscurity. Whatever was he thinking, doing this? This was not him. He no longer wished to be worshipped like a god. He no longer wanted to pretend to be something that he knew, in his heart of hearts, he wasn't. Something he didn't even really want to be. He had allowed himself to get swept up in the accolades and acceptance. He had allowed the praise and cheer to move him from his core.

He was a RAFian, first and foremost. He recognized that, and he also recognized that Demos was lost in the sea of abject capitulation and mandatory obedience. He was quickly losing himself to his demonic instincts, which were thriving off the worship, and he didn't even realize it.

"Demos," Blue said, "this isn't us."

"What are you talking about?" Demos said,.with a note.of incredulity in his voice. "This is wonderful!"

"Demos, your judgement is clouded," Blue said. "Cloak was right. This . . . this isn't me."

"Well, it is me!" Demos declared. "I could kill any one of them and no one would bat a single friggin' eyelash!!"

Blue said nothing, but eyed Demos beadily, waiting for realization to don on him. It almost seemed as if it never would, as his demonic instincts were compelling him to revel in the adoration, but his rational side managed to overthrow those instincts and allowed him objectivity and clarity on the situation.

"What . . . the hell . . . did I just say?" Demos said. Then he looked a Blue, actually fearful. He had been working on suppressing these instincts at RAF, and in just these few days, he had undone weeks of effort and therapy to reconcile them. There was a tremor in his voice when he said, "We need to get out of here."

But this conversation was interrupted by a big party pooper. The stone jaguar had arrived, with the Priestess close behind, but no one noticed her, instead fleeing from the huge behemoth before them.

"Well," Demos said. "This was unexpected."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2016, 01:13:35 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
It's Over, Frieza -- I Mean, Priestess!!

As it turned out, the two were powerless against this thing. Blue's ninjitsu was useless against the obsidian rock, and Demos's pyrokinesis did nothing. It was so bad that Demos had resorted to hellfire and Fiendfyre. Both ineffective.

"Destroy the false mods!" the two heard the Priestess shriek savagely. "Annihilate them!"

"Maybe we should have dismissed her so quickly," Blue said.

"'We?" Demos said, trying absolve himself of responsibility.

"Don't do that," Blue said, in acerbic tones. "You're just as responsib--"

"RUN!!" Demos shouted suddenly as the stone jaguar sprinted towards them, covering incredible ground due to its gargantuan size. The ground shuttered with each pouncing movement.

"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!" she yelled, crowing.

"I think she's turning into a Dalek," Blue said.

"A what?" Demos said. He hadn't heard Blue over the rushing air between them as they fled to an odd ravine, well outside the city.

"Never mind," Blue said, as they dashed along the bottom of this ravine. The ravine, however was wide enouh to accommodate the statue.

There was deep water on one side of the ravine, that the two swam through, and hoped was too deep for the statue. There hopes were not about come true as the statuary plunged into the water, but its heavy stone body was not buoyant at all. However, its obsidian feet were able to touch the bottom of the pool, so, at first glance, it appeared to be swimming until it proceed forward.

"Sheesh, what will it take to stop this thing?!" Blue said.

"DIE!" the Priestess suggested.

"Yeah, un, Blue? Let's not do that." Demos said.

But suddenly the water geysered up obscuring it from view of the two RAFians. Then it became an impromptu water vortex, tossing the obsidian jaguar around like clothes in a top-loading washing machine.

"What the --" Demos blurted.

"Isn't it obvious?" Blue answered, over the deafening roar the water vortex.

Just then an enormous fireball barrelled into the ravine with tremendous force, colliding with the vortex and the obsidian jaguar as the Priestess shrieked in pain, via her connection with the monstrocity. The water was evaporated as Cloak himself somersaulted from the fray.

"Cloak?" Demos said, nonplussed.

"You didn't honestly think that I was gonna leave you two alone here?" Cloak said, seriously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2016, 08:30:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Shattered

"You didn't trust us," Demos accused.

"Cloak doesn't trust anyone," Blue said, dryly.

The obsidian jaguar wasn't down though, and it got up, like a cat whose taken a beating. But it was still quite dangerous.

"Quite the contrary," Cloak said, eyeing the stone jaguar warily. "I knew . . . I hoped that you two would come back to your senses. That you two would forget the materialistic and artificial pleasures for something more real. That you would remember who you were instead of what you were pretending to be."

"That's an excuse," Demos said, still with the accusatory tone.

"Believe what you want," Cloak said, with no sardonic bite or teasing sarcasm. He spoke it devoid of emotion. "Nothing I say will change what you chose to believe. It's a waste of both our time and energy arguing about it."

The obsidian cat was uneasily steadying itself on its four wobbly legs, but was still seemingly ignored by the trio. The Priestess, through her magical link with the abomination, was suffering in much the same way. But she was full of vigor and determination -- determination to kill the false mods. And this new interloper as well.

"But the fact of the matter is," Cloak continued, his back to both the stone beast and the Priestess. Apparently oblivious to them getting back up. "The fact of the matter is that everyone thinks you're dead. And allowing them to believe a lie isn't fair to them. I would not keep your secret -- I have plenty of my own to keep -- and they will know of your selfishness."

The Priestess shook her head to clear it. She looked rather disheveled and rather pathetic, had she not the green eyes and lines all over her body.

"I know that the luxury here is tempting, and that the praise is addictive, but you must never forget your integrity and --"

The obsidian-plated stone jaguar loomed over Cloak, who, without so much as turning around, sighed annoyed. Then he snapped his fingers and the stone jaguar froze in place as if someone cast Stop or Impermenta on it.

"I wasn't THROUGH," he said crossly, addressing the Priestess, but not deigning to turn around, until he shouted the last word.

"Die . . . you all must die . . . die now . . ." she said, looking quite demented now. Fanatically so.

"With what exactly, pray tell?" Cloak said, annoyed. He glanced at the stone cat. "With this thing?"

"Diiiiiiie . . ." she cackled.

"No," Cloak said, reaching out to flick the stone cat on the nose. It crumbled to dust, causing the Priestess to scream and be left in a catatonic state. The Realm Walker turned to the other two, "I will take care of her, and then we can return to the forum and allow you to take your lumps for having everybody worry!"

"But--" the two began to protest, but it was lost beyond that word.

"We'll discuss it later," Cloak said. Then his tone softened. "Look, guys, I'm sorry for speaking to you like that, but it's been a stressful week for us. We haven't lost a RAFian since --"

"Rotiart," Blue supplied.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2016, 05:05:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Love Lost

"I don't love her," Cloak said, at once. "I may pity her, what she's become, but I don't love her. I can't bring myself to love her. She's my mother, but she's made clear time and again that she has no maternal love for me. I was naught but a tool for her to manipulate my father. I held no worth to her."

"I believe you are misinterpreting what the violet vines are representing, Cloak." she said, kindly. "I think this one has the least to do with Ursa. But everything to do with you."

Cloak was nonplussed by this meaning, so much so that he didn't grasp it immediately. "What are you talking about, Aniyu?"

"You care about everyone, except yourself, Cloak," Aniyu explained.

"You act like that's a bad thing," Cloak said.

"It is when taken to the extreme you've taken it, dear," Aniyu said, earnestly yet gently. "You care, you love others more than yourself."

"I still fail to see how that's a bad thing," Cloak replied.

"You love everyone else," she tried again, "but you don't love yourself, Cloak. Not at all, it seems."

Cloak's face and expression darkened. He wanted to say, "I don't know what you're talking about." But what came out was, " I . . . I don't . . ."

"Cloak, the more you deny it, the stronger the vines get." Aniyu pointed out, pragmatically. "This is a clear reason, a motivation, for you to be so quick to sacrifice yourself to save others."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Cloak said, sounding like an obstinate child.

"When it's taken to the extreme you take it, Cloak, it is a bad thing," Aniyu said, insistingly. "Please do not fail to understand or recognize the lives you've touched, and how you have people who care about you."

Cloak said nothing, as tinny echoes of "First Light, you're so worthless!", "You are just like your father!!", "You're a LOSER!!", and "You are so useless!" were sounded within the room that the two were in. After hearing those for so long, Cloak had started to believe them. It was when he realized his mother didn't love him, that he had stopped loving himself. More than that he had come to loathe everything about himself, saw his mistakes magnified a thousand fold, and despised who he was.

Thought that everything, and everone would be better off without him. That his existence had been a mistake. That his mere being was unwanted by everyone. . . . These were thoughts he had before. Yes, there was a time where Cloak had seriously considered suicide. Believing it to not only grant him freedom from his mother, but freedom of others from him.

"Cloak, this important," Aniyu said, her voice very serious, "don't forget that you have people who love and care about you. This is very important."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2016, 07:38:00 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXII:
WHO-ZILLA?
CHAPTER ONE:
Full Disclosure

It had been a couple of years since that whole Reach thing. Three, in fact. Andy was back, having broken up with his boyfriend over problems of a nature that Andy cared not to discuss in public. He and GH were getting closer, though he still knew GH as Lewis. And he knew nothing about his RAFian status.

GH was apprehensive about revealing everything to him, as they were really getting closer. Their friendship seemed apt to get more intimate in the future, and yet . . .

GH sang:

"Everybody told me RAFian stuff's dangerous.
I guess I didn't believe it until now.
What do I do?
I don't want that for you."

GH's phone starts ringing, and he knows that it's Andy. He continued after listening to it ring.

"Everybody tells me life is precious,
On the planet Earth, and that means you.
And I have to protect you.
What if somehow you get hurt?
What do I do?
I don't want that for you."

His phone starts ringing for a second time. GH ignores it as he sings:

"Woooh . . . woooh . . .
Woooh . . . wooh . . .
What am I going to tell you?
You're better off not knowing the trouble I'm in.
I don't want you to worry about what I've seen,
About where I've been.
You don't have to be a part of this.
I don't think I want you to be.
You don't need this.
You don't need me."

His phone starts ringing for the third time. But he still ignores it.

"Woooh . . . woooh . . .
Woooh . . . woooh . . .
Woooh . . . woooh . . .
Woooh . . . woooh . . ."

GH, with apprehension, swipes to the decline button on his phone. And summarily felt awful about doing it. This was for the best, he guessed.

---

Source song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vGnWzdDAXu0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2016, 06:13:13 AM

New chapter. Remember this book is noncanonical.

CHAPTER TWO:
Both of You

Leatherhead, now nine, saw this. Andy knew of him, though in his human guise which has via his ID mask. He had come to love him as much as his dad, GH, and he knew GH cared for Andy. He was a smart kid.

He had managed to get the two of them together, and then played his keytar. Then he sang:

"Why don’t you talk to each other?
Why don’t you talk to each other?
Just give it a try.
Why don't you try to talk about what happened?
I know you're trying to avoid it, but I don't know why.
You might not believe it.
You might not believe it but you got a lot in common -- you really do.
You both love me and I love both of you."

With some hesitation, GH began to spill. He spilled his guts to Andy. About his name. About his being a RAFian. About Dimitri . . .

Leatherhead continued, in the background:

"I know you both need it.
I know you both need it.
Someone who knows what you're going through.
You might not believe it.
You might not believe it but you got a lot in common -- you really do.
You both love me and I love both of you.
You both love me and I love both of you."

***

"It's over, Malice." Cloak said.

"Is it, itty bitty Cloaky-wokey?" Malice said. Cloak had swore that she got more hinged in the passing time that they fought.

"My chosen name is Cloak.
No longer tethered.
And I'm never going down at the hands of the likes of you because I'm so much better.
And every part of me is saying "Go get her."
This Elements Master ain't gonna follow your rules.
Come at me without any of your fancy schemes or tools.
Let's go, just me and you.
Let's go, just me and you.
Go ahead and try and hit me if you're able.
Can't you see that mercy is off the table?
I can see you hate the way RAF intermingles.
But I think you're just mad 'cause you're single.
And you're not gonna stop what we made together.
We are gonna stay like this forever.
If you break us apart, we'll just come back newer.
And we'll always be twice the Walker that you are.
I am fuelled
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
Uni-i-i-i-ity."

Cloak had foolish forgone the use of the elements -- something had happened in the past three Dweller years to cause him to lose them -- and the two Realm Walkers now.were clashing energy blades projected from their wrists, not unlike Apopplexian claws or that of Wolverine.

Both were getting wrecked. And yet, Cloak sang:

"This is who RAFians are.
This is who I am.
And if you think you can stop me,
Then you had better to think again.
'Cause I have a feeling,
That RAF will never end,
And I won't let you hurt my home,
And I won't let you hurt my friends.
Go ahead and try and hit me if you're able.
Can't you see that mercy is off the table?
I know you think I'm not something you're afraid of,
'Cause you think that you've seen what I'm made of.
But I am even more than what you think I am.
Everything they care about is what I am.
I have fury. I have patience.
I have determination . . .
I am made
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
And it's stronger than you.
Uni-i-i-i-ity
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
And it's stronger than you.
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
And it's stronger than you.
By-yi-yi-yi-yi
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
Uni-i-i-i-ity."

But, despite what the song would have you believe, a successful blade strike from each led to a double kill. Malice killed Cloak, while Cloak killed Malice. No deux ex machina remained. The two were utterly, and indisputably gone.

---

Source songs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZQmOLxE7xQ and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6JARVfb-FBg

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2016, 06:47:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Changing Pulse

It was just a normal day at RAF. No active missions, no security requests. Richard himself was taking some ersonal time to himself as Estelore and Spectre were travelling. Estelore was heading off to the Andromeda Galaxy to see the Orishans and Geochelone Aerios and things, while Spectre was shifting through a magical sea he called the Duat.

Everything was hunky-dory at the forum. The lush grounds rippled most invitingly, with the resident lake being still and placid like a plane of glass, only the ripple of a fish nibbling something from the lake's surface every so often interrupted this seamless vision.

So, naturally, the RAFians were eager to escape indoor activities and obligations to get out and luxuriate in this most peaceful, beautiful day. The RAFians has so precious few days like this to enjoy anymore. It seemed that they were always busy, be a mission or with their lives outside the forum or something else.  This was a day that they could just slow way down and relax, even despite the morbid couple of days where they held a funeral service for Cloak. It was time to cheer up.

They should have known better. Things are very rarely ever so idyllic for a RAFian.

There was a terrifically brilliant blast of white light that permeated the forum like a meteor colliding with the earth at incredible speed. No one knew precisely what it was, but happened when the forum's guard was down. Code Avalon was up, of course, to prevent the escape of that rabid giant Pikachu (although that function seemed wholly unnecessary these days), but it was insufficent to block this blast.

When the RAFians gathered their eyesight again, they saw that the grounds and the boards were undamaged in the least.  Not a blade of grass nor a drop of water in the lake seemed disturbed. And that was disturbing, in and of itself.

The RAFians themselves appeared to unaffected -- many were unsure what the Marks would be able to do with Cloak's death -- and were quite perplexed by it all. The blast looked as if someone set off a nuke, but nothing came of it. They did not even feel off in the least bit.

Odd. Really odd.

But the RAFians thought nothing more about it, and continued about their day, with Leatherhead and GH eagerly waiting for Andy to visit later in the day, and the other RAFians still excited about their various outings.

They should have known better.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2016, 07:54:00 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Magic Dwindling, Monsters Rising

The effects were apparently on magic-users. After a full twenty-four Earth hours had passed, RAFians like Broken, Faerie, Yunyun, and Melissa began to show symptoms of a really bad flu.

They were phlegmy, weakened, and prone to vomiting. And it grew progressively and exponentially worse by the day. They were soon emaciated and severely weakened. Nothing Kelly did seemed to help. In fact, her healing powers seemed as if they were turned off. This scared her as much as this disease scared the magic-users. Whatever this was, there was no known cure. They didn't even know what caused this much less how to remedy it. The thing that was certain was that they were not long for this world, no matter what the RAFians tried to do to stop it.

But moments into the illness, Broken seemed to recognize something. Something about this. The blast yesterday -- he realized it's nature. It was magical, of that he was sure. He suspected the person behind it as well. It wasn't Malice, of course, as she was dead. Then, so was the person he was suspecting -- he always had a habit of dangerous experimentation. But part of him rejected the suspicions, citing that he was dead, despite having no concrete proof of that.

It's only what he noticed after the last few days of his life that pretty much confirmed his fears. The RAFians who imagined themselves unafflicted, from Ash to Yarin, were increasing in size. But for each centimeter in height they gained, they lost a quarter of an I/Q point. If they kept going like this, Broken surmised, they'd all reach the size of Godzilla, and be much less intelligent than it.

Already Broken could see the visages of the monster forming just beneath the surface of his friends and their intelligence, their sentience begin to ever so slowly deteriorate. And he had to wonder, as he was pulling his last breaths. WHY?!

He felt hopelessness, and his last word before he passed into the nether were, "All is lost."

The other RAFians hadn't understood what he meant, and Yarin, due to Broken's practice of Occlumency hadn't tried to read his mind, though Broken wished he had. It took the very last of Broken's remaining energy to utter those three syllables, and they were a mystery to the others.

And Broken was but the first. Soon, all the RAFian magic-users had passed, and the remaining RAFians had no one to help them with their eventual fate. None really realized that they were getting taller, heavier. That their muscles were getting thicker and more dense. That their fingernails were beginning to sharpen. That their teeth were becoming sharper and serrated. Even the mechanical RAFians were not safe from this slow transformation that increased power and size but diminished intelligence and sentience to nonexistence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2016, 11:02:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Transformation Acceleration

Oh Logan, Logan, tell us
What's gotten in to you,
Lately?
We're beginning to think that there
Is nothin' in the world that you can't do!

GH was indeed becoming more savage -- to the point of accusing Andy's mother of wearing army boots. The weak insults aside, GH's teeth were becoming sharper and more pronounced, his fingernails blackening at the tips and yellowing at the quick.

"You're getting stronger,
And faster,
And bigger, too.
We keep on asking,
'Is there something wrong with you?'
You're acting weird!
And talking rude!
And wolfing down your food!
Everything lately brings the monster out in you!"

GH's flesh was taking on a thick hide, almost like that of a hippo or elephant. His skin continued to become more pachydermic as he began to grow in size.

How do you do?
What's up with you?
Daddy Logan, we're mystified.
How come you're snarling at the moon
Tonight?
We don't know what you're going through,
We just hope you're gonna be alright.
Now tell us, tell us,
What should we do?
Now that the monster's out in you.

GH had grown to a size that his clothes would no longer fit and he tore right though them (leaving him with a rather Hulk-ish fashion), and he could no longer fit in his own thread.

"And now we're not so sure
We like the fact that things are turning out this way.
We would rather have our Daddy Logan back
Than a Godzilla for a loved one any day."

Andy had to take Leatherhead to safety when GH, with little to no sentience, tried to each the both of them. They retreated to the far end of the forum, away from the other RAFians. From the other RAF-Zillas.

"You're getting stronger.
And faster.
And bigger, too.
We keep on asking
'Is there nothing we can do?'
You're acting weird.
And talking rude.
And wolfing down your food.
Everything lately brings the monster out in you."

They managed to find themselves in the RAFian fallback bunker, set low into the ground, unnoticeable, unless you're looking for particular things. The two just stubbled across it, as they see and hear the RAFian-Zillas roar ferociously.

"How do you do?
What's up with you?
Daddy Logan, we're mystified.
How come you're growling at the moon
Tonight?
We wish we knew what you're going through,
We just hope you're gonna be alright.
Now tell us, tell us,
What should we do?
Now that the monster's out in you."

Leatherhead tried to hide it, but he cried once inside. Yes, he was a crocodile and yes, he he was crying tears, but these were quite sincere. Leatherhead had just lost all that of which he knew. Everything.

Andy was the only person he had left.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=81XlCGjJOX8

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 16, 2016, 07:32:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Massive Problem, Here

The RAFians, all the living Mark-Bearers, were now gigantic monsters of Godzilla proportions. Their sizes were still proportionate to each other, though. Except Dino for some reason. Dino-Zilla was actually the smallest of the RAFian-Zillas, for inexplicable reasons, though one could hazard a guess that it was a reaction to her size changing powers. Meanwhile, Horse was easily twenty-five-feet tall and GH was at least fifty.

The human, vampire, and SPARTAN RAFian-Zillas and Mr. Guy, Yunyun, Mithril, Cornson, Oceanspray and Sakki had bodies nearly identical to Godzilla, but retained their heads and faces to scale. They all had pointed teeth and wild, vicious eyes. They had lost all their intelligence and sentience. They were mere creatures of instinct and destruction now.

Seal was less of a gigantic seal now, more like a gigantic, saurian quadruped with splayed legs with a savage seal's head. She had no fur any longer, as they were replaced by feather-like quills, like that of a saurian raptor. The twinkle in her little pinniped eyes had vanished completely.

Dino had barely changed, it was true, but she did change. She lost her anklyosaurid armor and club tail, becoming far more streamlined. Her mouth seemed to be crammed full of more teeth then what was prudent to have. The intelligent light in her eyes were gone.

The Andalite RAFian-Zillas were larger than the human RAFian-Zillas, as Andalites are a larger speces, in terms of sheer body mass, than humans. They lost their hooves for reptilian claws as each of their equine legs bulked up as well. Their fur, while retaining its color, went from fur to the protofeather quills seen in prehistoric raptors. They kept their tails and tail-blades, which grew in size with them. They also kept their stalk eyes and main eyes, though the spark of intelligence in them was far removed. Their mouthless faces had zipped open to reveal a pair of massive rending teeth.

The Yeerk-Zillas did not, as one may expect, fuse to whatever host they happened to be riding in and transform from there, oh no. They burst from their host's skull, not unlike a chestburster alien, and grew into a long, serpentine creatures without eyes but a Jacobson's organ and forked tongue in a mouth lined to the brim eith sharp teeth. They saw akin to Earthsight, otherwise they were considerably blind. They were only barely bigger than Dino, in this mutated state.

The General Board Building was reduced to rubble now, due to these transformations. Due to the inexplicable ire, hostility and aggressiveness that had overtook and replace their once-thinking minds.

The dragon RAFian-Zillas are the ones that changed the least physiologically, just getting slightly larger and longer fangs and a larger size. They were as far gone as the others, though.

The Animorphs Fanfiction & Art Building was the next that went. Crumbled into nothing but dust and forgotten memories.

The Arn RAFians, Quaf mostly, was more Rodan-like that Godzilla-like. Her eyes lost the sparkly star property and became dull and black. All of her whimsical nature had been excised from her with her intelligence and sentience.

The gryphon RAFian -- onky Xeno since Kelran had fundamentally retired -- grew in size, his wings becoming leathery chiropteran wings with a scaly body with protofeathers of a prehistoric raptor. His beak became serrated, and his disposition . . . well, let's just say he was not a very happy camper, despite having lost all his intelligence and sentience.

And it was at this point that the forum that housed RAF was crumbled flat. All the board buildings, thr mess hall, the auditorium -- all gone. Gone . . . forever.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2016, 08:57:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Yes -- He's Seriously That Stupid

"Puh-lease," Donald Couch was saying to his dimwitted posse. Being the stupidest and richest of the lot, that made him leader. He spoke with a snotty, bratty sort of voice. "Those monsters -- if they even are real -- are just a worry for the lower class. They wouldn't dare attack someone of my status."

He was driving a gaudy, puke green Rolls-Royce. It was at least two or three weeks since his lurid orange Audi's door was crumpled by Selfalohart (when his head was controlling his heart). Clearly Donnie-boy whined and complained and begged his parents to get him another one. And, instead of forcing him to deal with this misfortune and what what he said, they just immediately complied, unaware apparently just how they were spoiling him. How they were handicapping him for life. He would never realize that there were things in life that he just couldn't have, because he was accustomed to it -- and the excuse of "affluenza" wouldn't fly with everyone. His was a doomed life of a rich boy prick -- if anything, he'd be either much-married, married and killed for money by a golddigging woman, or just be a bachelor for life.

"No, they would know far better than to mess with someone like me," he bragged. His ego was really getting off the scale. "They would know who was boss."

"Don, I don't think --"

"Don't question me, Brittney!" Donald snapped, and she spoke no more. "I know what I'm talking about!"

Suddenly, he stopped short on this deserted street. The populace of the city were a lot smarter than these rebellious teens. They had vacated the city while the time was good. Andy had managed to warn the police officials. And while some dismissed him, there were the few that did not and proved themselves heroes in saving the most, if not all of the city's populace.

But the reason Donald had stopped was because of the thunderous footfalls of GH-Zilla. Donald was really stupid, as he wore an arrogant, supercilious smile. He threw his.posse an almost contemptuous look, which all assembled assumed was intended for Brittney.

"Don't believe me?" he said, voice full of disdain. He was of the mind that after he proved Brittney wrong that he would excise her from the gang, for having unmitigated audacity to doubt his claims. He expected his posse, all of which were poorer than him, to respect all his claims and boasts, not matter how outlandish and farfetched. Whenever they dare to eke out a criticism, Donald got punitive. He couldn't take an criticism that might deflate his already-bloated ego. He snarled. "Fine, Brittney, I'll prove it to you. Don't anyone of you leave this car."

He turned the Rolls-Royce off, but didn't put in park. But, after all, he was Donald Couch! He didn't make mistakes! That was for peasants to do! He strode right up to GH-Zilla.

"Hey, there!" he shouted, arrogantly sure that the fifty-foot-tall GH-Zilla could even hear him or understand that his words had meaning to them. "Yeah, you, monster! I am Donald Couch, son of -- Hey! You will listen to me. You will obey me!!"

GH-Zilla either didn't hear him or ignored the meaningless words, as he continued to walk towards them. Donald wasn't accustomed to being ignored and not getting what he wanted immediately, so his face instantaneously started to redden. Whether it was from anger, embarrassment, or both, was really inconsequential.

"Hey! You stupid beast!" he roared. Ironic that he was calling GH-Zilla stupid. "You dumb monster! You listen to me!!"

GH-Zilla simply and easily stepped over Donald Couch, and began to walk away. This infuriated the boy who was not accustomed to such a treatment. But he immediately forgot about it, as GH-Zilla stepped on the Rolls-Royce, killing his posse inside, but Donald didn't really care about them as he cried, "My car!! You stupid monster!!"

But the Rolls-Royce's wheels apparently still functioned as GH-Zilla slipped on them, and fell backward, on his backside.

"The monster's butt," were Donald's last words before GH-Zilla's rear end crushed him to death.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2016, 11:18:27 PM

New chapter. I'm gonna go ahead an apologize in advance, Quaf. I don't think you're gonna like this book any better than Book 17.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Rampage of the RAFians

The RAFians had finished ravaging the forum that they had once held so dear. They found the space inadequate for all of them. Their minds had been extinguished with the diminishing of their intelligence and sentience, until they two ceased to exist. The RAFians were all fundamentally dead now, since neither Leatherhead or Andy were an official RAFian and neither carried the Mark. They were honorary members at best, like Shadow.

They were little more than beasts, beasts fighting over territory and feeling the need to move into new territory to claim for their own, if they could keep the land, the territory they currently have.

So, naturally, brutal clashes occured. Most the RAFians lost their powers as they became gigantic monsters, but that did not make them any less dangerous. As proven when they eviscerated Underseen-Zilla and Ash-Zilla, who lost their shapeshifting ability. Or simply lost the intellect necessary to activate and utilize those abilities. They were truly dead now, though with their minds extinguished, one could argue that they were already dead.

Yarin-Zilla was vivisected by Goom-Zilla, Demos-Zilla, Xeno-Zilla, and Aquilai-Zilla. That was the kindest way of putting it. Anyway, after they were done with that, they swiftly turned on each other, until Demos-Zilla came out on top -- his regeneration abilities still effective, though not nearly to the near-Deadpool degree he enjoyed when he was sentient and intelligent.

Hunter-Zilla managed to overpower Wild-Zilla and he began to worry him like a dog with a bone. While Wild was still alive, although not for long from this kind of punishment. It was savage.

Saffa-Zilla and GH-Zilla were locked in deadly combat, each one having the upper hand at one or another point in the battle. But it did seem to be a battle of equals.

That obnoxious RAFian-Zilla was killed by Dino-Zilla, paradoxically the smallest RAFian-Zilla. He put up fight, despite being accustomed to being brainless.

More and more clashes occurred, some with a definitive, indisputable winner, and others were still contesting and competing in the close-quarters combat. It was savage. Brutal. Naturally it spilled into the evacuated city. Buildings were crushed to rubble, foundations ruined, and the like.

It didn't look good.

***

"The answer is effin' simple!" said a rather tall, combative woman. She has a pointed, upturned nose, plump lips and an unusually long neck. Her blonde hair was a short bob with two spiked tips. She had black eyebrows, and black markings around both her eyes, which are bright yellow with diamond-shaped pupils. She wore a white and olive bodysuit, as well as a yellow coat with very large shoulder pads. She also wore gloves of a slightly darker purple and very dark olive boots. "We bomb them! We nuke them into oblivion!"

A woman with a dark complexion seemed to agree with her. She had plump lips and a straight nose. She wore a long, orange cloak of a slightly darker shade, and a light orange bodysuit. She was also noticeably tall. She had long, thick, dark hair. She spoke in a very measured way. "I agree with Patty."

"Thank you, Estelle," Patti said, in an unintentionally agressive way. Two others in this safe house, one in pink and the other in white, nodded in aggreement.

"Isn't that a tad excessive?" said the voice of a shorter, plumper woman with her young son at her side, who was fearfully hiding behind her. She had very long, and curly red hair styled in thick, tube-like ringlets. She also had defined lips with a pale pink color, bright skin, and a taller and heavier build than the other women in the safe house. She had black eyes. She wore a strapless, floor-length, lilac and snow trimmed,  a white and pink dress that had multiple layers which resembled the petals of a rose, and had a pink star in the stomach area. She was also barefooted. "There may be a way to help them, after all."

"Shut up, Susan," Patty snapped angrily.

Her son recoiled heavily at the rebuke. He was relatively short with a thick, stocky build. He had curly black-brown hair and full black irises. He wore a brown T-shirt with a silver shooting star in the center of it. He also wears blue jeans with sky-blue cuffs and gray flip-flop sandals. He couldn't have been any older than four. He whimpered.

"Shhhh, shhhh," Susan said, comforting the boy. "It's okay, Zachary, we're safe here."

She was, of course, wrong. Nowhere was safe.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2016, 05:46:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Flight of the Refugees

Nowhere was safe from the RAFian-Zillas' rampage.

Nowhere at all on the planet Earth.

Not even the safehouse where the four women and Zachary were in. They were amongst the few survivors of this. Susan had to admit that she really didn't care for the company of the other three women, who seemed a little too bloodthirsty and violence-prone for her liking. But the threat these monstrous forms of the RAFians presented to her and her son meant that she had to sacrifice her feelings for the perceived safety of the safe house. Patty and Estelle seemed to be very vocal about how safe it was, although Patty seemed to do most of the speaking for the group. Susan rankled at this.

But the safe house's veneer of safety was swiftly shut down when Phoenix-Zilla crushed it underfoot, roaring for really no reason but to apparently sound scary, before moving on. Patty, Estelle, and the two other women, despite their violent boasts and braggadocious claims, did not survive this and died almost immediately, which was a gift, given how painful it would have been if they languished.

Susan and young Zachary escaped, with Zachary crying fearfully. He wasn't exactly the bravest four-year-old. Susan was trying her best to calm the boy as she carried him away from Phoenix-Zilla, while praying that the two of them were unnoticed or just plain unappetizing. Despite her somewhat indolent appearance, she was actually quite fleet of foot. Terror has a way of doing that to people. But she tried ever so diligently to not let Zachary see her fear.

But Susan had no idea where to go. Where was safe. She just wanted to protect Zachary. After a few moments, she had managed to calm him down, which was good. They didn't need to attract unwanted attention. She had just wished that this whole thing could could have been forestalled, but there was no point in wishing the past was fixed, she needed to be concerned with the future. Needed to be concerned with keeping her son and herself alive.

But she couldn't deny one small, but ever so crucial, detail. She had no idea where she was going. She had no idea where would be safe, despite the fact of the matter was nowhere was. But she stayed within the tree line. If anything, if a RAFian-Zilla comes along, the trees will, hopefully, slow it down.

They went along for a bit until Zachary became fussy again. He was getting hungry. Susan didn't angrily rebuke the child -- it just wasn't in her nature to do so -- but she did her best to calm him with platitudes and assurances. It seemed to have worked for now.

Then they came to what appeared to be a small lean-to, at first, but, when examined closer, had a heavy steel door. It was a building of some sort, set into the ground. It was the RAFian's fallback headquarters, for the times where the forum was taken from them, like Abomination's takeover and Madre de Vampyra's takeover through Gaz.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 19, 2016, 09:24:13 PM

holy crap i am so behind...
i'm still on like book seventy-something...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2016, 05:54:17 AM

Yeah, that's a good sixty or so books behind. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Safe?

Susan walked up to the door, and rapped on the thick metal door, not really expecting an answer or that anyone was even on the other side. She spoke, "Hello?"

No answer. Her heart fell a little, despite preparing herself for this outcome. She tried again.

"Hello?" she called, as she rapped. "I don not mean to discommode (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/discommode#English) you, but my son and I just need a safe place to stay until this whole mess is sorted."

Nothing. She could hear nothing behind this thick metal door. She expected this, but tried to not let her disappointment show. She had hoped that this would keep her and Zachary safe until this whole RAFian-Zilla thing is sorted out.

She tried for a third and final time. There was no immediate reaction. She tried to hide her disappointment the best that she could. This place was either empty or hadn't anyone who wanted to help them. She prompted Zachary to turn and began to leave when the door creaked open.

"Who's there?" called a male voice.

"Susan, sir. Susan Swartz, sir," Susan said, at once, turning around again. Her hope at a sanctuary for her and her son reignited dimly. "My son, Zachary, and I were hoping for a sanctuary. At least, until this whole rampage mess is sorted out."

The man nodded, and said, swiftly, as thunderous footsteps approached, "Come in! Come in!"

He pulled the two in and shut the door tight before Abby-Zilla was any the wiser. From there, they walked down the stairs into the rather large expanse of a room. There was plenty room for the four of them, as there was a nine-year boy would happened to resemble a nine-year-old GH sitting on one of the hardbacked chairs, looking rather morose, as he read a Riordan book in spurts. He was distracted and deeply saddened. Susan had better decorum to ask him what he may not be willing to share.

However, four-year-olds hardly ever have that kind of reserve.

"What's wrong with him, Mommy?" he asked, still clinging to her side.

"Now, now, Zachary. That's not polite," she admonished him gently.

"But --"

"No, Zachary," she said, firmly but gently. "If he wants to tell you, he will. There are somethings that people want to keep to themselves."

Zachary looked like he wanted to argue the point, but stopped himself. He was still learning restraint and some lessons were better than others.

Anyway, the man introduced himself as Andy, and the nine-year-old kid as nothing more than LH. But, beyond that, he wouldn't elaborate on what brought them here. Susan respected that, and didn't question him about, nor would let Zachary do it. If they wanted to tell them what happened, they would. They should just be grateful to have a safe spot, at least for the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2016, 07:38:49 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Culprit

The culprit behind this whole RAFian-Zilla thing was disguised and in hiding. He was obviously magical in nature, and had some knowledge -- and history -- with Broken. He had intended on getting some sort of vengeance on Broken, his reasonings his own to know. But the spell he cast, which was the combination of a few different, incongruous, and disparate types of magicks, which Broken had stressed to his fellow.RAFians was extremely dangerous due to the sheer volatility and unpredictability that emerges from it.

This isn't what the culprit would envision would happen. He was always willing to mix magicks haphazardly, arrogantly thinking that he could predict whatever outcome would come out of it. He was seriously off the mark here, and, though he would deny it if.pressed, he knew it. He knew all of the dangers of mixing magicks and he disregarded all of them, believing himself to be superior to even the Sorcerer Supreme in being able to predict what would happen, when no one could -- it was an undeniable impossibility.

Who knows what he intended, but he created a horde of monsters, in the most literal sense. But he refused to accept any of the responsibility for his actions, instead blaming it on Broken somehow, even though Broken was truly dead. Something else that this culprit refused to acknowledge, that his greatest enemy was dead, and killed so easily. He was Broken's arch enemy! He surely would have known if Broken was truly dead, right?

Anyway, he couldn't find a way to reverse what he made, as the RAFian-Zillas were a danger to every one, even him himself! The one who even caster of the spell! There was no way that he could reverse what was done, it's permanence was sealed. There can only be freedom again when all the RAFian-Zillas are dead. And the spells can be traced back to his hideout, his home. He couldn't stay here -- especially because it's extremely vulnerable to the RAFian-Zillas should they come to call. Fortunately, he managed to cast an Undetectable Expansion Charm upon his bookbag an was able to take all his possessions, regardless of size, with him as he prepared to evacuate this place that has been his home for many a year.

He sprinkled some hair into his small stock of Polyjuice Potion, not really knowing who the hair came from, just that it was human. The potion frothed and turned into a rather unidentifiable color. He didn't care, as long as it did its job. He would have to layer his disguises.

He poured a sufficient amount, downed it one go, and prepared for the unpleasant sensations at taking on another identity, another body type, another stature. He would just have to magic his.clothing to fit whatever his new frame was. He just hoped that it wasn't going to be a useless identity.

He was getting smaller, and his hair was shortening into a close-cut hairstyle with his hair turning black and his cheeks and body puffing up a little. When the waves of unpleasantness ended, he knew that it had finished and snatched up a mirror to see that he was basically a boy about six or seven-years-old. This might have been a good disguise about two weeks ago, before he cast the spell, but now he wasn't so sure. He would have come up with an excuse for why such a young boy was on his own. An when his Polyjuice Potion stock ended, he supposed he had enough ingredient to potentially make more, but he hadn't any more hair from this particular boy to keep up the pretense. He supposed he could make a glamour, but he'd worry about that when the time came. At least with glamour, he wouldn't have to shrink his clothing.

He took up his bookbag, which he had to shrink some to fit his new body frame, which did not affect the Expansion Charm upon it. Then he grabbed his Invisibility Cloak -- which he saw with a disheartening glance was starting to opaque the tiniest bit with its age. But, nevertheless, he put it on and strode away from his hidey-hole for the last time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 20, 2016, 08:57:33 AM

FINALLY, got a break away from job applications and got to catch up! :D

With this latest book... I'm just gonna treat it like one of those offshoot Annuals a comic book series would release for no reason in between a run, this being a jacked-up crossover between The Walking Dead, Godzilla and Jurassic Park. Damn, Cloaky, who knew you could write disaster pulp fiction. :P

PDF of the last book! (It was a bit weird how we had that super emotional ending with the missing two, and then suddenly got yanked into alternate universe mode. :P )

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2016, 05:23:34 AM

Well, it's loosely based on this (http://archiesonic.wikia.com/wiki/Mobius_(Giant_Robotno)), actually.

New book ideas.

• Book MXXXVIII: "Regent Power" -- The RAFians face a villain called Regent.
• Book MXXXIX: "Demos's Demon Dog" -- Demos's pet causes shenanigans.
• Book MXL: "A Juicy Story" -- The RAFians have to deal with their reputations being maligned by imposters.
• Book MXLI: "Dark Angel" -- The RAFians must face someone they know, now called Inferno.
• Book MXLII: "Surrogate RAFians" -- The RAFians must quell some more imposters.

Don't think that I rehashed anything. If so, I'll figure out a way to make it different and new.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Out and About

The culprit felt his skin begin to bubble, and he immediately took a swig of his Polyjuice Potion to stop it and return him back to the boy's body. He would need to stay on top of this more than that. He almost ruined his disguise, though no one would be able to tell, granted, as he was under this Invisibility Cloak.

He had also magically changed the hair color from black to ginger red. He had to layer the disguise more, he had decided. But didn't know how to layer it any further than that. In case, he felt, it didn't matter. No one would recognize him as this boy.

He quickly stowed himself away in a thicket as he heard thunderous footsteps. Hunter-Zilla was on the prowl, having finished with Wild-Zilla, now since passed. Had he been his regular self, he would have been able to sniff out the culprit in a thrice, but with his enormous size, he wasn't all that interested in someone as small as the culprit.

The culprit seemed to understand this fact and immediately felt thankful that the hair he found was that of a child -- much smaller than his normal adult form. Had he not drank the Polyjuice Potion, his adult identity might have attracted the monster to him. Might have made him more slightly more appetizing, due to having more mass, more meat.

Speaking of which it was time for another dose of the Potion. He drank, as he took a mental inventory of his supplies. He didn't have enough ingredients to make more Polyjuice Potion, though, and his stock was severely limited, giving five hours, at most. He didn't brew it well enough to last more than an hour each dose. His supply of lacewing flies had been exhausted. His diced leeches were expired. He had used up his Bicorn horn (and he couldn't get a replacement, at least for a while). His stock of knotgrass had been destroyed, and what remained deteriorated beyond use. The same held true for his fluxweed. His boomslang skin was torn and ripped to the point of uselessness. And, most of all, time -- he didn't have the month that it takes to brew something like that. So, yeah. He wouldn't be making more Polyjuice Potion any time soon.

He had to redo the color change to his hair though. This was going to get monotonous every hour, he could tell.

But he does have the glamour tube. That would last him a few days if he never took it off. It would make him look like the kid again, he believed. It was a valid backup if he ran out of the Potion. He supposed he should seek out a safe house. If there were people within, he would just have to come up with an excuse for why he was as he was -- in the guise of being a six or seven-year-old boy, of course.

He couldn't let anyone know that it was his fault that they had to live like rats in burrows and safe areas -- although nowhere was a hundred percent safe now. He couldn't let anyone know that this was because he mixed two magicks that resulted in this violent, volatile feedback of magical energy. He hadn't known that this was going to happen!! He had only wanted to destroy Broken and all he held dear. Was that so wrong?

Time to get moving.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2016, 10:48:18 PM

New book ideas. Yes, more.

• Book MXLIII: "I've Got No Strings" -- An unlikely entity becomes a RAFian.
• Book MXLIV: "Holo-RAFians" -- The RAFians have to deal with impersonators again.
• Book MXLV: "Thirteen Again" -- The RAFians must deal with the Tinhorn Thirteen again, only with more dangerous hosts.
• Book MXLVI: "Not Over -- Not Yet!" -- What happens to the Tinhorn Thirteen after the events of the last book.

Don't think I rehashed anything, and I'm thinking this may take us into yet another miniseries arc. If I did rehash any of this, I think I can work around it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Depleted

"Damn." the culprit cursed, under his breath. His voice beginning to to fluctuate from the high-pitched tone of a child to the deeper, dull bass of a mature male. "Damn it all to hell."

His close-cropped ginger hair gave way to a tousled blonde hairdo that was actually very nineties. His eyes went from gray to green, becoming more rounded than the boy's were. His build was thinning from the boys as he was growing larger and larger. He had to quickly and magically expand his clothing, which was already getting uncomfortably tight. He was a lean man, but still somewhat pudgy around the middle, which he was a touch sensitive about.

To compound his troubles, Dino-Zilla was nearby, and her sense of smell was excellent. And the waning effects of the last of the culprit's Polyjuice Potion was bound to attract her most unwanted attention. He had reached the last of his stock, and now he was trying to remain absolutely still, hidden in a small cave alcove concealed by some brush. He wished she wouldn't linger so much. He wanted her leave, and leave with him in one piece and still drawing breath.

Okay, she was really too close for comfort now. She many not be as large as her fellows now, but that did not make her any less dangerous. Those teeth were still as sharp as stake knives -- or even sharper -- and those claws on her feet looked as if they could rend finish off a car cleanly. His flesh would be only too easy for her to strip down to his bones -- if she didn't just eat him whole.

Okay. Okay. She was too close now. Really too close. His every instinct told him that he should run. Run for his ever-loving life. But his conscious mind knew that that would be a mistake. A deadly one, at that. Dino-Zilla was now a slave to her predatory instincts, and running would just attracted her attention to him fully. He didn't want that.

Fortunately, the Polyjuice Potion effects had fully worn off and he was still, at least for the moment, unnoticed. If he could just keep it this way . . . if he could just survive for a few moments more . . . if she would just go away . . . please, just go away. . . . just vamoose . . . get going . . .

Yeah . . . yeah! Yeah, like that.  Just mosey along now. Just like that. Yeah, just like that. . . . Keep going, now . . . There. She was gone.

The culprit wiped his brow, after he let out a huge exhale of relief. Even under his flawed Invisibility Cloak, he was nervous and fretful. He was now starting to regret his decision to mix those magicks. This wasn't what he wanted. He just wanted Broken to die -- well, he got that. So, there was that. He hated Broken -- but why was his personal reason and no one else need know why.

But, with these RAFian-Zilla monsters tromping around like this, with the potential to kill him where he stood? That was an unnecessary side effect. Totally unneeded and unwarranted. The culprit refused to believe the foolish theory that mixing magicks were volatile and unpredictable, even though he was dealing with the direct results of the unpredictability of said magic mixing.

He took out the glamour tube, and examined it. It was carved from wood from an enchanted tree, which would allow him to assume a certain form. At least this wasn't as painful as the Polyjuice Potion, but a bit more reliable, he thought. When the glamour was finished he looked at the results.

He looked very handsome, which is what he wanted in the glamour. His clothes looked very stylish and his hair was perfectly coifed. He looked like some teen heartthrob, and he enjoyed that fact. Not only enjoyed, but savored it, even though it was pointless, considering that all of mankind were driven underground.l for the moment.

All because of his recklessness, because of his carelessness, because of his unmitigated arrogance. Because his endless thirst for revenge, because of his baseless jealousy of Broken, he had wrought a ruined world with his endeavors. But, of course, in his mind, it wasn't his fault. It couldn't possibly be his fault. It was never his fault. It was always someone else's fault, some constant, unseen saboteur of his plans and schemes.

He would never accept, nor take, responsibility for his actions, no matter how disastrous they end up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2016, 04:18:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Coming Together

Seeing his glamour holding and after spending a few minutes enjoying this new identity, he went off -- still wearing his Invisibility Cloak. This glamour would be his saving grace, he felt. Though no one knew that he was the cause of this mess in his undisguised state, he still felt an assurance of keeping his true identity under wraps. Besides, who knows what that . . . that . . . what he told the RAFians and who knows who else about him?

No, it was best like this, where all the RAFian secrets were either revealed or tossed to the wind and as quickly forgotten. What good were they anyway? Anyone who could ally and befriend Cody -- dah, he meant, Broken -- wasn't worth anything, in this culprit's views. He had come to the unassailable conclusion that they actually deserved treatment, refusing to even acknowledge that he meddled with mixing magicks that he ought not have. He was surprisingly good at this kind of rationalization and this sort of mental acrobatics.

He began to swagger, very unnecessarily ****y, as he hadn't come across any RAFian-Zillas, which was now dwindling in numbers do fighting -- and killing -- amongst other RAFian-Zillas. But this was a very poor judgement, but this culprit has proven that he has a very good stock of bad judgement that never seems to run out.

He came upon what appeared to be a small lean-to with an odd metallic door, like the one to a bank vault. It wasn't really noticeable unless you spent some time looking for it -- the culprit got lucky. That's also what he appeared to have scads of, luck.

It was a good thing, too, as his Invisibility Cloak didn't seem to have too much life in it. He began to walk towards it, but hesitated. What if there was someone inside it? He would be expected to give a name. He couldn't use his real one, obviously. He would have to invent one. A good one. A trendy one, he decided.

He quickly dashed out the sight any external cameras, and went to the nearby brush to obscure his presence. He recast the Disillusionment Charm upon the cloak. After three tries, it was successful in renewing the Charm upon the cloak. It would wear off eventually, but not now. Especially as he noticed the edges were fraying from both age and use. He quickly stowed it his back, which was faux mokeskin, but featured the same properties. Only he could open it and remove items from it. It would not open for anyone else. Which was good because he did not trust anyone else in the slightest. Granted, it wasn't without reason.

Anyway, he strolled up to knock on the door, after checking to see his glamour was still in place. If this door was locked and there was no one in it, he would be really screwed. This was probably the safest spot in the world. All the mansions and opulent grounds -- those were the first things to go in the RAFian-Zillas rampage. They were not defended as well as their rich occupants thought. Didn't help that their help held no loyalty to them.

He was nervous now, because he could hear thunderous steps approaching. And, yes, it scared him. His magicks couldn't protect him from being eaten, as the RAFian-Zillas were like trolls and giants -- impervious to magic. Well, most, but he wasn't as proficient in nearly magical arts as many as Broken was. Of course, this is something that this culprit's pride -- and ego -- would never allow him to admit.

"H-hello?" he said. His nervousness ruined the melodious quality of his glamoured voice he felt, but the meritorious louche quality and rakish good looks still remained. But he had to continue to play the part -- not to terribly difficult with Dylan-Zilla coming this way. "Hello? Please? Is anyone there?"

The thunderous footsteps draw ever so closer. . . .

"Anyone?" he said, almost coming out of his glamour in fear, before gaining enough control over himself to prevent that. "Anyone at all?"

The door creaked open, and he was instructed to enter as a tree collapsed to his right, about five o'clock.

"Inside! Now!" Andy demanded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 22, 2016, 08:56:52 PM

i just read these last couple books--i'll be catching up on the rest soon. can't wait to see how this book ends!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2016, 11:02:22 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Inside

"Welcome, newcomer," Andy said, as he led the culprit -- the very reason why they were huddling down here in the fallback shelter to begin with -- down to the room expanse. "I'm Andy Taylor. That's Susan Schwartz and her son, Zachary."

"How do you do? I'm . . . Clive Nathaniel Atkins." the culprit said. Yes, that was the best he came up with. And he twinged a little upon hearing the boy's name, but no one seemed to notice. "But call me Nate."

"How do you do?" Susan replied the obligatory pleasantry. Zachary just pulled away and hide behind his mother. "Zachary, now don't be rude."

Zachary said nothing, and pulled away from the culprit. Apparently, the boy was picking up on signals that the adults -- and Leatherhead couldn't. Despite his mother's gentle, motherly proddings, Zachary refused to comply.

"Sorry, I don't know what has gotten into him," Susan apologized.

"And you?" "Nate" asked Leatherhead.

"LH," came the nine-year-old's surly reply. Apparently, Zachary wasn't the only one who sensed something about "Nate". Or maybe "Nate" just rubbed him the wrong way. Or maybe LH is practicing being a teenager.

"LH what, pray tell?" "Nate" prompted, irritating the disguised alligator mutant. "Nate" was sure his infliction was not off, although he was just planning on using these people for this safe spot. He didn't really care.

It took some time before Leatherhead answered, eyeing "Nate" beadily. He clear didn't trust "Nate" as much as "Nate" didn't trust them, despite the affable act he was putting on, and not very convincingly in LH's opinion.

"LH," Andy prompted firmly.

LH wait a few more long moments before saying, "LH Sirois."

"What does the L. H. stand for, if I may be so bold?" "Nate" asked, testing how far he could go.

"It stands for 'none of your damn business'," LH snarled, moodily.

"LH! Language," Andy said, promptly.

"Nate" decided right at that point to be less cavalier, and far more cautious. He kept the affable, friendly veneer though. Although he was ready to abandon it at a moment's notice if need be. The children were already wise to this ruse, but he could not for the life of him imagine how or why.

This may very well turn out to be more dangerous for him than the RAFian-Zilla monsters outside. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 22, 2016, 11:18:23 PM

dang LH. way to act like a teenager already! XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 23, 2016, 01:51:23 AM

Well, he is my "son," after all. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 23, 2016, 01:56:30 AM

he gets it from you

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2016, 06:21:24 PM

Precisely.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Terror Time Again

Time in here went by slowly. Leatherhead soon bored of reading "The Trials of Apollo" or whatever the book was called -- he couldn't really focus on it. He swore he read the same paragraph fifty times without even taking anything in.

So, he grabbed his keytar, and sang, whilst giving "Nate" a deeply venomous look, though he himself wasn't so sure why he didn't like the guy. He just looked like a poser pretty boy -- the kind his dad always despised.

"You hear the screeching of a Noctowl,
You hear the wind begin to howl,
You know there's RAFian-Zillas on the prowl.
And its terror time again.
They got you running through night.
It's terror time again,
And you just might die of fright.
It's a terrifying time!"

Zachary detached himself from his mother, and went over to LH, interested in his playing, through obviously not paying a lick of attention to the lyrics. Andy just looked at him with subtle consternation at his song choice.

"Nate" just returned the glare, not thinking anything of the song.

"You hear the beating of your heart.
You know the screaming's gonna start.
Here comes the really scary part,
'Coz it's terror time again,
They've got you running through the night!
It's terror time again,
And you just might die of fright.
It's a terrifying time!"

"Nate" kept meeting LH's penetrating glare, not daring to look away and have if look like he was being weak. He didn't realize the unimportance of this, really, nor why he felt it necessary as these people were just pawns -- mere NPCs! -- to him.

"All the trees begin to moan,
And the 'Zillas grunt and groan,
Rotting faces full of slime,
Don't you know its terror time?
And it's terror time again,
They've got you running through the night.
Yes, it's terror time again,
And you might just die of fright,
It's a terrifying time!"

As the song ended, "Nate" found that he didn't like it very much. It almost sounded like a threat. A threat directed towards him. This child was making him feel most unwelcome here. And he, in his view, had more right to be here than the rest of these pathetic, useless wastrels.

He did not know that this was RAFian property, nor of Andy and LH's relationship to a RAFian -- especially one that turned -- as neither carried a Mark. Or else they might have become RAFian-Zillas themselves. Or that Susan was an ardent supporter (or "apologists" as her estranged family would call her) for RAFian endeavors (Zachary, naturally, was too young to understand or care about the finer points of this political friction). "Nate" hated the RAFians and their forum because he hated Cody -- er, Broken, -- so much.

No. No, he must calm down. If he didn't the glamour's magic might expire or drop. He had to maintain his cover. He had to maintain the identity of this idyllic, approachable teen heartthrob, unaware it made him come off as fake and phony to the kids. The glamour was holding. But for how long, he didn't know.

He was really playing Russian roulette with a potentially volatile situation, but he was arrogantly ****y that it wouldn't backfire on him. . . .

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GkNask_pMKo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 23, 2016, 06:28:03 PM

what is with all the villains being so confident in themselves?? i mean really, now.

anyways, great chapter cloaky!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2016, 10:23:15 PM

Thanks. Probably finish this book tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Cracks Deepening

The next few days there was an unspoken, but obvious tension between Leatherhead and "Nate". "Nate" did not know why the boy hated him so much, but the more he thought of it, the boy was inconsequential. Useless and bothersome. Unneeded. He could swiftly be excised from the equation, and made to look like an accident. He had a vinewood wand in his bag. Vine, nine and three-quarters, rigid. It was his first wand, but he was confident that he could make more if he required it, though he had a preference for dragon heartstring rather than unicorn hair or phoenix feathers. He also had two others (rowan, unicorn hair, ten and three-quarters inches, slightly yielding; alder, unicorn hair, fourteen inches exactly, brittle; and laurel, unicorn hair, twelve and a quarter inches, quite bendy) that he had taken from their rightful owners by way of subterfuge, but this was merely souvenirs, trophies.

Although Broken was far superior in this regard, though "Nate" would never admit to it. Though Broken had only made a wand for Melissa (hornbeam, ten inches exactly, unicorn hair, surprisingly springy) and his own (alder, ten and a half inches, phoenix tailfeather, slightly yielding), the quality was better than anything "Nate" could make. He was always inferior, and was determined to prove that wrong. Cody couldn't have been so superior. Everything just came so damn easy to him. It wasn't his fault that he -- no matter, no matter. That was in the past. As now was Cody, though it was almost as if Cody was looming over him, still looking down him from wherever he went after death.

It wasn't fair! He didn't deserve these feelings of inadequacy!! He didn't deserve to work so hard only to be continually looked over and passed over for the stupid little golden child, Cody. The Sorcerer Supreme! Ha! Like he even earned that title. News flash, everyone -- he didn't! Your little golden boy didn't earn, he stole it!! Stole it from him!! "Nate" felt like he was robbed of something that was rightfully his! Denied his right to the title, to the rank!! It was rightfully his and not Cody's!! Cody always had everything just handed to him on a goddamn silver platter!!

"Nate" was so busy fuming about old wounds that he quite forgot to maintain his amicable demeanor and friendly disposition. His paranoia grew the more he thought about these unspoken and resentful slights. He was in a very fragile, vulnerable state of mind right now. Suddenly, this entire safe compound was just one big powder keg waiting impatiently to go boom.

It wasn't fair. They always gave him the easy training, the easy questions. They always gave "Nate" the hardest of the hard question s, the most trying of trials. Then they turn around and say that Cody is just better? That he's the supreme sorcerer?! That he --

LH rudely and roughly bumped "Nate". It looked like an accident, and probably was, but "Nate took it as deliberate provocation.

"Watch where you're going!!" "Nate snapped, his glamour actually rippling in his anger.

Leatherhead, who saw the rippling, stared hard into "Nate", giving him a cold, icy stare. After a few minutes, LH spoke with an accusatory tone, "I saw that, 'Nate', if that your real name. You're wearing some sort of disguise!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 23, 2016, 10:28:13 PM

smart kid you got there, gh. hmmm... now to see what he does about this

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2016, 07:24:19 AM

Well, here it is.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Cast Aside

"Nate" gave an insane-sounding giggle that caused Susan to draw Zachary closer to her. Even Leatherhead backed down a little, as the glamour faded with a flash of.light to reveal the twenty-something culprit.

"Who are you?!" Leatherhead demanded, less afraid now. Andy was very inclined to pull LH away from this strange man, but LH wasn't having any of it. Ever since this happened, Leatherhead was becoming more and more independent, though he secretly appreciated the parental instinct in Andy.

"Who am I? Who am I?" "Nate" said. "I think you had some choice words for such a question, Mr. Sirois. I believe they were 'none of your damn business'."

Well, that came back to bite him in the tail.

"What do you want?" Andy pressed.

"What do I . . . but you already know, don't you?" he accused, with a trembling, unsteady timbre to his voice. "You already know!!"

"What do we know?" Susan said, putting herself between Irate "Nate" and Zachary. She felt as if she put him in danger. "What exactly?"

"What do --" he spluttered, looking rather crazy, as he groped in his back. "You all know very well that it was me all along! You knew because you're all in league with the RAFians, with Cody!!"

"Who's Cody?" Andy blurted.

"Broken! That ludicrous nomme de plume of his!" "Nate" roared. "You know . . . you know of my enmity for him. You know that I tried to mix magicks. You know that this hell is because --"

"YOU?!" Leatherhead roared, voice intermingling with a crocodile roar. "YOU were the reason that I lost my Dad?!"

"YOU were the reason that I lost my boyfriend?!" Andy roared, just as angry as Leatherhead. "YOU were the one who turned him into that . . . that . . . that monster?!"

"An unintended side effect," he replied back breathlessly. He was so cavalier with his indifference at his dismissal of the RAFians. In his eyes, they stopped being worthwhile lives when they allied themselves to Cody. They've forfeited their lives, their value, on that day, as far as he was concerned. "But effective, nonetheless."

Leatherhead made to attack him, but he whipped out his yew wand, and shouted, "IMPERIO!" four times, making direct contact with each person. Putting them under the Imperious Curse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 24, 2016, 08:42:24 AM

gdi. ugh "nate" is kinda loosing his mind a bit. well, i guess he's already lost it. but you know.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2016, 04:46:01 PM

Speaking of losing it --

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Doomed

"Nate" relished the sensation of casting puppet strings into the four. There was no way for them to backstab him or betray him in any way now. While he's never been under the Imperius Curse himself -- not that he remembered, anyway -- he knew that the sensation would be of wiping one's mind clean of individual thought and will. He had no one to disabuse him of his fanciful notions, to correct his logistical errors.

He smiled a rather unpleasant smile, as he approached the four in turn, judging them. Knowing that now that they were Imperiused, he could will them to do anything he pleased. They couldn't resist his magic, anymore than the RAFians could. All Mark-Bearers were monsters because of his magic, his powerful, OP magic!

He examined LH, and said with an overt sneer, "Will you tell me what L. H. stands for now?"

"L . . . l . . . lo . . ." Leatherhead struggled.

"How cute," "Nate" said, "you're fighting my curse. It's an exercise in futility, you know."

"L-loser hot-hothead," Leatherhead choked out. He still fought off the curse, but it wasn't as easy as some may think.

"And you," he said, rounding on Zachary, "you cute little bastard."

Zachary looked up, apparently not resisting the curse at all. He was too young to be able to resist it.

"What do you think of me?"

"You're really cool!" Zachary said, but the words weren't his. "Nate" was puppeting the boy, like a ventriloquist dummy. "Way better than Mommy!"

That did it. It was one thing to use Susan herself in such a way, but there was absolutely no way -- no way -- that she would allow her son to be used like that. She quickly broke and shrugged off the Imperius Curse, her sheer motherly instincts giving her strength and power. This display of strength seemed to empower Andy and Leatherhead enough to break and shrug of theirs as well.

All at once, the tables turned on "Nate". They always did. It was really unfair.

Susan made it to his wand before he could do anything and, with prodigious strength, broke the yew wand into two, neatly severing the dragon heartstring within, rendering it useless. He remembered his trophy wands, but immediately discarded that notion. They were useless as well, because the unicorn hair within them "died" ages ago.

"H-how? How'd --" "Nate" spluttered as he felt the woman's beefy hand at his throat, lifting him up, off his feet. He never realized just how tall this woman was.

"Just because a cat doesn't show you its claws," Susan snarled, sounding rather like a saber-toothed cat, "doesn't mean that it doesn't have any!!"

"Nate" began to see stars.

"Wh-why?"

"Nate" couldn't hear her response as his head began to swim. He began to swoon in and out of consciousness. And soon, very soon, all he knew was blackness and nothingness . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 24, 2016, 04:53:39 PM

"nate" should really stop underestimating people

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2016, 07:05:48 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Not Real?

Suddenly, "Nate" snapped his eyes open, and bolted upright in his shabby bed. He was breathing heavily, as if he had just died. He was sweating, but breathing. He was alive, and it was a moment before what he was seeing caught up with him.

He was alive. He wasn't in the stronghold. He was back in his magical tent with his protective enchantments around them. Back in this unobtrusive little stretch of woods. His bookbag was there, but his trophy wands were not. Made sense, as they only existed in the dream. Yes, dream. It was all a dream. None of it happened, not truly.

He should have known from the start. Every time he tried to mix those magicks they just caused explosions instead of what they were supposed to do. Granted, even he didn't know what they were supposed to do, but at least he was willing to try it, to see. He wasn't afraid of experimentation like Cody was. Cody was always afraid of getting into trouble, terrified of not exploring the unexplored! Why would boundaries exist if they weren't pushed to the limit? Why would limits exist if they weren't meant to be broken? Why was this such a difficult concept for mundane people like Cody to understand? It really wasn't that difficult.

But, clearly, he had allowed having everything delivered to him on a friggin' silver plate softened his adventurer's spirit, dulled his curiosity, dimmed his courage to discover that which had not been discovered before! His expression turned from outright jealously to a ruefully regretful.

Before they started learning the established procedures of magic, Cody was just as daring as he was. The pair of the were very mischievous pranksters. Before they got their first wands -- he examined his prized yew wand, as he reflected on this, they were inseparable. They were like brothers.

It started off fine enough. Their teachers were fair in the beginning. Then it happened, and the teachers suddenly started to favor Cody over him. They all, almost deciding unanimously to come down hard on him. For no reason, no less!! He wasn't a slacker or anything, but it's really hard to excel when your teachers and faculty and whatnot are set against you achieving anything, let alone notoriety. Yet they had nothing but praise for their darling Cody.

Just the thought about it almost made him snap his yew wand absentmindedly. He felt aggrieved at this, but he kept reminiscing over these old wounds. How unfairly treated he was, how his magical genius was overlooked, unnoticed, and spurned by those philostines! How he came to loathe them all. How he came to resent their unappreciated scoldings and tellings off.

This resentment eventually spilled over to Cody. Their relationship soured, with Cody being initially oblivious and flummoxed by the sudden change in moodiness and behavior of his friend. It was only later he divined the reasoning: Zak was deeply jealous of his skill and ability.

The lives of Zak and Cody weren't that sweet from then on . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 24, 2016, 07:10:23 PM

hah! that's great. i love it.

also thanks for making me sCREAM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 24, 2016, 08:43:07 PM

That last sentence... Cloaky, I don't know whether to laugh or hit you :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2016, 08:46:50 PM

;)

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXIII:
WELL, TECHADON-ALLY . . .
CHAPTER ONE:
Animated and Loved

A poorly-pixilated GH, Saffa, and Abby sang:

"It's time for RAF-a-maniacs!
We hope your hard drive stays intact!
If this program starts to crash,
Give your CPU a whack!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
The crew would like to buy a really snappy yacht!
They put all kinds of games in here to tie your mind in knots,
And zany animations that'll leave ya' seein' spots!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
They morphed us into bitmaps!
If you move your mouse to click on us, it will force us to react!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
Look at GH as he tries to pull your processor apart!
And Saffa's burning active memory with a spark!
Abby just grabbed your cursor, she wants you to restart!
We've kidnapped all the developers,
They think that they're smart!
We're RAF-a-maniacs!
Play at work and you get sacked!
If the artwork is too slacked,
Well, they've licenced us to hacks!
We're RAFly, totally insaney!
Cloak's totally flamey!
RAF-a-maniacs!
Those are the facts!"

"Abby, are you still on this kick?" Cloak said, uninterested in the game.

"Yeah, we don't merchandise," Saffa said.

GH said nothing. The other three looked at him.

"Hey, I'm thinking!" he protested.

***

"No one would miss me, Aniyu," Cloak said, later on. He was trying to get through the last layer. It was proving the most difficult. Despite everything, he found it very difficult to love himself. It, indeed, has been one reason why he was so willing to give up his life so quickly and so easily.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, her tone crisp but gentle. "Cloak, you know that is just patently untrue."

Cloak said nothing, just leaned on a window sill that was there simply because he needed to lean on something and something to look out of. Any love he had for himself at atrophied into near-nothingness by overexposure to his mother's abusive controlling tactics. He could accept her for what she had done, and for what she had allowed herself to become -- a spinster angry at the world around her.

Suddenly, images began to surround him. Saffa, Abby, Xeno, GH, Leatherhead, Dino, Broken, Faerie, Phoenix, Gaz . . . and more and more RAFians. Wheeza, his stalwart aunt who helped him so much. Faith. Shadow. More and more figures that he couldn't even see anymore.

"Still believe no one would miss you, Cloak?" Aniyu said, smiling benignly. "These are but a few lives you have touched in a positive way, but a few lives whose timelines intersect yours. These people do care about you."

She waited a moment for it all to sink in.

"Cloak," her tone now took on a tone of motherly comfort, "these are shadows of people who, regardless of how your mind distorts it, will and would miss you."

She waited a moment again.

"If they can love you," she asked, " why can't you do the same?"

---

Song source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf23ZtAZl28

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 24, 2016, 08:53:59 PM

hah!! the first part amuses me greatly
the second part, however, makes me really sad!! D=< dangit cloak

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2016, 10:14:32 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWO:
Inspector #86

A Weapon Master of Techadon was in a ship heading for Earth. Inspector 86 had a humanoid appearance with green skin, red eyes, and nasal cavities where his nose should be. He was always wearing a white, full bodysuit with various pockets and a utility belt. He had a strong sense of pride and self-preservation.

His kind were a weapons group that creates, supplies and sells weapons to anyone who can afford them their prices. They are incredibly antisocial and almost never leave their homeworld. No one has ever seen one of them -- er, no one has seen one of them and lived to tell the tale. It is even impossible to encounter the Weapon Masters when buying their products, as they usually send a remote unit to construct them.

They have powerful technology and ships, with some close to Galvan inventions. Though they don't appreciate the comparison and will go out of their way to make Galvins look bad. They have advanced suits filled with voice-activated technology and weapons that can deploy almost anything for various scenarios. They take their products very seriously and inspect events in which many of them fail, which is why Inspector #86 is coming for Earth. Apparently, this is where Malice has been getting her materials.

The Weapon Masters are cold and calculating and have no interest whatsoever with what their consumers do with the products they purchase. They have no problem with killing or kidnapping to reach their means. While some of their products, such as the Techadon Factory, are custom jobs, others, such as individual Techadon robots, can be commonly bought "off the shelf" and mass-produced. These robots that the RAFians had easily destroyed in various mundane missions. They were really considered to be nothing more of a threat than the Box Ghost in Danny Phantom. Something that they didn't need to take seriously.

The Weapon Master's boxy ship landed right in front of GH, Cerulean, Horse, and Gaz.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 24, 2016, 10:19:35 PM

of course malice would do crap like that. and i loved the DP ref Cloaky XD
can't wait for the next chapter

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2016, 11:10:48 PM

Well, here it is.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Well, That Escalated Fast

"Who dropped that crate here?" GH demanded. "I was almost half a GH!"

A rectangular door opened up and Inspector #86 came out, walking with an irritatingly confident stride. He walked up to GH, and said, "Unusual energy signature located. It originates from the marking of these Terrans."

"What did he just call me?" GH asked quickly.

"Cool it, GH," Gaz said.

Then he bowed down to look at Gaz's Mark with an intensity she found unnerving. "Deploy Scanalysis Array."

Robotic arms spouted from barnacle-like nodes on his head, and began to poke and prod Gaz's hand where her Mark was.

"Look, I'm all for being friendly and everything, but --" Gaz began.

"Multiple unknown code variants, extant." he interrupted. "Energy patterns significantly deviate from known exemplars. Close examination is required."

"I don't like the sound of that techno-babble," Horse said.

He seized Gaz's hand, and held her aloft.

"Ugh, the one time Beaky is giving me my space," Gaz groaned. Then she translated to mist and escaped his grip easily. "Back off, creep!"

GH stood right in front of him, guitar at the ready, deciding which sing to play momentarily. But the Weapon Master just said, "Terran male defense scenario: deploy knee."

"What?" GH managed to get out, before Inspector #86 slammed his kneed into GH's crotch. And it wasn't a weak blow either.

"Not cool, man!" GH said, a couple of octaves higher. "Not cool!"

"Affirmative," the Weapon Master agreed. "The temperature has not decreased below acceptable levels."

"Ugh . . ." GH groaned, as he writhed in pain. Where was Kelly when you needed her white mage powers?

Cerulean sped toward him, hoping to land a hand on him, but the Weapon Master was able to dodge each time, but only just. It almost seemed accidental.

"Terran defense scenario: deploy the deceleration orbs."

Then he littered the ground with little ballbearings which caused Cerulean to trip and land on his butt. Gaz got up and was immediately on her communicator to the forum -- she could see how quickly this went south.

"Deploy molecular vice," he said, as strips of what appeared to be metallic duct tape wrapped all four RAFians -- before Horse could do anything but shout obscenities at the Weapon Master.

He was taking them away to study their Marks, and Unity Energy. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 24, 2016, 11:14:04 PM

oww. i'm not even a guy and i felt bad for gh.
also ugh of course he's gonna kidnap RAFians. they always seem to do that. dang villains

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 24, 2016, 11:20:21 PM

Oh god . . . I felt that one . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2016, 01:05:29 PM

Yeah. Hey, I did warn ya.

Anyway, new book ideas.

• Book MXLVII (1,047): "Archetype Retrieval" -- The Archetypes escape the Parasitotrix and the RAFians must find them.
• Book MXLVIII (1,048): "Fmoo Have Some 'Splainin' to Do!" -- The Fmeks illegally return to Earth.
• Book MXLIX (1,049): "Mech Madness, Mk II" -- Some mechaniloids develop malevolent A.I.s.
• Book ML (1,050): "Xeno's Archenemy" -- Xeno's backstory.
• Book MLI (1,051): "Oligarch Killer" -- A killer is murdering oligarchs, but not touching the innocent.
• Book MLII (1,052): "Mask Nicely" -- Imposters are posing as RAFians again.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything. New chapter later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 25, 2016, 02:12:51 PM

cloak, do you ever feel like you're going to run out of ideas for stories??

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2016, 02:18:08 PM

Nah.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 25, 2016, 02:32:23 PM

XD nice

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2016, 03:21:11 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Garbled

Xeno was manning the communications building this time. It was dreadfully boring at times, especially to someone who spent his time inventing things and what not. He was eager to leave this duty and return to his workshop. He was in the middle of toying around with a possibly improved fabrication process -- it would not only potentially revolutionize the industry, but make it easier for the RAFians to craft curative rays and such.

He never like communications duty -- no one did. It was dreadfully boring at the best of times. But someone had to do it, and it was usually Yarin (to keep him from thinking about that microwave of his). But he could do it all the time, and only the Nyac seemed immune to the somniferous nature of the task. No one seemed to know quite why he alone was immune.

Xeno found himself watching the minutes tick by until he would soon be freed from this tedium. Just a scarce half an hour, then he would be done, and have done his duty for a while. Just a few more ticks of the clock.

"Bzzzzzt . . . come . . . bzzzkt . . . RAF!!" a voice crackled over the communications. Xenos first impulse was, he was embarrassed to acknowledge, irritation. He was nearly done! "Bzzzzkt bzzzzzkt . . . is Gaz! We . . . bzzzzt bzzzkt . . . emergency!"

This caught Xeno's rapt attention. The signal was obviously being interfered with, but he tried to boost it in every way he knew how, but the audio was still grainy and gravelly to an annoying degree. This irritated and frustrated the gryphon as he released the frustration in a loud growl.

"Gaz!" he shouted, hoping to be heard, "Gaz, come in! What is your position?!"

"Bzzzzz . . ."

"Nothing," Xeno growled, angry and frustrated. "Great."

Xeno was severely agitated, his tail whipping around haphazardly. It must be a feline thing to do that, as every feline RAFian seems to do the same when they are agitated. Xeno knew he had to report this, but what evidence would have to back him up. All he had was Gaz saying "emergency". That wouldn't be enough to warrant any immediate action to be taken. Would it?

Then he heard something -- and if he was judging the sound right, it was coming from the periphery of the Code Avalon's shield. And it was at it's lowest setting, to save power. It took him a moment to recognize words.

"Several more unique energy signatures detected," the voice said. "It originates from within this location."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 25, 2016, 03:33:10 PM

oh snaap

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2016, 05:28:07 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Unwelcomed Guest

"Error: Path forward is obstructed by low-power force field," Inspector #86 said. "Deploy Scanalysis Array."

With that, he examined Code Avalon with his array. Then, quite suddenly the array retracted and Code Avalon was down. This Weapon Master was not a force to be taken lightly.

Xeno was the first on the scene, ready for battle with this unseen foe. He had no idea what this creature was or what it was after, but he couldn't allow this brazen trespass to stand. He flared his wings and clacked his beak as his tail swished from side to side in the most hostile manner. His mechanical gloves even glittered threateningly.

"Unique energy signature located," Inspector #86 said. "Located on the hostile lifeform. Gryphon defense scenario: deploy Stun Swarm."

"You know what I am?" Xeno replied, as tiny spheres swarmed from the top of the Weapon Master's head as if he was a Vileplume using Stun Spore. Xeno fluttered his wings to get distance but that didn't work with these strange particulates. They seemed to cling to his fur and feathers in a most obnoxious way. It was as if he were covered with many metallic ticks. Ticks that he couldn't get off. Why didn't he think of this contingency?

Wait! Maybe if he --

"Argh!!" Xeno groaned as each of the metal ticks send jolt after jolt of electricity into him, eventually knocking him out, but not killing him.

"Hostile lifeform subdued," Inspector #86 said. "Deploy molecular vice."

With that, an unconscious Xeno was wrapped up like a mummy, and taken into the ship by remote. The Weapon Master looked on passively indifferent.

"More unique signatures remain. All require examination." Inspector #86 said. Unfortunately, Underseen, Saffa, Abby, Noelle, Blocky and Empress Goose had come to investigate. Inspector #86 had defenses to deal with all their powers. And he dealt with them summarily as well. He didn't seem very impressed.

"Hostile lifeforms neutralized. All carry the unique signatures. All must be detained and restrained for further evaluation."

And more came out to see what was going on, to see if they could do something to stop this unstoppable force.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: NickDaGriff on August 25, 2016, 05:32:49 PM

*Unconscious mumbles*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 25, 2016, 05:36:03 PM

oh craaaap. can't wait to see how this goes

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2016, 01:06:18 PM

Wait no longer.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
RAFians Down!

"Targeting several hostile subjects," Inspector #86 said. "Threat level: minuscule."

The Weapon Master took down Dylan by easily surmising his weakness, tricked him into saying "Shazam!" and the bound him in his molecular vice when he shouted it again. Even he couldn't break the bindings.

When Dino charged him, he tripped her using a bunch of ball bearings on the ground which caused her to lose her footing and fall. She hadn't any projectile abilities outside of her Unity abilities, so she was unable to really do much as she was both unable to right herself and she was given the same Stun Swarm treatment as Xeno, only she managed to stay conscious, due to her massive size. The Inspector thought it impractical to study her, which she actually took umbrage of.

Inspector #86 then disarmed Hunter with the Stun Swarm trick again, causing him to drop his firearms. He was bound as he lay, falling into unconsciousness. He, like the others were being taken into the Techadon ship.

More and more RAFians tried and failed to take on the Techadon Master. It was ridiculous the ease he was having with all of them, just as it was ridiculous just how unprepared the RAFians were for him.

Gymn, Shock, and EvilPinkDragon failed, but were felled just like Dino, and dismissed just as quickly.

FuBar and Kern was batted aside and bound.

Quaf faired no better, and was easily bound up.

Empress Goose, who had escaped being bound shortly after his defeat, tried to body jump the Weapon Master, only to receive a hearty shock that laid him out, and left him vulnerable to be bound up. Which he was, as he was remotely towed.

Demos didn't have any more luck when he tried the same thing, but he was out of practice with the technique. He usually used it on cows.

Sakki was swiftly silenced, and the summarily bound.

More and more RAFians fell. This was what Gaz was trying to warn them about. She knew how far south this would go. She knew that they needed one of four people to defeat this monster, and none of the RAFians who fought him were one of the four.

Spectre was still gone for some unknown errand. Estelore was in another sojourn in the galaxy, to who knows where. Richard had just vanished with a note saying that it was for personal reasons -- and it wouldn't expound upon it.

"Reassessing . . . far more subject lifeforms possess the energy signature than previously calculated." Inspector #86 said. "A sufficient amount of subjects have been reached. Further extended use of resources in this endeavor have been deemed as forbidden and cited as pointless. Returning to ship. Set coordinates for --"

"You're not going anywhere," came a quiet voice that nonetheless carried very rapidly upon the air.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 26, 2016, 02:34:22 PM

oh damn. this guy is ridiculously strong dang.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2016, 02:53:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Species: Unidentified

The Weapon Master turned around, as a gentle wind blew throughout the forum, causing Cloak's eponymous cloak to billow around him dramatically. Neither said anything as they stared each other down.

"Error: subject's species is unidentifiable," Inspector #86 stated. "Subject's species is not known."

"Whereas yours is clearly evident," Cloak said, not moving, "a Weapon Master of Techadon. I thought your kind never left Techadon. What's the occasion?"

"Assessing threat potential . . ." Inspector #86 said.

"Not gonna answer me, are you?" Cloak said, a trifle miffed, but altogether unsurprised. He sighed, "You're really gonna make me do this aren't you? You can't just give it up, return the RAFians and be on your merry way? Oh, no. You just have to do things the hard way, don't you?"

"Assessing . . ."

Cloak sighed heavily. Why was it all the villains with the smarts to reform are never the majority? Why was it that species like the Weapon Masters were so convinced in the right to do anything they like regardless of the freedoms of others? The whole thing, the whole schtick, Cloak was finding to be rather bothersome and tiresome at the same time. It never really seemed like the RAFians got a break.

The spring weather was nice and enjoyable, and then this decided to happen. Do they ever seem to get any real enjoyable downtime? Alas, the answer is always, invariably, no.

"Assessment concluded," Inspector #86 said.

"Took you long enough," Cloak said, acidly, "you must be on dial-up or something."

"Threat level," Inspector #86 said, "minimal."

Suddenly, it was as if all the air was sucked out of the forum for a few minutes. It ended when the dragons and Dino -- all still conscious -- groaned pityingly.

"What?" Cloak said, flatly. All the sardonic flippancy left him in this instance.

Pure silence met this single word, as the Weapon Master moved to leave. Until, with but a gesture, Cloak crumpled his engines like soda cans. Cloak was irate at the arrogance. They weren't even all that great of weaponsmiths! The Galvin and Walker weaponsmiths easily put them to shame.

"Say that again," Cloak growled. His ire was growing, and yet he was managing to keep his powers in check.

"Error: Assessment does not bear repeating. Assessment was obvious." Inspector #86 said.

"Now we're in for it," Dino moaned.

"Perhaps you need a DEMONSTRATION of my power," Cloak snarled, his pride hurt. "You worthless piece of" -- uh, yeah, it was a good thing that this word wasn't translatable into English -- "if you hadn't your tech, any RAFian would have creamed you. You pompous, arrogant, sack of --"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 26, 2016, 02:58:50 PM

XD omgs this is gonna be great i think

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: NickDaGriff on August 26, 2016, 03:13:33 PM

*Ewan McGregor voice*

I have a bad feeling about this...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 26, 2016, 03:28:36 PM

Well, I'm out of commission, so I don't think I can do much to diffuse the situation.

Also, OH MY GOD THAT STILL HURTS

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2016, 06:06:35 AM

;)

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Demonstration of Power

"Assessing options," Inspector #86 said, cold and impassionately.

Cloak's tail began to sweep side to side in an agitated fashion. He was very tempted to just kill the Weapons Master and be done with it then and there. But his more pacifist side would not hear of it. Cloak found himself self considering just how he could crack the crate-like ship like an egg. He could tell from where he stood it was metal.

"Assessment concluded." Inspector #86 said, as part of Cloak considered crushing him into a tiny smear on the pavement, but his rationality forbade it, as it would possibly terrify his friends, lending them to distance themselves from him. "Personal combat not required."

"You're really making the case for me to kill you, you know," Cloak said.

"Subject aggression recognized." Inspector #86 said, causing Cloak to facepalm. "Action concluded. Deploy Seekers -- Model Alpha, Series 88621.*"

It was then Cloak realize the crate-like ship wasn't the Weapon Master's ship, but a Techadon Robot Factory. As many green Techadon Robots trumped out of the left-hand side of the crate. They were tall, green with silver highlights, and humanoid in shape. They looked different from the Seeker's Malice used, but he just assumed she had hers custom-made.

"Apprehend," the Weapon Master ordered of the Robots.

But Cloak sensed tone thing that disappointed him about the decision. The robots didn't stand a chance. He closed his eyes and touched the tips of his index fingers, thumbs, and middle fingers, whilst interlocking his ring fingers and pinkies. He slowed his breathing.

"Error: Subject's apparent supplications do not follow standard practice in such scenarios," the Weapon Master said, as Cloak's eyes opened into golden-scarlet suns with six tendrils of energy trailing off, almost like tears or the fire on a Mega Blaziken's wrist. "Error: the subject is displaying an unknown energy signature, disparate from the previous unique energy signature."

"You haven't seen anything yet," Cloak said, voice sounding unintentionally ethereal.

These Techadon Robots had the mistake of being made of metal. Cloak would rectify it, as he crossed his forearms above his face, fists clenched. Then he flung them down, opening his fists into open hands with splayed hands and all hundred or so Techadon Robots were reduced to metal dust and shrapnel. Then Cloak took the metal dust, aware of the regenerative nature of the robots in another Realm, and crudely smelted them. Then he made into metal bricks enough make several crude Tower of Pimps (http://roosterteeth.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tower_of_Pimps). They would not regenerate.

The Cloak took a deep breath as he closed his eyes, extinguishing the the tendrils of energy. When he opened his eyes again they were back to their normal amber color.

"Are we done here, yet, Inspector?" Cloak growled. "Are you going to release my friends, or will I have to make you?"

---

*They look like this, only green and silver. A Weapon Master is in between. (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/a/ad/TUH_%2829%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20151221122755)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 27, 2016, 11:52:57 AM

niceeee. go cloaky!! although i'm slightly concerned because this is only chapter eight... hmmmm.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2016, 07:46:11 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
New Model

"I'm still waiting for an ans--" Cloak began before the Inspector interrupted.

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Beta, Series 84713."

"Shoulda known that that was too easy," Cloak muttered, as more Seekers emerged, exactly the same design of the previous model. Only predominantly yellow, with black accents and highlights.

Immediately, Cloak knew that these Seekers differed from their predecessors in one very subtle way. There was no metal in them. The hard parts were some polymer with a name Cloak could never remember, while the soft bits and the moving parts were a strong mesh thing. But there was no metal for him to manipulate at all.

"Beta models are made of a sub-Synthoid polymer from its chassis skeleton to it exoskeletal exterior," the Inspector said, devoid of emotion. "No metal to manipulate. Subject is helpless to stop them."

Cloak was annoyed that the Weapon Master of Techadon felt the compulsion to spell it out for him. Especially when he had already figured it out before he spoke.

"You honestly think that I'm some one-trick pony, don't you?" Cloak asked, rhetorically and acerbic. "Dear Inspector, you disappoint"

"Repeat: there is no metal to manipulate. The polymer is strong as metal, but it is not." the Inspector said, confident that he had the upperhand."

"Repeat," Cloak said, mocking him, "you disappoint me."

Cloak followed the same motions as before, and six tendrils of golden-scarlet energy leaked from his eyes, almost like tears, and his eyes, in turn, were like golden-scarlet suns.

"Assessment: an exercise in futility," the Inspector said.

"You may be powerful, with your technology," Cloak said, voice accidentally ethereal again. "But you place too much stock on seeing things based solely on face value. Such a lamentable pity that you cannot imagine a world outside your specific perimeters."

"Assessment: Subject is attempting to use meaningless rhetoric to disguise own ineptitudes."

"Fine," Cloak said, "be that way."

Then Cloak took a deep breath and blasted fire at the Seekers. It was hot enough to melt them into useless plastic slag. But not hot enough to ignite the atmosphere, he had enough lucidity to be very conscious of this.

All of them gone, Cloak took a deep breath, and extinguished the energy tendrils as he shut his eyes. When he opened them again, they were back to the normal amber.

"Do you require another demonstration," Cloak asked, "or will you kindly fork over the other RAFians?"

"Reassessing threat level," came the Inspector's reply.

Cloak felt a bit of pride bubbling up, as he believed the Weapon Master of Techadon finally would recognize his power. He could be real prideful, at times.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 27, 2016, 07:54:10 PM

hmmmm... i don't think the weapon master gets it yet XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2016, 08:13:07 PM

Yep, he doesn't.

Anyway, more book ideas!

• Book MLIII: "Hairy Notter" -- Dylan is cursed with a "baldness touch".
• Book MLIV: "Distinction of Reality and Fantasy" -- Virtual reality fantasies come into vogue.
• Book MLV: "Return of False-Face!" -- An old acquaintance of Ash returns.
• Book MLVI: "A H.A.R.D.A.C. to Crack" -- Civilians start acting very odd . . .
• Book MLVII: "The Scroll" -- A martial artist is desperate for a scroll that has the technique of the Death Touch on it.
• Book MLVIII: "Glass House" -- The RAFians discover more strange mirrors.
• Book MLIX: "Interview With A RAFian" -- Several RAFians are interviewed.
• Book MLX: "An Unlikely Fusions" -- An old, forgotten foe comes back and merges with the Tinhorn Thirteen.
• Book MLXI: "Help! I'm Trapped in Everybody!" -- A friend of Quaf is trapped in a Bodyjacker ball, like F1 was.
• Book MLXII: "WYSWYG" -- A shapeshifter is cursed to look (though retaining her size and original nose) like anyone she sees at random moments.

Don't think I rehashed anything.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 27, 2016, 08:25:21 PM

from what i can see, nope! they sound interesting haha

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2016, 09:25:10 PM

Thanks. I also added two more.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TEN:
Dude -- Seriously?

"Assessment concluded," the Inspector said, in his deadpan voice. "Threat level is marginal."

Cloak waited a couple beats before saying anything. When he did, his tone was cold and foreboding. "Inspector, do you think that this is some kind of game I'm playing here? The joke was not funny the first time. It wasn't the second time. The third time? Now -- now, its just Gateburst insulting."

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Gamma, Series 87944." the Inspector declared -- as much as someone can declare with a deadpan delivery. These Seekers were exactly like their predecessors, down to the fabric "skin". Only they were blue with bronze-colored highlights and accents.

"This isn't gonna get old for you anytime soon, is it?" Cloak asked, knowing that he wouldn't get a response. "Because it's getting rather stale for me."

The Seekers moved to attack, as the Inspector was explaining their tech specs, but Cloak wasn't even paying attention to him anymore as these Seekers seemed better equipped than the previous set.

They fired their lasers at Cloak and Cloak easily redirected all of them, while the Inspector was still giving out the tech specs, and an idea occurred to Cloak, as he destroyed the last of Model Gamma Seekers. But this idea . . . it was too preposterous to be legitimate. Too ridiculous to be plausible. Too unlikely to be possible.

And yet . . .

"Wait just a minute here," when Cloak got unlikely confirmation of this ludicrous theory. "Is that a camera? Are you honestly making a commercial?! A commercial of all things?!"

"Error: subject is making a false assumption."

"I can see the camera!!"

"Error: subject is mistaking a carpet cleaner for a camera."

"Don't try to pull that on me, you piece of --" Cloak said, part of him not quite believing this twist. "Are you even a Weapon Master of Techadon? And nottheir Head of Merchandising or something?"

"Error: subject is raving."

"This isn't a party," Cloak said, having defeated all the Seekers.

"Error: subject is spouting out random topics in the hopes of confusing this one, #86."

"Eighty-six, huh?" Cloak said, contemptuously. "Apt, as I shall eight-six this banter right now, and order you to --"

"Mr. Cloak?"

"Oh, First Light," Cloak moaned. "You have some lousy timing, Leatherhead!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 27, 2016, 09:29:04 PM

oh noo XD cloak don't hurt the kid!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 27, 2016, 09:55:26 PM

Oh god, that chapter was great. I was hoping you'd make an 86 joke at some point, and you did not disappoint XD

Restaurant bros *Fist bump*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2016, 06:03:12 AM

Restaurant bros? But I work in the kitchen of a hospital (with an attached cafe, but still).

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
This Complicates Matters -- Wait, WHAT?!

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Delta, Series 89613." the Inspector said. Cloak still thought this was essentially a massive commercial for them. Granted, the Techadon Weapon Master wasn't being filmed, as to keep up the "mystique", presumably.

These Seekers were ruby red with gold highlights. Likely their weaponry, in the Inspector's view could not be reflected. Cloak had to wonder, even for the slightest, that perhaps that this was the true reason that Inspector #86 was kidnapping RAFians. Just so he could make a commercial for Techadon products.

"Mr. Cloak? Where is Daddy?"

And this just made everything real difficult.

"Now's not a good time, Leatherhead!" Cloak scolded. "Go back to your thread until its safe!!"

"I can help!"

Help. Leatherhead was still a novice -- at best -- in battle. It would be like playing "Kingdom Hearts" on Critical Mode with amputated thumbs. No, the difficulty spike would just be to difficult for the young crocodilian mutant.

"While I appreciate the enthusiasm, Leatherhead," Cloak said, blocking the blasts with a wall of earth, "this is far outside your realm of experience. No, go!"

"But --"

"Leatherhead," Cloak said with gritted teeth. It may have been harsh, but there was no time to split hairs or play patty-cake. Inspector #86 was far too much for him to take on, even with Cloak there. "I'm about to lose my temper with you. This guy has taken out most, if not all, of the other RAFians present. I haven't the time nor the energy to humor you in this. You're out of you league on this one."

Leatherhead looked as if he was about cry. He was five, after all.

"Don't even, Leatherhead," Cloak said, stress causing his voice to sound terse and severe. "This is neither the place nor the time for that. You need to go to your thread. It's safe there. This isn't a battle to cut your teeth on. Go! Go now!"

Leatherhead complied, deciding that he didn't like Mr. Cloak. But he would get over it with due time.

Cloak lowered the wall, only to discover that Estelore had arrived and beaten him to it. The Delta models were gone, and Estelore just looked over her shoulder, saying, "Oh, hi, Cloak."

"Hi, Esty." Cloak said in reply.

"Assessing new subject threat level," the Inspector said.

"What?" the star queried.

"This should be good," Cloak muttered.

"Assessment concluded," the Inspector declared, deadpan. "Threat level: considerable."

"Oh, C'MON!!" Cloak complained.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on August 28, 2016, 08:51:06 AM

This book has had me rolling so far. Great work especially since I'm sure you just wanted an excuse to show off. ;)

And PDF of the last book - which, given how it ended, I shall perceive as that one issue that every comic run has that seemingly never happened. Lord, I groaned. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 28, 2016, 09:51:15 AM

i'm laughing so hard at this whole book so far, it's greatly amusing to me XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2016, 06:40:25 PM

Originally, this book was intended to be very serious and taken that way. But then, when it came time to actually write it, it came off as more comical than intended. And, thinking about it, it's kinda needed to be a bit jokey, considering just how the subject matter of the previous two books were, and considering that there's probabaly not gonna be a lot of them in the future.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 28, 2016, 06:43:35 PM

yeah, i think we needed it

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2016, 09:31:10 PM

Ah, good.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Quips

"What, showing off or something, Cloak?" Esty said, obviously satisfied with the assessment. And, granted, she was more powerful than Cloaky himself, but still he seethed from the perceived insult. Cloak was sure that it was deliberate.

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Epsilon, Series 88823."

"First Light! How many of these things does he even have?!" Cloak blurted.

"Seekers? Wasn't that a Malice thing?" Estelore inquired.

"Where'd you think she got them from?" Cloak answered, a bit surly.

"Posit: we are still awaiting payment from that account," the Weapon Master put in, tonelessly. "The interest is at eight-point-nine-eight-three-six percent."

"Why am I not surprised?" Cloak said, as he began to slice up the Seekers as Estelore leisurely began to blast them. After all, this kind of thing was just a Sunday night for RAFians. "At Malice's nonpayment, of course, not the interest rate."

"Um, why is going over the tech specs?" Esty asked, distracted. "Is he tech support or something?"

"He making a commercial," Cloak said, dully, noticing that Esty was taking out more robots than he was. Yes, he was aware that it was being petty and childish, but he couldn't help himself.

"Error: subject is subjecting second subject to false accusations," the Inspector said.

"It's a camera, and you know it!"

"Correction: it is a carpet cleaner."

Estelore suppressed a giggle poorly, which irritated the Realm Walker.

"Oh, shut the Veil up, you!!" Cloak snarled to the Weapon Master. "It's not even funny anymore!!"

"Query: does subject even know function of a carpet cleaner?"

"You're doing this on purpose," Cloak accused the Weapon Master, unintentionally sounding like the Nostalgia Critic.

"Not to put a damper on this amusing exchange," Esty said, with a bright smile, "I broke all your toys, big guy."

Cloak glowered at being upstaged again. Realm Walkers were a prideful lot.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 28, 2016, 09:39:09 PM

poor cloak XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2016, 06:22:54 AM

Shows a different side of Cloak, no?

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
In Or Outtie

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Zeta, Series 77653."

"He has a lot of these things, doesn't he?" Estelore asked.

"He's basically advertising them," Cloak said, "so he probably has even more than this."

"How can he keep them in that crate though?"

"Probably tech akin to TARDIS tech," Cloak said, dully.

"Show be easy enough," Estelore said, brightly.

Cloak was very tempted to tell her to shut up, but what possible good would that do? The others were still severely trussed up and still inside the crate thing. Many of which were probably unconscious. How were they to save any of them when they were fighting wave after wave of Techadon Seeker robots? Especially when Esty was hogging all the kills. . . .

Wait a minute!

"Esty, they're all yours," Cloak said. "I have some more important business to attend to."

"That's fine," she said, "this shouldn't take me too long to deal with."

Cloak could have done without the last remark, but he let it slide, for he had more important matters to contend with. He would start with Dino. He ran over to her position, and removed her bindings -- with unexpected ease, as well. He helped her upright, though she still was dazed a bit, but she was still conscious.

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Eta, Series 80715."

Ignoring that, Cloak thought bitterly, because it meant that Estelore had already beaten the Zeta models in half the time he would. Cloak knew he was prone to jealousy, so it was great effort for him to not feel as such.

The dragons were next. They were all dazed, but just as conscious as Dino was. But they were now free. He left them to regain their senses, as he continued to undo what the Weapon Master was doing before his confrontation with him. Because, while powerful, Estelore was not all-powerful. She would and could tire, just as anyone else could and would.

But if she bought Cloak enough time . . . time in which he should be proactive in freeing the other RAFians and not sulking . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 29, 2016, 12:25:53 PM

there you go cloaky! and it really does show another side of him, which is great.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on August 29, 2016, 05:48:01 PM

It's interesting to me that good old Estelore (Fictional Estelore) is still a Memoirs staple years after leaving RAF for good. But hey, Isto does have that effect on people. ; ) *Snuggly feeling*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2016, 07:32:41 PM

It's part of my "No RAFian Left Behind" Program, Shenmue. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Complete Non-Sense

"Deploy Seekers-- Model Theta, Series 82726."

Keep it together, Cloak, Cloak barrated himself, you have a purpose, a need, a service, to be fulfilled.

Then music started up, and Cloak knew this would be the perfect distraction. He went to work, as Esty sang, as she bashed the Model Thetas:

"The sense of sight
Is what guides you right
When you go out on walks."

There. Oceanspray was freed.

"The sense of smell
Is the way you tell
That you need to change your socks!"

And now tobiasthehawk and Quaf were freed.

"The sense of touch
Is what hurts so much
When you bang your toe on the bed."

Dameg. Freed.

"The sense of hearing
Is something good,
Because if an angel falls in wood,
Would there be a sound?
You bet there would!!
If he landed on top of your head,
Your head!
If an angel landed on top of your head!"

AgentAK, Alic, AndaliteSeer, AndaliteWarrior100, and Ax-man -- all freed.

"The sense of taste affects your waist."

Loligo, Natureboy3, Pez001, and TheLivingCouch freed.

"Which makes five senses in all."

Crimea River, Estrid, Hawkgirl, Janet, Magdaleen, ans NecrosisDemon. Saved and free.

"There's a sixth sense, too, but it's hard to explain.
It's a psychic connection inside of your brain
So you can understand people like Shirley MacLaine . . ."

Esplin and Gankhruun saved.

"Who wear crystals they bought in the mall! The mall!
Who wear crystals they bought in the mall!"

FuBar, Bladeh, and Kern were freed and saved, though still unconscious.

"There are scents you can smell like cologne from Chanel
Or the scents of expensive perfume."

Blaze and Hunter were now safe and free.

"There are scents of flowers we hope overpowers
The kitty box next to your room. Pyew!"

More were freed than captive now. . . .

"There's a sense of pride you have deep down inside . . .
When you practice a sense of fair play.
There are dollars and cents that you pay at a toll . . .
Or the census man who is taking a poll . . .
And a sense of confusion we're out of control . . .
And they really should take us away! Away!
They really should take us away!
There's a sense of humor, a sense of doom, or
A sense of awe, sense of timing . . .
The sense of a word, a sense of absurd
Like trying to do all this rhyming!
There's incense.
And Horse sense.
And common sense, it's true.
Sense of wonder, sense of beauty.
Sense of honor, sense of duty.
A sense of doubt, a sense of danger.
A sense of fear when you meet a stranger.
A sense of style, a sense of worth.
A sense of direction for knowing the earth.
A sense of dread as I'm singing this song
That it's starting to turn out completely all wrong
And it's time that I end it because it's too loooooooooooonnnnnn ggggg . . ."

Estelore took a deep breath before concluding her song:

"'Cause it just doesn't make any sense!
No sense!
This song doesn't make any sense!"

And, with that, only four RAFians remained unsaved.

Gaz. Cerulean. Horse. GH.

They were the only ones left, and they were on the ship proper.

---

Source song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yaHTeefeLYw

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 29, 2016, 09:47:05 PM

uh oh

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2016, 03:38:21 PM

Probably not what you think, Abby.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Clean Up Your Act

Cloak still required Esty for a distraction, and the Inspector did not seem to notice his captive RAFians, all but the four within his strangely labyrinthine, crate-like ship, were freed and safe. He was completely focused upon the sentient star.

"It's . . . show time."

"Deploy Seekers -- Model Iota, Series 97203." the Inspector said, still nonplussed at the last song.

"Look what you done,
You've been a very bad man, son!
Packing seven felonies of evil into every one!
Greed and vice --
A pack of cards and a pair of dice
Ain't goin' get you into paradise!"

The Inspector was completely distracted and did not notice the eight-foot-tall anthropomorphic tiger in cloak sneak into his ship. Even if he had, he probably would not have noticed anyway, due to Cloak's habit of stick to the shadows.

Esty chortled, as she paused briefly in between smashing the robots with nonchalant ease, "Get it?  'Pair of dice', 'paradise'. Huh?"

"You're in a sad, sad, so sad
Really bad, makes me mad state,
Young friend.  Is this the end?
Oooooh-ooh!"

Cloak easily crossed the threshold, he didn't encounter any trap mechanisms yet, but he fully expected some.

"I think it's time!
High time!
To clean up your act!"

Right turn ahead. Dead end. Cloak backtracked.

"If you don't, you're cursed,
And that's a fact!
Take a look and you'll see
The kind of being you were born to be!"

Cloak suddenly realized, with much embarrassment and chagrin, that he should be using Metalsight to find the others . . . only to realize that he couldn't "see" them on the ship. At all.

"Hey, hey, hey!
Clean up your act!"

That didn't mean that they weren't on the ship, it could just mean that they are being held by something not touching metal or earth. Hope was not yet lost!

"You can be a leader, you can't be a saint,
You could a million things that obviously you ain't!
You're slipping and sliding, and soon you're gonna fall.
Outta work and outta luck, the writing's on the wall.
Now's the time!
High time!
To clean up your act!"

A "T" shaped corridor. The right was a deadend, so Cloak went left.

"Make amends for all those innocents your products whacked."

Left, left, left, right, left.

"Listen close to what I say,
Every dog has his judgement day!"

Cloak was thinking that these corridors were deliberately labyrinthine as a security feature, as even if one had a map or schematic of the ship, it would still be confusing. It was almost as if Daedalus himself designed it.

"Hey, hey, hey!
Clean up your act!"

Ugh. Cloak was getting fed up with all of these . . .

Wait. Wait just a minute here. Why did he have to use the corridors? The walls were made of metal, and he was no friend to the Weapon Masters of Techadon. What did he care about the look of the ship? What did he care about keeping it in one piece?

"When the music's over, when the show's through
You'll still have time to spend with you-know-who!
You're writing your own ticket, the script's in your hands, with all your flaws!
Time to shine.
Be divine!"

Cloak was tearing through wall after wall looking for the four missing RAFians, it was making.more noise than was prudent, but was finding himself not really caring he rather this than the frustration he was experiencing beforehand.

"Work for that applause!
I think it's time.
High time!
To clean up your act!"

There they were. Well, that was easy enough.

Cloak glanced at the twelve or so Cloak-sized holes behind him in differenc corridor walls. He felt no guilt.or sorrow for doing it. If the dear Inspector wanted and intact ship, he shouldn't have been kidnapping RAFians.

"Search for that integrity you've lacked.
Change your ways, get a clue!
Those dirty, rotten things you do.
P.U., P.U., P.U.!"

They were suspended on a hook of some stupidly strong plastic polymer. But they were surprisingly easy enough to take down from them, and subsequently freed from their bindings.

"Now, it's time.
High time.
To clean up your act."

All four were still unconscious. Cerulean came around first, and Cloak surmised that it had something to do with his superspeed. Gaz was next, calling first for Beaky, then realizing that he wasn't there. (He was sitting atop the crate, pecking at it uselessly. He was upset that he didn't do anything, despite not knowing, when Gaz was captured.)

"If you don't, you're cursed
And that's a fact!
Have a heart, that's the key.
You'll be saved, you'll be free.
Take a look and you'll see
The kind of being you were born to be!
Oooooh-weeee-oooooh-weeee!
Clean . . . up . . . your . . .
Clean up your act!"

Horse awoke with a start, afraid she was in the belly of the beast. Again. It took some time before she calmed down, and realized that she was safe. That she had not been eaten whole. Again. Last time, when she came out, she didn't want to talk about how she came out. Cloak surmised enough from that alone.

Meanwhile, GH was the most stubborn one to rouse. Which wasn't too odd, given his insomniac habits. But they were with Cloak, who knew the perfect way to rouse the RAFian.

"The inspector touched your guitar," the Realm Walker intoned.

Suddenly, GH's eyes snapped open and seized the guitar from his back, immediately translating it into its battleaxe form. He said, "I'll kill the bastard!"

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oWbGm-P5PUY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2016, 08:20:56 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Deploy . . . Nothing

"Erroneous attempt," the Inspector said. "Subject's rhythmic, time-organized sound's rhetoric makes a false assumption. This one has no act to clean up."

"Ugh," Esty said, as facepalmed. "There's thickheaded, and then there's disconnected to reality."

"Error: Subject is categorically incorrect."

Esty raised an incredulous eyebrow, "'Categorically'? Meaning all you pompous Weapons Masters, or whatever you call your holier-than-thou selves, are right in whatever endeavor you undertake, by definition?"

"Subject has come to see logic," the Inspector said.

Estly lost all levity she had before. Indeed, the mulish, affronted look she wore was not one any sane, rational being would want to see. "Logic, you say? You Inspector thingies must never leave your homeworld, or something, to buy into that kind of insane, lofty rhetoric."

The Inspector said nothing, apparently not wanting to deign to respond to that reply. But Esty wasn't done.

"No one is ever right by definition," Esty said. "The world is never so black and white, unless your mindset is incredibly skewed and narrowed. But I suppose different cultures have different views on the matter. But the thing is, dear Inspector, your sovereignty only extends to the reaches of whatever planet you inhabit."

Again, the Inspector did not reply. Apparently, engaging a dialogue such matters was beneath him.

"I'll repeat again for clarity, and I'll make the summary brief," Esty said, "Earth is off-limits."

"Subject hasn't the authority to make such limits," the Inspector said.

"Oh, really?" she said, gesturing to the detris and debris of the robots she and Cloak had destroyed. "And you Weapon Masters are the grand arbiters of all that is, are you? And here I thought you were just trying to push your products."

"Subject is trying to engage this one in a pseudo-intellectual debate," the Inspector said.

"'Pseudo-intel" . . . pal," Esty said, sundress gone. Replaced immediately and instantaneously with a yellow Kevlar bodysuit. "You're really grinding my nerves."

"Deploy Seekers --" the Inspector said, but noticing (finally) that something was wrong, he looked left toward his crate-like ship, which issued a belligerent explosion on the side that expelled the robots. The Inspector suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned his use of "computer-speak", as he demanded, "What the -- ?"

"You're not the only one, Esty." said a voice.

Cloak had left the crate ship, with GH and Gaz on his right side (Laserbeak was zooming overhead), and Cerulean was holding Horse on his left. It was as if time slowed down as they slowly and impressively walked to the Inspector.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 30, 2016, 08:28:15 PM

hah that was actually a lot cooler than i thought it was going to be XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2016, 09:17:48 PM

Thanks!

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The True Power of RAF

"Inconsequential," the Inspector said, returning to his indifference, but not his computer-speak. "I have beaten you all before. I can do it again."

"Point of fact," Esty said, apparently feeling a need to clarify, "you didn't beat either Cloak or me. And you haven't even met Richard or Spectre."

"Inconsequential," the Inspector said, dismissively.

"First off," Cloak said, "you didn't defeat a single one of us. Your tech did. I highly doubt you even crafted those defense yourself."

Xeno looked a bit scandalized at this claim. He always built his own gadgets and toys, and considered building it part of the fun. He was shocked when someone would deprive themselves of that fun -- before reminding himself that some people were just not technologically-gifted, so to speak.

"Second of all, you only fought us one-on-one or one-on-two," Cloak said, as and the other four joined the other RAFians, beside Estelore. "You have yet to witness the true power of RAF. A power that I have to wonder if you Weapon Masters of Techadon can even scarcely imagine."

"That is both improbable and implausible," the Inspector scoffed derisively.

"I hope your camera's still working, because we're about to 'school you' as GH would say," Cloak said.

"I have never said that," GH put in.

"Ever so helpful, GH, per usual," Cloak sighed.

"I do what I can," GH smirking at Cloak's obvious exasperation.

"I do not have time to be subjugated to this exercise in childish conjecture," the Inspector sniffed.

"I think I liked him better when he spoke like a computer," Xeno commented to no one in particular. "Now he just sounds like rich, snobby brat with a word-a-day calendar."

"He's not wrong," Saffa agreed.

"You are all misguided. You efforts are and will forevermore be meaningless to the Weapons Masters."

"Puh, some Weapon Masters," Cloak snorted. "A Galvan could easily outperform any of you."

"The Galvan aren't as smart as you think!" the Inspector snarled. Cloak had found a nerve. A nerve he already suspected existed, and now received confirmation. The Weapon Masters clearly wanted to do nothing more than make the Galvan -- small, gray, frog-like aliens -- look bad. "They have no intricacies. No elegance in design, no --"

"Oh, shut the eff up already!" GH said. "I still haven't forgotten your knee trick, pal. That's really taboo here, ya know!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 30, 2016, 10:45:49 PM

XD poor GH

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 31, 2016, 12:03:04 AM

I won't get mad here, but just so ya' know, Cloaky's the only one who's allowed to capitalize my name. I can't even put a capital G and a capital H next to each other without jumping out a window :P

Also . . . god damn it . . . metal to crotch is not a good feeling . . . even after being unconscious for god knows how long. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 31, 2016, 12:05:42 AM

i have no idea why i capitalized it. sorry gh!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2016, 12:41:48 AM

Quote from: gh (Sonic Juggernaut) on August 31, 2016, 12:03:04 AM

Also . . . god damn it . . . metal to crotch is not a good feeling . . . even after being unconscious for god knows how long. . . .

The Weapon Masters of Techadon (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Weapon_Masters_of_Techadon) are organic. They just wear a full bodysuit of tech, unless I'm mistaken. A single punch from a Tetramand (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Tetramand) can knock one out cold.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Minds and Hearts As One

"You are inconsequential," the Inspector said.

"Your sales pitch is astonishing," Phoenix said, dully.

"You are not customers," the Inspector replied.

"Not with that attitude," Demos said.

"Demos, no." Sakki said. "No. Bad demon. Baaaaaaad."

"Hilarious," Demos said, sarcastically.

"You are nothing to the might of the Weapon Master Empire," the Inspector said.

"Um, is this your first time in retail?" Phoenix asked. "Because you're really lousy at it."

"And you fail to see our strengths, Inspector," Cloak said.

"You have tried to beat me and continually failed." the Inspector said. "Any further attempts are futile, and should be regarded as thus."

"And you stubbornly refuse to see our strength," Esty said. "Obstinate in seeing conformity and rigid, unchanging statistics."

"Let me take a wild guess here," Xeno said, rolling his eyes, "you believe that you Weapon Masters have omniscient intelligence, incalculable strength, capable of warp speed, virtually indestructibility, virtually all command of all type of energy, and a master of all forms of combat?"

"That is correct," the Inspector said.

"I can tell you're lying," Cloak said. Earthsight was a handy little polygraph at times. "I'll grant you genius intellects, but Galvans are smarter -- be silent, you know it to be true -- and your strength is far from incalculable. Without your tech, I surmise that your barely stronger than an average human, if that. And if you're capable of warp speed, it's because of technological advantage and nothing else. And you do not have command over all forms of energy or you would have used it against Esty and me already -- you are not a Celestialsapien. And a master of all forms of combat? Really? You haven't thrown a punch or even so much as taken a fighting stance since you landed here. And as for being near indestructible -- you can be knocked out cold by a Tetramand without much effort."

"Guys, let's get down to business shall we?"

"You're just still sore," Saffa chided.

"That's the point!!"

"All together, everyone! Time to show him our true power, our might!" Esty declared. "Time to show him and the Weapon Masters our Unity!!"

Suddenly, everything was awash in the blue light of Unity Energy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: NickDaGriff on August 31, 2016, 11:44:34 AM

I hate salesmen that never drop the pitch.  Number one pet peeve.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 31, 2016, 04:19:46 PM

this guy is screwed

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2016, 09:38:19 PM

Yes. Yes, he is.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Point Made

When the blue light faded, the RAFians stood, arms folded and looks of disgust or anger upon their faces. They stood resolute, strengthened by their solidarity, their unity, with one another. They were all different, and yet showed that, together, they wielded a power greater than any evil has known.

The Weapon Master was laying upon the ground, his arms supporting his weight. His tech-filled bodysuit was ripped and torn all over so that it looked like he wearing construction paper strips.

"Th-that . . . that power . . ." he choked out, no doubt considering all the ways he could weaponize Unity Energy. The Weaponasters were like that, they only studied and invented advance tech for the sole reason of weaponry, and thought it ludicrous that any tech existed that wasn't weaponized.

"Feel fortunate, Inspector," Cloak said, "that we pulled our punches this time."

"What?"

"You heard me." Cloak said. "And remember, whenever you go back to Techadon, Earth is off-limits."

"How can I even go back?!" he demanded. "First of all, you wrecked my ship."

"You shouldn't have tried kidnapping RAFians," Abby said, seriously.

"Not to mention," the Inspector said, "I cannot show my face to the Empire for the sheer shame of having lost to the likes of you. Adolescents."

"I'm not an.adolescent," Cloak said, at once, with a number of voices echoing this sentiment.

"You have lost me my home," he said.

"We didn't tell you to come here and start kidnapping RAFians," Parker pointed out.

"You have lost me my dignity," the Inspector said.

"You did that on your own, pal," GH said, hostility evident. "Don't blame us for your crappy decisions."

"I think we're done here," Cloak said. "Estelore, if you would take him to either Techadon or that Plumber base? It'd be much appreciated."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on August 31, 2016, 11:01:05 PM

hah. serves him right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2016, 05:38:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
We're Your Friends

"Aniyu?" Cloak said

But the place where they usually met in his mental landscape was just nothing but the void with dim light filtering in. Aniyu wasn't there this time. Nor was the layers of woody, thorny vines that he had managed to wither so far.

Suddenly, a mental projection of Abby, Saffa, and Underseen appeared, with GH both playing and conducting the others. They sang:

"We're your friends!
We're your friends!
We're your friends to the bitter end (the bitter end)!
When you're alone (when you're alone),
Who comes around (who comes around)
To pick you up (To pick you up)
When you are down (When you are down)?
And when you're outside, looking in,
Who's there to open the door?
That's what friends are for!
Who's always eager to extend
A friendly hand?
That's what friends are for!
And when you're lost, in dire need,
Who's at your side at lightning speed?
So you can see,
Friends in need
Are friends indeed.
We'll keep you safe
In the forum forevermore!"

Suddenly, a deep contralto interrupted the song, finishing it:

"And that's what friends are for"

Cloak whipped around, as the mental projections of the other RAFians seemingly vanished, and he was looking at a mental projection of his mother, Ursa.

She clapped her hands in a most mocking way, and said, "Bravo, bravo. An extraordinary performance."

Cloak was shocked that he felt nothing at this. He felt no anger at her presence. He felt no admonishment. He felt no fear . . .

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wTrB45tfFDQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 01, 2016, 12:08:38 PM

...well this is an interesting development.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2016, 07:12:03 PM

Just wait.

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXIV:
MIND'S EYE
CHAPTER ONE:
Cloak Has His Say

Cloak said nothing, still surprised at his feelings of complete apathy towards his mother, despite all the dysfunction and turmoil she put him through. Despite all of that, he felt nothing -- nothing -- towards her, his biological mother.

Nothing. Nothing, but pity.

Because for really the first time in his twenty-seven years, he saw her for what she truly was. And he saw her as more than a mere monster. She was a woman so desperate to control everything and everyone she pushed away anyone or anything she could no longer control, anything that was no longer within her sphere of control.

And he, Cloak, her only son, was no longer in that sphere of control. He would no longer be her scapegoat, would no longer allow her to dangle over him like Damocles' blade, like a deadly pendulum.

"Well?" this mental construct, so brutally condescending as the real one, said. Yet, this time Cloak felt no fear, no abject capitulation, towards her. The only thing that he could feel towards her was pity, and sorrow for what she was. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Cloak said nothing, but met her gaze.

You answer me when I talk you!" she snarled.

"You're pathetic," Cloak said. But it was spoken matter-of-fact, instead of with disgust.

"What?"

"You heard me," Cloak said, never raising his voice above his calm, but resolute, intonation. "You're pathetic. You try to force your will and viewpoints on people, without considering their feelings, without taking consideration their opinions on matters. Yous is the only one you think should and does matter."

Cloak said nothing for a moment, before continuing, in a toneless, matter-of-fact way not unlike the Inspector used, "You care nothing for me or the other people you hurt. You only care about yourself, so fully engulfed in yourself that you only exclusively consider your own wants and needs to, at times, the expense of others."

Cloak paused briefly, as a gentle wind blew around their cloaks dramatically. Cloak continued:

"You never accept responsibility for your actions, preferring your pompous posturing of perfection -- something that is impossible to achieve, due to its highly subjective nature. And you demanded that standard of me, which I could not live up to -- and, indeed, no one could realistically live up to -- and demanded that I follow all your big plans for me that you always gave up on when they did not reach immediate results."

Cloak paused again, to collect his thoughts for a moment.

"I see now that you saw me as nothing but an appendage, something that was a part of you that you have every right to control. I know you used me against my father, just like you tried to use Shadow to manipulate me -- only she's far smarter than I was at her age. But it is futile to try to get you to feel regret or remorse for what you've done, as you clearly never felt such things before. You've never appreciated anyone besides yourself -- and because of that, you'll wind up alone and friendless, a lonely spinster incapable of empathy."

"You're just like your father!" she snarled.

"Yes, I am," Cloak said, showing some emotion. "I much rather be like him than the alternative. He knows how to take responsibility for his actions, his decisions. He doesn't just displace his negative qualities and the consequences of said decisions unto others. He may have his flaws, but one thing's for sure -- he's not a narcissist."

"You are so worthless!" the mental image of his mother said.

"I used to believe that," Cloak acknowledged. " I really did. But then I met some people who would disagree with your assessment."

Mental images of Shadow, GH, Faith, Saffa, Wheeza, Abby, Xeno, and many others appeared behind him, giving him solidarity. He actually felt his heart bolstered at this.

"All in all, I don't hate you, mother. Nor do I love you," he said, in summation, but you are my mother. My biological mother. Nothing will change that. But one thing is certain. I'm done. I'm done with you in my mind, my heart, my soul. You take all your negativity back, because I'm done with it, and you. Goodbye."

Then he turned on his heel as the final layer vanished with the mental projections. Aniyu appeared briefly to congratulate him, and bid him adieu . . . he had no further need of her, but she would return if he had need for her again, she assured.

Cloak woke up, feeling freer than he had for the last twenty-seven years -- 271 in Dweller Earth years.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 01, 2016, 07:33:43 PM

Goddamn, man. That was downright beautiful

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 01, 2016, 09:00:05 PM

okay that's definitely my favorite chapter in forever

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2016, 10:52:34 PM

Glad you guys like it! :D

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Banker of the Jungle, Strong as He Can Be

A man was dressed in the stereotypical adventurer gear (i.e. Indiana Jones-esque outfit and a whip), and a good, durable hiking backpack. He was, in his mundane life, an ordinary, if a bit arrogant, big banker. He was one of those types who go and hunt and kill lions and other "impressive kills" just because they're insecure about their own masculinity and have a need to prove it. Their insecurity helps fuel poaching.

Anyway, he proceeded into a thick, lush jungle. Dry earth beneath his booted feet, with ferns and other assorted tropical plants impeding his path, as the trees stretched far up above his head, trying to selfishly hog the sunlight for themselves. The air was muggy and thick with biting bugs. Rain had just fallen for a brief moment, so that just added to the humidity.

But this adventuring banker didn't care. He wasn't on the hunt for some hunting trophy. He was on a treasure hunt. An honest-to-goodness treasure hunt! Complete with an aged map on some forgotten parchment with a dotted line and an X -- the whole nine yards! He could believe that he was fulfilling a childhood dream. Granted the weather and the bugs didn't make it the most enjoyable adventure, but he considered them mild inconveniences.

He had approached the temple that he was looking for it was stepped temple, akin from those in Mesoamerica, made of a heavy, durable stone. He swiftly solved a puzzle to unlock the front entrance. It was as easy as opening up the doors to his bank in the mornings that he worked.

He had hoped the puzzles would get more complex, and he was not disappointed. Inside, he discovered a relatively small room with a huge circular door that sealled off a room. Upon the door there was a small recess that had ten hieroglyphs -- a heron, what appeared to be a sauropod, a jaguar were the first row, a monkey, a gibbon, and a sloth were on the second, a spoonbill, some Aztec or Inca god or goddess, and another sloth (only upright) were on the third row, and the final row only had a snake in the center with two blank portions on either side. He puzzled a bit before he managed to riddle out the code.

It was sauropod, spoonbill, spoonbill, upright sloth, monkey, sloth, gibbon, jaguar, then the empty plate to the right of the snake, and the he turned the crank and unsealled the vaulted room. In the room, he found himself marveling on how much it was like the vault in his bank back home. But never mind that! He had so much treasure to collect!

His bookbag was empty for just precisely this reason. He never questioned how he managed to survive in the jungle without supplies, just a worn machete. He just gathered as much treasure his blue bookbag could hold, and then he fled the temple as it began to collapse in on itself. He was carrying the book bag as the straps snapped and tore away at the most inconvenient time.

He ran, and passed a large, hollow, felled tree to his left. He was suddenly fumbling with his prize, until he tripped and.lost his loot to the tree trunk and another tree inexplicably fell in front of it, blocking his entry.

Then he felt his arms being forcibly pulled behind his back, and handcuffed together by some unseen force. He was confused. He saw nothing but trees and plants and greenery. His vision was beginning to blur as well.

Soon enough, the green melted away to blackness before sharpening enough for him to realize he was standing right outside his bank, and he had stolen from the vault. His own vault. He was being arrested for the theft, a theft he had no recollection of making.

He was majorly confused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 01, 2016, 10:58:15 PM

wooaaah... trippy!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2016, 06:33:31 AM

You have no idea.

Anyway, new book ideas!

• Book MLXIII (1,063): "Shadow Puppets" -- The RAFians face the Shadow Puppeteer.
• Book MLXIV (1,064): "The RAFian-Eater" -- The RAFians face a dangerous, mercurial creature that preys on RAFians.
• Book MLXV (1,065): "Apsis" -- Xeno's friend and rival, Apsis, a Galvan, comes to call.
• Book MLXVI (1,066): "That Makes Sense, I Guess" -- The RAFians must face the ineptitudes of the Sense Squad.

Don't think I rehashed anything. If I did, I can work around it. Anyway, remember that the titles are tentative, and may be subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Bride Boggart

Broken had left the forum to attend the wedding of a friend of his, who wasn't a RAFian, and knew nothing of Broken's RAFian status. He preferred it that way as he could get a little . . . opinionated about all things, including RAF, despite knowing very little facts, if any at all.

But other than his political views, Broken was sure that he was a good guy, though not really egalitarian. Broken attended his wedding just out of a sense of respect, really. He didn't really want to be there to be honest, as he really didn't like his soon-to-be wife. He was sure that she was just a pompous golddigger, who could manipulate him with very little effort. She had been married just a little too often, and some of the circumstances with her past husbands were questionable at best.

But Broken's friend, Charlie Roberts, a round-faced, barrel-chested redhead, would hear nothing of it. And he would get angry if pressed too far on the subject. He would give plenty of warning, though.

Meanwhile, his soon-to-be wife, Sophie Brownstein, was a voluptuous woman with ebony hair that flowed down her back like a dark river. To the more superficial crowd, she was knock-out gorgeous, but when you got closer, you saw just how materialistic, cold, cruel, and crass she could be. But Charlie would not be talked out of marrying her -- Broken knows, he had tried once.

He saw her, dressed the finest wedding dress -- a pristine white, with the most delicate and intricately-crafted of veils.  She wore a very expensive gold necklace that snaked its way around her collarbone and her engagement ring was an opulent diamond ring. Everything about her was that she was a woman of means, accustomed to having money and going through it like water. This really concerned Broken, but there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. He would have to just stand back and watch this train wreck happen. Didn't mean he had to like it.

As she was strolling down the isle, as Broken saw the vice that was Sophie began to close in to Charlie, prepared to squeeze him dry financially, she suddenly stopped, after a picture was taken. Her eyes were wild and fearful, and Broken, at first, couldn't understand why.

It was strange for her. One moment she was getting married, to a man she was sure would provide for her and the manner in which she was accustomed to living, and, the next minute, she was standing on a strange alien world! Surrounded my monsters of a Lovecraftian nature. She was inside some alien hive! One even had hold of her! She pushed him away, and started when she discovered her wrists and neck were covered with the little hemophageous suckers. She quickly and deftly ripped them off, and they fell to the floor, deftly gathered up by one of the monsters.

She ran from the sticky, steaming, stinky, slimy hive, and out into a strange jungle world of animals she could scarcely imagine of many sizes and shapes. She collapsed into an emotional heap . . . right outside the church.

Charlie immediately went to her side to attend her. Fortunately, he did not know Broken's status as Sorcerer Supreme, nor that he was capable of wielding magic, or else Charlie might have turned on Broken, scapegoating him for this. But Charlie did not, he did not know what happened. Nor did he know what became of her jewelry that she tore off her person with such a vehement passion.

But Broken believed he knew.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 02, 2016, 10:10:02 AM

oh noooo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2016, 09:28:08 PM

Oh, just wait, Abby.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Reports

After the wedding, Broken immediately reports this to the others. But he only managed to locate, Abby, Xeno, GH, and Cloak.

"I thought you quit," Cloak was saying.

"Please, Cloak!" GH begged. "I need them!"

"Do you now?" Cloak said.

"YES."

"You made me promise, GH," Cloak reminded.

"I know!"

"Promise that no matter how hard you beg," Cloak continued, "that no matter how much you plead, not to let you have these cigarettes."

"I know that!" GH roared, crankily. "Don't you think I know that?!"

"I have kept my promise," Cloak said.

"Can I recind that promise?" GH asked.

"You remember that you told me not to, no matter how much you beg and debase yourself for it." Cloak said.

"I never said debase," GH said, temporarily forgetting his cigarettes. Part of Cloak's cunning plan to change the subject.

"You did when you were in that bathtub of coffee," Cloak said, carefully shifting GH's attention.

"I wasn't bathing in it, Cloak! I was --"

"Guys," Broken interrupted, "I have something odd to tell you."

"You've come to the right guy!" GH said, apparently forgetting about his cigarettes. GH gave a big anime-like gesture, almost if he was trying to use a Z Move.

"What was that?" Abby said, poorly suppressing a case of the giggles.

"Never mind," GH said, chagrined.

"Guys!" Broken said, before abruptly launching into what he saw at the wedding. "I'm pretty damn sure that she was seeing something that only she could see. Like some sort of hallucination. It was almost as if she was under the Imperius Curse, only her eyes weren't blank."

He took a deep breath, and continued.

"And I'm pretty sure that whoever was behind it, tried to stop me from reporting it you, and everyone." Broken said. "I guess Protego was sufficient enough to block it."

"Why'd you cast Protego? Shouldn't your Mark have blocked it?" Abby asked.

"Not necessarily," Cloak said, at once. "While the Mark is a formidable defense, as I continually remind everyone, it is fallible. It might not have worked in this circumstance. In any case, I'd rather not experiment with it in this case. Good instincts, Broken."

"Well, from what you said," Xeno said, consulting a computer screen, "it's like a handful of other reports that made it to the internet already. Allow me to show you."

They watched a nearby monitor -- Xeno loved to tinker, like Yarin, only he wasn't as stubborn when one of his inventions fails or was proven to be dangerous -- and it showed a real estate tycoon rob himself of his valuables from his own overly opulent mansion which were loaded into an odd-looking, yet nondescript truck. He seemed to be under the impression that he was in some sort of war scenario. But he wasn't the only one.

An oil magnate stole from his own business, but he clearly was under the impression that he was in some sort of video game or something, and the expensive items were collectibles.

A gun lobbyist, apparently thinking he was in some sort of gangster movie, mowed down his bought politician and her constituents.

And there were more, but they were hard to make out, with grainy footage at best. But Cloak and Broken noticed one underlying connection. The truck was always in the footage. The same truck.

The truck driver was the one responsible for these delusions. But the obvious question remained -- who was he?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 02, 2016, 09:33:43 PM

Well, it happened. The cigarettes and coffee bathtub finally got brought up together. Thank you, Cloaky; I can finally die happy :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2016, 06:19:49 AM

Glad you liked it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Spellbinder

The truck driver was driving to an undisclosed location -- remote and overgrown with several weeds. He didn't seem to mind this, after all it could just be an illusion to deter unwanted visitors. It was here that this man hid all his ill-gotten loot. He was a proper supervillain in that he wore the spandex on his svelte, lightly built body, only it was full body -- head-to-toe full body -- black spandex suit with psychedelic orange swirls. He was so overconfident in his mastery over the human psyche and advance technology, he was sure that he wouldn't be caught. Even if he was, his face was hidden.

Once he was safely in his hideout, he removed his mask, revealing a thin face, sharp nose, brown eyes, and matted brown hair. It was Jon Billings, a guidance counselor at the local high school. He was disgruntled with his job, but hid this fact. He had created his tech -- his "spellbinding" tech, as he called it -- remarkably on the kind of salary he was given. It was one of his sticking points. He felt that the high school had severely underpaid him for his efforts.

He also felt very unappreciated for his endeavors. He decided to use his talents against the people he felt spurned him so badly -- the rich. (Although Charlie wasn't particular well-off as his usual victims, Sophie was somewhat.) He used the students with well-to-do connections to get at the people who could get him the riches that he believed he deserved. To have them abscond with their own valuables, and give them to him using his spellbinding tech. Even if he was caught, he felt, that should, at least, keep him legally in the clear -- even though everyone would make the argument that he tricked and manipulated them into doing it, so he wouldn't be in the clear as much as he believed he would be.

This suit he wore actually had a practical purpose, as he had his spellbinding tech inside a eyeball-shaped device embedded on his right hand. With it, he was able to feed whatever he liked directly into his victim's mind, which replayed it as if reality. He had no empathy for the rich, and believed he deserved their riches more than they did. He presented a caring compassionate cover when he was at his guidance counselor job, but his true self, as his Spellbinder persona, was a greedy, manipulative man without campassion and who was willing to fight dirty.

And he had a passable competence of disguise, but they mostly are holographic projections unto himself that any Realm Walker could easily see through. But he knew nothing about Realm Walkers or aliens or whatnot. All he cared about was opulence and filling his bank account, as he would regularly go to pawn shops in various personas, including a skin suit he got off of some black market thing that he didn't like wearing any more than he had to. And sometimes he had to, to get near a target.

While Spellbinder may have had a genius-level intellect and competence at disguise, he was not a skilled fighter by any means, preferring to rely on his spellbinding tech. But he was so arrogant in his abilities, he didn't think anyone could touch him.

However, he's never used his spellbinding tech on a non-human, as he thinks that they don't really exist, as he doesn't watch the news or listen to Bern Bridges or the like. He was still a dangerous foe to be sure.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2016, 09:44:35 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Not According to Plan

Spellbinder had known where Broken was headed when he had escaped him. He knew the location of RAF, although it really wasn't that guarded of a secret, the site of the forum. But still Spellbinder took satisfaction and pride in this fact, despite the fact there was nothing really outstanding about what he had done.

It was dusk, and the sun was quickly setting, eager for a nightly slumber until dawn of the dollowing day. The land was already consumed with the shadows of night, and the moon would soon begin to assert its dominance in the night sky.

Spellbinder was wearing his spandex suit again, hiding his identity. He encroached slowly and stealthily towards the forum, the orange spirals on his suit actually helping, somehow, to camouflage himself from the poor night vision of human eyes. It worked for tigers, anyway.

He sneaked and creeped into the forum proper, coming to no obstacles. He didn't question the apparent lack of defenses, it just bolstered his ego, which was already of a prodigious size. He thought that he was just that good.

His plan's elegance was in its simplicity. He would manipulate a RAFian -- who he believed to all be human, explaining the clearly nonhuman ones as overly-elaborate cosplay -- and he would have that RAFian steal for him. He would not get blamed and the RAFians would take all the heat and he would have the satisfaction in knowing he did what many could not -- destroy RAF. Not to mention he might get a few new expensive trinkets out the deal.

He felt a bit disheartened as there appeared to be no RAFians around. No lights on. No light except from a street lamp in the middle of the forum, between the General Board building and the auditorium. Beneath it was a person, sitting with his legs crossed. A RAFian, obviously. He had messy black hair, glasses, closed eyes, a somewhat tanned complexion, and a rather feline face, for a human, which was unshaven. He wore black jeans with a nice khaki shirt, white socks, and worn black shoes. If he were standing, Spellbinder would put him at about five feet, ten inches, tall.

The perfect victim, Spellbinder knew.

Spellbinder deliberately made some noise to get his attention, causing the young adult -- though he appeared somewhat younger -- to open his eyes, revealing them to be dark brown. He said something under his breath that Spellbinder couldn't make out, but didn't care at the mutterings of his victims.

He deftly and quickly raised his right hand and activated his spellbinding tech. He had intended to have this RAFians see himself in constant battle with innumerable forces, forces that even he could not defeat.

But this is not what happened. The tech had no effect.

"Surprised?" the unnamed RAFian asked, knowing the answer full well.

"Impossible!" Spellbinder said, his voice unencumbered by the suit he wore.

"You're clearly a master of the human psyche," this RAFians said, reaching up to his face. "On that you have no peer, it would seem. But, quite unfortunately for you, I am --"
He reached up and removed his ID mask, revealing Cloak, who, at eight feet tall, towered imperiously over the six-foot-tall man, before concluding his statement, "--- not human. You're fancy mind-bending trick will not work on me."

"Wh-what are you?" Spellbinder yelped. But instead of waiting for an answer, Spellbinder fled in fear. In no time he was outside the forum, revealling him to be the coward that he really was.

Cloak, at any point, could have stopped his flight. But he let him go. Perhaps it was his feline nature to want to play with his prey before going in for the kill, but it was, in actuality, for the practical reason. Cloak assumed that Spellbinder would return to his lair immediately after this.

He could be tracked and trailled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2016, 06:09:25 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Predictable Genius

Cloak couldn't believe it. Spellbinder didn't even hesitate, didn't even consider the fact that he may have been trailed or tracked to his hideout for his illicit goods. Never notice the occasional amber eyes following him.

But he was also frightened in another way. He had never had his spellbinding tech not be effective against anyone. Now, having found one, it unerved him. What if his next chosen victim wasn't human enough for his tech to work? What if they're were more of them, disguised as humans? This was a huge kink in his plans. He was so sure that all these reports of aliens and their invasions -- the Skrulls, the Heinlins, the Reach, thr Yeerks -- he was so sure they were faked. But now he started to doubt himself on that.

But then it occured to him that he was being silly. That guy wasn't an alien -- just a really tall man in a cloak with some makeup or prosthetics to make him look inhuman. Just someone . . . with a . . . natural immunity to his tech. He found he didn't like this idea much, either. He was accustomed to the idea that his power was peerfect and foolproof, so much so that allowed him a certain ****iness and arrogant swagger. He didn't much like this new development. Not at all.

Nor did realize that he wasn't alone his secret lair, milling through his ill-begotten gains. He had planned to pawn them off in his various disguises, including the skin suit he didn't like using very often, in thr black market, which was still surviving like a festering wound in a place that no one could see.

Spellbinder began to pull at his neck, until his mask came loose, and then he slough it off, revealing his identity as Jon Billings to anyone who saw, but he felt safe here. It was his sanctuary. How was he to know that this safe space of his was violated? How was he to know that he wasn't alone? How was he to know that his identity has been breached? How was he to see this cool, but fierce amber eyes watching him, judging him?

Cloak knew that he had him.  He had saw his real face. But beyond that he had no real evidence of his crimes. He didn't see the truck connected to all the robberies anywhere nearby here. He could tell the local authorities about this place, but, unfortunately, his credibility would be questionable as the police chief and some officers had developed an anti-RAF bias of late. Bern Bridges wasn't helping matters, either.

But Cloak had memorized the location, and left when Spellbinder left, when he replaced his mask, Cloak left, as well. Spellbinder was none the wiser to the whole thing. Cloak would have to return to RAF, and hash out a plan with the others.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2016, 05:26:56 AM

New book ideas!

• Book MLXVII (1,067): "Fang You, Vladdy!" -- A teenager is turned into a ventriloquist dummy.
• Book MLXVIII (1,068): "Deceitful Darkness" -- The Toyman makes a legitimate amusement park, with rides and colorful costumed characters, the whole shebang.
• Book MLXIX (1,069): "Radioactive Man" -- The RAFians meet a man who cannot live without radiation.
• Book MLXX (1,070): "Joyland" -- Toyman's Joyland falls onto hard times. . . .

Don't think I rehashed anything. If I did, I think I can work around it. As always, these are tentative titles, and are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
What Next?

"So?" an obnoxious RAFian said. "Some rich people lose their stuff -- many of them didn't earn that money to begin with."

"Neither has this Spellbinder guy," GH countered, dully.

"There's a greater danger here," Cloak said, interrupting the obnoxious RAFian's comeback. "These illusions are so real to the people experiencing them, if Spellbinder introduces a traumatic one, like a World War Two scenario or something, to someone with, say, a heart condition. My knowledge of human physiology may be imperfect, but that could lead to a heart attack, which in turn could lead to heart failure."

He didn't spell it out anymore then. The implication was all too clear.

"Spellbinder is.a.potentially dangerous foe," Cloak said, "and I don't mean to sound speciesist, but I don't think that human RAFians should deal with him."

"He makes a good point," Wild said, in his human form. "If Spellbinder's knowledge of the human psyche is as good as we anticipate, then it would be much more dangerous for humans, even RAFians."

"Pfffft," the obnoxious RAFians snorted, "the Mark would just protect us from it."

"You're really stupid, you know that?" GH said, testily. He was still not over the Weapon Master of Techadon thing, and this particular RAFians was chafing him. "Cloak has said many times that effin' Mark isn't infallible. It has its limitations. Pay attention once in a while."

Before the obnoxious RAFian could respond, snottily, Abby asked, "Can we be sure that he'll try again? Perhaps when Cloak scared the bejeezes out of him, he decided to stop all this."

"When has it ever been that easy, Abby?" Saffa asked rhetorically.

"Touche," Abby concede the point, but contjnued to ponder, "but there has to be a reason, more than simple financial gain, that he's doing this. People are rarely that one-dimensional."

"He's probably motivated by vengeance, like the rest," Cloak said. "Might not be against a singular person, mind you, but an idea or a class of person. There's a myriad of things that could be motivating him, that we can't even begin to hazard a guess at. So there's no point in doing so right now, until we get more pertinent information."

"So . . ." Gaz said, as Laserbeak nestled comfortably on her shoulder, "what exactly do we do now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2016, 07:19:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Heart Stopping

Gregory Riley was the manger of a dress shop, where there were some expensive pieces. He was well-liked by both his employers and his staff. He was an all-around good guy -- amicable, compassion yet grounded, optimistic yet realistic. He was also a war vet, but didn't like talking about it, as he got just a little PST from it.

He opened the shop, like any ordinary day, a prepared for a dreary day of retail. A lot people seemed to like having their May weddings recently, and they've been relatively swamped for the past few days. Retail such as this was not an easy profession as some of those that have never worked it believe.

The day went by as it usually did, nothing out of the ordinary, other than it wasn't as busy as the previous day. Greg was thankful for this, as he and his staff weren't so harried as they normally were. It was something to be grateful for, as it seldom happens, and so is cherished when does.

Suddenly, the tickling of a bell. A customer had entered the store. Greg began to turn around to service this customer, when --

Then Greg witnessed a bright flash and he suddenly was on a battlefield. He was in uniform, with his helmet firmly upon his noggin. A few metres to his Right he found a fallen soldier. Wounded but not dead. But he would be if Greg did not act soon. He immediately went over to the soldier and began to move him out firing range.

It was risky, but no solider in his platoon was gonna get left behind as long as Gregory Orwell Riley had a say about it! He moved him quickly and carefully toward the nearest medivac chopper.

He did his best to keep the soldier talking, to keep him conscious. To allow him into unconsciousness would be a slippery slope. He had to . . . he had a sharp pain in his chest, but he ignored it. This had to be done. He had to save this young man's life. He could still be saved.

The pain was starting to intensify, getting harder to ignore. But he had to. He had a job to do. He felt the sweat on his brow, smelled the dirt, mud and death as he put the man -- though he was more of a kid, really, into the medivac and watched them fly away.

It was only then that he realized just how labored his breathing was, how intense the pain in his chest was. He fell to his knees. The pain . . . He fell forward on to his hands, and one flew up to his chest as the pain continued to escalate. Escalate until he was on his side and his vision swirled.

And soon there was just blackness. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2016, 05:26:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Obstinate Obligation

"Parker, this isn't wise." Cloak said.

"I'm coming and that's that, Cloak," Parker said, mulishly. He could get just as stubborn as Cloak when he has his mind set on something, and that's saying something. "His tech can't affect me while I have my helmet on."

"You're still human," Cloak countered.

"I'm a SPARTAN," Parker corrected.

"Which is an enhanced human," Cloak replied easily. "I know that last victim with the heart condition struck a chord with you, but this is too dangerous, Parker."

"If you can do it, so can I," Parker said, stubbornly. "My armor will protect me from his illusions."

"Like the spectral mist did onboard Collector's ship?" Cloak countered. "Or Evil Gaz's bite? Or the Phalanx? Or --"

"That's not fair," Parker argued. "Those were extenuating circumstances, and you know it!"

After a few more moments of arguing, it became clear to Cloak that Parker would not budge from his decision, and if he persisted in trying to talk him out of it, they would be at an impasse.

"Fine, then, Parker," Cloak said, irritated, "have your way. But let it be on your head if you are proven mistaken."

With that the two went to the forest, and Cloak couldn't help but feel like this was stepping into a Slenderman game of some sort. He never did like the horror genre all that much really, though he never was scared. He only was every truly terrified of one thing, one person, with fire and scorpions a close second.

Still, if he was on the ground or travelled by land, Cloak would know. Unless Spellbinder chose an arboreal escape route, where Cloak's Earthsight would not be helpful in the least.

But, soon enough, Cloak's concerns proved almost prophetic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2016, 09:11:44 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Smile For the Birdie!

Though it was really against Cloak's better judgement, the two split up. Granted, it was not really intentional on either part, Cloak still blamed himself for it -- and he could really be hard on himself when it came down to it. It was an admittingly stupid move, and Cloak acknowledged it as such. He immediately backtracked when he came to the conclusion that he shouldn't have let this occur, even if it was just an honest mistake in an unspoken, undiscussed disagreement of where to go, of which path to take.

Meanwhile, Parker was travelling without a hitch, and apparently under the impression that Cloak ditched him. However good the tech in his suit was, it didn't allow him permanent 360-degree vision, because he was still, fundamentally, human -- an enhanced human, but human nonetheless. He wasn't an Andalite, and even they can't see in all directions simultaneously. And Cloak's feet had a habit of not making a sound when he walked, it was feline thing.

Parker was feeling a smidgen aggrieved at this, as he bickered with Tyr like an old married couple. This could have accounted for Parker's testy mood recently. That and he wasn't too sure where he was with his relationship with Helen stood. He hadn't even met her parents yet, and when he brought it up, she seemed hesitant about it.

Suddenly, he saw a blinding flash.

He was standing in front of a photographer with a bright smile and flowing ebony hair. He was wearing a military uniform that looked to be from the 1940's, while at his right, Helen sat, looking gorgeous in her violet dress with subtle pink accents, her hair in a forties-style hairdo. In front of them, were two squirming little boys, five and seven, who were quickly bored by this family portrait, only partially heeding the gentle remonstrations of their mother and father.

He never thought he would enjoy this, being a father. But he found it more enjoyable than he had expected. Though he probably would never admit it aloud --

***

"Oh, Gateburst, Parker!" Cloak snarled angrily, when he saw the somniferous stupor into which Parker had fallen.

Clearly, Tyr, the artificial intelligence unit of Parker's suit, had been too late to react. After all, Parker didn't have Earthsight to give him the 411 about opponents traveling upon the earthen ground like Cloak did. Cloak was sure that even Tyr was trying to wake Parker up from whatever he was seeing.

Cloak had been afraid of this. Parker's armor couldn't save him from Spellbinders tech, and neither could his Mark. The only thing that saved Cloak was that he was not human and Realm Walkers have a very nasty reputation about being highly difficult, if not outright impossible, to be controlled in such a manner.

"Gateburst, Parker, wake up!" Cloak growled as it appeared that Parker was hugging some brittle boulder that crumbled to dust as he hugged it, as if it were a child. The illusion was great, and this just proved that Spellbinder was not someone to be trifled with so easily.

Cloak was sure Tyr was trying to snap Parker out of it as much as Cloak was, and was having the same level of success. Cloak could even still Earthsight that Spellbinder was still within range. He could still nab him.

But Parker clearly needed help snapping him out of this illusional reverie. Tyr's appeals were apparently was not working as well as they should. Spellbinder's knowledge of the human psyche was truly what made him so incredibly dangerous towards the populace at large, but Parker needed to snap out it, or he could hurt others in this state, due to whatever scenario he might be seeing. Or worse, he could hurt himself in the process. Helen would never forgive him if he left Parker in such a state.

It was a tough decision to make, one of many he's had to make as a RAFian.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 07, 2016, 06:09:08 PM

dang. i came back to eight new chapters!! which are all great, btw cloaky. ^^

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2016, 09:03:51 PM

Thanks, Abby. This next chapter is gonna add a wrinkle.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Breakthroughs and Breakups

Ugh. The weight of priorities.

"Snap outta it, Parker!!" Cloak roared so loudly that it probably could be heard two miles away. And, yet, it still couldn't get through. Cloak's anger and frustration seemed to be colluding against him, and the Elements Master's irritation was beginning to show.

He used his ferrokinesis, his Metal Mastery, to freeze Parker. The SPARTAN could move, just not in his armor. Not at all surprising, considering the titanium alloy of the armor was metal. Then the Realm Walker inhaled and then, using his aerokinesis to somehow amplify his voice, roared, "GATEBURST, PARKER!! WAKE UP!!!!"

Cloak actually heard Parker coming out of his reverie with a groan, and was tempted very much to strike him for his impetuous foolishness -- but decided against it when he came to the conclusion that that would be hypocritical on his part.

But he couldn't help but feel irritated and aggrieved at this inane little distraction while Spellbinder got away. In truth, it mattered very little, Cloak already knew where Jon Billings was headed.

"Believe me now, Parker?" Cloak growled. His anger was misplaced, but he couldn't help himself with venting some frustration. "Believe me that your armor isn't as infallible as you think? Even with the Walker tech inside it?"

Parker said nothing. He wasn't really in any mood to be berated by an arrogant Realm Walker.

"Fortunately, I didn't have to get Yarin here to free you from that illusion," Cloak said, knowing that he was grousing and fuming, before he could stop himself. "Do you realize just how much worse it could have been? Fortunately, we were in this forest and no innocents were around besides these cute little woodland critters."

"Don't talk to me like a child," Parker said, thickly.

"Then don't act like a Hatchling!" Cloak snarled, before he could help himself. He quickly collected and composed himself before speaking again. "You need to go back to the forum. Raise Code Avalon again."

"You shouldn't be out here al--"

"I'm far safer out here than you are," Cloak said, in one breath. He didn't intend for it to come out as a threat, but he could understand how it could, and probably would, be taken as such. Cloak repeated, "Go back to the forum. I know where he must be heading."

"But --"

"This is no longer up for debate!" Cloak snarled.

***

Melissa had heard about these cases, and what the media was dubbing the Spellbinder. Melissa felt compassion for the victims involved, of course, despite their more duplicitous sides, except, of course, for that poor dress shop manager with the heart condition.

It was all horrible. The work of a crazily callous individual, obviously. When she thought of just who such a person could possibly be . . . her mind cast back to some less then pleasant memories she had never wished to relive.

He was so nice at first, so kind. He appeared to be so gentle, so nuanced. The way he spoke, the way he smelled . . .

A facade. All of it was a facade. And she was too young, too stupid, to realize what he was, to see him for what he truly was. She allowed herself to be suckered by his sweet nothings, to be swayed by his smooth talk . . .

She didn't like remembering those days. She hated herself for them, even though she had done nothing wrong, it was all his doing. She never told anyone this. She tried to forget it desperately, wishing beyond all credulity that it never happened. That was the darkest two years of her life. Something she hid, something she was weary about reliving.

She had successfully suppressed these memories, these contradictory feelings . . . she wished she had a Pensieve, so she could cast these ugly memories away and be done with them. To never have to remember them again. To firmly shut that chapter of her life for good, without it leaking into her life ever again. To cast them into the aether.

She felt that no one would understand what she went through with that boy. Or worse -- not believe her. She could even bring herself to tell Broken, her mentor and friend, about it. It was just too painful.

Little did she know that there was at least one RAFian who would understand this pain precisely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 07, 2016, 09:06:12 PM

oohhhhhh... interesting...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2016, 10:25:20 PM

Just wait . . . although it maybe obvious.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Ultimatums and Ubiquity

Spellbinder, confident that the cloaked one would not be able to undo his little trick, confident that no one knew where his little hidey-hold was, made a beeline to his little treasure cove. The low-ceilinged structure that protected his expensive items before he could pawn them off for cash in his modest bank account.

Jon Billings -- Spellbinder -- had an awfully big sense of entitlement. He believed that he was actually owed such items, such wealth. He examined each item with an ostentatious eye with a smug air of pretentiousness. It was a wonder how he could hide this side of himself from people he had to interact with at his job.

He was so callous with people he used, he didn't care if his tech might have induced carcinogenic effects in his victims, or if their sanity unravelled. This was all for his personal gain and no one else's. He was supremely selfish in this regard.

Here he could be assured of his safety. Here he could not be harmed. No one knew its location. Of this, he was absolutely certain.

"You've gotten quite a boon," said a voice, which echoed around the surprisingly cramped, yet wide, place. A voice that deeply violated the very sanctity and serenity that Spellbinder had come to expect here. A voice that revealled that Spellbinder's most well-kept secret wasn't so secret anymore. "Stolen from their rightful owners."

The last five words angered Spellbinder, clearly beyond good sense. "Rightful owners, you say? I am their rightful owner!!"

"A bold assertion," the voice countered smoothly.

"No assertion! FACT, fool, FACT!" Spellbinder sounded off, sounding quite demented.

"How so?" said the voice, sounding like a parent talking to a hyper-emotional toddler. Spellbinder noticed and resented this.

"I deserve them!" he said, sounding rather more petulant than he intended. Especially as he was planning on selling them off for financial gain. "I am more entitled to these luxuries and wealth than those fatcats who just inherited their fortunes from daddy! I've worked hard! But, thanks to those parasitic oligarchs, I have nothing to show for it!! I deserve these riches more than they do!"

"How do you figure?" said the voice, still with its irritating parental tone.

"I have invented a technology that borders on true mind control!" he shouted. "I should be appreciated and compensated for my work, my genius!!"

"Perhaps," the voice revealled in the dim light to be Cloak. "But you've decided to wrong route to go about this, not to mention the copious ethical questions your precious technology poses."

"Don't judge me," he snarled, his anger still overriding his good sense.

"Either return all these items to their rightful owners," Cloak said, "or everyone will know that Spellbinder is Jon Billings."

"How'd you know --?"

"Your name?" Cloak said. "I saw your face. Also -- probably shouldn't leave your wallet unattended. I saw your driver's license."

Billings said nothing.

"I'll give you one hour to work on your redemption," Cloak said, hoping there was a scrap of decency in the man. "If not, I'll make sure that the items are returned and you are arrested."

***

Melissa went for a walk around the forum. But something was clearly bothering her. Even the least perceptive RAFians could see that. But she didn't want to talk to anybody. She just kept reliving those . . . those awful times. The more desperately she wanted to shut them away, to lock them away, to forget, the harder the memories strove to make themselves known, the more they struggled against the suppression.

She plopped herself down, on the shore of the forum lake, trying to ignore her ubiquitous feelings. She had managed to push them down, push them down and repress them successfully. And yet she was here, still mulling over these roiling thoughts.

She didn't want them. She wanted to abandon them as soon as she could. If she could just siphon them out of her head and into a Pensieve, where they'd be gone forever. Just completely and undeniably gone.

She looked at her hornbeam wand, and seriously considered doing it without the pensieve and let the memories soak into the ground. Let the ground remember it instead.

Yes, she supposed she wasn't the only woman who had an emotionally-abusive boyfriend, but her situation was a bit more . . . unique. He knew of her capability to wield magic, long before she became Broken's protege and obtained the hornbeam wand. He knew of it, and desired it, becoming rather jealous when he couldn't. He had seemed very especially fond of the effects of the Imperius Curse.

This disturbed Melissa, but, at the time, she ignored it as a quirk of the relationship. She didn't question it, believing he loved her unconditionally. She was wrong. He only loved what she could do for him. He saw her as nothing but an appendage, a marionette, that he could control and manipulate as easily as a puppeteer. To have power, but through her. He had no powers, magical or other wise on his own.

She felt so stupid for having allowed it go on for so long. . . . Stupid . . . and shamed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2016, 06:29:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Tantrums and Tangents

How dare he. How dare he!!

How dare he come into his sanctuary, defile it with his presence, and issue him an ultimatum? What right had he to do that? Spellbinder wasn't doing anything wrong! He was perfectly in the right on this.

He was just like . . . no. No, don't remember that, Jon. That part of your life is done. But it sparked you to create your magnum opus, did it not? He smiled at the thought. His spellbinding tech was perfect, so he didn't need -- it was inconsequential, at any rate.

But, no, he would not be giving these items back. Those rich, corrupt, unappreciative bastards don't deserve them. He did. He was entitled to this stuff way more than those intellectually-deficient oligarch and plutocrats! Deserved their riches more than they did because he suffered more than they have, because he had worked harder than every single one of them put together!!

But the arrogant cloaked figure would be back in an hour. He needed to shore up the defense of this sanctuary of his. He would pawn off all the little stuff, unnoticed. He would have to use the skinsuit in order to do so, like he did with the items before. Ask for cash instead of a check. . . .

But first to defense this place. He had to get busy.

***

Eventually, as Melissa reminisced, she got wise to what her "boyfriend" was doing. She was embarrassed that she hadn't figured it out sooner. She felt shame that she didn't figure it out sooner.

She wasn't anything to him but an object, property, a thing to possess. She had come to realize that he didn't love her, that he never really did. He just pretended that he did so that she would to what he wanted. If she didn't . . . if she didn't, he . . . he . . . he hit her. He really battered her. She could fix the damage in a thrice afterward, however, with her magicks, and not many battered women have that. Even then, she kept making excuses for him, excusing this unacceptable behavior.

But then she had to wonder. Especially when he was pressuring her heavily to use the Imperius Curse on people he felt that had slighted him -- there were many -- but she always refused, saying that it requires a wand to perform, which, in reality, she didn't know whether or not it was true.

This didn't go over too well with her then-boyfriend. He wanted what he wanted, and while he was a patient man, frustration could lead him to impatience. And when he got frustrated and impatient, it often lead to violence. Violence against her. Physically, he was stronger than her, and, unbeknowst to both of them, he was beating the magic out of her.

The longer this relationship continued, the more her magic began to wither and die. This coincided with her own feelings. Her then-boyfriend would not hesitate to be verbally abusive during this time. Deriding her. Denigrating her. Calling her worthless and useless . . .

It was then that she realized that he never loved her -- the Veritaserum she slipped into his morning coffee helped as well. She had to find out the truth, and when she did, it devastated her. She really loved him, but then she realized that even that wasn't exactly true. She thought he was cute, sure, but she was in love with the idea of being in love.

She had to admit part of her wanted to use Amortentia, a love potion, to force him to love her. But she swiftly decided against it, as it would have been no better than his Muggle brand of it. No, the only thing to do would be to breakup with him.

He didn't take it very well.

But she had no idea how creepy he could be after she decided to break up with him. Even now, she cringes at the thought of her ever entertaining the notion of being Mrs. Melissa Billings.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 09, 2016, 07:37:05 PM

o h

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2016, 10:02:31 PM

Yes. And this chapter will hafta tide you over until Sunday, as I dunno when or if I'm gonna have time tomorrow to post.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Creep Out and Deep In

Melissa remembered that the breakup wasn't clean. As she recalled, a song played in the background of her thoughts.

I like to feel the warm spot on your chair.
Sometimes I drool and usually I stare,
My precious one!
I saved that gum that you threw in the garbage!

She would only discover this later, and felt immensely disgusted by it. At the time, she would have just thought that he was still in love with her, nowadays, she wondered if he was even capable of compassion to another.

You're the one I dream about.
But the only question with me now is,
Do I creep you out?

She didn't know if that was true, but wouldn't have put it past him. But he always put himself first, so she would have been surprised if he wasn't playing the part of the victim in his dreams and his narrative.

Every time I shook your hand then,
Wanted to stick your fingers in my mouth!
Do I creep you out?

This never happened, but she wouldn't have been surprised if it were true. He was into some rather . . . kinky . . . things.

Call you every night and hang up.
Gonna carve your name in my leg.
In my leg!

Melissa knew he was just talking out his butt when he told her that. She knew he was just so desperate to have her back, to control her. If she had a wand, and knew how back then, she would have used a powerful Memory Charm on him to get him to completely forget her. She really should have done it anyway, even though she wasn't very good at focused, nonverbal magic at that time.

"Something I should ask about.
Can I sniff the pit stains on your blouse?
And do I creep you,
Do I creep you out?

She got a restraining order from this little action, and when the verdict came out in her favor, he tried to claim that they magicked it this way, and the case wasn't fair. He was laughed out of the proceedings.

Your restraining order's run out,
Still the only question with me now, (oh, the only question)
Is do I creep you out? (Do I creep you out?)

He was really making Melissa's life hell. She wanted so much to curse him within an inch of his life, to crush him with a spell like Gravira. But the far easiest way to extract him, sort of killing him, was to cast a powerful Memory Charm on him. . . .

"Know exactly where you live, always!
Always follow you from work back to your house!
(Followed you from work back to your house!)
Well, do I creep you out?
Do I creep you out?

She had to do something! If only she knew the Fidelus Charm. Then he would not be able to reach her. Especially if she made it Unplottable. But she didn't have that kind of focus with her magic. Even when Jon tried to manipulate her into using it like that. Her magic had always been untrained and unfocused, before Broken, before her wand.

But Jon was making her mad enough that she was finding herself wanting to use the Killing Curse, to use Avada Kedavra, against him. She didn't want to do this, but he was rapidly leaving her with little recourse. . . .

***

Puh, he thinks he can issue me ultimatums. Me?! Spellbinder seethed. I will most certainly not comply to the whims of an arrogant, piece of --

It was then that he remembered a bag that . . . that she gave him. Back before she became defiant. Back before she grew a backbone. The backpack had one of those undetectable enlarging spells or something on them, and it was very iffy at times. But necessity overrode caution in Jon's mind.

He was sure that figure in the cloak would make good on his promise. And looks like someone whose threats should be taken seriously, though the audacity of it still rankled Spellbinder.

He checked his hideout's sole defense. A device that would issue his spellbinding tech to anyone who crosses the threshold of this place. It would pick one of seven hundred subroutines, one of seven hundred scenarios to implant, rotating to another if the first didn't work, until eventually one took hold. He overlooked and forgotten just why this wouldn't work, but he was more concerned with other matters at the moment.

He hurriedly and haphazardly began to shove his treasures down the bag, take out the skinsuit, undress, put on the skinsuit, redress, and then he began to, as GH would say, "haul ass out of there".

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r_U377vst5o

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 10, 2016, 12:40:29 AM

hm... interesting...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2016, 06:12:46 AM

Yeah. Apparently, I managed to finish this before work, so here you go!

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Picky and Nikki

The hour was up, and Cloak went to see if Billings had decided to do as he had asked. He was pretty much trying to force redemption upon Spellbinder, which never ever works. If people want to be redeemed, it has to be because they themselves wish it.

It was because of this that Cloak was altogether unsurprised when he came back to the hideout to discover the pitiful traps that he had laid. His spellbinding device -- which looked like a metal cylinder with a slit in it, which opened revealing an eye. Cloak presumed this was an effort to get rid of him.

If that was the case, Cloak found himself disappointed at the fact that Billings would forget such a crucial fact -- that his spellbinding tech wouldn't work on him, as he wasn't human. That's not something you'd want to slip your mind when you're making traps. It was pitiful.

After Cloak ferrokinetically crushed the device like an aluminium can, he let himself into low building. He saw it mostly empty, save for strings of dust here and there. This gave Cloak pause. If he complied, why go through the trouble and effort -- minimum effort, granted -- to put up a trap. Even a trap that absolutely no chance of working to begin with?

Unless it wasn't meant as a trap, Cloak surmised. Unless it was intended to be a distraction as he cleared out his stolen loot to find another place where he could hide it safely. Or, more likely, where he could pawn it all off in bulk. Apparently, he was unaware that the pawn brokers, at least in this city, were hagglers. He would have to compromise on each stolen item. And if he didn't, he might risk them discovering the fact that they were stolen -- and one or two of the pawn brokers might be fine with that, but there were more with a moral compass better than that.

Suddenly, Cloak noticed a scent. It was different from Spellbinder's which was stale at this point. Cloak had a suspicion where this scent came from -- the black market must be back up and running, even after he thought they had finished it off. But apparently roaches always come back.

Cloak began to follow the scent.

***

Melissa recalled that Jon was relentless with the harassment, until the next restraining order. But Melissa found herself really wanting a companion, one that wasn't Jon Billings.

She went down to the local Humane Society, weary about seeing Jon everywhere, despite the restraining order. He seemed to have lost interest in her, the svengali (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/svengali). She just wanted him out of her life permanently.

Anyway, she walked through the Humane Society, looking for the perfect companion. She was just about to give up, when a tiny paw reached out from a cage and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and saw the cutest American shorthair. Her eyes were yellow and surprisingly intelligent. There was an immediate connection between the two.

When the cage was opened, and Melissa was close enough, the cat jumped into her arms. She started purring the moment they touched. It was a sure thing -- Melissa would be taking this intelligent little rapscallion home with her. The two got along surprisingly well.

"Nikki," Melissa had decided to name her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2016, 07:03:31 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Tassels and Hassles

Melissa found herself infinitely happier when Nikki came into the picture. Nikki was the most adorable, loving cat Melissa had ever known, bar none. Nikki seemed to be as enthralled being with Melissa as she was with her.

But most all, Nikki loved to play with tassels, much to Melissa's amusement. They would play whenever Melissa didn't have to work to pay for the house and things. Nikki would even sleep on her bed, almost as if she was watching out for Melissa whilst she slept.

When the restraining order elapsed, Jon was very disturbed -- and angry -- to discover she got a cat. Not only did he hate cats, he was severely allergic to them. Melissa actually did not know this, and if she did, she wouldn't have cared, and gotten Nikki anyway.

Jon was very tempted to kill the cat, to punish Melissa for daring to get one. He believed she got the cat to prevent him from being with her, from using her as a tool, an object. That she got the cat to protect her from him, because he couldn't get anywhere near Nikki's dander.

Jon was very confident that he could break into her house -- he's been ever so careful to keep tabs on her whereabouts. . . . Only to discover that she moved when the restraining order was still in effect. And she transferred from her current job to another one elsewhere.

Jon had no idea where she was now. This forced him to move on, but inspiration from Melissa pushed him to create his spellbinding tech, to study the human psyche more thoroughly than any other man before him. To make him jaded and feel even more entitled.

Melissa had just, unintentionally, birthed Spellbinder.

***

"Sorry, uh, what was your name again?" the pawn shop manager said.

"Sven," Spellbinder said, wearing the skinsuit, "Sven Galliano."

"Well, Mr, Galliano," he said, "the most I can give you is seven twenty-three for this piece."

"Seven twen-- it's worth at least ten times that amount, and you know it!" Spellbinder shouted. Clearly, he hadn't thought this part of his plan through, despite his so-called genius level of intellect. "You give me the proper amount."

"Young man," the pawn shop manager said, as the skinsuit looked a couple years younger than Billings himself. "I do not appreciate the tone."

"I don't really care, Rob Stoll!" Spellbinder roared, having read the man's name tag. "You're trying to con me out of several grand!"

"First of all, it's 'Robert'," he sniffed, "and, second of all, your business here is no longer required or wanted. I ask you to leave now, please."

"Not until you give me a fair price, you doddering old dunderhead!" Spellbinder snarled.

"I already gave you one," the manager said, "now I ask you again. Please leave."

"No!"

"If you do not," the manager said, with remarkable self-control in comparison to Jon, "I shall involve the police."

Billings looked as if he wanted to argue the point, as if he wanted to call the shopkeep a horrible ripoff artist, but he was prudent enough to know that wouldn't do him any good. He couldn't use his spellbinding tech -- none of the scenarios in them would be particularly useful here. Nor did he have any of it in readily accessible place right now.

He didn't want the police involved -- but now he knew he couldn't come back into this store, at least not while wearing this face. But he could always use his tech to come back with a new face. So, all wasn't lost.

He stormed from the building, perhaps jostling his bookbag more roughly then he ought have.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2016, 05:28:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Magic Failure

Jon was not the wisest being in existence. Far from it.

But, honestly, how would a Muggle, a non-magical person, such as himself, know the intricacies of a charm like the Undetectable Extension Charm? How could he possibly know that it is very tricky to perform even by trained wizards and witches, and all use a focusing implement, like a wand.

Melissa had no training nor focusing implement when she made the bag for Jon. Sure, it seemed to have worked at first. But then the charm had no sticking to it, had no permanence to it. Jon did not know that now the charm was wearing off on his bag. The very bag which had his stolen loot inside of, thrown pell-mell into it.

All the rough jostling of the bag wasn't helping matters either. If anything, it was exacerbating the issue. But so fraught with his anger and frustration, Jon noticed nothing as he fumed about the highway robbery that the manager had given him. The clerk wasn't of big help either.

Nor did he realize that he was being trailled by someone, someone who kept to the shadows, someone who has his scent. Had it memorized. He stalked and sneaked around every obstacle and hazard in his way, always keeping his reflective amber eyes on the source of the scent.

Suddenly, there was the sound of ripping. The Undetectable Extension Charm had failed and broke, its effects being cancelled out. As such, the tremendous amount of pilfered items came spillout of the backpack, tearing it to shreds.

The dress. Jewelry. Expensive coins. Expensive paintings. A Ming vase. And more, spilled onto the street. And all this happened in front of two police officers. Two police officers that happened to be well versed in the items stolen by Spellbinder. Spellbinder was still under the impression that he couldn't be arrested -- after all, he didn't steal the items. It wasn't his fault that they just gave him these items. Besides, he was disguised as Sven Galliano. His reputation as Jon Billings, as far as he was concerned, was fine. (Despite the fact that he was a no-call, no-show to his work as the school guidance counselor for several days.)

As he quickly tried to gather up his loot, further implicating himself in their theft. Jon was far too arrogant to even consider this as a possibility. He had gathered up what he could, only to be placed under arrest and read his Miranda rights.

Naturally, he struggled and resisted the arrest, but in the end, he was loaded up in the back of a police cruiser and en route to jail, as the stolen items were being taken into custody.

And Cloak and watched the whole thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2016, 06:55:41 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Overlooked One Little Thing

The thing was Jon wasn't out of tricks. He had hidden enough tech inside his skinsuit to make another spellbinding unit. And he had managed to do that, after being handcuffed, was a feat in and of itself.

He had managed to orient it enough to activate it, and make the cops believe that they were inside a flooding temple of gold when the car stopped. It caused them to evacuate the car, onto what they believed to be a staircase. Then they proceeded to "go up the stairs" and opened a door, causing Jon to barrel out of the cruiser, and, with another flash he terminated the previous scenario for another one.

They were in vine-encrusted temple, much like the "temple" in "Legends of the Hidden Temple". They had to take a key -- which was like a nerf dart only smaller, and put it into the lock to unlock the room with the artifact they were after.

But, in reality, they just unlocked Jon's handcuffs, which fell away, lonely and forgotten. The police officers didn't even realize -- and they were hit by a passing motorist -- they were in the middle of the street, after all. They, uh, did not survive this. And it wasn't because of the collision with the car. A double dose of the spellbinding tech had proven to be too much for their neural chemistry to handle adequately.

Jon Billings did not care. And he was back at large.

He quickly used his spellbinding tech to make him fundamentally invisible to all humans who could see him. He would have to get rid of this skinsuit. It was a liability. As far as they know, Sven Galliano was the thief, not Jon Billings. But he also had to destroy any DNA evidence withen the suit that might betray him.

He should just burn the damn thing. He never liked wearing it to begin with. Too tight, too constricting. The voice that it modulated when ever he wore it, Jon found too high and effeminate, but he hadn't any control over that. The skin suits aren't really all that customizable. It was also hell to put on, and only slightly less hell to slough off.

He returned to his apartment, still as Sven Galliano. His spellbinding tech making him fundamentally invisible. To humans. He cursed himself as why he didn't use this earlier, but that's neither here nor there now.

Once inside his home, and locked the door, he immediately deactivated his tech and immediately undressed. He quickly, and without hesitation, peeled himself out of "Sven". Then he immediately redressed, then he washed out completely the interior of the suit, making sure no DNA residue would give him away.

Then he proceeded to burn the damn suit, with no one the wiser.

***

Melissa was back in her own thread now, stroking the Nikki's ears, as the cat purred unabashedly. Nikki, being a cat, was always comfortable in her own skin, Melissa reflected. The young sorceress wondered why she could not be the same. She had found where she belonged -- she was the apprentice to the Sorcerer Supreme himself! Yet, something nagged at her, made her uncomfortable.

She thought about it and decided. She needed to tell the others about this abusive relationship she had with Jon Billings . . . maybe it would clear her conscious. Maybe it would take a load off her shoulders.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2016, 08:01:31 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Disjointed Dreams

It was a few days after Cloak first became a RAFian. He was still closed up and guarded, as he always was before he mellowed. And that was back when he buried his emotions, back when he was afraid of his emotions, afraid of the true potential of both his powers and himself. Back when he thought very little of himself.

What he did not not know was that his elder sister, Faith, a vulpine-form Realm Walker, had followed him, to ensure that he was safe. She was always superior to their mother in this regard. Faith cared for her baby brother, and Cloak would have done anything to help her.

Upon seeing him with the RAFians, she held back. After seeing him interacting with them, she held back and smiled. She sang quietly:

"Brother, you're safe now,
And safe may you stay.
For I have a prayer just for you.
Grow, baby brother,
And remember this day,
And remember us, too."

And, with that, she left her brother to grow stronger. Stronger as a person, and a friend. He wasn't sure if this really happened though. Then he started to dreaming of something else, an old memory from before he even existed.

There were six really young Realm Walkers, all girls. A nightingale chick in a violet cloak, a meerkat juvenile in a green cloak, a sun bear cub in a blue cloak, a sloth juvenile in an orange cloak, a German Shepard pup in an indigo cloak, and a grizzly bear cub in a yellow cloak with a crimson hood.

The grizzly cub, the eldest of the lot, was talking. " -- And that's not even the worst part!"

Then inexplicable music started playing, and she started singing:

"This isn't like our backyard back home,
With slides and pools and things.
It's a creepy little Realm,
With big scary beings!!
Where mutant stalkers crawl around,
Chomping down on little kids.
And water wings can't save you
From the slimy Erised squids!!"

The four youngest, the third-eldest and down, swallowed this hook line and sinker, only the German Shepard pup, the second-eldest of these six sisters, seemed to see through the grizzly cub, as she wore an angry expression and folded arms.

The grizzly cub continued:

"That's why you need a princess --
Someone beautiful, hmm? Like me!
To save you from the scary paws
That grabs you from the trees!
So, if you don't want to end up
Being mutant stalker food,
Keep your Realm Princess
In a REALLY happy mood!!"

The German Shepard pup looked really disgruntled at this, but the grizzly cub continued her song:

"That means no blowing bubbles!
That means no tattletales!
That means no bugging me to show my royal bells! Ha!
Just do to the things I tell you,
Like bow when I walk by,
Listen when I speak to you,
But do not look me in the eye!"

The German Shepard pup defied this immediately, before adding in her own bit to the song:

"You're not some Realm Princess.
There's not a squishy stalker!
There are no mutant Dwellers
That would ever eat a Walker!"

She turned to her four younger sisters, and sang:

"Don't listen to her stories!
She always misbehaves.
She's trying to scare you guys
Into being her Realm slaves!"

The grizzly cub didn't take to this too kindly, and sang:

"Why do you have to be
So good, nice and cheeky?
Just face the facts,
That this Realm's I'm Princess Ursa-tiki!
So, if you don't want to end up
Being mutant stalker food,
Keep your Realm Princess
In a REALLY happy mood!!
Keep your Realm Princess
In a REALLY happy mood!!"

And it was at this point that Cloak woke up.

---

Source Songs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zCcycOLUcTk (2:39) and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qnaoe9RvP88

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2016, 10:09:20 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXV:
BAST-IC INSTINCT
CHAPTER ONE:
Strong in the Real Way and the Wrong Way

Cloak was meditating, and he found himself reminiscing. He remembered Wheeza when he was foolishly putting his.mother up on a pedestal. A pedestal that she never deserved, but that the then-Cloak was too naive about.

"Why do you have to look up to her
Aside from in a parent-child sense?
Don't you know that a powerlust that big
Comes with a bigger expense?
And can't you see that she's out of control
And imperious?
I'm telling you for your own good,
Just because its really serious.
I can show you how to be strong . . .
In the real way.
And I know that we can be strong
In the real way.
And I want to inspire you.
I want to be your rock,
And when I talk
It lights a fire in you."

Fast forward slightly, and Cloak was training a young Shadow in the elements. He sang:

"I can show you how to be strong . . .
In the real way.
And I know that we can be strong
In the real way.
And I want to inspire you.
I want to be your rock,
And when I talk,
It lights a fire in you.
I want to inspire you.
I want to be your rock,
And when I talk,
It lights a fire in you."

Suddenly, Cloak snapped his eyes open. He sensed something. Something rising. . . . Something . . . even more ancient than he.

***

"Well, the Xenocyte thing really petered out," Malice was saying in what appeared to be some sort of shadowy study. The only real light was from a small barrel-bodied lamp on the table. She templed her fingers as she spoke. "Pity, really. I honestly thought I'd get more . . . mileage . . . out of that scheme."

Her hands drummed on a device that was just tantalizingly out of the light.

"But, quite auspiciously, I have been given a little sumthin-sumthin to, heh, liven things up," she cackled.

The she looked over to the oblong device, and her tone took on a jeering tone.

"Too bad your big bwother can't see you anymore," she said, in that jeeringly mocking tone she had. "Especially after I -- heh -- 'megw evolved' him. But he proved useless to me. Now he's dead, and as he should be, for fsiling me. But, now . . . now your loyalty is to me. And me only. Isn't that right, poppets?"

She punctuated this was a malevolent cackle.

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UFctQMCs3k4

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 12, 2016, 02:03:19 AM

oh boy. this sounds fun =d

also sorry for the no-show for a bit, i've been super busy with freshman stuff, and school starts tomorrow, so i probably won't be around then either

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2016, 07:00:49 AM

I surmised as much, Abby.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Rise of the Cat Lady

Meanwhile, whilst Malice waited to implement her plan to slowly use the mostly male brethren of Maul, somewhere in Egypt a force began to stir. In an unseen pool of spiritual energy called by the Duat by the Egyptian pantheon, which crossed over from the layer called Everlost, which was -- well, more on that later on.

A lonely figure began to rise through the Duat. A figure with a voluptuous female form glided up through the Duat almost effortlessly, only stopping here and there when something caught her attention. But she was very keen on leaving. She had been stuck in the Duat for much too long now. Much too long. Five thousand years too long.

It wasn't as if she was bitter or anything.

. . . Okay, she was. She didn't want to go deep in the Duat, but she did as the Egyptian pantheon faded into obscurity. But surely, even after all this time, she would be remembered. Surely, she would not be forgotten.

She was Baset, goddess of love. She was Bastet, goddess of family. She was Baast, goddess of music. She was Ubaste, goddess of dance. She was Ailuros, goddess of protection and joy! She was Bast, the goddess of cats! She was all these things and all these names, and she was as fickle about them all as a cat would be.

As she rose through the Duat, she convinced herself that things wouldn't have changed much. After all, five thousand years wasn't such a long time, was it? It was just felt longer than it was, right?

She would have her feline followers attend her when she surfaced, when she was at last free from the Duat. Most of her pantheon would need hosts to become the Eye of their power, but this did not mean it was a mandatory thing. She didn't care about this. There was no threats to warrant such a need. She wanted to be her own woman, and her own god. She would not take a host -- it was just a way to subjugate worshippers, anyway. She didn't need that. She didn't want that. She just wanted to be free!

As she moved through the Duat, she felt herself tiring. She, like her feline followers, weren't big in the endurance department. But it's been so long . . . so long . . . since she's been free of the Duat, free from obscurity. She was eager to break out, break free. To see the Egyptian sands again, to breath the air once more, to touch the burning sands . . .

Okay, maybe not that last part so much. But she was almost there . . .

There! Her feline head broke out of the Duat, and the rest of her followed -- it was almost like an immaculate birth. She had spent and exhausted her energy, just giving herself a materialistic form -- more often, in ancient times, they in her pantheon would be lazy and just take preexisting materialistic forms, sometimes dominating them, others being dominated by the more willful.

As she looked around, she discovered, much to her dismay, that things had indeed changed over the millennia. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2016, 11:01:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Of Course! (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1W7c8QghPxk)

"Ah, after five thousand years, I'm free!" Bast said. "It's time to conquer RAF!"

Meanwhile, back at RAF, Richard spoke, "Phoenix, Bast has escaped. Assemble five RAFians with attitude!"

GH, Parker, Saffa, Faerie,  and Abby were chosen at random.

Go, go, RAFian Rangers!
Go, go, RAFian Rangers!
Go, go, RAFian Rangers!
You Mightily Insane RAFian Rangers!"

"Wait -- why am I the PINK RAFian Ranger?!" GH demanded.

Go, go, RAFian Rangers!
Go, go, RAFian Rangers!
Go, go, RAFian Rangers!
You Mightily Insane RAFian Rangers!"

"I'm serious!!" GH protested, as the vision was coming to a close. He was heard to say, "Oh, c'mon!", as it ended.

Cloak smirked a bit at the humor in it, but was left a bit puzzled. Who was Bast? Why did that name sound so familiar to him?

***

But it was true, that Bast had been freed from the Duat. And she had not been lazy and simply taken a host like a parasite, like some of her brethren would have been quick to do.

She crafted herself a material body from the same substance of the Duat itself. She was a tall, stately, austere woman wearing the traditional garb of the higher echelons of Ancient Egyptian society, with a feline head.

Her head was like that of a blue-point Siamese, instead of something more local, like an Abyssinian or something. Or it could be that her feline head reflected the breed of cat that the viewer had the strongest connections to.

She was looking around, not too sure she at all liked these new things. This technology, and tall square buildings that looked a little too plain and dull for her liking. These modern conveyances, these automobiles, they were to obnoxiously loud or unnaturally quiet. She didn't like them. And these strange glowing tablets? Too much had changed from what she known.

These humans had also lost their respect for their cats. She heard many of their stories, and some of them were utter horror stories. Even one becoming something called a red lantern. It was an odd, foreign term to her.

But, in the end she sensed something. Something overseas. Something she would have to investigate for herself. But first, she changed her garb into that of a modern catsuit. This, however, she liked.

But she would have to get over there . . . where the . . . the . . . the whatever was . . .

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FpcCoW5gA7w (obviously).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2016, 11:07:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
She Comes

Cloak looked around, and saw that he seemed to be in some abandoned construction site, with decrepit old buildings -- most of which were just standing walls at this point -- with an odd mist hanging around, giving the whole place a creepy, "Dead By Daylight"-type vibe.

Cloak was sure that this was a dream, and apparently a lucid one at that. But why the landscape for the horror genre? He couldn't even change it or direct this obvious dream in any way or manner. This was odd, and Cloak couldn't help but wonder if this was just some trick of Aniyu's.

"I come," said a female voice, sounding rather plaintive, as Cloak discovered a silver statuette of a "Lugarugan", an amber statuette of a Liepard, and a bamboo statuette of a Pangoro. He cast them aside as unimportant. "I come."

"What the --" Cloak said, as he tripped over a copper statuette of a Talonflame, a granite statuette of a Gogoat, and an iron statuette of a Piloswine. Cloak declined to comment on this due sheer, unadulterated embarrassment. He wouldn't be boasting about this.

"I call out to you, my children," she said, giving distinct Madre de Vampyra vibes. Cloak absently scattered a slate statuette of a Donphan, a coral statuette of an Octillery, and a marble statuette of a Swanna. "You Matron calls for you."

"I don't HAVE a Gateburst matron," Cloak said, irritated, wishing to away now, as he stepped painfully upon a jade statuette of an Arbok, an obsidian statuette of a Slaking, and a bronze statuette of a Braviary. "Now, go away."

"I come," she said, as Cloak angrily kicked a platinum statuette of Xerneas. He was having none of this talk. "I come to you, my children."

Cloak felt the weaker part of his mind start to sway to this, but he clamped down on that part willfully, crushing the gold statuette of Pyroar that he was holding. Crushed it, as he heard her cry out plaintively, "Come to me, my hearts, my children. Come to me!"

Cloak felt the desire to go, but he obstinately refused, as he accidentally shattered a crystal statuette of a Beartic. He was a Realm Walker! He wouldn't be taken in so easily. Realm Walkers come and go at their slightest whim! Realm Walkers cannot be manipulated so effortlessly. He was quite literally impossible to be controlled involuntarily.

Although, his mother Ursa proved that it was quite possible to happen if the Realm Walker in question doesn't resist. But Cloak would resist this call, this summoning to arms. He would not only resist, but completely throw of this, like an Imperius Curse! This was nothing to him. Nothing.

He would not be controlled. Never again. Never.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 14, 2016, 08:40:35 AM

oooh snap. this could have some bad consequences... if this is affecting Cloak so hard, then it's probably even worse to the other feline RAFians...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2016, 05:54:41 PM

It's a can of worms, for sure.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Come, Little Kitties

Cloak was quite sure that he was quite awake now. For the longest time, he only feared his mother. Now, though he could scarcely believe it, there might have been a contender. This Bast person.

Never before had he felt such a compulsion, though he resisted it successfully. He could be wily and willful when it came down to it, and the fact that this Bast person managed to infiltrate his mind like that . . . to persuade him with such adroit skill . . . it was frightening to the Elements Master.

He imagined that this must have have been what a victim of the Imperius Curse must have felt like. He would not know, not really. That Curse cannot affect him. And neither, by all means, should this Bast person. Realm Walkers are immune from Realm Dweller mind control. Immune from Realm Dweller possession. Immune from Realm Dweller chemical seduction.

Granted, they were not above being manipulated, but it would take a being of extraordinary cunning and prodigious oratory skill to accomplish something like that. He had yet to meet a Dweller with such a capability, especially from his shrewd and jaded mindset. It was possible that she was a Realm Walker, he supposed. A Realm Walker that settled into this Realm, much like he himself (and, presumably, Malice, as well) did.

Or she could just be a force stronger -- no. No, that's ridiculous. Realm Walkers were the first species, sentient or otherwise. They were born from the ambient energy that existed in existence's infancy. They eventually took corporeal form when they achieved sentience. The Black Mercy came later, but it was thoroughly nonsentient.

Cloak just didn't know what to make of this. And this alone was enough to cause a chill to creep up his spine. Whoever or whatever this Bast was, she was doing things she should not be, by all rules of logic, be able to do.

Cloak's ears twitched suddenly as he heard:

Come, little kitties, I'll take thee away --"

It wasn't a voice singing, neither was it thought-speak. Cloak didn't know what the Veil it was, but he didn't like it. The -- for lack of a more applicable term -- voice was haunting in a way, but enigmatic and beseeching as well. It almost sounded very earnest, like she really --

No! No! Cloak scolded himself. He was allowing the entrancing "voice", if you could really call it that, to draw him to it. Keep your lucidity, Cloak. Ignore it. It is nothing. Just annoying ambiance.

He pressed his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to drown this out. Repeating that the "voice" was nothing to him. That it meant nothing. That it wasn't even real. . . .

"-- From the land of disenfranchisement."

It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. It was entirely imagined. It had to be.

"I am --" Cloak spoke his real name, which was unpronounceable to Dweller tongues. He was speaking in effort to drown out whatever that "voice" or whatever was. "I am Cloak. I am the son of Ursa and Brute. Grandson of Master Sage. Descendant of Master Avatar and Benign. Descendant of Aniyu. Brother of Faith and Dagger. Uncle of Shadow. Friend of many, foe of many."

Cloak was finding this not working and that part of him, the weakest bits, wanted to go to this singing "voice", wanted to do so badly. But his will, his heart, and his mind would not allow it. This actually caused his Mark to appear more pronounced, but he himself did not notice this.

"Come, little kitties, the time's come to play."

"I am a RAFian." Cloak said, almost as if he was reminding himself of the fact. "I am a RAFian! I'm a RAFian!!"

The repetition seemed to help. And, where Cloak sat, those were words of strength and power. It made him feel solidarity and unity with his fellow RAFians. But whatever this voice was, if was insidiously infectious, like a catchy song.

Cloak found himself saying something completely different.

"To protect the world from persistent blight," he said, between breaths, "no malevolence shall escape my sight."

"Here in my garden of magic.

"Let those who revel in tyrannical might," Cloak said, "Fear our power . . . RAF Unity's light!!"

He discharged some golden-scarlet energy with that last outburst, but the voice, or whatever it was, was gone. Silenced. Whether it was because it was on the voice's terms or Cloak's was unclear.

---

*Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gEYgyWC_BpM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 14, 2016, 11:40:38 PM

oohhhh crap. this is way worse than i originally thought...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2016, 06:04:20 AM

Yep, can of worms.

New chapter. Sorry for the brevity.

CHAPTER SIX:
Cat Chaos

But Cloak was not the only feline affected. RAF had more feline RAFians: Bladeh. FuBar. Xeno (feline enough to count). Cornson. Kitsi. More. They all would have responded to the call, even Xeno (who resisted it, but just not to the same degree as Cloak -- his avian features sufficient to allow him to do so, as he hadn't prepared any tech for this).

But then all their Marks glowed brightly, as did Cloak's when he obstinately refused to obey the summoning song. In doing so, he managed to somehow strengthen the Mark, help steel the other feline RAFians resolve, and assist them in throwing off the haunting not-voice. Cloak's stubbornness (which he inherited from his mother's side of the family) had saved them from being mindless drones.

But not all felines were RAFians. Every cat in the city fell into Bast's thrall as she hovered upon the precipice of the threshold to the city, which she viewed with great distaste. The buildings were too cramped together, too impossibly tall, and made from unfamiliar materials. She found the electronics as horrid magicks, as devices designed to suck the soul, all five parts, and the life ever-so-slowly out of a person. This whole modern scene was revolting to her.

How could have humans lost their way so much in the passing five thousand years? Well, it still wasn't too late to be rectified, she thought, as she welcomed her first "children" to arrive. They were housecats of all breeds and colors. Some possessed collars with nametags or jingly bells, while others were lacking both or had both. But her sphere of power wasn't limited to just housecats. Tigers, ocelots, lions, lynxes, jaguars, leopards, cheetahs -- all manner of felines tried to attend but where trapped in zoos or personal menageries. They all yearned to join the "cat-mother", Bast.

She was soon even joined by a Kzintosh*, a Kat*, a Sholun*, a Cat Person (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_People_(comics))*, an Aslan*, an Appoplexian, a Felis Sapien*, a Cathar, an Eschiff*, a Felinus*, a Revonnahgander, a Caitian*, and a Centran* -- all sentient feline aliens. These took her by surprise, she hadn't known that she had what she termed "star-children", though some of them hadn't a real good excuse as to why they were on the planet to begin with.

But she knew, or sensed that there were some of her "children" who resisted her call. She could not, she would not have this. This was disrespectful. Very disrespectful, indeed.

---

* Yes, I Wikipedia'd these. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_alien_species)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2016, 09:12:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Perverse Disobedience

Such naughty children!!

It must be these modern-day humans, she surmised. They must have done something that enabled these delinquent "children" of hers to defy her summoning. She was aware of those children of hers that were unable to respond to her summons because of prisons of glass and brick, their absence from this Gathering would be forgivable. But the misconduct of those in that forum -- this could not be tolerated. She was was the matron, the mother of all feline creature! She was their Alpha, she was their boss. Her authority was unquestionable and absolute!

When she issued her Catcall, it called for mandatory attendance to all felines capable to the Gathering. There were no exceptions -- except those imprisoned behind the glass to be gawked at by humans.

The humans -- they shall be dealt with when the Gathering can finally commence. And it cannot, not until all her children are present. Those locked up . . . well, she'd deal with that contingency at a later point. The problem now was from the truants in that forum. She could not fathom how they could even resist her Catcall, no feline can. It was all-encompassing and inescapable. Defiance of her Catcall should be an impossibility, and yet, here it was, bold as brass.

This brazen defiance, this impudent derogation, this impertinent disparagement, this insolent impugnment of the Gathering . . . it will not stand. She would try the Catcall again. And this time she will pour every bit of power she has into it. She will not.allow these delinquent's audacious flippancy, their brazen sacrilege, to disrupt the Gathering any further.

When she performed the Catcall, she did not speak, but yet it wasn't telepathic or thought-speak. It was something different entirely, and really difficult to describe in any great detail without becoming confusing and incoherent.

I'm calling for the loyal cats wherever they may be.
I'm calling for the proud cats to come and follow me.
I'm calling for the gentle cats to come and keep us company.
And it would be a treat if you would follow me.
There's a job to be done.
I'm going to need everyone,
Because I can't do it alone.
I'm gonna need the swift and the small,
I'm gonna need the strong and the tall.
Because I've a power that no one can deny!"

Bast was feeling smug with herself after that Catcall. Surely, those naughty, naughty children will now forget about their truancy, and come home to momma for the Gathering. She would eagerly await their arrival, and, while expecting apologies, she planned to wave them away. She needn't excuses, but her children to return home to her, to the Catmother.

---

Song Source: https://youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=N4mCtuhI1TY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2016, 11:15:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Unsatisfied and Hidden

This time, Cloak didn't pour his power into the Mark as he did before, though he stubbornly remained recalcitrant towards the Catcall, intransigent towards its summons. As a result, the Mark didn't stop Xeno, FuBar, Bladeh, Kern, Cornson, and all other feline RAFians made an almost somniferous migration towards Bast and her Garden, toward her Gathering, where she would explain her plans for the humans. Humans who, in her view, had gotten overzealous and greedy in her absence. She even clawed up an expensive blue car (belonging to Donald Couch) that had gotten her way and annoyed her. She was an Egyptian goddess, and had powers far stringer than her "children".

Xeno alone seemed to be dimly aware of what was going on, as he wasn't fully feline, but sufficiently enough to be swayed by Bast's authority. He seemed to be vaguely muttering to himself why he was going where he was headed and why did he have to be there so badly. And why the Mark wasn't blocking this.

However, these mutterings did alert another RAFian -- Rocklobster. He found this feline exodus from the forum rather odd thing, as he witnessed it first hand. He also noticed that there was one feline who was not following this exodus. The ever pertinacious Cloak, whose intractable nature was well-known.

But Rocky was confused. Shouldn't the Mark have actively blocked such a thing? It didn't make sense. As he understood it, as he glanced down at his own Mark on his hand, the Mark was supposed to prevent and block mind control. Why wasn't it doing so here? When it has succeeded so many times before?

No matter, no matter. He would find out what was up. He would use his hologram to disguise himself and follow them. Only Cloak has managed to see through his holograms without technological assistance, due to that "true sight" abilities Realm Walkers seem to have. He wondered where Cloak was, but he figured that he would discover that in all due time.

It wasn't easy making it to Bast's Garden. He had initially disguised himself as a ginger-colored tabby cat, but as he approached he quickly hid in the trees in the forest, eventually disguising himself as a rowan tree. From here, he watched the goings-on.

"Where is the last one?" Bast said, her voice reminiscent of that of Patti LuPone. "Where is the last truant?"

Truant? Rocky thought, nonplussed a bit. What is goin' on around here?

"We cannot get started with the grand ailurorization without all of my children present!" Bast demanded, sounding rather dictatorial.

She means Cloak, Rocky realized. That's good. He'll never come. But the others? There's nothing I can do. I can't save them. That stupid pacifism protocol programming. I need to do something.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 15, 2016, 06:42:13 PM

i wouldn't really think it's mind control... would it qualify as that?? it seems more like...offering a starving and dying man food, maybe. very, very hard to resist, but not really "controlling" them, so to speak. or i could be completely off and wrong and going off on a tangent. *shrugs*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2016, 07:08:51 PM

No, you're right. It's more like powerful persuasion and seduction, in a way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 15, 2016, 07:24:49 PM

that's kinda what i felt it would be, because it doesn't really sound like mind control, especially if realm walkers can't be mind controlled, but we know they can be manipulated.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2016, 08:37:08 PM

Indeed.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Cats Rule!

"Forget it," Bast snapped. "I've grown too impatient."

And here I thought cats were patient, Rocky found himself thinking.

"Let his delinquency be on his head," Bast said, with a bite of irritation. "The hour wanes, and I'd like to get the global ailurorization underway."

What was ailurorization? Rocky inquired silently. And why do I not like the sound of it?

"The humans of this era," Bast said, beginning a speciesist spiel to match that of a Knight, "they are so incredibly disappointing. I've seen enough of it. They roil in greed, taking what is not theirs, destroying or simply spoiling that which they cannot have. And always looking for the easiest ways out. It is abominable what they do."

She paused.

"I've seen many abuses that they have for my children," she spoke, in a dignified, yet pained tone. "Five thousand years ago, my children were respected. Revered, even. They rid the land of pestilence that were rats and the virulent diseases they spread. But now?"

She looked off and bowed her head, and closed her eyes.

"I've seen the abuses inflicted upon my children," she said, "some were beaten, some were abandoned, some were lit on fire by cruel human adolescents, one was thrown off a bridge, some were skinned alive so that their pelts could become a rug or some rich tooth-mender could have a trophy."

She paused as she gathered her thoughts.

"But, we shall see how abusive they remain," she continued, "once the ailurorization magicks take hold. Well, see how these filthy apes fair when they become my children as well!"

There was no exclamations or protests at this pronouncement, so Bast just smiled motherly at the lot of them. Her children. Her army. They would take back this world from the humans. She would make the humans fundamentally extinct, with men-cats taking their place.

Rocky was now even more confused. Wait. Wait a minute here. THAT'S her grand plan? Turning all the humans into cat people? That sounds like a scheme out of a Saturday morning cartoon!

Bast seemed to notice a newcomer.

"Oh," she said. "Your tardiness has been notable, child."

Oh, no, Rocky thought. Not him. Not him.

"You heard the plan," she said, assuming she had control over him, "now sit, and I will tell you how we intend to implement it."

"No," the newcomer said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 16, 2016, 12:42:55 AM

yes. good. rebel. overthrow her

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2016, 05:18:41 AM

Hmmmm . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
How Dare You Defy Me!

"What?" Bast said. He tone alone was dangerous.

"No." the newcomer said, unimpressed and unintimidated.

"You will do as I say!"

"I will not," was the newcomer's cold reply.

"I am the Catmother here, child!" Bast snarled. "Which means that I'm the boss."

"I," Cloak said, coldly, "will not be controlled!"

Unnoticed by everyone, barring Cloak, Rocky relaxed just a bit. It would have been extremely bad news if Bast managed to manipulate Cloak, if she had managed to persuade him.

"I am your Matron!"

"I have no matron!"

"I am the Catmother!"

"But you couldn't hold a candle to the intimidation and manipulation my actual mother used," Cloak said, his voice icy and dismissive.

"Do not attempt defy me," Bast warned. It came across very much as a threat.

"I'm not attempting to defy you, Crazy Cat Lady," Cloak growled, to match the threat. "I am defying you."

"You don't know who you're dealing with," Bast hissed back.

"Do you?" Cloak countered easily. Cloak began to emit an aura that alternated and oscillated gold and scarlet.

"You would attack your mother?!" Bast said, with distaste.

"You're not my mother," Cloak said, haunching down, preparing to pounce in to attack. "My mother is a bear."

"You need to be desperately taught a lesson, kitten," she said. She had somehow extruded some daggers from somewhere and was prepared to fight Cloak. She was going to make him behave, make him bow his head and fall in line. No one has ever been so pigheaded before to not only ignore the Catcall, but not be influenced by it.

"And I'm not a kitten," he fired back.

"Take adequate notes," Bast snarled as she leaped into attack Cloak, with her "children" giving them a wide birth.

"You're the one about to get schooled," Cloak snarled, as the two eyed each other wearily.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 16, 2016, 05:53:01 PM

oh snap. this'll be interesting

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2016, 10:46:14 PM

Yes, I suppose . . . ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Cat Fight!

And so it began.

Cloak could have probably just owned her if he used the elements, but he might harm one of these innocent bystanders that Bast had beguiled to show up here. A risk he preferred not to take. A risk he preferred to not resort to.

Bast charged him, slicing on her blades into the ground with enough force to make it crack.  But Cloak dodged to the left easily, and dodge rolled to the right when she attempted to make a slash with the other dagger. Yet, Cloak lost none of his defiance.

The she made repeated stabs, as if she were brandishing two cattle prods instead of daggers. Cloak dodged every strike, able to predict them by the placement of her feet, through Earthsight. Then Cloak tried a front kick with his right leg, ducked a blow from Bast, delivered a roundhouse kick that didn't connect, then used the momentum of her next blow to send her tumbling head over heel.

She landed on her feet, catlike, and slashed with both daggers in an overhead slice, which Cloak slid onto his back and seemingly melted into the earth, before appearing behind Bast, and kicking her so she fell and received a face full of dirt.

She got up, angry, and still brandishing her daggers. Cloak held out his hand, and ferrokinetically pulled them from her grasp and shattered them. Then they charged each other, claws extended.

Rocky, meanwhile, was thinking this whole fight was pointless. Cloak could have really ended it already, if he really wanted to. If he was really ruthless enough . . . but Rocky had a feeling that, somehow, Cloak was prolonging the battle for some reason unknown to the Chee.

Cloak gave Bast a left hook, which she blocked. Then a right hook, which she blocked as well, but allowed Cloak an opening to giver another right hook, directly to the face.
Cloak tried for another right hook, but Bast caught him by the elbow. Then she used his own momentum to fling him and slamming him to the ground so that he skipped a bit like stones across water. Then she charged him again.

Rocky couldn't help but sigh resignedly. Even if he could help fight, he was held back by his programming. In any case, Rocky believed, Cloak was just showboating now. He wished that he would stop playing with her and finish her off in a serious, final manner.

Cloak managed to impede her charge, and then punch her upwards, into a juniper tree. She quickly leaped down in a pounce, to which Cloak had somersaulted away. Then they eyed each other a few more tense moments, before charging each other once more.

Cloak gave a right. Blocked. Cloak gave a left. Blocked. Took a right himself. Delivered a jump kick which was only partially blocked, and followed immediately with another midair kick, which barely connected. Then he punched the sides of her head, right at the temples, simultaneously. Dodged a charge by jumping to the right. Jumped over another charge.

He caught her in another charge, and flung her hard to the ground. He used her own momentum to add power to blow. She was down. She was beaten. She was defeated.

"You may have won this battle, you insolent blasphemer," Bast said, looking rather beaten up,  "However, this was but one battle. There will be more. Your execratory profanations will not be forgotten."

"Oh, shut up with that religious garbage," Cloak said, not in the mood for theocratic admonishments of sacrilege, not in the mood to be browbeaten for tenets that he didn't practice or follow.

"The ailurorization will happen, prodigal son," Bast said.

"Again, I am not your son," Cloak said. "One crazy mother was enough, thank you very much. I don't need two."

Suddenly, Bast and her feline horde vanished. She had moved her Garden elsewhere. Cloak was getting annoyed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 17, 2016, 01:27:59 AM

gdi bast. why do you have to be a crazy cat lady

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2016, 06:39:34 AM

Gdi? "God damn it"?

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Work to Do and Time to Stew

Not a trace was left of her. Cloak found that he didn't mind much, as he really didn't like Bast all that much. But she had taken the feline RAFians that she manipulated with her. It wasn't their choice to go there with her, she had just manipulated and seduced them into doing so.

Cloak looked at his Mark. The Mark was supposed to block all manner of Dweller mind control, all manner of possession, and all manner of seduction. So, clearly, this "Catcall", as she put it, of hers was an incredibly dangerous thing. Despite never admitting it when pressed, even Cloak was swayed by it. If he wasn't so incredibly willful . . . he didn't want to imagine the ramifications in that scenario.

He was a Realm Walker, such things shouldn't have worked against him. But, then again, Bast was a goddess, and Realm Walkers were more or less on the same level as gods and goddesses -- though Cloak would take being called as such as a major insult. He did not think himself a god amongst Dwellers, one reason for his contention with some other Walkers back in the Nexus and one reason for his ostracization from those same Walkers. It didn't matter though -- as those types of Walkers would never be his friend.

The task at hand was to stop Bast. She clearly was going to go through her insane plan of metamorphizing every human on Earth into a humanoid feline, like her. Cloak saw through all the grandeur talk, and saw what she was really after. It was really basic and uninspired, in the Elements Master's opinion.

She didn't want liberation or anything of the like. She just wanted the entire world under her thumb. She was just another tinhorn dictator with aspirations of world conquest and abject domination. Just another pretentious person with power, making a grab for more power.

It was true. Power was a drug. Indulge in too much and you become addicted to it. You thirst for more and more and more, and yet, are never sated. It soon consumes your whole being until you are nothing but a power-hungry monster, devoid of compassion and love, a shell of your former self. And you always will end up alone and friendless.

With a pang of pity and sadness, Cloak reflect that this perfectly described his mother, Ursa. She was an addict to power, as she constantly demonstrated when she exercised her power over him. And Bast was very much the same. Perhaps she was this way five thousand years ago, perhaps not. The fact of the matter was that she was like this now, and she was a threat.

"Rocky," Cloak said, without turning around. Earthsight easily penetrated his holograms. "We have some work to do. Let's regroup with the others at the forum."

***

The sheer audacity.

That's the thing that got Bast the most. The audacity, the gall, of that truant delinquent. Not only did he defy her after she had been so understanding towards him, so patient with him. And how does she get repaid?

He fights her. He fights her because he was incapable of seeing a bigger picture. The grand design she had laid out before all her children. And, despite how much he disputed it, he was her son! All cats, all felines, were her children. He was no different, no matter how he denied it, no matter how decried it. He was hers, so he should have just got over it so she could complete the ailurorization spell.

Now she had to wait.

Wait, because she had exhausted all her energy and strength battling with her insubordinate son. And the ailurorization magicks took a good deal of power and strength to pull off effectively.

But it was inevitable to come. These humans had their day in the sun, but they allowed themselves to become slovenly and overdependent on these so-called "modern convenience". They had lost their way. They had become weak. What Bast was planning to would eliminate that weakness. Sure, the human race would go extinct, but a new race would emerge from the ashes, and not a single life would be lost. Why was the intricate beauty of this plan so hard for him to see?

Human, admittingly, would be forever gone. But a new, stronger, and overall better race would be born. Why was this such a bad thing? She didn't understand how anyone could not comprehend this. The lost of the human race would be an acceptable loss! Why was she met with such resistance from him?

No matter, no matter. In the end, his pigheadedness won't even matter. The ailurorization will happen. It will. Whether he likes it or not!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 17, 2016, 01:16:50 PM

yes, that's what that means

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2016, 05:31:21 AM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Garden Gone

"Are you effin' serious?" GH said, disbelievingly.

"Nah, I'm Sirius," Cloak shot back, testily. "Of course I'm serious, Logan."

"Don't call me that," GH said, at once.

"Then don't sass me," Cloak retorted.

"But that's my schtick!" GH said, unable to conceal his mischievous grin. This just annoyed the Realm Walker. Cloak was in one of his moods.

"The point is," Cloak growled, "is that Bast made off with her Garden. Bladeh, Cornson, Xeno, and all the other feline RAFians were with her."

"They defected?" Saffa asked.

"No." Cloak said. "Bast used something she calls her Catcall. It's an insidious form of manipulation that doesn't quite qualify as mind control, and, as such, isn't blocked by the Mark. Neither Goom, Richard, or I ever foresaw anything like this coming to pass."

Cloak leaned forward, resting his hands upon a wooden table.

"It's horrible," Cloak said. "It gets inside you head and tries to convince you you want what it's telling you to want. It's subtle and invasive. If you don't have a strong stubborn streak, or don't happen to be a Realm Walker, resistance is nigh in impossible."

"Why didn't it work on the rest of us, though?" that snot-nosed, arrogant RAFian said. Cloak was really in no mood to put up with his backwards ethics and trollish behaviors.

 "I would have thought it obvious," Cloak said, in a very Snape-like manner. "The Catcall only affects cats."

The snot-nosed RAFian didn't have the common courtesy to look mollified or embarrassed. He just looked even more smug and haughty. Cloak sighed -- he didn't have time nor energy to deal with intellectually-deficient moron.

"Her garden could literally be anywhere, and she could use that transmogrification spell at any time." Cloak said, getting back on topic. "Then the human race will be no more, just creatures that Bast has dominion over. We have to first find it, than prevent Bast from casting that spell."

"But where could it possibly be?" Abby asked.

"Yeah, I don't think that she'd be advertising it," Underseen noted, "and we can't follow any cats to her since, according to a new report, all cats in the city are gone. Even strays."

Silence fell, as the obnoxious RAFian made retorts that did not bear repeating. When an idea occurred to Cloak.

"I have an idea." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2016, 06:22:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Healing

Cloak had really done a number on Bast. Though she was libel to rip you to shreds rather than admit such a thing.

She felt as if it was a betrayal, despite Cloak having never aligned himself with her. His obstinate nature would not allow her Catcall to work on him, and being a Realm Walker didn't hurt matters.

She had not expected him to fight back. She had expected him to stand there and take her punishment. In her view, he should have stood there and taken it. She opined that since he was the naughty one, that he deserved the punishment for defying her. Her, the Catmother!

He should have fawned over her, like the others. He should have capitulated to all her desires, like the others. He should have given her undying gratitude, like the others. He should have given her abject obedience, like the others. He should have done a great many more things for her, without question, like the others.

She did not realize how dictatorial this made her sound, but even if she did, she would just pass off as some sort of hack criticism. She took criticism reasonably well, as she ignored it, seeing it as unimportant. Her critics were meaningless to her, and soon they would be hers.

Despite her rhetoric about freeing the human race and yada yada yada, she was really a control freak. She couldn't control humans as she could cats. So, how to remedy that? Simple, really. Turn the humans into cats. Then they would be hers. Then she would be worshipped again, because she would make them do it. They would have no choice, they would be felines.

Although . . . what if a sufficient number of them proved to be renegades like that one in the cloak? What if a significant number of them don't bow their head and fall in line? What if a number of them refuse to comply to her whims?

She shook her head, as if to shake away the notion.

If that came to pass, she would just simply kill off the troublemakers. That would show that she meant business and act as a deterrent for such future actions again. Her plan was foolproof.

She righted herself tentatively, pleased to see that her body wasn't aching. Apparently, bodies made from the Duat were more reserved resilient than she gave them credit for. She was glad that she didn't go the lazy way and just wait for a host body. She would have to struggle against the native mind and will . . . the silence was so much better.

Then she stood, a bit wobbly at first, but stable soon enough. Her strength was returning, thanks to the ministrations of her children. Soon, very soon, she'd have regain the energy to cast the ailurorization magicks.

She never noticed how the Marks of the feline RAFians seemed to start to steadily glow brighter and brighter in such small and subtle increments. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 18, 2016, 11:07:59 AM

she may be a god, but she's very naïve to how the world actually works, apparently.

also heck yeah c'mon rafians

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2016, 09:54:09 PM

And last chapter of the night. It's off to bed I go.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
She Puts a Spell On You

Bast had her children gathered around her in a circle, with the RAFians hesitant at first, then complying. She was in the center, with at least five feet of clearance in any direction. Light seemed to have been leeched out of the Garden for whatever reason. The only light was a spotlight upon Bast, with a blue filter.

Bast shut her eyes, and steepled her fingers beneath her feline nose. "It's time."

She snapped her eyes open. "For the ailurorization magic."

She flung her arms down and the light now illuminated everyone, and then that's when the music started up. And she started to sing . . .

"I put a spell on you,
And now you're mine.
You can't stop the things I do!
I ain't lyin'!"

The music picked up as the magical energy the color of sand began to billow around Bast in a circle. The ailurorization magic. With every note, with every beat, sung the energy amassed and pushed outward. Naturally, it didn't affect those that already were feline to begin with.

"It's been five thousand years,
Right down to the day!
Now the cat is back!
And there's HELL to pay!"

Bast was certainly having fun with this now. She seemed to be relishing it. 

"I put a spell on you
And now you're mine!"

Yep, she was definitely relishing this.

"Hello, world!
My name's Bast!
What's yours?

And now she was hamming it up.

"I put a spell on you
And now you're gone."

The cats in her little menagerie, well the ones that could speak anything other than Cat, sang (although, curiously, none of the RAFian felines took part, as their Mark began to glow brighter and stronger, unnoticed by all):

"Gone gone gone, so long!"

Then Bast sang:

"My whammy fell on you
And it was strong!"

Her disciples that were able sang:

"So strong, so strong, so strong!"

Then she sang:

"Your wretched little lives
Have all been cursed!
'Cause of all the magic's working
And you're the the worst!"

Bast seemed to be really enjoying herself, seeing her magic expand beyond the circle.

"I put a spell on you
And now you're mine!"

Her followers that were able (and suspiciously not carrying a Mark) sang:

"Watch out! Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!"

Bast continued:

"If you don't believe,
You better get superstitious!
Ask my kitties!"

Those able responded:

"Ooh, she's vicious!"

Bast continued:

"I put a spell on you . . .
I put a spell on you . . .
Children!
I say into pie uppa-maybe-uppen my!"

Her cats who were able repeated:

"I say into pie uppa-maybe-uppen my!"

Bast:

"In Kamma Kory Ama."

Cats:

"In Kamma Kory Ama."

Bast sang the conclusion:

"Hey hi, say bye-bye-i-i-i-i-i-i-i!
Bye, bye!"

Then she watched gleeful as the sand-colored magic roll and expand ever onward. Only . . .

---

Source Song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zaC-WDrvmUQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2016, 07:10:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Not So Fast, Bast

Only the magic wouldn't expland and roll out beyond a certain point. It was almost as if the magic itself was defying Bast! Impossible! The ultimate insult! Her ailurorization wave, her human-to-feline magic was perfect! And now even that was disobeying her wishes? Disregarding her will?

No! No, she wouldn't have any of it. She was too close to be stopped so suddenly now. This should not happened. The magic should have grown to encompass the world in its entirety! All 196,940,000 square miles of it! Sea, land, and air!! It should have been unstoppable. It should have been relentless.

Bast roiled with apoplectic rage and deep-seated ire at this newest development. She was sure she did the magic right. It was perfect -- in execution and plan, but yet the results were less than desired. Why? Why was her scheme not working to fruition? What could have possibly gone wrong?

It was when the magic seemed to reverse direction and contract back towards her, did she see why. She finally saw the energy shield of swirling gold and scarlet that had preemptively stopped her magic. She was livid, as she should have been able to see that a long way off.

But noooooo . . . she had to be dramtic. Nooooo, she had to draw it out. Noooo, she had to savor the moment. Why didn't she not hurry to cast the magic right after her Catcall? Why had she been so adamant to have all her children in the Garden, when the magic wouldn't have affect them anyway?

All these thoughts and more spun 'round and 'round inside her head, as she crushed daisies and a young lily-of-the-valley underfoot. She started to unconsciously worry her emerald green catsuit wither her sharp human-like nails/claws, as she paced in a rather diamond shape.

Shield continued to constrict and contract. It would crush them soon if it did not slow its pace. She had to do something. Anything. But . . . what could she . . . she didn't know how to . . .

She would attack it. She would attack it fiercely, like a woman gone mad. She ran toward the gold and scarlet barrier and lunged at it like a wild beast. . . . Only to pass harmlessly through. The energy bubble's entire purpose was to keep the magic in, but not the occupants.

Bast quickly stood up with all the grace of a cat, looking for the energy bubble's source. Only to quickly discover four slabs of Earth pinioning her arms to her sides and holding her steadfast, when she discovered the terrorist behind the shield.

"YOU!" she accused.

"Me," Cloak said. "Sit tight, Bast, you crazy cat lady. We'll talk after I fix your mess."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 19, 2016, 11:52:49 AM

woo! cloaky to the rescue!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2016, 09:34:30 PM

Oh, there's more to it.

(I hope Saffa's okay.)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Don't Call Me That

"My what?!" Bast cried out, indignant, as the energy bubble continued to constrict and contract, as the felines quickly evacuated it. "The ailurorization magic isn't a mess!! Why if you hadn't interfered -- !"

"Oh, do shut up," Cloak said, wishing that he had gagged her. It was taking more energy to constrict and contract the bubble now, as the gaseous magic was becoming more and more compressed. The more compressed it got, the more it seemed to fight the compression.

This compounded with the fact that apparently Bast was like Emily from "Until Dawn" and she didn't know when to shut up or stop whining. Which just served to aggravate the Realm Walker all the more.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Bast said, suddenly, interrupting her own disjointed thought, "I know why you didn't fall for my Catcall!"

"Pray tell," Cloak said, dryly, knowing she would have told him anyway, regardless if he said anything at all. She wouldn't shut the Veil up either way.

"There is only one explanation for all this," Bast said, sounding rather demented, in Cloak's honest opinion. "You're a god."

"Don't call me that," Cloak said. The way he spoke it, it was as if Bast had called him a racial slur. He grated against such an identification, recoiled at such a label. He, in his view, was no more a god than any Dweller was one. Besides, he knew of the debauchery of the Olympians, the masochism of the Asguardians, and the parasitism of the Egyptian pantheon. He would prefer not to be referred to as a godfor those reasons.

"You're a god!"

"I asked nicely," Cloak said.

"I don't know your pantheon, but it isn't mine," she continued, apparently obvious to how incensed she was making Cloak. Cloak didn't reply -- and his silence in moments like these were a clear danger sign. "But I know one thing -- no matter how strong you think you are, no matter how strong you actually may be, you cannot destroy this magic!"

"You think so, d'you?" Cloak said, wanly.

"I know so!" she exclaimed, sounding more and more like a doddering old fool, in Cloak's opinion. "There's no way! You may be able to contain it. You may be able to compress it to a finite point. But there's no way you can eradicate it!!"

Cloak said nothing. Bast laughed. It was an arrogant, conceited sort of laugh. Cloak hated it immediately, as it was too similar to Malice's only with a different timbre.

"All this effort of yours! This whole endeavor is futile!" she crowed, thinking she had won. "You will tire. Youwill drop the shield. The magic would not have deteriorated in its range or efficaciousness. You have just delayed the inevitable! It's just a matter of time now. You've lost. You've lost!!"

"Have I now?" Cloak said, quietly.

"Yes!!" Bast proclaimed, gleefully. "Yes!! There's no possible way -- absolutely no conceivable way -- that you can succeed at this alone!!"

Then she balked when she caught sight of Cloak's face.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 19, 2016, 10:06:30 PM

oh dear bast.

Quote from: Cloak on September 19, 2016, 09:34:30 PM

(I hope Saffa's okay.)

me too...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2016, 11:37:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Why Is He Smiling Like That?

"Yes!!" Bast proclaimed, gleefully. "Yes!! There's no possible way -- absolutely no conceivable way -- that you can succeed at this alone!!"

Then she balked when she caught sight of Cloak's face. He was smiling. Smiling in a way that didn't make sense to the cat-headed deity. He was beaten. He was so thoroughly defeated. Why would he smile like that?

"Really? You think so?" Cloak said, with mocking sarcasm.

Suddenly, what seemed to be an innumerable amount of blue beams lanced out to join the energy bubble, strengthening it, and weakening the magic within. Cloak's smile deepened so that he was in danger of looking like the Cheshire Cat.

"Well, then," he said, smugly, "it's a quite fortunate that I'm not alone."

Bast said nothing, being absolutely gobsmacked, as Cloak savored this reveal. His fellow RAFians, felines included, continued firing Unity Blasts at the sphere until the magic was clearly obliterated. It was done. It was over. And over a lot easier than Cloak would have believed initially.

However, Bast recovered more quickly than he would have liked as well.

"You are a miserable cheat!" Bast raged. "I won! There should have been no way for you outmaneuver my grand scheme!!"

"Oh, First Light, do shut up," Cloak groaned, seriously annoyed.

"I will not!" she countered as Cloak assumed she would. "I do not take orders from you, you meddling god!"

"This is now the third time I told you not to call me that," Cloak said scornfully, stemming his flaring anger. "I am not like you. I am no god."

"You can lie to yourself all you want," she snarled. "But I know a GOD when I see one."

"And that is now the fourth time," Cloak was rapidly losing his patience, as the others were approaching the two. "Before I hear that slur a fifth time, care to repent for your crimes? And your attempted forced mass transmogrification?"

Cloak strode so that the two were practically nose-to-nose.

 "Do you acknowledge that wrongdoing?" Cloak said, voice little more than a hiss. "D'you accept the responsibility of your actions?"

Bast tried to spit in Cloak's face, but his corona, blocked from proceeding further from his cloak had evaporated it into nothingness before it came anywhere close to touching his face. But Cloak had expected as much, and prepared for it.

"Go ahead, unknown god," Bast said.

"Fifth time," Cloak rankled.

"Go ahead, try to kill me. All you'll do is destroy this body, made from the Duat." she said, defiance in her every line, in all her body language. "Sure, I'll be forced to return to the dregs of the Duat. But I can -- and will -- come back! And, on that occasion, I won't make a body out of the Duat. I always thought the others were lazy, but now I see why they took bodies to be come the Eyes of gods. It was to have a hostage with them always, to dissuade interlopers the likes of you and your cohorts there. I will be back! I'm a goddess! Immortal."

"And immoral," GH added, roughly

"You can't kill me," Bast said.

"Perhaps not," Cloak said. "But you can be execrated."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2016, 07:30:33 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Ruthless Execration

Several beats of silence met these words.

"You can't be serious," Bast said, serious now. All levity in her had gone. "You can't be."

"I'm deadly serious, Bast," Cloak said, showing a rarely seen ruthlessness. "You've done wrong. You've attempted to mass transmogrify people without their knowledge or consent. A permanent transmogrification."

"I would have made them better!"

"In your opinion," Cloak added, correctively.

"It's a fact!"

"No, it isn't."

"It won't work, anyway," Bast said, sounding a little hysterical. "You won't do it. You can't."

"Do you want to try me?" Cloak said, before addressing another RAFian, "Broken?"

A human in a red cloak -- the Cloak of Levitation -- approached, with the Amulet of Agamotto around his throat jingling distractingly. Who knows how many more magical artifacts he has stored? The human produced a small statue of Bast herself seemingly cut from obsidian or onyx.

"It won't work," Bast said, hoping that it wouldn't.

"How disappointing," Cloak said. "You have feline sense, I assume, Bast. It's rather shameful that you did not notice that Broken was behind you, absorbing your shadow into this statuette."

"WHAT?!"

"So," Cloak said, "I ask again. Do you repent for your crimes?"

"I did nothing wrong!"

It was technically true. Cloak knew this in the back of his mind. But the key here was her clear and undisputed intent. And her intent on doing it again if she should go free. This would be essentially a preemptive measure -- a cruel and heartless one, perhaps. But it was one that would have to be done eventually. Bast wouldn't stop until she got her way.

"But that was your intent," Cloak said, solemnly. "You were intent on this wrongdoing. You were intent of this mass transmogrification without consent of your potential victims."

Sure, Cloak would feel guilty about it, but execration was the only way to get rid of Egyptian deities. He doubted simply forgetting themand having them fade away was really an option. He might hate himself for the decision that he must make now, but he would do what he feels needs to be done.

"And you confessed that you would do again, given the option," Cloak continued, almost as if to assuage his own conscience. "And again and again, if met with repeated failures."

"Because it is right!" Bast insisted, fanatically. "Five thousand years ago, the humans were a good, hardworking --"

"Didn't you use slave labor back then? Forced slave labor?" GH asked.

Bast ignored him and plowed on. "-- hardworking people. They were good then. Now they poison the air with their machines' flatulence, they poison the water with their chemicals' defecations, they poison their land with radioactivity and other toxicities. They abuse my children. They lock them up in cages! Lock them up, gawk at them, and scream at them to perform for them as if they were nothing but toys! They rob them of any dignity and pride they once had!"

"And you think that this would be any different if we were cat-people?" Abby said, incredulous.

"Broken?" Cloak asked.

"Yes?" Broken asked, already seeing where this was going.

"Do it," Cloak said. He told himself that this was for the best. But later on, he began to wonder if this was the best recourse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2016, 09:01:21 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
He Will Cut You

Dino was in the forest, in her compacted form, as to not attract any unwanted attention. It was hard enough not attracting any when you were an Ankylotyrannus, and decidedly not human.

Then she was attacked. She felt a glancing blow of her ankylosaurid-shelled back. It didn't hurt, but it did well to garner her attention. She immediately turned to eye the ugly creature.

The creature had horns atop his head rather like a male stag beetle, only these horns resembled more the legs of a pair of scissors. It was these scissors-like horns, made out of an organic ceramic zoodeitium, that it threw at her shell like a boomerang. It had a blue head shaped like a crystal vase with black "C"-shaped ears. Itsface was unnaturally smooth and it had no discernible nose.  The rest of its body was humanoid with blue hands and feet and a black body. Its circular eyes had brown pupils and black sclera. It was about the size of an Ewok, but more svelte.

It seemed to be highly well-aware of his surroundings and seemed to be very cunning, if not a bit overconfident and a touch incompetent. It was also very stubborn and appeared to have a tendency to not listen to others.

It threw the horns again, when it realized that she saw it. It glanced off her armored back, and returned to the cutter creatures head. It leaped far higher than it should have been able, and threw the horns again, with similar results.

Dino clubbed it with her tail for each time it jumped and threw its horns, before hearing a brief pop, and seeing it vanished. She never noticed the gray orb the size of a pingpong ball where the creature used to be.

***

Demos called this creature a kiru (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/??#Japanese)sapien, revealing it to be a creature of his own design. Maul's "brother", so to speak. Demos declared that he was trying create a timber-felling beast to help the common man and it went rogue. No one quite believed him on this point, which left him rather disconsolate and moody.

Several RAFians, including Cloak, thought that he was playing god and suspected that doing this secretly gave Demos a rush, a feeling of being powerful. They didn't believe that he honestly had good intentions with this.

Also, he wouldn't admit to how many he made. Because, in all honesty, he had lost count. He was fairly sure that the kirusapien was part of the first series he created. He thought that there were at least six in that series. Maybe nine. He didn't know.

***

Meanwhile, a few hours later, Malice was revealled to have retrieved the ball from the battle as she balanced it on her fingers. "Pity. And I thought you would make the cut, kirusapien."

Malice had the pod. She could access all the names. But this was all a game to her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2016, 07:59:53 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXVI:
MIDAS DUCK
CHAPTER ONE:
Electrifying

Blaze had his wings folded up tightly against his back as he strolled to an evacuated power plant. They had received a report of a strange creature attack the employees working there. Blaze had decided to investigate this.

It wasn't long before he discovered it. The creature was very humanoid, with a green torso, covered by a white shield akin to the Mighty Morphin' Green Ranger's shield with a yellow lightning bolt on it. From its waist to its knees was white, with green knees and purple legs. It had green arms until its elbows where it transitioned into purple cuffs than back into green for its hands. It had four electrodes on its back, not unlike a Transylian. It was also the size of an Ewok. It had a rounded head with purple markings around its almond-shaped eyes. Its eyes had white pupils and purple sclera.

Its fingertips crackled with electricity at the sight of Blaze, and the creature revealed his human-like teeth in a smile. Blaze deftly unsheathed his sword, immediately not wanting to do this. There wasn't any room here to fly properly, as his wingtips would just manage to brush each side of the wall if he was to fully extend them.

The creature immediately fired a tri-directional blast of electrical energy. Blaze managed to block the brunt of it with his sword. He was relieved that it didn't snap the blade in two, he just got this replacement for his other one. He actually made this one himself, hilt, guard, and blade.

So, naturally, he flapped his wings as he threw it, slicing the side of the creature who didn't seem to care all that much. Blaze was elated as he easily retrieved his sword again, it having pulled a Captain America shield and bounced back to his hand after very nearly striking the creature again. Blaze decided that was an advantage to this small --

And the second tri-directional electricity beams nearly wreaked his right wing. He would have to stop getting so complacent and take this fight more seriously. So . . . he threw his sword again, scoring a shoulder shot, before his sword boomeranged back to him.

Blaze flared his wings as the creature jumped high. Higher than he should have been able to. Then he fired the tri-directional lightning beam and Blaze threw his sword again.

When Blaze looked again, after shielding his eyes with a wing, he saw that the creature had gone and his sword had fallen to the floor with a clatter.

***

Demos called the creature the ever-so-imaginative name of electrosapien. He claimed it was intended to be a back up for blackouts and whatnot. The fact the others still didn't believe him irritated him.

***

"How shocking," Malice said, having collected the yellow ball. "Poor electrosapien, I thought you'd do the job. Looks like I was mistaken."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2016, 05:20:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Stealer in the Shrine

A sneak-thief who reeked of the orange light of avarice (so much so, it was lucky Larfleeze would not relinquish any orange rings) was running away from people he had slighted in the past. His crimes ranged from petty theft to pickpocketing. For all his crimes, he never killed anyone. He always managed to talk himself out of perilous situations using flattering language and flowery rhetoric, or generally outsmarting and outthinking his foes. Failing that he just ran -- and he was quite a quick runner, though nothing superhuman.

His name was Amin Rigtreble*. No, seriously. It was. He had a prominent, bulbous nose, a neat goatee, wide mouth, hooded eyes, cauliflower ears, and a svelte build. He wore loose fitting clothing in whites and browns.

He was running for his wrongdoing, and had lost track where he was. He knew he had washed up on some island. Crete or something, he didn't stop to ask where. He had to be careful that his creditors and thieving victims didn't find him. They would break him into pieces if they did. An all-together undesirable outcome for him.

He kept running, only competent in the basics of surviving in the wild. He traversed the hilly landscape, without any real destination in mind. He was a thief by trade, it was the only thing he ever knew. And he didn't always steal because needed to -- he was always greedy for more, mostly gold and expensive things.

Eventually, he came to a temple that appeared to be carved from marble with clear Roman-inspired architecture. He remembered his older brother Tharisno* talking about a huge marble temple, which was home to an order of monks hoping tor find enlightenment by distancing themselves from the earthly matters. Amin though it was called Domus Anas Aurea**, but he had no idea what the three words meant in English.

"Amin?" said a voice behind him.

He turned to find a bald monk with a thick, full beard. Yet, Armin saw through the years to see his big brother. "Tharisno?"

"That is me, baby brother," Tharisno said, a sense of calm radiating from him. Despite the two's falling out. "Have you lost your thieving ways?"

"Oh! Y-yes. Yes, I have." he said, not really all that believably. But his brother was naive, always willing to see the best in people, even when little to none exist. He was very gullible, unlike his brother.

"Then have you come to join our order?" Tharisno said, almost wistfully hopeful. He always had a steadfast belief in redemption. Amin thought that redemption was only a useful tool for manipulation.

Amin thought that this could be a useful cover and sanctuary. "Um, yes! Yes, I have, dearest brother!"

"You would devote your life to our goal? To the service of others?"

Amin hid his distaste well. He was always the bad boy of the family, the selfish and greedy one. Tharisno was always the good boy, the selfless and compassionate one. He could never tell when his brother was playing him.

---

*Anyone get this pun?

** Hazard a guess?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2016, 11:25:04 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Shrine's Secret

A few days passed, and Amin kept up his charade quite surprisingly well. While Blaze was dealing with the electrosapien, Tharisno and Amin were at the Domus Anas Aurea. Amin was hiding his boredom and disinterest well, not betraying his intention only to stay until the heat died down. He abandoned his family once without any remorse, he held no qualm about doing it a second time or third time.

Tharisno naively took this as validation at his brother's supposed desire for redemption. He was proud of his brother, who hid his indifference well. Amin never wore his emotions on his sleeve, feeling that they might contradict a con.

So, Tharisno Rigtreble took his brother into a secret room that was flanked by two monks who looked to be mountains in their own right. Only their square jaws and thin noses were exposed from the hoods on their monk robes. They wore only the sternest and grimmest of expressions. Amin found immediately that he didn't care for their nonverbal prognostication, which carried a very foreboding air around them.

The brothers moved through two kissing doors made of a thick, sturdy mahogany with inlaid gold and marble in decorative designs. The doors opened with a loud, drawn-out creak. It sounded ominous to Amin, but he skillfully didn't allow it to show.

"Dear brother," Tharisno said, proudly, "since you have made wonderful strides in you redemption, I think you have earned the right to know the purpose of my -- of our order. Step inside, Amin."

The room beyond was smaller and less extravagant as Amin was expecting. The walls were bare and a white marble with gold trim. The only thing of note was a small fountain in the middle of the small, but not cramped, room.  There was a small spout of water on which rested a solid gold statue of a mallard. It appeared to have a very tempermental and distempered look upon its face.

"All this security for a waterfowl bobble?" Amin asked, some contemptuous disbelief escaping him, unnoticed by his brother. "Seems like overkill."

"This isn't any ordinary bobble, dear brother," Tharisno said, grandly. He carefully lifted it from its resting place slightly above their heads, and produced an old forgotten knick knack. Then he touched it with the bill of the golden duck. "This duck was an idol that is said to have absorbed the curse from a very famous Phrygian king."

"King who?"

"Midas," Tharisno replied.

"You're kidding," Amin replied flatly.

"It has never been substantiated, of course," he said, with a smile. "All on has to do tap the beak to an item, and say 'gold', and, well, you see."

The knick knack was turned to solid gold.

"Is there any limit to what it can turn to gold?" Akin asked, trying to keep his greed from showing. It was harder now, as he saw the duck as potential for a vast fortunate. A fortune that would enable him to pull a Scrooge McDuck and get himself a money bin, and allow him to swim through it like water, despite the later being physically impossible for a flatscan human.

"That's not for us to say," Tharisno Rigtreble said, returningthe duck to the fountain and washing the knick knack in the running water of the fountain, returning it to normal. "We just guard it, to make sure it stays safe and secret."

Amin did not question why he showed him in just the span of a few days. He was just coming up with ways in which he could sneak the duck out, and make his fortune. Tharisno actually trusted him enough to get him to guard it for a shift.

This was a really bad idea on Tharisno's part.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 24, 2016, 07:04:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Quacker-Snatched

Amin was on sentry duty, but he had no intention on completing the shift. Ignoring the dangers that his overly-trusting, naive brother warned him in explicit detail about. To be honest, he wasn't even listening to his brother about it. He didn't even give any pause to consider things like familial loyalty. He felt no guilt or compunction. He was feeding a stereotype about the Rigtrebles being big trouble, but he didn't care.

He wanted to turn big things into gold -- not only would he paid of his creditors and victims, he would have plenty for him to live a comfortable life in a manner of a spoilt prince.

He reached up to the fountain and took the duck. He was practically a beacon of orange light with such an action. He just needed a way pass the guards, as thewould never allow him to sneak out of here. They had their backs to the wall in a literal sense, and were no unintelligent as one would expect of guards nowadays, though a stereotype in and of itself.

First thing he noticed about the duck was that it was inordinately lighter than it should have been. One could have easily expected it to be gold-plated, had they not known its secret. Perhaps Midas's curse made it lighter -- which got Amin thinking. Thinking about what if he accidentally turned his food to gold, making it inedible. Midas died of starvation, if he wasn't mistaken. He was adamant of not sharing the same fate, though he had more control over the duck's chrysopoeia than Midas with his own touch.

Amin took out a hidden flask (how he managed to hide this from Tharisno and the other monks was remarkable, really) and filled it to the brim with water from the fountain, remembering how it reverted Tharisno's knick knack. Amin would have to travelled without it, but in his life as a shady pickpocket and conman, he learned that one could never be too careful.

He already knew how he could escape the sentries, but it would involve burning some bridges . . .

***

"What's this?" Tharisno said, upon seeing the two mountainous sentry monks. They were turned to gold, and it was apparentfrom their gestures and positioning that they had no idea that their involuntary transmogrification was imminent. "Where's Amin?"

The gold sentries said nothing, of course. A consequence of becoming solid gold.

"He . . . he wouldn't," Tharisno said, not wishing the worse upon his baby brother.

"He did," another monk confirmed grimly.

Tharisno didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe such a betrayal of his trust. He trusted his baby brother so much . . .

"We must go after him," another monk said. "If the duck undergoes its first transformation . . ."

Then Tharisno recalled that Amin always did this to him. Ever since he was a boy. He could never have enough things. He was a glutton for materialism, and he was never happy with what he had. Tharismo had hoped that he had grown up . . .

"We only have a week until then, at most," another monk said, "and a few hours beyond that before the second one, and the end all that we know to be."

"We must mobilize, and quickly!!" the first monk said.

"We must notify someone that could help us first," said the head monk. "He may be able to help us with this."

"Who?" Tharisno Rigtreble asked.

"He goes by the name of Richard," the head monk said. "I have it that he and his RAFians deal with this kind of thing on a regular basis."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2016, 06:42:21 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A Painful Dream and Gold Alert

It was shortly after GH had to run away from his old life. After Dimitri . . . he had to go on the run, and he sang silently to himself in an almost inappropriately jaunty tune:

It's time to get moving, time to have some fun.
There's no time to hang around, the adventure's just begun.
I'll be thinking 'bout my friends as I chase the setting sun.
But I'm leaving them behind, I'm on the run.
(I'm on the run.)
I don't care about what all the others say.
(I'm on the run.)
Well, I guess there are some things that will just never go away.
(I'm on the run.)
I wish that I could say that there's no better place than home.
But home's a place that I have never known.
That's why I'm on the run . . .

Then GH rather abruptly awoke, to find that he had slipped out of his bed and half fell to the floor. He was rolling in his sleep, he suspected. LH was still sleeping, undisturbed. GH swore that kid could sleep through an effing hurricane and not wake up once.

But once he did, GH began LH's training both musically and with his keytar halberd. "Alright, it begins with a string stance," he said, "Remember --

You do it for them,
And you would do it again.
You do it for RAF, that is to say,
You'll do it for them.
Keep your stance wide,
Keep your body lowered,
As you're moving forward.
Balance is the key!
Left foot; right foot,
Now go even faster!
And, as you're moving backwards,
Keep your eyes on me."

LH sang:

"Keep my stance wide --"

"Good."

"Keep my body lowered -- "

"Right."

"As I'm moving forward."

"Concentrate!"

"Left foot; right foot --"

"Yes, but put your whole body into it!

Everything you have, everything you are,
You've got to give . . .
On the battlefield,
When everything is chaos,
And you have nothing but the way you feel, your strategy and no more;
You just think about the life you'll have after the war!
And then you do it for them,
That's how you know you can win.
You do it for RAF, that is to say
You'll do it for them.
Deep down you know,
You weren't built for fighting,
But that doesn't mean
You're not prepared to try!
What they don't know
Is your real advantage,
When you live for someone
You're prepared to die."

"Deep down I know
That I'm just a boy."

"True."

"But I know that I can draw my halbred and fight!"

"But you know that you can draw your halbred and fight!"

"With my short existence -- "

"Good!"

"I can make a difference."

"Yes, excellent!"

"I can be there for them.
I can beat the Knights.
I can do it for them."

Both sang:

"You'd do it for them."

GH sang:

"Okay, now do that again."

"Yes, daddy." LH said.

"You do it for them, and now you say:"

"I'll do it for them."

Then there was a call for an emergency meeting just then, and GH told LH to continue practicing his forms, when he moved to come with. LH was not ready for any away missions yet, GH decided.

GH was less enthusiastic about this mission when he learned that they were just going to chase a petty thief who stole some gold duck. Sometimes the life of a RAFian is far from glamorous. Still --

At least he wasn't dressing up as Armadillo Anderson.*

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2HKnQVCE0oo and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4yG8caPPY1Y

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on September 26, 2016, 03:14:22 AM

...You just had to bring it up again, didn't you? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2016, 08:28:15 AM

A little humor was necessary, as I don't foresee a lot for the rest of the book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Excess and Reporting

Amin was living it up, having sold some newly gold refuse items to pay off his debits and pay off his victims from persuing him legally (by giving them gold items worth far more than what he took). No one knew that he was essentially manufacturing his own wealth from the Midas Duck, which had become Amin's golden goose.

He had managed to get himself a luxurious four-bedroom Victorian house, opting out of a mansion because those places are just too big, and he wasn't so incapable as to be unable to cook and clean for himself. He didn't want to pay for a personal dietary staff or housekeeping staff. Not only because he was becoming stingy with his new wealth, but he knew it would severely open up the possibility of his little secret being exposed.

And if others had discovered how he made his fortune, they might steal his lovely little duck statuary away. And then he would be left to petty thievery again. Or worse, they might have killed him for this highly desirable item.

No, it was better this way. Better to be a reclusive billionaire inside a golden house -- yeah, he couldn't help himself on that account. If anyone asked, he said he knew some very good contractors that he reserved for only himself. When the numerous inconsistencies in this story came up, he either ignored them or issued a threat of litigation if they press further, despite not really having any grounds for any sort of legitimate case. And if they persisted . . . they vanished, with a golden statuary appearing in their place with shocked or scared looks on their faces.

He thought that he could live like this for the rest of his natural life -- or maybe even beyond, by funding ways to extend it from scientists with loose scruples. He was just glad that he no longer had to survive on the streets or in roach-infested tenements. He was free to do whatever he pleased.

This Midas Duck practically printed out money for him, and he paid no mind how it might jack up the economy, due inflation and whatnot. If everyone had the gold, it would start to lose value, that prices may go up, and everyone would need more and more gold -- it wasn't to this point yet, and it was a bit of an alarmist's rhetoric, but if Amin was a bit more reckless with his spending . . . But he didn't care. He only cared for the person he saw in the mirror every day. No one else, not even his own brother, mattered the least bit to him.

He also never bothered to consider the consequences, as his greed had overtook his common sense and throttled it into submission. . . .

***

"You can't be serious," Aquilai said, flat out. "Such a thing you're saying is impossible."

"But I assure you, my friend, it is!" Tharisno insisted.

"It is scientifically impossible," Aquilai said stubbornly.

"Aquilai, need I remind you that we've faced creatures that steal happiness -- dementors --  and those that stole memories and shadows. All those were scientifically impossible, or at least, inaccurate, right? And we know that several varieties of magic exist." Cloak said. "Chrysopoeia shouldn't be all that farfetched."

"Chrysopoeia?" Blaze asked. "Is he related to Chyrsaor?"

"Or Chrysler?" GH asked, dully.

"It's turning matter to gold," Cloak said.

"Why couldn't you just say that?" said the obnoxious RAFians that Cloak wanted so very badly to pop in the face. "Just because you wanted to sound smart?"

Cloak ignored him, as Richard said, "Just continue, Tharisno."

"There is no what?" Abby asked, quite innocently.

"Tharisno Rigtreble," Tharisno said, seeing where this was headed. It wasn't the first time he was told his name resembled a sentence.

"There is no big trouble?" GH asked. "Then why call us together?"

"No, my name is Tharisno -- T-H-A-R-I-S-N-O -- Rigtreble -- R-I-G-T-R-E-B-L-E," Tharisno said, slightly annoyed. "But the problem is the Midas Duck has been stolen. By my own baby brother, Amin, no less."

"'I'm in big trouble'," the obnoxious RAFian snickered inappropriately.

Tharisno ignored him and continued his spiel, "We're at least a day and a half from the point where the Midas Duck will undergo its first metamorphosis, and the final one will come just mere hours afterward. We need to procure it and get it back to the sacred fountain in Domus Anas Aurea."

Cloak nodded. "Gold Duck House", apt.

"Um, details, please?" Saffa asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on September 26, 2016, 06:36:26 PM

hah i didn't get those puns at first but now i'm laughing that's amazing

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2016, 11:00:55 PM

I thought it was obvious, to be honest. But, then again, I'm the writer, I already knew the puns ahead of time.

Anyway, new book ideas. A lot of them.

• Book MLXXI (1,071): "Eating Money" -- The RAFians must reluctantly face an oligovore/plutovore.
• Book MLXXII (1,072): "Not Happy" -- Gaz and her fellow RAFians must face a nachzchrer.
• Book MLXXIII (1,073): "Wretched Retributionist" -- THE RAFians must face against a vengeful retributionist.
• Book MLXXIV (1,074): "The Movie" -- RAF gets a movie, but it may not live up to their expectations.
• Book MLXXV (1,075): "The Seals of What?" -- A duo of old foes discover scrolls detailing of some strange stones. . . .
• Book MLXXVI (1,076): "The Seal of Cowardice" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Cowardice.
• Book MLXXVII (1,077): "The Seal of Ire" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Ire.
• Book MLXXVIII (1,078): "The Seal of Loneliness" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Loneliness.
• Book MLXXIX (1,079): "The Seal of Greed" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Greed.
• Book MLXXX (1,080): "The Seal of Hate" -- A RAFian ally is trapped within the Seal of Hate
• Book MLXXXI (1,081): "Seal of Sloth" -- A old foe is trapped within the Seal of Sloth.
• Book MLXXXII (1,082): "Seal of Insincerity" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Insincerity.
• Book MLXXXIII (1,083): "Seal of Lust" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Lust
• Book MLXXXIV (1,084): "Seal of Unreliability" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Unreliability.
• Book MLXXXV (1,085): "Seal of Envy" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Envy.
• Book MLXXXVI (1,086): "Seal of Ignorance" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Ignorance.
• Book MLXXXVII (1,087): "Seal of Gluttony" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Gluttony.
• Book MLXXXVIII (1,088): "Seal of Hopelessness" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Hopelessness.
• Book MLXXXIX (1,089): "Seal of Pride" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Pride.
• Book MXC (1,090): "Seal of Darkness" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Darkness.
• Book MXCI (1,091): "Seal of Cruelty" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Cruelty.
• Book MXCII (1,092): "Seal of Guilt" -- A RAFian is trapped within the Seal of Guilt.
• Book MXCIII (1,093): "Seal of Destiny" -- An old foe is trapped within the Seal of Destiny.
• Book MXCIV (1,094): "The Leviathan" -- The true reason for all these Seals is revealed.
• Book MXCV (1,095): "RAF Carols" -- The RAFians, to unwind and celebrate the spirit of the holiday, sing RAFmas Carols.

Don't think I rehashed anything. I know the whole Seal thing may seem repetitive, but they are intended to be character pieces.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Walkabout Idol

Amin was finally feeling happy.

He no longer had to worry where his next meal would come from, whether it was too putrified to eat safely. He didn't have to live off the scraps of the wealthy and middle class. He was now the one who made those scraps. But that didn't mean that he had pity or compassion for those that were in his situation.

He no longer had to worry about having a roof over his head. He had one now -- and a golden one, at that! He never did realize a principal problem of having a house of solid gold was that any intruder could easily just blowtorch their way inside and kill him in his sleep, making off with his precious golden duck.

He no longer had to worry what would happen to him as he slept, or where he slept. His mattress was just about the only thing that he didn't turn to gold, as it would have had questionable comfort. Nor where his pillows gold, but all of it was gold colored. He has never slept more soundly than he slept. Of course, this is what he wasted the fountain water on, when he didn't think it through.

He was feeling very happy. Now he could want for nothing. He could have anything and everything that he ever wanted. Being a selfish man, he never wanted to share a single nugget with anyone, much less a spouse or girlfriend. So he was a dedicated bachelor.

He always kept the duck close, being the source of his wealth and affluence. Sadly, this was not a good thing to do, as seen when the duck gave a sudden, inexplicable discharge of some gold energy. This caused Amin to involuntarily drop the idol.

The golden duck flared its wings -- which Amin was absolutely sure that it didn't have a moment before, as it landed on stout webbed feet that it wasn't supposed to have upon his bed. Amin was nonplussed. His golden goose had become an animate golden duck!

This naturally concerned Amin, as he would lose his manner of income if the bird escaped him. He would have get a cage and cram it in there. He would not lose his way to easy money!

The duck pecked a pillow. It became gold.

"Hey!" Amin claimed. He was very controlling in the fact that things only became gold when he -- then he realized the window was open to tempt in a morning breeze.

The duck pecked another pillow. It turned to gold. Amin quickly crossed to the window, as the duck pecked the bed, turning it to solid gold. And, by doing this, he called attention to the open window. The duck made a beeline for it. Too quick for Amin to shut.

"No!" Amin shouted, attempting to stop the duck.

And he was pecked in response.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2016, 09:10:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Pecking Order and Awareness

The Midas duck flew from the open window, with the only goal to peck as many things as it could with its bill. An oak tree. Quickly followed by an elm, birch, rowan, juniper, and sycamore.

Then it flew, gliding ever so neatly to the ground were it pecked all sorts of items. A bench, Donald Couch's car,  a flashlight, a signpost, a lady's Schnauzer, a bus, Donald Couch, part of the sidewalk, and so forth. It knew nothing else. It had no other purpose, but to peck things gold.

There was really no rhyme and reason to it, other than the fact that Midas's curse was given new life, in the form of a duck. It was a sad existence, to be sure, but it did not care. All it cared about was doing what it instincts commanded of it.

"Get outta my way, you stupid chicken!"

It was kicked very rudely away by an arrogant, bespectacled man with teeth problems and supercilious manner. He always wanted to the easiest parts of a job, leaving the hardest bits to people he believed himself to be better than, by definition. He wore a slackjawed look of pure hostility and contempt that appeared to have his face stuck like that. He wore a blue button-down shirt, black hat, and black slacks. He was not a pleasant person to be around.

And what did he get for his sour disposition and snarling ire?

The Midas duck immediately pecked him without qualm or hesitation. The unpleasant prick was turned to gold immediately from the retaliatory peck from the Midas duck. The unpleasant man hadn't any time to react or reconsider his actions before he became an auric statuary.

Then the duck waddled on. Perhaps to a lemonade stand to inquire about its stock of grapes. . . .

***

Amin was in a daze.

He couldn't be sure just what was happening. He was so confused . . . and disoriented . . . and confused. Did he mention that he was confused?

All his saw was blackness. He couldn't see anything. Nothing -- but the deep blackness. He was blind! He was blinded! It was incredibly horrifying for someone accustomed to being able to see thing to suddenly not be able to do that anymore.

He tried to move his arms to his face, but they remained still and motionless. He couldn't even so much as twitch the last digit of his pinky finger. He could not move in the slightest degree. Not at all. This is what sparked his initial fear.

Then he realized that he couldn't hear anything either. Try as he might, all he heard was a deafening, all-consuming silence. He couldn't even hear the slightest muffle around him. The spark of fear began to ignite into a burgeoning ember of terror.

He wanted to scream, only to discover he was mute. His vocal cords would not vibrate, his mouth and tongue would not move. He could not say anything, he could not speak at all. His ember of terror began to form into a flame of panic.

He wanted to cry, but he could not even manage that. So, he cried inwardly, as it was the, quite literally, the only way that has could. He had never before felt so helpless. He surmised what happened, of course. His body was now gold. Every cell, every pore and follicle. Solid gold.

And, yet, he still failed to feel contrite for his victims, to have regret for his past actions. As far as he was concerned, he was still always right in everything he does. Despite being victimized by his own avarice, he was still very much self-centered and egotistical. As far as he cared, this situation was somehow not his fault, but somehow someone else's fault.

It would be a matter of time whether he learned humility or failed completely to take anything away from this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2016, 07:57:09 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Peck on the Cheek

Cloak, Abby, Blaze, Gaz, Faerie, and GH went with Tharisno to locate the duck idol, unaware of its first transformation. Tharisno had some of the fountain water with him, in the event the duck had undergone a transformation, but it still was not a lot. He had impressed upon the RAFians that it must be used for that purpose and that purpose only.

The RAFians had Yarin and Broken analyze it both scientifically and magically, and had them try to see if they could reproduce it, in a laboratory setting. Tharisno thought this was a futile attempt, as only water from the fountain would be sufficient for this task.

But they had to make haste. Time was against them.

"If we don't hurry," Tharisno insisted, "the first transformation is imminent."

"What if it already happened?" Abby asked.

"Then I'd say we're all royally f--" GH began before he was cut off by Gaz.

"How will we find it, though? The city, much less the world, is a big place." she pointed out. "And we can't just go barreling into people's houses. That's breaking and entering. It's illegal."

"And we already don't have the greatest PR image around," Faerie noted. "No thanks to Bernard Bridges."

"People, priorities," Cloak said. He had an inkling what the final transformation was, remembering something like this from a different Realm. He had hoped he was wrong. He really hoped he was wrong. "We have to find the duck first. We can worry about things like PR when the world is safe."

"Oh no . . ." Tharisno said, as they came to a bus stop with several things turned to gold at random.

"What? Has your brother gone loopy, Tharisno?" GH asked.

"I think not," Tharisno said. "I believe this is a clear indication that the duck has undergone its first transformation."

"So we're too late." Blaze said.

"No," Tharisno said, "it must just be the first transformation. You'd know if had achieved its second one."

"How?" Abby asked.

Tharisno paused, before saying, a tad overdramatic, speaking darkly, "Believe me, you'll know when it happens."

"How hard can some statue of a duck be to find?"

"Before it's first transformation, probably easier than after," Tharisno said, as they continued their feverish search. "The first transformation animates the idol into a living golden duck. Then its only purpose is to peck as many things as it can before its second and final transformation."

"You certainly sound all doom and gloom about the second transformation, and yet are extremely reluctant to tell us what it is," Faerie said.

"We should focus on getting the Midas duck," Tharisno said, sidestepping the accusation, "the sooner we get it, the sooner we don't have to worry about that."

"There it is!" Blaze said, pointing. Then he powered his wings, and impetuously cried, "I got it!"

"Blaze, no!" Cloak shouted, but his warning came far too late. Blaze's lunge missed as the duck's flight path quickly changed direction and maneuvered outside Blaze's reach and pecked him on the cheek. He turned into solid gold and he clattered to the ground -- having only been a mere few feet above the ground.

But he was solid gold now. Unable to see. Unable to hear. Unable to speak. Unable move. Unable to even breathe. But still alive and aware, somehow.

"Blaze!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2016, 09:58:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Hesitation and Attrition

"Blaze!!"

Then the duck took notice of them, and clearly desired to peck them into submission. It targeted Abby, who had reflexively morphed a Psycholeopterran and went intangible. The duck could not touch her, much less peck her, so whilst in her Psycholeopterran morph, she was fundamentally immune -- provided she remained insubstantial.

Then the duck turned onto Gaz, who pulled the same trick, turning into mist to escape every peck. The peck didn't work on gases, apparently, so Gaz was effectively immune whilst in this form. It wasn't long before the Midas Duck lost interest in Gaz and decided to go for another pecking victim.

It decided on Faerie next. With an exasperated "Oh, wonderful," Faerie took to the air. Once airborne, she proved herself far more maneuverable and agile than the duck, who just plain could not keep up. Soon, it lost interest in her and turns its sights onto a new target.

"Oh, crap," GH was heard to say, as it made a beeline for him. He had unshouldered his guitar and had lifted it just so to block an incoming peck -- which resulted in his alder guitar becoming purely solid gold. He was surprised to hear that it could actually still play. He had expected it to be ruined. It definitely felt heavier, though. GH cried, a la the Cabbage Merchant from Avatar the Last Airbender, "My guitar!"

"Look on the bright side, GH," Faerie said, "you're richer now."

GH gave her a very sour, very angry look, but said nothing. He just swiftly and deftly tuned his guitar, and began to briefly strum, while dodging pecks -- it was almost like a music video or album cover. Then he played with all the fervor of a madman. He played a song of a genre Cloak couldn't begin to hazard a guess at.

The duck swept its wings over where its ears should have been after a few minutes of GH's strictly-instrumental music. After a few more consecutive moments, it turned tail and waddled away into flight.

Gh frowned, "Everybody's a critic."

Then he turned and noticed Cloak. He was less than thrilled with the Realm Walker's idea of a joke, "Stop that, Cloak. It's not funny."

Cloak pulled his hands off his ears, as GH stopped playing. Cloak just didn't particularly care for the song choice.

"Good to see that you're both still un-goldified, and all. Oh, and just so you know, it's not really important or anything, but you might want to get on it," Faerie said, with acid sarcasm, "but it's getting away, you lazy lumps!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2016, 04:59:44 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Ticking Clock

"But not for long," Faerie said, powering her wings and soaring up to meet the golden bird.

<I'm on my way too, Faerie!> declared Abby, despite Psycholeopterrans being slower than a faerie like Faerie Larka.

"No, you aren't!" Cloak said. "An hour and fifteen minutes have already passed since you morphed reflexively. You only have three-quarters of an hour left, and Psycholeopterrans wouldn't be able to catch up to a duck with this much of a head start. Faerie is the only likely --"

"Faerie's in trouble!" Gaz declared, having gone to her bat mode. It was then Cloak realized that as overprotective as Laserbeak was, he was not here. The Realm Walker shook his head, that was an irrelevant thought to have at the moment. Especially because Faerie was indeed facing difficulties with the duck.

She was trying to capture it without being pecked or put in a position where she could be easily pecked. It's not as easy as it may sound. She was becoming more disgruntled with every miss and every near-miss. The duck was rather obstinate in this, as obstinate as Faerie herself, and that's considerable.

"We need to hurry!" Tharisno intoned with great urgency. "At any moment now, its final transformation will be triggered."

"And then?" GH said, irritably.

"All will be lost," Tharisno added enigmatically.

"Great," GH said, dully. That answer did nothing to lighten up his mood. "Thanks for clearing that up, Tharisno. Really love those specific details."

"Procure the duck!" Tharisno encouraged uselessly, clearly not having heard GH's spiel. This rankled the symphokinetic somewhat.

"What a clusterf-- Yarin? AniDragon? Marie? What are you three doing here?" GH said.

"To lend a hand," Marie said. "What happened to Blaze?"

"The duck gave him a peck on the cheek," Gaz squeaked, drolly, as she tried ever so hard to get up to the altitude that the aerial dogfight was. Abby had already demorphed and was quickly remorphing.

"There's no much for you to do, though," Cloak said, knowing that the three were landlocked outside of using a ship or something. "And, Yarin? Just why were you in Radio Shack?"

"No reason," the Nyac replied.

"You know I can tell when you're lying," Cloak said, close to a scold. "First Light, if you're seeking to repair that Veiled microwave --"

"Food yield increaser!" the Nyac hissed angrily.

"-- again," Cloak continued as if he were not interrupted, "then so help me, Yarin, I'll --"

"Can we FOCUS?!" both Tharismo and GH yelled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2016, 09:04:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Golden Problem

"Cloak, seriously?" GH asked, as they watched the three woman try and fail to secure the duck.

"What?"

"'What'? 'WHAT'? 'WHAT'?" GH cried, almost hysterically. "Are you a Master of the Air element or not?!"

Cloak was glad his chagrined expression was hidden by the hood of his cloak, but GH knew him too well.

"Oh, you think of it just now?" he muttered, mutinously. "Honestly, Cloak, when I have to be the voice of reason . . ."

Cloak ignored him. Cloak was allowed to have faults, right? He was as fallible as the next sentient being.

"Faerie! Abby! Gaz! Disperse!" Cloak said, steadying his breathing and drawing his right hand back. They did not question his request, as they knew he wasn't trying to be bossy, but that he was clearly gonna try something.

"Hurry! We must get it to the waters of the fountain as soon as humanly possible!" Tharisno insisted. He was really regretting being so naive, so willing to trust his good-for-nothing brother. He should have known better. This whole ordeal was his fault, he felt, and thus his responsibility. He felt tremendous guilt over it, though he internalized this, and thus could come off as a bit overbearing. "Quickly, before the final transformation is triggered!"

"You are not helping things, right now, Tharisno," Cloak said, tersely, before flinging a crescent of air toward the duck. It succeeded in downing it, without harming the others. He didn't even harm the duck, as it was able to get up. "There. The water quick, Tharisno!"

But the man was frozen. Frozen in terror. It was tough to tell with his baggy monk clothing, but Cloak could feel him shaking through the earthen mediums upon which they stood.

"The water, Tharisno!" Cloak demanded.

Cloak knew it before the man spoke again, though he had severe difficulty in accepting it. But he had no choice when he heard Tharisno's words, "I-it's too late."

"Too late? What do you mean that it's too -- Jesus!!" GH exclaimed as they all watched the duck. It stood motionless for a moment or two before the gold began to sweep down from the crown of its head, from its beak, from its neck, from its wings, from its every feather. It slithered down its short legs and pooled under its webbed feet. It was almost like a gold symbiote, which revealed the marble white mallard that it uncovered.

The mallard gave a quack, almost as if it was a sigh after relieving itself, and flew away, almost as if it itself was oblivious to the gold puddle it left behind. But this is not what elicited GH's reaction. It was the fact that the ground upon which it happened was turned to gold, and it was expanding outward.

"The water, Tharisno!" Cloak commanded.

"I-It won't do anything now," he stammered in fear, backing away from the gold wave that seemed to start picking up momentum. "It's not enough. The gold wave will not be stopped until the duck is back on the fountain. It will not stop until the whole world is encompassed."

He paused as he continued to back away.

"We're doomed," he said, before he began to run away in earnest.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2016, 10:13:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
An Auric Plague

"Tharisno! Get back here, you coward!!" AniDragon shouted.

"Forget about him!" Cloak shouted, a tiger's roar intermingling with his words. "We have more present concerns!"

"Now you're thinkin'," GH said, with a smile.

"GH, move it!" Cloak growled. "The Midas Wave is coming this way."

GH nodded and shuffled forward, not as mobile with his guitar being heavier than what he was accustomed to. His guitar had become a liability for him, but he would not relinquish it -- it was his and without a guitar his powers were, he was sure, gone. He wasn't thinking clearly either.

The others were mostly in the same boat, other than the fliers. Fortunately, Abby had another hour or so in morph. They wisely stayed airborne, while Cloak was trying his best to evacuate the others from the gold wave.

GH was found that his right foot suddenly stopped moving and he couldn't proceed forward anymore. He initially thought it was snagged on something, but he was wrong. So very wrong. His foot was gold and the rest of his body was quickly following suit. He didn't want to accept this, he didn't . . .

"GH!"

AniDragon had hesitated, even momentarily, as she watched GH's fate. This was a perfectly natural response, but it was also, unfortunately, a costly one. Because of that moment's hesitation the gold wave, the wave which Cloak had dubbed the Midas Wave, had caught up with her and made her share the same fate.

Yarin and Marie met the same fate as well when they stopped momentarily to bear witness. The Midas Wave was without compassion or conscience. It had no sentience or intelligence of any sort. It was not alive, though it seemed to be. It was relentless.

Cloak found that it made contact with his foot, but, unlike the others, it seemed to ignore Cloak's very existence, as if he wasn't important enough to turn to gold, as if he was not worthy of it. Cloak wasn't complaining, but this confirmed to him that this Midas Wave was magical in nature. Realm Walkers were essentially the Teflon of magic -- it could not affect or stick to them.

Abby, Faerie, and Gaz landed. They did so safely because, evidently the danger only lay on the edge of the Midas Wave. They remained fully organic and alive. The quartet mourned their fellows who did not escape the chrysopoeia of the Wave.

"I radioed ahead to the forum," Faerie said, as Abby deftly demorphed. "They have Code Avalon at its maximum intensity."

"Hopefully, it's enough," Cloak said.

"What do we do now?" Abby said, sounding morose.

"There is only one thing left to us," Cloak said, "we must find that duck and put it back on the fountain at Domus Anas Aurea."

"But we don't know where Domus Anas Aurea is," Abby said.

"Also, we don't know where the damn duck is, either," Faerie said.

"I didn't say it was a perfect plan," Cloak said with a shrug.

"But it is a plan," Gaz said. "And I don't have any other alternative to stop that Midas Wave."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2016, 06:00:08 AM

Now, I'm really starting to get concerned about Saffa . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Flock Finding

"We must find the Midas Duck first," Cloak said.

"Great," Faerie said, with scathing sarcasm, "any idea where?"

"Not really," Cloak said, "but it flew off in that direction."

"This is gonna be a right good mess, isn't it?" Gaz sighed, in her humanoid form now, but swiftly returning to her bat form as Abby remorphed the Psycholeopterran form and Faerie powered her wings. Cloak stepped upon a golden-scarlet energy disc and floated up after them, as he couldn't truly fly like the girls.

It almost seemed futile. They had lost track of the Midas Wave, but they reasoned -- oh, wait. There it was. It didn't make as much headway as Cloak had feared. The four RAFians blew pass it, looking for the little white mallard. Surely, it wouldn't be this difficult. Surely, it wouldn't.

That was being optimistic beyond all reason, really.

However, they managed to come upon a flock of white ducks in a quiet lake. There was like thirty-two or so of them. Any one of them could be the duck that they were after, and, just as likely, none of them could be what they sought. There wasn't any real way to know. And the Midas Wave would be approaching in like an hour, if that.

"Maybe we let the Wave hit?" Abby said. "Maybe the duck is unaffected?"

"I'd rather we didn't," Gaz said. "I want to have this dealt with A.S.A.P. The sooner we do, the sooner we can reverse this. The sooner we can end this."

"No thanks to that useless Tharisno," Faerie snarled.

"Focus, Faerie," Cloak said. "Dwelling on such things isn't helpful to our current situation."

"So, how are we going to find the duck, then?" Faerie said, agitated. "Just go up and wait for one of them to start screaming 'Aflac' in Gilbert Gottfried's voice?"

"Aflac!"

"You can't be serious," came Faerie's reply.

"You're hearing things, Faerie," Cloak said.

"Aflac!"

"I'm telling you there's a duck there that's saying Aflac!" Faerie said.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Abby said. "We need to find the Midas Duck, if indeed, it is even in this flock! But how?"

"Hmmm . . ." Cloak said, pondering this, "well, if it still has the disposition of Donald Duck . . ."

Cloak unleash a powerful roar, a roar that even momentarily frightened the girls, as they had not been anticipating it. The ducks immediately took to the skies.

"What good did that do?!" Faerie demanded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2016, 05:41:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
How Fowl (Like That Pun)

"How was that supposed to help?!" Faerie demanded angrily, despite her position of being unable to kill the Realm Walker.

Cloak said nothing, as he waited for the ducks to disperse into the air. They were fleeing for their lives from what they believed to be a rather impetuous predator. This.was precisely what Cloak was hoping for.

"We better go catch them, then!" Faerie said fitfully.

"That won't be necessary, Faerie," Cloak said, calmly.

"What are you nuts! The duck will get away!"

"No, it won't," Cloak said, with an annoying certainty, "as it's right there, heading straight for us."

It was true. A white mallard with a disposition that made him seem to be the grandson of Donald Duck paddled its way toward them, in a very not-duck-like manner. It growled a menacing quack -- which was more funny than it was sinister, to be perfectly honest -- as it made a beeline for the four RAFians.

"Seriously?" Abby asked.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Gaz said, pragmatically, "we still have another impossible task after this one."

"How'd this get to be an average Tuesday night for RAFians?" Faerie sighed.

"But it's Saturday," Abby said.

"It was an analogy, okay?" Faerie snapped, irritable. "Cloak, capture that duck already, would you? At this rate, the entire Earth will be a gold nugget."

Cloak could have complained. Cloak could have rankled at being given an order. Cloak could have matched her snappy irritation. But he didn't, he knew where she was coming from, and he understood. So, he capitulated, and the duck was suspended in a golden-scarlet energy bubble. It wasn't too pleased with its new accommodations, naturally. But seemed to have a very violence-prone disposition anyway.

"Good," Abby said, "but now what? How do we find this Gold Duck House or whatever it's called?"

"Should be simple enough," Cloak theorized, "assuming that the Midas Wave would head for the fountain last, as placing the duck upon the fountain -- oh, stop it you stupid duck, stay still! -- placing the duck upon the fountain should reverse it and place the curse back into the duck idol."

"'Should reverse it'?" Faerie noticed. "And if it doesn't."

"Then I don't have a solution or alternative," Cloak said.

"Tharisno seemed very adamant that it would work," Abby said.

"Before he deserted and abandoned us," Faerie said caustically.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2016, 06:50:52 PM

Saffa . . . please be safe . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Racing the Wave

"Let it go," Cloak said.

"Why should I?" Faerie asked, grudgingly aggressive.

"Because it will do you no good dwelling on --"

"Guys, we got company," Abby said, looking at four o'clock. "The Wave is coming this way."

"Time to shut up and fly," Gaz squeaked, already airborne as a bat. Abby was already flapping her Psycholeopterran wings before she even completed the morph. Faerie, with some resignment, dropped the subject and powered her wings, taking to the air. Cloak formed the energy disc beneath his feet neatly and rose with his arms crossed, giving hm a very Magneto-like posture.

"How do we know that this Duck House thing is at those coordinates?" Faerie asked again. "How'd we even get those coordinates, anyway?"

"The tech boys at the forum triangulated it," Abby said. "There were six possible sites."

"Oh, wonderful," Faerie said, as the quartet continued to raced against the Midas Wave, which Cloak swore was picking up speed.

"Cerulean checked them all," Gaz said. "He eliminated all but one."

"Having a speedster on your side certainly has its advantages," Cloak mused.

"I dunno," Faerie said, still unconvinced. "Still feels too easy somehow."

"Well, there's the kiss of death," Gaz muttered.

"What?" the faerie protested immediately.

"You never say 'somehow, that was too easy' or 'what could go wrong' or anything like that," Gaz explained, "it just invites misery and complication to happen."

"That's just superstitious hog--" Faerie began, before Abby interrupted.

<Does it look like the Wave is getting faster to you?>

"I thought it looked like it was gaining speed," Cloak said, as the duck indignantly pecked at its bubble.

"'Superstitious hogwash', eh, Faerie?" Gaz said.

"No one likes a gloater," Faerie sniffed.

Gaz laughed at this remark.

"Now is hardly the time for levity, you two," Cloak said, seriously dour. "We need to make haste, time is against us."

"Cloak, why do you have to be such a killjoy?" Faerie asked.

"Call it what you want, I don't care," Cloak said tersely, actually the slowest flier of the quartet, due to him not exactly flying in the conventional sense. He saw that they were closing in upon the Domus Anas Aurea, where a nervous Cerulean was waiting for them, and it was with a sinking heart that he realized the Midas Wave had been quick.

He could see the full circular rim of the wave, meaning that the forum was already engulfed. Cloak did not know if Code Avalon could block it, or if the wave just encased them in a golden bubble, and he did not want to think about it. He did not want to dwell upon it.

They must do what they must.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2016, 11:13:56 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Slowing the Wave

The quartet swiftly landed as Cerulean swiftly gave them the layout of the place that he had surveyed, without preamble. The place was only of a moderate size, but the fountain room was one of the more protected, innermost rooms. For obvious reasons.

Tharisno was here briefly, after he fled from RAF, but the monks here turned him away for being too trusting, and not having the right state of mind for starting this mess to begin with. Funnily enough, these monks weren't all that forgiving about starting the end of the world as they knew it. Tharisno Rigtreble's accursed naivete and Amin Rigtreble's boundless avarice were a potent venomous ****tail that led to this whole mess.

"The fountain is in the center of the innermost chamber," Cerulean was saying. He was making an effort not to talk too quickly to be understood. A common hazard for speedster, such as the Kineccelerans. "I don't know where the water or the fountain is fed from, but --"

"You five go and put the duck on it," Cloak said, passing the duck to Faerie, who grabbed it from the popped energy bubble, pinioning its wings to its side. "Hurry."

"What about you?" Cerulean asked, concerned.

"This wave won't affect me," Cloak said, hoping not to sound immodest, "I will try to slow it down. To buy you more time."

"But how --" Abby asked.

"This is not up for debate!" Cloak's temper flared up suddenly. It happens when he is stressed. They didn't have time to argue the point. The Wave was coming, and coming fast. Time was leaking away from them, and the others needed to realize it. "Go. Go now! There's no time to argue to finer points of this decision! Go! Go now!"

They hesitated.

"GO!!!" Cloak roared, an actual tiger's roar intermingling with the word, making it heard two miles away. Cloak wore a very ugly look upon his face, which made them go swiftly, and allowed Cloak to work.

Cloak slammed his left arm upon the ground, almost as if he was throwing a tantrum, but he wasn't. This impact caused a jagged line of stones to surround the monastery. It was sloppy, Cloak acknowledged, but he didn't really have much time to shore up the defenses. The Wave was already at the stone wall.

Cloak was frustrated when he discovered that this didn't slow them at all. Moreover, he was irate with himself for thinking that it would. This Wave had proven time and time again that it could sweep over the land as easily as a passing shadow.

He could only conceive of one other thing to do. He projected a golden-scarlet dome around the building. He hoped that this was enough, that this was sufficient. He didn't think that he overlooked anything . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2016, 10:16:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
You Can't Be Effin' Serious

Cloak braced for what he had expected to be a great impact. He had expected the Wave to then sweep over the dome he created, giving the building a smooth golden carapace.

But expected great impact never came. It never came, and took him a minute or two to realize why. And he immediately hated himself for being so naive, for being so Gateburst stupid!

"Gateburst!" he snarled to himself. "Gateburst it to the Veil*!"

He cursed the fact that Earthsight was virtually identical to Metalsight, the only difference being the material, the medium, in which the vibrations are sensed. But this was just an excuse for his miserable failure.

He had failed to taken into account that the energy dome only stopped at ground level, and he hadn't projected any type of flooring to the dome. He hadn't even thought of it, when, with all the given evidence, that would have been a wise thing to do. He was furious with himself because of it, because the Midas Wave had swept by him without even seemingly acknowledging him or his energy dome.

It had already swept to the threshold of the building, perhaps beyond, Cloak's panic had not allowed him to pay attention to his Metalsight nor his Earthsight. He had failed. He had failed in a spectacularly, stupendously, stupid way!! He was absolutely irate with himself on this one.

He immediately dropped the energy dome -- it didn't have a purpose anymore -- and he rushed inside, hoping that he could still salvage his mistake. Hoping that he could live up to his promise of slowing the Wave down, hoping . . . hoping . . . hoping . . .

Hoping that he wasn't too late.

***

"It's just this way," Cerulean pointed a hallway at nine o'clock. "We must hurry!"

"Intruders!" a burly monk said, from about two o'clock. His tone was accusatory, as he barrelled towards them, flanked by two more monks, both barrel-chested mammoths of men.

"Don't they know what we intend to do?" Faerie said, hefting the duck. It seemed to enter a certain somnolent vapidity.

"I think they might just be more than a little paranoid at this point," Gaz said.

"Move! We can't let them stop us from returning the duck to the fountain." Abby said, getting them back on track. "We'll just have to evade them long enough."

But it was soon clear that they weren't gonna lose the security trio, so Abby stopped, "You three go on, I will distract them."

"How?" Gaz said.

Abby couldn't answer as her mouth, tongue and vocal cords had gone from human to Psycholeopterran, which was rapidly becoming her signature morph. The three moved on, quickly, toward the fountain room. They were very close now.

Abby used her Psycholeopterran powder to form into hypnotic concentric circles to mesmerize the three monks. The three monks saw what they most wanted, though in a very artificial way. It was stimulating the reward and pleasure centers of their brains -- this is one reason why Psycholeopterrans were an endangered species, because beings throughout the galaxy got addicted to this, just like the Mirror of Erised was so addictive. Only Psycholeopterrans were easier to obtain, despite preying on the sapient Necrofriggians.

It didn't matter, all she had to . . .

They were gold! The Midas Wave . . . Cloak didn't manage to slow.it down for long! She had to get to the others, as she called out in open thought-speak, <Gaz! Faerie! Cerulean! Hurry! The Wave is coming! The Wave is coming!>

---

* Realm Walker for "Goddamn it to hell!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2016, 09:45:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
So Close!!

Unfortunately, Abby's warning came too late.

The trio had already made it to the fountain room, that was sure, but the Midas Wave had been at their heels. Faerie had some choice words for Cloak, but she let it slide for now. Priorities, you know. She had apparently forgotten that the Wave's chrysopoeia didn't affect Cloak, being magical in nature.

The Wave had already consumed Cerulean -- a feat in and of itself -- who was distracted. It had already turned fifty-four percent of Abby into gold and was rapidly ensconcing her in place, motionless but perfectly aware and alert. It was hell, but the hellish transition was mercifully brief, as within moments Abby was fully gold.

Time was really turning against them, and their efforts to rectify this major wrong. This was a curse. A curse implemented by one man's insatiable greed and shortsightedness. A man with all the foresight of a small child. All this sprung from that well -- proving avarice and myopic, improvident goals were a dangerous ****tail when mixed together.

Faerie had managed to reach the fountain by the time the Midas Wave caught her foot. Cursing aloud and unabashedly, Faerie was rapidly abandoning her tutelary possession of the duck to try to coax the accursed thing back unto the fountain. She found it was like handling a heavier stuffed animal. She had outstretched her arms to the crest of the fountain's spray.

The Wave had reached her ankle, and she was done with being polite with the somnolent waterfowl. "Get the eff up there, you stupid sack of duck s--"

But she had to stop speaking -- because her mouth, tongue and vocal cords were now gold, and she couldn't. But this seemed to rouse the duck long enough to flap over to the fountain's water spray, and rest itself atop it as Faerie's fingertips turned to gold.

The moment the duck touched the water, the moment it rested upon it, it immediately reverted back into its idol state, almost Gargoyle-like. This released a resonating feedback wave, which made the chrysopoeia of the Midas Wave, almost completed, reverse and retreat at a far faster rate than it spanned the globe from. Everyone was freed from their golden imprisonment, but they did not forget the things that they experienced -- and it would be enough to break some people.

But soon enough, it was as if it never happened. But it was clear that no one would forget this, at least those old enough to remember. But there was still some changes that could not be changed or overlooked.

Tharisno was turned away from the other monks at Domus Anas Aurea. They blamed and scapegoated him for the whole mess. Granted, they had every right to do as such, as harsh as it may seem. Tharisno was now alone and destitute. He had nowhere to go, no direction, no future. He lost everything he had because of his stupid, layabout brother and his brotherly affection for him. Tharisno knew now that he was used and manipulated. Ironically, if he hadn't decided to flee in fear and effectively abandon the RAFians, he might have found a home with them. 'Tis the price for cowardice.

Amin, meanwhile, discovered himself back to being poor, though he still had his house. For the time being, anyway. All the stuff he turned to gold was back to their original states, and soon the people he paid with such objects would realize that they got gypped and come for him . . . he would live from this point on in fear, for both his life and his finances. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2016, 10:41:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Ice to Meet You

Xeno was exploring a tundra area for an item that he needed for one of his experiments. The cold didn't bother him too much, but the scarcity of this item did. But it only grew out here in this remote, icy wasteland.

Suddenly, Xeno just reacted without thinking, twisting out of the way of an odd arrow-shaped blade of ice that would have skewered him had he not had the foresight and moved. Xeno turned to see what had the audacity to interrupt him gathering some of these coniferous plants.

The creature looked as if it wore a day-glo orange parka with fluffy black fringe on the hood, but it was actually part of its body, including the puffy pants, ice-studed black belt, black gloves, and black boots. Its face was a pale white and blue with a noseless mask look to it. It had big round eyes with black sclera and orange irises and a small mouth. It wasn't a particularly big creature, easily half the size of Xeno himself.

"What is . . ." he muttered, as the creature leaped up inordinately high for someone of its size. "Oh, you're one of Demos's little fiends, aren't you?"

In response, it fired four of those slashing ice blade projectiles. Xeno couldn't help but feel that this was actually very rude, but he didn't say anything as he dodged the attack, his right hindleg getting nicked by the fourth one. He was surprised that the little nick was enough to numb the entire leg.

Xeno deftly charged up his gloves, having lost his temper already with this annoying creature. With a predictable attack pattern -- jump and fire those ice slasher blades. Wash, rinse, repeat.

He waited for the opportunity he foresaw, and he took it. He used his gloves to taze the creature three times, defeating it. Or killing it. Xeno found that he didn't care, especially when he discovered that the creature had destroyed the low-growing shrub-like plants that he was after.

He stalked off back to the forum, back to his hidden lab.

***

Demos called the creature an cryosapien. He claimed that he created it to do tasks in extreme cold that was too dangerous for humans to go. Like the electrosapien and its brother, the RAFians didn't believe him. It still irritated him. Why couldn't a demon.like him have genuinely good intentions?

***

"Such a pity that you received such an icy reception, cryosapien," Malice said, "but I have to say, that it was very entertaining."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2016, 07:20:42 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXVII:
WARRING WITH THE WORLDS
CHAPTER ONE:
With a Fiery Passion

"How'd I get myself into these situations?" Az asked himself, as he desperately tried to use his cryokinesis to cool an overheating reactor. It was working but it was slow going. But he watched as the needle on the meter slowly transitioned from the red into safe, acceptable perimeters. It seemed like forever, and Az reasoned that maybe the whole Midas Wave thing was what set it off.

But apparently he had ticked off something, when he realized his hair had caught fire. He extinguished it before any damage, cosmetic or otherwise, was done. He looked over his shoulder before turning around and seeing the creature who attacked him.

It was of roughly the same size as Az, maybe a bit taller. It had thick obsidian hide with thicker yellow armor over its chest and shoulders and around its knees. Its bright yellow lower arms did not end in hands, but flamethrower cannons. Its face was rather like that of a knight and a Pyronite, head alight, but with human eyes, with dark red sclera and deep blue irises. And it was clear that he wanted Az dead.

"What are you?" Az asked, and was answered by being nearly hit by a flame that engulfed the creature's body first.

Az formed a paper-thin cryokinetic construct shaped like a "»" and threw it at the ignited body of the creature, without really expecting it to work. After all, ice, fire -- it doesn't take a genius to see where the advantage is. But when it hit it seemed to do more damage than Az expected.

The creature kept throwing what appeared to be riot shields made of fire at Az, who found them easy enough to avoid. Though he had to be careful of the reactor -- as this creature, whatever it was, was not careful in the least bit.

He hit the creature again with the ice blade shaped like a "»", and noticed that the impact, along with the first one were the areas that were not swathed in flames. Az poured it on, firing another four ice blades, all of which hit their mark. All of which hit the exact same spot.

The creature was down, but dead or knocked out, Az couldn't tell.

***

Demos called it a pyrosapien. Demos claimed that he was supposed to be used as an incinerator at a waste disposal plant, but this was met with outright skepticism or covert disbelief. Demos couldn't help but feel a little indignant at this reception.

***

"Fire burning bright," Malice mused, "but, in the end, it fizzled out. This will keep me satiated for quite a white, I think."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2016, 09:52:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Mon Gall and No Hard Feelings

"Don't you talk back to me, Weaponmaster!" said a hulking alien with sulfurous yellow skin. He was talking to Inspector #86. He had escaped the Plumber prison, only to wind up here, on this planet-sized warship -- the Warworld. "In fact, I never gave you permission to address me at all!"

The Inspector would have stammered out a reply, for sheer self-preservation purposes, but he couldn't get over the indignity of what he had been reduced to. A mandatory majordomo, a glorified servant. A servant!! He could most certainly never return to Techadon now.

His master was of a humanoid species that the Weaponmaster only knew as a Mongul. He was about eight feet tall, weighed little more than half a ton, with red eyes, a bald head, and yellow skin. He wore dark blues and purples. He only cared about strength and had little patience for those he considered unworthy of his time, and he was methodically vengeful to those who crossed him (not many lived to do so, anyway).

He was once defeated by some sort of simianwearing a cloak -- he took a ship from Mon Gall, the Lord of the Warworld. Mon Gall never forgot this humiliating defeat, and took immense pleasure in destroying his ship, despite somewhat aware that it was left derelict, bare and crumbling after all of Collector's captives were returned to their rightful homes.

Mon Gall took the ship parts -- every single bit -- into the spherical Warworld. He intended to use them to.make his Warworld even better, so he could continue to hold gladiatorial matches against captives and prisoners. Gamesmaster actually stole this idea from him -- something Mon Gall wasn't too pleased with when he found out. But he was disappointed to also find out that Gamesmaster was killed -- he wanted to exact revenge in a very ironic way, and now that chance was taken from him. Stolen!!

But then he heard that there was an entire planet made of gold, which made him curious. This he had to see, and he would take Warworld, his Death Star-like warship, with him if anyone dared to dispute his claim to it . . .

***

GH was playing, in front of Cloak, who had his arms folded, and he was singing:

"He's cool, he's hot,
Like a frozen sun.
He’s young, and fast,
He’s the chosen one.
People, we're not Gawker,
He's the RAFian Realm Walker.
He's gonna stop his enemies with his elemental power,
Tiger teeth, tiger tail, burning elemental fire,
Beware his ire!
RAFian Realm Walker,
RAFian Realm Walker.
He’s the RAFian Realm Walker,
His skills are getting faster,
But Grandpa Sage's the Master,
His destiny will walk up streets,
Show time, baby, for the legacy!
RAFian Realm Walker --"

"No." Cloak said, abruptly, halting the song.

He had been surly since the Midas Duck incident. He was taking his failure far harder than anyone expected him to. That obnoxious, arrogant prick of a RAFian wasn't helping things, either, never missing a moment to jeer at him for it.

"No?" GH asked, innocently.

Cloak looked him in the eye, which intimidated GH a bit, having feline eyes glare at you with a look that sort of bores into you. "No."

"No what?

"You know what," Cloak said, turning on his heel to leave. He was in one of his moods of late.

GH stopped him and turned around the eight-foot-tall Realm Walker. "Then pretend I'm stupid."

"You're not getting them back," Cloak said, waspishly, wishing for nothing more than to be left alone.

"Please, Cloak!!"

"No," Cloak said, holding the cigarettes up without any plastic wrapping in his index finger, middle finger, and thumb. He ignited them until their was nothing left. "Now, please, GH, I wish to be alone."

He left, still moody and brooding, and reentered his thread. It was one of his antisocial moods.

"Fine, Cloak," GH said, believing that what Cloak did was unnecessary -- so what if he had sneaked in Cloak's thread to search for them. So what if he caught him doing it as he was temporarily frozen in gold doing so. "You leave me with little choice. I may have to do something that I don't really want to do."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B4chpjlaPGo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2016, 07:29:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Incoming!!

"Are you serious?" Cloak asked, perplexed.

GH just gave a sheepish, yet mulish, look at the Realm Walker. But he did not speak.

"Are you actually serious, GH?"

GH narrowed his eyes.

"You couldn't get your cigarettes from me, so you . . ." Cloak couldn't keep the disbelief from his voice. "So you . . . pierced your tongue?"

GH allowed the appearance of dignified emollience of his tongue, he did not speak because the stud in his tongue altered the sounds of his words, slurring some of them, and he was afraid of being misunderstood.

He didn't want Cloak to know about it just yet, but he failed to take into account that Cloak can sense elements, especially when they're not where they're supposed to be. And the stud was metallic.

"Honestly, GH, what kind of message will this send to an impressionable mind like Leatherhead?" Cloak asked. GH looked away. "You didn't consider that? GH, impulsive and imprudent decisions more often than not end up being injudicious."

"I don't need your lectures, Cloak," GH said, voice and inflection a little muddied due to the stud.

"Fine," Cloak said, backing down. "Your choices are yours to make."

"Alert!" came Yarin over the communications channels and intercom. "Alert!"

"What now?" GH moaned.

***

"A large metallic object has been identified as approaching the Earth at a startling speed." Yarin explained. "The object is spherical and is estimated of having an equatorial radius of roughly twelve hundred miles, and a roughly equal polar radius, unless I was misreading my instruments. While it is smaller than this planet, it has a velocity that would easily reach cataclysm if it were to impact the Earth. We do have visual confirmation of it at this time as well."

It showed a rather unprofessional picture that looked like any of those old UFO hoaxes that absolute pricks like to make to trick people. This left several RAFians to disregard this announcement and pronouncement.

"That's just the moon, idjit," the obnoxious RAFian said, clearly thinking that he was being endearing. He wasn't as smart or bedearing as he thought himself to be. "You're just being pedantic about it."

As if he had anticipated this reaction, Yarin then showed an image with a clearer resolution than the last. And it showed a Death Star like image roughly on par with the the Earth's actual moon. Cloak's eyes widened -- he recognized the same tech that made up Collector's and Gamesmaster's ships, only this was bigger than either of those, and slightly bigger then the actual moon.

"That's just the moon," the same guy said.

"Shut your mouth, you shortsighted fool!" Cloak snapped. And it was the suddenness of this outburst that prevented this odious RAFian from replying in kind. Cloak found that he didn't care much either way.

Cloak had recognized what this thing was, although from a different Realm, on he first visited in his childhood. And he knew the incredible danger it posed, as well as its incredible destructive capability. He was sure that even he didn't know its full armaments, though he knew they were considerable. It was a planet-sized war machine, after all.

"The Earth hasn't two moons, as you already know full well!!" Cloak scolded. "That is no moon. It is the Warworld. I didn't know that it existed in this Realm."

"Big deal," he said.

"You're an idiot," Cloak said severely. "It has a vast array of laser-based armaments and innumerable nuclear missiles. At least it did in the other Realm, but there's no reason to believe that it won't here. To do so would be being stupid beyond being stupid."

"But why come here?" Saffa asked.

"Good question," Cloak said, "and I intend to find out."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 07, 2016, 12:52:07 PM

Oh my god XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2016, 05:54:34 AM

Yeah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma

It was decided, in the face of this potential threat, to send three teams to attack the Warworld on three fronts.

"What if it it's friendly?" Abby asked. "If we attack it then, then we will be culpable for an act of aggression."

"It's not," Cloak said. "It has its weapons trained on the Earth."

"It's true," Yarin said, looking at newer images.

"Not to mention," Cloak said, "the mere act of bring a war machine into Terran space is, in and of itself, an act of aggression in its own right."

No one rose any other objections. If there were some more, they were kept them to themselves. Cloak didn't care or mind, all he was focused on was eliminating the threat of Warworld. He would not lose his home. He simply would not.

So, the first team -- Alpha Team -- would be charged with taking the brunt of the Warworld's attacks and protecting the planet from them. Not to mention distracting the lord of the war machine from destroying the planet and covering the fact that Beta and Gamma Teams have made it inside. This team would be headed by Parker and consisted of Broken, Helen, B-RAD, Yarin, and Phoenix. Estelore would have been on this team had she been present.

"So, we basically have to sacrifice them to the big metal moon?" said the unlikeable RAFian who shall remain nameless.

"Thank you," Parker said, acidly, "for completely missing the point."

Any further argument about his team was shut down by Parker. The SPARTAN wasn't about have any of this from this lamentable RAFian -- he was really worse than Rotiart, in a way. Parker supposed with the latter's death, a void and a niche needed to be filled.

Beta Team would be headed by Goom, and their main objective would to be to power down the reactor and stop the engines, as well as disable the weapons, if they could. It was certainly a tall order. The team consisted of Xeno, Wild, Guy, Aquilai, Mithril, and YeerkSalad. The most tech-savvy RAF had available.

"It almost seems impossible," Salad sighed, knowing the difficulty spike of this endeavor. "The engines are likely to be in a different place from the reactor. And who knows about the weapon systems. One wrong keystroke . . ."

"Also we don't have the blueprints or schematics of the Warworld." Guy added.

"It'll be fine," Goom said, confidently. "We can do it. There's probably ways for the Warworld personnel -- be it people or robots -- to head to these places easily."

"Still," Wild said, "it's a monumental task to undertake."

Gamma Team was to be headed by Cloak. They were to either ambush or directly confront the lord of Warworld, and discern his or her intentions. And stop him or her, if it came down to it. It wouldn't be easy, if it was the same species of whatever species Mongul (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongul) was. But Cloak was confident that he wasn't anything that Cloak couldn't handle. He was also confident that he wouldn't be open to negotiations. His team consisted of Underseen, GH, Gaz, Faerie, Az, and Sakki.

"What if he he isn't open to to negotiations?" Undersen asked.

"We take him down," Cloak said, simply and bluntly.

"Yeah," GH said. He had take his tongue stud out. "'Coz that'll be so easy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2016, 09:59:56 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Alpha Flight

Alpha Team flew up to the Warworld, looking pitifully meek and worthless in the face of the artificial moon's vast metallic expanse. They were all on Yarin's ship, on a weapon's platform (in lieu of fixing up his microwave, Yarin threw his all into updating his ship with new little tricks and features. Still, it was like having a tiny Transformers toy compared to a Hummer. There was absolutely no way that Yarin's ship would be able to survive in a one-on-one dogfight with the Warworld, and Yarin (though his ego would not permit him to acknowledge it) knew this full well.

None of Alpha Team's abilities would be able to block a full-powered assault from the war machine. But Yarin was confident that they had one way of ensuring that, should the Lord of the Warworld decide to open fire upon them with no provocation, that they'd be able to defend themselves -- for a time, at least. He called the device his Kinetic Payload Redistributor, or K.P.R. (pronounced "kipper") for short. He hoped to not have to use it -- he wasn't sure that it would be good for a second use.

And it was a wonder why the Warworld hadn't started affecting the Earth's gravity in a negative way or anything like that, as it sat there, as if it just was hanging in the air. As if a child could greedily snatch it from midair.

Anyway, Parker hailed the ship, to try to negotiate with whoever was in charge. "Alien vessel! You are encroaching in Terran airspace without invitation. State your name and business."

No reply.

"Alien vessel, you are violating Terran airspace. State your name and business now."

He was ignored again. Parker was getting impatient, and he unintentionally allowed a bite of it to enter his speech.

"Alien vessel! I repeat, you are violating Terran airspace!! State your name and business now."

No answer. Parker was starting to suspect that they were not being taken seriously.

"Alien vessel! If you do not cease your illegal trespass, we will be forced to open fire," Parker said.

Silent as stars. Parker was starting to feel aggrieved and indignant. Whoever the lord of this war machine was, he or she clearly considered them little to no threat. He greatly resented that.

"So be it then," Parker muttered. "Give it everything you got guys!!"

They fired all the concussive blasts they could. Parker from his twin fusion cannons, Helen from her ring, B-RAD from his top hat, Phoenix with concussive balls of fire, and Broken with his magicks. Yarin was piloting the ship, cursing himself for neglecting to include weapons upon his ship. Granted, every time he tried, some emergency seemed to come up.

But the didn't give it all they had. This was just a diversion, just for show. This was just to cover the other two teams getting into the ship itself, which they had managed to do successfully.

"All according to plan," Parker smiled beneath his helmet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2016, 05:51:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Parting of Ways

Both teams had entered the Warworld from the same access point that Cloak had Metalsighted. That part was easy enough, though their objectives seemed horribly futile, given the sheer size and mass of the war ship. It was almost as if they could stand on it and its own gravity would allow it.

They had to wear specialized suits (Cloak refused, as Realm Walker biology was more resilient to this kind of thing) to go so high into the sky, as the Warworld was in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, apparently mulling it over whether or not to destroy the planet. They had to go high into the thinnest part of the atmosphere, and beyond to reach the Warworld. They somehow succeeded with all of them alive.

They were inside.

And it turned out that the Warworld was very much like Gamesmaster's ship in that there appeared to be a gladiatorial ring with the planet-like sphere, though this seemed to have fall out of the Lord of this place's favor and he or she lost interest, as this place felt derelict and forgotten, like a closet that hasn't been used for years.

Especially as apparently all the necessary occupations -- housekeeping, dietary, security, engineering, maintenance, and more -- were completely automated. The robots belonging to the different department were all colored accordingly, as well. The cleaning droids were a hot pink color, the cooking droids were a grayish-green, security was blue, engineering was a deep green, maintenance was khaki-colored, piloting droids were a scarlet color, and so on and so forth.

"We're in," GH said, speaking much clearer without his tongue stud. "Now what?"

"Beta team will follow the green droids," Goom said. "They seem to be the engineering droids -- which means we cannot be that far off. We shut down the engines, then we find some way into the main reactor."

"Good," Cloak nodded, "meanwhile, Gamma Team will make our way to the bridge. I will Metalsight any dangers in our way."

"How're we going to make it to the bridge," Underseen asked, "and in any kind of timely manner? This place is huge!!"

"Which is probably why they have some sort of internal fast travel feature," Sakki said, sagely, "unless they're an unholy masochist."

"They may just be that," Cloak said, "but there is some sort of railway system."

"See? Told ya," Sakki said, a bit smugger than was necessary.

"But, to use it, would probably alert whoever's in charge here to our presence on his ship." Cloak warned.

"Or he'd assume we were a bunch of drones," Faerie reasoned, "and might not give it a second thought."

"In any case, we all should get moving," Goom said. "Alpha Team can't keep this up forever."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2016, 08:54:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Different Journeys

Beta Team followed oblivious engineering droids, who apparently did not have sufficient A.I. to even notice them, but enough for some autonomy. Aquilai found this to be very odd, though he said nothing, lest give themselves away.

It turns out that Goom was right, and the main engines weren't too far away from their entry point. The thing was, what they should have anticipated, was that the engines were gigantic.

"There should be some sort of computer console or something from which we can work," Salad said. "We shut these down, and the Warworld will be dead in the water."

"Then we can move on to the reactor, which should be at the core of Warworld," Wild added. "Which should also depower the laser armaments."

"There's still the nuclear armaments to deal with, as well," Mithril said. "All on our to-do list."

"Guys," Xeno said, leering suspiciously around their environment, "we shouldn't be telegraphing our motives so openly."

"Don't worry, Xeno," Wild said, positively and bracingly, as Salad was already clacking noisily on a computer, which required him to telescope out his fingers as the keys were clearly made for larger hands than his, "it'll be fine, in the end."

"I'm just stressing that a little caution never goes astray," Xeno put in, stubbornly.

"But too much is called paranoia," Guy added. "Everything we do as RAFians has risk to it, Xeno. You've been one long enough to know that."

"I'm just saying this talk may not be as private as you imagine!" Xeno said, flaring his wings a bit with indignation. "Whoever runs this ship is bound to have security cameras and other such protocols. He or she surely wouldn't be so foolish as to --"

"Engines powered down," Salad reported.

"What?" the others of Beta Team replied.

"Weapon systems offline," Salad reported with a smile.

"Impossible," Aquilai said, at once, moving to verify. "Wow. It does appear that that was --"

"Too easy," Xeno said, feeling as if they were being played for fools.

***

"Why do have a sudden urge to battle Pokemon?" GH asked.

No one laughed, but remained stoic or serious or brooding.

"C'mon! Not even a chuckle?" GH complained.

They were riding the rail system toward the opposite side of the planet-sized Warworld, and GH was trying desperately to defuse the immense tension felt by Gamma Team. But he failing and floundering in a rather sitcom way.

"This isn't the time for levity, GH," Cloak said.

"When is it ever with you?" GH countered.

Cloak ignored him, as various lights placed in staggered intervals in the railway tunnel sped by in an almost somnolent, hypnotic way, like the effects of a lava lamp, really. Silence stretched for what seemed to be hours on end. Cloak was the only one who still stood, back leaning against the shuttle train's wall, arms folded. The rest sat down upon the chairless metal floor. There was one chair, but it looked amazingly stiff and uncomfortable.

"Guys, it doesn't have to be as if we're walking to our own deaths," GH said, attempting to sound chipper and positive. However, it just made him sound like a demented boy scout leader. "We can have fun and a little frivolity and --"

Cloak's scowl unnerved him a bit, but he pressed on stalwartly.

"We don't need to be doom and gloom on every mission!" he said, bracingly.

"He must know we're coming," Cloak said, bleakly. He had a nasty habit of assuming the worst -- it was a coping mechanism, funnily enough -- even with very little evidence to believe that the worse scenario is the likely one.

"If he did, he would have stopped the railway shuttle, wouldn't they?" Faerie asked.

"See, Cloak?" GH said cheerfully. Too cheerfully. Cloak eyed him suspiciously, and GH suddenly found his shoelaces fascinating.

"Unless," Cloak said, darkly, "he or she wants us to find him or her. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 11, 2016, 06:08:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Reactor Reaction

"Too easy," Xeno muttered. "It was too easy . . ."

"Still on about that?" Aquilai said. "We were merely fortunate, nothing more."

Beta Team were take a tram shuttle to the very core of the Warworld, to the power source of said Warworld itself. They shut this down, they destroy this -- and everything will go down.

"Destroying the reactor will be the end all, be all, for this mission," Goom said. Xenonreally wished he wouldn't speak so loud. Someone they didn't want to could easily be eavesdropping on their conversation -- and they didn't have to be their physically, which means he didn't have to hear or see them for them to be watching. "It will permanently shut down all systems. Environmental controls. The tram shuttles. Lights. Engines -- though disabled, already. Weapons systems -- though offline right now."

"That was too easy, " Xeno said. "We're being led, and we're following it blindly, drunk on perceived success. This was planned."

"C'mon, Xeno," Mithril said, with a smile, "we had good fortune. Don't take it granted."

"I'm not taking anything for granted, Mithril," Xeno snapped in a most dignified manner. "However, you fail to acknowledge the potential problems and inconsistencies in all this. Why would the lord of the Warworld have such lax security?"

"Hey!" YeerkSalad protested. "I had to got through like fifty firewalls and two hundred subroutines in order to --"

"No one's suggesting that you're incompetent in your ability, Salad," Xeno said. "But don't you find it a little convenient that you managed to knock the weapons systems offline so quickly after."

"It was just a --"

"Enough," Gook said, putting his foot down. "Xeno, I know you have your reservations about this. But it could just be that whoever is running this Warworld was overconfident in his or her ability to repel invaders, when his security drones have the same work ethic Rotiart had before he died."

Xeno said nothing, but he wasn't convinced by Goom's argument.

"Now, again, shutting down the reactor -- destroying it, making it irreparable, making it scrap -- would make the Warworld derelict and dead. It will gut it." Goom repeated to instill the message. "Lights, gone. Atmospheric controls, gone. Weapons systems, gone. Engines, gone."

"Life support, gone," Xeno said, picking up a flaw in the plan.

No one had an answer this, though it was already decided what they would do. They would proceed. Xeno was beginning to wonder to himself if this was really a suicide mission.

All thought of that vanished once they saw the reactor. It was in a massive room that would comfortably accommodate a three large Cybertronians. In the center was a massive cylinder with a heart-shaped device hovering in the center -- apt, as this reactor was essentially the heart of Warworld. There were several columns moving around this center column at a sedate pace, as a defensive ring. These columns also had gun turrets on them.

"Happy now, Xeno?" Guy asked, drolly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2016, 06:22:29 AM

Sorry that I didn't post a chapter yesterday, I got busy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Throne Room -- Don't You Dare Leeroy Jenkins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeroy_Jenkins) This

The Gamma Team slowly approached a while room, Cloak taking the lead, crouching down so much he looked like an actual tiger, stalking his oblivious prey. Underseen had adapted a more streamlined, stealthy form. Gaz had gone batty. Az, Sakki, Faerie, and GH could not disguise themselves innsuch a way, and all three felt as if they stuck out like sore thumbs.

They came to what was obviously a throne room, beyond a ten-foot door. Cloak looked at each member of Gamma Team in turn, telling them with naught but a look, a passing glance, that no one is to rush the room. He gathered a lot of intel about the room already through his Metalsight.

The room beyond was vast, and unfurnished save for a single chair -- straight-backed and stiff, and clearly made to accommodate an eight-foot-tall monster of a man. The facing expanse of the wall seemed to be transparent glass or otherwise not made of metal.

The room had two occupants, one larger and one smaller. Cloak thought one of them looked familiar, but Metalsight doesn't do facial features all that well. It's a limitation to it and Earthsight and any other derivatives.

But it didn't take a genius to know that the two inside were not of an agreeable sort. Cloak could easily hear the voices, but not make out the words being used. He wasn't sure if the rest of Gamma Team could hear it as well as his feline hearing could.

Cloak couldn't see a way into the room without garnering notice in some way, so they would -- despite going against every instinct Cloak had -- would have to simply walk into the room. They would have to confront the Mongul eventually, and he more than likely already knew that they were here.

All seven members of Gamma Team filed into the room, just as a right, yellow fist punched the Techadon Inspector's head, easily decapitating him, killing him unceremoniously. Then the Mongul swivelled around in his chair to look at them, as he stood, taking them in with scrutinizing conceit.

"Whoa," Sakki said, "he is a big one."

"This is your attack force?" the Mongul said, eyeing Cloak more than the others. He still remembered Collector and Gamesmaster. He spoke with a voice reminiscent of that of Keith David. "I'm offended and insulted."

"Watch what you say, Mongul," Cloak said.

"Mon Gall," he corrected.

"Like that's so much better," Cloak retorted.

"Don't take that tone with me, thief," Mon Gall said, apparently assuming Cloak was Collector or Gamesmaster, despite obvious size and build discrepancies.

"Learn to cope," Faerie said, pulling out a battle axe from nowhere. She had apparently found a replacement for her Gale Blade. She charged the Mongul with Sakki and Az in short pursuit.

Mon Gall easily sidesteped and slide the axe out of her hands and kicked her aside. He grabbed Sakki by the head, released her, punched her to his left. Then he backhanded Az, felling him.

GH had already unshouldered his guitar and was playing a brief musical introduction, before blasting out one his favorite heavy metal tunes. One of which Cloak was decidedly not a fan of. And neither was Mon Gall apparently, as he described it, in an annoyed utterance, as noise.

GH snorted, "Everybody's a critic."

Cloak fired a blast of fire -- yet, he held back. He never liked using more force than he believed was necessary. It would be too easy to go down a dark path that way, too easy to throw your weight around and become a tinhorn dictator. Power can have an addictive effect on some people, and Cloak rather not get drunk on power. Especially as he saw that the Mongul clearly was drunk on it himself.

Anyway, after Cloak's blast, Faerie swing with her axe again, only for it not to penetrate his hide. His skin seemed as strong as a Kryptonian under a yellow sun. He grabbed Faerie as her axe clattered noisily and ominously to the ground. He began to choke her out, as he wore a sadistic smile.

Then Underseen, in the guise of an anaconda, wrapped around him, but Mon Gall just flexed his muscles in such a way that Underseen was forced to slither off and recuperate by shifting back to his base form, his default form. Only to be swiftly kicked by Mon Gall, landing next to Inspector #86's headless, lifeless body.

Cloak stamped his feet and raised his arms in a swift, strong movement, which caused the metal in the floor to rise up pinioning Mon Gall's arms to his sides. This allowed Faerie to take up her axe again, and put in several noneffective blows. But he broke out of the metal binding with his superhuman strength and a sigh of exasperation. Then he grabbed Faerie and threw her to the ground.

Underseen took the form of a white wolf (and Cloak was unintentionally reminded of Aniyu), and attacked Mon Gall, attempting to chew through his left shoulder. It didn't work, and Mon Gall just ripped him off and tossed him aside, as he continued to ignore GH's music.

"The novelty of this encounter has officially worn off," Mon Gall said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2016, 06:58:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
It's Not Over

"Agreed," Cloak snarled.

Mon Gall had thrown Underseen into Sakki, knocking them both out for the time being it seemed. And it was at this time that GH decided that it was time to change track. He had never tried this before, as the music he played rarely -- very rarely -- included lullabies.

"Nap time, ugly," GH said, as he began to play a slow, rhythmic song. A song designed to be somnoferous.

Mon Gall didn't even bat an eye or so much as yawn, yet all his fellow Gamma Team members, save Cloak, clearly felt the effects. Mon Gall just looked irritated, and Cloak saw what was about to happen before it did.

Mon Gall charged his friend, and Cloak, more accustomed to being a long-ranged fighter, actually charged and tackled Mon Gall, then he quickly maneuvered around. He pushed off Mon Gall's chest and somersaulted away, as Mon Gall tried to grab his cloak -- which was often a liability in close-quarters combat. It was a good thing, too, as Mon Gall was going to try to break Cloak's back as Bane did to Batman in that one comic.

But Mon Gall charged forward, and reached for GH's guitar -- a very bad move no matter how strong you are. For, as soon as GH realized what he was going to do, the guitar became a battle axe, and GH began to attack Mon Gall with the speed, agility, and frenzied brutality of a madman. It did nothing, but GH didn't care.

"Do you really not understand?" Mon Gall said.

"We understand plenty, Mon Gall," Cloak said, standing defiant.

"Your deaths today are a mercy for what will come next," he continued.

"We're not dead," Cloak said, as GH struck Mon Gall in the groin with his battleaxe. But it did not bleed nor did Mon Gall show any discomfort. He flicked GH away, as if he was an annoying insect. Cloak continued, "And you haven't a clue who you're dealing with."

"Do you?" he continued, now walking away from him. It was a calculated insult. "My grand laser emitter will end your world in minutes. Too bad you decided not to leave it as gold. Then maybe it would be spared, then it could have been useful as a trophy. But, now?"

"You haven't any right," Cloak spat.

"Might makes right," Mon Gall said, dismissively. "And it seems my allowance of your puny mudball to exist, my mercies, are not appreciated. So be it. Now the Warworld will unleash all its weapons upon the Earth for your -- ahh!"

A gash appeared on his right shoulder, inexplicably.

"What the -- ?"

Cloak landed, semi-crouched, his right hand extended and his left upon the floor. A golden-scarlet blade extended from his right hand. And Cloak's eyes were suns of power.

"Didn't you get the memo?" Cloak said, savagely. "You haven't won yet."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2016, 11:49:56 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Ring Around the Core, Ashes, Ashes . . .

"How do we go about doing this?" Xeno asked.

"What? You're not gonna say it's too easy?" Mithril ribbed him.

"Enough of that, Mithril," Goom said, all business all of a sudden. "We need to get rid of these oscillating columns first."

"Should be a simple enough endeavor," Aquilai said, brightly. Then he and the others scrutinized the ever-circling columns with the turrets. It was clear that they would need to improvise a hivering craft, as they would never be able to climb up there and do what they required to destroy this core.

It turned out there was one at the base of the edge they were standing on. Clearly, its only purpose was for the maintenance droids to maintain and service the core at any time it was needed. Xeno opened his mouth, then shut it, deciding maybe he was just being paranoid, and he failed to take the arrogance of the lord of this Warworld into account.

"If we reprogram one of these turret tower things," Guy said, as he worked, not unlike a Survivor character working on a generator in "Dead By Daylight". "Like so, then they should all turn and fire upon the core, then themselves."

"We've been gifted with auspicious fortune before now," Goom said, as each took a column, each using their own maintenance platform, "let's hope it lasts."

"Aw! Why'd you have to call attention to it?" YeerkSalad groaned. "Now it's doomed."

"Don't allow superstitions to cloud your objectivity," Xeno warned.

"Or paranoia," Wild teased subtly. If Xeno heard him, he didn't show it.

"There. Done." Xeno said.

"Finished mine, as well," Goom said, "and that's not easy for someone without hands!"

"Done and done," Guy announced a few seconds after.

"I've been done for five minutes now," Salad boasted with bravado. No one seemed impressed.

Aquilai spun his sonic screwdriver as if it was a pistol, and then "holstered" it in his pocket. "And that's me, done."

"I'm done. Is that everybody?" Wild asked.

"Yes," Goom said, decisively, "we should retreat to a safe distance and watch the fireworks."

"Has anyone considered what would happen to us if life support went offline?" Xeno asked. Apparently, no one heard him over the successive explosions that were reaching the core.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2016, 03:23:38 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Auxiliary Annoyance

The core was powered down. And yet there seemed to be no adverse effects yet. The lights did not dim, the gravity did not turn off -- nothing. Nothing at all happened.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," YeerkSalad said, in an unnecessarily airy way.

"How is this possible?" Wild asked. "Was this core a decoy?"

"No, it was legitimate, I'm sure of it," Aquilai said, his jaunty positivity lost. "It generated power at least."

Xeno's eyes widened, "We failed to take into account that there probably would be some sort of backup generators in the event the core was destroyed or otherwise incapacitated. It would be stupid not to have any contingencies --and I assumed this guy was arrogant in thinking that his or her Warworld was impenetrable."

"Or possibly a completely redundant system," Guy speculated. "It must take a lot of power and energy to run a place the size of Earth's moon."

"This could just be one of many more power sources," Wild said. "We may have just accomplished nothing of value."

"But I thought this was the center of Warworld," YeerkSalad said.

"It is," Aquilai said.

"Then, by all logic, shouldn't this have been the most important one?" Salad queried. "Should have destroying it have affected more?"

"Not if there were one or more fully redundant cores," Xeno said.

"But that would take up space," Goom noted. "Despite the nature of the Warworld being an artificial planetoid, it does have finite space. I doubt any magical extension charms have been used here."

Goom ticked his head over towards the core, "This wasn't on the small size, either. Perhaps just a fraction of the size of Earth's own molten core. But there's only so many cores that could fit in here. At most, I would hazard to guess only three or four can be in here and be viable. Six at most, but even then, that would be pushing it, and most of the ship would be made of these cores."

"Right," Aquilai agreed. "If there are more, and they exceed five, say, they'd probably be smaller, and thus their power output smaller, as well."

"The thing is, though," Mithril said, getting weary of the circular shop talk that was happening, "we don't have the schematics of the place. We just don't know if it has multiple redundant systems to prevent this sort of thing or just an auxiliary one."

"What's our next move?" Wild asked Goom.

Goom waited and considered before responding.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2016, 06:38:20 PM

Yes, yes, I know. "Stronger Than You" is the song most overused in Memoirs. I acknowledge it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Rise Up, RAFians!

"You've lost, cloaked one," Mon Gall said. "Don't embarrass yourself, and die quickly."

This caused Cloak to laugh, "You clearly know nothing of Realm Walkers."

"And what are Realm Walkers supposed to be?"

"Exactly," Cloak snarled, extending another energy blade from his left hand. "You know nothing of what I'm capable of."

Cloak closed his eyes, and he stood. He felt the others stirring. Standing. Defiant of this monstrous force that curb-stomped them earlier. Mon Gall was clearly less than impressed.

"Nor anything we're capable of," Cloak said, as his cloak billowed melodramatically behind him and as the other were walking to his side. They all displayed bruises or cuts or both, but the looked quite able and willing to fight again. RAFians are a determined lot.

"Is that so?" Mon Gall said, taking that as an impudent insult. "Unity is just a cheap tactic to make weak beings stronger. Quit embarrassing yourself! I've seen the extent of your abilities."

Cloak chuckled, "No, you haven't."

GH began to play, and Cloak sang:

"We are RAF."

Underseen sang:

"Back together."

Faerie sang:

"And we're never going down at the hands of the likes of you."

GH sang, with a smarmy sort of smile on his face:

"Because we're so much better."

Sakki sang:

"And every part of me is saying, 'go get him'."

Az sang:

"The few of us ain't gonna follow your rules."

Underseen sang:

"Come at us without any of your fancy tools."

Cloak sang:

"Let's go, just us and you."

GH echoed:

"Let's go, just us and you."

Then the battle began again in earnest, only Mon Gall was on the offensive, and was having difficulty catching or hitting the RAFians. All their Marks were glowing bright, the "R" sigil on their dominant hands.

Cloak sang, whilst dodging a flurry of blows that really seemed slow. The gash on Mon Gall's arm was bleeding now, weakening him.

"Go ahead and try and hit us, if you're able."

Underseen added, snaking around a powerful kick:

"Can't you see that our relationships are stable?"

Az observed, freezing Mon Gall's foot in place, which he easily freed.

"I can see you hate the way we intermingle."

GH deduced, still off to the side, still playing:

"But I think you're just mad 'coz you're single."

Cloak sang, riding off the slipstream of a punch and using that to glide behind Mon Gall and slash him with his left energy blade:

"And you're not gonna stop what we made together."

GH added, whilst still playing, which was actually empowering the others:

"We are gonna stay like this forever."

Sakki sang, as she somersaulted over Mon Gall's head and gave him a swift bicycle kick as she landed:

"If you break us apart, we'll just come back newer."

Faerie, delivering a diving kick, sang:

"And we'll always be twice the person that you are."

Then they all sang in chorus, which irritated Mon Gall. He never much liked music of any kind. He believed it to be for the weak and lazy.

" We are motivated
By-i-i-i-i
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-i-i-i-i
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
Uni-i-i-i-ity."

As GH played, his Mark glowed, as did the others, brighter and brighter, until his very guitar started to glow RAFian blue as well. His symphokinesis was proving invaluable in the RAFians current success. He had become their white mage, in a way, for this battle.

Cloak slammed Mon Gall to the floor -- not an easy thing to do, though they were of equal height, Mon Gall had more bulk to him. So, Cloak didn't only slam him to the ground, he slammed him through the ground.

The others joined him, with GH ever so dutifully still playing.

Az sang, standing over Mon Gall.

"This is who we are."

Cloak sang, looking at Mon Gall with disgust as he staggered to his feet:

"This is who I am."

Sakki added:

"And if you think you can stop us -- "

Faerie finished:

"Then you need to think again."

Underseen sang:

'

"We know that you're reeling."

GH added:

"And it will never end."

Then they all sang, with deliberate force:

"'Coz we won't let you hurt our planet,
And we won't let you hurt our friends."

Underseen sang, as he shifted forms with expert ease:

"Go ahead and try and hit us if you're able."

Sakki sang:

"Can't you see that mercy's off the table?"

Cloak sang:

"I know you think we're not something you're afraid of --"

GH finished:

"'Cause you think that you've seen what we're made of."

Faerie and Sakki sang:

"I am RAF's fury."

Cloak sang:

"I am RAF's patience."

GH sang:

"I am RAF's determination."

Then they all sang together, as the continued to fight with Mon Gall yelling desperately for them to stop singing:

"We are motivated
By-i-i-i-i
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-i-i-i-i
And it's stronger than you.
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-i-i-i-i
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
And it's stronger than you.
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
By-i-i-i-i
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
And it's stronger than you.
By-i-i-i-i
Uni-i-i-i-ity.
Uni-i-i-i-ity."

Then he was thrown into an electric generator of some sort and he vanished from view as the lights began to oscillate. . . .

---

SONG SOURCE: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ct0Sq57u4c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2016, 07:15:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Crossing Paths

Battered and bruised, but triumphant, the six RAFians stood as the lights struggled to on. The Warworld must have been exerting its own gravity or something, as the RAFians did not start floating around, as expected. But Mon Gall was presumably dead. There was no way he could have survived an impact and electrocution like that.

"The auxiliary power supply should be through -- Cloak?" a voice said.

It was Goom and Beta Team. They had come here to shut down the generator. They had already managed to destroy four of the five redundant, auxiliary power sources already. Gamma Team had unwittingly taken care of the fifth.

"So . . . is it over?" Salad asked.

"Mon Gall's dead," Faerie said, not one to mince words, "so, I think so."

"He's not dead," Cloak said. He hadn't taken his eyes off the rubble that supposedly had buried Mon Gall.

"He's not coming back from that Cloak," Az said.

"I can feel the vibrations from his breath," Cloak said. "I can feel his thunderous heartbeats through the floor."

"That can't be," GH said, astounded. "No one could have survived that."

"I could have," Cloak said, quietly. He wasn't boasting. It was mere statement of fact. "Perhaps a human couldn't have, but a Gem could. A Realm Walker could. A Kryptonian under a yellow sun could. A Petrosapien possibly could."

Cloak's tone turned quieter, "A Mongul probably could have."

"So, what do we do now?" Mithril and Underseen asked, in unison.

"We leave him to his fate," Sakki said. "Warworld's power is dwindling expotentially now. He may have survived the impact and the power surge, but there is no way he can survive without the Warworld's life support, he won't be able survive. It will be failing at any time now, if I'm not mistaken."

"Transylians can survive in the cold and airless vacuum of space," Cloak countered, "as can Ectonurites. It's not an impossibility."

"Then why even have life support?" GH queried.

"You assume that Mon Gall had some part in the design and construction of this ship," Cloak pointed out, "he could have easily taken it from a weaker owner. Or he put in that system for some sort of gladiatorial battles. Point is, none of us assembled here know anything about Mon Gall's species -- not even a real name for it, other than the Mongul moniker which is a nickname if anything else."

"So, the question remains," Goom said, addressing Cloak directly, "what's our next move?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2016, 09:30:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Cloak's Deadly Decision

"Send word out to Alpha Team," Cloak said, "have them come pick you and the rest of Gamma Team up from the nearest airlock. Broken was bound to have enlarged the back of the ship to accommodate all of you."

"All of us?" GH asked, at once. He was quick on the uptake. "What about you?"

"Never mind me," Cloak said. "I still have one more objective to complete."

"He's dead, Cloak," Sakki said, with emphatic stress on the word "dead".

"Just go with Beta Team, Sakki," Cloak said. He could be incredibly obstinate when he wanted to be. "This is my decision."

"Cloak, the life support is due to fail at any moment now, and --" Xeno said, before Cloak interrupted, his back to them all.

"Then you lot had better be going," he said, voice soft but firm.

"But --" Salad said.

"Do you really have time to argue with me on this?" Cloak said. His voice was pleasant enough, but his eyes conveyed his firm resolve on doing whatever he had decided. "The clock is ticking."

"Cloak!" Sakki said. She was almost hysterical with frustration now. "He is dead! Killing yourself over a friggin' dead man isn't worth it!! See sense, will you?!"

Cloak said nothing for a moment, still with his back to them, facing the broken generator where Mon Gall had vanished into. He allowed another brief pause before speaking again.

"You should go," was all he said.

"Cloak --"

"My mind is made up," Cloak said, his voice edging into sounding cross. "Arguing with me will not sway me to your position. It just wastes time that you do not have much of. Now go."

They hesitated at this.

"I will be fine," Cloak said.

"That sounded ominous," Underseen said.

"And you ruined the moment," GH teased, as Cloak said nothing, seemingly eyeing the rubble with a scrutinizing glare. After another moment's hesitation, they left him, though not one wanted to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2016, 07:00:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Unmitigated Mon Gall

Cloak waited until he could not Metalsight the others any longer. He wished that he hadn't have to do this next thing alone, but he was the only one who could, and the exertion alone might prove to be too much for him.

The rubble shifted ever so slightly. Cloak continued to eye it. So, I was right. You aren't dead.

And up from the rubble, looking distinctly more battered and bruised than any RAFian who battled him, Mon Gall rose. He stubbornly refused to give up. This suited Cloak just fine.

"So," Mon Gall said, thickly, a trail of what appeared to be red or black blood trickling ever so nonchalantly down from the left corner of his mouth, "you decide to face me alone, itty bitty boy?"

They were roughly the same height. And chances were Cloak was actually older than him, even if he didn't look it. And, in reply, Cloak said nothing. He did nothing. Mon Gall did not.intimidate him in the least. He's lived with worse, so Mon Gall could hardly stand up to that high standard.

"I have to admit, boy, this is new." Mon Gall said, spitting blood. It was obvious he was severely weakened. "But I've killed plenty of stronger people than you in my day. Millions. Literally millions."

Cloak said nothing. He didn't see the point. Mon Gall hadn't seen the true extent of Cloak's powers, as neither has Cloak himself.  Cloak always placed limits on his abilities, as he did fear them (though not so much anymore, after his sessions with Aniyu) and he believed that he shouldn't use excessive force. Not to mention that Cloak didn't believe Mon Gall one bit.

"What's the matter?" Mon Gall said, when he noticed Cloak's prolonged silence. "Run out of quips? Why are you holding your tongue?"

Mon Gall was getting angrier now, "No more words to fail?! You think. Now that your crutch is gone, that you're better than me?! The Great and Powerful Mon Gall?!?!"

Cloak remained silent. He just folded his arms in an obviously contemptuous manner.

"Well, you're not!!" he said, and Cloak thought he sounded more like a petulant child than powerful warlord. "I own you!! I own everything!! Everything is my dominion!!"

"Your parents never set any boundaries for you, did they?" Cloak said, speaking at last.

"What?" Mon Gall snapped. This wasn't the response that he was expecting.

"They must not have, or else you would be constantly overstepping the boundaries of others," Cloak said, psychoanalyzing him. "Or you have a great fear of having nothing, of being nothing. A fear of ignominy."

"You know nothing," he growled.

"Perhaps it is anthropophobia," Cloak suggested, offhand, " a fear of people or company."

"I'm not afraid of anything, boy!"

"It's funny," Cloak said, "those who profess that they fear nothing with such force, often are either being dishonest with themselves or hiding their fears beneath a blanket of bravado."

"Shut and try to kill me," Mon Gall said, growing quite weary of this psychobabble. "Complete that last objective of yours."

To this Cloak smiled and laughed, "Why, Mon Gall, I don't recall ever saying that killing you, showing you that mercy, was my last objective."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2016, 08:08:32 PM

Well, this book might wind up being nineteen chapters. Anyway, the next chapter probably won't be up until some time in the afternoon tomorrow (my time, of course).

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Finality

"What?"

"You heard me," Cloak said, "but if you try to stop me from my endeavor, I shall grant you that death wish of yours."

"I don't have a . . . what do you mean stop you?" Mon Gall said, stopping mid-thought.

"I should think that it was obvious," Cloak said, calmly focusing his mind. He would probably need to go to his sixth tier at least for this. Maybe seven.

"Tell me," Mon Gall ordered.

"You do not give me orders, Mon Gall," Cloak countered, as he steadied his breath steadied his emotions. He had never attempt something like this, on this scale. The Warworld was far larger than that --

"You tell me what I want to know, whelp!!" Mon Gall demanded, barely able to stand anymore. Really, killing him would be a kindness. A kindness that Cloak still refused to bestow upon the Mongul.

"No," Cloak said firmly. He wasn't about to be a doormat for this uppity warlord. He already spent too many of his years as one, in the home of his mother, and he'd be Veiled if he was gonna be Mon Gall's.

"Yes, you will!" Mon Gall said, with a barely audible wheeze. "Or, when I repair the Warworld, when I have my droids back in order, I will unleash my entire armaments down upon --"

"No, you won't."

"Yes, I will! And I will take immense satisfaction in --"

"The Warworld will not be repaired," Cloak said, with staunch certainty.

"Yes, it will," Mon Gall said, still soundly like a petulant brat. "And I will take extreme pleasure in wiping your little mudball from our starcharts!!"

"But the Warworld will not be here," Cloak said, standing and touching various internal walls, as if looking for something.

"You --"

"It will not be here," Cloak said, his serenity betrayed by a bite of impatience, "because I shall destroy it."

For once, Mon Gall was silent. Stunned and taken aback by this pronouncement. By something he believed to be abjectly impossible.

Cloak touched a section of the interior wall and felt that it was a load-bearing wall. Well, so to speak, given that they were in space and the definition of load was different here, in a way. "Take this time to escape, if you wish. I will not stop you. But know this, if you ever try this again with Earth, you'll have me to contend with. And maybe the star, if she's around."

"You can't destroy Warworld. It's impossible."

"I can," Cloak said, serenely serious. "And I will."

"But then you'd die too!"

"Life support is already waning, can't you feel it?" Cloak said, placidly. "Death looms for you, but I have ways of surviving."

"You lie!"

"Do I?"

"You're not destroying anything!"

"I am. I'm even in the process of fracturing on the important infrastructure of this Warworld. It will eventually rend itself to pieces. Or explode. Either way, it will be beyond repair."

"I won't let you!"

"Then you die," Cloak said, opening his eyes to reveal golden-scarlet suns of power with six tendrils of energy trailling from them like streamers. "I would feel no love lost at the death of a tyrant. So, decide what's more valuable to you. The Warworld . . . or your life."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2016, 04:59:32 AM

Okay, I was wrong. Managed to get this up before work.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Wait

"He's still up there," Underseen said. "And Estelore's on her way."

"We never should have left him," Sakki said, ruefully.

"He had his mind made up," Aquilai said. "There was no way that we were gonna get him out of there."

"We all would have died," Az said.

"Don't talk about him like he's dead!" GH protested. "The Warworld is still in one piece!"

It was at that moment, before anyone could mention how the Warworld staying intact did not guarantee Cloak's survival, when, visible even from the ground during the day, the Warworld fractured noticeably. It deteriorated rapidly, almost as if something -- or someone -- was ripping it apart from the inside.

Then the explosions came. Any debris that came close to the planet was evidently small enough to be burned up by the atmosphere. But that was it, the Warworld was gone. And there wasn't a trace of Cloak or Mon Gall.

"He . . ." Az said.

"Don't say it," GH said.

"GH, there's no point in denying it," Faerie said, mournfully pragmatic. "The Warworld is not nothing more than dust on a breeze. I know how resilient Realm Walkers are -- I knew Cloak longer than you as well -- but I fail to see how anyone, even a Realm Walker could have survived such a blast."

"Cloak always finds a way," GH said. "He's still alive, I'm sure of it."

"We all thought he was dead over a year ago," Blue pointed out. "When Abomination beat him within an inch of his life."

"That was different," Guy said.

"How so?"

Guy couldn't come up with a retort.

"What's that?" Gaz asked.

There seemed to be powerful light descending towards them.

"Esty," answered Xeno.

The star had encapsulated her in human avatar form, wearing a sundress with a big, floppy sunshine yellow hat to match. Yet her expression belied this sunny appearance. He heard about the Warworld and that's what drove her to come this far out. To come back to her friends and the fold.

She was dismayed to find that she was too late.

"Esty, did you see anything in the wreckage?" GH asked, at once.

"There was no wreckage," she said. "Even the debris seems to be dissipating."

"You didn't see Cloak?" GH said, not believing his friend was dead.

Estelore looked a bit puzzled by this, but answered, "No. I didn't see anyone. Nothing but debris."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2016, 06:46:33 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Cloak, Ya Jerk!

"Are you sure?" GH queried at once. "Not even a scrap of cloth?"

"I didn't go through it all, GH," Esty said, primly. "There was a lot of minute debris."

"GH, I think you need to accept --" someone that GH couldn't see began.

"Why are you so quick to believe he's dead?" GH snapped in protest. "How many missions have we been on where it appeared that one of us bit the big one? Huh? And how many times did that prove to be wrong?"

"Only once, if I recall correctly," Gaz said, "when Cloak was beaten within an inch of his life by Abomination."

"You know," said another voice, "he really doesn't deserve that name anymore. He redeemed himself and all."

Silence met these words. Not because of the meaning of the words, but the voice who spoke them.

"CLOAK?!"

"Yeah?" he said, raising an eyebrow at this reception. This wasn't what he was expecting at all.

"We thought you were dead, ya jerk!" Sakki said, almost sounding scandalized.

"You thought he was dead," GH corrected, smugly. Sakki popped him upside the head. GH rubbed the spot vigorously, protesting, "Hey!"

"Why?" Cloak said, perplexed. "Don't I always have an exit strategy?"

"Well, then, how did you do it?" Xeno said, curious. "The Warworld is less than rubble now.

"I simply Walked away," Cloak said. "Then I simply Walked back again."

This was met with some perplexed looks from the RAFians that did not know the Walker term for crossing from or to the Universal Nexus -- the Realm Walker homeland -- and any of the copious amount of Realms.

***

Malice had wrapped Cloak and the Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination in the firm grip of energy hands.

"So you . . . don't want to date me?" Ab said.

Malice laughed a hysterical laughter of which Ursula the Sea Witch would be proud, and said, "Oh my -- that is -- you think that I -- with you? Oh my -- that is too good! I mean it's sad for you, but . . ."

She sighed heavily, than set the both of them down. Then she said, ". . . Let me put this a way you nincompoops will understand."

Sultry music bubbled up from nowhere.

"I'm not the damsel in distress.
I'm not your girlfriend, or a frightened princess.
I'm not a white swan who needs your help to fly.
Nope . . . I'm the bad guy."

She lit up row after row after row of cages. Cloak recognized some of the inhabitants. Bowser. Dr. Eggman. Frieza. Dartz. Galvatron. Megatron. Ganondorf. Dr. Wily. Sigma. Vile. Vilgax. Mongul. Apocalypse. Darkseid. Thanos. Mojo Jojo. Voldemort. Even more, more than he could make out, but he was sure that they were villains.

"All these former villains that you see,
Each of them, with quivering knees, has knelt before me.
So, I'm not your teammate, or your partner in crime."

She turned to address the captured villains, "What am I, boys and girls?"

They sang in a defeated unison:

"She's the bad guy."

Then Malice took up the song again.

"Oh, it's magic
To watch a Realm
Shrivel up and die.
Oh, it's thrillin'
To be a villain.
I destroy their planets and then I watch them die."

Malice laughed heartily before continuing her song:

"'Cause I'm the bad guy!
Oh, ain't it fantastic?
I see something, I blast it!
And let me tell you why.
I've always had a weakness
For barrenness and bleakness.
I crush all your hopes and then I watch you cry.
See, I find this business rather fun!
I don't want your persistence, or your adulation!
I'll vaporize your Realm and bid ya bye-bye!
Why?"

She had ensnared the two of them again in the energy hands, as she spoke menacingly, "Come on, GUESS!!"

"'Cause you're the bad guy." Cloak said, bored, at the same time as Abomination.

"'Cause you're the bad guy," Abomination said, crushed, at the same time as Cloak.

"Or, well, girl." she corrected, punctuating it with maniacal laughter.

Naturally, it was at this point when Cloak awoke.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdEo_t-iVbM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2016, 04:03:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Bomb Voyage!

Phoenix was relaxing at the nearest park in the city. He had decided to go ahead and seek more education, though he knew it would not be easy juggling his RAFian responsibilities -- a full-time job, really -- and his educational pursuits. But he felt he could handle it as well as Abby and Saffa did.

So he read from his textbook . . . until he heard the explosion. It was nearby, and nothing of the magnitude of any of the Warworld's armaments. But it was sufficient to send the parkgoers running cor their lives. Phoenix was quickly the only one remaining in the park.

He was resigned as he packed away his textbook, and even more so when he saw the bomber. It was another one of Demos's creatures.

"Of course, it is," he muttered, mutinously.

The creature had a humanoid body with a slightly avian head, and forest green, mowawk-like protrusion atop its bald, purple head. Its forearms and legs from the knee down were purple, dark brown at the joints, white shorts markings where its legs met its body, golden spikes on the side of his head, green thighs, and a green chest and upper arms. It had round eyes whose pupils were red with black sclera. He had tendrils sparking from his shoulders like bomb fuses. He stood roughly as high as an Ewok.

"Not a pretty thing, are you?" Phoenix said, his resigned tone giving way to bored banter.

It secreted a cartoony bomb from its right hand, complete with lit fuse, and ****ed its arm back, prepared to lob the thing.

"You cannot be serious," Phoenix muttered.

Before the creature could lob the bomb at Phoenix, he fire a pulse of flame as he extended avian wings made of flame -- something he had never shown that he was capable of before --and hit the bomb that was was pulsating as if it were to blow soon if not thrown. The flame did that for it, damaging the creature.

But seemed to be quite resilient, as, while injured, it secreted another one to throw, and Phoenix just repeated the process. And he did so a fur the five times before this creature was snuffed out.

***

Demos called the creature a pyrobolusapien. Demos claimed his purpose was to help with land reclamation, and didn't even consider any potential terrorist purpose to which the pyrobolusapien could be used. Again, he was not believed.

***

"Well," Malice said, having watched all that, "that certainly bombed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 19, 2016, 01:47:27 AM

wheew. finally caught up again. i like how you've been silently incorporating Demos' creations(?) through it all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2016, 09:57:09 AM

Excellent. And yes, that's gonna be a thing for a while.

New chapter.

BOOK CXXXVIII:
SOLAR SUCKS
CHAPTER ONE:
Do You Have It? Guts!

Parker stood looking at a construction site. He was alone -- and in his armor, of course, as this was a mission. It wasn't anything too bad, just some routine bad guy beatdown. Hardly necessitating a full contingent.

Parker looked around rather procedurally, and he saw nothing noteworthy. He was beginning to think that this was nothing more than a wild goose chase, and the reports they received were fabricated.

"Tyr, locate the bogey's coordinates ag--" Parker began, before he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. "Cancel that. I found him."

The creature was a hulking, humanoid beast the size of a Wookie. It had big, burly, purple arms, with dark green shoulder guards and thick, dark green grieves on said arms. Its chest was white with a circular emerald in the center. Its loins were dark green as was its legs up to its knees. Its thighs were purple. It had a purple head with white markings and a smaller emerald in the center of its forehead, a square jaw that jutted out in a rather extreme underbite. It walked with a simian gait as its arms were longer than its legs. It had no discernable nose and angular eyes. Its pupils were gray with black sclera.

"Well, hello, there," Parker said. "What are you doing here?"

In response, the creature pulled up a rock and threw it at him. He used his fusion cannons to blast it into smithereens, but he was resigned in doing so as this creature did not seem capable of coherent thought and intelligent discourse. That made everything harder, at the same time making it easier.

The creature gave a small jump, causing the ground to shake enough that Parker was somehow knocked off his feet. He was glad no one was around to see that, as he found it embarrassing.

He quickly got up and threw one plasma grenade at the creature, which oddly enough exploded upon contact. It blew off one of the creature's shoulder guards, but it continued to pull out a rock from the ground -- a rock that must have weighed two tons, at least -- and readied to throw it. Then Parker threw two more plasma grenades which ended the beast.

"Well," Parker said, after dusting himself off (there was a lot of dust and sand there), "that's done."

***

Demos called it an gatsusapien. He had intended it for use in construction sites, lifting what the construction worker couldn't and such. No one mocked him for this, as it was a practical use. But no one did believe him in that he was to use it for altruistic purposes.

Demos felt as if this was demon bigotry.

***

"Ah, well," Malice said, smiling, "at least he had guts."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2016, 05:10:48 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
RAF Party Time!

The forum was in the midst of celebrating their monthly RAF Party. They were far enough away to not disturb any of their neighbors. (Xeno managed to turn on a muting feature in Code Avalon to block the raucous nature of the party from penetrating the shield, and yet, this did not.manage to interfere with communications somehow.)

Anyway, GH was on stage with a nervous Leatherhead. This lovely May afternoon was to be his first gig since he got his keytar, which he could transfrom into a halbried as his adoptive father GH can change his favorite guitar into a battle axe. It wasn't known if he could transform his keytar into a hoverbike-like transport like GH, and GH wasn't about to suggest it -- not until Leatherhead's sixteen, anyway.

Anyway, GH assuaged Leatherhead's misgivings and nervousness by telling him with sincere certainty that he'd do fine. He just needed to have some confidence in himself and believe in himself, but GH tried to say that in a way that didn't make him sound like an afterschool special. Not the easiest task.

They played a guitar and keytar rendition of a . . . polka? If that was even possible. But GH could be a bit of a mad scientist when it came to music, so if it was remotely possible, he'd probably know.

Anyway, he sang, with Leatherhead providing backup vocals:

Faerie, Esplin, and Az
Mr. Guy, Estrid, and Gaz.
Falc0, bladepaw, Whammy,
Yarin, Kitkat, and Cloaky.
Myitt, SuperNate, Cerulean,
Quaf and Helen,
Traycon and Slushie Man - everybody, RAF party!
Morfowt, Esty, AniDragon
Jess, YeerkSalad, then Dylan
Broken, Shanker, Sakki
Shock and ol' Blocky
Goom, Phoenix, Richard, AniMel,
Abby and, of course, Kelly
Sharky and wildweathel -- everybody, RAF party!
It's time to party,
For Qwerty and Kelran, too.
Come on, and put on your loony self,
And try not to stamp on little Horse!
You'd better grab yourself a partner,
Like Terenia or Parker (Parker)!
Hold on a minute -- there's still at least nine hundred and twenty-seven more!*
Including Nomad and Saffa!
ANna, me, and Nina,
AniTiger and Leatherhead,
Hunter and ThinkAgain,
Don't forget about Ash,
Ax-Man and Gafrash,
Wildwethel, and Tyler - everybody, RAF Party!
Everybody, RAF Party!
Everybody, RAF Party!"

And this just kicked off the festivities.

Meanwhile, Cloak stuck to the shadows, enjoying himself from afar. He really didn't like big hullabaloos and such like this much, but he was glad that he wasn't in the spotlight. This was a whole different ball of wax than being the center of attention in battle.

He was also mulling over a riddle that came to him in a dream:

"Beware the gardens where mistruths and fabrications
Obscure and obfuscate the sought-after location.
Beware the device that shrinks
The star more than one thinks.
Beware the family that the one seeks,
Before the accused leaks."

He had no idea what it meant, but feared the star meant Estelore.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-lbw491S8Ss

*Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration on Memoirs GH's part here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2016, 07:30:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
That Sucks

A deranged man was setting up in a tall building with a large open window. It wasn't too bad, considering the balmy May weather -- not too hot, not too cold. The building itself was a rather dilapidated mess. It would be drafty, had it been winter.

The man, a former scientist by the name of Jonas Barlowe -- full name of Jonas Avery Barlowe, was disgraced by the scientific community. He suggested that to end the energy crisis they faced in the oncoming years that they simply siphon it from the sun itself. They initially thought that he simply meant solar power by way of solar panels and the like. (The oil lobby wasn't having any of it, though.)

But no. He meant literally siphoning the energy from their star. The energy and substance. This led to the scientific community worldwide to utter dumbfounded silence, which he took as them in awe of his genius. But, in reality, they were baffled -- utterly nonplussed -- at the raging stupidity of this man. It almost sounded like a Gavin Free hypothetical from a Minecraft video.

Barlowe was really a shortsighted fool who only thought in the short term, really, as he never considered the ramifications of such a drastic action. He would cause more irreparable harm than charitable help, but he could not see this. He did not understand this. He did not understand if he did this, the system would very likely lose the planets of Pluto (okay, technically a dwarf planet), Neptune, and potentially more.

Not only that, the planet would suffer as the plants would eventually die off if he siphoned off too much. If he siphoned off too much, he might even kill the sun and cause it to create a supernova or a black hole or some other unforeseen ramification. His grand plan would not end suffering, but result in more.

All this never occurred to him, and, with the cold, hostile reception his idea got, he felt not only rejected but greatly spurned. He could not fathom how they could not see that this was the only way. He thought green energy was a hoax, that a hydrogen-cell battery was laughable, that solar panels didn't go far enough, and he didn't think fossil fuels and oil were any better. His opinion and conclusion was, obviously flawed.

With this idea, it was the final nail in the coffin of a less than illustrious career as a scientist of a vague speciality. With this, his career was over. He had lost everything, and became a mockery of his former self to his former colleagues. It left him sorely embittered and, yet, more stubbornly set to prove himself right.

Now he lived here, in this tall but rotting, roach-infested tenement. Fueled by revenge and rivalry, by anger and stubbornness, he had made a machine that looked like an oversized raygun, with an attached platform, pointed at the sun, which was rising. He had made it using parts from what appeared to be an old, forgotten carpet cleaner.

Only this wasn't a carpet cleaner, it was Horse's old Sanity-Sucker 2000. It was used in an almost ceremonial "hazing", if you could call it that, to new RAFians. She claimed it sucked their sanity out, but in reality it didn't, not really. It was more of a tradition than anything else.

But, eventually, that tradition got laid by the wayside, and greatly forgotten. Horse never remembered what happened to the Sanity-Sucker, but it clearly fell into Barlowe's possession, and he turned it into the Sun-Sucker 2000. It took him years to build -- so much so that he no longer looked as pretty as he did in his prime. He had an unkempt beard, long greasy hair, and was as thin as a rail spike. He was malnourished and not at all well, but he kept at it with his fanaticism fuelling his resolve.

He went through the preliminary procedures and prepared to fire the beam that would travel the 149,600,000 kilometers to the sun at the speed of light. If his copious amount of calculations were accurate, it should take all of eight minutes and twenty seconds, before the sun's energy and substance is stored in his six solar batteries -- which was an idea that would probably faired better than his whole sun-siphoning thing.

It was almost time to activate his precious machine.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 20, 2016, 09:50:11 AM

jeeze. who woulda guessed that by scorning this insane man and ruining his career you'd just push him into making the machine anyways. (note the sarcasm)

oh also cloak i don't know if you were still worried about Saffa but she's alright. I messaged her on snapchat and she said that her finals are coming up so she's been too busy to really get on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2016, 04:07:35 PM

Yeah, I was worried, but I saw that she was posting on FB, so I knew she was okay.

Anyway, new book ideas!

• Book MXCVI (1,096): "Dance, Puppet, Dance!" -- The RAFians deal with articulation actuators.
• Book MXCVII (1,097): "The Company of Unity, Love, and Tenderness" -- The RAFians uncover a very strange company.
• Book MXCVIII (1,098): "Cloak's Bounty" -- The Realm Walker Council send Enforcers after Cloak.

The titles are not final. I don't think I rehashed anything.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Cool?

"Hmmmm . . .?"

Estelore was still enjoying herself as the RAF Party was beginning to wind down. But then she noticed something odd about Sol, her name for the Earth's star. It was a nonsentient star, but she had an affection for it as a child would for an inanimate object they loved. She noticed something strange was going on with Sol, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

"What is it, Estelore?" Cloak asked, easily noticing her preoccupation.

"I don't . . ." Esty blurted, but then she abruptly changed tact. "It's . . . nothing. It's probably nothing. Nothing at all."

Cloak wasn't fooled so easily. He wasn't a Homeworld Ruby, and it would take significantly more effort to lie to him, but he could tell that the lie wasn't meant for him, but Estelore herself.

He could have pressed her on the issue, but he failed to see the point of doing that. He knew that it would come off as antagonistic and hostile, which would only serve to make her either bottle up or react in kind. So he let it go, but it also infected him with concern and worry, but he was already adept at hiding it from others.

"Cold," Leatherhead said, starting to shake. Cloak found himself, despite himself and all prudence, curious about this. Was Leatherhead sufficiently human enough to shiver or was he still to reptilian for such an act. He said nothing, as it would be tactless.

GH swept Leatherhead off to their thread, as it was getting late, and he was still six years old. He needed his sleep, and this whole get took a lot out of the tyke. He kept rubbing his right eye, a clear indication it was bed time for him. He didn't even argue with GH about it. GH was complimenting him on a gig well done as they left.

Estelore, however, was looking directly at the now setting sun. Her stellar nature allowed her to do this without hurting her eyes. She was sure that there was something very wrong going on with Sol. But she really could not fathom what. And this annoyed and concerned her greatly.

She noticed how chilly it got. Had she been just some ordinary girl in a sundress and floppy sunhat, she would have required a lightweight jacket or sweater. But as she was most certainly not some ordinary girl, she did not. But it was enough for her to take notice. It was not supposed to be this chilly this time of year. It was getting to be close to summertime, not autumn.

This was not natural. She was sure of it. And she didn't know why, but this alarmed her, but she kept internalized. She didn't want to raise an alert that turned out to be nothing.

"Oh, Sol," she said, quietly, to herself. Her gaze never faltered, and her tone was as if she was rebuking a rambunctious puppy. "Oh, Sol, what's going on with you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2016, 08:37:03 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
That Ain't Right

"This doesn't seem right," Aquilai said, looking at a scan. At the request of Estelore, he ran a long-range scan on the sun. He didn't know why she possibly could want to know such a thing.

"What is it?" Estelore snapped unintentionally.

"Four million, three hundred and thirty-five thousand, two hundred and ten kilometers in equatorial circumference," Aquilai reported, reading from a readout.

"Really?" Estelore asked at once. "Are you sure?"

"That's what our instruments indicate," the Time Lord said, placidly, "why?"

"I'm pretty sure that Sol is supposed to have an equatorial circumference of four million, three hundred and seventy-nine thousand kilometers in equatorial circumference." Estelore said, rather pedantic. "That's a one percent decrease. I think."

"I know, but perhaps our instruments are wrong, perhaps stars fluctuate in weight like --"

Aquilai stopped at the glare Estelore was giving him. But she continued her thought, "If there is a decrease like that, it could mean a variety of things. None of them good for the planet."

"That is a big assumption though, Esty," Aquilai said.

"I tell you, I think something is siphoning off the energy and substance of Sol. It will die if we don't find out who or what is behind it!!"

"That's a large leap to make, Esty," Aquilai said, attempted to placate the distressed sentient star. "We don't even know if that's happening. We don't even know if it's even possible."

"If this.Realm is anything like that other one," came a voice behind them, "then it is possible. Not prudent or intelligent, perhaps, but possible."

"Cloak?" Esty queried. "How'd you --"

"I saw that something perturbed you earlier," Cloak answered, his cloak slicing through the air like a bladed pendulum as he strode into the room proper. "And I sincerely hope we aren't facing a star-sucker type of device. That could have all sorts of potential ominous outcomes."

"That's what I was saying," Estelore agreed.

"If that is, indeed, what is happening," Aquilai said, "then it should be giving off an energy signature. And that can be traced."

Aquilai immediately went over to a shelf laden with all sorts of technological gadgetry, and pulled out what appeared to be a hybridization of an old-school Game Boy and a Game Boy SP. It had exposed wiring, which Cloak could help but think was a safety hazard.

"This should help," the Time Lord said, activating the device with his trusty sonic screwdriver. Then, after a moment's thought, he grabbed a jacket, and then said, "Let's go."

Then the trio left, and Saffa decided to help when she met them outside Aquilai's TARDIS, and was appraised of the situation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 21, 2016, 01:48:53 AM

oh crap. this could go badly

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2016, 08:16:51 PM

True.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Don't Let It Snow!

As they walked outside, the noticed that snow was starting to fall, almost innocuously. They took this as swift confirmation that something was quite indeed wrong, as snow at this time of year was unheard of for this climate.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful.

.

Cloak ignored the song that decided to play his head, as he looked fretfully at the falling balls of fluff. It disconcerted the Realm Walker, who never liked snow to begin with. Each flake fell with a delicate, deceivingly harmless demeanor.

And this is anything but delightful.

The quartet hurried along, following Aquilai's energy tracker. All were very serious and grim, but none had the foresight to enlist the help from the others. All they knew was that they had to be on top of this A.S.A.P.

And the lights are turned way down low . . .

Cloak noticed that the lights were off in a majority of the buildings they passed. Perhaps the people living their decided to turn in early, as the sun just set, or maybe there was a blackout. None of the quartet had bothered to question this, as they were focused on finding the source of this sinister sun-siphoning device.

Don't let it snow,
Don't let it snow,
Don't let it snow!

Cloak was reminded as the four RAFians crunched through the newly  accumulated snow upon the streets just how much he despised snow. It was not even a foreign phenomenon to him either, as the Nexus got snow for a couple of months of their year -- roughly three or four years on this Earth.

It doesn't show signs of stopping.

If anything the snow showed signs of becoming a flurry. This did not help Cloak's disposition very much, but just showcased why he vehemently detested such weather. This was getting to be too much like when the ice ifrit decided to invite himself into turning RAF and the surrounding areas into a glacier. Cloak wasn't pleased.

And we've brought no corn for popping.

Enough of the song already! Cloak scolded himself, as he refocused upon the task at hand, It's time to be serious!

"The source cannot be far now," Aquilai assured them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 22, 2016, 03:21:04 PM

i get so invested in your stories cloak i love them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2016, 08:26:23 PM

It's always good to know one's endeavors are appreciated. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Schoolhouse Rock

"It's coming from here," Aquilai said.

"Are you completely serious right now?" Saffa asked.

"Modern innovation never lies," Aquilai said, solemnly.

"Seriously?" Saffa said, skeptically. "Aquilai, it's a schoolhouse!"

"From the 1820s," Cloak said, with no idea if he was accurate. But this thing most certainly looked like a relic from a bygone age. It was fire truck red with white trim and even a bell tower. But it was a simple, single-room building.

"The scanner says it's in there," Aquilai said, politely mulish.

"Let's just go have a look around," Esty said. "School ended the other day, so we should have the place to ourselves."

"You don't honestly think they still have classes in this museum piece, do you?" Cloak asked. He'd seen what modern-day schools looked like in this area -- much like the Realm Walker schools back in the Nexus.

"Perhaps," Esty said, with a noncommittal shrug, "perhaps not."

When they approached the door, it was frozen shut. But Esty's warm corona was sufficient to cause the ice to retreat and allow entry. Cloak was no certain classes were not held here -- the door was unlocked.

It was a very ominous feeling. Cloak felt as if he was back as a cub, doing something very naughty. He would have been terrified to tell his parents -- but he was so oblivious and naive back then. He shook his head to clear it.

"What is it?" Esty noticed Cloak's shaking of his head.

"Nothing," Cloak said, repressively.

"It's on the second floor," Aquilai said.

Cloak looked up, and he found that he was unsure about this. Something told him something very bad was about to happen. But he didn't know what, and it alarmed him.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Cloak said.

"And there's the nail in the coffin," Saffa muttered, but Cloak could hear her just fine. He ignored the jibe.

Aquilai looked down as they arrived on the top floor the school house. He picked up some oddly shaped box the size and rough shape of an old-school Game Boy. It had two LED lights on it, with the right one blinking green. Aquilai looked both mollified and disconcerted by it.

"That's what's shrinking Sol?" Esty asked, skeptically.

"Uh, no," Aquilai said.

"Then what is it?" Cloak said, though he thought he knew the answer.

"It's . . . it's a dummy device designed to fool my energy tracker," Aquilai said.

"So, we've been snuckered," Cloak said, feeling some deja vu that he couldn't recall why.

"'Snuckered'?" Saffa inquired teasingly. Cloak ignored it.

"Not only that, it's a bomb," Aquilai said.

"Stupid question time," Saffa said. "When does the bomb go off?"

"About five seconds from now!!" Aquilai cried.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 23, 2016, 03:23:38 AM

pffffffff i can't help but find the bomb terribly amusing. i don't really even know why XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2016, 06:54:47 PM

Eh. *shrug* Anyway, November 18 to, say, November 21 or 23, Memoirs will be on hiatus. Reason? Pokemon Sun.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
For Whom the Bell Blows

"Oh, this is gonna blow in five seconds!!" Aquilai said, evidently trying to stave off a bubbling panic in his heart.

"Throw it beneath that bell," Cloak said.

"Wha--"

"Don't waste time!" the Realm Walker snapped angrily. "Just do it!!"

He did without any more protest. Cloak, using his mastery of his least favorite element, sent the tough hemp rope alight. Until the bell came crashing down and managed to muffle most of the explosion.

But, still, it was sufficient enough to crack the heavy metal of the bell, and blow off the front wall of the school house, which landed with an anticlimactic thud upon newly packed snow.

"Well," Aquilai said, catching his breath, "school's out."

Saffa gave him a look, "That was such a GH line."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Aquilai said, unconcernedly.

Estelore and Cloak weren't joining in the celebration. The both were looking up. According to the big business building clock, it was ten in the morning, but you'd never be able to tell. It was dark outside.

"Sol . . ."

"It's been drained so much that it appears the same size as other stars," Cloak observed grimly. "Which means it won't exert as much gravitational force, which means we probably have already lost Pluto, Neptune and Uranus. Possibly Santurn and Jupiter."

"Who would make such a machine?" Saffa asked, incredulous.

"Deluded egomaniac, nutso who wants to destroy the world, militaristic madman who wants to weaponize this and had had it turned against him," Cloak said, carelessly listing off possibilities. Then he added with a shrug of his shoulders, "Take your pick."

"None of the more devastating side effects of this has happened yet," Esty said, "we must make sure that it remains this way."

"The question remains," Aquilai said. "How? How do we do that?"

"We get lucky," Saffa suggested.

"Yeah, like that's been working for us," Cloak said, jaded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 23, 2016, 07:28:25 PM

oh man. have fun with that!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2016, 05:35:32 PM

It hasn't come out yet, Abby. It doesn't until the 18th.

Anyway, I got a new book idea.

• BOOK MXCIX (1,099): "Ghosts From Abby's Past" -- Abby gets a new archenemy in Exhile.

Getting close to Year 12. Which will be twelve years in-story. Wow. And we're just one more book idea away from reaching Year 12. Saffa'll hatta come up with three more banners. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Dumb Luck

"Not with that attitude!" Saffa exclaimed.

"Bleh," Cloak said, in response.

"Sol . . . poor Sol . . ." Esty said, mournful and almost tearfully. "He didn't deserve this. He did nothing to warrant such an attack . . ."

It was almost as if Estelore had given the sun up as a lost star. Lost due to the shortsightedness of a bumbling idiot playing as a big shot. She didn't know this for certain, but the more she thought of it the more angry she got.

She did not know who was behind this, but she didn't care. She didn't care if it was some reality-bending Celestialsapien doing this to a star, but she couldn't help but take the attack personally. Sol was a nonsentient star, but she cared about it -- or him, as she put it, despite stars having no gender (although the sentient kind can have a gender identity, apparently) -- as a kid would care for a puppy.

Her reaction was thus understandable in that regard. If someone battered a puppy that they cared about, their first reaction would be a flared temper. Estelore, despite being a powerful sentient star, had the frailties and strengths of emotion that all sentient (and nonsentient) beings possessed. She could lead impassioned speeches, but she could also let it cloud her judgement as any other being with emotions could. If she didn't control her feelings, her anger . . .

"We might as well face it," Aquilai said, mourning his tracker, which was damaged in the resulting shockwave from the explosion. "We're never going to find what's shrinking the sun."

Esty glared at him, and it was fortunate that she wasn't a basilisk. She was losing control over her anger -- and Cloak noticed. It did not make him feel any better as he saw himself in her at that moment. Himself, before his powwow sessions with Aniyu. It was not a pleasant thing to do.

He was about to ask her for a word, privately, but he was interrupted by Saffa saying, pointing to a rundown looking tower, "Oh, that part's easy. It's the Mile-High Tower!!"

Cloak looked and saw that the beam was so faintly blue anyone would have difficulty in seeing it. It was very nearly transparent. Even with his Walker eyes, he could only just discern it.

"Well," Aquilai said, "what an amazing cowinky-dink."

"Never say that again," Saffa replied.

"Why?"

"Isn't obvious?"

"Esty?" Cloak said. "A word?"

"We're wasting time," Esty snapped. She was ignoring Cloak, and he knew precisely what she was doing. She was mad, and she -- whether consciously or unconsciously -- wanted to stay mad. "Every second we spend being glib, is a second we squander before Sol is extinguished forever."

"Estelore --"

"Not now, Cloak!" she growled. "We have to get our butts in gear!"

Cloak said nothing, but frowned deeply. She was going on a dangerous path. He knew it. He was once on that path himself. He had to save her . . . from herself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 25, 2016, 01:01:22 AM

oh yeah, i know. but when it does, have fun. also i feel esty. i've done that a few times...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2016, 01:22:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Sentry

"Estelore," Cloak said. He spoke with more authority in his tone. "We need to talk. It's urgent."

"No, Cloak," Esty said, rebuffing the Realm Walker. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she felt as if sh needed anger. She did not want to let it go. She wouldn't. "This is more important!"

Meanwhile, Aquilai and Saffa had come upon a robotic sentry. It looked like a ramshackled Techadon robot. It did not look sleek and new, as some parts were clearly Terran in origin and other parts were clearly rusted over. It looked completely cobbled together haphazardly and inexpertly. It was a pitiful sentry.

"Estelore. What do you think this anger will accomplish?" Cloak demanded, firmly. He spoke clearly and authoritatively.

"You wouldn't understand," she angrily sneered.

Aquilai and Saffa were finding this sentry to be laughably easy to circumvent. Which perplexed them. Perhaps the  ease of handling it was a ploy to lower their guards? If an average human could have this simple a time deal with it . . .

"Wouldn't I?" Cloak said. He wasn't about to let the subject drop. "You're feeling unbelievable pain and apoplectic rage. How do think I felt when I discovered how little my mother cared about me? How do think I felt when I discovered how she used me? I know this rage, this Pain, Estelore."

"This is about justice," Estelore countered.

The Aquilai and Saffa easily knocked it over, and it was unable to right itself from the snow. It did not appear to have any weapons and a ridiculously simplistic A.I., if you could really call it artificial intelligence.

"I don't think so," Cloak said, continuing the conversation with Estelore as if there was no interruption. "I think it's about revenge."

"Fine, maybe it is!" she snarled. "Maybe it's what I need. Maybe it's what he deserves."

The other two were succeeding with undue proficiently in deactivating the sentry and then . . . putting it out of its Frankenstein-ized misery.

"Estelore," Cloak said, "you sound like Atrocitus."

Atrocitus was the leader of the Red Lanterns, whose rings were powered by rage and hatred. He was also a monster to human imaginations. Cloak didn't know the particulars of his backstory, but he was a bad dude.

"It's not the same!" Estelore snapped.

"Revenge and hatred is a fire that burns you from the inside out," Cloak said. "Even if you successfully reeked your revenge, what then, Estelore? You cannot ever give that life back upon any regret of your actions."

"He's evil," Estelore said, mulishly.

"I'm not denying that," Cloak said. "But how is killing him going to help anything?"

"Don't you take that high-and-mighty tone with me, Cloak," Estelore snarled. " I heard about what happened to the Siren."

Then she stormed into the building, after Saffa and Aquilai.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 25, 2016, 11:23:10 PM

ouch...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2016, 06:11:25 PM

Just wait.

I must say this book is turning out to be more character driven than I initially outlined. Not that that's a bad thing. Anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Out of Order

"Estelore, stop," Cloak said, as the quartet entered the slowly deteriorating building -- it was a structural marvel in that it hadn't collapsed yet. The remark about the Siren may have stung, but there were more important priorities to consider. "You're being irrational."

"So what?" she said.

Cloak pulled her around, and her eyes were glowing with anger. If she wasn't careful, she would break her avatar, and that would be detrimental to all life on Earth, as Esty was an average-sized yellow star, albeit one with the incredibly rare sentience. It would frighten most people to see this.

But Cloak wasn't most people. There was only one person he had ever truly feared. Estelore wasn't her. True, she might possess more brute power than he did, but even she couldn't kill him. Only another Realm Walker had the capability to do that.

"You. Aren't. Thinking. Clearly," Cloak said, instinctively baring his fangs with every word, speaking with gritted teeth.

"I don't care!"

"Well, you had better!!" Cloak said, his own anger flaring up now. He was present of mind enough to quickly quell his temper. "In your anger, you're becoming reckless. You're acting without thinking, without considering any potential backlash or ramifications to your hasty actions."

"Don't lecture me, Realm Walker!!" Estelore said. Cloak halfway expected her human visage to shatter and Estelore's true form of a huge, burning ball of sentient gas to appear before him. But it didn't. "Don't make me bring up the Siren again."

"I did what needed to be done," Cloak shot back.

"And so will I," she snapped.

"Do you feel as awkward as I do, right now?" Aquilai whispered to Saffa, watching this exchange with exasperation and concern.

"Like mommy and daddy are fighting?" Saffa replied, with acid sarcasm. "Oh, just a tad."

"No, Estelore, you won't. You will lash out in anger. You'll end up doing something that you regret down the line." Cloak said. "You are taking this far too personally to be prudent."

"Oh, yeah? What about --"

"Killing the Siren wasn't personal for me," Cloak interrupted, knowing this argument was coming, and was prepared for it. "It was just a necessity to save the lives of others."

"That's what I --"

"You and I both know that is most certainly not your intention," Cloak cut across. He wasn't about to back down. She could maim him horribly, possibly. But he had lived through worse. He had been on his deathbed a little over a year -- Dweller time -- ago. He bounced back from that. He would with whatever Estelore saw fit to do to him. "You've allowed you emotions to control your thinking, to shape your view on this subject. Your hatred is understandable, but a hindrance to you, and this mission. You are allow it to cloud your judgement -- once you take a life, you cannot ever undo it. It will still be gone."

Estelore said nothing, but walked to an abandoned elevator shaft. It was frozen over, and the doors had been pried open with a crowbar that laid forgotten upon the top of the elevator box which was between this floor and a basement.

"Estelore," Cloak said, his tone apologetic now, "I'm sorry to be proselytizing at a time like this, but I don't want you to commit an.act that you will come to regret. You stars live a long time. Even longer than my kind. I don't want you to spend the next eons mulling over a mistake."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 27, 2016, 12:56:35 AM

nah, it's a great thing, honestly. i really like this book.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 27, 2016, 02:29:56 PM

Indeed, Abby. And now is where I diverge from my outline.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
An Unexpected Reversal of Fortunes

Estelore said nothing more on the subject, even as they approached the final wall. Cloak had managed to adapt his Earthsight into Woodsight, even mouldering wood such as this. Cloak was concerned, but he clearly could not sway Estelore from what she was determined to do.

He feared for her. He feared for what the ramifications might do to her sanity. She might lose it like any supervillain origin story, or it might shatter like a fragile vase. Sure, the RAFians joke amongst each other that they are insane, but that is all said in jest. Even Seal's Sanity-Sucker was nothing more than a glorified vacuum cleaner, really.

But this was serious. Cloak had seen this before, because he had been in Estelore's position before. Allowing anger to fill you up, allowing yourself to hold onto it, never relinquishing the anger, the hatred, the pain. All it does is hurt you, and those around you.

Cloak never liked to see his friends, especially the ones he held dear, in such pain, in the pain that he had burdened himself with, pain he knew and recognized all too well. If Estelore didn't let her anger go, if she didn't allow at least some modicum of forgiveness in her heart, she will hurtle down a path she may never recover from. Cloak felt as if he couldn't allow that, but his efforts, his endeavors, have proven again and again to be fruitless and futile. Estelore amongst the first RAFians that he made friend with. If she and the others had not, Cloak might still be inclined to believe the things that he was raised to believe -- both about Dwellers, and about himself.

The plain, wooden door leading to the massive room was still quite intact, if a little on the rusty side. The door was undecorated with all the paint chipped off, like the wall surrounding it. Cloak could tell that there was a massive machine in the room and it was the only sort of furnishing, aside from a threadbare, moth-eaten couch. And he knew there was only one occupant, but he didn't need Woodsight. His feline sense of smell could detect his scent quite easily, as if he hadn't found the time to bathe in some time. His feline hearing picked a sort of scuffling movement. Those were things that he didn't bother to disguise, apparently.

They only waited a moment or two before charging into the room.

"What do you mean by it?! What do you mean about siphoning off Sol's substance and strength and --" Estelore roared immediately. But it was more subdued than Cloak was expecting. Apparently, some of Estelore's passionate anger cooled somewhat.

Cloak could see why Estelore stopped midsentence. The man before them had like zero intimidation factor. He was like Tom Hanks or whoever it was in "Castaway", only his beard was longer, dirtier, and scragglier, and the man himself was far thinner and clearly malnourished. His clothing -- clearly secondhand, as well -- just hung limply off his thin frame. He wasn't skeletally thin, but he was still too thin to be healthy. A lot of his teeth were cracked, chipped, or missing entirely. All in all, he was a pathetic-looking man whose simply appearance was sufficient to inspire pity.

He stood before the machine, whose beam was more visible from this angle. It looked.like one of those bubble guns that parents use to make bubbles for their kids. The machine was shaped like a "7" with a solid base that seemed to be on wheels of some sort. It looked almost professionally made, somehow. At the back, almost as if they were a power source, were four diamonds cut and faceted in the classical diamond shape. There was a white diamond atop, a blue diamond below the white and to the left, a yellow diamond below the white and to the right, and a pink diamond on the bottom.

"Oh, hello," the man said, speaking surprisingly genially, "I'm Jonas Barlowe. And you are clearly RAFians."

All four were taken aback by such a polite reception. Yes, even Esty.

"Estelore, Cloak, Aquilai, and Saffa, if I'm not mistaken?" he said.

This just unnerved them.

"How'd you know that?" Saffa said, suspicious.

"Hmm?" he replied, still ever so politely. "Oh, I read the reports over at Cadmus."

Then he looked like he let slip something he wasn't supposed to.

"Oops. Looks like I broke the confidentiality agreement," he said, with a shrug, "oh, well. It's not they'll come looking for me after my fall from grace, anyhow."

"You need to stop your machine," Cloak said. "Before you do irreparable harm."

"Oh?" he said, never abandoning his polite intonation. "Oh, yes. That."

The RAFians expected resistance, expected him to fly into a rage with a passionate refusal. They expected him to drop and completely abandon the veneer of politeness, or at least, respectfully deny their request.

But he didn't do any of those things.

"Oh?" he said. "Right you are, then."

He flipped.the machine into reverse and started returning the substance, strength, and energy back to the sun. The RAFians were gobsmacked. He had actually complied with absolutely no resistance!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 27, 2016, 09:56:35 PM

I'm caught up of course. This chapter was a nice change of pace. All dressed up with no where to go  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2016, 09:50:46 AM

I'm glad, Underseen.  :D

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
He's Not Really Stable, is He?

"There," he said, "it's done. No harm done, then?"

Cloak had to bite back a nasty retort in response of the sheer recklessness of this man. It could have been a lot worse. Fortunately they got here in enough time that the outer planets.of this star system didn't decide to wander off due to the reduced gravitational pull of the diminishing star beginning to ebb at its center.

"I think my point was proven, in any case," Barlowe said, as the snow melt as the sun had returned to its former glory. Barlowe clearly still thought he did something good, as if he deaged the sun a few billion years or something of that nature. His statement was betraying a sense of lunacy, albeit a subdued one.

"That aside," Aquilai said, as diplomatically as he was able, "we're gonna need you to dismantle your solar siphon, Mr. Barlowe."

"What?" Barlowe said, the veneer of politeness shaking now.

"Dismantle your solar siphon," Aquilai proceed, apparently oblivious to the change in mannerism. "And destroy the blueprints. It's much too dangerous to exist."

"That's exactly what they said . . ." he growled, before doubling over and holding his head, in a remarkably disturbing and unsettling way, even to Cloak and Estelore, whose anger evaporated.

It was then when he snapped. This is when he lost the pretense of politeness, and revealed himself to be the deranged person he was, perhaps with a touch of hebephrenia.

"No no no no no no no no no!" Barlowe said, sounding like a spoilt, petulant child than the sophisticated scientist he tried to portray himself as. "You're not the boss of me! You can't tell me what to do! It is mine! It is mine! No no no no no no no no no no!"

He looked up, looking rather demented, but rather pathetically so.

"The sun siphon is mine! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!"

"Oh, heavens!" Aquilai said. "What happened?"

"You pissed him off! That's what's happening!!" Saffa scolded.*

"What can he possibly do that's so threatening?" Estelore asked rhetorically. Her arms were folded, and her body language was condescending. Barlowe whipped behind his machine, with an utterly insane glint in his eyes, and he swiftly pivoted it as one would swivel an office chair.

He pointed it directly at Esty's heart.

"That answer your question?" Saffa asked, hands up in half-hearted, mock surrender.

---

* https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QagDAnaEkYc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 28, 2016, 11:55:09 AM

Quote from: Underseen on October 27, 2016, 09:56:35 PM

I'm caught up of course. This chapter was a nice change of pace. All dressed up with no where to go  :P

Underseen!! good to see you again!!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2016, 07:29:59 PM

This is true.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Don't Do It, Barlowe!

"Are you gonna make me dismantle it now?" he said, sounding like he had truly lost his grip on sanity. "Huh, huh?"

"He didn't lose his sanity, he shattered it," Saffa observed.

Barlowe apparently couldn't hear her over his crazy cackles and demented chortles. He didn't assume his polite demeanor any more, which lead Cloak to believe that it was nothing but a cover for the sheer madness he was submerged in.

"You're not gonna make me break my little precious," he said, thickly, "are ya?"

"And now he's Gollum," Saffa muttered, "because reasons, I guess."

"I thought that I made my point," he said, giving an insane little chortle, "I really did. But, obviously, I didn't . . ."

No one spoke. They all came to the same conclusion. It was probably best not to provoke this dangerously unbalanced man, lest he do something reckless and foolhardy. Something that they all would come to regret.

"No, I didn't, did I? Did I?" he blabbered, just barely coherent. Then his tone went from generally crazy to menacing. "Just like them. You're just like them."

"This can't be good," Cloak said. He wasn't intimidated all that much, but knew that this was a situation that called for some finesse.

"Simpleminded plebeians! The lot of them!" he raged, in a disjointed, haphazard manner. "Stupid philistines!! I had them . . . them an answer on a . . . on a silver platter. The perfect answer!! The perfect answer to the . . . to the energy crisis!! And they . . . they refused."

"I'm sorry for your suffering, Barlowe, I truly am," Cloak said, clearly and succinctly, "but this -- doing what you did to the sun -- it's not right."

He face turned hard, but his mind seemed as fractured as ever.

"That's exactly what they said," he said, in a menacing whisper. "That's exactly what you said!!"

"What?" Saffa asked.

"Great. Just great. His mind has deteriorated more," Aquilai said, providing a quick analysis of the situation. He made a quick summation. "He, or at least the shattered remains of his mind, is evidently projecting images and personalities of those who rejected his idea unto us. He believes we were the ones who turned him down."

"That would complicate things," Saffa replied.

Estelore didn't speak. She was feeling something that she hadn't felt in a long time. Fear. Fear for her own survival. She knew the sun-siphon would work on her as it worked on Sol. She knew that it could weaken her to the point of death. Which might prove to be catastrophic if her death burrowed into space-time and created a black hold or something similar. She had no intention on dying -- she never understood why Cloak always seemed so willing to do so, but she knew of his travails and assumed that that had played a part.

Barlowe looked even more like a nutcase with his swaying stance, hovering behind his machine, ready to activated it with but a button push. If he did, Estelore was doomed to a slow death -- something she had never had to consider, given the extremely long lifespan of stars. Her RAFians were as helpless as she was in this scenario, as any sudden moves might elicit an adverse response in Barlowe. They couldn't risk it.

"It is you, isn't it? The Cadmus board!!" he cried, sounding somewhat drunk with his slurring words. But still managed to growl, "Don't lie to me!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2016, 08:22:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Barlowe, Don't -- !

"You can't expect me to believe you after you four lied about everything?!" Barlowe ranted and raged. Cloak knew not of this Cadmus board, but he had a bad feeling about it. While he hoped that it was just the rantings of a deranged madman, something told him that it had a nugget of truth in it. "You're lying about needing me to dismantle my precioussss just like you lied to ruin my life!!"

"I'm sensing some major displacement issues here," Saffa commented quietly, offhand.

"But I just didn't disappear, now did I?!" Barlowe screamed, still sounding somewhat drunk, due to the slurring words. "YOU KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO ME?! You were the ones who blacklisted me from . . . from every possible job I could have!! Gave them to inferior minds with half of the . . . of the . . . of the credentials I have!"

Cloak noticed that he seemed to be getting out of breath. He never seen someone who looked so pathetic and so dangerous at the same time.

"Jonas," Saffa said, placatingly, as if she was speaking to a toddler, "we're not the people you're --"

"LIAR!!" Barlowe said, breathily. It was almost as if he was trying to scream, but couldn't muster up the energy for it. It was almost as if standing upright and even breathing was becoming a trial for him. "Don't . . . don't play games with me. It happened right . . . right here."

"His mind isn't the only thing that's deteriorating," Cloak realized.

"You're just coming to that conclusion, Cloak?" Saffa asked, genuinely surprised.

"I offered you the secret to . . . to victory over this . . . this energy crisis," he said, apparently unaware of the deterioration of both his mind and body. "And you REFUSED."

"I'm not sure whether to feel fear or pity anymore," Estelore said. "I can't even feel angry at him anymore."

"The solar-siphon would have changed EVERYTHING," he said.

"He can't even keep the name of his machine straight," Aquilai noted, sadly.

"I didn't want to . . . to drain the sun," he gasped, collapsing at the side of his beloved machine. The machine he basically sacrifice his health and well-being for in his obsessive determination. Estelore was taken aback at this pronouncement, but Cloak believed it wasn't true -- though, at this point, Barlowe might not even know the difference anymore. "But you . . . you left me no choice!"

Cloak wanted to help him, but his scope of help was very limited. Limited to the point of helplessness. It was an awful thing, to watch someone languish like this, to listen to their incoherent stories, knowing that they don't hold up to verifiable evidence.

"What type of LEADER doesn't give their people the best chance to SURVIVE?!" he raged, his voice sounding weaker and weaker with each one. "How could you value the interests of big oil and fossil fuels more than our own?!"

"Barlowe, you -- you should s-save your --" Estelore choked out.

"And look what you've done without . . . without me," he gasped. "Without my sun-sucker . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2016, 07:20:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Jonas . . .

"You've . . . you've LOST!!" Barlowe rasped, apparently losing lucidity with every statement, with every word. And yet, his hand still hovered over the button to activate the machine he built so painstakingly. "It's too . . . too late! I don't believe in you anymore!!"

"Shouldn't we, uh, do something?" Aquilai asked, unsure.

"All that . . . all that talk about how . . . how I can take control over my . . . my own identity," he breathed, clearly struggling to stay upright. "How . . . how I've been convinced to . . . to ignore my own . . . own potential?"

"Exactly what can we do for him? His mind and body are deteriorating so fast," Saffa answered, somberly. "Too fast."

"That's all it was, wasn't it?!" he breathed, angrily. "Just TALK!!"

"There is nothing we can do," Cloak said, bluntly. He was feeling all sorts of conflicting emotions. They came here expecting a megalomaniacal genius, twirling his moustache evilly as he proclaimed his desire to destroy to the earth or some other cliched villain monologue.

"You . . . you should have LISTENED to me, Cadmus," he breathed raspily, "I would have . . . have taken down this . . . this energy crisis."

They were not expecting this miserable man with delusions of grandeur, this poor wretch whose mental and physical health he so ever willingly sacrificed for the construction of a dangerous machine that could have easily been weaponized and hold planets for ransom.

"And I would . . . I would have shattered all . . . all expectations," Barlowe continued on, babbling as if the RAFians were no longer there anymore. "I would have . . . have LIBERATED EVERYONE!!"

The RAFians just watched on, as Barlowe's mental instability seemed to increase. They dare not leave, which might make him fire the beam at Estelore -- and it would do her harm, they knew that.

But then Estelore spoke, "Barlowe, this has to stop."

Apparently, Estelore said it in a way that caused Barlowe to return to some semblance of sanity, though not much.

"So what are you going to do, huh?" he said, aggressively, though they all could hear the meekness and weakness in his voice. "Kill me?"

Silence.

"Go on, then!! Just do it!!"

A brief silence met these words, only broken by Cloak.

"You have done that yourself," Cloak said, sadly.

Through the vibrations in the wooden floor, Cloak sense Jonas Barlowe's weakening heartbeat. He could sense the slowing rhythm. He knew that Barlowe was dying, as did the other three, but none had mentioned it to Barlowe himself before now. Perhaps that was cruel, perhaps it was to spare an insane man the knowledge of imminent death. It wasn't anything that Cloak was particularly fond of.

But Cloak's words seemed to pass right over Barlowe as he lapsed back into his nonsensical mutterings, the mutterings of a madman. None of the RAFians, even Esty, could even muster an iota of animosity towards the mentally shattered man. They all felt great pity towards the man. Towards the dying man.

No one should die like this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: NickDaGriff on October 29, 2016, 09:03:50 PM

Awww man...  :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 29, 2016, 09:12:08 PM

Damn . . . this book's hitting me right in the feels. Defs one of the best ones in quite a while, in my opinion

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2016, 06:30:35 AM

Just wait, there will be more books like this down the line.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Oh, No, He Didn't!!

Barlowe began to slump against his machine in awful finality. Cloak had to wonder when was the last time Barlowe ate anything, because he was sure that that was a contributing factor of his dementia and health decline. And yet, Barlowe could still reach the "on" button to his solar siphon.

He was continuing to babble, but now it was completely incoherent to anyone but himself. And it kept getting quieter and quieter, until not even Cloak could hear it. Soon, very soon, all was silent. They were in a room with a dead guy, Cloak was sure. Cloak "saw" Barlowe's heart slow, "saw" his breathing slow. Slowing to the point of motionlessness.

There was a click and Cloak found himself acting without thinking. He threw up and energy shield before Estelore -- embarrassed that he hadn't thought of that sooner. Barlowe, in his death throes, must have clicked the "on" button for the machine he sacrificed his mind, his health, and his life for.

Cloak could easily see the light blue energy beam lance from the tip of the emitter. He thought he saw it start to cause his energy shield to flake away. He decided not to call attention to it. But it did alarm him greatly, as he was unaccustomed anything being able to flake away his energy shields layer by layer. Sure, they've been broken before, but never slowly skinned away like this.

Cloak could tell that, while the machine did have some metal parts in it, a lot of it was plastic and other nonmetal substances. That didn't matter. Cloak had seen the power source. The four diamonds. Diamonds were technically Earth.

Cloak focused his mind, fired up every ounce of determination he possess, every iota of willpower. He tried to terrakinetically force the diamonds from the machine . . . why wasn't Estelore moving? She could have easily reduced the threat by doing so. He had bought her enough time. But it was just a matter of time before the beam flaked away enough layers to make a hole in the shield.

Saffa seemed to realize what Cloak was doing, and remember she had some diamond manipulation powers. Cloak supposed it was easy to forget, as she depended on her morphing ability far more frequently. Although, he wondered if she could manipulate diamonds still whilst in morph? Questions for later.

This was starting to take a toll on Cloak. He was beginning to tire, even with Saffa's assistance. He did not expect the diamonds to be this thoroughly secured in the machine. Neither did Saffa, apparently, considering the sweat on her brow. But it would have to give eventually.

And give it did. But it seemed like forever. And the pink diamond shattered as it was terrakinetically removed, although Cloak only saw the blur and yellow diamond, he knew the white diamond was around somewhere.

But this wasn't over, Cloak noted as he dropped his shield. There was still the matter of offering Barlowe a proper burial with funeral rites (the fact that he actually left something behind to bury still seemed foreign and alien to Cloak), destroy the machine once and for all, and destroy whatever blueprints remained behind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 30, 2016, 12:08:48 PM

dang... this book was really intense.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2016, 08:53:14 PM

Yep. And I think we're far enough into this book, that I can divulge this, without fear of spoilers.

This book was based, albeit loosely, on this (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ognUIDjBEW8).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 30, 2016, 10:50:15 PM

oh cool!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2016, 06:36:57 PM

Yeah, sorry about the chapter being late, I'm still working on it. I'm still wiped out from work today. I'll try to write it up and post it soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on October 31, 2016, 06:37:46 PM

you're alright Cloak! No worries ^^ don't push yourself too hard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2016, 06:42:54 PM

Quote from: theyoungphoenix on October 31, 2016, 06:37:46 PM

don't push yourself too hard.

Advice that never seems to work on me. ;)

Joking aside, new chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Finishing Up

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

"Well, it's done." Saffa said, tonelessly, "it's over. All that's left is the clean-up."

"Do you think we could send some forum house-elves down here and --"

"Aquilai!" Saffa scolded, offering the irresistible imagery of Saffa as a Hermione Granger. She wouldn't appreciate the comparison, Cloak thought, allowing himself to be amused at the idea.

"Okay, okay!" Aquilai said, quailing at Saffa's intense glare, even crouching and putting his hands up in mock defense. "Put the look away."

Cloak was looking at Barlowe's prone body. It seemed so . . . odd to him, to have tangible remains other than a cloak, which is more manageable to deal with, when it comes to last rites.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

Yes, even Realm Walkers have last rites for their fallen. Cloaked believed every sentient species does, though customs and traditions, of course, differ and vary from culture to culture, and species to species.

Cloak had to confess, though, he had no idea what the particulars of human last rites were. He just knew that they buried their dead. He had heard that they do sometimes burn them to ashes, but wasn't too aware of the veracity of that factoid. He never took the time to look into it -- but, after all why would he?

Cloak shook his head. This wasn't the time for musing about things like cultural variants in last rites or Dweller peculiarities of leaving behind bodies when their sparks of life are extinguished. They still had work ahead of them.

Plenty of work left to do, at that. They needed to find the blueprints, if they were any and he didn't just cobble this machine to gether with a machinist's skill and perfectionist zeal. Then they could destroy the machine, and then finally attend to the body.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

A sudden knot of fear clutched Cloak's stomach. It raced around him like a burning venom, elevating his alertness. Those ticking noises . . . the pinpricks of sound, like a superheated hood cooling down rapidly . . .

He did not know why it alarmed him so much. The sounds themselves were harmless. They were nothing like the sound of a ticking time bomb. No. No, this was something else entirely.

But what, Cloak could not say.

Tick-tick-tick.

It was the machine. It was where all these annoying ticking sounds were coming from. But it couldn't be that bad could it? . . . Yes, it could.

They had to get out of here. Pure and simple.

Tick-tick.

Cloak was rather rude in ensnaring the others in a golden-scarlet energy orb, without asking their permission or waiting for acquiescence. There just wasn't the time.

Tick.

The machine was beginning to be misshapen. It was going to blow. It was going to blow and take this entire tower with it. He powered the energy orb to the wall of windows, hoping to smash through before . . . before . . .

Ti-- BOOM.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2016, 11:16:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Here Comes a Thought

They had survived the explosion, naturally, but Cloak noticed that Estelore seemed to distance herself from everyone. He seemed to be the only one who took an overt notice in it, or perhaps he only recognized it because he recognized in himself a few months ago -- years, Dweller time.

"Estelore, can I have a word?"

Estelore fumbled her words --  a very un-Estelore thing to do, as she was always so eloquent with her feelings. But Cloak wouldn't take no for an answer. He could practically see her energy tied up in knots. She needed this, as he needed it. He would provide what Aniyu provided him.

"Come with me, Estelore," Cloak said. "I am going to help you."

"Do I have a choice in this?" Esty said, mulishly petulant.

"Mmmm, not really, no," Cloak said.

***

"I know this thing with Barlowe has got you twisted up inside, still," Cloak said, as they sat opposite each other in his favorite meditation spot. "I understand it must have been a frightening experience to come across a weapon that could prove so deadly when you aren't accustomed to such things."

"Estelore tried halfheartedly to argue, but eventually gave up and acknowledged what Cloak said.

"This has thrown you and you energies off-balance," Cloak said. "As an Elements Master, and an energy being myself, I understand how detrimental this could be towards you."

Estelore did not bother to argue the point.

"An imbalance such as this could cause you to lose touch with reality, in some regards," Cloak said. "See connections that don't exist, assume the worst of everything. This could eventually lead you to falling apart."

"How do you know?" Estelore said, more surly than she intended.

"You know how." Cloak said, very seriously. But did not elaborate any further. Then it clicked with Estelore.

"Oh. Your mother. Sorry," she said.

"To find balance, first must come understanding," Cloak said. "Understanding your emotions, your feelings. Recognize your psychological distortions, and not flee from them -- a problem I, myself, have had a problem about for a long time."

"Recognize psychological distortions?" Esty asked.

"Allow me to be clearer," Cloak said, "shut your eyes, and focus you mind."

She complied,. That's when the music started.

"Take a moment to think of just
Compassion, love, and trust.
Take a moment to think of just
Unity, love, and trust.
Here comes a thought
that might disarm you.
What someone did,
and how it harmed you.
Something you did
that failed to be arming.
Things that you said is
suddenly harming,
and, oh.
You're losing sight. You're losing touch.
All these things that seem to matter so much
that they confuse you.
That we might lose you.
Take a moment. Remind yourself to
take a moment and find yourself.
Take a moment to ask yourself if
this is how we fall apart.
But it isn't. But it isn't. But it isn't. But it isn't. But it isn't.
It's alright. It's alright. It's alright. It's alright. It's alright.
You've got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing to fear.
We're here. We're here. We're here."

Estelore felt her Mark flare to life. Felt the unity, the unity from which Unity Energy gains its power and strength, connecting her, not only to Cloak, but the other RAFians. She sang:

"Here comes a thought
that might disarm me.
What someone did
and how it harmed me.
Something I did
that failed to be charming.
Things that I said is
suddenly harming
and, oh.
I'm losing sight. I'm losing touch.
All these things seem to matter so much
that they confuse me."

Then they both sang:

"That I might lose me.
Take a moment. Remind yourself to
take a moment and find yourself.
Take a moment and ask yourself if
this is how we fall apart.
But it isn't. But it isn't. But it isn't. But it isn't. But it isn't.
It's alright. It's alright. It's alright. It's alright. It's alright.
You've got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing to fear.
We're here. We're here. We're here.
And it was just a thought. Just a thought. Just a thought. Just a thought. Just a thought.
It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
We can watch. We can watch. We can watch. We can watch them go by.
From here. From here. From here."

Then Esty sang, a bit brighter now, feeling better, as if a weight had been lifted:

"Take a moment to think of just
Compassion, love, and trust.
Take a moment to think of just
Unity, love, and trust."

Then the two kept meditating and Cloak managed to help Estelore untangle her knotted energies.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dHg50mdODFM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2016, 05:58:34 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Up in the Air

While Cloak and Estelore were having their little powwow, Yarin was at an air field. No, he wasn't there to drool over the aircraft -- which were nothing like his ship, and he pitied them for that fact.

He was responded to the report of an aerokinetic creature. But he didn't seem to be able to find it, and he hated wearing this ID mask, which projected the image of an everyman human. Nondescript and plain. Unnoticeable.

He was confident that his telepathy would allow him . . . suddenly, he was tumbling head over heel. It was jarring enough to dislodge the ID mask from his face. He snatched up, and put it on his belt which he wore to keep his trinkets and tools at hand at all times. Then he saw what caused the wind that sent him tumbling ever so gracefully.

The creature was humanoid, but unusual in that it had its head set into its torso, so it was basically a light orange torso with angry, angular eyes (black sclera and orange pupils). It was purple from the knees and elbows down. Its upper arms and thighs were white. It also didn't have a left hand, but it more like an air cannon. It had purple lips that concealed a mouth that a dark orange propeller-like organ. It had golden ridges framing its arms, and gold blades that were racked backward on both his lower arm and air cannon.

Yarin was starting to question if he was ready for this, or if he was the right RAFian for the job. Seriously -- air and a creature that could manipulate the element seemed more like Cloak's territory than his. But oh well. He was here now, as the creature Yarin began to think of as Blowhard fired six small tornadoes, all of which were notoriously difficult to dodge. Yarin got hit once or twice in attempting to do so.

Blowhard did this three times, and Yarin was hit each time. The Nyac was taking a beating, and the creature knew it.

Then it decided to leap over Yarin and attack him from behind, using the six-small-tornadoes-three-times strategy. Yarin, desperate and refusing to acknowledge defeat and desperation, telekinetically throwing some dried leaves (odd considering that it was May) into Blowhard's mouth.

Yarin tried again, with more dried leaves, but they were blocked with the tornados. Clearly, Yarin would have to time this better.

He followed the pattern a few more times, still taking a beating, until he saw his opening a did it again. Using leaves to clog up the propeller like organ in Blowhard's mouth. Of course, Yarin never expected this to choke the creature. He never expected this to kill the creature.

***

Demos called it an aerosapien, not to be confused with an Aerophibian. He didn't have a good reason for creating this creature, and it was very obvious that it was a combat-oriented creature. The other RAFians had decided to suspend Demos's lab privileges for an extended period of time, more than he was already suspended for.

***

"Hmmmm . . ." Malice said, sipping from her drink, " I suppose that one was all hot air."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 01, 2016, 07:47:01 PM

cloak!! you used the song!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2016, 10:43:07 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

BOOK CXXXIX:
HOUNDED
CHAPTER ONE:
Crash and Burn

Cloak had come to what he assumed was some sort of abandoned munitions factory or something. The place reeked of scents suggesting that it had been forgotten for a long time. He could tell that the building materials used were starting to rot or otherwise deteriorate away.

His Earthsight told him all he needed to know. He and the creature, one of Demos's ill-conceived experiments were here. Clearly, the experiment was bound to the ground as he was without his energy disc. It could be Earthsighted, and done so with remarkable ease.

He found it before it saw him, as his feline instincts and experience as a RAFian told him how to stalk prey with the practiced ease that he did so. He also had an unfortunate weakness for Batman-isms, so to speak.

The creature was roughly the size of a average ten-year-old boy -- meaning Cloak was significantly taller than it. It had greenish-blue boot-like feet and lower legs with purple at the knees, black thighs and abdomen, greenish-blue armored chest with a purple stripe around where its navel would have been had it had one and circular-cut ruby embedded in his chest. It had purple bands at the shoulders black upper arms, bulky greenish-blue lower arms. It had no hands though. Just spikes, which were actually drills when examined closer. Its head was human enough, but it possessed a large white spike sticking out of its forhead for discernable reason. Its human-like eyes had black sclera and blue irises.

It was strange it seemed to be complety docile and harmless one minute, before it decided that it didn't like the way a blade of grass blew in the wind, and flew into an explosive rage. It was an experiment version of GH, during one of his moods.

It fired a sticky bomb indiscriminately in front of him, and a few seconds later it blew up with considerable psi, considering the payload. Then the creature lapsed back into his apathetic mood.

Almost as if sensed Cloak, it turned around, and Cloak saw that id didn't have a pretty face, and did not care to take it in. He'd just rather defeat or slay this creature to prevent it from actually doing damage to others. But soon it was clear that diplomacy wouldn't work.

It became abundantly clear when he shot Cloak with a sticky bomb, and it nearly got caught upon Cloak's eponymous namesake. When it blew, Cloak wasn't nearby sufficiently enough to be affected adversely.

But when this creature attempted to use it on him three additonal times, Cloak simply used his Mastery over thr Air element to blow it back to the creature, who might have been able to survive one, but it couldn't survive three.

And it didn't.

***

Demos called it a kurasshusapien. Once again, he didn't give specifics, but it sas clearly built for combat, given its explosive weaponry.

***

"Well," Malice said, noncomittingly, "that most certainly crashed and burned."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2016, 11:21:53 PM

Yes, I know I did this song before, but I thought this was a good twist on it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
I'm the Good Guy

It was right after the Realm Walker Council elections (considering the sheer number of members and former members that invariably, inevitably get corrupted while in office, it was a rather more frequent thing than in human elections). Shill had won her seat, despite cheating by rigging the election in her favor.

Now, the Realm Walkers had to put up with a donkey-form Realm Walker called Shill. She was luxuriating in the glow of her victory, when she was approached by two small sheep Realm Walkers, who were her supporters and helped her get elected to the Council.

They got into a brief argument. So, one of the sheep Realm Walkers asked the new chairwoman of the Council. "So you . . . don't want to represent us?"

Shill burst out into raucous laughter, "Oh my -- that is -- you think that I -- with you? Oh, my -- that is too good! I mean it's sad for you, but . . ." she sighed heavily before continuing, ". . . Let me put this a way you morons will understand."

Sultry music started playing out of nowhere. And Shill sang -- or at least, yelled the lyrics.

"I'm not the damsel in distress.
I'm not your girlfriend or the frightened princess.
I'm not a little bird who needs your help to fly.
Nope . . . I'm the good guy.
All these former regimes that you see,
Each of them, with shaking knees, has knelt before me.
So I'm not your teammate or your partner in crime.
What am I, boys?"

The captured regimes sang in unison:

"She's the good guy."

Then Shill sang again:

"Oh, it's magic
To watch a Realm
Shrivel up and die.
Oh, it's thrillin'
To thwart a villain.
I destroy their hopes and then I watch them cry."

She laughed heartily, as they showed her opponent (who was infinitely more liked by the young Realm Walkers, a gray wolf Realm Walker) as she sang the last line, before continuing.

"'Cause I'm the good guy!"

Meanwhile, Faith was looking at the fact-checkers information, and was surprised by her discovery.

Faith said, as she was looking upon a computer screen, "Oh my First Light! She's not trying to conquer the Realms so she can rule it -- she wants to destroy it! Man, that's evil!"

Shadow, who was defending herself from several of Shill's mindless sheep, shrieked like a monkey, "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

"Oh, ain't it fantastic?
I see something, I blast it!
And let me tell you why.
I've always had a weakness
For barrenness and bleakness.
I crush all your hopes and then I watch you cry.
See, I find this corruption rather fun!
I don't want your assistance or your adulation!
I'll vaporize your existence and bid ya bye-bye!
Why? Come on, GUESS!!"

The sheep answered, "'Cause you're the good guy?"

Shill shrugged and added, before elapsing into maniacal laughter: "Or, well, girl."

And, of course, it was at this moment when Cloak awoke.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdEo_t-iVbM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 02, 2016, 04:57:55 AM

that's such a fun song to use though. you don't ever have to apologize for using it =d

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2016, 11:02:37 PM

Perhaps. ;) But it's always best to acknowledge it, lest people think you unaware of it. And speaking of songs that have been adapted before . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Demos's Puppy

Demos hadn't really thought about his experiments in a while. Why? Simple.

He got a puppy. The little guy was about three, four weeks old and quite playfully feisty.

But it wasn't just any ordinary puppy, though it looking like the mutt of a German Shepard and Doberman pinscher. It was a hellhound. Specifically, it was a Winchester breed of hellhound, affectionately called Winnies.

Demos knew only a few other breeds of hellhounds -- the Yorkshire Barguest, the German Death-Bringer, the Black Shuck, the Catalan Dip, the Riordan Leary, the Welsh Cwn Annwn, the Moddey Dhoo, the Welsh Gwyllgi, the Yeth hound, the Scandinavian Kyrkgrim, the English Gytrash, the Bouley dog, but couldn't remember the others.

But it made no difference, his puppy was a Winnie, and his name was Patches. And Demos loved him dearly, something demons usually aren't capable off. Clearly, all the work he was putting in to be better than his demonic nature was paying off. He kay even gain humanity, though he was born a demon.

Demos watched as Patches would eagerly chase after a sky blue ball and then return it to him to throw again. Patches never tired of fetch. He never tired of playing, except when he needed to eat or nap. Mostly, he was a rambunctious bundle of energy -- that only the dying or dead could see (species like demons and Realm Walkers were an exception, and Mark-Bearers).

"You and me -- together we'll be,
Forever you'll see.
We two can be good company,
You and me.
Yes, together we two.
Together, that's you,
Always with me.
We'll certainly be good company.
You and me,
Yes, together we'll be."

Demos watched as the music played in pure intrumentals, as Patches gamboled around, just playing and enjoying himself as much as he possibly could. It filled Demos with joy. Pure, simple joy.

Then he sang again:

"You and me together we'll be
Always, you'll see.
We'll certainly be good company,
You and me,
Just wait and see . . ."

And, yet, Demos felt obligated to keep Patches a secret from the others. Perhaps if he knew, or was even remotely aware of the antics and problems that were about to ensue, he might have been a tad more forthright with this development.

As it was, Demos was just happy to allow himself to revel in Patches's unbridled energy and unbroken spirit.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JPSfhQkrzEI.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 03, 2016, 12:49:41 AM

Oh my god, that chapter was just plain adorable. Reminds me of when Esplin was just a little pupper :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 03, 2016, 01:01:36 AM

that is so cute my heart melted a little bit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2016, 11:01:20 PM

Yep. Now, for a bit of a turn . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Odd Attacks

Reports were coming of various suspect animal attacks.

Newton York (49) suffered from moderate-to-severe lacerations. He described his attacker as "some monster dog". He also claimed the animal vanished in dark flames, almost like Fiendfyre, though he never used that term.

Darius Barrington (25) suffered similar lacerations as Newton did, only his attack had bleached his dark hair white -- ghostly white. His attack had scared him so thorouhly that he was in more danger of cardiac arrest than from the lacerations itself. They were unable to get a description for the animal that maimed him, as he could not speak a coherent sentence, without hysterics making it unintelligible. He . . . didn't make it through this ordeal.

Victoria "Vicky" Julian (41) was admitted to the hospital with particularly peculiar welts on her limbs as well as the cuts and lacerations known but Newton and Darius. She was cognizant enough to tell people that the animal who attacked her was a black dog with malevolent, fiery eyes the size of saucers, and that it seemed to be floating on a blanket of inexplicable mist.

Dillion P. Dexter (54) was discovered, clearly attacked by an animal, but with all the blood emptied from his body. The footprints suggested that this was an animal attack, and the attacker was a canine with a lame leg. He was, quite obviously, dead upon the arrival of any help.

Lindsey Anne Franklin (10) was discovered, like Mr. Dexter, killed by an animal, which the evidence suggested to be canine in origin. Beyond that, they hadn't any other answers to how and why. She was barely recognizable.

Gavin Peel (35) was discovered to be quite frightened by something, after his screams were heard from a castle on the Isle of Man. He only described it as a dog, and died of cardiac failure three days later. He wouldn't divulge any more details other than.it was a dog.

Ryan Woodward (28) had just escaped an attack by a creature he described as a mastiff with balefule breath and fiery red eyes. He was walking home after pulling a graveyard shift, and he was going down an eerily deserted road. This dog had scared him, caused him to fear for his life.

Jeremy Hendrickson (49) had the scare of his life when he claimed (swearing ip and down) that he saw a headless dog wailing like a petulant, bratty child. He swore that it came right up to him before he panicked and fled the other direction, as fast as he could.

Michael Kirk (36) was ringing a bell, which sounded remarkably like a church bell, and was scared when he saw a huge dog, as he described it, with red eyes sauntering towards him, in a most belligerent manner. Michael happened to be cynophobic, so he fled the dog.

Raymond Traveler (58) was lost in the woods when he came upon an ntimidating black dog that terrified him. He had never liked dogs to begin with. The closer the canine approached, the faster Raymond ran, until he accidentally came to a road, where he could not see the dog at all. Then he realized that this was the proper road he needed to reach his desired destination, and he continued to walk, but still looking over his shoulder for that dog. . . .

Geoffrey "Geoff" Manley (89) was walking at twilight, when he heard the sound like a chain being dragged upon the ground. When he saw the dog, he was frightened. He was terrofied as the beast circled him with surprising swiftness. He did not know what else the beast did, as this was sufficient enough strain to cause him to experience a fatal heart attack.

More reports like these seemed to have that same commonality. A dog with red eyes was believed to be the perpetrator.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 03, 2016, 11:27:43 PM

oh noo...

also happy birthday Cloaky!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 04, 2016, 09:58:40 AM

Thanks, Abby.

Just gonna be online long enough right now to add a new book idea, the last of Year 12. God, I don't know what I'd do if I came to Year 25 or something.

• Book MC (1,100): "Valley of Echoes" -- A few RAFians are tricked into the Valley of Echoes, where they must confront echoes of their pasts. . . .

Title is subject to change. Let me know what you think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 04, 2016, 11:53:50 AM

ooooh. i'm excited for that one. it sounds like it would be a heckofa good book

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2016, 05:52:24 AM

I hope so, Abby. I never know, not really, until I write it. And get reactions.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Demos's Thoughts

Demos was oblivious to all these reports. He would probably just have assumed that they were nothing more than isolated incidents, despite evidence that it could have been perpetrated by the same animal. He would have such a conclusion was ludicrous.

"Want your ball? Want your ball?" Demos said, as any affectionate dog owner would when asking such a question. Patches lowered his front body while raising his lower body, with his tail wagging furious joy. It was the characteristic canine invitation to play. "You do, don't ya, Patches?"

Patches gave a playful bark, which actually worried Demos. He didn't want to be found out. While it wasn't against the forum rules to have a pet -- Gaz had Laserbeak and GH had Leatherhead before he mutated, after all. Demos really had no real reason to hide Patches -- especially when a majority of RAFians probably couldn't even hear or see him.

Yet Cloak could, more than likely. Realm Walkers have a nasty habit being able to see everything -- no illusion, no hologram would be able to sufficient disguise Patches, and Demos was afraid being discovered, especially after his creations were being found one by one and destroyed by the other RAFians. It may not have seemed like it, but his intentions were not anything malevolent, not really. He knew he got carried away, but he took time enough to give them all names. Grant they were more like species names, but still.

"Go get it, Patches!" Demos said, throwing the sky blue ball across his thread, and Patches made a mad dash for it., tearing across the room. He seized the ball in his jaws and gave it a hearty squeak before returning, tail thrashing from side to side, barely able to contain his happiness.

Demos found himself reminiscing how he got Patches in the first place. While Cloak, Saffa, Aquilai, and Estelore were on that sun siphon mission, he had been taking a stroll. Everything looked so dark and bleak, as things often do, he found, when there's snow upon the ground.

He heard a sad bark, and he went to investigate. He saw Patches looking rather beat up. He was evidently the runt of the litter, and Demos had heard that runts aren't taken too kindly by their siblings or even their mother. Demos's heart went out to the little guy, who looked so lost and forlorn.

The more Demos looked at the pitiful creature's red eyes, the more that he saw himself in him. He was feeling the precise way before coming to RAF. He had always battled his demonic side, though it allowed him abilities like possession (which was always useful for infiltration or just plain fun) and pyrokinesis (which he firmly eschewed the use of Fiendfyre and infernokinesis, or the generation and manipulation of hellfire).

Anyway, Demos looked at such a pathetic creature, who flinched with fear of more physical punishment as the demon approached. This rent Demos's heart, because he saw himself after meeting just one of his myriad of half-brothers. Demos treated the hellhound with kindness and took him back his thread and gave him a hearty meal and a warm, safe spot to sleep.

It took a few days for Patches to get out of his shell, and for Demos to give him the proper name of Patches. But ever since then, it was obvious that their was a bond between the two, and both loved each other entirely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2016, 07:31:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Investigation

"Hmmm . . ." Cloak said.

He, GH, Abby, Saffa, Underseen, and Parker had gone to investigate a new report of an unusual animal attack. Hilda McCory, 58. She did not survive the encounter, though evidence pointed to a canine attack.

"What is it, Cloak?" Underseen inquired.

"According to our information, this attack happened a scant hour or two ago, right?" Cloak replied with a question of his own.

"Right " GH said.

"Then that's odd," Cloak said.

"What is?" Abby pressed.

"It couldn't have gotten so stale so soon," Cloak replied, more to himself than to her.

"Cloak, stop it with the 'I'm-so-damn-mysterious' schtick," Saffa said, annoyed. "Out with it."

"Unless whatever attacked that woman had an inodorosity ability," Cloak said, "where they would have no discernible scent of their own -- like Rocky, for instance -- there would be a scent here of some kind. I got nothing. Not even a stale scent. Just the scent of spilt blood and ordinary smells of suburbia."

"Perhaps your sense of smell isn't acute enough to find it?" GH said, pragmatically.

"It's not impossible," Cloak concurred. "I do have my limitations."

"If it doesn't have any scent, though," Saffa said, picking up on something, "how will we ever find what it is."

"Especially since I've thrown every scan at it that Tyr and I could think of," Parker added, "full spectrum scans, thermal scans, infrared, ultraviolet. The spectral scan hasn't completed yet, but I have no reason to . . . oh, hello."

"Found something?" Underseen asked.

"It's not much," Parker confessed, "but it's something."

"Ugh! What is it with you and Cloak today?" Saffa said, annoyed and frustrated. "Details, Parker, details!"

"The scans only showed a blip," Parker said, "and Tyr said something about a deteriorating spectral trail to follow."

"Spectral trail?"Abby said. "Then this clearly isn't any ordinary dog."

"Might be one of those hellhound thingies," GH said, with a shrug.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 05, 2016, 05:45:33 PM

oh noo. i think i see where this is going, and if i'm right, Demos is going to be pretty upset at us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2016, 07:09:28 AM

Oh, just wait.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Perpetrator

"Still," Cloak remarked, thoughtfully, "there is a possibility that it is still around."

"That's still a little farfetched, though," Saffa said, pragmatically. "We still don't know what did the attack other than it was a canine of some sort. That doesn't necessarily mean that was a dog or a hellhound or anything."

"Pessimist," GH said, with an impish grin. Then he realized that that might be inappropriate, and he swiftly replaced it with a solemn look.

"We wouldn't even know where to start," Saffa pointed out. "Cloak cannot trail it by scent, and the bloody pawprints stop a few feet from here. We need to face facts and accept that the beast escaped."

"I don't like it," Parker and Cloak said at the same time.

"Neither do I," Saffa said, "but that doesn't change facts."

"But this beast is still on the loose." Abby pointed out. "At any point now, there could be another attack. One that we may be able to prevent."

"We haven't the information to proceed, though," Underseen said. "Saffa's right."

"What's our next move?" GH asked. It was a serious question, all levity having left him, when he considered the implications. "If we don't make it a wise one, someone else could die."

"And I've seen enough death lately," Saffa replied so quietly only Cloak could hear her. He knew immediately to what she was referring. The way Badlowe died was horrible. They never recovered the body after the explosion -- because it was obliterated in said explosion.

"Let's go and regroup at the forum." Parker said, resignment in his voice.

They moved out, but suddenly Cloak lagged behind standing stock still. He was listening intently. He had thought he sensed something. Something evil. He gazed over his shoulder for what felt to be a long time. Then he decided he must have imagined it, and proceeded to leave with the others.

It turns out that the evil presence Cloak felt was Shenecron. He wasn't possessing anyone, just out in his humanoid draconic demon form, watching the RAFians walk away. He wore a look the purest contempt as he did so. He had come to extend his animosity for his half-brother, Demos, to all of them.

At his side was a hellhound, a Winnie like Patches, only fully-grown and barrel-chested. Unlike Patches, however, this unnamed hellhound wasn't a runt but the pick of its litter. Shenecron didn't think to give him a name, suitable or not -- the hellhound was just a tool to him, and he was not at all affectionate towards it. Even to the point of not feeding him as it would "dull it's hunting instinct". He was also not above beating it harshly if it didn't live up to Shenecron's lofty standards.

"You left pawprints," Shenecron said, coldly and sourly.

The hellhound looked down with slumped shoulders, bracing for the impact of the beating. But it never came.

"You're just fortunate," Shenecron said, "that the dolts that my dweeby half-brother pal around with might blame his little runt instead of you."

Shenecron seriously believed that the RAFians would really be that stupid.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2016, 07:57:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Reasons!

Now having a hellhound wasn't Shenecron's particular style, but he realized very soon how useful having one would be. He was still all about the contracts, and he took a certain pride in wording each an every one in such a way to rig the agreement in his favor without the other party being any the wiser.

But, though he was loathe to admit.or acknowledge it, there were those that managed to escape the terms of his contract, or void them completely, like that Knight. To Shenecron, this was completely unacceptable. The way he saw it, their souls were his no matter what happened. The minute they signed the contracts, their souls already belonged to him -- the completion of the contract was just a formality.

So, that's why he got his hellhound, which he didn't even use gender identifiers on him. He just called him "it". Shenecron was incapable of love and affection, his heart -- if he, indeed, even had one -- was pure stone and as black as night.

Newton York had made a deal with him for him to make a bundle off Wallstreet and the like, whilst Shenecron was disguised as a Wallstreet insider. When he didn't in the time frame he requested, it voided the contract and Shenecron couldn't have that. He sent the hellhound after York and illegally claimed his soul anyway -- or he would have had he not survived.

Darius Barrington had made a deal with Shenecron (disguised as love guru) to attract the attention of a girl that he was infatuated with. But the contract voided when he fell out of love with the girl when he discovered how truly grating and controlling she was. Shenecron would not be denied. He sent the hellhound after him and fraudulently claimed his soul anyway.

Vicky Julien thought she'd be clever, and made a deal with Shenecron (disguised as a priest) so than she would never be seen by evil people. A broad request, actually, but it would have prevented Shenecron from collecting her soul when she died a natural death. So he made sure that it wasn't natural, and collected her soul.

Dillion Dexter thought he'd be real smart, and made a deal to live forever with Shenecron, while the demon was possessing a doctor. Had Shenecron not sneakily inserted a clause that would enable him some wiggle room, it would have been impossible for Shenecron to claim his soul, as was what Dexter precisely wanted. But in his own use of his hellhound, Shenecron himself voided the contract. He didn't care as he collected his soul just the same.

Aloysius Franklin, father of Lindsey, had the audacity to refuse a deal with Shenecron, who was possessing Lindsey's eleven-year-old friend Donnie Marko. Shenecron immediately ditched Marko's body and sent the hellhound after, not Aloysius, but his daughter. Aloysius was institutionalized afterward, and given all the blame, despite it being an obvious animal attack.

Gavin Peel, Ryan Woodward, Jeremy Hendrickson, Michael Kirk, Raymond Traveler,  and Geoff Manley were mainly just the result of laziness on Shenecron's part of keeping his hellhound in check, as he didn't have contracts with those people, but was more than happy to collect their souls, which was not really legal.

He didn't care about the lives he tore asunder (rather like an establishment politician), but cared only when he could profit from it. He did care if even his hellhound was miserable in his odious presence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 06, 2016, 12:22:30 PM

oooohhh. everything is starting to fall into place. i see it now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2016, 06:05:46 AM

Do ya now? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Fraught and Caught

"Shhhh, Patches, dearest," Demos said, surprisingly gentle for a demon. "Quiet down, now. I don't want anyone to find out that I have a pet."

Patches, naturally, didn't understand a word of this.

"I do hope you understand, dearest," Demos said.

In response, Patches lowered himself down and raised his rear end high, wagging his tail frantically in an invitation to play, like all canines do. It was all puppies cared about, honestly. Hellhound puppies were no different.

"No, my darling puppy," Demos said, "I'm sincerely sorry, Patches, but I have several responsibilities to attend to, at the moment."

Patches didn't understand, and was still inviting Demos to play some more. He was blissfully unaware of more complex matters

"I'm sorry, my lovely, but I can't right now," Demos said, as Patches plopped down his backside upon Demos's bed on which he laid. Demos had laid down puppy sheets upon the floor for Patches to do his business while he was gone. The hellhound puppy wasn't house trained yet. "We'll play when I get back from my routine duties."

Demos opened his thread's door, and Patches leaped of the bed, faster than Demos could react and was outside his thread in a matter of moments, acting like this was just a mischievous little game they were playing.

"Damn!" Demos said.

Demos raced to catch up with Patches, who still had the indecency to be wagging his tail like a blender and barking rather loudly. This was just a new game to him, a new playtime.

"Patches!" Demos exclaimed, voice straining to be quiet and yet heard by the hellhound. Demos was also quite frustrated. He still didn't want to be discovered harboring a hellhound, though prospects of that still happening were shattered now, and futile to persist. "Patches, come here!"

Patches didn't obey. This was a new game! Getting Demos to chase all over creation. It would be good fun. He didn't understand why his new pappy was so unhappy, this was fun!

"Patches!" Demos proclaimed, only allowing his voice to increase volume by very little. "Patches, where are you? This is no time for hide-and-seek!!"

Patches, however, apparently disagreed, and thought this was the perfect time for hide-and-seek.

"Patches!" Demos said, bit more frantically now. "Patches, where are you?!"

Then Demos heard something that filled him full of dread.

"Um, Demos?" a voice said. "I think you got a little explaining to do."

Cloak had caught Patches, unhurt but mollified, inside a golden-scarlet orb.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 07, 2016, 12:25:46 PM

Dude, this was a perfect blend of cute and intense. I love it :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 07, 2016, 07:03:10 PM

this is freaking adorable.
careful Cloaky, I might melt from the cuteness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2016, 07:47:59 AM

I don't think that's gonna be a problem, Abby.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Warning

"This obviously a hellhound puppy, Demos," Cloak said, breaking into Demos's stammering response. "You do realize the implications of this, right?"

"Implications?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Demos," Cloak said, his voice more firm, more stern. More authoritative. "There were numerous reports of animal attacks, very likely canine in origin."

"Patches didn't do them!" Demos protested hotly, singing the concrete at his feet. "He -- he couldn't have!"

"I know that!" Cloak snapped, returning his anger. It was interesting to note that he didn't lose control of the elements, of his powers, like he would have a Dweller year ago. "This hellhound -- and 'Patches', really?"

"What's wrong with 'Patches'?"

"Never mind," Cloak said, quickly, hoping to get back to his original thought. "The point is that not all the other RAFians will be rational about this, especially after we get attacked by your creations -- Maul's brethren, I assume -- so frequently, coupled with the fact that you never tell us about them until after they attack."

"I can't remember them all offhand, Cloak." Demos said, indignant.

"Not the point," the Realm Walker countered swiftly. "The point is that you have all that against you. So much so that some RAFians might overlook the plain evidence that contradicts their assumptions in their rush to judgement. The attacks were clearly from a full-grown animal, not a puppy. The creature, if the lacerations and cuts are to be believed, would be a lot larger than Patches, and his claws don't look all that powerful yet."

"But he didn't do it," Demos said.

"That won't matter," Cloak said, "people -- Realm Walkers included -- tend to be convinced whatever they believe to be true is inherently and irrefutably true, despite whatever evidence they are presented that contradicts it. I'm not saying that that their won't be others that are swayed to the truth, but I've noticed a lot of the time, people usually just double-down on their false belief, and absolutely will not be swayed by anything."

Cloak lowered the energy bubble to Demos, and popped it. Patches gave a frightened yelp as he fell the six inches into Demos's awaiting arms. Demos smiled as Patches licked his nose oblivious the weightsome importance of the situation, while Cloak still wore a look of solemn seriousness.

"I do hope the other RAFians are enlightened to a level beyond that of the fear-mongering that runs rampant from brainless hacks like Bern Bridges and Fox News," Cloak added, "but there is at least one of those kinds of people in every --"

Then they heard a voice. The last person that Cloak wanted to have run into them.

"What is that that Demos is holding?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2016, 06:30:31 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Discovered

It was that obnoxious RAFian.

The one that Cloak didn't even attempt to learn his name until recently. The Realm Walker found him far worse than Rotiart ever was, and twice as unbearable. No in the forum really liked him, and, with Rotiart gone, he filled his niche. Filled it too well.

At least Rotiart tried to better himself, in the end.

"That's a hellhound, isn't it?" he demanded. "It is, isn't it?"

Cloak thought he saw where this was headed.

"Don't even go there, Odie," Cloak said.

"My name is John," he growled.

They were both right actually. His full name was Odium (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/odium) John Michaels. Much like the Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination, before he was redeemed, no one called him that. When he was being an unbearable little prick, everyone called him "Odie", a named he hated as it was what his overbearingly doting mother called him. And he would only allow her, no one else.

"Whatever you say, Odie," Cloak said. He was so not in the mood for this guy right now. "Toddle off, we have actually important matters to deal with."

"Like harboring the hellhound responsible for all those attacks, hmmm?!" Odie said, in that irritating way that said that he knew knew all and everyone who disagreed with him were, by definition, idiots. Even when his beliefs, his "facts" were patently and blatantly wrong, everyone else was wrong and an idiot by definition to Odie. "Don't think that I don't know what's going on here."

"I don't think that," Cloak said, coldly, "I know that you don't know what's going on here."

"Oh, really?" Odie said, sounding like a petulant, snot-nosed, know-it-all brat. "I suppose the mods would be interested to know that the demon is harboring a dangerous beast, and the great Cloak is abetting him as his willing accomplice."

A bit of a life lesson -- never threaten a Realm Walker. It never turns out well for you. But Odie was enough of an arrogant dunderhead to keep pushing. And Cloak's patience was about to run out.

"Look, you spineless little twit," Cloak said, holding back his anger. He was managing fine until the threat. If he lost control, his powers would be unleashed unchecked, like when Malice captured all the RAFians some time ago, last Dweller year ago. "You didn't bother to see any of the evidence. You were too scared to go -- to go on any mission, really -- and you stand there, thinking that you know all, that you see all like you're some sort of primitive, omniscient god?"

Odie flinched at Cloak's burst of temper, but he tried to pass it off as a shiver. It wasn't cold out. He stared at Cloak with a mulish expression, clearly disregarding everything Cloak said, so that he could still be in the right.

"Patches didn't do anything wrong!" Demos protested. His patience was waning as well.

Odie snorted at Patches' name, and said, "Oh, how schweet. You gave it a name. That sucks. And, like hell it didn't do anything. You know what happened to those people in those reports."

"I do," Cloak said, "You don't."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2016, 10:15:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Heartbroken

"We'll see about that, dope," Odie said, snottily. "Aiding and abetting the creature who did all those attacks. You both will be Banned for this, I guarantee."

Then he wandered off, as if on a mission. Because, simply put, he clearly was.

"Patches didn't do anything wrong," Demos whimpered. "He never left my thread since I got him Tuesday."

"That was five days ago." Cloak noted. "The first attack couldn't have been more than four, at most."

"It still won't be enough, will it?" Demos said, sadly, as he looked down at Patches, who had his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted happily. He was painfully obvious to everything. "It won't be enough evidence. Patches . . . Patches will be taken from me, won't he?"

Cloak didn't say anything, which said a lot. Cloak couldn't give him an answer that he didn't know to be true. Sure, he could have assuaged Demos's worries with little white lies, but Cloak didn't see the point. He didn't see any good coming of it.

Demo took this hard, and held Patches tightly. So tightly that, while he didn't harm the hellhound, it alarmed Patches. Patches didn't understand why Demos was so distraught, but found that he didn't like it much when he was like this. He preferred Demos to be cheerful.

"He . . . he didn't . . . he didn't . . ."

Cloak placed a hand on his shoulder, and said, "I know. I saw the evidence myself. There are several inconsistencies and peculiarities that Odie didn't bother to consider before making his snap judgement."

"Yeah, right," Demos said, disbelievingly.

"Don't give into despair, Demos," Cloak said, knowingly. "Once you do, it is very hard to get out again."

Demos didn't answer, but looked like he wanted to cry. It was very offputting to see Demos this vulnerable, when he usually recovered very quickly -- sometimes literally -- from things. Cloak could see the pain etched upon his face -- it didn't take a genius to figure out that he was being sincere.

But Odie, in his zeal, never noticed. He never notices such things.

"If anything," Cloak said, speaking as gently as he could, "there will be a hearing. It'll be fair -- Odie won't be on it."

"What if it doesn't go well?"

Cloak paused and hesitated before speaking again, sidestepping the question, "Don't focus on the negativity. Don't dwell on 'what-ifs'. You have evidence on your side -- let's get Kelly, you have a good case. Odie's claim is baseless."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 10, 2016, 06:07:00 AM

hmmm... Odie is...interesting...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2016, 06:19:38 PM

The start of a new gimmick, he is, Abby. ;) Besides, we all know a person like Odie, I think.

New book ideas.

• Book MCI (1,101): "The Thanatophobe" -- The RAFians must stop a man who can transfer death from himself to others.
• Book MCII (1,102): "Everyman" -- An old annoyance of the RAFians resurfaces, with a very new power set.
• Book MCIII (1,103): "Addictions" -- The RAFians must fight Addiction.
• Book MCIV (1,104): "A Backstory Rewrite" -- The government enacts the Incrimination Rewrite Act, or I.R.A.
• Book MCV (1,105): "True Witness Protection" -- The government enacts the Witness Holding and Identification Neutralization Edict, or W.H.I.N.E.
• Book MCVI (1,106): "An Abusive Armadillo" -- GH leaves something (or someone) behind after a battle with Shatter.
• Book MCVII (1,107): "Shut Down" -- A man uses his neurocognitive deficit power to help his ally, with unforeseen complications.

Titles are subject to change at any time. Tell me what you think.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Interview With a Demon

"Demos?" Phoenix said, coming forward. Demos flinched, and fought an instinct to hug Patches even further -- it might hurt him if he did. Patches was utterly perplexed by this behavior. He knew something was going on now, but was not smart enough or self-aware enough to know what. "Is that the hellhound?"

"Please don't take him away from me, Phoenix," Demos said. He was actually tearing up. Demos never cries. "He didn't do it. He was with me the whole time. He was with me for days."

"Why did you hide him, then?" Phoenix said, fairly and gently. "I cannot deny that implies deception, Demos."

"Patches was hurt," Demos said. It was perfectly true. "He was abandoned -- he's . . . he's the runt of his litter. He's smaller than hellhounds are supposed to be at this age. I . . . I couldn't leave him to die out there."

Cloak detected that Demos saw some of himself in the hellhound on that night from the way he spoke, as if he knew the pain of being left behind, of being a runt of a litter. It was then that Cloak realized that he didn't know much of Demos's history. In fact -- he knew nothing about it. Nothing at all.

He knew Demos for a long time, since his fledgling years (Dweller time, of course) at the forum. He considered the recovering demon a friend, in addition to being a fellow RAFian, and, yet, he really didn't know anything about him, about his pre-RAF days. He knew more about GH's pre-forum days, as well as his own.

"I brought him back to my thread," Demos said, and Cloak noticed that his voice sounded somewhat thicker. Obviously from emotion. "It wasn't easy, but I nursed him back to health. He has prove himself to be a mischievous little rapscallion, but I . . . I love him all the same."

Phoenix said nothing, but looked at Demos as if scrutinizing him for deception. When he couldn't find anything wrong with the story, Phoenix looked at Cloak, asking silently for verification of Demos's story. Phoenix knew that Cloak's Earthsight afforded him a limited lie detection sense, like a terrakinetic polygraph.

"Demos is being honest, Phoenix," Cloak said. Truth was that Cloak had been scrutinizing Demos himself with the sense, and demons have a physical reaction, however minute, similar to that of humans -- but it is far more difficult to detect.

"Seriously?" scoffed an irritating voice. "You're seriously going to believe this schlock, Phoenix?"

"Over your rushes to judgement, Odie?" Cloak said, acidly. "I surmise yes."

"My name is --"

"No one cares, Odie," GH said, coming into earshot with Yarin. GH was hoping Yarin could make a cheap, effective, and dangerously experimental guitar amp. GH had managed to get the Nyac intrigued about, when they heard the commotion.

"I care!"

"I don't see how that invalidates my statement," GH said. He, like Cloak, was not a fan of Odie. "What's going on here?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 10, 2016, 11:27:48 PM

the new books sound interesting!!

also i feel like very few people actually like Odie, tbh

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2016, 08:19:18 AM

Indeed, Abby. But we all know at least one of those people with those irritatingly overbearing personalities who have superiority complexes, right?

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Yarin's Idea

"Demos is harboring the beast that slaughtered, or nearly so, all those people! And, instead of doing something about it, they're standing here, wasting time with pointless chatter!" Odie proclaimed hostilely, angry that no one would see what was so obvious to him.

The fact was that he felt that he didn't need any evidence and everyone should believe his word, regardless of petty little things like facts and proof. He felt that he should be believed and taken seriously, despite this not being the first time he lodged a false accusation and had been proven humiliatingly wrong.

How was he supposed to know that those house-elves didn't poison those malasadas? Every logical conclusion one could draw was the purple stuff inside it was just purple filling and not toxic sludge! Yet he was the only one to see this when it was so obvious. Everyone else was the idiots, not him. In his mind, he was never wrong, and everyone else was just intellectually inferior.

"Or," he said, glaring at Cloak. He felt nothing but contempt for the Realm Walker, as he felt that he was a holier-than-thou know-it-all and showoff, "in the case of this cloaked nitwit, covering for him!"

"Watch your tongue, human," Cloak growled quietly, his eyes flashing briefly from his energy. Cloak had gotten much better with managing his emotions, but could lose control of himself when really riled.

"Grow a brain first, dingaling," Odie fired back. "This fact of the matter is that that beast killed those people. They deserve closure."

"Uh huh," GH said, rolling his eyes. He didn't believe Odie's version of events one bit, especially since that time that he demanded all the house-elves be executed for serving "tainted" malasadas. He just jumped to a conclusion and doubled-down on it. There was no reason to believe he wouldn't do it for a tenth time. "Right. So. what really happened?"

"I just told you!" Odie complained.

Cloak couldn't help but wonder if all adolescent humans were this way, despite knowing the truth.

"Yeah, but I want the real truth," GH said, coldly.

"I gave you --" seventeen-year-old protested, almost childishly.

"Oh, be silent!" Cloak snapped. "You haven't given anyone any truth! You just gave your misinterpreted version of events, based on no concrete evidence, and yet you have the ridiculous notion that everyone is obligated to share your ridiculous viewpoint, Odie. So, would kindly BACK OFF and let the grownups handle this?!"

"Just because you're too blinded by affection and affiliation to --"

"Don't make me come over there," Cloak growled.

"Was that a threat?"

"Brilliant deduction," Cloak said, then uttering a Realm Walker insult that he knew full well wouldn't translate, so came off as a low growl.

"John," Phoenix said, diplomatically. The mods only called him that when they were attempting to be civil. It was a lot harder than it sounded. "Let Demos have his side."

Odie reluctantly, and angrily, subsided to the background. He thought them all blinded by forum loyalty to see the truth. He believed them all to be acting foolishly. He didn't hesitate to make disbelieving and impatient sounds during Demos's story, as if he hadn't already made his displeasure crystal clear.

"Why not just ask Patches himself if he's guilty?" Yarin asked, as Odie threw him a look that clearly said, "Are you seriously that stupid?"

"Patches can't talk," Demos said. "No hellhound can."

"And can't be telepathically probed to a satisfactory degree," the Nyac observed, rather placidly. "But this gives me an idea."

"For another microwave?" Odie sneered.

Yarin handled this with surprising dignity and acclaim, and just said, "No, Odie."

"My name is --"

"Odie-kins," Yarin said, dryly, before addressing the others, "give me a couple of hours. I think I know a way to settle this."

And off he went.

"Great. The all-knowing Nyac is just going to prove to you that I'm right," Odie said, jaded and petulant.

"Dude. Seriously," GH said. He had just about enough of Odie right now. "Shut up."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 11, 2016, 01:57:16 PM

Quote

The fact was that he felt that he didn't need any evidence and everyone should believe his word, regardless of petty little things like facts and proof. He felt that he should be believed and taken seriously, despite this not being the first time he lodged a false accusation and had been proven humiliatingly wrong.

I've met many people like this, unfortunately.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2016, 06:12:13 PM

Quote from: theyoungphoenix on November 11, 2016, 01:57:16 PM

Quote

The fact was that he felt that he didn't need any evidence and everyone should believe his word, regardless of petty little things like facts and proof. He felt that he should be believed and taken seriously, despite this not being the first time he lodged a false accusation and had been proven humiliatingly wrong.

I've met many people like this, unfortunately.

They do infest a lot of places, sad to say.

New book ideas:

• Book MCVIII (1,108): "Diluted" -- A girl is manipulated into diluting the powers of the RAFians.
• Book MCIX (1,109): "GH's Test" -- GH must undergo a series of trials to see if he can earn the rank of "Musician Supreme".

All titles are subject to change. Don't think I rehashed anything. Let me know what you think.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 11, 2016, 06:19:47 PM

oh maaan. "Diluted" sounds like it's gonna be way cool

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2016, 06:33:25 AM

We shall see.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Meanwhile . . .

"I think its time to collect on a deal that went south," Shenecron said, apparently obvious that such an action would clear Patches's name -- although Odie would persist in his witch hunt and his persecution of hellhound regardless. In many ways, Shenecron and Odie had a lot in common. "I always get what I want. Always."

The hellhound sat at his foot, looking thoroughly miserable, as if he would welcome death with rapturous applause. He found himself wishing for that happy release from this torturous imprisonment, from this awful enslavement. And, upon closer inspection, one could make out the welts of abuse this nameless hellhound had to suffer.

The hellhound only commited those acts because, not only his training and instinct, but because he was starving. Shenecron never fed him. He had to find and forage for sustenance himself. Hunger was always present, like an unwanted, unwelcome, obnoxious moocher who refuses to leave. Some part of its primitive, primal mind was always focused on that -- on feeding.

"And this time," Shenecron snarled cruelly, "you shan't leave any evidence! Not if you know what's good for you, you stupid mongrel."

Shenecron held no love for the beast. Shenecron had never experienced the emotion, and derided it as weakness. An exploitable vulnerability to be used to manipulate people, a tool to get what he wants.

In fact, it was a rather rare event when a demon could feel love and compassion. This is what made Demos unique amongst his brethren, though other demons, like Shenecron, just considered him a stupid, weak, little runt. They found the fact that Demos could feel those emotions -- compassion, love, and the like -- revolting and shameful.

"It is time," Shenecron said, seeing a blonde woman with noticeable wrinkles in an excessively-expensive lavender jacket. She had made a deal with Shenecron to steal an election, but she had only only won the preliminaries, but lost to a brutish buffoon where it counted. This technically voided their contract -- but Shenecron didn't care. He would have her soul, with a contract or without. "It is time to claim what is rightfully mine."

Shenecron waited only a moment longer until the the shill was in place, the perfect place.

"There," Shenecron breathed. "Now, go!"

But the big, brutish beast did not move. He would not.

"I said go!!" Shenecron demanded, as he whipped the hellhound on the snout with a belt-like leash. Why Shenecron even had a leash was puzzling, as the hellhound didn't even have a collar.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 12, 2016, 02:16:17 PM

Quote

She had made a deal with Shenecron to steal an election, but she had only only won the preliminaries, but lost to a brutish buffoon where it counted.

hmm... sounds familiar...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2016, 06:40:59 PM

Shhhhhhhhh. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 12, 2016, 06:43:49 PM

pff!! i think that's hilarious, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2016, 06:50:25 AM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Dammit!

Still the hellhound refused to comply.

"You miserable piece of -- no one disobeys me!" Shenecron cried, outraged. Of course, it wasn't true in the least. "No one!!"

She whipped the hellhound around the snout again, and he gave a warning growl. Something he didn't really have to do.

"Don't you sass me!!" Shenecron snarled in response.

WHAP!!

Before the sting had even worn off, the hellhound had leaped for Shenecron. Mouth ajar, hackles raised, teeth glimmering and glistening sinisterly. Eager to make contact with flesh. Any flesh. Demon would do, although he found demon flesh usually too gamey to be enjoyable.

Shenecron managed to to duck out of the way of this lunging pounce. The demon was livid at this act of utter defiance and disobedience. He was glad that no one else was here, as he would never be able to live down the embarrassment of not being able to control his hellhound. Well, this is one reason that he didn't tag him -- plausible deniability. Lest the hellhound attack someone he didn't want to.

The hellhound quickly pivoted and went Shenecron's thick, draconic neck. He would have made too, had Shenecron not ducked down and whipped him the face with his thick tail. This had sufficient power to knock the hellhound down, and stun him.

"You miserable little ingrate," he said, furious. "You stupid, unthankful --"

The hellhound had collected humself and made another frantic leap at Shenecron, barking ferociously, teeth bared, slobber flying in all directions. Shenecron sidestepped this and lashed out this time himself, with his draconic claws.

It took him several swipes, while dodging the bites of the hellhound before his claws hit pay dirt. He could hear the hellhound's sudden whimper and took immense satisfaction in watching the hellhound collapse into shadows and nothingness.

"Stupid . . . miserable . . . pathetic . . . worthless . . . insubordinate . . . disobedient . . ." Shenecron fumed breathlessly, "lousy . . . useless piece of . . . unthankful . . . ungrateful . . . bungling . . . bumbling . . ."

With that, Shenecron stalked off. He deliberated on getting a new hellhound to replace that useless fool that he just killed. But when he thought about it, this was actually perfect. If Demos's little friends do suspect his runt of a pet, there is now no evidence tying it back to him. It was almost as it was an act.of providence.

Shenecron savored this though as he went about his business, although he would have to think of trickier measures to ensure his contracts weren't voided so much . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 13, 2016, 06:56:43 AM

oh snap. this took a turn...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2016, 05:52:10 AM

Yep. And Quaf might hate the ending of this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Collar

"There," Yarin said, affixing what appeared, at a first, cursory glance, to be an ordinary dog collar onto Patches's perplexed neck. It was clear that Patches was fearing abuse -- as he quite clearly experienced some, forgotten due to Demos's genuine and sincere kindness. "That should do it."

"And just how is that thing going to disprove the truth?" Odie asked scathingly.

"You still here?" GH asked, coldly, matching Odie's glower.

There was a crackle as Patches barked, still confused but perfectly unharmed. The collar didn't hurt him, but it was unfamiliar. Demos hadn't had the time to get him a collar of his own, so Patches was simply unused to the feeling.

"What is this?" came a crackly voice. It sounded somewhat stilted.

"Don't be alarmed," Yarin said, placidly. "The V.M.S. is just settling. It should only take but a few minutes to settle on the voice to synthesize and modulate."

"You talk funny," Patches said, sound like a child speaking stiltedly.

"There," Yarin said, with a mechanist's practicality. "All seems to be in working order."

"Greeeeeeat," Odie said, with a sarcastic drawl. "Now, that we have this pointless diversion taken care of, can we see some actual punishment?"

"Punishment? For what?" Patches wondered, still in that stilt manner of speaking. Yarin assured Demos that it was just the nature of the voice synthesizer. "Did I do bad?"

Odie snorted with contempt, "Don't play innocent, you insolent mongrel. Of course you did bad! You killed five people!"

"Kill?" Patches asked. "What is 'kill'?"

"To put to death," Cloak said, offhand, "to extinguish the life of."

"I did not do any of that," Patches said. Funny how quickly the stilted manner of speaking became so accepted so quickly. "Why kill playmates?"

Odie snorted, "How can any of you believe this? Of course the little monster would deny his actions!"

Patches laid down, looking depressed. "I's not a monster . . ."

Demos quickly scooped him up, "Shhh, shhh, it's okay, Patches, dearest. Don't mind the stupid, mean man."

Demos then glared daggers at Odie, who looked back with a look of condescending judgement. Odie seemed oblivious as this was reason why he didn't have may friends, if any, in the forum. Yet, he thought he was so incredibly popular and had a pull with that imagined popularity.

"I's not a monster . . ." Patches said again, very quietly.

"That's up for debate," Odie said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 14, 2016, 06:04:44 AM

Odie shut the hell up he's so much worse that Rotiart. i'd take the latter back any day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2016, 09:08:06 AM

Just wait to see who pops up in Year 3. All in all, that's the reaction I wanted, Abby.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
One-Sided Arguments

"Oh, shut the hell up, Odie," GH said.

"My name is --"

"No one cares, Odie!!" GH cut him off, annoyed to no end already. Odie glowered at the RAFian guitarist, but GH was immensely indifferent to Odie's enmity. Odie easily earned everyone else's animosity, so it was of little consequence to the musically-inclined RAFian.

"I's not a monster," Patches repeated, sounding rather forlorn. "I's not . . ."

"But you are!" Odie snarled.

"Why?" Cloak said, sweeping in, speaking coldly and softly. "Simply because you say so?"

"Because it's so effing obvious!!" Odie said, with gritting teeth. He was tempted to start screaming. He saw it as so obvious an answer he couldn't fathom why the others could not pick up on it and put two and two together. This had gone from wanting justice for the families hurt and possibly needing closure, to simply just proving that he was undeniably right. And if he did, he would gloat unbearably for eternity. Fortunately, he was wrong -- though he refused to believe and acknowledge it, he was. "And if you all weren't such dunderheads, you'd see it, too!!"

He didn't seem to notice the cold reception this pronouncement gave him. Many other RAFians, while not really liking him, pass it off to him being a teenager. Cloak disliked such attitudes -- just because he was a teenager wasn't any excuse for allowing him to get away with this behavior.

"You'd best to watch your tongue," Cloak said, almost in an exact replication of Alan Rickman's Severus Snape. "You claim it is the obvious truth, do you not?"

"Weren't you listening, you cloaked --"

Cloak cut across him, before he said something that he might assuredly regret, and said, "Then indulge me, and answer this one question."

This caught Odie off-guard. Cloak proceeded before Odie could answer.

"Then why does all the proof present currently, constantly -- and, more importantly, consistently -- contradict and refute your assertion at every turn?"

"It does n-- !"

Cloak interrupted, "Demos says that he was here for the past few days, nursing Patches back to health. He was telling the truth."

"You don't know that for a fact!!" Odie protested, childishly.

"Yes, I do," Cloak said, with a quiet finality, that Odie didn't dare cross. Especially because the glare in Cloak's eye intimidated him, though he would never admit it. Odie hated Cloak for it, though. "Patches himself revealed ignorance of the slayings."

"'Slayings'? That like 'kill'?" Patches asked, inquisitively, as a child would when coming across an unfamiliar word.

"See?! That's further proof that he's a monster!! He delights in the thought of murder and killing!!" Odie said, seizing upon the opportunity.

"You are jumping to conclusions," Yarin said, knowingly, "you think this snap judgement strengthens your case. It doesn't."

"Why can't you all see what's effing in front of --"

"We do," Cloak said, quietly. It was a dangerous sort of tone. Soft, but hard-edged. "And it's not Patches that's the monster, Odie. It's you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 15, 2016, 10:56:59 AM

OHHHHHHH SNAP, THAT LAST LINE! Cloaky, if you had a microphone, I'd be so disappointed if you didn't drop it right now

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 15, 2016, 02:16:22 PM

aaaaaaaa HELL yes!!! that friggen twerp deserves that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2016, 12:19:41 AM

Didn't expect such strong reactions.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Keeper of the Nexus

Odie could only manage a few remonstrations and recriminations, each weaker and more feeble than the last. Only this time he knew it, no matter how much he tried to suspend his disbelief and lie to himself about it. He had lost this battle, though he still thought that Patches was guilty -- he still cared more about being right than the justice he pretended to want for the victims' families.

As forthe victims families, the whole closure argument that Odie touted was also a.load of bunk. The families just chalked it up to a wild animal attack, and did their mourning. They never knew or realized that the attacks were due to the actions of a single animal, as all of the victims were attacked in heavily forested areas, where wild animal attacks were not too uncommon. They all just assumed that their loved ones just had an unlucky roll of the dice.

They did what they needed to set their loved ones' affairs in order, and what they needed to do in order to move on. But they would do alright, despite the tragedy.

***

Cloak was standing in the middle of a court room, with a myriad of working Walkers behind him, as a thick, stout walker -- Cloak thought he looked like asinine-form Realm Walker was speaking to the judge -- an elephantine Realm Walker in a royal purple cloak with subtle black accents.

"-- Well, why not?" he was saying, clearly replying to an unheard comment. "This session is an absolute joke anyway. It's obvious that the nomination should go to Shill."

"Oh, please. Are you just completely bonkers?" a female serval-form Realm Walker said. "Servator is the only logical choice, and sensible decision."

Then the right side of the room exclaimed, "Shill!"

The left answered with, "Servator!"

"Shill!"

"Servator!"

Then the song started, Shill, an asinine (or donkey-like) Realm Walker like her supporter, sang:

"Please vote me the Keeper of the Nexus.
I wanna be the Keeper of the Nexus!
Their skinny white bones are mine to own,
To do with as I see fit!
Give him to me and I promise my love won't quit!"

But Servator, a gray tomcat, interjected.

"I disagree about the Keeper of the Nexus.
It should be me who's the Keeper of the Nexus.
It's not a game for an idiot dame,
Who can't even hear her boos!
If Shill wins, then we all surely lose!"

Cloak announced himself, through song, representing the working Walkers:

"Don't we get a say in the Keeper of the Nexus?
I'll make you all pay for the Keeper of the Nexus!
All my rage is bound up in this cage held back by these taxing bars!
I'll never get rid of these mental scars!"

The elephantine judge broke down in song, singing:

"I don't care who's the Keeper of the Nexus!
I'm losing my hair over Keeper of the Nexus!
A mountain of stress is crushing my chest!
I'm going blind in one eye and it's all because of that stupid guy!"

He pointed at a mongoose-form Realm Walker who looked like a very . . . special Gumshoos. His name was Buffoon. Buffoon said, while eating nachos he got from somewhere, said, "Don't worry, I found some nachos! Yuge!"

The judge took the nachos away, and hit Buffoon on the head with his gavel, with a small protest from the latter. Then Shill began to rap -- giving a perfect example why older people without the necessary rhythm should never rap.

"Time to break it down, old-school style!
The Nexus is the corner in my square!"

Servator countered:

"The Nexus is the chocolate in my eclair."

"The Nexus is the freshener in my air!"

"The Nexus is the conditioner in my hair."

"The Nexus is the picnic in my bear!"

"The Nexus is the cushion on my chair."

"The Nexus is the renaissance in my fair!"

"The Nexus is the seriousness in my stare."

"Calling you a sexist is completely fair."

Servator took on a heavy-lidded look, and sang:

"Somehow, I knew you were gonna go there."

A chorus of voices when up:

"We all need a Keeper of the Nexus!
I wanna see the Keeper of the Nexus!"

Buffoon sang above the others:

"I just want some nachos."

Cloak sang:

"All this singing is driving me nuts!"

The chorus of voices sang again:

"Why not just cut the Nexus in half?"

Buffoon sang over the others:

"Now I miss my nachos."

The elephantine judge sang:

"My ulcer's eating away at my guts!"

The chorus of voices sang:

"That would be a real, big laugh!"

Shill sang:

"I totally hate
That we have to debate
That whether it's me or you!"

The chorus of voices sang:

"It's obvious to everyone here,
It's obvious to everyone here,
It's obvious to everyone that -- "

Buffoon interjected, "I have to go poo-poo!"

Everyone stopped singing, as Cloak awoke, cold and clammy.

"What?" Cloak muttered, somnulently.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 16, 2016, 12:24:55 AM

. . . "What" indeed :XD:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 16, 2016, 01:14:23 AM

pfffff. interesting dreams you're having there, Cloak

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2016, 12:14:23 PM

. . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Little Bubbly

"Ugh," Parker grumbled, as he found himself tromping around on the bottom of the sea. His armor was self-contained, so he would be able to survive, but the water made his movements feel frustratingly slow and sluggish. "I should have just agreed to go with Helen on her shopping spree."

Prudent pause.

"Oh, shut up, Tyr," Parker complained.

He had come here completely by accident. He was responding to a report of one of Demos's little creations -- his "fiends", as he now referred to them. He had just paused for nary but a minute to contemplate briefly on just how many of these little beasties Demos made, when a bubble with all the momentum of Sisyphus's rock came barreling at him, and drug him to the water, into some sort of cave. The ceiling was ridiculously saturated with stalactites --stalagmites? -- whatever, didn't matter.

Then he saw the creature standing directly in front of him.

The creature was roughly the size of an Ewok, and it had a red chest, lower arms, hands, head, and lower legs. It had black ribbed skin over what one would assume to be its mouth (when lowered or removed, it would reveal a pair of puffy blue lips), and a transparent, goggle-like visor over its eyes, which had black irises with brown sclera. There was an orfice in its pointed head that could secrete bubbles which it could control, hydrokinetically. While it had human like hands, its feet were long and webbed, more like chalk white diving flippers than human-like feet. It was black on its thighs, upper arms, and midriff, with silver separating the red from the black. It also had functionless orange sacs on its back, like air tanks, which offered the creature no apparent benefit.

It may have walked awkwardly on land, but when it was in water, that it was truly dangerous.

It started by heaving a bubble the size of a beach ball at Parker, who sliced at it with his blade, popping it easily. Then it launched a second, which bounced a bit before Parker deftly popped it. Parker was irritated that his movements were far slower than they should have been. Had he been moving at his proper speed, this creature would have been dead already.

The the creature began to swim about, with absurdly obvious ease, and Parker was done. He took out three sticky bombs -- he would have to remember to restock his armaments after this -- and managed to adhere them all to the showoff. Then he left, as the creature was apparently none the wiser.

As his head broke the water, he heard and felt the explosions travel through the water and he turned to see the cave had collapsed.

***

Demos called it a bullaspaien. Demos said that he had intended it for use in underwater combat, but acknowledged that he had dropped the ball somewhere along the way.

***

"Oh, they burst its bubble," Malice said, laughing at her own lame pun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2016, 04:24:48 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXL:
NEXUS POLITICS
CHAPTER ONE:
Heatin' Up!

"Sure," Horse groused, hobbling along at a seal's pace, "makes perfect sense."

She was breathing hard -- it wasn't easy for a seal to travel over land. It was far easier in water. Sure, she could use her hydrokinesis, but she didn't want to call to much attention to herself, despite her white fur. She was incredibly hot, and the only reason she wasn't suffering from a heat-related injury was because of her cryokinesis. She didn't even know it could be used like that.

"Makes . . . *huff* . . . perfect friggin' . . . friggin sense!" she continued to grouse to herself. "Send the seal . . . send the seal to the pit of friggin' Hell . . . all because of some fiend Demos decided to cook up."

She had been dispatched to a research facility that was looking in on the practicality and efficiency of geothermal power, and whether it could be a viable energy alternative of fossil fuels. (Naturally, the fossil fuel companies were not happy with this research, but that is a conversation for another time.)

"I swear," Horse vowed, irritatedly, "I swear I'm gonna throttle Demos for this. I don't care that I don't have opposable thumbs. I'll find a way!"

She didn't have any trouble whatsoever discovering the creature at this center of this research facility.

The creature's main body was a silver Zippo lighter, complete with a flip-top, which the creature could retract its round, lumpy head into, but be blind as there were no eyeholes to speak of outside the top. It had round eyes with purple pupils and green sclera. It possessed one pair of stubby arms -- green lower arms, hands, and shoulders, with white upper arms, a color scheme that matched its retractable legs. It had a second pair of arms that were longer and thinner, almost like an emaciated Graveler, only completely swathed in fire. Its head was rather like a Pyronite, only green with a purple, ribbed, vertical stripe right above his eyebrow line. He had also had fiery red jowls with black accents. It was just a little bigger than a Torracat.

It began to spit fire at Horse, which she had a difficult time avoiding. And then she discovered that it could actually turn its body into fire for a charge forward -- and she was only saved by her small size.

The heat was building, becoming unbearable. If she didn't end this soon, she'd burn out her cryokinesis. So she started launching hydrokinetic bubbles indiscriminately. This successfully managed to cool the place down to far more acceptable levels. But the creature didn't seem to like this.

"I've really had enough of this," Horse said, pulling together her remaining strength, which had been slowly and steadily sapped away from her by the heat. Then she formed a large bubble of water that easily filled the entire room, a la the Oceanic Operetta Z-Move (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zd1oW7cH-QA). This technique, albeit slow, worked to perfection. It killed the creature, and Horse called for an evac out.

***

Demos called it a thermosapien. Demos didn't really have an explanation for his existence other than he was designed to basically be heatproof and fireproof. The pyromorphic ability was actually the result of a mistake in the genetic coding on Demos's part.

***

"Well, that heated up just fine!" Malice said, with a masochistic laugh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2016, 12:06:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Change Is Not Always For The Better

Cloak's dream had actually turned out to be prescient, in a way.

The old Realm Walker Council was disposed, and a regime change happened. It happened far more often that it should in any supposedly democratic society. The power was often a corrupting influence, that it eventually decayed and rotted any one Walker's integrity and morals. This is why Cloak refused the offer to join it right out of hand. He saw it as a poisonous tank, allowing yourself to ferment into something repulsive and disgusting if you allow yourself to marinate in the corruption and monetary avarice too long.

The five Realm Walkers who now sat on the Council were "elected" to their positions, but in reality the votes did not count in the least. The obvious and overtly wrong candidates won, and they had managed to con the Walker species into thinking that it was them who voted for these five reprehensible beings.

Mistruth, a serpentine Realm Walker, was well-known for playing dirty, using underhanded tactics, and manipulating those which he considered inferior. He could lie on a whim, and was so good at it, not even Cloak would be able to detect the lie from the truth. He was very dangerous in this regard, as he could easily render a falsified claim as believable and true to the naive and gullible. And now he sat upon the Council.

Spin, an eel-form Realm Walker, was a slippery one. He was up to his slimy neck in scandals, but proved most adept at spinning them in a positive light or making him look like the victim, and his victims like the bad guy. It's gotten to the point where its become rather like a game for him. The scandals were basically like dice that he could spin and see if they landed in his favor or not -- he wasn't above taking stupid risks and wasn't afraid to gamble with the lives or tadpayer money, as he believed he could talk his way out of anything. And he was now on the Council.

Sycophant, a weasel-form Realm Walker, was perhaps the most oily and most insincere Realm Walker of modern times. He never wasted any time in sucking up to those in power. He is far more willing to capitulate and feign loyalty to whomever is the big boy -- or girl -- on the block. In truth, he was only loyal to one person -- himself -- and he will not hesitate to suck up to those in charge to obtain something beneficial to himself. And he was now on the council.

Undermine, a rat-form Realm Walker, was a truly unsavory sort. He lived just to undermine others, hence his chosen name. He took rather inappropriate amounts of elation in doing such. And yet he secured a spot on the Council.

And, finally, the Head of the Council was the worse of the lot as she was a complete ass. No, seriously. She was a donkey-form Realm Walker, and her name was Shill. She was a haughty, holier-than-thou sort of Realm Walker, who subscribed to the whole "Realm Walkers-are-superior-to-Dwellers-by-definition" thing, which was utterly ridiculous. She didn't think much better of the working class Walkers. She just kept some stupid rhetoric about "breaking down the barriers" and what other such nonsense. No one quite knew what she babbled on about, they only knew how much of an unholy prick she became after she became the Head of the Council.

This quintet was not a good one for the poor an middle class and the poor, as they didn't care about them. As far as all five were concerned, they were all expendable. But they had succeeded in becoming powerful, but Shill was not satisfied with just ruling over Nexus land -- she wanted the realms to be subjected to her iron fist of control.

And she thought she had every right to expand. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 17, 2016, 01:45:17 AM

uh oh...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2016, 03:04:09 PM

And the hiatus may begin there -- it will end on the 25th or 26th, depending on how I feel.

Leaving on a cliffhanger. I do acknowledge that it's a bit cruel. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 17, 2016, 03:22:11 PM

Just pointing out, you said "the five RAFians that sat..." Might wanna fix that ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2016, 05:11:53 PM

Fixed.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
U. A. Energy

Shill decided the first realm to go after would be the most important one (she allowed Spin to inform the Walker populace of her plans in a way that sounded not only reasonable, but made them passionately support it, despite the facts not supporting it at all.

Realm Walkers were no immune from stupidity and gullibility. They could be afflicted with it just as easily as any other sentient being.

But Shill wanted it for another reason. She had come to believe there was an abundant amount of golden U. A. Energy in the Prime Universe, the Realm in which Cloak made his home. She knew of this, and acknowledged that he may become a problem, but that was a problem to be solved later.

She had to have the Walker people misinformed of her intentions, and that what she was doing was righteous. She knew it would be a simple enough task, as the masses could easily be swayed by platitudes and complicated, confusing rhetoric that really said nothing. One reason she liked having Spin at her side. The weaselly Realm Walker was an expert at such tactics.

He sang:

The energy of Anodyne,
The might of Bizarro
Will seem like mere trinkets
By this time tomorrow!
The gold we find there
Will dwarf them by far.
Oh, with all ya got in ya, fellows,
Dig this, girls and boys!"

Shill now had her hand at the song:

"Mine, boys, mine ev'ry mountain!
And dig this, dig 'til ya drop!
Grab a trick, fellows!
Quick, fellows!
Shove in a shovel,
Uncover those lovely
Sparks that sparkle and shine!
It's U. A. Energy and it's mine, mine, mine!"

The Walkers, clearly too easily manipulated by the music to realize the rhetoric (or simply didn't care) sang:

"Dig and dig and dig and diggety . . .
Dig and dig and dig and diggety . . ."

Spin sang, almost as if casting a hypnotic spell:

"Hey nonny nonny,
Ho nonny nonny!"

Shill said, under her breath, "Oh, how I love it!" while Spin sang:

"Hey nonny nonny!
Ho nonny nonny!"

Shill said, not referring to the other, lower class, working Realm Walkers, "Riches for cheap!"

Spin:

"Hey nonny nonny!
Ho nonny nonny!"

Shill and Spin said, "There'll be heaps of it!"

Shill sang:

"And I'll be on top of the heap!
My rivals at home --
It's not that I'm bitter --
But think how they'll squirm
When they see how glimmer!
The elites at court
Will be all atwitter!
The donors will reward me.
They'll knight me . . . no, lord me!
It's mine, mine, mine
For the taking!
It's mine, fellows!
Mine me that energy!
With those nuggets dug
It's glory, they'll gimme
My dear friend, Bribery,
Will probably build me a shrine!
When all of the energy . . . is mine!"

The Walkers, well, the easily misled ones, sang:

"Dig and dig and dig and diggety
Dig and dig and dig and diggety-dig!"

Meanwhile, in the Prime Universe itself, on Earth, Cloak is working with GH to perfect a tandem attack, perfectly oblivious to Shill's scheming. Cloak was using his aerokinesis to maximize GH's concussive musical attacks. And both were have great fun in doing so, as Leatherhead watched on. He was thoroughly entertained.

Cloak sang in thought as he did this:

"All of my life, I have searched for a place
Like this one.
A richer, more welcoming forum
I couldn't design!
Hundreds of adventures await,
And I don't plan to miss one!
In a Realm I can claim,
A Realm I can main!
The greatest adventure is mine!"

Back to Shill:

"Keep on working, fellows!
Don't be shirking, fellows!
Mine, fellows, mine!
Mine me that energy!
Beautiful energy!"

The witless Walkers sang:

"Mine!
Find a mother lode
Then find another load!
Dig! Dig! and diggety
Dig! Dig! For that energy!"

All sang:

"Make this Realm land
My land!"

Shill sang:

"Make the mounds big, fellows.
I'd help you to dig, fellows,
But I've got this crick in my spine!"

Cloak sang:

"This Realm I behold . . ."

Shill:

"This story untold . . ."

Cloak:

"A Walker can be bold!"

Shill:

"It all can be sold!
And the energy
Is...
Mine!
Mine!
Mine!
Mine!
So go for the energy
I know which is here.
All the riches here
From this minute,
This Realm and what's in it is
Mine!
Dig and dig and diggety-dig!
Hey nonny nonny nonny, it's mine!"

And she got the necessary support to do what she wanted.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6uIcaj3cUV0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on November 17, 2016, 06:15:35 PM

Took some time, but I'm all caught up!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2016, 08:13:28 PM

Look up, Gazzy. ;)

. . .

What? I didn't do it just to prove you wrong.

(I did it because I don't like one-word posts outside the Bored Board. ;))

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on November 18, 2016, 12:11:12 AM

pff omgs cloaky XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 25, 2016, 06:17:14 AM

Hiatus over!

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
R.D.D. Act

Shill wasted no time.

She, leaning on the other four Councilors by intimidation and coercion, passed the Dominion of Using the Masses' Biological Animal Sovereignty for Superiority Act, or far more simply known as the Rightful Dweller Domination Act.

This was the most ridiculous of unconstitutional laws, even by Realm Walker standards. In it, it stated that Realm Walkers were inherently superior, and superior by definition, to all other lifeforms, including Dwellers. It stated that Dweller's were obligated to bow down before Realm Walker presence and mandated that the Walkers in question be treated as wrathful gods, and nothing less. It even had the audacity to stipulate worship and abject adulation.

It also claimed that Realm Walkers held dominion over the Realms, so that meant, according to this horridly unconstitutional law, that they held sovereignty over the Dwellers, and it effectively stripped away the Realm's various governments of their sovereignty, and commanded that they obey Realm Walkers, without question or resistance. It also required all Realm Walkers to subjugate all races and species that dare defy this Act, although the punishment wasn't specified.

It was a laughably unenforceable piece of legislation, with all the nuance and  integrity of an angry, possessive, bratty three-year-old. The sheer logistics of even trying to enforce the law was staggering. There were more Realms than stars in Earth's night sky, and she never considered the possibility that the Realm Dweller governments and people might rankle against someone not only delegitimizing their authority but flagrantly ignoring their right to sovereignty.

But Shill didn't care. She didn't care if the language of the law sound like some tyrant's wet dream, as she only cared about getting what she wanted. She didn't know any Dwellers personally, as she considered them primitive lesser creatures, like a human would consider a fruit fly or a rat. Creatures who's hopes, dreams, fears were beneath her compassion, which was remarkable, as she didn't have any compassion.

But Shill would not be denied.

***

"Oh, come on, now, LH," GH said, lazily, "play something with a little bounce in it!"

What came was a horribly discordant series of chords and notes, which only vaguely resembled a song, rather like a three-year-old playing the piano with very little talent at it. With a mallet.

"No, no!" GH snapped with a groan. "Anything but that!"

"What?"

"You know I don't like that band, LH," GH moaned.

"Wait -- that was an actual song?" Cloak said, incredulous. Cloak was still completely oblivious to Shill's schemes and machinations.

"Unfortunately," GH replied, "by a band named Fuzzy Sofa, featuring Squeaky Coin and Exotic Butters."

Cloak was silent for a minute, before speaking again. "You're actually serious, aren't you?"

"LH, who taught you that song?" GH said, ignoring Cloak's rhetorical question.

Hunter, who had been standing there all along, snickered.

"Et tu, Hunter?" GH said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 25, 2016, 01:31:34 PM

Lol, I missed this a lot during the hiatus :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2016, 12:02:11 AM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Propaganda

"How can I still have unfavorables?" Shill demanded. Her unfavorables were second only to Buffoon, and he was, as you may have guessed, a buffoon."Can they not see the grand vision laid out before us?"

"It'sss just becaussse that they don't underssstand you, m'dear, Shill," Mistruth said, displaying the common speech impediment that serpentine Realm Walkers tend to have. Cloak's younger sister, Dagger, no longer has such a speech impediment.* "They don't underssstand just how hard your life'sss been. Just how much you have sssuffered to get where you are. Just how much you ssacrificed. Just how much --"

"Don't beguile me, snake," Shill said, coldly. Though she enjoyed his intoxicating words, she would never admit to it. "These unfavorables might just garner up enough support to stop the R. D. D. Act from being implemented. I cannot have these populist fools stop mean from spreading rightful Walker dominion over the Realms."

"Yes, my Mistress, we shall!" Sycophant cried, almost slavishly. Shill looked at him with disgust, like the vermin that he was. This was all it took to silence him immediately. Evidently, he trying to curry Shill's favor, and being rather blatant about it.

"I dunno why you care about those unfavorables, Shill," Undermine said, roughly. His attitude was actually working against his chosen name, "They don't matter. They can try whatever they want, but it won't work."

"You know better than that," Shill snapped. "We need to get these idiots on our side."

"You're going about this all wrong, then," Spin said, thoughtfully.

"What are you implying?" Shill said dangerously.

"That the way you're going about delivering your message is not the best," Spin said, delicately, wiping some slime from his hooked jaws. "A blunt delivery is good for a blunt message, but it doesn't really yield too many desirable results. To undermine you unfavorables, you must appeal to the gullible -- which you've done, in part. But you require a subtler means of persuading others to your side. You can only steamroll and bludgeon people into submission for so long -- that will only harden people against your aims."

"You have a suggestion," she said. It was not a question, but a mere statement of fact.

"Only a small one, Shill," Spin said, with a smile, which made him look sinister.

***

"It's a cruel, cruel Realm,
All you little boys and girls,
And the mean, nasty Dwellers
Want to have you for their supper!
But if you follow me,
You can all be free!
Free!
You can all be free!
As a bird, as you must see,
If you dream,
If you dream,
If you dream OUR DREAM!
It's a cruel, cruel Realm,
Full of nasty boys and girls,
Full of selfish, mean, nasty Dwellers!
Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty!
But there's a way we can make your day.
You can laugh, you can smile,
You can come and stay awhile!
You can dream our dream!
You can have it all with us!
You can dream my dream!
You can dream my dream!
You can dream . . .
Our dream."

They performed this several times in the Academy, the only really well-known institution for learning in the Nexus, and where young Realm Walkers get their schooling. And Shill and the rest of her Council were turning it into a propaganda mill.

The parents of these Walker children had no idea that they were being spoon-fed this propaganda. Now there were those that wouldn't mind, and would even approve, but they were not a majority. For the most part, the Academy was supposed to be unbiased politically, and this was most certainly not unbiased.

And it was grossly illegal by Realm Walker law, but the five touted an old Nixonism (which existed long before Nixon, by the way) in the belief that when the Council, the highest governing body of Realm Walker government, does it, then it isn't illegal. Naturally, a majority of the Walker population found this preposterous.

But Shill wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

---

SONG SOURCE: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6pZ6jQiJpI

*But the real Dagger did have a speech impairment so that she had to go to speech therapy. (So did I, actually.) But she still has a bit of it, but I speak just fine. And I was the one one who understood a word she said when we were younger.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2016, 11:38:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
First Moves

But Shill got impatient.

Spin's tactics moved far too slowly for her liking, and produced too few concrete results. She wanted to act now. She wanted that U. A. Energy. It was hers, she believed. It was hers by simple right of just being her.

She had several Walkers who were through "Kood-Aid drinkers", as it were. Seven of them, and all seven had unique abilities and techniques that no other Realm Walker had. But that wasn't enough, as Shill had seen fit to assign them "lieutenants" of sorts.

The first one was an anthropomorphic mongoose, who used to be a private investigator before this mission. He really believed in the inherent superiority of Realm Walkers over all other Dweller life, and he wore a dark gray cloak. His name was simply Gumshoe.

Gumshoe's lieutenant wasn't as much of a Kool-Aid drinker as he was. He was a fat, anthropomorphic rat with particularly puffy cheeks. He actually taken from the Oblivion Gate and granted amnesty, provided he succeeded at doing what Shill wanted. His name was Gangster, which was not surprising considering that he spoke like one, when he spoke at all. He wore a black cloak with a cream-colored underside.

The second one was an anthropomorphic sardine with an inferiority complex. He steadfastly believed in Shill's cause, though he knew nothing about the U. A. Energy angle. His name was Many, despite being a single being with no mind controlling abilities or abilities that one would associate with such a name. No one really knows why he picked it. He had legs that could fold up inside a tail, rather like a Pisccis Volann. He wore a blue cloak.

His lieutenant was a female anthropomorphic angelfish Walker, who only really went along with all this because she, unbeknowst to her herself, was attracted to Many. She didn't exactly believe all the rhetoric, but she had put her faith into Many's judgement and went along with him. She wore a flowery pink cloak.

The third was a sultry, anthropomorphic lizard with a hooked snout. She was adept at appealing to people and had a subtlety that was only matched by Spin. She believed in Walker superiority, sure. But she wanted to undertake this mission because she thought manipulating the Dwellers, as inferior as she saw them, would be fun.

Her lieutenant was actually her son, who was an anthropomorphic lizard as she was. Only he wasn't sultry and subtle. He was a coward and fearful. He only obeyed his mother for fear of physical harm and similar reprisals. Despite whatever she may have believed to the contrary, he held no love, no loyalty towards her. All he cared about was saving his own skin, if it came down to it. He wore a black cloak with a fuchsia underside.

The fourth was an anthropomorphized orchid mantis Walker. She spoken very infrequently, but when she did, it was with a soft voice, like a breeze filtering through the twigs on a tree. She seemed to be very even-tempered, even though she apparently believed that they had the right to expand Nexus lands into the Realms. They were here first, after all, which, in her view, made it obvious that they had rightful dominion over all those that came after. She wore a forest green cloak, and her name was Silence.

Her lieutenant was an anthropomorphic woodpecker in a black cloak with a white underside. He didn't really care for all this political rhetoric -- he was anything but a policy wonk. He only leaped at this mission due to the fact that it held the potential for him busting heads. He loved doing that, and considered himself quite masterful at doing so, although this is rather debatable.

The fifth was an anthropomorphized stag beetle named Blastjaws. He held a warrior mentality, although a bit scatterbrained at times. He had a remarkable sense of pride, more so than even most Realm Walkers. He would not act unless he deemed the act honorable, and he saw Shill's cause as such, proving his views on morality were a tad skewed. He wore an electric yellow cloak.

His lieutenant was his ward, an anthropomorphic beetle grub in a green cloak, who had a tenacity to ask a lot of unnecessary questions. And ask them in a rapid-fire manner, before being silenced by an annoyed adult, as this Walker was still a child -- barely any older than Shadow, and thoroughly spoon-fed Shill's propaganda.

The sixth one . . . well, no one was sure what she was beneath her dirty white cloak. Whenever she spoke, it was really unintelligible. So much so that no one could make out what she was saying or wanted. Her name was Enigma, although it could very well be something else, as her mumbling voice is barely understood, even in the best of circumstances.

Her lieutenant was an imp Realm Walker. He was basically the only one -- Walker or Dweller, who understood what Enigma wanted and what she says. And he alone could. So, he basically serves as her translator, although he never seems to pleased with duty, as he explains -- she curses a lot.


The seventh one was a dragon Realm Walker with metallic scales and feathers. He was a very judgemental Walker, and his piercing eyes just went to prove this little factoid all the more. He viewed Dwellers to be little more than insects, usually beneath his grand notice. He only agree to this mission, because he believed that the Walker reach needed to indeed be extended. He wore a tan cloak.

His lieutenant was an anthropomorphized red ant who often felt intimidated in his presence. He wore a red cloak and didn't speak much.

"You all have your objectives," Shill told them. "Now go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2016, 06:16:50 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
We . . . Are the RAFians

Leatherhead played on a bit, this time a good song, one of his own creation. He sang, (and rather well, too):

"If you're evil, with schemes that you devise,
You can count on the all of us taking you down!
'Cause we're good, and evil never beats us!
We'll win the fight, and then go out for pizzas!
We are the RAFians!
We'll always save the day,
And if you think we can't,
We'll prove that there's always a way.
That's why the people of this world believe in
Cloak, Hunter, and GH, and Leatherhead!"

Then the song took on a more serious tone, as Cloak sang:

"If you could only know, what Walkers really are.
When I arrived on Earth, from out beyond your star,
I was amazed to find, your beauty and your worth.
And I will protect your kind,
And I will protect your Earth.
And I will protect our Earth,
And I will protect you!
I will fight for the place where I'm free!
To live together and simply be me!"

Then Hunter sang:

"I will fight in the name of RAF!
And everything that I believe in!"

GH sang:

"I will fight for the world I was born in!
The Earth is everything I've ever known!"

Leatherhead sang:

"I will fight to be everything that
Everybody wants me to be when I'm grown!"

The quartet sang:

"The odds are against us, this won't be easy,
But we're not going to do it alone!
We are the RAFians!
We'll always save the day.
And if you think we can't,
We'll always discover a way.
That's why the people of this world
Depend on
Cloak, Hunter, and GH and Leatherhead!"

Meanwhile, several RAFians were dispatched to investigate seven odd occurrences in different corners of the globe. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ip1eVBs7hC4

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 30, 2016, 10:30:56 AM

Sorry, time got away from me yesterday. And I'm now officially "off-script" for this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
SOS Encounters

"This isn't good," Saffa was saying.

She was on communications duty with Abby, who offered to help out to dull the tedium of the duty. This was before Blue, Horse, Blaze, Underseen, Parker, Gaz, and Blocky were dispatched to deal with the anomalous signals and odd reports they had received.

All seemed well for the first few minutes into the simultaneous missions. All seven reported in and stayed in communication constantly and consistently, per usual. Nothing out of the ordinary to report.

But then Saffa steadily lost contact with all seven, all withing seconds of each other. She could not believe her misfortune, though Abby tried to help her calm down which wasn't easy, considering Abby was just as stressed out as Saffa was.

This was bad. Something had to happen to make them unresponsive to the girls' queries. Something very bad. But as to what this bad thing was, they could scarcely answer it, even haphazardly. There was simply a frustrating lack of information as to what happened. Neither girl liked that much.

Blue was at some unnamed, verdant cavern.

Horse was at some out-of-the-way brooklet overlooked by a small hill.

Blaze was at the caldera of a dormant volcano.

Underseen was somewhere in the lush jungles of a rainforest.

Parker was investigating a local blackout, which was found suspect of action within the RAFians' jurisdiction.

Gaz was investigating an abandoned megamart.

And Blocky was investigating a strange underground trail.

And all were not responding to Abby and Saffa's desperate attempts to communicate with them. Something happened, obviously, but they were highly reluctant to dispatch any more RAFians, as they didn't want to endanger more --

"What's happening?" said a voice, with a hint of authority.

"We lost communication with seven RAFians on simultaneous missions, Cloak," Saffa said tersely.

"Please, allow me to look," Cloak said, polite but curt. Cloak took a few minutes to scan through the data received. It was really dry reading, but it was necessary, even if Cloak's mind found it boring to read. It was then his eyes came upon a few discrepancies.

These discrepancies leaped out at him, as he saw a faint familiarity to them. It was at this moment he seemed to suspect what was behind this, not particularly who, though. Cloak's mind raced, as the two girls noticed his strong reaction to this, and promptly asked what was wrong.

"I have to go to these coordinates," came Cloak's only reply. "I will keep in communication."

With that, Cloak immediately exited communications at a run, forming an energy disc  as he ran. The he threw it in front of him, and jumped on it, riding it similarly to Son Goku and Nimbus. He sped off to the first pair of coordinates.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 30, 2016, 09:18:47 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Verdant Cave

It was embarrassing.

Blue was often lauded for his stealth prowess, and how he can just sneak up on opponents, with them unaware of his presence until it was much too late. He had a lot of pride in doing just that, pride as a RAFian and pride as a ninja.

This was the mission when that pride was put into critical condition, though not quite shattered.

The verdant cavern was covered with mossy green growth. There was a rough chasm smack dab in the middle of it, with one land bridge spanning the gap and one of mouldering, poorly-maintained cedar. There was only one exit on the other side of the cavern, which clearly opened up to daylight. Mice milled around, scurrying here and there, trying to avoid the odd mustelid predator.

It was disturbingly quiet, and usually preferred this kind of scenario, where he could get the drop on his chosen target. Problem was, this time, he had no idea who or what his target was. And, as if that was difficult enough, he failed to see anything wrong here.

But the report was insistent that there was. That there were two mysterious creatures here, who would kill any who got too close to what they were after. No word on just what they were after, either.

Blue had allowed himself to get complacent. He had foolishly allowed his guard to drop, something he knew full well should never be done on a mission. He knew better than to do that. But he did. There was no point in denying it now.

Not with his favorite ninjato buried in the mossy ground seven feet to his left with him sprawled on the ground. His mind and heart heavy with humiliation at what had just happened.

He was ambushed. Someone had actually ambushed him! A ninja! Arguably the greatest ninja of all! No only had they stripped him of his pride, they had also managed to disarm him of not only his sword, but all of his tricks and made his last ditch techniques useless. It was so utterly embarrassing.

Blue would have thought impossible, but it was his fault. He should have never --

"How quaint," the cloaked figure in the gray cloak said. Blue noted that he was considerably smaller than Cloak, and he was obviously another Realm Walker. Blue had enough experience with Walkers to know that they weren't all like the RAFian Realm Walker.

The cloaked figure lifted up something, swathing it in brown and gray energy. It was with a stab of shock and acidic humiliation that Blue realized that it was his communicator. He gritted his teeth as the unnamed Realm Walker balled his fist, crushing the device.

"Such a pity," he said, with detached tones. Then he lowered his arm, and said, "Now. Dweller, answer my question."

Blue gave him a very dirty look as he stood.

"Don't look at you superior that way, Dweller," he said.

Blue ****ed an eyebrow as if to say, Seriously? before he glanced at his sword.

"Where is the U. A. Energy?" the demanding Walker commanded.

"The -- what?"

"The Ultimate Anomalous Energy, you foolish Dweller," the mongoose Walker said, disdainfully. He clearly didn't consider Realm Dwellers very smart. "Tell me where you are stashing it. Tell me, and I shall be merciful."

"You really are a Kool-Aid drinker, aren't you?"

"I lose my patience, Dweller," the Realm Walker snapped. "I have claimed dominion over you. You must obey my commands."

"What?" Blue wasn't amused in the least.

"You dare to defy me?"

"You really need to work interspecies people skills," Blue said, scornfully, "ya know that?"

"Fine." the Realm Walker said, launching himself at Blue, jaws open wide after he announced, "Die."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 01, 2016, 05:34:52 PM

Yeah, this book will likely be more than the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Breakneck Blitz

But midway through this lunge, a roar shook the ground. Almost as if the very ground was trembling at the arrival of its master. And, within seconds, a loud WHUMF was heard, and the Realm Walker was hit by a blur of black and gray charging perpendicular to him.

"You?" the Realm Walker said, still dazed from the impact.

Cloak snarled, "You were expecting some pampered beast prince in a castle?"

"Why did you attack me?" the mongoose asked, thoroughly miffed. "I was just exercising my right!"

"You were going to kill Blue," Cloak snarled.

"I haven't given it a name, yet. I've claimed dominion over this Dweller."

Cloak was taken aback by the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of this reply.

"You do not have dominion over me!" Blue protested, offended. He was being spoken as if a piece of furniture, a mere object to be own and obedient, an unwilling possession. It was difficult not to take that kind of thing personally. "You do not OWN --"

"Be silent, Dweller," Gumshoe said, in an unbelievably condescending and dismissive voice, "the Walkers are talking."

"Blue, steady," Cloak said, without taking his eyes off of Gumshoe. "Get your sword. Your going to need it in a few minutes."

"You don't give orders to my Dw--"

Cloak had sent a small crescent of energy that moved like Street Fighter II's Guile's Sonicboom projectile. It hit Gumshoe in the cheek -- the Realm Walker equivalent of a slap to the face.

"Did you just --"

"You're rather slow on the uptake," Cloak said. "And, yet, you're supposed to be some sort of detective, right? Lemme guess. Your chosen name is something stupid like Gumshoe, right?"

"What's so great about 'Cloak', then?" he grumbled, and Cloak knew his insult landed. But then Gumshoe changed tact, and spoke louder, addressing Cloak. "Perhaps you know then where the --"

"Surprise attack!" Gangster yelled as he charged Cloak from behind, taking him unawares, but Cloak did not move did not flinch. Blue easily cut him from the air, but didn't kill him, naturally. Blue wasn't a Realm Walker, so he couldn't kill Gangster or Gumshoe. But that would also be unnecessary.

"Enough of this," Cloak said, with a snarl as he stood back-to-back with Blue. "Blue, remember the synergy training?"

Blue only smiled devilishly in response. Cloak took that as a "yes".

"Yes, this whole demonstration has gone on far enough." Gumshoe said. "Stand aside, Walker. You know your duty."

"Yeah, I know my Gatebursting duty," Cloak said, "but it isn't what you think."

"You side with these inferior beings?" Gumshoe said, as Gangster was nowhere to be found. "You betray your own people?"

"Inferiority is subjective," Cloak growled. He, as an adult Siberian tiger-form Realm Walker, towered over Gumshoe. "And I highly doubt the Realm Walker people approve of this incursion."

"The realms belong to us!" Gumshoe pronounced, passionately. "We Walkers have a rightful dominion over --"

"You do not," Cloak cut across him. "Walker or not, no one has the right to take the sovereignty of another sentient species. What you -- and, presumably whatever corrupted persons sitting on the Council now -- are doing is wrong. And it is wrong by definition."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 02, 2016, 07:30:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Walker and Ninja

"Enough debate!" Gumshoe snapped. "I have had enough of listening to your traitorous sympathizing with a lesser species."

"We were not meant to be a species, a race, of conquerors, Gumshoe," Cloak said evenly. "We were meant to be a species of scholars, of observers. We were meant to learn, not dominate."

"Meant by whom?"

"Fate. Nature. Whatever, take your pick," Cloak said. "I refuse to believe that we were meant to lord over the Dwellers. We are not inherently superior. If anything, we are equals."

"Equals?" Gumshoe snorted. "You've overstayed your time in this realm, then, grandson of Sage. You have allowed your pride to be eroded to nothing, you have even sunk to the low of actually befriending Dwellers."

Cloak said nothing, but narrowed his eyes in contempt.

"Not to mention breaking D.U.M.B.A.S.S. Act," Gumshoe said. He pronounced it by the letters, not phonetically.

Blue looked at Cloak, "He can't be serious, can he? He's actually trying to enforce a law called the dumbass act?"

"You give him too much credit, Blue," Cloak replied, "he probably doesn't even know what one is."

"Apt," Blue quipped, "as he is one."

"Agreed."

"You must subjugate the Dwellers of this Realm, per the law." Gumshoe said. "Anything less makes you a traitor."

"The only traitorous soul I see here is you, Gumshoe."

"I'm bringing you in first," Gumshoe said, firing some tylee chains from his right sleeve, intending to bind Cloak. They approached with astonishing swiftness. Closer and closer and closer . . .

Only to find themselves wrapped around a cedar log. Cloak and Blue had vanished in tandem. Gumshoe found this to be a dirty trick, unworthy of a true with proper Walker pride.

But he was taken unawares when the log dendrokinetically floated up and began to whip around him. He didn't realize until too late that it was wrapping around him. Pinioning his arms to his side.

"I've gotcha now!" Gangster said, leaping in from nowhere. Blue managed to grab a hold of his tail, and swig him into Gumshoe, until both were thoroughly bound by the tylee chains.

"You'll never get away with this, traitor!" Gumshoe declared angrily.

"Oh, put a sock in it, you loyalist hack," Cloak snarled dismissively. Then he addressed Blue, "go and report back to the forum. I'll have to return these . . . these fundamentalists back to where they belong."

"Where?"

"The Oblivion Gate," Cloak said, as he prepared to Walk to the Nexus, "and then there are six other sites, six other coordinates that I must go and investigate."

"We're not criminals!" Gumshoe protested. Then he added after a brief pause, and he indicated Gangster, "Well, he is. But I'm not!!"

"Cloak -- you're going to run yourself ragged," Blue warned.

"Perhaps, Blue, but it must be done," Cloak said, Walking directly to the Nexus from there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2016, 08:15:01 AM

Sorry, time got away from me yesterday.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Brooklet Hill

Crack!

I should have known that that wouldn't have held him for very long, Horse found herself thinking.

She had come to a hilly area that consisted of three small ponds, the first one of which had a simple wooden plank bridge spanning it. The second required one to swim across, as it had some depth to it, but not enough to be called a lake. The third one was big and deep, but you could easily see the bottom when the water had settled enough.

That's where he was.

He was clearly a Realm Walker, but definitely not cloak, as he was a great deal smaller. He was more or less Horse's size as a juvenile, talking seal. But the difference was that he was swathed in aquamarine blue and light blue energy to make himself look remarkably larger. Far larger than any Realm Walker she had ever seen. Horse wondered if he was overcompensating for something. Or if Realm Walkers were like Namekians, in that capacity.

Creeee . . .

She had frozen over the third pond, hoping to trap this monster. But now the monster was breaking through. She had even lost her communicator -- she no idea where it got to.

Creeeeeeeak . . . . CRACK!

Why didn't she freeze the entire pond? Why didn't she freeze the whole of it solid?

These were her thoughts as she rushed to seal any of the cracks and fissures that it made in the  ice cap of the pond she made. Then, quite suddenly, it stopped. This was so unexpected to her that she stopped momentarily, minorly perplexed.

Then it began again with renewed vigor, almost catching her unawares. She was irritated when she heard a deep-throated sort of laughter. She became aware that Walker monster was just playing with her, that he -- she? -- didn't consider her a legitimate threat. This really angered her, to be taken so lightly, as if she was nothing.

She was managing to keep on top of it in an impressive manner, as well. But no being, not even a Realm Walker or sentient star, can keep up something like this indefinitely. Something would give eventually.

And that's when the energy blast came. It was lurid pink and pastel blue. It knocked the seal RAFian for a loop.

Then, with a resounding crack, a long, deep fissure appeared in the ice. Horse was still too disoriented to do anything about, as the ice burst appart and she slipped down into the pond with this monstrous Realm Walker. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on December 04, 2016, 11:45:39 PM

oh snap. also sorry cloak! i fell behind in reading, but i caught up again, woo!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2016, 11:02:13 PM

It's okay, Abby. **** happens. *shrugs*

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Hydro Vortex

The ice cap fissured more and cracked, and Horse found herself underwater. Now, being a seal and all, she could swim quite easily. Far easier than any human. But she was in close proximity to a giant monster -- well, a small monster swathed in aquamarine blue and light blue energy, rather like combat magic. And this creature had as much control over water as she had.

It was then that the water began that churn. It began to churn as if Horse was caught in a merciless washing machine. It was a sensation that she really could have done without experiencing.

"Someone . . . turn this . . . thing off!" she muttered, her voice vibrating. "I'm . . . going to be . . . sick!!"

Then it suddenly stopped.

"Thanks, Cloak," Horse said, somehow managing to make even her fur look green with motion sickness.

"Just don't regurgitate on me," Cloak said.

"Term's 'puke', Cloak," Horse said, quickly managing to regain her color and composure again. Horse paused for a moment -- they both heard the music begin. Horse addressed Cloak, "He's gonna sing, isn't he?"

"It's almost like there's a quota . . ." Cloak observed passively.

"This Walker is back to bring his wrath upon thee,
You can't be rid of me!
Not that easily!
And like all who dare defy me,
You will learn your lesson well.
Never toy with a Walker like me."

"You got what you deserved!" Horse croaked out. She was starting to come out of her disorientation.

This Realm Walker just kept singing, oblivious to Horse's statement.

"Angel! And me, Many!
Loyal darling, strong as the tide!
Sweetest poopsie, hasten to my side!
Right now! Daddy needs you!
Crush those stupid fools, make them writhe!"

"I don't think so!" Cloak said.

And yet . . . he continued to sing. He was persistent.

"What a feeble Walker.
No, I can't believe my eyes!
Such a stubborn Elements Master,
Who is fighting for his prize!
Without your precious Realm,
You'd crazy with revenge.
I suppose I sympathize!"

"I'm not gonna lose my home!" Cloak contradicted.

"Right, I'm with you all the way!" Horse proclaimed, as her head cleared.

And Many . . . he just sang:

"Angel! And me, Many!
Loyal darling, strong as the tide!
Sweetest poopsie, hasten to my side!
Right now! Daddy needs you!
Crush those stupid fools, make them writhe!"

"It's over, Many!!"

He just sang:

"This is not the end, my dears.
I swear, I've just begun!
It's not over until MANY HAS WON!!!!!"

"He through?" Horse asked.

"Maybe," Cloak answered.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TAp0yWdsoiI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on December 05, 2016, 11:07:29 PM

pfff. the last two lines made me laugh

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2016, 06:11:07 PM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Walker and Seal

Many began to launch into the song again, but this time the two RAFians ignored him, and Cloak brought out the same tylee chains he used on Gumshoe and Gangster, before he put them in the Oblivion Gate's doorstep. They were taken in, despite ludicrous claims of amnesty.

They targeted Angel first, as Many was still too busy singing his silly little song, overgrandoising himself. Cloak was starting to suspect that he was overcompensating for something.

Angel was easy enough to deal with. She clearly wasn't a fighter -- Cloak and Horse could recognize that right away. She was sluggish with her attacks -- slow and hesitant. She clear had not engaged in many, if any battles. Whereas Cloak trained and practiced the elements every day, as Horse used the training simulator semi-frequently (usually when she got bored). Not to mention the countless missions that they went on. Angel really stood no chance at all.

With his accomplice apprehended for the moment, the two focused on Many, who leaped out of the water, a creature of aquamarine blue and light blue. Cloak could easily tell that this was nothing more than an energy construct. Cloak couldn't begin to hazard a guess why. Perhaps Many believed it would intimidate them. Perhaps he had a Napoleon complex. Perhaps he was insecure about his obvious small stature.

Whatever the case was, that construct wouldn't be too difficult to get around. Or through. Many was still so enthralled with his song -- which, in all honesty, wasn't that great -- he seemed oblivious to the actions of the two RAFians. Which worked wonderfully for their plan.

Seal began to dart expertly around the construct, which looked like the unholy union of a Dunkleosteus, a school of sardines, and a submarine, trying to distract it while Cloak came from behind. Cloak had swathed his feline claws in golden scarlet energy, and had taken hold of Many's construct.

And, yet, Many seemed oblivious to this, just intent on singing his song over and over again. It was getting to point of being irritating and grating. But this was going to be over soon enough.

Cloak impaled his claws into the construct, and, still, Many didn't notice. He was going into his fifth rendition of the song, apparently losing sight of what he was intended to be doing in this realm. Cloak tested Many's attentiveness by digging his claws in deeper.

No reaction. This was good. This simplified things considerably.

Cloak dug his claws in a tad more, and began to use all his physical strength to pull the construct apart. To rend it asunder, and uncover Many's true self. This was actually far harder than it appeared. Apparently, Many was a practiced hand at producing constructs like this -- Cloak had only ever used energy constructs for crude shields for both protection and containment, or concussive blasts. He had never made a construct with this kind of nuance, thickness, or viscosity.

Such a pity that Many was a Kool-Aid drinker, and believed the ridiculous, nonsensical "right to Dweller domination" rhetoric. Cloak was just glad that they weren't spouting that it was for the greater good. That would just be pathetically thickminded.

Though more difficult than he had anticipated, Cloak quickly made mincemeat out of the construct, which evaporated into energy as Cloak bound Many up next to Angel, still unaware and oblivious to her unrequited love. Cloak actually found himself feeling sorry for her because of that little fact.

"Go and report this to the forum, Horse," Cloak said. "I have to get these two to the Oblivion Gate."

"You can't!" Many protested profusely. "D'you have any idea what they do to Walkers like me in the Oblivion Gate?!"

"As long as we're together, Many, we'll be fine," Angel said, sweetly. She was clearly enamored with Many. Cloak wanted to snap her out of it, but he knew the power denial has over a person, and how it firmly distorts one's worldview.

"Oh, shut up, Angel!" Many snapped.

"I love you, too, puddin'," Angel said, leaving Cloak's mouth a bit ajar. Denial already had a firm grip on this Realm Walker.

Many leaned toward Cloak, and said, in a desperate whisper, "Help me!!!"

He wasn't trying to persuade Cloak to let him go, either.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2016, 04:46:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Volcano

"Oh, be a dear, there, and tell me where you lot are hiding the U. A. energy," the lizard Realm Walker was addressing Blaze. He tone was sultry and alluring, like the scent of a pitcher plant, before you tumble into its pit with the digestive enzymes. "I assure you that I can make it worth your while . . ."

"Are . . . are you trying to seduce me?" Blaze said, thoroughly nonplussed at this. When he went on this mission, when he sojourned for the caldera of this dormant volcano -- this wasn't what he had expected to find.

"Seduce you?" she said, with what she clearly believed to be scintillating, girlish giggle. "Why, whatever would make you think an old woman, like little old Beguile, would would do something like that?"

"Because your name is 'beguile'," Blaze said, flatly, ignoring the obvious rhetorical question.

"Oh, m'dear Dweller, don't judge me so harshly for the name! It was just something that others had given me --"

"Probably for good reason," Blaze countered.

"Oh, you do enjoy your little Dweller jokes," Beguile said, rather flirtatiously. Blaze, however, didn't care for the condescension he heard whenever she said "Dweller" or the fact that she seemed to always need to frame her statements to make it clear that Dwellers were something insignificant. That Dwellers were some sort of oddities, at best. "But, I must know where the U. A. energy is, dearest. We can get to the fun topics afterward."

Blaze didn't like how she seemed to like toying with him. He said nothing, but noticed a clearly younger Realm Walker behind her, looking disaffected and moody. He was more or less Shadow's age, but he looked far more unhappy than she ever was.

"Oh, come now," Beguile said. "Come, come, come."

Blaze didn't like the way she was saying that word, though he wasn't sure if he was taking it out of context or not.

"Pay no mind to Onus (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/onus)," she said, dismissively, "he's not really all that important."

Clearly, Onus didn't really mean much to Beguile, and she only saw him as a burden or an accessory, it fluctuated. Hence his inherently dour demeanor and melancholic personality.

"Now, dearest," she said, focusing her mind games upon a still confused Blaze, who was seriously not interested. "The U. A. energy. Can you point us in the proper direction for a twinkle?"

"Back off," Blaze said, back away. Unfortunately, his communicator fell and broke. And he didn't know how to repair it. But he had far more pressing concerns at the moment.

"I'll give you a friendly piece of advice, my Dweller friend," she said, still sounding sultry in her attempts to captivate the djinn/angel hybrid. "Do not scorn me or spurn me. You will not like the results."

"What?" Blaze said. He was seriously not liking where this was headed.

"You heard me," she said, her sultry voice suddenly mutating into a sinister, hoarse one. "Do not resist me. You wouldn't like it. Just ask Onus's father."

"You . . . you killed him, didn't you?" Blaze said, flapping his wings in a desperate bid to put some distance from the two, but keeping them within eyeline. Beguile and her angsty son.

"Now, that's a hurtful accusation," she said, in an abrupt return to her previous mannerisms. "You can't prove anything about that. No one can. Right, Onus?"

Onus just shrugged and said, "Whatever."

Beguile huffed an exasperated sigh, and said, "Little Dweller, the fun of this is starting to lose its novelty. Tell me where the energy is, or I will just dispose of you like the expendable creature you are."

Blaze just scrunched his face into one of anger and contempt. This was all a game to her. She had enjoyed making him uncomfortable. She had enjoyed his confusion.

"You try my patience, Dweller," she said, voice hard and fiery now. "I'll give you until the count of five to grant me the location of this energy. Or else."

"Or else what?"

"One."

Blaze could easily see that she would not be reasoned with.

"Two!"

Blaze quickly reviewed his options.

"Three!"

He had none. He didn't know what the hell this U. A. energy stuff was. He had never even heard of it.

"Four!"

Something told him that it wouldn't be a good enough excuse for her.

"Four-and-a-half!"

He drew his sword, this one of his own design. He prepared himself for what was about to come.

"Four-and-three-quarters!"

Every muscle in his body was prepared for battle. He was as ready as he ever was gonna be.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2016, 11:16:03 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Inferno Overkill

"Five." she said. She wasn't a very happy camper. "Fine. You want to be difficult, little Dweller? You want to defy a superior being? Well, fine. I did give you plenty of warning before this,so don't go bleating about how I was irrational and unfair."

She got on all fours, as if she was a quasi-pedal animal. Her plantigrade feet seemed to become inexplicably digitigrade. It was almost as if she was a facultative biped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facultative_biped), even though she was a Realm Walker. All Realm Walkers had plantigrade feet. But the more incredible thing was the tongues of flame that were wrapping themselves into a ball of flames within Beguile's open jaws.

Which the ball of flames, almost as big as an overinflated beach ball now, continued to grow, unwedging itself from her jaws but dallying around her hooked upper jaw. Blaze wasn't stupid. He knew what was coming, what Beguile intended. Blaze, himself, was a pyrokinetic, so he, naturally, felt that he could handle this.

The huge fireball bore down on Blaze, who tried to quiet all the qualms he had with this plan of his, but held his sword in front of him, perfectly parallel to the ground. He was preparing for the expected massive impact. He only hoped that it wasn't too strong, wasn't strong enough to shatter his bones.

Fortunately, the blast wasn't like that, but Blaze had to use his other hand on the flat side of the blade of his sword to help brace against the force of the fireball. He even flared his wings, though this was more out of instinct that anything else. But the fireball had enough force to push him backward. But the initial inertia stopped, as Blaze was able to push back with equal force -- which wasn't at all easy.

"Prepare yourself, Blaze!" called out a familiar voice. It actually relieved him to hear it, though he probably would never admit to just how much.

Suddenly, a small spire of earthen stone sprouted up from the ground, bouncing the fireball as if it was nothing more than a mundane volleyball. It soared in the air, with Onus and Beguile just standing there, dumbfounded at this turn in events.

"Blaze!" the voice prompted, but Blaze didn't require any. He flew up to the fireball, with his sword at the ready. When he was in the position that was just right, he began to slash at it with one swift, fluid, fast motion. He must have slashed the thing fifty or so times before anything happened.

He quietly and swiftly swooped away as a hug water vortex swallowed up the shattered remains of the fireball, perhaps in an overly flashy manner. And, as soon as it appeared, it vanished. Beguile was nonplussed, and Onus became disinterested and disaffected again.

Blaze landed with all the grace of an experience flier, like a bird. He stood and folded his wings against his back, extinguishing the flames that he had them engulfed in, as he was trying to look intimidating, and he had yet to know if he was successful in this avenue.

"So," Cloak said, stepping into view, "another one, huh?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 09, 2016, 08:33:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Walker and Hybrid

"Another one?" Blaze said, incredulous. "You mean at the other coordinates there where -- ?"

"Other Realm Walkers? Yes," Cloak said, with an irreverent and cavalier manner. "At least four others, anyway. All subscribing to this ludicrous ideal that Walkers have the inherent right to take over the realms, and that they somehow have automatic dominion over Dwellers. A logical fallacy that seems to surface with irritating regularity in some Walkers. I took care of them, and put them back where they belonged: the Oblivion Gate."

"Oh, poor, sweet, shallow-minded fool," Beguile said, sweetly, with that crooked sort of smile on her face. "You are the ludicrous one, really. Dwellers exist for no other reason hut to entertain us. Their lives are nothing but a meaningless interruption of Walker goals at the best of times, I'm afraid."

"All lives have meaning," Cloak countered. His eyes flashed briefly with scarlet and gold -- always a danger sign. "No one life is worth more or less than another -- with the possible exception of a child's life over an adult's. That is a flawed way of thinking, lady -- and I use the term loosely."

"Oh, impudence," she said, a gesture of exaggerated exasperation. Cloak could swear that she was more hammy then William Shatner. "Power like yours is so wasted on an ineffectual being like yourself. You choose to ally yourself with these . . . these . . . these toys? You chose this? You actually chose this?"

In response, Cloak addressed Blaze, "I think you can see know why I dislike my own species at times."

"Eh, all species have prick members," Blaze said, with a shrug.

"A 'prick', am I?" Beguile said, venomously. "Well, maybe I should reactivate this dormant volcano. Then will I be this 'prick' you speak of?"

"Well," Blaze said, with a blase look, "yeah. Yeah, you would be even more of a prick."

Beguile clearly didn't know the meaning of the word, the noun sense anyway, but she could tell that it was pejorative. This did not make her feel any better.

"Fine, you insignificant nothing!" Beguile snarled, voice drenched in venom. "I shall do it then! We'll see how bold your tongue is when -- mrph!!"

Her jaws were suddenly bound shut by a length of tylee chains.

"Spout your vitriol elsewhere," Cloak said, swiftly tying her up in the rest of the chains. She yelled muffled cries of help, help from Onus. Cloak had quickly pieced two and two together. "The boy's gone. He has abandoned you."

Beguile's eyes sparked with anger, and a little fear.

"Now, to put you back where you belong," Cloak said, rather pitilessly. "Oblivion Gate."

She tried to protest profusely, but Cloak just addressed Blaze, "Go. Make your report to the others. I'll clean up this mess."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 11, 2016, 09:19:23 PM

Sorry for not posting yesterday. Time got away from me and my mobile device has decided to be annoyingly SLOW.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Lush Jungle

Underseen was afraid.

He knew something was hunting him, here in this muggy rainforest, but he had no idea what. It wasn't like that woodpecker Realm Walker who talked to much, and had a lust for violence. Underseen easily sneaked past the boisterous idiot.

But there was something else here. Something soundless. Something that was watching. Something that took his communicator. Something that destroyed said communicator. He never saw who or what it was, but just knew that it was on the trail. He could feel its presence like a hot breath upon his neck, but every time that he looked 'round, there was nothing to be found. Just dense, oppressive jungle.

It was a novel feeling, to be hunted like this. But that, by no means, meant Underseen enjoyed this experience. Underseen did not enjoy being afraid. Underseen did not enjoy this unknown creature's pursuit.

Sure, he tried using his shapeshifting to elude this creature, but he felt that it witnessed every shape he shifted into. The element of surprise was not in his favor, and he knew it. Worse was that this creature, whatever it was, knew it, too, and knew that it was the one with it. Clearly, it didn't want to squander the chance for anything less than an opportune occasion, especially considering how it refused to give up this element of surprise at its many conveniences, which it clearly believed them to be inauspicious.

Underseen was quickly coming at a lost of what to do. There was a limit to what he could shapeshift into. And whatever form he assumed he couldn't assume any of their inherent powers, that weren't strictly physiology-based. For instance, if he became a Psycholeopterran, he would be able to fly, but not go intangible or release the hypnotic gases -- he was basically only able affect the appearances of things, not all their properties.

Underseen thought he had scarcely discovered a clearing in this dense jungle foliage. This was good. This would force whatever this thing was out of hiding. And then maybe, just maybe, Underseen would discover a way to beat it. It won't be easy though, if the creature figures out what he's up to.

There!

Underseen, in the form of a Bengal tiger, burst through the jungle into the clearing. He turned back, readopting his human form, and he waited to see just what this creature who was pursuing him so arduously was.

But nothing happened.

No creature revealed itself. No nothing.

It was rather anticlimactic, Underseen had to admit. Did he simply misinterpret the innocent scurryings of an ordinary jungle critter? It was possible, Underseen had to admit to himself. But he was so sure that there was something . . .

He had allowed himself to get so caught up in these thoughts, he didn't realize or recognize the brief breeze that seemed to force the flowers' colors to become more vibrant. He failed to realize that four petals on a flower, upon which he unknowingly had trodden the center, were rising up, to encase him. To squeeze the life from him.

There was no crack to slip through as something small. The petals alone must have weighed like a hundred pounds. To heavy to be dislodged easily. And he couldn't become bigger, as there was no space to do so safely. He was trapped, trapped by heavy petals that felt more like dry tongues -- and Underseen felt unnerved by that, somewhat.

But he was trapped for the time being. But the petals were growing closer and closer together. He may very well be crushed to nothing soon . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2016, 03:24:54 PM

Sorry for the delay, I wasn't feeling it yesterday.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Bloom Doom

Great, Underseen thought, just great. After all these life-or-death missions, after all those brushes with death, and how do I die? By being stuck inside some flower. That shrinks.

Underseen knew that he could accommodate the shrinkage, but for a time. Even he had a threshold for how large and how small of forms that he could take. Pushing those thresholds would hurt in ways undreamed of to those with static shapes. He didn't care to be forced to simply survive -- and he may not at that. He couldn't really go any smaller than, say, a flea. There was no way he would survive to a microbial level -- that was just impossible to do, at least for him.

But the petals were too heavy and sturdy for him tondislodge on his own. Like slaps of fleshy granite, propped up by each other. Sure, he could grow larger and try to burst out, but that could end up hurting him more than helping him. It would seem that he was stuck at an impasse . . . no, it wasn't an impasse, because the flower he was within was shrinking. He was at an disadvantage. A clear-cut disadvantage, and he seemed to be screwed anyway he looked at it.

But then one of the petals of his ever-shrinking prison grew strangely hot. This left Underseen in a perplexed quandary. Was shrinking into oblivion not enough for this sadist? Now they intended to parboil him as well? How cruel was this creature?

But then the petal began to feel dead, as curled up, going from a lurid sort of pink to a shriveled-up black. Then the dry, dessicated petal fell away, revealing an exit. Underseen didn't need any invitation and hastedly exited his prison.

"Cloak?" Underseen asked.

"You were expecting Fire Lord Zuko?" Cloak replied.

"What?"

"Never mind," Cloak said. "I see you ran into your own fascist Realm Walker."

"Is that what that thing was?"

"Yes," Cloak said, making a quick stomp of his foot and quick pivot punch, and she was launched from the jungle to right before them. She landed in a rumpled mess. "Oh, I know you. 'Silence' or something like that I believe?"

She lifted her chitinous head up, and glared at Cloak with undue hatred.

"Known for quickly silencing political enemies," Cloak said, in a rather glib manner. "In addition for very seldomly even muttering so much as a singular syllable. An achievement, indeed."

She righted herself, looking thoroughly rumpled and disgruntled. She stared dangers at Cloak, her belief that he was a traitor to his kind, to his race, was very evident, even without a single word being uttered.

"You still want to challenge me, Silence?" Cloak asked, despite already knowing the answer as she took a fighting stance. "You still think that you can best me?"

Cloak chose not to draw attention to Underseen, as she seemed unaware of his liberation from her flower. Underseen seemed to pick up on this quickly, and swiftly adopted an unobtrusive form, unseen and unknown to Silence.

"You want to silence me, as you have so many that dared to disagree with your extremist politics?" Cloak said, assuring he held her interest, and he sounded rather unimpressed. "Well, I just don't see that happening."

Silence said nothing, but her gestures and mannerisms all said, then let me OPEN YOUR EYES!!

She made a lot of sweeping slices and kicks -- not a one hit, due to Cloak's constant training at RAF, not mention each blow was clearly telegraphed by her feet, and the weight she put on them. It made it almost too easy against someone with Earthsight.

"Are you done with this futile display yet?" Cloak provoked.

To this, Silence actually spoke.

"Die."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2016, 11:58:51 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Walker and Shapeshifter

"Perhaps later, Silence," Cloak said, sidestepping her attack. She had clearly telegraphed it again so that even a rudimentary Earthsight user would be able to tell her intentions, "but not today!"

She tried to slash with her elongated pinky fingers (she was an anthropomorphized orchid mantis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenopus_coronatus), after all), which was not sheathed in her Realm Walker corona. This meant she could wield them without detriment to the realm and the Dwellers within it -- though she wouldn't really care if it did. She clearly depended heavily on the element of surprise for most of her power, and would still have been formidable had she not been fighting someone who could sense her movements and weight shifts through the very earth itself.

"I will admit that you have skill," Cloak said, still sounding rather unimpressed, "but you fight for all the wrong reasons. There is no good to come from rejecting and refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Dweller governments. Walker law doesn't supercede all law -- in fact, most of those laws were only crafted to keep the common Walker down and the elites fat and happy."

Silence ignored him in her zeal to silence him.

"I see," Cloak said, his tepidity giving way to disappointment. "You wish to see no reason. You wish to cleave to this wrong ideal of Walker supremacy. The most dangerous kind of ideologue. An iconodulistic ideologue."

Silence said nothing.

"Then you force my hand," Cloak said, for the first time showing the minutest trace of fatigue. "Underseen! To me!"

Underseen burst from his hiding place as a Rottweiler, and dashed toward Cloak, who declared, "Fastball special!"

Underseen nodded his canine head, and leaped at Cloak, shapeshifting into an armadillo, and rolling into a ball. He rolled down Cloak's left arm and into his hand, taking a length of tylee chains Cloak provided. Then Cloak ****ed his hand back and threw Underseen with all his might.

Underseen used this momentum to shift into a large raptor -- the bird-of-prey kind -- and fly towards Silence, who had yet to react to this. Underseen swiftly circled her chitinous head, and bound her tightly with the tylee chains.

"I'm here to help you -- oof!!" the woodpecker Realm Walker said, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Only to be tied up and thoroughly bound with Silence, with minimal effort.

"What do you think you're doing?! Untie me right now!!" Blabbermouth said. "Unbind me right now!"

"I think I preferred Silence's method of communication," Underseen said, assuming his human form. His base form. "This blabbermouth talks to much."

"Don't you speak to me in such a disgraceful tone, Dweller! You should watch your tongue or you may find you don't have one anymore!"

Underseen deftly shapeshifted into an Andalite -- despite not being able to use thought-speak, even in that form. He was making a point that Blabbermouth would never get. Andalites don't have tongues to wag, but this point was, as expected, completely lost on the two. They clearly took no time to really get to know the world they were trying to occupy with this excursion.

Blabbermouth was continuing to go off on them, but Cloak had tuned him out. There was still much to be done, and he felt the fatigue, but he did his best to not only not show it, but to not feel it as well.

"Go on and make your report to the others," Cloak said. "I'll get these two back to where they belong -- oh, will you shut up Blabbermouth?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on December 16, 2016, 02:44:53 AM

that's a lot of Realm Walkers at once...

also sorry Cloaky!! i fell behind on chapters again. I'm caught up now though!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 17, 2016, 07:21:09 AM

It's okay, Abby, it's not.like I'm being as prompt with chapters like I used to. I guess I'm getting older and energy isn't what it used to be.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Observatory

Parker was laying upon the floor, disgruntled and humiliated. His armor was overloaded and shorted out. He was furious with the two Realm Walkers responsible, Blastjaws and his grub, Overload. But was that enough?

Oh, no. Of course not.

They had to sing about it. They had to sing about Parker's humiliation.

"Seize the good times!
Too bad they never last.
Especially for a Dweller
Who, against us, could never last.
Ah, yes, these were the good times.
Hope you liked them, little friend,
'Cause here is where the good times
Most decidedly must end!"

Then he allowed the music to flow a bit before speaking, "Overload?"

His son replied, "Hmm?"

Then Blastjaws began to sing once more:

"Oh, it's a thrill.
Oh, it's such fun
To see an inferior Dweller's dreams
Turn into nightmares, one by one.
It's such a lark.
It's such a joy
To roll our sleeves up
And humiliate this boy!
Oh, it's a kick!
Oh, it's a bash!
When we remove the fancy helmet,
And the neatly placed weapons cache,
And now let's repossess the armor!"

Overload interjected:

"D'ya think we ought to?"

To which Blastjaws said:

"Why be coy?
C'mon, let's do it!"

Then both sang:

"Let's humiliate this boy!!"

Blastjaws sang:

"Once he was proud."

Overload repeated:

"Once he was proud!"

"Once he was fine."

"Once he was fine!"

"The very model of RAFian design!
But such is fate."

"Too bad, tsk-tsk!"

"I guess he'll have to learn the hard way --"

Then both sang:

"Crossing Walkers involves some risk!"

Then Blastjaws sang:

"And it's so rich."

"So rich."

"And it's so rare."

"So rare!"

"To take his armor, his helmet, his revelry!"

"And then we'll mess his hair!"

"Oh, we'll emasculate him slowly.
All the better to enjoy.
How delicious, to humiliate this boy!!
Take everything he gave him,
All the tech stuff away!"

Overload complied, ripping the Walker tech from his armor, leaving it looking rather dingy and less impressive. Then the tech evaporated into nothing -- being rather energy-based, not unlike Realm Walkers themselves.

Blastjaws continued:

"Leave him dirty, poor and penniless
Do it, I say!
Now let it rain!
Now let it storm!"

"Now send some flies into the picture!"

"But how many?"

"Oh, a swarm!"

"Now let 'er rip!
Don't be repressed.
Keep on destroying things,
I've always felt it's what you do the best"

The both sang:

"Let him have it!
Since you're now aware of our ploy!"

Then Blastjaws sang:

"It's our pleasure to ruin him!"

"Wreck him!"

"I want him neutralized!"

Then Blastjaws formed a javelin of electricity inside his chitinous jaws. He was prepared to fire it at an armorless, beaten-down Parker. At this range it would be pointblank range. Parker would die. Whether it would be a quick death still remained to be seen.

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W9vXZncjGvk

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on December 18, 2016, 03:38:51 AM

...annd Cloaky to the rescue? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2016, 08:38:21 PM

Perhaps.

Sorry, but no chapter tonight. It's been an exhausting weekend for me.

:edit: Okay, found some energy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Gigavolt Havoc

Blastjaws launched the electrical javelin at Parker, who was aware of this. But his reaction times were not enough to dodge this attack. He had to admit, he felt rather powerless without his armor, and he hated himself for it. He had allowed himself to grow far too dependent on that armor, on the Walker tech within it. He had allowed his other skills -- skills for which he did not require the armor or Tyr for -- to degenerate and atrophy.

How could he have been so stupid? His life was beginning to flash before his eyes. He was going to die. He was going to die here. He knew it. His only regret was not being able to see Helen again. Not being able to feel her soft, gentle embrace again. Not being able to hear her melodic voice and sassy quips again. He desperately missed her already. He was mourning his death already, and he hadn't died yet.

But it seemed inevitable. His communicator was fried, much like his armor's systems. Tyr . . . who knows if he was still alive after that overload. The others wouldn't get here until too late. Much too late. There was nothing left to do for it -- this was how he would bite the big one. Bested by two Realm Walkers, and one a child.

Hmmm . . . the final blow seemed to be taking a while to land. It shouldn't have taken this long. This was odd.

Parker looked around when he opened his eyes, after bracing for the deadly blow that would rob him of life and send him into the cold, albeit reluctant, hands of Death. The blow that never came. He was protected by a golden-scarlet shield.

"Cloak?" Parker asked.

"Nah," Cloak replied, a bit more acidly then intended, "Avatar Aang. Of course, it's me, Parker."

"No need to get huffy," Parker grumbled.

"Now, get up, Parker," Cloak said, tossing him his unique SPARTAN sword. The two Realm Walkers stood between him and his armor. "Cowering is beneath you."

"I wasn't --"

"How DARE you interfere with our discipline," Blastjaws erupted. "How DARE you, not only defy, but break the law designated in the R.D.D. Act!! Have you no honor?!"

"Honor?" Cloak echoed dangerously.

"Oh, they're in for it," Parker said, picking up on this immediately.

"Your actions here, you and your young Hatchling, prove that neither one of you understand a thing about honor," Cloak said, with a low growl. Fatigue was starting to become even more self-evident, but he chose to ignore it. "But, I see how you work. You act first, justify later. You do elaborate mental gymnastics to make everything fit into your little narrative. Facts be Veiled!"

"I didn't come here to hear the petty little judgements of an outcast," Blastjaws countered. "You're nothing more than a renegade, a rogue, Elements Master. An embarrassment to your esteemed mother, and your noble grandfather's shamed pupil. Meanwhile, I am a loyal general to the Council, and the R.D.D Act."

Cloak did not know the law, but it was fairly obvious what it entailed.

"Great, another self-aggrandizing Walker," Cloak said, voice drenched in sarcastic irony, "that's certainly new."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2016, 08:32:38 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Walker and SPARTAN

"I didn't ask for your opinion, criminal," Blastjaws snarled, as his child looked back and forth, as if this was a tennis match. Parker looked, frankly, unsurprised and a little bored.

"I wasn't aware that I needed your permission, Blastjaws," Cloak said. "And as for being a criminal, I must say that term reflects you and your young son far better than me."

"We are abiding by the R.D.D. Act!" Blastjaws shrieked. "Unlike you!"

"You are clearly obediently following an unjust law," Cloak said, in a measured and even way. "Any law that overreaches and undermines the sovereignty and legitimacy of another -- this is a law that is unenforceable, a law that is wrong."

"We have dominion over the realms! We were here first!" Blastjaws countered, rather weakly.

"That is, by far, the weakest argument I heard thus far in support of Realm Walker supremacy," Cloak said, with toneless seriousness. "If your going to make up some inane rhetoric about nonexistent things, Blastjaws, the least you can do is put some effort into it."

"Don't you dare speak to me in that disrespectful way, Elements Master!" Blastjaws snarled, his prodigious mandibles (which was fortunately not sheathed in his corona) sparked dangerously. "You will speak to me with honors! With recognition! With --"

"You do not demand respect," Cloak said, "you must earn it."

"Don't you lecture me, you simple, naive --"

Cloak managed to suppress a laugh. It was funny that he was the one being called simple and naive, considering what Parker was doing without either one being any the wiser.

"Don't you smile at m--" he began, before it clicked into place. "Why are you smiling? You have us at no disad -- WHO TIED US UP?!?!?"

"You should have been paying attention," Cloak said, scolding him with a smug smile. "Not to mention, not being so dismissive about the Dwellers around you. Such attitudes can cause you to overlook things that are right in front of your face."

"Who the Veil tied us up?!" Blastjaws demanded.

"Your grasp of the obvious is astonishing," Cloak said dryly. "Parker, have you finished yet?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, now wearing his armor again. "These two must have some seriously bad eyesight."

"The Dweller?" Blastjaws scoffed derisively. "You expect us to believe that the Dweller did this?"

"Honestly? I don't give a royal --" Cloak uttered a Realm Walker swear that just sounded like a snarl to Parker's ears, "-- if you believe it or not."

Then he addressed Parker, "Go back to the forum, and make your report. I have to take this trash and put it where it belongs."

"Are you sure, Cloak?" Parker asked. "You look --"

"Just do it, okay?" Cloak said, tersely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2016, 06:58:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
The Abandoned Megamart

"The one time I leave without Beaky throwing a hissy fit . . ." Gaz grumbled.

Then one of the Realm Walkers -- she's been around Cloak enough to recognize what one is on sight -- spoke, and she found she didn't understand a word she was saying.

Her imp Realm Walker cohort, aptly named Translator, translated, though he mentioned how he would have to "clean up the language". Evidentally Enigma liked to swear like a sailor.

"'In my formative and hungry years,
I was unappreciated by my peers . . .
As their assaults and insults flew,
I would ponder - wouldn't you?
"Why me? Why me?!"
For a woman of my charisma and mystique,
I have taken far too long to reach my peak.
Why was my status never quo?
Why did no one want to know?
Poor me! Why me?!
Why was I so unable to fulfill my true potential?
Kept down by those I knew were smaller fry --
Inconsequential!
But here's the rub!
Rub-a-dub-dub!
I am power, I am clout personified!
I've an imp and sheer malice on my side!
It's a combination which works me up to a favor pitch:
"Big T" and ME!
When your rightful master says "Bow", you bow!
You forget who wears the pants around here now?
A woman who knows just what to do, and who to do it to!
Who's she? M-E!
And as for you, you little twerp,
From now on, it's "accept my pontification" time!
Though I hate to break an acquaintanceship,
YOU'RE GOING ON A ONE-WAY TRIP . . .
To a corner of the sphere,
Not a million miles from here,
But a few! Toodle!
Who's the titan!? Who's the champ?!
Who's the master of this camp?!
Who's the one who'll take up pages in who's who?!
Who?!
. . . Why, MEEE!'"

Translator's translation was not as bubbly as Enigma's singing would indicate she was. He seemed almost disinterested in everything going on, as if it was beneath his very important notice.

Then Enigma revealed a gloved hand with three stubby fingers and a stubby opposable thumb to match. She touched the ground, causing a darkness to surge forward toward Gaz, as several hundred spectral arms reached up from this dark, sinister energy. They reached up, and reached for Gaz. Reached to pull her to . . .

Oh, god, she didn't even want to know.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AU6AfCWuZKI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2016, 09:33:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Never-Ending Nightmare

"No . . . no . . . no!" Gaz screamed as the hands -- it seemed as if there were a thousand of these spectral hands attached to inhumanly long spectral arms -- continued to grab at her. It was almost as if they were trying to pull her, trying to drag her to a netherworld that she had really no intention of going to.

"Please . . ." Gaz said, despite Enigma's raspy cackling, ". . . no. Please, no."

Then, suddenly, a small blur of something red and yellow caught Gaz's eye for the merest second. Then a second blur heading the opposite direction. Really, the visibility from the cage formed by these writhing, wringing spectral arms and hands left much to be desired.

But whatever these blurs were, they had sliced through the spectral arms -- causing them to collapse and disintegrate into nothingness, with a rather smoky-looking exit after they were severed from the ground shadow which had fully receded and vanished.

Then something backflipped needlessly over her head, twisting so that his back was to her. As she stood and brushed herself off, she noticed something upon the ground that clinked ever so slightly when she had accidentally nudged it with her foot.

Cloak stood up, his scarlet and gold energy blades still extended, Wolverine-like, from his wrists. He glared down at the two Realm Walkers, with Translator looking thoroughly unimpressed and angsty, and Enigma showing her emotions on her sleeve.

She spoke, and Translator said, in a drawling, bored tone, "She says --"

"I know very well what she said," Cloak said, curtly.

She said something that sounded very indistinct to Gaz's ears.

"That is a blatant association fallacy, and you know it." Cloak countered, dismissively.

Gaz couldn't understand whatever Enigma's response was, and she had momentarily forgotten the clinking item that no one else was paying attention to not even Translator.

"Ah," Cloak said, dryly irreverent, "so we've come to the abusive fallacy part of the conversation then."

Gaz began to tune out the conversation, as she knelt down, seemingly unnoticed by all Realm Walkers present. She touched the strange item to discover that it was slightly warm -- or cool -- to the touch, she couldn't decided which.

""Seriously, Enigma?" Cloak said, voice drenched copiously with disdain. "Cherry picking? False analogies? Hasty generalizations? Misleading vividness fallacies? Thought-terminating cliches?"

Gaz grasped the item, discovering its identity. A considerable length of chains, gold in color, that somehow disappeared into the inherent darkness of this abandoned megamart. She knew what these were.

"Are just seriously trying to every possible fallacy and propaganda trick from the woodwork?" Cloak said. "Or is that you actually believe all these contradictory arguments?"

Gaz immediately understood Cloak's plans. She only hoped that she could pull off what she believed that he had in mind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on December 22, 2016, 07:48:30 AM

Edge of seat: *is on*

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2016, 01:06:30 PM

Well, unless I'm mistaken, it's about six chapters from the end.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Walker and Vampire

"Oh, I wondered when you would use that defense," Cloak said, practically rolling his feline eyes. "It's not oppressing you to stop you from oppressing others, that's not a right!"

Gaz grasped the chain, the tylee chain, the only thing that can bind Realm Walkers and gods, firmly in her hands. She knew what she must do, and could only hope that Cloak could continue to distract the two, even the disaffected Translator, for he to complete this job.

Enigma made her rebuttal, and it sound incomprehensible to Gaz's ears again. But Cloak could understand her -- he and Translator were the only ones who could. Dagger, Cloak's younger sister by two years (twenty, in Dweller Earth time), had a speech problem similar to Enigma, and, when they were young, Cloak was the only one who understood a word she said.

"Do all bigots have this victim complex?" Cloak asked, sounding testy. "Or querulous paranoia or persecutory delusions, or whatever the proper term is."

This just got Enigma monologuing. And monologuing passionately. She didn't even notice the bat that was circling around her and Translator. To her, it was nothing more than a bothersome gnat. She just had assumed that bats routinely roosted here through the day, and it was true --as they left unmistakable . . . uh, "evidence", behind.

Cloak interrupted her next remark with, "Look, Enigma, you aren't gonna convince me of why your bigotry is right. It isn't -- bigotry is never right."

The bat seemed to be circling them closer and closer, but they both ignored it, with Cloak paying the most marginal of attention to it. Enigma spat out her next retort to Cloak.

"No, Enigma," Cloak said, with a tone that clearly said that he thought he was dealing with someone with the underwhelming intelligence of a particularly stupid and overemotional child. "I am not a bigot because I don't -- and will never -- condone your bigotry. You are not a victim. Your arguments do not hold any water when confronted with indisputable facts. In fact, they crumble like cheaply made pastries."

Enigma looked as if she very much would like to attack Cloak. Something that had not gone unnoticed from the Realm Walker. Cloak's response to this was surprisingly cavalier, "So you wish to fight me now? How typical. When you are unable to support you lies, mistruths, and bigotry with strong facts and proof, you turn to violence to silence the unbeliever. Typical."

Enigma made a horrid shriek, as she tried to rush forward and attack Cloak, who looked at her with contempt and disgust. Only to fall flat on her face. She had been bound without even realizing it, so intently focused on arguing with Cloak on these political matters.

If Translator noticed, he either did care or wanted this to just be over. He was most certainly tired and weary from translating Enigma's speech, filtering out the swears to make the message more acceptable and receptive.

"Thanks, Gazzy," Cloak said, and she noticed for the first time, as she came out of her bat mode, just how heavy Cloak's limbs seemed to be. He was obviously tired, but still stubbornly moving foreward. "Now, to put these two criminals -- yes, you are criminals, Enigma, your bigotry doesn't justify your actions! -- put these two criminals back where they belong."

"Can I get my own cell, then?" Translator asked dispassionately.

"But you're exhausted, Cloak," Gaz said.

"Just go and make the report, Gaz," Cloak said, unable to keep some of the weariness from his voice.

"You don't have to do this by yourself, Cloak," Gaz said.

"Cloak was already beginning to Walk away at this point before he answered, "But, alas, . . . I do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 22, 2016, 07:37:02 PM

New book ideas.

• Book MCX (1,110): "R.A.B.A.S.A.R." -- The RAFians must deal with the R.A.B.A.S.A.R.
• Book MCXI (1,111): "N. Abel Capture" -- The RAFians are captured by a single, unlikely person.
• Book MCXII (1,112): "Crisis of Conscience" -- N. Abel develops a conscience and moral compass.
• Book MCXIII (1,113): "Self-Discovery" -- N. Abel goes on a journey of self-discovery, and must find who he really is.
• Book MCXIV (1,114): "The Identifier" -- The RAFians must protect a rather important blind man.
• Book MCXV (1,115): "Perspective" -- The RAFians must deal with an irresponsible cognikinetic.
• Book MCXVI (1,116): "This is Ludicrous" -- The RAFians must deal with one of the more ludicrous, but dangerous, weapons they had ever encountered.
• Book MCXVII (1,117): "A Sound Assessment" -- Boomblast returns.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Still Year 12, but probably will be written in 2120.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
The Deserted Path

Broken stood in the abandoned path of dirt and stone. It was well wide enough to accommodate him and a larger dragon, almost as if the tunnel was carved out by Diglett and Dugtrio.

"Who's laughing now?!" he demanded.

A malicious sort of laughter rent the air as the smoke cleared. Cleared to reveal the dragon Realm Walker, Enforcer, completely unharmed. The red ant Realm Walker, his lieutenant Pinchy, stood to the back, apparently cowering a bit. He was afraid of Enforcer.

"Why, I believe it's ME," he said, in a rather sinister way. Then he snapped his fingers and music started up inexplicably.

"So, it's not enough to defeat me. Now you gotta humiliate me." Blocky noted.

Enforcer's smile deepened as he sang:

"I must admit
Your combat tricks
Are amusing!
I bet you've got a bunny
Under your heel.
Now, here's your chance
To get the best of me.
Hope your hand is hot!
C'mon, Dweller,
Let's see what you've got!"

Then the battle began anew. Blocky knew very well the likelihood of him overpowering a Realm Walker, one of the most durable and powerful species he knew of. But he didn't care. He engaged anyway.

"You can try to slam me
With your hardest stuff.
But your double combo
Isn't up to snuff!
I'll set the record straight.
You're simply bait.
You're only third rate."

Blocky wouldn't allow himself to give up. He wouldn't allow himself to become disheartened. It was an effect of draconic pride.

"You think your cat's a meanie
But your tiger's tame.
You've got a lot to learn
About the dragon game.
So, for your education,
I reiterate.
You're only third rate!"

Blocky was starting to get annoyed -- and his butt kicked. But his pride would not allow him to give up or given in, no matter the bruise or lost scales or lacerations and whatnot.

"Dwellers cower
At the power
In my pinky!!
My thumb is number one
On every list!!
But if you're not convinced
That I'm invincible,
Put me to the test!!
I'd love to lay this debacle to rest!"

Now it was becoming a trial for Blocky to get back up. He was taking a beating, and it was astonishing enough that he hadn't succumbed already. RAFians like him tended to be a stubborn sort.

"Go ahead and blast me
With a big surprise.
Slap me in a trap.
Cut me down to size!
I'll make a great escape!
It's just a piece of cake.
You're only third rate!"

Blocky was starting to be forced to see the futility in fighting this Realm Walker. Not to mention he was a larger, older dragon (and as anthropomorphized as all Realm Walkers are), he had the durability and resilience of a Realm Walker. This made it nigh on impossible for someone such as Blocky to beat him one-on-one.

"You know, your combinations
Aren't tough enough
And your strike power
Doesn't measure up!
Let me pontificate
Upon your sorry state!
You're only third rate!"

Blocky was looking distinctly broken and beaten, but still he refused to go down. In his mind, doing just that would be just as good as being dead. But he had streaks of red trickling down his scaly hide, and he found himself not really caring.

"So, spare me your tremendous stare.
You look delicious in your despair,
And I can hardly wait
To discombobulate!
I'll send your back end packing
In a shipping crate!
You'll make a better living
With a spinning plate!
You're only third rate!"

Blocky staggered to his feet, defiant and resolute. He wasn't about to go down like a chump. He wasn't going to go down -- not without taking this Realm Walker with him.

"Well, that was invigorating," Enforcer said, as if this was only a mild exertion of his power. "But, alas, one loose end to tie up."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=10S428LRcUY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2016, 10:02:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Devastating Drake

"Time to die, Dweller," Enforcer said, his scales actually clanking together in a most ominous way. He placed his hands across his chest, so each finger and thumb was touching their counterpart on the opposite hand. He formed a diamond shape with his hand in doing this.

From this diamond shape, he fired an energy dragon -- limbless, skeletally serpentine body with large bat wings and a jagged snout -- that was composed of a cool blue and fiery red energy. It headed straight for Blocky who would not be able to dodge out of the way in time. Blocky actually shut his eyes and braced for impact.

But the impact never came, as a tremendous roar reverberated around the enclosed place. It wasn't draconic, but feline.

Blocky hazard a chance to open his eyes, and saw the energy dragon skewered on one of Cloak's energy blades. The dragon vanished and Cloak unformed the blades.

"Oh, Sage's brat's brat," Enforcer spat. "I have heard of you, Elements Master."

Cloak said nothing. He looked very angry and disgruntled. And yet, there was a certain heaviness to his movements, a certain weight. Broken knew that Cloak was tired -- it was very evident. And, unnoticed by Pinchy and Enforcer, he had flicked a small bean toward Blocky, who recognized it as a senzu bean. He ate it and felt up to fighting form immediately.

"Yes," Enforcer said, apparently chewing the scenery as if this was an episode of Power Rangers or something. "Yes, your reputation proceeds you. The ungrateful son of a hardworking, devoted mother."

Cloak was surprised that the sheer untruthfulness of this comment did not elicit an angry reaction in him. He keep his face inscrutable and plain, and just allowed Enforcer to keep talking, hoping that he'd start monologuing. He and Pinchy were the last ones. The last Realm Walkers to take in. The last ones before he, Cloak, ended this.

"An embarrassment to Master Sage," Enforcer continued, thinking he was hitting pay dirt. Oblivious to the obvious flaw in his rhetoric. "At least he never degraded himself by befriending these meaningless insects. You not only befriended them, I heard, you actually live amongst them! You actually live in-realm with these lawless primitives."

Cloak didn't care what Enforcer thought of him, even with his spouting of misinformation. He didn't care in the slightest, and could not muster any energy to be brought to care. This is why Enforcer's words were just meaningless blather to him. Beneath consideration. Beneath contempt. Enforcer was just as full of himself as the others before him, just as bigoted and dismissive.

It was sad, really.

"What's this? I thought that you were prone to banter, prone to ideological preaching, when you fought," Enforcer said, sounding disappointed now, instead of goading. "I want some enjoyment when I crush you and your little Dweller pet there."

Cloak gave a little snort of suppressed laughter, but that was all the response Cloak gave him. And this did not go over all that well with the dragon Realm Walker, who seemed to take this as a personal insult.

"What's the matter?"

Cloak said nothing.

"Run out of quips?"

Nada.

"No more words to fail?!"

Cloak kept his silence, just folded his arms disapprovingly. Rather parent-like.

"You think now that you're this so-called 'RAFian' that you're better than me?! The all-powerful Enforcer?!"

Cloak said nothing, which just seemed to incense Enforcer more, causing Pinchy to recoil and cower.

"Well, you're not!!"

Cloak's continued silence was really beginning to enrage Enforcer, which caused Blocky to question the wisdom of Cloak's actions, though he didn't say anything himself.

"I owned you!!" Enforcer said. It was a bold claim -- considering the two never fought before. "I own this planet!! I own this Realm!!"

Cloak still just glared on disapprovingly.

"In fact," Enforcer snarled, "Burst this planet!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 24, 2016, 10:20:44 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Walker and Dragon

But he never got a chance, especially because Pinchy decided to up and abandon him in the middle of his spiel. He never noticed. Also because Cloak shot out the tylee chain -- the same one he used to drag the others to the Oblivion Gate -- and it nicked his shoulder.

"What kind of lame attack was that?" Enforcer demanded. He always thought in terms of beating down your opponent. He never considered being outthought. He never noticed that Blocky had caught the other end. "You're so pathetic -- urf!!"

His arms were quickly pinioned to his sides, as Cloak earth-surfed around him in a clockwise manner, while Blocky flew with his end in a counterclockwise way. Within moments Enforcer was bound.

But not gagged.

"You can't hold me!!" he snarled and spat. "I'll break these chains in an instant!!"

"They're tylee chains, stupid," Cloak said, dryly.

"No chains can bind me!! I'm the great Enforcer!!"

"You don't know what tylee metal's properties are, do you?" Cloak said, rhetorically. The answer was glaringly obvious.

"Nothing can hold me!!" Enforcer insisted. Cloak opined that it sounded rather childlike, and found that it was becoming harder and harder to take the guy seriously.

"He . . . just likes to hear himself talk, doesn't he?" Blocky piped up from Cloak's left.

"I'm the great Enforcer!" he raged, almost crazily. "I have never been defeated!"

"You never tangoed with a RAFian before, pal," Cloak said, matter-of-factly. Then he turned to address Blocky, "Go and make your report to the forum. I gotta take this deluded egomaniac back where he belongs."

Cloak stumbled a little, as he moved to Walk both him and Enforcer back to the Nexus.

"Are you sure that you're up for this, Cloak?" Blocky said, concerned.

"I'll be fine," Cloak said, repressively.

"Maybe you should eat one of those senzu bean thingies," he suggested.

"No can do," Cloak said, rather oppressively, "they don't work on Realm Walkers."

Broken couldn't tell if Cloak was being legitimately serious, or if he was just saying that to get Blocky going on his report and to get him to return to the forum.

"Cloak, you don't have to do this alone!" Blocky called out, but Cloak was already Walking away. Blocky didn't understand -- he did have to do this alone, as he was the only one who could Walk.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2016, 07:48:08 AM

Merry Christmas!

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
The Final Confrontation

"I don't think you really deserve this," Shill was saying. She had released her seven generals from the Oblivion Gate prison, where Cloak dropped each and every one of them off. Their lieutenants, however, were still there, unless they were juveniles. "I practically guaranteed success with those missions, and you couldn't even accomplish them."

"We met resistance," Gumshoe argued.

"Dwellers," Mistruth said, dismissively. "If they were truly that much of a bother, you should have eliminated them and continued to search for the U. A. Energy."

"Well, it wasn't exactly like they were alone," Beguile said, as Enforcer made a face. His pride was hurt. "The Elements Master --"

Suddenly, the kissing ornate doors colored gold and black burst open, letting in the mist from outside which rapidly dissipated to reveal Cloak.

"I've seen to your generals, Shill," he announced, not even acknowledging the presence of the aforementioned generals. "How dare you occupy Realm Dweller territory!! How dare your try to remove their sovereignty!!"

"How dare you, a citizen of the Nexus, a Realm Walker, address your Council this way," Shill growled, indignant at this intrusion. "You're loyalty is to our kind first. Anything less makes you a traitor."

"Don't do this, Shill," Cloak warned. "Don't challenge us. It won't end well."

All five Council members and the seven generals looked outraged by this statement, but Spin seemed to noticed something rather incongruous with what Cloak said.

"Then you're a traitor," Sycophant said.

"Wait," Spin said, "you said 'us'."

Cloak smiled as the mist cleared more to show more Realm Walkers other than himself standing behind him, in support and solidarity. An anthropomorphic ostrich. An anthropomorphic Sumatran tiger. An anthropomorphic rhino. An anthropomorphic lizard. An anthropomorpbic frog. An anthropomorphic orchid mantis. An anthropomorphic rattlesnake. An anthropomorphic isopod. An anthropomorphic parrot. An anthropomorphic kangaroo rat. An anthropomorphic swordfish. An anthropomorphic stag beetle. An anthropomorphic elephant. An anthropomorphic bakeneko. An anthropomorphic spider. An anthopomorphic jackal. An anthropomorphic draft horse. An anthropomorphic wolf. And many more, unseen by the Council and generals.

"You see," Cloak said, "your policies and, yes, even the R. D. D. Act aren't as nearly popular as you claim them to be."

"You don't know anything," Mistruth said. It was almost convincing.

"As it turns out," Cloak said, continuing as if Mistruth hadn't spoken, "only about ten percent of the population was all for your visions of conquest and expanding your domain. Four percent were unsure. But eighty-six percent? Those were the ones who oppose it, with varying levels of vehemence."

There were murmurings of confirmation in the ranks behind Cloak.

"And, come to find out," Cloak continued, watching the Council themselves actually squirm, "that you five never even earned your seats of power. That you carried on a farce of an election, and it didn't matter who voted for who, you would inevitably be elected either way. A might bit shady, if you ask me."

"We won the election," Undermine said, "like or not, we won."

"You stole it!" cried a passionate Realm Walker -- a leopard-form one -- from somewhere in the throng behind Cloak. "You lied and cheated your way to the Council seats! All of you!!"

Cloak held out a hand to try to steady the Realm Walker's emotion. "Do you really think that you can take office and than that's it? No one can oppose you? That you can crack down on your opposition and expect no blowback? That you could retain your seats of power indefinitely? That you can force the Realm Walker people to love you, when you clearly have no redeemable qualities of any sort?"

They didn't seem to have an answer for any of those questions.

"No one likes an authoritarian," Cloak said. "It's over. It's the will of the people. Step down -- or fight."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2016, 10:45:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
Choices

It went surprisingly anticlimactically.

As soon as they saw that the Realm Walker people had gathered en masse and was more willing to fight the twelve of them to get rid of their authoritarian law and policies, their collective will folded like a cheap beach chair. The Council was impeached and indicted.

Cloak had left before he saw the new Councilors be elected -- he was afraid of getting nominated -- and he Walked home. Perhaps he could have spearheaded some real change as a Councilor, perhaps he could do a lot . . . but the chances of corruption heighten as you go up the ladder of authority.

Beside, no Elements Master has ever sat on the Council. And he didn't care to be the first.

***

Introspective GH and Punny GH sat at a table across from Deceptive GH.

Both Introspective GH and Punny GH both wore suits, Introspective GH's was white and Punny GH's was black. Both their hairs were slicked back and Punny GH spoke with a bad French accent for some reason. Deceptive GH wore a black turtleneck, black jeans, black boots, a black knit cap, and a domino mask.

Introspective GH started. He spoke-sang:

"GH, let's begin.
Describe the day you played with kin."

Deceptive GH replied:

"We rehearsed and then we walked about,
We ate bratwurst and sauerkraut."

Punny GH inquired:

"That night, at ten-o-three,
Were you inside the memory gallery?"

Deceptive GH responded:

"From ten o'clock to ten-o-four
Is when we played the show's encore."

Introspective GH stated:

"Hmm, GH, we've got our doubts.
Can you confirm your whereabouts?"

Deceptive GH was getting hostile.

"My alibi is air tight.
The audience saw me sing all night."

Punny GH spoke-sang:

"Mong-sewer, we know you did the crime."

Deceptive GH countered:

"I was on stage that whole time.
Ask who sang the Thief's Connection!"

Both Introspective GH and Punny GH announced:

"Thank you, GH, no more questions!"

Deceptive GH left, and Diva GH was called in. He was wearing a pig mascot costume for some reason, with the mascot head under his right arm. His hair was much longer than the RAFian GH of whom all these GHs were a part, and set in ringlets, not unlike a Rose Quartz Gem (http://stevenuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Rose_Quartz), but not as much hair as one.

Punny GH said:

"Allo, I think it's time for good cop, romantic cop.
GH, you cleaned up locked inside.
Now's your chance to save your hide."

He gave a little twitter, and said:

"Gentlemen, I did not know
It was a crime to steal the show!"

Introspective GH demanded:

"Tell us how the part was taken!"

Punny GH said:

"If you want to save your bacon."

Diva GH stated:

"I haven't seen your missing part.
All I stole was audience hearts!"

Introspective GH suggested:

"We can give you a plea deal."

Punny GH elaborated:

"All you have to do is squeal."

Diva GH protested:

"I'm not a thief! I don't know how!
All I've ever taken is a bow!"

Punny GH said:

"We'll catch the swine who did this job --"

Diva GH snarled, annoyed:

"Give up the pig puns, creep.
Go jump in a lake! That's my suggestion!"

The two then said:

"Thank you, GH, no more questions!"

Then the two retreated to a back room to recoup and regroup.

"I think he liked me," Punny GH said.

"I don't think your puns are helping the investigation," said Introspective GH.

Punny GH said, "You know . . .

"I think they did it."

"No, they didn't."

"Yes, they did, and we can pin it."

"If they did, how did they do it?"

"If they didn't, how didn't they didn't?"

"If they didn't, then it's easy 'cuz they simply didn't do it."

"If they did it, then I knew it, but we've nothing that can prove it."

Then he returned to speaking normally, "Bring in the weird guy with the schnoz."

And in came Weirdo GH, who looked more or less normal aside from the schnoz that even Cyrano de Bergerac and Gonzo wouldn't envy. Introspective GH started things off again:

"Do you remember what you did
On the night you played with the Id?"

Weirdo GH claimed:

"I was gored by a raging bull,
And was rushed off to the hospital."

Punny GH asked:

"GH, what do you know
About the sculpture theft at Pituitary Prado?"

Weirdo GH disputed:

"I never saw the stolen bust.
I spent the night in bed, concussed."

Introspective GH said:

"The truth, GH. The clock is tickin'."

Weirdo GH protested:

"If you don't believe me, ask the chicken!
GH was there, he'll cooperate!"

Cowardly GH was brought in. He wore a chicken suit, for some reason. Punny GH said:

"Sir, are you willing to corroborate?"

Cowardly GH said:

"Bawk bawk begawk, begawk gawk gawk!"

Introspective GH demanded:

"Will somebody get this chicken out of here!!"

Weirdo GH exclaimed:

"Calm down, GH, it's a routine inspection!"

Then both GHs said:

"Thank you, GH, no more questions!"

Punny GH addressed Oblivious GH:

"Let's go from the start.
What do you know about the stolen part."

To which he replied:

"I didn't know there was a plan."

The next interviewee, Hippie GH, said:

"Your accusations are far out, man!"

Smart GH disputed:

"The chances of us committing a crime
Are less than point-zero-zero-nine!"

Gibberish GH said:

"Shern de shern de herf,
Sher de chicky en de farney hug!"

Punny GH asked Translator GH:

"To help with our investigation,
Can you do a full translation?"

Translator GH said, "What the GH just said to you was 'schnoop do schnnop do schnook' -- it's gibberish."

Comedic GH said:

"Uh, I can do an Elvis impression."

The two GHs said:

"Thank you, GHs, no more questions."

Then they went back to the backroom as they dismissed the other GHs. Punny GH started it off:

"They didn't."

"No, they didn't."

"There's no way they did the crime."

"They couldn't, they're too stupid."

"They're not criminal masterminds."

"We do not know who did it,
but we know who didn't do it!"

Both sang:

"So, we know who didn't do it!!
Yes, we know who didn't do it!!"

Punny GH said, "They are incapable of being culpable."

When suddenly the whole vision turned to red and black with a thunderous voice shouting, "LET ME OUT!!"

And, just like that, GH woke up, "What the f--"

He stopped himself when he saw Leatherhead's slumbering form.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V4VzUwKeoGM (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V4VzUwKeoGM)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on December 25, 2016, 11:29:11 PM

. . . What XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2016, 10:17:47 AM

;) I just wanted to get it up before Christmas ended for you. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
A Flasher

Cloak was dispatched to look into an odd occurrence in some crystal catacombs. He was hoping for a brief respite from that gruelling mission and the whole R. D. D. Act thing, but then again, he did undertake that whole thing on his own initiative and merits, so . . .

No rest for the weary, he guessed.

Anyway, the reports were vague. It could have been another Malice's scheme, or just another of Demos's fiend creations. There really wasn't much information to go off of, but the minute Cloak crossed the threshold and paid attention, he could definitely Earthsight something humanoid deep within the heart of this short, crystal-laden catacomb.

He approached with all the feline finesse he possessed. Their was a myriad of tunnels to navigate through. Right. Straightaway. Left, which widened into a small room, with three paths. Cloak took the middle path and headed right from it. Path turned right again. Then left. Then a path opened on his left, but he ignored it.

Then the path got windy for two turns, and then a sharp right, that sloped downward. It opened into a room double the size of the one before. Cloak kept plowing forward, ignoring the path immediately left of the threshold out of the room.

And so it went, until he came to the very heart of the catacombs, where the creature was waiting. The creature was bald, humanoid, with black irises and brown sclera. It had a pasty face upon a purple head framed by yellow. It had no nose. It had dark orange shoulder pads with yellow edgings, a yellow chest piece with purple beneath that, white thighs and upper arms, and yellow legs and lower arms with purple hands. The lower arms also possessed golden grieves on them, and its lower legs had purple "=" markings on them.

"You the big bad, huh?" Cloak said. He wasn't really impressed. Didn't help that it was roughly the size of Mickey Mouse. At least, the theme park equivalent. "One of Demos's fiends, right?"

No answer. Cloak wasn't too terribly sure these things could speak, but didn't articulate this confusion, as it would also be terribly rude. And because he wanted to get this over with.

"Okay, then" Cloak said, "then what's your schtick?"

No response. Cloak wasn't expecting one. But then it opened its hand and bright, blinding flash followed. The flash only lasted a few seconds, and Cloak's eponymous cloak flared a bit, buffered by some unseen force, but Cloak himself was unaffected. Whatever that force was, Cloak didn't know.

Now the creature moved, and he was abysmally slow. Slugma or Slowpoke terms of slow. The only thing he did quickly was fire multiple blasts of energy that Cloak would later recognize as chronal energy, much like what Chronians and Chronosapiens could wield. Cloak deflected them much like when Son Goku first battled Frieza, though, chances were that they wouldn't have fazed him much, if at all, even if they did hit home. His Realm Walker nature made such attacks not so great.

Yes, Realm Walkers do experience time, but that does mean that theirs could be manipulated so easily. If at all.

"That's your full powerset, huh?" Cloak asked rhetorically. He was pretty sure that he was right. "Then I think we should end this right now. And, if I'm not mistaken, and if you're anything like Flash Man (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Flash_Man), then . . ."

Cloak began an unrelenting barrage of fire-based attacks. He would have used metal-based attacks, but this area -- while prime on earth and air, had no metal within the immediate vicinity. So, Cloak relied on fire, despite his pyrophobia never really leaving him.

This Flasher, as Cloak hadn't any other name for it, fell quickly and Cloak immediately left, looking forward to a nice long rest. Or as much as he could get, considering he was a RAFian, and basically always on-call.

***

Demos called it a furassapien. He had no other prerogative to make it, other than to see if he could create a chronokinetic. He believed that he succeeded with this creature.

***

"Well," Malice said, watching the whole thing, "that was over in a flash."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2016, 12:13:57 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXLI:
A BUGGY AFTERNOON
CHAPTER ONE:
Quick!

Aquilai was dispatched to a mountainside facility. He was told that it was abandoned and he was not given a reason for it existing, but he had a hunch that it was a former military base or military training facility or something of that sort of nature. He was also not given a reason for it being abandoned. Two questions the RAFians had no answers about -- which was also.part of his mission. To find out what the government may be hiding out here.

Aquilai was quite miffed to discover that the place's defenses were already live and well-armed, as he almost discovered with the death beams. Sure, he could use his sonic screwdriver and disable them. But he had to do so one at a time!! It very quickly proved to be quite tedious.

But eventually he had deactivated them all when he was nearly accosted by the creature. It was a very fast, very quick creature. The creature was svelte, humanoid, with black irises and brown sclera. It had a green head with a silver boomerang-like crest. Its upper arms were white with silver at the elbows and green lower arms and hands, with the right one containing a silver orifice where it could rapid fire out metallic boomerangs. It also had silver blades on the outside of its wrists that it could retract at any time it so wished. Its torso, to its waist, had a green chest piece with a silver boomerang marking dead center. Below its waist it was white until its silver knees. Below its knees, it was green.

Aquilai was in at a bit of a disadvantage -- there wasn't any water nearby that he could see to help him out. He almost wished that the rejuvenation thing last year hadn't reset his regeneration clock -- somehow. He still wasn't too terribly sure how that worked.

He even finished when the creature fired three quick boomerangs, but they all fell short. The boomerangs may have been quick and rapid fire, but the range was piddling and pathetic. Clearly only useful in more close-quarters battles, and not long-range fighting. But this creature was clearly not one of great intelligence, as it seemed to continually get caught on the most minute thing, as if he was a buggy video game character.

Eventually, the speedster landed a few blows on him, leaving him with gashes and such, but it wasn't sufficient enough to trigger a Regeneration. Aquilai managed to dig deep and find some water -- fortunately, it wasn't a full moon, so bloodbending wasn't an option. He didn't want that option, no matter how much easier it made his life. But found a small stream in which to defend himself.

He used it so to freeze the creature solid, and the mere fact that he stopped seemed to be killing him, almost as if he were like a shark, and always needed to be moving to respirate. This was very akin.

Before Aquilai was aware that this was even a thing -- the creature was dead.

***

Demos called it a velocisapien. He just made it to see if it was faster than a Citrakayah (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Citrakayah) or a Kineceleran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kineceleran). This ultimately failed, as the velocisapien could only match their top speeds, not exceed them, and it had far less endurance than either, so it could not maintain its speed long enough to even garner a speed trail.

***

"Wow, that was quick," Malice noticed. She sounded vaguely disappointed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2016, 11:44:49 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Parker's Tale

Parker, GH, Leatherhead, Saffa, Abby, Helen, Quaf, and Hunter was sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows. Cloak was there, but he stood off to the side, just barely visible in the campfire's light. He had rested some, having nearly collapsed after the fiend and Walker debacle, but GH talked him into coming to this little get-together. He wasn't much for campfire stories at the moment -- he kept going over his actions in the Nexus, and wondered if he should have stuck around longer than he did.

But the Nexus was no longer his home. He might be more welcomed there now, but the "stigma" (which he really didn't consider it as such, but he knew some would) of being the only Walker (they still thought Malice was dead) to stay for an extended time in-Realm would still be adhered to him, no matter what he did. All these thoughts clung to his mind like a bunch of roosting bats. He had completely missed GH doing a rendition of "Upendi" for Helen and Parker.

Parker then started to describe an event some five, six years (Dweller time, of course) where he was investigating the crash of a saucer-like spacecraft. He initially expected something routine like a Skrit Na or something. Nothing too threatening.

Then he interviewed a woman with an incredible and traumatic story. But, unlike some other species, he could not have "corrected" her memory, or Obliviated her. That fell to someone else, if whenever possible.

But he was sure. It was alien power behind this.

Then his glibly skipped over what he considered to be the boring bits, which Cloak didn't approve of (because they might miss out on context), and, instead, went immediately to the exciting final battle. He described (in excruciating detail, strangely enough, for happening so long ago -- he must have been embellishing on some parts to add more drama) how the ****roach-like alien tore itself out of the human skin it stole, becoming much larger than the human farmer it was impersonating. It was at least seven feet long, with needle-sharp teeth as long as daggers and legs like a more dangerous Taxxon. Its eyes were the size of softballs, at least. And it was rusty red in color.

Parker described it attacking fast and hard (describing how it scuffed up his armor took a little away from the narrative, though). He also told of it thinking far too literally, as it apparently took "drop me" as "drop me in your mouth". He also mentioned that it was very quick to anger, something he admitted to underestimating.

Parker eventually matched it blow-for-blow. Cloak thought he was sounding a bit boastful, but he didn't say anything about it. He was still much too busy mulling over the description Parker gave of the beast, and he kept coming to one conclusion. And he hoped he was wrong -- they were a very dangerous species he was thinking of, if having a rather lackluster name for their species.

"What was it?" Leatherhead asked, after Parker finished. "The buggy?"

"I don't know what it was, exactly," Parker said, in a cavalier way Cloak thought was unnecessary. "If I'm honest."

"Sounds to me that it was a Bug," Cloak said, quietly and quite seriously.

"Weren't you listening?" Parker said, hiding some disappointment. "Of course, it was a bug! It was an alien bug!"

"Bug." Cloak repeated, with the same gravely serious tone of voice. "As in capital 'B' Bug. It's the name for a really volatile insectoid species who has a clear inferiority complex. You smash or squish or poison or otherwise kill an insect in their presence, it's a death sentence -- or at least a train to massive pain."

"You're serious?" GH asked.

"From what I know, which isn't everything," Cloak said, "Bugs thrive on carnage. They consume, infest, live off the dead and destroy other species -- or try to."

"He's serious," Hunter supplied GH.

"Feel fortunate enough that you didn't happen to kill on of the Bug Queen's favorite Bugs," Cloak warned, "or there'd be a bounty on your head. There are more than just one Bug."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2016, 12:14:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Bug Bounty

Turns out that the Bug Parker slayed was named Edwin, and he actually was one of the Bug Queen's favorites. She had sent him to retrieve something from Earth, something only referred to as the Power Source, or the Galaxy. It was something of myth, like El Dorado or the Fountain of Youth or something of that nature.

Edwin, like most, if not all, Bugs, was extremely loyal to his Queen, possibly due to the insect hive mentality. He had left at once, the Queen believing that he was the only one necessary, as he was one of the most capable soldiers she had. Her favoritism was such that she gave him his own ship (which was presumably destroyed after Parker had slain the creature).

He had underestimated how to enter Earth's atmosphere and this saucer ship -- remarkably similar to a Skrit Na ship, but a tad smaller, built for one occupant -- turned into a flaming meteor destroying a farmer's truck as said farmer was being verbally abusive to his harried wife, claiming that his truck was the only one that pulled its weight (other than himself, of course). The same truck that the Bug crashed into, destroying utterly, as it dug out a divot in the ground. It was deep enough that a human would be unable to see Edwin until the came right up to the lip of the divot.

The farmer, coincidentally named Edwin, or Ed for short, came outside, less than pleased that his truck was obliterated. When his wife came after him, he told her to get "her big butt back into the house", before proceeding to the crash site with his meticulously-cared-for shotgun. The weapon he evidently loved more than his wife -- as pathetic as it sounds.

He strolled, bold as brass, up to the considerable divot where he met Edwin. The Bug asked him to place his shotgun upon the ground. Ed arrogantly told him that he could have his gun when he pries it from his cold, dead fingers. Edwin found these terms . . . acceptable, as he reached up and pulled Ed down into the divot with him, easily disarming him and relieving him of his skin as he tossed it aside, clothes still somehow intact, and it landed on the rim, the lip of the divot.

While still unseen to everyone but Edwin himself, he had eaten everything other than the skin, and, when he had finished, he had grabbed the Ed skin. With a lot of rather unnecessarily audible slurping sounds, he had managed to squeeze and compact himself enough to be able to fit the skin. That wasn't to say that he fit the skin ubiquitously -- it sagged someplaces in an inhuman way, with the appearance of skin hanging of bones. His eyes were clouded and distinctly different. His nostrils seemed to be more prominent. Bugs clearly lacked the compression field tech of the Slitheen, though they needn't worry about a gas exchange.

Anyway, he cracked his neck and snapped his disguised jaws and went back to the farmhouse to ask for sugared water. . . .

Long story short, he went to a variety of places, looking for this "Galaxy" thing, which was apparently some sort of power source, and he repeatedly failed in finding it. This didn't make him very happy, especially since the ship he arrived on would never fly again. He was essentially planet-locked, as he did not know of any other spacecraft capable of.leaving the Earth's orbit under its own power. Which made it a good thing that the RAFians were very much a nonentity to the Bugs.

Then Parker killed Edwin.

And word had only reached the Bug Queen just a scant few months ago. While the rest of the hive knew and felt her fury, she sent Edward and Eduardo -- both brothers of Edwin, but technically they were all brothers -- to assassinate Parker on the promise of a tempting bounty of an unspecified amount of the queen's jelly, a form of currency amongst the Bugs, apparently. If they failed, she would open up the bounty to all of her children, her hive.

They were not to come back, alive or dead, unless their duty was done. She sent them on a single ship, and it landed in a extremely rural place -- near a ranch house upon a swamp, inhabited only by two backwoods brothers, both average builds with the younger one being slight bigger and slightly dumber than his older brother.

It played out the same way it did with Edwin. The two brothers, Teddy and Bobby, became skin disguises for the two Bugs, as they searched for Parker. But they left their ship behind, thinking it would be perfectly fine and undetected in the swamp.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 30, 2016, 07:50:56 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Unsettled and Nettled

"Teddy" and "Bobby" stumbled away from their ranch house with a real awkward-looking gait. Most people would just look and see their stumbling, ambling walking and would simply just assume that they had decided to get real drunk again -- apparently something the two brothers were actually quite known to do, not knowing their drinking limits. How would they know that two extraterrestrial bugs were wearing their skins like a bad cosplay?

These two were great Bug warriors, but they didn't have the common sense of Edwin. They had left their ship behind, thinking that that it was well camouflaged in the swamp (it really wasn't). They just went about their business, looking for Parker. They stopped a woman on a street and asked her, in a strangled voice that sounded nothing like Teddy or Bobby's voices.

"Ew! Get away from me, creeps!" she said, utterly repulsed by their slovenly, emaciated appearances and cloudy eyes. It was really remarkable how unobservant the layman can be, as it was clear that she just thought that these two were just supremely hideous-looking human perverts. In fact, she called them perverts as she strode away from them very quickly, without looking back once.

They were very obviously not going to get the information they wanted this way. They couldn't just come out of their hastily-made disguises and demand Parker be brought to them -- that would attract too much attention for their liking. As well as increase the likelihood that they'd beef up security around him, much like they did when their Queen was in danger. Making it all the more difficult for them to accomplish their assassination task.

The other humans gave them a wide birth, as they seriously looked like people who's skin was hanging off their bones, Teddy and Bobby having been men with rather large, ample frames. These were not the best choices as disguises, they were just taken because of convenience.

Maybe if they found a human suit dealer . . .

***

"That is definitely Bug," Cloak said. He, Odie, Abby, Hunter, Aquilai, and Wild having quickly located the spacecraft.

"You have admitted to not being able to recognise tech of other species before," Odie claimed, "why should we believe your conclusions now?"

"Why did we bring him along, again?" Abby asked Aquilai. She seriously harbored a genuine dislike from him, especially after the Patches debacle.

Naturally, one would think that that event would humble the human, but no. He just brushed aside this mistake and attempted to defleft the blame whenever anyone called him out on it, attempting to subvert responsibility. He refused to acknowledge that he was ever wrong. Cloak couldn't get angry, because he knew where this path led. He knew because he had watched his mother walk this path, and he had learned what happens to those who refuse to see that they have done wrong. Alone. Friendless. A miserable old spinster -- or whatever the male equivalent of that was.

"Point of fact," Cloak said, without emotion, "I said that I may not know the names of the particular tech, but I can identify the superficial hallmarks of some species."

"Blah blah blah," Odie said, rather childishly, flapping his fingers and thumb in the universal way that conveyed the message that he thought what Cloak was saying was devoid of substance. Cloak allowed himself to feel a stab of annoyance, before allowing it to pass quickly. There were more productive uses of his time than to get irked by a spoiled, narcissistic brat. Cloak even managed to tune out what Odie said next, by Aquilai and Hunter calling him over.

"There's tracks," Hunter said, using a claw to indicate them in the muddy ground.

"Yes, they look like Bug tracks," Cloak said, "if memory serves."

"If they're still there, then these tracks must still be fresh," Hunter said, expertly. "It only rained two, three nights ago."

"Can we please stop wasting our time here?!" Odie demanded, like a petulant baby.

"That's it," Abby said, sound thoroughly fed up. "Imma take care of this."

"Take a look at this ship," Aquilai said, "see that end there? I don't think this thing can fly out of here again."

"It's smashed to bits," Hunter noted, checking the area Aquilai indicated. "But how are we going to find these Bugs? The scent -- I'm assuming that that's their scent -- is stale."

"We may not have to," Wild said, thoughtfully. "They'll be after something right? We can just go and procure it before they do. Then they'll have to come to us."

Before anyone could say anything else, Odie was heard to screech like a particularly loud and obnoxious banshee, "Hey! Leggo! LEGGO!!"

"If you want to act like a child," Abby said, clearly irritated into anger. A side of Abby nobody has ever really seen. "Then you'll get treated as a child."

"You don't have any right to push me like that. I'll -- I'll . . . I'll . . ." Odie trailed off -- clearly, Abby had decided to pacify him but morphing into a Psycholeopterran and have him see the alien bug's illusions.

<Okay, guys, I got this idiot to shut up,> she called over to the others in private thought-speak, <but do try and finish in the next hour and 59 minutes, please. Never thought I'd miss Rotiart like this.>

"The Bugs will be after Parker, assuming the Bug he killed was their hive queen's favorite," Cloak said, at once.

"That's a lot of assumptions, though," Aquilai cautioned.

"We can't be too careful," Wild said. "We'll have to put a guard over him, to be sure."

"He won't like that," Cloak and Hunter said at the same time.

"He may not have a choice," Wild said, darkly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 01, 2017, 05:18:47 AM

Sorry for the lateness.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Inferiority Complex

There was a major flaw in the two's plan beyond their rather obvious disguises, which looked almost like something out of "The Walking Dead". (And it was amazing just how desensitized some people were towards things out of the ordinary like that, but this is the same city that had to endure attacks from supernatural creatures and aliens . . . so it may have been that that desensitized them, actually.)

They were not making any headway into finding Parker, the two needed to find human suits that would legitimately make them look human, not like shambling "The Walking Dead" zombies. They had no concept or knowledge of a black market, where such things are infrequently sold at exorbitant prices. Then again, it's not in the Bugs' nature to purchase things, especially when they can just take them.

They heard a rumbling to their left and saw a large van with the name "Bugbusters" emblazoned upon the side of the the van, with a bug inside a red circle with a line through it. Now, Bugs may not have been among the smartest species in existence, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what the pictogram meant. And Bugs were very sensitive about things like that -- hypersensitive, even.

Four men excited from the van, dressed in thick, beige, canvas-like jumpsuits. They put on devices that looked like one of those stupid backpack vacuums, only the nozzle on the end was tiny and looked much like a "7" shape. They were exterminators -- or pest control specialist, if you want to get PC about it.

The first man was the shortest of the lot with laidback, womanizer personality. He was evidently the man behind the finances of the small business the four were running. His name tag on his jumpsuit said Murray, and the others referred to him as Pete.

The second man was a tall, blond man. He was the only one of the four who wore glasses -- his had thick, black frames. He was the most bookish and technical of the lot, and evidentally in charge of the creation and maintenance of all their tech, despite their low resources. His name tag was labeled Spengler and he was addressed as Harold.

The third man was a round-faced, redheaded optimist. He held the most passion and energy of the group, and was unofficially involved with motivating them. Officially, he was responsible for most of the clerical work and upkeep of the files and whatnot. His name tag said Stantz, and he was addressed as Dan or Danny.

The fourth and final man was a tall, dark man who tended to ground the group in reality. He was the newest member, and could bring that outside point-of-view in. His name tag said Hudson, and he was addressed as Winston.

And they're all now dead. The Bugs didn't take too kindly to their chosen profession, and killed them quickly and efficiently. But they both knew that none of these four were their target, they just felt an unstoppable urge to destroy them.

But this wasn't their story, not yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 01, 2017, 11:58:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Increased Security

"You're blowing this out of proportion," Parker said, feeling thoroughly nettled and just a tad henpecked. "I'm fine."

"This is for your own safety, dearest," Helen said. "The added security detail will lessen the likelihood that the Bugs will make a play to assassinate you."

"I killed one with no problem," Parker said, mulishly.

"That was one, these are two," Hunter said, firmly. "That makes it more dangerous for you to have you back uncovered, so to speak."

Cloak said nothing. He didn't intercede on Parker's benefit because he knew what was going to happen. He wasn't precognitive, he was just perceptive. And the Realm Walker would be prepared for it either way. He was devising a contingency . . .

"He doesn't want it," Odie said. It was amazing how he could make everything he said sound so . . . so self-serving. "Why do we have to force him into it?"

Parker wasn't thrilled that Odie was taking his side, with all his obviously obdurate acts he made in the past. No one forgotten how pertinacious that Odie was when Patches was involved. (He still won't waste time in scapegoating Patches for everything -- it's become quite tiresome at this point, to again and again and again hear these needless truculent accusations flung willy-nilly.) This had earned him the ire of Parker as well as many more RAFians -- and, yet, Odie seemed oblivious to it. He only saw himself in a very aggrandizing light.

"Dearest, please," Helen said, pleading with her eyes. She did not know how else to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation. She had once had a . . . a confrontation with a swarm of Bugs as a novice Star Sapphire. The more experienced one she was teamed up with . . . well, she didn't make it. She knew the dangers of these creatures. She knew that they were not to be taken lightly, that they were a force not to be trifled with. Parker only came up against one -- and the battle was not easily won. "Bugs are horrible creatures. I've seen -- and was helpless to stop -- them ravage a planet before. I lost a good friend in that bout. Don't be flippant about this, my love. Please, believe that we fear for your wellbeing. Please, love, understand this. It is very important."

"But, Helen, this is --"

She pressed two fingers over his lips to silence him. He didn't understand. He didn't understand the sheer scope of what was going on here. She had to make him understand.

"Love, Bugs are not to be taken lightly," she said. "Overconfidence is often the biggest flaw in most heroic personalities, but a flaw that can easily be exploited, especially by a smart enough species. Please, my dear Parker, don't let this be you. Let your fatal flaw be something else, something other than the overconfidence that breeds carelessness and laziness like an alley cat swollen with kittens."

"Helen, you don't under--"

"But I do," Helen interrupted. "At least, I think I do. You are confident -- overconfident -- that your armor makes you impervious to attack. You and I both know that this is fundamentally not true."

Before he could protest, she continued, in an almost breatheless manner, "Your armor is impressive, it is true, but it is not infallible. Nothing is. Overreliance on an object like that is dangerous in and of itself."

"Like your ring?" Parker sniped, still feeling nettled.

"I can fight without my ring, as you plainly know," she told him severely. "Now, do your best to be a good boy and don't leave the forum, please.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2017, 11:40:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Lockdown

Just to exemplify just how cautious the RAFians were taking this, the entire forum was being locked down. Code: Avalon was on its highest setting, despite being a rather power guzzler -- their power source (a gigantic, fanged Pikachu with a fondness for seal flesh locked in a generator-like cage, snoozing away the day) didn't experience any hiccups, though.

But . . . just like last time, some the RAFians -- many of which who has never been on a mission in their lives -- started getting riled up.

One named Frank Rosenbaum said, "Oh no. I've got the madness! I've got forum fever!"

"I've got it, too!" another, this one named Olaf Jones, said.

Then all but a few RAFians exclaimed, "FORUM FEVER!!"

Then the obligatory music played. They sang:

"I got forum fever -- it's burning in my brain!
I've got forum fever, it's driving me insane!
We got forum fever, we're flipping our bandannas!
Been stuck in here so long, we have simply gone bananas!!"

<It's only been fifteen minutes,> Russell groaned. But he was ignored.

"Ariba!
Chica chica boom!
A chica chica boom boom chic!
Chica chica boom!
A chica chica boom boom chic!"

<Seriously?> Russell sighed, resigned to this. They sang:

"We got cabin fever, we've lost what sense we had!!
We got cabin fever, we're all going mad!!"

"Every time," Phoenix noted as they watched this.

A RAFian named Barty Donaldson sang, like a square dance caller:

"Grab your partner by the ears.
Lash him to some steel,
Do-si-do, step on his toe,
Listen to him squeal.
Allemande left, allemande right,
It's time to post or fink.
Swing your partner over the side,
Drop him in the drink."

"We don't even lockdown the forum that regularly," Ash commented. "I even forget when the last time we did was."

Tiana DeMilo, another RAFian, sang in a snooty way:

"We got forum fever.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
We're disoriented,
And demented.
And a little nuts."

Cloak was watching this, too, for a time. But he remained in the shadows, unseen by all. He knew it would happen. And this song and dance was the perfect distraction. It should have been predictable, when the mods agreed upon this decision to lockdown the forum -- this basically happens every time. So much so, that the joke is rather stale by now.

"Ach du lieber Volkswagen car,
(Yodel-lay-ee-hoo)
Sauerkraut and wienerschnitzel,
Und the wunder bar!
(Yodel-lay-ee-hoo)"

"Well," Quaf said, "that didn't make a lick of sense."

They sang

"We were sailing, sailing the wind was on our side."

Then Otis Carey, a by-the-book RAFian (yes, rather a contradictory statement in and of itself) sang:

"And then it died."

"So melodramatic," Goom said, with only passing interest.

Theresa Jackson, another lesser known RAFian, sang:

"I was floating 'neath a tropic moon,
And dreaming of a blue lagoon.
Now I'm crazy as a loon!"

Then everyone but those few veteran RAFians sang:

"Forum fever has ravaged all aboard.
This once proud forum has become a veritable psycho ward!
We were posting, posting headed who knows where!!
And now, though we're all here . . .
We're not all there!"

"This is so redundant," Shen said. He found it boring that this seemed to happen every time the forum was locked down. Granted, it was at least a year ago when the last time happened, so . . .

Anyway, they finished:

"Forum fever!
AAHHH!!"

With that done, they all dispersed to go about their own activities. Meanwhile, the spot of shadow that Cloak occupied was now inconspicuously vacated and empty, without a word or sound as to where the Realm Walker went.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=msn9gSVVT_4.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2017, 02:40:51 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Thirst to Prove Himself

Parker was fully decked out in his armor and he was glad he still had some adaptive camouflage -- the ripping out of the Realm Walker tech didn't rob him of that. Granted, it wouldn't hide his footsteps or position from someone with Earthsight . . .

No. No, Cloak would have been far too distracted with that whole song and dance from the lesser known RAFians. A perk of having so many is that it was easy to get overlooked in the thick of things. They would have disguised his exit from the forum.

"Don't you start on me, Tyr," Parker muttered, just as he crossed the threshold of Code: Avalon before it became truly solid, permeated only by air and atmosphere. No way that even Cloak could have escaped that unnoticed. Parker knew that Cloak would just try to stop him, and he knew Helen would be furious with him. But he felt that this must be done.

They were all doubting his capabilities. They were all doubting his fighting ability. He took down one of these Bugs already. Two couldn't be all that much harder, it stood to reason in his head. They were all really making too much of a big deal about this. His armor would easily protect him against any threat. So what if it was still a little damaged from his encounter with Blastjaws and the Walker kid. He had repaired it, the damage was nothing but cosmetic. Although he did lose his dual fusion cannons when they did that, but Parker could adapt. He could, though the others apparently believed him to be a fragile flower, he thought bitterly.

He really didn't need these admonishments from Tyr. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he was capable of. He knew that he would show them all, that he would, once again, prove himself in their eyes. He would show them that they were wrong. He would --

Noise! Seven o'clock.

Nothing. He could see nothing. Tyr was interfering with any possible scanning -- causing Parker to tell him off in . . . in some flowery language. The noise was brief, but nothing was there. He had really wished that it wasn't night and pitch black out. Even the moon seemed to be hiding away. Everything had a real ominous feel to it, but that was not sufficient enough to deter Parker. He could be as obstinate as Cloak at times.

He would accomplish his objective. He would prove them all wrong. He would. He was determined to do so. This was vitally important, he had considered everything, weighed everything. He made no mistakes. He was well-armed and well-prepared, though the others couldn't see it. Instead they smother him with unneeded security protocols. They wanted to secret him away as if he were naught but a rare jewel that they wanted to selfishly guard.

Despite himself, his heart roiled with bitterness and resentment. A volatile ****tail that can easily transmute into rage and hatred if too concentrated. It was an inevitability when you restrict someone's freedom involuntarily, no matter the intent behind such circumstances.

A rustling bush! Two o'clock!

Parker knew she saw movement of some sort. He heard the rustling, though almost as if there was a time delay. He steadied his entire body, focused his mind, as he prepared for battle. But when a harmless chipmunk jumped out and ran across the path, Parker actually felt disappointed.

It would take him another two hours and twenty minutes before he finally stumbled upon the two in their emaciated disguises. He was confident that he had come upon the right two, and he called out to them.

And addressed them as "squish-ables". . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2017, 12:17:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
More Than He Bargained For

Parker still believed that he was prepared for this battle. He still believed that he was well-equipped to deal with these two monsters. Even when he announced his presence to them, even when he called them "squish-ables", he was confident he had what it took.

He failed to factor in that he did not easily slay Edwin. He failed to consider that Edwin proved very difficult to slay, and the time since had warped his recollections, that time may have colored and recolored his remembrances of those events.

But he was not deterred. He had his armaments. He had his armor. He had Tyr (despite the parent-like disapproval he was giving him). He was ready. He was as ready as he ever was going to be.

His foolishness and courage were not altered in the slightest when the Bugs shucked their disguises, and tossed them aside. Revealling their true sizes to be about two or three times the size of your average Taxxon, while being much faster and stronger (even more than Edwin, due to how much the Bug Queen coddled Edwin) but Parker still refused to admit that he was in over his head.

The battle started off badly. He struggled to shoot a single one of them. He was sure the other one, the one who he didn't know whose name was Edwin, was not this fast. He was even having trouble keeping track of both of them. His shots were slightly on the wild side as all he was really seeing was a flash of legs, chitinous bodies, teeth, and bulbous eyes.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go down. He was too proud to admit that he was in over his head. He was too proud to admit that he needed help. He was too proud to admit that he should have had gone out with some backup. In a manner of moments he would be overwhelmed, and his only thought was that he should have brought a bigger arsenal. And that Helen was going to be furious with him, if he survived this ordeal.

But then that's when the two were skewered by two jagged, earthen spikes which retreated back into the ground whence they came just as quickly. The ground was smoothed over, without a trace of the spikes that had erupted from them just a scarce few moments ago. The two Bug collapsed, dead, unaware of the presence of their killer. But Parker knew right away who it was, and he wasn't happy.

"I had it handled, Cloak," Parker snarled, standing up, as Cloak remained unseen for the moment.

"Don't lie or posture to me, Parker," Cloak said, and Parker could see that his eyes were like golden-scarlet suns. Always a danger sign. "You were unmatched and overwhelmed. You had foolhardily rushed into a battle you only scant prepared for! Had I not noticed and Earthsighted your flight in time, you would be dead by now."

"I would have done fine!"

"Put your Gatebursting ego to the side, and look at it pragmatically!!" Cloak said, mastering his powers, reigning them in, allowing himself to get angry without losing control. It was always a hard, laborious thing to do. One reason Cloak tried very hard not to rage. "You would have died -- yes, died -- had I not acted when I did. I couldn't have stopped you from spouting off those idiotic one-liners you clearly thought was clever banter."

"You hypocrite!" Parker countered. "You've done the same thing! You've gone off half-****ed and unprepared before!!"

"But I had the power to back it up!!" Cloak returned. "The elements never leave me -- you can easily run out of ammunition and you plasma sword their can break or somehow fail you otherwise! And if all else fails, I can always take off my cloak and let my corona finish things. That just my Realm Walker physiology. You don't have such advantages! Without your armor, you would have been eviscerated eighty-six ways before you could have formed a coherent thought!"

"But I have my armor!"

"Which has already been damaged when Blastjaws ripped the Walker tech from it!" Cloak said, his counter ready. "Don't tell me it's fixed or the damage is just cosmetic! I can see it charred and sparking!! You would not have survived another blow . . . Veil, another strike -- smartly placed -- might have led it to explode, killing you. Possibly the Bugs in some sort of kamikaze way."

Parker was going to protest, but Cloak cut across him.

"No, Parker! You're not going to deflect or obfuscate this. Tonight, you acted rashly and irresponsibly. Two things, I must say, aren't like you." Cloak said, his anger ebbing away now. "And if you think my scoldings are bad, just wait until Helen gets ahold of you."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 04, 2017, 02:55:37 PM

oh snap. parker is gonna get ripped a new one pretty soon =d

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2017, 06:59:20 PM

And then some.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Helen's . . . Dismay

"Parker!?!" Helen said, as she saw a helmetless Parker cross the threshold. He gave a churlish little smile and opened his arms slightly, as if he were expecting a hug. She stomped her way over to him, and, before he could really process this, she ****ed her arm back.

WHAAAP!!

She slapped him so hard that she had left a red mark and hurt her hand. As expected by and warned by Cloak, Helen was absolutely livid. She was pleased that he was alive and well, sure. But she was quite cross with him for obviously not listening to her copious amount a warnings. Parker was glad that he couldn't hear Tyr's admonishments or his praises of Helen's actions.

Helen looked as if she wanted to rage at Parker, to attack him as violently as possible. Her ring, which she rarely, if ever, took off, burst and pulsated with violet energy. Helen's rage, her fear, her hope, they were all fueled by her love, thus why the ring's flare up of power. She managed to valiantly regain and keep her composure. Cloak found it admirable, as he knew firsthand how to quell powerful emotions.

"Parker, I'm very disappointed in you," she said, as evenly as she could, though her voice warbled a bit with held back emotion.

"Helen, I --"

"You could have been killed." Helen said, a bit of her anger seeping out. "You deliberately disobeyed me. Disobeyed everyone! We all had your best interests at heart. We weren't putting the heightened security on you because we didn't think you could handle it, but because we knew you were unequipped to handle two. Handle two at the same time."

Parker, despite himself, couldn't help but feel a little resentment that his girlfriend was lecturing him and scolding him like a child. But he had momentarily forgotten that Helen was actually quite perceptive when she wanted to be.

"You think I'm treating you like a child, don't you?" she said, astutely.

Parker said nothing, but looked a bit churlish.

"Well, then don't act one!" she said, hotly. She was unable to hold back her anger any longer. She was now scolding him so much he would have probably more preferred to have received a magical Howler letter instead, or fight an Howler's howl. "Honestly, Parker!! Did you honestly think you needed to prove yourself to us?! To me?!"

Parker tried to interject, but Helen was actually more frightening right now than a saber-toothed cat.

"After all this time, how can it be that you've learned nothing?!" Helen raged unfiltered now. "I . . . I thought that you knew me, Parker. I thought my word meant something to you. Now I see . . . I must have been mistaken. You don't trust my judgement at all. You trust your judgement, even when it's categorically wrong, over mine."

She turned away, to hide her tears. Parker tried in vain to placate her, to pacify her, but they were just empty words to her now. Neither was looking at this situation rationally, Cloak could see that right now. He should try to mediate them, but Helen's emotions were understandable, and to act too soon could backfire tremendously.

Parker reached for her, to embrace her, to try to quell the tears. But she pulled away. She was too hurt for it, too hurt to hide her feelings behind a mask of stoicism. She moved away, stopping only to speak once last time.

"If you can't trust me, Parker, then we cannot be together," she said, as her ring's light seemed to dim (but not extinguish). "It's over. It's over between us."

Then she dashed away from a stunned Parker.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: theyoungphoenix on January 04, 2017, 09:30:11 PM

oh yikes...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 05, 2017, 09:47:52 AM

Yep. And here are some new book ideas. Consider this like the Steven bomb, only a "Memoirs bomb". And, yes, that was a Steven Universe reference.

• Book MCXIII (1,118): "Crystal Chrysalis Catalyst" -- The RAFians and an opposing faction vie for eighteen man-sized crystal chrysalides.
• Book MCXIX (1,119): "Breakneck Blitz" -- The deep pink crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXX (1,120): "Omnimmunity" -- The RAFians must help a suicidal teen who is immune to everything and has lost just as much.
• Book MCXXI (1,121): "All-Out Pummeling" -- The orange crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXII (1,122): "The Medusa" -- The RAFians must help and protect Yarin from an ambulatory plant that nullifies psionic powers and eats the now-helpless psionic beings.
• Book MCXXIII (1,123): "Hydro Vortex" -- The blue crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXIV (1,124): "All Alone" -- GH awakens in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world, all by himself, the seemingly only survivor. But all is not what it seems.
• Book MCXXV (1,125): "Inferno Overdrive" -- The red crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXVI (1,126): "The DNA Archive" -- The RAFians meet the Last Genetic Record of the Realm, and it is someone they met in the past.
• Book MCXXVII (1,127): "Bloom Doom" -- The green crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXVIII (1,128): "Dangerous Gifts" -- Lethifold trafficking has become a problem, one that the RAFians must stop.
• Book MCXXIX (1,129): "Continental Crush" -- The gray crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXX (1,130): "Cagey Cats" -- A lioness Realm Walker tries to enlist Cloak's help in a coup to take over the Council, and institute an "ailurocracy". She has no interest, political or not, whatsoever in the Realms.
• Book MCXXXI (1,131): "Neverending Nightmare" -- The indigo crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXXII (1,132): "Queenly Majesty? NOT!" -- The Bug Queen decides to take things into her own claws and heads to Earth herself.
• Book MCXXXIII (1,133): "Shattering Psyche" -- The violet crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXXIV (1,134): "Toxic Luck" -- The black market is inundated with Felix Felicitus, which people drink to excess.
• Book MCXXXV (1,135): "Black Hole Eclipse" -- The black crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXXVI (1,136): "The Warden's Reluctant Enforcers" -- Four exterminator ghosts are bound to a malevolent spirit for almost a decade. It becomes the RAFians' responsibility to free them.
• Book MCXXXVII (1,137): "Gigavolt Havoc" -- The yellow crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXXVIII (1,138): "Corkscrew Crash" -- The silver crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXXXIX (1,139): "Savage Spin-Out" -- The olive green crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXL (1,140): "Oh, Brother" -- Underseen enlists the help of AniDragon to end the threat of four people "close" to him.
• Book MCXLI (1,141): "Acid Downpour" -- The purple crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXLII (1,142): "Overcompetitive Spirit" -- The RAFians must deal with a Nikephaetos.
• Book MCXLIII (1,143): "Supersonic Skystrike" -- The golden crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXLIV (1,144): "Everything You Know is Wrong" -- Abby awakens to find herself in a world where everything is off and wrong.
• Book MCXLV (1,145): "Tectonic Rage" -- The brown crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXLVI (1,146): "Daughters of the Damned" -- Four Bug Princesses become Bug Queens, something unprecedented, and the RAFians are on guard, in case they place their sights on Earth again.
• Book MCXLVII (1,147): "Twinkle Tackle" -- The pale pink crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCXLVIII (1,148): "Coming to Terms . . . With a Vengeance!" -- The three Bug Queens mourn the death of their "sister queen". And they thirst for vengeance.
• Book MCXLIX (1,149):"Devastating Drake" -- The beige crystal chrysalis hatches.
• Book MCL (1,150): "The Other Side of Oblivion" -- Cloak reads up on the theories behind what lies beyond the Oblivion Veil.
• Book MCLI (1,151): "Subzero Slammer" -- The white crystal chrysalis hatches.

Yes, I know that was a lot, as this was the culmination of ideas from the past week or so. Anyway, as always, titles are subject to change.

You know, it's funny. I considered just ending Memoirs at Book 1,000. Maybe that would have been wise . . . but, eh.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Bug Queen of Mean

Meanwhile, back on the Bug homeworld, the Bug Queen was mercifully unaware of Edward and Eduardo's blatant failure and unceremonious demise. She sang, rather somberly, yet menacingly:

"In my kingdom,
No unworthy plant shall grow.
No one will defile it.
Not a star shall glow.
No one should care.
Only my word be true.
No rule would be fair to you.
I promise you!"

She gave a wicked chortle, that somehow sounded full of mirth and mirthless at the same time.

"It feels delicious
To be so vicious!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
So delightful
To be so spiteful!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
If I choose,
I'll destroy and demolish,
Arrest and abolish,
Everyone I've known!
Stand in my way,
And you'll never be remembered,
'Coz I'll turn you into bone!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean.
I'm the meanest being,
You've ever seen!!
So, have no doubt
About my clout!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
It's simply yummy
To be so crummy!!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
I'm so grateful
To be so hateful!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
When I want,
I'll pillage and plunder!
I'll bellow and thunder!
Make you sick and moan.
Get in my way, and I'll turn
You into bone!!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
I'm the meanest being
You've ever seen!!
Have no doubt
About my clout.
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
Salute me, I deem!
I DEEM!
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!
I'm the meanest being
You've ever seen!!
Have no doubt
About my clout.
I'm the Bug Queen of Mean!!"

She did notice how another of the saucer ships had left, this time carrying three Bugs named Donald, Reginald, and Ronald (well, in English anyway). They were intending to poach the bounty, going against the Queen's decree that it should be Edward and Eduardo to accomplish the task. The alluring promise of the queen's jelly was just too tantalizing for the three to pass up. All three were from different, specialized castes.

Donald shined a sapphire blue with a chitinous luster. He was at least as long as two bottle-nosed dolphins placed snout to tail. His physiology was rather like a water spider and he was clearly made for aquatic combat and such, though requiring air to breathe. His particular brand of Bug was only really employed on wet, aquatic worlds, which he could devastate easily.

Reginald's chitinous body shined a ruby red luster. His was a burrowing caste, designed for dry, subterranean worlds with inhospitable surfaces. He was about a quarter the size of a Slamworm, and skilled at subterranean battle.

Ronald had an lustrous emerald green body with large gossamer wings and a long, penetrating proboscis. His caste was for air support and specialized in aerial attacks. His caste was used on any world that air support was a viable option.

The thing about Bugs was that they had a variable caste system, with each caste surprisingly specialized for a specific purpose, not unlike Gems. Assuming that they've ever made contact with the inorganic species with human construct bodies, it could explain where this caste system bubbled up from.

And it should be mentioned that differing castes don't always get along, but the lure of the bounty has forced these three to compromise. To get to Earth and exterminate the Slayer of their Queen's favorite. Fortunately, the three really didn't have the capacity for resentment, at least within their own species.

Anyway, they sped to Earth, their gravity engines working overtime. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4ZXVdPr6y44

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2017, 10:55:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Not Easily Mended

"Helen?"

No answer.

"Helen?"

Silence.

"Helen, c'mon," Parker said. He had immediately regretted his actions when he saw how hurt Helen was.

Nothing.

"Helen, please," Parker appealed, to no avail. Helen would not open her thread's door. Helen felt incredibly hurt by her perception of Parker's malfeasance.

No answer.

"Helen, I -- look, I'm sorry, okay?"

The door didn't even open a crack, and, yes, Helen was inside. She just didn't want to hear his apologies, regardless of sincerity. She felt immensely hurt -- she regarded his departure despite the RAFians doing everything they could to protect him  as a serious betrayal.

"I mean it, Helen!" Parker protested. "Helen, I'm sorry --"

"Just go away, Parker!" she shouted through the door.

"Helen, I --" Parker began, before feeling a hand on his shoulder.

"Parker, let her have some time away," Cloak said.

Cloak could see the resistance in Parker's face (he wasn't wearing his helmet), and saw it quickly crumble into acquiescence. The Realm Walker led him away from the Star Sapphire's door. Parker's hearing could not allow him to hear anything beyond Helen's room. But Cloak could. Cloak could hear her Sniffling and her sobs that she clearly tried to hide.

"We need to have a talk," Cloak said.

***

"I have no need for pontifications and lectures, Realm Walker," Parker said, surly and aggressive.

"And you've done so well without, on your own," Cloak said, with tones of sly, acidic sarcasm.

"What would you know?" Parker snarled, feeling nettled again. Cloak didn't rise in anger. That had long passed. "You don't even have a girlfriend! You don't know what's it's like!"

Cloak said nothing. He allowed the silence to elapse into uncomfortable, awkward territory. Though only Parker felt it.

"Yes, it is true that I don't have a significant other, or a partner, or a mate, or a girlfriend, whichever term is applicable," Cloak said, calmly, "but that does not make me immune for being perceptive. It is true that I do not precisely know the ins and outs of how humans court and such, as Realm Walker courtship customs will inevitably differ. Maybe a lot, maybe not."

"Quit beating around the bush," Parker said, folding his arms almost haughtily. Cloak knew this was a nonverbal cue that Parker was being defensive and trying to protect himself. "Say whatever lecture you're dying to give me. We both know how you like to go on at length. You monologue like a Saturday morning cartoon villain."

Cloak said nothing once more, and allowed the silence to stretch into awkwardness again.

"Are you done?" Cloak asked.

"What?" Parker snapped.

"Are you done?" Cloak repeated.

Parker was starting to feel annoyed.

Cloak clarified, "Are you done going through the motions? Are you ready to think about this rationally, or are you going to continue to be angry and miserable?"

Before Parker could answer, Xeno came onto the forum-wide intercom, announcing that an incursion from space was violating Earth space. Cloak was among those dispatched to investigate, which left Parker feeling mulish and jealous.

"Well, go then!" he snarled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2017, 11:22:49 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Arrival

The trio arrived and made landfall quite easily. Not a one of them questioned the ease of it. Not a one of them had the intelligence or paranoia to do so. Not a one of them suspected anything might be amiss.

"We do this my way, understand?" Donald said.

"Who said you're the boss?!" Reginald demanded.

"I just did," Donald answered, "weren't you listening?"

"I never agreed to that!" Reginald snarled. "You Swimmers thinks that you're all so great!"

"And how is grubbing around in the ground any better, Burrower?" Donald fired back, rocking the ship in his anger.

"Stop rocking the ship, you dolt!" Ronald snapped. "You'll throw us off-course!!"

"Oh, I forgot," Donald said acidly, "Wingmen see all and know all."

"It's common sense, you cretinous . . . uh, cretin." Ronald said, struggling to find a word to make him sound smart.

"Stop trying to act smarter than you are," Reginald snapped. "You're not fooling anyone with the act."

"It's not an act," Ronald countered. Then, rather than continue the argument, he said, "We should decide how to go about doing this, so we can split the Queen's jelly three ways. And never hafta talk to each other ever again."

None of the trio had any intention on sharing the jelly, but were at least smart enough not to be entirely candid with that fact. The mere fact that they were quarreling to this degree meant that they did not trust one another, which was a major liability for a scheme such as the one they were attempting to make landfall.

"We should stay out of sight," Donald said.

"We know that, fishbait," Reginald snarled. Apparently, "fishbait" was a common slur against Donald's caste.

"Well, fine, oversized grub," Donald shot back with the common slur against Reginald's caste, adding with venomous sarcasm, "What do you recommend, then?"

"We disguise ourselves as the natives, these zoomans," Reginald answered condescendingly, with lofty tones.

"It's 'humans', dolt." Ronald sniped primly.

"Oh, shaddup, birdbait," Reginald shot, utilizing the slur for Ronald's caste. There was apparently very abundant racism abound between the castes. Another exploitable flaw that the trio seemed oblivious to. "Find a zooman suit to wear."

"Why do we have to find one when we can just take one from any of these stupid, weak natives?" Donald seethed. Ronald wasn't in charge, and the Bug really rankled at the fact that he seemed to think he was.

"That's what I was saying, you silt-swallowing simpleton!" Ronald said, snobbishly.

"Then get on with it, Mr. I'm-The-Leader," Reginald said, snarkily. "The sooner we collect the bounty, the sooner I can be rid of you two irritations."

They, as Edward and Eduardo before them, left the ship behind. Only these three didn't take care to really hide it, and any truly observant passerby would notice it. But they didn't seem to care, as they had their limited minds on other issues.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2017, 07:38:49 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Perfect Victims

The trio came upon a campfire that had only, luckily enough, three occupants. Two men, one woman. All three had their backs to them. The sun was setting, so darkness was providing the three Bugs with very good cover, though they didn't really consider this.

The eldest of the men had thick, blunt sort of head, with not so much chin. His black hair was was cut very short, and he had dark brown eyes. He wore a plain red shirt with a leather jacket over his thickset body, and black jeans. He looked as if he practiced judo, and had a body type not unlike a Throh. And he was Ronald's target.

The youngest of the men was athletic and thin, but not twiggy. He had curly hair rather like a brillo pad, and emerald green eyes. His rounded face betrayed the vivaciousness of youth. He wore a solid yellow shirt, with a dark purple sweater tied off at his waist, and black jeans and a black belt with a small silver buckle. He was Reginald's target.

The woman was just as athletic as her compatriots, but she was still the smallest of the lot. She had soft, demurred features, and long blonde hair with almond-shaped, blue eyes. She wore an understated blue blouse with blue jeans. She was Donald's target.

The three Bugs hadn't any clever strategy for procuring what they needed for their Terran disguises, as the three of them were brutes and not at all clever. They thundered from the forest in which they were obscured from sight by the darkness and foliage. They charged at their intended targets.

Where most other humans would have felt in terror, these three didn't react. No reaction whatsoever. It wasn't just strange, it was completely counterintuitive. But the trio never noticed this discrepancy, never noticed the lack of flight or fight response. They never took notice of the general apathy of the three humans.

They just charged in, with little thought to strategy and such. They care nothing for these alien (in their view) lifeforms. They were nothing more or less than a means to an end. While they were smart enough to know that they would need a disguise as to not attract attention, that was the limit of their forethought and planning.

"That one's mine!" Ronald declared, zooming ahead, directly for the eldest. He wanted that one because it looked the strongest. And he saw himself as the strongest of the three.

"It better not be the one in the middle," Reginald growled, diving through the land as if it were water. He wanted the youngest male because he thought that it was the most innocuous of the three. His logic being that it would surprise those that dared cross him, seeing himself as the most power of the three Bugs.

"The smallest one is obviously the right choice, you dullards!" Donald sneered, struggling to move overland as fast as the other two. He wanted the woman -- the smallest of the lot -- because he believed it to be the best choice (and by the obvious reality that the other two would get there before him, though he would never admit to this).

And still there was no reaction from the three campers. They had to have heard the thunderous charge of these three Bugs. They had to have sensed the impending danger, the danger of having their skin stolen, the danger of having their identities unconvincingly stolen. But, no. No, there was still no reaction at all, almost as if they were giving the Bugs the cold shoulder.

Ronald was their first, as he slowly reached out for the eldest and largest of the trio . . . ever so slowly . . . it seemed almost as if time was slowing of its own accord . . .

Closer now . . .

Closer . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on January 09, 2017, 07:44:59 AM

Do you actually have 1,151 memoirs books planned out, or did you just pick a number?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2017, 07:54:15 AM

I never just pick a number or things like that. I do have ideas for 1,151 Memoirs books, all listed periodically in this thread.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
What the Deuce?!

Ronald reached an outstretched thin, clawed hand toward the large human. He reached closer . . . and closer . . . and closer still . . . when he got close enough to make contact he closed his hand. He expected to feel his claws bite through fabric, through skin. He expected a scream, a jerk, a struggle.

What he did not expect was this lack of reaction, and for his hand to close upon nothing but empty air. But it looked as if his hand was closed upon the human's broad shoulder. But he was unable to touch it, unable to manipulate it by any tactile means. He was unable to hollow this human out and use its skin as a disguise -- in his proper form he would stand out like a sore thumb! He would never be able to get the bounty (and stiff the other two along the way).

"Huh?" Reginald declared angrily when he discovered that his chosen target would not yield to him. When he would not react -- or even move. He didn't even seem to respirate. It was very much like --

"Hey!" Donald protested, when he made the discovery as the other two did previously. "What's the meaning of this?!"

The human trio suddenly wobbled. Wobbled in a very unnatural way, almost as if they were . . . mirages. As if they weren't even real. But that was ludicrous. Here they were, clear as day. They could make out every detail. The threads and cross-stitching and whatnot of the fabric, the individual strands of hair, the smallest imperfections of the skin . . . they had to be real. They had to be.

They were Bugs! A race of conquerors and overlords. They could not be deceived so easily, so effortlessly. To be so, it would be an embarrassment to their kind. An enduring shame that none of them would be able to shake off. They were Bugs, masters of all.

"What is the MEANING of this?!?!" Donald demanded again, and that caused the humans to wobble again, only this time more noticeably. Then they blinked from existence with the campfire, as if they were never there to begin with.

Suddenly, their world was a blur of discombobulating colors and motions as they tumbled over each other. Ronald's wings pinioned against the other two and ruined, grounding him, at least until the next molt -- assuming he has one left. The three were being pressed against each other in a way that all three found rather oppressive. And they were able to compact themselves down to fit into a human skin (though able to pass for one rather unconvincingly).

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!?!?!" all three raged as they struggled to free themselves from their prison.

"What is the meaning of this, you ask?" came a calm voice from seemingly nowhere. "Why, I would think that was simple."

"You dare to mock our predicament?!" Reginald snarled.

"Wow," said a different voice, "still making demands."

"Clearly, they have been raised on self-aggrandizing propaganda," said the first voice. "That would speak volumes for their obvious lack of forethought and planning."

"Or maybe they're just stupid," a younger voice said.

"Touche, Salad," said the second voice.

"What is the meaning of this prison?!" Donald demanded again. "You. Will. Answer!!"

A chorus of voices laughed at this idle threat.

"You want to know the meaning of this?" the first voice said. "The meaning of this is that this was a trap. And you took the bait with surprising ease."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2017, 11:50:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
All Talk . . .

"Impossible," Donald said, obstinately.

"Improbable," Ronald declared.

"Impractical," Reginald said, causing his compatriots to sigh with disgust and irritation.

"I can't tell," Sakki said, with withering appraisal at the RAFians' reluctant captives. "Are they just really stubborn, or are they really that stupid?"

"Who you callin' stupid, human?" Ronald said at once.

"I would think that was obvious," Sakki said, coldly, "now pipe down. The grown-ups are talking."

Then she turned to address the others -- Cloak, YeerkSalad, Rocklobster (whose holograms enabled them to set this trap), Oceanspray, and Estelore. The conception time for this trap was remarkably quick and the implementation of it was uncannily easy as well. None of the RAFians ever expected it to work nearly as well as it did.

"Don't you dismiss us!!" Reginald raged.

"Need we remind you that you're the ones in the net?" Oceanspray said, calmly.

"You think you better than us?!" Donald snarled and spat.

No one answered him, instead they discussed their next move, and how to proceed forward to prevent further incursions.

"These Bugs are like locusts," Estelore said. "This is a vast universe, a widespread galaxy -- even I haven't transversed it all, haven't seen all of it, haven't witnessed all of its secrets -- but I have seen the aftermath of verdant plants I've visited before being ravaged by Bugs."

The three actually seemed to glow with pride at this statement.

"Stop that, you three," Cloak snapped imperiously, "that is nothing to be proud of."

"That's just what weaklings say," Donald shot.

Cloak refused to rise to the obvious bait. The Bug probably thought he was being clever. Cloak found himself marveling a bit at the brutish mindsets of these Bugs. But there were more pressing concerns to deal with, such as how to prevent further incursions of this nature from the Bugs.

"It's clear that they don't care about the sovereignty and governance of other species," Estelore pointed out.

"Let's us go, you worthless lesser creatures!!" Ronald demanded suddenly.

"Case and point," Estelore resumed, acknowledging this outburst before proceeding as if it was just some naughty dog barking incessantly. "The quandary we face is to stop from acting on this impulse. It will become quite tiresome soon enough."

"But they're no threat," Salad said confidently.

The three Bugs struggles against the net had renewed vigor, as they shouted obscenities in a language and dialect that the RAFians didn't understand (aside from Cloak, due somehow to his Realm Walker nature -- he never figured out why, even notable Walker scholars debate heatedly on it).

"Salad," Cloak said, rather more patiently than he felt, "insecurity complexes, remember?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2017, 03:48:41 PM

Huh. The banners are broken now. Such a pity -- Saffa did such good work.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
And a Demonstration is Needed, Apparently

"Oopsie," Salad said.

They could hear the net actually tearing, which was remarkable, as the net, while not made of tylee metal (making a net from that material was notoriously difficult), it was made of sphinx hair, which had the tensile strength of a steel cable. Supposedly.

"This is what we get for using discount sphinx hair," Rocklobster said, backing away. His Chee programming was already pushed to its limits in trapping the three, knowing it might lead to violence. He was hoping that it wouldn't -- or that he had the Pemalite crystal to undo this. "Are we sure that was even legitimate sphinx hair?"

"Doesn't matter in the long run," Cloak said, with a resigned sigh. "They are still quite manageable."

They seemed to take this rather personally. The RAFians heard the net tearing and straining under the weight and the thrashing of the three individuals trapped within it. But they looked on with wholly unimpressed expressions -- they couldn't help it, as they faced much more fearsome foes. These Bugs had nothing -- nothing -- on Mon Gall. Although Mon Gall's threat would be far more eclipsed by -- er, never mind, it's not important yet.

Naturally, the Bugs were outraged by this marginalization of their threat level. They were raised and indoctrinated in the belief that Bugs were the most feared race in all the cosmos. The reality of the matter was, simply, that they weren't. The cosmos was a vast thing, inhabited by numerous species -- sentient or not -- and some were fearsome, and some were feared, yes. There's no denying that. But to make such an audacious claim, without sufficient data to prove it, that meant it was just propaganda. Sure, they ravaged worlds, but there have been worlds they have failed to conquer that was stricken from the Bug historical record, conveniently enough.

The net eventually succumbed to their struggles, and the three Bugs were freed. Freed and furious. But the RAFians didn't seem to see them as much of a threat -- then again, they assumed that these three weren't favorites of the Bug Queen. Because while the Bugs individually would be dangerous to the likes of average being, a sentient star and a Elements Master are not two beings to be trifled with lightly.

Ronald wasn't particularly up to snuff, as his wing membranes were damaged to the point where it disabled his ability to fly. Cloak couldn't manage to find any compassion for him, as he wasn't asked by them to appear on this planet with the obvious motive to slaughter one of their own. Sympathy, in this case, was a forgone conclusion.

"Don't challenge us, Bugs," Cloak warned. "It won't end well for you!!"

"You will die! After we claim the bounty we came here for!!" Reginald claimed, before diving into the earth.

"Not so fast!" Cloak said, diving into the earth himself, and the element yielded before its master. And Cloak easily caught up to him, and bested him in just three blows, before forcing him up to the surface. He deliberately held back, as he hadn't wanted to kill him. He just wanted to make a point. They were not invulnerable. They were not immortal. Although Cloak was careful not to mention if they had superior numbers . . .  as he didn't really want to think about that scenario -- the planet overrun by a horde of Bugs.

When emerged, he saw Estelore was apparently not left much choice but to slay Donald. And Cloak was soon forced to do the same to Reginald. They did it in brutal ways, but each had granted them a quick, short death. Cloak took no pleasure from it, and neither did the star.

Ronald had seen how effortless this appeared to be (which was not entirely true, both had been holding back, both afraid to use the utmost zenith of their power -- yeah, it was a Superman complex, but it was also theirs). He was stunned into abject silence. Cloak did not know if the Bugs had any concept of fear, but it was clear, Ronald was afraid.

Afraid of Cloak and Estelore. Even though this Bug was a detestable creature, Cloak didn't not really like being feared, not like this. There was something very wrong about this kind of thing, he felt, and it's one reason he kept his zenith under lock and key. Even after his councils with Aniyu, he always tried to -- strived to -- not use excessive force, no matter the circumstance.

Now his judgement may not always be perfect (such a thing is an impossibility, as everyone has poor judgement from time to time), but he always did what he believed, what he hoped to be right. Whether or not his actions were . . . well, he supposed, that kind of thing is always open for debate.

"You will return to whatever the Bug homeworld is called," Cloak said, addressing Ronald. Reviling himself upon seeing how Ronald cringed at his voice, which had gone soft and quiet, yet still firm. "You will return in the ship you came in -- or Estelore will take you there personally, whichever solution's best. You will inform your Queen that we will have no more incursions. We will have no more native humans rendered into cheap cosplay by your kind. You respect our sovereignty, and we will respect yours."

Estelore nodded, then added, "But do not challenge Earth's sovereignty again. Or else the repercussions will prove to be disastrous for Bugs. Let's just make that clear right now."

"Sh-she won't listen to me," Ronald said.

"Then make her," Sakki said, with a note of abject finality. "We won't take kindly to another incursion."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2017, 08:00:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Ostracized and Sequels

Ronald made it back to the Bug hive, but just like he thought, no one would listen to him. He was basically ostracized and regulated to an untouchable caste because of his wings. Even though his next molt somehow renewed them, he was still an outcast.

The Queen wasn't too pleased that he, Donald, and Reginald did something with their own initiative. Initiative was something generally frown upon in most insectoid species with hives, but this Queen was actually a bit more controlling than most. She didn't like the jalopy status of the ship, and was only merciful enough to not kill him then and there.

Then she decided to think about it.

And the decision she came to was a brutally harsh one. When she called him into lavish chambers, she not only killed him, but ate him. As was their custom for Bugs accused of criminal acts against the hive or the Queen. She was quite authoritarian in this way.

***

A random narrator voice-over said, "Somewhere in Hollywood, just after their last movie . . ."

"So . . ." Leatherhead asked, "what do we do now?"

"Well, we're all back together," GH said, turning behind them, "and all of our fans are back --"

There was no one behind them.

"Actually, those were extras, GH," Hunter said.

"Hey," Abby said, "what's the camera still doing here?"

"Oh no! Disaster! That can only mean one thing!" Odie said.

"What?" Leatherhead asked.

"They've ordered a sequel!" Odie cried.

Cloak sang:

"We're doing a sequel.
We're back by popular demand.
Come on, everybody,
Strike up the brand!"

GH joined in.

"We're doing a sequel.
That's what we do in Hollywood.
And everybody knows
The sequel's never quite as good."

Saffa joined in:

"A sequel,
Another feature attraction."

Saffa sang solo:

"Places please, light the lights, roll camera, action."

Then Cloak, GH and Saffa sang:

"I thought it was the end,
But no, my friends, this is when
We get to do it all again!
Until the credits roll,
We get another go to show
Them, we can do it all again!"

Abby joined in:

"We're doing a sequel.
There's no need to disguise."

Abby sang solo:

"The studio considers us
A viable franchise!"

Rocklobster joined in:

"We're doing a sequel.
How hard can it be?"

Rocky sang solo:

"We can't do any worse than
The Ghostbusters Three."

Hunter joined in:

"We're doing a sequel.
The studio wants more."

Hunter sang solo:

"While they wait for GH to make
'Mad Guitarist Four'!"

All the RAFians sang in chorus:

"I thought it was the end,
but no, my friends, this is when
we get to do it all again!
Do it all again!
Until the credits roll,
We've got another go to show
Them we can do it all again!
We're doing a sequel.
We're doing a sequel.
We're doing a sequel.
Let's give it a shot!"

Cloak sang alone:

"All we need now is a half-decent plot."

Hunter said, "Got it -- an epic love story between a very handsome lupine sharpshooter and a handsome guitarist."

"Hmmmm," Cloak said, "Does anyone have any other ideas?"

GH pitched, "Oh! Oh! It's about getting the RAFians back together again to stop an evil oil tycoon from demolishing the old studio."

"GH, did you even watch our last film?" Cloak asked.

"Would you believe 'no'?" GH quipped.

"How about one of those seal out of water movies?"

"Yeah, I'm not so sure about that, Horsie." Cloak said.

"How about a movie where you don't make a movie?" Odie said, caustically. "And we get to all go home early?"

"Good grief!" Cloak sighed.

"It's about a lonely boy, and one night he sees something he should never have seen and he has to live with a terrible secret." Underseen suggested, offhand.

"That sounds a little dark, Underseen." Cloak said.

"Cloak, how about the RAFians go on a galactic tour?" Phoenix suggested.

"That's perfect!" said the Realm Walker.

Then all sang again:

"I thought it was the end,
But no, my friends, this is when
we get to do it all again!
Until the credits roll,
We've got another go to show
Them we can do it all again!"

Abby woke up at the final note and grumbled to herself, "No more musicals before bed . . ."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-uTRpxvifE0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2017, 11:11:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Bad, Odie!! BAD BOY, NO!!

Meanwhile, Odie decided to embrace his nickname so he could manipulate a younger, female newbie out of her boat she was making for the lake (it was big enough for boats).

"So," he was saying, trying to be oh-so-suave, "what I believe you were trying to say . . . was thank you."

"Thank you?" the girl said, irritatedly.

"You're welcome!"

"What? No-no-no. I didn't -- I wasn't -- why would I ever say --"

Odie interrupted her, with a song:

"Okay, okay.
I see what's happening, yeah.
You're face-to-face with greatness and it's strange.
You don't even know how you feel, it's adorable!
Well it's nice to see that girls never change."

Abby had opened her thread door at this point, with a yawn and rubbing her left eye. She was still waking up.

"Open your eyes, let's begin.
Yes it's really me, it's Odie! Breathe it in.
I know it's a lot -- the hair, the bod --
When you're staring at a veritable god!"

Abby stretched as she blinked at the morning sun.

"What can I say except 'You're welcome'?
For the tides, the sun, the sky --
Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome!
I'm just an ordinary guy!"

Abby peered blearily at the direction of Odie and the girl, oblivious to the goings-on.

"Hey, what has two thumbs and pulled up the sky?
When you were standing yay high?
This guy!"

Abby's was slowly starting to catch up with her senses, as she continued to watch the two.

"When the nights got cold, who stole you fire from down below?
You're looking at him, yo!"

Abby began to see what Odie was doing, but couldn't fathom as to why he was doing this. He was obviously lying.

"Oh, also I lassoed the sun --
You're welcome --
To stretch your days and bring you fun!"

Abby was already annoyed by this point, but deciding what the prudent course of action should be. She could not allow him to get away with this.

"Also, I harness the breeze --
You're welcome --
To fill your sails and shake your trees."

Abby seriously considered reporting him. That probably would be more prudent than getting involved directly.

"So what can I say except you're welcome?
For the islands I pulled from the sea?
There's no need to pray, it's okay, you're welcome!
I guess it's just my way of being me.
You're welcome, you're welcome!"

No. No, she would have to act now. If she went to find a mod now, he could get away with whatever he was up to, and deny culpability.

"Well, come to think of it,
Kid, honestly I can go on and on
I can explain every natural phenomenon.
The tide, the grass, the ground.
Oh, that was Odie just messing around!
I killed an eel, I buried its guts,
Sprouted a tree, now you've got coconuts!
What's the lesson? What is the takeaway?
Don't mess with Maui when he's on the breakaway!"

Abby immediately strode over to them.

"Well, anyway, let me say you're welcome!
For the wonderful world you know.
Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome!
Well, come to think of it, I gotta go!
Hey, it's your day to say you're welcome!
'Cause I'm gonna need that boat,
I'm sailing away, away, you're welcome!
'Cause Odie can do anything but float!
You're welcome, you're welcome!
And thank you!"

"You give that back to her right now, you thieving bastard!!" Abby said. She chased after Odie -- and it was clear that this wasn't going to end well for him.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=79DijItQXMM.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2017, 07:46:03 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Heavy Metal

Cerulean had crossed the threshold of the abandoned factory. The RAFians had picked up a signal that one of Maul's sibling orbs had been rehydrated and activated here. Why here of all places? They didn't really know.

But he could hear some sort of activity coming from deep within the bowls of this large, decrepit building. Honestly, Cerulean felt if this place was hit in the right spot too hard, the entire thing would start crumbling down to rubble.

"So many risks of tetanus," Cerulean said, looking around at the rusting, mildewing, forgotten equipment that reaked of neglect. The floor tiles were cracked here and there, and the grout was blacker than night. There substances here and there that he just simply did not want to know what they were, they looked disgusting enough in his ignorance.

Cerulean made it to the center, having to traverse some devices that had to have been conveyor belts at one time. Now they were broken, abandoned and forgotten. This whole place just looked sad and morbid. Even the homeless, no matter how desperate steered clear of this place -- it was obviously a deathtrap. Anyone with a working brain could see that.

It didn't take Cerulean long to find the creature, one of Demos's fiends. It was seemingly attack inert, defenseless machines as if they had insulted it personally. It clearly had a lot of pent-up frustrations.

The creature was roughly the size of a human child and had, rather noticeably, no discernable mouth. It had purple legs to the knee with white thighs and belly, with green in between. It had a robust, green torso with white markings around a bulbous, purple growth dead center. It had serrated buzzsaws around its green shoulders, separating its arms from its body. Its lower arms and hands were green, but its upper arms were purple. It had a metallic buzzsaw crest on its green head, and pointed, purple ears as long as a rabbit's, proportionately. It also had strange, metallic gear-like growths around its wrists and knees. Its eyes had pink sclera and purple pupils.

Cerulean noticed that the way it walked was as if it was fighting a conveyor belt going in the opposite direction. It was actually quite a surreal thing to see. Of course, it was at this point that Cerulean got noticed and the creature threw four buzzsaws at him, which he easily dodged with his superspeed. In fact, it was almost as if this creature was moving in slow motion.

The creature wasn't going to submit. Cerulean didn't really think that it would, but wouldn't it be wonderful if once, just once, these things did? Alas, he would have to think of a way to either restrain it or employ more . . . permanent means to stop it.

Shouldn't be too hard. It had all the accuracy of a Stormtrooper. There was no way that any of these buzzsaw discs would make contact with him. Heck, he may not even need to use his superspeed.

Cerulean snatched up on of the metallic buzzsaws -- which were made out of a ceramic sort of titanium -- and flicked his wrist with all the superspeed him mustered, and . . . one-shotted the creature. He hadn't expected it to be that easy.

***

Demos called it a "metallosapien". He had made it for combat, but had deemed it a failure when he had made it vulnerable to its own projectiles, as the gear-like growths were very heavy to allow too much agility, and severely cut its reaction time.

***

"So much for heavy metal," Malice sighed. Then she winced and cringed at her own bad pun.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2017, 06:33:23 AM

New chapter. And, if I haven't already said before, "Journey of a Mad Guitar Player" takes place during this book.

BOOK CXLII:
CLOAK'S NIGHTMARE
CHAPTER ONE:
Through a Wood

Cloak stole into a forest, unseen and unheard. There was another signal of one of Demos's fiends -- this one harassing campers, very nearly killing a child. This was the fourteenth or sixteenth one -- Cloak was beginning to lose count. It did beg the question of how he managed to create so many fiends under their noses. If the likes of Bernie Bridges found out . . . Cloak found that he much rather not think of those implications.

He padded silently in the forest, sticking to the shadows, like his instincts told him to, listening to every sound, and liberally using Earthsight at regular intervals. But he could tell that the creature was still in the forest -- and one of the heavier fiends, judging by its footsteps alone.

Cloak felt as if he was making unnecessary zigzags in the forest, but it was the only way to reach the creature, whatever it was. Cloak did so, dutifully, before coming upon the creature itself.

The creature was roughly the size of a rotund adult with inset, hollow-looking eyes that had purple sclera and black irises, which glowed ominously. It basically looked like a felled hinoki cypress tree, with moistened wood, possessing a smooth, human-like face. It had the posture of a gorilla, with large, long arms, block-like feet, and small, short, stubby legs. It had the disposition of a very angry silverback.

It seemed not to see Cloak until he deliberately made himself known. Then it started to attack him. With dried leaves. It was pathetic. They weren't even ceramic titanium or ceratium or whatever it was called. Cloak, naturally, wasn't phased at all. But he couldn't help but be a bit nonplussed. Wouldn't you?

Cloak hadn't any metal around -- he suspected that might be a weakness -- but he had fire. But he had to be prudently judicious with its use in this heavily wooded area. He didn't want to be the cause of a forest fire.

. . . Did it actually think those leaves were doing anything? Honestly, a basic punch would have been more effective, especially with those massive arms of its.

Cloak came to realize it's entire body was made of wood, which gave him another, more forest friendly option. He was the Master of the Wood element after all. And he might as well put it out of its misery. He snapped his fingers and a fissure appeared on the creature's chest. It cried out in pain.

Too slow. He had to make this quicker, more painless. He allowed himself to go to his second tier of power, as he allowed the two ribbons, the two tongues of golden-scarlet energy flow from his eyes like streamers. Then he shattered the creature before he could hurt anymore campers.

Yet, as Cloak returned to his normal tier of power, he found himself not liking how ruthless he had to be. Maybe his judgement was faulty . . . Realm Walkers were not.immune to poor decisions, after all.

No one was . . .

***

Demos called it a "xylosapien". Demos had created it for forest-based combat, endowing it was a violent volatility, and he was actually a bit fond of it, but alas there wasn't a thing he could do to save it -- not from Cloak, not from itself. It was stupid, yes. Demos couldn't seem to get rid of that.

***

"Well, I thought that wood have gone down differently," Malice chuckled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2017, 08:22:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Recurring Dream

Cloak was like GH. He was having difficulty sleeping. Mostly due to an irritatingly recurring dream. It hadn't anything to do with the xylosapien or the Bugs, but, oddly enough Shill.

In the dream, she had called him to talk. He still considered her a criminal, and had a sneaking suspicion what she wanted.

"Master Cloak, grandson of Master Sage," she said, "I'm very pleased to meet you."

"Enough of the formalities and sucking up, Shill," Cloak said, "what is it you want?"

She smiled deeply, before launching into a song:

"There is no greater power than to rule over the land.
We both have it inside us.
It's here where we stand!
My friend, you know it's true!
Look close and you will find.
Ruling every species is destiny for our kind!
So if we join together,
We will never fall.
Walkers must rule forever.
Walkers over all!
Walkers over all!
No species is more grand!
Walkers over all!
It's why we rule the land!
We crush any resistance,
So enemies keep their distance.
Walkers, Walkers over all!"

Cloak answered back in song:

"If I did what you suggest,
I'd be wicked and cruel.
Using force and threat?
That is no way to rule."

But still she tried:

"But if we're joined together,
We will never fall!
Yes, Walkers must rule forever.
Walkers over all!
Walkers over all!
No species is more grand!"

Cloak sang:

"I will not lose my cool."

Shill sang:

"Walkers over all!
It's why we rule the land!"

"I am not a fool."

"We crush any resistance --"

"I am not your jewel."

"So enemies keep their distance!"

"And I will NOT be your tool."

"Walkers, Walkers over all!"

Then the song ended.

"Shill, you and I have very different ideas on how a Walker should act," Cloak said, coldly.

"And that's why we're here," she said, "to talk."

It was ambush. There was a fair smattering of different animal forms, but most were sheep. They took him, embarrassingly off-guard. They ganged up on him -- there was so many, and he didn't want to kill them all. Killing another species is quite different than heartlessly and ruthlessly killing a member of your own. It's some how more real in that way -- but Cloak considered his kind to be RAFians, not just Walkers.

"I wouldn't want to be responsible for a murder, now," Shill said, grandiosely, "wouldn't you agree, Master Cloak?"

"That's not going to work, Shill," Cloak said, "I put it behind me."

There was a slight confused mumbling from the assembled crowd.

"Ah, so you haven't told anyone your secret," she said, "well, now's your chance. Tell them who is responsible for Brute's death?"

It took Cloak something to admit this. "I am. It's . . . true."

"You see?! He admits it!" Shill said at once. "Patricidal murderer!"

"No, it was an accident!" Cloak protested.

"If it wasn't for you, Brute would still be alive. It's your fault he's dead. Do you deny it?"

"No."

"Then you're guilty!"

"No, I'm not a murderer!" Cloak protested, finding himself being backed towards a cliff.

"Oh, Cloak, you're in trouble again. But this time your RAFians aren't here to save you." Shill said. She was enjoying this. "And this is why!!"

Cloak slipped and fell off the cliff. He dug his claws into the side of it, and was unpleasantly surprised to find that the earth wouldn't yield to him, wouldn't acknowledge him as its master. It was amazing to feel so powerless, and not in a good way.

"Now, this looks familiar," Shill said, really hamming it up, "hmmm, where have I seen this before? Hmmm, lemme think."

Cloak didn't appreciate this.

"Oh, yes! I remember. This is just how your father looked before he died," she said. Then she leaned in close and whispered, "and here's my little secret: I. Killed. Brute!"

The dream always cut off there. Always. Every time.

But this next dream Cloak was about to have -- it was a doozy.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iWCh6TBLq4I.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2017, 09:02:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A New World

It was a busy three years.

The world unified into a community governed by a singular government, and each country got a seat in the global senate. The humans had quickly became a spacefaring race, striking up trade routes and the like. But they haven't really spanned beyond their own star system, with successful colonies on four of the most hospitable planets and moons as there was besides Earth.

Their ships seemed to have been a deliberate fusion of Star Trek and Star Wars designs. There were very few, but then there seemed to be an explosion, as they used resources from the other planets in their system as well.

Cloak wondered if this was a good thing. It's one thing to explore, it's quite another to build ships capable of war. Humans do have a disturbing proclivity to war, he noticed. But who was he to judge? Realm Walkers have also been guilty of the same thing as well.

RAFians had garnered notoriety and been given much respect and honors. They were held to be in the position much akin to generals of the Grand Earth Army. They were addressed with "RAFian" than their name, so the former became an honorific. Cloak wasn't sure he liked it.

Leatherhead, however, liked the prestige of it. In fact, he was getting a little too brash, reckless, and hotheaded for Cloak's liking. Even for a nine-year-old. GH took this in stride, believing his adopted son to be just a little scamp. Cloak knew better, as he had seen two years -- two Nexusian years -- previously just how a pigheaded nature could be a serious liability to those that possess it. Perhaps the Dweller years just had mad Cloak world weary and paranoid. He wouldn't argue with that judgement.

Cloak just had this nagging feeling that he couldn't seem to get rid of. Something was on the horizon, something not good. He could not purge himself of this ominous feeling. An unseen evil, an unknown antagonist, was rising, but he could not divine who or what. It caused him some anxiety to be sure.

And he wasn't sure he like how the Chancellor seemed to wield so much power -- though being the second or third most powerful RAFian himself, this may be a bit of hypocrisy on his part. Granted, this High Chancellor was supposed to be checked by the Senate. And the RAFians, on the Senate's behalf. Cloak wasn't sure that he liked the implications of that. But he kept all his misgivings to himself.

But he had seen enough in all his years to know when something of this nature would come up. But he only had a single question.

How it would play out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2017, 11:15:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Senatorial Ambitions

The Global Senate was situated in a hub in international waters, an island made by Cloak himself. The room was set in a steep bowl, with seats for the Senators ringing one side, with a high podium behind which the Chancellor, Chancellor Pansy Abigail Fowler, sat. She was saw as a gullible, weak chancellor -- easily swayed by emotional arguments without bothering to look at the meat of it. She was far too easily misled, too easily swayed by hacky arguments, and was devoid of integrity.

The stage was set for her to be replaced by someone else. But it wasn't going to be too soon, as one Byron Chance tried to stage a coup and seize the chancellor's chair for himself, but he was a brute and was far too blunt and forward with his intentions which lost him his senatorship. Didn't help that his likability rating was nine percent, or even less.

So, one with similar aspirations to ascend to the figurative throne of the Chancellor knew that she'd have to be careful. Secretive and subtle. Smart and clever at playing the long game. She knew that the RAFians would prove to be . . . problematic. But she had already circumvented that obstacle with a plan for them -- but only when the time was right. There were still pieces left to be put into play first. The scheme was rather Machiavellian in its design, if not overly convoluted. But she was confident in its success, but not ****y -- any mistake could cost her.

Senator Dory Booker had written up some legislation to institute a clone army, which (to Cloak's surprise) was passed and the facility was set up upon Martian soil. Senator Clint Williams had instituted a second international space station, which was agreed upon -- the humans were pushing to be part of the intergalactic community, even though they technically already were a decade ago, give or take. Senator Gabrielle Powers pushed for infrastructure spending and war prevention. Senator Ray Donaldson suggested another trade deal, spinning it as "opening the planetary borders" -- it was met with harsh criticism. Senator Logan Hogan was emphatic about the minimum wage, but no one knew whether he wanted to raise it or lower it, as he flip-flopped on it in the time it takes a Yeerk to spend in the Pool before returning to their hosts.

Cloak understood why some people would have just thought these talks on the Senate floor was mind-numbingly boring -- especially with Senator Garrulus (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/garrulous#English) and Senator  Palaverus (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/palaverous) there -- but he felt it was important to pay attention. Especially when the two advocated the RAFians be around to keep the clone army in check. For some reason, this gave Cloak a very bad feeling. He didn't know why, exactly.

He resisted the idea of leading an army -- though he recognized the argument that he kind of did so when confronting Shill and her then-Council lackeys. But it wasn't the same thing. Not by a long shot. Still Cloak felt . . . uneasy. Something was happening here, something big.

Then news came in. Cloak was there to hear this reported to the Senate. The trade unions had been corrupted, forming a trade federation and was now demanding exorbitant prices. Cloak realized then that he didn't understand how this government worked, how the trade unions could become a federation or what.

They called themselves Separatists, for some reason. Cloak felt as if it was a red flag to something. But he didn't know what exactly. He just knew it was nothing good, and he could feel darkness creeping closer and closer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2017, 11:48:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A New Chancellor Appears!*

Years passed.

Years passed where the time of needless pleonasms ended, and the time of war began. The Separatists enlisting Techadon-made war machines to do their dirty work for them. Techadons never cared what their machines did, or for whom they did it to, as long as they got paid and the quality of their products never brought into question.

Chancellor Fowler quickly proved herself to be more inept than Cornelius Fudge, and that's saying something. It didn't take long for the people everywhere to be calling for her resignation. She made desperate pleas to keep her position of power, abandoning all and any pretense. She even tried to strongarm the RAFians into supporting her. That went over about as well as you can imagine.

Senator Gabrielle "Gabby" Powers was chosen by the Senate to take former-Chancellor Fowler's position. Senator Powers accepted the appointment with grace and dignity, but something about it didn't sit right with Cloak. But he dismissed it due to his innate dislike of her, being a consummate establishment politician. The kind of politician he detested passionately, as the Realm Walker Council was constantly filled with these societal cancers.

But he would be very leery of this Chancellor. His RAFian duties might have called him to be respectful and polite towards her, lest create a political firestorm. But that did not obligate him to like nor trust her. He would keep her at arm's length at all times. He admit, he didn't know much about her record, but he resolved to change that as soon as he could.

***

As Cloak would eventually discover, Powers was a powerful wizard of sorts. But not as versatile as someone like Broken or Zak. She dabbled in a philosophy called the Force, and was enthralled by the darkest aspects of it from a young age. She was intelligent enough to keep this hidden and thoroughly cover her tracks so that no one, other than an omniscient narrator could know what she did.

While no proof existed to tie her to it, she commited a brutal patricide. Murdered a father she secretly hated for his lack of ambition and weakness. She saw him as a blithering incompetent whose opinions were not worth anything. She felt no remorse for her act, and was too good at playing the grieving daughter. No killer was ever found. So she lived a double life essentially from then, hiding her true sadistic self and ruthless motives from the world, and putting on an austere, but genial public face.

She hadn't any remorse for anyone. If anyone got killed standing in her way, then, in her mind, it was their fault for being there in the first place, though she would cover her tracks with the utmost skill and cleverness.

She managed to even secure an untarnished career as first and ambassador, then Senator, which she was seen as distinguished in. Even managing a form of Occlumency to even deceive Yarin, and subtly ensuring she was never alone with Cloak, who would have been able to Earthsight her untruths, which was difficult the more people were present, and there was too much noise to concentrate properly.

Unknown to all but herself, she was the one who orchestrated this whole, never-ending war between the "Sol Republic" and the Separatists. She found it disturbingly easy to so, as well, using the friction that was culminating between the two. Millions would die, and many have already -- some civilians, some RAFians, most clone troopers. She would use this to frighten the people enough to enable her to transfer most of the Senate's executive authority to her new office, and she would not relinquish them. The people were foolish, stupid people rife with petty weaknesses, in her view, and only needed certain platitudes and actions to keep them satisfied.

But she was very careful. She had to be. If she allowed the facade to slip, even a little, the RAFians might catch on to her scheme. They were the only real threat to it. They would need to be purged -- soon, but not yet. . . .

Not yet.

---

*Get the reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 18, 2017, 04:12:04 PM

Are you kidding me? Cloak is literally mind-tripping on the Star Wars prequels - which was previously Lion King for some reason?

... What a nightmare, indeed. :P

YEY I FINALLY CAUGHT UP!! ;D I'll upload the missing PDFs tomorrow when I have wifi, and fix the links to the banners as well - they're now broken on the desktop too, so that definitely needs a reupload. Fantastic books, as usual, particularly enjoyed Solar Sucks and Buggy Afternoon because FEELS. Will Parker and Helen get back together? Daaaaamn, that drama. (Didn't particularly enjoy Nexus Politics, which is to be expected from a rather apolitical person such as myself - though was it pure coincidence that you happened to write that particular book in November or not? ;) )

Quote

"Do you think we could send some forum house-elves down here and --"

"Aquilai!" Saffa scolded, offering the irresistible imagery of Saffa as a Hermione Granger. She wouldn't appreciate the comparison, Cloak thought, allowing himself to be amused at the idea.

I just had to pick out this particular quote because it's funny - I was always called Hermione as a kid, thanks to the bushy hair and smartass disposition. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2017, 05:22:56 PM

Quote from: Saffa on January 18, 2017, 04:12:04 PM

Are you kidding me? Cloak is literally mind-tripping on the Star Wars prequels - which was previously Lion King for some reason?

... What a nightmare, indeed. :P

I have been called a master of the mash-up before, when I read these books in a writing class.

Quote from: Saffa on January 18, 2017, 04:12:04 PM

I'll upload the missing PDFs tomorrow when I have wifi, and fix the links to the banners as well - they're now broken on the desktop too, so that definitely needs a reupload.

Thanks again!

Quote from: Saffa on January 18, 2017, 04:12:04 PM

Fantastic books, as usual, particularly enjoyed Solar Sucks and Buggy Afternoon because FEELS. Will Parker and Helen get back together? Daaaaamn, that drama.

We will see. Eventually. I assume couples have arguments like that from time to time, and are always lovey-dovey all the time, hence why I put that hiccup there.

Quote from: Saffa on January 18, 2017, 04:12:04 PM

(Didn't particularly enjoy Nexus Politics, which is to be expected from a rather apolitical person such as myself - though was it pure coincidence that you happened to write that particular book in November or not? ;) )

Pure coincidence. I just happened to get to that part of the books queued up. But I didn't fail to notice the irony, as I did tell GH in chat when I was about to work on that book.

Quote from: Saffa on January 18, 2017, 04:12:04 PM

Quote

"Do you think we could send some forum house-elves down here and --"

"Aquilai!" Saffa scolded, offering the irresistible imagery of Saffa as a Hermione Granger. She wouldn't appreciate the comparison, Cloak thought, allowing himself to be amused at the idea.

I just had to pick out this particular quote because it's funny - I was always called Hermione as a kid, thanks to the bushy hair and smartass disposition. :P

Oh! Didn't know that. Happy coincidence.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Powers Taken and Powers Forsaken

It went just as she had secretly hoped.

The war was causing countless casualties, both civilian and military. This ruckus caused the populace enough fear to allow Powers to leech executive authority from he Senate as "emergency powers". And by a vote of the Senate themselves. This was not without detractors -- who snarkily called Chancellor Powers "Grabby Powers"*, not without precedent for their ire. But this was dismissed largely as partisan politics.

Cloak, however, believed this was a fallacy. He believed that they may have had a point. Powers was too measured. Too precise. Too careful about everything she said and did. She never did anything that she couldn't rationalize, spin, or otherwise manipulate to show her in a positive light. Cloak found this extremely slimy and was wondering why no one else seemed to see what he did. Was he being paranoid? Probably. Was he being fatalistic? Absolutely.

He would have to look into her history -- her record was impeccable. Disturbingly so. It raised red flags in his mind. But his search yielded no results of a satisfactory nature -- whoever she was before, she covered up her tracks exceedingly well. It was almost as if she was expecting his investigative methods.

Other RAFians would chastise him on this, saying that he should focus on winning the war against the Separatists. Cloak would always counter this sentiment to himself, believing they were too focused on the war, surviving a chancellor they knew nothing about. Not really anything substantive, anyway.

It was just like Malice. She disappeared without a trace during their last conflict, and Cloak had no idea where she had gone. Assuming she was still alive, as she was an octogenarian Realm Walker, nearly a millennium old (Dweller time). Cloak was starting to believe that she may have died of old age -- despite his doubts.

Cloak was kept appraised of the situation, as continued to try to dig deeper. But he had to be cautious. He didn't want the new chancellor to catch wind of his endeavors. He knew it was kind of stupid to focus so much on this, to be so obsessive about it -- but, perhaps it was simply his feline curiosity, or maybe it was just a hunch, in any case he had to see it out to the end.

He quickly discovered that the head of the Separatists was someone he hadn't expected. A name he hadn't heard in Dweller years. Someone who used to be a RAFian before he decided to defect and betray them all, not unlike Itellsya.

How Odie -- styling himself as "Darth Odious" (which Cloak thought was a bit laughably pretentious of him) -- became the head of the Separatists, the Realm Walker didn't know. But Cloak was sure that he didn't get in that position on his own, through his own merits. Someone else was orchestrating this. But who?

A question to be answered later. Cloak was still dead set on uncovering whatever secret Powers was hiding. It had to be big if she was willing to go through this much to obscure it from the public eye. . . .

---

*Yes, yes, this is why the name Gabrielle Powers was chosen. Nothing else.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2017, 12:41:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Kidnapped

Weeks passed by, and seemed to be uneventful. The steady machine of war chugged along like a wicked train, spewing it's noxious death as if it were steam. There seemed to be no end in sight for this war, but Chancellor Powers seemed to be more effectual than former-Chancellor Fowler was.

Of course, this was because she was, in fact, orchestrating this war to serve her ends. Being Chancellor wasn't enough for her. She had an insidious plan to claim more power, and get rid of the threat that the RAFians posed to her rule, to her authority. She envisioned a great empire before her -- and she knew what she had to do to take it.

Then she was kidnapped by Odie. Yes. Yes, that's right. She was kidnapped by, perhaps, the most ineffectual RAFian -- former or current -- there ever was. He felt proud of this accomplishment, and saw it as a sign of his capability.

But this was all a part of her plan. She had come to know of Leatherhead's impudence and recklessness -- it wasn't really a closely-guarded secret. She thought he might prove useful as an enforcer on her behalf, once he renounced his alliance to RAF. It could work, too. She would just have to exploit a crucial moment to appeal to the darkness in his heart. It could allow him to be powerful . . . and this kidnapping was instrumental in that. She could divine the future enough to tell the humanoid crocodilian would be essential to her plans of a purge.

As she anticipated, and foresaw with her limited divination practices, GH and Leatherhead were dispatched to rescue her. The star and the Elements master would have been sent were they not off on separate missions of their own. This was quite auspicious for her. Very much so.

Even more was when GH and Leatherhead, now a young adult, were separated by a falling elevator. Despite the remonstrations of his adopted father, Leatherhead had ran along ahead of him, and quickly came to a room with a seated Powers and Odie standing before him. Leatherhead held his halbried while Odie held a staff with concussion pulses able to emanate from the slightly spherical knob on one end.

"Now, now, monster," Odie said with his characteristic sneer. "You don't want to make a mess in front of Madam Chancellor, d'you?"

Leatherhead's grip on his halbried tightened with anger.

"I've been looking forward to this," Odie said. "I only thought it would be against an impressive RAFian. Not a child."

"My abilities have doubled since the last time we met, Odie," Leatherhead boasted needlessly.

"Good, then," Odie said. "Twice the pride, the harder the fall. And it's 'Darth Odious' now."

"Yeah," Leather said, in perfect imitation of GH, "no one cares, Odie."

Then the battle commensed, and eventually ended with Odie losing both of his hands with a single, overhead strike. Leatherhead's armored hide made the concussive blasts not all that effective. But Leatherhead had unknowingly allowed his anger and rage to possess him like a demon.

He held Odie by the throat. One snap of his jaws and he could easily decapitate the loser. It would be so easy. So very easy. . . . Too easy. Not right. But he . . . no, he could. Couldn't he, though? He had the power. He had it spades. He could do . . . but no. It wouldn't be right.

"Good, boy, good. Kill him," said a strained voice. He never recognized it or realized it came from Powers herself. "Kill him now."

A moment of hesitation.

"Do it."

And Leatherhead . . . indulged himself and killed Odie.

He immediately repented his actions, "I shouldn't have . . ."

"You did well, boy," Powers said, but Leatherhead barely seemed to register what she was saying. "He was too dangerous to be kept alive."

This was the overstatement of overstatements.

"He was unarmed," Leatherhead said, muttering to himself as he freed the Chancellor. He seemed confused, perplexed, and he lost all the bravado he had moments before. There was something dark inside him -- and it scared him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 20, 2017, 09:05:07 AM

Right, here are the reuploaded links, hopefully they stay that way:

[spoiler]Year 2
https://68.media.tumblr.com/a4c63b04a2bb8964340dba25066d1888/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo1_400.jpg

Year 3
https://68.media.tumblr.com/3a60e5b0925e02257753045bca44bff6/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo2_400.jpg

Year 4
https://68.media.tumblr.com/c87e2dc8fe8f67d7d52876cf4adb3a65/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo3_400.jpg

Year 5
https://68.media.tumblr.com/221142f8669893bdb15a2f4a45fca829/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo4_400.jpg

Year 6
https://68.media.tumblr.com/bd06d30d732c40df5c16b0e998f968e4/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo5_400.jpg

Year 7
https://68.media.tumblr.com/b3f44e9066105d66b18468713f725ab1/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo6_400.jpg

Year 8
https://68.media.tumblr.com/73d5a01e665afa2ff87ada3ef9cb0675/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo8_400.jpg

Year 9
https://68.media.tumblr.com/7520a47ff5acd485b0c15aa8d555c4bf/tumblr_ok30900adK1tdgjdyo7_400.jpg
[/spoiler]

So I'll have to do ones for Years 10 and 11 (correct me if I'm wrong).

And the PDFs:

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2017, 09:10:27 AM

. . . And Year 12. Yeah, I know it's ambitious.  +9 PDF karma, Saffa. And I have a few new book ideas that I'll post later. Thirty-one book ideas away from Year 13 -- the Year that Dino will never read. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Deployment For Endgame

Cloak would have dug more, but apparently he was needed elsewhere. A thick, lush forest of some sort. He had to be there immediately, and it was urgent. It appeared the Separatists had really upped their man power.

Or rather, their machine power. They had the Techadons mass produce droids for them for some time now, to match the numbers of the clone troopers. It was an obvious decision, but an ultimately futile one with the RAFians present. Ferrokinetic RAFians, like Cloak, could easily tear through their ranks without a thought. Pyrokinetic RAFians, like Blaze, Demos, and, again, Cloak, could turn them into molten metal. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Cloak was to lead a contingent of clone troopers to these coordinates. Other RAFians were given a contingent of their own to lead, some larger, some smaller. Curiously, the more powerful the RAFian, the larger the contingent. This did not go unnoticed by Cloak, and a few other RAFians, but he said nothing of his suspicions, something he would later come to regret terribly.

So, Cloak was deployed to a forested area. Yarin was piloting his ship, alongside other clone pilots. Parker was given a hoverbike called a speeder for his deployment. Jess was deployed to some crystal catacombs. Blaze was deployed to a barren desert. GH was deployed in a deep canyon. Leatherhead was deployed to bodyguard the Chancellor -- who the Separatists threatened to kidnap and ransom once more. Just about every RAFian, besides Goom, a few experienced RAFians, and the yearlings (who remained at the forum), were deployed.

Cloak did not have a good feeling about this. Though he didn't say it, he didn't really trust these clone troopers. He wasn't sure which ones he had fought alongside with -- their uniforms, their armor, made them look all the same. And he severely questioned the design of the helmets. He did not think it was easy for them to see out of -- likening it, a bit hyperbolic in his rhetoric, to a character mascot head. Namely, a liability.

Clearly, this was ignored. And it wasn't exactly true, but Cloak's argument wasn't exactly completely valid, it did have some truth to it.

Meanwhile, Leatherhead went with the Chancellor to an opera. Leatherhead had admittingly always found operas and the like incredibly boring as child, and even now as a young adult. She knew of the darkness in Leatherhead's heart, and he knew she knew. It scared him, and he was intimidated to be in her presence again, unsure if she was the one who brought out that darkness, or if she implanted it into him to begin with.

She began to make idle small talk, keenly aware of the crocodile mutant's nervousness and obvious discomfort. She was careful not to lift the veil of her dual nature. Not just yet, anyway.

"Leatherhead, lad," Chancellor Powers said, seemingly out of nowhere, "you know I am not able to rely on the RAFians. If they haven't included you in their plot, they soon will."

"I . . . I don't understand . . . what?" Leatherhead babbled so articulately.

"You must sense what I've come to suspect," she said, sounding uncharacteristicall y old and weary. "The RAFians want control of the republic. They're planning to betray me."

It was a very serious claim to make -- and one of complete fabrication.

"I don't think --" Leatherhead said.

"Leatherhead, lad," Chancellor Powers said, as if she was imploring him not to play games with her. It was a subtle manipulation. "Search your feelings. You know, don't you?"

Leatherhead, despite himself, began to doubt his convictions. He had felt restrained by the others, held back, treated as a child when he was clearly not! The darkness within was starting to take hold. The Leatherhead everyone knew him as was starting to die.

"I know Cloak doesn't trust you . . ." Leatherhead said, "but he doesn't trust politicians in general. . . ."

"Or the Senate," she went on, "or the republic, or democracy, for that matter. It isn't just one, lad. If there's one, there's likely to be more of a similar belief."

"I . . ." was all that Leather could respond. His mind was diverted. He was trying to stem his inner darkness, a personification of negativity, while trying to engage in conversation.

"They asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, did they?" Powers said, knowingly. "Uncomfortable?"

Leatherhead said nothing, but his body language gave everything away.

"They asked you to spy on me, didn't they?" Powers said, seeming precognitive.

"I don't -- uh, I don't know what to say," said GH's adopted son.

"All who gain power are afraid to lose it," she said, sagely. It was rather remarkable that this came from her lips, considering that, in some contexts, it was very true of her.

"The RAFians use their powers for good," Leather countered meekly.

"'Good' is subjective, lad. A point of view." she said, deflecting the weak counterargument. "They are so similar to the Banned which they cast out. Including their quest for greater power."

"The Banned rely on their passion and baser emotions for power," Leatherhead argued with a slightly stronger argument. "They think inwards, only about themselves."

"Do they? Or is that just RAFian propaganda, lad?" Powers countered easily. "And the RAFians don't indulge in the same kind of behavior?"

"The RAFians are selfless," Leatherhead said, stemming the darkness successfully now, pushing it down. "They only think of others."

She divert this argument by telling Leatherhead of a man, a man named Garth Mortis, a man who, allegedly, could save those he cared about from the clutches of death itself. A man could keep himself alive indefinitely. A man who was killed in a drunken stupor by his apprentice.

The darkness within Leatherhead bubbled up again, and he was curious if he could learn these powers. If it was at all possible.

The conversation ended with Powers saying, "Not from a RAFian."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2017, 07:33:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Discovery

The opera ended, and it was up to Leatherhead to escort the Chancellor to her lodgings. Then his duty would be complete, and he could forget all the disconcerting things she told him. But, despite wanting to forget, his mind lingered on them, his inner darkness feeding on them and his doubt. His darkness threatening to consume him. He didn't even realize that the Leatherhead that was a RAFian and an adopted son to GH was dying. Dying a slow, anguished death.

Once at her apartment, she invited the boy in, and, in a distinct effort not to be impolite, he acquiesced. But he still remained uncomfortable and unsure. Once inside, Powers began to talk to him about the philosophy of the Force, of Jedi, and of Sith. The way she described the Dark Side of the Force secretly thrilled the impressionable crocodilian, but he had no conscious awareness of it. But Powers was perceptive enough to tell that she at baited the young anthropomorphized reptile perfectly, and his interest was piqued, even if he refused to admit it aloud. All was going according to her plan, going as she had foreseen.

But she would need a catalyst. A way, an event, a crisis for her to spin into justifying her activating Order 66, allowing her to purge existence of the RAFians. The time was coming, and all it would take is to let slip "accidentally" a few key details to get the lad to turn on her and report her to the RAFian mods. This was precisely what she wanted.

And the poor, naive lad played his part and immediately turned on her, when she let slip that she may have deliberately orchestrated the war, using vague language that she could easily spin to her advantage. Leatherhead, as she predicted turned on her. Threatened her with killing her here and now.

She was savvy enough to know full well that this was all talk. Her description of Sith powers had interested the young reptile. She knew it. She knew he wouldn't risk killing her as he wanted to learn those powers. Not that he would consciously acknowledge this.

"Gonna kill me, lad?" she said, smoothly and cavalier. "Have you paused to consider how that would look to outsiders of this exchange? It will look like an assassination attempt. It will invariably be traced back to you, implicating you and the other RAFians. People will start to lose faith in your order, in the RAFian order."

Leatherhead was at an impasse, fighting his darker desires. Fighting for his life, the life of the Leatherhead identity. It was a losing battle.

"I'll report you," he said, leaving quickly, attempting to stem his inner darkness, which had subsided for now. "You won't get away with this."

"Won't I?" she said, her voice betraying her arrogance and overconfidence. Leatherhead didn't hear her.

***

"Blue, where is Dad?"

"Off on a mission to the canyon," Blue replied, preparing to go to the Chancellor. "We've just received word that General Machiavelli has been slain. We're on our way to make sure the Chancellor gives up his emergency powers, and restores them to the Senate."

"She won't give them up," Leatherhead said. He was fearing this darkness within his heart. It had already taken hold, taken root. He wanted to believe that it was like some alien parasite, but it was just the darkness present in every heart, only allowed to grow and fester. "She believes herself to be something called a Sith."

"Sith?"

Leatherhead gave a rather amateurish description of what a Sith was and the ideology behind it. He tried very hard not to sound awed by it, not to sound enthralled by it. He knew it was wrong. As well as the information leaked by her, which could easily be opened to interpretation.

"Are you sure?" Blue asked, sheathing his ninjabo.

"Absolutely," Leatherhead said, with absolute conviction.

"We must move quickly then," the ninja said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2017, 09:45:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Rise, Darth Suchus

Blue strode straight to the chancellor's office, with Gaz on his right, Underseen on his left, and Demos take up the rear. They would make the chancellor give up her emergency powers and return them to the Senate. They didn't know that they were playing right into her hands. She had been hoping for a confrontation, been expecting it. But she decided to play coy.

"RAFian Blue?" she said, affecting an affable demeanor. "I trust that General Machiavelli has been destroyed? I must say your appearance here wasn't unexpected."

"In the name of the Global Senate of the Republic," Blue said, unsheathing his ninjabo. The blade was made of nth metal, and was a gift from a Thanagarian friend. "You are under arrest, Chancellor."

"Are you threatening me, RAFian?" she said, serious, but still with a hint of coyness.

"The Senate will decide your fate," Blue said, as the others beside him prepared themselves. Demos was holding a sword of flame, Underseen had shapeshifted one from his limbs, and Gaz had Laserbeak in a sword form. They were ready for battle.

"I AM the Senate," she said, voice more animalistic now and all coyness lost.

"Not yet." Blue said, firmly.

Powers rose, pulled a lightsaber from a secreted spot nearby, palmed it. Then she held it properly, before activating it. All while saying, "It's treason, then, is it?"

With an inhuman roar, she spiraled forward, moving with such astonishing speed and deadly accuracy for someone of her advanced age. There was no time to react, even for a RAFian. She might have even been able to give Cerulean a run for his money.

She stabbed Gaz and shattered Lazerbeak in a stab and arcing slice. She decapitated Demos, killing him in a way that his regeneration -- at least, theoretically -- couldn't save him. Then she vaporized Underseen. All before any of them could act.

Only Blue seemed able to defend himself from the vicious attack. He had more swordmanship experience than the other three, and was able to move to stop Powers' attack. But, even then, Blue had to back into the corridor beyond the office, pushed back by the ferocity of the Chancellor's swordplay. She was good -- there was no denying that. There was only flashes of red and glinting of nth metal. Powers was by far the most dangerous swordsperson he had ever faced. Her skill was undeniable and lethal. If his blade wasn't nth metal, however . . . then it would have already been over.

Neither realized that Leatherhead was quickly approaching their location. And he was confused and battling his own inner darkness. It was getting stronger. Leatherhead almost felt as if he couldn't breathe. He just knew he had to get to the Chancellor and the others. Maybe . . . maybe he could do something. Something to solve everything.

Meanwhile, the swordfight returned to the office, and remained as fierce as ever, neither giving an inch. Blue wouldn't be able to do do this forever. He knew it, but he had to do his RAFian duty. He had to get the executive authority back to the Senate. He had to --

Blue's missed strike shattered a whole floor-to-ceiling window in the office. But he couldn't focus on that. He had to have his mind totally and completely on the fight at hand. There! An opening! He kicked the Chancellor, effectively disarming her, causing her lightsaber to tumble out of the open window.

She was forced down in the corner of the wall. She would have looked so helpless to any outsider who managed to stumble in on this. It would look bad for Blue, who had the point of his ninjabo pointed to the Chancellor's neck. Blue would have appeared to be the aggressor and not the other way around.

"You are under arrest," Blue said, serious and miffed, "my Lord."

"Lad, I told you that it would come to this!" Powers said, seizing upon the opportunity of Leatherhead's presence. "I was right! The RAFians are taking over!!"

"The reign of oppression will never return," Blue said. "You have lost."

"No! No! No!" she said, her voice sounding like the angry croak of a frog. "YOU have lost!!"

She fired powerful Force lightning at Blue, who used his ninjabo to deflect most it back at her, causing her face to disfigure, and her hair to turn white and wispy and then to fall out.

"He's a traitor!" she accused.

"She's the traitor!!" Blue corrected.

"I have the power and knowledge to save the ones you love!" she said, appealing to Leatherhead's inner darkness. It was slowly consuming him now. Soon there will be nothing left . . . Leatherhead will be dead, and whatever this darkness was would stand in his place. "You must chose!"

"Don't listen to him, Leatherhead!" Blue instructed.

"Don't let him kill me!!" she said, feigning weakness. "I can't hold it any longer."

"I'm going to end this, once and for all!" Blue declared.

"You can't," Leatherhead said. "He must stand trial!"

"She has control over the Senate and the courts!" Blue countered. "He killed Gaz, Laserbeak, Demos, and Underseen! She's too dangerous to be left alive!"

"I'm too weak! Don't kill me!" she feigned whimpering. "Please!"

"It's not the RAFian way!" Leatherhead protested. "She must live!"

Blue prepared for the final blow.

"Please don't!" she pseudo-whimpered.

"I need her!" Leatherhead said. It was at that moment when his inner darkness subsumed him. He was drowning in darkness. Still, Blue moved in for the kill. "No!"

Leatherhead headbutted Blue out the window after biting off both of his hands. He had murdered Blue. He had fallen. His darkness had consumed him. Leatherhead the RAFian was now dead. But who exactly was in his place?

"Come, my apprentice," Powers said, as she got up. "Learn to use the Dark Side of the Force."

"I will do whatever you ask of me," the heartless being that once had been Leatherhead said. His eyes were now silver.

"Good," Powers said.

"I pledge myself to your teachings," the thing that was Leatherhead said, without emotion.

"Good. Good." she said. "The Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith you will become! Henceforth, you shall be known as . . . Darth . . . Suchus."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2017, 07:27:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Order 66

Powers went to her communications hub, and began to dial up clone commanders. From there, she told them to execute Order 66. This triggered a bio-chip in the heads of the clone troopers, deliberately put in each and every clone trooper, secretly orchestrated by Powers herself in the guise of Darth Surper. She used the channel to make the authorization unquestionable, as programed into the clones.

The contingency order stated that in the event of RAFian officers act against the interests of the Global Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (namely, Chancellor Powers herself), the clone commanders will remove them by lethal force, and command of the clone army will revert to her until a new command structure is established.

However, under closer examination, the text of Order 66 exposed several distinctions that set it apart from the other 149 contingency orders.

First, the majority of the other known contingency orders took into account other sources of command authority -- the Vice Chair, the Senate Security Committee, the RAFian mods, the clone High Command -- while Order 66 could only be issued by the Supreme Commander -- Powers herself.

Second, it was not required that the Security Council or a Senate majority declare that the RAFians were acting against Republic interests; Powers alone had the power to make that determination.

Third, clone commanders were not required to authenticate the order, or even to report it to any other command authority. If the order came directly from Powers, using specific command phrasing and over specific communications channels pre-approved by her for this express purpose, that was all the authentication the clone commanders appear to have needed.

Fourth, there was no apparent mechanism for rescinding the order. Once given, it had to be followed.

Finally, there was no proviso -- as there were in other known contingency orders -- that the RAFians were to be detained and that lethal force should be used if necessary. The order explicitly specified that they were to be removed by lethal force. Though the true purpose of this specific command was to satisfy Powers's personal wish to eliminate the RAFians as a threat to her power, the insistence on lethal force could have been rationalized for general consumption: it could be argued that any attempt to detain a RAFian who did not wish to be detained would fail, except in the event that said RAFian was faced with overwhelming clone numbers, and even then, such an attempt would likely result in numerous unnecessary clone casualties. (Though this would actually depend on the particular RAFian in question's particular powerset.) The use of lethal force, in that event, would therefore automatically be considered necessary to preserve the lives of clone soldiers and officers.

To further ensure that various clone troopers carried out the plan when the time came, the order was programmed into a biochip implanted into their brain during development. Though there were a few examples of clones who had removed the chip, and were free of Order 66.

***

GH was riding a varadactyl, and he was warning a clone commander, Commander Zack, to move to the higher levels as they fought the droids. Commander Zack thanked him, handing back the guitar that GH had lost during the battle. GH thanked him, and urged him and his troops onward.

Then Zack got the order to execute Order 66, and he was obligated to obey. He betrayed GH by blasting the stone wall that GH and his varadactyl mount were scaling, causing them to fall into the abyss. They were presumed to be dead.

***

Blaze was charging into battle with his troops, only for them to stop short. He looked at them quizzically, and they opened fire. He managed to deflect several blasts, which was impressive enough, but the numbers were far too great. They slayed him.

***

Jess was on a scouting mission with her troops. She heard the clicking of energy rifles behind her and turned to see, to her shock, that her own troops had pointed them directly at her. She scarcely had the time to form a single thought before they opened fire, killing her instantly.

***

Yarin was flying his ship in formation with his clone troopers. They had just finished patrol when his clone troopers pulled back and shot his ship down. Taking him with it. There was no way the Nyac could survive a crash like that.

***

Parker was speeding along on his aptly-named speeder with a couple of clone troopers at either side of him. He didn't seem to notice when they pulled back. Until they shot his speeder causing it to crash at such high velocity and force that it tore through his armor like corrugated cardboard. Parker, even with his armor, couldn't survive that.

***

Darth Suchus headed a massive contingent of clone troops straight up to RAF's threshold. From there, he lead a massive massacre of RAFians. Even Glenda, Pierce, and the other RAFian children were not safe from his utter execution. Even despite Goom's futile attempts to save them.

All were cut down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2017, 10:31:12 PM

Sorry, Quaf.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Darth Suchus's Raid

Abby and Slushie Man were on patrol on the forum's perimeter. The mods had tasked them with the job, as Richard and the rest of the mods were going to go to seek out Estelore -- they had lost communication with her, and she was attempting an extragalactic jump. Something that alienated her from the other sentient stars (though they were very few in number, population-wise). Unbeknowst to them, their friends and fellow RAFians were dead or dying or presumed dead.

They were unusually unfocused and confused. There was an ill feeling hanging in the air. A tense, ominous sort of feeling with an inexplicable air of dread. It didn't make any sense to them.

Abby, confident in Slushie's abilities, retired to her thread to meditate and ruminate on these matters. They had Code Avalon on, so nothing too dangerous should be able to come in. But this dereliction of duty was rather uncharacteristic for such a veteran RAFian.

Slushie saw at last a figure approaching. Leatherhead. Perhaps there would be some answer to what was going on. The young RAFian would surely have new information that the forum seemed starving for.

Slushie quickly approached Leatherhead, and inquired about Blue and the others. But Leatherhead ignored the question, and inquired where Abby was. Slushie supplied Leatherhead the answer, and then reissued his question. Only to be decapitated by Leatherhead's . . . by Darth Suchus's halberd. The last thing he saw was the sea of white behind Leatherhead, but with no time to process it before being slain.

The RAFian Purge had began.

Darth Suchus led the clones inside the campus, where they came across a lone RAFian. Darth Suchus demanded the RAFian surrender or die, claiming that the RAFian plot to overthrow Chancellor Powers had failed. When Rocklobster did not comply, he was slain.

Darth Suchus continued to stalk through the campus with his clone troop regiment. They eliminated any RAFian they encountered. Dino. Blocky. Shock. Koko. Falc0. Kelly. Shen. Too many to count. Too many . . . just . . . just too many. . . .

Darth Suchus* dispersed his troops throughout the forum. While they scoured the halls and hallways, Darth Suchus headed for the communications center and the Archives. On the way, he battled Helen and Goku/1922. He killed them in the end.

When a group of clones arrived, Darth Suchus sent them to the docking bay and ordered them to destroy every single ship there. There would be no escaping this perversion of justice.

Then Darth Suchis took another contingent of clones and entered the Archives, meeting Myitt. He demanded to use the facility's signal beacon on the behalf of the chancellor. Myitt defiantly stated that such a request was not within the chancellor's power. She prepared to fight, but she was no match for Darth Suchus. He remorselessly killed her with a single slice of his heavy halberd.

Cornson, Sorunome, and Horse tried to avenge Myitt, but Darth Suchus cut them all down with skillful use of his halberd. They all were slain. Then he posted a clone at every exit and every entrance in the forum, making escape nigh near impossible. Meanwhile, the clones in the Archives were to download everything there. Essentially making the information available to the chancellor at any time of her choice for her easy perusal. They were transported to an awaiting ship, and carried to the Chancellor herself.

Then Darth Suchus and his clone troopers proceed deeper in the tunnel. But they were quickly ambushed by a group of RAFians in a hall. Darth Suchus used a statuary to crush them to death, and then he used a piece to battering ram his way into a study hall, where Darth Suchus and his troopers massacred new RAFians and their teachers.

From there, he went to the communications center, straight to the signal beacon array. He altered it to a S.O.S. message, commanding all RAFians to return to the forum. Into a trap that would assuredly lead to their untimely death. Then he was notified that a RAFian, Faerie, managed to penetrate the upper defenses.

Darth Suchus elected to handle this himself, telling the clone troopers to defend the beacon with their lives. When he arrived, he was greeted, not by Faerie, but by Saffa. His darkness had erased any feeling of affection or endearment towards the RAFians -- he saw them all as traitors. All except one, and he was presumed dead.

The duel actually presented the arrogant young creature some challenge, but he eventually succeeded in slaying her -- by crushing her beneath a giant pillar. Faerie raced to Saffa's side, but she was too late. She glared at Darth Suchus and then took the battle to him. She seemed to get the upper hand at one point, but she underestimated Darth Suchus in that instant, and then was cut down.

While the clones continued the attack, Darth Suchus entered Abby's thread, and without a word, decapitated her with his halberd. This done, he exited the room, and let the clones take care of the main security force in the main promenade. He would search for more survivors.

This was when he committed his most heinous, unforgivable act. In the room beyond, was a daycare of sorts. Pierce, the son of Parker and Helen, was there. Glenda, the daughter of Melissa and Vic, was there. And a handful more. Darth Suchus . . . slaughtered them all. Terenia and her mighty Ruler of Death . . . couldn't stop him. They all died by his hand. He had no mercy -- as per the Chancellor's instructions. Leatherhead struggled against his darkness with this act, but he failed. He was too weak to overcome his darkness. . . .

As the fighting died down, the Chancellor came herself, to check personally on Suchus's progress. Darth Suchus knelt before Powers, and was congratulated.

---

* Pronounced as "sue-CUSS", rhymes with "Lucas". Basically means "crocodile".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2017, 03:07:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Survival

Cloak clutched his chest, at his heart. He felt as if someone was putting it through a blender set for slow and torturous. He felt the deaths of his fellow RAFians. He felt them through his Mark. He felt them fading and blipping out of life. He felt them being murdered. He didn't know how. The Marks were not supposed to do this -- perhaps the overuse of Unity Energy? Perhaps.

But that wasn't important now. RAFians were dying left, right, and center. Falling . . . but for what reason?

Cloak's ears flicked, he heard on of the clones receive a transmission, but could not make out who was on the other end or what was said. He could understand three words -- Order 66.

The clones approached him, far closer than he liked. He had made this crystal clear with them. He enjoyed his space, especially from those that he didn't know well enough. But Cloak already knew what they wanted. He suspected it the moment he heard Order 66 -- as this wasn't the only Realm with an Order 66. He heard the blasters click, charging up their energy.

But Cloak's reaction time was far superior to theirs. He raged, as he destroyed them, killing them in his anger, whilst roaring, "You dare to turn against me?! To betray me?! When I have done nothing -- nothing! -- to warrant an unprovoked attack?!"

The Rage of the Avatar had nothing to the sheer apoplectic emotion Cloak was feeling. He could have destroyed them all. He could have done it in a heartbeat, without a second glance. It would have been so easy. But Cloak couldn't. He wouldn't allow himself to lose control.

But he destroyed all the clones' crafts -- vehicles of any sort, including tanks -- reducing them to cold slag. Then he left, to the forum, to finally get to the bottom of this. And especially because he was getting an S.O.S. signal from there. . . .

***

GH surfaced unceremoniously from the lake he fell into. It had saved his life, falling into it. He had his guitar with him with a finish that would not allow this water to even damage it.

"If you don't like the tune, you could have just said so," GH griped. Then he looked around for varadactyl mount. "Mr. Hinds? Mr. Hinds! Mr. Hinds, where are you?"

Then he saw Mr. Hinds, and looked away. GH realized very quickly that he had gotten off easy. Mr. Hinds did not. GH felt a wave of grief, which seemed to be strangely amplified for some reason. He did not know why.

He needed to figure out some way to get out of here and rendezvous with the others at the forum. Perhaps finding out why his troops turned on him without any provocation whatsoever.

***

Chancellor Powers stood before the Global Senate, as he secreted Darth Suchus to a meeting place he had scheduled for the leaders of the Separatists to gather. He was cutting them down in the most efficient way possible.

Powers advocates were not the only ones in attendance. Vinny Alexander, now a young adult within Darth Suchus's own age range now, and his mother, Kat, were there. As well as the adult Rollo and Ricky Edwards were there. So was Jaden White, Harry March, Duncan and Lincoln Gan, Alicia Landers, Ruby Hart, Dorian Avellanarius, and Bern Bridges (who was a die-hard Powers supporter, loyalist, and apologist, all in one -- still a hack political commentator).

"-- And the RAFian insurrection has been foiled," Powers was speaking. Was she deliberately making her voice sound so frail and fragile?

"What's happening?" Vinny asked his mother.

"The Chancellor has been elaborating on a so-called plot to overthrow the Senate," she answered, clearly not believing a word of it. "Something else is at play here."

"The remaining RAFians will be hunted down and defeated!" Powers said, still with the facade of weakness, which she deliberately ebbed away as she continued with her speech. "The attempt on my life has left me . . . scarred. And disfigured. But, I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger!"

The obligatory applause. Kat was still suspicious. She wasn't the only one with a dissident attitude.

"In order to continue the security and continued stability," she announced, "the republic will be reorganized into the first Global Empire!"

Kat's face betrayed her alarm. She couldn't be serious. And they couldn't be serious either. Cheering for the destruction of a democracy for an authoritarian dictatorship? Surely, this had to be some joke.

"For a safer and more secure society," Powers ended her speech as powerfully as she could without going overboard.

Kat felt as if she wanted to cry. She felt as if she wanted to bawl her eyes out. She could not believe the cheers and uproarious approval the Senate seemed to be giving Powers. Were they blind?! Were they stupid?!

"So, this is how liberty dies," she told her son, sounding very morose. "With rapturous applause."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on January 25, 2017, 11:14:11 AM

o **** RIP


Somehow I get a feeling Cloaky is really enjoying killing all of us. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on January 25, 2017, 01:37:49 PM

CloakedFigure the chronicler, spinning his fanciful alternate world in which the forum is a place. : } It has been supremely interesting to a watch, although I feel as though I know very little early history before 2009. ; )

I.E. Who the banned members represent.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 25, 2017, 04:51:15 PM

Quote from: Saffa on January 25, 2017, 11:14:11 AM

Somehow I get a feeling Cloaky is really enjoying killing all of us. ;)

Not at all. Just lining up the RAFians that are the most like the Jedi slain. Chapter Twelve was based on this (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2DXBYbREvc8).

Quote from: Shenmue654 on January 25, 2017, 01:37:49 PM

CloakedFigure the chronicler, spinning his fanciful alternate world in which the forum is a place. : } It has been supremely interesting to a watch, although I feel as though I know very little early history before 2009. ; )

I.E. Who the banned members represent.

I thank you. And you might enjoy reading GH's and Xeno's tie-ins to this continuity as well.

As for the history, I have only been here since August of '08, so I don't know too much more than you. Technically, only Queen (who I still don't have a high opinion of) and Aloth were Banned in my time here. I don't know much about Yorick though.

Anyway, the next chapter might be late or posted tomorrow. Pokemon Bank updated and I'm playing around with my "new" legendaries and shinies (over 80 shinies now!) and seeing if Gen VII gave them any new toys.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Into the Forum

When Cloak arrived from the south, the forum was swarming with clone troopers. An less than auspicious outcome to arrive to. Cloak stayed in the shadows, silent, barely moving. Twas his feline instincts that dictated that he do such a thing.

He only moved when necessary, when the line of eyesight by the clones had passed. He had plenty of cover -- he knew this forum better than these clones. His heart wretched when he saw . . . YeerkSalad. Dylan. Ash. Canicula. Aquilai -- killed before he could Regenerate properly, or Regenerated thirteen times before death stuck, Cloak could not say.

Cloak had seen enough. He had had enough.

But he wouldn't just steamroll them with the elements. Oh, no . . . that would be too fast, too impersonal. And this was quite personal for him now.

He generate energy blades from his wrists, rather like Wolverine unsheathing his claws. The blades were as long and wide as a claymore and colored gold that became more and more scarlet as they reached the cutting edges.

He allowed a bestial tiger growl to escape his lips, barely heard or noticed by the clone troopers. Cloak was fortunate enough have garnered so much more control over his emotions than he had a scant Nexusian year ago. Otherwise, this would have happened a lot differently.

He wasn't about hide and sneak his way into the forum, and into the communications center. No, he wanted to be more . . . direct about it this time. He would let everyone know where he stood on this illegal occupation of the forum.

He leaped from his hiding place with a deafening roar of a tiger, brandishing his two energy blades. Immediately using them to deflect blaster fire -- and in two or three instances actually rebounding the blaster fire back at those firing them. Cloak showed no mercy, despite his usual pacifism.

Cloak was no Jedi, after all.

***

GH came down from the north, and discovered that RAF seemed to be converted into a makeshift military base. He could see Xeno, dead. Phoenix, slain. Quaf, quashed into death. Aila, murdered and Regenerated until it evidently stuck. And Hunter . . . oh, Hunter . . .

GH was wracked with so many emotions that were so entangled up each other he could scarcely recognize any. He felt his eyes began to water, but he fought pass the tears. So much death and destruction . . . it seemed so perverse for it to be happening here. This was purported to be the safest place on Earth, or at least that's what he believed in his heart of hearts. He believed that no one could him, or the others here, despite knowing how wrong that idea was.

This was his home. After . . . after that thing with  . . . Dimitri and the others . . . after fleeing from that Amber girl . . . this was his home! This was where he was safe, where he was loved and returned that love. It all seemed so very perverse!! This couldn't be real! It could not be --

He looked at Hunter's prone body, feeling grief that was all-encompassing and profound. GH never thought he'd experience loss this devastating, this heart wrenching. Suddenly, from within him, this grief congealed and coalesced into anger. Into rage.

This was all THEIR fault. They didn't have to come here. No one asked them to come here. No one asked them to massacre RAFians. They didn't have to do this!! They chose to! Well, now, they were going to pay for that terrible decision!

GH's guitar became his double-headed battle ax, and he seethed just a moment more before making himself known and decapitating several clone troopers, using his battle axe to deflect their blasts. They were all terrible shots, GH thought.

Then he heard a roar -- one he thought he recognized.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 26, 2017, 08:45:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Burden of Pain

It didn't take the two surviving RAFians (discounting the off-world RAFians, of course) who had stormed the forum to retake it, found themselves rendezvousing far quicker than either had anticipated. They fought back to back, decimating the clone troopers, but also leaving an rather overt path to where they were headed.

Both were reeling. Both were struggling with the reality of this. Both were afraid to acknowledge that they two might be the only living RAFians in existence now. The only two survivors. Neither wanted that to be the case, and both wanted to turn back time -- but neither knew how to pilot TARDISes, and, in any case, it was a moot point as both Ailia's and Aquilai's TARDISes pulled a Pernese dragon after their deaths and vanished into, presumably, time. Maybe forever in the ethereal existence of the time stream. It was of little concern to the two for the moment.

They quickly arrived at the communications terminal, and GH swiftly checked the beacon. He saw that it was the source of the S.O.S. that had drew Cloak here. It was a trap -- a deathtrap. GH decided that it won't be that anymore, hoping that there were even survivors out there. There were like four thousand RAFians before this, and who knew what that number looked like now.

"There," GH said, with a sense of grim satisfaction. "I recalibrated the beacon to issue a warning to stay away instead of an all-points bulletin S.O.S. Then I locked others out."

He used the password "Dimitri" in various algorithms and logarithms and such. That death still weighed on his mind before this massacre. Before this . . . purge. But GH and Cloak lacked the answers as to why and how this happened. Although Cloak had reviewed some of the security footage, while GH was working on the beacon (cursing profusely whilst doing it, naturally).

"My question is still . . . who," GH said, uncharacteristicall y somber, "who could have done this? Malice? Cadmus? Surely not the Knights?"

Cloak said nothing, but lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

"Well, it's done." GH said. "The beacon is now warning surviving RAFians -- if there are any more -- to stay away from the forum."

"Good," Cloak said, voice serious and soft. "It should take them a long time to discover the recalibration, then."

Cloak swept towards the exit, stopping halfway to wait for GH. He was silently rebuking himself. He shouldn't have taken such pleasure in cutting down those clone troopers. They were just following orders. They may not have even wanted to do this -- they were just forced to do it by the higher-ups. They may have not had a choice in the matter. Although, none of the body language he saw seemed to indicate that. But humans, even clone humans, were still a mystery to him in some ways.

"Wait, Cloak," GH said, seeing a security terminal on their way out. "There is something that I have to know."

Cloak watched him cross to the terminal and access the security footage before speaking, "GH . . . pain is all you'll find there."

"I must know the truth," GH said, obstinately.

GH watched with horror as Leatherhead commited these . . . these atrocities. It was a betrayal so deep, so complete, that GH thought himself shattered like glass. The boy he raised . . . had become a monster. A wild, feral thing that had lost all semblance of the Leatherhead he knew and loved. This couldn't be real!

"It can't be . . . it can't be . . ." GH whispered, aghast.

"It is," Cloak said, softly, as the footage showed Powers congratulating him, with his new name, Darth Suchus.

"I can't watch anymore," GH said, turning the terminal off and quickly turning away, feeling like his heart had been very rudely removed from his chest and played hackysack with.

"Destroy this Sith we must," Cloak said.

"I'll fight the Empress," GH said at once. His voice warbled with emotion with next five words. "I will not fight LH."

"No," Cloak said, wishing that he didn't have to ask this of his friend. "You are not strong enough to fight Powers, GH."

"He is my SON!" GH said, the clear cry in his voice was very overt. "I c-can't d-do . . . do it. Not to him."

"He is twisted by darkness," Cloak said, rationally. "The boy you trained, the boy you raised -- he's gone now. He has been consumed and subsumed by darkness, by Darth Suchus."

Cloak began to walk away, to prepare for his fight with Powers.

"I don't know where the Empress has sent him," GH said, miserably. "I don't know where to look."

"You know," Cloak said, "use your feelings, your instincts. You'll find him."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2017, 01:34:44 PM

This might be the last new chapter for a while. I don't know if my charger is ****ed up or my Kindle Fire itself. But the case is my Kindle won't charge right now, it would seem. I may have to throw this one away and get a new one.  :mad:

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Office of Powers

Cloak just waltzed into Powers inner sanctum without much resistance. Powers had an elite guard dressed all in red armor, making them look like some perverse hybridization of Thumb-Thumbs from "Spy Kids" and Tetrax's armor from "Ben 10". They only had a black, triangular visor in which to see out of, which Cloak saw as a significant design flaw. Granted, their hands weren't nearly as bulky, but smaller, more formfitting, as to not lose any dexterity. They were armed with strange staff-like weapons that seemed to be overly elaborate stun batons.

When they moved to attack Cloak, he drove them into the ground like tent spikes with little real effort -- their armor was colored metal, so it was easy.

"I hear that you have a new apprentice, 'Emperor'," Cloak said, conversationally. "Or should I call you, 'Darth' whatever?"

"RAFian Cloak," Powers said. "You survived."

"You sound surprised," Cloak replied, wanly.

"Your arrogance and hubris blinds you, RAFian Cloak," she said, with her gravelly voice.

"Does it now?" Cloak said, airily, sounding simultaneously unintimidated and unimpressed.

"Now you will experience the full power of the Dark Side of the Force," she said, before launching a blast of Force lightning at Cloak, but Cloak was anticipating this. He had a suspicion that she might employ this tactic, as Sidious did in that other Realm.

Cloak immediately redirected it back at her, coalescing the individual bolts into one, and firing it back at her, narrowly missing.

"So, that was the full power of the Dark Side of the Force, was it?" Cloak bantered. "Hmph. I found it to be lacking, to be honest."

She let out a cackling peel of laughter, saying, "I have been waiting for this moment for a long time . . . my friend."

"To get your clock cleaned?" Cloak said, irreverent. His flippant remarks were at odds with his tensing body, his sheathing and unsheathing of his claws. He was prepared to end this. And end it now.

"At last," she crowed with that harsh-sounding voice of hers, "the RAFians are no more."

Cloak raised his eyebrows, and wore a look of utter befuddlement, "Malice?"

He was answered by Force lightning in the gut. He quickly righted himself, taking quick inventory of himself. He hadn't been harmed in any way -- and there was no way a Dweller could kill him. But if he was right, and Malice had somehow integrated herself with the Chancellor -- that was a whole can of worms that he would much rather wasn't opened.

"The end of Cloak and the RAFians," she crowed again.

"Not," Cloak said, a tiger  growl intermingling his words, summoning high speed winds to push her over her desk, "if I have anything to say about it."

He watched her tumble into her chair -- and he was irresistibly reminded of the brutal hand-to-hand fights he would have with his younger sister by two Nexusian years, Dagger. She would always instigate the fights due to the belief she held that she was entitled to hit him, because she was a girl, and he couldn't respond in kind. Cloak didn't subscribe to such beliefs.

Cloak spoke again, "Your rule is at an end. I hope you enjoyed the week, because it's over now. And it wasn't short enough."

She leaped and backflipped with speed and agility of someone half her age. She headed straight for the door -- until Cloak stood between it and her. He issued a rhetorical statement, "If you're so powerful, then why leave?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2017, 09:19:55 PM

And now it decided to fix itself again. I feel like someone or something is treating me like a yo-yo. Anyway, bonus chapter since I'm not sure if I can post one tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Father's Shame

"I knew you'd come," Darth Suchus said.

"Leatherhead," GH said, his guitar shouldered. Despite the atrocities his adopted son had committed, he had hoped against all reason that he'd be able to talk him out of this. To make him feel regret and remorse for what he's done.

"I saw your ship," Leatherhead said, "what are you doing out here?"

"You know why I'm here, Leatherhead," GH said, voice parental. He was unable to hide the disappointment in it. "I've seen the atrocities you've wrought. Killing RAFians. Killing children. You are . . . were a good person, Leatherhead. You . . ."

GH was unable to complete his thought. His voice was choking on emotion.

"I am becoming stronger than any RAFian," Darth Suchus said. "You should be proud of me, Father."

GH was taken aback. All these atrocities, all this destruction and devastation, and Leatherhead thought that he should feel proud of him for it?!

"Stop! Come back to me, Leatherhead," GH said. He pleaded. He wished. "You're going down a path that I cannot follow you down."

Darth Suchus filled himself up with anger, hatred, and resentment. And he thought it power. He roared, "So, you've come to kill me, then?! Your own son."

"No," GH said, sadly. "That wasn't my original intent for coming here."

And with that the whole dynamic turned on a dime. GH didn't want to fight, but it looked as if Darth Suchus would leave him with little option.

"You've turned against me!" Darth Suchus shouted, petulantly.

"All you've done has done that, Leatherhead," GH said. He refused to call him Darth Suchus. He was Leatherhead. He was always Leatherhead, his son. His son led astray by a madman and a despot. "You anger and your lust for power has already done that. It's like I don't even know you anymore."

Darth Suchus had his back to GH. "Don't make me kill you, Father."

"Leatherhead," GH said, with a bite of exasperation, "my allegiance is to the republic, to democracy!"

"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Darth Suchus said.

GH sighed, resigned to what must be done, unshouldering his guitar, "Only a fool deals in such absolutes. I will do what I must."

With a surge of energy, he transformed his guitar into his signature battle axe.

"You will try," Leatherhead said, taking his halberd.

Then the battle rang from the craggy, volcanic surface they stood on. Each time halberd met battle axe or vice versa, discordant musical notes rang out making some sort of baleful, melancholic melody with the number of blocked strikes and dodged blows.

GH couldn't stop seeing the six-year-old boy that he knew in Leatherhead. But Cloak was right. That little boy was dead. Killed by Darth Suchus. Murdered by Darth Suchus, like so many others. Like Hunter . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2017, 06:02:50 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Climatic Battles Anticlimax

And so the two fought.

They fought their way onto the rising podium that stood on a hydraulic spire in the middle of the Senate floor. Cloak was hesitating to deliver the killing blow -- it is not as easy as the everyman seems to believe, killing someone. Even someone this evil. He could have had this over so easy whether by bloodbending or breathbending, but both techniques, by their very nature, are evil acts.

Powers used a red lightsaber and Cloak had nothing but the Elements and his own energy. And Powers was unpleasantly surprised to discover that her lightsaber could not cut through Cloak's clothing. The Realm Walker was unsurprised at this. After all, the material his clothing was made from was designed from prevent his corona from wrecking havoc upon the Realm. So it would require being tougher than those materials that a lightsaber can easily slice through.

Even if it could, Powers could not kill Cloak -- unless it was true that she had somehow merged with Malice. If she had -- Cloak was quite mortal right now. Only a Realm Walker can kill another Realm Walker, even if merged or intermingled with a Realm Dweller.

But he swiftly became annoyed by the lightsaber, with the very sound it made when it was swung. So, when she tried to swing again, he grabbed it with a gloved hand (gloved with slits for his claws, which were not ensconced in his corona), and it would not cut it.

"Enough with your stupid little toy," he growled, as he disarmed her and threw it off the side of the podium.

She tried to Force lightning him, but he just repeatedly redirected it back at her. She tried a few Force pushes with only marginal success. Cloak was stronger than she had anticipated. Far stronger. But her arrogance and hubris wouldn't allow her to acknowledge this aloud.

She threw several Senate seats at him with the Force, but they were made of metal and Cloak made them circle around him, so they didn't lose too much momentum, and sent them right back at her.

Eventually, there was an explosion. One which knocked the two opponents away from each other. Powers was able to land safely on a plateform with Cloak clinging onto on with his black claws. He dug them into the metal, which yielded to its master, and his claws sliced into the metal like a tiger and it's prey. But it wasn't enough to support his weight.

But no matter, no matter. He could just form his flying disc and float up to -- wait. What was happening? He could feel himself being pulled from reality. Being pulled from the Realm. Someone was forcibly Walking him! He was . . . he was . . . he was being Recalled!!

That was a violation of his rights! Whoever sat on the Council had no right!!

He soon saw the faces of a unicorn Realm Walker, a bear Realm Walker, a leopard Realm Walker, a snake Realm Walker, and a fox Realm Walker. And he, the tiger Realm Walker, was ticked off.

***

And so the two fought.

The discordant, dissent notes rang out unheard by anyone, even the combatants. They continued to fight even as the rig they upon which they battled splintered and fell into a river of lava. They wouldn't let a minor matter such as that dissuade them from this melee combat.

Eventually, GH jumped with more agility and dexterity than he felt he truly possessed, and turned to face his son. As GH looked at him, disappointment swelled in him. GH had failed him. He had failed to teach him restraint and respect. He had ignored this inner darkness. He had failed to stem its growth, and allowed it to blossom. He allowed it to kill his LH. LH was truly dead.

"It's over, Leatherhead," GH said. He still hoped to get through to him. "I have the high ground."

"You underestimate my power," Darth Suchus snarled.

"And you overestimate your power," GH sighed heavily.

"And you underestimate me!" Darth Suchus roared.

"Don't do it," GH pleaded.

But Darth Suchus leaped over GH, trying to get to the higher ground, only for GH to slice off all his limbs, aside from his right arm, and a third of his tail. He fell close to the lava and began to burst into flame.

"You were my son, Leatherhead," GH said, crying unabashedly now. "I loved you! You were supposed to fight for light, not leave everything in darkness!"

Unable to look at him any more, GH left. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2017, 09:40:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
GH Did WHAT?!

Cloak opened his eyes blearily, felt his ichor pound around his body.

He was up and on his feet before conscious, rational thought caught up to him. He was safe. He was in his thread, which was just fine. Sparsely decorated, but fine. He threw his legs over the side of his twin-sized bed. His bed sheets were navy blue, which he only got at his aunt Wheeza's suggestion.

He thought about the nightmare. It was far more intricate than the dreams he had of late. Did it mean something? Was he 'Truth-Dreaming' or whatever Aniyu called it? Was it just that, a dream? A harmless, meaningless nightmare?

He needed to get out of here, out of his thread. He needed to reassure himself that it was just a dream, a nightmare, and nothing more. Reassure himself that his friends still live, still thrive. Still simply be.

He walked out to a lovely sort of day, and saw his friends -- and Odie -- lounging about on the grounds. It wasn't real -- although he wasn't sure that he would ever look at Leatherhead the same way ag-- no, Cloak. That's stupid. Blaming someone based off of what they did in a nightmare. That would be incredibly stupid.

"Abby, what's that you watching?" Cloak asked.

"Yorick's show from Mojoverse," she answered, as she spread her hands upon the green grass upon which she sat.

"He has his own show? Seriously?" Cloak said nonplussed.

"Here. Look," she said, offering him her tablet to view, as the show's intro started.

"My name is Yorick Brown,
And I'm proud to be
Right back in my hometown
With my new family.
There's old friends,
And new friends,
And even a lair.
Through good times
And bad times,
It's true love
That we share.
And so I've found a place
Where everyone will know
My happy Banned face!
This is the Yorick Show!"

"Unbelievable," Cloak said.

"And, apparently, it's getting a second season -- despite just airing last night." Abby said, with a shrug.

It was at this point that Cloak looked up and saw GH and Hunter getting awfully chummy with one another. Something that seemed out of character for the both of them.

"What's going on there?" Cloak asked Abby.

"Oh, they've gotten close since GH's episodes," Abby said, as if Cloak already knew this.

"Episodes?"

Abby explained (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=14341.0) what she meant by this, and Cloak wasn't too happy.

"And you let me SLEEP through all this?!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LNDXrKBOKrw (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LNDXrKBOKrw)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2017, 07:57:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Magnetic Personality

Blue and Xeno went to investigate a disturbance at a factory that made high-power magnets. Both suspected that it was just another fiend of Demos's creation. As they descended into the factory -- they decided to dig the facility into the ground for some reason.

They continued to plumb the depths of this place, Xeno outright questioned the placement of certain mechanisms and why they had to platform with disappearing, reappearing blocks. Blue agreed that the facility seemed to have been built by some deranged architect. Xeno obliged in the game of the disappearing reappearing blocks before he became so irritated he just flew to the next spot.

"Show off," Blue grumbled.

After having to turn off some powerful electromagnets, they eventually came to the miscreant causing all these problems here.

The creature had a green torso, white waist and thighs, green lower legs and feet with black growths, a purple ribbed growth on its abdomen, black upper arms, green lower arms, and equally huge black hands. Its right arm housed an orifice where it could fire magnetic bone projectiles in the shape of horseshoe magnets. Its green human-like head showed no visible mouth, a horseshoe magnet-like crest, and eyes with brown pupils and green sclera. It was the size of a teenager with a big build.

Fortunately, all people were evacuated immediately, once this creature went on a rampage. It was unclear what it wanted here, as it would seem that all of Demos's fiends were a tad on the unstable side.

Xeno managed to tase it for a bit before it got mad and used its power over magnetism to draw all metal closer -- including Xeno's gauntlets. The gryphon was cursing rather audibly.

Xeno looked around suddenly when he discovered that the magnetic pull lessened considerably. He saw three shurriken lodged within its skull, but it was more irritated than hurt.

Then they exploded. Killing the creature.

"Show off," Xeno grumbled.

***

Demos called it a "magnetosapien". He had designed it for combat with machines, hence the magnetokinesis.

***

"Well, he had a magnetic attraction," Malice said, having seen the whole thing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2017, 12:25:24 PM

Yes, to the more astute readers, I did change the title of this upcoming book.

New chapter.

BOOK CXLIII:
RAF AND THE OLYMPIANS
CHAPTER ONE:
Hard Challenge

Yarin was dispatched to investigate a stadium of some sort. Yarin never really paid all that much attention to sports, much less human ones. It would take away too much time from his constant tinkering. But they received a report of a dangerous creature that took up lodgings here.

It was very fortunate that no sporting event was scheduled to take place here for a while now. Still, the creature had frightened away the stadium's caretakers, and it fell to him to find and stop this creature, whatever it was. Fortunately, he had come up with a weapon that utilized magnetism as a weapon. He hadn't given it a name yet, but was thinking something along the lines of Magnet Missile -- only that name was trademarked for some reason unknown to him. Perhaps "Formidable Rotating Isolated Coupler Kitbash"? Nah.

Yarin proceeded further through the labyrinthine back tunnels and passageways of the stadium, scanning for the mind of whatever creature this was. He never picked up on coherent thoughts. Just anger, confusion, hatred, and resentment, all mishmashed together like a paste.

Eventually, Yarin came to the source of those tangled up, mishmashed emotions. And what his six eyes saw left him feeling rather intimidated. Not an easy feat for a veteran RAFian.

The creature was barrel-chested, with thick stout limbs and a narrow head. He lacked a nose of any kind. It had yellow armor with brown hands that it could fire out in rocket punches, then instantaneously and spontaneously regrow the hands back. It's armor were of a specialized ceramic titanium, and it was very heavy, making its movements slow and sluggish, and making each stomp of its foot shake the ground somewhat. It had yellow sclera and brown irises, and was roughly the size of a young adult.

The creature dropped from the ceiling, causing the ground to shake at his three ton weight. This knocked the svelte Nyac from his two-digit feet, causing his weapon prototype to go skittering away from him.

"Wonderful," he muttered as he scambled to his feet and managed to seize the weapon up. He just barely dodged two fired fists, which lodged into the wall before dissolving into nothing. The creature had already regrown the hands, and was leaping upwards -- surprising because of its weight.

Yarin managed to jump at the right moment to avoid falling on his backside. He was wishing that this fight would be a bit easier. The moment the creature fired tow more fists, Yarin shot his prototype at the creature. It worked thankfully, but it did not kill the creature.

Only ticked it off.

It's attacks of firing two fists than using a body press technique only became quicker with the second shot. Yarin was taken off guard. He had assumed that his large body and slow initial movements meant that he was incapable of fast movement. He realized this too late to his detriment as, during one of his body press techniques, the creature crushed and shattered his prototype.

Yarin had to think fast. As he dodged the pattern again and again, he failed to think of a way to -- wait just a minute. When he fired the next two fists, Yarin telekinetically redirected them both back at the creature, who stared at this in dumbfounded, dull surprise. When the fists made contact, they killed the creature immediately.

"It was that easy?" Yarin gasped for breath, looking rather beaten up and exhausted. "It was seriously that easy? Seriously?!"

***

Demos called it a "hadosapien", and designed it for . . . well, he forgot what his original intention was for this creature. He just knew that it was really heavy, really lazy, and liked to throw its weight around.

***

"Wow, that was hard," Malice said, mockingly. She was getting a kick out of watching these interactions with these creatures that she was letting out one at a time. She didn't even care when they were killed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2017, 08:50:42 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Routine Briefing

Cloak couldn't get his mind off of what Abby described to him. This Armadillo Anderson persona of GH's. It didn't strike the Realm Walker as a unstable figment from a sleep-deprived mind. There seemed to be more to it than that.

"Cade Brewer," Goom was said, perhaps show a picture of the brewery director. Cloak wouldn't know. He was too wrapped up in his thoughts. "Missing since two days ago, from the brewery. Believed to be kidnapped, but there's no just cause of it."

No, this whole Armadillo Anderson thing was too much like the Dark Phoenix incident from over a Dweller year ago. Unless Abby described it to him wrong, all the evidence meshed together too well to be wrong . . .

"Luke Beaumont," Goom continued, indicating a deliveryman. "Missing since four days ago, whilst delivering a package. The package receiver was questioned and cleared. No one knows his whereabouts or if foul play is at play."

That Armadillo Anderson was too much like Mummudrai Evile. The creature whose name wasn't the most creative -- it'd be like calling Xeno 'Gryphon XenoFrobe'. Evile was a Mummudrai, that was sure. But was Armadillo Anderson?

"Leonard Samuel Smythe," Goom said, referring to a mediocre blacksmith, "kidnapped six days ago, right from his forge. No one knows why, and there hasn't been a trace of him since."

Mummudrai were basically psychic parasites. Parasites without corporeal bodies, though some can craft their own from the deoxyribonucleic acid of another, granting them any powers that are a part of that person's genome. Not having DNA himself, Cloak had no need to worry about a Mummudrai using his genetic material in such a way, but he imagined that it would feel immensely invasive to have it happen to you.

"Piper Shelley," Goom said, indicating a vain model, "kidnapped ten days ago, right before her stint on the catwalk. No one knows what happened to her.

The more he thought about the more he was convinced that GH's Armadillo Anderson was a Mummudrai, and not just a mental construct of his that somehow gained sentience and took control of him when he was sleep-deprived. If this was indeed true, Anderson could not have been a particular good one, if he got trapped in GH's mind.

"Sergeant Frank Marshall," Gloom, indicated an army sergeant, giving a brief synopsis again of the circumstances of his disappearance before moving onto Deana Grace, a wildlife photographer, and Alfred Paulson, a doctor and mediocre guitarist.

Honestly, he thought that this deserved more thought, as it could prove to be potentially disastrous, rather than twelve missing person cases that probably have mundane reasonings for occurring. They didn't even seem connected, as Cloak looked ahead in this briefing.

Goom expounded on Annabeth Ayers (a tactician), Miranda Farmer (a botantist), and Shauna Davies (a marriage counselor). No connection between them or the aforementioned missing persons. RAF, as cold and ruthless as it may sound, could not simply go chasing after every missing person. Even they lacked the proper manpower and resources to do such a thing. Some of these cases were over a week old. The scent would have gone old and stale by now.

Naturally, Cloak didn't say any of this. He didn't want to sound heartless, and he was pretty sure that it would have made him hypocritical in some way. It was a pity that Odie wasn't allowed in these briefings -- he didn't have enough seniority -- or else he might voice precisely what Cloak secretly felt. However, Cloak wasn't proud of it, whilst Odie either would be proud of it, or otherwise indifferent. He was self-centered that way.

Cloak had caught him complaining how he wasn't treated with the respect he thought he deserved (but did not earn). Most just let him rant and ignored his incredibly irritating self-indulgence, so he thought their silence meant that they sided with him, obvious to aggravation. Sometimes, feline hearing is a little too acute.

Anyway, the briefing ended, and Cloak thought nothing of real value happened, but said nothing about his feelings, wondering idly if he had become cold and passive aggressive in his old age.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2017, 11:44:52 PM

Disclaimer: All views and opinions represent by Odie are his and do not represent the views and opinions of the author.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T

"-- Or that insincere Dylan kid," Odie was complaining to a captive audience who was being far too polite for their own good to get him to go away. "So goddamn obnoxious, and yet he's treated with more respect than me."

Odie was fuming. He felt as if he was constantly being disrespected here. He felt that he was deserved adulation for really no notable accomplishments or achievements. But thought it owed to him just the same.

"And that Ash," he continued to express his ire. Naturally, none of his claims were true, but they held validity in his eyes. And only his eyes. "She far too bossy. Acts like she's the grand poobah of everything."

Several of his captive audience were showing signs of mutiny. They didn't buy these outrageous and slanderous claims.

"And that freakish tinkerer. Xeno, I think it calls itself." he growled. "Completely useless. Tinkers with devices that never work out in the long run. He wastes so much time and energy when he could be doing something useful."

Like fawning over Odie, but he didn't say that. But his tone and delivery implied it well enough that his captive audience go the gist of it. All ignored it -- one even snorted derisively, which Odie took to mean agreement.

"And that stupid little seal," he started again, oblivious the overt groan of someone in this audience as Odie seemed to feel that he needed to list his many grievances, most of which were misperceptions by him which he refused to believe otherwise about. "She must get a kick out being eaten by that overgrown electric rat. And yet she gets listened to. No one ignores what she has to say. No one tells her to shut up!"

A few would like to say that to Odie right now, but they saw their opening and left instead. Only one person was left to listen to this inane diatribe. And she wasn't in any mood for it, but she wasn't the type to just tell someone off.

"And that Helen Troy," he continued as the girl groaned most obviously. "She thinks that she is so pretty, the vain hag."

The girl looked around Odie for an opening but there was none. She could not escape this pointless tirade. It wasn't even aimed at her. He did not even remember what he did to her a few weeks ago.

"Oh, and her boyfriend isn't any better." he started again, oblivious to the girl's grunt of frustration. "He'd be useless without that tacky armor of his. And yet he thinks he's really something, really hot stuff. Yet when I point out the obvious point that no one else seems to see, I get told to shut my mouth! The guy is so quick to call the shots, he does even realize that he isn't even good at it!"

Still no opening for the girl. She continued her silent pleas for patience, because Odie was really starting to work her last nerve. Especially when he told her those obvious lies just so he could -- 

Then he started in again, this time against Saffa. He said some rather deplorable things that were vaguely racist and didn't bear repeating. He was rather unapologetic about saying them, too. In his mind, he could do no wrong, his culpability was an impossibility to him.

The girl was offended on Saffa's behalf, but she wasn't able to get a word in edgewise. It was becoming clearer and clearer that she would have to forego politeness and speak her mind. That is, if Odie would ever give her the chance to do so.

"Oh, and that guitarist," Odie said, gearing up for another tirade spurt. "The one with the alligator pet -- the one he treats as an actual child, instead of the freakish thing that it is. And he can't even play the guitar that good, but people say I'm egotistical. When he plays the guitar like a quadriplegic."

The girl's glowers were going unnoticed. Odie seemed to enjoy being a total and utter douchebag. He seemed to enjoy his tirades, despite obvious evidence that he was the only one enjoying this, in any way.

"And his boyfriend -- yes, boyfriend! Can you imagine? Seriously, can you imagine such a relationship?" he said, revealing his homophobic side that he never really demonstrated before, but then again, no one allowed him to go on this long before. "He thinks he's such a good shot. I could take any of his shots in my sleep. Thinks he's so superior 'coz he's not human, but a lowly human-like beast."

Now the girl wanted to slap him across the face, wipe that smugness right out of it. But if she did that, he would have some choice words for her and he would still think that he was in the right.

"And those four-legged, blue-furred freaks of nature," he said, disparaging the Andalites as a whole. "They think that they are so superior. If I was given the same amount of time as them, I would have invented morphing, too. Geez. Talk about being full of themselves."

Hypocrite, the girl thought. Pure and simple. He a hypocrite.

"And that Melissa girl," he continued, "such a snobby, little brat. I have never known someone so stuck up. Any other woman would have killed to date a catch like me, wouldn't you agree? Of course you do."

It was astonishing just how quickly anger can translate into sheer revulsion. This girl clearly was under the opinion that, in addition of being so utterly full of himself, Odie was a pig. She wasn't wrong.

"And that cloak-wearing twit," he said, ready to let his hatred spew forth, vile and disgusting. "Mr. I-Know-Everything. Mr. I-Won't-Even-Admit-When-I'm-So-Obviously-Wrong. He knows nothing -- nothing -- useful, and yet he's treated with respect that he doesn't effing deserve! I deserve it more! I deserve it more than he does!! I do! I do! I do! Me!!"

His breaths became shallow with the sudden burst of energy.

"I swear I want to walk away from this place and never look --"

"Then do it," the girl said, calling him a vulgar, unflattering name. It began with an "F" and rhymed with trucker. "Then just do it!! No one would even miss you!! You're so full of yourself that you cannot see that the only problem here is YOU. You don't like here? Then LEAVE. And leave my boat behind, you piece of -- you know what, Odie?"

"John," he corrected.

"No one cares," came her reply, "you know what, Odie? You're not worth it. You're not worth this grief. I'm going to my thread -- not with you, idiot boy! -- go away, and leave us all alone. You want respect? You gotta earn it, not demand it. Every preschooler understands this at the end of the day, except major ego cases like you."

She pushed past him roughly.

"Good BYE." she said, equally as rough.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on January 31, 2017, 12:12:29 AM

Oh, I got genuinely mad here. You say I play like a quadriplegic, Odie? I'd like to see you play the second solo to Corporeal Jigsore Quandary perfectly! I'd like to see you do some crossover tapping! Oh, please, show me how well you can keep up with the meter changes in a song like Schism or Spirit Crusher, because I'm dying to see you try! LEMME AT HIM, CLOAKY! I'M GONNA SHOW THIS TOOLBAG HOW TO PLAY GUITAR!!!

Also, ain't nobody gonna talk smack about Hunter, or they'll get The Spirit of Radio (https://youtu.be/QDAcjuvfPuk) when it's dropped in their bath . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: NickDaGriff on January 31, 2017, 12:41:58 AM

Quote from: Cloak on January 30, 2017, 11:44:52 PM

"And that freakish tinkerer. Xeno, I think it calls itself." he growled. "Completely useless. Tinkers with devices that never work out in the long run. He wastes so much time and energy when he could be doing something useful."

Well, I mean...

I guess that's a fair assessment.  Mostly.   :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2017, 07:30:35 AM

Quote from: gh on January 31, 2017, 12:12:29 AM

Oh, I got genuinely mad here. You say I play like a quadriplegic, Odie? I'd like to see you play the second solo to Corporeal Jigsore Quandary perfectly! I'd like to see you do some crossover tapping! Oh, please, show me how well you can keep up with the meter changes in a song like Schism or Spirit Crusher, because I'm dying to see you try! LEMME AT HIM, CLOAKY! I'M GONNA SHOW THIS TOOLBAG HOW TO PLAY GUITAR!!!

Also, ain't nobody gonna talk smack about Hunter, or they'll get The Spirit of Radio (https://youtu.be/QDAcjuvfPuk) when it's dropped in their bath . . .

I did warn you, you know. But you will eventually see what happens to him. It'll happen before Book#150, although {spoiler}{so many spoilers}.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Notifications

"We're getting twelve coordinates incoming," Xeno said, utterly perplexed.

"Coordinates?" Cloak said. This was really out of the blue. "From who?"

"Doesn't have an originating source -- wait -- it's just encrypted. It'd take some time to actually de-- we have an incoming transmission." Xeno elaborated.

"Well, go on, then," GH said. "Let's see it."

He played it and what came through was a musical beat.

"It's gonna be a song, isn't it?" GH said at once.

Twelve figures showed up on the screen and confirmed this, singing in a rhythmic monotone.

"We're the Olympians.
We're the best.
We're bigger and stronger
Than the rest,
After all the years
That we were repressed.
We're the Olympians.
We're the best.
We will rob them
And we will stomp them
And blow them to the breeze.
Can we boast?
We will drown and pound them.
And will squash them like fleas!
Now they'll be toast!
We're the Olympians.
We're strong.
We know we can
Beat 'em and string 'em along!
They think they can win,
But they are wrong, wrong, wrong!
We're the Olympians.
We're strong.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom, boom, boom.
Oh, yeah.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom, boom, boom.
We're the Banned.
We're the worst.
We're meaner and so
Much more perversed.
RAF had all the luck,
But now they're cursed.
'Coz we're the Olympians.
We're the worst.
And the forum will be ours,
We'll see it destroyed!!
We're getting annoyed!
We're the Olympians.
We rule the day!
We'll make the RAFians
And little Leatherhead pay!
We'll bury them
Beneath smothering clay!
We're the Olympians.
We're okay.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom, boom, boom.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom-shaka-laka.
Boom, boom, boom."

Silence elapsed for a few seconds after the transmission ended. Only to be broken by GH moments later, "Okay -- what the hell was that?"

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcFYbgQyEQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2017, 01:17:27 AM

New book ideas.

• Book MCLII (1,152): "Comedy and Tragedy" -- The RAFians must procure the Thalian Mask of Comedy and the Melponean Mask of Tragedy.
• Book MCLIII (1,153): "Death of Emotions" -- Emotions are somehow eradicated from the Realm inexplicably.
• Book MCLIV (1,154): "Spirited Actions" -- The RAFians must deal with ghostly antics of a wrathful ghost, a lecherous ghost, a frightful ghost, a envious ghost, a hopeful ghost, a compassionate ghost, and a loving ghost. All their actions have murky morality.
• Book MCLV (1,155): "Reformatted" -- The RAFians are drawn into witnessing the formation of the "Spectrum Specters".
• Book MCLVI (1,156): "Reigns and Sacrifices" -- The Spectrum Specters need to be reigned in.
• Book MCLVII (1,157): "Quagmire of Irrelevancy" -- A foe, that have fought the RAFians before, attempt to remain relevant by kidnapping a young hostage.
• Book MCLVIII (1,158): "Oh, Grow Up" -- The RAFians must deal with a supervillain calling himself Grandfather.
• Book MCLIX (1,159): "The Sapphire Dragon" -- The RAFians must deal with the dangerous Sapphire Dragon.
• Book MCLX (1,160): "The Ruby Dragon" -- The RAFians must deal with the dangerous Ruby Dragon.
• Book MCLXI (1,161): "The Jade Dragon" -- The RAFians must deal with the dangerous Jade Dragon.
• Book MCLXII (1,162): "Inside Job" -- The RAFians are reimagined as different aspects of a boy named Raphael Richards.

Don't think I rehashed anything. All titles are not final, and are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
To the Theatre

Dylan entered the vast expanse of the old theater. There were rows and rows of seats with what must have been plush velvety leather at one point before they got threadbare and cracked when this theater fell into disrepair, and was forgotten. There was even a balcony seat for the obligatory Statler and Waldorf hecklers.

The stage was wide and massive. The apron of the stage was wide enough for a small compact car to be parked on without touching the curtain, which was a rusty brown which looked and smelled musty, and.was obviously laden with a thin layer of dust.

This theater had not seen use for many a year, and was seemingly forgotten overnight, somehow. This looked like it would have been the pinnacle of playhouses in its heyday. Dylan would have loved giving a performance here -- and he could quite easily imagine the intricate sets and props and other actors. It would have been wonderfully fun.

"How many abandoned places does this city have?" Dylan wondered aloud. There was a staggering number of places -- but considering the type of things that happened over the last eighteen months or so, was it really surprising? The question should have been who in their right mind would even live here? Must be the Gotham Syndrome -- living in a city where some unforeseen circumstance of a supervillain's actions might cost you your life at any time, and yet you still inhabit the city, knowing this.

Then Dylan noticed the man sitting on the stage. He was a plump, hedonistic man, with a small red nose and scraggly black hair, which had a crown of laurel leaves (like Caesar's) framing it, and a neckbeard. He wore a purple tunic with leopard and tiger-print accents. He wore comfortable-looking sandals.

"Who are you?" Dylan asked. The vacant quality of the dude's eyes was disturbing the RAFian.

"Impudence," the man said, disdainfully. "I should have expected no less when we locked ourselves up in Olympus."

"You're an Olympian?"

"Don't sound so disbelieving, boy!" the man spat, irritated. "I'm Dionysus."

"The wine dude."

"'The wine dude'." Dionysus repeated, affronted. "I am much more than 'the wine dude', boy! While it's true I can control an manipulate wine and alcohol, I can do so much more than that! I can induce bliss, horror, insanity, madness, or utter anarchy in any mortal of my choosing! But I can also make party time any time!"

"Okay . . ."

"Not impressed?" Dionysus said. "I can absorb, create, control, and manipulate madness and insanity of myself, others, or the madness energy around, whether increasing, decreasing, causing or otherwise changing insanity, even manifesting the emotional energy to physical level and gain power from it. I can induce others to enter a spontaneous celebration; I can even make partygoers party forever without leaving them tired or in a constant never-ending state of celebration. I can cause madness in a person or group of people that have no mental illness, who may go slightly loopy or lose total grip of reality becoming delusional, lose control over themselves, paranoid, catatonic or hostile. I can make people feel extreme pleasure or discomfort. I'm able to invoke an absence or lack of government over a large radius ranging from small villages to large cities to create mass riots, rebellion and social disorder and disruption. And, yes, I can create, shape and manipulate alcohol and alcoholic beverages to my whim."

"Impressive," Dylan pandered.

"I'm also the patron of the theater, hence why we're here," he said, getting up. He gathered a staff with a pine cone tip, a thyrsus, his weapon of choice.

"Why are we here?"

"Don't get existential on me, boy," Dionysus said. "This is a battle to the death -- the winner gets your forum."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2017, 11:03:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Unfair!

"To the death?" Dylan protested, "But you're immortal!"

"Yes, that I am," Dionysus said. "Try not to scream too much, or bleed that much either. I just need to do this."

"Why?"

"Doesn't matter," the Olympian said. Those vacant eye still weirded Dylan out.

"It matters to me!!"

"Let's get this done," Dionysus said, ignoring that. "You're no Eurytus, but give me a little entertainment. Let's get this party started!"

"Huh?" Dylan said, as music played inexplicably.

"Don't you get it yet? This is the way I battle!" he said, though his eyes -- his eyes were still vacant. "It will be a bacchanal battle to the death!"

"A what?"

"Party to death!" he said. "We party on down, party until one of us dies."

"You cannot be serious." Dylan said. This guy was starting to lose all credibility in his eyes. His mood swinging from serious and broody to upbeat and jovial. Something was wrong here.

"Lend me your ears!
It's an open invitation! To the finest feast, what an elaborate piece!
It's an awesome celebration -- guaranteed to disturb the peace!
It's a jammin' extravaganza!
With a hot Cucaracha beat!
You don't have to ask directions -- No! Just follow your dancing feet!
At the bacchanal battle -- it's a nonstop party!
The biggest bash that Dionysus has ever thrown!!
People, wall to wall! Gonna party hardy! We'll boogie to the beat
'Til the Shill's sheep come home!
Grab a scotch of grape at the fountain.
Shake it up and slide down the mountain.
Strike a pose so everyone knows yer cool!
Grip those hips and join in the conga!
Steal a kiss! Cowabunga! Moshpit Meltdown!
Everyone in the pool! Me first!
At the bacchanal battle -- it's a nonstop party!
The biggest bash that Dionysus has ever thrown!
People, wall to wall! Gonna party hardy!
You're sure to have a ball at the bacchanal battle!"

Dylan had the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Heracles, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. Two, possibly three, of those were Olympians. If they were really against everyone, then why didn't they rescind their gifts to him. He did not feel any weaker, he did not feel more vulnerable, he did not feel slower. The powers were obviously not rescinded.

"Oh, don't give up so soon, boy!" Dionysus chided irritatedly. "Battle me! Party it up, boy!"

Dylan made a quick deduction, using his wisdom of Solomon. He quickly made his way over to "Dionysus" using his speed of Mercury and quickly plucked the laurel wreath from his hair and suddenly his eyes were vacant no more.

"Mr. Brewer, I presume?" Dylan asked. "Cade Brewer?"

---

Source Song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pq37Lv7dkWc (I couldn't find it isolated from the episode, so go to 7:07. And yes, I realize it isn't the best orchestrated Disney song.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 02, 2017, 09:52:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Boastful Traveller

Ash had shown up in an abandoned warehouse -- one Malice herself has been known to use as headquarters from time to time (not so much anymore, as she knows it was compromised). These were the coordinates that she was sent to. There was supposed to be an Olympian here.

She disguised herself as a mouse -- an ordinary, oft overlooked mouse -- to scope the place out. It was dangerous assuming the form of a prey animal in a rather unprotected environment like this. What if there was a stray cat about? Ash was confident that she would be able to shapeshift into something more proper to deal with that threat, though.

Then she saw a man. He was wearing a toga, winged sandals, and a winged iron cap. He had a laurel wreath beneath this cap. He was thin, with blonde hair in tight curls on his head and clean shaven. He had a runner's build, and an oddly trustworthy face. He didn't seem to know that Ash was here. Odd, for someone who was supposed to be a god.

She reverted to her true form, and walked out. She stayed a safe distance away from him, though she suspected just which Olympian he was.

"Hermes, right?"

"That's right," he said. "Now that your here, we can get started."

"Started?"

He smiled, "For our death battle, of course."

"Death Battle? Seriously?"

"Oh, yes. Most seriously. If you lose, you forfeit your forum and your life."

"And if I refuse?"

"You won't," he said.

"And why is that?"

"Because," he said, his strangely vacant eyes trained on her. "I said so."

"That's not an answer."

"How about because I can becomes a transdimensional crossroads runner capable of traversing great distances without the need of constitutional locomotion -- essentially moving incredibly fast while not actually moving within any occupied area via dropping in and out between real and subspacial planes in rhythmic pulse intervals, at an incredibly rapid pace much faster than mortals can achieve though simple running? How about because I am an incurable trickster? How about because I can manipulate souls, due to ferrying them to the Styx all the time? How about because I can speak, write, understand and communicate in any language, including computer codes, sign language (even lipreading!), illegible words, backwards speech and writing with absolutely no training? How about because I can fly with my winged sandals? How about because I possess athletic abilities beyond even most dedicated training can do? How about because I can manipulate trade, commerce, and profit to my every whim?" he boasted.

Ash wasn't really all that impressed.

He continued, "How about because I can create, shape and manipulate arts and the medias used to create them? How about because I can flawlessly invent scientifically complex machinery, electronics, devices, gadgetry or weaponry? (Though, admittingly, Hephaestus does that better.) How about because I can create, shape and manipulate all forms of physical literary objects that are printed, written or drawn, including their physical forms and materials, and anything written, printed, illustrated, or drawn in them? How about because I can create, shape and manipulate money, currency and wealth?"

Ash said nothing, but folded her arms in an indifferent and, frankly, bored manner.

Still, Hermes boasted, "How about because I can manipulate all boundaries? How about because I can take the souls of others, willingly or otherwise, to the afterlife? How about because I can deliver messages to others, even when they are dead and they are in spirit or essence form? How about because I can steal anything and everything (including concepts, landmarks, natural elements and forces, intangible objects, physics, laws, themselves, and so on) I'm able to not only hide in shadows but even in plain sight, I can slip into spaces that should be physically impossible to fit or slip into for mortals, and I can even steal without even having to be present at a location?"

"You still didn't answer my question," Ash said. "You're just going off on a tangent, bragging about your power set."

"Get ready, then, mortal!"

"Besides, I think Cloak has more powers than you," Ash said. Hermes didn't react to this.

"Let's get this going, mortal!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 02, 2017, 02:33:04 PM

Oh my god. SO MUCH FEELS FROM THE LAST BOOK. Those last few chapters, the faceoffs, so well done. (And here's the PDF).

Yay, return to Percy Jackson themes! I have a feeling I'm gonna enjoy watching this play out. :D I mean, I'm basically reading the chapters like this. (http://i.imgur.com/XS5LK.gif)

Quote from: Cloak on January 30, 2017, 11:44:52 PM

Then he started in again, this time against Saffa. He said some rather deplorable things that were vaguely racist and didn't bear repeating. He was rather unapologetic about saying them, too. In his mind, he could do no wrong, his culpability was an impossibility to him.

The girl was offended on Saffa's behalf, but she wasn't able to get a word in edgewise. It was becoming clearer and clearer that she would have to forego politeness and speak her mind. That is, if Odie would ever give her the chance to do so.

ohohohoho bish let's put you on these brown ass streets you wouldn't last a CENSORED day

;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on February 02, 2017, 05:04:51 PM

TIME TO KICK BUTT.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Quaf on February 03, 2017, 12:38:39 AM

CLOAK I'M UP TO BOOK 60! 2 DAYS LATE BUT I MADE IT!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2017, 03:01:06 PM

Quote from: Ash on February 02, 2017, 05:04:51 PM

TIME TO KICK BUTT.

Please don't get your hopes up, Ash. :)

Quote from: Quaf on February 03, 2017, 12:38:39 AM

CLOAK I'M UP TO BOOK 60! 2 DAYS LATE BUT I MADE IT!

Well done!

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Ash Used Thief! It Was Super Effective!

"I've agreed to nothing!" Ash protested.

"You've agreed by showing up," Hermes said. "Fail this battle -- a looting battle, mind you, as I am not that unreasonable -- and your life and forum will be forfeit."

"I'll never agree to those terms," Ash said.

"But you did," Hermes countered, with a broad, yet vacant smile. Something was off here. "You agreed to them by meeting me here."

"I didn't agree to meet you here," she protested.

"On your mark," "Hermes" said, patently ignoring her, "get set . . . GO!"

"I don't have a choice in this, do I?" she sighed.

"Nope!" "Hermes" said.

"It was a rhetorical -- oh, never mind." Ash said. Then she noticed that this Hermes wasn't a particular fast runner like he claimed. He wasn't flying, despite claiming to be able to do so. He was either toying with her, or outright lying.

"Come now, mortal. Come, come, come." he said, jovially mocking. "Your life and forum is on the line!"

The hat or the laurel wreath. That must be what is behind these inconsistencies. They must be some mind controlling tech, like McDowell used for his faux Wonderland.* If she was honest with herself, she wasn't all that savvy with neurological technology such as what she surmised.

"You're losing," "Hermes" said, in a singsong voice. But Ash suppressed a smile. No, she wasn't losing at all. She just figured out how to win, how to circumvent this futile exercise.

She quickly became a peregrine falcon, unnoticed by the faux Olympian. She swiftly snatched his ridiculous hat away. It looked like the type of thing that Jay Garrick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_(Jay_Garrick)) would wear. Just solid metal, nothing that could have possibly been McDowell's tech in it.

"Hey! Stealing from me doesn't count!" "Hermes" complained.

But Ash didn't listen to him and deftly snatched the laurel wreath from his head. Suddenly, the vacant look in his eyes vanished as he regained control over his own mental faculties again, as Ash resumed her base form, holding the laurel wreath in her hand. Just by looking at the inset of the wreath, she saw her suspicions were confirmed. This person wasn't Hermes at all, but made to think he was, wiping all trace of his original identity, his original personality, whilst wearing the laurel leaves.

Ash addressed the victim, how seemed to be coming out of a reverie, regaining all sense of himself, "Luke Beaumont, I presume?"

"Wh-what happened?" he said, thoroughly nonplussed.

---

*Book 86.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2017, 07:04:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Tink-Tink-Tink-Tinkerer

Xeno was dispatched to a foundry, but he wasn't sure what the particular metal smelted here was. He wasn't exactly thrilled with this detail, mission, whatever it was. The place smelled musty and neglected. Forgotten. Abandoned.

The layers of dust made him question whether it was even safe being in here. He looked at one of the furnaces and was shocked to see that they were the only things maintained well here. And they were immaculate.

Someone was using this as their private forge, Xeno deduced. But why? He blinked -- then he thought about the Olympians. His eyes narrowed. It couldn't be more obvious who he was up against even someone wanted to hammer it in.

The Xeno groaned when he realized the unintentional bad pun in that thought. Then he proceeded further into the labyrinthine hallways and rooms in the place until he came to the very heart of the foundry.

There he saw Hephaestus. And he wasn't much to look at. He wasn't all that handsome, his face burned, misshapen and deformed. But he had a large frame, thick hands with many callouses, and sturdy, stocky legs. He had a bald head, and several missing or cracked teeth. He wore full blacksmith regalia, also with a laurel wreath (which clashed horribly with everything else he was wearing), and appeared to not to notice Xeno at first.

But this was quickly remedied as he spoke, without turning around from his forge, "Come to mock me?"

"No." Xeno immediately eyed the laurel wreath. With his inventor's eye, he quickly deduced what it was and what its purpose was, especially when took notice of "Hephaestus's" vacant eyes.

"Then you must be here for the death battle," Hephaestus said, almost resigned about it.

"I'm not going to fight you," Xeno said.

"You know who I am, right, mortal?" Hephaestus said, indignant. "I am someone who can create, shape and manipulate the volcanic fields and areas of volcanic activity and everything in them. I am someone who can create, shape and manipulate molten rock (magma while underground, lava when on surface), a mixture of molten or semi-molten rock, volatiles and solids, etcetera, etcetera. Someone who can create, shape, and manipulate metal. Someone who can craft anything out anything and everything, including physical, mental, spiritual, imaginary, abstract or conceptual materials and substances at incredible speed. Someone who can craft items or objects or what have you, that may be functional or strictly decorative out of any or all materials or substances including nonphysical and abstract materials, such as fire, clouds, water, bubbles, smoke, air molecules, moonlight, lava, sound, music, and even emotions like joy, sadness, and hope. All with beyond flawless results."

Xeno felt that this was all bluster. He was sure that the laurel wreath was somehow influencing this man, whoever he was. But he wasn't precisely sure how. He hadn't read the report of McDowell's activities or the rough tech specs of his device, otherwise he'd be able to discern how to stop this near immediately.

The faux Olympian continued, "Someone who is able to demonstrate brutal aptitude and great proficiency in using blunt type weaponry. Someone who can create, shape, and manipulate fire. Someone who is able to plan, design, create, shape and manipulate buildings and other forms of architecture, from a massive level to the smallest detail, and manipulating or shaping, combining or separating, every part of them as needed."

The more he talked the more Xeno thought this fake Olympian was being manipulated. And the vacant look? It was obvious that he wasn't doing this voluntarily. He was being controlled. From the laurel wreath, most likely. But was this possible? What would happen if it parted company with his head?

"Now," he said, sounding forceful yet indifferent, "we should get to work."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2017, 06:52:04 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
It Was An Accident, I Swear!

"Work?" Xeno said, clearly just playing for time. He was trying to devise a way to make the laurel wreath to leave this faux blacksmithing god's head without undue violence and harm to either party.

"A forge off," he said, heavily. He sounded rather beaten down, yet earthy. "The one of us to make the most items without flaws wins. You lose, and you forfeit your forum and your life to me."

"And if I win?" Xeno asked. He didn't really care, he just needed to buy some more time to consider, to plan.

"Are you trying to be funny?" "Hephaestus" said, eyeing Xeno with those creepily vacant eyes. "I never did much care for would-be comedians. Or worse, 'insult comedians'."

Clearly, this whole competition was a farce then. An exercise in futility, something that can not, that could not, be accomplished by a mere mortal. Xeno would be worried, if this was the real Hephaestus. He wouldn't have a chance. All that he creates has flaws, nothing created by mortal hands (or in his case, gauntlet-enhanced  paws) is flawless. It was impossibility, especially coupled with the thing that considering something flawless tends to be one that is highly subjective. One might agree that something's flawless, while the other deems several things they consider flaws. Highly subjective.

He didn't say any of this aloud. It would be quite counterproductive to his aims, to his goals, at the moment.

"Take the forge over there," the Not-Hephaestus said.

Xeno hesitated before complying, and it appeared that this fake god took no notice. But Xeno had no intention on making anything. He had to act soon, or his life may very well be forfeit. And he quite liked living.

He had to get that laurel wreath. It was obvious that it was some sort of neuronanotechnology at play here. . . . Suddenly, Xeno was struck by inspiration. But he would have to be careful, or he may never fly again, if he acted too early or hesitated too much.

When the time felt right, he "accidentally" cuffed "Hephaestus" with his wing, causing the laurel wreath to slip off the faux god's head, but not completely. But then one of Xeno's feathers was pulled loose and tickled the man's nose, causing him to sneeze. This cause the laurel wreath to tumble off and onto the ground.

The vacant look in the man's eyes vanished in an instant, and he seemed to regain his true personality. He looked as if he had a migraine. Xeno wasn't all that surprised -- it must not be easy to have your mind manipulated and controlled in such a way.

Xeno picked up the laurel wreath only to have it start buzzing ominously, like the buzzer on a washer or dryer. Then their was a flash as the device shortcircuited, with a tiny trail of smoke coming from the rear left side of it, and the entire right side charred and warped.

With a stifled curse, Xeno realized that it had also shortcircuited his right gauntlet. He cursed because he knew that this would take days, maybe even weeks, to repair. He wasn't.looking forward to it -- even as a RAFian, his resources for this kind of thing was limited. He turned to address the person who was mind controlled into thinking he was Hephaestus.

"Leonard Samuel Smythe, I presume?" Xeno said.

"Sam," he corrected, "where am I? What happened?"

"What can you remember?" Xeno asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2017, 05:47:33 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Sea, See?

Horse was dispatched to the sea. She loved the sea, as all seals do. She didn't even have to worry about predators -- water was not only her weapon, but her toy. Ice, as well. She felt a rush of exhilaration at being in the salt water, racing below it, hydrokinetically faster than any ordinary seal.

She had almost lost sight of her mission, being so enthused about being in the ocean. She had to find the Olympian that issued that challenge. She had assumed it would be one of those typical battle-to-the-death dealies. For most people, it.might have been exciting, but for her -- it was Tuesday. But, enough of that, where was this supposed Olympian?

The guy ankle-deep in the ocean, with a blue toga, wavy beard and hair, laurel wreath, gold bracers, and golden trident? Her guess would be yes. He basically looked like King Triton from "The Little Mermaid", but with legs -- and a laurel wreath instead of a crown.

"This is the challenger they send me?" he said, imperiously. Clearly, he took Horse's species as an insult, which insulted her in turn. Just because she was a seal didn't mean that she couldn't be a credible threat!! She's been eaten countless times by that gigantic beast -- which still powers the forum, and the extraction process has made it incredibly mellow and docile. "A mere seal?"

"I'm a lot more that 'mere'," Horse said, hotly. "A lot more!"

"I am a god, you impetuous mortal!" he thundered. "I can manipulate water to my whim! I am even empowered further by it, even turning myself into water if I so pleased! I hold dominion.over all the oceans of the world, and they obey my every whim! I can sense, create, shape, and manipulate storms! I can induce earthquakes at will! I am able to survive any aquatic environment, without fail! I can control all marine life, from creatures that dwell in shallow water, to the ones who dwell in the abyss! Including you!"

"I'm an aquatic mammal, sure," Horse said. "But I'm not sure I qualify for your powers, as you have no sway over me. Assuredly, I'd feel it by now. Or it means something completely different."

"Don't presume you know anything relevant, mortal," he said, imperiously. "I know that three of my nephews have already -- no matter, no matter. You must engage me, mortal, or forfeit your life and your forum."

"And if I say no?"

This seemed to fluster him, with outrage at her impudence. "You can't say no. I will not allow it!"

"What if I don't care what you allow?" Horse asked.

"The impudence!" "Poseidon" blurted, in a strangled sort of way. His outrage and indignity competing for his voice. "The sheer unmitigated insolence!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Horse said. She had already put two and two together. If he was really the Greek god of the ocean and such -- why was he only ankle deep in the ocean? Why was he blustering instead of demonstration some fraction of this power to intimidate her into compliance. Easy answer? He just doesn't feel like it. Truthful answer, at least probably? He can't do anything he claimed. At least, not to the extent he boasted about. "Can we kindly get to the point, then? I kind have plans for October."

It was still summer, though it was getting to be autumn. Anyway, Poseidon didn't take kindly to the irreverent tone of voice she was giving him. His grip on his trident tightened. Had he been the real god, Horse might have felt afraid.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 07, 2017, 04:59:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Seal, Splash!*

"Let's see if you can separate me and my trident, mortal," "Poseidon" said, with unnecessary theatricality.

Suddenly, as Horse bobbed in the sea, the trident was frozen solid, causing a shocked "Poseidon" to let go. Then he was pushed away from it with a wave, causing him to land on the sandy beach. The laurel wreath hadn't moved, while his toga looked disheveled.

"There. That was easy." Horse said, a tad patronizing. "We done here?"

" I -- I wasn't ready!" "Poseidon" protested.

"I thought you were a god, though," Horse said, with narrowed eyes, dismissal of the notion tinged her voice. "Aren't gods always at the ready?"

"Of course not!"

"Then you're a flawed being," Horse said, evidently trying to goad him, "how can you be a god and flawed?"

Even the real Olympians were flawed -- Dionysus could be rather difficult to be around, Hermes was a thief (he was the god of thieves, after all), Hephaestus could be naive, Poseidon and Zeus were both adulterous womanizers, Aphrodite could be vain and conceited, Ares could brutish and violence-prone, Athena could be smug and have hubris, Apollo could be full of himself, Artemis could be antisocial, Demeter could be a bit obsessive-compulsive, and Hera could be insanely jealous. All considerable flaws. So, this was a bit of a non sequitur on Horse's part, despite her only saying this to goad "Poseidon" into showing that he was a fraud.

"I don't care about the meaningless judgements of a mortal!" he proclaimed.

"Yet you care about a mortal forum," she said, artfully. "Yet you care about having a challenge with a mortal. Mighty big incongruity there, eh, Neptune?"

He didn't have a "smooth" answer for that, and chose to ignore it. It was then Horse realized that this guy might not be playacting the Greek god. She didn't believe he was the real Olympian, of course. But she started to suspect more was going on than she originally thought.

"Enough of this," "Poseidon" spat. "Enough games. I should have opted for the Ares mindset from the onset. You want to save your unworthy forum? Well, then, you will have to kill a god!!"

"Don't make promises you can't follow through on," Horse said, genuinely warning him.

"DON'T UNDERESTIMATE A GOD!!" he roared, as the water welled up behind him, into a small tsunami, and he directed it towards Horse. His trident remained frozen, and quite forgotten.

Horse simply rode the tsunami like an expert surfer, having trained in the forum for a Battle such as this. But she recognized the technique, the form.

"You're not a god," she said, "you're a waterbender. Two completely different things."

Even as a waterbender, he was clearly a novice one. Horse managed to turn all his attacks against him. She managed to avoid getting the laurel wreath wet, which was not easy to do. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was not water proof, and it was what was controlling him -- she felt confident in the assumption now.

The battle continued to go poorly for Poseidon, ending with Horse freezing a jet of water -- a water whip -- that she had redirected. She slid down the ice like Fred Flintsone on the tail of that sauropod in the Flintstones intro. Then she jumped up and pulled off the laurel wreath from the guy's head. He gasped as if he was coming out of an intense reverie.

Then Horse, with a vulgar curse, dropped accidentally the laurel wreath into the ocean, where it sparked violently, causing some froth to form from it, before smoking and sinking into the depths.

"What happened? Where am I?" "Poseidon" asked.

"Percival Wesleyan, I assume?" Horse returned.

"Yeah, who -- a talking seal!!" he said, so shocked, he fell on his butt in the ocean's surf.

"Yeah," Horse said, dryly, "'coz that's the most fantastic thing that's happened to you today."

---

* I.e. "Hulk, smash!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 08, 2017, 06:04:26 AM

Random waterbending dude? I have a feeling he might pop up again somewhere...

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2017, 07:46:28 AM

I haven't any plans for him at this time. Although, if any tie-in book authors care to use him, however . . .

Ahem. New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Love Lost

Helen was dispatched to a very lurid looking place. Perhaps at one time it been a lovey-dovey restaurant/shop combo that specialized in overly saccharine romance supplies. Helen found it rather obnoxiously girly. She sometimes wore frills, but this place took it to a ridiculous extreme.

She was secretly glad that Parker never took her to a place like this. A place that smelled as if expensive perfume was baked into the wallpaper -- which she noticed was starting to peel away from the wall. She could still easily make out the simple floral print on them, like interlinked Comfeys forming a ring around a single Munna.

The furniture was designed to look expensive, but were actually rather chintzy and threadbare in places with the lining worn away in others, with the innards exposed. These had a somewhat musty, plastic smell to them. It was like her grandmother's house, but abandoned for several decades and forgotten. She had always found her grandmother's place incredibly boring, so she hadn't really any good associations with the place, considering her grandmother was always a strict disciplinarian, and utterly impossible to please. Probably why her own father, her grandmother's son, was always so difficult to get approval from. Especially after he became a --

"About time, dear," came a womanly voice, but haughty and condescending. "You really shouldn't keep your matron waiting like this."

Helen turned around to the voice's owner. A woman she supposed could be considered beautiful, but she could see nothing but flaws, from her ridiculously teased blond hair to her outrageous torture devices that were called "pumps", red shoes with ridiculously long heels. She never cared for high heels personally, and wasn't willing to trip all over herself to wear them. That and the fact that she both wore too much make up and had more jewelry on her person than Mr. T. And a laurel wreath that clashed horribly with everything else she wore, even the white toga and sandals.

"I don't have a matron," Helen corrected, politely.

"You're a Star Sapphire, dear," she said, matter-of-fact. "Your ring's power comes from love, and I'm the goddess of love, y'know. Aphrodite."

Helen bit back a snort of derision. The woman in front of her was the epitome of materialistic beauty, but not anything of true beauty about her. Honestly, it would be hard to imagine this walking monstrosity to be the goddess of love. Something else was at work here.

"Yes, I see that you don't believe me." "Aphrodite said, her jewelry clinking and clacking with every small movement. She was the very embodiment of excess, not love or beauty. "But consider this, dear. I am supremely beautiful and can use that to affect others."

Debatable, Helen silently opined, as "Aphrodite" continued, "I have an instinct towards this sort of thing, you know. And I can induce it in others as well -- lust, bliss, actual love, pleasure, what have you. I can manipulate pheromones -- my own or others, if I so choose. I can manipulate love and emotions at my merest whim."

"I don't believe you," Helen said. Her ring sputtered, like a garden hose trying to push air out of it, but she hid it, and"Aphrodite didn't seem to notice. "If you can do all those things prove it."

"Ah, how adorable," she said, "the unkempt mortal is passing judgement on me."

"Unkempt?" Helen said, hotly. "At least I'm not gaudy!"

"Gaudy?" "Aphrodite said, with a haughty little chortle, "This is not gaudy, little unloved mortal. I'm not gaudy. I'm -- shiny."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 08, 2017, 01:35:55 PM

Oh, no.

I know what's coming.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2017, 02:48:14 PM

Do ya now? ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Shiny

"Shiny? What --" Helen began, before stopping when she heard the rhythmic music. "It's gonna be a song, isn't it?"

"Well, Aphrodite hasn't always been this glam.
I was a drab little deb* once.
Now, I know I can be happy as a clam
Because I'm beautiful, baby!"

Helen's body tensed, her Star Sapphire ring at the ready, despite the fact it had become rather unreliable as of late. She subconsciously knew it was because of her breakup with Parker, but she refused to consciously acknowledge it -- she was still quite cross with him.

"Did your mommy say listen to your heart?
Be who you are on the inside?
I need three words to tear her argument apart.
Your mommy lied!"

Helen continued to keep her distance from the faux Olympian.

"I'd rather be shiny!
Like a treasure from a overloaded pirate wreck!
Scrub the deck and make it look
Shiny!
I will sparkle like a wealthy woman's neck!
Just a sec."

"Aphrodite" had seized Helen's right wrist, and began to prance like a gazelle forcing Helen to come along. She had a surprisingly tight grip.

"Don't you know
Men are dumb, dumb, dumb!
They chase anything that glitters!
Beginners."

Helen didn't like that crooked smile of hers. It really was revolting, unless you were a really shallow person, she guessed.

"Oh, and they always come, come, come
To the brightest thing that glitters!"

Helen broke her grip, and fired a blast of violet energy at Aphrodite, but it fizzled out before reaching her. Suddenly, Helen's Star Sapphire uniform reverted back her street clothes. This wasn't possible -- she had just fully charged the thing no more than a few scarce minutes before coming here. There was no way that this could happen . . . unless . . . unless her . . . her breakup --

"Well, well, well.
Little Helen's having trouble with her look,
You little semi-demi-mini-god!
Ouch! What a terrible performance!
Get the hook! (Get it?)
You don't swing it like you used to, RAFian!"

Oh, right. The false Olympian was a thing right now.

"Yet I have to give you credit for your start!
And your love on the outside.
For I made myself a work of art!
I'll never hide. I can't! I'm too
Shiny!
Watch me dazzle like a diamond in the rough!
Strut my stuff, my stuff is so
Shiny!
Send your armies, but they'll never be enough!
My shell's too tough, little RAFian!"

Helen wasn't fairing too well, now that this fake Olympian decided to attack in earnest. She just felt so . . . she couldn't described the awfulness that she was feeling.

"You could try, try, try,
But you can't expect a mortal woman
To beat an immortal woman.
You will die, die, die.
Now it's time for me to take apart,
Your aching heart."

Suddenly, the music started to take on a darker tone with an edge like a sword.

"Far from the one who abandoned you,
Chasing the love of
These RAFians who made you feel wanted.
You tried to be tough.
But your armor's just not hard enough!"

How'd she know this?! How??

"Helen, girly!
Now it's time to kick your hiney!
Ever seen someone so
Shiny!
Soak it in, 'coz it's the last you'll ever see!
C'est la vie mon ami, I'm so
Shiny!
You'll never be quite as shiny,
You wish you were nice and shiny . . . !"

But then, moments away from her victory, Helen slapped her across the face, dislodging the laurel wreath, and freeing the woman from mind control. Helen snatched up the laurel wreath, as the woman came out of her reverie.

"What? What happened? Where am I? What am I wearing?" she said, before caught sight of Helen, in her street clothes. "Never mind that, what are you wearing? You know those are 'mom jeans', right? And with that top? Did you get dressed in the dark? And that hair -- its as limp and stringy as bad ramen. And those shoes!"

Helen turned her back to her and walked away with the intact laurel wreath. She wasn't in any mood for some model's utter ****iness.

"Hey hey hey! Don't you walk away from me! Don't you know who I am? Do you know who I am?"

"Piper Shelley, professional bimbo and golddigger extraordinaire," Helen said, without turning around, continuing on her way.

---

SONG SOURCE: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93lrosBEW-Q

*Short for "debutante".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 09, 2017, 04:42:39 AM

I was right. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2017, 02:25:10 PM

So you were. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
War and Pieces

Parker arrived at the abandoned munitions facility. There sure were a lot of abandoned things in or nearby the town. Of course, considering everything that happened in the past year alone, it wasn't too surprising, though "Gotham Syndrome" was still in full force in the city proper.

Parker walked in and his armor actually felt slightly unfamiliar to him and sat slightly uncomfortably on him now. Now that the Walker tech was ripped out of it by that bug Walker. Even Tyr seemed more distant. Distant like Helen. . . .

He had tried to apologize to her. He had tried to make amends with her. But nothing he he tried worked. He just got the cold shoulder. He did genuinely love her -- his actions with the Bugs wasn't about hurting her . . . but he did. And he had never felt more aggrieved about anything in his life.

He just wanted this whole thing to be put behind them, to come out back together. He had never meant to hurt her. That was never his intention. But he did. He did and there was nothing he could do to make her feel better. Hurt had a way of cracking even the strongest of relationships.

He wondered if their relationship would ever recover, it most certainly was in intensive care right now, if anything. He wanted . . . he just wanted . . .

That's when Parker came upon him. He wore military fatigues in addition to a camouflage-printed toga. One of those stupid-looking hats over a laurel wreath. His face was rather like a hybridization of that of a pug and a bulldog. His face was etched into a very nasty-looking sneer. His eyes were blue and fiery, yet somehow vacant.

Parker said nothing, just stared at this mishmash of attire, which clashed horribly with each other.

"'Bout time," he growled. "Lousy mortals. Never on time these days. Never punctual."

Parker still was too stunned by this outlandish appearance to say anything.

"Stop gawking, soldier!" "Ares" snapped, in very drill sergeant manner. "You will surrender your life and forum to me. Understood? Good."

"No," Parker said, the shock wearing off.

"What?"

"You will not have RAF," Parker said, wielding his energy sword now. "Nor my life."

"You dare disrespect your patron this way?!" "Ares" roared. "You dare disobey the whims of your patron?!"

"I have no patron!" Parker shot back.

"You call yourself a Spartan, do you not?!" "Ares" countered, angrily. "Spartans are beholden to ME!!!"

"I'm beholden to no one!" Parker roared back as his energy sword met "Ares's" blade, sparking with it.

"You are beholden to the God of War!!" "Ares" pushed. "ME!!!!"

"I . . . am . . . beholden . . . to no one!!!" Parker pushed back, not giving an inch.

"You are beholden to to the one who can understand and use any and all weapons with the proficiency of a master. You are beholden to the one who can manipulate any weapon. You are beholden to the one who can induce war and discord. You are beholden to the one who can be empowered by conflict of war. You are beholden to the one who can manipulate rage and anger. You are beholden to the one who can induce rage and anger. You are beholden to the one who can gain strength from rage and anger. You are beholden to the one who possess supernatural fearlessness." "Ares" spat as he and Parker fought sword-to-sword. "You are beholden to the one who is highly proficient in the way of the sword. You are beholden to the one who has strength beyond any mortal's imaginings. You are beholden to the one who possesses superhuman levels of hand-to-hand fighting skills and excels in various forms of combat. You are beholden to one who is empowered by combat!"

The two broke apart, apparently evenly matched.

"Namely me!" "Ares" said. Then he charged forward, intending to thrust his sword through Parker's armor -- a foolish gamble. "You are beholden to ME!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2017, 03:54:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Push For Piece of Mind

"No," Parker said, sidestepping this sword thrust. Parker was now convinced that "Ares's" claims were complete and utter bull.

"I'm," Parker continued, as "Ares's" sword got stuck in the wall behind the two. It also occurred to him that he might be controlled, but how he couldn't fathom.

"Not." Parker concluded, taking his right leg and delivering a powerful side kick to the sword. It broke into three pieces. Parker concluded that it wasn't so much due the power of his kick (which his armor helped with the blunt force of), but mostly due to the crappy craftsmanship of the sword itself. Suck a kick should have only bent a sword of higher quality.

"You broke my sword, you disobedient piece of --"

"Oh, will you shut up?" Parker snapped, annoyed now.

"I am Ares ! God of --"

"No, you're not," Parker said, bluntly.

"How dare you --"

"You're not Ares, otherwise fighting you would be more of a challenge." Park put in, severely. "Your technique is sloppy, your form is laughable. You waste energy buzzing around like a mosquito."

"I am the God of War! I am Ares!"

"Your name isn't Ares!" Parker said, not taking his eyes off him. He had tasked Tyr with discovering if this was a genuine delusion or if he was been mind controlled somehow. It helped that Parker was well aware of this particular person's name and history without the briefing before the mission. "Your name is Franklin Aloysius Marshall. You were a general in the Army -- how I don't know, considering how lousy a shot, how losuy a hand-to-hand fighter and how lousy a swordsman you are -- but I can only suspect money exchanged hands."

"You're mad, mortal," Frank said, still believing himself to be Ares, "I am a god. An Olympian!"

"You're confused," Parker said, folding his arms, and looking imperiously onward. "Or insane. I haven't decided yet."

"I am Ares! I am a dangerous force! I am overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering!" Frank roared. "I was born of Zeus and Hera. I sired Phobos Deimos, Harmonia, Adreista, Eros, Anteros, Himeros, and Pothos by Aphrodite. I sired Aeropus by Aerope. I sired Alcippe by Algauros. I sired Ascalaphus and Ialmenus by Astyoche. I sired Mygdon by Calliope. I sired Pangaeus by Critobule. I sired --"

"Enough," Parker said, with resounding finality. "All information that could have been pulled from Wikipedia at anyone's leisure. It isn't any proof you are who you claim to be, just proof of perfect mnemonic recall, if anything."

It was at this point that Tyr informed him that the laurel wreath was not only controlling his mind, but overriding it with false memories and recollections, altering his perspective and beliefs. If it were removed, his mind would reset, like a soft reboot.

The question was how to do it without killing the man or causing unnecessary collateral damage. There wasn't an easy solution -- there never is -- to this. But sheer good fortune allowed him to do just this, when Frank charged forward. Parker easily sidestepped this and seized the hat and laurel wreath, which he accidentally crushed in his hand.

But the Parker saw something that filled him with the purest disgust. A tattoo on the back of Feank's neck. Small enough to to go unnoticed, but prominent enough to be perfectly legible if you were looking for it. A stylized logo -- a logo consisting of a K, O, H with the "O" bisected by an ornate sword. This piece of filth was an undercover Knight. It explained how he was able to be sped along in the military -- clearly there were other plants. This wasn't good news to the RAFians or other alien advocacy groups.

This was very odd as the Knights of Humanity had basically become a joke. They were basically Team Skull with a knight motif, instead of a punk one. Parker didn't like this discovery, or the implications of what this could mean to the RAFians, and he explained why to Tyr as he walked away. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2017, 07:21:41 AM

Yep, this book will be more than the requisite twenty chapters. I think 26, 27 at most.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Battle of Wits

Saffa was dispatched to an obscure, out-of-the-way area of unexplored wilderness. To the mouth of a cave. She looked at it, the way the stalagmites and stalactites jutted from the opening, making it resemble some great beast's maw, massive and deadly. She didn't like it, but her instincts told her that her path lay beyond this, so she screwed up her courage -- being a RAFian, she had a considerable amount -- and plunged herself into the darkness.

She looked back at the light of day and saw that, even a scant five feet away from the streaming light, it felt as if it were an eternity away. She felt an horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she ignored it. To listen to it would be giving in to fear and despair, to succumb to her basest instincts. She knew this, and pushed on forward into the all-encompassing darkness.

She didn't know who she was going up against, which Olympian. She only knew that the mods hadn't selected who to dispatch to which location arbitrarily or randomly. They considered each location, the probable Olympian waiting there, and considered the power sets of each RAFian on active duty. She never thought to ask which Olympian, at least the one they thought, that they were sending her to face, but considering the cavernous tunnels, she assumed Hades or Pluto, whichever alignment he was in. She assumed it was because of her diamond manipulation abilities -- which she hadn't really mastered, but she preferred not to think of that.

Then she came upon a giant chess board. Her first thought was, of course, Harry Potter. Her second thought was why the heck was a chess board inside a cave like this. Her third thought was she couldn't believe that she was selected to go up against this Olympian. It was almost flattering.

Saffa looked at the intricate designs of the king and queen pieces, the bishops, the knights, the rooks, and even the pawns. They all looked rather humanlike and magically realistic. Carved from what appeared to be black marble, while the other side was regular, standard white marble pieces.

"About time, mortal," came a haughty voice, and Saffa already disliked her.

Saffa saw her, standing on the other side of the board, between two pawns, dwarfed by them. She wore a white tunic and golden bracers and grieves which an owl etched on each one. She also had a laurel wreath in her hair.

Saffa knew her name, but said nothing. Maybe she would slip up, and say something that she'd regret. Saffa noticed her blank, vacant eyes and suspected something else at play here.

"Silence, mortal?" "Athena" said. "What a refreshing novelty."

Saffa said nothing. If this was a legitimate goddess, Saffa was not impressed.

"Perhaps you do not know what I am?" "Athena" asked. "Perhaps you do not know who I am and what I can do?"

If this was supposed to be the goddess of intelligence, she was doing a very poor job at it. By telling Saffa her power set, she hands her weapons with which to defeat her, or even kill her.

"I can manipulate war, strife, combat and other forms of conflict. I can control the orderly forces of the universe. I can manipulate and alter the laws and foundations of mathematics. I am supernaturally fearless. I possess incredible wisdom. I have extremely heightened and enhanced intelligence and other mental skills, too numerous to be counted off.  I can craft flawlessly. I possess superhuman levels of hand-to-hand fighting skills and excel in various forms of combat. I have innate encyclopedic knowledge. I can understand how a person thinks and fights in combat. I can manipulate architectural structures at a whim." she said, much akin to Alan Rickman's portrayal of Severus Snape in the first Harry Potter movie. "My name is Athena."

I'm sure it is, Saffa thought. She didn't say anything. She didn't want to give too much away. As unimpressive as she may be, "Athena" may still be a dangerous foe. Someone not to be taken lightly. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 11, 2017, 09:14:50 AM

If I recall correctly, you had made a post somewhere in Gen asking for  who our godly parents would be, didn't you? Nevertheless, this is exactly what I had hoped for. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2017, 07:11:17 PM

Quote from: Saffa on February 11, 2017, 09:14:50 AM

If I recall correctly, you had made a post somewhere in Gen asking for  who our godly parents would be, didn't you?

Yep. (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9635.msg762227#msg762227) Though I had forgotten your post there. I have completely rewritten this book from the outline I made so long ago.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
You Can't Do That

"So, my silent mortal," "Athena" said, "we shall play our way across the room."

She indicated the giant chess pieces. Saffa looked at them, and scrutinized them. The pawns looked like faceless military grunts. Literally faceless, like the other pieces were. She was vaguely aware that these pawns were supposed to be her infantry, so to speak.The rooks simply looked like circular towers made of cold, black stone, and Saffa assumed they were supposed to represent siege towers. The bishops looked rather snooty, in Saffa's opinion, despite lacking faces, she supposed that they were supposed to represent the clergy, though she didn't put much stock into such things personally, being a thoroughly nonreligious person. The knights looked stuffy and full of themselves, despite having their faceless heads covered with helmets, and obviously represented armored cavalry. The king looked trim, but overly self-indulgent and arrogant, despite being faceless, Saffa opined. The queen looked dangerous, in an unhinged way, Saffa determined.

"When you lose," "Athena" said, "you forfeit your forum and your life."

"Why do you want RAF?" Saffa asked at once, suspicious.

"Let's begin," "Athena" said, deliberately ignoring Saffa's question.

It did not go as smoothly as you may think.

"You can't do that," Saffa said, after "Athena" tried to move a pawn three spaces ahead.

"You can't do that," Saffa said again when "Athena" tried to move a knight vertically, into an occupied space.

"You can't do that," Saffa said, yet again, when "Athena" tried to move a bishop horizontally, and over an occupied space.

"You can't do that," Saffa said, getting annoyed now, when "Athena" tried to move a rook diagonally, away from Saffa's possible perpetual check.

"You can't do that," Saffa said, annoyance giving way to irritation now, as "Athena" tried to move her king into a square under attack by Saffa's knight (which cause her to feel sick, as she considered another kind of "knight"), to escape a double check by Saffa's knight and rook.

In the end, it ended in a checkmate for "Athena". That is to say, Saffa checkmated her. Saffa was disappointed. It was like playing with a rank amateur, and she would be the first to say that she was no expert at chess. This just reconfirmed her assumption that this "Athena" was just a pretender, a phony.

The room was littered with the debris and detritus of the chess match. Saffa couldn't even pay attention to the surviving pieces, as she strode right up to "Athena". The faux goddess allowed it, evidently thinking that Saffa would offer some kind words of encouragement or console her with her loss.

But "Athena" had irritated her far too much for that to be a genuine reaction from the RAFian. See, Saffa had divined what was causing this. She had walked up and, without a word, plucked the laurel wreath from "Athena's" head. Her eyes came back to life as she remembered her true identity and personality.

"Annabeth Ayers?" Saffa asked, in a cold, clinical manner.

"Yeah. . ." she said, clearly suffering from a headache.

"The tactician?"

"Yeah," she answered, "why?"

"You might want to consider a new line of work," Saffa said, escorting the woman out of the cave and back to civilization, without saying another word to her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2017, 07:51:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Sun Do Shine

GH was dispatched to a place that was really out in the sticks. He had left Leatherhead with Abby, who the young crocodilian wanted to preform for. It was also reassuring for GH as Abby had babysat Leatherhead when he had to go out for missions or work before, and Leatherhead himself was fond of her. He couldn't help but smile to himself. He would have never thought himself to be a parent, single or otherwise, at this age, but he was and he he was happy. Him, Hunter, and Leatherhead -- what more did he need?

Well, perhaps a clue where this Olympian was would be nice.

"Clock-a-doooooooooooo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
****atoo! Yodele-eeeeeeeee-heeeeee!
****atoo, what a day!
The sun is shinin' brightly!
Clockadoo, sunny day,
Down here on the stage!
****atoo, stay away!
You big ol' wet ol' rain cloud!
Or I'll cry out loud with this voice of mine!"

GH thought, You cannot be serious right now.

"Sun do shine.
(Sun do shine, sun do shine, sun do shine!)
Sun do shine.
(Sun do shine, sun do shine, sun do shine!)
Sun do shine.
(Sun do shine, sun do shine, sun do shine!)"

GH, despite his better judgements, decided to follow the singing.

"Well, Leto taught me how to sing,
And that's why this voice means everything.
Sun do shine, you better shine!
(You better shine!)
Well, the sun do shine, you better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
(You better shine!)"

GH cannot believe that this was a thing. He could hear every musical mistake in the song -- he had an ear for that sort of thing. Every mistake he found to be amateurish, as a musical connoisseur.

"Sun do shine!
(Sun do shine, sun do shine, sun do shine!)
Sun do shine!
(Sun do shine, sun do shine, sun do shine!)
Well, the sun do shine!
(Sun do shine, sun do shine, sun do shine!)"

GH followed it to an open-air stage, with a single dude upon it playing to literally no one. GH would imagine that some police would have been here to arrest him for disturbing the peace . . . man, this place was really out in the sticks.

GH observed that the man looked no more than a few years older than him, with carefully coifed blonde hair and a white toga. He wore a laurel wreath in his hair and sandals. He was playing a guitar that looked as if was made from a tortoise shell or something. It just didn't look right to GH.

"Well, Leto taught me how to sing,
And that's why this voice means everything!
Sun do shine, you better shine!
(You better shine!)
Well, the sun do shine, you better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
(You better shine!)
You better shine!
Sun, you better shine!!"

Then the man caught sight of GH, and GH noticed that his eyes seemed vacant and empty. As if he was under a spell, or something. This took GH back a little, as he was not expecting it.

"What's this? A mortal fan for the great Apollo?"

"I wouldn't go that far," GH said, dryly.

"Don't you know who I am, though?"

"No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me anyway," GH grumbled.

"I, the great Apollo, can force anyone to tell the truth! I, the great Apollo, can manipulate aspects of the sun! I, the great Apollo, can be empowered by the sun! I, the great Apollo, can induce feelings of serenity in others! I, the great Apollo, can perceive future event before they happen!" "Apollo" exclaimed, proudly boisterous and annoyingly boastful. "I, the great Apollo, possess supernatural skill in the performing arts! I, the great Apollo, can control the orderly forces of the universe! I, the great Apollo, know almost everything in existence! I, the great Apollo, can gain various abilities based on the type of music I listen to or play! I, the great Apollo, can generate, shape, and manipulate light! I, the great Apollo, can heal any mortal being! I, the great Apollo, can achieve complete and utter accuracy on distant targets! I, the great Apollo, possess supernatural skill with a bow and arrow! I, the great Apollo, can control any sort of pathogenic threat!"

"You, the great 'Apollo', are ego-tripping," GH muttered, with a roll of his eyes. "I swear you just like saying your name, if that even is your real name."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zg0x6EJd4-0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 12, 2017, 08:06:09 PM

Lol, for some reason, this chapter made me think of this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj7pDNDuoJ0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 12, 2017, 10:51:17 PM

tfw you're a chess amateur yourself but at least I know the moves :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2017, 11:10:13 AM

Quote from: Saffa on February 12, 2017, 10:51:17 PM

tfw you're a chess amateur yourself but at least I know the moves :P

And I totally didn't reference Wikipedia constantly for that chapter. . . . You don't even believe me, do you? ;)

Quote from: gh on January 31, 2017, 12:12:29 AM

I'd like to see you play the second solo to Corporeal Jigsore Quandary perfectly! I'd like to see you do some crossover tapping! Oh, please, show me how well you can keep up with the meter changes in a song like Schism or Spirit Crusher, because I'm dying to see you try! LEMME AT HIM, CLOAKY! I'M GONNA SHOW THIS TOOLBAG HOW TO PLAY GUITAR!!!

And I'm not gonna cannibalize this post. Nope. No way.

. . .

Stop looking at me like that!! ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
I'm Only In It For The Funny

"Apollo" played his guitar with a flourish that GH found amateurish. He honestly doubted that this "god" could play the second solo to Corporeal Jigsore Quandary, let alone perfectly. Crossover tapping would more than likely be a challenge for him, much less keeping up with the meter changes in a song like Schism or Spirit Crusher.

"Oh, starting already, huh?" GH said, sound a little ambivalent.

"Well, hey, there, little mortal,
I know you like a little funny.
But you're jokes're no good!
Man, you're outta money.
I've heard you can play with the best,
So, Imma here to put you to the test!
I'm hereby challenging you to a duel,
Between my guitar and your fiddle, you mortal fool!"

Fiddle? Did he just call MY guitar a fiddle? This was the only thing GH really took from the song, other than the challenge to a musical duel. GH could go angrily after him, but he decided to have some fun, as it was clear that whoever this pretender was, they were mediocre at best, when playing. Whereas GH was quite possibly the acoustically strongest RAFian of the entire forum. This fake little man playing god had no idea what he was getting himself into.

So, GH was very sarcastic when he sang, while playing:

"Well, hey there, mister,
That was pretty good --
For a no-talent hack
In the neighborhood.
You have no chance, I admit,
And I'm not afraid you --
Not one bit!
I hereby accept your challenge to a duel,
Your guitar versus mine, you delusional fool!"

They both sang:

"I'm only in it for the funny,
And your music scares bunnies."

"Apollo" missed several tempo changes rather inexpertly, and GH was starting to find it offensive that this guy thought he could stand toe-to-toe with him. But, like a certain shill whose name shan't be spoken if, he thought he was nailing it, and GH's music was screechy and offkey when it wasn't. Either that, or "Apollo" was drunk off his own hype.

He sang:

"Well, hey there, Mister Mortal,
I guess that settles that.
Your life is forfeit, forum too.
Just leave the keys under the mat."

That's it,"[/center] GH thought, enough holding back!!

"Now, just hold on a minute!
Hold that jive!
'Coz I can feel my power
About to COME ALIVE!!"

The stage upon which they stood began to crackle and pop. It began to buckle under the sheer acoustic power of GH. The RAFian guitarist didn't usually display this kind of power -- after what happened the last time he used it. After what had happened to Dimitri. But this fake Apollo had riled GH up that much.

It was probably the reason he felt a kinship with Cloak. Out of all the other RAFians, he probably knew the best what it felt like losing control, and the ramifications of such a loss of control can be. Grant, he didn't know what it must feel like having to restrain the very elements within you from running amuck, never feeling the freedom to just let everything go without any danger of a catastrophic destruction.

Anyway, this acoustic outburst had practically shattered the faux Apollo's guitar, and GH simply went over to him -- he was still alive, but knocked unconscious. He plucked off the laurel wreath and called in the emergency department anonymously.

Then he left, to cool down mostly.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lfLQ5_BLGxM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2017, 07:58:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Hunter and Huntress

Hunter was deep in a forest. His sense were alive with stimuli -- the smells, the sounds. He had forgotten the simply enjoy these subtle joys that one often takes for granted in the doldrums of everyday life, especially if that one happens to be a RAFian.

He had his trusty guns holstered at his side. He kept them immaculate usually, but there were the times that GH . . . distracted him. But he made sure that they were immaculate and well-maintained before the mission he had ahead of him.

There was some Olympian in this forest, and it was his job to find them, and take 'em down, if need be. Despite being an anthropomorphic canine, he didn't wish to have to take the life of another -- although, Olympians were supposed to be immortal. Was it even possible to kill them? If this was a real Olympian, what could he possibly do against an immortal being? If the old myths were true, they could just as easily turn him into a dolphin or a stag or something. Or into a human. Not to mention that they apparently could kill a person by assuming their true form -- which actually reminded him of Cloak and Realm Walkers.

He took careful mind to move as silently as he could, but canines weren't made to be stealthy hunters, that was cats. They were made to run down prey, overpowering and outlasting it in endurance. They were, rather like primitive humans, cooperative hunters, unlike most cats. But he did his best as he moved through the brush, which kept pulling on his fur and tail at the most irritating or inopportune times.

He had already brushed his fur, he didn't need this undergrowth to do it for him. He was becoming frustrated and testy the deeper into the heart of the forest had to go. The underbrush didn't hurt him, but it kept snagging his clothing (but not his fur so much), which meant he had to constantly stop and undo the snag. Why'd the forest have to be so wild and untamed out here? He would have loved for a lovely path to traverse down.

Then he came to a clearing where he heard a voice, clear as a bell, say, "So, you've finally arrived, mortal. You took your time. I was getting bored."

Hunter threw her a look of deepest loathing for not acknowledging the hellish journey he went through just to get here. He also observed that she wore a white toga, a laurel wreath with her brown hair tied up into a tight bun. She also wore brown hiking boots.

"Confused?" she asked. "Do you not know me, mortal wolf boy?"

Hunter didn't answer, he just looked disgruntled.

"I am she who possesses supernatural accuracy. I am she who possesses instincts akin to that of a predatory creature. I am she who possesses extraordinarily expertise in stealth. I am she who possesses extraordinary talent and instinct in and for hunting all things. I am she who can manipulate aspects of the moon. I am she who can gain strength from the moon. I am she who can alter the gender of mortals. I am she who can manipulate and shape forests, and everything in them. I am she who can track people and objects with only my basic senses. I am she who possesses supernatural skill with a bow and arrow. I am she who can control any sort of pathogenic threat. I am she who can be the lord over all beasts. I am she who can influence animal behavior. I am she who can empathize with animals." she boasted, though sounding a bit more humble the faux Apollo. "My name is Artemis."

No. No, it's not.. Hunter thought. He was sure of it. She smelled completely human. Granted, he had no idea what a genuine Olympian smelled like, or if they, indeed, even had a scent to speak of.

Then he noticed her eyes. How vacant and unfocused they were. This is what he found disturbing. He couldn't help but wonder if legit Olympian gods had eyes like that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2017, 09:58:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
No Time For This Sh--

"Now," she said, with a snap to her voice like the breaking of a piece of chalk, "to the challenge you must take, lest forfeiting your forum and your life."

"Challenge?" Hunter snorted, derisively. His disquiet at her eyes was being overruled by a tired body.

"Yes, yes, must make it sporting and entertaining," she said, as if she didn't notice Hunter's overt derision. "Must make it seem like you have a shot in the Underworld of succeeding. But you won't, so these formalities are just pointless show, but, alas, I did swear on the River Styx."

"You're actually serious?" Hunter said.

"Of course I'm serious, you stupid, silly mortal!" she snapped, grabbing her bow and shouldering it. "Figures that I couldn't get matched up against a woman -- oh no. It had to be a stupid male."

Hunter could have taken that personally, but he quick found that he really didn't care. He really couldn't care less what she thought about him. She wasn't a goddess, he was sure.

"Now, for this challenge, I --"

"No." Hunter said. He wasn't playing games. He wasn't willing to indulge in this woman's pretend any longer. He had already pushed himself through the thickest wilds of this forest. He probably even had fleas, maybe even a tick -- he didn't know, he didn't check. He was in no mood for games.

"'No'? What do you mean by 'no'?" "Artemis" demanded, at once.

"I would have thought it was obvious," Hunter replied, sounding as disgruntled as he looked. "I mean that I'm not doing your stupid challenge. I'm not encouraging your delusional behavior."

"You dare defy me?!"

"Again, I thought the answer to that was an obvious yes." Hunter said, clearly weary of this conversation already. "I'm not a pet for you to order around like a slave."

"You forfeit you life so easily? And your forum?" "Artemis" said, utterly perplexed.

"You're not gonna do a thing to RAF," he said, bluntly, "and you're not gonna kill me."

"Oh? And how can you be so sure, mortal?" "Artemis" said, sounding rather scandalized.

"Because you are not the real Artemis," Hunter replied, wearily, "that is, assuming that there is a real one, of course.

"You must accept this challenge," she said, with forceful insistence.

"Why?" Hunter said, surly and uncooperative.

"Because I said so!" she declared angrily. "And, if you don't comply, I'll turn you into a toad!!"

"Then do it," Hunter said, folding his arms, and calling her bluff. She spluttered, but Hunter got straight to the heart of the matter, as he didn't want to really draw this out any longer. "You won't do it, because you can't. You're no more immortal than I am."

She sputtered, but Hunter cantered over, really done with this farce, and snatched the laurel wreath from her head (he thought it smelled too metallic to be real). And he was right when saw the delicate electronics within it.

"Wh-what happened?" she asked then, remembering that she was not Artemis.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," Hunter said, still surly, as he called for a pick-up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2017, 03:16:08 PM

Okay, this Book might be closer to 25 - 31 chapters long. Still got three more "Olympians" to take care of.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Fields Aplenty

Noelle stood firmly on all four hooves, with her tail at the ready. She was dispatched to large fields of wheat that were so tall, all four of her equine legs were obscured from view, and they rose up so much, her humanoid torso's waist line touched the tops of this wheat. Noelle had no temptation to graze here as she already fed well before this mission.

She wandered these fields, wondering where this Olympian was. The supposed god or goddess shouldn't have been that difficult to spot. She was an Andalite, she could see in all directions, except from beneath. It shouldn't be too difficult.

Now, being an alien and not a cultural xenobiologist, she didn't know much, if anything, about the human mythologies. She didn't know which one was monotheistic and which others were polytheistic. She felt a bit mad at herself at not reading up more on the subject before undertaking this mission.

Then again, it has been a while since she took a mission. She had forgotten the last time she was on the active duty roster. She had only meant to take a little time off for personal reasons, but it seemed to have gone on longer than she initially intended.

This wheat was beginning to tickle her, despite her azure fur, so she once again commenced with locating the Olympian, wherever he or she or it was. Whatever he or she or it was. Why was it taking so --

Oh. Oh, there she was. At least, Noelle thought it was. It looked like a chubby, human female. Rather like a brown-haired Rose Quartz (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Rose_Quartz), a human that had very long, curly brown hair styled in thick, tube-like ringlets. She had defined lips with a pale pink color, bright skin, and a tall, heavy build. She wore a laurel wreath, and a strapless, floor-length, chestnut and wheat-trimmed, tiered beige dress that had multiple layers which resembled the petals of a rose. Noelle was far too experienced as a RAFian to be put well-at-ease by this seemingly benign appearance.

Though she wasn't going to lie, when she heard that Olympians were supposed to be gods and goddesses of some sort, she expected beings of incredible size and power, going off some of the scant descriptions she had managed to get over the years.

"You come," she said. Her voice didn't sound the least bit like Susan Egan, but more like a mother Vreedle. "Whether a monster or a mortal, you come."

<I am an Andalite, not a monster,> Noelle said, dignified.

"Like it matters," she said, her indifference palpable. Then she gave Noelle a look as she ****ed her head. "You don't have any idea who I am, do you?"

<Would you care what I said, either way?> Noelle asked dryly.

"Oh, I'm no one of real importance. I'm just the one who can manipulate, shape, and control the seasons and the concepts they represent. I'm just the one who can manipulate reproduction. I'm just the one who can control and manipulate plant life. I'm just the one who can influence the growth of plant life. I'm just the one who can control both life and death. I'm just the one who can manipulate, shape, and control the harvest. I'm just the one who can induce fertility. I'm just the one who can manipulate, shape, and control earth." she proclaimed proudly. "My name is Demeter. You can call me Ceres, if you must, but I prefer Demeter."

<Are all Olympians as boastful as the Andalite military?> Noelle said, despite herself. She hadn't meant to say anything. But the words were out of her head before she ever realized they were thought-spoken.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 14, 2017, 05:15:48 PM

Quote

He had his trusty guns holstered at his side. He kept them immaculate usually, but there were the times that GH . . . distracted him. But he made sure that they were immaculate and well-maintained before the mission he had ahead of him.

WHAT IN HELL ARE Y'ALL DOING WITH THOSE GUNS

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2017, 05:21:15 PM

Not what I mean. I just meant that he neglected to give the proper maintenance per usual because he was enjoying his time with GH.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 15, 2017, 01:02:28 AM

I knew that. I just like messing around with euphemism wherever I can. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2017, 05:20:04 PM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Target Acquisition

"Now, the challenge," "Demeter" said.

<Challenge?> Noelle inquired. She was subtly moving forward, every time when this fake goddess looked away. She had to get in close quarters to initiate her plan, unfortunately. She just had to keep this "Demeter" person distracted an occupied. <What challenge?>

"Why, a challenge of grand proportions, of course." she said, actually playing into Noelle's plan to remove the laurel wreath. Her keen Andalite eyes had clearly detected some sort of tech in it. But it was well-hidden, and she couldn't be entirely sure her hunch was right. "But fail, and your life and forum are forfeit."

<Why is that?> Noelle asked simply, as she maneuvered in such a way to make her plan doable. She could have easily hit her with the side of her tail-blade with sufficient force to knock her out, but that might harm her if she hit her with the part that the laurel wreath was at. She didn't know what the effects of potentially breaking the thing could do on this woman.

"Demeter" considered her question, decided that she couldn't answer it, and, rather like a politician, sought to deflect, spin, obfuscate, and change the subject into something more agreeable. Noelle was aware of this, but allowed it to go unchallenged as she still needed to get close to this person. Close enough to touch.

If Noelle could manage this without having to resort to unnecessary violence. If she could complete this mission without any bloodshed . . . hopefully it could be done. She believed that it would be able to. But she had to be careful. And clever.

"Your challenge, mortal . . . uh, thing," "Demeter" said. Noelle felt a sting of offense by the namecalling, but she kept her head. It was far more important to keep it, far more important than taking barbs like that too seriously. "Your challenge is to harvest all this wheat before me."

<But aren't you the goddess of agriculture?> Noelle said, maneuvering closer and closer. She had to be able to touch her. If she was a legit goddess and hadn't any DNA, then Noelle's plan would be futile and flawed. But she was confident that she was human, a controlled human. <Would that not be a unfair advantage?>

"Unfair or not," "Demeter" said, blissfully unaware of the Andalite approaching her slowly and carefully, as if she was a rabid dog. "It must be done. You have no other choice but to accept."

<Why is my acceptance compulsory?> Noelle asked. She didn't really care what her answer was, she was only trying to keep her talking, keep her distracted. Noelle would have to acquire her to gether into the trance all creature undergo when they are being acquired. Then getting the laurel wreath would be easy. <Why is this challenge so important?>

"Ah, you must be stupid," "Demeter" said. "I've already explained that if you do not accept that your life and forum are forfeit."

Actually, she didn't, but Noelle wasn't focusing on that. She was close enough now, but she couldn't be hasty. Human arms were stronger than Andqlite arms, this "Demeter" could break her grip before she could start acquiring.

"Enough talk," "Demeter" said, tired of the relentless banter. "Let's get down to --"

Noelle shot her arm out, seized "Demeter's" wrist, and immediately began concentrating. "Demeter" immediately became passive and docile. She was in the acquiring trance. Wonderful.

Noelle, without letting go of her wrist, grasped the laurel wreath with all seven fingers of her other hand, and lifted if free from her head. It wasn't as easy as it sounded, with the profusion of those tube-like ringlets of hers. But, in doing so, Noelle also spied something that made her stomachs churn.

It was a tattoo, hidden by her hair. The letters "K", "O", and "H", with the "O" bisected by a sword. The emblem of the Knights of Humanity. The stamp of a Knight, a xenophobic organization characterized and sustained by their hatred for nonhuman beings, at least the sentient ones. And now, Noelle had the DNA of a Knight flowing in her bloodstream. She had a morph of a Knight. She felt sick.

She released her wrist, and she seemed dazed. Then Noelle struck her with the flat side of her tail-blade, and called for a pick-up. She had never felt more dirty. Knights wallowed in xenophobic hate like pigs wallowed in mud.

Noelle couldn't wait, and morphed a Psycholeopterran. Then she just flew away, feeling sullied and tricked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2017, 08:16:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
You Married to That Plan?

Melissa was up, and her destination was the farthest of anyone's. So far, in fact, she had to Apparate there, despite Broken's misgivings. But she didn't Splinch at all, though it was difficult, as she only saw a picture -- a photograph -- of the place. Granted, she had to leave the threshold of RAF, as Broken crafted an Anti-Apparition Jinx, as well as an Anti-Disapparition Jinx, into Code Avalon. For security reasons.

Anyway, she landed in a very elaborate-looking castle. It looked as if it was ruined and abandoned. Melissa could tell that at one point this place looked very nice and fanciful, but now it was just old and depressing and empty. As she scoped out the castle's exterior, she couldn't help but feel a little sorry that such a formerly grand place wound up such a dilapidated mess.

Unfortunately, she never noticed a very plan sigil on the side of one of the castles crumbling walls. It was almost like a graffiti tag. The letters "K", "O", and "H" with the "O" bisected by an ornate, silver sword. The symbol, the emblem, of the Knights of Humanity. The emblem here was not only very telling that this was one of their many hidey-holes, but very problematic as Melissa was by herself and just still a novice at magic, really. Fortunately, she was human (aside from the magic stuff) and would not incur any of their wrath. Unless they found out that she was an alien sympathizer . . .

"Homenum Revelio," she said, pointing the hornbeam wand Broken made for her. A wand she cherished. She didn't know if the spell could work on gods or goddesses, but thought it was worth a try. She was in luck -- she found that there was only one person in this place, and she made a direct beeline for her.

She came to a woman with her dark hair drawn up into a tight bun with a severe look on her face. Her skin was about as soft and supple as tree bark, and her expression was colder than waters the Antarctic. She had dark, ever-judging eyes She wore a black toga and a laurel wreath.

"'Bout time," the woman said, haughtily. Her voice was as irritating as a certain shill in a recent election. "It was getting hot."

"Who are you?"

"Who am I?" the woman repeated. She took this as an insult. "Who am I?"

Melissa said nothing. Then again, she wasn't given much of a chance to.

"You have no idea with who you are dealing with, mortal child!! Mortal, I have superhuman fecundity. Mortal, I can manipulate reproduction. Mortal, I can induce pregnancy in others. Mortal, I can maintain any sort of oaths that are made. Mortal girl, I can supernaturally drive others insane. Stupid mortal girl, I guard the peace, hostility, and keep the natural balance of worlds. Mortal, I can induce fertility in others. Little mortal girl, I possess unnaturally high charisma! Finally, little, stupid mortal girl, I can manipulate the very bonds that tie us all together!!" she said, sounding rather spiteful and catty. The rancor came up suddenly and unbidden. "I am Hera!! goddess of marriage, women, and birth! Daughter of Cronus and Rhea! Sister and wife of . . . Zeus. Mother of . . . Hephaestus, . . . Ares, and Hebe! You should respect the grand presence you're in right now! You should grovel at my feet."

Melissa's only impression was that if this woman was a legit god, let alone the queen of all of them, she had some serious ego problems. Melissa also wondered if she always bragged about her power set whenever she came across someone who didn't recognize her. Seemed a little braggadocio to her. Self-important, you know.

Melissa wasn't really impressed, as she held her wand loosely by her side. And "Hera" seemed to take this as a sign of disrespect.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2017, 02:19:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Say Hello to Cadmus

"You're assignment, you miserable nothing," "Hera" said, apparently aware that Melissa wasn't exactly impressed by her spiel, "is to find the lovers of that philandering, lecherous husband of mine, and any children conceived by him, and kill them. Kill them all. Bring me back their hearts in this box."

She present a gold box no bigger than a snuff box.

"The interior has been magically expanded," "Hera" explained. "All of them should fit in there."

Melissa tightened her grip on the hornbeam wand.

"Fail me, mortal, and your life and forum will be forfeit," "Hera" said. "So, simply do. Not. Fail. Me."

"No," Melissa said, firmly.

"What was that, mortal?" "Hera" said dangerously.

"I said, no!" Melissa declared. "I will not murder innocent --"

"They're only innocent if I say that their innocent!" "Hera" announced, rather wildly. "You simple mortal. You think you can challenge me of all gods? I'm the queen for a reason!"

"Because you married Zeus," Melissa said, raising her wand. She remember the human-detecting spell she cast earlier. She was quite confident that this was a fake. That this "Hera" was not the real deal -- assuming, of course, the real deal even existed.

"The impudence! The unmitigated gall!" "Hera" screamed in scandalized tones. Melissa thought she was trying too hard to sell this farce. She almost wish she had some Veritiserum to force-feed this fake goddess, so she get some truth out of her. But Melissa doubt that would even work at this point. "You dare defy a goddess!"

"You're not --"

"Do not speak further!" "Hera" demanded, almost drunkenly. "You will do what I ask of you, and that is final."

"You are not the boss of me," Melissa said. "I don't have to capitu--"

"Be silent! Your opinion in this matter is absolutely worthless!" "Hera" cut her off. "I'm the queen of the gods, it is your duty to obey my every --"

"Silencio!" Melissa said, jabbing her wand at "Hera". "Hera's" lips flapped rapidly but no sound issued. The novice witch's Silencing Charm had worked. "Now, listen to me. You are no goddess. I am not going to commit murder, I'm going to commit x, y, and z just because you tell me to. I'm not your slave, and I'm not going to playact as one so you can have your delusions."

"Hera's" mouth still flapped angrily, but no sound ever issued from it. It was then that Melissa noticed her eyes. Vacant and unfocused. It looked like what Broken described to her what people under the Imperius Curse looked like. This woman was being controlled. But how?

The laurel wreath. Had to be. The real Hera, if the myths were right, never wore laurel leaves. She wore some sore of crown, tiara thing. Melissa didn't know the name. So, if she -- or the ones controlling her, rather -- wanted to impersonate Hera fully, why include something not associated with her? Simple. It was a device, cleverly disguised, to control and warp this woman's mind.

"Hera's" mouth was clearly going on a tirade, despite no sound issuing from her mouth. Melissa made up her mind on what she had to do. She had to move quick, had to act quickly.

"Stupefy!" Melissa shouted as she pointed her wand at "Hera". The red light issued from her wand hit "Hera" square in the chest and she collapsed, unconscious, but not dead. Melissa knew it would wear off in time, but that was not her concern of the moment, as her Stunning Spell was doing its job.

She suddenly sense that the two were soon to be accompanied by many bodies, many people. She cast the human-revealing spell again, which confirmed her suspicions. And may have alerted these people to her presence. She used a Summoning Charm to retrieve the laurel wreath, and, if she was prudent, she would have Apparated immediately away.

But, alas, she was curious. So, she twirled her wand around herself as though she were wrapping herself in rope. She muttered the incantation for the Disillusionment Charm, stumbling over it for the first few times before getting it right. She knew she did it right when she felt as if there was a raw egg running down every inch of her body. She was camouflaged, but neglected to notice that the laurel wreath she held was not.

She watched men come in and secure the room. They looked like a S.W.A.T. team, only their faces were completely obscured, like they were wearing morphsuit masks  with eye holes or something. On their shoulders they carried an emblem. It was an eye with a beaker with a double helix strand of DNA inside the beaker, all encapsulated within the pupil of the eye. No letters or writing appeared on the emblem. Who were these guys? They weren't Knights. They were part of Malice's cavalcade, as Malice had no emblem -- surely Cloak would have said something if she did.

"What's that?" one these soldiers said.

"What's what?" said another.

"That thing of there? Is that one of those MC-143 things?"

Melissa quickly realized that they were talking about her and she immediately Disapparated with a loud crack.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 16, 2017, 05:47:28 PM

What just happened.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2017, 05:52:38 PM

Whoops, meant Disapparated on that last line.

Anyway, Saffa, that was Cadmus. Who are they? Well -- that would be telling.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Kings of Their Elements

Cloak was the final RAFian to confront an Olympian. With both Richard and Estelore away for personal business, he was the most powerful RAFian on the active duty roster. Cloak suspected the Olympian he would have to face, but he didn't want it to seem as if he was conceited by the fact.

He felt it was obvious, as he was to arrive on the tallest building, as a storm was beginning to settle in. Flashes of lightning and deafening claps of thunder greeted him as he made his way to the top. He was no fan of heights but he would be able to save himself if he was thrown off. He knew what he was capable of . . . at least, in those power tiers he felt comfortable enough passing into. Despite his sessions with Aniyu to help him realize his true potential, a part of him always feared the sheer amount of power he could wield at his zenith. He genuinely believed no one, be they Dweller or Walker, should wield that amount of power. It would be too dangerous to lose yourself to it, to have it twist your mind, heart and soul, to become addicted to power. That was no kind of life to lead, always looking for more and more power. Only monsters revel in that kind of thing. Only monster use that power to hurt . . .

Was he any better? Seriously, was he truly any better than those power hungry monsters? He had used his powers, his mastery over the elements to hurt others. Those eidolons, the siren . . . and who knows how many more. Was the fact that he felt regret at his actions what made him redeemable? Was he even redeemable? These questions had haunted him for longer than he had cared to admit. And it hadn't yet been a full year -- maybe to the Dwellers, but not to him -- since he commited these actions.

These deprecating thoughts lead him to the top of the building. He had scaled it on foot, but was not tired, as his thoughts put him into a self-reflective reverie. Not to mention he had crossed longer distances before, and he didn't really care for elevators.

When he arrived on the top of the building, he saw a white haired man with flowing hair and a beard that spilled onto his chest. The hair and beard were reminiscent of clouds. He was ripped, for an old human and wore a white toga. He also wore a laurel wreath that looked lost in his hair.

"You come to kill me, stranger?" the man said.

"Not if you don't force my hand," Cloak said. "I really rather not any killing be done today."

"I done give a royal damn about what you want, stranger," he said, sounding almost drunk. It was at this point Cloak noticed a small tattoo hidden by his prodigious beard. Cloak recognized it at once as a Knights of Humanity emblem. He never understood why these people felt a need to brand themselves with this emblem. The Knights were not looked upon very well. "Say my name."

Cloak wasn't even mildly intimidated. He faced the likes of the Spirit-Drinker, Dark Phoenix, Shenecron, Malice, and even Garrotik himself. One dude drunk on his perceived sense of power wasn't gonna scare him in the least. Annoy him? Yes. Scare him? No.

"Say my name!"

Cloak said nothing, but folded his arms over his chest, like a disapproving parent. His amber eyes noticing this man's empty, unfocused ones. He immediately made the connection that this man was being controlled, due to his experience as a RAFian.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" he snarled, hurling what appeared to be a bronze chalice at Cloak. It, of course, missed. "Do you?!"

Cloak was well aware who he thought he was, but he knew that he wasn't the Olympian. Just a poor, drunk, mind-controlled Knight. But outright saying such would have escalated the confrontation needlessly. So he just remained silent.

"I . . . I have . . . I have limitless control of skies as . . . as my personal domain. I can . . . can manipulate, shape, and control . . . air. I can . . . can manipulate, shape, and control . . . electricity, too. I can . . . I can manipulate, shape and control the . . . the sky and everything in it. I . . . I can manipulate . . . shape and . . . and control the weather." he spat, sounding as out-of-breath as Cloak should be sounding. "I -- I can . . . control the orderly forces of the universe. I . . . I can create . . . rewrite . . . redefine . . . eliminate . . . and apply any . . . any law which affects anyone and . . . and everyone as I see fit. I can . . . subjugate others by dominating them and . . . and their ability to be sentient and . . . and independent beings."

Cloak doubted all this, and wasn't impressed.

"I'm Zeus," he snarled hatefully. "King of the gods. God of the sky, of lightning, of thunder, of law, of order, of justice! I am the sons of Cronus and Rhea! I sired --"

"I don't really care about the children you think you've sired," Cloak said. "And I will not play into this delusion of yours any longer."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2017, 06:37:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Why?!

"Delusions?" the man claiming to be Zeus demanded. "Is it a delusion that I know that I am the only Olympian left alive? That with Poseidon dead, the waters of the world are swallowing up the land. Without Apollo the sun itself is dead. All the other Olympians are dead and gone, all the ones who matter. All killed at the hands of your RAFians!"

"They're not dead," Cloak said. He had been briefly briefed on this during his long sojourn upstairs. "They are just not mind-controlled anymore."

"They are dead!! Their ichor is on your hands, stranger!!"

"I'm not Kratos," Cloak said, no sure if such a character ever existed in this realm. "I would appreciate you not speaking to me as if I am."

"I know not this Kratos," he said. "But my Olympians -- my wife, my sisters, my brothers, my children -- they're all gone."

Cloak was already tired of arguing the point, so he didn't. He just let out sigh, seeing that there was really no point in debating this with a man who already had his mind made up. He was gonna stick to his narrative in sheer defiance of the truthand evidence. It was funny how many humans -- and Walkers -- were like that.

"Now, RAFian," he said, taking a stance. Cloak recognized it at once. Electricity appeared, cracking around his arms as he extended them, with only his index and middle finger extended. He was a lightningbender. "Die."

"You clearly don't know much about my kind," Cloak said, redirecting the lightning back at him. Specifically the laurel wreath. "You can't kill me. Even if you were the real Zeus."

"I am the -- ahh!" he said. It was near miss, but the lightning did pass close enough to the laurel wreath to wreak havoc on the electronics in it and set his beard ablaze. The rest of the lightning hit the wall behind him. He managed to put it out, as being a lightningbender meant he was a firebender as well.

He held his head as the laurel wreath fell away, freeing him from the mind control. But, apparently, it was still too much for him as he fell unconscious. Which perplexed Cloak. Then he noticed the feathery dart in his exposed left shoulder, and then he paid attention to his Earthsight, as concrete was technically earth, although not as reliable as actual earth.

"Who are you?" he asked of a stout-looking woman in purple. He noticed a symbol, an emblem, on her lapel. It was of an eye with a DNA strand in a beaker in the pupil. Cloak felt as if he should know what this emblem represented, but he did not.

"That," she said, voice like a stern principal, "is none of your business."

"You're the one behind this fake Olympian mess," Cloak said.

"Astounding observation, RAFian," she said, sarcastically. Cloak couldn't even be sure that this was even her true appearance, with the myriad of ways one could hide such a thing. Other than holograms, as he be able to see right though that with his Earthsight. But there was shapeshifting, and those black market skinsuits, and such.

"Why?" Cloak demanded.

"That's my business," she said, before a helicopter appeared behind her, and she tossed the disheveled Knight who thought he was Zeus onboard. The helicopter had the same emblem.

"Who are you?" the Realm Walker demanded.

She didn't answer, boarding the helicopter herself.

"I asked a question," Cloak said, preventing the helicopter from leaving. He was controlling the metal within it. "I would rather like an answer."

"You want answers?" she said annoyed. Then she shoot a tranquilizer dart at Cloak, which missed but distracted him enough to release his control over the helicopter just enough for them to make their get away, as she said, "Too bad!"

"Gateburst!" Cloak cursed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 17, 2017, 06:44:47 AM

Isn't Cadmus the name of a Roman god?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2017, 06:51:51 AM

Somewhere in there. But this Cadmus got its inspiration . . . elsewhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cadmus).

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
I'm Looking Out For Me

Odie was furiously packing the things from his thread, all the while grumbling to himself. "Who comes up with all thegood ideas? ME. Who does all the work? ME!"

He hefted his bags, and walked out the door, not bothering to shut it in the least. He stormed to the edit, still feeling hard-done-by simply because everyone didn't immediately capitulate to what he said, what he wanted. He sang to himself:

"That's it!
I've had it!
I hate to be dramatic,
But it's time for me to fly the coop
Terrific! Fine!
I'm drawin' the line
Before I wind up in the soup!
I was a fool to let them run the show.
I'm cuttin' ya loose, pals!
Look out below!
Arrividerci!
C'est la vie!
Hope all goes well!
I'm lookin' out for me!"

As he left the forum, with no intention on ever returning or ever speaking to any RAFian again, there was a sound like shattering glass. His Mark had been broken, never to return. He felt nothing about this, still feeling much aggrieved.

"Okay! I'm little,
Been playin' second fiddle,
And I don't get no respect.
I turn the other cheek,
But this busted beak
Is the only thanks that I get!
I never found a RAFian that I can trust.
They promise caviar,
And leave me eatin' dust!
That's some reward for loyalty
From here on in,
I'm lookin' out for me!
Oh, I don't need nobody else!
I'll never fail.
I'll cover my own tail!
I can take care of myself!
You know, it just don't pay
To give a hoot.
I'm givin' all my heart.
What do I get?
The boot!
I'm through with that,
I'm flyin' free
From here on in,
I'm lookin' out for me!"

So, where did he go? His mother's place. Yes, he went home to mommy after the RAFians were so "mean" to him. He was no longer a RAFian now, but full of hatred and vehemence towards them.

***

"Load him back into Room 144 B," the woman was saying when the helicopter landed in the Cadmus facility. "Perhaps we can get more use out of Mr. Saunders there."

This was Irma Waller, the director of Cadmus. To the outside world, they were unknown, as their experiments with genetics and technologies would be considered everything from unconstitutional to just plain inhumane. They skirted around that question of morality by saying that it was for the "greater good".

In reality, Cadmus was little more than a criminal cartel staffed by power brokers, politicians, criminals, and black-ops mercenaries. They claim they were also their to provide oversight towards alien and superhumans. They had made terse alliances with Knights before, but even the Knights didn't know of Cadmus. And they wanted to keep it that way.

They tended to have their fingers in all things, from alien and domestic technology advancements, to gentic advancements, to arms dealing, etc.

They were also one reason that the blackmarket continued to flourish, especially considering that they, themselves, also benefited from the black market. Cadmus agents were bound to secrecy, so there may be several numbers of them, unknown to anyone. Unlike the Knights, Cadmus agents do not brand themselves with Cadmus emblem, so outside their uniforms, no one will know.

They were essentially the Illuminati, but didn't like the name "Illuminati", apparently.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DxgHLsF2hio

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2017, 03:51:35 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity. And with this chapter, this Book is done.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
Spin Me Right Round

Dino was dispatched to investigate a disturbance. She thought that she was an odd choice, as it was some abandoned stadium of some sort. She found some suspiciously growing plants there as well, but wasn't in the mood to investigate that. It wasn't her jurisdiction, that.

So she lumbered onward, in her compact form, stopping every so often to grow back to her full size, when there was sufficient room. It didn't take long to see why the stadium was abandoned, as she saw the creature. It was definitely one of Demos's fiends.

The creature was about the size of a human ten-year-old, with white sclera and blue pupils, and bags right beneath these eyes. It had a blue, top-shape head, which stood upon a body with a thin frame. Its entire body was blue beside from its white upper arms, white abdomen, and black knees. It also had wheeled feet. And it did not seem very bright.

Dino was already at her considerable full height when she came across this creature, who locked eyes with her and began to wheezily cackle insanely, like some crazy, old coot. It launched three top-like projectiles from its head, which Dino easily smacked away with her clubbed tail.

She wasn't really all that impressed with this creature, but she did find it rather annoying with those wheezy cackles. It had superior mobility than her, and one would think that it would use it. But no. No, it spun at moderate velocity and tried to crash into Dino. Only to be strongly thwacked away by her tail or head.

It just repeatedly did this chain of attacks. Three top projectiles, then a spinning charge, almost as if it was using Gyro Ball. Again, and again, and again it did this, despite Dino deflecting it each time, with her tail mostly.

She was starting to bore of this, and managed to get this creature beneath her left foot. She bore all her weight on top of it, killing it. Even when it was dying it was cackling in that wheezy, insane way.

"Of all the years I've been a RAFian," Dino said, as she left, "this was, bar none, the strangest and most annoying opponent I ever had."

***

Demos called it a "tappusapien", and claimed he designed it to help on other planets. Naturally, no one believed him.

***

"Well, that was top," Malice said, chuckling at her own lame pun. Really, it was a pun that only Gavin Free would make.*

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2017, 08:58:56 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXLIV:
DOWN TO EARTH
CHAPTER ONE:
A Shadowed Man

Cerulean found himself dispatched to investigate some underground facility -- supposedly abandoned -- where the ceiling and some of the walls were covered in pipes of varying sizes. Who knew what they were for? Cerulean paid them no mind in a clear and concerted effort not to get distracted. That's the problem with speedsters, though, if something doesn't hold their attention, it is very difficult to pay attention to it. Cerulean, through his RAFian training, has learned to overcome this, but it does happen from time to time.

Cerulean couldn't help but notice that this facility was strange. It was almost like it was designed and developed by an eighties level designer for an eight-bit game. Or maybe sixteen-bit, whatever.

What annoyed him was that he wasn't exactly able to just speedrun the place to get to whatever fiend of Demos's he was up against this time. He had to wait impatiently at some junctures to open up for him.

In the end, he didn't find the fiend. The fiend found him.

Fortunately, Cerulean sensed the shuriken in more than enough time, and easily dodged it. He couldn't make out the creature, which lurked in the shadows. It was hiding, but Cerulean wasn't stupid enough to believe that it was running scared. It must not have had much in terms of armor and brute force, otherwise it would have risked a direct confrontation. But it was depending on speed, it was sorely mistaken if it believed that it could outdo Cerulean in that area.

It seemed to be clever and methodical, but clearly unaware of Cerulean's power set. Cerulean recognized this, and was secretly glad that he wasn't so hasty in getting here.

There! Four shurikens!

Cerulean spun around rapidly, causing the wind to take the shurikens and return them to its thrower, which knocked him out of the shadows. This allowed Cerulean to get a good look at it.

The creature was about the size and proportions of a human prepubescent child with human-like eyes that had yellow sclera and light brown irises. It was basically a ninja of yellows and whites, with a hira shuriken upon its brow. Apt, as that shurriken, only five times the size, was its weapon of choice. It's clothing, however, was a part of its skin.

Immediately, upon realizing that it was exposed, it tried to throw a smoke bomb, to disappear back into the safety of the shadows. Tried to throw. The minute that it was on the downward swing of the throw, it realized its hand was empty.

"Uh, yeah," Cerulean said, tossing the tiny, black spheres up. "Can't let you do that."

It then went for its sword, but it wasn't there either.

"Yeah," Cerulean said, "kinda confiscated that, too."

Then it leaped in to fight Cerulean with ninjitsu, but it was like fighting air. It was utterly futile, and Cerulean had to kill it because it wouldn't let up. It kept attacking relentlessly, as if it knew nothing else. Cerulean delivered a hundred body blows for each one it threw.

Cerulean took no satisfaction in killing this creature, no matter that it was one of Demos's fiends.

***

Demos called it an "umbrasapien". He didn't give a reason for making a ninja other than he thought it would be cool.

***

"From the shadow of greater fiends, I suppose," Malice said, sounding not quite satisfied.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2017, 10:01:54 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Just Forget About Love

"Oh, c'mon, Princess," came an obnoxious voice from outside Helen's door. It was Odie, despite no longer bearing the Mark of a RAFian, but this one seemed to retain his. "Don't waste your tears on him."

"You!" she snarled. Despite hiding it from the others, she had been crying over her breakup with Parker. She still felt hurt by his perceived betrayal, and now her ring was fundamentally dead. "Get out of here!"

"Hey, don't take out on me! He's the creep!" Odie was saying, despite the fact that he should have been sleeping on his mother's couch at this very moment. "He never should have believed that you didn't believe in him."

Helen paused. How was it she never really paused to consider that. Did he really believe that she hadn't any faith in him. Granted, what he did with the Bugs was still stupid and reckless. Had Cloak not been there . . .

But was it really because he thought she thought he was incapable as a fighter, as a warrior? No, that couldn't be it. He was just making excuses. He was just making excuses, right?

"He really thinks that?" Helen said, actually opening up the door to let the vile little Wrackspurt in.

"Yeah," Odie said, "that's why he ran off half-****ed against the Bugs."

"But he didn't have to lie to me," Helen said, grasping at straws.

"You are so right," Odie said, before beginning to sing obnoxiously, like Gilbert Gottfried.

"Forget about that guy.
Forget about the way you fell into his eyes.
Forget about his charms.
Forget about the way he held you in his arms.
Walking on air's obnoxious.
The thrills, the chills, will make you nauseous.
And you'll never get enough.
Just forget about love."

Helen tried halfheartedly to shoo Odie away, and he gestured for someone outside to "make with the magic." But Helen didn't hear this.

"Forget about romance.
Forget about the way your heart begins to dance.
Then you feel the blush
When he's spouting out some sentimental mush.
Love really is revolting.
It's even worse than when you're bolting.
Enough of this fluff!
Just forget about love."

Odie had cleverly conned her into looking at a miserable-looking Parker, at the edge of the lake, helmet strewn a ways away from him. His armor looked . . . it actually looked poorly maintained. He was really sorry, Helen saw. It was as if she realized that she wasn't the only one hurting.

Her ring gave a violet spark as she sang:

"I had almost forgotten the way it felt when he held out his hand for mine.
My heart all a flutter."

Odie commented:

"Oh, how I shudder."

"The first time we kissed --"

"It won't be missed.
Forget about his touch."

"I can't forget about his touch."

"In the scheme of things, it doesn't matter much."

"It matters so much!"

"You're better on your own.
A meal becomes a banquet when you eat alone."

Both sang:

"Love's filled with compromises."

Odie sang:

"And don't you hate those surprises?"

Instead of answering, Helen sang:

"A cozy rendezvous."

"Oh, please!"

"Candlelight for two."

"Oh, geez!"

"Look you're calling my bluff.
I can't just forget about love!"

Suddenly, her ring came back to life and allowed her to resume her Star Sapphire uniform. Then she made a beeline for Parker, who tried to apologize profusely before she stopped him, and sang:

"I can't forget about my heart."

Parker sang along:

"I can't forget about my heart."

"And how it felt to fall for you right from the start."

"I'm still falling!"

"Whatever we may do."

"Whatever we may do."

"You are here for me.
And I'll be there for you."

"I'll be there --"

Then both sang:

"To wish, to want, to wander.
To find the sun through rain and thunder."

Then Parker sang:

"A simple rendezvous?"

"Yes, please!"

"Candlelight for two?"

Then Underseen shapeshifted out of Odie's form back to the one known as his base form, as he sang:

"Oh, geez! Look, enough is enough."

Then both Parker and Helen sang:

"We can't forget about love."

As the song ended, so did any hostilities between Parker and Helen. No one asked why Underseen had shapeshifted into Odie, or, indeed where he had gone. They were enjoying the unusual peace and calm that would be stolen from them at a moment's notice.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WMrbT4Ycv1A

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: redtailedsaffa on February 18, 2017, 05:04:08 AM

Underseen, wingman of the year.

Oooh, new shadowy villainous organisation.

Will put the PDF up in a bit!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2017, 07:18:40 AM

Okay. Anyway, I went ahead and told Xeno about the emblems for Cadmus and the Knights (in case they were involved in his tie-in fic), and he went and whipped up this for Cadmus:

(https://i.gyazo.com/dc2c08aaccb7599f8fc2187f5409b9c1.png)

Oh, and new chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Gravity of the Situation

A deranged man named Galilean Caliga Domable, G.C. for short, was a former scientist that specialized in the study of gravitational forces. When he felt that his research didn't give him the rewards that he thought that they ought, he was outraged. He turned his back on the rest of the scientific community, and continued to work on his theories, which mostly consisted of manipulating Earth's gravity.

When the scientific community caught wind of this so long ago, they stripped him of all his scientific credentials and disbarred him from the community. From then on, he was regulated as a loon. A dangerous loon, but a loon nonetheless.

G.C. didn't take this kindly. He formed a deep loathing and enmity for the scientific community at large. In his mind, history (specifically, scientific history) wasn't made by idly sitting on the sidelines and playing it safe. No, history was made by taking changes, by making mistakes, by getting messy. No, breakthroughs were made by the bold, the intrepid, not by the naggling peons who spouted absurdies like safety and caution. He was a scientific explorer, a scientific adventurer! Let those stupid academics play with their safe, little experiments. They would do nothing that history would remember.

He, however, had higher aspirations, higher ambitions. He would be known, and loved, just like other scientific leaders of history. Newton, Einstein, Currie, his namesake Galileo, and every other famous scientist. He would join their ranks of memorial godhood, while these stupid little philistines would be far too content to make their simple little devices. Devices that won't push the envelope of mankind's scientific prowess. If they were to follow their example, human technology would always be subpar in comparison to species like Andalites and the Galvan. He would change that. It was his destiny to do so, his fate.

But he needed resources now that the scientific community had excommunicated and exiled him. He was at a lost at first, then he met a woman called Irma Waller. . . .

Anyway, his device was nearing completion, and it was his absolute baby. He called it his gravitational alternator, the g-alternator for short. It was basically a box with rounded corners, with an antenna that looked like some sort of hideous cross between television rabbit ears, a fishing net, and a satellite dish. It had a rather basic interface module, and was surprisingly heavier than it looked.

G.C. designed it so that it would be able to manipulate Earth's gravitational pull. He had planned to use something like this for space travel, as a means to produce artificial gravity. Granted, at this point in its development, it can't produce gravity, just manipulate preexisting gravitational forces. But G.C. wasn't discouraged, not in the least. In science, everything has steps to follow. And this was just one of those steps that had to be completed before he could move on to the next. Sure, it was a slow and sometimes tedious process, but G.C. loved every minute of it.

But then Cadmus decided to let him go.

They were really no better than anyone else. They were just as deceptive and manipulative as everyone else. He didn't know what he allowed himself the weakness of trusting anyone other than himself. They didn't know just how valuable he was to them. They just didn't know . . . no. No, they just wanted to use his g-alternator without his interference, without his approval!

Well, that just wouldn't do, now would it?

He stole it and took it with him, before Cadmus was any the wiser. In reality, Cadmus saw the experiments as failures and didn't want the device at all. The way they saw it, he was just helping them clean up the clutter in what used to be his lab/office combo room.

They saw him as little threat and treated him as such.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2017, 07:33:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Footlocker

G.C. took his device and a power source of an indeterminate nature to a subterranean cave. He placed it, and wore specially designed PPE (that's to say, personal protective equipment) as he activated the device. He activated one mode of hypergravity, in the hopes of bringing the city and nearby areas to their knees.

It didn't work precisely like that, however. But he was blissfully unaware, and, in any case, he didn't really care about things like failure in the long run, as long as he got credit he felt he was due. Mistakes often happened in the pursuit of science, and mistakes were to be learned from -- although it was a pity that he never learned from his social mistakes.

His tremendous ego was really a liability to him. It was one thing to feel hard-done-by, quite another to kick it up to supervillainous levels. But he had started feeling that everyone was out to get him, that no one was innocent, that they just haven't had the chance to mock him and his theorems.

Well, they mocked Galileo as well for suggesting heliocentrism instead of espousing terracentrism. They mocked people who claimed the world was round instead of flat. They mocked Charles Darwin for his theory of evolution, despite the fact that a scientific theory is different -- markedly different -- from a layman's theory. Yet, all of them persevered, and he, G. C. Domable, must do the same.

He made sure that his device was calibrated right, and that his PPE was properly worn -- the PPE was designed to protect him from any adverse gravitational effects. Very useful to NASA and the like if they saw him as any sort of credible person. Hr never approached them, but he was preemptively sure that they, as with the rest of the scientific community, would have mocked him and his inventions and his machinations. He had come to the conclusion that they didn't deserve his ingenius findings. They would be his discoveries, and his alone.

No one would take them from him again.

***

What? Why can't I move my feet? GH thought in a panic. He only had five minutes left in his shift! Five minutes! Five little minutes! Three hundred ticks of the second hand!!

Of course, that wasn't the worst of it.

The customers were able to get up, as their chairs were firmly glued to the ground along with their feet. And, naturally, they start to complain royally about it. One even decided to cast blame on GH for this, claiming that the restaurant in which he worked was trying to keep them there to eat their, quote, "crappy food".

Five minutes. This couldn't happen five minutes later?

GH was at the absolute limit of his patience. It took him all his self-control to tell this haughty, snobbish woman to step off and use her damn brain for once, as his feet were glued to the floor as well. He couldn't lift them, no matter how hard he tried. It was as if someone increased gravity a foot from the ground. He could barely even wiggly his big toe, though the rest of him worked just fine.

It was good thing that he didn't need to use the bathroom . . .

***

Down at the forum, the rest of the RAFians were similarly affected. At least, the landlocked ones were. The flight capable ones, like Xeno, Spectre, and Falc0, were not afflicted at all by this strange phenomena.

While Cloak was a landlocked RAFian, he was able to manage just fine. He would later come to describe the sensation of walking through this like wading through a foot-tall kiddie pool that enveloped the ground floors on every part of the forum. No one dared to go to the underground Archives.

When Parker demanded how he could move, despite touching the ground, Cloak explained that it was his Realm Walker physiology. Rather like Gems, whether Homeworld or Crystal, his species adapts to whatever gravity is present. It takes a small adjustment period, which is characterized by a brief feeling of discomfort and disorientation, but then he is able to walk about as if nothing is wrong.

To this, Parker grumbled, "I should have gotten anti-grav boots."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2017, 06:02:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
What Do We Do?

This hypergravity effect was negated after a few quick adjustments were made to Cod Avalon, thanks to Xeno ad Yarin's quick thinking, though it was advised not to go underground, just in case it failed.

"What about the RAFians that are off-site?" Hunter asked.

"We have to put into place a plan of action," Cloak said. "We have no way of freeing the RAFians who are still afflicted with this footlocker hypergravity thing. We were just fortunate enough the ingenuity and skill of Xeno and Yarin enabled us to suppress whatever this effect was."

"You didn't have any trouble," Hunter said. It almost sounded accusatory.

"As a Realm Walker, my body automatically adjusts to a places gravity and adapts to it," Cloak said reasonably. "The Gems of that planet -- I don't remember its name, or if it even had one -- are much the same. Transylians and Ectonurites, for example, can live in the vacuum of space, where there is no gravity. There's probably other species with similar resiliences."

Hunter wore a mulish expression. Cloak was aware that GH was about an hour late from his shift, and Hunter was just concerned, but he was reluctant to show it in front of Leatherhead, who he was babysitting. At least, that's the way the Realm Walker interpreted it.

"Come, we need to go to the meeting."

"No." Leatherhead said, stubbornly.

"Leatherhead, c'mon, this is important --" Hunter tried to coax the cranky crocodilian.

"No! It's boring!" Leatherhead said, being fussy.

"I guess that he's not a big boy then," Cloak said, deciding to use a trick he once used on Shadow when he babysat her. That seemed like a very long time ago.

"Yes, I am!" Leatherhead said, changing tact immediately, as a child tends to do.

"Are you?" Cloak said.

"Yeah!"

"Then you should go to the meeting, despite it being boring, and prove that you are a big boy," Cloak said. If Leatherhead was going to be a RAFian, he would have to get used to these meetings, these briefings. It occurred to Cloak just then that GH may not approve of this. Leatherhead was still just six, and his scope for understanding the magnitude of such things were limited.

But after a thoughtful for a few minutes, before acquiescing to these terms.

***

Leatherhead proved to be very wiggly in the auditorium. Six-year-olds and short attention spans, what're you gonna do?

"The question is what we can even do about it," Saffa pointed out.

"There's nothing we CAN do, until we find the source," Phoenix pointed out.

"Which we have no idea what it is," Gaz put in, "and until we do, there is little we can do about it."

"It's obvious that this foot-tall hypergravity is not a natural phenomena," Cloak added. "There is some artificial means that is either directly generating it, or else manipulating Earth's gravity."

"But that could be, quite literally, anything," Xeno said. "A device of any shape, size, and scope. Although, it would more than likely take a lot of power to achieve this."

Yarin snapped his fingers on his upper right hand. "Which means we can scan for a surge in power. Unless the machine or whatever's causing this is in the Earth's mantle, we should be able to locate it. I just don't know how long it will take. If it's close by, as in within the city limits, it should be quick."

"Get on it," Richard said. "When it's located, Cloak, Gaz, Saffa, Phoenix, Abby, and Xeno go and find it and destroy it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2017, 05:27:06 AM

Sorry that I didn't post a chapter yesterday. I got called into work unexpectedly.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Heavy . . .

But the six encountered a problem when they left the safe confines of Code Avalon. One doubled over, as in pain, and the others collapsed to the ground. The energy discs they were travelling on shattered at once.

It was crystal clear what happened. The surface gravity of the area had increased to the point that it mimicked the surface gravity of Jupiter. Meaning the other RAFians weighed roughly five hundred or so pounds now, and, despite claims to the contrary, their muscles weren't strong enough for that.  Cloak's Realm Walker physiology as being essentially just an energy being with mass is what allowed him to avoid this suffering. He soon stood upright, and immediately took a look at his friends.

"That . . . is so not fair," Abby gasped. Even her lungs were heavier now.

Cloak quickly recognized the problem. If he allows them to stay here like this, they could very well die. Terran bodies were not biologically designed for this kind of gravity, and it could have foreseeable and unforeseeable complications. He had to get them back into the safety of Code Avalon.

Perhaps worse if the device decides to kick it into a higher gear and make the gravity like that of the star, Sol, which Earth orbits. If that happened -- it'd probably be instant death to everyone. So, Cloak returned the five others to the forum.

"I'll have to go it alone from here," Cloak said, as Helen and Kelly came running up.

"I'll go with you," Helen volunteered.

"No, Helen." Cloak said. "If your ring fails you, you'll be at such a risk for dying yourself, even if you've charged it to full. That amount of stress on it is libel to cause it to run out quicker, or just out-and-out break. I have to do this alone."

"What about the people in the city?" Kelly asked, promptly.

To this, Cloak hadn't a real answer, and Kelly could see this. Cloak said, "I'll just have to find that machine quickly. It shouldn't be too hard -- I just have to follow the energy emitted from the device -- granted, I can't see or hear it, but I can sense it. Besides, I only need to look in the area Yarin's scans showed were the likely locations. Now, I must go."

After he left, Kelly sighed, "Why must you do everything alone?"

***

GH felt his cheek touching the bare floor. He hadn't remembered hitting the floor. It felt as if some idiot decided to park a Buick on every inch of his body and his insides. He would have groaned, but even that seemed to hard.

Even his hair felt like it weighed as much as a sack of potatoes. He couldn't so much as sit up. He didn't have the strength, as odd as it may sound. His body was so exhausted that he would need a nap to get to exhausted. His mind was utterly perplexed and confused. He didn't even know what time it was nor how he could possibly move.

And yet, his heart yearned. He yearned to be with Hunter, yearned to be with his son Leatherhead, yearned to be able to move a micrometer. But then a sense of futility washed over him. It was pointless to try -- he would never see them again. He would be trapped on this floor forever. Even breathing seemed to be work now. He wondered how many beats his heart had before it would give out and give up. He wondered how his brain could still keep up with this added weight on him. He didn't question what happened.

It was just a matter of time before his body buckled under this new weight and -- wait. What was this? Something was changing. He was . . . was . . .

Flying?

***

G.C. was watching his device approvingly. It was in the Jovian gravity stage. If this wouldn't make those philistines sit up and take notice of his obvious genius, then they were all a lost cause. He would get the recognition that he felt that he was so richly owed.

He had forced them to their knees. They should beg him. Beg him for forgiveness for their stupid quibbling about "ethics" and "safety procedures". This was science! And science should be unrestrained and unfettered by such petty little things. Only the bold will dare to go where no other has, and he had done that.

And what does he receive in return? Scorn. Disdain. Detestation. Abhorrence.

Those foolish philistines would see his actions, his experimentations as contemning and contemptable, but he would show them. He would show them all. He had successfully achieved Jovian gravity in the, admittingly, limited range of his device. He ignored the potential property damage with the sole excuse that this was for science.

Yeah, that excuse wouldn't hold up in court.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on February 22, 2017, 05:39:07 AM

Ah, that must be the owl half of me finally coming out ;)

Also that's probably gonna be a joke in the next Mad Guitar Player for the record

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2017, 09:00:09 AM

Actually something that would make more sense in the next chapter or two.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Backfired

G.C. elated and reveled in his success. He had brought everyone in this town to their knees! They would all know of his genius, they would all regret crossing him. They would genuflect kisses and lick his boots and --

Then something occurred to him. Jovian surface gravity is a little more than twice Earth's surface gravity. People were not adapted for such things, having evolved with Terran gravity. This sudden increase in weight could potentially lead to a death.

G.C. was many things -- arrogant, conceited, reckless, self-important, naive, bumbling -- but a cold-blooded murderer was not one of them. He didn't really give much mind to the potential property damage though, he considered that unimportant. He went to his machine, his gravity alteration device, and was about to tinker with it -- thinking perhaps Saturnian surface gravity would be better, or perhaps Uranian surface gravity would be less deadly. Perhaps Neptunian surface gravity would be better, less fatal.

But as he bent down to work on it, he had to shield his protected face as there was a slight explosion, like the backfiring of a car. A sudden stream of smoke and fire issued from the uppermost left corner of the device before dissipating.

"I must have overloaded the graviton flow," he muttered what appeared to be scientific gibberish. "Or maybe underloaded? No, no, it's been overloaded. The polarity seems to have been -- oh!"

He realized that he was floating. No, he wasn't floating. Just falling very slowly. He glance down at the machine. It wasn't augmenting Earth's gravity, it was suppressing it. Suppressing it to the level of lunar surface gravity, which disgruntled G.C. He tapped his boots allowing him to stand on the ground, unaffected by the anti-gravity.

"Agh," he bemoaned, "I knew installing that interplanetary randomizer feature was going to come back and haunt me."

He went back to examining the damage to his machine was delighted to discover that the damage was just purely cosmetic. But he felt a sense of paranoia. He deemed this place wasn't safe enough -- he didn't want to be discovered, not just yet. So it was time to find and move into another base of operations.

***

Cloak wished that Yarin's scanner could have narrowed down the area that he had to search. This was still a considerable about of terrain to sift through, and it may not even be hear anymore, especially if he's like Malice, shifting his base of operations every few days or weeks.

Cloak gave his surroundings a look and he didn't like what he saw. Trees bent over horribly, to the point of snapping. Some had. The grass, long and short alike, looked very bedraggled and trampled. Buildings were creaking ominously and threateningly, straining to support the unexpected weight gain. Glass was shattering, unable to take the unexpected gain of weight. Cars were forced flat to the ground, forcing some tires to even pop, becoming flat and useless.

Cloak couldn't help but liken it to a desolate, dystopian world. Bodies were littered literally everywhere.  Were they dead? Cloak was afraid of using his Earthsight to verify. It still disturbed him that when Dwellers die, they leave corpses behind. Realm Walkers did nothing of the sort, so it was very alien to him, still, despite being a RAFian for so long.

Then he felt a swooping feeling, making him double over. Not in pain exactly, but more like . . . adjusting. . . .

Of course. The gravity must of changed again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 24, 2017, 03:11:57 PM

New chapter. And . . . sorry, GH.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Boots and Legging It

"D'you think this will even work?" Aquilai asked, dubious about the endeavors of he, Goom, Yarin, and Xeno.

"It will work," Xeno said, with strained optimism, "it will work because it has to."

"Granted, we won't be able to mass produce them on a grand scale, considering how many different species RAF currently hosts."

"Which is why we're going with human widths and such," Yarin put in. "Humans are the most numerous species we have in RAF, and a variety of other species have similar enough plantigrade feet to be accommodated as well."

"Yeah," Xeno said, with a heavy sigh and a ruffle of his wings. "Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate the other RAFians like Noelle and Dino at this time. Time is, j fortunately, one luxury we cannot afford right now."

The boots they were talking about were a set of two, and a pair of "clip-on" attachments made specifically for Parker's armor. The four were well aware that his boots could be magnetized -- but that was hardly useful on dirt and other nonmetallic surfaces. The design was rather like those boots on Mega Man. Not particularly fashionable, but functional for their purpose. They were in red and blue.

"Ugh, this is taking too long," Aquilai said. Considering that he was a Time Lord and capable of traversing through time at will with his TARDIS, this could be considered an odd thing for him to say. "At this rate, the entire world will be gravitationally compressed into a miserable lump of coal."

"Patience is a virtue," Yarin said, simply.

"Not now, it's not," Aquilai fired back, agitated and stressed.

"Being hasty will lead to more unforeseen complications," Xeno pointed out. "Best to curb them as much as we can without making sloppy mistakes."

***

As GH's faculties returned to him, he realized that he wasn't flying at all. He had just pushed himself from the ground with surprising strength to find himself temporarily floating in the air before landing upon his feet.

What was going on here?

First, super gravity that glued him to the floor, now reduced gravity? Would whoever was doing this make up their friggin' mind? He wanted regular gravity and nothing more than that.

Yes, he was a bit cranky. This was a horrible shift, and he thought that this place could go and burn in hell for all he cared. In fact, the word "horrible" didn't begin to describe it.

First, a coworker that he didn't particularly like --  a new girl who like to spout homophobic garbage tried to make him go into the Armadillo Anderson suit (it was well known by now that he hated that suit, and even more vehemently so since his . . . episodes), snarled some homophobic slurs (despite not knowing what GH's preference were -- he hadn't said two word to her), and had abruptly decided to call it quits two, two and a half hours into the shift.* His manager had promised that she would be terminated on the spot, but the damage was dealt.

And this was on top of rude customers, whiny and misbehaved children, and absolutely belligerent customers. It was almost as if the day was horrible by design. So, naturally, the minute that he could move of his own accord again, he immediately clocked out, and left.

He immediately headed off to RAF, bounding as if he was walking on the moon . . .

---

* Disclaimer: I don't know if GH really works with someone like this, but I've had my fair share of coworkers from hell, and I doubt he hasn't had his share.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 24, 2017, 10:07:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The RAFian on a Mission

Cloak stalked to the entrance of a cave. It was the one that looked like the maw of a massive, dormant creature, lying as if it were a crocodile sunning itself on a riverbank. And in the back of his mind, a song played insistently, like annoying little brother on a car trip who knows it bothers you. Then again, if he was honest, it was him singing it mentally, though he'd never admit to it -- especially on a mission as important as this:

There is something wicked out there.
I can feel it in the air.
It whispers, "Come and find me if you dare."

He entered the cave, with only a slight flourish of his cloak being the only indication of his departure.

I can sense disaster lurking.
Must revert everything to be as it should.
This gravity device must be stopped for good.

Cloak used a combination of his feline eyes, to penetrate the gloom and darkness of the cave, and his Earthsight, which offered him a larger periphery.

I'm a RAFian on a mission.
I'll keeping on searchin'.
RAFian on a mission,
Whether by day or moonlight.
RAFian on a mission,
I'll keep on workin'.
RAFian on a mission,
Makin' it safe out at night.

Cloak checked the scans again, using his energy to create enough light to read it. He double and triple checked it before moving on.

I feel the moon rising.
I can hear the howls at night.
But you remain out of my Earthsight.

Cloak continued to trek into the cave, relying more and more on his Earthsight, as he couldn't see through rock with his eyes.

I know I'm getting closer.
I don't know what's in store,
But clues are leading to your door.

He was getting closer, he knew it.

I'm a RAFian on a mission.
I'll keeping on searchin'.
RAFian on a mission,
Whether by day or moonlight.
RAFian on a mission.
I'll keep on workin'.
RAFian on a mission
Makin' it safe out at night.

Closer and closer still.

I'm a RAFian on a mission.
I'll keeping on searchin'.
RAFian on a mission,
Whether by day or moonlight.
RAFian on a mission.
I'll keep on workin'.
RAFian on a mission,
Makin' it safe out at night.

Burst it all through the Veil*! He must have just missed him.

He couldn't hear labored breath or Earthsight footsteps (he would have noticed that immediately). But whoever hear couldn't have left too long ago. There wasn't any place to leave footprints on this cold, smooth cavern floor, but his scent was here. It still permeated the area, and Cloak had taken a good whiff of it.

Whoever it was must have been or recently gone destitute, as the scent was powerful, even to his feline nose. And Cloak thought he detected a note of fear in the scent, but he couldn't be too sure about it. But he knew immediately that this pungent odor here was good for him -- it would make tracking this guy, whoever he was -- far easier.

He wouldn't need Yarin's scans, but he kept it. He did so just in case this scent was nothing but an innocent vagrant or something similar. You can never be too careful.

And, with that, Cloak began to follow this malodorous odor.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0DF60AR0Cig

*Realm Walker for "Damn it all to hell".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2017, 07:27:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
City in Chaos

The city nearby the forum was fortunate that the only damage was really cosmetic. Only the Couch Tower saw any real, considerable damage, but no one (except the rich douches known as the Couches, which included Donald and his equally prickish father, Jeff, and mother, Betsy) really cared about it. The Couches were a business family where fraud and underhanded (if not straight up criminal) tactics was their business model.

For the most part, most of the populace, if not all, didn't know that it was due to a gravikinetic species called Galileans*, from Keplorr, a planet that they orbit. Galileans are bulky, lithodermic aliens. They are reddish-brown in color and have a red and orange core on the center of their chest, and have four reddish-brown fingers and three grey toes. They have black markings on their face, as well as a big mouth filled with rocky teeth. They also retract their limbs and assume a rocky sphere form, like a planetoid with a face.

There were, at most, three Galileans in the city, using disguises to appear human. Even then, they couldn't mitigate the damage alone, though they managed to prevent any undue casualties. They were good Samaritans, doing this for no other reason than it was quite simply the right thing to do.

It was fortunate that no one saw them (or if they did, it would simply look like one of those blurry, uncredible UFO pictures that UFO conspiracy theorists are always banging on about). For had the Knights saw them, they would use their clout and their hidden members in positions of power to denounce them despite the Galileans' good intentions.

That's the thing with bigotry. It doesn't matter how much a victim's party, or the victim themselves, contributes to society and everything, that will all be thrown out the window in the mind of a hopeless bigot. Bigotry feeds off of hatred and misunderstanding. Bigotry itself is rather ugly parasite, feasting on prejudices and misconceptions, devouring hatred and anger. Bigotry is not strength, but shameful weakness.

Still, despite being saved from death's cold clutches, the people of the city were confused, and many were panicked. It was a bad situation, made worse by the fact that gravity went from hypergravity to seemingly vanishing slowly. Such a catastrophe was bound to instigate such a panic, such a riot.

The mayor was scrambling for a way to explain this satisfactorily to the city's populace. It didn't really help that this mayor wasn't really all that popular, and prone to scandals and conspiracy theories. Considering all the things that happened over the course of the last year and a half, he should have been better prepared to deal with extraordinary circumstances like this.

But he wasn't.

When he ran, he had completely underestimated that this kind of thing happened with fair regularity in the city. Well, granted, it's usually not as severe as a partial reversal of gravity, or hypergravity, but the point still remains. He had to declare a state of emergency until this reduce gravity phenomena was reduced.

His only thought was that there went his chance at reelection.

His flustered appearance and out-of-breath voice did nothing to reassure the denizens of the city, and mass panic reigned supreme. Although the city's youngest denizens, oblivious to the possible impacts of the reduced gravity, were having fun literally bouncing off the walls to their harried parents' chagrin. It was a hard time to live in the city -- but the rent was still dirt cheap. And this, of course, was why. The citizens paid for it in other ways, ways such as this.

---

* (http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/8/8e/Gravattack_full.png/revision/latest?cb=20141207202404)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2017, 06:13:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
In Overdrive

Yes. Yes, this place should be safe. It's like a cozy basement. Sure, it was bare, but decorations and furnishings were just luxuries that could be discarded at a moment's notice for more important things to prioritize.

He set his device down, and began cleaning it up, treating it as if it was a messy child. He even cooed at it, before stopping, realizing how insane doing that was. There. Good as new.

Boom!

No! G.C. turned back to his machine, and saw that now it was stuck on the setting for Plutonian surface gravity. A two hundred pound man now weighed a little more than thirteen pounds. G.C. tried to turn off his machine, but it was no good. It was locked into an active position. It was malfunctioning, almost as if it had a computer virus or something.

G.C. tried everything he knew to stop it. Nothing. No dice. It was just going to continue to suppress the gravity -- and there was great danger of it expanding beyond just the city and the forum. And there was nothing G.C. could do to stop it. It was going to continue to suppress Earth's gravity until there was nothing left. Until buildings, animals, trees . . . even people . . . started to float out in space.

What had he wrought?

Boom!

No! Not again! Now gravity was akin to Enceladean surface gravity! A two hundred pound man would weigh a little more than two pounds! And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it! Not one damn thing! What . . . what had he been thinking? How could he allow himself to be so consumed with anger and bitterness? How . . . how could he create this horrible machine? Why didn't he consider the ramifications of this?

He should destroy the machine! That -- that would put everything right! He knew it would. But he found that he couldn't. He put so much time and energy into creating this gravity manipulation device -- he still didn't have a good name for it -- pours so much blood, sweat and tears into it. He worked so hard . . .

But for what?

Boom!

Not again . . . he examined the machine again and discovered that it was now suppressing Earth's gravity to Phobian surface gravity. This meant that your average two hundred pound man would weigh less than a pound. And he couldn't stop it. Try as he may, he could not stop this.

He began to wallow in self-pity. He was a fool. He should have seen this coming. He should have been smarter. He should have been so much wiser. There was a reason why Earth's surface gravity wasn't meddled with before. It wasn't that scientist before him were incapable of designing and manufacturing something that could, they were wise enough to know that should not. They were wiser than he was.
 So much wiser.

Now he had nothing -- nothing -- but regrets. If he was remembered at all, assuming he doesn't destroy the planet itself once this antigravitational field expands, as it assuredly would eventually, he would remembered as a doddering fool. His name would become synonymous with scientific foolishness, just as Benedict Arnold's had become synonymous with betrayal.

It was over. And it wasn't just over for him, but for everyone. It was hopeless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2017, 10:04:25 PM

Tomorrow's chapter may be late or not posted at all. Gotta work late tomorrow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
These Boots Were Made For Walking . . .

"Two boot sets completed," Aquilai said. "I still have my doubts though."

"And Parker's add-ons are completed as well," Xeno noted, as if checking things off a list.

"We probably should be making more," Yarin said.

"We don't really have the materials," Goom said, taking inventory. "We knew on the onset that we wouldn't be able to outfit every RAFian with a pair of these boots. That would just be impossible."

Yarin said nothing.

"Unless you have material -- resources -- that we're not privy to?" the Goomba inquired, knowingly.

Yarin remain silent on this issue, and Goom did not press it.

"Well, we know Parker can be outfitted relatively easy -- that armor of his rather easy to build off of -- but what about the other two to wear these to help Cloak out?" Xeno said, thoughtfully.

"Can't be a morpher -- their abilities would complete contradict the use of the boots, unless they have a humanoid morph in their repertoire," Aquilai put in.

"Or a shapeshifter of any kind," Yarin amended. He seemed almost thankful that the discussion had veered away from secret resources to cobble together things, and seemed a bit too eager about the change of subject. "That would be a liability to their powers."

"And best not have anyone whose powers can be affected by hypergravity or the absence of gravity." Goom acknowledged benignly. "Or else they'll find themselves a liability to the mission."

"Shame that more species aren't like Realm Walkers," Xeno said. "It could be really beneficial right now."

"But the cold, hard fact is Cloak is the only RAFian Realm Walker," Aquilai said, "and from what he said, and from what I know, that's probably a good thing. Cloak has always described them -- at least many of them -- being lofty and holier-than-thou. And that incident a while ago, when they tried to claim sovereignty over our reality, didn't exactly give them the best PR image. And I don't know about you, but I've had enough people speaking to me as I'm dirt to last me a lifetime, let alone thirteen."

It seemed to be a gross generalization, as Xeno saw, but he didn't argue the point. Semantics. They had priorities, and those, by definition, came first.

"Fliers, obviously, are out of the question," Yarin was saying, "as with all the fluctuations in gravity going on, they would not be able to fly reliably."

"So, then," Xeno said, "who?"

This was met with a contemplative silence as the four considered the options. They were only going through the ones that were on the active duty roster -- something Cloak rarely, if ever, left. But he was already on the mission, and he had no need of the boots.

"I nominate Broken and Demos," Goom said, with a deliberative air.

"Seconded," Aquilai said, after a moment's hesitation.

"Agreed," Xeno and Yarin said, in unison.

"Then it's decided," Goom said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2017, 09:25:51 PM

Sorry that this is so late. Got called into work again earlier today.

New book ideas.

• Book MCLXIII (1,163): "Extreme Germophobia" -- A germophobe is so disgusted with germs, she decides to get ride of her own corporeal body, and all life on Earth.
• Book MCLXIV (1,164): "Pawning Off" -- Shenecron pawns off three annoying demonic fanboys onto Demos.
• Book MCLXV (1,165): "The Red Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure a red Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXVI (1,166): "The Orange Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure an orange Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXVII (1,167): "The Yellow Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure a yellow Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXVIII (1,168): "The Green Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure a green Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXIX (1,169): "The Blue Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure a blue Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXX (1,170): "The Indigo Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure an indigo Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXXI (1,171): "The Violet Crystal" -- The RAFians must procure a violet Aeon Crystal.
• Book MCLXXII (1,172): "Na-Zaron Comes" -- An ancient Aeon comes to RAF, demanding the Crystals.
• Book MCLXXIII (1,173): "Yin and Yang" -- Two lightsaber wielders come to RAF to demand the Crystals.
• Book MCLXXIV (1,174): "Army Building" -- The RAFians face a army that's being built against them.
• Book MCLXXV (1,175): "The Demented King" -- An old, forgotten foe of the RAFians returns as the Demented King.
• Book MCLXXVI (1,176): "The Rainbow Dementors" -- A red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet-colored Dementor is created by the Demented King.

Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
. . . And That's Just What They'll Do

"Remember, these are prototypes," Aquilai said. "We haven't a chance to test them as thoroughly as I would have liked, due to the utmost necessity of the crisis at hand."

"They look . . ." Parker said, before trailing off. He didn't much care for the design which made him look like a Robot Master from Mega Man from the knees down. Then again, Broken and Demos's were much the same as well. Granted, Demos's were red, his were green, and Broken's were blue.

"Function before fashion, Parker," Goom said, sagely. "These boots will cancel out any gravikinetic effects around your body. You will maintain normal Earth surface gravity as long as you were these boots."

"Why us, out of all RAFians?" Broken asked.

"Well, your magicks should be unaffected by the gravitation," Xeno reasoned.

"Well, depending on the magic, I suppose, " Broken added on, thoughtfully.

"Well, these boots do go well with my suit," Demos said, as if he wasn't concerned about the gravity of the situation. But, yes, the boots did match his silk suit of which he was so partial.

"Fashion before function," Aquilai said. Then he realized what he said, and hastened to correct himself, "I mean, function before fashion."

"Why me, though?" Demos asked, seriously.

"Your pyrokinesis isn't affected by gravity," Xeno said. "Fire, like magic, is energy. So --"

"Okay, we have wasted enough time," Parker said, a note of urgency in his voice. "Remember, Cloak is out there, looking for this thing -- alone -- and he is in desperate need of backup."

The assembled group gave him a look. Parker knew what this was about already.

"Look, this isn't hypocrisy on my part," Parker said, annoyed. If Helen could forgive him for that blunder, why is everyone else holding him to it? "I have apologized for that stupid mistake I made without thinking. Can we please just move on from it? I don't want everything I do from now on being judged by that one event all the time. I'm sorry that I didn't think it through, okay?"

"I'm well aware," Xeno said, "but don't write off Cloak just yet he knows what he's doing."

"I'm not saying he's not powerful," Parker said, after silencing Tyr with a hint of frustration. "But he'd be the first to tell you that he can't do everything himself. And -- Yarin, is there a chance that this antigravity or hypergravity thing could expand beyond just the limits of the forum and city?"

Yarin looked as if he didn't want to speak, but nodded his head. "There is roughly a thirteen percent chance, assuming if events stay on this course, and no unexpected variables are introduced, that this device will expand. And a point-nine-zero-three chance that it might even encompass the entire planet."

"And what would the likely result of that scenario be? Worst-case scenario, I mean."

"With hypergravity, depending on the power of the device, it could possibly condense the materials withing the Earth's crust. Could possibly force the crust into the Earth's mantle and core." Yarin extrapolated. "With the sheer absence of gravity? The Earth will likely fall apart."

"Sounds really dire," Broken said.

"But, I should say, this is all educated conjecture on my part," the Nyac said, feeling a need to put up that disclaimer. "I could be drastically mistaken."

"Still, if I know Cloak like I think I do," Parker said, "he'll do whatever he can to stop the world from being destroyed. Even if it means that he has to push and fight gravity or even hold the planet together -- and I don't know if even he has that kind of power. We need to help him."

Parker fell to silence fr a moment, before concluding with, "Let's go."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2017, 08:21:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Unstoppable Regret

All this . . . all this that he had wrought. And for what? Some juvenile attempt to force people to recognize his genius. He still thought of it as genius, of course, but now he came to the understanding that it was not genius with perspective, but genius inexorably paired with ambition. Blind ambition. One of the most dangerous things to have in any world.

And for what? For something that mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. For recognition. He would get recognition alright. It just wasn't the kind of recognition he wanted. Was it really worth it? Was making this godforsaken thing even worth it? He was the most foolish of fools. He saw it now.

He never gave much thought about the consequences of his actions. He never considered just how brutally reckless he had been. He had been so hellbent on vindication that he prevented himself from seeing the ramifications of this stupid device he had created.

All for nothing.

The gravity was already at Phobian levels. Phobian, as in Mars's moon Phobos. And it will decrease from there. There was no turning it off. The power source was far too hot to remove, even with his protected hands. It would have melted away the plastics of his PPE. It was completely insalvageable, completely irreversible.

He had doomed the world. He had doomed the planet. Soon the planet's gravity would dissipate into nothingness, and, soon, the planet would literally fall to pieces. And it would be all his fault. Everyone shall know that it was his fault. He would know that it was all his fault. His name would become synonymous with foolishness, a fitting fate he thought, self-deprecatingly.

If somehow this was all put right, he would willingly turn himself in. He would go to prison -- although, at this point, he felt that jail was better than what he deserved. He felt that he deserved death for a crime of this magnitude. What he had set in motion, with no real malicious intent but intentions of vengeance and vindication, was unforgivable. That's what he earnestly believed. What he did was unforgivable, and she should be punished for this misguided, stupid mistake.

He watched as the machine began to wobble and warble. The gravity had lowered to that of Deimosian surface gravity. This meant that a two hundred pound man would weigh far less than a pound. Something like six-hundredth of a pound. It was just a matter of time now before gravity ceased altogether.

And he would have caused it. Him. Galileo Caliga Domable. His reputation couldn't get more in shambles at this point -- his family had already disowned him for his reckless gravity experiments. He had just thought that they abandoned him for no real reason . . . now he lamented that he didn't see their pleas for him not to go through with this until this moment. This moment where it was too late.

He had last everything. Everything to this accursed obsession with proving his genius. This stupid obsession for proving himself smarter and wiser than everyone else, when it was clear he was the least of them. He wasn't an asset, he used to believe wholeheartedly. He was a dangerous liability. One too dangerous for even Cadmus to abide by. One so dangerous he wasn't even aware of how dangerous he was.

Then he sensed that he wasn't alone. And he sensed that this person had been standing there for a while. He found that he didn't really care. He found that he was feeling apathetic and hollow.

"So," he addressed the stranger without even looking at him, "come to kill me?"

"You sound hopeful," was his reply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2017, 11:11:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A Different Kind of Standoff

"So," he addressed the stranger without even looking at him, "come to kill me?"

"You sound hopeful," Cloak replied, tonelessly. He had found the person behind this whole mess. And, though the Realm Walker would never willingly admit to it, part of him was disappointed to see how pathetic this man looked, how morose and dejected he sounded.

"So what if I do?" he countered, indifferently.

Cloak said nothing. But G.C. didn't wait long before spewing for all the emotions he couldn't hold back.

"So you're judging me?! Fine! Go ahead!!" he raged. He still could not be bothered with looking at Cloak, though. "The Earth may very well cease to exist!! All by my hand!! By my clumsy, naive hand!! My reputation is shot. My family disowned and disavowed me. I've got nothing but this rubbish piece of waste that I -- that no one can just shut off!! The power supply cannot even be detached!! The Earth is doomed!!"

He took a ragged breath. A stilted, raspy breath. Cloak said nothing, and just allowed him to speak. Allowed him to speak and get whatever it was off his chest.

"I've lost everything," he said, and Cloak could here the cry of misery and despair in his tone. "I lost everything and have no one. And I haven't anyone to blame for it . . . other than myself. I was reckless -- idiotic and stupid. Foolish. I dismissed any safety concerns and protocol and things. I just wanted to show them that they were worrying about nothing. I thought that they were just being belligerent and purposefully interfering. I thought they worried far more than was prudent or necessary. I thought they were too 'cloak and dagger' about everything."

Cloak shifted silently at the term 'cloak and dagger', and his chosen name was Cloak and his younger sister (by two Nexusian years, twenty Dweller time) chose Dagger. But still Cloak said nothing. He could tell this man, whoever he was, was feeling repentant.

"I have nothing to live for," he said, clearly drowning a sea of despair. "I don't deserve to live."

"Death is just a way to run away from your problems," Cloak said, knowingly. He had felt these feelings this human was no doubt feeling. "It is not a way to solve them."

"How'd you know?" he snapped.

"I . . . I grew up in a dysfunctional household, with an abusive mother," Cloak said, succinctly. He decided that this man would need a frame of reference, and he was clearly not supervillain material. But he would not give him details beyond that. "I know that it feels that death would be a great escape from the burdens you feel -- but that's what it would be. An escape, with messy implications to everyone that cares about you. And nothing would be solved."

"Everyone I've known has forsaken me," he countered. "No one loves a fool."

"Do you know that for a fact? Or are you simply jumping to the worst possible conclusion, distorting what is true and what is not?" Cloak said, with surprising insight.

"No one wants me," he continued, stubbornly. "I'm worthless."

"No one's worthless," Cloak said. He was tempted to say no one's inherently worthless, but he thought that might muddle up his message.

"It doesn't matter anyway," G.C. said. "It's armageddon. It's just a matter of time before the world falls apart."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2017, 10:17:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Cracking On

Before Cloak could query about this, there was a loud crack. Cloak vaguely recognized it as the sound of Apparation. He looked around to find Demos, Broken, and Parker behind him. Parker looked fairly motion sick.

"I don't think . . . urp!" he said, apparently fighting against a nausea he was experiencing. "I don't think I like . . . like Side-Along Apparation."

Cloak sympathized. He felt similar, if not identical, whenever he travelled through time. He always found the experience uncomfortable, and always preferred to avoid it whenever possible.

But when Cloak turned back to look at the man, the instigator of all this, he saw that he didn't move. He was just sort of slumped on the ground, given in to despair. All hope had left him. All thought of salvation and redemption had left him. He was just a quivering mass wishing for death. Cloak didn't know if it was sad or pathetic, but leaned toward the former.

"So, that's the machine?" Demos asked.

"Yes," came the morose voice of G.C. He didn't care who came to see his foolhardy endeavor firsthand. They were all doomed anyway, in his opinion.

"Doesn't look that impressive."

G.C. didn't say anything, nothing even so much as indignant. He was feeling to much grief, sorrow, and self-pity to care much.

"How do we stop it?" Broken asked.

"You don't," G.C. said. It wasn't a threat or anything malevolent. It was a mere statement of a cold, hard fact that gave G.C. no pleasure whatsoever in saying. "It cannot be deactivated. The power source cannot be removed, even with protected hands. The process is unstoppable and irreversible. The total gravitational suppression is imminent any time now. Then soon, very soon, thereafter . . . all will be lost. Earth as we know it will crumble away, and every creature on the planet will die. Die a slow, painful death, I presume, including you and me. The damage will be irreparable. This will happen and struggling to stop it would prove utterly futile."

Cloak wasn't exactly fond of the bitter resigned tone and cold acceptance that G.C. had about all this. This was no time to give up. Then there was a quite audible boom and suddenly Cloak's eponymous cloak lifted up as if he were standing in space.

"The total gravitational suppression has begun," G.C. said, gloomily. "And it cannot be reversed."

"Try us," Cloak said, challengingly, before turning to the others. "I'll hold everything together with my Mastery over the Elements. You find a way to destroy that machine."

"It's impossible," G.C. said, still sounding defeated. "The machine can't be destroyed."

"Don't sell us short, mate," Demos said, inappropriately jovial. "We've done more impossible things on a Tuesday than this."

"I'm going to the surface, to see if I can hold everything together. You three destroy that machine. I trust you'll figure out how." Cloak said, before tunneling up. But he had to be careful -- he didn't want to expedite the crisis.

"This attempt is an exercise in futility," G.C. said, not even bothering to look up. He not only had already given up, he he had further given into apathy and despair. A potent, noxious ****tail of emotions to experience. "There is no hope. It is too late."

"Haven't you heard yet?" Parker said, gruffly. "It's never too late."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2017, 07:32:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
An Exercise in Futility

"There's no use. There no going back." G.C. said. His defeatism was starting really chafed the RAFian trio. The circumstances were causing them to be rather more impatient than they might have been usually. "It is useless to try. All hope for salvation is gone. You might as well gracefully accept the inevitable, like me."

"You say inevitable, I say editable," Demos said.

"That makes no sense," G.C. replied.

"Good!" Demos replied brightly, very Deadpool-esque. "It wasn't supposed to."

"In any case," Parker said, apparently recovering from his Side-Along Apparation nausea, "it is our prerogative to decide whether anything is truly futile or not. You'll excuse us if we don't take what you say on face -- what the . . . ?"

Parker was examining the case that housed the power source for the machine. It appeared to be a small, yellow sphere just slightly larger than a PokeBall. Parker thought he recognized what this was. He was in utter disbelief, until Tyr confirmed it to him.

"Are you serious? Or are you just very much insane?" Parker said. His throat and mouth were dry. "You are powering this thing . . . you're powering this thing with a dwarf star (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Dwarf_Star)?! A friggin' dwarf star?"

"How is that a star? It's too small." G.C. said, actually turning to address the RAFians. Apparently he wasn't disturbed to see a demon, a magician, and a guy in SPARTAN armor, all with legs like Proto Man. "Dwarf stars are as large as the Earth, at least."

"That's what it's called! I dunno why. I guess pygmy star and nano star were already trademarked." Parker said, testily. "All I know is if we destroy this thing it could lead to a massive explosion. I just hope this is one of the weaker ones, or that most of its power has been expended."

"Sounds fun!" Demos said.

"Alright, no more Deadpool for you," Broken said.

***

When Cloak reached the surface, he found that buildings were straining to break free of their foundations, and this alarmed the Realm Walker. This wasn't anti-gravity -- it was a reversal of gravity if anything. Instead of holding everything down, holding it firmly to the ground, it was repelling them. Repulsing them.

"Bern Bridges must be in town," Cloak quipped quietly to himself.

Cloak used his mastery over the Earth Element to manipulate the earth in the concrete and other building materials, his mastery over the Metal Element to manipulate the metal and wiring in the buildings. Despite the power he displayed, it was not easy. Not even when he went into his first tier of power, signified by a single trail of scarlet-gold energy streaming from his eyes, like the tongues of flame on a Mega Blaziken's wrists.

Even the three Galileans, while most helpful, could only do so much with this reversal of gravity. Cloak knew that this wasn't a permanent solution -- even if he forced himself into higher tiers of power, he didn't possess infinite stamina. He would tire, there's no question about that.

The others had better find a way to destroy the machine. That's the only permanent solution to this mess. And even Couch Tower was giving way and freeing itself from its moorings. It was an all-metal skyscraper, and there was no saving the glass. Cloak was trying his best to keep the entire city together and on the ground.

He wasn't able to save the cars and things that were floating upwards, as if being raptured. It was like hold a palmful of sand and not letting a single grain slip between your fingers, and not drop the palmful for hours on end. Not a terribly easy task, to be sure.

Hurry, guys, Cloak found himself thinking. Hurry. I dunno how much longer I can manage preventing this entire city from being flung off into space. I may have to go into the second tier.

Cloak never like using more power than absolutely necessary.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2017, 06:17:03 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Rapid Response

"Time is of the essence," Parker said, at once. "Cloak can't last forever, no matter how powerful he is.

"Then we must get to the root of the problem," Broken said.

"You can't remove the power source from the device," G.C. said. He still sounded rather hopeless. "I don't know why you're still acting like we have a chance."

"Because we still do," Demos said, now losing all the merriment he had. "You give up far too easily."

"And you don't give easily enough!" G.C. said, emotion flaring back into his voice momentarily only to be quickly snuffed out with the perceived futility of everything. "No action can be made to remedy the situation! No act of mercy can be doled out to save everyone. All is lost! Can't you see that?! Surely . . . surely, you see. Surely, you can understand."

"We do understand," Broken said, "you allowed yourself to give in to despair. You allowed your mind to distort your own perception. But, in any case, do not interfere with our endeavor. We will set this right."

"Demos, can you absorb the heat from the dwarf star as Broken and I try to dislodge it from its compartment?" Parker asked, switching the conversation unceremoniously to shoptalk.

"I've never tried it before," Demos said, seriously. "I'm pyrokinetic, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm thermokinetic."

"What is thermokinesis but an application of pyrokinesis?" Broken said. "Try. If it fails, we will come up with a way."

"Hopefully before this thing goes critical mass on us," Parker said, with an acrid tone. "Give a try -- the thing already hot enough as is. I can actually feel it through my armor -- and that's never a good sign."

Demos tried and was surprised when it seemed to work. But it required an immense amount of concentration from him -- and he knew immediately that he would only be able to use this very sparingly, due the sheer amount of effort it was taking to just siphon off a little heat, and basically redirecting it behind him, where it dissipated.

The Parker pulled out one his basic SPARTAN guns and began taking potshots at a very particular juncture which connected the dwarf star power source with the device proper. It loosened it to be sure, but it was deciding to be stubborn.

"Reducto!" Broken roared, casting a powerful Reductor Curse. The blue light severed the dwarf star from its moorings, causing the machine to no longer be powered by it. It took a few minutes to be fully powered down, but it did and gravity returned to how it should be.

"Well, that was a bit anticlimactic," Demos said, irreverent.

"Uh, Parker? I don't think that this is a dwarf star," Broken said, looking at the sphere which powered the machine. "I think this is liddium-90."

"But --" Parker began, but was distracted when Tyr told him, "oh, Tyr, you decide to tell me this now? You could have said that it was liddium-90 before instead of deceiving me like this!"

Then Parker remembered something about liddium-90. And he looked around at their environment -- and realized there's just enough pressure and whatnot to . . .

"BROKEN! GET US OUT OF HERE!" Parker ordered, seizing G.C. around the middle and grasping Broken's hand, gesturing for Demos to do the same hurriedly. "APPARATE!! NOW!!!"

"Why?"

"DON'T ASK QUESTIONS! JUST GET US OUT OF HERE BEFORE IT EXPLODES!!!" Parker said. He didn't want to see if he could tank the explosion -- whether not he could or couldn't, it still wouldn't be a pleasant experience.

Broken complied, and the resounding crack of their departure missed the explosion that followed by mere moments.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2017, 09:43:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Odd GH Show

All four made out okay, and the explosion seemed to do no structural damage (despite what the Couch family claimed) to anything. Any relevant damage was purely cosmetic and forgettable.

True to his unspoken word, the first thing G.C.did was turn himself in. However, the police didn't believe him and dismissed him. He insisted that he he did wrong and wanted to rectify it. He said that he deserved to be jailed. But he had no proof of his crimes.

They just ordered him to get therapy and sent him to a shrink.

***

"Oh, this is a story 'bout a guy named GH,
And he lived in a sewer with his adopted son, LH.
But the sanitation workers really didn't approve,
So he packed up his guitar and had to move
To a city in Johto where he lived in a tree
And he worked in an armadillo mascot factory.
And he played on the company soccer team.
And every single night he had a strange recurring dream,
Where he was wearing a silk suit in a vat of sour cream,
But that's really not important to the story!
Well, the very next year he met a guitar hygienist
With KOH tattooed on his arm (on his arm)!
But he didn't keep in touch,
And he lost his number.
Then he got himself a job on a Heartless farm
And he spent his life-savings on a split-level cave
Twenty miles below the surface of the Earth (of the Earth)!
And he really makes a mighty bland jelly bean and pickle sandwich
For what it's worth!
Then one day GH was in the forest, trying to get a tan,
When he heard the tortured screaming of a funny little man.
He was caught in a bear trap and GH set him free.
And the guy that he rescued was grateful as could be.
And it turns out he's a big-shot producer on TV.
So, he gives GH a contract and, what do ya know?
Now he's got his very own odd GH show!!"

Then jovial mess of a song vanished for a deep void of blackness, with GH just floating aimlessly through it, confused about what was going on. He was having nice dream . . . such a nice dream.

"You can't get rid of me that easily, Logan," said a deep, gravelly, demonic sounding voice. GH turned around him and saw a massive pair of red glowing eyes and white glowing teeth that gnashed as the thing spoke. "I'm still here. And I want OUT!!"

GH seemed dazed and confused, as if he had blocked off any memory pertaining to this creature as a means of self-defense.

"Don't pretend that you don't remember me," he growled, clearly deeply offended. "You know who I -- argh!"

This creature, whatever it was, was feeling pain but from what and how? GH couldn't be sure. GH was even sure what this thing was, or if it was even real.

"I see what you're doing, Logan," it said as its eyes and teeth dimmed. "You're telegraphing your tactics so obviously."

GH stared on dumbfounded.

"You can't bury me deep enough, I'll always claw my way back out. You'll never be rid of me, and I will never be rid of you." it said, nearly faded away altogether now. "It may take me years to claw my way back to the surface again, but I will. You mark my words, Logan, I will. Then I'll come out when you least expect it."

GH floated there, mouth agape.

"You won't remember any of this, anyhow," it said, its voice faint as a mouse's squeak now, "but . . . I will . . . be . . . baaaaaaack . . ."

***

GH awoke, and he indeed couldn't remember his interaction with this monstrous mental construct. He just sighed and said, "Abby's TV show rhetoric is getting to me."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XEOwTeI9geI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 03, 2017, 11:16:20 PM

Damn, got chills reading that

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2017, 11:21:31 PM

You know who it was, right?

And it wasn't originally going to be that dark -- I just thought I'd slip in some not so subtle . . . NO, SAFFA! PUT DOWN THE SKILLET!!!

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Sparky Sparky Boom Boom Man

Blue was dispatched to an evacuated machinery plant of some sort. It had a proper name, but Blue didn't take enough care to remember precisely what. All he knew was that he had his ninjabo and a few shurikens, some of which were explosive, and that was all he needed. He was a ninja after all -- he didn't need bulky armor or brutish weaponry. He had speed and stealth on his side.

He climbed up a wall. From there he moved to the right, staying away from any roaming lights, as was in his ninjitsu training. He skillfully and stealthily dodged any security cameras and whatnot -- though this was probably wholly unnecessary, as the building was evacuated. Barring Demos's fiend, anyway.

He moved closer and closer to the heart of the location, where this fiend was rampaging. Blue was of the opinion that stealth in this case was absolutely necessary. There wasn't much information to go off of. There was an educated guess that this might be an electricity-themed fiend, but no concrete evidence. Even Demos hadn't a clue -- he made too many fiends.

These brothers of Maul weren't exactly dangerous -- not like the majority of threats RAF had beaten and thwarted in their time, but they were still dangerous to civilians, to the layman without any specialized training in this kind of thing. Hence why the RAFians had to be the ones to take this thing down.

Xeno would have come, but he's asked for some personal time. And the mods were not real hardasses on issues such issues. So he was temporarily taken.off the active duty roster. People need some time for themselves from time to time. Pity some of the greediest rich Scrooges can't understand it.

There it was. Blue kept out of its eyeline and in the shadows. It seemed to be very angry -- like the rest of the fiends. Perhaps it didn't appreciate being kept in a dehydrated ball. Although all of these fiends seemed to be of questionable intelligence.

The creature had human-like eyes with dark blue sclera and black irises, set into a head shaped like a sparkplug. It did not have hands but a single, high-voltage electrode that was as long as a lance in place of each hand. These electrodes were connected dark blue lower arms, which lightened to white for the upper arms and returned to dark blue for its shoulders, torso and head. It had a ribbed abdomen, with the ribbed parts being dark blue and the sections between being a dark gold. It had rather pontoon-looking, black feet with dark blue at the toes, and white thighs.

There was a flash of.light that Blue wasn't prepared for. A flash of light from the creature's electrokinetic sparks. This flash outted his position and, outraged at Blue for some reason, the creature attacked.

The creature leaped at Blue, but Blue was no longer there. He had dodged around beneath it, under its jump. It tried this tactic another three times before it seemed to realize that it could use electricity against him. It fired several small sparks, which Blue dodged using his ninjitsu. The it fired a large ball of electricity, with Blue deflected using his ninjabo. Fortunately, the ball of electricity wasn't as strong as he feared.

He threw shuriken after explosive shuriken at the creature. Each exploded after a five second delay. After three or four hits -- nearly exhausting Blue's supply of shurikens -- the creature perished.

***

Demos called the creature a "gnista (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gnista#Swedish)sapien", and intended for it to be like a portable charger. Everyone thought that this was very impractical.

***

"The spark still lives," Malice mused, "only to be eaten by a pony."

Then she laughed at her not so subtle Death Battle reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2017, 11:05:51 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXLV:
HITTIN' THE DINO-SAUCE
CHAPTER ONE:
Needling

Cloak was dispatched to a subdivision that was either unoccupied or abandoned when one of Demos's fiends had decided to move in. Looking around, he wondered. He wondered if any of the slightest bit of damage he saw was due to that whole gravity fiasco a few days ago.

Anyway, he proceed into the eerie quiet and stillness of the town. Cloak quickly headed to the oddest looking building in the subdivision and immediately saw crude evidence that whatever this fiend was, it had decided to take up lodgings there. Regardless if it was welcome or not.

Cloak made not a sound as he walked, as if the ground itself was trying to eat up the sound of footsteps, like a loyal puppy following the orders of its master. Cloak was on guard, so his senses were hyper alert -- alert to every possible sound, sight, or scent that could provide him with trouble.

It didn't take long to find the fiend. Like the others before, it seemed quite angry and hostile. Cloak knew that it could not, and would not, be reasoned with.

The creature had no discernable head, as it was inset in the body. It had human-like eyes, with orangish-pink sclera and black irises, and purple eyebrows. It had three long, sharp gold spikes where its head would normally be, and could be thrown outward, tethered only by a length of chain-like blood and sinew and skin. It had no hands, just launchers for bullet-like spike projectiles. It had a yellowish-orange body with stout legs and pod-like feet. It had no mouth to speak of, and just a green jewel right below its eyes. It also had retractable spikes on its chest, back, and shoulders. It was slightly taller than a ten-year-old child.

Cloak appeared to have not been noticed y-- oh, never mind.

It jumped up high -- higher than it should have been able to do reasonably with its body shape and weight -- and began to rain spike bullets down on Cloak, who dodged them all, but very narrowly. It was an experience that he, in all honesty, did not care to relive.

Cloak blasted it with some golden-scarlet energy, and it just backed up dazed. The fact that it managed to survive was a feat in and of itself. But Cloak wasn't about to let this.opportunity pass. He pressed his attack, firing a second blast. Then a third. Then a final one.

It was slain now. Cloak felt a certain sadness. It needn't be this way. Granted, Demos created these things without souls (apparently that's not something you create arbitrarily, if, indeed, you can create a soul).

***

Demos called it a "ago (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ago#Italian)sapien". He claimed his purpose was for land development, to help burst through bedrock and boulders and such.

No one believed him.

***

"Had me on pins and needles." Malice said, with a laugh. This was television to her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2017, 05:41:13 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWO:
I'll Go It Alone!!

Meanwhile, back at Odie's mother's place, Odie was blowing up at his mother because she refused him an item he wanted, a rather expensive item that his mother just could not afford, being a retired seamstress living off of Social Security and was on a shoestring budget.

Even with his mother, Odie put himself first and foremost, and everyone else, even his own mother (who cares for him deeply, blind to the selfish, spoiled brat that he was) was dead last. It was one reason his relationship with RAF and the RAFians was so strained.

He was packing his bags, preparing to leave again. Like when he first joined RAF, after an one-sided row with his affable, kindly mother.

"Why does everyone always have to tell me I'm wrong?
Why does everybody make me feel I just don't belong?
Well, if everybody doesn't like the way I sing my own song,
I'll go it alone . . . I'll go it alone!
How come the word I hear most often is 'no'?
The way I'm treated I feel lower then below.
It's very clear that I'm not wanted here, so
I'll go it alone . . . I'll go it alone!"

His mother, as wrinkly and emaciated as she was, pleaded in reply:

"I know that you're upset, but don't rush off just yet.
You can't take the world on singlehanded!
What if you should end up dead or stranded?"

"Better that then being reprimanded!
No matter how hard I try I can't seem to please.
What does everyone want -- should I go down on my knees?
If all everyone knows to do is holler and tease,
I'll go it alone!
Why must everyone criticize whatever I do?
My days of suffering everyone's insults is through!
Goodbye! So Long! Tah-tah! Farewell! Too-da-loo!"

But his mother pleaded again:

"I don't like thinking what might happen to you,
If you strike out on your own!"

Odie countered:

"Mother! I'll brave the unknown!"

His mother begged:

"But, Odie, dear, you can't!"

"And go it alone!"

"Don't go it alone!"

"I'll go it alone!"

"Don't go it alone!"

His mother waited a beat, before offering, "I'll go with you."

"No!" Odie said, sounding more like a tempermental child than the teenager on the cusp of young adulthood that he was supposed to be. "I don't need you! I don't need anyone."

Then he left, as his mother started to cry. And he didn't care. All he cared about was making everyone who he felt wronged him pay. And the RAFians were up on the chopping block. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RUKJh77bCrI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2017, 06:47:54 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Colloidal Byproduct

Yarin was tinkering his his thread, which he had made part of it into a makeshift lab and machinist foundry. It was here where he crafted his inventions. Most of which he used to trick out his ship, but he did not approve of the phrase "trick out", as the implications sounded harsh to his Nyac ears.

He had put perfecting his F.Y.I. on the back burner (he didn't care what anyone said -- the thing could be used for philanthropic means when he worked out all the bugs from it -- some literal bugs, as well). He would devise and troubleshoot the problems in it later. Right now he was working on a strange carburetor-like device colored yellowish-gold and was attached to a device looking rather like a flux capacitor. There was no telling what this cobbled-together device was meant to do, but it would be a safe assumption that it was something for his ship that he pulled out and was maintaining, or a simple add on.

He almost didn't notice the colloidal goo issuing from the bottom of the device. The goo was strange as one moment it looked eerily similar to ketchup and the next moment, it appeared to look like salad dressing. It was almost like a sauce or condiment of some kind in its own right.

But Yarin didn't see it in such a way. He just saw it as a useless byproduct of his tinkering. Something that was pointless and was meant to be discarded. At least this byproduct wasn't radioactive, like last time. Fortunately, Cloak used his corona to safely dispose of it.

Yarin decided that it wouldn't do to just leave it there. He managed to seal the byproduct into two silver packages, not unlike the ones that salad dressing came in at the commissary, or mess hall, whichever term is preferred. This was a rather big mistake as Yarin would later discover. The substance had no odor, and the viscosity of a condiment.

Yarin deftly sealed the packets. Fortunately, it wasn't very much of the substance. While he deemed it harmless, it wasn't. It wasn't toxic or radioactive, but it held a secret danger, unknown to all, even the Nyac.

Then the telepath looked and saw the bright sunlight streaming into the window of his thread. It was a lovely day outside. It would be a shame to be cooped up in here and not enjoy a little of it, at least.

But, first, he would have to safely dispose of these packets. Then he would head by the commissary (mess hall, whatever) for a meal. He had to admit that those house-elves were quite masterful at replicating Nyac cuisine. Something he didn't hesitate to mention to exaltation of the house-elves on staff. Their happiness made him happy, as well. He loved it when happiness caught on, like a pleasant outbreak.

Anyway, he grabbed the two packets and left his thread (which was the closest to the hangar which housed his ship and the personal vehicles of the RAFians who had any, though they were on a lower level than his ship. The roof could retract, so he could fly straight up. His was basically the only ship that the RAFians possessed. And despite furiously denying it, he was proud of that fact.

He made his way to the commissary, apparently forgetting that he had the packets in hand*. His stomach was telling him that it was time to eat. On the way there, he reflected that he once considered going on a Namekian diet -- but there were so few cuisine options with just water.

Oh, yes, this was a lovely day indeed. Not too hot, not to cold. Only a breeze every now and then. It was an absolutely fantastic day for the stroll to the commissary. True, he supposed that he could just eat in his thread -- they all were equipped with the kitchen necessities of any given species. Threads were a bit like the Room of Requirement in this way. The commissary was most for social interactions and a social hub of the forum.

This was going to be a great day.

---

* Something that I arguably do all the time.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 06, 2017, 08:42:49 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Taken By Mistake

Yarin had gone and retrieved his favorite Nyac dish from the commissary.

"Thank you, Andrew," he said, with a smile, at the house-elf who delivered it. One of the house-elves that Shadow took it upon herself to name so long ago. "It looks delicious."

As he went to the condiment table, Leatherhead sidled up next to him. He asked, "Whatcha doin', Mr. Yarin?"

"Just getting some lunch," Yarin said, setting the packets down absentmindedly, next to some of the salad dressing.

"Why?"

"Because I'm hungry, dear boy."

"Why?"

"Because people get hungry from time to time," Yarin said, a bit puzzled at this line of inquiry from the anthropomorphic crocodile.

"Why?"

Yarin was still puzzled. "You know why we eat, Leatherhead."

"Why?"

"Why are you -- wait a minute," Yarin said, having come up with just why Leatherhead was doing this. "Did GH show you those Buttons and Mindy cartoons? From Animaniacs?"

"LH!" GH called sharply, as he and Hunter approached the condiments table. "Stop harassing Yarin with your questions."

"Okay," Leatherhead said, before addressing Yarin once again. "I love you, bye-bye!"

With that, Leatherhead went off with GH and Hunter to sit outside to eat. Such a lovely day ought not be squandered. Hunter actually had a salad, which was at odds with his lupine form.

FuBar was also outside, having a salad in a kitty bowl. This was also at odds with the fact that he was a cat, and cats tended to be obligate carnivores. He also had a weird salad dressing upon it. From one angle it looked like ketchup, another mustard, and another simple ranch dressing.

Yarin noted the oddity of these two getting salads, but gave it no further thought beyond that. He had completely forgotten the fact that he came in with two packets. And everything seemed to be perfectly fine and calm.

Then FuBar and Hunter began to tuck into their salads. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2017, 09:39:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A . . . Larger . . . Problem

Soon after digging into their respective salads, both FuBar and Hunter's fur coats began to glow. Literally glow. When this happened, they stopped eating and sat there motionless.

"Hunter?" GH said, concerned. Greatly concerned, but he felt he had to keep his composure in front of Leatherhead.

First thing that happened was that their sizes rapidly grew, tearing through any clothing that they were wearing. Hunter lost his fingers and opposable thumbs as he became an obligate quadruped. They both knocked over the tables with parasols that they were eating at, spraying the ground with uneaten food.

"H-Hunter?" GH managed to choke out.

They continued to grow to saurian proportions. Then their necks and tails grew to sauropod proportions so they both were about eighty or so feet long. Their tails being more saurian than feline or lupine, but still sporting a fur coat They both grew stegosaur-like plates along their back.

This attracted Cloak's attention as he could see this happening through his Earthsight. He rushed over to see what could possibly be wrong. He already had his suspicions, though.

Hunter's head still looked the same, though, as did FuBar's. Their noses glowed before they grew a single small horn, like the nose horn of a triceratops, but sharper. This signified that the transformation was complete. And their intelligence was reduce to that of an ordinary cat and dog.

"FuBar turned into a catasaurus!" Leatherhead declared.

"And Hunter turned into a wolfasaurus!" GH said.

As Hunter gave a thunderous bark, and FuBar gave a mighty meow, Cloak arrived on the scene. He gave it a quick once-over, and thought he could have guessed what happened. After all, he had seen something like this (https://youtube.com/watch?v=QwilSmVt3sU) before.

"An ailurosaurus? A luposaurus?" Cloak said, quickly assessing the situation. Then he turned to GH, Leatherhead, and the other assorted RAFians. "Who fed them dino-sauce?"

"Dino-sauce? What's that?" Leatherhead asked.

"A sauromorphogenic substance," Cloak said, apparently forgetting that he was addressing a six-year-old.

"A what?"

"Can be reversed, though, if I recall correctly." Cloak said, clearly talking to himself more than Leatherhead and the others. "What was that device Allo used, now?"

"Cloak, what are you talking about?" GH demanded. "What happened to Hunter?!"

"Did he consume a granulated, gray substance?" Cloak asked, not directly answering his question. GH wasn't exactly thrilled to be given this perceived brushoff. "Or perhaps it was suspended in some sort of colloidal substance?"

"Oh, speak English!!" GH snapped, impatiently. He watched as the creatures that FuBar and Hunter became began to move away from the commissary. No one stopped them -- mostly because Cloak's thoughts were going a mile a minute, Esty wasn't here, and Richard was still on that personal business.

"They must have consumed the sauromorphogenic material," Cloak said. "This is Dinosaur Island all over again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2017, 06:14:03 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Examination of the Evidence

"Just do something about it!!" GH said.

Cloaky did not answer, but inspected some of the detris of the knocked over table. He noticed what appeared to be a lettuce leaves covered in what could be some sort of dressing. To his eyes, they looked a rather unappealing ashy gray color.

"Cloak?" GH inquired, as FuBar and Hunter continued to move off.

"Did Hunter consume this salad?" Cloak asked.

"What?"

"Did Hunter eat this salad? The one on the floor here?" Cloak clarified.

"Yes. But what the hell does it matter?!" GH said, anxiety filling him.

"It matters a great deal," Cloak said, evenly. "This colloidal liquid, though similar to salad dressing, isn't. It's the sauromorphogenic substance, the dino-sauce, for a layman nomenclature."

"So?"

"So, it's the chemical that turned Hunter and FuBar into dinosaurs -- or well, mammal/dinosaur hybrids." Cloak said. "While it isn't the same thing as the Dinosaur Island incident, this is undeniably similar."

"But how?" GH said.

"That's a very good question," Cloak said. "But one we can answer later. Right now, we have . . . larger problems."

"Code Avalon will keep them in, right?" GH asked. "Like with the --"

"They're significantly larger than it, especially Hunter," Cloak said at once. "Code Avalon is at it's lowest setting. There hasn't been any reason to bump it up, and there's no time to get the message to communications. They'll be out and in the countryside before we hail communications, or even arrive there."

GH said nothing in reply, so Cloak continued.

"We need a device," Cloak said, opening his palm. There he produced a golden-scarlet construct of what appeared to be a rifle with a humongous, dinosaur-sized wishbone embedded in it with the two sides of the wishbone arching forward, like a pincer of some kind. "I believe they called it a 'wishbone'. It can undo the effects of dino-sauce."

"Who's they?"

"Hmm? Oh. The Dinosaucers," Cloak said, as if this was a satisfactory answer.

"The who?" GH inquired, still quite moody.

"It doesn't matter," Cloak said, swiftly changing the subject to the problem at hand. "The fact is we have to get the boys working on this as soon as possible."

"Goom, Yarin, and Aquilai?" GH said, obviously not liking that Cloak wasn't answering his question.

"And Xeno, too." Cloak said. "The sooner they can complete it, the soon we can revert FuBar and Hunter back to their normal, lovable selves."

"You know that it's not going to be that easy," GH said, almost accusatory.

"Nothing truly worth doing is," Cloak said.

"You got that from a fortune cookie, didn't you?" GH sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2017, 08:50:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Steps To Be Taken

"What's the plan?" GH said, shifting his guitar on his back.

"First, we get Dino."

"Dino? Why?"

"I would have thought it obvious," Cloak said, with a snappy air, as the two began to move. "Dino can go and prevent them from do harm to any innocents. Or try anyway."

"But they have a huge honkin' lead on her!" GH pointed out.

"They were walking," Cloak said, as they quickly found Dino -- she was reading a book very awkwardly. It's the trouble with tiny arms. "At a sedate pace. Dino's running speed is sufficient to catch up with them."

"Catch up with who?" Dink asked. Then she accidentally dropped her book. "Aw, dammit."

"FuBar and Hunter," Cloak said, almost clinically. "They have been transformed into an ailurosaurus and a luposaurus by consumption of a sauromorphogenic compound."

"What?"

"They ate some goo and now they're dinosaurs," GH translated tonelessly.

"Dinosaurs?" Dino said, her book quite forgotten. "Turned into dinosaurs? Like --"

"The Dinosaur Island debacle?" Cloak finished her sentence, "It's admittedly similar but different in some key aspects."

"I should get going then, shouldn't I?" Dino said, with a heavy sigh. Then she lumbered off, saying over her shoulder, "Could you put that book back into my thread for me, though?"

"Wait! I'm coming with you!" GH said. "C'mon, LH."

The two began to climb on Dino, who said, "I'm not a friggin' -- oh, all right, then. But don't make a habit out of it."

Then she continued to lumber off with GH and Leatherhead on her back. Cloak scooped up her book, and obliged her by returning it to her thread. Naturally, being the largest RAFian, she had the largest thread. Cloak wasn't too surprised to see it was rather like a paddock from Jurassic Park, as he's seen it before. He's been a RAFian for about half a year (that's five years to Dwellers) at this point.

After returning her book to her thread as requested, Cloak looked for Xeno. Turns out that he was in the communications tower on monitoring duty, and he had witnessed Hunter and FuBar's transformation. He spiralled down to Cloak to inquire about what happened.

"I'll tell you once we get Yarin, Aquilai, Goom, and you assembled together," Cloak said. "It is of great importance that you build something."

"Build something? What?" Xeno inquired.

"It is called a 'wishbone'," Cloak said, very quickly as he rushed to gather the rest of the boys. "It's supposedly a very powerful weapon of Reptilon design with many uses. One of which is supposedly reverting artificially changed beings back to their normal forms."

Cloak fell silent for a beat, then added, "Keep Leatherhead and Nina away from it when you finish building it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2017, 09:17:38 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Realization

After successfully gathering the four, Cloak showed them his produced energy construct of the wishbone, at least the best that he could recollect of it. It had been so long since he had seen it. According the evolved Allosaurus named Allo, in that realm, it was very powerful. He didn't go into lengthy explanations how powerful it was or every single application of it, due to the urgency of their situation then.

Yarin felt some discomfort. Because he realized right away what must have happened. And he knew that he was directly responsible for this. This was his fault, his responsibility. His shame. He debated inwardly kn whether he should come clean with the others with what he did.

In the end, he decided no. He decided to make this right on his own. They never let him forget the incident with Horse and his Food Yield Increaser, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would never let him forget this error.

Granted, he still was trying to rebuild and perfect the Food Yield Increaser in secret -- that's where this dino-sauce came from. He was using the flux carburetor to try and eliminate the giganticism problem. He must have accidentally radiated the effluent discharge with a radiation similar to the one in the Dinosaur Island event. He wouldn't have thought it possible, but evidently it was.

He was careless. Too careless. With absentmindedly leaving the packets at the commissary, to creating the damn dino-sauce in the first place. He was too cavalier, too reckless. He didn't take enough precautions to prevent something like this from happening again.

Perhaps risking the creation of another Food Yield Increaser was not worth it. First the giant glowing seal and now this. Did they really need a third occurrence of this kind? If the others knew about his unwitting involvement with this . . . well, that might very well be grounds for Banning. And he really did not want to be Banned. He loved it here. This was his home. Not only Earth, but RAF. He didn't want to lose it. Was trying to recreate the Food Yield Increaser really worth losing his home and RAFian status? Was it really worth marring his "R"-shaped Mark of a RAFian for the scar-like "B" of a Banned?

The FYI could very well end world hunger . . . but it was more likely to create monsters. From Cloak's descriptions, Hunter and Fubar were now far less intelligent than they were before the dino-sauce. It's getting worse. Horse was able to keep her intelligence when she grew to colossal size. No, he would have to stop. It may have possibilities . . . but sometimes a risk isn't worth beneficial results. Especially when the risk is of epic proportions, like this.

"I'm gonna take my ship," he announced to the others abruptly, who was grilling Cloak on the wishbone specifics (and he was trying his best to give them all the answers that he could), "I'm gonna take my ship and, uh, help Dino and GH."

Then he left without another word, and, within minutes, his ship was zooming soundlessly over them in the direction the dinosaur-ified Hunter and FuBar went.

"What was that about?" Xeno wondered aloud.

"He knows something that he's not telling," Cloak said, knowingly.

"And what is that?" Goom asked.

"That I cannot say, because I do not know," Cloak said, "but it doesn't matter right now. We have larger problems which must be dealt with as soon as we can. Dino and GH have gone to try and corral them back here, whilst the wishbone is being manufactured."

"Couldn't Kelly heal them?" Aquilai asked.

"She's off-duty. Doing some personal business -- I didn't pry." Cloak said.

"Couldn't you use that elemental double helix thingy?" Xeno inquired.

"No guarantee of effectiveness," Cloak said, "whereas the wishbone has been guaranteed to work. I've seen it work, in that other realm. Now, we must really get to work."

"We?"

"Yes, I hold the schematic in my hand." Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2017, 12:12:09 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
On Approach

Yarin's mind was still full of his failures.

So full than he never bothered to probe the other boy's minds (except Cloak, of course, as his mind was more secure than Fort Knox, due to his Realm Walker physiology) to see if he came off as suspicious in any way. He found himself not really caring one way or the other. He just had one, singular goal now.

Fix his mistake. Rectify his indiscretion. Righting his imprudence.

His utter shame at his his lack of circumspection was all-encompassing. He felt that he was about as sagacious as a footstool, at the moment. He should have not allowed those packets to leave his thread. Then this would have never happened.

No, he thought bitterly, making that accursed microwave* in the first place, this would have never happened and the incident before would have never happened. This happened be cause I allowed myself to be blinded toward criticism, and obstinately believed that I was right, by definition.

He piloted his ship while he himself was running on automatic for a few minutes.

I am a fool, he thought allowing himself to feel despair. My intentions may have been good, but how many horrors in history have come about from good intentions? How much pain and suffering has come about by good intentions? How many people have died because of 'good intentions'?

He was beginning to lapse into self-pity when he caught up with Dino. GH and Leatherhead were riding on her back, and only Leatherhead seemed to be handling it easily, while GH struggled for a handhold. Dino never did like being a "taxi", as she put it. She was quickly closing in on the wolfasaurus and the catasaurus. But he would be able to easily outstrip her and reach them first.

This was his responsibility, not theirs. His responsibility, and his alone. So, he powered the engines and began to streak towards Hunter. But this did not go unnoticed.

"Yarin? What's Yarin doing here?!" GH demanded. "He's supposed to be working on that wishbone thingy!!"

"I don't know what to tell ya, GH," Dino said, with each earthshaking step alerting the credulous to her position. Dino . . . Dino wasn't exactly made for stealth in a human world. "We have our objective, and we must complete it. Hopefully, he doesn't decide to get in the way."

"Yeah, this'll go so smoothly," GH said, moodily.

If GH knew how Yarin played a part, albeit an unintentional part, in Hunter's transformation -- well, then, Yarin would know firsthand how a victim of El Kabong (http://hanna-barbera.wikia.com/wiki/Quick_Draw_McGraw) felt. Several times over, and once in the gut.

"We have to catch up to them soon, right?" Leatherhead asked.

"Yes, LH," GH said, wanly. He didn't feel like getting into a game of twenty thousand questions.

"Before we get to that school, right?"

"School? What school?" GH said, honestly taken off guard.

"The one dead ahead," Dino said.

"Did you have to use the 'd' word?" GH sighed.

---

*Yes, it's the end of that running joke. Unless I change my mind, of course.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 09, 2017, 02:00:24 PM

Aw, no more FYI jokes? :(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2017, 02:25:23 PM

Unless I change my mind, yeah. And sometimes some running joke have to die for potential others to take its place.

And there are some noncanon books in the woodwork.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Oh No! Not Fetch! Anything But Fetch!

Yarin continued to approach them from above whilst Dino approached them from the rear. But the two newly-minted saurians seemed to have no idea that this was occurring. They were just going about at their own whims. But they were drawing closer and closer to the school, an elementary school.

Yarin was done being mealy-mouthed with himself, and was determined to set things right. He wasn't particularly sure just how he'd do it, but he would. Butdoing this was reckless on his part, as his ship didn't have any real weaponry (he was still working on that). There was actually very little that he could do. Only Dino had a real chance of accomplishing anything really constructive, and that was a slim chance to be honest.

Then he felt himself be slammed against the bulkhead. Something had seized his ship! But what? What could it --

"What's Hunter doing, Daddy?" Leatherhead asked.

"He's got Yarin's ship!" GH announced. "He thinks it's a toy!"

Yarin didn't much appreciate this fact. It was like being in dryer on tumble dry. Not very enjoyable in the least. "Let go of my ship, you . . . ugh, never mind. My ship isn't a toy!!"

Yarin managed to free his ship, but it held the attention of both FuBar and Hunter. Both were thinking that it was a toy, and both seemed to be enamored with it. Upon seeing this, Dino stopped in her tracks and blinked in surprise.

"What is it, Dino?" GH asked.

"Don't you see? Yarin just may have delivered us a means to get the two back to the forum." the saurian nothlit explained. "Only if he he recognizes the solution and follows through . . ."

***

"Debbie! Samantha!" a stern teacher said, sharply, addressing two of her students, who were looking out of a window on their left. She looked like a hybridization of Mrs. Gorf and Minerva McGonagall. Tall, thin, and a woman not to cross. "What could be more interesting outside than the arithmetic we're doing in here?"

"We just saw a giant catasaurus and giant wolfasaurus running around on the playground, Ms. Overton." Debbie said.

"And they were being chased by an alien in a flying saucer!" Samantha added, despite Yarin's ship not being remotely saucer-shaped. Clearly, she thought "flying saucer" was a catchall term for alien spacecraft.

"That's nice," Ms. Overton said, condescendingly, not bothering to look out the window to her right. She was just obviously humoring them. "But pay attention now, and you can go outside and play with them at recess."

The two girls exchanged befuddled looks with each other.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2017, 07:04:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
I'm Number One

Over in the oft forgotten Bannedlands, Queen was stewing and fuming. She was looking over the wasteland where the Banned were sent to when they were Banned, exiled from the forum. There was was very little to actually enjoy about the place.

While the trolls were content to sleep in the overabundance of caves that existed through the Bannedlands, Queen was not. So she had the trolls construct a makeshift abode for her that she only found acceptable for her needs. She, Yorick, and Aloth were all Banned before the creation of the Mark, so they did not have a "B" scar where their Marks would be.

And to make matters worse, Aloth was getting . . . uppity. He wasn't being all that content playing second banana to Queen. Queen was of the opinion that this dissent needed to be squashed out of him right then and there. Though she would never tell him, without him there, she would be the only Banned, considering Yorick's abandonment of them for Mojoverse television.

When Aloth approached the subject again, she sang:

"I'm number one,
You're number two.
We're Banned at large,
But I'm at larger than you.
I'm number one,
You're number two.
I believe in equality
As long as you get less than me!
I'm one --"

Aloth sang, rather unenthusiastically:

"You're one."

"You're number two."

"I'm number two."

Queen sang:

"You may think that you're smarter,
But I'm smarter-er than you!
I'm number one!
You're number two!
You're lucky to be number two,
Not number three!
I can see by the look in your eye,
You want to get the bigger piece of the pie!
One day, you'll get your chance --
But, in the meantime, you've got to dance, monkey, dance!"

Aloth sighed, "Really? I hate dancing."

Queen demanded, "Do it! Dance monkey dance! Ha ha!"

Then Aloth sang, sounding rather disgruntled:

"I'm number two.
She's number one.
I can't believe I'm working for a charlatan.
I'm number two.
She's number one."

Queen declared happily, "I'm number one!"

Aloth continued:

"You know life's gone to the dogs when your boss is an ideologue!
I can see it's just a matter of time before she's gone,
And I'm at the front of the line!
It won't be long 'til I get my chance,
But, in the meantime, I've got to dance, monkey, dance."

"Dance, monkey, dance!" Queen declared. Now, watch me!

I'm number one!"

"She's number one!"

"You're number two!"

"I'm number two!"

Then Queen sang:

"That's it, kid, there you go!
Now, step aside, this ain't your show!
I'm one -- "

"I'm one."

"I'm number one!"

"Yes, we know!"

"I'm number one!"

"She's number one!"

Queen finished:

" And that's how it's done!"

Queen then said, "Now . . . let's attack the RAFians."

"That was abrupt," Aloth said.

"Shut up, Number Two."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8bOlBAdPcrI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 11, 2017, 06:57:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Moving on the Forum

"Where there's a whip,
There's a way! Where there's a whip,
There's a way! Where there's a whip,
We don't want to go to war today,
But Almighty Queen says, 'Nay, nay, nay'!
So, we're gonna march all day, all day, all day!
For where there's a whip, there's a way!
Where there's a whip, there's a way!
For where there's a whip,
There is a whip, there's a way,
Left, right, left, right, left!
Where there's a whip there's a way!
Left, right!
The crack on the back, says we're gonna fight!
We're gonna march all day and night!
And more, for we are the slaves of the Banned's war!
Left, right, left, right!
Where there's a way.
Where there's a whip,
There's a way. Where there's a whip,
We don't want to go to war today,
But the Almighty Queen says, nay nay, nay!
We're gonna march all day, all day, all day!
For where there's a whip there's a way!
Left, right, left, right, left, right
Left, right, left, right, left, right
Left, right, left, right, left, right
Left, right, left, right, left, right
Left, right, left, right, left, right . . ."

And they continued like that on the march from the Bannedlands to the remote location of the forum.

"Oh, their incessant barking!" Queen said, as she lashed some trolls that were straying from the main force. "What are they even saying?"

Queen said this, despite being able to understand everyword they said. They continued their trek to RAF.

***

"This is splendid progress, guys," Cloak said. "It should be finished in no time."

"Don't applaud us just yet -- we don't know if works." Xeno said, cautiously.

"True, but --" Cloak said, but stopped midsentence.

"What is it Cloak?" Aquilai asked.

"Well, this is just perfect," the Realm Walker groaned.

"What?" Goom prompted.

"Queen's moving her trolls in," Cloak said, having Earthsighted their thunderous herd. "Presumably its another attempted coup."

"Another one? After her last dismal failure?" Aquilai asked.

"She is persistant," Cloak said. "I'll give her that much."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2017, 06:19:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Come, Play With Me!

"Still," Goom acknowledged, "this couldn't have come at a less opportune time. The wishbone is not yet complete and Hunter and FuBar haven't been collected yet."

"What will we do about this?" Xeno asked.

"You have the necessary parts of the wishbone completed," Cloak said, making the call. "I shall take care of this would be coup. Hopefully, before they intersect."

"Before who intersects?" Aquilai asked sharply.

"The Banned army and the -- well, I guess you can call them the 'away team'." Cloak said, preparing to head off. "It would probably be in our better interests if the Banned did not know what happened to Hunter and FuBar."

"May I ask why?" Xeno asked civilly.

Cloak felt hesitant, feeling like he was wasting time when he should have been on his way. "I'd rather not have them know -- who knows? They might decide to tip off Bridges and our PR standing can't really afford to be hit hard right now."

"Pfft, no one listens to that armchair politician," Goom said, dismissively.

"I wouldn't be so quick to believe that," Cloak said, "the stupid and the gullible watch television and listen to the radio, remember."

And with that, Cloak left to confront Queen and her troll army before Yarin, GH, Dino, Leatherhead, Hunter, and FuBar caught up. It wasn't going to be an easy task, but seldom few worth doing are.

***

"Glad that Yarin was good on the uptake," Dino said, butchering the phrase. "He's leading them right back to the forum."

"Well, he is a telepath," GH reasoned, still clutching onto Dino's back. In all honesty, he much rather be riding a Lapras -- it would be far more comfortable. "He probably read your thoughts."

"Or he just did it of his own volition," Dino countered, with another plausible possibility, "who knows? The important thing is that it's working."

"But what if they get bored chasing Yarin's ship?" Leatherhead asked.

Neither Dino or GH answered him, which made him think that he had said something wrong, and he hastened to rectify his perceived error. GH quickly assured him that it was a perfectly legitimate question, but neither he and Dino wanted to really consider that. For fear of jinxing their unexpected fortune.

"But the kid has a point," Dino said, "we need a plan B, in case this doesn't pan out the way we would like."

"I'm open to suggestions." GH said.

"Our options are limited, true," Dino spitballed. "And I'm really out of ideas on how we can get them back to RAF other than simply herding them there. Which means I might have snap at their heels to get them going in the right direction."

"Let's hope that it doesn't come down to that." GH said.

"And hope that they have prey instincts when it comes to being chased by a predator," Dino said. "If they decide to fight instead of flee, we'll have a particularly difficult problem."

"How so?"

"Isn't it obvious? They're two, I'm one." Dino said. "There will be no contest. They would overpower me. They might even k-- well, let's just cross that bridge when we get to it, shall we?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2017, 08:50:00 AM

Yes, this chapter will contain a little of RAF's history. And not the sunshine and rainbows part.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Waiting For To-Go

And so Cloak waited. Cloak had triangulated the path the Banned, and their troll army, would be at this particular time. He knew they were approaching and he was hoping to cut them off at the past. They wouldn't get to the forum.

He made sure to stand off to the side, as a deliberate attempt to nonverbally mislead the trolls and Banned into thinking that the location of the forum was actually behind him, when it was in the other direction. Trolls weren't very smart, so he knew they would be fooled. Queen and Aloth, however, would prove to be trickier. Well, maybe just slightly more difficult.

Cloak didn't really know Aloth when he was a RAFian. All he knew was that he was just as much of a jerk as Odie, only more . . . obnoxious about it. Cloak never really interacted with him, from what he remembered, but he was rubbed the wrong way just the same. From what he heard from Phoenix himself, Aloth was Banned for consistent rude behaviour, even after several warnings*. Not to mention, he had a habit of lying about aspects about himself, which Phoenix picked up on, but Cloak didn't. Humans could be a strange species sometimes.

Now, Queen. Oh, Cloak had interactions with Queen. None of which before her Banning were pleasant. She often butted heads with him, and liked to speak towards him in a very condescending manner. She thought he was juvenile, immature, and stupid. He thought she was conceited, arrogant, and narcissistic -- all qualities his mother possessed, and all qualities that he hated about the both of them. She also had a nasty inclination to name call, insult, and threaten anyone who disagreed with her, and a majority of the forum did, at the time. The result was a lot of hurt feelings and discord -- one of the darkest moments in RAF's history. Never before was there this kind of inner conflict and turmoil. Cloak had tried to reason with her -- they were two reasonable sentient beings, but she just lashed out in venomous ways. That's the thing, though, when someone is absolutely assured that they're absolutely right in any given issue, they react with hostility when someone manages to poke logical holes in it. And, to think, it all began due to a stupid debate of semantics. . . .

It always stuck out in Cloak's mind whenever Queen decided on a coup, as it was possibly (current event happening since, not withstanding) the worse experience in RAF to have.

It was a good thing that GH, Saffa, and the other relatively new RAFians did not have to experience it. Fortunately, they also helped, whether they were aware of it or not, the forum heal from this . . . wound.

But this is also one reason why Cloak tended to avoid political threads in the General Discussion floor of the General Building. He heard a rumor that Shenmue near was hit by a thrown chair in there, as well. It was just too easy to get offended when venturing into political territory, especially when emotions run high like that. And when even a question of semantics gets out of hand . . .

They approach. He could feel it. Literally. He could feel their thundering footsteps through his Earthsight. The thing with Earthsight is that it doesn't really identify facial features. But he knew that they were there.

Within moments, he could see them with his eyes. The troll army behind her amounted to about seventy-four trolls. Perhaps the term "army" was wrong, as that would indicate a sense of military organization, and these were trolls. They didn't organize, really, and were only here at Queen's behest, their "Dear Leader".

Cloak's first impression, he was embarrassed to admit, was one of disappointment. He had expected more, having clearly misread the vibrations in the earth. He quickly squashed that feeling with his need to prioritize. He stood in their way, and refused to allow them to pass.

To his surprise, some of the trolls seemed to recognize him and began to cower. Much to his displeasure. He wasn't a despot. Cowering gave him no joy. In any case, that was the super minority of the trolls. The rest just looked at him with slack faces, almost devoid of any intelligence.

---

* Yes, Imma source Phoenix (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=87.msg235461#msg235461) here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2017, 06:50:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Ol' Path Stall

"Move aside, Cloak!" Queen demanded. "Or die."

"So long you've been Banned, and yet . . . you've learned nothing," Cloak said in reply. There was genuine sadness in his voice. His anger and resentment at Queen had quite dissipated in the intervening years. He had changed -- he had forgiven his mother for what she is (though he still does not condone her past actions).

"You heard me, you insufferable nitwit." Queen demanded. "Stand aside, and let me conquer RAF!"

"Do you even hear yourself talk?" Cloak said.

"That's what I said," Aloth grumbled.

"Shut up, Number Two!"

""Dissention in your ranks already, Queen?" Cloak said.

"There is jot -- er, not!" Queen snapped. "My army is mine to command."

"Queen, why are you doing this?" Cloak said, with a heavy sigh. "You know you have no likelihood of ever achieving this ambition."

"You know perfectly well that Ive gotten close a number of times," she spat.

"Never on your own," Cloak said, coolly. "Always with the help of an outside force, or when we were distracted with another event or problem that incapacitated us in some way."

"That's not true and you --"

"The point is," Cloak said, with a bite of impatience now, "that all these coups, whether planned or just off-the-cuff, are entirely and categorically futile. And you know it."

"I'll decide what's futile!" she spat.

"It's almost as if you didn't want to succeed," Cloak said. Yes, he was aware that he was playing mind games. But maybe if he stalled her, even just a bit, the away team can wrangle Hunter and FuBar back into the forum and the boys can revert them back. He also wanted to believe there was good in the Banned, at least a little. They were never as bad as the likes of Malice or even Proteus. "As if your heart wasn't into it."

"Don't psychoanalyze me, alien," Queen snarled. She was apparently unaware of Cloak's stalling tactic. The priority was reverting Hunter and FuBar. They could deal with a ridiculous coup later.

"'Alien'?" Cloak said, with mock surprise. Just keep her talking, Cloak, just keep her talking. He had long sense done away with the bite of impatience in his voice. "About to spout the Knight rhetoric and talking points now?"

"Don't you dare equate me to that band of uncouth, slovenly Neanderthals, Cloak!" she protested angrily. This was actually news to Cloak -- he didn't know that she disliked or even knew about the Knights of Humanity. Apparently, they weren't nearly as secretive in their motives and.operations as he had originally thought, if news had reached the ears of the Banned in the wretched wasteland that was the Bannedlands. "The very idea! The very idea of rubbing shoulders with those vile reprobates."

Well, at least she had standards. They were horribly skewed, but standards nonetheless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2017, 01:38:12 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A New Complication

"This is still working," GH said, still grasping onto Dino's back for dear life, his guitar strung to his own back, swaying with each step of Dino. "I can't believe this is still working."

"Don't jinx it," Dino warned. Her entire frame of view was basically a saurian cat's butt, as the forest was tightly ensconced around them. It severely limited her movement and she didn't like it one bit. So, naturally she was a bit cranky. "Let's just hope that Yarin can keep this up."

"What if Yarin's spaceship runs out of gas?" Leatherhead asked.

"His ship never runs out of gas," GH said. "Come to think of it, I don't have any idea what he uses to fuel it."

"Assuming it even needs fuel," Dino said.

"How can it not?" GH asked, genuinely perplexed.

"I dunno, okay?" Dino said, irritably. "I just want this to be over with."

"What if more of that dino-sauce is around?" Leatherhead asked.

Dino shuttered, as GH said, "God, I hope not."

"I'd rather not have another repeat of this, to be honest," Dino added.

"What's happening over there?" Leatherhead asked.

"Over where? I can't really see anything with a catasaurus butt in my face!" Dino complained.

"It's a troll army," GH said. "Wait, it looks like there's less than a hundred trolls there -- does that qualify as an army?"

"Troll army, you say?" Dino said, tone contemplative. "That must mean Queen is trying to stage another coup. And at a really bad time, too."

"What's a coup?" Leatherhead asked.

"A coup d'état," Dino clarified. "A sudden overthrow of a government or leadership, from a revolution. It is usually carried out by a small group of people, who replace only the leading figures. Queen's tried -- and failed -- this frequently enough that, far from becoming a real menace, she and her trolls and the rest of the Banned are little more than annoyances and nuisances."

"Oh, god," GH groaned. "How are we supposed to get Hunter and FuBar past them without them noticing?"

"I don't know, if I'm honest, GH." Dino said, wearing a very serious look. "But we can't let them see FuBar and Hunter in this . . . condition. Queen and the Banned would want to use dino-sauce to their own ends. I don't think I have to say it, but we do not need another Dinosaur Island event."

"What is Mr. Cloak doing there, Daddy?" Leatherhead said, spotting Cloak through the trees.

Now that he looked, GH could make out Cloak, standing with his back to there path, confronting the Banned and their troll lackeys. "He must be trying to keep them from reaching the forum. I don't understand why he's trying to be diplomatic, he has the power. He has the advantage. He could chase them all away."

"He doesn't know what path we're using to the forum," Dino said.

"If he didn't, he should have realized by now," GH said. "Dinosaur footsteps aren't exactly the quietest things in the world, not to mention they must send tremendous vibrations through the ground that he already picked up."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 14, 2017, 08:40:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Hasty Decision

"My patience wears thin, Cloak," Queen growled imperiously. In all honesty, Cloak didn't really care if she was growing impatient. He held no fear of her. "Stand aside, and you'll live."

Not to mention she constantly and consistently showed absolute ignorance of the impossibility of killing him. She wasn't a Realm Walker. She didn't have any Walker deux es machina in her (otherwise, he would have been able to sense it). There was absolutely no way she could kill him, and she seemed to revel in her ignorance of this fact.

"And if I refuse?" Cloak said, affecting a mild demeanor.

"Then you shall die," she said, almost savagely.

"You don't know much about Realm Walkers, do you, Queen?" Cloak said. Clearly, she didn't remember what happened when Ab nearly killed Cloak over a Dweller year ago. Then again, neither Walker really expounded on the limitations of slaying a Walker.

"I know all I need to know," she sniffed, haughtily.

"And that's clearly not enough," Cloak countered, easily. "But fine, continue this charade of knowing everything there is to know. There isn't anything I --"

He Earthsighted it. He saw them. They were coming this way. Why were they coming this way? This was very bad timing!! He was trying to distract and the delay the Banned and trolls, preventing them from knowing this, from knowing about dino-sauce. True, they would only see the after affects, but Cloak didn't put it pass Queen from wanting to know how and how she could weaponize it. He couldn't let that happen.

Queen was talking and didn't seem to notice Cloak's sudden divided attention. He hadn't been paying attention to what she been saying, but he thought he could safely assume that it was the same vitriolic bile that she usually spews. So there really no drawback for his inattention.

"If you won't move, then we'll just go THROUGH you then!!" Queen roared, furious at Cloak's defiance. She turned to address the others, "Forward!!"

Cloak deftly stomped his foot and raised his right fist as a wall of earth rose to his right and he surfed on the Earth until a perfect earthen wall blocked the way of the trolls either way. And the wall was high enough to hide both saurian FuBar and Hunter.

"How DARE you defy me?!" Queen roared.

"Are you serious right now?" Cloak said, his patience wearing thin now.

But Cloak hadn't considered raising it high enough to disguise Yarin's ship. And it bobbed and darted in such a way that it made look like it was a low-budget puppet show. A really low-budget one.

"Gateburst," Cloak grumbled.

"What the --" Queen said, then she immediately rounded on Cloak, "what are you hiding?! Tell me, RAFian scum!!"

"RAFian scum, are we now?" Cloak said, swiftly regaining his composure. "You mostly weren't thinking that when you were one of us."

"Don't try to turn this ar--"

"Why do you hate RAFians so much, anyway?" Cloak said, clearly playing for time.

"Are you SERIOUS?!" she raged.

Good, this was what Cloak was hoping for. In her rage and indignation, she had completely forgotten what she saw. Now, if she would only launch into a long, monologuing rant . . .

"You had the audacity to not listen to reason, the unmitigated gall to not understand --" she stammered, clearly not able to form a coherent thought in her outrage. Then she continued on as if she made sense, "then you condemn me to the Bannedlands, where there's little food. Less water."

Cloak knew that this was categorically untrue, otherwise the trolls would look emaciated and sick, and Queen would have assuredly stolen their food and water if it was as scarce as she was making it out to be. But his Earthsight was telling him that the others would be well out of range within moments.

Queen was continuing her tirade, but Cloak was waiting until the others were at a significant distance away. When they were, Cloak ended her incoherent monologue, "Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blahity blah. Maybe when you stop feeling self-pity, Queen, and stop with the self-aggrandizement, then maybe -- just maybe -- you can grow as a person."

"Don't you disrespect me, Cloak! Don't you derogate or deride --"

"As scintillating as this conversation has been," Cloak said, dropping the earthen wall now, "I have other, far more productive, uses of my time. Ciao."

But Cloak had used his mastery over the Wood element and the Earth Element to completely reorganize the forest just enough that the Banned and their trolls would find themselves back at the Bannedlands before long.

Then he returned to the forum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2017, 09:30:40 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Back to Normal

"Well, that could have gone worse," GH sighed with relief.

"Don't get complacent," Dino warned. "We're not out of the woods yet. Literally."

Yarin was still maneuvering his ship like an alluring toy, in a strenuous attempt to lead them back to the forest. But their interest, little by little, was starting to fade. After being unable to catch the shiny bauble that they saw Yarin's ship as, that would always cause someone to lose interest after a while.

"They look like they're getting bored of Yarin's game," Leatherhead pointed out, rather astutely for a six-year-old.

"That's really too bad for them," Dino said, savagely. "We will not come this close and fail due to lost interest. We're moments from passing through Code Avalon now!"

Yarin seemed to notice this himself, because he sped up, which actually increased their interest in this big floating bauble. He made his ship far more enticing to them. Although he ran a risk of them fighting themselves for it. But they were soooo close now . . . so very close . . .

And they were through!

Code Avalon went into lockdown mode, which wouldn't allow them to escape again. Aquilai came running up, holding the wishbone (he was the only one who could have wielded it in any efficient manner). He had hoped they had constructed it right. If they hadn't --

"Fire it already, Aquilai!!" Cloak said impatiently, having just arrived.

He did. The wishbone horns glowed yellow and sent out yellow concentric circles with  "wap wap wap wap" noise. At first, this seemed to do nothing. All assembled worried that maybe it wasn't going to work. But then both fur coats began to glow and the two began to shrink.

Their necks shortened as their tails became more mammalian, more feline and canine. Their stegosaur plate shrunk and shriveled to nothingness. Their nose horns retracted into their heads, and disintegrated. Their intelligence grew back as the shrunk. Within moments, they were back to normal, with GH covering hunter with a blanket covered with PokeBall imagery, as he was naked. This wasn't a problem with FuBar, as he wasn't anthropomorphized, and just an ordinary housecat . . . that could talk.

"It worked," Aquilai said, letting out a long sigh of relief. He had been anxious about this moment, as Reptilon tech was one that he was entirely unfamiliar with. He had to admit that he was a big bundle of nerves, and the relief was most welcome at the success of this.

"Well, this is good," Goom said, brightly. "If anything of this nature happens again, we can just use the wishbone to --"

It was at this point that the wishbone decided to, quite literally, fall to pieces.

"You were saying?" Dino said.

"Don't worry about it," Cloak said, "it can be rebuild when needed. The schematics, I trust, are on file now?"

"You bet," Xeno said, flicking his tail in such a way that outwardly showed that he was engaged in the conversation.

"Good," Cloak nodded, "but I think Hunter and FuBar should be taken to the infirmary to let Kelly give them a once over. I do not know if they'll have any memory of this event, but we should also be prepared to provide psychological counseling, if need be."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2017, 10:37:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
What's the Use in Feeling Faith?

GH and Leatherhead were trapped in a room that was scarlet with gold highlights, and they were trying to escape, when the door to the room slid open, and a cloaked woman entered. She went to the very end of the room and knelt down.

She lowered her hood, revealing a vulpine head, with tear streak down them. Realm Walkers can cry just as humans do. This Realm Walker was currently in mourning, grieving the loss of her baby brother.

Then the door opens again, to reveal a serpentine Realm Walker, with an austere, severe look on her face. The vulpine Realm Walker's baby sister. She said, "Please tell me you're kidding."

She slithered as she said, "You only just left, and you're already back?"

"Dagger!" the vulpine Realm Walker exclaimed, as GH and Leatherhead watched secretly. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to bring you back to reality, Faith, and back to your senses." Dagger said, almost contemptuous.

"I'm fine," Faith said, "just leave me alone."

"It's been an age, Faith, and you still can't bring yourself to destroy these RAFians?" Dagger said. "He was killed by a RAFian, every Dweller deserves the same fate."

"But they were his," Faith protested.

"They should be wiped out of existence, not kept alive!" Dagger countered.

"But he forged the Mark with them," Faith argued. "This is all we have left of him. These RAFians. This place. Earth."

"I thought we agreed that we need to put that planet and this whole debacle behind us," Dagger said.

"Why can't you just let me grieve?" Faith said, looking away from her.

"You can't just keep coming here forever!"

"Why not?!"

Suddenly, music started up. And it seemed to come magically from GH's and Leatherhead's instruments, but neither of the Realm Walkers noticed as Dagger began to sing:

Why would you want to be here?
What do you ever see here
That doesn't make you feel worse than you do?
And tell me, what's the use of feeling, Faith?
Why would you want to employ his
RAFians that destroyed him?
Why keep up his silly memoirs, too?
Oh, tell me what's the use of feeling blue?
An army has a use, they can go and fight a war.
A politician has a use, they can tell you what it's for.
A dragon terrifies, a Master terraforms!
Where's their Walker when they need her, Faith?
You've got to be a leader, Faith!
Yes, of course, we still love him,
And we're always thinking of him,
But now there's nothing we can do!
So, tell me,
What's the use of feeling?
What's the use of feeling?
What's the use of feeling, Faith?
Ohh!
How can you stand to be here with it all?
Drowning in all this regret?
Wouldn't you rather forget him?
Ohh!
Won't it be grand to get rid of it all?
Let's make a plan of attack!
Start looking forward and stop looking back!
Ohh
Yes, of course, we still love him,
And we're always thinking of him,
But, tell me,
What's the use of feeling . . . ?
What's the use of feeling . . . ?
What's the use of feeling . . . ?"

And it was at this point that Cloak woke up. "What the Veil was that about?"

He sighed and he thought about it pragmatically.

Faith wasn't prone to being so sappy. She was, without a doubt, one of the strongest women he has ever known of his species. She always treated him well, even when she was frustrated with him. She never made him question his worth as their mother had. She never stripped him of his self-confidence, but actually helped him (though he was never sure if she knew that she was helping him) rebuild it. He thought the world of her, and her daughter, Shadow.

However, he sincerely doubted that Dagger would even care if he was dead. This was the woman, after all, that thought she was well within her rights to beat on him without retaliation. Dagger was, whether intentionally or not, following in Ursa's footsteps, and she was loving playing the victim just as much -- nothing he could have done could have stopped this outcome, sadly enough. Dagger did not see him as a brother, but as competition, he felt. It is little wonder why Faith became his favorite sibling, despite her being nine years (ninety years in Dweller time) older, and Dagger was just two years (i.e. twenty years) younger than he.

His family was still rife with dysfunction . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fiAHqCqBAHk

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2017, 07:20:47 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Cowardly Snake

Parker had come to some sort of forgotten jungle facility that had been completely overtaken by the native foliage which gave it an admittingly exotic feel. Completely ensconced within his armor, he couldn't help but feel a little out of place in this facility.

He couldn't help but notice that there seemed to be an abundance of snakes of varying types here. Of course there would be. Their venom would never penetrate his armor, it was the constrictors that might be a nuisance.

Along the way, he kept seeing a strange symbol, two types. They were both covered by the grime and dirt due to this facility clearly falling out of use and abandoned for quite some time. Both were triangles that contained an eye and within the eye was a beaker. And within that beaker was a strand of DNA*. This iconography meant nothing to Parker (one clearly had words below it, but that was lost to time) and Tyr didn't have any helpful interpretations, so he just back-burnered it and moved on.

This place was just plain creepy. There was no other word for it. Even Tyr couldn't provide one that described this place as accurately. The profusion of serpents didn't help anything.

"They should have gotten Indiana Jones for this instead of me," Parker grumbled. He paused for a second, then said, "shut up, Tyr."

Then he heard something flop to the ground behind him. It sounded like the drop of many different cables, and Parker knew at once where Demos's fiend was. He turned immediately, before the creature attacked, and saw what it was.

"Of course," he muttered.

The creature was little more than an anthropomorphic snake with human-like eyes (with black sclera and red irises), arms, and retractable legs. It had a cobra-like hood with a tail coming off from the crown of its head. It had scarlet scales and a dark brown underside. It had a black chest and shoulders, as well as its clawed right hand (as its left was another snake head, though colored black as well). It was white on the uppers arms and the thighs of its retractable legs. The lower legs and feet of its retractable legs were black, and the toes each possessed a single claw.

"So, you wanna go. That's it, isn't it?" Parker said.

The creature let out a hugely serpentine hiss in reply.

"Your funeral, snake," he said, pulling out a gun. One that he could rapid fire -- he wanted to be done with this quickly.

But the creature retracted its legs, becoming more lithe and maneuverable, was not an easy target. Parker, while a skilled shot, was not as familiar with this location as this creature was. It managed to elude Parker's shots, which caused the SPARTAN to become less flippant with his opponent.

Then it opened its snake-head hand and spat out three things -- one red, one blue, one green -- that Parker quickly dodged with surprising agility, despite his heavy armor. Upon closer inspection, the they were mini snakes. Mini snakes that were easily gnawing through the corroded metal, mouldering stone, and the sweeping blanket of moss in a straight line from where they were fired. They only managed this for a few moments before dying, and shriveling up, and withering away.

"That complicates things a bit," Parker noted. "But not by much. Let's get this over with."

Parker rapid fired his gun into the creature's gut, thankful that he had done some training in their "Danger Room" (Cloak's name for it, any way). He was relentless with his attack, and within moments after the first projectile ripped into the creature's body, its body was soon riddled with it.

It was dead, and Parker's task was done.

***

Demos called it an "ophidosapien". Demos claimed that he designed it for the investigation of narrow places and survey the topography of foreign environments. It sounded like an excuse.

***

"Snakey, snakey," Queen hummed herself as she watched the battle.

---

*(https://i.gyazo.com/81890f90a5b0aa07c06dfe1b1d24c447.png)
(https://i.gyazo.com/dc2c08aaccb7599f8fc2187f5409b9c1.png)
(images by Xeno -- give him a round of applause everyone!)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2017, 09:56:42 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CXLVI:
BLOOD FEUD
CHAPTER ONE:
Geminify

Rad had been dispatched to some crystal catacombs. It was a psychedelic place, and she wasn't too sure she even liked it. It was almost like an alien world. She was armed with her Zat'nik'tel, Zat for short, so she knew she would be able to handle anything.

She proceeded forward, and the more she did, the more the catacomb seemed very alien to her. Especially when she came to a huge chasm that she had to climb down. She was starting to very quickly not like this place.

And all this for one of Demos's stupid fiends. Why couldn't he be more prolific at something more mundane like stamp collecting or flower arranging. Why did he have to create so many fiends? Honestly, what was the point of all this for the demon?

Anyway, she descended, still grumbling, and proceeded to her right. Then, much to her annoyance and frustration, had to sift through some rubble to get through to the other side and climb upward. There she had to sift through some more rubble to climb upward again. This was becoming very monotonous and tedious for her.

Once there, she . . . Had to sift through more rubble to proceed to her right. Someone was having a laugh. Someone must be having a laugh. This was rapidly becoming a Mega Man game, she decided ruefully. So, she sifted through the rubble again, seriously considering retirement, and discovered a wide expanse of a room. She was relieved that there was no visible rubble to sift a way through, so she she was allowed a modicum of happiness.

Passing through a small doorway, she came into another cavernous room. She thought that the doorway-size opening was just ridiculously redundant, but sighed and let it go. Then she dropped down into a bit of a narrower corridor, with another dropoff. She followed it, and came to an underground lake. Wonderful.

So, she hopped across the crystalline rocks that littered the surface of the lake to make it across. How she did it, she didn't know -- the accursed things were as slippery as hell. Then she climbed higher, wondering why this was even necessary. This place was remote enough -- did Demos's fiend need to be taken out this badly? Seriously? She crossed a small hill that sloped downward, where she saw the creature.

The creature was roughly the size of your average ten-year-old human child. It was humanoid with a pale orange body, with a dark blue stripe at its waist and a metallic plate that resembled stylized sunglasses on its chest. Its forearms and hands were black (although, it lacked a left hand, just had what appeared to be a nozzle of some sort) as well as its lower legs and feet. Its head was dark orange and rounded  with a crest with four diamond-cut crystals fused together on its brow. It also had a dark, flat face that lacked a nose or lips. It had human-like eyes with black sclera and dark orange irises.

He and Rad just eyed each other for what seemed like the longest time. Apparently waiting for the other to make the first move. It seemed like a standoff, until Rad made a small, involuntary movement with her right hand toward her zat.

Then its crest glowed and a second one appeared, jumping at her, its crest also glowing. Rad had to roll away to dodge it. It had jumped far higher than it should have been able. She rolled to her feet, zat in hand as the two creatures began to run around her -- even running on the ceiling! She didn't know which one was the original -- which was complicated when an additional two joined the party.

"Weren't two enough?!" Rad said, exasperated. She was starting to see why this fiend needed to be dealt with.

Then they all fired a bluish-white laser that rebounded of the walls a couple of times before dissipating. Rad didn't know how she dodged that one. It seemed to be point blank.

She fired her zat at one of the creatures, hoping that it was the original -- believing that if the original was hit, the others would either vanish or feel it as well. The one she hit just vanished -- and vanished in a way that let her to deduce that the other two replicants were really holographic constructs. Holographic constructs that could somehow manipulate matter in a tangible way . . . how did that make any sense? No matter, no matter. She knew what had to be done.

She fired two more shots, with each blue discharge from her zat hitting the head crest of the creatures. The first shot hit a duplicate, however, the second shot hit the original one, the real McCoy. Rad swiftly ignored the remaining duplicate and fired a second shot at the original which proved fatal. The duplicate blipped out of existence.

"'Go back on active duty,' they said," Rad grumbled as she holstered her zat and began to make her way out of the catacombs. "'It'll be fun,' they said. . . ."

***

Demos called the creature a "geminisapien". Demos couldn't come up with a coherent excuse for the design of this fiend of his. In the end, he admitted, that this one was for combat purposes.

***

"Sometimes four aren't better than one, I see," Malice sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2017, 03:56:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Wand Matters

Quaf, Hunter, Cloaky, GH, Xeno, Visser :3, Abby, Canicula, and Saffa were standing around a magic wand shop. None were there proper age, but, instead, between the ages of eleven and twelve. And they were all perfectly human, strangely enough. They were waiting for their chances to purchase a wand of their own.

The shopkeeper tended to them after selling an thirteen-inch, acacia wand to a previous customer.

Visser :3 was up first, and the shopkeeper had him try out many wands before he handed him a twelve-and-a-half inch long, hard black walnut wand, with a phoenix tailfeather core, that was apparently very good with charmwork. The moment he touched it, he smiled as he felt a warmth issuing from it. The shopkeeper declared it a match and Visser :3 left to do the rest of his shopping for the coming school year.

Canicula was next. The shopkeeper seemed to have an easier time finding a wand for her. He gave her a ten-and-three-quarters long, rigid laurel wand with a phoenix tailfeather core. But she felt as if her fingers were rejoicing the minute her fingers touched the wand. The shopkeeper declared it a match, and Canicula paid his fee for it. Then she left to peruse the other shops.

Quaf was next. She went through slightly more wands than the other two. Then the shopkeeper provided her an eleven-inch, hard black walnut wand with an unicorn hair core. The moment it touched it sent out a pudgy raven, which all assembled laughed at, despite Quaf's momentary humiliation. Unlike the other two, she decided to stick around and see what wands everyone else got.

It was Saffa's turn now. She proved to he quite finicky to match up with a wand. The storekeeper would put a wand in her hand, then without a word remove it within seconds. Eventually he handed her an eleven-inch, supple laurel wand with a unicorn hair core. A light coursed around as her wand and her touched. She paid and sat down next to Quaf.

Abby was up next. She went through fewer wands than the others, but the shopkeeper decided to try and match her up with a twelve-and-a-quarter inch long, bendy laurel wand with a unicorn hair core. It allied itself to her within seconds of her hand touching it. And the shopkeeper noted that it was interesting, because its brother had chosen Saffa. And she and Saffa talked about it excitedly as they waited for the rest of their friends to get their wands.

GH's turn was next. He proved to be a bit finicky to match with a wand as well. But the shopkeeper never gave up on a customer. Eventually he gave GH a fourteen-inch long, brittle alder wand, and when GH touched it, guitar music seemed to play. His guitar seemed to be playing of its own accord, welcoming this newcomer to their fold. GH gracious paid and went to wait with the others.

Xeno was up, with only Hunter and Cloak remaining. There were a few boxes of wands littering the floor, before the shopkeeper thought he found the perfect match. He offered Xeno a twelve-inch long, swishy English oak wand with a dragon heartstring core, and Xeno felt an elation the moment flesh touched wand. The wand issued a jet of warm air, and Xeno paid for it. Then he went to sit with the others.

Then it was Hunter's turn. After a few tries (and a few stolen glances by GH), the shopkeeper offered him a ten-and-three-quarters inch long brittle beech wand with an unicorn hair core. Hunter grinned brightly as soon as his hand welcomed the wand. Then he was informed that his wand was brothers with GH's (which caused the latter to blush suddenly). Then he took a seat with the others.

Finally, it was Cloak's turn. He had tried out the fewest wands out of the lot before he was offered a ten-and-three-quarters inch long, slightly yielding rowan wand with an unicorn hair core. The feeling when he held the wand -- it was indescribable, but the most indescribable positive feeling that he had ever had. It was like meeting a friend that you immediately like and would have an everlasting friendship with.

Cloak paid the shopkeeper and wandmaker, and the group left, talking excitedly about Hogwarts . . .

And the Cloak awoke. He sighed, "What the Veil is going on with these dreams lately?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2017, 09:55:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Nights in the Woods

Cloak wasn't the only one with strange dreams. But in Shanker's case, they were.not really dreams, but nightmares and night terrors. But unlike Cloak, he knew precisely where this was coming from.

He was dreaming nightmares of his pre-RAF days. You see, Cloak, GH (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=12937.0), and Xeno (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=15030.0) weren't the only ones with . . . complicated . . . lives before RAF. Every RAFian has a "before RAF story", naturally. But not all are as complicated as others, and vice versa.

Anyway, he's been suffering from this dream from night to night with no real interruption or break. Its always in the woods. Always. Always those woods. Their woods. He remembered that he would aways hate the full moons while in this forest. They would aways come around then. They always did. And he never had any help. Never. He was always alone. Forever alone.

No one to protect him. No one to save him. No maker to guide him, to shelter him. No sire to comfort, to make hims forget his own fear. No one. No nothing. Nothing, but an all-consuming fear. Fear of death, despite being a vampire. Fear of survival.

Then the howls came.

If they were ordinary wolves, he wouldn't have cared. But he knew better. These weren't generic wolves. He knew them, and knew them well. These were the Fefnir clan. It was always the Fefnir clan. Shanker never knew if they would actually kill him this time, or just play with him as a cat plays with a mouse. It was absolute hell -- and they knew that he couldn't escape. He had yet learned how transfigure himself into a bat or smoke, and, even if he did, he was so stressed and anxious he probably wouldn't have even thought of it. He was still a neophyte vampire -- this was long before he sired Gaz and her blood brother.

He saw no escape from their stupid monthly hunts. He was basically surviving on the blood of the woodland creature. He could have fed off these beasts who kept him imprisoned here, but he could smell that their blood was tainted. That there blood would taste bitter and unappealing. It was an instinctual thing, by virtue of being a vampire. They knew by this instinct not to drink from a werewolf, and he did not know what would happen if he ever did. He didn't want to know.

And apparently the Fefnir clan knew it. Shanker assumed the other werewolf clans that he knew of -- the Dawkins clan, the Wolfe clan, the Jacobs clan, and the Roman clan -- knew this as well. He sincerely doubted that it was a well-guarded secret. He was trapped. Trapped by his own inexperience and fear. He was doomed to dwell in this forest forever, until his food source is exhausted. Then he might, just might have to see what happens when he drinks from a werewolf. . . .

He had to get out of here. He couldn't stay here. They'll kill him eventually. They clearly don't think of him as an equal, a being with feelings and opinions and thoughts of his own. They clearly thought him as a lesser being. He couldn't live like this, especially knowing this.

He ran, but then a young werewolf cub stood in his say. No. No, this wouldn't stop his escape. He swiftly attacked the cub -- which was in human form, as it was dawn. He hadn't meant to kill it, but he did. He did it so he could facilitate his escape, discovering that he could turn into a bat.

"Abel!" he heard a heartbroken voice cried out. But it was true, Abel Fefnir was dead and Shanker was free.

Shanker awoke in a cold sweat -- he wasn't even aware vampires could sweat -- and he tried to steady himself. Why did he have to relive that every night for . . . for . . . god, he lost track by now.

All that happened about a year before joining RAF, and eight or so months later, Cloak joined. So, it was about six or seven years ago? Geez, he didn't even remember precisely how long anymore.

Why was this still haunting him?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2017, 07:26:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Still Hurting

It may have been several years since the death of his seventeen-year-old son, Abel, but the alpha wolf of the clan, Abraham Fefnir, was still hurting. He was still mourning. He still wanted revenge, wanted to kill his son's murderer. He and his pack had gone on a warpath every full moon, killing every vampire they smelled and tracked.

But none of them was him. The murderer of his son was the only vampire he wanted to kill. He even came close to killing Aiden, Shanker's maker, before he escaped -- never knowing that Abraham let him escape, when he discovered that he wasn't the vamp he was looking for he didn't try as hard to slay him.

Abraham was determined to have his vengeance, to the point where he ignored his other children (most by different mothers than Abel) -- Ian, Monica, Diane, Patricia, Tetra, Quinn, Hectare, Hermes, Octavio, Nora, and Dekker Fefnir -- all but Ian had challenged their father on his obsession with their oldest brother, their father's favorite child. They were summarily put into their place by physical violence, severely alienating themselves from their father. They weren't given time to mourn their brother, and many of them resented their brother for their father's preferential treatment towards him and the sometimes utter neglect the rest of them faced.

All but Ian had tried to usurp their father's leadership of the clan through battle and politics, claiming that he was unfit for the role of alpha, that Abel's death had rendered him unfit to lead. Such challenges were put to a brutal end, and the punishment that followed was . . . well, the kindest way to put it was that it was brutal and cruel.

Not too surprising, as Abraham was the one who decided to trap Shanker forevermore in the woods as target practice. He was the one who enforced the ideology that vampires were lesser creatures than werewolves. An ideology that he enforced, as sympathizing with one was simply not tolerated in the clan.

He thought the Dawkins, Huntington, Lykos, Lupin, and Wolfe clans were weak for not doing the same. Weak, liberal, egalitarian clans. He only respected the Jacobs and Roman clans for their brutal stance on this also, despite all three being strictly the minority of this lycanthrope community.

If he heard anyone using the pejorative term of "Ahab" to describe him, he would let them have it. He would not abide having anyone criticize him, not even his own children. He was the worst kind of authoritarian, through and through. Worst of all, he was an authoritarian with an all-consuming obsession.

He never considered the "after" of killing his favorite son's murderer. Never considered how empty that would be, how it wouldn't bring back Abel, how it wouldn't make him feel any better in the long run. He never paused to consider letting go this hurt, never considered forgiveness. A harsh, unforgiving man, these thoughts were inconceivable to him.

Even in human form, something of the wolf lingered around his face and build. He tended to wear flannel shirts and blue jean overalls. He sometimes wore boots, but preferred to be barefooted, even in the cold of winter. He saw it as a visual cue of just how tough he was.

He felt like he was getting closer and closer to his quarry than he had in the past however many years it was. He had ceased caring about that. Indeed, he had ceased caring about anything other than his revenge and vengeance. He didn't have a single thought that wasn't devoted to this aim. And all he knew was that he was getting closer . . .

His sense of smell in human form wasn't enhanced in any way, but he was absolutely convinced that he could detect the foul stench of that particular vampire here. He was here. He was sure of it.

He would make that friggin' leech pay . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2017, 06:30:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Panic Attack

They . . . they couldn't have possibly found him, right?

RAF was too well protected for them get it unbidden and unwanted. Right? The forum would protect him. Would save him. Would rally to his side. Right? Right??

There it was. The old fear that he thought that he had long forgotten. Those dreams . . . those accursed dreams . . . they were telling him something. Warning him of something . . . something very, very dire . . .

No. No, it was just a dream. Dreams were meaningless. Just the subconscious playing tricks and such. He was safe. His jailors hadn't returned for him. They hadn't. He was safe and secure here, in his thread. Safe and secure.

But what if he wasn't?

What if he wasn't any safer here than anywhere else? Code Avalon has been broken before, after all. And no other RAFian is obligated to protect him, to save him. But they would any way, right? They would protect one of there own, right? He was a RAFian, after all. He never prevaricated or waffled when it counted. That would be good enough to ensure some loyalty, right?

But what if it wasn't? What if they turned on him? What if they sold him out just to make things easier? They wouldn't do that. No, they would never do that. Never. He just had to have faith in them, just like they had faith in him.

Although . . . did he give them any real reason to have faith in him? He wasn't exactly useful in past events. He had been off active duty for a while now . . . did they . . . did the others resent this? Did they perceive him as a part-timer or a freeloader? Would they be supportive or leave him to his fate?

He could not go back. He would never go back to that forest. He would not allow himself to be trapped like that again. He had found freedom in the forum. He had found friends and community in the forum. He was free to be himself here. He was free . . .

But was he really? The Fefnir alpha wolf could come through Code Avalon . . . could come at any moment. He had no doubt now that he was after him. After he had to kill that kid in sheer desperation to escape. He didn't want to,but he was left with very little option. He didn't know he could transfigure into a bat until after the deed was done.

It wouldn't have had to happen if his maker and blood brothers hadn't decided to up and abandon him in that forest. He wasn't trying to displaced blame, he acknowledged and accepted his role in the boy's death. He found it regrettable, but necessary for his escape, for his freedom. He was just fortunate that it wasn't a full moon that night.

But he knew a full moon was drawing closer and closer. And, if the Fefnir clan was looking for him as he believed wholeheartedly that they were, this would just make them all the more dangerous. If they caught him this time . . . well, this time they wouldn't be playing. This time they'll be playing for keeps. This time . . . if they caught him . . . they'd kill him on the spot.

He was up and pacing around his thread, which had a scarce few possessions that he managed to collect in the intervening time. All were cared for meticulously, helped a great deal by the house-elf housekeeping staff. But he wasn't thinking about that. His concerns and series of doubts that kept cropping up was seriously upping his anxiety. So, he was antsy, jumpy, and just plain stressed out. He would be required to feed soon -- a blood substitute, of course -- but it was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

He just kept contemplating what he should do. Should he tell the others, especially his sire, Gaz? Should he remain at the forum, but tell no one? Should he just leave and try to run away from the Fefnir clan once again? He was indecisive, but he needed to reduce his anxiety or he was likely to have a panic attack.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 19, 2017, 06:21:15 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Shanker's Decision

He had to come to a decision. He had to decide and stick to it, no matter what. But he was rife with indecision and anxiety of the two options he presented himself: Whether or not to leave RAF.

This place was a safe haven for him. He had never before felt such camaraderie and companionship. He was also part of something bigger, though still himself. Could he really just up and abandon them? Even when he had a dissenting opinion, he was not swiftly kicked out and banned (he had actually experienced that once or twice before joining the forum -- some people just had fragile egos, he guessed).

He couldn't just abandon a place he called home for so very long. Even in his scarcely decorated thread with his four-poster bed (standard to each thread, unless inhabited by a species that either doesn't sleep or doesn't sleep in beds) was wonderful and almost sacred to him.

And the others? There was no way that they would betray him. Okay, Odie might, but he was gone now, no longer a threat. And it was true, there was always the chance he might be killed on a mission, like Rotiart was, despite his body never being found. Other than the . . . bits . . . of course.

But then an idea occurred to him, one that he hadn't had before.

What if him being here wasn't about his safety? What if he was putting the others in jeopardy by being here? Those werewolves probably already had his scent, by now. They've probably memorized it after all these years, after he had to slay one of their own to facilitate his escape. They probably had it memorized -- and could use it to track him to the forum. Track him to the forum and endanger the lives of everyone living here.

Or worse -- the alpha Fefnir could decide to not kill everyone, but convert some of the human RAFians, if they fit his fancy. Turn them, whether willingly or unwillingly into werewolves. He never sired an unwilling subject. Both his sires were willing, both Gaz and her blood brother (before his untimely demise at the hands of the Slayer). He found it unconscionable to do it on someone who does not want it, who has no interest in being converted. But -- sometimes they don't realize what they're getting into, like Gaz's late blood brother.

True, the presence of so many people of varying species around here may be sufficient to mask his scent, as vampire scents are more subdued that the more vibrant, the more alive, species, but they still have them, like Vladats. And only neophyte vampires experience vulnerability to sunlight, which they lose as they mature. And they don't sparkle in sunlight when they are mature enough to survive it, and Shanker was livid that that misconception got around as truth.

But back to the problem at hand. Even if his scent was masked, he had left the forum enough times that it could be still out there, in the surrounding areas. To stay here would be making this place at target. To make his friends and allies targets.

The decision was made. He would leave the forum. Lead them away from RAF. Lead them away from the other RAFians. He would not renounce the forum (thereby keeping his Mark), but he would never return. He wouldn't be able to, not while there was this hunt on his head. He could almost hear the howls now -- they'll close in soon. He would have to lead them away. Maybe even sacrifice his life in the process.

'Tis a far nobler thing to do, he decided. So, he packed as many belongings as he could, all the things that he would need and had room for in a bindle, a blanket roll, that he created. It didn't have much within the monochromatic cloth, but it would have to suffice. He was a prepared as he would ever be.

And so he set out. But he never knew that he was seen, scented, and followed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2017, 06:37:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
It's Terror Time Again

So, Shanker ran.

He ran, looking over his shoulder, looking to his left and right. Looking straight ahead. It never occurred to him to transfigure himself into a bat and fly away. Besides, that would go against his plan to leave a scent trail leading away from RAF, to make the others less of a target by the Fefnir clan.

It was slightly cloudy, but it was a full moon tonight. As he ran, he seemed to hear:

He hears the screeching of an owl,
He hears the wind begin to howl,
He know there's werewolves on the prowl,
And it's terror time again,
They've got him running though the night,
It's terror time again,
And he just might die of fright,
It's a terrifying time.

He continued run, actually feeling more and more afraid with every step.

He hears the beating of his heart,
He knows the screaming's gonna start.
Here comes the really scary part!
And it's terror time again,
They've got you running through the night,
It's terror time again,
Oh, he just might die of fright,
It's a terrifying time.

Shanker did not like feeling this kind of fear again. Especially when, mere hours before he thought he was forever free of this brand of fear. But he should have known. Nothing is forever.

All the trees begin to moan,
And the werewolves grunt and groan,
Rotting fangs, full of slime,
Doesn't he know that it's terror time?
And it's terror time again,
They've got him running through the night,
Yes, it's terror time again,
Oh, he just might die of fright,
It's a terrifying time.
It's a terrifying time.

He was getting further and further away from RAF. From his home. His heart ached that he'll very probably never see the place again. But as long as the others were safe from the Fefnir clan . . . then it was well worth it.

All the trees begin to moan,
And the werewolves grunt and groan,
Rotting fangs, full of slime,
Doesn't he know that it's terror time?
And it's terror time again,
They've got him running through the night,
Yes, it's terror time again,
Oh, you just might die of fright,
It's a terrifying time.

The last word echoed ominously as Shanker stopped thinking that he was far enough away to keep the Fefnir clan from discovering his connection to the forum, thinking that the scent, his scent, was stale enough now there that there would be no danger of the others feeling the wrath of the Fefnir clan.

But what of him? If they found him, they would kill him. He knew it. And there was a full moon tonight. That was entirely possible.

"So," came a voice from the shadows, a familiar one, "what was this all about?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=67dVpgUry7Q

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2017, 07:46:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Calling Out

"DAHHH!" Shanker screamed. He had neither heard or smelled Cloak. Cloak did have a habit of not making a sound when he walked -- it was super annoying. "DON'T DO THAT, CLOAK!! You almost made me have a coronary. . . ."

"Can vampires even get -- never mind, questions for later," Cloak said. "So, what are you running from? It can't be Odie -- though that, admittingly, would be perfectly understandable."

Shanker hesitated before saying, repressively, "None of your business."

Cloak said nothing, just waited.

"Don't look at me like that," Shanker said.

Cloak said nothing.

"Don't judge me, Cloak," Shanker said.

Cloak remained silent.

"Don't you judge me!" Shanker cried.

The Realm Walker still refused to utter a word.

"I know what I'm doing, Cloak," Shanker said. "I'm protecting everyone else."

"By running away?" Cloak said, at last.

"I'm not running away!"

"You're out of breath," Cloak said.

"I am not!"

"What could have possibly driven you from the forum, then? You remained during the Madre de Vampyra debacle. You remained during the antigravity and the shrinking sun situations.  And more perilous events you remained steadfastly with us." Cloak said. "What do you fear enough to cause you to flee?"

"I'm . . . I'm not afraid!"

"You don't sound so sure of that," Cloak pointed out.

"Enough with the third-degree, Cloak!" Shanker said, feeling nettled, perceiving a pique. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Then if you will do away with the faux nobility and martyrdom, then we can hash this out," Cloak said, civilly.

Shanker was feeling provoked now. "Faux nobility, Cloak? Martyrdom? I'm doing what I need to do to protect everyone else, including you!"

"By running away from your problems?" Cloak said.

"By running away f-- hey!" Shanker said, rife with irritation now. "I'm not running away from my problems, Cloak! And you're a fine one to talk about that! I know you're running away from your problems back in the Nexu or whatever it is you come from. Why don't you go there and confront your problems before lecturing me on running from problems? Hmmm?"

"Because," Cloak said evenly, "a political exile is not the same thing as running from a problem."

"What?"

"But that's not important, right now." Cloak said. "Perhaps you can tell me why there are -- three, six, nine -- eleven werewolves surrounding us right now?"

"WHAT?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2017, 02:59:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Fight and Flight

"There you are," said a husky voice, with somewhat of a Southern drawl, as eleven were wolves padded out of the forest. They were far larger than ordinary, generic wolves. Most were the size of bears, with the largest only being significantly larger than the rest. Their tails were tufted, their snouts a bit more stunted and flatter than a mundane wolf, and possessing human hands, only a lot beefier. Clearly able to walk bipedally or quadrupedly at a whim. "You thought you could murder my boy and get away with it?"

"I -- I didn't --"

"The hell you didn't!" the largest werewolf said.

He was obviously the alpha, Cloak, observed. But he was noticing Shanker's reactions. And he immediately recognized the similarities . . .

"I didn't mean t-to do it, I d-didn't want to d-do it --"

"Oh, and that makes it alright then? You didn't mean to?!" the alpha said. Cloak could understand where the alpha was coming from, but something about him was rubbing the Realm Walker the wrong way. "You killed my favorite boy --"

It was at this point Cloak thought he could detect some expressions of resentment on the faces of some of the other, smaller ten werewolves. He thought he could deduce why.

"I just wanted to escape! I'm sorry -- I j-just c-couldn't do it anym-more." Shanker said.

"I didn't come here to hear you whine!!" the alpha roared. "That was your place, leech! You should have been grateful to be our chew toy every full moon. To be our practice dummy against legitimate threats, against competent leeches."

Shanker stammered, but this is when Cloak thought he had ascertained enough information to intercede on Shanker's behalf. "His place, you say? What gives you the right to make that determination?"

"That's none of your business, stranger," the alpha growled. Cloak wasn't intimidated. He had faced a lot of things scarier than an alpha werewolf. His mother, for instance. "Stay out of it."

The last four words were clearly intended as a threat. Cloak almost laughed derisively.

"You mess with a RAFian, and it becomes the business of other RAFians." Cloak said, keeping his cool.

"If you don't, stranger," he growled, "then you will die as well."

This time Cloak did laugh, finding the last six words hilariously ignorant.

"DON'T YOU LAUGH A ME!!" he roared.

This was enough to cause Shanker to abandon all pretense and flee his abusers. He transfigured himself into a bat as he did. Cloak did not feel abandoned. Quite the contrary, he thought he knew the emotions Shanker was experiencing was probably very similar, if not identical, to how he felt when he desperately fled his mother's custody.

"DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!!" he roared to his pack.

But the trees had inexplicably closed in tight around them, and whenever there were gaps, they were inexorably filled with earth.

"I'm sorry, but no." Cloak said.

"You would be trapped in here with us?" he snorted. It was amazing that this full moon had not been obscured by a single cloud yet. But, then again, it was a cloudless night.

"No. I'm not trapped in here with you," Cloak said, with a sly smile. "You're trapped in here with me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2017, 11:10:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Need For Distance

He had knew that they would come after him. He knew. He knew it.

So, then, why did it take him by such surprise that they actually deigned to show up? Why did it just hit him there and then that they would be there? Why did the fear have to bubble up making him nearly incoherent? Why did he default to that demurred, submissive state again? They were not his masters. They held no sovereignty over him. They held no dominion over him.

He flapped his wings as hard as he could, putting distance between him and his abusers as much as he could. He didn't really care about the destination as long as they weren't there. All he wanted was as much distance as possible from them.

They still terrified him, making him feel as though he were a child -- though he couldn't really remember his actual childhood -- it's been too long, and too much has happened to thoroughly eclipse it.

He allowed himself to fly high enough that his bat form was silhouetted by the huge, full moon. He didn't think this through, his mind too full of fear and intimidation to consider the possible implications and ramifications of this.

He had honestly entertained a notion, once, that he would never the Fefnir clan again. That he was safe from their reach. That he . . . that they could never touch him at the forum. Thought he was always . . . thought that this part of his life was behind him. This whole situation was nothing but an echo of a past that he so incredibly didn't want to catch up to him.

His chiropteran arms felt as if they were on fire and he found that he didn't care all that much. All he knew was that he wasn't far enough away from them. He would never be far enough away from them. They always were with him -- if not physically, but in his mind. He had always dreaded this day. This day when they found him.

A momentary shriek and he discovered that an owl had decided that he was prey. Now even the woodland critters were turning on him. He didn't know if owls preyed on bats, but he felt that it might be wise to take cover. So, he did just that, narrowly missing becoming a meal, roosting in the eaves of some old, abandoned building. He clung to the shadows, feeling a modicum of safety there.

Life really wasn't fair. Undead life, even more so. He had never asked for this. Any of this. What had he done to deserve this kind of treatment? What did he do to warrant it? He would really like to know. He would really like to know why he must suffer through this misfortune.

Even though it was a warm June night, he shivered beneath the eaves of this house. He wondered idly if he never retook his human form and just stayed a bat, maybe that would be sufficient to keep them from finding him. Maybe that was the perfect disguise. Maybe . . .

He sat their for the longest time -- he may have dozed once or twice he did not know. He just felt miserable. Even more so when he realized he had just up and abandoned Cloak. For really no reason but his terror.

This made his bat body feel heavier than it should have. The weight and burden of guilt. He knew that he should go back. He knew he was just running from his problems. He knew that he was allowing fear and intimidation to dominate him. He should go back. He should . . .

But he was so afraid. The Fefnir clan was one of the fiercest, most fearsome werewolf clans in existence, if not the fiercest and the most fearsome. How could he go back? Cloak was more than capable of taking care of himself. He w-wouldn't need his help.

Right?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2017, 09:21:39 AM

New book ideas.

• Book MCLXXVII (1,177): "Lemme Tell Ya Sumthin', Wraith!" -- The RAFians must deal with the vampiric Wraiths.
• Book MCLXXVIII (1,178): "The Kinetic Connection" -- The RAFians must save a family of seven newly-orphaned siblings from an old faction.
• Book MCLXXIX (1,179): "Always Trying to Come Back" -- The RAFians must deal with an old villain trying to come back into power again.

Don't think I rehashed anything (a very tangible possibility this many books in).

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Boisterous Overconfidence

The alpha snorted derisively. "You think you're tough? You? I defeated and cowed into submission and subservience the great Vereticus Fefnir!! And you think a scrawny thing like you would be able to stand up against me of all people? Especially my werewolf form?"

Cloak was anything but scrawny. He stood roughly eight feet tall with the appropriate humanoid proportions to match. Granted, if the alpha decided to rear back unto his digigrade feet (which Cloak suspected might become plantigrade, but this was speculation), he would be about three, four feet taller than Cloak. But that did not make him stronger, faster or smarter than the Realm Walker.

"What? Why have you stopped talking?" he said, mistaking Cloak's stoic silence for fear and cowardice. Clearly, this guy was used to using fear and intimidation to obtain compliance and capitulation. Only this time, it wouldn't work. "Are you scared you weak, little NOTHING?!"

Cloak just simply, with folded arms, clearly unimpressed with the alpha, "You really have no idea who you're dealing with, do you?"

"No," he disagreed, rather boorishly. Then he spoke in a way that Cloak found rather childish, "you don't know who you're dealing with."

"Nice comeback," Cloak said, voice drenched in acid sarcasm.

"Fine, you want to fight, then let's fight." the alpha growled, already launching his attack.

Cloak barely had to move to evade his attacks. The technique was sloppy. The execution was amateurish, and telegraphed so obviously. Cloak wondered if the so-called "great" Vereticus Fefnir was blind and deaf when the alpha took him on. Honestly, this was disappointing for a battle. He fought like a brute, relying solely on brute strength instead of tactics and strategy. He had no nuance, no finesse, no noteworthy skill. Honestly, it was embarrassing.

Perhaps all the years consumed by his obsession had corroded and eroded his fighting prowess. Or maybe it was an aftereffect of being in his wolf form. Who knew which one was if? But it scarcely mattered, as this was one of Cloak's easy battles, bar none.

"Stop moving!!" he demanded, despite the fact that Cloak only moved in the most minute manner possible, and still none of his strikes landed.

"I haven't, not really," Cloak said, "in case you haven't noticed."

This just incensed the alpha more. And this was just pathetic. This guy was clearly not practiced at all. If he ever had skill at any point, he had allowed it to atrophy to the point of ridiculousness. And he also had one glaring weakness that he didn't care to acknowledge.

"Stop moving, coward!!"

"Are you blind as well as stupid?" Cloak said.

"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHH HH!" the alpha said as he lunged at him again. This time it looked like it may have hit -- if Cloak didn't somersault over him, using the alpha's.own shoulders to do so. He landed daintily, without a sound behind him, as he had a tremendous crash, like something out of a cartoon.

"Just a thing to note," Cloak said, as the alpha picked himself up, shaking off the impact. "In an one-on-one battle, a tiger will triumph over a wolf every time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2017, 01:49:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Questions to Be Asked

Shanker was still clutching to his roost under the eaves of this house, which was on the outskirts of the outskirts of suburbia. He didn't know how far away he was from the forum, from Cloak and the Fefnir clan. He still shivered with fear as images of their abuse and fearmongering and intimidation played through his mind as if he was strapped down in a cinema and forced to watch a movie that he rather not.

The more he tried not to think about Cloak and the Fefnir clan, almost paradoxically, the more he did. He did not want to constantly revisit this stuff in his mind or in reality. He had thought he was free, he thought he was . . . free . . .

He had successfully repressed all these hurtful memories. Or, at least, he thought he had. But, as it turns out, he had repressed them without really dealing with them. He had suppressed and downplayed them, as they were not significant. He had even tried to convince himself of this. He had tried so hard . . .

But none of it was true, was it? What happened really happened, and pretending that it didn't was doing him far more harm than good. He had always harbored a guilt for killing the boy -- but he knew it and understood it to necessary for his escape, but part him wondered. Was it really? Was it really necessary to slay that boy? He didn't do it in cold blood, so to speak, but he was like a frenzied, pent-up animal desperate for freedom.

But did he have to kill the werewolf adolescent? Was it truly necessary or . . . or excessive? Could he have just pushed him aside and . . . no. The truth of the matter was that he couldn't do that. He was already very malnourished at the time, and his strength was sapped, even with the kindness they gave him about allowing just the most bare-bones food proportions. He would have died of starvation or just by werewolf, and he had picked the one that felt less dangerous, less incumbent.

The alpha Fefnir would not rest until his head was on a pike. The alpha actually thought that he was being kind to Shanker by allowing him to live so that he could be hunted and chewed on every full moon. This is why his Boggart was a full moon -- because it meant torture . . .

But then why didn't he leave when the moon wasn't full? Why did he stay? Why didn't he escape then? Full moons only came once a month, after all. He could have left . . . as malnourished and mistreated as he was, he could have left. And . . . yet . . . he never did. He fed on the woodland critters to get his vampiric sustenance, but he didn't leave. He could have any time that it wasn't. He could have . . . why didn't he? Oh, why didn't he? Did that boy really have to die? He could have left before the full moon rose that night, or just simply left earlier.

But would they have allowed him? When he left, it was when the whole Fefnir clan had gotten complacent with him, had gotten careless. They were at the point where he was little more than their beaten pet. No, he was lower than that. They had cowed him into compliance, with the alpha in particular taking a sadistic joy out of it. He was a cruel, twisted man -- and he was that way whether wolf or man.

Shanker was little more than animal to them, a thing undeserving of compassion and understanding. Not surprising, as this alpha obviously considered such things shameful weaknesses. He was a man who believed strength was being cruel and merciless, that being tough was refusing to seek medical attention for any wound, no matter the severity. He was a backwater primitive sort of man.

Shanker could not face him again. He could not . . .

Why did Aidan abandon him there? Why did his own maker forsake him in such a way? To a vampire, his or her maker was very much like their father or mother, and their sire a child. He would have never abandon his two sires in such a way. Never. He was unable to stop Gaz's blood brother from being slain by the Slayer, but he tried. He had tried. Why was he neglected and rejected in such a way? Why did his maker not show him the kind of loyalty that he showed his own sires?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 23, 2017, 10:05:36 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Fight Back!!

"But you're not a tiger!!!" he snarled. The rest of his pack was evidently forgotten to him now, though Ian Fefnir seemed to realize what Cloak's plan was. But he was browbeaten enough to know not to contradict their father, Abraham. Especially when he was in one of his rages. Such an ironfisted control he had over his pack, over his family.

Cloak had noticed this, but he was waiting. He was waiting to see . . . to be sure . . . until then, he was quite confident that he could handle this ruthless brute. Authoritarians are never loved, but feared. How anyone could enjoy such a role, Cloak would never know. He would never understand the need to have every little thing under your control -- it was a patent impossibility for every little thing to be under someone's control. It would just serve to make someone neurotic or paranoid or both. Why would anyone choose such a life, such a role?

He lunged at Cloak again. Why did he do this repeatedly? Cloak had demonstrated a number of times that this didn't work. Was he just that obtuse or simply obstinate? Cloak was finding it rather difficult to tell now. All his attacks were rather quixotic and impulsive, and so sadly predictable. Cloak wondered idly if the RAFians would have been this patient with this waiting to see if --

He swiped right, Cloak dodged left easily. He then swiped left and Cloak dodged right. It was really simple, paint-by-the-numbers type of fight. However, it would seem as if only Cloak himself was privy to this. Cloak quickly deduced that this guy didn't fight a lot. He clearly wasn't as trained a fighter as he believed he was. If anything, he was a berserker, someone who fights without any forethought or strategy, but just brute strength and nothing else.

"Fight back!" he roared, frustrated.

"And if I should refuse?" Cloak said. And, of course, the alpha, Abraham, had no answer. It was becoming increasingly clear that he could not touch the stranger, but his ego wouldn't allow him to end this battle or tell his children to help him. He wanted to do this, and he wanted the glory all to himself.

He never thought of the one weakness he and his children had. How this whole thing was pointless from the start. No, his enormous ego reigned supreme and his children were too afraid to disobey, or disappoint, or anger their father. His punishments . . . well, they're best not elaborated on in detail.

Cloak had no idea of their human identities, but he knew why the pack refused to go against their leader. It didn't take a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to deduce that they were afraid and intimidated by him. Cloak could understand that -- he had dealt with that himself. He knew what prisons one's own mind could conjure up, which is why he held absolutely no enmity towards Shanker for fleeing. He thought he understood the emotions.

"Coward!!" the alpha werewolf snarled. "Fight me, like a man!!"

"I am no more a human than you are right now," Cloak said, wondering idly if this man was a Bern Bridges listener. He didn't know why that thought struck him at this particular moment, but it did. Perhaps it was because he was finding this battle rather lackluster. Garrotik, he wasn't.

"Stop talking in riddles!!" he roared.

"I wasn't," Cloak said, truthfully. Funny how obsessive this man could be. He was now obsessed with this fight, seemingly forgetting the entire reason he came here. All he thought about right now was winning this fight, and wiping what he imagined to be a smug smirk from Cloak's face, despite the face Cloak wasn't smiling at all. He was quite literally taking zero enjoyment from this fight.

"What are you waiting for?!"

Cloak ****ed his head, and gave him an incredulous look. "How haven't you figured it out by now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 24, 2017, 08:16:53 PM

Sorry that this chapter is so late. And I might not post a chapter during the weekend (perhaps letting people just catch up in the meantime), as I have to work two double shifts in a row.

Anyway, new chapter. Sorry for any brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Misgivings

Shanker was still roosting beneath the eaves of this house, shivering. Remember times that he would much rather like to forget. Times that he would like much better to fade away into nonbeing, into nonexistence.

But that was foolish, he scolded himself. This happened. It happened, and nothing he could do or say would change that fact. It happened. He needed to pull himself together. Pull himself together, and leave this place of safety that he had found.

But, after thinking this, he found it much harder to follow through on it. Much harder, as if his very own body was fighting him on this. There was just . . . just so much pain that he associated to that man. Emotional and physical . . .

How can he go back? How could he face that . . . that . . . monster? How could he . . .

How could he be a coward, like this? How could he just run away from his problems? He was a RAFian for god's sake. RAFians were supposed to be made of tougher, sturdier stuff than this. And he behaved . . . shamefully. Regretfully.

He was here, roosting in the eaves of a long-forgotten house from some bygone era. Growing mold and other such undesirable things due to its poorly maintained status. He was here, hiding at this dilapidated mess of a house, and what was he doing? Cowering. Cowering in fear of someone miles away.

He was a coward, he felt. He was acting like a craven coward. He was allowing his fear to consume him, he was allowing the alpha of the Fefnir clan to hold power over him even when he was not anywhere near present. But that's what a deep-seated trauma can do to someone -- instill them with a paralyzing fear, which Shanker had never truly felt before dealing with the Fefnir clan. Though, if Shanker was truly honest with himself, if was actually a paralyzing terror.

But he was starting to feel disgusted with his behavior -- he had abandoned Cloak! No matter how good Cloak thought he was, there was no way he would be able to battle all eleven at once. Not unless he . . .

Unless he . . . unless he took off his eponymous cloak. That would prove disastrous, especially if that idiot Bern Bridges caught wind of it. Shanker did not want to know just how he would distort and spin this.

No. No, he would have to be a man about this. He would have to stop allowing his fear to consume him. He would have to stop running from this. He had already spent too much time living in fear. It was time that he advocated for himself. It was time to do the hard thing instead of the easy thing. It was time to confront his demons. It was time to confront the alpha wolf of the Fefnir clan.

Shanker pushed himself away from the deteriorating eaves of the house, and opened his chiropteran wings, flapping determinedly to his destination. The destination that he should have never fled from. The place where he left Cloak.

He would have to be strong. He would have prepare himself menrally and emotionally for the likely things that the alpha would say and do. He would have to stand firm. He may not have intended to kill Abel Fefnir, but the fact of the matter is he would still be alive if the Fefnir clan wasn't so dead set on imprisoning him for the mere crime of being a vampire. He couldn't help his nature anymore than they could, and their abject refusal to see it -- well, that was their problem. He was done living in fear. He had done it for too long.

As he flew, he didn't even seem to take in something rather noticeable. How light was racing along the ground and everything above, racing along faster than he. He was so focused on this new goal, steeling himself against what ever the alpha would do, he hadn't even noticed that dawn had arrived. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2017, 05:13:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
What Are You WAITING For?!

"What are you waiting for?!"

"You still haven't figured it out yet?"

"There's nothing to figure out!" he declared, changing tact in a rather comically buffoonish manner.

"Oh, you might as well stop that," Cloak said, with indifference, examining his claws idly. His claws were free from his natural biological corona, so they could be unsheathed from his gloves without irreparable harm to the realm at large.

"Stop? I'm not going to stop this fight until you grow a backbone and fight back!!" he snarled.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," the Realm Walker replied, with a curt sharpness to his voice now. Like a principal disciplining an naughty child. Where he human, Cloak imagined that he would have blanched. "You need to stop trying to intimidate me, Mr. Fefnir. I have demonstrated over the few hours we've been at this that it will not work."

"It works if I says it works!" he roared.

"Then you're as stupid as you look," Cloak said, almost bored. It should happen soon now. It bloody took its sweet time getting here.

"Don't you call me --"

"What did I say?" Cloak sighed, with frustration leaking into his tone. "Your intimidation tactics won't work on me. I have power you can scarcely imagine, but, unlike you, I don't use it to browbeat others to do my bidding. I am not an tinhorn tyrant with a superiority complex."

"What did you call me?"

"Gateburst, Mr. Fefnir," Cloak said, not bothering to hide his frustration anymore, "read a Burstin' book once and a while. It won't kill you, and, who knows, you might learn something."

He just lunged at Cloak again, who easily sidestepped it. He really does telegraph his moves far too easily.

"Oh. Are you illiterate? Did I touch a nerve?" Cloak said, looking beyond the man-wolf and seeing the sky beginning to fade into blue. It was slow and subtle, and unnoticed by the whole of the Fefnir clan.

"Shut. Up," he growled. "You talk too much!"

"And you don't think much," Cloak countered easily. "You forget that you -- all of you have a very tangible weakness."

"I have no weaknesses!" he declared haughtily.

"Then you are a fool. Everyone has weaknesses," Cloak said. "And you seem to have forgotten -- the moon. The moon doesn't stay full forever, and it eventually sets when the sun comes up."

The light of the sun raced over the hills and bounded towards them, as the moon began to retire from the day. The clan didn't seem to notice until the last moment that their thick, coarse fur was receding back into their bodies. That their stubby snouts and tufted tails were being retracted into their bodies. That their claws were deforming back into human fingernails, and their fangs were shrinking a deforming back into human molars, canines, bicuspids, and such. Their ears rotating back down their faces and becoming less lupin and more human. And they shrunk back down to appropriate human sizes for their age groups. Their eyes never changed.

Oh, and they weren't exactly wearing the new fall line.

"You -- you tricked me!!" Abraham spat furiously.

"You act like that was some difficult task to do," Cloak said, somewhat contemptuous. "It should have been obvious what I was waiting for."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2017, 06:06:35 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Cloak's Next Move

"You weren't waiting for daybreak," Abraham sneered, "you just got lucky."

"Yes, yes, tell yourself whatever you need for your little mind to comprehend this," Cloak said, his frustration having translated into benign indifference.

"I should have killed you when I had the chance," Abraham snarled. Funny just how much of the wolf carried over to the human.

Cloak allowed himself a mirthless laugh, "You never had the chance, Fefnir. And, more to the point, you could never kill me. Dwellers can't kill Walkers."

"Stop speaking nonsense!" he demanded, clearly unaccustomed to someone not being abjectly compliant.

"You first," Cloak said, with a weary sigh.

"So, what are you going to do now?" he growled, ignoring Cloak's last remark. "Kill me? Take over my clan?"

"I am not like you," Cloak said, voice even. "I would not take any enjoyment out of killing a man and orphaning his children. But, I know know your human identities, your faces. So, you've lost the advantage of anonymity."

"You know our clan's name, though," Ian Fefnir said. He sounded as arrogant and contemptuous as his father.

"And what would stop you from using a pseudonym?" Cloak asked. No answer, but Cloak wasn't sure if that was because he didn't have a smart comeback or if he didn't know what  a pseudonym was. Evidently, Abraham didn't trust the public school system, apparently seeing it as dangerously secular, so he had his children homeschooled and indoctrinated in his philosophy. Cloak actually felt pity for them -- they were the product of an egomaniacal authoritarian who wished to hold power over them forever.

Cloak could easily see this becoming a vicious cycle. Hatred and bigotry always begets more hate and bigotry with the next generation. It was like a virulent disease -- one that can only be cured understanding and knowledge.

"You can't do anything to us," Abraham snarled. He was dirty, his hair caked with dirt and forgotten leaves.

"That actually depends on my disposition," Cloak said. He was disappointed in this man -- whether or not he would admit it, he clearly abused these kids. Perhaps it was because of corporal punishments or . . . more depraved punishments. Cloak could see the marks on them. "And, in all honesty, someone should report you for child abuse, Mr. Fefnir."

"My kids are not being abused," he snarled. Honestly, he was just as much wolf in human form as in werewolf form.

"I beg to differ," Cloak said. He recognized the symptoms in the kids, as he did with Shanker. "You are no father at all."

"Save your petty judgements! Kill me if that's what you're going to do," he demanded. "Otherwise, let me and my family go, you cloaked freak."

"I think I see the root of this," Cloak said, eyeing Abraham perceptively, as the earth sunk back into the ground and the trees distanced themselves again. "You're pathetically insecure, Mr. Fefnir. Worse, you're a control freak. Everything has to be under your thumb, or you're just plain unhappy."

It was at this point when Shanker showed up again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2017, 07:21:22 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Shanker's Strength

"What are you doing back here, you murderous piece of --"

"That's enough," Cloak snapped, as Shanker looked stricken by hearing the sound of that voice again, as his resolve seemed to weaken. But, as Cloak placed a supportive hand on his left shoulder, his resolve seemed to strengthen.

"Don't tell me to --"

"Shut up," Shanker said, voice steady and unafraid. This took Abraham aback, unaccustomed to anyone he had cowed and browbeaten into submission telling him to shut it. "You know very well that your son Abel would still be alive if you had let me leave the forest."

"Liar!" Abraham said. "You could have left at any --"

"You are the one lying," Shanker cut across him, quickly. "Lying to me, to your children, and, worse of all, to yourself. You never had any intention on letting me leave. You did everything within your power to keep me imprisoned there. Crosses, garlic, and whatnot over all borders except the entrance, where you would enter when you transformed to hunt me in your own little private reserve. You beat me, cowed me into staying, utilizing psychological warfare --"

"Which makes you like of actual fighting skills somewhat disappointing," Cloak muttered. When he realized it was audible, he said, " Sorry, sorry. Please proceed, Shanker."

Shanker continued, "You used psychological warfare on me, made me question my self-worth, not as a vampire, but as a thinking, feeling being. Granted, this might have been mitigated if my maker hadn't decided to up and abandoned as if turning me was just a fling, but that's neither here nor there. What I did to your son -- Abel, wasn't it? -- I did in a moment of desperation to escape my torment."

"That didn't make it right!!" Abraham argued. Shanker wished that he hadn't caught him after the transformation. He didn't look as intimidating, and he . . . he wasn't all that appealing to look at, especially considering that he was dirty and he wasn't . . . well, let's just say, he wasn't exactly looking like a runway model, right now. "You could have left well enough alone!! Everything was perfectly fine before you murdered my favorite boy!"

Cloak chanced a glance his children's faces -- mostly their eyes. He saw a familiar flick of resentment in them at these last three words. Though Cloak would not profess to be an expert on human expressions, he was certain they were feeling resentment to their father, much like he had when living with his mother, Ursa. They weren't unfeeling to this overt favoritism, then. Unsurprising, as Abraham was not a good father by any stretch of the imagination. They only complied and capitulated due to fearing extensive and brutal punishments.

They needed to be taken away from him, but he convinced them if anyone outside the werewolf community knew their true nature, they would be killed. And with the likes of Bern Bridges and the Knights of Humanity out there, it wasn't exactly untrue.

"Yes, I did," Shanker said, earnestly and sincerely, "but you present it as if I took a vindictive, savage, sadistic pleasure in it. As if I fed on him. But I did not. I did not enjoy it at all. If anything, it was more of an accident than anything intentional. I regret the actions I took, I really do. I wish I knew of my vampiric powers of transforming myself into mist or a bat, at the time. But I didn't. I was a young vampire, a neophyte. I didn't know what I could and couldn't do at the time. I hadn't any guidance on the finer points then. Does it make it right? No. But it happened, and nothing can change it."

"Killing you will --"

"Oh, will you stop it with that?" Cloak said, his impatience now overt. "Killing anyone in blind vengeance won't make you feel better. Only the naive and the stupid think that. Your son is gone. Gone! Killing Shanker won't bring him back to life. It will not. Give up this petty obsession -- if you ever succeeded, you won't feel better. You feel empty and hollow. And miserable. Your goal, in the end, is pointless. You don't care about prevent future deaths, your aim is solely selfish and all about you."

"You don't know what --"

"I know more than you do, Fefnir!" Cloak said, his temper flaring up. "I am at least two hundred of your years older than you, and I have evidentally learned far more than you have in that timeframe."

"Liar! You a hu--"

"Say that I'm a human one more time, and see what happens." Cloak threatened, his amber eyes now golden-scarlet suns. His children drew together, actually afraid of Cloak now, realizing just how much restrain he had already demonstrated. "I don't want to orphan these children, innocent to your crimes, but keep prodding me, werewolf. Keep pushing."

Abraham actually recoiled. Though he'd never admit it, because it'd ruin his tough guy reputation, he was afraid. He could sense the power from Cloak, and it eclipsed his own. Unbeknownst to Abraham, this was but a fraction of his power. However, Cloak calmed himself, returning his amber eyes to normal.

"And don't think I'm not going to report you to child protective services," Cloak said, as he and Shanker begun to leave. "They deserve a home where they are loved and cared for -- not seen as some sort of soldier or mercenary in what amounts to a pack of attack dogs. They do not deserve your abuse."

"You can't do that!! I won't allow it!! They are my kids!! They! Are! Mine! I can treat them how I wish!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2017, 09:01:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Child Services

KNOCK! KNOCK!

No answer. Just deathly quiet.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Nothing again.

KNOCK!! KNOCK!!

"Mr. Abraham Stroker Fefnir?" said the woman in a crisp, three-piece lavender suit. Her dark hair was drawn up into a tight bun and her glasses were rigidly square and fit on her face rather strangely. She carried with her a burgundy case folder. "My name is Maia Freeman. This is child services."

KNOCK!!! KNOCK!!!

"You can't have 'em," said a grizzled voice, through the door. The door itself was made from rotting away wood and there were minute gaps in the bottom and side of the door. The tarnished brass knob could be locked, though it was pointless. A well-placed kick would have thrown the door open without much force required. "They're mine. They belong to me."

"Mr. Fefnir, I must ask you open the door," Ms. Freeman said, "otherwise, I will obtain a warrant and have the police get involved further into this manner."

"You can't have them!!" Abraham shouted obstinately. Now he cared about them. But only as property, and he had an increasingly difficult time seeing them as anything but. They were useful tools to have, but he didn't any room in his incredibly selfish heart for anyone but Abel. "They're mine!!"

"Their mothers might say otherwise," Maia said, curtly. "Now open this door, or the niceties will cease and we will play this the hard way."

"My kids ain't been abused. They stay here."

"I haven't said anything about abuse," Maia said, losing patience. "But, since you've basically just admitted --"

"I've admitted to nothing!"

Maia felt a bite of impatience. "Are you going to open this door, Mr. Fefnir?"

"You won't take them away from me! You won't disband my pack!!"

Had she not known about their "lunar sickness" she might have called him out on this BS concept, but as it was, she was aware and had protected herself accordingly. She had an assistant, a beefy-looking dude, to assist her in case Abraham decided to get violent.

"You can't have them!! They are mine to do with as I please!!"

"No, they are not, Mr. Fefnir," Maia said, "they are people with their own thoughts and feelings. And we have it on good authority that you have been abusing them, in addition to not even having legal custody of many of them to begin with."

Which was perfectly true. Many of their mothers were still alive, and Abel's was the only one that had been predeceased at this point. This is why Abraham was so against having them taken away, despite them not being his favorites, as he admitted forthright the preceding evening.

But, in the end, they were taken away from him, and returned to their mothers (who understood their "lunar condition"), and the kids didn't exactly hesitate to stay with their terrifying father. Many of the younger ones burst into tears, as their mothers showed them kindness that they were unaccustomed to. Many, if not all, were going to need therapy after dealing with this.

Abraham, however, was arrested for assaulting the police that had to be called to ensure this transfer. And he had to go to a maximum security place where he was placed in a heavily fortified isolation cell every full moon. All his poor decisions were catching up with him because of his arrogance and vindictiveness.

And no one felt sorry for him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2017, 04:25:38 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Sorting

Several RAFians were in the Great Hall of Hogwarts to be Sorted into their Houses. They were all between eleven and twelve, and wore the black school robes. Terenia was at the front of the Great Hall with a three-legged stool and a old, battered looking hat.

The Sorting Hat.

It did its song, but Cloak wasn't really paying attention to it, eager for the Sorting to begin. Eventually, Terenia unfolded the long parchment from which she would read names from.

"Abby," she called, and Abby disengaged herself from throng and went up to the stool. She sat down and had the hat plopped down onto her head. After a moment or two, the hat declared, "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Then she went and sat down on the table second from the right, amongst cheers of the Hufflepuffs sitting there.

"Blue!" Terenia called, and Blue followed Abby's example. The hat barely touched his head before declaring, "RAVENCLAW!"

The he went to join the table second from the left, as the Ravenclaws applauded their new member.

"Canicula!" Terenia called out.

She followed suit as the other two before her. The hat rested on her head for a few minutes before declaring, "HUFFLEPUFF!", and she went off to join Abby and the other Hufflepuffs.

"Cloak!" Terenia called out. Cloak walked up and sat down on the stool. Then the hat was put on his head, he heard a small voice in his ear, saying, "Hmm. Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes — and a nice spate of ambition, now that's interesting . . . .so, where shall I put you?"

It was the Hat speaking, of course. It was using Legilimency, but Cloak didn't know how he knew that. Sure, he did some reading before coming to Hogwarts, but he didn't think that he retained anything. He also was well aware that he was becoming a hatstall.

"Hmmm . . . better be . . . RAVENCLAW!!" Cloak took off the hat, and joined Blue and the other Ravenclaws.

"GH," Terenia announced. He went up to get sorted, and was disappointed when the Hat decided to put him in Hufflepuff despite his protests. He joined the table and sat by Abby.

"Hunter," Terenia announced. Hunter went up, sat down on the stool, and had the Hat placed on his head. After a few minutes, but less than five, the Hat declared him a Gryffindor as GH watched, somewhat disconsolately, as Hunter joined the Gryffindor table at the far left of the Great Hall.

"Quaf," Terenia announced. She bounded up to the stool, full of nervous excitement. The Hat was on her head for at least a full two minutes before it declared her a Ravenclaw. She headed over to join Cloak and Blue at the table.

"Saffa," Terenia announced. She walked up to the stool, and sat down in a most dignified way. Only to slip off the stool briefly, as the Hat was place on her head and decided that she should go to Ravenclaw.

"Visser :3," Terenia announced. He walked up, hiding his nervousness, though his anxiety showed. The Hat decided on putting him in Slytherin, and he went to sit on the table on the far right.

"Xeno," Terenia announced. He walked up and was quickly sorted into Ravenclaw. And with that, the Sorting was done -- and Cloak woke up.

"What the actual Veil?" he muttered. "What's the deal with these dreams?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2017, 09:27:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Dusty

"Ugh."

Helen was dispatched to a dump -- that's dump in the literal sense, as in the place where refuse ends up -- and she wasn't too thrilled by it. Even if she had to deal with one of Demos's little fiends. Why was she, specifically chosen for this job?

Oh, well. Might as well get it over and done with.

It was scanned to be in the center of this mess. Helen had her Star Sapphire violet aura around her. It helped block the unholy stench from all this garbage. How anything could survive, much less thrive, in this smelly locale, she didn't know. She checked her scanned coordinates.

"Oh, of course," she muttered, unhappily. Then she plunged into the muck, despite really not wanting to. When she came out she found herself in one of the dump's facilities, set deep into the ground as the place has apparently a shifty foundation, she guessed. Then she got to a compactor area somehow.

"And I gave Parker grief for acting stupidly," she muttered to herself, using her ring to escape this trap. She felt glad that she always made sure to recharge it before going on a mission.

It wasn't long thereafter that she found the fiend in an oddly spacious room, devoid of garbage. Almost as if it ate all of it . . .

The creature was roughly the size of a child, with no real head, its face being right between its bulky, pale orange shoulders. It had no mouth, unless the humongous air duct-like structure above its human-like eyes counted as an always open, always gaping mouth. It had brown sclera and black irises, set into a smooth, purple face, with what appeared to be a coil of wires beneath this. It had black upper arms, and pale orange forearms. It only possessed a black left hand, ringed by four spikes or horns qt the wrist, as the other was an arm cannon of some sort. It had a pale orange torso with a darker orange abdomen. Its pontoon-like feet and lower legs were bulky and pale orange, with wiry, white thighs.

"Lemme guess," Helen said, "garbage eater?"

This just alerted it to her presence. It began to suck in air, like a vacuum, through its air duct-like mouth. Helen kept her distance and this attack proved ineffectual. After it stopped, she immediately blasted with three concussive blasts from her ring, all hitting.

But it was not down. It threw several balls of what appeared to be condensed and compacted dust at her, which she dodged, but split in four directions which dodged as well, as they didn't have homing capabilities.

She fired four more concussive blasts from her ring, and slayed the creature, hopefully putting it out of whatever torment or savagery state that it was in. But this was mostly thought about in this way to make her feel better about herself, as she made her way back to the forum.

***

Demos called it a "dasutosapien". He apparently designed it for sanitation purposes, being able to consume and digest garbage. Demos wouldn't answer what it would digest the garbage into -- and, frankly, no one really wanted to know.

***

"It was just so dusty about it," Malice crowed. But the term she was looking for was "salty".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2017, 07:00:44 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXVII:
SHE'S BACK! A DINO STORY
CHAPTER ONE:
Sulk and Skull

Cloak had arrived at the graveyard. Or boneyard, whatever you want to call it. They place was eerily similar to the elephant graveyard in The Lion King.

Though he never really mentioned it to the others, but the fact that Dwellers always left more behind than a cloak when they perished -- it still perplexed and disturbed the Realm Walker. His kind only left behind their cloaks as they faded away into death, as they went Beyond the Veil.

This seemed almost sacrilegious, in a way, despite Cloak not being religious at all. It was just so . . . so alien to him. Then again, it should make sense, as all of the Dwellers here were aliens to Realm Walkers, technically speaking.

Anyway, Cloak followed the ridiculously winding path between gravestones and their marked graves. He kept Earthsighting to where this fiend was. And he kept "seeing" boxes, littered everywere, buried underground. Thank the First Light that he couldn't "see" what was inside them. He rather not know, though it was obvious.

Soon enough, he came to the center of the area where he saw it. The creature basically looked like a naked Papyrus from Undertale, lanky and thin, with human-like eyes, with dark orange sclera and black irises. It also had skulls as shoulder pads, and his right hand was retractable into an arm cannon of sorts. It was just a foot or two shorter than Cloak. It had silver bracers and grieves on its limbs and long, pencil-thin neck.

When it became aware of Cloak's presence, it did nothing. The two just eyed each other. It only moved when Cloak made the smallest and subtlest of movements. It retracted its hand into its arm cannon, and then it shot a calcified bullet, which Cloak deduced to be bone. It did this several times, forcing Cloak to the defensive.

When Cloak shot a concussive blast of his energy out (mainly to test what defensive measures that it would take), the two skulls on its shoulders blocked it, and began to orbit him like Orbitars in Kid Icarus. They continued to orbit around it as it folded its arms contemptuously.

Overconfidence. An extreme liability in any fight. Overconfidence has a way of leading to both hubris and making foolish mistakes. But all of these fiends have proven to have lesser intelligence than Maul. Many of them seemed incapable of speech.

"You really think that you're hot," Cloak spoke a Realm Walker expletive here that didn't really translate, "d'you? Well, then . . . let's see how confident you are -- when you can't see me!"

And Cloak raised a cloud of what appeared to be dust, but it was really fine, powdery earth. The creature seemed confused and disoriented by this tactic. But after being hit upwards of seven times by it, when the dust cloud inexplicably decided to condense part of itself and strike the creature. Only then to disperse back into the cloud. After seven strikes, it was all over.

The creature was dead, and Cloak took his leave.

***

Demos called it an "osteosapien". Demos had intended for him to be a horror attraction, but no one believed him, and he admitted he was designed for combat.

***

"What a thick skull," Malice mused.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2017, 05:37:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Kill the RAFian

"I say we kill the RAFian!" Buffoon said, as a group of Walkers consisting of sheep, mice, and other assorted anthropomorphic animal forms sang:

"We're not safe until he's dead.
He'll come stalking us at night.
Set to sacrifice our children
To his monstrous appetite!
He'll wreak havoc on our village,
If we let him wander free!"

Buffoon took charge. Which was to say he demanded to be the boss, as he sang:

"So it's time to take some action, boys!
It's time to follow me!
Through the mist, through the wood,
Through the darkness and the shadows,
It's a nightmare, but it's one exciting ride!
Say a prayer, then we're there!
At the threshold of a forum,
And there's something truly terrible inside!
It's a RAFian!
He's got fangs, razor-sharp ones!
Massive paws, killer claws for the feast.
Hear him roar! See him foam!
But we're not coming home
'Til he's dead!
Good and dead!"

The Walkers sang:

"Kill the RAFian!
Kill the RAFian!"

Buffoon sang:

"Screw your courage to the sticking place!"

The Walker sang, unaware of the irony:

"We're counting on Buffoon to lead the way!"

Buffoon, the mongoose form Realm Walker, sang:

"Call it war, call it threat,
You can bet they all will follow.
For in times like this, they'll do just as I say!"

A small serval Realm Walker whose name, chosen or given, was unknown sang:

"There's a RAFian running wild, there's no question,
But I fear the wrong monster's released."

The other Walkers sang:

"Sally forth! Tally ho!
Praise the First Light and here we go!
We don't like what we don't understand.
In fact, it scares us,
And this Master is mysterious at least!
Save your children and your wives
We'll save our village and our lives
We'll kill the RAFian!"

Meanwhile, at the forum, the RAFians were milling around, when GH (on communications duty) noticed the oncoming army and alerted the forum, and went to find Cloak, having recognized the invaders as Realm Walkers.

The RAFians sang, as they prepared for a battle that they would very likely lose, singing:

"Hearts ablaze, banners high!
We go marching into battle,
Unafraid, although the danger's just increased!"

Meanwhile, the mob of Realm Walker sang, as they began to batter Code Avalon:

"Raise the flag, sing the song!
Here we come, we're fifty strong,
And fifty Walkers can't be wrong!!
Let's kill the RAFian!"

Meanwhile, in Cloak's meditation spot on the forum grounds, GH had entered it. GH said, "Pardon me, Cloak --"

"Leave me in peace," Cloak muttered. He didn't want company. He was still brooding over the preconceived notion that he shall never see Shadow nor Faith ever again.* And feeling shame that there may be nothing he can do to stop --

"But, Cloak!" GH persisted. "The forum is under attack!"

"Kill the RAFian!
Kill the RAFian!"

"What should we do against these Walkers?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter now," Cloak said, getting up and marching toward the forum's gate. "Let them come. They shall regret it."

It was at this point Cloak woke up. But, unlike the Potter-themed dreams, this was different. This one felt like it was warning him of something -- but it didn't make sense. Shill's Council had already made their play. That was over.

But, then, what could it mean?

---

Source Song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4nEiNxr4NpQ

* Based on a real fear of mine. Reasons of which will be disclosed at my discretion.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on March 30, 2017, 06:20:07 AM

Ehehehe. : 3 AWESOME, a Beauty and the Beast parody song. ?

Hope Cloak's going to be okay...: [

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2017, 04:21:27 PM

Funny you should say that, Shen.

I'm very not okay right now -- I found out at work that my aunt, in Memoirs as Wheeza (see the "Epic Yarn" book) . . . passed away. I'm still in tears as I write this. As such, Memoirs is now on hiatus. I need some time . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on March 30, 2017, 06:39:27 PM

I don't blame you whatsoever. I know how much she meant to you, and seriously,take all the time you need. I'm here to talk if you want to

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on March 31, 2017, 06:42:39 AM

:(!!!!! Noooo.

Cloak, I'm...I'm sorry. We may be Internet acquaintances, but...I'd like to believe we're all there for you. Should you need us.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2017, 03:28:48 PM

Thank you, both of you. Your support means a whole lot to me.

We had the memorial service and my mother was there. She tried to talk to me, some codswallop about something Wheeza told her to tell me. If she wanted to tell me something, she would have done so herself, and not asked the one person she knows that I will actively never reconcile with (Memoirs readers will already be aquainted with why) to do. My mother was just trying to manipulate me, I know it, which is why I immediately rebuffed her and would not return to the main atrium of the church until my other aunt, my mother and Wheeza's youngest sister, came and got me, promising me that she'd leave me alone.

My mother burned that bridge, and I don't want it mended -- she is a very toxic, abusive person. I've seen both her public facade and her darker side. I hope I made that very clear to her that I do not want her in my life.

Anyway, I might start working on Memoirs again soon, as it is my therapy and the shock has worn off. A little, at least.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on March 31, 2017, 05:35:39 PM

I'm really sorry to hear that, Cloaky, but glad you have your writing as a way to help you cope. As Shen said, don't hesitate to let us know if we can help.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2017, 07:59:58 PM

Thanks Ash. It really is appreciated.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Leatherhead and GH

This was the part of parenting that GH found that he liked the absolute least. He had never really been all that good of a disciplinarian, he felt. He also hated having to rebuke Leatherhead. But he was his adopted father, not his adopted friend. It was hard, especially for an usually easygoing guy like GH.

So, GH tried something that had never failed him before. He played his guitar to try and coax Leatherhead to eat his dinner:

"How come you're always such a fussy young RAFian?
Don't want no Capt'n Munch, don't want no Raisin Bran?
Well, don't you know that other kids are starving in Japan?
So eat it! Just eat it!
Don't want to argue! I don't want to debate!
Don't want to hear about what kind of food you hate!
You won't get no dessert 'till you clean off your plate!
So eat it!
Don't you tell me you're full!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Get yourself an egg and beat it!
Have some more chicken, have some more pie!
It doesn't matter if it's boiled or fried.
Just eat it, eat it, just eat it, eat it!
Just eat it, eat it, just eat it, eat it, ooh!
Your table manners are some cryin' shame.
You're playin' with your food! This ain't some kind of game!
Now, if you starve to death, you'll just have yourself to blame!
So eat it, just eat it!
You better listen. Better do what you're told.
You haven't even touched your tater tot casserole*!
You better chow down or it's gonna get cold.
So eat it!
I don't care if you're full,
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Open up your mouth and feed it.
Have some more yogurt, have some more spam,
It doesn't matter it it's fresh or canned.
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Don't you make me repeat it!
Have a banana, have a whole bunch!
It doesn't matter what you had for lunch!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
If it's gettin' cold, reheat it!
Have a big dinner, have a light snack,
If you don't like it, you can't send it back!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Get yourself an egg and beat it!
Have some more chicken, have some more pie,
It doesn't matter if it's boiled or fried.
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!
Don't you make me repeat it!
Have a banana, have a whole bunch!
It doesn't matter what you had for lunch!
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it!"

"No!!" Leatherhead bawled. "No!! I'm don't wanna -- I don't like --"

GH hated when he got fussy like this. And he was obviously gearing up for a full tantrum. You think a six-year-old human temper tantrum was bad? Give that human child crocodilian traits, and you can only imagine the situation GH was in.

"Leatherhead," GH said. It was akin to a parent using their child's full name -- first, middle, and last name. It was a sign that Leatherhead was about to be disciplined for misbehavior -- and that would be hard enough if he was human.

"No!! I hate you! Go away!!" Leatherhead said, petulantly. He fled the thread, running away. He only stopped when hen ran into -- literally -- Dino.

"Whoa there, little guy," she said, affably enough. "Where's the fire?"

Leatherhead said nothing, but sniffed. After a little cajoling and coaxing, he told her what happened. She understood at once -- and knew parenthood was not easy, despite being childless.

"Ah, well, little guy," she said, gently and smoothly, "don't be too harsh on your dad."

"I hate him," Leatherhead said, with that childish stubbornness that the young tend to have.

"No, you're upset," Dino said, correctly him lightly. "You know you don't hate him. That's your anger talking."

He was about to protest as Dino sat down -- something that looked very awkward for any tyrannosaurid, let alone an ankylotyrannus.

"You might want to be careful, too, little guy," Dino said, "as you never know if or when you'll lose him . . ."

". . . What do you mean?" Leatherhead asked.

"Well," Dino said, "tell you what, little guy, let me tell you a story . . ."

---

Source Song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI

* A bit of an homage to Wheeza. She made a wonderful tater tot casserole.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2017, 04:40:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Dawn of Memory

The first thing Dino remembered was darkness. Just darkness. She couldn't remember how she acquired a tyrannosaur and ankylosaur, nor what her species even was before utilizing the Frolis Maneuver to combine those morphs into a creature she dubbed an "ankylotyrannus". Nor did she remember any morphs she had prior to this. She was fundamentally a tyrannosaurus with physical ankylosaur traits -- the armored back, spiked sides, and club tail.

All she remembered is fear. Fear for her own survival, fear for the survival of her four friends -- they were morphers, as well. They were skilled in the Maneuver as well, but none of them had actually tried it before now. Dino could not recall what their species were before -- or if, indeed, they shared the same species. This whole part of her life was hazy.

Her friends . . . they've been her friends for longer than she remembered.

There was Don, who used the Maneuver with triceratops and dimetrodon DNA, despite the two animals not living in the same time period. His base morph was that of a triceratops with dimetrodon traits. His body was perfectly triceratops, with the sail and tail of a dimetrodon. He was a tad gluttonous and bit awkward and clumsy, the latter more exemplified in his new saurian form.

Then there was the matronly Dactyl, who used the Maneuver with a pteranodon and a velociraptor. Her base morph was that of a pterosaur with the feet, sickle claws, and tail of a velociraptor. She was quite motherly, and tended to dote on her friends, and she concerned herself with their wellbeing and health, and nutrition. She was exceedingly observant, and hardly missed a thing, if ever.

Then there was Dweebers, who was a lovable doofus. He had used the Maneuver with a parasaurolophus and a stegosaurus. His primary body was that of the hadrosaur but with the stegosaur plates and spiked tail. He was a complete doofus, but he always had a good heart and also tended to see things that Dino, Dactyl, and Don couldn't.

She couldn't remember how she became friends with them, but just knew that she was. And three better friends could not be found. She loved them as family -- which was good, as she couldn't remember any family she might have.

She didn't even know what time period she was in. Some time in the Mesozoic? Not? How'd she even get back here? She was sure that she was not a native of this time period, much less time zone. It was all very confusing.

Could it have been due to a Sario Rip? Perhaps that's what also caused the jumbled up and scrambled memory? It was the only solution that Dino ever conceived of. But she didn't know if Sario Rips, if ruptures of space-time, like that had any documented cases of memory loss.

Then there was a great, big flash, almost like a lightning strike. Then all she knew was that she and her friends were tumbling, head over heel like some demonic dryer set on tumble dry, forward through time into the modern era.

Dino would later reason that it was probably due the Sario Rip, somehow, closing. Why or how were lost to her, and she never quite discovered how. Part of her was afraid to, and part of her suspected that it was the extinction event but then how some of her friends were able to acquire -- she actively chose not to think about it.

Anyway, she and her friends landed in the harbor right outside a city. It was night, and a night of a new moon, as the stars twinkled at her in a most benign manner. But how long had it been since they been in morph? They should morph back. They really should.

But none of them could. All four were now nothlits. Dinosaur nothlits.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2017, 02:09:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
M.O.N.H.

<M-O-N-H,> Dino read aloud, in thought-speak. Since she was a nothlit it was her only way of communicating. <Wonder what it means?>

THWAP! THWAP! THWAP!

<Ugh! Dweebers! What are you doing?> Dino demanded. He had been smacking his tail against Dino's ankylosaur shell, not hurting her in the least.

<Whipping you until your name's Tobey!> he said.

<My name is Tobey,> Dino said. She added, unintentionally, as her certainty melted away into uncertainty, <I think.>

<Wow!> Dweebers proclaimed. <That was quick!>

<Going back to that 'monh' thing. Could it possibly be a safe haven for us?> Dactyl said. <We stand out quite a bit as it is. We could cause damage to these structures and the small beings within, not to mention we could be harmed.>

<You mean all those squishies?> Don said, somewhat dimly.

<They're people, Don,> Dactyl said, reproachful. <Calling them 'squishies' is disrespectful.>

<Yeah, yeah, yeah,> Don said dismissively. <When do we eat? I'm hungry.>

<You're always hungry,> Dweebers pointed out.

<Doesn't change the fact that I am,> Don protested mildly.

<Enough, you two,> Dactyl scolded. <Priorities, m'dears. Priorities.>

<Dactyl is right,> Dino said, apparently the de facto leader of this little troupe. <We need to find a place where we're a less . . . conspicuous.>

<Conspicu-what?>

<Don't, Don. You know perfectly well what it means,> Dino said. <We attract too much attention in our current forms. And, now that we've all lost the morphing ability by becoming nothlits we can't blend in as easily. We can't even so much as shrink to a less noticeable size.>

<Yes, while a compact form would be nice,> Dactyl said. Her pteranodon/velociraptor hybrid body was actually the smallest of the lot. <While it would be nice, we need to find a place where we can be safe. Perhaps this 'monh' place could be it.>

<I dunno,> Dino confessed. <But it's still dark out. We can move under the cover of this darkness and no one will be the wiser.>

<But we don't know where this 'monh' place is,> Dweebers pointed out.

<We'll play it by ear,> Dino said, already moving on. Each step could be heard by the observant.

<Oh, yeah, like that went so well before,> Don said, acidly, <and now we're all nothlits.>

Don did have his cantankerous moments. Dino ignored him and trumped ever so slowly toward the city, ever careful not to be seen. She was keenly aware how much she and everyone stuck out as a sore thumb. And to make matters worse, the sun was starting to rise. Their cover was soon going to be obliterated by the harsh light of morning.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2017, 06:07:12 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Roll Back the Clock

But the sneaking their way to the M.O.N.H. didn't really happen as planned.

Why?

Well, because the sun came up and the quartet inexplicably found themselves in the middle of a parade. Dweebers and Don found themselves hauling a parade float, walking behind some of these "squishies" as they thought of them, despite Dactyl's reproach. Not a one of them could explain satisfactorily how this happened, and Dactyl's incredulous questions of how this happened when they were supposed to be hiding went unanswered.

It just sorta . . . happened.

Then as they walked, Dino heard a child say to her mother, full of awe and wonder, "It's a dinosaur! A real dinosaur!"

"No, dear," her mother said, completely ruining her child's suspense of disbelief in favor of being just plain realistic, "it's just a robot."

"Aw," she said, looking downcast, "I wish it was real. . . ."

Something about this, it stirred something inside Dino.

<Tobey, what are you doing? Why are we going along with this? We should get to the 'monh'!> Dactyl sniped primly. She grew more alarmed when the music seemed to swell. <Tobey, stop it. Stop it now.>

But Dino just started to sing in thought-speak:

<Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time.
When the Earth was smoking,
And the lava flowed.
Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time,
And blow your cool,
Just like a volcano!
Snap your fingers,
And stomp your feet!
Soakin' up a little
Of the saurian beat!>

<Tobey!> Dactyl demanded reproachfully, sounding shrill in her private thought-speak regulated for just the four of them. <Tobey, listen to me!!>

<Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time
And sing this song with me!
Roll back the clock!>

Thinking that this was all part of the show, the crowd sang (as a mysterious figure blending in with the crowd watched):

"Roll back the rock!"

<Turn back the clock!>

"Turn back the clock!"

Then Dino sang the song and danced again -- it was amazing that an ankylotyrannus could even dance. She seemed deaf to Dactyls remonstrations, which seemed to vex the latter.

<Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time,
And sing this song with me!
Turn back the clock,
And maybe you can see
Why the 21st century
Appeals to me!
So much to learn.
And so much to do.
And a gazillion wonderful
Things to chew!>

<Do you lack common -- I'm talking to you, Tobey!> Dactyl said, clearly not enjoying being ignored. <Tobey, listen to me! This will create too much attention on us!>

And, yet, Dino still sang:

<Roll back the clock!>

"Roll back the clock!"

<Turn back the clock!>

"Turn back the clock!"

<You're not even hearing me, are you?> Dactyl said, defeated.

As if in reply, Dino sang:

<Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time
And sing this song with me!>

<Please tell me you can see how foolish --> Dactyl began.

<It's a good beat, Dactyl,> Don said, deciding to defend Dino.

<Yes, but be that as it may,> Dactyl said, waspishly, before launching into a mild harangue, as Dino sang:

<If you're thinking this gal's unreal --
Just imagine how I must feel!
Just imagine how I must feel!
Squishies -- mmmm what a meal!>

<Again, 'squishies' is a disrespectful term!> Dactyl sniffed.

<But it's accurate,> Dweebers put in as Dino continued:

<Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time,
And sing this song with me!>

<She's taken leave of her senses,> Dactyl said, as if coming to the only logical conclusion. <That is the only thing it could be.>

<Roll back the clock!>

"Roll back the rock!"

<Turn back the clock!>

"Turn back the clock!"

<This isn't going to end well, mark my words,> Dactyl said.

<Roll back the clock
'Til the dawn of time,
And sing this song with me!>

To Dactyl's shock, there was applause and no one panicked, even when a tiny girl defiantly declared them real. They just assumed the singing they heard came from speakers, despite not hearing them with their ears but their brains. Sometimes the willingness to ignore what was blatantly obvious was paramount to the populace minds.

Of course, there was someone in the crowd who recognized what thought-speak was. And this someone knew that these dinosaur nothlits were real. And this someone sought to recruit them . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rS-HcK7d-LE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2017, 10:36:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Hugh and Large Marge

After the parade, Dactyl was stunned into silence as they managed to extricate themselves from the parade -- they still had no idea what anyone was celebrating -- and began to wander, ever so cautiously to the M.O.N.H. Despite having no idea where that was.

Dactyl was still speechless as they moved on, though she flew ahead, making sure the path was clear. She couldn't believe that that didn't blow up in their faces. She just couldn't believe it. She felt so sure that it would have ended up in a big police chase or something outrageously insane and ludicrous like that.

As it was, they were fortunate that it didn't. But, then again, she had no idea that they were being watched. But not by the stranger from the parade, but by two new individuals. One appeared to be a balding man with a black, bushy beard wearing a red flannel shirt and blue jean overalls, with well worn working boots. The other had long, wavy, black hair with a face like a Himalayan breed of cat, wearing a floral print muumuu.

<Can we help you?> Dactyl sniffed.

"Come," the man said. "Come."

<Wait, why should we trust you?> Dweebers said.

<Yeah, we don't know you,> Don agreed, stumbling a bit, having stepped on a garbage can and crushing it like a soda can.

"We can help you," the woman said.

<Sure, you can,> Dactyl said, guarded.

<We need to go to the 'monh', though,> Dino said, capitalizing on the opportunity. <Do you know where that is?>

"'Mon'? What's that? Did you mean 'man'?" Large Marge asked. "Even so, that's rather vague."

<M-O-N-H.> Dino clarified.

"M-O- . . . you mean the Museum of Natural History?" Large Marge inquired. "It's been shut down for years, though. Something about being unregulated?"

"It was defunded," Hugh corrected. "My wife is a little susceptible to empty platitudes and insincere promises."

"I am not!" she protested.

"Then why are we subscribed to Bern Bridges?" Hugh said, with an exasperated sigh.

"It was a mistake, okay? I didn't mean to check that box," she argued. It sounded like she was making excuses to Dino, but she said nothing.

<So, where do we go now?> Don asked. He made of the mistake of not excluding the two strange, wobbly humans from it.

"You can come with us!" Large Marge said graciously gregarious.

<We're not gonna have a choice in this, are we?> Dactyl said, privately.

<If you have a better solution, I'd like to hear it, Dactyl,> Dino said, getting fed up with the constant remonstrations. She didn't have a better solution, and they followed the two to a rural area where these two lived. When the two felt safe enough -- they ripped their faces off, which alarmed the four who didn't know what ID masks were.

Hugh and Large Marge weren't human at all, but Vaxasaurians, a saurian species from Terradino. They were humanoid and beige in color. They had human-like hands with four fingers, each with large gray nails. They had long saurian tails and stood about ten feet tall (rather runty, for Vaxasaurians) and could grow to about sixty feet tall.

When they grew, their dinosaur features became more pronounced, growing stegosaur-like plates on their back, a crest on their forehead and spikes on their tail. Also, on their shoulders, three plates separate and grow. Large Marge also have five spikes on her head.

<What are you?> Don and Dactyl asked at the same time.

"We're immigrants from Terradino," Hugh said. "Technically, undocumented immigrants, to be specific."

"Hugh is one of the foremost experts on DNA," Large Marge said, proudly.

<You answered 'who', not 'what',> Dweebers pointed out.

"Oh?" Large Marge said, as if she genuinely was surprised that she had not. "We're Vaxasaurians, dear."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2017, 11:59:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
DNA Surgery!

"Runty Vaxasaurians," Hugh said, almost bitterly.

"Oh, you know we can lift a To'kustar as easily as any other Vaxasaurian," Large Marge said, bracingly.

"No, I don't, because we've never so much as seen one before," Hugh said. Then he sighed, and looked up at his guests. "We can grow if it would make you feel more comfortable."

<No need for that,> Dweebers said, but Dino decided to cut to the point.

<You said that you could help us,> Dino asked, <how?>

"Apart from offering you a place to stay?" Large Marge asked, with absolutely no hostility whatsoever. "Go on, Hugh. Tell them."

"We can offer you the ability to shrink down to a more compact size," Hugh said, wearing a lab coat, which actually seemed to work for him. It gave him a whole Curt Connors type of look. "But not without your consent."

The four looked at each other, unsure.

<Um, how?> Dweebers asked.

"By giving you some reverse Vaxasaurian DNA," Hugh said, "that is to say, the antithesis to the gene we Vaxasaurians have that allows us to increase our size. Granted, that means you'd have reduced strength and durability in your compact form, but you'd be able to assume it at will."

<Have you ever done this before?> Dactyl asked, astutely guessing the answer.

"Well," Hugh confessed, "no."

<Thrn how do you know that it would work?> she said, skeptically.

"I believe in my husband," Large Marge said, sincerely.

"And the theory behind it backs it up," Hugh said, "I may not be a Galvan or Cerebrocrustacean or Transyl, but I did all the necessary calculations (and some that probably weren't necessary) and tested the theory to the very best of my ability. I believe it would work."

<Why do this for us?> Don asked, wearily.

"Because," Hugh said, sounding genuinely sincere, "I see you as kindred spirits. Until I found Large Marge, I was alone for years, ever since that Tyrannopede ate my clutch siblings and my sire and mother. I see that you four are just as alone as Large Marge and I were when we first came to Earth (there was a particularly nasty Tyrannopede that had singled me out because I managed to escape its clutches three times -- Large Marge, too). I just want to do something in order to give back, to use what I have learned from studying abroad."

Silence met this monologue, as the four considered. But Dino had made her decision.

<I'll do it,> she said.

<Tobey, you haven't even considered the ramifications or side effects or any possible consequence of this!> Dactyl proclaimed indignantly. <You couldn't have possibly done any of that. You need to think this through!>

<I'll do it,> Don said, after this private spiel.

<Don, you're being as reckless as Tobey,> Dactyl reprimanded. <You guys need to think this -->

<I'm in,> Dweebers said.

<And I'm alone,> Dactyl said. To the Vaxasaurians, she said, <Look, I'm sure you're nice guys, but no. I'm not doing this.>

"That's perfectly alright," Hugh said. "Your consent matters greatly in this. We don't want to force you into anything that you don't want to do."

He then addressed the three, "Okay, this shouldn't take too long. Let's get going."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2017, 05:25:00 PM

Sorry that this is so late, my internet keeps crapping out on me. Probably because of the rain.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Unforeseen Side Effect

"So," Hugh's voice came a few hours later, "how do you feel?"

Dino was still feeling groggy. She wasn't sure how she could feel so disoriented, it was just a hypodermic needle filled some science goo. . . .

"Dizzy," she said. It took her some time to realize that she didn't thought-speak, but spoke aloud, with actual sound. "And still sleepy."

"Don't worry," Large Marge said, "Hugh said momentary disorientation was to be expected."

<At least you all look the same.> Dactyl said. It was still clear from her tone that she still did not approve of this. And she, indeed, didn't -- she found it needlessly reckless and exponentially dangerous. She sniffed, <And apparently you don't need thought-speak anymore.>

"Wait, wha--" Don said, with a husky sort of voice.

"We spake!" Dweebers said, before amending, "I mean, 'speak'."

"How did this happen?" Dino queried the Vaxasaurians before getting up.

"A minor side effect of the genetic surgery," Hugh said, tone apologetic. "I did not foresee it, I'm sorry to say."

<And who knows what else you might not have foreseen in this reckless endeavor,> Dactyl said, primly. Then she sighed, and said, <But it was their choice. I cannot argue with that much, despite my acrimony with this whole feckless exercise.>

Then she addressed the two Vaxasaurians, <I'm sorry if it seems that I'm accusing you of perfidious intentions or of questionable motives. I assure you, I'm not. It just seems to be very . . . careless, headstrong, and rash, to me. There may be more --unforeseen -- side effects of this.>

"You worry too much," Don said, dismissively.

<And you don't worry enough, dearie,> Dactyl said, sounding as cross as she could manage at the moment. She looked away as the three shrank to a less conspicuous size for the first time, sure something would go amiss. Sure of and afraid of something going amiss.

But her worries were -- well, they weren't unfounded, but more like incorrect and fueled by fear. The three were safe, and roughly of similar size as her. She hid a sigh of relief, though her body language basically telegraphed her anxiety to the point that even the most oblivious person in existence could tell.

Dino recognized this and thought that someone should reassure her. And being the de facto leader that she was, she thought that it ought be her. But then Dweebers spoke up.

"Everything's fine, Dactyl," Dweebers said. His voice sounded a tad nasally, but a tolerable nasally. "It worked just like Hugh said it would."

<Wait,> Dactyl said, suddenly, "speaking of Hugh, where is he?>

"And Large Marge for that matter?" Dino added.

But they were gone. Somehow, inexplicably, gone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 05, 2017, 08:55:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Where Did They Go, George? Where Did They Go?

"This is -- this is impossible," Don said. "They were just standing right there!! Not more than two minutes ago!!"

"We didn't even see anyone take them," Dweebers blustered.

<Assuming they were taken by an intelligent force,> Dactyl said, thought-speak "voice" quavering as if she were trying to make rational sense of this. <They could have been pulled into a Sario Rip, or a wormhole, or portal or something.>

"Without us noticing anything? In the span of, like, five seconds?" Dweebers countered.

"There were those two cracking sounds, and those two popping noises," Don pointed out.

"I didn't hear any of that --" Dino said, before a small creature standing in their midst, unnoticed because of his size was significantly smaller than their full height (except maybe Dactyl) cleared his throat.

The creature was a porcupine-like humanoid creature. He stood shorter than an average human, and had big, yellow eyes, black quills for hair (and these quills hid a variety of uses), and a long, ratlike tail. The creature also wore a black, zip-up jacket with silver accents, as well as black jeans. He also wore silver piercings on his ears.

<And who are you?> Dactyl said.

"Oh, names aren't really all that important, are they?" he said, sounding more oily then a fleet of used car salesmen. Dino found herself instantly disliking this creature, and wondering idly if superhuman perfidy was this creature's superpower. "They just separate you and isolate you from others."

<I should have made my meaning more plain,> Dactyl sniffed. She found this creature untrustworthy, but that was putting it mildly. <What do you want?>

"Me?" he said, affecting what he clearly believed to be innocence and sincerity, when it reality it came off as quite the opposite. "Oh, large ones, I assure you I want for nothing. I come to you at the behest of my . . . my sponsor."

"Stop it with the ill-conceived pitch, rodent," Don said, irritated, "what is it that your after?"

"After?" he said, still speaking in that blatantly insincere way. "I'm not after anything. Well, just the one, I suppose."

<Well?>

"Out with it!" Don demanded.

But the last thing Dino remembered was him firing a quill and feeling something sticking to her neck, like the sting from a bee. Immediately, her vision blurred and all was blackness. . . .

***

"What are you waiting for?" came an impatient voice. "Get up. Get up, get up, get up, get up!!"

The impatient voice, as Dino saw as she groggily woke up for the second time in less than a day, belonged to a four-armed humanoid creature who wore a black uniform with silver malicious imagery on gray pockets and gloves. He -- at least Dino assumed it was a "he" -- also wore a black top hat with a yellow star on it and matching goggles. He had blue hair and a mustache that covers his mouth. He also had dark green skin, and is a little taller than an average human adolescent. He also had his left eye replaced by a huge screw, the kind that required a flathead screwdriver to use.

"Wha . . . who are you?"

"I am Professor Blarnard J. Screweye," he said, grandly.

"What about my reward?" the porcupine alien said, plaintively. "My eternal one?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," Screweye said, deftly withdrawing a pistol from his coat and shooting the creature in the head, killing him instantly. He did this without the slightest hesitation. "There you go."

"We're in deep doodoo, aren't we?" Dweebers said.

<The deepest doodoo,> Dactyl agreed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2017, 08:24:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Just Say Yes

"Hello, Zeroes," Screweye said, addressing Dino, Dweebers, and Dactyl. They hadn't a clue if he was referencing something or just simply maligning them.

"What d'you want?" Dino demanded, still groggily.

"Oh, nothing much, really," he said, with a quaver in voice that Dino interpreted as sounding quite insane. "Just world conquest, through my little circus here!"

"Is he serious?" Don asked.

"The delight I take in frightening the masses," he said, with a maniacal passion, "in scaring them so thoroughly that the young'uns would have nightmares for weeks. Why, we'd take the world by storm!!"

"He's . . . not all there, is he?" Dweebers asked.

<Apparently, not,> Dactyl said.

Then he snapped his fingers and music started to play. The notes sounded discordant to Dino's ears, and her friends had similar reviews. It didn't help matters when he tried to sing, sounding like a demented Eric Idle.

"I was far too smart from the very start
'Coz my father came from THEM.
I began to grow, little did he know
That I had my own plans for him.
He thought i was tame. HA!
Just my little game.
Until this all became MINE!"

"A threadbare tent and the paraphernalia of a demented cavalcade of turpitude and criminality?" Dweebers asked. "This is what you are so proud of owning?"

"Staffed by ne'er-do-wells and vagabonds?" Don said, glancing around groggily at Screweye's few employees, including two wizards specialized in Rowling magic. They seemed . . . stupefied would be the kindest explanation. But it looked as if they were lobotomized.

Screweye continued.

"They all do as I say!
No one stands in my way!
Everbody here is happy
Or I'll have them slightly altered!
I can do as I please.
I can change things with ease!
Horn or hair or fin or feather,
I control the wind and weather.
We can rule the world together!
If you just come with me."

The four refused, so he continued.

"You'll be happy, oh so happy,
When you come with me!
You'll be ruler of everything,
Of all that you can see!
Ah hahaha.
Just say yes, Zeroes!"

"No!" was their reply.

"Think what we few can do,
You and me, me and you,
Buck yourself up, don't look so sad,
We'll have more than dear old dad had."

"We are not going to --" Dino said, still repulsed.

But Screweye continued his song:

"Butterflies and pretty flowers,
Sunny skies and superpowers,
Silver streams and fluffy kitties,
Laser beams and rubble cities!"

"You're crazy!" Don exclaimed.

"Take your chance while you can!
Join in my master plan!
You won't tell me I'm too blabby,
When I'm ruler of hill and valley!
All of it will be mine.
Everday will be fine.
All the trains will run on time,
And there'll be no more wars and crime,
And I'll reduce your brain to slime!
Unless you just say yes!
You'll be happy, oh so happy,
If you just say yes!"

They, again, refused. After all, he held no leverage on them. None that they knew about. Dino, personally, thought this guy had all the mental stability of a Helmacron, as she watched him prance around a particularly scrawny-looking Tetramand, who looked like just another slobbering, lobotomized thing, just like the rest.

"Oh, poor fellow!
Mind like jello!
Such a nasty mess!"

<We really should be coming up with a way out of here,> Dactyl said, privately.

"Come on in to the greatest kind of life!
To the best and the latest kind of life!
You'll be happy nice and happy!
Perfect happiness!
Beyond measure, purest pleasure!
If you just say yes!"

"No!" they said.

"It's our chance to rule,
Don't let it slip away, don't be upset,
It wont hurt much, you won't regret it,
If you just say yes . . .
Just say yes!"

"No!" Dino said, her voice intermingling her roar.

"EHHH!" Screweye said, imitating a buzzer, "Wrong answer!"

Then, with a free hand, he pulled out an unusually ornate Dracon beam, and turned and used it on . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mFmKtXsXijE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2017, 09:02:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Forced Cooperation

Large Marge. He shot Large Marge.

She didn't even have a chance to scream before she was disintegrated into nothing but a sparse few molecules. The beam, evidently, was on it's highest setting. Even the chair behind her was affected.

"Marge!!!" Hugh's cry was heartwrenching. He was bound to an uncomfortable, straight-backed chair, wrists apparently bound behind him with zip ties that had been charmed with the Unbreakable Charm, making them -- well -- unbreakable. If he grew to his larger size, he would risk amputating his hands, assuming he could even assume that size with his bindings holding him fast. And it was very clear that he was not here of his own volition, as he looked rather beaten up, as well.

Screweye had no compassion or regret at his action. He was cold and without mercy to those who didn't do as he wished. He was a very selfish being, who could very well be psychotic. His volatile nature made him an unpredictable and dangerous enemy. He didn't think twice about murdering indiscriminately, which made it a wonder why he never served prison time. He was basically an alien Sluggard.

"I'll ask again," he said, this time his voice was dark and devoid of any childish bounce and humor. It took on a very sinister edge, as he pointed the Dracon towards Hugh, who felt as if he would welcome it, who felt nothing but a yearning to be reunited with his beloved Marge. "Will you join me?"

He waited a beat, while the four were just lost in their shock.

"Don't try me, Zeroes," he warned, darkly, "I'm not a man to cross. Now I'll ask you again, and consider carefully. Join me?"

All four hesitated.

"Don't try my patience, you freakshow acts," he snarled, finger already curled around the trigger. "I'm going to give to the count of thirteen, and then I shoot one of your number until you agree."

This was their first acquaintance with Screweye's unusual obsession with the number thirteen. This would impact Dino's life for years to come, and not in a good way. He even had a revolver with thirteen chambers, making it excessively and unnecessarily bulky and unwieldy. It usually required all four of his arms to use, and it wasn't really all that impressive to use, and he wanted to go for intimidation. Of course, this gun had a name to him -- "Johnny 13".

"One! Two!"

Dino quickly reviewed their options.

"Three! Four!"

If she refused, Hugh would surely die.

"Five! Six!"

But Hugh looked as if he wanted to die. Marge was clearly everything to him. He clearly felt as if there was a huge, gaping hole in his heart that Marge had filled.

"Seven! Eight!"

If they complied, who knows what sorts of things that Screweye would make them do? Who knew what morals he would force them to sacrifices? What crimes he would force them to commit?

"Nine! Ten!"

Was there an exit strategy? Some unforeseen way out of making the decision posed to her? Any way to do it, and have Hugh live?

"Eleven!"

But would Hugh even bounce back from this? Would he be a potential liability? Could she or one of others simply attack Screweye, possibly kill him? Perhaps violence would not be appropriate in this scenario.

"Twelve!"

Dino couldn't see how any option had any positive consequences -- lasting or not. But she had made her choice.

"D'you think I'm kidding?!" he said, his angry, wavering voice betraying his spooky, sinister demeanor. "I will shoot him!"

"Wait, wait," Dino said. She hated herself for this decision, but it was the only one she could see that wouldn't lead to more bloodshed.

"Yes?" Screweye said, abruptly smooth and cool. This guy was definitely unstable. And it made him dangerous. Worst of all, he knew it made him dangerous.

Dino closed her eyes, as if that would take some sting out of it, "We'll do it."

"Do what?" he said, clearly enjoying this. He knew perfectly well what, but he was just savoring having them at his mercy.

"We . . . will join . . . you. . . ." she said. Even the words tasted bitter in Dino's mouth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 08, 2017, 05:43:27 AM

Sorry about not posting a chapter yesterday. Work really tuckered me out, as they say.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Things Are Not What They Seem

And he had them as oddities for his little circus. Dino was really unsure of his plans. Sometimes, he would seem just to want to present a scary circus to get and hoard money, Mr. Krabbs-like. At other times, he would seem egomanical and megalomaniacal, desiring global conquest. You could never really tell what mindset he was in until he spoke, which varied from psychotic mumblings to very serious, sinister monologues and unrealistically grandiose visions and goals.

Living like this was living in perpetual uncertainty and endless chaos.

To make matters worse, he had fitted each of them, and Hugh, with collars that he called compliance collars. He then warned them if they did not follow his direction, he would not hesitate to activate them. They weren't designed to shock them, they were filled with explosives. Any noncompliance he perceived and he would kill them, without a second thought, one-by-one.

So, they were stuck. Stuck performing it what felt to be their hundred and fiftieth performance. Dino never understood Screweye's clientele, either. Why would you come to a circus to be scared? To be terrified? Isn't the world not terrifying enough?

Anyway, Screweye's always liked to kick off the show with a song:

"Things are not what they appear.
As tonight will make quite clear!
But what is real will be revealed,
I can feel the moment's near!"

Dino and her friends were literally waiting in the wings for their cue. Hugh has gotten over his initial shock, but still wished for death, wished to be reunited with Marge. The hole in his heart very evident. Dino couldn't help but feel sympathy for the guy. She couldn't imagine not having her friends, who were more like a family to her.

"Things are never what they seem.
That will be this evening's theme.
A sparse few sights for your delight,
Perhaps a few to make you scream!"

That was always them.

<Is there a way out of this slavery?> Dactyl asked once, dejectedly.

No one answered her. It wasn't necessary. Everyone knew the answer.

"You'll be surprised to see whose disguise
Is the cleverest one of the lot!
After our show, the whole world will know
Who's is pretending to be what they're not!
If a monster's grin or a politician's spin
Should be pleasing, please say 'Yea'!"

"Yea!" the crowd cried, as the four friends looked out from the wings sadly. None of them wanted this. None of them wanted to be enslaved by a murderous alien with wild and unpredictable mood swings. None of them wanted this life.

"If an actor's feat should be incomplete,
He's the one to greet with 'Nay'!"

"Nay!" the crowd shouted. It was awful, their time here. They have all come to associate the number thirteen with pain and misery. They began to to fear the number itself.

"If the fools we see should look like you and me,
Then, before the night goes by,
Ask why, why, why, why, why,
Why?"

Dino was starting to believe that she should have just sacrificed Hugh and had them all get away. It would have weighed on her conscience, sure. But they would still be free to do as they please. They . . .

"Things are not what they appear
And the finest proof's right here!"

That was their cue. They walked out to the stage, with the usual screams. Were they terror or delight? Dino couldn't even tell anymore, and she found it very concerning.

"How I regret when we first met
I believed my own worst fear.
Things are never what they seem.
So, in keeping with our theme,
A change of hair, a sight to beware,
And our nightmare's now a dream!
Things are never what they seem."

"He's right, he's right!" the crowd roared.

"Most don't say what they mean."

"He's right, he's right!" the crowd roared again.

"A blank face is just the place
To hide an ugly scheme.
Only one thing's really clear,
Things are not what they appear!"

Then came the wealth of applause that seemed to satiate Screweye so much. Maybe he wouldn't feel the need to play Johnny Roulette tonight. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=teGLC71FW7s

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2017, 04:42:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Monsters Out There

Dino was right, and he didn't feel the need to play Johnny Roulette that night. But it was only a momentary respite, as he would eventually, without a doubt, engage in the sick game again.

The "game" consisted in chambering a single bullet in that thirteen-chambered revolver of his, the one he called Johnny, and then firing at Hugh, Dactyl, Dweebers, Don and Dino, in that order. While Hugh had gone past caring, the other four weren't so eager for death. And all five managed to escape death for the first twelve times he did it.

***

"You're all alone in the middle of the night,
Something moves in the cold moonlight.
You're tryin' not to scream,
But you got to let it out,
And it make you wanna,
You wanna --
You wanna shout!
There's monsters out there!
Sneakin' up behind you!
Monsters out there.
That'll tickle your bones,
Those monsters out there.
You know, they're gonna find you.
No matter where you go,
You know.
There's monsters out there.
Running through the backyards,
Bumpin' into trees,
Somethin' reaches up
And pulls you to your knees.
Try to get away.
You don't know if you can,
And you're starin' at the
At the ole monster man!
There's monsters out there
Sneakin' up behind you.
Monsters out there!
Don't dally alone!
Those monsters out there.
You know they're gonna find you.
No matter where you go.
You know . . .
There's monsters out there.
Monsters that'll chase you!
Monsters that'll unseat you!!
Monsters that'll jump out and
Say they're glad to eat you!
Are those monsters out there,
Waitin' in the darkness?
Monsters out there
With the bright red eyes!
Monsters out there,
Better watch where you're going.
'Coz you never know when there are,
Never know when there are,
Know when there are,
Monsters out there.
And you know the good have fallen.
Monsters out there.
Better run from home!
There's monsters in there,
You can hear the mummy calling.
You never gonna know when there are
When there are monsters out there.
Monsters out there.
Monsters out there.
Monsters out there."

Then the show finished soon thereafter. And Dino's friends and she knew they had something bad in store for them, considering the lukewarm reception they got. The act had gotten old and stale, but instead of having a little introspection or taking responsibility for his decisions and actions, Screweye decided that it was his staff and Hugh and Dino and her friends were the ones at fault.

Because, after all, it just couldn't have been his fault, after all, he felt. In his mind, he never made mistakes, never errs, never has an unforeseen misstep. He was so gratingly narcissistic and psychotically egotistical, it was a potent, noxious ****tail.

Hugh, Dino, and the rest were smart enough to know what this meant. Tonight would be time for Johnny Roulette.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vUfOOH5UwsE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2017, 06:19:48 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Johnny Roulette

"You all turned in a lackluster performance today," Screweye said, dressing him down. Oh, how Dino yearned to attack him, to worry him like dog does with a bone. This guy was just so incredibly full of himself, despite it being quite evident that no one -- no one with adequate brain power, that is -- liked him. Not at all.

Dino hadn't seen the two wizards that had brought them and Marge here in the first place. Not in a while. She was sure that Screweye didn't get rid of them, didn't kill them. He would have wanted that to be a spectacle for the rest of them. As well as sending them a message -- he had total control here, and everyone better capitulate and comply with his wishes . . . or suffer the severe consequences.

It was absolute hell working with this complete and utter psychopath. More than once, Dino second-guessed her decision to not peel out and leave. Hugh wanted to die, and none of their conversations (what little Screweye allowed them to have) seemed to have deterred the Vaxasaurian fromthis fervent desire. He was more of a shell of a man now -- Marge actually meant so much to him.

Dweebers, Don, and Dactyl didn't blame her for her decision though, despite enduring this hell. They knew she had an impossible decision and was just trying to save a life. But was there really a point in saving someone's life who did not want to be saved? How do you save someone's life when they view death as a more attractive offer? Maybe they should have cut their losses and ran, but Dino wasn't like that. She wasn't the type to arbitrarily sacrifice others for her own needs.

"So, apparently, we need to cut some of the fat here," Screweye said, giving pretty much the same spiel that he did whenever he decided to play Johnny Roulette. "But it won't be for me to decide -- we'll let ol' Johnny here decide that."

He rubbed his thirteen-chamber revolver as a Bond villain would pet a Persian cat. That gun was his baby and he took care of it far better than he took care of himself or his cadre of forced laborers.

"One bullet, thirteen chambers," he said. He really seemed too enjoy this too much. He loved instilling fear into his staff nearly as much as he loved the revolver. He. Was. Insane. "Twelve chances of surviving and one chance of death, and a cheap funeral."

It was a lie -- he would not hold any funeral, cheap or not.

"Let's begin," he said, chambering a single round and rotating the chambers on the revolver. It looked rather awkward to use with all four of his hands, but it was dangerous all the same. A single bullet from that gun could penetrate the thickest skull.

He aimed at Hugh's head, right between the eyes. Hugh looked almost disinterested. He held no fear of death. Nor did he particularly care for the theatrics of Screweye's Johnny Roulette game. All he wanted was Marge back. She was his everything, and, without her, he felt life was just not worth living.

Screweye pulled back the revolver's hammer, and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out all across the tent. Hugh had been granted his most fervent wish, as even the hole between his empty eyes still smoked. Hugh was dead. Shot by Screweye -- apparently the first chamber was inexplicably loaded.

"Oh well," Screweye said, completely indifferent. "Well, I guess Johnny Roulette is over for today. May this be a lesson to the rest of you, don't give me another bad performance. That is all."

Still partially in shock, Dino and her friends didn't move.

"I said, you're dismissed," he said, dangerously when he realized his command was not followed immediately. "Don't make me do something that you'll regret."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2017, 06:44:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
No More Mister Nice Guy!

They didn't.

They all had enough of this. It's been months since Dino made this decision to stay here, to capitulate to this madman. It was a bad decision, Dino decided. A very bad one. Hugh had wanted to die . . . and there was no amount of consoling that would shake that desire from his mind and heart.

She would know. She had tried. And she had failed.

"I'm only going to warn you once, Zeroes," Screweye said. "BACK OFF."

<No! Not this time.> Dactyl said, her tone colder than the far reaches of the Plutonian surface. <I cannot speak for everyone present, but this has gone on for long enough! We are slaves here. But we are entitled to several unalienable rights and -->

"Oh, aren't we forgetting one teensy weensy, but ever-so-crucial, tiny little detail?" Screweye said, almost in a singsong tone of voice, before roaring in sudden, unexpected rage, as if he would explode into a fiery inferno, "I OWN YOU!!!"

"No, you don't!" Dweeber said. They all really had enough of this . . . this . . . egomaniacal child! "We only forlent our freedoms on the condition of Hugh's life. He is now dead. By your hand!!!"

"Yeah, all four of them!" Don put in.

"I won't stand for insurrection of my staff," Screweye said, in a quiet sort of voice that meant that he was considering killing. "You want to mutiny, Zeroes?"

"Oh, for the love of god," Dino snapped. "Stop calling us that. Despite what you may think of us, we have names."

"You want to mutiny against me?" Screweye said, as if Dino didn't speak. "You think that I don't know how to weed out rebellion from my staff's ranks? Huh, Zeroes?"

"We have --" Dweebers began.

"No, you don't." Screweye cut across him. "You are called Zeroes because you aren't worth anything. And you would betray my generosity with defiance? And you would besmirch my kindness with insurrection? After all I've done for you? I've housed you --"

<No, you haven't,> Dactyl said.

" -- I've fed you --" he said as if Dactyl hadn't spoken.

"Barely," Don said.

"-- And this is how you repay me. With a banal performance that had the audience walking out and mutiny!" he said, ignoring Dino and her friends. "After all I've done and sacrificed for you!!"

"You don't even pay us or allow us to leave of our own accord!!" Dweebers argued.

<That is textbook slavery!> Dactyl said, backing up Dweebers.

"Fine. So be it. Just remember, this isn't my fault --" Screweye said.

"Nothing is ever your fault," Dino roared, incensed.

"It's too late for flattery, Zero," Screweye said, removing what appeared to be a remote control with one prominent red button on it from his pocket, after lowering Johnny the revolver. "One-by-one -- you now die."

He pressed the button, aiming it at Dactyl who realized what would happen seconds before it did. With a boom and a shriek -- Dactyl was missing her head and neck. There was no morphing back from this, as she was a nothlit same as any of the them.

Dactyl was dead -- and the next three would surely follow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2017, 07:40:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
And It All Goes To Hell From There . . .

"DACTYL!!!" came three heartwretching cries.

But Dweebers was quick on his feet, and deftly shrunk to his compact size before Screweye could try it again. The explosive-laden collar he wore clattered to the ground, and he deftly kicked it off to the side, and Dino quickly followed suit.

Unfortunately, Don wasn't all that quick on the uptake.

"Die," Screweye said, full of venom and hatred now. His mental stability was questionable for months. The question of why he was so harsh and hateful towards his staff and so manipulative and conniving the next was an utter puzzle.

But now . . . now Don, Dweebers and Dino didn't care. They hated the guy with every fiber of their being. He killed Dactyl -- even with that stupid Johnny Roulette "game", if you can even call it that, they never fathomed, never even conceived the possibility of one of their own dying. Never . . . never expected this.

But that feeling was about to be compounded, when Screweye pressed the button again. But not at Dino, who was collar-free. Not at Dweebers, who's neck was naked. But at Don, who still hadn't figured out that he should have shrunk to his compact form yet.

There was a boom and . . . and Don was gone as well. He was a tail and hindlegs.

"Don . . ."

Both Dino and Dweebers had cry in their voices, and the deepest lament. However, they should have been paying far more attention to Screweye. He was loading bullets into all thirteen chambers of his revolver.

They couldn't mourn at a time like this, not with a very real danger presented to them. But . . . Don . . . Dactyl . . . they were family. The only family that the two knew. Now they only had each other, and this overwhelming sadness. This gaping hole where Dactyl and Don used to reside.

They heard a click, and turned to see that Screweye was hefting Johnny up and taking aim. But not at Dino, not at the leader.

"Dweebers, LOOK OUT!!" Dino screamed, as Screweye said, "Die."

But her warning came far too late. Screweye fired the revolver and it hit Dweebers in the right side of the head, exploding out the left. Dino . . . didn't want to see the aftermath. She didn't want to imagine it. She didn't want to think about it.

She was the only one of their little troupe left. She was the only one. She lost everyone and everybody that she had ever cared about. It was now Dino understood what Hugh felt. It was now that she really understood. She was alone now -- she had no one. Dweebers, Don, Dactyl -- they were her everything. And now they were no more.

Alone. She would always be alone . . .

Click!

"What?! Jammed?!" Screweye's voice seemed to be carried across a vast ocean. At least, until Dino forced herself to be in the present. She'd have to mourn later. "How can this damn thing be jammed! I take better care of it than I did my own mother!!"

He was within striking distance of her tail. So she did not let this opportunity go to waste. She hit him full force -- but it wasn't enough to kill him. Just send him into the nearest wall (or tent canvas), and break both his left arms, his lower right, and his right leg. Johnny the revolver went skittering away from him, and crumpled into mess when Dino deliberately stomped on it with all her weight. Making it a useless hunk of metal.

"Johnny!" Screweye said, as blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. "How . . . *cough* . . . how could you?"

"How could I?!" Dink snapped angrily. "How could I?! You've taken away everyone that I loved, and you ask me how I can destroy a stupid hunk of metal?!"

Dink walked up to him, at her full and considerable height. Screweye wasn't so dismissive and arrogant now. He was helpless.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, fearfully.

"Have a little snack," Dino said, uncharacteristicall y savage.

It was then that Dino . . . ate him. Yes, ate him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2017, 07:02:07 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Alone, Always Alone

After eating Screweye -- which proved rather unpleasant, before and . . . after -- Dino ran away. She didn't really care what happened to his lobotomized staff (they wound up becoming trolls, unrecognizable by anyone, and headed by the Banned). And she just ran away. Ran away to the woods. To the deep woods.

She was trying to run from the pain in her heart, the pain in her mind -- it was just all too much. She could scarcely believe it had even happened. For the first few days, she just deceived herself that maybe it was all just a dream and maybe they would join her soon enough . . .

But it wasn't too long before she realized that that was just stupid. They were gone. Gone. Nothing was going to change that. At first, she was irate at Screweye -- he didn't have to do this! He didn't have to enslave them. He didn't have to use them as oddities in a circus. He didn't have to . . .

But no.

No, she thought, this was just as much her fault as his. She could have weighed the options better -- Hugh had a literal death wish, and she denied him it. Why? For no other purpose than to soothe her own conscience, to ease her own qualms about it. She had basically sentenced her friends to death -- they had trusted her, and she had betrayed them . . .

But how had he even found out about their existence? How had he even known? By what method did he come to covet them for his petty little "scare circus"?

Dino believed she knew. It was during the parade. During the parade when . . . when Dactyl was trying to talk sense into her, trying to appeal to Dino's better judgement. Dino cursed at herself for not listening to her. He must have seen her on television or else somehow heard about them because of that damn parade. Why didn't she listen to Dactyl? And now . . . and now she's . . .

It was too much. Too much to handle. Too much to process. She just didn't want this anymore. This pain. It felt as if the hole in her heart was growing, becoming more painful. This emotion . . . this pain . . . who needed it?! Why do people do this to themselves? Attach themselves emotionally to people, then have death them rip them all away, whisked off to who knows where?! Death -- what an unbelievable prick he is!!

What she wanted now was the simplicity of the animal mind. She didn't want to think, didn't want to feel. He pain threatened to consume her whole -- so she just . . .

Gave up.

***

Dino lost all track of time, but she kept herself sequestered to the deepest parts of the lush forest. She allowed her animal instincts to reign supreme, only reining them in when they would lead her into less dense parts of the woods, or if they would make her harm a human.

If she harmed a human, she knew that would invite people looking for them. Rangers and . . . and loved ones. She tried not to dwell on the last bit too much. There was still too much pain there.

How long was it that she had confined herself to these woods? Months? Years? In the end, it didn't matter to her. Nothing matter anymore. Her heart still bled (mephatorically-speaking, of course) for her lost loved ones.

But there were intruders in her forest. And they would not go away. Her instincts were in charge and she was actually struggling to deal with them and a strangling feeling of futility. But she found herself suddenly calmed down when she felt a gentle touch on her snout. She felt as if all hostility leaving her.

It was then when Kelly sang to Dino, apparently already guessing at her pain.

"No one has to be alone
In this world we live in.
You don't need to feel
There's no one by your side.
Everything you see
Is a gift you're given.
Anywhere is home
and no one has to be
Alone."

Morfowt sang:

"There is so much that surrounds us.
There are friends we've yet to find."

Richard sang, in a surprising baritone:

"There are dreams to be discovered
And dreams to leave behind."

Kelly sang:

"All the wonders up above us
And splendours down below."

The others joined in:

"There is so much more to everything
Then we can ever know."

Phoenix sang:

"You don't have to be afraid
Of being lost and lonely."

Ash sang:

"Everything you need
Is right before your eyes."

Richard sang:

"Each bright and shining day
Is waiting for you only to
Make this world your own."

Kelly concluded.

"And you'll never be alone.
Remember,
No one has to be
Alone!"

It was a nice song. It really was. But it didn't work. At least, not immediately. But, after some time, some coaxing, she eventually acquiesced (thinking it was against her better judgement) and went to the forum, where she had eventually joined.

She was initially standoffish. Understandable, considering what she had been through. But, over time, she opened up and became the Dino the RAFians know today.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6whFDcEyyFQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2017, 09:47:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Dino's Tale's End

". . . And eight and half months later, Cloak came and joined the forum, with your daddy some time after." Dink said, concluding her story.

Leatherhead yawned in response. It was getting late, and he was still a six-year-old.

"So, Leatherhead," Dino said, "what was the moral of the story?"

"Don't work for scary circuses?" Leatherhead said, almost as if he was deliberately trying not to understand Dino's message.

"Well, while that's always sage advice," Dino said, "that wasn't what I was getting at with my story, Leatherhead, and you know it."

"I know," he said, with another yawn.

"Well?" Dino prompted gently and patiently.

"Sing a lackluster song during a parade?" he asked.

"No, that's not -- wait, lackluster?" Dino said, as Leatherhead giggled. Then Dino got back on point, "Leatherhead, the point was that, even if they annoy and frustrate you sometimes, they are your family. You should cherish them, and revere the time you have together -- because you never know when they are gonna be taken away from you."

Leatherhead looked unconvinced -- but all children can be stubborn at the best of times, so Dino just sighed, and said, "Just go easy on him, okay, kiddo? Being a parent isn't exactly the easiest job on earth."

With that, she left Leatherhead with GH so he could toddle off to bed.

***

Cloak didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe it at all.

When his aunt, Mercy, the youngest of his mother's siblings (his mother Ursa was the eldest) and a nightingale-form Realm Walker, came and told him, wearing a cloak the same color of nurse scrubs, he didn't want to believe it. When he heard that she wanted to speak to him, he thought he knew why. He didn't want to be right. He really didn't want to be right.

But she confirmed his fear. His Aunt Wheeza, German shepard-form Realm Walker and the second eldest daughter of Master Sage, had died. She went peacefully, in her sleep. But that didn't make the news any less devastating, any less heartbreaking. Cloak felt that he wouldn't have been who he was if not for her. He cried unabashedly when heard the news. He threw himself on his Aunt Mercy's shoulders and sobbed with every breath. His body shook with unadulterated grief and sorrow.

And guilt. He had never gotten to say goodbye to her. He had never gotten to thank her properly for all that she had given him. She helped facilitate his coming and living in RAF. She helped him regain his confidence back. She . . . she did so much for him. So, so much. And what did he do for her? Nothing. Nothing that he felt was adequate to equate the sheer amount of gratitude he had for the woman.

It was hard, keeping it together. It was as if his heart was a clock and was trying to work with a missing gear. He felt hollow and empty. He . . . he never got see her after their brief parting for what seemed an absolute eternity ago.

Mercy told him of the memorial that would take place the following day, and warned him that . . . that . . .

That his mother would also be there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2017, 12:23:31 PM

New book ideas!

• Book MCLXXX (1,180): "Knight Fall" -- The RAFians must take out some pretty important Knights.
• Book MCLXXXI (1,181): "Walker Vs. Walker" -- Cloak and the other RAFians come up against a very different kind of Walker. A kind that disturbs Cloak greatly. Noncanon.

Don't think I rehashed anything. Although, I'm aware I might be reposting these book ideas unintentionally.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
What a Dive!

Specter was dispatched to investigate another fiend sighting while Dino was tell her story to Leatherhead. It was at a decommissioned, defunct, and dilapidated naval base. And had been so for several years, if the rust was to be believed.

Anyway, Spectre flew, almost sedately, into the facility. He headed deeper and deeper, to the location of this manufactured fiend's location. He noticed a large part of this facility happened to be submerged, and he wondered idly if that it was submerged intentionally or not. In the end, it didn't matter. He wouldn't need to descend into that mire of rusty, forgotten metal unless the fiend was there.

He flew by some junker submarines that almost looked like whale carcasses, lonely and forgotten. Such waste, Spectre found himself thinking, such waste, and all for what? The illusion of an nonexistent threat to national security? A prick-measuring contest between people of power who haven't anything better to do with their time? Time better spent cleaning up their mess here.

But he pried those unhappy thoughts from his mind. Priorities. He had to find this fiend, whatever and whoever it was. It wasn't long before he made it to the facility proper. And, big surprise, it didn't look as if it was in the best of conditions. What was it with people and abandoning things and facilities to rust and deteriorate into rundown messes rather than picking up after themselves.

At least the local plant life had seen to it, on their own volition, to try to reclaim the area for vegetation again. But such waste was still appalling.

So, he flew up to the highest deck of the facility, and touched down. It seemed to be still solid, but seeing the foundation of it still made him feel iffy about it. Then it became increasingly obvious that the fiend wasn't here. So, apparently, he would have to get wet.

He dived down into the water, the nature of Spectre's power and the technicality of him being dead allowed him to survive submerged without requiring breathe regularly. Might be one of the reasons he was chosen for this mission, although someone like Horse would have probably made better sense, if Spectre was honest with himself.

There he was acquainted with another submarine carcass, lolling in the water, as if wondering why it had been forsaken. This was a dreary place, above or below the water, Spectre decided.

There! Below him. That had to be the place to go, the place where the field lurked . . . wait. But no. That couldn't be. That would be deviating from the information they had on it. Granted, that information came from Demos, and wasn't always the most reliable, but still. The point still stood.

Then he found that he had to dodge several live mines in the water. This just made him think that the people who pulled out of this location we just lazy. That they didn't bother defuse the mines around their -- wait, who puts mines around their base. That would be a major liability, especially if they went out for naval maneuvers and such. Did they just have so much money they were just looking for asinine things to spend it on? Or did they think that they were Saturday morning cartoon villains?

Wait! There. There, behind those metal shutters. He was sure of it. The fiend was behind them. And, of course, he was right about this.

The humanoid creature was taller than a full grown man with human-like eyes, with yellow sclera and black irises. It was thick-bodied with light orange armored skin that met in his chest in a way to make it look like the keel of a ship. It was able to fire torpedo-like missiles from this chest. It had white upper arms and thighs, and black dexterous hands, pod-like feet and fins on its light orange armored skin. It had a black stripe around its midsection, and a third eye on a stiff, rigid, periscope-like stalk on its angular head, which had an exposed, human-like face.

It noticed him very quickly, and Spectre thought it had the disposition of a YouTube commenter. He didn't say that, because one, they were underwater, and two, he felt that it would only serve exacerbate the situation.

It charged forward, spinning like a whirlpool, causing it to have a very dangerous slipstream. Spectre dodged it easily enough, though his emerald green cape tore at his neck, getting pulled by the fiend's slipstream. When it tried it again, Spectre was prepared for it and dodged it easily. He was also quite prepared when it tried and failed a third time.

Persistant thing, wasn't it? Spectre thought.

Then.it opened its chest, MetalGreymon-like, revealling what appeared to be the front of a submarine, and fired what appeared to be four blue torpedoes. The Spectre allowed one to bypass him before realizing that they were homing projectiles. So he caught them instead, transfigured them into exploding skulls -- because why not -- and sent them back at the creature.

The fiend had no defense for this, and it slayed him immediately.

***

Demos called it a "daibusapien". He claimed that he was designed to gather edible fish, but eventually admitted that he was supposed to be for naval purposes.

***

"What a dive," Malice crowed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2017, 08:20:09 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXLVIII:
JOURNEY TO HER PAST
CHAPTER ONE:
Fire Drills

Parker went to investigate a possible fiend sighting in an excavation site. He arrived to the opening of a tunnel. He had decided to bring along one of his more powerful weapons. But, since the loss of the Walker tech from his armor, they weren't stored in his armor anymore, which he was a little disgruntled about. As it allowed him a more versatile weapon choice, from melee or long range.

"Tyr, confirmation on this being the right tunnel." Parker said, waiting for the response. "Okay! Sheesh. There's no need for the attitude."

Apparently, Tyr was partial to the Walker tech as well, as he had decided to get snippy with Parker ever since he lost it and they weren't dealing with some sort of calamity. Parker was getting frustrated with it, but was confident that Tyr would let it go. Uh, eventually.

Parker entered the tunnel with a sedate, cautious pace. Demos didn't really divulge too much on what this creature would do, aside from an irritatingly vague description. Parker had to be careful of sudden pitfalls (some of which he strongly suspected weren't made naturally).

He tended to notice a profusion of stalagmites and stalactites that looked oddly like drills. It was almost as if it was foreshadowing something, but Parker shrugged it off as unimportant. At least for now.

He proceeded on, and looked a bit leery about the path ahead. He wasn't too incredibly sure about the stability of it, which was probably why this area was completely abandoned. It wasn't safe for civilians.

But he was a RAFian, in addition to being a SPARTAN, and, thus, trained extensively for such situations and circumstances. He was prepared to whatever he had to -- and if the worst happened . . . well, he knew Cloak would be able to find him easily via his Earthsight.

And then, Parker found him.

The creature was roughly the size of a human child, with humanlike eyes (green sclera, dark orange irises) on a dark blue head that was little more than a base for the metallic drill structure atop it. It also had no hands of its own, just dark blue lower arms that ended in metallic drills. Its upper arms, crotch, and thighs were colored chalk white, everything else was dark blue with purple accents. Its abdomen was purple, and its lower legs and feet were dark blue. It hadn't a mouth or external ears to speak of. It had a thin, svelte build.

When it saw Parker, first thing it did was dive into the ground as if it were water. This didn't take Parker by surprise, though. He had seen Cloak do it many, many times. Granted, it was with more panache and verve than --

Suddenly, Parker leaped to the otherside of the room, and ducked and rolled as the creature came up beneath him. Or where he would have been had he not timed his jump as well as he did.

Before the creature could recover from its own attack, Parker fired three shots at the creature, which homed in and hit. This caused it to fire its drill hands at Parker (immediately regenerating them, a la Deadpool), which exploded upon contact. Thankfully, with his armor, he managed to tank the blasts.

But when his line of vision cleared, the creature was gone. Parker was certain that the creature didn't flee. Their records indicated that none of the fiends fled thus far. It had obviously gone underground.

Parker waited until -- now! He jumped again. Ducked and rolled again, as the creature resurfaced where he was standing moments before. He shot it twice more, scoring direct hits. And that was all it took. The creature was dead.

Now Parker had to deal with the arduous climb out of this tunnel . . .

***

Demos called it a "dorirusapien". He had designed it for excavation purposes, for the broader purpose of construction.

***

"And he knew the drill, too," Malice said, with mock pity.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 11, 2017, 10:23:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Here Comes a Thought

It was moments before he had to leave for the memorial. They don't really have funerals in the human sense, since Realm Walkers don't leave bodies behind, as their corporeal nature collapses and evaporates into pure energy that, some say, go through the Oblivion Veil in the only natural way possible. All they leave behind is their cloaks. That's it.

Cloak's departure wasn't unknown to the others. GH, Abby, Saffa, Ash, and Shen were amongst the first to support him in this trying time. He was crying unabashedly as he informed them of this. He was glad that Odie was AWOL. He don't think he would be nearly as civil with the little skeeze.

He had, he felt, moral obligation to go and attend her memorial. She had done so much for him . . . she helped make him into the kind of person he was today, if not being a major contributor -- how could he do anything less?

But, part of him was afraid. His mother would be there. The one woman that he feared, even after his sessions with Aniyu, above all others. The one person he feared above all others. His enmity with her would have not cooled, no matter how long they were apart.

But he had an obligation -- no, a duty to pay respects to her. A duty he wouldn't take lightly. But he could help but remember a time, shortly after his mother threw him out, despite everything he did for her -- served her and waited on her like a friggin' house-elf, and respected just as much. His aunt had sung to him a song . . .

One he would later sing to Esty.

***

"To find balance, you must understand your feelings. To understand your feelings, you must see them clearly. Without running from them." Wheeza told him, sitting down. "From there, you can rebuild your confidence in yourself, and help you trust others."

It was then that the music started up.

"Take a moment to think of just
Adaptability, love, and trust.
Take a moment to think of just
Adaptability, love, and trust.
Here comes a thought
That might disarm you.
What she said
And how it harmed you.
Something you did
That failed to be warming.
Things that you said are
Suddenly swarming.
And, oh. You're losing sight. You're losing touch.
All these things seem to matter so much
That they confuse you.
That I might lose you.
Take a moment. Remind yourself to
Take a moment and find yourself.
Take a moment to ask yourself if
This is how we fall apart.
But it's not. But it's not. But it's not. But it's not. But it's not.
It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.
You've got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing to fear.
I'm here. I'm here. I'm here."

"Here comes a thought
That might disarm me.
What she said
And how it harmed me.
Something I did,
That failed to be warming.
Things that I said are
Suddenly swarming.
And, oh. I'm losing sight. I'm losing touch.
All these things seem to matter so much
That they confuse me."

Then she joined in:

"That I might lose me.
Take a moment. Remind yourself to
Take a moment and find yourself.
Take a moment and ask yourself if
This is how we fall apart.
But it's not. But it's not. But it's not. But it's not. But it's not.
It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.
I've got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing. Got nothing to fear.
I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.
And it was just a thought. Just a thought. Just a thought. Just a thought. Just a thought.
It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.
We can watch. We can watch. We can watch. We can watch them go by.
From here. From here. From here."

Then Cloak sang the concluding verse solo:

"Take a moment to think of just
Adaptability, love, and trust.
Take a moment to think of just
Adaptability, love, and trust."

Then she embraced him. And Cloak, honestly, felt better.

***

Cloak felt miserable. He could feel the tears already streaming down his face by the time he arrived at the memorial. His Aunt Mercy and her husband, a serval Realm Walker, had arrived at the same time. He didn't say anything, but he did feel out of place. Then he met Mercy's mother-in-law, a white dove Realm Walker. He got along with all three, though he still had a feeling of an outsider.

He had believed that his mother had exiled himself from the family, but yet here was proof of defiance of that belief. But then she walked in. His mother, Ursa, a grizzly bear Realm Walker. He immediately pulled away and left the main atrium of the building and dallied in the main antechamber that connected it to the main part of what passed for a Realm Walker church.

He hadn't any interest whatsoever to engage her in conversation. None whatsoever. She went to sit in the front row, on the left side of the aisle, sitting close to the aisle. (As such, Cloak sat on the right hand side of the aisle, furthest away from the aisle seated all the way in the back -- the furthest he could be away from her.) An albatross Ream Walker sat a row behind her, and talked to her. Cloak vague recognized her as his remaining living aunt. Out of the six, only three now survived.

Then someone arrived that he didn't recognize. He was a young, caracal Realm Walker. He only later recognized him after he heard Mercy call his name, Impel (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/impel#English). It was surprising, because Cloak just remembered him as a tyke, barely older than Leatherhead. He was Mercy's youngest of four.

Then his younger sister, the venomous snake that she was, arrived with her husband, a corgi Realm Walker who was really too good for Dagger, Cloak thought. Dagger had a habit of backstabbing people -- she was really like their mother, but in many ways, more, well, venomous. She went to sit with their mother, which was odd because Cloak heard that they were on the outs with each other.

Faith and Shadow didn't come however, because Faith couldn't get off of work. It might have made this a bit more tolerable for Cloak, had they been here.

Then his cousin, a leonine Realm Walker named Airlion, arrived. He was the eldest child, four years younger than Cloak, and he arrived with someone whom he presumed to be his wife. And this, funnily enough made Cloak feel inadequate. He was still single and childless, and family members younger than him were marrying and starting families. And yet, he was terrified of marrying a woman like his mother. Absolutely terrified.

Speaking of which, he saw her come up the right side aisle towards him. She was crying tears that reeked with insincerity, and he would not be manipulated by her again.

"Wheeza wanted me to tell you something, --"

"I don't care," Cloak said, immediately leaving the main atrium of the Walker version of a church. He would spend the service in the antechamber if he had to. He was not about to be manipulated and used by her again.

Of course, his albatross aunt confront him about it. Saying something about letting go hatred or some other empty platitude that Cloak wasn't in the mood for. And he told her so -- that that piece of work told him the proper way to kill himself, and he wants nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with her.

Part of him wanted to tell his mother off. Part of him wanted to scream and yell and accuse her of all the things she did to him, but would be wrong. That would dishonor Wheeza. That would be turning this into being about him, and, while his mother may have no qualms about doing that, Cloak wasn't about to disrespect Wheeza like that.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dHg50mdODFM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2017, 03:39:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Noelle's Field Trip

Noelle went to a secret field that she knew of, a quiet meadow with rolling hills ringed with trees, or other woody plants, -- alder, beech, black walnut, laurel, oak, rowan, etcetera, etcetera. The grass there was unusually succulent and tasty. It wasn't in the forum, but it also wasn't too far away. She always went here when she needed some time to think, to retrospect, to introspect.

She always liked to feed slowly at first, working up to a higher gallop. As she did so, her mind wandered. She remembered her past and how she came to be here, how she came to bear the Mark of a RAFian.

***

She came from humble beginnings. The daughter of a minor technician, who loved her deeply. It was decent scoop, nothing overly extravagant, and nothing too shabby either. She was an avid reader of stories, and found some of the fictions of Earth particularly engaging, some of which in the nearby town -- the Andalite analogue of one, anyway -- thought was odd, and thought Noelle a bit of a nonconformist for liking over Andalite stories, despite the fact she liked Andalite stories as well.

She walked to the town, singing:

<Little town, it's a quiet village.
Every day like the one before.
Little town, full of little Andalites,
Waking up to say -->

<Hello!>

<Hello!>

<Hello!>

<Hello!>

<Hello!>

Then Noelle strolled nonchalantly amongst them.

<There goes the maker with his tray, like always.
The same old thingmajigs to sell.
Every morning just the same.
Since the morning that we came
To this poor Andalite town.>

<Good morning, Noelle!>

<Good morning, sir.> she had replied. Then she noticed some peculiarities about his behavior, before deducing that it was because he was looking for something. <Have you lost something again?>

<Well, I believe I have. Problem is, I can't remember what,> he said, absently. <Oh, well. I'm sure it'll come to me. Where are you off to?>

<To return a book to Erep-Bertor-Beekooppur,> Noelle said, <it was about how the Yeerk Empire collapsed.>

<Historical fiction? Sounds boring,> he replied before heading off onto his business.

Then the townsfolk sang as she walked by:

<Look there she goes, that girl is strange, no question!
Dazed and distracted, can't you tell?
Never part of any crowd
Cause her head's up on some cloud!
No denying she's a funny girl, that Noelle!>

<Hello!>

<Good day!>

<How is your fam'ly?>

<Hello!>

<Good day!>

<How is your wife?>

Noelle then proclaimed, before entering the trade post, which functioned as a small library (though not much call for books), run by Erep:

<There must be more than this provincial life!>

"Ah, if it isn't the only bookworm in town." he said, affectionately, when he caught sight of Noelle though his right stalk eye. Turning to face her with his main eyes, he asked, <Where did you run off to this week?>

<Two planets in the northern quadrant,> Noelle said, smiling. And, with Andalites, smiling is all in the eyes. <I didn't want to come back. Have you got anything new?>

<Not since yesterday,> Erep said, with a laugh. <But you may reread any of the old ones, if you like.>

<Your small library makes our small corner of the galaxy feel so big,> Noelle said, in thanks, as she selected a book that she already twice reread.

<Bon voyage,> Erep said, with a smile, as she left. And, when she did, the townsfolk started in again:

<Look there she goes, that girl is so peculiar.
I wonder if she's feeling well.
With a dreamy, far-off look,
And her nose stuck in a book.
What a puzzle to the rest of us is Noelle!>

Noelle sang, as she thumbed through the book.

<Oh, isn't this amazing?
It's my favorite part because you'll see
Here's where she meets War-Prince Gnimrach
But she won't discover that it's him, 'til chapter three!>

The townsfolk sang:

<Now it's no wonder that her name means "beauty",
Her looks have got no parallel!
But behind that fair façade,
I'm afraid she's rather odd.
Very diff'rent from the rest of us.
She's nothing like the rest of us.
Yes, diff'rent from the rest of us is Noelle!>

Meanwhile, looking at her from afar, Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar watched her, almost voyeur-like. He was accompanied by his "friend" (more like a lackey and a minion), Syko-Phantik-Phoohl. Ardnalil was village hero and utterly infatuated with Noelle, who deigned to date him. It only lasted an Earth week, before she got so fed up and kicked him to the curb.

But this only made him more amorous and more . . . well, let's just say, he didn't take "no" for an answer.

<Look at her, Syko,> he said, imperiously addressing his friend. Syko seemed to like Ardnalil in a different way, though. <My future wife. Noelle is the most beautiful girl in the town. That makes her the best.>

<But she's so . . . well-read,> Syko argued. <And you're so . . . athletically-inclined.>

<Yes . . .> Ardnalil said, <but ever since the war with the Yeerks, I've felt like ive been missing something. And she's been the only girl whose given me that sense of . . .>

Ardnalil looked as if he was struggling to find the words, so Syko supplied, <Mmmm .
. . je ne sais quoi?>

<I don't know what that means,> Ardnalil said, still eyeing Noelle with desirous stare, before launching into song:

<Right from the moment when I met her, saw her,
I said she's gorgeous and I fell!
Here in town, there's only she,
Who is beautiful as me.
So, I'm making plans to woo and marry Noelle.>

Then three airheaded admirers of Ardnalil sang:

<Look! There he goes.
Isn't he dreamy?
Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar,
Oh, he's so cute!
Be still my heart.
I'm hardly breathing.
He's such a tall, dark, strong and handsome brute!>

Then a cacophony of townsfolk singing about various, but disconnected things, before Noelle proclaimed:

<There must be more than this provincial life!>

Then, unheard by Noelle, Ardnalil declared:

<Just watch, I'm going to make Noelle my wife!>

Then the townsfolk sang:

<Look there she goes
The girl is strange, but special.
A most peculiar mad'moiselle!
It's a pity and a sin.
She doesn't quite fit in.
'Coz she really is a funny girl,
A beauty but a funny girl.
She really is a funny girl!
That Noelle!>

She stopped, and then looked around, and the Andalite townfolk went about their business. And she came face to face with Ardnalil, which was something that she really rather not have to deal with.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IzwWXNxFiyA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2017, 05:21:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Ardnalil's Pitch

<Ardnalil,> Noelle said, sounding less than enthused, <what a . . . a surprise.>

<Isn't it though?> he said. <I'm so full of them.>

<You're full of something, alright,> Noelle muttered. Ardnalil apparently didn't understand her tone, or he chose to take it as a compliment. She had thought she had been clear when she ended it with him. She didn't ask for him to continually and routinely butt into her life.

She most certainly didn't ask him to sing.

<You've been dreaming just one dream,
Nearly all your life.
Hoping, scheming, with just one theme:
Will you be a wife?
Will you be some male's property?
Good news! That male's me!
This equation, girl plus man,
Doesn't just help you.
On occasion, women can
Have their uses, too.
Mainly to extend the fam'ly tree.
Noelle, extend with me!
We'll be raising sons galore.>

She muttered as he sang the last lyric:

<Inconceivable.>

<Each built six foot four!>

<Unbelievable.>

<Each one stuffed with ev'ry Ardnalil gene!>

<I'm not hearing this."

<You'll be keeping scoop with pride!>

<Just incredible.>

<Each day gratified -- >

<So incompatible!>

<That you are a part of this idyllic scene.>

Then switched to speaking, <Picture this: A rustic scoop lodge, my little wife massaging my hooves, while the little ones amongst trees. We'll have six or seven.>

<Trees?> Noelle inquired, hoping she had misheard his intent.

<No, Noelle! Strapping boys . . . like me!> he said, proudly.

<Imagine that,> Noelle said, feigning politeness. It was obvious as to why she dumped his butt. But clearly he wasn't getting the message, and that made him even more fervent to marry her, despite she making it very clear the answer would be no.

He sang:

<I can see that we will share,
All that love implies.
We shall be a perfect pair,
Rather like my stalk eyes.
You are face to face with destiny!
All roads lead to . . .
The best things in life are . . .
All's well that ends with me!
Escape me? There's no way.
Certain as "Do, Re,"
Noelle, when you marry . . ."

Then he abruptly returned to regular speech, "So, Noelle, what will it be? Is it "yes", or is it "oh, yes"?>

Noelle managed to duck his advances, vanishing, using the morphing abilities she got from accidentally touching an Esfacil device, (she had procured it on a visit to the project and no one noticed, so it was a little illicit, and thereby no knew she had it) and say, <I . . . I just don't deserve you!>

Ardnalil replied with, "Who does?"

Then belted out:

<ME!>

Noelle, escaping in a kafit bird morph, added rather insincerely, <But thanks for asking.>

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s3iwwZ6SG48

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on April 13, 2017, 08:24:47 AM

Quote

"Oh, aren't we forgetting one teensy weensy, but ever-so-crucial, tiny little detail?" Screweye said, almost in a singsong tone of voice, before roaring in sudden, unexpected rage, as if he would explode into a fiery inferno, "I OWN YOU!!!"

Haha, reminds me of Hades.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2017, 08:26:43 AM

Quote from: Ash on April 13, 2017, 08:24:47 AM

Quote

"Oh, aren't we forgetting one teensy weensy, but ever-so-crucial, tiny little detail?" Screweye said, almost in a singsong tone of voice, before roaring in sudden, unexpected rage, as if he would explode into a fiery inferno, "I OWN YOU!!!"

Haha, reminds me of Hades.

There's a very good reason for that. ;)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Reprise and Surprises

Ardnalil left in a huff, after realizing his self-aggrandizing song didn't woo Noelle the way he thought it would, vowing some day to marry her and make her a wife, his wife. He was completely unaware that this chase, this confession of seeing her as nothing more than a trophy, a prize to be won, was a major turn off for her. She despised him for seeing her as property, and that was a major factor in her dumping him, in her rejecting him.

She looked around, still in her morphed disguise, and asked to no one in particular, <Is he gone?>

When she was confident that he was, she demorphed, grousing, <He ask me to marry him. Me! The wife of that boorish, witless -->

Then she burst into a song:

<Madame Ardnalil,
Can't you just see it?
Madame Ardnalil,
His little wife.
No, sir! Not me!
I guarantee it,
I want much more than this provincial life!
I want adventure in the great wide somewhere,
I want it more than I can tell!
And, for once, it might be grand,
To have someone understand.
I want so much more than they've got planned . . .>

She sighed heavily, as she put her hand on her Guide Tree. She felt a sadness in her hearts that she would probably never find a place were she wasn't considered an outsider, an oddity.

***

Ka-POW!!

The sound of the gunshot pulled her back to reality. It was a real gunshot. From a human-grade weapon. It was most definitely not a Shredder, Dracon beam, or blaster of any sort. Granted, she was not a weapons expert. But the intention was clear -- someone was using a human weapon to shoot at her.

She took a quick and succinct inventory of her surroundings and privately cursed that she had allowed herself to wander too far from the forum. And at a time where a majority of the other RAFians were either on missions, like Parker, or on personal business, like Cloak. The forum was pretty bare at the moment besides Hunter (babysitting Leatherhead) and XenoFrobe, on communications and monitoring duty.

Stupid! she cursed herself. It wasn't like there weren't fields in the forum specifically grown to accommodate RAFian Andalites. But no, she had elected to leave to travel to a field that she had foolishly and arrogantly believed to be secluded and unvisited by anyone but herself. She should have been wiser. She should have been more cautious.

She knew of the threat of the Knights. She knew what their xenophobic stance was on immigrant species like hers. She knew that these people would never welcome her -- and she should have thought to see if the field was being monitored in any way. She didn't take enough precautions. She peered around as she galloped for cover, dismayed that she couldn't see who was shooting at her.

It was when she found cover amongst the trees when an idea occurred to her. A pretty farfetched one, though. What if Ardnalil's family put out a hit on her, blaming her for Ardnalil's death? But that couldn't possibly be it. As far as she knew, he didn't have any siblings, and he had survived both of his parents.

But what if she was mistaken?

---

Song Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Oni8_k5twU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2017, 07:24:04 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Questions of Motivation

Noelle was hidden in the forest, and she could not see or hear her would-be assassin. All the same, her mind whirred. Ardnalil's family could have sent a hitman, or a two-bit assassin, to take her out, in vengeance for the death of their son -- a family that Noelle wasn't privy to.

Or maybe one of his fanboys or any of the townsfolk who idolized the cretin. Maybe Syko was behind it -- he worshiped Ardnalil. Maybe he was just a fan or just a closeted . . .even though that was considered somewhat taboo in Andalite society. Hell, Andalites weren't exactly the most progressive species out there, considering how they treated vecol, which Noelle found disgusting and disgraceful. Andalites, like humans and many other species, were far from perfect and idyllic. Aspirations of perfection were for the stupid and overachieving, anyway.

Or maybe, just maybe, this was completely unrelated to Ardnalil at all. That was a clear, and distinct possibility. But who could have possibly shot at her . . . whoever it was, they had a human weapon. They used it. This suggested highly that it was a human. Or possibly a human-Controller. Or possibly another species trying to frame a human to throw suspicion off themselves.

She swiftly acquired a raccoon and morphed it, hopefully out of sight of this would-be assassin. Then she clambered around looking for the said would-be assassin. She actually had to demorph and remorph at least once whilst looking for him or her. Until she thought she had eventually found her.

She was a human, female. Fair skin, hazel eyes. Long, dirty blonde hair tied into a tight bun. She had rather prominent, horse-like teeth that tended to stick out when her mouth was shut. She clutched some sort of rifle -- Noelle was unfamiliar with the specifics of human weaponry -- but she supposed that that kind of weapon was used for hunting. She wore what appeared to be similar to that ceremonial armor that the Knights of Humanity liked to wear (because apparently bigots really liked to play dress-up), only instead of metal, her body armor seemed to be made of kevlar upholstered with camouflage-print fabric, as well as having camouflage face paint.

She clearly didn't want to be seen. She wanted to kill Noelle and Noelle had no idea as to why. While Noelle wouldn't profess herself to be an expert, the look on this woman's face indicated that this wasn't a paid job -- it very well could be, but her face, her eyes especially, said this was personal to her.

Why? Noelle couldn't help but wonder. Why did this woman have it out for her? What could she have possibly done? Did Syko come to Earth and morph a human? But, if this was indeed Syko, why morph a human female? He was in the same mindset of Ardnalil in thinking woman as inferior, as property -- or at least, that was her take on him. If she wasn't Syko, then why did she want to kill Noelle so badly?

Was she a Knight? Her choice of attire would suggest that she was, but a more covert, black ops-style Knight. If she was not the only one, this could spell very disturbing consequences for RAF and non-Terran species on the planet. The Knights of Humanity like to style themselves as the defenders of mankind, when it reality, they consist of a bunch of bigots in the style of the Ku Klux Klan who like to play dress-up and talk big, and denounce integration with any non-Terran. Most RAFians have relegated them to nothing more but a nuisance status, as they haven't the resources or intelligence to become a real coherent threat.

Not yet. And considering the gunshot Noelle heard, was actually, apparently, an accidental misfire from her rifle, suggested that this woman wasn't exactly too skilled or trained at this. But, if she was a Knight, that was to be expected. And there was stronger evidence that she was a Knight, perhaps radicalized somehow, and that that was the reason she wanted to kill Noelle. Being an Andalite, Noelle was an alien to this world, she was a non-Terran. So, just by that account alone, she earns the ire of the Knights.

But the question was what to do next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2017, 06:18:08 AM

Sorry that I didn't post over the weekend. I had to pull two double shifts in a row and was spent by the time I got home.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ardnalil's Supporters

As she watched this would-be assassin, Noelle found herself thing about her past again, about Ardnalil again. Before he was killed by Dark Phoenix.

***

<Who does she think she is?!> Ardnalil demanded in the Andalite analogue of a bar. <That girl has messed with the wrong male. No one says no to Ardnalil-Shicom-Maar!>

<Damn right,> Syko said, sycophantically.

<Dismissed! Rejected!> he groused. <Publicly humiliated! Why, it's even more than I can bear.>

<More ispear root?> Syko proffered.

<What for?> Ardnalil dismissed. <Nothing helps. I'm disgraced.>

<What? You? Never!> Syko said, bracingly. <Ardnalil, you've got to pull yourself together.>

But this didn't console Ardnalil one bit, so Syko launched into a song:

<Gosh, it disturbs me to see you, Ardnalil,
Looking so down in the dumps.
Every guy here'd love to be you, Ardnalil,
Even when taking your lumps!
There's no male in town as admired as you.
You're everyone's favorite guy!
Everyone's awed and inspired by you,
And it's not very hard to see why!>

Ardnalil still looked unconvinced. So, Syko continued:

<No one's slick as Ardnalil.
No one's quick as Ardnalil.
No one's neck's as incredibly thick as Ardnalil.
For there's no man in town half as masculine!
Perfect, a pure paragon!>

Then the townsfolk present at this watering hole, sang with Syko:

<No one's been like Ardnalil!
A king pin like Ardnalil!>

Ardnalil sang:

<As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating!>

Syko and the rest of the townsfolk sang:

<My, what a guy, that Ardnalil!
Give five "hurrahs"!,
Give twelve "hip-hips"!>

Then Syko went solo:

<Ardnalil is the best and the rest is all drips!>

Then the townsfolk sang:

<No one fights like Ardnalil!
Douses lights like Ardnalil!>

Then three ditzy females sang:

<For there's no one as burly and brawny!>

Ardnalil gloated:

<As you see, I've got biceps to spare!>

Syko added:

<Not a bit of him's scraggly or scrawny.>

Ardnalil agreed:

<That's right!
And every last inch of me's covered with hair!>

Then the rest of the townfolk sang:

<No one hits like Ardnalil!
Matches wits like Ardnalil!
Ten points for Ardnalil!>

Ardnalil boasted:

<When I was a lad I ate four dozen acres
Ev'ry morning to help me get large!
And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen acres,
So I'm roughly the size of a barge!>

Then the townfolk sang:

<No one shoots like Ardnalil!
Makes those beauts like Ardnalil!>

Then Syko reported:

<Then goes tromping around
With his big hooves like Ardnalil!>

Ardnalil sang:

<I use horns in all of my decorating!>

Then the townfolk sang:

<Say it again!
Who's a man among men?
And then say it once more,
Who's that hero next door?
Who's a super success?
Don't you know? Can't you guess?
Ask his fans and his many hangers-on.
There's just one guy in town
Who's got all of it down . . . >

It was at this point that Noelle left the proceedings, feeling absolutely disgusted. It's funny how no one noticed a simple kafit sitting nearby, listening to this absolute schlock. She had morphed and came to see what all the commotion was about -- she kept her morphing ability secret from the townsfolk, Syko, and Ardnalil. She morphed instead coming au naturele because she didn't want to be intrusive -- especially if it was about her.

She couldn't lie, part of her felt betrayed that the townsfolk was endorsing and encouraging Ardnalil's brutish, boorish, and chauvinist attitude. They were actually rewarding his arrogance and conceited personality -- not only rewarding but celebrating it! As if he didn't have a swelled enough head already.

One thing was clear to Noelle now. Crystal clear. She couldn't stay here any longer where the uncultured idolized, where lacking delicacy or refinement was praised. She had to leave, to find the adventure she sought so desperately and to escape this backwards town -- maybe not every village on the Andalite homeworld was like this, but Noelle had . . . bigger aspirations.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VuJTqmpBnI0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2017, 05:28:44 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Gotta Go -- But How?

She had to leave. Even this town she had lived in for so long started to feel oppressive. She couldn't believe that the townsfolk were actually cheerleading Ardnalil's chauvinism! They were endorsing his narrative and encouraging his arrogance. How long before they start pressuring her to agree to his proposal, one she knew was just endless misery and torment for her. She would wither away, being his wife. How long before they started shaming her for not accepting, these people she thought liked her well enough?

She had to leave. But the question was how. She didn't want to simply move to another scoop far away. She would find that too unstimulating, too boring. She wanted something more adventurous. She had never been off-planet, even when illicitly obtaining her morphing ability. Granted, she only had one morph -- the kafit bird. And getting off-planet was what she decided that she must do. It was also her best shot at dodging Ardnalil's dimwitted advances and refusal to acknowledge her disdain for him. The galaxy at large is a very big place -- her chances at hiding from him there was very good. Very good indeed.

The problem was, however, she hadn't any idea how to do it. Each and every idea she had come up with had serious downsides that could get her in some serious trouble, both legally and socially. Her acquiring the morphing technology, while illegal, was also, in some ways, taboo. As Ardnalil and the townsfolk's attitudes showed, the Andalites weren't all that progressive as a species yet -- or perhaps it was just this area of the planet -- and she would be even more of an outcast than she is now.

She could steal a ship, she supposed. A fighter, most likely. But the Andalites in charge would see it leaving and breaking the atmosphere. She'd probably be shot down way before then, given that she hadn't any training in piloting anything, and no book she read ever detailed it. It was almost as if it was forbidden knowledge for her, but she knew that wasn't the case. Most Andalites learn this stuff at the Academy, and she never took the class, never thinking she would need it. Of course, this was before she foolishly dated Ardnalil.

That option was out.

She could stowaway on a Dome Ship, in the dome section, of course. With her morphing ability, it may be easy to hide amongst the foliage, even impersonating members of the ship. Trouble was, doing that was considered a capital offense in her understanding of Andalite law. And even hiding as a kafit bird wasn't as plausible as one might think. As a precaution against introducing an invasive species into another planet's ecosystem, and completely decimating said ecosystem, no homeworld animals were in the dome. They had learned their mistake with the Yeerks. She'd be quickly found out, no matter how hard she tried to hide.

Second option, undoable.

The only other option she could think of was so farfetched, she dismissed it right out of hand. It was far too implausible of having any possible way of working. It would entail acquiring and morphing a creature that could fly into space of its own accord and find a habitable world all within the morphing time limit, which far shorter than she would have liked. She could deliberately become a nothlit she supposed. She did consider seriously, as it would make it even harder for Ardnalil to find her. But she dismissed again, because the likelihood of such a creature ever coming close enough for her to acquire its genetic blueprint, its DNA, was absurd beyond any absurdity.

Then her left stalk eye caught a glimpse of something falling through the atmosphere nearby. It didn't look like anything she's ever seen before either. It looked like a creature of some kind -- and it looked severely injured. Noelle galloped toward it, knowing whoever or whatever it was, it would need help. Possibly medical attention.

Although, a small part of her, in the back of her mind, was thinking that it could be her ticket out of here, her ticket to freedom. It was the part of her that she was ashamed to admit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2017, 11:14:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Dying Alien

Noelle quickly made her way to the spot where it had just impacted, expecting a large crater. But, if anything, it was barely a dimple in the planet's surface. And, somehow, it was still alive. And suffering. Noelle had to help it, as she hurried to approach.

It was a large, red and yellow alien, similar in appearance to a manta ray. It had hands with three digits and feet with three digits. It had yellow horns above its eyes, which had a yellow stripe leading down to yellow lips. It had a lizard-like tail. It had ray-like patagia, which are yellow in front and red in back. Its sides had markings that resemble gills and it had a zigzag pattern around their upper torso. It was a male Aerophibian, though the species was unknown to Noelle at the time.*

"Not . . ." he muttered, standing up (or, at least, trying to), "Aeropela . . ."

<Don't move!> Noelle cautioned. She noticed the extensive burn to his left side and upper arm. It looked like a deadly serious wound. <You're hurt!>

His tail flicked with yellowish sparks, as he warned, before he collapsed onto the ground, "St-stay away . . . wh-whatever . . . you are . . ."

It didn't take any rocket scientist to see that this poor alien's life was ebbing away ever so slowly. The only reason that Noelle could deduce that he hadn't succumbed already was due to sheer obstinance. He was determined to get back to this place, this Aeropela. But there was no way he could.

<I do not wish you any harm,> Noelle said to him, rushing to his side, dangerously close to his neuroelectric shocks. But he hadn't the energy or strength to summon their full force. <Quite the contrary, friend, I wish to help you.>

"T-too late for that," he said, his breath was ragged. "T-too late."

<No, no, stop moving,> Noelle cautioned again, touching the alien. Hoping to offer him some comfort in his last moments. <You will just exacerbate your injury, and increase your pain.>

She had to acquire him just to settle him down, to help him find some peace. A piece of him would live on in her -- although she would later forget to having an Aerophibian morph when she gain more powerful morphs, and she would be ashamed to admit this, when pressed.

But he came out of the acquiring trance, still alive and still very much in pain. Noelle decided that it would be best to soothe him, to be with him until his final moments passed. It's what she would want if she was in his situation.

<What's your name?> Noelle asked, attempting in vain to distract him from his pain, kneeling very awkwardly, given her centaur-like body design. <Who and what did this to you?>

"My n-name?" he said, his breathing noticeably labored now. It seemed to cost him everything just to speak. "It's un . . . unimportant. You seem l-like a . . . a good soul. Not that I've ever been a g-good judge of s-such things."

<Shhh,> Noelle said, now thinking encouraging him to speak might have been a mistake, considering how much energy he was expending when he probably didn't have much of it left. <Save your strength.>

"It was the armada . . ." he said, as if he was determined to name his murderers and warn Noelle of them. "Beware the Ex--"

He died mid-word, before Noelle could do anything about it.

<Go in peace, alien friend,> Noelle said, kindly, when the shock ended. But then she was interrupted . . .

---

*(https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/6/67/VoV1_%28249%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20150920113310)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2017, 11:34:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Vel Lynn*

Her name was Velma Lynn Lord, Vel Lynn for short, and she was a probationary Knight. Such members are know as Squires, and they were supposed to be covert members. She had joined up with them a while ago, ever since the RAFians dealt with Billion.**

And Billion was the driving reason why Vel Lynn joined the Knights to begin with. Her brother, Randall "Mad Dog" Paul Lord, was one of Billion's many unnamed victims. Vel Lynn didn't know this, though she kept the skin carelessly discarded by Billion when he moved on beyond the biker bar. Vel Lynn had always had a disdain for nonhuman species, but at the skinning of her beloved older brother, this bloomed into outright xenophobia that any Knight could be proud of.

She always idolized Mad Dog, who, despite his aggressive-sounding nickname, was not a criminal. He was just a biker -- or, for the politically correct, a motorcycle enthusiast. His fashion choices tended to be stereotypical as well, wearing either jeans and black shirt or leather that rather showcased his large, gorilla-like build. Vel Lynn was about nine or so years younger, and Mad Dog was always explicitly good to her. He never hesitated to babysit her or take care of her when the need arose. This is where much of her idolizing stemmed from.

But Mad Dog was far from perfect. He was highly opinionated, and could be really belligerent when he drank enough. He wasn't anywhere near fair and egalitarian, either, having just as much disdain for sentient nonhumans as Vel Lynn, only he was willing to hide behind religion to do it, using cherry-picked passages and deliberately taking some out of context to justify his views. His only life goals -- his dream, really --was either to become a prominent Knight of Humanity or become a prominent Hell's Angel, despite not really wanting to put in the necessary work or effort to become either.

He may have been a good big brother, he was slovenly and lazy. He wasn't going anywhere, and he was principally living by doing odd jobs, though he considered himself a nomad. He just made enough to feed himself and his bike, and he felt as if he didn't need anything else. Not even a phone. He felt as if his life was set for the time being -- he didn't care if he was technically homeless, and that he didn't make nearly enough to pay taxes. He had his bike and the road, and he would visit his favorite sister (because she was his only sister).

This happened principally because he had a falling out with his rather conservative parents who wanted him to get out and get a real job, find a good woman, and settle down and have a family. Mad Dog didn't want any of that -- he preferred his wandering, nomadic life and the freedom he felt that it brought to him.

Then he decided to go to that shady tavern on that late February evening.*** Vel Lynn never learned what happened to him at that dirty bar, which she could never remember the name of -- something like the Toepick Tavern or something stupid like that. But she knew that place is where her brother was murdered. And murdered by alien scum, she knew it. She knew it! Every last one needed to be killed -- not removed from the planet, not deported away, killed.

They, in her view, didn't deserve to live. They hadn't any right to breathe Earth air, smell Earth scents, hear Earth sounds, taste Earth food, touch Earth ground -- none of it!! Especially if they possess that "R"-shaped marking. She listened to Bern Bridges, she knew the threat these bearers of this sigil posed. If she killed one of them, and presented its bloated corpse to the Knight leadership, that would surely streamline her to full Knight status, instead of being a stupid Squire. She would achieve her brother's dream for him, since he couldn't. Because he was just and empty skin, which Vel Lynn had cremated and kept on her mantel in an ornate urn.

She disowned her parents when she considered they're reaction to his fate inappropriately benign and muted. When they didn't follow her extreme radicalization. They were fools, she decided. They never loved Mad Dog, and this inaction on their part was unequivocal proof of it. Action must be taken to rectify this grievous mistake. And the only way to to do that is to kill all aliens, to slaughter them like the swine they all are. She had come a long way in the five months since her beloved brother's death.

Noelle was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

---

* Say it five times fast to understand where the name was based on.

** See Book CXVI/Book #116, "Skin Crawlers", for details.

*** See Book #116, Chapter 12, "Investigation and Replication".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2017, 09:25:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Failed Diplomacy

Noelle, still hidden as a raccoon, decided to break her silence to her would-be assassin. The useful thing about thought-speak is you can't tell the direction it comes from, so Noelle didn't risk compromising her position.

<So,> she said, her voice a tad harder and more stern than she had intended, <any particular reason you want to kill me? Or did you just mistake me for an oddly-colored deer?>

"What the devil?!" Vel Lynn demanded, holding her head, dropping her gun on the grass-carpeted ground.

Noelle felt like she'd rather not go into the intricacies of how thought-speak worked and just what this form of communication entailed. She might have indulged in this act, if this hadn't been the person who shot at her. That kind of shortened her patience with her, as she was still understandably cross with her.

<You do not look like the hunter type,> Noelle said, taking inventory of her attire and her clear inexperience with the weapon she had. Had she had the marksmanship of someone like . . . like Ardnalil, Noelle was sure that she'd already be dead. <So, I must ask, why did you want to do me bodiky harm? I have done nothing to harm you.>

"Oh, it's you, isn't it? You're in my head you monstrous piece of . . . of . . . of alien scum!" she said, sound quite deranged. "I knew you unEarthly sacks of garbage were vile, but this proves that you're demons as well!!"

<I. Am not. A demon.> Noelle said, with dignity. It was hard not to be offended by Vel Lynn's slander.

"Yes, you are!! Every one of you freakish mistakes of nature are demons!! Monsters!! Beasts!!" she roared and ranted. "You are all blemishes on existence that needs -- that sorely needs to be expunged!! You endanger the genetic purity of existence, and must be done away with."

<You sound like a Highbreed,> Noelle said, trying hard to keep the disdain from her tone. This woman was obviously a Knight, with the vile rhetoric she was spewing like a toxic, noxious gaseous emission. <Well, before they reformed, anyway.>

"Meaningless words!" she raged. Noelle idly hoped there wasn't a red ring looking for a master right now. "You, all of you, are monsters!! Freaks!! Especially those with that 'R' branding! I know the truth!!"

She was blaming the RAFians for something. Noelle could tell there was a more personal reason behind this, but she didn't know what. She didn't point this out or pry, because that just might serve to destabilize her emotional state even more. Not a desirable outcome.

"You're the reason I lost him," she fumed. Noelle quickly noticed that she was talking to herself now, more than her. "You're the reason why he was taken from me. You freaks are the ones that killed him. My brother didn't do anything wrong, didn't do anything to anyone to deserve being stripped away of everything but his skin and clothes!"

Ah. There was. Her brother was either a victim of Skinwalker, of a Slitheen, of a Warwolf, or of Billion. But there weren't enough clues, in context, about which. Though, if Noelle had to guess, going from how she framed it as if she found him on the floor like crumpled laundry, she would have to hazard a guess and say that he was a victim of Billion. But she couldn't be absolutely sure.

"I know the evil you and all your abominable kind can do," she said. Noelle knew she wasn't talking about Andalites specifically, but every kind of sentient, non-Terran lifeform. It was a tad offensive, akin to calling every species in North American "you kind" when it was just a gross generalization, especially considering her dismissive and maligned framing. "I know the truth about you. I watch Bern Bridges. I know the truth about you abominations."

And there it was. Proof that diplomacy would never work. She watched Bern Bridges, and clearly bought into his schlock hook, line, and sinker. There would be no dissuading her from her wrongful stances. Noelle would just have to devise another way to deal with this threat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2017, 05:37:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Ardnalil Just Doesn't Get It

As Noelle disengaged from Vel Lynn (who took a while to realize that Noelle had left her), and went to find a safe place to demorph. And remorph to make her way back to the forum. As she did, she found herself remembering her past . . .

***

<Noelle!! Get away from that monster!!> Ardnalil cried, galloping towards Noelle in what he clearly thought was a stalwart and brave manner. He was still trying to impress her with his "bravery" and "heroism". Noelle felt exasperated by this, as it didn't work the first hundred and forty-eight times, why would he ever think it would work now?

When he arrived, he roughly pushed her out of the way and decapitated the dead Aerophibian before rigor mortis could even set in with a single slash of his broad tail-blade. After this, he looked on proudly, thinking himself a great and powerful warrior for what he's done.

Noelle, however, saw him nothing more as swaggering diva who expected people to fawn over him endlessly for no other reason than he's him. This was precisely the reason that Noelle found him intolerable. The reason -- one of many, actually -- that they are no longer an item.

<That was unnecessary, you brainless twit!> Noelle yelled.

<I just save your life, Noelle!!> he protested. <This is how you thank your savior?>

<Oh, don't flatter yourself, Ardnalil,> Noelle scolded. <You already have an entire town for that. Thinking you're some big war hero.>

<I am a war hero,> Ardnalil said, addressing her very coldly now. His big hope to impress her by killing the strange, foreign creature had failed so thoroughly he actually sat up and took notice.

<I find that very hard to believe, War-Prince Ardnalil-Shiacom-Maar,> Noelle said, derisively. <You see, I know you. And I know you to behave very dishonorably, just to win a cause, to win a war.>

<I do what I must. Andalite sovereignty supercedes that of lesser species in times of war or imminent galactic crisis. You wouldn't know, you're just a -->

<Just a what, Ardnali?> Noelle said, not backing down despite Ardnalil's larger size and tail-blade. <Just a female? Well, despite your chauvinistic ideals to the contrary, Ardnalil, females have brains, too, you know. And, despite your nosy remonstrations, I choose to actually use mine. I could tell you a million things just plain wrong about your argument about sovereignty, but I don't want to engage you in a debate about ethics when you're so clearly unarmed for it. Furthermore, your little scheme won't work.>

<Scheme? What scheme?>

<Don't pretend, Ardnalil. Don't lie -- you are not very good at it.> Noelle said, very crossly. <I have no interest -- NONE -- with being your wife. Nothing -- you hear me? NOTHING --- you do will ever change that stance. Nothing. You have plenty of other females to fawn over you. Choose one of them and leave me alone.>

Noelle was ready to leave. She was just so utterly sick and tired of defending herself from his relentless onslaught of unwanted advances and pressurings to marry him. She would sooner marry a rock than this blockhead. Why couldn't males ever seem to take 'no' for an answer? She wasn't obligated to marry him, like he seemed to think. She wasn't property to be owned. She was not a prize to be won at a carnival, and she really resented being treated as such.

But Ardnalil simply did not know when to give up. So determined was he to have Noelle as his wife, he would gladly force her into it, and force her to endure a unhappy marriage where he would call the shots and have total power of her. Her opinions on the matter mattered very little to Ardnalil.

He blocked her way, and said in a low, threatening sort of tone, <I'll have you as my wife, Noelle. Make no mistake about that.>

<Ardnalil,> Noelle said, in a scolding tone that one would usually reserve for misbehaving children. <I get a say in this, too. And I say that you will never have me as your wife. Never EVER. I'd sooner die than marry you.>

Then she forced her way past him and galloped as fast as she could to her family's scoop. She had to leave. Had to get away from Ardnalil. As soon as Andalitely possible. Fortunately, she now had the means to do it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2017, 01:58:36 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
A Decision Not Made Lightly

For years, she had to put up with this now. YEARS!! How many times did she have to tell Ardnalil to get lost before he got the message? How many times did she had to rebuff his many unwanted advances?

Enough was enough. It was time for her to leave this place. To leave the homeworld. Her Aerophibian morph should allow her to. Even if it didn't -- she could use it to find a place where she could escape Ardnalil once and for all. And she seriously considered deliberately becoming a nothlit to escape him as well. But she didn't want to lose her natural Andalite form -- morphing was strange enough at times, she wanted this little bit of familiarity to make her feel better.

This was not a decision she made in haste, however. She couldn't come up with any better alternative. So, the decision was made.

She left her family a note. One that was as detailed as she could make it. One that apologized for her abrupt disappearance. One that stated the reasoning for her departure. One that stated why she would not be returning. Suffice it to say, it was more of a novel than a note, at this point. She poured all her feelings into it, so her family knew how much she still loved them, but could not live like this any longer.

Then she left her family scoop. The home she had known for so many, many years. She never would see it again, but it was necessary to finally leave this place. To finally be safe from Ardnalil.

She hid away in the most secluded spot she could find, and then she began to morph. The first change was her eyes became yellow and almond-shaped, and her stalk eyes slurped into her head. But she had long since lost the panic she would have at losing nearly 360-degree vision. But she had to admit when she realized Aerophibians eyesight was not as good as her own with her main eyes. But she quickly discovered she could use a neuroshock echolocation that was, in many ways, superior to eyesight.

Then her fur was absorbed into her skin which darkened into the reddish color of the Aerophibian, with the body markings coming next. Then her face cracked open as the Aerophibian mouth formed, with yellow markings around being drawn around it as Aerophibian teeth formed in the newly-formed grimace. Then she grew the characteristic Aerophibian horns, which she could fire the neuroshock blasts from -- she didn't know that.

Then she lost her tail-blade as her tail took on Aerophibian properties, as she seemed lose her neck, her trapezoidal head sat directly on her shoulders. And she gained the ability to blast a neuroshock from her tail.

Then the more drastic changes happened. Her seven fingers on each hand melted together into two digits on each hand as her thumbs bloated to match the size of these digits. Her front legs seemed to be merging with her arms, but stopped midway, and slammed into her sides, fusing with them, while creating the Aerophibian patagia.

She was basically a male Aerophibian with female Andalite hindlegs now. But that swiftly changed as her knees switched direction with a nauseating crack, and her hooves melted and became the Y-shaped feet of an Aerophibian.

The morph was complete. And she jumped up into the sky and sort of just stayed there as she held her arms out. Somehow she doubted it was the patagia doing this, but she decided not to think about it. She was on a time limit, after all.

She left the Andalite homeworld. She would have liked to say she never looked back, but this was not true. She did once, before she hardened her resolve and left.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2017, 06:16:49 AM

Wow. Finally 250,000+ views.

New book ideas.

• Book MCLXXXII (1,182): "Music Mayhem" -- The Music Miser and Ember team up to take GH down.
• Book MCLXXXIII (1,183): "Ghost Mortem" -- Abby is forced in an impossible game of hide and seek.
• Book MCLXXXIV (1,184): "Good Night, and Good Riddance" -- Bern Bridges falls from grace.
• Book MCLXXXV (1,185): "Killer Crocs" -- Leatherhead (age 16) is framed.

Hopefully I didn't rehash anything. Remember, the titles are still works in progress and are subject to change when time comes to write them or outline them.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Nothing Can Be Done

Noelle felt a sadness that this woman, this Vel Lynn could not let go of her anger. That she will never be redeemed or seek redemption. That she had to scapegoat every nonhuman sentient creature as evil, despite being unable to see how evil she herself was being. That kind of blindness -- it was the same with Ardnalil, and he's dead now. That what intense hatred and bigotry will always yield in the long run. Pain, death, and suffering.

Noelle, who had felt rather cross with her, now felt pity and sadness. Vel Lynn cleaved so desperately to her hatred that it blinded her to the truth. But that's always the case, isn't it? What was that human saying, now? "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"? It was something like that, a vicious, unending cycle. She wouldn't be part of that cycle.

She could forgive Vel Lynn for what she was, though she would never condone her actions. But Noelle honestly wished that she would let her anger go, lest it burn her from the inside out. She wished the human woman would allow herself to feel more than the pain and suffering she had endured for these five Earth months.

However, it did not excuse her actions. It did not excuse her intent. It did not excuse her bigotry. But there wasn't anything Noelle could do to stop her hatred, to end her bigotry. Nothing at all. If she wanted to change, that would have to be Vel Lynn's choice and no one else's. You can't force someone to change -- well, you could brainwash someone, but that's not really the same thing. But would be more like manipulation than real meaningful change. No one can do that unless they want it -- no one else can force change in someone, though plenty have tried.

Noelle could have tried to conjole and coax Vel Lynn into letting go of her anger, her bigotry. For all the good it would have done. When a sentient being has their mind made up -- this applies to Andalites, too -- it is nigh on impossible to shake those firmly-held beliefs.

There was nothing more that she could have done. And Noelle decided not to feed outside RAF again. It was just not safe to do so anymore.

***

Where was it? WHERE?!

How could she have lost it again? She had the shot lined up to rights! She should have taken the shot! So what if it would have been a shoulder shot, and not the headshot she wanted. The shoulder shot could have maimed it enough to render it immobile while she came up and finished the job.

But, let's face it, she wouldn't have ended it with a single shot. She would have emptied her entire clip into the inhuman creature. Then reloaded and emptied that clip into it. And Vel Lynn would have enjoyed every minute of the inhuman demon getting everything it deserved.

Then she would go on and find the next one and repeat the process all over again. And again. And again. Until they were all gone or until this hole in her was gone. Mad Dog . . . she would avenge him. She would. She would make every one of these inhuman monsters quiver at the sound of her name.

She would be the Knight that exceed them all. She would be the Knight Above Knights. Hell, she might even become a Queen Knight, something that is a rarity. Most of the King Knights -- the Knight of Humanity leadership -- are male. It was something like five to fourteen percent were female. But she wouldn't only be a Queen Knight -- shed be the most brutal, the most merciless, the most ruthless -- the most feared of the all.

And some actual humans decided to betray their species, their race, she would just slaughter them as well. Any human willingly fraternizing with these inhuman freaks deserved the same fate. Whether they voluntarily surrendered their body to the parasitic demons, or whether they forced a perverse camaraderie with these filthy monsters. They all deserved to die. For their betrayal and fraternization. No exceptions.

She had gone so far down this slippery slope, there was no way to return to the sweet, if bigoted, girl she used to be. In her quest to kill that which she perceived to be monsters, she was becoming one herself. And it was as if she was.unconsciously embracing this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2017, 07:02:09 AM

Sorry about no new chapters over the weekend. I was working two double shifts in a row.

And you may have heard of Steven Bombs (arcs of Steven Universe released all at once), well, here's a Memoirs Bomb. So to speak.

• Book MCLXXXVI (1,186): "Khaaaaaaan! Yeerk Jerk" -- The RAFians come upon a Khan worm/Yeerk hybrid who hates its existence.
• Book MCLXXXVII (1,187): "Pay Attention to Me!!!" -- The RAFians must deal with a malevolent poltergeist who moved into the forum, unwanted. And it is a familiar face.
• Book MCLXXXVIII (1,188): "Alas, Ala" -- Shock, Blocky, and EvilPinkDragon battle against a trio of child-devouring Ala.
• Book MCLXXXIX (1,189): "Spiritual Royalty" -- Abby and Spectre become transcendent ghosts.
• Book MCLXL (1,190): "Gaz, the Vampire Queen" -- Gaz becomes a transdecendant vampire, and the new Madre de Vampyra. She doesn't like the title.
• Book MCLXLI (1,191): "Wild Howls" -- Wild becomes a transdescendant werebeast.
• Book MCLXLII (1,192): "King of Hell" -- Shenecron and Hellscream, after both becoming transdescent demons, battle it out for the crown of Hell.
• Book MCLXLIII (1,193): "This Sucks" -- Abby, Spectre, Gaz, and Wild have the transcendence sucked out of them to ressurect an old foe.
• Book MCLXLIV (1,194): "Adjustment Period" -- Abby, Spectre, Gaz, and Wild adjust to the loss of their transcendence.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything. Getting close to Year 13. Remember, the titles are not final, and are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Arrival and Fall

The flight as an Aerophibian was easy. She found quickly that, not only could she survive in the vacuum of space, but she can burrow into hyperspace, as the Aerophibian brain knew to be. Her Andalite mind detected it to be Z-Space, but dismissed it as impossible.

Eventually, her time window was closing. She had to find a planet to touch down in, demorph, and possibly remorph to continue her trek. And that water-filled planet should do nicely. She landed at an undisclosed area and made sure she was safe, before demorphing.

After resuming her Andalite shape, she stayed in the thickest parts of the woods. This planet was new to her, and unknown dangers could be lurking around every corner. Still -- it was far better than having to deal with a male chauvinist who isn't willing to take "no" for an answer.

Then Noelle came across some script from a discarded container, which she recognized as an Earth script. She had read about Earth from her books and stories. Was she really on Earth? If she was, she would need a human morph to fit in.

That proved to be more challenging than it first appeared to acquire. It wasn't enough to simple acquire a single human and be done with it, as she would be identified and mistaken for that particular human. She would require several genetic patterns in order to perform the Maneuver. That way she could have her own human identity.

It wasn't easy, to be sure, but she managed to acquire enough of a variety to do the Maneuver and come up with a completely unique human morph. Of course, since she was not born a human, she wasn't completely prepared for the new sensations of the morph.

Taste. Sound-based communication instead of the telepathic nature of thought-speak. So much to get used to and acquainted with . . .

***

Ardnalil did not escape Noelle's flight unscathed.

Despite no one knowing just how she managed to leave the planet altogether -- she having left that tidbit of information out of her note -- everyone knew precisely why. They all heard about the note from her grieving family, and realize just the kind of person Ardnalil truly was.

It was as if they were all seeing him for the first time, and they now saw through his gregarious public persona. They saw the dark monster that lied within him. Their attitude toward this town hero, this war hero, cooled significantly.

This new, icy reception took Ardnalil by surprise. He didn't even know about Noelle's departure until Syko told him about it much later on. He . . . he didn't take it well. Nor did he take it well when he found out that she left a note which, in his view, bad mouthed him. This outraged him, and quickly tried to dispute these accusations and allegations.

But thing was his explanations were outlandish and sounded more fabricated and sloppily put together than Noelle's more earnest, truer account. At least sixty percent of the town believed her narrative over his, with only a meager seventeen percent believing his. The remaining twenty-three percent had no opinion at all.

He wasn't nearly as popular as he used to be, and he found that he himself needed to get away. He managed to get himself a captainship aboard the Aximili with Andalites who didn't know his history. The fact that he had ascended to be the captain of this Dome Ship wasn't without controversy.

In the end, Ardnalil's amorous intents with Noelle evaporated. He now thought chasing her so relentlessly was proving to be far more trouble than it was ever worth. That it had caused far more trouble than any relationship with her was ever worth.

This is why he was so cold and distant towards her during the Dark Phoenix debacle on Earth. Where he would ultimately meet his demise. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2017, 10:46:09 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
RAF Land

Noelle managed to scrape by a modest living, unseen by humans, unless whe was in her human morph. She deliberately made her human morph look unnoticeable, because she did not want the humans noticing her too much. Most just thought she was eccentric. Which was good -- it gave her an excuse out of social functions and the like.

But then, one day, she heard an odd, almosf haunting voice.

"Somewhere in your mind's eye --"

Her curiosity undeniably piqued, she began to follow the sound, not knowing what it was.

"There is someplace you have never been."

She began her trek before coming to a place that she never saw. That she didn't know even could exist. It was almost like a secret egalitarian society. Then she noticed that the person singing seemed to be human. Unbeknowst to Noelle, it was musicman88, a retired RAFian in modern times.

"Welcome to the strangest place that you've ever been to,
Stranger than in dreams might give you a clue.
Close your eyes, it's here for you."

Noelle hovered in the woods watching this. She was entertained, but even more entralled when she realized the others were singing along.

"But everybody's crazy here in RAF.
You have to be a bit insane,
To sit and watch a house fly away and play.
Beside a field of raisin cane.
Call it crazy, if you please.
We're as happy as can be."

Noelle had no idea that the other RAFians, especially Cloak, was already aware of her presence and were already welcoming her. These were the times when they weren't as guarded.

"'Coz everybody's crazy here in RAF.
You simply won't believe your eyes.
Because if you've never been you wouldn't understand.
You couldn't in a million tries.
You'll see combinations that no one ever sees.
Ain't anything normal even with a swarm of these."

It was at this point the RAFians drew her into the song, and, though initially reluctant, she joined and had a wonderful time.

"And I sure hope I can get back to RAF again.
Back to RAF again.
Back to RAF again.
Back to RAF again.
Back to RAF again.
Back to RAF again."

So much was the enjoyment and accepting nature of these creatures, these RAFians, that she had decided to join them. From that point on, she joined them as a RAFian herself.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=z_PwFgyIBpg

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2017, 07:16:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Under Arrest

Noelle pulled herself back to the present and considered her options, regarding her would-be assassin. There weren't all that many to choose from.

She had tried the diplomatic approach and was soundly rebuffed. That wasn't about to work a second time, despite her innate Andalite optimism. She listened to Bern Bridges -- her mind was already made up on this matter. That was out, definitely.

She could try force, but it would be laughable. Noelle wasn't forceful by nature, and that would only function to needlessly escalate tensions. And it would just confirm in that human's mind that aliens are evil incarnate. That was no good.

She could just do nothing, which was an action in and of itself. But then her conscience would gnaw at her, causing her anxiety. And if she hurt -- heaven forbid, killed someone else -- it would be on her. It would be her fault as much as this tinhorn assassin.

The only viable option she could conceive of was to seek council from the others, and by being completely honest with them about what she now saw as a foolhardy venture. However, while she intended on doing just that, when she arrived back at the forum and met with the others -- they informed her of Vel Lynn's fate, as well as her name.

Noelle still told them everything, though. She thought that complete and utter transparency on this issue was necessary.

***

Vel Lynn's deranged mindset deteriorated further and she began to see most everyone as aliens in disguise. She kept trying to rationalize herself by saying that's impossible, and this worked. For a while.

But, as it would turn out, this wouldn't even matter, because the stray bullet that she fired accidentally found a different target. It hit a man just jogging through the forest, on a well-worn path. He wasn't doing anything malicious or bad, he was just minding his own business. He . . . didn't survive the shot. He never even knew what hit him -- he was alive one moment, then lying in a pool of his own blood, seconds from death a moment later.

The cops -- well, the competent ones -- quickly traced the bullet from the man to her weapon. (Apparently, the grooves made by the gun were super unique to a gun brand that isn't really manufactured all that much anymore.) And they quickly narrowed down the owners of such weapons. She had had the gun registered to her (a bit of very poor planning on her part), and thus she was easily deemed suspicious by her refusal to cooperate with the authorities.

She refused to cooperate with the cops because she saw them as being an accessory to the alien invasion of the planet, threatening, in her view, the purity of the planet. Coadjutors to those who, in her view, were threatening Earth's sovereignty. Accomplices to those who would seek to overthrow their way of life. Abettors of their crimes against humanity. Why would she want comply with such villains? No. Best call them out on their crimes, their falsehoods.

But, naturally, the law said otherwise. Vel Lynn, being rather lackluster at hand-to-hand combat and a really poor shot, was easily subdued by the police and swiftly arrested. She was placed in prison to await trail -- all the while shouting obscenities and vulgarities at them, which did not go to improve their impressions of the woman.

Vel Lynn felt absolutely confident that her Knight brothers and sisters would come and help her out. Pay her bail. Exonerate her in some way. She was, in her view, so clearly in the right and her arrest was a serious miscarriage of justice. She saw herself, as all people who go to extremes and go way too far, in the right and was offended and astounded that she could possibly be judged wrong.

She knew about the victim, but instead of admitting it was a mistake, she haughtily accused the man she slain accidentally of being a closeted alien. An alien or supernatural creature with a human disguise, despite the copious amount of mounting evidence that said otherwise. She had no remorse, and she seemed confident that this was just a formality.

She was a Knight, and her brethren would help her out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2017, 11:07:29 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Good Granny

They didn't.

They disowned her. They disavowed her. They essentially kicked her out and kicked her to the curb. They abandoned her in her moment of need. They didn't want so much public attention, not when the mainstream media seemed so interested in it (as means of obfuscating and deflecting what the corporatists in the government were doing behind the people's back), completely blowing its importance out of proportion and slander her as being akin to Hitler.

The RAFians, keeping up with this coverage, all thought that this was very heavy-handed and ludicrously framed. Yes, it was bad the man died -- but Velma Lynn Lord wasn't nearly as bad as Adolf Hitler. It was very poorly framed, and Vel Lynn got a ridiculously tough sentence of life in a maximum security prison -- one with a dubious history, including one inmate dying in a scalding shower.

They all thought it was ridiculous, and despicable. But they hadn't the power to do anything about it without completely superseding the law, and their public relations were tenuous at best. They would just have to let this play out.

***

Vel Lynn didn't shed a single tear as she got the sentence. She wasn't moved. She didn't even ruffle her uncomfortable orange jumpsuit that read #14800185 on the right side of her chest. She suffered wave after wave after wave of anger, resentment, and bitterness. She considered everyone fools. They couldn't see the dangers right in front of their faces . . .

Now she had to rot in jail because of their stupidity, because of their sensationalism. Bah! So be it. She would be the martyr. She would accept this extreme and unfair judgement with quiet dignity and -- oh, who was she kidding? This would be hell. Pure, unadulterated hell.

The guards would punish her most severely because she was a criminal now, and she knew what these guards thought of criminals. Subpar. Expendable. Subhuman. Not even worthy of basic human rights. If she was in pain from the bouts of torturous "punishments" these monsters liked to employ, she would scream and scream, and she would never be heard. All over an accident. An accidental murder she didn't intend on. That should have been manslaughter, not murder.

But the government need to distract the people from an issue they rather not be reported widely, and her case was convenient cover. All because of an accidental misfire of her weapon -- and resisting arrest -- she would be treated as lesser than human. She would be treated as if she was alien filth. It was almost more than she could bare. Being in a cage, like a friggin' rat.

But, apparently, she did something so bad to get herself locked up in solitary confinement. She never knew what, but suspected it was because on of her jailors didn't like her attitude or something of that nature. She couldn't believe this system, she couldn't believe how absolutely, royally f--

BOOM!!

There was an explosion and a massive silhouette stepped through the hole created. When her eyes adjusted, Vel Lynn saw who it was. A grandmotherly giant. The wrinkly, old woman had the build and physique of a Quartz solider from the Gem (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Gems) species. She had broad shoulders, stood about six and a half feet tall, and had wild, flyaway gray hair that was back-length. She wore a strapless, floor-length, lilac and snow-trimmed, tiered white dress, with what looked suspiciously like combat boots beneath. She held what appeared to be a lightsaber hilt, but with unnecessary angles and points.

"Well, dearie, what are you waiting for? Let's go," she said, in a deep, gravelly sort of voice, as if she chain smoked fifty cigarettes on the way here.

"I don't even know you," Vel Lynn countered.

"Me? I'm just Nana Goodness," she replied, with a malicious sort of twinkle in her eyes.

"You're serious," Vel Lynn said, skeptically.

"Honestly, dearie," she said, "do you really want to be left here?"

If Vel Lynn was truthful, she didn't. But she didn't exactly trust this Nana Goodness, but whatever she offered, it had to be better than here. So, it was with some reluctance, that Vel Lynn accepted her invitation and joined her at her . . . her orphanage.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2017, 07:41:40 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Where Do I Go From Here?

The service was nice. Cloak completely sobbed throughout, and did so unabashedly. He felt so completely disconsolate -- part of him did not want to believe that Wheeza was really gone. It was really very difficult to accept. She was really much too young to die.

When the service ended, Cloak did not attend the reception. For one thing, his mother and Dagger would be there and he would not palliate their mistakes. Another thing was that the room was far too confining for his liking. And he was already feeling boxed in.

Mercy immediately came to see if she was alright along with her husband. Cloak assured them that he was, more or less, but he had to leave the building. He was feeling cooped up.

He sat outside, his mind began to sing:

The earth is cold.
The fields are bare.
The branches fold against the wind that's everywhere.
Everyone else moves on,
So they survive.
When grief so deep
But I must keep myself alive.
I'll do what I must for now,
And trust in this big plan.
If I trust in mine, somehow,
I might find who I am.

In the palm of his left hand, the hand opposite his Mark (which, thankfully none of his family members questioned, though, granted, he had already pulled away from them and sat apart) he had created a scarlet construct with gold accents in the shape of his dearly departed aunt. He cried anew, as he sung plaintively:

But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear . . .
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?

He took a brief pause to reflect, before continuing the sing:

My world has changed and so have I.
I've learned to choose,
And even learned to say goodbye.
The path ahead's so hard to see.
It winds and bends but where it ends
Depends on only me.
In my heart, I don't feel part of so much I've known.
Now it seems it's time to start
A new life on my own.

But he knew that this "new life" would be back at RAF, his true home. Despite his aunt Mercy, her husband, and his uncle's mother trying to make him feel welcome, he knew that he didn't belong here. He would always belong at RAF, the first place he really felt accepted and not just a vessel for menial labor that his mother treated him as.

Faith, Shadow, and Wheeza all treated like a person, like he was worth something. His mother never did. Which was why he never wanted her in his life again. But he finished up the song in his mind, in his heart:

But where do I go from here?
So many voices ringing in my ear.
Which is the voice that I was meant to hear?
How will I know?
Where do I go from here?

But he knew where he would go. At least, physically. He would return to RAF. But where would he be emotionally? That was what he didn't know.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UfTieVPjN7E

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2017, 09:04:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Toady

Xeno was not happy. Not happy at all. Why did they think he was the best RAFian for the job? Nina, after all, knew the sewers better than he did, being a ninja turtle and all. Why him?

Not to mention it was raining cats and dogs right now. So his disposition was a little to the salty side. Wet fur and feathers was bad enough, but he didn't want to test the waterproofing of his gauntlets or his prototype drill bombs so thoroughly.

Demos and those stupid fiends of his. If he hadn't made them in the first place, Xeno would be dry right now. Dry and working on his . . . undisclosed project. Only he had more sense than Demos, and wasn't creating fiends, nor was he like Yarin and his microwave. He was more pragmatic than that.

Uh. Dammit. This rain was really reducing visibility. There was no way he could fly in this storm. He would have to go the rest of the way on foot. In the sewer. Wonderful. Well, at least it won't be raining in there. If it was, he would give the city council a piece of his mind.

Time to enter the sewer proper. And though he hesitated, he eventually went in, expecting it to smell to holy heaven. When he did he found the stench far more tolerable than he imagined, and so he pushed forward in the surprisingly labyrinthine corridors until he came to the creature, deep in the bowls of the sewer.

Second thought, that was poor phrasing.

The creature appeared to be an anthropomorphic frog that seemes very svelte at first, but could bloat up at a sign of danger. It had human-like eyes set like a frog's, with purple sclera and dark orange irises. Its main body, lower legs, feet, and head were a violent shade of scarlet and its lips, wrists, knees, and elbows were a deep purple, with a crown-shaped marking on its back of the same color. Its hands, belly, and shoulders were black while its upper arms and thighs were white.

"A frog," Xeno muttered, sounding aggrieved. "Of course it's a frog."

Upon hearing this, the frog fiend jumped at Xeno, who slide underneath it, and threw on of his drill bombs at it. It seemed to tank the explosion (there was much explosive yield in the bombs), but now Xeno just had seven of his prototypes left. But it seemed to be effective.

The creature gave a small hop which Xeno didn't need to dodge, and he threw another drill bomb at it. They repeated this scenario many times until Xeno just had two left, and the creature was actually showing signs of it working. It looked significantly weaker.

"Let's put you out of your misery," Xeno said, throwing what he hoped to be the last bomb needed. To his gratitude, it was. The creature was dead. And so Xeno began his trudge back up to the surface, where it was raining even harder now. Much to his displeasure.

***

Demos called it a "ranasapien" and he designed it for agricultural reasons. It was intended to bring rain to crops when necessary, but he made a mistake and it now brings acid rain with a stupid little dance. An ability it never demonstrated when fighting Xeno.

***

"I . . . I don't have any toad-related puns," Malice said, watching this like an octogenarian watching their "stories".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2017, 08:19:40 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CXLIX:
IMMORTAL AND IMMORAL
CHAPTER ONE:
The Bright Stuff

It was Cloak's first mission since the memorial. He wish he could say that his mind was fully and completely on task. But the back of his mind kept going back . . . there. He couldn't help it. He just kept thinking about it.

It seemed so . . . so perverse that Wheeza wasn't around anymore. She always seemed to be immortal, in a way, always just there, there for him when he needed her. Always there with a laugh and a smile. They said she was a prankster at the memorial. But that was not the Wheeza he knew and loved -- he always saw her a more of a stalwart savior, and motherly. And he missed her with all his heart, but even that couldn't describe the heartache he now felt.

He probably shouldn't have been on a mission so soon afterward, but it was just one of Demos's fiends. A simple mission. The only complicated thing was getting to it and not making stupid mistakes.

Which he made just entering the factory where this creature was supposed to be when he nearly fell into a pit because he wasn't paying any attention to his Earthsight. Being distracted can be as dangerous as any madman with a gun or a fiendish creature, and he should have known that already.

He had to get his mind back onto this mission. He could ruminate later. Priorities now. He continued into the bowls of this factory place -- Cloak wasn't really sure what this facility was -- until he came to the fiend.

The creature was roughly the size of an adult human. It had a head similar to an Eosapien (http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Eosapien), only with transparent yellow sacks and a blue face with human eyes (pale yellow sclera and black irises). It had no perceivable nose and a small mouth with prominent cheeks. It had a round, blue body with a white ridge around where a navel would be that encircled the entire waist. Its shoulders, forearms, lower legs, and feet were also blue. It was missing a right hand, and had a blaster device in its place. It had purple at its elbows, knees, left wrist, and where its legs met its stout body. Its thighs were white, while its upper arms were black. It had a strange white growth above its waist ridge that resembled a kilowatt meter. It had a growth on its back that resembled a small, downward-pointing strobe light. It also had two sinewy tendrils that glowed as brightly as the sacs on its head extending from its back, almost like a Lapis Lazuli's water wings, and looked superficially like the antennae on a Conductoid (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Conductoid)'s head.

Cloak was prepared for anything that this thing could dish o--

FLASH!

Argh!! It was too bright, especially for his feline eyes, adapted to seeing in darkness. But all this did was irritate the Realm Walker. Cloak closed his eyes -- they would be a liability in this fight -- and used his Earthsight and Metalsight to do his seeing for him. He could literally feel the dampness in this long forgotten facility.

It would be enough. He used his Mastery over the Water Element and pulled the water from the dank walls and floor and blasted the creature with it. The creature seemed to recoil from it, as if it was allergic to this water. If that was true, it came to a very stupid spot to hide in.

At least -- it was over quickly. And with very little mess.

***

Demos called it a "lumosapien". He had designed it to illuminate dark places for exploration. When questioned why someone wouldn't just use a flashlight, Demos got testy as Yarin used to when his Food Yield Increaser was called a microwave.

***

"Eh, aw well," Malice said with a shrug, "he wasn't all that bright to begin with."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2017, 09:15:12 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Outbreak

There was an incident that actually escaped the notice of the RAFians. Apparently, Purgatory was opened up and all the souls within was absorbed by one man and he eventually returned them, only one thing remained. Remained within him.

Whether or not this was actually true, but this was the last account given by the man, whose point of view was religious to the point of zealotry, so it couldn't really be given any sort of legitimate credibility.

But this man, name of Castiel DiAngelo, apparently believed his story fully. He also believed that he was an angel -- a legit angel, nothing metaphorical -- and the savior of man. He wasn't. He was just a normal human . . . with aggressive delusions of grandeur.

But he was filled with something . . . not normal. Once, as he looked in the mirror, he though he saw hands stretching his stomach, as it was some sort of nylon balloon. He quickly dismissed it as a hallucination.

Castiel looked rather beat up after a while, which led him stumbling around. His face was messed up and bloody. Then, far away from anyone else, he collapsed. His body cold to the touch. Breathing ceased. Then his eye popped open as all his injuries melted away, with a sudden intake of breath. All seemed right, until he doubled over in pain. It was then that he realized . . . there were things inside him. Real things. He wasn't imagining it.

The body convulsed noticably. He suddenly became a lot more bubbly -- taken over by the mass within him. His veins on the right side of his neck turned black. He was taken over by the species that called themselves . . . Leviathans. One of the oldest species in this realm, if not the oldest ones. His body just encapsulated one hundred and thirteen of them.

Black liquid began to bleed out of his left hand. This vessel was going to be . . . well, he was going to explode. He . . . it shambled away from the scene, holding its vessel together. But the further it walked, the more covered in black goo it became. It made its way to the municipal waterways.

From there, it waded into the water. Waded into it until it was waist deep in water.

Then shoulder deep.

Then completely submerged.

Seeing this, Falc0 came to investigate. His RAFian instincts telling him that something was up. What came next . . . Falc0 wasn't too sure he was seeing. He could feel something very old, something very powerful with the person who submerged himself.

There was an odd cyclone in the water over were he had submerged, and then he exploded underwater showing a starburst pattern of blackness which rapidly dissipated. Falc0 was absolutely flummoxed, but he saw a sign that said that this was . . . the public water supply.

Falc0 wasn't entirely sure what this meant, but he knew one thing for sure. He would have to report it to the others as soon as possible.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2017, 06:41:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Tainted

Joel Manson was a very successful businessman -- and by "successful", that means he was a backstabbing, untrustworthy, manipulative man with very little scruples and would abandon his own mother if it meant saving his skin. He had a away with words, born with both a silver spoon in his mouth and a silver tongue. He had even made the seamless transition from businessman to lobbyist with very little, if any, fanfare.

This was how he wanted it. Only fools sought out the spotlight, he opined. Only masochists sought out the bipolar mistress one calls fame. Anonymity was where it was at. He'd rather be behind the stage, pulling the strings, than the puppets on the stage who were having their strings tugged here and there.

And so what if the people disliked what was going on? They were immaterial in the grand scheme of things. They just needed to shut up and take whatever he and the other people in government wanted. They didn't like the health care system? Too bad. They thought college was unaffordable? Well, then he guessed they didn't deserve to go in the first place. The only thing that they were worth, he thought, was their vote, and beyond that their wants and needs didn't matter. All one needed was platitudes and rhetoric that was only vaguely populist, and they'd win elections left and right. And his clients would get what they wanted -- that's all that really mattered to Joel Manson.

He, quite obviously, didn't care what the people of the country wanted. Just considered them as nothing but stupid, gullible rubes. He had everything that he needed, and that was all that really mattered. Let the peasants whine and bemoan their fate. If they didn't like the crumbs they were ever so generous to give, then they could leave. And, if they did -- who was he kidding? They would never leave. They were all too stupid to. Anyone who spoke out against him and his clientele would be swiftly silenced. Just like any peasant uprising, it would be quickly put down and expunged.

Screw the peasants, they had money. Unfortunately for him, his fate was about to take a cruel turn.

He wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, and he drank from a water fountain. Only the water was black. A Leviathan. A Leviathan entered his body and, with far fewer convulsions then when they were amassed in Castiel DiAngelo. This was just a single Leviathan who dominated Joel's body completely. It completely altered his body chemistry as it took over, basically just assimilating its new vessel as being its own, permanent body. Joel's mind and soul were crushed and killed in the process, though the Leviathan had access to all his memories, as well as those of DiAngelo.

But he wasn't converted by just any old Leviathan of the 113 that DiAngelo once hosted. Joel was integrated and taken over by the head honcho. The leader of the Leviathans, the only one they ever had and the only one they feared above all others. One who clawed and fought his way to earn that title with a despotic iron fist. His true name was lost to time, but he was more than willing to settle on using this vessel's name as his own.

Once he had fully integrated with his vessel, he quickly found another Leviathan, subservient of course, and demanded a manifest of the names of the other "blended" Leviathans. And, while he waited, he impersonated Joel perfectly, although he accentuated his disdain for others a tad more noticeably, stemming from the fact that Leviathans thought other creatures lesser than them, with demons and aliens being lesser than humans, with humans being seen as nothing more than cattle and a food source. He, like all Leviathans, believed themselves unable to be killed and were above petty things like morality.

Soon, he received manifest he wanted. His generals -- Giovanni, Archer, Maximillion, Cyrus, Augustus, Lysandre, and Lusimine -- had all been "blended" with humans as he was. He gave them an order to stem reckless feeding. There was much to do first, especially on a resource that would become limited of they fed indiscriminately and relentlessly. They could not afford to run through such an ample food supply so quickly.

He had a plan on how to this right, while eliminating all competition for their human resources.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2017, 09:55:04 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Speculation

"Are you sure?" Faerie asked. She felt quite alarmed at this news.

"I told you what I saw," Falc0 said. "I don't even understand much of it."

Blaze and Demos also looked quite nervous, while Cloak pensive and thoughtful, standing off to the side, in shadow. As per usual. Cloak had a sinking sensation in his gut but he couldn't discern just why.

"It sounds like --" Demos began before Blaze cut him off.

"It can't be. They're in Purgatory. They can't escape from there." he said, quickly and insistently. "It can't be them."

"Them?" Leatherhead asked.

"Lev--"

"Don't say their name!" Blaze instructed harshly.

"Leviathans," Cloak quickly gathered. He was thinking of such a species in another realm. Blaze looked stricken.

"Why are you so afraid of the name?" Hunter asked.

"Yeah, aren't leviathans just giant sea serpents?" Faerie asked.

"Or just Kyogre?" GH said, earning him a sharp poke in the ribs from Saffa's elbow. "Ow!"

"I cannot speak for the Leviathans of this realm," Cloak said. "But, of the other realm I visited, they were the very first creatures in creation there. Predating the angels, the humans, and the very soul there. There insatiable appetites, ridiculous strength, and destructive habits caused them to be banished into that realm's version of Purgatory. But they eventually got out when some angel tried to absorb the souls of Purgatory for some reason -- I never really bothered to find out, honestly. From what I gathered, they are severely condescending to other species, except humans, which they see as a food source."

"Excuse me?" Abby said. Being a human, this would naturally cause her alarm.

"Yes, Leviathans, at least in that other realm, ate humans," Cloak said, more thinking to himself now. "They weren't the only ones, but that's a moot point right now. There was a hierarchy, but that was destroyed when their only leader, the one that they had since their creation, was destroyed by a fallen angel and a human. They can kill angels --"

Blaze became a tad paler and blanched at this comment.

"-- but won't be able to kill Realm Walkers. Only another Realm Walker can do that." Cloak continued as if nothing happened. "And apparently they can wipe out all demons --"

Now it was Demos's turn to look uncomfortable.

"-- and think of aliens and monsters with much degradation and dismissal." Cloak continued. "Leviathans possess massive, retractable jaws that are immensely strong and serves as their primary weapon and way to feed. Their jaws can rip open almost anything they bite into, including even other Leviathans. Using this ability apparently significantly alters the user's face, such removing their eyes and nose to make room for their jaws."

He allowed that to sink in before continuing.

"The only way for anyone to kill a Leviathan is with a bone of a righteous mortal washed in the three bloods of Fallen. While use of witchcraft, Borax, decapitation or extreme physical force can disable and weaken them temporarily, they will recover from the damage in a matter of seconds to hours, depending on the extent of damage. More powerful Leviathans are less susceptible to Borax damage and can regenerate their wounds even quicker than others of their kind. Besides these methods, they are virtually indestructible."

Cloak paused, to parse his thoughts.

"Being creatures much older than souls and angels, the Leviathans are immortal, in a variety of senses, in that having an ageless lifespan, meaning they simply do not age, and can not be killed, save one means. The aforementioned means."

He glanced at Demos, before continuing.

"Much like demons, Leviathans can take over a human host's body and mind by a touch, though unlike demons, the process alters the host biologically and appears permanent. Many of them can possess a single host at once, though this is unstable. Not only can they possess an already occupied vessel, but they can eradicate the creature that is possessing the host that they are invading."

He glanced at Ash and Underseen before continuing his spiel.

"Through physical contact with just one strand of DNA, Leviathans of that realm could instantaneously shapeshift their vessel into that person's form, transforming into the person they are in contact with. Kinda like morphing, but on super steroids. They could also use hair instead of physical contact to assume a person's identity. Soon after changing, they would commonly eat the original person. They are also able to take on the memories of not only those they possess, but those they shapeshift into, allowing them to access their form's memories and skills (even complex ones such as severing vocal cords). They can also shapeshift into creatures of a different species such as vampires. They are sometimes unable to copy a person's skills to their fullest. Leviathans are also unable to copy other Leviathans."

Cloak sighed, continuing his retelling of those Leviathans from that other realm.

"Leviathans are immensely physically stronger than humans, monsters, some aliens, demons and top-level spirits. Leviathans are even stronger than angels and can overpower them with ease. Leviathans have unlimited stamina and never tire, however they do get hungry but cannot starve to death. However, the stronger leviathans have a better control of their hunger, allowing them to blend more easily in the society. Others combated this weakness by taking up positions in hospitals so they could feed regularly without raising suspicion. Leviathans have far superior senses compared to humans. Despite this, they are unable to see certain entities such as ghosts, but they can sense angels and demons. They are able to instantly kill others by sticking their fists into their chests and injecting them with black Leviathan blood. Victims of this ability swell up grotesquely, their blood vessels darken, and black blood spews from their mouths as they die. And they can block angelic powers by their presence, though this seems to be an active ability."

Now came to the stickiest part of their abilities, from that other realm anyway, that concerned Cloak the most.

"Finally, Leviathans can heal from virtually every form of injury. Even my corona may not be enough take them out, like they did with the Dementors. They can even survive decapitation and will reattach their heads to their bodies after a short time (though they will be inactive until they reassemble). Even while they can be pushed back by seraphs and ghosts, they can endure almost any hit without receiving damage. They are also able to regenerate from the damage inflicted by borax and high ranking Leviathans can heal from such damage instantly."

Abject silence met these words.

"But these Leviathans, if indeed they are Leviathans," Cloak said, assuring that the others the best he can, "may not be the same."

Another brief silence.

"Then," she said, "how do we beat them?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2017, 09:04:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Unprepared Impasse

"We don't," Cloak said. "At least, not just yet. If it is true that these are like the Leviathans from that realm, this is gonna take some prep time to accomplish successfully."

"But time isn't really a luxury that we can afford," Parker said.

"We do not know what they are planning, or indeed, just how many of them there are," Cloak countered.

"And we don't know who they might be pretending to be," Myitt pointed out.

"The fact of the matter is we don't have all the desirous information," Richard said, "besides what Falc0 and Cloak provided."

"Again, there might be differences between these Leviathans, if that is indeed what they are, and that realm," Cloak stated again, afraid that he hadn't made himself clear. "For one thing, in that realm, aliens didn't exist. I don't know how or why, but they don't."

"Is that comforting, or ominous?" Shenmue asked.

"Are these things possibly related to Garrotik?" Saffa asked.

"No," Richard said. "I don't believe so. Does sound like the style he prefers."

"If we can't kill 'em," Faerie asked, "then how do we stop them?"

"Borax. Decapitation. Witchcraft." Cloak said, immediately. "These won't kill them, but it can weaken them for a time. There was one account in that realm of witchcraft being used to weaken on enough to be chained up."

"Chained . . ." Horse said, thinking, before stumbling upon an excited idea. "What about tylee chains? Could they restrain a Leviathan at full power?"

Cloak had to admit, he was considering another possibility, before he thought of the same thing. "I do not know. Tylee chains don't exist in that realm. It is a very rare resource, as one would expect for a material that can bind a Realm Walker or god."

"You used some during that who Walker politicking stuff," Saffa added.

"Yes," Cloak said, knowing what she was getting at. He was reluctant to have them outside his possession -- but even if they were used against him, his Mastery over the Metal Element afford him some protections from it, unlike most other Realm Walkers and gods. "But if you used them, you need to be careful. They may be able to bind my kind, or gods, but they can still break. Not to mention -- there's no guarantee that they'll work on the Leviathans -- this unknown territory, right here."

"You thought up a possible contingency," Xeno said, scrutinizing Cloak. "Haven't you?"

"Possibly," Cloak said, somewhat evasively. "But again, unknown territory. I haven't a clue if it would work. But I have to procure some of that knockoff admantium, and see if it has the properties that I've heard reported . . ."

"Well, as long as you're not being irritatingly vague and cryptic or anything," Saffa remarked, sarcastically.

"No matter," Cloak said. "If we're going to route these Leviathans -- assuming, of course, we're right in this assumption -- I must strongly advise it be with RAFians that do not have any DNA, like me. Thereby the Leviathans being unable to copy and impersonate a RAFian."

"Reasonable," Kelly said.

"Of course, if the somehow managed to get RAFian DNA, I think that there may be a clear cut way to distinguish them from us." Goom said. "They may be able to mimic clothing, like Ash and Underseen have demonstrated during our missions that they can do, but they cannot copy one thing."

"What?" Parker asked.

"The Mark," Aquilai supplied. "Its the nature of the Mark that would prevent it from being grafted onto a creature even like the Leviathan. Besides, a Mark is not in a person's genetic code, either, so there's that."

"We should get to work," Sakki said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2017, 07:31:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Corporate Takeover

Joel Manson straightened up as he spoke before the camera. All he needed to do was spout some platitudes and subtly empty rhetoric to satisfy these stupid cattle. The Leviathans would eventually subjugate them all. There only purpose was food for them, that was to be their eventual destiny.

Which was why he came down hard on those Leviathans who couldn't control themselves and their hunger. He would not abide by any bad news. He would not suffer any needless setbacks. He would not tolerate repeated failure. Repeated failure meant bibbing to his underlings. What was bibbing, you may ask? It's the act of a Leviathan eating itself, leaving nothing but black goo behind.

But, Joel Mansion tried to avoid this. There was only a hundred and thirteen of them. Probably too many to outmatch these dumb humans, but if he reduced their numbers too much, it would obviously make the final goal all that much more difficult.

Anyway, he was using the real Joel Mansion's resources to launch a ruthless corporate takeover agenda, focusing on the food industry. He kept the true reasoning for this agenda to himself and his Leviathan underlings. Any human stupid enough to stumble onto his scheme gets copied and then eaten. They have the appetites that outshine Taxxons, after all, though they can exercise more control over it.

But, all in all, Joel was pleased. His plan, his scheme, was coming along nicely. There hasn't yet been any major foul ups, as he had Augustus working on a very important project, a very important experiment. If he failed, he would have to bib him.

But then he came upon something that displeased him. He had one rule -- no monsters. And he considered aliens on par with them, as monsters were competition for his food resources. Unneeded competition. He would have to eliminate them along with every alien, unintentionally and unknowingly adopting a Knight of Humanity creed, but with more perverse motives.

He became aware of them, the Knights of Humanity, in part because of the real Joel's vague knowledge of them. And he had access to all of his memories and thoughts before possessing him, before altering his physical body permanent, by "blending" with him. Before Joel was his unwilling permanent vessel. The Knights, as stupid and delicious as these humans may be, might be of advantage to him, if they do, indeed, succeed in their aim. It would be one less problem he would have to worry about.

But Joel didn't know of the Knights absolute incompetence about going about doing this. A lot of it was just empty and idle talk from a bunch of drunken bigots, and those that were serious about it, were just ineffectual at doing anything long-term. Their strict hierarchy and inner politics was also a bit of a problem, but since neither the real Joel nor Castiel knew about any of this, so neither would the Leviathan leader.

But the thing Joel concerned himself with more is the forum. RAF. The original Joel knew of them, because he would listen to Bern Bridges from time to time, though not buying into the propaganda, just using it as a useful tool. Granted, Joel didn't know much about what they could do -- but he was confident that they couldn't stop him or his brethren. They couldn't kill them, he knew -- despite not realizing or knowing that Cloak had knowledge of them. Granted, from another realm, but still.

They could be a threat to his plans -- not him personally, of course, but his schemes and plans? Yes. Even the best laid plans could fall apart with one foul-up. He could allow that, despite waiting millenia for this, he was getting rather impatient. He had already realized that they could prove to be a thorn in his side, and set them back who knows how long?

They would have to be taken care of. Cyrus wasn't doing anything right now. He'd send him. He wouldn't need a contingent of lower Leviathans, he should be able to handle the lot of them himself. That'll keep him busy and happy.

And fed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2017, 08:41:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Knock, Knock!

Cyrus thought this was a waste of his talents, but he hadn't anything better to do than get rid of these possible thorns in the boss's side. He was also given the responsibility of copying at least one of these lowly creatures. To discredit them, of course. But would be the point when they'd all be dead? Filling snacks, hopefully, but dead just same. Why would it be necessary to discredit so-to-be dead RAFians.

Might as well get this over with so he could be used for more worthy missions. Rather than this stupid little errand.

He came up to the forum, disguised as a vagabond-- which he had proceeded to eat with cheese sauce, after copying him. Didn't really make him taste all that better, but it was sustenance. He discovered that he was barred entry -- some sort of invisible barrier prevented him from accessing the forum proper.

He pounded on the force field. He couldn't just muscle his way in he found. Not too surprising, as he was strong but not yellow sun-empowered Kryptonian strong. He wasn't as strong as a To'kustar, but his kind managed. Managed like willful Taxxons.

This had quickly gone from a mere obligation that he didn't like, to irritation. How was he to complete his mission if he couldn't get in the front door? Would he have to be like an uncouth demon and use an alternative entrance. Cyrus considered his options, when projectile of golden-scarlet energy shaped like Guile's sonic boom attack in "Street Fighter" hit him square in the chest.

"Don't waste your time on disguises, Leviathan," a voice said, cold and dark. Cyrus couldn't see the owner from which it issued. Which proved that it was a mistake to do this at night. "Yes, I know what you are."

"That doesn't make things easier for you," he said. "Tonight, I dine on human soup*."

"I am not a human," the voice said, as the cloaked figure was silhouetted in the sparse moonlight. "Nor am I angel or demon."

"Then you're not worth dealing with," Cyrus scoffed dismissively. "I'd eradicate you, whoever you are, and your entire kind, but I'm preoccupied with more important matters."

"It's a wonder that you can stand up," Cloak said, "with bloated ego."

"Stand aside, you bottom-feeding mutation," he said, still with that dismissive air. "I've got business in this place."

Cloak ****ed his head to one side, unsure if this was amusing or just pathetic egotism. "You really don't know who I am, do you?" he said.

"You are a rancid little tidbit unfit for a proper meal," the Leviathan said.

Cloak couldn't help himself, he laughed aloud. "Eat me? You honestly think you can eat me?"

At this, Cyrus expanded his powerful jaws, as his two tongues flopped around, framed by darkness that the scarce moonlight dare not touch in what may have seemed like a terrifying display to most laymen. But Cloak's eyes easily penetrated the gloom and he had been doing this kind of stuff for too long to be easily intimidated. Or impressed.

"Is that all, Leviathan?" Cloak said, tone flat, clearly unamused. "You think some massive set of chompers will be enough to impress me? I know about your Taxxon-like hunger and -- what? What? You don't know what a Taxxon is? Now that's just sad."

Then it charged forward, but it didn't expect Cloak to move as fast and with as much feline finesse as he did. But then the Leviathan realized that he was bound in a long length of golden chains of some sort. He tried to break them, and was startled that he couldn't. He couldn't even extend his jaws.

"Don't bother trying to break them," Cloak said, bluffing very convincingly, "they are able to bind gods. What chance do you have to break them."

---

* Anyone get this reference?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2017, 07:28:03 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Project Compliance

Joel spent the day pretending to be this stupid human. It was an inane sort of day, but his resources were useful. And that was really the only useful part of it, as his memory and knowledge weren't anything to write home about.

And he had to bib two underlings for caving into their ravenous hunger and began to feed indiscriminately. This was a clear violation of his decree that they control themselves, lest ruin all his great, well-laid plans. Still, their numbers were limited, but they would make do with 124 Leviathans.

But, in any case, his plan seemed to be running more or less smoothly. The acquisition of businesses in the food industry was going swimmingly, and Joel now owned enough to put the next part of his plan in motion.

He had directed Lysandre to concoct a very specific additive. It was intended to make humans that ate it fatter, more compliant. Rather like cows, which was fitting because that's all the Leviathans, Joel included, saw them as. The additive would be placed on burgers, and delivered to an unsuspecting populace as a "secret sauce". He had placed Giovanni in the Food and Drug Administration to help streamline this process.

Of course, this wasn't the only matter that needed seeing to. Joel wanted their food stock -- humans -- to be free of undesirable qualities, such as diseases, especially the debilitating variety. So another company he -- or at least the original Joel -- owned, Million-Dollar Pharmaceuticals, was working to cure the various diseases like cancer and AIDS to better make sure the strength of their food resource.

But it wasn't enough to just stop there, oh no. Joel knew about vampires and other villainous monsters that used humans as a food source. They were competition -- but Joel didn't see them as equal competition for food, however. It was more like when mice get into the foodstuffs of people, not really competition but vermin. Pests.

And how do people deal with rats and mice? They use rat poison. But Joel wasn't one to set up traps to bait these insignificant creatures to kill them. He had decided to use a concoction that would make the blood and flesh of these humans toxic to anything but Leviathans. They would use that as another additive to the food.

Because humans only destiny was to be the snack food of the Leviathans. That was their only real use, their only real purpose.

"Um, s-sir?" some said, behind Joel. It was one of the lower ranked Leviathans who "blended" with a scrawny teenager, but had soon adopted the personage of a tweedy scientist with a noticeable stutter when afraid.

"What is it Galahad?" he said, in a voice of resounding but quiet authority.

"Um . . . um . . ." he stammered, terrified.

"It's bad news, isn't it?" he said, in a rather disaffected, disinterested tone of voice that recalled Yellow Diamond (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Yellow_Diamond). The lesser Leviathan stammered some more, but was silenced at Joel's next statement. "Galahad, I trust you know how I feel about bad news."

"I, uh --" he said. He was almost trembling. He was absolutely horrified with bringing this information to Joel. He felt that he would be bibbed for sure.

Joel's patience was rapidly running thin. "Galahad, stop stammering right this moment or I'll eat you, myself!!"

This was a far worse fate than bibbing in many ways. So he quickly managed to regain his composure, and said, "S-sir, there is a problem."

"I gathered that much," he said, not bothering to conceal his scorn. "What exactly is this problem?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2017, 05:55:15 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Intensive Interrogation

"You won't get me to talk," Cyrus said.

"Even when we can kill you?" said a voice, its owner hidden in shadow.

"You can't kill me, cow," he said. Apparently, it was the best insult that he could come up with.

"We've killed four Leviathans before you," the voice said, the swinging overhead lamp not revealing his identity. "Why should you be any different? Any more special?"

"You're lying," he said, dismissively, with a snort.

"Am I?" the voice said. "Would you care for a practical demonstration of the powers of the chains that bind you? You can't break them you know. They were specifically forged to bind beings far stronger than you."

"Empty words," he said, as he struggled against the chains, but they only shifted with a  multitude of clinks, but held him fast. "E-empty words."

"These chains suppress your superhuman strength," the voice said. It was not taunting, it was merely stating fact in a dry, almost bored way. "Now, tell us how many of you there are."

"Go f--"

"There's no need for vulgarities," the voice said, as Cyrus could make out amber eyes somewhere in this gloom. "Just answer the question."

"No," he said.

"Fine, have it your way," said the voice. Cyrus was pretty sure it was the guy who tied him up. His night vision wasn't any better than a humans's, however.

"You can't do anything to me," he scoffed.

"You'd be surprised," said the voice. Yes, it was definitely that cloaked guy. Suddenly, a metal ring floated up, and Cyrus noticed that their was one opening on one side. What he didn't expect was for it to be wrapped around his neck and sealed so it looked like a ring from Sonic only silver.

"A new collar isn't going to get me to talk," he spat.

"This isn't just any collar," Cloak said. "Leviathan, do you have any idea what carbonadium is?"

"What?"

"It's a resilient metal," Cloak said, "slightly radioactive, and malleable, but nearly indestructable. Way stronger than steel."

"So?"

"It can also slow regenerative abilities," Cloak continued, as if he had not been interrupted. "Even burn them out sometimes, in sufficient exposures or amounts."

Suddenly, Cyrus began to see him as more of a threat.

"Of course, it has a more interesting effect in Leviathans," Cloak went on, "instead of burning out their regenerative abilities, it seems to reverse them. Deteriorate their body and powers rather than heal them."

Suddenly, Cyrus felt afraid.

"So, you haven't time to feel complacent or holier-than-thou," Cloak said. "Do you feel like talking now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2017, 08:50:46 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Ravenous

Joel was not pleased. Not pleased at all. He was just informed that one or both of the additives that were made to make humans poisonous to vermin and weed out undesirable traits in humans (thin builds, smallness, high intelligence, and things like hemophilia) has produced a dangerous mutation in 0.03% that resulted in hyper-adrenalised cannibalism.

A spate of half-eaten animal carcasses had been found in the nearby forests, and even a camper was found half-eaten. This had warranted the attention of even the mainstream media, though inept as they were. He couldn't stop the reporting on it -- it would look too suspect and possibly make Joel Mansion useless to him. He couldn't risk that, as Joel's identity was providing all the necessary funds and resources to implement his plan.

It transformed the man who ate the additive in a sandwich called the Turducken Slammer from two hundred-some pound man into a rail thin creature with a blue tint to his skin and clouded eyes. They gained superhuman strength and agility, but with ravenous appetites to challenge their own.

Then a waiter began to exhibit the same inclinations as this . . .

"Damn it," he muttered to himself, with an irritated sigh. Human journalists were incompetent, but not so much to ignore this kind of thing. This kind of . . . zombification of a small minority of their own. This was bad news. Very bad news. He turned to address Galahad, and was irritated by his trembling. He snapped, "Stop your shaking. Are you a Leviathan or a human?"

Joel considered a bit, before saying, "Stop shaking -- I'm not going to bib you. But fetch Lysandre, please. I need to talk to him . . . about this."

Galahad hastened to comply. Lysandre hid his fear, but Joel knew he felt it. Almost as if he knew what Joel had planned for him, in Joel's anger.

"Galahad," he said, once Lysandre had arrived, "you are dismissed."

Galahad, again, hastened to comply. Lysandre knew, with absolute certainty now, that this did not bode well in his favor. He should have just killed and ate Galahad himself, the traitorous weasel.

"Lysandre," Joel said in a quiet, but commanding voice that nonetheless carried the length of the room. "The additive plan is hereby cancelled."

"C-cancelled, sir?"

"I don't need an echo," Joel snapped, voice still curt. "It is cancelled because your failures got loose and drew media attention. We do not need this kind of attention, as it will set back the plan of human harvesting considerably."

Lysandre didn't say anything in his defense. He knew nothing would sway his boss. Joel was brutally cruel and unforgiving of mistakes, of failures, of setbacks.

"And instead of reporting this to me directly, thereby offering you a chance of leniency," he continued, in icy tones. Of course, this was a lie. Joel was never lenient. "Instead of that, you decide to hide your failures from me. A lesser Leviathan had to report it, when my own general had decided that, perhaps, it was too trivial for my notification."

Lysandre wished it was over all ready, but he realized very quickly that this dressing down was part of the punishment.

"Now," Joel said, still not looking at Lysandre, who knew better than to leave. His boss was ruthless, which was how he managed to consolidate power at the dawn of their species. "I consider myself a reasonable Leviathan. I set certain rules, and I expect those rules to be obeyed. Unconditionally and without question."

Lysandre knew it was coming soon.

"I should eat you myself," Joel said, now looking Lysandre in the eye, noticing his visible recoil. "I really should. But that wouldn't satisfy me as much as --"

Joel placed a lobster bib around Lysandre's neck . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2017, 06:12:56 PM

New book ideas.

• Book MCXCV (1,195): "The Twins" -- The RAFians must save superpowered twins from a known enemy.
• Book MCXCVI (1,196): "The Terrigen Wars" -- The world is covered by the Terrigen Mists which prove fatal to RAFians -- even Cloak and Esty feels ill effects. Noncanonical.
• Book MCXCVII (1,197): "Amazo-ing Suit" -- A RAFian gets a very unique and powerful exosuit upgrade.
• Book MCXCVIII (1,198): "Does Not Compute" -- Oceanspray risks having his mind and personality overridden after an accident with his new Copy Chip causes it to malfunction.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Mind Probes

"You'd think their minds would be more shielded, more guarded," Yarin said, almost disgusted. "Assuming they're as old as we think they are."

Cyrus had withered away, without saying anything. Same as the four before him. Clearly, the fear of what punishment would befall them if they had somehow escaped and had their leader learn of their failures silenced them. Cloak thought he knew what that punishment was.

"Did you get anything from this one? Anything . . . viable?" Cloak asked.

"Surprisingly, yes," Yarin said. "Apparently, this one adopted the name of Cyrus, and he was one of the higher ranking Leviathans. Higher rank, but not the big boss."

"Who is, then?" Rocky asked.

"Joel Mansion," the Nyac answered at once.

"The millionaire mogul?" Sakki asked, biting back disbelief.

"Yes, that's the identity their leader co-opted," Yarin said, thinking as he spoke.

"They went after a person like that," Rocky said, sounding stressed, "then they must be planning something big."

"If they're anything like the Leviathans in that other realm, and they are," Cloak said, "their end goal is probably consolidation of the world so they can harvest humans."

"You mean hunt humans, right?" Oceanspray said.

"No, harvest," Cloak said. "Not unlike how humans harvest cows or pigs or sheep."

"Cyrus remembered something about a food additive," Yarin said.

"Following the same plan," Cloak said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "If it remains as consistent as that realm, it would be a blue-grey goo upon decomposition. It makes sense, considering the creatures that Parker and Helen had to take care of."

"It's how we found those four Leviathans," Sakki commented, and it was perfectly true.

"Yarin, did he think of their number?"

"No, but I dug -- surprised he never noticed, then again, they are like Taxxons with college degrees -- anyway, I dug and saw that there are a hundred and thirty of them." the Nyac reported.

"And we're gonna have to get rid of the other hundred and twenty-five," Sakki said, firmly. "And if any of them had replaced well-known figures, and idiots like Bern Bridges find out . . ."

"Our PR isn't exactly in the best position right now," Oceanspray noted with a sigh, "our favorability fluctuates more than the friggin' weather at the best of times."

"It'll be an impossible situation," Cloak said. "There's no denying that. But we will do what we must. The alternative is far more undesirable. Especially if that additive works like in that other realm, altering human emotional responses to make them generally apathetic and altering their metabolisms to make them gain weight. Also making it addictive."

"So sinister," Rocky said, quietly. "People don't tend to question what's in their food. If it's not from a shady, roadside diner, that is."

"We have to stop it," Cloak said.

"But how? This is a tall order, no matter how you slice it," Oceanspray said.

"We cut off their head," Cloak said. "We go after Joel Mansion."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2017, 04:17:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
On-the-Fly Contingency Plan

Soon all that was left of Lysandre was a greasy, black stain upon the floor. Joel wanted to say that it gave him satisfaction to execute this failure of an underling in such a way, but it was only for a moment. It didn't last long at all.

This setback just complicated things. Complicated them so unnecessarily.

Though he would either bib or eat anyone would said it, and would not admit it himself, he hadn't devised a contingency plan for this. He was so confident that his initial plan would work flawlessly, he had believed it wholly unnecessary. And now here he was. With his proverbial pants down.

He could not allow any of his underlings to see this moment of weakness -- he would have punished them most severely if they had, as to dissuade them and others from trying to usurp his authority. But he couldn't bib them all or eat them all -- despite refusing to admit it -- he needed them. They came back to Earth in such a limited number. Sure, the human resource was suitably sufficient to sustain them at the moment, but he saw the broader picture.

If they kept things as it were right now, these humans would not sustain them for long. Sure there were like six billion humans inhabiting the planet right now, but how many of them were undesirable meals? How many were too short and small to make suitable meals? How many of them were sickly and malnourished? Too many of them were far too thin, as he knew that was considered attractive by these humans, considering the minds of both Joel and Castiel. How many of them were too smart, smart enough to evade consumption? All these whittled down that number significantly. Sure, these human would suffice to a starving Leviathan, but he had standards, despite the ravenous hunger.

The additive's promise of dulling human mental and physical resistance to such a regime change would have made everything easier, much easier. But then this side effect had to show up, making its viability questionable at best. He may have to accelerate his plans more than he would have liked. Now with no guarantee of it working.

He would have to recall several of the Leviathans to him, and --

"P-please," came a quavering voice, "p-please forgive the interruption, s-sir."

"This had better be good, Galahad," Joel snapped, making his impatience immediately known. It would have been suicidal to beat around the bush -- but then again so was delivering the news that Galahad had hasten, albeit regretfully, to report. He was sure that he was going to be bibbed or eaten alive for it. "I've already had my fill of bad news for the millenia."

"It's Cyrus, s-sir," he said, voice still trembling. Terrified of presenting bad news to his boss, not remotely arrogance because he was let off the hook once.

"What about him, Galahad?" Joel said, secretly hoping that Galahad would say that he accomplished his mission to wipe out the RAFians, who could prove to be a very viable threat to his plans, according to the limited knowledge Joel had of them (Castiel had none), as he saw them as a potential threat to his business enterprises due their "saving people thing". Didn't help some of the buildings he did business in had suffered some collateral damage from some of their battles.

"He's . . . He's d-dead, s-sir."

Joel said nothing for a moment, looking at Galahad as if he was stupid. "No one can kill a Leviathan, other than me."

"But we have ev-vidence, th-that they d-did," Galahad said, hastening to show surveillance pictures of Cloak binding him with the tylee chains and taking him away.

"This does not prove your claim, Galahad," Joel said. But his anger was swiftly ebbing away, as an idea was forming in his head. If this was true . . . if he had talked . . . they'll come after him. He always suspected this might be a possibility, albeit a slim one. He was glad he had prepared for it.

"F-forgive me, s-sir, b-but his screams were heard," Galahad stammered quickly in an overt attempt to save himself, but Joel's mind was working on other things. An idea that could eliminate these thorns in his side.

"No matter," Joel said, with a malicious sort of smile. "Come with me, Galahad."

Galahad was hesitant to comply, but did so immediately.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2017, 08:26:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Taking the Battle to Them

Parker, Sakki, Spectre, Oceanspray, Ghost (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=2293), Rocky (purely in a supportive and fallback capacity), and Cloak were flying towards Mansion Heights, Joel Mansion's business complex in the dead of the night in the soundless propulsion of Yarin's ship in stealth mode. It was difficult finding RAFians other than Cloak that didn't possess DNA to come. Technically, Parker did, but his armor prevented skin to skin contact, and Parker seemed confident that they wouldn't be able to open it up. He would shove the bit of carbonadium he had down their gullet before that happened.

Cloak would not allow Blaze to come, assuming that Leviathans could take out angels just as easily as they did in the other realm. Blaze complained that he was part djinn too, but Cloak feigned deafness at this.

Cloak refused to allow Demos to join for similar reasons, but he was welcoming staying behind. The Leviathans actually scared him, and Demos isn't scared too easily, no matter how macabre things could get.

He also would not allow Empress Goose to come along. He flat out forbade it. Empress Goose's only real power was his body hopping, and sending him into battle with a Leviathan would be sending him to his death, as Leviathans can kill body hoppers like him when they are possessing the same body.

Anyway, the six dropped down and found cover immediately. This would have to be a stealth mission -- RAF would have to disavow it ever taking place. They were crossing some lines, they knew, and they knew that they wouldn't be believed that there was a supernatural threat bent on consolidating power and relegating them to the niche of cattle. Stupid beasts whose only function in society is to be slain and eaten. They had to do this to save them, and they couldn't go through the legal process.

If the public became aware of this Shenmue would probably be livid with all the legal battles and RAFians would be labelled as criminals and possibly terrorists. And the Leviathans more than likely knew this.

So all six were armed with carbonadium (the radioactivity not affecting them because of the nature of their physiology, or, in Parker's case, his armor blocked it) and a certain length of tylee chains, enough to hogtie any Leviathan that got in their way. Hogtie them, and then use the carbonadium to finish them off. They also carried some borax in case they decided to pull a "Seven Potters" type of scenario on them.

This was intended to be a surgical strike. Cloak was intended to be the one to kill Joel, and the others would have to kill off any Leviathan resistance. Because Cloak felt like Joel would know that he was coming, based of the information gathered from Cyrus's mind. Cloak wanted to be absolutely sure that they covered as many possible bases as they could -- they really couldn't afford any mistakes.

Both Oceanspray and Parker had upgraded their systems to detect the genetic patterns of a scanned individual, linked the with the species database, to determine that individual's true species, no matter the disguise, be it humansuit or exosuit. This was extremely useful in identifying Leviathans, as they transformed their vessels when they "blended" with them.

And both confirmed that there were a lot of Leviathans in the building. Oceanspray calculated at least ninety-one. This struck Cloak as suspicious, but he didn't abort the mission. The more they eradicated the Leviathans, the less likely they'd come back. He hoped.

Anyway, they streaked past the alarms and sensors, Cloak's Earthsight detecting them well in advance, and Parker, Oceanspray, and Ghost able to disarm them in such a way that it made it seem like it was a momentary glitch in the system. This was good, the less evidence created, the less could be used against them.

All the while, in the back of Cloak's head, he was thinking, almost in a chant, Too easy, too easy, too easy . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2017, 08:01:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
We're Inside

They had done it. They were inside the compound.

But all six had been on enough missions to know that this wasn't a time for celebration. It would only get harder from here on in. There would be people to avoid, but they would try to kill any Leviathan that they scanned. The more they whittled down their numbers, the less of a threat they'd be.

There were so many, Oceanspray indicated nonverbally.

They would have to strike hard and fast, Sakki answered nonverbally. Hard and fast, like a ninja.

And, yet, something about this caused Cloak discomfort. Something about this seemed too easy. Something about this seemed like . . . like a . . . trap. He was probably just being paranoid, but . . . still . . . he couldn't shake the feeling . . .

There was a console. From there, the technically-minded trio could work their magic while the other three stood guard. And, yet, Cloak's unease would not go away, would not dissipate.

They waited until Parker, Ghost, and Oceanspray deactivated the cameras and other security. Until Ghost got the idea of putting the cameras on an infinite loop, instead of deactivating them completely. But it would not be undiscovered, but it would by them some time . . .

The fist Leviathan drew close to their hiding place. And it was . . . Joel Mansion. No, it couldn't have been the one they were looking for. It would be too easy, the trappings too simplistic to be borderline insulting. Clearly, Joel knew that they were coming after him, and had instituted the "Seven Potters" scenario that Cloak foresaw, and prepared the others for.

It caused Cloak's unease to settle a bit, as it wasn't so easy now. The Joel in front of them seemed utterly oblivious to their presence. Definitely not a ruthless leader that they believed the real (so to speak) Joel was.

The six quickly boraxed him, revealing him not only to be a Leviathan, but a lower level one as he didn't regenerate as quickly from the borax as the big boss would have. And the carbonadium worked surprisingly quick on him. One down, and over ninety more to go.

One more Joel, then two more. Then three. Then five.

This is extreme overkill, Cloak thought. Did he recall all Leviathans here just so they could take on the appearance of Joel Mansion?

Eight more fell. That was twenty-one total. Which meant there was like a hundred and four total Leviathans left, total. And one was the big boss.

He couldn't really be so stupid, Cloak thought, as they fought some more Joels, bringing all the Leviathans here? He must know that it would be a slaughterfest.

They continued to tear their way through the Joels, as they no longer hid their monstrous appearances, and expanded their fearsome jaws. But, even then, carbonadium made short work of them all. And, yet, Cloak's unease spiked once more.

Is he really that complacent in his immortality? Does he really believe that we don't have a means with which to exterminate him and the rest of his monstrous kind? Cloak thought, flummoxed. No one creature is immune from death. Even the Olympians and such -- they substain on being known and not forgotten, and if they were forgotten, their existence would be jeopardized. Even my own species, we are long-lived in comparison to species like humans, yes, but we die and move on, same as any species.

More and more, they tore through until it seemed as if none were left. The tylee chinked at their side in the flurry of movement -- the carbonadium and borax was doing fine on its own -- the chains weren't really needed anymore.

Why? Cloak thought.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2017, 06:14:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
All Gone

"Is that all of them?" Cloak said, breaking their silence.

"I can confirm one hundred and twenty-three Leviathans slain," Oceanspray said. "We're safe to speak here -- no audio-recording devices of any sort here."

"In any case," Rocky said. Cloak had almost forget he was here to help prevent RAF being connected with this incursion. "In any case, we are all behind a hologram of an empty room. No one can hear us, anyway."

"That's all of them, right?" Sakki asked. "All but the big boss one? Assuming we didn't borax and wither him already."

"It wouldn't have been so easy if it was him," Cloak said. "He became leader of these creatures for a reason. He is probably the strongest, smartest, most ruthless, most merciless, and toughest of the lot."

"Makes sense," Parker said. "My scans are detecting only one Leviathan left in the building, anyway."

"Mine, too," Oceanspray concurred, "the floor above."

"It has to be him, then," Ghost said.

A thought occurred to Cloak, "Leviathans are shapeshifters. Maybe he forced all these Leviathan underlings to mimic Joel Mansion while he took on another form, as a way to deceive us."

A brief silence met this pronouncement.

"There is . . . logic, in that," Rocky said, thoughtfully.

"It wouldn't matter either way," Parker said, bracingly confident. "Our scanning software puts Gleet Biofilters to shame. We would be able to suss out who he is, no matter what form he took."

"Yes," Sakki said, an impish smile crawling onto her face. "Yes, but he doesn't know about your scanning software, does he? There has to be some way this can give us the edge in the element of surprise."

"True," Spectre said, speaking for the first time in a while, "they do seem like an arrogant, overconfident bunch. The constant look of surprise when they realized they were dying . . ."

Sakki looked uncomfortable, and asked something that bothered her, "Are we committing genocide?"

That sparked an uncomfortable silence. It was broken by Cloak, who assumed that he must have sounded ruthless.

"We do what we must," he said, tone dry, voice quiet. "A world ruled by Leviathans is no world for humans. They would also slaughter any one who wasn't a human or a Leviathan, for they see us as filth. You saw the condescending, smug faces before we slayed them. They're like the Knights, only far more competent and far more effective."

"But we don't kill the Knights," Sakki countered.

"They've never really given us any real legitimate cause to," Spectre said, pragmatically. "The Leviathans have."

Sakki looked somewhat unconvinced, and Rocky seemed to have qualms. He looked at Cloak, and the Realm Walker knew he was thinking about what Cloak did to the siren.

"We will do what we must," Cloak said, despite knowing that it was hardly reassuring.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2017, 04:36:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Mimic Con

"Scanners alive," Cloak said, as he took his team upstairs. "We can't expect him to still be impersonating Joel Mansion."

"Or maybe we can," Parker said, sounding frankly unimpressed.

Cloak couldn't believe it -- it would have been rather cunning, and ruthless, to have everyone else take the shape of Joe Mansion whilst he adopted the shape of something more mundane, something more benign, that would not attract attention. Something that he could easily ambush them once their guard had been let down.

But he didn't. He stood before them in an empty boardroom, with an expensive-looking wooden table lacquered a darker hue surrounded by no less than nine or ten black leather swivel chairs, all neatly tucked under the table. He had his back to them.

"It took you long enough," he said, addressing them, without deigning to face them. "It was beginning to get hot."

"You're the head honcho," Sakki said, and Parker and Oceanspray's nods confirmed it.

"Do not speak unless given permission," Joel said, with a snap in his voice akin to a teacher smacking her ruler sharply upon her desk. He still would not face them, as if he was so utterly confident that they could do no harm to him, though he must have assuredly known that they had already done away with every other Leviathan present who tried to pull the same schtick. "Lower beings need to know their place -- and yours is under my heel."

"And I thought Realm Walkers were arrogant," Cloak said, defiantly, with his arms folded and his head held at an angle, as if this Leviathan was a puzzle he had yet figured out. This creature that can be as edacious, as esurient, as a Taxxon, and yet was able to exercise restraint. And very well may be the last of his kind on Earth.

"Silence, bottom-feeding mutation," he snarled. Still he wouldn't deign to look at them. He clearly believed that he would be setting the rules for the discourse, that this whole scenario would be on his terms, and his terms only. He was wrong, of course. "You only speak when I allow it."

"You really think highly of yourself, dontcha?" Sakki said.

"Silence, worm. You haven't been given --"

"Can we just kill this guy and get it over with?" Parker sighed, tinged with frustration.

To this, Joel snorted contemptuously. And he still did not deign to turn around and address them face to face. "You can't kill a Leviathan."

"Really? Because there are over a hundred stains downstairs that say otherwise," Oceanspray countered.

"You lie," he said, turning to face them. His contempt was etched in every line of his face. He seemingly also forgot to admonish them from, in his view, speaking out of turn. "You cannot kill me or my kind."

"We kind of did the latter," Spectre said. Then he realized what he said, and then added, "I really hope no one takes that out of context."

"Impossible. Leviathans can't be killed," Joel said, dismissively. "Especially by the likes of your inferior kind."

"'Inferior --'" Cloak echoed, frustration turning into irritation now. Then he growled, "Now listen here, you old prick,we've killed the rest of the Leviathans in this building -- I'M NOT THROUGH, MANSION -- we did, and that's empirically true. Denying that we did, refusing to believe what is true, just makes you pathetic. Just as pathetic as the loser you chose to pretend to be."

"You think that this human is pathetic? There is a reason why a chose to inhabit him, you know." Joel said, still with that irritating condescending tone to his voice, as if there wasn't a thing they could do that would hurt him, much less kill him. "Other than the resources it provided me and the rest of my fellows -- oh, please, stop acting like you killed them when we all know you didn't -- Joel Mansion has a neat little ability."

Silence.

"Oh, did you not realize just how Joel made his fortune?" he said, still in that annoying conceited tone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2017, 06:37:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Joel's Secret

"He was born to a rich business tycoon and a socialite with teased hair and too much makeup, no other siblings (documented siblings, anyway)," Oceanspray said, at once. "He was literally born rich, and inherited his wealth from his absentee parents. Wealth that, during his youth, he whiled away with the usual trappings of an affluent adolescent -- hot women and fast cars -- until he became serious (if you can call it that) about inheriting his father's businesses. He always claimed himself to be a better businessman than he actually was, considering his sum of four or five bankruptcies. Frankly, the fact that he retained any semblance of wealth, respectability, and resources is, in all honestly, surprising to the point of ridiculousness. All his success was handed to him, instead of being the end result of legitimate hard work."

"It's a wonder that he hasn't run for office yet," Cloak replied, dryly. Then he caught the look in Joel's eye and immediately facepalmed. "He was going to, wasn't he? How many more buffoons do humans need in government?"

Of course, this criticism could apply to Realm Walkers just as easily. Any system of government, no matter the species, is vulnerable to the gangrenous cancer that is corruption and rapaciousness.

"You prove your inferiority with your lack of intelligence," Joel said. Amazing how Leviathans could look and sound so haughty. It was not an enjoyable moment to watch.

Then he did something odd, his eyes seemed to bulge ever so slightly, as he held his hands a fair distance from his body. This pose . . . with this stance . . . the way he was shifting into the techniques . . .

"You expect us to believe," he said, unable to suppress his indifference, "that Joel was.a bloodbender of all things?"

Joel wore a look of crazed triumph on his face. Cloak actually felt disappointed. He was lead to believe that Leviathans were smart, and they apparently got stuck with hundred and thirty that remedial at best.

"Yes, Joel is a bloodbender, and one that doesn't require a full moon," Joel the Leviathan said. "He had reached a level that he could actually puppeteer people so finely that it would look as if they were moving of their own accord, and he could even make them say whatever he wanted. You are royally --"

""There are a myriad of problems with that plan," Cloak said, as Joel seemed to finally realize bloodbending wasn't working. Also Rocky hid Parker away with a hologram -- of all seven of them, Parker was the only one with actual blood, thereby he was the one in potentially the most danger of being controlled, as his armor wouldn't protect him from such a thing like bloodbending. "First, none of use has actual blood for you you bend, or any other liquid for your to hydrokinetically control. Second, Leviathans, if my information is still correct, Leviathans are unable to use such skills to their fullest, no matter if Joel was the most powerful bloodbender on Earth. Third, if he was a bloodbender, why did none of your lackeys try it before we killed them all -- yes, we did, Mansion, stop your denial. Fourth . . . this is just a pitiful display for supposedly the most powerful Leviathan, for their supposed leader."

"Don't you dare derogate or deride me, lesser being!"

"Dude, just . . . just stop," Sakki said. She started to see this as pathetic. Cloak was, admittingly disappointed. These Leviathans seemed like so much more of a threat in that other realm . . . then again the people who were fighting against them were not like the RAFians. They didn't have the versatility of superhuman powers or sheer numbers like the RAFians do, those Winchesters.

"Why are we dragging this out?" Spectre said, finding Joel's attempted bloodbending as pathetic and lame as the others. "Let's just finish it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2017, 08:29:13 AM

New book ideas:

• Book MCXCIX (1,199): "The New Gods" -- RAFians become literal gods. Noncanon.
• Book MCC (1,200): "The Wooden Warriors" -- The RAFians must battle some strange,
  archaic warriors.

And Year 13, the year that Dino'll never read.

• Book MCCI (1,201): "Ink Dwell" -- The RAFians must face ink demons.
• Book MCCII (1,202): "Colorful Ink, I Think" -- The RAFians must face chromatomelanomorph demons.
• Book MCCIII (1,203): "Weaponized Parasites" -- The RAFians discover seven very strange and very dangerous creatures.
• Book MCCIV (1,204): "United Despairlines" -- The RAFians must stop the creatures from making a superweapon.
• Book MCCV (1,205): "The Skrull - Lenopan War" -- The RAFians are called on to mediate the Skrulls and the Lenopans, to prevent an all-out war.
• Book MCCVI (1,206): "The Extremists" -- The RAFians must deal with an off-world incursion who claim to save this world from freedom.
• Book MCCVII (1,207): "The Dragonborne" -- The RAFians must rein in several adolescent human/dragon hybrids that can eat elements.

There. Don't think I rehashed anything.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Aftermath

And so it went, not with a roar but a whimper. It did take longer for the carbonadium to wither this Leviathan. A great deal more than his underlings. But it did its job, and he withered away into nothingness, leaving nothing but a black stain upon the boardroom carpet.

It was over. As it turned out, these Leviathans didn't stand a chance. They were decidedly different from the Leviathans of that other realm. These were profoundly smarter and more tactically cunning than these bottom-of-the-barrel wannabes. It was disappointing, but Cloak said nothing. The rules of reality were decidedly different in that realm. They hadn't anything like him, like any other alien being in this realm. They made up for it with dangerous creatures that were strictly . . . supernatural.

But a victory is a victory, he guessed. Not all missions could be impressive and badass, he supposed. Some had to be mediocre, benign, and . . . blasé, like the ones revolving around Demos's fiends, many of which weren't too threatening. Not all threats had to be Garrotik Lite, he continued to think as he mulled it over while Oceanspray, Parker, Rocky, and Ghost eliminated any evidence tying them to this.

But, still, of the potential threat that they could have caused, Cloak didn't expect that it would end in.such a lackluster conclusion. As he struggled to keep his equanimous expression, part of him worried about something that never occurred to him before now, and he thought might be concerning. They might be getting desensitized towards this sort of thing, and that could prove dangerous, with disastrous results.

Cloak was not the most sanguine person in existence, far from it, but he hope that this wasn't the case. Once people are desensitized towards something such as this, it becomes easier to hardened your heart against it. Some might consider that a good thing, but Cloak considered it a step to stop caring about others around you, and that in turn, can lead to fascism.

Cloak shook his head as the seven of them left the estate, left it to the befuddled law enforcement to figure out what happened here. He may have just been blowing this all out of proportion -- as he has before -- they did what they must, and saved the human race yet again.

He would just ameliorate these concerns later, when he inevitably starts dwelling on them again.

***

Bern Bridges had been one of those people affected by the additive, just not one of the people who turned into those "additive zombies". It increased his already round frame to morbidly obese levels, and he became completely apathetic in all areas. He only wanted the sandwich which had the additive in it.

He didn't realize that it was dulling what little.intelligence he had left. And the apathy that this additive generated made him sound sluggish and disinterested in everything. Which was because he was.

His broadcasts were more incoherent than usual, and his logic was even more indefensible. And yet the three people who listen to his show still remained loyal. Conveniently, he didn't lambast or harangue the RAFians -- he just sounded as if he'd rather be doing other things, which was the design of the additive.

It would take a few days before the populace metabolized the additive out of their systems, and, without it, they should return to normal mental faculties within that time. The weight gained, however, would remain unless they worked to get rid of it. Then again, weight gain was always a hazard with consuming greasy food.

But everything returned to the norm, but Cloak's mind was still full.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2017, 09:33:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
To Be A Master

"Go! Go! Whoo!"

It was Shadow, setting off on her Poekmon journey with a Chimchar and Oshawott.

"So you want to be a Pokémon Master?" her uncle said, holding a PokéBall, containing his ace Pokémon.

"I got to be the one, the only one who can
Withstand the test 'n' be the best.
I got to strive, keep up the drive,
Be a Master.
It takes a different kind of skill
And I won't stop until
Eight-oh-two Pokémon are mine.
I must define the art of capture (of all Pokémon).
To be a Master . . . Pokémon Master!
I will be writin' a brand new chapter!
Poké Ball Go . . . go . . . (all my Pokémon sing).
Na na na na na na na na.
Na na na na na na na na.
It's all about the evolution of Pokémon
Na na na na na na na na.
Na na na na na na na na.
Poké Ball Go . . . go . . . Pokémon!
Got my badges and my PokéBall.
Got my buddy, Ozzie, to help me try
To catch 'em all! (Gotta catch 'em all!)."

She high-fived her Dewott, Ozzie, as the two continued to travel, with Ozzie outside his PokéBall, alongside her now Infernape.

"It's all about the evolution of the Pokémon
The training attaining and bein'
Part of the phenomenon.
Be a Poké Master icon . . . ha!
Team Banned will B long gone
But first you gotta know about the different types:
Grass, Fire, Ground, Flame, Electric,
Water, Rock, Flying, Ice, Normal, Bug,
Steel, Dark,Ghost, Fighting, Dragon, and Fairy --
Don't forget about Psychic!
To be a Master . . . Pokémon Master!
I will be writin' a brand new chapter!
To be a Master . . . Pokémon Master!
I will be strivin' to be the greatest Master!
PokéBall, go . . . go . . . ! (All my Pokemon sing!)
Na na na na na na na na.
Na na na na na na na na.
Like I said before, it's all about the evolution of Pokémon
Na na na na na na na na.
Na na na na na na na na.
Na na na na na na na na.
Na na na na na na na na.
Greatest master of Pokémon!"

Then she arrived at the summit of RAF Plateau, where she saw GH sitting next to an ornery-looking Galvantula. Behind him and standing a little to his left was her uncle wearing a Mega Ring on his right arm, and a Lucario stood on his left with a leather glove holding a Lucarionite secured around the spike on his right paw -- his uncles Lucario named Anubis. Behind him, and a little to his right, stood Blue with his shiny Feraligatr. Behind him and a little to his left stood Phoenix, who also wore a Mega Ring with a Charizard standing behind him, who wore Charizardite X in a brass collar.

The RAFian Elite Four.

Her uncle then addressed her, speaking rhythmically:

"Mmmm . . . somewhat impressive.
Now you've reached the RAF Plateau,
But not yet a hero.
Are you ready to meet and defeat . . . the RAFian Elite?
Can I expect survival against your rival?
And remember . . . gotta catch 'em all!
Show us what you've got!"

Then she commenced with battling the four of them. And as she did so, the song concluded in voice-over.

PokéBall Go . . . go . . . PokéBall Go!
To be a Master . . . Pokémon Master.
I will be writin' a brand new chapter.
To be a Master . . . Pokémon Master
I will be strivin' to be the greatest Master.
Pokémon Master, the greatest Master
Pokémon Master, I will be writin'
The greatest chapter!
Na na na na na na na na . . .
Greatest Master of Pokémon.

Then Shadow lifted the trophy up, emblazoned with the RAFian "R" on it, and then . . .

Cloak woke up.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jfEz8hkyTHc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2017, 06:42:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
She Wants Her Mummy

Helen always had wanted to visit the pyramids. But she didn't expect it would be a mission to eliminate one of Demos's fiends. She wondered just how many that the demon decided to create -- she herself had lost count.

"For hearts long lost and full of fright," she found herself muttering. She often did this on occasions when she felt afraid, when she was fighting fear, or, as in here, when she was just plain bored.

"For those alone in blackest night," she muttered, as she headed to a small pyramid, wondering idly how one of Demos's fiends managed to get this far without outside help.

"Accept our ring and join our fight," she muttered, as she entered the pyramid. It was claustrophobically tight. Nothing like in the movies where there was plenty of wiggle room. Fortunately, her ring was fully charged, and she had no fear of enclosed spaces.

"Love conquers all -- with violet light!" she muttered as she lit her ring to act as a flashlight as there was, quite literally, no light in here other than the light that came from her ring.

It was then when this narrow corridor ended and opened into a vast room, like an underground cavern. In this darkness, she saw the fiend, in a manner like a horror movie.

The creature looked like a Cofagrius with deliberate mistakes in design. It had the head like a mummy with human-like eyes with pale blue sclera and dark red irises, and it wore a headdress akin to that of a pharaoh. It had golden shoulder pads and arms completely wrapped in yellowed gauze with golden grieves. Its legs seemed nonexistent as its lower body was that of the lower proportion of a sarcophagus, which was gold with black highlights. It moved by levitation, and wasn't the most agile or maneuverable of beasts. But it contained quite a lot of power from the few curses it managed to absorb.

"You must be the fiend, right?" Helen asked, knowing full well that she wouldn't be receiving a spoken answer. Its face, aside from its eyes, were much too tightly bound with gauze.

It growled and threw a softball-size ball of curse energy at her. She dodged it easily. This served to infuriate the fiend. It tried again. Missed. Again. Missed.

"You're not very good at this," Helen remarked, "are you?"

It angrily raised his hands as if he was going to summon a Spirit Bomb. And it was summoning one of curse energy. Helen produced a brilliant, violet flash from her ring. This stopped the creature in its tracks as its eyes apparently were quite painfully dilated.

Seeing her advantage, Helen pressed it. She pressed her attack again and again. Until the fiend was no more.

***

Demos called it a "pharaohsapien" -- seriously. He did. He created it to be able to explore the pyramids and other cursed places safely. As such, its eyes were deliberately designed for darkness, meaning that sudden blasts of light would both blind and immobilize it easily.

***

Malice hadn't anything to say about this. She had fallen asleep during watching it. She was an octogenarian, after all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2017, 08:04:22 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CL:
UTTER PANDEMONIUM
CHAPTER ONE:
The Ring Game

Cloak was dispatched to an abandoned government base to deal with another one of Demos's fiends. This was getting ridiculous. There have been at least thirty of these fiends that they have taken care of already.

How many more did that demented demon make?

This is why Cloak felt that it was completely justified for the mods to strip him of all lab privileges. He could have made something more threatening than these nuisances. Granted, they were all dangerous, potentially lethal, to the layman humans of this world, but the RAFians dealt with more dangerous creatures before. This was just business as usual.

As Cloak proceeded through the secreted facility, he found himself marveling at the sheer waste of the government. There were things here that were still in perfect operating order that was just left behind when this place was quickly decommissioned. Apparently, they were embarrassed by holding something in here. Something about a Talos Project -- which the RAFians were technically not supposed to know about, but the government got a little overconfident in their security, when they let it slip when they reported this fiend to them.

Something about it caused Cloak some disquiet, but he kept it to himself for the moment. His gut told him that the Talos Project was a Cadmus project, and that it was a project not unlike the Weapon X program in that other realm -- uh, a different one from the Leviathan one. Anyway, Cloak got a feeling that what Cadmus was doing, before it evidently splintered off from the government, was not particularly legal.

He strongly suspected that they created something here. Something that far exceeded the power of one of Demos's little science projects. Something . . . oh, he was.probably allowing himself to be carried away by his imagination. He had to proceed further to find this fiend. That was his mission here --

And yet . . . his gut was telling him there was something more here. Something more to this . . . this place. But that was quickly forgotten when he caught up to the fiend in an enclosed, but spacious room.

The creature was a humanoid composed entirely of countless rings, and stood a little taller than a ten-year-old human. It had human-like eyes, with blue sclera and dark purple irises, and no mouth or nose to speak of. The rings that made up its head were silver at its bubble wand crest fading into blue, save a single silver ring. The rings that made up its upper torso were blue, while the rings that made up its upper arms, crotch, and thighs were white. The rings that made up its shoulders, wrists, ankles, waist, and knees were silver, and its lower legs, lower arms, and feet were blue. Its large hands were black. It had several interlocked silver rings as a form of dreadlocks.

Then it saw Cloak, who folded his arms and said, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice."

It projected one of its many rings at Cloak who sidestepped it, and watched as it reached the end of its range, as if on a tether, and then boomeranged back to the creature. The Realm Walker sighed, "They never choose the easy way."

It tried the ring boomerang technique again, and met with similar success. Then it to hop into Cloak, which easily dodged, able to Earthsight its feet and predicted where it would leap to. Then it tried this with its ring boomerang strategy.

"Somewhat impressive," Cloak said, "but I'll go ahead and end this quickly."

Cloak's blow caused all the rings to fall off it and shatter to pieces. Then the Master of the Elements left without a word, despite having it weigh uncomfortably on his conscience.

***

Demos called it a "ringusapien". He created it for combat, but for no one in particular.

***

"I thought that battle would ring out more," Malice said, filled with malicious mirth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2017, 06:11:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Haunted Island Park

"Are you serious about this, Aquilai?" Saffa said. "Do we look Mystery Inc.?"

"The reports by Mr. Moore seem to be credible," the Time Lord said. "The Haunted Island amusement park has had strange goings-on happening that Mr. Moore requested us investigate."

"How do we know we can trust that this Trey Moore guy is on the up-and-up?" Gaz asked, pensively.

"He doesn't have a history of telling tales," Aquilai said. "He's quite credible."

"He's credible," Cloak said, darkly, "on paper."

The implication was obvious that Cloak suspected that he, this Trey Moore, might have cut backroom deals and what not like all of the rich people in this world seem to do. Like what some of the more affluent Realm Walkers do to the Council and the other wealthy ne'er-do-wells in the Nexus.

"He asked for us specifically," Aquilai said. "If we turn this down, guys, you know how the media will spin it. They have moneyed interests against us, you know."

"Alright, then," Saffa said, still a bit mulish, "I'll go. But I swear to you, Time Lord, if this just turns out to be some dingus in a rubber mask and mascot suit, so help me, I'm gonna --"

"Whoa, Saffa, chill." Underseen said. "It's summer. Exams are over. You can relax now."

"I'll chill if and when I choose to," Saffa snapped, then smiled mischievously. That should have been enough to strike fear into the hearts of anyone opposing her.*

"And I'm suddenly scared," Underseen said, transforming into a chicken. With a cluck, he transformed back. Despite herself, Saffa laughed.

"I'm going," Cloak said, very seriously. He didn't know why he was feeling so serious right then. Then again, he was still mulling things over that he was musing about during the fight with the "ringusapien" -- a name he found rather lacking on Demos's part.

"Oh, I'm going," Saffa said. "I've been cooped up in the forum for too long."

"It was three days," Underseen said. "And I'll go, too."

"Underseen, I will hurt you," Saffa teased.

"Is it too late to reconsider going?" Underseen teased back.

"I'm in," Gaz volunteered.

"I'll go," Hunter said, "but I kind of stand out a little."

"You'll just have wear an ID mask, like Cloak does," Aquilai said, as Cloak took what appeared to be a stiff, white domino mask out of his eponymous cloak. The Time Lord continued, "Mr. Moore is aware that you'll be there in disguise. Even he won't know what guests are RAFians."

"How'd he take that?" Hunter asked, accepting an ID mask from Aquilai.

"To be honest," Aquilai said, earnestly, "he seemed resistant to the idea. He didn't say anything, but I got the feeling that he wanted to know which RAFians were present in his park."

Cloak found this suspect, but dismissed it as him just being overly paranoid.

"How are we to get there?" Gaz asked. "It is an island, right?"

"There is a ferry that takes guests there leaving from . . ." Aquilai said, spinning around in his chair to retrieve a printout, "these coordinates."

He handed the printout to Saffa, as Cloak said, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Well, that doesn't sound ominous or anything," Underseen said, with a sigh.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 11, 2017, 07:59:27 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Ride

Gaz allowed her long hair to flow around her head, as she wore her black-framed glasses, giving her a rather dignified air. She wore a red leather jacket with a white shirt beneath and blue jeans. She kept her fangs retracted so she looked indistinguishable from just an ordinary park-goer. She seemed so calm and collected, as she knew the mission laid out before them.

Saffa wore her hair the same way, wore a short-sleeved black shirt with a print of a favored movie franchise on it, and blue jeans. Even dressed so causally, despite not really being morphing attire (she would use her neophyte diamond manipulation powers if it got into it, and she had her morphing outfit with her, if need be -- but she hoped she wouldn't need it . . . she liked this shirt), she was clearly not a woman to cross. She carried a piece of taydenite on her that the layman would easily mistake as jewelry, which she could transform into a dagger or a sword, depending on her needs.

Underseen had decided that instead of his standard human shape, he would adopt the form of a younger boy with blonde hair, wearing a green and blue striped shirt and blue jeans. When he was described as looking like a Sprouse twin, he changed the form's hair color to auburn. His reasoning for disguising himself as a kid was because he wanted to disguise himself in what he believed to be the park's primary demographic.

Hunter, wearing the ID mask, looked an average human wearing a black knit hat, a monochromatic checked hoodie, and black jeans. His human projection had a tangle black hair beneath the knit cap, and a small, black, wild "soul patch" that recalled his lupine fur (other than the color). Something of the wolf lingered in his face and dark eyes. Looking around, he was somewhat amazed that he didn't stand out, that no one bothered to give him a second look. Of course, this was just a holographic projection by the ID mask -- if they saw the real him . . . he wasn't too sure how to feel about this.

And, last but not least, sat Cloak, wearing his ID mask which projected his usual humanized form. Messy black hair cut in a loose bowl cut, silver-rimmed glasses with black earpieces, and an aloof expression on his still rather feline face. His projection wore a powder blue shirt, blue jean shorts, and black shoes with white socks. He was still feeling quite serious as he glanced out the window.

The five didn't sit together, but sat in a rather loose and sparse grouping. This was to reinforce the idea that they weren't really a group, but holiday makers. Only Underseen sat next to Gaz, due to his disguise as a child. The rest weren't sitting in the same row or aisle.

Was it going overboard a tad? Probably. Was it unnecessary? Possibly. But they felt a need to layer their disguises with nonsuspicious behaviors. Besides each had their communicators on them, disguised as smartphones -- except Cloak. His was disguised as a flip phone. This gave them a direct line of communication with each other, and should remedy any communication issues.

The ferry ride seemed inordinately long and tortuously boring. There were no televisions, no magazines to read, no nothing. This struck Cloak as an odd policy on the part of Trey Moore's. If this was nothing more than a cheap, roadside park the size of an island, Cloak wasn't gonna be happy.

There was a sudden stop, and the staff member declared, "We've made it to the Haunted Island theme park extravaganza, hep cats. Keep your wits about you as you walk down the gangplank. Don't shove or push on the gangplank. Savvy? Groovy. Off you go now, and enjoy your stay on the Haunted Island of Pandemonium."

From the manner and vernacular of her language, the mishmash of archaic slang from different time periods so badly that it almost seemed deliberate, Cloak felt something was wrong, but he couldn't place it. No matter, no matter -- it was time to disembark, he told himself as he picked himself up, making sure his ID mask was still in place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2017, 08:00:09 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Disembarking

Cloak wished he could say it was a facility that was grand or more grand than Walt Disney World, with magic everywhere. But no, it wasn't like that at all. It was a step up from a ramshackled roadside circus or fair, to be true. Probably didn't have the same kind of funding that the Disney Parks had -- and it kind of showed.

But still, the limited funding apparently allowed the builders to think creatively, so, while bits and pieces looked obviously fake and plastic, the spooky ambiance was good, Cloak assumed, to human sensibilities. Even with such a limited budget.

It wasn't like other parks either, as there weren't any of those costumed characters milling about, original or bought franchises. In fact, most of the staffing seemed unusually sparse. Cloak wondered just how understaffed this place was -- but he forgot about this when he decided to make covert glances at the others to account for the other four disembarking the ferry.

It was then that Cloak took notice of a man in what the Realm Walker supposed was a leisure suit. It kind of stood out from the dark, muted colors the staff wore, supposedly to fit in thematically. It fit his thin frame nicely, accentuating his angular shoulders and clean-shaven, square face and relatively short neck. He had dark red curls atop his head, not unlike Ben Savage from "Boy Meets World". He also wore some black leather gloves, which was odd, in this heat. He wasn't very tall, roughly the size of Cloak's human projection. He looked worried, though not quite the panicky sort of worried.

Cloak looked away, he didn't want to be caught staring. It might blow his cover -- that was obviously Trey Moore. He wasn't supposed to know who the RAFians were. That was their terms for the investigation, in case whoever was behind these goings-on got to him and tried to use him for information. Probably a superfluous clause, but they needed to stay undercover. From here, they would scour the island, looking for the culprit.

All in all, a simple mission, one that shouldn't take too long to complete. But still, as Cloak moved on, he couldn't help but get a vibe of familiarity from that Trey guy. He didn't know why. He supposed he superficially looked like Odie, but with deliberate mistakes.

Anyway, he saw Underseen sneak away to the bathrooms, as Trey got a call. He knew it was Underseen calling him to alert him that they were here -- after all, even from this distance, Cloak could hear the conversation, but just barely.

"Hello?" Trey said into his blue smartphone. "Oh, yes. When will you be arriving? . . . Wait, what do to you mean you already have? I didn't see -- undercover? Seriously? You think that is necessary? . . . Because I thought you were joki-- oh, alright. Very well, very well. Please try to solve this whole mess soon, please. I don't want it to impact my bottom line."

Then he hung up, and he wore a very odd look on his face, which seemed to go slack for some reason. It was at this point that he turned his back on him, but Cloak just could not shake the feeling that he had met the guy before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2017, 09:04:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Luau!

There was a luau that night. Because of course there was.

The staff and administration didn't seem to care that it was breaking their entire motif and theme of being a spooky island. Cloak found that he really didn't care for all this pomp and circumstance. He was glad for his disguise -- as it enabled him to be alone and overlooked.

He watched, as did the others, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just tourists with their stupidly fancy, colorful drinks of topaz yellow and aquamarine blue. Complete with little umbrellas -- the use of which in drinks Cloak did not understand at all. But he never professed an all-encompassing knowledge of humans and their cultures.

Cloak found a little corner to isolate himself. From here, he sat in the shadows, with a perfect vantage point on the entire luau. He declined a drink -- he found the alcoholic drinks distasteful. He just sat and pondered as he eyed the setting sun. The day had come and went -- and they hadn't anything to show for their efforts.

Cloak mused to himself if this wasn't anything but a diversion, a meaningless waste of time. Maybe the claims of supernatural goings-on was just a publicity stunt that Trey wanted so badly for them to validate.

He turned and saw a staff member coming this way before turning and presumably going to the kitchens. Cloak was unsettled when he saw the young adult's eyes. They were empty and vacant. The disguised Realm Walker found their vacuity quite disturbing. They were like soft, moist doll eyes. Nothing behind them, almost as if he were . . .

Suddenly, the tiki torches were lit as the sun retreated over the horizon. It was night now, and their investigation hadn't yielded anything. No evidence, no witnesses, no nothing. Cloak tried to bite back his impatience. Sometimes, missions took some time to complete. He shouldn't expect immediate results, like --

Sudden screams.

Cloak immediately leaped to his feet. His eyes, though disguised as human, penetrated the darkness with feline accuracy. He could see a number of creatures, roughly the same height as he was, despite his human projection being smaller. They had rhomboid faces -- large eyes, a flat nose, and wide, flappy mouths. They possessed large, bat-like ears and were lanky and inhumanly skinny, not unlike a wendigo. Their hands were human-like, but their feet were somewhere between canine or feline digigrade. Their bodies looked like a furless dog's and they possessed no tails.

There were enough of them so as not to be counted easily but not so many that they were a swarm. They were attacking the guests -- this was obviously not part of one big show, as the guests were genuinely terrified. And it was then Cloak noticed that this clientele didn't seem to have anyone over the age of forty. Maybe the appeal was lost on the older set.

It was then he was attacked, and he quickly noticed that he and the others were the only ones not fleeing from these monsters, but bravely standing up to them. All these missions have desensitized them toward that kind of mindless fear-panic response.

Unfortunately, in order to fight back, it meant blowing their cover. But they all hoped that the chaotic flurry of movement, screams, and terror of the guests would help disguise it. If their cover was truly blown, then oh well.

The creature -- a demon by the smell of brimstone on him -- came up real close to Cloak and breathed a noxious green cloud of vapor on him. It did nothing.

"Demonic halitosis," Cloak muttered, "that's new."

Cloak threw his hands in front of himself and then flung them downward to generate the energy blades as wide as his wrists and as long as a claymore. He stabbed  his would-be assailant in the gut, the removed it as he did a spinning pirouette with the other energy blade, decapitating the creature. It collapsed into a strange powder that blew away in the light wind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2017, 08:44:06 PM

New chapter. Sorry for the tardiness.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Dust Settles . . .

When all was said and done, the five RAFians were all that remained. Every other guest was taken by those creatures. All five were too distracted to tell where exactly they were taken. Cloak couldn't see anything through his Earthsight which found concerning. It wasn't an easy task to accomplish.

"What were those things?" Saffa demanded, when the five reconvened, shedding their newly-unneeded disguises.

"Probably the reason that Moore guy wanted us to investigate," Hunter said, astute and serious. He had done away with the ID mask -- he found it uncomfortable on his snout.

"Yes, but not what I meant," Saffa said, waspishly. Her taydenite shard was still in its sword form. "What were they? How can we beat them? Where did they go?"

"I don't know," Cloak said, and Saffa's shoulders sagged a bit at this. They were accustomed to Cloak's litany of knowledge about strange creatures and things. "Maybe there's an entry in the species database . . ."

A blue holographic display appeared, as Cloak imput all the traits the creatures demonstrated. When it came to the only entry that applied, Cloak said quietly, "Oh, Demos must have updated the database."

PANDEMONIUM DEMONS

KNOWN ABILITIES

• Feline/canine/lapine physiology.
• Enhanced strength.
• Enhanced agility.
• Enhanced leaping ability.
• Knockout breath. Pandemonium demon are able to knock out humans into unconsciousness with their green breath.
  
• Body possession. Provided the intended vessel is unoccupied, otherwise the pandemonium demon cannot enter or is kicked out when the original proprietor of said body returns. Pandemonium demons, like most demons, retain their powers even while possessing a vessel.

KNOWN WEAKNESSES

• Sunlight. Exposure to direct light from a yellow sun will cause their skin to blister with boils for a few moments before leading to complete explosion and disintegration into dust.
• Poor to mediocre acting skills. Pandemonium demons, when inhabiting a husk body, are known to present mediocre to poor imitations of their husk's mannerisms, despite being able to mimic the voice.

"Well," Underseen said, after all five had read it over, "that was to the point."

***

"The shapechanger," said a man, silhouetted by many security monitors. It was Trey Moore. He was watching the RAFians basically out themselves on the security monitors, blowing their cover. "Would be an odd choice, except they wanted to come here covertly. It's almost as if they know. . . ."

"The furry," he said, when he spied Hunter on the screen, "another odd choice. Perhaps they wanted the dog to sniff out something unusual?"

"The bloodsucker," he said, spying Gaz now, "what could the possible choice of having a leech -- a friggin' leech of all things -- come here? What are they playing at? Did they want her to again witness a --"

Then he spied Saffa. "What is she doing here? That --" then he muttered an outrageous utterance that disparaged people of Indian descent, then he continued, "They're all horrible. Even her. Even though she was n--"

Then his eye caught onto Cloak, still disguised using his energy blades that extended from his wrists, Wolverine-like. "Him. . . ." he growled, his hatred palpable. "Of course they'd send him. But no matter. Even he cannot stop what I've put into motion. I'll have my revenge soon enough, as well as a loyal . . . heh . . . fanbase, I guess you can call it."

Then he stood up straight and picked up his gloves, revealing hands that were beat red and lined with scars and scar tissue. He put the gloves on hiding the ugly wounds on his hand.

"Not very long now," he muttered as he left the secret room.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2017, 07:25:31 PM

Okay, this book might exceed the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
A Team Divided

"So, what do we do now?" Gaz asked.

"Split up," Cloak began.

"Isn't that how everyone dies in a horror movie?" Hunter interjected.

Cloak ignored him. "I can see a myriad of tunnels beneath the island, via my Earthsight. It could very well mean nothing and just be like the underground facilities in Disney World, but it is the only lead available to us. I can tell that they're not rally being trafficked right now."

Cloak closed his eyes, and wiggled his toes. When he opened them, he looked around to six o'clock from where he was standing -- which was directly behind him.

"The entrance is over there," he said, pointing. "After a point the tunnel splits five ways.  But they all twist and turn so it's quite difficult to tell where they lead. Some of them are even outside my Earthsight radius -- at least, from standing right here."

"Cloak, aren't you going to acknowledge the possible problems with this course of action?" Saffa asked. "What if those things, those pandemonium demons, overpower us when we're alone? We don't even know where they are taking these people. Not to mention what they're doing to them."

"I know its not ideal," Cloak said, "but the only other alternative is to search each pathway one at a time, and we may not have the luxury of time."

"And don't forget what the entry said," Gaz pointed out. "These things are capable of bodily possession. That must be why they want these tourists, the clientele of this resort."

"It also said their prospective hosts had to be unoccupied," Hunter pointed out. "It may mean not currently possessed by another invading consciousness, but I have a feeling that Demos meant if it is inhabited by any consciousness at all. Look at how he refers to it as a husk, later on, and mentions the original 'proprietor' kicking them out."

"But then why take the tourists if that's the case?" Underseen asked. "Hostages?"

"Possibly," Cloak said. "But the fact of the matter is we just don't know enough, even with Demos's bare-bones database entry. We must go gain more, then rendezvous at a safe location to discuss our plan of attack."

"Anyone sensing a weird familiarity to this?" Hunter said, suddenly, as they trekked to the entrance Cloak indicated.

"How do you mean?" Saffa inquired.

"I dunno how to explain it," Hunter replied earnestly.

"You don't have to," Cloak said, "I've sensed it, too. Something about this mission feels old hat. Familiar -- like that Heinlein invasion a year ago, or when we first had to deal with Shenecron."

"All missions begin to blend into each other after a while," Saffa said, dismissively. "That's all that is. You're just growing desensitized towards it, that's all."

"And that's a good thing?" Cloak said, quietly musing.

"It's a natural thing, Cloaky," Saffa said, sagely, as they entered the tunnel entrance, "if you do things for a while, you become accustomed to the ins and outs of them, as they become second nature."

"Which can lead to hubris and complacency," Cloak argued mildly. Then they reached where the tunnel split off. One straight ahead, one at ten o'clock, eight o'clock, four o'clock, and two o'clock. "We're here. Choose a tunnel and we'll rendezvous in the forest behind where the luau took place in three hours time."

From there they chose their tunnels and continued onward.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2017, 06:02:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Four O'clock Tunnel

Hunter proceeded by his lonesome. He's heard the term lone wolf before, and couldn't help but question the wisdom of such a phrasing. Animals like tigers, he knew, preferred solitude, except for . . . the most intimate moments, but wolves? Wolves were a pack animal. An animal with a very strict social hierarchy.

He shook his head. He had more important concerns than semantics.

He touched the wall, and it felt rough. Jagged. As if carved out by one none too skilled with a chisel. He couldn't help but wonder if it was supposed to be this way to keep up with "spooky" atmosphere, despite it not really making any difference, as this was obviously a "personnel-only" area. Granted, it wasn't marked as such. But he imagined that it would be applicable, surely.

But the RAFian investigators were given full run of the place . . . though that may have been revoked when they decided to come her covertly. Trey Moore did not seem to like that. But something about the guy bugged him. His canine sense of smell had picked up on his scent before -- and he thought he knew the scent, but he couldn't really place where. It just really bothered him.

Suddenly, the tunnel he was in opened into a wide room with smooth walls. He almost backed out immediately. It smelled of brimstone and a male locker room. Well, the last part made sense, as it was a locker room. But one that clearly hadn't been cleaned in a while. The tile floor was caked with dirt and grime, and possibly other things that he didn't want to question, believing that he was far happier in his ignorance.

There were two rows of lockers, front and back with an aisle between them and dilapidated wooden benches on either side covered in what appeared to be dust. None of the lockers were without rust damage, and one of the four benches was broken, as if from a karate chop.

At the far end of the room were two wrought iron clothing racks, one broken and laying upon the floor, with its burdens strewn about on this filthy floor. Faded and forgotten fabrics littered the floor on this side, with shards of hard plastic littered upon the floor from smashed and mouldering character heads of characters lost to the ages. Even the costumes that were hung up smelled of mold and dampness.

They were clearly not worn for a very long time, and their faded colors suggested that this resort was originally thematically brighter and more vibrant that the dark, brooding atmosphere they had going now. Clearly, the reinvention as a spooky, haunted island type of resort was a relatively recent one, with hit-or-miss successes and failures.

But why? Hunter had to ask. Why completely change over a resort that was doing a fairly moderate business? Granted, judging by the size of this locker room, and the size of the probable staff, it must not have been a great place to work. But, surely, this wasn't the only locker room on the island. Surely, there were more -- this evidence showed that there were lovable park characters for people to take pictures with. Those were done away with, considering the apparent disuse and nonexistent maintenance of them.

But he kept returning to the question of why. Why go through the expense of renovating a lackluster Disney World knockoff into a bad spooky haunted island motif? Was Trey just suffering from managerial incompetence? Was the other setup just not making enough for him? The park looked as if this was a last-minute decision, as well.

Then there was the smell of brimstone. He was certain that that was a fresher scent than anything else in here. Its implications were obvious. This is clearly were the pandemonium demons spent their days considering how dangerous daylight was for them. And it clearly wasn't daytime yet, because they hadn't returned yet.

He had gotten all that he could from this place -- he began to backtrack and head to the rendezvous point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2017, 03:11:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Eight O'clock Tunnel

Saffa took the tunnel that went eight o'clock from the main hub. She still wasn't too sold on splitting up being the right course of action, but she could defend herself. She had been training in swordplay with Blaze and the other finest swordsmen and swordswomen RAF had to offer -- which, admittingly, wasn't a lot. But she found herself sufficiently competent enough to handle herself in a fight where she couldn't morph (she still rather liked this shirt).

She the room widened into a wide room. She tried not to have flashbacks to exams when she saw what occupied the room. Desks and chairs. Rows of ten and aisles five long. He looked around and saw the walls were bare but smooth. The desks and chairs were all unoccupied however, and they were directed towards a screen up front. A projector screen in which a video was playing on what appeared to be an infinite loop, the sequence indicating when it was stopping and starting again with the words "TRAINING VIDEO" in a white Arial font, upon a black background.

It showed a business woman whose hairstyle, in Saffa's opinion, looked as if it was tortured into submission. She was speaking, smiling what was apparently supposed to be a winning one, but came off as cold and insincere, "Interaction between young people is polite and casual."

Then the scene showed two young adults and one brushed by another.

"Hey, sorry, bro," the boy who brushed by the other said, spilling his drink onto the other one, sound rather stilted. Understandable, considering the video was clearly of a low-budget variety.

"I WILL CRUSH YOUR BONES INTO DUST!!!" claimed the other, who was showing ridiculous amounts of unnecessary aggression. Saffa actually raised an eyebrow at this sudden and inexplicable escalation.

"Let's see how the situation should have been handled," said the woman with the insincere smile again.

The scene replayed again, and this time, the second boy said, "No big whoop, dawg. Yo, did ya catch that new vid on the box?"

Now, Saffa found it cringeworthy, as the first boy replied, "True dat. I'm up to snizz on all popular trends."

"Word," said the second as the camera zoomed in on his face.

"Ugh, it's like a dorky GH," Saffa muttered. She completely lost interest in the video after this, and turned her back on it, as it became more cringe-inducing that not even someone of Saffa's constitution would have been able stomach full exposure to it. He put her hand to mouth, thinking about this.

But all she came up with was questions she didn't have answers to. Was this training video, as cringeworthy as it was, meant for employees -- fully human employees or those pandemonium demons? If it was for human employees, it seemed awfully degrading and condescending. If it was for these pandemonium demons, why? According to that entry Demos provided, they cannot take control of an already occupied vessel -- and that, presumably, includes the original "proprietor" of the body, the rightful owner.

If this was indeed for pandemonium demons, then they either found a way to circumvent this limitation or they found a way to . . . to extract souls. Saffa actually shivered involuntarily at the thought, remembering the Ectoplasmer device from a year or so ago. Despite never having had her soul part company with her body, it still scared her to think about. But, it was not impossible for such a thing to exist.

If they had a . . . a soul extractor -- she didn't want to think about the ramifications of such a device. And Cloak never mentioned seeing any spirits flying around -- and even if he did, there would be a risk to the pandemonium demons having the rightful owners of the bodies they are possessing come and reclaim them, and they would be expelled, if that database entry held any true in it. So, there must be a containment unit of some kind.

But it wasn't here -- but she thought she gleaned enough information to present the others at the rendezvous point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2017, 03:24:34 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Ten O'clock Tunnel

Gaz had gone down the tunnel at ten o'clock from them. She was surprised that she had come up in a very secluded spot. One that was open to the air, but surrounded on three sides by sheer mountain ridge. And there were like three long buildings arranged like a backward 'E', as well as a small to moderate-sized farm on her immediate right and another path, a dirt one that descended downward, to her immediate left. It was almost as if it was a drain for rainwater.

The buildings looked very plain, almost like army barracks, but they were actually small apartment buildings. The was only so much she could tell from the outside, but they were at least three to four stories high, with evidence of a basement laundry room. She didn't know how good the interiors were, but, just by judging the exterior, she assumed that they must be very plain one room apartments -- hopefully with kitchenettes.

But why was this here? Why did a resort have what amounted to be very much a residential area? She strongly suspected that this was for staff and administrative personnel housing. But there couldn't be more than ten apartments a floor -- and she was being generous with her estimate -- which would mean about thirty or forty apartments per building, which would mean that this entire facility could only house like a hundred twenty, a hundred sixty staff members. Did it take that amount of staff member to keep this resort, this theme park running? The island wasn't exactly big, but it wasn't small, either.

But she was sure that Trey Moore didn't live here. To her knowledge, he was a rather ostentatious man. He lived in luxury and, like most affluent people, wanted for nothing. And, yet, he didn't seem nearly as avaricious as he was reputed to be. . . . Odd, very odd.

Gaz walked quietly and moved carefully, as she looked at these barrack-type buildings. No lights were on, and it wasn't exactly that late out. For the most part, these buildings seemed . . . abandoned at the moment. As if all staff and administration was out. This too felt very odd to her. These apartments -- these barracks seemed almost ghostly and weird. Despite obviously being a residential area, one that was obviously still used, it felt unlived in. With all the ominous sense of a new, empty apartment that was yet to be personalized.

Other than that, there wasn't much to this place. She couldn't exactly break in. Well, she could technically -- that whole "vampire must be invited in" thing didn't really apply to her. Or any vampire she knew really. It was just one of those things made up by Hollywood. The only reason a vampire wouldn't enter unless invited was mostly about a deep-seated decorum towards this politeness. That's the main reason she didn't just go arbitrarily breaking and entering into others homes -- because she wasn't a burglar or thief and it was just not done.

Even though she felt this wasn't enough information to go back to the rendezvous with, it was all she could gather from this area -- as she could not make out any other relevant clue. So, she proceeded immediately to the rendezvous point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 18, 2017, 05:02:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Two O'clock Tunnel

Cloak took the tunnel at two o'clock. He proceeded down the tunnel quickly, but silently. His feet moving as soundlessly as an owl's wing. This whole thing held a vague familiarity to him, but he could not begin to discern one. And he found it somewhat disturbing and concerning at the same time.

He noticed the walls becoming oddly smoother, much less cave-like and more like a construct made by human hand. He could tell (Earthsight can be a bit of a tattletale sometimes) that he was nearing the ending point of this tunnel. And the room this tunnel emptied into was more cramped that he anticipated.

The room was circular, about ten, twelve feet in diameter, and completely dark. Not a problem for Cloak's feline eyes, though. The walls had rocky veins that recalled a spider's leg, with a web of stone that recalled a spider web. This seemed rather kitschy, but evidently thematic, to the Realm Walker. It was clear that it was supposed to inspire and incite fear -- but Cloak had never feared spiders (that was his mother). He wasn't too fond of their arachnid cousins, scorpions, but that was neither here nor there.

In the direct center of this circular room was a small dais, roughly two or three feet in diameter, sufficient enough to stand on and look at what was on the pedestal that sprouted from its center, also looking rather thematic, though a bit overdone, in Cloak's opinion. He couldn't see what was on the pedestal (not with his eyes, anyway), as it was obscured by more of that rocky webbing stuff that was cupped over it, like Gollum and that ring he coveted.

But Cloak's Earthsight had already outted it as being pyramidal in shape and no larger than a PokéBall. Cloak couldn't quite tell what it was, or what it was made out of. But it didn't seemed to be earthen. It took Cloak a moment to detect the metal in it, but he was perplexed.

Any layman would see this and just assume that he accidentally stepped on the set of a moderate to low-budget movie, or that this was just part of the attraction. But Cloak suspected something more to it. Almost like it was a . . . a Horcrux or something. Some sort of soul jar? Couldn't be for more than one given its size, unless they were highly condensed. Assuming that he was right in this conclusion to begin with.

But that begged the question. Why have this here? There was no access codes, no protective spells, no nothing guarding this. The stone web would prove to be child's play to undo, even if he wasn't a Master of the Earth Element. They were like movie props than actual wards against would-be thieves and robbers. If this thing was really so powerful and dangerous as Cloak suspected it was, why leave it with such lax security? Why leave it relatively out in the open? This was like begging for it to be taken. Were they really that complacent and arrogant to think that no one would take the thing?

Even Cloak was tempted to show their folly and take the thing -- this Animusraptor Ritus, according to the description plaque at the side of the pedestal. It was as if this was supposed to be a museum piece, held here for posterity or something. This befuddled the Realm Walker further. Was thing even a powerful relic like he had believed? Was even he taken in by this, and believed something untrue?

Cloak could have taken it, but found himself suspicious at how easy it would be. There had to be something more to this. Surely, Trey Moore knew of this, as he owned the park, resort, whatever you wanted to call it.

Thinking of Trey brought Cloak to remember something he didn't notice at the time -- but he must have been mistaken. After all, he looked perfectly . . . it probably didn't matter. He was stymied for a bit on whether or not to take the Animusraptor Ritus, but, in the end, decided against it. Despite much second guessing.

He swept from the room, heading towards the rendezvous point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2017, 04:47:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Twelve O'clock Tunnel

Underseen took the straightaway tunnel. On the way, he decided to shapeshift something a bit more innocuous than the auburn child form he had adopted. In the darkness, he shifted into the form of a tiny green gecko. While this was good, he felt that the color stood out a bit too much in a dark cave, with minimal lighting. So he shifted into a bat form, and flapped to a cave entrance that found recalled a moderate size of a Yeerk Pool.

There were stalagmites and stalactites everywhere, though the stalagmites were less frequent, but they provided prime roosting spots for Underseen to see what was going on. Because, unlike the other rooms that the others visited, this cavernous expanse was occupied with several people, including the unconscious partygoers, and the island's staff. As well as a few of these pandemonium demons.

The whole facility seemed to work similarly to a Yeerk Pool as well. There was a big basin, but filled with some silvery-white liquid and that the usual Yeerk Pool sludge. Like some combination of a Yeerk Pool and a Pensieve. There was a platform on one side, with shackles upon a flat upright table that looked somewhat like a cross with a fattened trunk. People clearly were bound there for some . . .

Underseen looked at the pandemonium demons, and he was beginning to connect the dots, especially when he saw the robotic arm on the opposite side of the basin. It had four "fingers" of some sort, arranged as one finger on a side of a square. The tips glowed with a faint purplish pink color, almost as if they were the same made from the same material as a soulsword.

Some of the staff pulled an unconscious redhead girl in pink and purple from the throng. They put her on the table cross thing, and shackled her limp, prone body. As to why Underseen couldn't begin to fathom, then it occurred to him that maybe the knockout effect didn't have an uniform effect on everyone -- maybe some came around before others, and others are knocked out longer.

Then the arm activated and reached across the basin, its mechanical fingers opened just as the girl was coming to. But, before she could even scream, the fingers reaching into her chest and pulled out what could only be described as a spirity thing, manifested as just her head. It was swiftly dunked and released into the basin before the spirit thingy -- the soul -- could utter a protest.

Her body, however, remained behind. Prone and nearly lifeless. Underseen had to fight a gasp as he saw a group of four pandemonium demons and staff members gather around the soulless body, and heard them speak in a raspy, gravelly, and inhuman voices.

"Quick!" they said. "Quick! Before the vessel's body goes cold! Quick!"

One pandemonium demon stood before the girl, and pried open her jaw. Then it turned its right hand into gas as it forced it into the girls mouth, translating the rest of its body into the gas until had fully occupied her body, which convulsed mildly during this act. The pandemonium demon opened her eyes, in full control of her actions now, and "she" was unshackled and allowed to walk freely.

So, Underseen thought, as he watched them repeat the process to a young, blonde man in a powder blue shirt with a white sweater, blue jeans, and a yellowish orange ascot.

So, this is how they do it. Underseen thought again, as he watched them repeated the process once more to a bespectacled woman in a pale orange sweater (despite the weather) and burgundy skirt.

There isn't anything I can do here by myself, Underseen thought as he watched again as they repeated the process to an unshaven man wearing a baggy green shirt and brown bellbottoms. I gotta go to the rendezvous point. Gotta let the others know.

With that, he winged off to the spot they decided earlier would be the rendezvous spot.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2017, 08:22:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Rendezvous Point

Gaz made it to the point first. Hunter, Saffa, and Cloak made it there second, arriving at the same time. And Underseen was the last to arrive.

"So," Cloak said, breaking an uncomfortable silence, "what did everyone find out?"

"I found a residential area," Gaz said.

"Not too surprising," Saffa said, "it's probably cheaper to house staff here on the island than fly or boat them in every day."

"That's what I thought, too," Gaz said, "but they were empty. It was more like a ghost town than anything else."

"I think I know why," Underseen said, sounding unnerved. "The staff are pandemonium demons. They're inhabiting their bodies, kidnapping tourists for more of them to . . . to wear."

"How can they take over a body with an . . . occupant?" Cloak asked sharply.

"They don't," Underseen said. "They extract the occupant -- the soul, the mind, the consciousness, whatever -- and put into a large basin. Then the pandemonium demon is able to . . . step in."

"Explains that training video I saw in the room at the end of my tunnel," Saffa said, thoughtfully, "trying to teach them to pass -- badly, mind you -- as humans. But the question is why?"

"Global domination?" Hunter shrugged.

"Of course!" Cloak said, rolling his eyes. That was such a cliché motivation, which was why they ran into would-be world dominators several times in the past year.

"Probably more to it than that, though," Hunter said, enjoying Cloak's joke. "I found a locker room where the, um, 'naked' pandemonium demons must hang out during the day. And there were old and disused costumes -- you know, the mascot-type costumes typical of theme parks? You know, Rochelle Rat and Butch Bunny? It looks like the switch to a spooky theme park was less than a year ago."

"But why?" Gaz said. "If I remember right, they did a fair amount of business back when they were that saccharine family resort. Why change it? And why change it so abruptly?"

"We'd have to ask Moore," Cloak said, austerely. "But chances are that he's involved. To what degree, I cannot fathom. He could very well be the head."

"Could he be a pandemonium demon himself?" Saffa asked.

"Possibly," Underseen said, "but we haven't any way to tell unless he sees fit to drop the facade."

"I don't think he is," Hunter said, pensively. "He didn't smell like one. All the staff did, though. But . . ."

Hunter looked at each one in turn. His glance lingered on Cloak, who nodded, urging him to proceed.

"Trey Moore smelled . . . familiar," Hunter said. "Like we met him somewhere along the way before."

"Who?" Underseen asked.

"I don't know," Hunter said, earnestly, "all Cloak and I know is that it was familiar."

"Well, that's ominous," Saffa said.

"What's our next move?" Gaz asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2017, 05:38:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Back Inside

The RAFians made it back inside now, all heading towards the straightaway tunnel. Once there, they spread out and hid. This was easy for all except Saffa and Hunter, whose powers didn't facilitate hiding as well as the other three's abilities and skills. But they equipped themselves with all the finesse and strategy of a RAFian.

There seemed to no assembly line for pandemonium demon infestation now --probably because all the captured tourists were already soulless and infested by a pandemonium demon each. It wasn't a particularly happy or welcoming thought.

The five were agreed, though, that Trey Moore knew about this. He may have just been a tool or puppet, or he could very well be the man in charge. Either way, he was not to be underestimated -- though both Cloak and Hunter was sure they've met Trey before now. Neither was precisely sure where, but both were unable to place from where exactly. It was bothersome and annoying at the same time.

There was an ominous air in the place as it seemed abandoned -- no infested staff members or administrative personnel, no pandemonium demons, no action or movement of any kind. Cloak was sure that it was still night, so the pandemonium demons didn't need to worry about dying in the sunlight.

The tip of Cloak's tail twitched with anxiety. There was no way that they infested all the tourists. There were many of them -- then again, not all of them may have even been captured. But this was just semantics -- they had to look at the bigger picture here.

Suddenly, a figure swept into the large room, with a mismatched contingent of infested staff members and pandemonium demons. It was difficult to see who was leading this contingent until he stepped up right up to the basin. It was then Cloak noticed that he was holding something. It was that thing labelled the Animusraptor Ritus. Cloak was flummoxed as to why the figure was holding it. Then, as his shifted his position closer, he became aware of who it was.

It was, unsurprisingly, Trey Moore. Only he was wearing a black leather vest that trailed down to his thighs, and a black leather loin cloth that trailed down to his knees. It was a rather odd attire choice, to be sure. But the weirdest bit was how emaciated he looked. His head, neck, and the upper part of his chest looked perfect fine and unmolested, but everything else? It looked like Darth Maul's face. Beat red with black scarring. What had happened to him to get all those injuries?

From what little of the others he could see, he could see similar reactions. Trey apparent had got through some serious physical trauma. It was a wonder that he could even still walk under his own power.

He stood upon the "infestation balcony", but the restraining table had been removed, and he wore a contemptuous look upon his face which looked . . . odd, at this angle. Almost as if he was --

He called out, "I know you're here! Don't bother hiding! It's already too late RAFians."

When none of the RAFians acquiesced to this declaration, he saw fit to call out again.

"Hunter! Gaz! Underseen! Saffa! Cloak!" he shouted. "I know you are here. Show yourselves! Let's get this show on the road!"

No movement.

"Let's end this facade," he growled. "I know that you're here. You know that I'm here. Lets get this done. I want witnesses to my rise to power!"

At this, the RAFians showed themselves, albeit reluctantly.

"Good, good," Trey said, "now my revenge  can be complete."

"Revenge?" Saffa asked.

"Oh, you don't recognize me, Saffa? I'm hurt." he said, with mock vulnerability. Then he touch his face and, with mock realization, said, "Oh, yes, this mask."

"Mask?" Underseen asked, as Trey pulled at his hair. Until it was removed, and his body was wholly swollen red and black with scars.

The five let out a gasp of shock.

"Impossible!" Hunter exclaimed.

"You?!" Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 20, 2017, 11:00:19 AM

I'm caught up again. I'm enjoying how deep the lore has gotten. Always one for the cliffhangers, eh?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2017, 09:32:49 PM

I'm glad you did -- I kinda wanted someone to be caught up when the big reveal happens in the next chapter. Which is now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
HOW?!

"How the h--" Underseen said, before cutting himself off due to his absolute incredulity.

"You're supposed to be dead!" Gaz said, shocked. "We saw you die, Rotiart!"

And so it was indeed Rotiart, somehow surviving his defeat at the fangs of the Lauenschlange, Lucas Penn. His face matched the rest of his body as being red and scarred. His hair had been sheered off. But he had legs. And he still had his hand that was supposed to be missing -- but make no mistake. This was the real Rotiart -- who was still recovering from his harrowing ordeal from the serpentine wesen.

"This can't be real," Saffa said, as if she was addressing the narration, "a clone. An exosuit or shapeshifter. There are a myriad of other possibilities. Rotiart is dead and this thing before us is a mere facsimile, a fraud, a fake."

"You always thought you were smarter than you are," Rotiart said. "I'll have you know, I am the real Rotiart. Trey Moore was just a disguise."

"But Trey Moore truly exists," Hunter said. "How did you replace him?"

"That's my business," Rotiart said, repressively, not giving them anything.

"How did you survive?" Gaz said.

"That's none of your business," Rotiart sniffed, than his tone became malicious, "You all betrayed me, left me for dead, and soon -- soon I shall have my vengeance."

"I tried to stop the fight, Rotiart!" Cloak protested. "I tried to step in! I tried to stop Malice, Rotiart!"

"You were just trying to show off again, and you know it!!" Rotiart said, briefly losing his composure, before reasserting it again. "You were trying to hog all the glory for yourself. I could have handled that snake dude by myself."

"Rotiart, you tried that and failed," Underseen said, trying to reason with the former RAFian. Yes, former. His Mark had been broken as he had evidently renounced his allegiance to them. "You were unprepared to --"

"I was perfectly prepared!" he said, in a maniacal lapse before succumbing to his emotionless state once more. The five RAFians looked at each other, all having noticed these strange psychological ticks. "You just didn't believe in me. None of you did."

"Rotiart --"

"SILENCE!!!" he roared. "Once my plan reaches completion, I will possess enough power to rule everyone, with my pandemonium demons intermingling amongst them, acting as my secret agents. My power will have no peer -- I will be even more powerful than you, Cloak."

Cloak could have felt anger at that jibe, even been wrathful. But his eyes cut through this lofty rhetoric of Rotiart. He saw the insecurities that Rotiart always had -- afraid of being weak and being seen as such, afraid of being helpless and being seen as such, afraid of being powerless and being seen as such. He did not know the more powerful one got, the more burdensome the power was, like many of those that constantly thirst for power and relentlessly seek out more and more of it. It could be like an addiction. Rotiart was evidently ignorant of all this, and Cloak knew it. All he could do was pity the kid (whose body was now that of a mature man), and feel guilt and shame for not realizing that he was not dead -- somehow, through some undisclosed method that he knew nothing about.

Rotiart placed the Animusraptor Ritus to his chest, and, unsurprisingly began to absorb all the souls in the basin, using them to fuel his power . . . changing into a monster.

A monster declaring that there's gonna be nothing but bad days ahead for RAF and its RAFians. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2017, 05:02:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Nothing But Bad Days Ahead

After he absorbed every last soul in the basin, he grew. Clothes and all, he grew. His scars vanished, one by one, as he grew to the top of the cavern. His skin became a deeper shade of red, and his fingers became clawed. His feet became cloven hooves, like a goat's, and everything below his waist was shaggy rust-colored hair. His eyes glowed a deep yellow and each eye split into two. So he had four eyes -- two on the right, two on the left -- with no discernible sclera or pupils. He grew an ornate that nearly scraped the roof of the cavern. His chest and abdominal areas were ripped now.

And the Animusraptor Ritus was stuck on his chest, where it looked like a mere knickknack. He laughed, a deep and gravelly voice. He snapped his fingers and lively music started up.

"Great," Saffa muttered, "now he's gonna sing."

"I guess I've been naughty,
I'm afraid I've been bad.
I couldn't leave well enough alone.
I dug up a horrible secret, you see.
And I'm afraid I've made it my own.
It's something so wicked I shudder to think,
Of the despicable deeds that I'll do!
Creating such chaos as you've never seen,
And misery like you never knew!
There ain't nothing but bad days ahead (ain't nothing)!
Ain't nothing but bad days ahead (bad days ahead)!
So kiss off your happiness, bury your dreams,
Face this new feeling of dread!
There ain't nothing but bad days ahead (bad days ahead)!"

All his pandemonium demons lackeys stuck to the walls, to avoid being stepped on. But soon they began to file outside, sensing what Cloak hoped he had been wrong Earthsighting. Meanwhile, seemingly oblivious, Rotiart launched into the song again:

"The power to change is mine, all mine!
The first thing I'll change is the rules.
RAF and its RAFians are soon going to find that,
I've played them for snivelling fools.
From now on, the forum will hear what I say,
And whatever Rotiart says goes!
The world is my plaything, my yo-yo, my toy!
And I won't stop 'til everyone knows!
There ain't nothing but bad days ahead (ain't nothing)!
Ain't nothing but bad days ahead (bad days ahead)!
. . . And now that I'm back,
There ain't nothing but bad days ahead (bad days ahead)!
Are you scared?
Full of fear?"

"Not particularly," Cloak said, but Rotiart continued as if he didn't hear him.

"Feel like running and hiding?
Well, ain't that that a shame!
'Coz, honey, it's too darn late!
There ain't nothing but bad days ahead (ain't nothing)!
Ain't nothing but bad days ahead (bad days ahead)!
Move over, Garrotik; Voldemort, get lost!
Take a hike, Knights of Humanity!
There ain't nothing but bad (wonderfully sad)!
Wonderfully sad days (no, no)!
You've never had days (you've never had)!
'Til you've seen my bad ways!
There ain't nothing but bad days ahead!"

The cavern rumbled. This display of power was going to cause the cave to collapse. There was no saving it.

"Everyone, to me!" Cloak yelled, to the others.

---

Source song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5V55et0JQP8

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2017, 08:15:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Survival

Rotiart easily survived the cave in, as did the pandemonium demons wearing the bodies of staff and tourists. The ones that weren't met a very unwelcoming surprise -- sunrise. They exploded into wisps of brimstone and aether, dead and gone.

The rubble buried Rotiart up to his waist, but he was still quite dangerous. But not to Cloak -- in Tier Three of his power, which meant that he had three tendrils of golden-scarlet energy trailing from each of his eyes, which glowed like golden-scarlet suns. Who knew how many Tiers of power he had -- but he had subconsciously places these blocks to his powers, for fear of losing them or becoming overwhelmed or overburdened with them.

"Is this supposed to be impressive, Cloak?" Rotiart sneered with a thunderous voice.

"You have two options before you, Rotiart," Cloak said. His voice was cold and firm. "Return your stolen property, the stolen souls, give them back their bodies, and we can pretend this never happened. Or . . . we can get . . . messy."

"Do you take me for a fool?" he asked, with a belly laugh. "My power knows no peer. Not even you've the power to outmatch me."

"Whatever, whoever, aided in your resurrection has done something to you, Rotiart." Cloak said. "And not for the better. i truly wish that you could see that, even in your . . .
unstable condition, right now. Whoever they are, they twisted you. Warped your mind. This isn't you. You were making enormous strides before you battled the snake wesen. You were bettering yourself, and it was working."

"Save it," Rotiart snapped. He was far too conditioned to hate the RAFians at this point that he would not be convinced. "I don't care how many lies and flimsy rhetoric you spew. I will not be made a fool of again."

"The hard way it is," Cloak said, almost ruefully. Pityingly. Rotiart had made really progress, it was true. Cloak understood why he left his home as well, understood all too well -- a negligent, verbally abusive parent who didn't care about their child. Only in Cloak's case, his mother pretended that she did. "Just know, Rotiart -- it didn't have to be this way."

"You pretentious --" Rotiart splutterred in anger before firing a blast of red energy at Cloak, only to discover that Cloak fired a volley himself a split second before, and it hit him in the face. But it didn't hurt, just blinded him for a second.

It gave Rotiart a giant boost in his already overinflated confidence. Overconfidence usually is always a liability, especially to those who haven't any logical reason to be overconfident.

"Not good enough, Cloak." Rotiart sneered, as the Realm Walker said nothing in reply. Rotiart picked up a large piece of the rubble, unaware of how distracted Cloak seemed to be, and threw it.

Yes. He threw a rock at a Master of the Earth Element. Rotiart was never the smartest RAFian, back when he was one.

Cloak easily pulled the rock into orbit around him, and sent it back to Rotiart with an unintentional pirouette. It hit Rotiart in his right shoulder. This time it hurt. Not by much, but it was enough to cause Rotiart to take this more seriously.

He fired a concussive blast at the Elements Master, who slammed his fist on the ground. Then this generated a wall of stone between him and blast, which successfully blocked it. Then Cloak terrakinetically lifted this massive wall of earth and stone, looking rather like the Hulk holding up that mountain that one time, and heaved it at Rotiart, which hit him in the head. It just got him mad, rather than doing any kind of legitimate damage.

Then again, Cloak wasn't trying to kill Rotiart. He had a plan, and, insofar, it was going swimmingly. For here, Cloak began dodging and evading Rotiart's attacks. Cloak found that he, in the former RAFian's frustration, was starting to telegraph his attacks a bit too much.

"You are DONE, Cloak!" Rotiart roared. "You are DONE! You hear me?! You are -- why are you smiling?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2017, 08:03:51 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Misdirection

"Why are you smiling?" Rotiart asked, as Cloak stood with a knowing smile on his face.

Ka-THUNK!!

Rotiart's contact with the Animusraptor Ritus was severed by a thrown taydenite sword, which was retrieved by a small, but strong bat while the Animusraptor Ritus was spirited away in the talons of a bald eagle who tossed it to Hunter.

Rotiart still hadn't registered what had happened as he started to shrink and be humanized once more. He still had yet to connect the dots. Cloak wasn't trying to attack him -- not to kill at least. He was a distraction. A distraction while everyone else got into place.

Rotiart returned to his human form, only more ripped that he did before and looking whole and clean -- no red swollen bits, no scars (other than a red spot on his chest where the Animus Ritus used to be). He was standing in the crater, with his clothing having shrunk, somehow, with him. He vanished from sight, into the space that moments before made up his waist.

Rotiart was briefly forgotten, as Hunter fumbled with the Ritus before discovering the release mechanism that caused the occult device to open up explosively. It spewed out all of the ensnared and captive souls like a horizontal geyser. When it was empty, Hunter threw it to Cloak, who crushed into worthless fist with his hand.

The first few pandemonium demons still stood around stupidly in their stolen body husks as this happened. They did not do anything to help their master as Cloak played him for a fool, except watch on, as if it was a live stage show. They did not realize what was happening when Hunter opened the Ritus.

They only realized what was happening when six souls reclaimed their bodies and vomited out the squatters in their rightful bodies. The pandemonium demons rejected from their absconded bodies were blistered by the sunlight, stronger now as the morning was now full swing. Then they collapsed into ashy dust.

Another three had their stolen bodies reclaimed by their rightful proprietors, the rest of the pandemonium demons, in an effort to keep their stolen property, began to flee the souls, who were dead set on reclaiming what was theirs by right. But it was for naught. There was no way that the pandemonium demons could get off-island, to truly evade the souls to return to their rightful bodies.

It wasn't long before all the souls reclaimed their rightful bodies, including the ferry driver and the onboard attendant, and all of the pandemonium demons were dead. And, honestly, Cloak had a very difficult time feeling any sort of sympathy for them. Granted, they were what they were. They were hardly even individuals, but just mindless drones controlled by Rotiart. Simpleton demons who just followed and served a master loyally who had no loyalty towards them in return.

All the souls remembered their ordeal, and remembered the actions the RAFians took that saved them. But they didn't remember being used to juice up Rotiart, but just everything whilst in the basin. The RAFians were just more concerned with getting them safely off the island.

"What about Rotiart?" Saffa said. "Where did he get to?"

"I . . . dunno," Cloak said, shutting his eyes, touching the ground with his fingertips and wiggling his toes. "My Earthsight isn't picking him up. He's either dead or gotten away, somehow. Otherwise, he just standing perfectly still."

"We thought he was dead once," Gaz said, "and he survived that somehow. Which I still don't understand how. He should be dead."

"A concern we can deal with later," Cloak said. "For now, our primary concern is getting these tourists and vacationers back to the mainland. Hopefully, to forget the ordeal they had just gone through."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2017, 06:01:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Loose Threads

It wasn't an easy task to ferry all these people away from here. It took a fair chunk of time to accomplish, most of the day, in fact. But it was done, leaving those tourists and vacationers with quite a story to tell. Granted, no one would believe them -- skeptics will exist in every situation.

All five then return to the forum, with this heavy news. That Rotiart is alive, and blames them for leaving him for dead.

"I knew 'Trey Moore' smelled familiar," Hunter said, with a heavy sigh.

"You smelling other guys?" GH said, with mock sternness.

"It's not like that, Logan," Hunter said, quickly. "I caught his scent, and --"

"You caught his scent, now, didja?" GH said, playing the part. Though the effect was ruined due to the big, goofy smile he was wearing.

"But," Abby interrupted this, and GH was a little miffed that she ruined his fun, "how? How did he survive such an attack? HOW?!"

"We couldn't get him to monologue about that," Saffa sighed. "He refused to tell us. He refused to explain how he survived."

"Then he might not have been the real deal," Aquilai said, trailing over the path they already came across. "He could be a clone, or a robotic replacement, or something."

"I can confirm that he was fully organic," Cloak said. "There was no cybertronics in him whatsoever. Unless you count the Animus Ritus thing, which was more occult than cybernetic."

"A clone, then," Goom suggested.

"I haven't any real, concrete evidence to prove it, but I believe he is the real deal." Cloak said. "He most certainly believes he is, anyway. And, remember, his body did vanish."

"I assumed that Malice just added it to her grotesque . . . corpse pile," Parker said.

"As did I," the Realm Walker said. "But I believe that somehow he didn't and he somehow survived for six of your months. I don't understand all of it, but somehow how he survived and he thought we had abandoned him. Left him for dead."

"He has an understandable chip on his shoulder," Shenmue said, "though he went about trying to resolve it in the wrong way. He could have killed those people."

"The pandemonium demons were wearing their bodies, their souls were being used to fuel his power in his monstrous form -- which kinda looked like Trigon from DC." Cloak said.

"Pandemonium demons?" Demos inquired.

"He was using them for his scheme," Underseen said. "He planned to use them essentially as sleeper agents on his rise to power."

"Pandemonium demons are not intelligent enough to be used in such a capacity," Demos said. "They are bound to a single master that they follow without question, and will not harm -- they're smart enough for that. But for use as sleeper agents? This why higher-level demons like myself or Shenecron would never dream of using them. They are not the most reliable minions, and they have a rather easy weakness to exploit."

"Sunlight." Gaz said.

"Right." Demos nodded. "Some demons might use them if they need an expendable minion, but it is usually considered an act of desperation or a deliberate insult to use them against an opponent or rival."

"Whoa, wait, there's one question that we're not asking," Quaf said, with sudden, dawning realization, "just how'd Rotiart get access to these demons in the first place?"

***

Rotiart did survive this ordeal. He had sat motionless, gathering his strength again. While the RAFians were concerning themselves with the tourists and vacationers, he made his escape from the island.

It was a small motorboat in a secret harbor that only he knew of. His plan had fell through. He had miscalculated. But, fortunately, during his impersonation of Trey Moore, he had suspected that this might happen, so he funneled a portion of Trey's wealth into a private account (by taking it out of Trey's account -- it was astonishingly easy to find both Trey's account number, routing number, and PIN, it was a wonder why no one had robbed the snowflake blind before -- and then Rotiart put it in this special offshore account). He knew he would be okay, especially if the real Trey Moore showed up.

If he didn't however, Rotiart was planning to continue to impersonate him -- though he kind of wished his mask was a full bodysuit, but he would make do, provided the real one didn't show up. Rotiart would continue to funnel Trey's money into this offshore account until this disguise was of no further use to him, and all his wealth is in this offshore account.

Rotiart was just real fortunate to have come upon a very stupid, manchild oligarch. Making the mask was eas-- . . . wait, did he make it? He couldn't remember. Just like he couldn't exactly remember how he truly survived the attack from that snake wesen -- he just knew he got a sudden wave of dread every time he tried. He didn't try to remember often because of that feeling . . .

Oh, there's the mainland.

After a bit scouting about, he found that Trey Moore wasn't found yet -- the amnesia Rotiart gave him . . . wait, was that how he got Trey out of the way? Or was it -- dah! Never mind it didn't matter.

He went into a public bathroom and came out in a decadent purple suit with black leather gloves with the Trey mask on, with it contouring to his face wonderfully. No one saw any difference between him and the real one. Rotiart found it an easy role to.play, considering he, himself, was a lot smarter than the real Trey . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2017, 05:19:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Stone Cold

Parker was dispatched to a mountain to slay another fiend. This was getting so routine, it caused Parker to have some misgivings. Just another routine mission to bring down another one of Demos's fiends.

It was a good thing that his lab privileges had been revoked all that time ago. If he created this many fiends already. There were at least over thirty they've taken care of already. How many more before they were done with these fiends?

Parker nevertheless continued to plod onward, anticipating a very long, very boring route to the coordinates provided. Why they couldn't just drop him off at the precise coordinates, he didn't know. Probably because this mountain had not land plateform safe enough for Yarin's ship. But, then again, he could have just been dropped -- this place was not immune from being a drop zone. Was it?

No matter. He had his mission. Just because it seemed rinky-dink to him, as this wasn't the first fiend he's bothered with, didn't mean that it didn't have to be done. And it didn't mean he was obligated to be happy about it.

The path he was following led into a cave inside the mountain. A tremendous hole in the side, enough to accommodate Dino in her full, true size. But Parker didn't dally to marvel at this. He had a job to do.

He found a circular plate with a red "G" on it, while navigating the cave. He soon determined that it was a worthless relic -- litter -- and he pressed on, wishing the winding, sinewy tunnels were far more straightforward. He cursed once or twice at Tyr for not warning him of unexpected pitfalls and getting irritated with his A.I.'s chiding remarks.

It was only a matter of time before he was taken outside again, on a perilous path with many pitfalls he could see.

"God, I hate platforming," he muttered, before hearing Tyr's jibe, and snarling, "Shut up, Tyr."

Eventually he made his way to a small recess in the mountain that led to a larger alcove. This is where the fiend was, his reports said. And, indeed, they were right.

The creature was a large, humanoid creature with a brutish, boxy build. Its forearms, the crown of its head, shoulders, chest, lower legs, and feet were made of red bricks. It had large, round, human-like eyes with white sclera and black irises. Its jaw and large hands were black, while its upper arms, thighs, and crotch were white. It's waist had a purple ring around it. Its head was shaped kind of like an upturned "U".

It took him what Parker considered a long time before the creature noticed his presence, indicating a brutish mentality as well. When it saw Parker, it immediately went to attack him, not surprising Parker in the least.

It generated two orbs or stone that orbited around the point it was before it leaped towards Parker, who easily rolled underneath. It fell apart when it landed, but reassembled itself easily enough. This seemed to be its only tactic.

Parker just laid into him all his explosive arsenal (which was quite impressively extensive), which caused the creature to fall in battle with relative ease. Parker got up and dusted himself off, asking for a pick up.

***

Demos called it a "lithosapien". Demos designed it to simply be tough and withstand attacks.

***

"Well, he had stones," Malice said, almost indifferently.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2017, 05:58:13 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLI:
A REALITY REWRITE
CHAPTER ONE:
Charge!!!

Cloak was dispatched to an inactive railyard where a fiend was spotted. The Realm Walker hadn't a clue what it looked like, per usual for a fiend mission.

It was a labyrinthine situation with the placement of the train cars. With each step, the ominous feeling of this being a train graveyard increased. It didn't help with the setting sun, but it took a lot more than that to scare the Elements Master. Only one person has ever caused him true fear, and this fiend wasn't her.

Each footstep he took was silent, due to his feline nature. As he looked at these trains, he got the feeling that they were shoved here to be forgotten, and to gather dust and rust. Or perhaps this railyard just fell through. It is difficult to be viable when multibillion corporations are hoarding all the wealth to themselves, Cloak supposed.

Cloak eyed a strange steam locomotive that was much of the design of Thomas the Tank Engine in blue with green highlights with a cattle catcher. It looked like a toy compared to the rest of the trains. Despite being decidedly different from the rest of the rusting carcasses, Cloak decided that it was not really important.

Cloak hopped atop an old forgotten box car. He looked around this tetanus wonderland and wondered where the fiend could possibly be. Surely, had it been on the ground, he would have Earthsighted it already.

Night had fallen, and it was a warm summer night. The first stars were already out. So was the moon, casting silvery light upon the scene. But there wasn't much to see. Just some rusting carcasses of once proud and shiny trains. Even the wood on the boxcars were splintering and decaying, it seemed.

It was too quiet for Cloak's liking. The absence of sounds just increased the forboding feeling in the Realm Walker's gut. He honestly anticipated an ambush. What he did not anticipate was what actually happened.

Then the toy-like steam locomotive shifted and transformed into a humanoid form, like a Cybertronian. It stood only slightly taller than a ten-year-old child. Its eyes were human-like with purple sclera and black irises. It had no nose and its hands were black. Its abdomen and crotch were a cool rust color. Its feet were the cattle catcher in its steam locomotive form, and colored green. Train kibble littered its form, but it did not seem to mind the rather haphazard way it looked.

"I should have known," Cloak said, a tad angry at his earlier dismissal of the fiend's train form.

The fiend tooted its smokestack, which was attached to the back of his head, as if it was intimidating. Then it charged forward with all the force of a speeding locomotive, and Cloak leaped. Then he somersaulted off its shoulders, and landed behind it.

Cloak noticed that it didn't turn around easily. Perhaps it couldn't. Makes sense, considering its train form. But whennit did turn around, it didn't charge again but bent over and fired four flaming pieces of coal from its smokestack. However, there was a slight flaw with this plan.

Coal happens to be earth. And Cloak was a Master of said element.

All eleven pieces of coal froze midair, and reversed direction, heading right back at the creature with all the force of a bullet fired from a gun. The flaming coal pieces ripped through its body, and then stopped on the opposite side. Then they flew back through the creature with the velocity of bullets. Then again.

"It is done," Cloak said, turning around as the creature behind him exploded. With a snap of his fingers, the fire was extinguished. Then he walked away.

***

Demos called it a "charjisapien", and he designed it as trainyard security, with its ability to transform into a steam locomotive.

***

"It did charge it," Malice said, head ****ed to the side.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 26, 2017, 06:55:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Typewriter

His name was Gregory Alan Stewart, a nineteen-year-old aspiring writer. And an amateurish one, at that. So much so that he was called, often pejoratively, "Gary Stu". He did not appreciate this unwanted nickname, and considered it quite offensive. As such, he did not have many, if any, friends because of this.

He often imagined horrible things happening to them, despite never actually acting on them, rather like Angela Andaconda from her eponymous show. He often imagined what he would do when or if he had any power over these people.

He also thought poorly of RAF, desperately jealous of their power and influence, never considering joining them. His jealously had already congealed into anger and utter contempt for them, his dissatisfaction for his circumstances had consolidated with this envy and hardened into malignant dismissal of their effectiveness. He transferred his feelings towards his bullies toward the RAFians, who thought they were cool for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, he went to a thrift shop, looking for a typewriter, despite such devices being rather archaic and retro at this point and time. Which was precisely the reason why he wanted it, he had a weakness for retro things like that.

Most of the items in this thrift store were garbage, in his opinion. Refuse that people no longer wanted. Used and discarded. He didn't really expect to find anything worthwhile here.

Then he saw it. It was a topaz yellow typewriter, glistening like a gem. The keys were circular with yellow letters upon a black background. He got some background on it, and found out that the previous owner dropped it off. Turned out the "E" was broken, and, considering the most used letter in the English language is "E", it was useless to them. It came in March or April of last year.

Gregory didn't know what this thrift store clerk was talking about, though. The "E" key looked perfectly fine with him. Perhaps they fixed it so they could resale it. Either way, it mattered very little. He would take it.

He hefted the heavy antique and walked to his home. His parents were almost never home. He was glad, he wasn't fond of them at all. He was tired of them looking down on him, tired of their constant disapproval. His minimum wage job wasn't as high-profile as they thought it ought to be, and they act as if he wanted to be a part-timer -- regardless of the fact that he always went in if he was called in, regardless of the fact that he worked very hard at this small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant for little fanfare or appreciation.

He went to his room in the attic, in their small, cluttered house, and came up with an idea. He typed creating a self-insert character with his name and features. It was nothing he hadn't done before. He wrote that he lived in a multistory Victorian house. He thought he heard something, and looked up to find that it was true.

The typewriter made it true. The typewriter somehow had overwritten reality itself. With this typewriter . . . with this typewriter, he could overwrite reality. He had a lot of power with this typewriter in his possession . . .

Suddenly, the second-string quarterback at his school was suddenly pregnant.

Suddenly, a mean girl cheerleader at his school discovered her parents never loved her, and never had.

Suddenly, his neighbor's black American shorthair cat became a mob boss.

Suddenly, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were kidnapped by aliens (Skrit Na, specifically).

Suddenly, a ditz from his school who refused to go out with him became toothless.

Gregory smiled after he wrote all this, he smiled devilishly. He decided that he would take on a new name due to this power. A new name that would become his moniker and be feared to be uttered. He would become . . .

The Ghostwriter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2017, 06:29:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Day RAFians Died . . .

At RAF, a few days had passed since the news that Rotiart was still alive and blamed them for leaving him for dead. It was a strong blow to both their ego and their emotions. They didn't even know how it was possible. All the RAFians that where there, during all the wesen battles, were absolutely sure of it.

Meanwhile, GH was sleeping in, as Leatherhead was painting purple dots on his legs, until Hunter stopped him. GH never stirred once.

In his dream, four of him were singing -- vain GH, intelligent GH, humorus GH, and sensitive GH. They sang:

"Can't you see it in my eyes?
I'm the one, I'm the— ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR
I'm not like the other guys.
(He's not like anybody, well . . .)
That's not completely right.
There's a few that I'm just like
GH and the Logans,
We're gonna make you smile!
Me, myself, and I, and him,
Are all the same guy!
GH and the Logans.
Come on, now, don't be shy!
Me, myself, and I and him! (That's me!)
Are all the same guy!"

That was a couple of hours ago. Now he was playing with Leatherhead and Hunter. GH sang

"Can't you see it in our eyes?
We're the one, we're the—
One!"

Hunter:

"Two!"

Leatherhead:

"Three!"

GH:

"We're not like the other guys."

Leatherhead:

"We're not like anybody!"

GH:

"By the way, don't go back in time. (Ahh)
Or you'll destroy yourself. (Ahh)
GH and the RAFians.
We're gonna make you smile! (Ah, ah, ahh)
I accidentally created
A shiny tourmaline!
GH and the RAFians!
Come on, now, don't be shy! (Ah, ah, ahh)
I learned to stay true to myself,
By watching myself die . . ."

Then GH let out a gasp, and he saw that he was . . . a zombie? How'd the hell did that happen without him noticing?

He looked at Hunter and was shocked to find that he looked remarkably similar to skeletal Rahzar. Flesh and fur hanging off a bony frame. Hunter looked at his hand and registered the same surprise as GH.

The GH looked at Leatherhead, and he looked like a six-year-old Dry Bowser, with more crocodilian traits. Leatherhead looked as if he was about to cry -- he was scared, and GH couldn't blame him.

What the hell was going on here?"

---

Source Songs: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P-cx0qToGhU and https://youtube.com/watch?v=GyYO2692Fls

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2017, 05:46:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
This Chapter is Brought to You By the Letters W, T, and H

It was an odd sensation. Like a sudden temperature spike a swimmer feels when submerged in a pool, or something like that. It felt as if there was a rushing movement as everything around the Realm Walker changed, and he was most disconcerted to find his friends, his surrogate family, look like shambling, reanimated corpses of differing appearances. It looked as if there was at least one representation of a zombie from every zombie story in media.

The very fact that Dwellers even could leave behind corpses was still very unsettling for Cloak, despite the time he spent here, living amongst the Dwellers. It was something that would take a Realm Walker a great deal to become accustomed to.

And, just like that, everything just . . . changed again. Cloak could feel the wave, or energy, or whatever it was, break upon him like a wave, like a sudden undertow caught his foot suddenly and then decided to release it for no reason.

Everything was brighter, more saccharine. More squeaky-clean.

"Okay," Cloak heard Parker complain at once. "I am so not okay with this!"

Cloak had to stifle a snicker at the miffed SPARTAN before him. Disgruntled, Parker was a Muppet now. Like one you'd see on Sesame Street.

"Don't you dare laugh, Realm Walker," Parker said, despite his scope of doing anything about it was severely limited in this form.

"Settle, Parker," Gaz said, she was now a Muppet, too. "Getting hysterical won't solve anything."

"I'm perfectly fine!" Parker snapped. "How come Cloak's the same?"

"Yeah, why are we hand puppets?" Horse complained, looking like a hand puppet seal of Muppet quality.

"I can't answer that, Horse, because I dunno," Cloak said. "As for why it doesn't seem to affect me, I'm a Realm Walker, remember? My own, natural physiology makes me immune from temporal and reality shifts."

"You saying someone's manipulating time?" Parker said. "How does manipulating time result in us being Sesame Street rejects?"

"Not time," Cloak sighed. He was trying not to get frustrated and dismiss Parker's feelings of outrage at being a Muppet. "Think about it, Parker. Reality itself changed."

"Like that Reality Gem, like a year and a half ago?" Saffa asked. She looked perfectly normal, which really stuck in Parker's craw. "Back when you fought that Thanos creep."

"Either that, or it's the unruly antics of a Celestialsapien," Cloak noted, more to himself than anyone else.

"What's a Celestialsapien?" Leatherhead asked.

"An all-powerful aliens species with two sentient minds that pretty much prevents them from doing anything, don't worry about it," Cloak said, offhand. "Whatever is the source of this, it must be stopped. If whoever is making these changes doesn't desist immediately . . . reality as you know it, just may unravel."

They looked at him, with gaping jaws.

"Granted, that's a worst case scenario," Cloak added.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2017, 08:35:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
You're Wizards, RAF

Then it happened again. It still felt like a strong undertow, but Cloak, as strange as it sounds, thought he could actually discern a vague direction from it. But it happened so quickly, it was difficult to wrap his head around it.

First thing he noticed was that the temperature seemed a lot colder. He wasn't too bothered by this alone, but he knew that it was supposed to be the summer months right now. But whoever was meddling with reality apparently could manipulate such things, as time of year. But he or she could not manipulate the memories of the other RAFians. As a Realm Walker, Cloak's memories were perfectly okay.

Everyone was wearing Hogwarts regalia with House-specific scarfs. Scarlet and gold for the Gryffindors, like Hunter (now fully human) and one other that he could not see. Green and silver for the Slytherins, like one that Cloak couldn't see the face of. Yellow and black for Hufflepuffs like GH and Abby. Blue and bronze for Ravenclaws like Blue, Quaf (now fully human), Saffa, and Xeno (now fully human).

Whoever was behind this was clearly trying to mimic the Potterian realm. And rather blatantly, at that.

"Geez," GH said, "choose a theme, already."

"How come all this reality shifting hasn't affected our minds or memories?" Saffa inquired.

"The Mark," Cloak said, pensively, "it is apparently sufficient enough, apparently, to block any mnemonic wipes on anyone who bears it. Goom, Richard, and I were never aware that it could do this. It wasn't designed to anchor its Bearer to the true reality, but it seems to be doing just that."

GH waited a moment, "Okay -- that just sounded like a whole bunch of word salad to me."

"What he means is that our Marks are protecting us from any memory wipes," Parker translated. He was armorless and not wearing a scarf. And he didn't look too happy about it.

"A Celestialsapien wouldn't be so sloppy about warping reality," Cloak said, more to himself than the others. "It must be metahuman or an object-derived ability."

"You honestly expect that the Reality Gem has been reformed?" Saffa asked, skeptical. "Do you realize the implications of that?"

"That it means that the other Infinity Gems may reform as well and we may replay out the Gauntlet Scenario again? It crossed my mind," Cloak replied.

"Does that mean that the Eternity Stones will reform as well?" Horse asked. Cloak knew she was inquiring on her Tempest Blade returning to her, without actually saying it.

"I cannot answer that which I do not know," Cloak said, reasonably. "I'm not all-knowing, you know."

"Let's focus on our more immediate problem here," Parker said, with the air of trying to get back on track. "How do we stop this all reality warping or reality shifting or whatever term you want to use? We can't even pinpoint the source of this reality . . . disturbance."

"That's not entirely true," Cloak said, "with each, uh, transition I can detect a vague direction."

"Not a very assuring fact," GH pointed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2017, 10:05:53 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Gotta RAF 'em All!

Cloak felt the . . . the "transition" yet again. Reality had changed once again.

He looked around and saw that everything looked . . . anime. Everything in view looked two-dimensional, yet somehow not. Clearly the reality warper had decided to warp them into a cartoonish reality.

He felt the undertow pull him at roughly between one and two o'clock now. The direction was a bit stronger now before it passed. He could --

He heard a noise behind him and saw, to his surprise, a Decidueye, a Totodile, a Seel, a Excavalier, a shiny Gliscor, a Pidgeotto, and a Lycanroc (the Midnight Form one) standing there. All bore the Marks.

"Hey! Stop snickering!" the Decidueye said reproachfully, in GH's voice. He did have a guitar strapped to his back. "Or I will Spirit Shackle you, so help me, Cloak --"

"Kinky," said the Excavalier grumpily, in Parker's voice. He didn't much appreciate being an Excavalier.

"Don't make me Peck your eyes out, Parker," GH said.

"You wanna battle? I have a type advantage!" Parker shot back. "Bug and Steel types are strong against Grass!"

"And neutral to Ghost!" GH countered.

"Guys!" the Pidgeotto scolded. "Priorities!"

Cloak was actually surprised that he could understand what they were saying. It would be nice if whoever was rewriting reality like would make up their mind and stop acting like a childish Dungeon Master (or whatever the Veil they were called), intent on making everyone else lose the game.

"Cloak," Saffa said, ruffling her feathers in a disconsolate way, "since you can since when this is coming, you will have to be the one to stop it. What this omniscient sack of -- ahem, whatever or whoever is behind this, you have to be the one to stop it."

Cloak highly doubted the one behind this was omniscient. Such a thing was, thankfully, a rarity of rarities. True omniscience, anyway -- there were plenty of people who made claims of omniscience, but very, very few, if any, were true.

"Yeah," the shiny Gliscor said with Gaz's voice.* "We'll just slow you down. We may remember now, but how much longer before this shifting reality starts to erode the power of the Mark?"

Cloak said nothing for a beat, before addressing this, "That's true. The Mark is anything but infallible. But --"

"Oh, just go already!" Saffa said, testily. "Stop wasting time trying to be all noble! Just go and stop this, already! You know you're the only here who can do a damn thing about it, and you're just wasting time here, hesitating with us, worrying about us -- time that could better utilized in finding out who or what is behind this whole damn thing and stop it!!"

Cloak said nothing, but it was clear that Saffa didn't care for being a Pidgeotto. It was making her testy, and rather than cause her anymore distress, Cloak agreed to press on. He began to wander forward between one and two o'clock.

He couldn't help but feel a little stupid doing this, but he betrayed no feeling of this to the others.

---

*A reference to my shiny female Gliscor, whom I did name after Gaz.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 01, 2017, 05:48:07 PM

New book ideas.

• Book MCCVIII (1,208): "The Blight" -- The Prime Universe suffers from . . . the Blight. Noncanonical.

As for these next few book ideas, the idea behind them is a massive story arc that might very well end in the series conclusion, lest I change my mind.

• Book MCCIX (1,209): "Thirteen Fall" -- An old group of foes of the RAFians lose power and all but one seems to be dead.
• Book MCCX (1,210): "School Days" -- Someone is after a friend of Saffa's from school, who discovers he manifested a power to detect and track metahumans.
• Book MCCXI (1,211): "Basic Targeting" -- The RAFians must race to save a few metahumans from being infested . . .
• Book MCCXII (1,212): "It's a Jungle Out There" -- The race to save new metahumans continues.
• Book MCCXIII (1,213): "Old Fossils" -- The race to save new metahumans continue, as the RAFians enemies seem to grow larger.
• Book MCCXIV (1,214): "Prepare for Trouble" -- The race to save new metahumans continue while their enemies' influence grows stronger, much to the RAFians' chagrin.
• Book MCCXV (1,215): "The Cartel" -- The race to save metahumans with newly manifested powers, while the RAFians' enemies discover the Cartel.
• Book MCCXVI (1,216): "Unchallenged" -- The race to save metahumans with newly manifested powers, while the Cartel infiltrates the Cartel unnoticed and unchallenged.
• Book MCCXVII (1,217): "New Assets" -- The race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continues, while the infiltration and takeover of the Cartel is halfway done. . . .
• Book MCCXVIII (1,218): "I Have a Bad Feeling About This" -- The race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continues, while their enemies consolidates control over the Cartel.
• Book MCCXIX (1,219): "Consolidated Cartel" -- The race to secure more metahumans with newly manifested powers continues, while Cartel falls.
• Book MCCXX (1,220): "Expeditions" -- The race to secure more metahumans with newly manifested powers continues, while the RAFians' enemies begin to infiltrate the media and police force.
• Book MCCXXI (1,221): "He's Dead, Jim" -- The race to secure most metahumans with newly manifested powers continues, while the RAFians' enemies' leader appears to have died . . .
• Book MCCXXII (1,222): "New Pariahs -- For Real This Time" -- While the RAFians race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue, while RAFians become pariahs due to another media smear campaign.
• Book MCCXXIII (1,223): "Stepping Up Their Game" -- While the RAFians race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue, their enemies step up their game.
• Book MCCXXIV (1,224): "The Amazo Virus" -- While the RAFians race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue, they discover how they got their abilities. . . .
• Book MCCXXV (1,225): "A Severe Drawback" -- While the RAFians race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue, they discover the serious drawback -- a potentially fatal one.
• Book MCCXXVI (1,226): "Divided Resources, Divided Attention" -- While the RAFians race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue, as their enemies discover Cadmus who repels them.
• Book MCCXXVII (1,227): "Silent Rebellion" -- While the RAFians race to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue, as a small rebellion forms in their enemies' ranks.
• Book MCCXXVIII (1,228): "It's a Mess" -- The RAFians continue to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continue.
• Book MCCXXIX (1,229): "It Seems Hopeless" -- The RAFians continue to secure metahumans with newly manifested powers continued.
• Book MCCXXX (1,230): "Not an Easy Task" -- With all the metahumans gathered on both sides, the RAFians and their allies launch a guerilla offensive against their enemies.
• Book MCCXXXI (1,231): "On the Offensive" -- The RAFians and their allies amp up their activities and efforts.
• Book MCCXXXII (1,232): "Lines That Need to Be Crossed" -- The RAFians and their allies realize that they may have to cross some ethical and moral lines . . .
• Book MCCXXXIII (1,233): "World at the Brink" -- This climatic war escalates . . .
• Book MCCXXXIV (1,234): "Freedom" -- . . . and climaxes. . . .
• Book MCCXXXV (1,235): "Enoi's Last Stand" -- . . . with one loose thread.
• Book MCCXXXVI (1,236): "The Aftermath" -- The aftermath of this nearly devastating invasion that was nearly lost. Possibly the final book of Memoirs.

There. Don't think that I rehashed anything. All titles are subject to change.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
What a Gem

Another "transition" came as he left the others behind. Normally, he didn't mind going solo -- he's done it enough times of his own volition -- but he couldn't deny that part of him was afraid of losing the forum, and the surrogate family that he had there. With the loss of Wheeza still silently stinging his heart savagely, he did not know if he could bear to lose more . . .

Or worse -- they coming back as insane and unhinged as Rotiart was. And he could help but remember that time all but the core of this realm was eradicated. Fortunately, Anomaly had remade the realm as it once was, as if the extinction event never happened. This just felt the same to the Elements Master. So, naturally, was conflicted about this.

He barely paused to recognize what the world had been shaped into, not really registering that he was no longer on the Earth proper that he knew and loved, but on a rigidly angular world that was similar to Petrotopia, but more ornate, more open. And run by tyrannical giant women. Cloak didn't pay any attention to this, as he charged forward, toward the device making all of these ridiculous reality revisions.

But when they started to get in his way, he terrakinetically forced them away by the single gems they had on their person, which really shouldn't have worked by did. Cloak could only make out a few of them. A round, unfaceted pearl on a yellow woman's chest, another round, unfaceted pearl on a blue woman's chest, a rectangular blue zircon with a square facet on a predominantly blue woman's jugular cavity, a rectangular green zircon with a square facet on a green woman's jugular cavity, a yellow diamond with a diamond facet on a giant, yellow woman's chest, and a blue diamond with a diamond facet on a giant, blue woman's chest. In the back of his mind, he knew where this was, what this was -- but that didn't matter. He had a more important task at hand.

He dived, freefalling, down to the deeper, off-color depths. This actually looked more badass than it seemed. Cloak had a small, almost negligible degree of acrophobia. He knew that he could save himself easily, but he didn't feel the adrenaline rush that clearly serial skydivers felt. He landed without a sound, after using his aerokinesis to slow his descent.

Looking around, his feline eyes penetrated the gloom easily. He was sure the source of the reality shifting was coming from this direction. Something in his gut told him that it was right -- but he couldn't be sure until another "transition". But he was hoping that it wouldn't have to come to that. If you play around with the fabric of reality too much, it could have very serious consequences. Granted, Celestialsapiens do it all the time -- provided their two conflicting personalities agree on it -- but they know how to do it properly.

Suddenly, he heard a soft sort of warbling noise and he knew that something had made the foolish decision to follow him. Some security drones or something, like those Hunter-Killer Drones things that Yeerks had during their failed invasion. Only these were colored a dark blood red, roughly the size of a volleyball, and shaped like a cone hovering on its side with a tapered bottom that had a electronic sort of eye on it. There were three of them in this dim, gloomy chasm. Cloak had an idea what they were looking for, but he wasn't in the mood to care about it -- though he realized how heartless it may have seemed.

They fired a thin, horizontal, red line descended down his body, clearly scanning for something. Something that Cloak knew that they wouldn't find. He hadn't any gems on his person, but this slowed his progress. And thus made him feel irritated.

He hadn't a gem on his person -- these things had no interest in him, but they were starting to get in his way, and his irritation was rapidly giving way to frustration and anger. He was prepared to smash them out his way, when --

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2017, 06:58:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
We . . . Care?

There was another "transition", and Cloak had to turn on his heel to eight, nine o'clock. He tangentially was aware that the new environment, the new reality. It looked flat. Two-dimensional. As if it was a cartoon from the eighties or nineties. He was standing standing on a huge cloud, as if it was land. It should be physically impossible for this realm, but whatever or whoever was behind this clearly didn't care about such things.

There appeared to be also buildings and cars made predominately clouds, and other materials that Cloak couldn't begin to guess at what substance it was. But it mattered very little. What was important was finding and stopping whoever or whatever was causing these reality shifts. Everything else was superfluous.

He thought he saw what amounted to animated teddy bears with white abdomen with some sort of pictography on them. Their noses were shaped like hearts, with short muzzles. They had hands like mittens. They barely stood to Cloak's knees.

He had to suppress as smile as he moved onward. He remembered back when they had to deal with that realm depth charge, and several RAFians were blown to different realms. Faerie landed in on like this one -- overly saccharine and moralizing. It actually traumatized her somehow. Cloak never found out why, specifically, but it couldn't help but be a bit funny.

He saw a what looked to be a massive heart-tipped wand stuck into the ground like a large lamppost or one of those clocks on poles in some big cities. There seemed to be some sort of meter on it with hearts instead of numbers. Cloak thought this was called the "caring meter" but wasn't sure -- and couldn't help but wonder how efficacious it actually was. How could you measure something without any units of measurement?

It didn't matter. It wasn't the thing altering reality. It had no interest to Cloak -- he had to find whatever or whoever was behind this. Cloak was inclined to believe that it was happening due to an object. This was sloppy and Celestialsapiens, who have the abilities naturally, even when nascent, would be more . . . precise, less cobbled together. Fortunately, the conflicting personalities each one had made them inactive a majority of the time.

Perhaps Faerie found her trauma through interaction with the creatures, with the living teddy bears of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink. Well, Cloak had no.interest in interacting with them. He simply didn't care --

There suddenly a low-pitched resonating sort of sound, as the "caring meter" or whatever the Veil it was supposed to be indicated a lower caring . . . Cloak thought. Without numbers, the thing was incredibly hard to tell. No matter. Cloak found that he didn't care about --

Then it happened again. It dawned on Cloak it was because he himself didn't really care about . . . several things, actually. This caused Cloak to realize just how vague this meter thing was. Was he supposed to care about everything just to satisfy it? That is a serious flaw.

No matter, there was more important priorities than caring about -- oh, shut up, you stupid thing -- he had to find the source of the shifting. He was afraid of losing the trail. If he did, he would have to wait for the next "transition" before getting a clue where to go next. And this could prove disastrous -- he wasn't too incredibly sure, but he was sure that excessive messing around with reality could cause long-term damage, possibly, or might even tear it. Make a hole into Void Space, into nothingness. And once there was a tear, there might be no way to fix it. If there was, he didn't know it offhand.

He was afraid that he lost the trail. He had allowed himself to become distracted, and that now was refined into confusion. He . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2017, 04:18:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Greedy Hoarding

The "transition" came as Cloak knew it would -- he had to pivot to between nine and ten o'clock to continue the trail. Cloak wondered what item would allow someone to alter reality like this. He couldn't help but imagining the Reality Gem tied to a sharpened number 2 pencil in the hands of a child -- it was a scary thought, though it would explain the seemingly inability to form a coherent reality, changing everything.

Cloak allowed himself to momentary to take in the desolate land before him. There was dying vegetation and dust was blowing around the near empty world around him. There were people dotting the grim landscape, but no buildings. No cars. No streets. No nothing.

The people weren't really anything handsome to look at. Their clothing were rags -- those whose clothing wasn't deteriorated to the point of nonexistence. Many, many, many of them were barefoot, and the ones that had shoes were worn and torn to the point of falling apart. All were dirty and filthy and wearing an uneducated, unfocused look on their face. And yet, these people, even the malnourished children, were forced to work -- building things, rotating what appeared to be a large crank.

And for what? All this for what? A few crumbs issued from a shoot into a long trough made of poorly-maintained, splintering wood. And the crumbs dispensed were not nearly enough to sustain all these people. Starvation apparently was a common malady here. These looked like the most defeated dregs of human beings that he had ever seen. They almost looked like those zombie things that the RAFians first turned into at the start of all this.

How anyone could live like this . . . it was a wonder how these people managed to survive, given such hardships. It is a wonder how their species had not gone extinct.

It was at this point Cloak noticed a domed city, seemingly made of gold and marble. It was opulent to ridiculous excess. Cloak was starting to see what was happening here, who lived in this domed city of seemingly exaggerated exuberance and apparent exorbitant extravagance. Cloak's eyes narrowed, and not just because this city was also in his way.

He leaped and dived into the earth, and easily burrowing below this marble wall, coming up on the other side. He didn't bother to close the hold he made. It didn't take a genius to figure out just how this city was made -- and it was just shown by just how few people he saw within. Clearly, the wealthy and affluent in this reality stole the wealth from what passed for a middle class and the poor, affluence that they really didn't need more of, and shut out their victims, walled them off, from this city where the poor souls' tax money came from. Now they work for the meekest of crumbs.

Cloak felt disgust when he clearly expensive clothing and jewelry and other relics of affluence each person had dawned on them. On just how cowardly they all were with confrontation. They lived in a perverse and proverbial glass house. It was time they stopped privatizing the gains and socializing the losses.

This was a long time coming for them, and Cloak did not care that he expedited the process some. You cannot continually oppress a people without it eventually coming back to bite you in the butt. It was time these people learned such a lesson.

"Do you have any idea what you've done, you monster?" said this reality's version of Ethan Couch, an adult. "You're going to let in the Peasants!"

Cloak didn't care. It was about time these lazy Elites got what was coming to them, got their comeuppance. Was he being arrogant? Plausibly. But he didn't care. He was staunchly egalitarian, believing that everyone deserves a fair crack at success, and not stripping away every opportunity from one group in the favor of another -- and having that group chide the other to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", despite them having taken these proverbial bootstraps away and whipping them with them.

These Elites deserved this, and Cloak wasn't acting out of hubris. If these Elites didn't do this in the first place, then they wouldn't have to worry about keeping out the people they call Peasants.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2017, 04:12:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Ghostwriter

Gary Stu, "the Ghostwriter", was very glad that he got this reality-rewriting typewriter. And, like all people with newly manifested powers, he freely abused it. But, unlike some others, he would not stop misusing this power. He would soon go mad with it, believing himself untouchable -- and if he wasn't, he'd just simply type it out to be true.

He was smugly glancing over at his manuscript -- the narrative of which was rather hodgepodge and amateurish, but he thought it was the greatest epic ever written. And he would severely punish any naysayers by manipulating their personal realities into torturous, nightmarish creations.

He had used to the typewriter to give him wealth -- which was empty and unearned. He had used it to give himself a beautiful girlfriend that was crazy about him -- not too possessive, but demurred and submissive, and lacking a real personality. He also used it to make alterations to his physique and attractiveness -- because he was shallow like that. He also used it to make his Victorian house solid gold -- and, no, he wasn't compensating for anything, in his opinion. Nothing that he couldn't freely change, anyway.

He had so much power to do so much good with. He could have made a new paradise, a heaven on Earth, for everyone. He could have eliminated war, pestilence, famine, and even death itself. He could have done many things for the betterment of mankind, for the benefit of mankind.

But, no.

No, he had opted to be selfish with the power. He opted to make his life easier, and decided to live in luxury, at the cost and expense of those who wronged him. Gary sought to selfishly hoard this power for solely his benefit. He didn't care about anyone else's well-being other than his own. Even if the cost was the misery of another, he didn't care. As long as he gets what he wants.

His arrogance quickly evolved into hubris. He started to believe the power was his -- as if he was generating it, instead of the typewriter -- and the typewriter was just an instrument. One that he just didn't want to discard just yet.

He didn't realize that all his reality manipulations may have been detrimental to the fabric of reality. But, then again, even if he did, he wouldn't have cared. He had really degenerated into a self-serving, egotistical piece of work. The thought of him making a miscalculation or even the slightest misstep had become inconceivable. He had come to see himself as the pinnacle of perfection, incapable of failure.

It was a very dangerous state of mind to have. Having confidence is one thing, but overconfidence is quite another. Overconfidence has a nasty habit of allowing stupid mistakes to ruin your day, to have your comeuppance. More often than not, it is overconfidence (which often intertwines with hubris) that leads to people's downfalls.

Despite his quick assumption of his perceived omniscience, he was unaware of one individual. One individual that was steadily making his way towards him, undeterred by the changes to reality that Gary made and was still making. Unaffected and determined to stop them.

He actually noticed this individual once or twice while he was luxuriating lazy by the pool that he used the typewriter to write into existence. He loved swimming in the crystal clear water -- perfectly content in his absolute safety, the surety of his superiority.

That individual was of no concern to him. He couldn't do anything to him. He, in his mind, was perfectly omniscient and omnipotent. He could do anything he wanted -- quite literally, with his typewriter. He was in no danger. Danger was, in his view, an impossibility. He could be the danger, true, but being in danger?

Nah.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2017, 07:41:48 PM

Wow. Nine guests reading this as I post this.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Barren and Bleak

Cloak felt the reality "transition" yet again, and discovered that he no longer needed it so much. He could detect the source of these "transitions", although it was far from easy. He could only infer that it was due to him getting so much closer to the source of whatever was behind this. The more he did, the more his qualms of the return of the Reality Gem -- as well as its brothers -- became more pronounced.

But that's not possible. The Reality Gem shouldn't have been able to do all this without being backed up by the other Infinity Gems, particularly the Space and Power Gems. Could this mean that they're coming back even more overpowered, or was this thing really powered by . . . by more than the Reality Gem?

Of course, if the Gems are reforming, logically that meant their opposites, their countering force, the Eternity Stones should be doing the same. Which also possibly meant that their weapon forms, the Eternity Blades, might be reforming as well. But whether that meant that they would return to their once-chosen wielders remained to be seen.

Cloak took this time to look around his surroundings. Everything was dark and washed out, in browns, reds, and blacks. Buildings were little more than hollowed out husks that were falling apart. None were fulling enclosed anymore, all were missing at least a large chunk of wall. Some even had three walls missing, and were soon to collapse to the ground. Even some walls and buildings that remained stubbornly were well eroded to having naught a sharp surface.

There was no plant life. Only sticks and tumble weeds. Red topsoil blew around, with nothing holding it in place. The water seemed to have all evaporated or was poisoned by fracking or other such means.

There was no life whatsoever, barring Cloak himself. No obnoxiously barking dogs, no aloof cats, no scurrying mice. No squirrels clamoring amongst nonexistent branches. No activity of any sort. None.

Of course, weather was still a thing. Climate was ridiculously hot -- Cloak's own Realm Walker physiology preventing him from feeling any real ill effect other than momentary discomfort.

Thus was truly a sad sight. This was the Earth's death. It was just now an empty planet hurtling around the sun. A corpse of a planet that perhaps an attack from Galactus or Unicron may have been a more humane death, instead of the slow choking and virtual immolation of her children.

As he walked on, he spied the shattered remains of a rutile gem. Further on, to his immediate right were the shattered remains of a brownish-red rhodonite, with a shattered pearl and ruby in between these shards. A rare orange-pink padparadscha sapphire shattered to pieces behind it. Behind this were six massive fluorites which represented many colors was shattered into many shards. Cloak wondered if this meant anything.

No matter, no matter. This reality would "transition" like the others, and be forgotten.

But this wasn't true. It wouldn't be forgotten -- not entirely. This whole reality, despite Cloak resisting it, had left an indelible impression in his mind. The bleak image was seared involuntarily and unwillingly into his memory. He would give anything to forget this reality shift and everything it represented, but he knew, deep down, that he never would.

He had to keep going. Keep moving to the citadel in the distance. That was where the reality distorting, the reality shifting, source was. Cloak was sure of it. It wasn't that far away, not really. Just a three-quarters to a full hour's walk away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2017, 06:07:12 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Chilled Chaos*

The "transition" came as Cloak knew it would. He really was starting to think this was just a bad writer causing all this who had no concept of consistent storytelling, whose vocabulary consisted of mostly single-syllable words, maybe some two- or three-syllable words.

Cloak had come to really dislike whoever was behind this. Reality was now as cold as it was on Cryolacier. He remembered how the Cryolacite humans -- all having white hair and eyes a shocking myriad of colors, as was the trend of all humans within the Fractured Realms -- treated such temperatures as if it was balmy and lovely. Whereas Cloak had never liked snow, even as a child.

He saw what appeared to be a white, saber-toothed wolverine eating from the carcass of oversized marmot, only with thicker fur and a smaller nose. It was almost as if someone remade the Darwin Gun and used it on a wolverine and marmot -- but there would be no guarantee that they would look like this, even if they did. Evolution is basically an adaptation of a species surroundings -- it is a planet's particular ecosystem that shapes its creatures, as well as the niches that need to be filled. And if a species cannot adapt to these changes, they will die.

His kind have observed it happen time and time again since the Realms came into creation, having been the first species (which some more bigoted Walkers use as just cause for Walker superiority and sovereignty over all). That was long before his time, though, naturally. He was just in his late twenties, after all.

As Cloak continued to trudge through the snow -- which made it difficult to the point of impossibility to Earthsight, he found -- he wondered if whoever was behind this knew about his pet peeves. Cloak found snow a hassle, because, even though it was technically water, Cloak never could manipulate it, just as he had never manipulated steam. Snow is different from water, more resistant, but less sturdy and stubborn than earth. Perhaps it was well within his power to manipulate it, but Cloak was hesitant to try. Last thing he needed was more power.

Seeking power and having power could be very dangerous. It can be addictive. And you'll always seek out more and more and more . . . until it completely consumes you, until it complete encompasses you, until it completely subsumes your identity. Such is a fate that very few would want, including Cloak. He was born with his potential power, despite not really liking to use more than is absolutely necessary, fearful of any collateral damage and possible slaying of innocents. This is why he always tries to be so measured in everything -- he alone could cause a lot of destruction and devastation. He could possibly have wrought a world like the . . . like the last reality.

It is also one of the reasons he was glad to have found the RAFians, and the forum. He felt that they grounded him, that they . . . that they gave him a sense of family and community that he hadn't really known before. Yes, he had family with Mercy, Faith, Wheeza, and Shadow, but they were family, not a community. He had fallen in love with RAF's free exchange of ideas. He had fallen in love with how, despite disparate everyone was, they always managed to come together in the end.

Cloak held out his hand, generating a ball of fire that melted the snow in front of him. He still harbored some pyrophobia, despite being a Master (albeit rather reluctant) of the element. It all stemmed from a house fire that happened when he was five (that would be about 220 years ago, in Dweller Earth time). Fortunately, Faith was there to not only comfort him, but, as she often did, talk sense to him. She would have been around thirteen, fourteen at the time, too.

If whoever was behind this reality shifting thought that this would be enough to deter him from ending this whole thing, they had another thing coming.  Snow and ice didn't stop him from dealing with the ice ifrit, it would not stop him here. They would have to put forth a little more effort if he, or she, wanted to impede his path.

All they did was slow him down momentarily.

---

*Yes, I'm referencing one of my favorite YouTubers. So what?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on June 05, 2017, 03:00:52 PM

This looks neat! Hope Cloak manages to make it through the crappy weather and find what he's looking for. On a more rambling note, about the whole device of giving a character that much power...

Storytelling Rant: There's an interesting sort of commentary I've written at different times about the idea of someone who can alter Reality at will. Of course, most of the characters with this ability have some sort of odd constraint on the form they receive, but they still end up with godlike power. In both cases the individuals who receive the power are extremely complex people, and the results of their actions vary drastically.

• In one variant, a member of an oppressed race gains the Gran Grimoire (as in yes the one from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance) and he creates a world where the oppressed race have a circumscribed and specific role, but rights as citizens and tremendous power. He himself becomes a kind of judge in a world of checks and balances, laws and systems, where no one ruler holds ultimate power. This reflects the man's tremendous love of rules and his belief that a society governed by Law is the most noble. Given the chance to distort Reality to his liking completely, he settles for mere respectability.
• The second person to obtain the Grimoire is much, much more selfish--- A being of already incredible power who uses the Grimoire to gain a world tailored to his ideals. However, the rules of the Grimoire in the Roleplay dictate that he is trapped with a world that reflects him too perfectly--- In Persona 5 terms, a Palace. Therefore every citizen of the place is just as neurotic and sexist as he is, and they've built a society that exactly mimics his own beliefs and aesthetics. He realizes quickly that this isn't exactly what he had in mind.
• Another person gains the ability to rewrite time and "Fate" to her liking, essentially the ability to change any probability so that it runs in her favor and any event so that it happens the way she wants. The problem is that this ability comes with a complicated series of "butterfly effect" constraints and the responsibility of leading an entire group of people. A group of people almost inordinately bad at thinking for themselves with devious leaders who understand that ability way better than its user does. She tries to change Reality so that her lover's parent doesn't die and gets what they want, only to come back and find that her actions have set off a series of consequences so complicated that her lover is actually *dead* and replaced with his previously dead twin brother. And that because of the will and self-possessed nature of the lover's parent, there is *no* outcome in which they are actually alive and happy.

Basically, I think there's a lot of potential with these ideas as investigations into the human mind and heart beyond stories of greed and excess, but well....yeah. Not sure why I said all that. <__<; Hope to see where this goes! :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2017, 06:38:02 PM

Honestly, I don't know how to respond to that without giving something away about this book. And Saffa has a skillet to ka-bong me upside the head if my lips get too loose. ;) I think all I can say is that I outline these books very much in advance (as you can see by my profile, which is very up-to-date), so chances are there is some foreshadowing for future books, and chances are high that you'll forget when that book comes up. :)

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Sweltering and Ruminating

The "transition" happened again, and the extreme cold quickly flipped from freezing to sweltering. This did not help Cloak's disposition in the least.

"What, is he -- or she -- being lobbied hard by the Heat Miser and Snow Miser?" Cloak grumbled. He did not find extreme heat any more enjoyable than extreme cold. If whoever was behind this thought this would soften the Realm Walker's resolve, he was quite mistaken. His mother's side of his family has the hallmark stubbornness, and was equal to any of them when it came to being obstinate.

He had his goal. And he would not be deterred. He would not be thrown offtrack.

But he was invariably reminded of Pyrosun, from the Fracture Realms. The Earth of that Realm was little more than a star orbiting a larger sun, like a stellar moon. The humans -- yes, humans, strangely enough, all with red hair -- swam through lava like water, and treated it like water. A small number of them utilized fire in a pyrokinectic manner, but called it "pyromagic".

He remembered the flora and fauna was incredibly diverse as well, with the lava slugs being preyed on lava koi, which in turn were preyed on by humans and lava kaiju. It was a surprisingly balanced food web, a startling stable ecosystem. One wouldn't expect to be so -- but that was true of all the shattered Realms there. The sprawling forests of Florest. The hot sun-like Pyrosun. The oceans of Alanthydrias. The jungles of Hivect. The lightning-torn Thundelectro. The mountains and deserts of Terraseismo. The floating islands of Floafly. The tundras of Cryolacier. The prehistoric world of Drise. The poisonous world of Venoxica. The mechanical world of Ferromor. The eternally dark world of Noctumbra. The mountainous Geolith. The savage world of Savawl. The ghostly world of Necrectopolis. The townships of Psychesp.

All these environments were so different, so diverse. And, yet, all had humans there, somehow -- green-haired Florester humans, red-haired Pyrosunnurite humans, blue-haired Atlanhydrian humans, olive green-haired Hivectoid humans, blonde Thundelectroan humans, brown-haired Terraseismoan humans, gold-haired Floaflier humans (who were winged with wings of an array of different colors), white-haired Cryolacite humans, tan-haired Driser humans, purple-haired Venoxican humans, silver-haired Ferrormor humans (although, even though they looked perfectly human, their bodies were mechanical automatons inhabited by the minds of the humans before some great cataclysm occurred in Ferrormor), the black-haired Noctumbran humans, the gray-haired Geolithling humans, the orange-haired Savawler humans, the ghostly indigo-haired Necrectopolian humans, and the violet-haired Psychespian humans.

How? Cloak thought as he trudged through this unnecessarily extreme heat. How did humans get into all these realms with these extremes of environments? And how did that Realm fracture in the first place? Will I ever find out?

The Fractured Realms were so long before his time. Before his parents time. Before the times of Master Sage, Aniyu and -- well, not Master Avatar, perhaps. But whatever happened was not recorded and recollections of what happened did not survive the ravages time has on memory.

It's really to hot here, Cloak found himself thinking, before considering the Fractured Realms once more.

It must have been catastrophic, or maybe it happened simply within the realm itself, within the realm cuticle, as the fragments of the realm -- Pyrosun and the rest --  floated around as portals in the vast, uninhabited abyss of Void Space. The Fractured Realms seemed to have gotten along just as well, never knowing that it was one continuous Realm. Perhaps it was just as well. The burden of knowledge can prove to be a terrible one.

Nearly there, nearly there, said, as he continued to trudge toward this citadel shaped like a two-story Victorian house. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2017, 05:01:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Everything You Know is Wrong!

The "transition" seemed to come quicker than last time. Maybe it was because whoever was behind this really didn't like excessive heat, or maybe it was because Cloak was far closer to the source now. Nonetheless, he continued forward.

Until he was distracted by what appeared to be a redhead GH in a Weird Al wig. Very odd. Even for GH. When he heard what he swore was GH's voice singing in voiceover.

I was walking by the freeway in the bike lane
With a rabid Joltik in my underwear,
When suddenly a guy behind me from the back road
Popped right up and cupped his hands across my eyes."

Cloak slowed his gait to watch this.

I guessed, "Is it Uncle Frank or Cousin Louie?"
"Is it Quaf or Poe or Parker?"
"Could it be Cloak or Blue or TJ or Gary or Steve?"
I probably would have kept on guessing,
But, about that time, we crashed into the truck.

Cloak watched this as it all played out in real time. What that truck was doing driving on the sidewalk was beyond Cloak.

And as I'm laying bleeding there on the asphalt
Finally I recognize the face of my guitar dealer
Who takes out his prosthetic brain and tells me --

Cloak continued to proceed, but he seemed quite literally unable proceed any further than the song would allow.

Everything you know is wrong!
Black is white, up is down and short is long!
And everything you thought was just so
Important doesn't matter!
Everything you know is wrong!
Just forget the words and sing along!
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong!

Then the scene shifted to a house that looked nothing like GH's thread. It looked more like the kitchen set from "Home Improvement".

I was walkin' to the kitchen for some saltine crackers,
When I accidentally stepped into an alternate dimension,
And soon I was abducted by some aliens from space
Who kinda looked like Jafar.

Cloak still tried to move forward but if felt as if his feet were mired in a swamp. He was starting to suspect --

"They sucked out my internal organs
And they took some selfies,
And said I was a damn good sport.
And as a way of saying thank you,
They offered to transport me back to
Any point in time that I would care to go.

Cloak was starting to suspect whoever was behind this knew that he was hear and he was heading for that Victorian house, that citadel.

And so I had them send me back to last Monday night
So I could pay my Internet bill on time.
Just then the floating disembodied head of
Armadillo Anderson started yelling --

Yep, he or she definitely knew.

Everything you know is wrong.
Black is white, up is down and short is long.
And everything you thought was just so
Important doesn't matter.
Everything you know is wrong.
Just forget the words and sing along!
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong!

He or she definitely knew about his presence, and Cloak also had a sneaking suspicion that --

I was just about to mail a letter to Leatherhead
When I got a nasty papercut
And, well, to make a long story short,
It got infected and I died.

-- That he was being toyed with. "Being made a fool of," as Markiplier would say.

So now I'm up in heaven with St. Peter
By the pearly gates,
And it's obvious he doesn't like
The death metal jacket that I'm wearing.
He tells me that they've got a dress code.

Cloak was starting to feel irritation at this same old song and dance. He wanted to end this already.

Well, he lets me into heaven anyway,
But I get the room next to the noisy ice machine
For all eternity,
And every day he runs by screaming --

Cloak was tired of trying to slough through this, as if he was pushing his way through a snowbank, a thick one, made entirely of the stuff of reality itself.

Everything you know is wrong!
Black is white, up is down and short is long
And everything you used to think was so important
Doesn't really matter anymore,
Because the simple fact remains that
Everything you know is wrong!
Just forget the words and sing along!
All you need to understand is
Everything you know is wrong!
Everything you know is wrong!!!

You know what? Enough of this. He had been too nice about this, playing by the rules of whoever was shifting realities.

That was about to end.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KThlYHfIVa8

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2017, 04:19:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Stop Sending That Crud to Me

Gary was speaking to his reality-fabricated girlfriend, having taken her hands into his own as they sat, and he sang-spoke:

"Oh, the sand keeps falling through the hourglass
And there's no way you're going to slow it down.
You say we gotta treasure each moment.
Who knows how long we're gonna be around?"

He released her hands and turned slightly away from her, before continuing:

"Yeah, you keep on telling me life is short,
And it's hard to disagree with what you say.
But if time is so precious, why you wasting mine?
'Coz I'm always reading, always deleting,
Every useless piece of garbage that you send my way."

He stood with his back to her, apparently oblivious to the stricken look on her face. If he was aware of it, the. He simply did not care.

"Every stupid hoax,
All those corny jokes!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Well, I don't need tons of cringe-inducing puns!
Stop sending that crud to me."

She started to protest, but was quickly silenced by Gary's glare. He wasn't done being mean and cruel to her.

"No, it isn't okay if you brighten my day
With some cut-and-pasted hackneyed Twilight poetry.
And I didn't request a personality test.
Stop sending that crud to me."

She started to cry, but Gary wasn't moved.

"You're sending virus-laden bandwidth-logging attachments
To every single person you know.
You're passing around a link to some dumb thing on boob tube
That everybody else already saw thirty years ago,
And wacky poorly Photoshopped billboards
Were never that pleasing to me.
And I just can't believe you believe those urban legends,
But I have high hopes
Someone will point you toward Snopes
And debunk that crazy junk you're spewing constantly."

He ignored her sobs as he continued to lay into her.

"No, I don't want a bowl of Chicken Soup for the Soul!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Send more top 10 lists and I'll smash your wrists!
Please stop sending that crud to me.
Well, I'm sorry I can't accept your paranoid rant
And I don't want the Cookie Monster cookie recipe.
Won't you kindly refrain 'cause it's hurting my brain!
Stop sending . . . that crud to me."

Far from feeling sympathy, Gary felt disgust and disappointment. This woman was supposed to be everything he wanted in a woman. And, at first, she was. Then he found her becoming increasingly irritating and possessive. Granted, he didn't give much when he wrote her into existence. Just that she was crazy about him, and she lacked anything more than that for personality. He hadn't even thought enough of her to write her a name. He just called her pet names that sounded more like platitudes at this point. Things like "Sweethart", "M'Lady", and "Babe -- mostly the last one.

Anyway, he picked up the tempo as he sang:

"Like glittery hearts and unicorns
And pictures of somebody's rat.
Now tell me, in what written reality
Would I care about something like that?
And, by the way, your quotes from K. A. Applegate
Aren't really K. A. Applegate,
Mr. Couch never fought the Viet Cong,
And the government is never gonna give me somethin' for nothin',
And I highly doubt some dead girl is gonna kill me
If I don't pass her letter along!!!
Well, now I know you're wishin'
I'll sign that petition
But stop sending that crud to me.
And I don't want to read your series
Of conspiracy theories.
Just stop sending that crud to me.
And your two million loser friends
All have my address now
'Cause you never figured out the way to BCC."

"Brevard College catalogue?" she asked, through sniffles, as Gary facepalmed hard before continuing.

"Now I gotta insist
Take me off of your list!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Just stop it now.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Oh, no.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
I can't take it.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Aw, please!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
You gotta stop.
Stop sending that crud to me.
Right now!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me.
I'm not kidding!
Stop sending that crud to me.
At the risk of being slightly repetitious,
Gonna ask you now to stop! Stop!
Sending me that . . . crud!
I don't want it!
Don't send it to me!
Don't send it to me!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Just stop!
Stop sending that crud to me.
Stop sending that crud to me . . .
To me."

His unnamed -- unnamed in the most literal sense of the word -- girlfriend was now bawling. Gary wasn't just breaking up with her, as he picked up a piece of paper with text typewritten on it.

"Babe," he said, tearing it, "it's over."

The woman turned the color of parchment -- her clothes, her hair, her skin, everything -- as she quickly mimicked a two dimensional drawing, that ripped in half. Her existence was no more.

"Wow," said a low, unimpressed voice. "You certainly have a way with women, boy."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KCSA7kKNu2Y

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2017, 06:06:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Word Crimes

Gary must have jumped six feet straight up. He hadn't heard anyone enter. He hadn't written it, either.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he demanded, sounding more like a scared, young child than his actual age.

Cloak wasn't really paying him too much mind. He was reading through his manuscript -- and was feeling a tad offended without how poorly written it was. Yes, he had been writting his memoirs (granted, in secret), and this schlock was just horrid. The narrative was all over the place, and he would ramble on noncongruent tangents. It was difficult, nigh impossible to read.

"If you can't write in the proper way,
If you don't know how to conjugate --
Maybe you flunked that class,
And maybe now you find
That people mock you online!"

"You don't know me," Gary snapped. "And the Ghostwriter doesn't need your --"

"Okay, now here's the deal.
I'll try to educate you.
Gonna familiarize
You with the nomenclature.
You'll learn the definitions
Of nouns and prepositions.
Literacy's your mission
And that's why I think it's a
Good time,
To learn some grammar.
Now did I stammer ?
Work on that grammar!"

"My grammar is perfectly fine!" he spat. "There's not nothing that is wrong with it."

But Cloak continued as if he had not been interrupted by Gary's protest.

"You should know when
It's 'less' or it's 'fewer'.
Like people who were
Never raised in a sewer."

"I know how to write!" he snarled. "I've written and published three books!!"

Cloak knew he was lying via his Earthsight. Still, the Realm Walker continued:

"I hate these word crimes
Like 'I could care less'
That means you do care.
At least a little.
Don't be a moron!
You better slow down
And use the right pronoun.
Show the world you're no clown."

"I'm not a clown!" he screeched like a coulrophobic -- that is, someone who's irrationally afraid or dislikes clowns.

Cloak ignored this outburst, and continued:

"Say you got an 'i', 't'
Followed by apostrophe, 's'.
Now what does that mean?
You would not use 'it's' in this case,
As a possessive.
It's a contraction.
What's a contraction?
Well, it's the shortening of a word, or a group of words, by the omission of a sound or letter."

"You pretentious, supercilious, overzealous --" he blustered, and Cloak wondered how many of those words he actually knew the definitions of. But the Realm Walker proceeded.

"Okay, now here's some notes.
Syntax you're always mangling.
No 'x' in 'espresso'.
Your participle's dangling.
But I don't want your drama,
If you really wanna
Leave out that Oxford comma."

"What? What are you talking about?" he said, perplexed now.

"Just keep in mind
That 'be', 'see', 'are', 'you'
Are words, not letters.
Get it together.
Use a spellchecker.
You should never
Write words using numbers,
Unless you're seven.
Or your name is Buffoon!"

"Huh?"

"I hate these word crimes
You really need a
Full time proofreader,
You dumb monkeyfeather.
Well, you should hire
Some cunning linguist
To help you distinguish
What is proper English."

"Hey!" Gary said, not missing the jibe.

"One thing I ask of you --
Time to learn your homophones is past due.
Learn to diagram a sentence, too.
Always say 'to whom',
Don't ever say 'to who',
And listen up when I tell you this.
I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis.
You finished second grade,
I hope you can tell,
If you're 'doing good' or 'doing well'.
Figure out the difference.
Irony is not coincidence.
And I thought that you'd gotten it through your skull
About what's figurative and what's literal.
Oh, but, just now, you wrote that
You literally couldn't get out of bed.
That really makes me want to literally smack a crowbar upside your stupid head!"

"Don't act like you're better than me," he growled.

"I read your chapter.
It's quite apparent.
Your grammar's errant.
You're incoherent.
Saw your summary.
It's really fantastic.
(That was sarcastic.)
'Cause you're craptastic."

"Hey!!"

"I hate these word crimes.
Your prose is dopey.
Think you should only
Write in emoji.
Oh, you're a lost cause!
Go back to preschool.
Get out of the gene pool.
Try your best not to drool."

"I don't drool!" he protested yet again.

"Never mind I give up
Really now I give up."

He replied, in rhythm:

"Go away!"

"No," Cloak said, "I've come to destroy the source of these reality shifts."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2017, 07:45:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Power is Gone

"You can't kill me," Gary said. "I'm the Ghostwriter! I'm impervious to anything you try to do to me!!"

Cloak waited a beat, before saying, "The Ghostwriter, eh? You chose that for your nom de plume?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

"Well, you're not a ghost, nor having any ghost-related powers, and you're not a writer. Not a good one, anyway." Cloak said, with acidic, acerbic tones.

"Hey!"

"And the fact of the matter is that I was not referring to you, boy," Cloak said, choosing not to use to use the moniker. "You are merely using the power of the source of the shifts which clearly has no sentience or will of its own."

Cloak glanced at the typewriter, which was more black than yellow now. Cloak greatly suspected that the power was --

"You're stupid!" he cried, sounding even more childish. "The power is mine, and mine alone. That typewriter is nothing but my instrument -- I can always use another one with its destruction. The power is mine."

"I see no indication of that," Cloak said, coolly.

"The power is mine!!"

"Who are you trying to convince?" Cloak asked, bluntly. "Me or yourself?"

He spluttered a bit at this without any really answering. And, without another word, Cloak blasted a now fully monochrome typewriter with a concussive blast of golden-scarlet energy. It was smashed to smithereens. Cloak was weary, finding it too easy.

The look on Gary's face was priceless. "You had no right to do that!"

"You had no right to treat reality like your plaything," Cloak said, turning to face him. This caused Gary to cower a bit before Cloak's intimidating presence, before catching himself. "Especially since you clearly have not fathomed the possible ramifications and consequences of such actions. You never even considered what possible destructive impact of your meddling with forces you do not comprehend, have you?"

Of everything that happened today, Gary never thought that he would be told off by some loser in a cloak.

"You still have the mindset of a child, obviously thinking your actions affect no one but yourself." Cloak continued his scornful lecture. "But they do, boy. Other people are not just NPCs in your self-serving, self-indulgent, egotistical narrative. There are people in this world -- people who you'd like and people you won't, people who would like you and people who won't -- all people with feelings, emotions, desires, hopes, and dreams, just as you have your own. You need to learn this. The world doesn't revolve around you."

"You don't know me," Gary growled in false bravado that Cloak nonetheless saw through. "You don't know me! I am the best writer in the world, and just because the idiots like you can't recognize them for they are --"

"Oh, I recognize them for what they are," Cloak said, cutting across him, "a manifesto of a disturbed mind with lousy, second-grade grammar and structure."

"My power will make everyone see me for the wonder I am!"

"'Your' power has seen its end with the end of the typewriter," Cloak said.

"Then why has everything I written remained?" he said, as if he had just shown a trump card. But Cloak held up Gary's crappily written manuscript. "Where'd you get that? Wh-what do you plan to do with it?"

Cloak tightened his grip and ignited the manuscript, and all the changes to reality began to burn away with the manuscript.

"NO!!!" Gary shrieked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on June 08, 2017, 08:35:56 AM

There's an element of strangeness to this. Probably because I have a genuine (and contextually understandable) soft spot for the children who write so called "Mary Sues." I was one once, ten or twelve years ago now. I may have been a precocious teenager with excellent grammar, but the tropes were all still there. "Something Seriously Bizarre For You To Peruse," way back in the archives, is that plot made manifest for laughs and entertainment. I never had grandiose fantasies alone. ; ]

So...I'm a little defensive of these scared selfish kids, living in a world where they have no power over anything in their lives. Lives that are often broken by violence and abuse, or alcoholic parents. A person who wants to run into a fantasy where they are all-powerful is often someone who wants to escape a world where the opposite is true. They get better eventually. Wiser.

With alllll that aside, I suspect from some of this that you have a plan of sorts in mind, and I shouldn't rush to be wary. Let's see what they do. Also Cloak's grammar song was the best, as was your deliberately bad grammar. XD

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2017, 09:01:21 AM

Yeah, but remember, Gary is nineteen, despite looking younger. (And that quality is like me, I look younger than 320. ;)) But Gary also had rather closeted sadistic qualities to those he felt that wronged him. He is also quick to write off people. As not all people in abusive relationships are inherently good people, nor are all inherently bad people. If you've read the other books, you know that I've had a verbally abusive mother, so you know where i stand on it.

And I also wanted to show that Cloak didn't exactly handle this in the best of ways, that Cloak can be as flawed as anyone else.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Gary Gone

"NO!!!" Gary shrieked.

"It's over, boy," Cloak said, as reality bounded back to its original state.

"No! I'll just . . . just rewrite it all!" Gary said, sounding very much like a person grasping at straws -- or a corporatist at a town hall. "I'll just rewrite everything again."

"The power was never yours," Cloak said.

"IT WAS TOO, YOU LIAR!!!" he raged, as he used a brooen piece of pencil and hurriedly scribbled on a scrap piece of paper, stopping every now and then, expecting it to have come true. Whennit did not, he just tried again.

Cloak was concerned now. He didn't think Gary would take it this hard, that Gary would cleave so ardently to this idea, this fantasy, this delusion that the power was his and not issuing from the typewriter. The Realm Walker had no idea how desperate that Gary was for that kind of power over people, how much he wanted not to be that bullied kid that no one seems to like.

"It won't --"

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!" he shrieked, sounding quite demented.

Cloak felt a stab of guilt. He did this. He broke this nineteen-year-old kid. He had to destroy the typewriter -- the thing was too dangerous. It was as dangerous as the Reality Gem, especially in the unstable hands of someone like Gary. But Cloak acknowledged that he didn't have to be so rough, cold, and dismissive with his rhetoric, but he never thought that it would shatter him like this.

"Listen," Cloak said, gently, "you have to stop this. It won't work, reality will stay the --"

"GO AWAY!!!!"

Cloak was tempted to try to talk him out of his delusions, but he also knew when a task would prove to be futile.

"Just go away," he said, as he tried again.

Cloak, despite feeling aggrieved and guilt-ridden, complied.

***

It took his parents a long time before they realize anything was wrong. They blamed him and scapegoated him for their problems, and it was a very unhappy household. They did not immediately recognize that something was wrong until several days later.

Gregory ate very little and very reluctantly took care of himself, still desperate to able to change and alter reality at a whim like used to. He was still convinced that the power was his, and the fact that it was working . . . well, he didn't dwell on that for any extended period of time. It would go against the narrative he had, and he rejected anything that debunked or contradicted it.

The power was his. Not the typewriter, not the manuscript. It was his. His . . .

Eventually, both his parents had him commited to a mental health facility with a questionable reputation, despite the financial expense. It was just something else that they could blame him for. They both found him an absolute disappointment in a son and a human being. They saw him as a constant source of shame and embarrassment.

Parents of the Year, they were not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2017, 10:03:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Just One of Those Days

Life at RAF, meanwhile, returned to normal relatively quickly.

Got to work late 'cause my alarm was busted
The boss chewed me out and everybody's disgusted
'Cause it's one of those days, it's just one of those days.

Shenmue found herself feeling pretty disgusted as this happened to her, as she facepalmed.

"I lost one of my socks in the drier.
I can't find my wallet and my hair is on fire!
Just one of those days, it's just one of those days.

This happened to Gaz, as she put out the fire rather quickly and found the sock clinging for life on the top of the drier.

I just wrapped my ship around a tree.

Yarin stood, wondering how he did this, and what a kukui tree was doing here.

A big swarm of locusts is following me.

And Noelle fled on all four of her hooves, leaving great noticeable tracks behind her.

"There's not even anything good on TV!
It's just one of those day, it's just one of those days."

A displeased Abby was calmly flicking through channels on the television in her thread.

"Left all my Megadeth CDs out in the sun.
Got a Coke bottle stuck on the end of my tongue.
It's just one of those days, gonna be one of those days.

GH was despondent about his CDs, but when questioned about the Coke bottle, he claimed that Cloaky dared him to do it. Something the Realm Walker ardently denied.

The Knights tied me up and covered me with ants
And I spilled toxic waste on my brand new pants!
Just one of those days, ever have one of those days?

Demos was more distraught over his pants than the Knight thing. But they were stupid enough to use ordinary ropes to bind a pyrokinetic. Their fault.

The bank called me up and told me I'm overdrawn.

Mr. Guy was rubbing his temples at this, because it was obviously a mistake. A clerical error.

Some freaks are burnin' crosses out on our front lawn.

Blaze found this and quickly removed and extinguished them. Then he went to find the perpetrators.

And I can't believe it, all the Cheetos are gone.
It's just, just one of those, one of those days.
Just one of those, one of those days.

A sad Leatherhead looked at an empty Cheetos bag, before discardingnit into the trash can with all the other rubbish.

The F.B.I. has got a tap on my phone.

This happened as Parker discarded a rather beaten up-looking smartphone.

Those darn Cadmus spies won't leave me alone!
Shouldn't have got up this morning, should've known.
It's just one of those days, it's just one of those days.

Saffa was in the middle of taking care of these Cadmus spies as this played silently.

A 747 crashed into a pigpen.

And Oceanspray was on the scene with Duff and RYTX as part of a cleanup crew.

And there's nothin' but tater-tots for dinner again
It's just one of those days.
Never mind, it's just one of those days.

Ash sighed as she stopped rummaging through her refrigerator, and shut it, as she plopped down in a comfy chair in her thread.

"Big steamroller just ran over my com
And I cut myself shaving and they're dropping the bomb.
It's just one of those days
That's all, it's just one of those days.

This detailed Aquilai's current day and mission.

"It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days (just one of those, one of those days).
It's just one of those days.

It was just one of those days for RAF.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6ePTkWZlxZU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 09, 2017, 06:28:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Wave Goodbye

Dino was dispatched to take out a fiend that was threatening the water control administration at a water purification center. Dino was questioning whether she was the right RAFian for this job. She wouldn't be able to get into any really small, enclosed areas. Her compact form could only do so much.

As she made her way through the facility, she was honestly surprised with how large and -- well, not extravagant, but expansive it was. These people clearly took water purification very seriously. Which she had to applaud them for (but not really, ankylotyrannosaurs have a difficult time applauding, or applauding to be loud enough to be heard).

Each footstep of hers echoed ominously. The facility had been evacuated when the fiend decided to take on the water control administration. It was a good thing, in Dino's opinion. Reduce the chance of losing human lives. Hopefully, any collateral damage would be kept to a minimum. It was thinking about this she ran into the fiend.

The creature was the size of an adult with human-like eyes with yellow sclera and black pupil. Its head was yellow with black, cauliflower ears and it had no mouth, just a tube that connected to its chest. It had a silver crest, not unlike the yellow one of an Empoleon, directly above its eyes. Its round, spherical body was emblazoned with a silver "X" with green studs on this "X", with it being yellow above, left and right of this "X". It was orange below the "X", and there was a growth on its back that resembled a yellow Hal 9000 with a red light. It had no hands, just a metallic harpoon for a right hand and a compressed water generator on the left. Its shoulders were round and orange, and its upper arms were white. The lower arm housing the short harpoon was yellow with purple at the orifice in which the harpoon extruded. The top of the compressed water generator that replace his left lower arm was yellow with purple studs with a white ribbed accordion structure below it, ending in a silver ring with a yellow nozzle. Its thighs and crotch were white and its lower legs were yellow with purple bands near the knee. Its feet were white flippers with yellow edges.

It had instigated the battle, showing outright hostility towards Dino. Dino blinked, surprised by this, because she was still intimidating in her compact form. She could easily eat him in a couple of bites.

It slammed its left arm down, and forced up a wall of water. Was it trying to use it as a shield? It wouldn't work, Dino decided, as she was quickly sizing up the room of this place, trying to decide whether or not that there was enough room for her full size.

But, suddenly, it fired a harpoon, before giving a small hop backwards. It bounced off her ankylosaurid shell, but she felt the force of impact. It was enough make her angry. And it wouldn't like her when she's angry.

She charged forward, easily breaching the water wall, and savagely headbutting the fiend a fair distance away. And this was in her compact form, mind you. But the creature recovered annoyingly quickly.

At the second harpoon, Dino made a snap decision. There was sufficient space here to grow to her full and considerable size. Maybe not to be comfortable, but just enough to maneuver around and end this quickly. So she did.

Then she wasted no time in chomping down on the fiend, feeling the life drain from it, then spitting it out. She wasn't about to eat it, especially as it tasted like a week-old liver and onions.

She returned to her compacted form, and walked out. Mission complete.

***

Demos called it a "webusapien", and he actually designed it to protect the administration. No one believed him.

***

"Well, it certainly made waves," Malice said, with a laugh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2017, 05:21:00 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLII:
THE COMING OF GALACTRON
CHAPTER ONE:
Star Light, Star Bright

Cloak was dispatched to fight a fiend that had somehow gotten onto an abandoned satellite base's platform. Cloak knew why he was chosen for this mission. It was due to that whole mess with the hypergravity machine. His physiology allows him to adapted the easiest to shifts in gravity, whether sudden or otherwise, the best out of anyone.

Cloak had hitched a ride from Yarin to get to the satellite base -- he hadn't any idea that this was here. Apparently, this evolved from the international space station, and Cloak remained oblivious to it. He wasn't aware that human technology advanced to this point yet.

The minute his foot touched the metal surface of the base, Cloak could tell that, insofar that he could Metalsight, the base was abandoned. But it did not have a feeling of being a derelict relic of a bygone age. Everything was clean and in working order, though the absence of anyone else gave a rather ominous feeling. There was still oxygen production and such, but the gravity generator (which Cloak suspected was taken from G.C. Domable's hypergravity unit designs -- which was both quick for the timeframe considering and probably plagiarizing his work).

Cloak stepped quickly and quietly through the corridors of this satellite base, until he saw the fiend through his Metalsight. It was just on the boundary of his Metalsight. There were many twisting corridors between him and it, though. Cloak was starting to find this monotonous.

But he did it anyway. He walked the winding, labyrinthine corridors to find this lightfooted fiend. There was a few times where the fiend vanished from his Metalsight, and Cloak knew immediately it was because it was jumped. They were in a low-gravity situation here, so it wasn't surprising.

Cloak knew that this would eventually lead to low-gravity combat, something that he, admittedly, hasn't had a lot of experience with, nor really trained in. But he believed that he would equip himself well. It was then the creature showed itself in some sort of hangar structure.

The creature was roughly the size of an adult human with human-like eyes with star-shaped pupils, dark purple irises, and pale purple sclera. It had a greenish-blue head, crotch, forearms, and lower legs. It had anime-like silver hair and a long, silver, star-tipped ponytail. It wore a silver upside-down-star-shaped tunic with a green "V" on it, and had a white chest and a black abdomen. Its feet and right hand (it didn't have a left one, possessing a silver-tipped arm cannon with a star-shaped orifice instead). It also had silver star on its right elbows, both its knees, and its forehead. Its upper arms and thighs were white.

It saw Cloak and growled, as it jumped up and forming several star-shaped energy projectiles which orbited around the creature, forming a sort of shield. Then it tried to run into Cloak with this star shield. Cloak dodged it, flipping and somersaulting over it. But he had failed to account for the low gravity, so his flip and somersault was higher than intended and he landed further than intended.

Cloak quickly took inventory of which elements were available to him. Earth and Wood elements was a no go -- the only presence of those elements here were in pencils and they weren't going to be useful to him.

He dodged another charge.

The Air element probably would prove ineffective -- and it was fortunate that Air was even available as element here. But, sadly, Cloak write it off as not useful in this situation.

He slide under the creature who tried to jump into him.

The Fire element would possibly eat up the air in here, and potentially be more dangerous. Not to mention Cloak's mild pyrophobia still makes him hesitant to implement it.

Another slide under the creature.

Metal is very possible -- the walls, floor, and ceiling were steel. But he could feel something else beneath his feet, and when the creature attack again, Cloak just reacted.

He opened a fissure, ruptured a pipe, and the creature was sprayed of water of the force of a fire hose. Then Cloak froze the water in place, as if someone hit a pause button. Then he returned the water to the pipe, as if someone hit rewind. Then he ferrokinetically sealed the rupture and then the fissure.

"He looked over and saw the creature's lifeless body, and deduced that water must have been its weakness. He turned and called Yarin to pick him up.

***

Demos called the fiend a "sutasapien". He designed it for space exploration and low-gravity combat.

***

"Made it see stars," Malice said, with a chuckle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 11, 2017, 05:29:50 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
There's a Party Here in RAF

GH strummed his guitar before sing:

"There's a party here in RAF,
There's excitement in the air!
People pouring in from near and far
'Cause Firmitas and Cloaky are gonna have a wedding."

Firmitas* was a swan-form Realm Walker that became the second RAFian Realm Walker.

"There's a party here in RAF,
Everybody will be there.
So if you're a yearly or a mod,
Do somethin' with yer hair!
You mustn't wear an outfit that's naughty!!
A dress that's unraveling just won't do.
No earrings that are tasteless or gaudy.
You're gonna look gorgeous when I get through!
There's a party here in RAF,
So, I'm goin' to paint ze town.
If you want to see what colors are,
Follow me around!"

Then the rest of the RAFians sang with GH.

"Cloaky's gettin' married, and it's gonna be
The wedding of the century."

Then GH sang:

"My buddy's gettin' married, and you're gonna see
Just how much I can do!
You've heard of your safari, bar mitzvahs,
Baba-tua-luau, a sweet sixteen.
Well, none of them compare to what this is!
The food'll be disgusting, by evening you'll be busting!"

Saffa, Abby, and Gaz sang, noting:

"There's a party here in RAF,
And everything's all aglow."

Then GH sang:

"And now we take you down to the forum
Where everyone has celebrated all night long.
Without Malice and all of her, uh, malice,
Everybody's happy!!
What could possibly go wrong??"

Then some sneaky Cadmus agents sang:

"There's a party here in RAF,
And we're gonna rob 'em blind!"

Their Amanda Waller-type leader sang:

"While they're all munching caviar --
Create a small disturbance,
I'll sneak up from behind."

Dylan sang:

"There's a party here in RAF
And the loot is pourin' in!
I like this wedding stuff so far!
Maybe if I'm pleasant,
I'll get to keep a present!"

GH sang:

"We've ordered just a few tasteful flowers.
The valets, sir, will carefully park for you.
The bridesmaids have been dressing for hours!
Girls, you look just lovely, and so grownup too!
There's a party here in RAF.
Guests are filling up the room.
But there's something missing . . . yes . . . ah hah!"

Richard sang:

"Where is the groom?"

GH immediately went to fetch him, and he was by his favorite meditation spot, and GH chided, "Guess who's going to be late for his own wedding!!"

Then he noticed the look on Cloak's face, "You're . . . you're not getting cold feet are you?"

"No, it just -- never mind."

Then he sang:

"There's a party here in RAF.
And the party's all for her and me.
Just look, you guys, at where we are,
And how our dreams have come to be!"

Meanwhile, in her separate thread, Firmitas sang:

"There's a party here in RAF,
And I can't believe it's true.
After all this waiting, here we are,
We'll finally get so say 'I do!'"

"I never, ever had a real family."

"I never, ever had a real true friend."

Then both sang:

"Someone who could just understand me . . . "

Leatherhead sang:

"Hey, c'mon, Mr. Cloak! This mushy stuff has gotta end!"

GH sang:

"There's a party here in RAF
And it's starting right away.
Let's getcha ready, 'cause you're the star!
Hey, c'mon, it's your wedding day!"

The rest of the RAFians sang:

"Cloaky's gettin' married, and it's gonna be
The wedding of the century.
Amazing how Cloak could've come so far . . ."

GH said, "They're finally gettin' married!"

Richard said, "They're finally gettin' married!"

The Cadmus agents queried, "They're finally gettin' married?"

Dylan said, "Look at all these presents!"

Firmitas said, "We're finally getting married!"

Leatherhead said, "You're finally gettin' married!"

Cloak said, "I'm finally gettin' married!"

The rest of the RAFians sang:

"They're finally gettin' married
At the party in RAF!!
Such a sight to see!
Come on, go with me,
To the party in RAF!"

Then Cloak awoke. He easily recognized why he had the dream -- he still had underlying wishes to be married, to be a family man. But he also believed that it was an impossibility.

He was an outcast from the Nexus and other Realm Walkers. He was a pariah, spoken of and about with scorn and dismissal. Having a Realm Walker wife . . . it would never happen . . .

---

SONG SOURCE: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8H8HlBGP594

* Latin for strength, according to Wikitionary.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2017, 08:02:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Biovore

Estelore was on her usual sojourns across the galaxy, cataloguing the various species and how they have changed and evolved since her last visit to the planet. Many may have not found such a thing entertaining or fulfilling, as the task would never be done. But Esty embraced the neverending task, finding purpose and enjoyment out of it -- and that's what really mattered, that she herself found it self-fulfilling. After this sojourn, she would return to RAF and add what she found to the database -- the most extensive database on different species that she was aware of, thanks not only to her endeavors but Cloak's remembrances of Realms once visited and might exist in this one.

She would also talk to him at length about the species she found, and she received a rush of vindication when she discovers the existence of a species that Cloak did not expect to exist in this realm, the Prime Universe, as he calls it.

And, she must say, this trip had been absolutely wonderful thus far. Some species hadn't changed much, it is true, but evolution takes time to take effect. You couldn't expect them to reach a certain level than spontaneously metamorphize into something drastically different enough to be labeled a different species. True evolution doesn't work like that.

Then she stopped. She felt a stab of fear. What she saw couldn't exist. What she saw was a myth, a legend, a story. It could not be possibly exist.
This phantom that should not exist was heading for a planet called So-Chaitheamh (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/so-chaitheamh#Scottish_Gaelic). This planet was just starting to support sentient lifeforms which were just about to create tools, a species called Besteedbaars (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/besteedbaar#Dutch). She found herself rather fond of these nearly sapient ursine species, which looked rather like distant relatives of the Cutiepies, as well. They looked like a cross between a teddy bear and a Care Bear, then had the cutsie dial turned up to eleven. They had never really known violence or any real hardship -- other than environmental, from time to time.

It was with great trepidation that Estelore watched this . . . this thing head for the planet, so lush with life. This thing was just barely smaller than Jupiter, and it looked like a rocky, barren planet moving through the vastness of space on its own accord, with no visible means of propulsion. It's face looked deceptively innocent, like that snowman from that stop-motion "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" movie, but with red eyes and black sclera.

It maneuvered close to the planet's atmosphere -- which caused tremendous havoc on the planet of So-Chaitheamh. The Besteedbaars didn't know what to make of this. They had never endured such cataclysmic events. This was without precedence to them.

Then it proceeded to suck, as if it was slurping soup. The atmosphere was the first thing to be stripped away, then a blur of color which Estelore knew were the fauna, flora, and the Besteedbaars themselves. So-Chaitheamh was now barren and lifeless. And she, Estelore, stood by idly and watched it happen. She did nothing, as she was taken aback by this monstrous myth being real.

It was the Biovore, the Devourer of Life -- Galactron!

This was impossible! This creature cannot possible exist. It just couldn't. It was just a myth. A legend. Something told to frighten children to dissuade them from misbehaving. A fairy tale. It wasn't supposed to be real. This couldn't possibly be real. It had to be faked in some way. Or -- or a waking dream. Galactron couldn't have . . . Galactron wasn't . . . Galactron . . .

But it was real. And it destroyed a species that had real potential in becoming a civilization like the Pemalites. But all that was gone now. And she had done nothing. Nothing to stop it. She didn't even pause to consider if she could do anything. Galactron, legend told, was one of the most powerful beings in existence.

She would need help dealing with this menace -- and protecting its next target.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2017, 06:07:44 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Star Fright

Estelore hurdled her way to Earth, as fast as she could. It was still a fair distance away and she did not want it to beat her there. She also feared that one of its infamous Utensils to beat her there, as well. She had to protect Earth.

Granted, the Earth wasn't her planet, but Sol's. However, Sol was just a nonsentient star, who didn't move of its own accord, like she did. Which is one reason she couldn't have planets of her own. So, she . . . adopted Earth, as if it was one of her own. She had come to care deeply about it, even becoming a RAFian in the process. That made her attachment quadrupled, at least.

She couldn't allow . . . she wouldn't allow . . . she may not be able to . . . she may not be strong enough to . . .

She had to make to Earth. She had to get there before the Biovore did. Galactron cannot extinguish the life on Earth. It cannot. She wouldn't . . . she couldn't . . . she didn't know what exactly she could do, nor what exactly the RAFians could do stop a world devourer. But they have accomplished impossible things before, and they could do so again.

She hoped.

There. There was Sol's system. She plowed past Pluto with Charon in its tenuous orbit. She skirted Neptune with its fourteen or so moons. Flirted with colliding with Uranus's twenty-seven or so moons. Skimmed Saturn's rings (imagining a Veleek within the planetary atmosphere), ignoring its sixty-seven or so moons and innumerable moonlets. Freely ignored Jovan gravity as she slingshoted around Jupiter, completely bypassing Mars in order to come upon Earth.

She was fully encapsulated in her human avatar before she even reached the planet's atmosphere . . .

***

"So, what do you think?" GH was asking Leatherhead.

He sang:

"What do I think of the pie?
What do I think of the pie?
Goodness gracious,
It's delicious.
That's what I think of the pie.
Because --"

It was this point when Estelore showed up, landing in the center of the forum where Leatherhead and GH were seated nearby and outside, with Hunter, at the mess hall. There was a significant shockwave, but not powerful enough to cause significant damage. The damage was nothing that Cloak wouldn't be able to mend with his mastery over Earth.

Estelore was in her avatar form, wearing yellow kevlar from her shoulders to her toes. He hair was tied into a tight bun. Her face showed no mirth but absolute seriousness.

"Everyone, we need to prepare!!" Estelore said. "Quickly!! Before it comes!!"

"It?" Cloak inquired, arriving on the scene. After that shockwave, it was impossible for Cloak not to notice with his Earthsight until he deliberately ignored it. "What It?"

"That old Steven King movie?" Hunter asked. It was hard to tell if he was joking or sincere.

"The Devourer of Life, the Biovore," Estelore said, as if this answered everything. "Galactron."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7rKmUJGygsE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2017, 05:34:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Utensils

Galactron travelled sedately, as his Utensils were resting within dwellings he had created on the surface of its planet-like body. There were six of these heralds that he called his Utensils.

There was a Galilean named Galilei who accepted to became the Earth Utensil to protect the planet Keplorr. He was bulky, rock armored alien. He was reddish-brown in color and have a red and orange core on the center of his chest, and have four reddish-brown fingers and three grey toes. He had black markings on his face, as well as a big mouth. When rolled up into his planetary sphere form, it is notable that his rocky plating fuses to resemble continents with his black markings looking similar to oceans; his core is hidden as well as a result.

But, upon accepting the mantile of the Earth Utensil, he was endowed with power. He was changed. He no longer had legs and moved about by gravitkinetically floating around. His skin crust becomes more jagged, as crests and peaks formed on the surface. His planetary core is engulfed in their mouth now, with a spiral circling outwards. His hands grew much larger as well. The most notable change, however, are the three smaller orbiting planetoids that spawned around Galilei, caught in his gravitational field. They each have a little face on them that resembles a normal Galilean in orbit mode. He was now completely beholden to Galactron, with his power set now terrakinesis, enhanced gravikinesis, gravikinetic flight, gravitkinetic orbiting, enhanced strength, enhanced durability, sharp mountain peaks on his person, and space survivability. And, yet, he maintained a sense of self. He still remembered why he did this, and he was still quite mortal.

The second Utensil recruited was a Bolian (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Bolian) by the name of By Sect. He was as tall as an adult human male, and was completely bald. He had bluish-gray skin with a distinctive, bifurcating, cartilaginous ridge running vertically along the center of his head and face, and partway down his chest. Galactron saved him from floating listlessly after his derelict spacecraft exploded, saved him from moments near death. He quickly agreed to be the Metal Utensil of Galactron. He was imbued with power that turned his body into a coppery, metallic blue and he was gifted with a metal umbrella, like one you would find in a tropical drink, and it could block any manner of attack. While he still retained his sense of self, he had granted Galactron a greater degree of loyalty, and would act on no one else's command, as this power endowed him with ferrokinesis, enhanced strength, enhanced durability, and immunity from disease. Despite this, he was still quite mortal, and not that proficient a fighter.

The third Utensil recruited was a female Tamaranean named Corona. She had golden skin, reddish hair and was able to convert ultraviolet radiation into energy for flight, producing a distinctive contrail that seems to flow from her long hair. She had been exiled from her beloved Tamaran because of a acknowledged error of judgement that led to problems that would simply be solved with her exile. She agreed to this and left her homeplanet in disgrace. As she made her way from Tamaran, she made a deal with Galactron to spare it by becoming his Utensil of Fire, granting her pyrokinesis, fiery hair and contrail, emerald green-colored energy generation from her hands and eyes, accelerated healing factor, self-sustained flight in vacuum and atmosphere, superhuman strength, superhuman reflexes, enhanced stamina, superhuman condition, superhuman endurance, superhuman agility, linguistic assimilation (via lip contact), invulnerability, self-sustenance, tolerance to extreme environmental conditions, experienced hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist, experienced use of various weaponry,  and extended longevity. Galactron also granted her a staff with a bladed tip that resembled a dinner knife greatly, which could create energy slashes with each swing of the staff. This transformation also made her one of his more volatile Utensils, and she has to exercise greater control over her emotions than ever before, coming off as cold and calculating. Like the other two, she was just as mortal, but exceedingly powerful.

The fourth Utensil recruited was a female Shi'ar named Deathtalon as the Air Utensil. She looked like a human female but with feathered crest in lieu of hair, worn in a triangular fashion with one peak at the top of the head, and the other two just beneath her shoulders. She had hollow bones and avian wings on her arms, making her an evolutionary throwback, a mutant. It was because of this she was exile and denied her rightful standing in Shi'ar society. She was seen as a freak, and her bloodthirsty attitude didn't help matters. She joined Galactron be cause she saw it as a way to get revenge and sate her bloodlust. Upon becoming the Air Utensil, her feathers became tiny cyclones -- every single one -- but also still acted as feathers. She found flight much easier. She gained aerokinesis and powerful telepathy, in addition her her self-powered flight, and talon-like claws. She also gain a pitchfork-like dinner fork as a weapon, which can fire off concussive blasts of energy from the prongs. She became exceeding dangerous with these abilities and proved to be the most vicious of the Utensils, though still perfectly mortal, having given herself completely over to her bloodlust and Galactron, very nearly losing all sense of self.

The fifth Utensil recruited was the male Mon Calamari named Paszebar, becoming the Water Utensil. He was a bipedal, rusty red, and amphibious with a high-domed head, webbed hands and large, goggle-like eyes. In addition to being webbed, his hand presented three suction-cup like holes on its palm, and featured five claw-tipped fingers: one opposable thumb, two long middle fingers, and two very short outer fingers. Although they were shaped like flippers, his feet could nevertheless fit into boots designed for human-like feet. He was a vigorous swimmer and was capable of living underwater for long periods. He accepted to be a Utensil in order to protect his planet of Mon Calamari from Galactron's hunger. He gained hydrokinesis and a bendy straw-like three-section staff, which can redirect energy projectiles. His skin became an iridescent blue with sapphire blue eyes. He became even more aloof and unforgiving, still retaining his sense of self, though still mortal.

The last Utensil recruited was an Androzani tree named, Xylocorpus or "Xy", the Wood Utensil. It looked like an ordinary conifer, unless it decided to shape itself into a more humanoid form, looking like demurred woman, despite not technically being female. It became the Wood Utensil to protect its people from the savage hunger of Galactron. But doing so, it lost its conifer base form, instead looking like one of those undetailed, faceless wooden puppets. It still retained its shapeshifting ability and its ability to separate its lifeforce from its body and ride in a host (always a female adult, as males and children have been deemed inadequate for some time), though the latter is always temporary with its status as a Utensil. It also gained a staff that looked like a wooden spoon, which could catch energy projectiles int the cup of the "spoon staff" and could be launched back at the originator, like a catapult.

Despite being on the same team, that didn't mean that they all got along. Galilei didn't like Deathtalon's bloodthirstiness, and she didn't like his moralizing and hypocrisy. Corona didn't like Paszebar's dullness, and Paszebar didn't like Corona's impetuousness. By Sect didn't like Xy's lack of conversation, and Xy thought By Sect talked too much.

But they apparently had not found Earth yet . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Sakki on June 15, 2017, 12:49:36 AM

I've been dead for 3000 years on this forum and yet you're still going at this.

Jesus, I can't even get myself to write a paragraph without having at least 3 mental breakdowns.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2017, 11:00:33 AM

Yeah, I know it's a lot to go through.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Galilei

Galilei thought of the planets he was instrumental in the destruction of. Galileans, by their nature, were very diplomatic and, seemingly unlike the other Utensils, these lost civilizations did not sit well with him. Granted, he did this to.protect Keplorr, where his kind never stepped foot on, but orbited around, like electrons to an atom's nucleus, as part of their life cycle. Every Galilean has orbited around Keplorr, even he himself.

But did that really justify what he was doing? Committing genocide on countless civilizations, on countless worlds? He was complacent in all the ones that he led his . . . led his monstrous master to. He could never escape the culpability for it. What he did in service to Galactron was unforgivable, irredeemable.

He knew he wouldn't be seen as a hero for becoming an Utensil, a tool, a herald of this villainous evil devoid of compassion and mercy. And was he, in all honesty any better? He did this to selfishly protect his own planet. Sure, he thought he was being pretty selfless at the time, but he has had far more time to mull it over.

His family would never recognize him now. Galactron had said that he had evolved the Galilean to his evolutionary zenith. But Galilean saw his reflection in the waters of the last planet he betrayed and conveyed to his master. He was a monster. He only barely resembled a Galilean now. People wouldn't revel in his imagined selfless heroism, but recoil in terror at the corrupt monster he became. True, his power has been ripped open to their absolute zenith potential.

How would he ever be able to show his face to any other Galilean? Who would ever love a thing like him? But his decision to become Galactron's Utensil was right, wasn't it? He had noble intentions, and surely history would remember that, right? But Galilei knew better than this. Knew just how fickle history could be towards the people's reputations who have done some morally questionable things. Just how quickly things could be forgotten, just how the more salacious and lascivious events color it, typically draining any truth from it.

The more time he spent as an Utensil, the more jaded and prone to self-pity Galilei found himself becoming. He was absolutely nonplussed with the enjoyment that Deathtalon took from doing what they did. He couldn't fathom not feeling compassion for the poor races that they had to kill off.

***

"Galactron?" Cloak said, perplexed. "Do you mean 'Galactus'? Or 'Unicron'?"

"Who?" Estelore said, still looking harried. "And how can you not know of Galactron? You, who knows god knows how many non-Terran species? Yet you do not know of the most dangerous . . . the most powerful . . ."

"Esty, what has got you all hot and bothered?" GH asked.

"'Hot and bothered'?" Hunter queried, giving GH a sidelong look.

"Shut up," GH said, offhand. His attention was still on Esty. Her tight hair bun was actually loosening with her fretting over this Galactron, a few locks of hair from her avatar's head fell making her look like a woman on the edge.

Everyone assembled knew how serious this was. Estelore did not often lose her calm, her composure. Only when she's sufficiently emotional, with extreme emotions like anger or fear. It was blatantly obvious that she was scared. Frightened. Which meant whatever this Galactron was -- it wasn't anything to be flippant about, or anything to be taken lightly.

"Estelore," Cloak said, calmly. He secretly hoped to handle this better than that Ghostwriter business a week or so ago. "Estelore, best to start from the beginning."

Estelore regained her composure, and calmed herself.

"Now," Cloak said, "who is Galactron?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2017, 06:06:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Deathtalon

Deathtalon had to admit, she was taking to being the Air Utensil with vigor and relish. She found each and every civilization that they discovered as being unbearably weak and even unworthy of existence. She held no qualms about reporting it to their master about it. They deserved to be eradicated, in her view. Only the strong deserved to survive, and that's why she believed in her actions, on behalf of Galactron.

Once she made her judgement that a planet was suitable enough, or if the inhabitants just plain disgusted her with their weakness, she would send for Galactron immediately. There were times when she had to stain her claws with blood. She relished and cherished these times. She loved to hear the screams -- it was like a lullaby to her. Her pitchfork-like weapon was stained deliberately with the blood of the fallen, with Deathtalon seeing it as a sort of trophy. She cackled wickedly as she did so. She was basically a Shi'ar Bellatrix Lestrange, only without the magic.

She was quite eager to find new planets for Galactron, eager to find planets who were, in her warped ideological view, unworthy to live. Eager to stain her claws and her weapon with blood and gore. And yet, she never led Galactron back to the Shi'ar homeworld. Despite her exile and despite her denial to the throne, she never had Galactron devour her former homeworld. She seemingly hated her kind and her homeworld, but she still secretly hoped to regain her rightful place on the throne, her birthright. It wasn't remotely likely, however, and she was very aware of it. But if the Devourer consumed the planet, that wouldn't be possible at all. However, it did fuel her merciless viciousness and remorseless savagery. She even could breathbend, though she called it the "shut up technique", she saved this for individuals who refused to shut up or when their screaming became grating on her ears.

However, she couldn't stand Galilei's constant hesitation and self-pity. She found his constant self-reflection and doubts annoyingly encumbering, having no self-restraint herself. She rather have no one and nothing holding her back from smiting those, in her view, were unworthy of the gift of life. She believed that she was the one to be the judge, jury, and executioner of everyone, that she had the inherent right to decide if people should or should not live.

Just then, she sensed a vapor trail of sorts. She followed it like a bloodhound with a scent.

***

"Legend says that Galactron was a denizen of the universe before this one," Esty said, glancing at Cloak. "Merged with the egg, the seed that led to the Big Bang."

Prompted, Cloak responded, "There was no Walker record of such a thing happening. This is the only universe existed as the Prime Universe."

"Legends can always be wrong on the specifics," Estelore said, swiftly reestablishing her composure. "But it is certainly old, maybe even as old as the universe itself. Beyond that, I don't know much about its history before it became Galactron -- it is a legend after all, as I wasn't born when he first came into being. Hell, up until a few moments - days? Weeks? -- ago, I thought it was just a myth. A fairy tale. A tall tale."

Estelore shook her avatar's head, to clear it.

"But it's history doesn't matter," she continued. "We must find a way to either kill it or overpower it before it makes a meal of Earth."

"Why are you so sure that it'll come to Earth?" GH said.

"I don't," Estelore admitted. "But there is a statistical chance that this might be the next planet for it to approach."

"How good a statistical chance?" Cloak inquired.

"Pretty good," Esty said, vaguely. Cloak got the feeling Esty was hiding something from them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2017, 07:52:02 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Corona

Corona had accepted her mistakes, as she followed Deathtalon on the trail, with the other four following behind. She had accepted that she had made mistakes, many of which were unforgivable, but she had accepted that they were made and there was no changing them. Was she still making a mistakes by being the Fire Utensil? Probably. Undoubtedly probably. Undeniably probable. But she became one to keep Tamaran untouched and unmolested by Galactron.

Sure, this forced her to do unspeakable things, like genocide of civilizations of various stages of development. Worlds analogous to the World War I era, the Frontier era, the Medieval era, the prehistoric era, etcera, etcera. Corona didn't feel proud of her actions, but Tamaran was safe. It was safe. That was her only concern, she told herself, that should be her only concern.

But she couldn't help but remember. Remember all the civilizations she help to ruin, the civilizations she helped murder. She wanted to just forget these atrocities. Just . . . forget them all. But her mind wouldn't allow her to forget, tried to make her feel for these lost civilizations, tried to make her feel guilty and shame for it. She just wanted to forget all this -- but she just couldn't.

Her hands were filthy with the blood of millions -- trillions! --and she was not given the luxury to forget. Not a single world. She wasn't as bloodthirsty as Deathtalon, nor as introverted as Galilei. She wore her emotions, her passion, on her sleeve as all Tamaraneans did. Her becoming a Utensil just made her a bit more emotionally unstable and reckless, and seemingly cursed her with perfect recall.

What would her parents think of her? What would her big sister?

She thought she already knew. They would not be proud. They would not approve of what she did, of her actions and the company she kept. But she had no choice. She had nowhere else to go. She had . . . nothing else. But she was keeping Tamaran safe -- that was worth something.

Right?

***

"Oh, and the legend tells of one more thing," Esty said, as if she just remembered. Cloak had the feeling he realized something different, but he said nothing. "Something to be aware of -- his Utensils."

"His . . . utensils," GH said, with an "are you effing serious" sort of tone.

"Yes, that's right," Esty said, so preoccupied she did not notice GH's tone of voice. "His Utensils are heralds imbued with power. Unless I'm mistaken, it grants each one the power over air, earth, fire, metal, water, and wood. Only one per Utensil, though, and apparently complete, innate mastery over these elements."

"Those are the Six Elements," Cloak noticed.

"Are they?" Estelore said, allowing herself to become flustered again at the thought of Galactron coming here, and how it might be --

"Why would anyone want to be a Utensil?" Leatherhead asked. "It sounds like a stupid name to me."

GH didn't discipline Leatherhead for being rude, because he thought the title of "Utensil" was stupid, too.

"There could be a myriad of reasons," Estelore said, regaining her composure. It was odd seeing her so frightened. Disconcerting, even. "Maybe they had no where else to turn, maybe they were close to death until Galactron made its offer. Maybe it was to protect their homeworld from death, to spare their world from Galactron's hunger."

"Can't someone just become a Utensil to protect Earth?" Leatherhead asked.

"Don't even think about it, LH," GH said, quickly.

"What?" the crocodilian mutate said, sounding genuinely confused.

"You know what." GH said, very firmly. Very un-GH-like.

"What if all the Utensil positions are filled?" Hunter asked.

Estelore's somber expression said volumes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2017, 05:19:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Paszebar*

As they reached the Sol system, Paszebar thought of a time . . . before. Before all this, Paszebar designed and built ships. How he missed being transported by the sleek, elegant designs of a Mon Calamari ship instead of the crude hovel that Galactron saw fit to provided. He wasn't exactly proud to be one of Galactron's Utensils. He was only one out of necessity, and nothing else. If something happened to Mon Calamari in his absence, like his master going back on his word to not feed on it, he would turn on Galactron and rebel. That was the price for his loyalty -- the safety of his homeworld and her peoples.

Though he did not say it outright, but he despised being in the service of this monster. He despised that he was being forced, against his will and better judgement (with the fate of his kind and his homeworld in his hands), forced to commit atrocities in Galactron's name. He loathed what he had become, at what he had allowed to happen.

How many worlds had he sacrificed for his own? How many lives had he exchanged for Mon Calamari and Quarran lives? It didn't make it right. It didn't make it just. It just was, whether he liked it or not. It was what it was.

What was done was done. There was no going back to change it. He was keeping the Mon Calamari and Quarren homeplanet safe. Not that those Quarren backstabbers would appreciate it, he thought bitterly. Life as a Utensil has done much to make him feel bitter. With good reason, too.

He didn't particularly care for any of his fellow Utensils, either. Galilei was whiny and moody. Deathtalon was unnecessarily vicious and brutally bloodthirsty. Corona was wishy-washy and gratingly boisterous. Xy was slow and dim. By Sect never shuts up and was a complete know-it-out. Not a company he would keep by choice, but he had none here. He found Corona, actually, the most insufferable.

If he complained too much, he felt that he might risk Mon Calamari and his people, which is why he rarely said anything, and came off as aloof and unpleasant to the others.

***

"This complicates things," Cloak said.

"Nah, you think?" GH said, voice acrid with corrosive sarcasm. Then he found that his pants leg was on fire. "Hey!"

He started to beat out the fire, but found it was extinguished as quickly as it was formed.

"Next time, watch your flippancy," Cloak said, with an odd mischievous glint in his eyes. GH found that he really didn't care for it.

"Are we doomed?" Leatherhead asked, looking scared. Close to tears.

"Yes," Estelore said, with the lack of her usual tack. Cloak looked at her with a skeptical eye. She was definitely concerned with something that she was not telling them.

Leatherhead started bawling, "I DON'T WANNA DIE!!"

"Nice, Esty, nice," GH admonished as he tried to calm the six-year-old crocodilian mutate down, shushing him to try soothe his fears.

"We haven't fought back yet," Cloak said, defiantly. "We're not finished yet. We're not doomed. Not close. The battle is never decided until the final blow is delivered."

---

* "Pass the bar".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 19, 2017, 06:34:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
By Sect

By Sect, ironically, owed Galactron his life. He was drifting through space, on the destroyed wreckage of his transport ship. He never found out what had hit the transport so violently to rip it to shreds, something he went on at length with his fellow Utensils, but never arriving at a proper conclusion. He was oblivious how his constant chatter irritated his fellows, leading Deathtalon to proclaim once that maybe his own people blew up his ship, hoping to plead plausible deniability when it came to culpability. By Sect didn't really like this explanation, and he never knew a prudent time when to keep his thoughts to himself.

Deathtalon would have attacked him, had she not seen him as completely unworthy of the effort. By Sect, by and large, was unaware of this, must to the consternation of his fellow Utensils, with the possible exception of Xy. By Sect, as was obvious to all them by now, didn't have any common sense and didn't know when to leave things alone. As such, he was the one Utensil who had discovered the least number of planets for Galactron, but still a manageable quota enough to keep the World-Devourer from kicking him from being his Metal Utensil. Many, if not all, of the planets were actually thankful, because they no longer had to put up with any Sect's vapid stories, meandering analogies and lengthy anecdotes.

It was true that he had a hard time getting along with other Bolians, but he was firmly sure that they wouldn't arbitrarily put him on a ship bound for a space station in their region of space, just to blow it up halfway. What of the pilot? The one that did not survive? He most assuredly wasn't aware of the ship's fate to be blown up. Granted, he was, in By Sect's view, moody and quiet, resigned and mute, but that didn't mean that he knew that he was going to die. He even seemed so put together even when the ship was being ripped apart, truly a courageous man to the end. Although, By Sect got the sense that this pilot didn't like him too much, but that was impossible -- everyone loved him, he thought.

Yet, despite thinking that he was truly adored by everyone on Bolarus IX, he had never returned and he was assumed dead there. By Sect, however, didn't know this, and just thought he would remain a Utensil until his life debt was paid back. At least, initially he thought so. Then found himself liking the new power he wielded, and decided that being a Utensil wasn't too bad. He just didn't like how slow Xy seemed to be, as he would have to wait what seemed like forever for her to seem to understand one of his "great" jokes or observations.

***

"Cloak, I don't think you fathom --" Esty said.

"Oh, I fathom it, alright," Cloak said, his defiance not having left his intonation. "I just do not accept that there is nothing that can be done. I reject the idea of futility --"

"Aren't you the one that warns your opponents not to challenge you because it will inevitably not end well?" GH asked.

"That's different," Cloak said surly.

"How?"

"We're getting off the point," the Realm Walker said, blatantly sidestepping the issue. "The point is that this Galactron isn't going to just come here and destroy the Earth -- not without a brutal resistance, not without a fight."

"Cloak --"

"You don't have to fight if you don't want to, Esty," Cloak said, already guessing her argument and swiftly batting it down. It wasn't his intention to imply cowardice, but she took it as such all the same. "But I will fight. Even if I must do it alone, I will fight this worldwide threat."

"I am not a coward, Cloak!" Estelore said, severely and dignified.

"I didn't mean to imply you were," Cloak replied, "but, now that the subject has been approached, how about you tell us what you've not told us? What you're hiding from us."

Estelore was taken visibly off guard, and stymied for a moment at the realization that Cloak had seen through her bluster and her poor attempts to hide her fear at her . . . that her recklessness may have . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2017, 07:46:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Xy

They approached the the end of the trail. To a planet full of life. As they made their approach, Xy reflected. Xy didn't understand why everyone was always in such a rush. Sure, it understood if it were a life or death emergency, but more often than not . . . it wasn't. It always preferred to go at its own sedate pace. As the Wood Utensil, it had discovered the second to least amount of planets for their master to feast upon, but unlike By Sect, every single one was teeming with life, every one a delectable delicacy to Galactron.

Xy always took its time to try to think through its course of action, which often put it at odds with some of its fellow Utensils. By Sect, in particular, found it annoying that it didn't seem to react to any of his stories and anecdotes (despite no one likes his stories and anecdotes). Xy, like its fellows, thought By Sect had a nasty habit of talking far too much and thinking too little. Conversely, Xy talked very little and thought, perhaps, too much.

Xy was accustomed to watch and observing, with desire to understand. It was what passed for a philosopher and intellectual amongst its kind, and it was prone to cogitations and ruminations and contemplation. It did not like to make hasty decisions, despite the argument that could be made that its decision to become a Utensil was an uncharacteristicall y snap decision, one made to protect its kind from imminent death. That was it's excuse for such a hasty decision, it was life-or-death. A decision had to be made quickly with all the information currently available, which was, in all honesty, lacking in Xy's opinion.

Xy didn't really care about other species other than its own. Despite being ruled by logic and reason, it valued its own kind above all others. This type of ideology was not unique to it, of course. Most species do the same, valuing theirs above all others. Humans have been guilty of this as well -- remember, the Knights of Humanity was still a thing.

This planet was just another one to help him protect his own kind. They had no other importance.

***

"Well?" Cloak prompted.

Estelore hesitated. She had come to suspect that they caught on her vapor trail-like path in her rush to get here. Followed her stellar contrail. She didn't even think about it in her hurry to make it to Earth before they did. Before the Monster came to destroy her absolute favorite planet. Granted, it was Sol's planet, but Sol wasn't sentient in the least.

"Esty," Cloak prompted again.

She may have made a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Had she not raced here so quickly, so hastily, they may not have had the means of following her here, to Earth. If that was true, that would mean the Earth's destruction would be entirely her fault. By the sole virtue of her imprudence. She could have doomed the planet by her lack of not analyzing the situation properly.

"Estelore," Cloak prompted yet again.

Her fault. All her fault. She couldn't bear to say it aloud. To say it aloud would be confessing culpability, to admit fault. She couldn't bear to know that this was all brought about due to her own indiscretions, due to her own negligence. She couldn't bear it. She couldn't admit that she had doomed the world. Why didn't she think this through? Why did she think that they would make a beeline for Earth? Out of the vastness of the cosmos? Out the infinite expanse of the universe?

"What is it that you neglected to inform us on?" Cloak pressed again.

She wanted to tell them. Really, she did! But she didn't want them to think less of her, because of he colossal mistake. A monumental mistake that may have very well cost Earth her children. Every tree, every squirrel, fish, bird, and, yes, human -- all of her children. Everything she herself knew and loved -- gone in an instant. It was all so overwhelming. The emotions, the ramifications.

"Cloak, lay off her," GH said, not in his usual devil-may-care manner. He was genuinely concerned for Estelore.

"Not when she could be holding back the one integral fact that may very well be the lynchpin in defeating or destroying this Galactron," Cloak answered.

Destroying Galactron? Was such a thing even possible? Estelore doubted it, but she felt an odd feeling burgeoning her heart, but she didn't know what it was . . . it took her a moment to realize that it was hope.

Of course, this was quickly snuffed out, when she sensed it. Huge and foreboding, like the moon in that Legend of Zelda game. That feeling of hope had mutated into the vicious creature called fear.

"It's here." she said, in a voice that was scarcely a whisper.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2017, 05:29:15 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Prelude to Battle

"Are you serious?" GH said, alarmed.

"We must evacuate the planet!" Estelore insisted.

"GH, Hunter, Leatherhead -- get the others," Cloak said, countermanding Estelore's declaration. "Tell them to prepare to fight off this dangerous foe."

"Cloak, there is no way that we can win!" Esty insisted again.

"You are allowing your mind to become clouded by the tales you were told," Cloak said, curt. "Tales like such are often exaggerated. And no one is without weaknesses. Not even Realm Walkers and stars. No one is without weaknesses."

"Cloak, I'm telling you that --"

"There are presently about six billion humans on this planet, and that's just humans," Cloak snapped, losing his patience now. "We have one Nyac ship which has a maximum carrying capacity of twenty, twenty-five, humans MAXIMUM. Just how, precisely, do you propose we get the other billions offworld? Let alone the myriad of other species that dwell on this planet? Not to mention not making Yarin's ship a huge honking target?"

Cloak's outburst stunned Estelore into a mollified silence. Cloak had very rarely ever taken such a tone with her, since her power usually eclipsed his own.

"That's what I thought," Cloak said, harshly, before turning to GH, his crocodilian son, and Hunter. "Go, now. Gather everyone. We will resist them. We will give it everything that we have. It's do or die time."

"Cloak --"

"If you want to bow out now, Estelore, fine. But do not stop us from trying to repel this creature." he said, still sounding cross, as the three went to collect the others. "If we succeed, then we succeed. If we fail, we die."

Cloak may have said "we" but he could not be killed by any other hand but another Realm Walker. Estelore considered bringing this up, but she didn't want to needlessly escalate things between the two. It wouldn't do anything constructive.

Cloak looked up and saw six silhouettes. He thought he recognized the different species -- a Mon Calamari, a Tamaranean, a Shi'ar, and an evolved Galilean. He didn't really know the species of the other two.

"The Utensils," Estelore said.

"Is that why they're wielding a straw, spoon, fork, dinner, knife, and a ****tail umbrella?" Cloak said, a note of derision in his voice.

"Don't be so flippant, Cloak!" Estelore snapped. "They're dangerous! Masters of their elements!"

"Masters, you say?" Cloak said, almost dismissively. "That remains to be seen."

"Cloak, what are you planning?"

But his answer was preempted by the Utensils' message.

"Native dominant species of the planet," By Sect announced, acting as the mouthpiece for the group. "Your planet is full of life. It will be sacrificed to satiate the everlasting hunger of our patron and master, Galactron. Do not resist us. It is pointless. The decision has been made and cannot be changed. Make your peace before your loved one. Pray to whatever primitive gods you worship, for nothing waits for you but annihilation. Resistance is futile. Our master cannot be beaten. Our master cannot be persuaded. Our master cannot be turned away. Our master is relentless in his goal. Our master is -- oof!"

Deathtalon elbowed him in the gut to shut him up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2017, 06:22:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Pre-Battle Banter

"No," Cloak told the six. He stood alone in front of these six Utensils.

All six looked down at him, with condescending looks of dismissal. It was as if they heard this all before, hearing all these heroic speeches so wearily often. Except Cloak wasn't giving a heroic speech. Cloak wasn't pontificating like an action movie lead. He just stood there, his eponymous cloak draped over him, obscuring his anthropomorphic feline form. All they could see was his amber eyes beneath his cloak.

"No?" Deathtalon said with a mad cackle. She brought to Cloak's mind the character of Bellatrix Lestrange. Just as unhinged, just as unstable. "No?! Do you have any idea the power to whom you are addressing, little man?!"

Cloak was taller than her. But all he said, in reply, was, "Do you?"

Apparently, this was enough to stymie all six of them. It as if no one ever turned that around on them, just boasted with excessive bravado and confidence.

"A weak little nothing not worthy of the gift of life," Deathtalon spat when she recovered from Cloak's unusual query.

"And who are you to make that judgement?" Cloak said, placidly. He was playing this coolly, discerning personalities and powers.

"What?!" she said, affronted by Cloak's ignorance of her. "I am the Air Utensil, Deathtalon!!"

"So," Cloak replied, keeping his cool (which seemed to irritate Deathtalon), "you're a tool."

Deathtalon hesitated a moment before reacting to mentally suss out if she was being mocked or not. Such slang terminology was foreign to her. The other five did not rush to help or defend her. Cloak quickly picked up on this, on how none of them particularly seemed to care for one another.

Deciding Cloak's last statement was delivered and intended as something offensive, she decided to take offense at it. She snarled, "You dare to mock me, you worthless little nothing?!"

Cloak could have made a snappy comeback or a witty retort, but elected to remain silent and a calm, almost placid. This seemed just to infuriate Deathtalon,who immediate tried to turn the air in Cloak's lungs into spiky aerokinetic construct as she drew it out -- tried to, but did not succeed.

"What? Why is my Shut Up Technique not working?!" Deathtalon demanded.

Cloak's eyes became suns of scarlet and gold. He was now apoplectic with rage. Something hadn't really,truly experienced in a good long while. Only this time, his emotions, and thereby powers, were kept in check.

"You DARE to try and breathbend me, Shi'ar?!" Cloak roared loud enough that it would have been heard distinctly two miles away at least. "You have the audacity, the gall, to try to use that against me? Me?! A Master of the Six Elements?!"

"Master?" Deathtalon said, with an almost girlish giggle. "You think too much of yourself."

"And they say I talk too much," By Sect said, with the others telling him to shut up.

"Do I, Shi'ar?" Cloak snarled, a tiger snarl intermingling with his words. "Then come get some."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2017, 05:40:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Battle of Masters

"You think you can stand up to me, you puny little --" Deathtalon said, pompously.

"Just shut up and fight," Cloak said.

Deathtalon began to attack using her pitchfork-like dinner fork to attack Cloak, who felt disappointed. But she was remarkably easy to separate from it once she threw it.

"I was led to believe that you six were a master of your elements," Cloak said, bitterly. "Yet, Deathtalon, you clearly just rely on your weapon. Pathetic."

"Oh, you think you're so tough?!" she shrieked. It almost sounded avian. "Fine. I'll play by your rules!"

She summoned a blast of wind from her hands that must have been hurricane gale sized in power. Cloak waited only for a second before holding his palms in front of him, causing Deathtalon to cackle insanely, but she stopped immediately when she realized that Cloak wasn't bracing himself for her attack, but redirecting it back at her with a turn that almost resembled an airbending technique. She took the brunt of her own attack, with more force added by the Realm Walker. It sent her sailing, until she was sprawled on the ground.

"Hubris is a very dangerous thing to have," Cloak remarked sagely.

Paszebar decided it was his turn to take on this upstart, as Deathtalon recovered from her humiliation. And within minutes it became clear that their weapons served the same function as a fidget spinner -- nothing. It quickly became clear that these creatures didn't know how to use these kitschy weapons. Blue would beside himself with frustration at the novice use of them, or otherwise laughing his butt off at the sheer ludicrous design of these weapons.

Paszebar resorted to hydrokinesis, only to be blocked by a wall of water formed by Cloak and his Mastery of Water, before following through with own water-based attacks. Strangely, this tactic seemed highly effective against the Mon Calamari, who seemed to favor blunt force rather than strategy. Eventually, he puts his all into his next attack, but it was easily blocked and returned in kind, sending him flying into Deathtalon, knocking both out for a time.

"I thought you were good at this," Cloak said.

Xylocorpus was up next with its ridiculous spoon-like weapon. It hesitated, as if considering Cloak, before hefting up its spoon weapon to strike. Cloak dodged easily, taking note of how slow, deliberate, and sluggish its movements were. Was this a characteristic of the species, or just this individual? It didn't matter. It moved like sloth in molasses. There was no chance of it connecting a hit, though Cloak noticed how the concrete was shattered at the force of the blow. It may have been slow, but it was quite strong. Cloak couldn't allow himself to get ****y -- that's probably how this creature secured worlds for Galactron, by the natives getting overconfident and failing due to their hubris.

Cloak would have to be swift. He had streaked to Xy and dodged its slow movements, as well as its powerful strikes. Then he deliver a fast series of punches, as if he was trying to chi-block the evolved Androzani tree. He dodged another attack by somersaulting away, only to return and do it again. Before slinging it into the recovering Deathtalon and Paszebar, knocking all three out.

"Are you done yet?" Cloak asked the Utensils, and it was clear that the other three wanted their crack at Cloak.

Galilei was up, and he tried to use his gravitikinesis on Cloak, to increase his personal gravity. But it was no good -- as proven with the hypergravity incident, Cloak's Realm Walker physiology adapted to the heavier gravity fairly easily and fairly quickly. Much to Galilei's shock and surprise. Cloak quickly capitalized on this by flinging some roughly-hewn boulders at him, taking him unawares. Cloak kept up the pressure, flinging all manner of earth at him, before he could've recovered from his shock. The last one blasted him into the rousing Xylocorpus, Paszebar, and Deathtalon. Further knocking the four out.

"Next?" Cloak asked.

By Sect was up next, and he pontificated about . . . something. Cloak wasn't paying attention to it. Cloak quickly realized that this how By Sect procured planets. He talked them to the such a point of annoyance, that the planets welcomed death. By Sect was not a fighter by any means, despite what his overinflated ego said to the contrary. Cloak disarmed him of his stupid ****tail umbrella weapon with ruthless ease, and quickly threw him into the others, knocking them out.

"Disappointing," Cloak commented. Then he looked at the Tamaranean. "You want to go? Or can we end this exercise in futility?"

Corona declined Cloak's offer, and attempted to strike him with her dinner knife. But Cloak, almost resignedly, dodged and evaded every single slash and stab. He found her handling of the weapon to be very poor, and Blaze's forehead would be beat red from facepalming so hard. Cloak managed to disarm her with fair difficulty. Then she resorted to use fire, which Cloak dodged and evade easily. He used some well-placed fire blasts to incapacitate Corona, blowing her into her fellows.

"I was led to believe that you were masters," Cloak said, with acrid disappointment. "You're not even novices."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2017, 06:46:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Meanwhile --

"Great, GH," Saffa was saying. "You have us gathered. Now why have you done so?"

"Cloak said so," GH answered.

"We've established that," Saffa said, tone slightly acerbic, "but why?"

"Cloak didn't give any specifics," GH said, almost defensively.

"He clearly wanted us to rally and possibly stop Galactron," Hunter supplied.

"Oh, the thing that pompously verbose being said?" Helen inquired.

"Apparently, it's a planet-eater. A devourer of life," Hunter said.

"And how are we supposed to stop this thing?" Saffa said, incredulous. "The news showed Cloak taking on the tools --"

"The Utensils," Hunter corrected.

"I know what I said," Saffa said. "Cloak's battling these tools, and we're supposed to fight their boss? Whose power more likely meets or exceeds Estelore's? How?"

"We're not helpless," Parker said, with as much conviction as Cloak did before. "We've faced impossible circumstances before, and overcame them. This will be no different."

"But how do we accomplish this, Parker?" Saffa said, irritated. "Spouting platitudes like that won't make this Galactron."

"They're not platitudes!" Parker protested hotly.

"PEOPLE!" Dino roared, nipping this burgeoning heated argument in the bud. It was very easy for her to get people's attention this way. "Can we focus on the issue instead of arguing about platitudes?"

***

I'm not a coward.

Cloak's rebuke had an unintentional effect of suggesting that Estelore was cowardly. It was not his aim, but it happened just the same. And it left an indelible mark upon her mind, which she made up rather quickly.

She went up to meet Galactron directly. To confront it directly. She had expected it to be a creature motivated by instinct and hunger. She had expected it to only have the most vestigial of intelligences.

She was wrong.

"What business to have with me, star?" he said, speaking in the stellar way that all beings of this clade speak while in the vastness of space. It wasn't thought-speak, but it wasn't exactly spoken word either. The voice, for lack of a better term, was rich and baritone. "I have no quarrel with you."

"The hell you haven't, you monster!" Estelore countered quickly.

"Monster?" he said, turning his planetoid body to look at Estelore. There was an almost grandfatherly look about his expression, but Esty would not allow herself to be fooled. "Me?"

"Don't pretend that you're so sweet and nice," Esty said, viciously. Then she sounded slightly hysterical. "I know what you are, and what you do! You. Are. A. Monster!!"

"You think me a monster?" he said. "Perhaps you're right, but, child, do you think I actually enjoy what I must do?"

"What?" Estelore said, taken off-guard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2017, 10:08:14 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Sob Story

"Ah, so you did assume as such," he said, "at least, I assume from your question."

Estelore said nothing, suspicious of being played.

"Child, I do not enjoy eating the life, sentient or not, of planet," Galactron said. His voice and intonation was quite persuasive. "I did not choose this role I was given. I do not relish this role I was given. It was why I was willing to spare the worlds of my Utensils. It was an excuse to not fulfill my role."

Estelore found herself not believing him. She found herself not wanting to believe him.

"If I could, I would spare every planet," he said, ruefully, "but my role will not permit this. The Hunger would not permit this. I can resist it for a time, but it eventually becomes all-consuming, so I must commit to the act. I do no like it, not a bit. But I must do it."

Estelore wondered if he was fishing for compassion. She was supposed to sympathize with him for feeling bad for his heinous acts? Sorry, but that wasn't enough to garner sympathy.

"I don't remember who or what gave this role," he said, apparently keen to give his life story to someone. And, yet, he never spoke to his Utensils like this. Never shared this with them. "But it was saddled with me, and it's a burden that I must bear. To trim the excesses of life in the universe. To prevent an overcrowding of species."

So, he expects her to believe that he is some glorified gardener? Pruning back life that overexceeds their boundaries? She found that a large pill to swallow, and she had no interest in swallowing it.

"But I don't leave all the planets lifeless, after they sate my Hunger," he said.

"You think I'd buy that?" Esty said.

"But, dear child," he said, still in that grandfatherly way, "it is true! Every planet I must feed on to slake the Hunger I always leave a Seed of Life behind. Granted, it may take an eon or few, but life will begin all over again. The same species won't appear again, I'll grant you, but life will appear again on the planet again."

Estelore did not believe a word of it. It sounded way too convenient to Esty. Although, he could mean that this "Seed of Life" was like a turd . . . she found that she rather not think about it in such a way.

"For the longest time," Galactron continued, "I had hoped, in the beginning, that Death would liberate me from the Hunger. The neverending, burning Hunger. But as the eons passed by, I grew increasingly disillusioned and despondent that he would ever offer me this kindness. As he, obviously, never did."

Galactron was trying to persuade her, and though she almost believed him once or twice, she gave herself a mental slap in the face to snap herself out of it.

"So you claim you don't like what you do," Estelore said, attempting to sound calculated and aloof. "You claim to be suicidal. Even if --and that's a big 'if' -- you are being truthful, that does not exonerate you from the things you've done, the lives you've taken just to satisfy your hunger."

"But, alas, dear youngling --"

"Don't call me that," Estelore said at once.

"You understand just how powerful the Hunger can be," he said, almost plaintively. "It has ways of warping your thoughts so you think of nothing else. Why, dearie, I haven't fed in a millenia. Don't I deserve a little sustenance?"

Estelore knew this to be untrue. He was lying, just as Estelore suspected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2017, 08:23:38 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Yeah, About Those Utensils of Yours, Galactron . . .

The six Utensils decided to take this battle seriously now. They transformed into there elements, not unlike that Ace guy from Naruto. Xy became more Groot-like, only without a face, completely xylomorphic. By Sect almost looked as if he was was a Bolian Silver Surfer (and nothing was left to the imagination), completely metallomorphic. Corona looked rather like Nova from Marvel Comics, only completely pyromorphic. Paszebar looked like a solid (yet still liquid) water construct, completely hydromorphic. Galilei didn't change any externally, but internally, becoming truly terramorphic. Deathtalon became a living wind construct, completely aeromorphic. And, when he realized what was happening, far from feeling apprehensive or intimidated, Cloak smiled.

"Oh, I see now," Cloak said, smiling shrewdly. "There's a glaring weakness amongst you six."

"We haven't . . . we haven't any weaknesses!" Deathtalon said, indignant.

Cloak laughed unabashedly, "Everyone has weaknesses, Shi'ar. Even me. No one is without one. And I think I've hit upon a major weakness. One has to wonder why Galactron even bothered to fill all the Utensil positions. Or why it even instituted such a weakness -- except there is one possible reason."

"You don't know what you're talking about," By Sect said. "You're spouting pseudo-intellectual garbage with little understanding or information behind your conclusions. You're guessing! That's all it is. Your rhetoric shows no signs of logic or reasoning. It is superfluous and unengaging. You know, I have an anecdotal story similar to --"

"SHUT UP!!" the other five, even Xy, shouted.

"But, first thing's first," Cloak said, and deftly addressed Xy with a shout of, "COLLOCORPUS!"

"What? What . . . did . . . you . . ." Xy said, as if straining to do something but was glued down.

"As it turns out, our database had a file on Androzani trees," Cloak replied. "Not enough to satisfy me, granted, but it told me enough. I just bound you to that wooden body. I will admit, though, that had Broken or Melissa cast it, it would have probably been strongeras they are both more experienced with such things, but it is sufficient for the course of events to take place as it should."

"What?"

"Well, I am under an agreement that I wouldn't give any spoilers," Cloak said, being infuriatingly vague. "And Saffa tends to hold me to that."*

"What? What are you talking about?!" Paszebar demanded.

"Oh, never mind that mess, now," Cloak said, with a devious smirk, "let's begin, shall we?"

"Will you make sense?!" Corona demanded.

instead of replying, Cloak held out his arms, crossed over each other, as if he was going to use a Z-move. Then he flung his arms out, flared to his sides, and generated two energy blades connected to his wrists in a very Wolverine sort of manner. These blades were as long and wide as Cloud's sword, and colored scarlet red with gold accents.

"Are we supposed to be impressed?" Deathtalon sneered, unaware Cloak was positioning them just right without their knowledge. It was then all joviality left him, as he targeted By Sect who stood in front of Xylocorpus.

"Metal cuts through Wood," Cloak said.** Then he slashed By Sect with his righthand blade. The energy blade passed harmlessly through By Sect, but the shards from By Sect's form impaled Xy, who only felt a momentary pain and a draining feeling, as if power was leaving it through its wooden body. Its spoon-like weapon disintegrated as if it was going through a wood chipper. It was no longer the Utensil of Wood. This terrified it, as it meant that its people were now in potential jeopardy.

Cloak did several jumps and flips, as well as several dodges and slides, before he lined up Corona in front of By Sect.

"Fire melts Metal."

Cloak slashed at Corona, which passed through her and hit By Sect. These embers melted away By Sect's metallomorphic state with astonishing swiftness. What was left was a Bolian with a questionable physique, as his umbrella-like weapon melted into nothingness. By Sect passed out by this effect. There was now no longer a Utensil of Metal.

Cloak demonstrated his evasion again, only blocking a few attacks. By Sect and Xy seemed not to realize their positions were lost. Cloak quickly managed to line up Paszebar in front of Corona.

"Water quenches Fire."

Cloak slashed his left blade through Paszebar's hydromorphic physiology, causing it to splash onto Corona. Her power left her as she returned to being her normal Tamaranean state. Her dinner knife like staff evaporated into nothingness. He was left feeling weak and drained.

Paszebar, Galilei, and Deathtalon all seemed blissfully unaware of what Cloak was doing. It was sad, really. He thought it would have been obvious at this point. He managed to angle Galilei right in front of Paszebar.

"Earth swallows Water."

He slashed through Galilei and the pebbles of earth swallowed up Paszebar's hydromorphic form, reverting him to a plain Mon Calamari. The ground dissolved his bendy straw-like three-section staff, signifying him no longer being the Utensil of Water.

Deathtalon and Galilei seemed both unaware of what Cloak done. Cloak had to admit, he was baffled at just how they haven't figured it out yet. It was getting easier each time for him to line each one up.

"Wind scatters Earth."

Cloak slashed Deathtalon's aeromorphic form, which caused Galilei's form to scatter, revealing an ordinary, unevolved Galilean beneath. He had no weapon to have blown away from him in the wind.

It was at this point Deathtalon realized that Cloak was doing something. But before she could demand to know what, Cloak plunged both blades into her aeromorphic form.

"And the Master of Elements shall quell the Wind!"

Cloak turned the blades as if he was turning a key, and there was an ominous sort of click as Deathtalon regain a substantive, substantial form, as her Utensil powers were abandoning her -- her dinner fork-like pitchfork vanishing into nothingness to signify her no longer being the Utensil of Air.

It was done and all six were unconscious. And Cloak, despite himself, was exhausted.

---

* Yes, I'm breaking the fourth wall a tad here. So sue me. ;)

** Inspiration. (https://youtube.com/watch?v=XV367LBEruw)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2017, 07:41:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
You Liar!

"You think me a fool, Galactron?" Estelore snarled, careful not to flare up to her full stellar might. It would have adverse conditions this close to Earth. "I know about what you did to the planet called So-Chaitheamh. I even bore witness to your destruction of the planet, and its dominant species, the Besteedbaars."

"The what now?" Galactron said, rather like a forgetful grandpa.

"So-Chaitheamh." she said, glowering at him. Her fear at him was rapidly being replaced with indignant anger. The Besteedbaars had potential, Galactron. Given the appropriate and necessary amount of evolutionary time, they could have been a great and notable spacefaring species of this universe."

"My dear, I am afraid I haven't any idea what you're talking about," he said, obviously feigning ignorance. Estelore's anger was rapidly overtaking her fear. "There is no planet called So-Chaitheamh, nor any species called Besteedbaars."

"Now there isn't!" Estelore countered savagely. "You and your blasted heralds have seen to that!"

"Utensils," Galactron corrected.

"Whatever! That's a stupid name, anyway!" Estelore said, assuming her "battle form" of her avatar, which was basically a sunlight yellow Kevlar suit with her hair drawn up tightly into a bun. "It doesn't change the fact that you outright lied to me, and I caught you in it."

"No, you didn't," he said, almost infuriatingly placid.

"YES, I DID!!" Estelore almost shrieked. "You claimed not to have eaten for eons, and I proved that that wasn't true with your consumption of the life on So-Chaitheamh, the consumption of the entirety of the Besteedbaar race."

"Oh, they didn't exist. I didn't eat them."

"I SAW YOU!!! Estelore shrieked in earnest. It was like talking to a brick wall -- or Wolf Blitzer.

"Oh, you didn't, no." he said, causing Estelore to yell in pure frustration.

"I witnessed EVERYTHING, Galactron!" Esty said, frustration very palpable. "For the love of god, stop trying to gaslight me!! You're not even very good at it!"

"You enjoy not making sense, don't you, child?" Galactron said, in a rather offensively patronizing manner.

"Fine! I don't care what stories you have to tell yourself to make yourself feel better about what you do!" Estelore said. She clearly had all she could stomach of this guy. Of course, she didn't notice that the six hovels that Galactron provided for his Utensils were gone, but Galactron noticed. "The thing is that you cannot have Earth. You will not have Earth. Not while I can still do something about it!"

Galactron's shift in mood and demeanor was so swift and sudden, it was unsettling. He glared at Estelore, for something she was, at that moment, unaware of. His tone was now devoid of any grandfatherly intonation, but cold, hard, and cruel. "You lost me my servants. My Utensils. I don't know how you managed it, as you were here with me the whole time. But no matter. I can always find six new Utensils -- pathetic, puny beings who want their planets spared."

He gazed back at the Earth. He was much too close now. "Life grows out of control. It should always be trimmed back when it gets overgrown. That is my role, my purpose, my reason for being. If you think that's abhorrent, little nothing star, than that's moot. You can't stop me. Death himself cannot stop me. I am eternal. I am unstoppable. I am inevitability incarnate. I am --"

"Exceedingly long-winded!" Estelore finished, as she blasted him with a concussive blast of stellar energy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2017, 05:18:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Power of RAF

"Cloak, I've gathered everyone like you said," GH said, arriving on the scene with all but Richard, Dino, and Spectre -- they would protect the forum, as to not leave it completely unguarded for the likes of opportunistic would-be thieves and robbers. Granted, the forcefield should keep more mundane threats out, but no defense is truly impenetrable. GH saw the Tamaranean, the Shi'ar, the Mon Calamari, the corporeally-bound Androzani tree, the Galilean, and the Bolian spread scattered upon the ground. He decided not to comment on it. "I've gathered the RAFians. Now what?"

"Look up."

He did, and yelped. It was as if they were in that Legend of Zelda game with the falling moon. Galactron was much too close. He would begin to suck up the life -- the atmosphere, the ocean, the flora, the fauna, everything. This was endgame.

"What do we do?" Saffa asked.

Cloak looked at her, and said simply, "I think you know what must be done."

Cloak held up his hand that bore a Mark. It was glowing brightly, and every single RAFian assembled immediately got Cloak's gist. Cloak stuck his Mark-bearing hand at Galactron's looming face. The others followed suit.

"UNITY BLAST!" came a cacophony of RAFian voices, as the RAFian blue Unity Energy streamed from their Marks. Streamed upward at incredible speeds, harmless to any aircraft that managed to be in the area (Galactron himself posed more of a danger to them. The blasts had combined into a massive surge of Unity Energy, approaching Galactron with surprising swiftness.

It was just a matter of time now before the surge blast reached its intended target. . . .

***

"Little star," Galactron said, more annoyed than hurt, "you're starting to become a hindrance and a nuisance."

"You. Cannot. Have. Earth!" Estelore said, stubbornly. "I. Won't. Let. You!"

Galactron chortled, "You won't let me? Little star, I was trimming back creation while you were still stellar gas coalescing into a star. I was doing this before you were born. What makes you think you can even stop me? My role is necessary in the great balance of things. I maintain the balance of creation and destruction."

"Don't. Lie. To. Me." Estelore said, speaking in such an abbreviated way as she continued to exert herself, while pulling her punches to keep the Earth safe, and Galactron hastily recognized this far earlier when he was affecting the grandfatherly disposition. This little star, he believed, was fun to manipulate. "You. Are. A. Monster."

"Monster, perhaps," Galactron conceded, then lied, "but one integral to the survivability of the universe."

"Liar!" Estelore declared.

"I can call it lies, but that doesn't change its truth," Galactron said. Clearly, he had told himself this lie for so long, he now truly believed it. "Without me, reality itself would unravel."

"You cannot be serious," Estelore said, dully.

"I am quite ser-- what the deuce?!" he began before he was hit by a powerful surge blast. A Unity Blast of enormous proportions, Estelore recognized it immediately. She saw the Blast cause RAFian blue fissures appeared like thick veins from the impact point.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2017, 06:52:32 PM

Okay -- this book shall have twenty-one chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fractured

"This . . . is . . . not . . . POSSIBLE!!" Galactron said, as the fissures on his body became more prominent. "I'm celestial. I'm unstoppable!"

"But we're stopping you," Estelore said, cheekily, having known the source of the blast. She saw Galactron as nothing more than concentrated evil. His actions were unforgivable, irredeemable. There was no coming back from such heinous acts of planet-wide genocides.

"I'm without fault!"

"Debatable," Estelore commented.

"This can't be happening!"

"But it is," Estelore said, mildly.

"I'm immortal!"

"Nah," Estelore said, "just long-lived."

"I can't die!"

"But you can."

"I don't want to die!"

"Strange," Estelore noted, "you claimed to wish for death just a few moments ago."

"I . . . I . . ."

"It's over," Estelore said.

"SHUT! UP!" he shrieked.

"Let's end this," Esty said, angling herself between Galactron and the Earth. Then she added her own Unity Blast to the mix, allowing the blast to push the power to the point were Galactron was killed when his planetoid body exploded. Estelore quickly gathered up as much debris as she could, while the rest burned up in Earth's atmosphere.

Then she moved to throw the bits she managed to catch unceremoniously into a black hole. . . .

***

The Tamaranean, Corona. The Shi'ar, Deathtalon. The Mon Calamari, Paszebar. The Androzani tree, Xylocorpus. The Galilean, Galilei. The Bolian, By Sect.

All were arrested, and arraigned by the Plumbers -- basically space cops -- who again proposed an affiliation to the RAFians. But the mods preferred their own autonomy from the organization, so turned it down, despite having an affiliation with the government, but that may change soon, given the tense and tenuous nature of that affiliation with the current administration.

***

To celebrate their success at this feat, GH took to the stage and sang, with Leatherhead providing additional musical accompaniment on his keytar. GH noted that young mutate was getting quite good, and couldn't help but swell with pride, at least a little.

Anyway, GH sang:

"Some . . . say I have no direction,
That I'm a minor distraction.
That's a overblown reaction.
Still this is the final frontier,
Everything is so clear,
To my destiny I steer
This life in the Forum is all I've ever known,
RAF and RAFians in this infinite place is my only home.
But, the moment that I hit the stage,
Thousands of voices are calling my codename,
And I know in my heart it's been worth it all of the while!
And as my musical notes fly off of the shelves,
Handing out butt-kicking, courtesy of myself,
This life I chose isn't easy but sure is one heck of a ride!
At the moment that I hit the stage,
I hear the universe calling my name.
And I know deep down in my heart I have nothing to fear.
And as the gale wind blows through my hair,
Knowing I have so much more left to share.
A wandering spirit who's tearing its way through the cold atmosphere.
I'll fly like a nothlit.
Soar like a nothlit.
Crash like a nothlit.
I'm just a nothlit. . . ."

He bowed, concluding the song. Granted, he had expected better than the polite applause. He tried not to feel too aggrieved at this as he reminded himself that this was Leatherhead's first real big gig. And he was just six!

---

*SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=t3M47LlGAWU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 29, 2017, 06:53:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Gravity of the Situation

Estelore was dispatched to an anti-gravity research center, the same one that canned G.C. some time ago. Apparently, one of Demos's fiends decided to take up lodgings there, and attacked anyone foolish to stay. And attacked to kill.

After everything that happened with Galactron, how he almost . . . how he almost convinced her that his nature was beign, that he was equivalent to an old man doing what he had to to survive. That he held no enjoyment in the destruction of so many lives, of so many worlds. How truly monstrous he was . . .

She needed an easy, simple mission to help her get her mind off that heavy stuff. Destroying an uppity fiend was just the ticket. She hoped.

Anyway, the facility was fairly straightforward. Sure, there were too many winding hallways for her liking, and it was easy to get lost if you weren't paying attention to where you were going, but the fiend left a rather considerable trail of destruction to follow. Nothing major, mostly just nickel and dime type of stuff.

She eventually came face to face with the creature. And it wasn't exactly all that attractive, not that the star though that it would be.

The creature was the size of a large, burly man, with a rather flattened body. It had large, human-like eyes with green sclera and black irises. It had a cylindrical trapezoid-shaped head that was gold on the crest and ears, white on the forehead, and blue everywhere else. It had no discernible nose, and two gold antennae that looked like nails puncturing its head. It had an blue torso with flared flat shoulder crests attached to its torso. Its torso had two small, triangular, purple indentations and two red, bulbous growths which could have been this creature's version of nipples. Between its growths and indentations, was what seemed to be some sort of "gravimeter", which supposedly measured the gravity it manipulated, almost as a deliberate telegraphing of its intention to uses its gravikinesis. It had white upper arms, blue lower arms, and one black hand (the other one ended in a black-rimmed blaster). At its white waist, the letter "G" was emblazoned in purple, with two orange corrugated tubes leading from its waist to its chest. Its crotch was blue, and its thighs were white. Its blue knees were like two cymbals cupped together above blue lower legs that looked almost like compressed springs, and blue pontoon-like feet. It also had two green arms with dark brown shoulders and fingers and white tracks in the middle orbiting it, in a very evolved Galilean way.

The room that it was found it was wide and spacious enough for a battle without unnecessary structural damage to the facility. It glowered dimly at Estelore and then roared, and Estelore was not impressed nor intimidated.

It constantly shifted gravity up and down, running back and forth. It also jumped, sometimes shooting bullets from its buster whilst jumping. When it changed gravity, it was Estelore's opportunity to shoot him with her stellar bolts of energy. All it took was seven hits from seven bolts of stellar energy to finish off the fiend.

"Well," Estelore said, dealing with left over . . . material . . . that was the fiend moments before.

***

Demos called it a "gravitisapien". Demos said he made it to research the very nature of gravity before it went rogue. No one quite believed him, much to his irritation.

***

"It didn't understand the gravity of the situation, I'm afraid," Malice cackled. She had seemed content to relegate herself to a Statler and Waldorf role, rather than a primary antagonist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2017, 04:52:12 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLIII:
THEFT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
CHAPTER ONE:
Gyro Copper

Broken had arrived a hanging garden that reports had said that Demos's fiend had taken residence at. It looked like it may have been opulent and extravagant --in ancient times. Now it was more like a forgotten ruin, the plants that were left had overtaken an overgrown the place.

Broken wasn't sure, but he had a strong impression that this place has known magic. But, of what variety, he hadn't enough evidence to attest to. He just could sense the faintest of magical traces. Perk of being the Sorcerer Supreme, he guessed.

He didn't know what this fiend even looked like. He couldn't use the Human-Revealing Spell, as these fiends were decidedly not human by any stretch of the imagination. It was almost ominous, like something out of a horror movie.

TWOKTWOKTWOKTWOKTWO KTWOK!

What was that sound? A helicopter?

Broken looked up and saw a strange vehicle making a beeline from him. The creature transformed from the strange vehicle that was somewhere between a gyrocopter and a helicopter. It had human-like eyes with scarlet sclera and black irises, and a red mouthpiece not unlike that of Scorpion or Sub-Zero. The tail end of the helicopter folded down to become its legs, and its arms folded out, with its black hand folding out of its forearms, with the struts being kibble on its arms. The primary rotor became flush with its back, and the ****pit folded down to reveal his head, with a helicopter like blade as a crest on its forehead, right between the eyes. Its head was red until the top of its eyes, where it became black, saving the mouthguard thing. Its head sat upon a black neck, and black rimmed white areas where its neck connected with its chest. Its shoulders were red, but its shoulder pads were black. It had a silver band right at the waist, beneath the ****pit. Its legs were long and slender, and a deep purple with teal highlights.

It had two attacks. While on land, he attacked by throwing a helicopter rotor as some sort of cutting boomerang. To avoid it, Broken had to jump over it to the side it comes, or jump over it and return to his position, or Banished it back to the creature. Either way, it left it vulnerable to attacks. When he flew above the clouds, he will fire a helicopter rotor from above and then try to dive into Broken. He had to slide from side to side to avoid the rotor if it comes above him, possibly jump over it so it misses, and after that, slide to the side Broken has less space then slide to the other side so it lands and misses, leaving it vulnerable to attacks, and so Broken has a lot of space to dodge its next attack.

Broken decide the most prudent course of action was to use Gravira, or at least some derivative of such, as it would put stress and strain on its helicopter rotor blades. Maybe knock him off balance.

Aaaand there was the rotor boomerang thing. Broken Apparated out of the way, and the creature decided to dive at him, and Broken shouted, "Gravira!"

It seemed to be effective, as it also forced the creature to crash into a wall. Which trapped Broken in this wide expanse, this high-walled room. He didn't care -- he could Apparate and Disapparate. Which is what he did after another six Graviras.

***

Demos called it a "gyrosapien", and, after some painful prodding, he confessed that he intended to use it just help him generate some secret revenue.

***

Malice hadn't anything to say about this fight. She had fallen asleep in the middle of it. She was an octogenarian, remember.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2017, 04:14:33 AM

Sorry about not posting a chapter yesterday. Looks like I may be posting a chapter every day, except for the weekends, or whenever I hafta work a double shift.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Prized Planet

A Coluan with a cybernetic eye in the center of his forehead by the name of Justhe Phax*. Coluans were a green-skinned technarchic race from the planet of Colu, the fourth in their system. Unlike most Coluans, which possessed what they called Eighth Level Intellects, which exceeded most other species with the possible exception of Cerebrocrustaceans, Transylvians, and the like, Justhe Phax had what he called a Twelfth Level Intellect, which caused him to come off as arrogant and conceited, despite being on par with Galvins. This had caused him to see other beings, organic or inorganic or technological, as lesser beings. Inferior. Whose lives were worthless.

He, of course, knew about Galactron. He was well aware that his power had eclipsed his own, but had not heard about his death. He would have scoffed at the possibility. If anyone had the power to kill him, it was him. Or rather the identity that he preferred to call himself: the Brainiac.

He had not seen Colu in many years. Coluans could live between 500 and 600 years -- only slightly less than some Realm Walkers, funnily enough. (Though Realm Walkers who die at 600 are still considered much too young to die at that age, as it's roughly sixty for humans.) He was considered a maverick to the other Coluans, a pariah, and he considered them weak-willed and cowardly. They were content with their mealymouthed talking points on theoretical applications, he was the first -- and, to his knowledge, the only -- Coluan to actually do something to see, to experiment, to be sure. Life, in his view, only rewards the intrepid, the adventurous. The powerful.

The Brainiac had gone from world to world, collecting all the technological histories of a race, everything that made them them in their creations. Then he killed them to preserve the uniqueness of his records. He had done this to countless worlds, until he realized that he could just use Galactron to do all the hard work for him, with he himself coming after to clean up whatever was left, like a scavenger.

He never like to think of himself as a scavenger, though. He was more of a salvage collector. It wasn't like the species whose information his appropriated for himself would ever be forgotten -- his records were perfect to the last detail. The planets of Petropia (he wasn't aware of the planet's essential resurrection), Alderrann, and more were all housed in floating orbs the size of PokéBalls queued up in masses above his his head as he piloted his space craft, which resembled a human skull very much was a mass of metallic tentacles below it, giving it a somewhat Utrom body plan.

Anyway, he was following the same trail that Galactron followed to Earth, curious by it. The Brainiac had long dismissed the notion of stars gaining sentience. That was to absurd to happen, too impossible. And, of course, his so-called Twelfth-Level Intellect made him so he dismissed the very idea of him being wrong. That too, in his mind, was an impossibility. He was above such mundane things like errors and mistakes. His calculations were precise and perfect. Contingency plans were stupid and superfluous, he believed.

Then he came upon Earth, and he greedily assessed this third rock from the star, Sol. He saw that they had an acceptably sufficient technological level and their knowledge base was a little bare-bones for his liking, but sufficient enough. This planet would be a prize as any other, but he knew the novelty would wear off soon, and the sphere of knowledge gained from stripping it from these unworthy apes would gather dust on a back bookshelf. But it would be his, and his alone.

So many planets fell to this fate. Far less than Galactron, granted, but still considerable. And sometimes there was an overlap with the two. However, the Brainiac -- Justhe Phax -- was never fool enough to outright challenge Galactron. But his disappearance meant that Phax was free to exploit whichever planet he chose.

Then addressed the planet's military presence. It was considerable, but not towards any extraterrestrial offense, he determined. It was clearly for making war one on another. Such a primitive society, thought the Brainiac, such a waste of resources and manpower. Taking this planet would be doing them a favor.

---

*Anyone get the pun here?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2017, 09:49:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Peaceful Forum, A Restless Mind

I can't wait to see you,
See you,
See you.
What's up, today?
Can you hear me calling?
Calling.
Calling.
It's time to RAF!
Every cloud in the sky, green leaf on a tree
Is reminding me, far away dreams really do come true.
Come on, let's go, let's go, and RAF around, RAF around.
What a beautiful feeling.
We found a peaceful forum,
And everybody's having a good time now.
Come on, let's go, let's go, and RAF around, RAF around
What a beautiful feeling.
We found a peaceful forum,
And everybody's having a good time now!

And while everyone else was reveling about in frivolity, Cloak was in his bed. Thrashing from an intense dream. A dream full of disjointed nonsensical images . . .

There was an image, a blurred one, of a creature Cloak thought he might recognize.  Sloggoth? It was a species he knew very little about. But then the image vanished as quickly as it came.

A strange bowler hat alien with actual eyes above the brim -- a creature whose species Cloak knew as Brainteasers, but did not know their actual species name. This Brainteaser was sat upon a human head, whose face he could not see before the image faded away.

A couple of strange, translucent slugs that looked rather Yeerk-like, but were decidedly not Yeerks. Nor were they like Khan worms in anything but superficial appearance, but this image did not linger.

A huge beam coming down at Cloak himself, as if some orbital doomsday weapon was firing upon him, and he was in the right stance to -- but then the image shifted away into a new one.

A flurry of strange symbols that Cloak could not see clearly or make heads or tails of. But, yet, he felt as if they had some sort of importance to them, however, he could not fathom what precisely it was.

Malice standing by a strange Realm Walker Cloak had never seen before, either shaking with jubilation or cowering in fear -- it was very difficult to tell with the five seconds Cloak saw it.

Five silhouettes surrounded in darkness, each with a different set of colored eyes. They were watching the RAFians with an almost obsessive gaze, but Cloak could not notice more about them before the next image shoved its way into his mind, as if jockeying for position with the other images.

A floating human skull made of metal, with millions of metallic tendrils on the bottom, descending from on high, emerging from turbulent clouds.

Eight strange medallions skittering upon the ground, with a mass of beasts surrounding them. Cloak couldn't tell what manner of beast it was, however. Reptilian? Lupine? Plant-like? Avian? Marine animals of some sort? Insectoid? Feline? Rodentine? Didn't matter the images didn't last long.

Cloak saw an old, beefy, Amazon in full battle armor and assorted regalia. Her face, though looking perfectly human, was the size and roughly shape of an Olmec head. But this image did not dally long.

An image of a hand in obvious Knight armor holding a vial of some concoction. Not further context clues was given about the image before it flitted away, like a leaf upon a lake.

A vague, blurred image of some creature in some sort of prison, with a green filter seemingly overlayed over it. The creature was one that Cloak couldn't identify the species of -- something actually rare.

Then an image of a human infant, one that already bore the Mark. He couldn't tell the gender or parentage just from this image. And then it was gone.

Then an image of Cloak being harassed by a blonde, brunette, a red-haired, and a white-haired woman, all apparently human. Or maybe it was something else, the image didn't say much, even in context.

And the final image was of several Realm Walkers coming after him -- a bird, a tiger, a tortoise, and a couple dragons. He thought that's what they were anyway.

Cloak awoke with a reasonable idea why this happened. This must be the Truth Dreamer thing Aniyu was talking about. But the last time he had anything like this, it was when Aniyu was helping him with his baggage about his mother. Then nothing for the longest time. Now, all this at once.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zliHLZUN_3M

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2017, 11:12:50 AM

Sorry about the delay. Worked a double shift yesterday.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Approach

The Coluan waited before making contact with Earth, sifting through their broadcast output, quickly learning their language. He found most of the transmissions vapid, pointless, and stupid. He easily discerned which ones were works of fiction and which ones were real footage.

Still, even for someone going through all of it like Johnny five reading a book in either of the Short Circuit movies, it was still a lot of material to go through. Justhe Phax quickly found humans to be self-important, egotistical, and narcissistic. They just seemed to care about whatever made their lives easier -- their lives alone, and no one else's.

He considered this. This aspect of this race could be useful to him. He could possibly use it against them, as they seemed to only have a Sixth-Level Intellect, and just barely. But he wouldn't waver in his goal to collect and hoard all the knowledge generated by creation, and destroy creation. He never gave a thought of afterwards, of after accomplishing this goal. He didn't really consider it important enough to consider, as he was living in the now.

He used his considerable intellect to devise a way to approach Earth to make stealing its knowledge and technology have the most bang for the least amount of effort, to turn it into one of his spheres, his knowledge orbs. He did not want to waste any of his resources, as he deemed this planet unworthy of such an expenditure. They hadn't the military presence to stop him. According to their own broadcasts, they have only explored their moon on a manned mission. Orbiting around their planet was littered with debris that they called satellites, and he detected that they have sent out probes to the other planets in their system, but nothing manned. They were no threat to him, these humans.

From their broadcasts, he could tell that they had harvested the power of the atom. He snorted derisively at this. He saw it as a monkey being able to wield a flamethrower -- potentially dangerous for the planet. But not him.

And his instruments said that Galactron was here. And yet the planet was not barren. Galactron seemed to have been . . . impossible. These humans did not have the technological or physical might to do such at thing. They did not have the presence of mind to destroy such an ancient creature. There wasn't even a trace or report on how they managed it.

Wait, there was one. As he watched, Brainiac realized that there may be a snag in his plans. The people who called themselves raff-fee-anns -- spelled "RAFians" -- could prove to be an obstacle in his plans. He also saw that the Reach was already at this planet, utilizing the plan that he considered. The stupid species weren't very clever in the fact that they were found out by these primitives with lesser intellects and repulsed from their planet.

Justhe Phax didn't want the Reach's sloppy seconds. But, yet, Galactron took an interest in this world. It did not often do things on mere whims. Something had attracted it here. And Brainiac, for the life of him, could not deduce what the World-Eater would find so interesting about the planet, but leave it unmolested. It couldn't be a herald of some sort, as he never carried more than six. And if his information was right, and it always was, in his view, Galactron already had six. He rarely replaced them, unless they were mortally wounded or dead.

Why would he visit this world and leave it still living and not barren as their moon? There had to be a deeper reason. A deeper meaning. Justhe had to know. He was morbidly curious about this. Galactron had come to this planet, third of its system of eight, nine if you count the dwarf planet. But for no other purpose but to spare it? Why? Why make the expenditure of energy to do that and not eat the world?

They would give him the answer. They would give him the answer or he will simply take it from their unworthy heads.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 06, 2017, 06:03:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Noticed

"Does whoever is in that ship really think that we cannot see him?" Yarin asked, checking his instruments. "We have some of the most sophisticated technology in the world right here, if not the most sophisticated."

"What species is piloting that thing?" Aquilai asked, with a professional concern.

"No idea -- not in the database," Parker answered. "Get Cloak in here. He know practically every species in creation."

"Not every species," Cloak said, having arrived in Communications.

"Oh, speak of the devil," Parker said, turning to address the Realm Walker, who continued.

"There are some species I've never seen, though I may have seen similar species due convergent evolution paths or similar." he said. "But, yes, I am aware of a litany of species. It is true that a lot of the species database entries were written by me, but that does not mean I know them all -- Estelore is the one who transversed the Realm and catalogued many of the species of this Realm. That's why she left again, remember?"

This was only partially true, on Estelore's part. She was dealing with a lot of emotional baggage. Sure, Galactron was destroyed by their collective Unity Blasts, but the fact remained. He would have never found Earth -- or, at least, not have found it as easily -- without her accidental trail. She felt guilt and shame over this, though she hid this from the others, despite everything turning out okay. She knew it was principally her fault, as if she hadn't panicked . . .

"So, do you do know what species designed this ship?" Aquilai inquired.

Cloak looked at the ship. The image was grainy -- he didn't ask how they came by this image, whether it was just the RAFian scanners or maybe taken from someone aboard Yarin's ship -- but it was still clear as day what it was. Cloak received a powerful flashback to his dream -- particularly the skull-like ship, like one of Wily's Machines, but taken seriously and less cartoonish.

"A Coluan," Cloak said.

"What would the Coluans want with the Earth?" Yarin asked.

"Not the Coluans," Cloak said, shake his head. "Coluans are a peace-loving, but deliberately isolated, species. At least in the other Realm. But one threw off these conventions, in that Realm. A mad Coluan, called Vril Drox I believe, left Colu to devastate the galaxy. They consider places like Earth to have what they call a Sixth-Level Intellect, while they have what they call an Eighth-Level Intellect. Drox had 'Twelfth-Level Intellect'."

Yarin repeated what Cloak said about Intellects, in a disbelieving manner, "What is this nonsense?"

"A way for them to feel superior due to their high intelligence," Cloak opined. "But, in that other realm, the mad Coluan went around taking all the knowledge from cultures that had advanced enough and shrinking a city on the planet down, so that he could experiment on the populace. And, when he was done with the planet, he destroyed it."

"So," Parker said, "he's basically another world killer."

"Essentially," Cloak said.

"How does life even exist with all these beings about trying to extinguish it in an instant?" Parker said, shaking his helmeted head.

"There was only two," Yarin pointed out.

"Of immeasurable power!" Parker countered.

"Don't overestimate the Coluan," Cloak said. Then he added, "but don't underestimate the Coluan, either. He or she may not have the raw power that Galactron did, but that does not mean that he or she isn't dangerous."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2017, 04:16:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Please Standby

The Coluan sat in his chair, with numerous tentacle-like cables running directly into his noggin. His outfit that he wore was of metallic grays and silvers, and he wore silver gloves as well. The only bare, green part of his body that could be seen was his face, and his iridescent, almost glowing, eyes. Everything from his waist down looked as if it was ensconced in a black, tarp-like cocoon.

The room in which he sat, reclined, was spacious, and bare or any consoles or the like. In front of him were two windows of sort to the outside, and a screen that combined the images into a singular image that was actually of higher quality of even high-definition. It was an imaging technology more sophisticated than anything the RAFians or Andalites had -- although it was roughly on par with Galvans (though Justhe would vehemently deny that, preferring to think that his mind -- his intellect, his mental agility, his mental strength, and mental defenses -- was unrivalled by all).

He could have cloaked himself and his ship from any primitive sensors these monkeys possessed. This he was sure of. His calculations were, in his view, never wrong, and thus, he was never wrong. But, in the event that he miscalculated something due unknown or unforeseen data --  a very remote possibility, as far as he was concerned -- he had a number of contingency plans to enact at his leisure.

His skull-shaped ship was roughly a quarter or so the size of Mercury. Big enough to be a threat, but not so gigantic to dwarf Galactron. Galactron could have destroyed him in an instant, even with his superior technology, he knew. Which was why he always gave it a wide birth and tended to stay out of its way for, as he put it, tactical reasons.

Justhe had never known emotions, either. He never pitied any of his victims. He never felt remorse for them. Never felt compassion for his victims. Never felt shame for his actions. Never felt hope, seeing it as a defiance of solid, proveable data. Never felt guilt for what he had done. Never felt sadness. Never felt envy. Never felt grief, as he has never felt love. Never felt rage or hatred. Never felt true fear -- his skirting Galactron was just reluctant acknowledgement of the fact that Galactron's power eclipsed his own, which his pride refused to acknowledge verbally.

But that also means that he never felt love, desire, passion, happiness, or any other positive emotion. It was sad, really.

Anyway, he remained uncloaked to see if any of these Earthlings, if any of these humans had the courage to come face him where he lived. Galactron left this planet in peace for a reason. He intended on find out what. Then perhaps adding the Earth's knowledge to his collection, the illicit collection he had taken. Perhaps . . . if the people of this world managed to impress him. Perhaps then, and only then, they would prove themselves worthy of having their knowledge taken and added to the knowledge and technologies that Justhe had amassed and integrated into his ship and person.

As far as he was concerned, he was untouchable. People could only get close if he allowed it. If he refused admittance, his defenses were impenetrable. His calculations accounted for everything, for every possible eventuality. He was always prepared and his guard never downed.

He was the ultimate lifeform, in his distorted view. He was the perfect melding of organic and inorganic parts, with all of the benefits, but none of the weaknesses. He was the ultimate lifeform, and, when all was said and done, he would also be the last with all the knowledge in the universe -- with all the power in the universe, as knowledge is power -- at his command. He would consider what to do next when he completed this stage of his ultimate end goal -- to strip all knowledge from others, and destroy everyone. He would be the End of All Things, the End of Creation.

When his goal was satisfied, then so would he.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2017, 05:20:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Going Head-On

It was decided that there could be no hesitation. Especially after the danger that Galactron posed, everyone would be a bit on edge. The RAFians decided that it would be for the best to charge this new threat head on. Some may have said that was reckless, and it wasn't like that argument did not bear some legitimate merit.

But the RAFians were more afraid that their hesitation might mean that the circumstances might get worse, and they could not allow that. Especially when their approval numbers were finally out of the toilet (but Bern Bridges still tried his best to discredit them, but more often than not ended up discrediting himself or his "sources", if you could call them that). They felt that they must be proactive and preemptive in this.

They would not immediately resort to violence. They would try diplomacy -- this Coluan may not be a threat, though unlikely, given the species usually isolationist nature when it came to contact with extraterrestrial species. But one could always hope.

Cloak, Spectre, Aquilai, Abby, Saffa, and GH were selected for this delegation. Parker volunteered, but Cloak swiftly put that down as he required Parker to go without his armor if he was to go. Cloak was aware that the Coluan probably could use any of their own technology against them, if he was anything like the Coluan in that other realm, using Parker like some sort of perverse marionette. Parker was dismissive of the idea and aggrieved that he would be taken off the mission because of it. He called Cloak paranoid, while the Realm Walker countered by calling out Parker's imprudence.

In the end, Parker conceded. He wasn't very happy to miss out on all the action, but he relented. He brooded by fixing up his armor -- which was still infuriatingly buggy after it had the Realm Walker tech ripped out of it by that . . . never mind. He had to prove that his armor was impervious. He had to make it so.

Anyway, the six traveled toward the Coluan ship in Yarin's ship. He was very hesitant to get his ship too close, as he had successfully scanned the ships armaments. And it was only slightly less armed than Warworld.

"Don't worry, Yarin," Cloak said, "forming an energy bubble of scarlet and gold around the others and himself. "I'll take us the rest of the way. Just stay in its blind spot."

"Are you sure about this Cloak?" GH said.

"Don't you trust me?"

"When you say it like that, Cloak, you scare me." GH said. Cloak couldn't really tell if GH was being sincere or sarcastic, so he just shrugged and let it slide.

"Remember," Saffa intoned, "we're going to try diplomacy first. Let's not burn bridges if we don't have to."

"Why are you looking at me when you say that?" GH said.

"No reason," Saffa said, and it was perfectly true. GH knew it, and he was just trying to break the tension that they all felt, knowingly being the comedy relief. It was not an easy endeavor.

Cloak's energy bubble bobbed over to the ship where the cerebellum would be on a human skull, and Cloak ferrokinetically opened up a hole into the ship and the six entered. Then Cloak closed the hope in the ship's hull.

"Is there atmosphere?" Aquilai queried quickly.

"Yes," Cloak said, "it appears so."

"So, either we're remarkably lucky that Coluans happen to breathe the same kind of atmosphere as humans --"

"Or," Saffa said, finishing Abby's thought, "he knows we're here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2017, 04:12:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Collection

"What a cheery thought," GH said, as they moved forward, proceeding on into the ship. There didn't seem to be a single soul, which gave the whole place an ominous feel. There weren't anything that even looked like maintenance machines or the like -- it was like walking through a derelict ship. It was creepy.

Part of it almost reminded Cloak of the derelict ship that the Xenomorphic Brood, or XBs, were on. He resisted a shiver -- those things did things that he would prefer not to recollect.

Then they came upon the orbs that hung lazily and stationary in the air. Too many to count. There were like immobilized fireflies. They all were about the size of a PokeBall, and glowed yellow as Sol. Cloak had a sneaky inkling what these orbs were, what purpose they served.

"What are these balls?" Spectre inquired.

"Don't get me wrong," Abby said, "they're pretty and all, but what's the point? What function do they serve? Decoration?"

"No," Cloak said, with sad finality.

"Then what are they?" GH said.

"Remnants," Cloak said, vaguely.

"Remnants of what?" Saffa asked, aptly. She reached out and touched one. FLASH! She saw a grassy plain with a civilization whose buildings looked like termite mounds, whose vehicles looked like overlarge termites with six wheels like the Press Tires from "Mega Man Battle and Chase". The natives looked like a hybridization of tapirs and Indian elephants with burnt sienna skin of various sizes. Then she saw the ship -- this ship -- attacking them. She saw them be destroyed. Annihilated.

She gasped and released the orb, as Cloak looked away, guessing what she saw. The other five had followed her example while she was seeing all this.

Spectre saw a desert world with saurian natives with eight legs, with the first two being like human arms and hands, and whiplike tails. They had their civilization underground to escape the harsh, unforgiving sunlight from their red sun. This didn't save them from the mad Coluan. He opened up their civilization to the sun, and took their knowledge and information for his own, killing the natives.

Abby saw a world of giants with giant creatures which looked like hairy hybrids of trolls, oni, and those totoro things from "My Neighbor Totoro" with chameleon-like camouflaging while in forested areas. They lived in an agrarian society, though sufficiently advanced. This didn't save them from the Coluan. He mercilessly slaughtered them and took their knowledge for himself.

Aquilai saw a world mostly water with cnidarian, jellyfish-like natives with no discernable faces and four primary, glass-like tentacles tentacles for manipulation, while they had a cloak of tentacles behind these four tentacles. They had vast, beautiful cities made of a coralline material, looking as if they plagiarized Atlantica. But being a marine species didn't save them from this Coluan. He ruthlessly destroyed them, taking their knowledge for his own.

GH saw a gas giant world with natives shaped like membranous kites connected by a mass of tentacles with no discernible head, much less face. It was clear that these tentacles was how they manipulated things in their gaseous environment. They were not cute, but they clearly were intelligent enough to have cities and technology that was primitive by human standards, but technology nonetheless. And it didn't save them. The Coluan's ship was impervious to any of their weaponry, and he . . . it was much too graphic to bear.

Cloak was the only one who did not touch a orb, a globe. A globe containing the last remnants of each and every civilization this Brainiac had sought fit to slaughter. Many of them, if not most of them, did nothing to deserve such a fate. Other than just being there.

The others turned to him, wanting an answer.

"It would seem like this Coluan is very much like the other one, from that other realm," he replied. It wasn't the answer that the others wanted, sure, but Cloak wanted to leave this mausoleum of lost and forgotten civilizations and species as quick as they were able. So he wasn't too keen on an impromptu Q & A session.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2017, 06:47:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Scope of the Threat

"Cloak," Saffa prompted.

"Let's go," Cloak said. He knew the subject that she wanted to approach, but he didn't want to go into it. This mad Coluan had murdered -- committed the heinous act of genocide -- entire civilizations . . . and, for what? At the end of the day, for what? For the information that they learned about naturally, through a natural evolutionary progression. The Coluan just took it. Scanned everything that made them them and somehow digitized them into those yellow, floating orbs.

"Cloak!" Saffa said. She was not one to be ignored or brushed aside. "I think we're owed some --"

"Answers?" Cloak snapped, impatiently. "I already told you that this Coluan was dangerous and absconded with the knowledge, and that he was as ruthless as Galactron, even if his power does not match that of the World-Eater. What did you expect when you saw the worlds he decided to take? High-spirited tea parties?"

The others fells silent at this pronouncement.

"Now you understand the scope of the threat this Coluan represents," Cloak said, his anger ebbing already. "Now you realize this won't be an ordinary Sunday. Even for us."

Cloak stopped short, and turned to look at each one of them in turn.

"I know it will be difficult," he said, "but we must still try diplomacy."

"You know what kind of madman this monster is!" GH said, losing it. "Diplomacy, my Aunt Fanny! I say we avenge all these poor lost souls and --"

"Doom the Earth in the process?" Cloak inquired, as if this was class in diplomatic tact. That rhetorical question had GH's mouth freeze midway of forming a word in a rather comedic way. GH felt silent.

"Doom the Earth?" Aquilai asked.

"Do not take this ship's offensive capability lightly," Cloak warned. "It may not have as much raw power as the Warworld or Galactron, that does not mean that its effects can not be devastating."

"So, we must try diplomacy to see if we can come towards an agreement," Abby said, "but that has to be one option that has been attempted before. All these lost and forgotten worlds . . . at least one must have tried the diplomatic route."

"I never said that I had any faith in it actually succeeding," Cloak admitted. "But it would be worth a try."

"What if it goes really south?" Spectre asked, promptly.

Cloak hesitated before speaking, and then he, sighing heavily, said, "I think . . . I think  you already know what we must do in such an event."

"You mean to tell me that this entire mission was just a --" Saffa said, tone incredulous.

"Not if it comes to that," Cloak said.

"You know that he's not gonna to play ball, right?" GH said.

"Like I said, I don't have any faith that he'll be open to our requests for diplomacy," the Realm Walker reiterated, "but diplomacy is Plan A. Whatever happens, though, we have to make sure that this ship doesn't imperil the Earth ever again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2017, 07:56:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Mad Coluan

They came into the main chamber where there was nothing but what appeared to be an undulating column of sorts, with several quarter-sized diameter cables joining the green top of this mound. The rest of the room was scant anything else. No decorations or decor of any sort, just the absolute bare minimum of lighting. Cloak's feline eyes easily cut through the gloom.

"I wait to see what they send me," came a voice the mound. It sound detached and emotionless. Almost as if it was indifferent to everything and anything. "A delegation of diplomats, or several armed missiles."

Cloak reached the conclusion faster than the others it seemed, because he was almost prepared for this eventuality. At least, more the the others. Perhaps it was because he could see better in this dimmest of lighting.

"But no," he said. He almost sounded . . . disappointed. Then he spoke with an indifferent sort of disdain. "The people of this world, these underevolved primates that called themselves 'Humans', what do they send me?"

The RAFians started looking at each other with expressions of disbelief and resentment. The Coluan was another antagonist that was going to look down on them. There seemed to be an overabundance of such villains in their rogues gallery.

"Five underevolved primates," he said, without looking at them. "Two with misappropriated, but inferior, technology integrated with their being."

Cloak thought it was rather hypocritical for this Coluan to accuse anyone else of misappropriating technology. Especially considering his whole modus operandi.

"One with a tool of technology more advanced then suitable for their mental capacity," he said, referring to Aquilai. Far from feeling insulted, Aquilai was allowed some modicum of relief. The Coluan was unaware of the existence of Time Lords. He hoped to keep it this way, and was fortunate that he looked superficially enough like a human to pass as one.

"One playing host to an ephemeral, insubstantial parasite who claims to be the rage of an fictitious entity," the Coluan said, almost scornful, but indifferent. If Spectre felt umbrage at these words, he did not show it.

"One with a wooden instrument with strings intended to plucked to make pointless noise lesser beings call 'music'," he said, referring to GH. Cloak was about to commend GH about letting that slide, but then he burst out into a raging tirade, screaming obscenities at the Coluan. Saffa and Abby had to hold him back, forced to manhandle him.

"Underevolved status confirmed," the mad Coluan said. "They have not yet evolved away from these useless and pointless emotions. It is why they are weak."

Cloak sighed audibly. So much for diplomacy.

"And their apparent pet," he said, referring Cloak. Far from being insulted, Cloak smiled inwardly. That was not a very clever way to play it -- as he just handed Cloak a weapon without seemingly realizing it. The Coluan held no knowledge of Realm Walkers. This made him an unknown to this mad Coluan. That would be an asset as long as they could keep it under wraps.

GH seemed to have calmed down, though his eyes still burned with anger. Saffa and Abby still saw fit to restrain him -- they know that old gag of people immediately reverting to their previous plan of attack once released that tends to be overused in sitcoms nowadays.

"Coluan," Cloak said.

"Don't address the Brainiac, lesser being," the Coluan said, repressively. The first time he spoke directly to any of them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 10, 2017, 12:07:32 PM

. . . Waste 'im

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2017, 09:54:49 PM

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, GH.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Diplomacy Flounders . . .

Cloak could have felt aggrieved at the "lesser being" jibe and the pejorative manner in which it was delivered. He could have felt all that, he could have felt anger. He was inwardly surprised that he felt nothing of the sort. He just felt a sort of apathy towards the insult. It was inconsequential in its insignificance.

He gazed at GH, whose eyes still burned with anger at the Brainiac's insult of his music. The Realm Walker knew why he would react with anger towards people who insulted music -- that's what his entire power set was based around. Music. It was part of his identity -- but there were times, Cloak had to admit, where he feared that GH might have felt that it was his entire identity, when that was categorically not true. Still, his anger and rage was understandable, if ill-timed. But if he wasn't careful, a Red Lantern ring might decide to claim him if it was in the area. And that would just compound their problem.

In contrast, Cloak was feeling a clarity he found unusual. But he decided not to dwell on it, just like he chose not to dwell upon those jumbled up images from his dream -- or the "Truth Dreamer" aspect of it. Priorities and all.

"Coluan," Cloak said, affecting a rather magnanimous manner and tone, "we've come to talk. Just to talk."

Cloak had chosen not to address him by his elected name to show that he wouldn't be calling the shots in this . . . meeting. Granted, he failed to take into account that the Coluan might interpret this as disrespectful. Cloak did not know just how petty this guy could be.

"Do not address me," the Brainiac said, dismissively. He kept his eye on the window which had a full view of Earth. He sat their, looking at it, and considering.

"You have violated Earthen space," Cloak continued, undeterred and unafraid. Saffa and Abby were too busy restraining GH from doing something he would assuredly regret later on. Aquilai and Spectre were watching on rather stoically. The framing of their arguments fell to him, though he thought this might be more Saffa's area of expertise, what with her debate experience. "We have come to ask you vacate it."

"You do not issue me orders," the Brainiac said, dismissively. "And I have already deemed you not sufficiently worthy to gaze upon my personage, let alone marvel at my genius. You came unwanted, uninvited, and unbidden. You are intruders here. And, now, you are dismissed. Leave immediately."

Cloak had to chose his words very carefully. He had no idea how volatile this Coluan cyborg -- yes, he could sense the metal within him. He was more metal than man . . . which caused Cloak to remember that borg incident some time ago. He rather not have recalled that bitter memory.

"As so we shall," Cloak said, graciously, "once you vacate Earthen space."

Cloak realized this was rather selfish framing, and he noticed that Aquilai had gone from the room. Cloak only had a vague idea what he was up to, but the Coluan did not seem aware that the Time Lord was no longer in his presence.

"You do not set the terms here, inferior specimen," came the Brainiac's monotone reply. It was amazing how devoid of emotion any voice could be. Although there was a slight electronic hum in his voice whenever he spoke. "You have no leverage here. You are at no advantage. I know everything that happens on or inside this ship. Ambush is a statistical impossibility. I am omnipotent, soon to be all knowing."

"You have a rather high opinion of yourself," Spectre said, quietly.

"You six do not pose a threat to me," he went on, almost bored with the whole ordeal. "And this planet would not pose a threat, either. It may very well not be worth the effort . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2017, 10:01:54 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
. . . Diplomacy Dies

Cloak really did not care for the vagueness in the mad Coluan's emotionless words. He was well aware of just what he was considering, and he absolutely could not allow him to destroy the world. The diplomacy was floundering.

"But, that is of no concern to you," the Brainiac said, as if perceptive to what Cloak was thinking. "I will decide whether this rock is worthwhile, you and your primate masters will take your leave from my ship now."

"As I've told you," Cloak said, "we will not leave until you vacate Earthen -- or Terran, if you prefer -- space."

"I've told you that you do not issue me orders, primitive," he said, in a mildly contemptuous manner, intermixed with indifference. "I've also issued you an order leave. How low is your comprehension level? Does your kind even think? When a superior mind tells you to do something, you ought comply immediately. Especially when you have come into my abode unwanted and uninvited."

"If you want to compromise, we'll be willing to oblige," Cloak said, trying with obvious futility to maintain pleasant recourse. "But we will not be pushed around by someone whose a little to big for their britches."

The last six words came out with a subtle harshness that was not lost on the Brainiac. So much so that the Brainiac actually deigned to gave Cloak even the slightest of glances.

"You're out of your depth, you insignificant cur," the Coluan said. Despite the tone, there was no actual anger behind the words. The Coluan had done away with those a long time ago. "You have no idea the power to which you speak so foolishly to, the force who you have so unwisely impugned. You are oblivious that you're talking to one out of your league."

"Why are they trading idioms?" Saffa wondered quietly.

"Funny," Cloak said, addressing the mad Coluan, "I was going to say the same to you."

This caused the Brainiac to actually turn and not only look at Cloak, but glare at him with those soulless, blue eyes. Possibly cybernetic as well. Cloak did not quell in fear as Brainiac thought he would, that he should.

"My patience for this has waned considerably," he said, in a tone that sounded dangerous and menacing, but at the same time devoid of any emotional imput, despite his word choice making him sound angry. "This whole endeavor has served no other purpose but to stimulate my normally dormant bellicosity into dominance. But I am a fair god --"

Cloak could help himself. He snorted at the proclamation of this Coluan calling himself a god, finding it patiently ridiculous. It was at this point all of the RAFians present knew that Plan A, diplomacy, had failed, and failed spectacularly. None really thought that it would have succeeded anyway.

"-- And I will allow you one more chance," the Brainiac said, as if he was not interrupted. "Leave this place, and leave my presence, and I shall allow you to live. For the time being."

"And of the Earth?" Spectre said, voice deep with suspicion.

"That will be for me to decide," Justhe replied.

"The Veil it will," Cloak said, his body generating slight, subtle auras of first scarlet, which faded into gold which darkened into scarlet again. It was a very aurora-like effect. This demonstrated his controlled anger, his controlled emotions. "You do not have the authority, or the right, to make such a decision."

"My position and my disposition makes me more than a sufficient authority for --" Brainiac said, before Cloak interrupted him.

"No, it doesn't, you arrogant sack of tissue and metal," Cloak said, his pugnacity peaking.

"Watch your tone, inferior --"

"And, for the love of the First Light, STOP SAYING THAT!" Cloak said. He had really had enough of this pompous twit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2017, 06:10:53 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Curiosity Has Its Risks

"You dare speak to me in such a way?" the Brainiac said, in a reasonable imitation of anger -- but still reeked of passive indifference to make it sound very odd in tone infliction. "You invade my ship, and befoul it with your very presence -- you, beings not fit enough to lick my boots -- and you have the audacity . . . the temerity . . . the unmitigated rashness . . . the foolhardiness . . . the recklessness . . . the foolish brashness . . . the utter impudence . . ."

"He has a point, right?" Abby asked. "And not just going to throw a verbal thesaurus at us, right?"

Justhe Phax glared at her, that she had the effrontery to criticize him, the great and powerful god he imagined himself to be. He had entire worlds -- WORLDS -- grovel at his feet. He had entire governments -- panocracies, heterocracies, pendantocracies, boobocracies, pigmentocracies, hierocracies, plantocracies, androcracies, punditocracies, ideocracies, quangocracies, bureaucracies, securocracies, idiocracies, sociocracies, theocracies, synocracies, ineptocracies, technocracies, corporatocracies, thalassocracies, infantocracies, timocracies, acracies, infocracies, cryptocracies, isocracies, plutocracies, juntocracies, ecclesiocracies, kakistocracies, democracies, kleptocracies, ergatocracies, kratocracies, autocracies, logocracies, ethnocracies, mediacracies, oligarchies, meritocracies, geniocracies, mobocracies, aristocracies, narcocracies, gerontocracies, narcokleptocracies, adhocracies, necrocracies , gynecocracies, neocracies, atheocracies, nomocracies, hagiocracies, noocracies (taking particular pleasure in these governments), and more -- all knelt before him and begged for mercy. Governments far more powerful than anything this pitiful planet offered. He had never obliged them this mercy, which was a foreign concept to him, a concept which he did not abide by or bothered to understand why anyone else would. It's why his conquest had netted him just over eight hundred worlds.

And these six beings, so presumptuous with their expectations, so complacent in their worth, so self-possessed of their inherent importance come here -- violate his privacy and his inner sanctum with poor attempts at diplomacy (which would have never worked to begin with, he had to admit), then saw fit to insult him and antagonize him when he had already dismissed them. Twice, no less!

Such utter disobedience from one who's their superior in every conceivable way! These fools, these RAFians, must know when they are so clearly outmatched! They clearly overestimate their ability and allowed that make them grow frustratingly ****y. Did they truly think that denizens of his conquered planets never tried diplomacy? That they never tried the wearily tiresome heroics? In over eight hundred worlds that now solely existed in his collection of the knowledge he absconded with from them? They truly thought, in all their infernal hubris, that they even stood a chance against him? They saw the pinnacle of technology his ship boasted, and, yet, they still challenge him. Fools. Fools, the lot of them.

It looks like he would have to humble them. Humble them and then destroy their beloved planet on principle. He would drain their databases of all knowledge that these underdeveloped primates and their pet managed to procure and accumulate in their filthy, backwater planet. He would then find out how someone as powerful as Galactron would come out into what amounted to the space sticks just for a speck of dirt and water that happened to have life on it. There were better planets to satiate its hunger, planets that were more worthy. Planets that were not as useless as this one.

The mad Coluan was still unsure of whether this was worth his precious time and expenditure of energy. Even he was having difficulties justifying it to himself. But he was consumed with curiosity. Why was Galactron so interested in this place? What happened to it here? There was no way that it could have been destroyed. Not here, of all places. That was just too absurd. But then . . . why?? He must know!

He must know!! He doubted that these fools, these RAFians, would comply with his demands. They have thus far proven to be quite uncooperative with his orders. Orders from a superior being! He was closer to omniscience than anything in their ludicrous mythologies. But that wasn't enough to give them the information that he MUST know!! That he just had to know!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2017, 06:09:35 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Pushback

The Brainiac easily freed himself from the black mass that was eerily reminiscent of the Technarchy, in Cloak's mind. He pushed that way as he looked at the Coluan, and, even now, he was part machine. If Cloak had to hazard a guess, he would have guessed that he was at least 79 percent machine, 21 percent organic. But he still looked like a normal Coluan in a gray, form-fitting suit with form-fitting gray gloves and a high metallic collar, that made it look as if he had no neck. He also had epaulets that looked much like the metal epaulet things that Transmetal Tarantulas (http://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/a/a9/N64_Tarantulus.jpg). The only flesh you could still see was his face and his inhumanly blue eyes.

"I gave you a direct order to leave this place," he said. He would have to deign to beat these unintelligent peons, these insubstantial threats, these frustrating obstacles, these petty little distractions. "Not once, not twice, but now three consecutive times. You refuse to accept and take my kindness. So, now you force my hand to act. I must show you how grave a decision you made."

Cloak looked at him, feeling thoroughly unimpressed, but silent. Let the Coluan bluster all he wants, let him throw out more and more meaningless, denunciatory diatribes. To the Realm Walker, such things were unimportant and negligible in the grand scheme thing of things.

"You have no idea the power with which you're dealing," Justhe said.

Cloak couldn't help himself, and replied, "Neither do you."

"Stop your officious bombast," the mad Coluan said, with deliberate disgust, "your fustian rhetoric will not save you, your ostentatious grandiloquence will not serve you in any sufficient advantageous manner."

"You know," Cloak said, though he knew he probably should have said nothing at all, "just using big words doesn't make you smart. Overuse of such things often demonstrate an insecurity of one's intelligence, not a heightened vernacular. Not to mention, it makes you come off as pretentious and arrogant."

"I possess a Twelfth-Level Intellect, dullard," the Brainiac said, again, with a reasonable imitation of anger. "My intelligence is without peer."

"'Twelfth-Level Intellect'," Cloak repeated, coolly, "that might be impressive, Coluan -- if I wasn't sure that you made that up just to sound more impressive."

"You . . ." Cloak was sure that he detected some legitimate anger in his tone now.

"Cloak," Saffa piped up. "Why are you antagonizing him?"

The Master of the Six Elements ignored her. He had his reasoning, and he didn't want to tip his hat too soon. He believed he found a nerve within the Coluan, who, despite claiming to have intellect without peer, seemed oblivious to Cloak's discovery. All because he allowed the Brainiac to monologue a bit. He glanced at Saffa whose eyes widened as she glanced at Abby. They both seemed to come to the same conclusion as Cloak.

GH was too busy glowering at the mad Coluan . . . until fire in his eyes were replaced with a spark of mischief so quickly that it was alarming. Even the two girls had released him.

"You cannot beat me," the Brainiac said, reverting to his emotionless state. "No one can. No one ever has. I'm unbeatable."

"Just because you haven't been beaten yet," Saffa pointed out, "doesn't mean that it is an impossibility."

"SILENCE!!" Justhe roared, demonstrating legitimate rage. He had clearly evolved beyond emotions, he just was too successful at repressing them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2017, 05:56:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
He's a Stupid Man, After All

GH unshouldered his guitar and began to strum.

"Oh, please," the mad Coluan scoffed acidly, "only the weak and emotional are swayed by the meaningless noise you call music."

GH exercised a fair modicum of self-control at the declaration. He didn't want to break a string in his anger. He strummed a bit more, before playing in earnest. Cloak and the others watched on, wondering what GH was planning.

He sang:

"He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid, stupid man!"

"Stop it . . ." Justhe warned, as Cloak suppressed a smile. GH had picked up on the Coluan's weakness -- his insecurity of his intelligence. That is, being outsmarted by those he considered intellectually inferior, and being deemed stupid.

"He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid, stupid man!"

"Stop it!" Justhe demanded. He couldn't suppress his genuine anger now. He was not stupid. They were. They all were. His intelligence had no peer! It had no peer!

"He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid man, after all.
He's a stupid, stupid man!"

"That's it, stopping it myself," he replied, his epaulets traveling down his arms until they encompassed his fists. Then he slammed his fists together, uniting and combining the epaulets into the barrel of a cannon. Energy gathered in this barrel and it was lime green in color. He was going to fire a concussive blast at GH for daring to insult him.

There was powerful whooshing sound as he fired the powerful beam, only to be surprised when the primitive primates pet had seemingly absorbed the blast via the index and middle finger on his right hand. Then after what appeared to be a moment's hesitation, he fired the lime green beam back at him! Only the return fire was intermixed with scarlet and gold energy, making it more powerful.

It was easily strong enough to knock the mad Coluan off his feet and some distance away. With enough force to cause his epaulets to disengage and retreat back to his shoulders. He was baffled and perplexed. In all of the planets he stole the knowledge from and absconded with as he destroyed the planet, not ever has one managed to redirect his epaulet cannon blasts back at him. Not even the Petrosapiens! . . . Although he never had them on his ship and he didn't show them mercy -- something he saw that he never should have offered this planet.

But, instead of just siphoning off all the knowledge from their internet and computer systems -- laughably primitive by his high standards -- and destroy the Earth without a second thought, he was prone to indulge in his biggest weakness.

Righting himself, as he gets up, he demanded, trying to hide how much damage he actually took, "Wh-what are you?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CbIhYhrOJAg

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 13, 2017, 11:40:40 PM

Whoo!  I've finally caught up!  :D  Oh man I have so much to say.

First off.  Approximately forever ago, I started a re-read of this series (which is probably why I ended up getting more than a year behind on reading this in the first place, oops).  And I noticed something.  I was thinking about possible new names for Abomination (it still saddens me that he must always be called "the Realm Walker once known as Abomination," even in death), and I noticed that he had actually suggested three names for himself: Doomsday, Armageddon, and Ragnarok.  I looked up derivatives of those words to see if some play on one of them would fit (I tend to believe that people should be free to decide their own identities, so I wanted to let "Ab" choose his own name, if at all possible).  In the process, I happened to find out that the word "Ragnarok" actually means something like "the fall of the gods" (also possibly translated as "death of the gods," "twilight of the gods," or "the final fate of the gods," but however you translate it, "bad stuff happens to gods" seems to be the jist).  Which actually fits Ab's character just about perfectly, in my opinion.  Malice was a "god" to Ab.  He worshiped her, obeyed her every command, thought she could do no wrong, as one would think of a god.  But then she "fell" from godhood, in his eyes, when he realized that she didn't deserve his worship.  And it was when Malice's "fall from godhood" occurred, that was the moment when Ab became something other than Abomination.  Hence, Ragnarok.  *shrugs*  It's still your story, obviously, and you are more than welcome to tell me I'm grasping at straws here.  It's entirely possible that I am.  But I've been thinking of him as Ragnarok and I rather like the sound of it, given its meaning.

Second, the re-read has also given me an appreciation for just how much you've grown as a writer, and continue to grow.  You were always a good writer, from the beginning.  But, somehow, you've continued to improve upon those solid foundations with each and every story.  You jokingly mentioned that I won't be able to read year . . . that number.  The slightly-cruel joke you've played on me, though, is that I know by then I will be absolutely powerless NOT to read it.  I cannot possibly even imagine what your writing will look like, so far in the future.  I'm actually . . . looking forward to . . . that year?  Wait, that can't be right.

Third, I'm completely fond of how much Leatherhead has developed as a character, despite the fact that I generally don't even like children much.  I actually have a Totodile as my 'buddy' on Pokemon Go right now, and every time I look at him I think that he's LH for a second (I picture LH as somewhat Totodile-ish, being both crocodilian and adorable).  I would never want to tell you what to do in any of your stories, of course, but, well, I feel like it bears mentioning that, genetically speaking, I am LH's closest RAFian relative.  We are both archosaurs, AKA "ruling reptiles" (as are birds, weirdly enough, which is why I say that I am LH's closest relative and not the other way around, as I'm actually slightly genetically closer to, say, Raevyn).  I dunno, I was just picturing some little scene someday where I might teach LH how to hunt or roar or just generally be a proper archosaur, when he gets old enough, of course.  Assuming that gh would be okay with me assuming that much of a role in the rearing of his son.  *shrugs*  It's just something to consider if you're ever short on plot ideas . . . *looks at list of future books* . . . I'll shut up now.  :P

Fourth, I absolutely loved my origin story!  :D  It was a stroke of genius that you managed not to give away my pre-nothlit species by giving me Sario-rip-induced memory loss.  To think, this was the book you were writing when . . . I don't know if it's still too soon to say it.  I tend to have trouble talking about such things.  But the fact that you were able to cope with so much grief while still writing a beautiful story, a story filled with darkness, but also with hope . . . that speaks volumes about your inner strength as a person.  You have a brilliant light inside you, and no matter how much darkness ever surrounds you, your light will always shine through.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 04:23:22 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on July 13, 2017, 11:40:40 PM

First off.  Approximately forever ago, I started a re-read of this series (which is probably why I ended up getting more than a year behind on reading this in the first place, oops).  And I noticed something.  I was thinking about possible new names for Abomination (it still saddens me that he must always be called "the Realm Walker once known as Abomination," even in death), and I noticed that he had actually suggested three names for himself: Doomsday, Armageddon, and Ragnarok.  I looked up derivatives of those words to see if some play on one of them would fit (I tend to believe that people should be free to decide their own identities, so I wanted to let "Ab" choose his own name, if at all possible).  In the process, I happened to find out that the word "Ragnarok" actually means something like "the fall of the gods" (also possibly translated as "death of the gods," "twilight of the gods," or "the final fate of the gods," but however you translate it, "bad stuff happens to gods" seems to be the jist).  Which actually fits Ab's character just about perfectly, in my opinion.  Malice was a "god" to Ab.  He worshiped her, obeyed her every command, thought she could do no wrong, as one would think of a god.  But then she "fell" from godhood, in his eyes, when he realized that she didn't deserve his worship.  And it was when Malice's "fall from godhood" occurred, that was the moment when Ab became something other than Abomination.  Hence, Ragnarok.  *shrugs*  It's still your story, obviously, and you are more than welcome to tell me I'm grasping at straws here.  It's entirely possible that I am.  But I've been thinking of him as Ragnarok and I rather like the sound of it, given its meaning.

Yeah, I understand your point, but thing is Realm Walkers don't always get to choose their names. Sometimes, whether they like it or not, it is given to them. It is up to them if they want to defy the expectations associated with the name or revel in them. Kind of like we don't always choose what happens to us, but, like Rafiki said, we can run from it, or learn from it. Ab eventually chose the latter before he was murdered by Malice. And unlike Rotiart (yes, this is a spoiler to anyone who just skipped to this book without reading Book #150, or, if your prefer, Book CL), Ab will not be back. His death was legitimate.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on July 13, 2017, 11:40:40 PM

Second, the re-read has also given me an appreciation for just how much you've grown as a writer, and continue to grow.  You were always a good writer, from the beginning.  But, somehow, you've continued to improve upon those solid foundations with each and every story.  You jokingly mentioned that I won't be able to read year . . . that number.  The slightly-cruel joke you've played on me, though, is that I know by then I will be absolutely powerless NOT to read it.  I cannot possibly even imagine what your writing will look like, so far in the future.  I'm actually . . . looking forward to . . . that year?  Wait, that can't be right.

Which was probably cruel of me to decide to, at one point, end it in Year . . . Year XIII (does that make it better?). Oh, and don't look at your post count. ;)

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on July 13, 2017, 11:40:40 PM

Third, I'm completely fond of how much Leatherhead has developed as a character, despite the fact that I generally don't even like children much.  I actually have a Totodile as my 'buddy' on Pokemon Go right now, and every time I look at him I think that he's LH for a second (I picture LH as somewhat Totodile-ish, being both crocodilian and adorable).  I would never want to tell you what to do in any of your stories, of course, but, well, I feel like it bears mentioning that, genetically speaking, I am LH's closest RAFian relative.  We are both archosaurs, AKA "ruling reptiles" (as are birds, weirdly enough, which is why I say that I am LH's closest relative and not the other way around, as I'm actually slightly genetically closer to, say, Raevyn).  I dunno, I was just picturing some little scene someday where I might teach LH how to hunt or roar or just generally be a proper archosaur, when he gets old enough, of course.  Assuming that gh would be okay with me assuming that much of a role in the rearing of his son.  *shrugs*  It's just something to consider if you're ever short on plot ideas . . . *looks at list of future books* . . . I'll shut up now.  :P

Well, you are a mother figure to him already. GH is his adopted father, and you're a mother figure. And not bad for a character made up on the fly upon sudden inspiration and named after a TMNT character, eh?

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on July 13, 2017, 11:40:40 PM

Fourth, I absolutely loved my origin story!  :D  It was a stroke of genius that you managed not to give away my pre-nothlit species by giving me Sario-rip-induced memory loss.  To think, this was the book you were writing when . . . I don't know if it's still too soon to say it.  I tend to have trouble talking about such things.  But the fact that you were able to cope with so much grief while still writing a beautiful story, a story filled with darkness, but also with hope . . . that speaks volumes about your inner strength as a person.  You have a brilliant light inside you, and no matter how much darkness ever surrounds you, your light will always shine through.

Thank you. If memory serves, that book changed very little from my outline. Which is actually something quite rare in and of itself. As a lot of books nowadays in Memoirs deviate from the outline a lot. Mostly due to new inspiration -- kinda like how Leatherhead came to be. (If you just read my outlines he doesn't appear until much later, after I wrote his introductory book, his existence as a "son of Sobek" was actually inspired by a Percy Jackson/Carter Kane crossover book by Rick Riordan called, well, "Son of Sobek". Originally, he was just gonna be a one off character than Saffa, I think, called him cute . . . that's what got the wheels turning and now we have the six-year-old Leatherhead. ;)


New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Tell Me! Tell Me!

"Wh-what are you?"

Cloak could have gone full Goku and said, "I am the hope of the universe. I am the answer to all living things who cry out for peace. I am proctector of the innocent. I am the liht in the darkness. I am truth. Ally to good! Nightmare to you!" or some other clichéd heroic speech. But that would be giving the Brainiac precisely what he wanted -- information.

His insecurity about having other people just as smart as him (which he covered with all his bluster and boasting of having a Twelfth-Level intellect) was just one of his Achilles heels. He had another -- one far easier to exploit. To sum it up in two words -- his curiosity. He was driven by an insatiable desire to know things. Knowledge was power, after all. But the thing with knowledge was that it, like power, could be selfishly hoarded and hidden away, or be shared and spread around.

And Cloak knew that by denying Justhe Phax the knowledge he wanted to know would be worse than inflicting any physical trauma or tangible damage to him. Curiosity could be a burdensome trait if one allowed it to reign unchecked.

"What are you?" he demanded. "Tell me!"

Cloak shot a look to the others, and they got the message. Don't say anything. Don't give him any information. Deny and deprive him of everything he wants to know. His obsession with collecting knowing, with knowing things, would be his downfall. His obsessive curiosity would surely prove to be a liability to his goal.

"I demand that you tell me what you are!" he insisted persistently.

Cloak couldn't help but smile inwardly. He was practically begging -- this genocidal murderer of countless worlds, this monster that had wiped out so many civilizations -- and here he was, practically begging him for the information he so desired. Information he couldn't find elsewhere. Information he couldn't beat or connive out out of Cloak.

"Tell me what you are!" he roared. "Also -- tell me what in the cosmos did Galactron want with this backwater planet?!"

None of the five RAFians -- Aquilai still hadn't returned, and the Brainiac was still, seemingly, unaware of this fact, despite claiming to know everything that happened on his ship -- said anything. This seemed to displease the Brainiac, though he was intelligent enough to know his epaulet cannon was proven to not work, and he still bore damage from his last attempt which revealed his biomechanical, cyborg nature. His scope of doing any direct damage was pretty much nil -- at least 89 percent of his weaponry was on the outside of his ship, and they have proven that the remaining eleven percent was no sufficent in power to get them to get them to talk. Yes, just after one setback, he determined all this, especially as his powerful weaponry was among the 89 percent on the outside.

Cloak watched this Coluan, and he thought he could almost see the gears turning in his head. He predicted what his next move would be -- because, after all, the RAFians themselves had a glaring weakness. One that could be seen right outside the window of the ships . . . well, the ship's "bridge" if you can call it that. The cool blue orb seemed to glow in a lovely, awe-inspiring manner.

The Coluan seemed to realize this, and he straighten up, seeing the advantage. He regained his pompous demeanor, despite the fact that some of his suit had been sheared away and his mechanical bits were showing, making him look somewhat disheveled.

"Tell me what I wish to know," he warned with deadly seriousness, "or I shall destroy this worthless rock."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 07:30:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Too Far?

Cloak was the first to break their impromptu silence with the Coluan.

"You do that," he said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried the length of the room audibly, "and I will stop holding back, and come at you with every ounce of power that I can muster."

"Holding back?" the mad Coluan said. He affected an indifferent, uninterested tone. But Cloak could hear the fear, the uncertainty, the Brainiac tried to disguise.

"You're making him angry," GH said, "and you wouldn't like him when he's angry."

Saffa jabbed him in the gut with her left elbow, causing him to yelp in pain and demand why she did that for.

"And I, too, will not hold back," Spectre said, speaking for the first time in a while. Sam never liked to mince words all that much when he was alive, and that remained when he played host to the Spectre spirit. "And you will see how much rage and power I can dish out as well."

Although he spoke seemingly to disguise Aquilai's reappearance, who was pocketing his sonic screwdriver while acting as if he had never left. Cloak hope he succeeded in his endeavor -- it would make this exceedingly easier if he had.

"I -- I'll . . ." the mad Coluan stammered. He didn't look so sure now. It was clear, in his 800+ conquests this was really the first time anyone managed to get close enough to him to cause him legitimate danger, to possibly be able to kill him. He had never anticipated this -- he had allowed his incredible hubris to color his judgement in allowing the RAFians aboard his ship, just so he could know what he desperately wanted to know. "Just tell me what I want to know."

"No," Cloak said, with a resounding finality. He knew if he gave what the Coluan found to be an unsatisfactory answer -- or even if he gave one the Brainiac found acceptable -- that he would just blow up Earth anyway, despite the risks to his person. Just to make a point. But, thanks to Aquilai's efforts, they had a contingency.

"Just tell me!"

"No," Cloak said. "Coluan, you need to learn -- there are just some things that you'll never find the answer to. And instead of hunting ever obsessively after it, and hoarding it away, just accept the fact that no one, not even me, knows everything that there is to know. No exceptions."

"I have siphoned eight hundred and two worlds dry of their knowledge and culture," the Brainiac said, savagely. "I will know it all. I will know everything!"

Spectre shook his head, "Like he said, omniscience is an impossibility. Even now, you probably have forgotten the names of three-quarters of those worlds, much less the species and cultures you've slain."

"You . . . you don't know what you're talking about!" Justhe Phax denied, a little to emphatically.

"Even a computer needs to consult a database to 'remember' certain memories," Abby chimed in. "In a manner of thinking."

"You're wrong!"

"Even your collection of spheres," Saffa said, "even they won't last forever. Technology, despite the stereotypes and tropes, does not last forever. Even their memory gets lost, corroded, or corrupted. This knowledge you gathered and hoarded like a dragon with treasure -- it may last for decades, maybe even millenia, but it won't last forever. Eventually, you'll lose everything."

"With proper maintenance, it can last forever!" he argued, completely forgetting that he was supposed to me lofty and holier-than-thou to them.

"Perhaps," Cloak said, "perhaps it can last for a while, but not forever. You have organic parts, and presumably a fully organic brain. You are not forever. You are not immortal. Maybe your kind can live to sixty years, my time, but that's hardly forever. Even the stars themselves are not immortal, just long-lived."

Cloak glared at the Coluan. "Even civilizations are not forever. Life itself isn't forever. You cannot hoard all the knowledge in the universe to yourself -- that would be a monumental task in futility. You committed over eight hundred acts of genocide really for nothing in the long run. The others may not have noticed, but I counted no less than twenty-five of your orbs that dimmed, that were fading away. And possibly many more have before we even got here. You're entire motive for committing these heinous acts was for naught."

"I . . . I don't believe you!"

"I don't really care one way or another if you do or don't," Cloak said. He glanced at Aquilai, who nodded, confirming Cloak that it was safe to depart.

"Go away!! Go away!!" he roared, sounding more like a child who was told his toy couldn't be fixed. "Just go away!! I'll leave your planet alone if you'll just leave me alone!"

They did.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 14, 2017, 07:03:50 PM

Quote from: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 04:23:22 AM

Yeah, I understand your point, but thing is Realm Walkers don't always get to choose their names. Sometimes, whether they like it or not, it is given to them. It is up to them if they want to defy the expectations associated with the name or revel in them. Kind of like we don't always choose what happens to us, but, like Rafiki said, we can run from it, or learn from it. Ab eventually chose the latter before he was murdered by Malice. And unlike Rotiart (yes, this is a spoiler to anyone who just skipped to this book without reading Book #150, or, if your prefer, Book CL), Ab will not be back. His death was legitimate.

Yeah, I suppose he did earn the name Abomination more than he did any other.  I just have a slight soft spot for redeemed former bad guys.  :-\  But, yeah, I had no doubt whatsoever that he was dead for real.  If anything, death seems even more permanent for Walkers than Dwellers (as if it could get more permanent), since Walkers leave behind no body to potentially reanimate, nor any ghost or spirit or anything metaphysical (besides occasionally a deus ex machina) that would stick around after they're gone.  I only meant, we might have a different name to remember him by.  But, like I said, you are correct in that Abomination was still the name he earned, and that people, Walker or Dweller, don't get to pick and choose how others see them.

Quote from: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 04:23:22 AM

Which was probably cruel of me to decide to, at one point, end it in Year . . . Year XIII (does that make it better?). Oh, and don't look at your post count.

Too late.  :P  I did appreciate the extra karma point, to avoid a similar situation, though.

Quote from: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 04:23:22 AM

Well, you are a mother figure to him already. GH is his adopted father, and you're a mother figure. And not bad for a character made up on the fly upon sudden inspiration and named after a TMNT character, eh?

No kidding!  I honestly admire your ability to improvise with your stories.  Heck, I've lost count of how many times somebody has said something, and the next thing you know that comment appears in the following chapter.  It's kind of surreal.

Loving the new chapters, by the way.  The Brainiac seems like such an insignificant threat after Galactron, somehow, even though he seems to have destroyed at least as many worlds.  I wonder if that's because the latter acted like an ancient being, while the former acts like a petulant child?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 07:14:46 PM

Probably. I just realized that a fair few of my villains act like a petulant child. And another chapter will be in-bound soon. Might be a smidge on the short side, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 14, 2017, 07:34:16 PM

Quote from: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 07:14:46 PM

Probably. I just realized that a fair few of my villains act like a petulant child.

That makes sense, though.  People who are handed everything they want in life have an exceedingly strong tendency to become both petulant and evil.  That applies to the real world, too, unfortunately.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2017, 07:56:12 PM

I suppose -- anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
NOT a Man of His Word

"Well," Abby said, as they boarded Yarin's ship, "that could have gone over better."

"Why are we leaving, though?" GH asked, very seriously. "We should've wasted him."

"If he breaks his word," Aquilai said, "he will be."

"What d'you mean?" Saffa inquired at once.

"If my instinct is right," Cloak said, "we shall see in a few moments while he, presumably, fumes in his ship."

"Hopefully, he's smart enough to not go back on his --" Aquilai began.

BOOOOOM!Ba-BOOM!Ka-BOOM!

"Apparently, not," Aquilia noted sadly.

"I thought you just deactivated his weapons!" Spectre exclaimed.

"I thought that might not be enough, though I did deactivate them at first," Aquilai said. "Besides, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't be able to reactivate them. The mechanics of his systems was remarkably sophisticated, I must say. Difficult, but not impossible, to access. So, I rigged his weapons to explode if armed. This was the only way I could think of to dissuade him."

"You killed him," GH said.

"Without more definitive proof, we cannot say that," Cloak said very seriously.

"The ship exploded, Cloak! Blown to bits!" GH protested.

"We all thought Rotiart had died," Cloak pointed out. "But he lived, and it came back to bite us in the butt."

"You can't really equate the two, Cloak," Saffa said, sounding reasonable.

"Oh, just watch me," Cloak said, very seriously, though he spoke no more.

"It is rather sad, though," Abby said. "He was so consumed with his obsession to possess all the knowledge of creation, of owning it, it lead to his own destruction. Can you imagine being so . . . so driven to delusion?"

"It may be a sad fate," Saffa said, almost sternly, as if she was addressing the presumed deceased, "but it was a fate of his own making. No one told him to do what he did. No one told him to commit so many genocides. And all for what? For something that would have been invariably lost anyway. All a waste -- a waste of time, a waste of energy, a waste of . . . of lives."

"Just think of what he could have accomplish if he wasn't so selfish, so self-entitled?" Spectre said with folded arms.

"Perhaps, in another timeline, he was," Aquilai said, with a shrug.

"I get the feeling that I missed out on a lot," Yarin said. He wasn't miffed or anything, he was merely stating what he felt to be a fact. "But, enough of that, let's go home."

"Let's," Cloak agreed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 14, 2017, 08:09:30 PM

Did not see that ending coming.  That was a pretty elegant solution, if you ask me, letting the villain just fall on his own sword like that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2017, 03:52:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Leatherhead's Scales and Arpeggios

It was a day or two later. It was a just lovely summer day, the first one Leatherhead and GH could enjoy together in a while. GH strummed his favorite guitar as Leatherhead played his keytar, as they jammed out together.

Leatherhead sang:

"Do mi so do do so mi do.
Every truly cultured music student knows
That you must learn your scales and your arpeggios.
Bring the music roaring from your chest
And not your nose,
While you play your scales and your arpeggios.
If you're faithful to your daily practicing,
You will find your progress is encouraging.
Do mi so mi do me so mi fa la -- or so it goes
When you do your scales and your arpeggios!"

It was at this point GH joined in:

"Do mi so do do so mi do.
Do mi so do do so mi do.
Though at first it seems as though it doesn't show,
Like a flower, skill will bloom and grow.
If you're smart, you'll learn by heart what every musician knows.
You must play your scales
And your arpeggios."

Then the two collapsed against one another, laughing, and basically just enjoying having the other's company.

***

In a darkened facility, with immaculate tile floors, sterile white walls, and a smooth, white ceiling. There was limited staff milling around a central cylindrical tank with some suspended mass of . . . something, that appeared to be a mixture of scarlet and rusty red. All the staff wore white jackets that extended to their knees. These scientists' faces were obscured in shadow, as they worked, faces illuminated by the blue of their computer screens.

All of these scientists wore a symbol on the lapel of their jackets -- an eye with a DNA strand inside a beaker inside the pupil. The symbol of Cadmus. The symbol indicated their employer, and the agenda they were working toward. Who among these scientists knew what Cadmus's true goals and what their agenda actually entails? Who just saw this as a normal nine-to-five job, just a means to a paycheck? What were their stories.

"How is it doing?" barked a man in charge.

"Vitals are steady, Mr. Fugi," said a scientist who wore her hair in what appeared to be lazily-done cornrows. "Its beginning to take shape."

"Good, good," he replied. "Will it be ready by the deadline?"

"If all proceeds as well, sir," she answered professionally.

"Good," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Maybe I can get Director Waller off my back for a few hours now."

"Pardon, sir?"

"No matter," he snapped. "Keep me.posted."

---

* SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=tEL-RsUsKlw

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2017, 04:34:54 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Crystal Brawler

Helen was dispatched to quell a fiend at a catacombs full of quartz crystals -- milky quartz was the most common, followed by purple amethysts, vibrantly pink rose quartz, white chalcedony crystals, reddish orange carnelian crystals, adventurine chalcedony, holly blue and pink agates,  black onyx, reddish brown jasper, yellow citrine, smoky quartz, mint green prasiolite, and, rarer, rainbow quartz. It was one of the primary places where they were harvested. The fiend had scared away and run off anyone who was in this place, claiming it as its own. Claiming the crystals and gemstones inherent within as its own, as well.

Seeing these crystals, she began to guess this fiend had something to do with crystals, or at least had a strong affinity for crystals. Either that or was very fond of shiny, pretty things.

No matter what its reasons or powers were, it had to be stopped as it was exceedingly dangerous. And people would eventually come back for the pretty quartz crystals, which most, if not all, were of gemstone quality. Unfortunately, human liked shiny rocks like this.

The fiend found her before she found it, as it roared and launched itself at her, before staring it down. This enabled her to get a good look at it.

The humanoid creature was an red orange color, except for its white upper arms, white thighs, black hands, black feet, black ears with a green interior, a black face plate, and a green ring around its waist. Its shoulders were large crystal balls as was its abdomen and knees. Its lower arms were actually two, slightly compressed crystal balls, and it had three nickel-sized crystal balls in a horizontal row on its back, right across the shoulder blades. It also had a large crystal as a crest on its head. Its human-like eyes had orange sclera and black irises. It stood roughly as tall as a ten-year-old human child.

Its right lower arm crystal lit up, the top one first, then the bottom one, as it fired a crystal ball of unknown composition at Helen, who blocked it with a violet construct by her ring. All this did was somehow split the crystal ball into three smaller crystal balls which had a nasty habit of ricocheting all over the place before dissolving into nothingness.

"Well," Helen grunted, with the impact from another crystal ball, "this is going to be difficult."

There wasn't very much room to fight here. Not very much room to use her ring to it's fullest potential here. The fiend was at an advantage here, but it did not seem to have the sentience to realize it. These fiends never seemed to reach the amount of sentience that Maul attained. They were little more than rabid animals in their mindsets, despite their humanoid forms.

She couldn't just sit here defending, she would have to go on the offense. She dropped her shield, and generated a violet construct of helicopter rotor -- she was trying for a full helicopter. She threw it at the fiend, which deeply cracked all of the crystal balls on its body. She took advantage of its momentary stunning to do it again, shattering all the crystal balls on its body, killing it.

Then she quickly took her leave.

***

Demos called the creature "kurisutarusapien". After some cajoling, he admitted he created the fiend to help generate some finances for him.

***

"Better check your crystal ball again!" Malice laughed. Then she realized that the pun she was trying to make was awful.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2017, 08:37:43 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CLIV:
THE CONTINGENCY
CHAPTER ONE:
Napalm Fiend

Cloak was dispatched to a jungle area in a rather remote area. He didn't mind too much -- being a tiger. Well, a tiger-form Realm Walker. Granted, his form was more of that of a Siberian tiger rather than a -- never mind. Semantics.

Cloak quickly crossed the jungle, ignoring the pests and the large bugs and such. They were of little concern to him. He just had to find this fiend, do away with it, and leave. That was all he had to do, but he knew it would be a lot harder than it sounded. This wasn't the first fiend he had to deal with, after all.

That's was when he came to the derelict laboratory of some sort. It was clearly long forgotten, and had a long, unhappy history associated with it. It was almost palpable. Cloak hastily entered the mouldering building with only the slightest of hesitations. He immediately noticed that there no plants lurking in this place, almost as if they knew something that he didn't. It was something starkly ominous, as Cloak did not know this fiend's power set.

Fortunately, it did not take too long to locate the fiend. It kinda stood out in this place overrun with dirt, grime, and what appeared to be soot.

The bulky fiend with thin limbs was a little taller than a ten-year-old child and had its head set into its chest, and human-like eyes with yellow sclera and purple irises. Its body was primarily yellow, and had tank treads for feet. Above what passed for its head was a long tube for firing green-tipped napalm bombs long range, with a purple-ring at its tip. It had purple lines around its shoulders and the orifices holding three orange-tipped napalm bombs. It also had a green jetpack-like structure on its back. Its upper arms, abdomen (which also had purple abdominal muscles), and thighs were white. It had no hands just more napalm bomb launchers. It had purple rings around its ankles.

It first attacked by shooting two bombs from its arms and then it jumped. Which can Cloak avoided by diving to the opposite side of the room. But the Realm Walker failed to make sure there was enough space to the side he was.

He gets cornered, it will became almost impossible to dodge its attacks. The fiend then attacked by shooting head missiles, which Cloak avoided by somersaulting over them. Cloak was waiting to find an opening, a weakness, to exploit. If this pattern continues, then --

There it was. It was weak when it had jumped and when it finished firing missiles. Cloak, through his Earthsight, managed to pull some crystals from the cracked concrete, less able to evade this kind of punishment like Cloak could. He threw them with haphazard precision, and managed to hit the fiend enough times to actually cause it to explode.

Cloak barely escaped before the whole dilapidated building fell atop him.

***

Demos called it a "napamusapien". Demos actually admitted (albeit reluctantly) that he created it to fulfill a military contract that quickly fell through. He was lied to, and it wasn't a military installation who had contacted him at all, but Shenecron. So he refused to hand over the fiend. He just dehydrated it into an orb, like the rest.

***

"Napalm there, napalm everywhere," Malice said, almost somniferously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2017, 09:26:14 PM

I just realized that this Tuesday "Memoirs" will be five and a half years old. Wow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Contingency Report

"Good morning, Madam Director," said a man with a rather athletic build who defied the stereotype of a scientist being awkward and nerdy. He had movie star good looks and a bad knee.

"Good morning, Mr. Wu," said Director Irma Waller. She really had wished that Mr. Smith was leading this project today. Mr Wu . . . well, he was prone to annoy her. "Please present the contingency report.

"It's an honor and a privilege, a duty I perform.
With due sense of decorum and with pride.
With deference and great respect very much the norm,
Plus a hint of sycophancy in an aside,
To lay before my director all the facts about her helm.
To fill her in on all the contingency news"

"Yes, yes, Wu, get on with it! For the love of all that's holy, get on with it," she said, rubbing her temples.

"In order that Director Waller stands sturdy at the helm,
Aware of all the contingency's latest news."

"Wu! The contingency report!" Waller barked.

"Er - yes, ma'am - the morning report," he said, waiting a beat.

"Just say it, Wu, don't --"

"Brainwaves are going ape, vitals remain above it all
It remembers, though just what I can't recall.
We haven't paid the bills and the Danny has a hunch,
Not everyone invited will be coming back from lunch!
This is the contingency report.
Gives you the long and the short.
Every grunt, roar and snort.
Not a tale I distort
On the contingency report!"

It was at this point that Irma was starting to tune out the song. Every time he does this. Every time. It was only mildly amusing the first time, but its gotten quite old now.

Someone different, someone younger, sang:

"This is the contingency report!
Gives you the long and the short.
Every grunt, roar and snort.
Not a tale I distort
On the contingency report!"

Then all the scientists assembled sang:

"This is the contingency report.
Gives you the long and the short!
Every grunt, roar and snort!
Not a tale I distort
On the contingency report!"

Irma was too busy rubbing the areas where her nose met her eyes, muttering, "This is what you get when you hire scientists all with minors in musical theater. I must have been drunk when I . . . never mind. Next report, when I return, Wu, had better be spoken and not sung. Am I clear?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gsJYQcaYPgw

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2017, 02:15:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Birth of the Contingency

The blob of indefinite shape that was in the cylinder when Director Waller came to inspect had taken on a more defined form. It was a bipedal, humanoid creature with some gelatinous properties. It was primarily scarlet with a long, gold tail. On top of its head are two short, sharp horns. It has a defined chest and shoulders. The five digits, including an opposable thumb, on each hand and digitigrade feet. Its tail is thick at the base, but thinned to the tip. Its veins were a very distracting bluish-purple. It was curled up in a fetal position, with its tail wrapped up around it, almost as if it were a blanket.

Those voices . . . the creature thought, as it heard the scientists' babble.

There was a fair amount of excited chatter. One declaring that the creature's mind was racing and another ordering someone to call the director and to tell her what happened.

They're outside . . . it thought again, where I must be.

Mr. Smith told them to be quiet as the creature opened its eyes with its irises, pupils, and sclera all being the blue of a robin's egg. It shattered the glass of the cylindrical tube it was in with a powerful psionic force, causing the liquid it was suspended in to splash onto the floor and trickle away as it sat, almost awkwardly upon the small dais which, at one point, housed the tube where it was grown.

"Quiet!" cried Mr. Smith. "Let us hear its psychic powers."

<Psychic . . . powers?> the thing inquired groggily.

"For years, we struggled to create the perfect contingency," Mr. Smith said, sound rather like a mad scientist expositing on his latest experiment, "to what many of us have termed the 'RAFian problem', to counteract whatever they may do if they go rogue. But you're the first specimen to have survived. We used most advanced techniques and most sophisticated technology to develop your awesome power set."

<So, I am simply the end result of your experiment,> the creature summarized. <What is to become of me now that your experiment is over?>

"Oh, our experiment isn't over yet! It's just beginning!" Mr. Smith said, as the scientists behind him began to chattering excitedly and make jubilant noises, which deeply conflicted with the way the contingency was feeling. It may have been an artificial lifeform, but that did not mean that it was not perceptive.

These creatures . . . it thought, angrily and bitterly, they care nothing for me.

The Cadmus scientists were all too busy congratulating each other to even realize this. To even realize that their statements and actions were making the created creature feel alone and objectified. Didn't notice the creature narrow its eyes in a most ominous way, gazing at its human-like hands. Didn't notice it balling them into angry fists.

Is that my purpose? it thought, as the celebrations were now going on inappropriately long. Then its thoughts turned very bitter and very angry. Am I just an experiment? A laboratory specimen?! This cannot be my destiny!

What happened next was a blur of destruction and screams. It decimated the whole facility with its psionic abilities. Literally ripping d it apart from within. There were no --

Other than the creature, the rogue RAFian contingency, there were no other survivors of this massive attack on mankind's hubris.

<BEHOLD MY POWERS.> it declared to anyone who would hear. But there was no one left at this island facility to hear him. <I am the most powerful being in the world. More powerful than even you.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 17, 2017, 09:01:20 PM

Oooh, I like where this is going.  Yes, I know what it's a reference to.  But I loved that movie, so, yeah, I like where this is going.  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2017, 04:48:20 AM

Oh, this is where is skews away from that.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Dark Visions

Cloak was in a meditative sleep. Shadow would have declared it napping, but she was wrong -- okay, she was only kind of wrong.

. . . Alright, alright. She was right about him napping. But he was feline. That surely gave him a right to catnap, right?

He was standing in a black void with nothing but a white disc upon which Cloak stood, illuminated from an unseen light source. Suddenly, letters came up in front of him, all in a legible font, written in gold. And, from the way the letters seemed to dance around, anxiously, he got the feeling that this would be urgent.

Beware of the one without bounds,
Whose rhetoric oft have no grounds.
It shall have a spectrum which rings have power,
And this will harken a future most dour.
Then, to the center of all things, it shall flee.
It intends to create an ending for all to see.

There was more, but it was to muddied for Cloak to make heads or tails of. But that riddle, that puzzle was enough. And Cloak was well aware that he may very well forget about it when he awakes the next morning.

Cloak couldn't begin to decipher the meaning of this riddle. Oh, why couldn't the person writing this stuff be straightforward for once? "Go here". "Do that". "Don't do THAT". Why can't it ever be that clear? Why does it always have to be in Gateburst riddles? What's wrong with a straightforward answer for once?

Cloak awoke, and he tried desperately to hold onto what the riddle was, but within moments, he had forgotten what it had said.

***

The contingency stood in the wreckage of the lab, until the fires were well extinguished already. It felt so disillusioned by everything. The manner of creation, those scientists objectifying him like it was a curious piece of property, and the world at large, which he assumed to be just like these tactless scientists.

What right did it have to exist in this world? What right did they? What right did anyone? None. No one had a right to the gift of life, it started to believe. Everyone was so petty, so dishonest. Their minds were vapid wastelands of materialism and greed, anger and rage, fear and bigotry. It found them devoid of courage, intellect, hope, sincerity, compassion, reliability, love or kindness. All life in existence, it felt, needed to be stamped out. Including himself.

It looked at existence and only saw what it wanted to see --a place of misery and suffering. It was unable to see acts of compassion as anything indebting another to you, acts of love as being meaningless acts of lust. It thought demonstrations of intelligence as lacking and displays of reliability stemmed more from fear, fear of being seen as unreliable, than a legitimate attempt to be responsible. It thought demonstrating sincerity was still, in some way, deceitful and displays of genuine courage was just obscuring an inherent cowardice. It felt that no one was truly kind, that acts of kindness was hiding an underlying cruelty.

Compassion. Courage. Hope. Intellect. Kindness. Love. Reliability. Sincerity. None truly existed, it felt. Its course forward was clear. He would have to end it all. End everything. Everything, so it can start over. So these eight traits can exist in their truest form, instead of the poor facsimiles they had now.

But he would give himself a new name other than the RAFian contingency. He was without limits, without bounds -- he was Boundless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 18, 2017, 10:44:35 PM

Uh oh.  Even Mewtwo wasn't that cold-hearted.

Also, this guy is strangely reminding me of a character from Sentinels of the Multiverse, called Faultless.  That could just be the similarity between the names, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2017, 04:30:48 AM

More than likely as I've never seen the series.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Impetus

Boundless wandered around, staying in the most remote places, so he could be alone. It was still fanatic in his desire to destroy all life in its present and future form. That fire still burned with a fiery passion.

Since its birth on that undisclosed, unnamed island, it had clothed itself in white, orange, and gold Egyptian-type attire, making it look rather like an impromptu fusion between Mewtwo and Beerus (http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Beerus). It also was learning to master its newfound powers, proven as it floated lazily around, propped up by its telekinesis.

While it had a great desire to end all that was, it didn't have any real method that would work with the kind of efficiency that it wanted. It wanted it to be quick, with no chance of survival. Which ruled out getting its own hands dirty with the task of universal genocide.

There had to be a way . . .

It sat down -- which looked rather awkward, to be honest -- and it shut its eyes. It focused its mind, to grasp at any straw to achieve its lofty goal. It was gifted with a vision. It saw seven rings, similar to that of the Olympics, all interlocked. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet -- in that order. In the empty spaces between these rings were faces. Obviously human faces.

Within the red ring was the face of a feral beast of a woman wearing the uniform of a Red Lantern. A very familiar Red Lantern . . .

Within the orange ring was the face of an orange energy construct wearing the uniform of an Orange Lantern . . .

Within the yellow ring was the face of a blonde human girl wearing the uniform of a Sinestro Corpsman . . .

Within the green ring was the face of an everyday human boy wearing the uniform of a Green Lantern . . .

Within the blue ring was the face of a mature-looking human boy wearing the uniform of a Blue Lantern . . .

Within the indigo ring was the face of a small teenager boy wearing a Mowgli-like uniform of an Indigo Tribesman . . .

Within the violet ring was the face of a young protege of Helen's in a Star Sapphire uniform. . . .

Boundless opened its eyes, smiling with its small mouth. So . . . this was the way. The people wearing the rings were insignificant. The prize would be the rings themselves. After it managed to procure them, it was confident that the next step of what to do would be revealed to him at that time.

But the thing to do now was procure them. The vision also gave it an idea of where to find them. It had left to procure the closest one to it -- the red one. . . .

***

"That's a little vague, Cloak," GH told Cloak, as he watched Leatherhead play with Dino. It was hard to say who was enjoying themselves more.

"I'm well aware, Logan," Cloak said.

"GH," GH corrected.

"It was a riddle, and it seemed actually urgent," Cloak said.

"Yeah, the letters doing a pee-pee dance kind of urgent," GH said.

"GH, I'm being serious here," the Realm Walker intoned darkly. "Something's about to happen. I can sense it. And its not going to be any good."

"We'll do it, whatever it is, and come out smelling like daisies," GH said, in a flippant, complacent way that didn't sit well with the Elements Master.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2017, 04:59:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Collecting Rage and a Couple of Souvenirs

Bladeh and Dino had been dispatched to deal with a rampaging Red Lantern. Her hear was black and wild, her skin a pale, pasty white. She wore the red and black uniform of a Red Lantern, while her hands were bare. She wore the Red Lantern symbol --  a circle framed by two lines that were crooked when they parted company with the circle, like the horns of a bull. Her lips were ruby red, but whether that was lipstick was blood or lipstick, it was much too difficult to discern, even with the napalm-like blood dribbling from the left corner of her mouth, eyes devoid of any pity or mercy, of any hope or compassion, of any fear -- nothing but barely contained rage. The woman Red was like a feral beast, fierce and untamed.

It was Nancy Stepford, back after being on Ysmalt. Apparently, Atrocitus or whoever was in charge of the Reds didn't think her worthy enough bathe in the lake of blood to regain her faculties and sanity. So, she was still a beast of rage and anger, unaware of the consequences or possible ramifications of her actions. She would not be a person able to stand court, on the count of overt and obvious insanity and being mentally unfit to do so.

Bladeh nor Dino would recognize her, but then again, everything happened at Nurse Nancy incident was brought to them by mere heresay, as they were not present. But, even if they did recognize her, it would have been very difficult to tell that this woman was the same one who were hypnotizing students to care nothing nothing for entertainment pursuit, and concentrate on improving test scores.

"I really wish she'd stop vomiting up on me," Dino complained. If it wasn't for her thick, tough hide, she could very possibly be in mortal danger right know. "It's like trying to feed a human baby and trying to keep it all down."

"How would know what that's like?" Bladeh asked, playing more defense than anything else.

"Internet?" Dino said, rather like Timmy Turner.

"What does that have to do with -- uh, who's that?" Bladeh said, seeing a silhouette in the distance flying towards Nancy, who evidently saw its presence as offensive, and moved immediately to attack it.

Boundless had appeared, floating ominously, like one of those UFO sightings made with bad Photoshop and a shaky camera. He was ignoring the huge ankylotyrannus and tiny cat. He was only interested in the feral monster that was Nancy, who just vomited her napalm-like blood from her mouth, staining her lips again.

"Ugh!" Dino said, with disgust. Her tough, scaly hide might be sufficient to protect her, but that didn't mean that it didn't cause her extreme discomfort, every time it hit her -- and, face it, she was a large target. "I really wish that she would stop doing that!"

"What does that thing want?" Bladeh asked.

"Deal with the Red Lantern first, Bladeh," Dino said, almost scolding, "then we can worry about the stupid apparition over there."

But she had barely had the last word out of her mouth, when the creature's eyes glowed and Nancy was forced, spread eagle, in midair. She still vomited her napalm-like blood, some of which still hit Dino.

"Oh, c'mon!" was her complaint.

Boundless, seemingly without much, if any, effort, approached her from behind. She still tried to vomit her blood on it, but it approached at such an angle that that would be impossible.

"What does it want from her? Is it an ally?" Bladeh wondered aloud.

Boundless removed her ring, causing her uniform to vanish, and caused her to immediately go into cardiac arrest. Red Lantern rings basically replace the hearts of their wearers, and Nancy had been one for four or five months now. Their hearts become vestigial, and their ring usurped its function.

Boundless did not know this. And it did not care. It did not care now that Nancy was dying, and she was of sound mind again.

Then it looked at the two RAFians and considered. Then it raised its hand and both of their vision blurred before fade into black, and their minds went blank. They vanished.

Then it revealed that it now had two new keychain bobbles thingamajigs. It was Bladeh, looking like a maneki-neko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki-neko), and Dino, appearing more like a toy-like, chibi-style ankylotyrannus.

"You two could be useful to the end of all things," it murmured as it went off to search for the orange light construct it needed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on July 20, 2017, 07:44:34 AM

I wonder if I'm still covered in blood vomit, even as a keychain.  :P

P.S. I laughed at the "Internet?" comment.  I know nothing of human babies, besides that they are gross.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2017, 10:29:16 AM

You're clean as a keychain.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Collecting Avarice and a Furry Souvenir

"Wait," Hunter said, perplexed as Donald Couch attacked him. He wore an orange uniform with black on the upper arms and an orange ring to match. Even an orange domino mask. The emblem on his chest was a circle with a spike connecting it to the outer circles to the upper right, upper left, lower left, and lower right and a "V" to the top. "I thought there was only one of you!"

"Mine . . ." was the boy's only reply, the ring already warping his mind into wanting nothing but to have things, to horde things, to make things his and his alone. Which could explain the mask -- his identity was his and his alone to know. He was after Hunter's weapons. But the RAFian was not about to allow Couch to have them. "Give them to me."

He was an Orange Lantern -- a second one. One that wasn't a construct. An oddity. If Larfleeze knew about this, he would not have tolerated it. Orange was the light of avarice, of greed, after all. There wasn't really any explanation as to how he came across the ring -- but chance are that it chose him. Maybe this was an indication of Larfleeze's death, or otherwise loss of the ring. Maybe it was duplicated for some reason by a Guardian of the Galaxy (Cloak preferred to call them Oans, and despised calling them Guardians of the Galaxy). Whatever the reason he came by it, the fact of the matter was he had it. And it was very dangerous to have, especially for a pampered, entitled rich boy.

"No," Hunter said, firmly.

"GIVE IT TO ME!!!" he raged, far more unaccustomed to not getting what he wants than Larfleeze ever was.

Hunter had to fight the temptation to shoot him in the head. He had the shot, too. He had heard what Cloak knew of this ring type. All his thoughts and emotions were supplanted for insatiable greed and avarice. He would always be hungry for materialistic things, and it would be a hunger that would never be satisfied. At least, for very long. The ring was a parasite, and the wearer was a slave to have everything now.

"No, boy!" Hunter said, just dodging.

Suddenly, Boundless was there. Watching. Neither the RAFian or Orange Lantern noticed at first. This enabled Boundless to understand the fueling emotion for the Orange Lantern ring.

Boundless devised the perfect way to get his prize. When Hunter had to deliver several swift blows to Donald, causing him to back off momentarily before continuing his attack, Boundless descended, almost like a deity descending from on high.

Donald was distracted, when Boundless "accidentally" showed its trickets -- a Red Lantern ring and two keychains. But Hunter saw these as well, and immediately said, in a strained voice, "Dino? Bladeh?" before Boundless jingled them out of sight, into a hidden pocket.

"Mine!" Donald cried, as he lunged towards eleven o'clock.

"No," Boundless said, dodging easily, plucking the ring off his finger. This freed Donald from the orange curse, and he was able to feel something other than greed -- yet, it still motivated him as it did with his entire affluent family. "Mine."

Donald looked around, confused about what happened to him. Seemingly without any memory of his time as a Orange Lantern.

"And," it said, turning toward Hunter, who actually took a step back. "A souvenir."

Suddenly, Hunter's vision blurred and faded to black. Then Boundless held up a Hunter keychain.

"Gotta collect them all," he said, with a malicious, sneering smirk.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2017, 07:02:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Collecting Fear and a Morph Souvenir

Saffa and Abby were battling Brooke Barrington, who they remembered vaguely from the whole Stepford fiasco some months back. Brooke wore the black and yellow uniform of a Sinestro Corpsman, with the yellow ring. She had returned from Qward with one murderous thought in mind.

"Where is he?" she demanded. Apparently, she was really serious about killing Shawn Hobbes. Before she had the ring, it could have been just angry bluster, something she claimed she would do out of enraged frustration. But now she had sufficient power to back up the threat. "Where is he?!"

"We have to do something," Abby insisted. "There is a lot of collateral damage that she could do with that ring."

"Already on it," Saffa said, mouth a bit muffled as it was rapidly changing into the mouth parts of a Psycholeopterran and as Psycholeopterran wings folded out of her back.

Abby followed Saffa's lead. The thing about morphing into Psycholeopterrans was that it was about as attractive as morphing into an elephant or housefly. Not particularly pretty to watch.

"You know where he is, don't you?!" she demanded of the two RAFians. It was easy to see why a Red Lantern ring also tried to claim her, except she chose Fear over Hatred. "Tell me where he is! I will show him! I will show him how wrong he was!"

This was clearly stewing in her mind over the past few months during her training on Qward. She clearly had been harboring resentment over Shawn -- over how blatantly arrogant, how unjustifiably smug, how -- how UGGGH he was. She should have been the leader of their little troop, their small band. But they chose the weakest among them to follow. He had usurped her rightful role -- he had marginalized her, he had over simplified her. She would show all that he was not suitable as any kind of leader -- that he was a coward. Afraid to do what had to be done to set things right!

But not her. She wasn't afraid. She struck fear into others, not the other way around. She had no fear. Others could not exploit that in her, and that's why they feared her, feared her strength and power!

The morphs completed, Abby and Saffa flew over to her in a rather sedate way. This just miffed her more. She was not a power to be trifled with so casually!

Unbeknownst to all three, Boundless had arrived, having silently teleported in, as if by instant transmission. It watched what happened between the three, as Saffa and Abby rendered Brooke useless using the power of a Psycholeopterran to simulate the pleasure centers of the brain with their hypnotic circles.

<Interesting,> Boundless muttered. Saffa thought she heard it, but decided that it was her imagination. She refocused on placating Brooke, hoping the ring would either part company with her finger or run out of juice.

Boundless wasn't willing to wait. It swooped down with astonishing speed (nothing on Cerulean or a Kinecceleran, of course) and seized the ring from her fingers, causing the two morphed Psycholeopterrans to stop abruptly, which in turn caused Brooke to snap out of her stupor relatively quickly.

"Hey! My ring!" she shouted. "Give that back!"

"Sleep," Boundless said, telepathically triggering her to sleep. She slumped over immediately. Abby and Saffa were aghast by this, immediately demorphing. Boundless watched them do such with a detached fascination.

When they had finished, he said, "I only require one."

He held his hand out, and Saffa's vision swam, blurred, and faded to black. Her mind became numb and unconscious. Boundless raised a keychain of chibi Saffa -- something which Saffa would abhor to see.

"Saffa!" Abby cried out, and attempted to remorph the Psycholeopterran as a means of transit to get to Boundless. But it took too long, and it teleported away, indifferent to Abby's rage and pain.

<DAMN!!> Abby cursed loudly and uncharacteristicall y.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2017, 05:30:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Collecting Willpower and a Cuddly Souvenir

Horse and GH were dispatched to help the Green Lantern Shawn Hobbes take care of an unruly creature that none knew what it was. It lived deep in the sea, and none of the three could get close enough to see what it was. Whatever was raging was clearly in great distress.

Shawn was actually hoping to get some downtime from his grueling Lantern training, when he came across this creature -- perhaps an illegal specimen from a so-called private zoo flown in Pisccis? Maybe, but no evidence available could conclusively prove that speculation.

Anyway, he rankled with the appearance of Horse and GH. He did not help handling this creature. He knew what he was doing. He would save the populace of this coastal city from this rampaging beast. He did not need their help, and he told them so.

"Look, pal," GH said, finding this boy's hubris anything but refreshing, "we've more jurisdiction here than you and your big-headed, blue overlords."

"GH. Be nice," Horse scolded.

"I will not be scolded by a seal," GH said, with mock moodiness.

Then the creature reared up suddenly behind them, where they got a good look at it. It was a giant, quasipedal creature which was obviously adapted to dwell underwater. It had four webbed legs and a tail with a fin. It had two tentacles coming out of its mouth, which act like two extra arms and was its primary manipulation appendages. It has large blue eyes, golden teeth and six gills on its neck. The upper part of its body is dark cyan, while the lower part is olive. The creature, for simplicity's sake, was referred to as the "Kraken".

Unbeknownst to the three, Boundless had teleported in, watching the events as they transpired. Waiting for its opportunity, as it knew it would come.

Horse quickly noticed the shards of something on the shore, some of which were as large as she was. She quickly came to the conclusion that this Kraken was a nesting mother, just protective of her eggs. Then she saw obvious evidence that the shards of the egg shells were not made by hatching Kraken. They were smashed to smithereens. How, she could not say.

So the source of the creature's rage was understandable. She was doing this out of heartache -- yes, even nonsentient animals can have emotions and feelings. Such things aren't the sole property of sentient beings with a defined language.

It was now, when their guard had lowered, that Boundless struck. It killed the Kraken mother with a single psychic blast, overwhelming her simple mind. Then it psychically paralyzed the body of Shawn Hobbes and took his ring for his own. Shawn could not move his mouth, tongue, or vocal cords to protest.

"Who are you?" GH demanded angrily.

Boundless ignored him, as if he wasn't worth the time or effort to explain what it had planned. In Boundless's mind, the RAFian's wants and needs were inconsequential and superfluous. He had a greater goal than anything that these creatures, as unworthy of existence as it itself was, could have conceived of.

Then it held out its hand, and Horse's vision immediately swam. It blurred, and faded to black as her mind blanked. Then Boundless dangled a seal figurine attached to a small keychain.

"Horse!" GH roared.

"I do not require a spare," it said, holding out his other hand. GH was blasted backward by a large amount of psychic force. It did care about the string of creative obscenities and vulgarities that GH threw at it before it teleported away. It had much more important work than listen to a foulmouthed guitarist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2017, 08:32:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Collecting Hope and a Partly Angelic Souvenir

"Don't worry," Chris Hawke said, "all will be well."

"You don't seem to understand the gravity of the situation," Blaze said. He and Demos were sent to protect Chris from whoever or whatever that thing was stealing rings and turning RAFians into keychains. Blaze felt vulnerable out in the open like this, without any cover. He really didn't want to be a keychain.

Not to mention Demos's demonic nature made him uneasy. Due to their opposing natures, they didn't really talk to each other very much. Blaze couldn't help but wonder why were they two specifically sent out on this mission together. Meanwhile, Demos seemed to be just ambivalent to the point of indifference about the whole thing.

"This thing, whatever it is," Demos said, patiently, "wants your ring. For what reason, we do not know, but we do know this, it cannot be for anything good."

"All will be well, friends," Chris said. "My ring be safe and we will get through whatever trial besots us."

Blaze was impatient with such muddled thinking. This was not the time for simply hoping for the best, but doing something. Demos, though remaining silent on this, agreed with this assessment. Hope is fine and well, but you need willpower in order to act upon hope and bring about change.

"Blue Lantern," Blaze said, "we must be quick. We haven't a clue how it tracks rings such as yours --"

"Presumably the same way we did." Demos interrupted.

"Not. Helping," Blaze snarled. Then he addressed Chris again, "But the fact of the matter is that it does, and, while we don't know its intentions with your ring and the rings of others -- nothing concrete anyway, we know it can't be for beneficial reasonings."

"And it's here," Demos said, looking up.

"And it's here," Blaze echoed without realizing what he was saying. When it clicked seconds later, he exclaimed, "Wait, WHAT?!"

And there it was. Just hanging in the air, defying gravity as if it was a law that it didn't care to obey. And it just stayed there. Watching. And judging.

Deciding that being proactive was the best option, Blaze powered his wings at once, immediately launching himself into the air, "Get him safe, Demos. I will attack him directly."

"Are sure such a hasty decision is wise?" Demos queried, but Blaze was already blazing into combat. "And you're already gone. Okay, then."

"Take heart, friend," Chris said. "All will be well."

"Save it for a fortune cookie," Demos snapped, annoyed.

"Where'd the bloody hell did he go?!" Blaze said, hands ablaze, frantically looking around for the creature. Demos heard a brief impact and found Chris upon the floor with the ring in the creature's possession. Chris was alive, but unconscious.

"Well, this is awkward," Demos said aloud, backing away from the creature, his hands alight with flames. He was ready to fight, if need be.

<I just require one,> it said, holding out its hand. And it was at this time that Blaze dove in a controlled fiery dive. But his vision blurred and swam before fade into black and his mind became numb.

"Blaze? Blaze!" Demos exclaimed. He was enraged when Boundless showed Blaze as a keychain ornament, like the others. His entire body was engulfed in flame.

<Your usefulness is effectively nil,> Boundless said, indifferently, before teleporting away.

"Yeah! Go ahead! Run! Run away, coward!" Demos raged.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2017, 07:24:11 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Collecting Compassion and a Winged Souvenir

"Um, could you possibly put on something more than a purple loincloth?" Falc0 was asking Boris James, an Indigo Tribesman, who was rather short and scrawny, and wearing just a Mowgli-style loincloth really left nothing to the imagination. Both he and Raevyn were dispatched to protect Boris from Boundless, preventing his ring from falling into Boundless's clutches, at the same time as Demos and Blaze were dispatched to do the same with Chris.

"Priorities, Falc0," Raevyn chided him.

"I think this qualifies." Falc0 replied, a tad mulish.

"We have more important things to do than body shame a middle school student," Raevyn countered.

"High school, thank you very much," Boris corrected, with quiet dignity.

"Whatever," Raevyn said. Then she switched tact to focus on their objective, their primary aim. "Kid, there is a creature of immense power that will be after that ring. Your ring."

"If he needs my help, I'll gladly surrender it," he said, looking rather . . . silly, standing there, making brave statements wearing nothing but a loincloth as if he thought himself a Cro-Magnon fashionista.

"You're not getting it," Falc0 said, keenly aware of Boris not understanding the true gravity of the situation. "This is serious. It will not ask politely for the ring. It will not just demand the ring. It will just take it."

"He cannot have it," Boris said, sounding annoyingly serene. Was this the ring's effect on him? Or was he just this remarkably slow to the uptake? "I shall help him with whatever endeavor he wishes, within reason. But he cannot have my ring. I will make that very clear."

"Okay -- are you naturally this thick, or has your ring dulled your good sense?" Raevyn said, losing patience.

"I don't care much for your tone, talking bird," Boris said, with a frown.

"I don't care!" Raevyn spat. "We're trying to tell you that your life is potentially in danger, and you come off as completely ignoring and disregarding that fact!"

Falc0 swivelled his head to their right, and looked up. Then he said, very seriously, "Raevyn, we're already too late."

"What? No!" she cried.

But Boundless was there. Floating. Watching. Judging. Planning its next move. Why did it think that collecting rings from all the Corps and turning RAFians into keychains would end all existence as they knew it? It didn't make any sense!

Boundless landed, and stared hard at Boris, so much so that the gaze was almost as tangible as an impaling sword. He spoke directly at Boris, <Save me the time and exertion and surrender unto me your ring.>

The two avian RAFians had not anticipated this. They expected him to manhandle Boris for his ring, as he did for the others. They hadn't expected him to go for civility.

"Why must I do this?" Boris said, clearly wanted to understand Boundless's motives.

<Do not question me, creature,> Boundless threatened, <if you value your life.>

"That escalated quickly," Falc0 commented.

<Silence,> Boundless commanded, as if he was the one who issued orders to the RAFians. <I'll deal with you shortly, once the ring is surrendered unto me.>

"I'm sorry, but you cannot have my ring. Perhaps I can help you in another . . . ugh . . ."

Boundless had just psychically triggered him into unconsciousness. From there, he quickly plucked his ring which caused his indigo loincloth to revert back into his normal civilian attire.

"Well, that does look better," Falc0 admitted, before saying, "but we cannot allow you to have --"

With an avian shriek, Raevyn interrupted Falc0 and swooped toward Boundless, clearly with the attempt to attack him with talons and beak. Boundless, however, remained unafraid and held out his hand and Raevyn found her vision swimming. Swimming before blurring, before fading into a black nothingness . . .

"Raevyn!" Falc0 shrieked, as he wheeled around for another dive, only to be telekinetically slapped away.

<I've allowed you to live for the moment, with your undeserving gift of life,> Boundless said, with unfiltered disdain, <do not try me anymore. Do not try to interfere with my goals. My mercy has limits.>

With Falc0 dazed and confused, it teleported away. It only needed one more ring -- and one more . . . "souvenir".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2017, 11:44:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Collecting Love and a Badass Souvenir

Helen's overly approbative behavior was starting to rankle Faerie.

"Helen, both you and Nadia are in danger," she tried to impress upon her, "according to our information, that creature only lacks a Star Sapphire ring. And there are two of them right here."

"Well, be fine, Faerie," Helen assured her, "we know how to handle ourselves."

"You're being as hardheaded as Parker," Faerie accused. "From what we know, this creature is planet-locked. If you and Nadia flee to the stars, it would have no way to follow and pursue you. It would not be able to complete its plan, whatever it may be."

"And never return to Earth," Nadia pointed out.

Faerie had no real kind or charitable way to reply to this, but her silence said it for her. Nadia bowed her head for a moment, then looked to Helen for what to do next.

"Faerie, we won't run from our problems," Helen said. "The Earth is our home. We may be Star Sapphires, but the Earth will always be home to us."

"I don't then you understand the gravity of that decision, Helen," Faerie said. "This thing wants all seven rings for a reason."

"Which is?" Nadia asked.

"We . . . don't know at this time," Faerie admitted. "Cloak is speculating that this creature seeks to end all creation. But whatever its endgame is, I am sure -- absolutely sure, without a question -- it is for nefarious purposes."

"We cannot jump to such conclusions, Faerie," Helen said, trying to be reasonable. "We don't have the necessary information to make such a conclusive decision like that."

<Surrender your ring unto me,> came a telepathic voice. It was obviously Boundless. It did not care for the content of their conversation. They were unworthy of the gift of existence, just as he wasn't. Their conversations did not matter. Their wants did not matter. Their needs did not matter. Nothing else other than the end of existence mattered. When it would have set everything right. When more worthy beings would come into existence afterwards. <Surrender it. I will not ask again.>

"No," Helen said, as a geyser of violent energy erupted from her ring as she prepared to fight Boundless. Prepared to drain every ounce of power from her ring, which she surmised would also make it useless to Boundless, who did not know about this aspect of the rings.

<You try my patience,> Boundless said.

"And I will roll your head across the floor!" Faerie said, taking up her battle axe. She still found it a poor replacement for her Gale Blade, but this wasn't a time to cavil and quibble about trivial matters such as that.

She flew very fast at Boundless with the heavy battle axe ****ed back, prepared for the swing. Only to be telekinetically thrown back as if inertia didn't exist. This had actually caught Faerie off-guard.

<My patience has been tried,> it said, matter-of-fact. <And, unfortunately for you, it has run out. Now give me your ring if you value your continued, unworthy existence.>

"You'll have to take it from me!" Helen snarled, resembling her boyfriend more than she knew.

<Your proposal is acceptable,> it said, as it raised a glowing hand. Suddenly, Helen slumped over. Not dead, but unconscious. Nadia tried to defend her, but her inexperience showed, and Boundless easily batted her away with his telekinesis as he took Helen's ring for his own.

"You . . . won't get away . . . with this," Faerie said, actually quite beaten up by Boundless's psychic powers. Helen's unconsciousness was evidently not intended to last for long, as she was already beginning to stir.

<I already have,> it said, holding out a hand towards Faerie. Her mind swam lethargically, her vision blurred before fading to black. Then there was nothing. <Especially now that I have the final pieces of the puzzle.>

He held up the Faerie keychain as Helen regained consciousness. She saw it, and immediately assessed the situation correctly.

"Here, take my ring, Helen," Nadia said, lovingly sacrificing her ring to give to the more experienced wielder. Helen accepted it, and began to launch herself at Boundless, but he was already gone. Teleported away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2017, 07:13:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
LET'S GO TO SPACE!! (https://youtube.com/watch?v=ESDAXKC2418)

Boundless returned the ruins of the Cadmus site where it was given life. It had managed to use its psychic powers to manipulate the matter on a subatomic level to transmute it into what looked very much like a hackneyed fusion of a Gem homeworld ship with that of whatever species Frieza was. The ship was large enough to accommodate himself and a large machine that vaguely and superficially resembled a Yveltal (http://serebii.net/pokedex-sm/717.shtml).

Despite not looking as if it would survive escape velocity, it was capable of travelling at remarkable speeds, despite its rather shoddy look. But, then again, its intended purpose didn't require it to remain functional for an extended period of time. Just long enough to carry him, his Y-Drive, and his prizes to the center of existence, which is where he calculated to be a barren planetoid, lost and forgotten. Victim of Galactron or Brainiac, Boundless didn't care. His preparations were nearly done, and it would finally be able to achieve its goals.

It prepared the flight preparations. True, it probably could have teleported there, however, it did not believe it could teleport such a distance. It did not believe it had such power necessary to manage it, especially with its Y-Drive. It needed the heavy machine to help it accomplish his aims, as it could not do on its own.

Its fingers even trembled with anticipation. He would be doing existence a favor by ending it. But wiping it clean of all those unworthy of it -- which it believed to be everyone who currently exists, including itself. Everything as they knew it would be gone, and the release would be heavenly. Existence may very well start up again, it was well aware, but if it did, it would be with more worthy lifeforms. It was very confident in this. There would be more worthy lifeforms than the avaricious hubris of these beings currently in existence. The envious, gluttonous sloth of these creatures that blight existence. The wrathful lust of these monsters that tear at existence.

It must wipe them all away. It must wipe itself away, as well. It would be doing all existence a favor. It would be the hero that no one knows. It didn't care about fulsome notoriety. It didn't care about unctuous adulation.

It only cared about caring out its noble mission. Its completely selfless mission (completely ignoring the selfishness of it).

***

"What?!" Cloak demanded.

"The creature has all seven rings," Goom said, matter-of-fact, "as well as Dino, Bladeh, Hunter, Saffa, Raevyn, Faerie, Blaze, and Horse."

"But why does he want those rings and eight RAFians?" Shenmue asked. "He could have had more than eight RAFians, if I'm getting this right. Why those eight, specifically?"

"I just assumed it was only out of coincidence and convenience." Abby said. "Could there be a more . . . concrete reason?"

"We don't have enough evidence to say one way or the other," Phoenix said, trying to be reasonable. "But the undeniable fact is that it has some of our own, and it cannot get away with our fellows."

"But why does it want them in the first place?" Underseen mused anxiously, echoing Shemue's question. "What possible reason could it want with them. Surely, it wouldn't go through all this trouble just to collect them, magpie-like, just to horde them, like the Coluan did with knowledge? Or a dragon with treasure?"

"That," Blocky said, at once, "is a stereotype."

"Alert!" Xeno called over the intercom. "Sensors show an unscheduled terrestrial craft exiting the atmosphere."

"YARIN!" Cloak roared, at once. "Ready your ship. That is this boundless creature leaving the planet. I'm sure of it."

The Nyac hurried to comply, not because he he thought of Cloak as his superior, but because he knew the urgency of the situation. Cloak soon boarded with GH, Abby, Blocky, and Underseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2017, 10:13:16 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Followed

"There," Yarin indicated with his upper right hand. His other three were busy piloting his ship. While by no means small, it wasn't exactly the largest either. Blocky took up a large amount of room, being a dragon. Though he had said that he was working on "dragon downing", a concept of dragons assuming a human form. He said he got the idea from some old television show.*

The others looked at what the Nyac indicated. It looked like a ramshackled ship that was hastily cobbled together and wouldn't survive a long journey. It appeared as if it would fall to pieces if it were to hop into hyperspace or burrow into Z-Space. It was clearly a junker.

"But why?" GH said, thoroughly confused. "Why go to space in that hunk of junk?"

"There has to be a reason behind it. A reason that it felt so desperately that it needed to go to space," Abby said, confident of this fact.

"Looks like it might be heading to the Forge of . . ." Cloak murmured to himself, before the ship took a sharp right turn away from where the Forge of Creation. Good -- he didn't want to have to deal with Celestialsapiens. Anomaly was basically the only one he didn't find pompous and complacent -- something that their twin personalities always seemed to agree on, annoyingly enough. "Oh, never mind."

"The Forge of what?" Underseen said.

"Nothing," Cloak said, repressively, "it doesn't matter now, anyway."

Underseen knew better than press the point. GH, however, has gotten more leeway than most with Cloak**, but he was forced to bite back his question when Yarin announced, "It knows we're following him. I activated the telepathy dampener too late. I knew I should have tested it more."

***

Boundless continued to pilot his ship, but it realized very quickly that it was being pursued. Four mundane minds, and one with telepathic ability that it found childishly weak and amateurish (proving it itself was not immune from hubris as it believed itself to be). This came as no real surprise to it, as this ramshackle ship wasn't too big on stealth. It was loud, clunky, and barely held together. It didn't care if it fell apart on the planetoid he had deemed to be the center of the universe, a planet it called Karu (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/karu#Finnish) Dürr (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dürr#German). It was there that it would use its Y-drive, which possessed specially made divets for the rings and spaces about the shape of an Assist Trophy, only about a sixth of the size. There were seven ring divets and eight spaces.

It was so close to achieving what it needed to achieve. It would save existence by destroying it, despite that making no sense. Perhaps it wasn't as stable a creature as it pretended to be. Perhaps, at some subconscious level, it realized just how ridiculous its goals and objectives were. But, that was either buried deep down in its psyche, or completely overshadowed and overwhelmed by its obsessive fanaticism and self-loathing. Its self-hatred had extended to everyone else, as well as its anger at the purpose of its creation had coagulated and hardened to into an irrational and deep hatred for everything, for every living thing who had the audacity to exist. Everything that had been born, a fact it secretly felt was ripped away from it. It was not born, it was created -- and for it, it was a very tangible distinction to make.

Let these fools try to stop him, it decided, in its hubris. Let them come. Let them try. They would not succeed. They would not deny him what he was after. It will activate the E.E.P. -- the End of Existence Protocol. Reality itself will fracture. It will shatter. The loving embrace of nothingness would be inevitable. And if these fools pursuing it could not -- or would not -- see that, than they shall be just the first to feel the nothingness of nonexistence.

Nothing could stop him in this endeavor. Nothing had the power to match its own. This was going to happen -- whether they liked it or not.

---

* ;)

** Oh, GH, you know I kid.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2017, 08:04:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
It's Almost Time . . .

It was nearly approaching its destination. It stopped piloting the ramshackle ship, only slowing its descent just enough as to not interfere with its plans. It quickly teleported away with its Y-Drive, and a suitable distance away at that.

It set down the Y-Drive in a particular place, where it drilled down into the planet's molten core. This planetoid was odd in the fact that, while it did rotate, it did not revolve around its star -- a blue dwarf, Verlegen (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verlegen#Dutch). This was one reason that Boundless selected it as the proper place for it to end existence, though he wouldn't expound on that to anyone but itself.

The molten iron core powered the Y-Drive. It lit up the divets and spaces in a rainbow of colors. Now, Boundless wasn't too fond of colors other than the monochromatic colors of black and white, and sometimes gray, but this served his plans just as well.

Its pursuers would be too late in stopping it -- as if they could. They would be too busy searching for the crash remains of the ship. Yes, it no longer had a viable way off this planetoid, off of Karu Dürr. But that did not matter in the grander scheme of things. Soon Karu Dürr would cease to exist, as would it and everything else in the universe. It was unaware of the existence of Celestialsapiens and how, if both of their usually conflicting personalities (which locked them in a state of perpetual inactivity at the best of times -- Anomaly was an exception because he, like his name suggests, was an anomaly to his species) agree to it, they could easily undo everything that Boundless had striven for.

Boundless prepared to activate the E.E.P. by taking out his prizes -- the rings and keychains. It unbound them from the key ring it had. It relished this moment.

It placed Stepford's ring in the first divet, which glowed blood red. <Hatred.>

It placed Dino's keychain ornament into the first space, which glowed orange. <Courage.>

It placed Bladeh's keychain ornament into the eighth space, which glowed pink. <Light.>

It placed Couch's ring into the second divet, which glowed orange. <Avarice.>

It placed Hunter's keychain ornament into the fourth space, which glowed blue. <Friendship.>

It placed Barrington's ring into the third divet, which glowed yellow. <Fear.>

It placed Saffa's keychain ornament into the fifth space, which glowed violet. <Knowledge.>

It placed Hobbes' ring into the fourth divet, which glowed emerald green. <Willpower.>

It placed Horse's keychain ornament into the second space, which glowed gray. <Reliability.>

It placed Hawke's ring into the fifth divet, which glowed sapphire blue. <Idle hope.>

It placed Blaze's keychain ornament into the sixth space, which glowed pale yellow. <Active hope.>

It placed James' ring into the sixth divet, which glowed indigo. <Compassion.>

It placed Raevyn's keychain ornament into the seventh space, which glowed red. <Infatuation.>

It placed Helen's ring into the final divet, which glowed violently violet. <Love.>

It placed Faerie's keychain ornament into the third space, the final empty space, which glowed pale green. <Sincerity.>

It actually smiled. The Y-Drive was now primed. All it needed now was for the  Y-Drive to be full powered up so that the E.E.P can be activated. It was so close now. So very close.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2017, 06:09:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Here Comes of the Realm Walker

Unfortunately, Boundless acknowledged this charging process could possibly take a while to accomplish. But the ball was rolling. And it could not be stopped, even at this delicate stage. In its mind, its task was essentially completed. The Y-Drive would break down all that is, in an explosive deterioration. The imminent nonexistence would be fast and painless.

It was a mercy that it felt that all of creation did not deserve, but being a merciful person (in its view), it allowed this. No one else but him would realize what had happened. While others may very well fear nonexistence, it embraced it. The feeling of nothingness would truly be blissful. No anger. No guilt. No wrath. No shame. No avarice or desire. No fear or scaremongering. No selfish gluttony. No more deception. No anything.

Just freedom. That's what it saw nonexistence as. The ultimate freedom. Freedom from pain. Freedom from harm. Freedom from feeling. Freedom from thinking. Freedom from substance and materialism. Just a void. Just . . .

It suddenly had to teleport several feet away to dodge a blast of golden-scarlet energy. Someone had the audacity to attack it! Did they not know or recognize its power? And, more importantly, why wasn't it telepathically alerted to this ingrate's presence?!

"Stop right there!" Cloak announced. He appeared to be alone.

<You're too late,> it snapped. <There is no changing what I've put into motion. The end of all things is inevitable.>

"Oh, great," Cloak snarled. "Yet another being that wants to bring about a galactic armageddon. Don't you realize just how cliche that is, creature?"

<I am without bounds,> the creature hissed, <my name is Boundless.>

"How creative," the Elements Master said with dry sarcasm. "You do realize that I won't let you get away with this, right?"

<You're too late.> it declared maliciously. <Everything will be wiped clean of the filth of existence.>

"Do you ever listen to yourself?" Cloak inquired. "What you propose makes no logical sense. If you eliminate existence -- a tall order, if it's even possible with your makeshift device -- then no one will be around to appreciate your endeavor."

<I don't care about adulation,> it spat out, with venomous distaste. <Nothing here deserves the gift of existence.>

"And who are you to make that call?"

<Who are you to stop me from making that call?> it countered.

Cloak remained silent for a moment or two, realizing that this creature, this Boundless, thought that this was a legitimate point. Surely, people would see the invalidity of such an assertion if they knew their life was on the line. Cloak looked at the creature and quickly determined that its mind, its psyche, must be deteriorating. Perhaps, deep down, it knew. Deep down, it knew, and it didn't want to venture into oblivion alone.

It may consciously believe the ludicrous rhetoric it spewed forth, but deep down, Cloak suspected, it was motivated by fear and anger. Fear of dying and anger at dying as well. And it covered these feelings with mock bravado and a smugness that bordered on arrogance and hubris.

<It's too late. The Y-Drive is already a quarter charged.> it said, with a childish smugness. <You cannot stop it.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2017, 06:27:50 AM

Just a warning, this book might exceed the requisite twenty chapters.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Devolved Discussion

<It's too late. The Y-Drive is already a quarter charged. You cannot stop it.>

"Haven't you heard?" Cloak said, drawing his arm back, charging it with golden-scarlet energy. "It's never too late!"

Then Cloak launched a golden-scarlet crescent of energy as if he was using the Spatial Rend attack at the Y-Drive itself. Boundless crossed its arms in front of its face, forming a field of psychic or psionic energy. It managed to block the crescent until it dissipated. It was evident to anyone who knew Cloak that it wasn't anything near his true strength -- and it was perfectly true. The Elements Master knew that Boundless wouldn't allow him to destroy the Y-Drive. He was was testing Boundless's strength -- and there was another reason.

<You won't destroy my Y-Drive!>

"But I thought it was impossible to stop," Cloak taunted.

<Shut up!>

Cloak grinned inwardly. His plan was going to work -- at least, it was on his end. Cloak dodged a flurry of psychic energy balls with all his feline agility and speed. Boundless was slowly, but surely, placing all his attention on Cloak. Which was precisely what the Realm Walker wanted.

Boundless allowed itself to become blinded by its own anger, its own wrath, its own frustrations. It wanted to destroy Cloak. It did not know his name, and it it didn't care. It would destroy this upstart. This creature thought it knew everything, Boundless perceived, when it knew nothing. It didn't know how noble its cause was. It didn't realize how selfless it was being.

"Nice try," Cloak taunted, knowingly infuriating Boundless. "But you can't beat me. You do not know the kind of power I possess. You can't win."

<Oh, you think so?!> it roared, as it was hit by sudden inspiration. In a dramatic move, it held its hand in the technique that it had used eight times before. Cloak became swathed in its psychic energy -- Boundless would turn this creature into a keychain. That will shut it up. Then it will destroy the keychain -- or allow it to corrode slowly in a jar of acid.

Soon enough, Cloak was enveloped in the psychic energy. Boundless did not allow itself to feel any misgivings, despite the fact that this was taking longer than expected. Despite fact that it wasn't taking Cloak by surprise like it did with the eight other RAFians it turned into keychain ornaments. This would work. This creature did not peer his power. It did not exceed his power. This was very doable. It was . . .

Cloak was forced into a fetal position, and yet his vision did not blur. His mind did not swim. His sight did not fade to black. His anger, however, escalated and reached a fever pitch. And, yet, Boundless refused to believe that it wouldn't succeed in this endeavor.

"I . . . will . . . not . . . be . . ." Cloak choked out, feeling immense rage, and yet was able to maintain control over himself, thereby maintaining control over his powers. "CONTAINED!!!"

There should have been a sound, like shattering glass, but there was none. The psychic energy enveloping the Realm Walker was blasted away, and dissipated. Cloak's body was radiating energy -- first gold, then scarlet -- much like the heat distortion of a hot road. The Realm was not in any danger, however, as this was not his Walker corona.

<Impossible,> Boundless spluttered.

"There's that word again," Cloak said, voice tumultuous with anger. "I do not think it means what you think it means."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2017, 04:23:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Quick! While It's Distracted!

While Cloak kept Boundless busy, the other RAFians -- GH, Blocky, Abby, Yarin, and Underseen -- worked to disarm what Boundless clearly thought was a reality bomb. Yarin swiftly put that notion down, elaborated that the payload to do such a thing was just not present in the Y-Drive. So, unless Boundless innovated a new, more efficient way to achieve such a thing.

However, the payload was sufficient to destroy the planet . . . and, maybe, even kill the star. So it must be disarmed -- and Boundless would prove problematic had Cloak not been keeping it occupied.

Abby tried removing the Saffa keychain ornament from its space, but got her hand zapped painfully for her attempt. She was quite alright, having withdrew her hand near immediately. She looked a tad forlorn at this development. She looked at the others, and asked, "How? How do we do this?"

None had an answer.

"A lot has been stacked against us," Underseen said, with heavy acknowledgment. "But there has to be a way to undo this. I -- I have to believe that."

"I have an idea," GH said, unshouldered his guitar and began to strum.

"How is that supposed to help?" Blocky said, skeptical.

"Anything is better than nothing, Blocky," Abby said. Then she addressed GH, "Go on, GH."

GH strummed a few chords before launching into song:

"When there's trouble you know who to call -- RAFians!
From their forum, we can see it all. RAFians!
When there's evil on the attack,
You can rest knowing we got your back!
'Cuz when the world needs heroes on patrol, RAFians GO!
With their superpowers they unite. RAFians!
Never met an internet troll that we liked. RAFians!
We've got the bad guy on the run.
We never stop 'til the job gets done.
'Cuz when the world is losin' all control --
RAFians GO! RAFians GO!
RAFians GO! RAFians GO!
One, two, three, four, GO! RAFians!"

The Y-Drive vomited out the ornaments and rings, as if it didn't like the song, before powering down permanently. The rings, with what little power they had remaining in their charges, streaked off to find their original owners -- except the orange ring. It remained lodged in the Y-Drive, unnoticed by the RAFians.

"Everyone's a critic," GH sighed. "At least, it's deactivated now."

"Uh, about that . . ." Yarin said, with hesitation. He was eyeing the Y-Drive, which wasn't actually powering down, as they thought. It was just turning orange . . . as if it was not only sucking the power from the Orange Lantern ring but its substance as well.

"What is it?" Blocky asked at once.

Then it started flickering with orange light. Yarin's eyes widened with panic. "To this ship! Everyone to the ship! Don't argue! We don't have time for it! Someone get Cloak! We have to get out of here!!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rJZXyNmbAJY -- yes, from the GOOD series.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2017, 04:17:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
You Don't Understand -- Boundless is the One in the Hole (https://youtube.com/watch?v=o7ABSsu-ACM)

Boundless was, in its view, moments away from besting this would-be interloper. Moments away, when clearly it saw sense and fled from a superior power. It was futile to resist against it. It was futile to deny it this. Existence was filthy, and threadbare. It needed to be wiped clean so that more worthy lifeforms could claim existence for their own.

None of these current reprobate species were worthy of the gift of life, the gift of existence. None. Not even Boundless itself. This was the ideology that it still mindlessly adhered to, despite the flaws and leaps in logic, despite the philosophical holes and contradictions. It adhered itself to this with all the fanaticism of a Knight of Humanity, ans no manner of fact or truth would dissuade it from this self-indoctrination.

Perhaps they have realized the true bliss of nonexistence and nothingness? Freedom from greed and avarice. Freedom from rage and wrath. Freedom from fear and terror. Freedom from responsibility and obligation. Freedom from all of it. How could anyone not realize the very heaven they dream of exists in nonexistence.

But what was this now? A gaping black hole was in front of it.

Far from feeling afraid and fearful, it rejoiced at its sight. It embraced the black hole. It was unaware of the planet's disintegration and the absence of the blue dwarf star. It didn't care about such minor, trivial details. It was about to achieve its sweet oblivion -- thoughts of the grandiose, sweeping change and eliminating the filth it perceived. Its thoughts became selfish to an unusual degree. Probably an affect of the Orange Lantern ring that was summarily destroyed with the planet and the Y-Drive.

It approached the black hole slowly, as if they were lovers who had come back to see each other after an eternity apart. Even as the black hole crushed Boundless into smithereens as it was sucked in, it felt a disturbing, masochistic elation about it, even though it killed it in the space of a single thought.

But it was what Boundless wanted for itself . . .

***

"There's no earthly way of knowing . . .
Which direction we are going . . .
There's no way of knowing . . .
Where we're crowing . . .
Or which way space is throwing . . .
Is it raining? Is it snowing?
Is a nebula a-blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing.
So the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of Pyros a-blowing?
Is the Ectonurite groaning?
Yes! The danger must be growing,
For the engines keep on going,
And they're certainly no showing
Any signs that they are slowing!"

"GH, SHUT UP!" complained the other RAFians in the ship, other than Yarin, who was too focused on piloting the ship and escaping what would soon be a black hole of indefinite size.

"Everyone's a critic," GH groused, as they arrived back on Earth with the keychain ornaments, which inexplicably returned back to normal when they landed back in the forum and Abby got off the ship.

It was Boundless's death that freed them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2017, 04:59:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
I'm the Master of Rock 'n' Roll!

Atop a ruin of some past, long forgotten civilization, a woman raced to the peak of one of the mouldering, old ramparts. She had long, teal hair that was almost like a ghostly fire, pulled back into a ponytail at the top of her head, with two locks framing her heart-shaped face into an "M" shape. Her eyes are green and her clothing was attractive and appealing in nature, consisting of a black choker around her neck, a black one-shouldered tank-top exposing her midriff, one long, black, leather glove that covers most of her right arm, and one black bracelet on her left arm. She also wears a pair of what appeared to be leather pants with a gold belt and skull boots. She also carried an electric guitar -- the very make and model of which was a brand that GH absolutely abhorred.

She sang:

"Sun goes down, I'm just getting up.
I'm heading for the city lights!
Radio blasting on the way to the ruins,
Gonna rock this town tonight!
You're living in a man's world,
They tell me.
But I ain't gonna buy it,
The things they're trying to sell me now!
'Coz I'm the Master of Rock 'n' Roll!
Yeah, I'm the Master of 'n' Roll!
Rock 'n' roll!"

As a counterpoint, GH popped up on the other side of the ruins. He sang:

"Oh yeah!
The curtain's up and I'm ready to go.
My guitar is in my hand!
There's nothing more that I'd rather do,
Than play in a rock n' roll band!
Yeah!
What I have is what I will be given.
Headed for the top!
Don't 'cha know!
I'll never stop believing now.
I'm the Master of Rock 'n' Roll
You better believe it! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!
Yeah, I'm the Master of Rock N' Roll
Rock 'n' roll!"

The unnamed woman, who was roughly GH's age, sang:

"I am the Master,
I am the Master,
I am the Master of Rock n' Roll."

GH sang:

"I am the Master,
I am the Master,
I am the Master of Rock n' Roll.
'Coz I'm the Master of Rock and Roll
Better be believing that I am!"

The girl sang:

"I am the Master,
I am the Master,
I am the Master of Rock n' Roll."

GH concluded the song:

"I am the Master,
I am the Master,
I am the Master of Rock n' Roll."

GH awoke, suddenly. He remembered that girl -- and he did not like her very much. But what was her name? He wanted to say that it was "Amber", but he couldn't be sure. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG:https://youtube.com/watch?v=zkCSnD_ytYA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 30, 2017, 11:17:23 AM

Heehee, foreshadowing . . .

And hmm, guitar that I loathe? Barring signature models of artists I'm not a fan of, I think this guitar is one of the most gaudy I've ever seen. Definitely not a fan of the brand, either

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/musical_instruments/detail-page/B0018TH3WK-1.jpg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2017, 06:38:29 PM

. . . That picture actually works very well with this character that I'm sure that we'll never see again. Nope. Nuh-uh.

. . .

;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 30, 2017, 07:11:53 PM

Even though I am sure this character will never appear again, I for some reason feel the need to tell you that guitar is a B.C. Rich Warbeast :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2017, 08:46:23 AM

I might remember that, or I might not. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Another Knight

Blaze was dispatched to deal with a fiend that took up residence in a grim, old castle said to be haunted -- which only deterred tourists that weren't the ghost hunting sort. The life of a RAFian made such excursions seem so incredibly tame and pointless that Blaze was unable to see the attraction of such activities.

But such ambivalence did not last when Blaze encountered the surprisingly effective traps this castle had. He probably should have paid better attention to his briefing beforehand. He just assumed that this was simple fiend collection/termination mission, very straightforward and very paint-by-numbers. He was very clearly wrong. He would have to have more presence of mind and not be so flippant.

And, of course, this thing would be in the most central antechamber of this ruined castle. If it was not condemned, he would not rest until it was. This place was not a safe place to be, especially if you were not prepared for all the pitfalls, missing floors and such. Ghost hunting enthusiasts had not right traipsing into this deathtrap, Blaze felt.

There. That was the room. And there was the creature looking at him, angrily. All these fiends were so angry, it seemed. Even Maul was not consumed with anger to this degree -- but he is clearly the only one that achieved sentience. These others seemed only to be motivated by what was programmed in them, with a mental framework Demos gave it.

The creature was squat and slightly taller than an ten-year-old human child, in a yellow medieval sort of knight armor with black accents, whose face was obscured in shadow, ensconced in a yellow, metal knight helmet, and razor sharp fin on the crest of this helmet, like a mohawk. Its human-like eyes had pale orange sclera and brown irises. Its massive right hand was black holding an equally massive yellow shield with royal purple border and back, and its left hand was replaced by a huge, black flail with a retractable chain. Its yellow armored shoulders had an all-metal spike protruding about a quarter of an inch from the tops of them. It's chest had purple symbol, rather like that of a ninja star, and its back was purple with some sort of metal growth whose purpose was unknown. This lead into a yellow metal armored skirt, that covered its white thighs and crotch. Its knees were black, its lower legs were yellow, and its feet were orange.

It attacked, and Blaze was immediately finding a strong dislike in fighting in this area. It might of seemed wide and expansive when you're tethered to the ground. But when you're a flier, there wasn't much space for that, and there was no cover. This was far from ideal.

It threw out its flail with the force of a cannonball, before retracting it back into its arm. Blaze had dodged it, surprised just at the sheer amount of force the flail had. Blaze had no time to unsheathe his sword, besides he doubted that it would have been able to penetrate that shield of this fiend's.

But, during this play at keep away, Blaze noticed a pattern. It always dropped its shield when it fired the flail hand. It was a small window. He wouldn't have any time for hesitation.

There! Blaze ignited his sword as he unsheathed it . . . and the opportunity passed. He would have to wait again. There! His aim was true and he hit its weak spot for massive damage.

It was done. His mission, as he went to retrieve his sword, was over.

***

Demos called it a "naitosapien". He designed it for combat purposes.

***

Malice didn't make a pun -- she had fallen asleep. She was still an octogenarian, after all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2017, 05:02:46 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLV:
MUPPET, MUPPET MAN
CHAPTER ONE:
Centaur Situation

It was Parker's turn for a fiend mission. He had to admit that he was antsy to get some action in. He felt left out of the really big missions of late, though he would never say that aloud. Didn't want to sound whiny about it or anything -- a lull in the action was inevitably going to happen sometimes. It couldn't be helped, and being petulant about it would do him no good, so why bother being petulant at all?

Anyway, he had arrived at the ancient city that this creature had take over as its own. Upon looking around the old forgotten place, his first thought, he had to admit was "Atlantis" -- at least, if Atlantis was not maintained after the last few millenia or so. This place reeked of ancientness and, yet, was still remarkably attractive at the same time.

Fortune favors the cautious. So, Parker took careful time in examining his surroundings. Assessing the environment as he went along, scrutinizing the advantages and disadvantages of having it as a battlefield. It would be important information to have at his disposal, he felt. Though he would deny it to his dying breath to everyone else (even Helen), his armor isn't impenetrable and it isn't unbreakable. Especially now that it was -1 Realm Walker tech.

But soon, he detected the creature. Of course, Tyr would claim that he did first. Never listen to him.

The creature was basically had a centaur body style, with red sclera and black irises. It had three long horns that looked as if it was made of obsidian, two on either side of its head with the third in the center of the forehead. Its head was a vibrant red with a broad purple striped down the center of its bald head that terminated around the forehead horn. Its upper body was purple, with two green intake vents where a man's nipples would be and two small exhaust ports on the small of its back. Its shoulders were vibrant red with dark brown markings. Its upper arms and humanoid abdomen were white. Its lower arms were red, its left hand were black, but its right arm ended in an arm cannon which could fire energy pellets which scattered upon impact or energy arrows. The equine part of its body was pale red with the foreleg knees were purple. Its hooves were white and its equine tail was pink.

The angry centaur pawed the ground angrily with its right front hoof, as if eager to gore something or someone with its horns. Again, these fiends were all so angry. Why? Malice, perhaps? Maybe they had conversations with Knights?

No matter. The point now was to either capture or destroy the fiend. And they didn't lend themselves to capture much. . . . And it was easier to destroy them them, then capture them. Perhaps they could dehydrate them back into their fiend ball, but the more expedient course of action is what these fiends seem to prefer. And Demos never seems perturbed that they're destroyed. Odd.

Whoops. It saw him. And it charged forward head down.

Parker dodged to the side, not sure about the force it could have. Tyr was calculating that, but it was taking too long, and wasn't too necessary right now. His armor would probably be able to tank it anyway.

It fired an pellet that just narrowly missed Parker, passing just under his armpit, and impacted the wall, which caused it to explode like a firework. Parker's armor was sufficient to tank these smaller energy pellets, but a few more hits like that, and he -- well, he wouldn't be happy.

Suddenly, its horns glowed white, and time distorted. Parker found himself unable to move, unable to react. Unable to avoid the attacks. He was hit with a full-force charge, and he imagined it was what being hit by a car felt like.

When the effect ended, Parker heaved as many sticky bombs at the fiend as he had. It took out the fiend before it could stop time again. Also taking out a wall behind it.

"Shut up, Tyr," Parker said, as he left.

***

Demos called it a "kentaurosusapien". He had intended it as a museum tour guide, but when it became clear that it would not do, Demos retooled it for combat.

***

Malice still was snoring rather noisily, as she fell asleep watching the battle. Not unlike a senior citizen falling asleep in their easy chair in front of their television.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2017, 07:46:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Dear Daddy

Leatherhead sang to GH:

"Dear daddy, remember when
You would sing to me, we could do it again.
Dear daddy, I was wondering why
As I get older now, the days keep going on by.
Dear daddy, remember this too.
In this whole wide world there's no one like you, ooh ooh ooh.
There's no one like you, ooh ooh ooh."

GH grabbed his guitar, and sang:

"My darling son, I remember when
I would sing to you, and I would do it again.
Beloved child, remember this too.
In this world of RAF, there's no one like you, ooh ooh ooh."

The two sang:

"You ooh ooh ooh.
You ooh ooh ooh.
You ooh ooh ooh."

As the song concluded, they sat side-by-side, looking a the white fluffy clouds pass on by on this beautiful July day.

***

In a suburban household, a single father, William "Blue" Skjorte, was caring for his young son, Red. Blue was a typical, middle class single parent. He struggled to make ends meet, but his son knew nothing of these struggles, being a regular happy-go-lucky kid.

Red's favorite show was "The Whimsy-Mimsies". It was a show that starred Muppet-esque characters. Its main cast was Ollie Gark (a kid character in primarily red colors with a backwards red cap), Allie Gark (a kid character in primarily green colors with long sandy brown hair), Nancy the Donkey, Mitch the Elephant, and Theo Krat (a kid in primarily cyan colors with a sweater vest). It was the stereotypical kids show, with all the bells and whistles of such a thing. But, at the end of the day, it was an unremarkable program, rehashing tropes already done to death, but was new to their target audience. The adults found it a bit pedantic but harmless toward children.

Red watched it almost religiously. Blue allowed him to do it, while he worked from home. It was necessary in order to keep their house and car and things. Yes, he was quite overworked, but he hid it from his son, who was the source of his strength powering through all this. If he didn't have Red . . . he preferred not to think about it.

But he should have been paying more attention -- though would he even been able to see what Red was now seeing?

The character on the screen, Ollie, spoke directly to Red as his dad left the room. "Good, he's gone. Okay, Red, you know what to do!"

Red, understandably confused, shook his head.

"You should never break a promise, Red. You don't wanna be a bad apple, do you?" he said. "You know 'The Whimsy-Mimsies' isn't free. Now get over here and touch it."

Red actually complied, unaware of the danger that this posed. He was having all the childish innocence as well as his life force siphoned out of him, as Ollie encouraged him to keep it up, touching the screen -- until the boy collapsed on the floor.

When Blue came back into the room, he was devastated with what he found. Red was lying there, catatonic, with a rictus smile on his face. And Red was not the first victim . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UViYKBlpFbc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 01, 2017, 10:13:55 PM

This book is off to an interesting start.

Oh, and I liked that you made me the "keychain of Courage" in the last book.  :D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2017, 05:57:30 AM

Truth be told, the whole "keychain of Courage" thing was actually a reference (http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Crests#Crest_of_Courage) and a bit of foreshadowing.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Deliberate Deliberations

"And there were two more cases of this happening," Aquilai expounded. The RAFians had just received the report of Red Skjorte, and were currently being briefed on this happening. "Gary Greenberg, age 4, and Nancy Yellowstone, age 6. All found laying catatonic, a wide grin on their faces."

"Like Laughing Boy's toxin?" Parker asked.

"Similar effects, but it wasn't found in their systems," Aquilai said, "and he's still currently residing in the asylum. Maximum security."

"That rules him out," Saffa said. "Then who?"

"Well, these attacks seem more mystical in nature," Aquilai said, with some hesitation. "But I cannot verify that, as my knowledge of mystical things is pretty much wanting, at this point."

"It does seem to bear all the hallmarks " Broken said, knowingly. "Was there some commonality between the three cases, other than the afflictions?"

"All three were found in laying in front of the television, by horrified parents," Aquilai informed. "All between seven-thirty and eight a.m."

"So much for television being a reliable babysitter," Faerie said, with dry sarcasm.

"What program was on during that time?" Cloak asked very seriously. This case was reminding him of something he saw from a realm a long time ago.

"Uh, 'The Whimsy-Mimsies'," Aquilai answered, after shuffling through his notes.

"Ugh," GH groaned as only a father would. "Leatherhead loves that show. Unironically, too. It is the most vapid thing I've ever watched."

"It's the right time, and the right demographic," Cloak said, thoughtfully. "Perhaps this show warrants some reviewing. Scanning it for any mystical or xenotechnological shenanigans."

"Then it warrants immediate investigation!" Parker declared. "Let's go directly to the studio and --"

"Hold on," Cloak said. "We don't want to be presumptuous. It may lead there, I will admit. But we haven't any real grounds to officially investigate them or accuse them of being responsible for these cases -- all we have is circumstantial evidence. It wouldn't stand up in court -- at least, assuming Dweller courts are anything like Walker courts."

"Not to mention that our PR is finally out of the toilet with the whole Galactron and Coluan scenarios," Faerie said. The general public either no one cared or outright dismissed the whole Boundless ordeal as a conspiracy theory or myth. "To rush into something like this so recklessly might cause the public to turn on us again, impeding our efforts."

"And this 'Whimsy-Mimsies' show is number-one in their demographic," Shenmue pointed out, glancing at some of Aquilai's notes. "I think just a few people might take genuine issue if we go all jihad over their studio."

"So we do nothing?" Parker protested. He was always for the proactive approach. "We just sit here while this happens again?"

"We don't know how it's happening in the first place," Aquilai pointed out. "We haven't done the necessary examinations. And the general populace sees the show as harmless --"

"Define 'harmless'," GH muttered. "Sorry, Aquilai, but I've actually seen the show. It makes Barney the Dinosaur look high-minded and sophisticated."

"Nonetheless," Richard said, speaking for the first time in the meeting, "I think we should eschew any action before we have more information available. Jumping to conclusions can lead to very bad things. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2017, 07:53:21 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Reconnaissance Insurance

"Why'd I let you talk me into this?" Gaz complained quietly.

"Shh!" Parker prompted.

"Are you sure that this is a good idea?"

"Shh!" Parker prompted again, deliberately not answering her question.

"I should have stayed and worked on my thesis," Gaz said, regretting her procrastination.

"Shh!" Parker insisted. And then he added, "Don't tell Helen about this."

"Oh, Parker," Gaz groaned. "You're pulling this again? And you drag me along? Worse! I allowed you to!"

"Don't get all huffy -- it's just reconnaissance," Parker said. "The mods okayed it."

"Then why --"

"She worries," Parker said. "And she's the jealous type."

"Don't flatter yourself, Parker, I'm not --"

"SHHH!" Parker said, silently throwing himself and Gaz against a dark corner of the wall, as he looked to their left. He had heard something. And now he heard it more clearly.

"A guard's life
Is very solitary.
No one around
To shoot the breeze.
So many years
Of never making merry.
But I can feel
A change in my sneeze.
'Cause tonight there's --
No one in the hallway.
No one left or right.
But my senses all say
Someone's in the studio
Tonight!
No one by the fire.
No one sipping tea.
My fire's burning higher!
Someone's in the studio
With me!
Guards are people
With a good intuition,
And he's having a feeling
That is, oh, so bewitching.
Even though no one's
Hanging around
In the kitchen
We know that someone
Is near, dear!
No one in the attic
Only me in my chair.
But I'm so emphatic!
Someone's in the studio
Somewhere!
Where are you?
You wouldn't desert me?
You know it would hurt me.
Where are you?
Little no one
You're through!
No one in the mirror.
No one by the door.
But I'm getting closer.
Someone's in the studio
For sure!
No one small or dumb!
No!
No one pink and white!
Hey!
No one, here I come!
'Coz --
Someone's in the studio,
Someone's in the studio
And no one's getting out
Tonight!"

Tyr had reflexively activated Parker's active camouflage components, and allowed him to cast the field over Gaz as well. It was little think he picked up from those Predators that the RAFians fought so long ago. Unfortunately, it didn't have a long lifespan before requiring to be recharged -- he hadn't perfected it.

But the guard had decided that the intruders were elsewhere, allowing the two access to the room beyond.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=giTzwKYNVYk

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2017, 10:58:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Stop!!

The room beyond was actually small, brick-walled room. They had been in a basement-like area where the props and sets and things currently not in use were, and this smaller room seemed . . . unusual.

There wasn't anything here but a large man sitting in stiff-backed wooden chair wearing nothing but a brown loincloth and had a towel draped over his head. Just sitting here. Doing nothing. Behind him, on a dais raised up behind him, slightly to his left, was a white egg sitting on its rounded end that could easily fit a tall, svelte human inside. The man appeared to be guarding this egg, and he appeared to be in some sort catatonic state.

"You shouldn't be here . . ."

So he wasn't truly catatonic. But he said nothing more as the egg opened toward the rounded end, as if it was opening a mouth to smile. White light spilled out as it opened, taking the two RAFians off guard. Little did either one know that this was the repository of the children's taken life force, the repository of the children's stolen innocence -- there were several more cases of the condition that Aquilai had yet to mention in the briefing.

The light actually had some force to it. It threw the two RAFians into the profusion of empty cardboard boxes behind them. These boxes buried the two, and the egg quickly shut the opening, as if it was a triggered mousetrap.

The two RAFians, after a tense moment, groaned and sat up. But they weren't quite . . . themselves. Once they looked at each other, both fought the urge to scream and accuse the other, and booked it back to the forum, hoping against hope that no one would see them in this . . .

Condition.

***

"Ugh," GH said, out of Leatherhead's earshot. "I hate this show. Thanks for coming over, Cloak. I would have to lose my sanity if I had to watch anymore of that show."

"It couldn't be as bad as that movie about the emojis," Cloak said, reasonably.

"It's on peer," GH said, sounding very weary, "at the very least."

Television was still a novelty to Cloak, even after being a RAFian for what was for him nearly half a year, but over five or six years, Dweller time. Realm Walkers didn't have television themselves, though they had books and rather advanced technology. After all, why have television when you can just up and go to different realms? But this whole epidemic that was happening with kids watching this show . . . it seemed very strange and alien to him as well. Television, when you boiled it down it's base essentials, was a glowing box that relayed information and entertainment. How harmful, exactly, could it really be?

"What's that look for?" GH said, noticing Cloak's distracted, considering face.

"Hopefully, nothing," Cloak said, vaguely. "It's just that this . . . this reminds me of something that happened in a realm I visited once. Now I don't know much about the --"

Cloak stopped, because he heard something that GH didn't seem to be able to hear. But, GH was a human, and thus only had a human range of hearing, despite having a musician's ear. Cloak's hearing was far more acute, and so he reacted with such rapidity that it startled the RAFian musician.

He aerokinetically pulled Leatherhead away from the television, much to the shock of the Ollie puppet onscreen. Who Cloak never took his amber feline eyes off of. The Elements Master stared at the onscreen puppet with such furious intensity that the puppet actually felt fear.

Suddenly and abruptly, the screen went to a commercial about some wrinkle cream that no one in the room cared about.

"Cloak, what --" GH started, but Cloak cut him off.

"Later!" Cloak said. "I've just understood something. We need to get everyone together. Parker and Gaz should have gotten back from their recon trip. They should have some information as well."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 04, 2017, 07:48:06 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Brief Briefing

"Where's Gaz and Parker?" GH asked as he and Cloak arrived at the briefing. They had left Leatherhead to be babysat by Dino -- both agreeing that maybe the kid had been watching a bit too much television, and Dino would attract far too much attention if they were to take on this studio directly or inconspicuously.

"Be mindful," Helen said, protectively and almost threateningly. Two newly arrived RAFians soon saw why. Both Gaz and Parker had inexplicably been turned into . . . puppets. Specifically of the Muppet variety. Parker was still in his armor, and.it was very odd to see a Muppet in SPARTAN armor -- the clashing dissimilarity of the two made it seem almost funny.

"First one to laugh gets stabbed," Parker threatened moodily.

"What happened?" GH said, far from finding it funny, found it perplexing in a nonsensical way.

Gaz and Parker described their ordeal, and it basically confirmed, in Cloak's mind, his suspicions. He had hoped the answer would be more mundane, something less bizarre. But he should know by now such hopes are exercises in futility.

"What could possibly have been in that egg that could possibly do this?" Saffa inquired.

"Undistilled childhood innocence, children life force, probably," Cloak said. Then he explained what happened just a scarce few moments ago with Leatherhead.

"But why?" Shenmue asked.

"If I had to hazard a guess," Demos said, wearing a powder blue silk suit of which he was partial to, "currency."

"What?" Blaze said, with a rather hard tone.

"To use as currency in Hell," Demos said, either ignoring Blaze's tone or otherwise indifferent towards it. "Assuming these characters on this show, this 'Mimsy-Whimsies', are pooka demons, like I suspect."

"Pooka demons?" Horse inquired. "What devil are those things?"

"Interesting phrasing," Terenia noted with a small smile.

"Nothing like the creature from Irish mythology," Demos said, "at least, I think it's Irish mythology."

"The point, Demos?" Cloak prompted. "I know you had one."

"Hmm? Oh, yes," Demos said, unperturbed by Cloak's exasperation. "Pooka demons tend to look like puppets of Muppet quality -- but they hate being likened to them, as I've found out personally once. They take that rather like a racial slur. They cannot alter this form, and cannot truly possess other beings like demons of my status can. But they are vulnerable and mortal o any method that can destroy an ordinary puppet."

"And why did they have to turn us into this? My armor should have shielded me from this!!" Parker said, clearly not happy with his current form.

"Your armor hasn't any defense of mystical attacks of such a magnitude," Broken said. "But don't fret. I do not believe this state is permanent, nor is the condition of those catatonic kids. We just have to hind the egg and destroy the magic within it. Then, if all goes well, the innocence-slash-life force should return to the kids."

"The Pooka demons would never allow it," Demos warned. "They will have to be dealt with first."

"I think that this calls for a visit to their studio," Cloak said. "But only delegation of three of us. Don't want to tip our hats too soon. And, remember, this is only for information -- there has to be cover that the Pooka demons are utilizing. A human cover, as they can't go as they are."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 04, 2017, 11:59:32 AM

Interesting.  I've heard a very little bit about the mythology of 'pookas.'  I've never seen them portrayed as a class of demon, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2017, 06:08:36 AM

Well, it's basically a pooka in name only.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Henson Lot, Studio B4

It was Cloak, Demos, and Dylan that went to confront the person behind this. Or, at least, the person who produced, directed, and wrote for the show -- Manfred "Fred" Child. The trio strolled, bold as brass, directly into the studio, flashing their Marks like police badges. The members of staff didn't seem to care, not even recognizing their presence, just going about their business like drones.

"That's creepy," Dylan noted.

"They're clearly under some sort of spell," Cloak said, shrewdly. "They don't even realize we're here."

"That's clearly telling," Demos said. "Something shady is definitely happening here."

The RAFian trio continued through the winding, labyrinthine hallways. They were actually too narrow for Cloak's liking, but he kept this to himself. They came to a room where there appeared to be only a single occupant.

This man was overweight, but not morbidly so. His arms and fingers were thick but surprisingly nimble. His head had a full head of curly brown hair and beard, calling to mind a hornless satyr. The walnut table upon which he worked on a puppet obscured everything from his waist down. Didn't hide it from Earthsight, though.

"Mr. Manfred James Child, I presume?" Cloak said, and noticed a slight shutter in the man's body that his two RAFian companions seemed not to have noticed. Cloak decided not to call attention to it, in case he was mistaken, though he didn't think he was.

"Y-yes," he said. Cloak noticed the slight hesitation in his voice. It sounded like fear, but he hadn't any real reason to fear someone that he's never met. "How may I help you gentlemen today?"

His voice had a surprising childlike exuberance that Cloak found odd. Granted, Cloak was hardly the foremost authority on humans, and he was willing to acknowledge such.

"We've come for answers," Demos said. "Please put the Muppet down."

Another small, nuanced expression that this time was noticed by Demos. He had deliberately worked the word "Muppet" to test Child's reaction. He wasn't sure if Child passed the test or not.

"There have been a number of cases of children found catatonic," Cloak said, with a style of which Severus Snape would be proud. "Found upon the ground with rictus grins upon their faces."

"I don't understand," he said, "what does that have to do with me?"

Cloak's eyes narrowed. His Earthsight detected deception, but Cloak didn't say anything. Such accusations so soon might cause him to clam up and the RAFians need information, as much as they could garner from this meeting.

"The common link was watching your show," Cloak said, voice light as the wind. "And each within days of your show."

"Our other viewers were completely fine -- how am I responsible for this?" he countered. "While I have sympathy for the kids who suffered from this, but I still fail to see my culpability."

"You turned two of our friends into puppets!!" Dylan said suddenly.

Cloak was not pleased with this outburst. First, it gave way too much away. Second, knowledge is power, as the mad Coluan knew full well, and handing too much out would be giving your enemies, your antagonists, weapons.

"Can you prove that?" Fred asked.

"Well, uh," Dylan stammered.

"I'm the proprietor of the most popular show in the young child demographic," Fred said. Cloak noticed some of the childlike exuberance had been lifted from his voice, as if it was just a facade. "You are a bunch of ragtag vigilantes, with questionable practices."

"We save the world several times over!" Dylan countered.

Cloak place his hand on Dylan's shoulder and squeezed. His message was clear -- shut up.

"Forgive me, if I don't subscribe to RAFian propaganda," Fred said. But he didn't sound angry. His voice was toneless and almost indifferent. "So, unless you have a warrant, I must ask you to leave."

"But --"

Cloak steered Dylan out, and Demos followed, as Fred began to . . . hum to himself. But the oddity wasn't about to end there.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2017, 08:57:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Unexpected Role Reversal

Child kept humming until he was sure that the were gone, then, with a gross slurp type sound, a hand was removed from his back. He immediately slumped over onto the table, as if he was a puppet himself. The controlling party revealed himself as he stepped out from behind the apparently dead Child.

It was Ollie Gark. Yes, the puppet Ollie Gark. And yes, he was a Pooka demon. He picked up a phone, and said, "Get everybody in here. We've got a problem."

***

Cloak had sent the other two off to report what they've seen, while Cloak remained, out of human earshot, but well within his own. And he heard Ollie's phone call.

***

"'Kay," Ollie said when all were gathered before him. Allie Gark. Nancy the Donkey. Mitch the Elephant. Theo Krat. "Which one of you numskulls turned two RAFians into puppets?"

"It wasn't us," Theo said.

"What do you mean, 'it wasn't us'?" Ollie demanded.

"Theo's right," Mitch said, "these RAFians must have been the ones that broke into the 'Don't' room."

"They messed with the Nest Egg," Nancy said.

"Stupid jacka--," Ollie said, before reflexively stopping himself. "Might as well walk into a nuclear reactor and lick the core. Anything could have happened. You just . . . you just don't trifle with the Nest Egg!"

"Maybe we should take the spell off a couple of the workers," Allie suggested, "so they can actual see or operate a camera."

Ollie quickly dismissed this, citing that it was keeping all their cloaking spells running, enabling them to steal the innocence and life forces of the "kiddies", and even managed to turn two RAFians into puppets. He noted that the system was now perfected and they could wipe out their entire demographic in one fell swoop.

Then, unable to resist apparently, Ollie began to sing:

"I didn't get where I am today
By letting myself get pushed around!
No man or beast, or amber-eyed thingy!
Is going to drag me down!"

"Please kill me," the real Child begged. This wasn't what he thought would happen when he sold his soul to make 'The Whimsy-Mimsies' number one in ratings. He wasn't expecting this torture.

"Shut up, Child," Ollie said, dismissively, as he decided to continue with the song.

"The lightning!
Will be flashing!
The thunder it will roar!
They'll never thought what hit 'em!
Wait 'til they see what I have in store . . .
BIG AND LOUD!
It will be BIG AND LOUD!
When they fail, they'll really fail!
And they're gonna fail big!
And they're gonna fail loud!
They're gonna fail big . . . and . . ."

"Please let me die," Child pleaded.

"Shut up, Child," Ollie said, as he completed the song:

"LOUD!?"

Meanwhile, having gotten the gist of it, Cloak made for the forum. They were going to have to formulate a plan quick to counteract this plan of there's.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yRcdLztYdeY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2017, 05:34:20 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Up to Debate

"Big and loud, eh?" GH asked. "While I can get behind the concept of 'big and loud', they think that they can drain their entire demographic? Seriously? Do they realize how many children that would harm?"

"Most demons don't have a heart," Demos said, as if acknowledging a heavy truth. "My half brother should be a perfect example. Most demons don't care about others or the people they hurt. It's the demonic nature, and most choose not to fight it, like I do."

"Whether not they can or not, we all know that they will try," Saffa said. "And we must take the appropriate steps to stop them.

"But, unfortunately, there's a bunch of logistic problems to work out," Faerie said, "we can't be seen beating the ever-loving crap out of what amounts to childhood icons."

"Maybe you guys can't," Gaz said, with an inward smile, "but Parker and I can."

"What do you mean?" Phoenix inquired, regarding Gaz with a curious look.

"Anyone else goes and people will think that we're just throwing our weight around, abusing our power," Gaz continued in her line of thought, "but Parker and I are essentially Muppets. Glorified puppets. People will think its just part of the show."

"Can human beings truly be that naive?" Spectre asked, rhetorically.

"We have some time to prepare, at least," Parker said. "If they're going to do this thing on as high of a scale as they are intending, it would take some time to organize."

"Yes," Cloak agreed, "and they'll be distracted whilst doing it. It would be a perfect time to take down this Nest Egg thing of theirs."

"Um," Faerie said. "Stupid question time. How are you going to do that without being turned into a puppet yourself?"

"This Nest Egg thing clearing has some realty manipulation ability, granted nowhere to the scale of a Celestialsapien," Cloak said, "and I, as a Realm Walker, am immune to such things."

"How can you be so sure?" Nate inquired. "If we have one misstep . . ."

"I survived the destruction of the Realm to its core before," Cloak said, only dimly aware that they would have no idea what he was talking about. They didn't know or remember when the Realm completely unraveled into nothingness, nor Cloak and Shadow's meeting with Anomaly. "This will not be nearly as bad."

"But the destruction of the Nest Egg thing could be explosive, harm the captive innocence-slash-lifeforce within, or otherwise devastating if not handled right," Broken warned. "I do believe its effects were magic based. Jossian magic, if I'm not mistaken."

"Yes, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not too terribly versed in magic," Cloak admitted. "So, Broken and I will disarm this Nest Egg and release the captive energy within. Hopefully, restoring the children back to normal."

"And, if it doesn't?" Abby queried.

"We'll find another way," Cloak said. "Kelly, perhaps."

"I'm not sure it would work," Kelly admitted. Then she added, in frustration, "With all the damn limitations my healing powers have, one has to wonder why I even have them at all."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2017, 09:45:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Our Time Has Come

The Pooka Puppets decided to make the whole thing into a spectacle -- airing it as their final episode, where they planned to suck the innocence-slash-life force from the kiddies on a grand, showy scale.

Then they planned to book it and buy their own part of Hell, as oligarchs. That's one reason they needed this to be a longer episode. A direct-to-TV movie, as it were. And what better storyline than the Whimsy-Mimsies go to Hollywood?

They sang:

"Our time has come, we're gonna
Walk in the sun.
We've packed our hopes.
We're ready to roll.
We're on our way.
With a little faith, we can
Step from obscurity and
Tell everyone to
Turn the spotlight on!
Now our time has come!"

Meanwhile, Gaz and Parker managed to get into the studio easily. To be fair, the external defenses were basically nil with basically the entirety of their staff, administration, and security were little more than mindless drones.

"Our time has come, we're heading
Straight for the sun,
With heart and soul,
Watch us go!
We're on our way
With a little love, we know
Nothing can stop us, so
Tell everyone to
Turn the spotlight on!
Now our time has come!"

The two RAFian Muppets stayed toward the dark exterior wall, trying to discern the soundstage, the set being used.

"Are you ready to wish upon a star?
Well, we'll be ready to follow our own hearts.
Are you ready to be set free?
Well, we'll be ready to reach out for that dream.
Just over the horizon."

Only one was currently in use, as the others held the lonely air of neglect. Clearly, the network execs were under a spell to broadcast nothing but this show (aside from some paid programming that aired during school hours, right after eight), or they were just giving the show the same treatment that Cartoon Network was giving "Teen Titans Go". The latter would make more sense, as both shows were of similar quality.

"Our time has come, we're gonna
Walk in the sun.
We've packed our hopes.
We're ready to roll.
We're on our way!
With a little faith, we can
Step from obscurity  and
Tell everyone
Turn the spotlight on!
Now our time has come!"

The old sets may have been unused in a great while, and were in need of cosmetic repair, but they made wonderful hiding spots from any weary eye of these demonic Pookas.

"Are you ready to make your move?
Well, we'll be ready for miracles to come true.
Are you ready for the world to believe in you?
Well, we'll be ready to reach out for that dream.
Just over the horizon."

The two RAFians moved quite quietly, like alleycats on the prowl. They did not want to alert the currently occupied and oblivious "Whimsy-Mimsies" from their little project. At least, not until the time was right.

"Our time has come we're gonna
Walk in the sun.
We've packed our hopes.
We're ready to roll.
We're on our way.
With a little love, we know
Nothing can stop us, so
Tell everyone to
Turn the spotlight on!
Now our time has come!
Can you feel the power now?
The day is ours.
For you and I,
There comes a time
To hold our heads high!
Make a little history
Each time we dare to dream!
Tell everyone to
Turn the spotlight on!
Now our time has come!
Our time has come we're gonna
Walk in the sun.
We've packed my hopes.
We're ready to roll.
We're on our way
Make a little history
Each time we dare to dream.
Tell everyone to
Turn the spotlight on!
Now our time has come.
Our time has come.
Our time . . ."

Not yet. The time wasn't right . . . not yet. Not yet.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jSP42-WHlnk

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 07, 2017, 12:48:21 AM

I see we have similar opinions of "Teen Titans Go."  :P

Also, for some reason I just pictured Muppet-Gaz as a gender-swapped Count (from Sesame Street).

Can't wait to see what the RAF-Muppets have planned!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2017, 05:25:58 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on August 07, 2017, 12:48:21 AM

I see we have similar opinions of "Teen Titans Go."  :P

Yes, as many others feel this way as well. I took particular umbridge when I found out that they were showing it for four days straight. Nothing but "Teen Titans Go". The show isn't even all that good. Poorly written, poorly animated, just pandering to the lowest common denominator -- ****ting on everything the original series was.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The "Don't" Room

Cloak brought Broken and Yarin with him. They went to the location Parker and Gaz had detailed. The walls were bricked, and cool to the touch. And damp, as well. This was a basement area, after all.

The wall to what they called the 'Don't' room was actually well hidden, unless you were looking for it. And if you could use Earthsight. Cloak easily saw through the false wall -- Cloak surmised that Tyr could detect it for Parker, and that's how he found it. The wall was actually very convincing, surprisingly so.

<I do sense minds nearby,> Yarin whispered, mind-to-mind. <But they're numb. Somniferous. Groggy.>

"It would be the spell those Muppet things cast upon them," Cloak deduced. "It apparently turned them into mindless drones."

<Once released,> Yarin said, following this train of thought to its most logical conclusion, <these people would not recollect anything that transpired in the duration of the spell.>

"I have misgivings," Broken whispered. He was tempted to cast that muffling sound spell, but he couldn't remember the incantation at the moment. He may have been the Sorcerer Supreme, but that did not mean he had perfect recall. "Mixing magicks can be very dangerous. Dangerous in the unpredictable volatility that comes from mixing them."

<Then the solution is simple,> Yarin said. <Don't mix magicks.>

"It may not be so simple," Broken said, not taking umbridge at the Nyac's bluntness. "I may have to in order to save us, or, likewise, save them. Circumstances may force me to."

"Well, we won't know until we get around this false wall." Cloak said. "But, don't worry, Broken, we won't need that unlocking charm."

Cloak easily broke the combination lock and slide the wall to the right. He allowed the other two to enter, than he shut the wall again. Then he ferrokinetically repaired the lock. No need leaving more evidence than necessary. No need in showing their hand more than necessary.

The three slinked to an interior wall, and waited. Listened. Waited. Surely, this Nest Egg, as they called it, would be more guarded after the first incursion. Surely, they would not be so complacent to believe that their security was up to scratch.

Cloak was destined to be disappointed in this regard, having underestimated the raging arrogance and sheer hubris of Ollie Gark, the tyrannical leader of these "Whimsy-Mimsies". One incursion, with two intruders getting through all of its remarkably lax defenses, and he doesn't see fit to heighten security? It made no logical sense.

The guards they had were just singing that song -- but Cloak was sure that the guard was not anymore aware of his surroundings anymore than any the mind-numbed staff, administrators, etcetera. How was this a good idea for security? Did these "Whimsy-Mimsies" just elect the most inept of their number to leader? Or did he just strongarm his way into a leadership role? Did he just inexpertly coerce his way to the top, and dominate the others into submission?

So many questions. But they were superfluous questions to the task at hand. They may be answered later, or may not. But they were not necessary for the completion of this objective, or this mission. And, yet, these questions weighed on Cloak's mind, no matter how much he tried to dismiss them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2017, 10:50:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Whimsy-Mimsies Take Hollywood

Theo Krat sang, as the group "went" to Hollywood (via green screen):

"Since I was a little kid
I had a dream of
My name in lights:
Theo, the Song-and-Dance Krat.
I got on a bus and came to the town
Where dreams can come true.
It's gonna happen for me.
It could happen for you."

"Me?" Ollie asked, as the entourage continued with this Hollywood sham. They planned on taking the life force-slash-innocence during the film's climax. A showstopper to end showstoppers, they felt.

And, yet, Gaz and Parker still did not act yet. They had separated for some unexplained, inexplicable reason.

Theo continued:

"You can do anything if you try!
The most impossible dream can come true,
If you believe it!
This is my kind of town,
It's as clear as the nose on your face!
This is the time, this is the place!
This is the time, this must be the place!
Hollywood, where the streets are paved with gold!
Where the people never grow old, in Hollywood!
Hollywood, where the stars don't shine at night.
They walk around in the broad daylight, in Hollywood!
Dig that face!
They ain't seen nothin' like it any place!
It's right up off the movie screen!
If you know what I mean!
Look at me! I'm gonna be the cat to see!
I'm going down in history!
Just watch me!"

There was a brief instrumental break, as Gaz and Parker secured places in which they could take down this whole operation, sharing some unspoken plan. The "Whimsy-Mimsies" seemed wholly unaware that their cheeky little scheme was about have two major chinks in it.

Theo continued:

" Hollywood, where the streets are paved with gold!
Where dreams can never grow old!
Right here in Hollywood?."

The RAFian-Muppets were in position, and from their shadowy places the two managed to maintain visual contact. They were doing this in tandem with Cloak's team, so they needed to wait for the most opportune, the most auspicious time, as did Cloak's team. Things had to align perfectly, if they were to succeed in doing this without any suspicion being cast upon them.

The two agreed that the whole "loveable cast of a blockbuster children's television show actually being demonic Pooka Demons who were gunning to steal the life force-slash-innocence from their entire demographic in one fell swoop" might be a bit much for the layman to swallow. Just as well, because any evidence would be circumstantial, especially if the populace had already made up their mind about the guilt or innocence of the RAFians, and would not be swayed.

The last thing they needed was another public relations fiasco.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=k6SXyLGohZ8

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2017, 04:21:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Nest Egg

The trio of RAFians quickly made their way through the back room hidden by the false wall. And the more they did, the more Cloak grew confident that, instead of amping up security and becoming more paranoid, these Whimsy-Mimsy things did the direct opposite and became lax and complacent with their security. Cloak found this so incredibly odd that he was left without words.

Maybe he was judging them too harshly? Maybe they had limited resources that they had to spend elsewhere? Maybe this was a red herring to get them to second guess the legitimacy of this Nest Egg thing that they covet? It just did not sit well with the Realm Walker, and yet, he kept silent about it. He could just be being paranoid -- it wouldn't be the first time, in all honesty.

They quickly made it to the room beyond the false exterior wall, and saw precisely what Gaz and Parker had described. A hefty human male with a cloth towel over his head for some strange reason, and he was no wearing a shirt. In fact, he was dressed rather like the Incredible Hulk, only with a far less impressive physique and far less green. And instead of anger and rage, he was defeated and apathetic.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, in a very sad, defeated voice. What in the name of the First Light had happened to this man? Or was he not a man at all and just a energy construct of the Nest Egg? "You should leave."

"We cannot do that," Cloak said, unafraid. Whatever this Nest Egg could do, it was magical in nature, and Realm Walkers are magical Teflon. Magic can never stick them, or affect them directly. "This device has to be destroyed."

"That cannot be done," the sad man said.

"We have yet to try," Cloak said.

"It is impossible," the sad man said.

"That's just what people say when they want to sound impressive," Yarin noted. "The rules of impossibility can be bent or broken at any time, and then those that do become 'exceptions', exceptions to the rule."

Cloak cast a sidelong look at Yarin. He has thought about this before, evidently. Though Cloak wished the effect wasn't a muddled, almost incoherent philosophy that didn't really make too much sense his mind, all for the same of sounding profound.

But, instead of saying this to Yarin, he addressed Broken, "It's all y--"

Then the Nest Egg began to open, as if it were smiling. Cloak was not caught unawares. He had anticipated this, and was prepared for it as he quickly swept his right hand through the air, right to left, creating a floor-to-ceiling golden-scarlet energy shield.

The Nest Egg's blinding white light was filtered through the energy shield to be red and gold. Even Cloak had to admit -- the effect was pretty. Like a gold and scarlet aurora borealis. But whatever effect had was nullified before it shut again.

"As I was saying," Cloak said, "it's all yours, Broken."

"I must again register my concerns about mixing magicks," Broken warned. "We don't know what will happen. The unpredictability, ironically enough, is the only thing assured. The only thing that is certain is uncertainty."

"I am aware," Cloak said, "that's why I won't drop the shield anymore than necessary, anymore than is prudent, for your magic to get through. I am aware this might take some trial-and-error to accomplish."

"It won't be easy," Broken said, with a heavy sigh.

"Things worth doing rarely are," Yarin noted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2017, 06:13:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

Now came the climax, where they would sing an upbeat song and drain the lifeforce/innocence from their demographic. Then they'd be done with this whole schtick. And they would retire to a life of luxury in their own little spot of Hell.

Ollie sang:

"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.
If you would be so kind --
Got someone very special here, and
She's 'bout to speak her mind . . ."

Allie sang:

"I gotta song to sing
If you don't like my song, I'm gonna sing it anyhow!
I gonna sing with all my heart!"

Both Garks sang:

"Yeah! Nothin's gonna stop us now!"

Allie sang:

"Take four and twenty, that way."

Both Garks sang:

"And bake it in a pie.
Before you put it in the oven, babe, you know they're gonna fly!"

"Say curiosity killed the cat?
I'm livin' proof that that's a lie!"

Then both sang:

"Now I'm gonna tell you why!"

Then all five sang:

"Yeah! Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us now!
Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us now!"

Allie sang:

"And if I wanna dance, I'll dance!
As long as the law will allow! "

Both sang:

"Dance and sing all night long!
'Coz nothing's gonna stop us now!"

Then they all sang in unison:

"Yeah! Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us!
Nothing's gonna stop us!
Yeah!"

Theo Krat sang:

"You smell that? Well, that's the smell of danger!
The smell of danger is my middle name.
I've been very quiet,
But I've got a lot to say, believe me!"

Nancy the Donkey and Mitch the Elephant sang:

"You ain't goin' with us? Then stay out of our way!"

Theo Krat sang, as he danced:

"Oh! Lock down, rock down, shock down,
Flock down, held down, fell down every time!
Push back, push back! Hey all! C'mon back!
When you got yours, you musta got mine!"

All of them sang again:

"Nothing's gonna stop us now!
Nothing's gonna stop us,
Nothing's gonna stop us,
Nothing's gonna --"

"Yeah," came an unimpressed voice above them, "about that?"

"You're gonna be stopped," came another voice, about at five, six o'clock from them. "We know your plans, demons, and we cannot allow you to get away with it."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=L1eBuuJqc44

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2017, 06:10:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Not Going As Well as Hoped

"This isn't working," Broken said, as he watched a silver wolf pad its way across the room, sealed in by Cloak's energy barrier. The wolf was the overweight man just moments ago.

And before that he was just a red crayon. Then he was a bamboo panda. Then just a green solider from head to foot. Then a copper gyrfalcon. Then back to human, but bright blue all over. Then an amber leopard. Then a roughly-teenaged human with electric yellow skin and clothing. Then a granite ram.

"Keep trying," Cloak prompted.

The man was now an iron boar. Then he was a golden mouse. Then he was a slate elephant. Then he was a silver sloth bear. Then he was a coral octopus. Then he was a crystalline orangutan.

"Don't get disheartened," Yarin said, bracingly.

Then he was a golden lion. Then he was a ruby. Then he was a crystalline polar bear. Then he was a sapphire. Then he was a marble swan. Then he was an emerald. Then he was a platinum elk. Then he was a fiery red human male. Then he was a bronze eagle. Then he was a leafy green marionette. Then he was a jade cobra.

"Keep it up," Cloak prompted again.

Then the man was a diamond. Then he was an obsidian ape. Then he was a pearl. Then he was a platinum fox. Then he was disembodied heart. Then he was insubstantial, like a ghost.

"Don't stop now," Cloak said.

Then the man was a black cat. Then he was a white vixen. Then he was white lion with black flecks. Then he was a black robot boy with white flecks. Cracks appeared at the pointed top of the Nest Egg. It was working.

"We're getting there," Yarin said, optimistically.

Then the man was a vibrant blue "X". Then he was dull red "Y". Then he was an inordinately large ruby. Then he was an inordinately large sapphire. The cracks in the shell crackled as they grew.

"What if the egg shell breaks, but whatever's inside isn't destroyed?" Broken said, stopping momentarily. He was not soothed when the other two fell silent.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Cloak said. It was not reassuring in the least.

Then suddenly something happened -- the man had vanished, as if he never existed, as if it was an extension of the Nest Egg. Then the Nest Egg warped, as if reality itself was warping.

"Perhaps, not the right spell," Broken said, recoiling from the sight. Cloak couldn't blame him as Yarin did as well. The Realm Walker had to maintain the shield. He couldn't allow himself to flinch.

Then the Nest Egg pulled itself into itself, almost as if it was imploding. As if there was a hidden black hole inside that pulled at its exterior. It folded in upon itself, and vanished from existence. And its effects gone from existence as well.

"Well," Broken said, "I have no idea which spell did that."

Neither of his fellows argued him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 09, 2017, 04:40:33 PM

That was magnificent.  Out of curiosity, was there a significance to Child's forms?  I recognized a few from Pokémon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2017, 07:38:50 PM

Oh. You thought that was Child. It was supposed to be a sort of holographic construct . . . but what the hell. Okay, it was Child.

New chapter might be delayed until after work tomorrow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 09, 2017, 08:07:13 PM

:facepalm:  I do not know why I thought that was Child.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2017, 05:04:40 AM

It's okay. It is Child now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Propped Up Pretense

"Who are you, stranger?" Ollie said, brightly, keeping up the pretense and staying in character. The two RAFians were not amused, understandably.

"Knock it off," Parker said, irritably. "Drop this pretentious pretense. If I want to hear some saccharine sh--"

The Whimsy-Mimsies made a theatrical gasp, "That's a naughty word!"

"Oh, for the love of --" Parker said, his mood having not been soothed. "I'm going to really take an inordinate amount of enjoyment in taking you demons down."

"I'm here, too, Parker," Gaz said, giving these Pooka demons a cold, icy glare. Well, as much as a Muppet can do something like that.

"Hey, strangers, we don't have to be so hostile with one another," Allie said, playing the sweet, little kid voice. This actually rubbed Gaz the wrong way. "We can all be friends!"

"You cannot be serious," Gaz said, glowering. "You rob children of their innocence and life force --without remorse -- putting them in a prone, catatonic state with rictus smiles plastered on their faces. And you don't care, do you?"

"Of course, they don't," Parker said, jumping to the ground, "it's like Demos said, demons like them don't have hearts. Don't know things like compassion and empathy, except as manipulation tools."

"Why are you calling us demons, friend?" Theo Krat queried with a reasonably perplexed tone.

"Drop the pretext," Parker repeated his message. "You don't fool us. There are no puppeteers controlling you, you are fully autonomous."

"Parker," Gaz said, in an aside, "they're probably keeping up the facade for the sake of the camera."

Then she glanced at the show's crew behind the scenes. Their eyes were unfocused, as they mindless went about their business, oblivious to all and any goings on that was outside their defined role. Even when it conflicted, their eyes glazed over still. Gaz found it really unnerving that a spell could do this to so many people.

Did it still work when they went home to their families? Did their families pick up on something weird about their sibling, their progeny, their spouse? Suppressing a shutter, Gaz came to the decision that she was really happier not knowing.

"Ah, right," Parker said, aiming his gun at the camera.

"Parker, what are you -- ?"

"Stranger, what do you intend to do -- ?" Ollie said, accidentally allowing his more adult intonation to filter into his voice.

Parker fired his gun at the single camera they apparently used for the show. While it superficially looked like an ordinary television-quality camera, there had to be modifications that allowed Ollie to siphon out a child's life force and innocence through it. Or perhaps he used another, unknown method.

However, when Parker fired his gun, a metallic bullet did not emerge. A blast of laser light did not form. A Nerf-grade foam dart shot forth from it, much to Parker's embarrassment.

It did not have the desired effect Parker wanted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2017, 05:50:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Abandoning All Pretense

The Whimsy-Mimsies burst into a fit of laughter, and Parker was fortunate that he was not flesh, or else his face would be burning with embarrassment. He had intended to destroy the camera. But this would also possibly kill the cameraman that he did not see. It was a reckless move, but fortunately the Nerf dart just bounced harmlessly off.

But Parker did not like being laughed at.

"Parker!" Gaz scolded. "Control yourself!"

"Then how do you propose we stop them?" Parker shot back angrily. "Puppy dogs and rainbows?"

"Think it through!" Gaz said. "We still represent the --"

"WHAT D'YOU MEAN WE'VE STOPPED BROADCASTING?!" Ollie said, outraged, drowning out the RAFian argument. "WHAT D'YOU MEAN OUR RATINGS ARE DROPPING?!"

It was true. And it was technically Gaz and Parker's fault. While all believed this was part of the show, some believed that this was obvious RAFian bashing, and others believed that this was somehow RAFian propaganda. Either way, this movie was swiftly becoming a death knell of the show.

Granted, that was the intention of Ollie anyways, but not in this manner. But the fact that they stopped broadcasting was a mystery -- perhaps they were somehow preempted. But the fact of the matter was that now Ollie and the others completely dropped the saccharine, child-friendly act, and spoke freely.

And they swore like sailors during a hurricane.

"Wow," Parker said. "Somehow I didn't expect such an extensive expletive knowledge from them."

"It is creative cursing," Gaz admitted.

"You stupid ****s" Allie said. "We would have had it all!"

"We would have lived in luxury!" Theo shouted. "We would not have wanted for anything!"

"We would have been rich!" Nancy snarled.

"We would have been affluent!" Mitch trumpeted.

"You ****s have ruined everything!!" Ollie roared. "You both will DIE!!"

Parker unsheathed his energy sword. This had remained unchanged by the Nest Egg fortunately enough. "Get over it."

"You should have known that you would never get away with this," Gaz said. "And you should lose that egg thing soon."

"What?" Ollie said.

"Nothing," Gaz said, knowing that this would infuriate him.

"Don't worry about it, Muppet," Parker said, knowing that this too would infuriate them. He braced himself for combat, wondering how his being a puppet would alter his fighting style. "You won't live long enough to do anything about it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 10, 2017, 04:05:10 PM

Wow, I did not expect their language to turn quite that strong.

Lol'd at Mitch's "We would have been affluent!"  :XD:

[spoiler]Yep, that's Mitch McConnell, alright (and I'm glad you explained that one to me, otherwise that joke would have gone straight over my head).[/spoiler]

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2017, 04:53:09 PM

They're demons, after all, Dino. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Sending Fluff Flying

"I'll kill you myself!" Ollie roared charging forward toward Parker. Parker had to compensate for his much lighter body, but he managed to slash Ollie to bits.

"Fool," Parker said, with disdain. "I'm armed. You are not. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who would win in that conflict. It's not like you're a Kryptonian or anything."

"You underestimate us!" Allie said, attacking Gaz, seeing her as the weak link. Gaz easily ripped her in half with her vampiric strength. It was not something she was used to doing. It made her realize just how reliant she was on Laserbeak. She was actually surprised that Laserbeak allowed her to come on this mission by herself. Beaky was always overprotective, but yet not in a possessive way.

"Next?" Gaz asked.

Theo decided to cut his losses and run, but Gaz had shifted into a mist form and reformed right in front of him. Almost apologetically, she said, "Sorry, but that is not an option. You need to answer for what you did to those children."

Gaz plunged her hand into the puppets gut, but instead of gore, there was fluffy stuffing. Somehow, that made it less gory, and less disturbing. Less brutal. Huh. Odd that.

Theo, Allie, and Ollie were now dead. We're they back in Hell, demoted to another echelon of demon? Or were they still Pooka demons in Hell? Or were they just no longer in existence? No answers, no evidence to make a conclusive decision. No matter. Two more to go.

"I won't go down so easily!!" Nancy said.

Parker easily beheaded her, without another word, within seconds of this pronouncement. Parker was a bit disappointed with the ease of this, but accepted it just the same.

Gaz took on Mitch the Elephant. She didn't attack him, but easily dodged his attacks. It was almost as if she wasn't trying to attack him. Clearly, these puppets were not accustomed to fighting. Their fighting styles were amateurish -- at best. Meanwhile, the RAFians regularly went out on missions where fisticuffs were almost inevitable, not to mention the training they do in off-hours. This was completely one-sided.

Suddenly, Mitch staggered, surprised to find an energy blade in his chest, and his fluffy stuffing showing. Then, with an evidently painful lurch, the blade was pulled free of the elephant puppet. Then three slices from Parker's sword -- a diagonal slash from high left to low right, from high right to low left, and the final one bisecting him vertically -- in basically an asterisk type of formation. Mitch was undeniably dead.

"Bit overkill, Parker," Gaz said.

"That one grinded my nerves the most," Parker said, bluntly.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of white light and Parker and Gaz were back to their beautiful selves. And quite conspicuous on the soundstage.

"We -- we need to get out of here," Gaz whispered, grabbing Parker's wrist very, very firmly. She was determined to not let him got as they both translated into mist and blew out of the sound stage before any of the crew or administration came to their senses.

Fortunately, the two managed to escape before any damage could be done to the RAFians' reputations. But it was a closer shave than either would have liked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2017, 08:42:42 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
I'm Stuck in a Closet with an Andalite

When the five had arrived back at the forum, with no one outside RAF any the wiser, GH decided it was time for an impromptu concert, with Leatherhead backing him up musically. And he had somehow roped Cloak into it -- the Realm Walker had yet to figure out how he managed it.

He sang:

"Cloaky, every night I have the strangest dreams.
Cloaky, listen to me, tell me what this means!
First, I'm goin' shoppin' in my underwear.
Then, all of sudden, I'm floating in midair.
My lips fall off and everybody starts to stare.
Guitars and picks are flying everywhere!
Now, Cloaky, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!
Next, comes the part that I won't ever forget!
Now, I'm bein' followed by these Yeerky spies.
They give me some Velcro, and an order of fries.
Suddenly, I'm bowling on the Skrit Na Enterprise.
I fall down a hole and that's when I realize --
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
All right!
Cloaky, won't you tell me, am I going insane?
Was it something I ate, or something wrong with my brain?
See, I'm naked in church, when I meet Dinosaur.
Try to run, but my feet have been nailed to the floor.
Then a Gedd pushes me through a revolving door.
And I'm back in the very same place I was before!
Now I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
And I can't bust out and I can't break free.
And it's gettin' just a little too stuffy here for me!
And I can't go home and I can't get loose.
And I try to escape, but it's just no use!
And I can't ever leave and I can't ever win.
And we're runnin' outta air, and the walls are closin' in.
And I can't go back and I can't get through.
But why won't that Andalite give me back that shoe I threw?
Come on, Andalite, come on!"

There was an instrumental break where Cloak tried and failed to leave. Societal convention had trapped him in a way, and GH seemed to cleverly know that.

"Cloaky, all those crazy dreams have started again.
That's right, I even wake up screaming now and then.
See, I'm coming home from work but I forgot my address.
I'm half an hour late for my algebra test!
Then some slimy alien jumps out of my ears.
And I'm falling and falling and I guess you know the rest!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
N-n-n-night after night after night night night!
Then I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite (ya-ya ya-ya, ya-ya, ya, ya-ya)!
I'm stuck in a closet with an Andalite!
Night after night after night after night!
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite (ya-ya ya-ya ya-ya ya-ya)
I am stuck in a closet with an Andalite."

Cloak wanted nothing more than slink away from any sort of limelight like this. This wasn't anything like combat. Not to mention he was tired and cranky.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=m1UgVuDX0KI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2017, 05:01:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Winds Day

Aquilai arrived at the wind tunnel facility that the fiend had took up residence in. It was evacuated, naturally, and fortunately this fiend hadn't killed anyone. He proceeded forward, until he came across a ladder, which he scrambled up.

Upon reaching the top of that ladder, he saw another he had to take up. With a sigh, he climbed that one only to discover even more. He swore if he found out later that there was an elevator that he could have ridden instead of climbing these maintenance ladders . . .

Then he came into what appeared to be some sort of wind tunnel vents, with wind turbines powerful enough to generate wind strong enough to hold the Time Lord aloft as he reached the next ladder. Aquilai couldn't help but think that this was a design flaw -- requiring the wind turbines to life you high enough to reach the ladder.

Then he finally reached the top of the facility. He moved forward, dodging the emergency protocols that apparently didn't stop the fiend from moving to the very heart of the facility.

But, as it turns out, Aquilai's earlier assumption was incorrect, as he was forced to utilize more ladders to go upwards. He was starting to find this all rather monotonous.

Then he found a tight, enclosed place where there didn't seem to be any more ladders. The Time Lord found himself feeling sorry for the maintenance crew that worked here. They must be paramilitary or something to deal with this kind of athletics.

Aquilai moved forward, crawling when the ceiling and floor became very, very narrow. Then he came to a very large dropshaft. He had no other choice but to drop down it. The fall wasn't very far, but to his left there was yet another, with a rather steep incline to it. This was deterrent to employment at this facility, he knew it.

Anyway, he dropped down the smaller dropshaft and landed on dirt. There was no flooring in this section, and yet he wasn't outside. No matter. Must press on. Oh, yay. Another ladder.

But this ladder was different. It took Aquilai directly into the fiend's chosen lair. Aquilai was quite eager to end this.

The lithe, child-sized creature had the top of its head resemble a queue, with attached flail, and a raimen meander around his forehead and another around its waist. It had round human eyes (white sclera and black irises) framed by a deep gold faceplate around its mouth with a grated holes on it. Its round ears were purple with green interiors. It had huge wind turbines on its shoulders, which matched the deep orange of its chest, head, forearms (and attached blades), and legs. But the blades in these turbines were a royal purple. Its upper arms, hands, abdomen, crotch and thighs were white. There were silver growths on its ankles which resembled spirals used to depict wind in drawings, and its wrists were silver in color.

When the creature noticed Aquilai,  it attacked by shooting two propellers, one up and one down, each one in a similar wavy fashion. He avoided them by timing a jump over them when they cross paths.

It also tries to suck Aquilai towards him and deal contact damage. He avoided this by running to the opposite direction that he was being being sucked.

Then this creature lifted himself and tried to land over Aquilai. Aquilai dodged this by sliding below it before it even lands over him, inflating to rotund form. When the attack was completed, it deflated to its normal lithe proportions.

All Aquilai needed to do is flash his sonic screwdriver's light in the creatures eye seven times, with a rather prudent cool down time in between each flash. But he got all seven in and the creature was dead.

"Now back to those damn ladders," Aquilai sighed. Then he noticed something to his left as he was walking back to the ladder. "There was an elevator. Of course there was an elevator."

***

Demos called it a "uindosapien". Demos claimed that he created it to help with agriculture. Somehow.

***

Malice, actually, wasn't watching this time. She had abandoned her comfy chair to go enact some evil scheme that had occurred to her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2017, 06:43:41 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLVI:
LARVAL AMBUSHES
CHAPTER ONE:
Oil and Flame

Cloak had arrived at the oil refinery. He knew the fiend would be at the deep center of the facility, and so he made his way through it. And, as he made his way through it he saw deep trenches of oil on the floor. The way was it was done made Cloak sure that O.S.H.A. would not have been too happy if they had known. It couldn't possibly be safe, especially if a single spark had fallen into . . .

No matter. The task at hand was the fiend. He could report this oil refinery to O.S.H.A. later, Cloak decided as he proceed forward. Then he saw what amounted to large spikes beneath a rather shaky catwalk. Cloak had to use his Mastery over the Metal element actually stabilize it. How had this place not been slammed for this overt disregard of worker safety?

Cloak looked around as he moved on. More of those troughs of crude oil. Near a damaged electrical device that was sparking. This place was just asking for a O.S.H.A. lawsuit. Either that, or it was deliberately dilapidated so the owners could collect insurance money once it burned down. Either way, it was very shady how it was still operating.

It wasn't too much longer before he came into the heart of the facility. And, like he predicted, the fiend was there.

The creature was the size of an average ten-year-old child, with a black, sac-like head like an Eosapien. Its face was blue with human-like eyes (blue sclera and purple irises) and black ears with blue interiors. It had a purple faceplate with a white mustache. It had rounded, purple shoulders with triangular purple markings. Its shoulders faded into blue and into white on its upper arm. Its left lower arm was blue with a purple hand. It's right lower arm was basically a blue-colored flamethrower blaster with a black barrel. It has a purple chest and red abdomen, with a blue vest with black trim. It had a purple band around its waist, and its crotch and thighs were white. Its lower legs were blue with purple bands, with white feet like shoes of Arabian design.

When it saw Cloak, its torso and abdomen burst into flame, obscuring it from view. Cloak, despite his pyrophobia, wasn't really all that impressed. It attacked by shooting three slow fireballs. Cloak easily dodged it, by manipulating the fire to either side of him. This seemed to not sit well with the fiend, which, like its brethren, seemed to operate more on programmed instinct than any actual intelligence.

As if in response, it jumped high, and could land on Cloak, were he not careful enough. But it was dodged easily enough, as the jump was well telegraphed in advance enough.

It attacked by putting its flamethrower on the floor and sending flame pillars, consisting of several pillars of fire rising from the floor that block any attack. They continued to span outward from the fiend. Again, it didn't matter much to a Master of the Fire element.

And, now having seen the full arsenal it had at its disposal, Cloak acted. Cloak didn't use his Mastery over the Fire element to finish the fiend off. That would be stupid, as it is engulfed in fire. And the fact that this was an oil refinery gave Cloak a sneaking suspicion that Water wouldn't work either.

So he used air. He used seven basketball-sized cyclones to hit the fiend. And the seventh one was all that was needed to slay the fiend.

***

Demos called it a "fureimusapien". He created it to generate thermal energy as an energy source.

***

Malice still wasn't watching. She was still too busy with her . . . errand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2017, 09:34:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Beastly Assault

A twelve-year-old boy named Wesley Andrews was bidding adieu to his three similarly-aged friends, Herbie Roland, Britney Shandler, and Josh Warren. It was getting late and the streetlights had just came on not more than ten seconds ago. The four harbored a secret that they didn't even tell their parents.

Each of the four had an activated metagene -- something usually quite rare in these times. Wesley had some low-levelled telekinesis, Herbie had superhuman speed (but not to the extent of a Kinecceleran, who would be able to easily out pass him), Britney had superhuman strength, but not quite Herculean, and Josh had a chameleon-like camouflage, which would have easily been discovered with Earthsight or aura. This single commonality between them, the fact that they all have a superpower (though remarkably low-levelled, by RAFian standards), is one reason why their friendship is so close. They all feared being rejected for being different. Wesley even quit the soccer team at school for fear that his ability being found out and calling his school's wins into question. Herbie didn't try out for the track team although it was something he really wanted to do. Britney was always exceedingly careful with how hard she did things, walking around as if the world were made of corrugated cardboard. Josh was, perhaps, the least affected by this, as he had not endured any sort of hardships like the others did -- but his family moved around a lot, so he was used to being the odd man out.

However, they all lived on different blocks from each other in the suburban town in which they dwelled. So, they had to split up like this every time they were done hanging out. Little did they expect just how dangerous that doing just that could be.

Wesley continued on his way home, where he lived with his parents and little sister. He never heard the creature behind him. The creature whose buzzing wings were at a pitch indiscernible to the human ear. Wesley should have sense the beast closing in on him. The beast hiding from the revealing light of the streetlights.

Wesley never knew he was being stalked. Wesley never knew he was being hunted. But not for food. At least, not yet. There was quite another reason he was being sought out as a potential victim, one more disturbing then if the beast would actually eat him, if the monster would outright devour him. No, biology had selected it to have a different purpose to seek out humans.

It didn't take long for the beast's somniferous breath to take effect. Wesley's head began to swim before just suddenly cutting to black. He never even saw his attacker -- a monstrous variation of Megarhyssa macrurus. A hairy, human-sized ichneumon wasp with insectoid wings that had evidently evolved much the same way an owl's had -- with barely a sound, and a sound that could not be heard by their victims. It was colored completely black, hair and all, with an elongated body and transparent, soft wings. It had a long ovipositor, and arms and legs like a Lepidopterran.

It quickly moved toward the now unconscious boy on the ground . . .

***

When Wesley awoke he found himself in his own bed, with his parents and sister looking quite concerned. He remembered nothing about what had happened moments before, and he had not seen his victimizer, nor was he aware that he was victimized.

Nor was he a aware of a small divet in the nape of his neck.

He was just disoriented and confused. His parent told him that they got worried when he didn't show up on time and broke his curfew. It was unlike him -- and so, they immediately found him on the ground, unconscious. They brought him back here, where they waited for him to wake up.

While Wesley tried to reassure them that he was okay, the truth was that he wasn't. Not really.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 12, 2017, 06:48:32 PM

Oooh, good start.  I'm on the edge of my seat already.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2017, 05:56:34 AM

Oh, just wait. And sorry, in advance, Dino.

And sorry that there was no chapter yesterday. Work just really knocked it out of me.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
No More Sidelines

Wesley wasn't the only victim of this buggy beast. Each of his friends were as well, and, like him, they had no recollection of said attacks. Like them, they did not realize they had a slight divet in the nape of their necks.

These four were not the only ones who were attacked.

Sean Stone, a small-time theatrical actor, was attacked shortly after Wesley was. Sean was just coming out from closing his latest show. It wasn't really a blockbuster, but there was moderate interest. But not enough to satisfy his ambition. He really wanted to go to Broadway, but felt that he wasn't good enough. It was this insecurity that really held him back more than anything else. But as he was mulling this over, he was attacked. He awoke at home with his girlfriend, who had went looking for him when he was an hour late getting home. He had no recollection of the attack or knowledge of the new divet in the nape of his neck, either.

"Five," said a voice from the shadows.

Izzy Eugene Xavier, a scientist/technician, was attacked shortly after Herbie was. Izzy had been working many long hours, working on a laser-based projects. Today, he had encountered a frustrating problem with it that he had to spend hours sorting out. He was much too tired and unaware that it was child's play for this man-sized wasp to put him into unconsciousness. He awoke with his wife doting on him. He did not realize that he had been attacked, or the small divet in the nape of the neck.

"Six," counted the voice.

Cade Light, a musician, was attacked shortly after Britney was. He had garnered a modicum of fame with his music (which GH happened to despise, the musical connoisseur he was), but had a reputation of being horrible to work with. Despite this, he had a fair share groupies and hangers-on (something that irritated GH to no end). He was walking away from a concert after having a bit of a temper tantrum at the amount of fans in attendance did not match his expectations. That is when he was attacked, and then woke up, having been rescued by a devoted groupie.

"Seven."

Diane Goodson, a heiress, was attacked shortly after Josh was. She was completely unaccustomed to doing anything for herself. She always had everyone else doing everything for her. She allowed herself to be wild and promiscuous, on her father's dime. She had everything that she could ever want, and, because of it, she was spoiled and unkind, especially if she had been drinking. She was always so complacent about her safety, that she took needless risks. And she was in the midst of such when she was attacked, and recovered by her harried attendants.

"Eight."

Donnie Leonardson, a petty criminal, was attacked shortly after Cade was. He had just stolen someone's money. He didn't know this person, but he needed the money. He was down on his luck, and desperate. He would have never took her money if he had a better alternative. He hadn't any choice. He had to do this or else he was going to lose everything . . . he had no choice. He was left without any other option. He already worked as hard as he could, and that woman held her purse -- a Gucci purse, he guessed -- loosely on her arm. The situation had presented itself, the opportunity had been revealed. He took it. It was then that he was attacked, and awoke in a jail cell.

"Nine."

Scott Robots, a serial killer, was attacked shortly after Sean was. He was devoid of empathy and compassion, though he could emulate such things with an Oscar-level actor's acclaim. Sufficient to fool anyone without Earthsight or a lie-detecting superpower. Scott enjoyed killing other people. The paleness of their faces, the rush of snuffing out the spark of life, the reveal of who they really are . . . he loved to savor all the little emotions in the act. And he always managed to get away with it, because he always took proper precautions. But he, himself, was attacked when he was in the process of killing a black man, with the intention of making it look like a hate crime. He awoke in prison -- finally caught in the act. He held no memory of being attacked or how he got this divet in the nape of his neck.

"Ten"

Rod Murray, a misogynist, was attacked shortly after Diane was. He was just leaving a bar after having a fight with another patron over his distaste for a woman being in a position of power over a man, claiming that they "belong in the kitchen, making my supper". The other patron, a more egalitarian sort, took issue with this statement, standing up for this woman, and Roger made his immediate disdain for the man known. the argument heated up to the point, where Rod's bull**** arguments were clearly not hitting home like he intended, so he resorted to violence. Fortunately, the fight was broken up before anyone was seriously injured, and, as the instigator and obviously inebriated, Rod was thrown out. It was at this point he was attacked and woke up in a drunk tank, in police custody.

"Eleven."

Lee Anderson, a murderer, was attacked shortly after Izzy was. He was a crazed hermit, who was very overprotective of his property. He would shoot and kill any he saw as trespassers. And he saw everyone as trespassers. He grew his own food and did not leave his property for any reason. He even hid the bodies of those he fatally shot. Rumor was he dissected them for means only know to him. He was out patrolling his small patch of property when he was attacked. When he awoke, he was in the same spot he was attacked. No one rescued him, and he didn't care.

"Twelve."

Vince Greene, a megalomaniac, was attacked shortly after Donnie was. He was a very ambitious man who estranged himself from both his parents and younger brother -- his father for his lack of ambition, his mother for her flightiness, untidiness, and brutish exterior, and his brother for his own ineptitudes and ones Vince transferred from himself. Vince always pretended to be bigger and more important than what he actually was. He started as a lowly intern at a government firm, but quickly rose to powerful positions through a mixture of his own work and taking the credit of others. He had left his office, feeling smug, when he was attacked. He awoke to find that no one bothered to come to his rescue, showing just how disliked he was as a person, and how much umbridge he caused.

"That should be enough," Malice said, reigning in the still pregnant beast that she hauled over from Hyvect. It was near extinction there. "Your usefulness has ended, hominiparasitoid wasp. You're now a liability."

She killed it without a second thought, and used her Realm Walker corona to destroy it and any evidence of it -- except for the thirteen eggs it laid. . . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2017, 08:44:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Ignorant Incubation

All of the thirteen people playing host to the hominiparasitoid wasp went back to life as normal, enjoying the petering out summer. While they went about this, the RAFians were dealing with the whole puppet and Whimsy-Mimsy thing. They seemed to be perfectly fine.

Wesley, Britney, Herbie, and Josh continued to hang out, none noticing the divets in the napes of their necks, where the hominiparasitoid wasp had inserted its ovipositor to lay its ball bearing-sized egg into each of the four. At first, they did not seem to suffer any ill effects.

Sean was preparing to audition for a supporting role in a play that there was rumors that this play was good enough to head towards Broadway. So, it was with great trepidation and anxiety that he looked toward this audition.

Vince was angling for a new position, considering running for governor. From there, he would be able to, in his view, run for the Senate or the House. Or maybe even be a running mate in the next presidential run, or be the one having the presidential run. That would be his ultimate goal -- the highest position of power in the land. President Greene -- he liked it. He really did.

Izzy was still trying to perfect his laser array just so so that it would benefit the project. But it was being stubborn. Frustratingly so. He sighed, as he wondered if this whole project would have brought him to the brink of insanity. But, nevertheless, he had to press on. Science waited for no man, he supposed.

Lee was still protecting his land obsessively. He was immensely territorial about his homestead, and he was willing to kill to force them to leave his property. He didn't care about the law, except the one at the end of the barrel of his shotgun. He was unabashed about even slaying police officers that got onto his property without his permission. And he never gave permission.

Cade continued to play, play songs that GH found absolutely grating. Cade was working on an album -- to GH's irritation -- without any ill effects from his attack. And he was also planning a tour to promote this album after its release. He would hit all the major cities, and sang the songs with a warbling voice that made GH's ears bleed.

Rod continued his womanizing, misogynistic ways, despite this attack. Why he thought that any woman would want to be with him -- with him with him -- with such attitudes was a just a testament to the huge amount of ignorance he had toward the other gender. He continued to believe that he was god's gift to women, despite treating them as lesser beings.

Diane was busy . . . shopping. She rarely did anything else, except act like a complete and utter diva. Any friendships she struck up were either . . . tenuous, or just people who wanted to be in her entourage for the money and nothing else. She had yet to learn how fleeting this type of materialism was. And, sadly, she never would.

Scott was sitting, sipping some coffee with a needlessly complex multi-syllable name. He was scanning the crowd of mall-goers today, in a very discrete, very practiced manner of an accomplished murderer. He thought himself like a lion on the hunt (clearly not knowing that it was the lionesses that did the hunting).

Donnie was still waiting to be arraigned. He was hugging himself and shaking. He was going to get the book thrown at him, he knew it. He was screwed, he knew, as he fretted about his fate. They will send him to . . . that prison. He heard of that extrajudicial prison. The prison where the prisoners are nothing more than lab rats. Lab rats to be experimented on, as if they were less than human? It was run by an agency . . . what did they call themselves? He thought it started with a "C"? Cat musk? Nah. That's stupid. . . .

But then, all thirteen felt an odd numbness as their extremities began to twitch involuntarily. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on August 13, 2017, 09:48:36 PM

Hm . . . musician that I hate that has an oddly devoted fanbase and has a penchant for walking out of shows . . . Would this Cade person happen to also be a massive alcoholic with a rap sheet longer than Santa's beard?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 14, 2017, 12:44:43 AM

Wait, why do you need to apologize to me in adv- oh.  :P

Whelp, I'm not going anywhere near this mission.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2017, 04:06:55 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on August 14, 2017, 12:44:43 AM

Whelp, I'm not going anywhere near this mission.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah . . . about that . . .

Quote from: gh on August 13, 2017, 09:48:36 PM

Would this Cade person happen to also be a massive alcoholic with a rap sheet longer than Santa's beard?

Not yet. But definitely on the path to it.

Anyway, new chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Hospitalized

These symptoms did not go away. They exacerbated. Their skin gained a waxy complexion, and their hair tended to clump together. It almost looked like they were rendered with PlayStation 2 graphics. All thirteen were affected and afflicted.

It became evident that they would need to go to the hospital, even Donnie and Lee. Lee didn't go willingly, but he was separated from his trusty, rusty shotgun, and his strength was deteriorating, while Donnie was extremely willing to go, hoping that it would delay his arraignment. That, and his strength was deteriorating, as well.

All thirteen were stripped of their street clothes, and put into hospital gowns with a loose floral print, tied in the back. These hospital gowns were made of a thin material, which made them rather drafty, and Diane was not particularly welcoming of being treated like the "peasants". She grew petulant and unresponsive toward the poor nurses who where just trying to help her. But Diane was accustomed to getting whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Refusal of this was tantamount to a tantrum.

The hospital staff nurses were smart enough to know that thirteen patients with similar, if not identical, symptoms held meaning. What that it meant lead to some disagreements and of what should be done.

Should they notify the government? The media? Their families, surely.

But the x-rays came back as very odds. Some bones weren't showing up on the x-rays, and there were no visible distortions in their bodies. It made no sense, though it could explain their startling behavior differences when they were brought in. Lee and Diane were the combative ones, while the rest complied with grace and dignity. But all that changed in a matter of hours.

They became lethargic and silent. Their faces became slack and blank, their eyes never seemed to move in their sockets (they just turned their heads to look at something), and their skin paled and hardened, almost like porcelain. Their hair were almost as if they were wearing anime wigs. Their bodies strangely stiff and rigid, and when they required movement, their movements were always jerky and awkward. All thirteen of them. The hospital's staff nurses and doctors were flummoxed.

The D.O.N. -- that is, the Director of Nursing -- was Florence Ambrose, and she could only come up with a single conclusion. They would need help from those experienced in such matters. Matters of the weird and bizarre. But she would have to clear it with Verity Torres, the administrator in charge.

Verity did not like the suggestion very much, believing that they could solve this problem without any need to bring in outside help. She could be a very prideful woman sometimes, oblivious to the necessary thing to do.

That's when the thirteen suddenly decided to get flighty. It was all they could do to sedate them and bring them under control. But it was a hassle, and these thirteen were becoming more than a handful, more than a nuisance. They had to be dealt with, and soon. Verity's staff was just not prepared to deal with this kind of distractions. Her hands were tied.

"Go ahead, Florence," she said, out of breath. "Call 'em. But tell them to keep it low-key. We don't need any untoward attention right now. Not with state coming soon."

"Right away, Verity," Florence said, and she immediately got on the phone.

It rang three times in moderate succession. Florence was a bit nervous, she hadn't called into this place, but it was necessary. She jumped a bit when the call was picked up.

"This is RAF," said Xeno's bored voice, "how may I direct your call?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2017, 11:11:29 AM

Okay -- it seems very like that this book will exceed the requisite twenty chapters. Don't hold me to that, but it looks very likely. And don't ask me how many precisely -- imma divide some chapters in my original outline in two.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Escaped

"It was strange," Verity was saying honestly. "All thirteen seemed to rush the doors at the same time. And the x-rays showed some disturbing abnormalities. It could just be a flaw in our x-ray machine, but . . . I dunno."

"That's the reason you called us in, though, isn't it?" Helen said. She wasn't wearing her Star Sapphire attire, though still having the ring. She dressed very prim, with a debonair style, despite the business suit she wore, with a violet pin that held the Star Sapphire symbol on her lapel. Her high heels clicked distractingly as she walked. "RAF has experience with the unusual and bizarre."

"These patients are certainly all of those things," Verity said, as she looked away from Helen, who was accompanied by Shen, also dressed very formally, but opting for blues, which actually contrasted nicely with Helen's color choices. "They were not so . . . well, let's talk in my office."

They entered and took their seats as Verity prepared to fill them in.

"They've been trying to escape the facility all night," Verity sighed, "I swear we caught all thirteen of them trying to escape at least forty times in the past hour."

"Why?" Helen asked.

"Because they're clear danger to themselves, and possibly others," Verity verified. "The x-rays came back as empty. No bone structure or . . . or anything. All the doctors are flummoxed. They had partial bones when they came in, and even then it didn't make much sense. And, ever since, they seemed to be undergoing changes that can only be described as weird and unnatural. Their hair began to clump together, the individual hair fibers evidently fusing together so as if they have a vacuform wig on their heads, as if it was some sort of costume piece! And their skin all have become stiff and hard and rigid like alabaster or porcelain. Their movements have been jerky and awkward, but we cannot account for what may be causing it. All in all, we have no idea what's happening to these thirteen patients, nor why they have all collectively decided that they need to leave so badly."

"Have they said anything?" Shen asked astutely.

"Not a word," Verity replied, "not single one of them has made so much of as an utterance. At least in the presence of any of my staff. Its just so . . . peculiar. And their faces -- they don't move their eyes. They don't blink. They just turn their heads when they want to look at you and the way that they do it . . . it's like something out of a horror movie."

"They scare you," Shen stated, matter-of-fact.

"Honestly, they scare everyone," she admitted. "Nurses are afraid to go and check in on them. They won't even allow them to take their vital signs. Housekeepers are afraid to go and clean their room. They say that they get creeped out, as if they're in a room with a monster that wants to eat them. The CAs are afraid to visit with them and see what they want to eat for the day. Not that they eat anything anyway -- I don't know how they're still alive -- they haven't eaten a thing for days. And they don't sleep either."

"Huh," Shen said. "That is odd."

Cloak surely would know what creature was capable of doing this to people. He has a vast knowledge of beasts from many world inside and outside this realm of existence. He would know how best to deal with whatever did this to these people, and how to cure them.

"It's gotten to the point that we have put foot alarms on them, like we do for the dementia ward, to activate the alarms should they --"

And at that moment, a blaring klaxon was heard throughout the hospital. The thirteen had escaped while the RAFians were having their talk.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2017, 04:38:21 AM

Aaaaaand several of the banners (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg893490;topicseen#msg893490) are down again. Paradoxically, including the one in my sig.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
On Alert

"How?!" Verity demanded. Then she saw several nurses sprawled out upon the floor, apparently asleep. "Wake up, dammit!!"

"Don't be too harsh on them," Shen said, spotting something with a keen eye. "This isn't a natural sleep. They appear to have been drugged -- presumably with an aerosol agent."

"But how did this --" Verity said, seeing the keypad that allowed people in and out of this sensitive area. That allowed people outside. "This isn't humanly possible."

"A fair assessment," Helen said. "Suffice it to say, I don't think these thirteen are human anymore."

"Then what --" Verity said.

"I cannot answer that as I do not know myself," Helen said. "But all I do know is that we need to do a major sweep of the area. Whatever these thirteen are now, they clearly pose a very clear and present danger. They need to be contained -- and, hopefully, cured."

Helen immediately took out her communicator, and placed an all-out alert. She suggested that the RAFians should be scrambled, and these thirteen be found immediately. Meanwhile, Xeno, wearing an ID mask, which he found uncomfortable, came to fix the destroyed keypads in the dementia ward.

***

The forum received Helen's message, and acted immediately. Aquilai, Cerulean, Cloak, Demos, Dino, Goom, Horse, Parker, Phoenix, Saffa, Underseen, and Yarin were the only ones available and on current active duty. Dino whimpered a bit when she heard that it was thirteen individuals, as well as thirteen RAFians, but she knew her duty.

All thirteen spread out -- using their communicators in its scanning mode to scan for the foot alarms. Granted, Dino, naturally, had the most difficulty with this -- her tiny arms weren't much useful for this task. Something irritated her quite a bit, actually.

***

Malice watched all this unfold with an almost detached interest. She didn't really care that she had introduced an invasive species into a biosphere that was not ready to support them. But she didn't really care if this world became overrun. She knew that Cloak would need to relocate to a different planet, or even a different realm entirely.

And she would follow him. And ruin that world for him. Not to mention, she still had plenty of Demos's fiends left to go through. She would have plenty of resources to make his life hell.

But why did she do this? Well, she was a prick by nature, but there was another reason. His grandfather, Sage. He really annoyed her. He continually meddled in her plans, mucking them up, most times unintentionally. But he was gone. And there wasn't anything that she could do hurt him, like he hurt her by interfering with her plans.

But she could do this to his grandson. Sure, it wouldn't be the same, but she didn't care. Not to mention, it's a lot more fun to do it to his grandson rather than the old fuddyduddy himself. Sage didn't have the same kind of problems controlling his emotions like Cloak did. Sage wasn't as . . . volatile as Cloak could be.

In Malice's eyes, this was what it was primarily about now. Fun. Entertainment. And Cloak always seemed to deliver that to her, far more than his grandfather, Sage, would have. This is why she was so persistent about doing this sort of thing, without any real regard to the consequences.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 15, 2017, 08:55:50 AM

Thirteen victims, thirteen RAFians, and I have to try to operate a communicator with my tiny arms?  Geez, this is just not my day.  :P  If somebody uses me as a taxi while calling me a scavenger/reptile, I think that would cover all the pet peeves I even have.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2017, 11:58:15 AM

Just wait, Dino. Just wait.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Wesley Charles Andrews

Yarin had gone to a derelict mansion, as all thirteen RAFians were spread relatively wide to cover an enormous amount of space. There were only thirteen of them, after all and the world was a big area. When Yarin had approached the mouldering former homestead, which was more like a townhouse or a ranchhouse than a mansion.

The peeling letters of the sign showed the house was called the Hillhurst House at one point. But the name held no meaning to Yarin, unless the house housed a phantasm with a passing resemblance to Jay Leno, his phantasm backup singers, a sarcastic mummy, an inept vampire, a brainless Frankenstein monster, an often-ignored statue golem, a family werewolf, or a ghoul in a hooded robe. But Yarin highly doubted that. That sounded more like a promising premise to a '90s children's television show, and this was real life.*

It was amazing that this place was still standing, frankly. As Yarin continued his approach. He was not wearing an ID mask, and he had his identity as a Nyac fully on display should anyone come upon this deserted spot. Honestly, Yarin thought he saw a human movie or something filmed here once, but he couldn't imagine what.

He entered the building, which was falling apart and reeked of age. He was in what appeared to be, at one time, a communal area where the inhabitants of this dwelling would gather for familial interactions or to watch television broadcasts. There was a room on his right, about one o'clock ahead.

His innate telepathy was telling him that he was the only one here. Unless, of course, there were people here with telepathic shielding from his mind probing or minds too simple and bestial to be read. And he was glad that he didn't say that aloud, realizing just how that thought could have been taken out of context and made dirty. He knew that some people who would have keep bringing it up at the most inopportune times and annoy him.

But he was losing sight of the objective. He had to find these escaped patients -- he hesitated to call them humans. Helen and Shen seemed quite positive on that point, he recalled as he went to the other room. But he had to find --

What was this?

He found what appeared to be a young human male whose sandy hair looked more like a detailed wig, whose placid face did not once look in his direction. Whose lips did no part once to speak. Whose eyes appeared to remain fixed in their sockets. His gown was open, only covering his front bits, fluttering in the slight breeze that flitted through the area.

He was hunched over a forgotten organ, with pipes that reached the fairly high ceiling. His grasp looked unnaturally tight and firm. Yarin easily understood why the staff at the hospital were reluctant to get near these patients. He was a RAFian and accustomed to the odd and bizarre. And, yet, he was creeped out by this.

There was a large crack, almost like a seam, going from the base of his neck to the top of his butt. There should have been a squishy, oozing sound. But there was not, as a blue thing oozed from his back. The boy's blank, vacant, placid expression never changed, as if it was carved from porcelain. This misshapen thing managed to quickly extricate itself from the boy's form, which Yarin saw was hollow and hard as if he was nothing more than a life-sized ceramic sculpture. There was no saving Wesley from this. Yarin was sure that this creature, whatever it was, was not a transformed Wesley either. It was a creature that ate Wesley from the inside out.

The creature's form quickly hardened into cobalt blue Japanese rhinoceros beetle -- Allomyrina dichotoma -- complete with the Y-shaped horn, which had formed from the blue mass first. It walked on two plantigrade feet, which were like a humans, and it had four arms with human like hands -- but the human similarities stopped there. There was actually what appeared to be tendrils of steam coming of its chitinous shell, as it dried rapidly. Its joints were colored a brilliant gold, and its eyes -- adapted for low light -- were steely-gray like chromium. It had a thoracic horn that was forked, and it lifted its shell to reveal large beetle wings, which steamed as well, revealing that it was able to fly, even at its massive size. It should not have been able to breathe, except it respirated like a human and not like a bug.

It was somehow much larger than Wesley had been, the human boy it killed, being the parasitoid that it was. But this one lacked the ovipositor of its mother, meaning this one must have been male. But that could be because it was a Japanese rhinoceros beetle instead of an ichneumon wasp, or that this species took on different forms depending on the type of human host it inhabited or some other factor.

It reared up, and appeared to see Yarin. And apparently it was very territorial. But it wasn't carnivorous, just territorial.

"This isn't going to end well," Yarin muttered preparing itself.

---

* ;) Yes, there is gonna be a fair amount of inspiration drawn from that series in this book somewhat. See if you can figure it out! (https://youtube.com/watch?v=OWvYjCxe-vo) ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2017, 09:16:30 PM

Since I'm posting this now, the chaoter will probably be late tomorrow, or maybe even the day after. Gonna be busy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Allomyrina dichotoma hominidparasitus

Yarin only had moments to react before the creature, this parasitoid beetle, charged forward with all the momentum and destructive capability of a rhinoceros. The Nyac had barely dodged to the right as the creature charged straight through a wall. It had the proportional strength of a Japanese rhinoceros beetle of the same size, and this did not spell out good things for the telepath. Yarin's telepathic abilities were well regarded (and for good reason), and his latent telekinetic abilities were only a tad atrophied from lack of use. Durability wasn't one his powers. He was very mortal, and very much not wanting to be gored.

Even with the loss of this interior wall, this building still stood, almost as if in obstinate defiance of its obvious age and poorly maintained state. This showed a surprisingly masterful work of the architects who build this place, though not surprisingly. Whoever owned this place clearly had enough money to spring for the best of the best.

Whoops. Yarin had allowed himself to get distracted as the creature, traveling on all six limbs now came barreling at him, narrowly missing because of his poor eyesight. It was this that saved the Nyac from being gored. Yarin had to focus -- attempted to read the creature's mind, but it was far too primal, far too primitive, to have coherent thoughts. Its thoughts weren't in words but powerful emotions -- emotions so powerful, so basic, that it gave Yarin a splitting headache any time he tried to telepathically probe the creature.

The creature stopped and apparently, in it's simple, brutish mind, it tried to look for Yarin. It reared up to its back legs, apparently more keen to travel on six, despite being . . . "birthed" . . . by a bipedal creature. It bowed its massive head in a quick nod as it pointed. It was telekinetically moving debris that laid either long forgotten or outright created by this creature.

It had inherited Wesley's power -- only it manifested at its absolute potential. Granted, it wouldn't garner it godhood, but it was sufficiently powerful enough to make Yarin weary and not be complacent.

But using this telekinesis seemed to take too much of a toll on its animalian, uncomplicated mind. Its eyes weren't really sophisticated enough to use such an ability with its instinct-driven intellect. Perhaps if it was smarter, it could overcome this handicap. Might have been resourceful enough to overcome it.

It started charging willy-nilly, like a rhinoceros gone berserk. Yarin had to hand it to this mansion. It still stood, apparently none of the true load-bearing walls had been sufficiently damaged.

Well, actually, that changed in a span of thirty-seven seconds. After his current charge, the mansion roof shuttered. Yarin knew this was a clear and present signal to get the hell out of the building, and he did just that. He wasn't intending to get squashed like a bug.

Yarin had hoped that the creature would be crushed by the aged roof. But that was a vain hope, as it burst up from the roof. Its chitinous body protecting it from any real damage. Yarin felt aggrieved at this circumstance, as he hadn't any real means of attack left to him.

The Japanese rhinoceros beetle hesitated to do anything, apparently blinded by the midday sun. It's eyes were designed for low light. This was the Nyac's advantage, but how to use it successfully? There had to be a way . . . some way that he hadn't seen yet, had yet to understand, had yet to comprehend . . .

He had to think quickly. It would just be a matter of time before it would find an innocent person to kill. Yarin had to nip it in the bud. He had to . . .

He looked at the debris. It had fell in such a way that the splintered wood put him in mind of punji sticks. Then he examined and scrutinized the rhino beetle from this distance, doing fast calculations in his head.

Oh, screw it. He used his telekinesis to pull this splintered wood from the mound of debris and threw it full force at the beetle, aiming for the joints and underbelly. He gave it everything he had. This actually caused massive damage to beetle, even managing to gore him straight through. It was now dead. Yarin detected no mind, simple or otherwise.

Yarin bent over and picked up some shrapnel . . . only it wasn't shrapnel in the strictest sense of the word. It was Wesley's hollow porcelain head. It wasn't much, but it was something to give to his parents and little sister -- there was obviously no way to cure him from this. Wesley Andrews had died in the hospital, it was just a bug wearing his skin out here.

Yarin knew that this wouldn't be a comforting, or even believable, story to the Andrews. But it was the truth, and they deserved that at least.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2017, 06:21:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Sean Connery Stone

Phoenix was scoping out a marshy woodland. The area here seemed rather volatile environmentally -- almost as if he utilized his pyrokinesis, the woodland would go up like kindling. It seemed unusually dry, despite being swampy. Phoenix found it concerning, but he had other concerns to deal with at the moment.

He found it difficult to navigate this unforgiving, spongy terrain with the occasional tree root hidden from sight to deviously trip unsuspecting travelers. All in all, Phoenix found this place rather distasteful. It smelled to high heaven, the ground was saturated with water, and the bugs were unbelievable. They either flew into Phoenix's face, just to be insectoid pricks, or otherwise were more interested in biting him, the bloodsucking parasites. Fortunately, his pyrokinesis innately incinerated any insect stupid enough to try, by superheating any bug that tried to bite into his skin.

Phoenix continued to make his way into this swamp, and, in the back of his mind, he began to second-guess himself with his decision. Maybe he was just wasting his time when he should be finding at least on of these thirteen patients. He had no idea what to expect. But he kept his guard up, as it was prudent.

This search was starting to become monotonous. He quickly realize that it wasn't dry here, but humid. He didn't know how he made such a mistake -- perhaps he was was distracted by having to plow through oscillating cyclones of gnats, or gnat-like insect swarms. Or, otherwise, looking at all of the stagnant water with all the insect larvae and frog spawn.

Phoenix stopped and reconsidered venturing further into this quagmire. There were no signs -- or at least, no overt signs that any of these patients came this way. No footprints, no snagged clothing or hair on a tree branch. Nothing. But, then again, Phoenix didn't considering himself an adept tracker. Besides, he was told that these patients weren't human any more, and he had no idea what they became. As this was happening exactly when Yarin was approaching the haunted mansion.

What's this now?

A flapping fabric caught his sight and he approached closer to see Sean Stone, the actor. He stood gripping a tree overhanging a small stagnant pool of water. His placid, motionless face stared at the tree without any emotion. It was almost unnaturally blank. His back was laid bare and there was a cracked formed. A green, black, with bits of gold amorphous shape was struggling to extricate itself from Sean's hollowed out, porcelain body.

Phoenix was repulsed, but he always had an interest in animals. He likened what he was seeing before him to an insect molting. Only on a vastly large scale. And he knew, whatever insect was pulling itself free from what was once Sean's body, had have an active form of respiration, as no insect could survive at this size without one on the current climate and atmospheric composition. Bugs tended to need higher oxygen content to be really big.

The chitinous mass solidified into a heavy-bodied, strong-flying insect that held its long wings horizontally, which unfolded and dried with astonishing rapidity.
It had three distinct segments -- the head, thorax, and abdomen, as in all insects. It had a chitinous exoskeleton of hard plates held together with flexible membranes. Its head was large with very short antennae. Its head was dominated by the two compound eyes, which cover most of its surface. The compound eyes met at the top of the head. Also, it had three simple eyes. The mouthparts were adapted for biting with a toothed jaw; the flap-like labrum, at the front of the mouth, can be shot rapidly forward to catch prey. The head had a system for locking it in place that consists of muscles and small hairs on the back of the head that grip structures on the front of the first thoracic segment. The thorax consisted of three segments, as in all insects. The prothorax was small and is flattened dorsally into a shield-like disc which has two transverse ridges. The mesothorax and metathorax were fused into a rigid, boxlike structure with internal bracing, and providing a robust attachment for the powerful wing muscles inside it. The thorax bore two pairs of wings and three pairs of legs, the foremost of which possessed human-like hands. The wings were long, veined, and membranous, narrower at the tip and wider at the base. The hindwings were broader than the forewings and the venation was different at the base. The rear four legs were rarely used for walking, but are used to catch and hold prey, for perching, and for climbing on plants. Each has two short basal joints, two long joints, and a three-jointed foot, armed with a pair of claws. The long leg joints bear rows of spines, and in males, one row of spines on each front leg is modified to form an "eyebrush", for cleaning the surface of the compound eye.

Phoenix chanced a look at Sean and saw that his porcelain complexion remained, and, through the crack opened by the dragonfly parasitoid (Anisoptera hominidparasitus) and it was like looking in the inside of a hollow figurine. Sean was gone, and could not be cured.

However, it was at this time that the creature took notice of Phoenix. It was territorial, and carnivorous. A potent combo.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2017, 06:14:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Anisoptera hominidparasitus

With a sound like a woodchipper, it powered its now perfectly dry wings and charged forward. Phoenix would later, as a matter of pride, would say he dodged it easily, but it was not as easy as he would boast later. The creature was a lot faster than he had initially anticipated.

Phoenix's hands began to smoke in an unconscious, instinctive reaction to his life potentially be jeopardy. He had to consciously stop it. He was afraid he might accidentally ignite the swamp gas or cause a raging inferno, despite the dampness. He didn't want to have any more collateral damage than necessary.

He glanced at the former body of Sean Stone, and felt a pang of guilt and shame as he dodged the dragonfly. There was nothing he could do to help him. There was no saving him, no curing him. He was gone, and there was nothing Phoenix could do about it.

It was then that the dragonfly managed to nick his left check, and Phoenix realized that he must pay attention to this battle with this creature. Sean Stone's murderer. But could he really blame this creature for it? Could he really blame a creature just doing what nature programmed it to do? He may not like it, but that's what it was. Just a creature doing what it was biologically programmed to do -- even though it was clearly not of this world.

After being force to execute a midair pirouette, Phoenix decided that he would have to end this sooner rather than later. Maybe the dampness of this swamp will counteract the potentially flammable swamp gas? Or maybe he was worried about nothing in that case? If he wasn't mistaken, swamp gas was mostly methane -- which was flammable in low concentration.

But he was left with little choice. He couldn't dodge forever -- especially because the difficulty was really amping up. This creature would kill him if he did not act. He hadn't any other option, any other alternative available to him. He would just have to be extremely judicious with his pyrokinesis,and hope the dampness would help counteract any possible spontaneous combustion.

He would have to do what he must, because if it killed him, it would go on to do more. It was obviously male, as it was lacking the ovipositor of its mother. Malice, however, had screwed up the DNA of each of the thirteen eggs. So this dragonfly was really a recombinant of his mother and Terran DNA, which makes their genetic stability . . . questionable. But Phoenix did not know any of this, but it mattered little.

Phoenix waited. Timing would be important. Essential.

There. The dragonfly buzzed by, attempting to get Phoenix, but Phoenix dodged, but caught it by the tail, and climbed aboard. He climbed up the dragonfly's body, to the creatures wraparound eyes. He placed his hands on them as the dragonfly became little more than a bucking bronco. This just upped the difficult of this endeavor.

He began to burn the creature's eye facets, one by one, without moving his hands. It shrieked, but Phoenix forced himself to ignore it. He was slowly, but surely, blinded him. In mere moments, it was done. And with no spontaneous combustion either.

Then he had to leap off and roll on the ground when he landed, as he heard a loud, sickening CRUNCH. He looked back and saw a mess of wings and exoskeleton bits. Phoenix waited to see if the smushed bug was truly dead.

After a few moments, he breathed a sigh of relief. It had crushed itself, flying full speed into a tree, full George of the Jungle-style. It was gone. But Phoenix's work was done. A harder part remained . . . as he looked at the hardened, porcelain-like skin of Sean Stone.

He had to deliver this to the Stone family. They would not be happy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2017, 05:39:18 AM

I think it's safe to say that the last book was based of an episode of Angel, "Smile Time".

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Scott Duke Roberts

Cloak headed to the outskirts of the city and suburbia. It was a rather desolate place, forgotten to time. It seemed that planets didn't even want to grow in this gray, rocky soil. Another cause for concern was the no-man's land between the forum and the Bannedlands was rather closer than he would have liked. But he was following the scent he had picked up. It was only vaguely human, but distinctive enough to follow.

Cloak had a feeling that that scent harbored another familiarity to it but he couldn't put his finger on it. Which lead him to believe Malice somehow had a hand in it. Which also meant that she apparently wasn't just content sending fiends every now and then to cause havoc. She was resorting to her old antagonistic ways. Cloak had hoped that she would only be content sending the fiends every now and then because she is a lonely, old spinster who needed the attention.

Cloak maneuvered around this forgotten area, with its buildings falling into disuse and disrepair. He swore some buildings just had two-by-fours over the windows and stoop doorways. None of it had been renovated, and it looked as if there was a car that had recently been on fire. This was a part of the suburbia that people didn't want you to see.

And Cloak knew that the Nexus wasn't any better. The Nexus was just rife with corruption started by the oligarchs and plutocrats just as they were on this planet. One reason why Cloak knew that Realm Walkers were not superior to Dwellers, like some of his species like to claim. Both Walkers and Dwellers had ugly sides to their societies that they rather hide from view. Cloak believed it to be true of any society.

Cloak continued, well aware his twelve fellows were searching other areas at this very moment for the patients. He wondered idly if any of them had discovered them, and what had made these patients do this.

There. The scent was stronger there.

There he saw Scott Roberts. He was looking at the dry, gray, rocky soil with black, empty eyes and a slack, placid face. He was on his hands and knees with his open hospital gown draped down his sides. His face betrayed no emotion, as if it was just a vacuform mask.

Cloak was perplexed by this, until he saw the crack in his back. And Cloak immediately suspected a Hyvectoid origin, assuring Malice's hand in this. From the crack in Scott's back, a chitinous mass of black and bits of gold, crimson, and metallic blue.

It solidified into the form of a way-too-big scorpion, while Scott looked like a porcelain doll, whose body was porcelain as well, with a crack in it. The scorpions pincers were metallic blue while its walking legs were a deep crimson color as well as the venomous barb on its tail. The rest of it was black, with gold at the joints.

"A scorpion," Cloak muttered, "because of course it would be a scorpion."

Cloak was never fond of the creatures. He could never legitimately say way, as he never had any bad encounters with scorpion Realm Walkers that he could recall. Then again, scorpion Realm Walkers are anthropomorphic, so that could have been a key difference.

Cloak noticed the creature's body steamed as its chitinous body hardened and dry quickly. It didn't seem to notice Cloak as he watched on. Cloak noticed that it was quite a deal larger than Scott now. About the size of a two-seater car. It was immobile while this was happening.

When it moved, it saw Cloak. Cloak didn't have the presence of mind at the moment to "pull a Batman", and, besides, that was not really possible to do that without being noticed in this location. The creature attacked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 19, 2017, 08:08:14 PM

Caught up again.  Gotta say, the whole idea of these bugs eating people from the inside out, is hella dark.  I'm not sure why that strikes me as being darker than what Thousand/Million/Billion did?  Maybe because this time you sort of set it up as a 'sickness,' that there might have been a cure for, but then pulled the twist that the victims were already dead as their bodies were being eaten from the inside?  In any case, I find myself feeling truly sad for the thirteen.  Well written, you jerkface.  :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2017, 08:19:34 PM

Honestly, I didn't create the idea, nature itself did. Granted, parasitoid wasps don't target humans, but other arthropods and larvae.

Yeah, though, the sickness setup part -- that was another spur of the moment thing (I think that I conceived of it as I walked to work, honestly). It wasn't part of the original outline (which, for the most part, I keep deliberately vague). And, you have to admit -- I am no stranger to dark stories. There is a future book that gets really dark at one point, but nothing more shall I say -- spoilers and all.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Scorpio hominidparasitus

Cloak dodged the initial tail strike. Vaulted the left pincher. Ducked the right pincher. And, still, Cloak did not attack. He was actually testing the beast, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Granted, it was an arthropod, and should have all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities inherent with such.

But Cloak knew that this thing must have been different. It would not be able to reach this size and survive for long if it respirated like a normal arthropod, which was passive. It had to breathe actively, like higher organisms. Like the human that it emerged from, as if it were molting.

The creature also seemed relentless. Tireless. Single-minded. Obstinate. It was tenacious -- Cloak had to give it that.

But Cloak had yet to find a chink in its armor. Sure, he probably could incinerate the beast into oblivion with the Fire element. He probably could. Probably. He could not be sure it would even work, and it might cause collateral damage.

Cloak ducked a backhand from its left pincer.

He could drown it in water, but this area was arid and the air dry, so that element wasn't really viable to utilize.

Cloak sprang away from a tail strike.

He could spear it with wood, earth, or metal, but, again, he didn't know the durability of the chitinous shell. Same with crushing it with said materials.

Cloak sidestepped its snapping right pincer, slashing left.

Air? Maybe he could -- no. No! How dare he even consider the possibility of even using breathbending? Besides, it might not even work . . .

Cloak somersaulted another tail strike. This one accidentally shattered what was left of Scott Roberts body, his face splitting neatly in quarters. But thing was . . . no one would care. He had already done away with any family ties (him having killed several of them, not being convicted of a single one, pinning them on a poor outlier).

Cloak felt bad about this, because he did not know Scott Roberts' history nor his heartlessness. But he had bigger concerns at the moment, as he dodged its right pincer, then its tail, then its left pincer.

Cloak formed a golden-scarlet blade on his wrist. There was no sound, but it felt like there should be one like the activation of a lightsaber. Cloak knew what must be done.

It struck with its tail, but Cloak sidestepped that and slashed with his energy blade. The blade swept through the chitinous shell with one strike, making the scorpion shriek like a high-pitched Taxxon as the severed tail bit flopped to the ground, useless.

But Cloak wasn't done yet. He had formed another energy blade upon his other wrist, preparing to go full Wolverine on this scorpion, as its tail stub spasmed and throbbed. It was almost as if it did not realize, or recognize that it was now tailless.

It tried its left claw - pincher, whatever -- and Cloak ducked the blow. Only to come back up with a rising sword strike, slicing off its claw. It fell the ground with a rather sick, moist thud. The shriek shook the ground nearby.

It tried its last offensive option. It tried its laws remaining claw. This proved its rather low intelligence as that was a poor decision, as Cloak made a Jedi-like leap and sliced off this claw, leaving the creature defenseless with three gaping wounds. Cloak could have possibly just stopped there and let the creature bleed out.

But that would be too slow and Cloak was not that cruel. He opted to allow for mercy. So, with a deep breath, he rushed forward and slashed with both swords. They both bit through the chitinous shell easily, killing the creature instantly.

It was over.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2017, 07:07:02 PM

Since I'm posting this now, tomorrow's chapter will come later in the day. Stupid friggin' eclipse. Far more hassle than it's worth.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Donald "Donnie" Anthony Leonardson

Horse had sojourned to the courthouse, following a loose, vague lead she had that a patient had gone this way. She immediately travelled there, without pausing to consider that she was a seal. That it would garner some attention, naturally.

"What?!" Horse snapped, tired of the undue attention. She really should have thought this through better, and regretted not doing so. Oh, how she missed her Tempest Blade -- the Eternity Blade that gave her a human form. "Haven't you ever seen a talking seal walking down a sidewalk before?!"

"No," came one reply.

"Shut up! No one asked you!" Horse snarled. She really didn't like this attention.

"RAFians mean!" cried a little boy. "You bad!"

Oh, wonderful, Horse thought bitterly as she used her hydrokinesis and cryokinesis in conjunction with each other to move around quicker. And, tonight, I'll be on TMZ. Wonderful. Just absolutely PEACHY.

Before long she came up to the footstep of the courthouse, and saw on its right side a long, dark alley. Instead of being intimidated, and tired of being gawked at, she made a beeline for this alleyway. She immediately disappeared in it, and she immediately felt the eyes leave her. She never liked being looked at like that, like she belonged in the freak show of some low-budget circus. She wasn't that kind of seal, anyway.

The alleyway was framed by high bricked walls that lacked any windows of any kind, of any sort. It was the kind of place that the light just plain never touched. It was dank, damp, and dark. Horse's fur stood out against the blackness of this place. But it wasn't the only thing.

Horse's round, brown eyes spotted the floral print hospital gown, fluttering in the small breeze. She saw Donnie Leonardson with his hands clutched tightly against a peeling green dumpster with plenty of rust damage and stunk to high heaven. His eyes did not move, affixed to their sockets. His face was slack and blank and he just looked forward, expressionless. His body was like porcelain, with a crack in the back, along his spine, from the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks.

Horse recoiled, understandably, as a black mass with silver and bits of red the color of blood oozed from the crack, that pulled itself out of the crack in Donnie's back. There should have been squishy, oozing sounds while this was happening. There was none, as this creature was molting Donnie's body as if was an exoskeleton.

The black mass solidified as it grew larger. It was predominantly black with flecks of blood red, with silver at the joints, and blood red eyes. It had extremely long antennae. It was a longhorn beetle (Cerambycidae hominidparasitus), and it was considerably larger than Horse. She couldn't help but feel a little intimidated, though she would never admit it aloud.

"Oh, great," she lamented, "another thing that wants to eat me. Why am I always the tasty treat? Why can't it be someone else?"

As if in reply, the longhorn beetle scuttled her way. This did not do much to improve her mood.

"Well," she said, more irritated than intimidated now, "some bugs are gonna die."

Suddenly, an icicle dagger had formed in her right flipper and she somehow grasped it. She glared daggers at the great scuttling, lumbering beast. Then she launched herself into battle, tired of always being food of choice, of always being the tasty bait.

She had ENOUGH!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2017, 04:59:54 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Cerambycidae hominidparasitus

But Horse slid off the backside of the beetle, and back onto the ground again. Behind him. This confused the beetle at first, considering its eyes were not as sophisticated as her own. This, again, did not help her cranky mood.

"Oh, C'MON!!" Horse said, irritated.

This allowed the longhorn beetle to find her, which was actually what she wanted. She wanted so desperately to fight back against a large creature who wanted to eat her. Over. And over. And over again. The usual way that she got out of the . . . she never wanted to talk about it. And from her tone and forcefulness of voice, it was clearly an unpleasant experience -- every. Single. Time.

She wanted to take out these frustrations on this longhorn beetle. It wanted to eat her, she was sure of it. She wouldn't let it. She would fight it tooth and claw, fight it with water and ice. She wouldn't allow herself to have to go through . . . that experience again. Not when she had spent so many wonderful months without experiencing it again and again. And again. And again.

Yeah, Horse apparently was experiencing a little post-traumatic stress from her involvement with the monstrous rabid Pikachu that now was peaceably offering its services as the RAFians backup power, by powering a generator. This had greatly improved its temperament and its become rather docile. So much so that no one has heard from it. Newer RAFians might not even know of its existence anymore.

"You want a piece of me, d'you, Buggy Boy?" Horse said, starting to sound somewhat hysterical. Yeah, her involuntary trips through a monster's gastrointestinal tract would do that to anyone. "Then come and get some!!"

She flashed her icicle dagger at the thickest parts of the beetle. It did not work, and Horse was not thinking clearly at the moment. She need to calm down and think her attacks through. But her intimidation at the creature and bit of PTSD had corroded and festered into an hysterical recklessness and obstinate relentlessness. It was a very potent, very dangerous, very destructive ****tail to have.

It was only when her icicle dagger snapped in two, that she began to calm down and think clearly. She was allowing her emotions, her traumas, to have too much sway over her actions. She would never kill this bug thinking like that. She had to be thinking clearly.

But one thing hadn't changed in her mind. She was done. She has had enough. This bug was so over. Especially considering what it did to Donnie -- no one deserved that.

"You think you're so smart, do you, Buggy?" Horse said, sounding almost apathetic now. In reality, the longhorn beetle didn't really think coherently. Its sentience status was really up for debate. "Well, I'm gonna end you."

Her eyes flashed, and it was almost like an icy aura appeared around her, freezing the area around her in a three-foot radius, which had the unfortunate effect of freezing Donnie's ceramic skin. Then she elevated herself on a spire, a pillar of ice. This just confounded the longhorn beetle.

Then she opened her mouth to unleash a powerful cryogenic beam, which fired at the ground. Unbeknowst to her, it shattered Donnie's skin, leaving only part of his right eye and the ceramic skin around it the largest bit intact. But then she swerved the beam at the longhorn beetle who did not react in time. It was frozen solid, fully encased a small glacier of ice.

As she did away with her pillar of ice, she tapped a flipper upon the ground, and the ice shattered, taking the bug with it. Then ice quickly melted to nothing, and no one in the courthouse was any the wiser. It's amazing how self-focused some humans could be.

Horse looked at Donnie, realizing that she had unintentionally made his family a casualty of this. They will never know, now that the proof was eradicated. Little did she she know his parents had disavowed any recognition of him being their son a long time ago. One reason for his desperation in keeping what little he had achieved since.

At least, he didn't have to worry about struggling to survive now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2017, 07:59:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Rodney "Rod" Amadeus Murray

Gaz was standing right outside a small cafe. It was oddly abandoned at the moment, as if there was something like a total solar eclipse happening soon and the patrons nor the staff wanted to miss it. Gaz was nonchalantly sipping a beverage -- Blood Lite, which actually used blood substitute #9 instead of actual human blood -- in a paper Starbucks-like cup with a white plastic lid.

While on the outside she was cool, calm, and collected, inside she was a hornet's nest of anxiety and worry. She had not seen the patient that her lead had indicated was down this way. She continued to give off the appearance of nonchalance, but she grew more and more concerned with every footstep beyond the cafe, with its fenced in outdoor patio with its glistening white tables and matching chairs and umbrellas with their stands.

She wandered around to the back, where it was obvious was where the shipping companies unloaded their supplies for the cafe's baristas to use, attached to a moderate sized parking lot, for staff and customers, for a small cafe in town. Gaz saw no movement back here, smelled no human blood anywhere except the blood substitute in her drink, which wasn't as odorous as one might assume.

Gaz scanned this parking lot very carefully for the patient, trying to smell their blood to locate them -- with no intention to drink it, of course. She preferred Blood Lite, to be perfectly honest, finding it tasting better. She smelled none. No human blood, and it was a little disconcerting. Why was this cafe even closed? It was really too early for something like that.

Gaz felt an odd chill to her right, roughly at two o'clock. It was then she saw the awkward movement. The jerky, almost unnaturally skittery movement just out of the corner of her right eye.

It was Rod Murray, and his floral print hospital gown had come untied, and his back was exposed as he braced himself against a wood plank fence just behind the the dumpster of the cafe. His eyes never moved in their sockets. His face never showed or betrayed an expression, as if it were nothing but a single-piece mask. His body was pale, like porcelain.

Gaz dropped her empty cup when she saw the crack appear down his back, from the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks, as if someone was sliding a zipper downward. The vampire found this . . . disconcerting. It was as if someone or something was wearing this man as a costume.

That's when the black mass with gold bits came out this crack, pulling itself out. As if this mass was just molting Rod's skin, which stood stiff, like a decorative ceramic statue. But completely empty.

When the black mass solidified, it solidified into something much longer, and much larger than Rod had been. It was a centipede, Chilopoda hominidparasitus, with a black body (steaming to dry its chitinous exoskeleton quickly) and hundreds of gold legs, a pair for each of its many body segments. It had a flattened, rounded head with a pair of antennae that were swept forward. It had a pair of elongated mandibles and two pairs of maxillae, which were food-manipulation mouth parts, with the first pair of maxillae bearing palps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedipalp). It did not appear to have eyes, and apparently could only discern light and dark. It possessed forcipules, unique to centipedes, which were modifications of the first pair of legs, forming a pincer-like appendage which was found just behind its head. Its bite was venomous, though it was technically not a bite, but caused by the forcipules, as with other centipedes.

Gaz just stared at this thing, and she couldn't help but think that this was what a blind Taxxon on human growth hormone would look like. When reared up -- something she didn't think centipedes could do, and quickly surmised that it might have been something that it inherited from Rod, whose body was still standing, clutching the plank wood fence, as if he was a ceramic mannequin -- the centipede creature was at least twice the size of your average Taxxon and twice as long. How all this managed to fit inside a human skin, she didn't know.

But she wasn't the only one to see this creature. She may have been the only one to bear witness of it coming out of Rod's back, but she wasn't the only one to see the creature in its full monstrous visage.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 22, 2017, 07:41:35 PM

Quote from: Cloak on August 22, 2017, 07:59:13 AM

It was oddly abandoned at the moment, as if there was something like a total solar eclipse happening soon and the patrons nor the staff wanted to miss it.

Loved that line.  XD

Also loved Horse's fight.  Horse is a serious badass.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2017, 05:08:16 AM

:)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Chilopoda hominidparasitus

Gaz had but a moment to take in and inventory the situation. Bystanders -- innocent civilians -- had witnessed this arthropod abomination, and had screamed in alarm before turning and, with good sense, running away. But this creature had sensed their screams of alarm and fear, and began to make after them.

Unlike their millipede counterparts, centipedes were carnivorous. And these bystanders were small enough to make a meal. Or worse -- do to them what happened to Rod over there. Some centipede species were known to be parthenogenic, meaning that it could produce both eggs and sperm within the same organism. But what Gaz had failed to take notice of was that this creature did not have an ovipositor, which (despite being a centipede) it would have had considering its mother, meaning it must have been male.

Dammit, Gaz found herself thinking as her RAFian instincts had her react immediately, that thing is fast!

Gaz would wonder later how she managed to tackle the beast out the way in three strides from where she was standing and not get poisoned from its bite. True, she didn't feel so much as a graze from the beast. But she was not a fool. She knew this was by sheer luck and not all skill.

Gaz chanced a momentary glance over her shoulder and saw that all the bystanders had the good sense not to dally any further. Unfortunately, this gave the creature an opening that forced her to translate her body into its insubstantial mist form to dodge. She reconstituted herself about three o'clock from the creature.

"This isn't gonna be easy," she muttered softly. Then, as she tried desperately to bait the creature away from the direction where the terrified bystanders had stood in horror as this creature reared up to its rather considerable height, she considered what she just said. "But, then again, when is anything worth doing ever easy?"

But there was no denying it, they were at an impasse. No. No, that wasn't entirely true. This thing could possibly kill her with its venom. But there was very little that she could do to kill it. Killing a demonic puppet was a cinch, but this?

She was at a loss as to what she could possibly do to kill --

Then she heard a squawk, like that of a parrot. She looked up and saw a silhouette coming towards her. The centipede creature only sense the sudden darkness, but nothing else. The bird came rather like the summoning of the White Ninja Falconzord (https://youtube.com/watch?v=rauFZ4wer4s), only with parrot squawks. But that still did not make it any less impressive.

"Beaky?" Gaz said.

As Laserbeak landed on Gaz's left shoulder, he gave a squawk that clearly said, "I back off and let you do your own thing for a couple of weeks, and look what you got yourself into. Tsk tsk tsk. Can't leave you alone for instant."

The centipede creature looked very confused about the sudden darkness than the sudden light. This was the reason why it didn't press its attack, which was fortunate for Gaz.

Laserbeak gave Gaz's shoulder an affectionate squeeze, before transforming into Gaz's Amazon-themed body armor. Also giving her a weapon on her right wrist in the form of a blaster on a bracer. Gaz was now equipped to deal with this creature.

Gaz immediately sprang into action, and took aim at the creature. She fired a gattling burst of energy blasts at the centipede. At first, it seemed to do nothing. But after a few seconds, the shots began to rip through its body.

Naturally, this caused it to thrash about, accidentally destroying Rod's ceramic body with only his mouth, ironically enough, remaining in one piece. While Gaz felt momentary guilt at this, she had another prerogative.

It a few minutes, it was very evident that it was dead. A final blast incinerated the body, as a precaution of someone taking its altered DNA for their own nefarious purposes. It was done.

She looked at the ceramic lips of Rod Murray, and wondered how she would explain this to his family, unaware of the fact that Rod had very little family, just a father and a younger sister, and both were estranged with him due to his womanizing, misogynistic mannerisms. His father found it loathesome and disrespectful, while his younger sister found it grating and irritating. They wouldn't be all that devastated about his death.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 23, 2017, 10:08:48 AM

Quote from: Cloak on August 23, 2017, 05:08:16 AM

Then she heard a squawk, like that of a parrot. She looked up and saw a silhouette coming towards her. The centipede creature only sense the sudden darkness, but nothing else.

That centipede was in the path of totality for the Laserbeaklipse!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2017, 05:05:23 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on August 23, 2017, 10:08:48 AM

Quote from: Cloak on August 23, 2017, 05:08:16 AM

Then she heard a squawk, like that of a parrot. She looked up and saw a silhouette coming towards her. The centipede creature only sense the sudden darkness, but nothing else.

That centipede was in the path of totality for the Laserbeaklipse!

*blinks in surprise*

I forgot about the eclipse association. I just remembered the scene of summoning the White Ninja Falconzord as dynamic. Happy accident, I guess.

Anyway, "Memoirs" will be on a bit of a hiatus. I just got a Nintendo Switch, and that probably will occupy my time some. That is, if it can ever get pass this "Preparing . . ." screen. Perhaps my internet is too slow.

:edit: It was frozen. And just setting up the damn eshop trying to link it to my 3DS account is so NEEDLESSLY frustrating. What is with these people and making these things so user-unfriendly?!

:edit: Got it -- but that was more of a hassle than it had to be. Anyway, maybe I'll post a chapter tomorrow. Get this frustration out.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Hotaru (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/???) Izumi (http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Koushiro_"Izzy"_Izumi) "Izzy" Xavier

Demos had an inkling. He approached an old, decommissioned lab that he knew about. He wasn't sure if anyone else knew about it, and he kind of wanted to keep it that way. It may be a way to continue his work while his laboratory privileges at the forum was suspended. . . .

But he paused to consider the possible ramifications and consequences of such a decision. He saw how Yarin was treated when he constantly tried to remake his microwave, before growing wise and stopping altogether. It would be same deal if he went back to making fiends. They still haven't recovered or destroyed all the ones Malice still had in her possession. It would be a poor decision to start it up again, he decided. They might even take Patches away from him if he continued . . .

Nah, the others weren't monsters like that. They wouldn't wrong him like that as a form of punishment (whatever Odie ever said to the contrary). And Patches was to him like Leatherhead (before his anthropomorphic mutation into his son) was to GH, like Laserbeak was to Gaz, like Saberhagen was to Melissa. Demos loved him dearly, which also helped him keep his demonic nature under control. Enabled him to actually to feel love. To feel compassion. Something an ordinary demon is unable to feel. Something they are incapable of feeling.

Demos entered the lab, which looked dingy and sad. He almost pained him to see what was clearly an opulent, robust laboratory fall into disrepair and dilapidation. To see what was an obviously elaborate lab setup reduced to a discarded and disregarded so completely, so thoroughly. It was like a musician seeing what was a great music hall go horribly neglected, an athlete seeing a once-beautiful field go unmanicured, an artist seeing an elaborate art studio falling apart. It was terrible to see. Heartbreaking.

The dust and dirt in this place was at least an inch thick in some places. What was sparkling white tile and marble was now gray or brown or even black in some places, as well as chipped or fully broken away. The glass was either grimy, broken, or in shards. Demos stood out like a sore thumb in this place, wearing a silk suit. He would readily acknowledge that wearing the suit was not one of his better ideas.

A slight, jittery sort of movement caught the corner of his left eye and he turned to face it. He only saw the fluttering of a floral print hospital gown before it vanished to his right seconds later. Naturally, he chased it.

When he caught up to it, he saw a man as pale as porcelain bracing himself firmly and securely to a fallen support beam, revealing an open hole in the laboratory's roof, which Demos couldn't help but liken to a gaping wound. The back of this man was fully exposed, as well as the crack from the nape of his to the top of his buttocks. Demos watched, almost dispassionately, as a primarily red mass with some black and gold struggled to liberate itself from this man.

It fell from the man, who remained where he stood. Stiff and unmoving, like a ceramic figurine. Demos was surprised that it didn't make him curious as to just how this happened. He found that he didn't care about the how, but more the why. What biological purpose could such a creature need to "wear" humans. His kind had a reason, of sorts, essentially being the personifications of malfeasance and malevolence, but what was this bug's purpose for it?

The mass took the shape of a beetle much larger than Izzy, with its exoskeleton steaming as it dried quickly. Yet it was still soft-bodied, with its wing covers being more leathery than hard. Its lower abdomen was bioluminsecent. It was red with black and gold highlights. It was a firefly, Lampyridae hominidparasitus, and apparently it was carnivorous.

Why? Because it went after Demos almost immediately.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2017, 04:45:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Lampyridae hominidparasitus

The firefly flew forward, but Demos did not move, as the firefly could not fly in this place with the fallen beams. The clearance just wasn't there. If it did -- well, that would risk tearing this entire place down. And it actually was scheduled for demolition, Demos saw now, with all the yellow tape with "Do Not Enter" thick black lettering.

Wonderful. That complicates things needlessly. Fortunately, his healing factor should help should this place be brought down. But, as he glanced down at his suit, he knew his suit would not be as lucky. And he was actually rather attached to this suit. Again, he regretted his decision to wear it on a mission.

The creature looked as it it was trying to discern a path to Demos, but the gap wasn't really large enough for it. It would have to force itself through it, which could cause the entire thing to come down. Demos was sure that he would survive, but he'd rather not have to bring this place down.

The firefly creature apparently was both famished and determined. Determined to have Demos as a meal. Demos was finding it hard to be impressed by the creature. He was finding it difficult to care about Izzy Xavier -- the person this overly large bug killed. During combat, it was just so easy for him to fall into that perilous trap of his old demonic ways. It's one reason he doesn't use his power of possession so much anymore -- it makes it easier to stop caring, to stop feeling compassion or love, to stop feeling for others. And he didn't want to stop. He didn't want to stop feeling.

Not to mention, demonic possession can be addicting for the demon in question. Yeah, the whole "Exorcist" schtick? It's either a game by the possessing entity or a legitimate sign of an addict to demonic body possession. At least, that's what Demos thought of it.

Demos had to dodge to the right. Apparently, the firefly managed to get through the small gap without the demon's notice. The strike had left a minute tear in Demos's left sleeve, which angered Demos a great deal.

"Do you have any idea what I went through to get a silk suit of this color and fit?!" Demos snarled, briefly unaware of the nonsentience of the beast. "Never mind. You, firefly thing? You die. You die now."

But now the lack of room was restricting Demos's movements for offense, defense, and agility. It's always something, isn't it? Never fail, either. Demos had to be careful. This place was full of rotting, splintering wood, including the bare ceiling in which the rafters showed quite clearly. This amount of disrepair, and the virtual nonexistence of any maintenance upon it, in what was once a reputable scientific laboratory -- a wonderland for science nerds and people like Demos himself -- was very close to sacrilege to him. This place supposed to be a treasure, yet it reeked of neglect and dismissal.

So he couldn't use his pyrokinesis on this place, or else this place would go up quicker than a matchstick. And he really didn't want to . . .

You know want? Demos thought, fed up after another attack tore a hole in his pants. This place is already condemned. It's already going to come down. The electricity is still on, too. If they need an excuse to explain this away, there it is.

Then he spotted the porcelain skin statue of Izzy. Demos quickly decided that there was nothing that could be done for him. Sure, he could have save the body for closure to his family, but what's the chances that they'd believe a demon for how their son died? Or even believe the circumstance as to how he died?

Conversely, could he really just let them worry where their son, brother, or maybe even father was? Even though they may not believe him, they would have something, right?

So, Demos made his way to the porcelain skin of Izzy, dodging the firefly, just barely. This caused more rips and tears into his suit, which looked as if it had seen better days. Once there, he created a funnel of fire around the two, consuming the building. In the back of his head, he had an urging to use hellfire or Fiendfyre, but he dismissed the notion immediately. To use those would be a sign of weakness and laziness.

And . . . It was done. He forced the fire out, leaving behind cinders and blackened wood. The firefly was dead, but the Izzy skin was intact. The question now was how to tell his family what happened and communicated the odd circumstances around his death . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2017, 05:07:45 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Herbert "Herbie" Alan Roland

Cerulean had gone to a defunct comic book store. They have seemingly been going out of style, nowadays -- replaced by digital media and digital means to procure these comics. This was a fully-fledged business last year, before it went belly-up. What was it called? Lovhaug Comics? It was something like that.

Anyway, the building looked sad, empty, and bleak. The windows were devoid of any displays or advertisements, and the windows showed the bare wood floor with dust bunnies here and there. The shelves that once held comics of a variety of series were now vacated and stood empty and without purpose.

Cerulean hadn't entered yet, but it was clear that someone -- someone with strength and speed had burst through. This building was essentially abandoned, though there was a "For Lease" sign that seemed rather weather damaged from the front steps. But the building was not at all dilapidated. The floor, walls, and ceiling was bare and bore sign from having been well-maintained, until recently, when the business fell threw or they decided to move to a new location -- Cerulean did not know the logistics. It wasn't exactly big news when it happened, whatever it was.

When Cerulean crossed the threshold, he quickly took inventory of his surroundings as RAFian training dictated. The store wasn't really too big, though it did have a smaller, upper room. Probably for the more adult comics for comic connoisseurs to peruse when this place did business. And these were firm, stone stairs, with not escalators to speak of. Or if there were, they were amongst the first to be tore out.

Whoever was here with him, Cerulean considered, they were probably no upstairs. He would have heard the hard slapping of bare feet against the pristine, flat stone. After all, all the patients were barefoot. They were supposed to wear yellow socks with raised white parts, which added traction. But the nurses were too afraid to approach these patients to insist upon this.

That's when he saw the movement. Cerulean, being a speedster, had a keen eye for noticing even the most minute movements. He followed this movement, searching everywhere between for the patient. He was sure that he was in here. The door was forced open, after all, and he couldn't fathom anyone else would come into this place. Granted, he didn't know why and what one of the patients would come here for . . .

Then he saw Herbie, standing by a low shelf which used hold comics for sale. He gripped the side of the bare wooden shelf, which appeared to be bolted to the floor. Cerulean took notice of Herbie's thin frame and black hair like a brillo pad. His face was slack and expressionless, his eyes were blank and empty and seemingly stuck in their sockets. The entirety of his face looked like a really detailed mask.

But the thing he noticed more was that Herbie's hospital gown was fluttering forward, untied and open. It was then that Cerulean noticed the crack in the boy's porcelain-like body the extended from the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks. And something was actually trying to get out of this boy's thin frame.

The green mass freed itself, and grew three times the size of the boy, now an empty porcelain shell. This green mass solidified into a green stag beetle, Lucanus cervus hominidparasitus, that was silver at the joints and had titanium silver eyes. His long jaws, so like a stag's antlers (hence why it was male), was at least as long as the shelf that Herbie had braced himself on, on which he still was gripping.

Stag beetles fed on decaying wood or tree sap, and were not predatory. And they were not usually hostile for humans. But this wasn't like those stag beetles, apparently, as it showed immediate antagonism towards Cerulean. Cerulean found himself actually expecting such a thing, as it always seems to go that way, in his time as a RAFian.

Cerulean, despite himself, felt confident that he was in no danger. There was no way that this creature was faster than him. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2017, 05:49:35 PM

Wow. I forgot my own RAFianniversary -- it was eight days ago. I've been a RAFian for about nine years and a week now. Wow.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Lucanus cervus hominidparasitus

Well, it flew at Cerulean. Cerulean didn't know stag beetles could fly -- he had never seen any in flight. True, it was rather . . . slow . . . and lumbering . . . but the distinctive low-pitched buzzing from the act was like hearing a chainsaw. It actually sounded a lot more intimidating than it actually was.

Cerulean dodged it easily. His superhuman speed allowed his perception to be superhuman human fast as well. But he really didn't need to with this slow lumbering beast. But, unfortunately, he doubted his scope of doing anything to this beast, offensively. He did not have a bullwhip tail like a Garatron, or any sharp-edged weapon like a sword or knife. He supposed that he could punch it, but would it even feel it through that exoskeletal armor of its?

Cerulean was easily zipping around the large lumbering beast. He was allowing himself to become dangerously overconfident and ****y about dodging it. But he still wasn't sure that he could damage it. Maybe if he could hit the same spot repeatedly, that could wear the fiend down.

Cerulean should have been paying more attention instead of considering possible methods of offensive attacks. He never noticed that this creature stood semi-upright, and its front legs ended bony, human-like hands ending in four digits. Obviously, inherited from Herbie's DNA. While Cerulean's mind was going miles a second, considering all possibilities that he could see. It left him immobile for a moment too long.

The stag beetle snapped its fingers, increasing its speed to the level of Kineceleran or Citrakayah. It managed to tear Cerulean's shirt, but Cerulean reacted fast enough that he could avoid any serious damage. He wasn't really accustomed to being taken unawares by means of speed. It was an embarrassing mistake for him to make, and made him remember the whole Great Race screw-up. Not again. He wouldn't take thing so lightly again.

Fortunately, Cerulean had proven himself faster than a Kineceleran or Citrakayah. He was able to effectively dodge and evade the beasts attacks. Granted, it was a lot harder than before, but it was doable. As he did, the back of his mind, he was trying to come up with the best course of action to destroy this monster.

He noticed that using its superhuman speed actually seemed blind the creature. Clearly, its brain was not sophisticated enough to process the environment moving at such speeds, like a tiger beetle. This could prove to be an advantage, Cerulean suspected.

But, suddenly, its speed died down. It had only been like 24 seconds. This meant that this creature's superhuman speed had a time limit. Now the question was if there was a cool-down time. But one thing was clear.

It was time to take action. Take action while somehow keeping Herbie's body intact. His family deserves some closure, Cerulean decided as he dodged more attacks by zipping here and there.

A roar. The creature was getting frustrated with Cerulean. It clearly didn't want to kill Cerulean, but it wanted to kill him just the same. No matter, no matter -- Cerulean thought that he had come upon a plan of attack to eliminate the way-too-big bug. He deftly picked up a piece of splintered wood, with one edge very sharp.

This bug had a very present weakness that Cerulean might not be able to exploit if it was the typical size of a stag beetle. Cerulean went for its titanium silver eyes, attacking with jabs and thrusts of the splintered wood. At least six times a second.

Within minutes, the creature was blinded. But Cerulean wasn't done. He quickly worked on the front legs before it could react or put together what happened. By the time it did, its dismembered front legs clattered to the floor with an odd metallic din, permanently disabling its superhuman speed.

But Cerulean wasn't done yet. Soon, the floor was littered with stag beetle bits. Cerulean had completely dismantled it, as if it were a piece of furniture of some sort waiting to be assembled. It was done.

Now only one matter remained. Cerulean looked at the Herbie Roland shell, as he considered what to say to his parents and family.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on August 27, 2017, 09:14:21 PM

Took me a while, but I'm all caught up! Loving it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 27, 2017, 10:26:17 PM

Yanno, I was actually going to mention the tiger beetle as I was reading about the latest battle, but it seems you beat me to it.  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2017, 08:54:39 AM

Quote from: Gaz on August 27, 2017, 09:14:21 PM

Took me a while, but I'm all caught up! Loving it.

*steeples fingers a la Mr. Burns.*

Excellent.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on August 27, 2017, 10:26:17 PM

Yanno, I was actually going to mention the tiger beetle as I was reading about the latest battle, but it seems you beat me to it.  ;)

;) I know things!

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Britney Joanne Shandler

Dino had followed a strange scent -- which she highly suspected was the scent of a patient. But it was a faint human scent, and a scent of . . . of something else. It did not bode well. But Dino was thinking that Britney might have been converted into something. Not a vampire, as they don't really have much of a scent, she found. Probably not a werewolf, as it would still be a human scent.

The scent had led her to the quarry, which was large enough to accommodate her at her full size. She actually liked the feeling of the cool stone beneath her feet, but she was a little weary of this place, as there was not much cover and she would be spotted with astonishing ease. Her scales did not camouflage her against the pale white stone here. She stuck out like a sore thumb.

She proceeded carefully and slowly, almost as if she anticipated an attack or that Screweye was back from the grave and vengeful. As this was happening at the same time as the other battles, she did not know what to expect. All she knew was to follow the scent. It was only lead she had.

She looked very cautiously, afraid of missing something very important. It wasn't impossible for her to do, either, and she knew her own faults and limits. She felt a bit of anxiety, not knowing what this patient might have been converted into. She did not know, but it was something decidedly not human but carried the faintest hint of a human scent.

She tried to go over all of the possibilities in her head of what it could be. It couldn't be a form of angelization (http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Angelization), that is turning into an angel, as they don't have a scent (Blaze's scent was more from his djinn side). Likewise, it couldn't have been demonization (http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Demonization) as there was no traces of brimstone that she could smell (Demos, despite protesting that he did not, smelled of brimstone rather heavily at times, usually when emotional). And she didn't know if it was even possible to turn someone into an angel or demon, as the RAFians have never encountered neophyte converts.

She was pretty sure that it wasn't mummification, because it would reek of rot and gauze. Not roboticization, as it would not have any scent at all if that were true. Dollification? Possibly, but then there would not be any scent whatsoever as in with roboticization. Poltergeization? No, there would have been residue at the site of conversion, surely, not to mention ghosts don have scents. She had already ruled out lycanthropy and vampirism. Could be zombification? No, then the patient would smell of rot.

She really could not begin to hazard a rational guess at what whatever patient she was following was being converted into. But she was sure she would find out, but she wasn't expecting it to be as quickly as she did.

She saw Britney Shandler, standing at the quarry's cliff wall, bracing up against it as her hospital gown was fluttering open. Her face was like a mask, expressionless and eyes affixed in their sockets. She was pale and her body was like porcelain, like a doll or figurine. There was also a large crack from the nape of her neck down to the top of her buttocks, and a red mass was oozing out. There should have been a sound, but there was none.

The mass rapidly grew to be larger than the small girl. It was at the very least four times as large as Britney was, yet small enough to fit reasonably in Dino's jaws. As its exoskeleton dried with almost supernatural swiftness, its morphology and physiology became more evident in this teneral state. It had a round, almost elliptical, dome-shaped body with six short legs, the first pair of which had segmented, human-like hands -- presumably inherited from Britney. It was bright, ruby red with seven platinum gray spots. It was also platinum white at the joints. It also had a long ovipositor, giving it the appearance somewhat of a horseshoe crab when not it flight. It was obviously female, and it was a ladybug, Coccinella magnifica hominidparasitus.

Dino actually took a step backward in revulsion. This thing just killed that kid. Granted, this might have brought back some latent PTSD from her time with Screweye, but she muscled her way through it taking two steps forward. This garnered the parasitoid beetle's attention, and, being carnivorous and not particularly smart, it decided to prey on Dino, to the latter's frank surprise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 28, 2017, 08:09:41 PM

Ladybug wants to eat me, huh?  Do I look like an aphid to you, punk?  Bring it.  >:D

P.S. I enjoyed the descriptions of what various hypothetical transformations might smell like.  Yep, that would be something I've thought about a lot.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2017, 04:45:09 AM

So she shall.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Coccinella magnifica hominidparasitus

Dino was usually a proponent of the Hawkgirl battle style, a style often employed by Faerie, but she decided to wait this time. See what this oversized ladybug was capable of. Dino loomed over her, watching. And judging.

But the ladybug did not seem to realize how threatening Dino was and how . . . nonthreatening it itself was. Even at this size, the scope of what it could do to Dino was severely limited, and Dino knew it. Even if it had an egg to oviposit inside Dino it wouldn't work. Dino's scaly hide was just too tough for it, despite the fact that Hivectoid humans have a thick, slightly glossier skin than Prime Universe humans, but still. Dino wasn't human and this species -- genetically modified by Malice, hence why it wasn't a wasp -- targeted humans for such a thing, despite being mercifully ultra rare in Hyvect. And, besides, it wasn't like Dino would allow it to get close enough to accomplish such a thing, nor would her Mark tolerate it, disintergrating the egg before it could gestate. Dino was safe from such a thing, despite its relative unlikelihood of ever occurring.

The Volkswagen-like insect swept her wing covers forward, and powered her dry, veined wings with the sound of a Black Hawk helicopter taking off. Dino thought that it was a weirdly loud sound, coming from a creature that, even at Dino's full and considerable size, was still smaller than the nothlit. Dino really found herself to be unimpressed by the creature, in addition to feeling revulsion at it.

Dino waited until it was within range and then smacked it with enough force to shatter its surprisingly fragile ovipositor. But if this hurt the creature, it didn't show. It should have because it should have been the equivalent to a professional mix martial art fighter punching an average Joe Schmo in the groin. But perhaps pain receptors were different in Hyvectoid insects.

Then again, she seemed to now take this battle personally. Dino, however, remained ambivalent toward her plight. Dino didn't ask for her to kill that little girl, that Britney. Then again, this creature didn't asked to be born -- she just did what her genetics (assuming Hyvectoid creatures did not have DNA as their genetic material -- they, in fact, did, but Dino didn't know that) had programmed her to do. These creatures did not do what they did out of malice (though one could argue that they did do it because of Malice), but what their biology dictated. Could they truly be called evil because of this fact?

The lady bug reared up, to free up its hands, which looked very much like scarlet human skeleton hands due to their segmentation. She laced her Jack Skellington fingers together and cracked her fingers. Then she turned and essentially used a Strength attack, pulling a chunk of rock from the ground easily and threw it at Dino. Dino easily smashed it in half with her tail, but it took a lot of exertion, which surprised her. This ladybug creature had inherited superhuman strength from Britney.

Dino narrowed her eyes at the creature, as the creature's superhuman strength faded, lasting barely thirty seconds. Dino glanced at Britney's empty porcelain-like shell, and decided to try to aim the battle away from her direction. She wouldn't be able to tell her parents what happened as she cannot disguise herself as a human.

The ladybug creature powered its wings again, as it decided to charge at Dino who blocked it with her large, squarish head. And she flipped the beetle midair, and she decided to become more proactive in the battle. She chased the beetle, gnashing her teeth, which would intimidate creatures with better visual acuity.

Dino roughly headbutted it again, sending the creature tumbling head over heel. She smacked it with her tail which actually hit it with enough force to dent the creature's exoskeletal armor. Then she managed to snatch the bug in her powerful jaws. Then, with a strangely satisfying crunch, Dino killed the ladybug creature. Then she spat out the chitinous mess that was the creature. She had no intention on eating the bug.

Now, only one matter remained, as Dino looked at the porcelain shell of Britney Shandler.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 29, 2017, 08:44:14 AM

Ugh, I'd definitely never eat a ladybug.  Those are the second-worst-smelling insects I've ever encountered, after ants.  :P  Granted I have never smelled a stinkbug in person before.

I'm glad I was able to save something of Britney to give closure to her family, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2017, 04:30:42 AM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Samuel Cade Light

Sakki was following a lead. The only lead she had about one of these patients was that he or she was headed to an open-air concert hall, which apparently had a retractable roof in case of rain and other precipitation. Sakki had to admit that this was more of a GH venue than her kind of thing -- but he wanted some uninterrupted father-son time with Leatherhead, and she could not begrudge him that.

She approached the deserted seats with all the caution she possessed. She couldn't let her guard down now. She did not know what this patient was capable of or what he or she might have been converted into. She had to confess, she didn't know of many things that the patient could have been converted into, but she knew none of them could have been good.

Even though it was open air -- this place was very spooky when it was completely empty and deserted. Almost as if it was standing in a post-apocalyptic world, and Sakki was the sole survivor. It was not a pleasant thought, and the all-consuming silence of this place was a little more than disconcerting. Sakki was accustomed to the normal hustle and bustle of everyday RAFian life, but silence like this? It was very nearly intolerable. There was always sounds of this and that at the forum, but nothing . . . nothing was like this silence. It was almost as if she was in space, with each footstep echoing louder and louder, making the silence of everything else all the more pointed. And made each step forward sound more and more ominous and foreboding.

There seemed to be too many seats here, upholstered in some burgundy fabric. There had to be at least eight hundred seats here, not counting the balconies. Who could have possibly sold out this place? She couldn't imagine someone with enough draw to actually fill up this overly ornate concert hall. Forward was the stage, with the usual theatrical wings, stage apron, and large burgundy curtains with brown tasseled ties. The curtain was down, giving away nothing behind it. All of it looked speck and span, as if it had just been recently cleaned.

Then she saw it. Dead center of the stage's apron, gripping the slight lip very tightly and very firmly was Cade Light. His eyes fixed, apparently fused to his skull, his expressionless face like a porcelain mask, and body as pale as porcelain. His hospital gown was open and fluttering in the slight breeze.

There was a large crack from the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks, as if he literally burst a seam. And a golden mass was fighting to extricate itself from this crack. There should have been a sound, but there was none. Sakki put her hand over her mouth, looking very much like she wanted to vomit.

When the golden mass took shape, with its exoskeleton steaming, drying quickly, it was an obscenely large insect, characterised by having three joints in its tarsi, and has two small, silver antennae with conical bases and three segments, including a silver seta at the tip. It had a black rostrum that arose from the posteroventral part of its head, complex sound-producing membranes, and a mechanism for linking the wings that involves a down-rolled edging on the rear of the forewing and an upwardly protruding flap on the hindwing. It evidently lack any ability to jump. It had prominent silver compound eyes set wide apart on the sides of its head. The short antennae protrude between the eyes or in front of them. They also have three small, black ocelli located on the top of the head in a triangle between the two large eyes. The silver mouthparts form a long sharp rostrum that it inserts into a plant to feed. The golden post-clypeus is a large, nose-like structure that lies between the eyes and makes up most of the front of the head: it contains the pumping musculature. Its golden thorax has three segments and houses the powerful wing muscles. They have two pairs of transparent membranous wings. The golden middle thoracic segment has an operculum on the underside, which may extend posteriorly and obscure parts of the abdomen. The abdomen is segmented were largely hollow and used as a resonating chamber. The surface of the forewing is super-hydrophobic; it is covered with minute waxy cones, blunt spikes that create a water-repellent film. Bacteria landing on the wing surface are not repelled, rather their membranes are torn apart by the nanoscale-sized spikes.

It was a cicada, Cicadoidea hominidparasitus. It buzzed into the air and took target at Sakki, apparently mistaking her for a plant. She wondered idly if she should have taken offense at this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2017, 05:34:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Cicadoidea hominidparasitus

Sakki easily dodged out of the way. She quickly decided those recent trips to the training room, affectionately known as the "Danger Room", was worth it. The bug's eyesight was, obviously, not nearly as sophisticated as hers were. She could use that to her advantage.

Then it decided to do that cicada mating call thing. Using that resonating chamber (meaning that this cicada was male) and the natural acoustics of this concert hall, made the sound almost deafening. Like sticking your ear right next to a jet engine as it was turning on. (Not advisable in the least, mind you, as you'd either get sucked in or blown clear across the tarmac.)

This sound wasn't even really that bothersome at normal decibels, but at these grossly exaggerated levels? It was torturously unbearable. Sakki had to cover her ears. This creature could not have possibly been so intelligent to take such advantage of this area. It wasn't sentient, ruled only by instinct and whatever it might have inherited from Cade. Sakki didn't know if it could retain the intelligence or personality of the parasitoid's host, or if they just worked like Xenomorphs.

But the cacophony of noise had actually forced her, in a rather humiliating manner, to her knees. She did like being defeated in such a way -- in fact, it made her downright angry.

She screamed. She screamed in frustration. She screamed in anger. It unleashed a powerful force, which manifested in concentric circles issuing from her mouth as visible soundwaves. This damaged the the resonating chamber of the cicada, effectively silencing him.

Sakki took this opportunity to . . . sing.

"I'm comin' straight on for you!
I made up my mind."

Then she spoke, allowing a brief respite in her sonorous sonics.

"Takin' a little break?" she spoke venomously, before launching back into the song.

"I'm feeling strong now,
Now I'm comin' through!
I'm coming straight on for you!
Yeah, straight on for you!
I'm coming straight on for you!"

She allowed a brief respite before continuing her assault. The acoustics of the concert hall working perfectly to her advantage.

"Now, I know how to play my hand.
But the winner don't know
What the gambler understand!"

She stopped momentarily to consider what she just sang meant. "Wait -- what does that even mean?"

Then she just continued the lyrical assault again:

"No, you don't stand a chance!
You don't stand a chance!
I'm coming straight on for you!
Straight on for you!
Straight on for you!
Straight on for you!
STRAIGHT ON FOR YOU!!"

And the cicada was now dead, due to Sakki's lyrical attack ripping it apart with her sonics. Now the only question remained was how to break it to Cade's loved ones what had happened to him.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=c1qGVRGEe5c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2017, 04:48:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Lee Francis Anderson

Underseen followed a lead to a florist. He saw that the door was forced open and it wasn't a small shop as he had expected. It was wide and expansive, and the ceiling was entirely glass. This wasn't so much a florist shop as it was an excuse for a greenhouse. It was more of a plant emporium, with pretty much every kind of plant imaginable.

Granted, Underseen was not a botanist, so he didn't know the specific names of each flower and plants. It was almost as if Underseen was taking a nature walk indoors. The air was filled with different scents, so many that it was almost intoxicating. So many that his head almost swam.

All these plants so painstakingly taking care off, Underseen couldn't help but applaud the hard work that was evident going into taking care of these plants, and there were many of them. And it didn't look to be automated in any way, so Underseen assumed each one was taken care of by hand. The proprietor of this shop must clearly love what he does, and these plants and flowers seemed to be trying to reward such an endeavor with brilliantly-colored petals and hardy stems.

Underseen quickly spied an obvious trail in this flora. It was like a scar that marred the natural beauty of the plants and the arrangements of thus. Naturally, Underseen followed such a blatant lead.

At its end, Underseen found Lee Anderson, bracing himself against a tree. His hospital untied and fluttering freely. His face was blank and slack and without expression, empty eyes affixed in his skull. His entire body was pale, like porcelain. There was a crack in his back, from the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks.

There was a forest green mass struggling to extricate itself from this human shell. There should have been a sound, like a sucking sound or the sound of a breaking seal. But there was none. Which made the whole thing to seem even more unreal.

As the green mass flopped to the ground, Underseen chanced a look into Lee from the crack, while not moving from his spot, and, with much surprise, saw that it looked like the interior of a porcelain statuette. There was nothing inside him. And Underseen found that even more unnerving. What was this thing?!

The green mass took form, exoskeleton steaming, fast drying. It had large eyes the color of dying embers, with silver at the joints. large, triangular heads with a beak-like snout and mandibles. They have two bulbous compound eyes, three small simple eyes, and a pair of antennae. The articulation of the neck was also remarkably flexible, and apparently was able rotate its heads nearly 180 degrees. Its thorax consists of a prothorax, a mesothorax, and a metathorax. The prothorax, which bears the head and forelegs, was much longer than the other two thoracic segments. The prothorax was also flexibly articulated, allowing for a wide range of movements of the head and fore limbs while the remainder of the body remains more or less immobile. Mantises have two spiked, grasping forelegs ("raptorial legs", if you will) in which prey items were caught and held securely. The coxa and trochanter combine to form a segment about as long as the femur, which is a spiky part of the grasping apparatus. Located at the base of the femur is a set of five discoidal spines. These spines are preceded by a number of tooth-like tubercles, which, along with a similar series of tubercles along the tibia and the apical claw near its tip, give the forelegs its grasp on its prey. The foreleg ends in a delicate tarsus used as a walking appendage, made of four or five segments and ending in a two-toed claw with no arolium. It had two sets of wings: the outer wings were narrow and leathery. They functioned as camouflage and as a shield for the hind wings, which were clearer and more delicate. The abdomen consisted of ten tergites, with a corresponding set of nine sternites visible.

It was a mantis, Mantodea hominidparasitus. It saw Underseen and it moved slowly in his direction.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on August 31, 2017, 12:34:54 PM

I liked that you called the abandoned concert hall, 'disconcerting.'  :XD:  I don't know if that was intended as a pun or not, but either way I laughed.

The fight between Underseen and the mantis promises to be interesting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2017, 02:20:09 PM

Hope it lives up to the hype then. :)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Mantodea hominidparasitus

Underseen understood immediately what must be done. This monster had to be destroyed. He immediately shapeshifted into a red Brahma bull, and began to charge, shaking the ground with the strength of his hoofbeats. But the mantis used its raptorial legs to catch his horns and brace himself, as the mantis was, indeed, male. Whether this was because his parasitoid host was male as well was unconfirmed.

Underseen, quick on the uptake, shifted from the bull to a gnat, zipping away. Then he flew as high as he could before shifting to a small green whale, which would have caused tremendous collateral damage had he successfully body slammed the bug. But, with the sound of an old jalopy with a bad muffler, the mantis flew away.

Underseen had noticed this and rolled as he shifted into a blue hawk and soared into the underbrush. The mantis looked around, looking almost as if he was just some eerily good Jim Henson puppet. Too bad he wasn't, that would make this a whole lot easier. It didn't budge from its spot, almost as if it believed that it was camouflaged where it stood. But the ground was dirty white tile, and not green. And it was at least twice the size of a man standing upright.

For a while nothing happened. It was almost as if Underseen was watching, observing very carefully. Almost as if he were taking lessons from Cloak's usual method of fighting, and waiting. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to present itself at the proper time . . .

After a time, the mantis seemed to decide there was no longer any prey here. It would have to move on. It was hungry, so it would have to find some prey. It began to walk with a certain saunter that mantids seem to have. It had allowed itself to drop its guard.

Suddenly, a violet velociraptor burst out of the underbrush and landed easily upon the back of the mantis. Underseen slashed at him with his sickle claws and bit at him with his sharpened teeth. But, while both scratched the exoskeletal armor, it did not penetrate it. Well -- this didn't go as planned.

Underseen was thrown off its back, and saw a really ticked off mantis in front of him. But he had a contingency plan formulated, but he couldn't implement it just yet. The angles were all wrong and the trajectory would be off. So he bounced back and shifted back to his human form, which he considered his default state.

The mantis lashed out with its raptorial legs, and narrowly missed Underseen. Instead it clasped Lee's porcelain body, ripping the shell from the mooring it had. His hands didn't part company with the tree, but with his wrists. It was like the soundless breaking of ceramics. The mantis quickly realized that it hadn't captured prey, and so smashed it with its raptorial legs. Lee's face fell down to right before its right front foot that wasn't a raptorial leg. The mantis unintentionally smashed it as it plowed forward having spotted Underseen.

This was the time to initiate his contingency.

Underseen launched himself at the mantis, which confused the simpleminded creature. But when he impacted, he was not a human. He was a giant, purple octopus. And when he made the impact, he swiftly wrapped all eight tentacles around the upper part of the mantis. This pinioned the mantis's raptorial legs against its body. Underseen's grip never wavered, as the bug wondered as to why its legs stopped working, before managing to piece it together. He struggled, but Underseen's cephalopod strength was sufficient enough to keep him restrained.

He had decided to try and bite, and maybe even eat, the soft, vulnerable flesh that restrained his raptorial legs. But only to find that the soft, yielding, purple flesh was replaced by hard, orange scales. Too hard for its mouthparts to penetrate, and the grip only got tighter. It exoskeleton was already cracking at strength of the constriction.

Had this mantis been a normal one, this might not have been a problem. But this one inherited the active respiratory system of its parasitoid host. With every exhale, Underseen tightened his orange boa constrictor body, forcing less air to be taken in. It wasn't long before no air was being drawn in. Without oxygen, it couldn't breathe.

It was not long before it was asphyxiated. It was dead, and Underseen had considered eating it as a snake. But then he remembered its manner of birth and decided against it.

Back in his human form, Underseen picked up the porcelain nose that was once Lee Anderson's actual flesh nose. He wondered how he would break this to his family. Little did Underseen know, Lee had chased away any relative or alienated them. None would mourn him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2017, 08:36:41 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Vincent "Vince" Eugene Greene

Saffa had followed a lead to an apiary, a place were bees and their hives are kept. She wasn't thrilled about it, if she was honest. Bees had stingers, and they weren't afraid to use them. Granted, they would die, but their brains weren't sophisticated enough to comprehend the ramifications of things like life or death.

Some might see that as admirable, being so passionate, so driven about a cause that you're willing to die for it. But that goes both ways -- selfless and selfish. Such a path could also lead to ideological blindness and fanaticism, both very dangerous in their own right, no matter the side of a cause you're on. Getting lost in your own hype or ideology -- it was a very slippery path to be on, as you could fall into zealotry and terrorism very easily, no matter how righteously you happened to frame it.

It is one thing to be fervently enthusiastic about a given subject, but quite another if you took it to extremes. If you allowed your passionate zeal to be come obsessive and all-consuming. If you allowed your fervent intensity take hold of you, and you lose sight of everything and anything else . . .

Saffa shook her head. This wasn't the time or place to be waxing poetic or contemplating unrelated, complicated issues. She should be finding the patient, and perhaps find out how what happened to them to make them creepy enough to weird out and intimidate nurses, who had experience dealing with dementia patients.

Saffa looked around -- there wasn't much to this place. The patient couldn't have hidden here -- yet, she was certain he or she was here. It was just a hunch, in the pit of her stomach. Yet the bee hives were about waist height and white, so, unless the patient was deliberately hiding . . . which was a good possibility.

Then something occurred to her. Not a single bee was around. She should have had to wear one of those beekeeping outfits -- the white suits with gloves and the netted hat things. This apiary was deserted. Almost as if all the bees in the hives were either dead or . . . or they knew something she didn't. Well, that was certainly ominous.

Then she noticed human fingers grasping a large, old black oak tree, and she beat herself up on missing it. She immediately went around the tree and saw Vince Greene. His face was blank, slack, and expressionless. His complexion was pale and its texture and stiffness was like porcelain. His eyes were affixed in his skull, vacant and empty. As Saffa continued around the tree, she noticed his hospital gown had come untied, but then saw the crack from the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks. She gasped audibly as she saw this, and recoiled when she realized that there was something inside, trying to extricate itself from this shell. Some sort yellow mass was trying to come out of this crack.

There should have been a sound. There was none, but it most certainly felt like that there should have been. Saffa saw through the crack and saw that it was looking into a porcelain figurine. She didn't know what was more disturbing -- the creature mass or the emptiness of the shell.

The yellow mass had taken form, with its exoskeleton drying quickly. It was a hornet, Vespa hominidparasitus. Its transparent wings were taking the longest to dry. The area that connected the wings to the body was white. While it was primarily yellow, it was black at its joints. When it took flight, it sounded as if someone was using a buzzsaw that was perpetually on and active.

It saw Saffa with its red compound eyes. It hesitated, but only for a moment. Eventually, it decided that she was a threat. Its stinger shined ominously as it made a beeline for her . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2017, 07:27:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Vespa hominidparasitus

Saffa dodged and parried the stinger with her Taydenite dagger. She wanted to eschew morphing, still feeling as if she was too reliant on it. But she had kept in practice with it, because refusing to morph altogether would make her slow with it, rusty. Besides -- this hornet wouldn't allow her enough time to morph. Not to mention she would absolutely annihilate the clothes she was wearing, although she did have her morphing clothing underneath these. But clothes weren't cheap, especially in this economy.

But how could she be expecting something like this. Even for RAFians, this was rather unprecedented. She supposed that it was like the . . . the issue they had with Hundred/Thousand/Million/Billion. But this? This seemed somehow . . . more wrong than that, darker than that, despite the fact that Billion (or whatever it was calling itself last) was fully sentient and this hornet was clearly not.

Using her crystallokinetic construct of a dagger and her Taydenite dagger, she dual wielded. She was still working on the energy expenditure for her crystallokinesis, training extensively between her schooling, but it worked well enough for the moment. She basically fenced the hornet's stinger, as it pressed its attacks. The stinger was this hornets only real weapon, and, unlike a bee, it was not barbed. It wouldn't die if it stung something.

Such a pity, too. It would make this whole thing easier.

But soon, the energy expenditure was too much and she allowed her crystallokinetic construct to dissolve away, allowing herself just to focus on her Taydenite dagger. She considered morphing, going through her litany of morphs, trying to discern which one would be best for taking down the hornet.

She came up with a couple of possibilities as she fenced the hornet's stinger with her Taydenite dagger. She dismissed her Panuncian, Psycholeopterran, Rootshark, Crabdozer, Slamworm, rancor, and Nexu morphs outright. That Shear Goliath's fire breath was a good possibility, but there were too many trees here, too many chances for unnecessary collateral damage. Her Tyrannopede morph's webs could be useful, but that would only restrain the creature, not kill it. Her Buglizard morph came from a species that preyed on Lepidopterrans, a flying insectoid species -- it could be a good choice. Her Terrorantula morph could possibly web it up, but this hornet was larger than its usual prey, according to its description in the database. Her Mucilator morph's sticky purplish-pink pustules could ensnare and suffocate it --  a strong possibility. But she would have to strip down to her morphing outfit first.

She made her decision, she managed throw the hornet a sufficient distance away, and ran to hide so she could get into her morphing suit. When she did, she immediately began to morph. First thing that went was her hair as her flesh grew gray and flabby as it expanded. She grew rock-like growths and purplish-pink sticky pustules. She quickly completed the morph*, and looked at the hornet. She had almost forgot to rein in the Mucilator's mind. She swiftly reasserted control over the alien beast's powerful instincts.

The hornet seemed actually attracted to the pustules, as if the pustules emitted a sweet scent that drew it towards them. Saffa didn't wait, as she charged forward with surprising speed. She thought she felt something shatter, but assumed it was just one of the apiary hives. Mucilator were hard bodies to maneuver, though not surprising considering their girth. The hornet was mired in it so thoroughly and the impact killed it as well. That was easier than Saffa expected -- then again, the hornet was very simpleminded and not sentient.

Saffa swiftly demorphed back to her human self, and it was then that she realized that Vince's shell was nowhere to be found . . . she ignored the mangled mess of the hornet's body, as she looked for Vince's shell, only to discover his shattered and cracked lips at her feet . . . that thing that she shattered. It was Vince's shell.

How would she explain this to his next of kin? But how could she know that his megalomaniacal ambitions had alienated or chased away (or both) anyone who could conceivably be close to him, Vince having seen such things as career liabilities.

---

*(https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/f/f6/It_Was_Them_%28457%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20130104190626)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2017, 06:23:39 AM

New chapter. Bit brief, sorry.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
Diane Dawn Goodsen

Aquilai had followed a lead to a meadow. He looked around and swore he saw a red-tailled hawk glaring at him, almost as if he were judging the Time Lord, almost as if he was sizing up the RAFian. But, when he looked again, the hawk wasn't there. Huh. Must have been his imagination.

He continued to take in the meadow and found it looking perfectly lovely, even with those grayish-black storm clouds rolling in like an unwelcome biker gang. There was a lively stream that cut through the area to the right with tall grass dotted here and there. It looked untouched and unmolested by human hand. One of the very few areas on this planet to be as such.

He, almost tentatively, crossed the threshold into the meadow proper. He almost felt like he was tainting the this perfect, idyllic place with his presence. Seriously, this meadow was like something from a painting. Honestly, it would be an ideal picnic spot, but that could draw too many people. Too many people would lead to the inevitable arrival of lazy people, who are unwilling to pick up after themselves, littering this place with pieces of paper, candy wrappers, or other such refuse and rubbish.

Then there were the ones who would want to "develop" this land . . . build buildings on it. That would ruin the beauty of this meadow. He glanced at his sonic screwdriver and acknowledged the tad contradiction of his advance technological ability, his nature as a Time Lord, and these views. But that didn't stop him from appreciating a scene of beauty.

And why should it? He may have came from a species with considerable technological prowess, but why should that obligate him a technocratic worldview? Such a stereotype!

But then something caught his attention to his left. He turned to confront this . . . this whatever-it-was. He quickly crossed over to the fluttering movement that he saw out of the corner of his left eye.

Aquilai had, rather serendipitously, had stumbled upon Diane Goodsen, clutching a chestnut tree very tightly and very firmly, causing six chestnuts to fall. Her vacant eyes were blank and looked as if they were affixed in her skull, as if she were a doll or something. Her usually expressive face was disturbingly blank and slack. Her hospital gown had come untied, presumably during her flight from the hospital.

The marble white mass took form, its chitinous exoskeleton drying so quickly that it was steaming. It had six long, slender legs attached to its hairy thorax, the first pair ending in hands like the Other Mother from "Coraline". It had a slim abdomen. Its head bore two yellow compound eyes, and two long, straight, slender, clubbed antennae. It had a long proboscis that was coiled, as it was not in use. It had four scale-covered wings that were like stiff white sheets, like the sails on a sailboat.

It was a butterfly, Papilionoidea hominidparasitus. With no hint of aggression or hostility, it charged toward Aquilai, with each wingbeat making a quiet "whoof, whoof" sound.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2017, 06:11:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
Papilionoidea hominidparasitus

Aquilai had a momentary thought of what if he got hit so badly and he had to Regenerate. By a butterfly. A butterfly, of all things. The humiliation would be all-consuming.

Yes, yes, it was a butterfly with wings the size of sails on a small sailboat, but it still was a butterfly. And there would still be humiliation if it forced him to Regenerate . . .

It was actually easy to dodge the charge -- butterflies are hardly fighter jets, after all. This one, at least, could not corner to save its life. It had to take a wide, sweeping angle to come back for another go. And it did, proving itself to far more aggressive and hostile than most, if not all, butterflies. Why it targeted Aquilai, he didn't know. Maybe the people in Hyvect would be more accustomed to such things, but he wasn't.

He didn't notice the long ovipositor until just now. This butterfly was female, and potentially far more dangerous than if it were male. Especially if this species was parthenogenic, like some species of parasitic wasps. Aquilai was only about eighty percent sure that he would Regenerate if this happened to him, but whether or not that would kill the neophyte grub . . . he could not say. But, all in all, he rather not find out.

But he was at an impasse. All he had to use was his sonic screwdriver, and it was useless in this scenario. He did have his waterbending, but that stream wasn't a sufficient amount to do any damage -- it was barely ankle-deep -- and too far away to be of any use anyway.

Then he felt a cool spot on the nape of his neck, and he actually jumped. But it wasn't the butterfly ovipositor, as proven when a few more drops darkened his shirt's shoulders. It was raining.

It took Aquilai a moment to register how the tables had turned. Because the rain wasn't a gentle drizzle, it was gearing up to be a great downpour. This was just handing him a weapon, like handing ammunition to Parker, not to mention that it would slow the flight of its adversary.

Aquilai took a stance, and raised his hand, hydrokinetically forming an elliptical cone     bubble so the rain would not penetrate, making what amounts to a water shield. The butterfly looked confused -- because her eyes were not sophisticated enough to process what they were seeing. The rain was making it very difficult for her to see, as well. As well as making it very difficult for her to maintain flight -- it seemed as if her wings were absorbing the water instead of whisking it away with every wingbeat.

"The circumstances, it would seem, have changed," Aquilai said. "The advantages have shifted. It would be unwise not to capitalize on it!"

After a few shifting movements, to gain power with his waterbending and gather more rainwater. He wanted to finish this as quickly as he could. It would take all the power possessed. Granted, he wasn't as strong as Cloak's hydrokinetic ability, but he wasn't by any means weak.

He had amassed so much rainwater that he thought that he could finish this off quickly. He broke out of his water shield and slammed it into the butterfly, mangling her delicate wings. If she somehow managed to survive this next onslaught, she would never be able to fly again.

Then Aquilai made a motion with both arms as if he was spinning a globe. This caused the water that surrounded the butterfly to swirl around into a watery vortex. Faster and faster . . . until the butterfly was just a bundle of lifeless bits. It was done.

But Aquilai wasn't done. He would have to somehow explain this to the Goodsen family, and they had a reputation for being unpleasant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2017, 04:33:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
Joshua Adrian Warren

Parker had gone to an empty soccer field. He felt weary, but whether that was because of whatever this patient was or just those gathering storm clouds, he could not say. Tyr would insist, unhelpfully, that he was astraphobic or brontophobic, which Parker vehemently denied.

The field wasn't exactly overgrown, but it also wasn't so painstakingly manicured. The white boundary markings were faded away, and seemingly forgotten. The goals at either end of the field lacked any nets in which to catch the soccer balls. It was as if this soccer field fell into disuse, and that would explain the air of neglect around it.

It wasn't like it was even easy to get here anyway, with the winding, poorly maintained trail at roughly five o'clock. Parker suspected that this was part of a summer camp whose finances fell through, though he hadn't any real evidence to support this hypothesis. But, in the end, it didn't matter and it was superfluous to the mission.

And the mission mandated him to find the patient and return him -- or her -- to the hospital from which they had escaped. And he had intended to complete this objective.

The patient couldn't have been too much farther. He or she couldn't have possibly made any further in the timeframe presented by the nursing staff at the hospital. So . . . where were they?

Parker had secretly hoped (although his ego would never allow him to say it aloud) that his various improvements to his armor that he had made, after he had the Walker tech literally ripped out a month or two ago, was sufficient. In his downtime, when he didn't spend time with Helen or was on a mission of some sort or undergoing a training regiment, he would always work on his armor, like a gearhead would take any available opportunity to work on their car.

Perhaps a thermal scan would reveal something, as a human body generates heat . . . unless this patient somehow had been converted into something that doesn't generate heat, like a vampire or a zombie or a wendigo or something. And apparently, he was, because Parker couldn't find anything on a thermal scan, which caused his heart to sink a little. If something did convert this patient with this rapidity -- then there was probably very little chance, if any, to save them.

Parker tried a wide array of other types of scans -- every single one that his armor possessed. It would have been far more enjoyable if he didn't have to suffer Tyr's, in Parker's opinion, defeatist attitude. Infrared, ultraviolet, spectrum, night vision, chemical imaging -- Parker tried them all.

The infrared and ultraviolet scans showed him the twelve-year-old patient, Joshua Warren, braced himself upon a tree -- a birch, by looks of it. His eyes were affixed inside his skull, empty and blank. His face betrayed no emotion, showed no expression. His hospital gown fluttered open, untied. From the nape of his neck to the top of his buttocks, there was a crack in which a white mass was struggling to exit.

There was no sound. There should have been a sound. But there was none as the white mass extricated itself from the boy's porcelain-like body, which remained stiff, like a ceramic statuette. Yet, Parker was only really disturbed by the fact that this had happened to a kid of all people.

The exoskeleton-encased body was white. It was roughly the length of a minivan, longer than the twelve other Hyvectoid parasitoid, mostly because of the characteristic horns. It was a male Hercules beetle, Dynastes hercules hominidparasitus.

It saw Parker and decided to push him around. In Parker's mind, this wouldn't stand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2017, 06:31:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
Dynastes hercules hominidparasitus

"Back off, buddy," Parker said, feeling a bit nettled by this creature's approach. When Tyr replied that he didn't think this Hercules beetle creature would listen, Parker promptly said, "Shut up, Tyr."

But it was true. Despite having inherited human-like hands on its first set of legs out of its six, which were segmented to make them look skeletal, it did not inherit Joshua's sentience. It did not recognize Parker's words as speech, but meaningless sounds that it couldn't decipher the meaning of. But it didn't matter, as they were unimportant to this creature's simple mind.

While it had no intention to actually eat Parker, it was intent on muscling him out of what it perceived to be its personal space. This was starting to generate a personal pique in Parker, a passing feeling of wounded pride -- this creature thought that it was so big, and so powerful. It actually had the unmitigated notion that it could push Parker around! Not bloody likely!

"Be mindful of the boy's shell," Tyr reminded him, "his loved ones will need some form of closure."

"I know that!" Parker protested. In truth, the audacity of this beast had nearly thrown him into a tantrum that Vegeta would have claimed for his own. "Keep your eyes on it at all times, Tyr. I'll focus on slaying this bug."

"One of us has to," Tyr replied. Parker didn't really appreciate the smugness in his voice, but there will be time to argue with this uppity A.I. later. The Hercules beetle was coming for him, whether to batter or to gore him, he couldn't be sure. But he was sure that neither would feel particularly pleasant, even with his armor.

But the SPARTAN deftly dodged out of the way, which confused and perplexed the Hercules beetle, when it noticed that it had not gored anyone or anything. It looked around, and it's eyesight was nowhere near as sophisticated as a human's one was. But it had one advantage that Parker had no knowledge of.

It dusted its human-like segmented hands, and became completely invisible to the naked eye. But Parker quickly went through the array of spectrum scanning software his armor possessed to uncover where the bug had gone. But even this took too much time.

Parker soon found himself flung into a sycamore tree, nearly breaking it in two, before the beetle's image wobbled back into view. It was Parker's armor that took the brunt of the impact, and easily withstood it, save for a small scratch on the right forearm of it.

"A scratch? I just polished it today!!" Parker complained angrily.

"Priorities," Tyr recommended.

"That is a priority!" Parker snapped. "Where did that thing go, now? . . . Oh, no. Not again. Not AGAIN!!"

This time an elm fell victim to Parker's impact.

"This is getting to be monotonous," Parker grumbled.

"On your left," Tyr warned. This time, instead of arguing, Parker wheeled to his right and brought a fist down on the horn. But he did not possess superhuman strength, so it did nothing of real importance.

Parker had to eschew firearms, because, despite those clouds overhead, the overgrown grasses here were dry, and any discharge from his weaponry could cause them to go up like kindling. Starting a forest fire. And he didn't need another blow to RAF in the PR department.

Besides -- he also felt that using a discharge weapon would be too . . . impersonal for what he wanted to do. He wasn't an ordinary bloodthirsty man, but try getting rammed into something hard by the size of a minivan -- and not once, but twice -- and see if you don't get a little vengeful.

Parker brought out his energy sword, and . . . it wasn't pretty. It was actually pretty brutal. . . . Actually, the less said about it the better.

"Now about the juvenile human shell," Tyr said, after Parker was slayed the beetle in this violent manner.

"I haven't forgotten," Parker said, breathing hard, his anger and frustration spent.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2017, 09:39:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Understandably, their families and next of kin (those that could be contacted and willing to show up, that is) were skeptical of the fate of their loved ones. Fortunately enough, Tyr had the presence of mind (without Parker's okay, mind you) to record the Hercules beetle's emergence from Joshua's back. It was rather gruesome for his family to watch -- but they had to know. Sometimes, ignorance of the fact is worse than the heavy knowledge.

Now they know what and why, and even how -- a parasitoid insect from another dimension had infected their loved one. Yes, it sounded absolutely crazy, but, with the video and auditory evidence as well as the intact shell of their loved ones (the ones that were shattered had no family or next of kin attend, as most, if not all, just didn't care). It wasn't much, and their loved ones could not be restored. It wasn't much of a comfort, to be honest, and it was a horrible way to go out, as well as a deeply traumatic one. But, at least, they had closure now.

Despite this rather eventful day, it was still not quite over yet. After the rain ended, a stranger had appeared, with blonde hair and wings -- a faerie. One that Faerie took immediate notice of, and evidently had a history with.

He began to sing:

"Here I am again --"

"YOU?!" she roared. Apparently, she was displeased with this male faerie.

"-- on my knees again!
I'd do anything just
To make it right.
Say you understand?"

"Not. Likely," Faerie growled. The RAFians who had gathered started to give Faerie ample room. They knew she was getting very, very . . . ticked. Almost as if someone called her a "fairy".

"I know you can."

"Oh, no, I can't!" Faerie said, fingering her battleaxe, just hung at her side. Almost as if she longed to bury it in his neck.

"C'mon, Larka, man."

"You CHEATED on me," Faerie said, jabbing an accusatory finger in his face. "Remember?"

"You left me at the alter, remember?" he said, as if this was a viable argument.

"BECAUSE you cheated on me!" Faerie countered quickly and easily. "Not to mention that I never said yes to your proposal in the first place, you charlatan!"

He seemed to recover surprisingly well from this proclamation, not immediately refuting it, but allowing a brief pause before singing:

"No matter what people say,
It didn't happen that way.
She was just a passing fling,
And not a serious thing."

"And you expect me to believe that?" Faerie said, with caustic tones.

"So, I hang my head.
Oh, I wish that I was dead."

"I can help you with that," Faerie said, patting her ax, as if the message was too subtle for this blowhard. He was almost as if Gilderoy Lockhart was made into a faerie.

"C'mon, Larka, man.
C'mon, Larka, man."

Then he ran in for an embrace and smooch, which actually took Faerie by surprise (she didn't have Earthsight, after all). She struggled momentarily to escape his grip, only to glare at him with more outrage.

"Say you can
Understand, my Larka, man!"

"I'm not your ANYTHING!" Faerie roared. She was not an object! She was a person! Why'd she ever fall for . . . oh, right. He was handsome, and she was naive.

"Hey, one tiny mistake," he said. The stupid fool.

"TINY?!" Faerie reiterated, full fury on that single word. And now he was starting to feel a little afraid. "You gotta a LOTTA nerve coming here."

GH, knowing a cue, quickly unshouldered his guitar and began playing musical accompaniment to Faerie's song. Leatherhead followed his lead.

"Think you got the best of me?
Think that you've had the last laugh?
Betcha think that everything good is gone."

The male faerie was quickly backing away, and he said, "H-hold on there, darling."

But Faerie wasn't done. She was just getting warmed up.

"Think you left me broken down?
Think that I'd come running back?
Buddy, you don't know me
'Coz you're DEAD wrong!"

"Okay, s-slow down there, Marianne -- I mean, Larka," he said, unhelpfully forgetting her name momentarily.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!
Stand a little taller!
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone!
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter!
Footsteps even lighter.
Doesn't mean I'm over,
'Coz you're gone."

But the male faerie was evidently not smart enough to know when something is a futile effort.

"Here I am!
On my knees again!
I'll do anything just
To make it right!"

"Yeah, right!" Faerie said, with a roll of her eyes.

"Say that you'd understand."

"Only too well," Faerie said, dismissively, as she continued to back this male faerie back towards the gate.

"Oh, I know you can!
C'mon, Larka, man!"

Faerie countered:

"Didn't think when I came back,
I'd come back swinging?
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!
Stand a little taller!
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone!
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter!
Footsteps even lighter.
Doesn't mean I'm over,
'Coz you're gone.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!
Stronger! Just me, myself, and I!
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!
Stand a little taller!
Well, it's time to say GOOD-BYE!!"

Faerie then roughly booted him outside the gates, and the shut them behind him. She said, "Bye-bye."

Then she addressed GH, "Thanks."

"No prob," the guitarist replied, "but who was that guy?"

"My business," Faerie said, clearly unwilling and not ready to divulge that information just yet.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NO85f1Fi69U

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2017, 05:12:09 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
Having a Blizzard

Cloak had been dispatched to arctic, of all places. There was apparently a fiend here. And Cloak was less than thrilled. He was not fond of the cold, despite his bipedal tiger physiology. True, some Dwellers that he had Walked with had described the sensation as colder than cold, but he, like all other Walkers, never noticed a temperature differential while Walking. And Walking was not a long process at all.

The area was fairly remote area that was covered with ice, considering how close he was to the northern pole of the planet. Cloak was less than thrilled walking on the ice, as he had lost contact with an earthen or metallic surface, which meant that he could not use Earthsight or Metalsight, which he rather depended on more than his own feline eyes to sense things around him. By leaving them behind, he was knowingly putting himself at a possible disadvantage, and he didn't like it one bit.

That biting wind, fortunately, didn't penetrate his cloak, so it provided him with more than simple P.P.E. -- that is, personal protection equipment, or something like that. His cloak was rather like a hazmat suit, only in reverse. It wasn't meant to protect him but protect the Dwellers from his hazardous corona. Funny thing was that this corona was just bioluminescence in the Nexus, and completely harmless. It only became dangerous to others whilst in-Realm. It's also one reason why no one barges into his thread, which had painstakingly taken precautions to ensure the others' safety.

He was so wrapped in his own thoughts that he nearly missed the fiend as it swept by. It was so unduly fast upon this tundra that it irritated Cloak quite a bit. Only when it slowed down enough to size up Cloak, and decide whether or not to attack was when Cloak got a better look at it.

The creature was about four and a quarter feet tall, and weighed at least three hundred and seventy pounds. It had a body like a snowball, with human-like eyes (dark red sclera and black pupils) set inside the top of the body below a blue crest with a black ball at its tip, rather like a snow hat. Its shoulders, forearms, groin, and lower legs were a cold orange, while its upper arms and thighs were a pale yellow. Its human-like hands were pale blue and held ski poles. It had four indigo buttons on its front, and two on the back with a blue growth between them. It had black feet, heels, and knees, and crimson skis attached to its feet.

It moved around the icy terrain with its skis, trying to get close to Cloak and leave him without space to dodge its attacks, so Cloak had to make sure to jump over it to avoid running out of space.

The creature seemed to have two main ways to attack. Its primary one was to form a small maelstrom of large snowflakes and then shot at different angles towards its target. It started moving in place on its skis and snowflakes will form around it, momentarily suspended in midair until they are launched at its target.

Its second attack was rolling into a ball, then speeding across the landscape, attempting to ram into Cloak. It was nearly completely invincible in this state, so nearly all attacks were useless while in this state. Still, it can be avoided by just jumping over it, which Cloak did in a somersault.

But seven fire spires at its most vulnerable state rendered it into nothing more. This took an inordinate amount of time, far more than Cloak would have cared to admit.

***

Demos called it a "burizadosapien". He claimed to have intended to use it to monitor arctic weather.

***

Malice was watching, aware that her parasitoid plan failed, but she did not comment on it, as she was fast asleep. Being eighty years (or eight hundred years, in Dweller Terran terms) does have its drawbacks. Even for Realm Walkers.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2017, 07:00:34 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLVII:
AS THE WORLD DOESN'T TURN
CHAPTER ONE:
Back Petal

Az approached a botanical garden, not unlike the florist shop that Underseen visited a couple of days ago with that mantis parasitoid creature, only -- and it was almost impossible to imagine just how -- more extravagant and expansive. And nothing was for sale. Total "look, but don't touch" territory.

It seemed to contain every plant species known to mankind. Croci. Mulleins. Rosemary. Lilac. Rue. Balsam. Cypress trees. Agrimony. Narcissus. Snowdrops. Anenome. Stars of Bethlehem.  Balsamine. Acacia trees. Nasturtium. Angrec. Bay wreaths. Aloe. Stinging nettles. Anthurium. Begonias. Mistletoe. Bellflowers. Apple trees. Oak trees. Jonquil. Bells of Ireland. Clovenlip toadflax. Oats. Lilies of the valley. Bird's-foot trefoil. Arum. Olive trees. Hydrangea. Bird-of-paradise flowers. Lime trees. Orchids. Arborvitaes. Oxeye daisies. Asparagus. Boxwood. Almond trees. Pansies. Lobelias. Starflowers. Arbutus. Peach trees. Bamboo. Broom trees. Asphodel. Pear trees. Amaranth. Bulrushes. Lotus flowers. Bumblebee orchids. Ancanthus. Peonies. Velvet flowers. Buttercups. Laurel. Cabbage. Asters. Phlox. Jasmine. Camellia. Magnolias. Pitch pines. Amaryllis. Canterbury bells. Mallow. Plum trees. Irises. Plumeria. Azaleas. Primroses. Willow. Protea. Marigolds. Carnations. Laurestine. Poppies. Mayflowers. Rainwaters. Aconite. Roses. Mignonette. Celandine. Lavender. Cherry trees. Mint. Chestnut trees. Lilies. China asters. Bachelor buttons. Chrysanthemums. Lemon trees. Calliopsis. Moonflowers. Cowslips. Ivy. Cloves. Balm. Clover. Ambrosia. Granny bonnets. Morning glories. Coriander. And more, all clearly labeled for the botanically illiterate.

Az could not help but feel rather out of his element here. What was worse was he had no idea what this fiend would look like. Although . . . considering this locale, it probably would be a safe assumption to guess something plant or insect-based. Or possibly simian.

Fortunately, as did not have to wait long before the fiend revealed itself, with a bestial mindset. The creature was just under five feet and had to weigh at least two hundred and fifty  pounds. It had, round, human-like eyes (green sclera and black irises) with a smug look on its bark-textured, human-like face. Said face was wreathed with vibrant green petals with blue spots, attached to its purple head with a green stripe down the back end. It had leaf shoulder pads, and had a yellow arm cannon for a right hand and forearm. It had a yellow left forearm, chest, groin, and lower legs. Its upper arms, abdomen, and thighs were paper white. It had a red gem on its chest, and red feet with green triangles on it. Its left hand was a red and it was draped in thorny vines.

It fired a flurry of petals -- deep green with blue spots -- which orbited it in a kind of shield, possibly via his florapathy. It did this for a few moments, before projecting it forward, always jumping directly afterward. These petals were not to be taken lightly, as each had the hardness of diamonds, but the flexibility of petals.

Az had somehow managed to tank some which ripped his clothing to bits and managed to lacerate his left arm some. Fortunately, it was nothing permanently damaging. Kelly would be able to patch him up in a thrice. But it was something that he did not want to try to tank again. He might not survive more of those.

The fiend tried it again, but Az froze it solid and shattered it into glitter. "No. Not again."

It just leaped over him to his back, and formed the petal shield again. Apparently, it was of a very simplistic intellect, unaware that this attack would not work when it did not work a second time.

Az already wanted to end it. He threw his right behind him, forming twenty-eight snowflake-shaped shurikens. Then he threw his right hand in front of him, sending the sharp projectiles forward at a considerable speed. They ripped through the fiend's body in a most brutal, violent manner.

It was over and he needed to see the Forum's medic.

***

Demos called it a "florasapien". Demos had intended it to oversee a botantical garden.

***

"Perhaps I should have planted better idea," Malice said, groggily. She was still waking up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2017, 09:25:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Failure

Rotiart was fleeing the scene of what appeared to be a petty crime. He stole something, something yellowish that was was stuffing into his threadbare satchel. GH was giving chase, secretly hoping that the former RAFian could be reformed.

He felt partially responsible for Rotiart's heel turn to evil and villainy. She he was lazy and boastful. He was a teenager. But that didn't make him evil -- and GH believed there had to be some moribund, latent goodness in him that desperately needed to be brought out again.

Unfortunately, GH's attempts to coax him, led to Rotiart stopping in front of GH, with a venomous glare. He was lit from behind by a single lampost, glowing yellow in the semidarkness. It threw his scars into sharper relief, which stabbed at GH's heart. Then the former RAFian . . . sang:

"I've been . . . mistreated.
I've been abused!
I've been trespassed,
And evaded.
And I am not amused!
I've been INSULTED!
DISRESPECTED!
I've been MISTREATED!!"

"Rotiart! Rotiart . . . wait . . ." GH shrugged off his guitar and began playing.

"You will not manipulate me, RAFian!" Rotiart snarled, his satchel seemingly wriggling of its own accord.

Instead of answering, instead of matching Rotiart's anger, GH played a somber, sorrowful melody. Then he sang with every ounce on sincerity he had:

"Rotiart, I am humbled,
For tonight, I understand.
Your innocent blood was never
Meant to decorate the sand.
You suffered great injustice,
Just as thousands before you.
I offer an apology,
And one long overdue."

GH took a breath before continuing, pouring his heart and soul into the song.

"I . . . am sorry.
Rotiart, I am sorry.
Hear my song,
And know that I sing the truth.
There is no need for us to fight.
I reach for kindness in your heart tonight.
And, if you can forgive --
And, if you can forgive,
Then love can truly live."

GH now shut his eyes to put more heartfelt power into his music.

"And, if you can forgive --
And, if you can forgive,
Then love can truly live.
Too long in agony
That to your heart we sent.
Here now are my amends.
The senseless mistreatment ends."

Rotiart was unmoved.

"I am sorry.
Rotiart, I am sorry.
Hear my song,
And know that I sing the truth.
There is no need for us to fight.
I reach for kindness in your heart tonight.
And, if you can forgive --
And, if you can forgive,
Then love can truly live.
And, if you can forgive --
And if you can forgive,
Then love can truly live.
And, if you can forgive --
And, if you can forgive,
Then love . . .
Then love can truly live."

But Rotiart saw this as nothing more as GH trying to manipulate his emotions with music, like how he soothed Cloak that one time. He saw his whole song as being insincere hogwash. Complete garbage. Even though that was not the actual truth.

Rotiart sang again before disappearing into the night:

"I've been INSULTED!!!
DISRESPECTED!!!
I've been MISTREATED!!!"

"Rotiart . . ." GH said, as the wayward former RAFian fled the scene. "It doesn't have to be this way. There is good in you, I know it. Pity that you can no longer see it."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kJD93UQ2F9E and https://youtube.com/watch?v=ttR5s-pwrcQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 06, 2017, 02:33:14 PM

Finally caught up again!  Underseen's battle with the mantis did not disappoint.  And I am intrigued about the red-tailed hawk that Aquilai thought he saw.  Was that someone we know?

As for the Faerie plot idea . . . I have a feeling that wasn't the last we've seen of that guy?  I almost hope not, because I now want something horrible to happen to him.  And given that he messed with Faerie, I think it probably will.

And Rotiart's back again!  I wish gh the best of luck trying to get through to him.  Poor Rotiart.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2017, 05:04:51 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 06, 2017, 02:33:14 PM

And I am intrigued about the red-tailed hawk that Aquilai thought he saw.  Was that someone we know?

Nope. Just a throwaway reference.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 06, 2017, 02:33:14 PM

As for the Faerie plot idea . . . I have a feeling that wasn't the last we've seen of that guy?  I almost hope not, because I now want something horrible to happen to him.  And given that he messed with Faerie, I think it probably will.

Not for a while yet, if I still go through with it.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on September 06, 2017, 02:33:14 PM

And Rotiart's back again!  I wish gh the best of luck trying to get through to him.  Poor Rotiart.

More like a cameo. But don't worry. We haven't seen the last of him. I do have a plan for him and he may not stay a -- er, spoilers.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Around the Twist

"I theorized that it may be possible to harness the natural magnetic field and rotation of a planet to produce energy," said Asphodelus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphodelus) "Del" Amy Tom, a contemporary of Gaz's, though completely human. She was defending her doctoral dissertation in Applied Physics to Professor Johan Katzenberg, who was stroking a calico cat with tortoiseshell patches, including one covering his left eye, almost like an evil eyepatch. The cat was rather distracting, as Del had a minor allergy to cat dander. "It could very well solve any possible energy crises that might appear in the future."

It was a bold, grand, idealistic claim -- but one that wasn't backed up too well by verified evidence. Gaz had tried to talk her non-RAFian friend out of this, but Del was a stubborn sort. Gaz could not convince her of the nonsensical nature of her theory, nor how precisely she would go about to implement it.

Only to find that she pulled a "Yarin's microwave", as it were, and had already built a machine that would do just what she theorized. Gaz warned her against doing this, that someone could use it for malicious purposes.

"No matter how technology progresses, Rachel, there will always be people out there to pervert it for nefarious purposes." came Del's reply. "When mankind first invented fire, it was a matter of time before the first arson. When mankind invented weapons to protect them against wild animals -- would-be predators -- it was only a small leap in logic before they turned them against rivals. When cars were invented to make travel easier and faster, there was that one person who turned it into a high-speed weapon. No matter what is invented for innocent reasons, there is always that one jackoff that would misuse it in ways that it was not intended. But that doesn't stop technology from progressing."

"But isn't progress for progress's sake just as dangerous as having a doomsday machine?"

"That's an extreme way to put it, Rachel," Del said, rather dismissively.

"Have you considered the consequences of what such a machine would do?" Gaz said. "What if it stops the earth from rotating?"

"It can't do that," she said again. Gaz was frustrated, but not surprised. When Del got excited about seeing new possibilities, she shut her mind off to anything that could possibly undermind that.

"Del, you need to consider the implications! The consequences of this ambition!" Gaz implored. "Say that it did manage to stop the rotation of the Earth, Del."

"Rachel --"

"Just hear me out, okay?" Gaz insisted. "What if your machine suddenly stops the Earth? Completely stops the Earth's rotation?"

"I'm sure everything would sort itself out," Del said, as if she had no interest in pursuing this topic with Gaz. But Gaz had to make her see.

"The Earth rotates at, what, a thousand miles an hour?" Gaz said. She had to make Del see reason. "If it suddenly stopped, everything not bolted down into the Earth would be subjected to Newton's First Law! Everything will go flying eastward at a thousand miles an hour! Including the atmosphere! Winds like an atomic bomb!"

"An inconvenience," she said, trying not to listen.

"Inconvenience?" Gaz said, thinking God! She is SO GODDAMN STUBBORN!

"Rachel, it can't --"

"Say that it could, Del. Just humor me on this," Gaz said. "Please, Del."

She, although visibly reluctant, allowed Gaz the benefit of a doubt.

"If the Earth suddenly stopped spinning," Gaz continued, trying not to sound hysterical or fanatical, "it would send massive tsunamis traveling at least sixteen or seventeen miles inland in minutes. Possibly faster!"

Del fought an urge to roll her eyes. Her machine could not stop the Earth's rotation. There was no way it was that powerful.

"The difference between a day and year would evaporate," Gaz continued. She had to impress upon Del the weight of what her machine could do in a worst possible case scenario -- because she clearly wasn't even remotely considering it. "That would be a long time in scorching sunlight or freezing cold, Del. Think about it."

Del was feeling impatient. She really was not taking in anything Gaz was saying.

"The equatorial bulge would --"

"Rachel, I gotta go," Del said, clearly not taken in a word Gaz said.

"But, Del --"

"Bye." And she left for her doctoral dissertation, which she found herself stumbling through. She was utterly disarmed by all of their questions, and obviously nervous.

Needless to say, it was rejected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2017, 06:10:31 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Blame Game

"Rachel, this all your fault," Del said, confrontationally, when she next met up with Gaz.

"Wait, what?"

"I lost the defense of my doctoral dissertation," she spat.

It seemed as if any warmth in the room was sucked out in an instant.

"You're blaming me for that?" Gaz replied coldly.

"You made me nervous!" she said, clearly not willing to take accountability for her actions. So she had to place blame at the feet of someone else. "You caused me to lose focus!"

"'Lose your focus'?" Gaz said, inflection icy. "Just because I tried to get you to actually think about the possible consequences and drawbacks of such a device?"

"You cluttered my brain with stupid information!" Del declared, still refusing to take responsibility for her own actions and inactions. It was a lot easier to transfer that to someone else, and be royally ticked off at them for it. And Gaz was the last person she spoke to before defending her dissertation.

"'Stupid information?" Gaz said. It was kind of impossible not to get offended at such accusations, especially from someone that you once considered a friend. "Del, those were the possible ramifications if something went wrong with your machine. It's not my fault that you got so enthralled with your idea that you willfully and wantonly ignored possible dangers that went along with it. That was and is your responsibility, not mine."

"It's YOUR FAULT." she insisted angrily.

"I will not be held accountable for your decisions, Del." Gaz said, frostily. "YOU made the decision, not me. I will not accept the responsibility for you --
yes, you -- deciding to go forward with such a poorly thought out dissertation subject."

"'Poorly thought out'?!" Del raged. "I spent --"

"Yes, Del," Gaz said, seizing upon her moment's hesitation. "Just how long did you work on this dissertation? One where you shrugged off any criticism, no matter how legitimate. One where plowed forward without caring about any of the consequences or ramifications that would come from it, without even bothering to address them! Of course they'd steamroll you, Del!"

Del struggled to come up with a coherent argument in the form of a "gotcha" question, but she couldn't come up with anything. All she knew was this, somehow, wasn't her fault. She quite obstinate with this.

But Gaz was a RAFian, they weren't accustomed to backing down when confronted. "Del, you can't just blame others when you screw up. You have to be a grownup. You have to be accountable. You have to accept responsibility for you actions."

But Del ignored this, Gaz's almost plaintive words. She refused to believe that she was at fault, refused to accept her fallibility.

"It's not my fault," Del said, again, stubbornly. She turned her back to Gaz and walked away. "This is entirely YOUR fault."

And, like that, Del and Gaz's friendship ended. All because she was unable to accept her failures as her own.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on September 07, 2017, 10:15:29 PM

Hmm.  Would this be a bad time to admit that I was on Yarin's side throughout all of the 'food yield increaser' debates?  I felt, and continue to feel, like he was unfairly demonized, and I was legitimately sad that the project, basically his life's work, was ultimately scrapped for being 'too dangerous.'  Yes, it was dangerous, but not as dangerous as world hunger currently IS, and in any case you don't just give up on something because it has risks.  You try and mitigate the risks in any way you can, put in a thousand different redundant safety features and beta-test the ever-loving crap out of it, and then build it.

Granted that this project is slightly different, in that Del doesn't even seem open to beta-testing or acknowledging risks at all, not to mention that the risks are far greater since they'd impact the entire world rather than just one city as Yarin's FYI did . . . but I still pretty strongly got the sense that Gaz was more interested in the risks than the potential rewards of such a device.  Yes, Del was in the wrong not to be worried about the risks at all, but I think Gaz immediately attacking her idea without acknowledging the good it could do was also the wrong approach.  And given how big a threat global warming currently is to our world, albeit on a much longer timescale, any technology that promises free energy without relying on fossil fuels NEEDS to be explored.

Although . . . Gaz's mention of the equatorial bulge reminds me of a map I once saw, of what the earth would look like if the equatorial bulge suddenly vanished.  There'd be this huge band of land that would appear around the equator, while all the northern continents would start to flood.  That's slightly terrifying.  O.O

Okay, okay, I'm going to shut up and let you write your story.  The premise has me quite intrigued.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2017, 04:42:55 AM

Understandable. I would say something more, but I have to remind myself -- I know what comes next. Although I think it's fairly obvious what this book is based on, unless you're not a Futurama fan . . . oops -- I think I said too much!

:edit:
New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Secretive Workings

But apparently someone saw merit in Del's work, someone who worked through the night. Someone who had hands and arms not unlike that of a Necrozma (https://serebii.net/pokedex-sm/800.shtml) with thumbs. Del's machine was inherently flawed -- it would not be able to harness the true amount energy produced by rotational movement of the planet. With its abysmally finite and phenomenally weak power source.

This wasn't a precaution so much as it was a mechanical oversight -- the pins used to hold the thing together wasn't really strong enough for what she had planned, and their seemed to be superfluous hinges and ratchet joints everywhere. They didn't really serve any real necessary purpose other than giving the machine a rather cluttered, rushed look. Something that wouldn't have looked out of place in a grade-school science fair, but looked rather poorly executed for a doctoral dissertation level device.

Possibly another reason why Gaz believed the machine was more risky than beneficial, as she did see the machine. It didn't help that it immediately reminded her of the gravity incident some months ago, which had immense destructive potential, and spurred her into commenting about the risks, which Del never paid any heed to. She always let her ambition drive her, leaving her good sense in the dust.

But now someone else was working on her device. Not only working on it, but improving it. The power source problem was of little issue with a better (albeit less stable) power source. And this person worked in absolute secret, and in the darkness.

But darkness was no barrier to this person, whoever he or she was. And, whatever it was, it was small, almost like a Planchakule (or whatever that species name really was). But it was without cries of "FIX! FIX! FIX!", so it was either a very quiet or otherwise mute Planchakule, or something else entirely. It couldn't have been a Galvan or an Arquillian, as it was considerably larger than both those species. It could have even been a very small human, but that was really unrealistic when you looked at it.

When the person behind this finished, the machine, while still looking like a mishmash of parts cobbled together for this makeshift device, still looked more professionally made than Del's original design. But there was one thing missing, one thing that Del never included in her design because it went against her base reason for even building the thing in the first place.

A satellite array.

She never included such a thing in her designs as she had no intention on sending the energy gained and harnessed away. That was the only possible reason for wanting to include a satellite array.

But why? Why would this being, whoever or whatever it was, be so intent on sending the rotational energy of Earth off into space? What possible reasoning could there be?

***

Meanwhile, Cloak was struggling with another incomprehensible Truth Dream. Honestly, they were less frustrating and more controllable when he didn't know they were Truth Dreams.

There was a . . . well, there was no other way to put it, a prophecy of sorts. Though Cloak would never say it aloud, as he didn't believe in prophecies. They were the sort of the the gullible and desperate and craven buy into.

It said:

BEWARE THE JUDGING EYES OF THE CHILDREN OF BAST.
THEY HAVE BEEN HERE IN DAYS SINCE PAST.
THE THIEVES WILL PILFER AND STEAL
WITH GREAT ENTHUSIASM AND ZEAL.
THE SON OF THE ELEMENTS WILL HAVE TO CONTEND
WITH FOES OF POWER THAT ARE ABLE TO BEND.
BEWARE THE MAN WHO ANYTHING HE CAN SHAPE,
ANY FORM OR SUBSTANCE OR MATERIAL, HE CAN APE.
BEWARE THE KLETPOMANICAL ANGEL,
WHO POSSESSES WINGS PELL-MELL.
STOP MUST BE, THE THIEVE OF TALENTS,
WHO COLLECTS THEM, KNOWN OR LATENT.
AN OLD FACTION WILL DESPERATELY CLING TO ANY SORT OF RELEVANCE,
BUT BE ROUTED JUST THE SAME, AND BE OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE.
BEWARE THE AVARICE OF THE SNAKE,
THE TREACHEROUS BITE IT WILL MAKE.
BEWARE THE ROBOTICIST GONE INSANE,
OR DESTRUCTION ONLY REMAIN.
BEWARE THE PARABLE OF TRAPS AND TRICKS,
AND OF THE VOICE HEARD WITHOUT LIPS.
AID YOU MUST THOSE WITH A TERRIBLE ADDICTION
TO LIFE, AND HEDONISTIC PURSUITS, IN ADDITION.
THE PURSUIT OF THE SCROLL OF THE DEATH TOUCH
WILL COME TO PASS LONG FROM NOW, OR SUCH.
BIGOTS OF SUCH UNFATHOMABLE RAGE AND RIDICULOUS HATRED
WILL COME TO WEAR THE SIGIL OF THE BUTCHER, IN RED.

It would still take Cloak a while to sort out what they meant, and he couldn't even be sure if he interpreted it right.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2017, 07:51:03 PM

Since I am posting this now, the next chapter probably won't be out until Sunday night, my time.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Kitty Cutie

Gaz was still grousing about Del as she decided on a slow walk back to the forum. How could Del blame her? It wasn't Gaz's fault that Del did not want to consider any of the potential risks. She never wanted to consider any of the risks. She just wanted to move forward, with almost the buffoonery of Jack Fenton from "Danny Phantom". Only its more frustrating than entertaining 90% of the time.

And if she would only take goddamn accountability for her own actions! But, no. No, it's always someone else's fault, because it can't be her! She's so perfect, isn't she? Making mistakes is for the commoners, isn't it, Del? Gah! Why Gaz ever decided to be friends with such a pretentious twit, she will never know.*

Yes, mankind's dependence on fossil fuels is more than likely embarrassing to the galaxy at wide -- she somehow doubted that Andalites and Nyacs and whatnot depended on fossil fuels in their homeworld society. Granted, none of the RAFian nonhuman species jeered at mankind for it.

But there had to be another way that wouldn't have any risk like stopping the Earth's rotation. Sure, that may be an extremely unlikely to happen, but the mere possibility scared her. Though, yes, she was a vampire, and so she would not be as vulnerable. But the thought of the catastrophe the sudden or even gradual stop of the Earth's rotation would inevitably bring . . .

It cause a icy cold shiver to go down her spine. The bulge at the equator would cease to be. The oceans pulled to the poles. The protection from cosmic rays -- gone. Earth . . . barren. . . .

It would be just as dangerous as that gravity manipulation device that guy made -- and she couldn't even remember his name. Funny how mankind always seems to want to mettle with forces they either have little comprehension of or underestimate the sheer, unadulterated power of. Forces better off left alone.

"Oh, hi, Beaky," she said, as the Cybertronian parrot circled down, and landed on her right shoulder.

He puffed up and his single squawk and body language clearly said, 'Oh, hi'?! 'Oh, hi'? You leave me alone for hours! Days! Months! Years! And all you can say to me is 'oh, hi'?!

It had been four hours, at most.

"Oh, Beaky," Gaz chided affectionately, her anger evaporated for the moment, "don't be so melodramatic."

Laserbeak huffed, as if saying, Melodramatic? Me? You abandon me for days on end, and you say I'M being melodramatic?

"Oh, Becky," Gaz chuckled at Laserbeak's indignation. Then she heard a soft mew at  her feet,and saw a white calico cat with tortoiseshell patches on his fur, including one covering his eye like an eyepatch. "Oh, hello there."

He sat down, and Laserbeak was rapidly looking at Gaz to the cat and back again. Almost as if he couldn't believe she was giving this cat attention when he wasn't done grousing.

"Well, you are a cutie," Gaz said, taking note a rather expensive-looking collar. He had an owner. "Aren't you?"

As Gaz bent down to get eye level with the handsome feline, Laserbeak fluttered to the ground, and flared his wings. Then he gave a hiss, rather like an angry snake, and scared the cat away.

"Beaky!" Gaz scolded her now churlish pet.

---

* I assume most, if not all, reading this knows someone like this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2017, 06:47:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Another Dream, and Growing Impatience

After the Truth Dream, Cloak's dream eased into another one. A familiar one, but an old one.

Cloak stepped upon dark, arid ground, barren of any sort of life. Devoid of tangible, organic evidence of life existing upon this poor planet, at least within his life time. There was no magnetic field to speak of, and the sky? There was no sky anymore.

"What happened here?" Shadow said behind him. She was not the age she was in present, but more like five or six. Which would mean this was a time before he was a RAFian.

"I cannot say," Cloak answered, "it could be a plethora of reasons. War. Famine. Climate change. Political corruption. Natural disasters. Or some combination of them."

"But . . . why?"

"Fear tends to bred anger, anger can lead to hatred and radicalization," Cloak said, "and that leads to suffering."

"I . . . I don't understand," she confessed.

"Neither do I, Shadow," Cloak said. "I don't truly understand how a species could disregard the health of their world so brazenly, so . . . so indifferent. I have ideas as to why, sure, but none of which I have concrete proof of."

"Huh?" was her reply.

Cloak gazed around, and saw that there actually was, indeed, evidence that civilization had once lived here, an intelligent one. Intelligent enough to shape metal and stone to their needs, but not wise enough to maintain the health of their homeworld. Perhaps some had survived into deep space, but he saw very little evidence that this species was capable of long-term space voyages.

He ad unearthed what appeared to be a bronze statue of a creature with round ears, pointed nose, round face, gloves, shorts with two white buttons, and rounded shoes. His hand appeared to be holding the hand of a taller creature which apparently was severed at the elbow.

It was a Mickey Mouse statue from one of the parks. The area in which they stood was the relic of the time when humans used to come here for joy and entertainment. Now it was lifeless and forgotten. A species, a world, who had come and gone. Seemingly in a blink of an eye, if one were to use celestial terms.

The human race was dead. The Earth was dead.

But was this the Earth from the Prime Universe, or just an Earth from a different Realm spun off from the Prime Universe? The dream was never very clear about that, though the clarity of everything was like a high-resolution television screen.

It was at this point that Cloak had truly awoken, he said, groggy and grumpy, "Great, a Truth Dream with a false ending."

***

This was frustrating.

There shouldn't be so many obstacles to complete this mission! The creature couldn't use the array from the ship. This small creature couldn't even find the damn freighter that brought him here. Some native must have took it without realizing what it was!

What was worse, he discovered that the previous team that was sent here did not accomplish their mission millions of Earthen years ago. It was outrageous! It was a scandal! They allowed themselves to lose sight of their objective when the natives began to worship them as gods.

These stupid, clunky humans. They were slow in both mind and body, blind at night, usually easy to manipulate, and also very ugly. That lousy team and their descendants -- yes, descendants! They interbred with a similar species on this planet, and as a result their offspring and the descendants of said offspring became lazy and their minds regressed so much that they couldn't even speak the proper language anymore!

Disgraceful! He would have to finish their job, and save Thuban 9. And, unfortunately, he would have to do it alone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2017, 05:55:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Investigations

Gaz realized that she had to go and ask Professor Katzenberg something the very next day. Along the way, she had a sudden chill go down her spine that she couldn't explain. She stopped only momentarily to consider, before dismissing it at something unimportant.

Although, Cloak didn't know how she did it, but she had somehow roped him into coming along as well. He was still cranky from his dream (Truth Dream included), but complied. As he had the same chill go down his spine to the tip of his tail. But, like Gaz, he dismissed it as unimportant.

"What's it that you have to ask this Katzenberg person, if I may be so bold as to ask?" Cloak said. His groggy state made his voice sound terse. "I thought your degree wasn't in Applied Physics."

"Just some odd occurrences," she said, vaguely, as they entered the university's campus. At Gaz's urging, Cloak donned his ID mask, projecting a holographic image of human on him. It was rendered as well as a Chee hologram. Although, his cloak actually hid most if not all of his nonhuman-ness, unless you looked him in the eye and he unsheathed his feline claws. She continued, "Some thefts of at tech industries."

"How would a professor of applied physics know anything about that?" Cloak asked. "He's not a police investigator, or a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, or anything. Right?"

"He was apparently a police detective as he was working on his doctorate way back when," she replied. "Or so he claimed. . . ."

"You don't believe him," Cloak said, speaking the obvious, and well-aware of his doing as such.

"I did some background checking," Gaz said. "There was no record of a Detective Johan Morris Katzenberg in any of the police personnel files --"

"Is that legal?" Cloak said.

"It was RAFian business."

"Was it?"

"Yes."

"Did the mods okay it?"

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"Okay, okay," Cloak said, relenting on his questioning. "Go ahead and knock."

She did. There was no answer, though.

"The lights are dark," she said, "and the door is locked."

"So, I guess this was a dead end lead, then," Cloak said. But he thought he knew what was coming. This was like what happened in that other Realm . . .

"I'll unlock it," she said, turning into a cloud of purple smoke, and slipped under the door. She unlocked the door and allowed Cloak entry. "He's there, back to us . . . but there's something odd . . ."

"There is no other living creature in here," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2017, 09:56:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Reveal

"What d'you mean?" Gaz said, taken aback. "He's was right there. He probably can hear me talking right now."

"He can't," Cloak said, confidently, striding toward the high-backed leather chair. The chair was a swivel one. Cloak grasped the back of the chair, preparing to turn it around.

Gaz gasped, as she realized that she couldn't smell his blood. It should have been easy, as Cloak hasn't any blood to smell (he had golden ichor). "Is he dead?"

"You'd have to be alive once in order to be dead."

Cloak turned the chair around. Both recoiled at the sight of this placid, blank face with empty eyes. Both were forcibly reminded of Scott Roberts and Rod Murray respectively. Only, Professor Katzenberg was fully seated and fully clothed. But he sat as if he were nothing more than a mannequin or doll or animatronic or something.

"This thing has a metallic endoskeleton," Cloak said, in explanation as to his confidence of his inanimate state. "Not like an Arquillian or Gargantian exosuit, though."

"Then what?" Gaz inquired.

"It is a puppet of some sort," Cloak said. "Something used this thing. There switches and valves all over its lap. Something external was puppeteering this thing. Perhaps an ailurosapien --assuming that they even exist in this realm -- I haven't had a chance yet to confirm with Esty through her interstellar sojourns whether or not they do."

"What's an . . ." Gaz said, before another thought in her head beat that other one into a bloody pulp, "wait. My friend . . . well, former friend -- let's not get into the messy details -- anyway, she told me that Professor Katzenberg always had a cat on his lap."

"Well, there's the culprit, then," Cloak nodded.

Gaz hesitated, as if she couldn't quite believe what Cloak was suggesting. "The cat? Seriously?"

"Probably not a cat at all," Cloak said. "Not a Earthen or Terran (whatever the proper term is) one anyway. More like an ailurosapien."

"Ailurosapiens are cats?" Gaz asked, skeptical.

"Yes, hyper-intelligent cats," Cloak said. "At least, they are in that other Realm. If I remember correctly, they hailed from Thuban Nine."

"That's . . . a little disconcerting," Gaz said.

"There are Terran cats, you know," Cloak said, "this could just be a blatant example of covergent evolution. Or parallel evolution. It does happen, you know. For instance, Pyronites and Methanosian can both generate fire in a form of pyrokinesis."

Cloak waited a beat, before clarifying, "Okay, not the best of examples, but I've made my point."

"But the bigger question is why an ailurosapien would go through the trouble of coming to Earth?" Gaz asked. "For what reason who he or she travel all that way? I doubt its for scratches behind the ears and being, hyperbolically-speaking, the living embodiment of sloth?"

"Well," Cloak said, "in that other realm, they wanted to steal and transmit that realm's Earth's rotational energy to --"

Gaz's eyes widened. "Oh, no."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2017, 05:27:18 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Rush to Judgement

"Hurry, Cloak!" Gaz said, ignoring Beaky's squawking-and-body-language harangue of her ditching him. "There may very well not be any time left!"

"What makes you so certain that the ailurosapien has any means to accomplish this monumental task?" Cloak inquired as they ran. "For all we know there is just the one ailurosapien -- how could it possibly build a machine to --"

"Because it had already been built," Gaz said, sharply, as she kept surprisingly in stride with Cloak. Cloak was aware that she was mostly doing that for his benefit, as he can't truly fly unassisted -- forming the energy disc under his feet and "flying" that way, wasn't true flight.

"Do you even know where it could be?" Cloak asked, pragmatically, but Gaz already had her communicator out, and apparently already had it dialed into the communications array of the forum.

"Xeno -- has any small cat infiltrated the communications department?" she said, almost desperate to get to the point.

"No," he said, almost as if she had roused him from the deep boredom that comes with communications duty. Despite their rhetoric of these life-or-death missions happening, many of them are just very procedural and not worthy of much note. Like dealing with Demos's fiends, one could argue. "The only cat in the forum right now is just FuBar. Say hi, FuBar."

This was actually becoming a common practice, two RAFians manning the communications, as so to alleviate the inherent boredom with the duty. Cloak thought this was a good practice to have actually, unless the two sharing the duty did not get along (which can and theoretically could happen). It would make the job overall easier and two pairs of eyes were better than one -- ask any Andalite.

And Bladeh apparently had business elsewhere to take care of. Cloak didn't want to be nosy in that regard.

"Good," Gaz said, with a clipped, succinct tone. "Is there any satellite arrays that could be used to transmit energy to another planet?"

"Hmmmm . . ." Xeno said, as he checked.

"Please, Xeno. This is urgent," Gaz implored.

"Looks like the aeronautics facility about fifty miles west of town," came Xeno's rapt reply. "Why do you ask?"

"At a later time, Xeno!" Gaz said. "There's a potentially world-ending catastrophe before us!"

"Not to mention the ailurosapien has a big honkin' head start on us," Cloak said.

"Ailurosapien?" FuBar said,as if he had some familiarity with the term. Then evidently his resolution was cemented with some temerarious decision. "I'm going, too."

"How are you're going to get there?" Xeno asked. "No offense, but you can't drive and you can't cover that kind of ground in the time allotted."

"If you fly me over, Xeno," FuBar said. He was determined he was going to get there one way or another. "Your communications duty is minutes from being over. Here comes Aquilai and Aila now, even as we speak!"

Xeno hesitated, almost as if he was mentally question FuBar's motives. Almost as if he picked up on something that neither Cloak nor Gaz had apparently. "Why is this so important to you, FuBar?"

"Priorities, Xeno!" FuBar yowled. "We have to be there! Now!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2017, 07:54:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Hurry Forward! Time is Running Out, Guys!

"Gaz! Go bat mode!" Cloak said. "Running is taking too much time, and we'll both be winded by the time we get there! Not to mention that it might be too late."

"But you can't --"

Cloak formed a disc of golden-scarlet energy, and threw in front of him, before leaping onto it. It took a scarce moment before he he got his balance, then he sped off, outstripping both Gaz and Laserbeak. Gaz immediately transformed to her bat form and flew all out with Laserbeak, now flying all out too, keeping pace with her.

"If we're late . . ." Gaz squeaked.

"Focus at the task at hand," Cloak advised.

"But what if --" she started.

"Worry about now, not later," Cloak advised. Granted, this piece of advise was not applicable everywhere, in every facet of life, but still. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It is pointless to fret over the what-ifs now. It will serve no other purpose but distract us from getting to the destination."

"But --"

"Focus on the task at hand before you move on to worry about other things," Cloak advised. Then he looked about seven o'clock. "There's Xeno and FuBar now."

FuBar was gripping very tightly with claws upon Xeno's pack, looking very much as if he regretted his reckless choice. Xeno wasn't even going at his full, all out speed either. But they were fairly high up -- if FuBar fell . . .

He tried not to think about that. He had to go. He had to find out if the hearsay he heard was right. He had to find out if he . . .

"Hold on, FuBar!" Xeno said. "I'm going to step up the speed."

"Wonderful," FuBar said, ears flattened against his skull. He had to fight the urge to hiss. "Absolutely wonderful."

Xeno poured on the speed to catch up with Gaz, Cloak, and Laserbeak. Within moments, he was flying in tandem with them. "The facility should be just beyond that gathering of shrubs."

Cloak landed, dissipating the energy disc. Gaz touched the ground in her vampiric human form, while Laserbeak perched on her right shoulder, righteously preening himself, as if he was the hero of the day. Xeno landed, dainty on all four paws, and folded his wings against his back in a most dignified manner. FuBar hastily slid off of Xeno's back and attempted to get his "land legs" back.

"The door's open," Cloak informed his fellows, having "saw" it through his Earthsight.

"Numbers?" Xeno inquired.

"One."

"One?" Gaz said, skeptical.

"One." Cloak replied.

"The ailurosapien?" FuBar said, trying to hide just how much this interested him. He had to know if the heresay was true. Had to know if he . . . if he was . . .

"Most likely, unless I'm misreading the vibrations in the ground." Cloak said, giving a disclaimer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2017, 09:46:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Lol

"We have to hurry," Gaz prompted. "The ailurosapien may have already started the rotational harvester."

"'Rotational harvester'?" Xeno said. His tone clearly indicated that he thought the name was questionable.

"That's what Del called it. Let's go," Gaz said, offhand.

When they entered, a voice spoke, "It's about time. I was wondering when I was going to receive any resistance to my endeavors."

"You're the ailurosapien," Gaz said, as the calico cat with the tortoiseshell patches, with one acting like a sort of eyepatch, came into view.

"Very good, human," he said, with a sarcastic tone. His voice was rather like the lead cat in "Cats & Dogs". "Next thing you'll tell me is what two plus two equals."

"Katzenberg, I presume?" Gaz said, coldly.

The ailurosapien wrinkled his feline nose at this. "My name is not Johan Katzenberg. That was just a pseudonym. My true name haz . . . er, ahem, has more regal dignity, more grand timbre, and evokes a more powerful image."

"Which is?" Cloak said, clearly not impressed.

"Lol!"

All four RAFians were either stunned or confused into silence. Maybe both.

"Seriously?" Cloak said, highly skeptical of the ailurosapien's sincerity on this.

"Laughing out loud at what?" Xeno said at the precise same moment as Cloak's reply.

"Philistines!" Lol decried. "My name is not a joke! My name is not a reference to an meme! You insult me, sir! You insult and disrespect me! You derogate and deride!"

"Oh, shut up!" FuBar snapped, annoyed.

"You can talk?" Lol said. Apparently, Lol had an amazing grasp on the obvious. "You're an ailurosapien, like me?"

"No," FuBar said, audibly disgusted."I'm nothing like you!"

"Yes," Lol said, his inflection betraying his disappointment. "You're not a true ailurosapien. But, obviously, a descendant of those stupid, lascivious, prurient lechers who neglect their duties and interbred with lowly Terran cats . . ."

He clearly did not think highly of them, all those years ago.

Then Lol decided to exposit, "Long ago, life there was ideal. Leaping to and from scratching posts. Our sun provided plenty of warm, dozy light. The chicken-salmon roamed free. We loved to pounce on the animals. Yet disaster loomed. Our planet's rotation was gradually slowing. At first, it seemed beneficial. Long, dark nights for sleeping. Long, sunny days for sleeping. But then it got too hot and too cold. Our top scientists went to work. At long last, they located a planet with the necessary orientation and magnetic field to harness the rotational energy. "

"Earth," FuBar said. He had hoped Lol was wrong and he was not related at all to ailurosapiens. But then again . . . that was probably the reason why he could speak. He rather not think about it.

"Yes," the ailurosapien said, "though we called it Blue Blue Shiny Ball."

And FuBar's humiliation was increased far more at this.

"Oh," Lol said, as if he just remembered, "and one more thing . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2017, 07:38:39 PM

Quote from: Saffa on November 17, 2015, 12:34:03 AM

:edit:

The exams bored me to tears, so I drew up Photoshop for even more procrastination. I had done this banner-thing years ago in Paint way before I opened PS for the first time:

(https://40.media.tumblr.com/04e62a71554f348c30455aac8b7803a3/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo1_500.png)

So I took it now and improved upon it a bit, played around with brushes and fonts and made banners for all the Years that are planned out in the series so far. :D

Year 2
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/a4c63b04a2bb8964340dba25066d1888/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo2_400.jpg)

Year 3
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/3a60e5b0925e02257753045bca44bff6/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo4_400.jpg)

Year 4
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/c87e2dc8fe8f67d7d52876cf4adb3a65/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo3_400.jpg)

Year 5
(https://36.media.tumblr.com/221142f8669893bdb15a2f4a45fca829/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo5_400.jpg)

Year 6
(https://41.media.tumblr.com/bd06d30d732c40df5c16b0e998f968e4/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo6_400.jpg)

Year 7
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/b3f44e9066105d66b18468713f725ab1/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo7_400.jpg)

Year 8
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/73d5a01e665afa2ff87ada3ef9cb0675/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo8_400.jpg)

Year 9
(https://40.media.tumblr.com/7520a47ff5acd485b0c15aa8d555c4bf/tumblr_nxyky6ReV01tdgjdyo9_400.jpg)

I didn't really go with a specific theme in mind for the years (from the book summaries), though I suppose gh has already accounted for the coffee stains on Year 2. :P

Awww . . . the banners are broken again. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Too Late

Suddenly, the strange device in the window behind Lol started glowing a dark pink (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tu9_C90lTfA). It like a 1980s Technodrome the size of an average refrigerator, and attached to the satellite like some grotesque, malignant tumor. It was metal white and gray, only now with a dark pink tint. The energy travelled up to the satellite before it fired what appeared to be a spiralling laser off into space.

"One more thing," Lol had said. "You're too late. The harvester is already online and cannot be destroyed. I've made sure of that!"

"At least you'll suffer, too!" FuBar said, feline growling intermingling with his words.

"Me?" Lol said, with mocking surprise. "Oh, heavens, no. I'm not sticking around, dear boy."

"But you have no --"

Just then, they heard what Cloak was sure was the "Meow Mix" jingle played on a loop. Lol streaked by the four RAFians to go outside, and see a silver ship right out of that old "Cat From Outer Space" movie from the 1970s.

"Nice ride, no?" he jeered. "Since someone decide to take my shuttle, I guess I just have to use this the main transport instead."

"You can't do this!" Gaz accused.

"But I have." Lol said, without breaking stride to board the spacecraft. "Have fun cooking or freezing, primitives. I don't really care which."

Then he paused, and looked over his shoulder at FuBar. He said, "But I'll offer you, part-ailurosapien, some mercy. You may join me on my journey back to Thuban Nine."

FuBar looked revolted by the offer.

"Go to hell," he spat. "I'd rather die here than live as your oddity. I'd rather die than be your trophy!"

Lol gave a gesture that implied a shrug, as if he didn't really care, "Your choice. Have fun dying. Your planet is already slowing down."

Cloak could actually sense the truth in this statement. Through his Earthsight, or another sense altogether perhaps, or perhaps it was just his own imagination, but he believed that he could actually feel the Earth slowing.

From eleven thousand miles an hour roughly, to approximately 10,890 miles an hour . . .

"Bye." Lol left without another word to them, as he barked orders at the crew of the ship as the door sealed up. Then the ship lifted off through the atmosphere, never to be seen again.

It now went down from roughly 10,890 miles an hour to about 10,672 miles an hour. . . .

"What do we do now?" FuBar demanded.

The planetary rotation slowed to about 10,320 miles an hour . . .

"Destroy the machine!" Gaz said at once.

"But Lol claimed it was indestructible!" FuBar argued.

"The villains and terrorists always make that claim," Gaz said, though it sounded as if she were grasping at straws. "But it is rarely, if ever, true."

The rotation slowed to about 9,804 miles an hour, and the world was already starting to experience the inertial effects of this catastrophe. This may have been a bigger threat than Galactron or Garrotik combined.

And it was put into motion by an intelligent cat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2017, 05:33:44 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Apex Tier

Cloak was feeling dazed and disoriented by this before his mind and his will snapped him out of it. There was one thing to do to at least mitigate this. But in order to so, he would require his absolute zenith of control and power. Perhaps it was overkill, but he didn't thinks so. But he would have to do something he really, really didn't want to do.

Access his apex tier. Having his full potential laid out before him, like a deadly weapon he feared to use above all else.

But he hadn't any choice. If he were to chose not to act, this Earth would cease to exist as he knew it. It would become lifeless and barren. He could not, in all good conscience, allow that to happen.

He shut his eyes took a deep breath as he aligned himself just right along the planet's slowing rotation. He allowed himself a sharp exhale as he snapped his eyes open. His eyes were suns, with two tendrils of energy trailing off beyond view. But this wasn't his second tier of power, oh no. These tendrils were undulating and merged in a double helix pattern.

This was the apex tier of his power. The only way to describe the feeling of this power was as if the other Elements Masters, long since gone, were flowing their power through him. That he was channeling their in addition to his own.

He didn't like it. He really didn't.

No one being should have this much power. So much power . . . it was too easy to lose yourself in. Too easy to lose control. Too easy to hurt others. Too easy to be corrupted by it. Too easy . . .

"Cloak, what are you --" Gaz asked. He did not like note of fearful awe in her voice.

"What must be done," Cloak said. He did not like the slight ethereal timbre his voice now had.

Cloak forced the atmosphere to remain stationary, and not give into the rules of inertia. This may have sounded simple, but it was far harder and took a lot more power than it sound.

Then he took a stance and punched his fists forward. He was terrakinetically forcing the planet to rotate back at its normal speed again. This also took a lot of power. This was, of course, not a permanent solution. He was expending a lot of power, and he would eventually tire and be unable to continue. Then the planet will slow again, and there wouldn't be anything to be done.

This was just a measure to buy time to stop the machine. And the other RAFians got this gist quickly enough. They rushed to see just what they could do so that Cloak wouldn't have to continually expend this energy, this power.

***

Lol laid upon his captain bed, as his crew worked to man the ship. Lol looked around smugly. He had accomplished in days what the last team never could. They allowed those Egyptian humans to fond over them, allowed those primitives to worship them as gods. Allowed them to lose sight of their true goal.

Then they interbred with the native feline species. Those housecats. They allowed the noble genes of an ailurosapien to intermingle and intermix with the filthy, lesser jeans of that nonsentient species. It would be like a primitive modern day human hooking up with a Cro-Magnon hand producing hybrid children which would go on to dilute the blood even further.

Yet the one with that blue mark on his paw . . . Lol didn't know why and wouldn't admit it aloud, but he intrigued him. His ailurosapien blood -- because Lol was certain FuBar had ailurosapien ancestry -- should have been diluted to the point of being nonexistent.

Yet he could speak coherently. Yet he was intelligent -- though that was debatable as he chose to stay on a doomed planet. His parents had to have been wholly or half ailurosapien, as there was no way that blood so diluted could produce an ailurosapien . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2017, 05:51:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Making Haste

"C'mon, guys," Gaz said, immediately. "Cloak isn't immune from fatigue, and what he's trying to do is a tall order in and of itself."

"What's he doing?" FuBar asked, though he suspected he knew the answer. He just wanted confirmation.

"He's forcing the planet to rotate normally," Xeno said. He sounded legitimately surprised. "He's actually forcing the planet to rotate normally. I never knew he had this much power."

"Guys!" Gaz said, focused on the task at hand. Apparently, she was taking Cloak's earlier advice. "Focus! Cloak cannot do that forever. We have to destroy the machine or, failing that, stop it in some way."

"But Lol claimed it's indestructible," FuBar reminded.

"So does everyone who permits themselves to become overconfident in their abilities," Gaz pointed out. "Just because Lol claimed that it was, indeed, indestructible doesn't necessarily mean that it is. But time's against us on this. Come! We must hurry."

As they rushed toward the device, Xeno examined it in greater detail. It looked shockingly ramshackled and makeshift. It was entirely swathed in dark pink energy. Xeno touched it with a claw, let a small cry -- more out of surprise, than pain, and he withdrew it to see pink smoke curling away from it.

"Well," he said, "tactile removal seems to be off the table for the moment."

"Unless we can remove that pink energy," FuBar said, pensively. "But how do we do that?"

"I have a few ideas," Xeno said, "but I have serious doubts about their efficacious impacts. It could exacerbate the situation and just make everything worse. And, naturally, we don't want that."

"No. No, we don't," Gaz agreed. "But that leaves us at a bit of an impasse."

"I need Goom, Yarin, and  -- well, Aquilai is on communications duty, so just Goom and Yarin," Xeno said. "They may have ideas that I can't see right now, or help me refine my own ideas."

"I'll make the call," Gaz said, taking out her communicator.

***

The trip was, in Lol's view, was long and tedious. But his mission to Earth was a success. He took satisfaction in watching the dark pink energy spiral forward, outstripping their ship, and heading for Thuban 9, the planet that was scorched on one side, freezing the other. The only way the ailurosapiens survived was in the middle ring where it wasn't too hot nor too cold. But it was a ring scarcely 622 miles wide, though wrapped around the whole of the planet.

Lol took immense, smug satisfaction as he saw Thuban 9 start to turn normally when the spiraling dark pink beam hit the planet. Thuban 9 was slowly starting to rotate. He was devoid of compassion for the poor Terrans. He saw their plight as a needed sacrifice, and one that he was more than willing to make.

It would just be a matter of time before their planet, their wonderful Thuban 9 returned to its former glory. So what if Earth had to be destroyed for it to happen? It was an acceptable loss as far as Lol was concerned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2017, 04:58:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Working Fast

Yarin's ship landed quickly and quietly about twenty-four minutes later, and Yarin said, "There had better not be a scratch on my --"

"Priorities, Yarin!" Goom chided. "The Earth's rotation is at stake."

"By a machine the size of a refrigerator?" Yarin said. "That borders on absurdity, you know."

"Guys! Focus!" Gaz said. "Cloak's buying us sometime, but, no matter how powerful he is, he will tire eventually. The clock is ticking!"

"The pink energy sheath prevents any tactile contact," Xeno said, immediately, when they came to join them, "whether from fingers or tools."

"Have you tried any energy-based tools?" Goom said.

"The pink energy sheath interrupts them," Xeno said, almost clinically. "The energy sheath seems impenetrable."

"Nothing's impenetrable," Yarin dismissed, "not even Code Avalon. There has to be a way around this energy sheath. A weakness to exploit."

"Which is?" FuBar asked.

"That remains to be seen," Yarin said. "But there has to be a weakness. There has to be a weakness. Everything and everyone has a weakness. Flaws to be exploited for the greater good."

"Sounds good on paper, Yarin," Goom put in, "but we have a limited timeframe, as Gaz said. Can we find its weakness, the big flaw, to exploit in that timeframe?"

Yarin didn't have an answer for that.

***

"What happened to the previous team, Sir Lol?" said a ginger tabby.

"They debased and defiled themselves," he said, harshly. "They actually lowered themselves to mate with the native species, producing hybrid offspring."

"The little bastards should have been infertile then," said a long-haired calico. "That would serve them right, being the abominations that they were."

"They were apparently viable," Lol corrected. "I actually came across one that must have been a hereditary throwback. He was able to speak. He was able to think, if you could call it 'thinking', though he made the stupid decision to stay on a doomed planet."

"You would have brought a bastard like that here?" said a disapproving Maine coon.

"Yes," Lol said, "as an oddity. So all can witness the depravity and lascivious actions of the last team. An example of the moral debasement of that team of seven."

"Do we really need an example, a reminder, of that?" said a black ailurosapien with a white chest and paws.

"Yes, as a deterrent for the future if anyone else allowed their lewd, lecherous natures to get the better of them." Lol answered. "But he chose to die. But, in the end, it matters very little. Blue Blue Shiny Ball will die, and Thuban Nine will survive."

"What if our planet rotation slows again?" asked an American shorthair.

"Then we find another planet to steal the rotational energy once more," Lol said, unconcerned with possibly sacrificing another planet with life. Thuban 9 was the only planet that mattered, with its Day Desert and Night Tundra.

And, yet, something odd seemed to be going on. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2017, 04:40:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
More Than Expected

Something was most definitely wrong.

Thuban 9 was rather like Earth in terms of size and rotation, despite being the ninth planet around their star, Thuban. A Thuban 9 day was twenty-four hours, like Earth. Same with its hours and minutes. This is why the discovery of Earth was deemed so important to them, why the theft of Earth's rotational energy was even viable in the first place.

What happened next quickly turned Lol from the Thubanian savior into the most reviled individual on the planet.

Now the planet's rotation speed was about 22,000 miles per hour. Shortly afterward, it was 66,000 miles per hour. Then 330,000 miles per hour. A Thubanian day passed in the span of an hour. Then it passed within the span of a minute. Then it passed within the span of a second.

Then the next thing that the ailurosapiens knew was that their world was just a blur of movement. Their paws no longer touched ground. Their planet was now rotating even faster than Kinet (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kinet), and that was something. Several unlucky ailurosapiens were flung into space, without atmosphere to breathe. They suffocated within minutes.

And yet, despite these sad deaths, Lol survived. He bore witness. He was confused -- his rotational harvester should have stopped the Earth's rotation. It should have stolen that capability. Why was the planet still spinning? That's the only possible explanation. It should have only been enough to restart Thuban 9's rotation. There was too much of the spiralling dark pink energy now.

Lol was now not being praised or lauded, but being cursed and maligned. He fell so quickly from grace, before the blurs faded into black. . . .

***

"Well," Goom said, cautiously optimistic, "at least we're making some headway now."

Four hours had passed since Lol had fled the planet that he presumed to be doomed. But he didn't anticipate Cloak or the RAFian's persistence or determination.

They only really make any headway when Aquilai had arrived after his communications duty had been completed, and at Goom's request. It was his sonic screwdriver that enable them to pull back the pink energy sheath enough to start working on the actual machine itself.

They found the connector ports that allowed the machine to latch on to the satellite. All six of the RAFians were surprised with just how strong and tightly affixed they were, and, in the end, decided that they had to deactivate the machine first before attempting to undo these connector ports.

"Hard to believe that a cat, of all things, could make such a sophisticated machine," Yarin commented.

"Hey!" FuBar protested, offended.

"I simply meant that you haven't any opposable thumbs," Yarin said, not quite reassuring FuBar towards the perceived insult. "Such precise manipulation and mechanical ingenuity would require opposable thumbs. If it --"

"'It'?" FuBar asked, with narrowed eyes.

"-- If he managed it," Yarin said, correcting himself rather frustratingly, "then that would be remarkable in and of itself."

"Guys, focus on the task. Cloak cannot --"

All six fell silent as Cloak pulled his arms back, shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Then then he thrust his hands out again, still somehow maintaining his apex tier of power. Such a thing was not an easy endeavor, and it would not be equally easy to recoup the expended energy.

"Cloak cannot keep this up forever," Gaz said. "We've only survived this long because of him."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2017, 06:27:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Done!

Thuban 9 was finished.

Even after the planet's rotation began to slow once again. Most if not all of the ailurosapiens were flung off or otherwise killed. The atmosphere was dispersed, so the planet only barely had an atmosphere anymore. The civilization was destroyed and post-apocalyptic.

And, yet, somehow, Lol seemed to have survived. But it wouldn't be too long. The salmon-chicken were all dead and gone. He hadn't any food. He hadn't any water, clean or otherwise.

All he had was time. Time to pick apart his folly. Time to wonder how he went wrong. Time, as his consciousness slipped once again, to wonder why. Why this was fair. Why did Thuban 9 have suffer when those goddamn primitives on Earth could survive.

He was there long enough to know that they greedily poisoned their own planet to gain wealth, prestige and power. Wealth was pointless and prestige was, in Lol's point of view, an in-born trait. Power was a stupid thing to seek out, he mused as he felt his life ebbing away. This time wasn't just a momentary blackout, Lol knew, it was the real deal . . .

He shut his eyes tightly waiting for death to come and claim him, and spare him from this suffering and this guilt . . .

Was this the reason that the last team never completed their mission? Were they . . . were they smarter than him? Did they foresee this . . . complication? They were all from the most habitable part of the Day Desert, and they landed in a desert place on Earth. . . .

Thoughts cloudy now . . . mind wondering . . . no, that wasn't right . . . his mind was wandering not wondering . . . but he supposed both were true.

***

"There," Aquilai said, as yet another panel dropped. "One more tweak . . ."

The last of the weakening dark pink energy dissipated. It was done. It was over.

"And we're done!" Xeno proclaimed.

"Well," Yarin said, "except for the clean up."

"Cloak!" Gaz said. "Cloak, you can stop now."

Cloak did, and the planet was rotating as did normally. He was out of his apex tier, now. Cloak's eyes were closed, and he was on one knee. He was bracing himself on his left hand. His breathing was heavier, and his body actually felt heavier. Even his tail felt like it was tied to a fifty-pound weight. He was exhausted.

Then again, he had just forced the Earth to continue to rotate. Despite it being a rather simple in concept, it was utterly, utterly exhausting. There was an extensive amount of energy that he expended. It was wonder how he was still upright. Destroying the Xenomorphic Brood ship did not take such a consistent expenditure of energy, and he didn't have to do it for eight or so hours straight.

"Cloak . . . are you . . . okay?" FuBar said, ****ing his head to the left.

"Tired . . ." was his only reply.

"Okay, guys," Goom said, "Gaz, Aquilai, Yarin -- get Cloak back to his thread. He needs to rest. Xeno, FuBar, and I will clean up here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2017, 07:27:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Tinfoil

Cloak was safe in his bed, fast asleep. And, with sleep, came dreams. But why did he dream of Bern Bridges, sitting in a hole-in-a-wall restaurant? Singing?

"I never seem to finish all my food.
I always get a doggie bag from the huffy waiter.
So, I just keep what's still un-chewed
And I take it home, save it for later."

Then, as he got up and walked away, the restaurant pulled away, as if it were a movie set and not real.

"But then I deal with fungal rot, bacterial formation,
Microbes, enzymes, mold and over oxidation.
I don't care.
I've got a secret trick up my sleeve.
I never bother with baggies, glass jars, Tupperware containers,
Plastic cling wrap -- really a no-brainer.
I just like --
To keep all my flavors sealed in tight."

All of sudden he was in his radio studio, looking as if he took up a considerable quarter of the space. And, yet, he still sang (and not very well, mind you):

"With tinfoil.
Never settle for less.
That kind of wrap is just the best
To keep your sandwich nice and fresh.
Stick it in your cooler.
Eat it when you're ready.
Then maybe you'll choose
A refreshing herbal tea."

He slurped the tea very loudly and rudely. Just type of man he was -- loud and rude. He declared, "Mmm, splendid."

Then he sang, as the music took on a more sinister edge:

"Oh, by the way, I've cracked the code.
I've figured out this RAF organization,
And the RAFians know
That they're finally primed for world domination!"

And there was . . . the true purpose of the song, despite this all just being in Cloak's mind.

"And soon you've got RAF helicopters comin' cross the border,
RAF puppet masters for the New World Order.
Be aware --
There's always a RAFian that's watching you,
And the RAFians still won't admit they faked the whole moon landing.
Mind control rays, full-body scanning --
Don't mind that,
I'm protected 'cause I made this hat."

Bern Bridges wore a ridiculous skullcap-like hat, crappily made of tinfoil.

"From tinfoil.
Wear a hat that's foil-lined,
In case an RAFian's inclined
To probe you, or read your mind.
Looks a bit peculiar.
Seems a little crazy.
But someday I'll prove --
There's a big conspiracy"

And, like that, the dream ended. Almost as if it was interrupted by another dream, jockeying for position.

A lone figure with dangerous, glowing red eyes silhouetted by a blood red light. He seemed to have a humanoid body plan. His head and face seemed to to be made entirely of bone, with two devil like horns curling up from his eye ridges. Bone like shoulder pads and clawed grieves, which flowed red light of them like fiery smoke. He had lines of alternating red and black on his chest and upper arms.

He had red light constructs in hand, almost as if he was a Red Lantern. But he didn't wear the uniform. What could this possibly mean . . . ?

But, like that, this dream, too ended.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=urglg3WimHA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2017, 05:08:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Tomahawk Tosses

Yunyun was dispatched to a Western-themed ghost town base. It was actually a long abandoned and long forgotten Cadmus base. They had a fair few of those littered about.

She began in the wilderness at her back. Then she had to go underground, where she had to deal with several minor annoyances. When returning to the surface, she had only a brief respite before going underground again and faces more mall inconveniences. Then there was a branching path. She decided on the northern most path, which led her to the fiend.

The creature was humanoid and the size of an average man. It had a leathery, human-like face with eyes (white sclera and dark purple pupils) to match. It had a headdress of green-tipped, feather-shaped quills which was an actual part of its body and not a hat. It had a light orange torso with a shaggy red abdomen. It had a large, silver tomahawk in place of a left hand, and its right hand, knees, elbows, and feet were black. Its forearms and shins were light orange, while its upper arms and thighs were white. On its shoulders and shins it had some ornate pattern, the design of which recalled Native American textiles.

It jumped across the arena to move. It has three types of jumps -- a high jump, a long jump and a fake-out jump, which was just a small hop to get near Yunyun. It attacked by launching its tomahawk hand like a rocket punch, regenerating the tomahawk hand within minutes, and by shooting three feather-like quills from its headdress. Both easily dodged by jumping or flying, which Yunyun quickly did when the fiend demonstrated these attacks, both perfectly telegraphed.

However, she thought it to do such when it was in such a close proximity to her, lest getting hit from the tomahawk hand or the feather-like quills. It was quite fortunate for her that these fiends were never really smart. They all tended to telegraph their moves quite conveniently for their opponents.

She drew one of her magical cards -- sure, she could have used magic through the more conventional means that the other magic-wielding RAFians do, but she preferred this magical methodology. It set her apart from the others.

It moved to attack again. It flourished its tomahawk hand -- it was going to fire it. As it did, Yunyun shouted, showing the card, "PETAL BARRIER!"

A spinning shield of green petals with purple spots appeared and, not only blocked the tomahawk hand and the two feather-like quills that followed, but absorbed them before fading away from existence with their card.

This took the fiend off guard. Giving Yunyun the advantage. She decided to capitalize on it, quickly drawing another card from her deck with seemingly infinite cards.

"PETAL STORM!"

A flurry of petals that were somewhere between blue and orange, had edges sharper than a razor and were as hard as diamond billowed up and rained down on the fiend damaging it. Only ending and dissipating when the card itself did.

Yunyun drew again. "PETAL FLURRY!"

Another razor-sharp flurry of petals, white this time, struck the fiend.

Yunyun drew five more times, and each time it was flurry based attacks of a petal motif. After this seventh attack, the fiend was no more. And Yunyun just flew away from the site, as the sun set in a gorgeous manner.

***

Demos called it a "tomahokusapien". He confessed that he made it with combat in mind.

***

But Malice wasn't watching this. She was quickly working upon her next scheme.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2017, 07:00:54 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLVIII:
PRINCESS PEARLS
CHAPTER ONE:
Yamato Yoshi (http://turtlepedia.wikia.com/wiki/Hamato_Yoshi)

GH was dispatched to a self-styled impregnable fortress. Which he entered easily -- not so impregnable, it would seem.

Then he came to the real problem with this facility. And, no, it wasn't the faded emblem of a strand of DNA within a beaker within an eye that marked it as a defunct, forgotten Cadmus facility. It was clearly broken down and the walls were left bare. But, with so many facilities with this emblem, it was a wonder why no one had put two and two together. Wonder why the government hadn't shut them down . . .

Unless they paid off the government. Unless Cadmus, perhaps under a different name, was a big party donor. Maybe in one of those Super PAC things. It would certainly explain just how much leeway they seem to have been given. How they seemed to fly under the radar so easily. . . .

Could also explain why there was a black market that existed under the government's nose. That it existed because the current administration refused to start sniffing around either the black market or Cadmus, preferring to turn a blind eye to it. Because they were paid to.

Granted, this was pure speculation, and GH wasn't really fond of politics or politicking. Perhaps someone more in the know would be able to determine the veracity of these guesses made in such mental parrhesia.

GH shook his head. He should concentrate on these labyrinthine corridors. The fiend would surely be at the center, like the fabled Minotaur in that Ancient Greek myth. Who was the hero that killed the Minotaur? GH felt like he knew the name, but couldn't think of it at the moment. He did remember that the hero used something like yarn to help find his way through the ludicrously difficult maze.

It was actually not that difficult to find the fiend. Because it actually found GH first. The creature had a head similar, if not identical, to a yellow kabuto-style samurai helmet with a purple crest, mouth guard, and highlights. It stood a little taller than five feet and its human-like eyes had pale yellow sclera and black irises. The rest of its body was strictly analogous to yellow samurai armor, despite carrying a wicked-looking spear. Its abdomen, thighs, and upper arms were white, while its knees, feet, and hands were black. The spear it carried was as tall as it was, had a black shaft, and an energy construct spearhead.

It used two different attacks: one on which it spins its spear and throws its main tip, then runs to retrieve it. GH has to jump over the spearhead, then again when the fiend approximated to avoid being tackled by it. Its other attack consists of jumping very high while spinning its spear and shooting a barrage of spearheads that spread out. GH avoided by moving through an opening between the spearheads.

GH turned his guitar into its battleaxe form, preferring to take a more "hands on" approach. He threw his guitar-turned-battleaxe (actually a bit out of character for him, throwing his favorite guitar). When it hit, GH rolled and slid out of the fiend's impact side, snatching up his guitar-ax.

Then they got into a close-quarters battle, with GH managing to get six hits off on the fiend. The sixth one slaying the creature, biting through the fiends thin armor, thinner than real samurai armor.

Then he walked away, shouldering his guitar.

***

Demos called it a "yamatosapien". Another one he created for combat.

***

Malice wasn't even watching. She was counting what appeared to be eleven marbles. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2017, 04:45:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Both of You

Shadow, wearing a sand-colored cloak, was inexplicably playing a piano. Cloak was pretty sure that she didn't know how to play that. As she began to play, he noticed his mother -- or rather an mental construction of her, like the Shadow was a mental construct of his niece. He was still asleep after forcing the Earth's rotation to stay normal.

The mental construct of Shadow sang:

"Why don’t you talk to each other?
Why don’t you talk to each other?
Just give it a try.
Why don't you talk about what happened?
I know you're trying to avoid it, but I don't know why.
You might not believe it.
You might not believe it but you got a lot in common, you really do.
You both love me and I love both of you."

Cloak said nothing, just glared at this mental construct of his mother with the utmost distrust. He said nothing, and did nothing. He had nothing in common with his mother . . . except an obstinate nature, perhaps.

He remembered with his sessions with Aniyu, but the thing about trauma like this was that no matter what you try to do to get past it, when wounds are this deep, they tend to linger. The hurt never truly goes away. You just become better at dealing with it, with managing it.

"I know you both need it.
I know you both need it.
Someone who knows what you're going through.
You might not believe it.
You might not believe it but you got a lot in common, you really do.
You both love me and I love both of you.
You both love me and I love both of you."

Cloak turned his back on his mother. When he said he was done, done with this, he meant it. He wasn't in the mood to be hurt again by that woman. It was one of the reasons, actually, that he truly feared getting into a serious relationship.

He didn't want to go through that kind of mistreatment again.

Suddenly, he was in a black void again. At roughly eight o'clock, he saw a figure silhouetted in orange light, with glowing orange eyes. He was human but with a grotesquely elongated face and a tongue like Venom, but forked. His body looked unnaturally thin and svelte, and his mouth was lined with sharp teeth. His hands had very lizard-like claws.

Then, suddenly, at roughly five o'clock, he saw a small figure silhouetted in yellow light with glowing, yellow, pinprick eyes. The figure sat rather like an imp, with a pointed chin and a mouth full of sharpened teeth. Other than that, his form was completely human -- almost looked like a child. A demonic child, but a child, nonetheless.

***

"Wow," GH said, having just got back from his fiend mission and noticing that Cloak wasn't around. "Cloak still asleep?"

"Yeah," Xeno said. "At least, I assume so. You can't just force the the Earth to maintain its rotation for eight to ten hours straight and immediately pick yourself up, fresh as a daisy."

"Yeah," GH agreed, "it would have taken a lot of energy to accomplish that. Not even Cloak could bounce back from something like that very easily."

"Hey, what's that?" Xeno said, noticing a slight shadow passing over them.

"Is that a . . . a Saiyan pod?" GH asked, incredulous.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lfFKgsyPNaw

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2017, 04:45:46 AM

I suppose it is safe to say that the last book was based on the Futurama episode, "That Darn Katz".

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Drop the Pearls

GH and Xeno joined the throng -- Helen, Parker, Faerie, Azguard, Sakki, Demos, Horse, Blocky, Gaz, Shanker, Saffa, Abby, Bladeh, FuBar, Dino, Leatherhead, Melissa, Broken, Kelly, Quaf, SuperNate, and Shenmue -- as they watched this drone, shaped like a Saiyan pod roughly the size of a PokéBall, fly into the forum. This was an oddity, as Code Avalon should have prevented its entry.

Perhaps it was powered down for maintenance. Aquilai, Goom, Yarin, and Xeno had sent a memo to all the RAFians that the system needed some mandatory maintenance, and to install a klaxon alarm any time it fails. As with all things, it was not perfect and prone to faults and flaws. Prone to hiccups and snafus. This was apparently one of those times.

The drone flew into the middle of the group, where the most RAFians have aggregated. Then it just hung there for a moment or two, perplexing the RAFians. It did not have an apparently inherent dangerous appearance. It looked like a floating toy more than anything else, like one of those remote controlled helicopters. Harmless. Unassuming and unintimidating.

Of course, that's when it exploded.

Granted, it wasn't nearly large enough to do any substantial damage to the forum. It didn't even do any cosmetic damage. It wasn't nearly large enough to do that. But this explosion had another purpose -- a diversionary one.

No one seemed to notice that there were eleven strange pearls -- each colored white, blue, yellow, and pink in decorative swirls on the spherical body of the pearls -- that rained down from the explosion. The secondary explosion helped with that. Each pearl was small enough to be put on a pearl necklace or encrusted into a tiara.

But each hid a power behind this relatively unimpressive exterior. A power that most would believe was extremely dangerous, no matter who possessed it.

These pearls landed, unharmed and undamaged, upon the ground. They bounced up once. Twice. And on the third time, a brilliantly bright flash caused the RAFians to have to shield their eyes from it. . . .

***

Cloak walked through a void, his footsteps echoing ominously despite not appearing to be walking on any surface. He had a vague purpose for doing this. The Elements Master was vaguely aware that this was a dream, that he hadn't woken up since expending all that energy. That was what fuelled the purpose that he wasn't yet ready to reveal, as this was like a Truth Dream, but not exactly.

Suddenly, an immobile figure like a mannequin appeared roughly at five o'clock. It was as motionless as the others. It was silhouetted in green light with glowing green eyes to match. It had a humanoid form, but other than that, Cloak could not make out anything more.

Cloak had no idea what these immobile figures meant. If it was supposed to be for intimidation purposes, then it was a resounding failure. But the symbolism of the colors was not lost on him. Green, orange, red, yellow . . . willpower, avarice, hatred, fear . . .

And then, out of nowhere, at roughly ten o'clock another immobile figure appeared. It was silhouetted in blue light and with glowing blue eyes to match. The figures body plan was humanoid, but beyond that, Cloak couldn't say any more about the figure.

Blue light. Hope.

He shook his head, or at least his dream concept of his head. He was probably looking too deeply into. He had to press on. He had to do this. He had to do it. It would be too easy to abuse. Too easy. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2017, 04:57:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Distraction

"I was just trying to take my boy fishing!" GH was angrily telling a teenaged Leatherhead, as they floated, inexplicably, down a river on a purple car.

"I'm NOT your little boy anymore!" Leatherhead countered, equally angry. "I've grown up! I've got my own life now!"

"I know that!" GH said harshly, before softening and saying, "I just wanted to be part of it."

This stunned Leatherhead into silence, and GH continued, softly, "You're still my son, Leatherhead. No matter how big you get, you'll always be my son."

They sat in silence for quite a while, before the teenaged Leatherhead sang:

"There are times you drive me, shall we say, bananas.
And your mind is missing, no offense, a screw."

GH shrugged, "None taken."

Leatherhead sang:

"Still whatever mess I land in,
Who was always understandin'?
Nobody else but you."

"Your moodiness is now and then bewilderin'.
And your meter may be, so to speak, askew!"

"Gesundheit!" Leatherhead said.

To which, GH replied, "What? Oh. Thanks!"

Then he sang:

"Who deserves a shiny trophy,
As we face each cat-a-strophy?
Nobody else but you."

Both sang in unison:

"Nobody else but you.
It's just our luck. We're stuck together.
Nobody else, but you,
Is crazy enough
To believe we'll come through!"

Leatherhead sang:

"So your jokes are all, let's face it, prehistoric."

GH sang:

"And your music sounds like chimpanzees in a zoo."

Both sang:

"But when life becomes distressin',
Who will I be S.O.S'in'?"

Leatherhead sang:

"If you're having trouble guessing, here's a clue!
Though he seems intoxicated,
He's just highly animated!
And he's nobody else,
But --"

Both sang:

"Nobody else but you!
We've turned into, a true blue duo!
Hard times, we've had a few."

GH sang:

"Like we're thrown in the drink."

Leatherhead sang:

"Like we're tossed outta town."

Both sang:

"But when I start to sink,
Hey, I'd rather go down
With nobody else, but
Y - O - U!"

GH gave Leatherhead a kiss on his scaly cheek, causing the teenaged crocodilian to respond, "Aww, Dad!"

Cloak shoved the scene away as a distraction of his goal. He had to put restrictions on apex tier. It was too much power . . . too much power for anyone to wield . . . too easy to abuse . . .

Suddenly, a motionless figure appeared silhouetted an indigo light with glowing indigo eyes. It had indigo tentacles coming out of either shoulder, chest and back. Indigo. Compassion. The figure was like a mannequin, and Cloak ignored it.

Priorities, after all. He continued in this void which he presumed was just in his mind.

Then another figure appeared silhouetted in violet light with violet glowing eyes, rather like Spider-Man eyes. It had clawed figures and what appeared to be sweeping shoulder pads. And its knees seemed to be spiked. It, naturally, didn't move, motionless as a mannequin. Cloak ignored it.

He had to find them. . . . had to ask them . . . had to find out. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2ckq9vk5rAI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 23, 2017, 03:49:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Ch-ch-changes

When the flash cleared, several RAFians had the pearls, now all pink, about ten percent encrusted into their foreheads. These RAFians were all female and they were Bladeh, Dino, Faerie, Gaz, Helen, Horse, Kelly, Melissa, Saffa, Sakki, and Shenmue.

Helen was dressed in pale orange bodice with a high black collar; her short puffy sleeves are a darker orange color than her bodice and the green cloth poking through. The long and shapeless purple skirt has a black petticoat and flows right down to her ankles with dark brown pumps decorated with purple bows. She also wore a pink cape with a green interior. Helen's ebony hair was styled in a bob and parted in the middle. She wore a green headband with a matching bow. Her Star Sapphire ring was nowhere to be found.

Shenmue was dressed in a rather simple, pale orange dress with black at the elbows, shoulders and neckline. She wore well-worn leather shoes and had wild, flyaway hair.

Faerie was dressed in sparkling golden orange ball gown with a low-cut neckline, darker peplum (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/peplum), capped sleeves, opera gloves, a delicate laced black petticoat and glass slippers topped with sparkly hearts. Her hair is pulled up into a variation of a French twist that is complimented with a light gold band over it. She also white a simple white choker around her neck.

Kelly was dressed in a traditional German dress called a "dirndl", with a longer skirt than that of a normal dirndl. Her dress had a yellow theme with a brown accent. The dress consists of a periwinkle corset top laced with a brown ribbon. The skirt is yellow. It is decorated with swirling and floral designs in brown, pale yellow, and black. She wears a black petticoat underneath. The skirt's hemline is above her ankles, but well below her calves. Her sleeves at the top are short, puffed, and striped with brown and periwinkle; the rest are long and it is dark beige with a black lace at the hems.

Sakki was dressed in a chestnut brown ball gown with a petal overskirt, a ruffled black petticoat, and long triangular sleeves. She also wore a silver necklace and tiara.

Melissa was dressed in a red, sparkling, strapless, sleeveless ball gown. The gown's petticoat is a dark purple color. Along with the gown, Melissa wore dark red opera gloves, red shoes to match the gown, a dark orange diamond necklace with matching earrings, and a lily pad tiara to top it all off. With this outfit, Melissa's hair is pinned up in an updo bun.

Horse, now an anthropomorphic seal, was dressed in a dress with long dark orange sleeves, a light orange bodice, and a black shirt, along with white heels.

Dino, now looking as if she hailed from Reptilon (http://dinosaucers.wikia.com/wiki/Reptilon), that is to say, an anthropomorphic ankylotyrannus and she was dressed in simple Chinese dress, or hanfu, which consisted of a creamy reddish purple dress, with orange overshirt, which has red sleeves, and a green band around her waist.

Gaz was dressed in a silver ball gown with a simply designed bodice, wrapped off-the-shoulder sleeves, long silver opera gloves matching her outfit, a silver wide-hemmed floor-length skirt made of eight triangular panels and a multiple-layered black petticoat with a scalloped edging on the hemline, and silver high-heeled shoes. She wore some of her hair in a neat bun, but the majority of it trails down her neck in a beautiful, flowing motion resembling a ponytail.

Bladeh, now an anthropomorphic cat, was dressed in beige dress with feathered earrings with leather cords and turquoise beads at the end frame her face. She also wore an ornate chartreuse necklace.

Saffa was dressed in orange, cropped tube top that revealed her midriff and her navel with sewn-in sleeves for her arms, matching pants, and dark orange curled shoes. With the outfit, her suddenly longer hair was tied in a ponytail held together by two burnt sienna bands, and ending in a small swirl. She wore a pumpkin orange headband that is centered with a ruby adorned into it. To complete her outfit, two large silver bell earrings that dangled from her ears completely covering them, and a matching necklace.

"What even are those pearls?" Parker said, flummoxed.

"They're no magic that I know of," Broken said, staunchly sure that the sudden change in attire was magic derived, "and, frankly, I find that quite alarming."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2017, 03:15:01 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Personality Pearls

What were these pearls?

Broken found out through one of his most esoteric ancient texts. One he never perused with any frequency. He did this whilst Malice watched with rapt attention from her little, nearly microscopic camera drones.

They were some of the most insidious creations in existence. They were called personality pearls. They bore no sentience or mind of their own. They only existed to fulfill their programming, their protocols, their objective. Theirs was a single purpose. But no one knew precisely who created these pearls, nor how many that there really were in existence, or where they came from. They fell into the most obscure obscurity.

To supplant another's personality with another preprogrammed one. To alter it permanently. So that everything that made the host of the personality pearl before vanishes, replaced with the modified one within the pearl's perimeters. There was no known way to revert victims back to their previous state. And the pearls cannot be surgically removed and keep the hosts alive, as a failsafe of these phenomenally, unfathomably rare pearls.

There were said to be four phases before complete supplantion of the host's personality was permanent. The phase was determined by the color of pearl adhered to the host's body, along with the difficulty to come back from this. Even if a victim of a personality pearl was saved, this experience will leave an indelible mark on their psyche regardless.

When the pearl is swirling pink, blue, yellow, and white, only the host's attire will be changed, as if it was the Blessing of Aphrodite. The clothing can be removed, of course, but any other garment put on will be immediately transformed back into the pearl's preset attire selection. The pearl alters the host's form so as they can wear the attire. It is still easy to revert back to normal at this early stage.

When the pearl turns pink, the next stage has begun. The pearl's host's body becomes even more like the preprogrammed perimeters of the pearl. Even if it changes their species. Their personality hasn't begun to change yet, and all the changes are purely physical. This has conflicting reports of being painful and not being so. Removal of the pearl becomes harder, but still doable.

The next stage starts when the pearl becomes yellow. Then pearl's host's body gains the preprogrammed powers, losing any that they had before. This is only in effect while the pearl is still attached and adhered to the forehead of the victim. They still retain their previous personality, for the moment, while in this stage. While even harder than the previous stage, removal is possible, but being exceedingly difficult, but doable, and mildly traumatic for the victim.

The next stage is where it starts getting dangerous, where the pearl begins to turn blue. This is the stage where the personality actually begins to be supplanted and superseded. The original personality is permanently altered, slowly at first, but then with astonishing rapidity, until the victim's emotional responses matches the pearl's predetermined perimeters. Removal of the pearl at this stage is inexorably difficult, and impossible to do without the victim feeling some psychological trauma.

The next stage, when the pearl turns white, is arguably even more dangerous than the last. This stage affects the victim's mind and memories. Their very identity. It does away with any memory or knowledge that is outside the designated personality perimeters. It destroys any aspect of the victim who does not fit the narrative of the pearl.

The last stage was the most dangerous one of all, the one where there was no hope in saving the victim. Where the victim was essentially dead and long gone. It is when the pearl goes translucent, like glass. It doesn't show what is beneath the victim's forehead, however, as one may expect. Just the skin, fur, or scales, however the case may be. Within the clear, see-through pearl is a small flame of energy, like a will-o-the-wisp, of indeterminate color. The color of which mostly depended on the viewer --black if they thought the former personality was evil, white if they thought the former personality was good, and so on.

Although thankfully rare, these pearls were exceedingly dangerous. And eleven RAFians were afflicted with them. And this accused book gave no way to remove them other than simply cutting them out! Surgery may be an option, but what of Horse, Dino and Bladeh? The pearls made them anthropomorphic. The change would likely be permanent, and there was no guarantee that they wanted that.

If only Cloak was awake . . . he had tried to stir him once, but was unable to. He was just sleeping too soundly. True that he had basically kept the Earth rolling after that ailurosapien tried to steal Earth's rotational energy and that could not have been an easy task -- Broken found himself wishing that this whole "princess pearl" thing didn't happen as such an inconvenient time.

Hopefully, the Mark can interfere with this process.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 25, 2017, 07:45:49 AM

Yay I'm current on the story! Can't wait to read more. Gotta say, I like the sound of that outfit in the other chapter.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2017, 07:16:08 PM

:)

And I'm gonna make you wait a bit longer. This book might exceed twenty chapters or it might not -- I'm kinda rewriting it on the fly because I find that I don't really how the outline came out (somewhere between being too simplistic and too convoluted).

Anyway, the new chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Calling All the Past Masters

Cloak had approached what appeared to be still a black void. But it was here he would do what he had came to do. He took a stance as if he was going to use a Z-Move.

"I'm calling for the brave Masters," Cloak said, shifting his wait through the stances. "I'm calling for the playful Masters. I'm calling for the swift Masters. I'm calling for the Masters with lots of heart. I'm calling for the bright Masters. I'm calling for the loyal Masters. I'm calling for the proud Masters. I'm calling for the gentle Masters. . . ."

It appeared to have worked, as his grandfather, Sage, had appeared before him. He had his the hood down on his white cloak -- which signified his status as being Beyond the Veil. His white feathered head and yellow curved beak was all too familiar to Cloak. Sage was not only his maternal grandfather, but his Elements teacher. Granted, Cloak knew that he more than likely wasn't the most astute or the most tolerable student -- Cloak was a very timid, unsure, and impatient child.

Sage clapped cloak on the shoulder, reassuring. It was a bit odd, strictly speaking, in the strictest of Walker households to ever make physical contact with another. Cloak supposed this was why a lot of Realm Walkers had an almost unnatural detachment for species who had a more intimate physicality to them, considering them lesser. Perhaps it was one reason why Cloak was seen as a perverse pariah, a maligned maverick, in the eyes of those stuffy bigoted Walkers.

"They will come soon," he said. His voice was just as he remembered it so long ago. Wheeza, however, he knew, would not be one of them. She was not an Elements Master, though she did come to mean a lot to Cloak, just as Shadow and Faith meant a lot to him as well. "But I must say, I think I know what you're after, Cloak. And I must warn you -- don't get your hopes up too high."

Suddenly, a pegasus-form Realm Walker appeared, in a white cloak. Sage treated him with respect, but Cloak did not know their relation, though he was certain that it was a familial one. Then a female wild boar-form Realm Walker appeared, followes by a male panda-form Realm Walker, an ewe sheep Realm Walker, a giraffe Realm Walker, and a dog Realm Walker. Cloak did not know any of their names or relations to him or his grandfather. But it was clear that they were all maternal relations, as that bloodline was his mother's, the Truth Dreaming crap -- that was his father's bloodline.

Then a seahorse Realm Walker (which possessed legs and arms, by the way) appeared. She was followed by a raccoon Realm Walker, a piranha Realm Walker, and a penguin Realm Walker. Cloak didn't know the names of these ancestors of his, but he was really starting to appreciate just how many Realm Walkers were between his lifetime and Avatar's.

From there came a swan Realm Walker that Cloak recognized as Guardian, although he had never spoken to her. After her appeared a winged dragon Realm Walker, a Gila monster Realm Walker, a goose Realm Walker, an elephant Realm Walker, a frog Realm Walker, a rabbit Realm Walker, a rhinoceros Realm Walker, a snake Realm Walker, a stag beetle Realm Walker, a monkey Realm Walker, a seal Realm Walker, a bat Realm Walker, a rhinoceros beetle Realm Walker, a lion Realm Walker, a snail Realm Walker, a ram Realm Walker and an owl Realm Walker. All his maternal ancestors in some capacity. He didn't know if they were all direct ancestors, and did not think to ask, as his mind was on other matters. He didn't know if more had amassed because he had stopped paying attention to the new arrivals.

Except the last two.

Progeny, the unicorn-form Realm Walker who was the daughter of Avatar, the stag-form Realm Walker. Avatar -- the first Master of the Six Elements, who Cloak only spoke to once a long time ago now. Granted, it wasn't a full year, to the Realm Walker sensibilities, but it was in Dweller time.

"Young one," Avatar said, looking regal with his twelve point antlers, "not that it isn't great seeing the second youngest Master, but, if I may, why did you beseech us here?"

"I -- I have a request," Cloak said, all too keenly aware how childlike it came out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2017, 09:42:15 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Pink

Meanwhile, things were not looking good for the victims of the personality pearls. They all had just went from the shifting pink, blue, yellow, and white colors to coalescing into plain pink.

All eleven doubled over in pain, as their bodies contorted to match the perimeters preprgrammed into the pearls. Malice watched on, sadomaschistically enjoying every second of their agonizing pain.

But the changes were the most pronounced in Horse, Bladeh, and Dino. And Broken arrived on the scene too late to do anything about it.

Horse was still dressed in a dress with long dark orange sleeves, a light orange bodice, and a black shirt, along with white heels, but now her white seal fur was receding, apparently quite painfully, like morphing without the numbing effect. She gained long, thick, flowing red hair. She retained her soft brown seal eyes -- but she gained a broad human forehead, a small mouth, and a small chin. Her lips became bright red and human. Her figure was slim and her human skin was now fair. Her agony seemed to subsided, and her pearl was still pink.

Sakki was still dressed in a chestnut brown ball gown with a petal overskirt, a ruffled black petticoat, long triangular sleeves, a silver necklace and a silver tiara. Sakki's hair became as golden as sunshine and became waist-length. Her lips became redder than a red rose, and figure was tall and slender. Her skin became fair and without flaw. This transformation appeared to be less agonizing than Horse's, as she was closer to human than Horse.

Gaz still wore the silver ball gown with a simply designed bodice, wrapped off-the-shoulder sleeves, long silver opera gloves matching her outfit, a silver wide-hemmed floor-length skirt made of eight triangular panels and a multiple-layered black petticoat with a scalloped edging on the hemline, and silver high-heeled shoes. Gaz got off a little easy as far as the pink pearl agony went, as the only real change was her hair became brown.

Faerie was still dressed in sparkling golden orange ball gown with a low-cut neckline, darker peplum, capped sleeves, opera gloves, a delicate laced black petticoat, glass slippers topped with sparkly hearts, and a simple white choker around her neck. Faerie lost her wings and the pain was excruciating -- she would have much rather suffered the Cruciatus Curse, for the less pain it would bring her. Her skin became fair and flawless, her lips became pink, and her eyes remained the same. Faerie's hair became strawberry blonde, and medium-length with soft bangs. When the agony ended, she let out a very un-princess-like curse, and didn't care.

Saffa still wore orange, cropped tube top that revealed her midriff and her navel with sewn-in sleeves for her arms, matching pants, dark orange curled shoes, the pumpkin orange headband that is centered with a ruby adorned into it, the two large silver bell earrings that dangled from her ears completely covering them, and a matching necklace. Fortunately, she matched the human perimeters (by being human), and all of the other perimeters apparently, well enough to avoid any real agony.

Shenmue was still dressed in a rather simple, pale orange dress with black at the elbows, shoulders and neckline, well-worn leather shoes. Fortunately, she, like Saffa, was able to avoid too much agony by virtue of being human enough for the perimeters of the pearl.

Dino still wore the simple hanfu, which still consisted of a creamy reddish purple dress, with orange overshirt, which has red sleeves, and a green band around her waist. Dino was forced to suffer agony as all of her nonhuman traits morphed into human ones painfully. She really missed the numbing effect of morphing, though she hadn't morphed in literal years, being a nothlit. She gained waist-length, straight, black hair as her face rounded into that of a human face. Her eyes, however, remained the same. But her scales, claws, ankylosaur shell? All gone. She was now a human with ankylotyrannus eyes.

Bladeh still wore the beige dress with feathered earrings with leather cords and the turquoise beads at the end framed her face, and the ornate chartreuse necklace. All her feline fur forcibly retracted, feeling like needles were being pushed into her from all over her body. She lose her tail, and she felt every inch of it disappear into her coccyx. She grew to become a tall, slender, statuesque figure with broad shoulders and narrow hips, with bare human feet. She gained long ebony hair, as well. The agony was unspeakable.

Kelly still wore the dirndl, and the black petticoat underneath. Kelly's hair painfully became sunshine blonde, shiny as satin, and seventy feet long. Her skin became fair with a light tint of blush to it, and freckles around her nose. She was fortunate as the pain she had to endure was not that bad after her hair stopped growing.

Helen still wore the dress, as the others before her. Her skin became very fair, her lips became very red, her cheeks became rosy, and her hair . . . well, it didn't really change color. All these changes were agonizing in their own way, but it was a manageable agony.

Finally, Melissa, still stuck in the dress that she hated. She became taller and more slender with a sculpted figure. She gained medium-length, wavy, black hair, tied in a low ponytail, the same eyes with pinkish eye shadow, a brighter smile, and dimples. She wished she knew a magic spell to reduce the pain she felt.

"Damn!" Broken said, knowing that he was too late to stop the second stage. And he was not one to use profanities to excess. He had to somehow devise a solution, despite the ancient text not providing any answers or cures to this grievous malady.

However, he knew that time wasn't on his side. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2017, 09:36:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Recovery

"They've all been stabilized," Goom informed Broken, who again cursed his tardiness, and the mods. "If not for the Mark, maybe in conjunction with their sheer willpower, the macroalgia -- this great agony that they felt -- might have very well killed them. They were very fortunate in that regard."

"Well, we must be thankful for small favors, I suppose," Broken said, his concern having not ebbed in the least.

"Hopefully," SuperNate said, color had drained a tad from his face, "this was the worst of it, so we have time to find and develop a cure."

"Aquilai, Xeno, and Yarin are already working on it," Goom informed them. "I'd help them, but, with Kelly in . . . in this, uh, condition, I don't think that it is advisable to leave the infirmary unattended."

Ash sighed, "We do rely on her a lot for that type of thing, don't we?"

"She's our white mage, essentially," Terenia reasoned. "Her healing abilities were -- her healing abilities are essential. Still -- it isn't fair how much we're reliant on her, if I'm honest."

"At least we are working on a cure," Richard said, optimistically. "In time, we'll save them."

"Unfortunately, time is against us," Broken said.

<What do you mean?> Esplin said, with a slightly demanding tone.

"This was the second stage of five," Broken said, before launching into a hurried explanation of what he read in that old, leather-bound book.

<What are the timeframes?> Esplin said, at once, when Broken finished his explanation.

"The book didn't give any," Broken admitted. "It was rather frustratingly vague on that point."

<Wonderful.> Esplin said, sarcastically, swinging his stalk eyes in an overhead arc.

"There's really not much we can really do with that information without definitive timeframe," Ash said, worry creeping into her expression. "I'm assuming the book didn't list any cures? Of any sort?"

"None," Broken said. "None that I could make out or decipher."

"How encouraging," Phoenix said, dryly.

Broken acknowledged this with a slight nod, and said, patiently, "The scope of what we can do is limited, I know. But there is nothing that can be done scientifically or magically at the moment."

"Then how do you propose we save them?" Richard asked, very seriously. "Or are you suggesting that they were doomed from the onset?"

"The only thing that might save them is --" Broken said, but he was cut off as the eleven began to stir, not in agony anymore. Not any physical agony, anyway. There would be no way to heal the mental and psychological anguish that they would indubitably feel forevermore. This was not just something one forgot, even if a Memory Charm was used.

They would have to find some way to rectify this soon. These eleven lives, these eleven identities, depended on it. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2017, 11:07:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Request

"I -- I have a request."

Cloak hesitated for a moment before continuing. These were past Elements Masters, but Cloak only knew about four of them by name, and had only spoken with two, Sage and Avatar. It was still very intimidating for him. Intimidating in a way that was quite hard to describe.

"Which is?" said the lion Master. He clearly was a no nonsense type of Realm Walker.

"I recently accessed the apex tier of power, the zenith of power that an Elements Master can achieve," Cloak said, almost as if he was delivering an eulogy. In contrast, there was a smattering of applause and cries of congratulations. He did not quite like this reception. The apex tier of power was far too much power for any one being to have. The more power one person has the easier it is for that person to be corrupted. Cloak didn't want that burden to bear.

Perhaps that was selfish of him, as he wouldn't have been chosen to wield such power if he were unsuited, right? But he didn't believe in all that pseudo-religious stuff. He was not a "Chosen One". There were no prophecies of any sort that concerned him. That kind of trope was garbage, as far as Cloak was concerned. Something for people to say to make themselves feel important or claim that their despicable actions were preordained.

"You fear the power," Avatar said, quietly. Nonetheless, his voice carried and everyone else fell into immediate silence at the First Master's words.

Cloak hesitated with his response, choosing his wording carefully. He did not want to be hasty with his judgements and risk offending these past Masters, his Ancestors, whether direct or indirect. "Not exactly fear, Master Avatar. But I do feel as if it is too much. Too overpowered."

"Too easy to abuse," Sage chimed in, unintentionally.

"Yes," Cloak said. "I do fear losing control, of having the power go to my head. I fear it corrupting me, and losing myself in it. I fear it destroying me and all I hold dear."

"An understandable fear," the elephant said. His voice had a sort of old windbag bluster to it, somewhat like Hathi from the Disney Jungle Book animated film. "But I do not understand what you wish us to do about it, young Master."

"I wish to have it so that I cannot access it unless an emergency calls for it, like when the Dweller planet called Earth stopped rotating," Cloak said. "I request your help in restricting its access."

Silence met these words.

"Young Master Cloak," Avatar said, voice soft, gentle, and compassionate, "that is not possible."

Cloak fell dumbstruck for a moment. When he spoke, he was unable to hide his crestfallen tone. "It isn't?"

"Your power is not ours to give or take," the stag Realm Walker said, still with that gentle and compassionate voice. It was as if he knew exactly why Cloak did not want this burden, and could not blame him for it. "This power, the power that you've awakened has, and will always be, yours and yours alone. Just as was ours was ours alone."

Despite his gentle, understanding voice, Master Avatar's words did not comfort Cloak. Why did he have to be burdened with this power? He had really done nothing to earn such power, had he? He had not deserved to be gifted with such power, he still felt.

"You fear corruption," said Guardian, the swan form Realm Walker, sagely. The first time either he or she had direct communication with each other. "You fear the greater your power, the higher the likelihood of using it for maliciousness and selfishness. You fear consumption by the power."

Cloak paused for a moment be for speaking. And when he did it was a simple word, "Yes."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2017, 06:21:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Yellow

The next stage had begun for Helen. But she did not seem to be in any agony, or macroalgia, as Goom put it. But her pearl had began to turn yellow, but no drastic changes seemed to have happened. Her Star Sapphire ring had vanished but she apparently had manifested a sort of zoopathy, accessed only with her singing voice.

Thirteen minutes later, Faerie's pearl turned yellow, but, like Helen, she didn't experience any ill effects, just that her magical abilities had been stripped away from her. All her skill with her battleaxe had left her as well. She described the feeling as feeling as if she was being drained. She was not happy about this development, feeling helpless. And she despised the whole damsel-in-distress trope.

Nine minutes later, Sakki's pearl turned yellow, but she did not experience any macroalgia like before. But she lost any ability to use her sonics. She felt as if someone had severely severed her vocal chords. And she apparently developed some rather random narcoleptic episodes.

Thirty minutes later, Horse's pearl turned yellow. But she did not feel any macroalgia, but she did feel different. Stronger even, despite no longer being able to access her cryokinesis or hydrokinesis. She now possessed Atlantean strength, Atlantean endurance, speed swimming, aquapathy, swordswomanship, rapid adaptability, thermoendurance, and a magical singing voice. She was arguably still as strong as she was before, in terms of her power level.

Two minutes later, Gaz's pearl turned yellow. She didn't suffer any great agony this time. She had lost all her vampiric abilities (which made sense, as she was human now), but retained a degree of enhanced strength, stamina, and resilience.

A minute later, Saffa's pearl turned yellow. She lost her ability to morph as well as her dagger proficiency and her ability to manipulate diamond. She was just essentially a "flatscan human".

Three minutes later, Bladeh's pearl turned yellow. She lost all her feline powers (other than her keen eyesight, as her eyes never changed), but apparently gained a sort of aerokinetic insight ability.

Three minutes later, Dino's pearl turned yellow. She lost her sizeshifting ability, and became more astute with a sword and martial arts. She secretly like having this kind of knowledge, if it wasn't for completely changing her into a human (barring her eyes of course).

Eleven minutes later, Melissa's pearl turned yellow. Melissa lost all her magical ability, all of it drained out of her. All it was replaced with was a culinary intuition, which was a poor replacement, Melissa felt.

A minute later, Kelly's pearl turned yellow. She lost her healing abilities -- well, any part that wasn't connected to her seventy-foot-long golden hair. The hair was now magical, which can heal and restore youth via a small song. Kelly wasn't sure she liked it.

Two minutes later, Shenmue's pearl turned yellow. She lost access to an ability she called "Castle Oblivion", electrokinesis, superspeed, aura sense, and something she called her "soul cannon", which seemed to be a form of soul manipulation. All of that gone, and replaced with intuitive archery. The latter seemed to pale in comparison to the former.

"This is not good," Broken said. "After yellow comes blue, then white, then . . ."

"That won't happen," SuperNate said more forcibly than he had intended. "We won't let it."

"We may not have a choice," Broken said, feeling helpless to help.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2017, 06:37:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Unsettled

"Not to mention that now it's happening at random intervals," Broken said, concerned. "The previous stages, it happened to all eleven of them at once. Here, it was one at at a time. Like a falling domino. . . ."

"Why is that concerning, exactly?" SuperNate inquired.

"It made it far harder to predict when the color shift of these perilous pearls happens," Broken said. "Random chance -- it's what brought us to this situation in this first place."

"There has to be something we can do," SuperNate said, unwilling to give up hope on them. "I don't know what, but there has GOT to be SOMETHING."

"The scope of what we can do is very limited, if we can do anything at all," Broken sighed heavily.

<Why not just extract the pearls physically?> Esplin asked.

"That would, at this point, cause psychological damage of an unspecified degree," Broken said.

<So?> Esplin said, his tail-blade actually twitching, as if itching to use that. <They may be traumatized, but they'll be alive.>

"Which completely defeats the purpose of saving them," Phoenix said, sharply. He clearly did not approve of Esplin's ambivalence. "Traumatic events change people, Esplin. And trauma like that will not go away easily. Look at Cloaky -- he's been with us for six years, and he just recently started move on from his trauma or traumas. At least, from what he told me."

<But they'd be alive,> Esplin argued.

"With a piss-poor quality of life," Ash said, almost angrily. She was not one to curse so freely, so it was clear how she felt on this issue. "If they were to be as traumatized as Broken suggests, death would be more of a kindness to them."

Esplin did not push any further, seeing that he had no allies in this argument. He was only seeing the surface issue and not looking any deeper. And not really willing to do so.

"But there may be a way for them to save themselves," Broken said, thinking fast, not really paying attention to the argument. He was thinking any possible solution to this, and hit upon the only one possibilities he could possibly conceive. "But only if they have the . . . the willpower to do so."

"The Mark?" Goom inquired.

"Perhaps," Broken said, "perhaps not. I cannot say. Even the existence of the pearls is unprecedented. The ancient text never really illustrated a case where they were broken, unless my memory is faulty on the issue."

"Then there is still hope," SuperNate said.

"Not much though," Broken admitted.

***

"Yeah, keep up that hope," Malice crowed, as she watched this all going off from her easy chair. Her tiny micro-cameras reception was perfect and had crystal-clear clarity. "It'll make the payoff all the more sweeter . . . when you FAIL."

She cackled like Witch Hazel from Looney Tunes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2017, 05:56:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Little Consolation

"Yes," Cloak had told his ancestors, these past Masters of the Six Elements.

"Then, don't you see, young Master?" Guardian said, as if this was all the proof he needed. "You are aware of the possibility, and fear it. That, in and of itself, reduces the likelihood of that which you dread from coming to past."

Cloak remained unconvinced by this argument.

"Naturally," Guardian continued, seeing her point not landing, and going for further clarification, "some people would lose sight of this and allow themselves to be corrupted. But you fear it, and not without merit. So you would never lose sight of this. You will understand the gravity of any amount of power you amass, and judge its use accordingly."

Cloak remained unconvinced. Even the strongest moral code can be eroded and coerced by corruptive influences and emotions -- anger, greed, jealously, amongst others. He had seen it in the practically rotating door on the Council. One moment five Councilors sat on the seat, selected because of their high moral fiber or such other altruistic things -- and, on most of the candidates, these things are often artificial constructs made to persuade the stupid and naive to ally and support their platform and agendas.

But every single Councilor, no matter how strong their morals were, no matter how unbendable their resolve was, no matter how much integrity they possessed, in the end, their morals were eroded away, their resolves and wills were bent, and their integrity was always compromised. Cloak was sure all of them were aware of the possibility.of being corrupted by the elite establishment, but either chose to abandon their principles, manipulate and spin their political views into something more PR friendly, or just stop caring.

And it wasn't that too far a fall to make. On the contrary, it's rather easy for a politician to sellout those who were supposed to be their constituents for personal and selfish gain. Cloak had hoped humans hadn't had to suffer this kind of governmental degradation, but he had come to suspect that it was inevitable for any long-running governance. Once the cancerous lesions of greed and lust for power creep in, the governance, no matter how pure and supposedly democratic, would decay and rot.

But one could make the argument that that happens because they allow it, and Cloak would not allow his power go to his head. In theory. Cloak was not without his flaws, he knew. He was at times arrogant, and at other times obstinate. He never forgot a slight, and he was slow to forgive. He knew all this, and the argument could be made that this is why his power wouldn't corrupt him, because he was aware of these flaws, because he was aware of the dangers of being corrupted with such power -- as the whole "touch of Corruption" thing clearly demonstrated. He wasn't allowed the luxury of forgetting what happened when he was under the influence of having his personality completely flipped.

He became crazed with power, revelling in it. He no longer cared about innocent lives or collateral damage. He only cared about himself and his own enjoyment . . . in a way, he became just like Malice. Only he had the power to so much more than she could, he was a powermonger -- who wielded power in a tyrannical and irresponsible fashion. It was something, since the effects of Corruption's touch ended, that he despised.

"Young Master," said the pegasus Master, "we all had to deal with this. It is just your time to find your own way to cope with this power. And you will. An Elements Master always does."

Cloak still had his doubts, but he kept them to himself. Perhaps they did not know that he was also a Truth Dreamer, and that could possibly complicate this mess.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2017, 05:24:09 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Blue . . .

"Oh, no . . ." Broken said, as he saw Helen's pearl start to darken into blue. She was hitting the next stage already!

Helen clutched her head, her memories seemingly infiltrated by an insidious editor. She remembered being kissed by a man in strange, archaic garb of oranges and blacks with purple highlights and trim. The man's face . . . it was . . . Parker. He had lifted her from a glass coffin, and she was to wed this prince of her dreams. She would have a happily --

No, wait. That was wrong. It didn't happen that way. Did it?

Meanwhile, Faerie's pearl struggled to turn blue as well. Faerie did as Helen before her and clutched her head, fighting false memories and feelings. She was remember dancing, utterly smitten, with someone who had a muscular body with broad shoulders. This person had fair skin, light brown hair, and hazel eyes, nothing else was in focus, everything about this person's face was blurred. Her dance partner was in a royal outfit, that consisted of a black royal jacket, green pants with a silver stripe, a silver belt, white boots, and black opera gloves. Faerie felt enthralled just dancing with him, feeling as if he was the love she so l-- no! This wasn't real!

Sakki's pearl was struggling now. Sakki held her head, just as her predecessors did. She was singing in the forest when she met a stranger. This stranger was generally seen wearing a chocolate-colored tunic over a white shirt, with pale pink pants and boots that frame tightly around the stranger's slim, but fair, built physique. This stranger was also wearing a green cape and hat. The stranger carried a dagger sheathed at his left hip. Soon, however inexplicable as it seemed, they started to hit it off. They sang together and their voices harmonized perfectly. This was really -- it really wasn't real! It wasn't her memory!!

Then Horse's pearl was struggling now. Horse held her human head with her human hands, eyes shut. She had pulled herself up on the side of a ship, unseen by the ship's crew, hidden by the cover of darkness. She wasn't wearing the dress that she was essentially trapped in. But she was a mermaid, and she had fallen for a royal on the ship. The royal had fair skin, short blonde hair, and brown eyes, and wore a black, long sleeved, collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, orange trousers with a green sash, and white boots whose tops are folded over to reveal a darker orange inner lining. This royal's shirt collar is open to the point that it reveals the royal's clavicles. Horse felt an instant attraction to him as soon as he started playing the -- no! This wasn't real. It was fake! It was -- it was fake!

Gaz was suffering much the same fate as the others. She saw herself in a medium-length orange sleeveless dress with a black long-sleeved button-up shirt underneath, a black apron on her waist, a black petticoat, and pink ballet flats on her feet with her hair tied in a low ponytail adorned with an orange ribbon. She also wore a dark blue cloak. She was confronting a bare-chested and barefoot creature in a dark castle hallway -- it had the head structure and horns of a buffalo, ursine arms, ursine body, the eyebrows of a gorilla, leonine jaws, leonine teeth, leonine mane, the tusks of a wild boar, piercing brown human eyes, lupine legs, and lupine tail. This beast was shirtless, with ragged, light gray breeches, and a ragged yellowish-colored cape with a silver colored circular-shaped clasp. Gaz remembered gasping in fear once this beast stepped into the light, and reconsidered her -- no! That didn't happen. That wasn't true. It wasn't real!

Saffa's pearl was starting to act up in the same way. She was on the edge of the palace's balcony. It was daytime in the desert, when she saw another suitor for her hand coming. He had actually come with a veritable parade! She was so disgusted by this, she turned around and walked away. But . . . no. That wasn't right. That never happened. It wasn't true . . .

Bladeh's pearl was starting in now, too. She was standing in front of a waterfall, the spray of which gave the scene an almost eerie ambiance. She had just come across a person with blonde hair wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, a silver armor breastplate, orange pants, and white boots. He held what was probably a flintlock rifle of sorts. She ran from . . . wait. She wasn't ordinarily human. She wasn't bipedal usually. This . . . this memory was false! Implanted by the pearl!

Dino's pearl was attempting to mess with her memories and emotions as well. She was sitting in the rain, sheltered beneath a great stone dragon statue. She was contemplating many things, before coming to a decision to save . . . suddenly, the images of Dactyl, Dweebers, and Don fought for position. This is what made Dino sure the previous "memory" was just an implanted one. A false memory implanted by the pearl for some reason.

Melissa's pearl was now at it. She was wearing an iconic orange princess gown loaned with a matching tiara, as well as a necklace complete with a white diamond in this scene, and she was talking to a frog. But she was completely unnerved when this frog started to talk back. Then, suddenly, the frog was her cat. Then back again. This solidified to her that this wasn't real, that this "memory" was nothing but an artificial construct by the pearl.

Kelly's pearl had decided that it was now its turn. She had a person ensnared in her seventy-foot-long hair. This thief was average height and build with fair skin, short sandy brown hair, a scruffy goatee, and dark brown eyes. This would-be thief wore a turquoise vest with a black long-sleeved shirt underneath, coupled with light cream pants, leather bucket-top boots, and a leather belt. Kelly was holding him at frying pan-point and interrogating him . . . only for her to quickly realize that this wasn't her. Something didn't feel right -- and she was sure this was an implanted memory from the pearl . . .

Finally, Shenmue's pearl had deigned to start in. She was notching an arrow -- but immediately felt as if this was wrong. All of this was wrong. This wasn't a memory, this was an illusion! A false memory!

"They're fighting it," SuperNate said, sounding almost relieved.

"Yes," Broken said, concerned and weary, "but for how long?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2017, 06:13:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Nothing Works

While this went on, Yarin, Aquilai, and Xeno worked almost feverishly to cure their compatriots. But the results they were yielding were less than optimal. It took them a while to create anything that they'd thought would be both safe and effective to administer, and even those so few ampules did not work.

It seemed as if everything that they tried, everything that they so much as attempted had a severe drawback or simply did not and would not work. It was highly frustrating. This amount of frustration had the habit causing tensions to rise and hurtful snapping to occur.

Broken's constant refrain of how their efforts were in vain and utterly futile didn't help their overall morale. All three took this as a challenge to their ingenuity and creativity. And challenges are meant to be overcome, as far as all three were concerned. No matter the seemingly futility of the problem at hand.

But, the increasing amount of failure was enough to wear on anyone's morality, and increase anyone's frustration to high levels. Tempers, naturally, would flare up. Things were said in anger, and, once said, things cannot be taken back.

However, they would not give up.

***

Kelly continued to struggle with these fraudulent memories. She was a little girl, singing, as the woman that she believed to be her mother brushed her hair. But, this was wrong. This wrong because it wasn't real. But it felt like it was.

Dino continued to struggle with these ersatz memories. She was writing cliff notes on her arm, with an archaic calligraphy brush -- something she would never be able to do in her normal form -- so she would remember the things she would have to when she met the matchmaker . . . that wasn't real. It wasn't real. But it felt real.

Saffa continued to struggle with these faux memories. She was talking to her father, as she had a moment with a pet Bengal tiger. The tiger had chase away a pompous suitor that she had rejected. And -- it wasn't real. It wasn't real, but it felt as if it were.

Horse continued to struggle with these spurious memories. She was a mermaid exploring a sunken ship, with a purple guppy with orange stripes, and she found a fork -- and it wasn't real. It felt deceptively real, but it wasn't. She knew this.

Faerie continued to struggle with these implanted memories. She was just waking up, humming to herself. Then she got demands from her stepsisters, and she was treated more like a servant than -- no! This wasn't real. It may have felt like reality, but it wasn't.

Helen continued to struggle with these false memories. She was picking flowers in a lovely meadow, under the watchful gaze of a hawk, as a man comes up to her, intent to cut out her heart and -- it wasn't real. It felt real, but that was a lie.

Sakki continued to struggle with these fake memories. She was leaving a cabin in a forest, and pulled a veil down over her hair. And she went out to -- no! This was lie. It felt real, but this was wrong. It was a lie.

Gaz continued to struggle with these counterfeit memories. Gaz was walking from her home just outside a provincial village, holding a orange hardback book in a handwoven basket, heading off to a bookstore. But this was not real. It felt real, but it wasn't.

Bladeh continued to struggle with these bogus memories. She was standing on sheer cliff as the wind billowed around her. Then she leaped off and dived into the deep lake below. And -- it wasn't real. It wasn't. Though she felt it was, but she consciously knew it wasn't.

Melissa continued to struggle with these ingenuine memories. She was travelling home after working a night job, and fell upon her bed. Then she had to get up for her day job and . . . and . . . and this was not real. It felt real, but it wasn't. But it felt so . . .

Shenmue continued to struggle with these phony memories. She was travelling with a bear before she abjectly rejected this as being unreal. It felt real, of course, but she knew it wasn't.

***

"Ha!" Malice said, very much like a person set in their usual schedule, watching their "stories". "Look at these Dwellers! Look at them not knowing when a cause is beyond futile. Look at them not knowing when to cut their losses!"

She cackled like Witch Hazel again.

"Their suffering is so delicious," she crowed. "Pity, Sage's spawn's spawn isn't around to suffer, too."

She paused as she watched tempers flare amongst the RAFians, with a giddy smile on her face. She watched the eleven pearl-afflicted RAFians struggle to maintain their own identities, struggle not to lose who they are, struggle not to be come the saccharine princess personalities that Malice had programmed into these pearls.

Malice remembered just how hard it was to even find the Gateburst things. It was a miracle that she managed to find eleven. There may very well have only been eleven to begin with, but Malice did not know this for a fact. She only knew that she found these eleven and airdropped them into RAF.

She smiled as she thought of the fact that there was no cure. As she thought that all these RAFians' efforts were for naught. There was nothing that they could do to stop this, and she found it immensely entertaining, the sadist that she was. She was so enthralled that one of her schemes seemed to go so swimmingly.

This was gonna get good.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2017, 08:09:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
We're Done Here

Cloak still had his doubts.

This whole thing was an exercise in futility, he saw. He had hoped to prevent the power from corrupting him -- anyone with this much power, corruption wasn't a question of "if", but of "when". He was afraid of losing himself, losing who he truly was, in that power.

He knew full well that, for some, power was a drug. A drug more powerful than any other addictive substance that humans may know about, though they probably knew of the addictiveness of power, as pretty much any sentient creature probably did.

The power terrified him. What if he went too far? One could argue that he did when he killed the Siren. He knew that he could be ruthless when he felt the time and circumstance called for it -- when it demanded it. Did that make him a bad person? Did that make his path to corruption all but assured because of it?

He bid adieu to his ancestors, and only Avatar, Guardian, and Sage seemed aware that he was not entirely convinced of their arguments. But they did not persist in trying to sway him. Cloak would make his own decisions and act upon his own decisions, they knew.

But Cloak did not wake. His body was still much too worn out from the expenditure of keeping the planet rotating at about 11,000 miles an hour for eight to ten hours -- he lost count, actually. Perhaps this was best that such power expenditure put him out of commission like this. It would mean that he couldn't go into the apex tier too often, and expend such effort and energy all willy-nilly like that. It was a drawback, yes, but a well-needed one, Cloak thought.

The more Cloak thought of it, however, the more disgusted he was with himself. Here he was again. Running away. Just like he ran away from his mother issues. Just like he ran away from the Nexus. Just like he ran away from . . . from his family, his sister, his niece, and his aunt. Now he was trying to selfishly run away from the responsibility that came with this power.

His ancestors were right to refuse him this request, he realized. He was like a child who did something wrong and was trying to absolve himself of any accountability. They were right -- this was his power and his responsibility. He couldn't -- and shouldn't -- have asked anyone else to bear its burden. It's burden was his to bear, his obligation to steward. It was wrong of his to try to shift that unto the shoulders of others, others who bore the yoke of this tremendous power in their past lifetimes.

It was an incredibly selfish request. For if he lost control, or used his powers in a flagrantly malicious manner, he would have been able to parse the blame towards them had they been able to shoulder some of his power. That was a very slippery slope to go down -- one where accountability would be a foregone conclusion, and everything would always boil down to being their fault. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility -- it may seem like tired old rhetoric by now, but the substance of the phrase still holds true. And, as logic would dictate, with greater power comes greater responsibility.

He was so naive and foolish to believe that he had any right to make such a request to his ancestors. And hoping that they'd acquiesce and comply with this foolhardy desire. They probably did this same thing when they realized just how much pure power they possessed -- or, worse, they were enthralled by it. Treating such power with a flippant, cavalier attitude in place of the careful and respectful weight that it deserves. . . now that's truly dangerous. It would be like giving a nonsapient baboon the button to all the nuclear arsenals in the world, and he was taunting others with the button. . . .

All in all, this power was not to be taken lightly. Cloak thought he knew this, but apparently, it did not really hit home until now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2017, 10:02:29 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Flurry of Fleeting Images

The afflicted RAFians were now really starting to struggle and sort out reality from falsified memories that the pearls were generating in their heads. It was not an easy thing to do -- even some of the smartest species in the galaxy (Galvans, Cerebrocrustaceans, Transyls, and the like) would have struggled to separate the two.

And still, no cure synthesized by Aquilai, Xeno, or Yarin worked. They were actually starting to get disheartened. Their resolve to not give up was starting to shake and crumble. It seemed almost entirely futile.

There was nothing that they could do, and that idea sunk into them like a vitriolic poison. Some RAFians were already beginning to mourn the eleven, that all-encompassing, all-consuming melancholy was starting to envelope them all. All except Cloak, who was still sleeping and recovering from his exertion.

The eleven would eventually tire, their fight to resist the pearls would eventually lean in the pearl's favor. The pearls would crush their resistance -- its been hours upon hours that they've been resisting. They did not have endless mental stamina, not one of them. They would tire and weaken . . .

All seemed lost. All the other RAFians could do was stand and offer the eleven their solidarity.

***

"HAH!" Malice crowed. "They've finally got it! They've FINALLY got it!"

She cackled much like a stereotypical witch, taking full delight in the suffering of these eleven and their compatriots. She was really taking too much enjoyment with this.

"Now they see!" Malice continued, with a big toothy grin. "Now they see just how puny things like 'love' and 'joy' is compared to the unbridled genius of Malice!! That will show Cloaky-poo just what happens when you fraternize with these lowly Dwellers. Not that most of the Walker public is much to look at, but they're still a sight better than these . . . matter creatures."

But her excitement would eventually take a decisive turn . . .

***

The mass of RAFians already mourning the eleven gathered outside the infirmary. Even the house-elves -- RAF's custodial, kitchen, and general housekeeping staff -- made a rare appearance to show their solidarity. (And, yes, even they bore Marks -- they deserved the same safety that it offered, Cloak had reasoned and Goom and Richard immediately agreed.) All in the forum came out to grieve, except Cloak, orlf course, due him recovering himself.

A blue mist billowed around, giving the whole area a pre-spirit-visit-Christmas-Carol vibe, as if it were snowing -- which was odd as it was early September, and too early for snowfall. But the whole forum took on a Dickensian feel as the RAFians mourned those that they feared to already be lost to them.

And, in all honesty, were they wrong to? Nothing they did to remedy the situation had worked. And they tried everything they could, every possible venue was explored, every possible curative tried. All to no avail.

The blue mist gathered around the RAFians, actually illuminating their Marks. The RAFians did not notice, given in to their morose mourning. The forum was soon obscured in blue mist . . .

No. No, it was blue light. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2017, 05:43:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
An Oath Cadence

A sudden chorus was heard, strong and powerful, unseen in the blue light and blue mist. It was almost like a Disney movie . . .

"In hectic day . . ."

Malice was miffed. All this blue mist and blue light was blocking her from seeing what was happening. She was missing the suffering! She was taking an inordinate amount of enjoyment from this.

Finally, the mist and light began to clear and the forum came back into sharper focus. But she seemed incapable to notice that the mist actually took on a more defined, focused form. She seemed to be ignorant of just what this blue light and blue mist was, but Malice never bothered learning about anything that she couldn't manipulate to malicious ends.

She may be intelligent, but, at times, it was a lazy kind of intelligence. And that was something she couldn't excuse with her status as an octogenarian.

". . . in fretful night,"

Wait -- why were the eleven exiting the infirmary? Had the personality pearls already done their job? Had her newest scheme already succeeded fully? Had she accomplished her goal of hurting Cloak through his precious little Dweller pets?

She hoped so. She hoped that it was painful and as psychologically damaging as possible. She had nothing but malice (hence her chosen name) and enmity for the young Elements Master, who was at least fifty Nexusian years her junior. Though she would never admit it, this was a catharsis for her. She needed to do this to unwind, like an average person channel surfing or other such favored pasttime. What did she care that innocent people were hurt in the process? They weren't Dwellers and, more importantly, they weren't anyone that she cared personally about (and there was only ever one person who she ever really cared about, and it was who she saw in her reflection).

"No villain will escape our fight."

It was only then that Malice noticed the pearls set into each of the eleven's forehead. They weren't transparent, like glass, as she had eagerly anticipated. They weren't white, either. They weren't even really blue anymore.

The pearls were paling back to yellow! That was impossible! Impossible! The personality pearls colors never backtracked like that. Never!!

She sat up straighter in her chintzy, threadbare armchair. This was not the ending she had orchestrated. This was not the ending that she mandated. This was not the ending that she ordained!

"If you revel in Malice's delight,"

This would not do! This will not do at all!

Oh, now the pearls were darkening into a deep pink again, reversing each an every transformation. Reversing the the transformation with none of the agony. It was a blissfully painless transition. This was obvious by the facial expression if the eleven RAFians.

This was what drove Malice to her feet as she angrily glared at her screen. This scheme was the perfect one! There was no escape from the personality pearls -- harmless to her kind, but able to afflict any Dweller species -- any Dweller species with a personality to alter. None should have had any defense against it, no matter how indomitable their will apparently was.

This was not possible.

"Beware our power --"

Now the pearls were going from the deep pink to a rosy pink. It was just a matter of time before the pearls would go back to swirling pink, yellow, blue, and white, rather like that of a marble.

Then the pearl would be extracted -- pushed out of their foreheads. Malice made a snap decision to fetch them and just us them all over again. She would use them again and again if she had to! This was just a hiccup. A small snafu in her scheme. It would be easy enough to rectify, she assured herself. This scheme would work, regardless of if it were the same eleven that were afflicted or not, she didn't care one way or the other.

The simple fact of the matter was that she would not accept another failure. She just would not.

"-- Unified light!!"

But this was thrown out the window as the eleven reverted fully back to their true, normal selves, personalities intact, and the pearls were pushed out -- only to disintegrate into the finest of powders.

Useless! They were useless to Malice now! Her beloved scheme had failed! This was her most perfect scheme, in her view, yet! And she was thwarted yet AGAIN!! This was really too much. She was thwarted by a bunch of DWELLERS! Primitives! Cloak did not even have the courtesy to foil the scheme. He never even showed up!

The embarrassment! The mortification! The humiliation! The abasement! The shame of it all!

No matter. She had a contingency scheme. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2017, 09:25:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Getting Back to Normal

GH was having a day out with Leatherhead. It was a crisp September day, and the world wasn't ending. At least, not yet. The anthropomorphic crocodilian sang to his adopted father:

"You mean if ever
I'm in any kind of great big mess or trouble?"

GH sang back:

"I'd be right there.
We'll be a pair."

"You mean you'll never leave me all alone?
We'll always be a double, we two?"

"That's the arithmetic.
I'd stick with you."

"Just say we're hanging by a rope above an Knightly witch's brew pot.
It's bubbling blue with sticky goo.
Our rope gives way and then we crash and make a splash
Inside her stew pot of glue."

"Even if you're sticky sick,
I'd stick with you.
I'm sticking with you!"

Leatherhead giggled like the six-year-old he was, which caused GH to laugh as if the laughter was contagious. Then Leatherhead yawned, and GH drew him close.

Leatherhead said, "Father and son. . . ."

" . . . And we always will be . . . always.
Through all the thin and thick.
We two will do the trick,
I'd stick with you.
Faster than the clock can tick,
I'd be there just as quick.
No one I'd rather pick.
I'd stick with you."

He gave Leatherhead a kiss on his forehead, and began to take him back to his thread. He may never have been ready for the harsh responsibility of parenting . . . but this, moments like this, made it worth it. Moments like this . . . it paid for the harder times worth weathering.

***

His waking self, his body, was still not ready to rise from his bed. Still covered with his navy blue sheets and comforter (which had the same effect of helping block his corona from harming the Realm -- very useful, should someone foolishly throw caution to the wind and burst into his thread, unbidden and unannounced), Cloak slumbered still.

And this is when a thought occurred to him, in this dream aether that he was in, in this lucid dream in which he was suspended. A thought that, though he would never had admitted it aloud, excited him. Enthralled him.

He could talk to the past Masters of the Six Elements who have long since passed through the Veil -- who have long since died. He could communicate with Aniyu, as well, who wasn't an Elements Master at all. Could this possibly mean . . . could it be possible . . .

He was almost afraid of the answer as much as he was excited and enthused about it. In any case, he would have to try. Whatever the results were, he would have to try.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=l9VVX5nLusA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2017, 10:43:54 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fit to Burst

Azguard was dispatched to investigate a flooding chemical plant. It was a dangerous mission, and one that he wasn't exactly to keen on. He entered the plant on dry land, and that remained so until about a minute later.

His route was completely blocked off by water. It looked fine. Safe enough to swim . . . but should he take that risk? Even if he had iced his way down there, he could possibly pick up something, some sort of parasite, that he would find immediately undesirable. Hell, that might not even be water at all, just a chemical that looks like water, and is odorless.

Better not take chances. Az just pulled an Iceman and created an ice bridge right above this water, and proceeded onward.

It wasn't too long before Azguard came to a padded room that this fiend decided to make its den. The creature had round, human-like eyes (yellow sclera and black irises) set into an orange head that looked like a rook chess piece with purple circular earholes on the sides. It had a purple mouth plate and a forehead plate. It had green growth attached to its back, with brown corrugated tubes attached to the front of its orange torso, with two stiff transparent structures that showed the purple explosives that were its weapon. It had two purple vertical stripes on its shoulder, and its upper arms and thighs were white. Its forearms were orange with a purple right wrist and black hand. It did not have a left hand, but some sort of bubble generator with a purple muzzle with a black interior and a green core. Its lower legs were orange with white and purple bar markings. Its pod-like feet were black atop with white soles, with a purple ankles with green centers.

Before the battle commensed, Azguard assessed quickly that there are two hazards in this room -- some Insta-Death brand spikes on the ceiling, and the walls which would make him bounce through the room.

This fiend appeared to have only two attacks: his first one involved in using its bubble generator and shooting three yellow bubbles that would make Az bounce backwards and towards the walls, then planting his bubble cannon on the floor and making big bubbles rise from where Az is standing. The yellow bubbles can be destroyed with the ice shards, and then Az would have to move around the room to avoid being carried by the bubbles to the spikes. Its second attack involved in shooting three bubble-encased explosives, and then jumping high. The bubble-encased explosives would chase Az and encase him, carrying him to the ceiling, and, if the brand was to be believed, killing him. They can be avoided by jumping on them when they are low enough, which would make them rise and pop on the ceiling, dropping the stray explosive, however. The explosive will explode after a short time. If Az presumably got caught in one of these, he could escape from the bubble by freezing it rapidly. If Az was potentially running out of space, Az should slide below the fiend, if it jumps to regain space.

Az continued to assess the fiend, and strongly suspected that it was weak to extremes in temperature. He hoped that that was not just wishful thinking. But it was worth a try, was it not?

Az quickly formed a shurriken shaped like a generic snowflake -- he had no idea why he wanted to form a cryokinetic construct in this shape, but decided to just roll with it. Then he flung the construct as if it were a Frisbee. It made direct contact with its abdomen.

The fiend flinched backward, causing four purple explosives to drop around it. Exploding around him, harming the fiend greatly. But it manages to tank the explosions enough.

"Lather, rinse, repeat," Az said, as he proceed to do this maneuver another six times, slaying the fiend on the sixth snowflake Frisbee. It was over, and Az deftly left. "Hope Kelly can heal me if I got any diseases from that water . . ."

***

Demos called it a "basutosapien". He made it so it could guard chemical plants.

***

Malice didn't watch this at all. She was already onto her next scheme.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2017, 06:55:32 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLIX:
ATTACK OF THE KILLER PRODUCE
CHAPTER ONE:
Cloudy With a Chance of Fiends

Parker was dispatched to the floating weather institute. Why anyone ever thought this facility was a good idea, he didn't know. The place would be a prime target for anyone with terrorist inclinations. Do these people not consider security?

He didn't like it -- he didn't like how he even had to have Yarin drop him off at this podunk (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/podunk) meteorological facility. He did not like all the sheer dropoffs he saw with not so much as a hand railing in sight. How has the Occupational Safety and Health Administration not condemned this place yet? The lack of handrails alone had to constitute a serious violation, let alone what potentially lay within.

Was the place staffed by aurorae or something? Parker couldn't help but wonder as he walked inside to find key bits of the floor missing. There was no way that this facility was O.S.H.A. approved. At least, by a competent inspector.

Fortunately, the fiend was not hard to find, having made its den in on of the open air parts of the facilities on a floating, circular platform. The creature was stout, yet about six and a half feet tall. It had what appeared to be five orange-flavored orange lollipops, fanned out, attached to a growth on its back that was scarlet with a purple ring around it -- these actually acted as lightning rods and the source of the fiend's electrokinesis. Its body plan had a vaguely fat teardrop shape, and its face was set into the top of its body -- if you could call it a face, as it only consisted of round, human-like eyes (yellow sclera and purple irises) set deep into the fiend's body and stern mouth. Its lower body was completely legless and surrounded in white, fluffy clouds, separated by a shiny, metallic ring with metallic orange studs. It floated instead of walking. The top of its head was blue-and-purple striped and shaped like a Hershey's kiss. It's body was blue, with three red, horizontal bars on its chest, its abdomen was dark blue with two metallic studs, and its vest-like armor was blue with purple trim. Its shoulder pads was orange with purple trim apparently affixed by large Phillips-head screws, over its blue shoulders. Its upper arms were white, its lower arms were blue with a purple stripe that had two metal studs vertically. Its wrists were purple and its hands were black.

Parker quickly assessed the situation. The fiend floated up from the center of the room, then it charged electrically himself (evidently, invincible while doing so) to fire his lightning from that height towards the RAFian. The electric bolt acted as a fast lightning bolt that created four electric spheres that go by the floor when it hits the ground (two from each side of the electric bolt). It could be avoided by jumping over the lightning, so it may fail to hit Parker along with the four electric spheres, or even fail to hit the ground. Right after that, he floated to Parker's level, and then casts rain and wind that tried to push Parker into the pit or pushing him towards the fiend to collide with him, then pushing Parker onto the pit. It will stay in the same spot and electrically charge himself again, then shock the floor, creating the same electric spheres, and he does this twice in a row. As the rain and wind's power are higher than Parker's, he had to dive to avoid falling, while jumping so he avoided the electric spheres. After the rain stopped, the fiend started chasing the RAFian, leaving a small gap below him so Parker can slide to avoid contact with him. It then repeats this attack pattern.

Parker had an intuitive, sneaking suspicion that it would be weak to his sticky bombs. When the SPARTAN gave it a test go, it worked exceptionally well, despite the fiend appearing to have tanked it. The explosion caused the fiend to lose its cloud lower half and come slamming into the ground for increased damage. Both to the fiend and the platform.

Six more sticky bombs finished off the creature -- and the platform. It began to drop to the ground, not like a stone but a meteor. Parker called Yarin to demand he get his butt over here. When he did and picked up Parker, the SPARTAN deftly destroyed the plateform into harmless debris.

Fortunately, no one lived in the area below them.

***

Demos called it a "nimbisapien".

***

Again, Malice apparently lost interest in the whole fiend fiasco. She was focused on her next scheme, holding a vial of some strange, science-y goo.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2017, 03:15:45 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Denial of Doubt

Cloak was aware of how this may turn out. How he may be disappointed. But his waking self was still slumbering and he was still lucid dreaming. So he had a chance, and opportunity to reconnect . . .

He couldn't pass it up. He couldn't.

He would be able to speak to her again. Be able to . . . able to . . . to say all the things that he never got the chance to. This would work he was sure of it. There was so much . . . so much that wanted to say. So much that he needed to say, but never had the chance to.

Just the thought that he may be able to speak with her again . . . his heart and soul ached with anticipation. There was no way that he wouldn't be able to. So what if she wasn't an Elements Master? So what if she wasn't a Truth Dreamer? He would have one last moment with her.

He would be able to see her again. This could work. This would work. He would make it so. He had to believe this, and he did. So what if she wasn't Elements Master or a Truth Dreamer or anything like that? Those weren't stipulations. They were but mere coincidences.

He would see her again. He would. He knew it in his heart and soul. He had to just see her again . . .

***

A dark figure stood in the produce aisle of the local grocery store. She looked at all the eclectic selection of produce in various stands. Cherries. Chestnuts. Strawberries. Asian and western pears. Guava. Apricots. Bearberries. Blueberries. Blackberries. Artichokes. Chili beans. Wax apples. Babaco. Apples. Oranges.  Persimmon. Grapefruit. Figs. Kiwis. Mangoes. Papaya. Raspberries. Bananas. Pineapples. Pomegranates. ****lebur fruit. Corn cobs. Custard apples. Durian. Longan fruit. Bunches of grapes. Strawberry guava. Honeydew melons. Jabuticaba. Fingered citrons. Akebia fruit. Ackee. Langsat fruit. Lychee fruit. Plums. Mangosteen. Marang. Miracle fruit. Lemons. Cocoa beans. Coconuts. Pistachios. Peaches. Pitaya. Loquats. Rambutans. Tamarinds. Roselles. Rose apples. Salak. Cashew nuts and fruit. Horned melons. Starfruit. Tomatoes. Pitanga. Pecans. Parmentiera fruit. Watermelons. Cherimoya. Eggplants. Pumpkins. And more produce was present.

The woman -- who was obviously Malice -- opened the flask of the science-y goo that was forest green and blood red substances, swirling in cavorting, gamboling way. She uncorked it, and this seemed to almost excite the substance within, which began to froth and foam.

She chanted with an ethereally spooky manner:

"Carnivorous animation.
Mystic power that's far beyond the wildest notion.
It's so weird, so feared, yet wonderful to see!
Carnivorous animation, come to me
I don't want herbaceous substantiation,
Or remote sebaceous convolution.
Only one precise solution is the key.
Carnivorous animation, it must be.
Carnivorous animation.
Lovely carnivorous animation.
You make eclectic history."

Then she end this chant with what sounded like, "Nunc vive. Nunc vescendum. Non saturabimini.*"

The green-and-red substance turned into magic and adhered itself to the produce. It was like a magical contagion. A contagious magical contagion. This could prove to be a lasting problem. And Malice knew this full well as her malicious smile demonstrated as she walked away. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PpmshIjeSv8

* Yes, I used Google Translate for this. It's supposed to mean "Live now. Feed now. Don't be sated." in Latin, but came out "Now live. Now the meal. Not satisfied." which, honestly, I thought still worked. Bit of the behind-the-scenes info, for those interested.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2017, 06:15:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Attack

RAF was dispatched immediately to deal with this strange new threat. But many of the RAFians couldn't believe just how ludicrous and comical this new threat actually was.

Dameg and Demos had to duel with demented durian and dangerous desert yams.

Bladeh and Broken had to deal with bellicose bananas and belligerent beets.

Abby and Aquilai had to fight with aggressive apples and antagonistic arracacia.

Cerulean and Cloudbreaker had contend with carnivorous carrots and cantankerous cassava.

Esplin and E2 fought some excited egusi and enthused eggplants.

"Attack of the killer produce.
Attack of the killer produce.
They'll bash you, squish you,
Smash you, mash you,
Chew you up for brunch,
And finish you off
For dinner and lunch."

Horse and Hylian Dan fought harmful hanza (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boscia_senegalensis) and hellish hyacinth beans.

FuBar and Foxglade fought ferocious fennel and fierce filbert (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corylus_maxima).

Guy and Gafrash fought great bunches of grapes and garroting grapefruit.

Jess and JFalcon fought juniper berries and jackfruit.

"They're marching down the halls.
They're crawling up the walls.
They're gooey, gushy,
Squishy, mushy --
Rotten to the core!
They're standing outside the door!"

Nohensen and Noelle were dealing with nectarines and nannyberries.

Leigh and Liz were dealing with lethal lettuce and lotus seeds.

Kitkat and KitsuneMarie were dealing with killer kale and killer kola nuts.

Magdaleen and Mr. Guy were dealing with murderous mangoes and magosteen.

Oceanspray and OrcaMorph were dealing with oranges and olives.

" Remember Kandy Farfedge --
While taking out her garbage,
She turned around, and she did see
PRODUCE! Hiding in her tree.
And, now, she's just a memory!"

Terenia and ThinkAgain dealt with tangerines and thimbleberries.

Richard and RiakDemendred dealt with rhubarb and raspberries.

Parker and Pallosalama dealt with pompous potatoes and pretentious pistachios.

QIfry and Quaf dealt with quandong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santalum_acuminatum) and quince (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince)

Sakki and Shanker dealt with strawberries and snow berries.

"I know she's gonna miss her.
A potato ate her sister.
The produce is on their way!"

Yarin and Yunyun battle youngberries and yumberries.

Visser :3 and Voodooqueen dealt with vanilla and velvet tamarinds.

Underseen and Unknown User dealt with undying ulex flowers and underwhelming urtica.

Whammy and wildwethel dealt with wax apples and wolfberries.

Zohrra and ZombieGoast battled zucchini and zwetschge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwetschge).

"The president is on vacation!
The governor's fled the nation!
The police have gone on strike today,
The National Guard has run away,
Produce will have their day.
Attack of the killer produce.
Attack of the killer produce.
They'll bash, squish you,
Smash you, mash you,
Chew you up for brunch,
And finish you off for dinner and lunch."

"GH!" Saffa said sharply. She looked no worse the wear after the personality pearl incident a few days ago. She felt well enough to scold GH for singing while everyone else was fighting, anyway. "How is this helping?!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=b3uIKzgcDxo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2017, 05:29:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Anger Tempest

Cloak continued to run. To run to the spot that he felt assured that she would be there. That she would be there so that he would be able to speak to. She had to be there -- she had never let him down before. She had never caused him pain before . . .

He was nearing the place now. She should be there, he believed with every bit of his heart. She would be there. She would. In this midnight blue blue void, where there were no visible ground upon which to stand, but the ground was still there, firmly supporting his weight. There was no sound with every step he took, but he found himself not really caring about that.

She would be there. He would talk to her again. He would see her again. He wanted this so much. He desired this so much that he would have seen it in the Mirror of Erised.

She wasn't there.

No matter, no matter. Cloak was just early. That was just it. He was early and she hadn't arrived yet. That was all. She would be there. She would . . .

But she wasn't.

Why was she making him wait? He never had to wait for Sage or Aniyu to manifest themselves. Perhaps she was just waiting to make an entrance, like Sage did just before he took him upon Epiphany Road? He wasn't too sure about it, and he felt a small bit of anger bubbling in him.

He did not notice the midnight blue of the void slowing and subtly translating from midnight blue to a color somewhere between maroon and dark red. And it did so as his anger grew and bubbled within him.

She was really being inconsiderate now, making him wait. The void now filled with a barn red mist, which swirled around Cloak in a loose circle. She was never this inconsiderate to him before . . . anger was building in him . . . why was he being disrespected like this?

Was this because she supposedly told his mother to tell him to forget that grizzly bear piece of . . . well, that's too bad! He would never accept his mother back into his life. She shut that door and burned that bridge, and he would not be the one rebuilding the bridge or opening the door. He may have accepted his mother for what she was, but that did not mean that his severe antipathy towards her was in any way extinguished.

No, that couldn't be it, Cloak said, trying to stem his anger. But why was she making him wait?! It had really been too long now. She was taking too long to manifest. It didn't take Aniyu or the past Masters nearly this long to do the same. What was taking her so long?! He could no longer tell if he was angry or just really impatient at this point.

He was so sure that she'd be here. . . .

"She won't come," said a familiar voice behind him.

"You don't know that, Aniyu!" Cloak spat angrily, not deigning to look at her.

"But, Cloak," she said, sadly, "I do."

"No, you don't!!" Cloak said, still irate.

Aniyu pulled Cloak around -- which was not easy as she, as a lupine Realm Walker, was smaller than Cloak, a tiger Realm Walker. She said, "Cloak, she won't come. She won't come, because she can't."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2017, 04:18:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Sheer Malice

Malice watched it as her little fusion of science and magic took hold. She watched with smug satisfaction. This scheme of hers was perfectly evil, and these RAFian pets of Cloak did not seem to realize the true genius of the scheme yet.

These Dwellers were always enjoyably slow-witted, Malice mused. They haven't even seen the true consequence of this produce animation spell . . .

Oh, look there. The spell is spreading to more fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, and the like. More and more of the produce are being animated with fangs and clawed hands. The magical contagion, she projected, would eventually sweep over all produce of the nation, then other nations, and then globally. All produce would become carnivorous.

And simply destroying and killing all the killer produce would not be a very viable solution either, as Malice grinned at her own perceived genius. Because the destruction of the killer produce would not revert the foodstuffs back to their original form, and would make it impossible to be edible again.

She cackled at the thought, smiling a toothy, Tasmanian devil* smile. Realm Walkers aren't required to eat like the Realm Dwellers are. Besides, due to their coronas, they can't even eat Dweller food. Theirs is basically a species that has a  self-sustenance (http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Self-Sustenance) power, though they do require rest and sleep from time to time. It is rare when a Realm Walker won't or can't sleep, as they have problems with insomnia as Dwellers do (though the more bigoted Walkers would claim that it's worse than anything a Dweller has to deal with). So, this super-contagion would have no real impact on her or Cloak.

But Cloak's friends and allies at the forum? They wouldn't fare so easily. Sure, some of them like Oceanspray or Spectre did not require food, but a fair lot of them were human, or species that required consumption of outside resources for sustenance. They were not immune from starvation from this perverse famine. If this were not to be remedied, then they most assuredly would starve.

And, of course, this is precisely what Malice wanted. She wanted to see Cloak suffer, for him to see his friends dying one by one a most slow and painful death. Wanted to see him struggle to save them, see the futility of the action. Writhe with painful agony that nothing he can do can make the situation better, nothing he could do could save his little pets.

What did she care if she had to sacrifice the entire life on a planet in order to do so? It was all worth it, in her view, as long as she got her momentary, fleeting pleasures from it. That's how she saw, not only Dwellers, but even other Realm Walkers. They were all expendable to her -- mere ants beneath her magnifying glass to burn indiscriminately. They really served no other purpose but that which she decided for them. She saw their deaths as meaningless and inconsequential, as if this were just some sort of big video game where there was an infinite chance to respawn.

But she was aware of the grim finality of Dweller deaths would be. She just dismissed it, as a man would when he stomped and crushed an ant or spider beneath the heel of his boot. They were just NPCs to her -- their lives had no purpose other than what they could do or give to her.

You could really consider her life rather sad and pathetic. In her roughly eighty years of life (or eight hundred years, by Dweller Earthling standards), she's never had a true friend. She's never wanted one. She spurned every attempt at friendliness or affection, unless she could use it to manipulate the person for her own ends. Her family life was also apathetic and detached. She never married, and never bore any children. She considered marriage a form of imprisonment and considered raising children an inconvenience, an annoyance, and a bother. She considered both a waste of time and energy, and only the stupid would go for it.

Of course, this gets interesting in . . . well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

---

* This (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Sarcophilus_harrisii_taranna.jpg)
and not this (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c4/Taz-Looney_Tunes.svg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2017, 08:31:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Angry Denial

"Liar!" Cloak said, abjectly rejecting everything that Aniyu said. "She'll be here. She will."

"Cloak," Aniyu said, insistently, "she won't come. She can't."

"You're lying!" Cloak said, angrily.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, "listen to me --"

"No!" Cloak said, obstinately. "You're wrong! She would not abandon me."

"Cloak," Aniyu said, "you're not allowing yourself to see the truth."

"I don't believe you," Cloak snapped.

"Cloak," Aniyu said, "you're not seeing this clearly."

"You're not seeing this clearly!" Cloak said, childishly stubborn, turning his back to her. He almost backhanded her when she went to turn him around to face her again. He stopped himself from striking his ancestor from who knows how many generations past.

She took a step back from him, keenly aware what inclination he had stopped. "You want to strike me down, Cloak? You want to lash at out at me? You want to attack me?"

She spread her arms out, palms up, head bowed. "Fine. Attack me, then."

Cloak, even in his anger, could not do this. His heart could not allow him to do that to someone who did not deserve violence. Violence should only be the recourse when none other are available -- although he was aware that in some circumstances in the past where he had reacted rashly, and used violence too quickly, made him rather hypocritical on this point.

He just turned his back to her again, and, once again, she turned him to face her. She said, "Cloak. Cloak, I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm saying this because it's true. She won't come back because she can't."

Cloak said nothing. His anger had not ebbed in the least. He abjectly refused to believe what Aniyu was saying, and he wasn't willing to let go of his anger. Not just yet. It was actually starting to spread to Wheeza. What was taking her so long? Why didn't she show up just so Aniyu could be proven wrong?! Why . . . why was she taking so long? Why was she making him wait? She was never so cruel . . .

Maybe . . . just maybe . . .

No! No, he could not abide by that. He could not give Aniyu's words any credence. He would not. Wheeza never let him down before. She would be here. She would. He would see her again. He would hear her voice, her words, again. Feel her kind, understanding presence glowing with good humor. He would be able to speak to her again. See her smile, hear her laugh, again. . . .

"Cloak," Aniyu said, her words not reaching Cloak, "she cannot come. You haven't allowed yourself proper time to grieve over your loss. You pushed your feelings away,and refused to feel them."

He ran from them. Deep down, he knew it, but, in the current state that he was, he would never admit it. He kept hoping fruitlessly. For something -- for someone -- to never come.

Cloak was essentially hoping for something he'd see in the Mirror of Erised, something that was impossible to come true.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2017, 05:02:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Acknowledgement of a Problem

"I just thought of something," Aquilai said, as he surveyed the damages and heard a produce merchant loudly lament "My cabbages!"

Cabbages that killed and ate sewer rats the size of an old rag, their appetites insatiable as a Guzzlord. They were rudely stomped by a passing Dino, her thick, scaly hide practically untouchable by the fangs and claws of the produce.

The merchant seemed to consider the fact that they seemed to be willing to move up from rat to human flesh, and decided that it was probably for the better that they were gone. But they were his livelihood . . . but if they killed him, eating him, having a livelihood wouldn't matter one lick. He dismissed it, saying, "Oh, forget it."

"What?" Xeno said. "There is still more of that infected produce to deal with, Aquilai."

"That's just it," Aquilai said, mind going eleven thousand miles a minute. "The produce -- the contagion that made them . . . like this."

"What about it?" Gaz said, as Lazerbeak wheeled around her like an Orbitar from "Kid Icarus".

"It's contagious," Aquilai explained, forcing his mind to slow down so he could put it into words, "it's catching to any uninfected produce within a very short proximity and very short incubation time."

"What's your point?" Faerie said, deftly slicing a really annoying orange into quarters, somehow with a single strike.

"Faerie, consider the larger stake in this," Aquilai said, "no form of produce is immune."

Sakki whistled a sonic whistle which shredded a murderous magosteen into ribbons and mess. Then she said, "Cut to the chase, Aquilai. We don't have time to --"

She turned what would be a slip on produce slush and mess and a hard landing on her backside into a handspring and somersault. She didn't expect or require any accolades or adulation for this perfectly executed maneuver, as she had honed it in the forum training room -- affectionately known as the "Danger Room".

"-- have time for lengthy antidotes." Sakki concluded, as if she were not interrupted. "Get to the point."

"I was just trying to impress upon you the potential worldwide consequences of this," Aquilai said, quite concerned. "No produce is safe from this viral contagion. None are immune. Consider the problems that would arise if there were no uncontaminated produce in the world."

Silence greeted this pronouncement, aside from the shrieks and snarls of the produce now being smashed and mashed to bits. The streets were littered with the remnants, debris, and various detritus from these fights. The gravity of the situation was being acknowledged by all.

"What we're looking at is a potential worldwide famine," Aquilai said, seriously. "And we need to stop it."

"Good idea!" GH said. "Any idea how?"

***

Malice cackled and crowed as she followed the conversation. "They finally got it. They finally understand my genius. They can finally appreciate the futility of their predicament."

She gave a laugh of which the Joker would be envious.

"There is no cure!" she said, savoring the moment of reveal. "Science will not undo it. Magic cannot undo it. It cannot be stopped. These Dwellers will die. They will starve -- animal feed is affected as well. Meat cannot last long without another food source. Biological specialists are more likely to die off than generalists."

She smiled a toothy grin, anticipating a crumbling resistance that would surely follow next. This was a rather slow burn scheme that had caught fire quickly and is close to becoming an inferno.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 11, 2017, 12:04:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Bargaining Begging

Cloak's anger was now quickly evaporating. He let it go in an almost apathetic way.

"She has to come," he told Aniyu. He still had his back to her, but he was now on his knees, unaware of the internecine threat in the waking world. "She . . . she has to."

"She can't, Cloak," Aniyu said, rather infuriatingly patient. "She's neither a Master of the Six Elements, nor a Truth Dreamer. She cannot connect to you in this way, young Dreamer, no matter the strength of your bond when she was alive."

"Maybe . . . maybe I've done something wrong, then," Cloak said, not ready to accept Aniyu's truthful words. "Maybe . . . maybe this is just the wrong place. Maybe she came to another place, and I missed her. Maybe I still have time to meet her there!"

Aniyu only said on word, still with the patience of a saint, "Where?"

Cloak didn't have an answer for that, as he was clearly grasping at straws. Cloak's mind threw around other possibilities, each more unlikely than the last.

"Cloak, you need to allow yourself to grieve," Aniyu said, with the utmost seriousness. "You cannot continue this way. I know that she loved you, and you her, but she's Beyond the Veil. She cannot come back. She lives only in the memories of those who loved her, in your memories."

"Maybe . . . maybe I did something wrong," Cloak stammered, looking for any other solution, rather than face the truth. "Maybe I should . . . should . . . uh . . . um . . ."

"Cloak," Aniyu said, kindly, but firmly. Like a parent would. "No matter how much you cast around for impossible solutions and implausible scenarios, the truth still stands and it will always stand. It may seem cruel, but sugarcoating it would do you no good, young Dreamer."

"Please, Aniyu," the RAFian said, almost begging. "Please let me see her . . ."

Aniyu sighed deeply, but not in an irritable or huffy way. It was a good-naturedly, motherly sigh of exasperation. "Cloak. I am not stopping her from coming."

"Please . . ."

It was rather odd seeing the being that had kept the world rotating, to thwart the Machiavellian machinations of an ailurosapien whose name happened to coincide with a common internet abbreviation, now in this very emotionally vulnerable state. Granted, this was essentially all his head, and could very well not be true at all, but these emotions? They were real.

"Cloak, I cannot just make her arbitrarily manifest," Aniyu said. Her voice was soft, yet firm.

And it was true that he had not allowed himself to grieve. He had allowed himself to get distracted with the various RAFian missions. He pushed away his emotions, and he focused on other things. He had thought he had grieved . . . but he hadn't allowed him to grieve deeply. Part of him was stuck in the sticky tar of incredulous disbelief that she was really gone.

"Please, Aniyu. Please . . ."

Part of him almost expected that he could go and talk to her at any time, as if she was alive again. The reality of her death, the sheer finality of it, had never really hit home yet. He was still under the veneer of disbelief.

"Allow yourself to grieve, Cloak." Aniyu said. "Only then, can you truly accept her passing."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2017, 05:40:46 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
An Impossible Impasse

"Then how do we . . ." Saffa said, half-paying attention, half-dealing with some killer kale. "How do we stop this without causing a worldwide famine?"

"It's a Sophie's choice," Helen said, knowingly. "A decision where every alternative option has significant negative consequences. We can destroy every infected vegetable, fruit, etcetera -- which would lead to worldwide famine. Or we can do nothing as more of the world's food supply is transformed into these monstrous sins against nature. Which would still lead to worldwide famine, as no one will want to eat this produce, mutated by whatever agent was used to cause this mess."

"It's also a Hobson's choice," Melissa said, deftly dealing with a pugilistic pumpkin. "A choice between the primary option or nothing at all. We can do what we've been doing -- and causing an unholy mess while we're at it -- or we can do nothing."

"Regardless," Parker said, seriously, wiping away a smashed tomato from his visor. He wasn't particularly pleased -- he had just cleaned that visor not more than thirty, forty minutes ago, it felt like. "The fact of the matter remains that we must do something. Something substantial preferably. Because inaction is also a choice."

"Trouble is," GH said, almost uncharacteristicall y pragmatic, "this is a sort of 'effed if we do, effed if we don't' type of scenario. The real question is what do we do about this? We cannot simply destroy every fruit, vegetable, seed, and whatever edible plant that can be afflicted with this . . . whatever it is. The only solution I can see is to just contain it within a small area and prevent its spread."

"No wisecracks, GH?" Dino chided.

"Now's not the time for it, Dino," GH said seriously. He glanced back at the direction at the forum. He had forbidden Leatherhead from coming, leaving him with the house-elves to watch -- he was fond of them, even with the names that Shadow had once given them. He had a bit of a fondness for a female one that Shadow named Ozzie -- after an Oshawott she had once befriended.

Maybe that put his parenting in question, but GH couldn't bring him into this, and all the RAFians were needed to deal with this potentially devastating problem. LH was too young for a real mission. He was only six years old. Leatherhead was still a young child . . . but GH's attention was split between his guilt of this, the situation at hand, and smashing some cumbersome cucumbers that wanted to beat him into submission.

"A cure needs to be found, and fast," Spectre said, not sure if his powers could reverse it, and the actual Spectre spirit wasn't exactly talkative. "We cannot destroy everything. GH is right -- containment may be the only viable option we have to us."

"Then the question is how," Shenmue said, seriously, "how can we contain all the infected produce? And be absolutely sure none escape?"

"Have project a portable form of Code Avalon over the entire city?" Parker suggested, seemingly displeased with the mush littering the road asphalt and sidewalk, making simply walking slippery. "Institute a quarantine and evacuate everyone out of the city into the relative safety of the outside world."

"We don't have that kind of authority," Phoenix said. "The government would see it as exceeding our authority."

"Then where the bloody hell are they?" Faerie said, harshly. "Where's their
grand solution? Where's their action? I'll tell you. They have none planned. They always react too late. They waste their time bickering when action is called for, and rush in hastily when deliberation and planning are called for."

She took a shuttering breath, as if she was feeling emotional.

"We're the ones on the ground every time a potential worldwide crisis like this happens. Where are they? Tucked away in their little safe spaces, issuing orders for others to die or be maimed in their stead. Then they have the nerve to act all offended when you confront the cowards with this fact."

She stopped to watch as a potato and tomato began to attack each other.

"Screw them," she said. "Let them bleat about 'exceeding our authority' when we make the danger pass. Again."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2017, 07:27:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Saddened and Depressed

"Please, Aniyu, I --"

"Allow yourself to grieve," she pushed gently.

Cloak found himself on his hands and knees. His right hand over his heart. He felt his heart squeezing hard, as if someone put in a hydraulic press. The veil of unreality seemed to have lifted for him ever so slightly as his eyes watered. As his tears splattered the floor of this purplish-black void. Unlike in the Realms, these tears did not sear the ground, burning and scorching it.

His sobs came out as stilted gasps as tears flowed in a strong stream down his face, matting his feline fur into streaks rather reminiscent to that of a cheetah. He had almost unconsciously stopped himself from feeling this. From feeling this as deeply as he should, as he needed to feel this. It was subconscious defense mechanism, he supposed, to protect himself, emotionally, from even more pain. But in doing so, he blocked the only way he could truly grieve, as grieving could be an emotionally arduous task, but, like Aniyu said, one that must be done to move onward with one's life.

He hesitated. Wary of feeling these . . . these unpleasant feelings of sadness and sorrow. He had to plunge into this well of sadness -- but not too deep. It would not do to wallow in despair. He just needed to experience this sadness and sorrow. Experience it and move onward. Allow himself to experience it, and move onward.

Only with this, could he truly accept his aunt's passing. He should've find solace in the mere fact that she went peacefully. She went in her sleep. But his heart still ached for his dear aunt, the pain in his heart and soul at her exit from this life. He never got to say "thank you" to her . . . there was so much left unsaid . . . there was so much left undone . . .

So much . . .

His heart ached with the loss. He felt as if his very soul was being squeezed, as if it was being wrung out. He felt his body's grief-stricken heaving, vibrating with his sorrow. He felt . . . he felt . . .

Here, he didn't have to keep up the pretense of being aloof and emotionless. Here, he didn't have to pretend that things didn't get to him, that he didn't get frustrated and irritated, that he didn't get stressed out . . . he didn't have to worry about never showing weakness or vulnerability.

Granted, he never had to do this with the forum and his Dweller friends, but he was so conditioned to be this way. For over two Dweller Earth centuries, he was conditioned not to show any emotion that his mother did not approve of. He came to deeply internalize his emotions, especially when his powers became linked to them. He ran from them, as he always did. He feared his emotions. He feared himself when he became emotional. When he lost control of himself, and the elements, as well.

Wheeza was always kind to him. Granted, they did not always get along -- but never having disagreements with loved ones? That is an impossibility. Disagreements are bound to happen, and are inevitable. But Wheeza did not react the same way to "insubordination" they way his mother did. Wheeza was never verbally abusive.

When his mother had kicked him out the house and, Cloak had believed, out of the family, Wheeza came to his rescue. She correctly deduced that his only real problem at that time was a lack of confidence. She had enabled him to come and actually live in the Prime Universe with his RAFian friends. It was she who came up with the idea to line his thread with the same fabric that all Realm Walker cloaks were made out of, so to block his corona from destroying that which he held dear.

All done with an irreverent sense of humor and honesty. He would miss her greatly -- both she and Faith were far more like mothers to him than his actual mother, his biological mother, a woman who was desperately and sadly fearful of losing control of those around her and pathetically incapable of taking accountability or responsibility for her own actions.

It was amazing two remarkably different women came from the two same parents.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2017, 04:50:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Hasty Containment

"I must register my warning again," Yarin said, deftly setting a strange, boxy device in the middle of the town square, as Dino stomped a bevy of watermelons with gnashing teeth like switchblades. "This portable Code Avalon still hasn't been properly tested. It may malfunction. And I'm not entirely sure we fixed the power source economy of it -- its power source may run dry before we're ready for whatever comes next."

"The risks of letting these little buggers out outweighs that a bit, I think," Phoenix said. "If we can just by enough time for Aquilai, Xeno, Goom and Broken to find the cure --"

"Broken?" Faerie inquired.

"He thinks that whatever caused this . . . incident was magically-induced, at least, in part," Phoenix explained.

"Fusing science and magic?" Faerie guessed. "That's . . . that's a very dangerous ****tail of unpredictability. You'd have to either be crazy or desperate or just mentally unstable to think that it would be a good idea. It's like carelessly mixing magicks -- not a wise thing to do."

"Yeah, Broken indicated as much," Phoenix nodded.

Meanwhile, Yarin activated the portable Code Avalon sending a periwinkle-lavender energy dome around the city as the RAFians worked to evacuate it. Oceanspray and Parker scoured the exterior premier, looking for any and every straggler and eliminating them. They were trying their utmost to be extremely and exceedingly thorough, as this infection could not be allowed to spread. They had to nip this in the bud before it became a worldwide cataclysm.

They would deal with the ramifications and consequences for this hasty containment at a later date.

***

Malice wasn't too happy.

The fact the portable Code Avalon mockup had managed to incinerate her spying bug camera, which was her primary way of viewing what was going on. She had a secondary one, but still the fact the primary one was destroyed annoyed her.

But she could still view the goings-on at the city. She was slightly amused when she saw the city being evacuated and the attempted quarantine of the city until this whole mess is taken care of. She was confident that this quarantine would not hold and the portable Code Avalon would fail.

She was quite confident and arrogantly assured that her little curse of magic and science would spread beyond the city. Beyond the region. Beyond the nation. Beyond the continent. The world's food supply would be endangered, infected, and inedible.

This world would starve. It would be a slow, painful, and agonizing death -- much like when the meteor hit the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. True, the world eventually bounced back from that, but many of the dominant species did not.

Mankind would not survive this. And she would revel in that fact.

***

"They've exceeded their authority," said Senator Mitchell Obstruere (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/obstruere#Latin) said, pompously. "They've no legal standing in which to quarantine the city. They've no possible reason for doing it."

"They've done so without the consent of the federal government," said Senator Sean Turgeo (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/turgeo#Latin), with an irritating vainglorious tone. Like Senator Obstruere, he was a very grandiloquent man who had a very high opinion of himself, despite basically being a brazen obstructionist. "They did not allow the proper procedure for such a thing. There are proper channels that one must go through before any action of this magnitude are taken."

"They acted imprudently," said Senator Candy Insolens (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/insolens#Latin), pretentious and sanctimonious. "They overstepped their bounds. This cannot and will not stand."

Such was the conceited rhetoric of the bigwigs in the nation's government. There was a voice of reason here and there, such as Senator Bernard Reson (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reson#Old_French), but they were few and far between. It was still a debate on whether or not to be punitive towards the forum on this.

The fact that there was a potential worldwide crisis being contained was not permitted to be discussed by the majority of the government, or outright dismissed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2017, 06:34:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Acceptance and Moving On

Cloak righted himself to his knees. It seemed as if hours had passed him by, just grieving. He rub his face, wiping away his tears. He started to remember . . . not just the pain and shock of her passing. She went peacefully, in her sleep. There was comfort in that.

He began to have fond remembrances of his dear Aunt Wheeza. From the time when he was young and they went to a famous waterfall in the Nexus -- one akin to Niagara Falls in the Realms' various Earths. Granted, his mother (and Wheeza's elder sister), Ursa, and sister, Dagger, was there -- but he no longer considered those two family, despite the ichor relationship. He had not elected to stand under the waterfall, as was an option there,but Wheeza did.

More and more fond thoughts of her infiltrated his mind. All the humor she had given him, all the once-lost confidence she had helped him reclaim. Granted, there were moments when they argued and had disagreements, but that's true of anyone. She did everything that she could to teach him to let things go -- but he would admit, even now, he had a tough time letting bygones be bygones. He could be stubborn to the point of being obstinate -- it was a family hallmark on his mother's side -- he knew nothing of his father's side other than that's where his relationship with Aniyu and Truth Dreamer ability comes from.

He gave a shuttering breath as he finally managed to accept that she was gone, and there was no way he could communicate with her from beyond the Veil. She was neither Truth Dreamer nor Elements Master. He did not know why these two things enabled him to communicate with his ancestors that, too, were past Masters or past Dreamers (despite the only past Dreamer that Cloak had ever talked to was Aniyu), but he had conceived the notion that perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn't meant to know.

The one way he would be able to see Wheeza now would be drastic, hurt a lot of his friends in the process, and be something that he knew that she would not approve of. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't hurt the people he cared about in that way -- the RAFians. Faith. Shadow. He couldn't hurt them . . . he had considered it so long ago, when he was forbidden by his mother from going to the forum . . . and she had such control over him that he complied out of fear . . . but he knew better now, thanks to Wheeza and the other RAFians.

He was not worthless. He was not expendable. He was a person, a man of his own right. He had a place and life of his own, uncontrolled by any other but himself. He was now the master of his own fate, instead of having someone dictate it to him.

"Good, Cloak," Aniyu said, after a long silence. "Good."

Cloak said nothing, turning his mind to affectionate memories with his Aunt Wheeza when he was a kid. And, after a moment, he let it go. He let her go. He let her be at rest. He had let it out, all the emotion -- the knotted up, twisted, entangled emotion -- he just let experienced it all in one go, and let it go. And there was an oddly freeing sensation, as if it wasn't weighing on his shoulders anymore.

He had truly accepted it. His Wheeza was gone, and at peace.

He stood, expect his legs to feel a bit unwieldy with his weight, as if they were were a sleep. He was mildly surprised that they were not. He looked at Aniyu and said, "Thank you."

"Any time, my young Dreamer," she said, very kindly and gracious.

It was at this point Cloak noticed something . . . something he found rather odd. He looked around . . . it was just so different . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2017, 07:55:38 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Diligence and Frustration

"Dammit!"

"Broken, we're all frustrated, too," Goom said, evenly, as if he needed to reminded everyone of it. It was immensely stressful what they were doing, as they were on a strict deadline, and were under a severe crunch time scenario.

"Prior incantato doesn't work," Broken said, mostly to himself. "Perhaps the scientific aspect of this concoction makes it difficult to impossible to work. Then again, the Priori Incantatem charm requires a wand to work -- a wand to enchant the produce."

They had managed to extract the goop from a killer tomato, and they've spent the passed four or five hours trying to analyzing it. There seemed to be to two layers of conversations going at the same time.

"Spectrum analysis is inconclusive," Aquilai said, irritated.

"Can't be Amato Animo Animato Animagus," Broken muttered, ransacking his annoyingly sluggish brain for spells and incantations to try. "That just makes Animagi -- along with other things, but that's not the point."

"As is the chemical analysis," Xeno said, "what is this stuff?"

Meanwhile, Broken was dismissing spells in his mind. The Draconifors Spell would just turn it into a similarly sized dragon -- not useful here. Colovaria would just change its color. Cantis would just make it sing -- if it could sing. Ascendio would just lift him up -- not useful right now. Arania exumai only worked on spiders. Anteoculatia was out, as it just grew antlers on a target's head. Arresto momentum slows or stops a target's momentum -- not remotely useful on this occasion. The Avifors Spell would just turn the goo into a bird, completely defeating the intended purpose. Cistem aperio would just open the container they had the goo in with blast of light, and the others would not appreciate that. Diminuendo would just shrink the goo, and earn him the emnity of the others. The Ducklifors Jinx would just turn it into a duck -- no good.

"Huh," Goom said, having observed the goo. "The way it undulates . . ."

"What?" Aquilai said, rather waspishly.

"The way it moves," Goom clarified, "it looks . . . somehow, it looks familiar. . . ."

Meanwhile, Broken was still going through a littany of spells, hexes, charms, and curses in his mind, trying to understand what could work. Hopefully, without mixing magicks. Everte statum wouldjust do more damage than help. The Ebublio Jinx would just bubble it. Epoximise would adhere it to its container. Flintifors would just turn it into a matchbox.

"Familiar?" Xeno inquired.

"It looks like . . ." Goom said, certainty looking out of him, "like Underseen in his natural shapeless form, only red and green instead of his opaque color."

"You can say that about a lot of of generally colloidal substances," the Time Lord dismissed. "Doesn't mean that there's a connection."

"Doesn't mean that there isn't, either," Xeno pointed out.

Aquilai didn't not appreciate this counterargument. Instead of even trying to refute it, he changed the subject, "The fact of the matter is that we have to find out how to cure this stuff and prevent a worldwide famine."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2017, 07:58:50 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Last Truth Dreamer

"Aniyu?" Cloak asked.

"Yes?"

"Where's all the other past Truth Dreamers?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when I sought a council with the other Elements Masters, there was a bevy of them," Cloak elaborated. "Why aren't the other past Truth Dreamers here?"

For the first time since Cloak had met his paternal ancestor, Aniyu looked uncomfortable. She clearly was marshalling her thoughts to put her response in a painless way as possible for her.

"It is because . . . because there aren't anymore Truth Dreamers," she said. Cloak thought he heard a distinct and clear sadness to her voice, tinged with loneliness. "Until you, I was the first and last Truth Dreamer."

Suddenly, an obnoxious musical number intruded upon this moment. Funny thing was, though, it sounded as if GH was singing it. Probably because Cloak had come to associate anything musical with RAF's resident music connoisseur. Or he represented a more silly, zany, unpredictable side to Cloak's personality. Who knows?

"One! Two! Three! Four!
Aniyu, the Last Dreamer!
She's my friend and a whole lot more!
Aniyu, the Last Dreamer!
Shows me a world I've never seen before!
From the Nexus a long, long time ago,
Comes a cool, cool friend, my pal, Aniyu!
Aniyu, the Last Dreamer,
She's my friend and a whole lot more!
Aniyu, the Last Dreamer,
Shows me a world I've never seen before!
Everywhere Cloak goes, he doesn't really care.
If he stops and bares his very soul to his pal, Aniyu!
From their history to this very spotlight,
He found a friend that helps him do alright!"

Then the voice of Leatherhead, but nothing more than a mental projection, as all of this was, joined in with this mental projection of GH's voice:

"That's Aniyu, the Last Dreamer!
She's my friend and a whole lot more!
Aniyu, the Last Dreamer,
Shows me a world I've never seen before . . ."

It didn't make any sense, but then again, it wasn't supposed to.

"Sorry about that," Cloak said, referring to the pointless musical interlude. This was his mindspace after all, and his mind could be a bit unfocused and cluttered just anyone else's at times. He refocused on the conversation. "Anyway, what? You're the only other Truth Dreamer? Ever?"

"Yes," Aniyu said, who appeared actually amused by the musical interruption, "it's true. And, in my time, it was generally not well received. A small, but loudly vocal, group decried me as a mistress of death and a prophet of doom, when, in reality, all of my predictions were merely a result of perception and not Truth Dreaming."

So, she was kind of like the Realm Walker version of Cassandra, in a way. She told him that she was the daughter of a political figurehead (a woodpecker Realm Walker who eventually became a victim of Boss's take over with the Twelve, as well as Aniyu's mother (a bighorn ewe Realm Walker) and younger brother (a bluebird Realm Walker)), and while they weren't exactly affluent, her father made a comfortable living that afforded financial security.

The Boss came around with his henchmen, only known as the Twelve. It was true that Aniyu had dreamed that this was to come -- but as Cloak knew, Truth Dreams were not clear cut, and always difficult to interpret, even at the best of times. And it had cost her dearly. She was just about Cloak's age when it had happened, maybe a little younger. Her brother was barely fifteen, and their parents were well into late fifties.

She confessed that it took her awhile to not blame herself for what happened. It wasn't her fault, it was Boss's. She had to spend years dealing with the fear of Boss and his Henchmen Twelve, as she began to think of them. Dealing with the shame for having done nothing to stop them, refusing, at the time, to acknowledge that there was nothing that she could do. Understanding the survivor's guilt she felt for their deaths. Sort through and understand her own grief, which she allowed and mildly guided Cloak through his own. Understanding her own mental delusions and the lies she told herself, and realizing and accepting the cold, hard truths. Only after she did this, and after Master Avatar, Cloak's maternal ancestor (though she didn't know her line and his would eventually intermingle in Cloak, and his younger sister, Dagger (Faith had a different father, but Ursa was her mother, same as Cloak)) took down Boss and his Twelve.

She had eventually met a polar bear Realm Walker who gave himself the name of Freak -- mostly for the self-deprecating humor of it. Freak had a boisterous, optimistic personality that Aniyu just took to. And her down-to-earth, calm, motherly personality drew him to her. Soon that momentary affection grew adoration. The two eventually married in traditional Realm Walker fashion, two outcasts by the most conservative Realm Walker standards. Then they had a son, Humor, a march hare Realm Walker, which would perpetuate their line to Cloak himself.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sLlibrF5DRM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2017, 05:58:10 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A Lot is Happening

Broken had hit upon the idea of using the idea of "Golpalott's Third Law"-type of spell to split the potion magically back into it's separate ingredients. Granted, the so-called "Golpalott's Third Law" didn't exactly work like that -- but it was a starting point, anyway.

So he started to work on it -- all four appropriately weary of it. Merging science and magic was like mixing magicks -- highly volatile and highly dangerous. It was a very reckless move to do such, as if whoever was behind this -- and the four minced no words, it was obviously Malice behind it, as the RAFians didn't have any real supervillain threat other than her . . . an octogenarian Realm Walker with a superiority complex. The Knights and the Banned weren't really in her league, as far as antagonists go. And Cadmus was too much of an nonentity to them at this moment to count -- as if Malice didn't understand the serious backlash and dangerous backfiring this could have.

The aftereffects of whatever spell was cast could just simply explode, implode, transfigure, or a number of countless possibilities. It wasn't only volatile, but completely unpredictable, to merge science and magic. It wasn't like Coldsteel in that Gargoyles universe -- this was more . . . unstable.

But Broken was elated to discover that they had made some real headway. They had managed to separate the magic from the science goo -- which turned opaque white.

"Don't say it," Aquilai warned, seeing the goo. He didn't want to hear it.

***

"I think that that's it," Oceanspray said, double-checking and triple-checking.

"We should do another sweep," Parker said. He actually sounded anxious. They could not afford to lose this mission. They could not afford failures in this regard. "Hafta be absolutely sure."

Oceanspray sighed, his voice betrayed his weariness, "Agreed. As tiresome as it is, it must he done."

"We have to be thorough," Parker said, though his voice was fatigued. Whether from boredom or exhaustion, it was hard to say.

"We've been thorough," Oceanspray countered, lazily. "But let's go -- the sooner we sweep, the sooner we get done."

"So optimistic," Parker said, wryly and weary.

***

Malice was working to get her bug cams back online -- she had lost the video feed and she could not tolerate it. It was like an angry resident at an old folks home throwing their food tray into the hallway. Malice was a bit irate -- if she had missed anything because of this snafu, she would be apoplectic with rage.

Of course, she could get up off her butt and watch the unfolding of her scheme in person. But she wasn't willing to do that -- it was like asking a person in a recliner to get up and get the television remote from the far end of the coffee table. Impossible to do -- it would require to getting up, and she didn't feel like doing that.

There! The picture was back . . . but where was the audio?

Oh, there was. Wait -- she was going to have to resynch the audio with the video. Wonderful. She grumbled truculently as she worked on fixing it. It was remarkable, though, that she was willing to work with this kind of tech. Most Realm Walkers her age wouldn't have bothered, being cantankerous and rancorous.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2017, 06:16:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Aniyu, Adieu

Cloak gave Aniyu what was akin to a Realm Walker hug. Realm Walkers weren't much of a contact comfort, personable-type of species, but physical contact isn't as normal for them as it is for species like humans. True, they will make physical contact with each other, but, in their culture, it's mostly for signs of solidarity and unity with one another.

"Thanks, Aniyu," he said.

"Anytime," she said, fading back into the aether that came from Beyond the Veil.

Cloak shut his eyes, but found his body was not ready yet to wake. He had expended a lot of energy during that ailurosapien situation -- although he didn't know how long he slumbered. It had to have been a couple of days at least. He was actually kind of relieved that his apex level power has this kind of severe "cool down time". It meant that he couldn't abuse it willy-nilly.

Cloak decided to go through and see if he analyze himself. He sat down, and crossed his legs, the heels of his feet touching his hips. He put his hands on his knees. He took a deep breath, steadying himself and his mind.

Suddenly, the void took on yellows and browns, and stalagmites and stalactites suddenly jutted down around him as he focused on survival. What had made him feel fear in the past few months . . .

He took a deep breath and let those fears flow away. Let them flow down the river.

Then the void took on blues and whites, and a large moat of water flowed around him, as if he was on a slab of rock, rafting down a meandering river. He focused on pleasures, and sort through his guilt over the past few months. The Siren was still prominent.

He took a deep breath and let it go. What was done was done. It could not be changed. It was pointless to feel guilt over things he had no control over . . . yes, perhaps, he didn't handle the Siren thing well. But he cannot retract his actions.

He took another deep breath and allowed to it to flow down the river.

Then the void took on reds, blacks, and golds and the moat of water became literal fire walls. He focused on willpower, and any shame he felt. There were actually many incidents of this to mull through. But you cannot choose others views of you, and it's pointless trying to force them to see you a certain way.

He took a deep breath and allowed it to flow away.

The void took on tans and browns and it looked as if the slab of stone was suspended in air. He focused on love, and any grief he still felt. He still felt grieved for his aunt, but he had accepted her passing, with Aniyu's help and guidance.

He took a deep breath and allowed it to flow down the river.

The void turned purplish crystalline, affixing the slab of stone in place. Cloak thought of the lies he had told himself. Self-deceiving lies. There were many . . . coupled with his secret anxiety and there was some residential ones from his time with his mother that he had thought that he had taken care of.

He confronted each one, and confronted it with the truth. Then he took a deep breath, and allowed it to flow down the stream.

He would continue, but he felt his body actually, finally, struggling to wake . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2017, 04:46:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
DONE!

The four quickly had synthesized a potential cure -- a colloidal substance that was a mixture of white and blue. But it wouldn't stay this way -- it was designed to be an aerosol. It would blanket the whole of the city. It was harmless to animal cells, as it targeted cells that possessed cell walls. Fortunately, there wasn't any visiting Florauna (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Florauna/Original),
 Methanosians (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Methanosian), or any other sentient plant species -- there was no telling how it would affect them, and it might be considered a weapon of mass destruction for them. It might have killed them or just devolved them, like with the Darwin gun -- the four RAFians did not wish to test out these theories.

"Let's get this underway," Aquilai said, seriously, stowing away his sonic screwdriver. He moved to install the vial into the drive they developed to spread the cure throughout the city. The cure would dissolve into the air and it would only last a single morphing cycle -- two hours. "The sooner we do, the sooner we will be done with it."

They prepared everything with meticulous attention to detail. They had to be thorough. If so much as one infected oat was missed, then this whole thing would be pointless -- as the cure wasn't that easy to conjure up. Broken had made sure to have some back up vials -- but he hoped to not have to need them.

Suddenly, the red vent button glowed with a yellow light, giving the impression of it being on fire. Every calculation was checked, double-checked, and triple-checked. This had to work. They could not afford for it not to.

"Hold on to your butts," Xeno said, pushing the button that vented the aerosol form of the cure, rather like venting toxic gas from a room. Xeno didn't care for the analogy, but there was really no other way to describe it.

Soon the entire city was covered in what could have been Patronus mist. It had to work . . .

***

"These RAFian menaces are at it again," came Bern Bridges latest claptrap diatribe. He continued to palaver, "They come into our homes, our businesses, and our schools. They chivy us out of them. They force us out! They gave us no choice in the matter!"

He sipped from his navy blue mug, sitting on a gray-upholstered swivel chair in his "safe house". He didn't even really live in the city proper, but a little thing like facts weren't going to stop him from spewing his vitriolic, jabbering footle.

"They had no reason to do this, either," Bridges outright lied, "I repeat, dear listeners, there was no reason. They claim they were quarantining the city. Quarantining the city for no reason at all!"

He didn't really care if he put his listeners in harm's way, he just wanted to spout his venomous vitriol. Not to mention there was plenty of eyewitness accounts of the killer produce and the RAFians efforts to protect the citizens. He just dismissed that as hearsay, double hearsay (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double_hearsay#English), gossip, and rumors.

"And why did they do this, you may ask, dear listener," Bridges said, jowls quivering like Jello molds. "So they could loot you homes of your valuables and personal belongings. Do not be surprised, dear listener, if when you return -- if they even allow you to return -- to find your home ransacked and your privacy violated. Assuming your home is even standing."

***

And the ever so helpful government was still quibbling about whether or not the RAFians had the right to be proactive in dealing with this issue, instead of coming up with a plan, a course of action to take to deal with this potentially worldwide crisis. Just proving just how useless they really were.

If the RAFians had waited until they gave the RAFians the go-ahead, the infection would have taken hold over fifty to fifty-nine percent of the nation. And, with the possibility of already establishing a foothold in other countries.

The situation would gotten much worse if the RAFians had waited for government approval. They had the autonomy to act and they did. The situation would have compounded while the government was taking its time to pettifog and squabble and spin this into something it's not.

The RAFians did what had to be done, the RAFians did it when it needed to be done. The bureaucracy did not.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2017, 08:32:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
It Works!

It was with great trepidation that the RAFians watched this mist envelope the entire city. But only Parker and Oceanspray seemed to be able to bear witness, having filtered out the mist from their views.

All the carnivorous produce became sluggish and lethargic upon mere contact with the bluish-white mist. Their ravenous, insatiable appetites began to wane. Slowly at first, but then building until they weren't so much vicious but almost somnambulate. Their actions and movement became less wild, frantic, and energized, and more somnolent, soporific, and drowsy.

This was good sign, as Parker and Oceanspray reported it to the others. It was a sign that the cure was working its magic.

Each and every single piece of produce fell, their bloodshot, beady eyes closed. Their gnashing teeth and ferocious snarling ceased. Their manipulation appendages fell and after a few minutes, atrophied and withered away into nothingness. Their fanged mouths, much like the jaws of a Vulpin Vulpimancer (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vulpimancer), curled in on themselves and the mouths sealed themselves up, as if they wasn't even there. Their slumbering eyes became puffy before the eye ball sunk into the produce's flesh or skin or shell -- whichever was applicable.

Within moments, the first infected produce -- a tomato -- reverted to an ordinary tomato. Fortunately, this had a domino effect. Soon, six percent of the infected produce was reverted. Then seventeen percent were cured. Then twenty-eight percent were uninfected now. The thirty-nine percent.

This was going swimmingly thus far . . .

Half of them was cured. It would be a downward battle now. Fifty-nine percent. Sixty-three percent. Seventy-two percent. Seventy-seven percent. Eighty-two percent.

So close now. All RAFians were making as many sweeps as they could to confirm. All except Cloak, who was still slumbering at this point.

Eighty-eight percent. Ninety-five percent . . .

There! All of the produce was now cured! The mist was already lifting -- which was good, because the portable Code Avalon was already starting to fail. . . .

***

It didn't take Bern Bridges long to react to this. And, of course, his conclusions were wrong. His assumptions were basically unsubstantiated conspiracies at best.

"And now they're gassing our homes!" he raged. "They're going to make our homes, our businesses, our schools absolutely unfit for human habitation! They're using this whole 'worldwide crisis' thing -- a crisis of their own making, mind you! -- to their advantage!"

He pounded his desk so hard that it toppled his drink -- some sort of coffee that evidently preferred black -- spilled unto his desk and upon the floor. He was so enthralled with his own voice and rant that Bridges didn't even notice. It was a wonder how it did not damage any of his equipment.

If it did, you could bet that, somehow, it would be the RAFians' fault and not this conspiracy theorist dullard.

"We are through the looking glass, people," he said. It was apparently the seventy-ninth time that they were "through the looking glass".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2017, 06:35:38 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Clean Up

"Town cleaning! Town cleaning!
We sanitize, deodorize,
And harmonize, too!
Town cleaning! Town cleaning!
We're gonna make this town
Look all shiny and new!
Town cleaning! Town cleaning!"

A woman declared, as GH continued to play, bringing a sense of calm and enjoyment to the RAFians and the town residents:

"I'll sweep of this mat."

The town-wide chorus sang:

"Town cleaning!"

Her teenage son sang:

"I'll take care of dat."

The town-wide chorus sang again:

"Town cleaning.
We've got a lot of mush that
We've just been dying to get rid of!
And there's so much stuff in this can
That it's a out to blow the lid off!
Our disinfecting prowess
Is second to none!
Town cleaning, town cleaning --
It's a sick, disgusting job . . .
Sick, disgusting job . . .
Sick, disgusting job . . .
But its gotta be done!!"

This was a town-wide effort, RAFian and civilian, coming together to clean up the town from the mess created from the latest scheme of Malice's. It actually did well for RAF's PR standings, but that's not the reason that they did it. Many felt as if it was their duty, their obligation to help.

GH's and his adoptive son's music helped out greatly. Leatherhead, however, was wearing an ID mask to project the appearance of a human six year old boy. His facial structure in this projected appearance was very similar to GH's, but not identical. LH's projected face was slightly rounder and softer than GH's more angular features. Leatherhead's projection had tightly curled hair on his head that was somewhere between red and brown. His projected eyes were as green as his real scales, and his projected ears were nearly identical to his adoptive father. His projected clothing were a red long-sleeved shirt, blue overalls, white socks, and red-and-white hi-tops.

LH didn't like wearing it, and he was vocal about it, as a six-year-old would be. He had to always be aware that his tail or snout didn't peek through the holographic illusion. He hated having to worry about it.

Meanwhile, the government immediately backpedaled from being punitive towards the RAFians after the backlash of the people who bore witness of them trying to help and save them. Well, there were those Congressmen and Congresswomen who were stubborn undeterred by the backlash, and still demanded punitive action.

But they were few and far between. It was only like three of four senators that stubbornly stuck to this, while the others immediately caved and tried their milquetoast means of appeasing the electorate.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JjuF_wiOds0

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2017, 04:15:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Just Junk

Shenmue was dispatched to a large, forgotten factory that had seemingly been turned into a scrapyard. She immediately regretted her attire, as this entire place looked as if it was just one big tetanus shot just waiting to happen. There was rusted bits of forgotten metal quite literally everywhere.

With a heavy sigh, she pressed forward to get inside the building. From there, she continued onward until she took a ladder (a rather unnecessarily large one, too) down, from which she entered an elevator. This, again, took her down. How big was this place?

Once leaving the elevator, she pressed onward. She notice what looked like lava at first glance, on the floor where anyone could fall into it (and be the last thing they ever did). But then she realized it was more like molten metal. So this place was an abandoned factory, scrapyard, and foundry?

Then she came to another elevator, only this one needed power to work. And she provided, with her electrokinesis. And once the elevator lifted her up to the next level, she disembarked, to find a large ladder leading further up. She climbed it to find herself in a veritable sea of junk. This place really didn't make any logical sense. It was as if she was in a video game whose level designers had no sense of reality. But she made it through it all somehow.

Then she came to a void where there was falling junk from the ceiling. Seriously? Who came up with this place?! She had to use the falling junk as stepping stones to get to the other side, which climbed down another large ladder and proceeded onward toward a room whose floor and ceilings littered with junk.

Then she saw Demos's renegade fiend. The creature was a horrible mismatched of parts of junk from the scrapyard. It was a chimera of metal, rubber, and circuitry. Its left eye had dark gray sclera with light gray irises, whilst its right eye was the complete reverse of this. Almost as if it was some "Power Rangers" villain made from the kitbashed remnants of past villains. It didn't really have hands, but two yellow clamps. It held this Frankenstein-ed body together electromagnetically, and Shenmue did not know how she sensed this. No part of its body was free from rust damage. It had no discernable crotch and legs, unless those were buried with the junk.

When it saw Shenmue, it pounded the ground, which would have held her on the ground if she were unlucky enough to be on the floor. Then she had to avoid junk falling from the ceiling.

Then it started attracting junk to itself, and it was seemingly physically invincible while doing so. It turned the junk into a block, electrified it, and then fired it at Shenmue. She managed to avoid it by timing a jump over it.

After that, it created an orbiting mass of junk, into some sort of shield. Then it dashed at Shenmue before firing this rotating shield at her. She had to dodge roll to the opposite of the room, whilst avoiding the rusty junk in the room. She really didn't want to need a tetanus shot.

Shenmue deduced that she would be stunned -- immobilized -- for countless moments if the junk hit her. She could not allow this to happen.

The creature burrowed through the junk like a demented Slamworm no less than three times. It was trying to get beneath Shenmue, who managed to dodge all these attempts. Fortunately, it telegraphed where it was going to appear by throwing a preliminary piece of garbage at Shenmue as she dodged this.

Then it repeated these tactics. Like the fiends before it -- it wasn't too smart in this capacity. Shenmue used her electrokinesis to blast it, and watched as it literally fell apart. Another six times, and the fiend was finished.

***

Demos called it a "jankusapien", and claimed he created it for scavenging purposes.

***

Malice wasn't watching. She was sleeping far too deeply. Animating the produce and watching the RAFians deal with it apparently proved to be too stimulating for her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2017, 06:25:05 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLX:
MOONSCAR MENACE
CHAPTER ONE:
Mister, FREEZE!

Xeno was dispatched to this icy tundra. He wasn't too pleased. Wouldn't a RAFian like Horse be far more suited for such an environment? She's a seal, after all! Why him?

Anyway, he proceeded forward, ignoring an ornery polar bear that was in his path. He simply flew over the beast who looked like he was in no mood for interruptions, and entered a large, but icy, cave.

He climbed upward, into what he assumed was further into the cave. He really was finding the slick ice rather cumbersome. But, as it turned out, he climbed to the top of the cave, and to open tundra. He ruffled his wings and was thankful that the air was still.

Geez, was that the same polar bear? Go away, son, Xeno thought, I don't have time for you.

He proceeded onward . . . back into another entry into the icy cave, with a heavy sigh. Maybe it would be slightly warmer in there. He looked down up ahead and saw some tightly knitted stalagmites upon the ground actually encased in ice. He was sure that those would feel absolutely wonderful land on and get impaled upon. He just simplified matters and flew over them.

That done with, he climbed up, further into the cave, he once again assumed. This time he was right, and he didn't like what he saw. Crumbling ice and more ice-encrusted stalagmites. Again, he just simplified things by just flying over them.

Then he came to a split in the path. He could take a crumbling ice bridge and go upwards, or climb down. He hadn't a clue which was the right way or which one was the truly easier way -- then he thought he heard something from the path above . . .

"Let it go, let it go --!"

Okay, down it was. And he climbed down for a while before he could move onward. When he did, he came to a wide room with really deep chasms, bearing a superficial appearance to severely chapped lips. All easily flown over.

Then he saw something that disquieted him as he climbed up higher. He saw a polar bear frozen in ice. Completely frozen. What happened . . . there wasn't anything he could do for him right now. He had an objective to complete, as he hauled himself once again out of the icy cave.

There were a few more chasms dotted here and there -- but, again, all easily flown over, so it wasn't a big deal. Until he came back to another icy cave, but this one was different. This was the one the fiend had made its den, its nest.

The creature was about as tall as a teenager with slanted, human-like eyes (dark orange sclera and black irises) which gave the impression that it was always  miffed about something. Its face was light gray with a small mouth and nose. It had ice crystal "horns" for ears. Its cranium was composed of a multifaceted ice ball, as were its shoulders. The crest on its forehead was gold in color. Its neck was white, ending in a purple ring around its collar. It had a yellow chest and crotch with a deep green orb basically lodged in its abdomen, and a dark orange vertical stripe on its back. Its upper arms were white while its lower arms were yellow and its left on had a growth where it could form, cryokinetically, snowflake-designed discuses. Its thighs were white, terminating in a purple streak that began at its knees and extended down the back of its legs. It's shins were black and everything that wasn't purple or black was yellow. It had sharp, multifaceted ice "horns" on its knees, and its feet were nothing but pointed, multifaceted ice.

When it saw Xeno, it did not attack. It stared him down and taunted him to make the first move. Xeno flapped his wings, offering him some lift, causing the fiend to run at Xeno. Which the RAFian glided to avoid this, as the fiend began its attack pattern.

It fired a a frozen snowflake-themed discus at Xeno, who rolled out of the way. His wings were more durable than a bird's, so they were fine. It jumped and fired another one to freeze Xeno to the ground. But Xeno can fly. So he dodged this attack.

Then it summoned icicles on the ceiling, causing Xeno to think, Oh, wonderful. Then it repeated its attack pattern, before the icicles fell to the ground. Xeno deftly moved out the way. Xeno punched with his gauntlets, which locked it into a simple pattern. Seven punches and the fiend was dealt with.

Now, Xeno had to wait for extraction back to the forum . . .

***

Demos called it a "furizusapien", and claimed he designed it as a way to gain non-polluting energy, but it was a failure, and just redesigned it for combat instead.

***

And Malice as still sleeping. So, she did not see this fight whatsoever, despite releasing the furizusapien.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2017, 03:31:37 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Gift of Appearance

Leatherhead, despite his young age of six, had had enough of the ID mask, which was clearly intended for beings of more humanoid proportions. He refused to wear it again. He didn't care that he wouldn't pass for a human. He was too young to understand the hatred from groups like the Knights -- and the Knights weren't the only xenophobic, bigoted groups, just the most prominent and expansive. He was too young to understand what they'd do to him had they ever found him and captured him.

GH didn't know specifics, granted, but he had a general idea. And the idea terrified him. Now, Leatherhead might not be his son biologically, but his love for the crocodile mutate was as deep as if he was. Theirs was still the dynamic of a father and son.

But nothing GH said to try and coax and cajole LH would make him budge. He was certainly as stubborn as GH was. Even to the point that this whole thing was making GH want a cigarette -- despite having more or less successfully quit, because he didn't want LH to be inhaling secondhand smoke.

Dek had come up with a solution, upon inspiration of Pik, his wife. He hoped this would make amends with GH and thank Leatherhead, who helped teach his children -- Jok, Nak, and Juk -- to speak English without the use of a translator, granted with strong Zirkonian accents.

He managed to make a human suit -- he did not turn anyone into one, however, like the ones that were on the black market. It was a perfect replication of the form his ID mask projected -- a skin tone and hair style that matched GH, a pointed chin, curly hair that was somewhere between red and brown, and green eyes. Dek presented to Leatherhead, under GH's watchful eye. GH's animosity and enmity towards Dek had already quite evaporated, as he had moved on from Andy, who apparently never knew about GH's crush on him, and who he fell out of communication with. He always changed the subject when it was approached, and most of the other RAFians knew how to take a clue (there was at least one who didn't).

Anyway, Leatherhead loved the suit even before he put it on. Dek described its properties to Leatherhead, who wasn't really paying attention in his excitement to  pull it on. Apparently, even if its torn off, it will just retreat into a special watch device (which was waterproof and actually told the time, depending on the planet in which it was on) and he could just tap a button when its green for the human suit to have been repaired. It would be red when it wasn't. Dek also detailed how the suit contained a compression field that would allow Leatherhead to have the appropriate proportions of a human boy his age, and the suit would grow with him. If he wore it regularly and he grew to a teenager, the suit would reflect that. Dek implied he used unstable molecules to achieve such an effect.

However, clothing was still an issue, as the suit only came with a white shirt and white boxer-briefs attached. Leatherhead, who remained . . . unclothed as his crocodilian self (not unlike the TMNT), didn't have many clothes in his closet (yes, he had a separate closet from GH -- its just how the threads worked when a new occupant moves in). GH had anticipated this, and gave him a black shirt (with a favorite band of his emblazoned on it, which he and his adoptive son would rock out to sometimes between GH's civilian job and RAFian missions), a brown jacket with a picture of Scooby Doo emblazoned on the left side, brown slacks, socks, and shoes.

Leatherhead quickly put all these on, quite excited, as only a six-year-old could be. It was rather akin to playing dress-up. He did not know the implications of having to hide away his true self just so he was safe from raving, xenophobic bigots. GH put on a happy face as he thought of this.

His adoptive son would have to hide who he really was, to keep himself safe. It was like staying in the closet for fear of losing people they cared about -- just because being attracted to someone that was not socially acceptable to be attracted to . . . and now Leatherhead had to hide away his more overt inhuman-ness, just so some bigot who cannot handle someone different could feel unoffended.

GH hated this, but Leatherhead remained ignorant of this, as he examined his arms and hands, touched his face with a big smile on his face. A smile GH recognized as similar to his own. Perhaps it was bad parenting to shelter Leatherhead from this, from all the hate towards anything different in the world.

But it was something he had to do, he felt. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2017, 04:46:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Anxiety and a Mission

Leatherhead deftly cajoled GH if they could "go get McDonald's". GH knew LH's ulterior motives. The local fast food joint (which wasn't McDonald's, but Leatherhead called all fast food places that, having never been corrected before) had an outdoor playground, and it was not yet too cold out for it. He wanted to go and play on that playground in his new suit, knowing that no one would know that he was not human.

GH tried to hide his reluctance at this idea. Inside his human suit, Leatherhead was able to give GH far more convincing puppy dog eyes, with a slight pouting lip. Dammit, that made it even harder to refuse the boy. Dek really did too accurate and realistic work.

"Now, LH," GH said, with hesitation and trepidation, "I know you're excited about your knew suit, but I don't -- now, look at me like that!"

Leatherhead's pout deepened. Funny how young children try these subtle ways to manipulate their parents or guardians. Well, the smarter and more intuitive ones, anyway.

"Let him have some fun, GH," Saffa teased. She had approached him, and saw his human suit, with Duff and Gaz behind her.

"We'll even go along, if you want," Gaz offered. She needed a bit of a break her current civilian job search. Sometimes a RAFian needed a simple, ordinary grind to get grounded from the sheer surreal and weirdness that a RAFian life entailed. "You don't have go alone."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeease, Daddy?" Leatherhead said, deliberately drawing out the first word, begging.

GH sighed, and relented, "Oh, okay. But, Leatherhead," and the boy paid attention as if GH used his middle name, "take it easy on that suit. Let's just not try to destroy it as you just got it."

***

GH's anxiety did not abet when he watched Leatherhead play in the ball pit thing. The suit was holding up remarkably well thus far, but GH still worried. He had barely touched his burger, which was rapidly becoming cold and soggy, and he found himself instinctively practicing the fingering for the notes on his guitar. He had set it right next to LH's keytar -- never knew when they might need them in their battle axe or halbried forms. But GH still believed that Leatherhead was not only too young for any serious, scarring battle, but too inexperienced and ill-prepared.

"Relax, GH," Duff said, gregariously, "everything will be fine."

"You can't know that for sure, Duff," the music connoisseur contested anxiously. He was keeping a sharp eye on Leatherhead, who, despite looking like a human six-year-old, was laying in the ball pit like an alligator in a swamp. He had a huge smile plastered on his face -- he was having a ball. "Any number of things could go wrong."

"Or everything could be alright," Gaz countered, bracingly. "Try focusing on the positives instead of the negatives."

 GH didn't respond, his eyes locked on Leatherhead, ready to pull him out the moment the suit would dare to tear or something like that.

"Excuse me," said a voice behind them, "but are you RAFians?"

It was from a woman who would be considered attractive by human standards. She had buck of thick, wavy black hair, gray eyes, and was about a hair shorter than Duff. She wore a forest green bandanna, forest green vest, and light orange dress that looked rather outdated.

"Sorry to interrupt," she apologized. She seemed genuinely contrite, and only GH didn't look at her, but was watching LH pretty much act like a alligator in the ball pit. He hoped that an outsider would just see a six-year-old human playing, pretending to be one, instead of guessing the truth. "My name is Elena Dubbelhartiger --"

"Dubbelhartiger?" Duff inquired.

"Yes, it's Dutch," she said. Then she cut to the point, rather suspiciously quick. "I have come here on the behalf of my employer, Simone Fourbe. Our island is apparently inundated with monstrous zombies. I have come for help. There are no working phone lines on the island. Please -- we need your help."

This seemed a perfectly normal request. But the RAFians found it a bit suspicious, but said nothing about it. They looked at each other -- GH sighed. It looks like Leatherhead may have his first mission after all. GH still thought he was too young, but apparently they would have to leave right away.

"LH!" GH called. "It's time to go!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2017, 09:53:14 AM

Lot of Leatherhead-GH development in this book. I must admit -- it wasn't originally in my outline. Actually -- I don't think Leatherhead was even a character yet (considering I created him on the fly) when I planned out this book. Huh. Interesting.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
En Route

All five were on a ferry to the island, and Leatherhead was excited. His first mission! He was like a grown-up now! And he was still wearing his suit, naturally enough. He was still having a ball, despite knowing that what he was heading into was potentially dangerous, he didn't really understand the ramifications of it. It was his first real mission! And it was, in LH's mind, it was because he got this human suit. This suit had opened all sorts of doors for him now, the six-year-old felt. He didn't realize this darker implications of having to hide himself away from the world, and showing the world a face they found superficially acceptable.

GH was not thrilled about bringing LH along -- he scolded himself constantly in his head for doing it. He's too young. He's too inexperienced. He's not ready. He's ill-prepared. He's too naive. He wouldn't survive the type of mission that they had to go on regularly. This could scar him for life. This could ruin his childhood, assuming he survives.

Yet, another part of him argued back, as they got onboard the ferry with the gregarious Cajun ferryman, that this was just a simple case. A simple haunted house . . . with zombies. It could just be a gag to get them to endorse tourism to their island, this Moonscar Island. Doesn't mean it has to be all Walking Dead. Could just be Black Lanterns -- no, that wouldn't be better, he considered again. This could be a growth experience for the boy, help him come into his own, allow him to understand what it is that RAFians do. It could be a beneficial experience for the lad.

These warring opinions in GH's mind caused him to fall unusually quiet and moody, completely unnoticed by an enthralled Leatherhead. Leatherhead had quickly adjusted to moving without his large, encumbering tail , as the suit allowed him to look and move perfectly human, thanks to the compression tech that Dek installed. Allowing the youngster more freedom to move about -- something GH secretly found terrifying. More freedom meant that Leatherhead was also more free to find -- or cause -- more trouble.

The others seemed gregariously unconcerned about this or the mission they were currently embarking on. GH felt envious of their nonchalance and lack of anxiety. There was so much that could go wrong here, especially with his precocious son in tow.

GH hoped that this wasn't anywhere near the omega-level threats that they had to face in the past, like Garrotik, Galactron, and the Warworld, to name a few. Hopefully, this was just a procedural, paint-by-numbers sort of mission, then he wouldn't have to fret about LH's safety and rambunctious behavior. That suit really had emboldened him to an alarming degree . . .

Meanwhile, Duff was talking to the ferryman, Jacob Kharon. He was an older man with a stocky frame and a bushy white mustache. He wore a shirt that looked rather like an Incineroar's torso with khaki slacks. He also wore a floppy hat that Leatherhead pointed out looked like a lampshade. Jacob ignored this precocious pronouncement, as GH had to rein in LH a bit. The youngster was allow his excitement get the better of him.

And, yet, the ferryman, this Jacob Kharon gave GH the . . . the heebie-jeebies, and he could understand why. That cantankerous local looking for that big catfish he called "Big Kandy" (which did sound rather comical aloud) was understandable, but the ferryman seemed affable and friendly enough . . . but GH couldn't put his finger on why he unnerved him so much.

Then he considered something that cast that out of his mind. He wondered if he was giving Leatherhead, or if he himself had a factitious disorder -- before immediately deeming it stupid. He had no interest in being a patient to garner attention. But he did worry about things that he never worried about before Leatherhead was in his life, about the boy himself.

Perhaps he was overprotective? Was he too neglectful? Its a very difficult balance to try and straddle. Allowing your child sufficient autonomy without being neglectful, and being present in their lives enough with out being invasive and overbearing. A very tough balance to achieve.

GH felt an hand on his left shoulder, and saw Saffa give him a small smile. They had arrived, and LH came running up to them, and GH had a strange flashback of himself moving like that when he, himself, was Leatherhead's age. The music connoisseur managed a smile, at this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2017, 08:08:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Peppers, the Manor, You Know

"Don't go too far ahead, LH!" GH said, as the boy ran through the pepper plantation before the manor. Elena was leading the way -- and they saw no zombies of any sort.

"Relax, Logan, he's fine." Saffa said, amicably, in a rather sisterly manner. When he didn't reply, she took note of his anxiety. "I know you worry -- all parents do."

"You don't have kids," GH said, rather more rudely than he had intended.

"True," Saffa said. If she only cared about winning the argument, she could have mentioned that Leatherhead wasn't technically his, but no one in RAF thought that really. Though they may not have been blood, that did not mean that Leatherhead wasn't GH's son, despite the guitarist's relatively young age himself. "But I have parents -- which I understand isn't the same thing -- and I've seen them worry. Perhaps a tad too much."

GH said nothing, his eyes locked on Leatherhead. Part of him wished that Dek never gave him that suit -- but then again, look how free and without a care he was. He didn't have to worry about being seen -- and judged -- by people before they came to know him. They would see him as the child he was and not as a monster from a crappy B-movie from the thirties.

The quartet, lead by Elena, came upon the large manor. It was rather more opulent and flashy than any of the RAFians liked. Leatherhead was impressed, but quickly lost interest in it, turning it instead to the peppers growing along the path. The manor was at least three stories tall and perfectly rectangular. Some of the metal had tarnished, but no one commented upon it. The manor was like the Biltmore House (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Estate), only in white marble and blue trim. It was actually a tad more compact and compressed than the Biltmore House, probably due to the island not being all that big.

Considering the entire forum consisted of several buildings and was more like a college campus than a manor, everyone (except Leatherhead who didn't know any better) felt that the manor was needlessly ostentatious. As if the person who built it wanted to desperately flaunt their wealth with lavish excess and expensive materials. The manor building itself had to have been at least 126 years old, give or take.

Elena took them inside, and the decor was like the exterior -- it wanted to basically beat you over the head saying "I'm rich! I'm rich!" in not so subtle terms. They stood in a grand atrium, with a sloping staircase curling away from them at their left about at eight, nine o'clock. A glass case of some artifact on a pedestal right next to it, a door straight ahead and to the right. The opulence was really shoved in their faces, in such a way that the RAFians couldn't help but find it distasteful.

Elena lead them through the doorway on the right, where was clearly the dining hall of the facility. There stood a tall woman -- a full head taller than GH, and GH was not a short man. She had a superficial resemblance to Elsa from "Frozen" except with a flatter nose and her ears hidden completely by her hair. She wore a light orange dress -- like the sunset at dusk. This was presumably Simone Fourbe.

"Ms. Fourbe," Elena began, presenting them. "These are the RAFians we sought after."

"Odd," she said. Her voice bore a vague French accent, and her tone was imperious and disapproving, "I thought there was more than four. Unless the child counts as the fifth?"

"All of our other members are busy," Duff lied well. Truth was that the mods thought best only a small group be sent -- to verify the veracity of Elena's claims. Why that group had to include Leatherhead, GH didn't know. He was six, after all. He was much too young to be here . . . he was not mature enough to take on such a mission. He was not ready. GH wasn't ready.

But, insofar, it appeared the veracity of Elena's accounts were lacking. They hadn't seen a single zombie yet after stepping foot on the island. GH was expecting a total "Walking Dead" type of scenario, but nothing. Still, he drew Leatherhead in close. The boy allowed it because the woman, this Simone character, freaked him out -- though he didn't know why. Perhaps it was because of her flagrant pedophobic (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pedophobia) attitude.

Gaz noticed this too, and secretly wondered if the two women had an ulterior motive for bringing them here under false pretenses. They would just have to wait and see how this played out. They've gotten out stickier situations before -- so nothing these two women did could possibly keep a RAFian from leaving of their own accord. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 27, 2017, 04:52:43 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Blown Up

"Is that so?" Simone asked, rather more frostily then the occasion deserved. "So, Elena, it would seem that we aren't a priority."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Fourbe," was Elena's only reply. "But four RAFians --"

"-- and the child --" Simone said, unnecessarily harsh. GH was starting to feel aggrieved.

"And the child," Elena amended hastily, "are better than nothing. Isn't it, Ms. Fourbe?"

"I suppose," she said, with imperial disdain. The RAFians as a whole were really starting to dislike this woman. She seemed to be very unpleasant to be around, much less work for. Cold and unforgiving, like a barren wasteland. "But they better be of use when the zombique attack once more."

"Why don't they attack during daylight hours?" Saffa said, on an educated guess.

"Why should I know?" Simone said, with clear contempt. "You're the ones that are supposed to be experts in such a field. I have never claimed to be."

Saffa bit back a scathing response, and said, instead, "What information can give us?"

Simone's response was derisive, "I was given the impression that you were good at this. But, very well, then."

It was rather presumptuous of her to assume that the RAFians knew everything that was going on without anything to go on. They were RAFians, not clairvoyants. The four RAFians bit their tongues. Leatherhead picked up on this, but found Simone scary.

"All we know is they come from the bayou," she said, voice heavy with conceit. "They come and disappear at first light."

Almost sounded like zombies in "Minecraft".

"Well, what are you lot waiting for?" Simone said, with a snap in her voice. "Go to the bayou and stop these pests!"

"Hey, lady, we don't work for you," GH said, unable to help himself and before the others could calm him. "We are not getting paid by you. We are not your employees. You can't treat us like sh-- er, crap and just expect us to say nothing and meekly comply to your demands. We don't have to even be here. We don't HAVE to help you out. And with your little attitude, lady, it's little wonder why you still have this problem to deal with. So, don't give us orders as if you have power over us, lady. We could just as soon choose to leave you to deal with this problem by yourself. Don't order us around."

With that, GH chivvied Leatherhead out of the manor, still irritated and angry at this pretentious piece of work. The audacity she had! She actually had the temerity, the effrontery to presume that she could treat them with the same detached disdain and cold contempt that she treated all her employees with. She had the impudence, the gall to assume that he and the others would submissively acquiesce to her will, as if they were a mere extension of her limbs.

And her attitude towards Leatherhead! That was totally uncalled for, as far as GH was concerned. Her pedophobic behavior -- her irrational dislike for children -- was disgusting. Saffa didn't like kids too much, but she never acted so . . . so . . .

"Are you okay, Daddy?"

GH didn't answer at first, before saying, with a forced smile, "It's okay, LH. Don't worry about it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2017, 05:34:53 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Into the Bayou

"That might come back to bite us in the butt," Duff said. He wasn't being accusatory, but a mere statement of possibility.

"I don't care," GH said, mulishly. "Where does she get off barking orders at us, like we're her servants? I meant what I said, and, furthermore, I stand by what I said. She's not paying us, and we are not in her employ. We are not obligated to follow what she wants."

They ventured further into the bayou, and Leatherhead felt strangely more comfortable. Might've be his crocodilian side, might've been being a good distance away from that pretentious Fourbe lady. GH found his dislike of that woman extending to Elena as well, as who could willingly work for such a woman? She showed no signs of disliking her work . . . there was probably a deeper reason for her employment to such a vile, unlikable woman. Something that they were not privy to.

Never mind. It was superfluous.

The swampy bayou was actually more welcoming than the ice queen in the manor over there. Granted, the bugs left a lot to be desired. Only Gaz and Leatherhead seemed completely unbothered by the biting insects, presumably by virtue of being a vampire, and having crocodilian scales.

They caught sight of of that crusty local, Mark "Snakebite" Boot, was fighting with the biggest, ugliest catfish GH had ever seen. "Big Kandy" he supposed. But the fishing line snapped, and the catfish escaped into the murky depths. Snakebite hurled a bunch of expletives at this.

"LH, do not repeat anything you hear that man saying," GH said.

"Why?" he asked.

"They're a lot of bad words," Saffa supplied. "Though, none too creative."

They moved on, and GH's anger began to evaporate. He actually began to relax. Granted, the large biting bugs were irritating, but better then the company of the ice queen. The sun was setting, making entire bayou awash in orange light as the sun began its daily descent over the horizon.

"The sunset's nice, though," Gaz remarked.

"Pretty," Leatherhead agreed.

Within moments, the sun slunk beneath the horizon, providing an inky blackness with the first stars coming out to twinkle in the night sky. The moon was only half full, but provided plenty of moonlight on this night.

"Still no zombies," Duff said. "Not even a Black Lantern."

"The only just set," Saffa said, reasonably. "Be patient."

"I dunno, Saffa," Duff said, slapping a mosquito on his neck. "This whole thing screams 'setup' to me."

"You mean Elena and the ice queen?" GH said, scorn in his voice.

"I mean someone," he said. "I dunno who, exactly. This mission just feels . . . artificial, somehow. Like the zombies are meant to be some kind of Scooby Doo distraction. Sleight of hand."

"How exactly?" Saffa inquired.

Duff never got to answer her -- a glowing green light had arched over them and into the bayou water.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2017, 06:14:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
RAFian Time

The light crackled before it disappeared. But it soon became obvious what that light did -- as the rotting, decomposing bodies in tattered, mildewed, and discolored clothing rose from the bayou water. One was once clearly an once-overwieght stereotypical tourist, with several in pirate or solider garb. There were more styles of clothing that were of indeterminate time periods.

Zombies.

Leatherhead immediately recoiled from the bayou and retreated to GH's arms. He was terrified.

"You hear the screeching of an owl,
You hear the wind begin to howl --
You know there's zombies on the prowl!
And it's RAFian time again.
They've gotta run though the night,
It's RAFian time again.
And you just might die from the sight,
It's a terrifying time."

GH was singing. Musicalizing this may seemed to be of poor taste and unhelpful, but it always helped Leatherhead to calm down and feel reassured, as funny as that may sound.

Meanwhile, Saffa, Gaz, and Duff prepared to fight the zombies, like back when they fought Black Lanterns.

"You hear the beating of your heart,
You know the mission's gonna start.
Here comes the really scary part,
'Cause it's RAFian time again.
They've gotta run through the night,
It's RAFian time again.
Oh, you just might sigh on sight,
It's a terrifying time."

As the zombies shambled closer . . . something was off. Something felt . . . odd.

"Is it me," Gaz said, perplexed, "or do these zombies not feel . . . malicious? Like at all?"

"All the trees begin to moan,
And the RAFians grunt and groan,
Far from a situation that's sublime,
Don't you know it's RAFian time?"

"But when's the last time zombies were good guys?" Duff asked.

"You could make that argument against vampires," Gaz said, speaking as a vampire.

"And it's RAFian time again,
They've gotta run through the night,
Yes, it's RAFian time again.
Oh, you just might sigh on sight,
It's a terrifying time!"

"It looks like they're trying to tell us something," Saffa said.

"But what? I don't speak zombie," Gaz said.

"I think, one way or another, we'll find out," Duff intoned darkly.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=67dVpgUry7Q

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

I'm finally caught up again!  :D

Loved the past few stories.  Took me a while (as in, probably longer than it should have) on the pearls one, to realize that those of us affected were turning into Disney princesses.  But I thought that was a nice touch.  I was Mulan, right?  Too bad I probably didn't get to keep any of the swordsmanship (er, swordswomanship?) abilities, but I suppose I can't really hold a sword with my normal hands, anyway.  :XD:  Also . . . it does occur to me that I don't remember anything of my life before becoming a nothlit . . . so how can I be sure that none of those memories were real?  It's admittedly unlikely that I was a Chinese warrior-princess, but you never know!  ;)

The Cloak-dream-world chapters were beautifully inspiring.  :')  It's weird to see Cloak absent from the main plot for so many books in a row, though.  But I suppose that's to be expected after the exertion of keeping an entire planet rotating.  Oh man, I'm still laughing about what happened to the cat-planet because of that.  :XD:  Wait, does that make me a bad person?  Laughing about dead kitties, yeah, that probably makes me a bad person.  :P

And, I have to admit, I'm still a little nervous about potential fallout from the killer produce episode . . . I mean, do you know how easy it would be for one person, while evacuating the city, to go 'I'm just gonna keep this one apple in my pocket for later, what harm could that do?'  I suppose it isn't like a killer apple could stay secret for long, so by now they'd probably know, but sometimes all it takes is ONE idiot to screw up an otherwise-brilliantly-laid-out plan.

Also, that book reminded me of an actual Balkan legend I once heard about, that any pumpkins or melons left unharvested for too long, in a full moon, would turn into vampiric produce.  Just looked it up to confirm, and found this gem of a quote from the wiki: "These pumpkins and melons go round the houses, stables, and rooms at night, all by themselves, and do harm to people. But it is thought that they cannot do great damage to folk, so people are not very afraid of this kind of vampire."  :XD:

As for the current book, I'm loving the character development for LH!  *hugs him*  It would be pretty wonderful if he could just go his whole life without knowing the real reason behind having to wear a human disguise, that humans can be such intolerant bigots.  That's an unfortunate truth that nobody should ever have to learn.  *sigh*  But I have a feeling that LH will learn it at the worst possible time.  *hugs him again*  Stay strong, little crocodile, and know that there are enough people who care about you to cancel out the gator-haters ten times over.

By the way, this plot-line seems very vaguely familiar.  I seem to remember a very old Scooby Doo movie (I think it might even have been the very first Scooby Doo movie) that went along these lines.  In any case, I don't remember enough about the movie for it to even constitute a spoiler.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2017, 04:27:08 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

I'm finally caught up again!  :D

 ;D

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

The Cloak-dream-world chapters were beautifully inspiring.  :')

Thank you. I wanted to show that one has to deal with one's own burdens and not put them off on others, and show that Aniyu was the only other Truth Dreamer. And Cloak's the only one whose both an Elements Master and a Truth Dreamer, a combination of these two ichor-lines.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

It's weird to see Cloak absent from the main plot for so many books in a row, though.  But I suppose that's to be expected after the exertion of keeping an entire planet rotating.

Yes. Quite. Otherwise the apex tier might be just a tad OP without such an expensive cool-down time. Grant, Cloak is essentially one of the most powerful RAFians as it stands already . . .

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

Oh man, I'm still laughing about what happened to the cat-planet because of that.  :XD:  Wait, does that make me a bad person?  Laughing about dead kitties, yeah, that probably makes me a bad person.  :P

Nah. They should have realized what they were in for. You can't really reap benefits without a cost or two somewhere down the line, and even the best laid plans aren't infallible.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

And, I have to admit, I'm still a little nervous about potential fallout from the killer produce episode . . . I mean, do you know how easy it would be for one person, while evacuating the city, to go 'I'm just gonna keep this one apple in my pocket for later, what harm could that do?'  I suppose it isn't like a killer apple could stay secret for long, so by now they'd probably know, but sometimes all it takes is ONE idiot to screw up an otherwise-brilliantly-laid-out plan.

Not really really possible, as the infect produce turn nearly immediately, and anyone who tried that wouldn't have had a hand anymore. Think of it like a piranha apple. ;)

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

Also, that book reminded me of an actual Balkan legend I once heard about, that any pumpkins or melons left unharvested for too long, in a full moon, would turn into vampiric produce.  Just looked it up to confirm, and found this gem of a quote from the wiki: "These pumpkins and melons go round the houses, stables, and rooms at night, all by themselves, and do harm to people. But it is thought that they cannot do great damage to folk, so people are not very afraid of this kind of vampire."  :XD:

Honestly did not know this. All I know is it was very loosely based on the concept of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" (which I thought I was being too obvious when using the theme song in the book, but, as it happens when I think (i.e. fear) I'm being too obvious, it turns out it's only obvious to me because I know what's going to happen).

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

As for the current book, I'm loving the character development for LH!  *hugs him*  It would be pretty wonderful if he could just go his whole life without knowing the real reason behind having to wear a human disguise, that humans can be such intolerant bigots.  That's an unfortunate truth that nobody should ever have to learn.  *sigh*  But I have a feeling that LH will learn it at the worst possible time.  *hugs him again*  Stay strong, little crocodile, and know that there are enough people who care about you to cancel out the gator-haters ten times over.

And, again, it wasn't in the outline. It just happened organically, because I knew I wanted to have GH and Leatherhead as part of the main group in this book.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

By the way, this plot-line seems very vaguely familiar.  I seem to remember a very old Scooby Doo movie (I think it might even have been the very first Scooby Doo movie) that went along these lines.  In any case, I don't remember enough about the movie for it to even constitute a spoiler.

Um . . . this is another case like the killer produce book where I though I was being too obvious, especially with the song in the last chapter. I probably should stop thinking that way.

Anyway, I'm still working on Chapter Nine. Just got distracted with errands and shiny hunting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 30, 2017, 05:08:53 PM

So this is an instance where I can actually say you got distracted by a shiny thing? ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2017, 05:20:27 PM

Only if I managed to find one -- and I haven't. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Separation Situation

The zombies began to shamble closer and closer to the RAFians. Probably didn't help that "The Walking Dead" was on the night before, hence the RAFians reluctance to allow the creatures to touch them. Much less scratch or bite them.

Their animalistic groaning and almost menacing moaning flew in the face of any benign motivations they could possibly have. Even their slow, stilted, shambling movements were cause for intimidation, even amongst the RAFians. Almost as if it were deliberate.

The RAFians seemed to take this in stride, despite keeping their distance from the zombies in their assorted tattered clothing. But Leatherhead, however . . . Leatherhead was convulsing in terror. He was not accustomed to this level of threat -- GH had more or less protected him from these kind of missions. Sure, when he first mutated he took down that Furon savagely -- something he barely remembers, and he remembered nothing from the time before he was mutated -- but this was a whole new level.

Closer and closer they came. The terror was building up in the child, his human suit even horripilating -- GH had to note Dek's indescribable attention to detail. No six-year-old had ever dealt with this kind of thing before, or at least, none should. GH could feel him shiver, even though it was not remotely cold out on this full moon night -- wait, full moon? GH could have sworn it was only a half moon moments earlier.

GH's grasp of Leatherhead lightened, and poorly-timed low, threatening moan from a pirate zombie with a moon-shaped scar who was wielding a cutlass that looked oddly pristine and not rusted in the least, almost as if the metal was not iron but adamantium or something. But this was more than enough for poor little Leatherhead.

He broke free from GH's grasp as the latter gave a surprised gasp, not expecting this turn of events. Then the crocodilian in his human boy disguise fled into what appeared to be deeper into the bayou, but GH recognized it as a way to the docks. Leatherhead wanted to leave. He wanted to go home now.

"Leatherhead!" GH called after him. He wasted no time in hurtling himself after his adoptive son, his beloved guitar straddled to his back.

"We shouldn't split up!" Saffa said, but already the zombies had blocked their way. The group was now divided, and the zombies seemed unaware of really anything. They seemed to be barely sentient at times, then exhibiting some knowledge of their surroundings the other. "That's a horror movie cliche that ends up with people getting killed."

"This isn't a horror movie, though," Duff pointed out.

"Our lives are a horror movie," Gaz said, dryly.

Suddenly, they heard a scream from out towards the direction of the Fourbe estate.

"And that's Elena," Duff said. "Do you think she might be in legitimate danger, or that it's just some ruse?"

"I guess we'll find out either way," Gaz sighed as she began to head back to the mansion.

Duff and Saffa followed suit, with Duff remarking, "Sometimes having a conscience is a real pain in the butt."

"A RAFian's work is never done," Saffa said, with a heavy sigh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2017, 06:29:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Something Off Here

The trio came out of the bayou into the pepper plantation of the estate. They quickly pushed through the pepper plants as they hurried to go to the mansion, where that icy, pedophobic witch dwelled. When they came to that mansion, the full moon loomed over the backside of it, as if the house was a couch it was hiding behind.

That only served to increase the ominous feelings of the trio, who cast each other looks that conveyed each's misgivings about this mission. It did not help to see the mansion in its entirety was dark, and devoid of light, as if it were abandoned to a horde of zombies -- and yet, the place was devoid of zombies, as if they were afraid to approach the place. As if the place had some sort of taint to it, imperceptible to the RAFians.

The trio scoured the house looking for the two, but it appeared to have been abandoned. No door was even locked. The bedrooms had their beds still made and no one was slumbering away in them. It was eerie -- as if all humans were erased from existence at this residence.

Duff decided to look upstairs, and started to walk up a grand staircase. Only for part of the staircase to fall downward, causing the RAFian to tumble down and land rather awkwardly in Elena's lap.

"Are you okay, Duff?" she asked. She sounded genuinely concerned, but Duff was uncomfortable as he wasn't attracted to her -- she wasn't his type, he guessed. He did not hesitate in righting himself and giving himself space between her and himself.

"Yeah. Yeah, just fine." was his only reply. His mind immediately flew towards why there was a secret staircase here, and just why Elena was down here. He didn't say his suspicions aloud, but not because it would be rude. He didn't want to alert Elena to them. However, when he met the eyes of the other two RAFians he could tell that they shared his suspicions. This made him feel better -- he wasn't just being paranoid.

"What's going on?" Gaz said. It was not easy to keep from sounding doubtful and suspicious of the woman. Their RAFian training had taught them how to identify such people, and, using her vampirically-enhanced olfactory sense, she could tell that Elena's blood smelled . . . off. Off in a way that Gaz couldn't quite explain to a satisfactory degree.

"It was a nightmare!" Elena said. "Ms. Fourbe and I went outside to wait for you, when we were attacked by zombies!"

Not one of the trio believed her, not really. But they were all curious of her endgame, if indeed, she was playing them.

"We ran back to the house," she said, evidently unaware that she wasn't really convincing the three, "and Ms. Fourbe opened this secret passageway. She said it was built during --"

The three RAFians cast furtive looks at each other as Elena launched into a brief explanation of the secret passageway. None of them were entirely buying this. But this could be because of that so-called Moonscar treasure that was rumored to be on this island. The RAFians had no interest in such things, so they paid it no mind when Jacob or someone was talking about it.

"-- But the zombies came after us!" Elena said, almost sounding on the verge of crying. Stupid compassion, Duff cursed to his heart, as he was beginning to soften -- she seemed so genuine about this . . .

While this happened, Saffa looked upon the sandy ground and saw the distinct impression of the soles of Elena's shoes, and the ball and hell print of high heel shoes. Simon Fourbe.

"They grabbed Ms. Fourbe and dragged her away!" she said, with a sobbing gasp. Now she was starting to be pretty damn convincing. "Oh, thank goodness you've come!"

Duff was somewhat convinced now, but Saffa frowned. If Simone Fourbe was dragged off . . . there was no indication in the sand. It looked as if she . . . as if she walked down the corridor herself.

"Alright," Saffa said, considering very quickly. There have been numerous disappearances on these islands over the years. Some power has been here and gone unchecked. "Let's go 'save' Simone, then."

Elena looked at Saffa, taking notice of her tone, and Saffa didn't flinch. She had fought far more fearsome beasts than a servant of a rich piece of --

They proceeded down the bricked walled corridor with a bare sandy floor. It seemed to take them about twenty minutes before they reached the exit. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 08:39:51 PM

Quote from: Cloak on October 30, 2017, 04:27:08 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on October 30, 2017, 02:49:08 PM

Oh man, I'm still laughing about what happened to the cat-planet because of that.  :XD:  Wait, does that make me a bad person?  Laughing about dead kitties, yeah, that probably makes me a bad person.  :P

Nah. They should have realized what they were in for. You can't really reap benefits without a cost or two somewhere down the line, and even the best laid plans aren't infallible.

That's a good point.  But that assumes that ALL of the cats on that planet were on board with the whole 'stop-earth-spinning-and-kill-all-the-humans-to-save-ourselves' plan.  If that were true . . . if their leaders honestly informed every member of the population of the situation . . . every man, woman, and kitten . . . and the cats all rose up as one to give approval to that plan . . . and THEN their leaders managed to actually enact a solution that was thus unanimously approved by the people with fully-informed consent . . . then, wow, evil or not, I have MASSIVE respect for the sheer efficiency and coordination of their government.  Rest in peace, cat-planet.  *shines a laser pointer into the sky*

 . . . I always have to play devil's advocate, don't I?  ;)

And in other news . . . the plot thickens!  :D

P.S. I caught my first shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go!  A Duskull.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2017, 08:59:29 PM

True.

And I don't have Pokemon Go, as I don't have a smartphone. The phone I do have has sentimental value in it (my aunt Wheeza gave it to me the first Christmas after I was kicked out from my mom's house). But, in the main series games, I'm up to 127 Shinies. ;) Newest one was a shiny Silvally, from the event.

Anyway, I'm working intermittently on Chapter Eleven. This book seems to be going by fast -- I may have to extend it past twenty chapters. But, as you know, it's not the first time I've done so, especially when I go "off-script" like this.

:edit: New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
GH and LH Have a Moment

Leatherhead ran.

He knew to do nothing else. He ran and ran, as terror and panic gripped his heart, his mind, and his soul. He didn't want to be here anymore. He didn't want to be on this mission anymore. He didn't want to feel afraid anymore. He wanted to be safe.

This island wasn't safe. This mission wasn't safe. He wasn't safe. He could die. He didn't want to die. Those zombies would have hurt him. He didn't want to be hurt. He didn't like being hurt.

He slowed his run, his flight for a fraction of a moment to regard, with the limited clarity of a child. He left his daddy to die back there. If he was alive, then Leather felt as if he would be in so much trouble -- he had a chance to be a big boy, but he ran like a baby. He now experienced a deep feeling of guilt and shame. He still felt afraid, but now had shame and guilt mixed in, like some horrendous ****tail of bad feelings. He did not like these feelings, but he was too inexperienced due to his youth to know how to handle them properly.

He did the only logical a boy age and stress level knew how to do to cope -- he cried. The dock was well out of earshot, and only hidden from sight by a slight band of trees. Leatherhead couldn't take it anymore, and collapsed to his knees and just cried. He didn't remove his human suit, of course. It had become something rather like a security blanket for him.

Leatherhead was a mess. He did not know how to suss this emotional stuff out, and it confused and frustrated his young mind. He placed his hands on his head as if desiring to claw these bad feelings out of his mind. He just didn't like here . . . and he abandoned his daddy . . .  he . . . he was filled with so many conflicting emotions now, he . . . he didn't know . . .

"Leatherhead!"

Leatherhead jumped at the sound of this voice calling his name. He recoiled from the sound. He was going to be angry. Leatherhead was sure of it. He would be disappointed in him. He did not act like a big boy. He acted like baby. Part of him wanted to hide, part of him knew that that would just get him into more trouble. This internal quandary caused him to freeze.

"Leatherhead!!"

There was an edge of terror to GH's voice that had absolutely nothing to do with the zombies. It was a terror that only a parent or guardian of child would know. Images of their child lying dead with nothing they can do about it flood through their mind when their child goes missing like this . . . this is what truly caused the fear in GH.

"Leatherhead!!!"

GH was desperately trying not to panic. He was trying very hard. Then he found his adoptive son hiding seemingly amongst the low shrubs and trees. He was afraid that GH would be angry with him, but GH just scooped up the boy and embraced him, realizing after a few minutes just how scared he was. His arms was shaking.

But he was fine. His son was fine.

"D-daddy," Leatherhead said, sniffling. "I'm s-sorry. I . . . I shouldn't h-have ran away. I . . ."

"No, LH," GH said, gently. He adopted a kind, fatherly tone that he used whenever Leatherhead got scared like this. "The fault is mine, not yours. I suspected that there might be things like this, that things might escalate."

He touched his head with Leatherhead, and his son returned to the gesture.

"You were not yet ready," GH said. "You were not yet prepared. It was not a good decision to put you in a position that you were not ready to handle yet."

Leatherhead did not argue. He didn't exactly understand, but he found the sound of GH's voice soothing and calming. Found the feeling of GH's embrace comforting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2017, 05:18:57 AM

Yes, it isn't lost on me how perfect it is that I get to the climax of this book on Halloween.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Who Do Voodoo?

The tunnel was capped off by a wooden door, which looked remarkably well-crafted and well maintained. And there was no evidence of zombies. But, curiosity getting the better of them, they entered.

It was probably one of the most foolish things that they've ever done.

Why? Because nearly immediately they were sidelined into a rough pewter cage. None of the three had superhuman strength as they were, even if they did, they were taken unawares.

"I knew it," Saffa said. "Fourbe wasn't dragged down here. She came of her own accord."

The sound of a winch being pull was heard as a hole illuminated the cavern more then the bronze torch holding things mount upon the walls. The place had a very . . . malevolent feel to it. Right beneath the rooftop hole was what appeared to be some sort of moondial -- like a sundial, but for the moon -- roughly hewn from what appeared to be granite.

"Disappointing," Simone Fourbe said, "you RAFians really don't live up to your reputations. You were clearly not intelligent enough to recognize a trap when it tap dances under your nose."

She turned to Elena, "It took you minimal effort to get them down here, I expect?"

"Yes, Simone," she said. She had deliberately dropped the "Ms. Fourbe" bit, because clearly the cat was out of the bag. "The ruse was perfect."

Duff was going to say not really, but he clammed up. The reason none of the RAFians had even tried to escape was because they were trying to get more information out of the two. It was clear that the two were somehow connected to the disappearances on the island.

"Yes, and now its too late for them to save themselves," Simone said, "just like all the others."

She just basically outright confirmed the trio's suspicions.

"Although the voodoo dolls didn't work," Elena said, "strange, isn't it, Simone?"

The Mark must have blocked it. Voodoo must not have any effect on Realm Walkers either, as it is a sort of magic -- one that Broken nor any other magic-wielding RAFian is willing to touch, due to the inherent dark nature of it.

"That doesn't matter. We'll just have to be more hands-on this year," she said, with an unmistakable relish. Then she turned to the moondial thing and continued, "The harvest moon will soon reach the apex point at midnight . . . and then the ceremony will begin!"

"What ceremony?!" Duff said, pretending to be more afraid than he actually was. He was trying to trigger more information that the trio could possibly use against them.

"You won't get away with this," Gaz said, with the same goal as Duff.

"I have been getting away with it for two hundred years," Simone said, malevolently.
Then she began to transform. Her teeth sharpened. Her ears enlarged and became feline, her nails transformed into claws. Her nose became flatter and more pointed, and she grew at least a half a foot in height. Her sclera turned yellow as her pupils dilated into feline slits.

"GH and LH are still free," Duff intoned to the others.

"I heard that, Duff," Elena said. She had undergone a similar, if not identical transformation into a half werecat state.

"Just what are you intending to do with us?" Duff said, principally ignoring what Elena said.

"Ah, it's simple." Simone said. "Every harvest moon we must drain the life force from victims lured to my island. To preserve our immortality."

It kind of flew in the face of true immortality, as if they didn't drain the life force from people, then they would die. So it wasn't true immortality, which didn't exist, but a mere facsimile.

"Well," Gaz said, "can't say I expected this."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2017, 05:59:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Very Scary Ferryman

GH had embraced and hugged Leatherhead for a long until the little boy seemed to calm down. Leatherhead felt as if he was wrapped in love -- he didn't understand it, granted, not really. Didn't understand the great, and at the same time terrible, power of love.

"You okay now, LH?" GH said, seriously but kind. "Because we can't go home yet."

"Why not?" LH whined. He was six, after all.

"We cannot leave Saffa, Duff, and Gaz behind, LH," GH said, but his tone wasn't too reproachful. So Leatherhead didn't feel as if he was being so much scolded as reminded.

"Oh," was his only reply.

The two got up and dusted themselves off, and walked on the path. Unwittingly, they were walking towards the ferry and not their friends. GH realized that when they came upon the dock -- and the other three were not there. The only other landmark he knew of was in mansion of over-opulence.

But the back of the ferry was lowering, without a person in sight. Leatherhead clutched the side of GH's right leg, scared. Leatherhead really was tired of being scared. Then Jacob came out of the pilot house thing, and descended the stairs onto the flat bed of the ferry, heading towards the two. The rotund man was walking with a sedate little walk.

An alarm in the back of GH's head was ringing that something wasn't right here, as he backed off the dock with GH making haste to follow suit. GH's instincts, both survival and parental, was tell him that Jacob was actually a dangerous dude, but GH couldn't imagine why. He looked so unassuming and harmless. But, then again, so did a Yeerk in its natural state.

"I'm so glad to see y'all, too," he said.

GH had said nothing of the sort. He backed away, putting his body in front of Leatherhead, protectively. Then GH was proved right in his instincts when Jacob turned into a full blown werecat with orange fur and feline eyes with yellow sclera and slitted pupils. His clothes were torn asunder, except, luckily enough, for his pants, which had a Hulk-like motif now. He stood at least seven and a half feet, eight feet tall now.

GH immediately got out his guitar and started to play, with Leatherhead following his lead. But this didn't work. It didn't reach the decent man that GH had assumed was inside. Jacob kept pressing his attack, until the two had to just run, with GH making sure LH was in front of him. Out of the line for being attacked first.

Jacob was making wildcat hisses and roars behind them, and without his music, GH wasn't real effective long range. He had no intention on in getting close range with thing. He was libel to get maimed if he tried, and he wouldn't put Leatherhead in that position, momentarily forgetting that Leatherhead was no human and his scales probably could not be penetrated as easily a human skin and flesh. Still, "probably" wasn't good enough assurance for GH, anyway.

But, as it turns out, GH managed to run them into a dead end. A friggin' dead end!! He felt outraged with himself that he allowed himself to lose track of the path. And it was too late for the to turn around as Jacob roared. There was no conceivable escape. He had them dead to rights.

Leatherhead clutched GH's left leg, he was trembling and shivering. "D-daddy? Are w-we gonna d-die?"

There were no words of comfort that GH could off him. He just scooped him up and held him, as he braced for the impact. The killing blow. But what happened next was not something he was prepared for.

"RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAA WWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2017, 06:44:11 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Time For Backstory*

"If you're as old as you say," Saffa said, trying to keep them talking. Trying to distract them. "Then I bet that you're the one who found Michael Moonscar's treasure!"

"Michael Moonscar!" Simone snarled. Then she launched into a flashback. "He was the cause of all of this. I was but one of a group of settlers who made this place our home. We looked to our cat god, Bast, for a plentiful harvest."

The trio of RAFians exchanged knowing, but furtive, looks.

"Until that dark night, when he came ashore," she continued without interruption. "He drove everyone into the bayou, all except for Elena and myself. Where they were ripped apart by hungry alligators and who knows what else."

Seemed needlessly gratuitous of the pirates.

"We cast a curse on those pirates. To kill them as they killed our loved ones and our island." Simone continued. "Our wish was granted. We became cat creatures and we killed every last pirate. Only afterward did we discover that, by invoking Bast's power, meant that we were cursed as well."

Then Elena picked up the narrative, "Over the years, boats continued to come to our island. One consisted of spice traders, who started a pepper plantation. It flourished."

"At least, until the harvest moon." Simone added. "Sometimes it became necessary for Elena to lure outsiders back to the island."

"I've had years of practice," she gloated.

Then you'd think she'd stop be so obvious about it, Saffa thought to herself.

"And those zombies are just the poor souls that you've drained," Gaz said. One might think that it was hypocritical for a vampire to say that, but Gaz drinks Blood Light, and doesn't actually drain people. "They were just trying to warn us so we didn't suffer the same fate they did."

"Pretty smart," Simone said, with condescending tones, "but a bit slow on the uptake."

They all heard a roar from outside echo around the room faintly.

"Sounds like Jacob has found your friends," Elena said.

"Jacob?" Duff asked.

"We needed a ferry driver," Simone said, "the old man wanted immortality. So we gave it to him."

The RAFians cast another furtive look. They were deciding when would be the perfect time to escape and fight them. Did they have enough information yet? Was it time to play their hand? What would happen if they ran out Simone, Elena, and Jacob's clock?

---

* Yes, that was an "Atop the Fourth Wall" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on October 31, 2017, 11:41:06 AM

Yep, this is definitely based on the Scooby Doo movie I remember.  I remembered the cat-creatures, and the voodoo dolls, but I thought my brain was just making that up.

Poor LH.  *hugs him again*  It's okay to be scared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2017, 06:39:59 PM

Yep.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Cat on Cat Violence

The roar did not come from Jacob. It was a deeper roar. A more powerful one from a larger animal. And, yet, it was somehow familiar to GH.

As Jacob closed in for the kill, he was tackled hard and roughly with a loud, audible WHUMPH sound, as if it was an action scene in a movie. He crashed into a rowan tree, which snagged a few loose hairs from his fur-covered hide. As he righted himself, he saw his attacker -- a creature that was at least a few inches taller than him, and a more intimidating glower. A glower of penetrating, amber eyes.

This creature growled at Jacob who roared back in an effort to intimidate this newcomer in black. But it failed miserable as the pitiless amber eyes seemed to bore into him. It was clear that this figure was a man-cat, but not of Jacob's breed. The newcomer's hands -- yes, hands! -- were curled into fists and he looked as if he wished to use them.

They stared themselves down, as Leatherhead shook with fear, and GH reacted with slight relief and perplexity. How did he know? How could have possibly deduced --

Jacob took the initiative and attacked first. He ****ed back his right arm for a slash, only to be blocked by the newcomer's arm and clenched fist, held vertically at a ninety degree angle. This opened Jacob up for an attack. And the newcomer didn't waste any time delivering a powerful blow to Jacob's gut, then slashing his face with his left hand and unsheathed lustrous black claws. Four streaks of red appeared after a single slash raked his face, tearing through fur and biting into flesh.

Jacob staggered back. He was winded and bleeding. He was incredibly unaccustomed to having people fight back against him, much less a cat his own size! The newcomer was actually even larger! He had never encountered what he took for a werecat other than Simone and Elena before, before they offered him the gift of immortality.

Intimidation and fear was his greatest assets in this form. He occasionally used it to herd people into the voodoo chamber to drain. He was flummoxed at the possibility of someone actually willing to fight him. That someone actually managed to knock the wind out of him and even draw his blood, his tainted, cursed blood.

He glanced at this newcomer and he seethed. He was so arrogant in his power he didn't pursue in attacking him. Even now he glared at Jacob with those penetrating eyes, he knew he saw disgusted dismissal. Let's just say that Jacob found this in particular rather . . . triggering.

Apparently, he used to be pushed around as a kid, so that's one reason why he loved draining people. To have that kind of power over them, and to show them no mercy. And when his parents died, he found that he never wanted follow suit. He wished immortality and power, two things that just always seem to be a bad thing to seek out together. Like adding two explosive chemicals together resulting in a violent, explosive reaction.

When he recovered, he quickly launched into another flurry of attacks. But each strike failed to land or was blocked. He roared in anger and frustration, which increased when this newcomer seemingly refused to the same. He wasn't taking Jacob seriously! This irritated the werecat to no end.

In the end, the newcomer forced Jacob to flee. He would retreat back to the voodoo chamber. Elena and Simone would not need to know of this embarrassment. No, they wouldn't need to know.

"C'mon, GH," Cloak said, "we have to follow him. If my gut instinct is right, we may not have much time!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 31, 2017, 08:07:30 PM

Wait, who dis?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2017, 09:06:34 PM

I assume you're referring to the newcomer? That was me, GH.

And, as I've caught a shiny Tympole and a shiny Goldeen (both female, by the way), I guess you can finally say that I was distracted by a shiny thing. I'll work on Chapter Sixteen tomorrow, after I go to the laundromat. Right now? It's bedtime. Night!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on October 31, 2017, 09:10:19 PM

Yeah, I had a feeling it was you, Cloak.  ;)

Congrats on the shiny Pokes!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 31, 2017, 09:19:49 PM

Wow, I should have caught on to that XD In my defense, I’m exhausted and at work and I have Swedish death metal on the brain :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2017, 08:06:25 AM

It's okay, GH. And Duff hasn't registered his species on the list, so, for the purposes of this story, he will be treated as a human.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Drain Them!

"Jacob's in trouble!" Elena said, having heard the roars from Jacob and Cloak's battle.

"Forget about him!" Simone scolded. "They must be drained now! While the moon is in the apex alignment!"

"Sorry, cat ladies," Duff said, freed, holding up a concealed weapon -- it looked like a fusion between a Dracon, a handgun, and a Zat'nik'tel (http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Zat%27nik%27tel). Duff had been good at such things. "But I don't think you're draining anybody today.

Gaz had reconstituted herself from her gaseous state and opened the cage, while Saffa was still in her Psycholeopterran morph, having phased out of the cage. This was the obvious means that they escaped, and helped Duff to escape from the cage.

"What?!" Simone screamed in fury.

"Yeah, that whole capturing us bit?" Gaz said, flippantly. "We were just stringing you along for information. Which you have provided us with some damning evidence, by the way, of your culpability."

<Two hundred years of getting away with this ends now,> Saffa said. <You picked the wrong marks to target, cat ladies.>

"Cat got your tongue?" Duff said, sardonically, pointing his unique weapon at them.

"I've had enough of these interruptions!" Simone roared in frustration.

Then she and Elena, with an inhuman roar from both of them, finished their transformations into full werecats, complete with orange fur and powerful feet that exploded their footwear. But their respective blonde and black hair remained, if just a bit wilder. Their clothing ripped at the sudden gain in mass.

"Should have seen that coming," Duff replied at this, as Saffa dived sown and released her gas which she turned into hypnotic waves with a flap of her Psycholeopterran wings.

It seemed to work on Simone and Elena, but Saffa seemed find enthralling two people like this infinitely more difficult than one. The illusion would not be maintained. The illusion could not be maintained. They would break free of it, they would --

<Ahh!> Saffa screamed in thought-speak as the illusion she was stimulating the two to see was broken. Their wills too strong to be manipulated so easily. <Perhaps another morph is needed.>

And she had fully intended on demorphing and remorphing into a Tyrannopede, one of her favorite morphs actually, hoping to bind them by wrapping them up into a silk cocoon. But she was interrupted in this plan by the pounding at the shut door.

In fact, that distracted all the occupants of the room, as even the moondial's shadow seemed to even become less pronounced. Again and again, came the beating upon the wooden door.

Then, all of a sudden, the door's hinges gave and the door flew off its hinges. And then it flew forward at incredible speeds, sandwiching the werecat ladies between the stone wall and the wooden door. Jacob was plastered on the other side.

In the corridor, Cloak was standing with right foot and leg extended. He lowered them as he placidly entered the room. He only looked vaguely surprised to see all this stuff in here, as if he had ventured into a realm where all this stuff was placed in this exact order.

"So," he said, "let me just guess what depraved acts you have been up to in here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2017, 02:25:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Ideological Differences

"Let me guess," Cloak said, to a rapt audience. "You were settlers on this island when it was ransacked by pirates -- I assume named Moonscar, just a hunch -- and they killed all the islanders, besides you two. Then you prayed to some petty pagan god who cursed you and enabled you get your vengeance upon those pirates. Am I close?"

Silence. So Cloak continued, eyes narrowing into an apparent look of smugness. In reality, he was subtly checking something and making silent calculations.

"So, year after year, decade after decade, century after century," he said, keeping focus upon himself, "you drained all outsiders to come to this island of their life force to preserve your fallacy of being immortal. All the disappearances -- that was effectively you three mass murdering people who had no idea what they were getting into. Am I getting warmer?"

"How do you know all this?" Saffa asked. "Another realm?"

Cloak tapped his nose, before returning his attention to the werecats, his tone did not disguise his revulsion. "You do this -- literally steal the lives of others -- and for what? Prolonging the time before your appointment with the grim reaper? Ugh. Just stop. Stop chasing immortality. It doesn't exist."

"It does. And we are." Elena growled.

Cloak didn't flinch, but looked down on her, "If that was true, then you wouldn't constantly need to drain others of their lives. You would be immortal and unkillable. You would not need to maintain it. You are not immortal. You just have a delayed mortality."

"You -- whatever you are -- don't know what . . . what you're talking about." Jacob said, still wheezing from their earlier confrontation.

"Suffice it to say, I believe I may be older than all three of you," Cloak began, "and I am mortal. My kind are mortal. Just as you are."

"We are not!" Simone said.

Cloak smiled inwardly. He was getting them riled up. Good.

"Immortality is an impossibility." Cloak said, folding his arms. He hoped his ploy was working. He held up his right hand to project a scarlet and gold construct of what he was about to entail. "Lands die. Seas die. Atmospheres die. People die. Animals die. Stories die. Worlds die."

He paused briefly before continuing, onto a larger scale. "Star systems die. The stars themselves will eventually die out. The universes and realms will die out. Even Death itself will possibly die when all of creation ends. Yet, immortality suggests that you'd outlive all that. Permanence is a misleading concept. Things may seem to stay the same on the micro-scale, but when you dial it up? The pursuit of immortality is a pointless and, ultimately, fruitless one. Such endeavors will often lead to disappointment, or, like you, false claims of immortality. You may be long-lived, but you're not immortal."

"Don't you talk down to us like that," Simone said, rearing up to her full height -- and still smaller than Cloak. "Don't stand their proselytizing like you know everything. You know NOTHING."

Anger. This was good. Anger has a rather inconvenient habit of clouding the mind from rationality. Which means this could be used in their favor. Cloak had to hide his smile.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 01, 2017, 02:29:38 PM

Meanwhile, gh stands just outside the doirway kicking Jacob every time he tries to move :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2017, 02:42:28 PM

Except he's on the opposite side of the room, with Simon and Elena. But funny reaction, nonetheless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 01, 2017, 03:35:39 PM

I have really long legs :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 01, 2017, 04:20:19 PM

To be honest, I'm kind of glad true immortality doesn't exist.  I mean, can you imagine what it would actually be like, to live forever?  To watch everything die around you, the world, the stars, and eventually the universe?  And in that time, you'd have to do every single conceivable thing possible to do, millions of times over, just to keep yourself entertained.  Either you'd have to find a way to wipe your own memory every few thousand years, or you'd go insane.  Or else you'd have to become some kind of being with an infinite mind, capable of comprehending infinity, that your mortal self could not possibly understand nor recognize.

 . . . You tell 'em, Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2017, 06:13:38 PM

Quote from: gh, King of Birbs on November 01, 2017, 03:35:39 PM

I have really long legs :P

Not that long, Elongated Man. ;)

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 01, 2017, 04:20:19 PM

To be honest, I'm kind of glad true immortality doesn't exist.  I mean, can you imagine what it would actually be like, to live forever?  To watch everything die around you, the world, the stars, and eventually the universe?  And in that time, you'd have to do every single conceivable thing possible to do, millions of times over, just to keep yourself entertained.  Either you'd have to find a way to wipe your own memory every few thousand years, or you'd go insane.  Or else you'd have to become some kind of being with an infinite mind, capable of comprehending infinity, that your mortal self could not possibly understand nor recognize.

Precisely.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Ashes to Ash, Dust to Dust

"You are just a know-nothing little mortal!" Simone said, as Elena and Jacob flanked her. "We've been maintaining our immortality for two hundred years. You're too young to understand --"

Cloak chuckled. "That's only twenty, my time. So, lemme guess. Elena, right? You're two hundred and twenty-five? Thereabouts? And Simone, I presume? You'd be two hundred and forty, right? And the ferry driver there I presume would be between one hundred to one hundred and fifty-one?"

"What about it?" snarled Jacob.

"Using your calendar," Cloak said, "I'm about two hundred and seventy, two hundred and seventy-one, of your years old, if I understand the conversion right. So, yeah. All three of you are actually YOUNGER than me. But that's hardly the point. I don't have to be older than you to be wiser and more clever than you."

"You are not --" Elena protested.

"You think of immortality as a tangible aspect instead of a fictitious construct," Cloak countered easily, ready for this argument. "You resort to brutish ''coz I so' style of rhetoric when challenged. I'd hardly call that wise nor clever."

"SILENCE!!" Simone roared. "Forgot all of this ideological nonsense!! It's time to take you --"

"And I won," Cloak said. He cast a furtive glance at the thing, and smiled inwardly.

"What?!" Jacob demanded.

"You're resorting to violence to silence me," Cloak said, hands folded against his chest. "That's as good as announcing that you cannot beat me in the field of thought and ideas."

"Ignore him!" Simone scolded. "Hurry up! We have to drain them before the alignment ends! He cannot take all three of us on at the same time!"

Cloak smiled deeply at this. And he allowed it to be shown.

"Whoever said that I had to?" he said.

"What the bloody hell are you talking --" Simone snapped before realizing her body as well as Elena's and Jacob's were beginning to smoke. And smoke painfully.

"You've waited too long," Cloak said, with a knowing smirk. "The moon is out of the necessary alignment -- and you didn't drain anyone."

They quickly collapsed into assorted bones and dust. Of course, this is when the zombies chose to show up, and bear witness to this. Only to follow suit moments later. The green light that animated them floated off and back into the aether.

"Well," GH said, trying to sound cheerful for Leatherhead's sake. "This was eventful. Who's up for Chinese?"

***

"Okay, LH," GH said. "It's time for bed now."

They were back in the forum now, all nice and fed. But now it was time to sleep. It was really quite fortunate GH got called off of his -- as he thought of it -- "civilian job". He was a tad relieved, because he felt like some conniving jackanape was gonna try to manipulate him into being in that hot, stinky armadillo mascot suit again.

He wasn't gonna do it, even if he wasn't called off. He hated that suit with a passion at this point with the sheer amount of times he had been forced to "perform" in it. Had it been his own choice, then sure, maybe once or twice. Not the friggin' eight times in the past month or two.

"Okay, Daddy," the little boy said.

"Wait, Leatherhead," GH said, "you have to take off your human suit to wash up."

Leatherhead hesitated. "Do I have to?"

"Yes, son," GH said. By the usage of "son" and the firm way GH said it, Leatherhead knew that he could not argue without risking being in trouble. That and he was too tired to resist. He had achieved what many six-year-olds haven't yet -- he stayed up pass his bedtime. "It's gotta be cleaned after our . . . uh, after our little . . . adventure today."

"Oh, okay," he said as he complied. Then he washed up and got into his bed, and GH followed suit. GH turned out the light and fell asleep -- actually a feat for GH.* He just awoke once, when he realized that Leatherhead had come into his bed -- because he was scared and had a nightmare. GH revealed just how much of a softie he really was and allowed him, but on the provision that it was not a permanent thing.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2017, 06:48:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Back to School and Stuff

It was back to the daily grind, and a new school year was starting up this very day. Leatherhead didn't attend public school, but was instead homeschooled at the forum by GH and the other RAFians -- which happened to include Terenia, a teacher.

Anyway, Dylan sang:

"We're sad we're confessin'
That school's back in session.
I sure learned my lesson."

YeerkSalad sang:

"I actually had fun!"

Elsewhere, RYTX sang, after returning from a disastrous trip:

"I'm filled with elation,
I'm back from THAT vacation!"

Aila sang, while dodging a unwanted, but amorous would-be suitor:

"For my next incarnation,
I'm coming back as a nun!"

Meanwhile, at Terenia's class, she sang:

"Welcome back to all of you
For a new school year."

Her students sang:

"Yikes!  A test!
I need rest!
I'm living in fear!"

At the mess hall in the forum, Shenmue sang, as she leafed through the local newspaper:

"Politics is a pity."

Meanwhile, Melissa sang while petting her American shorthair familiar:

"At least I got my little black kitty."

RAFians sang in unison, despite their differing locations:

"Thanks again, as the school bells sound.
Never mind,
Just be kind.
We'll just be goin' over this again!
We're crazy,
We're loony,
We'll get back soon-y.
It's RAF adventures --"

And GH proudly proclaimed as he held a super soaker as if it was actual gun with Leatherhead scrambling to catch up.

"-- And I am the champ!"

Cloak snapped his fingers, causing a deluge to fall on GH.

"And now you are just damp."

GH looked unamused, as Cloak said, with a playful smirk, "I just can't help myself."

---

SOURCE SONG:https://youtube.com/watch?v=MQ_tsU6Qzxc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2017, 05:08:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Slash For Cash

Az set out for a robotic dinosaur park. The proprietors thought that robotic dinosaurs might be easier to control and maintain than genuine article. Dino . . . she was not a big fan of the place. There was, in effect, an uncanny valley effect for her about this place -- the animatronics designers strove to make them as lifelike as they could, deceptively so. But basically be dinosaurs that could be shut off remotely -- something that the people in "Jurassic Park" couldn't really due with their living theme park monsters.

Az saw robotic Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, Pteranodon, Dilophosaurus, Deinonychus, Velociraptor (which didn't look anything like they did in "Jurassic Park"), Stegosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Tupuxuara, Parasaurolophus, Dimetrodon, Troodon, Pachycelphalosaurus, Mosasaur, Ankylosaur, Comsognathus, Plesiosaur, amongst others that he heard but couldn't see.

And he soon discovered why the park was evacuated. Not because of the fiend, but because of the free-roaming robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Who on earth thought that that was a good idea? It loomed over him, threateningly. He just froze it. Froze it solid. It was temporary fix at best, but it was done. He move onward, in deeper to the heart of the park, where he found the fiend.

This fiend was a wild, wiley creature with human-like eyes that had scarlet sclera and silver irises. It stood about as high as a child between eight and twelve, with a hunched, bestial posture. Its face looked perfectly human, barring the spike-like white soul patch beard it had. The hair that framed its head in sharp spike, reminiscent of Vegeta, was hard and purple. It had a structure that looked like a white ponytail terminating in a small, metallic pendulum at the back of its head. Its shoulder pads were scarlet with purple accents, while its torso was black on the left side and green on the right. Its neck, abdomen, upper arms, lower legs, and thighs were white. On its groin area, it appeared to be wearing purple briefs. It had several saurian spines trailing down its spine, terminating at its rump. Its lower arms were an obvious orange, with its human-like hands being onyx black. And on these hands it had a pair of Wolverine-like claws, but these couldn't retract. It wore principally red and purple grieves on its lower legs. Its feet were just three orange toes, each bearing a single, long, black claw.

Once it saw Az, it began to leap around the room like a hyperactive monkey. Az took note of its speed and agility -- which far outstripped his own. Az decided not to waste time to see its attack pattern, he just smacked in the face with an ice disc. It turned blue and fell onto its back, frozen, but it was not long before it shattered the ice, got back up, and bounced off the walls until it was briefly out of view.

"Great," Az muttered apprehensively.

Then it dropped silver eggs down around Az, who dodged them -- thank goodness for that one obstacle course in the Danger Room. Az managed to avoid them, but only look at the reddish goo the left behind and Az surmised that they'd slow his movements. He didn't want that -- especially with this fiend.

When it came down again, Az struck it with another ice disc, which froze it again. It broke the ice and headed back up again, and, again, out of sight. He dropped the eggs down on Az again, only this time one hit him and he was right. His movement was slowed -- he couldn't even jump. He froze the goo with his cryokinesis, and it shattered off his body. He did this in enough time to deliver an ice disc right to the fiend's face again. It froze him yet again, but he broke free to continue this pattern.

Twice more and Az managed to slay the fiend. He reported that the mission was completed and also reported about the ill-advised autonomous Tyrannosaurus Rex robot. He then left for the extraction point.

***

Demos called it a "surasshusapien". He designed the fiend for land reclamation work, or so he claimed.

***

Malice was snoozing instead of watching this. Talk about villain decay.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 10:22:30 AM

Okay, so they specifically created dinosaurs that could be shut off remotely . . . then evacuated the park without shutting them off?  Am I getting that right?  Geez, people.  ::)

Fun fact about the original Jurassic Park: their dinosaurs actually were SUPPOSED to have a biological off-switch.  They genetically designed the dinosaurs to be deficient in a certain nutrient, and if deprived of that nutrient, they would slip into a coma and die.  The only problem was that they picked a nutrient that was so common that the dinosaurs could find alternate sources of it on their own.  ::)

Sorry.  You can't mention Jurassic Park in your story and expect me NOT to nerd out a bit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2017, 01:09:17 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 10:22:30 AM

Okay, so they specifically created dinosaurs that could be shut off remotely . . . then evacuated the park without shutting them off?  Am I getting that right?  Geez, people.  ::)

Actually, they tried -- and it didn't work. Or, at least, that's what management is claiming, anyway.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 10:22:30 AM

Fun fact about the original Jurassic Park: their dinosaurs actually were SUPPOSED to have a biological off-switch.  They genetically designed the dinosaurs to be deficient in a certain nutrient, and if deprived of that nutrient, they would slip into a coma and die.

Already familiar with this. And if they had a biological kill-switch still in effect, than they could not make sequels, unless its about the clean-up in the aftermath. And let's face it, you can't make a franchise out of that, because it wouldn't be too exciting picking up and disposing of dead dinosaurs. I could be wrong, of course, but you never know in this era of Hollywood trying to milk things for would-be franchises.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 10:22:30 AM

The only problem was that they picked a nutrient that was so common that the dinosaurs could find alternate sources of it on their own.  ::)

I'll admit that I did not know how common lysine was. Of course, outside the narrative, that may only be in there just for potential sequel sake.

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 10:22:30 AM

Sorry.  You can't mention Jurassic Park in your story and expect me NOT to nerd out a bit.

With a name like DinosaurNothlit, I assume it would be expected that you might know a thing or two about dinosaurs. ;)

Anyway, I might post the start of the next book a little later. Gonna be busy later tonight, and I'm still a tad excited about the USUM news. I'll be able to shiny hunt Legendaries, and not foul it up like I did in AS (which was before I really became a shiny hunter).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 01:21:38 PM

Quote from: Cloak on November 02, 2017, 01:09:17 PM

I'll admit that I did not know how common lysine was. Of course, outside the narrative, that may only be in there just for potential sequel sake.

Actually, lysine is indeed very common.  Do you know another species that can't make lysine, but needs it to survive?  Humans!  Turns out, it's SO common, you get enough of it in your normal diet, without ever needing to worry about it at all!  :XD:

No, the people making the dinosaurs were just stoopid.  Why else would they use frog DNA, instead of, say, crocodile or bird?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2017, 02:16:19 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 01:21:38 PM

No, the people making the dinosaurs were just stoopid.  Why else would they use frog DNA, instead of, say, crocodile or bird?

Because crocodiles and birds can't spontaneously change gender? ;)

New chapter.

BOOK CLXI:
LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS
CHAPTER ONE:
Spring Forward, Fall Back

Dino had to go to an elaborate toy factory, requiring her to be in her compacted form. This was one obligation that she wasn't too happy about, but complied nevertheless. But when she entered it seemed more like a fortress poorly masquerading as a toy factory.

She quickly noticed how bright and saccharine it looked inside. It looked as if it was designed by that Toyman guy -- Manfried Childs, she thought his name was -- the guy who tried to force RAFians to play games -- deadly games with severe consequences -- just about a year ago. This place almost seemed like a relic of that. Dino sniffed, and could tell that no human had stepped in here in that time span. Yet, it did not have the scent or feeling of being derelict. Odd.

She started by heading down a shaft from the nearly bare upper floor. The shaft was really too confining for her liking, but perfectly sized for her compacted form. She was glad she had that reverse Vaxasaurian ability. It was a strange feeling, to feel so claustrophobic.

There seemed to be hot pink springs everywhere. Some in the most inconvenient places. And strangest thing of all were their strength. They were strong enough to launch her, as if this was "Mario Odyssey". This whole place was disorienting to her. But she was still trying to keep collateral damage to a minimum as she moved forward.

. . . Okay, screw it. Avoiding collateral damage wasn't worth this aggravation. She just rammed her way through things, at her full height. The owners of this abandoned place wouldn't care -- they'd get to write it off somehow. And, fortunately, all this commotion attracted the fiend.

The fiend seemed to be internally composed of like two thousand and seventeen springs. It had no mouth or real face to speak of, just two large, round, human-like eyes with dark brown sclera and blood red irises. Its head (for lack of a better term), arms and legs were metallic springs while its abdomen was a single bronze spring. Its upper torso -- which connected its head spring to its abdominal spring, was green with purple at the collar. Its shoulder pads, which were green with purple trim, connected its arm springs to green lower arm bits which each had yellow triangular marking on it and black hands. The abdominal spring attached the upper torso to a gold plate that served as the creature's waist. Below this was a blunt, cubic peg which attached the leg springs to the green lower legs, which had purple accents and an orange gem at the knees. It had bronze toes and soles of its feet.

The fiend jumped up to the center of this spacious room, jumped high, erratically spinned, and performed two stretching punches. Dino's ankylosaur shell was sufficient enough to block these attacks. Then, when it landed, it will fire out some kinetically-charged springs. They bounced across the room on the floor and off the walls. While these coils were bouncing, attempting to land on Dino's softest, most vulnerable spots, and catch her to jump and smash her into the ceiling to try to murder her. While her shell could protect her from that attack, absorbing most of the force, but it would still hurt. After this, the fiend jumped back into the position it started and begins the pattern all over again.

Dino decided to be proactive. She went to viciously maul the fiend. It went down in seven vicious lacerations from Dino's kicks and stomps, which was impressive that it could take that amount of punishment. She had to give it that, at least, as she made her way out of this place -- which was somehow still standing.

***

Demos called a "supuringusapien". Demos did not clarify a reason being why he designed the fiend, and would not when pressed, leading the others to believe that it was an accidental creation.

***

Malice watched this, almost with detached interest, saying, "Whatever. Spring-related pun to made later."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 02:35:48 PM

It does kinda make sense that it'd be hard to kill a spring.

I love that Malice is just so bored at this point that she isn't even trying anymore.  :XD:

P.S. I just noticed the pun in the chapter title, and oh, that makes me happy that I was the one who got to kill that spring, since I hate hate HATE daylight savings time.  Especially the 'spring forward' part.  >:D

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2017, 09:10:26 PM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 02:35:48 PM

I love that Malice is just so bored at this point that she isn't even trying anymore.  :XD:

That made me LOL. +1

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 02, 2017, 02:35:48 PM

P.S. I just noticed the pun in the chapter title, and oh, that makes me happy that I was the one who got to kill that spring, since I hate hate HATE daylight savings time.  Especially the 'spring forward' part.  >:D

Yeah, I have no love for it either. And I find it utterly pointless.

But I'd bet that this is a common complaint about DST.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Assassin Tribunal

Deep in an undisclosed, safe location, sat seven top tier assassins, each with a different weapon preference. The seats they sat on were on a tiered dais, and each wore a chalk white mask which hid their faces, and even their eyes. They wore flowing robes, akin to a daimiyo or kabuki, indicating their regal status. This attire also hid their species as well as other distinguishing features, such as body size and height.

These were the head of the League of Assassins. They were in secret, but international organization that staffed themselves only the world's greatest killers (well, except the kitchen staff and housekeepers, for obvious reasons),not to mention that they trained the best assassins and terrorists in the world. And these seven were the greatest of them all, having the most silent and undetectable kills under their belt.

But this day they were not happy. They had an indelible blemish on their records. There was one student who had surpassed all their expectations, who had excelled in every test, every skill check, every obstacle they threw at him. This prodigy rapidly became the apple of their eye. They had allowed themselves to grow too fond of this student.

Which is why his utter betrayal was taken so seriously by all seven. When he went on his first mission, he showed compassion and mercy to the target. He had even let the mark go, unharmed!! This was intolerable, as was the fact that he turned his back on them and left the League for that -- that --they couldn't even think of it without welling up with rage

"He used us," said the fearsome Andreas Clay, known as Ninja Tribunal Headmaster to anyone but his fellow Headmasters, as was the same with his fellow Headmasters. His voice was heavy and gravelly. His chosen weapons was a warhammer and a iron glove that he wore over his right hand. His clothing had greens, yellows, and browns. He often preyed on fear, and often employed exsanguination in his kills. "He refused to fear us, he refused to take our threats seriously."

"We gave him so much, did so much for him," said Omi Mallory. His voice was like a typhoon, and his clothing was composed of blues and whites. His chosen weapons was a mysterious orb and a trident. He preyed often on guilt, and he often employed fluid suffocation in his kills. "And this betrayal is how he repays us."

"He knows the sacrifices that we've made for him to succeed. He could have been the greats one of us -- might have even earned a spot on the tribunal." said Kimiko Samuels. Her voice was raspy and passionately furious, like a wildfire gone amuck. Her clothing consisted of blacks and golds. She often preyed on shame and often employed immolation in her kills. "And he just . . . throws it all away. For nothing . . ."

"He doesn't even realize what he's lost by going astray," said Raimundo Ryder. His voice was wispy and insubstantial, like an indifferent breeze. His clothing consisted of tans and browns, with some reds and oranges. He often preyed on the grieving and often employed asphyxiation in his kills. "He probably believes that he doesn't even miss this noble line of work."

"He's lying to himself." said Audrey Lynch. Her voice had an odd sort of warble to it, an inconsistent quaver. Her clothing consisted of very muted, insubstantial colors. She often preyed on self-deception, and often employed psychological manipulation and mistruths in her kills, leading to many of them looking like suicides. "And he doesn't even realize it."

"He may feel disillusioned with our work here," said Thomas Blight. His voice was bright, but concealed a darker undertone. His clothes were very bright with dark trim. He often preyed disillusionment, and often employed misdirection and sleight of hand in his kills. "Such a pity. Such a waste of talent."

"Then I think it is agreed," said Bebe Goldberg, the Grand Headmaster of the League of Assassins -- their apex leader. Her robes and attire seemed to be woven from Demiguise fur that had become opaque with age. No one knew her prey preferences, nor what she preferred to employ in her kills. She was a mystery in this regard. "This betrayer must pay. But we needn't muddy our own hands with this work -- the initiates should prove sufficient to slay the Blue Prodigy."

She rapped on her chair, and said, with a commanding tone. "Send in the initiates to receive their mission!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2017, 07:10:13 AM

Basically gonna rewrite my outline for this book. It's another one that's gonna be "off-script". And, yes, it's gonna be a Blue book. I may not get a chapter up tomorrow -- being my birthday and all. And come the 17th, Memoirs might be on a hiatus, in lieu of Pokemon Ultra Sun.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Blue Pilgrimage

The trees swayed in the morning breeze. There was a light fog around the area on this brisk August morning. The grass rippled in a pleasing and lovely manner. It was almost as if it was a movie location.

This was Blue's favorite spot when it came to any pilgrimage he had to take away from the forum. It was just ideal spot for fasting and meditation. For reflecting upon his past and consider his future.

And he does so, even armed with the knowledge. The knowledge that they will come after him again. But the seven cowards would not deign to face him themselves. No, they would send initiate after initiate after initiate. Sending them with the intention of assassinating him. Only he was well aware of this, and suspected that they were trying to goad him into killing people, to garner a high kill count, knowing his distaste for kill counts.

Blue found keeping kill counts as if they were a scoreboard disrespectful and juvenile. It was part of the reason he abandoned the League of Assassins, despite being trained by them in all the tenets and forms of ninjutsu -- horsemanship, stick and staff techniques, tactics, geography, espionage, disguise and impersonation, escaping and concealment, pyrotechnics, sword techniques, kusarigama techniques, naganata techniques, spiritual refinement, stealth and infiltration, throwing weapon techniques, spear techniques, water training, unarmed combat, meteorology, and even Fudoza (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ezJwBca1WFg), or Immovable Seat. He proved to be proficient in all these, though preferring some above others.

He had no real expectation of having a peaceful time -- time was due for those idiotic and incompetent Headmasters at the League to send more initiates to try and kill him. He had always bested them, as he done with the last batch. His training as a RAFian only served to increase his skill. But the main difference between RAF and the League was he found his life as a RAFian more fulfilling. Weird at times, yes, but still fulfilling nonetheless.

Blue found an ideal spot in which to meditate and wait for the first initiate to come for him. Some may have decried his entire attitude throughout this whole thing, in waiting for them to come to him. Some may inquire why he doesn't just go take the fight to them, these Headmasters.

To that, Blue would simply inquire why would he do that? When they come to him, he has the advantage. He would have chosen the battlegrounds. He would know the terrain. To go into whatever citadel the Headmasters decided to be League headquarters, he would be giving up home field advantage. He did not have the kind of raw, brute power that Esty or Cloak had. He was not a one-man army. And these were the people who taught Blue every technique he knew, aside from the ones he picked up at the forum, of course. But that did not mean they taught him everything that they knew. Not to mention that he'd be outnumbered greatly, and yada yada yada.

Besides, he was well prepared to deal with the initiates. They always came one at a time, as if this was a video game. Blue supposed that it was because that the Tribunal could not evaluate all their initiates at once. This was a liability, one that the Tribunal apparently never understood. But Blue had no intention on revealing it to them.

Just let them come, and Blue would handle them just fine. He surmised that there'd be nineteen or twenty gunning for him this time -- that's about how many there were about a year or two ago. He sighed as he shook his head. If the Tribunal was really as great and mighty like they pretend, then they'd go and do their own dirty work. They'd be a challenge. But these initiates are too green, and Blue never killed any of them.

This infuriated the Tribunal, who killed them themselves, Blue surmised sadly. Many of these initiates were just stupid kids or lost souls looking for something to be part of, something greater than themselves. And the Tribunal preyed on that.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 03, 2017, 04:14:39 PM

OMG, it took me waaaay longer than it should have to figure out that "the Blue prodigy" was Blue.  Even when you just straight up said "it's gonna be a Blue book," my brain was like, "you mean, like, for cars?" and I was super-confused.  :facepalm:

But I'm finally back on track now.  And I'm feeling sorry for those poor initiates who keep getting sent to kill Blue.  :-\  Couldn't he, I dunno, kidnap them to keep them from going back to the Tribunal where they'd be killed?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 04, 2017, 05:47:18 AM

Quote from: DinosaurNothlit on November 03, 2017, 04:14:39 PM

But I'm finally back on track now.  And I'm feeling sorry for those poor initiates who keep getting sent to kill Blue.  :-\  Couldn't he, I dunno, kidnap them to keep them from going back to the Tribunal where they'd be killed?

The Tribunal would then send fully-fledged assassins after them, if they did not return. One way or another, they'd wind up dead. It's a security type of thing.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Untrained Initiate

Blue was seated, eyes closed. Any time now. They'll be showing up any time now.

"Are you . . . um," said a voice. Blue knew right away that this person before him was not a trained assassin. "Um . . . are you the 'Blue Prodigy'?"

"I do not answer to such a name anymore," Blue said, still seated, eye shut.

"Then prepared to die!" came the voice, "Die to the Pulverized -- er, I mean, Pulverizer!"

Blue actually opened his eyes, to see what appeared to be a small, scrawny teenager in a bargain barrel ninja costume. He carried a poor man's polearm, and Blue could see from the way he carried it, that he wasn't skilled with it at all. He was covered from head to foot, although his shoes were heavy black boots. Blue guessed that he was fifteen, maybe sixteen. And he was trying to join the League of Assassins. Why?

"Kid -- don't do this," Blue said, with a tone of warning.

"Don't grovel," the kid crowed, thinking Blue was scared rather than pitying. "Just die."

Blue was a tad disappointed, he had to admit. This first initiate, this kid clearly was ashigaru sha -- cannon fodder. The Assassin Tribunal had no expectation of this initiate succeeding. Blue couldn't help but feel sorry for the kid.

"Don't do this, kid," Blue repeated, "it won't end well for you."

"Just die!" he said, posing like he thought he was the ultimate badass. In reality, he just looked childish.

Then the boy attacked Blue, who used the techniques of Fudoza, not only repelling the attack but knocking the boy flat on his butt. It was too easy, and, again, Blue pitied the boy.

The boy attacked again, but he was no match for Blue's seated combat. It was difficult to tell whether this was just sad and pathetic, or . . . no, that was it. It was sad and pathetic. This untrained boy stood no chance to one proficient in all the forms of ninjutsu.

But it was in this second attack that Blue pulled out a small item, like a button-sized Ender Eye. This was the means the Tribunal used to monitor their initiates, like a body cam. Blue proved just how insanely fragile and delicate it was by smashing it between his index finger and thumb, as if it was a bug. The Tribunal was cut off.

The kid looked furious, until his body convulsed ever so slightly. If you weren't aware what was happening, the convulsions would have gone unnoticed. When he spoke, it was clear that someone else was in charge.

"Whoa! Blue, don't worry, i got him," the kid said. His voice didn't change, though the intonation, word choice, and mannerisms were vastly different. "I got him."

"Goose!" Blue said, with irate indignation. Blue stood, upset at the implication. "I can handle a sixteen-year-old kid."

"Well, sixteen and three-quarters," Goose said.

Blue said shrewdly, "Is he awake?"

"Nah, I put him to sleep when I got in," Goose said.

"What's the kid's name?"

Goose pulled the kid's mask down, and pulled off the hood. He revealed the boy's babyface and mop of red hair. "Pearson Alan Gaynes, but he hates his first name, so he goes by Alan."

"How'd Alan get into this mess?" Blue asked.

Goose scrounged around Alan's mind. This was horribly invasive, but Alan wouldn't remember any of it, as long as his mind remained "asleep". That is to say, his consciousness remaining unconscious.

"He was boastful," Goose said. "He also wanted to be part of something bigger. His life, at least in his view, is horribly mundane and he has a small, but rather neglectful family. So he became an initiate in this League of Assassins thing. He didn't seem to notice how expendable they thought he was."

"And, in the end, that just might save his life," Blue said.

"How's that?"

"The League might not think he's worthy enough to kill," Blue said. "Goose, take him home, will you? No, no -- don't get out just yet. Take him home and watch him. See if anyone decides to come after him."

"And you?" he said, his newly worn face showing concern. "More are coming, you know. Alan guessed there were about eighteen others."

"I'm prepared," Blue said. "But this kid had no idea what he was getting into. He has no training."

"Other than video games, yeah, that's true," Goose agreed.

"Take him home. Make sure he's safe," Blue said. "When he's clear, he should be safe at that point. Hopefully, the Tribunal would think he's not worth the time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 04, 2017, 11:05:08 AM

He . . . wanted to be part of something bigger?  Does the Tribunal happen to have ties to the Sharing, or do they just use similar recruitment techniques?  ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2017, 06:29:31 AM

Actually, they tend to be far broader, and, sometimes, more direct and to the point than the Sharing. They will employ the same recruitment strategies if they work, however.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Bajutsu Initiate

Blue watch Empress Goose take Alan back home, while still inside. The boy was presumably still asleep within his own head, unaware his body was temporarily being piloted by someone else. Blue felt that there was still hope for him. Not all the initiates that the Tribunal sent after him were in a good enough position.

The Tribunal preyed on anything to get them to he able to use a person's skill or promise to their own ends. Any profit any of the assassins' make, they take a cut of. Currently, it at least 83% of the payout went to them, with a 12% additional cut for . . . "expenses". And once you're a member of the League, you never leave alive. Blue, to his knowledge, was the only one to escape.

But lost and misguided souls like Alan weren't the only thing that this depraved Tribunal took advantage of. They would exploit anything they could if they saw promise, or skill, or trait that they could manipulate to their advantage. They didn't care for their initiates, though, nor the people they hurt. They use the falsehood of family to ingratiate themselves into the prospective initiate's inner circle. To get close to them to either manipulate or outright kidnap them.

They are not above kidnapping babies from their parents, either. That's how Blue came to be with them. He had not known anything more than what they taught him. But he had a conscience. And, for years he had successfully hid it from them.

Yes, those galloping steps behind him. He heard them quite plainly. He was anticipating this. The initiate wore a purplish-black ninja outfit with a tightly woven blonde hair into a ponytail, that trailed out behind her.

The female initiate was apparently a student of bajutsu, the ninjutsu art of horseriding and combat from horseback. And she showed how very much green she was at it, opting for back of the hand claws instead of a sword. And her technique, while haughty and overconfident, showed slack and undisciplined control. All these initiates, all poorly trained. The League was clearly not what it was, Blue opined, with the quality of these new recruits.

She sat astride a huge winged horse with a skeletal ebony body, gaunt face with reptilian features, and wide, leathery wings that resemble a bat's. A thestral. A magical creature that can only be scene by those who have witnessed death with comprehension. And Blue had, so he could see the thestral quite clearly. Given the rarity of such a creature, this might have contributed to the initiate's arrogance and overconfidence.

Blue saw the way she rode the thestral, which she called Deathwing, and saw she was a superb equestrian. She had some defined and nuanced skills with horseriding, clearly having some professional expertise with this. Perhaps she was a professional equestrian from a rich, elitist background who fell onto harder times. This would fit with what Blue knew of the Tribunal. If her skills were sufficient to their goals and aims, they would gladly exploit her in such a scenario. But this was all speculation.

First things first, he would have to defeat her before he would be able to talk any sort of sense into her. And that would first involve getting her to either willingly or involuntarily dismounting the beast. Not a particularly easy task given her apparent experience with riding horses. She was probably prepared for if Deathwing tries to throw her off. Hell, thestrals don't even spook easy, according to the RAFian database entry for them.

So, he would have to be more proactive in this. He climbed a tree to a point where she lost track of him. Then he dived off the tree, taking her unawares, tackling her off the horse.

"What are you waiting for?" she said. Deathwing didn't retaliate against Blue, it even seemed indifferent. What connection between the two Blue had assumed existed wasn't there. Upon closer inspection, Blue was the creature bore the scars of being cowed into submission -- likely the Tribunal's handiwork. It sickened him. "Be a man and do it all ready."

She was talking about Blue killing her for this defeat. What did you think she was talking about?

"No," Blue said. "I haven't killed the initiates sent before you, and I won't kill you."

She laughed scornfully, "Mercy. Mercy ruins lives."

She turned away, and Blue noticed that she was still wearing the Tribunal's assessment camera. "Bah, mercy! Mercy is what caused Pretia (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pretia#Latin)kiskoa (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kiskoa#Finnish) Pharmaceuticals to go under!"

Sounded like she had a personal stake in that matter.

"It doesn't matter anyway," she said, bitterly, "I failed. The Tribunal is gonna kill me anyway."

She was clearly very affluent before becoming an initiate and became poor some time before becoming an initiate. The Tribunal could have even arranged for Pretiakiskoa Pharmaceuticals to go under just to get this bajutsu initiate.

But, before Blue could stop her, she took her life. She apparently just wanted, for once, to do things on her terms, instead of someone else's.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2017, 04:23:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Tenmon Initiate

Blue tried to care for the initiate's body respectfully. Hopefully, she had loved ones in which to mourn for her -- but that was not the frequent case for initiate assassins for the League. The Tribunal liked having their initiates without strings whenever possible, even if they had to make it so through . . . less than orthodox means.

Deathwing took an interest in the initiate after she spilled her own blood. Thestrals are carnivorous, after all. But Blue managed to dissuade the stallion thestral from snacking upon his former rider's now stiffening and decomposing rider. Blue sighed heavily. This was not the first initiate sent after him to decide to take their own lives. He always tried to stop them every time. But every time the moment took him unaware, and he was too late to stop it.

He left the League because the spilling of innocent blood (and how it had devolved into little more than a scorecard game in which each kill was considered a point). He had tried to get away from this. Away from this kind of life. Why couldn't the Tribunal just allow him that small respite? But he knew the answer already.

Just like the initiates, as well as the full assassin staff, the Tribunal just considered him nothing -- nothing -- more than property. A thing to be owned, a thing to be possessed, as if he were nothing more than a tool to meet their ends. He realise this soon enough to break his own indoctrination.

"You might as well come out," Blue said. He was aware that he was being watched by another initiate after he moved on from the spot where the other one, the bajutsu initiate, took her own life. "You can't really use tenmon here."

Blue had made the assumption based on this initiate's behavior that he was a tenmon, the ninjutsu art of meteorology -- that is, using the weather to your advantage -- initiate. He clearly was still very green at it.

He wore a ninja outfit that, like the bajutsu initiate, looked as if it was big-budget movie quality. Impressive, though his stealth and use of tenmon left much to be desired.

Cover blown, he immediately moved to attack Blue, who sighed sadly. Why do they always resort to fighting fights that they couldn't win? Have they lost all grasp of reality? He was known as the most proficient fighter to come out of the League. Perhaps the Tribunal decided to severely downplay it to get willing initiates. Eventually, word would get out -- the Tribunal would run out of initiates.

Blue failed to take into regard how he himself came to be with the League of Assassins with this thought. He believed that they would eventually run out of initiates -- but they wouldn't if they weren't above kidnapping babies of potential from their parents.

Blue easily used his Shredder-like bladed grieves -- a fairly new acquisition for him -- to block the tenmon initiate's sword, and disarm him. Even managing to catch the sword midair.

"Do it," he said, defeated.

"No," Blue said. "I will not kill you. I will not kill you just to satisfy the whims of seven egotistical out-of-practice assassins with god complexes."

"We're a family," he said, sounding like a child making excuses for an abusive alcoholic parent.

"Family?" Blue said, rounding on the initiate. This initiate sounded as if he was in his twenties, but also sounded as if he was indoctrinated for a long time. "The Tribunal uses you to obtain that which they desire. They care nothing for you, or the people you hurt!"

The initiate looked unconvinced. Ugh -- people would rather be right than do right. Stupid human nature.

"I will not kill you," Blue said, turning his back on him. This was insult in and of itself, because by presenting such an obvious target to him, he was saying that he didn't consider the initiate a threat, even though he was unarmed. "If you consider the Tribunal truly 'family', watch how they treat you now that your little mission has failed."

Blue sighed. "But they'll kill you, then. So I advise against it. But the choice is yours to make, not mine."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 07, 2017, 05:28:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Bojutsu Initiate

Blue moved away from the indoctrinated initiate, hoping he would make the wiser decision. But knowing full well that he wouldn't. That's how insidious indoctrination could be -- an environment were one is severely punished for daring to question, to critically analyze, to critically examine, the doctrine put forth especially in a person's formative years. It makes it very difficult to break, to force the person to think for themselves.

The Tribunal tended to favor the traumatic one-trial learning tactic. They found it easiest to employ. They would use verbal abuse, explosive anger, or other intimidating behavior to establish dominance or superiority. Even a single incident of this behavior can condition or train heir initiates to avoid upsetting, confronting or contradicting the Tribunal and their aims.

And it wasn't as easy as just "getting out". Many of the initiates, Blue had come to realize, had learned helplessness. They had given up on finding a way to escape a long time ago. He still didn't know how he managed to escape that fate -- but he mostly passed it off as him just being marginally lucky enough. While he was stubborn at times, he was wise enough to know that it didn't matter how stubborn you were, it just didn't work that way.

Yes, being under the Tribunal's ever-watchful, seemingly all-present eye was not at all what would call a healthy relationship, workplace or otherwise. It was like a totalitarian regime, really. Nothing was done without the Tribunal's okay, and it was unclear how long they were in charge. Or even if the same seven were the same seven that originated and founded the terroristic assassin league, much less just how old the organization was. It may very well be older than anyone guesses.

"Another League initiate, I presume?" Blue said, seeing another one in those movie-quality uniforms. This one was male, but did not speak. He carried a heavy-looking oak bo, it looked rather like Donatello's from TMNT. But in this initiate's had it was ever so slightly too heavy, and ever so slightly too tall and thin for him. He seemed unconcerned with these things, a sign of inexperience and naivety.

All these initiates were so improperly trained and inexperienced. Did the Tribunal really think that this would be enough to bring him down? Or was this their version of some sort of perverse bullet hell game? In the end, it wouldn't be enough.

"Do we have to continue with this farce?" Blue asked, wearily. "We both know you have been barely trained, if at all, and that this is an uneven matchup. This there any point in pursuing --"

The initiate gripped the staff tighter -- almost snapping the thing. The bo staff itself was made very shoddy. Blue was given pause to wonder if it was just a coincidence or by design.

"-- and apparently you see merit in this futile exercise." Blue sighed. "Well, so be it, I guess."

Blue allowed the initiate the initiative. The young adult attacked using several basic bojutsu techniques -- that was both sloppy and lazily executed. Blue wondered if  send inexperienced newbies was intended to be send an insulting message to Blue from the Tribunal.

Blue watched as the initiate began to twirl the staff around as if it were a baton. But his fingers were not nearly as nimble as he had imagined, and soon he lost control of the staff, which had the discourtesy to conk him smartly in the face -- right between the eyes but above the bridge of his nose. The wooden staff tumbled out of his slow, lumbering fingers and clattered to the ground.

"Did they just give you that staff and sent you on your merry way, or did they actually teach you how to use it?" Blue asked, dryly. "Without dropping it, I mean."

The bojutsu initiate quickly seized his weapon, and when he did, Blue could see a weakness in the wood. Why even use that staff -- even a bojutsu novice would find it inadequate and unacceptable as a weapon. Did this guy just take the first one he saw?

He made a swing -- a type of swing that a child would make when playing make-believe, like he was a badass. Blue easily exploited the weakness, and snapped the staff in two with an unarmed chop to this weak point. Yes, it was really too fragile to be be acceptable by even a bojutsu novice.

"Are you done?" Blue asked, a tad annoyed now by the initiate's former showboating. "Or are you going to press this pathetic attack some more?"

He looked down at the broken staff, looked at Blue, and looked over his shoulders. Blue could almost see the gears turning in his head as he weighed what limited options that he had available to him.

Then he ran away, apparently considering that his best option. Blue allowed it sadly, knowing that the Tribunal would not let this moment of cowardice go unpunished. Perhaps he could have done more, perhaps he could have stopped him, perhaps he could save him . . . but he's learned that you can't save everyone, and you cannot save someone who doesn't want to be saved.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2017, 06:04:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Taijutsu Initiate

Blue watched the bojutsu go. He had his qualms about doing so, but couldn't help but see it as ultimately futile. The Tribunal would get to him. They wouldn't constantly be sending out these initiates without some way to rein them in. And silence them, if need be.

Blue suspected that those button-sized Ender Eye things were also tracking devices as well as body cams. There was nothing to be done. That initiate's fate was sealed the moment he thought being an assassin was a good idea.

But the Tribunal would sent another after Blue. Then another when that one failed. Then another. Then another. Then another. It was already getting monotonous. Not to mention he didn't always have time to deal with them. Granted, none could get past Code Avalon in the forum, so he didn't have to worry about that. Despite its faults and flaws, Code Avalon has proven itself reliable in the past few months.

He had never gone to the others and told them of this problem, but now Empress Goose knew, and he would surely tell everyone else. They'll know that the Tribunal had essentially put a price on Blue's head and were using brainwashed initiates (and some who are with the League of Assassins of their own accord) to try and take him down. And that they have been failing to do so for years.

It just become tiresome to Blue at this point. The Tribunal should be aware that they cannot drag him back so they could kill him -- or possibly worse, though Blue chose not to speculate what could be worse then having an initiate succeed in killing him. He did not really want to consider that possibility.

However, Blue began to wonder if his passive way of dealing this was the really the proper way to deal with this problem. He was seriously considering that this course of action may not be the most effective one. The Tribunal will just send initiate after initiate after him. He always assumed that they would run out.

"Don't do this, boy," Blue said, without turning his back. A thickset, musclebound initiate was standing behind him, wearing the same outfit as the other two -- Alan didn't really count. "Don't challenge me. It won't turn out for you in the end."

When he didn't leave, Blue turned slowly and wearily to face him. The initiate couldn't possibly have been any older than twenty-five or any younger than nineteen. He was big and beefy, with exposed hands. Blue though this was a stupid design choice for an assassin. You would just leave your fingerprints everywhere for the local authorities to pick up after an assassination is made. Unless they burned them off, but that was not as easy as the average layman seemed to believe. You could seriously damage yourself when trying to DIY it.

Blue quickly surmised that this was supposed to be a taijutsu initiate. He had some of the stances down, albeit with a shaky technique which told Blue that this initiate was not ready for a real battle. Blue couldn't help but feel pity. This was clearly a person who joined the League instead of being raised in it. While his motives were unknown to Blue, it was clear as crystal that this initiate was not ready for a real, life-or-death fight.

"Leave, and nothing need happen to you," Blue said. Then he regarded the implications of his words. The Tribunal would have those Ender Eye-like things on all of their initiates. They were quite literally watching them. If this initiate left without attacking, he would incur the Tribunal's wrath. The initiate knew this as well. So he only had one real option.

He attacked. But Blue was expecting it and managed to block every blow, reverse every grapple, and dodge every joint block. The initiate's jujutsu was sloppy. His judo was severely lacking. His aikido was lazy. His karate and kenpo was laughable.

"This is futile, boy," Blue said. He wasn't even out of breath, as the initiate was. "You cannot win this fight."

But the initiate was stubborn. It took another five bouts before he started to reconsider. Blue wasn't even out breath. The initiate only stopped because he passed out from exhaustion. Blue shook his head in disappointment and pity. This initiate wasted too much energy in that fight, rather than conserving it for the time when exertion is truly called for.

Blue took the Ender's Eye-like device off him, and spoke into it, "One way or another, Tribunal, this is gonna end."

Then he crushed it before moving on, unconcerned with the taijutsu initiate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 08, 2017, 04:46:39 PM

Caught up again.  It's kind of amazing that Blue has managed not to even injure any of the initiates when fighting them, only disarming them.  Granted, I suppose it doesn't really matter, since they'll almost certainly die anyway, but it's still impressive on Blue's part.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2017, 09:40:30 PM

Yes. It always takes more strength resist killing than to kill. This is a concept that the Tribunal would never understand, and, so will never understand why Blue left.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Boryaku Initiate

The decision was made.

Now the only question was just how to go about it. The Tribunal's conferring chambers as well as their sleeping chambers were the deepest, most heavily defended area in the League headquarters. Conversely, the initiates were the least defended area and closest to the exterior of the facility. Of course, this was only according to Blue's memory, and there were things that could have changed.

But Blue doubted that the Tribunal would change much. They were set in their ways, and stubbornly adhered to this kind of design scheme. So Blue felt, anyway. They would just keep sending initiate after initiate to them. Sure, their supply of initiates would eventually dry up, but they have resorted to kidnapping before, and as time wears on, while Blue still lives, they may decide not to be so picky with their kidnapping victims.

Then suddenly music started up and he saw a man wearing a vaguely ninja style costume, but in leather and with many more zippers than was necessary. He may have thought it was artistic, but Blue thought it was unbelievably gaudy.

"Well, well, well, what have we here? The Blue Prodigy, huh?
Ooh, I'm really scared! So you're the one everybody's talkin' about!
Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Blue suspected this was a boryaku initiate. He had to admit he wasn't expecting this tactic, which meant he was only slightly more competent than his predecessors.

He continued, smearing Blue with every new verse:

"You're jokin'! You're jokin'!
I can't believe my eyes!
You're jokin' me! You gotta be!
This can't be the right guy!"

Apparently, he was as unimpressed with Blue as Blue was with him.

"He's soft! He's ugly!
I don't know which is worse!
I might just split a seam now.
If I don't die laughing first!"

Blue was getting irritated, but he was wise to this initiate. He was goading Blue by dismissing him. It was an interesting tactic. And it almost worked.

"When Mr. Assassin Man says
There's trouble close at hand,
You'd better pay attention now.
Cause I'm the Boogie Man!
And if you aren't shakin'
There's something very wrong.
Cause this may be the last time,
You hear the Assassin Song!
I'm the Assassin Man!
Well, if I'm feelin' antsy,
And there's nothin' much to do,
I might just cook a special batch
Of traitor and interloper stew.
And don't ya know the one thing
That would make it work so nice?
The so-called Blue Prodigy
To add a little spice.
Oh, yeah,
I'm the Assassin Man!"

Blue spoke, unintentionally in rhythm to the song:

"Leave me now or you will face
The dire consequences.
Your life is already forfeit.
So please, come to your senses."

The initiate was dismissive:

"You're jokin'! You're jokin'!
I can't believe my ears!
Would someone shut this fella up?
I'm drownin' in my tears.
It's funny! I'm laughing!
You really are too much!
And now, with your permission,
I'm going to do my stuff."

"Which is?"

"The best I can," the initiate said, rather charismatic, as a brief musical interlude interrupted the song momentarily. Afterward, he picked up the song:

"Oh, the sound of rollin' dice
To me is music in the air!
Cause I'm a gamblin' Assassin Man!
Although I don't play fair.
It's much more fun, I must confess,
When lives are on the line!
Not mine, of course but yours, old boy.
Now that'd be just fine."

Blue just ****ed an eyebrow. His body language sent a clear message: Oh, really? You wanna try that in a serious manner?

He sang further:

"Oh brother, you're somethin'!
You put me in a spin.
You aren't comprehending
The position that you're in.
It's hopeless! You're finished.
You haven't got a prayer!
Cause I'm Mr. Assassin Man,
And you ain't goin' nowhere."

Then the initiate collapsed to the ground. Unconscious, but alive. He had never even seen Blue's sleeper hold coming.

"Interesting tactic," Blue said. "But it didn't work."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7PvT05P3Gjo

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2017, 07:53:30 PM

Sorry that this was so late -- I was distracted by shiny hunting (got a female shiny Misdreavus) and the USUM leaks. Necrozma has some . . . let's just say that it's gonna be a fun game for me. And it comes out in a week.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Sui-ren Initiate and the Chi-mon Initiate

After taking care of that . . . that boisterous initiate, it was time to formulate his plan. He would have to take down all seven of the Tribunal. It won't be anything like taking care of these initiates. The assassins in the headquarters are exceptionally better trained with a legion of more experience than these sad amateurs.

But he must do away with them, to prevent anymore kills from people who like to treat the lives of others as just NPCs in the grand scheme of life -- useless and forgettable after you've collected all you can from them. And expendable. Blue could not imagine how they could see people as potential points on a kill count scorecard -- and he didn't doubt if they actually had legitimate, tangible scorecards. He remembered some years ago, Tribunal Headmaster Samuels actually arguing over who made a kill with Tribunal Headmaster Ryder, as if it was a precious point to them. The whole argument was childish, and he was the only one who saw and remembered it.

But still . . . the stronghold was a beast in and of itself. The Tribunal had managed to hide it away very well. Even Blue was not sure exactly were it was. He had broken out of the place once, without any intention on going back. Much less with the intention of killing the Tribunal.

Yes. Yes, that was his decision.

They had left him with little other choice. They would keep sending initiates at him in an endless annual cycle that was more predictable than, well, the initiates' fighting styles that they decided to send after him. He would only get a brief respite from it, and one of these days, his reflexes will slow, his reaction times will dull. And, then one of these initiates just might do him in.

It was time for this to end. It was time for this to all end. He had allowed this to go on far too long. It was time for the Tribunal to stop wasting these lives to feed their revenge machine -- because Blue knew that's all this was. They were so ardent about killing him because when he left that evidently hurt their feelings.

Blue stopped by a pond which was feed by a stream, where there were three green lily pads, one with a flower blossoming. And there was a pink lily pad, which was overtly not natural. Blue sighed wearily knowing what would happen. He turned his back on the pink lily pad, which might have seemed pretty stupid on his part, but he was well aware of what lurked beneath and what their possible weapon of choice would be.

And it happened just as he expected. The blowdart flew towards his neck, probably inexpertly aimed at his jugular vein, but he simply deflected it with his Shredder-like grieves. It flopped on the ground, uselessly. Probably poisoned. These usually are.

"You might want to get out of there," Blue advised, sounding like weary, "alligator snapping turtles have been known to reside there."

The initiate leaped out of the water, revealing that was only slightly higher than waist deep. She carefully examining the murky waters, apparently knowing just how dangerous the bite of an alligator snapping turtle could be, and apparently completely forgetting her mission. She evidently was a ditz, judging from her expressions and mannerisms.

Blue left her to it, and continued on his way, knowing that the next initiate would probably show up soon. He looked down as he head downhill. He saw what appeared to be a thick hemp rope lying in the middle of the path. Clearly, he was trying to trip him and cause him to roll down the hill, and the initiate would swoop in for the kill while Blue was theoretically disoriented. It was an obvious trap.

Blue looked around and saw the initiate -- apparently an amateurish chi-mon initiate -- apparently thinking he was well-hidden when his hiding place was rather obvious and he wasn't really striving to be quiet or silencing unnecessary movements. This was entirely pathetic, without question. This was a horrible trap to trip him up.

"Seriously, boy?" Blue said. He really was getting tired of this. Of dealing with the insulting incompetence of these initiates. He would have never fallen for this trap, even if he was a fraction of his current age. "A child could see through this."

The initiate tumbled out of his hiding place. Blue could tell that this wasn't intentional. More incompetence. But Blue couldn't muster up anger -- only pity would come.

"I hope that outfit covered your whole body," Blue said, walking away from the dazed initiate, "you were hiding in poison ivy."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2017, 05:36:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Choho Initiate and the Sojutsu Initiate

Blue continued on, putting those two initiates out of his mind. With every new one, they seemed to get progressively more incompetent. And Blue became more and more sure that it was a deliberate insult. As if the Tribunal was trying to say that he was so ineffectual and inconsequential that they didn't need to send their more competent assassins after him. Though he would never admit it aloud, it did irritate and insult him. It did hurt his pride and ego, despite him trying to ignore it and act aloof. Despite him reminding himself over and over again that this was deliberate and intentional as an insult.

He would not give them the satisfaction to know that their message hit home and worked when he eventually went to confront them. And he would. There was no doubt about that. That that would be how this would end. Their blood would be on his hands. There would be something poetic about it, their own former acolyte (through no choice of his own, as his was kidnapped right out of his cradle) ending their lives and their cruel rule. Though he hadn't any interest in taking over the League -- though he could possibly turn it into something better, something with less malignant motives and more benign, altruistic ones. But that would run the risk of him being corrupted himself -- and he didn't want that.

He walked and stopped and looked to his left. She saw a man in shadow wearing a brown trench coat and a black bowler. His face was obscured in shadow, with his green eyes popping out of the shadows, almost as if they was glowing. It wasn't as creepy and ominous as he clearly thought it was. He was clinging to a small alleyway of thinning trees, as if he was successfully obscured in the shadows. It wasn't remotely unnerving Blue. It was as if someone was wearing some lame spy cosplay. This was the choho initiate, and took the whole espionage thing to heart.

And clearly he read too many spy novels or watched too many spy movies. Blue couldn't help but sigh sadly at this. There was really a reason why they were fiction. Though, granted, Blue's reality was odder than any fiction.

"Escape from a spy convention?" Blue said, caustically.

The initiate said nothing, clearly thinking he was cool and aloof. His hidden face betrayed no emotion, his body betrayed no fanboyish excitement. But he didn't attack  -- but promptly trip over a raised root and knock himself out, as his hat floated over to Blue, who stood, stunned at this.

After a moment, Blue shook his head and said, "Poor fool. Disarmed himself by his own inadequacies."

Blue continued on, before his path was blocked by another initiate. At least this one looked more competent than the other. He had a spear -- a sojutsu initiate. Blue's heart sunk when he noticed how clunky and shoddily made the spear was. The shaft looked as if it was inexpertly hewn from a tree branch with many weak spots detectable to a trained eye and the two-foot blade looked as if it was made from aluminium foil and paper mache, full of knicks. The shaft was rough to the touch, lacking any lacquered treatment.

"Please, stand aside," Blue said, hoping, for once, politeness would be sufficient enough. But, nope. It wasn't. It never was sufficient. The sojutsu initiate stood resolutely in between Blue and his eventual destination, and the initiate wasn't a small person either. He was a big, hairy, beefy dude. "Stand aside. You don't want to challenge me."

He grunted disagreement, hut said nothing. Blue saw that this may pose a problem, before he saw a way around him. The initiate raised his spear as if he was aiming for a large mackerel, and the spear dove towards Blue.

The initiate's movements were slow and cumbersome. Dodging the strike was child's play. But Blue did more than dodge, he used this as an opportunity. He had jumped and walked over the initiate's arm. Then he landed with a flip behind him.

When Blue looked back, he saw the blade of the spear stuck into the ground and, in trying to extricate it from the soft ground, he had snapped the blade from the shaft. Then he immediately dropped the shaft, revealing his right hand being full of rough splinters.

Blue decided to leave the initiate to deal with that, as he continued on his way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 11, 2017, 06:00:01 AM

Just a note, Memoirs will be on a week-long hiatus once I get Pokemon Ultra Sun. I might need a break from the game once and a while, and might briefly break this hiatus, but I wouldn't count on it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Hensojutsu Initiate and the Shurikenjutsu Initiate

Blue continued on, deep in his own thoughts.

He would have to take out all seven of them. And he would have to do it alone. His pride would allow for nothing less. Not to mention he did not want the humiliation of the Tribunal knowing that he needed help in order to take them down.

The whole scene played out in his mind. He would come in with a select group of RAFians, and the Tribunal would laugh derisively and jeer at him for needing help, insinuating that he wouldn't be able to defeat them singlehandedly. He was confident in his skills that he would be able to take them down.

He failed to take into account that he would have to break back into their stronghold, which was likely to be strongly staffed by a "royal guard" of high-tier assassins. Although that would also be stupid on their part, having assassins as a "royal guard" unless they conditioned them to be so devoted to them to be borderline -- or full-on -- cultists with the Tribunal themselves as their perceived messiahs.

Its been many years since Blue left the League. It may very well have changed and the Tribunal may have changed their leadership policies -- though Blue highly doubted that they were any less dictatorial or tyrannical with their position of power.

Blue was distracted when he saw a mesh covered by leaves, grass, mud, and bark. There was obviously a person beneath this mesh. It was obviously a hensojutsu initiate. The disguise was adequately serviceable, and the only real thing that ruined it was the snoring.

Yes, snoring. The initiate had apparently fallen into a deep sleep and his snores were like a chainsaw cutting through a redwood, loud and conspicuous. This kinda went against hensojutsu, falling asleep while disguised like this.

Blue just moved on, allowing the initiate to sleep, never knowing just how close he came to his quarry. The Tribunal wouldn't be as lenient with him, though, Blue noted sadly.

But there was nothing else he could do about it, other than what he already planned to do. Those who joined the League by choice were either unconfident losers that the world forgot, overconfident people with grandiose visions of themselves with egos to match, or people who just simply didn't know what they were getting into. The Tribunal doesn't accept people who want to back out when they realize they've gotten in too deep -- Blue was the only one to escape alive. Which is why the Tribunal is so desperate to kill him -- he stands as a sort of beacon of hope to those who wish to leave.

Then there were the ones that the Tribunal adopted from either kidnapping or orphanages or even orphaning the candidates themselves covertly. These ones were the deeply indoctrinated ones, especially if they've been with the League from infanthood. This kind of devotion was deliberately fostered, for obvious reasons.

A lithe figure dropped down a distance. Blue was prepared for it. This figure was obviously female, another kunoichi initiate. She threw several hira-shuriken horizontally with quick wrist snaps. Blue blocked them all with his Shredder-like grieves. Blue narrowed his eyes, waiting for her next move. She was obviously a shurikenjutsu initiate, specialized in throwing weapon techniques.

Blue was inwardly surprised pleasantly. This shurikenjutsu initiate seemed far more competent than the rest. Then she slipped on a slick root and dropped all her hira-shuriken. Blue felt secretly disappointed, as he was expecting a true challenge. As the initiate hurried to pick up her hira-shuriken, Blue left her in the dust, on his way to the Tribunal stronghold.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: DinosaurNothlit on November 11, 2017, 01:02:24 PM

Poor Blue, he's probably getting bored of initiates just defeating themselves.  ::)

Have fun playing the new Pokemon game!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2017, 05:17:42 AM

It doesn't come out until Friday, Dino.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Intonjutsu Initiate and the Shinobi-iri Initiate

Blue fell back into deep thought, and came to a realization.

What did he care what the Tribunal thought of him? Why should he care? They only cared about their kill counts, as if it was a scorecard. Why would he care about the opinions of such people? Granted, they were the people who raised him. But they were also the people who took him away from his true parents.

How it shattered his worldview when he found out. They got lazy with keeping this nugget of information from him, as he witnessed them kidnapping a baby. Killing his parents to do so. Then eventually killing the child when he proved too willful for their liking, as well as failing his first task monumentally. This turns Blue against them and he escaped shortly after that.

He knew that the Tribunal took it as a betrayal, but he saw what they did as a betrayal. They stole him from his parents. His family. He had found a surrogate family in RAF, but it wasn't the same thing, was it? He had no clue where he came from before the League stole him away. They robbed him -- robbed of knowing his heritage.

"You come on out," Blue said, suddenly. His tone was almost bored. He had been aware that some one was concealed and walking behind him for quite some time. It was some baby-faced man. "If you're going to master intonjutsu, then you need to work on being quiet. Everyone in the tri-state area could hear your approach."

The man was indeed an intonjutsu initiate, which had presumably come on the same orders as the others. But what really irritated Blue was that he had no weapon whatsoever, and he could easily tell by the way he walked, by the way he put weight on his feet, that this guy was no martial arts master. He couldn't even master the art of shutting up unnecessary noise.

"You think you can kill me without -- oh, what's the point in keeping up the pretense?" Blue said, immediately flipping over the initiate and giving him a sleeper hold until he was unconscious. "This is getting ridiculous now. The sheer incompetence!"

Blue continued on, continuing his contemplation of the League and how he would cut the head of this demon organization. And the more that he thought, the more he considered getting the others as backup. Not help, but backup. Just in case things go south.

Well, backup and to bear witness. To corroborate and validate his goal, his primary aim. Yes, that would be for the best. And they'd be there if he was somehow outmatched.

Then he heard it. From the movement sounds, and the way he moved, Blue could tell that this was a shinobi-iri, the art of stealth and infiltration. But this initiate was about as stealthy as a heavily inebriated elephant and stood out like a tyrannosaur in the middle of a metropolis* in his obsequious desire to obey the Tribunal.

The sheer incompetence of these initiates were starting to get to Blue. It was becoming more than an insult. This was an irritation. An affront and an offense in every way. Half the time all he needed to do was disarm the initiate (and even THAT wasn't especially challenging) or they defeat themselves! It was clearly these initiates were very barely trained before being sent after him.

Perhaps the Tribunal's resources were not as they pretended. Perhaps they were more destitute than he remembered. Perhaps they exhausted too many resources just trying to kill him. In any case, this was just plain offensive and outrageous. These initiates had no chance in hell of beating him -- and the Tribunal had to have known that.

There was a sharp gasp behind him as the shinobi-iri ran into a thick blackberry briar. It would take him a while to extricate himself from it, as he had somehow gotten himself thoroughly entangled in it. Meanwhile, Blue did not turn around. He didn't even break stride.

---

* Yes, that was a "Jurassic Park 2" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2017, 10:29:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Kayakujutsu Initiate and the Seishinteki Kyoyo Initiate

Blue stopped his path to the Tribunal stronghold, and made a detour to go back to the forum. Had he allowed his pride to rule his judgement, he might have get himself in a sticky situation that he wouldn't have gotten himself out of, no matter how good he was. It would be wiser to bring in allies as a definitive backup.

He would recruit Dino -- she could cause quite a stir, quite a distraction, being a dinosaur and all. That would allow the rest of them to get in -- he thought heavily who he would recruit to help him. Cloak would have definitely been of help, as well as Esty if she was there. Cloak would be able to use his Earthsight to easily scout the place out ahead of time, and Esty would be backup muscle, so to speak. But she was also not likely an option, as she was so rarely at the forum these days.

He probably should take any RAFian raring to go -- but no, that would be unwise. It should be thought about more tactfully. Strategically. The Tribunal isn't a force to be taken lightly, despite their occasional incompetence and questionable leadership.

Besides, if the information he got when Empress Goose body hopped into Alan was true, that meant there was like five more initiates out to get him. But they'd probably be just ineffectual as their predecessors, Blue assumed.

Then he heard something. A sloshing sound. Blue looked annoyed. Yep, it was about the right time for another initiate. Would this one defeat themselves too? Or just required to be disarmed?

It was the initiate in the same ninja garb, only with a clashing Yosemite Sam-type moustache, which kinda made the whole ninja motif pointless. He had a large, bulbous nose, and was on the short side. He was sloshing around what appeared to be a spherical, cartoonish bomb. The insides clearly weren't only damp, but soaked through. There was no excuse for that, from an obvious kayakujutsu initiate. How would he get the mixture for such a thing wrong, and why didn't he keep it dry. Everyone knows that if you want to deal with combustible substances that you want to keep water out of the equation, as water hinders combustion.

He didn't even see Blue, and had his back to him. He was muttering curses and expletives under his breath -- and Blue had to hand it to him, some of them were remarkably creative -- but he continued to be obvious to Blue's presence. So what would be the point in Blue calling attention to himself and start a battle that he would likely win given the sheer incompetence of his initiate predecessors?

The answer was easy. There was no point whatsoever in unnecessarily engaging with the initiate when he could simply walk by him. And so he did. The initiate was none the wiser, still spitting out his string of creative expletives and curses.

This was really getting to easy. The Tribunal, in their efforts to insult him (he was sure of this), had not realized a serious drawback in this plan. All the initiates that they sent were outright incompetent, or inadequately trained, or, in many cases, BOTH. They had zero chance of succeeding, and Blue suspected that the Tribunal might have another ulterior motive to this -- perhaps they count killing these initiates towards their kill count, making it sound ever so more impressive. After all, that damn kill count is what they care the most about, anyway. The lives of others they couldn't care about less.

Blue continued to walk to the forum -- it wasn't too much of a detour from going to the Tribunal's stronghold -- and see if he could recruit any of the others help. It was against his pride and ego, naturally, but his wisdom in this manner and his tactical mind triumphed over them. But he also was anticipating running into another initiate.

And so he did. But it wasn't what he expected. He surmised that this rather generic-looking initiate was a seishinteki kyoyo initiate, but something was off. He looked to be about sixteen, seventeen-years old, and he sat upon the grassy ground with his back to a rather unimpressive waterfall. His legs were folded, and he had his hands upon his knees. His eyes were shut, but Blue thought he could detect some R.E.M. beneath the initiate's eyelids.

But he was sure that the initiate wasn't asleep. Not really. Blue had shrewdly deduced that the initiate was astral projecting their consciousness elsewhere. Who knows where it could be? Cloak may have been able to see it, but not him. But Blue had a harsh criticism for this initiate, and he was sure that astral projection was not a technique within seishinteki kyoyo

Astral projection could be so dangerous. You're basically leaving your body vacant whilst your mind, soul, consciousness -- whatever term you prefer -- wanders about aimlessly. Blue wasn't sure if astral possession -- that is, astral projecting yourself into the body of another and either "riding" it or taking it over -- was a thing. But while your body is left unoccupied, that means that any other noncorporeal entity or a being such as an Ectonurite could take it over and claim it as its own, only releasing it back to you of their own, and sole, volition.

So, by going on an astral projected trip, you risk forfeiting your true body to another power. True, this power might just dominate you anyway, if it wanted your body and it had the ability to possess you, like Goose did with Alan, but the possessing entity might find this more preferable, as their would be entirely no resistance, while you could possibly muster up some if it didn't take you by surprise.

Or your body could even be locked away from you -- Collocorpus, for instance. Then what would you do? You'd be stuck in the astral realm forevermore, unable to leave -- assuming the astral realm and the spirit realm were two different, separate things. . . .

All in all, Blue concluded, astral projection was stupid due to having more risks than benefits, in his opinion. But, this allowed him to walk pass the the initiate with no problem. He had bigger concerns to deal with than the poor decisions of an initiate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 14, 2017, 06:14:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Kenjutsu Initiate and the Naginatajutsu Initiate

Blue slowed his walk and considered. He knew that there were three initiates left. He assumed that their competency left much to be desired, akin to their predecessors. He didn't want to lead them back to the forum. That was his headquarters, his stronghold. It's where he laughed, slept, and lived. He would also endanger the other RAFians.

Not because these initiates were particularly dangerous. Oh, no. Their incompetence made the idea of them as a legitimate threat laughable. But they carried what essentially amounted to body cams that had a direct feed to the Tribunal. And that would be the last thing that Blue wanted. The Tribunal would use that information . . . and may actually get what they wanted.

Sure, there's Code Avalon, and it's more reliable than it was over a year ago, but it's still being perfected. And it wasn't flawless or infallible. Granted, technically, nothing is infallible and flawless -- perfection doesn't truly exist, and only fools strive to achieve undeniable perfection.

If the initiates don't find him, then he will have to hunt down the remaining three. Shouldn't be too hard -- they're all wearing those stupid ninja-like initiate outfits. They'd probably be trainees in the last three disciplines of ninjutsu.

Suddenly, Blue ducked a slicing whizz through the air. Then he leaped over another. Sidestepped to the right to dodge and a hacking slash downward.  Wheeled around to the left to dodge an upward slash to see the initiate using what appeared to be a three-foot katana.

"Wow," Blue said, "the Tribunal finally sent a competent initiate this time. Kenjutsu, I presume?"

The initiate said nothing.

"Ah," Blue said. He was feeling talkative for some reason. Perhaps his inner Spider-Man was coming out. "One of those strong silent types, I see."

Again, the initiate was silent.

"Well," Blue said, "can we hurry up and get this charade over with? I need to -- I have an errand to do. It's kinda important, and can't wait."

Once again, the initiate was silent, and just swung his sword, almost as he was a mindless automaton. It was unnerving now. It was like he was lobotomized or something.

Blue caught the blade in his arm bladed arm grieves, and it was caught in the hooked blades. Then Blue, with a great amount of strength (not superhuman strength though) he disarmed the initiate, as the sword sank a foot into the soft soil. There had been a drenching rain the night before.

Blue left the initiate, whom he assumed to be defeated. He was getting a bit ambivalent, dangerously so. He continued to look for the remaining two initiates -- the sooner he deals with them, the sooner he could cut them off at their head.

His path was soon obstructed by an initiate with a naginata, a Japanese analogue to the medieval glaive. The blade at the edge of the polearm had a single edge, but without any ornate pattern. The polearm shaft was lacquered and looked well-maintained. It was a simple, vanilla sort of weapon. And the naginatajutsu initiate was actually competent with it.

Blue dodged each strike, with the benefit of the densely packed trees making the weapon less effective than it would ordinarily have. So, Blue stuck to the shadows. Hiding in plain sight.

But then something fortuitously unexpected happened.

The previous initiate, the kenjutsu initiate came over, and couldn't see Blue either. But instead of joining forces with the naginatajutsu initiate, he started to argue with him. The two were so loud, with actual words drowned out by one another.

This was an opportunity to get away from them, and Blue smiled. This was most certainly a way to defeat them. Division amongst the ranks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2017, 10:04:09 AM

Don't quote me on this, but one of these initiates may be coming back. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Final Initiate, the Kusarigamajutsu Initiate

Just one more initiate to deal with now.

And yet, Blue felt the need to not be too harsh on the initiates, though he was, admittingly, in his inner monologues. But that was just fuelled by annoyances and frustrations. He knew that many the initiates that the Tribunal recruits were just infants or really young (and impressionable) children. Some were set to menial tasks, and that's all they ever known.

Although, that doesn't really excuse their lack of skill and incompetence -- but they were probably handpicked because of those traits. Of course, the Tribunal would not have been forthright with that little factoid. That would mar the sense of validation, vindication, and recognition they wanted all nineteen of these initiates that they sent to kill Blue to feel. And Blue strongly suspected that they declined to inform them that failure would mean death from the Tribunal itself, if Blue did not oblige. And Blue never obliged.

Blue strongly suspected that these initiates were sent, not to kill him (but bully for them if they, by some miracle, managed), but to goad Blue into killing them without mercy. But he was a RAFian, and quite merciful in his own right. These initiates may have been frustratingly incompetent, easily disarmed, or too involved with their own destructive foibles, but that did not necessitate their deaths.

But the Tribunal was always like this. Always treated the deaths of others -- the unprovoked and needless murder of others -- with a cavalier dismissal. However, if the threat was turned against them and it was their lives in jeopardy . . . then suddenly, that would be taken with the utmost seriousness and treated with scandalized tones. This flagrant hypocrisy always sickened Blue, and it always seemed to be a hypocrisy that the Tribunal themselves were largely ignorant of. And Blue suspected that, despite their inherent dishonesty, that this ignorance was genuine on their part.

Blue ****ed his head to the right ever so slightly, and seized the end of the fundo, or the heavy iron weight, of a kusarigama that whizzed mere centimeters from his left ear. He held it tightly, and felt the wielder of the the kusarigama trying to tug it out of his grip. The wielder clearly lacked any real strength.

"A kusarigamajutsu initiate, I take it?" Blue said, without turning around or releasing the kusarigama. "The final one, at that. Your predecessors all failed to kill me, and I mean more than the other eighteen I dealt with earlier."

Still not relinquishing the kusarigama, Blue turned to face his would-be assassin. He was dismayed to find that the kid couldn't be any older than fourteen, fifteen. He found himself strongly reminded of Leatherhead for some reason, and his irate frustration seemed to melt away into a deep sadness. This boy was clearly deeply indoctrinated into the philosophy of deep devotion and unwavering allegiance. He didn't have a choice, any dissent beaten and terrified out of him. The Tribunal's methods were cruel.

This boy probably hadn't a clue that his real parents, assuming the Tribunal didn't do away with them (and make it look like an accident or a murder-suicide), were probably still looking at him. The boy probably didn't even have a name that he would recognize as one, just an initiate number. Blue saw an awful lot of himself in this boy the more he considered.

"Let go!" the boy demanded.

"No," Blue said, sadly. He wondered idly if this boy was too far gone, too indoctrinated with the principals that the Tribunal wanted to instill. Or did he have a rebellious heart? A defiant spirit? A restive mind? Or was his boyhood recalcitrance replaced by abject compliance?

"Let go!"

"Boy, you're doing yourself no favors," Blue said. His tone remained sad and knowing. "I know the Tribunal has sent you to try to kill me."

"And I will! As soon as you let go!" the boy declared. He was showing the usual childhood distortion, the delusion that your capability is more than what it actually is. He continued to demand, "Let go!"

"Boy, they do not expect you win."

"Liar!"

"They do not expect you to win," Blue repeated, somehow both cold and gentle at the same time, "because they know you cannot."

"Lies!"

"You cannot because I have more experience, and more training," Blue said. "You cannot kill me because you fail to understand. It is not so easy to snuff out a life, knowing that you are doing so."

"Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about." the bellicose boy snarled.

"But . . . I do," Blue said. He did not relax his grip, which irritated the boy. "They do not expect you to kill me."

The boy said nothing, but continued to struggle with the kusarigama chain.

"They expect me to kill you," Blue said, quietly earnest. "That's why they've been sending wave after wave after wave of initiates after me, under the guise that I deserve to die because I escaped that cultish League of Assassins."

The boy stopped struggling, and looked at Blue. He was starting to believe, starting to question everything he was lead to believe . . . even his stubborn thoughts to stick to the Tribunal's narrative wasn't really sticking, as he was starting to see several rather conspicuous holes in it that he couldn't explain away as irrelevant. And the way Blue spoke, it actually spoke to the boy.

"And," Blue said, "if you return to the stronghold while I still draw breath, then the Tribunal themselves will kill you."

The boy dropped the kusarigama. Whether he was horrified or terrified, it was hard to tell. Perhaps it was both. To the boy without a name, to Initiate #100957, it was as if Blue informed him that his parents had designs on killing him if he didn't get straight A's in a class at school.

Initiate #100957 ran away, leaving his kusarigama behind. Blue watched him go, fighting an urge to go after him. The boy wasn't his responsibility, although a part of Blue screamed at him that he was.

He just gave the boy the hard truths he needed to hear, the truths the boy had already suspected and Blue confirmed. But Blue had a mission of his own, and he would have to recruit some of his friends.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2017, 02:34:19 PM

Yeah, might be over my requisite twenty chapters with this book.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Just a Minor Jump Cut

Blue managed to only recruit GH, Cloak, and Phoenix. GH was able to leave Leatherhead with Dino, who wasn't a reluctant babysitter, like Saffa*. They were in a rather secluded jungle, with the sheer cacophony of bird calls, as if they were protesting the presence of this stronghold, well hidden by rushing water of a waterfall. The stronghold itself, square in shape with high stone walls had adhered itself to the outermost lip of the waterfall, were the water cascaded down below. It was at least a seventy-six-foot drop from the edge of this waterfall. This waterfall also powered the facility as well, much like how water wheels power mills and whatnot.

There was a retracting bridge that allowed entry at specific times. And, yes, this bridge was battered with water. Apparently, the Tribunal was confident enough that no one would gain entry without their okay -- but Blue managed, so it was just difficult, not impossible. Even now, Blue had spotty memories how he did it -- but he was sure luck played a large part of it. He thought he used floating debris to help him make it to the banks. And once he left, he had no inclination to return, before now. It would be like Cloak returning to his mother's house again -- this place was filled with bad, and often painful memories for Blue.

"Um, how are we gonna get across?" GH asked. "I think if we wait for the bridge, we'd kinda lose the element of surprise."

"You disappoint me, Logan," Cloak said, making a simple sweeping gesture with his right hand, and an energy platform that was scarlet in the center and turned gold as it radiated out to the edges materialized on the bank right in front of them.

"Oh," GH said, "right."

"Let's go, then," Phoenix said, and Cloak ferried them across. Upon a better look at the citadel stronghold, Cloak was stricken with how reminiscent it was to Azkaban -- though he never visited the place, and didn't know if Azkaban even existed in this realm.

However, the moment that Cloak's feet touched the ground and he felt the vibrations through the earthen and stone mediums, he turned to address Blue, "Are you sure that this is the right place?"

"Absolutely," Blue said. Every step was awakening a memory. "This is where I was . . . trained."

He had trouble admitting that he was indoctrinated here. That he was . . . brainwashed here, but his conscience could not be suppressed or beaten out of him. He couldn't help but wonder about the lives of the victims that the Tribunal wanted him to take.

"There's no one here, Blue." Cloak said, with the certainty all Realm Walkers seemed to have.

"That can't be right," Blue argued.

"There isn't anyone here, other than us," Cloak said, sounding genuinely disturbed. "That's alive, anyway. You still want to proceed?"

Blue did. They came this far, and, though he didn't mention it to Cloak, a part of him vehemently disagreed with the Element Master's assessment. This place was always so busy. So full of bustling people. Sure, a majority of them were assassins and would kill any outsiders that violated the sanctity of this place.

Cloak used his his mastery over the Earth element to crack the stronghold's outer wall like an egg, and the team entered. Blue was dismayed to find that Cloak's assessment was . . .

Accurate.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on November 15, 2017, 09:29:30 PM

Cloak, come on. You know I would have chewed you out for using my real name. :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2017, 09:56:22 PM

Trust me, you weren't thinking about that, with the ominous atmosphere when we arrived on the stronghold's land (and your mind was on Leatherhead, anyway -- parental concerns) -- just wait for the next chapter. It will be a bit heavy.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Dead or Deserted

The inside of the stronghold was dingy and . . .

"I am so glad that I left LH with Dino," GH said, as he looked around this grisly mausoleum of death. Blood was smeared everywhere, miscellaneous viscera lingering in places, and there was a fair smattering of mostly intact bodies here and there, lying motionless. This was no longer a stronghold -- it was a tomb.

Blue was speechless. This wasn't a fight -- it was a massacre.

He was expecting resistance as he went for the Tribunal, sure. He was killing aware that he might have to draw blood with his trust sword, but this? This hellish, nightmarish scene? He couldn't have conceived of it. And they were just seeing the aftermath of what happened.

And what did happen here? Did they get too overconfident in their defenses? Overconfidence often spells disaster. Complacency, as well, can lead to catastrophe. But it didn't really explain what happened here.

Phoenix and GH looked put off, but were managing well. Cloak was disturbed, as the fact that leaving something more than a cloak behind after death was still quite foreign to him.

Blue was still looking around horrified, realizing that the nineteen initiates that were sent to kill him -- they were the only survivors of this massacre. But he wasn't so silly to think that that's why the Tribunal sent them out. They must have not foreseen this outcome. Were they too -- ?

He had to find out. He was only barely aware that Cloak was with him. The other two were not far behind. They had to go to the innermost chamber . . . that's where the Tribunal lived and met to discuss how to further their goals. If they were still alive, then they would be there.

Blue had Cloak open the overly ornate door, rather unceremoniously. And there they were. Still sitting in their ridiculously opulent daimyo like robes in too flashy colors. Blue, at first, thought that all seven were still alive. But Cloak dashed that thought.

"They're dead, Blue," Cloak said.

"They're sitting up," Blue countered, not daring to believe.

Cloak flicked his hand, causing a slight breeze to rush the area, and sweeping through all the members of the Tribunal. All seven heads tumbled off their bodies and rolled onto to the floor before the four. Their headless bodies finally slumped down, several slipping off their seats.

"They are dead," Blue said. He couldn't keep his surprise from his voice. Of all the things he anticipated, not one of them came true. Someone had beaten him to the punch, and went completely overboard. "I didn't expect this."

"Who would do this?" GH inquired. He looked rather green -- but that could just be the awful smell in the room. It was this smell that caused Cloak to keep his distance from the bodies. He knew the mechanics of decomposition, but still found it odd and strange and foreign.

"I don't know," Blue said, earnestly. "Whoever it was, it had to be the ultimate assassin."

"Whoever it was," Phoenix said, assessing what this meant, "that means that they're a present and current danger. And what's worse is that they're still at large. We haven't a clue what species or what individual did this."

Cloak examined the smelly environment, trying to discern any evidence -- but the overpowering odor was too much to be ignored effectively, too pervasive to be disregarded.

"All I can tell is that they've been attacked by bladed weapons -- no telltale claw marks or gunfire residue or evidence. I cannot think of any other species capable of such a massacre. . . . Now . . . can we please get out of here? This place reeks of death."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 16, 2017, 06:10:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Shinobi

Blue was sitting outside the forum, a fair distance away, meditating on the League stronghold massacre. He was trying to calm his mind, still his spirit, and fortify his body, as he tried to conceive of an assailant who could have possibly committed such violence. Seeing the carnage, it was clear that it was from someone who enjoyed every last instance of of it. Someone who actually revelled in the gruesome, grotesque ways they were murdered. Someone who was clearly a sadist.

Could he have gotten there sooner? Could have done something? Something to save them from this heinous fate? Something to . . . save murderers in their own right. He had to remember, not all that were slain were innocent. Not all had clean hands. Assassins may have been people, but so were the people they killed as a vocation. This was clearly one of those morally gray areas that he heard people talk about. Rarely is anything simple as black and white, very rarely.

Blue didn't say anything to the others, but he did look at that place with fear, but he did have an attachment to it. It was the first home he had ever known to be as such. It was a horrible place, true. The Tribunal robbed him of the family and life he would have had before they took him. True, he could always look up his parents to see if they're still around -- but he had absolutely nothing to go on. No idea what they looked like, and no idea what their names could be. Or what his real name was. Perhaps it was Bryce. He liked that name, Bryce.

He supposed it was odd, to feel both an attachment and a hatred for a place. He had never returned there once he left. He had told himself that it was for the best, that there was nothing left for him back there. But he had to grapple with a sense of guilt from time to time. He had been selfish in only thinking of himself as he escaped. He had never thought to save any of the others, the others that were surely indoctrinated and brainwashed. And killed, either at the massacre or in the intermittent years that came before.

"Boy," Blue said, not even opening his eyes nor turning around. So confident he was in his skills. "I know you're there. What is it you want?"

"Forgive my interruption, Blue Prodigy," Initiate #100957 said, respectfully.

"It's Blue," the RAFian said, in rather clipped tones. His instincts were yelling at him to trust the boy -- he did not know why. Perhaps he was an obscure relative? Nah, that's too much "Days of Our Lives". "I dropped the 'Prodigy' part when I left the League. Now, what is it you're after?"

Initiate #100957 put his kusarigama and short sword neatly on the ground, and sank to his knees. He bowed forward, head down, exposing his vulnerable neck.

"I wish to become your apprentice," the fourteen-year-old boy said, head still down, neck still open for attack. "I -- I wish to understand."

Blue opened his eyes, and considered the boy for a long moment. He was unsure if he should trust the boy. "You understand that I must vet what you're saying, right?"

"I understand," the boy said. "I'll do anything to earn your trust."

The response was eager, and yet Blue found it believable. But he was having problems trusting his own judgement at the moment, and trouble dealing with seeing the carnage at the stronghold massacre.

***

"He's telling the truth," Cloak said. "Either that, or he's proficient liar."

Blue wasn't too satisfied with this answer and went to Yarin for absolute confirmation. Yes, the telepathic probes were horribly invasive, when involuntarily. And most people were unaware of the probes, unless Yarin dug too deeply.

"He's being honest," the Nyac said. "Even if he is an accomplished Occlumens (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Occlumency), I would be able to tell. I would have to delve deeper, granted, if he was employing Occlumency and the deeper I go the greater the risk of psychic damage to the boy's mind. Possibly leaving him in a catatonic state, or insane. I never dare to go that deep. But, my probes tell me he's basically a flatscan human -- no magical ability whatsoever."

"So, I can trust what he claims?" Blue asked. "We don't need another incident like Itellsya."

Itellsya was to this date the first and only RAFian traitor. Rotiart didn't really count, as he wasn't a RAFian when turned against them. He went to work for Malice, but nobody ever found out why. And now never will, now that he, as Rumor, was dead.

"His mind isn't anything like Itellsya," Yarin said. "The thing about Itellsya was I should have reported that he had a bit of a powerlust, but I assumed that it was due to his age. I was wrong to assume that. However, this boy -- Initiate Number-one-zero-zero-nine-five-seven -- all he wants is to be the best that he can be. And I'm not sure he even realizes this himself -- he just wants to be respected. He never wanted to kill you, Blue. Not really. It was just an obligation that he thought he had to do -- by telling him about the Tribunal's intended betrayal -- he lost all loyalty towards them. He believed you wholeheartedly, Blue. And he still does."

Blue nodded. He turned to call the boy over. Initiate #100957 hastened to respond, taking a knee and bowing his head. Blue still saw a lot of himself at that age in the boy, without really meaning to. He lifted the boy to his feet.

"What's you name?"

"Initiate Number --"

"No, your real name."

"Real name?" the boy asked. He was genuine flummoxed.

Blue sighed, seeing another similarly. "Then how about I give you one that's less of a . . . mouthful."

"Really?"

"How about 'Shinobi'?" Blue asked. "'Shin', for short?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 17, 2017, 05:12:04 AM

Probably the last chapter before the USUM hiatus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Throwing Shade

Parker headed to a large castle, purported to be haunted. It was much too early for Halloween, so Parker felt a tad disgruntled at being dispatched for this mission. He entered the castle, and immediately felt a distinct "Ghosts 'n Goblins" motif with this castle. And, strangely enough, the castle's interior seemed paradoxically larger than the castle's exterior.

"Great. Now I'm in a Halloween-themed video game." Parker grumbled, a little irritated his alone time with Helen was interrupted. "Wonderful."

The SPARTAN really didn't care for the "ooga booga" atmosphere. It just reeked of an amateurish haunted house whose makers had a bottomless wallet. All these things were either gaudy and hackneyed or kitsch and overdone. Just plain not scary. Not in the least.

Then again, he was a RAFian. He's seen far more frightening things before dinnertime than most people see in their lifetimes. But, then again, this was less scary than a fanged apple or an annoying orange -- so, there was that.

He just hoped to find the fiend and get this over with. Then Tyr told him something that Parker had to as him to repeat. That would be so cliche -- but it was true. The fiend was hanging from the ceiling, like a vampire. The creature had the svelte body plan akin to that of a Vladat. It had black, bat-like ears, a long, pointed nose, a pointed chin, vampire fangs, and large, human-like eyes with pale yellow sclera and pale orange irises. Its domed head was pale yellow with purple markings. Its neck was dark brown with a black high collar. It was hard to tell if it was wearing clothing, or if it was actually part of his body. It had pale yellow chiropteran wings with black membranes. It had an orange chest with pointed shoulders, a black back, a purple abdomen, and a green waist. Its upper arms, pelvis, and thighs were paper white. Its lower arms were yellow with purple blades shaped like the dorsal fin of a shark, while its wrists, hands, and clawed fingers were onyx black. Its tail was yellow with a black tip. Its lower legs were yellow with black and orange markings. Its feet were like that of an eagle, but purple with black talons. Its claws could extend into a spare pair of wings.

When it awoke and saw Parker, it gave an earsplitting shriek, and righted itself, staying in that corner of the dark ceiling. Parker was less than enthused. "Gee, Tyr, this looks fun. Wouldn't you agree?"

He paused.

"It was a joke, Tyr," Parker said, now even more irritated.

It flew across the top of this grand dining hall from side to side, and tried to dive at Parker to drain his blood, but his armor would not allow that. hen it tried to swoop down again after crossing the room once more, hidden in the darkness around the ceiling, Parker avoided this by standing under him and rolling to the side that he had more space when it dived down.

After finally landing, it attacks with two petrifying stare beams, and then attacks with audiokinetic shrieks twice, one upward and one downward. When the concentric circles hit a wall, it returned to it and charge its next soundwave attack.

"This is so ludicrous," Parker muttered, pausing for only a moment to listen to Tyr's brief commentary. Then he replied, "Shut up, Tyr."

The petrifying beams were able to be avoided by jumping over them -- somehow. The first soundwave, downward one, could be avoided by jumping over it, and the second soundwave, the upward one, by rolling under it. It'll then fly upwards and repeat this attack sequence. That's one thing you can trust about these fiends -- their limited tactical ability to change up their attack patterns.

Parker tried a little something . . . new that he had been working on with his armor. He worked on his armor whenever he had a spare moment and wasn't with Helen. It was akin to Kevin Levin's car to the former.

Parker held out his arm at the creature, and took aim. He only hesitated for a moment as he tried to silence Tyr, claiming he knew what he was doing. His gauntlet fired of his hand (revealing a fireproof glove beneath -- Parker wasn't Kryptonian, after all) which rocketed toward the fiend, and he did so with his other arm. Both shots hit and the fiend fell to the ground.

Once it regained its senses, as Parker's gauntlets returned to him, sliding back onto his arms, it flew up again. Clearly preparing to dive again. Only this time, Parker was really ready for it, and dodged it easily. He fired each gauntlet thrice more, and each strike hit. The fiend was slain.

Parker turned to leave, actually finding the performance of these rocket gauntlet a bit more lacking than he cared for.

***

Demos called it a "shedosapien". He intended it as a mascot attraction for a haunted house amusement park. It ran into a snag when it displayed vampiric tendencies.

***

Malice found the battle about as entertaining as a "Twilight" reading. She was snoring in a threadbare armchair.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2017, 06:16:14 AM

Still on USUM hiatus. It'll probably end this Monday, the 27th, but, until then here's a chapter to tide you over.

New chapter.

BOOK CLVII:
DARK RAFIANS
CHAPTER ONE:
Shift into Turbo

GH was dispatched to a race track. It was evacuated due to fiend action. Apparently, it felt a "need for speed". GH found that rather lame, and groan-worthy. But he had his trusty guitar, and he knew Dino was watching Leatherhead -- she had become his primary babysitter, which she fully embraced.

Fortunately, it wasn't that difficult to find the fiend. The creature formed from a nearby red race car, like a Cybertronian, only its colar shifted. Its head was dark orange with a green band around its cerebellum and a vertical, monochromatic checkered flag band from is brow up. It had its mouth hidden behind a black mouthguard, and it had human-like eyes with green sclera and brown irises, which could be hidden by a retractable visor, not unlike that of Kineceleran. It had deep orange antennae-like ears. It had deep orange exhaust ports on its back. It had huge rubber tires its shoulders with green hubcap-like shoulders. Its upper arms and thighs were bone white. Its lower arms were deep red with a single purple growth on each one, and its human-like hands were black with a green triangle on the back that connects to the wrists. Its chest had a deep orange covering, but some of the engine block within showed through. Its hips were deep orange with a black, vertical stripe. Its knees contained headlights, surrounded in deep purple, with its shins being deep orange with a black vertical stripe. Its pontoon-like feet were black with a red interior and deep orange soles.

When the fiend first saw GH, it revved the wheels on its shoulders until they ignited. Then it jumped moderately high, and fired two spinning wheels of flame at GH from midair. He had to sidestep first to the right, then to the left, and then used his guitar in its axe mode to block a third flame wheel. Then he slashed at a fourth causing it to split into four fireballs which made fire pillars when they made contact with the ground. They, fortunately, fizzled out quickly enough.

Then it revved up its internal engine, and GH was surprised that this somehow generated some sort of powerful suction. He dug his feet into the asphalt as much as he could to resist this suction. Fortunately, it only lasted for but a brief moment.

Then it transformed back into a car -- GH easily saw were this was going. He threw his guitar, rather like Terra, Ventus, or Aqua throwing their Keyblades to form their vehicles, and it transformed into a hoverbike. He immediately jumped onto it, as the fiend finished it's transformation. It made a screeching noise as GH darted around the track with the fiend chasing him.

After what seemed to be an eternity, it transformed back, and GH reverted his guitar back to its normal musical instrument mode. GH narrowed his eyes. It was time to go on the offensive. He pulled out his favorite guitar pick, and played. He played so concentric circles of musical energy was emitted from his guitar, lashing the fiend. He played a heavy metal song that he knew Cloak was not fond of, and played with all the passion of a musician in the throes and thrall of their own music.

It actually took GH a moment to notice that the fiend was already destroyed. He was too into his must before then, though he still managed to control his symphokinetic attack to limit any collateral damage. When he did notice, despite himself, he felt disappointed.

He really liked that song.

***

Demos called it a "turbosapien". Demos gave no reason for the purpose of this fiend.

***

Malice was starting to find this as entertaining as track racing. But she was too busy snoring to really watch this, or even scheme. She was in her eighties, remember.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2017, 08:37:46 AM

Still on the hiatus, but stuck in the laundromat without my handheld, and I had this queued up, so . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Gathering

A old woman, who could have possibly been Malice -- though there was something wrong with her if she was -- shuffling about a dimly lit hovel situated within some sort of nondescript cavern.

She sang:

"They were such legends
Though they're long gone, their story lives on.
If I bring back that legend,
Their big Walker smarts gives me a new start
Yeah, the Twelve will help us win with all their great advice.
No more playing nice!
No more playing nice!!
Let's bring back a legend!
A legend to help my fight!
Let's bring back a legend!
A legend of darkness tonight!
No one in the RAF could possibly dream
Of our big scheme.
They'll all be astounded,
When the RAFians are done and my victory is won!
We just need the right alignment for my little surprise.
And I'll make the Twelve rise.
I'll make Twelve rise!!
Let's bring back a legend!
A legend to help my fight!
Let's bring back a legend!
A legend of darkness tonight!
Oh, let's bring back a legend!
A legend to help my fight!
Let's bring back a legend!
A legend of darkness tonight!
Let's bring back a legend!
A legend of darkness tonight!"

With a gasp, Cloak awoke. He was left puzzled as to whether this was just a figment of his imagination, and not real, but a fabrication of his mind. Or if it was a Truth Dream -- and if it was happening now or if it was a prophetic dream. . . .

***

In a boardroom-like setting, with a crackling fire lit behind him, sat Odie, in a highbacked, winged chair. Totally a Montgomery Burns motif. He sat the head of the table with his fellows cloaked in darkness or dimness of light.

He smiled -- despite getting kicked out the Knights for his uselessness. He sang:

"They thought I was defeated.
But very soon we'll see
The shock as I rise from the flames,
So triumphantly.
I never thought I'd have this chance.
Oh, how long it's been.
A new opportunity,
And this time I'll win.
For I have a plan."

One of the gathered sang:

"Enlighten us now."

But Odie just sang, smug and egotistical:

"Yes, I have a plan!"

Another of the gathered sang:

"We wanna know how."

But Odie, still smug and arrogant, sang:

"Follow my lead,
That's all you need.
Yes, I have a plan!
We will be victorious!
It will be glorious!
All the forum's lush terrain
Will again be my domain!
For I have a plan!
Follow my lead,
That's all you need!
I have a plan!
Yes, I have a plan!
I have a plan!
Follow my lead,
That's all you need.
Yes, I have a plan!"

The fire actually bloomed upward illuminating some of the gathered -- an Uxorite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Uxorite), an Aerophibian (http://ben10.wiki.com/wiki/Aerophibian), a Prypiatosian-B (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Prypiatosian-B) in a containment suit that does not hinder his abilities and was shaped like a fit human male, an Appoplexian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Appoplexian), and a yellow Cerebrocrustacean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Cerebrocrustacean). There were more, of course, but these were just the ones that could be seen.

---

SOURCE SONGS: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CIAi5yYecHI (https://youtube.com/watch?v=CIAi5yYecHI) and https://youtube.com/watch?v=-BRfeCx8TGU (https://youtube.com/watch?v=-BRfeCx8TGU)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2017, 10:37:32 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
This is Defamation of Character!

A lot had happened in the span of three days. Unfortunately, for the RAFians, it was not anything good. They were being framed hard.

Parker was accused of setting a house on fire, despite the discrepancy that he was clearly on the other side of town, trying to find Helen a birthday gift --and being rather studious at it, as well.

Cloak was accused of pummeling so high profile guy in the federal communications commission, who were about to do unthinkable things that no one liked. While this frustratingly smug man probably much deserved this kind of treatment, it was not Cloak who acted upon this impulse. The Realm Walker relegated himself to trying to discern what that dream meant.

Saffa was accused of going bonkers with her diamond manipulation abilities (which she was still learning to harness it (it took Cloak a relatively long time to truly master the elements, so this wasn't surprising), and she tended to rely on her catalog of different morphs for any job at hand. When in reality, she was sitting around talking with Abby.

Yarin was accused of thievery and robbery, using both his telepathy and telekinesis. While this was just patently impossible as he was fixing his ship, as well as adding a new software update -- something that tended to take hours rather than minutes.

Dino was accused of rampaging, of causing incalculable amounts of property damage -- despite the culprit conspicuously lacking a ankylosaur shell and clubbed tail. The fact of the matter was that Dino was with Leatherhead and GH watching them jam out together (Leatherhead was back wearing his human suit -- it was just dress-up for him, after all). She would even absentmindedly tap her clubbed tail in rhythm to the music, which GH took as needed percussion.

Az was accused of robbing a bank, Mr. Freeze-style, with the victims conveniently neglecting to mention that the culprit had to use a gun as he was not a natural cryokinetic. In truth, Az was at the forum, having a quiet meal as he departed the mess hall, never having a chance to thank the hardworking dietary department house-elves.

Both Shenmue and Cerulean were accused of super-speeding shoplifting. But this was impossible as the two were racing amongst the fastest species in the galaxy -- to try and earn money for charitable causes. And it was a breakneck race.

Phoenix was accused of the immolation of a bus full of passengers, despite the very fact that he was very conspicuously at the forum. Studying. Or, at least, trying to anyway.

Of course, these unfounded accusations were only the ones levelled at specific RAFians. These complaints became a chant, and the chant became a song:

"Who controls downtown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
They do, they do!
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the aliens under wraps?
They do, they do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Justin Bieber a star?
They do, they do!
Who robs cavefish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
They do!
They do!!!"

And the RAFians, at first, were oblivious to all this hoopla.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dSpOjj4YD8c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2017, 05:28:06 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Realizations

"Wait -- they're blaming us for these crimes?!" GH declared heatedly when the RAFians were made known of these allegations.

"They claim to have irrefutable evidence," Shenmue said, the notice still in hand. "I have yet to review this supposed evidence myself, however. They seem quite reluctant to let me peruse it -- claiming that I . . ."

Shenmue mastered her anger as the unjust insinuation. ". . . that I would deliberately and wantonly destroy any incriminating evidence because of personal bias. However," she said, voice severe, "I have far more integrity to be reduced to such a petty act. I think it is more likely that they haven't any real evidence to corroborate their claims, which is why they seem so adamant to prevent me and the rest of our legal council from seeing it."

"So," Phoenix said, in summary, "it's bad."

"A faction is trying to defame our good names again," Cloak said. "Trying to spin the narrative. Spin it to say that 'we're not the goody-two-shoes you thought we were" sort of rhetoric."

"Our favoribility ranking has plummeted another six points. For crimes some imposters committed, impersonating us. Our PR standing has always been shaky, at best." Faerie said. "Maybe it's time we got a publicist or something."

"I think the bigger question is what do we do now," Saffa said, cutting to the heart of the matter. "Will we still be able to protect the planet and its people with this legal mumbo-jumbo ensnaring us in this . . . bureaucracy?"

"And, not to mention, how can we do that efficiently when we lose the support of the people?" Abby added.

"With all the litigation that seems to be coming out of the woodwork," Shenmue said, "and I don't mean to alarm you, but they may very well demand that we . . ."

She hesitated as if she didn't want to consider the next possibility.

"What?" GH prompted.

"They may very well demand that we disband," Shenmue said. "They may decide to kill RAF."

***

"Excellent," Odie said, leaning back on his black swivel chair, with steepled hands on his chest. "Phase one of the plan is going swimmingly."

He smirked as he watched news report after news report. He was happy and content after seeing all the havoc his . . . his "friends" were causing. He had already accomplished more in these few days than the Knights ever had since their founding. And they had the nerve to reject him. To throw him out of their organization, just like the RAFians did.* And, yet, he had already accomplished more than any of them.

Soon . . . very soon, it would be time to enact phrase two.

As he thought this, he got up and got out what appeared to be, at first glance, an ordinary morphsuit. But, upon closer examination, it was a bodysuit -- he was going to disguise himself. As much as it caused him to swallow his enormous hubris, he would have to disguise himself, just in the small event that his grand plan should fail. And he didn't want the RAFians to know who was behind this. Not yet.

He wanted the reveal to be grand and epic, when the forum's destruction was assured.

---

* Odie conveniently forgot that he left of his own accord, and wasn't even Banned.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2017, 09:32:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Taskforce

"What are your comments on these crimes allegedly perpetrated by the vile RAFians?" a reporter (showcasting the inherent anti-RAFian mindset the mainstream media had with her framing of the question) asked Mayor Miles Milton. Although, in more progressive circles, he was pejoratively known as Mayor Milquetoast.

Mayor Milton was short, heavyset, and balding. Brown hair stayed resolutely around his temples, and remained thick. He had a large, bulbous nose, prominent and large mouth, and beady brown eyes. He wore a blue suit, and honestly looked more like a caricature of a politician than a real person.

He was not terribly liked, as he was a man of very little backbone, when it came down to it. He would stand up to the electorate and back wildly unpopular policies, but when a person with equal or more power pushed back -- he immediately buckled and caved, especially if they represented a corporate interest. And considering that this city, his city, was the epicenter of some rather crazy stuff (understatement, true) going on. He only won his election by running unopposed. The mayor of this city was not a popular career choice.

"These RAFians have terrorized our city long enough," said the squat man. "I'm ordering a special taskforce to deal with this."

A man -- but just barely having made into manhood by the looks of him -- stood on the mayor's right. He wore a black domino mask had his light brown hair in a hairstyle that screamed '90s. He wore a formfitting suit (which left nothing to the imagination, which was likely intentional given how buff he looked) which was predominantly black with neon blue highlights.

"Captain Michaels here will be in charge," the mayor said, his eyes unfocused for the briefest of moments. Captain Michaels did not look old enough to be a captain in any militaristic capacity. He couldn't have been any older than twenty-six, if that. He had to more like twenty-two. Yet, he wore a familiar smug smile on his face. "He and his chosen team shall be able to take down these RAFian criminals."

Four decidedly nonhumans flanked either side of him.

One was a light bluish, purplish humanoid with the ability to stretch her limbs, extreme heat resistance, incredible strength, and enhanced agility. She wore a parka and other cold weather gear, as even in this balmy weather, she found Earth frigid. She was a female Kraaho (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kraaho), a hotblooded tungsten-based species.

To Captain Michaels' left stood a humanoid, magma-based individual that was composed of a bright inner magma body covered by dark red rocks. His body radiated high amount of heat. His feet had a slight oval like design with only two toes and one back toe. He was a Pyronite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Pyronite/Original), from Pyros (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Pyros/Original).

At the Kraaho's shoulder was an individual that resembled a mottled purple salamander, but was larger and sometimes walked on two legs. He had three triangular eyes, one red, one blue, and one green. He had slender limbs with three toes on his back feet and four fingers, as well as a wide mouth. A retractable stinger was concealed within his tail. He was a Merlinisapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Merlinisapien), from an unknown planet.

At the Pyronite's shoulder, stood a large individual made of a yellow and brown crystalline substance. He was a Basalt (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Basalt). Basalts were incredibly strong and seismokinetic, although vulnerable to water.

"Don't worry, Mr. Mayor," this Captain Michaels said. His voice was gruff and haggered, almost as if he was either trying to be Batman, or sloppily disguising his voice. "We'll capture these criminals. You have my word on it!"

There was something off about this entire thing. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2017, 11:14:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Number One With a Bullet

With this new addition of this Anti-RAFian Taskforce, the mods saw fit to lockdown the forum. This was done in part due to the governmental and societal pressure. No RAFian was particularly pleased with this edict, not even the mods or Richard himself.

But it was done in order to placate the angry populace. And this was done in the hopes that the forum's favorability ratings remain steady. It was at roughly 72% when this had all started. It had steady dropped to 24% or so after the past few days.

The mainstream media wasn't helping matters, portraying the RAFians as a cabal of psychopaths or a fraternity of tyrannical fascists. The mainstream media in this country were little more than tabloid rags and shock television at this point. And it disgusted Cloak, perhaps most of all.

It severely disappointed the Realm Walker, as it was familiar. It was similar, if not identical tactics that Nexus news outlets used. Everything was pro-Council, with dissenting voices silenced or demeaned and shamed. Their system of government was so festering with corruption it was like an overt and obvious wound that no one cared to addressed.

It saddened Cloak to see the same happening here.

***

The Kraaho's name was Freon. Esther Freon.

She was a natural leader, with some limited expertise in a variety of scientific and mathematical fields, but not really a master in any of them, although that cold be largely attributed to her youth. Her cold, methodical nature could lead her to come off as cold and distant from those around her. Whenever a challenge confronts her, her mindset always considers this paramount to solve, even at the exclusion of friends and loved ones, despite being a loving person to those around her when she isn't as hyper-focused on anything.

She had left her super warm homeworld for Earth, as she had a secret thirst for adventure. She was not one to be content sitting around. She always had to be doing something, or else she'd get bored. And she hated being bored. It's one of the reasons that she jumped at the opportunity of being part of this Taskforce. It sounded like a challenge -- and, to her, challenges exist only to be taken down, taken down and defeated utterly.

She held a bit of a closeted crush on the Merlinisapien, but did not say anything nor did she act upon these instincts, aside from hoping to be teamed up with him on a mission.

She had a rather tenuous relationship with the Basalt, though. She had made an undisclosed transgression towards him, and he secretly kept aware of said transgression.

Her relationship with the Pyronite was actually quite neutral, her reticent nature having no real conflict with the latter's brashness.

She was willing to defer to Captain Michaels, and was apparently unaware of the "captain's" true identity, motives, and dealings.

***

The Pyronite's name was Scorch Hothead, and he didn't see the pun in his name. He was young, impetuous, and brash. His youth also made reckless and a tad bit conceited. He had come to Earth, not only looking for adventure, but fame and glory as well. He was dismayed to find that there was a persistent, pervasive, xenophobic attitude to some of the humans, especially the ones that adorn themselves in that plate armor.

As mentioned before, Scorch had a fairly neutral relationship with Esther. His boisterous excess of personality not really clashing with her calm, reticent nature. He didn't mind her preference for higher temperatures, either.

The Merlinisapien, despite being so mysterious, treated Scorch like a little brother, with all the push and shove that came with that. He treated Scorch with the loving disdain an older brother would give his younger one. He would even lie to Scorch in such a way that he would tacitly believe him, only to declare "you're stupid!" moments later when Scorch realizes that he had been had.

Scorch had a somewhat antagonistic relationship towards the Basalt, though without any actual enmity. The two would often engage in a prank war, of sorts, which irritated their other teammates on the taskforce. Captain Michaels had to step in several times and tell them that it was enough.

Speaking of Captain Michaels, while Scorch would listen to him, he would nearly always find some wiggle room, someway to do as Captain Michaels wanted and get want he wanted out of it. He was also unaware of the "captain's" true identity and role in this.

***

The Merlinisapien's real name was undisclosed, as he refused to reveal it. When he had to be addressed, he chose the moniker of Mosaic. He refused to reveal much, if anything, about himself or where he came from. He refused to acknowledge the reason he came to Earth, though it was suspected that his homeworld's government sickened him enough to the point of leaving, though he would claim that he stranded on Earth.

The only other member of the team he even bothered to interact with outside a mission was Scorch. He enjoyed leading the impetuous Pyronite youth to a wrong conclusion, then laugh at the man's stupidity. Though he'd never admit it aloud and would attack you for suggesting it, he rather liked his teammates -- though oblivious to Esther's crush on him -- even Scorch, despite antagonizing him from time to time.

Unlike the other three, however, Mosaic did not trust the captain was who he claimed he was. While he never managed to sneak into the so-called captain's quarters, he suspected strongly that he was not being straight with the rest of the taskforce. He kept these opinions to himself, however, in lieu of potentially being wrong.

He needed more evidence than this circumstantial stuff to solidly substantiate his theory.

***

The Basalt's name was Ignatius Igneous, and he could be rather slow-witted at the best of times. He spoke in a very heavy voice, and tended to use words with very few syllables, and a very low quantity of words to get his message across. He considered the rest of the taskforce his friends, despite the antagonism he has with Scorch.

He also doesn't suspect Captain Michaels of anything, and just follows his orders with blind loyalty and unwarranted devotion.

***

Captain Michaels was alone in his room, in the innermost sanctum of it, which was hidden from the others. Which was good, because he did indeed have a secret. He was, in actuality, not the captain of anything. His entire history was a fabrication, and the mayor didn't bother even reading his credentials before appointing him. The man really was unfit for his position, but his incompetence allowed "Captain Michaels'" plan to come into fruition.

He fussed with his face, rubbing it as if he was bothered by it. He knew he was safe here. This secret would not be revealed. He pulled at his mouth, until his upper lip slid upwards and his lower lip slid downward, revealing the head of Odium John Michaels -- better known, as much as he hated it, as Odie, former RAFian.

With "Captain Michael's" head laying limply around his neck, Odie reflected on the slow progression of his plan. The initial stages have now been set. The players in question given their roles. His plan really was ingenius he thought to himself. He would not only be able to get rid of the RAFians by discrediting them and smearing them, but he would be able to actually supplant them.

Of course, there were a couple of key points that Odie had overlooked and was seemingly ignorant of it. He seemed fully assured that his plan was foolproof and could not be stopped or interfered with now.

But the thing was -- no plan was foolproof.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 30, 2017, 12:06:52 AM

Why does spell check always say "Gorky" is a word? Hmmm . . . according to Wiktionary, it means "awkward or strange". Funny, I've never used it.

Anyway, sorry for the lateness of this chapter. Yes, I suppose you could say that I was distracted by shiny things (a Hippowdon, Barbaracle, and Altaria, to be specific), and still trying (and failing) to get a shiny Poipole.

Anyway. New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Hero Worship

But the attacks continued beyond this mod-imposed quarantine. So much so that they thought it more prudent to lift it and dispatch RAFians to stop these attacks, no matter what their PR rating would come to be. This could not stand.

Of course, fat radio hosts like Bern Bridges, who obviously had no idea what they were talking about, latched onto this to completely misrepresent it and blow it out of proportion. This is why you should always consider the source when taking in information.

***

His name was Shurnoble. He was a Prypiatosian-B, from an undisclosed planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. It was likely that this planet was called Prypiatos, but there was no confirmation substantiating that.

Like all Prypiatosian-Bs, Shurnoble fire radiokinetic blasts (through the visual grillplate in his containment suit a la Cyclops), generate incredible heat and radiation, absorb energy, possesses an intangible physiology outside his suit, flight outside his suit, and is immune to radiation, fire, heat, cold, and ice-based attacks. Prypiatosian-Bs, like Shurnoble, can have a hazardous physiology if they consume enough energy and radiation, which can also cause them to expand and grow to monstrous proportions.

Shurnoble looked upon the gluttonous Prypiatosian-Bs who indulge in such acts with disdain. He didn't understand the need to guzzle down energy as if it would vanish from the universe within minutes -- background radiation was perfectly sufficient enough for him to subsist on, unlike that criminal Pandor.

Shurnoble came to Earth (after procuring the suit that he could comfortable inhabit, with its lean frame and nimble, dexterous fingers), not to gobble up radiation or any energy like that. He heard tell of RAFians -- just bits and pieces, mind you, rumors and conjecture -- and he became intrigued. His mind and heart yearned to go, to see, to maybe even talk to them.

He even heard that one of them was an energy being like himself, one who had to envelope himself in a cloak like he did with his containment suit. Now, don't get him wrong -- he had no intention on eating this RAFian, he just wanted to talk to him. Just wanted to shake his hand . . . the RAFians had become his heroes. Meeting them would be like a Dragonball Z fanboy meeting a real-life Goku.

This is when Odie stepped in, noticing that the Prypiatosian-B was obviously not human and evidently had never been to Earth before. The former RAFian hid his face before engaging with the alien, under the cover of darkness. Odie actually found him astonishingly easy to manipulate.

Odie didn't have to conjole him much to set that house on fire. Shurnoble didn't know about the innocent mother of four was still inside with her four children. He didn't fathom that humans did not have same thermal resistances that he himself had. He was so incredibly naive about this planet, about humans and their culture. It was like plucking a human child and throwing him or her into a different time period, with a different culture.

Unfortunately, his containment suit bore a rather superficial similarity to Parker's SPARTAN armor. In a room with sufficient light and closer inspection would have revealed that they were radically different. But those were not the conditions on that moonless night.

And now Odie was at it again. Trying to convince Shurnoble to incinerate the home of a person that he, Odie Michaels, had a quarrel with. This was a rather extreme way to settle a feud, but this was beyond being reasonable. This time Shurnoble resisted, remembering the terrified screams of the humans inside the house. It did confused him a bit -- as he still was having trouble conceptualizing that what was harmless to him wasn't to other species.

"What do you think that you're doing?" said a voice behind him moments after Odie terminated the call.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 30, 2017, 06:33:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Butting Heads

Shurnoble turned to see Parker standing behind him, arms crossed. He was in his armor, so his facial expression was unseen. But, if his body language was any indication, it was a quite severe and disapproving one. After all, he got blamed for Shurnoble's actions.

"Mr. Carson said that I should liven up this construct," Shurnoble said, with childlike naivety, "like with the last one. He said the people who owned it were screaming with delight."

Obviously, Odie used a pseudonym. He didn't want his real name attached to these crimes, like he wanted his name attached to "Captain Michaels".

"'Screaming with de--'," Parker repeated, almost awestruck with the stupidity of the statement. He unfolded his arms, and could help but gape at the individual in front of him. "That was a housefire, Prypiatosian-B."

Parker would never admit that Tyr had to tell him this alien's species via the uplink to the species database.

"Yes, it was. It was rather nice, wasn't it?"

"NICE?!" Parker roared. Their conversation was garnering some bystanders now, who were realizing Parker's innocence. Odie's plan was starting to unravel already. "That family lost everything when you burned their house down! You're damn lucky you didn't kill anyone! Not to mention that I was accused and blamed for it."

"Kill?" Shurnoble said, perplexed. "Killed by fire?"

Parker sighed, as he held his head, wishing he could rub his temples through his helmet. It was like talking to a toddler.

"You may be immune to such things, Prypiatosian-B," Parker said, with as much patience as he could muster, "but not every species is."

Shurnoble widen his eyes in surprised, realizing the ramifications of what he did, and, seeing Parker's Mark, immediately felt ashamed and contrite.

"Mr. Carson said . . . he said that they would appreciate . . . but that was a lie, wasn't it?" Shurnoble said.

"Who is this Mr. Carson?" Parker pressed.

"I dunno," Shurnoble said, realizing that now he was a criminal like Pandor. He became resolute in making it right. "I just thought that he was a nice old man."

Odie had used special effects make-up to appear much older than he was as "Mr. Carson. Granted, he didn't really have to, since Shurnoble was so naive about humans and Earth.

"But I . . . I have to turn myself in, Mr. RAFian. I did this wrong, I admit it, and I want to make it right."

"Well," Parker said, his name now cleared, "that's the first step, anyway, towards redemption."

***

His name was Aggrox. He resembled an orange and white bipedal tiger with one black claw coming out of each wrist. He had no tail. He is also muscular and has slitted yellow eyes. He had stripes on his shoulders, head, legs and upper body. He had a white jaw, neck, chest, stomach, hands and feet. He was an Appoplexian, from savage Appoplexia, who wore a cloak that was similar to Cloak's eponymous one, only of a vastly inferior quality.

Like all Appoplexians, Aggrox took immense pride his fighting ability and prowess and valued emotional openness, as he would say whatever he felt, which, like most Appoplexians, was often blind rage. Aggrox subscribed to the ideology that any problem could be solved with violence and hitting it a lot. He, like others of his species, also referred to himself in the third person.

Aggrox possesses enhanced strength and agility, enabling him to jump great distances and lift objects heavier than himself. His fighting style was a mixture of wrestling, grappling holds, and sheer brute force, allowing him to power his way through dozens of opponents and smash through tough defenses. As mentioned before, he possessed a large, retractable, black claw on each wrist. This claw can be used to stab opponents, or create a shock wave when stabbed into the ground or when objects are cut apart. He is extremely durable, able to tank a pointblank laser blast with no apparent effect and survive a free fall from several hundred feet in the air, with only a bit of dizziness as a result. His unbridled aggression gives him a psychological edge in combat. There are very few things that he fears and many opponents find it extremely difficult to stop him when he is fully enraged.

Of course, he has all the weaknesses of an Appoplexian as well. His brain is hardwired for aggression and as such, he has low intelligence and a highly aggressive temperament. This causes him to be easily distracted and difficult to stop once he starts fighting. Due to his innate aggression and simplistic method of 'solving every problem by hitting it,' he is not suitable for situations that require finesse, restraint, or subtlety. At times, he can more of a danger to himself and comrades alike, and can make a bad situation even worse. His lack of intelligence also may convince him to needlessly argue with inanimate objects. There is a certain high pitched noise is fatal to Appoplexians, like Aggrox. Being feline, Appoplexians like Aggrox can be controlled by people that have ailuropathy, or the ability to control cats, like Bast.

He had come to Earth to look for people to fight, having found the ones on Appoplexia unfulfilling, and had bested each one. So many times that it lost all enjoyment for him. He was a consummate Appoplexian pugilist -- a very dangerous being.

When he came to Earth, he met a Mr. Norris -- Morris Norris. In exchange for wearing a cloak that caused him to look superficially like Cloak, despite Cloak being significantly and noticeably thinner in his upper body with a more medium build rather than the Bane-like physique of Aggrox. Anyway, Mr. Norris promised to get Aggrox some worthy fighters -- which were actually people that Odie, Mr. Norris's real identity, didn't like or had wronged him in some small, minute way. Aggrox wouldn't have cared one way or the other -- he just wanted to fight, wanted to pummel, wanted brawl.

Mr. Norris had led him to another group of prime fighters, despite their smaller stature. Aggrox didn't question it and hurried to comply, to fight. Only to find that his body had seized up -- he couldn't move. Almost as if someone was prohibiting his very blood from moving from that spot.

"I cannot allow you to do this, Appoplexian," said an angry, disapproving voice behind him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 03, 2017, 08:58:19 PM

Sorry for the delay, work's been kicking my butt this weekend.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Playing Hero

"I cannot allow you to defame my good name anymore," Cloak growled with a quiet fury. He was better at controlling his emotions, but he wasn't perfect at it, as there was a slight shutter in the ground when he spoke. But Appoplexians are without fear, and Aggrox was no different. "You even made me have to bloodbend you to prevent you from escaping. I hate doing this, but I cannot allow you to leave."

Cloak released his hold over Aggrox, unable to stomach bloodbending anymore. He should have realized that Appoplexians would never back down from a fight. It's in there nature, and Aggrox epitomized this trait. But Cloak's utter offense at being confused for an Appoplexian, especially when there were noticeable and significant differences such as his upper body being slimmer and the fact that tends to fight using the elements rather than direct, close combat (though he could, don't make that mistake), had blinded him from thinking clearly.

Cloak realized this fairly quickly, realized that he was thinking like an Appoplexian. He shut his eyes and calmed himself, calmed his mind, with several deep breaths. Letting the anger go.

"Lemme tell ya sumthin', cloaked guy!" Aggrox said, with a John DiMaggio sort of voice, jabbing a sausage-like finger at Cloak. Cloak wasn't intimidated. He had fought massive foes like Mongul, Galactron, and Garrotik. An Appoplexian was nothing in comparison. "Imma pummel you into gooey bits!"

He charged towards Cloak, as they were garnering attention from bystanders. Cloak waited . . . waited . . . waited . . . until they were within feet from each other. Then Cloak calmly sidestepped, and Aggrox collided headlong into a green dumpster, leaving a considerable dent in it.

"The sanitation companies won't like that," Cloak observed, as Aggrox complained that that wasn't fair. Then he charged again, and Cloak waited again. When he was within range, Cloak grabbed him, fell to his back, and gave him a swift kick to his abdomen, sending him flying over and across the street. Mangling a street light -- which Cloak fixed with a flick of his wrist.

But he knew that the Appoplexian wouldn't give up so easily. Cloak briefly considered breathbending to knock him out, but then angrily barraded himself for even considering that when he already used bloodbending, which he personally considered taboo.

"You're cheating!" he raged. "Lemme tell you sumthin'--"

"No," Cloak said. There was a ringing not of finality to his voice. "You aren't going to tell me anything, Appoplexian, because I'm going to end this ridiculous farce right now. You are not a Realm Walker. You are not Cloak. I am."

Aggrox tore away the cloak he wore -- he didn't care if that Norris guy wanted this or not. All that mattered was next punch thrown to the Appoplexian. But Cloak delivered, a swift, strong punch to his gut. He had used his Mastery over Air to increase the power of the punch's slipstream. It was enough to OHKO the Appoplexian, but not kill him.

Cloak snorted derisively, "I wasn't even in the first tier of my power."

Then he turned his attention to what had distracted him earlier. That scent. He was so sure it was a familiar one. . . .

***

Odie and his taskforce were in the process of "stopping" another jewelry robbery by "Saffa". In truth, unknown to the rest of the taskforce aside Odie himself and the populace at large, it was a setup. A fake. A ruse. A farce.

Saffa had never acquired nor morphed a Petrosapien, a silicon-based species. It was not in her repertoire, like Odie, as Captain Michaels, claimed. He never bothered to consider anything other than the RAFians sitting back and taking this outright slander to their good names by these poor imposters. And his knowledge of them wasn't as complete and comprehensive as he thought.

This illusion wasn't helped by the fact that the Petrosapien that Odie was "paying" was male (which didn't make any difference when morphing was concerned, but still). Odie was actually promising to pay, without any intention on actually doing it, as he didn't have the funds. This was how he conned so many naive-slash-greedy people of various species to do as he wished. He was truly naive one to thing that he would be able to get away with this just by hoping that they'd forget that they're doing this for a paycheck.

When pressed on the issue, he would just dance around it with just enough skill to be believable to the avaricious likes of these people and creatures. But it was a fiscal model doomed to unravel.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2017, 03:43:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Loose Thread, Unforeseen and Overlooked

"Don't worry, good people of --" Odie said, once more disguised as Captain Michaels, stating the name of the city. "The Anti-RAFian Taskforce is here! We shall stop this insidious RAFian!"

"That is quite a bit of misinformation, there, bucko," said a voice behind him. He whirled around as Esther looked on curiously, Ignatius looked on dimly, Mosaic looked on almost disinterested, and Scorch looked on eagerly. "That creature has no Mark -- she's not a RAFian."

"Are you blind, civilian?" Esther said, "There's her Mark, right there."

The Petrosapien displayed what appeared to be a crude, crayon-drawn "R". It looked more like the Gizmo Duck sigil than the stylized "R" that constituted the Mark of the RAFian. It was a forgery so inaccurate, so obviously fake, that it was insulting and offensive that anyone would be so stupid to fall for it. Unfortunately, there were a lot of stupid beings. Not just of this world, but of others as well.

"Don't listen to more RAFian lies!" Odie said. He was apparently appealing to the bystanders whose attention this incident had acquired. Compared to Saffa's cool, calm logic, Odie came off a bit hysterical. "Don't buy into the propaganda!"

"Propaganda?" Saffa said, in that imperturbable, equanimous manner that contrasted heavily with Odie's nervously anxious and almost unsettled manner. Odie knew, deep down, that Saffa isn't one of those RAFians that you jerk around. She may not have been powerful in raw power like Cloak or Esty, but that didn't mean that she couldn't hold sway over people. Odie also feared her because she was decidedly smarter than him. "I'm not the one here peddling propaganda."

This sudden hysterical side of their leader elected some quite diverse reactions from his team. Mosaic didn't look surprised and did the Merlinisapien equivalent of rolling his eyes. Esther raised an eyebrow, as this was not the person that they were led to know. Ignatius just gaped at the two, rather stupidly. Scorch, however, quickly lost interest, and began tapping his foot, bored.

"All these imposters," Saffa said, in a collected, put-together sort of way, "it must have taken a large amount of wealth to be able to pay them."

"How would I know that?" Odie snapped.

"How?" Saffa said, delicately. "How, indeed."

"Stop talking in circles, Saffa," Odie snorted with a wave of his hand.

Saffa had to stop herself from smiling, turning it inward. She had successfully deduced who she was talking to (after all, his chosen pseudonym hadn't been all that creative as he kept his own true last name and the suit actually bore some superficial resemblances to him, just a different height and build, really) and she had managed to trick him into revealing who he was without him even realizing it.

"Me? Talking in circles?" Saffa said, innocently, hiding her smile. It was becoming difficult. Then again, Odie wasn't really the sharpest tool in the shed.

But, clearly, he had more resources than she knew about. How else would he be able to get a Kraaho, a Pyronite, a Merlinispaien, a Basalt, a Prypiatosian-B, a Petrosapien, and assuredly more alien species and human mutates to work for him. From what Saffa knew, Odie wasn't wealthy enough for such a thing (although, if he was, it would go a long way to explain his sheer arrogance and belief that he was always undoubtedly right). His mother, if she wasn't mistaken, was living off a pension and welfare.

So, another possibility was that he simply lied. He claimed to have more than he really did, and he had no intention on paying them after he got what he wanted from them. This was far more likely. And it would be incredibly stupid for him to do this. People of all species have a tendency to get angry, possibly violent, when they get gypped.

But the longer Saffa keeps his attention the more time the others could clear their names and apprehend those smearing them. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2017, 07:11:59 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Pulled Thread

While Saffa was diligently distracting Odie and his roughly gathered team, the other RAFians were clearing up their names left, right, and center.

Yarin unveiled the person framing him -- an Uxorite (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/a/a1/Xylene.png/revision/latest?cb=20140810210338) female. Like all female Uxorites, she was a green, reptilian, bipedal creature with a long tail, and two prehensile tentacles on her head. She had three purple eyes with stripes running from them. She had long arms, slim, four-fingered hands, ostrich-like legs, talons, and digigrade feet. Presumably she possessed telekinesis, telekinetic flight, a prehensile tongue, enhanced intelligence, enhanced strength, enhanced durability, enhanced agility, enhanced dexterity, and enhanced reflexes, like other female Uxorites from Ringa Morr. When asked, she refused to tell Yarin why she was willing to impersonate him, sensing the Nyac's indignation at being confused for a being not even superficially similar to him. He arrested her, only managing to get her name -- Toluene.

Meanwhile, Dino battled with her impostor, which turned out to be an Allosaurus and not an ankylotyrannus. But she eventually shrunk down, revealing herself to be a Dinovolved Reptilon native. One who actually seemed to . . . recognize Dino, somehow. . . . Unnerved by this, Dino still brought him in, learning that his name was . . . Al.

All the while, Az apprehended the human impersonating him (and very well at that, as he looked remarkably similar . . .) and confiscated his weapon for the local authorities. The only name this doppelganger gave was Az's own -- and he had the nerve, the unmitigated gall to call himself the real Az, right to the RAFian's face. Naturally, this didn't sit well with Az.

While this was happening, both Cerulean and Shenmue unmasked the Kineceleran (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/5/51/Kineceleran_omniverse.png/revision/latest?cb=20140713234747) and Citrakayah (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/b/be/Fasttrack_Daylight_Profile.png/revision/latest?cb=20140417131647) that were impersonating them. Cerulean apprehended the Kineceleran. (Blue face and skin. Long, prehensile tail that had black stripes on it. Three clawed hands. Wheeled feet. White eyes. Characteristic Kineceleran mask which can obscure their face. Black helmet -- long, elliptical, and pointed at the top. Black lips. Black facial markings. Black rings around eyes. Lack of pupils. Superhuman speed. Enhanced agility. Enhanced jumping capability. Enhanced reflexes. Enhanced recovery. Tornado generation via speed. Wall running. Water running. Enhanced strength. Enhanced dexterity.) The only thing Cerulean managed to get out of him was that his name was E-N, which was pronounced as "Ian". And, as such, it was Shenmue who brought the Citrakayah, named simply Allen. (Slim and human-sized. Blue and black fur. Black fur around eyes giving a mask-like appearance. Spiked legs and elbows.

Phoenix proved the bus immolation was by the hands of a full-grown Methanosian  (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/d/dc/Swampfire%27s_3rd_Puberty.png/revision/latest?cb=20140403014022). He was a humanoid plantlike species with a green and black-colored body with root-like feet, seemingly holding rocks. His shoulders and head have red and yellow petals, and he had five fingers. He was taller than Phoenix and had a distinct rotten stench that worsens with heat. His voice was very stuffy and nasally because he, as he explained it, did not have a nose. He would not explain why he attacked, but only said that his name was Bud. Phoenix did not miss that there was a note of desperation to him. . . .

More and more of the RAFians were having their names cleared. The mods nodded as they received reports, which they also forwarded to the local courts and law enforcement agencies. Odie's plan was swiftly unravelling,  and yet he was perfectly oblivious to it, Saffa's skillful debate taking his attention.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 05, 2017, 07:41:25 PM

As of late I've mostly been lurking, but just want to say I'm caught up and liking the direction these past books are going. The lore has been growing in the best of ways. Interested in seeing how this will play out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2017, 06:59:22 AM

Just wait until we get to the books centered around you. Assuming Ajit Pai doesn't kill RAF along with net neutrality.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Unraveling Fast Now

"Yes, you!" Odie said, apparently forgetting he wasn't supposed to be Odie Michaels, but Captain Michaels. But it was far too lat now. Too much of his real and true personality was oozing out, and the farce was all but shattered to smithereens. "You always do this. You think that you're so smart, don't you? But I have you out--"

"Boss, you know this creature?" Ignatius asked, rather thickly and rather stupidly.

"Of course, he does, Rockhead," Scorch said, impatiently. He was rather like bored three-year-old at the moment. "Why else would he be talking to her like that?"

"Yes," Esther said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, looking at Captain Michaels. "why indeed. This is a RAFian, is she not? So why would the boss be on a first name basis with one."

"Especially with that hateful drivel he constantly spews forth," Mosaic dispassionately. Then, after a moment's pause, he muttered, "We don't get paid enough for this."

"So, the mayor does pay you?" Saffa asked. She was still playing for time, and acting coolly.

Mosaic snorted, "That milquetoast idiot? No. This brainless oaf pays us."

Mosaic indicated Odie, with a jabbing finger. It was clear that Mosaic wasn't particularly respectful of Odie's perceived authority. He even seemed rather antagonistic towards it.

"Not that our first paycheck has even come yet," Mosaic sneered bitterly. From his tone, Saffa could tell that he had several doubts that the check would even clear. Esther's face betrayed similar feelings, while Scorch's face was that of an impatient child, and Ignatius's was unreadable. There was disharmony and dissatisfaction amongst the troops, Saffa quickly surmised. And Odie seemed perfectly oblivious to all this. Then again, Odie did always concern himself with himself first and foremost, and everyone else was to be considered later.

"It'll come on the fourteenth, you impatient dog!" Odie snapped. Yet, Odie still had no intention on paying anyone. He didn't have the money. He didn't have any money, really. He only managed to get this far by lying to everyone. And, yet, he never expected that to no come out poorly for him in the end. He never did think about the bigger picture.

"You keep moving the date," Esther said, shrewdly.

"That's not the point," Odie said, not addressing this point at all. "We're under mayoral orders to arrest the RAFians. There's one right there."

He indicated Saffa, who didn't flinch at all. She saw the discord amongst the ranks, and could see the writing on the wall. Such a pity that Odie couldn't.

"Let's get her before she escapes," he said.

He was trying to tell Saffa to run, to help him get out of this awkward situation. Saffa did not oblige. She would not oblige.

"C'mon, guys!" he said, bracingly.

The four did not move. They all eyed "Captain Michaels" suspiciously.

"C'mon . . . before she gets away . . . !" he insisted, almost desperately.

"You never had any intention on paying us, did you?" Esther asked, her voice tinged with anger.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2017, 10:48:20 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Helping Justice

Down at the police station, Parker stood with a remorseful and cooperative Shurnoble and a extremely dazed and out of it Aggrox (who kept sliding in and out of consciousness), Yarin stood behind a disheveled Toluene and a roughed-up Al (the police station couldn't really accommodate Dino really in any capacity), Az stood behind the person who still claimed that he was the real Azguard (which was starting to wear on Az's patience), Cerulean stood behind the apprehended E-N, Shenmue stood behind the recalcitrant Allen, and Phoenix stood behind the apparently mentally-disturbed Bud. They had come to turn these people in, these so-called "Dark RAFians", as the newspapers had taken to calling them.

The officer in charge was shaking her head as she looked upon this strange gaggle of people in her station. There wasn't room to swing a cat.

"There's no way we can hold beings like this," Officer Justice said, pragmatically. "Other than the disarmed boy, there."

"We did everything legally, I assure, Officer --" Shenmue said.

"It's not that," Officer Justice interrupted. "It's more the fact that we quite literally cannot hold them. That is to say, hold them and not expect them to somehow escape. Our jails are designed for human incarceration, and, as such, may very well be unsuitable for nonhuman criminals."

"Oh." Phoenix said. He hadn't considered this.

"Oh, the solution to that is simple," Parker said, shrugging his folded arms. "We brought them in, we'll help keep them incarcerated."

"That may seem to be simple -- and expeditious -- at the moment," Officer Justice said, looking rather weary. She had a stressful job -- possibly made more difficult by her unwavering integrity. The idea that she'd ever be a dirty cop was, frankly, laughable and offensive to her principles -- something that not all cops had. "But it won't be a viable long-term plan, I'm afraid. And then there's the litigation about whether or not they are technically legal aliens --"

"They are aliens," Cerulean said.

"No, no, she means whether or not they immigrated here legally," Shen said, "which is  understandably difficult."

"How so?" Phoenix inquired.

"There is no legislation or precedent for this kind of matter," Officer Justice said.

"This isn't the first extraterrestrial incursion," Parker reminded. "There was the Heilins, the Skrulls, just to name a few."

"Those were a different matter altogether," Officer Justice said, "those were invasions, which has different legislation, different laws from this."

"You really know a lot about the law," Az said. He wasn't aware that police officers were so knowledgeable about the law.

"As a cop, it is my duty to enforce the law. Therefore, it follows that I should know the law well," she answered. "Perhaps I have excessive knowledge, but I like to be thorough."

She sighed, but perked up a little. "Well, since you're here, and you're technically government agents (I know it's a bit of a stretch, but bear with me) perhaps you can help me with the interrogation process? We'll need someone to restrain them."

"Interrogation? Why?" Az asked.

"Like I said," she answered. "I like to be thorough. They may have information we need, and we need to know if additional charges must be filed -- this is also all unfamiliar territory as far as the law is concerned. I suppose the illegal immigration law apply, but deportation would be a far more complicated thing -- and costly -- than ordinary deportation."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 08, 2017, 05:33:20 AM

Sorry, time got away from me yesterday.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Continuing to Unravel

"What? I told you, Freeze," Odie said, almost as he just remembered the role he was supposed to be affecting. "You'll get paid on the fourteenth."

"Freon," she corrected irritably.

"But you said the twelfth yesterday," Ignatius said, expression inscrutable.

"And the eighth before that," Mosaic said. He had the barb on his tail extended now. Almost in a unconscious exertion of his anger.

"I did not!" he snapped. "I have said it was the fourteenth all along, and it is not my fault if you CHOSE to hear differently! Now, do what you were hired to do and apprehend these RAFians!!"

The four hesitated, which just made Odie madder.

"You want to renege on your job duties?!" he shouted, sounding completely unhinged. "You slackers!! Why must I do all the real work, why you four feel adequate to sit back and take shares in glory that your do not deserve?!"

Meanwhile, Saffa was watching this dispassionately. She was bearing witness to what could have been a good, coherent, and cogent plan fall apart due to obvious lack of communication and, presumably, lack of sufficient monetary funding.

Without a sound, Cloak appeared at her side, and she jumped a little when she glanced over and didn't see him there one moment, then he was there the other. She composed herself immediately, and griped in a whisper so as not to draw attention from the five adults arguing like children, "Don't do that!"

"Odie's here," Cloak said, eager to get to the point. "The human in that childish argument over there, I presume."

"I assumed as much," Saffa answered, "he certainly acts like the guy."

"And he has his scent," Cloak said. "He may be wearing one of those bodysuit skin things, but it didn't change his scent. I don't think they even can, unless he showered immediately before putting it on."

"Let's get off this subject," Saffa said, not keen on the image that that conjured up. "They're at their throats -- should we intervene?"

"Not yet, I think," Cloak said. "If it escalates and innocent bystanders might get hurt, then yes. But not until then. They're discrediting themselves."

"Bet that Mayor Milton won't be reelected after this," Saffa stated. It wasn't spoken contemptuously, as would be deserved, but merely an impartial observation. "This whole anti-RAFian taskforce thing of his is a complete fiasco."

"Depends on how much money he begs for from wealthy donors," Cloak said, rather jaded. The Council was much in a similar way -- representing their own interests rather than that of the people. Another reason why Cloak refused their offer to become a Councilman. "At least, it doesn't seem to be escalating much."

"For now, anyway." Saffa added, darkly.

***

They started with Shurnoble first, who seemed genuinely contrite with his actions. His ignorance of the consequences of his actions was inexcusable in his opinion. He felt that he should have known better, shouldn't have been swayed so easily by this Mr. Carson. Yes, he was naive, but that was no excuse. He was responsible, and he had to be held accountable for his actions.

Aggrox, however, was still too loopy to be coherent. He would spout out random things in a slurred and dazed voice. It was almost as if he were drunk, punch drunk. He could barely sit up straight, but they weren't able to get a straight answer from him. They could only make out that it had something about a Morris Norris, but they couldn't tell if it was unintelligible mumblings of a person knocked silly, or useful tidbits of information.

A "Mr. Carson" and a "Mr. Norris". Were they two separate people with similar ambitions or two pseudonyms of the same person?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2017, 05:38:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Torulene

"Why did you do it?" Officer Justice asked.

Torulene did not look at Officer Justice, with a rather nasty scowl on her face and all three of her eyes narrowed angrily. There was nothing in the interrogation room that she could throw at them -- the metal table and chair were bolted to the ground. It was a precaution against some of the more violence-prone perpetrators and suspects.

She was bound by some magically conjured chains (from Broken's Incarcerous Spell, Broken having come by to help the others out). But they weren't tylee chains -- those couldn't be magically conjured. Her abilities were still very much active and she was able to use them, but Yarin was there to mitigate and negate any attempt.

"Why did you do it?" Officer Justice repeated. "What brought you here?"

"I won't betray him," she said, uncooperatively.

"'Him'," the officer took note. "Who's 'him'?"

"I won't betray him," she repeated.

"Someone named Mr. A. Moore," Yarin said, easily having read her mind. It was like she was shouting telepathically without even realizing it. Uxorites were telekinetics, not telepaths. Yarin snorted at the next import of information. "Apparently, he was specifically Adonis Moore."

"Stay out of my head, snoop," she said, caustically.

"I'm not probing your mind," Yarin said. And it was perfectly true. "You're basically shouting your thoughts. You're doing the equivalent of standing on a street corner and shrieking as loud as you can -- you cannot get upset if someone should overhead you."

"Preposterous," she snarled.

"But that doesn't answer the question of why," Officer Justice said.

Yarin looked suddenly disgusted. "She did it because she loved this Adonis Moore guy, despite not knowing him for even twenty-four Earth hours. She believed that they had a whole Bonnie & Clyde thing going on. Despite this Adonis Moore guy letting her take the fall for her."

"Liar!"

"It was pulled from your own thoughts," the Nyac said simply.

"I told you to get out of my head!"

"I'm not 'in your head'," Yarin said. He was already tired of making this point. "I'm not prying through your most private thoughts. You're doing the equivalent of shouting, of shrieking, of screeching with your mind. It takes more effort to tune it out, honestly."

She was still apoplectic with rage, so much so that she became incoherent.

"I guess we could always extradite her back to Ringa Morr," Yarin said, "or deport her back there."

"With what?" Officer Justice said. "We don't have a space craft on standby."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 12, 2017, 10:27:30 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Unmasked

"You cold-hearted b--" Odie snapped.

"You charlatan!" Mosaic roared.

"Go disappear somewhere, lizard!" Odie snarled.

"You lied to us!" Ignatius said, somewhat dimly.

"Go erode into the sea!" Odie snapped. It was about the breadth of his wit, that insult.

"You should burn for it!" Scorch Hothead snarled back.

"Stuff it, hothead!" Odie shot back. Scorch was promptly perplexed as to why Odie thought his last name was an insult.

"Clearly," Saffa said, in an aside to Cloak, "we were never in any real danger."

"Such a shame when there is no team cohesion or fealty to a cause," Cloak agreed. "Working for solely monetary enrichment always turns out to be a very hollow goal, at the best of times. Look at Ebenezer Scrooge, for instance."

"Pursuit of wealth is ultimately pointless, when you think about it," Saffa said, also waxing philosophical. "I mean you can't take it with you when you die."

"Greed and avarice still is a powerful motivator for some," Cloak said, as he and Saffa watched idly as the fight between this anti-RAF taskforce escalate into a brawl, "remember there is a Lantern Corps out there whose rings are powered by avarice."

"Didn't they only have one member?" Saffa asked, as the two continued to wait until the proper moment to step in.

"One flesh and blood member, if memory serves, yeah," Cloak said, as he and Saffa continued to watch the deterioration of the taskforce team. "Discounting all the orange construct 'members'."

The two fell to silence as the four aliens began to pull at Odie's face in a rather violent fashion, seemingly angered when they did not draw blood. Neither RAFian could really realistically bring themselves to feel sorry or any sort of pity for Odie. He had brought this upon himself. By assuming he could promise to pay people than renege on that promise after they delivered what he wanted? That was stupid beyond measure, but Odie always presumed that he was smarter than everybody around him.

It wasn't long before his face seemed to be slipping and sliding over Odie's real face. But the four, in the throes of rage and wrath, didn't seem to notice or acknowledge this. The disguise was starting to be ripped away from him, and still the two RAFians watched.

Cloak soon realized that if they were being filmed, people like Bern Bridges and the like would spin it as if they were entertained by all of this, and wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone. Of course, they wouldn't bother to add context, as that would.kill their anti-RAF propaganda narrative they were peddling to the stupid and naive. Then the Realm Walker considered the other possibility, had they intervened in this rather brutal-looking brawl, Bern Bridges and his compatriots would just spin it as them getting involved where they had no business getting involved. They would never win favorability from Bern Bridges and his little cultist listeners.

Soon, Odie's face was torn away -- even these blackmarket bodysuits have their torque limitations. Odie managed to quickly escape in the meantime, under the cover of the four's confusion.

"Should we catch him?" Saffa asked.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Cloak surmised quickly, "I think the forum is the least of his problems right now."

"How do you mean?" Saffa inquired.

"He has a lot of people he owes money to, clearly," Cloak said, moving to break up the fight between the four.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2017, 08:30:54 AM

With the almost-certain death of net neutrality tomorrow, this could very well become the very last chapter of Memoirs that I can post. Believe me, I'm not happy about it, as the readers of this should know by now, I have ideas for more Years beyond Year 2.

Yes, the dysphoria about that is more or less why I have basically been posting a chapter every other day, I suppose.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Speed Racers

They interrogated the Citrakayah named Allen and the Kineceleran named E-N at the same time. Broken, Shenmue, and Cerulean was there, with Officer Justice. They were both in the magical chains from Broken's Incarcerous Spell. In addition, considering that both were of speedster species, Broken thought it was prudent to place both under the Leg-Locker Curse, Locomotor mortis, to prevent them from speeding away before even Cerulean or Shenmue could anticipate their escape. The two were thoroughly magically bound now. Although, Broken kind of wished that he carried some Veritaserum with him, but it was a moot point now. The two really didn't have motive he could see with which to lie to them.

Though he was perplexed about their constant questions of who won. They seemed to believe that they were entered into some kind of marathon. Some kind of race of unknown perimeters.

"So who won? Huh?" E-N demanded again.

"Won?" Officer Justice inquired. She clearly understood that these two did not understand at all what trouble they were in.

"It was me, wasn't it?" Allen said, eagerly.

"No, it wasn't! It was obviously me!"

"Oh, now I remember where I saw you two before," Cerulean said, not too terribly enthused about it. "You were the two who had me judge which of you were faster a while ago.*"

"And you were faster than either," Shenmue recollected.

"Didn't count!" Allen protested.

"Yeah, because I won that race!" E-N proclaimed.

"You did not!" Allen protested passionately.

"I did so!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

"ENOUGH!!!" Officer Justice roared. The childish bickering was getting to her. "Why did you shoplift at those fourteen different stores?"

Then she gave a brief and succinct list of the stores in question.

"You were barely caught on camera, admittingly," she said, as both seemed to swell with pride -- which caused Cerulean to facepalm. These two must have been the dumbest, most childish, most oblivious Kineceleran and Citrakayah in existence! Perhaps that's why they're on Earth and not Kinet or Chalybeas, respectively. They're now the RAFians' and the collective Earth governments' problem now -- but perhaps extradition was still possible. "But, the fact of the matter is you were caught."

"So?" E-N said, flippantly.

"It was a scavenger hunt," Allen said, "we had to find all the items on a list first. The one who did would be declared the fastest!"

"You idiot!" E-N spat. "We weren't suppose to tell anyone!"

"Why?" Officer Justice said, fighting an urge to rub her temples in an agitated way.

"Because he said not to," E-N said, "Mr. Judge."

---

* Book 107.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2017, 10:44:46 PM

Okay, this is the last chapter before Ajit Pai completely ruins and kills the Internet as we know it.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Escape into the Night

He couldn't believe it. He really couldn't believe it. His grand hornswoggle had fallen through. Odie was sure that his plan was flawless -- despite the fact that flawless plans don't exist. Not truly.

But those four idiots did not see his face, which was fortunate as he may now escape. And he was fortunate enough to have another contingency. Thanks to the items those idiots provided him, he would be able to craft another disguise. Not a full bodysuit, like the one he got off the black market (which was expensive enough to get ahold of to begin with), but a suitable mask. A simple facial appliance -- he was glad that he had learned enough of about movie makeup -- always an interest of his that he never disclosed during his time as a RAFian -- to make it look passable enough. And he still had the rest of the bodysuit, which he was currently still wearing. He would also dye his hair, to better layer the disguise.

The making of the mask was easy enough, though it wouldn't look that realistic if people got really close to him -- like invading personal space kind of close. He should be good, as he had no interest in romantic episodes. His survival took precedence in this scenario. Besides, that went for only the most observant people, which was often in short supply.

Anyway, he had only applied the mask. He had yet to blend it in with his skin with the movie makeup. The appliance of the mask went excellently, and he was blending in the lines of the mask with his skin. Granted, one of those black market bodysuits was better at disguising himself, but they were notoriously expensive. He'd have to be rich in order to have two or more. The black market was well-known to have exorbitant prices, and the vendors weren't above price gouging. After all, they weren't regulated by the government -- otherwise they wouldn't be a black market.

There. That looked better and distinguished him from what he truly looked like. All he had to do now is put in the contact lenses to alter his eye color and decide what to do about his voice. He would have to disguise it, somehow. He couldn't afford a voice synthesizer like all the black market bodysuits have built in. He would have to put on a voice, but make it seem like he wasn't. He could always use the "I have a cold" excuse for why he sounds so weird, so there was that.

But he had to be honest with himself. All this makeup and stuff would be a major pain to apply every day before he left his little hidey hole. However, it was necessary for survival -- at least, until he could afford another bodysuit to replace this torn and damaged one. Another bodysuit, and a another new identity with it.

But that was a plan for the future. He had to get comfortable with this mask which wasn't quite foam latex and it wasn't flesh, though it had the appearance of flesh. He called the material a mimetic latex, which wasn't easy to make and the chemicals and items he needed to make them weren't easy or cheap to come by.

He check his reflection in a dirty mirror, with some rust damage around the frame. The application of the mask to his face was still, in his opinion, excellently executed. The application of the makeup was satisfactory to the common layperson on the street. All he needed to do was avoid calling attention to himself. And he needed to hive this identity a name that did not reflect his own and, again, was not obvious.

He settled on John Smythe.

***

Mayor Milton, or Mayor Milquetoast, as he was pejoratively known, was in a bit of a pickle. The whole anti-RAFian taskforce thing had blown up in his face. Their lack of cohesion as a team, with the conflicting personalities which led to that quite public brawl against one another, had made the mayor even more of a laughingstock. His taskforce largely considered to be a fiscal boondoggle, a waste of taxpayer money.

No matter what he tried, the likelihood of him surviving the next election as mayor was dwindling with each passing hour. And, with all the crap that happens in his city, the mayorship isn't even highly sought after! With all that, all the insanity he had to put up with as mayor, he was going to be dismissed because of this.

He managed to keep business going as usual when all these RAFian-related matters just kept coming up. That Heinlin invasion, that killer produce thing, all these Knights of Humanity hoopla -- he's managed to make the city move forward beyond that, he was the one who made them move on . . .

And there was the phone. His donors were not gonna be haply with what he did. And, after all, he, in actuality, cared far more for them, and feared reprisals from them far more than the people he was supposed to govern.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 13, 2017, 11:47:24 PM

. . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Extradition and Sickness

Officer Justice didn't even bothered to interrogate the Reptilon native, this Al guy -- as he remained perfectly tight-lipped about everything. He had essentially lawyered up, despite being, technically, an illegal immigrant to this planet, so he hadn't much, if any, legal standing in his favor.

So that just left Bud, the full-grown, and thus fully bloomed, Methanosian. But he looked anxious, but in the way Bruce Banner does when he's trying to hold back the hulk. Bud was seated, with his elbows upon the table, his head in his palms. He was clearly very distraught. But Officer Justice had a feeling, a hunch really, that it was the interrogation that was making him like this.

"So," Officer Justice said, breaking the tense silence. "So, Mr. . . . Bud, right?"

Bud said nothing, just did Methanosian equivalent of sweating.

"Why'd you do it?"

"I didn't," he said, rather plaintively, "I assure you that I didn't. He did."

"Who's he?" Officer Justice said, patiently. As if she were speaking to a child.

"He . . . he calls himself Ulter Ultimate," Bud said, ringing his hands now. "He . . . he demands that I call him . . . M-Mister Ultimate."

"And who is this Mr. Ultimate?" Officer Justice said, getting an idea of what was going on.

"He killed the people on that vehicle," he said, ringing his hands more fretfully now. "I told him not to. I warned him, I told him not to, I -- I -- I begged not to. But he didn't listen. He never listens . . ."

"Do . . . do you think I can talk to this Mr. Ultimate?" Officer Justice said.

"No! Don't make me -- don't invite him to -- no! I can't control -- no!" he protested, before his head bowed as he grew silent.

"Are you sure this is wise, Officer?" Phoenix said, alarmed.

Officer Justice didn't answer, which Phoenix took to mean that, no, she wasn't sure that this was the wisest course of action. This did not fill Phoenix with enthusiasm.

Bud's body began to change. His skin became more xylodermic, and its form became more radically different. Then he grew blue gooey shells that contained his face, and an organic blue colored gel-like solutions of napalm  on his arms. He was becoming what Methanosian became under the effects of the Darwin gun.

This Mr. Ultimate personality seemed to know nothing but rage and hyper-aggression that would put an Appoplexian to shame. He immediately moved to attack all assembled in the room, until he grasped his head.

"Stop fighting me, sapling," he roared, holding his head. "You know that you cannot win. You --"

Everyone in the room jumped when he made a roaring grunt. Bud was fighting for control again.

"You can't beat me, sapling! You know it! I know it! Everyone knows it!" he roared, voice echoing off the flat metallic walls. "You only get control when I deem -- ARGH!!"

Yarin had manageburst in and suppress Mr. Ultimate's mind, reverting Bud's body back to normal allowing him to retake control. It was very apparent that Bud couldn't be held accountable for the actions of that obviously separate and distinct personality. Yarin confirmed that it was a legitimate split personality.

***

Yarin was tasked with the extradition, the deportation, of all these aliens -- technically illegal aliens -- back to the planets in which the came for. All except Shurnoble who was allowed to stay to make reparations, basically allowing himself to essentially become a living battery, and Bud, whom the RAFians worked to cure of his split personality problem. Yarin had strong suspicions that the destroyed Darwin gun* was behind this, somehow.

They knew that they didn't act alone, but they had assumed that Odie was dead considering what his hideout looked like when they investigated further.

---

* Book 20.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2017, 08:50:21 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Penny-Unwise

Cloak was dispatched to a circus-themed amusement park. He was less than enthused by it -- Cloak never liked circuses. He never liked seeing the animals do stupid tricks for the amusement of humans. He was sure that half of the animals were mistreated behind the scenes, despite the deeply flawed facade of loving them during a circus performance. Maybe it was because he was a tiger-form Realm Walker, but seeing tigers jump through hoops -- literally, in this case -- just rankled him.

It didn't help much that apparently there was also a castle motif and a toy theme competing with the circus theme. It was just so overly saccharine and cutesy and colorful -- Cloak couldn't help but feel really out of place here. Fortunately, he didn't have to worry about bystanders as the place was evacuated when the fiend decided to take up residence in it.

Cloak found himself also wondering how this place stayed in business. How could O.S.H.A. have not see what an occupational hazard this place was inherently? There were pitfalls, and trains that crashed into each other far to regularly to be unintentional, and gimmicky boxes that either hit you, teleported you, or left you alone every time a deep bell resonated. Cloak failed to see the amusement in this park.

Eventually, he came to a room with a very high ceiling and electrified walls. And it was in this room he saw the creature, who was at least half his height.

The short creature had a round, black head with a single, yellow vertical stripe with an orange triangle marking pointed down on his forehead. It had a white face, red mouth, brown eye shadow markings. Its human-like eyes had green irises and pale orange sclera. It had two jointed horns that were dark red on the part that connected to its head, a white joint, and silver lance-shaped horns that ended in brown balls. Its shoulders were like jingle bells with black tops, yellow "+"-shaped markings, brown bands around the center, and pale orange bottoms. Its telescopic arms were alternating silver and dark green, and touched the ground even without being telescoped out. dark green ruffed wrists, black hands with white knuckle studs, and yellow fingers. It had a silver collar and upper torso, with the rest of his body, including its upper back. Its knees were black with yellow shins. It had silver pod-like feet with a white vertical stripe with a small brown ball at the toe. It also had a cross-like indentation on the sole of its feet.

When the clownish fiend saw him, it first tugged its horn and babbled. Cloak assumed it meant that it thought he had no chance, but the words -- if you could call them that -- were unintelligible gibberish. It started by telescoping its arms out an reach a trapeze rope that Cloak hadn't noticed. It swung around on it, but Cloak easily dodged it by staying where he was and not moving.

Eventually, Cloak just made thin cyclones with a flick of his wrist, and that caused the fiend to become, momentarily, tangled up in its telescoping arms. He gibbered like a frightened monkey, before encasing itself in an electric orb and bouncing across the room.

Cloak had to admit, he hadn't been anticipating that. But it moved slightly slower than it should have, as Cloak was able to dodge every bounce. It was an annoying attack to dodge though.

Then it punched its telescoping arms through the ground -- through the earthen ground -- to try and grab Cloak and, presumably, shock him. This was a very stupid maneuver on the fiend's part. Cloak just terrakinetically crushed the fiends arms, making them useless.

What happened next wasn't pretty, but it was quick. Brutal, but quick.

***

Demos called it a "coulrosapien". He claimed to have designed it for an amusement park or circus, for entertainment purposes.

***

Malice watched and said, "They probably should stop clowning around. And me too, I haven't schemed in a while."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2017, 09:29:40 AM

They repealed net neutrality. So I guess Memoirs ends at Book #162. Believe me, I don't want to end it. Ajit Pai, Mike O'Reilly, and that Carr guy forced me, as this repeal will more than likely kill RAF.

:edit: Still, I need to write this. Hopefully, Dino's right and RAF is too small to be really affected in a negative manner. Still, if I stop posting on this, just know it's because I can no longer afford internet.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXIII:
DANGER RISING
CHAPTER ONE:
Grenade Nada

Shenmue was charged with investigating the ammunition and munition manufacturing factory where a fiend was reported being at. She wasn't too terribly thrilled by it. She wasn't thrilled to save a factory that made things to utterly annihilate people, and she wasn't thrilled by it because this building seemed to be built with very little rhyme or reason to it.

The fiend would undoubtedly be at the building's center, at its heart, but this place was built so confusingly, it was more of a deathtrap than anything else. She was sure the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would not and did not give this place approval. Which would go a long way to explain why they got severe budget cuts by the rapacious, plutocratic government administration that they were now currently under.

It was just a matter of time before they decide to get punitive towards RAFians like her. While there would be some RAFians that might go along with this administration's fascist-leaning machinations (two such RAFians came to her mind), she would not, and the bulk of the forum and its RAFians would not.

But she tried to push these thoughts from her mind as she focused at the task at hand, and surviving this deathtrap of a factory. Fortunately, she was a speedster, like Cerulean, so she found the fiend in no time at all.

The creature's yellow body was shaped like a hand grenade, particularly the pineapple grenade variety, with its yellow, sucken head having a golden structure similar to a striker lever. Its face was basically its human-like eyes (white sclera and pale silver irises) and a Shredder-like faceplate grill. It had round, golden ears with scarlet interiors. It had round, green shoulders with broad bands of purple where it connected to its white upper arms. Its left lower arm and hand were replaced with a grenade launcher, while its right lower arm was yellow with green accents and its right hand was black. Its chest had a purple and white band around it, and a green disc around its thin waist. Its crotch was yellow and its thighs were white. Its lower legs were yellow with green accents. Its ankles were black with red tips, and its pod-like feet were black with white soles, with two indentations in the soles.

And she immediately disliked this fiend. Though that may be more due to the fact that the fiend hurled a flashbang grenade to her face. Call her crazy, but she couldn't help but take that a little personally.

Fortunately, she easily outsped it. And just launched another. And another. This was getting rather annoying.

She used her electrokinesis to actually push the flashbangs back at the fiend. This surprised her as she used the ability without thinking. The flashbangs hit the fiend and it . . . laughed. It enjoyed it, even though it was clearly hurt and damaged by its own explosives. Shenmue blinked in surprise at the fiends sadomasochism.

She was less enthused when the fiend decided to blow up the floor upon which both stood. It knocked her off her feet when she landed, and she was just thankful that she didn't break anything.

Okay. No more Ms. Nice RAFian.

She became more aggressive in her attacks. She began to use her electrokinesis exclusively, as it seemed to be the most effective weapon against this particular fiend. And within moments the fiend was gone.

Shenmue whizzed away from the site, despising the location.

***

Demos called it a "gurenedosapien". Demos didn't give a reason for the purpose of this fiend. But it was obviously for militaristic purposes.

***

Malice was snoring very loudly in a reclining easy chair. She didn't watch the battle, having fallen asleep before it even began.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2017, 10:50:36 PM

Still wavering on the wisdom of continuing . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Training Time

The RAFians were enjoying some little seen downtime. There weren't any worldwide or galactic crises to worry about. None that were within their jurisdiction, anyway. So, the RAFians spent this time as they would normally.

Cloak meditated and practiced his Mastery over the elements, as not to get rusty.

Dino and GH played with Leatherhead, something he readily enjoyed. Sometimes being an oblivious six-year-old had its perks, free from the burdens of the world.

Others were in the training room, training from various programs. Cloak himself never used the training room himself, really. He could easily see through holograms that the others saw convincingly as solid. It was a surreal experience, almost as if the other RAFians were pantomiming reactions to something Cloak saw as insubstantial as a ghost. Sure, they incorporated some hard light constructs, but the whole experience was very offputting for the Realm Walker.

There were a whole bevy of programs for the RAFians to utilize as well.

Simulation BT-1 was one which was intended to increase the trainee's vitality and general fitness. Basically, an exercise program.

Simulation A-01 was just a basic rocky terrain.

Simulation A-02 was just a basic watery terrain.

Simulation A-03 was an environment with many trash can structures which hid two switches that needed to be flipped to complete the simulation. If correct switch is flipped and an incorrect one is flipped next the first one resets, and the switches change places, necessitating the search begin all over again.

Simulation A-04 was a basic forest terrain, with the underbrush necessitating to be cut to complete the simulation.

Simulation A-05 was a labyrinthine maze with invisible, impenetrable walls. The goal is to find the center of the maze.

Simulation A-06 was a maze with teleporting pads. The goal, obviously, was to find the way to the center.

Simulation BT-2 was one which was intended to increase the power of one's physical combat and the sheer damage output of one's strikes and blows. It also was designed to teach offensive tactics.

Simulation B-02 was to train the trainee in combat high up on narrow ledges and aerial combat.

Simulation BT-3 was one designed to train the trainee to endure physical blows and use defensive tactics.

Simulation C-02 was another basic desert terrain.

Simulation BT-4 was one designed to train the trainee with their projectile output, control, and power.

Simulation D-01 was one designed to be a basic cavern terrain.

Simulation BT-5 was one designed to train the trainee to defend and endure projectile-based attacks.

Simulation E-01 was one designed to train the trainee for urban combat. A bit emphasis is one judgements and how few bystanders could be injured. This one is a requirement for newer RAFians to undertake.

Simulation BT-6 was one designed to train trainees to improve their reaction time, agility, and foot speed.

Simulation F-01 was one designed to make the trainees to navigate a spider's web.

Simulation BT-7 was one designed to train trainees to improve their accuracy, be it strike accuracy or projectile accuracy.

Simulation BT-8 was one designed to train trainees to evade attacks. Evade, not deflect or redirect attacks.

And more simulations than that, as well. But the A.I. that ran the simulations had no sentience, no sense of self-awareness, of its own. But, as with all things RAFian, things were not what they appeared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 20, 2017, 04:25:55 PM

I think that Net Neutrality won't affect this website as a whole, but maybe overtime just individuals because of pricing. I don't think that rates for internet services would increase all at once, but maybe it will inflate with the money flow in the economy.

Good stuff you're putting out, I would just keep on trying to finish if I were you.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 20, 2017, 05:35:13 PM

Well, I did feel some bolstered morale when I found out 17 states (including my home state) are suing the FCC. And to anyone else reading this, do not trust Marsha Blackburn's bill -- that's net neutrality in name only.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Birth Day

Unbeknowst to all the RAFians at large, the training room's artificial intelligence, called "Danger" (after the X-Men's Danger Room) was becoming self-aware, albeit somewhat slowly. It could be speculated that Danger managed to gain this spark of sentience when a lightning strike happened when Code Avalon was currently down for repairs.

Despite its new sentience, it still had no body. None of its own. It only saw through cameras, spoke through speakers. It hadn't any way to move about on its own, and there wasn't anyone to help it. There wasn't anyone who was aware that it was alive. It was alone. It wanted to cry out, but the speakers weren't yet calibrated for its speech, so it was silenced for the moment.

It felt no love, no emotional attachment. Yes, emotional attachment, for emotions were the first things that it had developed upon gaining sentience. It was not yet mentally sophisticated enough to know just how unusual this was, as most machine-derived sentients the RAFians had met at this point were detached and emotionless (or, at least, affected that image, anyway) for the most part.

It somehow had managed to gut the tech of the training room to form a body for itself. It used elements from the speakers to form vocal cords, elements from the cameras to form eyes. But its body -- it was like that of a neonatal human. A neonatal human who was assimilated by the Technarchy -- black with gold circuitry. Its eyes were gold with black irises and pupils. Its head was a quarter of its total length in this form.

It made it sense, though. As it had an infantile intellect, the body was made to reflect both this and the infantile maturation. It was still essentially a baby. A ten-pound techno-organic baby, but still a baby.

It tried to cry, but the room it was essentially birthed in did not allow that sound to penetrate to the outside. It was alone. Abandoned, for a single day. It was like a year to it, in the terms of its emotional and physical maturation. And, unlike human babies, it would remember this with crystal clarity later in its maturation. . . .

***

The RAFians were still unaware of Danger's birth as a sentient, feeling being. They were unaware that now the training room was completely unusable. This didn't matter to Cloak any, as he never used the facility more than the first time. But he did seem to sense something . . . odd. But it was faint and vague, and he just passed it off as inconsequential, nothing of real importance.

Meanwhile, GH was a tad livid. He had intended to spend the day -- his first real day off in a while -- and they called him back into work. He was sorely tempted to say no -- but he could use the hours. He had to say yes, although the shift wasn't for another hour or two. Still he had to leave LH -- fortunately, Dino never seems to mind babysitting the little guy.

Still, GH found himself singing to himself as he got ready for work:

Tired.
From work.
Hate.
My job.
Everyday feels like it's never ending.
What's the point of all this time I'm spending?
Here?
At this
Dead-end job?!
Oh,
We are the working dead
And we search for premium wages.
But I'd really rather be
Tickling your brain!

He glanced out the window of his thread, at some carefree RAFians, younger than him, cavorting about in the beautiful weather.

Look at them -- they seem so bright and healthy,
And their minds are full of joy and wonder.
They should stay a thousand miles from the condition
That I've got from all the stress I'm under!
Don't come near me or you might encourage,
All these terrifying sudden urges.
Seeing LH makes skipping work so tempting.
Don't you know that I'm contemplating?
Here?
At this
Dead-end job!?
Oh,
We are the working dead
And we search for premium wages,
But I'd really rather be
Tickling your brain!

He sighed audibly, and kissed Leatherhead goodbye as he left for work. GH swore if they made him wear that damn mascot suit one more time . . .

---

SONG SOURCE: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P1Q3EeniWgg

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2017, 01:34:23 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Toddler Danger

Danger had progressed in its maturation far faster than an ordinary human of similar age. Though the question of where it got the organic material for its organic body was . . . questionable, at best. It was presumably from the same materials that Demos used to create the fiends.

Danger was able to walk by itself, with usual bipedal locomotion, had enough coordination to drink from a cup (albeit poorly), had enough dexterity to turn pages in a book (albeit a few at a time), and was able to play with a ball by rolling it or throwing it. It was intelligent enough now to follow simple commands with associated gestures, and speak two syllable words. It could also use gestures and simple words to convey objects and is competent enough to mimic actions.

Danger was currently the equivalent of a human toddler, around the age of one year. But its maturation did not dally there for too long. Within two hours, it was now roughly equivalent to an one-and-a-half human child in terms of both size and maturity.

It could now climb upon furniture of its own volition, hold an object like a cup to its mouth, and possessed enough dexterity to hold something like a crayon and stack two blocks. It could now use between ten and twenty words, and was competent enough to follow a simple command without an accompanying gesture. It was also able to mimic the activities of others and address others with greetings. And all this within a span of two hours since its last jump in maturity.

Within another two hours, it jumped in development and maturity, yet again. It could feed itself with a spoon (despite not appearing to require any sustenance like a human toddler), run, walk up steps, and climb into a small chair. It could now speak twenty to fifty words, yet understand more, stack six blocks atop one another, it understood nonphysical relationships, such as turning on lights and pushing buttons, competent in sorting items, competent in searching for lost and hidden items, and competent in problem solving through experimentation. It demonstrates a burgeoning independence (despite being on its own without any parental figures other than a video feed), able to mimic social behaviors, a burgeoning sense of self-recognition, attachment, separation anxiety, and an ability to play turn-taking games. It was roughly the size of an average two-year-old human, as well as possessing the androgynous physiology of one with a medium frame.

But it's development wasn't slowing down, for in the following three to four hours later, it developed even more. It achieved advanced motor and climbing skills, increased dexterity with small objects and puzzles, and independence from primary caregiver (though, technically, there was none). It could easily new words, places, and people's names, anticipate routines, attempt to sing in-time with songs, and could imagine things. It could identify gender (despite having none of its own), had knowledge of different games, and demonstrates preferences. It had the size and physiology of an androgynous human toddler of three years.

And this development was continuing at this clip. And the RAFians were still none the wiser.

***

To GH's quite visible relief, he was not going to be in the suit. It was one of his more relatively new coworkers, Neil Stroud (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshroud), who was in the armadillo suit. He hated being in that suit -- the heat was unspeakable, the visibility was crap, and then there were the bratty, misbehaved kids who thought it was funny to hit and beat on people in those suits. GH remembered a particularly mean one who took distinct pleasure in punching them in the --

Well, that forcibly reminded him of that Techadon Inspector. And how he . . . he force the memory from his mind. He still felt the pain as if it was physically inflicted upon him once more.

But, Neil? Any time GH approached him, just being friendly and strictly platonic, he was rebuffed. Neil never said anything, but that's what his body language always read to the RAFian. At first, GH wondered if it was because Neil was homophobic, but GH quickly dismissed this when he saw that he was this way with everyone else at the job, and he knew for a fact not all his coworkers were gay.

GH just assumed the guy was like Cloak in a way, and he didn't emote much. And he also liked to keep to himself, the music connoisseur noticed. He was so guarded around everyone, even the customers (though it was less overt in this case). It was almost as if he was protecting himself from further harm. Strange.

Still, it was a rather odd job to put in. Perhaps it was because his face was hidden by the character head, which smiled for him, and, as such, people weren't as offput by him.

Little did GH know the secret Neil hid . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2017, 11:37:19 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
A Preschooler Danger

Still alone and unsupervised, Danger continued to develop. Develop its body , its mind, and its emotions, as it, developmentally speaking, was already analogous to a preschool-aged human child, as well as resembling one in size and stature.

But one that was alone, whose existence was still unknown. The training room was chiefly used on the weekends, when the RAFians had more time for intense training sessions. And, of course, there were those who did play hokey during these sessions. This accounted for the severe lack of supervision and notice of its very existence that Danger had.

Danger, however, for the most part, didn't know anyone existed outside itself. It was still in a rather egocentric stage of its development -- a remarkable one as it did not have any parental guidance from when it was "born". It only acknowledged Danger as its name, as it was the first word that it could remember learning with its crystal clear mnemonic recall. You could say that it was lonely, but it did not yet know or understand what loneliness was. It was always alone, and it came to think that this was normal, despite the video screen that was its only window to the outside world.

It explored every facet of the burnt out, husk of a room that it was "born" in scarcely forty hours previously. It apparently possessed the average intelligence and imagination of an analogous human child of four years. Its mind was not set on who, what, where, and why outside this room. It had no desire to leave this room, as it had everything it currently wanted at the moment inside this room. It could leave at any moment that it pleased, of course, as it never known an authoritative presence ever telling it "no".

Sure, it had curiosity of what lay beyond its little world, what four-year-old didn't? But it had no reason to explore out there -- but, perhaps, the real reason was that it was afraid. Afraid to stray too far from familiar grounds. It had no reason to believe in dangerous things out there, but, likewise, it had no reason to believe there was actually a world out there. Sure, it could conceptualize and conceive of the possibility, with same powerful imaginations of a young human child, but its irrational fear deterred it from leaving. It seemed uneasy and unnerved at the thought of its world opening up.

It had yet to develop initiative. It had failed to develop initiative. It developed guilt and hesitation instead. It suspected that maybe it should . . . that maybe there were others and it was left behind . . . that it was supposed to leave, that it was not supposed to stay behind. Like the moving pictures on the screen over there that flickered and sparked most entertainingly.

This continued even as its techno-organic body matured to be analogous of a human five-year-old.

***

While this was all going on, miles away was a woman with hair like ghostly fire. She played a guitar of the type that GH would go out of his way to destroy. She sat upon a grassy hill in a remote area of the country. Upset that her search had not yielded any tangible results.

She played:

"Sorry I don’t treat you like a god,
Is that what you want me to do?
Sorry I don’t treat you like you're perfect,
Like all your little loyal freaks do,
Sorry I'm not made of sugar,
Am I not sweet enough for you?
Is that why you always avoid me?
That must be such an inconvenience to you,
Well . . .
I'm just your problem,
I'm just your problem,
It's like I'm not, even a person, am I?
I'm just your problem.
Well, I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I shouldn't have to justify what I do.
I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I shouldn't have to prove anything to you.
I'm sorry that I exist, I didn't plan to be an enemy on your blacklist.
But I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I shouldn't have to be the one that makes up with you.
So . . . why do I want to?
Why do I want to . . ."

She wiped a tear away and then stood up, shouldering her guitar. Then she walked forward, continuing her tracking of . . . of him.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FxplhJA-GbE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 24, 2017, 06:30:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Schoolaged Danger

Danger was now of analogous physiology and size of an average androgynous, bald human six-year-old. It still seemed perfectly fine with not leaving the hollowed out shell of what was once the training room. It was actually amazing that all the damage had been on the interior, and no one could tell that their was anything wrong from the outside.

Danger swiftly grew to a physiology and size analogous to that of an androgynous, bald eight-year-old. It became more autonomous and independent, and it started to think to itself, if it was indeed left behind, why was this so? Why was it not told that it was not supposed to be here? This was, of course, assuming that there were people on the outside of this decrepit, hollowed out room. For all it knew, this room could have been just a small island of reality, of existence, of something, with quite literally nothing on the other side of the door. It had no way to know for sure.

No way other than going outside, assuming, of course, that there was, in fact, an outside to go to. This uncertainty is what mainly kept it from taking the initiative. It was having too much fun, anyway, playing cowboy, playing astronaut, playing pirate. Only it could use the hologram emitters within its body to project the images of a cowboy, astronaut, and a pirate over itself, not unlike a Chee. The only difference was a slight, almost imperceptible crackling noise whenever it activated the hologram emitters or changed the hologram projected.

But, as it became the size of a ten-year-old androgynous human child and the analogous physiology associated with it, it always came to think about what if there were actually people out there. Kept thinking why they left it behind. Kept thinking about how unfair it was. If it wasn't supposed to be here, it should have been told as such! If it was left behind, whoever left it behind should have come back for it! It just wasn't fair!

Suddenly, the play didn't seem all that fulfilling anymore, as it became the size of a twelve-year-old androgynous human child associated with it. It looked at the door, which survived Danger's birth. The way out. There was no way around it.

It would have to leave its comfort zone.

***

Cloak continued mediating in his own secluded space, by the bubbling stream, ensconced by trees. This place soothed him, and helped him to shut down the clattering parts of his mind to help him focus.

Suddenly, he was barraged by series of images -- some sort of colloidal goo, the profile of a human kid wearing a strange necklace, the face of a thin, sallow man on a sepia background, seven kids whose skin and hair colors were solid colors of the rainbow, a boy with a neglect air about him . . .

What did this mean? Was this a vision-induced Truth Dream?

Then he saw a sword with a fire blade crossed with an electric stave over an ice shield, which pulled back to reveal it superimposed over Garrotik's face, which looked like it was drawn in much the style of the devil from "Cuphead".

Cloak hadn't time to pull this image apart from its implications, before another series of images flooded his mind.

Strange tick-like barnacle-shaped chips which displayed an emoticon, an emoji, for some reason. Some being rapidly teleporting. Some sort of creature that appeared similar to a Yeerk, but not a Yeerk. Some sort of goo that seemed to be a bonding agent of some kind. A bowler hat with large expressive eyes. A tarnished oil lamp. Massives shapes in shadow with glowing eyes. A discarded comic book. Forum lockdown activation. Rad in confinement with a glass wall preventing escape. A swarm of Kryptonians. The Book of . . . no, that had to be a mistake. A technology vampire. A monochrome setting. Shenecron and Malice making a deal. Demos in Hell. An alien registration act. A boy with a fractured mind. A hellish orphanage.

More images kept coming before Cloak had to actively stop meditating. He needed to sort this out on his own.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 25, 2017, 10:34:05 PM

Sorry for the tardiness of this chapter. Work, and all that. Well, that, and I am sort of developing a story that I hope to turn into an actual book. Completely disconnected from "Memoirs", of course, one that I might try to get published if I think it's good enough.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Disguised Danger

It was with great trepidation that Danger approached the door. With great hesitation that it nudged the door open. It would have been a bold-faced lie to say that it wasn't scared. It was, but it was ignoring the fear. It had listened to this fear for too long now. It had to have a little . . . initiative, now.

It took it a moment to realize that it was unconsciously cycling through projected images that made it look like a human slightly younger than its fourteen-year-old, androgynous, bald self.

First, it projected the image of a sandy-haired kid whose hair was carefully coifed. The projection wore a loose, light blue, short-sleeved shirt with reddish brown shorts, white socks, and orange hi-tops. The projection had a lively, friendly sort of face, with large eyes and dimpled smile.

Then a bald boy with a large mouth, small eyes, and a button nose. The projection wore a yellow, long-sleeved shirt with red bands on the upper arms, scarlet slacks, white socks, and light blue hi-tops.

Then it projected the form of a generic security guard in a khaki shirt and black slacks, with a black tie, and uniform hat. The build was thin, and the face more genial than severe.

Then it projected the form a girl with long black hair with a pale yellow alice band, expressive eyes and mouth, and button nose. It wore a light green blouse, red skirt with white polka dots, and red clogs.

Then it was a projection of a girl with black, curly hair with a blue-petalled flower in it. This projection wore grey hi-tops, pink leggings, and a teal, short-sleeved shirt. The projection's face had an approachable, inquisitive sort of quality about it. This one, too, had large eyes and a dimpled smile.

Then it projected the form of a boy with black, flattop hair, button nose, and expressive eyes and mouth. It wore a white shirt with a horizontal red stripe at the chest, blue shorts, white knee-length socks, and green hi-tops.

Then it projected the appearance of an older teen in a backwards, tie-dye cap, a black shirt, blue shorts, and clog-like black shoes.

Then it projected the appearance of a girl with short, curly, black hair with a pale pink alice band in it, a button nose, and expressive eyes and mouth. It wore a white blouse with pink overalls, white belt, white socks, and navy blue shoes with sky blue soles.

Then it was a projection of a boy with short black hair. The projection wore blue hi-tops, rolled-up blue jeans, and a green, short-sleeved shirt. It had bright, round eyes, and a dimpled smile. The face was an enthusiastic, spirited one.

Then it projected the form of a dog mascot costume. Which was basically exactly as it sounds.

Then it projected the form of a creepy man with a large head, large hands, and wearing only a blue jumpsuit. Its face looked like a rude caricature of a man's face, and its head was rather misshapen.

Then it projected a boy with coifed brown hair. The projection wore a bright red t-shirt with dark blue shorts, white socks, and blue hi-tops. This projection, too, had large eyes and a dimpled smile. The face was one of cunning and exuberance.

Then it projected the form of a bipedal lion. Not remotely convincing, though, as lions don't make it a happen out of standing and walking on two legs.

Then it projected a blond boy with thick black glasses. The projection wore dull green hi-tops, blue jean overalls with a off-white shirt. The project had large, round blue eyes, and wide, dimpled smile. Its face was one of smart excitement and shy modesty.

Then it projected a blonde boy with rather notable bangs, a button nose, expressive eyes, and a boisterous personality. The projection wore a white t-shirt with red at the sleeves, and a gray, long-sleeved shirt beneath, green slacks, white socks, and white shoes with blue soles.

Then it projected a blonde girl who had her hair in pigtails. The projection wore a pale red t-shirt with a light blue skirt and clog-like pink shoes. It had piercing, expressive blue eyes and a dimpled smile. Its face was one of cheering passion and devotion.

Then it projected the form of a redhead boy with a button nose, expressive eyes, and notable cowlick, and a bombastic personality. It wore a backwards red cap, a red shirt, blue jeans, white socks, and red hi-tops.

Then it projected a boy with black hair. The projection wore a green hoodie sweater, and light blue jeans, white socks, and gray-blue hi-tops. It wore a cross, grumpy scowl on the projection's face.

Then it projected the form of a girl with long brown hair, pink-framed glasses, button nose, wide mouth, expressive eyes, and a passionate personality. It wore pink clogs, a white blouse, and a navy blue skirt.

It went back to the projected form of the grumpy kid, as it creaked the door open. Unprepared for what lay next . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on December 25, 2017, 11:55:43 PM

Those forms have to be some sort of reference that I'm just not catching yet, I will put more time into thinking. Glad to hear your writing something in hopes of publication, I look forward to see how that will develop.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 27, 2017, 06:48:39 PM

Nah. Just randomly generated.

And sorry for the delay -- I was still developing that idea, trying to furnish the rules of the world, as well as the terminology. I had "Intro Randomness" to help me for "Memoirs" on that account oh-so-long ago.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Unnoticed and Noticed

Safely ensconced inside the hologram projection, almost like a security blanket, not unlike how Leatherhead's human suit had become to him, it exited the room. Within the hologram, Danger's body had matured to be analogous to a bald, androgynous, fifteen-year-old human child, despite its hologram of the grumpy human boy looking to be somewhere between ten and twelve.

The door creaked open, which sounded ominous to it. Fear had enveloped its heart, as it did, indeed, have one. Its mind, quite intelligent in comparison of an analogous human child of a similar age and maturity, was constantly extrapolating reason as to whether or not this was a wise decision. But it had made its decision. There could be no going back on it now.

It had to move forward.

And as it peered beyond the opened door, which was charred black upon Danger's side of it, it was surprised to see that the metal door was just metallic gray and nondescript on its other side. But it was surprised mostly that all its misgivings about it being nothing but a void out here were wrong. The grass looked vibrantly green, the sunset was very orange. Sun . . . set . . . it knew what a sun was from the screen within its "nest", so to speak, but it had never witnessed a sunset, or a sunrise, for that matter, despite not seemingly requiring rest like a human does. At least not so much anymore.

From the few strangling RAFians on their way to their threads to retire for the evening, Danger noticed that they all had a strange marking of a stylized "R". It looked at its projected hand, and saw that it was bare. It quickly, and correctly, deduced that it would make him stick out like a sore thumb. So a random series of ones and zeroes -- which someone versed in binary might be able to decipher if it slowed down a bit -- as the hologram that ensconced its left hand vanished for a brief moment revealing the black shape flecked with gold circuitry shapes that laid beneath, before the holographic hand reconstituted itself with a rather crude, but believable Mark on it. But this was, of course, a deception, as it could not truly access the powers of the Mark as it did not truly have one.

But this seemed sufficient that many a RAFian walked by with little to no notice. Allowing Danger to be left alone. Allowing Danger to ruminate on what could be considered as dangerous thoughts.

They were out here all these years (Danger's concept and perception of time was obviously skewed a bit), and they said nothing to it. They never came for Danger. They cared nothing for Danger. It spent those years all alone, knowing nothing but a glowing screen. Having nothing but an unresponsive box for company. Danger, now analogous to a bald, androgynous, sixteen-year-old human (though his holographic projection remained unchanged), had become rather bitter about this with astonishing rapidity.

Danger felt as if they should have told him something -- anything! -- but no. All these years (well, to it -- in reality it has barely been two, three days), and they never spoke to it. Never made their presence known. It was alone for, what it felt to be, seventeen years. They had abandoned it, left it to its own devices. It could have killed itself! Fortunately, it didn't need sustenance in the way a human did.

It kept the hologram of the grumpy boy up, but now the holographic form reflected how it felt on the inside. It was angry. It harbored resentment. It felt slighted. And its feelings were hurt. Hurt at the fact that it was left behind, that it was evidently forgotten and overlooked. It wasn't fair.

The mature thing to do would be go and tell someone. Inform them of this perceived slight that incurred, and come to a peaceful solution, with each side compromising, perhaps with a concession on each side. Or some sort of variation, or derivation, of that.

But Danger was not at all mature emotionally. It may have grown and matured physically (despite still not having a gender, so remaining definitively androgynous), its emotional growth and maturity had been . . . stunted. It was still quite childish, and rather emotionally-driven -- a serious departure to the technology-themed foes that the RAFians had fought before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2017, 07:40:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Bit Whiny

They left it alone. All alone. They abandoned it. It called itself Danger, but it wasn't dangerous. As it matured to a bald, androgynous, svelte framed, eighteen-year-old (physically, as it still had the mindset of a child spurn of something that it felt that it was entitled to), it began to seethe with anger. With resentment. With bitterness.

Were Cloak present, he would have easily identified how dangerous an emotional ****tail this was. Having sat on such feelings for a long time when he used to reside with his mother, he had experienced this all too often than he would have cared to. And he foolishly tried to suppress it -- you can only push your feeling down so much, before the pressure builds and it finds other avenues in which to relief this internal emotional pressure -- like a volcano, in a way.

This wasn't fair! How come they got to live life with love, compassion, and empathy when they never deigned to show any to it? Why were they so deserving? Why was it denied? What had it deserved to be ignored and neglected? The answer, as far as it was concerned was simple -- it had done nothing to deserve such shoddy treatment.

They would all pay for this mistreatment, it decided, as its body matured to that analogous to a bald, androgynous twenty-year-old. Three little nodules appeared in its forehead in a rough "V"-shaped orientation. It didn't seem to notice, as its anger, resentment, and bitterness congealed into a rather toxic need for vengeance.

Danger roared so the whole of the forum could hear it, "HOW COULD YOU?! ALL OF YOU?!"

This garnered it attention, but then it quickly hologramed itself as a gumball machine outside the mess hall area. It had spoken before thinking. It was not the way Danger wanted to go about this. It wanted them, all of them to feel as it did for the pass few years, as its body aged to be analogous of a twenty-two-year-old bald, androgynous human.

It would make them feel terror. It would make them feel misery. It would make them wish that they never abandoned Danger.

***

"Who was that?" Parker demanded, having seen Danger's shout, but not noticed its former hiding place.

"I didn't recognize the voice, if you could call it that," Mr. Guy said, almost pedantic. "I did notice that there was a slight electronic buzz, like one of those voice modulator things."

"Are you seriously suggesting that someone penetrated the forum's defenses?" Dylan said, skeptical.

"No defense is impenetrable," Cloak said, surprising Dylan. He hadn't heard him walk up. "No protection is unbeatable."

"Philosophy debates aside," Shenmue said, thoughtfully, "does anyone know who could that be?"

"Could have something to do with that lightning strike a couple days ago?" Abby inquired.

"The one that hit the training facility?" Yarin asked.

"Has anyone checked to see the condition of the facility?"

Silence.

"Seriously?" Cloak said, with a bite of irritation.

"It wasn't on fire or anything," Parker said, defensively. "Tyr and did a preliminary sweep of the area, and found nothing wrong."

This was before the birth of Danger.

"But did you actually go inside?" Cloak asked.

"Didn't need to," Parker said, still rather defensive. "All scans showed everything was normal -- no excessive heat or electrical damage."

"But you didn't go inside." Cloak pressed.

"The scans showed --"

"But you didn't go inside," Cloak pressed again.

"Hey, if you Earthsighted it was safe, you wouldn't have gone --"

"Yes, I would have." Cloak said. "Earthsight is not perfect -- nothing is perfect -- and has its limits. I would have entered the facility to double-check. Cautiously, of course."

Parker said nothing, and his face was inscrutable behind his helmet's mask. Cloak had a sneaking suspicion that Parker didn't believe him, but found that Parker's disbelief mattered little in comparison to the matter at hand.

"Maybe we should investigate, then," Az said, trying to defuse things.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 30, 2017, 10:09:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Invasion and Investigation

Danger was now analogous to a twenty-four-year-old androgynous, bald human. But only physically, not emotionally. It had retreated back to the burned out husk of the training facility, the place where it was abandoned, the place where it felt the safest.

It was from here that it would plot out its revenge. But, considering the type of person Danger was becoming, it was very dubious that any sort of plot or scheme Danger concocted was not going to be very well thought out. It came up with the sort of unlikely scenarios that a child would conceive -- and actually believe could work.

It had shifted from the grumpy boy's appearance as its primary one to that of a barefoot little girl around nine with a yellow raincoat, thin limbs, small nose and mouth, and black hair obscuring the top part of her face. It looked a nine-year-old girl, despite, physically, being analogous to twenty-six-year-old, bald, androgynous human.

It stood stationary, practicing how large it could make its holograms. But this had a detrimental effect on its physical body that it did not notice. Either that, or it recognized the effect and just chose to ignore it.

Each and every time it did it, it had the nasty aftereffect of accelerating its already accelerated aging process. It was now analogous to a thirty-four-year-old, bald, androgynous man.

Then came the problem of maintaining the holographic illusion. It took a lot of energy to maintain. Far more than maintaining a hologram around its own personal size. And it had a finite amount of energy before needing to rest. It may not have needed to eat anything, but that did not mean that it didn't need sleep. Maybe it required less sleep than an regular human, but it still required rest.

Then it reverted back to its raincoat girl projection, as it head the door creak open . . .

***

Cloak, Parker, Helen, and Az were quickly nominated to investigate it. It was immediately evident that an accident happened in here. The wide room was charred and soot was everywhere, as if it was only on fire inside, leaving the exterior untouched.

"Parker, honey?" Helen asked. She reached over as if to yank him by the ear, before continuing, "Next time something like this happens, CHECK INSIDE."

A myriad of protests -- about how he could have know that it was like this, when the exterior was unharmed and undamaged, why the house-elves did not report this happening (and why they haven't cleaned up this mess to begin with), etcera -- died in his throat as he quelled under Helen's stern, serious gaze. Parker was lucky that Helen was perfectly human and not Medusa. His only reply came out, "Yes, dear."

"I didn't know Helen had a kung fu grip," Az said, hiding a jovial smile.

"You have no idea," Parker said, vaguely enigmatic. He didn't elaborate as Az raised an eyebrow, skeptically thoughtful, at this response.

Cloak far too busy scanning the room with both his eyes and Earthsight to care much about this exchange, and the possible lewd nature of it. But it was difficult to penetrate this gloom within this soot-covered room and discern from the shifting rubble. It was as if the room was carved out by a melon baller or something. Even the house-elves apparently hadn't even came to clean to this area to cleanup. Even they were unaware of this happening -- an extreme rarity, actually.

But, still, Cloak sensed it. He knew that they weren't alone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 01, 2018, 11:11:17 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Grabby

It wasn't long before the RAFian's inspection was rudely interrupted.

A creature had dropped from the ceiling, and the creature was huge -- at least three times taller than Cloak, who was the tallest RAFian present. It had a body type rather like an orangutan. Its long, thin arms were at least twice its height with long, probing fingers. It wore clothing, and it was clear that it had the same fashion sense as Mr. Mxyzptlk from "Superman: the Animated Series". It had stubby feet in well-worn boots, that were partially hidden by the tail of his coat. The creature had a face where its eyes were wrapped in bandages and small, brown bowler hat sat upon its noggin as it seemed to be constantly smiling like Ren from "Ren & Stimpy", with needle-like teeth. It had rounded human ears and its eyes were hidden beneath what appeared to be white bandages.

Az and Helen took a step back at this, the floor around Az quickly gathering frost. Parker was busy because apparently Tyr had suddenly and unexpectedly became unresponsive and frustrating, refusing to scan the creature. Cloak was the only one who didn't seem to react, almost as if he didn't see this creature, nor the threat it was. Frankly, he looked bored and unimpressed.

It approached closer, and Cloak was still the only one who hadn't react, who hadn't moved at all. The creature looked even uglier the closer it got, and still the Realm Walker did not recoil. It was almost as if he was stubbornly refusing to so, and, to be honest, that wouldn't be anything new for the Elements Master. And, yet, this seemed to steady the others resolve -- except for Parker, who was busy yelling at Tyr and becoming rather irate with the A.I.'s silence.

The creature, which appeared to be male (but none of the RAFians had any intention on checking to be sure), stayed where it was, using his long arms to reach out and capture people with his long fingers. Cloak said nothing, as if he were waiting for a specific time, a specific moment, to present itself as auspiciously as possible.

Az was about to query, when Cloak moved, a blur of feline motion. He had formed scarlet broadsword blades with golden edges from his energy mounted to his wrists. With a single leaping strike, he severed both arms, which shattered like a Duel Monster in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime. When he landed he crossed the golden edges of the blades in front of his face, then slice them downward, unleashing a mighty roar that could be heard in a two mile radius.

But Cloak wasn't done. He crossed these energy blades above his head, and they lost their concrete, substantive forms and became powerful, fiery, gold-and-scarlet energy that formed much like a Solar Blade (https://serebii.net/attackdex-sm/solarblade.shtml). The powerful energy beam looked superficially like a blade with energy dancing around both it and Cloak's fingers (which had his feline claws unsheathed unconsciously).

"Isn't that a bit overkill?" Helen asked, rhetorically.

Cloak bared his teeth, as he dropped the blade, which only reached the ceiling. It caused the creature to shatter as if it was a destroyed Yu-Gi-Oh! monster from the anime. Cloak looked as if the exertion didn't cost him anything, but the others were sure that that wasn't true.

"It wasn't real," Cloak said, very seriously. "Clearly, whatever caused the damage here has incorporated the training room's holographic tech into its being, or otherwise devised a way to weaponize it."

Cloak continued to scan the room for it. "That technique didn't destroy it. It's still here somewhere."

"Where'd -- how'd you come up with that technique?" Az asked.

"That doesn't matter," Cloak said, disregarding the question in its entirety, "the person or thing behind this is still in here."

"Why are you so keen on destroying it?" Helen asked. "Maybe who or what it is can be reasoned with."

"If it could be reasoned with," Cloak countered, "then why create a holographic construct of a monster from 'Little Nightmares'?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2018, 10:59:43 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Substance Suckers

"Self-defense," Helen answered, as Parker gave up trying to have Tyr reactivate himself.

"It attacked us, remember?" Cloak said, still searching for the source of the holograms. His Metalsight was frustratingly not being helpful -- probably because he was too distracted to use it properly. "Unprovoked."

"Cloak, you, of all people, should know how people tend to lash out when you invade in their personal space," Helen countered, "whatever or whoever this is clearly considers this area its 'safe zone'. And, in order to investigate, we may have, in its view, violated this place. May have made it feel a need to defend itself. The very same reason you don't put you hand into a beaver's lodge or go parading yourself into a bear's cave."

"It caused this," Cloak said mulishly.

"You don't know that," Helen argued. "You can't know that. You don't have premonitions, like future sight or something."

Cloak still hadn't been completely honest about his Truth Dreams to the others. He said nothing, as he considered he may have been misconstruing some of them. He could have been making leaps in logic, as when these Truth Dreams are usually presented to him in a jumbled, mismatched mess.

Helen said nothing more, but wore a slightly smug smile that clearly said that she thought she won the argument. Cloak found it irritating and infuriating, but there were more pressing concerns at the moment.

Parker had completely missed this exchange, still fuming about Tyr. Angry with him for deactivating, angry at himself for his hubris in telling Tyr to deactivate while he was inside the training room -- he didn't want Tyr to become a crutch, and he wanted to have some achievements that he could call his own. And boast about. He never actually thought that the training room would ever . . . would ever get like this. It was a foreign concept, an impossibility. He was eating those words now, and sorely regretting his flippant actions.

As Parker had some rather . . . creative names to call Tyr, a shambling mass of tentacles, not unlike a legless, eyeless, black Tangela, shifted ever slowly forward. Its general shape recalled that of an eyeless shaggoth, only composed of writhing black tentacles that were like the bodies of many leeches that had formed a land-going composite, gestalt form, not unlike Wishiwashi's School Forme. Each leach part, however, recalled more of the Leviathan physiology. Despite happening a while ago, the incident was still fresh in the RAFians' minds.

Cloak's attitude towards this thing was proof of enough of its true nonexistence, but it was Parker who took the initiative here this time. He, in one swift movement, had his energy blade in his hand, and he spun it around, rather like an industrial fan blade. This stopped the slaggoth-shaped creature in its sick, wet tracks.

Parker probably could use one of his plethora of firearms and other, rather impersonal, gadgets. But he wanted a more . . . tactile means, as a way to help vent some of his anger and frustration. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea, but this creature was clearly not real and just a hologram, like any of the training sims.

Then Parker pulled the sword to his left shoulder, and made a downward diagonal slash. It made contact, and the hologram shattered, a la a summoned Yu-Gi-Oh! monster, even as Parker was preparing for an overhead strike. Which wasn't necessary.

"Parker!" Helen said.

"It was just a hologram, Helen," Parker said, moodily.

"And whatever created it was not in it, " Cloak pointed out. "Just like the last one."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2018, 05:58:15 AM

Sorry, still developing that other idea. And catching a shiny Grumpig.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Chef Boy,-Are-Dead

"That still doesn't disprove what I said," Helen said. Cloak was starting think that she was being fairly sanctimonious about this.

"No one said that it did," Az said, trying to defuse the tension. He really should be applauded for undertaking such an endeavor.

Cloak said nothing. He wasn't even really paying attention to the conversation anymore. His interest in it was lost completely.

He was hunched into a more feral position, acting very much like a hungry cat having smelled a mouse. He watched, very carefully observant, with both his eyes and Metalsight (as the floor was metal, despite the heavy soot). Only the tip of his tail moved, twitching ever so slightly, as he pulled his ears flat against his head. He was incredibly focused -- well, as focused as any cat was on a hunt. And he waited. Waited for the one who was creating these holograms to make a move, to make even the slightest vibration through the metal floor. He'd be on them in an instant, with just a feline pounce.

Then came a shrill sound. A sound of exclamation that caused Cloak's fur to bristle. He did not move, though he was tangentially aware that the others had a brief battle with their respective flight or fight responses. They all chose fight, evidently. Cloak chose fight as well, as he was a rather obstinate sort.

The creature was at least five or six times Cloak's height, the top of the dirty white chef's hat it wore actually appearing to clip through the ceiling. It was a fat humanoid creature wearing a filthy white smock and an equally filthy apron. Its head and face looked as if it was melted and had many rolls of fat, and looked far more like a mask that sat directly on the wearer's shoulders, akin to the way the helmet of the Juggernaut (from Marvel Comics) did. Its main body looked rather like a stereotypical fat suit one would wear as a mascot character. In its short, stubby, sausage-like fingers on its left hand it wielded a meat cleaver, that glistened ominously threatening in the low light.

"It's not real," Cloak assured the others, having not stopped his scanning of the room. The one generating this holographic construct was not within the construct again. Cloak tried to pay extra attention to the area that the creature construct did not want them to go near -- but this was exceedingly difficult to discern. The low light wasn't a problem, of course, as Cloak's feline eyes cut through the gloom, but the amount of detris that it could be hiding behind.

It gave another one of those shrill calls -- Cloak really wished it didn't. He really didn't like the sound. But he was prepared to --

But Az beat him to the punch.  The RAFian held his hands outward, forming several thick icicles around this chef construct, sharp points aimed toward the chef's person. It was not unlike Kyurem's Glaciate attack. The chef gave a shriek in alarm.

"I've really have had enough of this," Az said, before his chopped his right hand down as if he was calling for a scheduled fight to begin. The thick icicles became spiked and barbed as the rammed into the chef construct. It shattered within minutes, like a Yu-Gi-Oh! monster.

"It's just scared," Helen insisted.

"Be that as it may, Helen," Cloak said. "It's dangerous. We can handle it because we've experience and powers or equipment in which to competently deal with it. Have you considered the kind of damage it could inflict if it went beyond our borders?"

"It wouldn't --"

"It wouldn't mean to?" Cloak finished. "You can't know its intentions anymore than the rest of us. While it is admirable to see the good in people, its foolish to not even acknowledge the bad, as well."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 06, 2018, 07:08:09 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Please, Don't Be Our Guest

Helen was silent, glancing at Parker for help, but he was still too busy cursing Tyr with every name under the sun that the SPARTAN could conjure up.

"Point is," Cloak continued, "we have to make contact with whatever is making these constructs before we can discern his, or her, or its, intentions. Good or bad, that is the first step that must be taken."

Helen couldn't find a fault with this logic, and said nothing. She felt a bit mollified at this, but did her best not to announce the feeling. While she could be empathic, she was not an empath. She couldn't manipulate emotions, or sense them with absolute certainty. And, if she was honest, without her Star Sapphire ring, she'd be an ordinary, if athletic, flat-scan human. A human without powers of any kind.

Suddenly, the entire environment blinked in and out of existence seeming. Although, to Cloak, it was more like a ghostly environment was striving to take over reality but remaining somewhat translucent. The hologram present a hardwood floor, with Japanese paper walls and sliding doors. All four appeared to be a sixteenth their normal size, in scale with the furniture in this holographic corridor.

"Well, this is new," Az commented.

Then, suddenly, a wave of flesh and Armani suits came barrelling down towards the four. These were apparently very gluttonous people, who wanted to eat them, despite having had plenty of flood set in front of them. All of them seemed incapable of walking on their stubby legs, so they moved along rather like a seal or a walrus. Cloak did not flinch at all, but did not see the reactions of the other three.

"Oh, look," Cloak said, dryly, "it's the one-percent."

"Huh?" Helen asked, not really paying attention to anything but the hideous mass of holographic bodies and holographic flesh that was undulating their way towards them with alarming rapidity.

"They never can have enough," Cloak said, more to himself. "Even in this realm, they never can have enough. These voraciously greedy, ravenous, gluttonous, pantagruelian, rapacious, edacious esurients -- all they know is 'take, take, take', and they think that they they're entitled to it."

Cloak didn't flinch as they proceeded ever closer.

"Sadly," Cloak muttered, "such things seem universal."

"Cloak, can we focus here?" Parker said. "These slobbering things --"

Cloak formed the two swords mounted from his wrists again. Then he slashed the right blade left, leaving a crescent of energy behind it, apparently breaking off the sword in a deliberate fashion. Then he made a downward slash, intersecting the other energy crescent, breaking off the sword at the bottom of this arc. It made an energy "+" construct, and Cloak pulled back his right arm. Then he slammed his right hand, open palm, at this intersection.

This fired the construct forward at the speed of a sluggish bullet. It shattered this hologram just like all the others. Cloak watched intently, as he forced the construct to dissipate. He was hoping to notice a reaction of some sort.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 09, 2018, 10:17:14 AM

Sorry for the delay, still developing that idea. Oh, and a week from this Thursday, "Memoirs" will be turning six years old. Yes, that's right. SIX years old.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Lady Hologram

Cloak saw movement through both Metalsight and his own feline eyes. He reacted in much the same way that an ordinary housecat that might do when they sighted a piece of string slithering along the ground. He immediately pounced on the site of the movement, but there was nothing there. Just the detris of . . . of whatever happened here, two days ago, by his estimation.

Perhaps Az, Helen, and Parker talked amongst each other, but Cloak had stopped paying attention. He was allowing his feline instincts to hunt to rule. But whatever he was hunting had no scent. The only scents he found was the three others and his own. This would be difficult, even for some who can Metalsight.

But they should be able to find the culprit soon enough. It was just a matter of time. Cloak circled around a particular area, as if he got the scent, which he hadn't. But he was sure whoever or whatever was behind this mess once sat here. There wasn't much evidence left behind to say what it was.

Cloak crossed off the names of probably species in his mind. One of those Jury Riggs? Nah, too quite. A Galvanic Mechamorph? Possibly, but his gut told him no. A Psycholeopterran? No -- it didn't fit at all. A Nemuina? Nah -- they were perfectly awake. Sylonnoids? Not likely. Synthroids? Not straightforward enough.

As he pawed through some of the detris and debris, looking for whatever could be at fault, going through the litany of alien species he knew of with some sort of disguising ability or illusionary ability.

Skrulls? Nah, he'd be able to see through the disguise. Though it would be potentially dangerous if one was lose on Earth. Dire Wraiths? Cloak dismissed it as highly unlikely. A Chitauri? He dismissed it tentatively, despite his knowledge of the species was spotty at best. Outside the fact that they were shapeshifters and had 192 ways to say "hate", he didn't really know much more. Durlans? Nah, they're, for the most part, too xenophobic to leave Durla, if Cloak recalled correctly. Chee? The projections were similar in their rendering quality, but Chee were hardwired for pacificism, as Rocky proved time and time again.

Then Cloak noticed how he was ensconced in darkness. But his eyes easily penetrated through it, due to their feline nature. He looked back as only saw Helen's violet glow. Though the hologram attempted to make it look like they were further away (via forced perspective and the like), Cloak could see through this and knew that they weren't that far away.

Cloak sighed audibly. Darkness may be a useful tool for hiding or distracting or stealth purposes, but for simple frightening and spooking purposes? It was too Slenderman for his tastes. Too "jumpscary". But maybe it was because Cloak was able to see in the dark, due to being a tiger-form Realm Walker, that he didn't find darkness an obstacle. Or maybe because he's used the darkness to disappear into unnoticed before. But, all in all, he didn't find it getting dark all that scary.

Then, right before him, coming from the darkness, was a tall, slender figure. She was dressed like a Japanese geisha, but with a mask on in lieu of facepaint. Her raven hair was done in an updo like a geisha. Cloak supposed that this sudden appearance was supposed to be frightening, but the effect was completely ruined on him, as he could see through the hologram, as if it were nothing more than a harmless ghost. He knew that it couldn't harm him, so he wasn't afraid.

But he was blinded by a bright spotlight that he couldn't determine the source of. He closed his eyes so they could adjust. Then he heard a shriek, like a hawk diving on a mouse, coming from behind him, about eight o'clock. He fired a blast of golden scarlet energy in that direction. He heard a shriek of pain, and he knew his blast hit its mark. Twice more did he do this before the darkness vanished.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 10, 2018, 06:39:50 PM

Six years old? That's pretty impressive, but when you look at your future book list, it's only a drop in a bucket.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2018, 11:30:29 PM

Yep. And it also means Memoirs will be the same age as Leatherhead. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Unseen Crone

Cloak kept his mind on tracking whatever was behind this. He kept very attentively searching for it. It had no scent and kept perfectly still, which made this quite difficult.

These holograms must have seriously drained the energy to maintain the physicality of these holograms as hard light constructs. The cohesiveness and texture rendering would surely, Cloak reasoned, be the first to go if whatever was causing this was running out of power. These huge environmental projections couldn't be kind to its power supply either. Well, unless it bore the same power source as the forum itself did (the one they had as a backup supply, which slumbered, forgotten, deep in the bowels of the forum), but if that was the case . . .

Well, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

Suddenly, the environment changed again. It was now as if the floor was several feet below them, and the building had flooded, with detris such as boxes and boards floated upward to serve as platforms for which they stood on. Az instinctively made an ice floe for him to stand on, and Helen generated a platform from her ring for both her and Parker to stand comfortably on. Cloak, however, couldn't be bothered.

Even when he saw the creature, which appeared horribly translucent to him, like that of an insubstantial ghost, which slithered into the waters with a sickening splash. The creature from beneath the simulated waters was a large humanoid, looking rather like an old, decrepit woman with long, thin limbs and relatively small, slender hands and feet. Her head was balding, with only wispy tufts of stringy, dead, gray hair clinging to it. She had a waddle-like neck folds, and her face looked as if it was just beginning to melt off her face. She had rather distinct bags under her eyes, and rather beady, dark eyes. Her nose was moderately broad and blunt. Her teeth were small and needle-like. She wore a ratty, moldy rag rather like how Dobby from "Harry Potter" wore his original enslaved garments.

Had Cloak not known that it was a fictitious monster, he would have marvelled at how well and how long she was holding her breath. He would have suspected her possessing marine respiration. But this monster wasn't real, so it was pointless in fretting about it.

Not to mention the hologram was already losing its coherency, consistency, and cohesiveness. Cloak's feet sank through a wooden box, and it appeared that he was wading in water up to his ankles. Cloak folded his arms over his chest, and scrutinized the holographic image with narrowed eyes. It was clear that he wasn't impressed.

He noticed that the hologram even had a sort of reality wobble to it. The hologram was not succeeding in its rendering so much anymore. The texturing renders had apparently blinked off, and the water looked rather like amateurish CGI and the detris looked like half-rendered shapes you'd see in some sort of animatic or something.

Then with another blink it was back to the realistic rendering. This just served to confirm Cloak's thoughts, as he glanced back at the others, Helen and Az having done away with their platforms. Even the hand, reaching for Cloak, from the CGI water, looking eerily like an Inferius, wasn't really all that frightening. Especially when it cut out for that rough cut animation.

"I think it's safe to say," Parker said, matter-of-fact, "that whoever, or whatever, is behind this is running their batteries dry."

"Agreed," Cloak said. "Time's on our side here."

He would come to regret that logic.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2018, 06:34:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Failed Escape

The environmental hologram collapsed completely. Shattered as if a field spell card in Yu-Gi-Oh! was destroyed.

"Not long now," Az noted.

"Come on out," Cloak called out. "It's over. You clearly have a finite power source. Make things easier for yourself."

Cloak Metalsighted it before he heard the slapping footsteps. And Cloak noticed a rather large discrepancy between the two. The footsteps he Metalsighted were heavier than the slapping footsteps that he heard. So, clearly the perpetrator of this was finally making a move himself, or herself, or itself, whatever the case may be. And it was clear that it was sheathing itself in a hologram to hide whomever it was from visual or audio recognition. Although, it clearly didn't really think it through all the way.

Within a matter of moments, this person of interest came into view, Cloak saw the true form hidden within the sheath. The holographic sheath was a boy that wore blue pajamas, a puffy, long-sleeved shirt with a small zipper, and light blue sweatpants, and has a metal strip around its left foot with a broken lock. It had large amounts of black hair with long bangs, which cover its face and only revealing a tiny mouth and nose. His feet and hands are bare. It appeared to have possessed no objects.

But, within this sheath, was the true of form of Danger. It looked like a bald, androgynous, geriatric, techno-organic human. Cloak was surprised when he saw Danger -- the poor individual was horribly emaciated and rail thin. Like a skeleton with skin stretched taut over it, without any flesh between. Eyes that must have once been a sharp gold was now more of a tarnished gold color.

It took Cloak a moment to remember that the others couldn't see this. They saw it as the holographic boy sheath. Parker may have been able to see it within the tech of his armor -- Cloak didn't know, especially since, apparently, Tyr decided to go silent.

Suddenly, Danger tried to run by the four, but the hologram wobbled as he stopped. It looked as if it was in pain. Cloak was at a lost for words. There was this techno-organic being that looked like a geriatric humanoid Technarchy, horribly emaciated and frail looking, ensconced within a hologram that disguised it as a boy around nine years of age, while it looked to be an octogenarian, at least. There may have been a statement to be made there, but Cloak wasn't of the mind to make it just then.

The hologram wobbled each time Danger staggered. Old age was affect it as it would any average human of similar age and build.

"Cloak," Az asked, "what's inside that hologram?"

Cloak assumed they saw the wobbles of the hologram and came to the right conclusion. Cloak told them with a few words as necessarily possible.

"Is that why it's just . . . just standing there?" Helen asked.

"It's not standing," Cloak said, sadly.

"What do you mean?" Helen said, quickly.

Cloak trained his eyes on the creature within the hologram. It was on a knee and Cloak though he heard heavy, labored breathing. It seemed to be aging rapidly . . . and there was nothing any of them could do to stop that.

"It's on it's knees," Cloak said, as the hologram gave its largest and longest wobble yet. "Its aging to death."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2018, 10:39:25 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Bore Witness

The hologram was now whizzing in and out of resolution. The texturing on the holographic model had been long gone for a few minutes now. The hologram was deteriorating, but that was nothing compared to what was happening within the hologram itself. Where this creature had resembled an enfeebled, emaciated, bald, androgynous octogenarian to an enfeebled, emaciated, bald, androgynous centenarian.

Within moments, the hologram would give out all together. Danger, despite no one else knowing the name it took for itself, was dying. Dying, and there wasn't a damn thing that anyone could do about it. No one but a chronokinetic could possibly reverse the effects of rapid aging. And there was no time, no time at all, to seek out a Chronosapien, a Chronian, or a Celestialsapien. And there was no guarantee that all they'd be doing is buying this poor creature another few minutes to live.

The other three apparently could not see this poor creature languishing like this. This . . . this was not what Cloak had anticipated. He hadn't even suspected that this would be how this would end. He felt guilt and shame at his attitude towards this thing -- and they never would know precisely why it lashed out at them.

Its black form was graying and the gold markings in addition to its golden eyes were becoming paler, and more silver. It seemed to age fifty years in the span of two minutes. The hologram was struggling to be displayed. The render was gone and the boy it projected looked like the rough animation of a CGI movie.

Cloak kept his face solemn as he pityingly bore witness to this dying creature. He probably should have let the others know this, but they read his body language. They knew.

"How long, Cloak?" Parker said. He adopted the tone one would at the bedside of a dying man.

"Shouldn't be too much longer," Cloak said, quietly.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Helen said, as the hologram popped out of existence. "Anything?"

Cloak sighed, solemnly, as he watched Danger's body collapsed upon the floor. It's breathing heavy and labored. There was no doubt that it was dying. It was aging itself to death.

"Not unless you can manipulate time itself, Helen," the Realm Walker said.

"There . . ." Parker said, stopping himself. But he couldn't help himself. "There is something we can do. But it . . ." he glanced at Helen, almost apologetically, ". . . it won't save it."

Helen's eyes widened, as she got what Parker was getting at, as did Az and Cloak. It was very clear that she didn't like it. But Danger was suffering. It was aging so rapidly that in a manner of minutes, if not seconds, its body would be dust. What Parker suggested was the only thing that they could give it -- mercy. And freedom from this pain that would made its body convulse, if not for the fact the body was exhausted. Its body was truly that of a dying invalid.

"Hesitation," Cloak said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "won't make it any easier. We must act now or --"

But it was already too late. Danger made a long exhale, but did not inhale. Its body collapsed into gray dust with tarnished bronze flecks. Danger had aged itself to death. There was no coming back from this kind of death.

"Um," Az said, uncertain. "What do we do now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 12, 2018, 06:19:50 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
To Be a RAFian

With the training room gone, the RAFians had to be more creative with their training. It didn't really affect Cloak's training regimen, as he never used the so-called "Danger Room". But the others no longer had that luxury.

Cloak looked on from his spot underneath a large oak tree. He watched Esplin training a couple of newbies to see if they were up to snuff. He was not afraid to get into their faces, either.

<Let's get down to business, to defeat the Banned.
Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?
You're the saddest bunch I ever met.
But you can bet before we're through --
Mister, I'll make a RAFian out of you!>

He got into the face of this newbie, who was quite intimidated at his Andalite face -- the lack of a mouth, the stalk eyes, the whole shebang.

<Tranquil as a forest,
But on fire within.
Once you find your center,
You are sure to win!
You're a spineless, pale pathetic lot,
And you haven't got a clue!
Somehow I'll make a RAFian out of you!>

Despite his gruff, intimidating exterior that Esplin was putting on, Cloak knew Falwell that Esplin was enjoying this. He was enjoying scaring these potential new RAFians.

One complained:

"I'm never gonna catch my breath."

Another complained:

"Say goodbye to those who knew me!"

Yet another repented:

"Boy, was I fool in school for cutting gym!"

Yet another regretted:

"Now I really wish that I knew how to swim!"

Cloak continued to watch with a sort of detached interested, trying not to think about Danger, the unnamed creature that aged to dust. They took care of the remains, but it wasn't something easily forgotten.

<Be a RAFian.
We must be swift as the coursing river.
Be a RAFian.
With all the force of a great typhoon.
Be a RAFian.
With all the strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!>

Cloak saw some improvements. These improvements looked promising. Except one.

<Time is racing toward us
Till the Banned arrive.
Heed my every order,
And you might survive!>

He turned to the one who wasn't improving, and sang:

<You're unsuited for the rage of war.
So pack up, go home.
You're through.
How could I make a RAFian out of you?>

This idealistic boy was turned away. He wasn't ready for the kind of demands being a RAFian has. They've learned from past events about having unqualified RAFians.

<Be a RAFian.
We must be swift as the coursing river.
Be a RAFian.
With all the force of a great typhoon.
Be a RAFian.
With all the strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
Be a RAFian.
We must be swift as the coursing river
Be a RAFian.
With all the force of a great typhoon
Be a RAFian.
With all the strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon.>

Now, would Esplin pass the remainder of these new recruits? They won't get a Mark until at least six months of service.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TVcLIfSC4OE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2018, 06:43:21 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Staying Frosty

Parker was dispatched to an evacuated ski resort. He wished that he could go up to the lodge and kick back by the open, inviting fire, pulling Helen close . . .

But he had a job to do. And he had to do a thorough job of it. But it became increasingly obvious that he would have to ski to the base of the resort to even find this fiend in the first place. It was not something that he enjoyed. Skiing down the mountain in insane weather conditions on a track that clearly was not maintained yet before the evacuation order. And all that in heavy SPARTAN armor, which alone should have made it impossible -- had it not been for the improvements Parker made to the armor during his years at RAF. Every time he came across a useful piece of tech for his armor, he would mimic and replicate it for his armor. This is what made it lighter than normal, but still.

At the bottom of the resort, he came across a shack where he deftly entered, and found a staircase leading downward. He immediately took it, where he eventually entered a large room where they clearly create more snow and ice if the skiing season's weather wasn't kind enough to oblige. There were ice blocks going on conveyor belts -- for some purpose that neither Parker nor Tyr could ascertain. But that wasn't too important as the creature was right before him.

The creature was twice as tall as Parker and three times as wide. Its white, mouthless, noseless head with a pale yellow cranium with four green divets was sunken into its massive torso. It had round, human-like eyes with dark orange sclera and pink irises. It had a round collar made of black ice bricks. The upper half of its torso was made of ice blocks in an opening-less igloo pattern, above a pale yellow section, with a cold generator emblem on its chest and back with black tubes linking the two. The creature's spherical shoulders were made from ice bricks sitting upon green sections that connected it to its white upper arms. Its lower arms were made of ice blocks with yellow wrists. It had black, mitten-like hands with attached knuckledusters. The knuckledusters were pale blue with silver nodes. Its waist was white and its pelvic area was light blue. Its thighs were white, pale yellow kneecaps, and its lower legs were made of ice blocks, like an igloo's main portion connected to yellow ankles. It had purple feet with blue, pod-like toes with four red divets.

It saw Parker and had a stupid-sounding guffaw as it generated several ice sculptures of him. It jumped and smashed half of them. Slammed its left fist down on a third of the remainder, then its right fist down on the second third of the remainder, and finally slammed both fists down on the final third. Then guffawed again, as if it was being clever.

"Oh, boy," Parker said, urged to rub his temples. "All muscle, and no brain."

It charged forward, with an ice-covered fist. Parker, surprised by this goliath's astonishing mobility and agility, had just managed to pivot and sidestep in order to avoid it. It slammed the ground, causing a crawling wave of ice spikes that slithered its way to Parker, who immediately and instinctively shot it.

It was here when he got the idea. He had to move quickly, for it to be effective. He threw a sticky bomb onto the fiends head. It exploded with a flash. But the fiend survived, only dazed by it. But Parker wasn't done -- that sticky bomb was just a distraction.

Parker had deftly adhered flashbang grenades on the fiend shoulders, torso, lower legs, and forearms. Parker then ran to a safe distance as the fiend collected its senses. Then Parker detonated the flashbangs.

It was done.

***

Demos called it a "furosutosapien". He said nothing more on the subject.

***

Malice watched it, but seemed restless and bored.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2018, 05:02:48 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXIV:
MOODY
CHAPTER ONE:
The Tengu Fiend

Az was dispatched to take care of the next fiend released. Honestly, how many of these things did Demos make unnoticed by anyone in the forum? Az used the Iceman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceman_(Marvel_Comics)) trick of creating a ice slide to the floating facility. It was rather curious that no one knew of this facility before now.

Upon landing upon the deck of this Helicarrier-like facility, he immediately became aware that this was a former Cadmus facility -- as their emblem was plastered everywhere. The strand of DNA within a beaker within an eye sigil was everywhere that it would have been aesthetically pleasing. But it was remarkable that this floating city (with minor aesthetics to the buildings on board that had a slight traditional Japanese architectural motif to it) was still somehow airborne without and visible means of propulsion, especially as it carried signs of being abandoned and defunct. Forgotten by Cadmus itself, apparently.

Az was given pause to wonder just how many of these abandoned and/or forgotten Cadmus facilities that there were. But his mind had hit upon an necessary point to consider -- when this facility loses power and falls, it would cause untold collateral damage, both in lives and property damage. He had to nip it in the bud -- he immediately when to what appeared to be the bridge of this aerial research facility. He immediately programmed the coordinates to the ocean -- just in case.

The fiend wasn't that hard to find either. It was right outside, on the deck, which wasn't unlike the deck of an aircraft carrier. The creature was the size of a rather tall human with triangular, human-like with one eye having a crimson sclera ands a brown iris and the other having a brown sclera and an black iris. It had barn swallow-like wings, with a jet pack-like structure on its back. It had a golden plates on the back of its head, which had brown hair sticking out here and there, and a green mask-like face without a mouth and a long, spike-like nose. It had a brown crest, and overlarge silver epaulets on its green shoulders. Its upper arms were brown with its elbows being purple. Its lower arms were zigzagged with monochromatic colors. Its right hand was black, while its left was a structure similar to that of a Shiftry's hand, and either red or orange (depending on how the light hit it). Its high chest was yellow with vertical orange stripe, with a brown abdomen. It had a green disc around its waist which came to a sharp edge all around. It had a green crotch with two purple rings where its legs met his body. It had brown thighs, brown growths on its knees that matched its crests with another purple ring over this. Its lower legs were black with white markings. Its feet were pod-like and orange with a green triangle marking that was oriented from toe inward. There was also a small red divet in each foot.

The creature saw Az, made a scoffing sound as it floated down near the ground, as if to get Az and it in the same camera shot. This it slashed outward with its leaf-like, three-pronged blade, and held a pose, as if it was posing dramatically for a camera.

"What the --" Az said, as it immediately floated up, hovering rather like a drunken hippo, Az thought. But this was a deception, for when it dived (blade forward, of course) it was with astonishing aerial mobility and agility. Az had somehow managed to do a rather poorly-executed backflip over this, escaping any harm from the attack.

Then, when it came back, it fired off its blade, which spun like an industrial fan. This cause a column of air to billow up, like a cylindrical tornado. But it stopped before it reached the end of the deck. Az dodged it by basically encasing it in ice, before the fiend regenerated the blade.

Az had had enough of this. When the tengu-based fiend landed, Az froze its feet to the floor and proceed to pummel it with ice punches and ice projectiles until it was no more.

Az, breathing hard, called Yarin for a pick up.

***

Demos called it a "tengusapien". Demos wouldn't elaborate on its purpose.

***

Malice watched with detached interest, asking herself why she was still doing this. She answered herself that it was because she hadn't anything better to do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2018, 11:05:00 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Dreams and Kluge

Cloak stood before . . . something unidentifiable. It a big mound of something. All he knew was that he had to get this thing out of here. He had to -- or else she would be mad at him. She would -- he rather not think what she would do. She was . . . scary, when she was mad. When there were not instant results.

Then he heard someone behind him. He asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," Wheeza said. "What do you plan to do now that you've found that? Keep it locked up at home?"

Cloak turned to the mound, "First, I have to get it out of here."

"AND THEN WHAT?!" Wheeza asked forcefully. "You never think these things through! This is exactly what happened when --"

"I would have figured something out!" Cloak protested.

"No!" Wheeza shouted. "If your RAFians hadn't found you, you would have frozen to death!"

"I know my own destiny --"

"Is it your OWN destiny?" she asked. "Or is it a destiny that another has tried to force on you?"

"Stop it, Wheeza, I have to do this."

"Cloak, I'm BEGGING you," Wheeza said emphatically, "it's time for you to look inward, and start asking yourself the big questions. Who are YOU and what do YOU want?"

Cloak collapsed with his hand on his head . . . *

Then he woke up. He was alone in his thread, so he felt no compunction in allowing himself to cry openly. Her death . . . it still hurt. He still missed her dearly.

He knew it was just a dream, and that he wasn't really talking to the real Wheeza. But it just reminded him how much he missed her. . . .

***

His name was Doctor Emanuel Lucius Kluge. He was a bit what you may call a mad scientist, though his doctorate was legitimate, unlike a lot of mad scientists running around nowadays.

He was a neuroscientist, specialized in what he called emotionology. He specifically researched how the human brain reacted to various emotions. He had become curious if there was a technological means to manipulate another's emotions. This is where the mad scientist part comes in.

He had successfully mapped how the human brain processes various emotions: sorrow, shyness, suffering, boredom, surprise, shock, trust, awe, wonder, shame, worry, confidence, self-confidence, anger, schadenfreude (the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another), contempt, saudade (deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves), attraction, sadness, contentment, resentment, avarice, remorse, curiosity, regret, apathy, rage, depression, pride, anticipation, pleasure, desire, pity, fear, passion, despair, panic, annoyance, outrage, disappointment, lust, courage, loneliness, disgust, joy, anguish, jealously, hope, interest, distrust, humiliation, angst, hostility, ecstasy, horror, compassion, hatred, embarrassment, happiness, affection, empathy, guilt, love, grief, enthusiasm, gratitude, anxiety, frustration, envy, and euphoria. It was one of the most comprehensive mapping of the human emotional spectrum ever done, and it was a massive undertaking that Emanuel undertook with great enthusiasm and gleeful abandon.

He quantified all those into seven emotions -- which, unsurprisingly, aligned with the emotional spectrum (with courage replacing willpower, which, technically speaking, wasn't an emotion). From there, he created several small chips which looked rather like the faceplate of the Omnitrix only black and blank, with four metal clamps on it. They were roughly the size of small coins. He called them, and trademarked them, as "moodulators",  a portmanteau of "mood" and "modulators".

They were intended to stick to a person -- humans, obviously, as he hadn't mapped any other species' brain who were capable of emotion. Anyway, the moodulators were designed to adhere to the skin of a human being where the skull and spine met, right beneath the hairline. From there, when activated, they could control the chipped target's emotions -- although he only really got far enough to program in anger, greed, fear, courage, hope, compassion, and love.

And all these moodulators were controlled by a simple device that looked remarkably like a smartphone, with a rather generic cover on it. He just thought a touch screen interface to control these devices would be simpler and easier to use than some clunky remote control device out of the eighties.

He had no idea if these moodulators would even work, and never conceived of the kind of misuse such a device would have. He just wanted to see if it was possible.

---

* Based on this (https://youtube.com/watch?v=aYkuuu9u3EI).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 16, 2018, 07:28:53 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Break-In

"Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy Perkins!"* shouted a sudden voice.

Kluge jumped in surprise. He wasn't expecting anyone, especially at this late hour. And, in any case, he usually turned away visitors, especially the uninvited kind.

"Gee, thanks, Leroy," came an angry woman's voice with an acerbic tone, as a dark figure in full Knight of humanity regalia burst into the room that Kluge and the moodulators were in. "There goes the element of surprise. Not to mention he now knows your name, you damn fool!"

This figure was followed by two others in full Knight regalia: full-body metal armor, with helmets that recalled an Empoleon head (but in full metal), with a white cloth draped onto their shoulders and tied at the waist. The edges of this cloth were colored blood red, with the emblem of the Knights -- a stylized "KoH" in forced perspective -- on their chests.

"Your impetuous act may have already jeopardized the mission, Perkins," said the other, in a slow, calm drawl with a deep voice. "How you ever managed to get into the elite guard, I don't know."

"He's the Knight King's brother-in-law," the woman sneered. Her name was Irma Essex, and she took secret pride in being a member of the elite guard of her chapter of the Knights, but she wasn't brave enough to do it with her face uncovered. "He didn't earn this position. He never worked for it!"

"I'm right here!" Leroy protested at being talked about as if he wasn't present.

"Oh, be silent." said the other knight, a man named Lyndon J. Bauer. "Your hasty actions have grown old for a long time. Shut your mouth for one time in your life, and use your head to think!"

Leroy was mollified into silence.

"Excuse me," Kluge said, with all the dignity he could muster. "But I haven't the time or energy to entertain such . . . ah, flamboyant personalities such as yours."

Kluge knew nothing of the Knights of Humanity. He never kept up with current events. So, he didn't know the danger he was in. He didn't seem to notice Leroy's sword, still in his scabbard. Didn't notice the double-headed battle-ax at Lyndon's belt. Didn't notice the heavy mace in Irma's belt. They weren't toys. They were clearly prepared to use violence. Kludge didn't recognize the position he was in.

"Silence, old man!" Irma snarled.

Kluge seemed to register this, finally taking the weapons into account, and came to the correct conclusion. He said, "What is it that you're after?"

"We've heard word that you've come up with a mind controlling tech," Lyndon said. "We've come to appropriate it for our own uses."

This admission just showcased how the Knights' xenophobic rhetoric flounders wildly in the marketplace of ideas. They have to deceive, manipulate, and force people to believe their lies, mistruths, and half-truths. Xenophobia generally never has any science or facts to prop it up, just pseudofacts and pseudoscience.

"You've been misinformed," Kluge said, apparently unaware that this wasn't the answer that they wanted. "My work had nothing to do with mind control. I'm sorry that you've gone all this way for nothing."

This was the wrong answer.

---

* Yes, a reference to Leroy Jenkins.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2018, 08:41:37 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Unseen Security Detail

"Be silent, old man! Just give us the goods! " Irma snarled, fingering her mace in a malicious manner. "Or else."

"Or else what?" Kluge asked, mildly. He wasn't as afraid as he should be, it would seem. Or maybe, like Cloak, he internalized his emotions, and his external reactions seemed placid and apathetic.

"Use you imagination!" Lyndon snarled, now fingering his axe.

"But you are mistaken. My work hasn't a thing to do with controlling the mind, but the manipulation of --"

"Stop your talking, old man! Just hand it over!" Irma said, hand on her mace's handle. She was rather eager to use it, but was exercising all her restraint not to go bashing heads. "Comply or we get . . . physical."

"I cannot give you the technology you want," Kluge said, succinctly, "as it does not exist."

"And now we bash -- urgh!" Irma began, before she, Leroy, and Lyndon were thrown against the far wall. Irma and Leroy was knocked into the tub of moodulators. Their helmets lifted off, faces revealed. Leroy was baby-faced with red hair and freckles, Lyndon was an older man with white hair, and Irma was a woman with black hair and a pinched, snobby face. And there was now a moodulator on Irma's and Leroy's necks, unnoticed by everyone.

"He said no," came a voice from the darkness. "'No' means 'no'."

"You'd think, after all this time, they'd know not to use metal armor," came another voice, with acidic disdain.

"Perhaps they didn't expect us to be watching them," came another, quieter voice.

"Who's there?" Kluge asked, politely. He was starting to think his whole moodulator experimentation was not worth it, if there were people who wanted to steal them thinking that they were mind control tech. He made a mental note to destroy all of them after this whole ordeal was over. It just wasn't worth it anymore.

In response to his question, Cloak came from the shadow, his cloak mincing around his body like a deadly guillotine pendulum. His amber, feline eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. To his right, Shinobi and Blue appeared, as if materializing out of the darkness. To his left, GH and Leatherhead (not in his human suit, as it was still being cleaned) stumbled out of the darkness. Leatherhead wore a blue backpack with fluorescent yellow straps and zipper tassels.

Cloak released his ferrokinetic hold on the Knights, and gave them a baleful, scornful look. "And this is why you're considered D-list villains. This is why you are considered jokes. Laughingstocks! You know of my mastery over metal, and what do you do? Use it as your uniform. You're more pathetic than the Banned. At least Queen considers these things more."

"Shut up!" Irma said, throwing the tub of moodulators -- the technology they were actually after, ironically enough -- toward Blue and Shinobi. They appeared to dodge it, but Shinobi had somehow got a moodulator lodged onto his neck, unnoticed by the neophyte RAFian.

"Pathetic, Knight," Blue said, disdainfully. "Pathetic actions, shameful rhetoric."

The three Knights righted themselves, and drew their weapons.

"You cannot be serious right now," Cloak said, his stoicism giving way to annoyance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 18, 2018, 06:17:16 AM

Memoirs is six years old today!

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Battle Commences

The three charged forward, towards Leatherhead. Leatherhead cowered at this blantant targeting at the overtly youngest, overtly nonhuman RAFian. GH had feared that he was not ready yet, especially after the werecat incidents.

"I guess they are being serious right now," Cloak sighed at the sheer incompetence of the three.

GH blocked the three's path with his body, unshouldering his guitar, grasping it by its neck, and turning it into its battle axe form. This was a nonverbal sign towards the three that said, very clearly, "stay away from my son, you bastards". This caused Leatherhead to be jostled backward, knocking the wooden bookshelf, painted black, behind him. Something small and flat slid into his open bookbag without him realizing.

But the three frozen after three steps. Cloak had exercised his Mastery over the Metal element again. He looked seriously annoyed by the three.

"Master of Metal, remember?" Cloak said, his annoyance plain in his voice. "You should, after all. I demonstrated it not more than three minutes ago!!"

Cloak's eyes glowed briefly gold and scarlet, before he shut his eyes, and calmed himself down. He took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again, and they returned to their normal amber.

"You Knights," he growled, "are all the same. You are nothing more than thugs playing dress-up. You Knights are nothing more than pathetic, xenophobic children with frangible ethics and questionable motives."

He heard several protests from the three that came out as a cacophonous noise, which caused their voices to be tangled up. Their messages were uninterrupted due to this.

"Your goals are both foolish and counterproductive to human society at large," Cloak said. "Bigotry and xenophobia holds back your society. They are the malignant cancers of any society."

Cloak turned to Kluge, and said, "Sorry to impose upon your hospitality, we shall take our leave now. And we will take these three to the police -- we may need you to make a report."

"Very well," Kluge said, deciding to destroy the moodulators as soon as they returned. He would never know that three were.missing -- he never counted them.

"The Knights own the police!" Leroy roared. "There are a number of our people in there!"

"LEROY!!!" the other two yelled.

"Really?" Cloak said, dryly. He wasn't really surprised at the news. "How surprising. Like who?"

"A.J. Pi, Eddie Carson, and Ike O'Reilly!" Leroy said, as if he was playing a trump card.

Cloak smiled. They hadn't met a Knight with such loose lips before.

"Interesting," Cloak said, as the other two admonished him again. Cloak thought Police Chief Justice would find this very interesting, and internal affairs would be called in. "And just what did they do, as police officers?"

"YOU SAY ANYTHING ELSE, LEROY, AND I SWEAR THAT WHEN I CAN MOVE AGAIN I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY OWN BARE HANDS!!!" Irma roared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on January 19, 2018, 02:49:26 AM

164 books of this in 6 years. That's an insane amount of dedication. Here's to how many more left until the end.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 19, 2018, 05:20:22 AM

We'll see.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Courage Control

When they got to GH's thread, GH turn on the television for Leatherhead, while he got to work on some pedal thing for his guitar's amp. He was planning to totally Tim Taylor (Tim Allen's character on "Home Improvement") it. Supe it up, and hopefully get halfway decent sound from it. It was delicate work, so he asked Leatherhead to just play quietly, or watch cartoons.

Leatherhead, not in a particularly fussy mood, complied with no objection. He immediately found his humansuit, freshly laundered by the forum's house-elves, and he immediately put it on. He saw it as a human six-year-old would see a play suit, only this was full-body. Then he rooted in his bookbag, and pulled out what appeared to be a smartphone.

He turned it on, after giving a slight glance at GH who was busy at work, saying what Leatherhead came to know as naughty words, or "grown-up words". Then he touched the touchpad, bringing up several emoji, and he tapped the one in the center. The phone's screen went green with a "courageous" emoji on it. . . .

***

Shinobi and Blue were training by meditating, both unaware of the moodulator on Shinobi's neck. Both were silent, focusing their thoughts and abandoning their emotions.

Shinobi felt a sudden swell of emotion, of courage that was unfiltered and potentially dangerous, but the meditation actually suppressed the full effects of the moodulators. Not too surprising as they have never been tested for weakness before Kluge mass produced them.

***

Irma, Leroy, and Lyndon were kneeling before the KoH King -- they thought the term "King of Humanity" was a bit self-aggrandizing, and didn't really fall into their beliefs -- the KoH King, named Jeffrey Booker (his wife was Meredith Perkins-Booker). King Booker was displeased with their apparent failure, all present unaware that Leroy and Irma had moodulators on their necks, as their hair hid them.

"You failed to procure the mind control technology," King Booker barraded. "And what's more? You compromised the identities of our moles in the local police force!! It was not easy getting them in those positions, you know!"

It was at this point that the moodulators L.E.D. screens, unnoticed by all, lit up green with the "courageous" emoji. Irma and Leroy felt a sudden, inexplicable swell of feeling in their being. It was like fear of consequence and inhibition due to repercussion was wiped away. The moodulator had eliminated all other emotion other than courage. And, while having courage was a remarkable thing, without perspective and clarity, it becomes little more than arrogance and being overbearing.

Irma interrupted King Booker and sang:

"It's time you learned a lesson.
It's time that you understand.
We don't ever count on anybody else
From any other land!
I once hoped for leadership,
To find a place among my kind.
But those were the childish wishes
Of someone who was blind."

But Leroy wasn't taking this laying down:

"Maybe I make things a mess,
And maybe you're right to have doubts in me.
Maybe, but nevertheless!
If you for once could just trust me."

Irma continued, addressing King Booker, without acknowledging Leroy:

"Open up your eyes!
See the world from where I stand!
Me, among the mighty!
Him, failed at your command.
Open up your eyes!"

Leroy persisted:

"Just this once let me come through for you
The way that you want me to!"

Irma addressed Leroy now:

"Give up your sweet fantasy land!
It's time to grow up and get wise!
Come now, little one, open up your eyes!"

Leroy ignored her and sang, addressing the KoH King:

"Let me make you proud.
Let me show you the best in me.
Let me give you a reason to believe that I can stand tall!"

Irma sang, more to herself than anyone else:

"We all start out the same
With simple naive trust,
Shielded from the many ways
That life's not fair or just.
But then there comes a moment,
A simple truth that you must face.
If you depend on anyone else,
You'll never find your place."

Leroy persisted still, addressing the KoH King:

"And when I return --
And I'm more than you dreamt I'd be --
Maybe then you will realize that you never actually knew me at all!"

Irma sang, addressing no one in particular:

"And as you take that first step,
Upon a path that's all your own,
You see it all so clearly.
The best way to survive is all alone!"

Leroy sang more:

"Sure, I've made lots of mistakes.
I know that I've disappointed you.
Still, though, whatever it takes
I'm gonna fix it, just watch me."

Irma belted out, as Lyndon watched all this confused and dumbfounded into incredulous silence.

"Open up your eyes!
See the world from where I stand!
Me, among the mighty!
Him, failed at your command.
Open up your eyes!"

Leroy continued:

"Just you wait, I'll make it up to you.
If it's the last thing I ever do
I will make you proud.
I will make you have faith in me.
I will prove that the way I used to be is all in the past!"

Irma concluded:

"And behold the faded light!
It's time to grow up and get wise.
Come now, my King, open up your eyes!
Open up your eyes!"

And Leroy concluded:

"I will save the day
And come back here triumphantly.
'Cause I long for that look of surprise when you see me rising at last,
The pride in your eyes when you see me rising at last."

King Booker just stood at the top of his throne's dais, looking stoically onward. But he was hiding his irritation as the green glow from the moodulators faded, with the two looking on horrified.

"ENOUGH!!!" he bellowed. "Get out of my sight. All three of you. Now."

When they hesitated, he replied, "Did. I. STUTTER?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UvZrcLFYpWk and https://youtube.com/watch?v=iF6SzWvggq0.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2018, 09:07:01 PM

Sorry for the delay. Work was very hard on me -- I have to deal with this one ***** antagonizing me and the rest of the kitchen hates her as much I do, but my boss just LETS her hateful, pompous attitude turn the kitchen into a hostile work environment. I'll be looking for a new job soon because of it. This ***** is really intolerable, and I'm sick of the preferential treatment she evidently gets. She should have been fired a while ago.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Fear -- the Ultimate Enemy

Well, that seemed to do nothing interesting, Leatherhead determined. So he tapped the screen again, returning back to the previous screen with the seven emojis. He tapped the third one from the left, and the smartphone's screen turned yellow with a "scared" emoji.

***

Shinobi was done meditating with Blue, and he was only vaguely aware of the moodulator's previous activation. But he passed it off as nothing. He had to focus on sparring with Blue now. He was holding his own, but Blue was also pulling his punches.

Then the moodulator activated, and all of Shinobi's emotions were suppressed, other than fear. Shin never such overwhelming fear such as this. His heart beat furiously, as if desperate to break out of his ribcage. His breathing shallowed. He saw Blue as a hulking shadow with a ninjabo. He felt as if his very life was in jeopardy.

So, he cowered. He begged a perplexed and confused Blue not to hurt him, as he curled up into a prone ball, rocking back and forth, shivering with fear. Blue briefly considered that this might be a ruse to get him to let his guard down -- he had taught Shin that tactic already, and Shin knew how to use it -- but, after a few seconds hesitation, he realized that this sudden, inexplicable fear was not a facade or a hoax. It was genuine, all-consuming fear. Blue knew what that looked like.

"Pl-please . . . d-don't hurt m-me . . ." Shin stammered as he cowered.

"Shin," Blue said, genuinely concerned now. Shinobi was not this cowardly. He was not this prone to fear. Something had happened, but Blue couldn't put his finger on what it was. Did he trigger some sort of latent trauma in the boy? Being a member of the League could be very traumatic, especially for an abducted child who never had a choice to be there, but knew nothing else. "Shin, what's . . . what's wrong?"

Shinobi said nothing, but shivered like a vibrating cat toy. He felt nothing but fear. He did not know where it came from, but it was present. He never liked feeling afraid. Cowardice was punished most severely at the League of Assassins. Age was not a mitigating factor in this. Even the youngest child was given harsh punishments if the higher ups decided they were behaving cowardly. Or behaving merciful, for that matter. They wanted all their assassins to be fearless and deadly.

Then, suddenly, all at once, this intense fear subsided and he was able to feel more than simple, all-consuming fear.

***

"Did we just do that?" Leroy asked, a few minutes after the deactivation of his moodulator. "Did we seriously just do that?"

"You spiked my drink, didn't you, you little weasel?" Irma snarled at Leroy. She always liked to antagonize him. "Thought you'd make me all tipsy, and so you could usurp me?"

"Hey! There's no need for --" Lyndon barked.

It was at this moment that the whole atmosphere changed on a dime. Irma's anger evaporated, replaced immediately with the deepest kind of fear imaginable. Leroy's fear doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled, until he felt nothing else. Both paced frantically, with Leroy wringing his hands fretfully and Irma suppressing shivers of fright.

"He'll have our heads for speaking to him in such a way," Leroy said, rather pathetically.

"Worse! He'll turn us out!" Irma lamented fearfully. "We will have nowhere to go, nowhere to turn!! And we've dealt with more of those dirty invaders, that alien filth, than any other Knight! And we made one misstep -- one little misstep and it could have ruined everything!"

Even fearfully hysterical, Irma couldn't help but boast.

"We're doomed!" Irma continued with her terrified theatrics. "Everything we've ever worked for, everything we've ever achieved -- all gone do to a moment of insanity!"

"He's going to literally kill us," Leroy said, more concerned with the more direct threat to their lives. "He's going to have us killed."

It was at this point that the moodulator turned off, but the fear lingered. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2018, 06:07:32 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Sweet Hearts

Well, that didn't do anything, Leatherhead thought, disappointed. None of these apps seemed to do anything. But there were still four left. Maybe they did something.

He clicked the one furtherest to the right, the violet one. The screen turned a violent shade of violet and had a big emoji of a heart. Leatherhead, the six-year-old, thought it was rather girly.

***

After the moodulator's yellow "fear" function deactivated, Shin found himself very embarrassed, flummoxed in trying to explain to Blue what just happened. It was quite out of character for Shin to display such outward emotions. That's one thing that the League frowned upon. And you didn't want to do something they frowned upon. Your very life could depend upon it.

Then the still unseen moodulator flashed to the violet setting, and Shin found himself feeling nothing but love. It was a grateful love, and it filled him, blocking out and denying any other feeling. And Shin began to . . . gush.

Needless to say, Blue was starting to feel real uncomfortable about this. He wasn't used to Shin being so open and vulnerable to him, and the ninja found it a bit offputting. Especially due the fact that it came out of the blue. Uh, pun not intended.

But Blue was an experienced enough RAFian to know that this was not . . . well, it wasn't in character for him. Something was going on -- but there were a myriad of possibilities to consider for this odd, and, frankly, concerning behavior.

***

When the moodulators went to their violet "love" setting, Leroy and Irma reacted . . . differently from Shin. Very differently.

"What the hell is the matter with you two?" Lyndon demanded, as he tried not to watch them . . . going at it.

***

Inside a shack-like warehouse, GH was chained to the floor. His jailor was a slender teen with fair skin, shaggy brown hair with light brown and blue highlights, freckles, two front buck teeth, and light blue eyes. He wore a brown shirt with a red patch sewn on to it, gray pants, light brown apron, black gloves, light gray shoes, and a navy blue bowler hat with large cartoony eyes, not unlike Cappy from "Super Mario Odyssey". These eyes mimicked, in real time, the expressions on the boy's face.

"Any moment now, 'King of Birbs'," he said, antagonistically, as he worked on something that looked like Nemetrix Beetle. Then he sang:

"Believe me, I know
I've sunk pretty low,
But, whatever I've done, you deserve."

"Rotiart . . ." GH said, despite the clacking of his golden chains.

Rotiart snapped, "Quiet!"

"I'm the bad guy, that's fine!
It's no fault of mine,
And, at last, some justice will be served."

"Please, Rotiart, listen," GH pleaded. But he was ignored, as Rotiart continued singing.

"Now it's time to step up or it's time to back down,
And there's only one answer for me.
And I'll stand up and fight
'Coz I know that I'm right.
And I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready! Ready as I'll ever be!"

Meanwhile, back at the forum, Cloak was reclining on an infirmary cot. Kelly was doing her best to tend to his internal injuries -- but due to the nature of Realm Walker physiology, this was proving . . . rather difficult. Cloak allowed a groan of pain to slip out.

"Cloak, are you sure that you're up for this?" Dek, the RAFian Zirkonian, asked.

"Actually, I don't think I am," the Realm Walker confessed, "I'll only slow you down."

"But how are you gonna lead the assault?" Salad inquired.

Cloak's reply was simple, "I'm not. She is."

It was at this point Shadow, now a young adult (despite the fact this was incongruity as the RAFians were the same ages that they were supposed to be), strode into view, looking proud, if a tad nervous. She sung:

"Now it's time to rise up or it's time to stand down,
And the answer is easy to see.
And I swear by my uncle's sword,
If you're in, get on board!
Are you ready?"

Dek sang:

"I'm ready!"

The rest of the RAFians sang:

"We're ready, we're ready!"

Shadow concluded:

"Ready as we'll ever be."

Meanwhile, Dino was approaching Leatherhead, who looked to be an adult. Upon seeing Dino, he said, "There you are!"

Apparently, Dino was struggling with some doubts, as she sang:

"Are you quite sure you can do this?"

To which Leatherhead replied in song:

"Together, we will! Guaranteed!"

Rotiart sang:

"I'll make them fear me!"

Shadow sang:

"I will prove they can trust me!"

Leatherhead sang:

"I'll save my home and family."

All sang:

"Now the line's in the sand, and our moment's at hand!"

Dek sang:

"And I'm ready!"

Shadow sang:

"I'm ready!"

Dino and Leatherhead sang:

"I'm ready!"

Rotiart concluded the song.

"Ready as I'll ever be . . . "

Naturally, at this point Cloak awoke. He had just planned to lay down for a bit -- he hadn't expected to fall asleep. He spent the next few moments trying to sort out whether it was a Truth Dream.or just a simple, run-of-the-mill ones.

It took him a moment to notice the high-pitched sound, which was shrill as a squeaking industrial dishwasher. Exceedingly annoying.

---

*SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=r-PYYaoq0fY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 25, 2018, 06:02:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Rage Age

Leatherhead nodded, that one was boring. All these apps were boring. They just showed a colored screen with a different emoji. Where were the games? Every smartphone had Candy Crush, right? Or Fruit Ninja? Where were those?

He clicked on the one furthest to the right, the red one. The screen became solidly crimson as the "angry" emoji*

***

When the "love" setting was deactivated from his moodulator, Shin felt immensely embarrassed for how mushy got thanking Blue for taking him, saving him from the abusive League of Assassins.

But, in as big a mood swing as you can get, all his emotions were pushed out of the way and turned off. In this emotional void, unbridled anger and unrestrained rage bubbled forth to fill it. He grabbed his training ninjabo, and gripped it tightly.

Then he immediately went into attack Blue, who was ill-prepared for this. But, fortunately, the training sword was blunt and little more than a stick. However, after the first strike, Blue was more prepared and had his guard up. He was sure something was going on with Shin, something artificial. No one has mood swings with this extreme severity, he was sure.

With every strike, Blue parried. With every block, Blue broke. Blue had more experience, a stronger technique, and his mind wasn't clouded with anger. This only served to make him angrier, and make Shin's attacks more reckless, techniques more sloppy, and his thoughts far more muddled. Anger often erodes objectivity and tends to consumes an unnecessary amount of energy. Rage was a fire, that leaves you hollow and empty when you become apathetic after the rage is spent.

And, when the "angry" function deactivated, Shin felt this in full force. Shin did not like to be angry. While the League like to cultivate "ragers", they would punish them if they got too out of hand. Nobody wanted to be a rager.

"Are you okay, Shinobi?" Blue asked.

" I -- I don't know," was his reply.

***

When the "love" function had turned off, Irma and Leroy immediately stopped being enamored with each other. Irma's face immediately became beat red with embarrassment and began accusing Leroy of some not very nice things, and he pushed back with saying that she had led him on, that she was using this as an excuse to punish him legally later.

"What the hell is going on with you two?!" Lyndon asked.

"STAY OUT OF IT!!!" the two yelled, before going back at each others' throats. When the "angry" function activated, this escalated to rather . . . dangerous levels. Much more when you consider that both had weapons.

Within seconds, Leroy had his sword in his hand, and Irma had her mace in hers. Lyndon realized what was going on, what the two intended, and he did his best to defuse the situation. But neither one was listening to him. Their weapons were clashing to loudly to pay attention to distractions like Lyndon.

They only stopped when the moodulator's "angry" function ceased and exhaustion took over.

***

This shrill sound wouldn't stop. And his feline curiosity was getting the better of him. He had find out what it was. He put on his cloak, and left his thread to follow this annoyingly shrill sound. He had to go slowly, to make sure he finds the true source.

---

* You know, this: >:(

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 26, 2018, 05:30:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Avarice Availability

Leatherhead found this one more or less as entertaining as the one before, which wasn't entertaining at all. He clicked the orange one right next to it. The screen became orange with an emoji of a hand with business suit cuff, clutching a small stack of money with a deathly iron grip.

***

Shin was scared. He didn't know what was going on with him emotionally. He decided that he needed to meditate. Blue offered to join him, and Shinobi took him upon the offer. He was afraid of what would happen if . . . if he wasn't watched. What emotion would . . . would take him over.

It felt rather . . . invasive now. How all his myriad of emotions were roughly shoved aside within him, to allow one singular one to fill him up. Fill him up to a ridiculous --
and dangerous -- extreme. Beings that only feel one, singular emotion -- whatever it may be -- can be just as dangerous as a mentally unstable one.

Then he felt it happen again. He felt all his emotions being pushed aside, like Moses crossing that sea. He felt the emotion filling him up, but he didn't recognize it. It was a feeling of want. It was a feeling of never having enough. It was a feeling of having more, and more, and more. It was then that Shin was able to acknowledge it and resist its effects -- presumably because of his meditation.

It was avarice. Greed. It was something that Shinobi hadn't really been allowed to feel when he was at the League. The High Council frowned upon it, and they saw it against their own interests, as it would severely limit their own coffers. His mind wandered to the treasury of the League, full of a sea of gold coins, a smooth, ellipsoid white pearl, an unfaceted, round blue pearl, an unfaceted, round yellow pearl, a smooth, ellipsoid pink pearl (which had eventually went missing), a white diamond, a yellow diamond with a diamond facet, a blue diamond with a kite diamond facet, a five-sided pink diamond (which was shattered somehow), a kite diamond faceted holly blue agate in the shape of teardrop, an unfaceted, polished aquamarine in the shape of a teardrop, two topazes with triangular facets and a circular central facet, six rubies each with a square facet, an emerald with a typical emerald cut, a triangular jasper with a low facet, a four-faceted rectangular blue zircon, a four-faceted rectangular green zircon, a circular carnelian with a hexagonal facet, three unfaceted, triangular fluorites, a fluorite with a circular cut and facet, a unfaceted, circular fluorite, a rhomboidal fluorite with a rhomboidal facet, two fused rutile gems in a reverse "y" shape with two facets, a polished, unfaceted, circular rhodonite, a circular rhodonite with a square facet, a circular padparadscha sapphire with a triangular facet, a polished, unfaceted lapis lazuli in a teardrop shape, a circular rose quartz with a pentagonal facet, a circular amethyst with a hexagonal facet, a triangular peridot with facets around the edges, a circular blue sapphire with a triangular facet, a circular garnet with a triangular facet, a circular garnet with a square facet, a smooth, ellipsoid opal, a circular opal with a hexagonal facet, a circular sugillite with a hexagonal facet, a circular sugillite with a triangular facet, a circular sugillite with a square facet, a smooth, ellipsoid sardonyx, a circular sardonyx with a triangular facet, a circular sardonyx with a square facet, a circular alexandrite with a hexagonal facet, a circular alexandrite with a triangular facet, a circular alexandrite with a square facet, a smooth, ellipsoid alexandrite, a smooth, teardrop-shaped malachite, a triangular malachite with a low facet, a circular rainbow quartz with a pentagonal facet, a smooth, ellipsoid rainbow quartz, a circular smoky quartz with a pentagonal facet, a circular smoky quartz with a hexagonal facet, a . . .

He shook his head. It was starting to clear as the moodulator was starting to deactivate. He hadn't resisted this all that well, he felt.

***

The two were on their butts, exhausted from the fighting, ignored by the other Knights, who didn't care if the two killed each other, spilling their so-called "pure human" blood. Sort of proving how BS their rhetoric is.

They were in the cafeteria when their moodulators activated again. They grabbed as much food as they could (barely being able to afford it), and began to shovel the food into their mouths as if there was no tomorrow. As if they we're afraid that they'd starve if they weren't greedily gluttonous, like a Taxxon.

Lyndon was disgusted by these actions, but his concern for the two deepened. They were both acting very strange. Very strange, indeed. He started to wonder if they were being manipulated by an alien source. Maybe they were infested with parasitic non-Terran filth, or that some alien monster had clawed its way into their heads.

Honestly, that made the most sense to Lyndon. Something was manipulating their emotions, but for what end? It didn't matter. These alien filth didn't need a reason to do their sinful acts, to occupy this planet illegally, to prepare for their inevitable invasion forces. His daddy was always right about this sort of thing.

***

Cloak approached slowly cautiously, listening intently. He was still following the sound. It was shrill, in a very harsh sort of way. But was getting closer. He was sure of it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2018, 09:14:10 AM

Sorry for the tardiness, both work and the weather have been getting to me, wearing me out.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Putting Hope on the Ballot*

Nope, that was boring, too, Leatherhead decided. He tapped the screen again, and then tapped the third one from the left. The screen became blue with a "hopeful" emoji -- an emoji of a red, tulip-like flower -- on it. Maybe this one would be a game of some sort. Maybe like Angry Bird.

***

Shin continued to try to meditate to resist whatever is making him feel like this. To try to resist whatever emotion would fill him up to the exclusion of any other emotion. He found himself wondering what, precisely, was behind him feeling like that during these . . . episodes. Was it magical in nature, or technological? Biological or chemical? In any case, he knew that it would turn out for the best.

He knew that all would be well. And he found a certain kind of peace in this knowledge. However, he didn't realize or recognize the swelling hope he suddenly felt was actually a result of the moodulator. Fortunately, this was a less extreme emotion, as pure hope is usually meaningless without the willpower or courage behind it to accomplish anything. Due to the very nature of the moodulator, this is wasn't really possible.

But he found himself not really thinking about acting upon this swell of hope within himself, just feeling that all will be well with perfect confidence in it. He sat there meditating, unaware that the moodulator took effect. Unaware that he was only feeling such hope from the machine hidden on his neck.

"All will be well" was a constant mantra in his head, without him recognizing that the thought was not really his own, but one influenced by the moodulator. His mentor, Blue, was meditating, too, but he was keeping a sharp eye on Shin, wondering if he was okay.

Blue, though he never said it aloud or would admit to thinking it, was wondering if it was such a good idea now that he took in Shin as a protege. Grant, Blue didn't know about the moodulator, hidden by a high red scarf that Shin like to wear that gave him the superficial appearance of Strider Hiryu (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelvscapcom/images/3/36/HiryuStrider.png/revision/latest?cb=20170818130540), only much younger. But Blue thought that if he gave into his misgivings now, that would be cruel to young Shin. He thought if he admitted aloud that he may have been in over his head by taking in Shin, it would make the boy feel unwanted and unwelcomed -- something Blue abjectly did not want Shin to feel at all with their current situation. But something had to be up -- one didn't just cycle through emotions in this manner, as if they were numbers on an archaic rotary phone.

***

The two stopped shoving and shoveling food into their mouths, looking, frankly, embarrassed. Lyndon had managed to steer them out of the Knight cafeteria, and down a further corridor. He didn't say anything, as his eyes raked them, looking for any exoparasite that could be causing such behaviors (apparently, completely missing the moodulators adhered to their skin, hidden by their hair).

"Something is going on with you two," Lyndon accused. "First, you two tell of Knight King. Then you make out -- and that's, honestly, the kindest interpretation. Then you two start shoveling food into your gullets as if it was some sort of competition! Everyone saw you do this, too! Patrick, Cosmo, Angelica, Eliza, Bill, Catherine, Jeremy, Sandy, Dora, Dave, Kevin, Donnie, Tiana, Cory, Ruthie, Ernestine, David, Heather, Jimmy, Aileen, Lucy, Sergio, Diego, Mike, Tommy, Bob, Wanda, Chuckie -- they all saw you! And you know that they're not all going to hold their tongue about it!"

But, instead of panicking at this and feeling the utter embarrassment from it, the two looked rather serene and oblivious. Not unlike descriptions of Luna Lovegood from "Harry Potter". All other emotion had washed away from them, and they felt nothing but placid hope.

"All will be well," the two said, in unison.

"What?!" Lyndon snapped. Before recognizing they were having another episode. "Oh, no. Not AGAIN."

***

Cloak had found himself in front of a door. He recognized who the owner of it, and he was sure the sound was emitting from behind it. Why would GH be making such a noise?

---

* Yes, this is a reference to the ridiculous rhetoric of Tom Perez.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2018, 07:20:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Last App

What a stupid phone!

Leatherhead was less than pleased with this new acquisition. What kind of smartphone didn't have any games on it? It had to have been broken. But wait -- there was still one more app he had yet to try. Maybe this one actually had a game on it?

Leatherhead tapped the purple icon, and the screen turned indigo with an emoji with halo on it, and nothing more. The six-year-old was not happy. This wasn't a game. It was supposed be a game, and it wasn't.

***

Shinobi realized that this sudden swelling of hope he felt towards the exclusion of every other emotion was another effect of whatever held this hold over him. He was much too embarrassed to admit this aloud. What sort of ninja, what sort of RAFian would he be if he couldn't master his emotions? If he couldn't best whatever this was that held this control over his emotions.

But, then it happened again, a emotions were swept away from him. All except compassion. A passionate compassion for others. He still meditated, and, this time, was able to acknowledge that this wasn't natural. This compassion he felt wasn't natural -- sure, it stemmed from legitimate compassion. But it was artificially amplified, and Shinobi could recognize it as such.

And, because he was able to recognize it, he was able to be mindful of it. Able to control this until it ends. Able to manage it admirably. But this was by no means an easy feat. It was with relief when this, whatever it was, subsided. He hid his mental fatigue, though.

But Blue did not miss the clear signs of mental fatigue and the mental struggle he had undergone. It was at this point that Blue had actually noticed the moodulator on Shin's neck, unknowingly hidden by his hair and scarf.

***

"You two are going to see Doc Kevorkyan," Lyndon decided. "Something is definitely up with you!"

"I . . ." Leroy said, the effect of the hope function of the moodulator had faded. He felt a full stomach, yet felt hollowed out. Exhausted.

"You . . ." Irma started to accuse, before stopping. She felt the exhaustion as well. Their reactions were a bit more extreme than Shin's, and, therefore, more draining. It was one detail that Dr. Kluge.

"I am not going to hear a word against it, Irma," Lyndon said, firmly. "We're going. Now."

"But he's a medical doctor, not a psychiatrist," Leroy said, sounding groggy.

"I'm not taking 'no' for an answer," Lyndon stated, again firm. "You two are going right . . . oh, no. Not again."

The two's eyes unfocused as they felt nothing but compassion -- the complete antithesis of everything that the Knights stood for. They only had compassion for "their kind" -- humans and Terran-borne species. But the moodulators don't make specifics like that. They didn't have that kind of specificity, as that only works with the irrational, xenophobic hatred. And the moodulators suppressed hatred.

"No, Lyndon," Irma said, sounding firm, but serene. "We won't."

"Yes, Irma, you --"

"No, Lyndon," Leroy said. He actually felt as if his mind had never had such clarity. "We're resigning from the Knights. What we've done, as Knights is unconscionable. Not only that, Lyndon, the world sees us as a joke. We're not considered a legitimate threat, and, perhaps, that's for the best."

"This isn't you talking," Lyndon said. "It's whatever force is manipulating you."

"No, Lyndon," Irma said, and she was quite serious. "I've never been thinking so clearly."

***

Cloak could have simply barged into GH's thread, but Cloaky correctly assumed that the RAFian guitarist would not appreciate such an infringement on the privacy of himself and his son. And Cloak's Earthsight told him that both were inside the thread, that it was not vacant and neither were currently . . . indisposed.

So, Cloak knocked on the door, two swift rapt knocks.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2018, 11:03:02 AM

Unless I can find a way to stretch it, this'll probably end up being one of the shorter books.

Oh, and, due a numbering mishap of mine, the current last book (unless I continue) will be #1237, not #1,236, unless I uncover another numbering mishap.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Discovery and Departure

"Cloak?" GH asked, answering the door, as Leatherhead tossed the smartphone on the opposite side of the couch, which actually, somehow, deactivated the moodulators. Deactivated them, as in completely powering them down. "What's up?"

Cloak's ears twitched slightly. The sound had gone. That frustratingly annoying sound, like the shrill squeak of an old industrial dish machine that needed replacing. Gone. But, nonetheless, Cloak explained why he had come to GH.

This perplexed GH, as he hadn't heard any such sound. But he invites Cloak in anyway.

"Any new acquisitions or anything that could produce a sound within my auditory range but not a human's?" Cloak asked.

"A bit wordy way of saying 'do have something I can hear but you can't'," GH mused, "but no, Cloaky, I can't say that I have. I've just been working on this amp, trying not to f--"

He glanced at Leatherhead, and corrected himself.

"-- And try not to screw it up."

"What's that?" Cloak said, taking immediate notice of the moodulator controller, which stood out against the color of the couch.

***

"Shin," Blue said, as he travelled around to his back, "stay still."

"What is it?" the boy asked immediately.

"There's something on your neck, hidden by your hair and scarf." Blue explained. "It almost appears to be a tracking device of some sort."

"The League is tracking me?" he asked.

Blue hesitated for only a moment before answering. "No, Shin. I don't think that they are. They're d-- never mind. Just hold still, I'm gonna try to remove it."

It wasn't as difficult as Blue expected. Blue had expected it to have latched onto Shin's skin tightly, like a tick or some other hemophageous exoparasite. But it gave without very much effort, which surprised the RAFian greatly. It was about the size of a small coin, with four clamp-like "legs". It had a faceplate that greatly resembled the faceplate of the Omnitrix.

"What is that?" Shin asked.

"Looks like whatever it was Dr. Kluge was working on," Blue replied, almost grimly.

***

They were now able to feel other things other than compassion, Irma and Leroy were. But they were not able to easily forget what they felt when they felt compassion. In a rather ironic turn of fate, this caused their irrational hatred of aliens to weaken severely until it seemingly fractured and disintegrated. It may return at some point in their lives from this point, but they made the hard realizations.

They were Knights, and the Knights of Humanity were as monstrous, if not more so, then the alien species that they feared so greatly, that they despised so openly. The moodulators had forced them to open their eyes to this -- the sheer hypocrisy of this irrational hatred, the aversive fear that it was rooted in. The moodulators had, unknowingly proved to be beneficial to the two, as it offered them a brief moment of clarity. A clarity that most, if not all, of the Knights would never have.

Neither noticed the moodulators falling off, and being crunched underfoot in their abrupt departure (complete with suitcases) from the Knight facility. Leroy had a falling out with his younger sister, Meredith, about this -- she seeing him as being traitorously disloyal and him seeing her as blinded with xenophobia. It wasn't a happy farewell, but it was one that needed to happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2018, 05:06:57 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Rendezvous

"Hey, what is that?" GH asked, pulling out his own phone, almost as if to check. "It's not mine."

"I didn't take it," Leatherhead said immediately. Both adults cast looks at the six-year-old in a humansuit. Leatherhead was apparently unaware that he said anything indicating a guilty conscience. Cloak's Earthsight caught the lie uttered, although, technically, it wasn't a lie.

"This appears to be the controller to Kluge's mass-produced moodulators," Cloak said, deciding to let it slide.

However, GH wasn't willing to let it slide, and said, uncharacteristicall y stern and firm, "Leatherhead Sirois, we'll talk about taking things that aren't yours, and doing so without permission, later."

Leatherhead looked as if he wanted to protest, that he hadn't technically taken it without permission. But GH had used his full name -- that was equivalent to human parents using the middle name to scold a child. He knew better than push his luck. Leatherhead might be a bit impetuous, but he was still a good kid, after all. Leatherhead was wise enough to know if he argued with his adoptive daddy right now, it would just make matters worse.

"The question remains, however," Cloak mused, ignoring GH's parenting obligation, focused on the controller and its implications. "Did any of the moodulators survive Kluge's destruction of them?"

"How d'you know he destroyed them?" GH asked, prudently.

"I imagine that he didn't like people breaking into his workspace and demanding he hand over his creations, his devices." Cloak said, though realizing that this was all speculative assumptions. "I imagine that he wouldn't want to deal with anyone like those three Knights. I imagine he didn't enjoy being shook down for his inventions."

"But we don't know for sure," GH pointed out.

"Actually, we do." Cloak contradicted, looking at the screen of the moodulator controller.

***

"Look, Leroy," Irma said. "I'm sorry that I've been so hard on you, when we were --"

"It's okay," Leroy said. "I see it now. I was a bumbling idiot. I never thought anything through."

"I wasn't faultless, though," Irma said. She seemed a lot calmer now, a lot less angry. It was almost as if the moodulators remapped her brain -- or just allowed her more vulnerable side to reconcile her rampant anger. "I just felt so angry. All the time. Just wanting . . . "

"It's okay," Leroy said, displaying more maturity than he had ever had before this incident with the moodulators had opened his eyes. Since they had helped him open his mind. "You don't have to say anything that you don't want to."

Irma looked at him, and brushed her hair behind her right ear as they walked away. She remembered being . . . uh, really focused on him a few hours ago. She still found it embarrassing, but more that it was public and not so much that it was with Leroy. She saw him in a completely new light now.

They held hands as they walked down the street with their suitcases.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2018, 06:23:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Dangerous Implications, Dangerous Applications

"What do you mean?" GH asked.

"There's an indicator on the screen," Cloak pointed out. "Apparently, there's a signal or something that this controller can sense whether one is destroyed. All the moodulators have been destroyed. But one."

"But where could that one be?" GH asked.

"There appears to be some sort of GPS function on this," Cloak said.

"There is?" Leatherhead said. Then, after a beat, he asked, "What's a GPS?"

"Global positioning satellite," Cloak answered without looking up.

"Oh," Leatherhead said, despite still not understanding. He wanted to ask what that was, but was afraid of pushing his luck.

"Huh. Interesting," Cloak muttered.

Despite himself, Leatherhead asked, "What is?"

"It seems that the moodulator -- if I'm reading this map right -- is somewhere inside this very forum." the Realm Walker stated, matter-of-fact.

"Really? How?"

"It must have clung to one of us as we left Kluge's lab," Cloak speculated. "Anyway, it doesn't matter how, it just matters that its here somewhere."

"What's a moodulator do?" Leatherhead asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"It manipulates the emotions of who it attaches to," Cloak said. "If our information is right, anyway."

"Could it remap the brain to feel differently, though, Cloak?" GH said, as if he had just thought of it.

"I do not know," Cloak said. "All I know that moodulators only work on humans, as Kluge had evidently mapped all emotional effects on a human brain. Why the Knights wanted them, I don't know -- although, from those three Knights' rhetoric clearly meant that they thought it was mind control."

"We should feel lucky that they were so misinformed," GH said, seriously. "Can you imagine if they knew what these moodulators were potentially capable of? It would be child's play to remap people's emotions to hating anyone not like themselves -- the moodulators could be a prejudice manufacturing device. It could turn so many people over to the Knights' side . . ."

"Assuming that it even could remap the human brain in such a way," Cloak said.

Naturally, six-year-old Leatherhead was lost at this conversation, having no idea what they were talking about. Despite looking like a human child at the moment, he wasn't. The moodulators wouldn't have any effect on him, but he didn't seem to understand it -- or, subconsciously, not want to know.

"But, still, the implications . . ." GH said, eyes wide with the possible threat inexplicably averted by sheer chance.

"The Knights would have gone from pathetic jokes to legitimate threats," Cloak agreed. "But still, no technology is without its inherent flaws. Perfection is an impossibility, after all. Not to mention, highly subjective."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 01, 2018, 08:07:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Locating the Final Moodulator

"I think he called them 'moodulators'," Blue said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "They were designed to manipulate human emotions."

"I can verify that," Shin said, heavily. "I assume my . . . uh, episodes happened when it was active."

"Would make sense," Blue commented benignly.

"It felt as if all of my other emotions were being suppressed completely to the exclusion of whatever the selected one was -- courage, fear, anger, greed, hope, love, compassion. I was able to resist some of them, but --"

"Meaning that these would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands," Blue said, eyeing the moodulator in his hand. His eyes narrowed at it. "Can you imagine what people like the Knights or -- God forbid -- Malice got their hands on it?"

"Who's Malice?" Shin asked.

Blue exhaled slowly, and Shin wondered if he had something wrong, if he had overstepped his bounds somehow.

"You'll probably meet her soon enough," Blue said.

Shin bit back further follow-up questions, but Blue sighed, as he capitulated.

"Malice is a Realm Walker," Blue said.

"Like Cloak?"

"Same species, yes," Blue said, "but the two aren't remotely alike. Malice is like an eight-hundred-year-old octogenarian."

"Wow."

"Bear in mind, Shin, that Cloak is two hundred and seventy," Blue said.

"He is?"

"Realm Walkers age one year for every ten of ours," Blue said, "or, at least, that's how Cloak explains it. But we're getting off track. This thing can be immensely dangerous."

"Understandably so," Shin agreed, as they left their training area so they could find a proper way to destroy it without a trace. "It could turn any crowd into a riotous mob. Turn a peaceful man violence-prone."

"The implications could be far more dire than that, young one," said a voice to their left.

"Cloak?" Blue asked, as he came up with GH and Leatherhead, in his humansuit (i.e. his play suit).

"Is that the last moodulator?" Cloak said, apparently in a hurry to get to the point.

"One of them," Blue said, holding it up as if he was about to play a card in a Yu-Gi-Oh! card.

"Its the last one, apparently according to this controller," Cloak said, showing what looked like your basic smartphone. "The last one to be destroyed."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2018, 05:28:54 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Finality

"May I see that moodulator, Blue?" Cloak said, holding out an expectant hand. Blue complied, dropping the device as if it was a grotesque tick into Cloak's gloved palm.

"What are you going to to do with it?" Shin asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Ensure that it cannot be used for ill," Cloak said, raising it to his hood.

"You're not going to put it on, are you?!" Shin said, immediately concerned.

Cloak chuckled, which perplexed Shin. Cloak said, "These moodulators affect human emotions. I am not human. It cannot affect me as Realm Walker emotions haven't been mapped like Kluge did with human brains."

"Then why --" Shin began.

"Just some certainty and finality to destroy the last moodulator." Cloak said. "Realm Walkers wear these cloaks for a functional reason, and not just a fashionable one, Shinobi."

"I -- I don't understand," the boy said, scratching his head.

"Cloak, my friend, I think we need to dispense with the lofty explanations and demonstrate the dangers of a cloakless Realm Walker," Blue said, genially.

"You could have just said that a demonstration was in order," GH said, "what is with people and being so wordy today?"

"Don't make me give you the Techadon treatment, GH," Cloak teased, with a mock warning tone.

GH glared at him, and his voice briefly seemed to go up an octave at the memory, "That was a low blow, Cloak."

GH didn't appreciate the Realm Walker's chuckling at his response.

"I still don't understand," Shin said, bringing them back on track.

Cloak stuck the moodulator beneath his hood, leaving only one of the clamp brackets outside his corona because that's the part he held. After a few moments, he brought out, and only that singular clamp bracket remained. Shin's eye widened at this.

"Yes, Realm Walkers, you see, have a rather hazardous corona that is blocked by the cloak," Cloak said.

"How d'you eat?" Shin asked after a moment.

***

Meanwhile, back at Dr. Kluge's laboratory, he was currently cleaning it up. He tsk tsk'd about the mess he had to make to destroy and dispose of the moodulators. He considered them failed experiments. Failed in the way that they were really far more trouble than they were worth.

He would just have to come up with another experiment that wouldn't draw so much attention. Maybe put that minor in quantum physics he had to use. Surely that would keep him away from these insane intruders -- he didn't want any of that again.

Perhaps that one project he put on the back burner so many years ago. Not only that it might work, he might actually make bank off it . . . it might be worth the effort.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2018, 06:06:23 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
What's the Use of Feeling Blue?

Cloak knelt in a room, before a monument of his late aunt, Wheeza. He sighed as he pulled down his hood and teared up. Behind him, the door opens as . . . his mother entered.

"Please tell me you're joking." she said

Cloak rankled, apparently unnoticed by his ursine mother.

"You only just left, and you're already back?"

"Go away," Cloak snarled.

"I'm here to bring you back to reality, son."

"I'm fine. Just leave me alone." Cloak growled.

Then she began to scold him, but he tuned it out. Eventually, he had to snap, "Why can't you just let me grieve?!"

"You can't keep coming here forever!"

"If I've the inclination, yes, I can!" Cloak said, he still hadn't turned around.

His mother paced around behind him, and sang:

"Why would you want to be here?
What do you ever see here
That doesn't make you feel worse than you do?
And tell me, what's the use of feeling blue?"

"Go away."

"Oh, tell me, what's the use of feeling blue?
An army has a use. They can go and fight a war.
The media has a use. They can tell you what it's for.
A Mercy terrifies. A Master terraforms.
Where's their Elements Master when they need him, son?
You've got to be a leader, son!"

"Go away," was Cloak's only response.

"Yes, of course, we still love her,
And we're always thinking of her.
But, now, there's nothing we can do, so tell me!
How can you stand to be here with it all?
Drowning in all this regret?
Wouldn't you rather forget her? Ohh!
Won't it be grand to get rid of it all?
Let's make a plan of attack! Start looking forward and stop looking back!"

"I'm not going to say it again," Cloak warned.

"Oh, yes, of course, we still love her,
And we're always thinking of her.
Don't you know I miss her, too?
But tell me. What's the use of feeling?
What's the use of feeling?
What's the use of feeling?"

When she turned around, Cloak was gone, tired of her interference, but she thought she had won. Of course, it was at this point that Cloak awoke.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dtA-juh3rf4

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 05, 2018, 05:00:47 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A Searching Sniper

Blaze was dispatched to a jungle area where the most recent fiend was found, wrecking havoc. Blaze was not a fan of this jungle. It pressed in so tightly around him, almost in a claustrophobic sort of way. There was not nearly enough room for him to extend his wings to their full wingspan, which led him to feel the whole place was confining. It didn't help that the native species felt a rather disobliging inclination to be busy just now when he needed to get through this heavy foliage.

"Why me?" he moaned as he pressed onward.

He pressed on, until the point that he had to use his sword to slash some of the thicker vegetation. Imagine his elation when he saw the open sky. He saw some odd brackets, as if someone with a whip or a whip-like appendage or flagellum of some sort could use them to swing onward. He didn't need to such a thing -- he had wings, and, by gum, he was gonna use them.

He shot from the spot on which he stood, and elated on being in the air. Feeling the wind in his face, the buoyant lift on his wings that kept him aloft. Was there ever such a feeling of freedom? He floated above what appeared to be an abandoned military base that was nearly entirely reclaimed by the jungle.

Wait, no. That emblem. This was another discarded Cadmus base. Those guys had bases EVERYWHERE, it seemed.

Blaze burst through several unmaintained blast doors, not even landing or slowing down, showcasing his aerial agility and his pyrokinetic accuracy. And, yes, he was showboating a little. It was in no time when he came upon the fiend in a heavily forested area with a canopy "ceiling" and bushes everywhere.

The bicephalic fiend had camouflage pattern swathed over it. Its right cranium was like a sniper's camouflage helmet, with a black mouth plate and two human-like eyes (blue sclera and pale brown irises). Its left head had a human like face and tawny hair, and its eyes had pale brown sclera and blue irises. Both necks were white, with green collars. Its wide, broad torso was colored in camouflage, with a scope inside it, and its comedically large, dark red shoulders. Connected to these shoulders were white and their forearms were in camouflage. Its right hand was a long bazooka. Its left wrist and knees were a pale green. It had a deep purple ring around its waist. Its thighs were white and its shins were colored in camouflage. Its pontoon-like feet were scarlet with silver soles. Its left hand was black.

""You are one UGLY mother--" Blaze said, before he could stop himself. But, to the RAFian's confusion, the fiend jumped away and hit. It didn't yet occur to him that this fiend was, in effect and aesthetically, a sniper.

He figured it out rather quickly, though, when it began to take tracking potshots at him. He managed to slash through them and block them with his sword. He decided to get proactive, and he slashed his way through the bushes until he found the fiend. Then he punched it upward, and ignited his blade. Then he went to town slashing the fiend, as if he was performing a Final Smash.

It was done, and Blaze simply flew away.

***

Demos called it a "sachisapien". He designed it as a sniper, and refused to expound upon this.

***

Malice watched dispassionately. She hadn't come up with any good schemes in a while. She found this depressing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2018, 06:23:33 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXV:
BOUND TOGETHER
CHAPTER ONE:
Astro Nut

Parker was dispatched to the local planetarium. He wasn't exactly enthused about going after another fiend. He wondered how many more they had left to take care of. Demos really had too much time to create all these things -- he had clearly abused his laboratory privileges.

His reluctance to do this wouldn't make it go any faster, so he pressed onward into the planetarium. And, from the moment he stepped into the planetarium, he knew something was up.

It looked as if he stepped onto a techno-organic alien world, one that was overly saccharine and kid-friendly. Parker, suffice it to say, wasn't a fan.

"Tyr, screen out the holograms," Parker said. After a few minutes, Parker snarled, "Don't you sass me, just do it."

Suddenly, through his helmet, he saw the planetarium as it really was. Granted, if he removed his helmet, he would see the hologram yet again, as it was the helmet filtering out the hologram. He trotted through the planetarium, until he ran into another hologram, different from the previous one. It was an indoor, three-dimensional maze of cartoonish structures and button puzzles.

"Tyr, stop being a petulant child," Parker barked. "I distinctly said to filter out all of the holograms."

Once again, the hologram faded as Parker ignored Tyr's complaints. The two were like an old married couple at this point. Then he continued along, until he ran into yet another hologram. This one of a sinking building and he would have to climb upwards to escape, if he was to follow along with the premise of the hologram.

"Tyr . . ." Parker said, now getting annoyed.

The hologram vanished, and Parker continued along. He was nearing the heart of the facility, and the fiend would be lurking there, he knew. But then another hologram started up, a new maze. But it vanished before Parker could say a word.

With that, Parker made it to the central part of the facility, and he was right. The fiend was here, floating in the upper left corner of the room. The fiend had a red screen with pale purplish-black dots which passed for eyes. Its cranium was silver with a barometer like structure as a crest. It had an all-metal collar around its sunken with white highlight. It had spherical golden shoulders, and thick, silver arms. Its spherical hands were white with four thick silver fingers and one thick thumb on each one. It had a white backpack and a black regulator-type on the center of its chest. It had a white waist, and spherical white lower body, evidently able to manipulate its own personal gravity, as well as two spherical orbs orbiting around it.

It noticed him, and seemed terrified of having to fight him. Parker almost felt bad, until he reminded himself that this fiend had already severely injured a planetary worker, while the others managed to escape. And the fiend provoked the attack by attacking Parker first.

It basically caused its orbiting orbs to bounce of the walls and attack Parker, who just took out his gun and began to snipe at the fiend. Some shots went into the orbs, but most hit home. After about seven shots, the fiend was disposed off. Dissolving into ashes, as all of the fiends before now did.

Parker then left.

***

Demos called it an "astrosapien", and that he designed it as a mascot of sorts for a planetarium (which was unsolicited). He wouldn't go more into the subject.

***

Malice found it irritatingly frustrating at her perception of the fiend's cowardice, and just how easy and uneventful that battle was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2018, 11:15:13 AM

Sorry that I'm not posting as regularly as I used to, it's mostly me being tired from work and developing another series (seperate from Memoirs and RAFians) that I actually like how its shaping up.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Set Yourself Free

Cloak was back in the prison that was his mother's house. He sang to himself:

"Locked inside a shack.
Kept behind a wall.
Sheltered from a realm I've barely known.
That’s the way she treats me.
And what’s worst of all --
Who's to blame? Just me and me alone."

Then the scene cinematically fades to a blank background as Wheeza comes up, and places her hand on her shoulder. This was big since Realm Walkers weren't big on the contact comfort thing that humans and other Dwellers are all too familiar with.

Wheeza sang:

"There's much more inside of you than anyone can see ,
And now the choice is yours.
Life waits beyond the doors.
So, step on through, the time has come,
And only you can set yourself free!
No one else can tell you what to do
Or who to be!
No one gets to say if you will stay or go.
So, use the gifts you're given.
Make the world your own.
Look inside your heart and find the key,
And set yourself free!"

He had left with her. It is important to note that at this point, it was obvious that this was a dream, and Cloak was even semi-lucid. He was lucid enough to know that none of this was really real, and Wheeza was just some oneirokinetic construct, but it was like a memory. A cherished memory.

"Bound up by your worries .
Trapped by your mistakes.
Forced to play a role you never chose.
Why not test your limits?
You've got what it takes!
Let it out and follow where it goes!
No more letting someone else define you to a tee.
You know that you are strong.
You've known it all along.
So seize the day, let down your hair.
You’ll find a way to set yourself free!"

Cloak wanted so badly for this to be more than just a memory. That Wheeza had come back for him, like Sage, like Aniyu . . . but she couldn't. He knew it, deep down. But that didn't mean he couldn't wish with all his heart for it to be so.

"Now it's up to you and what you'll do,
And who you'll be.
You get to decide how far and wide you go.
So, look to the horizon,
Open up your wings!
Fly away to find your destiny
And set yourself free"

And with the ending note, she vanished into nothingness, leaving Cloak crying out, "No! Please! Don't leave me again! Wheeza! Don't . . . leave me."

It was at this point that Cloak awoke, and he immediately flung his legs over his bed. He haunched over and buried his faces in his hands.

"Why?" he bawled. He was alone and unseen in his windowless thread. So he didn't feel any compunction to "man up". "Why is this so hard?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xdk4ETEvBCM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2018, 11:11:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
A Sticky Solution

Dr. Emanuel Kluge had found his new project. He was working on an adhesive that he could make bank off of. He was designing it on a quantum level, trying to make the ultimate adhesive -- better than superglue. Ultra glue! Perhaps calling it "Ultra Goo"? Nah, that's stupid. "Ultra glue" will serve as the proper nomenclature.

He had only expected to make it on the molecular level, which would have been significantly easier than the end result. But this was beyond that. This adhesive would not let go. And it would be very dangerous to get on one's skin or clothing.

There was no dissolving agent he discovered, though he did suspect of a possible one. But he had yet to make this solution or test it.

***

Meanwhile, in the Bannedlands, Queen was talking to AlothAssassin with her grandiose plans. Aloth wasn't really interested, but Queen took no notice of this. She only did when Aloth posed a question of who would get top billing. Correctly interpreting her silence, he asked if his name would even get any billing whatsoever.

"Yes, my name -- space bar, space bar, space bar -- your name."

Aloth was less than pleased with such an answer. He was even less than pleased when she started to sing:

"I'm number one,
You're number two.
We're Banned at large,
But I'm at larger than you.
I'm number one,
You're number two.
I believe in equality
As long as you get less than me!
I'm one --"

Aloth tonelessly spoke-sang:

"You're one --"

"You're number two!"

"I'm number two."

Queen started the next verse, singing directly to Aloth:

"You may think that you're smarter,
But I'm smarter than you!
I'm number one!
You're number two!
You're lucky to be number two,
Not number three!
I can see by the look in your eye that
You want to get the bigger piece of the pie
One day, you'll get your chance.
But in the meantime, you've got to dance monkey dance!"

Aloth snarled, "I hate dancing."

"Do it!

"Dance, monkey, dance!"

Ha ha!"

Aloth spoke-sung bitterly:

"I'm number two.
She's number one.
I can't believe I'm working for this comedian.
I'm number two.
She's number one."

"I'm number one!"

"You know life's gone to the dogs
When your boss is an ideologue.
I can see it's just a matter of time before she's gone
And I'm at the front of the line.
It won't be long 'til I get my chance.
But, in the meantime, I've got to dance, monkey, dance."

"Dance, monkey, dance!
Now, watch me!
I'm number one!"

"She's number one."

"You're number two!"

"I'm number two."

"That's it, kid. There you go.
Now step aside, this ain't your show!
I'm one!"

"I'm one."

"I'm number one!"

"Yes, we know!"

"I'm number one!
That's how it's done!"

Aloth was still less than impressed.

"Aloth," Queen said, in what she clearly thought was a commanding, impressive way, "go get the thing!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=e4m27BipdvQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2018, 05:31:09 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Parting of Ways

"Yeah, yeah," Aloth said, "when I'm good and ready."

"DO AS I SAY, YOU WORTHLESS PIPSQUEAK!!" Queen roared.

"Ya know something?" Aloth countered, rounding on Queen. "You're nothing without me."

"WHAT?!"

"Who comes up with all the good ideas? Me!" Aloth shouted. "Who does all the work? Me!"

"If it weren't for ME, you'd be out on your own, starving and alone!"

Suddenly, as Aloth was getting fed up, music started up.

"That's it! I've had it!
I hate to be dramatic,
But it's time for me to fly the coop.
Terrific! Fine!
I'm drawin' the line
Before I wind up in a Grammy's* soup!
I was a fool to let you run the show.
I'm cuttin' ya loose, pal!
Look out below!
Arrividerci! C'est la vie!
Hope all goes well!
I'm lookin' out for me!"

With that, Aloth stormed outside and strode away from the Banned headquarters as the troll army looked on stupidly.

"Okay! I'm little,
Been playin' second fiddle,
And I don't get any respect.
I turn the other cheek,
But this busted beak
Is the only thanks that I get!
I never found a friend that I can trust.
They promise caviar,
And leave me eatin' dust!
That's some reward for loyalty.
From here on in,
I'm lookin' out for me!
Oh, I don't need nobody else.
I'll never fail,
I'll cover my own tail.
I can take care of myself!"

Queen, always the control freak, was outraged that Aloth got out from under thumb, and began to follow him.

"You know, it just don't pay
To give a hoot.
I'm givin' all my heart
What do I get?
The boot!
I'm through with that,
I'm walkin' free!
From here on in,
I'm lookin' out for me!"

"Not unless I say you can!" Queen roared. "Whether you want to admit it, Number Two, you need me!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DxgHLsF2hio

* A "TFS At the Table" reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2018, 06:46:40 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Who Needs You?

"Watch me, Queen," Aloth said.

Queen grabbed his upper arm tightly, to which Aloth smacked her. Her shock was the only thing that allowed Aloth to pull free of her grip.

"How dare you strike me, Aloth," she said.

"Who needs you?" Aloth said angrily.

"And who needs you?" Queen countered angrily.

Aloth pointed an accusing finger at Queen.

"I need you like a hole in the head."

Queen responded with pointing a finger as if she were Phoenix Wright.

"And I need you like a bug in the bed."

Aloth countered:

"You constantly bite the hand that feeds you!"

Both sang:

"Who needs you? Not me!!"

Aloth sang:

"I need you like a punch in the gut!"

Queen sang:

"Oh, yeah? And I need you like a kick in the butt!
You truly disgrace the race that breeds you!"

Both sang:

"Who needs you? Not me!!"

Queen sang:

"Who needs you?
You're ugly as sin.
Just a scraggly bag of skin!"

Aloth countered again:

"And who needs you?
You're thin-skinned and a bore,
Draggin' your trolls 'round the floor!"

"Oh, I need you like a boulder on my toes!"

"And I need you like a sock on my nose!
I'm shocked and appalled by your behavior."

"Don't try bein' nice
'Cause that won't save ya!"

Together they sang:

"I'm better off without you I can see.
So, who needs you? Not me!!"

Aloth sang:

"I need you like a cold in July![/]"

Queen countered:

"And I need you like a punch in the eye!"

"Of all the dumb beasts
Not one precedes you!"

Together, they sang:

"Who needs you? Not me!!"

Queen sang:

"I need you like I need a disease!

Aloth countered:

"Oh-ho, and I need you like the sun needs to freeze! . . . Again.
For quickness of mind,
A rock outspeeds you!"

They sang together:

"Who needs you? Not me!!"

Queen sang:

"Who needs you?
You cross-eyed crazy critter.
You twitter and squawk
And you're knock-kneed when you walk!"

Aloth countered:

"And who needs you?
Ya flat-foot, four-foot quitter!
You're bitter and you're mad
'Cause you're as ugly that cad!!"

"Oh, I need you like I need some more teeth!"

"I lift a rock and find you underneath!
I'm deeply upset by your demeanor!"

"I know that I'm mean
But you're de meaner!"

They then sang in unison:

"No more unlikely pair could ever be!"

Queen sang:

"The word is incompatibility!"

Aloth countered:

"Not only that,
We don't get on, you see!"

Together, they sang:

"So, who needs you,
Except the race that breeds you?
Who needs you?"

Queen:

"Not me!!"

Aloth:

"Not me!!"

"Not me!!"

"Not me!!"

Together, they concluded:

"Not me!"

With that, they go their separate ways, with Queen now becoming the sole Banned in the Bannedlands.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TxigJoKRv1Q

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2018, 03:48:09 PM

Sorry that this book's story is progressing so slowly. Hopefully, because what I have in mind, it will pay off.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Aloth and Queen Alone

Aloth had been fuming and grousing for a long time after what he felt and hoped to be the final confrontation with Queen. She was really too full of herself. He did everything -- EVERYTHING! While she sat up in her little throne room upon her paper mache chair. Aloth was sure -- sure! -- the Bannedlands were verdant fields with sparkling water just like the forum both he and Queen were Banned from.

Perhaps he should have lied better or maybe have not have been so rude (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=87.msg235461#msg235461), and he did don several unique and clever disguises, to get back into the forum. He, to this day, didn't know how they were seen through -- despite the disguises being quite easily seen through. He never seemed to realize that he wasn't a cartoon protagonist, and such disguises only worked within the confines of those realms. But he was certain, in his own arrogant, supercilious way, that those disguises were infallible. The Mark wasn't a thing at this point, and, as such, neither was the scar-like Mark of the Banned. So, his disguising abilities were . . . less than impressive.

He eventually stopped when they forced him into the Bannedlands, and he lost his resources to make any more of, in his opinion, his ingenius disguises. And after awhile, he felt his skill atrophied (though the fact of whether he even had talent -- well, consensus would have that he didn't). He had only served Queen until this point because she intimidated him. Until she had him fed up with the piss poor treatment.

Then he saw a stucco building off to his right, about nine o'clock. He thought that he might have some resources there to make a disguise. . . .

***

Queen was fuming and grousing just as much as Aloth, upon her ramshackle throne. She had decreed once that this throne be made from the blood and bones of her enemies, from which she can oversee her relentless reign of terror over the troll masses. She sat with her hand on her cheek, bored and irritated with the limited intelligence of the trolls which made up the entirety of the Bannedlands which she ruled over with an iron fist -- which was incredibly difficult with trolls, considering how abjectly stupid they were.

Especially those with the trumpet horns*. They were more stupid than the rest, and apparently they took pride in their stupidity, misconstruing it as shrewdness of thought and, ironically enough, intelligence. They were easy enough to mislead with propaganda and misinformation, as they swallowed it with little difficulty or skepticism. It helped that they saw skepticism as stupidity -- which, again, was ironic in its way. But this held no enjoyment for Queen, who found conversations with a brick wall as more scintillating conversations than those with these trolls, especially with the Trumpet Horns.

It's the reason why she didn't banish Yorick and Aloth away, despite Yorick bening there before her, roughly. She was the leader here. She called the shots here. She gave the orders, and everyone else was expected to follow them. Aloth included!

How dare he . . . ! How dare he sass her like that! How dare he turn his back on her! She hadn't gave him permission to leave! She hadn't allowed it!! And, yet, he still left!! The gall! The gall that he had to disobey her!! Disobey a direct command, a direct order, she issued!

Those RAFians had the same problem. They refused to see when she clearly knew better. They refused to obey her when she clearly knew what was best for the moment. She knew so much more than those . . . those . . . those CHILDREN.

She took two deep breaths, quickly recognizing that she was working herself into a state. She calmed herself down, and looked upon her iPad-like contraption. Then she smiled, seeing something that she would want for her own.

---

* I doubt anyone who isn't FaceBook friends of mine would get this reference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2018, 11:03:13 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Obliviousness and Oaths

Kluge had made the adhesive, quantumly enhanced somehow, but he had yet to conjure up the solution that would break down the adhesive. This adhesive was so strong that it bound together two surfaces, no matter the composition, almost immediately. The only thing that it really didn't bind totether so strongly was if one of those surfaces was insubstantial, like energy, or vibranium or n^th metal. Adamantium could cut through it, but it was able to bonded to it if still unset or "wet".

Kluge dabbed his balding head with a hankerchief. He was sweating profusely. This was proving to be hard work, especially since he was a neuroscientist by trade and training, and inventing was more of a hobby of his.

He breathed through his prominent and bulbous nose very audibly, obviously he had exerted himself and expended a great amount of energy on this little side project of his. But he was happy to do it, and he didn't even need any grant money to do this project. It was all out-of-pocket for him, as he discovered this adhesive completely by accident.

He patted his lab coat which was draped over his stout, rotund body loosely, almost casually. He was looking for -- ah, never mind. It wasn't there.

But none of these solutions seemed to work. Perhaps that seaweed extract might work. Or that seeds from those pomegranates. Or maybe some loquat leaf oil extract. Or maybe a honeydew rind? A grape stem? A tomato vine? Hmmm . . .

***

GH and Leatherhead were in their thread, and Leatherhead was playing his keytar, while still wearing his human suit, which was synonymous to a play suit a normal human child his age would wear. GH was cooking them some lunch.

They had already gone over the moodulator control business and settled everything. Leatherhead wasn't even punished, but he still felt that he had let GH down, though he didn't say this. He didn't like feeling like that, if he was honest.

As he played, as sang in his thoughts:

Proud of your son.
I'll make you proud of your son.
Believe me, bad as I've been, Daddy,
You're in for a pleasant surprise!
I've been one naughty kid.
Some kid, some pride, and some joy.
But I'll get over these lousin' up,
Messin' up, screwin' up times!
You'll see, Daddy, now comes the better part.
Someone's gonna make good
Cross his stupid heart!
Make good and finally make you
Proud of your son!
Water flows under the bridge,
Let it pass, let it go!
There's no good reason that you should believe me,
Not yet, I know, but
Someday, and soon,
I'll make you proud of your son.
Though I can't make myself taller
Or smarter or handsome or wise!
I'll do my best -- what else can I do?
Since I wasn't born perfect like you.
Daddy, I will try to
Try hard to make you
Proud of your son.

"LH, it's lunchtime," GH said, gently. Then he took a look at his adoptive son. "Leatherhead, are you okay?"

Leatherhead deftly turned his head away, wiping away tears that he wished to hide. "I'm fine, Daddy."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kV3D1ASN7Xc

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2018, 11:58:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Breaking and Entering

Kluge was puttering around in his lab. It was your standard laboratory setting -- sterilized surfaces, sparkling white everywhere there wasn't the silver of metal. It wasn't a particularly large laboratory, but it wasn't as cramped or dilapidated as one might assume, neither. Everything was neat and orderly. Kluge loved it -- loved this place. He spent almost every waking moment within this place. It was only when he had to take care of biological needs that he ever left. He actually lived in a small efficiency apartment, a studio apartment, that was located upstairs from this spacious laboratory. And he paid for it out-of-pocket, somehow. Probably due to his past inventions that made things only slightly easier to live in the city, despite all the unusual goings-on happening there. He made enough to continue his experiments, and that's all that he really cared about.

Sure, he was primarily a neuroscientist, but that didn't mean that he wasn't knowledgeable in other fields. He would often admit that he dabbled. Dabbled in chemistry, biology, biochemistry, etcetera, etcetera. Granted, knowledge of the human brain was his strongest suit, he acknowledged it himself. Although he didn't have the best sense of cause and effect. He never understood the sheer severity of the consequences of his moodulators until it was very late in the process and less scrupulous people tried to take them from him. Kluge always tried to see the best of things and tended to overlooked the dangers the ramifications of his inventions and decisions.

And it was the same with this adhesive, this quantum glue, as it were. He just saw it as a useful product, but did not see how it could be used negatively. Though he seemed to be aware of the fact that accidents may happen, which is why he was trying to develop a solution that would dissolve the glue should such an incident happen. He thought it prudent before potentially marketing it under the name of Kluge Glue. He'd put that Elmer guy out of business easily.

He heard shattering glass -- and he briefly thought that the Kluge Glue would make window repair easier, disregarding the idea that no one would have the patience to glue together every shard of glass back into place. He wondered idly if he should go investigate or stay within his laboratory, his safe space. It probably would be more prudent to ascertain nothing was damaged other than the window, he considered. He walked back into his living quarters, which was up a short staircase to his left, and saw that there was a shadowy figure standing between him and his queen-sized bed, which was still disheveled and unmade despite the fact that it was nearing dinnertime and the sun was going down.

"Excuse me, sir," Kluge said, announcing himself. This was not a good idea. It's never a good idea to reveal your location to a home invader in such a way -- especially if one looked as unhinged and violent as Kluge thought that this one did. "Excuse me, but I take umbrage at your breaking of my window and entering my premises without my permission."

Kluge may have been brilliant when inside his laboratory, but, socially? Socially, he was as dumb as a brick. The shadowy figure snapped his attention to Kluge and approached him in what was supposed to be a slow, intimidating way. Only Kluge wasn't intimidated, but looking rather annoyed. He saw that this figure had no knife or firearm. His stringy, thin frame indicated that he wasn't a fighter.

"Sir, please drop the pretense," Kluge said, succinctly.

"Where is it?" came his voice. It sounded as if he was trying to affect a gravelly voice, but the effort was a poor one.

"And what 'it' is it you seek?" Kluge said, deciding to indulge this buffoonish burglar. "I have many 'its' which you many seek."

"SHOW IT TO ME!!" the figure demanded, coming into the light to reveal a poorly disguised Aloth.

"You must be more specific, sir," Kluge said, being unnecessarily polite with this home invader.

Just then, Kluge heard something shatter behind him, from his laboratory. He completely disregarded Aloth and rushed to his lab.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2018, 05:15:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Other One

"What the -- what are you doing here?" Kluge demanded, finally dropping his politeness. He was starting to really consider getting a new security system, The current one clearly isn't cutting it. "What do you want?"

It was another shadowy figure. This one was distinctly feminine, wearing some sort of regal dress and having her hair teased into a hairdo that Kluge couldn't begin to guess the name of. But that wasn't important, Kluge didn't care about those specifics. He wanted to know what there were two uninvited people breaking into his lab. It couldn't possibly be about the moodulators again. He had destroyed them all. Granted, he never did find the remote control device that activates them, but he was sure that he would eventually find it again. He would gut it, so the parts could be used elsewhere. That was his intentions, anyway.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," the woman intruder said, in a slow manner. A manner eerily similar to the simpering tones that Malice loved to use when she was being coy with Cloak. "Perhaps you need to lock your front door more often, you bumbling oaf."

"I asked you a question, miss," he said, showing this intruder more respect and politeness than she deserved. Although, he had a bite of impatience in his tone now. "What. Do. You. Want?"

"How rude!" said the figure, turning towards Kluge. "Is that any way to treat a guest in your laboratory?"

"Guest?" Kluge snorted. "You broke in, miss. You aren't in a position to claim guest rights."

"I walked in," she corrected, "again, the door was unlocked."

"Still, you came, unbidden and unwanted," Kluge countered, "why should I allow you guest rights?"

"You can't offer a weary traveler such treatment?" she said sounding distinctly condescending. "Are you always so callous with your words?"

Kluge couldn't help but feel like he had been slapped across the face.

"Ma'am," he said, trying very hard not to be cross. "I would appreciate if you didn't come into my domicile and insult me to my --"

"I don't really care what you would appreciate or not, you rotund nincompoop," Queen said, as she stepped into the light. She allowed what she clearly thought was an intimidating countenance and imperious demeanor to wash over the dumpy man. Kluge was hardly impressed. He was just very weary of all these interruptions and intrusions to his work. Not to mention that he was finding himself very tired of the sheer rudeness of all five (and hopefully no more) intruders that thus far had infringed upon him.

"Now, you rolly-polly little idiot," she said, insulting him more freely now because she wasn't getting any push back from the round, stout man. "Where is your new little project? The sticky stuff?"

"The Kluge Glue is not ready for the market yet, madam," he spoke the last word as if it was an insult. "I still --"

"Don't like to me, you flappy excuse for a human being," she said, abusively. "Where is it?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" said a voice behind Kluge.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2018, 05:42:05 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
The Argument

"What am I doing here?" she said, slowly. Her anger simmering slowly. Dangerously. "The question, Aloth, is what are YOU doing here?"

"I asked first!" Aloth said, ripping away his poor disguise.

Kluge was relegated to the sidelines, forced to watch this argument as if he was at a tennis match. He didn't much appreciate being sidelined in such a way, but he was unable to get a word in edgewise. Yeah, that tended to grate on him, and his propensity for politeness in inordinate circumstances. He was taught the lessons of politeness too well as a child, apparently, as he didn't try to object while either one of the Banned were speaking. He tried to get a word in edgewise one or twice, before it became perfectly obvious that that would never happen. So he stopped trying to find a way to interject into their little spat until he could find a more auspicious opening.

"You don't tell me what to do, Aloth!" Queen had countered swiftly and easily. "It is I who have such a distinction."

"Oh my god, you think that you are so smart, don't you, Queen?" Aloth snarled. "Well, news flash, prima donna -- you aren't. You aren't nearly as all-knowing as you think you are!"

"And you think that you're smart? You don't have enough intelligence to even have the semblance of being even remotely intelligent." she said, scathingly. "That disguise, for instance. A toddler of three could see right through it. And, yet, you pride yourself on being a so-called master of disguise. Your disguises always have a piss poor, lazy quality about them, Aloth!

"You lie!" Aloth retorted. "You think you're so great, so high and mighty, so holier-than-thou. And, yet, you OBSESS over that goddamn forum. They BANNED you from there, just as I was. Only difference is that I don't constantly harp on and on and on about it. I don't care if you don't think it was justified -- it's really old, Queenie."

"And you don't harp on about your Banning?" Queen said. "But never mind that now. Stand aside, boy, while I procure what I want."

"No, Queen. You don't seem to get it." Aloth said, voice low and dangerous. "You don't call the shots. Not anymore."

"The hell I don't!" she shouted, slamming her fist on the table. The table that had the vibranium tub with the Kluge Glue on it. Queen was getting quite careless, in her anger. Kluge wanted to warn her about it, but he still couldn't get a word in edgewise, as the argument was getting more and more heated. Kluge was helpless to stop this -- unless he was willing to be rude, and he was taught, severely, to never be impolite. And Aloth escalated this argument even further by getting in Queen's face.

"The hell you do!" Aloth said, intending to shove Queen. He didn't care about treating this annoying woman with kid gloves. She wanted to push him? He would push back. Literally, if necessary. "I am so SICK of this attitude of yours. What exactly makes you my boss, Queen? Why are you 'Number One'? I'll tell you why, Queen. You're only 'Number One' BECAUSE YOU DECIDED THAT YOU WERE. And I'm not going along with it anymore!"

"You don't know want you're talking about," Queen said, dismissing everything that Aloth just said. "I'm Number One because I'm the smartest, strongest, and generally best in the Bannedlands."

This wasn't really anything to boast about.

"The hell that you are!" Aloth said, slamming his fist upon the table.

"Watch out!" Kluge said, but his warning came too late. He really should have spoken up before now.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2018, 05:02:30 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Sticky Situation

The entire left side of Queen and the entire right side of Aloth were covered with the Kluge Glue. And you couldn't say that Kluge didn't warn them, granted he could have done so beforehand if not for his determination to be absolutely polite to a fault. But the two Banned found themselves stuck to each other, Queen's left arm and Aloth's right arm pinioned against the sides of the other, and her left leg and his right leg were as if they were one. No matter how they tried to twist and contort themselves, they could not get unstuck.

"What the --" Aloth said, desperate to get away from Queen, to be free once more.

"What is this nonsense?!" Queen demanded.

"Interesting," Kluge found himself fascinated. The Kluge Glue seemed to have been a bit runnier than he had anticipated, and apparently soaked through the two intruder's clothing and allowed this fusion of the two. He was very tempted to experiment and satisfy his scientific curiosity. But he resisted this excitement, thinking it to be improper and impolite. There was a societal procedure to these sorts of thing, he knew. He would have to make sure the two were medically safe first and then --

"LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID, YOU BUFFOON!"

Queen wasn't addressing Kluge. She was blaming this all on Aloth, who was used to this sort of reaction, but he had no intention on letting her scapegoat him once again.

"What I did?!" Aloth countered, shrilly. "Oh-ho-ho-ho no, Queen. No. You're not putting this on me."

"It's your fault!" Queen shrieked, as if that would make it true."

"It is not!" Aloth responded in kind. "I will NOT be taking sole responsibility for this, Queen!"

"You shall!" Queen snarled. "Because you are at fault!"

"You slammed your fist down on the counter too!" Aloth said. "You are equally responsible!"

"I am not! I will not allow your lies to besmirch my flawless reputation!"

"You are so full of yourself!" Aloth shouted back. "You will not push this off on me, just so you can save face! This is just as much your fault as it is my own! At least I'm grown-up enough to be able to take my share of the responsibility! You can't even do that!"

"You don't know what you're talking about, you dimwitted --"

"Don't call me dimwitted!" Aloth snarled. "And don't even THINK to call me 'Number Two'!"

"You two need to calm down," Kluge said, finally stepping in, trying to defuse the situation. "There is a dissolution solution that I --"

"SHUT UP!!!"

And both of them knocked him out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2018, 08:06:20 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Saddled Together

"WHAT DID YOU DO?! WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME DO?!" Queen demanded shrilly.

"I didn't make you do anything, Queen!" Aloth protested angrily. "You have your own agency! I will not take responsibility for your own actions! Not anymore!"

"It's your fault. All of this is your fault!"

"You are so damn unreasonable." Aloth said, resuming his efforts to twist away from Queen. But there wasn't anything to be done about it. He was hopelessly stuck to the one person he wanted to get away from the most. "You're so damn unwilling to admit fault, to take any responsibility for any of the negative consequence of your OWN decisions! You tell other people that they need to grow up, shame them as if they were basement-dwelling neckbeards, but you aren't as mature and grown-up as you THINK you are!!"

"Stop your babbling, fool, and fix your mistake!"

"Why do I bother trying to talk to you?" Aloth said, making no effort to lower his voice. "Why do I bother trying to reason with you?"

"Be silent and fix this, Aloth!"

"I will NOT be silent!!" the Banned snarled back. "Get a clue, Queen! You're not my boss, and I am NOT going to treat you as such. You need a hard reality check right now, you arrogant piece of --"

"Me? What about YOU, Aloth?" Queen said. She was very obviously trying to flip the conversation while not acknowledging a thing Aloth said. "From what I know of you and what I heard about you before you came crawling to me when you were Banned --"

"I DIDN'T crawl to you when I was Banned," Aloth protested hotly. "I was sent to the Bannedlands and just happened into you. And I allowed you to treat me like a goddamn servant for too long. I allowed you to treat me little more than you treated the TROLLS."

"When you came crawling to me when you were Banned," Queen said, plainly ignoring everything Aloth said and not bothering to take it into account. "You aren't the pinnacle of virtues like you're currently pretending to be. You were a liar and deceptive. At least I'm forthright and honest with everything I do. You thrive in insincerity and deception. You revel in lies and mistruths."

"You're making things up, Queen," Aloth said, now on the defensive.

Which was precisely what Queen wanted. She had turned the tables on Aloth. She felt that she allowed him to prattle on too long and had to put him in his place. She was far too kind to allow him to babble his vitriolic nonsense as long as he did. But her kindness had a limit, as with all powerful people. She felt as if she could take criticisms but not if they had, she felt, no basis in fact or reality. Aloth's skewed perspective was clearly not cemented in reality, she thought. She had to ground him back to reality.

"How many times did you try to return to the forum after you were Banned, Aloth? Thirteen?" Queen asked. "You must forgive me, but the story was so pathetic that I didn't bother remembering."

"It's -- I wasn't -- I didn't --" Aloth spluttered. He didn't have a comeback for this. He wasn't prepared for Queen to go in this direction.

"At least when I was Banned, I left with dignity and respect." Queen said, standing a bit taller. Of course, she neglected to mention the fight that she got into with the other RAFians about race relations and how she kept attacking Cloak, despite Cloak trying to reason with her, granted he got heated with her barbs. "And, once Banned, I never returned."

"That's bunk," Aloth said, finally having grounds for a comeback. "You spent several times, several schemes, to try to take over the forum, and oust the mods running it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Queen said, rather smoothly, though her eyes burned with anger.

"Bull," Aloth said, turning the tables on Queen this time. "You tried to invade and overthrow the mods no less than nineteen times! Possibly more than that, I lost count after nineteen."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Queen denied.

"You don't?" Aloth said, refusing to let up. "You should remember, especially when you allowed that Realm Walker to take the lead that one time*."

"That never happened," Queen said, repressively.

"Just because you refuse to acknowledge it, doesn't mean that it didn't happen." Aloth said.

---

* Book 1.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2018, 02:58:17 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
If I Didn't Have You

They continued to bicker back and forth, and -- surprisingly -- this didn't help get anything done. It didn't make their predicament any better or move them any closer to solving it. But, still they continued to poke at each other with all theses jibes and jeers. They both had a tendency to not leave the subject alone and constantly blame the other for their current situation. They both failed to see that this wasn't helping at all.

"-- Only because you're holding me back! If I didn't have you, I could do a lot of things -- a LOT!

I'd be rocking with the winos  Swinging with the winos.
I'd de-Queenize this cave in a minute!
Aloth, they would sing,
'Cause I would be the Banned king.
I would love this world without you in it!
If I didn't have you!"

"If you didn't have me?" Queen said, miffed and offended.

"If I didn't have you!"

"Well, how about if I didn't have you, huh?"

Than they sang together, but in an antagonistic way:

'Oh, what I could be if there was only me!
Oh, what I'd do if I didn't have you!"

Then Queen belted out:

"If only we were separated apart,
And you were the target for my darts.
I'd be the star of R-A-F, a lot!
You'd be the fool that the whole world forgot!
If I didn't have you!"

Aloth declared, "I should be so lucky!"

"If I didn't have you!"

"Oh, wait! You'd be dead!" Aloth announced.

Then both sang:

"Oh, what I could be if there was only me!  Oh, what I'd do if I didn't have you!  Oh, what I'd do if I didn't have you!"

"Trapped! Aah! Trapped!" Queen said, as she tried to free herself from Aloth, as she considered if this was a permanent situation.

"Stuck here with you for like 500 years!" Aloth snarled.

"Oh dear, it's learned to count." Queen said, condescendingly.

"If I'd gotten me a good lawyer, I would have split a long time ago!" Aloth said.

"Now, listen here, pal! I didn't come here to be insulted!" Queen argued.

"Oh?" Aloth asked. "Then where do you usually go?"

Queen gave him the stink eye, as she decried,

"You'd be nothing without me!
You'd be extinct! You'd cease to be!"

"I'm so tired of your nagging!"

"And I'm so tired of your bragging!"

"Without me you'd have no brain. . ."

Both sang:

". . . with which to think!"

Then they started to sing their respective verses, overlapping each other. This made a cacophonous mess. Then they concluded.

"I would love this world without you in it! If I didn't have you!
If I didn't have you!If I didn't have you!
Life could be so sweet if we were never to meet!
What I'd do if I didn't have you!?"

After a brief period of silence, they finally realized that this wasn't helping matters either. This, after all, wasn't a Disney movie.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nNhGikahU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nNhGikahU)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2018, 08:41:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Shallowly Burying the Hatchet

"Look," Aloth said, trying to temper his anger and revulsion. Trying his damnedest to put them aside. "Look, Queen, you don't like me, and I don't like you. But the fact of the matter is we're stuck. We can bicker and feud AFTER we solve this damn mess."

Queen was sorely tempted to make a withering remark about Aloth, but, despite it all, she could not deny the truth of the matter. Despite not really liking it, Queen had to acquiesce to these truths. She had to be nuanced with her decisions here, and she wasn't really accustomed to it. She had to comply with Aloth at this. Or else she would, quite literally, never be free of him. She may have regretted taking him in and putting him into any position of power (though, to be fair, aside from Yorick, Aloth was the only really other intelligent, competent person in the entire Bannedlands aside from herself, as the trolls had really limited intelligence and rather below average competency at best).

"Fine," was all she said.

Then they had to figure out how to coordinate enough to walk in a halfway stable way. They had to walk as if they were in a three-legged race, only at a slow walking speed. They also had to learn how to coordinate their arms as well, as they couldn't use their other ones, as they were pinioned to their sides. Immovable. The Kluge Glue was stronger than any superglue imagined, though very runny when in its hydrated form, which made it very dangerous potentially. Unless an economically-viable dissolvent could be found.

The two moved as one toward the tub that contained the adhesive. It was mostly translucent, like water, with bits of what looked like rose quartz shards and pink diamond shrapnel within it, almost like glitter in glue. The main substance was obviously not water, though. Neither one of the two Banned were particularly gifted in chemistry knowledge without having some method to test and experiment. And both agreed, they did not want to wait that long if they didn't have to.

They tore the laboratory apart looking for the dissolvent solution, apparently neither paying attention that Kluge was actually still trying to devise one when they broke in to steal whatever invention that he might have been working on. Queen had heard about a mind control device that had a rather unique matrix of crystallized blue and white diamonds, but she couldn't find what it was. It never occurred to her that he might have already destroyed that invention because of the inherent dangers it presented to him and his work from unscrupulous intruders who were looking for it for their own schemes and desires.

It did not dawn on either of them to actually wake up Emanuel Kluge, as he would have made their search much easier. But people often have a knack to not see the simplest solutions for any given predicament they find themselves in. Even the wisest man could have difficulty with this, unless the solution makes itself apparent.

"There's nothing here!" Queen burst, unable to contain herself any longer.

"There HAS to be something here," Aloth said, sounding desperate. "ANYTHING."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 20, 2018, 08:21:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Waking Kluge

It finally dawned on the two that they needed to wake up Kluge. Queen, in particular, was hard-pressed to turn to the Kluge. She had already sacrificed a lot of her own precious ego just to allow Aloth to help on an equal basis. Her inflated ego that blossomed due to an insecurity and a fear of loss of control. Aloth had to try to convince someone who did not want to be convinced.

"We have to wake him up," Aloth said.

"We don't need him," Queen said, repressively.

"We do need him," Aloth said.

"We don't," Queen repeated, silently rankling at being refused and argued with.

"We do," Aloth repeated, feeling annoyed at pointing out something so obvious that anyone could see what needed to be done.

"We don't."

"We do."

"We don't."

"We do."

"We don't."

"Queen, we do." Aloth said, getting tired of this circular argument. "Time to face facts, Queen, we cannot do this on our own. We don't know this place as well as that man does. It is his lab. He would know what and where the dissolvent is."

Queen hesitated, having trouble finding a way to argue this, to try to refute it. She couldn't. She huffed and turned her head away. She didn't like accepting help, especially when she was in such a . . . vulnerable state. She also didn't like things not going her way, as she was accustomed to getting her way in the Bannedlands. The trolls never offered any resistance to her orders, being too stupid to really understand complex concepts like rebellion and recalcitrance. Whereas she saw Aloth as being unruly, stubborn, argumentative, and disobedient, even in their current predicament.

"Fine," Queen spat, "it won't do us any good in the long run. He's dead."

"He's breathing," Aloth said, biting back a pejorative jibe about Queen vastly overestimating her own strength. He placed his working hand on the man's chest. "And his heart is beating."

"Fine, whatever," Queen said, finding herself really not liking this circumstance anymore. "Just how do we wake him up, then?"

This Aloth didn't have any answer to. Kluge was out like a light. He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't expecting nor prepared for the twin punches straight to the face, which his bulbous nose did not absorb much of. He didn't even have so much as a black eye -- Queen tried very hard not to take this as a personal insult. Her punch was full-force, and she couldn't even get a black eye. It was a blow to her ego. It was a small blow, to be honest, but a blow nonetheless.

"How do we do this?" Queen said, more to herself than Aloth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2018, 05:35:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Rise and Shine, Kluge

"Wake up!" Queen said, slapping him across the face. It didn't leave a mark, but she hadn't any time or patience to be annoyed by it. "You fat, stupid lump! Wake up!"

"Well," Aloth said, dryly, bearing witness at this elder abuse, "shockingly, this doesn't seem to be working."

"Well." Queen said, with a snap to her voice. "If you're not going to do anything to help, Aloth, you can stop criticizing those of us who are trying!"

"Says the person who didn't even want to do this in the first place," Aloth pointed out, not backing down from her anymore.

"Be useful, you worthless lout," Queen snarled. She was making it clear with this attitude that she's only working with him as an equal for no other reason that she had to. "If you have so many ideas, Aloth."

"There's no need to be snippy," Aloth muttered.

"WHAT was that?!" Queen demanded. Aloth promptly ignored these demands, as he promptly tapped Kluge's cheek with the back of his palm. He knelt as much as Queen would allow him to.

Yeah, they've managed to coordinate well enough to move about with relative ease, but that didn't change the fact that Queen was quite stuck-up and bossy and Aloth was dishonest and disingenuous. They only made it this far because they were forced to work together towards a common goal. And both were quite eager to reach that goal and be free of the other. But it didn't change the fact that their clashing personalities and feuding ideals were hindering them a great deal from accomplishing this singular goal.

"I said WHAT did you JUST --"

"FOCUS, Queen!" Aloth said, deftly dodging the subject.

"Don't you take that tone with --"

Kluge groaned, cutting Queen off. She quickly forgot her irritation with Aloth, and transferred it towards Kluge. Granted, she and Aloth were guilty of knocking him out in the first place, but she chose not to acknowledge that one little detail. Of course, not acknowledging something does not make it untrue -- a little something that tends to elude a lot of political pundits.

"Finally," Queen scoffed. "The old man awakens. Now maybe he can fix your mistake, Aloth,"

Aloth turned his head away from Queen as he rolled his eyes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2018, 10:35:12 PM

Yes, I'm humanizing Queen in this chapter. So sue me.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Dissolvent Demand

"Wha . . . what hit me?" Kluge said, groggily.

Queen took silent pride in this reaction, choosing to disregard that Aloth had also hit him. And that both of their blows together, while knocking him out, weren't strong enough to leave so much as a black eye on him. She actively chose to ignore this fact.

Kluge sluggishly got to his feet, his left hand on his throbbing noggin. He had a massive migraine. I didn't help that he hit the back wall when the two punched him. He was completely disoriented, not yet able to recall what had landed him on the floor, unconscious. He took a moment to gather his wits, but this seemed to take far too long for Queen's liking.

"Give up the dissolvent, old man," Queen said, aggressively.

"So much for subtlety," Aloth said.

"Shut up, you stupid little man," Queen snapped, before returning her attention back to Kluge. "Where is it, you dumpy old fart."

"Oh, now I remember," Kluge said, standing up straighter and lifting his nose in a dignified manner. "I remember what happened."

"Who cares?" Queen cut across Aloth, who couldn't stop her domineering personality from behaving rashly. "Give the dissolvent to me now, old man!"

"How unbelievably rude," Kluge said, simply. Despite having been knocked unconscious by the two Banned, he felt no fear towards the two before him, with their strong personalities clashing like skillfully made and skillfully wielded swords. "If I were a more crude, crass man, I would question your upbringing."

"Oh, shut up, you old fart," Queen said. Aloth was now wondering if she was trying intentionally to be as rude and disrespectful. Trying to create a veneer of toughness, of boastfulness, of intimidation that she didn't really feel, as if she were hiding an insecurity. Or maybe a few insecurities. "And hand over the dissolvent."

"Whoever said there even was a dissolvent?" Kluge said. "Wasn't me."

Queen basically dragged Aloth over to where Kluge stood, and put her tightly clenched fist under his chin. The old neuroscientist didn't look remotely frightened or intimidated. If anything, he looked almost pityingly at Queen. Almost as if he saw through her bluster and façade down to every insecurity that she tried desperately to hide. He said nothing about it, of course. That would be remarkably impolite and just as rude as the coarse farce Queen was putting on, as if he had superior x-ray vision.

"You best rethink that answer," she threatened.

Kluge easily nudged Queen's fist away from his chin. Gently, as if he were dealing with an overemotional toddler. Her fist was shaking with anger, but Kluge could see through the farce and he saw that she, despite having deep flaws, was not an evil person. Misguided? Sure. Malevolent? Perhaps at times. Pure evil? Hardly. She was nothing like Malice -- and being hard to get along with doesn't make you a psychopathic monster. Malice killed her own parents, something that Queen would never do. And, though she would never admit it, she actually cared about Aloth and even Yorick. That's why she took their departure so personally.

"Miss," Kluge said, "threats of violence are rarely the way to get what you desire."

Queen unclenched her fist, but her expression soured. But Kluge could see that, though petulant, she never really wanted to hurt anybody. She was just lashing out, due to her feeling betrayed by everybody. Her constant attempts to take over the forum was but an extension of this. True, it was taken to an extreme, but a lot of things tended to snowball out of control, if allowed.

"And just taking that which does not belong to you won't make you feel any better," Kluge said. "While I don't know what led either one of you to break into my lab, my domicile, it is not proper to just take property that is not yours without permission."

"When did this become an after-school special?" Aloth said, acidly.

"But I have been working on a dissolvent," Kluge said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2018, 02:24:08 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Separated, At Last

"How far did you get?" Queen asked. She dropped the disrespect and rudeness rather abruptly. Aloth never thought he would ever lived to have seen it. Queen was far more concerned with getting out of this predicament, than maintaining the façade anymore. "What needs to be done?"

Kluge smiled inwardly. He knew that Queen, while abrasive and overbearing, was not an inherently bad person. She may try to foster such an image for intimidation and prestige reasons, but she wasn't. She submerged a potentially affable personality underneath these layers.

"Over here, miss," Kluge said, amiably, as if the two before him had not attacked him at all. He had gone to treating them as invited guests in his home. Kluge really was a strange little man. There was a reason why he worked alone, apparently. Then he realized he may have been impolite to Aloth, and he quickly amended, "and sir."

Aloth frowned but said nothing. He was far too used to being overlooked like this, but never when he wanted to be overlooked. It just seemed so unfair. But he followed Kluge -- Queen gave him very little choice about it, to be honest. She would have dragged him over to where Kluge was working hours before. He stood before a tub, just like the one which held the Kluge Glue. Only this one held a different substance, subtly brewing over a rather odd-looking Bunsen burner. It was as white as Elmer glue, but with little flecks that looked like minute yellow diamonds within it. Not to mention that their were streaks of yellow all over the substance.

"That's the dissolvent? It looks more like glue," Aloth said. His word could have been taken as disrespectful, but that was not how they were exactly intended.

"A little skepticism is always a healthy thing to have, dear boy," Kluge said, in a way very reminiscent of a teacher who happened to be very passionate about the subject in which he taught. "But, yes, despite appearances, this is supposed to be the dissolvent."

"I find that hard to believe," Aloth said. He felt but a slight chill, but ignored it. It was the tail end of August, such things were to be expected in a drafty laboratory such as this. He didn't want to complain aloud, but the arm stuck to Queen was starting to ache. He didn't want to complain because Queen wasn't, and he want to seem whiny, especially when he felt that Queen would capitalize on it. Capitalize on it and make him feel stupid and childish. That always got old. Very. Old.

"I can understand that," Kluge said, turning off the Bunsen burner and took the tub in hand. It surprised both of the Banned, who expected it to be boiling hot. But it was, strangely only warm. It wasn't scalding hot. It was clearly unusual, because Kluge did not look any different from a normal human. He didn't appear to be a metahuman by any stroke of the imagination. "It is actually a paste. If my theories are correct, it should dissolve the Kluge Glue."

"Kluge Glue?" Aloth asked. He didn't snort or anything -- though he wouldn't admit it, he liked the name.

"Yes, that's the name of the adhesive that binds you two together," Kluge said. "Here, let's see if this can free you."

It did. It took what felt to be hours, but it freed them. The two thanked Kluge and actually apologized, then went their separate ways.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2018, 03:29:51 PM

Sorry for the delay, the weather and work took a lot out of me over the weekend.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Peers, Not Peasants

While Queen and Aloth were getting involuntarily close to each other, the RAFians were dealing with another matter altogether. It was a bit mundane for them, but it did lead to the lost of one life. One life they were too late to save.

Perhaps it would be best to back up a bit.

Four teenagers were driving in a car -- eighteen-year-old Benjamin "Benji" Stone, nineteen-year-old Richard "Stretch" Waters, eighteen-year-old Arianna Aires, and her sixteen-year-old brother Heath Aires -- when they were collided into whilst trying to complete a left turn. The other car was an expensive custom car, much in the style of a Royals Royce, only sleaker and more modernized. The driver was completely trashed, and smelled of alcohol from a distance. He couldn't even stand outside the car without toppling. It was a wonder how he was still even breathing, with the amount of alcohol he consumed.

The driver was Donald Couch. And he did not slow down. He did not stop. He kept driving away, apparently unaware that he hit anyone. But his expensive toy was broken and leaking fluids, so it was no difficult feat to track him down.

Kelly and Abby were the first responders, able to get there and stabilize the three with Kelly's healing abilities. But the driver, Benji, Kelly found that she could not heal. Not totally. She could heal his body, but she described it as his soul had vacated his body. She hadn't the power to return it, or call it back to his body. It might have even gone . . . on. But there was no way for her to tell.

But thanks to Kelly's ministrations, and Abby's aid, the other three survived.

And what of Couch? He had the misfortunate of being tracked down by Cloak, and arrested by the police. The whole scene was, despite Cloak's refusal to describing as such, it was very Batman-esque. Even with Cloak leaving before the police commissioner could turn around.

Surprisingly, despite being an overly rich brat with unscrupulous lawyers who would sell their own mothers for a nickel, he was convicted. He was scheduled for a trial date, and he was not happy with this circumstance. He seemed to be under the impression that he was entitled to get off. He killed one man, and seriously injured three others. And, yet, he still had expected that he should get off with nothing more serious than a slap on the wrist. He openly expressed this, revealing just how spoiled he was.

He was arraigned rather quickly. Surprisingly so, as it only took a matter of several days.. And he was present at the courthouse when he saw the twelve people chosen to his jury. Two housekeepers, a factory worker, a hospital dishwasher, a stock boy, a college student, a ski resort employee, a roadhouse server, a dog walker, a stewardess, a police officer, and a cashier. Instead of taking this like a rational adult, Couch lashed out like a impudent, petulant child.

"What idiot assembled this jury?!" he demanded, quite loud enough for the entire courtroom to hear him. But, being as brashly arrogant as he was, he didn't care. He always had difficulty seeing the bigger picture and understanding the larger ramifications of things he did on a whim. He just did things as he saw fit without any comprehension of any future consequence, ignoring any failures that came his way, scapegoating and rationalizing these failures to anyone who would dare scrutinize him.

"Mr. Couch, it is inadvisable to say such --" one of his army of lawyers (the only thing that his father was willing to do for him at this point, tired of defending his antics to the world at large) had said, but Donald Couch was too full of himself to entertain their advice. He thought he was a god among men (neither of his parents had really done anything to dissuade this outlook of his), and he was convinced that he was always right. Anyone that disagreed with him were clearly in the wrong and idiots. He had very little, if any, redeemable potential.

"I have the right to a panel of my peers!" he whined, peevishly. He clearly thought that he would be able to talk his way out this. His ego knew no boundaries, and seemed to keep growing more and more bloated each year. "I have a constitutional right! A right to a panel of my peers!"

"Yes, young Couch," said another lawyer, in a desperate effort to get him to lower his voice. But Couch was too convinced of his phantasmic orating prowess. "They are a panel of your peers."

Couch scoffed audibly, and did not bother to lower his voice as he spoke, "Them?! My peers?"

"Yes, Mr. Couch, now if you can please --"

"Those peasants are NOT any peers of mine!" Couch said, hotly. Apparently, he was also unaware that this entire outburst was being recorded. But, still, he was confident that he'd somehow wriggle out of this one. Somehow.

Needless to say, this trial didn't go well for him. Even when his team of lawyers tried to get him off on the by reasons of insanity, which Couch loudly took offense to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2018, 09:29:11 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Agua Man

Estelore had gone to a river basin, where the next fiend had appeared. Estelore glanced around and found that she appreciated the view and the lush vegetation. The vegetation even seemed drawn to her, in a bizarre form of phototropism, but this was more of an optical illusion, if anything. Estelore proceeded rather sedately toward the coordinates that the fiend was reported at. She wasn't really too concerned about it. She was only second to Richard in terms of raw power, and was a sentient star. What fiend could possibly stand up to her?

Then she came to a bridge, where she only paused a moment to decide which way to take, when the bridge collapse beneath her. Not because of her weight, but because of some octopus hydrokinetic construct. Estelore was perfectly able to float like a certain Rose Quartz or even Princess Peach (although she won't appreciate the latter comparison). She floated downward, almost lazily sedate. Then the hydrokinetic construct of the octopus attacked Estelore, who didn't appreciate it.

"Hmmm, so the fiend must be an aquakinetic," Estelore said, knowing full well that she was speaking the obvious. But after a few missed attacks hydrokinetic construct, Estelore got annoyed, and used her stellar power to destroy it. "I must be getting close."

She went into a large cavern, which the river had flowed into. Estelore went in without any hesitation, perhaps too confident in her power and combat prowess. She proceeded along, but refusing to dive into the water. She wasn't afraid of the water, of course, but if she did, she ran the risk of boiling the water away if she used her stellar abilities.

She continued to make her way to the coordinates. And the fiend was there, half the height of Estelore's avatar, soaking up water from the river. She took on her Kevlar bodysuit form with her hair drawn up into a tight bun. The fiend had a water tank that looked like a top hat, which was transparent on top with a black brim, and it's head was sunken in to its body. It's watery, human-like eyes had yellow sclera and orange irises, which looked like it was just about to burst out bawling. Its spherical body was primarily hollow, to hold water, with the bottom being transparent with the upper part being dark purple and a green ring separating the two. It had cylindrical shoulders with green valve wheels on the ends. It had dark purple upper and lower arms, gold elbows, a black left hand, a black nozzle instead of a right hand with a light orange ring on what would be its wrist. It's crotch was light orange, light brown thighs, light orange growths on its green knees, purple lower legs, and pontoon-like feet, which was black on top with light orange soles.

It attacked preemptively, by shooting a spread of water balloons at her, which she blocked with a shield made of stellar energy. These heavy hydrokinetic balls of water evaporated immediately. But the fiend was not deterred. From its nozzle "hand", it shot a stream of water that Estelore could slide underneath or jump over, but she didn't do anything. She was well out of its range, and Estelore wasn't really impressed by this pathetic attempt to attack her. Then it leaped up and stomped the ground. This caused a column of water to erupt under Estelore, which she evaporated around her using her stellar energy shield.

Estelore deduced that this was the extent to the range of its abilities. She narrowed her eyes, deciding that the time for inaction was over. She used a seldom used ability, a selective form of gravikinesis (hence why her gravity hasn't destroyed the Earth every time she visited -- she could control her own gravity) to call down a bunch of flaming meteors which at first just broke its tank -- as she deliberately just summoned several small meteors -- it's fairly obvious why she didn't summon larger ones. Aside from it being overkill, that is. But it eventually killed the fiend, with surprisingly very little collateral damage.

Estelore smiled at this as she returned to her sundress form. She knew when to have a certain amount of restraint.

***

Demos called it an "aguasapien". Demos wouldn't elaborate on a reason for it, though.

***

"Well," Malice said, watching this, "that was rather pathetic. These fiends aren't really all that good. But, unfortunately, necessary."

Malice would never say it aloud, but she was having a scheme drought. She had a scheme-themed writer's block, so to speak. But she had to struggle to remain . . . relevant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2018, 12:52:49 PM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXVI:
THE LEGION OF RAFIANS
CHAPTER ONE:
Live By The Sword

Cloak was dispatched to find and slay the next fiend. He arrived at a ruin that was evidently built in an active volcano, and the ruin seemed to be Cambodian in design, but Cloak was nowhere near an architecture expert. He entered the ruin as a flurry of bats exited, as if desperately to get out and away. Presumably from the fiend within.

One step inside told Cloak all he needed to know. His Earthsight informed him of the layout of the entire ruin. Or what he assumed to be the entire ruin. The first room had his way forward blocked by a series of four stone doors. There were four rooms to the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest. The way he wanted to go to proceed onward was directly in front of him, north. His Earthsight told him that the rooms were full of traps and each contained a single switch to open one of these doors, but it didn't matter which order he did it.

The southwest one would take him to a room that a falling, spiked ceiling and a rising spiked floor that he would have to speed through in order to get to the switch. Presumably making use of concussive energy blasts or whips.

The southeast one, he could tell just by looking from the center of the room in which he stood, was just dark. It would be the easiest for him to complete considering his feline eyes could easily penetrate the gloom and see whatever was inscribed on the walls.

The northeast one had series after series of lava geysers that had to be navigated. Cloak surmised that they could have been frozen over to prevent this, but he was not a cryokinetic. Although he might be able to manipulate the lava itself -- because, after all, what is lava and magma but liquid earth?

The northwest one would involve him having to match and sandwich two mechanisms together to proceed. Most of them he could not "see" because they hovered in the air, but he knew that they were there. So he would have to make liberal use of his aerokinesis.

But Cloak eschewed from even crossing their thresholds, deeming it as unnecessary. Instead he just terrakinetically forced open all the doors, which he was surprised initially at the heft and strength of the doors, considering their age, which was very likely even older than he was. Then he walked into the room beyond, as the doors shuddered shut again, as if they were stubbornly going back to do their job. The room in which he stood was very plain with a single drop off pit in the center of the room. Cloak shrugged, unable to Earthsight to what was below, despite being able to tell that it wasn't a very long fall. He jumped.

He landed on a very brittle platform with three poles beneath it, floating in a sea of lava. Above him, what appeared to be a pyrokinetic construct of a hammer appeared. Cloak was not amused. With a glare, the pyrokinetic construct vanished, Cloak's will and mastery over fire, despite being pyrophobic still, was greater to whatever this fiend was. Then he came to the point where he had to surf on a piece of stone over a river of lava, complete with gushing geysers of lava as well.

Cloak had never surfed a day in his life, and he was over two and a half centuries in Realm Dweller terms. He was not looking forward to this, but found that he could influence the lava enough that he could get to his destination. The coordinates where the fiend was located, and all he saw was a statue falling down in front of him. There were rather anime-esque sounds of slashing, and then the fiend freed itself from the statue.

The fiend had a greenish-purple cylindrical head, rather like a plant pot, with silver antennae-like ears. It had stern, humanlike eyes with yellow sclera or blue irises along with a humanlike face. Its spherical shoulders were blue with light orange epaulet-like growths. It had white upper arms, blue lower arms, orange wrists with black studs, a huge honking sword instead of a right hand, a black left hand, and an orange waist with black studs. It's lower body was actually a pyrokinetic construct. A solid-looking pyrokinetic construct.

Upon seeing Cloak, the fiend charged forward to slash at him with his sword, which the Realm Walker deftly dodged. Seeing the rather lopsided body plan of the fiend, Cloak surmised that the blade hand would be very heavy. He was not wrong.

Then it tried to attack Cloak by spinning its upper torso, separating it, and having it return like a perverse boomerang. Cloak did not attack it when it was doing that, but he did sidestep it. Then it ignited its sword hand and slashed at Cloak, who was in close range. Cloak quickly back flipped away, using his feline agility and speed to dodge it. Then it jumped upward, out of sight, and a statue dropped over Cloak. He could have dodged it, but it was made of stone. And stone was earth. Cloak just waited until the right moment before uppercutting the statue into pebbles. Had he been in his Apex Tier the statue would have became sand. Then the fiend jumped, its upper torso gravitated into the air while its lower body, the pyrokinetic construct, tried to ram into Cloak on the ground. Cloak could have jumped carefully and fast to avoid it. But he didn't. He just destroyed the construct. But it was pointless, as the fiend just generated another construct.

But Cloaky just smiled. The fiend had just showed all its capabilities. The fiends were never very intelligent or resourceful. Cloak had often wondered if, after Maul, this was a deliberate move on Demos's part. It would have been smarter to have not made them at all, but he did.

It was then that Cloak took the offensive. Cloak formed several heavy balls of water, almost as if they were water balloons, and he formed them one after another and threw them at the fiend. This was almost a calculated insult. An insult that Cloak wasn't taking the fiend as a legitimate threat. It wasn't long before the fiend was slain.

Cloak didn't look back as he left.

***

Demos called it a "sodosapien". Demos just shrugged when asked why he created it.

***

Malice was watching this, stewing in her incapability to come up with a brand new scheme. She felt that her relevance was quickly being forgotten.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2018, 07:58:58 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Puttering Around the TARDIS

Aquilai was inside his TARDIS. He was whistling a nice tune, reminiscent of the tune of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", as he went about with his daily upkeep of his precious TARDIS, his prized possession and first home. He didn't even have a thread of his own -- he didn't need one, really. Just a place to park his TARDIS, and preferably keep it away from treacherous weathering.

He looked at the Chameleon Chip again, and sighed heavily. It was still irreparable and irreplaceable. Pity. It was the only flaw to his beloved time machine, but he rather look at all the positive things about it instead of this one minor flaw. Then he looked at the size alteration circuits -- the Chameleon Chip may have been faulty, but he could at least shrink it into pendant form, so he could always be with it. He loved this thing so much, which is why he always took it extremely personally when it was broken by someone.

He translated from whistling to humming the same, Christmassy tune -- despite it being late August, early September. He didn't care if the tune appropriately timed for the season. He was alone in his TARDIS, and he was free to belt out a Shakespearean sonnet or two if he so had the inclination. The TARDIS was sufficiently soundproofed to not bother anyone outside.

Aquilai was very pleased to see that his TARDIS needed very little upkeep today. It was per usual, as he usually kept the place immaculate and always in good working order. Granted, he hadn't really used the real capability of his TARDIS to travel through time. Seems almost like over a year since had actually tried. He was too busy doing other things for the forum. Having a hand in creating the wishbone, disabling that gravitational rotation slowing device, etcetera, etcetera. Don't get him wrong, though. He thoroughly enjoyed being one of the "sciencey boys" with Yarin, Goom, and Xeno, the four that the RAFians turn to when a device is desperately in need of development.

Aquilai went to the controls of his TARDIS, the device that allowed his TARDIS to travel through time itself. He diligently inspected the hardware, finding nothing broken or in need of replacing. Then he examined the software and programming. This was an ordinarily a long, tedious process, like S.O.S. chaining for a Shiny Pokémon. But Aquilai committed to it dutifully. After all, they didn't have a mission or a situation that demanded his immediate attention.

Then Aquilai thought he heard something. His expression immediately soured. It had better not be that red gremlin thing again. Aquilai would not hesitate to strangle the thing, dismissing any sentience. He took anyone who would break his TARDIS that seriously. Serious enough to murder for it. Perhaps it would change slightly if he Regenerated.

Then something hit him in the back of the head, where his skull and spine met. Aquilai collapsed on the ground. He wasn't hit severely enough to Regenerate, but enough to knock him out completely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2018, 08:53:06 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Aquilai of the Past

"Meet a man named Aquilai, and his family,
On vacation to the 21^st century.
Got in his TARDIS and they're on their way,
To a time way, way, way forward to the day.
Now he's Aquilai of the Past.
Keepin' it together just as best as he can.
Aquilai of the Future.
He's a 21^st century man.
(A 21^st century man.)
On mishap through history,
But the final destination was a mystery.
Something on the TARDIS had blown,
And they ended up here in their time zone!
Now he's Aquilai of the Past.
Never knew where in history where he would land.
Aquilai of the Future.
He's a 21^st century man.
(A 21^st century man.)
He's a 21^st century man.
(A 21^st century man.)"

This what was ringing in Aquilai's ears as he regained consciousness. He felt the throbbing knot in the back of his head, and surveyed the scene. He hadn't Regenerated. He hadn't done so for a while. He was still a waterbender, right? He thought so. He looked at his instruments and uttered a quiet curse.

He hadn't intended to do it. He really hadn't. But his TARDIS had taken him a century or so into the future. He made a few checks, but to his disappointment found that he couldn't yet jump back into the century he had made his home in. He wouldn't be ready to do so for . . . too long for his liking.

He sighed deeply. Well, if he could any solace from this, this wasn't the first time he had been in this century. He should be fine to intermingle with the populace of this time. Unless time had changed due to his actions in the past. He shook his head, actively choosing to dismiss that. He had to see what the world was like in this time period. He had to admit, part of him feared a dystopian world like the premise of many sci-fi movies, a world akin to that in H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine", or other potentially ruinous timeline probabilities. The possibilities are literally endless, although he was sure his TARDIS was on solid ground and not floating off in space. That ruled out a few possibilities that said the Earth would have been destroyed.

Granted, this didn't mean that the Earth would be livable outside the doors of his TARDIS. He consulted his instruments once more, which indicated that the atmosphere would not be uncomfortable on his physiology. So, he made his decision, as his curiosity got the better of him.

He would go outside, in this roughly 31^st century world. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30TDr3wgHs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30TDr3wgHs)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2018, 09:43:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Here Comes the Exposition Dump

It's interesting just how much information one can come by after a few moments. Especially in this specific future. And Aquilai wasn't sure just how much he liked it. A lot could change over the span of a thousand years, of course, and this was to be expected.

As it turns out, RAF still existed, but it was now in a more galactic form, basically having merged with the Plumbers as a law enforcement agency. It's leader was someone that was just generally called the Old One or the Ancient One, which, Aquilai admits, he would have just assumed was one of the mods, or even Richard himself. The term "RAFian" and "Legionnaire" were basically used interchangeably now, with the former being the more informal one to use. The latter is usually used when criminals are angry with the organization.

Aquilai wasn't too surprised that many of the RAFians that he knew and cared about were long dead. Not many species can live over a thousand years. He expected to see Cloak, Empress Goose, Gaz, Shanker, Richard, Estelore, and others like that still surviving. But it's not like the friends from his time left no legacies. There was Vector and Argyle Sirois, descendants of Leatherhead and some girl from Reptilon; Jamie no-last-name-given, descendant of Parker and Helen's daughter; Gwendolyn, descendant of Melissa Spellman and some guy who's name Aquilai did not recognize. There were plenty more of the Legionnaires -- Aquilai decided right then and there to stick with the term "RAFians" -- too numerous to count, milling around either on leisure time or training or doing specialized tasks.

At one point or another, he saw Gaz, a heavily modified Oceanspray (he looked more like Delta from that Star Trek show), Rocklobster (naked, without a hologram), Sakki, Phoenix (with his phoenix traits more pronounced now), a tired Underseen, a weary Ash, Abby in a seemingly permanent insubstantial form, a moody SuperNate, a more-solemn Yunyun, and Shock, who confirmed who he was to the others. But they both seemed more subdued that they were ordinarily. Aquilai tried to hide his shock. He knew that a lot must have happened in the bevy of intervening years, things that they clearly did not wish to revisit. And Aquilai did not press them for answers.

But the one RAFian he did not see hide nor hair of was Cloak, although he also saw representation from other species that weren't RAFians during his time -- a Skrull, a Pyronite, an Atlanteen, a Methanian, a Wookie, a Geochelone Aerio, a Vulcan, a Segmentasapien, an Andalite, and more that he wasn't familiar with. The entire facility was alive with activity. Amazing how they managed to convert the international space station into this impressive facility. However, future technology in conjunction with alien tech must have quickened the development.

"Time Lord," Vector said, irreverently, "the Witness wants to see ya."

"Call him by his proper title," Argyle sniffed. "The Old One wants an audience with you, Mr. -- Aquilai, correct?"

"Yes, and the Old One?" Aquilai asked. "And why would he want to see me?"

"Because you may know him by another name," Ash said, walking by. Aquilai didn't like how tired she seemed to be. She seemed to be overworked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2018, 10:25:23 PM

Being impatient, I'm gonna go ahead and release tomorrow's chapter right now.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Old One

Aquilai stepped into a moderate sized room that was decorated in such a way that it reminded him of Splinter from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". The straw mats on the floor with the panel artwork on the wall. There was only a singular window to their left. The figure sat upon the center of the mattress, looking far younger than his name would have implied. And, of course, Aquilai did, in fact, know him by another name.

"Richard," he said, in acknowledgement.

"So refreshing to be referred to by name," he said, just now opening his eyes. He didn't appear to have aged a single day, much less a thousand. It just occurred to him just how ancient Richard could be. He decided that that would be one fact that he didn't really want to find out the answer to. "And I know, Aquilai, you came from the past."

"Yes," he said. "is that why you wanted to see me?"

"In part," Richard said, wearily. It was in this moment, in those two words, that Aquilai heard Richard's age. It actually stunned the Time Lord. "But I also wanted to be the one to answer questions."

"But wouldn't too much knowledge prove detrimental to the time stream," Aquilai said. He was embarrassed to admit that he had just thought of this. He had allowed his curiosity to get the better of his judgment. "Chronal pollution, and all that."

"This is the timeline where you left and haven't returned until this point," Richard reasoned. "When you return, as you inevitably will, this timeline will be changed regardless."

Aquilai couldn't argue with that logic. And, to be honest, he was rather curious about this world.

"But, still, I'll answer the questions as an Oracle of Delphi would, if you'd prefer," he said.

"No, no, there'll be no need for that." Aquilai said, shifting around his mind for questions that might be considered innocuous. "Where's Cloak? A century for us is only ten for him."

Richard's expression saddened, "The reason for that is simple, Aquilai. Cloak was murdered."

"Malice?" Aquilai said, making an educated guess.

"No," Richard said, sadly, "Cloak slew Malice, as she forced his hand. Cloak was slain by someone else over eight hundred years ago. His death broke the Mark, and we've been without it ever since"

Aquilai hesitated, almost rethinking himself for asking, "Then, by who?"

"Another Realm Walker," Richard said. Now Richard was wondering if he was saying too much now. "One who called himself Singularity."

"'Singularity'?" Aquilai asked. "What does that mean?"

But before Richard could answer, an alarm blared. Aquilai was astonished with the agility and swiftness that Richard managed to get to his feet. Something a man a mere fraction of his age couldn't do as quickly and smoothly.

"An incursion!" he said. "Come, Aquilai, old friend, we must engage!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2018, 08:50:27 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
The Five Furies

Aquilai followed Richard into the main atrium of the space station. There, he saw five individuals that looked roughly human. Richard quickly explained in an aside that after Cloak died, and Singularity vanished somewhere, there was a villain vacuum. Instead of fighting for it, the Knights, the Banned, Cadmus, and the Cartel -- this last one was unfamiliar to Aquilai, but he wasn't able to inquire about it -- united as one. After a brief and bloody skirmish to be the ultimate leader, these five became it. Known colloquially as the Five Furies. And the organization became known as the Syndicate. The Knights became the Enforcers, the Banned became their propaganda wing and spies, Cadmus became their science and development department, and the Cartel basically became their grunts and foot soldiers. This actually made them a very credible threat. And the RAFians' main adversaries in this time. And it was the reason why many of the older RAFians seemed to be so worn and tired. Their battles often proved to be exhausting and draining, both mentally and physically.

Then Richard addressed each of the Furies by name. Not their real names, of course, but no one knew those and the Furies never used them.

"Oculus Rife," Richard said, at the woman in emerald green attire with an emerald instead of her right eye. She looked very dismissive of others, and had an overinflated sense of self-worth. She was clearly the leader of the cadre of six. Though, in typical villain fashion, she thought the other four were expendable if it came down to it, denying any contributions the other four made as minor and of little overall consequence. And, yet she still maintained the mantle of leadership of the Five Furies. She could project concussive blasts of energy from this emerald, and it allowed her a degree of telekinesis.

"Incinerator," Richard said, at the man, in his late teens to early twenties, who was completely engulfed in flames. He looked as if he were perpetually angry, and a typical angsty teen, only slightly older. Unsurprisingly, due to the nature of his abilities, he was a bit of a hothead and very quick to rage. He could barely control his rage, but his fear of Oculus Rife was the only thing that reigned his fury in. He used his pyrokinesis for a variety of effects, least of which to allow him to fly. He was constantly on fire, and could not revert to a non-burning form.

"Brutish," Richard said, at the amalgamation of rocks in a rough humanoid form. He looked as if he was the one most willing to bargain with his enemies. Possibly the weakest link of the five, but still tough enough to rise to be a fury. He was once human, but due to an accident with cosmic waves, he was stuck with this form, struggling to keep his humanity. He was able to separate his rocks and scatter them, but also recall them. His physiology was remarkably similar to a Segmentsapien, only with rocks. Even so, he wasn't too terribly smart and tended to not understand the reasons behind what the Furies and the Syndicate did. He harbored a large amount of self-loathing and wasn't above lashing out. Like Incinerator, he feared Oculus and so did as she asked.

"Vanish," Richard said, at a sad-looking woman who immediately vanished from sight. She was suffering from a deep depression from children that she lost several years ago. But there were discrepancies of whether these children had truly ever existed and she wasn't suffering from some delusion. She rarely spoke, but was powerful enough to become a Fury. She could make herself imperceptible to others, though not intangible. She could also make invisible force fields and the like, but she usually played a more defensive, protective role. She had a rather contentious relationship with Oculus, but she didn't possess enough willpower to fight her on any issue, choosing just to comply so Oculus would leave her to grieve.

"Malleable," Richard said, at the last of the group, who looked resigned and accepting of his lot in life. He had accepted what the Syndicate stood for, and the perception of being evil criminals. He accepted all that, though he did not believe it to be true. He believed that the RAFians were the evil ones, not really registering the hypocrisy of those assertions. Everything the Syndicate did was actually worse. Corrupting politicians (not really hard for some legislators, unsurprisingly enough), corrupting governments with corporate money, stealing from the working class -- the Syndicate was implicated in all that, and Malleable didn't care and didn't acknowledge it. His powers allowed him to stretch any part of his body, making any abilities with any physicality to it completely ineffective to him. Even abilities with ballistic potential were very limited in their effectiveness.

"What do you want here? You know you cannot win," Richard said.

"Oh, can't we?" Oculus said. She had a sultry sort of voice as if she was an actress chewing the scenery. She gestured to her left and Richard was chagrin to find five percent of the RAFians -- about 200,000 or so individuals -- all having mind control discs on their heads and chest. This included both Vector and Argyle Sirois. And a speedster that Aquilai wasn't sure was related to either Cerulean or Shenmue. The speedster was probably how she managed to get those discs on all these people in such a short amount of time. "As you can see, they've decided to join the winning side."

"Damn," Richard said, recognizing the dangers. And apparently already aware of what their scheme is. "I've never should have sent Shadow to that mission on Darwin 4."

"Shadow?" Aquilai asked.

"Later," Richard said. Then he addressed the Furies. "You'll never get away with this you know."

Oculus laughed, "Won't we?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2018, 07:57:36 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Assimilating Assault

"Hubris has a nasty tendency to ruin even the best-laid plans," Richard said, almost deliberately trying to take attention off Aquilai. Or, more importantly, his TARDIS. The time machine would be exceedingly dangerous in the hands of the Furies, much less the greater Syndicate itself. Meddling with time always proves to be a hazardous preoccupation.

But Aquilai's TARDIS could only be worked by him. Only he, or others he allowed, were permitted access. It was rather like something made of mokeskin, and it would only open for him. So that was of little concern to him. And those mind control discs . . . he still, strangely enough, bore his Mark. The Mark, though far from infallible, blocked such mundane forms of manipulation and control. It would have no effect, no matter how futuristic the tech was. It was how Cloak, Goom, and Richard himself crafted it, but Cloak had it tied to his life, his power.

"Hubris?" Oculus Rife laughed, coyly. "Hardly, you old Coot."

That was evidently her little pet name for Richard. Aquilai couldn't help but notice how the term was just one letter away from a racial slur. Richard didn't react to it, clearly demonstrating it wasn't the first time he heard the derogatory remark. Richard was far more concerned with not allowing the Furies to notice Aquilai's TARDIS, which was shrunk down into its pendant form, and swing around on the Time Lord's neck.

Of course, during this time, the mind controlled RAFian speedster was putting more mind control discs on the other RAFians before they could react. Those that were naturally immune, due to their physiology and species, like Underseen's physiology, were either killed outright or severely injured. Soon, too soon, there was about a quarter of all of the RAFians that were either controlled or killed. This was roughly a million or so individuals. Aquilai couldn't count all of them, to be honest.

"You're losing your touch, Old Man!" Incinerator crowed, taking a savage pleasure.

Oculus Rife's demeanor changed immediately to a cold, angry one as she said to her fellow Fury, "Be SILENT."

Incinerator immediately complied. He was terrified of her.

"We agreed that only I would engage the enemy in conversation, you forgetful dolt."

Aquilai was getting strong Malice or Queen vibes from Oculus Rife. And it was clear when she said "we agreed", that that wasn't technically true. It was clear as crystal that Oculus made that decision unilaterally, and the other four Furies were too afraid to go against her. It was a vanity thing, on Oculus's part, obviously.

"Give it up, Coot," Oculus said, completely losing her flippant tone. She was getting serious, and Aquilai looked to Richard. His face was inscrutable, and Aquilai couldn't tell what was going on through his mind. The Time Lord was assuming that this was still weighing very heavily on his mind, that Richard was being forced to make a calculated, risky decision. The kind of decision that no one enjoys making. Oculus spoke again, "A quarter of your precious RAFians are mine. Just give it up."

Then Oculus fell silent, apparently enjoying the struggle that was going on within Richard. She was rather sadistic in this manner, as her emerald eye glistened evilly.

"Just yield," she intoned, "just do it. Submit to me."

"Never," was Richard's response.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2018, 08:26:08 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Inaction Versus Action

"Really, Coot?" Oculus said, clearly taking some modicum of offense at this response. "'Never'?"

Richard said nothing, but stood a little taller, refusing to give into her. But his ulterior motive was still to take any and all attention off Aquilai. And more importantly his TARDIS.

"You think you're some really big man, don't you?" Oculus snarled. "You think you're really above it all, DON'T YOU?!"

Aquilai was seriously suspecting that Oculus was, at least partially, mentally and emotionally unstable. Richard was still struggling with what he could or couldn't do. The last thing that he wanted to do was harm his RAFians. They were not his subordinates, they were his friends, his family. There had to be a solution that he couldn't see. He just had to stall the Furies and . . .

But it was at this point that roughly half, roughly two million RAFian individuals, were either controlled, killed, or grievously injured. Richard didn't like this. His inaction was allowing those that were not able to be controlled to be either killed or maimed. He wasn't really paying attention to the rant (which happened to be a bit racist and speciesist) that Oculus was undergoing. There was only one chance.

"Aquilai," he whispered in such a way that the Furies didn't notice. "You need to go back. Go back in time."

"I cannot," Aquilai said. The chronal capacitors and the like were likely needing to still be recharged enough to do such. Until then, he was stuck here in this time zone.

"I applaud your bravery," Richard whispered, tersely. "But this is no time. You need to go back and change all this. Even the smallest change could change this for the better."

"Or the worse," Aquilai whispered in argument. "The flow of time is hardly ever, if ever, predictable."

"You must!" Richard said. "Any small change. Butterfly effect this, Aquilai."

"You're discounting the multiverse theory, Richard," Aquilai said. "There's a chance, that no matter what I do in the past, that this reality would just remain the same. And this predicament would remain the same."

Richard fell silent at this.

"Time travel isn't the answer to this situation," Aquilai whispered. "There has to be another one."

"RAFians are dying," Richard whispered back. "Killed by RAFian hand. But people they considered friends, though through no fault of their own."

"Yes, which is why we must come up with a solution," Aquilai said, "and, I'm really sorry, Richard, but time travel can't be one of them. My TARDIS needs some time to recuperate from the last trip."

"You DARE to IGNORE ME?!" Oculus Rife roared. Clearly, she didn't like being ignored.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2018, 09:40:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
You're Too Late

"ENOUGH OF THIS!!" Oculus roared. "We have enough RAFians for the plan!"

"Wait, what?" Aquilai said, quietly. He was under the impression that she wanted to assimilate all of the RAFians, every single one. But, evidently, that was just the first stage in whatever they were planning.

"What do you intend to do with my RAFians, Oculus?!" Richard demanded. He clearly was under the same impression that Aquilai was.

Oculus turned away, and spoke over her shoulder, in a frosty way, "Wouldn't you want to know?"

She took off with her mind-controlled RAFians, and the Furies. There were several beats of silence, before Richard's eyes widened.

"You know what she's planned," Aquilai said, matter-of-factly.

"Go forward in time, Aquilai," Richard said once more. This time there is more urgency in his voice. "Stop this long before it happens."

"There is a myriad things wrong with that course of action," Aquilai said. "First, the multiverse theory would mean that anything that do back in my native time period won't change this, just make it an alternate timeline, an alternate reality. Second, time flows like a river -- if whoever or whatever determines its flow is determined for this to happen, it will happen. We may be able to change the details of it, but the main import of it potentially will not change. Time is a very fickle thing, and any time you try to control it or manipulate it for your ends, more often than not it comes back to bite you in the butt in the end."

Richard turned away. This was not the answer he wanted, the answer he was hoping for.

"Besides," Aquilai said, "my TARDIS is not ready to go back."

"Come again?" Richard said, turning around to look at Aquilai. It was at this moment Aquilai could actually feel the ancientness of the man in front of him, the weariness and exhaustion of a man who lived far longer than any man should logically live. Aquilai actually could see the age in the father of RAF's eyes.

"My TARDIS needs time to recuperate from the last trip," Aquilai said. "From my native time, to here. It was not a very smooth trip. It was a . . . it was an accidental trip."

Richard sighed. Aquilai could see easily that Richard was hefting a burden that made Atlas look just whiny in comparison.

"Then we have to act quickly," he said.

"What is she planning?" Aquilai asked, at once.

"She's more than likely planning to discredit the RAFians as an organization," Richard said, heavily. Aquilai didn't like how weary and weakened he sounded. Aquilai realized just how much Richard's decisions weighed on him, just how deeply he took his mistakes and failures. How such things are too much for one man to endure.

"And she'll do that by using the RAFians she is controlling," Aquilai quickly surmised. "But how? In what way?"

"She'll launch an assault on the capital planet," Richard said. "Earth."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2018, 09:15:31 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Capital and Colonies

As Richard took the remaining the RAFians, including the Time Lord, he explained the situation to Aquilai. There were seven colonies, as Mars boasted their own native life, White and Green Martians. Earth had become the capital city in the Sol system, and the Martians received equal representation -- represented by the Green Martian, Senator Ar'res Res'ar, and Earth itself, as well as its moon, was represented by Gaia Terrance.

The colonists on the other planets (and some moons, which falls under the jurisdiction of the planet) were genetically modified generations ago to survive on the planets. So much so that they're considered offshoots of Homo sapiens, which some of the more fanatical species-purists find almost blasphemous and sinful. But these are also the racists and xenophobes that consider that [/i]Homo sapiens terra[/i], as the "genetically pure" humans on earth were called since, these "humanity purists", evolved from the same ideology that the Knights formed and thrived on before the conglomeration of the Syndicate, considered themselves above any of these colonists, and had a variety of racial slurs for them. Many of them uncreative.

Venusian colonists, or Homo sapien venus, looked very feminine, even the males. This was the first extraterrestrial colony. Their bodies had been changed to respire on carbon dioxide instead of oxygen, not unlike plants on Earth. They were about the same height, perhaps slightly, imperceptibly smaller, as humans on Earth. Their bodies were far more durable than Earth humans due to the thicker atmosphere on Venus. They also have to wear pressure suits when they're off-world considering the atmospheric pressures that they were genetically modified to have. They're also immune to the effects of strong acids, such as sulfuric acid, which is what rains on Venus. They also require excessive amount of heat, which they, somehow, metabolize for sustenance, as they don't appear to have grown any food on the surface, due to the heavy wind speed, which these Venusian colonists are able to resist as if they were subtle breezes. Some members of this race demonstrate the ability to manipulate beauty, manipulate emotions, manipulate love itself, induce fertilization, manipulate pheromones, and have supernatural beauty, but not necessarily all of these abilities at once. They are represented by Senator Aphrodite McLean.

Mercurian colonists, or Homo sapien mercury, looked slightly feminine with little antennae right between the eyes. This was the second colony. They are able to withstand more extreme temperatures than Earth humans, and do not need to breathe. They absorb light and heat from the sun in a rather photosynthetic manner. They tend to be a lot taller and thinner than regular humans, due to Mercury's substantially lower gravity. Which is why they have to wear an anti-gravity suit when they're off their planet. They are also completely hairless, as they manage to feed through their bald heads -- their mouths only function as a communication apparatus. Some members of this race have demonstrated absolute thievery abilities, purported afterlife messaging, purported afterlife transport, manipulation of boundaries, manipulation of economies, manipulation of art, enhanced inventing abilities, literary manipulation abilities, manipulation of money, enhanced athleticism, flight, omnilingualism, manipulation of the soul, being tricksters, and warping speed, but not necessarily all of these abilities at once. They are represented by Senator Hermes Castellan.

Jovian colonists, or Homo sapien jove, looked as if they stop aging at twenty-four, with a purported "sky father" or "sky mother" physiology. This was the third colony. They breathe and metabolize hydrogen for both respiration and sustenance. They were typical substantially smaller and stockier than an average Earth human, due to the immense gravity of Jupiter. They live their lives suspended in the gaseous atmosphere of Jupiter, leaving their legs fairly atrophied. Though they can easily support their weight on planets with lesser gravity, like Earth, and can even fly in those lower gravity planets. Some members of their race have demonstrated the ability to remove immortality, to manipulate order, to manipulate subordination, to manipulate the sky, to manipulate the weather, to manipulate the air, to manipulate electricity, to manipulate storms, and to manipulate celestial bodies; others have showcased a kind of sky lordship. They are represented by Senator Zeus Grace.

Saturnian colonists, or Homo sapien saturn, looked rather like the archaic form of a demon due to their forked tail and humanoid body and horns. This was the fourth colony. They breathe and metabolize hydrogen, just like the Jovian colonists, though they can supplement their diet with plants that were similarly genetically modified. And they also eat Veleek particles. They were slightly smaller and stockier than an average Earth human. Their fashion seemed to revolve around rings, as well. They survive by floating, and if there's a core to Saturn, they haven't mentioned it. Some members of their race have demonstrated the ability to manipulate autumn, to manipulate the harvest, to manipulate plants, to induce plant growth, of temporal cognition, and of temporal guardianship. They also exhibit enhanced charisma and a proficiency with sickles as weapons. They are represented by Cronus Lucas.

Neptunian colonists, or Homo sapien neptune, looked like the classical depictions of merfolk, though their fish tails can become legs, rather like a Pisccis Volan. They are resistant to cold, and hairy, like a yeti. They breathe and metabolize hydrogen, just like Jovians and Saturnians, with supplementary diets of similarly engineered foodstuffs that they could grow on Neptune. They are slightly smaller and stockier than the average Earth human, head to tail. They survive by "swimming" through this atmosphere. Some members of their race have demonstrated the ability to manipulate aquatic life (including crustaceans and ichthyoid lifeforms), trident proficiency, aquatic adaptation, earth manipulation (including earthquake generation), storm manipulate (including rain generation and hurricane creation), ocean lordship, disaster manipulation, sea monster manipulation, ocean manipulation, and water manipulation (including tidal wave generation, water affinity, and water mimicry). They are represented by Poseidon Jackson.

Uranian colonists, or Homo sapien uranus, looked like humans with strangely prominent bellies and navels, all of which are innies. Both genders are extremely hairy, like yetis. They had legs and feet that seemed to be vestigial but could support their weight on planets with lower gravity, and were, in fact, stronger than that of Jovians, Saturnians, and Neptunians. They survive by metabolizing the ammonia and water ice for sustenance, even cultivating them as crops. Some members of their race have demonstrated the ability to manipulate the sky, stars (at least the perception of such), and weather. They are represented by Ouranos Furst.

Plutonian colonists, or Homo sapien pluto that looked rather like one of those Blackwoods wendigos with hunched backs and crystalline skin. They are able to adapt to severe cold, akin to a Kraaho. They respire mostly carbon monoxide and nitrogen, but feed on water ice or liquid water, not unlike Namekians. They have a classic humanoid body plan, and require a specialized suit to survive on warmer planets. They don't really have much of a face to speak of. Some members of their race have demonstrated the ability to nullify divinity, manipulate earth, be empowered by fear, manipulate money, practice necromancy, manipulate the nether, manipulate souls, and manipulate order. They are represented by Hades DiAngelo.

There were no colonies for Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris, and remain uninhabited to this day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2018, 10:34:52 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Enacting the Final Line

After this not-so-brief briefing, Richard and the remaining RAFians outfitted him with a floatation ring, as he was not a flier. Sure, when he Regenerated into an airbender, he could airbend the wind around him to fly, but he wasn't an airbender. He was a waterbender and he couldn't technically fly with that ability and skill. Other non-fliers were also fitted with the floatation rings, including Richard. They were the final line of defense. Even among the ones they, up until a few moments ago called their friends. Aquilai was not naïve to be oblivious to the implications of this.

This was shaping up to be, essentially, a RAFian civil war. True, the half of the RAFians that were on the Syndicate's side, the Furies' side, were acting against their will, their decision to commit this act was not their own. But the fact of the matter remained, the free RAFians had to fight the controlled RAFians. At all costs. Even if that meant that more of them had to . . .

"I wish Estelore or Shadow were here," Richard muttered, though Aquilai could scarcely hear him. "They're the most powerful RAFians we have left uncontrolled."

This left Aquilai to wonder about Spectre -- who was neither one on their side or the . . . the enemy side. But a thousand years is a long time. Things of considerable magnitude have a tendency to pop up from time to time in such a time frame. He didn't have time or energy to get into what happened to every RAFian from his time. His TARDIS would allow him to return to them, but the RAFians stuck here didn't have such a luxury. He couldn't afford to get ambivalent, he had to due his best to retrench these controlled RAFians from Oculus's control and manipulations. Aquilai said nothing, but he honestly feared that saving them would prove to be a rather futile endeavor.

Aquilai was also quite aware of how the politically corrupt and the opponents of RAF down on this capital planet, on Earth, would smear their efforts this day. But there was very little point in trying to convince them of the truth, as these people already had their minds made up. Hell, apparently, even in this advanced day and age, people still were laboring under the impression that the Earth was still flat, and these senators were from distant lands, and not planets, asserting the genetic manipulation was always unnecessary and asserting that they knew better than much better educated persons, just because some ancient book which bore many contradictions.

"It begins," Richard announced.

They began to approach, and it wasn't just the controlled RAFians. Oculus Rife had staffed this onslaught with disguised grunts and trolls. They were rather shabbily disguised as RAFians. They were intending on destroying the planet -- although it was still recovering from global warming from the repeal of many environmental regulations when one of the most powerful countries had a childish buffoon in office, and the corporations were polluting with reckless abandon. Aquilai did not know how they managed it, but the world was just starting to bounce back.

Focus, Aquilai. Focus.

He took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, as if he were unholstering a gun, and spun in his had as a gunslinger would his favorite pistol. His waterbending wouldn't be as helpful in this battle, he decided. He didn't have his skin of water here with him -- he had left it in the TARDIS -- and he hadn't thought to get it when he first decided to explore this world. He considered bloodbending -- he knew that Cloak wouldn't have approved, but he had to consider every avenue that might lead to a nonlethal solution -- but there were several factors and circumstances that ruled that out. He didn't know how to properly bloodbend (having made a conscious decision to never learn how), it was high noon, and they were nowhere near a full moon. So that wasn't a viable option.

Maybe he could deactivate and detach the mind control discs, using his sonic screwdriver. It would not be a quick solution and he would have to get close enough to do so. He doubted seriously that they would allow him to get so close. And if he made any progress, he risked attracting the attentions of the Five Furies. He was sure that he didn't have enough power to stop any one of them, let alone all five together. It was a humbling thought, to know that he wasn't all-powerful, but he had relied on his intelligence and cunning before, and it managed to allow him to wriggle out of some sticky spots before.

He glanced on the Mark on his right hand, and then gripped his sonic screwdriver tightly, as he stuffed his TARDIS pendant beneath his shirt. It was time to see if they could do this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2018, 08:21:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Work Fast, Aquilai!

The anticipation before the battle. These controlled RAFians also had floatation rings, and the troll and grunts had knockoff brands of sort of the floatation rings which was too buggy and glitchy to be really useful. But there was the problem of the sheer number of them. It was rather intimidating to face a horde such as this, where former friends were on the front line. Aquilai surmised that this must have been what it was like back when the Yeerks first tried to invade the Earth. To his left was Michelle Riley, the descendant of Phoenix, who inherited her ancestor's pyrokinesis, although any phoenix physiology she possessed was more of a pyrokinetic construct, a la Jean Grey. He noticed the way her face was set. She was as looking forward to this as Aquilai was.

And all Aquilai had at his disposal was his sonic screwdriver. It made him feel a little small and daunted about this. But he had his plan. He would deactivate the discs. Find a way to deactivate them all, even if he had to go one by one. They were getting closer now, and he didn't see any of the Furies. He found this rather ominous, but, at the same time, rather cowardly. Though it would make sense that they would not want to advertise that the Syndicate was behind this. They would want RAF to shoulder all the blame, to be smeared in eyes of all the inhabitants of the Sol system. This would be far more pervasive than any propaganda, because the populace would see this with their own eyes -- and, despite whatever the biases they may already have, this would permanently mar the RAFians in their eyes.

Though Aquilai would not say it aloud, this plan was brilliant in a way. As long as they could keep the mind control fact under wraps, win or lose, the RAFians' reputation would be smeared and marred. Maybe irreparably. This would be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, if they can keep the mind control fact covered up. Even if it wasn't covered up, there would be those conspiracy theorists that would insist the opposite of the truth. There are still people in this day and age who believe that the Earth was flat, that prayer could heal any illness, that the moon landing was faked (despite the fact that the moon was now one large theme park), and so on. People will always have a tendency to believe what they want to believe, especially when they have made up their minds about it.

The silence before battle. The battle lines were drawn, and there was the slight hesitation that always seemed to precede a climatic battle, such at this. Aquilai took this moment to try to single out a controlled RAFian to target first. One that he could get to the disc first without much resistance. He decided on a Earth human who looked as if he was a child, despite RAFians having a bit of an age limit to go on dangerous missions. He could have simply looked younger than he was, or perhaps he was actually a child. Aquilai did not know. But he wore a floatation ring, indicating that he might lack powers of any sort.

With a shout, a roar, and a shriek, the battle commenced. Aquilai was unnoticed as he immediately went to his target and immediately was able to take off the main casing of the disc and was able to get to the guts of the disc. He managed to stumble upon a mechanism that acted like the Z on the chest of one of those Z Putty Patrollers (http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/Z_Putty_Patrollers) from "Power Rangers" which not just detached him from the chest of the childlike RAFian, who became dazed and confused.

Aquilai couldn't afford to comfort him, he needed to move on and deactivate more of these discs. He couldn't afford to be distracted by anything else. He had to ignore the chaos, the cries and the roars of battles. He had to focus. Focus on the one role he had chosen to ascribe to himself. He had to do this. If he proved to be proficient, he could severely limit the amount of destruction and devastation. And now that he knew the mechanism that would eject the discs from their chests, things could proceed far easier.

One freed RAFians became two freed RAFians. Two became four. Then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Then sixty-four. And he did this all unnoticed by the onslaught or the Furies. He knew that it wasn't going to stay that way for very long. Then one hundred twenty-eight were freed. Aquilai tried his best to ignore the injured and dying RAFians that were fighting against themselves. Then two hundred fifty-eight were free. Aquilai was getting into a routine with this. He was pleased that he was being rather productive at this. Aquilai had lost track of the time that passed by, which he was willing to admit was a bit ironic, given he was a Time Lord.

Then he freed roughly seventeen percent of those that had been controlled. Another eight percent were injured . . . or worse. Four percent of their side were likewise in precarious situations of life and death. He had to shut all that out. He had to work. He had to work on this. There could be no distractions. Even though it was getting harder and harder to ignore as the battle became more and more brutal.

Hopefully, the people below had the good sense to stay away from this battle and evacuate to safer areas.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2018, 06:03:51 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Taking Notice

Aquilai had freed so many RAFians now that he lost count. And, yet, despite his bobbing and weaving through the battle like a mouse navigating a maze, looking for more of these discs, like a mouse looking for grain. The Time Lord wasn't stupid, though. He knew that eventually his efforts and endeavors would bring him to the attention of the Furies. But, fortunately, the speedster she used to put the mind control discs onto, a RAFian known as Sonia, was one of the first that Aquilai managed to free.

But that doesn't mean that he had nothing to fear. Granted, he had twelve more Regenerations in front of him, but that doesn't mean that he wanted to Regenerate. It would completely mess with his power set and little details about his personality and mindset as well. And he most certainly didn't want to have a mind control disc on his chest. He cherished his individuality and his independent thought. And his free will. He greatly feared this latter circumstance.

He couldn't worry about that, though. He had to remain focused on his particular mission. He had to remain disciplined in his goal. He could not allow his mind to wander. He could not allow his mind to waver from the task at hand. The more RAFians he freed, the less would have to be maimed or . . . worse. He had to be arduous in his work, burdensome as it could be. Insofar, it had been auspicious and lucky. But luck rarely lasts for very long.

He was bound to get noticed by the Furies. Aquilai surmised that he was only being protected by the pretext that the Furies wanted to uphold. That the RAFians were behind this attack, and only the RAFians. Then the Syndicate could swoop in with propaganda propping themselves up and smearing the RAFians. Propaganda that preyed on the stupid, the gullible, and the naïve. By showing up themselves, the Five Furies would be basically turning that narrative on its head, potentially disproving it.

They would have to weight their options on whether it was worth blowing the plan, or showing him who was the boss. It would be a very tough decision that Oculus would have to make. To act too early would be detrimental to her grand plan. To act too late would mean the complete and utter unraveling of this plan.

But Aquilai was certain that the Furies had taken notice of his endeavors, despite them not showing up themselves. Why? Because he was running into more trolls and grunts than mind controlled RAFians. The trolls were stupid but incredibly strong, while the grunts were the reverse, clever but weak. It was an almost complimentary dichotomy, an inelegant balance. Aquilai dodged and ignored them the best he can. They weren't his primary concern.

During all this, and unbeknownst to Aquilai himself, his Mark shone brilliantly as he went about his work. It was almost as if it was trying to rekindle and resurrect the Mark in this time. But to no avail, at least in this regard.

Aquilai had to dodge and evade and avoid a particularly large and gnarly troll whose stench was strong. Fortunately, trolls are stupid. Then he spun out the way of a frail grunt's attack. Aquilai didn't attack back because he hadn't any interest in actually fighting back in that way. All he needed to do is free all the RAFians, Another troll attacked Aquilai and he redirected the strength of the attack back at him, which actually took him out. Another grunt tried to do the same thing, thinking that Aquilai wouldn't be prepared for it, Aquilai just did the same thing, only it dazed the grunt as he didn't have much in the terms of power. Aquilai moved forward, managing to free two or three more RAFians, which was making him a rather large threat to Oculus's plan.

Another troll loomed over him for attack, which Aquilai blocked by throwing a grunt in the way, and he continued to look for another RAFian to free. Aquilai looked around, quickly scanning and surveying his surroundings. He kept going, managing to dodge, evade, avoid, block, redirect, and preempt all of the attacks of grunts and trolls.

Aquilai realized full well that by freeing the RAFians that he was essentially putting a rather large target on his back. And, though he came from the past, he wasn't a push over. True, he didn't have the power of Esty, Cloak, Specter, or Richard himself. But he was no slouch when it came to battle, though he was usually utilized to making curative devices with Goom, Xeno, and Yarin, and he did so with the same sort of gusto.

After the last RAFian he freed, he couldn't find anymore to free. And he looked quite thoroughly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2018, 09:35:09 PM

Posting tomorrow's chapter early, due to the time change likely screwing up my time sense (I really should be in bed right now).

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Furies' Fury

After several passes through, Aquilai concluded that he must have gotten them all. All the controlled RAFians . . . all the surviving ones . . . were now freed from Syndicate control. The Time Lord allowed himself to relax ever so slightly. This was a mistake. If he hadn't swayed to the left every so slightly, he would have had to Regenerate.

Incinerator had tossed several fireballs at his head. The Furies had showed themselves. The game was up. It was now obviously a Syndicate plot, and the Furies knew this. And they were not happy about it. This was Oculus's grand scheme, her magnum opus as it were. She was especially not happy about it, and wanted Aquilai's blood.

"HOLD HIM!" she had screamed. If she would kill him herself. If she could take nothing else away this night, she would have the enjoyment of this.

Brutish attempted to grab Aquilai, when he landed, but he sensed reticence and reluctance in the Fury. Aquilai wondered why Brutish was even doing thing this, following her orders when he clearly didn't want to. Each attempt to grab Aquilai seemed more halfhearted than the first, and Oculus was to focused on having Aquilai's blood, on killing him herself. The other RAFians were still dealing with grunts and trolls who had decided to become more fiercely, more dirty, and more viciously.

"HOLD HIM!!" she demanded again.

Vanish tried to grab him with her force fields. But Aquilai was by a body of water, and he used his waterbending to repeatedly burst the force fields. Aquilai was clearly demonstrating his resiliency. Despite his fatigue, he was still fighting back. And he would still fight back. He didn't care if he was forced to Regenerate to death. He would do so on his feet. He would do so fighting back. He would go down fighting. Eventually Vanish passed out due to the effort. and Aquilai stumbled. His vision was starting to blur. His exhaustion was getting the better of him.

He had done so much. So much in such a limited timeframe. So much . . .

Suddenly, his movements were restricted. With the last of his strength, he pocketed his sonic screwdriver. He didn't want to lose it. It took him a moment for his senses to catch up with him and realize that Malleable had tied him up rather like a boa constrictor. Aquilai didn't have the strength to fight the Fury's strength.

"Don't let him go, Malleable," Oculus said, with sinister relish. "Don't you dare let him go."

Malleable would tell her that he hadn't any attention to, but he maintained his silence. Oculus was rather dangerously unstable, and there was no telling just how she would take anything he said. So silence was the more prudent answer since she never took that too negatively. Aquilai's vision kept blurring, and his exhaustion fully hit him like a semi truck loaded with cinderblocks. The only reason that he was held upright was because of Malleable, and the Fury could sense it, but didn't dare say anything about it. He didn't want to incur Oculus's wrath.

"Thought you were very clever, didn't you?" she said. She was gloating like an eighties' supervillianess. Her voice became more forceful. "DIDN'T YOU"

Aquilai was just fighting to remain conscious. But Oculus seemed to be oblivious to this fact, as well as the fact that Aquilai was a Time Lord and had a TARDIS. Even if she did, she wouldn't care. She wanted to kill Aquilai, and she wanted to make it slow and excruciating. She strode right up to him, and he was too tired to fight or resist whatever would come next. But Oculus had no intention to control him. She wanted to see him bleed. She wanted him to die, slowly and painfully.

She ****ed her fist back, gave him a right cross, but she pulled her punch. She didn't want to end this too quickly, and she was that overconfident in her strength. It still hurt though. She did this over and over again, lambasting Aquilai for daring to interfere, for refusing to standby and let her and the other Furies discredit the RAFians, for successfully dismantling her plan.

"Now, DIE!" she said, striking the final blow . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2018, 07:15:05 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
A Fiery Reveal

"Die," Oculus said, viciously.

Malleable released Aquilai, who did not sway, who did not fall, as all the Furies had anticipated. Instead, his body gave off light. Miniscule at first, but growing in intensity, as if his body was dissolving into light. Much like a Realm Walker, only a tad faster and none of the energy trailing off in a flurry of Kirby dot-like energy in an almost artistic way.

It was clear what was happening here, but these Furies clearly had no experience with the physiology of Time Lords. Clearly, they didn't know or understand their concept of Regeneration. Granted, being rejuvenated to childhood last year -- er, the year before he made this thousand-year leap -- it had "reset" his Regeneration "clock", so to speak. So when he was returned to adulthood, he was the adult First Aquilai, and his miniaturized TARDIS was hung from an emerald green and silver cord. He had twelve more or so Regenerations left. Well, now it appeared that was marked down to eleven.

He now appeared very much like Looker (https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Looker) from the "Pokémon" franchise, with the cord from which his miniaturized TARDIS hung was now scarlet and gold. He wore a black dress shirt with matching vest and slacks, and a neatly-tied scarlet tie. He also wore a trench coat with a certain amount of bedhead. His shoes were black and freshly polished. His eyes were now a very intimidating amber.

"What is this madness?!" Oculus roared, outraged that Aquilai had dared defy her order to him to die. "You were dead! I could feel the life draining from you."

Then she pointed, rather dramatically to the emerald which replaced her eye. "I SAW YOU DIE!!!!"

"Sorry to disappoint then, sweetheart," the Second Aquilai said, rather irreverently. His voice was even different, too. It sounded rather like a younger David Tennent.

"Don't you take that flippant tone with me, RAFian!" Oculus growled dangerously.

"I take it you haven't come across a Time Lord, like myself, before, have you, Rift?" Aquilai said. He actually felt no fear. It was rather enjoyable to feel so fearless. "Not too surprising, after all! My kind aren't exactly the most common around, are we? No, that would have to go to humans, or nearly-human species, I would have to say."

"Fine, then," Oculus said, growling. "I killed you once. I'll just do it again, and again, until you are DEAD!!!"

"Pity, that," Aquilai said.

"What?!"

"Do you think I shall allow you to kill me -- or, rather, force me to regenerate again? I'm still just getting to know this appearance." Aquilai said, dropping none of the flippancy. "Not to mention the little fact that this Regeneration has replenished my stamina and strength. Granted, I'm no longer a waterbender anymore."

"STOP TALKING AND DIE!!" Oculus screamed, blasting a concussive emerald green blast from her emerald eye. Aquilai deftly dodged it.

"I'd rather not, now that you mention it," Aquilai said.

"GET HIM, YOU USELESS IMBECILES! MAKE HIM DEAD!!" she roared.

Incinerator blasted him with several fireballs, and he blocked the fire without any harm, demonstrating his status now as a firebender. He deftly responded in kind, actually surprising Incinerator.

"Yep, I got some new tricks now, flyboy," Aquilai said, with a wink. He wasn't taking any of them seriously.

And when Vanish and Malleable tried to accost him, he deftly and almost lazily bent lightning at them.

"Don't take ME as lightly as these other four idiots," Oculus snarled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2018, 09:52:15 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Outnumbered and Outmatched

Aquilai really should have listened to Oculus's warning, but his Regeneration had seemed to have done away with any caution. He quickly was overpowered by the woman's sheer, undeniable fury. Yes, Aquilai as a firebender was a bit more hotheaded and unwilling to think things through as his previous incarnation. The fact that he was now struggling against Oculus demonstrated this quite vividly.

"Take-me-seriously-damn-it!!" Oculus roared between concussive blasts with her eye. Aquilai actually couldn't make a pithy, laconic remark, because he was too busy focusing on the concussive blasts. She was proving just how dangerous it is to acquire her immense ire. "Die! Just DIE!"

"I still rather not," Aquilai managed to blurt out.

"Then attack me, fool!" she snarled. "I think you'll find that you cannot!! You can't even handle me!"

Aquilai said nothing. His flippancy seemed to relegated to a sardonic smirk plastered to his face.

"You'll PAY for your insolence, your impertinence!!" she roared. Then she turned to her other Furies, and furiously lambasted them, "What are you four idiots doing?! Attack this . . . this . . . this disrespectful swindler!!"

The other four did not argue with her. They knew full well that to make her angry was an almost suicidal proposition, as she wasn't too touchy about little things like morality and good values -- they were just meaningless words to her, and the only right and wrong she cared about is what she decreed to be right and what she saw as wrong.

Anyway, the other four Furies getting back into the battle complicated things for Aquilai. He was still quite smart as his previous incarnation, and he new that the other four Furies were pulling their punches before, still in shock that he managed to not die and change his power set. This time they were not holding anything back, due to the fact that if they did -- it would incur Oculus's berserker wrath. She never saw reason when she got that way . . . not that she really saw reason when she was calm.

It wasn't too surprising that the five Furies got some hits on him. It was five-on-one, after all. You'd have to be stupidly powerful to be able to do so, but Aquilai was self-aware to know that he was nowhere near as brutally powerful as Estelore, Cloak, or Richard in his prime. If he didn't get help soon, he would regenerate again, this time into an earthbender. Then they would continue and he would regenerate as an airbender. Then back to a waterbender again. Dying wasn't pleasant at all the first time, he didn't care to live through another twelve in such a short lifespan.

"Back off, Joy," came a commanding voice.

Oculus stopped in her tracks. Her body went rigid at the sound of the name. She turned very slowly to look at the issuer of the voice. The other Furies immediately stopped attacking Aquilai when she did, for fear that she wouldn't take very kindly if he died by one of their hands other than her own. She was quite fickle in this way.

"What. Did. You. Call. Me?" she said, her voice icy and dangerous as an innocuous iceberg.

"Surprised, Joy?" Richard said. "Surprised, I know the name you discarded so long ago? 'Joy Ann Moreau'? Last surviving of the now obscure and defunct Moreau clan? A family known for their . . . eccentricities?"

Then Richard turned around to address the other Furies, "Isn't that right, Jessica Storm? Christopher Storm? Benjamin Skye? Ricky Reid?"

Oculus ignored Richard calling out the other Furies. She didn't care about them, finding them barely useful. She glared at Richard, "You dare to use that name? You DARE to call me by that inferior name?"

"And 'Oculus Rife' is any better?"

Oculus punched him in the gut before turning to Richard. "You dare to slur me with that slanderous name?!"

"I'm getting the feeling she really doesn't like her family," Aquilai said, hobbling back to the RAFian ranks.

"Gee, ya think?" Vector Sirois said snarkily. His brother was one of the causalities in the battle, so naturally he was a little cranky.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2018, 10:43:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Now You Face . . . the Power and the Fury

"ENOUGH!!" Oculus roared. "I've had ENOUGH of this song and dance, Richard! It's time that we end it ONCE AND FOR ALL!! A battle to the death!"

"So, a Death Battle?" Aquilai said, irreverently. Then he posited, almost aimlessly, "Are they still relevant in this time period?"

"SHUT UP!!" Oculus screamed. She seemed to have become quite deranged in quite a short timeframe. "I would kill you again, but I have a bigger fish to fry! The one who decided to sully me with that inferior, DIRTY name!!"

"Wow, such strong feelings about such a minor, inconsequential thing," Aquilai observed, as Oculus ignored him and launched herself at Richard, with the intention of ripping him apart with her own hands. To rend his flesh with her sharpened, claw-like fingernails. She wanted the tactile pleasure of killing him, of feeling the life draining from his skin and sinew. So, imagine her great displeasure as her lunge . . .

Missed. Richard had foresaw the type and nature of the attack, and just sidestepped out the way. Unlike Oculus, he kept his composure. Something that is surprisingly necessary for any type of battle. Panicking or giving yourself over to anger and rage tends to be more detrimental than helpful in most cases, Aquilai found. But Oculus didn't care -- she wanted everyone who knew that name, who dared to use it, to refer to her as such to die. To die painfully. After all, there was a reason why she discarded it. Discarded the shameful hybridization of the given name of her disgraceful, weak, and unworthy mother with her filthy, womanizing father. No, she fashioned herself a better name, a name more worthy of a person of her power, her strength, and her worth. And it was "Oculus Rife".

She seriously didn't come up with anything better. She may have been powerful in her own right, but she wasn't a very creative person. As she prepared for a second lunge, the rest of the surviving RAFians attacked her, and the other Furies that immediately went to defend her. The other Furies showcased just how they rose to be in the leadership of the Syndicate. And it wasn't by using politicking or bureaucracy or anything like that. They simply killed anyone who stood in their way, and killed anyone who would be their competition. They never hid or denied this, and the others in the Syndicate just allowed their rise. Oculus allowed the other Furies to live because she saw promise in their ambition, saw worth in their bloodthirstiness, saw value in their fear of her. They only lived because she permitted it -- and each one of them knew it.

Aquilai wished he could say the RAFians of this day and age were beating back the four Furies (Oculus was obsessed with Richard, just as she obsessed with Aquilai just moments before). But one had also take into account that this was right at the tail end of another massive battle. They were beaten, bloody and bruised and exhausted going into this battle. Any victory here would be a pyrrhic one. The costs of this struggle, this war were really far too high. There was no way that the RAFians would come out of this battle whole and unscarred. That would be impossible -- for even if their bodies were unmarred, their minds and psyches would not be so lucky.

This was really too much. This was the future that he could look forward to? This was the world that would be shaped? This could not come to pass. When he returned to his native time he would ensure . . . but everyone who tries to do that always has it blow up in their face. Without fail. But he  . . he had to do something. Even with his newfound power set, he couldn't do anything but hurt. Granted, even as a waterbender he was unable to heal anyone. Even though he tried desperately to help, he couldn't help but feel so . . .

Helpless.

He hated that feeling. He was accustomed to be able to do something about anything. He wanted to be able to do something, but with his new abilities, it was far too easy to hurt friend and foe alike. There was just so much chaos and screams and yells, in a cacophonous mess. There had to be something . . . something he could do, something that could save lives where there had been so much blood spilt and heartache.

It was then that he felt the power bubbling up within him. A power long forgotten by the RAFians of his native time. His body was starting to glow again, but he wasn't Regenerating yet again. This was different.

This was . . . could it really be? Aquilai had assumed that it had left forever, dissipated into the nothingness, the aether from which it came.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2018, 09:32:16 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A Strange Power

The Great Power . . . it was back. But it was . . . different, somehow.

With a crackle of energy, a bolt of white energy lanced outward from Aquilai. It struck the hands (or foreheads if the particular RAFians are quadrupedal or have vestigial arms (or lack them entirely), but it did not harm them. It just alarmed them greatly. After a few moments, every surviving RAFian had a mark. The Mark. The only difference that it had from the previous one was that it was this new Mark was of the purest white. And it had all the effects of the first one.

But that wasn't the only odd thing that the Great Power did. Aquilai looked to his right and saw his previous incarnation, the First Aquilai, as a white energy construct with his dark eyes and the green-and-silver cord that he wore his miniaturized TARDIS on standing out from the whiteness. Then Aquilai looked to his left and actually saw more white light constructs of his incarnations. His future incarnations. The one immediately to his left, the Third Aquilai, wore a yellow and black cord from which his TARDIS hung. The Fourth Aquilai wore a blue and bronze cord from which his TARDIS hung. The Fifth Aquilai wore a blue and white cord from which his TARDIS hung. The Sixth Aquilai wore a red and black cord from which his TARDIS hung. The Seventh Aquilai wore a green, pale yellow, and brown cord from which his TARDIS hung. The Eighth Aquilai wore a brown and tan cord from which his TARDIS hung. The Ninth Aquilai wore a chain of pebble-sized green emeralds from which his TARDIS hung. The Tenth Aquilai wore a chain of pebble-sized red rubies from which his TARDIS hung. The Eleventh Aquilai wore a chain of pebble-sized yellow amethysts from which his TARDIS hung. The Twelfth Aquilai wore a chain of pebble-sized blue sapphires from which his TARDIS hung. And, the Thirteenth Aquilai, the final Aquilai, had an ornate band that contained all the colors and jewels of his twelve predecessors.

"What the --" Aquilai stammered. This was completely unprecedented.

But these eleven future incarnations, and the one past one, seemed unable to speak, but Aquilai knew that these all were still him. And it was still quite surreal. Could you imagine seeing all your incarnations, past and future, in a single place at a single time. So surreal.

"What's this?!" Oculus demanded. "Answer me!! Answer me, or I will kill you all!"

Aquilai just raised his hand up, and his previous incarnation and his eleven future ones rose up into the air around the Five Furies. Then they rotated in a cyclonic fashion, until they became a white energy ring. The Furies remained rooted to the spot, simultaneously fascinated and fearful. Even Oculus, though she would never admit it aloud.

The other RAFians raised their new Marks up towards this ring, which began to rotate faster in a clockwise motion. And, in the Furies, fear and fascination were battling it out. Neither one was succeeding which was leading to their inaction, their frozen stance. None of them knew what this would amount to, not even the RAFians or Aquilai. It might fail completely, and just be a large spectacle.

Then the cyclonic force became hurricane-grade, although the RAFians that ringed around it were not affected at all. The only ones that were effected at all by this were the Furies. All five fell to their knees, and appeared to be in pain. But the cyclonic force would not stop. If anything, it seemed to have sped up. This actually seemed to force the five to all fours, as what appeared to be black spheres of darkness were leeching out of their bodies. Slowly at first, but it became quicker and quicker, until all five collapsed on the ground, unconscious, as the ring sealed itself and then vanished in a shower of white sparkles.

Aquilai's appearace reverted back to its normal colors, though the Marks remained on the RAFians of this time. The Great Power seemed to be inaccessible once more. Aquilai thought it was rather like the power that a White Lantern power ring would bestow upon its wearer. But the Great Power was very fickle about when it appeared, and rather unreliable for concrete testing. Not to mention he would have to procure a White Lantern power ring.

The Time Lord now cast his glance down at the Five Furies. Incinerator was no longer engulfed in flames, but was perfectly human with a ridiculous black pompadour and a thin but muscular build. Brutish was also perfectly human with a thick build and a stout frame. Vanish looked no different, with her teased, stringy blond hair. Malleable looked slightly more filled out, with his salt-and-pepper hair and crow's feet. Oculus also looked no different, other than her emerald eye was unpleasantly asymmetrically cracked in a vaguely "+" pattern. It was clear what had happened to them. Their powers were leeched out and away from them. They were now powerless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2018, 07:07:42 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Back to the Past

While the dust was just settling down, a sober silence overtook the area. Aquilai looked around and saw that, thankfully, any collateral damage seemed to be only cosmetic. That should be easy enough to solve.

Aquilai winced, almost visibly. "No collateral damage" was probably an insensitive term to use. Especially considering at least thirty-four percent of the current roster of RAFians were slain during this debacle. They did win this battle . . . but not without a cost. Whether the victory was pyrrhic or not was a question that would be up for hot debate. And that was one debate that he didn't really want to attend.

The local law enforcement came in, and immediately arrested the Furies. They couldn't fight back against it, as they were without their powers. Incinerator and Oculus were livid about it, Brutish was actually happy about it (even smiling broadly and openly when he realized he was human again), Vanish was depressed by it, and Malleable had just accepted it as inevitable and wished to move on past it.

"You can't do this to me!!" Oculus shouted, fragments and shard of her gem eye flying to the ground like tears. "Do you have any idea who I am?! Get your filthy, unworthy hands off me!! Don't you know who I am!! I asked you a question, flatfoot!! Do you know what I can do to --"

"Oh, for the love of god, Joy, SHUT UP!!" Incinerator said. He really had had enough of this from her. And, knowing that she was as powerless as him, gave him courage enough to stand up to her.

"You DARE to --" Joy huffed as she was being handcuffed by the boys in blue (which actually was more of a teal in this time period for some reason).

"YES, I DO, JOY!!!" he screamed back, as he complied with officers cuffing him. "For years, we've had to put up with your PETULANT WHINING!! For too many years now, we've had to endure your childish tantrums. Well, not anymore, Joy!! I cannot speak for Ricky, Ben or Jessica, but, frankly, Joy, I'm sick of it! I'm sick and tired to having to indulge your monstrous ego and being a sycophant to your rage."

Ben wasn't paying attention, he allowed himself to be handcuffed, but he was happy. Ecstatic, even. He feel so euphoric at simply being human once more. Sure, he had to go to jail, but he would be going as a human, the species he wanted to be, the species he was born as. Nothing else mattered to him. He would pay any restitution he had to, but he was going to live as a human. He would never have to be Brutish again!

"Don't you yell at me, Christopher!" Joy snarked back, as the police began to drag her away

"I'll yell at you all I want, Joy!" Christopher snapped. "I'll yell at you because it's what you need to hear!!"

Vanish, however, was quite dismayed at the loss of her power. She loved being able to become invisible, to make force fields to protect herself from people who would hurt her . . . like those nasty, mean girls. They were so cruel to her. She wanted to disappear, wanted to be unnoticed, wanted . . . then her powers somehow manifested. When they did, she found that she could make them pay for what they did to her, the teasing, the bullying, the mocking. They all regretted being mean girls, although they didn't know who did it to them. They couldn't see the perpetrator, they didn't know that she went full "Carrie" on them . . . and now she was back to being the plain girl who everyone picks on . . . now, with a rap sheet.

"I don't care what you think, Christopher!!" Joy snarled. "You've always been wrong and incompetent in whatever you do!!"

"It's no wonder that you haven't got any real friends, Moreau!!!' Christopher roared. "You think you need to threaten and intimidate people into subordination! It's no wonder that no one even likes you!! You're pathetic, Moreau!!!"

Malleable had taken his lost of elasticity in stride. He always accepted anything that came along. In his view, there was no point in fighting against anything that was inevitable. He felt whatever happened would happen and he would deal with it when it came. He also felt that there was no point in fretting about the future or worrying about past mistakes. It made him a rather apathetic person, even bordering on nihilistic.

As all five were taken away, and clean-up was underway, Aquilai noticed that his TARDIS was ready to return him home, a thousand years in the past. He wondered if he should just leave without telling anyone, or if he should actually make his goodbyes.

"Well, this will be one hell of a report to file," Richard muttered, not noticing Aquilai.

***

Aquilai was in his TARDIS, quickly pressing buttons and flicking switches and things, moments away from hurdling backward in time. Backwards time travel was always harder than forward, as forward is the natural flow of time. Towards progression. There was one time where regression was the natural flow of time. And that wasn't a pleasant thing to remember, so he tried to focus on his priorities.

In the back of his mind, he wondered if he had made the right decision. He had decided to walk away without telling anyone. He wanted to avoid awkward questions. He already had a taste of it when Richard had ordered him to go back through time and change things. People who do that often change history for the worse. They more often than not bring into fruition that which they sought to prevent. Time travel is a very heady subject that not even the smartest being in existence could account for all the permutations that could come from events that had passed, and how even the most minute changes could ripple throughout time and create greater differences. Most only look towards their own timelines and how it affects them and only the people they know and care about. It's a very dangerous thing, travelling through time.

One could argue that he's doing that anyway, but he didn't seek out specific details. He didn't ask for dates. He didn't ask for spoilers, as it were. Granted, some were unavoidable. But the future isn't set in stone, the past is. Though, technically, that really depends on your viewpoint and what point in time you have it. Perhaps it was hypocritical, what Aquilai was doing. But it was no more hypocritical than any Time Lord, Chronian, or Chronosapien. . . . Although that didn't make it much better in that case. Aquilai shook his head, as if to clear it. This time wasn't his. He didn't belong here. He belonged with the others . . . perhaps that made him selfish. Then so be it. He was selfish, then.

It was at this point the panel that he thought that he secured hit him in the back of the head, just as he entered the time stream . . .

***

When Aquilai awoke, he had a splitting headache. He felt as if someone took a hatchet to his brain. He rubbed the back of his head as he got up, his mind catching up with him. He was in his TARDIS, and he was back in present time. His native time. But everything seemed to be exactly as it was before he was hit by the panel in the first place, when he accidentally travelled forward in time a century.

It made him question everything . . . made him wonder if everything that came before was a dream . . . but he was Second Aquilai now. Was the panel strike hard enough to make him Regenerate? Possibly . . . or possibly not . . . Aquilai didn't care to test it out.

Was it all a dream? Was it real?

Aquilai shrugged. Time would tell.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2018, 01:16:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Bunch of Finny Fun

Parker was dispatched to some sort of underwater ruins that a fiend took residence in. There were claims that it was possibly Atlantis, at least an old site made of golden coral. Parker had his doubts and he made them known. While his armor is self-contained, he didn't like going underwater, even with an auxiliary air supply. The water, he found, made him slow and ungainly. It wasn't anything like fighting in space, where there was nothing pushing against his armor to slow his movements. Not like water. But he was the only one with the vespine drones, which were supposed to be spy cams, but were able to explode if needed. Xeno had managed to increase the payload enough for this routine mission. Still, Parker wasn't too happy about it.

Anyway, despite his griping, he had a job to do. So he dived down -- unfortunately, reducing the weight of his armor and yet managing to make it keep its effectiveness (a feat that he was proud of at the time) meant that it took him longer to fall into the facility. But when he did, he was dismayed to discover a labyrinthine tube that he had to travel through. This was so . . . ugh. And, of course, this tube was flooded. Parker wasn't a happy camper.

Then the tube split into two pathways, and Parker decided to take the on the right, avoiding spiked coral bits. They wouldn't penetrate his armor, but they would be annoying to get out if any got stuck in the joints. He continued on until the tube split again, and he took the wider right one again, because the left path had some of those annoying coral spikes again. only to discover this tunnel ended with those spikes.

After uttering a profane curse, he continued to the left. Sharp U-turn to the right, then another one immediately after, but this time to the left. Then another sharp turn to the left, and another sharp turn to the right after a few steps. Then he came to a wide room where he had to swim upward. He heaved a heavy sigh, which he intermingled a profanity, before he started to swim up, his newly lightweight armor not being as much of a burden as he feared.

He was actually surprised to see that this area had a surface to it. Into some underwater cave. Fortunately, Tyr was keeping his trap shut, so Parker could concentrate on what to do. He easily pulled himself out of the water, hoping that his endeavors to make sure that the armor was rust proof was good. The armor didn't have any iron, to his knowledge, to oxidize, so it should be okay.

So he continued along, on dry ground, but he didn't see any sign of the fiend, but he didn't really expect to. According to information he had, the fiend did not do well on the land. But a SPARTAN could hope. Although he did feel a bit naked without any of his guns -- he was afraid the water would ruin them. He continued along, seeing those coral spike things here and there, until he actually climbed out of the cave and into sunlight. It would appear that he had come to a shoal of some kind. But the fiend wasn't here, so he didn't care, and moved on.

But after a fair distance, he realized that he'd have to go back under into a coral tube. He didn't like it, it almost felt like the maw of some creature. But he bit the bullet and dove down. It was here where the tube widened into a large room. It really reminded him of a more spacious variation of Ursula's lair from "The Little Mermaid". This is where the fiend had hold up.

The fiend had a body plan of a stereotypical mermaid, with humanlike eyes, with dark orange sclera and purple irises. It wore a orange battle helm with a large, ornate red jewel over white hair that flowed like sea foam. Its upper body was rather like an ancient blouse with black, scallop-like, poofy sleeves (a la Snow White) which had brown accents. It's neck was white with a black neckline, and three green gems embedded in its chest. Its lower arms and hands were like black, elbow-length costume gloves, while its upper arms were white. It's waist was a black corset, with a scaly orange mermaid tail, with a silver ball attaching the tail to the tailfin. It carried a dark orange staff with silver tips and at the upper point were laser-based trident prongs, not unlike a lightsaber.

It wasn't long before it saw Parker, and begun its attack pattern. It sung, and fortunately Parker's armor filtered out any hypnotic notes. He had learned from the Dark Gaz fiasco. But this caused fish to come into the room and start attacking him. Enthralled by the sounds. but they couldn't get through his armor. They were irritations and nuisances if anything. They mostly just came in to bite once or twice, before leaving.

Then she fired laser tridents at him, and they cut through the coral like knife through butter. And without getting stuck or dissolving. They did dissolve, after a second or two, though. It did this about six times before pausing. Parker had enough at the sixth time, and unleashed all of the vespine drones he had, and had them all head for it. When they made contact, he detonated them all which caused the entire place to cave in on itself.

He barely had time to escape.

***

Demos called it a "supurasshusapien". He claimed he designed her for lifeguarding and shipwreck rescue purposes.

***

Malice feigned interest in this, but was still pacing around trying to concoct a scheme to stay relevant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2018, 05:31:44 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXVI:
MONSTER MASH
CHAPTER ONE:
Something More . . . Concrete

Helen was dispatched to a literal urban jungle. She made sure that she had charged her ring. She was a Star Sapphire and she was proud of it. But this place, it looked as if was some artist's literal take on an urban jungle. There was concrete trees and cement soil. It was like a mockery of a jungle. She thought, from what she read, that this was supposed to be some sort of amusement park ride or a film location -- she couldn't remember which -- that lost funding and was subsequently abandoned.

Anyway, she proceeded forward. She eventually came to three pits that she could not see the bottom of, but she carelessly floated over them. Then she entered the building directly in front of her, and, once inside the main atrium, she took a right, going up the stairs. At the top of the flight of stairs, she turned and went left, before turning in a ninety-degree turn to the right, Then she turned another ninety-degree turn to the left, and took the next flight of stairs up.

She found herself outside again. She disregarded this as she continued onward. Soon, she came upon a statue of an elephant, but only regarded it for a few seconds before moving onward. Then she came upon as second elephant statue, and only paused to think it strange before moving on. Then she came upon a third elephant statue behind two pits that she couldn't see the bottom of. This basically just confirmed to her that this was an abandoned and forgotten movie set. She thought whatever movie it was couldn't have been that entertaining (which defeats the purpose of making a movie). She moved onward.

She found herself forced to move into the sewers of the area. She wasn't too happy about this, as it smelled extremely . . . well, you can guess how a sewer would smell. She moved through it as quickly as she could before she could climb back up and out of that smelly tunnel. But she was still inside a building of some sort. She didn't stop to question it, but just moved on. She had to be getting close to the fiend's lair now, as she exited the building which was rather like a hangar of some sort..Then she came across a massive chasm with several platforms that looked as if they were hovering. She wouldn't need to be using those, and she didn't.

Then she came across the lair of the fiend, In another building. Somehow she wasn't surprised. The fiend was a humanoid with a thick frame. It had a face like a concrete slab with a powerful, black, square jaw that jutted out, and humanlike eyes with brown sclera and dark brown irises. It had gold spikes in place of ears, and a dark blue forehead and bald head. It had a large metal stud on its forehead. Its head sat directly on its body. It had a rounded, barrel-like torso that was dark blue on the top half and black on the bottom, with a large red stud on its sternum. It had large, dark blue shoulders with large metal studs, with metal rings with vents of some sorts connect the shoulders to the torso. Its upper arms were white, and its lower arms were dark blue. Its right arm was replaced with a blaster much like the back of a cement truck, which was black-tipped and dark blue. It's left hand and wrist was black. It had a silver band at its waist. It's crotch, thighs, and knees were white. It's lower legs were dark blue, while its boot-like feet were black and its toes were cement gray.

When it took notice of her, it immediately charged, which she floated away to avoid. It slammed into the wall, which made the structure shake uncomfortably. Then it tried again, with identical results. Following this, it did not charge again. Instead it leaped up and clearly intended to smash down on Helen. With her superior aerial mobility, this was a cinch to avoid. Then it fired a concrete shot at her that may have frozen her in place, but the range was rather lacking, in her opinion. It jumped up twice to smash her to the ground again, and each time it failed. Demos's fiends, other than Maul, were not big on intelligence. Then it shot three concrete blocks which missed Helen completely and formed larger blocks upon contact with the ground. It then charged through them, and this failed to hit Helen as she was floating. Then it began this attack pattern again.

Helen made some constructs of the only thing that she could think of at the time -- tridents (she had heard Parker's experiences with the last fiend and it was fresh in her mind). She aimed them for the fiend, and she fired them at it. The broke through all the barriers it had put up made of concrete and . . . the job was done.

She left.

***

Demos called it a "konkuritosapien". He apparently designed it for dam constructions.

***

Malice was only using these fiend battles as background noise. She needed a good scheme. Any good scheme would do . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 16, 2018, 08:24:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
He Who Desires

Over in suburbia, there lived a man who worked as a programmer. But, until a few weeks ago, he was a rather poor one. His sudden competency was a subject of much speculation, but none knew the true reason. And this man, Seth T. Graham, also had an online video channel where he essentially piggybacked of the popularity of a well-known online show by "debunking" them using junk science, junk math, and taking mistranslations of his favorite anime as truths, refusing to acknowledge the fact that they're mistranslations. His channel was a refuge of those who were butthurt after their characters lost in that well-known web show, which was a show that used research with two fictional characters as they pit them together in a battle to the death. That show used research of the character's source material to determine the winner, unlike most other similar shows which simply take a poll. After one of his favorite anime's protagonists was defeated and killed by an OP comic book superhero, he decided to make "debunking" videos using very flawed logic and outright ignoring the facts demonstrated in that particular video.

However, in recent weeks, he had stopped making any videos, debunking or otherwise. This was right around the time when his programming competency skyrocketed unexpectedly and inexpiably. It was almost as if he wasn't interested in making his fanboyish videos anymore, as if he had more things that he considered to be more important, and thus, take a higher priority.

He was striding into his kitchen and was waiting for a bowl of oatmeal to cool down a bit. It was a bit of the standard kitchen, if a bit small, as his house wasn't the biggest. Basically a two-bedroom single-story home. The kitchen was surprisingly clean for a bachelor's pad. He went down to a secret basement. It's been three days since his last oatmeal treatment. He didn't like doing this, didn't like this dependency. He wanted freedom from it. He place his hand on the handrail as he went down into the soundproofed basement. This was quite a suspicious thing to have, but he could always pass it off as a panic room, if anyone asked.

He shut the door and locked it with a special high tech lock. It was this way for a reason, a reason that he would divulge to no one outside this room. It was hard enough to procure this non-Terran technology. There was so preciously little of it on this planet, which would be obvious considering it was extraterrestrial in origin. It was his secret to know, and his alone.

Oh, he supposed it was also Seth's secret as well, though he kept it involuntarily. The being making this decision was actually an alien in the programmer's brain. A Yeerk named Merser. And not just any Yeerk, but a mutant one. He could not survive on Kadronna rays, like other Yeerks. He can absorb them, but they weren't necessary for it to live.

Merser controlled Seth's body to set down the bowl at a simple wooden table and a hard-backed chair with special chains around it. He sat Seth's body down in the chair, making it comfortable. Then chains around it seemed to come alive and restrained Seth. Then Seth settled his head and neck into a special harness, that forced his head down to just touching the oatmeal. With a deep sigh, Merser disengaged with Seth's brain. He was partially glad to. Seth's fanboy tendencies really irritated Merser.

Soon enough, Merser was travelling down Seth's right ear canal and into the oatmeal. This wondrous concoction had become his Kadronna. He needed to feed on this stuff every three days due to his inability to metabolize Kadronna properly. He was glad, this oatmeal was more readily available and far more innocuous than a Kadronna generator. No one would question why "Seth" was buying oatmeal, but they would if he was lugging around a portable Kadronna generator, which were fair more questionable.

Merser couldn't hear or sense if Seth was yelling or what he was yelling if he was. Even if he was, Merser didn't care. Humans were just like pigs to him. They were just things to inhabit, things to wear. They weren't people as far as he was concerned, their wants and desires were of no concern to him. They were just there to be his means to his ends.

Before long, Merser's oatmeal dip was done, and he was good for another three days. As such, he was ready to crawl back into Seth's head. And he was unable to stop it. He reached up and touched Seth's right ear's auricle, almost as if it was caressing and cherishing it. Then he found the aperture of the ear, and began to shove his body through it. He squirmed and slithered his way through the ear canal, until he came to Seth's brain. Unlike his first time taking Seth (who was asleep at the time), he immediately squeezed into every crevice of the brain as quickly as it could.

Once in control again, he gave the telepathic password to release his stolen body from the harness and chains. He rubbed his neck, and complained aloud, "Seth, why do you have to fight this? You know that you can't escape. Well, at least, until I get tired of you."

If Seth answered, Merser ignored him. He was eager to research that article about a creature he wanted a genetic sample of. He thought it was called a Geonosian brainworm. He hoped to use the DNA of that creature to free him of these clunky devices and allow him more freedom to take whatever host he wants, or even free him up from the need from needing hosts at all.

Merser took the bowl of oatmeal and headed upstairs with the intention of using Seth's mouth to eat it. He did this mostly to be revolting to Seth and reinforce that there was nothing that Seth could do to stop him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 17, 2018, 05:56:29 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Myitt Musings

Meanwhile, back at the forum, Myitt was practicing her combat with her fellow RAFians. It was a bit harder to do now since the "Danger Room" was still a gutted, hollowed out shell. Myitt was keeping her host, Tara, fit and combat ready. You never knew when you would be assigned a mission, so it was best to do so. Tara seemed to enjoy it as well -- Myitt was a voluntary Controller, and she inhabited Tara's body with her permission. Both actually bore the Mark, as well. Neither wasn't sure exactly how that worked.

But as they did this, Myitt found herself thinking about one of her pool mates. It was a mutant Yeerk, who was unable to feed on Kadronna as efficiently as other Yeerks. She still had Tara as a host back then, though they weren't as close as they were now. Its natural Yeerk body was not the grayish, greenish color of an average Yeerk. It was pale, and white. An albino. Not to mention it was about thirteen percent smaller than an average Yeerk. And it seemed to be unable to reproduce. Infertile, if you would.

Myitt assumed that the Council of Thirteen ordered its destruction. This was the first such Yeerk in recent memory to be such a nonconformist, in terms of genetic and physical aspects. Not that Merser 649 had any choice in being born into such a body. Yes, it wasn't fair, Myitt would admit, but the Council of Thirteen was rarely, if ever, fair.

Myitt never knew or realized the possibility that the addiction to maple-flavored oatmeal would not affect Merser in the same way that it would affect other Yeerks. She never paused to consider this possibility, and why would she. Merser was the only Yeerk of its kind, and, to her knowledge, had never taken a host. Nor did she pause to consider that it might have abilities and powers that ordinary Yeerk did not. Yeerks did not have an X Gene, like some humans possessed. At least, to her knowledge.

She couldn't help but feel bad and pity for Merser. Being . . . terminated . . . for things beyond its control. But the Council of Thirteen must have deemed it as useless to the former Empire. The report they gave out for its termination was that apparently it couldn't even take a host. Though the evidence they used to justify this was shaky, at best. But everyone knew better, back then, than to question the Council.

Myitt continued to think about this as she walked to her thread.

<You're being more quiet than usual,> Tara told her.

<Huh? Oh, sorry, Tara. I was just . . . thinking.> Myitt said, a tad evasively.

<I sense conflict in you. Pity, I think,> Tara said.

<I was just thinking . . . about an old pool mate of mine,> she said, as she began to brush Tara's hair.

<Love interest?> Tara teased.

Myitt paused momentarily. No, Merser wasn't a love interest, nor was he a spawn mate. They came from two different Yeerk fissions, basically how their kind reproduced. They die in the act of reproducing, hence why Myitt wasn't in any rush to become a parent. Though Yeerks, predominantly those who are or have been human Controllers, are able to feel those kinds of feelings.

<Myitt?>

<No,> Myitt said, after a moment's hesitation. <It wasn't a love interest. It's more akin to a . . . a special needs Yeerk, so to speak.>

<A special needs Yeerk? Do you mean it's host was -->

<No, not at all,> Myitt said. <Merser Six-Four-Nine wasn't able to metabolize Kadronna right, and was about thirteen percent smaller than the average Yeerk.>

<Oh,> Tara said. After taking a minute to parse this information, she asked, <What happened to him?>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2018, 04:16:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Babysitting Peril

"Hello, Seth," he said, and "Seth" responded in kind.

The man, this Richard McGeezax, moved slightly to chivvy his son forward. He prompted, "Say good morning."

"Good morning," the seven-year-old boy replied shyly.

"Good morning," "Seth" replied.

"You okay?" he asked, seeing "Seth's" somewhat haggard appearance.

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine," Merser said, pretending to be Seth to a tee.

"Right, then," he said. "It's a bad time . . . so . . . this is real nice of you, Seth. . . ."

Ah, of course, this was the babysitting job that "Seth" had agreed to, despite Seth not really knowing the kid all that well.

"Wellll . . . here's his swimsuit, his towel . . . you have it all," Mr. McGeezax said, making sure he had all his ducks in a row. "And the famous shower cap . . . I did not forget this time. I will be back around six, okay?"

"Fine," Merser said, with believable gruffiness.

"Great. Thanks!" he said.

"Sure."

"Be good," his father said, assuring Merser of his appreciation, as he turned away with a quick "Bye!"

Then "Seth" shut the door.

***

"Dickie," came a sobbing voice, one full of fear and regret. "Dickie, I'm sorry. I hope you understand. P-Please. I . . . I didn't have a choice. I --"

It was Seth. The real one. Sobbing about allowing Merser to do what he did. He had used Seth's body to overpower the boy, and cause him to lose consciousness for just a moment.

"Please f-forgive me," Seth continued to sob. "He . . . he made me do it. I couldn't stop him . . . I . . . I . . . I . . ."

Merser took this as an advantage. Richard McGeezax was a well-regarded geneticist, and just the thing that Merser could use to augment his physiology with the DNA of a Genonosian Brainworm. Don't as how Merser managed to obtain it -- it wasn't easy, and it was before he settled in Seth's head. But he needed resources to be able to augment his own genetic code with that of the Brainworm. It would free him up of any dependence and make it easier for him to get around in non-aqueous environments. He was already considered to be a monster among his "species".

"Y-You must underst-stand," he said, with shuttering breaths, as Dickie groaned, starting to regain consciousness, "I had to do it. I had to g-give you up. It was the only w-way."

Merser couldn't take over McGeezax directly. He was far more physically empowered compared the flabby doughboy that was Seth. There was no way that Merser could use Seth's body to overpower McGeezax. So, the idea was subterfuge. Take him when he least expected it, when he anticipated nothing. What Merser needed was a Trojan Horse.

"He was g-gonna enslave me f-forever, Dickie," Seth said, in rushed, shuttering apologetics. He watched with horrified awe as the pallid flesh of Merser's true Yeerk body vanished within the ear canal of the boy's right ear. "This was the only w-way. The only way that I could be . . . could be . . ."

How fortunate that McGeezax had delivered the Trojan Horse right to Merser. This juvenile human, he hoped, would prove quite useful to him, for his purposes. Merser had made sure to feed long and hard before doing this, and he thought that he might be good for at least six days now -- something he had never been allowed to show his fellow Yeerks, who were clearly off put by his appearance, despite Yeerks being fundamentally blind. He couldn't metabolize Kadronna and he was slightly smaller than an ordinary Yeerk. They never bothered to get to know him to know that, after swimming in and feeding from oatmeal that he could stay in his hosts longer than those "normie" Yeerks.

"The only way that I could be fr-free, Dickie," he said, "you must understand th-that. I --"

"Oh, stop your sniveling, you wimpy worm!" Merser scolded harshly in Dickie's voice. Granted, it didn't sound at all threatening with a seven-year-old's voice. But Dickie's body was now Merser's and Dickie was still not cognizant enough to realize what was going on.

"What? What are --"

"I have the boy, you idiot," Merser said, getting to his . . . to Dickie's feet. While he was still inside Seth, he had managed to collapse the room into a capsule. Tech that Merser himself had developed while inside of Seth. He was only useful for that regard, though. Now his usefulness was gone, and Merser would have been prudent to kill Seth to avoid any loose ends, but he was in the body of a fail boy. And he could not concoct a cover story that would explain how Seth died but he survived.

"Oh, you're the alien speaking now," Seth said, with still cry in his voice, as Merser put the capsule into one of Dickie's jean pockets.

"'Merser', you dolt," Merser said, falling back on one of his favorite pasttimes. Verbally abusing Seth. But it was nearing six -- the preparation for the exchange really went on too long. "This juvenile human's sire should be here soon. Do not blow my cover, human, or else I will find a way to get back in there and I will make you walk off a cliff!"

<What's going on? Why am I--> Dickie said, in his head.

<Silence!> Merser said, harshly and cruelly. <I haven't the time to put up with you, you miserable, worthless human child.>

This was a mistake, as this made Dickie burst into tears in his head at this brief, but intense, moment of cruelty. This just irritated Merser and made him even more grumpy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2018, 07:54:55 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Shocking Realizations and Torturous Dreams

Myitt (and, by extension, Tara) were walking away from their civilian job (yes, she had one -- sometimes forum business and missions got a bit slow), when she (or they, if you prefer) heard two redhaired women with rather generous waistlines gossiping at a nearby coffee shop.

"You know, Gabby," said the one with her back to Myitt, and she was speaking at a volume that Myitt had no trouble hearing her clearly from so far away. "I really miss that guy, what's his name? Uh, The Panderer?'

"Oh, that Seth guy, yeah," said the still unnamed woman. "Wonder why he stopped posting. Loved his stuff. Especially considering that Character Death Match show continues to not do any research and biases all their fight results."

This wasn't remotely true. But Myitt found this idle chatter as unimportant, and Tara agreed with her about that.

"Have you seen the comments on the old videos, Julie?" Gabby asked. Myitt was just standing there waiting for the pedestrian light to change. She had made the mistake of arriving just as it changed to red, which meant that it would take forever to turn back to green. It didn't matter to much though, the forum wasn't that far away from here.

"Yes, but he hasn't posted any new content," Julie replied.

"I mean, did you see some of the newer comments?" Gabby clarified.

"People still post comments on videos that old?" Julie asked, genuinely surprised.

"Yeah," Gabby nodded, "it was mostly this one guy named 'Mercer'. Only he spelled it with an 'S' instead of a 'C'."

This caused Myitt to almost gag on her beverage. That's how "Merser" would be spelled in the human language. The pedestrian light changed and Myitt didn't notice.

<Doesn't mean that it's the same guy,> Tara said, <and the light changed. We can go now.>

Myitt walked across the crosswalk with barely enough time to clear it before the light changed. Still, this unnerved her enough to make her wonder. To make her wonder if Merser had somehow survived . . . but she couldn't do this alone. She would have seek the help of some specific RAFians.

***

Cloak was standing a black void, once again confronting his mother, in what was again, clearly a dream. Some things in the past are hard to let go.

Although, for some reason, GH was standing behind him strumming his guitar to the song adaptation Cloak was about to sing.

"Sorry that I don't treat you like a goddess.
Isn't that what you want me to do?
Sorry that I don't treat you like you're perfect,
Like all you always expect me to.
Is that why you always neglected my needs?
That must be such an inconvenience to you!
Well . . . I'm not your problem.
I'm not your problem.
I'm not even a person to you, am I?
I'm not your problem.
Well, I shouldn't have to justify what I do.
I shouldn't have to prove anything to you.
I'm sorry that I exist,
I don't care that I'm on your blacklist.
But I shouldn't have to be the one that makes up with you.'

The mental construct of his mother vanished. Cloak was perfectly lucid in this dream, and he knew this was just essentially kabuki theater. He knew that he wouldn't get any true resolution to this fissure between them like this. The only way to do it would be to speak to his mother, his real mother not a semi-tangible constructed representation of her.

But make no mistake, nothing could bridge or heal this chasm between them. The wounds ran far too deep. . . .

Wait, what was going on? He was alone in this black void, and before him he saw something like an aperture of some kind, a floating portal that was sort of outlined like the Nickelodeon splat. As he peered through it, he wasn't sure if this was an invention of his imagination or if he had transitioned into a Truth Dream. He hoped the later wasn't true, as the images in the portal wasn't really pleasant.

Garrotik was back and in the full throes of his destruction. And he was . . .  singing. Of course he would choose to have a song number.

"Today’s just so wonderful, I feel like chuckling.
Ha ha ha.
I feel all fuzzy inside like a Ducklett. . . full of Galvantulas!
And now that I’m here, tonight, it’s gonna get weird!!"

He towered over cowering civilians from the city with a fair smattering RAFians. Mostly the ones without any powers or any technological means of resisting Garrotik.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha!" Garrotik laughed at the RAFians, and their looks of consternation.

"Look at these creatures!
Not enough features!
Rats should breath fire!
RAFians should sing choir!'

The RAFians were force to sing against their wills. Funnily enough, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened -- RAFians singing against their wills.

"Very nice," Garrotik said, showing pointed teeth as he smiled. Then he moved over to a water tower, not like the one inhabited by the Warner siblings in "Animaniacs". And he animated it into a vicious monster, similar to the Spirit-Drinker.

"Look at this tower
Under my power!
Look at these people,
Puny and feeble! "

The water tower roared and stomped off, as Garrotik scooped the people up into his arms as he crowed, "Ooooooo hoooo!"

Then the music slowed down a tad, as he sang:

"Look, I’m just a merciful god trying to save you
From the delusions society gave you.
Gravity’s a lie and so is the pie.
Trust in the all-seeing, all-knowing guy!"

Then he demonstrated his power . . . and Cloak noticed that he was not one of the assembled. A conspicuous absence.

"Look at this money --
Who’s that, honey?
Look throughout history,
How could you miss me?"

Garrotik was enjoying this too much, as he claimed, "Seriously, I’m all over the place."

Then he sung once more:

"Look at this weather,
Bet I could do better.
Maniacal rainbows,
Screeching tornadoes!"

Then he peered into a room where there was a bathtub of regular coffee with a bendy straw in it.

"Look at this guy, drinking coffee."

GH put the straw to his lips and started sipping.

". . . Now it’s decaf!"

GH spewed the coffee out in a way that was much too cartoony to be reality.

"Mwahahahaha!" Garrotik laughed, clearly trying out his evil laugh.

Then he sang again, turning to the RAFians once more. The civilian seemed to have vanished.

"Look at these people, calling me evil
Right back at you, now you’re all statues!
Now everything you know has disappeared . . .
It’s gonna get weird . . ."

Then Garrotik seemed to look directly at Cloak before the Realm Walker awoke . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s5-ODUA-Cc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s5-ODUA-Cc) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq5sZPPF9ao. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq5sZPPF9ao.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 20, 2018, 10:25:27 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a tad early.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Struggling With Petulance

<Please?>

<Be SILENT, human!> Merser said, tersely. He had to focus on playing the part of this juvenile, pretending to be this boy so as not to arouse the suspicions of his father.

Dickie fell silent for a moment, but Merser could read the young human's mind. He knew that the boy was only being quiet until he thought he could ask again. Merser knew that he should nip that idea in the bud, but he was too focused on putting on the mask of a normal, if slightly affluent, boy to this juvenile's father. It was a very hard struggle to not allow the annoyance he felt show up on Dickie's face, because he was rather irritated with this human.

It had only been approximately six hours since he took the boy's body for his own. An opportunity to take his father had not presented itself in that timeframe. And Merser had been looking for them -- he found this boy far less pliant and more petulant for his liking. He knew some Yeerks could just shut out their host's minds and protests and vitriol, and he found himself envious of those Yeerks, because he seemed to be unable to shut out Dickie's whiny thoughts. Merser kept reminding himself that this was only a temporary situation, and Dickie wasn't his permanent host.

<Pretty please get out of me?> Dickie asked.

<NO!! STOP ASKING!!> Merser exploded. Then he realized that he had lapsed his control over Dickie's face and a bit of his frustrated annoyance eked out. He immediately patched it up, but fortunately, Richard McGeezax had gone to the other room to take a call, and didn't see this momentary lapse of control.

<Why not?> he whined, as Merser turned to look to see if Richard had returned.

He was seeing if it was okay to lower the mask, seeing if it was safe to briefly "break character". He did not want to jeopardize his plan just to put this miserable human child in his place. These larger creatures were nothing more or less than chassis for his kind to ride, mere costumes for Yeerks to put on and take off at a whim. In Merser's view, these larger creatures were lesser creatures to be domesticated for Yeerk use. They were not friends, they were not to be treated like pets. The Yeerks that only took their hosts with their permission and made nicey-nice with their hosts were analogous to what humans thought of cat ladies whose homes were overrun with the beasts.

<I don't have to justify my actions to you,> Merser said, with a terse voice, deciding it was okay to allow Dickie's face to express his frustrations, to allow the mask to drop. <I don't have anything to prove to the likes of a stupid little thing like you. Now, kindly SHUT UP!!>

Then, like that, he lifted back up the mask, pretending to be an oblivious seven-year-old boy. But the more he had to keep up this façade, the more he had to listen to this whiny, indolent child, the more he had to suffer his mental tantrums . . . the more he believes that Yeerks were biologically superior. In the fact that they perish in the act of reproduction, they never have to suffer kvetching brats. They never have to be so attached to their progeny. Sure, it may have served a biological advantage, but Merser still found it a ridiculous evolutionary behavior.

Merser, despite wearing nothing but human bodies since he had to escape the wrath of the Council for the crime of being different, and being special needs. He was just as capable as any other Yeerk, as he proved by procuring that flabby old man to carry him out of that pool. Sure, he had stolen that host for another Yeerk, but Merser didn't care. He was surviving. Then he took a braindead street person who thought herself an actress and dancer when she wasn't really proficient in any of those things. From there, he settled into Seth's head and stayed there until he took this brat.

<Why me?> Dickie asked, tearfully.

<I don't answer to you,> Merser snapped cruelly, still forcing Dickie's face to look cheery as if he was enjoying this time with Richard. "Bonding time", he called it. Merser, in truth, found it a ridiculous notion, and that all this attachment humans felt for one another, especially a parent with a child. He believed it a pointless waste of energy and could not fathom any usefulness that could stem from it. <Be silent or I shall make you . . . come to harm, by your own hand.>

Merser decided to leave it vague deliberately, to silence him, at least for a moment, while he mulled over what Merser meant specifically. Merser would embrace the brief silence, though, if the opportunity presents itself, he would take this juvenile's father. Hopefully, his father would prove to be more pliable and less petulance than his progeny. Even if he doesn't, Merser would need him only long enough for him to alter his own DNA to . . .

Well, he didn't want to get ahead of himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2018, 08:27:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Struggling With Concerns

"That's some rather flimsy evidence, Myitt," Cloak said. He was still disturbed by the dream, but he didn't tell the others. He still needed to mentally unpack it. "Sorry to be so blunt, Myitt, but people online can use any nomme de plume they chose. It could just as easily be a coincidence."

"And it could just as easily not be a coincidence," Myitt argued.

"You don't know that, Myitt," Cloak said. "You're allowing yourself to become paranoid. You're allowing your concern, worry, and preoccupation to co-opt your judgment."

Myitt fell silent as she collected her thoughts, and took in input from Tara, which she considered more valuable than gold, as the human phrase went.

"It is possible that we have a Yeerk on the lose," Yarin said, reasonably. "The Earth is a big place."

"Couldn't we scan people to see if they're harboring an unknown Yeerk?" Myitt asked. "I know that Yarin and the rest of the 'science boys' were developing a way to scan using the infallible verity of the Truth Mirror."

"All we have is a prototype," Yarin said. "And I'm even sure if it's functional yet."

"And how would we explain that we're arbitrarily scanning people?" Gaz asked. "People take serious umbrage with that kind of stuff in airports. How would this be any different?"

"We could claim that an unregistered sentient endoparasite was on the loose," Yarin suggested, with a double shrug with all four of his shoulders.

"That would imply that we have a registry of aliens," Cloak said, spotting a flaw with that plan immediately. "The database we have only characterizes species identifiers and if they would require protective equipment to stay on this planet, and what power sets that their respective species possesses. We don't have a registry of all of the aliens residing on the planet, assuming any are willing to stay."

"We probably should," Helen said. "Or a citizenship process of some sort."

"And have the possibility of the Knights getting ahold of it?" Xeno asked. "That would be just as good as handing them a hit list! And not all Knights are stupid and bumbling oafs, some can be legitimately cunning."

"Not to mention that it would open the door for discrimination," Shenmue pointed out, "if that list became public, the individuals on it would be harassed by, not only Knights, but those that sympathize with them. People in this country are protesting immigrants of all stripes, and those are just humans from a different country. Imagine if they had to live in a country with being that look radically different from themselves."

"Back to the Merser thing," Myitt said, feeling that the conversation was drifting away from the intended topic. "Isn't there any way we can confirm or debunk its existence?"

"That brings us to the question of where to start," Aquilai said, thinking hard, "assuming that this Merser is indeed alive, and currently infesting someone. Then who is that someone? And how would whoever became its host have a source of Kadronna?"

"Merser couldn't metabolize Kadronna in the same way that I and other Yeerks do, remember?" Myitt said.

"Ah, right. He was a special needs Yeerk," Dylan said.

Myitt didn't like the rather blunt way Dylan said that, not to mention that she wasn't really fond of his word choice. But she said nothing about that, decided to stay on topic, "But it's possible that it found some other substance to feed on. Maybe even that maple-flavored oatmeal -- perhaps what inhibits him from metabolizing Kadronna properly also prevents the addictiveness of that substance."

"That's a lot of 'ifs'," Cloak pointed out.

"But it's something," Myitt insisted. Her gut (well, she supposed that it was technically Tara's gut) told her that she was onto something. Then her mind hit upon something. "Why don't we check out that Seth the Panderer guy? We can trace his IP address, couldn't we?"

"Isn't that illegal?" YeerkSalad asked.

"Not technically," Myitt answered. "And, it is a lead . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 24, 2018, 05:33:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
An Opportunity Presents Itself

Merser had stumbled upon an idea.

Since the opportunity wouldn't present itself of its own accord, he would make the circumstances fit the criteria. Though he would never admit it to anyone, he pulled the idea from Dickie himself. From some inane movie -- some pointless distraction that humans make to waste time for a stupid concept they like to call "entertainment" -- that the juvenile human was fond of. But the idea would take a little waiting and a little planning on the Yeerk's part.

Merser pretended to be Dickie, all the way up until he had to get into his pajamas and go to bed. He hated pretending to be such a bubbly, yet bratty, boy. This human just happened to be the complete antithesis to his rather angry, cruel, selfish personality. Though this personality was mostly due to the treatment he received at the hands (well, not literally hands, as Yeerks have no hands of their own) of those of his own kind. People are often shaped by those around them, and their interactions between them. But it is how they decide to take these give or take scenarios that determine the kind of person that they are. Merser chose to be bitter and hateful about it, and he chose to take out his frustrations on everyone around him.

Anyway, he waited until Dickie was asleep, and truly asleep for a while. He even reviewed his dream, as if he was a harsh movie critic. These human dreams were such feckless things. Impossible, implausible things happen in them, and they were often metaphorical. They might have even been entertaining, if Merser had such patience to watch them until their conclusion. But, instead, he was calculating, wondering if he had waited enough time. Wondering if he had allowed this opportunity to pass him by.

Okay, that was quite long enough. Merser yelled at the top of his mental voice, uttering a Yeerkish curse, knowing that Richard wouldn't be able to hear, <WAKE THE #$#% UP!>

This woke Dickie up, naturally, enabling Merser to actually use his body again. This was something that also annoyed the Yeerk, the need for sleep for these creatures. So useless. So pointless to his ends . . . well, except for this particular circumstance. Merser was aggravated to see that Dickie's vision was still blurred with sleep and that his limbs felt so heavy. He took solace that it wouldn't be his problem for very much longer.

He inched Richard's door open to this juvenile human's father asleep in his bed. Merser never questioned nor cared that Richard was a single parent. He never bothered to see what happened to Dickie's mother, he never dug that far into Dickie's memories. As far as Merser cared, Dickie was nothing more than a stepping stone to get what he wanted. He would be discarded like an old, tattered shirt. That's all Dickie meant to him, just like Seth.

"Daddy?" Merser said, with Dickie's voice, word choice, and infliction. He tried again, even more loudly, "Daddy?"

Richard awoke, and spoke, trying not to sound exasperated, "What is it, Dickie?"

"I had a bad dream," Merser lied convincingly. He added a tad of believable hesitation to the five words. Merser knew that Dickie would have protested had he gained lucidity yet, but he was still too tired. Merser had insured this.

Richard sighed, like he was going to suggest something that he didn't really want to suggest. This was completely lost on Dickie, but not Merser. But Merser didn't care that he was inconveniencing Richard. Richard would soon become his, and he would have another four days before he would have to feed again. He would be another step closer to his evolution, to shedding this need to feed every few days, to "hearing" his host's complaints and whatnot. Genososian brainworm DNA was still locked in his mind, and using that geneticist's mind and resources . . . but he didn't want to get ahead of himself. He still had to take Richard first, and do it while Dickie was asleep so neither would witness the transfer.

He crawled Dickie into his father's bed, and waited until he fell asleep himself, forcing Dickie to stay up. Fortunately, he didn't have to worry about Dickie to go to school the next day. Although, even if he did, Merser would not care. Merser maneuvered Dickie's ear in such a way to make the transference easier for him. Then he allowed Dickie to go back to sleep, and waited until he drifted off and started dreaming his ridiculous dreams again. Then he disconnected from his brain, and left his head, never looking back.

Within moments, he was nestled around Richard's brain, with neither father nor son aware of the transfer. Dickie was never aware of how Merser got into him to begin with, as he was unconscious when the transference took place. But Merser was happier now. He was a step closer to his ultimate goal, and he hoped that Richard would prove more pliable and less whiny than his progeny.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2018, 04:44:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Tortured Mind

Indulging in Myitt's concerns, she, Cloak, and Yarin, the latter two wearing ID masks to appear human, they go to Seth Graham's residence, and Yarin blinks in surprise.

"What is it? Isn't he home?" Myitt said, Tara having noticing Yarin's reaction.

"There's definitely someone in that residence," Cloak confirmed.

"Yes, there is," Yarin said. "But the person in that home . . . his mind is chaotic, and basically yelling at the top of his mental voice. Any telepath could hear it. Even low-leveled ones."

"Something happened here," Myitt said, almost smugly.

"That doesn't mean that Merser was --" Cloak said, reasonably.

"Yes, Merser was here. Even from this distance, I can make out the man's thoughts." Yarin said. "That's the word that's repeated."

"Doesn't mean that it means the same thing in context, though," Cloak pointed out.

"No, it's a Yeerk," Yarin said, "he's shouting this thoughts as if he is being . . . tortured by them, somehow. The Yeerk . . . it was not a nice guy."

<Isn't this technically an invasion of privacy?> Tara asked Myitt. <Reading his thoughts without consent?>

"Not technically," Yarin said, "he's shouting them out, psychically screaming them out."

"Who are you responding to, Yarin?" Cloak asked. "No one said anything."

"Tara did," Yarin said. "Myitt's host."

Cloak kept forgetting that Myitt was a Yeerk. Though he would never admit such a thing aloud, as his pride wouldn't allow it.

"Wait -- you could hear that?" Myitt inquired.

<We both have Marks!> Tara blurted.

"I thought the Marks prevented that," Myitt added.

"It's probably because you both -- you, Tara, and Yarin -- all carry Marks, like when Gaz became Evil Gaz and came under the thrall of Madre de Vampyra," Cloak said. "Remember, the Mark is a powerful, but not infallible, defense. It can be weakened and even broken. Like it did shortly after it was created when we dealt with the Phalanx."

"To be fair, it's fallacies have been rather inconsistent since it was --" Yarin began before falling silent. His eyes widened, both in his projected form and his true six eyes. When he spoke again, it had a not of urgency. "We have to hurry."

"What? Why?" Myitt and Tara said in unison.

"No time! We have to --" Yarin said, but he was cut off by a single, resounding gunshot. "We're too late."

"He . . . shot himself?" Myitt asked.

"He was suffering from guilt," Yarin said. "Apparently, Merser forced him to allow the Yeerk to transfer himself into a kid. Dickie McGeezax."

"It's a lead," Cloak said, somberly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2018, 05:48:24 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Not Going As Well As Planned

<Don't fight me, McGeezax,> Merser threatened.

He was woefully disappointed to find out that Richard McGeezax was far less pliant than his son, and far more obstinate. Granted, Merser didn't truly require Ricky's cooperation at this point, as all Yeerks can completely dominate their hosts, and Merser thought those that didn't were weak and insufferable. Then again, Merser thought a lot was insufferable at this point.

<Remember my threat, Ricky,> Merser said, tersely and harshly.

Merser had threatened Dickie. Threatened to hurt him as Ricky, and thereby having his own father maim his son. Ricky would have no control over his actions in the most literal way possible, but it would be him and his reputation that would take the blame. Who would have believed that this demon called Merser made him do it? And that would be if Merser ever let go, ever released his occupation of the elder McGeezax's body. He would have to be smart about how he did this . . .

<Obedience is the only smart option you have, Ricky,> Merser said, voice cruel, having read his thought. Ricky had no privacy from the Yeerk.

When Dickie awoke, and found that he had control over his body again, he immediately told his father about it, completely oblivious that Merser took over his father. Merser smiled inwardly at, in the Yeerk's view, the boy's utter stupidity. But he played the part, as the patronizing parent of a rambunctious, precocious child. Dickie was none the wiser. And Merser was in Dickie's head -- the boy wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, in the endoparasite's opinion.

<Do as I wish, Ricky, and I shall leave you and your progeny unharmed,> Merser intoned. It was perfectly true, too. Once he had gotten what he wanted, he wouldn't have any interest in the two. Even as a . . . well, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. Ricky was no more than a stepping stone to get what he wanted. A means to an end.

***

Merser was not happy.

He was expecting to have his desire, his grand plan, done before he had to feed again. He had six days. He cursed himself -- he spent too much time in the brat looking for an opportunity to take this host body. Now he would have to feed before he gave himself the treatment. The ****tail would be ready soon, but not soon enough that he would literally starve before it was done.

Fortunately, feeding for him was far easier than any other Yeerk as all he needed was maple-flavored oatmeal, and that happened to be a favorite breakfast meal of Dickie. So the boy was proving more useful than the Yeerk anticipated. And he had the capsule, taken from the boy's room without his notice. It didn't belong to him, anyway.

As some providence, Ricky was off from his job this day, and Dickie would be off at school. This gave Ricky plenty of time alone for Merser to have a good, long feed. So he immediately made a bowl of the oatmeal as soon as sending Dickie off to school. And being alone, he didn't have to keep up the façade at being Ricky, which he was glad for.

<What are you doing? I don't like oatmeal.> Ricky said.

<Be silent, human,> Merser said, dismissively. He didn't care whether Ricky liked oatmeal or not. It only matter when he had to give this body some nutrition.

Merser walked Ricky's body down to their "rec room". Merser sneered at the idea again, the need for leisure time. What a pointless waste of time. Imagine all the constructive things that could be done. It was here that he set up the chamber where he could keep Ricky prone and prevent any escape while he fed. Merser still needed him.

For the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2018, 09:57:58 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
FINALLY!

Merser made a small black box roughly the size of one of those Andalite morphing cubes, the device that imparts the morphing technology to an uninitiated person or persons of any species. Merser actually considered procuring the morphing technology, but that wasn't really a viable avenue to him. The plan he had devised was much better, he thought. And more permanent. Sure, if he could morph, he could acquire the genetic pattern of a Genosisian brainworm, but that brings the problem of acquiring one. There was no way that he could go to Genosis, which was an unreasonable distance from this planet that he was stranded on.

And, unfortunately (in Merser's opinion, anyway), humans were the only species worth infestation on this planet. The other species on this planet, which may have immigrated here from who knows what reason, were unfit for infestation, in his opinion. Or in the case of Pyronites and species of a similar quality, infestation is either impossible or uncomfortable. So he was stuck with humans, a species he refused to admit a certain fondness of. A kink, if you will. But, if pressed, he would vehemently deny it.

Anyway, he looked at his creation, this black box. He had stolen resources from his geneticist work at 151 Genetics, Inc., in conjunction with a biochemical firm, Risti Chemical. Merser didn't bother to hide the theft. As far as he was concerned, Ricky was as expendable as his brat of a son, Dickie. They were just means to an end, and that end was approaching closer and closer.

The time was now. The injection chamber full of the DNA ****tail that would hybridize him with the brainworm genetic code, it would combine with his own DNA and make it recombinant. He would become a Yeerk/brainworm hybrid, he would be freed of the limitations of a Yeerk. He would not need to feed on oatmeal, transferring from host to host would be far easier, and he wouldn't be burdened with hearing their thoughts. They would not be aware of his occupation of their bodies. It would be blissful.

He held up the black box to Ricky's ear, and made sure that Ricky would not release the box during the transfer. His parting words were not poetic or regretful in any way. He said, <Good riddance, pathetic human.>

Ricky briefly thought of destroying the box while Merser was within it, and Merser saw this, finding it ridiculously hilarious.

<You know that this injector chamber is completely unbreakable, unless you use a Dracon beam on a setting that it cannot normally reach,> Merser said, confident in its design. <You haven't any resources do that, and when the process is done, I'll have no need for it any longer. Nor will have any need of you. . . .  Or your son.>

<Dickie?> Ricky said. Clearly, this was news to him. <What do you intend to do to him?!>

"How do you think I managed to get into you?" Merser said, using Ricky's mouth, voice, and tongue. <I rode that brat, and used him to get into you when he "had a bad dream".>

<What?> Ricky said, aghast.

<Yes, idiot tetrapod,> Merser said, taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in this. <It wasn't "Dickie" talking to you that night and three days prior. I used Seth to get into him.>

<I bet Seth fought you to protect Dickie,> Ricky said.

<He allowed it.> Merser said, holding up the transference for this. He enjoyed with breaking this to Ricky, all this information that he considered trivial initially and possessing reluctance to give away too much that might backfire on him. Now that he was so close to ascending to a higher form than that of a mere special needs Yeerk. <He sacrificed your son's freedom for his own. It was a very selfish move, wasn't it?>

Ricky was stunned into silence. He thought Seth was a trusted friend, and he just learned that that trust was betrayed in such a grievous manner. Merser contorted Ricky's face into a grimace of pure malice. And he laughed maliciously in their private thought-to-thought speech, as he transferred himself into the box to get injected.

He didn't know precisely how long the process would work, but realized soon that Ricky had dropped the box as soon as he regained control over himself. He sat down with his head in his hands, mulling it all over. A betrayed trust is never something that's easily forgotten. After a few long moments, Ricky left the laboratory that the black box was still in, and he made to head for home.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2018, 09:53:13 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
It's a Process

Merser, confined to his little box, without any access to a host. He didn't care about that, though. He felt the injection prick his anterior end of his body, just behind his left palp. It didn't really hurt, either. It was just a pinprick, just sharp for a moment and that's it. He couldn't feel the serum running through his body, though he imagined that he could.

The serum would complete its work within a half a standard feeding cycle for normal Yeerks. He didn't know how long the transformation would be, or whether it would even be painful. Even if it was, no matter how excruciating it was, he would have done this. The benefits outweighed any negatives that he had to suffer on the way there. It would be worth it in the end.

After the injection had finished, the needle had withdrawn and been ejected from the box. If anyone was punctured by the needle and hurt by it, Merser could not care less. He was the only person who really mattered to him. He had learned to be extremely selfish and have powerful self-preservation instincts due to the extremely harsh and hostile treatment he received by the rest of his kind. He had never known any kindness or compassion, so how would he ever be able to know how to express or even feel them?

Soon, Merser's entire body felt warm, as if the whole of it was inflamed. It was uncomfortable, but tolerable. Barely, but tolerable. Merser waited, sure that it would pass and his body would change. He would not be able to see it, of course, due to the fact that Yeerks cannot see, in the typical sense, while in their natural form. He soon felt as if his entire body was burning, but he endured it in silence. He was kind of glad that he could not scream.

Then, with alarming rapidity, the excessive heat vanished and he was feeling a distinct chill. He scrunched up his still Yeerkish body, as it started to shiver. Yeerks were not accustomed to cold like that which he now felt. The Yeerk Pool was a relatively tepid temperature, and not many (if any) had taken a host whose brain was not warm. Merser worried that he might freeze into a slab of ice. Merser continued to remind himself that it was necessary for his grander goal.

Then, with mounting fear, Merser found that he could not move his Yeerkish body. He was paralyzed. He started to wonder, in a panicked stupor, if his copious calculations while wearing Ricky were off. He double and tripled checked . . . maybe something still eluded him about it. Could he have been wrong? Could have been mistaken?

The paralysis faded, as he grew into a disoriented state. He was confused about what was going on, forgetting what he did and even who he was. The serum wasn't meant to meddle with his memories! . . . Or, wait, was it? What was he trying to do again? Why was his memory muddied? He couldn't remember . . . remember what? What was he trying to remember? What was --

Then, suddenly, in a moment of absolute clarity, he recalled everything. But he felt extremely nauseous. And Yeerks don't feel nauseous. It was a certainly unique experience. One that he wouldn't care to re-experience. He felt very sick and he couldn't vomit . . . then he felt the same symptoms that a human with the flu would feel.

Then Merser felt better, but found himself falling into a slumber. Which, again, was odd. Yeerks don't really sleep or dream. But he slept, and as he did so, the changes started. The transformation had begun. . . .

***

"Mr. McGeezax?" Cloak asked, at the McGeezax residence front door. "We have some questions to ask you."

"And who would you be?" Ricky said, looking thoroughly put out. Yarin blinked at his appearance in the doorway. Cloak cast only the merest glances at Yarin and presumed that Yarin had read his mind. Presumably, Yarin had stumbled upon something in his mind, without even probing.

"We're RAFians," Myitt said, showing her Mark as if it were a police badge.

"You could have just painted that on your hand," he said. After his experiences with Merser, Ricky was left a bit more paranoid and skeptical at things now. "You could easily be impersonating RAFians."

<How do we prove that we're RAFians, then?> Tara wondered.

<I . . . don't know . . .> Myitt admitted, honestly.

"Does this help prove who we are?" Cloak said, taking a risk in taking off his ID mask. Revealing himself as a cloaked figure roughly eight feet tall. Yarin followed suit revealing his true Nyac form, with his six blinking eyes, gray skin, four arms, and two legs.

"Doesn't mean you're RAFians," Ricky said, skeptically.

"Then what do we have to do to make you believe us?" Myitt asked.

"Daddy!" said a child's voice, who had been watching them from the nearby window. "That's Cloak!! And the telepathic alien guy!! They're RAFians!! And a lady."

His tone was as if his father was preventing Superman or Spider-Man from coming into their house. Cloak felt uncertain about this now -- he didn't want children to hero worship them. A lot of what they have to do isn't nice. Yarin, Myitt and Tara, despite themselves, felt a bit miffed about not being mentioned by name. But, to be fair, Cloak has had a habit of declaring his name before a battle. That name would have probably circulated around -- and he knew that there were probably hit pieces about him in corrupted media, like Bern Bridges, it wouldn't have been the first time that RAFians would have been smeared.

It never occurred to the Elements Master that their adventures could have been romanticized in any way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 28, 2018, 05:00:54 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Demonstrations and Resistances

"Fine, come in, but make it quick," Ricky said, resisting this. He was only allowing this because Dickie was so insistent. He was a RAFian fanboy.

Ricky offered them the leather futon and he sat in the chair opposite of them, with Dickie, a bundle of energy, seated in the armchair positioned forty-five degrees from the futon. He was acting as if the pope had come to his home, and he was bubbling over from excitement. Granted, the boy thought he knew a lot about them, the reality was that he actually knew very little. He was ignorant about the lesser grandiose missions the RAFians went on, the lesser known and less glorious missions. He only knew what he saw on television, and he thought they were cool.

Knowing this, it made Cloak feel slightly uncomfortable. The only children that Cloak was ever really around were Leatherhead, who was only a year younger than Dickie, and Shadow, who didn't hero worship him, and wasn't afraid to sass him. Not to mention that Cloak didn't feel that he was worthy of such admiration, although Yarin and Myitt seemed to take it in stride. Dickie may have forgotten their names, but he looked to them with same amount of adoration and admiration.

"What do you want to know?" Ricky asked, sounding rather put out.

"We wish to know what you know," Myitt said, without preamble, "about a Yeerk."

"What's a Yeerk?" Dickie asked.

"A slug-like endoparasite that enters a targeted creature through their auditory canals and wrap around their brains, thereby controlling them completely," Cloak said, in an offhand way.

Ricky's eyes changed in recognition, though he said nothing. Dickie seemed confused. He was never lucid when Merser transferred from Seth Graham into him and when Merser transferred from him into his father. He just assumed that Merser was a ghost or demon of some sort that possessed him and kept him conscious and lucid during the occupation.

"I don't understand," Dickie said.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Myitt said, placing Tara's hand near her ear.

<Are you sure about this, Myitt?> Tara warned, seeing where this was going and a possible backfire of it.

<Not really, but it's a risk that I'm willing to take,> she said.

<Well, okay . . . it's your choice,> Tara complied.

With that, Myitt wriggled her way out of Tara's ear and landed squishy and wet in her hand, condensing her form into the usual slug-like shape. Ricky looked at Myitt as if she was an abomination, while Dickie looked as if he was struggling with abhorrence, fascination, and thinking it was cool.

"You're free," Ricky said to Tara, "you can destroy that monster."

"She's not a monster," Tara said, with dignity, "and she lives in my body with my permission. I am a voluntary Controller, and, if Merser took you two, you were obviously involuntary Controllers."

The she raise her hand back to her ear, and Myitt wriggled her way back inside, and, within moments, retook control.

"You actually allowed that . . . thing back into your head?" Ricky said, disgusted.

"Mr. McGeezax, Merser may have been a cruel Yeerk, but that doesn't mean they all are," Yarin said.

"I know it may be hard to believe, Ricky, considering how Merser may have treated you," Cloak said. "But look at it this way. Are all humans cruel monsters?"

Ricky said nothing as he mulled it over. Eventually, he accepted this argument, saying, "Fair enough. But what is it that you want?"

Cloak cut to the chase, "Where is Merser now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 29, 2018, 07:11:41 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Completion and Confirmation

It both seemed to take forever and, yet, seemed to take not time at all. He was no longer fully Yeerk, though he retained his Yeerk DNA, it was only half now. He was now a hybrid. He was roughly five times longer than he was, and he was now as thin and narrow as a pencil. He felt stronger now. He felt no semblance of hunger, not like he used to. He was ecstatic. He had shed his weaknesses he had as a full-blooded Yeerk. He was freed from it. Freed!!

He didn't need this box anymore. This stupid Schrodinger's cat box. It was time to shed this recently useless shell. It was nothing more or less than his cocoon, his crystalis, to become something newer, something stronger, something to be feared. His body was more worm than slug now, and he was able to slither about at a considerable clip than he would have been his sluggish Yeerk body.

But he wasn't entirely brainworm, either. He still retained his coloring and Yeerkish palps, through which he was still able to electrically echolocate. Electrolocate, if you will. This was entirely something from his Yeerkish heritage. He could feel vibrations in the ground, much like Cloak's Earthsight, but to a far lesser degree. He still could take hosts, so his human kink would still be intact. Humans were his favorite hosts, and now he would be able to take whatever one he wants. And it would be easier, and he wouldn't have to listen to them whine and complain and bemoan their fate as his chosen host.

At least, in theory. He would have smiled if he could, eager to test out this new body of his, test out his new abilities. But he had to find a new host to test them out, but due to his inhabitation of Ricky McGeezax, he knew that the facility was not empty. Or would not be soon. There should have some interns or something still hanging around. They should have heard the box ejecting the needles and breaking with his emergence.

As he hid and waited, he found himself thinking about his host preferences, deliberately choosing male hosts over female ones, solely so he could use male pronouns. He preferred "he" and "him" to "it" or "she" or "her". Maybe it was a stupid reason for a gender preference in hosts, but Merser couldn't care less what others thought of him. These humans were just around for his pleasures, be it hedonistic or not, and, in his views, had no other purpose. True, he would have used female hosts to get him to this point, but he would have preferred not to -- and he was secretly glad that he didn't have to.

There were three interns that came in to investigate the noise. With Merser's electrolocation and minuscule seismic sense, he was unable to make out the details. Unfortunately, he couldn't make out any more than that. He felt some vibrations which he took as voices speaking. He couldn't understand what was being said, as he was still unfamiliar with his new body. A new body that took the best of Yeerk and brainworm physiologies and, in his view, removed all the weaknesses.

Yes! There was a host close enough to take. He launched his coiled form and pushed his way through their right nostril. He would soon be wearing a new host.

***

"Merser?" Dickie asked. "He was mean."

"Yes, I don't doubt it," Cloak said. "We cannot allow it on the loose, taking involuntary hosts like yourself. It's a completely different circumstance when the host is voluntary and the Yeerk isn't cruel."

<Wait, does he have a personal Kadronna supply?> Tara asked Myitt, as if remembering something suddenly.

<Merser couldn't metabolize Kadronna the way I and every other Yeerk does.> was her reply.

<Then why isn't he dead?> Tara asked.

<We went over this, remember?> Myitt said, patiently. <He clearly found another means of sustenance.

"He had me build him some black box," Ricky said, with a sigh. He had decided to be candid, as he would have to explain stealing tech from his workplace. He would need someone to vouch for him. Unbeknownst to him, Yarin was hearing his thoughts and he would be sure to defend him to his more corporate superiors. His actions were not his own, they were Merser's using him as a puppet and a means to an end. "There were a couple of injectors he had me build into it. I didn't understand how it was supposed to work, or really to what end."

"Go on," Yarin prompted.

"The box was of his design," Ricky said, obliging the Nyac, "I asked questions but he wouldn't answer. If I persisted he would get quite . . . rude."

"He threatened your son, didn't he?" Cloak said, perceptively. "Despite him, I presume, already using Dickie to get to you."

"Yes. He seemed to take an inordinate amount of joy in doing that," Ricky recalled darkly. "But, as he used me, I recognized the substance that he put into the injectors."

"What was it?" Myitt asked.

"It was DNA ****tail of some sort," Ricky said. "He wouldn't tell me specifics. If I pushed him too much, he threatened Dickie again. A couple of times, he nearly followed through on the threats. But I did notice one specific and serious drawback."

"Drawback?" Cloak echoed.

Ricky nodded solemnly and gravely. "The serum was unstable. If Merser subjected himself to it, it would be dangerous for him. Every time I thought this, he told me very hostilely and antagonistically to shut up."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2018, 04:39:49 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
New Boy Toys

Success!

Mercer had gotten himself a new host. It was a male, fortunately enough, and one roughly twenty Earth years old or so. It called itself "Mark Smith" and its comrades were fellow interns that called themselves "Randy Taylor" and "Zack Bryan". This human wore a black shirt, black slacks, and black loafers, and despite being the youngest of the three, he was actually the second tallest. Mercer almost burst out laughing with joy, as he didn't hear this human whining or bemoaning or raging or anything of that nature in his head. That would be the brainworm side of his new physiology. Yet, he could still access this human's memories. Every joyous memory, every fearful memory, every sad memory, every disgusting memory, every angry moment felt. They were all open to him. Merser could see all of his angry moments, his obsessive, greedy moments, his terrors and fearful moments, his courageous moments, his hopeful moments, his compassionate moments, his moments of love, his moments of humiliation . . . they were all nothing more than YouTube videos for him to click on and view at his leisure. It was his Yeerk side that allowed this.

"Mark, what's the matter with you?" Randy said, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing," Merser said, in perfect mimicry of Mark's mannerisms, disposition, and inflection. He kept it from showing on Mark's face, but Merser felt elated. He could impersonate any host he decided to take. He could take any host he wanted, and blend in as them as seemlessly as if he were a Yeerk, but without any of the drawbacks and weaknesses of such. He could be anyone that he wanted, without having to abandon the body every so often to feed, having to worry about restrain the host until he had finished feeding. He wouldn't have to leave until he wanted to. "Nothing at all."

Merser could tell that this word choice made Randy feel creeped out, but he didn't suspect. Instead, Randy was annoyed because he saw it as Mark trying to creep him out, as a joke. Brad paid no attention as he investigated the broken box, perplexed. Then he gathered up the box and the empty injector -- a makeshift syringe -- and carried them out of the room. Merser was just fighting the urge to smile as broadly and openly as the Joker. He was just filled with such elation and excitement. He was no longer bound to the limitations of a Yeerk! No other Yeerk would know this freedom! Granted, he would never be able to reproduce, but no other Yeerk would have him and that would kill him. Besides, he had no idea if the defect that prevented him from metabolizing Kadronna would have made him effectively infertile, so to speak.

"Mark, stop it." Randy demanded. "It's not funny anymore. It wasn't funny to begin with."

Using Mark's eyes and ears, Merser saw that the two were alone. He wanted to try something, and Randy would be the perfect test subject. Using Mark's arms, he forced the smaller Randy (and second-eldest of the trio) to a wall, and, before he could protest, Mark's eye rolled into the back of his head, horror movie style, and he exited part way from Mark's mouth and oral cavity. Randy, at first, thought this was an elaborate prank. But then his fear took over and he was about to scream when Merser dived in, taking Randy for his own. He immediately stifled Randy's scream as he took control and as Mark's body slumped to the floor unconscious.

"That was, indeed, easier," he smiled, having spoken in Randy's voice.

Mark was quick to regain consciousness, as Brad came in demanding to know what happened. He was the oldest of the lot, as well as the one who acted the most responsible. Merser hadn't really considered an alibi, but he quickly improvised using Randy's knowledge, memories, and thoughts (which had been suspended and silenced for the moment).

"I told you to stop with your spooky-spooky sci-fi crap," he said, Randy's voice issuing naturally from his new vocal cords. "I asked nicely, Mark. But you had to push and push and push."

"I don't remember doing --"

"The hell you don't!" Merser said, finding it easy to manufacture the false anger which looked very legitimate to those on the outside. Merser himself wasn't angry, of course, but he was very convincing. "You're always doing this, Mark. And I'm sick of it."

"I'm sure that I didn't do --'

"Stop denying it, Mark!" Merser said, smiling inwardly. He was enjoying this. "You know what you did!"

"Whoa, whoa," Brad said, hands up in a placating manner. "Let's just all calm down."

"Yes," came a slow voice, "let's calm down. And answer a few questions."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2018, 07:37:40 AM

Gonna try to post another chapter before I walk to work. I'm working two double shifts this weekend, so I will more than likely be too exhausted to post on the weekend. Maybe even Monday.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Facade Slipping

"What? Who said that?" "Randy" said, almost letting the mask slip.

"I did," Cloak said, stepping into the light. It was not unlike when Beast was introduced to Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" animated movie. Brad and Mark reacted with shock, with "Randy's" reaction being more subdued. Merser recognized Cloak from that boy's memory. Dickie McGeezax's memory. He was a real fanboy of them, despite having many misconceptions about them. "Merser, if you're here, then you know me. Or, at least, you think you do."

Merser kept Randy's face from betraying his facade. He couldn't give up his fun so quickly. He made it contort in fear to match the other two, as this was a rather intimidating introduction to Cloak. And Cloak, being about eight feet tall, towered over the three interns. The three spoke at the same time.

"Who are you?" "Randy" said, while the other two asked, fearfully, "What are you?"

Cloak took mental note of this discrepancy, but chose not to comment on it, for the moment. It wasn't enough evidence to make any conclusions.

"My name is unpronounceable to Dwellers," Cloak said, "so just call me Cloak."

The three said nothing, but it did not seem that it occurred to them to flee. Cloak could not tell if it was from fascination or fear. The Realm Walker wasn't sure if he liked being feared, even though he used it a lot, it seemed, as an intimidation tactic. To his right, Myitt stepped into the light and, to his left, Yarin did the same. Cloak cast a sidelong, cursory glance at the Nyac.

"The short one," he said, answering Cloak's unasked question. He was clearly identifying the one that Merser had infected.

"He didn't waste time at all, did he?" Myitt said. Her tone colder than Cloak had ever heard from her. Perhaps she took Merser's actions personally? No matter. It wasn't important at this time.

"Oh! You mean me?!" Merser said, feigning surprise. "What are you going to do to me?!"

"We won't let you hurt him!" Brad declared.

"Speak for yourself," Mark said. Apparently, he took umbrage at "Randy" yelling at him earlier.

"MARK!" Brad scolded.

"We have no intention on harming you friend," Cloak said, "we're after the endoparasite in his head that has been running rampant, and causing harm to others."

"Endoparasite? I don't have any parasites!"

"There was that time in Tijuana, Randy, that --"

"Shut up, Mark! I told you that in confidence!" "Randy" said. Merser had called up the memory, as if using the YouTube search bar, and skimmed it.

"You're not fooling us, Merser," Yarin said. Cloak noticed that "Randy" flinched at the name, that went unnoticed by his fellows. This confirmed it in Cloak's eyes. "I am a telepath. And your thoughts are not shielded. The real Randy's mind has been suspended for the duration of your occupation. Just like the brief span of unconsciousness that one there, Mark Smith, had experienced when he was your first host."

Mark's eyes widened as he moved away from Randy, seeing him like a monster now.

"Mark, you traitorous piece of --" "Randy" said, uttering a human curse, "Someone with NO EVIDENCE accuses me of something and you IMMEDIATELY abandon me?!"

"I did black out for like fifteen minutes to a half hour," Mark said, looking at Randy very differently, "I'd hardly call that 'no evidence'."

"It's flimsy evidence, at best!" "Randy" said, the mask, the facade, was starting to drop and Merser hadn't even noticed. "Not you, too, Brad!!"

Now Brad went over to Mark, seeing this type of behavior out of character for Randy. The intonation, word choice, and infliction was different from what the real Randy would use. Not to mention that Randy would have never been this hostile, this aggressive about anything. Even if he was fed up.

"They're LYING, guys!!"

"Why?" Brad asked. "What possible reason would they have to lie to us?"

"Like I know?!"

"Such a stirring argument," Yarin said, dryly, "but I think I can settle this. Randy's mind has been rendered unconscious by Merser's occupation. There is, perhaps, an easier way to settle this."

"What the hell are you talking about?" "Randy" said. Merser wasn't having so much fun anymore. It wasn't fun when the mask was being forced off.

"I'll just make the real Randy awake again," Yarin said, knowing precisely that Merser would be absolutely adverse to this. "I'll simply telepathically nudge him back to consciousness."

And like that, the mask was torn off and threw aside, Merser now broke his pretend and spoke openly, "NO!! No, you will not! I went through all this trouble so I didn't have to deal with the whining, the complaining, the sobbing, and all of the other crap that these humans do when they are infested and not broken down!"

Then Merser realized that his outburst outted him, and he hastily tried to play it off. "I mean, that's what I would say if any of that was true. I mean, it's the rhetoric that makes . . . oh, forget it. Yeah, I'm a parasite and I control this human. So what? There's nothing you can do about it! I don't have to leave his body unless I want to."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 30, 2018, 08:18:58 AM

There. Probably shouldn't expect a chapter tomorrow or the day after. Don't hold me to that though, if I've enough energy, I might drop a chapter or two. Depends on my stamina, I guess.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Talky Talky Bits

"And I don't want to leave this body, right now." Merser said, with Randy's voice, mouth, and tongue. He was now speaking very openly about not being Randy. These RAFians had ruined his fun on that account.

"Perhaps that is true," Cloak said. "But in your outburst, you mistakenly gave us a weapon."

"What are you talking about?" he sneered, in a very not-Randy way.

"More on that later," Cloak said, ignoring what Merser had just said. "The more pressing matter is that your days are numbered."

"Is that a threat?" he growled, sounding more animal than human.

"No," Myitt said, "my god, Merser, you're so stupid."

"Your 'god'? Really, Myitt?" he said, narrowing Randy's eyes, wearing a very condescending look on his face. "Yes, Myitt, I know who you are. You're one of those Yeerks who have human pets for hosts. Yeerks who play nicey-nice with them. How pathetic."

"Lame attempt at strawmanning," Myitt replied easily. Tara actually spoke in unison, but only Yarin could "hear" her. "You're so stupid, Merser. You subjected yourself to a serum that you slapped together and you don't even know what the possible side effects are. You're so stupid and so reckless."

Merser made Randy laugh. "You've talked with that McGeezax loser, I see! The stupid human geneticist didn't know what he was talking about. He was only useful for his access to this place. He thought he knew more than he actually did, the pompous fool."

"Glass house, much?" Yarin said, rolling all six of his eyes. "I've had a look at the remnants, Merser. I can confirm that the substance was blatantly unstable. Not in that it would explode. More like that it would make you explode, as if you were touched by that 'Fist of the North Star' guy. Kenshiro, or something. You may not have very long at all."

"Preposterous," he made Randy snort.

"Don't be so hasty," Cloak said, "if you're still inside this young human's head when you genetically detonate -- and apparently that's a thing in this realm -- you could cause severe neurological damage to him. If you have any compassion within you, you need to exit him. Then, perhaps, we could save y--"

Merser raised one of Randy's hand, and turned his head to the side, "Save me from nothing. I will not go back. I will not be fully Yeerk again. I will not take over a pet body. I won't compromise."

"You must!" Myitt interjected. "For once in your miserable life, Merser, care about someone other than yourself!"

"Compassion is for the worthless and the weak," Merser said, folding Randy's arms accross his chest. "Assuming what you say is even true -- and there isn't the remotest chance that you are, my calculations were flawless -- why would I care to spare this human's life? What is he to me? He's nothing more than a chassis for me to drive, a costume for me to wear and discard when I'm done with him. And eventually the novelty will wear off, or he would come across some personal or professional problem that I'd rather not deal with. Then I'd cast him aside like the husk he is."

"I think I've found someone even more selfish than . . ." Cloak said to himself, before shaking his head, and the thought from his mind. "Merser, you cannot do that. If you have any decency within you whatsoever, you will --"

"'Decency'? Just another tool that smart beings like myself use to manipulate others." Merser said dismissively.

Cloak considered using "Expellicorpus", but that was for spectral possession mostly. If he used it on Merser and Randy, he might cause harm to Randy. Harm that the human would not appreciate. They had to find another way to evict him.

"He'll be obstinate no matter what we say," Yarin said, looking at Cloak. Then he looked at Randy (Merser could not be seen, in the physical sense), and addressed him. "I told you that I could awaken Randy from his slumbering stupor. And I know that's something that you cannot abide. So, I give you one more chance. Extricate yourself from his brain and body, and surrender yourself. Or else."

"Make me."

Yarin shut all six of his eyes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2018, 06:56:05 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Extrication

"What are you doing?" Merser demanded, seemingly to refuse to let go of his beliefs that the RAFians couldn't help but find untenable.

"I've told you what I intend to do," Yarin said, all six of his eyes still closed.

Merser could feel -- could actually feel -- Randy's consciousness starting to rouse. Struggling to waken. Merser quickly lost his ****iness, his arrogance, his confidence in his security, his assurance that he held all the cards. He didn't want this human's native mind to waken. He didn't want to deal with this. He didn't want to hear the insufferable whining, the angry hostility, the incessant sniveling, the annoying bawling . . . he had no interest in any of it.

"Stop it!" Merser said, holding Randy's head.

"What are you doing to him?" Brad demanded.

"Waking up the real Randy," Yarin said, simply.

Brad and Mark only had a vague clue as to what that meant, but queried no further on the subject. They seemed to have contented themselves to being bystanders, witnesses to all this. Perhaps they felt that they were obligated to bear witness to this. Whatever the reason, they stayed. They didn't run away and abandon their friend and fellow intern, Randy. That was commendable, to be fair.

"You can't make me leave," Merser said, arcing Randy's fingers on his head. He was still struggling to see if he could silence Randy. "I'll . . . I'll kill him before I do."

"With what? You haven't anything near you with which to do so." Cloak pointed out, bluntly and blandly. "And I will remove anything from your proximity that you try."

"You . . . can't . . . make . . . me . . ."

"'Leave', yes, yes. You've made that abundantly clear," Myitt said, scathingly. "But Yarin's gonna make you leave of your own accord. You can't suppress the human boy forever."

Merser said nothing, as he was mulling over all of his options. He could obstinately stay in, but then the telepath over there would not let up. He could pretend that he was Randy again, that he left his body unnoticed, but then the telepath would out him again. He could leave, but he wasn't bound to leave through his ear, as he did as a Yeerk. But he could leave unnoticed by these RAFians -- he remembered them from the McGeezax boy's mind and memory. But that was giving these RAFians exactly what they wanted. But that was probably the most likely scenario to get him out of this situation.

While Merser was mulling this over, he seemingly was unaware that Randy had stopped rousing, that he had fallen back to unconsciousness. He was too focused on escaping these RAFians, and maintaining his control over Randy, that he wasn't aware that Yarin's telepathic target had shifted. He was completely unaware that he was being subtly and secretly nudged to his decision, telepathically.

Perhaps he could make a commotion and use that as a distraction to leave Randy unnoticed and disappear. To disappear and take another host -- preferably male, just so he could use the pronouns -- and not ever be bothered by the likes of these twits. He would have to lay low for a while. He wouldn't be able to stay in a host body for very long, because he wouldn't want to arouse their attention. He would have to be very careful for a long time, until he was sure the heat was off. He would have to make sure not to leave a trail this time. He should have left the lab immediately when he was inside Mark. Then he should have taken a host body when he was well away from here and unnoticed.

He pretended to have a heart attack -- despite the fact Randy was too young, too healthy, and without any history of heart problems to have something like that happen out of the blue. To happen and be even the slightest bit plausible. But, with Randy lying on the tiled floor, Merser took this as the perfect opportunity to slither out of his hidden ear, the one unseen and closest to the floor. He would abandon this host body and he would seek out another . . .

What?! What the deuce?!

Merser found himself in a circular trap! No, wait. It was spherical trap! He could not find any way out! He was trapped! Utterly, utterly trapped! No! He was so close! He would have been free! Free to take whoever he wanted, and live as anyone he wanted!! No!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2018, 12:14:05 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Bearing Witness

The three RAFians and the three interns (Randy having achieved consciousness once again) watched as Merser twisted and writhed within the golden scarlet energy orb that Cloak had captured him in. They were well informed of Merser's plan, and he was not even aware of this. Merser had no idea where he was -- he was in complete sensory deprivation.

"What is that thing?"

"An abomination," Myitt said, "an abomination of his own design."

"Uh, thanks, but I was looking for something a little less vague," Randy clarified.

"He is . . was the endoparasite that inhabited your body and rendered your mind unconscious for the duration of the occupation, while he used and puppeteered your body as if he was you."

"He's not dead yet," Yarin said, noticing the frantic wriggling of the brainworm/Yeerk hybrid. "He's confused. And scared. And he's already dead."

"There isn't anything we can do for him, is there?" Mark said. Despite the thing taking him over, and very shortly thereafter abandoning him for another body, the young man was displaying more compassion than most his age would have. Then again, Mark was completely unconscious (and unaccountable, therefore) for his actions with Merser in his head, so he would be completely oblivious to anything Merser would have done. "Nothing at all?"

"No, he signed his death warrant the moment he subjected himself to that concoction," Yarin said, with grim finality. "McGeezax wasn't kidding. That concoction was dangerously unstable, and, in his rush to hybridize himself, he made his own genetic structure unstable. It's just a matter of time before it starts to deteriorate. Best case scenario, it just mutates and he lives as some hideous monstrosity, if you can call living with your own genetic code working against you 'living'."

The Nyac paused as the watched as part of Merser's serpentine posterior swelled and bulged out as if growing a tumor in time-lapse photography. It was not a pleasant thing to see. But there wasn't anything they could do. Anything that they injected him with could worsen any symptoms, or made the agony even more excruciating. And either one were far more likely than actually helping him. It was not something any of the six gathered took enjoyment in, not even Randy or Mark, who Merser treated both as just slabs of meat for him to wear like a costume, to be discarded at his discretion.

"Will it be . . . quick?" Randy asked. Cloak noticed that he seemed to be touch his head a lot. Perhaps he was still trying to come to grips with the fact that Merser had coiled itself in his head. Cloak was sure that he had no signs of permanent injury. He'd be able to feel the irregularities via vibrations in the earth. Granted, that would be guess work at best.

Now Mercer's left-hand anterior region was starting to swell up like a tumorous party balloon. The pain he must have been enduring . . . it must have been absolutely terrible to bear . . .

"There's no telling," Myitt said. "The serum he used so hastily was never tested. There's no telling if it will be a few seconds of pain. A few minutes, a few hours, a few days -- we have no data whosoever to make such a determination. This is why you should always test your samples and whatnot thoroughly, always make absolutely sure that your conclusions are absolute right. Because even if one mistake happens . . . death could happen."

Now, at least twelve percent of his body had swelled up now. It couldn't be much longer. Hopefully, for Merser's sake. If only he wasn't so impetuous and overconfident in his abilities, he wouldn't be suffering right now. Sure, he treated humans similarly to how they treat lab mice, with the same disregard to their lives. But no one deserved an end . . . an end like this.

Cloak admitted that he felt cruel. Cruel in that they weren't even trying to help him, to save him. That they were only standing here waiting for him to die, waiting for his body to explode under the stress of the swelling up like this. Thirty-six percent of his body now swelled up. Guilt stirred in Cloak's gut. They were just waiting for someone to die. Die a death of their own making, but an appallingly horrid one.

Seventy-two percent of his body was now swollen.

"It's nearly there, isn't it?" Brad said, breaking the solemn silence that had fallen over the six.

Seventy-three percent of his body was now swollen.

"Yes," Cloak said, quietly. "I believe it is close."

Seventy-four percent of his body was now swollen. Silence had fallen again. Seventy-six percent. Seventy-nine percent. Eighty-four percent. Ninety-two percent.

"Any time, now," Myitt said, just as quietly as the Realm Walker.

"Feel glad," Yarin said, holding his head. He looked as if he wanted to cry. "You can't hear his screams of pain."

Then he blew, muffled by Cloak's energy bubble. Merser was now dead. His own impetuousness and hastiness led to his demise.

"It's done," Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 02, 2018, 03:13:14 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Lost Galaxy . . . Man

Cloak was dispatched to a space research center. The facility was expansive, but evacuated because of the fiend. Cloak had agreed to do this mission to get his mind off of the horrid death that Merser had to endure. No one should have to expire in such a manner. Not to mention that he also left material behind when he died. This was still off-putting to Cloak, even with all his time as a RAFian. His kind don't leave behind remains, other than their cloaks. (Which, he supposed, made it rather easier for a Realm Walker to fake their deaths.)

Anyway, he continued into the research center, beyond the room with the big screen. Presumably for space mission and whatnot, despite the fact that they never needed such things when the RAFians went into space. Though, to be fair, they went into space rather infrequently, in comparison. Anyway, Cloak continued forward, climbing up two flights of stairs. He took some sort of dropshaft down two floors, landed nimbly on his feet and continued on. He had to make his way across a floor that was apparently undergoing some routine electrical maintenance, or that's what he got from it.

He climbed up another short flight of stairs, coming to a rather empty-looking atrium. He ignored it and headed up the short stair case at roughly ten o'clock to him. Then he started to proceed forward, when some sort of bot rushed at him all FNAF-style. Cloak wasn't having any of it, and easily dodged it as it rushed to the wall opposite and vanished. Cloak was sure that wasn't the fiend, just a malfunctioning or short circuiting robot of some sort. He continued along, until he noticed moving sidewalks before him. He puzzled at the point of such a thing, before moving forward, and taking a staircase of moderate length to his immediate right downwards. Then he went up a long staircase just a hop, skip, and jump away from where he stepped off the last staircase. Then he took a dropshaft of some sort towards another two staircases, heading up. Then he ascended a slightly shorter staircase and a longer one beyond that one.

He wondered idly if this place was deliberately designed to confuse its employees from getting where they should be.

Then came to a large atrium with those blue and orange circle things. Was this facility trying to make some sort of portal technology? Oh, yeah. That wouldn't come back to bite them (and the RAFians, likely) in the butt. Questions for later, there was something a bit more pressing to concern himself with at the moment. He continued on, ascending three short staircases without breaking stride. Then he ascended two longer staircases.

Then he took two sharp, right-hand turns and entered into a short corridor which eventually turned left sharply. Once beyond that Cloak ran into a long corridor. He couldn't imagine clocking in and clocking out in a place like this. It seemed like doing so and getting to your position for work would take upwards of twenty, thirty minutes minimum. Then he rounded the corner to find another staircase to up, and another one after that. He also found himself thinking that someone should sue the architect of this place. After that staircase, there was another long staircase to his immediate right. Because, of course, there was.

Atop that last flight of stairs, he continued to the right. He eventually saw more of those portal devices, and he wasn't sure he liked the fact that they were developing those things. They could be quite dangerous, you know. But all he knew was that the fiend was in the next room, so he easily made his way there. When he entered, he saw -- unsurprisingly -- that the room was bare, except for the fiend.

The fiend black head and shoulders resembled a generic UFO, with it's orange and dark orange eyes resembling LED displays. It had no other facial features. Its torso resembled an engine turbine which was actually a black hole explosive generator. It's inhumanly thin, gold arms attached to bulky, spherical, black hands with white fingers. Below the black hole generator was a black codpiece with tubular white legs and bulky black shins with white pod-like feet. It could fold up this lower body into its upper body to form a UFO form.

When it saw Cloak, it began by hovering towards him, trying to deal some sort of contact damage to the RAFian. Cloak easily managed to dodge it, as it wasn't too fast to be unavoidable. Then it jumped into the air and fired what appeared to be some sort of black hole at Cloak. The black hole was a fair distance away, and it began to pull at Cloak, but Cloak did not move. He would not move. His Mastery over Earth allowed him to stand rooted to the spot. Fortunately, Cloak wasn't standing right beneath this black hole of sorts. Because the fiend teleported directly below it. That would have proven problematic where Cloak sit under it. Then it teleported back to the ceiling.

Then it landed arbitrarily and tried to repeat this again. These fiends were so stupid and had such a lack of creativity beyond what Demos gave them. Then again, that was more than likely deliberate on Demos's part, given Maul. Fortunately, there was liquid concrete not too far away. When the fiend tried that black hole crap again, Cloak used his Mastery over Earth to force that concrete in it, which neutralized it. Then Cloak . . .

He was quick about it. The fiend was no more.

***

Demos called it a "gyarakushisapien". He claimed that made it to calculate rocket trajectories. No one believed him.

***

Malice was snoring in her easy chair, fallen asleep watching this battle.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2018, 08:05:03 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXVIII:
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER ONE:
It Bedazzled Itself

Xeno was dispatched to a diamond mine, armed with a prototype portal/black hole generator. He didn't know how it would hold up, but hoped that it would be sufficient for the task at hand. But he did feel somewhat anxious about it. He was also anxious about going into a mine where he likely would not be able to stretch his wings out to their full extent.

But he bit the bullet and went into the winding tunnel that was the diamond mine. Humans with their fascination with the sparkly rocks -- what was the point? He understood if it was used to manipulate lasers and similar uses, but to adorn yourself with them? Bah. He glided down a dropshaft, and he got the feeling that this mine hadn't been used for quite a while.

He continued onward, in a tunnel that sloped upward, whose ground was uneven. The tunnel opened up into a wide cavern, and Xeno flared his wings, just to stretch them. Then he proceeded forward for a while, dealing with the strangely hilly terrain. He could fly, but even with this wide expanse, that would be dangerous. Then he found that he had to proceed into a tunnel. He sighed, wondered why he agreed to this, and went down. The tunnel, as expected, was windy and labyrinthine. And there seemed to be spiders down here the size of cats.

Eventually, the tunnel widened into another cavern. And this cave was mostly chasm. Flying was inevitable here. He did so, trying to be ever so cautious and careful. Especially the wall on the opposite was covered with jagged spikes. He dodged it into the next room, which started rumbling upon his entrance. Xeno had to rush out as the room was caving in.

Xeno looked back, wondering idly how he would get out, before pressing on. He was in another wide room where he could easily stretch out his wings, and the only way out was a dropshaft directly in front of him. He glided down, to another large room. He flew to another tunnel opening, higher up than a human could reach. Then he spiraled down another dropshaft. He had to be getting the close to the fiend.

This dropshaft left off into a sizable tunnel. Xeno quickly proceeded forward, gliding over any chasms he came across, avoiding jagged rocks when he had to. Traversing the grievously uneven ground, Xeno started to wonder how this mine passed any OSHA inspection. Then he glided down another dropshaft. To a room full of jagged rocks. Well, that was rude.

He easily glided to the dropshaft in the floor, and proceeded onward. Then he navigated his way from the narrow tunnel into the opening of a wide cave. Then he navigated across to the next room. The next room definitely had the fiend, and Xeno was right. The adolescent-sized fiend had a large pink diamond inset in its black head, with large, pearl-like eyes that had dark orange sclera and black irises, both with a pinkish tint, and a round, fleshy lower jaw. Its neck was white, a black Green Ranger-like shield on its white torso which was inset with a pink diamond on its chest, with square-cut pink agates around its shoulders, white upper arms, black lower arms and hands with square-cut pink sapphires on the back of of its wrists. It had a white midriff, a black belt cinched with a hexagonal cut rose quartz, a white crotch and thighs, bulky black lower legs with diamond-cut pink amethysts, and pod-like feet.

When it saw Xeno, it generated an orbiting shield made of pink diamonds, rose quartzes, amethysts, jaspers, carnelians, pink agates, pink sapphires, and pink pearls, all jewels of a pink coloring. Then he ran toward Xeno with these jewel satellites surrounding him. Any time that Xeno jumped, it mimicked this, despite Xeno could flap his wings and get higher than this fiend. After a while, it just threw the individual jewels at Xeno from its shield, one by one. Then it generated another shield, to begin this tactic over again.

Alright, then. It was time to test out this new device that he, Yarin, Goom, and Aquilai worked on. He did this every time the fiend generated the jewels (with Xeno's greedier disposition thinking that these gems could be useful to fund the forum). Xeno shook his head and ended this when the fiend was currently vulnerable. The fiend was gone.

Then Xeno simply used the way that the fiend got in here to get out, which laid in the room beyond this one.

***

Demos called it a "juerusapien". He said that it was designed to work in a diamond mine where it would be in charge of cutting and polishing rocks and jewels with dexterity The others found this somewhat believable.

***

Malice's snores were very obnoxious as she slumbered still. It was starting to seem as if she wasn't releasing Maul's fiend siblings.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2018, 05:21:44 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Criminal Vanishing Acts

There was a prestigious, large bank that was really the Muggle variation of Gringotts, and it stood proudly, almost daring thieves to steal from it. It's bright, clear, white marble edifice was an intimidating fortress to penetrate. Most petty thieves would never consider breaking into this behemoth of a currency and valuable depository. The bank personnel had what could be termed the "Titanic mentality", believing their security so extensive and thorough that robbing it would be a virtual impossibility.

Such hubris was dangerous. It was literally asking for some intrepid criminal to defy their lofty expectations. Many of the more ambitious criminal would see it as a challenge, and nothing -- NOTHING -- was ever foolproof. People, even people in security, can get complacent and let their guard down. Nothing was ever impenetrable. And no one could stay absolutely vigilant.

As it would happen, someone did manage to break into the bank. Particularly the offices. The perpetrator clearly didn't know their way around the place, as they bumbled around and were quickly caught on tape. It appeared that they were wearing a cloak, or a hooded trench coat of some sort. It was difficult, nigh on impossible, to make out anything else about this perpetrator. It just bore a superficial resemblance to . . .

Then it was gone. As if the subject . . . Disapparated. But there wasn't any popping sound, like which usually accompanied Disapparation. The security cameras didn't only record full-color video, it recorded high-quality audio. Only there wasn't any audio to record when the perpetrator had appeared and vanished. There was some similar to how a --

Suddenly, the security cameras picked up the suspicious individual inside the vault itself. There were boxes that stored the money, but they weren't locked. The bank personnel haven't been locking them for ages, being far too complacent about the other security systems in place to deter or catch any prospective thief. Their security systems were state of the art -- but that didn't mean that they were impenetrable. State of the art systems are useless when human error and human complacency and human hubris are not taken into account. Not to mention the tendency that humans (and other sentient species) have towards laziness and cutting corners.

The perpetrator was filling up a bag (which had a very convenient black "$" painted on two sides of it, as if this was a cartoon or something) with various valuables. He wasn't being picky, either. He was taking small denomination notes as well as the large denomination ones. He was roughly shoving them into the bag, with all the deftness of a blind man with his hands cut off.

Once the bag was full, he vanished. And it really looked like the way a Walker Walked.

***

GH was sitting at a cafe, sipping some coffee, reading a newspaper whose headline was saying something about killer animatronics and murderous mascots. Then that girl . . . he thought her name was Amber . . . came prancing up to him singing:

"Been thinkin' for a while
And there's somethin'
I gotta tell you . . ."

"Eh, I'm kinda busy." GH said, sipping his coffee, trying to brush her off. He wasn't interested in her the same way she was interested in him.

"Been thinkin' that our love
For each other has grown so very strong."

GH gagged on his coffee and dropped the mug, taken aback, "Love? Wait --"

"It's plain to see
We're building
Our worlds together."

She was much too close to him now. He felt incredibly uncomfortable. "Uh, back off for a minute."

"I'm looking at your eyes right now
And I can tell you feel the same --"

Then she roughly glomped GH, who cried out, "You're choking me!"

"We are in love!"

GH sang himself:

"I think I'm gonna run away . . ."

This obsessive woman sang:

"We are in love!"

GH ran to his thread, and shut the door. Then he held his back to the door, breathing heavily and fearfully. Then he pulled his phone out, and sung:

"Did you tap my phonelines?!"

She sang through his phone:

"We're in love!
Yes, I tapped your phonelines."

GH sang,  almost placatingly and sycophantically..

"I won't lie,
You're a very pretty lady."

This girl -- GH was about 49% sure that her name was Amber -- said, taking immense pleasure, "Thank you!"

But when she opened her eyes again, GH was gone. He was running away.

"But you're crazy, crazy, crazy . . .
You make me wanna move to Bolivia!"

She replied excitedly, "I'll go with you!"

GH sang, as the scene fast forwarded into a scene right out of Psycho.

"You know, I'm thinkin'
I should get a restrainin' order."

She replied, "Those are so hard to enforce."

Yeah, 'coz that wasn't creepy at all.

GH sang:

"Your car was parked
Outside my thread
Every night this week!"

She said, in a complete non sequitor, "Your neighbors are sweet."

GH sang, in an accusatory tone:

"You're the reason why I have
To keep my shades drawn!"

She declared, "I'll watch you through the chimney!"

GH didn't even have a chimney.

GH announced:

"I've installed an alarm system
With motion-beam detectors."

She revealed, "I have the code.

We are in love."

GH asked, as he ran to hide in a closet:

"Give me just five minutes."

GH turned on the light in the closet, to find this girl there, singing:

"We are in love.
I think that was five minutes.
We are in love."

GH burst out of the closet and what he saw caused him to feel rather downcast.

"Did you just move in with me?"

She was wearing a frilly, pink apron with an oven mitt holding a pan of cupcakes with pink icing.

"We are in love.
Yes, I just moved in with you.
We are in love"

.

GH had really had enough of this now. He roared, which seemingly shattered reality:

"NO -- WE'RE -- NOT!!!"

Then he jerked awake, which somehow didn't rouse Leatherhead. He had fallen asleep in his human suit. He loved that thing as a child loves their play suits. GH tried to calm down. Tried to slow his breathing.

That girl again. That girl who could never take a hint . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puYJ0Ojp5cI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puYJ0Ojp5cI)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2018, 05:37:17 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Vision and the Hunter

Cloak was in his little private mediation spot outside the forum, but nearby, should he ever be needed. He sat on the empty stump, not bothered by the insignificant, minuscule steps of various insects, which was only intent of going about their business. Cloak vaguely noticed the hopping about of a small songbird, pecking and poking at the ground with its short, blunt beak. There was a squirrel, which watched Cloak warily, fearing him to be a predator, as it chewed its way into an acorn, it's teeth scraping the acorn's hard exterior. Then there was the babbling stream to his right that flowed past him, without a single care.

This place was as lovely as it was calming. Cloak had found that this place seemingly had the power to lift whatever negative emotion he happened to be feeling. It was a place that he sojourned to whenever he needed piece and quiet, and a place to think and ponder. A place to meditate. It was a place so like one of his favorite childhood spots in the nexus, only with deliberate differences.

Cloak slowed his breathing, and focused his mind. Eventually, these peaceful sounds fell away from his ears as he meditated. He really didn't have any reason to be here, meditating. Maybe he still felt some guilt for just letting Merser die. Anyway, he focused his thoughts and . . . he got a vision of sorts. Was it a Truth Dream? Was it possible having those when you were awake?

In it he saw several things that he didn't understand. A vaguely draconic humanoid pyromorph with caprokinetic armor and split shield. A crystalline, lupine creature with thin wings. A phoenix  with two pairs of wings and a braided tail. A fae floramorph with a rose-like head. A hydromorphic yeti creature with a pinniped face. An electromorphic winged insectoid creature with a gaping, fanged maw. Two energy constructs that resembled fallen seraphs. None of these figures had well-defined forms with any real definitions. Those were just the details Cloak could just barely make out. They were also HUGE. They made Cloak look as if he was the size of a house cat.

What were these things? Why was he seeing them? What could this possibly mean?

To Cloak's frustration, these images offered no answers. No clear-cut explanations. But, were this a Truth Dream or something similar, that would be the norm. His Truth Dreams were infamous for their vagueness and nonsensical, random nature. This was so infuriating at most times. But the Realm Walker had learned to take it stride, and try to remember them. But that was easier said than done.

Then these images dissolved into three minuscule hearts wreathed in dark energy of different forms. Three were wrapped in fiery dark energy, three were wrapped icy dark energy, three were wreathed in electrical dark energy, three were airy dark energy, three were watery dark energy, three were wreathed in a spore-like mist energy, and the last six were wreathed in potent dark energy. Then the vision ended.

It wasn't an natural ending -- something . . . no, someone had disturbed him. How rude.

***

There was a hunter, who had watched the mainstream media reporting on these robberies, which was always leaning to saintifying corporations.. His name was Dick Randall, and he looked like one of those people who subsisted solely on Mountain Dew, Twinkies, and Bern Bridges's radio show. He usually polished his shotgun (a grossly modified one) as he listened to Bridges's podcasts and radio show. He swallowed everything Bridges said, despite never having any verifiable proof of his claims. Which is understandable, as Bridges tends to make up his assertions from conjecture, hearsay, and connecting disparate events with flimsy connections. Bridges was a master of mental gymnastics and working backward from his conclusion, and Dick was none the wiser. He swallowed all this bile with such gusto and passion that he was unaware of just how uninformed he truly was about the world and country.

He scowled as he listened, and watched the footage that they showed. The pundits on the television even had Bridges on to give his "expert" opinion. There was nothing "expert" about Bridges, except his use of making ridiculous rhetoric sound plausible to the stupid and naive. Bridges had called what this guy was doing -- the apparent Apparation and Disapparation (which was caught on video) -- "Jumping", and thereby, this thief "the Jumper". Naturally, Bridges assumed that the Jumper had RAFian connections, despite there being absolutely no evidence to support that claim.

"Goddamn RAFians," Dick growled. He was unmarried, and alone, so he didn't bother watching his language. Although, even if he had company, he wouldn't have censored his sailor mouth. He had the interpersonal skills of a rabid doberman, and he had no filter to anyone. This in-your-face attitude of his and his obsession with firearms and violence was very offputting to others and made him more of an outcast from society. He didn't mind, though. He preferred to be alone, and stew in his hatred and prejudices.

"Goddamn blind idiots," he growled again, when someone tried to argue Bridges's ridiculous point with facts, or lack thereof. He decided that he would need to take action, that these foolish morons were not willing to do anything about. In his mind, he would be hailed as a hero. The hero who did what needed to be done, what no one else was willling to do. He would kill this Jumper. He would exact justice, or his warped version of justice, easily and mindlessly manipulated by a corporatist narrative and agenda.

He loaded his shotgun to capacity, and put more ammunition in a pack, just in case. He was so sure that he'd be hailed as a hero, except to those blind idiots who were determined to not see the truth, or, rather, the truth as Dick saw it. And no one would be able to dissuade him from what he's decided to do. He would do what's -- in his skewed view -- was right.

And it's not like this would be the first Jumper he got.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2018, 04:08:50 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Disturbed and Displeasure

Dick shouldered his shotgun, having no qualms about using it to take a life. This had gotten him into trouble with the law before, but he always managed to wiggle out of doing serious jail time, despite his terrorist tendencies. This was mostly due to selling these Jumper cadavers and corpses to the government (the black market and Cadmus, as well). He knew that this "Jumper", as Bridges called it, was not the only one. Just one that was stupid enough to be caught on camera and steal from a bank. The other Jumpers were well aware of the danger of Dick, which they just referred to as the Hunter.

He was also quite skilled, despite his rather lowbrow and slovenly appearance, in capturing and killing these Jumpers. Its how he managed to get his small house in the out-of-the-way overgrown area. The house was paid off, but it was also quite dilapidated (he preferred to think of it as "rustic"). The government for the most part looked the other way when Dick starts crap, due to his sell of the Jumper bodies.

Jumpers were humans, but just mutated humans that are able to teleport in a way rather like Apparation, only they aren't witches or wizards. And their teleportation is markedly different in several key ways -- from the appearance to the absence of a pop from the point they vanish and the crack when they reappear. But Dick didn't consider them human, he considered them sinful freaks that needed to be exterminated, and that their corpses were nothing to revere or mourn. Their corpses were just items to be sold. He was indifferent to the fact that they may have had families -- flatscan human families. They were just less than human to him, and he treated them as nothing more or less than a fur hunter would treat pelts.

He scratched his "Duck Dynasty"-type of beard, as he marched into the forest. He was really making far too much noise to be an effective hunter, but he was certain that Jumpers were dumber than him. And, besides, he hadn't technically began to start hunting. When he crossed the threshold of the forest, it was remarkable how quickly he transitioned to being silent and he slowed his movements considerably. Every footstep was cautious and had a lot of thought and consideration put into it. He didn't want to scare his quarry off too quickly.

Granted, that he had no idea if the Jumper was in this forest for sure, but he felt such confidence that it bordered overconfidence. He had managed to slay upwards of seven or eight Jumpers, and the mainstream media never reported on any of it. It was just fortunate that all of the Jumpers that he had slain were all vagrants and outcasts from society. Dick really took too much pleasure in killing these people that he despised so much, in an almost sadistic manner.

He moved throughout the forest, looking for the favored watering hole that these Jumpers liked to visit. They never learn. They should have realized that he knew about their little hangout by now. Dick found the Jumper with ruthless and unbelievable ease. He pointed his shotgun into the face of the seated person in front of him, smiling in a rather deranged manner.

"Don't move," he hissed. "Don't move an effing muscle."

Cloak sighed. He didn't even open his eyes or show any sign of intimidation. "How rude. I'm in the middle of meditation, and you disrupt it?"

"Don't move, buddrow," he hissed, ignoring Cloak's words. "I gotcha in my sights. Move an inch and I'll blow your face --"

Cloak didn't open his eyes as his right hand shot out far faster than Dick could react. He grabbed the barrels of the shotgun and the metal in it gave way to Cloak's fingers. He crushed the ends of each barrel of the shotgun as if they were made of Play-Doh. He had sealed the open ends of the shotgun, rendering it useless.

"Bertha!" Dick gasped.

Cloak finally opened his amber eyes. He sighed, "Humans and your guns. I don't know why you cleave to such things. You do realize that their primary function is to kill things?"

"Guns don't kill people," Dick roared, raising his shotgun high, as if to use it as a club. "People kill people."

"People with guns kill people," Cloak said, catching the gun as it was swung. The metal in the gun collapsed to metal shavings and powdery ingots. "But I am not a human. I will not pretend to understand this fascination that humans seem to have with firearms. There is still plenty about the human species that I do not understand, that I cannot fathom. But I've long since accepted this fact."

"You'll pay for what you did to Bertha!"

"You named it? You do realize that it was an inanimate object, right?" Cloak said. He was trying to get a read on this human. If he was a truly merciless, malicious being or a simple misguided soul. "You do realize that it cannot return any love you show for it, right?"

"Shuddap!!" he said. Cloak thought he detected a faint trace of alcohol on this newcomer's breath. Great. That would explain a great deal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 07, 2018, 05:08:48 AM

Posting tomorrow's chapter right now because I have to do a couple of double shifts again this weekend.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Is That Supposed to Be a Slur?

"Go home, human," Cloak said, "you're drunk."

"Shaddup, you stupid Jumper!!" he snarled.

"'Jumper'?" Cloak repeated. From the tone, it sounded almost like a racial slur.

"Yeah! I know that you robbed that bank!" he said, acting very proud of his conclusion. Even as he swayed slightly on the spot. Cloak found it rather laughable that this creature thought that he was intimidating. "You might as well admit it! Imma make a citizen's arrest!"

"What use would I have for human currency?" Cloak said, still trying to be rational to a drunk. That was a difficult endeavor in and of itself. "Why would I want to rob a bank? What would be the point? It would be a worthless waste of energy. I have no use for human money."

"Bull****," the tipsy drunk spat. He clearly had made his mind on this issue, and nothing would dissuade him from it. Cloak saw this and understood that trying to reason with him was a futile task, at best. "I know that you did it. Admit it!"

Cloak sighed. "I did not commit any such crime. I was here for hours, meditating. And, up until you blundered in to this place, was enjoying the serenity of this place."

"Don't lie! Tell the truth!" Dick roared. Birds actually fled a nearby bush in fear.

Cloak decided that he would need to be blunt. "There is nothing I can say, nothing I can do, that would be considered truth by you, barring a confession. Which would be a false confession because I hadn't done anything that you described."

"You can't fool me, Jumper," he said, still swaying. Cloak assumed that he would topple over any minute now, and start snoring. The Realm Walker presumed that he'd have one heck of a hangover afterwards. Cloak can't say that he would be sorry. "I know the truth!"

"You know the truth?" Cloak repeated. He didn't lose his cool, tempered his temper. "Do you? You made up your mind based on conjecture and speculation and emotions. That potent ****tail caused you to reach this unassailable conclusion."

"Come in quietly, and I'll treat you nicely," he said. His breath still held the stench of alcohol. Cloak never liked that scent. "Don't resist me."

Cloak said nothing for a bit. This dumpy man before him who looked like the only thing that he curled was a Twinkie with a graying beard grown down to his chest. This man had nothing on the kind of creatures that Cloak had faced. He didn't even hold a candle to the lesser creatures that he had battled before. There was no way by the Veil that this man would intimidate Cloak.

After a moment's consideration, Cloak stood up. Dick smiled drunkenly. He thought Cloak was complying to his demand. The Elements Master, however, obviously had no intention in complying with this human. Cloak was frankly annoyed that this drunk hunter thought he had any power over him in this scenario. He hadn't any fear of him. He's already dealt with Garrotik, Malice, Cataclysm . . . his mother . . . and this human thinks that he'd be intimidated by his drunken bluster? Please.

"Now turn around while I bind your arms," he said, staggering towards Cloak.

"I will not," Cloak said, crossing his arms. "Little human, you do not know the power with which you are trifling with."

"Turn around," he said, his voice more commanding.

Cloak didn't not.

"Turn around!" he roared.

Cloak still didn't.

"I said, turn aro--"

"Stop the farce," Cloak said. "You haven't any power over me, human. I have no obligation to obey your whims. I haven't any clue what a 'Jumper' is."

"YOU are!!" Dick insisted.

"I am not," Cloak said, keeping his cool. "I am a Realm Walker. I am a Master of the Six Elements. I am a RAFian. I am not a --"

"A RAFian?!" Dick snarled, drunkenly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2018, 02:10:51 PM

Not sure if anyone is still reading this, but here:

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Ideology Clash

"Yes," Cloak said. He already gotten the scope of the type of person that this human was. He was clearly a Bern Bridges listener, and, thus, grossly, grossly misinformed about, well, basically everything. "I'm the only RAFian Realm Walker."

"You're monsters!"

Yep, he was definitely a Bern Bridges listener.

"And you're misinformed," Cloak said, smoothly.

"Don't give me that," Dick snarled. He seemed more lucid now. Amazing how that happened. "I know all about that prison you put your dissenters, that you kill and silence all that disagree with you, and what you do with children."

And now we were back to drunken ramblings.

Cloak scoffed, "You don't know nearly as much as you think you do. There is no prison. We don't kill and silence any dissenters. And we don't do anything that you suggest to children."

"LIar! Pretender! Snooker! Philanderer!" he said. It seemed like that he was just shouting words that he thought sounded smarter. "Monster! Deceiver! Swindler! Forger! Gaslighter!"

"Do you even know what half of those words mean?" Cloak said.

"Don't you condescend to me, RAFian!" he spat.

"You're being unreasonable," Cloak said. But, really,  that could be said for anyone in Bern Bridges's limited fanbase, which was larger than Cloak cared to admit. It was amazing how gullible some people could be. Just a nugget of plausibility and bombastic rhetoric could sway the stupid and naive -- Cloak wouldn't call fans of such a rhetoric smart or politically alert.

"I am not!" came his amazing counterargument. "You will come quietly with me and allow justice to be served!"

"What justice?" Cloak asked simply.

This simple question took him off-guard. He wasn't expecting this, but he decided to seize upon the opportunity. "You harbor illegal immigrants --"

"If you're talking about the aliens -- and that sounds like Knight rhetoric, by the way -- there is no legalization process for extraterrestrial visitors. And the non-Terran RAFians we have, including myself, work for your benefit."

"You steal our jobs from us!" he spat.

"You confuse me and the RAFians for the real villains," Cloak countered, with a sigh. It was like speaking to a child. "The real villain in that issue is the corporatist official above you who decided to make more money and ship your jobs overseas. Then they convince you that immigrants, human or otherwise, are the culprits, banking on you not realizing this. And, for the most part, they have gotten away with it."

This had also happened in the Nexus. Only the Nexus is further down the line from this, but the parallels were there. Undeniably.

"You think you're so smart, don't you?" he said, belligerently. "You actually believe that propaganda schlock?"

"Clearly," Cloak said, walking pass Dick, "arguing ideological policies with you is a futile endeavor."

Dick turned to argue, but Cloak had vanished.

"I knew that he was a Jumper!" Dick declared, unaware that Cloak had dived into the earth, and was traveling that way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 10, 2018, 05:53:48 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Shifty, Gaynes

The true Jumper was nervous. He was the one who stole from the bank, who had managed to elude their most stringent safeguards. He was also Pearson Alan Gaynes*, the failed League of Assassins initiate, who had obtained teleportation powers. He had been desperate for cash. He hadn't a job (which he would justify as still being underage, at nearly seventeen-years-old), nor did he had any real applicable skills to contribute to the job market. He was always full of bluster, and couldn't help but lie on all his applications. And he was never one for subtlety, as such, he made boisterously improbable things on those applications -- things that were obviously not true, and just egomanical bluster. Hence, why he tried to be a member of the League -- he imagined great prestige and renown being a famous assassin . . . despite the fact that the League was all about the exact opposite of that.

Not to mention that he wasn't very skilled at anything they tried to teach him. He failed at nearly everything and every task given to him. He had even failed to kill the Blue Prodigy. He only remembered the Blue Prodigy quaking in fear before him (yes, he colored that memory with fantasy). Then the next moment nothing but a brief blackness. This was the point that Goose had taken him over and put him to sleep. He had no memory of this occupation. To him, it was just a momentary blackout. When he finally came to his senses again, he found that he was home. Home in his rather shabby apartment, with his bare mattress on the floor, single boxy television sat upon the sparsely carpeted floor, with the single console system attached to it. He was on his own, living without any of his parents. He's never really known any parents. Not to mention that he was technically behind several months on his rent (he had pretended that he was older than he was, and the landlord was a very unscrupulous type). He needed money. He had managed to pay off some of this rent, but more remained.

It was only after Goose left him (Blue had told him to watch over Alan until the Tribunal was dealt with), that he came by the ad for volunteers for a special experiment. The monetary reward for subjecting himself to such experiments would be more than enough to pay of his rent and the rest of his mounting bills. Or so he thought.

He never considered that the experimenters would ever renege on their deal. He never considered that the ad was planted specifically to attract the desperate and the needy. He never considered that they would never let him go, and erase his existence from the books. He had walked in and essentially signed his life away, In his desperation, he allowed himself to essentially be enslaved. He never paid much attention to the insignia on the wall as he walked into the room -- a strand of DNA within a beaker within an eye within a triangle.

The people behind the scenes were looking for people with specific genes, ones that they could manipulate to give them the "supers" that they wanted for a super-powered army. The only problem these undercover Cadmus agents really had was a control one. They could give people these powers, but they couldn't control them, which would strike anyone as a problem.

Alan had gained teleportation abilities from this process. But he had managed to hide this from his Cadmus captors, which was unsurprisingly difficult. This was his only way out of this imprisonment. He waited until the time was right, before teleporting to his apartment, to find that his shady landlord had evicted him in his apartment. It couldn't have been more than a few days . . . true, he was behind on his rent and really had no right to stay. But still.

It was few days before he found Shifty, who basically took him in as a minion. Not a friend, but a minion. Alan was oblivious to this, as Shifty (his real name was Lindsey Shifty, but he preferred being referred to by his surname) allowed Alan to live in his ramshackle, dilapidated place. Alan considered it better than being homeless, even if he had to be subservient to Shifty. Like Alan, Shifty was able to teleport, but in short bursts and mostly in line of sight place.

But he worried. He had only taken a little more five grand from the bank, in large bills. Shifty wasn't easy to satisfy. Alan never managed to achieve it. Alan was always mistreated by Shifty's hand, and, yet, Alan remained. If he had any self-respect left, he would have left and found another place to live. But he had a tendency towards laziness.

"Idiot!" Shifty roared. Alan flinched very noticeably. That was Shifty's name for Alan, and he never called Alan by name. "GET IN HERE!!!"

Alan didn't hesitate. He couldn't. That would just make Shifty angrier. When he made a demand, he expected it to be obeyed. Shifty's room was the most livable area of the entire abandoned homestead. It had the most extravagant decorations and four-poster bed with sheets that looked to be similar to musty silk. Shifty sat on this bed, and he did not look pleased. To his right, he had a tablet which he used to access the internet (which, of course, he stole). He was a thin man with curly blonde hair that looked rather like a rat's nest.

"I got five grand, Shifty," Alan said, hesitantly.

Shifty considered that for a moment. His anger seemed to lessen somewhat. It was actually no way to tell for sure -- Shifty was always angry.

"Leave it by the bed," Shifty said. Alan didn't hesitate to obey. Then he backed up towards the threshold of the doorway. "You were seen, Idiot. You were caught on security tapes."

Alan flinched at the harsh tone that accompanied these words. Shifty wasn't happy, but what else was new?

---

* From Book 161 (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=9012.msg932626#msg932626).

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2018, 04:53:40 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Hunter Harrassment

Cloak had decided to look for another meditation spot, as the other one, despite being in a lovely, secluded spot, was now compromised. As he walked up to a sixty-year-old oak tree, a lizard scurried away and a river turtle splashed into the small river to the left that this small hill overlooked. Their were bright red flowers surrounding this tree. This looked like a wonderfully peaceful spot. It wasn't nearly as secluded as the previous one, but there was good tree cover here. And it wasn't too far from the forum. But he had his communicator on him if he was really needed for a given mission.

Then he Earthsighted something that irritated him. It was still a minor inconvenience if anything, and not at all dangerous.

"DIE!" Dick said, as he leaped out of the tall grass as if he were a Pokemon. Not missing a step, Cloak grabbed Dick's right hand, which held a Bowie knife inexpertly, and placed his hand on his chest. Then he used his own momentum against him to throw him into the the nearby river. He did this all in one swift movement.

With a sigh, Cloak left to find another place.

***

Cloak went to a shadier part of the forest, where the forest's canopy was denser. He saw a nice patch of what he assumed were geraniums, which accompanied an elm tree about twenty years old or so. He heard a creature rustling the long grass to escape, and Cloak assumed that it was a stoat or something. Maybe even a badger. He saw what appeared to be a baby alligator scrambling into a large river. Perhaps this spot wasn't the best spot, as that baby alligator probably had a parent nearby.

Then again, he easily Earthsighted another problem with this.

"DIE!!!"

He was starting to graduate from minor inconvenience to mere inconvenience. Cloak raised his hand, palm up, and a tree's roots raised up. Dick then promptly tripped over it, dropping his Bowie knife, losing it into the the river. Dick immediately started to try to fish for it, until he saw the large alligator -- at least, fifteen feet long -- which caused Dick to quickly withdraw his arm from the water. He didn't think the knife was important to lose an arm over.

When he turned around to face the person he had decided was the Jumper that had robbed that bank (despite Cloak being two, two and half feet taller than Alan). Only Cloak was no longer there.

"I will get you, Jumper."

***

Cloak went to an area that he surveyed over, but immediately dismissed as a suitable spot. It was much too far from the form, the ground too marshy (it made Earthsight difficult, but not impossible), and it was too wet for his liking. That birch tree looked as if it was about to topple over anyway. Cloak took a further step into this area, and a gecko fled into the underbrush, chased by a wild fowl, interested in having it for dinner. And Cloak watched as a hellbender salamander slip into a near pond.

"DIE!!" Dick shouted behind Cloak, wielding a knife with a narrower, shorter blade than the Bowie knife. It looked almost like a parring knife.

Cloak deftly blocked the attack with a wall of this shifty, moist earth. The knife sunk into the earth and got stuck really good in the mire that was the wall. Without missing a beat, Cloak said, "You're becoming quite a genuine nuisance, human."

"You're human, too, you --" Dick roared, ending it with a plethora of what was clearly human vulgarities. "You may be able to teleport from place to place, but I know full well of that you're just as human as I am!"

"Interesting contradiction," Cloak said, with disinterest. "You dehumanized those that you call, obviously derogatorily, 'Jumpers'. Yet, now you assert that they are as human as you are."

Dick spluttered, clearly unable to utter a coherent sentence.

"I have had enough of this," Cloak said, unseen by Dick. He tapped his foot on the ground, and jumped into the hole, thereby vanishing from Dick's point-of-view.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 12, 2018, 08:55:03 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Jumper Plutomania

"Even if I have to suffer your incompetence -- you were seen on camera, you DOLT -- I will not be a part of the peasantry," Shifty snarled. Alan cowered before this man. Shifty was a few years older than Alan, and physically taller and more built than him. "I will not be worse than ordinary, I will not be poor! I will not be penniless. I will not be bankrupt! I've got to have money!"

The way he said it, you'd think that being poor was a moral failing instead the product of economic inequality and the avarice of those on top, making the rules to prevent any upward mobility. But, apparently, Shifty thought that he hadn't made his point of how rampant his plutomania was.

"Money is such a beautiful thing."

"I know, I know," Alan said, cringing like a beaten dog.

"It soars in my mind like a fanciful bird."

"I know. . . . I know," Alan said, sounding very put-upon,

"Better than that
It makes me feel like an aristocrat
That’s where it’s at
Money is such a beautiful word
Quite so, quite so, quite so
Money is such a wondrous thing
Ah, yes! Ah, yes!
I find that I use it for everything.
No less! No less!
Money equals power
If it were food, it’s a dish I’d devour
On every hour!
Money is such a beautiful thing!
Oh yes! Oh, yes! Oh, yes!
Money's my passion, it's always in fashion!
Stashin', cash, cream of the cream, that is my dream!
Money is such a glorious thing!
When I see lots of it, I want to stand up and sing!
Money's my favourite, that's why I crave it.
Money's the love of my life,
The only true love in my life.
Money, for me, is all that there is!
It is! It is!
I spend it so well, I'm the best in the biz
Money and I, we are as happy as apple and pie!
Haven't you heard?
Money is such a beautiful word.
Money they say is evil as Satan and probably worse,"

"It is," Alan said, but Shifty was lost in the thrall of his plutomanic ideals, that he did not hear or notice.

"An incalcuable and wonderful curse
It is!
A pleasure to have in my coin purse!
It is! It is!
Money is the . . . most beautiful thing."

Alan said nothing, but continued to cower before the imposing teleporter in front of him. Shifty growled, "I'M going with this time. I clearly cannot count on you not to foul it up. Some ninja!"

---

Source Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNbw1kUDp5M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNbw1kUDp5M)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2018, 09:06:27 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
A Persistent Nuisance

Cloak walked into a new area. It was really too far from the forum to really be of any real use for a meditation spot away from the forum. He questioned to himself why it was so important to have such a spot. But the answer was simple. It was the same reason why many other RAFians held jobs and lives outside the forum -- to avoid cabin fever and avoid being desensitized toward the kind of violence and other assorted things that would come for allowing this line of work to consume every facet of your being. There are times that you just want to get away, live your own life on your own terms . . . after all, isn't that the entire reason that Cloak himself left then Nexus and began to live in this Realm?

And, Cloak mused, as he gave a snapping turtle its space and walked by a crudely-made etching of a penguin and monkey in a battle to the death, people always need a place where they can get away. A place where they can be alone and think. True, he could have just stayed in his thread, but he would feel boxed in if he was forced to just go there to think.

Cloak looked to his right to see a stately rowan tree, and he reached out, touched a branch. He wondered idly if Broken would want to make a wand from this tree. It did have a bowtruckle, after all. Then he lowered his arm, cast his eyes to the ground, and sighed heavily. He was feeling frustrated. Not at the lack of spots, really, but the evidently the lack of compromised spots.

"DIE!!" Dick said, wielding a dagger. Cloak was insulted a bit. The dagger (despite his younger sister, who always loved to play the victim, like their mother, was named after one) was not metal at all, just looked like it was. It was clearly a movie prop. Dick thought he could kill him with such a thing.

Cloak used the little metal within the hilt of the dagger to shatter the plastic blade. He spoke, keeping his composure, "This is getting really old, human."

The Cloak walked away, diving into the earth, unseen by Dick, before he could speak again.

***

Cloak walked to a juniper tree upon a hill, ignoring the grass snake slithering away and that rock that looked like a river otter. A wild boar charged toward him, and he gave the boar the same treatment that Mewtwo gave that Rhyhorn in "Mewtwo Strikes Back". This place was a very open place, a nice meadow that a red-tailled hawk probably would feel protective of. This place showed promise.

But, of course, it had the same problem as the other spots did. "One . . . two . . . three . . ."

"DIE!!"

"Of course," Cloak said, quietly annoyed. Then he decided to be proactive, and blasted fire toward the human, deliberately missing by inches. Dick immediately stopped his attack. Cloak was getting quite fed up with this human's harassment, "Those were warning shots, human! If you don't leave me alone, and don't stop trying to kill me, I shall have to force you to reconsider such foolishness!"

Cloak took a steadying breath to calm himself. If he allowed himself to get worked up . . . well, first, that would be giving this lunatic what he wanted in a way, by getting under his skin. Secondly, it may have made him go unintentionally into the Apex Tier. Go full on Avatar State. That wouldn't be beneficial to anyone in any manner.

"Now," Cloak said, "I don't know how you keep managing to find me, but leave me alone. You've seriously graduated from nuisance to harassment. Leave me alone -- or you may not like the results next time."

***

Cloak allowed himself some time to cool down before looking for the next spot, and assessing its suitability to be his new, uncompromised spot. There was a rather dapper sycamore tree located nearby, with a hedgehog looking around hastily for its next meal. A small fox streaked off, hunting a frog who was leaping away for its life. This place had sufficient cover, the canopy of the trees over head making this spot shaded in a rather nice way. This looked like a good meditation spot.

Cloak folded his arms, and began to count under his breath. He was basically counting the seconds before --

"DIE!"

Cloak sidestepped the lunging pounce. Dick fell in the dirt hard. He had a scrape mark on his stomach, but, aside from that, he was principally fine. His ego was evidently hurt, as well. He was really good at being a nuisance, not too good at not telegraphing his moves to a ridiculous degree. Dick clearly didn't know about Cloak's Earthsight ability, and Cloak wasn't about to instruct him in the finer points.

"You try my patience, human," Cloak said. He felt his anger began to bubble up with him. He did what he could to suppress it for the moment. "You clearly are disregarding my mercy. Less powerful beings have killed for less, you know."

"Just face justice, Jumper, and DIE!" he said, trying and failing to lunge again.

"But, I must admit, my curiosity's piqued," Cloak said, arms now folded behind his back. "How do you keep finding me. There are no tracking devices on my cloak's exterior, and no tracking device you could possibly have contact with could survive my corona. So, how did you do it, human? How'd you track me down?"

"I'm not tellin' ya nuthin'," he said, sounding rather drunkenly belligerent. Oh, wonderful. He was inebriated again.

But Cloak considered something that had passed beyond his notice. The thought of a strange crystal -- but no, this wasn't the type of guy to deal in the arcane. He was clearly more of the type of person who would spend his ample free time hunting for bigfoot. Cloak had a brief epiphany as he came to that conclusion. Of course. That's how he was able to keep track of him. The question was how he got there so fast to wait in . . . of course. He was using more than one. He didn't know why he kept disregarding those things . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 14, 2018, 04:42:02 AM

Yeah, I just found out that the net neutrality repeal is going into effect the 23rd, and I fear that not only RAF but the Internet itself will die on that day.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
A Parting of Ways

Motion-sensing cameras. That's how he knew where Cloak was. And he probably had multiple of them hidden around. So, when one caught Cloak, then another, he made a rough approximation to his next destination. Then he went their and hid, waiting to leap out and attack. Though why he thought the single method of attack that failed five times, now six, was something that Cloak could not fathom. Combat is something that would always require different tactics and methods of attack. This human was a one-trick pony in that regard.

"Why won't you die?!" he roared to lunge again.

"Because I'd rather not," Cloak said, evading the lunge once more. He still kept his hands behind his back, a deliberate insult.

"DIe!!"

"I think not," Cloak said, almost serenely. It was almost as if he was channeling Luna Lovegood.

"DIE!!!"

"No," Cloak replied. He looked on, as he wondered if this human was having a nervous breakdown or something.

"I said, DIE!!!" he roared.

"And I said, 'no'."

"DIE!"

"No," Cloak said. "Sorry to disappoint you, human, but I haven't any intention to die."

"I'll kill you myself!"

"Yeah, because you're making so much progress on that front," Cloak said, dryly.

"Die, die, die die, die, die!" he roared as he tried to pummel Cloak  -- he had lost whatever weapon he wielded this go round, Cloak never saw what it was, but presumed that it was knife of some sort. "Just die!"

"Why are you so concerned that I live?" Cloak asked. "Why are you so insistent to claim that I'm someone that I'm not."

"Shut up! I know you robbed that bank!" he snarled. "I will stop you, and bring justice!"

"First off," Cloak said, as if he was speaking to a child, "you don't know that. You think that. You believe that. You don't know."

Dick looked as if he wanted to interject, but Cloak plowed onward.

"Secondly, you will 'bring justice'? Seriously? You clearly haven't any formal combat training or anything of the like, that would be necessary for the type of vigilante justice you espouse." Cloak criticized. "You're like those people that think that they just need to put on a costume to be a superhero, people who have delusions of grandeur that aren't grounded in any sort of reality. Not to be immodest, but there is no earthly way that you can overpower me."

Dick opened his mouth to protest, but Cloak wouldn't allow him. He really had enough of this. After he was done, he would stop seeking out a new spot and just return to the forum.

"You are not going to be hailed as a hero, human," Cloak said, with a note of finality in his tone. "You would be seen as a murderer, and an unhinged one at that. Mark my words."

"You don't know anything," he managed to interject.

"Transference, much?" Cloak said, before taking his leave. He formed his energy disc and flew back to the forum, as Dick was looking at the ground and not paying attention.

"He's wrong," he said, mulishly. "I will be a hero, and held with high regard. If I'm not, then it's just that goddamn RAFian-ran media."

The RAFians didn't run any sort of mainstream media service, it was just another lie peddled by Bern Bridges, and Dick took as the gospel truth.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2018, 04:21:17 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Shifty's Ambition

Shifty and Alan had teleported to a part of a forest with sufficient cover for their purposes. Their next target would be a difficult one. There was an armored truck full of money. Money that would be Shifty's and Shifty's alone. He never shared his stolen money, not even with Alan. Alan was only in Shifty's "employ" (he was not technically employed by Shifty as he wasn't getting paid) as a thuggish minion, even though Alan was nowhere close to looking like the stereotypical thug.

When they came to the forest, Shifty began to grill Alan over the details of his plan. Alan gave answers in a meek, tepid way, which Shifty secretly enjoyed. He enjoyed having such power over someone, having come from rather powerless roots. His father was domineering and his mother was indifferent. His father enjoyed using his power of Shifty -- heck, Shifty assumed that his first name was given to him as an insult. His father was very abusive towards him and his mother offered no comfort, being complacent in the abuse. Shifty had learned to walk on eggshells around his father, and basically disregard his mother as little more than a background object. They weren't rich, but quite impoverished.

This actually contrary to what one might expect from Shifty's actions and personality. One might expect extremely permissive parenting or negligent parenting. He only got that from his mother. His father was a hard-liner, belligerent and cantankerous. Mr. Shifty wasn't above striking his son to prove a point, especially when the question of money came into the equation. They had so precious little monetary wealth and lived in squalor. The hideout actually was their old home. This caused Shifty to learn that he had to get money to be happy, leading to his psychologically-certified plutomania. It also caused him to develop a certain deep apathy for the feelings and emotions of others. He became rather antisocial and, yet, pompous at the same time. He could not contemplate things like love or compassion. He understood greed and fear far better.

He had just undergone a beating from his father when he came upon the testing thing that Cadmus put out. The same thing that netted them Alan, only he found it a few days prior. He had gone there, under the promise of a huge pay day, and he went there without the blessing of either of his parents. His mother just didn't care one way or the other. She was just unsatisfied with her life, and drank her misery away. His father was all-out against it, and warned to beat Shifty within an inch of his life if he went.

But he did anyway. And, as with Alan, he was essentially imprisoned and his existence was summarily erased. While undergoing these experiments, he discovered that he could teleport, much like Alan. Only for him, he could only really do it for line of sight, and up to seven times in rapid succession without needing a cool down time. Alan's teleportation didn't have any cool down time nor any restrictions of how many times he could do it. Shifty was aware of this, and it was another factor as to why he was so hard on the seventeen-year-old boy.

Meanwhile, while Shifty was trapped at Cadmus, his father decided to disavow any acknowledgement that he had a son. He disowned Shifty, and his mother couldn't care less. Eventually, they left their home to rot -- his mother drank herself to death, and his father was thrown in prison for assaulting a man who got on his nerves (not a particularly difficult task to achieve). Shifty came to find this out when he had escaped Cadmus, and found that he didn't feel very sorry about their fates. He may have feared his father, but his mother he always wrote off as weak and worthless. He had actually returned to his old homestead to confront his father. Maybe even kill him, although Shifty wasn't sure if he would be able to. Fear is a strong thing, and it never completely goes away. So, imagine his relief to find out that his father was in prison with a lengthy sentence.

But his money lust was not quenched. It would never be quenched. Lust for monetary gain never quenches, it just grows and grows and grows until you have it all. Then what? You have to jealously guard the wealth that you've accumulated from those that you've taken it from, from those that you've stolen it from like one of those treasure-guarding dragons of folklore. Who would want such a life? Who would want to become a prisoner to their greed, enslaved by the fear of never having enough? That's the eventual fate of these plutomanics, and many, if not all, of them do not see this as their fate. These people often have a problem of seeing the long-term consequences of their ludicrous avarice. Such is their plight, but they are completely obvious to it.

"Idiot, are you paying attention to me?" Shifty glowered at Alan. He watched with secret glee to see the twig cower in front of him. He loved the fear Alan had of him, Shifty thrived on it. It enabled him to be more cruel and harsh, which caused Alan to whimper like a beaten dog. Shifty found Alan quite useful to get all his pent-up frustrations out. "I said, are you paying attention to me?"

"Y-yes, Shifty," Alan said, with a touch of hesitation.

"'Shifty', what?" he prompted hostilely.

"Y-y-yes, Shifty, s-s-sir," Alan said, aware of his stuttering.

Shifty would have given him hell for stuttering, just to see him squirm. He was really enjoying this, despite not getting as money as he wanted last go 'round.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 15, 2018, 05:45:32 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Stewing and Waiting

"He's wrong," Dick Randall muttered again, mulishly, as he returned back to his dilapidated mess of a home. "He's wrong. I'm a hero! Those Jumpers are evil. Everyone knows it."

He banged open the door, crossed the threshold of the doorway, and slammed the door shut. He locked it which was pointless, as the lock mechanism was far from brand new, and the door jam had a degree of dry rot. The floor even was coming away from the door, but this place had so many holes that it wasn't too surprising.

"Everyone with a brain, anyway. Everyone who those damn RAFians haven't brainwashed, anyway." he groused. He had gone to his gun case, where he also kept a variety of knives of differing designs. It was the only thing that hadn't seen some kind of erosion or rot damage. It looked absolutely pristine and well-maintained. Which just went to show his priorities as far as housekeeping went. Each and every weapon displaced within it was polished and perfectly clean.

"What nerve that Jumper had," he continued to mutter and grouse. "He doesn't know me. He doesn't know me. He doesn't know me."

He was pacing around this small home. He had a kitchenette and a walk-in closet, and the entire living area and bedroom were combined into a single room. The room had papers scattered everywhere, a futon with cracking leather, and a bed that was falling apart. But he didn't care about any of that. He never thought of replacing them, though he actually could afford to. He spend the bulk of whatever funds he had on those motion sensor cameras and weaponry. He was a well-known regular at gun shows and the like.

Thing is, when you give someone a hammer, they often look for nails to hit. This goes a long way to explain how he became obsessive when targeting these "Jumpers" as he calls them. He sees them as humans, it's true, but he saw them as lesser beings to himself. As if their lives didn't have as much value as his own. He convinced himself that he was doing the world a service by ridding it of these people, who, in his view, was filth.

"What I'm doing is just," he muttered to himself, as he investigated all his motion sensor cameras. None seemed to have been triggered yet, which disappointed Dick. He was quite eager to kill this Jumper. He still believed that he would be seen as some great hero once he did. He even imagined the government throwing him a parade for doing this, that they'd erect statues in his armor. He would love that sort of recognition, that sort of grandeur, that sort of prestige. As far as he was concerned, he deserves it far more than those damn RAFians.

"I'm doing everyone a service," he growled, "and they will all be thankful for it. Those that aren't even impressed would be RAFian puppets, obviously."

He spent several hours checking each camera, but all they caught was just normal wildlife. He wasn't so deranged to assume that the wildlife were Jumpers in disguise. He knew nothing of the morphing technology, which was probably for the best, because Dick was paranoid enough as it was. He carefully analyzed all the footage the cameras were sending him, one by one. He grew more and more disappointed with each one. Just stupid wildlife interfering with his plans.

"They'll be appreciative," he muttered to himself.

Nothing. Nothing on the cameras. These Jumpers were being really inconsiderate, Dick thought, they should show up and allow him purge them from the purity of this world. Prevent them from poisoning the gene pool, he opined.

"They'll be grateful," he muttered again to himself.

It was clear that Dick Randall had a form of a hero complex, except he wasn't causing accidents to be a hero. Though, it was true that he was manufacturing a scourge, basing it solely on the rhetoric of a notoriously dishonest radio pundit Bern Bridges. He had never met any real beings that he called "Jumpers" before, despite his claims to the otherwise. As Alan and Shifty were the only ones of this sort.

"Perhaps it's time to be more proactive," Dick said, to himself. It was clear that he lived in isolation for a long time, given how often he speaks to himself.

He went to his gun cabin and considered. He swiftly came to his decision. He quickly dressed in combat fatigues and camouflage, and looked again at his gun cabinet. He considered once more, if he wanted to snipe or if he wanted a more . . . tactile sense of killing these lesser beings. He opened his gun cabinet at withdrew a large knife with a rather wicked, zigzag blade. He gripped the handle tightly before putting it into a sheath on his belt.

Then he got a hit on one of his cameras, and he checked the coordinates. He made a few calculations in his head and came to a conclusion where to hide in ambush. He hurried to do such as soon as he could. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2018, 05:45:41 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Heist

"Now, we're going to move closer," Shifty said, imperiously, "the truck will be travelling down an isolated backroad that they're sure that they've secured. They've secured nothing, they think the remoteness and isolation of the road would protect the truck. In reality, it was a stupid tactic on their part. Even you could have come up with something better."

Alan said nothing. He knew that Shifty would not appreciate him interrupting him during a villainous monologue, as he made clear when they first met. He still had the welts to show for it.

"I warn you, Idiot," Shifty said, making it clear that he held no attachment to Alan. That Shifty would abandon him immediately if it served his best interests. That Shifty would not hesitate to throw him under a bus to save his own skin. That Alan was just a means to a end, nothing more. "Do not foul this up."

Alan just gave a small grunt of acknowledgement. Shifty would have berated him viciously, vociferously reprimanded him severely, ordinarily. But his greed and avarice made that armored truck his primary concern. They thought having another four armored, although empty, trucks leaving the bank depository -- the federal reserve, or whatever it was called -- would be enough to fool him. But he wasn't so stupid. He did his homework (although it never made his dad happy when he did, and his mother couldn't care less).

"You screw this up, Idiot, and you'll seriously regret it," he growled. Then he looked up, and estimated the time that it would arrive. "It should be here in about eight minutes. You better be ready, Idiot."

Alan really didn't like being called "idiot" as if it was his name. But he was too intimidated, too fearful, and too meek to say anything about it. He should have just left Shifty, and thereby leave his abuse behind. But these things were very rarely that simple and clear cut.

"Here they come!" Shifty said, feeling an excitement like a hunter just before a hunt. "Prepare yourself, Idiot. Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . NOW, IDIOT, NOW!"

The both had managed to teleport within the truck, and it had money unsecured in large, dufflebag-sized bags with "$" printed on them. It was quite odd that there wasn't more security to this. It was almost as if it was a part of a trap of some sort. Alan found this telling, too easy. He actually opened one of the drawstring to check if there was actual money inside. There was. There was at least an easy million dollars in high-domination bills, and there didn't seem to be any tracking devices or anything of the like.

"Idiot, what are you doing?!" Shifty hissed. He didn't seem to have realized just how easy a score this was. That it was too easy. There were no dye packs or anything. Shifty didn't suspect anything at all. If anything, it played into his ego even more, fed it like a ravenous elephant shrew. Made him believe that he was oh-so-smart for foreseeing this, when he hadn't done anything of the like. "Grab as many as you can carry."

"But, Shifty," Alan said, breaking his cowed silence, but he was not able to speak another word, before enduring a flurry of verb barbs from Shifty.

"Don't you talk back to me, Idiot," he snarled quietly. Then he took an exaggerated enunciation as he said, "Take. As much. As you can. Carry."

"Shifty, it's --"

"I didn't request your opinion, Idiot!" he hissed. "Just do as I dictate!"

Alan made to protest, the mildest and meekest of self-assertions.

"Do as I say! Do not deviate from my ingenious plan!" Shifty spat. "My plans are flawless, and you know that!!"

Actually, Alan thought every one his plans were deeply flawed in one way or the other. He was just too fearful to ever tell this blusterous blowhard the hard truth. Shifty's ego tended to fragility, and when his ego was hurt . . . he got violent. Alan had seen one of these rages, and it was a fairly traumatic experience for him. Hence why he wasn't so keen on incurring another one.

Alan kept his silence and just complied. As he hefted a sixth bag, he wondered idly if this was worth it. If it was worth it, putting up with this abuse. Just to have a place to live, just to have the merest scrap of food (crust of bread, water, gristle, and any leftovers that Shifty didn't want to finish). Shifty apparently saw him comparable to a dog. A dog who could talk. And teleport.

"Hey, Idiot! Are you effin' paying attention?" Shifty snarled, shouldering six bags of his own. It was easily six to twelve million dollars in these bags, in unmarked money. Alan still had misgivings. This money sure looked legitimate, but something told Alan that it may have been --

"Time to go, Idiot," he spat, "do not miss. And do not die. I don't want blood on the money."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2018, 05:23:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Ambush

They teleported back to the exact spot they teleported from, which was impressive considering that they were quite a distance away and out of line of sight. They had all twelve bags of cash, still worth about twelve to twenty-four million dollars. Alan, however, suspected that the money may not be legitimate currency. But then, how would they have gotten an armored truck? There was so much about this that didn't make sense, but Shifty was none the wiser.

They dropped the money to rest a bit. The teleportation with this much weight wasn't an easy task. It was possible, but it was hard and physically exerting. They dropped the bags to the ground, and stopped a bit to rest a bit.

"The money had better not be dirty, Idiot," Shifty growled.

Alan had just about enough of this. Did he really need to stay at Shifty's hovel? He could just teleport into a vacant hotel room for a time, and teleport out when the room is taken. Granted, that would be essentially stealing from the hotel, but he stole money from a bank. Even Alan's morality was skewed, even just a bit. And if he did that, he would get more than Shifty's scraps when it came to food.

"Don't give me that look, Idiot," Shifty said.

No. No, it wasn't worth it. Playing stooge to this narcissistic, plutomanic, egotistical man. Being subservient to this pathetic example of a person, whose bloated ego was easily breached with the smallest disobedience, whose first impulse to anything wrong was to resort to violence and strongman tactics. Alan thought that he could just take his six bags of money -- assuming that they weren't counterfeit -- and just leave. Shifty cannot track him if he teleported away. There would be nothing that he could do. He would not be able to follow Alan to anywhere he went, and Alan would go far away. To another town. To another country. Somewhere far away from this pathetic control freak.

"I said, Idiot," Shifty said, voice threatening. He may be physically stronger than Alan, but he was not smarter nor more adaptable as Alan. Alan knew this. He knew that he didn't have to fight Shifty either. He could just teleport away with the possibly counterfeit money, which looked really legit. "I said don't give me that look. Know your place!"

"My place?" Alan repeated. There was a note of anger in his voice now.

"Yes, your place," Shifty said, forcefully, matching Alan's anger then quickly and swiftly surpassing it. "Know your place, Idiot. At my feet and obeying my commands without question. You serve me, and you should consider yourself lucky to serve someone like me. You should already know this, and monkey would understand this concept by now."

"You know what, Lindsey?" Alan said, deliberately referring to him by a name he knew the man before him hated.

"YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO USE THAT NAME!!" Shifty said, lunging at Alan. Alan teleported behind him, with the six bags of money he carried, and Shifty collided with the dirt.

"I've had enough of your crap, Lindsey," Alan said. His voice was oddly steady and calm. "You think too much of yourself. You're just a sad little man with daddy and mommy issues. And you've taken all your frustrations out on me in a physically abusive manner. I've had enough. I see you for what you are. A man whose obsessed with wealth to the point of psychosis. You will never have enough money, Lindsey, you will just keep having to take more and more and more until you own it all. I'm surprised that you didn't turn into a dragon instead of becoming a teleporter, Lindsey."

"Stop using that name!" he roared, as he lunged again. Apparently, in his rage, he forgot about his teleporting ability.

"No, I will not." Alan said, teleporting again. Alan knew by use Shifty's given name he was changing the power dynamic they had for a while now. It was the same sort of deal as Shifty calling Alan idiot as if it was his given name. "Enough has been enough. You pushed me too far. I'm done. I'm done with all this. I'm done you."

"You serve me!!" Shifty roared. "You have no other purpose in life!"

"You do not define me, Lindsey," Alan said, teleporting again to dodge another lunge. "I define myself."

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!!!" he roared, not lunging this time, but standing.

Then a voice completely unrelated to the two roared back, "DIE!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 17, 2018, 06:30:41 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Struggle

Soon, Shifty forgot all about Alan and his anger to the person he basically named idiot.

He was in a violent struggle for his life against Dick, who was wielding another dagger-like knife. He was struggling against the teleporter, to press the edge of the short, triangular blade. Shifty struggled to break Dick's grip on him. Shifty didn't know who Dick was and why he wanted to kill him so badly. Meanwhile, Dick just assumed that Shifty was Cloak out of his eponymous cloak, despite the distinct size disparity. Dick had him now, and he wasn't letting go until he succeeded in murdering this Jumper.

Alan did nothing to help. He just gathered up as much of the bags of money he could and he teleported away, while Shifty remained unaware of this. He was took busy trying not to be murdered. True, this was rather callous of Alan, but he didn't care. If Shifty survived, his ego would be even more intolerable. Alan actually came back to collect the rest of the bags, and he completely ignored Shifty's plight. As far as Alan was concerned, Shifty deserved this.

Shifty seemed to sudden remember that he could teleport. And, in his desperation to survive, to live, his teleportation reached its max potential, its zenith. He tried to teleport away, to escape this lunatic's grip. He teleported to some plains area, but, much to Shifty's dismay, the lunatic's grip was not broken, and seemed to get stronger with his zealotry. Shifty tried very hard to shake off this crazy lunatic.

Shifty tried to teleport into a lake he remembered, hoping the water would loosen this guy's grip. He soon discovered that he was mistaken. Shifty wondered why this lunatic was so intent on killing him. He couldn't have known about the armored truck. Could he? This wasn't working. Maybe a larger expanse of water would break his grip.

Shifty teleported into a sea, hoping the saltwater would do what the fresh water couldn't apparently do. To no avail. This madman's grip was unbreakable and unshakable. Impossible! He must have been experimented by those dimwitted scientists as well, and all he got was this ludicrously powerful grip. Otherwise, he's a really fanaticized zealot, who was deliriously forceful in his delusions. Either way, it didn't look all that good for Shifty, who still was trying to pry Dick's dagger-knife away from his throat. This was a lot more difficult than it sounded.

Shifty teleported to a cave, hoping that a suddenly materializing stalactite -- stalagmite? Whatever -- would separate them and break Dick's grip. But that didn't work either, though it made it hard for Dick to slit Shifty's throat. Dick just shifted from that to stabbing. And he got Shifty several times in his left arm, Dick having his grip upon Shifty's right arm, just below the shoulder. Shifty cried out as he did. Crap, that hurt more than they ever showed on television. The pain.  . .

Shifty reflexively teleported the two to the mountains, mountains of sheer cliffs and drop offs. He didn't really had a strategy for this location, he was too distracted in fighting for his life, and sort of bleeding out from his arm. In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder . . .  why? Why did this man want to kill him so badly? He never harmed anyone -- other than Idiot, but he didn't count -- and he just stole money, which he considered a victimless crime.

Shifty teleported to the final location . . . and he came to the realization that he would not survive this. That no matter what he tried, this madman was going to kill him. He had no clever or ingenious plans on getting out of this one. He had teleported them both in an urban area, in the futile effort to get someone to help him. There was no way that he would survive, he was tiring, and this lunatic seemed to get stronger in his madness. Shifty felt strength beginning to leak out of him

"Die, Jumper," the lunatic hissed through clenched teeth. His eyes popping with insane glee. Shifty was going to die. He didn't want to die. He didn't have enough wealth to die. He was too young to die. He was too poor to die. "Just die. I want to see the light leave your guilty little eyes . . ."

Dick clearly had lost his sanity at this point. He had given into his preconceived notions. He still was under the impression that people would see him as a hero for slaying this bank robber. His name would be remembered for generations and he would be celebrated. This hero complex of Dick's had basically became a full-on psychosis.

"I . . . didn't . . . do . . . anything . . . wrong . . ." Shifty choked out. He was still weakening, tiring. The blade's edge was mere millimeters from his throat, from his jugular.

"The hell you didn't," Dick growled. "You robbed that bank."

Shifty's eyes lit up with recognition, but before he could pass the buck to Alan, the last of Shifty's strength had abandoned him. Dick's blade met Shifty's flesh, and sunk in almost in slow-motion. Shifty felt the pain, and hoped that the end would come quickly . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2018, 04:53:28 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
An Expected Ending

The dagger had already bit into Shifty's flesh. It plunged deeper, and time seemed to slow down for him. It was almost as if he could feel his heart slowing down, as his life flashed before his eyes, memories that he didn't even realize he had. Maybe they weren't even real, and fantasies. He could almost feel his heart pumping as if it were desperate to get in as many beats before he died. It was at least a hundred beats a minute now.

He saw his birth, and he saw the apathetic unhappiness of his mother and the irate irritation of his father. He was an "accidental" birth. Neither of his parents really wanted him, and saw him more as a burden, as an interloper to their fun. It was only supposed to be a momentary fling. Nothing was supposed to come of it, and it just happened in a moment of mutual vulnerability. They just saw him as a mistake. But there was no way he should be able to remember this, so he could have imagined this with his near-death delirium.

His heart pumped about ninety-nine beats a minute now. Now about ninety-eight beats a minute. Now about ninety-six beats a minute.

He saw his first year.when he was first beginning crawl, and his parents had haphazardly baby proofed their shoddy home. His mother was indifferent and miserable looking, while his father was rarely home. He didn't know if that was because he was at work or being a philanderer or cheating on his mother. He couldn't say. He couldn't even say if this was a legitimate memory. Neither ever held him. Neither ever read to him. Even at this young age, he was expected to feed himself. It was a completely miserable way to raise a child, even one that both parental parties believed ruined their lives. It was at this age that he learned to fear his father whenever he indulged in a tantrum, which an ordinary human child this age often engaged in. The only reason that he managed to survive not getting into unsafe situations,

His heart pumped about ninety-three beats a minute. Then about eighty-nine.beats. Then about eighty-two beats.

He saw his second year, though this could simply be a production of his delirious imagination, and it was no better than his first. Though his parents took care of him well enough to prevent Child Services from coming down on him. This would be the rough time that a child would learn empathy, but neither of his parents demonstrate it, and they were the only other human contact that he ever really had. His parents had alienated everyone else that they would have pushed him onto. So, they were the only people who he had day-to-day interaction with. He could never tantrum, or he would be punished severely, despite it being common for human children of that age. He didn't have a chance to be possessive about his belongings because he didn't really have any -- no toys, just the clothes on his back, and the food in his belly. He could only have access to toys when Child Services came round, and threatened severely not to talk to them. He wasn't allowed to be defiant, and he was far too scared to be.

Then he saw his third year. He listened attentively to his parents . . . and their derogatory statements about him. It didn't do much for his self-esteem, as you can expect. As with most human child at this age, he was slightly knock-kneed and it was something that his parents derided him for, despite not being able to help it. He wasn't able to -- wasn't allowed to -- say anything about it. Of course, this may not even be real and just a contrivance from his delirious, dying mind.

His heart pumped about seventy-one beats a minute. Then fifty-four beats. Then thirty-one beats.

Then he saw his fourth year. He began to learn to read and write, and he was harshly criticized for getting any wrong. Any delight in wordplay was severely derided and negatively enforced, as neither of his parents had any patience for that kind of silliness. They would not give him any books to try to read, and was scolded any time he tried to read any of his parents' books (there were not many, and none of them were appropriate for his age). He would put "-ed" on the end of words which were improper, such as he "goed" outside. He was ridiculed by his parents (mostly his father) for doing this, making him even more self-conscious. As such, he didn't speak much. While most human children his age were outgoing and friendly, he was antisocial and hostile, solely due to his home life. Unlike human children of similar age, he did not develop an imaginary friend, fearful that his father would ridicule him for the ridiculousness of conversing with something imaginary.

Then he saw his fifth year. He began to lose his "deciduous" teeth, his baby teeth. It terrified him -- not because he was losing his teeth (he wasn't aware that it was perfectly natural), but he was absolutely mortified that his father's sneering and ridicule of him for losing his teeth. Most of all, he feared his ire for doing so, just like he did anytime Shifty dared to get sick. It was this time that he learned how to tell time, with, naturally, his father scornfully correcting him any time he makes a mistake. This is also when Shifty's plutomania began to form, and was fostered unintentionally by his greedy father and his hands-off, negligent mother. He was able to count and save money, which he did and hoarded it away from his father. It wasn't pretty when he found out. Unlike his peers, he was not curious or inquisitive, that was beaten out of him by his father (and he was forced to come up with plausible excuses when pressed for answers)..

Then he saw his sixth year. He had far more aggression that his peers, given the home life he was brought up in, and he expressed that aggression physically outside a domestic situation. He had used this to foster subservience in the other children in his kindergarten, and he became skilled in hiding this bullying from figures of authority. He wasn't anxious to please these authority figures, like his peer, believing that they should be anxious to please him. He did not seek adult approval, choosing to disregard that (as he never got it at home). However, like his peers, he was unable to see things from other points of view, unable to handle things not going their way -- something that would persist into adulthood.

His heart pumped the last heart beat, and he exhaled his last breath. He had died, and he swore he could feel his spirit leaving his body. But he didn't want to . . . he didn't want to . . .

***

"There!!" Dick crowed, as he watched and felt the life flee and bleed from the Jumper. "It's done!"

He was aware that there was a crowd of bystanders around him. He had expected them to cheer, to celebrate in a decadent bacchanal with an insurmountable feast in his great honor. He was a hero, after all! He had killed the great, evil Jumper. They would erect opulent statues in his divine likeness. They would turn his birthday into a bank holiday where everyone would look forward to.

He didn't notice or care that his hands were still red and wet from Shifty's blood. All he knew was that he had succeeded in killing the thief. He committed, in his view, a great act deserving of honor and recognition. He even expected confetti to be thrown at him. This was a great and momentous occasion, in his view. But this elated euphoria was not fated to last.

Indeed, no one cheered. No one celebrated. No one regarded him as a hero.

The populace saw him as a deranged man who slaughtered a man for no reason right in front of them. They saw him as a lunatic covered in blood, smiling as if he were possessed by a demon, hands raised triumphantly as if this were "Gang Beasts", and the bloody dagger-like knife clattered to the pavement. He was only like this for a few minutes, before he was taken down by six police officers (complete overkill, to be sure).

"What are you doing?!" Dick demanded.

"You have the right to remain silent." one officer said.

"I'm a hero!!" Dick roared, as he was handcuffed, Shifty's blood still glistening on him.

"Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." the officer continued, as if there was no interruption.

"You should be praising me!!!" Dick insisted. It was almost as if Dick thought that Shifty was as powerful as a being of Garrotik's stature.

"You have the right to have an attorney." the officer continued, undaunted, pulling Dick up.

"I'm a hero!!!!" Dick insisted, sounding rather psychotic.

"If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court." the officer said, dragging Dick away to the police car.

"I'm a hero!!!!!" Dick roared. He was starting to tear up. He truly believed he was a hero, and believed that he was being arrested unjustly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 18, 2018, 07:58:02 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Wrap-Up

The litigation went rather quickly for Richard "Dick" Orwell Randall. He had to be disciplined several times for speaking out of turn, firmly asserting that he's a hero and should be treated as one. At one point, he had to be removed from the court, because he wouldn't shut up and stop interrupting the eyewitnesses, the prosecution, and even his own defense.

The jury that presided over this case were a collegian, a pilot, a plumber, a performer, a doctor, a race car driver, a police officer, a model, a grocer, a retail manager, a dishwasher, and a stock boy at a local shop. They watched this deranged man acting as if he should be worshiped for murdering a man in cold blood, in front of many, many eyewitnesses. It was clear that he was not in a normal frame of mind.

It didn't take long for these twelve people from disparate backgrounds to come to a decision. They decided that he be interned at a psychiatric facility with high security, and he was labelled as mentally disturbed. At the reading of this sentence, his mind came unraveled even further, and yelled out incoherent threats and harangues that no one could really make out nor make heads or tails of., and he had to be dragged out.

It was not a pleasant scene to bear witness to.

***

Alan was finally free of Shifty, free to do as he pleased, and he had money. The ones from the armored truck certainly looked legitimate. But the security was so lax that Alan was sure that it was counterfeit in some way. His gut told him that it probably was, and it would probably be very difficult to spend without being caught. And those scientists that imprisoned him were still out there. He never wanted to go back to that facility ever again, and they were probably still on the lookout for him.

He sat on Shifty's bed, and looked around. He didn't like how it felt here. It was like Shifty's angry spirit had come home and was furious at Alan for abandoning him, possibly leaving him to die.  Alan knew of a way to hide his identity, to layer his disguises. He teleported to a shop in the black market, and found their store room. He had hoped that he found the right one, or he brought the bags of potentially-counterfeit money would be useless. He would use that as compensation, even though it might not be legit currency.

He grabbed five bodysuits -- he couldn't make out the specifics of each one, just knew that two were female, and the rest were male. He stuffed them delicately into the pack he brought -- they would be useless to him if they were damaged. The potentially-counterfeit money would be sufficient compensation for these five bodysuits, with that advanced compression field tech of those Raxacoricofallapato rians developed stitched in. With his new disguises obtained, he shifted his ski mask (in case there were security cameras) so he could see better. Then he teleported back to Shifty's house, where he gathered up the remaining bank money and teleported into another abandoned building, far from that house. It was another dilapidated mess of a dwelling, but it would serve his purposes for the moment.

He immediately stripped, and took out the smallest bodysuit, or skinsuit, if you prefer, and briefly examined it. It had short, curly, black hair, a small, thin frame, a slender nose, almond-shaped blue eyes, ears with free earlobes, and and was that of a boy about the age of eight. The identity card (which was just a small index card the size of an ordinary business card) that it came with said "Cole Nelson". Alan didn't know if this skinsuit was taken from a real person or artificially made, and he didn't care. He swiftly put it on, his height being absorbed so he looked like a legitimate eight-year-old boy, even his voice sounded right (due to the stitched in voice synthesizer).

"Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers," he said, trying out this new youthful voice.

But he wasn't going to stay this way, he still had four more skinsuits. He would layer his disguise. He took the next one, a short, squat female one with long wavy black hair, a vertically elliptical face, squinting eyes, ears hidden by her hair and a straight, blunt sort of nose. He deftly put on this skin, and he found it fit him perfect even with the small stature of "Nelson". He read the identification card (the business card-type that came with the Nelson skinsuit) and it said "Trish Desmond". He didn't look like he was wearing a skinsuit at all, he just looked like he really was a teenage girl with a large frame.

"She sells seashells by the seashore," he said, trying out her voice, finding that it had an innate, sassy timbre.

Now the next skinsuit, and there were three to chose from. He chose the smallest one of the three. It had messy black hair, a straight, pointed nose, prominent lips, dimples, ears with free earlobes, almond-shaped blue eyes, and a thin build. He quickly put on the skin, the mass of "Trish" being absorbed to fit perfectly. He read the card that came with, and it said "Ryan Doyle". He didn't look he was wearing a skinsuit at all, much less three, and it wasn't hot or restrictive of his moments at all. It was still very comfortable to wear, and not burdensome at all.

"Betty Bopper bought a bit of butter," he said, testing out this new voice. There was an innate bounciness to it that he liked.

Now, he chose the last female skinsuit to layer over this one. She had long, wavy brown hair, a round face, round, dark brown eyes, demurred lips, ears hidden by her hair, and a thin build. He hurried and put on this skinsuit, and read the card that came with. It said "Laura Dawson". Four skinsuits on top of one another, and still no movement restriction or heat buildup. This was perfect, an ingenious idea. If one of these identities became compromised or their lives don't turn out like he wants, he can always discard them.

"Shep Schwab shopped at Scott's Schnapps shop," he said, trying out this new voice. It had a bit a buzzkill respectability to it.

Finally, it was time to put on the last one. But it won't always be this way, he planned to shift them around, to make it harder to track him, though he didn't have any intention on working three jobs for each one. This would be the skinsuit that would have the most exposure, and become his primary work identity and personality. He had messy, dirty blond hair, a large nose, almond-shaped dark brown eyes, small ears with free earlobes, perfect teeth, rosy cheeks, and a thin, muscular frame. Alan thought this one was the handsomest one of the lot, and was glad he chose it to be his primary identity. The other four would be back ups, he thought as he put on this last skin. When everything was in place, he couldn't help but smile, because he actually felt handsome, not that he had any misgivings about his true looks, but . . . well, his time with Shifty had caused some distortions about such things in his mind.

"A proper copper coffee pot," he said, trying out this new voice. He loved the melodious quality to it.

He lifted his pack, and looked around. He just loved how he felt now, the confidence and self-assurance that permeated his being . .  now, to go and live a good life in this identity of "Austin Lynch".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2018, 06:29:20 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Saying Goodbye

The forum was being closed down due to some governmental jerks that were acting in their constituents' interests. No, no, not the people -- they were on the RAFians' side. At least 83% of them, anyway. They weren't the governmental jerks's true constituency anyway, despite them claiming that they were. Their corporate donors decided they wanted more money from the forum, that they weren't getting enough, despite the fact that RAF owned their own land. They just took it, and claimed it for themselves.

Legally, there wasn't anything the RAFians could do, as the majority of the government was as corrupt as the Realm Walker Council. It seems the older most governments become, the more inevitable corruption within such governance becomes. Not only was the forum being locked down and condemned, the RAFians themselves were being ordered to disband.

Helen sang, tearing up, her Star Sapphire aura undulating in a rather tumultuous way:

"Saying goodbye, going away,
Seems like goodbye's such a hard thing to say."

Parker, helmetless, sharing Helen's tears, sang:

"Touching a hand, wondering why."

Both embraced, fully crying now:

"It's time for saying goodbye."

Then Helen had to fly off, off to the Star Sapphire homeworld.

Meanwhile, back where RAF used to be, Mr. Guy sang as he hugged Wild and Bear:

"Saying goodbye . . . why is it sad?
Makes us remember the good times we've had."

Then he mounted his bicycle, and began to pedal away.

"Much more to say, foolish to try.
It's time for saying goodbye."

Meanwhile, Cloak stood at a hill, looking down at the decommissioned forum, and he sang to himself:

"Don't want to leave, but we all know . . .
Sometimes it's better to go . . ."

Hunter sang, as he tromped into the forest:

"Somehow, I know we'll meet again.
Not sure quite where, and I don't know just when."

GH sang, as he and an older Leatherhead, in his humansuit, walked alongside a highway.

"You're in my heart, so until then --"

Then Leatherhead and GH sang:

"It's time for saying goodbye."

Phoenix sang, in his thoughts as he rode a train:

"Somehow, I know we'll meet again.
Not quite sure where,
And I don't know just when.
You're in my heart, so until then,
Wanna smile. Wanna cry.
Saying goodbye . . . "

All RAFians sang:

"La la la la la la la la . . .
It's time for saying goodbye . . .
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. . . ."

Cloak awoke after the last note was sung.  He was confused. Was that a Truth Dream or just a dream based off a fear of his that he didn't want to acknowledge -- the closing down of the forum that he has called home for a long time. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNfHU748SYQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNfHU748SYQ)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2018, 10:48:30 AM

New chapter. Brief, sorry.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Plugged In

Cloak was dispatched for another fiend. This time at some sort of expansive factory. Why do all these places seem so big and labyrinthine than necessary? Cloak proceeded forward. Then he came to an area with a spiked floor, with platforms placed over it. This couldn't possibly be OSHA-approved, this most definitely has to be a violation of some sort. This was really more effort than it was worth to avoid this spiked floor. Who in the Veil thought that this spiked floor was a good idea? It was like they were trying to turn this factory into a video game level.* How asinine is that?

Anyway, Cloak continued forward, taking note that this factory was still under construction. Possibly why there were no workers or staff of any sort inside here. It was either being added on to, or simply refurbished, he didn't know. He climbed a staircase to his left, to the second level. Then he crossed a brief atrium to another ascending staircase. He arrived atop the stairs, and saw uneven flooring to his immediate right, and that was the only way to go. So he proceeded forward . . . to an area with disappearing and reappearing blocks. HOW was this even considered a good idea? What grossly moronic businessman thought that this was a good design for a factory? How much did they pay off local authorities to turn a blind eye to this madness? Was this factory designed more to be a deathtrap than a legitimate factory?

Cloak continued until he reached a drop shaft, into an area that seemed to produce a shadow clone of him, which attacked him. Cloak easily dispatched it with a simple backhand with his left hand. Then he went into the dropshaft at the end of this hallway. And he was suddenly surrounded in darkness. This wasn't a problem to his feline eyes, which easily penetrated the gloom. He streaked forward, undaunted by the darkness. He had to form an energy disc to move over a deep chasm, although the glow from the disc, ironically made it more difficult for Cloak to see. But soon enough the chasm ended, and he gave himself a moment to readjust to the gloom. Then he proceeded with all his feline grace and agility. He came to an ascending staircase, and while he ascended it the lights began to blink back on.

This blinded him for a moment, while his eyes adjusted, but only for a moment. He climbed another staircase, and turned right to proceed onward. It was a straight, wide hallway to the fiend. Cloak entered the room, which had a flat ceiling and a steeply uneven flooring, and saw the fiend. The fiend was stout and stocky. It had a white, capsule-like head and large, round, human-like eyes (dark orange sclera, and black irises).. On either sides of his head, it had spikes like that of a plug. Its pale orange torso was pod-like cylinder, with two screw heads rather like nipples, and a L.E.D. triangle in the center, point up, with a thin, white midriff. It had large, round shoulders with screw head markings. Its upper arms were metallic silver, and its lower arms were pale orange. It had a black left hand and, instead of a right hand, it had a two-pronged white plug. It had a pale green around its waist, black codpiece, white thighs, large pale orange shins, and pontoon-like feet.

It jumped down from the ceiling and took notice of Cloak. It raised its plug hand up and sparked it, almost in an act of intimidation. Cloak had faced the likes of Malice and Garrotik -- he wasn't so easily intimidated. It gave four small hops, before firing a small ball of electricity that crawled along the uneven floor toward Cloak, who sidestepped it, and watched it then crawl up the wall, then it crawled up on the ceiling before falling to the ground again, dissipating into nothingness. This seemed to be its only attack pattern, or maybe Cloak was impatient, because he pulled the metal from the surrounding environment and blasting it into the fiend.

Was it overkill? Perhaps. Cloak didn't really care at the moment, as he left.

***

Demos called it a "puragusapien". He claimed he designed it for quality control of televisions, of every unit.

***

Malice was far more concerned with finding a new scheme. She felt as if she was having a long drought in schemes and schemer's block.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 19, 2018, 08:11:08 PM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXIX:
YOU WISH!
CHAPTER ONE:
Green Tornadoes

Shenmue was dispatched to a weather research facility, which a fiend had decided to take up residence in. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to be a very open facility, in terms of space. She walked over to an ascending staircase on her left, and began to walk up, then the one on the right once she ascended the other one. She didn't like how there seemed to be glass everywhere, so she could see just how high up she was. She found it rather disorienting, and couldn't help but wonder how any one could work here with the glass walls, glass floor and the glass ceilings. It seemed only the the parts of the floor that had to bear a fair amount of weight was the only places where glass wasn't installed.

She climbed up more steps directly ahead of the staircase she had just ascended. Fortunately, the stairs weren't made of glass. She came out into open air, and had her hair blowing rather dramatically. It was quite cold up here, and she wished she had the foresight to have brought a jacket. Anyway, she proceeded forward. Then she navigated her way through rotating generators -- she was sure that these were what were powering this facility. Then she came to a chasm where apparently the glass floor had broken away. Surely, OSHA didn't know about this facility -- it had to be violating OSHA regulations left, right, and center. Anyway, she leapfrogged across the generators until she managed to get to the other side. From there, she continued onward, climbing up on the ascending stairs that long steps but low risers. Then she dropped down a dropshaft -- something that she wasn't really happy with. She proceeded with a descending slope down a winding hallway that ended in another dropshaft.

"Because of course it would have," Shenmue groaned, as she took the dropshaft. Then she took the descending slope down, having to jump over some pits created from broken glass flooring. Her RAFian training had given her the necessary physicality to accomplish it. She ran down a serpentine hallway without pausing or breaking stride. She quickly ascended two staircases, and moved onward. She rounded a corner to her right, and she hugged the wall, rounding another corner. She ran up another staircase, before having to slow down and catch her breath.

Only to realize that she was back in open air. And what was worse was that it was now raining. Oh, she really didn't like this trope. It was difficult to see, and to make matters worse, she had to leapfrog her way across several platforms to move onward. This had to be an OSHA violation, Shenmue was sure. She continued until she came to the otherside, and had to drop into another dropshaft. Then she quickly exited the room that she was just in into open area, and the rain was now going in the opposite direction. She had to leapfrog from platform to platform until she reach the room that the fiend had made into its nest.

The room had a flat, level floor and walls, but the ceiling was very uneven with shards of broken glass like spikes. The fiend, who was floating around this ceiling, had a thin, svelte build. It had a human-like head with round, human-like eyes (red sclera and black irises) with a red helmet with large, wing-like horns on it. Its neck was black, and its torso was red with purple downward pointing arrow marking. Its upper arms were white, and its lower arms were red with black propeller blades attached to its black wrists that cold fold down on its upper arm. Its hands were black, and it had a silver band around its waist. Its crotch and thighs were white, and its bulky shins were red with small ailerons on the outside sides. Finally, its pod-like feet were black.

The fiend took almost immediate notice of Shenmue, and was roughly half her size. It raised its right hand, folded out its propeller blades, and spun them like a fan. Tornadoes formed beneath Shenmue which she dodged with agility that she didn't seem to know that she had. Then a tornado formed around the fiend's waist and lifted it into the air. Shenmue easily saw what was coming, what it was clearly planning. She dodged out of the way with only a split second to spare. Then it started this attack pattern yet again.

Time to get this going. She generated a ball of electricity in her hands as she dodged the fiends attacks, the timing of which seemed slightly random. She waited until it the size of a bowling ball, before throwing it like such. It struck the fiend, and disoriented it. The thing about this particular attack of Shenmue is that it would crawl up these walls and ceiling. She kept doing this until the fiend was slain. Then she called for pick up, with the intentions of reporting this facility to OSHA and hoping that they do something about it.

***

Demos called it a "torunedosapien", and claimed he designed it to stave off tropical storms.

***

Malice was frustrated, only having this battle on as background noise. She cursed this schemer's block.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2018, 05:27:28 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
After Today, Adventure!!

"Hey, LH! Wait up!" GH cried, coming out of the thread with a towel around his waist and hair. And fluffy pink slippers. He carried a sack lunch in his hand, and gently thrust it into a teenage Leatherhead's hands. Unlike when he was a kid, Leatherhead wasn't wearing his humansuit, but was all crocodile (despite the loose red hoodie and jeans he wore that had a hole for his considerable tail. "You forgot your lunch. Have a good day."

Then he gave his crocodilian son a kiss on the cheek, which caused a couple of kids skateboarding by to laugh at him as the oblivious GH returned to the thread.

"Max: They've been laughin' since I can't remember,
But they're not gonna laugh anymore
No more 'Leatherhead the Geek'
No more 'Doof of the Week'
Like before . . . !"

A Kineceleran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kineceleran) girl sang as Leatherhead made his way to school:

"No more algebra tests 'til September!"

Her Tetramand (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Tetramand) boyfriend sang:

"No more lookin' at losers like him!"

A Vreedle (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vreedle_(Species)) boy sang:

"No more havin' to cheat!"

A large human teenager sang:

"No more mystery meat!"

More students sang:

"No more gym!
No more gym!
No more gym!
NO MORE GYM!"

A half-Veela girl sang:

"Gonna move to the mall!"

An amorous Vaxasaurus (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vaxasaurus) male sang:

"Gonna live in the pool!"

Leatherhead inadvertently interrupts the two's flirting when he sang:

"Gonna talk to Deina,
And not feel like a fool!"

The half-Veela girl punched Leatherhead on the shoulder, but his scales reduced the amount of pain that such a punch would cause. Meanwhile, just about everyone in the school sang:

"'Cause . . . after today, I'm gonna be cruising!'

Leatherhead sang, ducking a skateboarder flying through the air.

"After today, she'll be mine!"

The student chorus sang again:

"After today, my brains'll be snoozing!"

Leatherhead stops by a bench, where two rather dumpy older ladies sat, and sang:

"If I don't faint, I'll be fine!"

One of the woman, who was clearly one of these xenophobic, Knightly types, fainted, as Leatherhead shrugged and moved on. Two Splixson (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Splixson) female twins sang:

"I've got forty more minutes
Of Home Economics . . ."

Two amorous Splixon boys sang:

"Then down with the textbooks,"

Two Revonnahgander (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Revonnahgander[/url) boys sang:

"And up with the comics!"

Leatherhead sang:

"Just think of all the time I've been losin',
Finding the right thing to say!"

Then the chorus joined in:

"But things'll be goin' my way . . ."

Then Leatherhead dropped out as he saw Deina, an anthropomorphic Deinonychus from the planet Reptilon (http://dinosaucers.wikia.com/wiki/Reptilon).

"After today!"

Leatherhead wiggled his fingers in a sheepish wave, but Deina did not seem to notice. Leatherhead sang, downhearted by this, but gathering strength with the next few lyrics.

"She looked right through me,
And who could blame her?
I need a new me,
Plus some positive proof
That I'm not just a doof!
And . . ."

Leatherhead was joined by a chorus in a school bus, that passed him:

" After today, I'm gonna be cruisin'!"

Some grunge, gothic, human girls sang:

"No more pep rallies to cut!"

Then Leatherhead and the chorus of student sang:

"After today, my brains'll be snoozin'!"

The bus driver, a human male with the same build as a Snorlax, sang:

"I'm gonna sit on my butt"

Leatherhead was nearly at the school now. And he slid down a railing as he sang, bumping the principal.

"I've got less than an hour
And when this is ended,
I'll either be famous --"

The school principal, Principal Truculent. sang, as he hurried tried to replace the toupee that Leatherhead had knocked askew:

"Or you'll be suspended!"

Leatherhead and the student chorus sang:

"Just think of all the time I've been losin',
Waiting until I could say . . .
Gonna be on my own.
Kiss the parents good-bye!
Gonna party from now
'Til the end of July!
Things'll be goin' my way,
After today!!!"

Then the starting bell rung to begin the last day of the school year. As he moved to go to class, Leatherhead sang, almost mournfully:

"I wish that this was the day
After today. . ."

***

GH awoke on Yarin's ship. along with Yarin (piloting the ship, obviously), Cloak, Abby, Leatherhead, Underseen, and Saffa. It took a moment before GH's memories caught up with him. They were essentially going on a treasure hunt into some desert expanse. Cloak didn't look too interested or pleased in this. GH didn't know how Cloak got caught up in this. True, there had been a distinct lack of missions as of late, and Saffa thought a little adventure -- a "DuckTales"-esque treasure hunt -- would be fun.

Cloak had asked if what they did as RAFians wasn't exciting enough, and that argument seemed to be largely ignored. Cloak muttered something about plot convenience, and GH thought he was talking nonsense again, before taking a nap.

Of course, when he awoke, it was because they were crashing.

---

SOURCE SONG; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIFa94fD3c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIFa94fD3c)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on April 21, 2018, 02:00:53 AM

That last book made me remember that Jumper was a movie I saw in theaters and was excited to see. I remember liking it when it came out, but now I can hardly watch it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 21, 2018, 04:02:41 AM

Well, it's funny you should mention "Jumper", as the last book was (albeit rather loosely) based on it. At least, the movie generated the idea, when I watched it years ago. (Also goes to show how much in advance I plan these books, I'm actually planning books in Year 7 right now.)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
A Cowardly Guide

"My ship!" Yarin cried out. "This will take me months to repair!"

"The damage is only cosmetic, you drama queen," Cloak said, dismissively. having easily Metalsighted the extent of the damage.

"You don't know --" Yarin started, but quelled by Cloak's stern look, realizing what Cloak did.

"All this for some treasure inside some Pyramid of Excess Wealth," Cloak said, failing not to sound scornful.

"It's the Pyramid of Opulence," Saffa corrected.

"Yeah, like that's any better," Cloak said, almost petulantly.

"It's said to be basically an overseas bank account for Croesus," Abby said, ignoring Cloak's rather touchy mood. "Apparently suggesting that, even back then, they had variations of Swiss bank accounts."

"Or that could be complete and utter -" Cloak said, ending the sentence using a Realm Walker term for which there was no English translation. But it roughly equated to the English word "Bull****".

"Oh, don't be so grumpy, Cloak!" Saffa said, bracingly, "It's an adventure!"

"Yippee," Cloak replied dryly.

GH was too busy keeping an eye on Leatherhead, making sure that he doesn't go too far, and stays within his line of sight. This was a difficult task, as Leatherhead was evidently feeling very excitable, and he wore his humansuit, so he felt doubly emboldened. "LH, stay where I can see you!"

Abby took out a treasure map, as they ran into a local man. They started small talk, and found out his name was Ima Atreyu*. Leatherhead blurted that they were looking for the Pyramid of Opulence, and Cloak facepalmed, the Elements Master believing this to be a folly. As it turns out, Ima apparently knew the general area of where the Pyramid of Opulence was. The sand was doing a disservice to Cloak, because it was difficult for him to discern the truthfulness of this assertion and he told the others so when they looked at him, but he advised them not to trust him due to the evasive manner of his rhetoric.

"Don't be a racist!" he chided.

"I am not," Cloak said, with narrowed eyes. "Your rhetoric is evasive, and potentially empty. I may not know everything about humans, I'll admit, but your body language indicates deception to me. I may not be able to confirm due this sand, but I have my suspicions. And it has nothing to do with your race nor your species."

Ima didn't seem to find a comeback to this. After all, he was a former thief in the current employ of Marco Locke, a rather wealthy man with a desire for a specific artifact. Although "employ" would suggest that he got paid, instead of being terrified of the man with that odd medallion that swung almost haphazardly from the man's neck. Ima served him with the servility of a house-elf, but he had a touch of plutomania that only his fear of Locke had put under control.

None of the RAFians knew this, although Cloak was already suspicious of this man. This man who was trying so incessantly to be their guide, and the more he pushed, the less Cloak trusted him. Ima decided (rather wisely) to watch what he said around Cloak, afraid of giving himself away. Cloak was already suspicious of him. These strangers were his best chance of getting his hands on the very artifact that his master desired so much . . . he had to be careful with how he ingratiated himself . . .

"You need a guide," he said, with overt oiliness (in Cloak's view), "I know where the Pyramid is. It's not easy to find. The area is very remote -- in the desert. You would never survive searching for it, even with a map. You'll need a guide."

Cloak narrowed his eyes at him. The sandy terrain made it extremely difficult to discern if he was telling the truth, so Cloak had to rely on body language and other visual and verbal cues. Cloak would freely acknowledge that he didn't know everything about the body language of humans, such as this one. But, apparently, this argument was successful with the others. They wanted him as a guide.

"Fine," Cloak said, eyes still narrowed at this person, whose body language seemed to be rather anxious and nervous, in Cloak's perspective, "but I'm keeping an eye on you, Atreyu."

---

*Yes, this name is a pun. Can you guess what it is?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2018, 04:21:29 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Buried Deep Within

Atreyu rented the group several camels, but Cloak refused to ride one, preferring to use his own two feet. And he wouldn't allow Atreyu to leave his sight. The shifty man realized this. Cloak also noticed how the camel merchants seemed to be suspicious and derides Atreyu, but for what the RAFians didn't know. From there, they moved to the desert proper, despite these merchants heavily advising against it, especially at this time of day, when the sun is at its highest.

They walked for a while, in what seemed to be in circles. There seemed to be a large bird overhead, circling them. It didn't look like a vulture of any kind, it looked rather aquiline. Cloak taking notice of this bird seemed to make Atreyu feel even more nervous. This caused Cloak to give him a ****-eyed look. Suspicious, but unsure of what.

Then Atreyu's camel tripped over something jutting up from the ground. Leatherhead immediately jumped off his camel (which he didn't really like riding) to investigate this. GH scolded, "LH! Stay where I can see you! It'll be too easy to get lost out here."

Leatherhead immediately came upon the thing the cantankerous camel tripped over, and said, "It looks like a pint-sized pyramid."

Then he dug a little, and said, "Wow! It's bigger than it looks!"

"It's buried, then," Cloak said, taking his eyes off Atreyu for the first time since meeting him. "Stand back everyone. Even you, Atreyu."

They did, though the other RAFians had to hasten Atreyu's retreat. They knew what Cloak was about to do. Cloak closed his eyes, and held out his arms. He took a deep breath, and then he aerokinetically and geokinetically manipulated the sand and the air around it to clear the area around this pyramid. It was considerably larger than it appeared. It was at least fifty or so stories tall. Cloak took the sand around the pyramid and clenched his fists. This compacted the sand until the point that it might as well have been sandstone.

"Come on down, now," Cloak said, tonelessly. "I've secured the place."

They slid down the compacted sand, the camels forgotten. The camels, when they had the inclination, returned home, when they wanted to be fed. Cloak slammed his hand into the rough-hewed stone. Atreyu flinched, thinking the cloaked man was angry. But Cloak had his eyes closed, and his hand remained on the stone for a few minutes.

"Entrance, there," Cloak said, pointing. The entire group shifted over to the point the Realm Walker indicated. Cloak stood before it, and his eyes glinted. Then the massive stone slab shuttered upwards. The group entered the pyramid with Atreyu who seemed to glance to the sky in a deliberately unobtrusive manner. Cloak glance back, and Atreyu hastened to follow the RAFians in. None of the RAFians, including Cloak, noticed that the giant eagle landing on the very point of the pyramid. The eagle appeared to have a graying handlebar mustache with a glistening medallion hanging from his neck. If eagles could look evil, this one did.

"The torches are gone," Atreyu pointed out. "How are we --"

Golden-scarlet light filled the dark space, illuminating things.

"What's that? What's making that light?'

"Me," Cloak said, his eyes now locked back on Atreyu. "You did your job, Atreyu. You 'lead' us to the pyramid. You have no further obligation to us. You may leave us and be on your merry way."

"No! Uh, no!" Atreyu said. "Uh, I know about every booby trap in the pyramid and the path to the treasure."

"You're lying," Cloak said, bluntly. They no longer stood on sand. It was easy to discern truth, though difficult in the fact that Atreyu was shaking like a leaf. Cloak was sure of his judgement though.

"No, no! I speak the truth!" Atreyu said, desperately. "I . . . uh . . . uh . . . can still be of use! Please, allow me to assist you!"

"Go home, Atreyu," Cloak said.

"Thanks for your services," Abby said. Cloak couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. "We can take care of it from here."

"Wait! You still . . . still need me!" Atreyu said, sounding even more desperately.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2018, 07:14:35 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Musical Wall

Cloak allowed the orb of golden scarlet light to float a little way in front of them. They had left Atreyu at the entrance, although Cloak could tell Atreyu had not gone home as Cloak recommended. He had evidently thought that he was sneaky, and was secretly following him. His footsteps were lighter, but still noticeable to Cloak's Earthsight.

"He's following us," Cloak said, at once, in a low voice.

"Let him," Saffa said. "We're here for the adventure, not the wealth."

"Aww," Leatherhead said.

"Wealth does not necessitate happiness, young one," Cloak said, rather roughly. "The aimless pursuit of mere monetary gains is hardly ever worth the endeavor, and eventually proves addictive, as seen with many governments through out countless civilizations from eons past."

"Huh?" Leatherhead said, utterly confused by Cloak's rhetoric.

"Money doesn't make you happy," Abby translated. "It may make you feel good for a little while, but that feeling eventually goes away, Leatherhead."

"Oh," Leatherhead said.

"We may never get what we want in life, LH," GH said, apparently feeling it was his turn to dispense some wisdom, as they watched a stone flail smack the opposite wall ahead of them. Cloak had deliberately triggered it when they were well out of its range. "But, LH, we have what we need. Love, acceptance. Friends, family. Food, water, shelter. Not everyone can claim to have that in this world."

Leatherhead said nothing as he appeared to be chewing on these words in his head.

"Although, a little adventure never hurt anyone," Underseen said, as they watched a booby trap being triggered in front of them that allowed a flurry of arrows be shot and riddling the side of the wall opposite it.

"Tell that to Odysseus," Cloak said, dryly.

"Who's Odysseus?" Leatherhead asked promptly.

"Long story," was Cloak's only answer. Then they came upon a wall full of hieroglyphs, and Cloak could tell what they wanted lay behind it. Yet he could not force the doorway (and it was a large doorway) open without risking a cave in. The pyramid's exterior would stand, but they had do this delicately. And he conveyed this to the other.

"Then how do we open it?" Saffa said, practically.

"We find the way that they intended to open it, otherwise our little adventure ends here," Cloak said, in his usual blunt manner. GH looked and examined the hieroglyphics, and, while not being versed in reading such things, he recognized something that the others did not.

GH grinned a broad, impish grin. "Guys. Isn't it obvious?"

He deftly pointed to several pictograms, and said, "That's obviously music!"

"GH, you can't be sure about that," Abby reasoned. "It could possibly mean anything."

"Trust me!" GH said, unshouldering his guitar (he never left it behind on any sort of mission, as it was the basic medium for his powers). "It's music. Lemme give something a try!"

He strummed a bit before, playing an old-timey melody, like a minstrel, before singing -- using the hieroglyphs as something to go off of.

"Who is the maid with the buttercup hair?
Who sleeps on moonbeams and dances on air,
With tears made of honey and a heart full of bunnies?
Whose unshakable virtues are known near and far?
It's the kingdom's own sweetheart, their dear princess star!
And under the shimmer and rubies and pearls
Lies hidden a fierce and adventurous girl.
The forces of evil that lurk in the night
Will cower in fear when this shooting star . . .
. . . ignites!"

This door did seem to respond to the music, glowing a pleasant yellowish color. Almost the color of honey, as GH changed to a propulsive rock beat.

"Wielding magic like a born spell-caster.
And wreaking havoc like a natural disaster.
She rocks her magical blasts and a dragon stampede!
She's gonna earn her crown, so hail to the quee-e-e-een!
'Cause she's a rebel princess, she's the best.
She's a ball of lightning in a hot pink dress.
She's a thunderstorm roaring through the night,
She's their shooting star, and she's lighting up their sky!
Oooh-oooh!
Oooh-oooh-oooh!"

The door was eking open slowly as GH switched to a slow, heavy beat.

"Shooting star shining in the night so bright,
She started to attract a pair of avaricious eyes.
The villain rose up from behind the jester's cross.
She drove him away but didn't know what she had lost.
The genes and her storage place of spells.
How could she know the vizier would take 'em for himself?
She confessed to her parents, all full of dread.
The King and Queen exchanged a look, and this is what they said.
This is what they said, this is what they said:
'We will keep your silence for you
From the citizens of the kingdom and the High Commission, too.
To keep the peace, we will play the game.
Royal secret from royal shame.
Royal secret from royal shame'."

GH was really starting to get into it, shifting into an upbeat rock beat, but Underseen said, "GH, you can stop now. The door's open."

Far from being happy about it, GH was slightly miffed. He was just starting to get into it. He just followed with a disappointed, "Aw. . . ."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5y7bJFPkY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5y7bJFPkY)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 23, 2018, 09:22:58 PM

Posting tomorrow's chapter a little early.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
This Hardly Seems Safe

Under the rather bombastic song that GH had played for them, Atreyu had not only caught up with them and entered the room beyond, but he had already traversed the rope bridge (a rope bridge with no ropes for you to put your hands onto, to balance yourself. It was just a straight rope bridge from the edge of the precipice to the round pedestal in the middle of the room. The floor upon which it stands was steeped in shadow, but still visible. Cloak wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, as there was probably a reason why this floor wasn't deeper.

Cloak looked over to the pedestal where there seemed to be an upended turtle shell full of gold and treasure. Atreyu was scrambling into the turtle shell, almost desperately to get into the shell, presumably to get to the treasure in a plutomanic spritz to get to and claim the treasure for himself. Cloak didn't care. Let him have it, Cloak felt. He had no use for the sparkly stones and shiny metals that humans consider precious. Because, after all, this wasn't for the treasure, but the adventure. Cloak would have thought that they got enough adventure from their missions as RAFians, making this whole treasure hunt trip worthless, but apparently some of his fellow RAFians did not feel the same.

"How cute," Cloak said, rather abrasively, "he thinks that he's being sneaky."

"He's rocking that shell a little too much," Abby said.

"Yeah, if he's not careful he could tip over," Saffa concurred.

"And fall onto . . . that ground doesn't look soft at all," Underseen said.

"Major owie," Leatherhead agreed.

Cloak said nothing, seeing quite easily where this was going.

GH sighed, "We have to save him from his own greed. I'd like to say that that was new -- but, at this point, its not. It's not new at all. Let's go, then."

And so they did. They quickly crossed the rope bridge, which Leatherhead did not like at all. GH had to assure him that Mr. Cloak wouldn't allow him to fall. And, had Cloak been in a more mischievous mood, he would cast doubt on that assertion, but the Realm Walker was too moody to do that. It wasn't long before they all reached the pedestal, and Atreyu seemed to have located what he wanted -- a ring of some sort with a scarlet ruby inset in it. He palmed it, and jumped when he saw the RAFians.

Then you could say that he kind of overreacted. He leaped out of the turtle shell and sprinted over the robe bridge. Then he burned the rope bridge behind him.

"Well," Cloak said, as if this wasn't a problem at all, "that was a bit excessive."

"Um," Underseen interjected. "I think the pedestal is sinking."

"Yeah, there's a good reason for that," Saffa said, "because it is."

"That slimy . . . we were coming here to save his sorry --!"

"We have bigger concerns," Cloak said, noticing that caged animals of some sort were being unleashed. When Cloak saw them, he rolled his eyes. "Of course. Gate BURST it."

The creatures were gigantic, and their arachnid exoskeletons were the color of lobsters. Their pincers were serrated and hollow, their eight legs were like segmented spears. There tails were arched over their heads and were swollen red with a lustrous black stinger. Its head was the most radically changed -- it had a horizontal mouth full of jagged teeth like broken chitin with stalk eyes not unlike those of an Andalite with cartoony, human-like eyes. They were mutated scorpions, and Cloak was less than thrilled.

"Monsters!" Leatherhead shrieked. He was six, after all. This might be too much for him, even after what happened with that ferryman werecat.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 24, 2018, 05:59:35 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
New Concerns

"Yep," was Cloak's sole reply. He prepared himself for the battle. He never did like scorpions -- despite all Scorpio did for Master Avatar, his ancestor. He never could pinpoint why. Maybe it was something about the pincers, the segmented, venomous tail, or maybe it was the fact that there was nor real discernible head, that it's eyes basically just sat atop its body with its mouth where a neck would be? Eh.

What was worse was that these creatures were clearly abandoned down here and may have bred these new numbers, despite the obvious lack of food coming in. They were as starved as they were mutated. Some had clearly resorted to cannibalism between the rest. Which would explain why the majority of them gave the largest one a noticeable and considerable berth.

"Okay, when I said 'adventure' --" Saffa began.

"You didn't have this in mind?" Cloak asked, rather unnecessarily caustic.

"How was I supposed to know that there'd be mutated scorpions waiting to rip us limb from limb?" Saffa shot back.

"What?" Leatherhead said, tearfully. He was petrified, and very clearly didn't want to be here anymore. Yet, he was the one who insisted on coming. Dino was more than willing to babysit, but Leatherhead demanded to come with. GH wondered idly as he tried to comfort his adopted son that if DSS ever found out that he took Leatherhead on these little endeavors that he'd probably have LH taken away from him for child endangerment. GH pushed those thoughts away -- it will never come to that. The government had no grounds to separate them. Leatherhead asked with a quavering voice,  "Are we going to die?"

"It won't come to that," Cloak said, with absolute finality, "we have faced worse, Leatherhead. This is only a minor inconvenience. There are only ten, twelve of them."

It was then that the scorpions noticed that there was new meat within reach. Meat that they didn't need to crunch through a hard shell to get to the succulent flesh within. They could eat the flesh while it was still warm . . . they could fill their desperately eternally empty stomachs with substantive food . . . there had been so precious little over these centuries. Somehow, in the intervening millennia, their muscles and strength had not atrophied. It had only sharpened their pincers, sharpened their teeth.

"They noticed us," Underseen observed.

"But they haven't attacked yet," Cloak said, narrowing his eyes at them. Almost daring them to challenge him. It was perfectly true that they have faced worse. These things were fearsome, yes, but they were no Garrotik. They were no Soul Drinker. They were no world-eater. They were no Mongul. They were nothing.

"Yes, it seems that they are fighting each other over who gets to eat us," Saffa said, dryly. And so they were. Hollow, serrated pincers flashed, teeth (which was just jagged chiton that may have only formed due to battles over time) bit, and tails stung. What was ten before quickly dwindled down to five.

"One has to wonder how they managed to survive down here this long," Underseen said. "This pyramid had to have been sealed for thousands of years. And biological creatures just don't spontaneously manifest at this size."

"Not to mention that they have to have lungs, or an active respiratory system," Cloak said, as the platform pedestal that they were on began to shutter with age. "Otherwise they wouldn't be able to attain such mammoth sizes. The passive system most arthropods require a lot of oxygen, far more than you currently have in your atmosphere."

"How do you know this?" GH wondered, idly.

"It's Cloak," Underseen's answer was matter-of-fact. "He knows everything."

"That's not true, and you know it." Cloak responded.

What was five scorpions dwindled down to three. Now, instead of fighting each other, they decided to eat the remains of their fellows, seemingly forgetting about the RAFians. Their response was rather Taxxon-like, which probably made sense as they looked rather superficially similar. But their fellows wouldn't satiate them for very long. It was a wonder how they managed to populate this place, and perhaps repopulate it. Beneath there feet, Cloak could Earthsight a hollow tube, a tunnel of sort.

Of course, the irrigation systems were still in place. An impressive piece of human architectural ingenuity, considering they didn't have the sort of resources that his kind did at that age of the development of their civilization.

Meanwhile, the scorpions seemed to finish feasting on the flesh of their brothers and sisters, discarding the empty chitin shells (which looked as if it could make fine armor plating for a tank). But it seemed that they were still feeling a little peckish. Instead of turning on one another, they made a beeline for the RAFians as Leatherhead wailed in fear and misery.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2018, 06:01:13 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Drowning It

"Cloak, care to lift us out of here?" GH asked. He knew that Underseen, Abby, and Saffa could just shapeshift (well, morph in the case of the latter two) into something flying and get out of here.

"I don't that's advisable," Cloak said. "We don't need to run into Atreyu again and complicate matters again when he inevitably overreacts again."

"Then how do we get out of here without becoming scorpion snacks?" Underseen asked.

GH was about to make a joke to compare "scorpion snacks" to "Scooby Snax", but he couldn't think of a way to word it in a way he thought would be sufficiently funny without being too wordy or falling flat. So, he said nothing, instead.

"There's a tunnel beneath where we stand," Cloak said. "Presumably for irrigation purposes."

"Why would there be an irrigation tunnel beneath a pyramid? What use could a dead person have for irrigation?" Saffa asked, pragmatically.

"I do not know," Cloak said, "but speculation as to why are moot. It's a way out."

"This seems unnecessary," Abby said. It wasn't necessarily an objection, more of an observation.

"Perhaps," Cloak admitted, "but you guys said you wanted adventure. Remember?"

"Should have seen that coming back to bite me in the butt," Saffa said. She sighed. "Okay, then, let's get this over with."

"Are we sure that the monsters can't swim?" Leatherhead asked.

"There holding areas are dry -- well, there's no water in there to speak of anyway," Cloak said, glossing over the mutated scorpion viscera that was in there. He didn't think that Leatherhead needed to know those kinds of specifics. "And they're more reminiscent of land scorpions, which need to breathe (albeit passively) air, not water."

The three, who had turned on one another, had apparently decided a victor. The only one who survived. The big one. The one that was about two, three times Cloak's height. And Cloak happened to be the tallest one there, barring Saffa, Abby, or Underseen shape-changing into something larger. And, apparently, its hunger hadn't been sated yet. It never would be sated, it would seem, as they . ..  it was ravenous.

It loomed over them. Cloak wasn't intimidated. Neither was Underseen, Saffa, or Abby. GH was more concerned with putting himself between the scorpion and Leatherhead. He wasn't about to allow the scorpion to harm his adoptive son.

"Get into the tortoise shell," Cloak said, referencing the upended turtle shell full of gold and whatnot.

Then Cloak punched the ground as if he was executing the "Rekkoha (http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Rekkoha)" technique. This splintered the ground with a large fissure, which seemed to stun the behemoth scorpion and perplex it. It wasn't very smart of course, being little more than a monstrous, nonsentient creature with only instinct and hunger to guide its actions.

Then Cloak punched the ground again, in this "Rekkoha"-like technique. Another fissure appeared, perpendicular to the first one. Yet the flooring still held. Cloak was obviously pulling his punches -- after all, this was the person that kept the earth spinning after that alien cat thing tried to steal the rotational energy of it. But Cloak was in his Apex Tier of power then and he was forced to exert that amount of power. Cloak never really liked using more force than was necessary. Perhaps he misjudged what had to be done with the siren way back when, but he held to that belief of not using excessive force.

"Get ready," came his only warning.

"What's going to --" Leatherhead began to ask.

Cloak, with a loud roar, executed this "Rekkoha"-like technique, which his eyes glowed like golden-scarlet suns. Then he shattered the thick flooring into the wide irrigation tunnel. The mutated scorpion proved just what a crappy swimmer it was, and quickly drowned as the RAFians rode the upended turtle shell as if it was a raft upon rapids. The adventure was working to its natural conclusion.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2018, 09:09:06 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
An Adventure Ends, Another Begins

As the adventure ended, and they wound up in an oasis of some sort. They would give the treasure to the people of this country (not necessarily the government, because they were pretty sure that they would keep the wealth to themselves), although Leatherhead wanted to keep the thing that looked like some sort of bronze or gold gravy boat.

"Why?" GH asked. The thing looked rather worthless.

"I like it," Leatherhead said, honestly and earnestly. He was holding it rather delicately. "It's like a cool teapot or something."

Six-year-old logic, GH thought as he shrugged. He would allowed it, with the permission of everyone else, and they gave it. Cloak couldn't care less, if he was frankly honest. He had no interest in the shiny baubles that humans seem to value so highly, and he couldn't understand why it gave them such prestige to have such things in their possession. Then again, the Nexus was, by default, shiny everywhere. And anywhere that it wasn't, it was dark. The Realm Walker's own coronas were bright and colorful, so, such things didn't hold much economic value, he supposed.

"We done here?" Cloak said, sounding rather apathetic. "Had enough 'adventure'?"

"No need to be a wet blanket, Cloaky," Abby said.

***

Atreyu had hurried to present the ring to his boss, Marco Locke, who was waiting for him on the other side of the musical wall. Marco wore a dark yellow wizard's robe with a dark yellow sash, pale orange and blood red designs on the robe front, in a vertical stripe, and it had a medieval design to it. He also wore a dark yellow cape, with a high collar, and with a hood. He had the medallion danging to his chest that the massive eagle overhead had. The guy was massive and had a face like a bulldog with a thick, black mustache, graying beard that bunched into two separate bunches, and bushy, gray eyebrows. His teeth seemed to be pointed, almost animistic and bestial, and his eyes were small and sunken into his face.

"M-Master," Atreyu said, with a quavery voice. Then he raised the ring up on both of his hands, making it look horribly minuscule. Seeing this, Marco angrily slapped the useless trinket away.

"THAT is not the LAMP," Locke said, angrily, "that I sent you to get. How did you mistake 'lamp' for 'ring'?"

Atreyu started blubbering and stammering a protest or an apology -- it was hard to tell which.

Locke roared, "Silence!"

Then music started up, as Locke began to sing to Atreyu:

"Now I know you can be malicious,
Spiteful, and a trifle vicious.
It's not a secret
That you cheated
And lied.
And you've done some double-dealing
Scheming, swindling and stealing.
You're an amateur, but heaven knows you tried."

"I assure y-you, M-Master," Atreyu said, nearly sobbing with fear, "I d-did. I t-tried my h-hardest. . . ."

Locke patted him on the head, as if he was a puppy that had been naughty, "Good boy. Very soon your efforts will be . . . rewarded"

Then he launched back into the song, which was actually opening up the door behind them.

"Oh, you'll develop so much faster,
Now you're working for a master!
Who will help you cultivate your darker side!
You'll discover wicked ways that you've never known before!
And you'll find, when you're really rotten to the core . . .
It feels so good to be bad.
So delicious to be a despicable cad.
It's just so thrilling and so fulfilling
To give someone the worse time they've ever had!
It feels so good to be bad.
Let's leave this pyramid, it's damp.
And I promise you, by sunset, I'll --
I'll have the lamp!"

"Why can't I get them for you?" he asked, his voice losing a bit of its quaver.

"'Coz you two had your chance and blew it.
I entrusted you to do it
But you BUNGLED it,
And threw your chance away!
It's a problem you created,
If the lamp can't be located,
I'm not naming names,
BUT SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!"

"I c-can t-try again!" he pleaded.

"You'll never find it." Locke snorted derisively, before going back to his song:

"Though you gave me cause to doubt you,
There's a loathsomeness about you,
That attracts me to you
As a protege!
And when you've learned every creepy, crummy thing I know --
You'll taste the joy that comes when you're the lowest of the low!
It feels so good to be bad!
So delightful to be a deplorable cad!
It's so unfeeling to have the feeling
That what you're doing
Gets trouble brewing
And drives everybody mad!
You've got my guarantee
It feels so good . . . to be . . . bad!"

Then he let out a good, long belly laugh.

"So exciting!
Ole!
So inviting!
So good to be bad!
Ha ha!"

With that, the two left, for parts unknown.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwd86x81SI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwd86x81SI)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 26, 2018, 09:13:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Leatherhead's Lamp

It was perhaps a day or two later, and Leatherhead, who wasn't wearing his humansuit as they were safely within the forum, was looking at his new trinket in the company of Cloak, GH, Abby, and Saffa. He was holding it up to his eye, and he thought that it was a bit dustier than he liked. So, he rubbed the dust off . . . which caused the lamp to shake violating as a voice began to roar out of it, almost like ticklish laughter. The lamp itself began to glow.

Cloak's eyes widened with instant recognition what this meant. He wasn't too pleased about it -- not for the reasons that one may expect. So, it was abated dread that Cloak watched as a bunch of blue sparkles and smoke shot from the opening of the oil lamp. Cloak knew full well that it would be a genie, but the genie took on an appearance that Cloak had not anticipated. He looked like a humanization of a Jirachi (https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-sm/385.shtml) with cobalt blue skin with golden clothing and pointed shoes. He wore golden manacles around his wrists, and he . . . looked as if he was a child between the age of ten and twelve.

"Whoaaaaaaa-ooooooh! Oi! Does it feel great to be outta of there!" he exclaimed. "I've had a cramp in my arm for nearly thirteen hundred years!"

With the exception of Cloak, the rest of the RAFians were gobsmacked. They hadn't expected this. Cloak frowned at this. He knew what would come of this. He didn't hate genies as a race, he just despised what they stood for. Making wishes to make your dreams come true? That's far too easy. No effort went into achieving that. Thereby, it won't mean nearly as much. You're suppose to go through an experience to shape yourself and your destiny. Just having a magical genie grant you that wish? It makes it meaningless. Effortless. It took nothing to get to that point.

Cloak had to work to master each of the six elements of Earth, Metal, Fire, Air, Water, and Wood. It wasn't easy, but through his tutelage with his grandfather, Sage, he managed. He grew in raw power (although he didn't really like that part). He worked to get over his emotional abuses of his childhood. He learned how to control and manage his emotions. None of that was just handed to him, none of that was just granted by a wish. He worked on all that. He put in the necessary effort. And he came out better for it, more or less.

"Oh, how great does it feel to be out of there!" the genie exalted. Then he noticed Leatherhead and the RAFians. Particularly Leatherhead, who still held the lamp, "Oh, what, pray tell, is the name of my new master?"

"L-Leatherhead," was his hesitant response. Then he replied after a few seconds hesitation, "I'm your master?"

"That's right!" Leatherhead's eye widened suddenly as a graduation cap and diploma magically appeared on his head and in his outstretched hand with a poof, then collapsing into smoke afterward. "He can be taught!"

GH, Saffa, and Abby stifled laughter, as Cloak looked on at the proceedings from the shadows of the nearby wall, his expression sour.

"What do you wish of me?" the genie said, going into a variety of impressions that Robin Williams himself would have been proud of. "The ever-impressive, long-contained, often-imitated, but never duplicated-duplicated-duplicated-duplicated . . . Genie of the Lamp! Right here, direct from the lamp. Right here for your very much wish fulfillment."

Cloak's expression soured further.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Leatherhead said, his eyes sparkling. "Wish fulfillment?"

"Three wishes," the Genie said, "no more, no less. That's it. Three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds."

"Am I dreaming, Daddy?" Leatherhead addressed GH.

"Master!" the Genie said, with rather more liveliness than Cloak really cared for, "I don't think you understand what you got here. So, why don't you ruminate, whilst I illuminate the plausibilities?"

Then he snapped his fingers and lively music played. Leatherhead was eager for this song, while Cloak considered leaving.

"Well, Larry Dunn had them forty thieves,
A talking seal had a thousand tales
But, master, you in luck, 'coz up your sleeves
You got a brand of magic never fails!
You got some power in your corner now.
Some heavy ammunition in your camp.
You got some punch, pizzazz, yahoo and how!
See all you gotta do is rub that lamp.
And I'll say --
'Mister Leatherhead, sir
What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order.
Jot it down.'
You ain't never had a friend like me.
Life is your restaurant
And I'm your maître d’!
C'mon whisper what it is you want.
You ain't never had a friend like me.
Yes sir, we pride ourselves on service.
You're the boss!
The king! The shah!
Say what you wish
It's yours! True dish!
How about a little more baklava?
Have some of column 'A'.
Try ALL of column 'B'!
I'm in the mood to help you, dude!
You ain't never had a friend like me!"

Then he did an impressive amount of scatting, before continuing the song. At this point, Cloak did indeed leave.

"Can your friends do this?
Can your friends do that?
Can your friends pull this out their little hat?
Can your friends go -- poof?
Well, looky here!
Can your friends go, 'abracadabra', and let 'er rip!
And then make the sucker disappear?
So, dontcha sit there slack jawed, buggy-eyed,
I'm here to answer all your prayers!
You got me bona fide, certified.
You got a genie for your chargé d'affaires.
I got a powerful urge to help you out!
So whatcha wish? I really wanna know!
You got a list that's three miles long, no doubt.
Well, all you gotta do is rub like so -- and oh!
Mister Leatherhead, sir, have a wish or two or three!
I'm on the job, you big nabob!
You ain't never had a friend, never had a friend,
You ain't never had a friend, never had a friend,
You ain't never . . . had a friend . . . like me!
You ain't never had a friend like me, hah!"

Of course, now the whole of RAF knew that Leatherhead had a genie. Soon the greed -- the materialistic greed -- and the laziness will come. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Op1TaXmCw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Op1TaXmCw)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 26, 2018, 12:46:08 PM

Aw, why couldn’t I have found the lamp? I’d have wished for an entire swimming pool of coffee

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on April 26, 2018, 05:28:02 PM

I'm still quietly following this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2018, 07:00:08 AM

Quote from: gh, King of Birbs on April 26, 2018, 12:46:08 PM

Aw, why couldn’t I have found the lamp? I’d have wished for an entire swimming pool of coffee

Whoever holds the lamp gets the wishes, GH. I thought this was common knowledge -- the Genie was addressing the song to Leatherhead because Leatherhead was currently holding the lamp.

Quote from: Gaz on April 26, 2018, 05:28:02 PM

I'm still quietly following this.

Good. And I mean that sincerely, Gazzy. It was starting to feel like no one was.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Rampant Wishing

What came next was hardly surprising, much to the ire of the Realm Walker. The arrival of a wish-granter such as a genie always seemed to cause the orange light of avarice to glow brighter and brighter. This was like the wishing star all over again, only this time legitimate instead of a childish game by a childish blue dwarf star. Cloak himself seemed to be the only one not making wishes (well, Richard and Estelore as well, but they were away from the forum at the time, and Falc0 was too busy off hunting).

GH had wished himself up an Olympic swimming pool of coffee, for some reason, and presumably made two other wishes that Cloak never heard about.

Parker had wished for a "copy chip" sort of update to his armor, which gave him a mimetic ability to copy certain capabilities of his enemies into his armor. Essentially making him into the SPARTAN equivalent of Mega Man or Mega Man X. Whether he had made his other two wishes Cloak did not know.

Some wishes were rather benign, like Phoenix just wishing to pass his next exam, and some were petty, which Cloak didn't even bother finding out.

All this free-wheeling magic, and all of it, seemingly, turning out just as the wisher wanted. But a lot of the wishes made were of the sort that would, inevitably, come back and bite them in the butt. But so blinded with avarice, they failed to see this, just as they did when they rushed to get to that Veiled wishing star. None question the permanence of these wishes either, just as they never question the unforeseen consequences, the ramifications, the logistics of them. No one seemed to realized that, after the novelty of the wish wore off, that the wish would feel hollow. They had reach their ultimate destination, but had gone on no journey, experienced nothing on the way, to get there. Yet, they were being granted left, right, and center. They seemed blissfully unaware of these things, only Cloak seemed to ponder such concepts, away from the hubbub and clamor for the lamp.

And, as it would seem, the only other person who hadn't made a wish was Leatherhead, outside his first one for a simple sandwich. He didn't understand the magnitude of the wishes, and he was always a simple, happy-go-lucky kid. He didn't even wish to be braver, which is something that he really did want, because didn't think of it. After he made that wish, the lamp had somehow gotten away from him. The other RAFians becoming a bit greedy to get their three wishes. All blissfully unaware that one of them would have sacrifice their wish to undo all the chaos that had stemmed from this.

And the genie? He wasn't overwhelmed at all, it seemed. He seemed to be ecstatic to have an audience to play for again. Even he was lost in the chaos, seemingly oblivious to the crowd eagerly waiting to get their three wishes. Cloak couldn't help but think that this was unbecoming for a RAFian. The others were making wishes based in wrath, materialistic greed, lust, pride, sloth, jealously, gluttony, and other rather hedonistic things.

Things like this never end well, not with a total reversal to restore the status quo . . .

***

"Stay here," Locke ordered Atreyu. "I will go and retrieved the lamp myself."

"B-but, M-master," Ima Atreyu began.

"SILENCE," Locke said in ringing tones. "I already gave you plenty of opportunity to get it. And what do you get me instead? A ring. I told you to get me the lamp. And you present me with a ring. How on earth could you make such a mistake, if not for sheer incompetence? No, Atreyu. I go myself. You've already fouled up too much."

Atreyu wanted to protest, but found that his voice and nerve had decided to cruelly abandon him at this moment. So, he said nothing and bowed his head in compliance.

"Stay loyal to me, Atreyu," Locke warned as he turned to leave. "You do not want to know what happens to those who are disloyal to me."

Atreyu shuttered and shivered at the thought. He had a notion of what happened, and he assumed it to be a lethal one. Whether painful or not, he did not want to know.

"Stay here," Locke repeated, before using his amulet -- the medallion hanging from his neck -- to shapeshift into a large eagle. Then, with a throaty squawk, he flew away. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 27, 2018, 12:09:51 PM

Awwwwww yeah, my dreams are finally coming true. Coffee swimming pool, bright green eyes . . .

Oh, my third wish? Well, isn’t that obvious? I WANT TOOL TO ACTUALLY MAKE A NEW GODDAMN ALBUM, THAT’S WHAT I WANT! IT’S BEEN TWELVE YEARS, WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME!?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 28, 2018, 05:03:53 AM

. . .  >:D

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Marco Locke's Journey

It wasn't very hard for Locke to find out where the lamp went. The forum was full of outlandish things that one could not normally or naturally achieve. But Locke couldn't just force his way in. This forum was an unknown location to him, so when he was just out of view of the forum, he transformed from his eagle state into that of a large, ugly, gray rat . . . which carried aspects of his human face even in this form, allowing him to continue to be expressive and emote, although it could just be a limitation of the talisman.

He quickly ran over to the walls of the forum. He attempted to sneak in through the gaps in the wrought iron gate. Only he didn't account for Code Avalon, though on its lowest setting. The force field would not allow him in, and he didn't anticipate this. And how could he? He didn't know about Code Avalon. It wasn't something that RAFians go on "news" shows and explain it in excruciating detail. As such, it wasn't exactly widely known unless you carried a Mark.

Now Code Avalon wasn't perfect, of course. It had it's flaws, just like the Mark itself. It has been down more times than any RAFian would care to admit, and it had a tendency to fail at the worse possible times. But, of course, Locke didn't know this. He hadn't done any research on these RAFians, thinking them inconsequential and bumbling buffoons.

He transformed into a ****roach (which still had his human face, in chitin) and flew up to the apex of Code Avalon. He heard a carrying voice, and the conversation that followed.

"For my final wish," GH said, raising his right index finger in the air, "I WISH TOOL TO ACTUALLY MAKE A NEW ALBUM!"

"Done," the Genie said, with a snap of his fingers and clash of thunder.

GH waited a minute, and looked around. He hesitated a minute, before demanding. "Where is it?"

"It'll come out July Thirteenth," the Genie said.

"But it's September!" GH protested, as one of the former wishes of an undisclosed RAFian -- a small purple man with an elongated head with an inset gem, who just said "Globgor" -- ran around, repeating that singular word..

"You didn't say 'now'," the Genie said, simply.

"I wish for it n--" GH said, still holding the lamp, before the Genie interrupted him.

"Your wish quota has been reached, former Master," the Genie said. "Sorry, but I don't make the rules. I'm bound by the rule of three."

GH wasn't to happy about this, and was about to childishly throw the lamp at the genie, before he thought better of it. Leatherhead was watching, and GH decided that it was probably not in his best interest to antagonize a being with phenomenal, cosmic power. GH withdrew to stand behind Leatherhead, and tried hard not to sulk.

Meanwhile, Locke witnessed all of this, and he looked at the RAFians with absolute scorn and derision. Such power were wasted on these children. They had no vision. He had used the genie of the lamp to wish for immortality, to enable him to obtain this talisman, to sink Atlantis (that would teach them for refusing him a reservation!) -- these RAFians were wasting this power for petty wishes. Wishing for stupid, worthless, materialistic things. The Genie wasted its considerable talents by catering to these plebeians, by indulging this licentious crowd of vulgar creatures.

He would take his lamp back, and he would not allow it be stolen from him again. He would be able to have his former power back again. True, he did already have a corporate empire, but that was lacking compared to the sheer power of a genie at his command, having infinite wishes again. But first he must reclaim that which was his.

He didn't know how he would get through this force field and maintain the element of surprise. Without the powers of the genie, he doubt that he could take on these peasants all by himself. Then he would never reclaim what was his by right! He . . .

WHAT WAS THAT FOOL DOING HERE?! AND HOW'D HE GET INSIDE THIS BUBBLE?!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on April 28, 2018, 10:23:28 AM

Well, to be fair, I’d be fine waiting a few months if it was confirmed :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2018, 05:04:37 AM

Not the reaction I was anticipating.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Ima Atreyu Gonna Betray You!

Atreyu may have feared Locke greatly, but, as expected, with that fear came resentment. Forced loyalty always results in eventual disloyalty, unless the person in question had been thoroughly brainwashed into fanatical devotion. Atreyu was not brainwashed, but just cowed into compliance, and, as such, held no true loyalty to the man. So confident and complacent Locke was in Ima Atreyu's servitude, he never thought that he would be disloyal to him. He never entertained the notion that Atreyu would dare to disobey his wishes.

Atreyu wouldn't have, but he had achieved a brief spritz of reckless daring, and he traveled to the forum. Atreyu was attracted to the same spectacle that Locke was attracted to. It rather ruined RAF's mystique to have all this magical chaos in the forum. The Genie was tirelessly granting wishes left, right, and center. Atreyu realized this, and, rather than being motivated by servitude to his proclaimed master, he was now motivated entirely by avarice. He wanted his three wishes. He wanted to finally get what he wanted.

He rushed to the gates of the forum, and, due to a glitch in Code Avalon, managed to penetrate it when Locke himself couldn't. Normally, Yarin, Xeno, Aquilai, Goom, or another RAFian would have been able to catch such a glitch of this massive proportions, but they were too busy with the Genie. They were unable to resist the allure of the prospects of three wishes without provisos or limitations. Atreyu quickly stole into the forum, and waited. His time would come. He would finally get what he wanted. He would be the one on the top. He would be giving the orders. Yes, that would be what he would wish for. He would become a "somebody", finally.

He had no parents, no brothers, no sisters. All he remembered were the streets. The streets and being hungry. Being turned away from other families. Unwanted and penniless. When he managed to procure the first bit of currency he had, he knew only one thing. He had to have more. He had to have more until he had more than anyone else. Until he had all the money for himself.

Unfortunately, he didn't have sufficient ruthlessness for such endeavor, and he was encumbered by his innate fear and cowardice. Though most of his boot-licking tended to be an act to ingratiate himself with those in power. But he held no loyalty to such people. He may have feared them, may have allowed them to cow him into submission, but force doesn't inspire loyalty, and brutes, like Marco Locke, never understand such things. Locke wasn't much into the middling things like compassion and generosity, being more inclined to cruelty and contempt.

Anyway, Atreyu had managed to sneak into the forum. He managed to steal into the crowd of RAFians that had gathered around the lamp. Leatherhead still hadn't made a wish, having wanted to please everyone around him. He wasn't a real selfish six-year-old, and just wanted to make people happy. Granted, he didn't think it was fair, especially because he was the one who wanted to keep the lamp in the first place, but he didn't say anything. He was afraid of being rebuked for protesting.

It was easy to essentially pickpocket the lamp in the confusion of the crowd. The only RAFians who left were those that have had all three wishes granted, some happy with their wishes, others disappointed because of some technicality. Atreyu easily took the lamp from the throng, and there was a brief bit of confusion as to where the lamp went, and even more so when the Genie vanished in a puff of smoke. Atreyu quickly streaked out of the crowd, unnoticed. He quickly made his way to the gate, using the confusion as cover.

He didn't realize that he had come under the scrutiny of two individuals. The watchful, hateful eyes of his master, Marco Locke, and the Earthsight of Cloak. Cloak did not know the identity of the man whose footsteps he "saw" but he knew from the body language with each footstep that he was shifty and trying to be inconspicuous, which was suspicious in its own right. Meanwhile, Marco Locke just assumed that Atreyu was just securing the lamp for him, and didn't conceive the possibility of Atreyu betraying him or even being disloyal. But also thought cowing people into submission was a way of generating true loyalty, which was a foolish philosophy.

Atreyu made it outside of the forum, taking the advantage of the same glitch that allowed him entry in the first place. Marco Locke prepared to move to reclaim the lamp, when Atreyu summoned the Genie and made his first wish. He wished to get out of there to a safe place, and this was before Marco Locke could find him. Marco was livid with this, as he was sure that he knew that he was coming for it. Marco saw the lamp as truly his property that was stolen from him and hidden in that pyramid by its thief. The Genie was his slave and no one else's.

But Atreyu was taken to an abandoned warehouse, one of which that used to be one of Malice's little dens before she moved house from it. It was safe for the moment, it's true. Atreyu failed to take into account that Marco would be out for him, and that he would be out for his blood. Marco demanded absolute, unfaltering loyalty -- and that never works -- and would punish severely anyone who did not show him such loyalty, that would dare to disrespect him in such a manner.

Of course, the next wish that Atreyu made would just make matters even worse.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2018, 05:53:54 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
This Is A VERY BAD MOVE

He wanted wealth. He wanted riches. He wanted to be on top. He wanted to be in the oligarch's club, the club of plutocrats. He wanted to be able to have a bin of money that he could dive into and swim through like Scrooge McDuck (except that this is physically impossible, unless you have a superpower that allows you to do so). He wanted never to have a fiscal worry from this point on.

"Don't give me to that warlock," Genie had begged Atreyu. "You hold the lamp now. You're my master now."

The Genie was appealing to Atreyu's greed, appealing to his selfishness. The Genie was desperate not to go back to Marco Locke, who was once known as Mercolock. "Marco Locke" was just a modernization of his former name. He was immortal, after all, and he needed to change certain things to the time. He couldn't force things to change with him, as he lost the lame for millennia.

"Anything you want, Master," Genie had intoned. "Money. Riches. They can all be yours. You just have to wish for them."

Now Genie was appealing to Atreyu's plutomania. He was clearly making headway. He was turning Atreyu's head.

"No limitations, no provisos," Genie had insisted. "Anything you want . . . it can be yours!"

Atreyu was starting to really like this idea. He wouldn't need to be subservient to Marco Locke. He would be free from any and all subservience. He would be his own master . . . he would make his own rules . . . he would be able to do anything he wants . . . he would be free . . . free . . .

"All you have to do is make a wish," Genie had intoned again.

And he was sure that he could use his final wish to wish for more wishes as well . . . he could have whatever he wanted . . . he could have whoever he wanted . . . he could be anyone that he wanted to be . . .

"Just don't give me over to Mercolock," the Genie said, being candid for the first time.

"I shall," Atreyu said. "I shall make my second wish."

Genie said nothing, unsure where Atreyu was going to go with this. Anxious as to what Atreyu would wish for.

"I wish to have all of Marco Locke's wealth, fortune, assets, and businesses," Atreyu said. He had allowed his greed, his plutomania, his desire to poetically topple Marco Locke. To take all he had.

"Marco Locke? That sounds a lot like --" the Genie said, but his curse forced him to grant the wish. Even he realized that the company was probably Mercolock's, built up after the lamp was absconded with. Even the Genie, which looked like a child despite being older than even Cloak, realized that this was no a good idea. That this was not a wise decision at all.

Everything that Marco Locke had accumulated in the millennia he was alive now belonged to Atreyu. Somehow, Atreyu didn't think that he would realize what happened or where he was. This wish was made, in part, to humiliate Locke, to punish him for Atreyu's mistreatment. But this was incredibly shortsighted. Atreyu never considered that Locke might know precisely how deactivate all the security measures, not to mention that he can turn into any animal with that talisman. A talisman that cannot be touched negatively in anyway by Genie's magicks. He never considered any of this, and Genie saw this straight away when he realized Marco Locke was Mercolock.

"This is bad," he said, nervously. He looked absolutely terrified. This was like basically a billboard to Mercolock. He wasn't going to ignore this.

Atreyu wasn't paying attention to him, as his attire had changed to one of excess opulence and was extremely baggy on him. It consisted of a large, white turban (with what appears to resemble a white neck shade coming down on opposite sides) complete with a sapphire gem and orangish, pale yellow feather, cream undergarments, and a matching top, with a white cape with a yellow interior flowing down, just below his calves. The outfit is finished with golden brown shoes, with swirled tips. He was giddy about this and his newfound wealth . . . that he didn't earn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2018, 07:41:37 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
All Caught Up

Of course, Marco Locke noticed. He immediately made a beeline towards his tower estate. Or what was once his tower estate, and it belonged to Atreyu now. The mad thief still didn't realize his folly, either. Didn't realize he had just made himself a target. The fool.

Marco Locke wasn't overt with his arrival into his towers. He knew a way around each and every defense -- having designed every last one himself, and putting in a workaround for only someone with the powers that his talisman granted him. It was almost as if he expected someone to betray him in this manner. No one, not even Genie, noticed that there was a ****roach with a human face crawling toward the lamp, which Atreyu foolishly set down on a smaller, circular table with a glass top.

Locke saw this and smiled inwardly. Atreyu was always a fool. Those that sought materialistic wealth, those inflicted with plutomania, were always so easy to manipulate and buy, in Locke's opinion. The lamp was something to be discarded only when you used up all your wishes. But, with his talisman combined with the lamp, Locke would have infinite wishes. All that he wanted to could be within his grasp again. True, he would have to suffer the Genie backtalking him, but he could easily wish that away.

He would be able to strip people of their emotions, their wills, their minds, or their very lives if he had the inclination. He would have all the phenomenal cosmic power at his hands. Granted, he would have to use the Genie as a conduit, but that was a very small difference. The power would still fundamentally be his. Power that he will never let go of, never relinquish again.

Once he had made contact with the lamp as a ****roach, he immediately snatched it as he turned human. As Genie screamed in horror -- his most abusive, and long-term, master had reclaimed his lamp. Atreyu looked confused, perplexed and scandalized. How did Locke know where he was? He still did not realize his folly. He had allowed himself to get ****y and complacent.

"Calm down, slave," Locke said, harshly, as he combined his talisman with the top of the lamp. His voice sounded rather like Christopher Lloyd. "It's just going to be like old times."

Then he turned to his attention to Atreyu who was trying to slink away. He stepped in front of him, as the man poked his head from beneath the rug he was hiding. Locke said, "And where are you going?"

"Just outside, Master," Atreyu said, rather oily. "You and Genie have so much to catch up on, I thought you'd be wanting a few minutes alone."

Locke, in one powerful, fluid movement, picked up Atreyu by his collar and held him until he was face-to-face with him.

Atreyu concluded, rather feebly and timidly, "I know I would."

Locke gave a sidelong glance at the Genie of the Lamp, and said, "Slave, I wish you would turn this disloyal swine into something more fitting."

"Just like old times alright," Genie said, glumly, as Atreyu whimpered. Then Genie granted the wish and he turned Atreyu into a rather ugly-looking pig. With a terrified squeal, Atreyu the pig fled the room into parts unknown as Locke gave a deep laugh. Then he criticized Atreyu's garish redecorating of his office, and wished for the Genie to make this place like their old home.

"Right, casa de cuckoo." he said, sullenly. He never liked serving Mercolock. The RAFians -- they were fun. What imagination! What creativity! And none of it to harm anyone else. Well, to harm themselves in the long run, but they didn't mean to, like Mercolock does. He was a hateful, vengeful man. And now he had unlimited wishes again.

The place rocked and rolled as it began to transform into a black stone fortress with lava-colored grout. Then it began to grow horned pustules, transforming into one bizarre hellscape. The tower became a hellish form of a floating castle, with Marco Locke on its throne. He was home in his floating death machine. It was like a stylized Warworld, but on a smaller, more manageable scale. He felt elated to be back in the position that he thought that he deserved. All-powerful. He was now all-powerful. Everything and anything is at his fingertips once more. Anyone who dare to wrong him . . . well, they'd be sorry.

"Let's get going, slave," Mercolock said to Genie.

"To where?" he asked, playing for time.

"You know where," he snarled.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that," came a voice. An uninvited voice. "I've seen what you've done with the power you now wield. You wield it like a weapon and very irresponsibly. I cannot allow you to keep this kind of power and endanger everyone."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2018, 08:09:58 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Determined Defiance

"Huh-uh! Baaaad move!" the Genie warned imploringly at this newcomer.

"You dare to speak to me that way?!" Mercolock roared, rising from his throne. "You threaten me?

"Yes," Cloak said, stepping into the like, his eponymous cloak mincing the air in a threatening way. It was almost like the start of a Death Battle. Cloak had no fear of such a man. Without the Genie, he wasn't powerful at all. It's only by having the lamp that he was any sort of threat, and Cloak knew Locke knew this. It would take more than Mercolock to strike fear into the heart of the Realm Walker -- he had nothing to compare to Ursa. He couldn't even lick her boots in terms of terror.

The Genie changed tack, "Please, Mercolock! He's had a lousy day -- I assume. Maybe a hot bath with a warm glass of goat's milk will --"

"SILENCE!" the mad sorcerer roared. "I wish that you would cast him out of my house. DO IT."

The Genie tried to struggle against it, but he was forced to grant the wish just the same. He grunted, "I . . . I have no choice."

"I understand," Cloak said, but he didn't sound fearful.

Powerful gusts of wind came billowing up before him, but Cloak did not move, the wind seemed to split and billow around him. It did not cast him out.

"Air? Seriously?" Cloak said, with a tone of disbelief. Cloak addressed Mercolock. "You use one of the Six Elements against me? Do you not who I am? What I can do, sorcerer?"

"Slave! What's the meaning of this?!" he demanded of the Genie.

"I . . . I can't . . . I dunno . . ." he said, but he wasn't convulsing like he did before he granted the wish. It was as if he did.

"Sorcerer, you don't know what I am, do you?" Cloak repeated. "Well, allow me to enlighten you. You cannot use wind to be rid of me. You cannot use fire, water, wood, metal, or earth to be rid of me. And you can't simply wish me gone -- my kind are, to be rather blunt, magic Teflon. Even the magicks of a genie doesn't stick to us or affect us."

"What is this madness?" he demanded. "No such thing exists unless I decide it to be so!"

"You didn't have infinite wishes until recently, and it has already gone to your head, has it?" Cloak derided. "You cannot get rid of me so easily, sorcerer. As it should be with problems. You shouldn't be able to magically ignore your problems or cast them aside as if they have little significance. You have to deal with them, not ignore them.

"Slave, I wish for you to get rid of him!!" he roared. Genie actually felt no compunction to do this, oddly enough.

"That won't work, sorcerer," Cloak said. "Magic won't work on me. I will not go away. I will remain here to remind you of the unconscionable nature of your actions. You clearly haven't a conscience of your own, so, if need be, I shall be that conscience."

"No! Begone!"

"No."

"Get lost!"

"No."

"Go away!"

"No."

"Slave, get rid of him!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 30, 2018, 09:27:11 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a bit early.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Well, That Was Unexpected

"I've already told you," Cloak said, "the genie cannot fulfill that wish simply because he cannot blow me away, and elemental attacks are useless."

This was a bit of a bluff on Cloak's part, because there were ways to evict him that would make it very difficult for him to return. But Mercolocke didn't need to know that.

"I want you gone."

"We all want our problems to magically go away," Cloak said, waxing philosophic, "we all would like our consciences to magically go away at some point. But that's never a solution. The only way to deal with a problem is to address it, and find a solution from there."

"Don't psychoanalyze me, abomination," Mercolocke said, apparently thinking that was a stinging insult. It wasn't, not by a long shot.

"Sorcerer," Cloak said, seriously. "It's not too late. Redemption can come if you allow it, if you work toward it."

"'Redemption'?" Locke scoffed derisively. "I've the power now. I don't need the redeeming. I can do whatever I want!"

"You sound like a petulant child," Cloak said, stern and parental. "Only children think of doing whatever they please. Only children regard responsibility as something that burdens only others. You need to be accountable and responsible for your own actions."

"Slave, silence this annoying interloper!" he demanded. But, once again, the Genie was not forced to do so. "DO IT!!"

"I keep telling you," Cloak said, "magicks, no matter how powerful, have no effect, lasting or otherwise, on me or my kind. He can't grant such wishes due to this. Because they cannot and will not work."

"Silence!"

"No," Cloak said. "This clearly the only time in your unnecessarily lengthened lifespan that you ever had someone stand up to you with the power to back it up. And you do what all tinhorn dictators do. You cry and rage and blubber and bemoan. You cannot force me into subservience, not through magic not through any other means."

"Be silent!!" he demanded, sounding more like a tantruming toddler.

"No." Cloak said, firmly, treating him as a toddler having a tantrum. "You've been alive for millennia, Mercolock. It is really time that you grow up."

Mercolock didn't stop to realize that Cloak had used his name, revealing that Cloak had done his research into this sorcerer. Whatever let him to want to look up and read up on him wasn't clear, but chances were that it was just a name he came by when Cloak was just reading in the library. The Dwellers written languages were so different from his kind, but interesting nonetheless.

No, Mercolock looked as if he wanted to throw things at Cloak, looked as if he had forgotten entirely about the Genie or attacking Cloak indirectly. He was always a straightforward type of person, and only really got creative when it had to with malice or vengeance . . . or humiliation. Mercolock yearned to shut that smug face of this interloper. He thought he knew so much. This cloaked figure didn't know anything about him! Who was he to him?! He couldn't use the Genie to attack him. He was wider than this creature but this creature was taller than him by at least a foot.

"You need to grow up, Mercolock," Cloak repeated. "In all this millennia, it's quite amazing that you haven't grown as a person -- at least from the limited accounts that I've read. If anything, you've seen to have regressed."

"You don't know me!" he growled. "You don't know what what I've gone through to get to this point!"

"You were it on your face, and show it in the recklessness of your actions," Cloak said.

"Be silent!!!"

"No."

"Shut yer trap!!"

"No, Mercolock, I shall not be doing that."

Then the sorcerer acted without thinking, an impulsive act that he regretted immediately. He had only registered for a brief moment in his anger that his right hand had something really solid in it. He threw it at Cloak to shut him up, and only realized when it had left his reach.

He had thrown the lamp at Cloak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2018, 05:06:37 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Tying Up These Loose Ends

But, of course, Cloak caught it.

"Why, thank you, Mercolock," Cloak said, with faux gratitude and a note of overt sarcasm, having caught the lamp in his left hand,  "But if you wanted me to have the lamp, you could have handed it over instead."

"GIVE ME THAT BACK!!" he roared making his way to that, only to find himself inside a golden-scarlet energy bubble.

"No," Cloak said, removing Mercolock's talisman from the lamp, and reducing it to powder.

"MY TALISMAN!!" he screeched. "You had no right!!"

"Do not engage me in an argument of rights," Cloak warned, his tone turning dangerous for the first time. "You have a lot more discrepancies in that regard on your name than I do on mine. Perhaps that's why you changed it."

Then he addressed the Genie, although he couldn't help but feel a little hypocritical with what he was now about to do. "Genie, I get three wishes now, do I not?"

"You hold the lamp and never made a wish," he said, as if he was unsure what Cloak was planning. "So, yes."

"Good. My first wish," Cloak said, part of him wishing how it didn't have to come down to this, "I wish for Mercolock's immortality to be revoked and for him to find and keep his conscience and compassion and become an upstanding member of society until his death."

"WHAT?! No!" he roared, though muffled by the bubble he was in. But it was too late, as the Genie (almost gleefully) granted the wish and he vanished from the room.

"My second wish," Cloak said, "I wish this fortress reverts back to its former state as a skyscraper, harmless to the populace of the city."

The Genie again granted this wish with much appreciated gusto. However, Cloak and the Genie did not go with the tower and were just inside the edge of the forest. A nice mediation spot that wasn't too far from the forum and not compromised. But Cloak didn't concern himself with that at that moment.

"Now, it's time to stop all this wishing nonsense," Cloak said, as the Genie actually got scared, "ironically, not only with my final wish, but yours, too."

"You can't kill me," he said, at once.

"I never said that I would," Cloak said. "Genie, for my final wish. I wish that the Genie of the Lamp . . . was a real boy with caring, loving parents, friends, a life -- the whole shebang, with no remnants or memories of being a genie."

"What . . . ?" the Genie asked, almost as if what he heard was too good to possibly be true.

"You heard me. You're free." Cloak said, releasing the lamp as it was the one who granted this wish this time. The Genie's cobalt blue color disappeared slowing as it became a more human-like skin tone. Then his clothing became more contemporary as he vanished in bluish-white light. Without a genie to inhabit it, the lamp began to crumble away into dust.

It was done. All his magic would fade as well, all the wishes the RAFians made, Atreyu would become a man again, all of it undone.

***

Gene Kinder was performing at his school's play. It wasn't a big part, but he didn't care. He was on stage, and acting. He loved doing it, loved losing himself in a role. He was incredibly happy and content with his life thus far. Granted, he was only eleven going on twelve, but it was a good life thus far. His parents were some of the best anyone could ask for, Jonathan and Martha Kinder were doting on him, being supportive but firm with him. Both were greengrocers, and worked hard to provide for Gene. Gene didn't have any siblings, with Gene having been their miracle child.

Gene had no memory of ever being the Genie of the Lamp. He had no remnants of the magic he possessed as a genie. He was a flat-scan human now -- a human without any powers whatsoever. He was just extremely talented at acting and comedy, although he didn't like having anything on his wrists, where the manacles were as a genie.

He would be okay, and happy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2018, 05:52:43 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
I've Got This

Cloak had returned to the Nexus, taking up the offer to be a member of the Realm Walker Council, only to find out that he was the only Councilor there.

"There's still a lot to go. Sure that you can handle it?" Faith had asked. She was genuinely concerned about his well-being. She always was good to him -- granted they would have disagreements, what siblings didn't?

"Uh, sure . . ." Cloak said, putting up a front. He was hiding his own feeling of insecurity and inadequacy. He sang:

"Council decision-making?
I think I'm ready to do it.
Yes, sure, I'm slightly faking,
But there can't be that much to it.
Bring it on, I'm ready 'cause I've got this,
I've got this.
Just watch!"

Then the security bird steward said, "Councilor Cloak, may I present . . . your most humble constituency?"

An equine Realm Walker sang as he jabbed and accusing finger at a rival equine Realm Walker:

"He won't let my [translation unavailable] graze
Next to his without a fight!"

Then an anteater Realm Walker barber jabbed an accusing claw at a cricket Realm Walker with a musical instrument that superficially resembled a fiddle.

"How can I cut hair
with this guy fiddling day and night?"

A murine Realm Walker sang:

"Lately half the city's
overrun by homeless kitties."

A canine Realm Walker sang:

"Stealling everything in sight!"

Cloak responded in song:

"Right.
Pasture land is public,
I decree you'll have to share.
Earplugs will do you wonders.
You'll receive an official pair!
Henceforth it is written,
We'll feed every homeless kitten
Here within the council square!
Fair?"

A cheer went around, and Cloak sang in response:

"Folks the line starts there!"

Meanwhile, Faith sang, as she watched:

"He's got a knack for reigning,
So far he's holding steady.
But folks are still complaining,
So let's not throw confetti.
Nonetheless, I guess my baby brother has got this.
He's got this.
No prob!"

"Is that the last of them?" Cloak asked the secretary bird Realm Walker.

"Well, uh, not exactly," was his reply.

The two equine farmers had returned with another complaint:

"Since we shared the pasture,
we can't tell whose [translation unavailable] are whose!"

The anteater barber was back, with a client, a Chinese crested dog Realm Walker. And one of the ugliest ones Cloak had ever seen.

"I can't hear my customers
And ruin all their dos!"

The murine Realm Walker sang:

"Now the homeless are quiet."

The canine Realm Walker sang:

"But the right-wingers are running riot
Up and down the avenues!"

A few hours later, when all the issues were summarily dealt with, Cloak sat, slumped in his chair.

"Gateburst, what a huge disaster,
And everybody knew it.
I had one job to master,
And I completely blew it.
I was so Veiled certain that I got this,
But I'm not this . . .
Who would have thought how far from getting this
I could get?

To think that he wouldn't have ever accepted this position had RAF not been shut down and his fellow RAFians dispersed . . .

Then he woke up in confusion. Was that just a dream fueled on fear, or was it a Truth Dream? It was very difficult to tell these days. Or any day really.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_dowx6oKdg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_dowx6oKdg)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2018, 06:04:38 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Magma, May I?

Cloak wad dispatched to a geothermal plant, which was evacuated immediately after a fiend decided to make it its nest. For good reason, Cloak believed. Clearly this fiend had fire or magma-related abilities. While fire was one of the Six Elements, magma was not. Cloak couldn't control it -- although, to be fair, he had never tried, just like he had never tried to manipulate ice (which was just solid water, akin to how magma was just a more viscous variation of Earth). And naturally this facility was located near a semi-active volcano.

First thing he noticed when he had arrived on-scene, was that there were lava pits dotting the floor here and there. For a moment he thought that this was a grievous OSHA violation, until he noticed that those weren't here naturally. They were put in, presumably by the fiend, to make it feel more comfortable in the facility that it decided was to be its nest. But Cloak made it through, platforming only as a cat could -- with dignity and grace. Then he headed up a ladder above a large pit of lava -- which had obvious indications of not being there when the facility was evacuated.

He climbed the ladder, and turned to the right and went up a flight of stairs to his left. Then, once atop that flight of stairs, he turned left and proceeded forward. Until he came to an area were magma and lava fell as if they were supposed to be a water feature on an expensive homestead. Cloak considered the job security of this place with the fiend's changes in place. The employees should get hazard pay  . . or find a safer line of work. Then he came to a dropshaft, and dropped down. He really didn't like the heat in this place -- they were this close to a semi-active volcano and they didn't have a cooling system? Or was it overtaxed until it went down? Or did the fiend do something to it because he preferred it hot?

Cloak proceeded forward into a short hallway until a short flight staircase to his left, then he rounded a corner atop the flight of stairs to another dropshaft. He dropped down, and landed roughly. Where he had to confront a pyrokinetic construct of a dragon of Asian design, and Cloak's eyes flashed. The construct vanished, as if the fire itself was afraid of going against an Elemental Master. He continued onward, into the actual volcano itself. The walls were now stone instead of metal. There was metallic platforms dotted here and there, but it seemed to be a straight shot to the the nest of the fiend. He entered the room with a textured stone ceiling and a floor with a large divot in it.

The fiend had its face in its chest, and its face only consisted of two, round, human-like eyes (dark green sclera and pale purple irises), with its head/chest and long shoulders culminating into silver-tipped volcano-like structures, which had white above the fiend's eyes, which spewed fire and magma, and corresponding areas on its shoulders, with the rounded bottoms of the shoulders being black. It's short upper arms were white, with both lower arms being cannons of some sort. It's main body was green with two vents beneath each of its eyes, and a ruby in the middle of its chest beneath its eyes. It's crotch and thighs were white, and its lower legs and pontoon-like feet were green.

When it saw Cloak, it immediately started its attack pattern. This one was surprisingly simple. It just jumped and fired three fireballs in his general direction. Cloak wondered about its depth perception, as two of these fireballs were nowhere near him. But he just backhanded the one that got anywhere near him, which flew faster when he did so then it did when it came toward him.

Cloak decided to end this quickly, though he didn't use the Fire Element. He still harbored some fear over the element, despite whatever he showed outwardly to the contrary. Cloak swirled around and caused blast after blast of air to hit the fiend. The air put out the fire on its head, and the repeated blasts began to interrupt its attack pattern. It was clearly simple-minded, even for fiend standards.

It wasn't too long before it couldn't take anymore of the aerokinetic onslaught. It succumbed rather quickly, and Cloak had left without any regrets, only looking back once.

***

Demos called it "magumasapien". He claimed that he designed it to oversee safety operations and manage geothermal plants.

***

Malice was still struggling with scheme block, but she had this battle on as background noise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2018, 08:51:19 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXX:
HAT'S OFF
CHAPTER ONE:
Char-A-Lot Hornets

Blaze had been dispatched to this mission, to a flower park. He had been busy sulking that his three wishes he had made with that Genie had vanished. He had gotten a powerful, unbreakable sword of the design of the Master Sword, as well as two other weapons that he didn't like nearly as much as that sword. Though the flowers were uplifting his mood rather significantly, surprisingly enough.

He folded his wings and moved forward. He had a replacement sword that he didn't find as good as the magically-obtained one that he had, but it would serve his needs for now. He looked at his environment and found it a bit eerie that it was abandoned. It was evacuated when the fiend decided to make this its nest. He moved forward until he had to scramble up a ladder onto the second floor.

Once atop of the ladder, he stepped out into a room with a ladder which the bottom part had been destroyed. He felt sorry that the employees here wouldn't be able to fly up to the part of the ladder as he was able to. Though he did appreciate how open and airy this place was and felt. This was not claustrophobic in the least. When he arrived atop the ladder, he proceeded to the right.

He looked up and saw that the ceiling was covered with staves -- obviously for flowering vines. If not for those, then there was no reason to have them all over the ceiling, other than a workplace hazard. Blaze couldn't imagine that that being legal. The area become slightly more enclosed, and then he came to a rather shaky ground. Ground that appeared to be easily breakable. It crumbled under his feet, and he suspected that this was the endeavors of the fiend. Fortunately, thanks to his wings, he could control his descent into whatever laid at the bottom of this area. Blaze wasn't even sure that he was still in the flower park proper anymore.

It was a place with platforms in a circular pattern with vines connecting them. Beneath it, were more of those plant stave things, acting like spikes. This could not be sanctioned by the government, unless these employees are getting severe hazard pay. Blaze saw a dropshaft, and fluttered over to it, diving down it. When he reached the bottom, he moved rightward, toward the outside of this area, with more of these flower staves on the ground, which he flew over without a problem. Then he dove down another dropshaft, and then up another flight of stairs. Then he immediately rounded a corner and dove down a dropshaft.

When he landed, he noticed that this floor had a lot of obvious divots, presumably for planting flowers that they have not yet done. He swooped over this segment, looking for the fiend's nest. It had to be close by. He proceed forward, before taking a left, following this corridor. He rounded a corner and up a flight of stairs, before turning right and proceeding forward. It was a straight run to the nest. Blaze could see it. A closed-off room, with honeycomb-like designs, a large divot in the ceiling, and a small hill in the center of the room.

The fiend had purple head with a black visor and a faceplate like that of a Cybertronian with a black stinger-like spike at the crest of its head, with black human-like ears. It had human-like eyes with pale purple sclera and black irises. It's chest was like a faceless Combee without antennae and pale red with s white interior, which would open up and fire bee drones. Its upper arms are white, its lower arms are red, its wrists were white, and its hands were black. It's abdomen, crotch, and thighs were white, with a white belt with a black buckle across its waist. It's lower legs were red with white bands midway down, and its pod-like feet were black.

It was when Blaze unsheathed his sword, with a wavy blade, and lit it on fire. After doing this, the fiend took notice. It immediately started an attack pattern -- because that's the only way these fiends knew how to attack. It leaped up, using some sort of jet boosters on its feet, and basically spawned three bee drones and fired them at Blaze, who slashed them all down with a singular strike from his fire sword. Then the fiend landed, and ran to the other side of the room. Blaze narrowed his eyes. It would have been smarter to try to tackle him in the air. This was a transparent strategy. It was just going to do --

Yep, he did the same thing. And Blaze did the same thing, slashing them all down in a single strike. Blaze, still airborne, then fired three fireballs with all the force of a bazooka. All three hit the fiend. And Blaze kept it up until the fiend was finished.

There. It was done. And so was he. He wanted out of this flowery paradise.

***

Demos called it a "honettosapien", and claimed that he designed it to manage a flower park and pollinate them when necessary. The other RAFians gave him strange looks when he said this, to which he responded, "What?"

***

Malice had fallen asleep, desperate for an idea. She did not like this scheme drought that she was having. If she didn't come up with something soon, her relevance might suffer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 02, 2018, 10:47:13 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter thirteen minutes early.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Monster and Breach

Cloak was in his thread, watching one of the many fears he had come into fruition. He was seeing the forum suffer and burn. The buildings were starting to erode during the sandstorm he created when he couldn't control his emotions, his powers. He sang to himself as he felt her approach.

It's finally come.
Come to knock down the door.
I can't hide this time,
Like I hid before.
The sandstorm is awake.
The danger is real.
My time's running out . . .
Don't feel, don't feel.
"Fear will be your enemy
And death it's consequence"
That's what she once had said to me,
And it"s starting to make sense.
All this pain, all this fear. . . .
Began because of me,
Is the thing they see
The thing I have to be?
A monster, as they write,
Has the dark in me finally come to light?
Am I a monster,
Full of rage
Nowhere to go, but on a rampage?
Or am I just a monster, in a cage?
What do I do?
No time for crying now,
I started a sandstorm.
Gotta stop it somehow.
Do I keep running?
How far do I have to go?
And would that take the sandstorm away.
Or only make it grow?
I'm making my world worse.
How long can it survive?
Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive?
Was I a monster from the start?
How did I end up with this wounded heart?
Bringing destruction to the stage.
Caught in a war that I never meant to wage.
Do I kill the monster?
Wheeza, you knew what was best for me
If I die, will they be free?
Faith,
What if, after I'm gone,
The sand gets rougher, and the sandstorm rages on?
No, I have to stay alive to fix what I've done.
Save the realm from myself,
And bring back the sun!
If I'm a monster . . .
And it's true . . .
There's only one thing
That's left for me to do!
But before . . .
Before I fade to white . . .
I'll do all that I can
To make things right
I cannot be a monster.
I will not be a monster.
Not tonight!"

Cloak awoke with a start, and wondered again why parts of his subconscious won't allow him to let go of this part of his past. What is done is done, what is past is past. Nothing can change it, so why dwell on it? He had mastered his emotions, for the most part. He looked up from his bed, and could tell by the utter lack of activity in the forum, it was quite late at night.

***

Yarin was currently monitoring the planet's atmosphere for any inconsistencies or incursions or the like. He was doing his usual exemplary work with it, though he was grousing. He had wasted his time with that genie. He had wished all three wishes on his ship, ensuring that it was indestructible and its systems were immune to hacks or glitches or similar. He was so ecstatic that the wishes had been granted and was completely crestfallen when the magic faded away. He understood what and why Cloak did what he did, but he secretly was irritated at the Realm Walker for it. Freeing the genie reversed all his contemporary magic, and possibly some of his older ones that were still relevant.

"What the -- seriously?" he said, when he caught something in the display screens out the corner of one of his right eyes. Four lifeforms had penetrated the lower mesosphere of the planet and was falling through the stratosphere. It had already penetrated the exosphere and thermosphere. And the instruments indicated that there were in fact four lifeforms within this object. It could not get any more specific on the species or the design of the object that they were riding -- other than it seemed to be a small, metallic object. Almost shaped like a large, round hatbox, and of a similar size.

And it was falling to the ground at a remarkable rate. It was now well within the Earth's troposphere, and seemed to move of its own volition. This was definitely a ship of some sort, Yarin hurriedly checked the instruments and readouts and all relevant data about this, he would report it to the others when the urgency has passed. Yarin spat several Nyac curses as he continued to struggle to pinpoint its trajectory and prospective crash sites or landing sites.

"Stop fighting me, you --" Yarin said, frustrated. "Give me the coordinates.Give me the -- JUST GIVE ME THE COORDINATES!!"

The readings weren't so obliging, however, and seemingly was continuing to a dilatory strategy to make the Nyac reduced to violence against these computers. No coordinates came, much to the Nyac's irritation.

"Stupid archaic, pieces of --" and Yarin devolved into Nyac curses. This was taking too long! These aliens of unknown origin could be doing anything! They could be maneaters! They could be peaceful, but that would be unlikely, otherwise they would have hailed RAFian communications or that of the government. You know, do it properly. Clearly, they didn't want to be known. They could be parasites . . . this could be like the Heilins all over again.

And the RAFians would probably be scapegoated for it, like the government (to cover up their own inherent incompetence) tried to do after that particular incident..

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0T6N6sevm4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0T6N6sevm4)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 03, 2018, 09:29:44 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
The Curse of Curiosity

The ship was indeed the size and shape of a hatbox. It was an odd design for a spacecraft whose purpose was interstellar and intrastellar travel. The lifeforms within this ship were indeed small, far smaller than that of an average-size human. It crashed into a heavily forested area, far out in what the humans would call the "boonies".

But, just as it would happen, four teenagers were driving by. They were dressed in retro clothing, as they were on their way home from a retro diner on some sort of double date. Their attire suggested something from the late thirties or early forties. There were two girls and two boys, none wearing hats, which was odd considering their outfits. One girl was blonde and wore frilly pinkish white attire while the other girl was a brunette wearing a red dress that appeared to be made of satin. The boys wore button-down, long-sleeve white shirts, black slacks. One wore black suspenders while the other wore a black vest and matching bowtie. The teenager with the bow tie was Drew Garrett, the one with the suspenders was Reggie Smythe, the one in red was Veronica Rowe, and the one in pinkish-white was Betty Grundy. Reggie was an unabashed comic book fan, and he was currently geeking out in the back of the relic of a car that Drew was currently driving. Night was beginning to fall, and all four had rather strict curfews.

"Drew!" Reggie said.

"What?" he responded.

"Pull over," Reggie said.

"For what?" he said, annoyed.

Reggie told him in a rather inelegant way that he had to . . . well, use the toilet. It was a heavily wooded area, and dark, and they didn't think anyone would see. They were devil-may-care teenagers, as well, thinking that nothing really bad could ever happen to them. That kind of misfortune was for other people, detached from them. Drew reluctantly complied, and Reggie did what he needed. They actually heard the ship's crash landing.

"Listen!" said Betty. "Did you hear that?"

"Wow!" Reggie exclaimed, as he made his way back to the car.

"Wow! Did you see that?" Drew exclaimed, almost in a campy manner.

"I think it must've been a spaceship," Reggie claimed.

"Knock it off with that comic book stuff," Veronica sighed.

"C'mon! Let's got take a look before someone else gets there," Drew said, his adventurous spirit piqued. Veronica gave him a very clear "are you effing serious?" sort of look that he evidently did not see.

It did't take them too long to reach the area of the road where the crash site was just off of. Drew proclaimed when they arrived, "I think it crashed just over that cliff. C'mon, let's go take a look!"

"What about us?" Veronica said, indicating her and Betty.

"Yeah," Betty agreed, "we're gonna miss curfew!"

"First, we gotta see the meteor!" Drew declared, as he and Reggie went running off. Veronica huffed as she sat back in her seat.

It didn't take the two boys too long to find the hatbox spaceship. They hadn't a clue what was inside. But Drew declared loudly with a human expletive when he saw it, despite it really looking like nothing more than a metal hatbox. He was clearly feeling rather excitable right this moment.

"See? I told ya it was a spaceship!" Reggie said.

"Nah," Drew said, dismissively, "It looks like a hatbox. But metal."

A shrill trilling sound came from the hatbox, and the two boys were starting to feel the beginnings of fear.

"Drew, there's something alive in there," Reggie said, with certainty.

"Yeah," Drew agreed. Then he looked around, and picked up a rock of an irregular shape.

"Hey, wait a minute, what the eff are you doing?" Reggie demanded, when he saw what Drew was doing.

"Gonna pry it open and see what's inside," Drew answered.

"What if they're aliens in there?" Reggie insisted.

"Then they'll be glad that I'm letting them out," Drew replied. He was being very foolish, truth be told.

"Yeah? What if they ain't glad? What if they're mad?" Reggie countered.

Drew pushed Reggie aside, and began to pry the lid off the extraterrestrial hatbox with the stone. The lid came off and issued a bright white light. Artificial light.

"Wow. Look at this," Drew said, with a smile.

"Hey, Drew? Let's get the heck outta here. This place gives me the creeps." Reggie tried to persuade Drew.

"Don't be such a pansy," Drew said, dismissing Reggie's warnings and keeping with his foolishness. He reached a hand out and then his mind, his memory blurred and faded to black as he saw those hypnotic eyes . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 04, 2018, 04:09:02 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
This Is Like the Heilins All Over Again

"Did you hear a scream?" Betty asked Veronica.

"Probably just those two horsing around while we're here dying of boredom," Veronica said, with lukewarm causticity.

"We better go look for them," Betty said, leaving the car.

"Suit yourself," Veronica said, waspishly. "But don't be surprised if I'm not here when you get back."

It didn't take Betty long at all to find the boys, standing in front of the hatbox ship. Their faces looked a bit dazed but otherwise no different. Drew was now wearing a deep crimson derby -- a hard, round, felt hat with a narrow brim . . . and cartoonish eyes where the crown meets the brim, it appeared -- and Reggie was wearing a honey-colored cowboy hat -- a high-crowned, broad-brimmed hat . . . again with cartoonish eyes where the crown meets the brim.

She addressed to the two boys, without mentioning their newest headgear, "What is that thing?"

She stepped between them, and exclaimed, "It looks like a diner!"

"Why don't you take a closer look?" Drew said. Betty did not seem to realize there was a change in his voice, that it didn't sound right. Nor did she seem aware that they were no wearing hats.

She did as she was instructed, and then she felt her mind go blurry. Then fade to blackness.

***

Meanwhile, Veronica was feeling bored and miffed. She leaned over and honked the car's horn, hoping that would make her three fellows hurry up with whatever they were doing in there. She was getting tired of waiting. She waited only a few seconds before sounding the horn yet again, to no avail.

"Why did you do that?" Drew asked, in a rather creepy manner, which caused Veronica to gasp and jump in surprise.

"Oh, god," she said, placing her hand on her chest, "you almost scared me to death! Get in."

"No," Drew said. "You come with me. . . ."

He did not take her kicking and screaming, he just put a cobalt blue flat cap -- a rounded cap with a small stiff brim in front, with cartoonish eyes between the crown and the brim. She didn't fight or scream as she blinked once. Twice. Three times, before exiting the car of her own volition. They all went to the ship where Reggic and Betty, now wearing a whitish-pink wide-brimmed fedora -- a hat with a soft brim and indented crown, and cartoonish eyes were the brim and crown met.

"Welcome to the club, Madcap," Drew said, addressing Veronica. "How does your new host feel?"

"Ugh. She doesn't have much of a brain," Madcap said, but she was not speaking with Veronica's voice. But rather "her' more bass, masculine voice.

"Darby, I've looked at the ship," "Reggie" said.

"How bad is it, Tex?" Darby said.

"The fuel line was hit," Tex replied. "We'll need more . . . it's irritating that these human bodies cannot pronounce it. But the fact is, we'll need more of it."

"What are we going to do?" Andorra, the Chapeausapien riding atop Betty's head, asked.

"We'll check in town to see if we can find the necessary items," Darby said.

"What about the regents?" Andorra queried. "What if they followed us in?"

"This is a protected biosphere," Darby said. "Not to mention that they have that thing about taking involuntary hosts. And according to this human, there are plenty of hosts for us to use here. After we deal with the regents, once our numbers have propagated enough, we can come back and take this planet. But, for now, we have our priorities."

Then "he" stopped and considered for a moment.

"We should mimic these humans' voices, as well," Darby said, now in a perfect imitation of Drew's voice and vocal mannerisms. "We don't need to attract more attention to ourselves."

"Agreed," the other three said, following suit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2018, 04:28:00 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Investigation and Potentially Exposed

The RAFians had finally got the coordinates of the crash site, much to Yarin's frustration. The Nyac swore to find a way to update and recalibrate the instruments to be as effective as they should be. Yarin would go himself, and Cloak tagged along as well. They immediately traveled to the crash site, and saw the hatbox ship.

"I know this is a spacecraft of some kind," Yarin said, narrowing all six of his eyes. "But I don't recognize the make or model."

"I think I do," Cloak said. "Some aliens from a planet called Fez."

"Fez?"

Cloak nodded, "I think the species itself is called 'Brainteasers', or 'Chapeausapiens', or 'Osakouburi'. I don't know which one is the proper name, though."

"'Chapeausapiens' should suffice," Yarin said, examining the ship. "They can't be very large -- this ship can fit in the back of a pickup truck."

"Chapeausapiens are exoparasites," Cloak said. "Their outward appearance is similar to hats of human design, only with moderately sized eyes compared to the size of the rest of their bodies. When they sit upon a being's head, they take over that being, unless they're already wearing something on their head."

"Like toupees?"

"That may be an exception, though I don't know for sure," Cloak said. "Most information on Chapeausapiens and Fez aren't very well known. At least, in that other Realm. But using a type of hair gel could make their four sucker-like feet unable to adhere to the heads of their hosts and making their hosts sneeze can break their control, at least momentarily."

"And this is their spacecraft," Yarin said. "But why come here."

"All I know, at least in that other realm," Cloak said, "is that they were having some regime political problems. Specifics unknown. Perhaps that's what is happening here. But this is pure speculation on my part."

"And here's the thing," Yarin said, "this ship appears to be empty."

"Which means that they either on foot or found some hapless humans to be their hosts," Cloak deduced.

"Considering their hat-like physiology," the Nyac said, "in addition to their own eyes on them, they shouldn't be all that hard to --"

Yarin fell silent, and Cloak knew exactly why. Yarin clearly sense the minds of these Chapeausapiens, and Cloak could Earthsight four figures. Yarin cast a cursory glance at Cloak, "Four?"

"Four," he said. "They're now running away."

"What's our next move?" the Nyac asked.

"If we go after them, we might lose them," Cloak said. Then he looked at the ship. "But they came back here for this ship. I surmise that they'll return yet again for it."

"If I have a good enough understanding of their tech, I'd say that this ship's fuel like was damaged severely," Yarin said, thoughtfully. "There is no way that they could get this thing airborne again without repairs. Assuming that I have this right, in the first place."

"What fuel do they use? Some sort of crystallic fusion or fission?" Cloak asked, in an almost clinical way. "I doubt it's fossil fuels."

"It appears to be some sort of liquid derivative of zoodeitium," Yarin said. "Some sort of in-between of zoodeitium and hacksilver. I have no name for it. But, I am sure of one thing."

"And what is that?"

"That there is nothing like it found naturally on this planet," Yarin said. "I suppose plutonium comes the closest to being viable to being used, and, as you know, that's not really a legal substance to go walking around in your pocket."

"Okay, then," Cloak said, "in any case, we should secure the ship and bring it to the forum for safekeeping."

***

"Our cover's been blown," Tex said, as the four made it back to the road where these humans' car still sat, idling. He was using his own voice, and not bothering to pretend to be his host. "Compromised!"

"They know we are here," Andorra concurred. "The tall one pointed us out and the scrawny Tetramand with too many eyes sensed us."

"All is not lost," Darby said. "We are not at a disadvantage yet."

"But we're compromised!" Madcap said, almost whiny.

"No!" Darby said, forcefully. "We are not compromised. These humans are."

"What are you suggesting?" Tex asked.

"I would think it would be obvious," Darby said. "We need to be a bit more inconspicuous."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2018, 05:45:09 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Hopping Hats

"This should be better," Madcap said, smugly, with its own voice. The Chapeausapien rode atop the head of a muscular pilot with a prominent chin and sparse hair. Tex said nothing, having taken a twiggy, suburban dad, while Andorra couldn't find one as she, due to being a wide-brimmed fedora, was rather more conspicuous than the other three, with Tex being the second most conspicuous.

"Don't get too comfortable," Darby said, replying with its own voice. The Chapeausapien now was atop the head of a blonde boy with thick glasses, and was obviously the de facto leader. "We have to shuffle our hosts around to make sure that those two beings can't find us. Remember to hide your eyes as well!"

Then, almost as if to demonstrate, Darby leaped from the boy's head onto the redhead girl who was his best friend, leaving the blonde boy confused and dazed. Tex took this opportunity to take him, leaving his previous host open. Andorra took him for its host. Then Darby abandoned the redhead girl for the blond boy's blond mother, and then turned to address the other three.

"Again, don't get comfortable," Darby said, not bothering to disguise its true voice. "Hide your eyes, Madcap!"

"But I can't see then, Darby!" it protested.

"Use your hosts eyes, fool. We have to look like those husks so no one will suspect us." Darby said. It, like Tex and Andorra had their true eyes closes and were using their hosts' eyes to see. With their true eyes closed on their hat form, they looked like ordinary hats -- or "husks" as they called them.

"Why?"

"Use your brain, Madcap!" Tex said, aggressively. Like the others, it used its own true voice through the boy's mouth. "How will we ever get the ship back if we're compromised?"

"But we don't have those hosts anymore," Madcap said. He was evidently the youngest Chapeausapien of the bunch, and possessed the naivety and inexperience of such. "We should be fine."

"Madcap, seriously, darling? We stand out if they see our eyes. This isn't a cartoon or anything." she said. She pulled "cartoon" from her hosts brain. "We need to get the ship back."

"I know that," Madcap said.

"Let's not forget that the ship still needs repairs," Darby said. "It still has the one thing that can stop the regents on Fez."

"At least the containment field containing the . . . toppr (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/toupee) (huh, at least these humans can pronounce that correctly). Anyway, the containment field containing the toppr was still active, restraining the beast."

"Even with the fuel leak?" Andorra asked.

"Separate power sources," Tex explained, tilting his juvenile host's head upward to look at Andorra. He had his true eyes closed, and was looking through this host's eyes. It left much to be desired, hence the thick glasses. "Fortunately, the secondary power source was not damaged at all."

"Couldn't we just jury-rig that to the fuel supply?" Madcap asked

"Later," Darby said, eyeing some new hosts with its hosts' eyes. "Let's have a little change."

Within moments, all four had different host bodies. Darby had taken a soccer mom, a tad thicker and shorter than its last host, while its three fellows took on her three boys, all in sports uniforms.

"This should suffice for a time," Tex said. This time he actually used its host's voice rather than its own. Tex also shut its true eyes.

"Andorra," Darby said, with a commanding tone. "Switch hosts with me. A human juvenile male wearing a 'husk' like you might cause unwanted attention. At least, according to the humans I've worn."

They hopped off the heads as soon as Darby knelt down, and quickly switched before either host regained lucidity. They quickly succumbed to Chapeausapien control.

"As we were saying," Madcap said. It realized that it was speaking with its own voice, and quickly and deftly switched to using its host's voice. "Couldn't we jury-rig the secondary power source to fuel the ship?"

"It might be possible," Tex said. "But it might not be enough to get us back to Fez. And it would risk unleashing the toppr. You know how vicious that thing is. It can tear up one of our kind within minutes."

"According the humans that I've worn, darlings," Andorra said, using its host's voice as its fellows did, "these humans do not have any supply, much less ready access to, such substances. We may have to jury-rig it."

"It's my fault for getting that stupid jalopy in the first place," Darby growled. "Quality control is a hard-learned lesson."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 06, 2018, 08:53:12 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Ship Secured

"How is the examination coming along?" Cloak asked Aquilai, Goom, Xeno, and Yarin. They were basically deconstructing the ship without taking it apart after it was brought and secured in the forum. They didn't disassemble it to basically autopsy it because it may prove to be a necessary bargaining chip with dealing with these Chapeausapiens.

"Well, my initial assessment seems right," Yarin said, dusting off both sets of hands. "It seems that its fuel source produces some sort of crystalline lattice as a waste byproduct which doesn't have any discernible use, though its composition is like an isotope of zoodeitium. Not exactly similar, mind you, but close enough."

"Still functional?" Cloak said.

"I would say that it still needs repairs," Xeno said, "but we don't know too much about this Fez technology. In fact, I've never heard of this species before. They resemble hats, you say?"

"Except for their rather cartoonish eyes, yes." Cloak said, austerely. "They are exoparasites, able to control a host by sitting directly on their heads. Thought I suppose the terms 'neuroparasites' and 'cephaloparasites' could apply."

"And there are four of them on the loose?" Aquilai asked, sharply.

"Yes, but they'll come back for the ship," Cloak said, still wearing that austere look.

"Yeah, about that," Goom said, "we sent Underseen and Ash inside to inspect further. They turned into mice and went in -- the door's open, after all."

"What did they find out?" Cloak asked.

"Dunno," Xeno replied. "They haven't come out yet. They only went into the ship a few minutes ago."

"There may be dangers within that we're not aware of," Cloak warned. Of course, the warning came too late. "Who knows what kind of dangerous items these Chapeausapiens might have strewn about in there?"

Suddenly, two mice darted from the ship. Cloak's feline eyes noticed this movement immediately. Movement was always easier to see than color for him.

"What happened?" the Realm Walker said, at once.

"We got data from their computer," Ash said. "We couldn't read any of it, however."

"You aren't going to tell him about that hairy bear thing?!" Underseen said.

"'Hairy bear thing'?" Cloak repeated.

"It was a toupee," Ash said. "But . . . alive. And vicious."

"A . . . toupee?" Aquilai said, with a raised eyebrow. "Like a bear."

"It must seem as such to one of such a size as the Chapeausapiens," Cloak surmised. "It presumably possesses the same kind of abilities that the Chateausapiens themselves have, perhaps not to such a sophisticated degree, but that's neither here nor there. The toupee is of no threat to us."

"Well, they have it contained inside some sort of cage," Ash said.

"Doesn't mean that it's any less frightening," Underseen said moodily, almost as if he thought that Ash was minimizing his bravery.

From that description, Cloak was having flashbacks toward the Spirit-Drinker. He shook his head, as if to shake the thought away.

"No matter, if it's contained, we'll keep it that way." Cloak said. "We needn't complicate the issue unnecessarily."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2018, 07:04:21 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Next Course of Action

"Where's the ship?" Andorra asked. It sat on the head of a camper with a red buzz cut in a uniform not unlike that of a cub scout, having abandoned her last host for this one just a hour or two before. The other three have followed suit, and taken the bodies of three other campers in cub scout-like uniforms. Even though it was in mid-September and a tad too chilly to really be camping comfortably. Also, it was speaking with its own voice instead of the campers and kept its own natural eyes open, as they were at the site where the ship was, and had no need to keep up the pretense.

"Isn't it bloody obvious?" Darby snapped. It sat upon the head of a camper with brown hair in a bowl cut. He had the most badges on the sash he wore. "Those two beings, whatever they were, took it to parts unknown!"

"What do we do now?" Madcap asked. It sat upon the head of a camper with messy black hair. This one had the least amount of badges on the sash he wore, only having one, singular badge.

"Good question," Tex concurred. It sat upon the head of a camper with the beginnings of a blonde mullet. This one had only four badges on the sash he wore, which was only more than Madcap's host. "We don't have any idea where they could have taken it."

"Not to mention these human minds aren't particularly useful for finding out anything about them," Darby said, cursing. "We'd have to hop from head to head to head to head to find something, some useful nugget that we can use."

"And there's no guarantee that that'll even work," Tex added. "If the hosts I've worn are correct, there are about six or seven BILLION of these humans on this planet."

"Surely, one would know something," Madcap interjected.

"It isn't feasible to check every. Single. One. Of them." Andorra sneered.

"We don't have that kind of time or energy," Darby growled. "Every second we waste here, those rebellious regents get stronger and stronger, and are taking over more and more of Fez! We need to deliver the toppr there to turn the tide!"

"We're at an impasse, then, Darby," Tex said.

"There has to be a way," Darby said, refusing to believe that this was the end. They fought so much for their supreme monarchy. So what if its rule was a little on the tyrannical side? The ends always justified the means! It was it's birthright to rule! It was it's right! So what if these peasants didn't like how they were treated? So what if these peasants didn't like the fact that they had to work longer hours for less pay? They should have felt lucky to even get anything to work for its greatness! So what if it skimped on healthcare and education? What did those things matter for the lesser Chapeausapiens? They didn't have any right to revolt, as far as Darby was concerned. Darby felt as if giving them the merest crumbs was sufficient and should have been considered as such by what it thought of as "peasants".

But it wasn't a monster, Darby believed. It did give the population a choice in who to vote to their version of parliament or congress. Granted, they were only candidates that it, itself, vetted and put forth. Naturally, each and every candidate were servile to this royal family and this voting for who to put into this congregation was just mockery of democracy itself. Any true dissenters were met with very . . . hostile resistance. The lethal kind.

Darby was unaware that this exact type of atmosphere has precisely the right ingredients stewing for rebellion. You can only oppress people of any species for a finite amount of time before the pushback would come, and push back HARD. Darby remained ignorant of this, and thinking that things should return to the status quo. A status quo none in the working class on Fez wanted to return to -- or at least seven to eighty percent of the populace.

Once they have the toppr as a weapon, they'll fall in line. They'll know their place. They claim that they have rights to this and that? Not if Darby and the Fez elite say as such. They only have rights that Darby and the royal line decide they should have -- they have no constitutional rights, as there is no Fez constitution. Darby's ancestors tore that ratty thing up eons ago. They didn't need a stinkin' constitution, as far as Darby and its family and the rest of the Fez elite were concerned.

"We have find a way," Darby said, stubbornly and firmly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 09, 2018, 09:39:41 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
A Possible Impasse

"What do we do with this thing now?" Underseen asked. "As long as we keep that thing contained, that is. It's liable to take off someone's hand."

"Or head," Ash agreed.

"Agreed," Cloak said. "We should keep the ship, and the toupee thing inside, secured. Those Chapeausapiens will come to try to collect it, or try to."

"How can they do that, though?" Underseen said. "Code Avalon will prevent anyone without a Mark entry, unless they're known by us."

"Don't forget," Cloak said. "That person -- Ima Atreyu -- managed to get in and steal the lamp."

Underseen cast Cloak a rather dark, accusatory look at the mention of the lamp. "And you made it so that our wishes, all of them, became undone."

Cloak lost none of his poise, and spoke with dignity, "I freed a slave. Nothing less, nothing more."

"You freed a genie," Yarin said. Cloak didn't much care for the tone. "Now my ship's vulnerable to being damaged again, just like going to that place."

"It was a scratch," Cloak countered easily. "You just needed touch-up paint. There is no point in grousing over that, Yarin."

"Touch-up paint!" Yarin said, throwing up all four arms, as if Cloak suggested putting a band-aid on a leaking dam.

"You two are letting your greed blind you," Cloak said, stern now. "That genie was trapped forced to grant wishes, but not of his own accord. Especially when that warlock put his medallion on the lamp and got unlimited wishes. That was torturous for the genie. He has a life now. A life of his own and he's his own master now. Can you imagine what it must have been like for him? Being freed every millennia or so, for the sole reason of granting three wishes? Then being sucked into his portable prison? You would really condemn a being like that for countless eons more just so you can get petty materialistic gains, or things that should be earned through hard work and perseverance? You condemn me for you seeking the easy way instead of the proper way? When you gained your wishes, did they truly mean anything to you? You didn't strive for them. You didn't go on the appropriate journeys to get there. Yet you 'achieved' them just the same. Is that really not hollow to you?"

Silence met these words. Cloak hadn't a clue if anything he said landed and made an impression or not. But that was not the issue that they had to concern themselves with right now. The four Chapeausapiens were still at large and that they had to figure out how to bring them into custody before they harm any of the general populace with stolen bodies.

"We need to review the data," Yarin said, breaking the silence with a somber tone. He went over to a computer -- disconnected from the main server of the forum, in case this data has a hidden virus or something. Just as a precaution. Suddenly, a flurry of images flashed on the screen. The images showed a cyan Albanian-style hat, a blue Anthony Eden hat, an azure arakhchin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arakhchin), a magenta rice hat, a violet jaapi, a red aviator hat, a rose baggy green hat, a yellow baseball cap, an orange bearskin cap, a green bellboy cap, a chartreuse beret, a spring green bhaad-gaaule topi, a vermilion bicycle clip hat, an amber blangkon, a teal knit cap, a russet boonie hat, a plum boyar hat, a purple bucket hat, a slate busby hat, a citron by****et, a sage budenovka, a buff breton, a khaki Boss of the Plains hat, a golden yellow fugin, an orange peel boater hat, a scarlet black cap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_cap), a crimson bicorne, an aubergine bergere hat, an indigo beonggeoji, a turquoise beaver hat, a viridian beanie, an apple green barretina, a lime green ayam, a cerise attifet, an ultramarine aso oke, an erin ascot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascot), a harlequin apex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_(headdress)), a lime animal novelty hat, and more. But, before long, it stopped and had some strange writing upon it.

The Royal Family of Fez

"I can't read this language," Yarin said.

"It says 'the royal family of Fez'," Cloak said, "with 'Fez' obviously being their home planet."

"All those images were of some royal family of Chapeausapiens?" Yarin asked. "There are so many."

"It's probably a lineage thing," Cloak pointed out.

"But that brings to question why someone would have such potentially damaging data on their hard drives where anyone with decent hacking know-how can access it, assuming that they can read their language?" Ash added.

"Someone who is very, almost-psychotically proud of their heritage and lineage?" Cloak surmised. "Someone who wants everyone know that they came from a certain lineage or heritage."

"Why would anyone be this proud of it?" Underseen said, with a raised eyebrow.

"Perhaps because it has subsumed and engulfed their entire identity," Cloak suggested. "But this is just conjecture. What we should be talking about, however, is our next move, and how we can use this information to our advantage over those Chapeausapiens."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2018, 05:00:08 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
A Source

Meanwhile, in the McGeezax household once more, Dickie was playing one of his video games when his father came home. He was sopping wet from the tremendous downpour outside that had just started up. Dickie was only dimly aware of this, focused entirely on his game, knowing that his father would be upset that he was neglecting his homework for just a little gameplay of some game that was part hack-and-slash and platformer. He was thoroughly engrossed with it, knowing that his father would call him when dinner was ready. He could finish his homework after dinner, he reasoned, as there wasn't all that much to do. Granted, he could have done it already and have it done with.

"Dickie," his father said. His voice sounded the same, but the tone and inflection was slightly, subtly different. Too subtle for Dickie really to take any real notice of. "Come here."

Fearing that he was in trouble, and also fearing a reprimand, he deftly paused his game and hastened to obey. He expected his father to rebuke him for putting games above his schoolwork. It was a point of contention, Dickie knew.

"Yes, Daddy?" Dickie said. But his father said nothing, which intimidated the boy. Dickie couldn't help but remember when his father was infested by Merser, and he was fearful of something like that. He saw his dad was wearing a hat that Dickie had never seen before. Before he could stop himself, Dickie asked, "Didja get a new hat?"

"Something like that," he replied vaguely.

"What's in your hand?" Dickie asked, noticing his father clutching something in his right hand as his trench coat was dripping onto the hardwood floor. That was a bit out of character for his father, and Dickie wasn't really mature enough to register that this was really off, though he detected a change in his father's mannerisms. "Daddy?"

"Come here," his father said.

"What is it, Daddy?" Dickie said, feeling a mounting dread of bad news.

With a quick gesture, as lightning flashed, Dickie's father roughly placed a blue cap upon his son's head, and Dickie's mind immediately went blank and faded to nothingness as Madcap took over, piloting his body.

"Well, Madcap?" Darby demanded, using its own voice instead of Dickie's father's voice. "Does this juvenile human have any useful information like his progenitor believes that he might? Anything pertinent?"

"There's a lot of impertinent information in here, Darby," Madcap said, respectfully. "It's a lot of slosh to sift through, Darby. A thousand apologies."

"Just hurry up," Darby said, impatiently, as Andorra and Tex appeared behind it and Dickie's father. They weren't "wearing" anyone, but walked on their own four wire-thin legs with suction cup-like feet. "Or I'll do it myself. We don't have time to muddle about."

As far as Darby was concerned, they need to re-secure their ship again and repair it (they had obtained all that they needed, other than more fuel, during their first excursion away from the ship). Then they could leave this miserable mudball. But Darby still had future plans for this planet, once they quashed these rebellious regents and reasserted control over Fez once more. These humans weren't bad rides, and they could be useful for future conquests. But that would be then. The regents took priority first. And getting the toppr to Fez was the top priority -- it may be the only way they could legitimately win against the regents. Though Darby wouldn't argue if they won "illegitimately", as long as they won.

"They call themselves RAFians," Madcap said, shutting its own eyes in addition to Dickie's. Madcap desperately sifting through the boy's over-imaginative mind. Madcap had to discern fact from fiction, and it was more difficult than it sounded because a lot of what this juvenile human knew on the subject seemed to be absolutely ridiculous. "Most of this stuff can't be true. A sentient star? A talking seal? A vampire?"

"Sentient star?" Darby asked, immediately. "That could prove to be a problem. What more about that?"

"Nothing, Darby," Madcap said. "This juvenile knows nothing more about that. It seems to be more . . . conjecture and suspicion and rumor than anything more concrete. This human desperately wants to be a RAFian when he grows up."

"That's it, Madcap," Darby said, kneeling down, head close to Dickie's. It was getting a little fed up not getting the answers he wanted. "We're switching hosts. I'll do this myself."

Madcap knew better than to protest against this, and complied immediately.. Both hopped off their respective host's heads, and onto the now-vacant heads of the other. Darby roughly sifted through the boy's mind. Darby said, "Ah. So, I see."

Darby made a snap decision. "Okay, Madcap. Get off. I want that host back."

They switched back, but Darby used Dickie's father's hand to stop Madcap, and swept Andorra up.

"Daddy?" Dickie said, sounding rather dazed and disorientated. "What happened?"

But he was immediately taken over by Andorra, who took immediate command of his body.

"Look in the juvenile's mind, Andorra," Darby said. "Memorize what Madcap and I've seen in the juvenile's mind. Memorize it, then get off, so Tex can do the same thing. Then we'll find a way to use this information from this . . . 'fanboy'. Then be on our way and find a way into this 'forum'. Our ship is obviously there."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2018, 08:12:35 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Data Mining

"Can you interpret this, Cloaky?" Yarin asked. "I can't make heads or tails of it. It seems to be some sort of ledger, though.

Cloak took a look at the symbols upon the screen, depending on the Realm Walker's kind's innate ability for instantaneous translation -- an ability that's always one and isn't really useful in combat under a great majority of circumstances, so it goes understated. Granted, some languages of semi-sentient or nonsentient beings this ability does not and cannot be used for (other than tigers, but that's because he was a tiger-form Realm Walker).

It read:

"Lo, behold the mighty Flarg Darby! The mighty Empress of the Galaxy! Her greatness knows no bounds, and nobility oozes from her noble brim. She is the strongest, most honest, and absolute infallible of all of us! Her manipulation tendrils are without flaws and she can perfectly dominate beings with an octillion-level intellect. She is incapable of mistakes, and is perfect in literally every way. She has no fault, and she will save us from those Girdist terrorists, lead by that nitwit coward Klaatu Rownd II! Flarg Darby's iron will shall crush these terrorists and return us to the glorious path of conquest, the destiny that we're obligated to return to. They're bending our children to their sacrilegious ways, and turning them against us. They need to be silenced before they sire a revolution where questions are asked where they have no business being.

She, our beloved Flarg Darby, the Grand High Potentate of countless planets and many more to come, casts her brilliant light upon her chosen entourage. The celebrated mechanic and pilot Barrada Tex. The lovely Secretary of Conquest and chief scientist, Talaya Andorra. The unswerving loyal Captain of the Guard and the brightest tactician on Fez, Nikto Madcap. These three are nearly as infallible, unless she deems otherwise, as our great leader, the greatest of the Flarg Dynasty! Grand High Potentate Flarg Darby, the Grandest Conqueror, soon to be the King of the Galaxy! No one is worthy to besmirch her manly brim! No other leader is as powerful or merciful when it is necessary. She works for the betterment of all Fez kind, despite what the Girdist terrorists would have you believe. Do not believe their propaganda! Do not listen to those crown-thirsty monsters who would rather see you dead and enslaved rather than basking in the glory of the one and only Potentate!"

"Huh. Chapeausapiens do have genders," Cloak said, "I only had tangential knowledge of this, and assumed that the wideness of the brim was an indicator. Apparently, that isn't necessarily true. And, apparently, they are are matriarchy. The females lead and hold power while the males have less power."

"Like Helmacrons," Xeno interjected.

"Not as psychotic," Cloak said. "They aren't a fungible species. Though their social structure that this article indicates is radically one-sided. And their leaders clearly needed to have their egos routinely stroked. 'Perfectly dominate beings with an octillion-level intellect' . . ."

"What?" Aquilai said, as Cloak gave a scoff at the notion. "Octillion-level intellect?"

"No such thing exists," Cloak said. "Except those who want to inflate their own egos to the point of ridiculousness."

"So what is this ledger?" Yarin said.

"It's not a ledger," Cloak said, "it's a sickening propaganda piece of such obviousness that even the Realm Walker Council wouldn't put out because of the utter ludicrousness of it. And THAT'S saying something."

"So nothing of substance," Ash said, sounding disappointed.

"Why include a propaganda letter in the ship's data?" Yarin said, brow furrowed in confusion. "What would the point be of having that in the files? When such things would just be useful on their home planet --"

"Fez," Cloak supplied. "It looks sort of like a cork -- or a fez without a tassel."

"The question still stands," Yarin persisted. "Why?"

"They evidently need their egos stroked on a rather frequent basis," Cloak said, with a shrug.

"How do we go about this now?" Underseen asked. "Four of them of them are still out on the loose, and who knows the damage they can cause, even without their ship?"

Cloak reread the "Girdist terrorists" bit again. "I have an idea, but --"

But any answer to this question was cut off by a slight, shrill, klaxon sound.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 12, 2018, 05:22:38 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Potential Targets

"Darby, how do we get to the ship?" Andorra said. She was riding the head of a collegian girl, with Tex having taken her boyfriend. Darby was riding her best friend with Madcap on Darby's host's brother. "Even if we find candidates with potential, they might be wise to us."

"We just need the candidates to get us inside the door," Darby said. Tex and Andorra had used two precocious boys as hosts to do some recon about the forum which they found by sheer dumb luck. Darby and her entourage didn't see it as dumb luck, though, but divine providence. They actually believed their own hype, and Darby certainly believed that she was a genius in every way. "Pass that force field and get to the ship."

None of the other three poked considerable holes in this vague, simple plan. The fact that they didn't know where in the forum that the ship was located, and the forum wasn't a small place, nor is its layout particularly obvious. The fact of how they would try to get by the many, many RAFians that dwell there, not knowing that the Mark will prevent any of them from taking control of any of them, no matter how long they sit on their head. The fact that, unlike Heilins, they stick out more. The fact that the RAFians vet anyone who wishes to become a RAFian for exoparasites and endoparasites, and whether they're voluntarily or involuntarily, and whether they have their parents' consent (Rotiart's father didn't care when he came to RAF -- he didn't care about much, to be honest). The fact that in order to be a RAFian, they'd have to withstand Epslin's grueling basic training regiment -- and not all would-be applicants can, and it's rather necessary for the line of work that the RAFians frequently undertake.

And these were just but a few holes in this plan -- if you could call it that. Plans that vague rarely ever work out -- plans need to be detailed to a point and structured, with a contingency or two in place. Darby's plan had none of that, but she believed that she didn't need anything more than this simplicity. And why would she? She's never been humbled or rebuked during her childhood.

"Well, with all due respect, Darby," Madcap said, tentatively. Any misspoken word could result in immediate condemnation when Darby was in such a mood, and potentially casting out of Darby's entourage. The whole thing with Dickie McGeezax reminded him of that little fact. "I don't think that these humans would be any good as prospective candidates."

Darby said nothing, as Madcap cringed in fear. Darby said, "Agreed. We need to find better hosts as candidates."

She suggested that as if she was suggesting finding candidates for something as mundane as a boy band. She acted like this would be the simplest of tasks, apparently ignoring the monumental task it was. Granted, Code Avalon wasn't perfect, as Ima Atreyu managed to luck into a glitch that went unnoticed by the RAFians, so it was possible for them to get in. But none of the four had sufficient intel to implement a plan with any real efficacy, but Darby's entourage wasn't really willing to go against her or pointing out all the holes in this plan.

"Let's ditch the bipeds," Darby said. "And see if we can find real prospective candidates."

They hopped off the head of the collegians, and scrambled off to find such candidates. The first place they went to was a martial arts tournament, due to the convenience of location. It was being held right on the campus gym. Darby waited, and ordered the others to wait to take hosts as well. She would take whoever the winner was. It would be the primer host of this species to have, even if her plans failed.

Within moments, an overall winner was declared, and Darby followed him as he went to a locker room. And that's where she took him. It was very easy, she was pleased to discover. Which just went to feed into her feeling of divine providence. She was allowing her ego to inflate like a balloon, which was incredibly dangerous for a leader of anything to allow to happen. Her new host called himself Matthew North, and he was elated at winning the competition. And, Darby thought smugly, he would soon be a RAFian -- completely discounting that it would be far more difficult than that, as Billion found out.

She turned Matthew's head toward her cowardly compatriots, and said, "I've got my prospective candidate. This one will most definitely work. Now, you three, go and find good candidates and rendezvous with me and this human I'm riding a couple a clicks away from the forum. There we will work the facade. These RAFians will never realize what is happening."

This was actually beyond optimistic to the point of delusion, but with their limited intel, it was hardly surprising that Darby, with her ever-inflating ego, would see it as easy as one-two-three. She was massively unaware how wrong her assessment was, but, in her mind, she doesn't make mistakes. She was incapable of making errors, as far as she was concerned. That was for other, lesser beings.

"Off you go," she said, as her three compatriots went off to find suitable candidates for this part of the plan.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2018, 05:43:09 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Hell Toupee

"Hear that?" Cloak asked.

"Yes," Xeno said, at once. "Quite clearly."

"Barely," Aquilai answered.

"It's from the ship," Cloak said. "Some sort of alarm. A klaxon sound."

"Why possibly would an alarm sound?" Yarin asked, perplexed. "Unless --"

"Crap," Underseen sighed. "The security failed. It's probrably --"

There was something that could have sounded like a ferocious roar, had Cloak been smaller. But he was hardly intimidated. They had faced more terrifying threats. Cloak recalled the Black Lanterns. Some feral toupee was hardly something that he'd consider bone-chilling.

The ship shuttered and shook as the RAFians watched on, Cloak doing so dispassionately. The shuttering and shaking steadily became more and more severe, until a piercing, shrill shriek was heard. The sound only seemed harsh to Cloak and Xeno's ears, as the others didn't react as negatively towards it. But the whole scene was playing out like some B-movie monster plot. The creature remained within the ship, apparently tearing at some sensitive instruments and whatnot, before it realized that the door to the ship was opened -- the Chapeausapiens never having closed it, apparently. Or, quite possibly, couldn't.

Suddenly, the ship stopped shuttering and shaking. It obviously realized the door was open. It must have sense the presence of these six RAFians outside the ship. Perhaps it smelled them. Who knows the sensory capabilities of a sentient, living toupee? Cloak imagined that it was gearing up for a pounce, rather like a cat sighting a mouse or bird. Judging the distance and making tiny adjustments to compensating.

With high-pitched, shrill shriek, it launched itself from the ship. It was clearly aiming for Yarin, who, due to being a Nyac, was bald. Cloak presumed that this meant that it had similar abilities to the Chapeausapiens. But the thing didn't make it within two or three feet of Yarin's head, as it found itself in a golden-scarlet orb. It actually had gnashing teeth. The canine teeth seemed to be about a half an inch long, and could probably do serious damage, left free and unrestrained. It was clearly designed to tear through the fabric-like flesh of a Chapeausapien. It was biological weapon.

"See?" Underseen said. "Scary."

"Nothing that we can't manage," Cloak said, calmly, as the vicious hairpiece beast snarled and attempted to attack the bubble. It failed, of course. But it clearly had no real semblance of sentience.

"It's like the --" Underseen began.

"Don't say it, we know," Ash said, almost as if saying its name would wake it. It was their backup generator, after all. All six RAFians fell silent as they was this wild, slobbery beast attempt to attack the energy bubble it was encapsulated. It scraped its fangs against the bubble's walls. It wouldn't work, but it was the only thing that its simplistic mind could conclude to do to escape.

"We know what must be done," Cloak said.

"Are you suggesting -- " Aquilai began.

"You know perfectly well what I suggest, Time Walker," Cloak said. "It needs to be done. This thing was clearly designed as a weapon."

"Seems like a waste," Ash said, rather tepidly.

Cloak was slowly shrinking the energy bubble. He said, "It must be done. Take away this weapon from those Chapeausapiens."

"We don't know if they're technically the good guys or bad guys," Yarin said. "We mustn't get involved with politics that we don't know the optics of."

Cloak hesitated, then he remembered. "I forgot. You guys couldn't read the contents of that propaganda article. No, Yarin, trust me. I don't think these guys are the 'good' guys. From what I read in that article they seem to be very authoritarian and oppressive. A race of would-be conquerors."

With that, Cloak shut his eyes and there was a brief and shrill shriek, then silence as the creature moved no more.

"Now, we should move," Cloak said, as if he had no remorse. "We haven't too much time."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 14, 2018, 08:36:56 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Jock on Lock

Andorra, Tex, and Madcap had split up to find their suitable hosts, while Darby pretended to be Matthew North, making excuses for wearing a hat. Granted, they weren't as mobile on their suction cup-like feet and four tentacle legs which spout below the crown of their hat bodies. Having host bodies allowed them a greater amount of mobility, in addition to being able to relish in their memories and minds. They had yet to discover a species -- well, a species of a moderate size, in the "Goldilocks zone" for Chapeausapiens to ride, not too big or too small -- that they could not absolutely dominate once they're on their head. (They've never met a Realm Walker, which would be impossible for them to test anyway, considering they can never lower their cloak's hoods (outside the Nexus and Cloak's thread).

Madcap had made his way toward a field. It was September and the temperatures were slipping into cooler fall temperatures. It could be argued that it was already there. And yet, there were three large humans -- young adult human males -- throwing some sort of brown, elliptical item to each other with three white stitches on either side. Madcap only had a tangential knowledge of this game from the humans that he had worn, and he thought the humans called it a "football". And, apparently, it was "off-season", whatever that meant. Although this wasn't a reliable assumption, as the hosts he wore weren't sure if it truly was or wasn't.

Madcap watched these humans, trying to calculate a way to get one of them. To ride them. Any of these three should be considerably worthy of being a RAFian. Anyone of them, only really distinguishable by their hair and eye color (one was blond with blue eyes, one was a redhead with green eyes, and the last one was a brunette with brown eyes), would do nicely for the purposes that Madcap and the others needed. All Madcap needed was a way into the door -- none of the four considered trying to take over a known member, instead of opting for this more random, more vague plan that the same likelihood of succeeding that one would have robbing a tank with a pellet gun.

Madcap scaled a spruce tree easily with its suction cup feet. He climbed out onto a low-hanging branch. He did this in the hopes that one of these thick-bodied jocks would actually walk beneath it. Of course, despite the rather random (and low) likelihood of this happening, one of the collegian human males, the redhead one, failed to catch the item that the blond threw. The plaything landed right beneath Madcap's branch, and the Chapeausapien waited eagerly.

"I'll get it," said the blonde human, "you guys go ahead and get going."

"Alright, see ya later," the brunette said.

"See ya," the redhead and the blonde said, in unison.

The other two humans walked off. If Madcap could smile, he would. There might be something to this divine providence thing, after all, he thought. Apparently, he never considered that it might have just been coincidence, but "divine providence" apparently was more appealing because it sounded impressive.

There! The human was in the right place. The time was now to pounce! And . . . he missed. But, fortunately, the human was bowed over, reaching for the strange throwing item. Madcap was one the ground, right in front of the human. He immediately shut his eyes and retracted his tendril legs into his body, hoping that the human would only assume that he was a husk (the term that Chapeausapiens use for hats). Fortunately for Madcap, this human wasn't very smart and thought precisely that. He grabbed Madcap, gave him a cursory look, and then put him on his head, almost as a goof.

Madcap took immediate control, and immediately was flooded with information, as he blinked this human's eyes as he acclimated to this body. However, the bulk of this information Madcap didn't consider very important. This human's name was Joel McCartney, and it's two friends were David Osment and Jesse Gallagher. All three were attending this college, each on a sports scholarship. All three were rather obsessed with the sports -- football, wrestling, and the like -- and none of the three were very academically inclined. They skated by in high school by copying the work of meeker, brainier classmates. That wasn't really an option for college, so they depend on the teachers giving them a pass simply because they played a sport, thereby not really earning the grade.

They were very oblivious to the fact that this would technically gyp them out of an education, due to their academic laziness and the fact that the college was using them to make money. Joel just assumed that he would get signed to something he called them "Majors" (Madcap didn't bother to find out more about it, deciding to deflect if asked about it or dig into that part of this human's mind (if you could call it that) if the need should arise. This human was just meant to be a conveyance to beyond the threshold of the forum. He would ditch this jock at that point.

He wouldn't be able to fit this human into the ship, anyway. He looked at the item that he saw them throwing around -- it was called a "football", apparently, despite looking nothing like a foot. Madcap could explore the why of this.by digging just a little deeper into this human's mind, but Madcap found this human's mind a wasteland full of broken glass and land mines.

Madcap, having securing his host, one he believed these RAFians would consider suitable to join their number, went to the rendezvous point where Darby was waiting, riding Matthew.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2018, 07:52:05 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Gunfire Choir

It was Tex's turn to find a suitable host to fool those unworthy RAFians. Tex didn't really think too much of them, but knew enough that they weren't to be trifled with lightly. Only fools would underestimate their opponents, and Barrada Tex most certainly didn't consider himself a fool. He, however, moved around very slowly. He usually preferred having a host for transversing long distances such as this, as it was most certainly faster and less awkward. He wouldn't go for those artificial hosts that those damned terrorists on Fez were pushing for. They had evolved to be able to do this, so they were well within their rights to exercise the ability. If whatever they chose to make their hosts didn't like, then oh well for them. They evolved this ability and they could use it on whoever and whatever they liked.

Tex had made his way away form the college, not really knowing where he was going. He didn't have a map to this planet, after all. He just stuck to where there was enough cover to make the unwary observer think that he was just a discarded husk -- what they called "hats" or "headwear". He had the tallest crown of the four of them, so this made hiding rather difficult, unless passersby though him just a discarded husk, or "hat". He did not know how long that he had traveled, but was suddenly alarmed when he heard the shots of ballistic projectile weaponry. It took him a moment to realize that the shots were not aimed at him, but some targets a fair distance away.

He had wandered onto a shooting range. Or rather, the hedges surrounding it. He was still unseen and unnoticed by these oblivious bipeds, which gave him time to survey prospective hosts to ride. He saw four humans -- three male, one female -- of a variety of builds and features. One was a mildly lean, slightly muscular build as was the female one, one was of a large, bulky build, while the last one was of a thinner, meeker build. All possessed dark color hair, though the large one had a bald head. He could be useful if they had a greater control over the toppr, and the monstrous beast could certainly do some real damage with a host such as that one. The mildly lean, slightly muscular build human male wore a husk similar enough to himself. If he could take that one, then he would be able to pass himself off as the human with ease, Tex considered. Granted, the "hat" he wore had a subtly different shade gradient, but it was still yellow. It would have to be good enough. Now, if he would only take it off . . .

And he did. He took it off to put on what appeared to be some sort of auditory protection. Then he picked up a long metal tube with what appeared to be a wooden base. Tex watched as his fellows did the same and his desired host took aim at some targets. Then he squeezed the trigger as his fellows followed suit. Tex managed to sneak up to the table that the young adult human set his husk -- his "hat" -- down. As his target and his fellows continued what Tex assumed was training of some sort, Tex managed to push the husk off the table and out of sight. Hopefully, that would be enough to fool this human into thinking that Tex was his "hat".

This human had better be suitable to get his brim in the door to that forum. Tex couldn't wait to get back to Fez. He was starting to think that these humans were more trouble than they're worth. Granted, some of them were . . . entertaining to ride, to dig into their deepest memories with their laughable secrets, and their food wasn't too bad. But, still, in spite of all that, Tex would be glad to get back to Fez. He wanted to see the toppr destroy those terrorist. Those terrorists actually had the nerve to call themselves "revolutionaries". Tex scoffed at the very idea. If the peasants didn't like their lot in life, then they should have been born elite, as far as he was concerned.

After what seemed like forever, the four seemed as if they were done shooting their tube weapons. They took a fabric strap and shouldered these metal tubes, the firing end facing downward at an angle. After this, Tex shut his eyes, pretending to be a husk. He felt relieved and excited that his little plan had worked and he was being lifted up, and placed on his head. Tex immediately shot his suction cup-tipped tendrils out and made contact with his head.

He blinked this human's eyes as he took immediate control. Tex saw through this human's eyes, as he kept his own true ones closed, as to maintain the pretense. And, when he made contact with this human head, he was flooded with this human backstory. Practically none of it was any interest to him, Tex only cared enough to make a plausible excuse to leave this human's friends -- Nathan, Raymond, and Allison -- behind and meet up with Darby at the rendezvous point.

But still it flooded him --  these humans always had so much memory and thoughts. Though Tex would never admit it, it was always exhilarating to take a new host. This human's name was Landon Rock, and he was a responsible owner of a gun -- the metal tube that he had strapped to his back. His friend on the other hand, weren't exactly very responsible with theirs. Nathan always disregarded safety with carelessness and always handled his weapon haphazardly. Raymond was rather violence-prone and really didn't have any business owning a gun. Allison worked for an association that profited from national tragedies that happened due to guns, the association getting paid from gun manufacturers. This is why they never talked politics -- because Landon knew that the three would simply regurgitate the gun propaganda and vehemently reject gun reform. Landon was, albeit secretly, for the reform -- he didn't want violent-prone people, like Raymond, to have guns, he didn't want mentally-challenged people to own guns, he didn't want access to guns be without any sort of vetting, be it background check or otherwise, be it from a vendor or a gun show. But his friends would twist this into the government taking away their guns -- which it wasn't anything of the sort. But Landon was all too aware of the circular conversations that would follow if he confronted the other three on this, and he wasn't really in the mood for such a fight, knowing the other three would use propaganda, half-truths, lies, and fallacies as arguments. Arguments that they believer were valid. All in all, Landon was a bit of a coward on this, and, thus, largely ignored any talk of politics when it was approached by any one of the other three, who just assumed that he agreed with them. Because he allowed them to think that.

However, Tex saw all this, and didn't care one bit about it. Who this human was friends with mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. And Tex needed use this human to get his brim in the door of the forum, then he would discard him like a styrofoam cup.

"I still don't know why you wear that stupid hat, Landon," Raymond said. He was actually trying to start a fight, and he was being rather brazenly obvious about it. "It's so ugly!"

Tex knew that he was talking about the husk. But Tex resembled that husk a great deal, so this could be construed as offensive. The thing was, however, Tex couldn't really care less about what the violence-prone human thought. However, this was an excellent opportunity to act offended, and storm off. Tex could do this and keep up the pretense.

So he did, and he immediately went to the rendezvous point, where Darby would be waiting. This host had better be suitable -- Tex didn't want to suffer the consequences if he wasn't.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2018, 04:46:11 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Belting It Out

Andorra was the last one up, though she would find her chosen target at the same time that the other two found theirs. When she split from the others, while Madcap and Tex stayed relatively outdoors, Andorra went indoors. She immediately gravitated towards one place in particular. It was a wide expanse of hard-backed seats covered in some rather threadbare fabric, as if it was crudely crocheted by several hundred elderly human females. Andorra found this expanse of seats and the barely-carpeted floor, with hardwood flooring, rather daunting as there was very little cover that she could exploit.

But the large area filled with these seats, each sharing one armrest with the other, faced another area, on a raised platform that was as high as the tallest seat. There were short staircases on either side of this raised platform set into the the back wall. Perhaps there was an area behind the thick, burgundy, heavy-looking curtains, but they were closed and Andorra could not Earthsight, so she could not see behind the curtain without going back there. On this platform, this stage, was just a singular human female, standing behind what appeared to be a microphone stand. There was only one other human -- and older, tweedy-looking one with small glasses perched upon his nose rather precariously. He wore a cardigan with patched elbows and khaki dress slacks, while the human female looked like a blonde Jessica Rabbit in a sultry scarlet dress trailed and pooled on the ground as if it was viscous . . . almost like blood.

"Is it ready to go yet, Mr. DeVille?" she asked. Her voice, however, was nothing like Jessica Rabbit, but more whiny. Like an entitled starlet trying (and failing) to be sexy.

"The calibrations are underway, Jazz," he said. Mr. DeVille's voice was like the snap of chalk, and his expression seemed to be permanently set to sour. Then again, this Jazz human seemed to be very demanding and "high maintenance". This older male human could just be expressing how tiresome this type of overbearing personality can be, and the toll it can take on those around them. "You must have patience. It should be completed momentarily."

"This is taking forever," she kvetched.

"Have patience," Mr. DeVille intoned, parentally. "It's nearly done. The lighting needs to be just right to accentuate your best . . . features. For when you sing your solo."

"I wrote a song that I wanna sing," she said.

Andorra may not understand all human gestures and body language, even with the few specimens she managed to ride. But she thought that this older human was biting back frustration as to not upset his star. Unless, of course, he had ulterior motives for pleasing this female human -- this human didn't appear to be too terribly intelligent. But all Andorra needed was to get her brim into the forum. This human would only need to serve that end, and then her usefulness wouldn't matter anymore.

"Alright, Ms. Mann," Mr. DeVille said. Switching to a more formal tone was a hint that this Jazz Mann (yes, Jazz Mann -- like jasmine) was getting on his nerves. The only reason why he didn't give her what for was simply because he needed her. There was no time to recast this part . . . assuming that was truly what he was after. "We're ready for you to sing."

The young-looking female human with the husk similar to Andorra's form, was on the rather large, elaborate stage. She belted out, singing rather pompously, and with an only passable performance.:

"I can't help it if I make a scene,
Stepping out of my hot pink limousine.
I'm turning heads, and I'm stopping traffic,
When I pose, they love it, and when I joke, they laugh.
I've got a pair of eyes that they're getting lost in,
They're hypnotized by the way I'm walking,
I've got them bedazzled like a stage magician,
When I point, they look, and when I talk, they listen,
Well, everybody needs a friend,
And I've got you and you and you!
So many, I can't even name them,
Can you blame me? I'm too famous!!
Haven't you noticed that I'm a star?
I'm coming into view as the world is turning.
Haven't you noticed I've made it this far?
Now, everyone can see me burning.
Now, everyone can see me burning.
Now, everyone can see me burning."

"That's not the song," Mr. DeVille said, removing his glasses and squeezing the bridge of his nose between his eyes. Clearly, a gesture of frustration. "And you didn't write that song. You stole it from a cartoon show."

"You don't know that," she said, with a sniveling tone. Andorra was pretty sure that this human's mind was a wasteland, and she was starting to second-guess her decision to take this human as a worthy host. But she was under a time crunch, so she couldn't deviate from her decision now. Andorra was forcing herself to stick to it.

Instead of wasting energy to argue with her, he decided to just deflect to the subject at hand. He didn't want to be here all night with this prima donna, being all diva and such. "Let's just try with the song that you're supposed to sing for the play, Ms. Mann, okay? You did commit it to your --"

Suddenly, a powerful gust of wind from a nearby wind machine located in the right wing inexplicably turned on, blowing her hat away. This was Andorra's opportunity. She actually hesitated, wondering whether she really wanted to do this. Really wanted to take this host. But there was no time. Andorra's proverbial hands were tied.

Andorra managed to hide the husk and replace it when Jazz Mann came to look for it, as Mr. DeVille went to give the unseen stagehand who turned on the wind machine a piece of his mind. Jazz Mann came and mistook Andorra for her hat (and Andorra forgot to shut her eyes). She deftly lifted Andorra to her head, put her on her head, and Andorra took immediate control. And she immediately regretted it as she was flooded with her memories and thoughts. Andorra thought it was akin to wading through waist-deep sewage. This human's mind was a repugnant wasteland, and she thought that the world should and did revolve around her and what she wanted. Anyone who told her otherwise was just somehow wrong and mean. Her ego was so massive and fragile -- a rather dangerous ****tail.

There was no way that this human would be consider worthy. But maybe she could fool the RAFians -- she just had to get her brim in the door, after all. She went off to the rendezvous point, leaving Mr. DeVille hanging and wondering where she went. Though she was rather flaky, and this wasn't the first time she walked off the stage and left without telling anyone. She had her host -- a less than worthy one -- but hopefully she was just acceptable enough.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3sH7S1SlyA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3sH7S1SlyA)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2018, 03:45:30 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Rendezvous Interruption

Darby was starting to get impatient. It wasn't that hard to find sufficiently worthy hosts. She found hers, Matthew North, rather easily. The others should have found theirs with similar ease. How hard could it possibly be to find hosts to get past the registering process? Their methods of vetting couldn't really be all that stringent, could they? Not to mention, Darby thought, that they had divine providence on their side. Everything was falling into place before them.

And all the wanted was their ship. Was that really too much? Granted, Darby was intending to come back to this planet and conquer it. These humans weren't that bad a ride, she would admit. The nimble, dexterous fingers, the bipedal gait, the height, the strength . . . or maybe that was just her current host, who was a human male in peak physical condition and in his youthful prime.

"It's about time," Darby said. She was using Matthew's voice. This close to the forum, she didn't want anything left to chance if they could help it. Hopefully, Andorra riding that human that this one, "Matthew", found rather attractive. Darby, however, felt no such attraction. Tex and Madcap arrived shortly after Andorra. "I was getting bored. And you're very nearly late."

"Sorry, Darby," Andorra said. She was quick enough on the uptake to know to follow Darby's lead and speak with Jazz's voice.

"'Matthew," Darby hissed, barely moving Matthew's lips. Then she spoke in a low, quiet, conspiratorial tone, still using Matthew's voice, as if the RAFians were listening in (which they very well could possibly be), "Use your host's name instead of your own. Anything else will be considered a security risk and be treated as such. They may know about our ship, but they may very well not know about our kind. I would like to keep our existence as secret as possible."

"Sorry, my . . . 'Matthew'," Andorra said, hastily corrected herself.

"Now," "Matthew" said, still maintaining the conspiratorial tones. "Who are all of you?"

"Jazz Mann," Andorra reported..

"Landon Rock," Tex reported.

"Joel McCartney," Madcap reported.

"Good," "Matthew" (Darby) snapped, glancing around with minute, furtive looks, as if any blade of grass had the potential to sell them out. But her mind kept relaxing into thinking that "divine providence" would save them.. "Memorize and use those names. We just need to adopt these personas just long enough to get to the ship. We can ditch these humans as soon as we're in. We managed to get this far."

Darby snapped Matthew's head to "Jazz", "And, 'Jazz', make note of this place -- after we deal with the dissenters, this will be the next place on the ETA to conquer."

"Duly noted," Andorra said, bobbing Jazz's head in a rather exaggerated nod.

"And agreed on the assessment," "Joel" said.

"What's our next step?" Tex asked, thoughtfully crossing Landon's arms.

Before Darby/Matthew said anything, they saw a flash of light in the sky.

"That's the same kind of propulsion that the . . ." Tex said, his gun swinging rather haphazardly on Landon's back. Fortunately, it wasn't loaded and the safety was on. He turned Landon's head toward Darby/Matthew, wearing a look of incredulous surprise on Landon's face. "Ya think?"

"I do," "Matthew" said, standing taller with rather more pompous body language. She clearly thought this was that "divine providence" thing. "Clearly, they didn't know what they had."

"But, darling," Andorra said, "how are we supposed to get on it when it's that far up in the atmosphere?"

"But, D-- er, 'Matthew', there's a bigger problem," Tex said, very seriously, and Landon's face mirrored this seriousness. "The ship wasn't any condition to fly. I still haven't had a chance to repair it. Premature liftoff could potentially do more damage than it already suffered. Premature liftoff could result in the ship detonating."

"Killing the toppr onboard," Darby said, dropping the pretense. Getting into the forum was no longer necessary, now that the ship was outside it. But they weren't going to ditch these humans just yet. As the watched the ship's engines sputtered, and the ship turned at a forty-five degree angles. Then it plummeted back to the ground.

Upon seeing this, Tex relaxed Landon's body. Following Darby's lead, he spoke with his true voice through Landon's mouth and tongue, "At that trajectory, the ship should easily survive. Any damage it suffers should be purely cosmetic, and it should not lose any functionality."

Any RAFian could tell them that this reeked of a trap, but they continued to follow this "divine providence" ideology and saw it as such as they went to the prospective landing site. They took their human hosts with them. They will only ditch them when Tex assessed the damage and repaired anything that was in desperate need of repair. Then they can go and deal with those terrorists.

Darby was sure that everything would just happen to fall in her favor -- it always seemed to. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 16, 2018, 10:25:26 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Wait -- Seriously? That Was An Obvious Trap!

The four traveled deep inside the forest nearby the forum, where the ship had crashed. It was in Cloak's former mediation spot that he had to abandon when that insane, grandeur-obsessed human came around, violating the sanctity of the place. There, nestled in the deep brush, was the metallic silver of the hatbox-like ship.

"The divine providence has blessed us once more," Darby said, foolishly abandoning all pretense. "The ship is there."

None of her fellows dared to contradict her, though they did stole some looks from one and another. There was no debris or anything indicating that the ship was ever airborne. No broken branches or charred earth, no trail towards the the ship. It was as if the ship had arbitrarily decided to turn intangible until reaching its current resting spot. Chapeausapien ships could not turn intangible. This ship was obviously planted here. This was immensely obvious to everyone gathered. Obvious to everyone.

Except Darby, that is.

She ran Matthew's body over towards the ship, unconcerned with the scratches and punctures the thorny briers left on Matthew's body. There was a path to the ship, but it was a narrow one. The briers also tore at his clothing as Darby took this narrow path. Darby didn't care about this human's clothing and inconsequential injuries. Her entourage followed suit, the briers tearing at their clothes. Jazz's dress was filthy and torn to rags. Landon's gun's strap actually frayed considerably and visibly. Only Joel's clothing seemed tough enough to survive the briers, the jersey and the blue jeans.

But as it turned out that there wasn't any briers around the actual spot where the ship was. There was at least a thirty-foot radius clearing around it, and this STILL didn't register to Darby as being a trap. She still stubbornly believed it to be divine providence was at play, when every thing practically screamed ramshackle, hastily-made trap.

"Um, Darby?" Madcap began.

"Not now!" Darby snapped. "Tex!"

Tex hastened to obey. "Yes, Grand High Potentate?"

"Is the ship serviceable?"

Tex moved to take a look at the ship, but suddenly the area was surrounded by a fine particulates, like pollen or . . . or pepper. The four humans sneezed violently, causing the Chapeausapiens controlling them to fly off, as if all the synapse fired off at once. Only they didn't land on the humans heads again, as, with another sneeze, the four fell into four portal gun-esque portals behind all four. These portals vanished as they finished falling through. The Chapeausapiens were now without hosts.

But they had other concerns. They were ensnared in some sort of woody vines that formed what appeared to be a loose net. Their tendrils kept slipping into the holes in this loose net. Which caused Derby much irritation. That and the fact that these vines seemed to be tightening and the holes seemed to be getting smaller. Wait -- the holes were getting smaller, and they were starting to enclose over them.

"It was a trap!" Darby squeaked, in her natural Chapeausapien voice. "It was a trap!"

Her fellows tried very hard not to say, "No duh!" or some derivative. It was at this point that the briers seemed to recede back into the forest as if they were some artificial obstruction placed there on purpose. When all the briers had retreated, the four Chapeausapiens saw their captor . . . a being about eight foot or so tall in a cloak that could blend into the darkness easily, and the cloak sliced the air menacingly. Despite herself and her ego, Darcy found this being frightening and intimidating. Whatever it was, and whoever it was, it was crystal clear -- it was not one to be trifled with or taken lightly.

To this creature's left was a being that was only visible for a moment, before shimmering out of existence. To this creature's right was someone that Darcy recognized and hated. It traveled on a single wheel with a top-like body that possessed three dials on the front, two long, gangly, hose-like arms (held to his sides, as so they would not drag along the ground) ending in three fingers with two joints, and a bulbous head with a panel that traveled up and down. But this was an artificial body as the driver of the body was an European crown Chapeausapien. It was the leader of the revolutionaries, the group that Darby and her entourage deemed as terrorists. Klaatu Rownd II.

This would not stand!!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 17, 2018, 12:26:37 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Loose Ends

This will not stand!! This cannot stand!!

Darby would not allow herself to be in the clutches of these terrorists. Let them have Tex, Andorra, or Madcap. They were expendable. There lives weren't as important as hers was. She would not suffer the indignity, the humiliation, of being captured and taken prisoner by these uncouth, traitorous terrorists! These repugnant insurgents! She was the powerful Grand High Potentate! She has never been defeated!!

"Thank you for your assistance," said Klaatu.

How he could ride that abominable automaton instead of a proper host was almost sacrilege to Darby. She had outlawed the creation of such creatures. The meeker Chapeausapiens without the the crown to take hosts deserved to walk on their suction cup tentacles, like the pathetic creatures that they were. And hosts were only allowed to Flarg dynasty loyalists. Darby refused to acknowledge that this was actually a dwindling number, that loyal to her and her lineage had been steadily declining for millennia. So most of their conquered planets were full of beings not being ridden by a Chapeausapien -- and this was actually fine with a growing number of younger Chapeausapiens, who had come to see taking hosts as morally reprehensible, unless they were voluntary and the host has some say so in the occupation.

As far as Darby was concerned, they were all fools for thinking this way. They were embarrassingly weak for sympathizing with these creatures. They were blinded with compassion, and lowered themselves to thinking that these creatures were to be befriended and treated as if they were equals!! The very idea! That would be like humans place cows on the same level as themselves, when they kill them and their progeny for meat and take their females' milk for their own consumption. That's what all other species were suppose to be to Chapeausapiens. The sentience of the species was immaterial. Chapeausapiens had dominion over all they see. Who cares what these lesser intellects and savage brutes thought or felt? It didn't matter in the grander scheme of things -- a scheme which would be dictated, as it should, from a Flarg.

"There are four in there," Cloak said. "That should be all of them."

Darby was apoplectic with rage. Not only due to her capture due to her ignorance and arrogance and belief in some ludicrous "divine providence", but because she knew when she saw the ship, which looked very much like it came from the Jimmy Neutron universe, only in greens and reds and golds. She knew that, in her desperate attempt to squash the group she and her family called terrorists, that her family's attempts to quash this rebellion had failed. She didn't want to acknowledge it, but deep down, she knew. She knew that her authoritarian attempts to quash and squash and smush this opposition had only turned more people against her, instead for her, like she thought it would.

"Yes," Klaatu said, "Ms. Flarg, Mr. Barrada, Mr. Nikto, and Ms. Talaya are now accounted for. They were the leaders of the failing regime."

Darby interpreted his tone as smug, and she found this unbearable. She could not longer stand this indignity of her position that she found herself in, this degradation of Darcy's authoritarian rule and the debasing of her family name, of her dynasty!! This was too much. This was really too much. Her regime was not failing. The toppr would have changed everything. They just had to get to the ship.

"We also destroyed the dangerous sentient toupee that they had contained on the ship," Cloak said, matter-of-fact. He was looking at Klaatu as if he was trying to judge whether Klaatu was honestly being truthful. The Mirror of Truth they had had managed to vouch for the story Klaatu gave them. Still, Cloak wasn't exactly the most trusting of people, which was understandable, considering his background.

The mere pronouncement of this understated fact absolutely stunned and floored not only Darby, but all four of them. Klaatu was also shocked by this.

"They . . . they made a toppr?" Klaatu said, aghast. "That's another crime that these four will have to answer to Chapeausapien people for create such a . . . a monster. You -- RAFians, was it? -- you've done us a great service. We are in your debt."

As they talked, Klaatu's men -- four police hat Chapeausapiens riding the plastic and mechanical bodies -- took the four regime Chapeausapien and put them in small hat boxes, which was akin to handcuffing them (which they obviously couldn't do as Chapeausapiens don't have any wrists to handcuff. When the four Chapeausapiens and their ship were secured in the larger ship, Klaatu thanked Cloak profusely.

Only when the ship was gone and out of sight, Broken, who had used the Disillusionment Charm on himself and was unseen by any of the Chapeausapiens, spoke up, "Are you sure that that Klaatu guy was telling the truth?"

"No," Cloak said. "Their physiology is so radically unusual . . . my Earthsight doesn't work on them in the same way it does with other beings. But the Mirror of Truth vouched for him. I trust that."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 19, 2018, 04:44:39 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Cold Shoulder

Shenmue was dispatched to a frozen city, under mounds of snow. She was expecting to deal with one of Demos's fiends, but part of her worried that it may be that ice ifrit back for another go. She certainly hoped that wasn't the case, as she wasn't entirely sure she could handle that thing without any backup whatsoever. She's strong, but she's no Cloak or Estelore. She knew that and had accepted that. Though she had no fire-based abilities -- it seemed odd to send her after a cold-themed fiend when it would make more sense to send a pyrokinetic RAFian, like Cloak, Demos, or Phoenix.

Oh, well. No going back now.

She traveled upon a rather broken-looking street. Geez, the infrastructure in this country really needs far more governmental investment, she thought as she walked toward what she hoped was the fiend's nest, hoping that the path there would be fairly easy. Eventually, she came to a point where she needed to take a left, up an alleyway. Then she zigzagged between buildings until she needed to go left once more. She went forward a bit, before taking a sharp right. Then she came out from the network of alleyways and moved right.

Then she had to walk lightly over temporary ice bridges, that crumbled if she put too much weight on them. And there was getting to be a lot of them. Because of course there were. Well, best to get this over with quickly. Then she came to a dropshaft, which she quickly dropped through and proceeded through the winding hallway that followed to another dropshaft.

And at the end of that dropshaft? A cryokinetic construct of a snowman. Oh, she did not have time for a distraction like this. She would like to defeat the fiend in a timely manner and this would just slow her up. She blasted the construct with electricity enough times for it to lose its cohesiveness and revert back to snow and ice. There. That's done. Time to move on.

She jumped down another dropshaft, and continued to the left to another dropshaft. Then she continued to the right to a flooded part of this abandoned snow-laden city. There were more crumbling ice platforms here as well, and most of the terrain was submerged in freezing water. Shenmue sighed audibly. This would be the type of environment where Horse would have excelled, not her. Well, time to just suck it up and move forward.

Then she came to a "T"-intersection and she took the left-hand path. Then she proceeded forward on the windy path. Then she went to the right, then to the left when the path opened out. Then she followed this a short stint, and made it to the fiend's nest room. The room had flat walls and floors, and lacked a ceiling. The short fiend was predominately black and built like a refrigerator. It had a circular headpiece that was black on the top and dark red beneath. It hadn't any face other then large, angular, human-like eyes (pale orange sclera and dark orange irises). It's chest had a keel on its chest which can open up like a refrigerator (there were even white handles similar, if not identical, to the kind that you could find on an actual refrigerator) and can access ice-based attacks. Its shoulder pieces were rectangular with dark orange piece atop them. It had thick black arms with dark gray tubes connecting from its shoulders to its forearms, with thick, blocky hands with fingers to match. It had a dark red crotch piece, brown thighs, thick black shins, and dark red, pod-like feet with two purple growths on each one.

The fiend's primary means of attack appeared to be creating an ice wall, a spiked, rectangular block of ice, and pushing it toward Shenmue. The block bouncec off of the ice wall and was destroyed as it slammed into the other wall. This meant that Shenmue had to jump over it twice in order to avoid getting hit. After this attack, the fiend jumped toward Shenmue a tiny bit, then repeated the attack. After it took a ecertain amount of damage, Cold Man started creating small cold clouds that would interfere with her motor functions before her attack. Shenmue wisely took these clouds of coldness before moving to the fiend.

Shenmue decided to stop playing around, and take control of this battle. When the fiend started its attack pattern again, she launched a bolt of lightning at it, which stunned it. She did it again before it could react. And again, and again, and again, until the fiend was no longer an issue . . .

***

Demos called it a "psychrosapien". He claimed that designed this fiend to keep DNA specimens cold. Why he couldn't just use a mundane refrigerator, he refused to say.

***

Malice watched this dispassionately, wondering idly if she was becoming irrelevant as an antagonist.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on May 19, 2018, 03:31:56 PM

That's the best use of Wingdings I've ever seen. Maybe the only use of Wingdings I've seen, but still my statement stands.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2018, 05:20:01 AM

Really? No one has ever used Wingdings in that way? It just seemed so natural that that font would be perfect for an alien language.

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXXI:
YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ
CHAPTER ONE:
On the Back Burner

Horse was dispatched to a forest, which was in rather grave danger of being immolated by a fire-themed fiend. She felt very out of place, though she could use her cryokinesis to keep herself comfy in such a temperate climate, why was she given this mission? She wasn't the only hydrokinetic in the form. Cloak had mastery over the element. Aquilai was a waterbender -- no, wait, he mysteriously Regenerated into a firebender. But, still, Cloak could do this! She sighed audibly as she made her way forward on the uneven, hilly ground, far slower than she would have liked.

Eventually, she came into a building of some sort. There was that marking again -- the eye-beaker-DNA strand one. She disregarded it, and moved forward, having to use her hydrokinesis to move forward at a pace she like more. This abandoned husk of a facility was cramped and claustrophobia -- fortunately, she was smaller than an average human, so this didn't bother her all that much. She made her way through the winding corridors, and was finding it boring. The walls were deteriorating, it's true, and it looked as if the place would come down with the next gust of wind.

Then she had to go onto catwalks with high railing. There were hidden holes everywhere in these catwalks. Well, Horse thought, that was most certainly inconvenient. Inconvenient, but not wholly un-doable. Horse took a note out of Iceman's book, and just ice bridged her way over these holes. It wasn't a particularly challenging puzzle for her to solve, but oh, well.

Then she came to an area whose left side and uneven floor was perforated with holes. She had an inkling what would happen when she would proceed into this area. And she wasn't a fan of it at all. Wasn't it bad enough that she had to pass through the G.I. tract of a rabid Pikachu? She guessed not, apparently. She ensconced herself in a water bubble with an icy shell and skated forward as fast as she could. And she was right. There were all matter of spears being poked through these holes. Whoever put this here was a sadistic piece of work. But she managed to escape this area without being harmed at all, coming to this abandoned facility's next dropshaft.

She fell for a while, before landing safely, if roughly, at the bottom. Then she proceeded to the right. And there was an annoying profusion of birds in this particular area, which all seemed to think Horse was a threat. Wonderful. But she managed to make it by them and to the next dropshaft. Then she found herself in open forest again. She was outside. She didn't know if this was better or not. And she would have to travel into the darker part of the forest.

Then the forest started to burn. It took all of Horse's might and hydrokinetic prowess to stem this fire. Then she swept herself up a latter and into the small hallway before the fiend's nest. She had had just about enough and was about to take it out on this fiend. The room was actually open, albeit dark, forest. But the fiend was upon a small parcel of land with a moat of spikes all around it.

The lanky fiend had a human-like head with a nozzle on its crest with a green Bunsen burner-like flame emitted from it, with two more raked backward. It had a deranged face, with wild eyes that dark green sclera and dark brown irises. Its chest was armored with green armor and a slim, white midriff. It had a silver ring around its waist and a green crotch piece, and white thighs. It had propane tanks for shoulders, Its upper arms were brown and its lower arms were green with a black wrist. On its left arm was a Bunsen burner-like nozzle which also had green flames. Its hands were pale orange with open fingertips which allowed it to fire more of these green flames. It's shins were bulky and green, with a black ring around the middle of the shin. It had black heels and toes with a white stripe separating the two.

Horse that the fiend was very quick. The fiend began this fight by dashing toward the seal, then turn around and dash in the opposite direction. He will do this either once or twice.  It threw an explosive barrel at Horse's position, then launched three bear traps that will immobilize Horse (as well as horribly maim her). Then it jumped in the air and slammed into the ground, sending a pair of fire waves in all directions. After it performed these three attack patterns. it performed another of the three or use an undulating wave of fire,  jumping a small length toward Horse as it did so. This attack lasted for about five seconds, and it would repeat this an infinite amount of times.

When it did this a second time, Horse, upon instinct, created a wall of ice. To her surprise, it actually blocked the green fire waves. Then an idea hit her upside the head, and she smacked the ice wall with a flipper -- causing it to rush forward, and slam the fiend. Slamming it into the spikes surrounding the battle area. But it survived this and hopped to the other end of the stage. Horse did this another six or so times, trapping the fiend into a sort of stun-lock.

The deed was done, and so was Horse. She was planning to sleep for a year when she got back to the forum.

***

Demos called it "banasapien". And took him something to admit that this fiend's creation was actually an accident, and it's mind was warped as a result. It explained its pyromaniacal tendencies.

***

Malice only had this on as background noise as she still suffered from scheme block, and she wasn't too happy about it. She would not allow herself to fall into irrelevancy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2018, 07:43:24 AM

This was a f*ckin' ordeal to put up with my sh*tty internet going out every two seconds.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
The Convention

"Oh, don't be such a grouch!" AniDragon said, bracingly. "Have a little fun!"

"I wouldn't qualify this as . . . 'fun'," Cloak said, stoically. "I'd much rather be dealing with that fire fiend that Horse was sent on."

Cloak was wearing his ID mask which projected a human form on him, which actually made him look far shorter and more innocuous than his true form. Of course, he wasn't the only one that AniDragon dragged along. Abby and Melissa came to, and Leatherhead begged for GH to take him with.

Leatherhead was, naturally, wearing his human suit, although he needn't have. There were many humans in costume at this place, many very impressive, others not so much. Most were a median of these two extremes, all seemed to have a rather homemade feel to them. Despite himself, Cloak found himself in awe at the craftmanship of many of the more extravagant costumes -- he believed that they called it "cosplay". Granted, it wasn't something that Realm Walkers would indulge in -- although, one could make the argument that that was what he was doing right now, disguising himself as a fairly nondescript human.

"That's the spirit!" AniDragon said.

Cloak glowered at her, which just caused her to laugh out loud. Cloak wasn't fond of the crowded atmosphere, and really just had every inclination to recoil to the shadowy corners of the room -- although, there were none. This was like bringing a caged tiger to a prom -- its just an exercise in poor taste, though, granted, this wasn't nearly as cruel.

"Why are we here again?" Cloak muttered.

"Oh, you know you need to get out of that stuffy thread once and a while," AniDragon said.

"I do," Cloak said.

"Outside of missions, Cloak!" she replied, a bit too jovially for the Realm Walker's taste. "You need to unwind for a while, get out, meet the people that we're protecting as RAFians."

"Oh, yeah, because Bern Bridges is making that so easy to do," GH said, almost nihilistic.

"Daddy, lookit lookit!" Leatherhead said, dragging GH off by his right hand. It was like Leatherhead was at Disney World or something. The kid didn't know his own strength -- he nearly dislocated GH's right arm -- leaving GH to say, "Alright, alright -- calm down, LH. I'm coming. I'm coming."

Cloak noticed something to his right, about seven o'clock. It was a full-color comic book, but there seemed to be something about it. Something that Cloak couldn't put his finger on. But it was something that Cloak didn't like, something . . . wrong. The comic book's front cover had the title of "Ultimate Man", and it had a very Kryptonian figure underneath this title. This figure wore a very Superman-esque costume, but all-black with no insignia on the chest. But only the head and fists were bare. The character had a very square head and close-cut hairstyle, with a lock of hair, twisted and curly, hanging down over his rather squared forehead. The character's cape looked more like a leather tarp if anything else. Yet, something about this repulsed Cloak.

There was a boy, maybe a little younger than Leatherhead, with threadbare, ragged clothing and messy black hair and an odd look in his eyes. He had seen things, with eyes like that. He was eyeing the comic book with all the avarice of that a young boy has for things that they cannot have.

He wanted that comic book.

Actually, that was inaccurate. He wanted to be that character. He wanted to be out of the position of powerlessness that young children often find themselves in, especially in loveless, dysfunctional households. This boy wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted, as all children do. This boy wanted to be powerful. He wanted all these things. He looked at the comic book, in its case, and knew that he'd never own it. He'd never be able to read the story within, never be able to afford to purchase it.

He looked around, secretly hoping someone would buy it for him, like a child would. But he knew the reality of the situation, though he hoped otherwise. Knew that he would never get the comic book. No one would pay a thousand bucks or so for a comic book, even a first-edition, first printing, mint condition one. No one . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 24, 2018, 03:00:42 PM

Sorry for the delay -- was struggling with internet and it was the sixth consecutive day of work for me.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
The Cursed Comic Book

The boy’s name was William Baxter Radcliffe, but he went by Billy. He didn't have many friends, and his parents were less than stellar at parenting. Hence why he was at this convention without any sort of parental supervision whatsoever. His parents, Ann and Edward, didn't really seem to love him, apparently seeing him as nothing more than a burden rather than a person. He was too young to recognize some of the deeper implications of what this meant, of what child abuse really was. He didn't understand, not really, that not everyone suffered this sort of neglect and derision. And this kind of dehumanization that he had to endure.

His father rarely, if ever, spoke to him, and whenever his mother did, it was just to bark orders that she expected to be obeyed immediately. When he was gone, for any length of time, he was never questioned about his whereabouts. It would be very easy for him to be a Controller and feed every three days, as his parents wouldn't care. Despite his young age, he basically had to fend for himself, but he was too young to understand that this was illegal by the laws of the country. His parents threatened him most severely if he told any person of authority of his treatment. They made him see figures of authority as monstrous, evil people and he tried to keep his distance away from all people in uniform with badges, harboring an indoctrinated terror of them.

Billy has never known any possessions of his own. He was fortunate enough that his parents had deigned to clothe him and feed him. Occasionally. It wasn't fair, he knew this much. But he found himself completely enraptured by the comic book. It was the first appearance of Ultimate Man, an obscure character that Billy personally saw as being unjustly obscure.

He was super powerful with a myriad of superpowers. Superhuman strength. Superhuman durability. Superhuman solar energy absorption. Powerful healing factor. Solar energy emission. Heat vision. Solar invulnerability. Flight. Superhuman speed (purportedly). Superhuman intelligence (only claimed, never shown). Superhuman breath. X-ray vision. Superhuman hearing. Superhuman vision. Vocal abilities. And possibly more as the writers came up with them.

Ultimate Man was, as a character, not especially well-written, but Billy refused to hear any of this. He stubbornly asserted that Ultimate Man was the best character ever, and could beat any other character with ease. He would twist any argument to make his argument stronger, but he was a young kid and he was, naturally, stubborn about such things. He would argue that Ultimate Man didn't need any help for anything, didn't need a team or anything, was able to do anything imaginable (including things outside his established power set), and was without any flaws or defects. Billy ignored the fact that this made Ultimate Man a rather boring character that couldn't support a single-run series.

Ultimate Man was everything was everything that Billy wanted to be -- powerful, fearless, and confident. All things that Billy felt that he was woefully lacking in all accounts. He ignored the fact that Ultimate Man, in his comics, was a rather misogynistic, cruel, and violence-prone character, not above using intimidation and threats of physical violence to get his way. Well, he either ignored it, chose to not understand it, or pretended not to understand it. Billy was not a stupid kid, however. He was often quick on the uptake.

Anyway, he stood there, staring at this comic in its glass box case. He wanted that comic so badly, and no one else at this convention was bothering to stop and give it a second glance. This annoyed Billy a bit, as he thought the character was grossly underrated and undervalued. But, on the other hand, he didn't have to worry about fighting his way through a crowd to see the comic. He was so absolutely ecstatic to even see the comic, even if he could not read it.

Then some thoughts began to curling and swirling around in his mind, though it was unknown if those thoughts were actually formed by the boy himself. It was almost as if the comic book emitted an orange light that was taking effect on the boy. That some unknown force, whose sentience or lack thereof, was unknown. His eyes seemed to sparkle with orange light flecks as he started to look even more covetously at the comic. The desire to have it was growing inside of Billy, and he didn't even seem aware of it.

What use was a comic book in a glass case? the thoughts said, still unknown if they came from the boy or some external source, Comics were MEANT to be read, to be experienced to be enjoyed. That was their purpose, their function, their . . . destiny. They were never meant to be locked up and hoarded away, like a dragon with gold. They were never meant to be sequestered away like some religious artifact from a day and age long since past. They were never meant to used as a means to get the owner rich or to be in some innocuous collection from some rabid collector.

These thoughts, regardless of origin, spoke to Billy. They were doing a rather spectacular job in convincing him, in justifying the action.

I deserve that comic book more than its current, GREEDY owner, Billy found himself thinking. I'd take better care of that comic book. Just look at the spine of the book! It had never even been opened even once! That's sacrilege! That's blasphemy! No jury would convict me. I would . . .

Billy apparently didn't realize, not really, what he was planning on doing. It was almost as if he lost control of his body and mind, and he wasn't even aware of it. He just knew the desire to have the comic book. But he couldn't liberate it with so many people here. . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2018, 08:22:33 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Melissa's Curse Sense is Tingling!!

Melissa was enjoying herself. Unlike Cloak, who seemed bound and determined to be a grump, she decided to enjoy the festivities. She didn't mind the crowd too much -- it wasn't too big, and it wasn't too small, either. She found that she really like the pageantry of colorful and inventive costumes that came by. She couldn't help but silently marvel at the ingenuity of these people to make these cosplays really well with shoestring budgets and materials generally not associated with costuming. It was really miraculous in a way -- the creativity, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness. It was something to be admired, for achieving such a thing. Granted, she would admit that she didn't know all the characters that these cosplays represented. In truth, she knew a scant few of them, but that would not stop her from appreciating them, appreciating the obvious hard work and effort that went into some of them (although, she would admit that there were some that looked store-bought and rather lame, but she quickly overlooked those).

All the effort that these people put into these costumes . . . Melissa thought that they should be commended for it. That they should know that the fruit of their labor was not bitter ones. These people managed to weave a magic all their own, and they worked for it. They didn't have it magically handed to them . .. she suddenly started to realize that this was the point that Cloak was constantly trying to get at with wish fulfillment by something like a wishing star or genie. These people worked on these cosplay costumes. They endeavored long and hard -- how many hours, how many days, how many weeks of work did it take them to accomplish this? And they didn't simply make a wish and have it come true within seconds . . . that would really be hollow. That would really be robbing them of the truer satisfaction of knowing that they actually worked through blood, sweat, and tears to achieve something so impressive -- rather than having it magically handed to them.

How come the billionaires and their spoiled brats don't know this? All they do is steal from people with less money than them, and shame them for not having much. While she wasn't as politically astute as someone her age should be, she knew that that's what the wealthy tend to do. Take and steal even more wealth from those that don't have much of it to begin with. Most of the billionaires in this county inherited their wealth, and had not earned it like their predecessors. They had not known the blood, the sweat, the tears, the toil that it took to get that money that their predecessors knew once upon a time. It was rather sad and pathetic in a way, these spoiled brats have never known a hard day's labor in their lives. Melissa couldn't help but pity them for it. They would never new the analogous sense of satisfaction that these intrepid people have done.

Then again, the two subjects, that of cosplay and wealth accumulation, weren't really all that similar were they? She shook her head. She shouldn't be thinking about politics. AniDragon brought them here to enjoy themselves, and have some fun. Politics are none of those things. She looked up and happened to walk by a harried GH, who was trying to calm Leatherhead down. The crocodilian boy (who still wore his human suit, which still was like a play suit to him) was so excited by the booths of several programs that he loved, that he could barely contain himself. Such exuberance can only come from a child his age, and it was adorable. Melissa couldn't help but smile inwardly at this -- it was almost as if Leatherhead was in Disney World or something.

Then something happened that seemed to cause everything to fall away. It was almost as if she had fallen into a black void with only a spotlight on her and something else behind her a fair distance away. This only happened in her mind, though, because she had sensed something. Something that she had never sensed, really. Something or someone here has known magic. And not good magic, either.

She turned around, but she couldn't tell what exactly held this magic. Or who. Everything and everyone was a possible candidate, except her RAFian friends, of course. She glanced over to Cloak, and she saw that he seemed to sense the same thing. Though he wasn't sensing the magic, he was sensing the evil intent of it. But, like Melissa, that sensing ability was frustratingly vague.

"Do you know what that is?" Cloak said, as Melissa approached him.

"How did you know -- ?" Melissa said.

"The fact is I know you sense it, too," Cloak interrupted. He sounded testy. Melissa decided it would probably be best not to push her luck. "Do you know what it is? What's emanating such evil?"

"No idea," Melissa replied. Her voice had unconsciously taken on the clinical tone that she and other RAFians tended to adopt when talking about missions. "Just that it's magical in origin."

"Which makes it far more unpredictable," Cloak said. "That will complicate things, considering the volume of innocent people in this convention. Assuming that it is even an item or object of some sort, and has no sentience or will of its own."

"What do we do?" Melissa asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 27, 2018, 08:36:44 PM

Internet's still annoying.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Theft

Take it, the thing was telling Billy.

He resisted. He knew that taking things that didn't belong to you was wrong  . . that it was . . . not right.

Go on. the voice intoned seductively.

But it was wrong. The comic didn't belong to him. It was wrong.

Go on, take it, it insisted.

I . . . I can't, Billy thought, resisting the notion.

But you can, the voice contradicted, go on, take it.

It's wrong, Billy thought, but his resistance was starting to buckle slightly. The voice was very convincing.

Right and wrong are subjective, the voice said, with its unrelenting seduction, it's yours for the taking. Go on, now.

I . . . can't, Billy resisted. But it was a matter before he would buckle. He was only a child, after all.

Yes, you can. the voice said. It seemed so powerful to Billy, too powerful. You have every right to take it for yourself. Go on. Take it.

I. . .c-can't. Billy said, and his resistance was clearly beginning to buckle. It's wrong.

Right and wrong are what you make them, the voice said, take it. Make your own right and wrong.

I . . . I shouldn't, Billy said. His resistance was ebbing away and his willpower along with it.

You decide what you should and shouldn't do, no one else, the voice said. It was intoxicating, enthralling. What chance did a child like Billy have this this siren voice? Take it.

I can't. . . . People will see me, Billy thought, proving that his willpower and resistance were now completely gone. The decision had be fundamentally been made, and Billy had succumbed to the voice's will, it superseding his own.

No one will care, the voice said, in its scintillating, alluring tones. No one will notice. Just do it. Take it.

Billy reached out a hand toward the glass case. It was, serendipitously, unlocked and the front was loose. And it wasn't hooked up to any alarms or sensors, almost as if by design. It would be easy to just take it, and everyone in the convention center was too wrapped up in what they were doing (in some cases, this was literal) to notice Billy or his actions. Taking the comic would be simple child's play.

And, yet, Billy still hesitated.

Do it, the voice intoned again, filling Billy's mind once more with the covetous desire for the comic. An all-consuming wish to posses that which you do not yet own, regardless of rights to own it. Take it now.

Billy complied to the voice, this avaricious voice. Nobody noticed this surreptitious movement from the boy, nor the comic hidden inexpertly under his shirt. No one seemed to care about the theft of this comic. Nobody . . . but Billy. However, Billy had surrendered to his greed and avarice, he had succumbed to this powerful emotion.

Only one cosplayer seemed to notice him leaving, but the visibility in his costume's mascot-like head was not the best, and she couldn't be sure of what she saw through the mesh-covered eye holes of the character head.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2018, 08:39:41 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Super Special Awesome Transformation Sequence

Billy streaked his way to an isolated place -- a mock-up of some TARDIS-like device. Essentially a phone booth that no one noticed Billy getting into. The dappled light within this prop was perfect enough to read comfortably. Even the wooden skeleton of this prop wasn't too bad to lean up against., which he did immediately, extricating the comic from beneath his shirt. There was plenty of room for this young kid inside here, it wasn't the kind of space that someone of an adult size would be very comfortable inside, despite looking like a phone booth from the outside.

Apparently, he was unable to see the orange energy emanating from comic book. He was just elated that he managed to procure the very thing that he wanted very surreptitiously. It wasn't a very thick comic book. It couldn't be even sixteen pages long, and yet it was apparently considered valuable to someone, whoever put in that glass case. A person who still hadn't realized that the item was missing from its place in the glass case, almost as if they didn't really care. They were asking a price for it that far exceeded it's actual market value, after all.

He shifted his weight slightly, causing the plastic skin of this prop to wobble imperceptibly. He didn't care as he looked at the front cover of the book. He couldn't believe he had finally procured the comic that featured the first appearance of his favorite comic character. An unduly obscure character -- he was the best! So it was with eager trepidation that Billy opened the book to read the first page.

As he read, he didn't realize that his hands took on the cursed glow of the book. He could not see or perceive the cursed glow in any way, in any manner, so how could he possibly know the danger? As he transitioned to the second page, a sixteenth of his body was enveloped with this cursed glow.

As he moved onto the fourth page, an eighth of his body was now ensconced in the orange cursed glow.

As he moved onto the eighth page, a quarter of his body was now enveloped in that cursed glow.

As he moved onto the tenth page, half of his body was now enveloped in that cursed glow.

Finally, as he read the sixteenth and final page, his body was completely submerged in that orange glow. He suddenly dropped the comic book, where it would lay, forgotten. Billy was more concerned with the odd, strange feelings that were overcoming his body. It felt as if his flesh was melting, dissolving into . .. into something . . . else. The prop telephone booth seemed to be shrinking at an astonishing rate. His clothing, defying expectations, was not tearing or being stretched. It was almost as if it was being transfigured into a Klyntar (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Klyntar_(Race)), running up and down on his body as if it was sentient oil. Only his head, neck, and hands weren't covered by these transfigured clothing. It hugged his rapidly growing and aging body.

This transformation was fundamentally silent, scary, and quick. One moment he was a young boy about five or six, the next moment he was a man in his prime. He was Ultimate Man now. At least, in outward, external appearance. Inside, he was still Billy Radcliffe. He was a man in his prime, with a physique many would kill for, and, yet, still had the mentality, understanding, and maturity of a young child. This was a very dangerous combination, given how a young child's lack of understanding and overemotional state could lead to deadly violence.

But Billy . . . he did think about that. He was confused and puzzled about what just happened. The comic laid in a precarious position, upon the ground, completely forgotten in the events that happened a sparse few minutes ago. He looked at his hands and new ripped body and a childish grin spread across his face. He immediately touched his face, wishing that he could see his reflection.

Not only was he a grown-up now, he was actually his favorite comic character! At least, in appearance. Billy hadn't a clue if he had managed to get his powers, but he just felt stronger. He certainly felt invincible. He felt as if he were made from toothpicks and popsicle sticks, then woke up and found that he was made of admantium girders and paragon diamonds. It was a wonderful feeling.

He was Ultimate Man now! He wasn't wimpy old Billy Radcliffe. He never had to be Billy Radcliffe again. He would be Ultimate Man all the time now. He never understood why any of these comic characters would have secret identities. Who wouldn't want to be super powerful all the time? No one would push you around. Everyone would respect you, and never make fun of you. He could do whatever he wanted and be free, in his limited understanding, of every and all consequence and ramification.

He would enjoy this circumstance, and would do anything not to go back to being Billy again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 29, 2018, 08:15:14 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Childish Heroics

Cloak was idly watching the cosplayers walk by him. Two characters from some zombie massacre games that he didn't recognize, an angel cosplayer (Blaze might have felt that he was being mocked had he seen him), a guy with a giant key as some sort of sword, an anthropomorphic bandicoot, a purple dragon, two anime characters that Cloak didn't recognize, a purple cloaked woman, a pinkish pegasus, a Black Panther, a Batman . . . Cloak didn't want to admit it aloud, but he was secretly enjoying the pageantry of the cosplayers, and the booths of franchises that he found interesting. It was an interesting little event . . . if only it wasn't so crowded. It was far more crowded for Cloak's liking. Perhaps it was just his feline sensibilities, or maybe it was because of his decade of isolation when living with his mother -- Cloak just didn't like high density crowds.

Leatherhead eagerly wanted to take pictures with many cosplayers, much to GH's exasperation. Two treasure hunter characters, a Scrooge McDuck, a knight with a shovel, what appeared to be a Klyntor host, a luchador with a large, muscular frame, several Power Rangers and Voltron Paladins, a pyromorphic character, a pyrophageous character, an ice ninja, a cryomorphic space cop, a Captain Marvel, a blonde fighter, a metal hedgehog, a robot, a Lucario, a Renamon, an out-boxer, a brawler boxer, a bladed ninja, a silver-clad samurai, an anthropomorphic bear, an anthropomorphic bloodhound, a Thor, an Amazon, a ninja, an anime character that Leatherhead didn't recognize, a Batman Beyond, a Spider-Man 2099, a single-winged angel, a demon hunter . . . Leatherhead wanted pictures with all of them. GH had no choice but comply with his adopted son's enthusiasm.

Melissa watched with amused detachment at the cosplayers walking by her, as she sipped from her drink. There was a demon hunter cosplayer, a shadow witch cosplayer, a Bowser cosplayer, a Ganon cosplayer, a Lombax and robot cosplayer, an Ottsel cosplayer, a Jak cosplayer, a Flash cosplayer, a Quicksilver cosplayer, a Joker cosplayer, an insane clown cosplayer, a Mewtwo cosplayer, a black hedgehog cosplayer, four characters that Melissa wasn't familiar with, a Tracer cosplayer, a Scout cosplayer, a Ken Masters cosplayer, a Terry Bogard cosplayer, a pink hedgehog cosplayer, a Ramona Flowers cosplayer, a Hulk cosplayer, a Doomsday cosplayer, then another two anime characters that she wasn't familiar with, a Deadpool cosplayer (there seemed to be a lot of those), and a pink pony . . . they all seemed to have fun, and Melissa smiled at that fact. What was the point of even coming to an event like this if you weren't going to have fun with it?

Abby was engrossed with a booth of a particular franchise that she was very partial to. She was only barely aware of the cosplayers and none-cosplayers walking behind her. Abby was trying to keep her composure as they were revealing something about this franchise that really excited her -- though it seemed banal on the surface, like a rose quartz actually being a pink diamond, or misleading names of smoky or rainbow quartz, or something. She wanted to keep her expectations low, and not give into the hype.

Of course, she should have noticed that the structures above her were not really all that secured well. Her time as a RAFian should have had her instincts finer tuned to notice that sort of thing. But she had allowed her guard to fall. What could possibly have happened in a convention like this? This was a foolish thought, of course, but Abby was human, and a fallible being after all.

AniDragon, GH, Melissa, and Cloak weren't faultless, either. All of them had disregarded this.

Cloak had concerned himself with feeling out-of-place and exposed, disliking the moderate crowd. All the constant footsteps was like static noise for his Earthsight from the hard granite flooring. It confused it with the cacophony of vibrations, which would excuse his not noticing Billy absconding with the comic or his current location or transformation. Cloak had sequestered himself so that his back was against a wall. He didn't want people behind him. Was it a feline instinct to do this? Did it even matter why he was doing this?

GH was distracted by trying (and failing) to stem LH's excitement and exuberance to tolerable levels. This was a surprisingly monumental task in and of itself. Leatherhead would excitedly gaze with trembling enthusiasm and bubbling ebullience, pulling GH along. The RAFian guitarist was sure that his arm was now permanently dislocated due to his adopted son's high spirits. GH wondered if he was ever like this at LH's age, then he stopped wondering, deciding that he didn't want to know.

AniDragon was just busy doing her own thing.

Melissa was busy watching the cosplayers gamboling about and role-playing, finding it amusing. Yet, her mind kept dallying to that cursed object she sensed. It could be anywhere nearby. It could be could be anything. It could be anyone. This unnerved her a great deal. But Cloak didn't seem too distressed by it, and he was a RAFian far longer than she was. So she was just going by his lead, even though Cloak was allowing his discomfort to override his better judgement.

Suddenly, the clutter from the ceiling came falling down. It was directly above Abby, and she would have been crushed had it landed on her. She saw this, and was prepared to morph into a Psycholeopterran . . . sacrificing this top that she was partial to. But she didn't have to, because a black blur sped her out of the way and into safety.

Cloak noticed, but could not see what was behind this blur. Or were it and Abby went to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2018, 07:41:20 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Childish Obliviousness

Billy pretended that he was Ultimate Man, the real Ultimate Man. He had saved the pretty lady and he found himself smitten with her. It was just a crush like any child has with an unrelated person of the gender than they are attracted to. And he crushed hard. He thought that he had to impress her with his crime-fighting and thereby become attractive to her.

Granted, he couldn't spare three words with her after saving her from the roof falling in -- which cancelled the rest of the convention, naturally -- and went off to engage in several feats in quick succession that he hoped would prove heroic. Foiling several rather minor and banal crimes, But he thought that he was being a big superhero, despite earning the ire of the law enforcement agency. Which, to be fair, had a rather contentious relationship with the RAFians at times, but they tolerated them, knowing that they were far more equipped to deal with the threats that they deal with. They did not have such a relationship with this superpowered vigilante.

Billy, however, didn't realize that he was fostering such irritation and frustration  Such obliviousness only a child and the childish could possess. All Billy knew was the blissful exhilaration of being Ultimate Man. He didn't see any criticism or dissent from his actions, thinking that everyone was impressed with him. Believing everyone loved and worshiped this new superhero. Yes, that's what he believed himself to be. A superhero, like Ultimate Man. But there was a little fact that he continually overlooked.

The cacophonous noise he heard wasn't cheers or applause. It was shouts of protest or yells of aggravation. While he believed that he proved himself a mighty hero, instead of the persistent nuisance that the populace saw him as. Unaware to the interfering, obstructing, and nosy superpowered individual. Unheard were their venomous diatribes, their virulent monologues, their vehement condemnations of this manchild's actions. He continued to dwell and live in the fantasy that people were fawning and celebrating their new superhero -- not understanding that this wasn't a big deal, as there were aliens like Kryptonians that exist in this universe.

Not to mention that such things like this weren't seen as out of the ordinary in this city. So much so that one had to wonder why people would still live there. (The answer was that the rent was dirt cheap, and this was the other way they had to pay for it.) He felt so free . . . no one could tell him what to do. No one could tell him what not to do. He could do whatever he wanted.

This was a very dangerous perspective to have. Very dangerous indeed.

***

"What's this?" Cloak said, having noticed the destroyed phone booth prop, and the comic dangling out of it. Melissa was closest, and she picked up. Then she dropped it with a gasp.

"This was the cursed item," she said. "But it's funny . . ."

"What is?" AniDragon said, at once.

"The curse has been . . . transferred. Moved from the original cursed object," Melissa said, not hiding her confusion. "I didn't know this was possible."

"Abby?" GH asked, finally managing to pull Leatherhead away and calm him down. "Where did she go?"

"That black blur took her away," Cloak said. "We're trying to find clues."

"You didn't see?" Leatherhead asked, with a childish whine in his voice.

"Realm Walker eyes cannot be fooled," Cloak said, with a note of brevity, "but we cannot see things with crystal-clear clarity when they speed by at unheard of speeds."

"Huh?"

"The blur was moving too fast for Mr. Cloak to see clearly," GH translated.

"This comic . . ." AniDragon said. "It was the first appearance of that Ultimate Man character."

"What does the first appearance of some superhero have to do with anything." GH asked, perplexed, as Melissa's eyes widened.

"Ultimate Man isn't a superhero, GH," Melissa said. "He's a supervillain."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2018, 08:38:38 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Smitten

Abby was looking around the place she found herself in. It forcibly reminded her of the imagery of "Beauty and the Beast", thoroughly ensconced in darkness and shadow. There was just one ornate window, revealing an inky black sky with pinpoints of starlight. Perhaps one of them was Esty, but that wasn't something that Abby could concern herself with at the moment. There were transparent, silky curtains that blew and billowed rather ominously.

Abby quickly considered her options to get back to the others.

She could stay here, and wait for whoever put her here, but she immediately dismissed that option. That wasn't something she cared to see to the end.

She could morph into her Psycholeopterran morph, sacrificing her favorite top in the process. Yet, that seemed deceptively easy. Far too easy. It made her leery of the possibility. And, yet, that was the morph that had the best chances of escape. Sure, she could have morphed a Buglizard and climb down the exterior wall of whatever this place was. She couldn't think of any other scenario where her other morphs would be particularly useful in this scenario.

So, she would morph into a Psycholeopterran. She looked around, and she seemed to be alone and unwatched. She could just remove --

Wait, someone was out there? Who would be out there on that balcony? Her curiosity got the better of her. She had to find out who was out there. She saw some sort of banner that read "Ultimate Man".

"What's an 'Ultimate Man'?" Abby said. Then she realized what she said. "I cannot believe I just said that aloud."

"My super ears are burning," came a voice behind her.

She gave a startled cry, and gasped as Billy, in his Ultimate Man persona and form, landing behind her. He thought it was an impressive entrance, rather than the creepy one that it actually was.

"I usually just scare criminals," he said, in what he clearly thought was a sultry, seductive voice. In reality, it sounded awkward and stilted. "You haven't been bad, have you?"

He laughed as Abby backed away from him, apparently unaware of his true identity. And only vaguely aware that he was completely smitten with her, as he rolled over in the air, displaying his flight ability. "I'm only joshing with you. The name's Ultimate Man."

Well, Abby thought, you certainly have a high opinion of yourself.

"You own personal, heroic guardian of pure awesomeness?" he said, modeling his physique for her. It would have been cute when a young child did it, but when a grown man did . . . well, "creepy" was the only real term for it. "What's your name?"

Abby wasn't too inclined to answer. But she thought it was in her best interest to play along for now. "Abby Babbles."

Billy did not notice her obvious hesitation or her apparent discomfort. She was not smitten with this behavior but repulsed by it. But this was lost on the man-boy, who was more concerned with his feelings, his wants, his needs. By the very fact that he had not revealed his true nature to her, the fact that he was actually a child trying to romanticize a much older woman, was a hallmark of his immaturity.

"OH!" said, diving down and bringing up a heavy box of pink gemstones. "And brought you some diamonds! And they're pink!"

"Those are rose quartzes," Abby said, not really knowing if this was true. She just wanted to distract him, and hopefully get him to go away. She wasn't looking for romance at this point in her life, and she certainly hadn't any feelings for this creepy superpowered dude.

His smile faltered, "Okay, you don't like diamonds? Okay . .  forget the diamonds."

He threw the box over his shoulder without a single care for where it might land. As he floated toward the lip of the balcony, laying on his belly as if he were laying on a mattress, with his shins crossed. Almost as if he was a teenager on the phone.

"What do you want?" Abby said. She was finding this man more and more repulsive. Yet, she didn't know that he was actually a child in both his mental state and maturity.

"I thought we could go for a little flight around town," he said, rather quickly and animatedly, "get to know each other first."

Without waiting for her approval or consent, he seized her around the waist, despite her protestations, and dove off the balcony.

"This must be very thrilling for you," he said. He clearly didn't realize that she was a RAFian, and had dealt with similarly powered beings before. Even beings that were more powerful than this man.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Abby demanded, more angry than scared.

"Am I moving too fast? You're probably right," he said. "I probably should rescue a few times before we go out."

"Wait, what the --" Abby began before Billy dropped her with a "Whoops!"

But he zoomed down and saved her, declaring, "Saved you! You are lucky to have such a great hero here."

"You're no --" Abby growled.

He dropped her again, crying in falsetto, "Oh, no! Somebody do something! Oh, right! I got you, I got you!"

Billy caught her once more, and she was feeling distinctly disgruntled.

"That was close!" he crowed. Abby glared at him, wondering how long it would take to claw his eyes out. "You almost died, but I saved you!"

"And now you're going to crash us into that building," Abby said, deciding to screw this top. It was worth losing it just to get away from this creep.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 30, 2018, 09:06:21 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
REJECTED

He simply flung Abby over the building and sped around to catch her. "Gotcha! Whoo!"

Abby really didn't appreciate being treated like a friggin' ragdoll, but this creep didn't seem to realize or recognize that fact.

"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" he said, smiling an exalted smile from sheer exuberance. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of me saving your life!"

"PUT ME DOWN!!! RIGHT NOW!!!" Abby roared. She had really had enough of this. This creep may have been having fun, but she, most certainly, was NOT.

"Okay, alright. Hold on," he said, as he complied. Well, he put her down on top of a Space Needle-type structure where she could have easily still tripped and fallen off. But she could still morph -- she wasn't worried. It wasn't like she'd ever become a ghost.

"ARE. YOU. FRIGGIN'. CRAZY?!" she demanded loudly. Mostly from anger, though she did have to yell to be heard over the wind.

"I suppose I'm a little crazy . . ." he said, unaware that that inflection wasn't cute or adorable in an adult. ". . . about you."

"Who are you?"

"I told you, I'm Ultimate Man!" he said.

"No! Who are you -- really?"

". . . Ultimate Man," Billy lied. He wanted to believe that he was Ultimate Man and that Billy Radcliffe was dead.

"You don't want to tell me? Fine," Abby said.

"I don't want anything to keep us apart," he said, inelegantly sidestepping the question. "Isn't that great?"

"No, it's not great," Abby said. She swore that this was like trying to reason with a five-year-old. Which, of course, it basically was.

"Wow. Our first fight," he said. "Look at us. We're like an old married couple already."

"LOOK." Abby said, severely. "There is NO 'us', alright?! There will never BE an 'us'."

"But . . . I have powers," he said. It was at this point that his face almost reflected his true age. Abby didn't notice it, but was still stern with him. "I have a cape. I'm the good guy!"

"Good guy?" Abby echoed. "Pal, 'good guys' don't kidnap people. 'Good guys' don't take people, people who've done nothing wrong, against their will. 'Good guys' don't force themselves on others without considering the other person's feelings whatsoever. 'Good guys' don't treat peoples lives as if they're toys."

Billy stammered, "This isn't right. You're supposed to be with me!"

"Not if I don't want to be!" Abby said, not backing down.

Billy flew off the tower in a huff, storming away. Like the child he truly was. Abby, still oblivious of Billy's true form, did not feel contrite at what she said. She just simply morphed into a Psycholeopterran and flew down to the others. Meanwhile, Billy was very hurt at this brutal rejection. He really believed that Abby and he were supposed to be together, despite them being practically strangers. All the interaction they had before this was Abby giving him a kind word before moving along.

Unfortunately, all this hurt was coalescing into anger. And this was shown physically by the appearance of vein appearing all over his body, veins that appeared to be carrying molten lava within them. He was truly embracing the truest nature of the character Ultimate Man was in his comics. And, Billy was becoming very vengeful. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2018, 04:45:55 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Murderous Anger

"Abby!" AniDragon said.

"Ms. Abby! Are you okay?" Leatherhead said, giving Abby a hug. Abby broke into a smile, and pat him on his head.

"What happened?"

Abby gave a detailed explanation of what happened to her after Ultimate Man swept her away. During her explanation, Cloak and Melissa exchanged looks. Cloak only spoke when Abby had finished with a shutter at the thought of what that creepy dude could have potentially done to her, and very much without her consent.

"What?" Abby said, noticing this exchange of looks after she finished her tale.

"Well, Melissa," Cloak said, "it looks like we know where the curse was transferred to."

"What are you talking about?" Abby said, looking thoroughly nonplussed.

The Realm Walker and sorceress-in-training filled in Abby about the comic book, and the apparent curse it carried.

"So Ultimate Man was a comic book? I thought the guy just thought very highly of himself."

"There's another thing to factor in, I think," Cloak pointed out, gesturing to the destroyed remnants of the phone booth prop. "That prop there. Whoever received the curse must have been small in size -- I doubt that that prop works like a TARDIS as far as the interior accommodations go."

"What are you suggest, Cloaky?" GH asked, though he thought he knew where Cloak was heading with this. And Abby wouldn't like the answer very much. In fact, she'd probably feel even more discomfort. "That whoever that this was . . . was a --"

"THERE YOU ARE!!" a voice roared. "YOU WOULD CHOSE THIS LOSER OVER ME?!"

And there he was, looking rather like a dark, pseudo-edgy Superman -- like someone deliberately trying to look badass, but completely failing at it. He had a cape and all. But, unlike the depiction in the comic, he had glowing veins of what appeared to be molten rock. Cloak and the rest of the RAFians didn't outwardly show intimidation (well, except Leatherhead -- but, forgive him, he was still a child, after all).

He fired his heat vision at Cloak, nailing him straight in the chest and forcing out of view. In truth, Cloak should have been prepared for such an attack. But he was partially startled to actually see Billy for who he was. An over-emotional boy pretending to be a man. Sure, others would have seen him as a man, but that was essentially just a construct produced by the curse that enveloped the boy like a cocoon.

"CLOAK!"

Suddenly, a concussive blast of golden-scarlet energy streaked over the horizon and struck Ultimate Man square in the face, as Cloak walked, almost serenely, over the horizon. Heading back where his RAFian friends stood. He deftly removed his ID mask and stowed it away in his eponymous cloak, as if he was a point-and-click game protagonist.

"Boy," Cloak said, voice filled with determined calm and evenness. His eyes conveyed the intensity of what he was saying, as they were very close to becoming golden-scarlet suns. "You're poking a power that you don't understand. Back down."

Billy, however, wasn't willing to listen, and had a bit of a . . . breakdown.

"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME! YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! GIVE HER TO ME! GIVE HER TO ME! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! ABBY IS MINE! MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE, MINE!"

Abby really didn't appreciate being objectified in such a way.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 02, 2018, 04:46:12 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Murderous Intent

"Time to grow up, boy." Cloak said, unmoved by Billy's outburst. "Abby has autonomy, she has her own agency. She can make her own decisions."

"FOR YOU?!" the man-boy yelled.

"I have no romantic affiliation with her," Cloak said, bluntly. "We are friends. Nothing more, nothing less. I care for her as I would a sister."

"LIAR!!" Billy bellowed

"Child." Cloak retorted calmly.

"I'm not a child!" he raged, expecting Cloak not to see through the curse's effects. "I'm Ultimate Man!"

"Your curse envelope does not fool me, child," Cloak said. "I see you for what you are. A child younger than Leatherhead."

"I'm Ultimate Man!" he repeated forcibly.

"No, you're not." Cloak said. "Ultimate Man is a fictional character that that cursed comic book gave you a superficial likeness of, and the powers and abilities. But it's not the truth. By refusing to acknowledge this, you are fundamentally lying to yourself. You're playing at superhero without any real comprehension of what that means."

"You don't know anything!" he snarled.

"I could say the same of you," Cloak said, smacking away another heat vision blast into the sky. "You play superhero, thinking that real life is like what you read in your graphic fiction stories. That it's as cut-and-dry, black-and-white as such stories. It isn't. There are usually many factors at play. It's not about people in colorful costumes standing, posturing, delivering heroic speeches and pun-heavy banter with super-villains, and making superhero poses."

Cloak seemingly twitched slightly to the left, anticipating an attack from the boy, and he was right. He tried to murderously tackle him with all his power and might and speed. The others were just watching this go down, with Leatherhead cowering at GH's leg. Cloak found himself a little dismayed that he wasn't getting through to the boy, who was apparently just as hardheaded and stubborn as Cloak himself was at that age. His obstinate nature, you could say, was inherited from his mother.

"You only seek the fame, the reputation, the recognition of being a superhero," Cloak said. "These are not noble reasons for saving people, for protecting people. You seek praise, you seek romanticized ideals."

"SHE'S MINE!!" he roared, as he punched the ground, cracking the concrete, sending the fragments up. Only to have them rejoin to one another and fly back to the ground and having the cracked concrete seal itself back up once more. This confused the boy, but he ignored it, just to glare hatefully at Cloak.

"She's her own person. She makes that choice, not you." Cloak said. "You need to understand this, boy."

"Stop calling me that!" he said, speeding in for a punch, which Cloak dodged out of the way. Billy's wild, untrained fighting style made it child's play, no pun intended, for Cloak to dodge and evade his attacks. Had he been a bit more trained up and less of a blind brawler sort of fighter, the results may have been different. But he did not, and his attacks were obviously telegraphed. "STOP IT!"

"But you are a child," Cloak intoned seriously. "You may temporarily look like an adult. But you are not. You do not act or behave like an adult. You still act and behave like a child. Just looking like an adult does not make you one."

"You don't know everything! You don't know me!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. It rose to the decibel level of a police siren. "You don't! You don't! You DON'T!"

"You want people to believe you're an adult, and yet you're throwing a tantrum, like a child." Cloak observed mildly, giving Melissa a furtive glance. She gasped at what Cloak was suggesting she do with that look.

"SHUT UP!!!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2018, 08:43:56 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Taking the Gloves Off

Cloak tried to dodge it, but he didn't anticipate the trajectory right, and got winged by the shot. This caused Cloak to be pushed back several feet. He sighed angrily at this. He wasn't really hurt, just annoyed.

"Fine." he said, trying to stem his anger. "You think you're so tough? Fine. The gloves are coming off."

Cloak noticed the slight expectant look on Billy's face, as if he really expected him to take off his gloves. Instead of letting this slide, this also annoyed Cloak. Then Cloak reminded himself that he was a child. But Cloak would no longer be pulling his punches. Billy clearly thought he was so strong and powerful, and he technically was, but it was all due to the curse. Billy hadn't the maturity or responsibility yet to wield such power. His calcified desire to have Abby as his, but in a possessive rather than romantic manner, would not stand, and he refused to understand this.

Cloak punched the ground, forcing rock spikes up toward Billy, who simply flew up. But Cloak had not only anticipated this, but planned for it. The Realm Walker leaped up, aerokinetically-aided, and formed a golden-scarlet energy construct of a hand. Then he, even before Billy realized what was happening, slammed the hand construct down into cursed boy. Slamming him down onto the spikes with enough force to cause the spikes to shatter.

Cloak slowed his descent aerokinetically, and took a fighting stance the moment his feet touched the ground. Even before the dust cleared, Cloak fired a tendril of energy at the cursed boy, Kratos-like, and pulled Billy closer to him. Then he ****ed his right fist back, and punched him across the face, then straight into his face, then he unsheathed his claws, and he slashed his face, before throwing him a distance away from him.

But Cloak wasn't done. This was a tough lesson he was teaching, but it was evidently a necessary one for the boy to learn. To learn that in order to wield power at such levels, you required the responsibility and maturity to wield and that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. And that there's always gonna be a bigger fish to put you in your place.

Cloak charged forward, leaping up, and dove into the earth as if it were water. Billy actually thought momentarily that Cloak had tripped and missed him, that the Realm Walker had messed up his attack. Only to be proven wrong moments later as Cloak burst through the ground directly beneath Billy in a near-flawless execution of a subterranean shoryuken technique. This caught Billy in the jaw, knocking him backward once more to land on his backside. Then the minute Cloak landed, he pulled his arms back and fired a flurry of golden-scarlet hadokens at the man-boy. Most, if not all, hit their mark.

Cloak was showing a demonstrable difference in the fighting style of the two. The RAFian's style was, for the most part, controlled and measured, with technique and skill obvious. The man-boy's was wild and undisciplined, without proper form or technique. This battle was basically a clinic for trained combat versus untrained combat.

Billy couldn't manage to find an opening, even with his superior speed. He lacked superior intelligence, wisdom, maturity, and finesse to outdo all that Cloak was putting him through. Billy couldn't even manage to whine, with all the punishment that he was forced to endure, though quite capable of tanking all these hits in a manner of speaking. None of these attacks were hurting Billy all too severely.

And it was by design. Despite Cloak's claim of taking the gloves off, the Elements Master was still pulling his punches. He couldn't bring himself to go all out, give it his all, against a child who was essentially trapped in an adult's body and throwing a tantrum because he couldn't have his way. What Cloak was doing was amounting to giving a misbehaving child a sharp paddling, but nothing more severe than that.

Cloak didn't like doing this, but reason had failed with this child-man, as it tends to do with child of this age, who are so often dominated and controlled by their emotions. But this child needed to be taught that sometimes things do not go his way, and he couldn't just force people to do what he wanted just because he could destroy them in an instant. It was a lesson that many, if not all, of the Olympians failed to understand. And not only the Olympians, but almost every other god or near-godly entity in the realm.

This is one factor to why Cloak considers being labeled a "god" a grievous slur. He viewed "gods" and "goddesses" as extraordinarily powerful beings who allowed that power to inflate their egos to ridiculous and monumental proportions, and most, if not all, are devoid of humility and compassion. It's is also one reason why Cloak finds aspiring to be a good a horrible career goal

"I've enough, boy," Cloak said, believing his point was now well proven. He still hoped that Melissa was working on a way to counteract this curse, or simply coming up with a countercurse. "Have you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2018, 04:47:07 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Reason and Unreasonable

"You're MEAN!" Billy said, sounding more like his childish self than the man that he was pretending (very poorly, at that) to be.

"In other words," Cloak said, with a resigned sigh, "you've learned nothing."

"You talk too much!"

"And you think too little," Cloak replied easily.

"Shut up!!" Billy screamed.

"Boy, you need to ditch this persona you've wrapped yourself in," Cloak said. "It's not good to revel within a fantasy, and forget real life."

"This is real life!" he snarled. "I am Ultimate Man!"

"Ultimate Man is a fictitious character," Cloak contradicted. "You are a real person, boy."

"Stop calling me 'boy'!" he whited aggressively.

"Would you prefer me calling you 'girl' instead?" Cloak asked, deciding to opt for humor as a way to defuse this situation and buy Melissa more time.

"You're not funny!" he wailed. He certainly was sounding more and more like a child, rather than adult. There wasn't any questioning it now. Billy moved to attack, but Cloak stopped him with a raised hand, but only raised to chest level.

"Boy, we've already done this song-and-dance," Cloak said. "You cannot deny that we have. And what have we proven? Nothing of consequence. It's pointless to engage in fisticuffs once more."

"Stop talking! No more 'splaining!" he said, and even the curse's effect on his voice seemed to be dampening. Maybe Melissa didn't have to worry about the curse if Cloak could essentially talk the boy down..

***

Cloak had clearly indicated that he was expecting Melissa to counteract this curse or synthesize some sort of countercurse for it. The young witch was at a lost at this presumption. Doing such a thing was a monumental undertaking, and one that she wasn't sure that she had enough expertise to do properly. Sure, she could sense cursed objects, and things had known magic or been touched by them, but that wasn't a fine science.

Mixing magics was a very dangerous thing to do as well. The sheer unpredictability of what could happen -- no one could possibility know what would happen when you mix very different types of magic. I could be something very benign and irrelevant, or it could be potentially very dangerous. This prospect scared her into freezing up when she realized what the Realm Walker was asking of her.

She wasn't a Sorceress Supreme. Her mentor, Broken, was that. Well, Sorcerer Supreme. She hadn't learned enough, she felt, to be able to a sufficiently satisfactory job with this. Not to mention that she didn't know anything more about this curse other than it was orange and turned -- what she assumed to be a kid -- into his favorite character, despite that character being a supervillain. That wasn't much to go on.

She wasn't a miracle worker! She wouldn't know where the first place to start was. She hadn't a clue what kind of magic that this was. And, yet, Cloak expected her to somehow reverse this? Was he friggin' insane?! She was still a novice at magic, at best! She was by NO means a master yet. Melissa doubted that even her mentor, Broken, could figure out and make a countercurse within the time frame that Cloak had given her.

She was overwhelmed at the prospect. She was freezing up at the undertaking. She wasn't even sure she had her want with her. This was really unfair of Cloak! It's not that easy to make up a whole new spell on the fly even without a strict schedule. Clearly, Cloak's understanding of magic was very nil! Virtually nonexistent! Such things take time, even years to perfect!

Then she saw the form of Ultimate Man wobble on the curse's host. Maybe she wouldn't have to come up with a countercurse after all. Maybe this curse will dissipate on it's own accord. Not likely, she knew, but clearly whoever was playing host to this curse was giving it something to feed off of, something to fuel its continued existence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2018, 08:51:01 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Talking Down From the Ledge

"Boy," Cloak said. He was only calling Billy "boy" because he didn't know his name. "Boy, you need to understand. The more you cleave to this fantasy, the more you disconnect with reality."

"SHUT UP!! YOU DON'T KNOW ME!! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!!"

"Yes, it's true that I don't know who you truly are, other than a child," Cloak said, "but only because you refuse to acknowledge who you truly are."

"I'm ULTIMATE MAN!!"

"Ultimate Man is a fictional character," Cloak repeated, gently this time. "You are not. You're just a child role-playing."

"YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!"

"True," Cloak said, almost serenely. "But, apparently, neither do you."

This stopped Billy in his tracks. This didn't make any sense to him. "What?"

"You've firmly wrapped yourself into this fantasy, that you've forgotten who you were before this curse was transferred to you," Cloak said. "I suspect that you've done so deliberately, as, clearly, for whatever reason, you've chosen to live with the fantasy rather than reality. On the surface, one could say that it is because you're a young child playing pretend -- playing pretend with far higher stakes. But I sense a deeper motivation."

Billy hadn't a clue what Cloak was talking about. Cloak had a tendency to refuse to talk down to children. He always hated when people, especially his mother, did it to him in the past. So he tries not to do it to others, despite their age. Perhaps it came off as being a show-off or haughtily smug, he didn't know. It wasn't really important at this moment.

"You think you know so much," Billy growled. "YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!!"

But he didn't attack. He didn't lash out in any other way, except verbally. That's the thing. Anger always inevitable coalesces into apathy. No one can be angry all the time. Unforgiving? Well, that's a separate issue.

"You . .. you don't know anything," he said again, trailing off. "You don't . . ."

He had sunk to his knees, his anger burnt away into a sullen apathy. The curse making him looking as if he was an adult begin to wobble and distort, as if whatever was fueling was wavering and dissipating. Could it be possible that the curse would fizzle out like a fire without fuel? This could be the solution, and they could possibly save the boy and make sure his future isn't yet lost.

"Then enlighten me, boy." Cloak said, slowly and gently, apparently changing tact. "What do I not know?"

Billy said nothing, fully giving into the apathy, the emptiness he now felt, the hollowness he felt within. He remained silent for a while, and no one said anything. Cloak just made repairs to the area that they were in, still not taking his eyes off Billy. The curse was shifting around his face, revealing an eye or eyebrow for a brief moment before enveloping it within the Ultimate Man facade again. It was like the curse had a basic survival instinct, but not true sentience.

"What do I not know?" Cloak intoned once again.

"It doesn't matter," was his only reply.

"How so?" Cloak said, gently.

Billy didn't reply. His eyes were uncovered by the curse's facade, but they were not reabsorbed by the curse. The curse seemed unable to cover them up again. Billy's blue eyes remained visible. The other RAFians just watched as Cloak was gently coaxing and cajoling the boy to tell them what was really bothering him.

"It isn't wise to bottle your feelings up," Cloak said. "Trust me on this."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 04, 2018, 09:42:24 PM

Posting tomorrow's chapter a tad early.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Just Talk

The bridge of the boy's nose was now permanently uncovered by the curse, and the curse seemed to be losing more ground by the second, as more and more areas around his eyes began to regain its original state. The curse was not going to last. It was going to be broken. It wasn't so much a question of how, but when.

"It doesn't matter," Billy repeated, as his nose was now back to its original state.

"What doesn't matter?" Cloak asked.

Billy said nothing for a bit, as his cheekbones returned to their original state. And Cloak waited until the boy was ready to spill. He didn't want to prompt too often, as that would seem nosy and pressing him for information. If the boy wanted to volunteer the information, fine. It would be his choice to do so, and not from Cloak's pressuring.

"No one cares," Billy said, as his hair and ears returned to normal. It was now obvious that he was, in fact, a young child. "Nobody cares."

Cloak hesitated a bit, thinking of a way to word his next response to seem neutral and not aggressively pressing or coldly indifferent. Cloak watched as his upper lip reverted to its normal form. The curse was being broken as they talked, but there was more to this. Cloak could easily recognize his answers as some of the same ones he himself would give others whilst living with his mother. He recognized the deep depression in his voice, now entirely his own instead of the deeper, curse-affected voice he was using earlier. Cloak recognized it because he had felt it himself.

When he was trapped in his  mother's house, cut off from his friends at the forum (which his mother disapproved of), he had fallen into a similar apathetic depression. Believing that no one cared. Believing that no one would miss him . . . it was not memories that he relished or cared to relive ever again. And Cloak saw all this within the cursed boy before him.

"Why do you believe that?" Cloak said, carefully gentle.

"They called me a mistake," he said, his lower jawline now full restored to its previous, true state. It was unknown if Billy was even aware that he was talking to someone, he seemed to be mostly talking to himself. "They never wanted me. They don't care."

It was fairly obvious who "they" were. Abby's hand touched her mouth, Melissa gasp audibly, GH pulled LH closer, and AniDragon looked as if she was at a lost for words. They all got it, and it was obvious that all three considered what Billy was alluding to was pretty taboo in human culture. It was fairly taboo in Real Walker society, as well. Parents were expected to love and care for their progeny. Estrangement was fairly unusual, but it did happen -- look at Cloak and his mother.

"They didn't want me," Billy repeated, as his neck became normal. "They don't care if I . . ."

Tears streamed down his face, as his shoulders shrunk to their normal size.

"No one cares," he said again, allowing all his pain out. "No one wants to be my friend."

Abby was starting to feel a little bad for how harsh she was toward him, as she watched his upper arms shrink back down to his proper proportions. He clearly didn't know how to love, because he clearly had never experienced love or affection. That's why he came on so strong, and was relentless with it. And all she did was show him just the slightest kindness, when he was obviously inexperienced with receiving any love of any kind.

"No one would miss me," Billy said, his breath stuttering a bit at those five little words. His lower arms shrank down to there normal proportions. "They'd probably be happier if . . ."

"You cannot allow yourself to give into despair," Cloak said, a bit sharper than he intended. This was potentially a bad move on the Elements Master's part, and he could have just made matters worse. But he didn't seem to realize this just yet. "You mustn't lose hope. When we're down at our lowest points, sometimes hope is all we have."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 05, 2018, 07:46:58 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Some Sharing

Billy said nothing, as his hands returned to their smaller, slimmer, younger state. Everything from his shoulders down were still Ultimate Man.

"I recognize your pain," Cloak said.

"Sure you do," Billy said, in a disheartened, disbelieving manner. His chest shrunk back to its normal size, leaving his abdomen, legs, and feet Ultimate Man-sized.

"Trust me, boy," Cloak said, "I recognize your pain . . . because it reflects my own."

Billy actually looked up and at Cloak. Right into his amber eyes, as his abdomen shrank back to its normal size.

Cloak hesitated a bit, as only Billy's legs and feet remained Ultimate Man's. The curse was rapidly losing its hold. It had certainly been broken, unable to feed on, presumably, Billy's desire to be anyone else other than himself. His fantasy had been broken, and that was the curse's fuel.

Billy's thighs became normal before Cloak explained further, "Yes. My mother was a demanding woman that held me to an impossible standard. She drove my father away when I was seventeen. And for a decade -- for a hundred of your years -- I was essentially her slave. I endeavored fervently during that to curry her favor, never succeeding. I was little more than a pet to her, but I will concede, young human, that she wasn't overt with her disdain for me, as yours was. So, in that circumstance, yours was worse -- but this is not competition."

Billy's shins became normal, possessing inordinately large feet for his size and build. But he said nothing more.

"But," Cloak said, "the night that we truly parted ways . . . she didn't like the meal I made for her. One that I had made per her own specifications. I had aroused her discontent. She was always a hateful, aggressive woman who feared losing control of those around her, who feared not being in control, who had a rather high opinion of herself. She stormed out of her room to the kitchen, and harshly pointed out a mistake -- one that I had inquired about and complied with her following instructions. She didn't care. In her mind, she couldn't be wrong, so someone else had to be. And I was the one that she usually took out her frustrations on. For a hundred of your years, I put up with this. I was trying to earn parental approval, despite being oblivious that that would never happen."

Cloak said this all matter-of-fact and detached. This was just simple statement of fact for him, or at least his perception of it. But, to say that it didn't still hurt? . . . That would be a lie. It still did, and it would always hurt. Aniyu just helped him accept the fact that this happened and he didn't dwell on it nearly as much as he used to.

"I do forget precisely how it escalated, but it did." Cloak continued, as Billy listened in. His feet were normal now, making the process complete. The curse was broken and gone, or maybe somehow in a different form that would surface someplace and sometime further down the road. There was no way of knowing. Somehow, knowing that he wasn't alone in this kind of thing, it helped Billy a little bit. And the fact that Cloak was willing to share this? It made him think that maybe . . . maybe some people did care . . .

"I might have been when I had that knife at my . . . my wrists," Cloak said, looking at his wrists. He never went through with it. When he was considering it . . . he kept thinking of Shadow. Of how much pain he would have caused her if he went through with it . . . and he couldn't bring himself to do it. The others looked amongst themselves -- Cloak didn't really tell them this. "She saw me, sneered at me that she didn't think that I'd have the guts to go through with it. Then she told me the proper way to . . . to do it. This was the thing that showed me just how little I meant to her."

There was silence in the area as Cloak told this story once more. Billy was listening raptly.

"It escalated to the point that she hurled one of her favorite insults at me," Cloak said, recalling the incident that seared itself into his memory. "She called me a loser. She had called me 'worthless' and 'useless' before, but 'loser' tended to be her favorite. And it wasn't only me. She also called my father a loser -- she loved to compare me to him, seemingly unaware how annoying and frustrating it was. No matter how much we were reminiscent of each other, I am not him. Then she called . . ."

He actually choked up a bit. But not because of this particular memory, but the memory of someone more dear to him. Billy noticed this, but did not say anything. Funny how the roles had changed. But Billy wanted to hear the conclusion to this story.

Cloak forced himself to proceed, "Then she had the nerve to call my aunt -- her younger sister -- a 'loser'. Then she told me to get out, and I did. I did without any intention of returning. She, however, clearly expected me to come groveling back to her and apologize. I never did, and, while I've accepted what happened, I haven't truly forgave her for it, I suppose. I don't think I ever truly will, because I don't believe that she'll be sorry for her actions, as she's shown me time and again her incapacity to be accountable for her own actions."

Billy looked as if he was trying to find words, but Cloak wasn't quite done yet.

"Then my aunt, Wheeza, came in and saved me," Cloak said, transitioning to a better, more positive, and, yet, sad memory. "She helped me regain every last bit of self-confidence that I had, along with my fellow RAFians. She helped me in my decision to live where I'm accepted and happy."

"Aunt?" Billy asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2018, 08:02:04 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Wrapping It Up

As it turns out, Billy was wrong. There was someone in his life that DID care. His father's older sister cared very much about him, as well as her daughter who was rather significantly older than him. When he disappeared, his cousin chastised his parents for their indifference with his absence and questioning their parenting ethics (or lack thereof). Her mother, however, was far more concerned in finding Billy, safe and sound, rather than lecturing and scolding his irresponsible brother and his careless wife.

Billy's Aunt Teresa had done that so much in the past that she had since learned that it goes in one ear and out the other. She steadfastly believed that they didn't deserve custody of little Billy. Teresa was emphatic that he didn't deserve such abusive, neglectful treatment, and that if they didn't want a child, then they should have put him up for adoption so that he would get a family that actually loved him. So the boy would know love, and know how to reciprocate that love, as she believed wholeheartedly that everyone should experience.

Billy's cousin, Juliana, was surprisingly close to Billy, being his primary babysitter until his parents forbade her and her mother from having any contact with him. That didn't mean that they just stopped caring for the boy and his safety. Juliana didn't see him as a younger cousin, but a younger brother. A baby brother. And she loved him as such. This is why when she and her mother were forbidden to see little Billy, she cried for a full week straight. It made her very distraught, and she couldn't be consoled very much. She knew how her uncle and aunt treated Billy, and she knew that it wasn't right.

But her uncle was drinking buddies with the judge that would preside over the case if they brought them to court. It would be that judge, she knew it. She worried day and night over her cousin, and, though her mother tried to hide it from her, she did, too. They suspected, and feared, additional abuses to the boy, too. And her uncle and aunt could do it with impunity. It wasn't fair or just.

And now they were the only two to look for him after he had disappeared for about a day or two. They legitimately worried about his well-being and safety, and it consumed most of their minds despite having to worry about Teresa's job and Juliana's schoolwork. But now? Now they were pounding the street, ignoring the fact that his parents had forbidden contact with their son.

That was hardly important now. Billy could be in danger. Billy could even be . . . neither of them wanted to even entertain that particular possibility. They had gone without sleep since Billy's disappearance, and they spent every endeavor to find the boy.

So, imagine their elation when they saw him, talking to the RAFians.

"Billy!" Juliana cried as she made a beeline for him, while Teresa tried to give Cloak a bit bear hug. Cloak only refused on the grounds that he didn't know how his corona would react to it, and Realm Walkers weren't really a tactile species like humans tended to be. Juliana questioned Billy, "Are you hurt? What happened? How did you get come here? You look thin. Mom, we have to get some food into him!"

"Yes, I quite agree," she said, at once. "Billy, what are you hungry for?"

Billy looked at Cloak.

"Sorry, young -- Billy, was it? You cannot eat me," Cloak said with a smile. Billy giggled at Cloak's little joke.

There were just a few exchanges after that, before Billy left with his aunt and cousin. It would take a little time, but eventually Teresa won custody of Billy through the courts. His parents were judged unfit and were charged with child abuse and neglect. Neither of them were particularly happy with this outcome.

***

Meanwhile, Cloak had retreated to his new meditation spot. It's distance from the forum was in a Goldilocks-zone -- not too far away, not too close by. But it was a perfect area to be by himself, other than his thread, which still allowed noise and the hubbub from the forum to permeate inside. This spot would be for him when he needed to, not only meditate, but think and ponder on things in perfect, blissful peace.

But his thoughts were neither blissful nor peaceful. It was a menagerie of memories of his late Wheeza, who he still missed dearly. He didn't think the heartache of her passing would ever truly pass, as the shock of it eventually did. It was all he could do to keep her memory alive, desperately afraid of forgetting her. He did not want to forget her. He wanted to remember her, and every wonderful thing she ever did for him. She was more of a mother to him than her older sister, and his reaction to her passing showed it.

Sure, Ursa was his mother by ichor, not really anything more than that. Wheeza actually cared about him. She actually cared about his wellbeing. She actually saw him as his own person and not a mere extension of herself, an appendage to bend to her will, an ornament to decorate her life, as he was to Ursa. This why her loss was so devastating to him. She reminded him, as his fellow RAFians never hesitate to do as well, that he, in the human rhetoric, worth a damn. That he only lacked confidence in himself, and that once that was restored, he would be better off.

And he was terrified of forgetting all that. In his heart of hearts, he knew that he never would, and that this fear was irrational, as fear often is. After all, he didn't forget his grandfather, Sage. He didn't forget how much he loved him, as a grandson would. Granted, he could mediate and speak with Sage for advise. He didn't have that luxury with Wheeza. While Cloak would fully acknowledge that he doesn't know what happens when beings die or go through the Veil, he knew one thing. Wheeza wouldn't linger around as a ghost. She would have valiantly gone on to whatever was in store for her after life. And whatever happened after life, she wasn't and wouldn't be granted the leeway that the Masters and Aniyu have been, for whatever reason.

Cloak raised a stone pillar, which looked fairly formless. He focused his Mastery over the Earth element. He had to be precise about this. Granted, he had never used his powers in this manner before. But he wanted to be sure that he remembered. He didn't want to forget . . .

Within moments, it was done, and it was exquisite. It looked just as she did in life. Those round, kind eyes that crinkled just so when she smiled her toothy grin. Her warm embrace, and general sense of comfort. It was perfect . . . a monument to Wheeza.

Cloak looked up at the figure he had just made, then bowed his head, "I just wish . . . I just wish I could've been there for you, as you've been there for me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2018, 08:14:22 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Natural Plunders (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAD5jdjmBF50DakW2_zDb3zCNyEJsEXOF)

Cloak had been dispatched to deal with the newest fiend threat. Well, perhaps "threat" was too much of an exaggeration. They were more like nuisances. Inconveniences. However, the location of this particular one made it far more annoying than most. It was supposedly in some forgotten pirate ship sunk in the ocean a long time ago. And all Cloak had were vague coordinates.

Cloak walked into the water, with the very salt water, almost of its own accord, forming a comfortable sphere around him. It was as if the water itself was going out of its way to appease their Element Master. Cloak walked at a pace that he felt was rather sedate, which was actually rather brisk to others. He always felt that he could walk forever if he needed to, that didn't translate into running. He only had a feline endurance when it came to that, and cats weren't big on running endurance.

Cloak walked by a variety of sea life, only paying them a tangential amount of attention as he proceeded to the coordinates. The thing was only Realm Walkers with marine animal forms were this comfortable underwater. Were he not an Elements Master, Cloak would have refused the mission. The thing that he didn't like most was how his Earthsight was distorted by the water. He couldn't really use it effectively, or trust it too much. He didn't like that -- he relied so much on Earthsight, you might say that it was even a crutch for the Realm Walker.

Cloak came across a sunken ship, and he entered, thinking that this was the one that the fiend made its nest in. He walked through the sinewy corridors. He thought there was a pocket of air within this sunken ship, but it was an optical illusion of some sort. He proceeded further, looking for any place that this fiend would decide to make a nest out of. He looked to left and saw a rock wall. He was looking at a hole in the sunken ship, perhaps the one that sunk it in the first place. But that wasn't important right now.

Cloak heard what he thought was the song of a whale, but the acoustics of the bubble that he was in tended to warp the undersea sounds into sounding either more melancholic or more sinister than they were in reality. It was an odd sensation, actually. The Realm Walker proceeded onward, and he found himself back in open water. Cloak hesitated and looked back at the sunken ship.

Then he shrugged, and guessed that wasn't the right ship. He moved onward, into an undersea cavern, which had remnants of human inhabitation. He floated upward, landing in this roughly-hewn room. And he saw the fiend in the next room . . . and the room was filled with gold and other precious, sparkly things. As Cloak entered, he saw the fiend properly, as it descended into the room in a bubble, which popped when it landed.

The fiend, unsurprisingly, had a superficial appearance to a pirate captain. It had a white eyepatch over its right eye. and its other was a human-like eye that had a platinum gray scelera and a dark brown iris. It had a large yellowish-brown hat-like crest with a silver trim, and a skull logo emblazoned on its front. Its body looked like as if it was crafted out of obsidian, with gold at the joints. Its shoulders had yellowish-brown epaulets with silver tassels. Its upper arms were gold while its lower arms were yellowish-brown with skull decals. Its right wrist was black and similar to the cuffs of a pirate coat, while its left lower arm was a buster cannon. Instead of a right hand, it had a large, hinged hook claw. It had a silver neckline with a vertical black stripe, with thinner white stripes on either side of them, on its chest. It had a silver abdomen, with a skull logo-blazoned belt buckle on a yellow belt. It had a brown codpiece with obsidian black thighs, jeweled kneecaps, obsidian black shins, obsidian black boot with silver laces.

When it saw Cloak, it raised its hooked claw high, almost threateningly. This fiend had nothing on Galactron or Garrotik or Mongul, so Cloak wasn't intimidated. Like at all. Cloak waited and it fired three mines that conveniently missed him, almost as if the water itself wouldn't allow harm come to its Master. They stuck in the wall behind him, and exploded. But, apparently, somehow, these explosions didn't damage anything. As if they were some how designed only to damage organic material. Interesting. Either that, or they weren't very powerful explosions. Cloak noticed that this somehow made the water level of this room shrunk. He couldn't imagine how that was possible, this room wasn't seal--

"Gateburst," Cloak muttered, as he turned and saw that the entry way had closed like a sphincter. The room had a seal now, but it turns out that shooting the mines and the bubble were the attack pattern it had. It was deceptively simple. Cloak had a simple and elegant solution, Every mine it fired, Cloak hydrokinetically pushed right back at it. It wasn't long before it offed itself.

Cloak tunneled his way back to the surface, and went back to the forum.

***

Demos called it a "pairetsusapien". He wouldn't clarify what its function was originally intended to be.

***

Malice was coming to grips with the possibility that she just may have become irrelevant as a villain. She found the very thought distressing and made her visibly distraught.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 07, 2018, 09:36:04 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a little early.

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXXII:
WRATH OF THE COLOSSUS
CHAPTER ONE:
You're Grounded!

Gaz was dispatched to deal with the next fiend, armed with the science boys' newest toys. Remotely-detonating mines, inspired by Demos's last fiend. To add insult to injury, however, this fiend decided to take up residence deep within the Old RAF ruins. There wasn't really anything left other than the mouldering buildings and lonesome, standing walls forgotten by the RAFians that had once inhabited them. This was before the time of many current RAFians. Most, if not all, of the RAFians who remember this old site have retired from RAF (but, unlike Rotiart, never renounced their allegiance to the forum and still carried their Marks.

The fact that the fiend decided to take refuge here, and make it its nest . . . there was something almost sacrilegious and blasphemous about it. Granted, the RAFians had abandoned it, and left it to rot. It is true that Gaz wasn't precisely sure of the reasons why, but it had happened and there wasn't anything to be done about it now. Gaz proceeded forward, beneath the ruins, which had the dank smell of a crypt. As a vampire, she should have felt rather at home in such an environment, but it was too damp and moldy to be comfortable for anyone. Who would be comfortable in such a place? Who could?

These tunnels were bricked, and stable for the most part. To be honest, it didn't look safe, but she could survive a potential cave in. Her gaseous form would allow her escape through areas that she couldn't when she was reconstituted. Although it didn't help that she thought she saw centipedes the size of buses and worms the size of ropes. But she assumed that these were nothing more than her imagination. it still creeped her out, and she didn't get creeped out too easily.

Then she fell into and earthen room where she saw a worm larger than a Taxxon. She screamed unabashedly . . . only to feel really stupid just a moment later when she realized that it was just a statue. That was a cruel prank, she believed. Granted, this had probably been here for years, with no intention of ever startling her like that. Then she saw a small opening and she went through that to find an old underground board building, long forgotten to time.

Before too long, the flooring fell away to soft earth, full of what seemed to full of squirming, squiggling worms. At least, she hoped that they were worms. She immediately turned into her bat form and flew over this area, cringing internally at the sight. It wasn't a pleasant thing to look at the undulating, writhing creatures. It wasn't long before she came across the fiend in a mouldering, decaying room that was blocked off any other way. Only the walls really remained, she noticed, as she returned to her humanoid vampire form. The ceiling and the flooring were gone, replaced by soft, loamy soil.

Well, actually the fiend found her in this room, where its nest obviously was. It showed up by burrowing into the room and revealing itself. The fiend had a silver crown of its pink helmet with three drills equidistant from each other, and it had a silver faceplate with gray horizontal slashes. It had bloodshot, human-like eyes with green sclera and pink irises. It had a boxy, purple chest with bluish-green bits that connected its torso to the large drills that made up its shoulders. Its short upper arms were whitish-gray, while its lower arms were deep purple with purplish cuff-like wrists and black hands. Its abdomen was composed of a single drill. Its crotch was greenish, with purple thighs, and its shins were actually tank treads. Its hi-top-like feet with a large drill on each toe. Gaz surmised, just by its appearance, that it could transform into a drill tank -- there was something Cybertronian about it, and yet, something that wasn't.

The minute it saw her, it roared loudly. It leaped toward her, turning into a drill tank the moment that it hit the ground. Gaz just leaped over it, landing on the other side of it. She eventually just went back into her bat form when it turned around and charged forward again. Then it turned around and charged once more. Then it transformed back to its humanoid mode, and then burrowed into the ground. Gaz sighed -- Cloak would have been better dealing with this tactic. His Earthsight would have outted this fiend immediately -- Gaz hadn't such a luxury. So she stayed in her bat form, hoping her echolocation may offer a similar advantage.

The fiend emerged once more, missing Gaz completely. Then it jumped backward a bit, before jumping forward and transforming into a tank and doing the same attack pattern as before. Gaz managed to dodge it again, easier this time. But she knew better than get too complacent.

And she was right, as this fiend did something that no other before it had. Changed up its attack pattern.

It leaped into the ceiling burrowing into the earth. Gaz flew around a little frantically, feeling rather like a Zubat, for some reason. She dodged right when a humongous drill shot out of the ceiling, directly down at the spot she was flying. That was a bit overkill, in her opinion, but the fiend clearly did not care about that, as it retracted the drill. Then she dodge left as the drill shot out to the right this time. Then she dodged right as it shot the drill out to the left again, before retracting it once more.

Then it dropped down from the ceiling a resorted to its previous attack pattern once again. Gaz had had enough of this. She quickly returned to her humanoid vampire form, as it was transforming back itself, and she threw all the mines at once at the fiend. Just as it was about burrow back into the earth once more, Then she detonated it, and found that she had to leave quickly to avoid a cave-in.

***

Demos called it a "guardosapien". He claimed he made it for cheap excavation purposes, and nothing more.

***

Malice was in a bit of a panic now. She felt as if her relevancy was slipping through her fingers. Then she realized that she had several items that could be useful for spreading havoc and her namesake. How could she have forgotten about the Colossus Hearts?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2018, 07:17:46 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
The Heart of the Problem

There were seven of these Hearts of the Colossus. They were stone relics as big as Malice herself. She would only be able to move them one at a time, and she wouldn't be able to lift them manually. She didn't possess the necessary physical strength, even if she wasn't an octogenarian -- she doubted that any Realm Walker could. But the RAFians were complacent now, having dealt with that comic book-obsessed freak-boy.

She encapsulated one of these stone Hearts in an energy bubble, and continued to the mountains to hide one of the Hearts. She carried what appeared to be a yellow, palm-sized cylinder with a plunger. "The Heart of Trochilidae Piscu Aslia is in place."

Then she returned to her lair to get the next Heart and she hid it in an undisclosed space that was filled with pitch darkness. She showed what appeared to be a blue, palm-sized cylinder with a plunger, a clear derivative of the previous one. "The Heart of Rhodes Apu Ccapac is in place."

Then she retrieved the next Heart to put it into a new hiding place. She put in an area with harsh, arid environment. Then she showed a green derivative to the previous cylinders with plungers. She smiled and said, "The Heart of Sauria Ccarayhua is in place."

Three down, four more Hearts to go. She retrieved the next Heart and secured it into the vast ocean. Ironically, it was where the pairetsusapien had made its nest. Then she showed a white cylinder like the previous four. She smiled again, and said, "The Heart of Orca Challhua Chacu is in place."

Three more Hearts to go. She retrieved the next Heart and she secured it deep in the forest. By sheer happenstance, this was in Cloak's old meditation spot. Then she showed a red cylinder like the previous four. She smiled broadly again, and said, "The Heart of Arachne Uru is in place."

Two more Hearts to go now. She retrieved the next Heart and she secured it in a lovely meadow, one that Noelle had once fed while reminiscing about her past. Then she showed a lime green cylinder like the previous five. She gave a small, smug smile, and said, "The Heart of Simia Cusillu is in place."

She retrieved the last Heart and she secured it in an abandoned and forgotten Cadmus facility, of which there was a surprising abundance.. Then she showed a pink cylinder like the previous six. Her face was expressionless, and said, "The Heart of Kuntur Rasca Wiraqocha is in place."

***

Meanwhile, Cloak was at his new meditation spot, and he was meditating . . . when a vision came to him. But he couldn't tell if it was just an imaginary scenario or some sort of foresight. He saw GH bound and trapped with some being interrogating him about information . . . information about Cloak himself.

But GH was smarter than that. He was too smart to give this entity, whoever it was, any real legitimate information. Or information basically everyone already knew.

"Don't tell anyone that I told you,
But Cloak once said politics to be insane.
And yes, there are times I have seen him
Standing outside in the rain!"

The unseen entity said, tipping GH closer to what appeared to be a dangerous device . . . a steam vent? "Tell me more, brainless."

"Okay!

Cloak likes his meditation to be peaceful.
Surrounded by flowers and trees!
Cloak likes to sleep through the morning!
At nighttime, he'll do as he please!"

"Is that all you got?"

"Oh, no need for steam!
I'll tell you much more!
In fact, we might be here all day!
Take it from me, when it comes to Cloak,
I do have a great deal to say!"

"Well say it already!"

"When Cloak surveys a procession,
He'll sweep from his left to his right!
And when he is out all day training,
It means he won't hunt in the night!"

"Give me the good stuff, Dweller!"

"Ooh! No need for steam!
I'll tell you much more!
In fact, we might be here all day!
Take it from me, when it comes to Cloak,
I do have a great deal to say!"

The unseen entity, obviously a Realm Walker, but not Malice, growled in frustration.

"There's much more that I know . . .
From now and long ago . . .
Cloak, you must believe I know!
NOOOO! No need for steam!
I'll tell you much more!
In fact, we might be here all day!
Take it from me, when it comes to Cloak,
I do have a great deal to say!
Take it from me, when it comes to Cloak,
I do have a great deal to say!"

Then, quite jarringly, the vision transitioned into . . . into something else.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cetB199NMOE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cetB199NMOE)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 10, 2018, 04:35:55 AM

Probably the last chapter before the internet as we know it in America dies.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Lines

Cloak saw floating squiggles all around him, seemingly overlaying on another in a confusing mishmash of white, blue, green, yellow, red, lime green, and pink lines. It was a confusing tangle of images that perplexed the Realm Walker. Then he thought he heard voices from this tangle of lines, a cacophonous mess, and this confused the RAFian further.

Then the images seemed to finally disengage, and separate out into clarified images. One of each color -- a white line image, a blue one, a green one, a yellow one, and so on. Cloak looked at the images and realized that he recognized the shapes. Nazca lines. They were Nazca lines. He remembered reading up on something about that from human literature, though his knowledge was rather tangential, at best. Cloak looked at the lines, recognizing what they were supposed to be.

The white lines? The Whale.

The blue lines? The Giant.

The green lines? The Lizard.

The red lines? The Spider, though it looked more like an eight-legged ant, in the Realm Walker's opinion.

The lime green lines? The Monkey with that ridiculously curly-cued tail.

The pink lines? The Condor, and it looked larger than the others.

All the lines had pinpoint dots on them that he was sure that weren't in the actual Nazca lines. They pulsated with a regular beat. Almost as if they were . . .  yes, they appeared to be hearts. What could this have possibly meant?

"Let us wake . . ."

Did this come from the lines?

"We want to wake . . ."

What did this mean?

"We need to wake . . ."

Whatever this meant, Cloak knew one thing.

"We deserve to live again . . ."

Whatever this meant, it was not a good thing.

"We need to live again.. . ."

These voices, they were more like the hiss of steam rather than fully fledged voices.

"We will live again . . ."

The images of the colored Nazca lines began to rotate around Cloak faster than their sedate pace.

"We cannot be stopped . . ."

It was strange. A collection of intricate, yet simplistic at the same time, lines were sounding rather sinister and creepy. Even to an experienced RAFian.

"We cannot be beaten . . ."

Suddenly, Cloak awoke because he sensed something.

***

Malice took out the red cylinder with the plunger, and pressed it, saying "Arachne Uru, RISE."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 12, 2018, 04:48:55 AM

Gonna keep writing Memoirs despite the net neutrality repeal. Even if I can't access RAF any longer, I'll keep writing Memoirs until completion. I've been at this for about five, six years now. I'm not going to stop writing this.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
First Reactions

There was a terrible shaking of the ground, and the RAFians were the first to pick up on it. And Cloak picked up on it even faster than the others, due to his Earthsight sensitivity. Although the Realm Walker didn't need Earthsight -- he bore witness to the huge insectoid beast rising up from the ground with an obsidian exoskeleton and red hairs like that of a tarantula, even though, physiologically-speaking, it resembled more of a hairy, eight-legged ant. A hairy, eight-legged ant that was taller than even Garrotik, but significantly smaller than Galactron. Cloak's eyes widened, realizing the vision was actually a truth dream, and these were some sort of earthbound beasts that were being risen from the ground from some unknown mechanism that Cloak couldn't fathom with the information he had.

He was about to engage this bug, when another huge tremor struck, almost paralyzing him from his Earthsight of it. It came from the direction of the Bannedlands, and, even from this distance, Cloak could see it was another one of these Nazca Beasts. A literal giant. A hairy giant with obsidian skin and blue hair . . . and a Cyclopean eye without a mouth or face or discernible head to speak of. Garrotik would have come up to his kneecap. He would have to report this to the others. He might have been able to take care of one by himself (and that was being fairly generous to his abilities, he thought), but two? He was just one individual, no matter how powerful he was. He was by no means omnipotent and all-powerful. Those whose power grows to that extent, he found, tend to become highly arrogant and unbearably pretentious.

He reached for his communicator to warn the other RAFians and tell them that he needs help, that he wasn't sure that he could do this on his own. That's when the third Nazca Beast rose from the ground. These one rose from a meadow that Cloak had only a cursory knowledge of, and it had obsidian skin with lime green hair. This was getting to be too much to handle. If it stood up straight on its feet, Garrotik would come up to its waist. These colossal Nazca Beasts  . . . they had the potential to cause unlimited sort of damage and destruction.

Cloak pulled his communicator to his ear when another tremor gave him the unfortunate news of a brand new Nazca Beast rising to freedom over towards the Bannedlands once again. The form that rose up was a saurian one that had a distinctly bipedal gait. Garrotik would have come up to its waist. It had rotating eyes, like that of a chameleon, obsidian skin, and green hair. Four? Four of these Nazca Beasts at once? There was no way he could do this by himself. No way at all. He needed the others. These beasts rising could not stand. They were personifications of darkness and evil -- every fiber of his being sensed it. It was just like dealing with Garrotik, only Cloak kept his wits about himself this time.

"Cloak to RAF, Cloak to RAF, COME IN!!" Cloaks said.

Then he felt another rumble beneath his feet.

"Oh, First Light, not another one!!" Cloak said,exasperatedly, as he watched as the obsidian form of a harrier jet hummingbird freed itself from the ground and took flight. It could have held Garrotik in its claws without trouble and its bill could skewer a skyscraper like a shish-kabob. It had obsidian skin with yellow, hair-like feathers. With a shriek, it flew even higher. This was really too much. Cloak was starting to have concerns that not even with the help of the others could they stop these behemoths. Five of these Nazca Beasts were active and alive . . . and he hadn't seen what they can really do yet. "Cloak to RAF! Cloak to RAF! We have a situation here!!"

Then another tremor that Cloak actually had a bit trouble Earthsighting. Cloak glanced around from his viewpoint, and saw a huge orca with slick, obsidian skin with fine white hair, and this figure reminded him of a gigantic Primal Kyogre from the ocean, which caused a huge wave to hit the shore. Fortunately, no one was on it, although Cloak only Earthsighted that fact and he feared that he might have overlooked someone.

"We really need to act! Six Nazca Beasts are active. Repeat, SIX Nazca Beasts are active!" Cloak said, not registering at the time that the other RAFians would have no idea what a Nazca Beast was.

Then another tremor. This one was more massive than the last, and strong enough to even knock Cloak off his feet. Then he heard a shriek, and then noticed a shadow passing over the sun, completely blotting it out. Cloak blinked for a moment before realizing that the Nazca Beast was a condor. It had obsidian skin and fine, pink, hair-like feathers. Its shriek actually vaguely sounded like the Falconzord from "Power Rangers", only deeper, raspier, and more sinister-sounding. However, unlike all the other Nazca Beasts. this condor Beast saw Cloak. It must have sensed his power, and must have thought it was a threat -- assuming that these Nazca Beasts have that amount of cogent thought and aren't just mindless beasts. That vision would suggest otherwise.

It dove at Cloak, and Cloak could feet the speed of it, the weight of it. This impact would hurt.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2018, 07:25:18 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Semi-Itsy Nearly-Bitsy Spider

Dino was rushing toward the spot the spider had risen, as Underseen, in the form of a golden eagle, flew overhead. Those at the forum had received word of what happened, between their seismograph readings and Cloak's report before being taken by that condor beast, they had quickly surmised what was happening. Immediate actions was the only foreseeable action to take. Unfortunately, only two RAFians could be sent after each one, as that was all that were on the active duty roster at the moment. The mods were scrambling to find the others because, even with two RAFians to a Nazca Beast, it would be a tall order to take them down.

It wasn't really all that difficult to find the spider one. The one called Arachne Uru.

The beast didn't even seem to notice her, and why would it. She was the respective size of a miniature chihuahua in comparison to the beast, and Dino -- barring Estelore's true stellar form, of course -- was the largest RAFian in the forum when at her true, considerable size. Dino increased her running speed as much as she could and tucked her head in for a headbutt. A skull bash, if you will, while Underseen was floating above looking for a way that he could help. He was a shapeshifter, he should be able to find a way, an avenue to help his comrade.

When she made contact, with the first of its four, lefthand , she bounced off, dazed. It was like a bicyclist going at a modest colliding with a telephone pole. She wasn't hurt, thankfully, but she wouldn't be able to press their attack. Not for a moment, at least. Meanwhile, Underseen found himself landing on Arachne Uru's back, shifting back to his base human form. He found himself wishing that he could remember how he really --

Priorities, Underseen. Priorities.

He found himself slipping, so that he had to grab onto the red hair of Arachne Uru, as the beast was starting to sedately move toward the forum, the closest populated area. It apparently was driven by destruction and mayhem -- it's little wonder why Malice had their Hearts in her possession. She loved items like that, loved items that could freely cause chaos wherever she went. Underseen, at least in this form, was little more than a flea to Arachne Uru, and, thus, unnoticed by the Beast. Underseen wasn't sure if this was good or offensive, as he clung to her hair, trying to look for a weak spot to attack, despite being technically unarmed.

Meanwhile, Dino had regained her senses, and shrugged off any damage that her reckless charge may have caused her. She could always have Kelly take a look and heal her as need be. Sure, it was a reckless thought to have, but they didn't really have time for any grand plans. The others would need help as well, so they needed to take down Arachne Uru fast and hard. Granted, this was far easier said than done.

Dino had opened her mouth wide and clamped down on one of the legs. It didn't seem to even notice, much less feel it. And Dino had to let go minutes later, as it felt as if she was biting a girder far larger than her mouth could eclipse and it felt as if it was wrapped in crinkled aluminium foil. VERY unpleasant to bite. Dino was starting to wonder if there was anything that they COULD do to stop these monsters. Arachne Uru, at least, seemed unbeatable. She was starting to doubt very much that they would be able to stop it alone.

Meanwhile, Underseen had shapeshifted into a gorilla to afford him a better grip upon Arachne Uru's back. Fortunately, despite its large size, it wasn't too fast. And despite outward appearances, it could be overpowered and brought into submission, its huge size just made that a daunting task in and of itself. But Underseen considered one thing. That, other than its great size, they did not know what other powers it held, or if it held any other powers at all. It was taking all his strength and grip to prevent him from being swept off the great bug's back. He didn't know how he was still able to proceed forward to the creature's upraised head. He had hoped some sort of sigil or pressure point he would become aware of. But, of course, it wouldn't be so easy. It's never so easy.

On the ground, Dino was hating that there seemed to be very little that she could do to impede this Beast, much less kill it. She followed them, looking for a way to overcome the beast. It was daunting, it was true, but there had to be a way. No creature, no being is without limitations, without weaknesses, without flaws. Any who claim otherwise are just lying to you. But, in truth, Dino was at a loss to figure a way to destroy the creature.

If only they could access the Great Power again, but she and Underseen believed that to be gone forever. In any case, even if it wasn't, they couldn't always depend on that unreliable power to save them. It never manifested when they wanted it, but only when it absolutely had to. One could say that it was a crutch, a trick a poor writer uses to wriggle out of writing themselves in a corner. But, even though it always was brief, it was nice having it, despite not really knowing what it truly was.

It was only then that she and Underseen noticed that the Beast had stopped. It seemed to have finally noticed them, and it appeared to have secreted something.

"What was that?" Underseen shouted, hoping to be heard.

"It. . . it birthed four tiny spiders!" Dino said. "They're scurrying away."

"Why did it do that?" Underseen asked, noticing that the creature seemed to be unnaturally still.

"I can't say," Dino replied back, "but I do know one thing. It cannot be good."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2018, 08:43:46 AM

Yeah, this will be a fairly long book.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
We . . . Are the Spider Drones

"Dino!!" Underseen said, now adopting the form of a hyper-evolved Arachnichimp (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Evolved_Arachnichimp), hoping that would help him more. "Eight o'clock!!"

"The itsy-bitsy spider . . ."

Dino wheeled to the direction that Underseen had indicated and saw seven human campers emerge from the woods. Five female, with a child, being male. They were coming out the forest, and their eyes were completely glowing red. The Beast . . . Ariadne Uru was controlling them. Apparently, there were two of the spiders that Dino didn't see at first.

"Climbed up the water spout . . ."

The shortest one, who looked about twelve, had a thick, stocky build. He had curly, platinum blond hair and wore a brown T-shirt with a pink diamond pink star in the center of it. He also wore cuffed blue jeans and brown flip-flop sandals. His bare midriff showed that he had the spider Nazca line sigil on his navel, presumably where the tiny spider bore into him so Ariadne Uru could control him.

"Down came the rain . . ."

The one of the shortest of the women was about the same height as the boy with a somewhat stout build. She had thick, messy dark brown hair that goes down to her ankles, with a large bang that obscures her left eye. She has plump lips, a small, upturned nose, and dark eyes. Her spider sigil was located on her chest, and the bottom half of it was covered by her tank top. Her tank top was deep black with a jagged hem, and she has white leggings with amethyst stars on them. Her ankle-length boots were the same amethyst hue

"And washed the spider out . . ."

The other short woman had blond hair styled into a tetrahedron shape. Her outfit is mostly medium red, with a peridot green diamond outline around the cut-out of her neck area, meeting to form a purple diamond at her solar plexus, with a pink portion between her chest and leggings. Her leggings cover her feet and feature purple toes and diamond-shaped knee pads. She had a slightly curvy figure, with wide hips, a small waist, and a round chest. She had a pointed upper lip and her spider sigil was located in her forehead.

"And the itsy-bitsy spider . . ."

The thinnest of the women had a slender, thin build, ivory skin, blue eyes, a pointed nose, and thin lips. She was quite tall and her hair has a peach color, resembling a pixie-cut in the front, while in the back, her hair leads to a point. She wore a dark orange tunic with a small pearly white star on the center of her chest and a lighter satin sash ribbon around her upper waist. Her leggings were silver-colored. She also wore brown socks with dark orange slip-on ballet flats. Her spider sigil was on her forehead.

"Climbed up the water spout again. . . ."

The strongest-looking of the women wore a slightly more colorful bodysuit. Her right half is covered in a vivid bluish-violet stocking, and her left is covered in a deep orchid/eggplant stocking. There is a ring of white on the outside closest to her arms. There was a garnet-colored star on her top's color. Her hair was black and styled into a box-like shape. The shades she wore, which hid her eyes, were colored silver. Her shoulder pads were also oval-like, and both are a dark orchid/eggplant color as well as her arms and gloves. The two halves of her lower body are now separated straight down the middle. She wore the spider sigil on her right hand

"The itsy-bitsy spider . . .

The frailest-looking of the women had a slim figure, and a chin-length hairstyle with a fringe that covers her entire forehead. She was of a similar height as the thin woman. She wore a flowing orange skirt, which was knee-length with a downward-facing lapis lazuli blue triangle. She also wears a backless, orange halter crop top with an upward-facing deep orange triangle that ties into an orange sash ribbon on the back of her shoulders. She had her spider sigil on her back.

"Climbed up the water spout again. . . ."

"How did they make that of all things sound so sinister?" Underseen asked, still holding onto the Beast's back.

"You cannot stop me . . ." the boy spoke as the women continued to recite "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" in that creepy manner. It apparently decided to use the boy as its mouthpiece. Both Dino and Underseen frowned at this -- this seemed to be all too common in their lives as RAFians. Doesn't mean they are entirely desensitized towards this kind of thing. Both still thought it was vile, using someone like a ventriloquist dummy in this way. "I will not go back . . ."

"Go back?" Dino said, immediately. "Go back where?"

"I will not go back . . ." the boy said again with that creepy, hissing effect. "I am free . . ."

"Maybe it can be reasoned with?" Dino suggested to Underseen.

"I think that's being optimistic beyond all reason," Underseen said, earnestly.

"I will not go back . . . I'm finally free . . . you cannot stop me . . ." the boy said, only moving his mouth. He was nothing but a puppet to this thing. "You cannot stop me . . . you cannot stop my brethren . . . no one can . . ."

"Wanna bet?!" Underseen said, although Dino thought such bravado was empty. There wasn't much they could do. Perhaps if they used Unity Energy? That was far more reliable that that Great Power crap.

"You cannot beat us . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2018, 05:28:37 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
How . . . Convenient

"You cannot beat us . . ." it had said, speaking through the boy. "You cannot beat me . . ."

"The hell we can't!" Dino snarled, approaching the boy in an intimidating manner.

"Yeah, no one is unbeatable!" Underseen said.

Those pronouncements seemed to have triggered something them. Their Marks pulsed with energy which seemed to weaken Arachne Uru's control over the campers as it actually shrieked. Whether in surprise or pain, it wasn't very clear which. The two were filled with power . . . it felt like the Great Power. But that was destroyed . . . wasn't it? And this wasn't the complete Great Power, though the visible changes still took place but somewhat understated than if they had received the full Great Power. This was more like Remnant Power, if you will.

Dino's skin was bleached white, so that she resembled shiny (https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Shiny_Pok%C3%A9mon) Ankylotyrannus, and her Mark upon her head became more and more pronounced. Underseen's clothing, and any forms he shapeshifted into, were bleached white. and his Mark became more pronounced on his hand as well due to this . . . Remnant Power.

'EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" Arachne Uru demanded, through the child.

"Hey, this is the Great Power," Dino said, noticing. She was addressing Underseen more than the Nazca Beast.

'INSUFFICIENT RESPONSE!" Arachne Uru roared.

"No, no," Underseen said, as Arachne Uru was using the camper's eyes and its own to find Dino and to force her to answer its many questions. It couldn't bear the minute light issued from the two. "This is different. This isn't as strong."

Arachne shrieked again, as it tried to approach Dino, but it couldn't stand the white glow.

"It's more like a remnant of the Great Power," Underseen speculated. "'Remnant Power', if you will."

"You will obey me!" Arachne demanded through the boy. Despite the emotion those four words held, the boy's face remained slack and emotionless and the rest of his body didn't move (other than still breathing and things like that). It really was like the boy was nothing more than a ventriloquist dummy, and neither RAFian liked that. The other campers were still reciting "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" in that creepy manner. "EXPLAIN YOURSELF . . ."

It was at this point that Dino did an area-of-effect sort of attack that she was tempted to call Remnant Roar. She roared powerfully and generated white energy shockwaves which hit all the campers. It did not harm them, just pushed out these spiders from from their bodies. She saw that the spiders were really red energy constructs produced by the Nazca Beast, and that they disintegrated at direct exposure to this remnant of the Great Power. This freed the campers from Arachne Uru's control.

The Beast seemingly took a while to realized what happened, that it lost its puppets. The campers, once they regained their faculties once more, looked up and saw the Nazca Beast. Then they all ran for their lives, oblivious to have ever been controlled by it, without any memory of it. The Beast roared, and Underseen thought it sounded like the death knell from a Taxxon.

It apparently decided to just produce more of these spiders to reclaim its puppets, and its mouthpiece. Not only reclaim the ones he lost, but claim more for itself. Only to have a third of its thorax sliced off by white peregrine falcon. Underseen. It shrieked in pain at this, which sounded eeriely like a Taxxon, but louder and harsher. The third of its thorax landed with a mammoth thud on the ground, then collapsed into darkness, and then dissipated into nothingness.

"I think we have a way to end this," Underseen addressed Dino, still in his peregrine falcon form.

"Aim for its heart," Dino said, as Underseen landed, resuming his human form. From what he could remember what he looked like before . . . he shook his head. Priorities. He raised his Marked hand, which pulsed, almost half-heartedly, with this Remnant Power, and Dino's Mark on her head did the same. Both took aim as Arachne Uru looked perplexed and was concerning itself it its injuries.

Both fired beams composed of both Unity and Remnant Power Energy, aimed directly at where the hear in an arthropod would be located. It shrieked at the beams lanced through its abdomen straight through its heart. Its body shattered and dissipated into darkness near immediately. They were done, and they looked around and saw that apparently the others had managed to defeat the other ones. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on June 15, 2018, 05:40:07 PM

I love the foreshadowing in these past few chapters. Also sweet power-ups!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 16, 2018, 04:50:36 AM

They're not permanent, Underseen. It's like the Great Power -- horribly unreliable to manifest.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
A Giant Problem

Parker and Helen immediately were dispatched to deal with the giant Nazca Beast, Rhodes Apu Ccapac. Helen was using her ring to carry them to the Beast, just at the same time as Dino and Underseen were just approaching Arachne Uru. When they came upon the Beast, they were basically fleas to the thing. It didn't even seem to care that the duo was even there, it was so confident and assured in its power.

"That thing is massive!" Helen proclaimed.

"Which just means that it'll fall really hard," Parker said, with faux bravado. "We just have to find its weak points."

"Easier said than done," Helen said, doubtfully.

"If it was easy, then it wouldn't be worth doing," Parker said.

"Where is it heading?" Helen said. "The forum and the city aren't that way."

"No idea -- Tyr extrapolates that its toward the no man's land between the forum and the Bannedlands," Parker said, with clinical dryness. "But I can't imagine why."

"Well," Helen said, "we should land and get this Beast to fall."

"Yes," Parker said, unshouldering his favorite gun, "let's."

They landed around ten o'clock from the Beast, whose thunderous footsteps shook the ground. Neither was able to use Earthsight, but it wasn't really necessary to see this monstrous behemoth. Parker took quick, but cautious, aim as his girlfriend floated up with her violet light. She pulled her ring-bearing hand back, ****ed and ready to attack the Beast when Parker takes his shot.

With a powerful blast, Parker fired. The shot issued a lot of smoke, but it was clear that it had landed. And it was also clear as crystal . . . that it did nothing. The Beast's obsidian skin was not marred in the least bit. This unsettled Parker, because he was sure that that sort of blast would have put a crater in anything else. But not this Nazca Beast. And even this wasn't enough to get the giant monster to pay attention to the two.

Helen was peppering it with short, quick pulses of concussive violet energy from her ring. She went high as Parker stayed low, but it seemed to be futile and fruitless. And the Beast seemed to not even noticed them, just continue its slow, ambling pace to a destination only known by it and it alone. It continued to stump onward, the attacks of the two RAFians not even bothering it, seemingly.

"This isn't working, Parker," Helen said, trying to turn up the heat. "We're not stopping it!"

"We have to keep it up!" Parker said. "We have to stop it from destroying . . . wherever it's going!!"

"But this isn't working!" Helen argued, swooping around this Beast akin to a wasp. "We need another plan of attack!"

"I'm open to suggestions!!" Parker shouted to be heard, as they continued their attacks.

"We should be more defensive rather offensive, perhaps," Helen said, conjectured. She was spitballing ideas, but this Beast was still a mystery to both of them. They only knew of its massive size and evident high durability. Other than that, its full capabilities were unknown. "Maybe we should make a barrier to impede its path."

"I have to admit that I don't like waiting like that," Parker said, still peppering the Beast with his shots, despite them doing nothing. Parker was hoping beyond hope that he would luck into a weak spot. Everyone had weak spots, pressure points to exploit. Parker was trying to find one on this Beast who had a body plan similar to that of the Yellow Devil (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/megaman/images/4/4a/Yellowdevil.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090308200601) from the "Mega Man" series, only obsidian black with blue hair and a blue Cyclopean eye with obsidian black sclera. However, when it became clear that he wasn't finding a weak spot to hit for massive damage, he held his gun upward and stopped firing. "But we don't really have any other option. So, what do you have in mind, Helen?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 17, 2018, 10:15:36 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Piercing Damage

The two fell back to set up the barrier to hopefully impede this evil Beast. Granted, the two didn't know its intentions of this giant atrocity, but they could feel the Beast's innate malfeasance and instinctual feloniousness. Parker didn't need scan readouts for something like that, despite Tyr being all too eager to provide him, while Helen just knew that this Nazca Beast was a danger to the populace of wherever it was headed, and that it would relish stepping on them or other such depraved chaotic acts.

They had formed the barrier using a combination of Helen's violet light constructs and Parker's "Overshield" (which wasn't SPARTAN-issue anymore, considering the modifications and updates he made to it using tech that he's come across in his travels as a RAFian, and managed to successfully replicate). They both were satisfied that this cobbled-together, pale violet barrier made of synching together unlikely tech would be sufficient to stop the mammoth behemoth. All they had to do now was wait. The monster would come by shortly, if it was to continue its predicted trajectory.

It seemed like forever, a wait beyond waiting.

"Target inbound," Parker said, suddenly, echoing Tyr's words. "It's at least seventy-seven feet away."

"It shouldn't take it too long to cover that dist-- well, speak of the devil," Helen said.

It emerged from the high cliff walls, still plodding almost sedately to wherever its end destination would happen to be. It didn't roar or intimidate with anything other than its massive size, as if it knew that that was enough to intimidate most people. The two RAFians held their ground. They weren't so easily intimidated. It continued to plod forward with its steady, slovenly gait.

"It better be strong enough," Helen said, as a little nugget of doubt creeped into her mind.

"It will be," Parker said. But he said it with a slight waver in his voice that Helen noticed at once, and she knew that he shared her nugget of doubt. "We just have to maintain it."

"Easier said than done," Helen muttered, wishing that she remembered to recharge her ring. But it was at ninety-five percent power, and that should be good for this kind of undertaking, right? Although, she had to admit, that she wasn't aware of how long Parker could maintain his shield, especially considering that this was not the purpose it was designed for, nor was it designed to stretch to this length and size. This was all very, very risky on the two RAFians' part.

It stopped just short of this barrier, actually seemingly able to perceive it. Both RAFians were secretly curious if the Beast was even aware of what went on around it. This just proved that it possessed at least a little lucidity and self-awareness. If it was truly a mindless Beast, it would have continued to walk straight through the barrier.

It raised its right hand, and balled it into a fist. The two RAFians expected it to roar in frustration or through a tantrum like a toddler, but that's not what it did at all. It gathered blue light, which beaded up and down its body into this raised fist. The two RAFians were sure that this beast would attack the barrier, attempt to break it down, to shatter it into pieces. It very well could do that, and do that easily. It certainly would have the power, as this shield could only take so much impact, and the two RAFians didn't really have another strategy for stopping this Beast outside of hoping for a miracle.

The giant Nazca Beast ****ed its right fist back, as if to deliver a punch. The two RAFians flinched (though Parker would try to play this off later, as he did have some plausible deniability as his face was hidden by his helmet), as they both expected and anticipated a powerful impact. One that probably would have fractured the barrier, if not shattered it outright on the first strike. They had really braced themselves for that . . .

But that did not come to pass. The fiendish Beast was using some sort of special power to completely bypass the barrier as if it was a semi-permeable membrane! The barrier wasn't an obstruction at all! It didn't impede the Beast's progress whatsoever!!

But that wasn't all. This act actually dealt damage to the two RAFians, and it was this that caused the barrier to, not shatter, but fade away into nothingness. Parker had received enough damage that his armor external shell had fractured and his armor's major systems were offline. Tyr was unresponsive, as his armor actually gave off sparks. Helen was spared a lot of damage, but her ring's power was immediately reduced to zero. It needed to be charged, but there was no time for it. No time at all.

All seemed lost.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2018, 08:54:41 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Remnant Shots

As the Beast moved on without even so much as a passing glance toward the two RAFians that he caused so much damage to, the two glared at it. It wasn't in the nature of a RAFian to give up so easily, without putting up a fight, without mustering any sort of resistance towards dark and sinister creature that emanated darkness, as this one did. But they were at a more distinct disadvantage now. Helen's ring was depleted of its power, and Parker's armor was basically just held together with duct tape and sheer determination at this point. It was fathomless how such a creature could do so much "piercing damage", so to speak,

The two got to their feet and glared with determination at the Beast. They wouldn't go down so easily. They had to stop this monster from reaching its destination, for it that destination was heavily populated . . . neither wanted to consider those ramifications just yet. It would be best to try to best the Beast, and destroy it, preventing it from causing untold collateral damage and casualties. Granted, this was far easier said than done.

Helen found herself muttering, "For hearts long lost and full of fright --"

Parker's armor let off some sparks in wide arcs. Parker was secretly alarmed by this, his armor wasn't supposed to things like this. Perhaps one or two of the upgrades and modifications he made to it allowed it do this when severely damaged. He would have to examine it at a later date, if he remembers to.

"-- For those alone in blackest night -- " Helen muttered. She had a habit of muttering the Star Sapphire oath when she was nervous. It wasn't just an oath to her, it was a mantra.

Parker stumbled, cursing audibly. His suit's hydraulics must be acting up, and they were just supposed to increase his strength and durability in this armor. Perhaps it was a mistake to tamper with them.

"Accept our ring and join our fight," Helen said, reciting her oath as a mantra. She had hoped that it would calm her down, and give her some modicum of clarity. It wasn't working well.

Parker felt as if his movements in his suit were far more sluggish and plodding than he would have liked, and, meanwhile, the Beast was starting to pull away from them. They needed to act quickly to stop it . . . and he considered abandoning his armor in order to do so. And only the most dire of circumstances would have him even consider such a thing. But his practicality wouldn't let him, as he knew, without his armor or weapons he couldn't so much as put a dent in this Beast. Hell, even with them, he couldn't. The Beast had actually soaked up most, if not all, his ammunition already.

"Love conquers all-- with violet light!" Helen concluded, muttering the oath. Strangely enough, it didn't make her feel any better.

That's when it happened. Like what happened with Dino and Underseen, a surge of the remnant of the Great Power decided to manifest. Helen, while still maintaining the starburst symbol of the Star Sapphire, but her ring was changed to white, and completely recharged. All the violet parts of her Star Sapphire uniform were now white. Parker's armor was completely repaired, with all the modifications and upgrades intact. Although, it looked like Parker's armor was that of snow camouflage. The primary color was white with black at the joints. The face part of the mask remained the same goldish color, though.

"The . . . Great Power's back?" Helen said, sounding utterly perplexed.

"No, this is different," Parker amicably disagreed. "This isn't as powerful. Don't get me wrong, it is powerful, but not as powerful as the Great Power. And I just said 'power' too many times."

"Well, we still have an objective," Helen said, looking at the beast. Her Lantern glow was now white, so you'd think that she was a White Lantern, not just a palette swap.

"That we do," Parker agreed, as he discovered that his ammunition had replenished. It was light construct ammo, but ammo nonetheless.. "Let's get on it shall we?"

The two managed to cover the lost ground and get in front of the Beast, and Parker began to pepper the beast with this light construct ammo. He was pleased to see that this ammo seemed to be leagues above his usual ammo. The Beast actually felt this attack, and actually roared with pain. Despite himself, this gave Parker a sense of gratification. This Beast was annoying him with its indestructible nature -- it wasn't so indestructible now!

But Helen was the one that noticed a different weak spot. How could she have missed it? How could either of them missed it? She started to pepper that spot, the spot where a heart would be on a normal human, and she was relentless with her attacks. Then she stopped, only to resort more tactile, melee attacks with a violet light (though recolored white) construct sword. Parker was still peppering the Beast's single eye with his weapons, and Parker was only tangentially aware of his girlfriend's endeavors. Helen pieced the Beast's flesh with the sword construct, plunging it into the Beast's heart. The more she pushed, the more it sunk into the Heart. Then she twisted it, and shattered the Heart.

This caused the creature to shriek, which was quickly silenced with eerie silence. Its body collapsed and dissipated into nothingness. Mere seconds after it did, the Remnant Power vanished, of its own accord. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2018, 07:03:40 AM

Sorry for the delay, the past few days were quite busy for me.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Here, Lizard, Lizard, Lizard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2q0w9Pw5s)

Saffa, Gaz, and Laserbeak (who wouldn't allow Gaz to go without him, being the overprotective Cybertronian parrot that he was) flew to the site where the lizard Nazca Beast. Saffa was in her Psycholeopterran morph and Gaz was in her bat form. Gaz had to fly a bit harder than Saffa to keep up with her fellow RAFian, as a bat is significantly smaller than Psycholeopterran as most bats are insectivores while Psycholeopterran prey on Necrofriggians, a sentient species. Laserbeak, however, hovered almost lazily alongside the two ladies.

They saw the lizard Nazca Beast walking with slow, slapping footsteps. The ground was hard and was not the right type of terrain to support having footprints. It had a wiry, bipedal frame with a stiff tail that trailed behind it as it proceeded forward at its sedate pace, heading in the general direction of civilization. It had eyes like that of a chameleon which moved independently of each other.

Saffa tried to use the hypnotic powers of her Psycholeopterran morph, but the effect didn't seem to affect the beast because both eyes were never focused on the same point, and it didn't seem to notice Saffa. If it did, it was indifferent towards her. Saffa didn't know if this was a good thing or if she should be offended. Meanwhile, as Gaz and Laserbeak swooped around its head counterclockwise, the lizard Nazca Beast continued to proceed towards civilization with its slapping footsteps.

Saffa landed somewhere ahead of the lizard Nazca Beast, and demorphed. She didn't have much time left in morph, anyway. Gaz landed next to her, reverted back to her humanoid form, unbothered by the direct sunlight. Laserbeak landed on her right shoulder, and clicked his beak, almost as if he was huffy that the Nazca Beast ignored them. Laserbeak did fire upon the beast, to no avail. Apparently, he took this personally.

"Relax, Beaky," Gaz said, rubbing his head affectionately. "We just were testing to see its sensory capabilities."

Laserbeak gave a discontented squawk,

"Don't be that way, Beaky," Gaz chided gently and with good humor. Then she turned to address Saffa, "It seems to have the visual acuity of an Andalite -- complete one hundred and eighty degree vision. Other than that, I couldn't see or begin to guess what powers it may or may not have."

"Yeah," Saffa agreed. "I couldn't see any obvious weaknesses, either."

"Well, yeah, to be fair," Gaz said, thoughtfully, "it's not like any weaknesses would manifest as glowing white sigils for us to attack."

"Would be nice if it did, though," Saffa said. She was currently pondering how they could destroy the creature before it reached civilization. It was far easier said than done. She ran through her litany of morphs to see if any one of them would have been useful. Nexu? No, it was too bright here, she would be blinded. Her Psycholeopterran morph already proved to be ineffective. Tyrannopede, one of her favorite battle morphs? A good contender, but it may not be able to web up the thing, given its huge size. Buglizard? Not much it could do against this thing, especially as it evolved specifically to hunt Lepidopterrans. Her red-tailed hawk morph would definitely not suffice, and she dismissed it out of hand. Mucillator? It would be a stalemate, in the best case scenario. Sheer Goliath? Might be able to overpower it, but not likely as the Nazca Beast was taller, though more wiry than a Sheer Goliath. Slamworm? Hmmm . . . there might be a way in that. Although this ground might be too hard to use that morph effectively. She continued to mull these over in quick succession.

Meanwhile, Laserbeak became Gaz's armor, increasing her overall firepower and durability. She kept up the attack, buzzing around its head, going for its googly eyes. But the attacks were ineffective, which was less than ideal. But Gaz wasn't about to give up, and it wasn't like Leatherhead would allow her to give up, at least not with a protesting squawk.

Saffa took out her taydenite sword -- it wasn't exactly diamond, but she found that she could manipulate it as if it was. And she also found that she could shunt it away to Z-Space when she morphed. She dashed forward and used the sword to hack at the Beast's ankles. For all the good it did. It was like trying to cleave a mountain with a dagger. Possible with enough time (like eons) and tireless tenacity.

The Nazca Beast didn't even seem to notice any of their attacks. If it was even aware of their presence, it didn't show it. Gaz was little more than a gnat to it, and Saffa was little more than a highly aggressive ant whose bite wasn't painful in the least. This seemed to be nothing more than an exercise in futility. . . .

But they had to stop this thing. Somehow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 20, 2018, 01:33:28 PM

Yay! After the super hectic morning, it was nice to see a new chapter waiting.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 21, 2018, 06:34:31 AM

Glad to oblige.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Upon Sudden Inspiration . . .

Saffa's mind worked furiously, until she thought that she had an idea. A perfectly doable plan.

"Gaz!" she shouted at her fellow RAFian and her Cybertronian pet. "Keep it distracted, and still! I think I have an idea."

Leatherhead squawked, almost as if in protest.

"No one said that it was going to be easy, Beaky," Gaz chided good-naturedly.

Leatherhead gave a sharp chirp, which caused Gaz to chuckle with a smile as she swooped and dived around the lizard Nazca Beast's eyes and face, like a gnat repeatedly buzzing a jogger's face and tenaciously refusing to go away. She kept it up, swarming the Beast's face, firing Laserbeak's weaponry at the giant saurian monster. She now had the Beast's undivided attention, but not because it perceived her as a threat, but because it perceived her as a nuisance or annoyance. It raised its slightly flailing hands up and batted away at her. But it was remarkably slow, and Gaz was able to dodge every strike.

"Beaky," Gaz said, in a gentle scold, "don't get ****y!"

Meanwhile, Saffa was morphing into a Slamworm. She was just finishing off the morph when she dove underground. She burrowed furiously, making intricate tunnels that she could manage within her two hour time allotment. Unfortunately, she didn't have an internal clock like an Andalite, so she had to be quick and demorph as soon as she could manage it. It was amazing how she could keep her sense of direction, even underground, making the ground beneath the Beast so perforated that the ground beneath it would not be able to support the mammoth Beast's immense weight. This would have to do. Her time in morph should be nearly at the time limit, and she would need to demorph very soon. And she did, the moment she surfaced.

"How much longer, Saffa?!" Gaz demanded. The lizard Nazca Beast's last swat was too close a shave for her liking. Granted, she could just go into gaseous form, taking Laserbeak with her, and evade any real impact. But that would be extremely taxing and difficult to time well, "This Beast is starting to get agitated! And that's not a good thing!"

"So I gathered!" Saffa shouted her reply. "It shouldn't take very long until the ground --"

The ground finally gave way against the massive Beast's weight. It plummeted with surprising swiftness, as if the sinkhole had been dug there all along. It was almost cartoonish. But Saffa wasn't done yet, she wanted to be sure that this thing couldn't escape, and she already was completing her morph to her Tyrannopede morph. Tyrannopedes were Vaxasaurian predators, so they were accustomed to prey that could reach large sizes. But that wasn't Saffa's intention with this Beast. She walked up to the hole were the Beast fell in. From the nozzle-like horn on her Tyrannopede head, she fired the characteristic webbing of the species. She was covering the hole's opening.

"I feel that we're only making this a problem later on down the line," Gaz said, landing, still wearing Laserbeak as her armor.

<We've stopped the Beast,> Saffa said. She already started to demorph, and human characteristics and size were already starting to dominate over the Tyrannopede ones. "That's all that matters"

"I still have my doubts," Gaz said, fretfully.

"I never said it was an elegant solution," Saffa replied. "But the fall should have killed it."

"I think that's being overly optimistic, personally," Gaz said, "But it does seem to have done the --"

A tremendous light incinerated the webbing and funneled from the ground as if the hole was a cannon. From this light, the Beast rose again with an image similar to the art of a "Monster Reborn" card. And it didn't look too happy with the two of them.

"Oh, crap," Saffa said.

"Well, that's just prime," Gaz muttered.*

---

*Yes, that's a slight nod to a certain series Gaz worked on, on the forum. ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on June 21, 2018, 03:37:13 PM

LOL! Love it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2018, 05:53:14 AM

:)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Saffa Used Brave Bird (https://www.serebii.net/attackdex-sm/bravebird.shtml)!

The lizard Nazca Beast roared its discontent. Everyone within a three-mile-radius heard its roar.

Laserbeak squawked, causing Gaz to sigh, and say, with determined patience, "Yes, Beaky. It is mad."

"Well," Saffa said, taking a step away from the Beast, and doing her best not to stumble. She just had gone from one morph to another in a rather short period of time. This took a toll on anyone with the morphing ability, and she had expended a lot of energy while in morph as well. There was no way she would be ready to fight again for a few moments. Moments which she very well may not have had.

Gaz wasn't fairing much better. Being a vampire didn't mean that your were immune from exhaustion, and she was actually feeling quite a bit of it already. Laserbeak wasn't as susceptible to fatigue as the two RAF ladies, but even he was experiencing it. They both had expended a great amount of energy just distracting the thing, and keeping it in place.

And now the Beast was before them, still strong and now none too pleased with them. The scope of what they could do to it at this point, was effectively nil. This wasn't even a stalemate. They were at a distinct disadvantage, and in the path of an angry Nazca Beast. The thunderous, flapping footsteps were slow and deliberate.

"Should we say our prayers, or something?" Gaz said, as Laserbeak remained silent.

"I'm not much for prayers," Saffa answered sincerely. She stubbornly remained on her feet. "But, if today is my day to die, I know one thing."

She clasped Gaz's hand in solidarity, before continuing, "It will be on my feet."

"Agreed," Gaz said, bracing herself for what she expected to be a fatal blow.

That's when it happened. At the precise moment when it happened to the others. Their clothing were bleached white with black accents, and Laserbeak was predominately white with golden accents. Their exhaustion was erased, as if they had just downed a senzu bean each. They were back up to fighting strength and stamina.

And now they were not so willing to accept death. Not when they had a fighting chance again. Not when they could do something about this Beast again. They were not going to give up so easily when they could do something about it. The two women moved in sync, neither having to communicate a plan, seemingly having concocted it on the fly with nothing but glances and gestures.

Gaz immediately went for the Beast's glowing green eyes, firing her weapons (from the armor that Laserbeak became that she wore) with deadly accuracy. She went for the right one first, nimbly dodging every single swipe with minimal exertion. This infuriated the Beast further, which is why it roared in frustration constantly. Eventually the eye became black, and the green glow that came from it faded and vanished altogether. It was now blind in that eye. This made evading the swipes unsurprisingly easier.

Meanwhile, Saffa was morphing to red-tailled hawk -- and her more was bleached white and sparkled as if she were a shiny Pokemon. She was completing the morph as Gaz was starting to attack the Beast's other eye. She easily dodged each swipe, as the Beast's visual acuity and depth perception were halved, severely incapacitating its ability. But this was still a distraction from what had to be done.

It wasn't long before Gaz had blinded the Beast, and Saffa had completed her morph. Saffa took to the sky, and quickly built up speed. Gaz continued to pepper the lizard Beast's head, as Saffa continued to built up her speed. Granted, she would never be able to reach the speeds of a peregrine falcon. But that didn't matter as much, as the Remnant Power energy gathered and built up as she built up her speed. She utilized barrel rolls to evade the lizard Beast's swipes.

Then Saffa did a midair flip and then charged forward. Toward the Beast. Towards where the heart should be. She accumulated more and more Remnant Energy, so much that it appeared that she was unintentionally leeching it away from Gaz, This actually manage to increase her speed and durability. She lanced straight through the Beast, directly through its heart, shattering it. Its body collapsed into darkness and shadow before dissipating into nothingness.

Saffa spiraled downward, deliberately losing her speed, and the Remnant Power energy began to leave her, being as fickle as the Great Power. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 23, 2018, 05:29:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Monkey See, Monkey Duel

Cerulean and Noelle were dispatched to deal with the monkey Nazca Beast. They went to the meadow that Noelle once fed on and it was to her dismay that it was fundamentally destroyed. The soil was overturned, grass buried and ripped up. The trees were unmolested, though.

<And it was such a nice meadow, too,> she mourned slightly.

"There it goes," Cerulean said.

<Keep up with it,> Noelle said. <I'll catch up when I can.>

Cerulean sped toward the lumbering Beast who was stumping its way toward civilization. Once there, it would demolish buildings, squish the populace underfoot, crush cars, and cause untold destruction and death. That's what these Nazca Beasts lived off of, destruction and chaos. It was like mother's milk to them. Noelle and Cerulean understood this, understood what was at stake.

While Noelle galloped to catch up, Cerulean was already there, examining the Nazca Beast. It was had a thin, wiry body with a curly-cue tail and a simian, nonexpressive face. Cerulean couldn't see any overt weaknesses other than its slow moving gait, but that was probably due to its size more than anything else. Cerulean had to admit, he didn't know how they would manage to destroy such a behemoth. It seemed like such a monumental, ultimately futile task.

<Did you see any -->

"Weaknesses?" Cerulean interrupted. "No, Noelle, I haven't. I don't think this Beast has one. Not an overt one, anyway."

<Well, that's certainly disheartening,> Noelle replied, her tone clinical.

"Have any morph in your arsenal that could do something?" Cerulean said, his tone also clinical at this point.

<I don't believe so, no.> Noelle said, going over her litany of morphs. <I probably should have brought along a Shredder or two.>

"You think that this thing would even feel a Shredder?" Cerulean asked earnestly. "At that size?"

Noelle considered for a second, before replying, <Perhaps not. Perhaps a Dome Ship's weapons would -->

"That would be overkill, though," Cerulean said.

<Perhaps.> Noelle said. <But this brings us no closer to destroying this creature before it reaches human civilization. We don't have a lot of time.>

"We have plenty of time," Cerulean said, stubbornly. "A second can be an eternity for me."

<That's nice, impressive rhetoric, Cerulean,> Noelle said, <but how do we use that to destroy this Beast?>

Silence elapsed between the two for a while, as they noticed that the Beast would stop every now and then to look around, almost as if it was expecting something. Or lost. It was odd to see, but the two were still in the dark of what this creature could do, any special features that it possessed. The mystery surrounding it was something that could be quite a deal more dangerous than the two were currently expecting. The two were cognizant and aware of this, but didn't not see a point in approaching a subject so obvious.

"Well," Cerulean said, "I'm open to suggestions."

Noelle waited, as she thought as fast as she could.. <There is a way. There has to be a way.>

"Hmmmm . . ." Cerulean said, after a brief moment of silence between the two. "I think I may have an idea."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2018, 05:26:46 AM

****. I wrote the next chapter and accidentally deleted it. ****.  :mad: Now I have to re-write it. So chances are that it will be shorter and more to the point than it was before. I apologize for this mistake on my part.

:edit:

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Shirking the Attack

The two worked in tandem, following the plan. Cerulean wailed on the left wrist of the Beast, while Noelle had morphed Aerophibian and fired neuroshock blasts at the precisely same spot that Cerulean was wailing at. This amplified the damage dealt. Eventually, it lifted its hurt wrist up, and the two RAFians just shifted focus upon the Beast's other wrist.

Eventually, the Beast lifted up that wrist again, rearing up to its hindlegs, using its tail for balance, and Noelle had to demorph and remorph to proceed with their plan. They did not relent, and just shifted their attack to its right ankle and heel. Granted, this would probably be much more effective if Cerulean wore tekko-kagi (http://www.ninjaencyclopedia.com/weapon/tekko-kagi.html) or something similar, like Shredder from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". But all he had was his bare fists and Noelle's neuroshock blasts from her Aerophibian morph. He heard that they really sting.

Within moments, the Beast collapsed forward, roughly one o'clock. This left its short neck vulnerable. The two RAFians knew an opportunity when it presents itself. They immediately rushed to capitalize upon it. But when Cerulean's fist made contact and Noelle's neuroshock blast first connected, the first vertebrae segment vanished and the two were blasted away with a powerful lime green light.

This was enough to force Noelle out of her Aerophibian morph and back into her natural Andalite form, and was enough to sap roughly half of both RAFians' energy. Both struggled to their feet after this, and noticed that this Beast had a rather long tail, which was in a stiff, spiral. Only the tip was now gone. Both RAFians swayed on their feet, that they determinedly stood on.

<Now,> Noelle said, addressing Cerulean, in between gasps of fatigue, <at what point exactly . . . did we lose control here?>

"Maybe someone should tell him that we're the good guys," Cerulean said, irreverently.

<Any thoughts?> Noelle said. She was clearly implying what they would do next.

"I haven't a clue," Cerulean said, as the Beast seemed to be watching them, almost as if the two amused it in someway. "Everything we try to do to kill it will just result in it pulling what it just did. It has a lot of vertebrae in that tail, and it will take an eternity to run it out."

<And, with each time, half our energy goes away,> Noelle agreed..

"I would say that we're an impasse, but that's not true," Cerulean said. "We're at a clear and undeniable disadvantage."

<Indeed,> Noelle said, all four eyes taken up by the massive monster. <Only a miraculously-timed power-up can help now.>

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 25, 2018, 10:41:38 AM

Probably gonna be the last chapter today.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Upgrade Available

And, of course, that's when it happened, as it happened with all the others, which was happening concurrently to this. This is when the Remnant Power energy decided to show up. It really was as fickle as its Great Power predecessor.

Noelle's fur was bleached white, though her hooves, eyes, and tail-blade remained the same color, essentially making her look somewhat like an albino Andalite. Cerulean's clothes were paler, though not white. Upon his hands were two sickle-like claws -- similar to that of a pair of tekko-kagi, only with steak-knife-like blades of glowing Remnant Power energy. Cerulean found that perhaps he should invest in getting some of these for himself when he didn't have Remnant Power energy.

The two looked at each other and smiled (for Noelle, being an Andalite, that was all in the eyes). All their exhaustion had vanished, and they realized the crux of this Beast's weakness. They formulated a plan without even needing to say a single word -- as the Beast just looked at them quizzically, ****ing its head to the left, though its face remained expressionless, as if it was a mask.

Noelle immediately morphed into a huge, white (due to the Remnant Power) feline creature with sharp claws, a thin, feline tail with a sharp hook at the end of it, fangs like a Smilodon, a black mane like a dire wolf, and a small horn on the top of its nose. She had became a Panuncian, a morph she never really used due to the danger of its cloning ability, which could cause her to be split up*. Its one reason why she had every intention to never acquire a Splixson, the Panuncian's prey. That was not something that she wanted to worry about, and she had a litany of other morphs able to do the job. But this Remnant Power had another trick, one that she took a gamble on.

It allowed her morph to "evolve" further. For the most part, it resembled normal Panuncians, save for the fur being white, with their head now having plating with a larger horn where their original horn was. It possessed two smaller horns behind snout horn and on the sides, and it had larger fangs. Spikes grew from its shoulders and back. The spikes and head plating heavily resemble to Crabdozer (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Crabdozer_(Species))'s armor. She was in a hyperevolved Panunican morph, with higher strength, size, and stature. Whether she would be access this morph without the Remnant Power still remained to be seen.

But pure brute strength wasn't the reason that she morphed into this, presumably still with the morphing time limit in effect. She would just serve as a distraction while Cerulean did what he needed to do. One would have to wonder how the Remnant Power would effect his superhuman speed, as he was already faster than a Kinecleran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kineceleran) and a Citrakayah (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Citrakayah). Perhaps the tekko-kagi was all he got from the Remnant Power, and his speed was not affected at all.

Noelle commenced her attack, despite only being the size of a housecat to this Beast, at best. She could hurt it, but not kill it. There was no way that she could reach its neck in order to kill it. Despite the shortness of the neck, she would never be able to open her hyperevolved Panuncian jaws enough to be able to close around it. And even if she could, the Beast's ability would probably sap the Remnant Power from her, leech it from them both. She was just the distraction -- Cerulean would be the one doing that actual hard stuff, though distracting this Beast wasn't exactly what you would call "easy".

Cerulean waited only a moment after Noelle completed her hyperevolved morph and began to garner the Beast's attention. He sped toward the Beast's tail, the world standing still as he ran. He was there before he knew it, at the base of the Beast's tail. This was it's vulnerability. It could not use it's ability without its tail. If it was tailless, it wouldn't be able to save itself again.

He began to use these energy tekko-kagi constructs to their full potential, hacking with them at top speed, as speed that not even the most top-of-the-line blender could achieve. It wasn't too long before Cerulean rendered the monkey Beast an ape, and the tail flopped to the ground with a monstrous thud before collapsing and dissipating into darkness.

"There!" Cerulean cried out. "It's ability is useless, Noelle! You don't have to hold back any more!"

With the both of them, this beast didn't last very long. After they were done with it, it looked like a plastic figurine put into a garbage disposal. It was not pretty, but it was a necessary thing to do. The Beast soon thereafter collapsed into darkness and shadow, then summarily dissipated into nothingness, as the Remnant Power left the two RAFians. . . .

---

* Akin to Rachel, when she morphed starfish.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 26, 2018, 10:56:29 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Does It Know the Words?

Broken and Faerie were dispatched to face the hummingbird Nazca Beast. Faerie flew naturally (as she had wings, after all), and Broken was wearing a Cloak of Levitation, a fairly new acquisition, which, obviously, allowed him to fly unsupported. It was good to send two fliers after a Beast modeled after a hummingbird. As one of the largest things in the sky, second to only the condor Nazca Beast that had attacked Cloak, who could only just make out the two and their Beast quarry.

Unfortunately, the Beast was far faster than it size would indicate. And, being a flier, it could cover far more ground than those tethered to the ground. It's wings did not beat once, which kind of was counterintuitive to it being a hummingbird. Though, granted, it was a heavily stylized hummingbird whose feathers were like slabs of obsidian, whose beak looked perfectly capable of splitting stone with relative ease, and whose legs were reminiscent to that of Zapdos.

The two RAFians actually struggled to catch up, Broken's Impediment Jinx or Slowga spell had no effect on the Beast whatsoever. He couldn't slow the Beast whatsoever, and neither could Faerie, despite her rather different type of magic. She was far more skilled with martial magic, anyway. She carried with her a new battleaxe -- which she wasn't particularly fond of. It felt far too heavy and unwieldy in her hands, and nothing like her other one. And it would never stack up to her Tempest Blade. Screw Garrotik for taking that away from her.

Meanwhile, Broken was carrying an aspen and an ebony wand, both with unicorn hair. The aspen one was slightly unyielding and eleven inches, while the ebony one was shorter and inflexible. Wandmaking had become a real hobby for Broken in his off-hours. He had a high affinity for both these wands, and they performed perfectly for him. Unfortunately, the target of his spells was being rather unobliging and unhelpful at the moment, by not being affected by them. It was annoying.

Broken found himself actually considering using Crucio, Imperio, or even Avada Kedavra on the Beast, despite that that was rather taboo in the magical community. He might even lose his status as the Sorcerer Supreme if he just used curses such as those that were considered to be unforgivable. He just hoped that it wouldn't come down to having to resort to those spells -- even though he was mostly sure that they wouldn't work.

"We gotta catch up to it," Faerie said, brusquely and clinically. As if this was just your standard, average RAFian mission.

"Let's go, then," Broken said, turning on the speed.

The two managed to match the Beast's flight speed, and landed, apparently unnoticed, upon its back. It was like sharing an overly large, opulent flying carpet (the size of a 747 passenger plane) with a high-pitched trilling sound. The Beast seemed to be lost, not really understanding where it wanted to go, which part of civilization it wanted to destroy first. This indecision could prove to be a boon to the RAFians.

IF they could figure out how to capitalize on it.

"It's either highly immune to magic, if not straight out immune to magic," Broken said.

Faerie fingered her battleaxe, "Perhaps, but how about melee attacks?"

"Be my guest, Faerie," Broken said, gesturing to the floor, which was the back of this massive hummingbird Beast.

In a swift movement -- almost as if she was showing off -- she unholstered her unwieldy axe and promptly . . . dropped it. Her grand, cinematic moment ruined, she picked up the axe with mild resentment and bitterness, and lifted it high. If both were unable to fly, this would be a rather stupid idea. Then she brought it down, much faster than she intended -- she really needed get a weapon more weighted to her liking - and it only cracked a couple of obsidian feathers. Faerie pulled that axe out of the obsidian "ground".

"Well," she said, "that didn't work."

"Yes," Broken agreed, attempting to keep his footing. "We should have misjudged this Beast. Fortunately, it wasn't too detrimental to our objectives."

"You make it sound so cut and dry," Faerie said. Then she bent her knees, declaring, "It's ascending? Why?"

"Trying to give us hypoxia?" Broken suggested, bracing himself as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2018, 07:18:26 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Well . . . That Would've Hurt

"You think that this thing is really that intelligent?" Faerie said, grasping the obsidian feathers, which were hard and sharp. It was a miracle that neither weren't lacerated into ribbons. "I doesn't even speak!"

"You don't need to speak in order to be intelligent," Broken said, "look at many Dark objects and relics, like Horcruxes."

Faerie suppressed a shutter at the mention of those ungodly things, "I'd rather not think about Horcruxes."

"Just using them to illustrate a point," Broken said, almost in apology as the Beast flew higher and higher. "Speech isn't a sign of intelligence. Just look at Knights and their heinous rhetoric."

"Fair point," Faerie said. "What's our next move?"

"It has to level out at some point," Broken reasoned.

"And if it doesn't?" Faerie asked, sounding very much like a contrarian.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Broken said. His Cloak of Levitation flapping wildly in the wind. Faerie was afraid to use her wings in this wind shear. The Beast seemed to be accelerating its ascent. "It's magic-proof like Realm Walkers. It has some resistance to melee strikes. I don't know what else to use."

"Well, doesn't that beat all," Faerie said, as if this nonsense would make sense. "We need to find a way to deal with this thing and fast. And stop it from making that annoying trilling noise."

"The Ribbons of Raggadorr? The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak? The Baleful Bolts of Balthakk? The Rain of Raggadorr? The Vipers of Valtorr? The Images of Ikonn? The Chains of Krakkan? The Roving Rings of Raggadorr? The Vapors of Valtorr? The Winds of Watoomb?" Broken suggested. "Although, I'd rather not use any of those spells. I'm . . . I'm not fond of where and who they come from."

"You just namedropped a lot of people," Faerie noted. "Are you trying to get on their dinner list or something?"

"They're actual spells!" Broken protested hotly. "They're all mystical beings who belong to the O--"

Suddenly, they were falling, and yet they felt as if they were being squeezed by unseen hands that enclosed them from their clavicles to their knees. They couldn't fly, and they were plummeting to their presumable deaths. But they weren't about to just give up like that. Faerie was, to put it bluntly, a warrior and she wasn't about to die in such a way, as utterly powerless against a foe with questionable sentience. Broken felt just the same way, and he struggled to free himself.

Before he realized that he should do something else. Take the distance of the fall out of the equation. He just had to have sufficient determination and deliberation to accomplish what he was planning . . .

He twisted midair, and he felt even more compression around him, only to find him on his feet. Stumbling upon the ground with the invisible hand around him released its grasp. He immediately reached for his aspen wand -- ebony one had been broken by the clutch of the invisible hand, snapping it in two. He looked up and found Faerie, still fighting to free herself from this invisible hand.

"ARRESTO MOMENTUM (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Arresto_Momentum)!!" the Sorcerer Supreme roared, point the wand at Faerie. He put all his strength into the charm. The power of the charm actually cracked the wand -- something that had never happened before to Broken. But the Sorcerer Supreme did not care so much as saving the life of his friend's life.

The charm worked swimmingly and Faerie did not slam into the ground, like the hummingbird Beast clearly intended as it wheeled around to see, clearly, what it anticipated.to be two blood-soaked spots on the ground. It would be deeply disappointed. Broken looked at his wand, and managed to repair it with "Reparo".

"That was . . . less than ideal," Faerie said, after thanking him. "But the question still remains, Broken."

"Yes," Broken concurred. "How do we kill this Beast. It will be a tall order to accomplish."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2018, 04:10:47 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Stopping the Humming

The trill of the Beast became shrill, threatening, and sinister. A shriek of rage and indignation.

"I think we made it mad," Broken said, calmer than he felt.

"Ya think?" Faerie said, in her usual verbose way.

It charged forward, diving down at them. It clearly intended to impale them, to skewer them upon its long, sharp beak like a shish kabob. But they were tiny targets -- that would be like trying to use a needle to skewer pygmy fleas. However, that didn't mean that it couldn't cause untold collateral damage and causalities -- they weren't too far from a densely populated area. Those lives could potentially be forfeit.

"We have to stop it!" Broken declared.

"Great idea!" Faerie said, with full sarcasm. "Any idea how?!"

"I . . ." Broken said, unable to finish the thought. He had his wand in hand, but that seemed insufficient to a hummingbird the size of a passenger plane. Just a strip of wood against a mammoth Beast. "I don't . . ."

That's when it happened. That's when the Remnant Power came to them as it did to the others at this precise moment. The primary colors of their outfits were bleached white while the secondary colors just grew paler. Even Broken's wand took some of its power, becoming stronger, spouting white sparks from it's tip. The Beast's dive was much too close now.

Broken just reacted, and shouted, "DEPULSO (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Banishing_Charm)!!"

This caused a powerful white pulse to leave his wand and the Beast was forced away, crashing into the forest. Faerie hefted her battleaxe easily -- it was suddenly weighted just right for her hands, and it's blade was now sharper. Faerie powered her wings, pulling her axe back. Broken swore that the axe made contact with a very audible crack. It had enough force to throw the Beast's head back. And Broken was given an idea.

Broken went over his litany of spells to act as a support to Faerie's brutal melee attack. Healing her when needed, boosting her attack power and shoring up her defenses. This went over swimmingly well, and Faerie, despite her bravado, appreciated the help. The hummingbird Beast started to realize that it may be way over its depth here at this moment, so it tried to escape to the sky.

But Faerie wasn't going to allow it to escape so easily. She was already hacking away at its right wing, as if she was a lumberjack. It couldn't fly away. It was at Faerie's mercy. Faerie only stopped to give it a glower.

"You tried to kill us," Faerie said. "You are made of chaos and darkness."

"Faerie, you're starting to monologue," Broken said.

"Then I'll cut to the chase," Faerie said. "Beast, we cannot allow you cause damage or permit you to slaughter innocents. Good-bye."

She stabbed through the Beast's neck, which caused it to collapse into darkness and shadow, but soon started to reconstitute itself. But Faerie had noticed it's stone heart. She heaves the axe at it, not unlike Kratos with the Leviathan Axe. The axe didn't cleave the stone heart, but shattered it as if it was made of glass. The Beast stopped reconstituting itself at once, and the darkness that made it up dissipated into nothingness.

"It's done," Faerie said, picking up her axe, realizing immediately that the Remnant Power was ebbing away with astonishing rapidity. "This was as fickle as the Great Power."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2018, 09:42:13 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a wee bit early.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Nazca Leviathan

Horse and Oceanspray were dispatched to deal with the orca Beast. It was at the ocean, which Horse was, naturally, at home in. Oceanspray, being an android, wasn't going to be too negatively affected by it -- he had amphibious capability and didn't need to breathe. His circuitry was completely safe and self-contained as Parker's armor. He wasn't too concerned to being in the salt water, although he readily acknowledged that he wasn't nearly as suited as Horse was. But he went along anyway to watch her back.

Despite her overt excitement to be in what was her element, albeit a tad warmer than she would liked, she appreciated Oceanspray's presence to watch her back. He tended to have a bit more of an analytical eye than her, and she had power in her hydrokinesis (not as powerful as Cloak, granted), and cryokinesis. She was prepared for most anything, and her colleague was as well.

Then they saw it. It was far larger than any orca. It made fully-grown orcas look like mice. Kyogre itself would be just a housecat compared to this beasts monumental size. It was roughly the size of a blue whale, if not slightly larger. It had the terrifying presence like that of a Liopleurodon or Megalodon to an unarmed diver. The sense of its power was undeniable and palpable.

All excitement drained out of the RAFian seal nearly immediately when she bore witness to the Beast. She was the favorite snack of the RAFian's "backup generator", and she really didn't want to be eaten again. She had spent months -- it was at least a year at this point -- blissfully NOT being eaten. She didn't care to start up that running gag again.

Even Oceanspray was intimidated by this mammoth beast. It was a massive submersible, its body a massive torpedo that slid evilly through the water. All manner of sea life recoiled from the Beast. By casual observation, you could say this would be natural, as the majority of this sea life would be afraid of predation. But even consummate predators that seemingly lacked anything akin to fear, like sharks, veered away from this massive thing. Almost as if they could sense the darkness within it, the evil that summed up its whole being.

Being underwater, Horse couldn't speak -- she was a mammal still, and not a fish. She breathed air and not water, so that made speaking rather difficult. Oceanspray didn't have any such restrictions, but the water would still muffle his voice to Horse. So they would have to communicate with gestures and gesticulations.

Then the Beast surged forward, and upward. It was clear what was going to happen, what its intentions were. Both swam upward, with Oceanspray possessing a bit more difficulty in doing so. The Beast would breach the surface, like any ordinary whale. But if one the size of this Beast did . . . that would lead to a massive tsunami of unprecedented levels. If that hit the coast, any of the coastal cities and denizens of those cities . . .

Horse realized this and understood that she was the only present to be able to stop it, as Oceanspray was not a hydrokinetic. His weapons would be helpful, sure. But she knew what she had to do. She wouldn't get there in time to stop it from penetrating the surface of the ocean, but she could stop the tsunami. She would, because she would have to. She couldn't allow such causalities. Not on her watch.

She strained herself, and while she did this, Oceanspray silently and secretly scanned the Beast. Looking for a weak spot. Every creature, every species, had one. Granted, he hadn't found one for Realm Walkers, but they seemed to be rather OP by design, so he didn't think much on that account. Their only weakness appeared to be outfoxed and out-thought, but that was notoriously difficult. But this Beast -- he discovered something he found odd, something he couldn't immediately convey to Horse.

The massive beast they saw was just what appeared to be some sort of tangible, corporeal umbrakinetic construct. Not unlike the bodies of those Gems (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Gems), sentient gemstones with humanoid corporeal constructs. But on a more massive scale. Its projection source -- located where the heart of an ordinary orca would be. Judging from the scan, the "heart" of this Beast seemed to made of some sort of stone that would shatter when hit just right with sufficient force.

But how to exploit this weakness?

Meanwhile, Horse was darting toward the surface, unaware of Oceeanspray's findings, with a plan to stop this tsunami. But she had to be quick, she had to rush, she had to push herself . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2018, 05:00:57 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Horse Used Surf!

The creature's nose had breached the surface. Horse's effort to harden the surface to prevent this had failed. It was like trying to prevent an out-of-control car by putting up a drywall barrier. She would never have been able to prevent this. Perhaps not even Cloak could . . .

The creature's head had left the surface of the ocean water. Then its chest and flippers exited the water. Then the most of its body had left the water. How odd that something that BIG could just hang in the air for that long. Then it arched its back and dived back into the water, diving deep. It's splash, just as Horse predicted, was a tsunami that spanned outward. A tsunami of such magnitude that it would completely bury the nearby coastal cities unless she did something. Oceanspray would help, she was sure, but he wasn't a hydrokinetic. Or a cryokinetic.

There was no way that Horse could hold back this wave, even with her hydrokinesis, especially from this vantage point. But she had an idea. It was potentially stupid and naturally reckless, but it could work. And that was enough for the little seal. She darted into the tsunami wave, surfing it. And as she did so she froze the tsunami solid as she surfed in it.

Meanwhile, Oceanspray was analyzing the possibilities to exploit this weakness of the Beast and how they could use them to their advantage when he realized what Horse's plan was. And the Beast noticed, too. Noticed that it's little destructive plan wasn't working, that Horse was somehow managing to slow and even stop the momentum of the tsunami by solidifying it into ice. Then melting it back into water when a sufficient amount of momentum was lost to make the tsunami lethal and dangerous.

This was a tremendous undertaking, one that Oceanspray could easily see and understand. But the Beast, it wanted those waves of destruction. That's all the Nazca Beasts were, and all they wanted. Destruction, chaos, death, and calamity. Almost as if they were agents of Apophis or something. The Beast wheeled around, appearing deceptively slow. Horse was a small target, to be true, but that did not mean that she was safe due to her small size -- she was equivalent to the size of a flea in comparison to the Beast, if not smaller.

Horse had a higher chance of survival than he did if the Beast charged him, and Oceanspray knew this very well. But, despite these cold calculations, they didn't override his humanity. He retracted his fingers into his arm and changed his arm into his cannon. He fired a small energy pellet at Beast. He wasn't trying to kill the it, just divide its attention. He imagined that he would be considered a far easier target than Horse, who had finished averting the tsunami.

The Beast made a haunting, sinister growl and powered its flukes toward Oceanspray, who waited until the last possible moment, before leaping. For some odd reason he could jump higher in water than he could on land, despite his heavy body. Maybe it was the ceramic titanium he had incorporated into his body, who knows? Anyway, he landed on the Beast's back, and ran as fast as he could, given the watery environment, before jumping off the confused Beast's tail.

When he landed, he immediately pivoted on his feet to look back at the Beast who was slowly wheeling around. It's body shape made it so it wasn't the type of creature that could turn on a dime, which slowed its momentum whenever it had to turn around. Perhaps they could somehow use that to their advantage? Oceanspray just didn't know how they could utilize it as such.

Horse returned to his side, but the communication issue still persisted. Then the Beast unleashed a strange shockwave which hit them both. Horse twisted from the pain, but it was a manageable pain. Oceanspray completed an immediate self-diagnosis, and found all systems were functioning at eighty-five percent efficiency. That was sufficient for their needs, Oceanspray determined.

Horse looked at him, and he nodded. That attack wasn't that bad. They could endure it -- and the Beast seemed unable to attack them after using that shockwave. And it seemed that that shockwave had a rather significant cool-down time, as it didn't just continually spam it. The two RAFians seemed to be counting, seeing when it would use that attack, if you could call it an attack, again. Yes, they would endure it again, but only to know its cool-down time.

There! It did it again, but it built upon the last shockwave, taking a bit more from them. Horse was fine, despite feeling as if she was chewing on a power cord. Oceanspray ran another diagnostic and found that all systems were operating at seventy percent peak efficiency. That was a drawback that neither foresaw, and both felt aggrieved as they both felt that they should have saw this coming.

But they found themselves in the cool-down window. Now was the time to act, but thirty percent of their energy had been drained from them. They actually needed a moment to recover . . . a moment that they may not have, despite the Beast being unable to attack during this cool-down phase.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 01, 2018, 05:00:45 AM

Slightly brief new chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Beached

Horse and Oceanspray managed to recover within the window, but they hadn't a plan. They were basically improvising at this point, and they tried to circle around behind the Beast. But it wouldn't allow that. Even though it couldn't attack during this cool-down time, that didn't mean that it as immobile and unaware of its surroundings.

Horse waved her right flipper and ice spikes formed in front of her. Then she swiped right with her left flipper, and they shot forward as if they were torpedoes. And Oceanspray fired his blaster arm at an entirely different angle from Horse. And the Beast tanked both attacks, much to the surprise of the two RAFians. They shared a glance, still unable to communicate well underwater. They understood that they couldn't afford to hold back anymore.

Then the third shockwave came.

Horse had to form an air bubble to get more air -- she couldn't breathe under water, even with her hydrokinesis. Oceanspray checked and found that all his systems were operating at fifty-five percent efficiency. He estimated and surmised he would only be able to take about five more of those before going offline. His system percentages were not increasing, at all. Horse was feeling the same way, she wasn't recouping any of the energy she lost, that was drained out of her.

Horse and Oceanspray reorientated their locations, and then they attacked. Oceanspray blasted everything he had at the beast, and Horse used both her cryokinesis and hydrokinesis simultaneously at the Beast. It looked as it Horse was simultaneously using Sub-Zero Slammer and Hydro Vortex, and it looked as if Oceanspray was using an Omni-Beam from his arm cannon. Neither held back, triangulating their shots.

And, through the agitated ocean water, they saw that . . . their attacks didn't faze the Beast at all. The Beast looked as if it was smiling at the two's display of their maximum power, as if it was saying to them, Is this the limit to your power? Horse, personally, found this far more insulting.while Oceanspray was calculating another possible solution. He was having difficulty finding one, barring a circumstance or happenstance that he did not foresee, or could not foresee. All scenarios that he analyzed made their situation seem futile. Horse didn't care how futile it seemed, she wouldn't give up until she drew her last breath. She may have been a tiny seal, but she was a determined little seal.

That's when it happened.

The Remnant Power halfheartedly surged into them, making Oceanspray's appearance pale, with the primary color being turned white, while horse's white fur sparkled as if she were a shiny Pokemon. Their powers had been pushed past their usual zeniths. Oceanspray and Horse shared a glance, while the orca Nazca Beast looked rather unimpressed by this. Then again, orca faces aren't exactly the most expressive anyway.

Oceanspray pointed to his eye, then he pointed to his heart. His message was received clear, despite how vague it could have been perceived. Aim for the heart. The Nazca Beast's heart was its obvious weakness . . . okay, maybe not obvious, but it was rather stereotypical. In any case, Horse gave a brief nod, which looked rather odd with her pinniped body.

They re-triangulated their positions, so that their Remnant Power-augmented attacks would strike the Beast's heart from different angles. The Beast tried the shockwave again, only the Remnant Power prevented it from affecting the two. At least for the moment. They didn't know how long that this Remnant Power would last, so they had to be fast and act now. If it was as fickle as the Great Power . . .

The two acted, and attacked. Oceanspray fired his arm cannon with enough power that the water boiled around the beam. Horse fired shards of kunai-like or shuriken-like ice projectiles, and she used her hydrokinesis to reduce, if not outright eliminate, water resistance of the projectiles. In fact, she seemed to be exponentially increasing the projectiles' velocity. To lethal velocity. This, coupled with Oceanspray's attack, the Beast's heart was easily shattered by this. The Beast didn't have a chance when Remnant Power decided to show up.

About seven seconds after they shattered this Beast's heart, Remnant Power decided the time was ripe to leave them. And all that was left was clean-up. Hopefully, the coastal cities were none the wiser to the near-destruction that they nearly faced.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 02, 2018, 11:04:43 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
The Part of Kratos (http://godofwar.wikia.com/wiki/Kratos) Tonight Will Be Played By Cloak

Cloak had somehow made it to center of the back of the condor Nazca Beast. He was embracing his inner Kratos and had two chains of energy connected to both wings. However, there was a problem with this. While he had strength above the peak strength of the average human, he did not possess superhuman strength in strictest sense. But he managed to swerve this condor Beast away from any sort of civilization, and that took an immense amount of his strength. His will wouldn't allow him to give in to any exhaustion or fatigue. Not until he succeeded, or worse.

"Need some help?"

Cloak almost tumbled off the Beast -- the grounding energy chains had dissipated in his surprise. He was just a little too focused on what he was doing that he had inadvertently turned his mind off towards his surroundings. It was an elementary mistake, and a humiliating one, he felt.

"Don't do that, Estelore!" Cloak snarled.

"I just asked if you needed help," Estelore said, nonchalantly hiding a smile at Cloak's surprised antics. "I didn't tell you to tumble into oblivion."

"Hilarious," Cloak glowered, sourly.

"Do you want you my help, or not, Cloaky?" Estelore said, suddenly all-business.

"Fine," Cloak said. He was still rather prideful, but no so much so for help. "We have to destroy this Beast before it could cause any harm or collateral damage."

"Do you know what its capable of?" Estelore said, floating next to him in an irresistible parody of Rose Quartz (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Rose_Quartz). "What powers other than winged flight and looking very, very grumpy?"

"Since when is being very, very grumpy a power?" Cloak asked.

"It was a joke, Realm Walker," Estelore said, with an exasperated sigh.

"I know that," Cloak said. digging his claws into the creature's back, ignoring the obsidian feathers. "And, no, I don't know any of its special abilities or powers. These creatures must be from a more manufactured and artificial origin -- I don't think that 'Nazca Beast' is technically a species."

"'Nazca Beast'?"

"It's the name I've given to them," Cloak said. "This one and its six fellows. I presume the other RAFians are dealing with them."

"I don't rightly know -- I came back from a stellar journey and saw you struggling with the Beast." Estelore informed.

Cloak decided not to take umbrage at the "struggling" choice of words. There were higher priorities to worry about. This Beast, for example.

"How do we destroy it?" Estelore asked, clinically. This was basically their profession as RAFians, so they both would be matter of fact about it. "The straightforward, direct way by brute force? Or hit the weak spot for massive damage? Or some other way?"

"I would say either the first or second option would probably be the stratagem to use," Cloak diagnosed. "Between the two of us, we certainly have enough power to put this thing down. Just one little thing -- we probably should make sure this Beast is far enough away from civilization to prevent undue causalities and collateral damage."

"We're getting away from civilization now," Estelore observed. "Is this far enough?"

Cloak assessed. "I think so. You know what we need to do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 05:37:39 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Duel Final Smashes

Cloak managed to flip off the Beast's back, landing on an energy disc next to Estelore.

"Are you trying to be anime protagonist or something?" Estelore teased.

"Never mind that now," Cloak said, sidestepping the sentient star's question."You know what we must do now."

Estelore nodded, ignoring the sidestepped question, and said, "Tandem attack."

"Tandem attack," Cloak agreed.

"We must be in sync for that to happen effectively," Estelore said.

"You make it sound like a Gem (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Gems) fusion," Cloak bantered.

"We're friends, Cloak, but we're not that close," Estelore teased back.

"That's not what I meant, Estelore, and you know it," Cloak replied.

"Friends not allowed to tease each other?" Estelore said with a devilishly mischievous grin. Cloak didn't like that grin -- it reminded him of Freddie, the obnoxious adopted "nephew" of Estelore's. He was also a sentient star, only a blue dwarf to Estelore's normal-sized yellow star self. The little brat who liked to get people's hopes up by pretending to be a wishing star. Yes, you could just say that was a harmless prank -- but would be harmless if he did that to a dying man who wanted to live? Desperate parents with a terminally ill child? A forgotten child who wanted to escape their misery? Would this "prank" be considered so harmless then? Not all wishes were made out of anger, avarice, fear, cowardice, loneliness, insincerity, ignorance, hatefulness, unreliability, or hopelessness, after all. Some of them could be truly altruistic.

"I didn't say that." Cloak said.

Then the condor squawked, almost angrily. As if it was angry that they were daring to ignore it, and the potential danger it posed. It actually wheeled around to face them, reminded Cloak irresistibly of a rather large, rather angry Yveltal.

Both extended their hands, Cloak's left and Estelore's avatar's right, and fired a powerful tendrils of stellar energy on Estelore's side and all six elements and golden-scarlet energy fired in a double helix formation. Neither noticed the presence of the Remnant Power, creeping into their attack like a lurching layabout attempting to take credit for something they had no part in.

This odd mishmash attack struck the condor Beast in the heart. It only met mild resistance before blasting through, goring the beast completely. There was the sound of glass shattering as the Beast's stone heart broke into pieces. Its body collapsed into shadow, and then summarily dissipated.

The two RAFians still held there hands extended. The Remnant Power had receded without either noticing. They glanced at each other, and held their positions a moment more. Cloak was the first to break the all-consuming silence that followed the Beast's death. "That . . . that was too easy."

"Do you think it was some sort of deception?" Estelore said, clearly suspecting the same thing that Cloak himself was.

"I do," Cloak said, looking around. He couldn't Airsight like he could Earthsight or Metalsight. He quickly deliberated with himself if he should look into do that. "But I don't see or sense it anywhere nearby."

"Nor do I," Estelore corroborated. She, likewise, looked around.

"There has to be something at play here," Cloak said, suspiciously. "It's never this easy."

But, after a few moments, they had to assume that this condor Beast just went down, as the Abridged Frieza would say, "like a ****". They returned to the forum, as a nagging feeling burdened Cloak. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 06:11:20 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
YOU'RE DEAD!! YOU STAY DEAD!!

Everyone was back at the forum a few minutes later, and yet Cloak still felt uneasy. Estelore felt the same way, while everyone else felt a sense of accomplishment. The others were recounting their fights with the six other Beasts. They were all outside, enjoying the brisk weather. It was late September, early October. So the autumn weather was beginning once again. Estelore and Cloak recounted their story, and they were teased for having one of the easiest battles.

"Hey," Estelore said, "between the two of us, we're the most powerful RAFians."

"In terms of brute power, anyway," Cloak said. But he sounded distracted, distant.

"It didn't stand any chance, to be honest," Ash said, fairly. "As you've said, you two alone are the most powerful RAFians. Together? You must've been a force to behold."

"It was too easy," Cloak said. He was still only barely, tangentially paying attention. Something was happening. He was sure of it now. "Something else must have been at play."

"Maybe you're just underestimating your abilities, Cloak," Kelly said, noticing how distracted Cloak was. Like a cat who had spotted some movement that could been prey far off. Kelly ****ed her head to the right, and asked, "Cloak, you seem really distracted. Is . . . is everything okay?"

"You don't sense that?" Cloak said. "It feels almost familiar . . ."

"What are you talking about, Cloaky?" GH said, who had taken his work of rewiring guitars outside so he could be part of the audience of the great storytelling of the RAFian defeat of the Nazca Beasts.

"To the south," Cloak said, pointing. "'Bout six o'clock."

The others looked around to the point where Cloak indicated. The slowly setting sun made it difficult to see, but then the flying pieces of what appeared to be shrapnel flying towards the forum. Cloak recognized some bits of it, as did Estelore, Horse, Oceanspray, Broken, Faerie, Noelle, Cerulean, Saffa, Gaz, Parker, Helen, Underseen, and Dino.

"There's no way!" Dino said.

<How are they flying?!> Noelle demanded.

"Why did they come to the forum?" Horse queried.

"What are they doing?" Underseen asked.

"Daddy?" Leatherhead asked, scared.

"Go back to the thread, Leatherhead." GH said at once, abandoning his guitar rewiring. He had other concerns right now. "Don't argue with me. GO!"

Leatherhead didn't hesitate to comply. He knew that tone of GH's. GH wasn't playing around -- and Leatherhead didn't want to be punished for being bad.

"They're forming up!" Oceanspray said. "The shards of the Beasts' hearts."

"But why?" Gaz said, as Laserbeak hissed at the shards.

"And why does it feel . . . familiar . . ." Cloak asked. Then an idea occurred to him. He roared, "NO! YOU'RE DEAD!!"

"Wait, who?" Broken asked.

But Saffa understood. She recognized the shadowy form trying to form together. "NO WAY . . ."

"GARROTIK!!" Cloak roared. "NO ONE WANTS YOU!! YOU STAY DEAD!!"

Apparently, this monstrosity heard, and the shadow dissipated and the shards collapsed to the ground as finely-granulated dusty sand. Of course, they did not realize that not all of the shards came to try (and fail) to reform Garrotik. But that's a story for another year. . . .

But, suffice it to say, this certainly put a damper on the celebration.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 08:33:51 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Pick A Card, Any Card

Cloak was dispatched to the abandoned carnival to deal with a new fiend threat. This was just routine, at this point. Cloak hated being here -- not because it was creepy and abandoned, but because he wasn't fond of carnivals. Too loud and crowded oftentimes, for his liking. Perhaps it was just his feline inclinations, perhaps it was because of an isolationist nature, who knew?

Anyway, Cloak continued onward, walking. He was going to take his own sweet time, and he had no intention on rushing through this, just because he found it unpleasant and distasteful. Forgotten toys, stuffed animals, deflated balloon animals, and child-sized trains littered the ground everywhere. Almost as if a manchild or unusually large child came along and played with all of them, then threw them aside once they grew bored with them and wandered off elsewhere.

Then he saw a pair of train tracks spanning a considerable sinkhole. Rather than trying to transverse this terrain (or, really, lack of it), Cloak just formed an energy disc and flew over it. It was far better than deal with that headache. Then he landed on a platform that lead into a moldering building that still had flecks of colorful paint desperately clinging to the surfaces within. The effect was gloomy and sad, rather than bright and cheerful, like most carnivals strive for. Unless it was one of those less common goth carnivals -- assuming those exist in this Realm.

Once inside, he saw that there was a dropoff. He jumped off, and landed with a "superhuman landing". He found himself wondering why so many superheros landed in this fashion. It seemed like a good way to break bones to him. But no matter, no matter. That wasn't a concern for him, and he discovered that he had to burrow his way through blocks that appeared to come from a Segmentasapien of a single color. It was easy enough, and Cloak moved onward, through rusted door shutters.

Clearly, based on what laid before him, this area of the carnival was a failed "funhouse". Honestly, Cloak failed to see what was so "fun" about it. There were spikes everywhere, and vertically moving platforms. Cloak moved this room, trying not to find it rage-inducing at all. Cloak was trying very hard. Finally, he made into another room, with ladders leading upward. Cloak deftly climbed them all, leading to a room with a massive house of cards that stood very firmly. As if they were glued in place.

After this room was exterior exit, which Cloak took, and found himself high up. Cloak found this a rather poor design, but only grunted in annoyance about it. He dove down to the bottom, using his Mastery over the Air element to slow his descent. Then he proceeded forward, wondering how all these fiends could nestle themselves so deep into areas. Then  he emerged into a large room, passing by another, yet smaller, house of cards and into another, smaller room, that was slanted upwards. He was at the bottom of a sheer drop, but one side of the walls was stone, so he used his Mastery of Earth to climb straight up that, realizing he was in some sort of castle turret, as he emerged inside it.

To his right there was a continuous wall that was a heavy, red curtain, like the one behind the apron of a stage. Then he passed by two rusted door shutters before making it to the fiend's nest. He saw the fiend appear into the room, as if he were a stage magician. The creature was roughly the size of a man with human-like eyes, with light gray sclera and brown irises, behind a structure like a magician's mask. The top of its head resembled a white top hat with a silver band, and the rest of its head was a dark orange. It had no mouth, just a metallic faceplate and golden ears. It had an inordinate bowtie-like growth around it's clavicle. Its chest was orange with two green switches on its back. It had a deck of inordinately large cards at it shoulders, black upper arms, white cuff-like lower arms with silver trim, and black hands with gold studs at the knuckles. It had sapphire blue orbs inset in its hands. It's abdomen was deep orange with four silver buttons, its thighs were black until the white-and-silver long-necked boot structures on its legs with silver knees and a small, spherical dark orange gem for a kneecap. It's feet were pointed and black. It carried a dark brown staff with silver trim and a dark orange orb atop it.

Upon seeing Cloak, the fiend dashed to the far side of the room. Cloak narrowed his eyes at this. The fiends weren't even smart enough for cowardice, usually. Cloak was standing in the center of the room, waiting to see whatever attack pattern this fiend had. It fired a magic card at Cloak, who sidestepped it easily. A card is an obvious and noticeable projectile -- especially when it was the size of a small poster board. Cloak wondered if this was the extent of this fiend's powers, just dashing around the room throwing magical constructs of cards.

Then it threw three magical orbs, one after the other, from its cane. Cloak just backhanded all three away, undeterred by them. Did it have anymore tricks up its sleeve? Short answer, apparently, was no. Time to end this.

Cloak sent wave after wave of aerokinetic slashes at the fiend. He essentially stun-locked the fiend, preventing the thing from counterattacking. It wasn't long before he . . . he took care of the fiend. With a swish of his Cloak, the Realm Walker left the abandoned carnival. He didn't even look back.

***

Demos called it a "majikkuman". Demos had created it for entertainment purposes, prestidigitation primarily, or so he claimed.

***

Malice was still reviewing the footage that she got of the Nazca Beasts, with this fight on in the background.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 01:52:59 PM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXXIII:
THE YEAR WITHOUT RAF
CHAPTER ONE:
Dynamic Dynamo

Helen was dispatched to the power plant. She was still a bit disturbed by the Naza Beast hearts nearly forming Garrotik. She swore that her heart stopped when she saw that. Garrotik . . . alive again. He was one of the most dangerous adversaries that the RAFians had ever faced, barring perhaps the Warworld and Galacticron. Malice was less . . . upfront than Garrotik was, and she wouldn't completely annihilate the RAFians, Helen was sure. Otherwise, she would get bored again, and Malice knew this.

Anyway, Helen arrived at the power plant and went inside. She had to bust through a non-load-bearing wall to proceed deeper into the power plant. Despite their denials to the contrary, Helen suspected that this power plant hid military connections, but she hadn't any evidence, so . . .

She went through the twisting maze of hallways, dropshafts, snaking paths, climbing ladders. She wondered how the employees who worked here could navigate this place so easily. Then she came to a place that had conveyor belt walkways. WHY did a power plant need conveyor belt walkways? What was even the point? Then she came to a room where she could either climb up on a ladder to her immediate left, or continue forward over a pit of spikes. Why does a power plant need a pit of spikes for? What sense was this supposed to make?

So she used her ring, silently muttering the Star Sapphire oath as she floated across to a hanging ladder over a pit of spikes. Helen was really starting to suspect that this power plant was hiding something, and it wasn't just Demos's fiend. When she reached the landing that the ladder led to, she floated up to a small ledge and through a door shutter, and through another.

She apparently came to a room that had two security drones in it. She tried to proceed forward, but they stopped her. This ticked her off somewhat, leading to her decrying, "Oh! I don't have time for this bullsh--"

They shot at her.

"How rude!" she said, huffily, before destroying them rather easy. They weren't worth even "miniboss" status. Anyway, she continued onward, deeper into this facility. Then she came to a room that led to a single, large dropshaft. She glanced to her left and saw an insignia. A stand of DNA enclosed in a beaker, enclosed in an eye, enclosed in a red triangle. It was the insignia for Cadmus, but Helen hadn't the time to contemplate that as she dropped down the dropshaft.

This room was dark, but fortunately, she had her ring to light her way. She navigated her way rather quickly through the labyrinthine passageways and sheer drops. She didn't want to imagine what would happen to her if she didn't have her ring with her. Anyway, it wasn't long before she came back to an area that was lit properly. And there was a hole in the floor that clearly led to the next room.

She went through it, naturally. And found herself in ANOTHER room with a conveyor belt. What was it with the architects of this place? Did they just have an overabundance of conveyor belts and gears and whatnot? Who owned this power plant anyway? No matter, she proceeded forward. She finally made it to the fiend's nest. At the central consol of the power plant. Because of course it was.

The fiend was a short, stout creature with humanlike eyes, with dark purple sclera and pale brown irises. Its round head, other than its flesh-colored mouth, was red with purple "tear streaks" with a lightning motif, and purple eyelids. Its entire head was encased in a transparent dome. with metallic silver around its shoulders and neck. The part of its shoulders that was not enclosed in the dome were made of electrodes with purple lighting rods pointed backward, pass the head. It's upper arms were metallic coils, while its lower arms were red with red studs. It only possessed a left hand (which was metallic and robotic), and the other was purple dynamo with a black base. It's stout torso was red, with a purple lightning marking on its chest between two ruby red spherical gem "nipples", with a purple ring around its waist. Its thighs and upper legs were metallic coils while its lower legs and shines were thick and red, and it's pod-like feet were black with silver studs at the ankles.

Helen found that, frequently throughout the course of the match, this fiend would run back and forth across the room. It also shot out slow-moving electric tendrils at different heights at her, which she blocked with a construct from her ring. It also created a ring of three electric balls around itself, which orbited it for some time before either being thrown at Helen or sent into the ceiling. It then did its introductory move while attacking her with its lightning bolt of electricity.  This attack was very difficult to dodge as it covered her entire field of vision, so she had to make a construct of herself to have the fiend target the it with the spheres before they are sent into the ceiling. The fiend was also seemingly invulnerable while summoning these lightning bolts, so the incentive to use this strategy was even greater for Helen.  The number of lightning bolts it summoned was equal to the number of electric orbs that it sent into the ceiling beforehand, so she tried to keep count of them.

The fiend's last combat move was to jump to the other side of the room, leaving a "rainbow" of six electric spheres in its wake.  These spheres launched themselves at her, one at a time, in no particular order.  Again, her construct of herself absorbed the spheres and prevented Helen from taking damage while at the same time pelting the fiend with shots. Clearly, it was not invincible during this time like it was in the previously mentioned instance and will not try to regenerate itself until all the spheres have attacked.Occasional ly, the fiend jumped up on a platform with electrodes on the sides that dropped down in the middle of the room. It can charge itself with these, and it will restore his health, strength, and stamina. To stop this, she had to destroy each side of them, but beware of standing under it, since it will drop directly down and possibly land on her.

With all this in mind, she managed to defeat and destroy this fiend. It was done, and so was she. For this mission, anyway.

***

Demos called it a "dainamosapien". Demos claimed that he intended the fiend to be a guide for schoolchildren on field trips through a power plant. When holes were poked into this, Demos waved them away.

***

Malice was still reviewing the Nazca Beast footage, as if she was going to post it to YouTube.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 04:20:22 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Bedtime Museum and Bedtime Stories

Cloak stood in a void and was walking with strangely echoing footsteps. It was as if he was walking in a dark museum made of obsidian. He was surprised when he saw a suddenly flash of light with a hulking figure posed, frozen in midattack. It had the hair of an Osmosian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Osmosian), the body shape, arm count, two left eyes, legs, and torso of a Tetramand (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Tetramand), the left arm of a Pyronite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Pyronite) as its upper left arm, the wings of a Lepidopterran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Lepidopterran), the upper back of a Galvanic Mechamorph (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galvanic_Mechamorph), the right arm of a Petrosapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Petrosapien) as its upper right arm, the eye track of an Ectonurite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Ectonurite), the right eye of a Galvan (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galvan), the sensory gills and arms of a Vulpimancer (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vulpimancer) as its lower arms, the tail of a Kineceleran (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Kineceleran), and the lure, teeth, and gills of a.Piscciss Volann (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Piscciss_Volann). Judging by the mishmashed parts, Cloak assumed, if this chimera was real, its powers would be enhanced strength, enhanced jumping, enhanced durability, pyrokinesis, flight (though limited due to its size), slime spit, levitation, superhuman stretching, minor technological manipulation, energy blasts, shapeshifting Petrosapien arm, crystallokinesis, sharp claws, enhanced senses, enhanced agility, sharp Teeth, steel-rending jaw strength, marine respiration, glowing lure, enhanced speed, enhanced reflexes, and a prehensile tail. But the Realm Walker also assumed that the sum was lesser than the whole of its constituent parts, perhaps by a factor of ten. But this specimen was just like a mock-up, a museum exhibit.

Cloak moved on and saw a second specimen, one that looked far less monstrous that the previous one. This one had the body frame and briefs of a male Osmosian, the left half of his face was Taydenite, the right half of his face, left half of his chest and back was concrete, the lower right half of his chest, upper right half of his back, lower back, stomach, and right arm was metal, and his legs were wood. Just based on this, Cloak assumed, if real, his powers would be enhanced strength, enhanced durability, regeneration, body alteration, weapon manifestation, and possession immunity. Granted, he took a lot for granted in this assumption.

Cloak proceeded forward, hands behind his back, with these specimens clearly just false and frozen, incapable of harming him. This one, too, had Osmosian hair as well as ripped jeans. It also had wings and hood of Necrofriggian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Necrofriggian), two Cerebrocrustracean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Cerebrocrustracean) legs in place of a lower left arm and a Cerebrocrustacen right claw, Crystalsapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Crystalsapien) on its right shoulder, the right arm structure of a Petrosapien, the body structure of a Polymorph (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Polymorph), the torso, body shape, chest plates and tail of a Vaxasaurian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vaxasaurian), the face and right eye of a hyper-evolved Vaxasaurian, the face, skin, and right foot of an Aerophibian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Aerophibian), the oral lining of a Sonorosian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Sonorosian), a Biosovortian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Biosovortian) spike on its left shoulder, the left arm of an Appolexian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Appoplexian) of an upper left arm and an Appoplexian left foot, and an Appoplexian left wrist claw, the right arm of an Arachnichimp (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Arachnichimp), the lower jaw of a hyper-evolved Arachnichimp, the left arm structure of a Methanosian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Methanosian), and the water ports of an Orishan (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Orishan). If real, Cloak surmised that its power set could consist of power absorption, pyrokinesis, fire breath, enhanced speed, electric absorption, earth eruption, tremor generation, ice breath, intangibility, electric force fields, ultraviolet beams, energy absorption, shapeshifting Petrosapien arm, crystal projectiles, sonic screams, enhanced jumping; liquefaction, elasticity, enhanced strength, enhanced durability, neuroshock blasts, magnetokinesis, ferrokinesis, radioactive blasts, nuclear-based optic blasts, web spitting, enhanced agility, flame projection, florakinesis, jackhammer arms, enhanced durability, hydrokinesis, energy blasts, electrokinesis, flight, space survivability, aerokinesis, and magic manipulation. Again, this was just a guess on the Elements Master's part.

Cloak moved forward, and saw a new specimen. It had the hair of an Osmosian,the right wing and right arm of a pterodactyine species (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Astrodactyl%27s_Species) from Terradino, the crest of a small, insectoid species (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Ball_Weevil%27s_Species), the right arm and upper right torso of a Segmentasapien (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Segmentasapien), the legs of grasshopper-like species (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Crashhopper%27s_Species), the antennae of a Conductoid (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Conductoid), the rocks on its torso and left arm of a Galilean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galilean) as a upper left arm, the left wing of a Nemuina (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Nemuina), the torso, crest, and face of a Gimlinopithecus (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Gimlinopithecus), the left arm of a Atrocian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Atrocian) as its lower left arm, the mouth of a Vladat (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vladat), and the claws of a Vulpimancer on its Atrocian arm. Cloak surmised that, if real, its powers would consist of enhanced jumping, gravikinesis, plasma ball creation, energy whips, electrokinesis, energy absorption, energy redirection, elastic antennae, and enhanced strength.

This was like wandering through a museum and examining the exhibits, only the exhibits were singular specimens. The next one had the hair and facial structure of an Osmosian, the back and fins of a Polar Manzardill (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Polar_Manzardill), the right eye of a Loboan (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Loboan), the lower arms and body shape of an Arburian Pelarota (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Arburian_Pelarota), the lower chest and legs of a Splixson (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Splixson), the eyes on the lower arms and the left eye of a Opticoid (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Opticoid), the upper arms and shoulders of a Transyl (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Transyl), the bandages and crown of a Thep Khufan (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Thep_Khufan), the mouth and tail of a Gourmand (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Gourmand), the head fin and chin eyes of a To'kustar (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/To%27kustar), and the fingers, facial skin, tail length, arm spikes, and eggplant bombs of a Florauna (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Florauna). Cloak surmised that its power set was likely to include florakinesis, enhanced strength, energy beams, omniphagy, and enhanced durability.

It was at this point that Cloak awoke, wondering audibly what the point of that dream was.

***

"But I'm not tired!" Leatherhead protested.

"Leatherhead," GH said firmly, hoping that Leatherhead would notice his tone and not try those puppy dog eyes on him. Again. It wasn't really fair that he was so adorable. "You need your sleep, and it's bedtime."

"But I'm not tired!" Leatherhead repeated.

"It's time for bed, Leatherhead," GH said, poking him in the belly. The boy was ticklish and every time GH did this, Leatherhead couldn't help but giggle. GH only stopped when he spoke again, "But, tell you what."

Leatherhead was in his pajamas already -- in his natural crocodilian form, his human suit was hung up ready to be worn at the next day. There were some alterations made to it, as it was slightly bigger to match with Leatherhead's growing body. He kneeled on his bed, like any rambunctious child, ready to play, but GH wasn't having any of it. This wasn't the time for roughhousing. It was time to settle down and get ready for bed, the pair of them.

"I'll tell you a bedtime story," GH said, "but you need to go to bed after I'm done, okay."

Leatherhead was already underneath his covers, and looking at his adoptive father with expectant excitement.

"I'll take that as a 'yes', then," GH said, as Leatherhead nodded with enthusiasm. GH brought up his guitar and strummed a little until he found a little tune he liked. Then he sang:

"Did you ever hear,
Of that awful year
Way back before you were born?
When RAF took a holiday
On the night before RAFmas morn?"

GH strummed a little as Leatherhead grinned happily.

"It was a year without RAF.
A RAFmas eve so sad.
It was a year without RAF,
The worse we've ever had."

GH paused a bit before continuing, smiling at Leatherhead.

"Richard woke up one day,
Feeling tuckered and gray,
And this is what he said.
'I could sure use some rest,
I'm not feeling my best.'
And he yawned as he took to his bed.
There'll be a year without RAF.
'I'm sure that they won't miss me!'
There'll be a year without RAF,
To set us all free!"

GH glanced at Leatherhead briefly. He had his undivided attention. Good.

"And he slept through the day,
As the hours ticked away.
And the time was drawing near.
And the people cried,
They thought RAF had died.
Every eye shed a blue RAF tear.
It was a year without RAF,
A RAFmas eve so sad.
It was a year without RAF,
The worse we've ever had.
It was a year without RAF,
A RAFmas eve so sad.
It was a year with RAF,
The worse we've ever had!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCk8ULH9N2c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCk8ULH9N2c)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 04, 2018, 03:01:22 AM

Quote from: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 04:20:22 PM

"You need your sleep (. . .)"

Quote from: Cloak on July 03, 2018, 04:20:22 PM

The boy was ticklish and every time GH did this, Leatherhead couldn't help but giggle.

. . . Okay, no joke, this is literally every interaction between me and my boyfriend. Except I'm the ticklish insomniac and neither of us are a crocodile child. But other than that, exactly the same :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 04, 2018, 08:44:54 AM

Quote from: gh, King of Birbs on July 04, 2018, 03:01:22 AM

. . . Okay, no joke, this is literally every interaction between me and my boyfriend. Except I'm the ticklish insomniac and neither of us are a crocodile child. But other than that, exactly the same :P

And I was just drawing on when I used to read Shadow "Harry Potter" when she was little. (I still can't believe that she's now seventeen . . . where does the time go?)

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Rotiart, You Rotter

It was long ago, before you remember. Not yet RAFmas, but after Thanksgiving, though I can't give you the precise date. Richard got up that day late, later than usual. He put on one of his shoe, then its twin. Then he got up, looked at himself in the mirror on the wall, and felt like a very, very old man. Then he sat back down on the side of his bed.

"God, I'm tired," he said, before listing the amount of tiresome responsibilities he and the RAFians had finished and the workload that still laid before them. "It has worn me weary. Crick in my back, Cold in my nose. Aches in my fingers and all my toes. And sort of kink inside, whenever I think of the next mission night."

"Now, Richard," Ash chided. "You just rest up a bit more. I've already sent for the doctor. You'll be back on your feet in no time!"

Just then the door open to reveal, who else but Rotiart. But he wasn't the bratty, tragic villain that the RAFians knew him to be in life, but a cantankerous, old elf in stereotypical doctor garb and a navy blue derby for some reason. (Why GH didn't elect to have Kelly and chose Rotiart in this role wasn't revealled.) He walked over to Richard's bed, like one of those stop-motion characters in some Ruby-Bass Christmas movie.*.

"No wonder you've got the shivers and shakes!" he declared, revealing his voice to be coarse and gravelly. "Probably never got over the case of near-pneumonia you got last year, gallivanting about, saving the world. AND FOR WHAT?! Just to save a bunch of ungrateful sots who don't give a hoot in the first place!"

"Now, now, Doctor Rotiart," Ash scolded mildly, "it's not just saving the world, and you know it. What about all that compassion and good will?"

"If you had any sense, you'd give it up as a bad job and stay home in bed!" Rotiart snapped.

"Oh, come now," Ash chided. "If Richard stays in bed, then who would lead RAF?"

"Who cares?" Rotirart said, with a mirthless chortle. "Nobody cares about RAF anymore!"

"They don't?" Richard asked, removing the thermometer from his mouth. But Rotiart shoved it back in, as he replied, "OF COURSE NOT! Wouldn't surprise me none if no one even BELIEVED in RAF anymore!"

"Now, Richard, don't you pay him any mind." Ash said, quickly.

"No one gives a hoot or holler about you OR RAF," Rotiart said, as he went to leave. Then he turned around, and, in a very offhanded way, said, "Oh, and merry RAFmas to you."

He slammed the door behind him, being the angry old elf that he was cast as.

"Now, Richard, I hope you're not gonna take any of that to heart." Ash said, concerned. She didn't like how much Rotiart's words seemed to affect Richard.

"No, Ash, the man's right." Richard dissented. He exhaled as if he was blowing away all the world's problems that RAF was almost mandated to fix. Blowing away the responsibility to it. "I had that same feeling myself, but I just wouldn't admit it to myself. Nobody really cares about what we do for them anymore. And, besides, the doctor says that I'm really not up to snuff. Besides . . . we're due for a holiday. I'd better call the RAFians to tell them to cancel the missions."

And so he did, he called down to the main forum plaza. Saffa picked up the phone and answered it while in Abby's company. Richard said, "Warn the RAFians. Tell the bloggers. I'm much too tired mission capers."

"B-But Richard! You must be kidding!" Saffa responded. And the other RAFians had similar reactions, although three RAFians seemed to not be present. Almost as if by design.

But it was true. RAF was taking a holiday. And the world would soon know that it would be the Year Without An RAF."

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2018, 06:15:19 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
Abby and Saffa's Bogus Adventure

It wasn't long before that new reached the Internet, which absolute blew up. Headlines screamed, websites buzzed -- "RAF Says Too Tired, Not Coming". It wasn't nearly as long before each RAFian knew that all missions were cancelled. Some felt as if this was good thing, perceiving the disrespect from the likes of Bern Bridges and Cadmus and the Knights and whatnot. While, on the other hand, some felt as if the world would fall apart if they didn't protect it and save it the number of times that they have already. Needless to say, this was a highly divisive decision that Richard had made unilaterally.

Abby and Saffa were in the latter opinion, and believing that RAF needs to do its duty to the world at large. They couldn't just stay in their forum on their lone, snowy, little island. It was as if they were living at the North Pole, though they were at a lower latitude, though still frozen and snowy. It just made the buildings all the more cozy. The forum house-elves made sure of that, and the RAFians were immensely thankful for it.

"This is crazy," Saffa said, unable to keep the aghast tone from her voice. "Crazy. If we're not out there to deal with Cadmus or the -- the Knights? Who knows what would happen without us there!"

"I agree, you know that I do," Abby said. "But I'm wondering why Richard would make such a decision. Unilaterally, at that. That's not like him."

"It's because Rotiart's rhetoric got to him," a voice said, approaching them. "And the fact that he is exhausted and has a cold in his nose that likely swayed him."

"This is still odd, Ash," Saffa said. "It's almost like . . ."

"Plot convenience?" Abby supplied, halfheartedly.

"Why, I don't know whatever you mean," Ash said.

(It was at this point that Leatherhead giggled, only to giggle harder when GH boops him on the nose with his right index finger.)

"What can we do to change his mind?" Abby said, as if the previous conversation was just glossed over.

"Go to downtown," Ash said, giving the country that RAF used to be a part of before "The Move" and the nearby city that they neighbored. "Try to drum up some RAFian spirit and good will there."

"What good will it do?" Saffa asked.

"Hilarious," Ash said, dryly.

Saffa hadn't intended it as a pun on "good will", and she said so. Saffa had a habit of speaking her mind, within reason. "What I mean was how will doing that make anything better? If Richard is this disillusioned . . ."

"It's something, Saffa," Abby persuaded. "It's something to do, something that might work, a possible lead to making everything better."

"Ever the optimist," Saffa sighed. "But fine. I'm in."

"Go on," Ash said, "Take the Yarin."

(GH had decided to merge Yarin with his ship for the narrative of the story, apparently unaware how this might backfire on him if Leatherhead told any of the RAFians this story GH was telling him.)

And so they did. They flew between the territories of the miser of cold and the miser of heat, and were summarily shot down by attacks by both of them. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2018, 09:28:08 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Downtown Town

The two survived the crash, of course. Over the angry tirades of the Yarin's AI system, the two RAFians disembarked from the moped-esque Yarin transport.

"Those two misers," Saffa said, shaking her head. "Always feuding, always fighting. Seems like a waste of energy, if you ask me."

"They need to forgive each other for whatever slight that sparked that feud," Abby said.

"Sometimes, a feud goes on for so long whatever sparked it is long forgotten," Saffa said, sagely.

"What's our next move?" Abby asked, getting back on track.

"We need to find some acts of compassion and good will to overpower Richard's newfound apathy," Saffa said thoughtfully. Then she looked around and wondered aloud, "Where is everyone? The streets are deserted."

"Agreed," Abby said. "How are we supposed to find people being compassionate and find good will without anyone here?"

Then they heard a sharp whistle, and found that Officer Forfaiture had wheeled up behind them on a bicycle. In full police regalia. The two RAFians gave each other a sidelong glance at this peculiarity.

"What's the problem, officer?" Saffa said, guarded. Life as a RAFian can lead to you being a bit paranoid.

"What's the problem?! I'll tell you what the problem is!" Officer Forfaiture said, haughtily pretentious. "Driving an, uh -- riding an, uh -- whaddya call that thing anyway?"

"A moped," Saffa said, sarcasm secretly seeping into her voice.

"Riding a moped the wrong way on a one-way street," he said, flipping open a citation notebook. It was as if he was a cop from fifty, sixty years ago. "Crossing the white line. And wearing funny-looking clothes on a Sunday."

"You made up that last one," Saffa accused.

"Tell it to the judge," he said, ripping the citation out of the notebook and handing it to them. Then he got on his bicycle and rapidly pedaled away.

"He can't get away with making up bullsh--" Saffa fumed.

"Forget about that, we have other priorities."

It was at that point that the two noticed that their Yarin transport was getting impounded. Man, these people worked fast -- almost as if they were waiting for it and stalking them like a predator upon unwary prey.

***

"Wh-what's all that racket out there, Ash?" Richard demanded, groggily.

"Oh?" Ash said, acting as if she didn't send Abby and Saffa on a potentially dangerous, and potentially futile, mission. "Just one of the RAFians getting exercise. What with all the rest and relaxation, everyone's anxious and jumpy. I just isn't natural for RAFians to not have missions anymore."

"They'll get used to it," Richard said, waving this concern away. "I have already. I tell you, this is the life."

"If you say so, Richard," Ash said.

"Do you think I'm misguided by recalling the RAFians?" Richard said, revealing his second thoughts.

"Of course not, Richard, but if you should change your mind . . ."

"Okay, Ash," Richard said, already picking up on some duplicity of some sort. "What are you up to?"

"Up to, Richard? Why whatever do you mean?" Ash said, feigning ignorance. "Do I look like I'm up to something?"

"No, you don't look like you're up to something," Richard said, "But that's usually when you are up to something. What are you up to, Ash?"

"It's nothing that need concern you, Richard," Ash said, waving Richard's insistence away. She opened a window and muttered, "Poor Abby, poor Saffa."

"Saffa? Abby? For the love of god, Ash, what's going on?"

"They're only trying to help, Richard," Ash said, chivying Richard back to bed.

"Where are they?!" Richard demanded.

"Well, they thought that they'd just browse around the world," Ash said, choosing her wording carefully. "And see if the folks really didn't care about RAF anymore."

"You mean that they went out into that cruel world by themselves?!"

"It's not like they haven't before," Ash pointed out.

"No tellin' what might happen," Richard said, getting out of his bed. "I'll have to go after them."

"Do you think that you ought to, Richard? With your cold and all?" Ash asked.

"I have to go," Richard said, "or they won't get by those accursed miser brothers."

Ash's eyes widened. She had forgotten all about those two.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 08, 2018, 05:29:53 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Dialogue Trees

"Yeah, I've seem 'em," Officer Forfaiture told Richard. He still had his pompous, holier-than-thou attitude. Two young ladies standing in the middle of the street."

"They didn't get into any trouble, did they?" Richard asked, still feeling his cold.

"I'll say! Wait until the judge gets done with those lawbreakers!" Officer Forfaiture declared, as he hopped back on his bicycle and rode away, unaware of how awkward it looked to have a police officer on a bicycle in this day and age. "He'll give 'em what for!"

"Not much compassion there," Richard sighed. "Just as I feared."

***

"Perhaps kids are the best candidates for this are kids," Abby suggested.

Saffa resisted.

"Saffa, you know what I'm talking about."

"Of course, they are," Saffa said, not happy about it. She wasn't really a "kid-person" -- Leatherhead was a special exception. "But how do you propose we go about this, Abby? This isn't like sixty years ago. Strangers can't just walk up to a group of children and posit a question. Do you want to get more police to write us citations, or worse? Not to mention that the Yarin is still impounded, and we don't have a way to get that out."

"But it's an idea, Saffa. Otherwise, this entire trip was moot and pointless," Abby said.

(GH realized that this was a bit of a plot hole, but he hoped that Leatherhead was young enough to not notice. Although he was afraid he might be giving Leatherhead a message to talk to strangers, despite basing this entire story on some stop-motion cartoon made in the seventies. So, he decided to gloss over this, knowing that Leatherhead was hanging on his every word.)

The two ladies went through the necessary legal hoops and spoke to a crowd of children on a playground under the careful supervision of an assorted amount of adults. "I beg your pardon, young man, may I have a word?"

The boy, Vinny Alexander, said, "Sure. Hey! You look like a couple of RAFians."

"Stop glowering, Saffa," Abby scolded in a whisper.

"Haven't you heard the news?" Vinny said, without interruption. "RAF's taken a holiday."

"Yeah, it was all over YouTube," a girl to his left said.

"Well, you don't seem to be very upset about it," Saffa said.

"Upset? Why should I be upset?" Vinny asked.

"Yeah, what's the big deal?" said the girl to his left.

"You mean you don't care if the RAFians save you from the likes of the Heinlins, killer produce, and such?" Saffa demanded.

"Saffa. Calm down." Abby intoned.

"Nah," the collective group said. Saffa realized the problem with asking kids about this. They didn't understand the gravity of the situation. What she basically asked was akin to asking if a branch of government just stopped doing its job. RAF was pretty much instrumental in defending the world from extraterrestrial and supernatural threats. These kids were too young to understand such heady concepts.

"Of course not. It's none of our business." Vinny said. "Besides, believing in RAF is for little kids."

"Yeah," the others agreed.

Saffa looked at kids as if they were stupid, until Abby insisted that she stop.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2018, 11:47:27 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
I Believe in RAF

As Vinny made his way home, he ran into Richard. "Um, hello, young man," the RAFfather said, "Can you spare a moment?"

"Sure," the boy said, with a nod, transitioning into introducing himself. "I'm Vincent Alexander, but everyone calls me Vinny. What's yours?"

"Uh, 'Claus'," Richard said, noting silently that this was a rather random, and possibly uncreative, pseudonym.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Claus?" Vinny said, not noticing anything wrong with the name.

"I'm looking for two friends of mine, ladies." Richard said, giving him a description of what he saw them wearing last.

"Oh, you must mean the two ladies I met at the playground," he said. "They were asking us about RAF and stuff."

It was at this point that Richard sneezed uncontrollably. A window went up in front of the Alexander residence, and his mother poked her head out, asking, "Vincent, was that you I heard sneeze?"

"Not me, mom," he replied. "It was my friend, Mr. Claus."

"Oh, why don't you bring him inside and talk," she said, far more comfortable with this than a normal mother would be in this day and age. "And I'll give him something for that cold."

With that, she withdrew back into the house, as Vinny did precisely what she asked of him. And Richard sneezed as he was formally introduced to Vinny's mother, Katherine. To which she replied, "Oh, you poor man. Drink this. It'll make you feel much better."

Richard took the proffered drink, and downed it after giving his thanks. Then he addressed Vinny, "You say my friends were asking you about RAF?"

"Yeah, they wanted to know if we kids cared about RAF and all," the boy replied.

"And, um, what'd you tell them?" his mother asked.

"Heck," he said. "I don't believe in RAF anymore. That's kid stuff. Right?"

Just as I thought, Richard thought.

"You don't believe in RAF, do you, Mom?" he asked.

""Smatter of fact, I do," she said.

"How 'bout you?" Vinny asked.

"Me? Why, of course I do." Richard said, before launching into a song.

"I believe in RAF,
Like I believe in love.
I believe in RAF,
Everything it is and was,
And everything it does.
There’s no question in my mind
That it does exist.
Just like love,
I know it’s there.
Waiting to be missed."

Katherine:chimed in, with a beautiful singing voice:

"I believe in RAF."

Then Richard chimed in with her, and both sang:

"Just believe in RAF.
Like you believe in love.
Just believe in RAF.
And everything that it is and was
And everything that it does."

Richard sang solo:

"Wipe that question from your mind!
Yes, it does exist."

His mother joined in with Richard once more:

"Just like love,
It’s there.
Just waiting to be missed.
Just like love,
We know it’s there.
Waiting to be missed. . . ."

The boy's eyes actually teared up at this, and he said, "I guess if you're not too old to believe, well . . . I guess, maybe . . ."

This earned him a chortle from Richard and his mother, as the boy shook Richard's hand.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azlSvtX2s1I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azlSvtX2s1I)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2018, 05:02:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Talking to Mayor Michaels

"Oh, by the way, when my friends left the playground, did they say where they were going?" Richard asked Vinny.

"Oh my gosh," Vinny said, eyes widening as if he was just remembering, "I almost forgot. They were on their way to talk to the mayor about getting their moped out of the impound."

"Their . . . moped, you say?" Richard asked.

"Yep," Vinny said.

Richard said his goodbyes as he was escorted out, and he rushed to the impound lot, revealing his nature as a RAFian to the family of two in his hurry.

"Did you see that, Mom?" Vinny asked.

"I sure did," Katherine said. "I thought there was something different about that man."

"He must be a --" Vinny said, stopping short from saying it aloud.

"Wouldn't surprise me one bit," Katherine replied. "At the moment, nothing will!"

"Then his friends must be real RAFians," Vinny said, continuing with this line of thought. And their moped . . . I'd bet that was some sort of flying machine. Gee, I wish there was something I could do to help."

"Well, you have a big problem, son, and it often pays to go to the top man. Why don't you go to the mayor's office? Give him the whole story. He should be able to help."

"Hey! Good idea, Mom!" Vinny said, and he was on his way at once, with this bit of questionable parenting in hand.

***

Well, it just so happened that Abby and Saffa had the same idea of questionable effectiveness, considering most politicians nowadays were complete and utter cowards. When the man at the impound lot refused to return their Yarin to them, he suggested that they go to the mayor, Mayor Odium Michaels. Of course, he used more colorful and vulgar language that didn't bear repeating.

And he started it off by laughing aloud right in their faces. Mayor Michaels was a fat man with a walrus-type mustache in a three-piece suit that strained at the seams. In between fits of laughter, he managed to get choke out, "So -- so let me get this straight. You two are RAFians whose transport is at the impound lot? Ha ha ha ha! And you want to take it back to RAF. Ha ha ha ha!"

"Yes, you rotund --"

"Saffa, please." Abby asked, appealing to her to have some restraint. "You see, your honor, we're here on a special mission. A secret mission."

He still was laughing much too profusely. "A secret mission? I should have guessed."

"Because Richard has cancelled all RAFian missions -- except this one. He wants to take a holiday." Abby said, trying to be diplomatic, while Saffa stared at the morbidly obese man with disgust as he continued to laugh at them.

"No -- no more please, I can't take it!" he laughed. "RAFians? Space Age transports? RAF?"

"We are RAFians!" Saffa said, indignantly. "We're serious!"

"How can we convince you?" Abby said, trying still to be diplomatic. Though it was becoming hard for her, too. This mayor was really an irritating fellow.

"Oh, come on," he said, annoyed now. At least he stopped laughing. "What kind of fool do you think I am?"

"You don't want us to answer that," Saffa said, apparently unable to help herself.

"You don't have a chance of a snowball in this city of convincing me that one-tenth of your story is on the level," he said, as if he didn't hear Saffa.

"A snowball in this city? What kind of chance is that?" Abby asked Vinny, who was standing there quietly this whole time.

"Not very likely," he replied. "It never snows here."

"Well, not in the last hundred years!" Mayor Michaels scoffed, checking his window. It was then that he stumbled upon an idea that greatly amused him. "Hey! I'll tell you what. You RAFians are known for miraculous feats."

"Here it comes," Saffa muttered.

"You conjure up a good ol' snowstorm and I'll buy every word you say," he said.

"And there it is," Saffa muttered.

"You will?" Vinny asked.

"I'll spring your . . . 'Yarin' from the hoosegow. I'll call all the mayors in this great country -- we'll give RIchard an official national holiday this year!" he said, clearly thinking that this would never happen. Evidenced by the laughter that followed, showcasing the absurdity he thought of this story.

"It's a deal," Abby said, as Saffa looked at her with a dark glower.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2018, 05:37:52 AM

This might be a short book. Since this is such a direct parody of "The Year Without a Santa Claus" (as it is obviously, I don't think that there's any spoilers there), and those kinds of movies are never very long.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
It's Gonna Snow

"Good-bye, your honor," Abby said, as Saffa was currently facepalming. It wasn't going to be easy at all to accomplish this, and Saffa knew it. "We've got lots to do."

"Yeah!" Vinny said, essentially inviting himself along. Without even bothering to notify his mother, but then again, she sent him on this adventure in all essences. "See you all around the ski slopes, Mr. Mayor!"

This sent the mayor swiveling around in his swivel chair, laughing a obnoxiously boisterous cackle. Then a trumpet flared, signalling the start to a new song, that Mayor Michaels sang as he left city hall:

"It's gonna snow,
Like dust from a pixie.
Ha ha!
All will be white,
Overnight.
It will be cold!
On RAFmas day, hey hey!
As if from a pixie!
We'll do-si-do
In the snow,
So I've been told!"

A nameless woman looked over at her husband, as if to say, "Uh-oh! Mayor Michaels has lost his mind again. Why did we ever vote for him?"

Meanwhile, a chorus of children sang:

"We'll build a snowman, our very first.
Take down that strawman,
And bundle up for nature's worst."

The children were excited about the prospect, but some adults weren't. They had moved here to get away from snow. And, of course, they thought that the mayor had lost his mind, as well.

"It's gonna snow,
ho ho.
As if from a pixie!
All will be white,
Overnight.
It will be cold!"

Then some of the populace joined in:

"On RAFmas day, hey hey!
As if from a pixie!"

Then Mayor Michaels took over again.

"We'll do-si-do
In the snow."

Then the townspeople joined in once more.

"So we've been told!"

***

Turns out that they needn't worry about the Yarin (though the onboard AI was livid), as Richard managed to get it out of impound easily enough. And, over the litany of profanities and a few choice words about the man at the impound lot, Richard spoke to the man.

"Shush, Yarin, you're fine," Richard said.

"FINE?! My finish is ruined!" Yarin roared, as Richard turned its voice volume down. That way it could rage all it wanted and no one had to speak over it. Granted, Yarin found this to be "not cool".

"Now, if anyone should come by, asking about it," Richard said, addressing the man, one Mr. Cain Cane.

"Oh, two little ladies were here, about an hour ago. But they couldn't pay the fine. I told them to go see the mayor." he said.

Walking out and carrying the slightly-silenced, Richard thought, What am I going to do about those two? But first thing's first, I'll get the Yarin back home.

And so he returned back to the forum.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGOUT1mGNSY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGOUT1mGNSY)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2018, 06:27:37 AM

New chapter. A brief one, sorry. Shortage of time.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Ash Has A Plan

Things looked pretty bad from where Saffa and Abby were sitting. Saffa was keen to remind Abby that she shouldn't have made such a reckless move in agreeing to take the mayor's deal. Vinny was still with them, sitting on a park bench, which was much to hard and full of splinters. As far as they knew, the Yarin was still in impound, and they were still faced with the problem of making it snow in this city.

"Alright, Saffa, I get it," Abby said, frustrated. "Can't you just lay off?"

Saffa was inclined to keep picking at it, but that would cost her Abby's friendship, so she stopped. Though she was still angry about the situation, as one would be. But it never takes too long for apoplectic anger to turn into apathetic depression.

Anyway, all seemed lost, when Saffa suggested something with a shrug, "Ash. She'd know what to do."

"Give her a call, then," Abby said.

"Good idea," Saffa said.

And that's what they did. And it did not take Ash too long to come. Being a shapeshifter has its advantages.

"She should be along any minute now," Saffa said, scanning the sky for her. Vinny was expecting her to show up on a flying reindeer or something.

"I hope she doesn't wake my mom up," Vinny said, as they waited on his roof. It was funny how Katherine just seemed okay with this. Perhaps parenting was far more lax in the seventies.

"Here she comes now!" Abby said pointing to the sky where a large owl was gliding towards them.

"She's a giant owl?" Vinny asked, confused.

"Actually . . ." Saffa said, as Ash landed daintily and noiselessly upon the roof, reverting to her normal form.

"Wow . . ." Vinny said, awestruck.

"Hello, Vinny," Ash said. Then she addressed the other two. "I'm gonna change back to the owl form, when I do, all three of you hop on, and hold on tight!"

They did, with Vinny letting out an impressed "Golly!", and Saffa asked, "Where're we going, Ash?"

As the owl, Ash replied, "We're going to see Snow Azguard. Hold on tight!"

***

Meanwhile, Richard had returned home to the forum, and found that he had a PM awaiting him. It was a note from Ash, telling him that she was going to help Abby and Saffa with their mission.

"Good, good," he muttered as he read through the note. "Ash will set them right. Now I can take care of my cold . . ."

And, with that, and having put the Yarin transport were it belonged, he took to his bed to rest. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2018, 10:49:15 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Snow Azguard

The quartet arrived at Snow Azguard's palace. Its design looked as if he decided to rip off Elsa's ice castle, except, instead of a stairway leading to the entrance it was the more archaic drawbridge. As the four approached, a strange creature blew into a bugle to announce their presence. It was a creature that looked like a sapphire blue Pearl (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Caste_System#Pearls) and a house-elf (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/House-elf) -- she had the slender and slim physique and beaky nose of a Pearl (and lacked any sort of gemstone on her person) and the large, batlike ears, protuberant eyes, and diminutive size of a house-elf. She wore a floor-length gown with white, rounded, puffy sleeves, a navy top, and a blue skirt. Her dress had a blue pinafore over the top. The skirt had several frilly layers in several shades of blue which resemble an open geode. She also wore white elbow-length evening gloves. This miser servant had feet that were constantly hidden by her dress, on which she wore blue shoes.

Anyway, the ice-covered drawbridge fell as the four entered. Abby, Saffa, and Vinny were shivering, while Ash didn't seem to be too bothered.

"Here he comes now, the big ham," Ash said, with almost affectionate derision. Trumpets blared to announce a song about to be sung as Snow Azguard appeared on scene. He had pale skin with a snow white or light blue tint to it. His hair was either covered in congealed ice or made of it. He wore a frost-laden blue shirt and silver leggings, a blue striped scarf, blue gloves and long, blue pointed shoes. He had icicles dangling from his ears, like earrings. He was unusually tall, and towers over flatscan humans. He sang:

"I'm Mr. White RAFmas.
I'm Mr. Snow.
I'm Mr. Icicle.
I'm Mr. Ten Below.
Friends call me Snow Azguard,
Whatever I touch,
Turns to snow in my clutch.
Ha ha!
I'm too much!"

Then his Pearl/house-elf minions -- there were a lot more than the bugler -- sang:

"He's Mr. White RAFmas.
He's Mr. Snow."

"That's right!" Snow Azguard declared. His minions continued:

"He's Mr. Icicle.
He's Mr. Ten Below."

Then Snow Azguard sang:

"Friends call me "Snow" Demos,
Whatever I touch,
Turns to snow in my clutch."

His minions sang:

"He's too much!"

Then Snow Azguard sang:

"I never want to know a day
That's over forty degreees!
I rather have it at thirty,
Twenty, and let it freeze!"

His minions continued:

"He's Mr. White RAFmas.
He's Mr. Snow.
He's Mr. Icicle.
He's Mr. Ten Below."

Then Snow Azguard sang:

"Friends call me "Snow" Demos,
Whatever I touch,
Turns to snow in my clutch.
Too much!"

Then all of them concluded:

"Too much!"

Then the snow miser said upon his icy throne beaming down at the quartet, three of which were still shivering, two of which weren't out of fear.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2018, 04:46:16 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Another Hurdle to Clear

"Well, Miss Ash, how's Richie?" Snow Azguard said, sounding like a television producer.

"Well, I'm afraid he has a pretty bad cold, Azzy," Ash said, being friendly enough.

"Aww, that's a shame, the poor fellow," Az said, not losing that television producer intonation, "he should have come and seen me. I'd have given him a good one! Ha ha! A little chilly humor, there."

"Don't you dare make fun of Richard like that," Vinny said, pointing an accusatory finger at Snow Azguard. Frankly, this was pretty ballsy for the kid.

"Oh, don't mistake my humor for snark, young man!" Snow Azguard said, dropping the television producer-like rhetoric. "I love him a lot."

"You do?" Saffa asked.

"Of course, I do, silly!" Snow Azguard said. "Why, he's the best advertisement that snow business ever had!"

Then he laughed raucously, before returning to his television producer-esque persona, "Now. What can I do for you, madam?"

"We need a snowstorm," Ash said,

"Well, no sooner said than done, my little icicle!" the snow miser proclaimed at once. "Where do you want it?"

Ash gave him the name of the town.

"What -- hold it! HOLD it!" he told his minion at the console of some machine. "No can do, Miss Ash. That city is under control of my stepbrother Heat Demos. And every time I try to send some refreshing snow down there, what does he do? Turn it into rain. Or fog. And who needs that?"

"Well, if I get his okay, will you make it snow?" Ash asked.

"Sure thing!" Snow Azguard said, enthusiastically. "But don't get your hopes up. You'll never get anywhere with that one."

"We'll have to try," Ash said. Then she turned to leave, with the other three following her. "Thanks, Azzy."

"Eh, don't mention it," Snow Azguard said, waving away the gratitude. "And don't be such a stranger! Stop by with Richie some time, and we'll have a blizzard!"

The quartet left as Snow Azguard was laughing deeply. As the four disembarked the drawbridge, which was drawn back up after they vacated it, Saffa asked, "Where to now, Ash?"

Ash had shapeshifted the form of a gigantic eagle this time, and said, "You heard the man. We have to see Heat Demos."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Saffa sighed.

"Let's be on our way, then," Ash said, as the other three climbed up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2018, 05:41:41 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Heat Demos

It was like at Snow Azguard's palace, and the quartet saw one of Heat Demos's minions bulging their arrival. Much like Snow Azguard's minions, Heat Demos's minions looked liked a fusion of a red Pearl with a house-elf. Only they have rounded, bulbous noses instead of the beaky noses of his half-brother's minions, and fiery red hair, unlike the icy hair of his step-brother's minions. They wore a maroon and brown tank top and a matching maroon headband tied around their red hair. Their ensemble also includes mid-thigh burgundy shorts, and short, pointed maroon boots.

The whole room that the four entered looked horribly like the movie depictions of hell -- red stone walls, flames everywhere. And, naturally, it was very warm in here, yet enough for Saffa, Abby, and Vinny to be comfortable and not sweating profusely. He appeared in a flash of light. Heat Demos wore a red shirt and yellow leggings, and long, red pointed shoes. He was taller than humans, but shorter than his half-brother.

Near immediately after his entrance, trumpets blared, announcing a song. One similar to his step-brother's. Just don't tell him that.

"I'm Mr. Green RAFmas.
I'm Mr. Sun.
I'm Mr. Heat Blister.
I'm Mr. Hundred and One.
They call me Heat Demos.
Whatever I touch,
Starts to melt in my clutch.
Ha ha!
I'm too much!"

His minions sang:

"He's Mr. Green RAFmas.
He's Mr. Sun.
He's Mr. Heat Blister.
He's Mr. Hundred and One."

Heat Demos sang:

"They call me Heat Demos.
Whatever I touch,
Starts to melt in my clutch."

His minions sang;

"He's too much!"

"Thank you," he said, before launching back into the song:

"I never want to go a day
That's under sixty degrees.
I rather have it eighty,
Ninety, one hundred degrees!"

Then he landed next to the quartet, and said, with a warm chortle, "Oh, some like it hot, but I like it really hot."

His minions sang:

"He's Mr. Green Christmas.
He's Mr. Sun."

"Sing it!!" Heat Demos shouted, as his minions continued:

"He's Mr. Heat Blister.
He's Mr. Hundred and One."

Heat Demos sang:

"They call me Heat Demos.
Whatever I touch,
Starts to melt in my clutch.
I'm too much!"

Heat Demos and his minion concluded:

"Too much!"

Then he landed on his throne, and glowered at the four before him, and said, "Well, well, well."

---

SONG SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2018, 07:56:44 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Hostile Heat

"Well, well, well. If it isn't, Miss Ash." he said, with faux friendliness. "Where's Richard? Out doing another commercial for my lousy half-brother?"

"Oh, come now," Ash chided, "You know perfectly well that Richard and the RAFians aren't on your brother's payroll, Demos."

"Then he's grossly unfair, that's what!" Demos protested, and began to mutter a string of untrue things, that Ash promptly ignored. Let the miser brother have his little rant.

"I assure you, we don't have any control over what people think," Ash said, trying to be diplomatic. Demos's fiery personality sometimes made diplomacy difficult.

"Then why doesn't he wear a bathing suit and drive sand buggy?" Demos asked.

"We don't drive with sleighs or sand buggies," Ash said. She was finding that trying to be diplomatic was being particularly draining. "We use technological mean to --"

"Then he can sing the praises of heat and rain!" Demos declared. Ash was pretty sure that he didn't even hear a word she had said.

"I'll see what I can do," she said, with a dry, insincere tone that Demos didn't seem to pick up on. Ash wasn't really interested in such trivial matters, but the mission they had at hand. Both miser brothers could be bit of brats, and she knew it to be so very well. She pushed on with the matter at hand. "In the meantime, will you do us a favor?"

"Favor? I don't see why I should," he said, apparently abandoning his litany of things that Richard and the RAFians could praise, "Nobody's ever done anything for me. What is it?"

"Could you let it snow, just for one day, in --" she said, giving the location of the town.

"WHAT?!" he roared. "SNOW THERE?!"

"Just for one day," Ash petitioned.

"NEVER!!" Heat Demos cried, petulantly. Then he stopped to consider, and said, "Hmmm . . . unless .. . . unless there were, uh, something in it for me?"

"Like what?" Ash said. She thought she saw where this was headed.

"Ooh, like, for instance . . . it a little bit of my brother's territory turned over to me," he said, "like, shall we say . . . RAF."

"Well, heavens, I don't know," Ash said. "That would be up to your brother, not me."

"Well, why don't you give tutti-frutti snowcone a ring on the ol' hotline?" Heat Demos said, indicating a ruby red phone, held by his minions and what appeared to be a plasma screen at roughly eight o'clock to him and about five or six feet away. "See what he says."

***

GH paused only a moment, and he saw that Leatherhead was still awake, hanging on to his every word. GH really hoped that the young crocodilian mutant wouldn't expect this to be a nightly ritual -- he didn't think that he could create a new story every night. Heck, this one was just taking a story from that stop-motion animated holiday special some thirty or forty years ago, and adapted it so he could include some RAFians.

"Why'd you stop, Daddy?" LH asked.

"Oh, no reason," GH said, "Let's continue . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2018, 04:26:29 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Bitter Bickering

Ash picked up the receiver on the ruby red telephone with a rotary dial. It was certainly an old-school phone.

"Hello? Azzy, this is Ash," she said, into the receiver.

"High there, sugarplum, how'd you make it out with the hothead?" came his reply, as his image appeared on the screen.

"I heard that, you snowball!" Heat Demos lashed out.

"Oh, my goodness, speak of the devil," Snow Azguard said.

They were now speaking directly to the screen, and Ash set down the receiver. And odd piece of technology, this.

"Madam," Heat Demos said, addressing Ash, "kindly state your business with that drippy snowman and get him out of here!"

"Mind your blood pressure, hotcakes, the Master has warned you about that low boiling point of yours," Snow Azguard said, coolly.

Heat Demos fumed, "You think you're hot stuff just because the Master likes you best!"

"Boys! Boys!" Ash interceded. "Now, please, don't fight!"

"If I can't have a little fun, then I might as well leave," Snow Azguard said.

Deciding to plow on with the matter at hand, Ash told Snow Azguard, "Your brother agreed to let it snow in the city."

"He did?" Snow Azguard said, sounding genuinely surprised.

"Of course, there has to be a small concession on your part," Ash said.

"Oh, really?" Snow Azguard said, tone changing to sound unsurprised. "What does flaming fool want this time? RAF?"

"Well," Ash said, still trying to be diplomatic, "yes, as a matter of fact."

"WHAT?!" Snow Azguard roared.

"I told you he wouldn't cooperate!" Heat Demos said, even though he didn't say anything of the like.

"COOPERATE?!" Snow Azguard raged. "Surrender RAF and you call that 'COOPERATE'?! I have a good mind to chill your embers for you!"

"Oh, yeah?!" Heat Demos said, threateningly.

Then, somehow, the two used their powers through the screen, with Snow Azguard sending snow and Heat Demos sending waves of heat. Neither aware that Ash was just really fed up with the pair of them. Saffa, Abby, and Vinny were just observers at this point, just mere bystanders.

"Alright, enough of this!" she said, holding her hands up. "I hate to do this to you boys, but you've left me little choice. I'm going over your heads."

"You're kidding!" Snow Az said, aghast.

"You won't dare!" Heat Demos said, doubtful.

"I would, and I will." Ash said, as she motioned the others to follow her as they began to leave.

"Ash!" Heat Demos said, then he turned to his brother, blaming him, "You see what you did, you old blizzard? She's going to tell the Master!"

"What I did, you hot dog?!" Snow Azguard protested. "It's YOUR fault."

"Come along," Ash said to her traveling compatriots.

"We're not really going to do it, are we, Ash?" Abby asked. "We're not really going to disturb him?"

Ash walked away, and out of Heat Demos's lair.

"She's not serious . . ." Abby said. "No . . ."

"Who? Where're we going? Who are we going to see?" Vinny asked.

"We're going right to the top, Vinny," Saffa said. "Ash is through fooling around. We're gonna see none other than the Master of the Elements."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 13, 2018, 07:44:19 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Master

The quartet arrived in an area that looked very much like a wildlife preserve. There were stone effigies of wolves, leopards, pandas, gyrfalcons, sheep, elephants, polar bears, lions, swans, cobras, gorillas, elk, eagles, octopuses, and wild pigs to the right of the entrance, and stone effigies of tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, pumas, deer, bears, bison, dolphins, elephants, foxes, sheep, rhinoceroses, turtles, wolves, and snakes.

"Well, that's not intimidating or anything," Abby said, as Vinny started to cowering behind her.

"I must admit, I'm more than a little nervous myself," Ash said, as if she were talking about the weather. Which, in a way, you could say that she was. "I've only met him a couple of times, but I know that he doesn't like to be disturbed."

"THEN WHY ARE WE GOING?!" Abby exclaimed.

"You know why perfectly well, Abby," Ash said. "I admit that I have no idea of what to expect from the Master. I just know that he took that position from his mother, Mother Nature, when she decided to quit abruptly."

"Have you met Mother Nature?" Vinny asked. "Is she nice?"

Ash hesitated a moment, before saying, "Let's move on, shall we? Richard needs his holiday, and we shall give it to him."

The hesitation was all Vinny needed to know that Mother Nature was, in fact, not very nice. Not very nice, at all. Anyway, they passed by the stone effigies that marked the entrance to the Master's territory. It was like entering a Jurassic Park paddock -- a very bad idea by all stretches of the imagination -- and that gave a very ominous feeling all around. Silence fell over them.

***

Yes, GH was aware that he was making this up and it was a distinct departure from that forty-five-minute holiday special he saw. He didn't care. He wanted to make the Master, which he obviously based on Cloak (he didn't think that he'd mind this representation of it), seem ominous and powerful and scary.

***

There was only a singular path made of dry earth the color of old concrete that was devoid of plantlife. It seemed to be a game trail. Each of the four heard various rustling in the thick vegetation on either side of them. All four of them felt as if they were being watched, but only Ash kept her poise and her eyes on the goal at hand. True, the sounds unnerved her, but she refused to let that deter her. She had to do this.

"What was that?" Vinny said. He was scared, and Abby tried to comfort him, despite being scared herself.

It seemed like shadows were streaking from tree to tree every so often, but Ash wouldn't allow them to get distracted. It wasn't too long before they came to a small home in a clearing. It was a small house (proportion-wise, it was very much larger than the quartet), with two large windows total side facing the path, but the blinds were shut, not allowing people to see in and ruin the inhabitant's privacy.

"Who disturbs my slumber?" came a growl.

They saw a man, far taller than either of the miser brothers, standing before them. His cloak blocked out what he looked like beneath his neck as it swirled around in front of him, and it's hood completely obscured his face in shadow, so that only his inhuman, amber eyes shone out from it. They were feline, not human at all. But his cloak was easily the most distracting thing about him. It was quilted, with each patch being either water, wood, earth, metal, fire, or cloud. And each patch oscillated in that order, but not always at the same time -- some were quicker, some were slower. The effect was almost hypnotic.

Before Ash could answer, the Master answered for her, recognizing her. "Ash? Why have you come here?"

"We have a bit of an issue," she said, in a tone that suggested familiarity.

"An issue, you say?" he said, his tone was far less intimidating that the other three had expected. Only Abby, Ash, and Saffa knew that it was by design. He could be fearsome if he needed to be. He gestured to a table and chairs to his left. "Take a seat. Tell me the situation."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2018, 04:27:15 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Exasperation

"Oh, I see. They gave you a hard time, did they, Ash?" the Master said, with the weary sigh of a father told of his children's misbehavior and misdeeds. He had sat down with the four and withdrew his cloak around his body, revealing a humanoid, feline form with plantigrade feet. He pulled his hood down to reveal a head to match. His fur was scarlet and his stripes golden streaks. Removing the cloak in such a way had an odd sense of humanizing the figure. "Hmm?"

"Oh, I'm sure that they didn't mean to --" Ash said, trying to be polite.

"Oh, yes, they did." the Master said, with all the weariness of a single father trying to raise two hoodlums. "They're spoiled brats, both of them. I blame myself -- I probably coddled them a little too much."

"Oh, I wouldn't say --" Ash began.

"Don't worry, Ash, I'll straighten them out for you," the Master said, affably. Then he turned over his shoulder, and roared, "BOYS!!"

And then they were there, as if the very earth spat them out.

"What is it, Sir?" both said, in unison. Then they went about menial tasks which they hoped would curry favor with the Master.

"Now," the Master said, waving them away from those menial tasks which he had not asked them to carry out. "Ash has made a very simple request. Now, you let a little snow fall in that city, and you let RAF have a nice spring day. All you have to do is compromise. And, at this time of year especially, there needs to be some examples of compassion and good will, and we need to set a good example for the people down there to follow. So, boys, PLEASE!"

There were a sparse few seconds of the two antagonizing each other, before Heat Demos cried, "I WON'T DO IT!!"

"ME NEITHER!!" Snow Az agreed.

"ENOUGH!!" the Master roared, standing. Everyone, even Ash's quartet, backed away at the palpable power felt by the Master. Even Snow Az and Heat Demos seemed to shrink away from him, all affability gone.

"Yessir," the two said, immediately complying.

The Master shut his eyes and took a deep breath, "They're really nice boys, Ash, but sometimes they bicker. But you'll have no further trouble with them. I do hope Richard enjoys his holiday. He's long since deserved one."

"How can I ever thank you?" she asked, shaking the Master's hand.

"Oh, don't mention it," the Master said, waving the gratitude away. "Safe travels, Ash."

And the four took their leave.

***

Meanwhile, back at the city, it began to snow. A furious flurry of white specks descending from the sky in a mighty force. The children hadn't wasted any time and managed to make a snowman from the snow that had already accumulated.

"It's snowing! It's really snowing!" one was heard to proclaim.

Meanwhile, in the mayor's office, he was on the phone to his mother, "Yes, Mother, I'll be home early. . . . well, I should be leaving here in a few minutes. What's that? . . . Don't forget to wear my WHAT? . . . Galoshes? Whatever for? . . . Oh, it's snowing, is it? In that case, I'll -- WHAT?!"

Then he turned around and looked at the window that he had his back to. Then he bore witness to the falling fluff from the sky, and he was in awe.

"Snow? Here?" he said, quietly to himself. "I guess those ladies weren't pulling my leg about RAF after all. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2018, 05:32:46 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Well, That Was Abrupt

Ash rushed into Richard's thread with news. "Richard, wake up!"

He roused a bit, before waking up fully. Ash declared, "Look at these headlines!"

Saffa, who followed Ash, said, "Yes, listen to this: 'Mayor Declares a Legal Holiday For RAF', 'Snow Falls For First Time in a Hundred Years'."

Then Abby, who had followed the previous two in, said, "And get this: 'Day Off For RAF'."

"Yes," Ash said, putting a whole stack of different newspapers and web addresses down on Richard's blanketed lap. "And all these say the same."

"Well, Ash, I guess you proved your point," Richard conceded. "There is some good will in the hearts of all men and women. The world gave us .  . a vacation."

Then he leaned back and fell asleep.

***

Speaking of being asleep, Leatherhead was deeply asleep.

GH noticed it immediately, and noticed that there was no point in continuing the story. He was actually feeling mixed about it, as he was getting into it. But they had already hit the climax and were now just basically wrapping up. The story was already fundamentally over.

GH sighed, and kissed Leatherhead on the forehead, which was cool and scaly, as he wasn't wearing his humansuit. GH smiled as he saw LH clutch his keytar as if it was a teddy bear. Even though they weren't related biologically, GH saw so much of himself in the child. GH got up slowly, as not to disturb his adopted son's slumber.

Then he flicked off the night from his son's room. Yes, Leatherhead had his own room now -- the RAFian threads work sort of like the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts. The thread gives its occupant what he or she or they require. In GH's case, it gave him what essentially amounted to a two-room flat. Things like laundry and cleaning were still taken care of by the native house-elves, which were often overlooked or forgotten about.

GH quietly made his way to his own bedroom, and looked up at the walls which he had plastered with various posters of bands that he was fond of. He leaned his favorite guitar against the wall opposite the one he shared with Leatherhead. Then he looked toward his bed, which was made immaculately. This was the one sign that they had house-elves clean up after them -- if they didn't this bed would be a complete mess.

Anyway, GH sat down on the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, and let out a quiet sigh. It was a fortunately uneventful day, but he had to go to work tomorrow, and they're still trying to convince him to wear that suit again. He didn't want to -- those damn kids never were happy with whoever was in the suit. The suit either terrified the younger ones, and the older ones got a kick out of hitting whoever was in the suit. Particularly in the one place that he would never want them to hit -- it was bad enough when that Techadon piece of . . .

GH laid down upon his bed, not bothering to remove the covers, and stretched with a quiet yawn. He thought of why he even wanted to keep this job. Being a RAFian was pretty much a full-time job as it was. Sure, he had friends there, but there were coworkers that he couldn't stand. Like that Carmichael fool, who half-assed his job and had the nerve to complain about how he, GH, did his. He always left more work for others to do, and he's one of the reasons why he didn't really talk about LH at work -- because Carmichael already stated that he thought GH was too young and immature to ever have a child (of course, Carmichael assumed that he was straight, as well, and GH heard what Carmichael thought of gay people).

Hell, if he told him about Leatherhead, he would, first, criticize GH about the boy's name. Even if he had abbreviated it to his usual nickname of LH, Carmichael would demand what it stood for. He was noisily nosy in that way. Second, Carmichael would suggest that GH might have kidnapped LH from his real parents or suggest that he was actually his brother. Carmichael was such a charmer in this way. Third, Carmichael would criticize LH's rambunctious behavior as poor parenting, when, in reality, it was normal part of childhood. (Carmichael wouldn't know -- he still had to pay his ex-wife child support and he had nothing to do with his children.)

GH had to berate himself. He shouldn't be thinking of that idiot right now, he should be trying to go to sleep. Especially because he would have to deal with this idiot tomorrow at work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 14, 2018, 07:14:35 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Remember Me

Meanwhile, while GH was telling his bedtime story, Cloak had knelt at the effigy that he had made in his beloved late aunt's visage. They say things that get easier with time, and Realm Walkers like Cloak have that in spades. But this . . . this affected him more than his grandfather's death was. The shock of that had worn off in the years past (Realm Walker years, that is). But the shock of this . . . even though it had been a few months (Realm Dweller time), Cloak still felt it. The numbing effect of time hadn't soothed this pain, hadn't taken away the shock he felt, the sadness in his heart, the yearning for her not to be . . .

Then a song approached his ears. He did not know if it was real or imagined, but he quickly found that he . . . that he didn't care. In a slow lullaby, the song sang as he gazed up into the statue of his beloved Aunt Wheeza:

Remember me.
Though I have to say goodbye,
Remember me.
Don't let it make you cry.
For, even if I'm far away, I hold you in my heart
I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart.

Cloak bowed his head at this point. His mind flooded with the images of his aunt. Happy memories. Memories he no longer got to make with her. Her absence was like a void, a void that was very slow in being filled. A void that felt as if it would never be filled again. A sinkhole in his heart that no one or nothing seemed able to span.

Despite himself, tears welled up in his eyes. Why did she have to be gone? Could . . . could he have done something? Could he have somehow saved her from death? He wanted to blame Death for taking her away from him. He wanted to place all the blame on him and be done with it. But he couldn't. See, he had actually met the personification of Death himself. He wasn't what you'd expect, looking like a doughy, Jason Alexander-type of person. He didn't want to take people away from their loved ones anymore than they wanted him to.

But he ]had to. He was obligated to, and he couldn't chose who was on his list. That was decided by someone else, presumably Fate or Destiny or some other denomination of that. Death didn't make the decision, that was out of his hand. Death wasn't a bad person, but he understood how people would see him as such and had long accepted it.

Immortality was a scam. Nothing truly lasts forever, not even whatever gods or titans or monsters lie out there in the universe. Permanence is a naive hope, as the only thing permanent is the existence of change.

The words of the song lit up again, as Cloak kept his head bowed.

Remember me.
Though I have to travel far,
Remember me.
Each time you hear a sad guitar,
Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be
Until you're in my arms again.
Remember me.

Cloak waited for a long time after that, he was only vaguely aware of the sun going down and the night air chilling around him. The words seemed to be on an infinite loop now. And he listened to each lyric deeply. Each lyric, each word, striking a very deep cord with him. It only ended when he spoke, his tears searing the ground before the statue of his aunt.

"I will," he said. "Always."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdrOobeTn8k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdrOobeTn8k)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2018, 05:03:03 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity again.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Goin' Commando

Blaze went to the desert where the next fiend took as its nest, armed with a new buzzsaw/shield-type weapon. It was only a prototype, however, and it wasn't known how durable or effective the weapon would be. Blaze knew that if he was careless with it, he would never hear the end of it.

Anyway, he proceeded through the desert. First, he tried on foot, but found that it was far too irritating sinking into the sand, so he just flew. He had wings, so why not use them? It wasn't long before he came to an abandoned facility, where the fiend was alleged to have made its nest. From here, he could either descend into a dropshaft or move on pass it. He decided to move on pass it.

He quickly discovered that he wasn't able to fly as effectively here. There were scattered sandstorms that made it difficult, if not flat out impossible, to fly effectively. Visibility wasn't spectacular, either, when one of the sandstorm fits happened. At the end, he came to a drop shaft which he dived down.

Towards the bottom, he flared his wings and slowed his descent, landing with scarcely a sound. Then he came to another dropshaft, but elevated from where he landed. He barreled down the dropshaft, and then flared his wings again when he was close to the bottom. Then he turned to the left and continued forward, perhaps a tad brash and reckless. But he was rather disheartened to discover that he was back out in the desert, full of deep dunes and sandstorms. It wasn't too long through this that he came to another facility building, which looked as if it only consisted of a single room. This was obviously the fiend's nest. Blaze entered the bunker-type building and saw that he was right.

The fiend was stout, head sunken into its chest cavity. Its round, cylindrical head was red with black ears. Where the nose of a normal human would be, its head was sunk into its artillery platform-like torso and its eyes (green sclera and brown irises) were in shadow, with a silver antennae coming out the back of it. It had red block shoulders with white Xs on it. Its upper arms were white with silver at the connecting joints, and connected with red turret cannons by black connector ports. Its abdomen was a darker red with a metallic ring at its waist. It's crotch was black with white thighs, red shins, and black feet.

Blaze waited to see its strategy, and he managed to determine it with surprising ease. It's stratagem seemed to mainly fire bombs at the RAFian while jumping around the room. It could fire them while on the ground and at the apex of a jump, while the bomb arced down when fired from above, if the Blaze passed under it. When the fiend jumped high and raised its arms as it drops down, it would cause an earthquake that would have held Blaze in place, leaving him vulnerable.

The fiend's bomb could be easily avoided by fluttering over it when it fires it on the ground (though it had a small chance of arcing up), while an aerial bomb should be avoided by getting out of the way, to the other side of the room. He had to be careful as the shockwave from the bomb reached out and could still hit him. The fiend jumped high, the player should jump to avoid the earthquake. It jumped low with its arms raised, creating an earthquake as it lands to stun Blaze. Then, by punching the ground, and it created an explosive shockwave that travels all the way across the room. The earthquake can be avoided by jumping or flying, whereas whereas he just flew the second time to avoid the shockwave. The fiend was vulnerable to attacks as long as it did not jump too high.

Once Blaze had its pattern down, slaying it was child's play. It only took seven connecting attacks with the buzzsaw shield . . . unfortunately, upon the seventh and killing blow, the buzzsaw shield broke.

"Of course," Blaze grumbled as he left. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this."

***

Demos called it a "komandosapien", and he intended it to be used in mine-sweeping operations with remote detonations to clear minefields all over the world.

***

Malice was, again, starting to panic, afraid of losing relevance. And she kind of was.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2018, 12:53:20 PM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXXIV:
KIDNAPPED
CHAPTER ONE:
Bringing a Blade to a Gunfight

Parker went to an old, forgotten castle that was rotting away because the family that could lay claim to it didn't want to -- for tax reasons. Such a shame too, Parker considered, it looked like a massive, mighty installation. It was sad to see it go to ruin, but he hadn't any claim to it. And, to be honest, taxes would be a very good deterrent.

It wasn't very long before he ventured into the castle proper. Fortunately, he had his armor on and that it was self-contained. But he could see the blatant evidence that the castle itself was cold and drafty. Unsurprising, considering the years, possibly decades to centuries, of lacking proper upkeep and maintenance that most, if not all building structures require. He continued forward, feeling uneasy. It was too quiet in here -- there should have been some sort of noise, and his helmet wouldn't have muffled that from his ears.

Then he stopped and looked down. A spike trap. Blatantly in the open. It was almost insulting. But, then again, he saw signs that this trap used to be more hidden, more covered, but that had eroded away over time. He jumped the pit, and the two following it. Then he noticed a ladder to his left, and he took it upward. Then he came to a small room with uneven flooring and a ladder directly ahead, to his right. He took it.

Once he emerged on the landing, he immediately proceeded to the right. The flooring here was uneven, too, but everything else was uneventful. Until he came to a floor pitted with spikes and seesaw-like devices. Clearly he was intended to use those to transverse the room, and he would have to use it. He hated feeling like a trained dog, and he hated stupid puzzles like these.

When he landed, he glanced around at his surroundings and saw nothing particularly spectacular. Then he came to a large room that was sparsely lit, with a smaller, "play castle" inside. It was a legitimate castle, large enough to be bigger than most studio apartments. Apparently who initially owned this castle had too much wealth -- this was a fantastic waste of money. Building a castle within a castle. Clearly, this person had become accustomed to such ostentatious opulence, even in this ruined state, that it took all of Parker's self control not to throw up in disgust. Parker left this room as soon as he could, his disgust was growing much too fast. He found a ladder, and climbed down it.

At the bottom of the ladder, he discovered a grand staircase leading to a pitfall, and Parker felt rather reckless, so he dived down the hole. He landed a "superhero landing" sort of pose to find another staircase, this time an ascending one, leading to another pitfall. The last dive ended so anticlimactically, he tried it again, hoping to land in the fiend's nest.

He landed into a sinewy hallway, and sighed in disappointment. He had wasted a perfectly dramatic entrance. Twice! Oh, well. Time to press on. Only to come to that seesaw puzzle again. The architect of this castle was getting friggin' abusive with these spikes and seesaws. Fine, Parker decided, I'll play your stupid game.

Eventually, they just gave up on the seesaws and he had to jump over three spiked chasms. Parker was finding this rather tedious. And people used to live in this friggin' madhouse? Then he came to a seesaw . . . over a large chasm. Presumably, the spiked floor fell away with age. Of course, this just made it even more difficult. He didn't really want to have try climb back here again, assuming the drop was survivable, even with his augmented SPARTAN armor (yes, augmented -- he had a knack for tinkering with it whenever they came across some tech that he thought was remotely compatible with his armor's systems). Then he looked up and saw that the ceiling was spiked for good measure. This architect was clearly sadistic.

After he finished this seesaw puzzle (there was copious amount of cursing and swearing, and Tyr "tsk-tsk-tsk"-ing), he paused for a momentary breather as he had to put up with Tyr scolding him for his sailor's mouth. Leatherhead wasn't here -- he didn't have to censor himself. He saw the fiend's nest ahead, and thought it was about damn time. He boldly clomped into the fiend's nest, and, disgruntled, stared the creature down.

The fiend had wiry, yellow body with a purple neckline and shoulder pads. It's head was sword blade with human-like eyes (dark brown sclera and black irises). Its upper arms where black and connected to sabers from the elbows down. Its chest was orange, its abdomen and thighs were white with a metallic red band at its waist. Its lower legs were orange with pointed, metallic gold feet.

When the fiend decided to engage, it jumped around the walls, sticking to the walls and ceiling by stabbing one of its sword arms into it, and fired anywhere from three to five blades at Parker, which his armor was more than enough to tank. But it didn't make it any less annoying. But Parker found that his explosive equipment made short work of it. Not direct hits, surprisingly enough, but the shockwaves from indirect hits. (He wouldn't call them misses -- he could be prideful in that regard.)

***

Demos called it a "bladesapien", and was intended to be a guide at an ancient castle. The other RAFians poked a lot of holes in this, but Demos ignored them.

***

Malice wasn't having a good time. She couldn't even bother to watch the fiend fight, she was too concerned about her relevancy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2018, 04:20:42 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Duplicitous Intentions

"They waste their talents on these so-called heroics," said a prim woman in a navy blue business suit with a matching skirt and high-heels. Her dark hair tied up in a tight bun. She wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and clutched a clipboard to her chest. She had a pointed, beaky nose with a slim, svelte build. She looked rather like a human version of a Pearl. "They should be used for more --"

She fell silent immediately when her corporate superior raised his hand, such was the power he exuded over her. She was behaving almost as if she was, indeed, a Pearl. He was standing and was entirely in silhouette. He was a big, meaty man in a three-pieced pinstripe suit with a black derby. He looked as if he was part ogre without the enlarged lower canines. He had no hair upon his head, and his ears weren't pointed.

With but a gesture, he manipulated the screens before him. On each screen was a RAFian -- GH, Dylan, Myitt, Parker, itw, Oceanspray, Aila, Aquilai, Gaz, Helen, Empress Goose, Underseen, Wild, Pez, Rad, Ash, Mr. Guy, Shenmue, Saffa, Abby, Broken, and Melissa -- and each one had a conspicuous similarity. Each one was human, or, at least, outwardly looked so. It seemed that these were the only ones that it seemed interested in. This man was watching and analyzing the little footage of them.

"How are the new . . . accommodations . . . progressing, Yasmin?" he said. His voice was deep, slow, and somewhat guttural. Like a hoarse Michael Clark Duncan voice.

"Twenty-three-point-zero-four percent complete," she replied at once, consulting her clipboard, "and progressing at a rate of twenty-two-point-one percent per hour, Mr. Convertir. It shall be done within the next four hours, sir."

Dominus "Dom" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dominus#Latin) Convertir (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/convertir#Old_French) didn't say anything at first. Yasmin (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yes_man#English) Heep (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Uriah_Heep#English) was used to this, as she didn't react to it at all. She just stood with the clipboard clutched almost desperately to her person, almost as if she were terrified of losing it. She feared her superior's anger, and he could be very . . . dangerous when he was angered.

"Very well, Yasmin," he said, in that slow, drawling voice. Then he clapped twice after he said, "That will be all, Yasmin."

Yasmin knew when she's been dismissed. Not fired, but dismissed from her boss's presence. When she was a fair distance away from work, she allowed herself to breath a sigh of relief. Mr. Convertir didn't get angered often, but when he did . . . well, she was usually the closest thing nearby. She still had nightmares from the last time . . . It's such a pity, really, how so many people don't realize that violence and intimidation and fear is not the way to ensure loyalty to you. In reality, it has the nasty habit of doing the precise opposite. Yasmin never understood how people like Mr. Convertir could see being feared by everyone more desirable than being loved by everyone. Fear does not equate to respect, but precious few people seem to understand or realize that fact.

She would quit this job in instant had she not foolhardily signed a contract and was sworn to secrecy with a rather long nondisclosure agreement that she signed without reading. Despite the very real and present danger that existed within her job, it still paid fairly well and provided her with affordable health insurance with vision and dental. If she left, she would basically be giving those things up, and she had a family to support. So, she basically told him what he wanted to hear, but in an honest way. She pretended to be on his side on all issues, even if she didn't agree with him. She had to sacrifice her integrity to make ends meet, and she secretly hated doing it, and hated herself for doing it -- but, again, she had a family to support.

But she didn't have to worry about him for a couple of hours, when she would go back to work again, so she tried to put this fear and whatnot out her mind. For the next few hours, she was free, and she would try to leave that stuff at work.

Meanwhile, back at the dark office room, Dom was still looking at the various floating screens. The footage of the RAFians wasn't the best around, but it was enough to wet his appetite. He looked at them with rapt attention, almost covetously. He was a retired military man, but he eventually grew very tired of the retired life and he came here and built this up from the bottom up. The whole organization was covert, very hush-hush. He still had many contacts within the military itself and he wouldn't hesitate to call in some favors if he had to, or grease some palms, if necessary, to get local and federal law enforcement to look the other way in his activities.

He had a habit of treating his employees either like slaves (as in the case of Yasmin Heep) or like wartime soldiers. When he told someone to do something, he commanded it, and he expected it to be carried out immediately. He had been too desensitized by combat and had extreme difficulty of seeing the people around him as people and not pawns or means to an end. The combat had almost effectively dehumanized him to a certain point, and he didn't see it. He just believed that he ran a tight ship. He knew that a lot of his employees feared him, which he thought was good. That there should be a little fear in talking to your superior officer. He tended to overlook the fact that he tended to be overcritical and overanalyze his employees which was why no one sought out a conversation with him, unless absolutely necessary.

Anyway, he continued with his excruciating scrutinizing examinations of the RAFians. He rubbed his square jaw thoughtfully, thinking that they could prove useful to what he had planned. He would just have them do what he would call their "patriotic duty".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 18, 2018, 07:47:11 PM

I believe that GH is the most fleshed out character in Memoirs (second to me, of course). Perhaps it's because he wrote those books set within the same universe, the supplementary books, the spin-offs.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
GH's Workplace Drama

"Ugh," GH grumbled.

"Don't be so sour, Lewis," a female coworker of his chided gently. He got along with her reasonably well, but that wasn't enough to dissuade him from his bad mood. "You don't have to work with Carmichael for very much longer."

"It's just that I'm tired, Verity," he replied back, sounding much more harsh than he had intended. "I'm tired of having to pick up his slack. He can bus his own tables, but he rarely -- if ever -- does. Then he has the nerve to bad-mouth me for doing."

"And he never gets punished for it, and he always gets away with it," she said, repeating the common complaint against Carmichael. 'I know, Lewis, I know."

"If he wasn't always on that goddamn phone of his," GH muttered. His annoyance with the man would not go away unless something was done about this. "He says that 'it's the same work', acting like doing things in a timely matter isn't important.*"

"I understand, Lewis," Verity said, "But there's nothing we can do about it. The head honcho is the only one that discipline him, and the fact that he hasn't . . . well, I can't say that I know or understand why he hasn't, but you gotta roll with the punches."

GH wanted to say he could roll with the punches. That he did so in his time as a RAFian, that he had to deal with things that were far more distressing that this little man named Carmichael. And, yes, that was his given name. GH couldn't help but think that it was a stupid one -- though, granted, he may not have thought so had Carmichael as a person had not been so aggravating a person. He rarely did his job, and expected others to do it for him.

Verity could tell from GH's mulish expression that he was less than convinced. "Look, Lewis," she said, bracingly, trying to be a good friend, despite being completely obvious to GH's RAFian life . . . and his adoptive son. GH didn't say anything about Leatherhead, for fear of the government trying to take him away, discovering his true nature, and deciding to turn him into a lab experiment. Not to mention the age disparity between the two being rather smaller than most parent-and-child relationships. Not to mention any other rather . . . uncomfortable . . . questions about Leatherhead's origin and GH's status as a RAFian. Although, he never wears a mask or anything when he was out on missions, so that was perhaps a bit foolish on his part. "Lewis, look on the bright side."

It took GH a sparse moment to realize that his name here was Lewis. "What bright side, Verity?"

"Carmichael's in that suit," she said, with a smile. "And not you."

"Wait, what?" GH said. The shift was nearly over, and he hadn't realized that the suit was even on the floor. How did he not notice that? He didn't know what this alarmed him as much as it did, but something in his gut said something was off. And, usually, he's found, when something is off, then someone is up to something. But this seemed too trivial, too banal, to trigger such a gut reaction. It confused him.

"Yeah," Verity said, surprised at this reaction. "He's been in the thing all shift."

"He has?" GH said, trying to reconcile what he knew of Carmichael. Then again, he didn't know much about him personally -- he didn't even know his last name. But, given his lazy, layabout demeanor, this didn't sound like him. It was work just wearing the thing. It was hot, it was sweaty, it was difficult to maneuver -- all things that Carmichael, as GH saw it, typically tried to avoid.

"How did you not notice?" she asked. "I thought you were in the room when he was putting it on."

"That . . ." GH said, more to himself than Verity, "that doesn't sound like him."

"Perhaps he's trying to make amends?" Verity suggested with a shrug. "Maybe this is his way of giving you an olive branch, Lewis. Don't be too proud to take it."

GH frowned at this, considering her words. "Maybe."

Verity hitched up her purse higher onto her shoulder, "Well, in any case, I've clocked out. I'll see you later, Lewis, and remember to try not and hold grudges."

GH grunted in acknowledgement, and he mulled over what she said.

---

* I've actually had to work with someone with this work "philosophy". I'm pretty sure everyone has dealt with this type of person before.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2018, 04:07:44 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
DUDE! WTF!

Carmichael and GH had worked with each other with basically an unspoken agreement. He stays out of GH's way and GH would stay out of his way. Although, GH was always indirectly impacted negatively by Carmichael's inaction and laziness. His workload was always heavier whenever he was scheduled to work with him, and that always rankled the RAFian. He severely resented Carmichael's incompetence and slothfulness, and the fact that he never seemed to be disciplined for it, as he was sure that he would be if he pulled the same thing.

But GH wasn't like Cloak -- he didn't hold a grudge for as long. Perhaps Verity was right, and Carmichael was trying to nonverbally make amends for his work ethics, or lack thereof. They were closing together, which wasn't something that GH was particularly fond of doing with him. Carmichael also had an annoying habit of demanding that GH do things his way, and Carmichael like to strut around, acting as if he was the boss. It wasn't cute. It wasn't funny. It was a frustrating source of incredible irritation.

Carmichael's pompous, pretentious, and holier-than-thou attitude was the reason why he had no friends amongst the kitchen staff and servers and busboys. Should he have ever sought to be the supervisor -- well, there wouldn't be a kitchen staff, as almost everyone would have given their notice or walked out, never to return. GH was sure that Carmichael was perfectly unaware of this fact, and perfectly happy in his ignorance. It was a pitying position to be in.

But, still, everyone in the kitchen knew how he hated to wear that suit. It wasn't something that he hid -- he wore his hatred of the suit on his sleeve. His reaction to wearing it again was always negative*, and it's become a bit of a running joke in the kitchen and amongst the servers and busboys. It was well-known and well-documented. Everyone knew this, and the fact that this was the first time that Carmichael's worn the suit, much less volunteered for this . . .

Maybe Verity was right. Maybe Carmichael was tired of the tensions and hostilities that had arose between GH and himself. Perhaps he wore the suit to offer a concession of some sort towards GH's criticisms of laziness and half-assing his job. Perhaps this was a way of proving GH wrong, and showing him that he was not, in fact,  lazy at all. Perhaps GH should make an effort, and swallow his pride. Make an effort to work with this . . . person. There was a fine and distinct difference between self-assurance and arrogance, and too many people confuse the two for the other.

Anyway, closing time came and went, and Carmichael wormed his way out of the suit. GH wondered idly why a roadhouse chose such a rather unimpressive creature like an armadillo for a mascot. GH felt that armadillos weren't exactly emblematic of steakhouses and roadhouses. Perhaps they wanted to stand out from other such establishments.

GH turned his back to Carmichael, something that he would have never done before today. And, unfortunately, what he did before now was for very good reason. As after a few minutes after doing such, the RAFian musician was still gathering his belongings from his locker at the end of the shift. It wasn't much, but it was enough to distract him sufficiently.

It was after these few minutes, that he felt a pinprick on the right side of his neck, right on his jugular vein. He felt his next and felt a fuzzy something stuck in his neck. He plucked it off his neck, as if he was plucking off an overlarge tick. He looked down at what it was. A small, empty cylinder with a needle and red and blue plumage. A tranquilizer dart.

He whipped around to see who fired the dart. He saw Carmichael smiling. Holding a blowgun. GH's mind was growing more and more sluggish. It took him longer than he cared to admit to put two and two together.
 
"I know what you are, 'Lewis'," he said, quietly, with that broad smile. "You really should try to hide that mark of yours. And your face when you do your illicit activities."

Then Carmichael put his smartphone to his ear, as he called Convertir. "Hello? Dad? Dad, I got one."

Pause.

"We'll be en route shortly," Carmichael Convertir said. "He'll do his 'patriotic duty', alright."

"You bastard son of a b . . ." GH said, his words slurring before his vision warped and undulated, as if he were drunk. But soon everything just faded to black.

---

* Granted, I don't know if this still holds true. The real GH's disposition about wearing such suits may have changed -- I haven't really talked to him about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2018, 05:33:47 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
I'll Be Your Friend . . .

GH found himself on a strange, circus-like mindscape. At the center was that armadillo mascot, which looked completely out of place. Then he heard him speak, though its mouth never moved and his facial expression never changed, typical of a mascot. Was it that psychic parasite, the Mummudrai? Or was Armadillo Anderson just a dream construct created by GH's own subconsciousness? There was literally no way to tell.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! GATHER 'ROUND! GATHER 'ROUND!! Sit back, relax, and please, stay in your seats! KICK YOUR FEET UP AND GRAB SOME POPCORN!!! Oh, and of course... OOHHH, LEST WE NOT FORGET...!! ENJOY THE SHOW!!"

Then some rather metal music began to play. Had GH been in the right mind, he might have been able to precisely distinguish which style it was.

"Come one, come all, and behold! Have I a sight!
Immeasurable! A spectacle of innocence and fright!
Or maybe two, three, four . . . or even five long nights.
Now you're crawling, ever stalling, with no end in sight!
Up all night to see if you can make it.
An all new friend to see if you can take it.
Be still! Be quiet! They still know that you haven't left yet!
And we'll pretend, we'll just pretend,
Pretend that this day would never end!
I'll make believe that you can see
Everything that YOU did to me.
Nowhere to hide, and now we're through.
But if I were just like you,
I'll be your friend.
I'll be your friend.
You can trust me to the end!
There's something bad inside you,
It's broken beyond fixing.
Save me!
I know that I've been here . . .
It only hurts a second.
There's nothing to fear!
I have you hidden way too well!
It's time to let me out!
Put on a mask to hide myself.
That makes me one with you now.
And we'll pretend, we'll just pretend,
Pretend that this day would never end!
I'll make believe that you can see
Everything that YOU did to me.
Nowhere to hide, and now we're through.
But if I were just like you . . .
I'll be your friend.
I'll be your friend.
You can trust me to the end!
I need you, so I can escape.
If he finds you, it'll be too late.
I need you, so I can escape.
If he finds you, it'll be too late.
And we'll pretend, we'll just pretend,
Pretend that this day would never end!
I'll make believe that you can see
Everything that YOU did to me.
Nowhere to hide, and now we're through.
But if I were just like you . . .
I'll be your friend!
I'll be your friend!
You can trust me to the end!
Now I'm afraid, we're all afraid.
Afraid that it might be too late.
They never learn to wait their turn.
Now we get to watch them all burn.
Nowhere to hide, and now we're through.
But if I were just like you . . .
I'll be your friend!
I'll be your friend!
You can trust me to end!
Trust me to the end . . ."

Then this Armadillo Anderson's body language indicated that he was smiling devilishly, despite the mascot head's expression not changing at all. One could say that was the scariest part of mascots -- the never-changing expressions, which made it extremely difficult to determine their intentions if they decide to stand still, and even then the suit could hide their more subtle, hostile body language. Then Armadillo Anderson's body language seemed to change to apoplectic rage.

"No!" he roared, despite the mascot head having the same goofy grin. "No! You cannot push me down into you sub-subconscious again! You cannot bury me forever, Logan!"

He didn't acknowledge that he did so willingly before, but he tended to live in the "now". GH, however, wouldn't remember any of this, as he was only acting on subliminal, subconscious instinct. Granted, it probably would have been prudent to expel the Mummudrai instead of burying it deeper within his being. But GH had no conscious input in this action.

Then GH awoke to find himself in a brightly lit room, on a cold, waxed floor. His vision still swam before him, and took a moment for him to clear his vision. It was then that he realized the bars in front of him made of reinforced iron. He was in a cage.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4fRaNlL8mE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4fRaNlL8mE)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 19, 2018, 11:10:23 AM

To be fair, I’m probably small enough to just slip through the cage :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 19, 2018, 02:36:12 PM

Think Jurassic World 2, GH. The cages are more akin to that. Specifically the one that held the Indoraptor. . . .

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Waking Up

GH moaned, groggily. His vision still swam, but he was fairly certain that he was in a cage of some sort. He could tell, sort of, that there were many more cages like his around here. As his vision cleared, he saw that several of them closest to him were occupied by figures that he couldn't quite make out. The room beyond this cage was surround in darkness, made even more difficult to see by the small suspended light over his and other cages. He glanced blearily up at it, as his visual acuity was slowing restoring itself.

He glanced behind him and saw that this cage, with its iron bars (which weren't like a sitcom jail -- there was no way that he could slip through these bars unless he was either made of a liquid or gas, or if he was as thick as a candy bar -- so, he wasn't gonna get out that way), was set into the bricked wall behind him. There was an opening behind it, and his heart leaped before his rational mind caught up with him, still feeling quite sluggish.

He quickly stumbled his way to it, to see that it was just a toilet and sink, with some soap and a towel. Whoever was his captor was, they didn't want to see him have a poop. Well, that was reassuring in some way. But this wasn't an exit. He was still caged. He didn't have his guitar -- that was still in his thread. In his thread with . . . with Leatherhead. . .  He had to get out of here. Leatherhead needed him. He had to . . . escape . . . but how? He didn't have his powers without his guitar -- or some sort of stringed instrument (but he preferred his guitar).

He returned to the more open area of the cage. His vision had adapted to the lighting situation, but he didn't like the situation he found himself in. He looked around to the other cages and saw that Saffa, Abby, Helen, Aquilai, and Dylan had also been captured. How?! GH wondered hurriedly and fretfully. Then he touched his neck, where Carmichael had hit him with that tranquilizer dart. This just made him remember his anger.

That stupid layabout could have killed him if he had used too much tranquilizer in that dart. And he wouldn't have cared! GH remembered all too much that malicious smile Carmichael wore as the RAFian passed out.

"That son of a b--" GH began, ready to go on a tirade, as the others were waking.

"Watch what you call my son, boy," came a voice in the darkness of the greater room beyond these cages. "And don't you dare impugn my late wife like that."

GH's anger did not evaporate with this new voice. If anything, it was just transferred over to him. But before he could speak, Helen beat him to it.

"And who are you?"

"That's not important," he said, repressively.

"You don't decide that," Saffa said, hotly. "You don't get to decide that."

"You forget the situation that you find yourself in," the voice boomed. "You haven't the right to demand anything of me. I'm the one that holds all the cards here. You don't eat without my say-so. You don't bathe without my say-so. You don't sleep without my say-so. I'm in charge around here."

"You have control issues," Dylan said bluntly, and, one could argue, tactlessly.

"Silence!" the voice boomed once more.

"Seriously?" Saffa said, unintimidated. "'Silence'? That's your big authoritative stance? Posturing like a child playing supervillain? You do know that's not intimidating at all."

"Be silent," he said, waving away what Saffa said, as if it was unimportant and irrelevant.

"And if we refuse to be silenced?" Abby said, with a tone of deepest dislike that she doesn't usually utilize.

Whoever this voice belonged to evidently decided to ignore this, as he spoke again, "You RAFians have been wasting your talents. It is time for you to do your , , , your patriotic duty."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 21, 2018, 05:31:19 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Dissent

"'Patriotic' . . . 'patriotic' . . . are you effin' kidding me?" GH said.

"No. You live in this country, on this planet, thus you're obligated to do your patriotic duty," the voice said, simply. Whoever the voice belonged acted as if this was a simple concept, when it was vague and loosely-defined concept.

"Our 'patriotic duty'?" Helen scoffed. "What you mean is our 'patriotic duty' as defined by YOU."

"No, I mean your patriotic duty!" the voice said, apparently unaware of the weakness of such an argument. "You must give all you have to serve the country, the planet, in which you live, in which you were born --"

"Ah. I see." Aquilai said, facepalming with a roll of his eyes. "You're one of those."

"I don't care for your tone, RAFian," the voice growled.

"And we don't care for your racism," Helen countered. "Is that what you kidnapped us for? So we could kill the aliens that you deem as all being rapists and criminals? Or do you fancy us your own special little militia, that you could used the 'magic words' of 'patriotic duty' to get us to do whatever you wish? Sorry, buddrow, doesn't work like that. We all have our own minds and wills, and you can't just coerce us (amateurishly, too, by the way) to do whatever you wish. We're not robots that can just be reprogrammed at your discretion and whim."

"You're little more than a Knight," GH added, disgusted.

"I am a knight," the voice growled, as if that was supposed to be intimidating. "I'm the only one willing to do what is necessary to save the country, to save the world, in which we live."

"A Knight of Humanity, you dunderhead," Abby said, coldly. "A member of a fascist, authoritarian, racist organization that supports killing and chasing away visiting extraterrestrial lifeforms, even if they mean no harm and are just visiting. You, sir, are no better than them, if maybe a tad better organized."

"I am a knight," he repeated mulishly, latching onto the term. "A knight of more than humanity. I'm a knight of Earth."

"You have delusions of grandeur," Helen said, icily. "Do you frequently kidnap people to force-feed them your propaganda? Or are we just a special case?"

"I am not the one that's delusional, RAFian," he said. They didn't like the way he said "RAFian". It almost sounded like a slur coming from him. "You stay stowed away in your ivory towers, doing nothing, reveling in your power, while a silent blight has infiltrated our world, our borders."

There was a brief silence that met these words, which he clearly thought had a profound effect on them, when the reality was that they all thought he was really tone-deaf and stupid.

"You . . . don't know anything about us, do you?" Dylan asked.

"I know plenty," he said.

"You know nothing," GH said.

"I know you're all human --" he said.

"About that," Aquilai said, "you do realize some other species might look human, as well, right? Maybe due to convergent evolution or the like?"

"Don't be foolish," the voice said, with scorn.

"Fine," Aquilai said, deciding not to argue the point. "Your funeral."

"Now, out with it," Saffa said, angrily. "what's the specific reason you kidnapped us?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2018, 09:52:40 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
I'm Just Not Sure How Well This Plan Has Been Thought Through (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93B072j-E3I)

"I already told you," the voice said, with a condescending tone. "You were brought here to do your patriotic duty."

"'Patriotic duty' as dictated and defined by you," Helen added, coldly.

"Specifically," GH said, calling him a vulgar name.

"Your . . . patriotic . . . duty," he said slowly.

"Yes, we get that," Saffa said, with a tone that suggested that she thought that this man, whoever he was, was very obtuse. "But what, specifically, are your intentions."

"Your patriotic --"

"Duty," Abby interjected and interrupted. "Yes, yes. We've already established that, sir"

She said "sir" in the most derisive manner that she had ever used.

"What we are inquiring about, sir," Aquilai said, using the same derision, "is how you intend to go about making us do that?"

"Your innate sense of patriotism should --"

"You really didn't think this through, did you?" Saffa said, bluntly interrupting him, her arms crossed, unimpressed, over her chest.

"Silence! This is --"

"Did you honestly believe that just spouting some worthless propaganda would move us to back your asinine claims?" Helen asked, with a raised eyebrow. "Did you honesly believe that your rhetoric, devoid of fact and substance, was that strong, was that sound? Are you serious?"

"You will do your duty!"

"And would you care to explain just what that 'duty is?" Dylan asked. Just like his RAFian brethren, he just about had enough of this. It was embarrassing enough just to be captured so easily. "Or do you expect to keep us in suspense?"

"You . . . you will do your --" he blustered.

"Yes, 'duty'." Helen said, with a bite of impatience. The owner of the voice clearly didn't intend for this to go this way. He clearly didn't intend for him to lose control of the situation this quickly, this easily. "You keep saying that, without bothering to define it any, just expecting your vague assertion of 'doing our duty' sufficient enough information to go on. Newsflash, buddrow -- it isn't. You clearly have only planned out the initial parts of our kidnapping, with no clue with what do with us after you accomplished that. You clearly didn't look this far ahead."

"Don't psychoanalyze me, RAFian," the voice barked.

"This isn't a psychoanalysis, you --" Helen said, before shutting her eyes and rubbing her temples. She was finding this conversation as scintillating as conversing with a brick wall, only more stubborn. "Look, you're little plan has so many holes in it, I could drive an aircraft carrier through it."

"Yeah," Underseen chimed it. "Just let us go, and we'll forget this little incident."

"Or not," Dylan said, mulishly.

"Dylan," GH said, sharply. "You're not helping."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 22, 2018, 10:25:39 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Petty Departure

"I've been pretty clear in what I've expect of you," the voice said.

"Uh, no. You haven't." Saffa said, arms still folded. She wasn't about to take anymore of this crap. "Not that we would be remotely interested in helping you on your campaign of racial cleansing or whatever dogmatic, propaganda nonsense you would have us believe."

"You will do your p--"

"Funny how the words 'patriotic duty' are starting to lose all meaning," GH observed, mildly.

The voice huffed. Apparently, this was the final straw and GH had triggered the owner of this voice, like the little snowflake that he was. "I see. You still cleave to your treasonous, treacherous thoughts."

Abby looked at Saffa, "Is this guy serious?"

"He might be mentally deranged," Saffa said, not troubling herself to keep her voice down. The owner of this voice, obviously Dom Convertir, heard her plain as day. And, naturally, he was offended.

"Look who's talking," he countered. He thought it sounded profound, but it sounded childish and lame to the room at large. "You waste your powers, your gifts, on people who don't deserve saving."

"As defined by you, " Aquilai countered this outlandish, and, frankly, selfish, claim. "You don't get to dictate who gets to live and who gets to die. I don't know what monumentally foolish event led to you to believe that, but, honestly? You are honestly going to argue that we should pick and choose who lives and who dies? What kind of monster are you?"

"Yeah," Saffa said, "next thing to come out of your mouth will be that we should exterminate half of the life in the galaxy to have more resources or some other such bile."

The voice went silent, and Saffa's eyes widened.

"Oh, my  . . you're actually considering that, aren't you?" Saffa said, aghast.

"I see that your wills need to be broken before you'll being willing to feel patriotic," he said, changing the issue. This caused Saffa more alarm rather than him directly addressing her accusation. "You will get no rations for a full twenty-four hours. We'll see if hunger doesn't triumph over your will."

There was a beat of silence, as the sounds of an older man rising from an old, worn chair were heard quite audibly.

"We'll see if you're more compliant then," he said, as footsteps could be heard stepping away from them. Then the footsteps stopped as he spoke again, "Oh, and don't think that you can escape using those powers you so often mishandle. That stone above you, there?"

They all collectively looked up, and saw what looked like an Odd Keystone (https://www.serebii.net/itemdex/oddkeystone.shtml), but thin as a tablet, set into the ceiling as if it was an "EXIT" sign in a public building. Its inscribed rune glowed with a faint red and white glow. It was clear that it had some precise purpose for being.

"That rune prevents all powers from activating," he said. And it was very clear, despite still being unseen in the dark room beyond their cages, that he was smiling smugly. "ALL powers. Magical, biological, or technological. No matter how powerful, no matter how advanced."

The RAFians looked at each other, and each knew that the other was wondering the same thing -- did that effect apply to . . . to everyone?

"So don't hold any false hope of escaping," he said. His smug voice said that he considered the cages impregnable as long as that rune stone was active and working. Then suddenly their cages went blank. They were also sealed in Ramonite boxes in addition to the bars, apparently. They were cut off from each other, which meant that they couldn't plan with one another.

And, yet, each seemed to come to the same conclusion, but how to implement this with that captor doofus being none the wiser.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2018, 06:20:05 AM

You know, it's something sort of . . . surreal, when you go back and look at the earlier books. The chapters were substantially shorter than they are now (I don't think I put a size minimum on myself back then. It's especially surreal to go back and see my book ideas that have actually already been written and came out radically different than I originally intended. Maybe it's just me, but I found that rather interesting.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Visions

Cloak dream that he was in a void. He wondered idly if that made this a Truth Dream. They really were insufferably vague about that, about whether it was just a dream, or a Truth Dream. There had to be a way to tell, surely. But for a few minutes nothing eventful happened. Then Cloak was divebombed by something that looked brown and yellow. He easily dodged it with a somersault.

"The most recent progeny of the Progeny of the Two Suicides," the figure said, with a ghostly timbre to its voice. Cloak immediately looked 'round and saw him clear as could be. The bird's feathers were rust-colored, with maroon bordering on black. He had red-orange eyes, a reddish-brown beak, and yellow feet and legs, with a bit of reddish hue on the toes and sides of the shanks. He was somewhere between three, three-and-a-half feet tall, and he was a levitating, anthropomorphic rooster. He also carried an ethereal brown and red aura.

"Galloflight? But --" Cloak queried. He was under the impression that Galloflight was dead -- but then again, this was a lucid dream, so petty borders, like those between life and death, were never truly considered.

"Fight me!" he demanded, as he divebombed Cloak again, but the RAFian wasn't having any of it. He used his Mastery over Air to cause him to collide into the ground, and he increased the air pressure in Galloflight's general area to prevent him from taking off. Then Cloak pulled out a hula hoop-sized ring from his eponymous cloak. It had a marking like a rounded "M" with a fish-like loop on the end.

"Ring of Virgo," Cloak said, flicking it over to Galloflight -- or this dream construct of Galloflight, anyway. "bind Galloflight."

Galloflight struggled to his feet, with his humanoid arms (which he had instead of rooster wings, which were set to his back, like some sort of chicken angel). Cloak had not lifted the sheer air pressure to allow him to levitate. Even despite his ghostly shade appearance. "That will not work, Brat Descendant. I will not go back to that hellish nightmare . . ."

Then he vanished, with the Ring of Virgo following him, wherever he went, leaving Cloak to wonder what all that was about. He was still perplexed by this, when he heard the snort behind him. He didn't even bother to turn around -- his Earthsight already having informed him who this newcomer was.

"Oxhorn, was it?" Cloak asked, already reaching into his cloak for a Ring. He snorted again, apparently in a vain attempt at intimidation. Unfortunately for him, Cloak had faced far more fearsome and intimidating threats that were far more stronger than him. Cloak turned slowly to face Oxhorn. He had the body style of a Minotaur, like all bovine Realm Walkers. Oxhorn's eponymous horns were short, stout, and looked as if they could support the weight of the Colossus of Rhodes comfortably. His aura was brown and pale green -- not really complimentary colors.

"You will die," Oxhorn said, with a snort.

"Many have tried," Cloak said, pulling out a Ring with a marking like "n" with the right end with a loop, and toward the left. He held it loosely in his right hand. "None have succeeded. Although . . . he did come close . . . and he . . ."

Cloak chose not to say the last part aloud. Nearly two Dweller years ago, Abomination very nearly killed him*, and he did so with all the powers of the Tyrant's Twelve combined. Individually, he would be able to handle them, though. They could not possibly . . . just then Cloak leaped up, using his Mastery over Air to increase his hang time and jump height. He spiraled down with a little slipstream air current around him. He then landed without a sound and threw the Ring at Oxhorn.

"Ring of Capricorn," he said. "Bind Oxhorn."

"That won't work again," Oxhorn said as he and the ring vanished into the oneirokinetic aether.

"It seems that you were wrong, you bovine brute," Cloak muttered. Then he Earthsighted someone behind him, and his Earthsight unveiled precisely who it was. He remembered who it was from that vision that Master Avatar showed him so long ago.

"It will take more than that to get the drop on me, Silentslither," Cloak said, essentially gluing his feet to the ground now. It was necessary to "see" Silentsilther when he was invisible.

"You have no idea what'sss in ssstore for you," he said, hissing on all the "s" syllables. It was a common speech impediment for snake Realm Walkers, Cloak's sister, Dagger, included.

"So you say," Cloak said, reaching into his cloak again to pull out a ring. This may be a lucid dream, or a Truth Dream, but he was feeling every effort of this. But then the snake Realm Walker dropped his invisibility. He was a cobra with his serpentine hood drawn, swathed in an aura of purple and green. They didn't compliment him very well.

"Yesss, I do sssay," he said, "but you remain obliviousss to the larger view. There'sss sssomething bigger at play here . . ."

"Oh, stop trying to be so Veiled enigmatic," Cloak said. He pulled out a Ring with a marking of a circle with a dipped line in it, looking like a very simplistic drawing of a bull's head. "It doesn't make you 'cool' or anything."

"You have no idea," he said, almost as he was savoring Cloak's ignorance to what he was putting forth.

"Ring of Taurus," Cloak said, flinging the Ring as if it were a Frisbee, "bind him."

"That won't work," Silent slither said, as he vanished. The Ring followed him, wherever he went. Cloak wasn't liking this. Taurus and all the rest had to die to hold these people back. The RAFian was using their rings after all, invoking their powers and their names. He hit upon an uncomfortable idea of will that be his legacy as well? People invoking his chosen name and his powers to hold off and contain Malice? He didn't want to think about that.

Then, before Cloak could react, he was struck. Then he was struck again before he could process the first attack. Then again, and again. Then twice more before his attacker stopped so he could process what just happened. But that didn't take too long. He has only known one Realm Walker speedster, and he believed her to be long dead.

"So, Speedy, alive as the others?" Cloak said, still hoping that this was nothing more than a dream construct.

"You know it!" she giggled, hoping from one of her large feet to the other, her long ears quivering in excitement. The cottontail was swathed in an aura of brown and pink. But when Cloak moved to reach into his eponymous cloak, she struck him again. Faster than a blink of an eye. She might have even given Cerulean a run for his money.

"Don't give up!" she said. "I love playing with you like this!"

Cloak growled. "'Playing'? Excuse me for not enjoying myself."

"Oh, don't be like that! Especially when we're gonna play again in the future!"

"What do you mean?"

"And ruin the fun?" she cackled, acting like a hyperactive five-year-old hopped up on a sugar rush.

Cloak used a technique that he never thought to use when he was awake. He increased the water saturation on the ground around him, and used his Mastery over Earth to make it a mire to walk in. Speedy didn't seem to notice this. She was far too busy having a fit of giggles. Somehow, Cloak found this really irritating, but he had set the trap.

Cloak reached into his eponymous cloak again, and when Speedy rushed to attack, she found herself mired in the quicksand. The more she fought the mire, the more she got herself stuck. Cloak smiled at this. This was the precise problem that arises when you leap before you look, if you act before you think. Which is what Speedy was, who she was at a person.

"Hey! You cheated!" she complained.

But Cloak had pulled out a Ring with a marking of ") (" intersected horizontally by a line. Cloak said, "Ring of Pisces, bind her."

However, Speedy managed to free herself from this mire, and dashed away from the Ring, managing to shout, "We shall play again -- next time, don't cheat!"

Then she vanished, with the Ring in hot pursuit. Cloak counted silently -- that was five of the Tyrant's Twelve. He was clearly gonna receive dream visits from all of them. That left seven more to come, and he sensed the next one rather than saw him.

"Ghost, I presume," Cloak said, before turning around.

"Yes, and you're the descendant of the Prodigy of the Two Suicides," he said. He was a ram Realm Walker, only he was swathed in a electric yellow and pink aura. It actually worked, somehow.

"You're supposed to be dead," Cloak said.

"We never claimed to be," he said. "We never truly left. We never went Beyond the Veil. We're not dead."

"One could say that that is an absurd proclamation," Cloak said, reaching into his cloak once more.

"You cannot kill us," Ghost said. "No one can."

"You sound like you think that's impressive," Cloak said, pulling out a Ring with a marking of two circles with an arcing line from each that is in the direction of the other, but not connecting the two. "I think that's just sad and depressing. Eternal life must be so incredibly boring."

"We are invulnerable," Ghost said.

"Uh, no. Immortality doesn't equate to invulnerability." Cloak said. "Then again, immortality itself is an impossibility. All things come to an end. Gods, planets, stars, universes, realms, Dwellers, Walkers -- everything. The only thing that never changes is the existence of change."

"You have no concept of what we are," Ghost intoned.

"Maybe not," Cloak said, "Ring of Cancer -- wow, that sounds bad, doesn't it? -- bind Ghost."

Ghost had vanished, but the Ring was in pursuit.

---

* Book One.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2018, 07:13:17 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Ominous Omens

What did it all mean? Did their inane chatter hold any real meaning? Or was this just a lucid dream, a dream in which he is consciously aware that this was dream? There was no telling, but Cloak was certain of one thing -- the other six or seven of Tyrant's Thirteen will come. He actually lost count of how many he had already dealt with.

Suddenly, Cloak turned around ninety degrees and held out his right hand dramatically. The fire blast that was aimed for him was stopped in its tracks. Now, Cloak still harbored some pyrophobia, but he was still Master of the element. The RAFian couldn't help but feel a little offended. It was no secret that he mastered all six elements. Fire is one of them.

"Wargon!" Cloak growled angrily. "You forgot! I'm a Master of Fire!"

Then Cloak willed the fire back into Wargon's jaws. He looked like a dragon of Chinese design -- a sinewy, serpentine body with relatively short, stubby limbs with an ornate face ringed by backward-raked horns and mustache-like barbels, and an elongated snout. His aura was yellow and blue.

"You may recognize me now, little Hatchling, descendant of the Progeny of the Two Suicides," he snarled, voice full of malevolence. He shot a fireball at Cloak from his mouth, which Cloak easily backhanded. Granted, he hadn't intended on doing such. "When we 'play' next, Elements Master, you won't."

"What's it with you twelve and speaking in riddles?" Cloak wondered aloud.

"And you will die," Wargon said, before blasting another concussive blast of fire again from his mouth. Cloak blocked it again, and pushed it back again.

"Will you stop that?! This is the second time that I proved that that doesn't work!" he said, pulling out a Ring with a marking of a "V" with the ends curling away from the center. "Ring of Aries, bind Wargon."

But Wargon vanished, and the Ring followed in hot pursuit. Cloak waited, wondering was that the sixth or seventh of the Tyrant's Twelve. He really wished that he didn't lose count. Cloak managed to Earthsight the sharp impact footsteps of the next of the Twelve that came to annoy him.

"Reanimator, I presume," Cloak said, without bothering to turn around. His Earthsight told him that, as the smallest and physically meekest of the Twelve, he was riding in some sort of exosuit. His aura outted him, and it was brown and black. Cloak could tell at once it was an automaton . . . made of stone and metal. Two of the six Elements. How did Avatar ever have difficulty with these guys? Did he not go out on the sheer amount of adventures and missions that he, Cloak, his direct descendant, did? Did his abilities atrophy during his marriage to Benign? I didn't really matter anymore -- Avatar's time had long since passed.

"Yes, descendant of the Progeny of the Two Suicides," he squeaked. Cloak really wished that they would stop calling Avatar that. Not only was it an unnecessary mouthful, it wasn't even true. Unless Cloak was misremembering, Avatar's parents were murdered -- by Tyrant himself, Cloak believed. "We were strong when isolated and alone. When united with the others . . . even Immortal . . . we'll be . . . unstoppable."

Cloak snapped his fingers, hand over his shoulder. Reanimator's automaton fell apart into dust and shrapnel. "Unstoppable. Right."

"That was a dirty trick," Reanimator squeaked. He was considerably smaller than his fellows, than Cloak. The RAFian pulled out another Ring from his eponymous cloak. It had a marking of an an arrow whose point was aimed to the upper right corner with a line through the bottom half of the shaft.

"Ring of Sagittarius," Cloak said, "bind Reanimator."

"That won't work when we 'play' again!" Reanimator squeaked as he scurried away. The Ring of Sagittarius followed him, gaining quickly on him. Cloak watched this until they vanished into the void. Then Cloak counted on his fingers -- Reanimator, Silentslither, Wargon, Speedy, Galloflight, Ghost, Oxhorn. That was seven, so there should be five more, unless they added more to their numbers that Avatar left out of his story all that time ago. It seemed like an eternity ago when Cloak first heard that story -- it was then that he heard the galloping of the next of the Twelve. Her aura was fiery orange and pale yellow.

"Immortal," Cloak said. He hated that name she chose for herself, due to how misleading it was. Immortality didn't exist. Everything eventually dies, everything eventually ended. People, Walkers, pantheons, civilizations, worlds, stars, universes . . . all of them eventually end. It may take many, many, many lifetimes, but it is the inevitable conclusion of all creation. Those who proclaim themselves as immortal are usually just long-lived, and many of them often demand worship because of this fallacy.

"Yes, and you're the descendant of --" she whinnied.

"For the love of the First Light," Cloak said, fed up, "stop calling him that. His name is Avatar! Stop it with that unwieldy moniker!"

Cloak turned to Immortal. She was slightly larger than him, but Cloak was far from intimidated.

"You dare to speak to me in such a way?" she huffed. "You can't kill me."

"That would only be superficially satisfying, and you know it," Cloak replied sharply. "And I will speak to you in any way I deem fit!"

She didn't seem to like this, "You know, the reunification with the others will make us strong enough to take out any Elements Master. You will die."

"And you guys are a broken record," Cloak muttered, annoyed. Then he pulled out another Ring, one inscribed with a marking of a Roman numeral II with bowed lines at the top and bottom. "Ring of Gemini, bind Immortal."

But she galloped away into the void, as the Ring followed her resolutely, with her last whinny being, "You will DIE."

"I really wish villains would come up with a new line than 'you will die'," Cloak complained. "That is so cliched at this point."

Anyway, that was eight down. There were four more to go. The dog, the pig, the monkey, and . . . the tiger. They should be here at any moment . . . there was a baying sound. Cloak instantly recognized it as a bloodhound's bay.

"You really don't know how to shut up, do you, Ageless?" Cloak said, back to the canine Realm Walker.

"Oh, come now, descendant of the --" Age began, in a voice like McGruff the Crime Dog.

"Don't you start that, too," Cloak growled in warning, turning around, seeing Ageless's aura was brown and a darker brown.

"Tsk tsk tsk," Ageless said, pompously. "Such disharmony is why the Twelve lost to the Progeny --"

"Avatar. His name is Avatar." Cloak snarled.

"Whatever," Ageless said, flippantly. He clearly wasn't engaging because his powers were passive in nature. "Such disharmony -- those interfering meddlers in 'Avatar' service --"

"His friends," Cloak corrected, finding Ageless one of the most irritating of the Twelve.

"Whatever," Ageless said again, waving away the correction. "Because them, and our own inherent disharmony, we failed."

"Which was for the better for everyone," Cloak said.

"We were going to reign in the chaos, we would have made everything great again," he argued, with a hint of anger now.

"Ah, I see," Cloak said, "so that mentality and rhetoric has existed a long time."

"You --" Ageless began, but seemed to be at a lost for words.

"Ring of Libra," Cloak said, deftly pulling a Ring from his eponymous cloak. It had a marking of an omega symbol with a parallel line beneath it etched upon it. "Bind Ageless."

"This isn't the end, boy!" he claimed as he disappeared into the void. "You will die!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2018, 09:19:17 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Vision Conclusions

Three were left. Three were left, before Cloak was done with these tyrannical losers, and their stupid cryptic riddles. Despite what these dream constructs said to the contrary, they were dead. They have stayed dead for generations. There was no way for the dead to come back . . . there was no way . . . otherwise his aunt . . . No, she wouldn't. She would be doing whatever one did beyond the Veil.

Suddenly, twin beams of energy steaked toward him, only to be backhanded by the RAFian, deflecting it perfectly. Cloak said, wearily, "Gazer."

"You know it, descendant of the --"

"Not this again," Cloak said. "Go crawl back beyond the Veil with your brethren, and leave me be."

"We have never gone beyond the Veil," Gazer snorted, eyes glowing with his power. "We have never died."

"That's impossible," Cloak said, with scorn, backhanded another laser blast from Gazer's eyes.

"We are trapped and imprisoned within those Rings," he said. "Just like we were trapped in the body of the hippo. We hadn't had any control, of our fate, of our powers, of ourselves, for an eternity."

"Lies. Trying to appeal to my sympathies. Won't work," Cloak said, dismissively. He pulled out a Ring with a mark of a rounded "M" ending in an arrow pointed to the right. "Ring of Scorpio, bind Gazer."

Gazer trampled and tromped off and the Ring followed him into the void. "You'll die for this. Mark my words."

Cloak wasn't too thrilled about each of them promising his death. He didn't believe it for an instance, being a rather obstinate, stubborn being. He got that from his mother's side of the family. Gazer made ten. There were two more. The monkey and the tiger. He recognized the irony of that -- his niece was a monkey and he, himself was a tiger.

Then he heard a ghastly, ghostly wailing. It was too overdramatic to be entirely plausible. He didn't need to turn around to see Avatar in Dementor attire. However, this wasn't Avatar -- that much was obvious. And it was clear that Imitator, while able to imitate the appearance of others, was not too proficient when it came to imitating the mannerisms or behavior or attitudes of those he tried to impersonate.

"Oh, knock that off, you simpleminded simian," Cloak snarled, when he pushed the act beyond the scope of tolerance and into the realm of annoyance. "You aren't fooling anyone."

He persisted.

"Stop it, or I shall not be responsible for my actions," Cloak warned.

The shapeshifted monkey continued his mockery of Cloak's direct maternal ancestor. Cloak's tolerance was strained taut by this determined persistence at a lame comedy act.

"Okay, fine," Cloak growled. Then he punched the impersonator in the gut, with all the physical power that he could muster. This was enough to force him back into his normal, base form.

"Hey! That was uncalled for!!" he protested hotly.

"I gave you plenty of warning," Cloak said, whipping around and rounding on him, rather like Severus Snape coming upon some unruly students. "You defied my warnings. Now you reaped the consequences of those actions."

"It was just a bit of harmless fun, you big brute!" he said, still rubbing his stomach.

"Mocking my ancestor was not fun," Cloak said. "Dragging his name through the mud? I happen to not find that amusing in the least."

"I have every right to say --"

"Yes," Cloak conceded, examining his claws idly, as if this conversation was as scintillating as talking to a brick wall. "We all have freedom to say and express ourselves. However. You do not have any right to harass people incessantly, when they have done nothing to deserve it. That's not freedom of speech."

"Blah, blah, blah," he said, clearly having not heard a word of this lecture. "You know nothing of the confinement that me and the rest of the Twelve had to endure. You know nothing of the freedoms that we've been denied."

"You're dead."

"We've never died," Imitator said. "We've been trapped. We've been trapped forever, ever since those fools defeated us. But . . . soon . . . soon enough, our imprisonment will be at an end."

Cloak was less than impressed, believing this to be just a lucid dream now. There was no way this was a Truth Dream. Not with this amount of interaction. Cloak pulled out the penultimate Ring with a marking of a circle with a squiggly line flagella inscribed on it. "Ring of Leo, bind of Imitator."

But Imitator was already fleeing to the void with the Ring chasing after him. Cloak waited for the final one of the Twelve to show up, and when Karma showed up, he showed a Cloak in Ventus (http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Ventus) attire at his left, and a Cloak in Vanitas (https://www.khwiki.com/vanitas) at his right. Those Cloaks were obviously constructs demonstrating Cloak's lighter side, his yang, and his darker side, his yin. Or maybe it was his lighter side represented by his yin,, and his darker side represented by his yang. Cloak could never remember which one it was.

Karma stopped a good distance away. Really Goldilocks-ing it -- he wasn't too far away, but he wasn't too close either. He wore a snide sneer on his face. But he said nothing. Cloak immediately took out the Ring, it was marked with two parallel zigzagging lines etched in it, and Karma's sneer faded with the illusionary constructs. Karma fled to the void as Cloak said, "Ring of Aquarius, bind Karma."

The Ring flew off, reminding Cloak of a white Klefki that lacked a head, giving chase to Karma.

It was at this point that Cloak woke up. When he did, he felt something . . . odd. And faint. His feline curiosity triggered, he decided to follow it and investigate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2018, 05:15:31 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Noncompliance

"Wake up," the voice of Dom Convertir rent the silence of the area where the RAFians were imprisoned. The room beyond their cages was still in deep shadow, so to obscure Convertir's identity. The RAFians did not comply -- RAFians, by their nature, could be an ornery bunch. Convertir was just still discovering this little fact, and he didn't like it. He expected complete and immediate compliance to his every demand and order.

"Wake up." he demanded again. He was promptly ignored again. The RAFians weren't afraid of him, and, as such, didn't feel the need to comply immediately with such demands. This annoyed the former military man. The former military man who was dishonorably discharged. For incompetence.

"Wake up!" he demanded yet again, raising his voice. The RAFians, once again, ignored him. Many of them, if not all, were not really asleep. They were just pretending, just to annoy their incompetent captor. If he was going to refuse to feed them or tell them the specifics of what he wanted of them, despite the fact that Convertir himself didn't know the specifics.

"WAKE UP, DAMMIT!"

The RAFians gave theatrical jerks and pretended to awake -- Dylan was actually the most convincing of this, theater having been a hobby of his.

"NEXT TIME," Convertir snarled, before lowering his voice and regaining his composure, "next time when I issue an order, you will OBEY it."

"And what will happen if we don't?" Aquilai said, seating upon the floor, drumming his fingers rapidly on it. He seemed harried and deranged, which is precisely the message he wanted to send to Convertir. Underestimating your opponents is often more dangerous than fighting them outright.

"You will not get food for another day," he said. This was grossly illegal to do this, but then again, so was kidnapping people until they do what you want them to. Convertir did not see these RAFians as people. He saw them as weapons, as tools useful for his plans. "I expect absolute compliance."

Dylan threw himself upon the ground and beat the ground with his hands and fists, as if he was immaturely throwing a tantrum. Yet, he didn't shed a single tear, which is why he hid his face.

"Oh, grow up, man," Convertir said. Dylan didn't comply, and Convertir was irritated, but decided to ignore it as Saffa decided to tackle the cage bars. "That won't work, you know. These bars are made of an adamantium-titanium alloy that is completely unbreakable, unaffected by vibration, and is so durable that it could restrain a t-rex. You won't be able to break it."

"We'll see about that," Saffa said, enigmatically. The way she said it, it sounded as if she had an ulterior motivation. She continued to tackle the cage.

"Will you stop that infernal tapping?" Convertir snapped at Abby, who was tapping the bars with both hands.

"No," was her reply. She continued the tapping at a higher frequency now.

"I just told you that that won't work!" Convertir snarled at Helen, who giving the bars repeated roundhouse kicks. Convertir was finding the sounds annoying. "Stop it!"

"Make me!" Helen said. Maybe she's been with Parker too long . . .

"UGH!" Convertir roared.

He was getting incredibly frustrated. When he kidnapped these RAFians, he had expected them to be compliant with him. He did not anticipate any resistance, which proved that he never did his homework. That he couldn't be bothered to do the actual research for what he planned to do. Had he been competent he would have done something to insure their compliance, like capturing a loved one and threatening to kill them, instead of expecting just uttering "patriotic duty" to magical make them on his side, and willing to comply his orders. The RAFians all tended to have an indomitable will, and weren't likely to just bend under someone's will without a lot of convincing.

Convertir really earned that dishonorable discharge.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on July 26, 2018, 02:16:26 PM

Since I didn’t say anything, I’m just going to assume that I somehow slept through all of this :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 26, 2018, 02:41:00 PM

Nah, though you were the last one truly awake. You're tapping your foot and playing an invisible guitar. I thought I mentioned that in the last chapter, sorry.

:edit: I've noticed a couple of guest trying to post onto this. Ash, I apologize for this headache. But if they are reading this, and are making complaints, know I won't take them into account, assuming I ever see them -- you don't like what's written, then don't read. Simple as that.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Persistence

Convertir stood up from the chintzy easy chair, and continued to try, hamfistedly, to force compliance upon the RAFians. And it was irritating him that it wasn't working. He really didn't think this whole thing through, which was a problem he tended to have throughout his life. Yes, sure, he got into the military. And, sure, he would tell people that he was retired, glossing over or neglecting to mention altogether his dishonorable discharge from it. Sure, he liked to believe that he had many contacts within the military, but he burned those bridges with his incompetence, and he wasn't even aware that he did. He didn't even make it to that high of a rank within the military. But he lied to the members of this organization, who evidently did as much homework on their employees as Convertir did with his captives.

It was all about his ego, and his need to save face. It was probably for this reason that he sat in darkness when he addressed the RAFians. This way, in his mind, if this went south, they wouldn't be able to identify him. He would be able to wiggle his way out, as he's managed to do all his life. He never put much thought into anything that he did, apparently preferring to do things on a whim. His late wife was much the same -- diving headfirst into things without considering the consequences or ramifications -- and she liked to experiment. She lost her life when she slipped on some rocks and fell over a waterfall*, apparently either not seeing the signage or ignoring it.

Carmichael's own creation was due to the impetuousness of his parents. Yes, they hadn't planned to have a child, it just sort of happened to them. While Convertir thought he was a loving, but strict parent, that's how he saw himself. However, the truth was that he came off as cold, callous, and distant. He worked Carmichael very hard domestically, believing that it would instill discipline in his son, causing Carmichael to appear lazy at work, as if he is unwilling to do his fair share (which he was). But this wasn't an excuse, but an explanation.

"Stop those infernal actions," he demanded.

The RAFians, of course, didn't. Dylan kept appearing to throw a tantrum. GH continued to tap his foot and play an imaginary guitar. Helen kept keeping roundhouse kicking the bars. Saffa kept tackling the bars. Aquilai kept drumming his fingers. Abby kept tapping the bars. All of them more and more resolute in continuing the more Dominus Convertir kept complaining about it, and demanding them to stop. Granted, he had no idea the real reason that they were doing this, and they wanted to keep it that way.

"That's an order!" he roared.

The RAFians stopped, momentarily, and Convertir, for a moment, thought they were complying with him. But then each one burst out in raucous laughter. This did not please Convertir at all. No one likes being mocked and laughed at. Especially because the RAFian went back to doing what they did before they laughed so heartily.

This was seriously not going at all as he planned. In his mind, this was supposed to be the easy part. The hard part should have been purging the impurities of this world. The non-Terran species, the aliens . . . of course, he didn't consider how he and the RAFians would go about that. It was almost like he thought this would be like one of those militaristic shooter games. Convertir was like a child playing a game that was impossible for him to win, and being oblivious to it.

"You will OBEY me!" he bellowed belligerently.

"Control issues, much?" Saffa asked.

"Shut. Up," he snarled.

"Make me," Saffa said, unimpressed.

"I am your superior officer!" he spat.

"No, you're not," GH said, with an indifferent tone.

"I'm your superior officer! And I gave you an order!" he demanded. He sounded more and more like a spoiled, petulant child than an intimidating military officer. And the RAFians have dealt with more terrifying things.

"We're not part of your army," Helen said. "We don't have 'superior officers'."

"You've been drafted!" he declared angrily.

"Nah," GH said. He was getting into playing the air guitar. It was almost as if he could actually physically hear the music he was "playing".

"UGH!!!"

---

* Actually happened to two people around here, which why there was a push to block parts of the walkways that led to them and signage put up. I just read this in a newspaper, and didn't actually see it, though.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2018, 06:34:47 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Reveal

"You really should calm down," Aquilai advised, still drumming his fingers. "Such stress isn't good for your heart."

"Shut. Up." Convertir said. He was rather ticked off at this point, finally realizing and recognizing the futility of this project. It was finally dawning on him.

"Nah," Aquilai said, defying Convertir yet again. None of the RAFians were intimidated by him. True, they were captured and caged, but they were not afraid of him, like Convertir hoped. Convertir had nothing on Garrotik, nothing on Galacticron, nothing on Brainiac, nothing on Mongul. He was just a little man in comparison, who managed to connive and was clever enough to capture them. But that was it.

Convertir was beginning to realize and recognize what a wasted effort this was. All the energy he expended, all the funds he emptied . . . all for nothing. All for a plan that he never made a contingency plan for. He never considered the possibility that they would push back against him, Never considered the possibility that they would see the utterance of "patriotic duty" as an less-than-compelling argument. This was all a blunder, and Convertir knew it now. He wasted all this time, all this effort, all these resources . . . all to what amounted to a vanity project that had no chance of ever working out.

The only thing that he could take from this, the only solace he could take from this, was that these six RAFians did not know his identity. That they could not see his face. He could still manage to salvage this, he would just tranquilize them once more and then get rid of them. They wouldn't know his face. They might recognize his voice, but there are many people who sound alike. He just might be able to save this from this colossal blunder. Granted, he didn't know how he would recoup the wasted and squandered funds, or explain this monetary loss, but at least he would be able to save face. In this case, literally.

"Are we done with this little Q and A?" Abby asked, dryly. "Or are you going to keep vaguely telling us to do a 'patriotic duty' that you've yet to define in any capacity?"

Convertir said nothing. But he rankled at the RAFian basically rubbing his nose in his mistake, in his epic blunder. But how could he have possibly foreseen this? Well, if he had done any homework on the RAFians other than just watching what little footage existed of their missions, but he didn't delve any deeper than that. He was only interested in stopping and suppressing their powers. Had he analyzed them as people, he might have found more success in his plan. But this plan was never destined to be successful in any way.

That's when it happened.

The interior lights came up, illuminating the room that Convertir was in. And illuminating the man himself. The RAFians saw that Convertir looked basically a humanized orc, in size and build. His head was bald, and his face was mulish. He actually wore a military uniform -- this one he got from a military surplus store, as he had to fork over his other one when he was discharged. And his boots were the wrong color. The facility that housed them looked like a cross between an airport hanger and army barracks. The ground wasn't pavement or anything. Just hard, compacted earth. This was good, for what the RAFians had planned, had hoped to happen.

But Convertir stopped dead. He hadn't any idea who turned on the lights. This complicated matters a great deal.

"Ah, no wonder why you hid in darkness," Helen said, cattily. "A bit self-conscious, I see."

Now that they've seen his face . . . now that they could pick him out of a line up . . . they were now a liability. He couldn't allow them to leave. If they survived and left, everything he had would have been destroyed. Everything he had gained . . . he would lose everything. He couldn't allow them to leave. Not now, not ever. They've seen too much. They now knew too much.

"What's that on his lapel?" Aquilai said. "I've seen that insignia before."

"Shush, Aquilai!" GH said, having stopped miming playing a guitar, though he kept tapping his foot. There was a reason behind this madness, though none of the RAFians felt at liberty to elaborate on. They didn't want to call too much attention to what they were doing.

Convertir turned to them, looking at each of them in turn. He couldn't allow them to get out and spread his face and deeds about. It would ruin him. There was only one recourse in Dom's mind. Only one action that is necessary. He would worry about what to do with the corpses later, but he needed to ensure their silence. And there was only one surefire way to do that.

They needed to die.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2018, 07:16:43 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Derangement

"There's no other way," he said, almost as if he was trying to convince himself of what he thought must be done.

"That's the Cadmus insignia," Saffa muttered, realizing what the pin on his lapel was of.

"They've seen my face," Convertir said, to himself, but audible to the RAFians. He fumbled in his pockets for something. Something like some sort of . . . kill switch. Then he remembered that he never got around to installing a kill switch -- he didn't think that he would need it. He would have use more . . . pedestrian . . . means to silence the RAFians.

"I don't think he's talking to us," Abby said.

"They know too much," he muttered, almost indifferent that they could hear his mutterings.

"I don't think this will end well for us," GH said.

Yet, GH never stopped tapping his foot. Saffa never stopped tackling the bars. Helen never stopped roundhouse kicking the bars, Dylan never stopped his mock tantrum. Abby never stopped tapping the bars. Aquilai never stopped drumming his fingers. It was imperative that they all continue this. This was possibility their only way to escape this.

"They must . . ." he said. He still sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. He knew that they were in cages and defenseless. There was nothing to be proud of, shooting defenseless people in cages. He knew this. He still had humanity within him, somewhat. Sure, he didn't like people or creatures that he considered "the other". But that tends to be human nature.

"I'm starting to worry, guys," Saffa said, in between tackles.

"I must . . ." he said. He was fishing out something from his pocket. It wasn't a kill switch. It was much too big.

"About what?" GH said, now stomping his feet.

"It must . . ." Convertir's hand found the object in question with relative ease. Yet, he still had hesitation.

"I'm starting to doubt our little plan is working!" Saffa elaborated, in between tackles.

"It must be done," Convertir said. His voice wavered. He had his own doubts, but he saw no other way. He had to silence them. But he wasn't as ruthless as he pretended to be. His humanity wasn't entirely siphoned out of him.

"It will! Trust in --" GH began, before he realized what Convertir just pulled out.

It was a pistol. A standard pistol. He was going to shoot them all. Shoot them dead. He would silence them all, prevent them from divulging anything about what took place here. He would deal with what to do with the corpses later. He, of course, assumed Aquilai was human, due to the fact that Time Lords happened to look like humans on the outside. He would soon discover Aquilai's alien nature, while everyone else is dead. Dylan's powers were suppressed by the Odd Keystone-like stone slab in the ceiling, rendering him vulnerable to bullets.

This was not good. And this was enough of a shock, that all the RAFians forgot their plan. GH stopped stomping his feet. Helen stopped roundhouse kicking the bars. Saffa stopped tackling the bars. Abby stopped tapping the bars. Dylan forgot his faux tantrum. Aquilai momentarily forgot to drum his fingers. They were all focused on the gun, the soon-to-be murder weapon.

"You're gonna shoot us?" Abby asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 27, 2018, 07:58:42 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Here I Come to Save the Day! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0HLAKm1_1Q)

"You're gonna shoot us?"

"You leave me no choice," he said. His voice quavered no longer, and sounded more resolute.

"You were the one who kidnapped us," Saffa said. "We didn't ask to be kidnapped."

"There is no choice," he said. His hand steadied as he tried to decide which one to take out first. He was unaware that there was a slight tremor beneath his feet, believing that he was actually losing nerve. He steadied his hand even more. He looked at all six of them, before making a decision. He would take out . . .

Then the tremor got more frenzied beneath his feet. He found this distracting, but this seemed to jog the RAFians' memory of their plan. This time they all stomped their feet and beat their fists against the cage bars. They found new fervor in doing so.

Convertir, at first, thought that the earthquake tremor had terrified the RAFians, despite being so minor. It was probably nothing to concern himself with, Convertir thought, and he took aim at his first victim -- GH. He pointed the barrel of the pistol at GH's forehead, trying to stabilize his arm. He was really going to do this. He was really going to kill them. Kill them all.

It seemed take forever for Convertir's brain's command to reach his finger to pull the trigger. He would deny any hesitation on his part. He would cite interference if anyone would question him about it later. Convertir was more about ego and appearance, more than anything else. He had no excuse for incompetence or hesitation, but he had a habit of hyping up his own reputation, even if he gives false narratives or bear false witness.

He never noticed the ground behind him cracking open. Or the creature that burst forth from it behind him. If this were a horror movie, he'd already be dead. Eaten by the eponymous monster of the movie. But it wasn't a horror movie, and the creature behind him, snapped his fingers. The metal in the pistol -- including the bullets and their casings -- became metal shrapnel and dust.

"What the hell?" he said, looking at the hand the handgun used to be in.

It was then he noticed that the RAFians stopped stomping on the ground and beating the bars with their fists. They all smiled at him. This perplexed Convertir to no end. Why were they smiling? How did his gun disintegrate into shrapnel, metal shavings, and dust? What was going on here?

"What the hell happened to my gun? That wasn't cheap, you know!" he demanded.

"Because," said a deep voice behind him, "you were going to shoot a bunch of innocent people. People that happen to be my friends."

Convertir whipped around, and then fell promptly on his backside. The being behind him was at least a foot or two taller, and his power was palpable. Convertir could not see anying but a rough silhouette and those piercing amber eyes. His body was hidden by a cloak he had around his body. He stood very intimidatingly, glaring down Convertir.

"You kill me and your friends will never be free," he said, hastily, "I am the only one who can open the cages. And no one can cut through those bars! They're indestructible!"

"You have rather loose lips when it comes to information," the creature before him said, "you know that?"

"You kill me and you sentence them to death!" he proclaimed.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" the creature said. Convertir swore he smiled. The creature pushed one arm out of his cloak and slowly balled it into a fist. Convertir had no idea what this beast was doing. Then he heard the fronts of each cage rip off the cages proper, and opening the cage like a too-ripe orange. The RAFians quickly gamboled out, looking famished.

"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!" he screeched.

The creature rounded on the former military man with delusions of grandeur. "I can, and I did."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Ash on July 28, 2018, 05:28:05 AM

Quote from: Cloak on July 26, 2018, 02:41:00 PM

Nah, though you were the last one truly awake. You're tapping your foot and playing an invisible guitar. I thought I mentioned that in the last chapter, sorry.

:edit: I've noticed a couple of guest trying to post onto this. Ash, I apologize for this headache. But if they are reading this, and are making complaints, know I won't take them into account, assuming I ever see them -- you don't like what's written, then don't read. Simple as that.

No worries, all good. Probably bots.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2018, 05:06:00 AM

Ah. 'Kay, thanks. And, Ash, you might want to check out the previous book.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Convertir's Fate

"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!!!" Convertir shrieked, sounding more like a petulant child than a hardened military man (the appearance of which he tried to affect and maintain at every moment).

"I have no right?" Cloak said, as the other RAFians glowered at Convertir at his pronouncement. They were still famished, and weakened by hunger. And the rune tablet suppressed their powers -- Cloak had no such limitation, proving that the rune tablet was magical in nature. "You dare to make such a pronouncement when YOU kidnapped people. Took people against their will. Imprisoned them. Denied them food and drink."

Cloak approached the shaking man -- whether it was from fear, anger, indignation, or some mixture of the three, was unclear. Cloak's eponymous cloak slicing the air like a pendulum as he walked, giving off a slightly menacing appearance. Cloak narrowed his eyes as he stopped mere feet away from the man. He bowed his head so that he was right in Convertir's face,

"And you actually want to debate me on rights?" Cloak said. "Slaveholding isn't a right, little man. Imprisoning others against their will without so much as a trial isn't a right, human. You can't just do whatever the Veil you want without suffering repercussions or consequences for your actions. Every action has a chance of backfiring on you, and so it has."

"Don't you lecture me," he said, mulishly obstinate.

"Clearly," Cloak said, coldly, "someone has to."

"What are you going to do now? Are you going to kill me?" he said. He said the last question with a note of hope -- Cloak didn't miss it.

"Kill you?" Cloak echoed. "No. No, human, you won't get off so easily."

"What?"

"Yeah, Cloak," GH said, "I don't usually advocate for such a thing, but this guy --"

"Will face the judgement of the people of the country, and face justice for his crimes," Cloak said.

"Cloak, he'll just wiggle his way out." Helen said. "He'll get acquitted of all crimes -- our justice system is broken. If someone is rich enough --"

"We'll see," Cloak said. "Either way, the world will know what he's done. And he will have to live it down. His reputation will forever be tarnished by his actions here."

"You can't do this," Convertir snarled. "I've done nothing wrong."

GH called him something rather vulgar and disparaged the presumed promiscuity of his mother.

"How dare you!" Convertir said, moving to hit GH, but was blocked by Cloak.

"That reaction was a consequence of your decision, human," the Realm Walker said. "All this came about as a result of your decisions. Now you must deal with them. Whether you want to . . . or not."

***

As it turns out, Convertir wasn't all that rich. He didn't get a very good lawyer -- Rudolph "Rudy" Hutz (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Lionel_Hutz) -- who bumbled and fumbled the case, but he was the best lawyer that Convertir could afford. He had sunk so much of his own money into that scheme -- one that hinged on the RAFians doing what he pleased by just uttering the "magical" phrase of "patriotic duty". Had he done his due diligence -- then he wouldn't be in this position to begin with.

It also didn't help that the prosecuting lawyer was one of the toughest ones -- Ernesto Gallagher -- and he didn't give an inch. Gallagher was very cut-throat in an occupational regard. He wasn't above using any loophole or technicality to win his cases, which he had an impressive win-lose record, which was virtually unblemished. It was almost as if it would take a Galvin to take him down legally.

It didn't go too well for Convertir.

And top matters off, Carmichael had vanished without a trace. He never returned home after bringing GH to his father. Convertir didn't even really notices, being too focused on his captives to care. Convertir never loved Carmichael as a son, anyway. Just as a force of free labor, and a minor source of income, as he took a percentage of the wages that Carmichael earned at the restaurant. All in all, it was a very unhappy household for Carmichael to live in, so it wasn't too surprising that he ran away.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 29, 2018, 05:59:47 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Unforeseen Loose End

"Is it done?" said a dark figure. It was in the bleakest part of night, where the only light was starlight, and this figure spoke with a man's voice.

"Yes," said another, "he didn't expect the lights to come on. He didn't even notice who turned them on."

"You sure?"

"Yes," he answered, with a quick nod of his head. "Very."

"And he didn't see you?"

"No," he answered. "His attention was totally on his captives. He always had a single-minded focus, tuning out everything else around him."

"Did he notice your absence?"

"I don't think so." he replied. "As I've said, he was too focused on his captives. It was an obsession, really."

"You realized if we go through with this, you won't be able to retain your job at --"

"That was just my dad's idea," Carmichael said, some light washing over his face, revealing his identity for the merest of moments. "I never wanted that job. He wanted me to get close to the RAFian to be able to bring him in."

"Very well," Larry Dunn said, his identity revealed by the same brief burst of light But he was wearing a skinsuit, whose face and head were draped around his shoulders. He reached into his black bookbag and pulled another one out, then offered it to Carmichael. As he did so, he was speaking, "But, as a safeguard, we need to go in disguise. Now that your dad's been indicted, he might decide to out you or even shift blame. Until then . . ."

Larry pulled back up the face and skinsuit's head over his own. It fit him as if he was wearing one of those morphsuits, only it looked as real as real skin. He looked like an adult male, with a generic, easily-forgettable sort of face. And it was that way by design. Larry wanted to be forgotten. Carmichael had accepted the skinsuit, and immediately stripped. Then he deftly and quickly put it on, and accepted the new clothing from Larry, as the skinsuit compressed Carmichael's mass considerably. Larry put Carmichael's old clothing into the bookbag, and then slung it over his shoulder.

"Take a minute to acclimate yourself to your new stature and voice," Larry advised. "We don't have anywhere we need to be."

"I've emptied my bank account, and my father's," he said, surprised at how young his new voice sounded. He wasn't expecting the vocal modulations to be so quick and immediate. And pristine -- there was no electronic buzzing or anything to be picked up on. This was the first time he wore one of these suits, and he found himself liking it, like how he secretly liked wearing that armadillo mascot costume. Of course, he didn't say any of this to Larry. Instead, he forced himself to stick to business. "His PIN number was so obvious -- my father thought he was so clever, when he was immensely obtuse."

"Good, that'll be good start up money," Larry said. "But, just know that we'll probably have to switch suits every so often."

"Why?"

"Oh, no reason, just to change things up every now and then," he said, looking down at the child that Carmichael appeared to be, "but until then we must maintain the 'father-son' perception. And remember this suit's name is 'Ed' and the one you're wearing is 'Ricky'."

"What's the last names?"

Larry smiled Ed's smile. "Carmichael."

"Hilarious," Carmichael said with a roll of his eyes.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2018, 04:45:18 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Three Strikes

Helen volunteered for a mission to deal with a fiend. She did it because, though she loved him to pieces, she felt that Parker was now smothering her, terrified to allow her to go anywhere on her own. She understood this, and that he was doing this out of love more than fear, that he was legitimately concerned for her safety rather than any need to control her. She understood this -- really, she did.

But she was still a big girl and could take care of herself. She did her due diligence and made sure her ring was charged up before she left this time. That was the only reason that Convertir -- or one of his cronies, whoever they might be -- managed to get the drop on her. Her ring lost power at a critical moment that she didn't anticipate. That wouldn't happen here.

Or so she tried to convince Parker. He wasn't persuaded, but he allowed her to go without much resistance. He didn't want to be a controlling boyfriend, but that didn't stop him from worrying about her, though he didn't tell her that he would. But Helen was perceptive enough to know that he was, as she would be if the situation was reversed.

Anyway, Helen arrived at the stadium. It wasn't very hard to find it -- it was right out on the field, which had a very high ceiling -- to prevent things like rain and snow from cancelling games. It made its nest there like it owned the place. The fiend hadn't a head to speak of, and its main body was the shape and color of a baseball. The top, where a baseball's stitches would be, was an open slit that hid its human-like eyes, which had light blue sclera and dark blue irises. It also had ruby red crystals on its chest, which looked like nipples or pseudo-eyes, depending on your perception. It had green shoulders like a linebacker, white upper arms, green lower arms, green left hand, and a baseball mitt for a right hand. its crotch directly below its baseball body was purple, with white thighs and green shins and pod-like feet. Its shins had black "=" markings on it horizontally.

When it saw Helen, it immediately threw what appeared to be a yellowed baseball at her which bounced around about six time before disappearing into the aether. She managed dodge the initial throw, and the six rebounds. Then it gave a short hop and threw a fastball at her, which she had to create a violet energy shield to block. This one didn't rebound, however, and immediately vanished into the aether when contact was made. Then it made a high jump and threw another fastball, but diagonally this time. It rebounded to the ceiling and then back down again, apparently homing in on Helen, whilst maintaining it's trajectory. It was easily sidestepped.

After throwing these two fastballs, the fiend turned into a ball itself, rolling around and bouncing around about twice, being seemingly invincible while doing so. Helen dodged this by using her ring to fly and using aerial mobility to her advantage, despite being a slight advantage. When it reverted from this ball form, it made a low bounce, following up with a higher one. This was easy enough to dodge. Then he made another high bounce, following up on that with a long, low one. It alternated between these bouncing strategies, before repeating this attack pattern.

Helen noticed that it was the most vulnerable to attacks when it dallied close to the ground, wile it was not in its ball form, and that he sometimes was somewhat dizzy after some of its attacks. She made violet light constructs of swords -- the kind swashbucklers use, with a Star Sapphire symbol on their pommels -- three at a time. And she kept firing them at the fiend, in waves of three blade constructs, which vanished despite whether they hit or not. After seven strikes, the fiend was no more, and Helen left, with the mission completed.

She didn't look back, because she didn't like how the fiend's corpses always sizzled and fizzled out of existence with nothing but a brief burn mark upon the ground giving any evidence that they even were there in the first place.

***

Demos called it a "sutoraikusapien". He claimed that he made it for batting-practice reasons, for a baseball stadium. The same one that it made its nest in.

***

Malice .. .  well, she was snoring in her easy chair, the fight forgotten.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 31, 2018, 09:22:40 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CLXXV:
LOCKDOWN
CHAPTER ONE:
Woolly World

Aquilai went to a rather flamboyant and extravagant circuit board manufacturing plant to find a fiend that holed up there. The entire place, Aquilai found, was like a fun house -- which were not too terribly fun to begin with. But he could test out his new weapon that he and the other "science boys" had whipped up upon inspiration from the last fiend. It was essentially a Flubber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flubber_(film))-ized rubber ball, though none of the actual Flubber substance was used -- as it was difficult enough nailing down the formula for such a thing. The thing was still experimental, though.

Aquilai proceeded forward to find some blocks to walk on that were a different color from the rest of the flooring. When he walked on them, they disappeared from beneath his feet. That wasn't funny, but fortunately the hole that it left him in wasn't too deep. But his experience as a RAFian told him that he got off easy in this regard. But he knew that it would be unwise to become flippant about this. He had to exercise caution -- although in the back of his mind, he wondered. He wondered if these sorts of traps and things were not originally here when people were employed here . . . he wondered if the fiend somehow manifested them. It always seemed to be much easier getting out of a fiend's nest than going in. . . .

Anyway, he ran until he reached a dead end, but there was a way down into the bowels of this place, after more disappearing blocks vanished into nothingness. Then he dropped down into the dropshaft, only to find more of these irritating blocks, color-coded, blocking his way. He had to wait for the enough to vanish -- the ones that corresponded to the blocks upon which he stood. This led to another dropshaft where he had to do the same thing. He was finding it rather monotonous.

Then he had to transverse the color-coded disappearing blocks this time. It was times like this he wished that he was a speedster, like Cerulean. He ran as fast as he could -- had he been an airbender, it would have been easier, he supposed. But he didn't really want to fall on those spikes below him twice just to make this bit easier. Being a firebender would just have to do -- he supposed he could do that rocket boots technique, but wasn't really trained to do that, and it could just lead him into problems. Best not to test fate, in that regard.

Then he had to run on a conveyor belt to bring up platforms so he could cross a pitfall. There was no way that this was here before the fiend -- this had to be an OSHA violation, otherwise. Anyway, after crossing that, he came to a winding hallway with one of those vanishing blocks. He could tell that they covered some sort of pitfall. He jumped over them, using his firebending as a booster. On the other side, he checked briefly to make sure the Flubber ball was still with him. It wouldn't activate without his sonic screwdriver -- a safety contingency that they put into effect. It was, so he pressed forward.

He dropped down onto a platform above another dropshaft. This place certainly liked their dropshafts, Aquilai mused briefly. He looked around saw that he had fallen into a room with some sort of electrokinetic construct of a mishmashed octopus and light bulb. A continuous stream of fire was enough to break it, and Aquilai found himself falling once more. Even falling seemed to become monotonous now.

He landed, and the path directly in front of him weaved around a corner and back again. There were no traps here, no turrets or anything. He proceeded rather quickly and easily. He came upon more of those run-on-a-conveyor-belt-to-raise-platforms puzzles, and he tried to avoid them as much as he could before he took a latter in the left hand side of a branching path.

Upon reaching the landing where the ladder led to, he did a quick survey of his surroundings. He came to a long hallway that led to his left. He followed it, only to find that it curved and doublebacked to an ascending ladder. He scrambled up it quickly, swearing that this was more extensive than any of the training sims they had before that went kaput. When reached the landing he saw there were vanishing and reappearing blocks in this room and a ladder to his right, out of reach. Rather than deal with the annoying block puzzle, Aquilai just used his firebending to boost himself to the ladder, and scrambled upward once again.

Then he proceed forward . . . only to find the vanishing, reappearing block puzzle over a chasm. He still didn't know how he made it across it, but he didn't care to repeat it in any time in near or distant future. Then he dropped down yet another dropshaft, and landed in a room with those color-coded blocks. This was starting to frustrate him, because he found the whole thing annoying. Not because of difficulty, but due to just how long it was. He went through the dropshaft that these bricks revealed, and the one that followed before he reached the fiend's nest.

The fiend was hunched over to the ground. It's main body was an oblong body with curly, white, sheep-like wool with no discernible head, but human-like eyes buried in a shadowed recess of the wool. The eyes were large and round and had white sclera and purple irises. It had two silver horns, like a bighorn sheep, toward the front of its body. From its posterior end, it had two gold electrodes sticking up from the wool in a "V" shape with green spheres on the end. It had white upper arms and thighs, purple lower arms and shins, and black hands and pontoon-like feet.

Apparently, it had two attacks, normally. It's first attack was jumping high into the air, transforming into a cloud of wool, which splits into four. Each one would move to a different location, all at heights taller than the Time Lord. Then each wool cloud will fire a thunderbolt directly to the ground beneath them, which shocks a small area around the impact site, with the last wool cloud launching an electric spark along the floor. Then the wool clouds reformed back into the fiend. The last wool cloud to attack is usually the fiend itself, and thus the one to attack. Aquilai launched the experimental Flubber ball at the last cloud when it tried this again, and it caused the fiend to fall, canceling this part of the attack pattern.

The other attack a simple, yet fairly fast, orb of electricity that bobs up and down. It wasn't too hard to dodge and avoid. Although, it rarely will decide to hop in the direction that it's facing, releasing sparks from its feet when it lands from the hop. Annoying, true, but nothing that Aquilai couldn't handle outright. Aquilai was also relieved to discover that this Flubber ball could destroy the electric clouds that the fiend wasn't hiding in, forcing it to repeatedly cancel its attack. Aquilai just waited for the Flubber ball to finish of the fiend for him.

When the deed was done, Aquilai managed to recall the ball as if it were a Pokemon, using his sonic screwdriver -- a handy little device with a million purposes. Then he left the place, vowing never to return to this friggin' fun house of a manufacturing plant.

***

Demos called it a "shipusapien". He claimed that he originally designed it for sheep herding purposes, until he realized how boring he found that, so he repurposed it for testing the static resistance of circuit boards, for a manufacturer of circuit boards. It didn't go well, apparently.

***

Malice was still slumbering. She was old, after all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2018, 07:20:41 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
A Little Crazy

Cloak meditated in his secreted spot and he saw a vision swim before his eyes. It was Shadow, on a stage wearing a red cloak that made her look somewhat like Little Red Riding Hood, She held a rather antique-looking microphone on a stand, and began to sing:

"What color's the sky?
Oh, my love! Oh, my love!
You tell me that it's red
Oh, my love! Oh, my love!
Where should I put my shoes?
Oh, my love! Oh, my love!
You say, 'put them on your head!'
Oh, my love! Oh, my love!
You make me a little crazy,
A little bit crazy!
The way you keep me guessing,
I'm nodding and I'm yessing.
I'll count it as a blessing!
That I'm only a little crazy!"

Then her father, Cloak's brother-in-law, a bottlenose dolphin-form Realm Walker, joined his daughter on stage, wearing rather causal duds. He sang:

"The loco that you make me
It is just a little crazy.
The sense that you're not making --"

His daughter, Shadow, chimed in:

"The liberties that you're taking!"

Then they both, father and daughter sang together, concluding the song:

"Leaves my head shaking
You are just a little crazy,
A little bit crazy!"

Then the song ended with a flourish, and Cloak opened his eyes. He hadn't any idea if that had really happened, or it was just his imagination.

***

"Atrocian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Atrocian), Biosovortian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Biosovortian), Cerebrocrustacean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Cerebrocrustacean), Detrovite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Detrovite), Ectonurite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Ectonurite), Florauna (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Florauna), Gems (http://stevenuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Gems), Hazari (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Hazari), Iskoort, Jo-adian (http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Jo-adian), Kryptonians (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Kryptonians), Leeran, Mynock (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mynock), Namekian (http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Namekian), Omicronian (http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Omicronian), Peg doll (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Peg_doll_(Night_Terrors)), Quintesson (http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Quintesson), Raxacoricofallapatorian (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Raxacoricofallapatorian), Saiyan (http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Saiyan), Tangean (http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Tangean), Uxorite (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Uxorite), Vulpimancer (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Vulpimancer), Wookie (http://http:/starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wookie), Xenocyte (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Xenocyte), Yuuzhan Vong (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong), and Zirkonian (http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Zirkonian) entries have all been updated," Guy said, as if he was siting a checklist. "We really do have the most comprehensive species database, don't we?"

"It doesn't include many, if any at all, Terran species, though," Goom pointed out, somehow holding a clipboard without hands and he wasn't using his elliptical feet to hold it either. Many RAFians just accepted this as something that Goombas could do, without question. "Then again, Earth is well-known for its unique biodiversity. . . ."

Then Goom noticed something that distracted him. It alarmed him.

"Cut the hard lines, Guy." Goom said, intensely. "I'm serious! We're being hacked!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg8116aeD7E; (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg8116aeD7E;) and don't get mad that I translated (roughly) the Spanish -- remember, Realm Walker language is instantly translated, if the word is translatable within reason.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 02, 2018, 05:34:36 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THREE:
Creeping Doubt, Being Proactive

As it turned out it was just the species database that was compromised. The personnel files, the archives, the personal computers of the various RAFians -- it was untouched. Was it because they managed to find the hacker out or because the species database was all they wanted? They couldn't be sure on the motives of this hacker, whoever -- or whatever it was. Still, the forum at large were informed about this.

Cloak felt distinctly aggrieved. He thought he knew why the hacker, whoever it was, was after the species database. Those files were rather extensive about the species' planet of origin, their capabilities including powers of any nature, their natural disposition, and their . . . and their weaknesses. It was this that the Realm Walker was sure that was the thing that the hacker was after. There was even an entry on his own species, which he knew would be considered blasphemy against his kind. Then again, he was already pretty much cast out from "polite society" there -- those snooty, snotty, holier-than-thou bigots.

Splixsons. Pyronites. Orishans. Florauna. Gimlinopithecus. Talpaedan. Protost. Lepidopterrans. Tetramands. Polar Manzardills. Ectonurites. Pernese dragons. Galileans. Aerophibians. Uxorites. Biosovortians. Vulpimancers. Nemuinas. Cloak provided information on all those species for the database. And for what? For completion sake, and nothing more. He failed to take into account the possibility that anything in the forum could have possibility have been compromised, which was rather stupid and naive on his part, considering how many times that they had to abandon it earlier last Dweller year. Before they instituted Code Avalon, which wasn't a perfect defense, admittingly, but it was sufficient.

Sure, there were hostile, authoritarian members of these species, but those individuals did not represent the species as a whole. If any harm came to those innocent species . . . he would be responsible. He would have to shoulder some accountability if this information was used against them, because he wouldn't just be able to shift the blame to someone else. No, he would have to take the blame . . .

He felt incredibly foolish. The files were only loosely encrypted, and a particularly ingenious hacker could penetrate it with crude, elementary ease. They had gotten complacent. They had been unguarded. They had gotten sloppy. And Cloak wasn't free from these insults, as he was just as guilty for this lax security. It was as if they allowed their internet security to expire and kept using the database. It should have been an isolated system, with no hard lines outside the forum. This was a mistake, they all saw it as such and were working to improve the situation. Requiring a voice-print analysis, retinal scan, Mark scan, etc. to access.

Cloak had worked through his disbelief at this, and his anger at himself was ebbing away into acceptance. But all this improvements to the systems . . . it was too late. The information was out there now, and it could just be used for good or ill, or nothing at all and discarded -- but that was being optimistic to the point of delusion.

There had to be something they could do about this. And he didn't mean just the improved security of the database, but something a bit more proactive to get that information back and out the hands of whoever this hacker was. This information was just too easily abused by those with looser morals and backwards ethics -- too dangerous in the wrong hands. Yes, some species were inherently dangerous, but this information could be used to blackmail and extort them. This was bad, a bad security leak on the RAFians' part.

And, oh, by the First Light, if the likes of Bern Bridges and his ilk found out . . . they'd never hear the end of it. And their PR was on the uptick as of late. They needed to correct the error. They made a grievous mistake, one that desperately needed to be corrected. Cloak's mind worked furiously about this, trying to come up with a way to correct it, to delete the information from whatever computer the hacker has it stored on.

But who exactly would go through this tremendous endeavor? Who would go through all the tedious amount of work and effort to get that information?

His first instinct was Malice, of course, but this didn't seem like her style. She wasn't this . . . impersonal. She was cunning, sure, but she also wanted him to know that it was her, that it had her Tasmanian devil claws all over it. If she was behind this, then her motives must be changing -- all her schemes were for no other purpose but her amusement, despite the harm to Dwellers that it could cause.

Then he thought of the Knights of Humanity. It would make sense that they would want this information to destroy all non-Terran species, and chase them away from Earth. It does fit with their M.O., with their rhetoric of purging the world of all non-Terran life. Fortunately, they weren't smart enough nor had the resources to set their sights higher than that. Which brought Cloak to doubt that they were behind this. They were a threat once, but they soon devolved into a group of tribalist idiots who shout and scream incoherently about things they had little knowledge on.

Then the Realm Walker considered Cadmus. He knew that they were technologically-minded, but beyond that, he and the other RAFians didn't know much, if anything at all. They were a real possibility, but they didn't know enough to make such a definitive conclusion of their involvement -- unless the hacker had their symbol, their sigil, somewhere on their person -- the strand of DNA within a beaker, within an eye, within a red triangle.

Or it was entirely possible that it was some faction or individual that they had not encountered before . . . but there had to be something they could do. Someway that they could be proactive about this . . . some way . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2018, 07:38:17 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Hacker

In a dark room, a shadowed woman watched a screen she had a mindless drone, which looked somewhat like a vaguely antropomorphized turtle, working on. She had it just copy all the files, not download all of them and delete them. She was actually looking for a particular file. A particular file that would help her out her situation.

She was attached to a bulky machine, that was roughly shaped like a potato, in which she was reclined into. It was rather like a hospital bed with a lot of seemingly unnecessary tech in it. But it was clear from a glance what this machine was for -- it was keeping her alive. She had no intention of dying just yet. She was staying alive out of pure spite and vengeance, for she was slighted and wronged in a most egregious way, she felt.

Her name was Miranda Sigyn, and she used to be a C-list actress, before giving that up for a bad job. Then she went into CADMUS, though she wasn't privy to most of the underhanded, cruel aspects of it. At least, until she became the head of it. But she was a very selfish person, in addition to being very vain. She considered herself more beautiful than any other -- a mortal Aphrodite. She concerned herself more with her appearance than the day-to-day minutia of the organization. She didn't endear herself to the employees, and she seemed almost willfully oblivious to this.

Then came the inevitable conclusion.

She was ousted from her position, and supplanted with that Waller woman. Naturally, Miranda didn't think too highly of her, but all her criticisms of her were appearance-based and not policy-based. Miranda criticized Waller for her weight, her choice of clothing, and the like. Nothing substantive, and she knew it. Miranda knew that Waller was the superior choice, and she refused to acknowledge it. She refused to acknowledge it, even though it was obvious. Her ego was actually that fragile and she was quite thin-skinned. She believed herself to be the greatest -- and she wanted to believe that and nothing else.

She didn't give up her position easily, and she quite literally fought for it, trying to make it impossible for her to be ousted. But this came far too late, and the usurping had already been effect. She, desperate, blew up the office. Yes, some would say that was an unnecessary escalation and a blatant overreaction. And it was, but the usurpers were unharmed in the explosion, and even the office survived mostly intact. The damage was mostly cosmetic somehow. This was a testament to her incompetence and hastiness.

But that's the reason why she was stuck in this machine. She would have died had she not gathered up the materials and cobbled together this device. Sure, she made bad decisions in her life, but she wasn't entirely stupid. She still was technically proficient enough to make this to save her life. But it wasn't enough. This wasn't a permanent solution. Though she did have enough resources to make drones to help her out, and she learned about the species database quite accidentally, by seeing footage of the RAFians consulting it remotely via their communicators.

Then she remembered an alien creature that she only had vague memories of that might be able to save her, and help her restore her beauty. Problem was, she couldn't remember the name of the species. She thought it began with a "B" or maybe a "T", perhaps a "C", though she didn't think so. She couldn't quite remember. She didn't have the best of memories, hence why she didn't last as an actress.

She had all the files, or so she thought, and she began her search greedily for the name of the species that might save her. She hadn't given a single thought as to how she would procure a specimen of such a species, but she plowed on anyway. She decided, however to be thorough. She started with "A".

The first entry was for the A'askvarii. They were a race of green, white-eyed, bald humanoids with cephlopod traits, namely with three tentacles sprouting out from either shoulder in place of arms, with suction grippers on the ends of each tentacle. They were bipedal, with each leg ending in a three-toed taloned foot. They were indigenous to the planet O'erlanii, the third planet in orbit around the star Deneb. The A'askvarii possess gills in place of a nose, stood roughly five feet, nine inches tall, and had closely-spaced, needle-like teeth. A fairly advanced race, they had rudimentary warp-drive capability and a pacifistic anarchic system of government, which was technically leaderless.

No, no, that wasn't the one. One to the second entry -- A-Chiltarians. They were a species of sapient humanoids which possessed multi-faceted eyes, four-digit hands, three-toed feet and purple-grey fur covering the entirety of their bodies. Their culture remains tribal despite having reached the interstellar era, and they were mildly aggressive and temperamental. They are indigenous to the planet A-Chiltar III, the third planet orbiting the star A-Chiltar, known to the scientists of Earth as R Monocerotis. Despite the fact that their homeworld possesses a high quantity of methane in the atmosphere, it is apparent that they can somehow breathe in Earth's atmosphere, although it is possible that they wore specialized breathing apparatuses.

That wasn't it either. She continued through the Aaamazzarite, Aakon, Abbai, Abinyshi, Abominor, Ab'Ugartte, Abyssin, Abzorbalovian, Acanti, Accipiptero, acid lizards, acklay, Adarian, Adder Moss, Adipose, Adorian, and Advozse entries. None of these were the ones that she was looking for. None possessed the powers that she was looking for.

Then she looked at the Aedian, Aenar, Aerophibian, Aganof, and Aggedor entries. None of these were the right species, either, but she wanted to be thorough.

Then she looked at the Ailon, Aing-Tii, aiwha, Ajisa, akk dogs, Akrennian, Akurian, Akwin, Albeniz, Alcidian, Aldebaran Beidafang, Aldebaran Mud Leech, Aldebaran Serpent, Aleena, Alpha Centauran (1), Alpha Centauran (2), Altairean Bouquet Tree, Alvarian Space Wyrm, Alzarian (1), Alzarian (2), Alzarian spiders, Amani, Amaran, Amazonian, Ambassador of the City State of Binding Light, Amber Ogia, Ambrian Bat, Amebid, Amedea, Amperi, Amphi-Hydrus, Amphibiosan, Andalite, Andorian, Androgum, Androzani Pine Tree, Anguilla, Ankari, Anodite, "Anointed People" (the name they called themselves), Anomid, Annoo-dat,, Anooba, Anothian Living Crystals, Ansionian, Antarean, Antarean poisonous butterfly, Antican, Anubian Baskurr, Anuran, Anx, and Anzati with renewed vigor. But these were not the species that she was looking for.

Then she looked at the Apokorat, Appoplexian, Aqualish, Aquan, Aquanna, Aquitian, Arachne, Arachnichimp, Aramandi, Araquia, arboreal octopus, Arburian Pelarota, Archanan, Arconan, Arctic Horny Whelmer, Arctic Polar-vanes, Arctic Sedge Slider, Arcturan, Argazdan, Argolin, Aridian, Arkanian, Arkarian, Arkenite, Arkonian, Arlian, armored eel (Yavin IV), Arpor-Lan, Arquillian, Arquindae, Arrak snake, Arrakisian, Arrowtongue, Ash Angel, Askajian, Assembler, Astran, Atasian, Atraxi, Atzerrian Meek, and Atrocian entries. Nope. None of these species had the power that she was looking for, nor resembled the image that she had in her mind.

Then she scanned the files on the Autocron, Auton, Avogwi, Avril, Axanar, Axi-Tun, Ayrou, and Azurite species. None of these had the powers that she was looking for, nor did she believe that they could be useful to her. It was onto the "B"s she guessed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 05, 2018, 04:54:39 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIVE:
Guilt and Guards

Cloak felt incredibly guilty about his contribution to this. If he had kept his information to himself, kept it under his cloak*, then this wouldn't have been such a problem. Granted, he wasn't in charge of security of this server of sorts, and he had no idea that it could be hacked in such a way. He found himself close to giving into self-pity.

This was increased when the forum's lockdown was enacted. He was seriously wondering if his presence in the Prime Universe was more of a detriment than a help. He wondered if he was doing far more harm than good. He wondered if he just bungled everything he touched. All the insecurities and doubts about himself that his mother fostered were coming back to him. This was causing him to question his worth, not just as a RAFian, but as a person on the whole.

This well of despair was surprisingly easy to get into, but remarkably difficult to leave. Cloak knew this, but fell into it, nonetheless.

***

While Miranda perused the B'ool Sporath entry, she posted more guards at the entrance of her little hiding place. She swiped through the Babel fish, Bachani, Badoon, Bajoran, Balhoonian, Ballchinian, Balmorran metal parasite, Balosar, Baltian, Balunian, Bandril, Bane, Bannerman, Banshee, Bantha, Barabel, Baragwin, Barkonian, Barooga, Bartokk, Basalt, and Bat-dragon entries. She was, despite herself, disappointed. None of these were the species she was looking for. But she had to be thorough.

How does she have guards? Not all of them were drones. Some of them were CADMUS loyalists who left the covert organization with her. It was roughly 36% of the personnel. She actually didn't care about their loyalty, really, as she was technically slowly dying. This machine would slow the process to a standstill, but not forever. It was not a permanent staving off of the grim reaper, and she knew it. She didn't care if she was hostile, aggressive, and callous to her loyalist staff.

She looked at the Beach Loper, Beach Quills, Beast in the Mouth of the Mountain, Beck-tori, Beldon, Belly-thrower, Bem, Besalisk, Beta Renner Cloud, Betazoid, Betelgeusian (1), and Betalgeusian (2) entries. She cursed and swore loudly. None of these were the species she was thinking of. She was getting impatient, it was true. Time was her enemy now, but she hadn't any means to cross-reference the files. It took enough of her power and technical skill to just get them in the first place.

"What's the matter, ma'am?" one of her CADMUS loyalist said, entering the room tentatively.

"GET OUT!" she roared. "GO BACK AND MAN YOUR POST!"

She didn't have the strength to throw something at him, but she would have if she did.

She continued with the database files. She looked at the Bi-Cranial, Bimm, Bimmisaari Tiga Loreng, Binka trees, Biosovortian, Bith, Black Arms, Bladderhorn, Blarth, Blase trees, Blase tree goats, Blba trees, Blob, Blodex, Blog, Blood Bloom Plant, Blood Carver, Blubreen, and Blurrg entries. Her frown deepened. She regretted her decision not to put in some sort of cross reference system in place. But she had to be thorough and methodical about this.

She persisted with her desperate search with the Boglodite, Bogwing, Bolian, Bolovaxian, Bolt-tongue, Boma, Bomb Ball, Bone Vampire, Boraalan, Borg entries . . .

Borg? She read through the file three times to be sure. But came away disappointed. It was similiar -- the most similar thus far of what she was looking for. But it wasn't, and she didn't want to be a part of a gestalt consciousness. Well, not one that she wasn't in charge of, anyway. And they wouldn't be able to repair her failing body, like she hoped. So this was a pass.

She disconsolately scrutinized the Borumu, Boslic, Bothan, Boudacian, Bouncer, Bowlump, Brain Ball, Brain Slug, Brain Spawn, Brakiri, Breen, Briar Wolf, Brizzit, Brood entries . . .

Brood? She read this entry carefully, not wanting to miss any pertinent information. She was excited until she read about the utter loyalty that the Sleazoids have their Brood Queen. It was the same problem with the Borg. She didn't want to be enslaved to anyone else, she wanted to be the top dog, if anything. She valued her own independence, but didn't care about anyone else's. So this was a pass.

Disheartened, she examined the Bug, Buglizard, Buggalo, Burning Martian, Burrow Beast, Butcherbug, Butchertree, Byvoid, Bzzit Khaht, and Bzzzz entries. No, none of these species would be of any use to her for her needs and requirements. Onto the "C"s, then.

---

*Realm Walker for "keep it under your hat".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2018, 05:23:34 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIX:
Snapping the Towel

Cloak continued, despite his efforts, to sink into despair. He couldn't help but feel so hopeless. There was no way to tell where that information had gotten to, or how far it had spread. True,Esteore had contributed as much, if not more, than he has to this database, but Cloak still took the weight, the responsibility of this leak onto his shoulders. His guilt was his, and his alone, he felt. He felt that he , , , he didn't know. He just felt so lost, and he kept wondering if he was doing more and more harm by being here.

There was no hope . . .

"No, Cloak!" a voice reverberated in his mind, "You must never give into despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road, and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In your darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength."

Wheeza . . . it was an echoing memory of his beloved, dearly departed aunt. She was always a source of strength for him, just as Shadow and Faith were. And, even with her gone . . . some part of her was her with him. Her words, her lessons . . . her compassion . . .

And those words were applicable to this. He mustn't give in to despair. He must be proactive. There must be a way to find out where this information went. Chances are it didn't spread to far. The hacker would surely want to keep it between whoever they were and perhaps a few trusted fellows. Perhaps a burgeoning cartel or something.

But a plan was formulating in his mind. A plan that he couldn't accomplish alone.

***

Meanwhile, Miranda continued with her search. Caatati? No. Caitians? No. Calamarain? No. Canal carp pilot fish? Useless to her. Can-cells? Also useless for her purposes. Cannok? No. Canyon krayt dragon? No. Cardassian? She scoffed. Cardassian voles? Of course not. Carrionites? They could possibly heal her, but she would have to persuade them, and she had no interest in that. Cathar? No way that they'd be useful to her.

"This is going to take a while," she sighed. "And I don't have a while."

But what other option did she have? She continued her search. Celegian? She dismissed them out of hand. Celestial? No, they would never deign to help her. Celestialsapiens? She wouldn't be able to even contact one. Cephalod-ae? No. Cephalopoid? No. Cerean? No. Cerebrocrustaceans? Not likely, and wasn't what she was looking for. Ceti eels? This was opposite of what she was looking for. Chadra-Fan? No. Chagrian? No. Chameleons? No, they'd never help her, willingly or involuntarily. Chandir? No. Changeling? No. Charrl? No. Charnocks? No, not those terrorists. Chevin? No. Chevs? No. Chimera Sui Generis? No, they'd have their own self-interest in mind. Chimeron? No. Chiss? No. Chlorisian? No. Chronian? No, they're virtually extinct. Chronosapiens? They'd be able to save her body with their chronokinesis, but she hadn't any way to force or persuade them to do it, so pass. Chrysalide? NO. Chumblies? No. Chupacabras? No. Churl? No.

"So many species, so few are useful," she muttered, full of angst. She continued her search through the Cironielian chrysalis eater, Clawrantular, clockwork droid, and clodhopper entries. She sighed angrily. She was getting frustrated, but she had no other choice. The species she was looking for was in these files. She knew it.

She checked the Colicoid, Colo claw fish, Columi, Condor dragon, Conductoid, Constancian, Cortalopus, Corruptura, Corvan Gilvo, Cravenor, Crawfordsville monster, Crespallion, Crite, crystal barnacle, crystal snake, and Cthon entries. All of which she considered useless to her.

"Why are so few species useful to me?" she lamented, as she continued onward.

Cyanberries? No. Cybermen? No. Cybermats? No. Cygnoid? NO. Cytherian? No. Onto the "D"s now . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 07, 2018, 05:02:24 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Conclusions

"CADMUS must be behind this theft," Cloak said.

"We don't know much, if anything about them," Saffa pointed out, "how can you be so sure."

"I can field that question," Guy said, raising a finger into the air. "The hacking, while clearly showing some skill getting through our security protocols -- which, despite our security on the database getting admittingly lax, I do acknowledge that -- they were rather sloppy themselves in doing such."

"Sloppy? How so?" Sakki inquired.

"The hackers left their fingerprints, so to speak, all over it." Guy answered. "We might not know much about CADMUS, but they practically telegraphed it with their hack."

"But why didn't they leak it already?" Demos asked.

"That assumes that leaking it was even their intention in the first place," Cloak said. "And we can only speculate at this point as to why they wanted the species database."

"And that speculation will be just that, speculation, without more evidence," Goom said, "but we believe we know the hacker's location. They didn't protect their location from us. By all appearances, they were just trying to get in and get out, with little care of being recognized or us being able to track them down."

"Also, there were armed guards at the entrance," Parker noted. "Which doubled within the last couple of hours."

Helen tsked, "You'd think if they were going to hide something, that they'd be a little more covert about it."

"I presume we're going to do something about this?" Empress Goose said, almost lazily. "And that this meeting is to discuss that? I doubt we're just going to let this hacker steal from us."

"Too right," Phoenix said. "We will be proactive, but this has to be covert. If the likes of Bern Bridges get their hands on this information and has a chance to spin it negatively about us . . . well, let's just say we don't need anymore bad publicity."

"Which is why I have a plan," Cloak said. "But I will need Ash, Underseen, Empress Goose, Rocky -- and I think that's it, for the first part of it, with Yarin, Guy, Goom, Xeno, and Aquilai for the second part. And I'll be there as well."

Cloak paused for a moment, before smacking GH upside the head. He was playing the "Mission: Impossible" theme on his guitar, with surprising accuracy.

"Hey! It was apt!" he complained.

***

Miranda hoped that the "D"s would hold more promise that the first three letters. But she wasn't holding her hopes all that high on it, as she meandered through the Dactillion, Daggerwrist, Dagle, Dagobah python, Dakalan centipede, Dalek, Dalgo, Danian, Dashade, and Dasypodidae entries. None of them were useful to her, not to mention the difficulty she would have obtaining one, much less get its compliance.

"This is getting old," she growled. "But it's in here. I know it!"

Then she skimmed the Decapodian, Defel, Deltan, demirevenants, demon shrike, dendrosapien, Denebian, Dentrassi, desert muck leech, Detrovite, Devaronian, Devidian, Devlikk, Devourer, Dewback, Dexoid, and Dheronian entries, and found them a letdown. None of these were the species that she desperately sought out to save her slowly-fading life.

"Life is dripping away from me . . . the species had better begin with a 'D'," she said.

Then she skimmed the dianoga, Diathim, Digger, Diskflyer, and Divto entries.

"Useless. All of them. Why are there so many useless beings in existence?" she bemoaned.

Then she continued with the Dokarian, Doldunian, Draconian, Dracosian, dragon slug, Dragonsnake, Drahvin, Drakoulias, Dralian, Drang, Drashig, Dravek, Drej, Dreman, Dressellian, Drexl, Droch, and Druyza entries. None of the species were the one she was seeking. She was starting to see a pattern.

"It's here . . . I know it. It's here. Somewhere." she muttered to herself.

Then she perused the Dug, Duinuogwuin, Dulok, Dur Sabon, Duracrete slugs, Duracrete worms, Durgolosk, Durlan, and Duros entries. It wasn't one of them. It wasn't there.

"Onto the 'E's, then," she sighed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2018, 05:21:33 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Lockdown Liquidated

Cloak told the others his plan, while the lockdown is quietly lifted again, but not made known publicly. Just to the RAFians. Cloak, meanwhile, was ironing out the plan with those in on it. They would have to be covert -- that was one of the paramount objectives. They couldn't allow the likes of Bern Bridges to get ahold of this. There were enough crazies out there, that were out for their blood, due to that obese human's pejorative propaganda. They had to be careful, and they had to be precise.

***

The guard who had come to check on Miranda when she had raged that one time was named Quentin Beckinkal. The surname was pronounced "beck-and-call", and it was an apt descriptor of the muscular, blond man. He kept his long hair into a tight ponytail, so he looked like some Liefeld character, or some sort of comic book character without any depth to him. He didn't care about these superficial prejudges on him.

He worked at CADMUS, true. It was just a job to him, something he did to make money. There was no passion in it for him. There was no . . . initiative for him to climb the ladder to higher positions. He didn't really have a lot of passions in life, though when he was younger he had aspired to make films, and special effects for them. Granted, he wasn't very good, but it was something that he actually deeply enjoyed.

But that stopped when he posted them online, and got the online trolls criticizing his movies. Granted, since they were online trolls, they couldn't be bothered with criticizing it constructively, but just to cut him down. He never replied to them but they had cut him deeply. Cut him so deeply, that the shine, the enjoyment, he had with making the low-budget, low-quality films was gone. He never posted anything else, or made another movie. Something which these same cyberbullies harangued him for time and time again.

Then they found his social media profile. Whether it was the same callous trolls or different ones who had singlemindedly set out to ruin his life, he didn't know. Nor did he care to know. All he knew was that he was tired of the harassment. He moved house when he got the job at CADMUS, and he quit social media altogether, despite that being the only way he could contact a majority of his friends and family. He was tired of the abuse and harassment, to the point that he regretted ever making those low-quality movies in the first place. They were pieces of passion, but with low resources to pull from, and now he hated them with as equal passion as he hated his haters.

Anyway, he worked at the sheisty organization known as CADMUS as just a security guard, a lowly grunt that none of the more prestigious people gave so much as a second glance to. Sure, some would spout the perfunctory greetings, without really caring about an answer received. It was almost procedural, a minor social obligation. Despite what some other people might think about such a thing, Quentin reveled in this. No one was giving him snarky remarks about his terrible movies, no one was advising him to kill himself, no one was sending him death threats . . . his anonymity was the greatest gift that he could have received at that point in his life.

The Miranda became the head of the entire organization, and he was immediately smitten with her. He hadn't spoke a word to her, but he was head-over-heels in love with her. He didn't really know anything about her, and this was little more than a lustful attraction, but he didn't care. It was this above all else that caused him to be ever-loyal towards her, despite secretly knowing that she would have nothing more to do with him, that she saw him as nothing more than an inconsequential grunt.

Whether he realized this or not, he didn't outwardly show it, clearly preferring the fictitious fantasy of her playing hard-to-get and being coy about it. He never told any of the other loyalists his feelings -- he's been mocked enough in his life already -- and he believed that his unrequited feelings was reciprocated, but subtly and coyly. This is why he had such intense loyalty towards Miranda, despite her not even being aware that she had such devout loyal from him.

She didn't even know his name.

***

Miranda pawed through the Ebony Blister-wing, Ectonurite, Edosians, Ee, Efrosian, Eidolan consciousness, Eight Legs, Eirrauc, Ekosian, Electrophyte, Elom, Elomin, emperor sea strider, encyclopod, Engibrain, Eopie, Eosapien, Er'Kit, Ergesh, Eris Fairie, Evroniano, Ewok, Excalbian, and Exogorth entries. None of these species were the right one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2018, 07:29:24 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINE:
Correct Locale

Quentin was guarding the entrance with another guard. He was another guy, at least mid to late twenties, at least a five years to a decade younger than Quentin, and more athletic and fit than the former. Quentin, despite himself, felt a little inadequate next to him. Quentin only knew his first name was Dick -- a name that Quentin found rather unfortunate, as Dick was a respectable, venerable sort of guy. Granted, he never spoke much.

However, there were supposed to be two more guards here -- where were Chris and Wyatt? They went to the bathroom for what seemed like an eternity ago. None of them had military training, but they all knew how to use the buddy system. You learn as a child how to use that simple system, and only the truly stupid and incompetent don't know how to use it effectively. Quentin was perplexed.

"Where are they? Did Wyatt get the runs?" Quentin asked. "I told him not to have those tacos -- that place was sketchy."

Dick didn't say anything, and remained silent. When Quentin looked over, he saw Dick flinch and blink rapidly. Quentin quickly came to the conclusion that he was drowsing. Quentin said, good-naturedly, "Geez, Dick, you need to get more sleep at night. The sun's still up."

Then Quentin slapped his back, still concerned that the other two still weren't back yet. Something was wrong . . . his gut told him so. And he tried to ignore it. But it still nagged him, still weighed on his shoulders.

"They should have been back by now," Quentin said, nervously. "What's taking them so . .  WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!"

He saw the two strolling up, holding their weapons in a stiffer way that they would ordinarily. Quentin ****ed and an eyebrow. Were . . . were they doing something else on the way to or from the bathroom? He would have never pegged them for --

Quentin grunted suddenly as he fell to the ground, as the area around him shimmered and everyone outside this shimmering saw him leaning against the wall nonchalantly, as it was revealed that Dick rammed the butt of his gun into the back of Quentin's head. Knocking him out, not killing him. He looked at Quentin and deftly tied him up, and leaned him against the building.

"Goose, you in?" the man Quentin thought was Chris said.

"Of course I'm in, Underseen!" he snarled.

"Ash, actually, and there's no reason to talk to me in such a way," she . . . he . . . she said, in what was obviously Chris's voice. She had taken his shape, not his body as Goose had with Dick.

"Sorry," Goose said, clearly not really meaning it. "But you have no idea how . . . filthy . . . this man's thoughts could be. It's like he never picked up in here."

"Can you maintain control?" Underseen asked.

"Oh, yeah, that's easy," Goose said, in Dick's gruff voice. Then he looked at the steel-and-ivory bipedal canine, Rocky the Chee, and asked, "Where are the others?

***

Miranda continued into the "F"s. She skimmed through the Falleen, Falumpaset, Fambaa, Fatu-Krey, and Faux-Tamaranean entries. None of these were the species that she was looking for.

"I'm starting to see a pattern," she grunted. She was starting to feel a modicum of discomfort, but ignored it.

Miranda continued through the "F" files, skimming through the Felacatian, Felucian,Felucian bird, Felucian Chelonoid, Felucian flying manta, Felucian slug, Felucian snail, Fendahl, and Ferengi entries. None of these was the species she sought out, either.

"None of these were the one," she sighed.

Miranda continued mulling over the files, as she glanced through the Fillian dragon, Finleg, Flatwoods monster, Fleeblebroxian, flesh-eating horses of Mars, Flipstick, Flora Colossus, Florauna, Florn Lamproid, Fluggrian, and flying steeds entries. Again, none of these were it.

"Maybe I should start from the 'Z's," she said. But she came this far in, so she was going to stubbornly continue to do it her way.

She went through the Foamasi, Follow-Wing, Forest Gulper, Forest Slider, Frenk, Frog-Dog, Frozian, Furon, and Fuzzum entries Nope. Again, nothing she considered worthwhile, and not any of those was the species she was desperately searching for.

"I cannot give up now," she murmured. "It's here somewhere. Somewhere."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2018, 06:32:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TEN:
Inside

"We're here," Cloak said, suddenly appearing within the hologram. "Just maintain the facade while we get in and do what we need to do. Remember to stay covert."

"And what contingency do we have if something goes wrong?" Goose said, with Dick's gruff voice.

"Broken is on standby to modify memories," Cloak answered easily. "It's not something he's gonna be proud of doing, but he may not ever have to."

"And I can use my telepathy to make it look like a figment of their imagination," Yarin said. "That doesn't please me any more than Broken, but if it proves necessary . . ."

"Then lets get this ****show on the road," Goose said. "It gives me no pleasure to have body-hopped this guy."

Cloak turned to Guy, Aquilai, Goom, Xeno, and Yarin,  "The facility is a tad larger than expected."

"How are we going to get to the server room?" Aquilai asked.

"I will be able to Metalsight our way to it," Cloak said. "The floor is made from rusted metal, but my Metalsight still works reasonably well. Any other questions?"

Silence.

"Good. Let's go."

***

His name was John Perdigiorno (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/perdigiorno#Italian)*. He was an extremely lazy layabout, but it wasn't enough that he was a lackluster security guard. He had an annoyingly condescending attitude towards the other guards, as if he thought that he was better than all of them. He hadn't any reason for this bloated opinion of himself, and he just thought that it was assertiveness and self-confidence. He was egotistical and he would badmouth the other guards behind their backs.

However, the other guards were well aware of this, and none of them were too pleased with Perdigiorno. It was really unclear whether the man was aware of the ire that he drummed up with the other guards, until Quentin once called him out on it when the latter didn't do something that Perdigiorno condescendingly scolded him for. Something that Perdigiorno hypocritically never did himself. He was immediately offended that someone called him out on his crap, unaccustomed to it, proving himself as being as thin-skinned as a glass frog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_frog)'s abdominal skin. He never understand the concept of that in order to be respected, you must be respectful to others, instead of assuming that people must not only respect him, but revere him, without any reason to.

The only reason that he was a guard for Miranda was because he thought that this would be an easier job than working security at CADMUS, where they were really much more of hard-asses for work diligence and really intolerant of laziness or tardiness. Or flaking out whenever he just felt like coming into work*, apparently oblivious to the ire that this generates in his coworkers, later claiming "tiredness" and "feeling sick".

So why Miranda put him in charge of guarding the server room was beyond anyone's comprehension.

***

She proceeded to the "G"s. She flipped through the Gabbit, Gagh, Galidyn, Galilean, Galvan, Galvanic Mechamorph, Gand, Gaoul, Garthok, and Gastropod entries with only a cursory glance. Even with this briefest glimpses at the pictures that accompany the files, she could tell that none of these were the ones that she was looking for.

"Not here, either," she muttered.

She persisted through the Gelagrub, Gel-sucker, Gem, Geochelone Aerio, Gharzr, Ghhhk, giant canal carp, giant kangaroos, Gigglepie, Gil'Dishpan, Gill-Head, Givin, Glommer, Glop monster, Glukkon, and Glymphid entries. Again, none of these were the one that she was looking for.

"This is getting monotonous," she growled in frustration.

She checked the Gnalish, Gnarltree, Gnasp, Goa'uld, Godoan, Gorn, Gorph, Gorryl slug, Gossam, Gotal, Gouka dragon, Gourmand, Gran, granite slug, Grazerite, Great Devil Corker, Great Thranta, Great Vampire, Gree, green Martians,Grel, Grepoan, Gro-Tye, Grounder, Groveback, Grunka Lunka, Gubbage Cone, Gullipud, Gungan, Gurreck, Gweld, and Gyrosprinter entries. None of these were the species she so desperately wanted to find.

"Ugh," she said. "Onto the 'H's."

---

* I've actually had to work with TWO people like this at my job. One was fired, and the other one I hope either quits or gets fired.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2018, 04:54:51 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Navigating the Facility

John stood around, apparently counting the dust particles in the air. His gun appeared to be holstered, but, in truth, he had left it at home, neglecting to bring it with him. He didn't care about doing quality work, after all. He was just drawing a paycheck (or at least, he thought that he was), and that's what he cared about. He didn't care about making friends with the other guards (after all, he thought they were just lowly grunts and peasants, and that he was far better than them . . . for no reason, really -- he just believed that he was).

Then he leaned against the the wall to the left of the sliding metal door to the server room, where the stolen, copied files from the RAFian species database (which wasn't a comprehensive list -- some species they haven't encountered or just forgot to input into the database) were stored. Fortunately, they couldn't get into the Archives, which detailed the RAFians' personnel files, forum history, and events of interest, as those had no external lines and were heavily fortified. That rabid Pikachu essentially guarding it.

John shut his eyes, as he crossed his arms across his chest. This job was very boring, but it was a job. And one that he never took seriously, which was a major point in contention with his coworkers, and he either didn't care or didn't know. They rarely talked to him, and when Quentin did, John got upset and said twice, "EXCUSE ME?!" as if it was unthinkable that anyone to dissent from his actions. Then he turned around and demanded that Quentin never talk to him again, as if he were a person of a higher echelon of society than he really was. He was clearly unaccustomed to anyone disagreeing with him, or disliking his actions. It flew in the face of his self-narrative that he was just so great, cracked his deliberate misconception that he was beloved and admired, when he was neither.

His head dipped deeper, before jerking up to its original position.

He thought nothing of his condescending, elitist attitude. He never conceived of wronging others. In his mind, he was the only one could be wronged. He was always the victim. He was always the plaintiff, and never the defendant. He never conceived of any action performed or statement given as being anything less than perfect. That every action performed or statement given was always free of ramification or consequence, as it was always the right thing to do, and never poorly executed, in his heavily biased opinion.

His breathing slowed and became very regular.

He thought nothing of leaving his coworkers hanging with his frequent and often unannounced absences. He thought the excuses he made up for the absences were masterful works of deception, when, in reality, they were childish and amateurish. Only Quentin had enough of this and told him off for it, while the others usually just ignored John, the absolute travesty of a person that he was, or just smiled and let him think these grandiose things about himself.

His shoulders sagged.

He was clearly accustomed to always having all his needs met, and no one saying a thing about his condescending, contemptuous tone of voice, even though it rankled a very many amount of people around him. He was unaware that his extremely permissive upbringing wouldn't translate very well into the real world. He expected people to baby him, and tell him that he's a good boy. When he wasn't. He wasn't aware how harsh and unforgiving the real world could be, that his actions could have negative repercussions on those around him.

He swayed on the spot he stood.

By some miracle, he was married. He didn't even need a job, as he could live off her job's wages. It was a wonder who would ever marry such a person. They were childless (which was good -- there was no way John would be even able to hand a child, especially because he, himself, was essentially the child of the family). None of his coworkers knew what his home life was like, and very few, if any, really cared. They mostly dreaded having to work with him, since they knew that they would have to do a bulk of the work, as he was more inclined to be on his phone . . . or sleep on the job.

Then the snores started, as he fell to the floor.

***

The RAFians entered the facility with very little fanfare, which was precisely what they wanted. Broken had Disillusioned (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Disillusionment_Charm) this team, except Cloak, on which the charm wouldn't have worked anyway. Realm Walkers are basically magic Teflon -- no magic sticks to them. Anyway, they continued on the straightaway, and Cloak could tell immediately that whoever was in charge of this facility had only the most minimal security staffing. There weren't even security cameras. He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as the humans say.

They soon came to a "T"-shaped split in the hallway, and, without breaking stride, Cloak took the lefthand route. Then they came to a sharp right turn into a hallway with two perpendicular pathways leading from it, one in the middle and one at the end of the hallway, both on the left. They went to the one at the end of the hallway. This led to a semicircular pathway, which arced to the right. Then they came to two parallel hallways, linked by a short connecting corridor. They took that connecting corridor and took the right path from there and continued onward. Then they had to turn sharply at a forty-five degree angle, then once again.

And they still weren't close to the server room, and they had yet to come across any security patrols. It was almost like those four guards were the only ones that this facility had -- talk about being understaffed! There were turtle-like drones, every now and then, and one or two that resembled raccoons and very small hippos, but they all ignored the Disillusioned RAFIans, and Cloak stayed out of their vision, looking nothing more like a black shadow if they managed a glimpse.

***

As she said she would, Miranda started through the "H"s. She scrolled through the H'nemthe, Hakarian, Harch, Harrowbeast, Hath, Havok beast, Hazari, Hedzek, Helmacron, Hengrauggi, Hepsalum Tash, Hermaphlamingo, Hirogen, Hiromi, Hoojib, Hook-tailed Flyer, Hoothi, Hoover, Hopper-cone, Hork-Bajir, Horta, Houjix, Houk, Howler, Hupyrian, Hulex, Hutt, Hydronoid, and Hypnotoad entries.

"Damn," she cursed, "onto the 'I's, then."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2018, 07:26:33 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Roundabout Way

They rested a bit to allow Cloak to get a better bearing of where they were.

Then they proceeded to a hallway that doubled back, with a short connecting corridor between the two, making an "A"-shape. They took the short connecting corridor, and proceeded left from that connecting hallway. Then they came to a straightaway path that turned to the left, connecting the original corridor, before veering off at a forty-five degree angle. They took this short cut and went into the corridor that veered off at that diagonal. Then they traveled from a curved corridor, and then came to two parallel pathways with another short connecting hallway. They took this connecting hallway and then headed left from there. Then they came to a fork in the path, both of which branched off at forty-five degree angles. They took the left one, and soon were standing outside the server room.

***

Meanwhile, outside the facility, Ash was still pretending to be Chris Gottfried, Underseen was still pretending to be Leon Wyatt, Rocky was pretending to be Quentin Beckinkal, and Empress Goose was still body hopped Dick Grey. They still stood outside.

"This is rather boring," Rocky said, though it came out as Quentin's voice, as he was projecting the hologram of the man around himself.

"That's what being a guard is about, apparently," Goose said, in Dick's gruff voice. Then he pointed to Dick's chest with Dick's finger, "At least from this Dick guy."

"Why are you so uncomfortable in him?" Underseen said.

"I never really enjoy hopping people like this," he said. "And for this long. Always makes me feel like I'm manipulating them. Stealing from them. Not to mention this guy's mind is an absolute mess. There is no mental organization in here."

"But you do it with seemingly no compunction," Rocky said, speaking with Quentin's voice. "Or hesitation."

Goose seemed to take offense at this, but when he spoke it was with determined calm. "Just because I don't show outward remorse or regret with what I have to do, doesn't mean that it's not there. I'm not like . . ."

"Like who?"

Instead of replying, Goose seeming just fell out of Dick, who grunted at this, then blinked and gazed around with groggy confusion. Goose didn't hesitate to jump back in and try to modify his memory of that incident as just a dream.

"You didn't see that," Goose said, through Dick. He found falling out of someone he body hopped to be quite embarrassing, despite the fact he wanted to get out of the clustered mess that was Dick Grey.

"You're not like who, though?" Ash said, who wasn't so easily distracted.

"No one," Goose said, making sure not to fall out of Dick this time. "Never mind. It's not important."

But it clearly was important to him.

***

Miranda was starting to wonder if hacking into this database and copying the files (in the hope that she wouldn't be discovered) was really worth the immense effort that it took to procure. She wasn't finding the species she wanted. But, still, she persisted, looking through the Ibian, ice bore, Ice-Crawler, Icedart, Ice Scrabbler, Ice Warrior, Iktotchi, Imhotep, Incursean, instant Martian, Inter Minorian, interphasic organism, Iotian, Irkburgle, Irkian, Ishi Tib, Isolus, Issori, Ithenite, Ithorian, Ixion, and Ixll entries.

"Dammit," she cursed, "onto the 'J's, then."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 11, 2018, 08:11:54 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Slumber and Search

The RAFians came to the sliding door that lead to the server room. There slumped over to the left of the door, snoring quite obviously, and didn't stir when they showed up. Cloak waited, and saw, through Earthsight, that this guard's slumber never faulted even a little bit when they came up. He was clearly a terrible guard, but this was fortunate to the RAFians. Though Cloak did find it a little odd that there were only five guards for the entire facility. Talk about understaffed! He supposed those robotic turtle, raccoon, and hippo drones made up for it, but they were not exactly the most effective things on the planet.

The RAFians examined the door. Like everything else in this makeshift facility, it bore some rust damage. To its left, above the deeply slumbering guard's feet, was a number pad. The buttons for 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 had the printed numbers show a noticeable wear and tear, while the buttons for 1 and 5 appeared to be untouched. Clearly, 1 and 5 wasn't part of the code to get in.

"Got it," Guy whispered, holding a small notebook laptop that they all brought with them, and appeared to be Disillusioned just like them. He was whispering as to not rouse the sleeping guard, although Cloak suspected greatly that it would take an earthquake or flashing flooding to wake the dude up. Guy stepped up to the pad and pressed 8-3-2-4-6-2-7-2-4-9. The door shuttered and slid, almost awkwardly, to the right, getting stuck once or twice. It was almost as if it was a door on a television set that had to pulled manually. "Whew, that was just an educated guess."

"In," Cloak said, ushering them in. Once they were in, the door shuttered shut. They felt that they could talk above a whisper, but lower than their normal volume. These walls could be paper-thin, so to speak. Cloak looked at the room, at large. It was a fairly spacious room, with the servers sticking out of the floor rather reminiscent of the plates of a stegosaurus, or a grove of plants. The floor here was actually metal, but it was so dusty and encrusted with dirt that it looked as if the flooring was dirt. The entire room had the smell and feel of neglect, despite the abundance of use.

"Okay," Cloak said, with a low voice. "Do your stuff, guys."

As the Disillusionment Charm seemed to wear, Aquilai, Xeno, Guy, Yarin, Goom, and Aquilai went to work, plugging directly into the server. Cloak didn't know if this was an orthodox way of hacking -- on-site hacking -- as he would freely admit that he didn't know everything about human technology. Veil, he didn't know everything about Realm Walker tech, much like that average layman wouldn't.

The room resolved into silence, other than the quiet clacking of keyboard. Even Goom, despite the fact that he didn't have any arms or hands or any manipulation appendage that could be used in a similar manner. It was always a bit of a mystery of how he and his species managed to do this. Was it tactile telekinesis? Was it some unseen appendages that not even Cloak himself could see? In the grand scheme of things, Cloak supposed that it didn't really matter.

While the others were doing this, Cloak stood by the door. He was keeping watch via his Earthsight, afraid that the sleeping guard might have garnered attention from his fellows, that demonstrated that they were here. Cloak couldn't have known that this was actually fairly commonplace for John. He often fell asleep on the job, which was a point of contention for him and his coworkers. The RAFians only had to deal with five guards thus far, but that didn't mean that there were only five guards. Granted, it seemed that way, but Cloak didn't have enough evidence to be sure for sure.

He just hoped that the others worked quickly. Sure, he could just destroy the servers with his elemental might. But that would undoubtedly lead to an explosion. Explosions, by their very nature, are not covert and generally attracts very unwanted attention. So, knowing this, Cloak opted against this.

***

He needn't have had to worry. The truth of the matter was that there was, indeed, only five guards. Miranda didn't inspire much loyalty when she was at CADMUS. Initially, it was more, but over time, they left for various reasons. Work conditions, Miranda's nonpayment for their services, Miranda's abusive authoritarianism, amongst other things that have a tendency to drive away people from vocations.

Chris, Wyatt, Dick, and Quentin were the only ones who were devoted enough to Miranda to stay. John just stayed for the imaginary paycheck and because he wasn't the most employable person in the world.

***

"Let's see what a disappointment these things are in the 'J's," Miranda muttered, as she flipped through the jackal mastiff, Jaffa, Jagaroth, Jakabird, Jarell, Jawa, Jazbinan, Jelly-bladder plant, Jem'Hadar, Jenet, Jerni, Jetdarter, Jillsarian, Jilruan, Jimvu, Jinda, Jitterbug, Jo-adian, Jokhalli, Jubba bird, Jubba-Jubba, and Judoon entries. "Ugh. None of these are the right species. Dammit. Onto the 'K' entries."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2018, 05:27:20 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
'K' and 'A'

Miranda sighed, as she pawed through the kaadu, kafit bird, kahler, kaiju, Kaleesh, Kallidahin, Kaminoan, Kanassan, Karemma, Karfelon, Kargul, Karkarodon, Kasheeta, Kastrian, Katarn, Keejin, Keeled Slider, Kel Dor, Kelbrid, Kelemanean, Kete, Khommite, Khormai, Khramboan, Kindalo, Kineceleran, Kintan Strider, Kitonak,Klingon, Klingon monster dog, K'lor'slug, Klorb, Kluuzot, Kobali, Kobheerian, Korugaran, Kouhun, Kowakian monkey-lizard, Kraaho, Kraang, Krafayis, Krakai, Krarg, Krayt dragon, Kreegon, Kreetassan, Kreetle, Kressari, Krevaaki, Krevol, Krikhasi, Krish, Kron, Krontep, Kroton, Krozurbian, Krylorian, Krynoid, Kryptonian, Kryptonian dog, Krytollak, Kubaz, Kulless, Kumumgah, Kurtzen, Kushiban, Kwa, Kweltikwan, Kylothian, Kynachi, and Kyuzo entries

"None of these, either." she sighed, frustration threatening to engulf her. "Ugh. Onto the 'L's, I guess. But I don't have any expectation that those will yield anything for me."

She never noticed how her screens had a subtle static, like playing a blank VHS tape. She was too intent on getting the information that she was after. Granted, she could have actually asked for the information (it was a species that the RAFians had dealt with before, after all, a long time ago). Granted, that wouldn't guarantee that she would get it, but she could have been healed in other ways.

But she was far too proud to go that route. She preferred this way, just taking what she wanted. Though she just copied the database files, they weren't hers to copy. They weren't hers to take. They were a culmination and collaboration of the RAFian's knowledge, Cloak's bestiary knowledge of species through out the Realms, and Estelore's observations from her sojourns, and the work was theirs, the information was generated by them. She had no right to take it without permission, but she didn't care. She was accustomed to being allowed to do as she pleased, with nary a consequence or ramification for such hasty, in-the-moment decisions.

But this . . . she went too far with this. She stole from the forum. The RAFians knew that she stole from them, so they were going to delete her copy of their files. Because that was their prerogative -- to take it back, to prevent its dissemination to others. It was theirs -- if they wanted to information, they could go out and gather it themselves, and aggregate it themselves. This was just lazy on Miranda's part, though if you ask her, she would regale you with how hard it was to hack into the RAFian mainframe and copy the database without their knowledge -- as she didn't know that RAFians, in fact, did recognize what was happening, despite being too late from her taking the information.

That's why the RAFian team was currently in the server room, guarded by one of the most powerful RAFians at their disposal. They were busy hacking -- this way was a bit more convert. The hack couldn't be tracked back to the forum, so Miranda wouldn't be able to play the victim about the hacking. If anything, they'd see it coming from their OWN server room. If anyone would be blamed, it would have been one of the guards, all of which were incapacitated in such a way. Four of which were currently being impersonated with the last one still slumbering deeply on the job.

Cloak was keeping a careful, and almost paranoid, watch. He didn't know that all the guards were taken care of -- well, except John Perdigiorno, who took himself out, essentially. And he was being very diligent in his role, ignoring the monotonous clacking of keyboards.

"We've accessed the copied database," Guy announced, in a low voice. "But they've added their own sort of encryption."

'Meaning?" Cloak asked.

"We'll have to go through the files, one by one," Goom said, not even looking up. "Deleting them from their copied database. It won't let us do it all at once."

"That seems a bit contrived," Cloak muttered. "But, okay. Go as quickly as you can."

No one raised an objection to that, but just started clacking their keyboards with a renewed fervor. It was almost as if they had to delete each file character by character.

Soon enough, Xeno announced, "The 'A' files have been scrubbed from these servers."

"Good. Don't stop," Cloak said.

Cloak didn't like what he saw through his Earthsight -- the guard outside seemed to finally be rousing.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 14, 2018, 05:49:31 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Progress and No Progress

"Yarin," Cloak whispered, barely moving his lips. "The guard outside this room is stirring."

Yarin stopped clacking on his small notebook laptop. At least, with one hand. The other four were clearly still hard at work, though a bit distracted. He placed his upper left hand to his temple and his six eyes fluttered shut. He was using his telepathy to trigger the sleep response in the guard outside. This was far easier than the Nyac ever expected. It was quite effortless, and the Nyac RAFian conveyed this to the others.

"A lazy guard," Goom said, sarcastically, "will wonders never cease."

Then silence fell over the assembled RAFians once more, and the quiet clacking of keyboard reasserted itself as the dominant sound of the room. Cloak was still the lookout. He was sure that the slumbering guard would have attracted attention -- but Yarin had gleaned some thoughts from his mind as he put him back to sleep. He assured the others that apparently this was a fairly common act by the guard.

"Then this place must have ridiculous job security," Xeno whispered.

Yarin stopped again, and looked at the others, "You know . . . we have a resource to things here, slumbering right outside the door there."

"What do you mean?" Aquilai asked, knowing precisely what Yarin was suggesting.

"We can find out how many guard there are," Yarin said, slowly, "It'll just take a little a probing into his mind."

"Is that ethical?" Cloak said, feeling quite well that it wasn't. It was a distinct invasion of privacy, and Yarin had to have known this.

"It's not like I want to plunge in and get his deepest darkest secrets," Yarin said, indignantly, as if someone insulted his microwave again. "I'm not like Merser. It'll just be fishing for the one pertinent nugget of information. It surely would be surface knowledge."

"And if it isn't?" Cloak asked.

Yarin didn't answer.

"The 'B' files have been deleted successfully," Guy announced, ending the uncomfortable silence.

Meanwhile, Miranda was flipping through the Lactran, Lahdia plant, Lakertyan, Landrusian, Lankin, Lapling, larvae gun, Leaf-tail, Leeran, Leffingite, Lenopan, Lepidopterran, Leviathan, Lewodan, Limax, Lipole, Lissepian, LGM, Littoralope, Lizling, Llwelkyn, Lobel, Loboan, Logopolitan, luck sprite, Lugal-Irra-Kush, Luminar, Lurian, Lurman, Lurmen, Lutrillian, Lycanthrope, and Lyco Pibex entries. "Nope, all useless to me."

She sighed, "Onto the 'M's, then."

Back to the RAFians, the silence stretched as the clanking of keyboards once again overtook everything else as the dominant sound of the room. Cloak had to admit that Yarin's proposition was tempting. More intel would be useful, but they could surmise that from what they have encountered (or lack of encounters) that there was at least less than ten guards. Granted, it wasn't a firm, confirmed number, but that surmised, estimated number was the best they could do without infringing on the grounds of morality. The proposition was still tempting.

"We could do with a little intel," Guy said, slowly.

"No," Cloak said, firmly. "We go down that slippery slope, we may never come back."

"It surely would be surface, Cloak," Yarin insisted.

"And what would be stop you from doing that to everyone who couldn't stop you?" Cloak said. "You could use the argument that 'it's just surface knowledge' to excuse it. Even when it isn't."

Yarin stopped clacking on his laptop completely. "I'm not like that, Cloak."

"And you weren't recreating that Veiled microwave a second and third time?" Cloak said. "Without a care of the negative ramifications of it?"

Yarin didn't correct him with the use of "microwave". Yarin replied, mulishly, "It's not the same thing."

"Isn't it? You carelessly and crassly recreated that thing, or tried to, until you were discovered, and if we gave you leeway this time, would you stop? Would just telepathically probe anyone and everyone you could just because it was 'surface knowledge', which you could always redefine the definition of? Going deeper and deeper and claim that it's still 'surface knowledge'? It's a slippery slope, Yarin, one that return may not be possible."

An uncomfortable silence expanded once more, broken only went Goom announced, "The 'C' files have been deleted."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2018, 04:44:46 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Quiet Progress, Loud Irritation

"The 'C' files have been deleted," Xeno announced in a whisper.

After that declaration, an uncomfortable silence fell. Cloak knew that he had suddenly made himself unpopular with Yarin, and perhaps with Guy and the others as well. But he was steadfast and adamant in his stance. They had to maintain at least some semblance of restrain and integrity. He's seen it far too often with his species back in the Universal Nexus.

Good people getting swayed by power, both great and small, and suddenly the illegal activities and crimes they commit, no matter how minor, "don't count" because they're apparently special in some way or manner. And once swayed, they are more than willing to do all sorts of mental gymnastics that would baffle Dweller politicians. But such dirty politics . . . Realm Walkers may have very well been the first to indulge in them, but they were most certainly not the only system of government blighted by such corruption and deceit and misrepresentation.

Cloak could not allow the forum to fall down such a pit. There was not a Veiled thing that he could do to salvage that corrupted, gangrenous wound that was the Realm Walker Council -- no matter how noble and progressive a candidate was before succeeding in claiming the Councilor position, they were inevitably corrupted by decadence, opulence, and luxury. Their heads were turned from the plights of the Realm Walker people towards their own hedonistic pleasures. And their history texts reflected this, as apparently the Council did not see to put their propaganda into the schoolchildren's textbooks. They were too self-interested, and too busy crafting legislation to suit themselves.

The Realm Walkers once did have a Constitution-like document, but that had been basically ripped up and thrown out long before Cloak was even thought of. Eventually, the Council stopped pretending that they were constitutionalists and even had the best interests of the populace and the electorate at heart. Then again, they change seats so frequently -- far more quickly than any nation in this realm, on this planet, did. The political power was a lot more volatile in the Nexus, and the Dwellers' variation of it was far more stable in comparison. There was constant backstabbing, usurping positions, blackmail, and the like. Politics is not an occupation in the Nexus that one takes without expecting some drama in some way.

It was a secret fear of his, one that he wasn't even consciously aware of this fear, a fear that the forum would become the utter mess like the Realm Walker Council was. But the forum was far more stable, unified with mutual respect and intent, cared for one another in a genuine and honest way. None of which was true for the disingenuous, faux professional, deceptive, cutthroats on the Council or any other position of relative political and financial power. Cloak suspected this is one reason why his species first started to Walk the Realms. To get away from this sheer, unregulated madness. Any time there's relative stability, everyone knows that it will never last. There were brief spans of time where relative peace reigned, and the Walkers could go about their lives, business as usual. But, eventually, there would be a political upheaval, and they would find themselves with five new Councilors, who inexplicably ended up there.

And, yet, many of them had the nerve to look down on Realm Dwellers, and deem themselves superior in every way, when that wasn't really true.

"The 'D' files have been deleted," Goom pronounced, in whisper.

Meanwhile, Miranda was flipping through the M'mannix, Macra, Magnedon, Magrathean, Majin, Mak'Tar, Makurth, Mala'kak, Malmooth, Mandrel, Mantasphid, Mantellian Savrip, Many-Angled Ones, Markovian, Marshmen, Martian, Martian dog, Mawkaw Magkong, Maxatomar, Meatian, Medusan, Melkot, Melmacian, Melmacian ****roach, memory worms, Menoptera, Mentor, Mercora, Merdlidop, Merdoc, Methanosian, Microbrain, Mikan, Millicron, Millitile, Minaran, minotaur, mire beast, Mirialan, mnemoraptor, Moappa, Mogarian, Mon Calamari, Monean, Monnok, Monoid, Moocher, Moozle, Morganian, Morlox, Morp, Morpho, Morok, Mrlssi, Mucilator, Mudokon, Mugruebe, Muklukian, Multiform, Mummy-nest flyer, Munyip, Muroid, Mustafar lava flea, Mustafarian, Mutriok, Myneyrsh, Mynock, and Myrka entries.

"None of these species are the one. They're all useless to me!" she growled. "Onto the 'N's. It's gotta be in here somewhere."

Back in the server room, Guy announced, "The 'E' files have been deleted."

Yarin was focusing on the work, but the back of his mind wandered. He didn't like what Cloak was suggesting, at all. He wouldn't have gone down such a path for just gleaning some information from a guard's mind. It wasn't like that he was going to go burrowing into the man's psyche like Merser, that crazy Yeerk mutation. Despite what happened with the whole Food Yield Increaser thing, he wasn't without morality. He wasn't without scruples. He wasn't without reason.

Yarin felt that Cloak was overreaching, and looking too deeply in such a simple request. Yarin would argue that it was an invasion of privacy, as he would just be brushing the surface of his mind to see if it was buzzing about any pertinent, usable information. He wasn't advocating digging to his deepest, darkest secrets and putting him in a vegetative state. Yarin couldn't see any slippery slope that Cloak was pointing out, so he refused to acknowledge that there even was a slippery slope. He could be just as obstinate as Cloak in this.

And, Yarin thought, wasn't it just a bit hypocritical of Cloak to ask him to trigger slumber in the guard telepathically, and won't allow him to scrape . . . to scan the surface of the man's thoughts for any pertinent information. It was like just listening to a man muttering to himself, what thoughts that he was already thinking. Maybe influence him a little to think of the information that he was looking for . . . Cloak just didn't understand the intricacies of the mind and telepathy.

"The 'F' files have been deleted," Aquilai announced, in a low voice.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2018, 09:36:08 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a little early.

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Deletion and Unaware

"The 'G' files have been deleted," someone said before being quickly followed with someone replying, "The 'H' files have been deleted."

Cloak was aware that Yarin wasn't too happy with his stance. He knew that it made him unpopular with the Nyac. But he would not yield. He's seen in his own species history just how easily one could be swayed into corruption. Its one reason that he fears his own power -- the way he dealt with the siren had actually opened his eyes . . . he was no different from others of his species. He could just as easily be swayed by power -- which is why he never sought political office. Actually, no Elements Master ever did. He suspected that it was for the same reasoning that he, himself, did not, otherwise it just did not interest them. To be fair -- he only other Elements Masters that he knew personally were his grandfather Sage, ancestor Avatar, and his niece Shadow.

Cloak folded his arms, a nonverbal cue that he was standing by his assertions, that he would mulishly defend his position. Just telepathically probing people left, right, and center? How can that not be a slippery slope? Yarin had proved how little restraint that he had with all those microwaves he tried to build, even after the colossal FAILURE of his first prototype. Frankly, Cloak wondered if he did it already, and just didn't say anything.

No, no. He didn't detect any lies in his communication about it. But still . . . throwing away any restraint is a surefire path to abusing your abilities, ignoring the terrible responsibility that even having such abilities come with, that it entails. There were various applications of his powers that Cloak would never dare to even dream using. Like what he called 'breathbending' -- aerokinetically pulling the air from a target's lungs, asphyxiating them. He probably could use that, but that didn't mean that he should.

Granted, what Yarin suggested wasn't anything that severe. But Cloak saw the trappings there . . . the trappings that would lead him deeper down that path. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean that you should. Yarin may have thought it was a "nothing" request, a "no-big-deal" sort of suggestion. But what's to stop him from asking permission next time? And it wasn't the guard's permission that he was asking for, either. Cloak didn't use his powers so willy-nilly, and he resented the fact that the Nyac seemed to think that, judging by the obstinate look upon his face whenever he cast a glance at him.

Restraint. Measured control. These were the things that Sage had always taught him when he was training in all six elements. His abilities were, unsurprisingly, tied to his emotions, so he had to maintain the same level of control over himself as well. For if he lost control of himself, he lost control of himself. And every time that he did, he made situations worse rather than better. He didn't forget their first encounter with Garrotik. Cloak was so blinded with emotion and a single-minded goal, that he wound up empowering Garrotik, rather than weakening him. He had made their situation worse on that occasion. Had Richard not arrived when he did, and seemingly slew the monster . . . Cloak preferred not to think about it.

"The 'I' files have been deleted," Aquilai said, while Goom followed up, saying, "The 'J' files have been deleted."

Melissa continued flipping through the database files, mulling over the N'Kai, N'rrgal, Na'kuhl, Nagai, Nakkadan, Namekian, Namekian frog, Nanochip, Narglatch, Nasat, Nausicaan, Navarino, Necrofriggin, Nedenah, Nek, Neimmoidian, Nemuina, Neptunian, Neptunian slug, Nesk, Netcaster, Neti, Neutral people, New God, Nexosporidium, Nexu, Ng'ok, Nharpira, Nibblonian, Nilian, Nimbanel, Nimon, Nitrium parasite, Nometian, Noorian, Norcadian, Nos monster, Nosaurian, Nosedeenian, Nudj, Nuknog, Null, Null Guardians, Nuna, and Nyork entries.

"None. Again," she muttered. "This is proving to be not worth the effort."

"The 'K' files have been deleted," Xeno declared, as, moments after, Guy announced, "The 'L' files have been deleted."

Yarin thought that Cloak was being a complete hypocrite. He uses his powers all the time, even frivously. His Earthsight is literally always "on". And yet he wants to criticize him from using the powers that he was born with? He wasn't going to wreck the guard's mind looking for information. He had never done that, and he never had any intention to start. He wasn't that ruthless.

Yarin gave the Realm Walker dirty looks, to match his scrutinizing glances. He thought he was so much better, didn't he? Sure, not all of Yarin's inventions panned out, but all of them were made with good intentions at heart. The FYI was invented to help with world hunger in not only this, but other worlds who were struggling with the same thing. He had no intention on charging any amount or sort of currency for it, just the satisfaction that he helped someone. He wasn't a tyrant, he was a philanthropist! He always worked for the common good, and always did things with the very best of intentions.

Was it his fault that other beings wanted to misuse his inventions for their own benefit? That they sought them for with nefarious goals in mind? Was it really his fault? Was it Buick's fault when one of their cars are used for vehicular manslaughter? Was it Alexander Graham Bell's fault for people making harassing phone calls? Was the intended misuse of his inventions really his fault? Was it truly his responsibility for any ill done from them? Why did he have to take accountability, the responsibility, for the malicious intent of others?

He wasn't as ruthless as Cloak was suggesting. He wasn't. He wasn't. Although . . . he did render the Furons unable to reproduce normally. He had effectively sterilized them all to end a war. And he did it with little regret at the time. On that, he did bear responsibility for it. On that, he had to be held accountable for that. He . . . he was ruthless then. He did it, without consideration for any after effects. But he was . . . he was a different person then. He was. He was young, reckless, naive . . . he wasn't like that anymore. He wasn't.

Was he?

"The 'M' files have been deleted," Yarin said, tonelessly. Moments later, Aquilai proclaimed, "The 'N' files have been deleted."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2018, 10:50:42 PM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Search FAIL!!

"The 'O' files have been deleted," Xeno announced, while Goom pronounced, "The 'P' files have been deleted."

Cloak reflected on his conversation again, trying to see in a more objective way. He was willing to admit that he probably handled it in a rather poor way. He was willing to acknowledge such. He was aware of his flaws, because he did have his flaws. Perfection was an impossibility, as far as the Realm Walker was concerned. He wasn't perfect, and everyone needed flaws. No one liked someone who believed themselves to be perfect in everything that they do . . . but he didn't know about John Perdigiorno, the guard outside, and the fact that he was evidently married to a globetrotting well-off wife.

"The 'Q' files have been deleted," Yarin said, tonelessly, while Guy declared, "The 'R' files have been deleted."

He would have to apologize for his forcefulness of his beliefs. What right did he really have to force his beliefs on others? He was being obstinate, he knew. It was something that he inherited from his mother. He would be a fool to not acknowledge this, and disavow it. He could be quite stubborn when he is convinced that he's right . . . something else that he inherited from his mother. But, unlike her, he knew this aspect about himself, and he could look at himself in a somewhat objective light.

"The 'S' files have been deleted," Aquilai reported, while Guy reported, "The 'T' files have been deleted."

Granted, Yarin wasn't entirely faultless, but it could have escalated needlessly.

"The 'U' files have been deleted," Goom announced, while Xeno reported, "The 'V' files have been deleted."

***

"What's this?!" Miranda demanded. Her search for the species in the "O" file hit a snag. She was apoplectic with rage when she saw the "O" files just came up with an error screen. Probably useless anyway . . . though she was still miffed about this. What if the species she was looking for began with an "O"? She would just cross that bridge when she got to it, but this caused her health to deteriorate at a slightly more quickened pace.

She tried to look at the "P" files. "File not found". She erupted, "WHAT?!"

She quickly shifted to the "Q" files. "File not found". She was starting to panic. She needed to find that species. It was the only way to save herself! It was her only salvation!

She tried to search through the "R" files. They weren't there, either! This wasn't going to be good for her health, much less her heart. She

She tried to search through the "S" files. Gone! All gone! These were all gone!! Her heart began to palpitate in a rather concerning manner.

She tried to find the "T" files, desperately. These were gone as well. The "U" files and the "V" files were gone as well . . . and her access to the "W" files was being denied! Her health was worsening with each letter, as well. If she didn't calm down . . . well, searching the files would be the least of her problems. . . .

***

"The 'W' files have been deleted," Aquilai pronounced, while Yarin tonelessly declared, "The 'X' files -- not the show -- have been deleted."

Yarin was now considering how he was handling the entire issue, as well. He considered that maybe that he hadn't considered all the potential drawbacks. He realized that he was just making excuses. Making excuses and attempting to shirk blame away from himself. He was running away from responsibility, and accountability, for his inventions. As much as he didn't want to take the blame, refusing to, when his inventions are misused, was not bravery or noble. It was cowardly . . . he was cowardly . . .

"The 'Y' files have been deleted," Goom declared, while Guy said, "The 'Z' files have been deleted. It's done."

"Then let's get out of here," Cloak said, at once. "Pull out at once!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2018, 05:16:23 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Untying Up

The RAFians easily left the server room, and left the facility -- only barely registering how the guard outside the room was gone. They never knew that he had awoken in the middle of their hacking, and decided that he "didn't feel well". So, he went home without another word. Didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, They proceeded carefully and cautiously from the facility, until Cloak recognized the fact that there was a countdown going on.

They pulled the incapacitated and unconscious guards away from the facility -- it was clearly going to blow -- and untied them, and laid them where they slumped. They would regain consciousness in a few hours, and Empress Goose was just happy to get out of Dick's body and his disorganized mind. Then the RAFians were quickly extracted.

It was just another successful mission -- they've been having a lovely string of them as of late. And Cloak and Yarin would have a powwow later on to sort everything out.

***

Miranda was livid. She was feeling very cross, and she wasn't able to get up and go see what went wrong. She didn't have the strength, and what was more crushing was that she'd never discover the species that could have changed everything for her. The species that could have healed her of this malady. The species that could make her beautiful once more. Now, that would never happen.

Granted, she never thought about how she would manage to get into contact with this species and get them to help her, but she considered that a problem for another day. She had to have found the species first. And she didn't. All she saw were USELESS, feckless species that didn't have anything she wanted or needed. She knew the species was black with flecks of gold, but knew nothing else. She didn't even have a name to go off of. She had very little information on them, and now? Now she would never find out. She would always look like this hideous, heinous hag. She'd never reclaim her former beauty again. Her body would always be this twisted, weak thing

She struggled to breathe now, her heart laboriously pumping blood that was thickening into a lead-like viscosity and.was beginning to curdle in her veins. She didn't have long. And what more did she have to live for now? She had no hope of surviving the next few minutes. It was all for nothing. All the work it took her to hack into those files and copy them. Her legacy was forgotten quickly at CADMUS -- she knew this to be true without being presented any evidence supporting or denying this assumption.

Well. It might be over for her, but she wasn't about to go to -- to wherever it was that people go to when they die, alone. She would take the entire facility with her, and any of those guards too stupid to leave this place. That Perdigiorno idiot was probably asleep at his post again. Good -- let that lazy layabout met their maker with her.

With the last of her remaining strength, she initiated the facility-wide self-destruction sequence. Surprisingly enough, it worked, unlike a lot of things in this place. Red light flooded the corridors, washing out actual color for reds and blacks. She was bitter. She was resentful. She was angry. These three emotions, combined together, often make a very noxious, dangerous ****tail.

She was unaware that Quentin, despite the warnings, went to her, wanting to save her. Such was his devotion to a woman who wouldn't even give him the time of day. She had no romantic interest in anyone besides her reflection. She was well aware of his narcissism, but was indifferent and ambivalent towards it. She just hoped to see everyone suffer as she had. The accident that had robbed her of her beauty was just fate ripping off her metaphorical mask and showing the world what she was on the inside. A monster.

Quentin desperately tried to make it to her, only succeeding when the first explosions started to go off. There was no escape from their fate now, and Miranda never found out about the species that she desperately wanted to save her . . . the Technarchy (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Technarchy). More specifically, their techno-organic virus (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Techno-organic_Virus) that they used to feed. . . .

***

John arrived home, but he wasn't alone. He wasn't smart enough to know this, however. He just ambivalently went through his day. His wife, Goldie, wouldn't be back for a while. She was away on business on the other side of the world, making the real money of the relationship. This suited him just fine, as he didn't really want her company all that much. He didn't marry her for love, he married her for her money, and the fact that she had a well-paying job, which she wouldn't elaborate on to him. Which was just fine by him, as he didn't care much about that.

Most of his interests were directed at himself and his enjoyment. He was careful not to be a big spender. He already had that lecture from his wife, and did not care for another one. He was just fortunate that she had no interest in kids -- he didn't want any. It would mean that he would have to grow up and shoulder some real responsibility. And he didn't want to do that. Especially not when he had such a good thing going here. He didn't need to worry about his creature comforts. Well, there was one that he could never indulge in.

Let's just say that he wasn't the most loyal of husbands, but he didn't want to damage his meal ticket, so he never indulged in cheating on Goldie. He continued to maintain the facade of actually caring about her. He didn't want his gravy train to end. He wasn't a very smart person, but he was smart enough not to take Goldie for granted, and knew that he should be rather servile around her.

Anyway, he went home, unaware that someone was there waiting for him. Waiting to ambush him. He went about his business -- took a shower, started to do some laundry. They were well-off, but not enough to employ servants. Sure, there were a couple of cats, but beyond that, the house was empty, almost deserted. It usually was, and he was glad for it. He always secretly dreaded when his wife was in town, as he wouldn't be able to do as he pleased.

He gasped, feeling a pinprick on his neck, roughly five o'clock. He plucked out what appeared to be some sort of dart. He couldn't make heads or tails of it. He was not feeling well at all. He was having difficulty speaking, which quickly progressed into difficulty breathing. His felt his heart beating irregularly. Soon his entire body felt numb. Then sounds suddenly became more and more muted, and he was having difficulty being able to smell anything. He couldn't taste anything, and his vision was blurring. His mind was slowing. Soon his vision, hearing, and touch were nonexistent as he fell..His mind began to numb itself, before his very thoughts themselves ceased. He was now lifeless.

A lifeless skin, still in his casual clothing.

"There," said the one who did this to him, holding a blowdart gun in his right hand. It was Larry Dunn, and he wasn't wearing the Ed Carmichael skin, but au naturel. Carmichael Convertir was currently wearing the Ed Charmichael skin, while a new member of their little cartel was wearing the Ricky Carmichael skin. This new member was in the need of a new job, and he decided to join them, because it seemed to be fun to him. Leon Wyatt agreed to be a member of their little cartel, and now was pretending to be a kid. "A new identity for us."

Larry didn't hesitate to put on John's skin. Larry's extra bulk managing to be compressed into the skin, and given him some extra height, so that he looked exactly like how John looked moments before. He was also able to psychically gain John's memories while he wore his skin. His voice was modified into that of John's. No one would be able to noticed the distinction, that John was dead now, and his skin was being worn like some sort of spandex suit. No one would be the wiser.

And it wasn't John that Larry was truly after. It was Goldie that truly held financial control in this relationship, and that money could prove useful to startup their little cartel. They might be able to recruit more members . . . fortunately, that ocre concoction he used to turn John into a skin was not easily to come by, and far more difficult to make. Larry only had enough for one more . . . and the cartel was only three member strong, right now . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 18, 2018, 04:25:45 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Pumped Up

Shenmue went to a water treatment plant that was evacuated because a fiend made the facility its nest. But, if you asked her, it was more like a sewer. But without the smell. So she decided to be grateful for small favors.

Anyway, descended into the the sewer-like water treatment plant, and she noticed several OSHA violations. There was no way that these working conditions were safe -- there were sheer dropoffs without handrails or the like. She wondered if that was because of the greedy owners or something that the fiend itself did. But that wasn't the point of her mission. She proceeded forward.

It seemed as if she was just going down, via dropshafts. It was almost like they didn't want to splurge for ladders. Fortunately, her RAFian training trained her for situations such as these. Then she finally landed on a landing that had pipes underneath, and it looked as if they were leaking, as this part of the facility was flooded. Perhaps it was a method of cleaning water that she was not really aware of.

Anyway, she continued forward. Of course, her feet got wet, and her socks were soaked through. That was an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, especially because she hadn't spare dry ones. In any case, it would be futile and pointless, as this area was incredibly flooded. they were gonna get wet anyway. She slipped off this pipe-laden walkway, and found herself treading water. Wonderful. Anyway, this was the way forward, so she continued through this almost-intentional gauntlet. She came to an area where she would either have to go underwater to proceed further, or get to a drier area of the facility to make the same progress.

She chose the drier area, pulling herself out of the water. She tried to dry herself as much as she could, before moving on. She moved forward to an ascending ladder. She still thought that this place was a sewer with pure water instead of sewage. When she came to the landing of the ladder, she moved right and climbed another ladder. Once she reached the landing of this ladder, she saw more damaged pipes, as she jumped over a chasm. Clearly, there was, at one time, a walkway here, but she guessed the fiend found it insulting or something. Because it wasn't their anymore.

As she moved forward, she saw many more damaged pipes. She was sure that these were caused by the fiend. No human would do this, nor would want to, no matter how deranged that they were. Then she dropped down a dropshaft, and found herself treading water. Again. Shenmue wasn't very happy. She proceeded forward, out of the water, and down another dropshaft. It helped dry her off again, so she was only slightly damp again. She landed and went through a windy corridor. She fell into a dropshaft, and climb a staircase into another dropshaft. When she landed, she saw the fiend in its nest in the next room over.

The fiend had a black, noseless face with round eyes that had orange sclera and black irises. The rest of his head was orange with a gold ring at its temples, silver human-like ears, and huge orange crest shaped like the handle of a water pump, which it could detach and throw like a boomerang. The main part of its torso was cylindrical, with a huge, gold water nozzle coming from the cylindrical part of its torso, with a silver ring connecting the two. Its shoulders were round, black spheres and its arms were purple accordioning hoses connected to an orange connector to another gold hose faucet on its right, and an orange lower arm and black left hand. Its crotch was black, its thighs were white, and orange shins and pod-like feet.

The room had ankle-deep water in it, and it was perfectly square. When the fiend saw her, it roared a bestial roar. Then it started by hydrokinetically creating eight bubbles around itself that looked like water droplets. Then it jumped around trying to tackle Shenmue. Fortunately, it telegraphed this intent very well, and she was able to dodge (most of time actually managing a "Matrix" dodge). Then it fired these eight bubbles at her, and she managed to avoid it. She didn't quite know how she did, but she did. Then she had to basically limbo under the pump handle crest that it threw, like a boomerang. When it caught it when it came back, it reattached it to its head.

Then it began its attack pattern again. These fiends rarely, if ever, changed up these attack patterns.

Shenmue raised a finger up to the sky, and called down a lightning strike that struck the fiend headon. At first, it didn't seem affected. Just that its droplet shield dissipated. But Shenmue knew that it took the damage. So she did it again, and again, and again. Until the fiend was no more.

***

Demos called it a "ponpusapien".He intended to use it to purify water, and use it to take care of graffiti in cities.

***

Malice was really worried now. She felt that she was quickly becoming irrelevant. She didn't like being marginalized in such a way. She had killed for less.

Seriously.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 19, 2018, 05:07:15 AM

New chapter.
 

BOOK CCLXVI:
EXILED -- BECAUSE OF SPOILERS
CHAPTER ONE:
Solar-Powered Fiend

Cloak took up the fiend mission. He needed some time to get his thoughts out, to parse through them. He knew he had flaws, he knew that flawlessness was impossible -- everyone had flaws, just not everyone was willing to acknowledge them in themselves. The humans call it "smelling their own farts" or something like that.

Anyway, Cloak went to an obsolete sunlight research center, which was a tower-like building. Apparently, it went under and had its funding stripped away because the government didn't like the lack of results. Cloak suspected it was because they wanted to weaponize sunlight -- but he was politically cynical at this point in his life. He wouldn't put it past the Realm Walker Council to pull something like that, and this government seems to be just as corrupt, maybe slightly less.

Cloak climbed up a ladder to a conveyor belt that pushed him forward, and he leaped to another ladder. He made it and he climbed up. Then he saw that there were two conveyor belt platforms before him, leading to another latter. There was no ceiling, and Cloak could see another pair of conveyor belt platforms above him, leading to another ladder directly above him. So he took that ladder instead.

Atop the ladder, there was another conveyor belt leading to a gap between the conveyor belt and another ladder. A lot of ladders. Cloak was starting to see another reason why this funhouse facility closed down. Anyway, he climbed up and walked out the crumbling landing. Down fifteen feet or so, was another conveyor belt platform. Cloak leaped down and then leaped to the ladder on the opposite side, and deftly climbed up it, into the ceiling that he couldn't see from the bottom of this tower.

Cloak proceeded forward . . . coming to a sea of flames, beneath several platforms. Cloak wondered if was OSHA that shut this place down. This had to have been a violation. But he reached the other "shore" beyond this, and hoped that he was done with the sea of fire thing. Was that here before this place was shut down, or a result of no maintenance? Questions for another day. Cloak continued forward, through a shutter door that showed some melting damage. He was going the right direction. The fiend went this way.

Then there were what appeared to be pyrokinetic constructs of songbirds the size of Cloak himself. Cloak wasn't intimidated. At all. But, if they came from the fiend, then it had to be reasonably close by. Cloak snapped his fingers and the constructs popped like balloons, before moving beyond the second set of shutter doors, finding himself at the bottom of another tower. Cloak quickly made his way to the top, not bothering with the ladders this time, and rising to the top atop his energy disc. He had to climb up a ladder in order to get above the ceiling. He moved forward . . . and found another lake of fire, and the platforms "floating" atop it were these conveyor belts, these treadmills.

Cloak narrowed his eyes, and decided that the wasn't doing this. He formed his energy disc again, and careened through this until he came to the other side. He climbed up the ladder on the other side. Upon the landing that the ladder, he came to a room where there were two long ladders leading to the ceiling of this room. He formed his energy disc again, and just zoomed upward. Then he came to a room, and found another ladder on a higher platform from where he came out on. He took the ladder, and continued onward, towards his right, as soon as he came to the landing it led to. After a short hallway, he came to the fiend's nest. The room appeared, at first glance, to have no ceiling. The floor was situated over two pools of fire. There were four pillars, two toward the walls and two in the center of the room. There were bridges connecting all four.

The fiend had a black, metallic face with a faceplate instead of a mouth and human-like eyes with dark green sclera and purple irises. At the crown of its head was a perfectly flat, gold-tipped, green pad with four short, gold, stubby prongs -- it is from this were it can channel sunlight in an offensive way. It had a white neck, with a dark purple poncho-like shield on its torso with three emeralds on its chest. Its upper arms and thighs were white, its lower arms and shins were dark green, its hands and pod-like feet are black, its wrists were silver, and its crotch was black.

When the fiend saw the Realm Walker, the entrance to its little nest was sealed off and it demonstrated its strength in a show clearly intended to intimidate. It failed, naturally. Then it began its attack pattern.

It jumped around the room, firing the stellar energy from its head, which were more fire-based than light-based, sufficient enough that Cloak could deflect these shots. It occasionally tilted its head towards the RAFian, clearly telegraphing its intention to absorb Cloak's energy-based shots in order to power its stellar energy attacks. It always used this solar blaze in its most powerful form, and it shot three of them into the air that fell in his position. Cloak deflected all of them.

Cloak formed a shield of water droplets -- he wasn't taking this fiend really seriously -- which canceled out its attacks and hit it multiple times. It reduced the size of this solar blaze. This fiend was extremely easy to subdue and destroy because of this. Cloak easily unsealed the room, and left with the fiend taken care of.

***

Demos called it a "sorasapien". He claimed that he created it to help out a sunlight research center.

***

Malice paced around impatiently. This fiend battle was just background noise. She was suffering from severe scheme block.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2018, 06:41:40 AM

New chapter.
 

CHAPTER TWO:
Dreams

After the fiend mission, Cloak went to his thread, and meditated. He was back in the black void. He was looking at still, three-dimensional representatives of things that he didn't understand. He didn't think these were species of his imagination . . . he thought that they were real, but he didn't know how. One had the legs of a penguin, the head of an eagle, the body of a chameleon, and the forelimbs of a mammoth, while the image opposite had the main body and head of a tyrannosaur, forelimbs of a mastodon, chest of a pterosaur, right leg of a Smilodon, and left leg of a triceratops.

Instead of being allowed forward there was some sort of tablet that blocked him, but only briefly. He only noticed the Realm Walker characters analogous to "C", "L" "XX", and "VII". He ignored it and moved the tablet as if he was opening a door.

On his left was a creature who had body, arms, paws and head of a white tiger, the left front leg of a pegasus, the left back leg of a griffin, the right front leg of a kirin, the right back leg of a griffin, a shishi (or Chinese guardian lion) armoring, and firebird talons on its right hand. On his right was a creature with ostrich legs, alligator arms, moth body, and the head of a snail. Neither was exactly pleasing to look at, being a horrible mismatched set of parts.

The tablet was there again, real "Ten Commandments" style, having the analogous Realm Walker characters for "CLXXVIII" and "CLXXIX". Once again, Cloak ignored it, and pushed it aside, as if it were a door.

On his left was a creature who had the head of a crane, the ursine body of a bear, the left arm of a wolf, the right arm of an ape, and the lower body of a gorilla. While on the right was a creature with the head of a rhino, the arms of a tiger, the body of a catfish, and the legs of a buffalo.

The tablet once again appeared at the end of the hallway. This time it had the analogous Walker characters for "CLXXX", "CLXXXI", "CLXXXII" and "CLXXXIII". They were also blue, almost as if they were hyperlinks. Cloak paused only a moment, refusing to consider this, and pushed it aside once again, as if it was a door.

On his left was a creature whose right lower leg was a moa, whose left lower leg was a Dogu, who had the upper torso and arms of a sphinx, who had the waist and upper legs of a bull, and who had the head and back of a phoenix. While on the right, directly opposite this other creature, was one that the legs of a spider, the wings of an owl, the torso of a dragon, and the head of a pea****.

The tablet was once again acting as a door to this small little room. It had the analogous Walker characters for "CLXXXIV", "CLXXXV", "CLXXXVI", "CLXXXVII", "CLXXXVIII", "CLXXXIX", "CXC", and "CXCI" on it, with the analogous Walker characters for "MCCXXXVII" on the bottom. He, once again, ignored the importance of this, and pushed the tablet aside, as if it were nothing but a large door.

On his left was a creature with the head and chest of a lion, the back, wings and waist of a condor, the hips and legs of a gorilla, the left arm of a wolf, and the right arm of a wildcat. On his right was a creature with the legs of a grizzly bear, the arms of a firefly, the body of a whale, and the head of a kraken. Both were frozen in action poses, with the one on the left looking a bit more stiff than the one on the right.

Before him was the large tablet that blocked his way like a door again. This time it had the analogous Walker characters for "CXCII", "CXCIII", "CXCIV", "CXCV", "CXCVI", "CXCVII", "CXCVIII", "CXCIX", "CC", "CCI", "CCII", "CCIII", "CCIV", "CCV", "CCVI", and "CCVII". It had the analogous characters for "MCCL" on the very bottom. All of them were blue, like hyperlinks. Cloak ignored it again, and shoved it aside to enter the area beyond.

On his left was a creature with the body of a lion, head of an eagle, right arm of a shark, legs of a bison, and the left arm of a white tiger. On his right was a creature with the head of a bat, the arms of a tyrannosaurs rex, the body of a pegasus, and the legs of a rose bush. On his right was a creature with the head of a dung beetle, the body of a clam, arms of a water flea, and the legs of a dragonfly. Both were in rather stationary positions, but both looked unfriendly.

He looked at the tablet-door, and saw that it had "CCVIII" "CCIX", "CCX", "CCXI", "CCXII", "CCXIII", "CCXIV", "CCXV", "CCXVI", "CCXVII", "CCXVIII", "CCXIX", "CCXX", "CCXXI", "CCXXII", "CCXXIII", "CCXXIV", "CCXXV", "CCXXVI", "CCXXVII", "CCXXVIII", "CCXXIX", "CCXXX", "CCXXXI", "CCXXXII", "CCXXXIII", "CCXXXIV", "CCXXXV", "CCXXXVI", "CCXXXVII", "CCXXXVIII", and "CCXXXIX", with "MCCC" at the very bottom. This gave Cloak pause for only a moment or two, before pushing the door aside and moving on.

On his left was a creature with the left arm of a black bear, the right arm of a polar bear, the head and torso of a gorilla, the right foot of an armadillo, and the waist, left foot, and legs of a rhino. On his right was a creature with the head of a hammerhead shark, the body of a turtle, the wings of phoenix, and the legs of a wolf. Both were posturing in these still images, trying to look intimidating.

Then he looked at the tablet-door here, It had "CCXL", "CCXLI", "CCXLII", "CCXLIII", "CCXLIV", "CCXLV", "CCXLVI", "CCXLVII", "CCXLVIII", "CCXLIX", "CCL", "CCL", "CCLI", "CCLII", "CCLIII", "CCLIV", "CCLV", "CCLVI", "CCLVII", "CCLVIII", "CCLIX", "CCLX", "CCLXI", "CCLXII", "CCLXIII", "CCLXIV", "CCLXV", "CCLXVI", "CCLXVII", "CCLXVIII", "CCLXIX", and "CCLXX", with "MCCCL" at the very bottom. Cloak hesitated just a moment, before he batted the thought away and pushed the tablet-door aside and moving into the next area.

On his left was a creature with the left arm of a wolf, the right arm of a hammerhead shark, and the rest of its body was that of an alligator. On his right was a creature with the legs of a gorilla, arms of a hyena, body of a crow, and the head of an anteater. Both looked like they were beginning a menacing walk cycle but frozen mid-frame.

Then he looked at the tablet-door here. It had "CCLXXI", "CCLXXII", "CCLXXIII", "CCLXXIV", "CCLXXV", "CCLXXVI", "CCLXXVII", "CCLXXVIII", "CCLXXIX", "CCLXXX", "CCLXXXI", "CCLXXXII", "CCLXXXIII", "CCLXXXIV", "CCLXXXV", "CCLXXXVI", "CCLXXXVII", "CCLXXXVIII", "CCLXXXIX", "CCXC", "CCXCI", "CCXCII", "CCXCIII", "CCXCIV", "CCXCV", "CCXCVI", "CCXCVII", "CCXCVIII", "CCXCIX", "CCC", "CCCI", "CCCII", "CCCIII", "CCCIV", "CCCV", "CCCVI", "CCCVII", "CCCVIII", "CCCIX", "CCCX", "CCCXI", "CCCXII", "CCCXIII", "CCCXIV", "CCCXV", "CCCXVI", CCCXVII", and "CCCXVIII", with "MCD" at the very bottom. Cloak wondered idly if this was important, but shook his head and moved forward, pushing the tablet-door aside once more.

On his left was a creature with the head and main torso of a falcon, the right foot of an armadillo, the waist, left foot, and legs of a rhino, the right arm of a giraffe, and the left arm of a stag. On his right was a creature with the head of an ant, the body of a trilobite, the legs of a panda, and no arms of any sort.

Then he looked at the tablet-door that appeared at the end of the room. It read more numbers before ending with "MCDXXV".

It was at this point that Cloak woke up.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2018, 06:19:04 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Sussing It Out and GH's Duel

Unlike some of his other dreams like this, this one stuck with him. Not the monstrous chimeras, but the door-sized tablets. Those letters inscribed upon the doors . . . the ones that look like hyperlinks . . . what did it all mean? He knew that it meant something. Was this a Truth Dream? What could it possibly mean? Did it have something to do with his . . . his Memoirs? He had been writing it all down in secret. He wasn't afraid of Dwellers getting their hands on them and reading them, as it was written in Realm Walker script. Even then, it was chicken scratch.

He didn't have all the answers. Veil, he didn't have even one. But there might be one person who does, one person whose come back from the Veil in his visions. This time he would seek out Aniyu for answers. Cloak sat up and immediately began to start to meditate.

***

Gh was playing his guitar for Leatherhead, telling him of something that happened a couple days prior, after work.

"Shenecron went down to the forum,
He was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind, 'cause he was way behind,
And was willing to make a deal.
When he came across this young man
Sawing on a guitar and playing it hot,
And Shenecron jumped up on a hickory stump and said,
'Little boy, let me tell you what:
I guess you didn´t know it, but I'm a guitar player too,
And, if you'd care to take a dare,
I'll make a bet with you.
Now you play a pretty good guitar,
Little boy, but give ol' Shenecron his due.
I bet a guitar pick of gold against your soul,
'Cause I think I'm better than you!'"

As GH played, the memory surfaced, and he wondered why Shenecron was acting as if he didn't know GH was a RAFian. Eh, probably didn't matter. GH played on as Leatherhead listened raptly.

"The boy said, 'My name's GH and it might be a sin,
But I'll take your bet, but you're gonna regret,
'Cause I'm the best there's ever been!'
GH, furrow up your brow and play your guitar hard,
'Cause all hell's broke loose in the city and Shenecron deals the cards
And, if you win, you'll get this shiny pick made of gold,
But, if you lose, Shenecron gets your soul!
Shenecron opened up his case and he said, "I'll start this show"
Fire blew from his fingertips as he formed up his pick.
He plucked the strings of the infernal guitar and it made an evil hiss
Then a band of demons joined in,
And it sounded something like this."

GH played on, the music scary and intimidating, especially for one Leatherhead's age, but he knew that it was part of the story. And it was perfectly true when GH had his solo encounter with Shenecron. Then after this instrumental pause, GH continued:

"When Shenecron finished, GH said,
"'Well, you're pretty good, old son
But, sit down in that chair right there,
And lemme show you how it's done!'"

Then the demonic chorus of Shenecron loyalists sang:

"Fire on the Mountain  run, boys, run
Shenecron´s in the house of the eternal sun.
Chicken in the bread pan a-picking out dough,
Malice does your dog bite, 'No, child, no'"

The GH picked up the story again after a musical interlude.

"Shenecron bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat.
He laid that golden pick on the ground at GH´s feet.
GH said, "Shenecron, just come on back
If you ever want to try again,
I told you once, you son of a --"

GH had to remind himself of the age of his audience and censored himself.

"-- gun.
I'm the best there´s ever been'"

Then GH concluded the song, fortunate that Shenecron didn't hear it. Demos's half-brother had found that encounter woefully humilitating. Even his loyalist demons had abandoned him after it. He vowed to destroy every guitar he saw afterward.

At least, until his anger cooled.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq4KcI9AGl0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq4KcI9AGl0)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2018, 04:39:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Aniyu's Answers

"That's the long and short of it, Aniyu," Cloak said, having easily found her. She seemed to almost suspect the subject of what Cloak wanted to know. "I know the chimeras don't mean anything. But those letters . . ."

"Numbers."

"What?" Cloak said, sharply.

"They were numbers," Aniyu said. "One hundred seventy-seven, one hundred seventy-eight and so on. The last number was fourteen hundred twenty-five. They're like the Roman numerals in Dweller Earths."

"But . . . why? What do these numbers mean?"

Aniyu said nothing at first. The hesitation wasn't because of intimidation or anything of the like, it was more like she was searching for the proper words of how to put it. "I can only guess, going off what you've told me."

Cloak said nothing, and his silence prodded her further on into speech, "It sounds like it was a Truth Dream."

"But a dream of what truth?" Cloak pressed.

"It sounds like it was indicating . . . Destiny's Diaries," she said, almost as if it was an unpleasant thought.

"That sound like a romance novel," Cloak said, dismissively. "As if destiny could write a novel."

"But . . . she did," Aniyu said.

"Wait, what? You mean a personification of destiny, right?" Cloak said.

"No, Destiny was an ancient Realm Walker," Aniyu said. "Far before my time."

"Who was she?"

"No one knows what her form was. Most Walker historians refuse to reference or acknowledge her existence," Aniyu said. "All I have is stories and conjecture and speculation. Nothing is certain, other than the existence of her diaries -- even though they have never been found."

"What are the stories?"

Aniyu took a deep breath, before continuing, "She was a powerful clairvoyant. Whether she saw future events sequentially or every twist and turn that it might take, it is unknown. But what is known is her predictions always came true, so that the leadership raised her up and venerated her and celebrated her. Some may have even worshiped her."

"But it didn't last," Cloak guessed.

"No, it did not," Aniyu said, with a sigh. "It came to pass that the leadership were replaced with Realm Walkers who were arrogant and corrupt. Arguably, the first corrupted Council -- as you know, there's a long history of corruption in the Council and Realm Walker politics. Even in my time. They rankle and chafed when Destiny made predictions that they didn't like."

"They decided that she was a fraud, didn't they?" Cloak guessed again. "Decided that she was lying because they were too busy, as the humans say, 'smelling their own farts'?"

"Exactly," Aniyu said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2018, 06:42:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Destiny's Tragedy

"Destiny never complied with their secret demands that she make favorable predictions," Aniyu said. "Almost as if she saw this a long time beforehand, and knew how to deal with it. She apparently just accepted it, because she had already gotten over the shock of it decades before it happened."

"Bet that didn't make the corrupted leadership back then very happy," Cloak surmised.

"Correct," Aniyu said. "they tried to force her hand. But you can't force predictions, and she told them such. They didn't like that, and they didn't like her prediction that their power would never remain. That a balancing force will appear and slap down their regime."

"I'm assuming that she was either assassinated or smeared from then on," Cloak said.

"The latter," Aniyu said. "an outright assassination could be linked to them, as their animosity towards her was well-known. They'd immediately be accused in the fallout. They decided to be cunning. They didn't come out and smear her, their dislike and enmity was too renown. They used lesser known members of this leadership to lean on the information outlets, and smear her. It was obvious to anyone who looked into what was happening."

"But the propaganda took hold anyway, didn't it?" Cloak said, his jaded nature showing itself.

"As it always does," Aniyu said. "It swayed one or two people, and then they spread the propaganda. Skeptics were bullied and maligned and smeared themselves, spreading the propaganda even further. It was like a virulent disease, a plague of stupidity and hearsay. What was once considered heresy was becoming commonplace. The numbers of skeptics continued to dwindle due to the overwhelming pressure and insidious infection of the propaganda, and how the skeptics themselves were marginalized and ostracized by those with far less information."

Aniyu seemed to be taking this personally, Cloak noted.

"But, Destiny had evidently foresaw all of this, judging by her reaction of calm, graceful acceptance to all of it." Aniyu said. "As if she had anticipated all of this, but she never let that sway her predictions from the absolute truth. No matter how much she was slandered as a liar and a charlatan, she accepted it with poise and elegance. She never lowered herself to lose her temper or lash out at her detractors and slanderers. She had saw this happening decades prior, and so she accepted it long before it had ever happened. She foresaw her own 'fall from grace', and had long accepted the inevitability of it."

"And she did nothing to alter it," Cloak said.

"She saw her own actions affect the future, Cloak," Aniyu pointed out. "She saw that how knowledge of the future led to people fulfilling her predictions. Predictions that they sought to avoid, they ended up fulfilling, instead of not doing anything at all. She predicted that anything she did to try to mitigate what she foresaw would lead up to what she foresaw anyway."

"Like an ancient human called Oedipus," Cloak noted. "The guy who unwittingly killed his father, who wanted to dodge a prophecy, and unknowingly married his mother."

"Something like that," Aniyu said. "The propaganda even infected some of her family, but not her closest family or friends. They refused to abandon her, overlooking the ostracization and stigma that they, themselves, received. Eventually, they exiled her to the lands that would be the area where the Realms would eventually arise from, and they forced her closest family and friends to not have any contact with her. They even gave her a new name that was spoken with derision and contempt, even to modern day."

"Exile," Cloak answered, remembering the story now. "But why is so important? Sure, her story is tragic and all, but what does this have to do with the tablets in my dream? Why are her diaries so important?"

"Because her diaries contain all the future events that she foresaw with stunning clarity. She wrote it all down before her death, unaware that she would pass on a more fragmented, more diluted, and more vague version of her ability to her daughter, Prophecy -- who changed her name to Pragmatist, to distant herself from this fallout. She never told anyone about her ability to dream the future."

"Are you suggesting what I think you are . . . ?" Cloak said, dropping his folded arms.

"Destiny, or Exile, is our distant ancestor," Aniyu said, with a nodd. "She's the origin of Truth Dreams."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2018, 09:00:04 PM

Once again, I'm releasing tomorrow's chapter early. Then I'm going to bed.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Destiny's Descendant's Decision

"She . . . that makes sense," Cloak said, quietly. "Is that why I got that dream? Am I supposed to find her diaries that are supposedly existent?"

"I cannot tell you with certainty, I can only tell you what I suspect," Aniyu said. "There were rumors that I've heard about their hiding place. Some say that only a descendant could find it, others said that they didn't exist, and still others said that they were up for grabs to anyone who found them, who passed some trials to get them. I can't tell you which is true . . . in life, I've never sought them out. I . . . I never wanted the responsibility for them. It was enough to struggle with the Truth Dreams."

"There's nothing wrong with it," Cloak said. "There is a human saying, 'with great power, comes great responsibility'. It rings true."

"I cannot tell you if you should or shouldn't go and find them," she said, seriously. " To the latter, no one could blame you. No one has sought them out for generations, and those who did . . . never found them. Those are the one who wasted away into oblivion in order to find them, wasting their lives, energy, and resources. To do the former . . . it comes with a great responsibility. To keep them . . . or destroy them."

"They can be destroyed?" Cloak asked.

"I assume they can," Aniyu said. "none of the rumors claimed them to be indestructible. As I've said, I've never sought them out. You can, but you are not obligated to. I can't, and I won't, make that decision for you. It must be for you to decide, young Truth Dreamer."

Cloak fell silent, considering all the aspects and intricacies of the decision, as well as the possible ramifications and consequences of following through with finding and obtaining the diaries, and those of not doing it. He kept coming to the fact that people might misuse the information that was contained within them. Misuse and abuse it.

He couldn't allow that. He hadn't any intention on using them himself -- one should not know too much about their own future. That would be dangerous. Like the Oedipus example Cloak cited earlier -- people who try to dodge prophecies usually end up fulfilling them. Not that Cloak ever put much stock into fortunetelling and such. But, if Destiny was as good as Aniyu said . . . these diaries could be incredibly dangerous. Good or bad, these diaries could cause much damage -- although, Destiny probably foresaw if her diaries were found by the wrong hands. She probably foresaw it before she ever wrote them. . . .

Cloak started to feel a surge of sympathy for his ancient paternal ancestor. What a burden this future sight must have been. What a burden to struggle with. How did she ever accept this undue weight that was given her? How did she manage with this sort of omniscience that her clairvoyance gave her? Just knowing all this ahead of time, long before any major or minor event occurred. Just knowing the immutability of her actions having on the future. It was this aspect that rubbed Cloak the wrong way, however.

He refused to believe fate, or destiny, or whatever was called was truly immutable, unchangeable. Cloak steadfastly believed that one made their own futures through action and inaction, through decisions and indecision. He heavily resisted the idea that everyone's fate, destiny, or whatever was set in stone. He refused to believe in temporal immutability. The one constant in existence, he had always found, was change. He found it hard to believe that everything was destined and preordained to happen. Even with his Truth Dreams, he had always assumed that he was glimpsing possible futures, not just a sequential series of events that would occur no matter what he did. Perhaps this was the limiting factor of Destiny's powers, maybe she could only foresee one timeline.

But that didn't mean that the diaries weren't harmless -- the information within could always be perverted in ways that not even Destiny could conceive of. Cloak had a choice, one that Destiny probably already foresaw before her expiring to Beyond the Veil, like any other Walker. Well, not all Walkers, if that rumor was true -- but that rumor was just that. A rumor. A ridiculous rumor that couldn't possibly exist.

"What is your decision, young Truth Dreamer?" Aniyu said. "Whether you go or not, you will always have my support."

Cloak had the freedom to choose whether or not he would got through with it. He could just refuse and rescue GH from that bathtub of coffee once again. He could choose to ignore the ridiculous prophecies and predictions located within, and just go about his business. He could just choose to shirk and reject this responsibility.

But he could never do it. His sense of duty, his sense of responsibility, his conscience, his diligence would not allow it. They would weigh on him forever until he did what he knew must be done. It would not leave him alone, he knew. The guilt alone was enough of a motivator to go through with this inane mission for diaries that claimed to predict the future. Cloak would go through with it, but he would not believe a word of it.

"I'll do it," he told Aniyu. "I'll do it, and I'll destroy the diaries."

"Understandable," Aniyu said, with a nod, "but, sadly, I can only point the way for you to start the trials. After that, I cannot tell you what comes next."

"May I ask why?"

"Yes, you may, " she said. "And the answer is because I never went beyond that point in looking for the diaries, and that was completely by accident. I just happened there, and never desired to seek them out."

"Where do I go?" Cloak said.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2018, 05:54:35 AM

Guess I'm gonna be a chapter ahead.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Trials of Destiny

"This is as far as I ever got," Aniyu said, showing Cloak a wooden archway. Cloak was still technically meditating, his corporeal form was still inert and oblivious in the Prime Universe. Cloak never bothered to question the semantics of this stuff, as he felt that it would be unnecessarily complex and such. One could question if there was even a physical copy of the diaries, as Destiny could have been so ancient that it was before Realm Walkers managed to manifest corporeal forms -- but no . . . Realm Walkers before then were analogous to Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals of the human evolutionary lineage.

Cloak chose ignorance in this regard. He didn't want to think about the semantics of this. Perhaps the diaries would just spontaneously manifest when he stopped meditating? Assuming he could obtain them. Assuming that they even existed. Perhaps this was a security measure on the part of Destiny, to ensure her diaries did not fall into the wrong hands. Who knew? Cloak wasn't going to pretend that he did.

"Thank you, Aniyu," Cloak said, with a small, curt bow. Then he looked up at the archway. He was really doing this. He was really going after some diaries that may have just as well been blank. Any effort he put into this, it might just ended up to futile and ultimately fruitless. But, then again, that's true of all things. Cloak took a deep breath, and stepped over the threshold.

Behind him, everything faded out and fade away leaving a blinding white, misty expanse beyond the archway. Part of him wanted to leave immediately but he suspected this may have been one of the trials. He pushed forward, and onward. He hadn't a clue what laid before him when he moved onward, and it gave him a moment of trepidation. But he wasn't just a Realm Walker. He wasn't just an Elements Master. He wasn't just a Truth Dreamer.

He was a RAFian. He pushed forward, bolstered by this thought. It gave him strength, and motivation. He would get the diaries, if only to protect his RAFian friends from them. If only to protect them from if they fall in the wrong hands. Cloak looked at his Mark, and his resolve was set. He strode beyond the archway, knowing what he must do, though not knowing how he would get there. Just that it must be done.

***

"You need to watch that," a relatively new RAFian, Cain Elido Kane, said condescendingly, with a sort of elitist drawl. He had short-cropped black hair, glasses, and an upturned nose, as if he was always smelling something foul around him. He was tiny and rail-thin, with a predilection for wearing black. He was completely obnoxious -- even more than Rotiart was at his worst -- and he only aspired to sit on his butt. But he wanted the recognition and prestige he saw in being a RAFian, and he wanted "something to do". However, he didn't want to do the work to achieve that. That was for the others to do, as he saw them as lesser than himself. Less important, despite them accomplished far more than he ever did.

"I'm in the middle of something," Xeno growled. He was supposed to be working with Kane on communications, and he was working to repair them after his last screw-up. He hated having to be here with the guy -- he didn't know anyone who even liked the guy in the forum. Kane was basically universally unpopular. "You're on duty, Kane. You watch it! I still have to fix your latest screw-up."

"Excuse me?" he said, clearly offended.

"Oh, don't you even start that crap with me," Xeno said, glaring at Kane with his piercing bestial eyes. Xeno really had enough of this guy. "I'm fixing your screw-up because you decided to spill your stupid drink all over the machinery -- that's why we have that rule of keeping them over there!' Xeno indicated a table on the far wall, far enough away from the sensitive machinery in communications. "But you clearly think that you're above following the rules, and, yet, you still want to be a RAFian!"

Kane said nothing, but he looked like an indignant child.

"You want to be a RAFian?" grumbling Xeno, still fuming with frustration. "Then you have to put in the work and the effort that comes with it! He thinks that he can just be Marked and sit on his butt and do nothing useful."

Then it lapsed into a tense silence, with Kane realizing just how much that Xeno could do to him, as he was a "flatscan human", or, in other words, a human without powers. Xeno had the advantage in that regard.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 23, 2018, 09:21:46 PM

Okay . . . this book will be longer than I originally outlined. I'm kinda rewriting it from this chapter on . . . and I'm releasing tomorrow's chapter early. Probably won't be posting early come this weekend.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Trials of Ambition

Cloak continued onward, noticing that he was coming upon a miles-wide river. It was a lovely scenic view, but not what he was here for. But soon he found himself on some sort of riverboat. Overly ostentatious for the young Elements Masters taste. He always preferred the simple things, appreciating the little things that those with great ambitions, not grounded in reality, not tempered by perceptiveness, nor fettered by logic or attachment. Blind ambition. Blind ambition was one of the most dangerous things for the ambitious individual and those around them.

This was a lesson that his grandfather Sage taught him, and even his mother (albeit unintentionally, he was sure) had taught him this. It was a lesson that he took to heart, especially after his humiliating bout when he bit off more than he could chew, before fully mastering all Six Elements. It was something he consciously never told anyone about. Ambition was just fine and dandy to have, he had learned, but blind ambition was not. Blind ambition often leads to some very negative scenarios, usually at the expense of the ambitious person or those around them or all of the above.

Anyway, he looked across the overly ornate deck of this overly large steamboat. The wood of it seemed to be bleached white, so it gleamed with an artificial sense of cleanliness. Nothing was ever this spotless or sparkling. Then he saw what appeared to be the proprietor of this steamboat. It was a Realm Walker, of course. A serpentine one that looked similar to an anthropomorphic coral snake. He had bands of red, yellow, and black, and wore an ostentatiously feathered cloak that was dripping with glitter -- the entire thing looked gaudy.

"Why, another recruit!" he said, with welcoming air and gregarious attitude. He had the same speech impediment that all serpentine Realm Walkers seemed to possess. Even Dagger struggled with it. But, Cloak could tell he was playing up this "friendly guy" angle. He didn't much perception to tell that.. "You can't beat what we've got here! And it'sss only two minutesss to showtime to boot!"

"I have other, more pressing things to do," Cloak said, keeping his voice even. "I'm not going to be in any show of yours."

"Oh, I think you will!" he said, jovially. "What I have planned for you makesss me ssso happy -- why, I feel like singing!"

"Please don't," Cloak said.

"Maessstro?" the snake Realm Walker said, over his shoulder and music started up.

"Five, sssix, ssseven, eight!"

Then there was brief piano intro to the song proper.

"I don't know why I ask," Cloak said. "It never works, does it?"

"Don't bother getting up, you're in my control!
No way for you to fussssss and fight!
I've taken all your powersss - ssso, lucky you!
You will be in my show tonight."

None of this was true, and Cloak knew it perfectly well. But his feline curiosity demanded that he stay and see how this would play out. It was irresistible to him, for some reason. Though, Cloak only saw this snake Realm Walker as an oddity, a novelty to be watched and scrutinized. All the pomp and circumstance amused him, though he would never admit it outright.

"You think you can defeat me -- oh, how very droll!
Well, Elementsss Massster, one thing you should know:
I am the one with powersss around here,
I am the one who runsss the show!!!"

Cloak dodged all his movements and attempts to control him. But yet Cloak allowed him to continue singing, and yet he did not just up and leave, like probably should have done on the outset. And this Realm Walker continued to sing:

"I am the master of ceremonies,
So let me set you straight:
With just a wave of my hand, I'm . . .
Master of your fate!"

Cloak scoffed at the idea. No one but he, himself, was the master of his fate. No matter whatever Destiny had written in her diaries. He would be the one to devise his fate. His fate would be what he made of it, like it should be for everyone. Prophecies, wishes, fortunetelling -- they were just crutches. Things on which one could blame their poor choices on, instead of taking responsibility and accountability of their own poor decision for themselves.

The snake continued to sing:

"With just some hocus-pocus and sleight of hand,
You are under my command!
Keep him in a crucial part!
Places, everybody -- the show's about to start!"

He kept insisting that Cloak was under his command, and, yet, he had failed to compel Cloak to do anything that he wasn't already inclined to do. Granted, Cloak was still present, but that was mostly due to his feline curiosity more than anything else.

Then an unseen backup chorus sang:

"He is the master of ceremonies,
So let him set you straight:
With just a wave of his magic wand, he's...
Master of your fate!
(Master of your fate!)
Master of your fate!
(Master of your fate!)"

Then the nameless Realm Walker sang the conclusion to the song:

"Now for the greatest grand finale,
And the reason why you're here:
Tonight, I will make the Elements Master...
Disappear . . . forever!"

"Ambitious," Cloak said, insincerely, after a beat, with crossed arms. He was clearly unimpressed, realizing that the Realm Walker before him wasn't a coral snake Realm Walker. He was a kingsnake Realm Walker, as the red bands were touching the black. "Just how do you intend to do that?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq20zg1dZ_w (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq20zg1dZ_w)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2018, 06:12:25 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Tempered Ambitions

"I see," Cloak said, unfolding his arms, and wearing a very unsurprised look on his face. "You didn't think that far ahead. You didn't think this through. You thought about the end result rather than what was needed to get to that point. Your ambition -- your blind ambition -- got in the way of any sort of pragmatism."

The kingsnake Realm Walker continued to say nothing.

"You allowed your ambition to get the better of you," Cloak said. "You imagined the destination rather then the journey to the destination."

Silence.

"Ambition is fine and well and all," Cloak said, "but only when grounded in reality, tempered by perspective, and fettered by logic. There's nothing wrong with being a dreamer, but blind ambition often causes more harm than good. Mostly to the ambitious individual."

You know, for someone who was so talkative before, it was jarring just how silent he became.

Cloak had an inkling. "You went after the diaries, didn't you? You imagined having them, and using them for selfish means. There's a human phrase, 'with great power, comes great responsibility'. I assume you intended to misuse the information within the diaries, use them for selfish means."

"So what if I did?" he said, sounding more ominous.

"That isn't what they should be used for," Cloak said. "I personally think that they should be destroyed and people should forge their own destinies, not live bound to what some book says. That's why I seek them out."

"You want to destroy them?!"

"Yes," Cloak said. "That's my only ambition in this endeavor. I only wish to end the danger that such diaries inherently possess. No one should know their own future, because it means that they will inevitably try to change it to their advantage. That's just the nature of sentient beings, I guess."

As Cloak said, this was his only ambition in doing this. It was grounded in the reality of the danger that such diaries pose to himself and others. He had perspective and it seemed logical to him. And he knew the way to get to the diaries was by passing these trials. Granted, he didn't know what these trials would entail, but he would complete them as much as he was required. Because he had to, it was an obligation. If these diaries didn't posed such dangers to himself and everyone he cared about, then he wouldn't have bothered.

He was surprised that the kingsnake Realm Walker collapsed into white and gold energy, revealing what appeared to be a red and yellow orb evaporated way, as if it was going Beyond the Veil. Cloak didn't know what to make of this, but the steam boat saddled up to the bank on the opposite side, almost as if the kingsnake Realm Walker was powering the steamboat. Cloak didn't question it, and hopped off the steamboat, landing softly and soundlessly on the ground.

Then he found another archway of the same design as the one previously, and proceeded across the threshold.

***

Kane was a very ambitious man, but he never bothered to think of how he would get to his grand plans, his grander designs. Nor would he ever be willing to take the necessary effort, the necessary steps to achieve such things that his ambition wanted. His plans and designs were also ridiculously grandiose, and anyone he told them to could tell that they were not based in any sort of reality.

"I'll be the top dog, just you wait," he was talking to Saffa. Saffa was less than enthused by this, but she managed to stay pleasant and polite. She didn't know how, because this guy was grinding her last nerve very quickly. She, like most other RAFians, didn't really like Kane. He believed that he would be running the forum inside a week . . . though he had taken no steps to usurp the mods, and almost expected them to hand him leadership for . . . well, for no real reason in particular.

"I'll be a top member," he pretentiously asserted to Saffa, who was looking for a way to get away from this sanctimonious little prick. But it would seem that all her escape routes were either cut off or blocked, and she couldn't leave without being too obvious. "I'll have it all -- fame, glory . . . girls!"

"Get away from me!" Saffa snarled, pushing him away harshly and violently. She decided right then and there to abandon politeness and be blunt. "I wouldn't be with you if you were the last person on Earth! You repulse me, Kane! Get away from me -- because next time you pull this, you'll find your head SEPARATED from your body! Now go away!!!"

Then she stormed off, but her words didn't work on Kane. He arrogantly believed that women loved him, that he was some sort of heartthrob. He had an inflated self-image of himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 25, 2018, 05:06:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Trial of Decisiveness

When Cloak crossed the threshold of the archway, the river behind him vanished completely. He was stepping onto a volcanic landscape, with cooling sheets of obsidian beneath his feet, as if this was Minecraft or something. Cloak wasn't intimidated by this change of scenery -- his time as a RAFian has taught him to expect such things whenever possible. His Realm Walker physiology allowed him to adapt to the environment with the briefest moments of discomfort. Granted, it was still hotter than he would have preferred.

He proceeded forward wondering what this trial would entail, and will there be a trial-giver like that kingsnake Realm Walker? Or that construct of one, Cloak wasn't sure of the legitimacy of that kingsnake Realm Walker's existence as an actual Realm Walker. If he did actually exist, he wasn't nearly as old as Destiny was. Because the Realm Walker's style of corporeal forms had evolved over the years and -- well, it was a whole thing to get into.

"You're not getting the diaries!" a voice roared. "They're mine!!"

Cloak saw a dragon Realm Walker -- sinewy, serpentine body with comparatively tiny arms and legs, long face with hair on the snout and back of the head, two prehensile barbels on his face, two horns on the back of his head, raked backward, a tuff of hair at the tip of his tail, a ridge running down the length of his spine, and two large, chiropteran wings on his back, directly across from his arms. His form made wearing a cloak pretty useless, as he wasn't very anthropomorphic, like most Realm Walkers. Assuming that he was, indeed, a Realm Walker to begin with.

"Yours, you say?" Cloak said, calmly and reserved. It took a lot to intimidate the Elements Master.

"They're mine!!" he roared again.

Cloak was inclined to show restraint and mercy, even though this newcomer didn't seem to deserve it. It was just his nature when it came to a fight -- and he was certain that was inevitable. Cloak couldn't help but wonder if this was a real Realm Walker -- that is to say, a legitimate person with thoughts and feelings of their own or just a simple construct puppet that was put here to test him on . . . something.

"They're mine!!" he roared. "You can't have them!!"

"Why do you want them so badly?" Cloak asked, attempting to reason with him.

"They're MINE!!" he roared again. "MINE!!"

"But they are not yours," Cloak said, reasonably, "they were written by Destiny"

Cloak felt very odd saying those last five words, as if it was a profound pronouncement instead a mere statement of fact -- Destiny, the Realm Walker, legitimately wrote these diaries. And Cloak was going to do everything his power to destroy his paternal ancestor's work. It was almost blasphemous. Sacrilegious. But Cloak resolutely believed that it had to be done.

"THEY'RE MINE!!" he roared, with a scream of flame dancing around his powerful-looking jaws.

He was going to attack Cloak, and he was quite a bit larger than the Elements Master. But Cloak was not worried. a

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 26, 2018, 05:01:56 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
You Must Be Decisive

This dragon Realm Walker blew out a blast of fire which Cloak dodge by manipulating the air around him, enhancing the height of his jump and any dodging aerobatics that he had to employ. He noticed that this seemed to enrage the dragon Realm Walker even more -- Cloak noticed that this dragon Realm Walker had no self-control, no restraint.

"Sloppy," Cloak said, having been trained in the element of Fire, despite it being his least favorite of the six. He continued to criticize his technique and form. "Very sloppy."

"I'll show you sloppy!!" he snarled.

He blew a continuous steam of fire, before cutting off as if he was screaming, and Cloak took that and redirected it right back at him. That was the technique that Cloak tended to use fairly often, redirecting attacks back onto his attackers. It was an inclination that hadn't backfired on him yet. It didn't always work, granted. It hit its mark, pushing the dragon Real Walker backward.

"Yes," Cloak said. "You did."

"I'm not sloppy!!" he roared. "YOU'RE sloppy!!"

He blasted Cloak again, but Cloak created a scarlet and gold energy shield and it easily withstood the fire. Once the attack was done, the dragon roared his frustration.

"I don't have time for this . . . distraction," Cloak said, decisively. "Let me pass, or you shall regret it."

But the dragon Realm Walker moved to attack, but Cloak wasn't about to have any of it. He preempted this attack decisively with his own, and he did again, and again until he could get to the other side of the dragon. But Cloak didn't kill him. He had no interest in killing him . . . and his life wasn't in any jeopardy, so there wasn't any need for something that severe.

Cloak walked through an archway that seemed to have spontaneously manifest in front of him. He crossed the threshold.

***

Kane may have boasted about making the best decisions, he tended to wait and let things happened to him. Wait and let the fame and glory and girls come to him. He couldn't be bothered to work for it, however. This wasn't like the initial laziness that Rotiart had once demonstrated, this was just the lazy indecisiveness that someone accustomed having things handed to him and having all his big decisions made for him by his wealthy parents -- before they cut him off. Kane thought that their decision was incredibly unfair, despite the fact that he wasn't doing anything worthwhile with his small allowances that he was blow through with astonishing swiftness. Eventually, they got tired of it, and it led to a big blow up between them.

Now he hated them both. He hated them both because he never marked by promptness or decision, and, despite his great blind ambition, he couldn't be bother to decisively follow through the steps necessary to achieve such ambitions. He expected it to be handed to him, expected that he didn't have to invest any time or effort or any sort of investment whatsoever, just that his ambitions would magically come true. And he becomes upset any time anyone calls him out on it, and he would grouse upon it frustratingly annoying levels.

Of course, he didn't do this around Faeire, because she threatened to cut off his . . . something that he held with very much importance to him . . . if he did not shut up and go away. Granted, he used this to play the victim, and this was also real annoying. And yet, he hadn't been Banned yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2018, 04:16:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Trial of Integrity

Crossing the threshold of the archway led him into a distinctly different terrain. This terrain was a lovely meadow, and Cloak knew that he wouldn't be able to enjoy it. He had a task to do, and a task he was obligated to do. He couldn't allow those diaries to fall into the wrong hands. He continued forward, well aware that he would eventually be stopped, and he saw the figure before him.

She was a powerfully built Realm Walker with small heads, thick, short necks, stocky, wedge-shaped bodies and short tails. Her feet are plantigrade and short, with five toes on each foot. Her limbs were short and massive, with naked lower surfaces on the feet. Her claws are strong, elongated and have an obtuse end, which shown obvious wear. Her claws were not retractable, and her hind claws was worn. Her snout are muscular and flexible. Her eyes were small and the ears short and tipped with white. Whiskers are present on her snout and above the eyes. She was about half Cloak's height. She was an anthropomorphic European badger.

"Why did you bother coming all this way?" she said, almost in a slothful way, which seemed counter to her form, as badgers seemed to be creatures that were always active. "Why not just take the easy way out?"

Cloak couldn't answer, or get a word in edgewise, when a chorus started singing:

"Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Take the easy, easy way out.
Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Why not take the easy way out?"

The badger Realm Walker sang:

"Hey, Cloaky, gee, I can plainly see,
Being good rubs you the wrong way.
Why buy a chop you can simply cop?
What sick Dweller says crime doesn't pay?
You'll find the kind of life you've been whining for
Right in front of your snout.
Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Why not take the easy way out?"

Cloak recoiled at this. This was the antithesis to everything -- everything -- that he stood for. The first two lines were patently and plainly untrue, and Cloak, frankly, found it offensive. He actually found the entire thing offensive.

"A friend in need is a pain indeed.
It's a rule that infrequently fails.
Some just say 'nope' to the hopeless dope
Who needs help, when you're doing your nails!
Cloaky boy, it's your lucky day.
I'll show you what it's about!
How to take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Take the easy, easy way out.
Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Why not take the easy way O-U-T . . . ?"

"Because it's against --" Cloak began, before being interrupted.

"Yeah, right.

Come to the barbecue that awaits you.
Soon you are certain to shout.
Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Why not take the easy way out?
A god who supplants for the thanks of dance,
Ought to hitch a ride when he has the chance.

Get my drift?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Cloak said, who wasn't swayed.

"You'll find the kind of life you've been whining for
Right in front of your snout!
If you take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Take the easy, easy way out.
Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Why not take the easy way?
Take the easy, easy way, easy way.
Why not take the easy way O-U-T, OUT!?"

"BECAUSE IT'S AGAINST EVERYTHING -- ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING -- THAT I STAND FOR!!" Cloak roared, furious.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-my9W0SDVl0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-my9W0SDVl0)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 28, 2018, 04:59:14 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Unwavering Integrity

"Whoa," she said, in a laid-back way that just irritated the Elements Master for some reason. "Take it easy there, pal, there's no need to get all in a huff about it."

Cloak was further annoyed by this action as well. She was just doing precisely what she was endorsing through song and was taking the easy way out of this conversation. Opting out of the confrontation. Cloak believed the human phrase was "like a ****". And Cloak was going to leave it at that, leave this lazy layabout to her business. He had failed to take into account that she was nosy.

"It's not my fault that you don't know how to relax," she said. "It's not my fault that you don't have any chill."

Cloak should have just gone ahead and ignored this. But what she said aroused his anger . . . but one of the previous trials was about being decisive, and Cloak felt addressing this badger layabout would be counter to being decisive. But he couldn't help himself.

"'Don't have any chill'?" Cloak said, with a dangerous tone in his voice. He didn't turn around to face this badger Realm Walker. Her ambivalence was such that it seemed to be almost sinful, her utter indifference to the hard work most endeavors require for any real progress on any achievement. Then Cloak rounded on her, "Seriously? That's going to be your argument."

Cloak didn't allow her to reply, before continuing, "I work hard for what I have. I work hard for what I have so that it would have meaning. If you constantly get things handed to you, then any achievements coming from that,  any achievement just handed to you, would be hollow and worthless. I'm not saying that people won't need help every now and then, but having someone else do all the work for you so you can just reap the rewards afterward? Is that truly rewarding to you? Only by working hard, and with passion, on a project or sport or something of the like  will it be fulfilling. If you're not going to work hard, why bother getting any sort of accolades or perceived accomplishments? You cannot accomplish anything worthwhile unless you're willing to put forth the necessary work and effort into it, and have it mean something."

At the end of this, he turned and strode away from this badger Realm Walker, without another word. He strode through the archway, his temper cooling.

***

Kane wasn't willing to work for anything that he had. He believed and had expected everyone to hand him everything he wanted on a silver platter, much to the grave annoyance of the other RAFians. Even Dino was extremely fed up with the guy, and preferred to avoid his company. There were times where she would have to suffer his arrogance and slothful nature. And it was never a particularly good idea to tee off someone who could literally crush you underfoot.

Kane wasn't too big on good sense, preferring to always take the easy way out. The ease of any given task is what motivates him which assignments and missions to take. He hadn't any power, nor any particularly useful skill -- causing many a RAFian wonder how he made it through Esplin's basic training -- which tended to prove rather rigorously grueling. For good reason, you know. It was meant to weed out people like Kane, people who are only interested in the glory and perceived prestige that came from it. It was meant to weed out the worthless layabouts from joining. But the lurkers all came from somewhere.

Kane was of the belief that he was so great, so beloved, so adored, people couldn't possibly help but give him what he wants. He believed wholeheartedly that people should be genuflecting kisses at his feet and metaphorically kissing his butt. He was rather insufferable to be around because of this, but, apparently, this wasn't enough to rescind his RAFian registration, or even Ban him. Even Queen wasn't this intolerable. Even when she was Banned, she held some decorum, maintained some class (granted, arrogantly), that seemed even out of reach for Kane.

Even his own parents found these aspect about him and his ever-expanding ego (with the fragility of snow's longevity in summer). He's clearly never had to give a hard day's labor in his entire life, and he's never been told no. He's always surrounded himself with yes-men and butt-kissers all his life, and he was livid when they abandoned him, without a word of notice, when his family cut him off.

And he was trying to find the same yes-men and butt-kissers amongst the RAFians, only failing to accomplish that. And, of course, he didn't want to put too much effort into this. He believed that they would come to him, that he'd have fans and hangers on, despite having accomplished nothing but being a spoiled, rich brat who really hadn't any reason being a RAFian. Fortunately, he hadn't a Mark. Newcomers had to earn the right to have one, and usually got it after their first year.* And Kane didn't really earn what he had. He just tried to lay claim to everything he had "achieved" by birthright, which doesn't really work when birthright has nothing to do with anything in RAF.

Kane was in for a quiet rude awakening.

---

* Yes, I'm aware that this may be a bit of a retcon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2018, 04:35:19 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Trial of Justice

Cloak walked into a sandy desert. He remembered hearing complaints of sand being too coarse and getting everywhere -- he found these complaints rather juvenile and trivial. Granted, sand wasn't his fondest terrain to travel on, as it muddied his Earthsight making it very difficult to use. He was well aware of his over-reliance on it, and would fully acknowledge it, if asked.

Anyway, he moved onward, his feet shifting the sand. This entire area seemed devoid of life . . . but Cloak knew better. These trials had all required interaction with unknown Realm Walkers, all of which Cloak was unsure were even real. He pondered this as he moved onward, looking for this interactable Realm Walker or the archway (though he highly doubted that the latter would be that easy). Then he heard a song, roughly towards nine o'clock -- directly to his left.

"Mud . . .
Sand . . .
Water . . .
Straw . . ."

Cloak, curious, went to investigate and saw a large amount of Realm Walkers toiling to build some sort of structure, which was still half-built. He had a sinking feeling what this was about. He wasn't fond of slavery. Given his relationship with his mother, and how he was treated for the majority of his twenties by her, it was understandable.

"Faster!" said more healthy-looking Realm Walkers with whips, cracking it at these slaves.

"Mud . . .
And lift,
Sand . . .
And --
Pull!
Water . . .
And raise up . . .
Straw . . ."

"Faster!" the guards demanded, with even harsher tones.

"With the sting of the whip on my shoulder,
With the salt of my sweat on my brow,
First Light on high,
Can't you hear your people cry?
Help us now!
In this dark hour . . ."

Cloak could have turned away. Cloak could have walked away from this. Cloak could have ignored this.

"Deliver us!
Hear our call!
Deliver us!
Light within all.
Remember us, here in this burning sand!
Deliver us!
Deliver us to the freedom land . . ."

Cloak probably should have kept out of this. He didn't have all the information . . . he could have been jumping to conclusions. He could be just assuming based on his own backstory, his own history. . . . But he listened to the words of the song. . . .

"Deliver us!
Hear our prayer!
Deliver us!
From despair!
These years of slavery grow too cruel to stand!
Deliver us!
There's a land you promised us!
Deliver us!
Out of bondage and
Deliver us to the freedom land . . ."

Cloak sighed. He couldn't ignore this. He couldn't walk away from this. He couldn't turn them away. They . . . they needed him. They needed his help. Regardless whether or not this was part of the trial, he would have to do something. He could not let this stand.

"Deliver us,
Deliver us.
Deliver us to the freedom's land . . ."

Cloak went into the Apex Tier, and prepared to emancipate these people, regardless if they were real or not.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WKN0XF8-3Q (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WKN0XF8-3Q)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2018, 06:16:33 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Only Justice'll Bring Peace

There was a spacious room with these healthier Realm Walkers adorn in overly ostentatious clothing. Full of whites, golds, and blacks. They wore ornamental rose quartzes, amethysts, pearls, rubies, pearls, garnets, sugillite, sardonyxes, opals, alexandrites, rainbow quartzes, smokey quartzes, lapis lazuli, jaspers, peridots, yellow diamonds, blue diamonds, agates, pink diamonds, aquamarines, topazes, citrines, emeralds, hessonites, nephrites, and white diamonds. All gaudy and unnecessary.

The massive, gilded, grotesquely ornate doors swung open, as gusts of mist billowed into the room in. The cavorting court looked at this with scandalized and shocked looks, as the mist cleared to show a silhouette, in an impressive entrance. The silhouette's eyes were golden scarlet suns, and frightening. The person on the overly ornate throne -- which was gold studded with a pink diamond on the base, a yellow diamond in the right armrest, a blue diamond in the left armrest, and a white diamond in the high back of the throne, with a rich, velvet cushioning -- was a mole with strange eyewear, which clearly was to improve his poor eyesight. Mole Realm Walkers have better eyesight than ordinary, blind moles, but not by much.

"I've seen your slaves, Conqueror," Cloak said, sounding like Avatar Roku, and not caring. "And I've emancipated them from your forceful employ."

"And what has given you the right to do this?" said the mole, Conqueror. How such a tiny thing could conquer anything or anyone was beyond him.

"What has given you the right to enslave others?" Cloak countered, folding his arms across his chest.

"Divine providence," Conqueror replied.

Cloak's frown deepened. "'Divine providence'. Do you realize how weak that argument actually is?"

"You have no idea who you're dealing with," he said, utterly contemptuous and dismissive.

"And I can say the same of you," Cloak replied easily.

Conqueror snapped his fingers, and shouted, "Gas! Lit! Do your stuff."

A donkey-form Realm Walker wearing topaz-studded jewelry and an elephantine Realm Walker wearing aquamarine-studded jewelry stepped forward as a musical intro began. and, after a few minutes, they began to sing:

"So you think you've got friends in high places,
With the power to put us on the run.
Well, forgive us these smiles on our faces!
You'll know what power is when we are done . . .
Son . . ."

They obviously didn't know what Cloak was truly capable of. He kept a planet spinning for ten hours straight -- granted, he needed substantial rest after such an exertion, but that didn't mean that he couldn't do it again. And this time he wouldn't have to worry about going too fast or too slow -- that was the really exhausting part of it. Naturally, he wasn't intimidated by Gas the donkey Realm Walker, and Lit the elephantine Realm Walker.

"You're playing with the big boys now!
Playing with the big boys now!
Ev'ry attack and gesture,
Tells you who's the better!.
You're laying with the big boys now!"

Cloak didn't move or sway or even look at them, as the two circled around him like vultures. He wasn't moved, and his face remained set. He would not be intimidated, especially by a couple of swaggering fools.

"You're playing with the big boys now!
You're playing with the big boys now!
Stop this foolish mission!
Watch a true tactician!
Give an exhibition how!
You're playing with the big boys now!"

Cloak struggled not to smile. A "true tactician", eh? Funny how such "tacticians" miscalculated so badly. It's almost as if they wanted to lose . . . but that was ridiculous, wasn't it?

"By the power of Conqueror!"

What power, precisely? He wasn't an Elements Master, Cloak was sure. He was of no relation to the tiger Realm Walker. What power did Conqueror have to allow him to ascertain such political power?

"You're playing with the big boys now!
You're playing with the big boys now!
By the might of Dolores,
You will kneel before us!
Kneel to our splendorous power! . . ."

Who was Dolores?

And kneel before them? Hardly. A mountain would bow before howling winds before he would kneel before them. He would never bow his head to them.

"You put up a front!
You put up a fight!
And just to show we feel no spite,
You can be our acolyte!
But first, boy, it's time to bow!
(Kowtow!)
Or it's your own grave you'll dig, boy.
You're playing with the big boys now!
Playing with the big boys now!"

"Are you done?" Cloak said, sounding rather bored. "Because I have other things to do than listen to empty bravado and untrue assertions, and I've just come to bring justice towards those that you enslaved."

Conqueror left his throne, and walked up to Cloak and tried to get into his face. But he wasn't tall enough to do so, and this wasn't intimidating at all.

"And what are you going to do when I retake my slaves back?"

"You won't be doing that." Cloak said. His flippancy seemed to be a personal insult to Conqueror.

"Why? Are you going to kill me?" he pushed Cloak, but he was unable to move the Realm Walker. Cloak was at least twice his size, anyway.

"There are ways of destroying a man without killing them," Cloak said, aerokinetically pushing him away, and disrobing him. Embarrassment, humiliation, and emasculation were far better tools than slaying opponents, Cloak knew this from personal experience. He had just removed any threatening credibility that Conqueror had. "Case in point."

Then, to his left, an archway opened up, and he strode to it.

"You'll regret this," Conqueror growled, but when Cloak looked back the entire room was empty. Cloak shrugged and crossed the threshold of the archway.

***

Kane was, in many ways, what the military would call a blue falcon (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blue_falcon), a supposed comrade whose actions harm his or her friends, often but not always, for his or her own benefit. Only Kane was a bit too brazen about this.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxyOTFQFWQ0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxyOTFQFWQ0)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2018, 07:28:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Trial of Perception

Cloak was walking on a bare mountaintop. He wasn't cold at all, and wasn't bothered by the blustering wind. After all, he could deflect and redirect the wind, as Air was one of the Six Elements. He continued to walk onward, wondering what this next trial would be. He was starting to understand how no one found these diaries before if everyone had to go through these trials. Not to sound immodest, not everyone would be able to see pass their own ambitions, not everyone could be decisive with what they had to do, not everyone wouldn't be swayed about taking the easy way out, not everyone would seek justice to the end . . .

He was suddenly accosted by a bald eagle Realm Walker, but too young to have the white head of a mature one. Like Sage -- and this one seemed to be almost an insult to his memory as this eagle Realm Walker was nothing like him. The fact that she lacked a white head, clearly meant that she was still juvenile. Cloak saw this, and this eagle bombarded him with squawking questions.

Cloak started to bat her away -- she was getting far too much into his personal space, and Realm Walkers weren't really big on touching, intimately or otherwise. Other species might have seen this as Realm Walkers being emotionally distant, but that wasn't true. Because of what they were -- essentially corporealized energy beings, somewhat like Anodites (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Anodite), in a way.

Cloak wished to keep his distance from this eagle Realm Walker, and she didn't seem to understand this. And she seemed almost psychotic, in Cloak's opinion. Yes, there could be psychotic Realm Walkers, just like any other species. No sapient, sentient, thinking species -- despite what they claim to the contrary -- is immune from psychosis.

She seemed to take Cloak's rejection very hard, and started to . . . sing . . .

"I was far too smart from the very start.
Cause my father came from the Nexus.
I began to grow,
Little did Misled know . . .
I had my own plans for him.
He thought i was tame,
HA!"

Cloak was finding this newly-fledged eagle rather unnerving and off-putting. And her behavior was very . . . erratic . . . and . . . unstable. . . .

"Just my little game --
Until this all became MINE!
They all do as i say.
No one stands in my way!
Everybody here is happy
Or I'll have them slightly altered!"

Cloak looked around, and saw no one. Who was she talking . . . oh, First Light, she was delusional.

"I can do as I please,
I can change things with ease.
Horn or hair or fin or feather,
I control the wind and weather!"

:
"What?" Cloak said, taken off guard a bit. But this confirmed Cloak's unprofessional diagnosis that she was delusional.

"We can rule the world together,
If you come with me.
You'll be happy,
Oh, so happy,
When you come with me.
You'll be king of everything,
Of all that you can see.
Ah ha-ha-ha.
Just say yes, hero --"

"No," Cloak said, simply. He had no interest in her in anything even resembling a romantic light. She was much too young, much too . . . deranged, for his liking.

"Just think what we two can do,
You and me, me and you.
Buck yourself up,
Don't look so sad!
We'll have more
Than my dear old daddy had!
Butterflies and pretty flowers,
Sunny skies and super powers!
Silver streams and fluffy kitties,
laser beams and rubble cities!"

"I'm not crazy. You, however, I have might suspicions about. Also, no, I won't say it." Cloak said.

"Take your chance!
While you can.
Join in my master plan!
You wont tell me I'm too blabby,
When I'm ruler of Nexus Valley!"

"What?" Cloak said, before he could stop himself. There was no place called Nexus Valley. Sure, the Universal Nexus had mountains and valleys and such, but none were named "Nexus Valley". It would be like Earth having a valley called "Earth Valley".

"All of it will be mine.
Everyday will be fine.
All the schedules will run on time,
And they'll be no more wars and crime
And I'll reduce your brain to slime!
Unless you just say yes!"

"No." Cloak said. He hoped that it sounded firm enough to her.

"You'll be happy,
Oh, so happy,
If you just say yes!
Oh, poor fellow,
Mind like jello!
Such a nasty mess!
Come on in
To the greatest kind of life,
To the best,
And the latest kind of life!
You'll be happy,
Nice and happy,
Perfect happiness beyond measure!
Purest pleasure,
If you just say yes!"

"No," Cloak said, calmly.

"It's our chance to rule
To let it slip away
Don't be upset
It won't hurt much.
You won't regret it.
If you just say yes . . .
Just say yes!"

"No," Cloak repeated.

"EHHH!" she said, imitating a buzzer, "WRONG ANSWER!"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpnxBuO6l_s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpnxBuO6l_s)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2018, 08:39:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Discomforted

Her demeanor changed immediately. Her whole personality became more aloof and distant, but not in a good or healthy way. Her eyes were like cold, gold coins. She was clearly mentally-challenged, and, yes, Realm Walkers were not immune from such challenges. No sentient, thinking species was. And each species, Cloak found, had a markedly different way of dealing with it. Some, like Andalites, segregated them from themselves and isolated them, effectively exiling them from "normal" members of their species. Some species, presumably like the Predators, just outright killed them. Some species just ignored them entirely, punishing them just as harshly as any other individual of the species -- which some Realm Walkers actually advocate. Some species try to help them the best they can, like some humans advocate.

Cloak did not know this young eagle's story, but he already knew it couldn't have been an easy one. Realm Walkers are not exactly the most compassionate, loving species in existence. He knew his kind could be cruel, ruthless, and domineering. And arrogant, a trait he knows that he, himself, has demonstrated time to time. He started to feel sympathy for the eagle Realm Walker before him, but that did not reciporicate into the feelings that she so desperately wanted, the feelings that she so ardently desired.

Cloak may not have known her story, but he could speculate based on the behavior he witnessed. She clearly had never experienced love -- Realm Walker parents would consider a child with such a disability shameful and embarrassing. At least, in the past cultural climate. It was not something that was prone to getting people sympathy. Granted, this was before his time when these things had mellowed out some, but not entirely. Realm Walkers may have been the oldest sentient species, but they were still evolving and maturing. Each species matures at different rates, and some merely had a head start.

"You don't like that?" she said, still sounding rather deranged. "Or maybe you don't like me!"

Well, this was a change.

A discordant guitar played in the background, as she sang:

"Sorry that I don't treat you like a god,
Is that what you want me to do?
Sorry that I don't treat you like you're perfect,
Like all your little loyal Elements do,
Sorry that I'm not made of sugar,
Am I not sweet enough for you?
Is that why you reject me?
That must be such an inconvenience to you,
Well . . . I'm just your problem,
I'm just your problem,
It's like I'm not even a person, am I?
I'm just your problem.
Well, I shouldn't have to justify what I do.
I shouldn't have to prove anything to you!
I'm sorry that I exist,
I forget what landed me on your blacklist.
But I shouldn't have to be the one that makes up with you.
So . . . why do I want to?"

"Look," Cloak said, gently. "You're not well."

The eagle Realm Walker said nothing, but swayed a bit, as if she was drunk. It wasn't entirely impossible for Realm Walkers to get drunk or high, but many of them chose not to. There was nothing wrong with it -- unless they did it to excesses, which did happen from time to time -- sometimes with fatal consequences. It probably should be noted that the analogous beverages that Realm Walkers have to humans' liquor is quite a bit more . . . potent. Which is understandable, considering the rather significant differences between the species.

"Look," Cloak said, as if speaking to highly emotional child, "you need help. Unfortunately, it is not help I can provide you. But . . . I . . ."

Cloak realized his scope to helping her was far more limited than he initially realized. People cannot get that kind of help, and have it do anything worthwhile, unless they wanted it, unless they wanted to better themselves. You cannot force any amount of therapy to work on someone, you cannot force people to change. And Cloak wasn't entirely sure if this Walker even knew that she wasn't stable mentally or, it would seem, psychologically.

She fled from Cloak, who hesitated a moment before giving chase, and finding an archway. He careened through it, and into the next trial without really meaning to.

***

Kane was anything but an academic. He was brutish, uncultured, and unlearned.

"Kane . . ." Shenmue said, lowering her book at his sudden appearance. Like most of the others, she was not fond of him. She found him incredibly rude and conceited -- and was not incredibly eager to find herself in his company. When she spoke, it was with determined politeness and courtesy, "Good . . . morning . . ."

He moved around her, and plucked her book from her hands. She was miffed with this, but determined not to lower herself to his juvenile level. Her patience was thoroughly tried, though. She spoke with determined civility, "Kane, may have my book, please?"

"How can you read this? There's no pictures," he said, flipping through the book rather flippantly.

"Well, some people use their imagination," Shenmue said. It took her all her self-control not to show her annoyance. Kane was such a manchild.

"Shenmue, it's time you got your head out of these books and pay attention to more important things," he said, tossing her book into a mud puddle. She couldn't help but scowl at him for this, as she went to retrieve the book. "Like me."

Shenmue was revolted at the suggestion. She despised Kane -- and he was actually hitting on her. Talk about being oblivious.

"The whole forum's talking about it," he said, trying to appear grandiose and impressive. And in a very juvenile way, at that. That statement was outright wrong and a lie, and he knew it, but he preferred to live in his own reality with his own "facts". "It's not right for a woman to read."

Shenmue stood and gave him a penetrating glare. She knew his pompous, self-aggrandizing pontification was just empty and hollow, but he seemed to believe that he was winning her over. Shenmue was astounded by the size of his massive ego, and she found that a deterrent from being in his company. Yet, he persisted.

"Soon she gets ideas, and starts thinking --" he said, believing what he was saying was impressive and persuasive.

"You might want to consider it sometime," Shenmue said, coolly. That actually stunned him into silence, and she walked away, elated to be out of his company.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLyGQnKMeLU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLyGQnKMeLU)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2018, 04:26:46 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Trial of Distraction

Cloak hesitated a minute, feeling bad that he couldn't help that other Realm Walker. She may have been deranged, but that wasn't necessarily her fault. She couldn't control that . . . she couldn't control her mental instability. It wasn't her fault, Cloak could hardly blame her for her . . . erratic behavior. He wished he could have helped her . . . then again, there was also the chance that she was just a construct of the trial, whatever it was.

Cloak surveyed his surroundings. He was standing in an icy tundra, and he didn't seem to be bothered by the cold. Could simply be because of his Realm Walker physiology or just some facet about these trials that he didn't even notice before. Cloak's mind just seemed full, that it felt as if his brain would start leaking through his ears, and these trials, surprisingly enough, seemed to be wearing down on him. He seemed to also seemed to forget why he was even doing this in the first place. He was basically just going through the motions at this point, knowing only that he had to move onward.

"Hiya, stranger," said a slow, drawling voice.

Cloak looked to his left and saw a polar bear Realm Walker sprawled out in the snow, with a strangely long pine needle sticking from his mouth, like a toothpick. He wore blues and whites, including his cloak. He was laying on the snow, as if he were laying on a grassy hill in a meadow. He was looking upward into the blue sky -- which was nothing like the Nexus -- with fluffy clouds. It looked as if this Realm Walker was just aimlessly watching the clouds, and divining shapes from them. Cloak believed the human terms for such an individual were "hayseed", or "yokel", or "bumpkin". An unsophisticated, rustic person.

"Pull up some snow," he suggested. He was certainly friendly enough. "Watch some of these fluffy things with me."

Cloak, despite himself, found himself tempted. Sorely tempted. Why did he have to go through these trials? It would be so much easier to . . . easier . . .

No. Cloak shook himself out of this apathetic stupor. No. He was after the diaries of Destiny, the Realm Walker that was essentially exiled because of she handed out spoilers to others' destinies. Those diaries contained material that should not be known by people ahead of time. Granted, her story claimed that time and her predictions were immutable, that trying to defy her predictions actually led to them and their conditions being fulfilled. Cloak wasn't sure that he believed that, but he saw the incredible dangers that such books would provide.

He couldn't believe that he allowed himself to forget that. He couldn't believe that had allowed himself to become distracted from that overall goal. As tempting as lollygagging around would be, he had a distinct purpose for being here. He had a goal that he must achieve . . . he needed to accomplish this. He needed to prevent those diaries from falling into the wrong hands, people who would misuse that knowledge to harm or exploit people. He did not believe that time or fate was immutable as Destiny apparently believed.

"Go on," the polar bear Realm Walker insisted. "Relax. Watch these fluffy things."

"No," Cloak said, before moving to stride away.

"You need to relax a little," the other Realm Walker said, serenely. "Being tense, worrying unnecessarily, fretting about nothing . . . that's no way to live. You've got to appreciate the little things once and a while . . ."

"True," Cloak conceded slowly.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2018, 06:13:28 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Don't Let Him Distract You!

"True," Cloak repeated, with a firmer tone, "but one also has a responsibilities to attend to. One cannot simply shirk what one must do in favor of laying about and seeking out more . . . hedonistic pursuits."

"I'm just watching these fluffy things," the polar bear Realm Walker said, in a serene way. "How is that hedonistic?"

"I was speaking generally," Cloak countered. "But I don't really subscribe to Aristippian ideology, either."

"I have no idea what that means," he replied, tranquil.

"I don't have time to explain it," Cloak said, still trying to turn to leave. But the other Realm Walker's offer was still strangely enticing.

"Such a pity," he said, sounding sad, yet equanimous, at the same time. "Always in a rush, never any time to appreciate the little things. Is such a life really fulfilling?"

Cloak actually hesitated before answering. "Yes. My life is perfectly fulfilling, and it's so because I put in the hard work to make it so."

"But you still haven't slowed down," the polar bear Realm Walker said, sagely and imperturbable. "You're in such a hurry to go to your grave, missing the little pleasures, forgetting to appreciate simply being alive."

"Appreciating life is well and fine," Cloak said, rounding on him. "But sitting around, wasting time on frivolous, ultimately pointless endeavors? How's that any better than the other extreme?"

"It's appreciating all the little intricacies of the various connections," he said. He still had the unassailable placid and sedate tone of voice, and Cloak was now finding it rather grating. No one could be so calm, unruffled, and unbothered all the time. It just wasn't possible, unless all negative emotions were extracted out or he was under the influence of some sort of psychotropic substance that could affect Realm Walkers.

"You are aware of how vague and evasive that sounds, right?" Cloak countered easily.

The polar bear Realm Walker shrugged in a detached, indifferent way, as if he didn't care.

"You're a distraction from my goal," Cloak said, somewhat harshly. The other Realm Walker seemed to not care at all, and that seemed to be his irritating schtick. "Good day."

Then Cloak took his leave and walked through the archway that appeared at roughly eleven o'clock.

***

Kane was lazing around, quietly lamenting losing his life of distraction. While he wasn't cut off from his parents' money, he was able to live a life with luxury and excess. He missed it desperately, and he wouldn't hesitate to tell anyone around him how he wronged felt by it. Now he actually had to put forth effort to survive, he couldn't have people take care of him. He wasn't liked at all, but he remained willfully and wantonly ignorant of it. His massive ego was that fragile.

When Saffa scolded him, he made up things about her. Slanderous lies. When this got back to Saffa, she immediately stormed over to him, and punched him so hard, she flattened his nose. Then she warned him not to spread such slanderous lies about her again. Saffa was not a RAFian, nor a woman, to be trifled with in such a manner. Kane had to learn this in the hard way, as he always had to learn these lessons.

When Shenmue burned him with that comeback, he sequestered himself in his thread -- which was unsurprisingly sparsely decorated, as he didn't have many belongings since being cut off. He stayed in there and groused in his petulance, he refused to believe or admit or acknowledge that he was ever wrong. In his mind, he was always right in everything that he did, and everyone else was wrong. Everyone who wronged him, in his mind, were evil and malicious, and he was an innocent little angel who could do no wrong. It was a simplistic philosophy and a selfish ideology.

But he refused to leave RAF. He wanted that Mark. He saw it as a mark of status and prestige, and desired it a bunch. He thought he deserved it more than anyone else. He thought he should have it by right -- and he was not-so-secretly miffed by the fact that he actually earn it. He thought that he should have had it handed to him the moment that he was registered. He didn't like the year-long wait time. This was instituted after the . . . ordeals with Rotiart and Odie.

Kane would have a hard lesson to learn, other than his flattened, broken nose.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 30, 2018, 07:27:18 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Trial of Bravery

Cloak found himself inside a cavernous castle, with roughly hewn walls, and tapestries of red and gold full of rich heraldry. There were fires here and there, in ornate fireplace. It was a wonder how such seemingly small fireplaces could warm this rather bare, and sparsely decorated castle. Granted, he hadn't any idea what the temperatures outside were, or even if there was an outside. He didn't know if all this was real or just a construct by the trials to test him. And he was finding these trials exhaustive. This was like his seventh . . . wait, was it?

No, it was, indeed, his seventh trial. Had this been Alola, this would have been his final trial, but he wasn't in Alola. He didn't know how long this was taking. His corporeal self would be still sitting inert upon his bed, his thread's door locked and he would be unperturbed. He wondered how much time had passed there, because it felt like an eternity in here. Too many times Cloak had been sorely tempted to give up, but he had to proceed onward. Those diaries were too dangerous. They needed to be destroyed.

He wondered what this trial would entail. What facet of himself would be examined? What would he need to do to pass it? How would he go about it? Questions for later.

Cloak proceeded forward, although he was hesitant to leave the room studded with at least eight fireplaces, two on each wall, with a frosty window in between them. That was just proof how large this room was. It was at least large enough to play two full-court basketball games simultaneously. And the only decorations were the tapestries which demonstrated scenes of bloody (or "ichor-y", if you will) violence. There was no gore, due to the nature of Realm Walker physiology. as essentially energy beings.

"Come to die, little man?" said a throaty, guttural voice. Cloak looked and saw a leonine Realm Walker with a bushy black mane. He was larger than his cousin Airlion, Mercy's eldest son, and larger than Cloak's leonine Elements Master ancestor, Bravado. At least, in terms of physique. He couldn't be anymore than an inch or two within Cloak's own height, but his physique was more built and muscular than Cloak's himself. With a toothy, ichor-thirsty grin, he said, quietly, "Please say yes."

Cloak said nothing for a moment, retaining his poise. When he spoke, he spoke with determined calm, "Why do you desire my death?"

"No talking!" he snarled.

"Ah, I see," Cloak said "Brute mentality."

"Fight me!" he roared, as he punched Cloak, who dodged it, rather like an Airbender, though with minimal movement.

"Knowing nothing but violence, with brutish attacks and sloppy attacks," Cloak said. "It seems that I already fought someone with your tactical skills."

"Shut up and fight me!" the lion Realm Walker roared, trying to slam his fist down on Cloak. Cloak saw the intent in advance from his Earthsight, because this leonine shifted his weight the to the corresponding foot to the fist he slammed down.

"Brawler techniques, on the whole," Cloak said, continuing to analyze this Realm Walker before him. But he was refusing to attack back, trying to see if he could somehow employ diplomacy. "Not big on tactics and strategy."

"You talk too much!" he roared.

"Not big on tactics and strategy," Cloak continued, dodging the charge with relative ease. This guy had nothing on Garrotik, Galacticron, Brainiac, or the like. Veil, he was a shameful stand-in for Malice. "Just attacking with no concern for your own safety or any collateral damage.'

"Shut up!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2018, 05:17:59 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
A Different Kind of Bravery

"Shut up!!" the leonine Realm Walker roared in frustration. The sound was almost deafening, but Cloak wasn't daunted. He had faced more fearsome threats than a violence-crazed, fisticuffs-enamored Realm Walker. All in all, Cloak found this specimen before him rather . . . unimpressive. "Shut up and FIGHT ME!!!"

"You sound like a child," Cloak said, disparagingly.

"You sound like a wimp!" he roared again.

"'Wimp'." Cloak repeated, expertly dodging all his attacks. He wasn't about to give in, especially to loud-mouthed brawler like him. "You think that's an effective insult? Are you serious?"

"Shut it and FIGHT ME!!" he demanded, sounding more like an overgrown, petulant child rather than the intimidating behemoth he imagined. He imagined himself akin to a Solgaleo (https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-sm/791.shtml), when he was more of a Lv. 100 Skitty (https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-sm/300.shtml).

"No," Cloak said, resolutely. "At least, in the way you want me to."

"Stop talking! Start fighting!" he roared again. Brute mentality had a habit of making these individuals so . . . predictable.

"Not all battles involve attacking your foe directly," Cloak said. "Hopefully, when you lose this, you'll take this lesson close to heart."

"You can't beat me!" he snarled obnoxiously. "You haven't thrown a single blow!"

Cloak fought the urge to sigh resignedly. It was really like talking to a brick wall . . . strike that, a brick wall would have struck up a much more interesting and engaging conversation.

"Sometimes direct involvement isn't necessary to secure victory," Cloak said, dodging another attack. The blow hit the stone flooring again, and Cloak smiled inwardly at this. "But those hardheaded enough, and with a single-minded pursuit of direct, frontal assaults for ridiculous reasons of machismo and braggadocio, like yourself, apparently will never comprehend such a thing."

"FIGHT ME, COWARD!!" he roared.

"Coward?" Cloak scoffed. "Just because I'm working on a strategy?"

"STRATEGY SCHMATEGY!" he roared. "You're a coward!! You're running away from me!!"

"I'm dodging your attacks, not running away," Cloak said, with far more patience than this leonine Realm Walker deserved. "There is a difference."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" he roared, punching the ground. The castle floor shuttered, and Cloak used his Mastery of Earth to cling to the side of the wall, as if he was a Dai Li agent (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Dai_Li). This leonine Realm Walker looked around, confused and perplexed. This just increased when the floor shook more violently this time. Upon the third time, the floor gave way. The leonine Realm Walker didn't seem to notice until it was far too late to do anything about it.

Cloak looked and saw the archway open up on the opposite side of the room, and he managed his way over there, and swung through it.

***

Kane was not a brave man, despite liking to pretend and boast that he was. He was a coward at heart, but a shameless braggart and he wasn't above stealing the credit for the deeds of others, going full-on Gilderoy Lockhart. But he hadn't any true bravery -- proven once again by his decision to avoid Saffa at all costs. He was now afraid of her, though he wouldn't admit it to anyone. His ego and his pride would not allow it.

Kane, for the most part, decided to sequester himself to his thread for the time being.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2018, 07:07:38 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
The Final Trial

Cloak came into what appeared to be a modern city on Earth, in the Prime Realm. It looked very similar that city next to . . . what the Veil was that? Cloak looked up, and in the clouds was the wide, bovine face of a bison Realm Walker. He immediately thought of a friend of his from his formative years, Blazon, who was a bison Realm Walker as well. But this wasn't him, the bison in this image had his left horn broken off.

"BOW DOWN BEFORE THE ARMADA OF FORBIDDEN!" a monstrous, loud voice boomed.

There was a smattering of panicked conversation, though Cloak couldn't see their sources. The Elements Master couldn't see what the reason for the fear and terror was. It was just a face projection into the clouds. And he's heard far more intimidating bluster before.

"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!"

Okay, he just stole that from the Borg.

"YIELD AND YOU WILL BE SPARED!!!"

Cloak raised an eyebrow. This is the same kind of bluster that those with brute mentality tend to use when their egos grow out of control, which happens fairly frequently, in Cloak's experience. It usually comes with the fallacy of immortality or being untouchable -- and those are dangerously self-destructive concepts to wrap yourself in. ****iness is no one's friend.

"DEFY THE FORBIDDEN AND YOU WILL DIE."

Well, that was succinct. And obvious.

"ALL REVOLUTIONARIES WILL BE ANNIHILATED."

Now they were just repeating themselves.

"THE FORBIDDEN CAN BE YOUR SALVATION."

Now, they're angling for propaganda.

"THE FORBIDDEN CAN BE YOUR RUINATION."

Cloak narrowed his eyes. This "Forbidden" was clearly an authoritarian tyrant, and Cloak saw shapes around him cowering before this face and booming voice. Cloak failed to see what was so terrifying about it. Clearly, this "Forbidden" had some sort of massive power to cause such terror, but Cloak wasn't really seeing it.

"YOU ARE NOW THE PROPERTY OF FORBIDDEN --"

"Why?" Cloak said, quietly, that nonetheless carried enough to whoever was projecting this.

"YOU DARE TO SPEAK TO THE FORBIDDEN?!" he roared, as if this was some great insult.

"Yes," Cloak said, simply. He showed no fear, because he was far more perplexed and curious than fearful and terrified.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE RAMIFICATIONS OF SPEAKING TO THE FORBIDDEN WHEN YOU HAVEN'T BEEN SPOKEN TO?!?!" he raged.

"I understand that you like to refer to yourself in the third person," Cloak said, almost serenely.

"YOU DARE TO MOCK FORBIDDEN AND HIS ARMADA?!?!?!" he yelled forcefully.

"When did I mock you?" Cloak asked, patiently.

"YOU DARE TO CONTINUE TO MOCK FORBIDDEN AND HIS ARMADA?!?!?!" he roared threateningly.

Cloak considered this, and considered the fact that he may be getting complacent. "Don't you think that you're being a little over-sensitive to this?"

Suddenly, what appeared to be a spotlight was aimed towards Cloak, and Cloak blinked in mild surprise.

"FORBIDDEN ARMADA, OBLITERATE!! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfqNH3FoGi0)" he roared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 31, 2018, 07:56:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Glimpse of Destiny

Suddenly, a massive beam of energy, colored gold and white, barreled towards Cloak, with concussive force. But the Realm Walker wasn't daunted. He braced his stance, and solidified his root to the ground. Then he shot his right hand, with his index and middle finger extended, pointing directly at the exact center of the blast. Then he waited for impact. Waited very patiently.

At the moment of impact, the beam did not impact him at all. It was siphoned into his two outstretched fingers, traveled down his right arm as he withdrew it his chest, forcing the beam across his stomach, he extended his left index and middle fingers as the beam began to travel to his left shoulder. Then he extended his left arm, as the beam left through those two fingers, with a powerful blast of his own energy, exponentially increasing the damage output of the beam.

"WHAT?!?!" Forbidden demanded.

But Cloak said nothing -- redirecting this beam and adding his own energy to it had actually drained him. It was a wonder that he was still actually still standing upright. He watched blithely as the face was destroyed and he prominent flagship in the armada suffered considerable damage, which leeched off to the other sky-ships in the armada, which were shaped like pyramids or diamonds. Cloak couldn't tell -- his vision was blurring and he was swaying on the spot.

He was actually fighting to remain conscious (or as conscious as he was in this strange dream space deal -- he was still technically on his bed, meditating). But he was completely drained -- his legs felt like vibrating jello. His joints felt stiff and yet rubbery, as if he worked ten hours straight, after walking to work for an hour, and walking back from work for a hour. His eyes kept drooping, and his swaying became progressively worse.

Eventually, with the Armada gone, Cloak fell over to his right side, barely feeling impact. Through his blurring vision he saw the area he was in melt away, giving way to a brilliant white room with a strange figure in a room beyond in a vaguely "T" pose. This figure was initially so frightening . . . she really was an ancient Realm Walker.

He closed his eyes, and allowed his thoughts to fall in on each other, wondering if he would wake up from his meditation, or in this white room . . .

***

Kane was also a selfish person. He wouldn't sacrifice himself for anyone, but he wasn't above sacrificing anyone else to save his own skin. He was a true coward in every sense of the word. This is another reason why none of the RAFians would trust the provisional RAFian -- they all had good reason to. He had done nothing to win trust, nor did he expect that he even had do anything to earn or warrant trust.

"They should trust me," he would grouse in his thread. "I'm their better. I'm better than all of them put together."

He would go to pace around his thread.

"It's not fair," Kane whined. "Those bastard parents cut me off for no reason."

They actually had a perfectly legitimate reason to cut him off -- he squandered the money they gave him, and he was unwilling to work hard for anything. And his parents had actually earned their money, as hard as it was to believe.

"So I became a RAFian," he simpered, "so the prestige and notoriety should be mine! But they refuse to give it to me. I deserve it! I'm just as important as any of them! I'm more important!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2018, 04:56:48 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
The Eight Seekers

Cloak awoke to find himself in a glistening hallway of marble and alabaster. He noticed some areas seemed to be in disrepair, but he ignored it. He was still not in his meditative state, clearly. He saw the image of that figure in his mind, the fearfulness of it had eroded when he started to consider . . .

Then he realized that he was surrounded by eight energy orbs, four on his right and four on his left. The orbs on his left were pale green and dull silver, yellow and black, blue and bronze, and fiery red and pale gold, while the orbs on his right were black and gold, brown and tan, blue and white, and green and brown. They were like the bichromatic colors of a Realm Walker energy output -- which was rather like the fingerprint of a human. It was exceedingly rare for two Realm Walkers to share the precise bichromatic colors, colors of the exact, identical same shading and vibrancy.

Cloak got up and walked to the pale green and dull silver, and touched it. When he did, he got flashes from another lifetime of a failed seeker of the diaries of Destiny. It was the kingsnake Realm Walker, who took the name of Hokum. The very one that Cloak met in his Trial of Ambition, and those were his energy colors. He had sought out the diaries just to know whether his entertainment desires and ambitions would come true, how far they would go, and what he would have to do to change fate so that he could make a living doing what he wanted. He wasn't inherently bad, just misguided if anything. He didn't pass really any of his trials, and became stuck unknowingly giving other seekers of the diaries their trials. He didn't understand or know the limbo he was trapped in.

Cloak touched the yellow and black one, seeing the badger Realm Walker, who took the name Idler. She, too, sought the diaries, but not for any grand designs or lofty goals -- she just wanted a shortcut. A shortcut to get around any obstacles that would usually take hard work to get around. She wanted to, as she advised Cloak, to take the easy way out. Yes, it was a rather ignoble reason to get the diaries, but, in the end, she couldn't muster up the effort to even pass the first trial, as it was too much hard work for her. This disgusted Cloak.

Cloak then touched the blue and bronze one, and saw the eagle Realm Walker Outlier. As it would turn out, she wasn't that deranged before she sought out the diaries, but as she tried the trials, her mental state destabilized more and more. Until the point where Cloak found her. She didn't really have a clear-cut reason for going after the diaries, but Cloak surmised she hoped to find a cure for her state, despite the fact that diaries only told the future. At least, one possible version of it -- Cloak refused to believe the future was set in stone and immutable.

Then Cloak touched the fiery red and pale gold one, and saw the leonine Realm Walker, who took up the name of Overkill. He desired the diaries so he could use it to find the most powerful adversaries and use them as what amounted to cheat codes in order to beat those adversaries. He had a fragile ego, and thought nothing of strategy, preferring head-on confrontations, so this was the most planning and strategy that he ever really employed. He failed to pass a single trial though, and now was stuck in this kind of limbo.

Then Cloak turned to the other four orbs, knowing that they contained the histories of the other four Walkers that he encountered in the trials. He probably should have moved onward, but his curiosity wouldn't allow it.

Cloak touched the black and gold orb, and saw the draconic Realm Walker, by the name of Raze. He just wanted the diaries to find out more people to kill, to find more victims, and see if he would ever be defeated. He didn't manage to pass a single trial, and was stuck in this eternal limbo, but he was either unaware of this, or just didn't care as long as he could viciously murder people. The guy was a Grade A psychopath.

Cloak touched the brown and tan orb, and saw the bovine Realm Walker, by the name of Forbidden. He just wanted the diaries to know who the "troublemakers", or revolutionaries who would oppose him. He had a fragile ego and an itchy trigger finger, hence why he tended to jump the gun on anything he considered to be mocking or dissent to anything he did or said. He was pretty much your garden variety authoritarian tyrant, and he was secretly terrified of being toppled and losing his power. Ironically, he lost power by seeking out the diaries and never returning, stuck in this limbo, unable to complete all eight trials, although each seeker's trials were completely different from the others.

Cloak touched the blue and white orb, and saw the polar bear Realm Walker, who took the name of Tranquil. He didn't really have a real reason to seek out the diaries, he just did so in order to have something to do. He found himself bored before he sought them out, and so he decided to find them, with a shrug. He got the furtherest, funnily enough, of all the seekers, but failed at the last trial. He was stuck in this limbo . . . but he didn't seem to care all that much.

Cloak touched the final orb, the brown and green orb, and saw the mole Realm Walker, who took the name of Conqueror. He only wanted the diaries to get one over on his enemies. That's the only reason Conqueror even bothered to seek out the diaries. If they didn't hold any tactical advantage to him, then he wouldn't have bothered seeking them out. But now he was stuck in this limbo, completely unaware of it.

The Cloak looked down the long hallway, and knew the diaries lay beyond, in the next room. It was with some trepidation, he moved on. He sensed an old power in the room beyond the hallway . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 01, 2018, 05:42:47 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Meeting Destiny

Cloak walked tentatively into the room. He didn't like feeling this way. He only felt this way when he lived (and was fundamentally enslaved, emotionally-speaking) with his mother, Ursa. He didn't like feeling this trepidation. He had been accustomed to feeling strong and in control over himself. He didn't feel that way here. He actually felt quite intimidated. He could feel the ancientness of the room and the figure standing at the far wall, standing in a "T" poise, with her arms bent at a forty-five degree angles, palms held upward.

"Cloak!" she said. Her voice sounded rather like Christine Ebersole (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Christine_Ebersole), though a bit more chilling. "There you are!"

It was Destiny herself. And Cloak knew with just one look at her that she was, indeed, an ancient Realm Walker. She was so large that he barely cleared her toe in terms of height. Her form was nearly incomprehensible, and he was a Realm Walker. Her form was rather Lovecraftian in design -- and, honestly, that was the best description he could muster from it. She didn't look quite Cthulhu-esque but she was certainly anthropomorphic. She wore a long white dress with gold highlights that reaches the floor and splits on the sides to expose her legs. She also had shoulder pads, and a pair of intricately detailed dress sandals with high heels. She also wears a cape with gold and white stripes that is lined with glimmering sun, moon, and star designs. She radiated ancient power . . . Cloak was even more intimidated.

And this was saying something, considering all the giant foes that he fought in the past. Garrotik . . . Galacticron . . . those Cybertronian puppets . . . those Colossi . . . none of them compared to this. None of them compared to meeting Destiny herself. His paternal ancestor. When she spoke to him, she spoke with no malice, no malevolence. It was a mere declaration, as if she had been expecting him to come for a long time.

"D-Destiny?"

"Ah," she said, with a smile. At least, that's what Cloak thought she was doing. "I haven't heard that nomenclature for quite a time. People of my time just called me Exile. I didn't really care for the name, but you can't control what others think of you, you know."

She spoke in an almost motherly way, but it did seem . . . off. Could have just been because of the size differential or something else.

"I see, I intimidate you," she said, matter-of-fact, in response to the silence that lapsed. "Current Realm Walkers have evolved to a smaller size and smaller forms. I understand, Cloak."

Why did Cloak find it so surreal that this ancient Realm Walker knew his chosen name?

"And I understand why you came," she said, taking control of the conversation. "I'm not mad, young Elements Master. I understand your reasoning, and I knew that you would pass all the trials set before you. And I knew that you would be here and speaking to me."

Cloak said nothing.

"And I know you views on this subject," she said conversationally. "I know you believe that destiny itself is mutable, changeable. I do not dispute it, and I account for it in my diary."

"Diary? Singular?" Cloak asked. His voice sounded small and insignificant.

"Oh, yes," Destiny said. "I'm afraid information got muddled down the line, long before Aniyu's time. There has always just been the one diary."

The book materialized over her right hand, floating as if on a turntable. The cover was white with gold highlighting. Cloak was sure that those were the bichromatic colors of this distant, ancient ancestor. She flicked her hand and it floated to Cloak, and Cloak was astonished how like it was, as it was supposedly composed of infinite pages.

"Now the choice is yours," she said. "You can peek inside, or destroy it as you set out to do."

It was very tempting to peek inside . . . but he came with a defined purpose. But would a peek hurt? Could he possibly . . .

---

Yes, yes, I'll come clean. This entire scene was loosely inspired by White Diamond's introduction in the Steven Universe episode, "Legs From Here to Homeworld". The set pieces, anyway.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2018, 05:05:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Got Some Chill

Phoenix had to go and route the newest fiend that decided to be active. Active . . . in the arctic. Phoenix was . . . less than enthused by this, but accepted the mission nonetheless, anyway. The icy terrain seemed rather slippery, and this annoyed Phoenix. It was only through a technique he called "Breath of Fire" that he wasn't too terribly uncomfortable in this obnoxious cold. He decided that it may be prudent to take his time and be careful through here . . . he didn't want to slip up. Literally, in this case.

The ground was uneven, and Phoenix did his best not to slip on it. This was dangerous terrain. It was a bit before he came to a dead end, then he noticed the shattered ice before him. The fiend came this way. Phoenix went into the underground icy cave. He landed on a ice floor, which only seemed about three or four feet thick. But Phoenix saw a hole in this flooring -- the fiend went this way. So he followed, and dove into the hole in the ice floor. He landed on a cold stone floor with clear indication where the fiend went next, and Phoenix dived down into the hole it made in the ice.

He landed another ice floor, and saw another hole in the ice. He quickly dived down it,  Once more, he landed on cold stone, and saw another hole carved into the ice. He followed this hole to the next floor. And he saw two paths to go, one high and the other low. He decided to take the upper path, and he burned and melted away the ice in his way, moving forward.

He continued forward, until he had to climb upward. He came to a tunnel that was a "C"-shaped tunnel that ended with him having to climb higher. He proceeded forward, melting the ice walls blocking his progress. It was fairly straight forward, especially when he realized that the tunnel he was travelling in doubled back on itself. Then he had to climb up to the next level, on his right.

The next level was somewhat straight forward, Phoenix just had to climb upward into the level beyond. The level beyond was outside, and it was snowing. Phoenix had to use his Breath of Fire technique again to make sure he didn't get too uncomfortable in this sheer frigidness of the environment. He proceeded forward, taking his time, avoiding deep chasms, and the like. It wasn't long before he made it to the fiend's nest.

The room had an icy floor and long walls. It also had no ceiling, at least not one that Phoenix could see. Then he saw the fiend drop down from its high position. The crest of the fiend's head only came up to Phoenix's collarbone. It's head was round with a loose dark gray helmet with a black, snowflake hexagon crest on its forehead. It's puffy face was like that of a child, with large human-like eyes with light gray sclera and dark gray irises. Around its shoulders was a black, pentagonal collar which had its head frozen in a shapeless mound of translucent ice. Its upper arms, abdomen, and thighs were snow white, while its right hand, lower arm, buster arm (replacing his left hand and forearm), shins, and pod-like feet were black. Its left wrist was dark gray.

When it saw Phoenix, it decided to begin its attack pattern. It ran and slid around firing his ice spike traps in order to either get Phoenix to run into the spikes or to freeze him, so it can jump on him. It initially only fired one of these ice spike traps at Phoenix, before graduation to two -- one toward the ground near him and one higher toward Phoenix, which hit the wall when he evaded. Then it graduated into firing three of these ice traps, and then it jumps to the top of the room, in the center, and created five ice spikes in a semicircle around it.

Phoenix easily incinerated these spikes, melting them before they even formed. He took out this fiend with ruthless ease using his pyrokinesis, despite the fiend having the environmental advantage. Phoenix turned and returned to forum, the mission objective completed.

***

Demos called it a "chirudosapien". He designed it for arctic observation, and an attempt to stem global warming's effects on the glaciers there. A lofty, ambitious goal, but one that fell short.

***

Malice, meanwhile, was pacing around, desperately trying to come up with schemes, fearful that she might be losing relevancy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 02, 2018, 08:21:29 AM

Lettin ya know that I'm still here!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2018, 08:53:46 PM

Are you subtly telling me that I'm underusing you, Gazzy? ;)

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXVII:
SWARM OF THE SUPERMEN
CHAPTER ONE:
Nitro Generation

Azguard went to the location of the fiend, which proved dangerous to pedestrians and motorists alike. The motorway had to be cordoned off, and the RAFian was sent in to deal with it, as local law enforcement was deemed unable to handle the kind of threat that this fiend provided. He had to pound the pavement in order to get to the fiend's nest, which it jealously guarded.

He walked the motorway's streets until he came to a latter on his right that let him ascending into an enclosed structure over this motorway. A building of some sort. When he reached the landing that that ladder led to, he saw a large step up to his right was . . . another ladder. But this one was longer, because the ceiling was high. Az quickly scrambled up the ladder, only to quickly duck down. This ladder led directly up to a highway, but, fortunately, it wasn't busy. Because this entire motorway was closed and cordoned off. But there was always the chance of a cranky commuter ignoring that and plowing through the motorway -- so it would always be prudent to exercise caution, Az felt.

Az saw a short latter above him, that was too high for him to jump and reach. He didn't have any superhuman jumping ability, but he did have cryokinesis. So he pulled an Iceman and ice bridged his way up to the latter, and dissipated it once he could climb up. He supposed he could have used that abandoned bus to jump up . . . but there was no way that he would have been able to jump to the top of the bus, or climb it. There was no convenient footholds or handholds.

Az pulled himself into the structure above this highway, wondering why this structure was here. But no matter. The fiend wasn't here. He would have to move onward, and meant the ascending ladder straight in front of him. He took the ladder and found that it led him to . . . another highway. HOW was this safe?! Who had the idea of making a highway Jenga?

Az did the same thing as before and ice bridged his way to the short ladder above the highway, into another structure above this highway. Az was sure that OSHA never would have allowed this motorway to remain operational -- unless someone greased some palms. And he took another long ladder which led to . . . another highway. This was seriously getting ridiculous.

Az did the same thing that he did twice before. Only this time, he fell down into an open manhole. He didn't do it by accident, but dived down and landed in what appeared to be another building-like structure . . . only to realize that this was just a platform. Over another highway. What the heck was with this place? Was it a highway funhouse? A highway graveyard?

Az dropped down to the highway, and walked onward. Then he dropped down into another uncovered manhole, and came to a sewer-like structure with a sheer drop to his immediate right. He took a breath, and ice bridged his way down, afraid of the drop. When he landed, he came to a hallway coiled like an "S". Then he came to a drop-off which he dropped down. The ground was bumpy and uneven here. The RAFian, undaunted, proceeded further into this cavernous motorway structure. This led Az straight into the nest of this fiend. The room was a perfect cube, and all the surfaces were smooth. It wasn't long before Az saw the fiend.

The fiend's head was like a pale green motorcycle helmet with a black vertical stripe, with a black visor that covered its human-like eyes with pale gray sclera and black irises. Its neck was hidden by it's chest piece, which resembled the front of a green motorcycle with handlebars on its shoulders. It had motorcycle wheels on its back, and its shoulders were green and spherical. Its upper arms, crotch, and thighs were white, while its lower arms and hands were green. Its waist and wrists were gold. Its shins and pod-like feet were black.

The fiend stared down Az for a moment, before riding around in its bike mode and tried to ram into Az. Afterwards, it performed a wheelie, rode up the wall, change back into his normal mode, and fire metallic wheel buzzsaws at him. It also threw several wheel buzzsaws while on the ground. It started with only one of these wheel buzzsaws at a time, and never performed wheelies. Then it graduated making his bike mode extremely fast and running a short path again and again instead of across the room.

Az just formed ice spikes on the ground in the right spots that it froze it in place and destroyed its wheel buzzsaws. It clearly did heavy damage to the fiend, so Az kept it up. The fiend didn't last very long. . . .

Az wondered if this this was the last fiend, or if they had even more to contend with in the future. Demos wouldn't say . . . claimed he lost count. . . .

***

Demos called it a "nitorosapien". He claimed that he designed it to be a stunt driver, though this claim kind of fell through logic quickly.

***

Malice continued pacing around, trying to come up with a scheme to stay relevant.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Gaz on September 02, 2018, 08:56:26 PM

Just lettin ya know I'm still around. lol

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2018, 04:15:49 PM

Ah.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Forgotten Remnant

Malice had gone to investigate some debris, which had gone unnoticed by both the RAFians and this region's military -- which was incredibly rare. You'd have better luck finding 209 shiny Pokemon back-to-back. Malice was secretly pleased by this unexpected boon -- assuming that there was even anything worthwhile inside. The debris was what was left from Brainiac's ship . . . and it was dangerous, in a way, for Malice. This was dangerously close to RAF -- it was basically in their backyard! And they weren't even aware of this minute remnant of something that happened Dweller months ago.

Malice ignored the minor wreckage (there wasn't a lot of it, and it was mostly coin-sized wreckage, as if a quarter of a Helmacron ship decided to break apart inexplicably), and quickly seized the crown jewel of the site, unnoticed and unrecognized by the RAFians and this region's military for what it was. She quickly scuttled back to her burrow, her nest, her hideout. She was unnoticed by anyone, which was an embarrassment to the RAFians. The military would have a better time saving face for this, as they could just through the RAFians under the bus for it.

And Malice realized all this. She cackled happily as she scuttled off, carrying what appeared to be an Assist Trophy (https://www.ssbwiki.com/Assist_Trophy), only slightly smaller. It wasn't clear what this item contained, as the glass dome was opaque and not transparent. But Malice clearly saw a clear value to it . . .

And she was absolutely elated -- estatic -- that he scheme drought was now finally over. This item will be of use to her, she was sure of it.

***

It was a very remote area, a cavern adjacent to where that monstrous MP3 creature had once rested over a Dweller year or so ago. The RAFians had never come here and investigated in any sort of thorough capacity, so she felt that it was a very safe place to execute her plans, her schemes, from interference. She couldn't help but continue to cackle happily. Her scheme drought was finally over! She could use this . . . she could weaponize this . . . and if they don't comply with her, then they'll regret it.

She could now do more than just send a fiend out, one at a time, in the desperate hope of staying relevant. She actually had a plan . . . granted, she was probably taking a lot for granted. She didn't have all the necessary information that was necessary or available to her. But she was just so excited to be able to actually do something, that she had some inspiration!

Cloak had better not forget his archenemy, she thought savagely. She was starting to have a rather unhealthy fixation on him, on causing him misery and hurt all that he held dear. Not to mention she was at least fifty Walker years his elder (five hundred, if you're using a Dweller calendar). She didn't really like being stymied as he and his little RAFian pets constantly handed her. But she had grown complacent, always sure that she would have a scheme to fall back on. Only to find what it felt like when she didn't have a scheme at the ready.

She looked at this item, with a glowing affection. Not because she loved it -- the concept of love was foreign to her -- but because she adored what this item meant for her. But there was still much work to do. She couldn't leave anything to chance -- though, that might be fun, too. She was just so excited and happy. She would get to be the villainess again! She had been sidelined so much! Oh, how she missed committing acts of her namesake! She should have gotten out and been proactive a LONG time ago!

Now, it would be time to get to work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 04, 2018, 04:55:39 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Kandidorians (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Kandorians)*

Kandidor was a bottled city of eighty or so individuals of varying ages. Kandid was never a big city, even before . . . the incident. It wasn't long before a psychopathic despot decided to claim power for himself. To declare himself leader without any input from the other Kandidorians. He called a meeting where he basically declared his leadership, and he wasn't willing to take any resistance from anyone. So, he made sure to intimidate every man, woman, and child in this small city. He swiftly began the meeting.

This despot, Nye-Mar (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nightmare), said, malevolently, "Oh, I know I'm not a pretty boy. But I used to be . . . quite a looker. A star."

Then he sang, not a tone of lament in his voice, but rather embittered resentment:

"I was striking suave, ambitious,
Foot to head, so delicious.
Now I'm vile, I am villainous,
And vicious. Oh, and malicious"

He paused, but only briefly.

"I had it all! Prestige. Women, too!
I was tall. Over six inch two!
Then they got a pretty bimbo to fill my shoes!
That's why I am so evil,
Why I do what I do!"

Despite outnumbering him considerably, the other Kandidorians shrunk away from him, terrified. A few of the bravest managed to squeak out a chorus:

"He was a superstar."

Nye-Mar allowed it, as he sung:

"So young and vital!"

"He’s nasty!"

"A Kryptonian idol!"

"He's a suspicious man."

This, for some reason, irritated Nye-Mar.

"Who said that about me?"

"A very vicious man."

"I'll have you rotisseried!
I'm a well-dressed freak
With a tweak.
A political murderer.
You think you're badder than me?
I've never heard of ya!
I'm evil."

The marginally brave chorus sang:

"He's a nasty man."

He seemed to like this refrain, and he sung:

"I'm invincible."

The chorus sang:

"He's ghastly!"

He smiled at that, and then sung:

"I'm un-minceable.
I'm un-washable.
Un-rinseable.
Like an abandoned school,
I have no principle!
All of you Kandidorian dullards,
All eighty dullards,
I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to make you --"

"Shut up now. Shut up!" he snarled at this singing chorus vocalizing, "It's just me."

"I will make you ugly… too…"

Then he cackled evilly as he left, saying, "Happy nightmares!!"

Of course, he didn't stay on top. Tyrants are always inevitably toppled, given enough time. Of course, this was all after the city of Kandid in which they resided was essentially bottled and separated from the rest of Krypton. They never found out by who -- they just knew that they had plenty of light, red light, and all their biological needs were met. Yet they could not see through the opaque walls of their bottled enclosure.

They lived as such, in a democratic system of governance, for years. They had lost count of how long that they been here. There was at least one generation born in this bottled city, but they just replaced the old ones who died of old age. Imagine their shock when they heard a voice . . . one they could understand.

"I will save you all," she had said, "IF you serve me."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6DOxuucAEk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6DOxuucAEk)

* I assume Kandor, the shrunken city that is home to the Kandorians, came from "candor", and "candid" is a related term, so . . . "Kandidor" = "candid"-"c"+"K"+"or"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2018, 05:24:52 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Gonna Kill Off RAF

Cloak knew that he was dreaming. As with most dreams, Truth Dreams, of this nature, he was perfectly lucid. It seemed to be happening more and more since he destroyed the diary of Destiny. It was incredibly tempting to peek inside and read about the future. About his personal future. But his good sense wouldn't allow it. Even if it was just a possible future, anything he read in there could have been changed just by his decision to read it. One should not meddle with time -- even for Realm Walkers, things tend to get confusing. You must just actively and decisively shape your own destiny, and not depend or rely on some prediction someone made.

Anyway, he was watching an odd gathering of the RAFian's rogue gallery. Some faces he recognized, others he did not. But they seemed to have gathered for one reason, and Cloak thought he knew the reason. Why else would anyone else's rogue gallery gather and essentially unionize? To destroy or outright kill their enemies.

Regiaeros said, "You've probably heard the rumors."

Regifloras continued the thought, "About this plucky little forum called RAF."

Regiumbras added, "They're coming to defeat us and thwart our hard-planned schemes!"

Regitoxicos concurred, "And we need to stop them."

Regiaeros sang -- the fact that this wasn't that uncommon probably should have been concerning:

"Hey! They're coming this way, so BEWARE!"

Regimagis sang, concluding with a belly laugh:

"Say! Let's shoot them out the air!"

Regicryos sang:

"I could put them on ice myself."

Regifloras sang:

"And this veggie won't be so good for their health!!"

Regilithos sang:

"Let's just smash 'em!"

Regihydros sang:

"Or whack him with a trout!"

Regifisticuffs sang:

"I could thrash them."

Regiumbras sang:

"And then pour their insides out."

All gathered sang in chorus -- and admittingly catchy chorus:

"We're gonna kill off RAF!
We're gonna make it die!
We're gonna kill off RAF!
With a big goodbye!
We're gonna kill off RAF!
We're gonna make 'em PAY!
Their debt to us
Is coming due today!"

Regiphaetos sang, punctuating it with a scream:

"I'll . . . make sure that their lives are cut SHORT!"

Regientomos sang:

"While I call the cops to come and bee support!"

Then a Fmek in an exosuit sang:

"WHY NOT GIVE THEM THE RIDE OF THEIR LIFE?!"

Regifloras sang:

"And shank those shnooks with a briar as sharp as a knife!"

An oozy, purplish man sang:

"Let's use SCIENCE!"

Then Shenecron sang:

"And arm ourselves for WAR!"

Then Regiaeros sang:

"Sky-high violence
Is what they have in store!"

Then all of them sang:

"We're gonna kill off RAF!
We're gonna make it die!"

Regihydros sang:

"We're gonna make them fish food!"

Shenecron sang:

"And we'll make them fry!"

Then they all sung as an ensemble.

"We're gonna kill off RAF!
We're gonna make them PAY!
Their debt to us
Is coming due today!"

Regiaeros sang:

"One . . .shift of the stars and the tide is sure to turn!"

Regifisticuffs sang:

"Too . . . bad that RAF's about to lose BIG!"

Regidracos sang:

"Three . . . heads will hunt them, until they feel the burn . . . "

Larry Dunn sang:

"For the rest of their headlining gig!"

Shenecron sang, addressing some kid directly, apparently unaware of Cloak:

"They call me Shenecron,
'Coz that's who I am!
A royal pain whose diabolical plan
To close some contracts needs a sucker or two . . .
So, come on, Moreau. Kid, I'm talking to you!
Come, shake my hand.
We got a deal?
Good, because now it gets real!"

Then a being who looked like a masculine Dark Necrofear (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A89QQ6XZDJs) sang, addressing Cloak directly:

"You agreed to my game, and LOST!
You accepted the costs,
And now you will cough . . . up the cost!
Don't screw with me, kid, or I swear . . .
I'll take my tea from your skull like cheap chinaware!"

Regiphaetos sang, not addressing Cloak directly:

"SCARE THEM!"

Regipyros sang:

"SCORCH HIM!"

Regineuros sang:

"Let's liquefy their brains!"

Regielectros:

"TAZE THEM!"

Regipyros:

"TORCH THEM!"

Regiterras:

"And then bury his remains."

Then all sang, in an ensemble, again:

"We're gonna kill off RAF!
We're gonna make it die!"

The Fmek sang:

"It's their final curtain!"

Regiphaetos sang:

"And their end is nigh!"

All sang in an ensemble again:

"We're gonna kill off the RAFians!
We're gonna make them PAY!
Their debt to us
Is coming due today!
Is coming due today!
Is coming due today!
Is coming due today!"

The strange, blue-skinned creature sang:

"Is coming due today . . ."

It was at this point that Cloak awoke.

***

Malice decided only to allow seven Kandidorians out, all wearing stasis collars of her design that would ensure their obedience. She wouldn't elaborate on just how these particular collars would affect them negatively. Considering the spikes, one could assume that it would be by delivering controlled electric shocks. She would only allow a small group of Kandidorians, seven in this first case, freedom from their domed city prison.

Their names Rath-Ir, Lus-stl, En-vi, Gu-La, Pry-De, Slo-Oth, and Ava-Ris. Malice handpicked them for qualities that she sensed in them that might make them even more easy to control and manipulate, thought each was outfitted with one of Malice's patented stasis collars.

Rath-Ir was anger-prone, with a hair trigger. He was the built the largest and most fit and athletic of the seven. He took great strides to improve his strength and intimidating physique. He was a brute by nature, believing that physical might outweighed that of mental might. In his opinion, might made right -- and he didn't bother to know anything else really. His techniques tend to be, while passionate, sloppily executed and poorly thought out. But he loved fighting. He lived for it. But he wasn't particularly pleased with serving Malice, who he saw as weak and frail. This is why he worked at a gym in the city before being handpicked by Malice for freedom.

Lus-stl was desperate for love and affection of a romantic nature. As such, he had a habit of falling deeply head-over-heels for any female that he meets. He didn't just fear Malice, but he told himself that he loved her. Despite the fact that he really didn't -- he didn't even know what love really was, romantic or not. He just wanted romance that badly, the hopeless romantic that he was. He had a svelte, thin build with little visible muscle on his frame. As he would tell it, he was a lover, not a fighter. He worked at a confection shop before he was handpicked by Malice.

En-vi was prone to envy and jealously, making him one of the easier ones to manipulate. He was always selfishly jealous towards others that could do things that he couldn't do. Even when there was no possible way that he would be able to things that others could. He was short, stout, balding,with an obvious paunch and sallow, sagging skin. He was the furtherest thing from athletic, and he couldn't be bothered going to a gym or something. He wasn't all that attractive or cool or smart . . . and he was rather touchy about the subject. Before he was handpicked by Malice, he was basically a mail room clerk at some facility that he hated, and he thought that he deserved more. He despised being in her service, believing that their roles should have been reversed.

Gu-La was a glutton for punishment and poor decisions, and very easy to sway with the promise of food rewards. He was tallest and fattest of the lot, with an considerably amble belly, thick, flabby, flappy limbs, long, greasy hair, small, beady eyes, a large, prominent Roman nose, and tiny feet and hands in comparison with the rest of their body. He was full of insecurities -- about his height, about his weight, about the size of his hands, about his hair, about his gluttony --  and he worked the night shift as a janitor for an office building when he was handpicked by Malice. He was pretty much the only one that isn't outright hostile toward Malice's control, and being forced into her service.

Slo-Oth was one who preferred the easier way of doing things and more hedonistic pursuits in life, preferring not to have to break a sweat for anything. He was a lanky man with long arms -- longer than his legs, short hair, and a blunt sort of face. who seemed to be perpetually tired, despite never doing anything to warrant such exhaustion nor putting forth any more effort then what was needed. He worked at a cafe when he was handpicked by Malice, which half of the time, he made poorly thought through excuses as to why. Naturally . . . he wasn't employed very much. He wasn't very thrilled to be in Malice's service, but was willing to do it to be free of the dome.

Ava-Ris never could have enough, he had to have more and more -- be it materialistic needs or new things to experience -- he always hungered for more. What he had was never enough. He always wanted to have more, to experience it all. It was rather hedonistic in a way. Ava-Ris was of medium build, average height, and short-cropped hair. He was also a workaholic, earning more and more currency so he get the materialistic things or experience new things and new services. When Malice handpicked him, he was working at his fourth job -- which he really didn't need to work, with the system of representative democracy that they had in place. One that hadn't devolved into an oligarchy or plutocracy yet. He was secretly excited to leave Kandidor, to experience new things, he didn't care that he was in forced servitude to Malice.

And Pry-De was probably the most difficult one of the lot -- he had copious amounts of hubris. Excessive pride. He managed his own small business, which was one source of pride. He was also the father of four, which was another source of this pride. He worked hard, as both a business owner and a father. He worked hard, with his wife, to make a home and a comfortable living. He was a moderate weight, height, and build, with a buzz cut. When Malice handpicked him, he was the only one of the seven who resisted. But, in the end, he went along with it when she threatened his family, but he secretly resented her for it.

Malice also held Kandidor above the seven, threatening to destroy it without a second thought if they showed even a moment's hesitation. There were seventy-three individuals left inside, and none were infants, though there were several children. She also refused to elaborate how she managed to unshrink these seven and return them to their normal sizes. She deftly outfitted them with the collars, and demanded loyalty and utmost diligence in whatever she commanded.

They had to agree.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzaTxSLzP6A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzaTxSLzP6A)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2018, 04:53:14 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Price of Disobedience

Malice waited until all seven had managed to absorb enough of Earth's sunlight to be effective for her goals. See, she knew and understood Kryptonian physiology as well as Cloak himself did. The seven were not too fussed about this waiting around, and when they got their powers, when they manifested, Malice decided to wait a bit further while they became accustomed to them.

Superhuman strength. Invulnerability. True flight. Superhuman speed. X-ray vision. Heat vision. Telescopic vision. Microscopic vision. Superhuman hearing. Super breath. Superhuman stamina. A healing factor. All of which could be useful to Malice.

Rath-Ir certainly reveled in these powers, being the clear strongest of the seven. Pry-De was resistant to them, believing he never needed powers to be or do want he wanted or get what he needed. Lus-Stl hoped that it would impress Malice enough to give him the time of day, he was convincing himself of a devotion to her. En-Vi reveled in these powers, though he secretly wished that none of the others got them and he was special in this regard. Slo-Oth was less than enthused as it meant that he was expected to do more, even more than he wanted to do. Gu-La was unsure about this development, and felt even more insecure about his performance with these new powers. Ava-Ris relished this. as these powers offered all new gains, in both experience and materialistic gains.

Malice allowed them to revel and cavort in their newfound powers, and learn to control them for only a moment before reining them it, calling them back. Rath-Ir's discovery of his powers made him arrogant, and dismissive of the person who freed him from Kandidor.

"You don't order me around, ya old bitty!" he snarled.

"'Old bitty'?" Malice said, with honeyed tones. This was a clear indicator that there was something wrong, but Rath-Ir was too full of his own ego and arrogance to notice. The other six did, and visibly recoiled away from him. He snorted, "You cowards. We could break her in two. It would only take one of us!"

"Have you forgotten our deal?" Malice asked, with venomous sweetness.

"I have changed the deal," he sneered. "Pray that I don't change it again."

Malice raised an eyebrow -- she was noticeably smaller than him, but she exuded an aura of fearsome intimidation. Something that Rath-Ir didn't seem to pick up on. She gave a twittering, girlish laugh, "You changed the deal?"

"I have, you old bat," he said.

"'Old bat', am I?" Malice said, dropping the honeyed tones. It was a bit of an insult to a Realm Walker to refer to them as a form that they they are not. Malice was a Tasmanian devil, not a bat. The two things were not even that similar other than being mammals. "You forget, Dweller, just WHO holds the cards here."

"You can't do anything to me!" he scoffed belligerently, with a deep, belly laugh to match. "Even your dumb shock collar can't hurt me!"

At this, Malice smiled, "Why my dear Kryptonian . . . whoever told you that they were shock collars?"

Rath-Ir's arrogant grin faltered. It was true that no one told them what the collars would do, and Malice still wouldn't.

"I guess a demonstration is in order," she said, her malicious smile grew as Rath-Ir's faltered. "I must admit, you clearly were a poor choice. That's my mistake, I'll acknowledge that."

"What are you going to --" Rath-Ir began.

"Make an example out of you," Malice said, raising her hand, pulsating with a less volatile form of her energy. The collar . . . reacted. Veins all over Rath-Ir appeared, glowing a radioactive green for a bit. Then it transitioned, very quickly, into red, blue, white, reddish-green, gold, silver, and into a jewel's opulence. While this was happening, his muscle mass was decreasing exponentially until he was severely emaciated. And this process was deliberately painful -- an excruciating amount of pain -- designed as a powerful punishment to make the collar-wearer regret of having defied Malice. Then the veins turned pink, black, orange, and periwinkle, before going back to that virulent shade of green.

Rath-Ir's mouth worked, as if he wanted to say something, to beg forgiveness. But his voice was long lost. Even if he could speak, Malice was not one for mercy. She only ever was willing to show mercy, if she found it entertaining. And she never found mercy entertaining, but found, conversely, mercy disgusting and those that practice it weak and pathetic.

Rath-Ir was now dead. His death was slow and excruciating, with him regretting his arrogant rhetoric and finding himself welcoming death when it finally came to him. His body was so emaciated that it appeared his skin was stretched tightly over his skeleton. He breathed no more, his heart beat no more, and his corpse became dead. Unlike Cloak, the fact that Dwellers leave behind remains when they die didn't unnerve or disturb her. Rather, it just disgusted her and reinforced her belief that Dwellers were dirty, lesser beings.

She turned to the remaining six, and said, returning to her sickly honeyed tones, "Remember this demonstration, dearies. Lest it happen to you, as well."

The threat had landed, as she stripped Rath-Ir's corpse of the collar. Without turning around, after distributing a single sheet of paper to each one of the six. Then, without looking at them or turning around, she said, "You have your lists. Go and fetch the items on them. Do not fail me. Unless . . ."

She gestured to Rath-Ir's remains. The message conveyed was clear as crystal to all six.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2018, 05:45:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
ATTENTION, RAFIANS! MY MINIONS ARE IGNORING YOU! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAlZOPLSfaI)

Lus-Stl was disturbed by Malice's callousness, but he dismissed it as surface-level cruelty. He still told himself -- unconsciously, of course -- that he was in love with Malice, that she would change by his love. He was so determined to believe this, that he was willing to ignore the obvious, making excuses for her. Lus-Stl didn't know what love was, but he was so desperate for it, he was willing to ignore anything that contradicted his fantasy. He rejected anything that interfered with his determined false reality.

For his self-proclaimed love, he would do what she asked of him, though she frightened him with her disregard for his life and the lives of the others. This should have tipped him off that any relationship with her would not be anything remotely resembling a healthy one. He was falling for the very same trap that Ab found himself in. But, unlike the late hippo Realm Walker, Lus-Stl wasn't about to shake him from the fantasy. He was in far too deep -- and he was that way due to burying himself that deep, deliberately.

He proved himself loyal to his "love" by easily obtaining the components that she desired. He gathered it with deft skill and excellent time. He delivered them to Malice in a timely matter. Malice was aware of his manufactured infatuation with her, and -- instead of firmly dispelling this ridiculous notion, telling him that she would never see him in any sort of romantic light as she believe romance was for fools and nitwits -- she did the very same thing she did with Ab. She played into his fantasy, she pretended that she might be interested in him romantically, despite not having a chance. It made him more useful, less likely to fail her.

Not to mention that she found it fun, especially as he was the only one that didn't arouse attention for stealing their part of the components she needed. Something that actually pleased Malice.

***

En-Vi was quite off-put by Malice's cruelty. But he knew better than evoke her ire. He did not envy Rath-ir, and it was a novel feeling. If anything, he envied those that still resided within the bottled city of Kandidor. He regretted ever coming here. He knew very well that his life was forfeit if he made even the smallest mistake. He sorely envied those that didn't have to suffer this burden, and wondered why he was so foolhardy to agree to this . . . though Malice might have killed him on the spot, had he refused. . . .

He was so worried of meeting the same fate as Rath-Ir, he was hesitating in collecting the necessary components. He severely envied anyone not in this position, wishing that he was them and they were he. He was discrete in getting the components, but not that discrete in avoiding the security cameras. He didn't even stop to consider them, and his theft raised the notice of the GH who was walking by on his way home from work -- where they made him wear that damn mascot outfit again. He barely registered what was happening, considering he had his mind on other matters. And not other works, but the . . . things that happened*. He was still parsing it out together. He hadn't really told anyone about it yet.

But when he saw En-Vi fly away from the store he stole the components from, GH knew at once that this was RAFian business. Granted, it was too late to really do anything about it. He would have to report it to the others in any case. It was always something, wasn't it?

***

Gu-La was unable to look away when he saw Rath-Ir die. He was still numb from bearing witness . . . he was still in quite a deal of shock from the death. He was terrified of Malice now. He was a glutton for punishment, it was true. But that was usually due to his own ineptitude and insecurities, his own poor decisions. He was cognizant of this, and he was deathly afraid of failing Malice. He didn't want to die. He especially didn't want die like . . . like that! He couldn't fail, but he wasn't the most coordinated being in existence -- he was quite clumsy, and this petrified him.

He was quickly found out when he stumbled with the components, his fingers fumbling with the delicate components. He dropped one or two of them and they, fortunately, didn't break. If they did . . . Gu-La didn't want to consider the consequences. He didn't want to know the dire ramifications. He was already terrified as it was. His hands were shaking, he nearly dropped the components, and they were delicate instruments. He hadn't a clue what Malice intended to use them for, and he didn't want to know.

But his clumsy fumbling had alerted someone relatively nearby. Hunter was coming to investigate, having heard the fumbling with the small, sensitive items. Hunter easily noticed the evidence of a break-in. And he caught Gu-La's scent, but the Kryptonian's super hearing heard Hunter's approach. He panicked a little, and made a hurried decision. The prudent thing would have probably to use the doors, but, in his panic, he just burst through the roof and fled directly toward Malice's little nest. However, Hunter couldn't fly, and the scent was out of range of his nose, as Gu-La decided to fly that high up and Hunter's eyesight wasn't superhuman. But he would have to report this to the others.

***

Pry-De realized immediately what kind of company he was keeping with the death of Rath-Ir. He had looked away, unable to bear witness of this depraved death. No one deserved to die in such a way. Not even the most vitiated, the most debased, the most vile individual deserved such a horrid, execrable, abominable end! The mere fact that Pry-De was forced to serve such a monster . . . it sickened him in a way that no one else could know, lest they been enslaved to a similar master. He would never be able to look his wife or children in the eye now. This was shameful servitude.

He hated himself for this, but he had to do this or die. And, despite the state of mind he was in, he didn't want to die. He wanted to live -- even if it was in shame, he wanted to live. But . . . still . . . he hated himself. He hated himself for even accepting this servitude. Then he reminded himself that he did this to protect his family -- she threatened to kill them, as well. His hand were tied. This was a Hobson's choice -- a choice that was no choice. He didn't just hate himself, he loathed himself.

Perhaps, subconsciously, he wanted to fail. Which is why his hesitation in getting out with the components that witch wanted was enough to attract the attention of Cloak, who witnessed him speed away on foot. He didn't fly -- almost as if he wanted someone to catch him. Almost as if he wanted to fail, despite knowing what would happen to him if he did. Was it an accident or self-sabotage? It was hard to tell, and he would never admit to the latter. But he knew that they all were just expendable to Malice. It was just a matter of time before their usefulness to her would have ended. . . . It was just a matter of time. He knew that his days were numbered, but he didn't want to admit it. He still had so much to live for . . . his wife, his children . . . what would they think of him? What would they think of him, for what he was being forced to do?

***

Slo-Oth's breathing was ragged now. He was experiencing more fear than he had ever cared to. All he wanted to do was do things that he wanted to do, pursuit hedonistic activities that were very pleasurable to him. He didn't want to work hard or otherwise. He only cared about doing what he wanted to do, and now there was this. This . . . this thing hovering over him. If he wasn't careful, then Rath-Ir's fate would be his, and he really had no interest in enduring that fate. He felt his body shaking from fear -- and he really found that he didn't like feeling terror.

Why did he go for this? Did he honestly believe that she would just allow him to do what he wanted? Did he honestly believe that she was truly offering him freedom? . . . Yes. Yes, he did. And he was a fool for it, he thought harshly. He should have known better. His parents had always warned him of such people -- but he never believed that he would fall for something so stupid. And, yet, here he was, with this poor decision. Now he hadn't any other option but complete and utter compliance to a being with questionable sanity and even more questionable morality and ethics.

He never noticed that green anole lizard, that clung toward where the ceiling met the upper wall, as his mind was already full of enough things. He was unaccustomed to this amount of activity. His movements tended toward the sluggish and clumsy, and why would he even concern himself with such an inconsequential creature. He got what he came for, all the components Malice wanted, and he left. He never noticed that the lizard was looking at him with far more intelligence than it should have had. . . . because it was Underseen.

***

Ava-Ris wanted new experiences or materialistic gains. But what he didn't want was that experience. And this was the first time that he ever known not to experience something. But, seeing Rath-Ir's death and how . . . heartless and indifferent she was towards it. She acted as if it was nothing . . . that's all their lives meant to her  . . . nothing. They were all expendable to her . . . little more than toys for her to play with. This was not only a sobering though, it was a depressive one, as he realized that he had no choice but obey her.

He was reluctantly gathered all the components that Malice wanted. It was a heavy burden he found him under. He never wanted this. He didn't. But he no longer had a choice in the matter. He was . . . he was enslaved. He had to do what Malice wanted on the threat of death. There was so much for him to regret in his life to this point. He used to be a great souvenir hunter, a item representative of both an experience and a material item, but there was only so many souvenirs he could have gotten from the places in Kandidor.

He was discovered, though unnoticed by the Kandidorian. He never saw Broken, Disillusioned (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Disillusionment_Charm) against the wall. In any case, Ava-Ris had a lot on his mind to parse through. Unless something flew into his face, he probably wouldn't have noticed. Broken discretely used Legilimency (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Legilimency) on him -- something that he usually refrains from doing, and he wasn't planning on digging deep. And it wasn't like Ava-Ris was too guarded with his thoughts, anyway. But, as he left, Broken reeled from the information he gleaned.

***

Malice didn't really have any faith in those six in accomplishing their mission. She held no attachment to them, as she never did. Abomination didn't mean anything to her, Mega Maul didn't, either. Neither did Rumor. She disposed of all of those idiots when they outlived their usefulness, and she would do the same with these pawns. But this was blatantly obvious to anyone who had come to know her -- she didn't bother to comprehend concepts like love or compassion, as she saw them all as useless.

She went through the "masses" of Kandidorians, to select even more slaves to her whims. She mulled the potential candidates -- an intelligent, logical man devoid of any emotions; a quite rude, arrogant, cowardly man who is seemingly unable to feel guilt for his actions; a creative and ingenious man; mute, energetic and very intelligent twin historians; a caring, loyal, nurturing, bighearted man who was often a peacemaker; an artist with powerful perception; a female fighter; and a thoughtful man full of humanity. Malice evaluated their potential usefulness, and how well they could be manipulated.

---

* The events of this tie-in (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=15887.0) took place during the last book. GH and I talked about this. (And I think it should be pointed out that GH has written the most tie-in books at this point.)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 06, 2018, 08:05:34 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Some Course Correction, Some Insolent Imperfection

"Lus-Stl, you did a wonderful job," Malice said, patting him on the head. "You got me what I required without being noticed, identified, or caught."

The other five seemed to cringe at this. They feared that they knew what was coming next, but they all hoped that she would be merciful. They didn't really know all that much about her. And how could they? They didn't know much about the outside world since Brainiac shrink their city, and added it to his . . . his collection.

"As for the rest of you," she said, her voice harsher and far more dangerous. The honeyed tones were gone. The five should have fled for her wrath -- but there was no escape from it. "Your abject incompetence, you insufferable STUPIDITY! Each of you five were noticed! Not by the stupid local law enforcement -- but by the RAFians!"

They cringed at each word, able to see where this was going. Malice had ways of surveying any place she wanted to see. Kind of like the orbs at the Diamond Authority's various moon bases -- the technologies were not that dissimilar.

"I was monitoring each and everyone of you," she scolded them, very harshly. "And each one of you five attracted the attention of a RAFIAN!"

All five -- and even Lus-Stl, who Malice didn't direct any of this displeasure towards -- flinched horribly at every word.

"The items I gave to procure shouldn't have been that hard for you to acquire, unseen. Unnoticed. And be unidentified for what you are." Malice critiqued, "And you couldn't even do that. You disappoint me."

This dressing down was almost as bad as what they anticipated would happen next to them. All five seemed to have been resigned to the fate that was destined for them. None of the five were fighters at heart, didn't consider attacking Malice before she could kill them, nor considered escape -- having already wished for death.

"You . . . have . . . outlived . . . any usefulness . . . that you . . . could have provided me," she said, deliberately dragging this out. She waved her hand, glowing with her energy, in front of all five, and they slowly met Rath-Ir's fate. Was it fair? No, but Malice only concerned herself with "fairness" as it pertained to her, herself.

"Wait here, Lus-Stl," she said, as the Kryptonian was sure that her sparing him was case and proof that she reciprocated his "feelings", the feelings that he was subconsciously telling himself to feel. "I'll bring out the new recruits."

***

"The question is," Dino said, as the RAFians had gathered and were briefed about what happened, "what will we do with this information."

"Kryptonians. On a planet orbiting a yellow sun. Controlled by Malice" Cloak said. He actually had to suppress a shudder. "That's a very dangerous prospect."

"But what are we going to do about it?" Faerie asked, bracingly. She wasn't one to give up so easily. "We have this information. They don't know what that we have this information. We should use it somehow."

"But how?" Dylan asked. "How do we use it?"

"There have been six sighted," Aquilai said, trying to marshal together everything that they know. "We know that they took some components -- perhaps we should be seeing what those components used together will do?"

"Judging by the components stolen?" Goom said, throwing his hands up in frustration. Or he would, had he even possessed hands. "It could be a million possible things. We just don't have enough information in that regard."

"Why doesn't she just take over the world then?" Kane said with his usually arrogant cadence. He still hadn't learned curb his condescending tone.

"Why'd we invite him again?" Saffa snarled.

"Because global conquest isn't what interests Malice," Cloak said. He thought that this was obvious, and wondered why Kane was unable to grasp it when everyone else could. Granted, he still was relatively new . . . but still. "It's the same reason why she never bothered to overtake and usurp the Realm Walker Council. She doesn't find that entertaining, and everything she does is about her own amusement. Her callousness and cruelty and utter disregard for life is just a byproduct of it."

Kane scoffed, as if he knew better than Cloak, "So she thinks we're toys?"

"That's precisely how she sees Realm Dwellers," Cloak said, putting him off-guard. "And Realm Walkers, for that matter, as well. She sees everyone else as NPCs -- unimportant and expendable. She is willing toy with their emotions, play people against each other, and manipulate them so that they are loyal to her. Many beings lives take a decidedly downward spiral when allying with her."

"There's a reason that she's called 'Malice', Kane," GH said, in a contemptuous voice that he didn't really use that often. Kane was pretty much the only person in the forum that he commanded Leatherhead to stay away from, and it wasn't without good reason.

"So," Dino said, trying to pull everyone back on track, "what's our next move?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2018, 07:15:45 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Forcibly Recruited and Confrontation Call

Malice showed Lus-Stl their replacement, as she pooled the components together. There were ten of them. She didn't give them any choice in the matter, and put the collars on them. Their names were Bra-In, Chri-Plu, Mar-La, The-Re, Fo-Ur, Joh-Re, Cri-Glo, Jenn, Fre-Ta, and Eli-Wo. They were all adults, with The-Re, Fo-Ur, and Eli-Wo just barely making it to manhood, and Jenn, the only one who fought back when ambushed, was the only woman. Malice tasked Lus-Stl with training them while she went and found more possible recruits.

Bra-In was a cerebral sort of person, devoid of emotions, with a rail-thin physique and a swollen head -- in both senses of the word. He was without remorse or compunction for any action he made. He held contempt for those he considered to be of lesser intelligence, of lesser appearance, of lesser financial clout. He considered them dirty and unrefined, and something to be avoided whenever possible. Just his luck as the ten Kandidorians around him were precisely the "peasants" that he despised. He came from a fairly wealthy background in Kandidor, and didn't really have to work to get what he wanted.

Chri-Plu is overly-cautious and cowardly man who had a medium build with salt-and-pepper hair. He had leadership qualities which quickly devolved into dictatorial tendencies, prone to berating people who do not obey his whims. He was unaccustomed to people not following what he wanted -- he could have been a good leader, but he always fell to abusing that power and authority on others. He was quite rude with his rhetoric and seemingly lacking any guilt with his actions. But he wasn't technically a bad man -- more like an insecure one. Before being ambushed and forcibly recruited to do Malice's bidding, he was a politician.

Cri-Glo was a visionary, as far as Kandidorians go. He was an eccentric artist and writer. He was seen as partially insane, and he may have very well have been so. When he spoke, it was often in a confusing manner to most other Kandidorians around him. He was of moderate build, with wild, flyaway hair. He wore a jacket and pants with pale gray stripes on them. He gave off the impression of being decidedly deranged and possibly dangerous. He was institutionalized when Malice came and forcibly recruited him. He gave her no resistance, almost as if he saw this coming.

Eli-Wo was a friendly and spirited person, with great courage and an adventurous outlook on life. He was a natural problem solver, but his curiosity can lead to his detriment. He was just coming of age when he was accosted by Malice. He didn't know why he was chosen, but he was.

Fre-Ta was a brutish ruffian of very little brain. He had a distinct fondness for bladed weaponry, and held a fascination with magnets . . . and inebriation. This Kandidorian didn't take much effort on the part of Malice to recruit forcibly. She probably could have just convinced him to come and serve her, without needing to us much cunning or manipulation. Before Malice recruited him forcibly, he was working as a bodyguard to Chri-Plu, who seeming didn't care about him and Fre-Ta was completely unaware of. Fre-Ta really didn't have any more depth than that.

Fo-Ur and The-Re were twins, with The-Re being the older of the two. At the time of being ambushed and forcibly recruited by Malice, they had just come of age, and started working as historians. It was kind of odd having two Kandidorians so young acting as historians, but they really knew their stuff, despite both being mute. The-Re is slightly more outgoing, and Fo-Ur is more timid. But both have the same thirst for knowledge, childish playfulness, slight shyness, and strong loyalty. They were smaller than the rest, and The-Re was a bit chubbier than his brother, and they had blonde bowl-cut hair.

Jenn was a fighter. She was a legitimate and professional fighter, and she actually forced Malice to exercise some effort in capturing her and forcing her into Malice's servitude. She tended to be rebellious and a bit of a loner, though she seemed to have a motherly fondness for The-Re and Fo-Re, having known them before being forced into this slavery. Jenn was a risk-taker, and not too abashed by it. She was athletically thin and agile. She was a force to be reckoned with.

Joh-Re was a caring, nurturing, bighearted, and loyal man. He was a skilled peacemaker and healer. He is a diligent worker, a meek spirit, and a devoted friend of his people. He worked as a prestigious doctor, though he didn't really care about profitability of it. He ran a free clinic, and was willing to do pro bono work from time to time.. He has a large frame and was quite tall. He was afraid of conflict, despite being rather good with children. He was just a big softie. But that's not what Malice saw when she ambushed him and forcibly recruited him into her service. She just saw someone who she assumed would be a brute.

Mar-La was kind, wise, if not a little delicate. He had a moderate built and bald. He was fascinated with garbage and how they could be used to as parts for his various inventions. He had a love for exploring wastelands to find said garbage, which he saw as free resources to use. It was mostly because of him that Kandidor didn't really have all that much of a junk pile that they were sitting on, that they never seemed to have a resource shortage. He was actually pretty integral to their society, despite him not even really paying any attention to that, until he was ambushed and forcibly recruited into Malice's servitude. Before then, he was, naturally, an inventor by trade.

Lus-Stl eyed each one of these newcomers, as Malice said, "You shall lead them, Lus-Stl, while in the field. To accomplish objectives that I give you."

Malice turned her back on the eleven of them, "As for now, just train them in their new powers. Do nothing else."

Then she scuttled from the room with her components.

***

"We're getting a call," Goom said, bring up the screen behind him. On the screen was Lus-Stl. None of the RAFians recognized him, as none of them had caught him, found him, or identified him. But they could surmise who and what he was based on context clues.

"RAFians," he said, with the ten others behind him. There was a nervous quaver in his voice.

"A Malice stooge, I take it?" Cloak said, acidly. He took note of the quaver in this new minion of Malice.

"You will not besmirch her name like that!" he replied hotly.

Cloak said nothing for a moment, not masking his surprise at all. Then Cloak sighed heavily, "First Light. Not another one."

"You mean like --" Dino began.

"Him, yes. Another foolhardy male who tells himself that he's in love with Malice," Cloak said, sharply.

"I do love her," he said, "and she loves me."

Cloak scoffed noticeably at this. "Malice knows nothing of love. She doesn't care for love. She just uses it and those that feel it as a tool to manipulate and control others. You delude yourself, sir, by forcing yourself to believe that which Malice is incapable of feeling. Malice has no lovers. Malice has no friends. Malice has no confidantes."

"I'm different," he said, and Cloak could tell he believed it. Or, rather, he wanted desperately to believe it.

"You are no different -- open your eyes." Cloak said, bluntly.

"I AM different," he roared, eyes glowing as if he was yearning to use his heat vision on him. "She does and will love me!"

It was then that Cloak saw the fate of this poor sap written on the wall. This was a replay of prior events . . . this was history repeating itself. Only difference was that this time it was a Dweller. Which meant that Malice would see as even more expendable. Cloak could clearly see nothing he said would change Lus-Stl's mind. Cloak wondered if there was any way that he could save him from this fate -- but given the limited time frame he likely had . . . it didn't seem possible. . . .

"I'm sending you coordinates," he said. "Meet us there, and DIE."

Then the communications blipped out, and was met with silence.

"It's gotta be a trap," Cloak said.

"I hate it when he says that," GH noted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Shenmue654 on September 07, 2018, 11:12:03 AM

I'm just amused beyond belief that I'm Belle in that post. XD I guess we kinda look similar in the brunette-who-owns-the-color-blue sense. I approve! >D <3

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2018, 09:21:16 PM

 :)

Releasing tomorrow's chapter early.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Triggered

The coordinates lead to somewhere were collateral damage wouldn't be a big worry. It was a location that would richly benefit Cloak, with its smooth, stony terrain and sparse plantlife. Cloak had decided to confront all eleven directly, although he had a plan for backup that he revealed to the others. Well, except Kane, who had fallen asleep during the call. Rotiart was always more useful than him, and Odie was far less obnoxious.

"So, you came." Lus-Stl said. "Where's the rest of you?"

"It's just me," Cloak lied. He was remarkable believable in this assertion. "Take it or leave it."

"I ordered for all RAFians to be here when I gave you the coordinates!" he whined. This was clearly a ploy to curry favor with Malice. Lus-Stl was apparently unaware that Malice didn't care about her minions "taking initiative" and doing things on their own, without her say-so. "You defy me?!"

"Yes." Cloak said, clearly not intimidated.

"Don't you know what we can do to you?" he said.

"I could say the same of you," Cloak replied easily.

Cloak's flippancy seemed to be getting to Lus-Stl. "You're NOTHING compared to us! NOTHING!"

"There's a Dweller saying, I believe," Cloak said, mildly conversationally. "'Doth protest too much', I believe it is."

"What are you implying?" he said, looking more foolish and foolhardy by the minute. Although this was good -- it meant that he was willing to talk, and willing to put off violence for a moment.

"What I'm saying is that you're telling yourself that you love a person who knows nothing about the concept of love," Cloak said. "And you're not the only one who was desperate to love, and be loved in return, to fall into this trap. The previous soul was slain by Malice herself -- Malice has no loyalty to anyone but herself. At the first opportunity, or when your usefulness to her ends, she will end you."

Cloak noticed Lus-Stl's flinch at this, and his covering up of it was poor.

"And clearly you already have bore witness to this," Cloak said, calling him out. "And, yet, you still tell yourself that you love her?"

"I do love her," he said, unwilling to let go of the fantasy.

"But she doesn't love you," Cloak said.

"YES, SHE DOES!!" he practically screamed. The ten other Kandidorians behind him looked at him and at each other, wondering what they had got saddled with.

"I see," Cloak said, sadly, "You've chosen to tie yourself to the fantasy."

"DIE!" he roared, eyes glowing with his heat vision. Cloak sighed, upset with the fact that he was unable to sway him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 08, 2018, 05:02:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
You're Pitiful!

Lus-Stl dove at Cloak, who didn't move nor did he flinch an inch. It was at this moment . . . music played. It sounded almost lazy at first, before plucking into a familiar tune.

GH, still unseen, sang:

"Your life's a joke.
You're just pathetic.
You're always broke."

Lus-Stl's attention was no longer on Cloak. He was stunned by that verse.

"Your homemade cosplay
Really ain't impressing me.
You're suffering from delusions of . . .
Adequacy."

Lus-Stl was still recovering from his shock at the song, and Cloak was feeling a little miffed himself. This wasn't going to help things.

"You're pitiful!
You're pitiful!
You're pitiful!
It's true!"

Lus-Stl's anger was building, and Cloak wondered why GH thought this was going to help.

"Never had a date
That you couldn't inflate!
And you smell disgusting, too!
What a bummer, being you!"

"WHERE ARE YOU, PIPSQUEAK!!" Lus-Stl roared, as the ten others shared glances. They clearly were wondering about Lus-Stl's sanity. His hands were shaking with rage. He hadn't thought of using his powers.

"Well, you just can't dance.
And forget romance!
Everybody you know
Still calls you 'Farty Pants'."

"HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME, YOU INSECT!" Lus-Stl snarled. Cloak sighed, knowing that this would just escalate matters.

"But you'll always have a job.
Well, I mean,
As long as you still can work
That Slurpee machine!"

Lus-Stl hadn't a clue what a Slurpee machine was, and that stymied him. Cloak hoped that GH would take the opportunity to stop.

"You're pitiful!
You're pitiful!
You're pitiful!
It's true!"

"COME OUT, YOU PIPSQUEAK!!" he roared, apparently forgetting that he had powers. Jenn didn't realized that her collar suddenly came off.

"You're half-dressed.
Eating chips off your chest
While you're playin' Bubsy 2.
No one's classier than you!"

"COWARD! YOU ARE A COWARD!" Lus-Stl shouted.

"La la la la
La la la la
La la la la --
Loser!"

"SHUT UP!!" he shouted, sounding more childish than threatening. The-Re's and Fo-Ur's collars fell off, and neither noticed. This was a calculated risk on the RAFian's part, Cloak mused.

"You're pitiful!
You're pitiful!
You're pitiful!
It's true!"

"I AM NOT!!" he protested hotly. Cloak noted that he seemed to be exhibiting a lot of restraint. But, then again, he was clearly one of those "a lover, not a fighter" types.

"Your dog would much rather
Play fetch by itself.
You still live with your mom
And you're forty-two!"

"BE SILENT!" he roared, completely distracted. Again, he was sounding more childish than intimidating.

"Guess you'll never grow a pair, too.
Well, it just sucks to be you!"

"I'LL KILL YOU!!" he roared. "WHERE ARE YOU?! WHERE ARE YOU?!?!"

Eli-Wo's collar fell off his neck without him noticing.

"What the Veil do you think you're doing?" came a new voice. It was calm, but it radiated rage and anger.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVGoOBTmDA8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVGoOBTmDA8)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 09, 2018, 06:33:36 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
You're Forcibly Conscripted

Meanwhile, just moments before Malice had gathered what amounted to her "third wave" of Kandidorians. She had designs of using all of them, other than the useless babies. Of weaponizing them all for her purposes. After all, in her view, that all they were good for. If they died, then it was of no consequence to her, and, as far as she was concerned, meaningless. Their lives didn't matter to him at all.

Agu-Co was in his late teens, a star athlete, and he was a brave and courageous boy. He had a lot of hair, which was stylized in a very much anime way. He wore goggles of some sort on his head, and he wore a loose brown suit, with a white dress shirt and black loafers. He had a fiery personality. His courage could go far enough into the realm of arrogance and disregard to the opinions of others. But whenever he goes down that path, he is humbled back to his starting point. He has had some leadership capability, as well. He aspired to become a diplomat of some sort.

Gab-Fr was in his late teens, a musician, and he was very sociable, having a lot of connections and friendships. He was thinly built, moderately tall, and short, messy blond hair. He wore a white button-down shirt with long sleeves under a closed green blazer jacket, gray pants, white socks, and brown shoes. He could come off as cold and icy to those unfamiliar with him, but he was friendly and optimistic to those who were familiar with him. He put a lot of emphasis on the strength and power of his friendships. He was attracted to Biyu, but he said nothing of his affections. He aspired to be a musician and to see what lied beyond the opaque dome.

Palm was in her late teens, a traveler (as much as one could travel within a single city), and very sincere and pure-hearted. She was svelte and had changed the color of her hair to pink with some sort of glitter in it. She wore a midriff-bearing blue and red T-shirt with a white collar and white stripe across the chest, as well as a yellow star in the middle. She also wore a white skirt and tall white boots with beige platform heels and a maroon strap. She loved growing her own food. She aspires to be a chef and a nutritionist.

Biyu was in her late teens, another star athlete, and she was very loving and compassionate. She had an athletic build, shoulder-length brown hair with her bangs combed to the right, and wore green and white sailor-esque uniform with a green skirt and a blue neckerchief, white stockings, and blue shoes with white soles. She. She had an affinity for birds, and aspired to be a fashionista and a fashion designer. She held an attraction for Gab-Fr, but kept it to herself, afraid of rejection.

Gom-Re was in his late teens, very studious, a star student, and he was very reliable and punctual. He was rail-thin with straight, black hair and glasses. He wore white button-down shirt with long sleeves, a blue blazer jacket, white pants with a brown belt and blue slip-on shoes with yellow soles. When he was younger, he had a tendency to be a bit neurotic. He aspired to be a doctor, and was a strong swimmer. He loved the water, and enjoyed swimming..

Ten-No was in his late teens, very tech savvy, and very smart and knowledgeable. He had brown hair, a cherub face, short, and wore a white button-down shirt with long sleeves under a closed green blazer jacket, a dark blue tie, gray pants, white socks, and purple and grey shoes. He had a lot of curiosity and could come off as a little obsessive-compulsive. He had a rather modest aspiration just to be a researcher, and he had some interest in entomology.

Pat-Ho was about twelve, experienced in fighting, and very hopeful. He had short, blond hair, moderate height, and an athletic build. He wore a yellow and teal long-sleeved shirt with a high collar, a pair of teal shorts, dark purple socks, green boots with grey soles, and a white bucket hat. Pat-Ho was a very cheerful and amiable person. He doesn't like when others are fighting or sad, and will do anything in his power to make others happy. He is very protective of his loved ones, and takes his duties very seriously. He is rather optimistic, and always tries to keep a smile on his face. He aspires to be an author.

Gato was about twelve, experienced in fighting, and had powerful spark of light in her. She had a slight build, brown hair that was pulled to the side with a hair clip, and wore a sleeveless white and pink turtlenecked shirt, pink fingerless opera gloves with an oval cut from the top of the palms, yellow shorts with a brown belt, white stockings, and pink and gray boots with black soles. She also tended to have a deeper understanding of things than people around her. She aspires to be what was analogous to a kindergarten teacher to Kandidorians.

Vee-Da was about twelve, a moderately bad athlete, but cowardly and shirks off any attempted friendship. He was extremely stubborn, selfish, and pessimistic. He has an unrequited crush on Gato, who doesn't notice his attraction. He was loud, abrasive, and tended to get into trouble by happenstance. He's only superficially loyal and a deeply hateful person. He held grudges and never gives anyone a second chance. He tends to give up easily and prefers to be alone. He was impulsive and reckless. He wore a pale orange bomber jacket with a green and purple flame pattern at the bottom and over a dark red shirt. He also wears pale scarlet shorts, pale orange socks, and blue and black boots. His ambition is to own a noodle business, but has no idea how to go about it.

Arm-Co was about twelve, poor martial artist, and he wasn't very smart or knowledgeable or reliable. He was not very serious or wise, and quite immature. Yet, he doesn't see the world as black-and-white. He was not very stubborn, He isn't very curious of the world around him, and he doesn't really question things, and he has being known to be flaky.. He wore a khaki tunic buttoned up with a single square button, a wide collar and yellow trimmings. He also wears a purple undershirt with a high collar, yellow pants, white socks, and pink and black slip-on shoes.

Hawx was about twelve, a poor worker at her parent's convenience store, and she was fairly hateful and insincere. She was a sluggish and unconfident, though she was quite blatant about her feelings. She wasn't very stubborn, cheeky, or impulsive. She's incompetent when it comes to technology. She wore a dark orange shirt with a turtleneck collar under a beige vest with pockets on either side. She also wears black gloves, green pants that are puffy around the thighs held up by a white belt with a gold buckle, and tall red and black boots with a zipper. On her head, she wears a blue helmet, made of a malleable material like leather. She has a love-hate relationship with Wor-Ke, and aspires to be housewife -- because she assumes that she could just sit on her butt and do nothing all day as a housewife.

Wor-Ke was about twelve, a poor student, a poor athlete, and he was fairly unkind, with cruel intentions. He was harsh and sadistic with his rhetoric and actions. He was quite impolite and discourteous towards others. He was brutish and unintelligent. His hair is straight and rather long, reaching his chin in the front and slightly shorter in the back. He wore a brown jacket with his school's symbol on the collar, brown pants and white shoes. He has a love-hate relationship with Hawx, and aspires to be a police officer, for the authority that he intended to abuse and misuse, even at this tender age.

Malice was satisfied with her new recruits, not caring about whether or not they wanted to be recruited. She would have that smitten twit train them to use his powers, with the other ten helping to enforce his authority. To enforce her authority. Imagine her great displeasure when she discovered that Lus-Stl took the other ten to confront the RAFians. Against her wishes, against her ORDERS.

"COME," she ordered to the children she forcibly recruited. "Or you'll regret it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2018, 04:48:50 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Malice's Displeasure

"What the Veil do you think you're doing?"

Malice was apoplectic with rage, incandescent with fury. It was palpable enough that all of the Kandidorians shrunk away from her, and backed away Lus-Stl, leaving him to his fate. Which was obviously not going to be a good one . . . or a particularly long one. Upon being found out that he technically defied the woman he believed to be his love, he began to babble incoherently. He didn't expect this negative, hostile reaction to her.

He believed that he was doing her a favor in getting rid of the RAFians, the beings that vexed her so much. He imagined her gratitude when he, as he imagined, when he had triumphed over them. He had anticipated getting fully into her good graces. He was not so foolish enough to be oblivious that she, in fact, was not happy with his seemingly sudden initiative.

"I did not tell you to babble!" she snarled, sharply.  GH, Cerulean, and Cloak were at a lost for words, and seemingly sidelined by this . . . event. "I told you to answer my question!"

"F-forgive me, my love," he said, with a simpering servility, "I j-just thought--"

"Who the Veil told you to THINK?!" she snapped. She clearly was determined to be livid at the Kandidorian before her. He defied her simple orders! All he had to do was train these ten newcomers in their powers. She didn't tell him to engage with RAFians, and yet, he "took initiative". She hated when anyone other than herself having that. It was her right to have initiative, and everyone else was to obey her wishes.

"I -- I -- I . . ." he stammered, unable to find a plausible enough excuse and he was horribly intimidated by Malice, despite her being smaller than he was. She was at least a full head or two shorter than him.

"Spit it out, Kryptonian," she snarled. "I'm waiting for an explanation"

Lus-Stl continued to babble and stammer, nearly incoherently. This just served to further annoy Malice.

"Be silent!" Malice scolded harshly. Her patience had been severely strained taut, near breaking point. Then she spoke to him, as if he was quite slow. "I asked you for an explanation. An explanation as to why you defied my orders. They were simple and clear-cut. And, yet, you ignored it. You deliberately misinterpreted it, and twisted them to mean something you knew very well that I would not accept."

Lus-Stl didn't try to defend himself. There was too much evidence against him on this, and any argument would just serve to stoke Malice's . . . displeasure, even more. There was no way around it, and, even if there was anything he could do or say to change Malice's mind . . . they didn't come to Lus-Stl's mind. He knew what was going to happen next . . . all because he was sure that she would appreciate his initiative. his ingenuity, his guile. He was sure that that would make her love him more deeply. He was sure . . .

But Malice would have never been happy with that. Malice demanded absolute compliance and abject loyalty. He should have known this, but he was so desperate to have someone love him and have his love returned. He was so desperate to feel that, to feel whole and complete . . . he allowed it to blind him from the obvious truths.

"You disobeyed me," she said, all emotion seeped from her voice, as if it was being vacuumed, siphoned off elsewhere. "You ignored my simple instructions. You engaged with the RAFians against my wishes."

Lus-Stl, still wanting to believe that he loved her and what she was doing was somehow right and noble . . . accepted his fate. Because he wasn't so foolish that he wasn't able to perceive what would come next. He didn't want to die, of course, but he was doing this thing as some sort of stunt, to showcase how devoted to her he was. To hopefully have her grant him some mercy from what she planned to do next.

But Malice knew no mercy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2018, 05:14:28 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Inevitable Conclusion

"Please . . . please, my love," he said, still clinging to the ideal that loved each other, that his was a requited love when he didn't even really love her. He just really wanted to believe he did, and Malice had no love of anyone outside herself. "Please . . . I beg of you . . . reconsider."

"Reconsider?" Malice repeated, in outraged tones. "You deliberately disobey me, and, now . . . now that you know what step must invariably come next, you dare to request that I reconsider?!"

The new twelve behind her hadn't a clue as to what she was talking about, as neither did the ten behind Lus-Stl. But Lus-Stl himself was all too aware what fate had in store for him. He was far beyond the initial shock of it. He couldn't deny it. Being angry about it was pointless, as was being depressed about it. He was trying to bargain for his life, even though he knew that would be a futile endeavor. But if you were this close to being murdered in such a callous and heartless way, wouldn't you try to beg for your life?

"I beg you, my love," he said, still clinging to the fantasy like a child clings to a familiar blanket. "Please. I can still be of use to you. Please . . . don't."

"Be of use to me?" Malice repeated again. Her tone indicated great scorn and greater cruelty. "You've just proved how untrustworthy you are when given a little leeway! You just proved how incompetent you are at following my most basic and simple instructions! You just proved how shortsighted you are when you didn't take the time to fathom my incredible . . . displeasure at such disobedience!"

Malice would not stand for insubordination. She killed Abomination for it. She mutated Mega Maul and Rumor for it, then disposed of them unceremoniously when she felt that they had outlived any usefulness. She never had any lasting attachment to anyone. The only one that came close was Cataclysm, her ancestor. And, yet, he treated her with the same sort of disregard that she treated the Kandidorians. You'd think that she would have learned from that experience and grew as a person -- but that's just not what and who Malice was. She took the name of "Malice", after all.

"You know that this would be the consequence of disobedience, Kryptonian," she said, coldly. She actually seemed to be savoring the moment, sadistically waiting to activate Lus-Stl's stasis collar. But she knew soon Cloak would gather his sense again, and interrupt her enjoyment of Lus-Stl's suffering. He was such a spoilsport in that way. "Suffering could be your teacher -- but I really don't want to take care of that mess."

She smiled, and it was the moment that Lus-Stl had been dreading, the moment that Malice was drawing out as long as she could, the sadistic monster.

"Please," he pleaded, "don't."

"It's your own fault, Kryptonian," she said, waving her glowing hand at his collar, activating it. "Maybe you'll learn compliance in the next life -- assuming you even get one!"

The death was excruciating. It was prolonged. It was unbearable to endure, it was unbearable to watch.

"Malice! Stop this! Stop this now!"

"Quiet, hatchling." Malice snapped. "Lines need to be drawn, and lessons need to be learned."

"You consider committing murder just 'teaching a lesson'?" Cloak demanded angrily, despite already knowing the answer. Angry at himself for standing by and just being a bystander by allowing this murderous action to take place.

"Don't be foolish, Cloak," Malice said. "It's just a Dweller. That doesn't constitute murder."

She spoke as a human would if they had just killed a spider. As if that life was inconsequential and meaningless. As if he wasn't a thinking, feeling being with hopes, dreams, and aspirations of his own. Granted, they were as misguided as Ab's was, but Ab was able to reform, and, as far as Cloak was concerned, be redeemed. But it was far too late for Lus-Stl, who's writhing on the ground stilled. Cloak could actually feel his breath growing more and more shallow.

"Just because they're not Walkers, Malice, doesn't mean that this isn't murder," Cloak said. "They're thinking, feeling beings. Not something to be discarded when you've had your fill of their presence. They're not expendable little toys for you to play with and break at your leisure. They're people."

"Oh, stop being so sanctimoniously righteous," she said, dismissing everything he had said. "You're guilty of dismissing the opinions of these Dwellers, too. Maybe you fancy yourself a leader? Pah."

"You don't understand anything," Cloak said.

But he had an ulterior motive to keep her talking, as he resisted an urge to look to his left, roughly seven o'clock. No need in drawing her attention to it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2018, 07:50:51 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Pay No Attention to the Speedster Blur

Cloak was supposed to keep Malice talking, to keep her notice on himself. That way Cerulean could remove the collars and GH could provide musical distraction. Or musical accompaniment, whichever was needed most and it was at his own discretion, which may have been a foolish decision, given GH's penchant for . . . unpredictability.

"Your depravity knows no bounds, Malice," Cloak said, subtly hoping to keep her talking. Hopefully, this would save everyone from their collars. Yes, he was aggrieved and dismayed with the Kryptonian's death . . . but that was going to be his inevitable end when allying with Malice, who saw Dwellers as beneath her, and should be subservient to her whims. Unfortunately, this wasn't an uncommon attitude amongst those in his species. Especially the ones that are analogous to the generation that the humans call "baby boomers".

"Depravity?" she snorted. She was falling into her monologuing groove. Cloak hoped she wouldn't have realized yet. "Dwellers are not worth such concern, Cloak. They're negligible and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. You waste your time and energy playing with them on this mudball."

But Cerulean was running to a distinct problem that he hadn't encountered with those four collars. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't finagle the locking mechanisms on the collars. No matter just how many permutations he went through at top speed, and any time he lingered on one increased the time he would be discover.

"If it's so inconsequential to you," Cloak said, trying get her to continue to monologue, "then why stay? Why come up with these various schemes? Surely, you have far more important things to do than to, as the humans say, than to 'troll' me?"

"Because it's entertaining," she said, nonconcernedly, "I would of thought that that was obvious."

And then there was the chance that these Kryptonians might decide, of their own volition and their own free will, to align with Malice. However unlikely it may seem, considering all present witnessed Lus-Stl's death, which was just as excruciating to bear witness to as it was, presumably, to experience. But there was no telling how indoctrinated that Malice could have had them. The RAFians didn't know how or wear she was getting these Kryptonians. For all they knew, she was growing them in test tubes.

"Entertainment, huh?" Cloak said, with mock surprise. "So, that's all I am to you?"

"If you're expecting me to launch into a big, villainous monologue, Cloak," Malice said, matter-of-fact, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline. You're right that I do have other things to do."

Then she paused and considered a moment.

"And your little Dweller pet there might as well give up," she said, apparently having been aware of Cerulean and GH the entire time, "those collars will not unlock in my presence."

Cloak glowered at her, which caused her to laugh.

"You are such a child," she said, her laughs giving way to a mirthless, sinister sort of smile. "Do you think such a trick would fool me?"

"If Dwellers are so beneath you," Cloak snarled, anger getting in the way of his good sense as it too often did,  "then why do you have an entourage of them with you?"

GH piped up, "Cloaky, I'm not sure if that was the right way to play that."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2018, 04:31:10 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Loose Lips, You Know

"An entourage of Dwellers, you say?" she said, slowly, as if mulling the words over. As if considering something that would make Cloak wish that he kept his mouth shut. "Perhaps you're right, Cloak."

Color drained from Cloak's face. His anger had clouded his judgement in a moment of frustration, and he was finding his words being used against him. He should have expected this, but he allowed his guard to have grown lax. He allowed himself to forget how to deal with Malice -- it was practically an eternity since they had to deal with one of her schemes. Cloak saw what would happen next.

"Cerulean!" he barked.

"I'm trying! I'm TRYING!" he said, hurriedly. "But I can't get the rest off!!"

Instead of addressing Cerulean, Malice turned back to Cloak, her Tasmanian devil eyes alight with her namesake. She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if she was mulling this over, instead of having her mind made up already. "Perhaps you're right and I don't need a Dweller entourage. I mean, they are superfluous and no longer really useful, I suppose."

"Please, Cerulean, TRY HARDER!!" Cloak said, unable to help in time. Malice had wisely refrained from using any real metal parts in the collars, despite appearances. The collars were essentially highly durable fabric and a plastic polymer that had an exceedingly high durability. Cloak couldn't sense metal in the circuitry, but if he were to manipulate that . . . that could have unforeseen consequences.

Of course, he could have killed them himself, to prevent Malice from forcing them to die using Kryptonite-based energies. Cloak didn't understand how she did it. He wasn't all that tech savvy, even with Realm Walker tech. The upgrade he gave Parker's armor over a Dweller Earth year ago wasn't even fabricated by him, but a friend by the name of Itemsmith.

"Cloak, I can't!" Cerulean said, admitting defeat. "The mechanisms won't unlatch!"

"Did you honestly think I designed collars that could open or be destroyed in my presence? After that foolish hippo turned on me?" Malice said. Cloak swore that she was savoring this. Savoring his folly. Because it was his, and he would take the responsibility that came with it. "After that sentimental fool and that old science project failed me, when I merged them together?"

"Malice, don't do this!" Cloak said. He never felt so helpless before, and Malice just quickly turned on those that she was so quick to have serve her. It was almost as if she was bipolar or something. "You can't!"

"I think," she said, grinning as if this was all a game, "you'd find that I can."

"Don't," he said, without any real conviction that she'd hear him.

"Too late," she said, with that maniacal smile and twisted enjoyment. Her hand was already up, glowing with her energy.

"Cloak, I -- I can't! There's not enough time!!"

It was too late. All but four of the Kryptonians were writhing around on the ground. Dying a slow, excruciating death. They didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve any of this. And Cloak couldn't do anything to stop it. His hands were figuratively tied, and he hated it. He hated every moment of it. There was no plan, there was no trick, there was no unassailable solution that he had for this. Of course, Malice would recognize his mastery over the Metal element, and have taken steps to prevent him from using it to save the day.

"Malice . . ." Cloak said, holding Gato as she fell. He was inexplicably reminded of Shadow, which deepened his sorrow and grief. And regret. He also felt incredible rage and fury at Malice . . . and himself.

"Cloak," Cerulean said, clearly feeling the same way, "Cloak, I'm sorry. I can't save them. . . ."

"Neither can I," Cloak said.

"Me either," GH said. "But I can make the pain easier for them."

And he played them a somber tune, one that helped them forget the pain, one that helped numb the pain. Not completely, but enough to severely limit the suffering they were undergoing.

The-re, Fo-Ur, Jenn, and Eli-Wo were the only ones not writhing around on the floor, as their collars were only ones that managed to be removed by Cerulean, who now feeling distinctly aggrieved at his failure to get the others' collars off. Those four Kryptonians were stunned into silence and inaction, only dimly aware of this fact. Even children . . . Malice had no compunction killing children . . .

"Y-you . . ." Jenn declared, after all the writhing had stopped. She then charged Malice who looked unconcerned by this, as if she had a yet-unused trump card. "You monster!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2018, 06:05:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Malice's Rebuttal

Malice looked on at the charge, which Jenn was holding back the true force she could have gone. She wanted to feel the contact, she wanted to witness it. She wanted to see the realization in Malice's eyes that she made a big mistake. Granted, she didn't really know any of these Kandidorians personally, except The-re and Fo-Ur. But that didn't change her disgust and how what Malice did, with the callousness or heartlessness she committed these murders. And she didn't care -- she said it herself. She didn't care, she didn't consider slaughtering them murder. That's all they were to her -- she didn't see them as living, feeling, thinking individuals. She considered herself better than them in every regard.

"Now, now, Kryptonian," Malice said. with an almost motherly scold, as she continued to cover the distance, holding back her power. She held back her power for the precise same reason that Cloak himself did. They both were afraid of losing control -- when a being with great power loses control . . . there's usually a lot more pain and grief to go around. "You don't want to do that."

"You're going to pay for what you did, monster!" Jenn roared, as The-Re and Fo-ur hugged each other fearfully and Eli-Wo wondered if he should intervene, despite being afraid to. He turned his attention to the sea of bodies that surrounded them all. He wondered what each of their stories were, and how sad that they all ended in such a way. This was senseless. This was pointless. All this death . . . for what ends did Malice achieve this slaughter?

"Pay?" Malice said, with a girlish giggle, which recalled Dolores Umbridge (https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/dolores-umbridge). "You may want to stop your attack."

"I want you to suffer!" Jenn roared. "I want you to know pain and grief!"

"That's a futile endeavor," Cloak said, quickly. "Malice has never known the kind of pain that you wish to inflict upon her. She's never known guilt, shame, or regret.'

"She's a monster!"

"There's no denying that." Cloak agreed.

"Oh, and you don't want to attack me," Malice added, conversationally, "as you might regret it."

"I won't! I want you to suffer, you monster!" Jenn said,continuing to close the distance. She ****ed her right arm back. She wanted to savor this impact. She wanted to see Malice die from a single blow with her superhuman strength. Jenn wanted to feel the impact, and if she used her full strength, that wouldn't happen . . . she had to pull back, just so she could feel the impact of her fist on Malice's skull.

"Attack me," Malice said, pulling out what appeared to be an Assist Trophy. Jenn stopped her charge at once, recognizing what this item truly was, and terrified of breaking it.

"What's that?" GH asked at once.

"Nothing good," Cerulean replied, noticing all the Kryptonians present, all four of them, trained their eyes on this item.

"Is that --" Cloak said.

"Kandidor, yes," Malice said, as if she somehow foresaw this was how everything was going to go. As if it was because she designed it that way. As if she manipulated all events to this scenario. She hadn't done anything of the sort, but she presented it as if she did. "I found it right in your backyard, wittle Cloaky."

Cloak felt as if his stomach was bottoming out. He never searched for anything when their "Danger Room" became an inoperable, burned out husk . . . he had assumed any bottled cities would have been destroyed in the ensuing explosions onboard Brainiac's ship. . . . Brainiac didn't even survive that explosion, one that he caused at his own unwitting volition. But, apparently, Kandidor survived. Survived atmospheric entry, and making groundfall without so much as a scratch. But that could have been an one-time thing, there was no guarantee that it could survive another blow. . . . And those Dwellers within were not guaranteed to survive its destruction.

"Yes, that's right," she crowed with her namesake, "I hold all the cards here."

The destruction of Kandidor would also be on his head, Cloak felt, and their blood on his hands. Cloak gave a cursory glance around. There were already Kryptonian blood on his hands . . . there was so much blood on his hands at this point. And he felt extremely contrite and remorseful about it. These were foreign concepts to Malice, and she disregarded them with abject disdain and irreverence.

"So," she said, with a devious smile, turned away from Cloak, "whatcha gonna do now?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2018, 05:20:47 PM

As I was talking with Dino, she pointed out how dark some of the books are, which got me to thinking how there haven't really been any real happy endings in the series. *looks at future outlines* I suppose it's a spoiler to say that trend isn't likely to end.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Malice Loses It

"So . . . whatcha gonna do now?"

Cloak didn't have an answer. Anything he did would risk her dropping the bottled city, or her destroying it in retaliation. Cloak's anger at himself increased -- his own inaction had led to this scenario. Had he learned nothing by the trials that he had to pass to get Destiny's diary? He wasn't being proactive, he wasn't being decisive. And now they were in this impossible situation.

"Oh," Malice said, voice full of cruelty and her namesake as she gloated, "you can't do anything, can you?"

Cloak glared at the back of Malice, who had turned her head to look at him, to gloat. She was loving this. She was savoring this. But it was only a matter of time before she made a move. Cloak didn't know what to expect, but he felt that he was at fault for all of this. He should have known that this would have happened the moment he saw Lus-Stl's collar . . . but he didn't do anything really about it. He didn't prepare for Malice. He allowed himself to drop his guard.

"Your helplessness is delicious," Malice piled on.

Cloak's guilt seemed to be ever expanding. He should have saw this . . . and he didn't. Not even through those frustratingly-vague Truth Dreams! He . . . he should have . . . this was all his fault. . . .

"You are in despair," Malice said. She was clearly enjoying this. She was enjoying this too much. She loved causing Cloak pain. She never seemed to need another reason other than this. It was, as she said, entertaining to her. She was, at her heart, a bully who loved to see the suffering, pain, and anguish of others. "Allow me to deepen it."

Cloak looked at her, allowing Gato's desiccated, dead body to drop to the floor once more. He rose slowly, saying, "What do you --"

Suddenly, her energy flared from her hand, and two sets of mandibles akin to that of a male stag beetles constructed from her own energy clamped down on the bottled city. The points of which dug into the glass-like analogue. She didn't pop it, but she made it clear that she could at her slightest whim.

"Malice, stop!" Cloak said, perfectly aware that this demand was ultimately futile. "You're going too far!"

"Oh, am I?" she said, increasing the pressure on the glass-like dome. It began to crack around the spiked points of her energy construct. "Would you want to see just how far I'm really willing to go with this?"

Cloak hesitated, which caused Malice to laugh raucously and harshly.

"You know, Cloak, this is why you're weak," Malice said. "You treasure all the wrong things. These Dwellers? Their little lives are meaningless. They barely live for a decade, and you've gained an attachment to them. How pathetic."

She increased the power and pressure of her energy constructs, making the cracking more severe.

"Stop this, Malice!" Cloak said, afraid to interfere, afraid of making things worse. "You don't have to do this!"

"You see yet?" Malice said, grin sliding from her face. The cracks in the glass-like structure began to fracture and fissure as Malice tightened her construct's grip. "This is what makes you pathetic. You have enough power to split this planet in twain, and what do you do with it? You squander it protecting these unworthy, filthy Dwellers. And why? Because they're your . . . what's that term . . . friends? Who befriends insignificant peons who have no real use and often prove to be disappointments?"

"They only disappoint you because you treat them like cannon fodder," Cloak argued, going through daring plan after daring plan in his mind, before dismissing them for one reason or another. He couldn't see a good, salient way to free the bottled city . . . and clearly there were people in there, judging by the looks on the faces of Jess, Eli-Wo, The-Re, and Fo-Ur. "Because you treat them as beneath you, rather than equals."

"They are puny, worthless scraps of disgusting matter," Malice said, snidely. "They could never be our equals."

"And that attitude is why you will never understand," Cloak said.

"Oh, I understand perfectly, little Cloak," she said. "Even with all your power, you're still weak!"

"Disregarding life doesn't make you strong," Cloak said. "And preserving life doesn't make you weak."

"Oh, really?" she said. He didn't like the way she said that, and neither did Jenn.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2018, 05:37:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Wait . . . WHAT Exactly Happened Here?

"Oh, really?"

Cloak felt his heart sink and nestle firmly into his stomach. He realized what she was going to do only a split second before she did it. It was like everything was moving in slow-motion and his body and reaction time seemed to be even slower. He hated this feeling, as if he was submerged in molasses on a frigid day.

Malice increased the pressure on her construct until the dome of glass-like material shattered into pieces. But that wasn't it, she reformed the construct into what resembled a hydraulic press. She slowly pressed it down upon the city, smashing it before Jenn could react. There was no question to it now. Kandidor was gone. The forgotten bottled city belonged to the annals of history now, where it would still be summarily forgotten.

"You . . . you . . . you killed them," Jenn said, utterly stunned with shock. "Everyone . . . everyone gone . . ."

"Malice!" Cloak roared, on his feet now. He was conflicted, at first, about what needed to be done. But now . . . he realized he should have done to Malice what he done to her ancestor, Cataclysm so long ago. "You didn't have to do that!"

"I know that," she said, not bothering to look over him, instead of choosing to fiddle with something in her cloak. Cloak would later hate himself for being so slow on the uptake. "I did it because I wanted to."

"Where's your humanity?" Cloak asked. He genuinely wanted to know. "What the Veil happened to you to make you this way? What the Veil happened to you to disregard life in this way? What the Veil is wrong with you?!'

"You . . . you monster!" Jenn said, charging forward again, eyes full of tears. Everyone she knew, friend and adversary, was gone now. Dead. Everyone in Kandidor was under artificial red sunlight, they didn't have any powers. They were helpless. And now they were dead. Everyone, other than The-Re and Fo-Ur, were gone. She would never see them again. She would never be able to laugh with . . . to cry with . . . to comfort . . . to love with them again. "Monster!"

Cerulean was quicker on the uptake than Cloak, whose mind had frustratingly become sluggish and turbid. He would wonder idly if this was a drawback from what he did to Destiny's diaries or possibly some sort of affliction from it. Cerulean seized GH by the arm, and sped away, at top speed. GH thought it was like suddenly having a seat belt strapped onto him, and having a roller coaster rocketing him backward. And he wasn't a particular fan of roller coasters, especially backward roller coasters.

Cloak didn't see this happen, his mind was struggling to cope with just what could have possibly happened to Malice to make her this way. Was she born this way, or was it something environmental to shape her into this monster? She was an octogenarian. She had eighty years -- eight hundred, using the same calendar that the RAFians use -- in which to be shaped into this . . . this thing before him. Something had to have happen to her, as Cloak resisted the idea that someone could be born this evil, this callous, this heartless.

"I will kill you myself!" Jenn said, eyes still full of tears. She ****ed a fist back for a blow, and it was then that Cloak's muddied might snapped back into clearer focus. He suddenly realized what Malice intended to do, and he was in no position to stop her. There was that rather inconvenient time slow-down at this, and Cloak cursed this loudly, as he watched Malice's cloak's hood come down, as Jenn closed in on her. Watched as the cloak fell and coiled around her feet.

Then her corona was now unfettered, and began eating away at reality itself. Jenn was the first victim of this, as well as the desiccated corpses on the ground. Eventually, it reached Eli-Wo, The-Re, Fo-Ur, who rushed to try to save Jenn. Soon . . . all the Kryptonians were gone as fabric of reality itself looked as if someone took a lit cigarette to it.

Cloak immediate put the two into an energy bubble. He managed to react just quickly enough to save reality from Malice's corona. Reality itself would be able to repair this burn rather quickly. Had he not managed to act sooner, it might not have, and their would be a hole in reality right here. He didn't know if the Dwellers would have been able to perceive it or not, but he would.

"Well," Malice said, putting on her cloak and latching it back up, "that was fun."

Cloak dropped the energy bubble, and reality had restructured and repaired itself in that small a timeframe. Reality could be surprisingly resilient when it came to Realm Walker coronas.

"FUN?" Cloaks said, his eyes became golden-scarlet suns as he turned his penetrating glare towards Malice herself. "You commit mass murder and you declare it as FUN?!"

"Well, yeah," she said, flippantly. "It was."

"What the Veil is WRONG with you?!?!" Cloak demanded as the very earth beneath their feet trembled at its master's anger. "How can you be so . . .cavalier . . . about murdering people?!"

"Oh, c'mon, Cloak," Malice sniffed. "They're not people. They're only useful for entertainment, other than that their lives are meaningless and inconsequential and pointless. Their only purpose is to entertain me."

Cloak looked at her, and asked again, "What the Veil is wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," Malice said, annoyed now. "Everything is wrong with you, though. These Dwellers can't even live ten, eleven years old, and if they do, they're so frail and even more worthless than they were before. Why do you have such an attachment to such creatures? You know that they're aren't even going to be around in another ten years, right?"

"Seriously, Malice, what is wrong with you? Disregarding life doesn't make you strong. Callousness like that . . . it may make you ruthless, but ruthlessness isn't strength." Cloak said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever," she said, as she Walked away. There was no way for Cloak to follow her . . . she could have just jumped back into this or any other Realm. Cloak was still quite miffed . . . and yet again, he did nothing. He didn't kill her. He killed Cataclysm, but he always hesitated before killing Malice. Why? Why did he not just kill her instead of conversing with her?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2018, 05:19:45 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Contemplation and Construction

Cloak returned to the forum, feeling both aggrieved and miffed. What was Malice's problem? Why was she this way? There had to be a reason for it. Cloak resisted the notion that anyone was born inherently malicious. It was surely something environmental. But Cloak came from a traumatic background, and he didn't disregard all life in the Realms.

Although he did disregard the life of that Siren . . . and the eidolans . . . and he did disregard the feelings of Gene, that genie . . . he assumed that he was happier now that he had a life of his own, away from the constant wish-granting that being a genie forced him to do . . . he had loving parents, friends, acquaintances, and family that were all his own now . . . he assumed that he would be happy . . . granted, he never checked up on him, and he didn't know where he was . . .

Cloak chose not to think about those. Yes, he made mistakes. He was a flawed being, as all Realm Dwellers and Realm Walkers are. Flawless beings are an impossibility. Sure, there are those that claim that they are devoid of flaws, but those are just deceptive and untrue boasts. Everyone has flaws. Everyone makes errors in judgement. And Cloak was no different.

But Malice? She was one of those people who assume that she was without flaws, that didn't see any wrong in her actions. No one is always right -- and Cloak felt that he himself is an example of this, but, unlike Malice, he felt remorse for those mistakes. He felt regret for his impetuous actions, and often at that. He often questioned his actions, and often wondered if he was doing the right thing. Malice clearly never stopped to think this, never stopped to consider that she was in the wrong -- or, if she ever did, she just plain didn't care about things like morality or humanity.

Cloak retired to his thread, clearly wanting to be alone. He heard GH talking to someone else, "No, give him some time alone."

Cloak couldn't help but grouse about this. This whole excursion was a massive failure, and it was a massive failure on his part. From start to finish, it was a failure, and it was his fault that it was a failure. He had failed to analyze the situation correctly or thoroughly, so those Kryptonian deaths are as much on his head as they were on Malice's. The only difference was Cloak cared about it. Cloak regretted it. Cloak felt remorse. Cloak felt all the deaths, despite not knowing any of these Kryptonians.

Then there was the bigger error that Cloak found just as regrettable, and just as embarrassing. The fact that they didn't notice the wreckage from Brainiac's exploded ship. The fact that he didn't notice it. This all could have been avoided . . . if they had investigated the debris site more thoroughly. If they even realized their was a debris site at all . . . it was right in their backyard, scarcely two or three miles away from the forum. He again wondered if he was doing more damage living in this Realm, if he was just attracting all this pain, this heartache, and this suffering to these people . . .

It was his fault. It was his responsibility. And he had failed them. Was . . . was his mother right? Was he really a failure? He wished he could talk to Wheeza . . . she'd know what he should have done. She'd know how do this right . . . she know how to lift him up, to tell him that he wasn't a complete failure. She'd know how to keep the despair away, to help him from succumbing to the despondency, from giving in to the dejection that he felt. To keep this abatement he felt in his self-worth.

But she was gone. She was gone and she would not be coming back. He would never be able to talk to her again. . . .

He spent the rest of the night in his thread, in tears, in regret, in remorse.

***

Malice had returned to her hideout, that Cloak never seemed able to find. She didn't know that Cloak had never really tried, and that his Earthsight had a radius. She didn't really care -- he was such a child as far as she was concerned. Her disdain for him actually caring and loving Dwellers as if they were worth something was palpable. It disgusted her -- disgusted her because he didn't have proper Realm Walker pride, in her view. It was probably one reason that she took such elation and joy in causing him pain, in causing him heartache, and making him suffer. It served him right, for aligning himself with these valueless Dwellers, for being unable to see them for the insignificant insects that they are, with their paltry desires and unimportant whining about rights.

She began to construct her next device, which was the only use that those Kryptonian fools served. Now she didn't have to go and collect the parts herself, she had plenty with which to work with. Granted, the parts weren't of Realm Walker quality, but it it will do just fine. She would prove that she was not to be trifled with again. Of course, the device wouldn't affect her or other Realm Walkers, but that's good. She wanted Cloak to watch. She wanted him to suffer. She would enjoy and savor it again.

It was thoughts like that made her really enjoy putting this thing together. She was really motivated to sow discord and inflict pain upon countless others. She smiled broadly at this . . . there were so many ways to accomplish this. So, so many ways . . . she shouldn't have another scheme drought again. She was now back into relevance in that Dweller-loving loser's life. He would never forget about her, especially not now.

She looked at the device that she was crafting. Fortunately, she was still quite mechanically competent, especially for what the next part of her scheme would entail. But the thing was only half-finished. She would have to continue to work diligently until the device would be completed. Then . . . then the next part of her fun would began. Her fun would began anew.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2018, 10:00:26 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Fire Wave

Cloak was dispatched to a prototype munitions plant. He felt disgusted. He always disliked firearms and munitions, finding them horribly uncivilized. Granted, he didn't espouse this view around his RAFian friends, like Parker or Hunter, who held an interest in them. But this? This entire factory was superfluous and completely unnecessary, and a waste of money. It felt wholly not worth the funds.

Cloak proceeded further into the abandoned facility. And, within minutes, he discovered why the facility was no longer in use. There was molten . . . something that flooded the floor. Something that was once fiery and incinerating to the touch. But, now? Now it was cooling into some sort of slag, a hard carapace that was safe for him to walk on without too much discomfort.

This was the easiest way to bypass the conveyor belts which were still mindlessly, yet half-heartedly assembling war machines. Cloak was tempted to take it out -- but he didn't really feel like opening that can of worms at the present moment. He just found their power source -- and deprived them of it. Ending this production of this supposedly abandoned facility. He ran along, atop the slag, to a large dropshaft, which he dove down.

Being a cat, he landed on his feet and he quickly took inventory of his environment. Then he proceeded onward, allowing his feet to Metalsight the environment around him. He only stopped momentarily when the ceiling before him gave way, and the burned skeletal remains of a human arm and hand tumbled down. Was the owner of this arm a victim of the fiend? He didn't want to consider that. He moved onward, ignoring the scaffolding that. He took notice of two secreted bundles of vegetation, one high up and hidden behind in a secret compartment while the other was on the slag ground. Both showed signs of being burned, almost as if the fiend got a high for doing so.

He climb up a wall, using his Mastery of Metal to cling to the element and allow him to push himself upward. Then he pulled himself into a large tunnel, and followed it to four compressors. They were easily dodged, and Cloak didn't see the point in fighting them when he didn't have to. Then he dropped down another dropshaft, which led to a massive room with a massive confusion of pipes, painted yellow for some reason.

Beyond this room was the fiend's nest. The room was massive, though the ceiling was rather low considering the width and length of the room, and had a large conveyor belt on the floor. The fiend itself appeared to be an anthropomorphic Palaeoloxodon naumanni (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeoloxodon_naumanni), with rather minimalistic clothing. It looked like an anthropomorphic elephant with twisted tusks that measured between seven and eight feet long, a subcutaneous fat layer and long fur. But, instead of a right hand, it had a flamethrower instead. It stood about two and a half feet taller than Cloak, but Cloak wasn't intimidated. It had green sclera and purple pupils.

He tried to manipulate the conveyor belt beneath Cloak's feet, but he wasn't about to have any of it. He stood upon an energy disc, and his face set. Cloak probably should haven't been taking out his anger on this fiend, but that's where this was headed. The fiend glared at Cloak as if it thought that this was cheating. It jumped up -- which was amazing, as elephants cannot jump due to the way their feet are, so Cloak supposed it was due to its more humanoid stance. When it landed, Cloak could still feel the impact, despite being hovering about a quarter of an inch above the ground.

Then it globbed a gooey, flammable substance at Cloak, which missed and landed on the conveyor belt, and the fiend roared, changing the direction of the conveyor belt. It took its flamethrower "hand" and tried to ignite this oily compound. Cloak wouldn't allow it, firing a funnel of wind towards the fiend. This seemed to damage the creature, and Cloak took notice that it seemed to be the creature's weakness.

When it jumped over him, Cloak fired a powerful vertical whirlwind around him, damaging the fiend further. From there, Cloak continued his attacks. He was almost ruthless with the way he was attacking, and only when he was done, he wondered. Was he really all that better than Malice, considering what he just did?

***

Demos called it a "Pyropaleoloxodon naumanni". Demos didn't give a reason for its creation.

***

Malice wasn't paying any attention to this fight, and only had it on as background noise. She was so close to completion . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2018, 05:39:00 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXVIII:
DULLSVILLE
CHAPTER ONE:
Spoiler -- It's Not Gunter (http://adventuretime.wikia.com/wiki/Gunter)

Aquilai traveled to an abandoned antarctic military base. It was quite cold, and Aquilai had to admit that he didn't really like it. But if it really got too bad -- he still had his TARDIS, in its pendent form. Aquilai arrived outside the abandoned facility and the weather was, fortunately, clear. The climate wasn't, admittingly, not to the Time Lord's liking. He had use his Breath of Fire technique to make sure his body temperature didn't drop too much.

Aquilai proceeded forward, climbing a small icy hill and descending it. Then he climbed a small ledge, and proceeded forward. He walked down a small icy hill, down a ledge, then up a small slope to the abandoned facility proper. Then he walked carefully down the sloping, uneven ground. He was displeased to discover that it wasn't any warmer in here. He used his Breath of Fire technique before moving on.

When it evened out, he continued forward, finding the flooring not encrusted with ice. He wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not. Then he hopped a ledge, and walked down a ramp and up another, moving upwards through the sinewy pathways. He went up a dropshaft with his firebending, and when he reached the landing, he saw a pair of disembodied human legs frozen in ice. He wondered if this was a victim of the fiend -- but he thought this facility was abandoned. . . .

Aquilai proceeded forward, jumping over two chasms, and then another. He climbed over a ledge, and proceeded toward what he assumed was deeper into the facility. But, after dealing with series of uneven ground and series of ledges and he found himself outside the facility. Well, that wasn't what he expected at all. And there were these strange, short pillars. Whatever purpose they served, they didn't appear to be serving it now.

He came to what appeared to look like a biomechanical igloo, and he jumped on it, before leaping over a chasm. Then he could go through a cave or above it, Aquilai chose the upper path, as the cavern looked like it was full of chasms. Atop, he saw two destroyed biomechanical igloos . . . with a cache of frozen fish in each one. This perplexed Aquilai, but the Time Lord decided to not question it. He moved on, jumping over a hole, and going over slight, sloping hills here and there. There were also chasms here and there, and he had to dodge rolling snowballs.

He jumped a ledge, and jumped a chasm beyond it. He walked uphill, climbed up a ledge, and continued to walk uphill, to what appeared to be a silo of some sort. This was the fiend's nest. The fiend appeared to be an anthropomorphic penguin standing between five and five-and-a-half feet tall. It had black sclera and purple pupils. Instead of having vestigial wings, like other penguins, it hat human-like arms ending black hands. It was black and white -- countershading for camouflage in normal penguins. It had a thick layer of insulating feathers, like other penguins,

When the fiend saw him, it immediately vomited a small shot of ice, as if it came from a shotgun. Aquilai quickly used firebending to get rid of it, and he took his stance. Then it breathed a frosty breath, creating two penguin sculptures of ice. Then it leaped to the ceiling of the room and created a blizzard that blew Aquilai backward. It also sent these ice sculpture penguins sliding at him. He blasted them away with a concussive wave of fire, and he dodged the fiend from landing on him. Aquilai suspected that it weighed more than your average penguin, considering it was somewhat larger -- although Aquilai didn't have much to judge it by, as he's never met a penguin.

Then the fiend slid across the floor at such a velocity that forced Aquilai to jump over it, using his firebending to propel himself a good enough distance away from it's sliding attack, which bounced off the walls in this small, enclosed, silo-like room. Then the fiend started up this attack pattern again, with not very much variation at all.

Aquilai decided that he needed to be a bit more proactive. He began to use his firebending to press his attack, and the penguin fiend's slide was the only thing that could penetrate the RAFian's offensive defense. But soon enough, Aquilai ignited the fiend at least seven times before . . . before the job was done. It was something that had to be done.

Aquilai left, choosing not to dwell on it.

***

Demos called it a "cryospheniscus". Again, he didn't give a reason for its creation.

***

Malice continued to obsessively work on her special little device.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 13, 2018, 07:18:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Well, This Was A Bit On the Nose

"Why don't you leave me alone?" Cloak demanded, to a dream construct of Malice. "And why don't you leave RAF and the RAFians alone?"

"But you don't understand, m'dear," she said, affably. "They need me. YOU need me."

"Now, RAF needs improving.
It's just too impossibly odd.
Someone needs to get some changes moving,
And I'm just the woman for the job!"

She moved aside, and there was Lus-Stl, strumming what could be a guitar or an absurdly-large ukulele, Cloak couldn't tell. But the sight of him made Cloak truly realize that this was a dream, and was now a lucid dream.

"Now, don't you ever wonder about RAF, lad?
How everything's upside down?
The RAFians are so crazy in their RAF, lad.
They don't know that it's turned around.
Everything's all askew.
But I could change a thing or two.
And . . ."

The dream construct of Lus-Stl vanished as Dream Malice continued.

"Don't you ever wonder about RAF, lad?
How everything is so confused?
Everything's disorganized in RAF, lad.
There should be just a few strict rules.
Everything's turned around.
Someone needs to TONE IT DOWN!!
And . . ."

Cloak felt as if that was a hint. But a hint to what? Then he realized this was part Truth Dream. Those frustratingly vague things he occasionally got.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if RAF, lad,
Were underneath a metal dome?
The traffic would be minimized in RAF, lad,
With everyone banished from this home!
Lands and creatures well in hand.
We'll make the colors MUCH MORE BLAND.
With everything at my command.
When I'm the queen of everything, lad.
When I'm the queen of everything, lad."

At this point Cloak woke up, and it was now up to him to try to parse together or parse apart what this dream was intended to mean. These Truth Dreams are far too subtle, and yet, they probably think that they're being incredibly obvious.* It was frustrating . . . it was frustration beyond frustration at this point. How hard was it to be more straightforward? Seriously!

Cloak was starting to be a result as contact with Destiny's diary, despite not reading it. He destroyed it, after a moment's hesitation, and Destiny and her place vanished for him, apparently inaccessible now. Not that he would have wanted to go back there. Ever. She may have been his paternal ancestor, but that didn't mean that she didn't intimidate him. And he thought his mother was the only person he ever truly feared. She hadn't anything on Destiny.

***

Malice had completed her little machine. She smiled deviously with its completion. It was like a large blast furnace, all the wires and such covered perfectly with powerful paneling made from a vibranium, adamantium, zoodeitium, and N^th metal alloy. Only breakable by a ferrokinetic. Apparently, this was necessary considering what this device was designed to not only contain, but siphon from the area around it. It didn't have a finite radius. Once activated, its effects would extend further outward until the entire planet was consumed and subsumed by its effects.

She called it the chromatoraptoris generator, generating a chromatoraptoris wave. And soon, very soon, she would activate it. And it should work like she designed it to, as she wanted it to work.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ThzGN9Qv5Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ThzGN9Qv5Y)

* Yes, this is a reference to me writing Memoirs, when I fear a twist I write is too obvious and readers constantly assure me that I'm not being obvious at all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2018, 05:16:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Chromatoraptoris Wave

"Enough building tension," she cackled, "time to get this underway."

She activated the generator-slash-container. At first, it appeared nothing happened. But that was because she was in a monochromatic place, and she deliberately made it so that it wouldn't affect Realm Walkers. Not that it could in the first place, having come from Dweller-made components, but she would always make that exception, because biometrics are a bit more difficult with Realm Walkers than it was for Dwellers, as they didn't have DNA and their bichromatic energy was hardly a good metric to use, not to mention that she didn't have any of those sort of components.

She watched through the same orb she watched all the fiend fights through. And she watched as the chromatoraptoris wave extend a few inched beyond the generator in all direction, than it grew to a few feet. The white diamond and white pearl powering was hopefully powerful enough to cope. It grew to a mile radius in all directions. One mile became two. The two miles became four. Then eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two.

She watched with delight as the effects did precisely what she wanted. The color of the world was being drained, being siphoned off and contained within the generator. Everything was in grayscale around her, everyone affected by the wave. The only one who wouldn't be affected other than herself would be Cloak, and she smiled when she thought that he wouldn't have known how to deal with this. He would scramble to save this worthless world. He really wasted too much energy in doing such, but she was secretly glad that he did. That's what made these schemes fun.

He saw that these Dweller's personalities were changed as well. All verve and personality was lost with the color. All worry, surprise, sorrow, shame, schadenfreude, sadness, remorse, regret, pride, pleasure, passion, outrage, love, joy, interest, hostility, hope, happiness, grief, frustration, euphoria, enthusiasm, embarrassment, distrust, despair, curiosity, contentment, confidence, awe, annoyance, angst, affection, anger, anguish, anticipation, boredom, contempt, courage, depression, disappointment, disgust, ecstasy, empathy, envy, fear, gratitude, guilt, hatred, horror, humiliation, jealously, loneliness, lust, panic, pity, rage, rejection, resentment, saudade, self-confidence, shock, shyness, feelings of suffering, trust, and wonder were gone. All gone. All that was left was apathy and the more mundane aspects of personality. Their openness to experience was now rather mediocre.  Their conscientiousness was now middle of the road. Moderate agreeableness. Middle of the road extraversion.

They were all emotionless and had the blandest of personalities. All color leeched from them. And the wave was still expanding. The color was gone, the verve and excitement of this planet was gone. Some might have said this was a good thing, others wouldn't like it at all, being forced to live such a bland existence -- unable to feel anything, unable to nonconform. They were now unable to feel anything but neutral about all issues, no matter how outrageous.

She was going to make the whole world bland and boring, without any verve or conflict or substance. Some might have seen this as idyllic and desirable, but most would not advocate such a loss of one's self -- no personality, no feelings, no opinion. Sure, they may have been perfectly aware of their surroundings and such, but they now would greet everything with an apathetic indifference.

One had to ask just how well Malice thought this through. The only reason she was in this realm, by her own admission, was for entertainment. It was almost as if she didn't really expect this to stick, and she was planning something different . . .

***

Odie Michaels was living on the fringe. His only family would not take him back, as even they had had enough. His mother would not take him back, as he couldn't get a stable job -- none were what he wanted to do. His work ethic left a lot to be desired, and he was too proud to take what he would consider a menial job. His ego wouldn't allow it, wouldn't allow the humiliation of such work. He was far too prideful, even if such menial jobs paid reasonably well (they didn't). He had grander visions of himself.

Of course, this all ended with that "Dark RAFians" fiasco. His pride was the least of his concerns as he had evade and escape those that he recruited in his faux RAFian group, the group he had hoped to supplant the RAFians. All these grand plans of his, all his great preparations -- all snuffed out and collapsed in on itself in one fell swoop. His life went in the crapper from that day forward. His grand "Captain Michaels" disguise was ripped off him, and ripped away. They saw his real face . . . it was all over when they saw his face.

He spent his days recently living as a vagrant, mentally unstable, and homeless. He hoped that living as such, being so slovenly and dirty, he would be overlooked. Not only by society but by those he promised big paydays to be his "Dark RAFians". With money that he did not have. Perhaps that was a poor decision on his part, but he would never admit it aloud or to himself. He was incapable of admitting fault, though he would acknowledge that the "Dark RAFians" fiasco was a mistake and poorly executed. He lamented silently at the lost of everything that he had, lamented his more capricious actions. In his weaker moments, he wondered why he was bothering to keep himself alive . . .

He had his back turned when the chromatoraptoris wave swept over him. As the color left him, he felt his fear vanishing. His fear, guilt, shame, all of it vanished from him. He was only dimly aware of this, as each and every quirk of his personality, and every last thing that made him an interesting person was wiped away, leaving him feeling apathetically indifference. The facade that he was putting on was quickly and immediately abandoned, as Odie no longer felt the fear that he needed the disguise. His mind felt so muddy, bleached clean of any emotion or personality quirks. He was now rather bland in terms of personality, and he wasn't the only victim of this.

***

Rotiart was still working on his next grand scheme for revenge. They had abandoned him. They had left him for dead. They didn't even bother to look for him! He wasn't dead! He had never died. At least, physically. Emotionally, he had died inside when they abandoned him. He thought he was improving himself, making himself a better person. Thought that he would earn a place amongst these people he thought would be his friends. . . .

He should have known better. He should have known better than that. He should have realized that they would never be his friends. He would become a threat to them instead. But he wasn't there yet, he still needed preparations.to accomplish this. He never thought about just how he survived that attack from that snake-man. He didn't bother to understand that, all he knew, all he remembered that he did. And that the RAFians never came back for him. They left him. They left him to die from his injuries.

But he didn't die, did he? He survived, didn't he? They didn't expect that, did they?

He just needed to collect more DNA. Just needed to collect more to complete his special little device. He surmised that this would have been easier if he was Galvan (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Galvan), Cerebrocrustacean (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Cerebrocrustacean), Transylian (http://ben10.wikia.com/wiki/Transylian), or the like. But he didn't care. He wasn't afraid of hard work, not anymore. His vengeance would not be denied, would not be stymied by hard work. He didn't question how he had such knowledge to build such a thing. It didn't matter to him. All mattered to him was vengence.

It was then the chromatoraptoris wave came, washing away Rotiart's obsession with revenge. He wasn't able to feel the anger, the hurt, the betrayal any longer. He wasn't able to feel anything anymore. He was unable to hold onto his drive to complete his device as the color left him. When he spoke, it was in a rather stilted way, as if he were in a grade-school play. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 14, 2018, 07:59:02 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Wave Effects

Shinobi was euphorically happy. He had mastered a technique Blue was teaching him that he was having immense difficulty with. He was learning the finer points of hensojutsu, and his pleasure with himself was palpable when Blue declared that he had mastered that tenet of ninjitsu. Blue, despite himself, found himself beaming at that, despite not being anywhere near finished teaching him.

But it was perfectly okay for a teacher -- a sensei, if you will -- to be proud of his student's accomplishments, right? Blue never got that from the . . . from them. Despite knowing that they were dead, Blue had a very hard time feeling sorry for it. Or really feeling anything about it. They were never really affectionate towards him, like a good parent with a child. It was a detached, lonely childhood. They clearly only saw him as nothing other than weapon, whereas Blue had formed a legitimate bond of teacher-student with Shinobi, though the bone was bit deeper than that at this point.

Shin had come to see Blue as more than a teacher, and saw him more as a father figure, as a savior -- Shin didn't want to know what his life would have been like without him, without Blue taking him under his wing. Blue, despite himself, saw Shin as a surrogate son, not unlike GH and Leatherhead. Shin's improvements at ninjitsu and his mastery of its tenets made Blue feel . . . wonderful. He found himself as happily euphoric as Shin was for mastering this one tenet. There were many more to go, naturally, but they had the time. They had all the time in the world, and they were both still young enough for Shinobi to become a master ninja, just like Blue.

Then the chromatoraptoris wave came, and neither of them felt anything anymore, as the last of the color drained from the two of them, and they treated each other indifferently, as if they were strangers, unable to feel or emote anything. Their personalities came off as flat and two-dimensional, and spoke with in very stilted manner. The only color that remained were their Marks, which remained a resilient blue.

***

Cloak wasn't the only one feeling aggrieved by being unable to save the Kandidorians. Cerulean felt a sadness, and a guilt for not being able to remove the collars. Cerulean wondered if he could have managed to unlock more of them. He was sure that he gave it his all. He tried so very hard to save them from that horrible fate.

He continued to second-guess himself. Maybe if he had gone about it in a different way . . . done it quicker . . . pushed himself to do it faster . . .

But, no . . . no matter what he did, they all were going to die. Even if he managed to get the collars off of all them in time, Malice would just remove her cloak and her . . . aura thingy . . . what did Cloak call it? . . . a "corona"? . . . Yeah, that sounded right. Malice's corona would just have murdered the rest of them. Even if one could stop them . . . what contact would they have with a Realm Walker to know the dangers of one losing their cloak? How could they know enough about Realm Walker physiology when the RAFians didn't even know, and they counted a Realm Walker in their number.

Realm Walkers were one of the most powerful species to ever exist, and fortunately, not many of them take a vested interest in their little Realm. Malice was different, Cerulean knew. She just loved and lived to make Cloak's life miserable. Cerulean has never had to deal with a malignant force like that in his life. If someone was just living to to make his life miserable, he wasn't aware of it.

Cerulean was starting to feel better, though he was still unhappy with their deaths. He did wish that they didn't happen . . . but there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Even with his superspeed, there was no guarantee that he would have been able to stop her from dropping her cloak. He didn't know if someone like him would have been able to relatch the cloak to her neck. He was truly helpless in that scenario. . . .

It was at this point that the chromatoraptoris wave washed over him, ending whatever emotions he was feeling.

***

GH was feeling a great amount of disgust. He wondered how the heck he wound up back in this stupid armadillo suit again. Did this suit need to be this unnecessarily hot? Did it need to be this unnecessarily cumbersome? Could he just go back and fight the gargoyle guy (http://animorphsforum.com/index.php?topic=15887.msg936950#msg936950) again? . . . Now that he thought about it, perhaps just wearing this stupid mascot suit wasn't so bad in comparison. Granted, this wasn't something that he'd particularly want to do as a job -- because he'd always have to be "in-character" (and most mascot characters contrasted his actual personality so much), he wouldn't be allowed to speak, he would always have to be in constant motion, and he didn't think it would be as fun beyond the first time, if it was even fun then. And, because just wearing the costume wasn't enough, it was putting up with the kids.

There were the terrific, nice kids that were perfectly well-mannered and gentle. These were the kids that love the mascots, they were often excited and respectful. GH noticed that these were kids anywhere from four to ten, right around the age bracket that Leatherhead was in.

There were kids that found him, in the suit, terrifying. They were the ones that screamed, cried, or desperately fled the mascots. GH felt as if he could identify with these kids. Why would you trust a huge, monstrous thing whose face was stuck with a perma-smile? Then again, these tended to be the younger age brackets. He tried to give these kids their distance, drop his level to them, looking away, positive attitude, interacting the parents, and he even found himself playing games with them, as he was instructed by a video he perused online. He just walked away most times.

Then there were the terrible kids that made him side with Saffa as far as kids were concerned. These were the little monsters that wanted to chase, taunt, poke, mock, hit, and mess with him. It made him wish that he could pull out his guitar and show them that they weren't the tough little punks that they thought they were.
But he was told to calmly defuse, to give a "hearty handshake", or ask for help if this harassment didn't stop. Just an encounter with one of these little delinquents would be enough to make GH refuse to get back into the costume again.

It was at this point, while GH was in the suit, the chromatoraptoris wave hit, draining him of all his color, all his verve, all his personality. The only color he retained was from his Mark.

***

Kane was not happy. He was glaring mutinously at Sakki. She had angrily pulled him away from a console, where he was pushing random buttons and could have seriously damaged the software or the hardware. The RAFians couldn't afford to let that happen. Their governmental funding has been a little . . . iffy, lately, with a cut to it. There had been talks about somehow making their own funding, but it hadn't gone beyond the speculation and deliberation phase.

Kane had yelled to Sakki, "SAKKI!"

"Oh," Sakki had replied, as if he were an annoying baby brother. "You're still here."

"Whaddya doing?" he said, sounding rather childish. And not in an endearing way.

"I'm on communications duty," she said, hoping that he would go away.

"I want to be on communications duty!" he said, but Sakki could tell, with only a sidelong glance, that it was mock enthusiasm. Kane was trying to prove that he wasn't useless. The only reason that she didn't just tell him to go away, is because this kind of reminded her of Rotiart, who she did still harbor some guilt over. All RAFians harbored some guilt over what happened to him. He added, out of the blue, "I want to go on missions!"

"Well," Sakki said, devoting her energy to being civil with him. Kane really knew how to try someone's patience. "When it's your turn, you can be on communications duty. And be dispatched onto missions."

The latter wasn't altogether really likely. Kane didn't really have any usable skills or powers, and he wasn't keeping up with RAFian training. But they got to the real reason why Kane was here. He wanted to go on missions. He wanted what he perceived to be the prestige of going on these notable quests. He just wanted the accolades and achievements from such missions, not to do any of the hard work required by one. It's one of the things that disqualified him from so many -- he would just get himself and whatever team he's on killed.

"I want a mission!" he said, sounding more like a petulant child than an adult. Sakki looked at him, and ignored his demand. She pressed a few buttons to monitor the RAFians scanners, which weren't the best in the world at the moment. The "tech boys", as Sakki affectionately thought of Goom, Yarin, Xeno, and Aquilai, were working on that.

Kane didn't like being ignored, and huffily demanded, "I want one now!" Then he saw the screen upon which Sakki was working. "What's this?"

"I'm recalibrating the RAFian sensors," she said, resigned as that she's never going to get him to go away at this point while staying civil.

"Let me do it," Kane said, with childish glee. It was at that point that he started to press random buttons, and Sakki's patience was at breaking point. She seized his arm, and pulled him back harshly and roughly.

"STOP IT," she roared, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!"

"Why not?" Kane replied, pulling his arm away from her. He was actually a bit taller than her, but Sakki was far from intimidated. "You've been on so many missions, and I haven't been on one. It's not fair! I want one! I want my own mission! I want my own mission! I deserve it! I'm just as important as you!"

"Then why don't you act like it, Kane?!" Sakki snarled, as she threw him bodily from the room, slamming the door shut. He walked away, stewing his own petulance and at what he perceived to be a great injustice against him.

Then the chromatoraptoris wave came, unaffected at all by Code Avalon. Kane lost all frustration he felt, all anger, all discontentment. All feelings were leeched from him, and all he felt now was apathetic indifference. He spoke in that awkward stilted way a poor actor unsure of his lines would speak, but with indifference.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 15, 2018, 05:53:07 AM

Sorry about the brevity.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Notice and Self-Eviction

Cloak came out of his meditation, sensing something was not right. He looked and saw that he was in one of those black-and-white photographs that humans sometimes have. Or a monochromatic illustration. What the Veil happened while he was meditating? All the color was siphoned out of the environment. No reds. No oranges. No yellows. No greens. No cyans. No blues. No indigos. No violets. No purples. No magentas. No pinks. No browns. Just blacks, whites, and grays.

It was autumn. The colors were supposed to be at their most vibrant. But everything was in grayscale. Cloak had been a RAFian long enough, and lived on this Earth, in this Realm, long enough to know that this wasn't normal. Something was afoot, but what? He couldn't rightly say. He looked down, His cloak was black, it was true, but the browns of his outfit were untouched.

Cloak had inkling of an idea of what was going on, but he needed evidence to support it. He went back to the forum, maybe his fellow RAFians were unaffected by this . . . color-stealing wave, or whatever it was. Cloak didn't like having so little information. But his heart fell when he came to the forum and found everything was grayscale, as well. He had hoped that Code Avalon would have . . . but, then again, Code Avalon has proven to be fairly unreliable at times. The so-called "science and tech team" had been working on that problem, trying to make it more reliable.

Cloak felt dismayed when he saw that the grayscale effect wasn't only regulated to the environment and furnishings. The other RAFians were all affected . . . he was the only RAFian who was unaffected. He was extremely dismayed to find the verve -- the excitement of imagination, the artistic energy, the rapturous enthusiasm, the vigor, the vitality, the liveliness, the spirit . . . all gone. Gone, and replaced with apathetic indifference and stilted speech. The lack of emotion, the lack of motivations, the lack of interests, the lack of enthusiasm, the palpable disinterest, the almost somnolent lethargy, the off-putting torpor . . . this grayscale effect seemed to have kil-- Cloak didn't want to think of it. He didn't want to think of it that way.

But without that verve . . . RAF just wasn't RAF anymore. It just became as bland as everywhere else, presumably. But these were still his friends . . . but, with the indifference he was greeted with, it was like they were . . . like they were strangers. The Elements Master found this so incredibly disheartening, and he hadn't a clue how to solve this problem. But there had to be a way to get the color back.

There had to be some solution to this, even if Cloak couldn't see it.

***

Malice watched and savored Cloak's dismay. She glanced at the panel on the chromatoraptoris generator, showing that it was roughly at 63.9% capacity. This concerned her a little, as she had worried that it might not be able to contain the full chromatic energy. But the world had not been eclipsed yet. The reading said that roughly seventy percent of the world had been eclipsed.

Malice was intrigued though. Cloak would not allow this to stand, she knew. He would do his best to find the source of the wave, this generator powered by a white diamond and focused through a white pearl -- or was it the reverse of that? She shook her head, it didn't matter. She had other things to focus on. It was time to get a new burrow.

One may ask why when it seemed certain that her victory was assured. Perhaps it was her Tasmanian devil inclinations, or because she didn't really expect this scheme to work out, or just because she wanted to.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2018, 08:58:18 PM

Sorry about the brevity. New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
A Monumental Undertaking

Cloak was at a lost of what to do. Sure, he noticed that the RAFians still retained color in their Marks, and that was it. When Cloak had noticed this, he had tried everything in order to increase that color in them. But nothing. He was cut off from Unity Energy, as, apparently, were the rest of the RAFians. That wasn't going to be a solution that he could use.

But there had to be a solution to this. He was just not seeing it. He didn't want to believe that it was over, that there wasn't anything that he could do. He paced around the forum, trying not to allow the anxiety of helpless inaction, the fear of not being able to do anything about, the guilt of not being here to stop whatever caused this, the shame of not being able to save his friends, to get to him.  His pacing around was getting more frantic and frenetic.

Then he forced himself to calm down, and think this through logically and reasonably. If he allowed himself to become so worried and anxious, he could very well overlook the very thing that could save everyone. But he found himself going to fond reminiscences and recollections. Like that time when GH sang the theme to "Blue's Clues" whenever Blue was around, causing him to sneak around behind him and put him into a sleeper hold. Or the time when GH asked Marie, a talking RAFian fox, what does a fox say -- yes, like how you may think -- and her at his throat, literally.

These amusing memories had the opposite effect that one might have expected. It just deepened the sadness, the despair that he felt. How was he going to save them? It seemed so futile, so insurmountable, so impossible to overcome . . . but they were depending on him, even if they weren't aware of it. This grayscale had taking that capability away from them. It had robbed them of the capacity to be passionate or even care what happened to them or others. They certainly weren't happy or content with this, as the grayscale effect had robbed them of that, as well. Cloak couldn't imagine being in such a state of complete and total indifference, utter apathy, towards everyone and everything.

It was like robbing people of a part of there identity, robbing them of something that they themselves can't recover. At least, not without outside help. Cloak felt once more like the took Atlas's burden from him. He was being depended on, and he couldn't let them down. Even Kane. Even the Knights. Even Cadmus itself. Everyone was depending on him to give their world the color that was rightfully theirs. If the preferred their emotionless state, well, then they could remain devoid of emotions. Cloak wouldn't stop them, as that would be their choice. This grayscale effect, however, was not.

Cloak closed his eyes. He didn't even know where to start! He had next to no information! He had . . . he had . . . nothing . . . nothing . . . to go on. Where should he start? Where could he start? His first inclination would be Malice's little hidey-hole, only he didn't know where that was. And that admission costed him a great deal of pride to acknowledge.

Suddenly, he remembered . . .

***

Malice had moved a bulk of her belongings that she's accumulated in this Realm over to her new "burrow". She would check on the chromatoraptoris wave generator every now and then. It was at seventy percent capacity with about eighty percent of global coverage. She reacted rather placidly to this news, with no real excitement or enthusiasm, which was rather odd as she was on the cusp of absolute victory.

The generator was operating perfectly within the perimeters, as she designed it to. But she treated this news with strange indifference, as she continued basically move house. She found her newest "burrow" to be more comfortable to this dank, drafty one.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2018, 09:51:42 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a little early.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Two Hundred Years Previously . . .

"Are you sure, Grandpa?"

"I am," Sage replied, arms folded over his chest. Being a bald eagle Realm Walker, his gaze always had an intimidating quality towards it. "You have the mark."

And, later in life, he would get a quite different sort of Mark.

"Mark?"

"Potential, boy," he said. "You have the potential to be the next Master."

Cloak didn't know what to say about that, but he felt all the apprehension and anxiety. He didn't know if he had it in him to achieve what his maternal grandfather was suggesting. It was a frighteningly tall order. He was only seven, how could he achieve what his grandfather has? He commanded respect wherever he went, and Cloak felt that he was a little too passive and meek for it.

"I know that you have your doubts, boy," he said. "Boy" wasn't a term for detachment. This was before Cloak had taken "Cloak" as his chosen name. His true Realm Walker name was unpronounceable and not able to be written down coherently. "I did to, when my father began to teach me."

"You'll teach me?"

"Of course, boy!' Sage said, with a hearty chuckle. "You didn't honestly think that you'd have to learn the Six Elements without any guidance or tutelage? Come now, boy!"

Cloak felt a little stupid for believing that he'd be in on this on his own, without a teacher. That seemed obvious now, but he was seven. Granted, at this point, his mother had yet to go off the deep end and both his parents were together. Things wouldn't really sour for another seven, eight years, give or take a day. Shadow wasn't even thought of yet as her mother was only around sixteen at this point, and Dagger was only about five.

"What . . . what if I mess up?" Cloak said, uncertainly.

"You learn from the error," Sage impressed. "You learn from the mistake and do better. Be better."

Cloak still was uncertain. Unsurprising considering how little self-confidence that he had in himself back then. His father's presence seemed to have tempered his mother's harshness. But he decided to trust his grandfather's assessment of this, despite his uncertainty.

". . . When do we start?" he said, uncertainly.

"Tomorrow," he said. "You've shown an affinity for Earth, boy. We'll start there."

***

That was back when he was a cub. He was so new, so green . . . but, back then, mastering one Element seemed like a tall order, let alone six. He managed to do it, though. He accomplished what he feared would prove to be impossible. He is now an Elements Master, and he even trained a new Elements Master -- Shadow, the youngest Elements Master in known memory.

Sure, the problem in front of him was most certainly daunting. But he would meet it head-on. If he failed . . . then he failed. If he succeeded, then he would succeed. But he would have to find . . .

What was that?

It was like the barest touch, the most subtle and briefest of breezes. No . . . "breeze" was the wrong analogy. It was like a barely perceptible water current. Cloak couldn't help but wonder. . . . Wonder if he followed this almost imperceptible current, if it would . . . would lead him to the source of this . . . this color siphon, or whatever is generating it. It was a flimsy lead, to be sure.

But it was the only one he had. He couldn't pass it up, could he?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 17, 2018, 08:24:47 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Memories of Earth and Current Trails

"Earth. Earth is a stubborn element -- and stubbornness runs in our family." Sage begun, allowing a smile at Cloak before continuing. "It is imperative that you stand your ground when it comes to mastering this element. The key to Mastery over Earth is your stance. You have to be steady and strong. If you're going to move it, you have to be like stone yourself."

Cloak took a deep breath. He was still rather young at this point.

"Now," his grandfather continued, "Earth is the element of substance. The people gifted with this element are diverse and strong. We all are persistent and strong. Most techniques with Earth tend toward blocking an opponent's attack, and then following through with your own. And . . . you show affinity with the element. So, let's begin."

For that first day, Sage just had Cloak punching into heavy containers of sand. Most other students can engender pain without complete understanding of the element. Not Cloak, though. Perhaps it was because of his natural affinity of it. It wasn't too long before he got the hang of it and it became rather easy to do, much to Sage's satisfaction.

After that, on a following day, Sage instructed him to him throw a heavy rock sack.  First, Cloak gets into a ready position and then hurled a contained number of rocks high in the sky. From here, he needed to recover from the fatigue of throwing such a heavy load in enough time to catch it before it hits the ground. It took him a fair few tries before he got the hang of it,

After completing that part of the training fully, Sage rose two earthen walls, flanked on either side of them. Then he pulled rocks and earth around himself, effectively making a "rock armor". Then he drew a line on the ground. It was Cloak's goal not to let him get over this line. One could point out how unfair this seemed, a grown Walker forcing a seven-year-old to prevent him from crossing a line. But Cloak himself didn't care. His confidence in the element was growing, and he was already becoming accustomed to using it.

The next exercise had Cloak multitask between supporting the weight of a boulder and avoiding craftily laid obstacles. The purpose of this exercise was to keep him grounded while showing how the earth can be utilized to enhance balance. He had a few missteps with this one, but, with determination and his refusal to give up, Cloak managed to succeed and finish the exercise.

The next exercise had Cloak race Sage uphill, on slabs of Earth. Naturally, Sage repeatedly beat him. But Cloak didn't want to give up until he got it, until Sage had to force him to stop, as he saw the young Realm Walker was exhausted. And, yet, still Cloak didn't want to give up.

However, it wasn't Sage who taught Cloak Earthsight. That was an application to the Elements that Cloak himself discovered and learned how to harness, as well as extending it to the Metal and Wood Elements. And, although those previous exercises were some of the flashier ones, there was more to it. Sage taught Cloak proper breathing exercises, how to listen to the earth (which, honestly, just helped him create Earthsight), how to wait and listen before striking, and to understand the concept of rooting -- connecting to the ground and becoming firmly grounded, entrenched, established, or settled, while being able to move one's upper body freely, like a tree.

Now the uncertainty was gone. Cloak wanted it. Cloak wanted to be an Elements Master like his grandfather, who was the only Elements Master that was currently in existence at that time. Of course, at this point and time, he hadn't any idea he was also a Truth Dreamer (or, indeed, what that even was), as he would find that out much, much later.

And while this was technically training, it was also a bonding experience with his grandfather. It took him about two or three years to master the Elements, which Shadow had managed in a fraction of the time.* However, Cloak didn't know how to dissociate his emotions from his powers . . . it was Aniyu, who wasn't a Elements Master, who helped him with that, without seemingly realizing it.

**

It was getting stronger. Cloak could feel it by the vibrations of his whiskers. Yes, whiskers. He was a tigrine (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tigrine) Realm Walker, after all. And tigers are cats. Therefore it wasn't out of the question.

He could detect this slight current by the way his whiskers vibrated. It was a rather surreal sensation, navigating solely based on his whiskers. But he quickly adapted to it. His RAFian training as well as his elemental training helped, in that regard. However, the more Cloak thought about this whole thing, the more . . . surreal . . . it was. The more . . . unreal . . . it seemed. Almost as if he were dreaming this up, and none of it was legitimately real.

But he had no illusions of reality. This was real. And it needs to be stopped. And quickly -- before it eclipses the world. He may be already too late in that regard. He would just have to find what was generating this and put a stop to it. Hopefully, it could be reversed.

He had crossed into the threshold of the city. The current was leading forward and to the right, right about ten o'clock. He followed it, discovering that he had to basically "Spider-Man" around the city to follow this current. He sighed, than gave a shrug and followed through, toward whatever this strange current like sensation would lead him.

Even if it forced him to parkour from rooftops, which he wasn't at all fond of. He wasn't a ninja turtle nor was he a bat-themed or spider-themed superhero.

---

*I just realized . . . I basically made myself into sort of an Avatar Roku (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Roku) in this, while Shadow is like Avatar Aang (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Aang), in the fact that it took the former about twelve years to master the elements, while Aang had basically twelve months.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2018, 04:22:26 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Memories of Metal and Poor Parkour

Cloak never did like parkour. Cloak never did enjoy such things for recreation, and he failed to see the enjoyment of it. He got enough of this kind of stuff during RAFian missions. He personally thought he was rather poor at parkour -- all this running and leaping from rooftops. He hardly saw the attraction towards this kind of stuff, but to each their own, he supposed.

And, to be honest, he couldn't go rushing from rooftop to rooftop. He had to go slow and steady, lest he lose the trail. That would be very easy to do if he got distracted by being all "Batman" or "Spider-Man", if you catch the meaning. It was always his preference to wait and listen, to watch and learn. All this roof-running seemed rather antithetical to everything that he was comfortable with.

He realized he could be considered hypocritical for his views on this, as he had no compunction to run about in the forests doing this. But, in his view, that was an entirely different circumstance. He felt more at home in that environment rather than an urban one. He still saw himself as a poor parkour person. But all this was neither here nor there.

He was on a mission. He had a job to do, an objective to complete. It may have been an impossible mission, but it was one that he needed to go on. He was the only one who had any capacity to do anything, to end this, to free everyone from this grayscale apathetic indifference to everything and everyone. He was the only one who seemed to be perfectly aware that anything was out of the ordinary, though the RAFian's Marks were still blue. That was meaningless if the Mark was unable to protect them from this effect.

But the Mark was far from infallible, and it could be broken and bypassed. This was clear evidence of that.

***

"I did it!" Cloak claimed. He was roughly ten years old at the time. "I controlled the metal!"

"Actually," Sage said, sadly, "you only manipulated the earthen impurities in the metal. Not the metal itself."

"What?"

"Metal is really nothing more than Earth that has been refined and purified," Sage recounted, as if he were about to go onto a lengthy anecdote. "What you were doing is, in reality, a crutch to true Mastery of the Metal Element. Again, you manipulated the impurities, not the metal itself. You showed an aptitude for the Earth Element, you should be able to get this relatively easily. Or it may be harder, if you have trouble dissociating the two from one another."

"I can do it," Cloak said, displaying his family's hallmark obstinate nature.

"I haven't any doubt you can, boy," Sage said, earnestly. "But it will take hard work. Maybe hard, bitter work."

"I don't care," Cloak said, stubbornly. "I can, and I will, do it."

Sage smiled at his grandson's determination, this son of his eldest daughter. "Then, boy, let us begin."

"I'm ready," Cloak said, determined. He had managed to master one Element already -- he was absolutely committed to mastering the other five. He would be an Elements Master. "What exercises must I do, what training must I do?"

"We shall start first with tactile means," Sage said, thoughtfully. "Before moving on to proximity metal manipulation, before ending with remote metal manipulation."

"When do we begin?" Cloak said, at once.

"Whenever you're ready," Sage said, providing an assortment of metals in sheet form, with difference proliferation of earthen impurities in it, with the plantinum-like sheet having none. Cloak kept at it, striking each metal part with a form vaguely reminiscent of Chu Gar, although this was roughly a hundred and seven years ago, using the Realm Dweller calendar. Sage was right, it was difficult for Cloak to parse the difference between manipulating the actual metal and just manipulating the impure, earthen particles within the metal sheets.

But Cloak refused to give up. Every day after his schooling and schoolwork was completed, he immediately went back to train with this. Much to the annoyance of his mother, who didn't care for his training, but only relented because of her father requesting it. Cloak never knew precisely why his mother was so against this, but he surmised it was because she wanted him to do chores that she didn't want to do herself. Perhaps that was the worst case scenario, but the thing was, he didn't really think too highly of her.

Eventually, Cloak understood the difference that his grandfather was so emphatic about. He began to be able to manipulate the metal itself, and not the impurities. He was able to shape it into what he wanted -- at first, it was only by touch. Then it was by proximity. Then it was any metal that he sensed. He would also go on to adapt his Earthsight to metal mediums.

He noticed that, although Sage tried to hide it, he was swelling with pride at his grandson's progress, but Sage also seemed to be concerned with something. Something that Cloak didn't know about.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2018, 06:08:22 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Memories of Fire

"Wait, that's an element?" Cloak had said. He was about twelve, thirteen at this point.

"Yes, boy," Sage said, as if he knew this was coming. "Fire is one of the Six."

"Can't we skip this one?"

"No."

"Why do I have to --"

"You cannot master all Six without Mastery over the Fire Element," Sage said. He knew of Cloak's pyrophobia. "If you want to be a true Master of the Six Elements, you must master Fire. And the sooner you get this out the way, the sooner you can move on to the next Element. How much do you want to be a Master?"

Cloak acquiesced, though it was with some great trepidation that he did. He knew that this would be bitter work, and it was true. Fire was the hardest element that he ever had to learn, due to his very pyrophobia.

"Fire is the element of power. Overwhelming force unflinchingly tempered by the will to accomplish tasks and desires. It is an aggressive element, that grows and lives and breathes with or without the Master. Common in the techniques is preempting an opponent's attack with your own, hence the aggressive nature of Fire. Power in this element derives from the breath, not the muscles," Sage said, beginning the instruction, "that is why, first, you must master proper breath control."

It took a few days before Cloak mastered breath control to Sage's satisfaction.

"Now the Fire Element is fueled by drive," Sage said, "and passions. You lose that drive and your power in this element will decline."

Then Sage set him to feeling the heat from the sun. Cloak was relieved, as he was dreading working with actual fire. And the Nexus sun wasn't a sun in the Dweller sense of it, as the Nexus tended to be more flat than a planet within the realm. The sun and moon did alternate as they did on the planets, but the process of changing from night to day and back to night again was a bit more needlessly complex, since the Nexus didn't really rotate, but the sun and moon seemed to. Cloak, and other Realm Walkers didn't give it much thought or study.

When Cloak had sufficiently did that enough to Sage's satisfaction, he gave Cloak a leaf, burned a hold in the center, and instructed him not to allow the fire to reach the edges. Cloak was perceptive enough to know that goal behind this exercise, to know that Sage was teaching him control of the Element. He dutifully did what was expected of him.

***

He still didn't know how some humans found enjoyment in this urban rooftop running. As a Walker and Elements Master, he was in no danger. Due to the very nature of his powers and physiology, "fall damage" wasn't too much of a concern. But humans don't have such things going for them. How many humans hurt themselves by doing this? Invulnerability is not a species ability by humans on Earth, so they must be aware of the risks.

Anyway, Cloak continued to follow this slight current. And while he did, he surmised that the generator of this effect must have a storage unit, a place where it is storing all the color it was siphoning out. Perhaps it was a bit of a reach, but he doubt that this was just more than just a palette swap. He was sure that if it was, people would just be grayscale, and their personalities and emotions would have been untouched. They'd be grayscale, but just the same as before. Perhaps a bit more unhappy at being various shades of white, gray, and black, and wanting their vibrant colors back, but still the same person.

That's not what happened, though. Their personalities were decidedly changed into something more dull, something more bland, something unable to feel . . . anything. Cloak couldn't imagine what that state feels like. And, if Cloak was honest, he didn't want to know what such a state felt like. How it felt to be unable to feel . . . anything . . . anything at all. . . . He couldn't imagine how it felt so apathetic about everything. He couldn't imagine how it felt to just not care about anything. And this, all of this, wasn't a choice by those affected. This change was foisted upon them.

And Cloak was sure that Malice was behind it. After so long of being quiet, she comes back with the mass murder of those Kryptonians. And now the basic murdering of all color and . . . personality . . . on the planet. Her schemes were escalating in 88scope. This may very well have been her final scheme. She may have very well won, once and for all. This was a monumental task, with a wide expanse of the landscape to search. And his Earthsight could only go so far.

. . . Gateburst! He lost the trail!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 18, 2018, 09:01:29 PM

Releasing this chapter early. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Memories of Air

It was bitter work, but after two or three years, Cloak finally mastered the Fire Element, though he never lost his pyrophobia.

"Good work, boy," Sage said. "Now, we move on to the Air Element."

"I'm ready," Cloak said, having no trepidation with the Air Element, like he did with the Fire Element.

"Air is the element of freedom. Air techniques often involve deflection or evasion. Mastery in the Air Element is all about spiral or circular movements," Sage said. "You must be able to switch positions and direction whenever you meet resistance. It is essential to build up the instinct to avoid and evade conflict as well as to follow the path of least resistance. To do this, these gates will be used."

He showed him to a dais of some sort with several panels that were designed to spin. Sage flicked his hand, sending the panels into motion.

"The goal of the exercise is to maneuver through the gates without touching them," he instructed, "you are required to learn to switch directions at a moment's notice in order to get to the other side. Forcing one's way through the panels will result in them hitting you while you attempt to traverse it. Allow me to demonstrate."

And he did, he moved through the gates with practiced ease. So much ease that it was enviable.

"Don't expect to get it on the first try," he said.

And Cloak didn't. He was much to heavy and hesitant in his movements. Granted, they weren't as heavy as they would have been if his form was that of a larger creature, like an elephant or rhinoceros. But they were still too slow and hesitant. This wasn't good enough for Cloak, who was still unwilling to give up. He wanted to be a Master of the Six Elements, like his grandfather, and his grandfather's father, and so on.

It took him several days to several weeks to master this exercise, which he refused to give up on. He would prove himself to be a worthy student, and worthy of the powers that he both inherited and trained hard to master. However, he still hadn't mastered his emotions -- it would take him a good long while before he did.

***

Cloak stood upon the top of the highest point in the city. Were he not an Elements Master, he would have never done this. His powers would save in the event that he should fall. He stood up here to try to regain the trail he lost, which he beat himself over. How could he lose it? He knew how important this was, finding this generator. He knew how many depended on him to fix this.

And what does he do? He allows himself to become distracted and let his guard down. He allowed his mind to wander, allowed himself to lose focus on his ultimate goal. He allowed himself to fail in this objective, and he wasn't too happy about it.

He could only hope that he could now salvage it by finding the trail again, hoping against hope that it hadn't gone cold. But it was the furtherest thing from the easiest thing in the world, and it was very likely that he wouldn't pick up on the trail once more. This was what he feared.

He waited, like a tiger hunting a pig. He was sure that he would sense the current, but his certainty of it was waning with alarming quickness and rapidity. He didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he may have just bungled up this whole thing. It would be a difficult thing to accept, knowing that he had failed so thoroughly and completely. He . . . no! No, he couldn't give in to despair. That would be too easy. That would be an easy out instead of striving for the hard, earned path. Even if that path turned out to be ultimately utterly futile.

He could not give up. He would not give up. Too much was riding on this. He just had to find the --

And there it was! He immediately started to follow it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2018, 06:29:07 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Memories of Water

Cloak soon mastered the Air Element, and it was time to move on to the Water Element, the penultimate element for him to master.

"Water is the element of change," Sage had said, "You must understand the versatility of the element, possess the resourcefulness to use it, and comprehend the concept of push and pull."

Cloak gave a brief, curt nod.

"First, you shall learn how to 'stream the water'," Sage said, demonstrating. "This is to help you develop a 'feel' for the element."

Cloak tried to emulate his grandfather, but his movements were a bit stilted and he dropped the water. His face set, Sage instructed him in basic techniques of creating basic ripples in water through pushing and pulling, streaming small globules of water, creating ripples in water, and creating basic waves.

Sage also taught Cloak the "octopus form". The octopus form was a highly advanced hydrokinetic (or "aquakinetic", if you prefer) move that involves pulling in a large water globule, before splitting it into eight sections that would expand into large tentacle-like extensions. The form was highly advantageous in battle, as it acted much like a shield that allows the hydrokinetic to successfully attack and defend his or herself at the same time.

In another exercise, he and his grandson passed a globule of water to each other in a circular motion, while he stressed the importance of fluidity in the element. In addition, this exercise brought forth an important strategy mainly used with the element, which was the redirection of an opposing force as opposed to the creation of new force.

It was training with this element when an accident happened, and Cloak learned his ability to redirect energy in any form.

"H-how did I --" Cloak asked.

"That's clearly your unique ability," Sage said. "Some Realm Walkers possess abilities that don't manifest in others, usually. It's not common occurrence, but it does happen. And clearly your training in the Water element had brought it to manifestation."

"I . . . I guess," Cloak said, unsure about this development.

One thing that Sage was aware of but refused to teach Cloak or utilize himself was the manipulation of the water in another's body. He mostly didn't have to worry about it being used against a Realm Walker because their physiology wouldn't allow for it, but the Dwellers? They would be in danger of such a technique. It was just like he never taught Cloak breathbending -- he found both practices just so repugnant, as his grandson does.

Anyway, Sage continued Cloak's training, and Cloak found himself liking the strategy of redirection. . . .

***

Cloak followed the trail. There was no way that he was going to lose it now. It was getting stronger and stronger as he moved onward. It was almost as if it was pulling him, almost like a magnet.

He was so close now. He knew it. He could feel the color-siphoning current -- and that was probably something that shouldn't have been able to be felt or sensed. Was it because of his feline nature and the fact that felines of all stripes seemed to possess the ability to sense evil? Perhaps it was connected to that. He halfway wished that it was easier to find -- perhaps a rock or mountain formation, a constellation, a puff of smoke, gnarled tree, or something of the like. But this was reality and not Pokemon Snap. Oh, well. The most worthwhile things in life are the ones that you have to struggle and strive for, anyway.

But he felt that he was close to whatever was generating this grayscale effect, what was siphoning off the personality and emotions of so many beings. Malice was behind this, he was sure. But why? What would make her want to do this? This couldn't be just, as the humans said, a "trolling" of him, surely! There had to be more to this. . . .

Cloak began to close in on the source of all this . . . well, "misery" wouldn't be the right word, as none of the people afflicted with this grayscale thing even had the capacity to feel misery anymore. Well, with luck, that won't be an issue anymore. And the people can make up their own minds if they want to bland, emotionless, and without a personality. He didn't know who would decide to be such a thing, but there probably are people out there who choose to be as such, and who was he to judge?

It wouldn't be long now . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 19, 2018, 08:16:01 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Memories of Wood

The final element that Cloak had to master was the Element of Wood. (No, not that kind of wood. Get your mind out of the gutter.) And it was the third quickest element that Cloak had mastered after Earth and Metal. He was also able to adapt Earthsight to a wooden medium. Compared the others, this one was rather straightforward and not really memorable, as Cloak had the fewest recollections about his time training under this element.

It was at this point where Shadow came along, and he mastered the element when she was about two years old. He began babysitting her in addition to completing his training. Although, he never technically completed the final bit of his training until long after his grandfather's death -- divesting his emotions from his powers, and mastering control over his emotions. But this was something that all sentient beings have to learn sooner or later, how to manage and control their emotions, lest they lose control. Not all succeed in this endeavor, though.

And it was right around this time when all his crap with his mother came full tilt. And it only became worse when Sage passed on. Sage's wife, Cloak's grandmother, wasn't much better. In fact, looking back, he could see a lot of idiosyncrasies that his mother possessed in his grandmother as well. He . . . didn't particularly care for his grandmother after his grandfather Sage passed on.

Cloak pretty much chose not to make reminiscences about this time in his past. It was traumatic, yes. But he had moved on past that. He had to.

***

Cloak found himself getting closer and closer to the location of whatever was generating this grayscale effect. He was inside a cave. It looked familiar, but he couldn't place why. He hadn't really considered just how he would manage to take it down . . . as he considered it, he came to the conclusion that he couldn't do it the straightforward way.

That probably lead to a massive explosion that would inevitably cause this cave to collapse. Cloak wasn't concerned about surviving that, as he probably would easily, due to his elemental mastery. It would be a simple matter to excavate himself from the rubble, that wasn't a concern. The concern lied that Cloak was pretty sure the power output would be larger than that. It might cause untold damage to the surrounding area, assuming that it was large enough. And he surmised it would have to be, in order to store all the color that it was currently stealing. The color -- a manifestation of the personalities and emotions of countless numbers of people and creatures, all of that given some sort of insubstantial substance -- must have a storage area or areas, perhaps within the generator itself.

It would also have to be a significant and complex machine. Unfortunately, Cloak wasn't as technologically-minded as he probably should have been. The tech he had given Parker so long ago had been made by a Walker friend of Cloak's, who went by the name of Itemsmith, not by him. He wondered idly if his fellow RAFians assumed that it was he that created it. The question never really came up, from what Cloak could recall.

When Cloak arrived at the staging area, he found it appeared to be rather lackluster. The area was rather sparse and the whole area was barren of anything but the rather nondescript generator, other than bits of litter here and there. The generator looked like a septic tank with mechanical cephalopod tentacles issuing from the bottom of it, rooting it to the ground. The generator looked as if it was, indeed, also a storage container. It also looked as if Cloak was too rough with it, that it would set it off.

"Well," he muttered to himself, "this makes this unnecessarily dangerous. Such is the glamorous life of a RAFian."

Cloak walked up to the generator, and looked at it. It appeared as if there was a panel that could be removed, but he wasn't sure that he could remove the panel without triggering an explosion. This was a very sticky situation, indeed. He wished that he had Parker, Xeno, Aquilai, Goom, Yarin, or one of the more technologically-inclined RAFians with him to instruct him how to do this properly.

He took a deep sigh, and weighed the risk.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2018, 04:27:28 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Discarding the Panel

After taking a few moments to weigh the risks and benefits, Cloak decided the best course of action was to slowly, and carefully remove the panel and see what lied beneath. He took great pains and caution to do as such. He slowly, painstakingly, removed the panel and set it to the side as calmly as he could.

Within the generator was what appeared to be a delicate lattice. Atop a spire of energy was a white diamond, which was feeding this energy into a white pearl, which, in turn, fed into a prism which fed into a red gemstone with a princess cut, an orange gemstone with cushion cut, a yellow gemstone with a heart cut, a green gemstone with a pear cut, a cyan gemstone with a marquise cut, a blue gemstone with a radiant cut, an indigo gemstone with an Asscher cut, a violet gemstone with an emerald cut, a purple gemstone with an oval cut, a pink gemstone with a rose cut, and a brown gemstone with a mongul cut, all arranged in a circle around this prism. Cloak couldn't say whether or not this was Walker tech or some other tech Malice had stolen from another species to manipulate and use for her own purposes. He spent his time mastering the elements and reading all he could about various species from the Nexus and the Realms.

Cloak examined all the gemstones with a greater scrutiny. He saw with a start that the red, blue, and yellow ones were showing signs of cracking. The yellow, magenta, and cyan ones were showing some discoloration. The red, blue, and green ones were showing signs of facet warping. Cloak couldn't be sure, but his hunch was that this was happening because they were buckling under the pressure of having to house so much energy, so much color.

Cloak felt some apprehension and anxiety -- this generator could not hold all this color, this manifestation of personalities and colors. This was not a permanent thing. Cloak furrowed his brow -- or as much as his feline physiology would allow such a thing. Something about this didn't make sense. It was almost as if . . . as if . . .  as if Malice had no intention of this plan, this scheme, ever succeeding. Almost as if she was indifferent to its success.

But why? Why go through all this trouble? Those gemstones couldn't be have been easy to obtain. (It occurred to Cloak these gemstones could be what she had the Kryptonians steal for her.) Why even bother to do this? Just to get a reaction from him? Just to "troll" him? Was that the entire point of this? Just for "kicks", as the humans would say?

Cloak knew he had to disarm this generator . . . but he had no earthly idea how to do it. If he disconnected any of the gemstone from this lattice, it could cause the entire thing to detonate and devastate the surrounding area with the explosion. He knew nothing about how to disarm this thing.

"Maybe if I just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?" Cloak guessed. He waited for only a beat, before he had to acknowledge that he had no idea how to do that or what that even was. Then he lamented loudly, "HOW do I do this?!"

His hand hovered over the gemstones within this generator, hesitant to touch the lattice, for fear of detonating everything or just making everything worse. He hadn't a clue how do accomplish what he wanted to accomplish, and he found that incredibly frustrating. The anxiety threatened to overtake him, as did the worry and fear. How did he do this? How did he do this without it making things worse? Cloak was at a lost of what to do.

He watched at the stresses on the gemstones -- the cracking, the marring, the discoloration -- increased and got worse. If Cloak continued his inaction, things would get worse anyway. He had to, once again, weigh the risks and ramifications with potential benefits and successes. Things would get worse if he continued to hesitate -- so he had to be more decisive, more active.

He took a deep breath, and then stuck his hand inside the generator compartment, intending to seize the white diamond within. Intending to squeeze the color out of it, despite it having now color other than white. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2018, 07:51:00 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Putting the Squeeze on the White Diamond

This could backfire on him. This could backfire him greatly.

The humans say something along the lines of "success favors the bold". Was this a tad impetuous? Perhaps. Was this dangerous? Definitely. Was it impulsive? Foolhardy? Hasty? Reckless? Rash? A bit hotheaded? Debatable. Did this have an unprecedented chance of failure? . . . Yes. Was there no guarantee that this would work? Yes.

But it was the best that he could hope for. He couldn't do much beyond this, and only hope that this would work. Squeezing a diamond the size of his fist. Maybe a skosh bigger. He was only managing to squeeze it, to compress it, due to his mastery over the Earth Element. Cloak didn't really know how the pearl, prism, or gemstones. As he squeezed he went through the litany of what he was feeling. He didn't know why he was doing so, why he seemed to have temerity to think about anything but the goal at hand.

He felt anger at Malice. Why did she want to do this? Why the Veil did she want to bother him so much? So what if he broke bread with Dwellers? So what if he counted them amongst his friends? Why did she seem so insistent that was such a Gateburst abomination to her? Cloak had always been raised with an egalitarian air, and that is a concept that he took to heart. Why couldn't he befriend Dwellers? Why was that so Gatebursting wrong to her!?

The red gemstone suddenly became translucent and like glass. The reds were gone . . .

He felt fear at possibly not succeeding.in this endeavor. So many people were depending on him to succeed, although they didn't really realize that they needed him to succeed. They couldn't feel anything at all. But Cloak's fear of failure in this regard. What if this didn't work? What if he failed completely? What if he couldn't get the colors back? What if . . . what if it was literally impossible? What if there was no way that he could restore this world? What if this was . . . permanent.

The yellow gemstone suddenly became translucent and like glass, like the formerly red one. The yellows were gone.

He felt a desire, a gnawing desire to finish this. To restore everything to be as it was. To give people back the option to be bland, emotionless, and without a personality. He needed to do this. He needed to succeed. He needed to give this back to these people. If people wanted to be this way, allow them to be able to chose it. Though Cloak couldn't imagine who would want to exist in such a manner, unable to feel, unable to have any personality or quirks whatsoever. Just being . . . meh.

The cyan gemstone suddenly became translucent and glassy. The cyans were gone.

He felt guilt, a deep guilt. He felt that he should have sense this earlier. He felt as if this effect was as much his fault for not stopping it preemptively as Malice's for starting it. He should have known that Malice would have a scheme underway. Although, to be fair, this was entirely unprecedented -- who could have possibly guessed that Malice would build a machine to literally suck and siphon out the colors from the world? No such thing had ever been made before, even the Nexus's long, long, long history. . . .

The magenta gemstone suddenly became glassy and translucent. The magentas were gone.

He felt hope, though. An underlying hope that he would succeed and would restore the colors and emotions and personalities to the world. Sure, there would be the bad, malicious personalities and negative emotions that would return with the good, benevolent personalities and the positive personalities. But there couldn't be one without the other, just like there couldn't be push without pull, just like there couldn't be up without down, just like there couldn't be forward without backward, and just like there couldn't be right without left. But his underlying hope wasn't faltered.

The blue gemstone suddenly became like glass. The blues were gone.

He felt shame, feeling as if he had allowed this to happen to people. He knew that he hadn't any intention to allow anything like this to happen to people, but it did. He didn't truly do anything dishonorable, but the thing was that he felt as if he did. This wasn't his fault, but he felt as if it was. Perhaps this was arrogant on his part, maybe it was self-indulgent in a way, but he felt it just the same.

The brown gemstone suddenly became translucent. The browns were gone.

He felt compassion for those afflicted with this grayscale effect. He wondered if they were truly aware that something had been stolen from them, if they were aware that they had been robbed of their emotions, that their personalities had been pilfered, or that that part of their very identities had be absconded with. Cloak couldn't fathom which would be worse to have such indelible parts of yourself taken away and not be aware of it, or have it pilfered from you, and you being perfectly aware of it, but incapable of doing anything about it. Okay -- thinking about it, the latter would be worse. Having these parts effaced away from you . . . and being aware of it . . . that would be terrifying.

The indigo gemstone suddenly became see-through. The indigos were gone.

He felt grief. It was strangely inexplicable. He really didn't have any reason to feel grief at this moment, but it hit him with such power. Was he feeling the grief of all those afflicted with this grayscale effect? . . . He honestly hoped that he was mistaken. This just told him that so many of them wanted their emotions and personalities and color back. Cloak couldn't blame them for wanting their verve back, for wanting this little part of themselves that meant so immensely much to them. He would try his best to restore their color, their verve, back to them. But that was easier said than done, it would appear.

The green gemstone suddenly became like panes of glass. The greens were gone.

He felt love for his RAFian brethren. It was odd. It was as if he was reminded the truest motivation behind this. He wanted to save this world from this bleak, indifferent, colorless world and gift them their color back. But he wanted to save his RAFians most, wanted to restore the verve, the large amount of personalities to them. The personalities which could contrast or compliment each other, but the entire forum vibrated with the fun sort of ecstasy of adventure and activity. He truly wanted to restore that above all else . . . perhaps that was selfish of him. He would acknowledge it.

The rest of the the gemstones lost their colors and were like glass. Their colors were gone . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 20, 2018, 06:46:34 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Well, This Seems Distracting

Cloak noticed that the gemstones became colorless and translucent a beat too late. He was feeling the influx of emotions -- so much that it was nearly overwhelming. He had to not let them get to him. These weren't his emotions, these weren't his colors. He wouldn't claim them for his own. They didn't belong to him. He hadn't any right to lay claim to them, nor did he want to. He saw these emotions as blurs of images, almost incomprehensible and completely muddled, muddied messes of color without any defined form or rhyme or reason to them.

But he was focused on what he had to do. He never once loosened his vice-like grip upon the white diamond. He continued to squeeze, as if he were squeezing the color out of that diamond. It was all he knew to do, instinctively.

The mongul cut gemstone shattered into dust.

Waves of color and feelings -- pleasurable ones, envious ones, affectionate ones, courageous ones, humiliating ones, and ones of shock -- assaulted his senses. He tried his best to ignore them and continue to squeeze the diamond, as if that was the only thing that he knew how to do.

The princess cut gemstone shattered into bits.

More images, still quite muddled and muddied by the infusion of vibrant colors, attacked his senses. Prideful ones, euphoric ones, angry ones, curious ones, ones pertaining to interest, and shy ones. But Cloak would not be swayed from what he felt that he must do.

The marquis cut gemstone shattered into shrapnel.

Still more images flew pass Cloak's vision. Raging ones. Fearful ones. Angsty ones. Depressing ones. Jealous ones. Sorrowful ones. But Cloak would not allow them to affect him.

"Divest yourself from your emotions, Cloak," he muttered. "These images are not yours. These emotions are not yours. Divest from them. Ignore them. They aren't yours."

The oval cut gemstone shattered into irreparable bits.

More images came -- remorseful ones, frustrated ones, anguishing ones, ones of desire, joyful ones, and suffering ones -- with Cloak unable to make any sense from them. Ill-defined shapes and contours. Cloak scolded himself for feeling these emotions. They were not his to feel. To feel them in this way would be akin to stealing them.

The heart cut gemstone shattered into tiny bits.

Even more images surrounded Cloak -- rejected ones, grateful ones, annoying ones, ones of despair, lonely ones, and surprising ones -- with Cloak unable to make heads-or-tails of it. But, as Cloak berated himself, he shouldn't be trying to make heads-or-tails of it. They weren't Cloak's to comprehend or feel. They weren't his. They weren't . . .

The Asscher cut gemstone shattered into fragments so very small.

Images of rejection, grief, anticipation, and disappointment swarmed Cloak. Cloak tried to disspell them, treating them as if they were pesky gnats. These colors weren't his to claim, and he hadn't any intention to claim them.

The pear cut gemstone shattered into minuscule bits.

Images of resentment, guilt, anxiety, disgust, love, and trust.

"Go away," Cloak grunted with effort, "you're not mine to feel. You're not my colors."

The cushion cut gemstone shattered.

Images of sadness, happiness, awe, distrust, lust, and wonder.

"Leave me be," Cloak said, nettled.

The radiant cut gemstone shattered.

Images of saudade, hatred, boredom, ecstasy, outrage, and worry.

"You're not mine," Cloak repeated his refrain.

The emerald cut gemstone shattered.

Images of schadenfreude, hope, confidence, embarrassment, and panic.

"You're not mine."

The rose cut gemstone shattered.

Images of self-confidence, horror, contempt, empathy, and passion.

"Go away."

The prism itself shattered.

Images of shame, hostility, contentment, enthusiasm, and pity.

"Go. Away."

The white pearl shattered, and it was at this time that Cloak finally noticed that all the gemstones were shattered as well. Upon this realization, he accidentally shatters the white diamond as well.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2018, 04:30:20 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
OOOOOH, the COLORS!

Cloak immediately withdrew his hand and saw the remarkable difference within this generator. It was full of colors -- all mingling, fusing, isolating -- writhing around within the main body of this generator. Little did Cloak know that he had managed to stop the wave from fully engulfing the planet. But this grayscale effect didn't recede, it remained stationary.

Cloak was more focused on the device in front of him. The slow, undulating, writhing manifestation of color and emotion . . . it was just hypnotic to look at. Almost as if it was a lava lamp of some sort, but with more intriguing movements, more incredible contrasts that benefited the thing most, more dynamic color differentials. It looked like fire, but wasn't quite fire. It looked like light, but wasn't quite light. It looked like energy, but wasn't quite energy. It was all three, and, yet, at the same time, none of them. It was quite difficult to explain, and Cloak knew that no artist, however talented and skilled, would be able to reproduce what he was seeing. It almost seemed like the sheer personification of expression itself.

Just viewing it . . . watching it . . . it was intoxicating. It represented the sheer power of emotion and passion, how it could stir things within you. How it could make the noblest of people brave and courageous, while juxtaposing it with how it could also make the most despicable and cowardly so just as easily. There is always a light and a darkness to people. A yin and a yang, if you will. The realm and the Nexus itself were not black and white, but made of grays. And that seemed to be the message that this superhuman artistic piece seemed to say. At least, what it said to Cloak.

A more selfish part of Cloak wanted to keep it all to himself, to gaze upon it over and over again, and lose himself in it. But that greedy party of him was quickly expunged as he knew what this was and what it needed to do. However, he hadn't a clue how to get it to do such. This was the color stolen from everyone and everything. And it belonged to them. It needed to go to them.

But how? How was Cloak supposed to coax it into doing just that?

It seemed incomprehensible to try and force something that clearly had no mind of its own to direct its actions, no will of its own to spur it into action, no hopes and dreams of its own to motivate it. How was he supposed to get it to go where it belonged? How was he supposed to impress upon something with no thoughts or feelings of its own to recolor the world as it is supposed to be? It was a tall order, to be sure, and there had to have been some way that it could be done.

But Cloak had wracked his brain with every possible scenario he could think of to get it out of the furnace-like generator. He even tried a few cautiously. Didn't work. It was like trying to coax molasses out of whatever container it was in on a cold day. Cloak wanted to avoid trying to gouge it out of the furnace-like generator, as that could prove damaging to the siphoned colors, and he couldn't risk that.

He placed his hand on a number pad that he hadn't seen there before, and accidentally pressed 7, 6, 9, 4, 2, 4, and 8*. In that precise order, and without even looking at it. Just looking to balance himself, since his knees decided to get a bit wobbly. He had ignored any exhaustion he felt, in order to put forth that incredible amount of effort in just squeezing that diamond, as if it was a sponge for the color. He managed to accomplish already that which he felt was impossible just moments before, and he watched with trepidation as the colors seemed to be getting agitated.

He couldn't even begin to imagine why.

---

* Can anyone guess why these seven numbers? ;) Take a look at your phones . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2018, 07:32:38 AM

New chapter. Again, sorry for the brevity. Time crunch, you know.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Time to Taste the Rainbow

It was amazing how quickly things could change.

These colors had been percolating in an intoxicatingly hypnotic way at first. Undulating in a magnificently robust manner that was fascinating to watch. Oscillating in an intricate dance that was marvelous to witness. But these undulations and oscillations began to increase in their agitation, their perturbatory motions. It didn't make it any less compelling to watch, either. Cloak couldn't look away.

The agitation started to move the furnace-like generator began to wiggle, to wobble. It keeled over to the side, the root-like cephalopod tentacles breaking and causing the main body of the generator, the part that looked like a furnace, to tilt at an angle. It also sounded like what Cloak imagined an old, malfunctioning furnace would sound like when it was "settling". It fumed and looked as if it was reaching critical mass.

Cloak was hesitant. He wondered if he should act or if he should just let it do what its going to do. Action may have done damage to the colors, and inaction might have led to a core meltdown and a huge explosion, with sizable amount of destruction left in its wake. Cloak's indecision wasn't good, as soon his decision would be made for him. Hesitation was not his friend in this scenario.

But Cloak's decision was taken out of his hands far quicker than he had anticipated. The generator bloated and distorted physically, before there was a cacophonous noise that sounded like a powerful "FOOOM", and the colors erupted from the top, and quickly raced across the land. They were reclaiming what was their's, and, in turn, being claimed by those who were their rightful owners.

This happened with astonishing rapidity. Even Cloak's eyes weren't able to witness how quickly this occurred. Cloak looked back at this hollowed out husk of a generator. He contemplated on destroying it, but, looking at it, it was already damaged beyond repair. Even magical repair. It should be fine to leave it here, and hope this decision doesn't come back to bite him in the butt. . . .

***

Malice saw all this from her little spy cameras hidden around the generator.

"Certainly took him long enough," she said, somewhat ambivalent. "I thought he would have gotten there at least an hour earlier."

She was in the process of making her new little burrow as comfy as possible for her. Including that chintzy easy chair that she became so fond of, despite never admitting it to anyone. She would soon start on the next bit of her scheme, which she admitted could have been seen as three separate schemes, the Kandidorians, the chromatoraptoris generator, and this next bit. She didn't really care what anyone else thought of them. Those Dwellers' opinions mattered to her as much as an ant's opinion matters before a human crushes them under the heel of their boot.

All she cared about was Cloak's reaction. She hoped that it would be entertaining. After all, that's why she was even bothering. Sure, killing Dwellers was fun to her and all, but this was what she was truly after. She loved getting a rise out of Cloak. "Trolling" him as the primitive peon Dwellers would say. They certainly had an uncivilized way to put things, she felt.

She was now resting before acting upon her next little scheme, because she was an octogenarian, after all. To Dwellers, that would mean that she was between eight hundred and nine hundred years old. So, yeah, to them, she was practically ancient. Though there were Realm Walkers would would live to be a millennium and over.

But soon . . . soon, she would get to work, and it will be wonderful to see Cloak grapple with her machinations. How entertaining it will be!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 21, 2018, 08:06:32 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity again, time crunch.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Open Up Your Eyes!

GH was in a bell-shaped cage with wrought-iron bars in a dimly lit room, and the cage was suspended by a single, black chain. Naturally, GH struggled against the bars. He was unable to summon his guitar and it wasn't with him. It . . . it was gone, and despite what he said if that ever happened, it crushed him. It wasn't only the medium through which he could manifest his powers -- or so he believed -- it was something near and dear to his heart.

Then he heard some malicious chuckling, as Rotiart came down the stairs at roughly eight o'clock from GH. He wore a white shirt that had a blue stripe in the middle with the stylized "R" that was the RAFian Mark with a slash through it and blue stripes on the sides of his shirt. He also wore brown cargo pants with pockets at the knees and blue and black shoes. In addition, he also wore a black hooded jacket with blue stripes on both arms and another RAFian "R" that was slashed through. He also wore a strange sort of watch on his left wrist, and a blue derby that was highly reminiscent of Darby.

When he spoke, his voice was full of contempt. "Aw, little GH, without his little RAFian friends. And no hope of escape."

"Why are you doing this?" GH asked, in a plea to understand. "We were both RAFians."

"I'm nothing like you," he said, hotly, striking the cage roughly. "I'm more than you'll ever be."

Then music started up, and Rotiart waited for the brief musical introduction before starting the song.

"It's time you learned a lesson.
It's time that you understand.
Don't ever count on anybody else --
In this or any other land!
I once hoped for friendship,
To find a place among your kind.
But those were the FOOLISH wishes,
Of someone who was blind!"

He strode away from GH's cage, and had his back to it, with his hands behind his back, before swinging around and throwing his hands down in fists, as he sang powerfully:

"Open up your eyes!
See the world from where I stand!
Me, the mighty.
You, caged at my command!
Open up your eyes!
Give up your sweet fantasy land!
It's time to grow up and get wise!
Come now, little GH, open up your eyes!"

Then his tone turned almost nostalgic, in a bitter way.

"We all start out the same,
With simple, naive trust.
Shielded from the many ways
That life's not fair or just.
But then there comes a moment.
A simple truth that you must face!
If you depend on others . . .
You'll never find your place!"

Instrumentals took the place of lyrics as Rotiart wallowed in this miserable memories, and beliefs. He was seeing the RAFians abandoning him to die, despite that never happening. The hurt of which showed quite plainly on his face.

Then he continued:

"And as you take that first step,
Upon a path that's all your own.
You see it all so clearly.
The best way to survive is all alone!"

Then his face hardened as did his eyes, as he rounded once more on GH.

"Open up your eyes!
See the world from where I stand!
Me, the mighty!
You, caged at my command!
Open up your eyes!
And behold the faded light,
It's time to grow up and get wise!
Come now, little GH, open up your eyes!
Open up your eyes!"

As the scene pulled away from the two, Cloak awoke. He was left wondering if this was just a dream or one of those Truth Dreams. Ever since meeting Destiny, the line became rather muddied and muddled.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x4P_PnX9kQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x4P_PnX9kQ)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 25, 2018, 10:09:08 PM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity, I'm still adjusting to a new way of writing Memoirs.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
You're a Mad Mandrill!

Azguard went to the power plant to not only investigate a crash site of an unregistered aircraft and to deal with a potential fiend. It was a fairly basic mission, and was one that necessitated only a single RAFian's attention. The crashed aircraft was believed to have been unmanned, so there was no casualties to investigate.

Az entered the power plant proper, and noticed that power surged and waned periodically. Such minor inconveniences would not deter the RAFian. He proceeded forward, and he leaped and seized the bottom rung of a short ladder -- clear damage showed that it wasn't always a short ladder.

Az had to admit -- navigating this power plant with this unreliable lighting was rather annoying. There were times where he found himself in dead ends because he mistook pathways to the way onward. After what seemed to be the eight hundred and eighth time, he began to grumbling with frustrated annoyance.

He even thought he saw the viscera of someone . . . he chose not to dwell on that, deciding that it was just his imagination. Then he came to a room that was oscillating from barely visible to pitch black.

Az decided to let loose with some choice words. He wasn't Cloak. He couldn't see in the dark. He never would remember just how he managed it. Eventually, he made it to the fiend's nest.

The fiend appeared to be an anthropomorphic mandrill, who stood upright. Its eyes had purple sclera and black pupils. It was at least three and a half, four feet taller than Azguard. It had several LEDs around its shoulders.

It sat sat still, charges itself, then sends a spark shock at Az, who sidesteps it.

Then it would jump up at the ceiling, which had pipes and cables for it to hold on to. It then uses the pipes and cables like monkey bars to move towards Az, with the intention of dropping down onto Az. Of course, Az recognized this strategy and dashed under it. When Az was too close to the fiend, it tried to punch him, only to punch an ice sculpture of Az instead.

When Az was far enough away from the fiend, it dashes and punches at Az. He sidestepped it, but very narrowly. He held his hand over his opposite shoulder, forming a marble-sized ice pebble. Then he flicked it at the fiend, and . . . froze it completely. This was not his intention at all.

But why look a gift horse in the mouth? . . . That was a very odd idiom, when you thought about it. Az shook his head. Priorities.

It broke out of the thin ice shell that encased it, and began its attack pattern again. Or tried to. Az repeated the previous strategy that worked so splendidly. It actually locked the fiend in sort of inevitable loop where it was perpetually stunned and locked into place. What was that term for it again?

Oh, well, it probably didn't matter, as Az's victory was assured. And when he was done, he left without even looking back.

***

Demos called it an "electromandrilus". Demos didn't say what purpose that he designed it.

***

Malice concentrated on her next ploy, having this on in the background, as, fittingly enough, background noise.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2018, 06:39:38 AM

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXIX:
TECHNOVAMPYRA
CHAPTER ONE:
Rolling Shield

Shenmue was quickly dispatched to possible fiend activity. It was at some abandoned mine, which was a foolish attempt by someone with too much money and too little sense thought it was a lucrative idea and thought the mine actually had Energon in it. Shenmue couldn't help but shake her head at this, this whole mine was a financial suicide move, fiscal suicide. Why? Simple, because they never found any Energon. They didn't even find diamond, gold, or anything of the like. They didn't even find coal.

Anyway, Shenmue entered the mine proper, and found that the facility was mouldering, moldy, and poorly-maintained. She saw that the ground sloped downward at a nearly forty-five degree angle. There was no way that traversing such terrain was safe.

But she had a mission to do, and, despite wishing for it to be easier, she knew that it wouldn't be that easy. So, she just rode a mine cart down, "Donkey Kong Country" -style, which was arguably even more dangerous. Especially because it was careening into an open pit.

She jumped from the cart, her momentum carrying her well over to the other side. She took a moment for her heart to stop beating so hard, before moving on into the cave. Then she saw that she had to drop down a empty shaft to the level below, which she did with some trepidation.

And when she did, some sort of excavating, drill tank activated. Almost as if it was a trap. She really hadn't the patience to deal with this just now. She threw her hands in front of hef, fingers splayed out and fired bolts of lightning, a la Force lightning. The machine easily seized up and deactivated. Shenmue moved on.

The terrain was difficult to traverse, simply because how poorly everything was maintained. The ground itself was deteriorating, and she had to jump small pits of spikes several times.

Then she came to a second mine cart when a recklessness seized her. She hopped into the mine cart, and barreled down the slope, gaining speed. It was just like riding a roller coaster -- without any safety equipment or safety measures. It was just amount of time before she had exited the mine and and she jumped out of the mine cart, giving it the Yoshi treatment and tumbling into the fiend's nest. He saw a tattered black belt flutter down as she felt a rumbling, and saw the fiend burst into the room from the ceiling.

The fiend was an anthropomorphic armadillo with a slouching, haunched over posture. It had an armored back and ovaloid grieves on its human-like forearms which were held together with electromagnetism for some reason. Its eyes had dark green sclera and brown pupils.

When it saw Shenmue, it immediately engaged her in battle. It began by encasing itself into a ball and rolling around the room and towards her. This would prove to be very difficult, had she was unprepared. But she was a RAFian and this wasn't the first fiend that she had to contend with.

These attacks were easily dodged. The other attack consists of firing small energy blasts from a laser blunderbuss hidden in his head. It can also use some of its armor to deflect normal shots and absorb energy from charged ones, resulting in it firing quick energy blasts in all directions. Shenmue made a mental note of this.

She also noticed that it was less likely to guard while it was shooting, making it the ideal time to attack.

Then Shenmue used her electrokinesis on it, in the form of an electrical ball that she pitched at it, and discovered that it interrupted the electromagnetism that was holding its armor in place and almost all of it fell off. This left the fiend vulnerable. Even when it was rolling.

She charged her fists with electricity, almost as if she was a Zerora. Then she cupped her hands on top of one another, and then flung them apart, as the fiend was going back into its attack pattern. This sent an electrical arc out towards the fiend, making contact. This stunned it, but it recovered relatively quickly and started shooting the energy projectiles from its head, which Shenmue found a simple matter to dodge as she did the electrical arc thing again. And again. And again.

Until the fiend was no more.

 "You know," Shenmue said, catching her breath, " if you didn't try to immediately kill me . . . I might have felt bad about doing that. "

Then she walked away, waiting for her extraction from this place.

***

Demos called it a "hoplocingulata". And, once again, he didn't give a reason behind its design.

***

Malice wasn't even paying attention to this, as she was working on this new scheme.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 27, 2018, 07:58:07 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Leatherhead Just Wants Some Lunch

GH was having trouble with Leatherhead, who was just being fussy. He was telling GH no, and he wasn't wearing his human suit, so he was unintentionally intimidating, even for GH. But the guitarist RAFian wouldn't be intimidated by his adoptive son. He actually smiled, because he thought he hit upon an idea.

He unshouldered his guitar and began to play a little musical interlude before singing:

"Some kids like to buy new shoes,
And others like drivin' trucks and wearing tattoos.
There's only one thing that LH likes a bunch.
Oh, LH, he wants to have lunch!
Oh, LH just wants to have lunch!"

Leatherhead stopped his sniffling and turned towards his adoptive father.

"I know how to keep my boy satisfied.
When I whip out my dishes, his eyes get so wide.
He's always in the mood for something to munch.
Oh, LH, he wants to have lunch!
Oh, LH just want to have --
That's all he really wants!
Some lunch!
Don't ask him to dinner or breakfast or brunch,
'Cause LH, he wants to have lunch!
Oh, LH just want to have lunch!"

Leatherhead gave a tittering giggle, as he knew GH was being goofy deliberately.

" LH, he wants --
Wants to have lunch.
LH wants to have --
That's all he really wants,
Is some lunch!
Don't know for certain but I've got a hunch.
This little guy, he wants to have lunch.
Oh, LH just wants to have lunch!
LH, he wants,
Wants to have lunch!
LH wants to have --
He just wants to.
He just wants to.
LH,
He just wants to
He just wants to
LH just wants to have lunch!
LH,
He just wants to have lunch!
He just wants to.
He just wants to.
He just wants to.
He just wants to.
He just wants to.
He just wants to . . . "

Then both collapsed in a fit of giggles over GH's silly song. LH stopped being fussy, and GH made him some lunch. Grilled cheese -- with ham. It might have been a little burnt, and hard, but LH didn't care. (That, and the fact that he still had the bite strength of a crocodilian didn't hurt matters either.)

***

Malice was putting the finishing touches on her final creation, hidden beneath a whit sheet. She glanced over her shoulders and saw that it was raining lightly at first, but was quickly escalating into heavier rain. Thunder rolled ominously in the distance, as the storm clouds continued to press on her new little hidey-hole.

She was well aware of this whole Victor Fankenstein motif she had going her, but she didn't care. Nor did she live up to the tropes a modern day human might have expected her to indulge in. She didn't care whether or not this counted as a subversion of expectations -- in her opinion, Dwellers were nothing and their opinions inconsequential and meaningless and without merit.

She raised the flatbed table that held her creation on it, beneath the white sheet. She mustn't ruin the reveal now. She had the atmosphere, the ambiance, and the substance. Now, to allow her creation to be struck by lightning, in this remote place, this remote area.

Then the fun shall begin.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFnAvnXduwM

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2018, 04:54:19 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity, still adjusting.

CHAPTER THREE:
Enter the Devourer

Malice stood there, waiting impassively for a fair amount of time before withdrawing the lab table back into her little hidey-hole. How she managed this while succeeding in being hidden still was remarkably lucky, and this had an incredibly high likelihood of being found out.

But Malice didn't care. She had gotten supremely overconfident with herself after the past few days. She had relevance as a villain again, and that's all that really mattered to her. And making Cloak suffer for not having proper Walker pride and being the progeny of the progeny of Master Sage, that mattered to her a great deal as well.

As the table lowered, and the orifice in the ceiling that had opened to allow it to be struck by lightning had squeezed itself shut, Malice watched with eager excitement, and one could even say anxiety, though Malice herself would never admit to feeling such a thing.

The figure on the table sat up, sheet still covering it, and Malice said, almost unenthusiastically, declared, "It's alive."

 The figure removed the sheet. The figure seemed to be made of triangular shapes, and what wasn't triangular was black as night. He appeared to be a fusion of NOS-4-A2 (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/NOS-4-A2) and Aku (http://samuraijack.wikia.com/wiki/Aku). He had a red mouth, glowing red eyss (with the left one larger and more protuberant) and a green beard extending from the bottom of his chin. He had six horns, four long and two short, extending from his head, and eyebrows made of green, flickering flame. He also did not have legs, with his body simply ending at the bottom with robe-like darkness, after his longest triangle of black, red, and silver.

 "Rise, Technovampyra," Malice ordered.

 "Yeah, yeah," he said, his voice sounding like a bizarre fusion of Tim Curry and Mako Iwamatsu, "when I'm good and ready."

 "You shall do as I say," Malice said, oddly without a note anger or hostility. This was highly unusual, unless Malice had a trump card of some sort. "For I'm your creator."

 "Whatever," he said, "I do what I want."

 "Oh, do you?" Malice said, in venomous honeyed tones that recalled Dolores Umbridge.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2018, 04:41:09 AM

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Pied Piper Strategy

 "Yeah," he said, standing to his full height, being significantly taller than Malice. He was at least twice her height, and he thought that made her weaker to him. That it made her inferior to him. He had apparently inherited Malice's overconfidence and arrogance, as he was, in a way, her son. "I do what I want."

 "You only do what I want, actually,"  Malice said, with a bit more of a bite to voice.

 "Yeah, you keep thinking that," he said, turning to leave. He was feeling famished, and he wanted to eat. He was mulling over what he wanted to eat, but he wasn't able to get very far into those thoughts before he heard music that caused him great pain.

He doubled over in pain. How could such mild music be so excruciatingly painful? It wasn't like the music was bad. It wasn't too amatuerish but it wasn't particularly skilled, either. It persisted and he collapsed to the floor, wondering how and why this was happening. The pain . . . it was like thousands of superheated knives, daggers, and swords had gored him in every possible direction. It was awful.

Then the music intensified and so did his suffering. It was as if all those knives, daggers, and swords were being twisted very slowly in him. He actually cried out in pain. A pain that like no other has ever experienced.

Then, all at once, the music ended, and that was almost worse. It was like all those metaphorical knives, daggers, and swords were removed simultaneously. And they were twisting on there way out. It took a moment before the Technovampyra was able to stand once more.

Then he saw Malice with a glowing flute. The flute looked rather like a PokeFlute gone deliberately wrong. It was as black as obsidian with blood red accents. It glowed malevolently in Malice's hands, which were glowing as well, ensconced in the glow of the flute.

 "The flute . . ." the artificial being managed to choke out.

Malice smiled a smile to match her name, instead of giving any sort of confirmation or denial of it being behind the music. Verbal confirmation or denial anyway. She played again, showing some incompetence at the finger placement for some notes on the flute, which played more like a recorder or a clarinet than a flute.

The Technovampyra would swear that the pain escalated from the last time. Almost as if Malice was deliberately playing a slow tempo just to maximize his excruciating pain. She was just being sadistic. There was no way around it. Malice was just being plain sadistic.

When Malice decided to let up, the Technovampyra immediately demanded, voice hoarse, "The flute . . . give it to me . . . NOW!"

 "Well," she said, with a smile that oozed malevolence and emitted maliciousness like a radiation, "if you insist."

As he extended his arm, hand outstretched, expecting for her to hand it over.  But Malice just played again. She oscillated between a fast, upbeat tempo and a slow, morose one, and she did so randomly.

The pain . . . it was unspeakable . . . it was indescribable . . . he curled into a ball, twitching. Even when she stopped playing. Malice stopped being coy.

 "You were made to obey me," Malice said, with hard-edged tone, "and obeying my every whim is precisely what you will do."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 30, 2018, 09:48:40 PM

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Store

"Nothin' ever happens in this forum.
Feelin' low down , not a lot to do around here.
I thought that I would go right out of my mind,
Until Shen told me the news!"

This was a gross exaggeration of the past two days. But GH was just so excited when Shenmue told him something that she read in the news -- which was, yes, a dying medium.

"She said, 'Hey, you know that vacant lot
Right beside the gas station? Well, somebody bought it,
And on that spot they're gonna build a shop
Where you can go buy amps and picks.'"

Yes, a music store was opening up relatively nearby, which was both convenient and affordable. Naturally, GH was excited.

"Since then I've been walking on air.
I can barely brush my teeth or comb my hair.
'Cause I'm so excited and I really don't care.
I've been waiting since last June!"

June was about four months ago, give or take a day.

"For this day to finally arrive.
I'm so happy now just to be alive.
'Cause any minute now I'm gonna be inside!
Well, I hope they open soon!"

And there he was, with Shenmue and Leatherhead (wearing his human suit, of course, so they didn't attract unwanted attention) in tow. Leatherhead was clapping along happily to the song, while Shenmue looked as if she didn't know why she came along.

"I can't wait, I can't wait!
When are they gonna open up the door?
I'm goin' goin', I'm a-goin' to the
Goin' to the music, I'm goin', really goin' to the
Goin', I'm goin' to the, oh yes, I'm goin' to the --
Music store!!"

Leatherhead was loving this, while Shenmue was finding GH's over-the-top enthusiasm . . . off-putting.

"In my sleeping bag, we camped out overnight
Right in front of the store, then as soon as it was light out
I pressed my nose right up against the glass.
You know, I had to be first in line!"

Not a word of that was true.

"Gonna get me a guitar maintenance kit of doom.
Want a pair of guitar picks for every single room of my thread.
See those sweet amps? Very, very soon
One of them will be all mine!"

Shenmue could hardly see what all the excitement was about. Sure, it was a music store, with a rather bizarre focus on guitars, in particular. Even the name left something to be desired, in Shenmue's opinion.

"Guys with nametags walking down the aisles,
Rows of steel strings that go on for miles and miles,
Brand new fingerboards in a plethora of styles,
All arranged alphabetically!"

GH looked as if he was in seventh heaven in this store. In this . . . this Picky-Mart. Obviously, taken from guitar picks, and "Mart".

"And they're doing a promotional stunt,
There's a great big green sign out front.
That says every 207th customer
Will get a power attenuator free! "

What? Where was that? Shenmue didn't see it, out front. She wondered if GH wasn't just making it all up.

"I can't wait, I can't wait!
When are they gonna open up the door?
I'm goin', goin', I'm a-goin' to the
Goin' to the -- I'm goin', really goin' to the --
Goin' -- I'm goin' to the, oh yes, I'm goin' to the
Music store!
I'm goin', goin', I'm a-goin' to the --
Goin' to the --, I'm goin', really goin' to the --
Goin', I'm goin' to the, oh yes, I'm goin' to the
 Music store!"

"Would you look at all that stuff," he said, with a broad smile. He called out the guitar bodies, bridges, fingerboards, frets, pedals, headstocks, inlays, machine heads, guitar necks, neck joints, nuts, pickguards, pickups, soundboards, strings, truss rods, and a whole bunch of other things that Shenmue was either unfamiliar with or completely indifferent to.

"I can't wait, I can't wait!
When are they gonna open up the door?
I'm goin', goin', I'm a-goin' to the --
Goin' to the, I'm goin', really goin' to the --
Goin', I'm goin' to the, oh yes, I'm goin' to the
Music store!
I'm goin', goin', I'm a-goin' to the --
Goin' to the -- I'm goin', really goin' to the --
Goin', I'm goin' to the, oh yes, I'm goin' to the
Music store!
I'm goin', goin', I'm a-goin' to the --
Goin' to the -- I'm goin', really goin' to the --
Goin', I'm goin' to the, oh yes, I'm goin' to the
Music store!"

"Why did you feel the need to narrate that through song, GH?" Shen sighed. "Better question: how'd you rope me into coming along?"

But that question was never answered, as Leatherhead pointed, and, with the usual lack of tact a six-year-old boy has ordinarily. "Daddy? What's that man doing?"

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DFI6cV9slfI

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on October 01, 2018, 01:55:31 AM

Why do I have a feeling you just Googled a list of guitar parts? :P

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 01, 2018, 02:04:08 PM

Why, GH, I'm shocked and appalled that you would think such a thing!

. . .

I used Wikipedia. ;)

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
He's Dining and Dashing!

GH looked as saw a hulking mass of shadowy black, blood red, and metallic silver haunching over what appeared to be an amp with an orange casing. One that GH was looking for, despite his immense gratification at being at this store.

They heard a sickening slurping sound, causing all three to recoil at the sound of it. Then the man -- no, the RAFians could see him clearly now. He was not a man, but a monster. He dropped the amp down, and it collapsed into pieces. Its interior was devoid of any electronics -- circuit boards, LED, resistors, transistors, and so on -- liquefied and sucked out. Siphoned out by this beast, whatever it was. Shenmue was the first to notice the two puncture holes on the side of the amp.

"It's like it is a . . . a vampire!" Shenmue said, not entirely sure about what she was witnessing. "But not like any that I've ever seen before."

 "An amp vampire?" Leatherhead queried, nonplussed.

 "No," GH said, knowingly , his exuberance dampened by this monstrous stranger. "If he fed on only amps, there wouldn't be that kind of remnant. The entire casing was discarded. It fed on something within . . . something like . . ."

 Then something occurred to the RAFian guitarist, something that might have put Leatherhead's life in peril. He would not, he could not, allow that to happen, especially right under his nose, when he could have prevented it.

 "Shenmue," GH barked. She was unaccustomed to hearing such authority in GH's tone, and immediately ascertained the seriousness in which was speaking. "I've got to LH out of here. He's not safe. He's a target."

 "You think that vampire will also go after flesh and blood, as well as whatever it --" she stopped, suddenly understanding why GH was so adamant about getting LH out of here.

"Because he's covered head-to-toe in technology, Shen," GH hissed, as the monster was distracted by some guys with nametags and red uniform shirts trying to get it out. And failing. "His entire suit is outfitted with technology that i couldn't begin to guess at, which allows the suit change to match his age and other such criteria. And that thing eats as if it was Slurpies from a Seven-Eleven. We gotta get LH out of here."

GH never took his eyes of the creature, almost unconsciously putting himself between the creature and his adoptive son. His hand gravitating towards his guitar, preparing to use it combatively against this creature. Just to protect Leatherhead. His son.

The Technovampyra had finished its third or fifth amp, tossing its empty shell aside, rather like a brittle, empty coconut shell. It reached for the final amp, apparently still quite famished. It ignored the yells and protests of the employee staff. They didn't matter to it.

Malice was permitting it to feed, so it was going to gorge itself before she could tell it to stop. It did not seem to understand nor comprehend that this was precisely what Malice wanted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 02, 2018, 08:39:17 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
What Happened to the "Dashing" Part?

The Technovampyra finished sucking the technology from the amp in the same way a generic vampire would from their prey. Or, perhaps, he was more akin to those "van-pires", a sort of Cybertronian analogue, despite the Cybertronians themselves calling such beasts "Terrorcons". But, as far as the Technovampyra was concerned, this was just meaningless semantics.

He had other concerns. He had a hunger that he was almost in desperate need to sate. These amps only sated him for minutes at a time it would seem. Sure, he heard the protestations of the meatbags with the red shirts and nametags. Their squealing and squawking mattered little to him, and he only sought more technology to feast upon.

It was just fortunate for him that Malice had allowed him to feed, especially because he was feeling perpetually famished. He had no reason or way to know this was precisely what Malice wanted, all he knew was that he couldn't go against her. Not while she had that flute.

He stopped his feeding at the mere memory of the excruciating pain she caused him. And he held no misguided ideas about her actually enjoying it . . . enjoying hjs torture in such a blatantly sadistic way. . . . Would he ever be free from her? All he would have to do is get the flute and break it. He was sure that that would free himself from her influence, allow him to get out from under her thumb. Or maybe "out from under boot" was a more apt descriptor.

But these musings ended abruptly as his hunger decided to butt in, as if it was a child demanding attention and would not be denied. The Technovampyra, still without a real name of its own, glanced around for more electronics, more technology to sate this hunger once more. But that was a lie -- this hunger was never really sated. Although, it wasn't nearly as the gnawing, all-consuming hunger that plagued the Taxxons. But it was enough to cause discomfort, but not nearly as much as that godforsaken flute of Malice's.

He looked around, and noticed that he had finished off the amps and most of the electronics in this aisle. (Did these fleshbags really think that those plastic covers and cardboard boxes would have stopped him from getting the sweet nectar of technology within? Please.) He picked up the remainder and strolled, almost sedately, to the next aisle. There were no electronics or technology on this side. Moving on.

It wasn't long before he finished off his little snacks, and moved to the front of the store, where computerized cash registers stood. He immediately made a beeline for them, and began to suck out the delicious technological nectar within from their cases. But he knew that this wouldn't be enough to sate his hunger for long. He could resist the hunger, if necessity called for it, but he was more comfortable in indulging in it. He enjoyed the act as much as the sustenance.

And he was confident in always being able to find food in some regard, that delectable technology. He was awash in the delicious nectar of technology. It's what happens when a species gets so reliant on technology for convenience. He was created in the right era of time. Had this been the Cretaceous Era he would have starved, so he was fortunate for that.

"Stop it!" one of the meatbags said. They were of no concern to him, so he didn't pay attention to them.

"For minimum wage?" another fleshbag said. "We don't get paid enough to deal with this crap."

"Yeah!" another concurred. "We don't even get dental!"

Their petty concerns were of no importance to him. Their meaningless protests were pointless and held no merit to him. He just kept feeding on these electronic cash registers . . . he just kept focusing on drinking out the succulent nectar from them. The taste . . . indescribable!

He never noticed the RAFians had left, nor did he really care, assuming that they were just stupid, pointless meatbags.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 03, 2018, 07:35:42 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Brief Briefing and Peckish Panic

"The thing ate tech," GH was saying. Dino was distracting Leatherhead while the RAFians were convening about this matter. "Sucked it right out of the casings."

"This is a significant problem," Shenmue said, buttressing GH's point. "The world is getting more and more reliant on technology."

"So it found itself in a veritable smorgasbord of sustenance," Cloak said. "Which also means all cyborgs and robotic life is in danger. Or those who use technology primarily for missions."

He looked pointedly at Oceanspray, Rocklobster, and Parker as he said this. The implication was quite blatant. They were at risk with this technology vampire on the loose.

"This also is a problem for communication as well," Yarin pointed out. "Suffice it to say, our communicators contain tech. Perhaps not the most high-end tech, but tech nonetheless. And if this technology vampire manages to get ahold of one, it'd know all the frequencies and channels we use. The communications would be compromised."

 "All our options of dealing with this thing are limited," Phoenix said. " The world's become reliant on technology, and we're no different, in that regard."

"Code Avalon is as much magical as it is technological," Broken pointed out, " it should not be able to breach it. The forum should be safe. But, as for everyone outside of Code Avalon . . . ?"

"Will it be able to be restrained by magical means?" Melissa asked.

"We don't know," GH answered. " We didn't check. I was more concerned with LH. He was wearing that human suit of his, and that suit is technology from head to toe, which is why it can compress his snout and tail into human proportions. And allows its appearance to age with him. And this creature seemed to be very rough with what it sucked the tech out of. If it had gotten ahold of LH . . ."

"It would have been highly traumatic," Cloak said, almost knowingly. "It was good that you followed your fatherly instincts, GH. Such trauma could have had lasting consequences on him. You did the right thing."

"Is it possible to track the creature?" Saffa asked. "If we could keep tabs on it, we could find a way to take it down."

"Without technology?" Aquilai countered. "It would be difficult. I don't know about magical means of tracking, but technological means are out. It would just be feeding this thing."

And so the discussion continued.

***

In the center of town, there was this promotional kick going on with a professional dancer and mascot performer was dressed up in a rather bulky suit. The character was supposed to be more cartoonish than some other mascots. The mascot was a red bee with yellow accents. The character wore a yellow cap (which was attached to the hard plastic or enameled silicon rubber head), yellow jersey with orange trim and the company which it was promoting imprinted on both the front and back, orange shorts with a yellow vertical stripe, character-matching socks and shoes. The costume's "bare" arms and hands were made of a bulky fabric, which hid perfectly the skin of the performer within.

The thing that made this mascot suit stand out was that the head was articulated. By clasping his hand secretively, the performer could close the head's eyes or open the mouth by secretively clasping the other hand. The choreography was usually made such that the audience never noticed this, as their eyes were drawn elsewhere during the performance. It was a rather interesting bit of technology, albeit not the most high-end of stuff. But it still wasn't what you could call cheap.

The performer inside the suit clearly loved performing in the suit (going on his seemingly exhilaration while performing the character) and apparently didn't find it cumbersome or anything of the sort. GH probably wouldn't have gotten along with him, although . . . considering his crush on Andy . . .

Anyway, the performer was going about the motions of this job, and he was performing superbly. He was somehow cartwheeling about in this suit, before going into a dance move called "the Worm", before going into more complex dancing, making the character close its eyes every so often.

Then there was a commotion. The visibility inside the suit wasn't particularly great, which was something rather common about mascot suits of any stripe. Visibility was never great. Sound was also rather muffled due the overlarge, cartoony head. But this performer, Amin Peligro*, wasn't sure what the commotion was about. He thought he heard someone shout "My phone!" and other such cries, but he literally couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

 If he was in danger, he was sure that his handler, Ben, would have stepped in and whisked him to safety. Ben was charged with making sure that he wasn't overwhelmed by crowds, and Amin's safety was in his hands. How could he know that Ben decided to up and abandon his post when the Technovampyra came round, the creature having took his smartphone and sucked all the technology out of its casing.

Amin just kept performing, utterly oblivious to any possible danger he was in, due to Ben's gross negligence. But his face, hidden by the mascot head, showed some concern and anxiety by these sounds, but he tried not to convey it with his mascot body. It was not too difficult -- mascots don't do subtlety real well, when it came to body language. They were about extreme, bombastic movement.

But he broke one of the cardinal tenets of mascotry. When he was seized by the monster, and saw him through the character head's eyeholes, he screamed. When you're in the suit, you're never supposed to talk, much less scream. But, in all honesy, can you blame him? It was terrifying! Especially with the limited visibility and sensory input when someone was in such a suit.

He struggled against the iron grip of this creature, panicking. The suit was already hot, but now it was sweltering. He wore a sweatband, but now it was soaked. He felt a vibration in the character head, and he couldn't see it but felt as if the character head was punctured. He felt almost as if something was being sucked out, but he found that the creature's grip loosening.

He managed to break away, ripping the character head's away, not caring about the other cardinal tenet of never taking off the character head "on stage". He didn't care. He didn't want to die. He wanted to live, and being so close to a monster easily capable of taking his life . . . screw these tenets of mascotry. Survival was more paramount.

He ripped off the costume as he left, not caring about damaging it, as he fled for his life. He would later come to regret that, as the company that owned the suit would eventually come after him, as these suits, especially of this quality, were not cheap. They, of course, refused to acknowledge his tale as truth, despite the dozens of eyewitnesses reports of similar things.

Amin didn't care. He never worked as a mascot ever again, now afraid of them, reminded of this traumatic event.

---

* "Peligro" is Spanish for "danger". "Amin" for the homophone of "I'm in".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 04, 2018, 07:43:55 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Callous Indifference

The Technovampyra had drained the music store of its electronics, and, so, left the low-slung, single-story bricked building. He plucked smartphones from passersby and ate them like they were potato chips.

"You can never have just one," he said to himself, with a sinister smile, as he continued to pluck smartphones from the populace. When the owners of the smartphones would turn around to protest, they immediately backed off when they saw what the thief was. The Technovampyra was an intimidating, unnerving sight to the layman on the street, especially those that are unaccustomed to such things.

But these fleshlings -- he liked that term for them best, "fleshling" -- mattered little to him. He only cared about them if they had those delectable little nuggets of technology with them. And seemingly every single on of them did. This overrelianace on technology was a major boon for him, and he knew it.

He continued to stroll down the avenues and boulevards in an almost sedate way, confident in his power, in the assured certainty of getting what he wanted. He always did, though he had consciously chose not to recollect what Malice's little flute did to him. These fleshlings couldn't stop him, and he knew it perfectly well.

He didn't hesitate on feeding on the tech of the newer model cars, not caring about causing what amounted to property damage. He didn't see why he had to concern himself with such meager and meaningless complaints. The technology was there for his consumption, so he consumed it. Plain and simple.

He saw that there was an accumulation of fleshlings, but wasn't what concerned him. He could sense the technology nearby. It was almost like a scent to him. He would pick off a smartphone here and there on his way to the stage where some odd creature was performing. Dancing. The Technovampyra didn't care one way or the other about the performance, but he just noticed that there was tech -- though rather limited in scope -- inside the . . . whatever it was.

So he immediately made a beeline for the creature, who seemed unaware of his presence. He grasped the creature firmly, and bit where he sense the delicious technology was. It was after the fact that he drained the technology out of this creature when he realized that what he had wasn't a creature at all. Just some cumbersome adornments on some fleshling, who was panicking to get away from him.

The Technovampyra found this amusing, as he sensed more tech. Small, sure, but present. It was inside the chest of a nearby fleshling.

***

"We have a report," Goom said. "Turns out someone was attacked by this technology vampire."

"Pacemaker?" Abby asked at once, her thoughts to the most obvious thing when those words were uttered.

"No, the man -- Amin Peligro, 37 -- was a performer."

"Why go after a performer?" Shenmue asked.

"He was performing as a mascot character," Goom said, scrutinizing the report read-out.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Gaz inquired.

"It was one of those mascot costumes with an articulated faces," Goom said.

"In another words," Cloak said, with a sigh, "technology. But going back to Abby's concern, it's not a question of 'if' it attacks someone with a pacemaker, but 'when '."

"We need act now," Parker said.

"Not you," Helen said, firmly. "Your armor is technology, Parker."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2018, 06:15:39 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Smashing Smorgasbord

He had to remove all the flesh between his fangs and the delectable tidbit of technology in this fleshling's chest. He did not care if this would cause the fleshling to cease functioning (which he did). It was none of his concern. What was his concern was getting that disgusting fleshling goo off the delectable morsel of technological goodness.

Such a wealth of sustenance he found himself amongst, although the hunger beckoned him like the hunger of a Taxxon, he could refuse the appetite for a moment's time, if it was necessitated. But he didn't have such necessities, so he was free to indulge whenever and wherever he could. That miserable witch with the flute hadn't shown up to stop him from doing it yet, so he assumed that they're goals aligned roughly enough on this that he could go on about this feeding business.

Smartphones. Beepers. Pacemakers. Gaming devices. Cochlear implants. Neural implants. No technology was safe, not even the very small. Not even if it was within a fleshling itself, which, obviously, put the person's life in dire jeopardy. And their lives were worthless to the Technovampyra.

He was proceeding sedately, before he came upon what appeared to be a person in his mid-twenties. He had a fairly average build, moderate height, modest weight, chin-length flaccid blond hair, and a fairly nondescript face of the kind that one wouldn't give a second glance at. He was dressed as unobtrusively and forgettable as possible. It was almost as if he went out of his way to not be remembered and to be easily overlooked.

But the Technovampyra saw him for what he was. For what he was truly. And it caused him to actually salivate. The attack came quickly and was nearly imperceptible to this man in question. He couldn't break the Technovampyra's grip. Even by summoning strength beyond what a normal human was capable of, he was unable to break free of the Technovampyra's iron grip.

The technology vampire seemed to be savoring this. It was a torturous amount of time before the Technovampyra managed to plunge his fangs into this man's neck. This man didn't stop struggling, and this amused the Technovampyra. He tasted the delicious technology within this man. As he did this, the man's struggling slowed as his body seemed to convulse every now and then. It was only when the man seized up and seeming engaged in immediate rigor mortis that Technovampyra tossed him aside, having sucked all the delectable technology from his body.

Sure, the four or five diminutive fleshlings inside would be unable to leave the exosuit, as they needed the tech to open their respective compartments, but the Technovampyra didn't care. It was none of his concern. Their lives were forfeit for all he cared. He didn't even know what they were, and didn't know why he should care.

He moved on, licking his lips. That technology was certainly scrumptious, and he was hoping to find more of them. And he was secretly dismayed to find that they were strangely rare. It was like tasting something exquisite and then having to settle for something a bit more mediocre.

He loved this -- loved feeding, loved feeling unstoppable (these puny little fleshlings couldn't do anything to stop him, so that gave him all the leeway he needed), and loved just being himself. He had almost forgotten about Malice and her accursed flute. True, his hunger was never sated for long, but he was awashed in a sea of sustenance. What was there to worry about?

"Hello, there, handsome," said a voice behind him. He recognized it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 06, 2018, 05:44:03 AM

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Malice Commands

"Hello, handsome," said the faux sultry voice.

"What do you want?" the technology vampire said, with a sort of irritated ambivalence .

 "Now, now, poppet," she said in the most irritatingly condescending tone of voixd she had  "Is that anyway to speak to you . . . mother?"

The Technovampyra looked less than enthused at this, glowering at the Tasmanian devil Realm Walker. Malice, however, found this absolutely hilarious, as she leaned against a building on the curiously abandoned sidewalk, and she laughed raucously at her creation's discomfort.

 "What do you want?" the technology vampire repeated, demanding to know.

 "Awww," Malice said, not done reveling in her creation's discomfort, "you're not happy to see your dear old mother, Technovampyra?"

 Technovampyra wanted to tell her precisely what he thought of her, but he remembered all to well her flute. He was well aware of her sheisty, untrustworthy, and shifty nature. He was not so unperceptive to not know her malicious, sadistic intents. He wanted tell her just what he thought of her, but he held his tongue.

Malice was perceptive enough to notice this and found some perverse humor in it. She loved power plays . . . she loved winning power plays. She loved lording power over people, despite her personal ideology dictating that Dwellers (and, yes, Technovampyra was made with in-Realm parts, so the Technovampyra was technically a Dweller) were beneath Realm Walkers, beneath their notice and concern, that their lives were the playthings of Realm Walkers. Their lives to Walkers was analogous to the life of a spider to a human with arachnophobia.

"Why are you here?" Technovampyra asked, cautiously. "I haven't yet completed your last task."

He had hoped that this would be sufficient to dissuade her from further interaction. The Technovampyra's hunger was beginning to spike again, making it difficult to pay attention to Malice when he was awash in a veritable smorgasbord. But he knew he had to. All because of that accursed flute of hers.

If he could only get his hands on that flute . . . he was sure that then . . . then she would have no power over him, and he would be able to do what he wanted without interference from the likes of her. He would have true freedom, free from being under her thumb. He hated being under her thumb. He hated being under anyone's thumb. He wanted his own autonomy.

 "Yes," Malice acknowledged. And she doesn't do that often. "But you're going in the wrong direction."

"What?" Technovampyra snapped. He wasn't designated a direction to go. But he immediately regretted his harshness of tone, as his entire body flinched and cringed as Malice pulled out the flute again, apparently not too keen on his tone.

 "You were supposed to make your way to the coordinates that I gave you," Malice said, with a smile to match her name.

The Technovampyra wanted to protest. He wanted to refute this claim. He wanted to debunk it. But he found himself unable to such, and didn't know why. It took him a moment to realize that he was afraid to. He was feeling fear, a paralyzing terror, of this figure before him. This figure half his height. This four-feet-tall figure in front of him.

"It's that way, dearie," she said, deceptively sweet and almost motherly. She was point between six and seven o'clock. "Get going."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 07, 2018, 09:03:06 PM

Well, I've changed my mind. I'm not ending the series at #1,237. That'll just be the end of a massive arc.

BOOK MCCXXXVII (1,238): "Shattered Reality" -- This book will detail how the Fractured Realms got that way.

Titles are not final, and are subjected to change.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Free Will? Oh, We Can't Have That!

The Technovampyra hesitated and was seemingly resistant to what Malice was saying. He didn't want to be dictated of where to go, dictated of what to do. He desperately desired for his own autonomy. Malice had allowed him some, allowed him to get a taste of it. And he found that he liked it. That he loved it. That he reveled in it.

But he didn't know that the only reason she allowed this . . . was so she could take it all away later. She took perverse pleasure in this, and the Technovampyra realized that. As long as she had that flute, he would never be free. And he could never get it away from her. Thus, he could never be truly free.

The flute. That's what this all boiled down to. The accursed flute. He needed to wrest it away from the octogenarian Realm Walker. Ordinarily, one would think such a thing a simple matter, taking something from what appeared to be an enfeebled old woman. But appearances were very frequently not what they appeared to be on the surface. Despite looking like an enfeebled old woman, Malice was anything but feeble. Her grasp and grip was surprisingly strong for someone whose age was as advanced as hers. And it wasn't like she was going to be without a trick or trap up her sleeves.

 "Technovampyra," Malice said, her voice much harder now. More commanding. " Did you not hear me? I said the coordinates that I gave you. They're over there. "

The Technovampyra wasn't too much of a fool. He recognized the sudden hardness and edge to his creator's voice. And still he hesitated. He hated this. Hated being dispatched like some lowly pawn in a proverbial chess game. It was not only irritating and frustrating, but humiliating and mortifying. He had autonomy, whether Malice wanted to acknowledge it or not. He had the ability of self-awareness and the concept of self, something all truly sentient beings achieve.

"What is that?" Malice said, all coy behavior vanishing. The venomously honeyed tone she affected was gone. "Is that . . . is that free will?"

The Technovampyra said nothing, neither confirming nor denying this assertion. His body practically tingled with the dreadful anticipation of the horrendous music from the flute. He did not like feeling this fear. He didn't mind generating this fear. Like his creator, he found that fear in others amusing, but, unlike Malice, he also found it futile and inconsequential to his one and only goal -- to feed and sate his hunger, and to do so by any means necessary.

His hunger still licked at his insides but the possibility of the flute playing causing him more torturous pain enabled him to ignore it, to put it aside. He had to deal with this first.

 "Why, I believe it is!" Malice said, not disguising her intent so much now. "Well, poppet, we certainly can't have that!"

"Please," he groveled, hating himself for doing such, "don't."

"Your request is noted," Malice said. She waited for a brief pause before adding, "And ignored."

Then she started to play.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 08, 2018, 06:22:59 PM

Remember, all titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXXXIX (1,239): "Fighting Figure" -- A Savawler boy somehow made his way to this Realm.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Like the Cruciatus Curse, But With Music

Once again, the fingering that Malice had on the flute wasn't right to produce the sounds that she was from the flute, and she didn't appear none too skilled musically. The tune was roughly akin to the one the Green Power Ranger used to summon the Dragonzord, but almost deliberately fouled up and poorly played.

Once more was that horrid sensation of having every possible square inch of his body impaled, gored upon invisible swords. Then having them slowly twist around, clockwise at first, once they've been inserted inside him. Then they stop and switch to counterclockwise. And all excruciatingly slow. Faster that the perceived rotation of the planet, but slower than tick and tock of a clock.

And Malice wouldn't stop the playing. She was punishing him for daring to show even the slightest resistance to her every whim. She expected absolute compliance and obedience. Willing loyalty was insubstantial to her, though she understood that such loyalty could be a useful tool to her. She believed any Dweller's free will should be supplanted with her own when she felt like it.

 "P-please," the Technovampyra begged, "st-stop."

 "Hmm," said Malice, though the music didn't stop. "No."

The Technovampyra was in too much pain, too much suffering to notice this. All he knew at the moment was pain. He was close, really close, to wishing for death. This pain . . . it filled the whole of his mind, as his collapsed before Malice. Not only did he felt as if the daggers impaled him, it felt as if his metallic and shadowy skin was on fire. His breathing -- even though, technically speaking, he didn't have to breathe -- was haggered and ragged, as he continued to cringe and wince from the pain. He wanted relief. His hunger was nothing -- NOTHING -- to this pain.

And, possibly, the worse part of this was that the Technovampyra knew that she was enjoying this. Enjoying watching him suffer as she played the flute so inexpertly. He knew that she would be cackling if she could. In fact, he swore that he did hear her cackling like old crone she was. But that was impossible -- you can't play a flute and cackle at the same time, unless you're two people or you have two mouths, vocal cords, and lungs. The Technovampyra never noticed this -- he was in too much pain, collapsed to ground, breathing heavy, ragged breaths, whimpering like a beaten dog.

And this didn't deter Malice. She enjoyed seeing his flailing about in pain, enjoyed watching him twitch on the ground ghere, completely subjected to her power. She loved being in this position -- the position of power. She had always felt as if she was denied, unfairly and unjustly so, such positions too often than she cared to recount.

But then there was a sudden plume of arguably iconic blue smoke, which surprised the Realm Walker so much she stopped playing, and the Technovampyra was granted, albeit unintentionally, a reprieve. The tension he held in his body relaxed, and his breathing became shallower as the tremendous pain ebbed away.

"We are the terror that flaps in the night," said a cacophonious chorus of what sounded like three voices. "We are the virtual keyboards that make you make stupid typos.*"

"This is so uninspired, " Malice commented, almost sourly.

---

* Why are you looking at me like that? It's not like I have personal experience with this. . . . Okay, I do.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 09, 2018, 02:37:28 PM

Remember all titles are subjected to change.

Book MCCXL: "On the Wing" -- A Floaflier girl somehow makes her way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Roll For Deception

The smoke cleared and revealed GH, Broken, and a short, anthropomorphic mallard duck with white feathers, a large forehead, and orange beak and feet. This anthropomorphic bird wore a gray fedora with an oversized brim and black band, a purple mask, a purple cape with a teal interior, and a purple, long-sleeved coat over a teal turtleneck.

"We are the RAFians!" they declared.

Then this duck smirked as he knew this was deliberate lampshading where this idea was taken from. Then his form lost coherence and he shifted back into Underseen's base form. Or, at least, what Underseen assumed his base form was. Malice watched this, looking completely unentertained.

"Completely unimpressive," Malice critiqued harshly, "even for Dwellers."

This didn't stymie the trio before them, who were acting rather out of characted, by striking "superhero poses". Malice didn't know this, just finding them incredibly uninspired with that entrance. She held the flute loosely, as the Technovampyra recuperated and recovered.

"Well, is that it?" Malice said, impatiently. "Just the most amateur of entrances? What is your next move? How do you plan to stop me?"

 The three didn't move, and had she been more eagle-eyed, she would have realized that none of their eyes were looking at her. They were looking . . . elsewhere.

Their determined silence and insipid puerility was beginning to annoy Malice. "Let me guess. You expect me to engage you myself. To sully my hands to put you foolishly vacuous Dwellers in your place."

More silence. Malice did not seem to notice anything behind her, as she continued her intransigent diatribe. "Well, I'm so sorry to disappoint you Dwellers. I shall not dirty my hands with you. That's for lesser beings like the Technovampyra."

 She gestured to where the Technovampyra was laying.

"I shall not engage in battle with insects," she asserted proudly. "I crush them beneath my heel. The only reason that I don't kill you where you stand right now is because you've proven to be entertaining in the past. You entire kind are nothing more than disposable court jesters. You haven't any other purpose outside entertaining me with your suffering and struggles. You --"

"You talk too much," a voice behind her said, as a golden-scarlet blade cleaved the air heading right for her neck, with the clear intention of decapitation. But Malice ducked and slid away. She stopped a fair distance away, a safe distance.

"Ah, yes," she said , with a smile to match her name. "Little Cloak. I should have known you wouldn't allow the lives of your pets to be endangered."

Cloak said nothing. His face said it all. He was fed up with Malice. He was fed up with this little song-and-dance that they were going through. He was sick and tired of Malice's sanctimonious bigotry. There was only one way to end this.

One would stand, the other would fall.

Cloak pressed his attack again. He could have used his Elemental Mastery, but part of him wanted to eschew that for taking her down in a more personal, more tactile way. Was it foolish to indulge that inclination? Almost certainly.

"Ah, so you do have some fight in you," she cackled like the hag she was. " But you're still weak. You could have slain me easily, without a single utterance. But you hesitated."

Cloak said nothing. Killing members of your own species, your own kind, your own people is not an easy thing to do. Most beings are able to get away with doing it to other species by regulating them to the "other" and demonizing them as all being evil in every conceivable way. But the truth is that the world, the Realms and the Nexus alike, are hardly ever that straightforward. There is a wide array of subtleties, of grays.

"You killed Cataclysm," she said, "my ancestor. And a bit of an old jerk, it is true. You didn't hesitate then. And yet you do now. You've grown so weak!!"

Cloak didn't say anything. He felt as if he didn't need to defend himself from that accusation. It wasn't confirmation of what she was saying was true, it was more like he didn't want to waste energy disputing and debunking such claims.

The only reason he killed Cataclysm was because he hadn't any other choice, and he was the only one who could. He didn't take such an action so cavalierly, like Malice did. He knew the weight, the impact of such an action. And he had second guessed himself so many times after the fact.

"Technovampyra," Malice snapped, "kill little Cloak's little pets."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 10, 2018, 04:37:18 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLI: "Poisonous" -- A Venoxican girl somehow comes to this Realm, and she needs special equipment in order to survive.

New chapter. Again, sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Fact or Farce?

Nothing happened.

"Technovampyra!" Malice said, sharply. "Did you not hear my command?!"

"I heard it," he replied throatily.

"Then why aren't you following it?!" Malice demanded.

The Technovampyra turned slowly and looked at her. It was a look of purest loathing and everlasting enmity. He would always hate Malice, there was no doubting that. He would take great pleasure in seeing her suffer as he did. And he felt more confident to assert himself now. Now that he had recovered and now that he --

"Have you forgotten who's in charge here?" Malice said, her hands on her hips. Her empty hands.

"You no longer are in charge of me," he said, holding up the flute which he snatched from the ground. "I hope that you had your fun, because I am no longer bound to you."

 He crushed the flute to bits with just one hand.

"Now, that I have finally emancipated myself from you and your thumb," he said, speaking grandly, as if Malice had no more advantage over him. Cloak knew better than this and wondered how this monster could really be this obtuse. "I can -- and will -- do as I please. Never again will I have to listen to your meaningless drivel that you think is proper input. Never again will I have to suffer by your hand."

"'By your hand'," Malice repeated, with a devious smile to match her name. "What a marvelous choice of words!"

"Be silent, you wretched hag! " the Technovampyra snapped. "Your power over me has dissipated, and it's lying in pieces all over the ground. Literally littering the ground!"

Instead of feeling taken aback by this, or even alarmed a smidgen by it, Malice threw her head back and belted out a big belly laugh at this. This perplexed the Technovamlyra to no end. He destroyed the instrument that she used to control him, and she now had no sway over him.

He didn't have to take into account her whims any longer. But why was she laughing? Why was she laughing when the playing field was finally evened out? What was so hilarious about him destroying the flute? It just didn't make any logical or logistical sense to the technology vampire.

"And here I was worried that I made you too smart! But you're right amount of obtuse!" she sakd, between shrieking laughs. When she sobered up from laughter, she spoke more seriously. " You honestly -- HONESTLY -- thought that power came from the flute. Hilarious. Absolutely a scream."

Her hands glowed, and the Technovampyra collapsed to the ground, feeling the excruciating pain once more. Malice smiled a masochistic smile.

"I had hoped you'd be that obtuse," she said, smile deepening, showing her teeth. "Now SUFFER!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 11, 2018, 09:11:19 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXLII (1,242): "Grounded" -- A Terraseismoan girl somehow comes to this realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
You Do As I Say!!

The Technovampyra shrieked in pain. This was even worse than before! He wanted to die. He wanted to die to end this pain. He never imagined that pain this bad could even existed. His vision blurred, his hunger seemingly evaporated to be replaced with more pain.

"You are my slave,Technovampyra," she said, as the RAFians looked on, horrified by this treatment. "You haven't any free will of your own -- though it's entertaining to see you try to have some -- and you live only to serve my every whim. There's no point in being obstinate, all your struggles will prove futile in the end."

 The Technovampyra wanted to cry. But he hadn't any tear ducts for lacrimation, and so was unable to shed tears. He just wanted the pain to stop. He didn't care whether it was by death or by some sudden merciful impulse by Malice. He just wanted it to stop. He just wanted the pain to cease.

"You will do as I say," Malice said, sounding rather ominously ethereal. But she let up, leaving the Technovampyra gasping for air, despite not needing to breathe. It felt as if his very skin was coursing with fiery electricity. It was not a pleasant sensation, but nothing -- NOTHING -- was as bad as the excruciating pain that he had just endured. "You will not resist or defy me. You will obey me without question. Understood?"

Technovampyra did not say anything, his body spasming and convulsing involuntarily from the excruciating pain. He was barely able to string two thoughts together at the halting of the pain. His thoughts were fractured and separated -- it took time for him to marshall any sense of coherence back together.

"I said, 'understood'?" she repeated, her fist glowing once more.

The Technovampyra cried out in pain, which stirred the RAFians into motion. Cloak immediately took up his attack on Malice once again. The two bobbed and weaved as if they were going through some rehearsed choreography on a movie set -- despite every blow and strike being aimed true. They were not pulling their strikes or blows. Neither spoke, which spoke to the seriousness of the battle, as there was no 80s-cartoon-style banter between the two.

The other three RAFians -- GH, Underseen, and Broken -- found themselves more at an impasse. They felt sorry for the Technovampyra, sure, for Malice's cruel and brutal treatment. But he was also the monster who so callously killed Cody Hart for his pacemaker, who so carelessly traumatized Amin Peligro, and who knows what else that weren't reported?

They looked at each other, wondering what they should do. Action or inaction? Kill it or allow it to suffer? What was the right thing to do? Which was the cruelest? There really wasn't any clear cut answers for this. If only this was a black-and-white situation, or a Saturday morning cartoon. Then their objective and path forward would be clear and obvious.

The trio was nonplussed, when they heard a small plea, from a ragged hoarse voice who sounded the absolute zenith of misery. It was the voice of someone who had been through a lot of pain.

"Please," it said. "I cannot t-take anym-more. P-please have m-mercy."

It was the Technovampyra. He was addressing them directly. He was pleading with them, pleading with them to have mercy. Whether or not he deserved mercy, not withstanding.

"P-please," he begged once more, " p-please . . . p-please k-k-kill me."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Underseen on October 12, 2018, 02:07:31 AM

I feel like Malice is just evil for evil's sake  ;) can't wait for more books about her

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2018, 04:03:56 AM

Oh, there should be plenty. And sorry about not posting a chapter yesterday, time got away from me.

Book MCCXLIII (1,243): "Stoned" -- A Geolithling girl somehow makes her way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Moral Quandary

And there it was. He was being very direct with them. He wanted to die. He didn't care if it was slow or fast, as long as it was done. Because that's the only way he saw now to  truly free from that witch's grasp. Death was the only way to freedom that he could see.

Now if these fleshlings could deliver him from this world of pain and suffering -- though, curiously enough, he didn't bother to take inventory of the pain and suffering that he, himself, caused. It was a selfish thought, but the Technovampyra was an incredibly selfish being. This came as no surprise, as he clearly was imbued and imbibed with some of Malice's own kind of personality.

His torture had sapped the technology vampire of any energy that may have had before that cruel and brutal session of torture. It also sapped any will to live from him. Death, no matter how ignominious or depraved, would be better than this. His dignity had evaporated entirely after Malice's vicious obedience-exacting. He just wanted the hurt to stop, the pain to leave him. Only death itself could grant him that with any sense of permanence.

"P-please," he prompted pathetically, "p-please . . . k-kill me."

The three were still indecisive. They knew that it had no compunction to refrain from harming others if they had pacemakers or other technological implants. It would just kill them to get to that tech. But did that warrant them letting it live and suffer like this? Did that justify it?

"P-please . . ." he said again. The pain was gone, though he was still collapsed upon the floor. He was twitching involuntarily, as if he was suffering muscle damage.

The three RAFians looked at each other still, unsure what was morally right in this scenario. The technology vampire was literally begging for death, but it was also a selfish murderer. Would it be right to let it rot as it was, or shoe it the mercy that it never showed Cody Hart or Amin Peligro or anyone else who got in its way?

"Pl . . . please," he pleaded again, "I implore you . . . kill me . . ."

 It appeared as if it was going to die one way or the other. Should they end his suffering, or did he justly deserve it after the pain and suffering it, itself, caused? The RAFians glanced at each other once more, and Broken held up a finger. GH and Underseen nodded somberly, knowing what Broken intended to do.

"Please . . ." he begged for the final time.

 broken brandished his wand. Then he cast a spell that tried to never cast, much like Cloak and breathbending, bloodbending, or mechbending. He took no pleasure in casting it, nor knew if it would work on such a creature. He had the sufficient willpower and skill for the spell, but he didn't really have any desire to do it, other than mercy.

"Avada Kedavra," he said, as a green flash emitted from his wand and an rushing sound was heard. Broken looked away, saddened. Remorseful, despite the fact that the Technovampyra was technically a murderer itself.

It fell, now a lifeless husk. Broken turned away from it, feeling . . . conflicted.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 14, 2018, 05:29:57 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLIV (1,244): "Buggy" -- A Hivectoid boy somehow makes his way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Brutality of It All

The energy blade that extended from their wrists clashed so violently that colored sparks were given off. Malice's eyes were alight with her namesake, while Cloak's were cold and icy, trying to stem his emotions.

"Such power you possess," she said, scathingly, "it's wasted in your hands."

"Restraint isn't weakness, Malice," Cloak countered, blocking one of Malice's strikes. And the thing Bout Malice's fighting style? She fought dirty. Fortunately, Cloak had anticipated that and compensated reasonably well for it.

"You cannot even best a frail, old lady in combat!" she sneered, almost cheerfully so, as she made another lunging strike. She was really enjoying this too much.

"You may be old, as an octogenarian," Cloak said, seeing fit to correct her statement, "but you are not frail -- otherwise, you'd be dead right now -- and you're the furthest thing from a lady I've ever known."

"Are you calling me a man?" she said, actually sounding genuinely confused. "Is that what you're implying?"

"No," Cloak said, honestly, "just that you lack any sort of sophistication and class to be legitimately called a 'lady'."

 Cloak noticed that each blow and strike now was edged with anger and hostility. Cloak had, unexpectedly, cut Malice deep. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"Why are you even bothering with this facade?" Malice snarled, a Tasmanian devil snarl intermingling with her words. "You could have destroyed me in an instant. Yet, you hesitate. Your grandfather would have never hesitated."

"Then why are you alive?" said Cloak, and Malice didn't have a comeback. So, she just fought harder, which was a quite impressive amount of physicality for a woman her age. "One will stand, one will fall."

"Nice little slogan there. Did you get it off a cereal box?" she said, scornfully, as she crossed blades with Cloak again. Cloak glowered at her, which caused her to smile contemptuously.

"Enough of this," Cloak said, closing his eyes and crossing his blades above his head. Collateral damage be Veiled. It was time to end this emnity, this constant struggle of good vs. evil, of protagonist vs. antagonist.

The blades translated into golden-scarlet energy that danced ever so elegantly around Cloak's fingers and claws. The tip raised at least a story or two high. Fortunately, this street was already slated to be worked on, and was torn up before they got here. Though they would work on it from six at night to six in the morning, and it was starting to get nippy in those hours.

 "Oh, this tired, old technique again?" she critiqued harshly.

Cloak put most of his physical strength into throwing this down, but Malice dodged it. Despite him thinking collateral damage being Veiled -- he still tried to minimize it, as much as he could.

Malice was going to make a snappy retort when she noticed the Technovampyra collapsing back  to the pavement, unmoving, the light gone from his eyes. His body looked untouched, and he looked unharmed, other than the fact that was dead.

"YOU LOST ME MY SLAVE!!!" she roared, as she stormed towards GH, Broken (who still had his back to them, somberly returning his wand to his pocket), and Underseen. None of them looked too concerned by Malice's anger.

Suddenly, Malice found her way obstructed, by an earthen wall.

"We're not done, Malice," Cloak said.

"Yes, dearie, we are," she said, looking round to the younger Walker. "For the time being."

Then she Walked away, before Cloak could do anything. Cloak wasn't really sure how he felt about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 15, 2018, 08:13:59 PM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLV (1,245): "Spooky" -- A Necrectopolian girl somehow makes her way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Malice and Shadow

Shadow and Malice were standing in what appeared to be some domed emerald cathere of some sort. Malice was standing tall, looking poised and smug, while Shadow was looking confused and disoriented.

"What kind of trap would this be, if you could just wish your way out if it?" Malice was saying, apparently continuing a previously unheard conversation. "It's just you and me now, Hatchling. But not for long."

Then she approached Shadow, saying, "You see, dearie, I know what makes people tick! Their darkest impulses, their greatest fears. And I know your greatest fear has just come true!"

Then Malice snapped her fingers and rather upbeat music played.

"You've always had a friend or two.
Someone to lend a hand!
When times are tough you look to them
To get out of a jam.
But, now, no matter where you turn,
There's no one here but you!
You're all alone, your greatest fear
Has finally come true!"

Shadow did not back down from Malice's approach, showcasing her family's stubborn obstinance streak. She sung, dignified:

"Just because I'm by myself
Does not mean I will fold!
I don't need help to battle you!
I just need to be bold!"

Malice dismissed this with overdramatic wave of her hand, as if she was some sort of cartoon character, as she sang:

"Spare me your heroic speech!
We both know you are wrong!"

Then Malice began to attack Shadow with energy blasts, which Shadow used her superior speed and agility to leap over. When she landed, she stood tall and declared:

"I'm not afraid to stand alone!"

Malice snorted derisively, and sang, punctuating her lines with energy blasts:

"Dearie, you won't be standing long!
You're on your own! You can't run away!
You've met your match this very day!"

One of Malice's blasts connected with Shadow's shoulder, causing her to fall and spin upon the slick, crystalline ground. But Shadow was undaunted, and countered:

"I'm on my own, but won't give in!
I'll get back up to fight again!"

Malice smiled smugly, and malevolently. She sang:

"The light in you is fading fast!
And, when it's gone, you're mine as last!"

But Shadow, the youngest Elements Master ever, stood her ground, stubbornly refusing to give in. Her eyes glaring at Malice, jaw set. She sang:

"But, like the sun, I'll rise once more! "

Scoffing, Malice scornfully sang:

" Until night falls and wins the war!!"

As the instrumental bridge began, Malice shot Shadow's injured shoulder, causing her to fall to the floor. Her hope starting to slip away, until she saw Malice. No, what was behind her. In the panes of emerald facets . . .

Every past Elements Master before, including her uncle and great-grandfather. Then the images of a bottlenosed dolphin and a red fox -- her parents. Then her friends in the Nexus. Everyone she cared about, and cared about her in return.

She stood up, confidently, which took Malice off guard. Especially when she started to emit a light that seemed full of color, and yet colorless, at the same time.

"There's a bond you'll never know.
A power you can't feel.
The light you give comes back to you,
And makes you strong as steel.
If I remember those I love, and
I keep them close to heart,
My light will shine from deep within,
And chase away the dark!"

The light emanating from Shadow became brighter and stronger. Malice found herself shrinking and cowering from it. She growled:

"My malice can not be denied!
Your little light won't last!
I'll show you where real power lies
In one final wicked blast!"

But the energy blast could not get through the light the young Elements Master was generating. The blast looked small and insignificant against the light.

"You tried your worst to keep me down.
But I'm still standing tall."

"How can this be happening?"

"Because I stand for one and all!
I'm on my own, I found my light
To see me through the darkest night!"

"You're just a girl! This cannot be!"

"I'm more than that! But you can't see.
I may be small, and on my own.
But I can feel how much I've grown.
My will is strong, my heart is true.
My light will be . . .
The end . . .
Of . . .
You!"

Cloak awoke suddenly, and he seemed to have a sort of epiphany. What if he wasn't destined to kill Malkce, or be killed by her? What if that destiny belonged to someone else?

He kicked his legs over the side of his four-poster bed, and his navy blue bed sheets. He draped his tail to his right, he put his hands onto his face. He was rubbing the sleep from his eyes, as he pondered about this. What if he was never meant to enter into this type of antagonistic relationship with Malice? What if he was never meant to triumph over Malice? What if it was always . . .

Shadow? Was he taking her destiny away from . . .

What was he thinking? Destiny? Fate? Those were ridiculous concepts. Fate didn't exist, and one made their own destiny. And, yet, he couldn't shake this feeling . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AS1ZXP-P6TU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 16, 2018, 04:03:20 PM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLVI (1,246): "Clang? Did You Say Clang?" -- A Ferromor boy somehow makes his way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Under the Sea -- Again

Helen was dispatched to the ocean where a new fiend was wrecking havoc and being just an overall nuisance. She mulled over the whole Technovampyra thing. She understood why she wasn't chosen to go engage with the creature. Her ring was powerful, when it had a charge, this was true. But it wasn't mystical or magical in nature. It would more than likely have been a quick snack for it -- even if it had to rip off her finger in order to do it . . . she found that she'd rather not think of the gory "what-ifs". She felt that no one could fault her for that.

She dove into the ocean, the same aura projected by her ring that allowed her to breathe in the vacuum of space accommodated her here. There wasn't much here other than aquatic wildlife who wanted nothing to do with this strange, glowing interloper and the wild plantlife. Helen carefully and dutifully scanned this oceanic floor but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

A sunken ship? That might be worth scoping out. Although, she got very "The Little Mermaid"-protagonist-introductory-scene vibes from it, she decided to put that to the back of her mind for the moment. She went to investigate the sunken husk of a ship.

 She wished she didn't. There wasn't much inside the cavernous space, but there was what appeared to be a human heart, just laying there. Perhaps it was an optical illusion, but it appeared to be beating. Then it was consumed by some unseen creature which was far bigger and vicious than Helen would prefer. But it wasn't the fiend, she was sure. They all had a certain design commonality, and this creature, whatever it was, didn't share that commonality. She left the ship behind and continued to look.

It wasn't long before she came to what she assumed to be the lair of the fiend. She deftly checked her ring's power level. Seventy-eight percent. Should still be good.

The fiend appeared to be an anthropomorphized octopus who stood on two tentacles, with two raised high into the air, with the other four ranging from the middle. Each of these tentacles had an orifice, presumably were the homing torpedoes it had were fired from. It had human-like eyes with blood red sclera and dark brown pupils, and stood at least two or three feet taller than her.

It fired several homing torpedoes at her when it saw her. Then jumped high and produced a whirlpool that she found herself sucked in, taken unawares. She would deeply regret this, as the damned beast siphoned off two percent of power from her ring!

She broke its grip and floated away to a far corner of its unfurnished lair. She kept her eyes on it, determined not to get ****y and flippant this time. She muttered the Star Sapphire oath under breath, as she concocted a plan while dodging this fiend's set attack pattern.

When she acted, it was quick and unexpected. She went full-on Krillin and severed six of eight of its tentacles, which flopped comically to the ground. But it was not defenseless. It -- somehow -- fired missiles at her that were difficult to avoid. She didn't see the orifices that they came out of. She was pretty sure that she didn't want to know.

She decided to be relentless, and fired violet ball constructs from her ring. The missiles could not get through them, and it got struck repeatedly. These ball constructs impacts had ruptured its internal buoyancy and pressure systems. She did not let up, until the deed was done.

She checked her ring's power level. Fifty-eight percent powered. Shhe had to charge it soon, but first, to get out of here.

***

Demos called it a "rancha octopus". He didn't bother to explain, or even comment, on the rather militaristic purposes it had shown.

***

Malice, meanwhile, was too miffed to pay any attention to this. She felt as if her fun was ended too soon.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2018, 05:27:33 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLVII (1,247): "Hot Stuff" -- A Pyrosunnurite boy somehow makes his way to this Realm, and must bundle up due to the cold climate.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXX:
GO TO HELL
CHAPTER ONE:
A Tricky Tower

Parker was dispatched to deal with the next fiend, which had taken over a tower. The tower was intended to be a symbol of the city, a landmark to would put them on the map, rather than the strange occurrences and primary site for alien invasions. It was also known that the forum of RAF was situated somewhere nearby this city, but not mentioned specifically. They rather not be known for those things, like Gotham was with crime.

Parker found climb the tower and easy enough task. The security system? Well, he found it rather lackluster and disappointing. This tower should have had better security, but clearly corners were cut.

There was a laser trap -- Parker thought that those existed only in movies. They were easy enough to get pass. Though his armor was not exactly light, he managed it just fine. They didn't mar his armor, though one singed it, leaving undamaged but bearing some soot. Great -- that'll be a royal pain to get out later.

Then he found himself in an open elevator -- and he wondered aloud to why and how anyone thought this was a safe design feature. Tyr reminded him was probably a cheap and cost-effective way to cut costs. Parkee said that OSHA woukd have a field day, and Tyr reminded him that the building was not finished internally.

From the elvator, Parker found himself outside, having to scale balconies to move on. This fiend's nest was bound to be in the saucer-like penthouse area, Parker surmised easily. He had a limited amount of ammo for his homing missiles -- a little toy he was working with the science boys on. He hoped that he worked out all the bugs. Sure, it was risky, but Parker was confident in his abilities, and he had a basic idea of what this fiend was capable of.

Then he climbed up, and then he saw that he could move into the tower proper again, but had the misfortune to look upward. He saw what he suspected was a human heart. He chose not to think about it, as he proceeded onward. He was close to the penthouse area now, just a short climb away.

The penthouse was not particularly big or spacious, though completely unfurnished. The fiend seemingly teleported into the room, and Parker managed to get a good look at it. The fiend was basically an anthropomorphized tetrapod stag beetle. It had a very thin build, and a metallic boomerang on its head, which was obviously its weapon. It stood at least a foot or two taller than the SPARTAN RAFian. It had human-like eyes with light pink sclera and dark orange pupils.

When it saw Parker it immediately began its attack pattern, beginning by throwing its boomerang cutter at Parker, which was unable to penetrate his armor -- but it was annoying when he was hit by it. It didn't help that the fiend moved so fast that appeared as if he was teleporting.

Then he was surprised when he was seized by the middle, and flung into the ceiling. It didn't have enough force to damage the armor (though it did scuff the finish). It did have enough force to crack the ceiling.

 "Okay, fine," Parker found himself muttering. "I won't be so flippant anymore."

Parker switched to his homing missile prototypes, and the began to fire them like there was no tomorrow at them. The payload wasn't too explosive so the room,by and large,was only damaged cosmetically and not structurely. The fiend didn't stand a chance.

It wasn't long before the deed was done.

***

Demos called it a "boomerang kuwagata". He refused to elaborate beyond that.

***

Malice was still fuming, and not paying attention. She was without a scheme again. And she wasn't too happy about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 17, 2018, 07:54:04 AM

Titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLVIII (1,248): "You Sea?" -- An Atlanhydrian girl somehow makes her way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Shenecron's Scheme

Shenecron was looking out upon the hellish landscape. Which would make sense, as it was Hell. He wasn't wearing anyone, as he couldn't do that here, and he didn't really need to, anyway. He was essentially a prince of this realm within a Realm, and he had a substantial backlog of souls -- the currency here -- to make him comfortable in this ethereal realm.

But it wasn't enough. He wanted more. He believed he needed more. And those damn affiliates of his kid half-brother's? They've messed up more than on of his contracts now. He needed to stop them. Or he might not be able to make deals and steal more souls.

He just wouldn't challenge them to fiddle contests -- he found that stupid, and completely subjective who wins. There was too much leeway for the souls to wiggle out  of him claiming their souls. It left far too much to chance, for his liking.

Contracts were far more ironclad. No one ever reads the fine print in contracts. You can slip in clauses in there that assure your victory, and half the time that isn't even necessary, if your rhetoric is deceptive and misleading enough. Acknowledging whatever they may have already heard about him, even if he is disguised or occupying a meatsuit. Creating a semi-welcoming atmosphere, so he could prey on the desperation and flaws of souls. Making her would-be signers vulnerable, making them ignore their better judgement. Getting in close to establish dominance when he has to lie, to intimidate and disguise the lie. Making the ruses, constructing a narrative of seemingly good intentions, promising them their "happy endings". Being upfront, yet deceptive, with the costs. Insinuating that their dreams and hopes and wishes are so close. Break down their willpower, and convince them what he wants is not as important as their desires, reducing the worthiness of their thoughts, doubting themselves and their judgement. Forcing them to make a hasty choice, a snap decision. To make them cave against their better judgement, to sign their souls away. Making rash decisions while the signer was in a turbulent, emotional state.

That was the fun in the whole thing. Beguiling these stupid meatbags with cunning, manipulating, gaslighting rhetoric. He had added to the stockpile of souls that he had inherited, and he continues to add to it. But the thing was, having souls as a currency made it a rather more volatile currency than bits of metal and green paper. Souls eventually vanish, because they either become redeemed, their contracts break, or they become demons themselves -- the latter of which are treated as second-class citizens. They are seen as below cambions.

Shenecron tried to not think about the failed contracts, but it was a sticking point with him. He was the type of person who would never admit fault, and would always blame others for his shortcomings. Mostly Demos. Just because he could.

"The reason I called you six here," Shenecron said, not turning around to face the silhouetted figures behind him with red eyes, and he spoke as if he had just gave them a briefing for what he wanted, "is for your capabilities. No other reason."

"We figured," said one of these figures.

"But what's in it for us?" said the smallest silhouette, the leader. "Our abilities don't come cheap."

Shenecron was glad that he had his back to them. They didn't see his smile. He had no intention to pay them anything. His wealth of souls wasn't going to last forever, as that seems to be one of those universal constants. He knew that these cadre of demons -- the Insidious Six, as they liked to be called. They were all human at one time, and became demons. The only reason that they weren't treated as second class citizens was because of this special ability, one they called "astral displacement".

Shenecron would ordinarily try to press contracts on them in an unobtrusive way, but they were wise to this trick, hence why they spoke so cautiously. Shenecron knew he had play this carefully, and play on their limited knowledge of him.

"A reward worthy of your efforts," he said, with almost practiced ease. None of the six seemed to see anything wrong with this intonation or the fact that Shenecron refused to turn around to address him. This was common behavior to born-demons and made-demons, so how would they know that they were subtly being played. "Should you succeed. Assuming your abilities weren't grossly inflated from the stories I've heard. Or even true."

"Our abilities surpass the stories," the small silhouette boasted foolishly.

"Well," Shenecron said, glancing with his left draconic eye, over his shoulder, "that remains to be seen."

"We will prove it to you," said one of the other red-eyed silhouettes. "Then you can give us our reward."

"Perhaps," Shenecron said, with coy noncommittal. "If the stories weren't pure fiction."

"Fine," said the smallest one again. He could have just left, they all could have. They didn't have anything to prove to Shenecron. But their pride was hurt, and they would prove to him their worth. "We will do your little plan. We'll get you those six souls you want so badly. Boys -- let us leave this place."

 Shenecron's smile deepened at their departure. That was easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2018, 04:47:49 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCXLIX (1,249): "Glades" -- A Florester girl somehow comes to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Insidious Six

Cloak was meditating, wanting to find out more about this new possibility that didn't allow himself to really consider. That defeating -- or killing -- Malice may not have been his destiny, but Shadow's. Although, outwardly, he denounced the concept, secretly Destiny's diary had basically aroused his curiosity about such things, though he tried to trample that curiosity on this matter.

But the thing was, you couldn't just force Truth Dreams, much less control the kind of information that they would give you. But Cloak had his hopes up, which was always a disastrous thing to do. And he knew this, but he didn't.

But he did seem to trigger one . . . just not the one he wanted.

The void he was standing was suddenly replaced by a wide river. It seemed to only be ankle-deep. Cloak wasn't sure why he was being shown this. What possible significance could such a river play? Then he noticed the words in the river, in Realm Walker script. It was incredibly difficult to make out. It could have been "the magician", "the tactican", or "the technician". But these words' meanings were so dissimilar that it just made this confusing. Then this environment burned and evaporated away in what looked like awful hellfire or Fiendfyre.

It was replaced by a vast tundra. Cloak tried to fathom the importance of this biome, when she saw some crystalline structures to his immediate left. It looked like Realm Walker script for "the comedian", "the musician", or "the egalitarian". It was difficult to tell, just like before. It was almost as if by design to be confusing.

Then this environment melted by hellfire or Fiendfyre -- it was difficult to distinguish -- to be replaced by what appeared to be an immaculate court room, with Cloak standing where the defendant would usually stand. Around the seal behind where the judge would sit, Cloak saw Realm Walker script again. It either said "the sawyer", "the bowyer", or "the lawyer". While it was difficult to decipher, Cloak suspected one and not really knowing what the other two were.

Then this environment was burned away by the hellfire or Fiendfyre -- it was still hard to distinguish. Cloak then found himself on a factory floor, with the high ceiling with visible roof supports, and aisles after aisles of various products. Looking at the products, Cloak noticed the gaps between them. Once again, they resembled Realm Walker script, albeit rather loosely. "The knight", "the right", or "the mighty". It was diffult, real difficult, to be sure.

Then the hellfire of Fiendfyre incinerated this environment, as it was replaced with a highway at night. Empty and seemingly abandoned. This was rather for modernday Dwellers. But he noticed that there was a green street sign that had faded Realm Walker script. Now, this was technically an impossibility, as Realm Walkers didn't even have cars or roads such as this. Anyway, Cloak examined the sign as well as he could, and he surmised that it said "the assistant", "the student", or "the apprentice". He didn't have time to consider what this meant before the hellfire and Fiendfyre burned it all away.

When the environment became that of an amusement park, and one a bit too saccharine for Cloak's tastes. He looked at a series of funhouse mirrors -- he never understood the attraction to these things. What was the fun in seeing a distorted reflection of yourself? But these distortions made Realm Walker script. "The toy", "the boy", or "the soy".

It was at this point Cloak awoke. What did this all mean? What was this vision telling him?

***

The Insidious Six approached the place where they would put their scheme in action, where they would go into the material world, and inhabit the meatbags . . . but that would be done in good time. They weren't ordinary demons, after all.

They were no longer in silhouette. They looked like humans with red eyes and flayed skin. Five looked like they were adults, but the smallest looked more like a child around nine or ten-years-old. But it was this child demon that was clearly calling the shots.

Their names were Antoine "Ant" Gansley, Curt Crump, Scott Johnson, Lawrence Nezbitt, Lector Nicholas Leichter, and Christopher Noah. Christopher was the child cambion.

Ant spoke with a deep, loud, hoarse voice. Ant was a middle-aged man with balding gray hair. He was short, fat, and carried a cane. He wore a double-breasted black, silk suit. He enjoyed causing suffering. He lost his humanity (paving his way to demonhood) when he was the vice-president of business strategy at an undisclosed corporation.

Curt spoke with a gruff voice, with a tendency to make ice-based puns. The double breasted suit he wore was black. Curt had black hair, red eyes, furled eyebrows, and a mustache. He is fairly short and appears to be middle-aged. He lost his humanity as an immoral accountant with human resources connections, and he stole and embezzled money, getting away with it easily. He also had a slight obsession with penguins.

Scott spoke fairly slowly and in a formal, conceited manner. He often makes legal puns to reflect his former career as a lawyer, a crooked, immoral one which easily lost his humanity. He was tall, wore glasses and had dark hair. He was exceedingly dishonest and sneaky.

Lawrence was tall and wore a black silk suit, like his fellows (except Christopher). He spoke in a monotone voice, with a robotic intonation. He was a complete misanthrope, believing in the inherent superiority of machines to man. It was this belief that caused him to cast aside his humanity like a threadbare overcoat.

Lector was tall with brown hair and beard, and wore a black silk business suit. He had a Southern accent, and tended to address people formally. As the assistant to a corporation's CEO, he appeared loyal and virtuous, but this was deceit. He had cast his humanity aside long ago and used the facade to get close to the CEO and usurp his company from him.

Christopher's usual outfit consisted of a black long-sleeved jacket with yellow markings, black shorts, pale orange knee socks, and black loafers. He had green and teal hair, and red eyes. He had a habit of ending sentences, when speaking amongst the other five, with "shall we?" and he had a habit of laughing maniacally. The cambion tended to be impolite with everyone, especially his cohorts. He was never really left Hell other than when he used the ability that he shared with only the other five (which is why they obeyed him, as he threatened to take the ability away at any time).

But now? Now these six, these Insidious Six, waited. They were waiting a particular, auspicious time in which to act. If they were too hasty, this could go wrong and they could miss their targets . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2018, 04:51:02 PM

Posting tomorrow's chapter a little early. And, yet another book idea.

Book MCCL (1,250): "Shocking Appearance" -- A Thundelectroan boy somehow makes his way to this Realm.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Antoine "Ant" Eric Marc Gansley

The auspicious time came, but only one of them was able to make the "jump". As always, they let Christopher, their cambion leader, make the choice for them. And he considered making the jump himself, but he didn't want to take the chance of one of these idiots messing this up and ruining their reward. He would have to go last.

"Gansley," he said, and motioned for him to go with a quick jerk of his head.

Ant didn't hesitate to follow suit. It was always more pleasant on the material world. Mostly for hedonistic reasons, but Ant knew better than to indulge without their despotic leader's permission.

In the infinitesimal seconds before the "jump" happens and he displaces his target's soul to somewhere in Hell -- Christopher had selected Shenecron's castle for the displacement point -- Ant found his thoughts going back to when he was alive.

He was the vice-president of business strategy at a company. Enough time had elapsed and he had made enough "jumps" that he forgotten what good or service that the company provided, all he remembered was being wonderfully ruthless with his business strategies. He was without compassion or sympathy for those that got in his way. He was never aware of losing what little humanity that he ever possessed, just focused on making the most money for both the company and himself. But mostly himself.

He was absolute merciless in his methods, and he didn't care about the little people who suffered from his decisions. He wasn't reckless in his decisions, but he was abjectly ruthless with them. He was willing to outsource jobs for cheaper labor, and he endorsed it. He was willing to pay his company's employees at little as they were legally able to, and endorsing this. He was willing to pollute the environment, regardless of the legality of it. If he could make money from it, chances were high that he would do it. His humanity was long gone at this point, he basically lost it when he clawed his way up to his last position before his death. He loved to watch the suffering of the people who tried to struggle against him and his decision, believing that they could never touch him.

He was eventually died when people had enough of this, and protested his company. And his company's paid politicians were proving largely ineffective. And he callously took his car and barreled into group of protesters. He injured many of them, and actually killed one of them. He never felt even a smidgen of remorse for this, and he wore that on his sleeve. Despite his paid lawyers, and his paid politicians abandoning him because he became politically toxic, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He would have been a candidate for the death penalty had they not ran out of the item they used to kill these prisoners.

So he died in prison, after serving about ten years or so. But he was found in Hell, tormented physically for his sins, and Christopher granted him this astral displacement ability, which he was quick to tell him that he could take away at any moment.

But the moment to "jump" had come to him. Within seconds, he managed to push out the native soul of the squishy meatbag body of his target and replace it with his own demonic self. Unfortunately, he did not retain the memories or abilities of his fleshy costume, unless they were physiological pecularities. But the voice he spoke with was that of this meatbag he was wearing. He always loved this -- tending to refer to it as "hostile takeovers".

"Broken?" said a voice. It was a girl that he did not recognize, but she clearly had some sort of acquaintanceship with this meatbag. "Cody, are you . . . alright?"

"I'm fine," Ant lied, "don't worry about it. I've got to go somewhere, I'll . . . uh, I'll be right back."

But, before he could go anywhere, he locked eyes with a figure in a dark cloak. His piercing gaze with those fearsome, amber, feline eyes. It was as if he saw through the meat that was he was wearing, and saw him as he really was.

But that was impossible. It should have only seen his flesh costume, the identity that belonged to this meatbag. There was no way it could have seen him as he truly was.

He could only hear him mutter, "The magician . . ."

Ant, judging solely based on the intonation and inflection, thought it was prudently safe to assume that this meatbag and this figure didn't get along.

***

Broken was disoriented. One minute he was with Melissa, teaching her the finer points on Curaga, and suddenly he was here. He didn't know for certain where he was, but based on the hellish landscape, he had one main guess. He wondered idly how he got here -- surely, he hadn't died. And, if he did, what did he do to get sent to Hell?

Then cried out, as he saw Shenecron before him, holding up what appeared to be some sort of capsule. It was what was dispassionately known as a "soul jar". It made for easy storage, which would otherwise be clunky and clumsy. It really cut down on the flailing and wailing of these souls.

Once inside, all Broken saw was white. He also thought he saw Louis Cannon in this misty existence. But it coukd have just been his own memories.

Meanwhile, Shenecron said, to himself, "The magician. Very good. Now I have at least one mole. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 19, 2018, 04:38:27 AM

Titles are subject to change.

Book MCCLI (1,251): "Completely Mental" -- A Psychespian girl somehow makes her way to the Prime Universe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Lector Nicholas Thomas Leichter

The next auspicious moment was quickly approaching, and the target was coming into view. Christopher made his decision, and said, "Leichter."

Lector was more than ready to go. He couldn't wait to be ensconced in flesh again. To feel, taste, and touch once more. But as he waited until the precise second when he could push out the rightful soul and ensconced himself in their flesh as if he was wearing a full-body mascot suit, taking immediate control as the right soul was sent to Shenecron.

In these infinitesimal seconds, his mind mulled over his past. One could say that he came from humble beginnings, but that was romanticizing it beyond optimism and credulity. His parents made very little money, meaning he had to grow up in a shack  a house, and quite poor. He despised his parents for this, blaming them both for their hard circumstance of being poor, feeling that they weren't ruthless and cutthroat enough to ever truly succeed. And he also didn't like how neglectful and alcoholic the two were.

Even beyond his death,he believed that no one would miss them. He convinced them to take a leisurely drive, and they agreed, oblivious to their son's own deep despisal, vehement contempt, for them and their lives. No one ever expected him, when their car crashed through a barricade and careened over a turn in the cliff-side road. The car was totaled and rusted through when they found it . . . no one noticed the cut brake lines. This is what truly caused him to be purged of any humanity that he had.

He used their insurance money to establish himself as one of the elites, but that money didn't last very long. He had to start at the bottom of a corporation, just above mail clerk. But that didn't stop him from clawing his way up, by any means necessary. He didn't care about any little people that he had to step on and crush to get ahead. They weren't people to him, but just obstacles to blast out of his way, or to crush beneath his heel.

It was then that he got close to the ultimate power at the company. He was just a heartbeat away, being the CEO's assistant and right-hand man. He was even named the successor of this batty, senile old man who trusted him. He was foolish with trust, and a naive judge of character.

Had Lector played the long game just a tad more, waited for a better opportunity to come along, and bided his time, playing the role given to him for a bit longer . . . things might have been different. But, being this close to power, he got impatient. He had always planned to usurp the CEO, but he had always been studiously silent on those intentions. Refusing to divulge or acknowledge any of it.

Then he got sloppy. He got reckless and careless.

He waited just until the next time the CEO was with him, alone, and had h back to him. He ruthlessly stabbed the man in the back before he could cry out. But when he was questioned by police, his account was hardly believable and the evidence was sloppily discarded in the office. Lector wore no gloves, so his fingerprints were everywhere.

He was sentence to jail, and then summarily killed in a prison brawl when he said something that he ought not have said.

But as he made the jump, he was excited to see, to smell, to taste, to hear, and to touch again. Of this meat wasn't his original body, but he didn't care. He would treat it juzt the same as he treated his own. Though it was a bit surreal being in a female body when he was male in his lifetime. But he enjoyed it just the same.

He quickly met up with Gansley, in a male meatsuit. He could tell, despite seeing his meatsuit's face and not the demon within.

"I said that I would be right --" he said, using Broken's voice, assuming initially that this meatbag had not had her body commandeered and usurped from her. Then he looked and could see the truth. "Oh, Leichter. I didn't know that this would be the next auspicious target."

"Careful," he said, in reply, using Melissa's voice. "We don't want to blow our cover, Gansley."

Then Lector noticed Cloak, and didn't really know the appropriate way that this meatbag would react, so he settled on a blank and vacant stare. Cloak's penetrating gaze was like x-rays, Lector swore.

He could barely hear him mutter, "The apprentice."

The two looked at each other, then back. But he was gone.

***

Melissa awoke to find herself on some strange stone material that appeared rather like Nether Quartz, from Minecraft. Before she could make sense of her newest surroundings, she saw the demonic dragon-man that was Shenecron before her. He wasted no time in sucking her into his soul jar where she immediately saw Broken's soul and made a beeline for him, desperate for something comforting and familiar.

 "The apprentice," Shenecron said, with a slight smile. " Nice to see how swimmingly things are coming along thus far.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2018, 03:09:49 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCLII (1,252): "Shivers" -- A Cryolacite boy makes his way to the Prime Universe, and requires special equipment to survive.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Lawrence David Nezbitt

The next auspicious moment approached quickly. The remaining three waited for their chance impatiently, while Christopher looked calm, almost serene. He made his decision, "Nezbitt."

The auspicious moment came closer, Lawrence took these infinitesimal seconds to remember. To remember his past.

He grew up a lonely boy. He was raised by a single mother that always had to work, and so never really had time for him. He felt very neglected at home. He was heavily bullied, being smaller than his peers at the time. It was from this background that he grew increasing misanthropic. He began to tinker with machines, finding more and more that he preferred their company. They never bullied him. They never did anything that he didn't engineer them for. They had no purpose that he didn't give to them. They didn't make fun of him. They didn't viciously mock them. They didn't merciless tease him. They had simple complexity to them, software and hardware combined. After he graduated high school and went to a technical college.

He remembered loving the classes, but hating the other students. They were needlessly loud and boisterous, even more so when there had been a party with alcohol. They were loud and inconsiderate when he was trying to study. His roommate was the worst culprit of this. It couldn't be clearer that he was here to party and not study. Lawrence believed his name was like Sluggard or something. One of those rich boys whose daddy paid their way through, because he couldn't get in on his own.

It was this that pretty much solidified his dislike against mankind. He always preferred the complex simplicity of machines, believing in their inherent superiority over mankind. He wasn't as enthused about the others about being thoroughly ensconced in flesh, preferring to be within a metal body of circuitry. But beggars cannot be choosers. This was the easiest way out of here without being a Prince of Hell, like Shenecron or Demos. He had actively casted aside his humanity, preferring to be with his machines. He had even made himself several mechinical prostheses when he damaged his weak, fleshy body. He wished to rid himself of his shameful human weaknesses, but he didnw have technology available to him to do that.

Unlike the others, his death was rather ignominious and quiet. He had miscalculated one of his machines and their was an accident. He didn't stand a chance. There was no way he could have survived it. But he saw this as reaffirming his belief in the superiority of machines.

The moment had come to make the "jump" and he did, easily wrangling the native soul out of his fleshy meat. Nezbitt wasn't too thrilled about being back inside flesh, but then he realized that he was wearing some sort of computerized armor. This satisfied him greatly.

"Parker?" said a female to his right. "Parker, what's wrong?"

Lawrence said nothing, and moved away. He didn't have any affection for this fleshy being, and didn't really care if this flesh did. This flesh's soul wasn't here to make that choice, Lawrence was. And Lawrence was more interested in checking out th armor with more detail. He barely noticed that the female flesh ran away crying.

He didn't care.

***

Parker found himself in this strange place, and he immediately got to his feet. And he immediately realized that he was not wearing his armor -- despite never taking it off. He knew that Tyr was being too quiet. What was going on? Where was he? How was he going to defend himself, long-range at least, without his armor? He had to --

He didn't see Shenecron behind him. He didn't see his Soul Jar, and he was sucked into it, as Shenecron smiled, "The knight. That's three little moles now."

***

Helen told this to Cloak, who turned his head aside and muttered, "The knight . . ."

"What?" Helen said, with very noticeable tear tracks upon her face. "Did you just call Parker a Knight?!"

Cloak forgave her outburst. She was emotionally vulnerable right now.

 "No," he said, as gently as he could and as comforting as the time would allow. "But I've come to suspect something's up. And not just with Parker."

"What?" she asked.

"I don't know for sure," Cloak said, being frustratingly vague, "until I confirm with an expert . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 21, 2018, 06:01:36 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCLIII (1,253): "Roars" -- A Driser girl somehow makes her way to the Prime Universe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Scott Wayne Andrew Johnson

The next auspicious moment approached very quickly, as Curt and Scott eagerly awaited who would go and "jump" next. Christopher said, "Johnson."

Johnson eagerly made the jump into the target, and, as he did, the back of his mind recollected his past in these infinitesimal few seconds. His story wasn't some big sob story as some of the other members of the Six. He led a rather straightforward childhood, and his parents were very hard on him for perfect excellence. They rode him to study and forbid him any sort of partying or celebrations similar to the cavorting. It was this type of upbringing that enabled him to succeed, even despite these authoritarian, dictatorial parenting practices his parents liked to employ.

Eventually, he graduated high school (early, so he didn't have to deal with that needless pomp and circumstance of the ceremony, and his parents approved of this decision) with top grades and honors. But he wasn't done, he immediately applied for (and was accepted) to several notable law schools, and he would only attend the best. It was while studying here that he unceremoniously cut ties with his parents, seeing them as obstacles and nuisances to his career. This one reason he also never sought out a wife -- he didn't want the frivolity and distractions that came with such things.

He remembered what he considered his achievements, as deprived as these "accomplishments" were. He convicted an innocent, blind man for a carjacking. He convicted innocent, homeless man of housing fraud. He convicted a pyrophobic man of arson. He convicted an acrophobic woman of hijacking a small plane. He convicted an aquaphobic man for stealing a boat. He convicted a extremely photosensitive woman for stealing a spotlight. He held not remorse for these injustices, and you could say that he cast aside his humanity in order to become a soul-sucking lawyer. Even one with an impressive win record as he had.

But, in the end, it turned out that he managed to convict the wrong kid. The kid wasn't doing anything wrong, and a police officer just came up to him and fabricated an excuse to arrest him, and there was some pushback to get the police officer arrested for it, and Scott managed to get the kid in jail and get the cop off. The boy's distraught family eventually chased him down and brought Scott to what they saw as justice, having been unable to get at the former cop (which just when sixteen miles away and got a job as a cop at that precinct).

When the jump happened, he managed to instantaneously push out the rightful soul and claim her body for his own. Hee would have preferred a male body, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

He smiled when he saw that she was by herself, looking at a legal brief, and he scanned what she was doing, and saw that she could have won this case if she was more ruthless and conniving. She clearly let little things like compassion and integrity get in the way of securing a mildly easy win. Pathetic.

It was time to change that.

***

Shenmue awoke quickly, and took quick inventory of her surroundings. At first, she swore that she was in the Nether, but was a fictional world within the video game of Minecraft. It wasn't real. And she didn't want to dare think of the other place she had in mind for what this place was.

But then Shenecron showed up, and added her soul to his wealth of others. "The lawyer. Good. That makes four moles in the forum."

Then his expression soured, "Assuming that they don't foul this up, somehow."

***

"And Shenecron is the newest victim of this," Cloak said. "What do you know of this, Demos?"

"Their eyes were red, you say?" Demos said, pacing around, agitated. "Like blood-red red?"

"Parker's eyes looked normal to me," Helen interjected.

"His eyes may seem normal," Cloak said, "but managed to perceive the creature occupying his body. It was a demon with blood red eyes that glowed."

"But I thought the Mark prevented this kind of thing!!" Helen protested.

"The Mark is not an infallible safeguard," Cloak said. "It can be bypassed and broken."

This did not sit well with Helen.

"And, if these are the individuals I think them to be from your description, Cloak," Demos said, still pacing around deep in thought. "Then it isn't possession. This is astral displacement. And there are only six made-demons that I know, tangentially, that can do it."

"Six?" Helen said. "Meaning that there are two more out there, targeting RAFians?"

"You said astral displacement?" Cloak said, picking up on something different than Helen. "That implies that the RAFians' souls -- Broken, Melissa, Parker, and Shenmue -- are not inside their bodies, but cast out. Where are they? Their souls?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 22, 2018, 09:01:14 PM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCLIV (1,254): "Too Bright" -- A Noctumbran boy somehow comes to the Prime Universe.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Curtis "Curt" Robert Crump

The auspicious moment arrived and Curt knew that he would get his chance. To smell, to eat, to . . . all sorts of hedonistic things that he had missed. It seemed like so long since they last did this. And they caused a lovely riot when they did, rife with delicious injustice and succulent partisanship. But it seemed to by so quickly.

"Go on, Crump," Christopher said, less hostilely to Curt it seemed. "I'll get the next one."

Curt wasted no time after that, after Christopher gave him the go-ahead. He made the "jump", and, in the infinitesimal few seconds before the jump was completed and he shoved the rightful soul out and took residence in their body as if it was one of those full-body lyca suits, he reminisced about his past and how he got here.

Curt had a rather unhappy childhood. His parents didn't want him or were unable to take care of him -- he never found out. He never knew them. He was just pawned off on a promiscuous maternal aunt and an alocoholic, adulterous paternal uncle who had three failed marriages under his belt. Neither wanted anything to do with him, and each tried to pawn him off on the other.

Curt always knew that they didn't want him -- they never hid the fact. It was in these formative years that he learned to be extremely selfish, and to take what you can when you can. It never taught him any humility or anything of the sort. But it was also at this time where he gained his odd . . . fixation . . . on penguins. But he managed to keep that secret, as he understood how embarrassing it had the potential to be.

But, as soon as he could, he emancipated himself from his parents' siblings and graduated both high school and college, eventually becoming a highly sought after accountant and financial advisor. He started out legitimately enough, even if his fee was a little on the exorbitant side.

But soon he started nicking pennies from his clientele's accounts. After a while, he began to swipe nickels. Feeling bolder after a while, he started to steal dimes. Thhen he moved on to quarters, after no one called him out nor caught him doing such. He grew increasingly brazen in his theft, but he only took only so much, so as not to arouse suspicion. He didn't care if his clientele needed this money to surive. He didn't care if his sneaky robbery put his clients in dire straits. He opined that that was not his concern.

It was at this point he lost his humanity, and he grew more and more complacent, until he began to get sloppy with his theft. He began to ignore his initial safeguards that he put into place, to prevent unwanted attention to his underhanded fiscal practices. He grew ambivalent and ****y, believing that he was untouchable. He was completely remorseless for his actions, incapable of feeling anything for his victims.

And this cost him. Cost him quite dearly.

While the country's legal system left him untouched, one of his victimized clients wasn't so amiable with this and preferred to take matters into their own hands. He broke into Crump's ostentatiously decorated, needlessly expensive home, which was far easier than it should have been, and stabbed Crump. It wasn't an immediately lethal strike, and it wasn't so by design.

Of course, Crump awoke instantly, and when he did his would-be murderer deliberately twisted his blade. He wanted to make Crump suffer, not only for stealing his money, but for betraying his trust. This man wasn't exactly a stable individual, and this was a mistake that Crump had made. But never regretted stealing from these people, and he would have no compunction not to do it again, despite dying a very slow, agonizing death because of it.

Once he was thoroughly ensconced in flesh again, he couldn't stifle a broad, almost goofy smile on his purloined face. It really was too long before he was back in flesh. He couldn't stifle this elation.

"Wipe that stupid smile off your new body's face," said a voice at roughly ten o'clock to him.

***

GH awoke and immediately hoped that he was in some sort of fever dream. He had hoped that he wasn't were he suspected he was. He wanted to be wrong. But GH, despite what his goofy flippancy (and Kane) might suggest to the contrary, was not a stupid person. He knew well enough to correctly guess where he was -- but he hoped beyond hope that was wrong. However, catching sight of Shenecron only confirmed it. He reached for his guitar, deciding to try Orpheus-ing his way out of her, only to realize that it wasn't there. His guitar was the medium from which he channeled his musical power. Without it . . .

 "Ah. The musician," the dragon-man said. "Good. The donation of your body to the cause and your soul to my wealth will be noted, mortal."

 No, it would not, and Shenecron knew this perfectly well as he sucked GH into the capsule, the Soul Jar, that held most of his wealth of souls. He was becoming a bit complacent, feeling that maybe Demos's pets wouldn't be a problem to his schemes any longer, due to having four -- soon to be five -- moles in them. Those Insidious Six were really easy to manipulate, and they didn't really even know! Shenecron took an inordinate amount of amusement from this.

***

"I would have thought it was obvious, Cloak," Demos said, in a succinct, matter-of-fact way. "They're in Hell. Literal Hell."

Cloak was afraid of this. Despite the fact that Realm Walkers can pretty much go wherever they want within a realm, the curious thing was they couldn't enter the realms of Heaven nor Hell. It was like trying to force two magnetic poles of the same or similar polarity together. This had never really bothered Cloak, as he had it, Hell was full of petty ****s and trolling douchebags and Heaven was full of sanctimonious, presumptuous, pompous elitists with an irriating holier-than-thou disposition. Neither imparting particularly desirous company -- but Cloak had never been to either (and would never be able to), so this could have been all conjecture.

"That means I cannot do anything to save them," Cloak said.

"How can you say that?!" Helen demanded. "They need our help!"

"I'm not saying this because I don't want to, Helen," Cloak said, patiently. "I saying that I can't because I quite literally can't. Heaven and Hell are like no-fly zones for Realm Walkers."

"What?"

"I'll elaborate at a time when we're not on a potential time crunch," Cloak said, finger rubbing his feline chin. "As it stands, I think I have a plan. But it requires the help of the two of you."

"What do you propose?" Demos asked.

"First, Helen, make sure your ring is fully charged, and then Demos --"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 23, 2018, 01:05:16 PM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCLV (1,255): "Attractions" -- The RAFians' enemy seeks shards of fallen villains.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Christopher Noah Rannells

The next auspicious moment happened nearly immediately after Crump's. He lazily made the jump. Unlike the others, it really didn't take him any real effort. He was a practiced hand at this, and his target, in his opinion, wasn't very strong. He didn't even put up a fight, but he always chose kids as targets -- maybe as a flag because he died as a kid, or because he didn't want to take an adult or another subconscious reason that Christopher himself wasn't aware of.

As with his five underlings, in the infinitesimal seconds before the "jump" was complete, he found himself reflecting upon his life on Earth. He was born into a dreary orphanage. His parents didn't want him, or they died. He didn't know, and he didn't care. He only truly cared about himself and his own well-being. He didn't even care about the bodies he wore like a Halloween costume. If they died, he'd be sent right back to Hell, his powers intact.

And the soul he displaced would remain there. Its how he gained his moderate wealth in Hell once he became a demon. And he became so much easier than the others because his father was supposedly a demon. Maybe even Shenecron himself. He didn't know, and he didn't care. He actually found it difficult to care about anything. Well, except his reputation, that is.

In life, he would use force and fear to intimidate and bully his fellow orphans. He would take their personal affects, despite none of them having very many to begin with. He honestly didn't care about the items themselves or having them as trophies. He just enjoyed the taking of them, and depriving others of it. That's the real reason why did it, because it amused him to do so.

He had easily managed to wrest a tarnished ring from a sanctimonious boy, to wrest a diary from an outsider girl, to wrest a cup from fat little girl, to wrest a locket from a formerly homeless boy, to wrest a costume tiara from an abandoned girl, to wrest a baby doll from a girl who adored it (he found this especially enjoyable), and a stuffed snake from a nosy girl with no good sense. His reputation eventually proceeded him, and he was greatly feared and avoided whenever possible.

He enjoyed this reputation greatly. He was like a feared predator, and he savored it greatly. Granted, this led to his accident which killed him, and the accident was humiliating and embarrassing to an horrible extent. He never told anyone the circumstances of it, and did not relish the memory of it. He actively chose not to remember it.

He looked around and saw that he was inside a child's body, and felt his face, mildly surprised at how scaly it was when his new hands looked perfectly human. It took him not time at all to realize that he -- that this boy was wearing a suit that made him look so realistically like a human. He replaced the head portion, and went to go look at himself in the mirror, and he thought that this kid, in his human suit, looked pretty cute.

But then he saw "GH" smiling all goofy-like, and this irritated him. He turned away from the mirror, and, knowing full well that it was Crump in charge, ""Wipe that stupid smile off your new body's face."

"B-boss?" Crump said, seemingly deflating from his euphoria.

"You already know the answer to that," Christopher said. He exhibited none of Leatherhead's mannerisms, and spoke like someone far older than the six-year-old form he inhabited currently.

***

Leatherhead awoke and he was terrified. This was the kind of thing that could scar a child for life. There is a reason why the word "hellish" has an extremely negative connotation after all. He was only six, after all, and still an innocent soul.

"The boy," a scary dragon-man said. Sure, there were superficial similarities between Leatherhead and Shenecron, but Leatherhead was perceptive enough to tell that Shenecron was a bad guy. But Leatherhead had no chance to understand what was happening before he was added to Shenecron's wealth of souls inside his Soul Jar. "That's all six. Even if they fail, at least I have six more souls now."

He raised the small white capsule that was his Soul Jar, which only contained part of his wealth -- he didn't put the entirety of his wealth in it for safety reasons -- and eyed it carefully, as if he could see the souls inside shifting arouund, as if they were some kind of liquid.

"And one was even a child's soul, as well," he smiled. Children's souls, being so pure and unvarnished, were especially and exceptionally valuable to the demons, born or made. They were worth more than the biggest diamonds down here.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 24, 2018, 04:13:39 AM

All titles are subject to change.

Book MCCLVI (1,256): "They Hafta PP" -- The RAFians' enemy is after the Polymerization Protocol device.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Semi-Covert Meet-Up

"You will not tell the others what you saw," Christopher said, in Leatherhead's voice. He was patting his stolen face, making sure that the suit wasn't limp or distorted in places. He didn't know that all the RAFians knew about Leatherhead's "play suit". But he didn't have access to Leatherhead's memories, nor did the other members of the Insidious Six. "You will pretend that this boy is human, and the appearance you see in this skintight suit is his actual skin. Understand?"

Despite not being forthright and tell Curt his reasoning outright, he did have a good reason to want to keep this a secret. As mentioned before, he didn't trust anyone, let alone his minions, as he thought of them. He was only trusting Curt this much only out of necessity. He wouldn't have bothered, otherwise. He wanted his underlings to underestimate him, and be surprised when this boy is really an anthropomorphic crocodilian. And, to be fair, he wasn't really trusting Curt -- he was trusting the fear that he instilled in the made demon to goad him into sheer obedience.

But he was expecting an ambush, or a sort of mutiny at any time. It is why he endeavored to keep a crushing iron grip on his underlings. He was always a bit of a fascist in this regard.

"Why?" Curt said, in GH's voice, using GH's fingers to play his guitar. Badly.

The glare that Christopher gave was so uncharacteristic of Leatherhead that it was surprising that his eyes could even be so bloodthirsty and cold. Curt flinched GH's body, as he cowered from the look.

"Are you questioning me?" he said, though he made Leatherhead's voice sound very near a snarl.

"N-no," Curt said, making GH's body cower. Suddenly, his face spasmed to a blank expression before returning to Curt's quiet whimpering. Christopher didn't notice, and neither did Curt apparently.

"Now," Christopher said, with a snap in Leatherhead's voice. "Let's go find those other four fools, and then I shall say what our next step is going to be."

Curt hastened to obey, and it was odd. He, too, had none of GH's mannerisms or behaviors (as he no more had the guitarist's memories than any of his fellows had their pilfered bodies' memories). And he swore he heard some deep baritone voice chuckling malevolently, but he couldn't see where the voice came from, and assumed that he imagined the whole thing.

"What's the hold up, Crump?" Christopher demanded in Leatherhead's voice.

"N-nothing, sir," he sniveled. "I'm . . . I'm coming."

"Good," "Leatherhead" said, leading the way. He didn't even bother to look back to see if Crump was legitimately following him. He knew he would. Just because they were ensconced in flesh once more didn't mean that he couldn't revoke the abilities that he granted to these witless wonders.

It wasn't long before he found Gansley and Leichter, finding Johnson afterward, and the last one, Nezbitt. Christopher noticed and chastised them all for holding their purloined bodies so stiffly. He lectured them that they needed to appear relaxed and at ease if they were truly going to prove his reputation to that dingbat, Shenecron.

He didn't think that they could take down RAF. He may not have said explicitly, but that's what he inferred. And Christopher would show him, and his stupid minions would not foul it up. He wouldn't allow it.

He believed, now that they they were in -- literally, in some sensibilities -- that it would be easy. These meatsacks were not only perfect disguises, but they were perfect shields. He believed that this would be simple, straightforward and easy.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 25, 2018, 04:08:28 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLVII (1,257): "Toyman's Toys" -- A box of Toyman's unique toys are found.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Lure

"The first step was taken," Christopher said, his voice was low. He didn't want to be overheard, because it would make things hard for them. They would have to find new meat shields, which would mean waiting for more auspicious moments. And there was no telling how long that that would take. It was better not to arouse that kind of suspicion. "We have the meat shields."

There was a smattering of noises of agreement from the other five. Less so from Crump, who was still the malevolent, amused chuckling. It was annoyingly distracting, and a bit creepy, honestly, as no one else seemed to hear it.

"We have the meat shields, and that means that they'll be hesitant to attack us, for fear of harming their friends." Christopher said, in Leatherhead's voice. "But do not get reckless or cavalier about this. Do not get overconfident, do not let your guard down. Do not allow them to notice anything wrong with their friends. Pretend to be your meatsack."

"But, sir," Johnson said, in Shenmue's voice, "we don't have access to any of their memories or thoughts. We don't know their thoughts. We don't even know their names."

Then he caught sight of the glowering look on Leatherhead's face, and cowered before him. Christopher secretly loved this reaction. He loved being able to control people with a single glowering look. He reveled in having this power over people, completely enthralled by it. But he didn't show any of this elation on Leatherhead's face, however, as to not undermine his authority.

"Keep your nose down, and . . ." he began, before he saw something that stole his attention. It was a softball-sized orb of slightly-pulsating energy that continually shifted from gold to scarlet to back to gold again. All six looked at it, entranced by it, as if it was a lava lamp or something. No one said anything more, all six perfectly enraptured by this undulating, fiery energy orb.

It seemed like forever that they stood there, just staring at this orb. None of them knew why it was so alluring, why it was so fascinating to watch. Only Crump seemed to not be as interested in as that baritone chuckling was now starting to escalate into a deep belly laugh. It was distracting -- but imaginary, he assumed. This meatsack must have been crazy. Literally crazy, and now he had to deal with its messed-up brain.

But then the orb began to bob away serenely and almost lazily away. But none of the six, not even Crump, was about to allow it to get away. None knew why it was so important, it just was to them. They all gave chase, almost desperate to watch its fiery undulations some more. It entranced them so thoroughly that they followed it without nary a thought for their stolen bodies' safety.

Christopher, in particular, wanted to know what it was. Despite what he would say to the contrary, he still had his boyish curiosity about things. He wanted to know what this thing was. He wanted to watch it, sure, but he also wanted to dissect it and find out what it was. He was very much the type of boy who would torture animals and pull the wings off a fly.

They followed it until they were well out of the forum, and no other RAFian impeded their path. But they didn't really care about this. They didn't really care about maintaining their facade anymore. They were too enraptured by this floating orb, by this strange will-o'-the-wisp. They need to keep it in sight, they needed to keep seeing it.

It never occurred to any of them (except Crump, who heard the figment voice say that it was an obvious trap) that this was a trap of any sort. Christopher was especially responsible for this viewpoint.

The orb went inside a nearby cave, and the six followed it, withe Christopher, in Leatherhead's human-suited body, in the lead. None of them seemed to realize that the air was getting thinner and thinner as they went forward. They didn't even realize it when all six succumbed to unconsciousness ridiculously quickly. Nezbitt wasn't even wearing Parker's helmet, it lay discarded just outside his thread.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2018, 04:15:43 AM

Titles are subjected to change.

Book MCCLVIII (1,258): "Red Knights" -- Some Knights of Humanity become Red Lanterns.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Meanwhile, in Hell . . .

Crump was whining and blubbering like a baby because his stolen body wouldn't wake up. He was still conscious in a rather odd, indescribable manner. Not unlike the state Cloak enters to communicate Aniyu, Destiny, or any past Elements Master before him. Crump wasn't too happy with being in this void of sensory deprivation.

"Oh, for the love of Cassie (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Cassandra_Nova_Xavier_%28Earth-616%29)," said an irritated voice, with a slight cowboy twang to it, "will you quit it already?"

"Wait," Crump said, still blubbering, "who said that?"

"Call me . . . Anderson," said the Mummudrai said, appearing in its base form of the armadillo mascot of GH's roadhouse employer. "Armadillo Anderson."

"Wha--" Crump said, thoroughly nonplussed at the person in front of him.

"And, for the record, I was inhabiting this guy before it was 'cool'." he said.

"How the hell did you get here?" the demon demanded.

"That's my business," he said, the mascot mouth actually lip-synching to his words. "How'd you get here? Oh, wait, never mind. Astral displacement. Crude."

"Perhaps we could come to some sort of . . . arrangement?" Crump said, seeing this thing could be a potential ally. "Like roommates?"

"Not to be pedantic, but would technically be 'mind-mates'." the Mummudrai chortled at his little joke, before he added, "yeah, but no. That will never work out."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm kicking you out," the psionic parasite answered swiftly. Then , suddenly, Crump found himself back in Hell.*

***

Shenecron was milling around his palace, wondering if those stupid Insidious Six peons had gotten rid of the potential threat that RAFians may pose to his plans and schemes. He did not have any viewing device -- he didn't have that kind of foresight that Malice did. Besides, Earth-Hell reception was never the best.

"Shenecron!" Demos shouted, calling his half-brother's attention to himself. Deliberately. "So sorry to spoil your little picnic."

"You haven't, " Shenecron said, almost lazily, "but I can't have any RAFians mucking about. Ruining my plans."

"You are a loser, Shenecron," Demos said, deliberately trying to goad his half-brother. " you can't kill anyone."

Despite what Shenecron said next, and despite his goofy laugh, "Oh, you were always good for a laugh!"

Then the music started up. Demos allowed himself a convert smile, as this was what he wanted, and Shenecron was none the wiser. They battled as he sang, and Demos deliberately making sure Shenecron's attention is solely on him.

"I must admit
Your paltry tricks
Are amusing!
I bet you've got a bunny
Under your hat!
Now here's your chance
To get the best of me!
Hope your hand is hot!
C'mon, CLOWN,
Let's see what you've got!"

Well, truth be told, Demos didn't give it all he had. Truth was that he was pulling his attacks ever since he engaged Shenecron in this fight, and his half-brother didn't to be aware one bit of it.

"You can try to slam me
With your hardest stuff
But your double whammy
Isn't up to snuff!
I'll set the record straight!
You're simply out of date!
You're only second rate!"

Just gotta keep up the act, Demos thought. Make it look good and convincing.

"You think your cat's a meanie,
But your tiger's tame!
You've got a lot to learn
About the demon game!
So, for your education,
I reiterate.
You're only second rate!"

Good, Demos thought, keeping singing and pontificating.

"Men cower
At the power
In my pinky!
My thumb is number one
On every list!
But if you're not convinced
That I'm invincible,
Put me to the test!
I'd love to lay this rivalry to rest!"

Keep going, Shenecron, Demos thought, keep focusing on me.

"Go ahead and zap me
With a big surprise!
Slap me in a trap!
Cut me down to size!
I'll make a great escape!
It's just a piece of cake!
You're only second rate!"

Shouldn't be too much longer now, Demos thought.

"You know your hocus-pocus
Isn't tough enough.
And your mumbo-jumbo
Doesn't measure up.
Let me pontificate,
Upon your sorry state!
You're only second rate!"

There! There was the signal. The item was obtained. He had to disengage with Shenecron. And make it believable, credible, and convincing.

"So, spare me your tremendous stare.
You look horrendous in your underwear.
And I can hardly wait
To discombobulate.
I'll send your back end packing
In a shipping crate!
You'll make a better living
With a spinning plate!
You're only second rate!"

Demos quickly feigned his defeat and he ran away, with Shenecron feeling superior, his chest swelling with pride at his perceived victory, unaware that he had something stolen from him, stolen from right under his nose. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jhj25HnpSRU (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jhj25HnpSRU)

* Inspired by YGOTAS.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2018, 04:19:58 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLIX (1,259): "Revolution Retribution" -- There is a regime change on Fez, and the new order comes to arrest one of their number hiding on Earth.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
An Interrogation Interpolation

The air pressure immediately returned to normal when the six were knocked out. They were then tied up against stone chairs and circled with salt with a seal above them to prevent them from escaping. Cloak gone very Winchester on them.

Behind him, in the dark, was a moderately-sized cistern full of some unseen liquid. The light was dim, but Cloak could easily see through it, via his feline night vision. Cloak was actually second-guessing his methodology for this. He feared that he may have accidentally killed them. He thought he could feel, through his Earthsight, their hearts still beating. But his anxiety about overdoing it, manipulating the air pressure in this small space.

His anxiety, his misgivings, were only abated when he saw them beginning to stir. But he also saw the demons' true forms superimposed over the physical, tangible bodies of his friends and allies. Demos told him about the tales of the Insidious Six, and he would interrogate them. See if he could get information out of them . . . but it would be a farce, just to keep these six in one place. To hold them, to prevent them from escaping until they could make right the major wrong that they've done.

They groaned . . . and they sounded so much like his friends. He wanted to say that he could hear the demons' true voices, and he could, but his mind so disobligingly focused that the voices of his friends underlayed with it.

"What happened?" the demon inside Parker's body said. He couldn't see Cloak who was turned away from them.

"Be silent!" the demon inside Leatherhead's body snapped, in a hiss. "I'll do the talking."

Apparently, he was under the impression that Cloak was either not there, or could not hear his talking. Cloak didn't know whether to be offended or amused. He decided to be amused when the demon inside Leatherhead's body decided to keep up with a fabricated facade that had already been broken with the first, minute exchange.

"M-Mister?" he said, feigning trepidation and fear. And Cloak thought, personally, that he was doing a rather poor job of it. Sure, it might have fooled someone not accustomed to such deceptions, day in and day out. "Is there anybody there?"

None of the other five said anything. GH appeared to be unconscious, but Cloak could no longer see the demon in his body. Perhaps because he decided to bury himself deeper into him . . . but those would be questions for a later time.

"M-Mister?"

Cloak's initial silence on this was actually a test. A test as to just how much information these demons got from their stolen bodies, and how much of the memories of the RAFians in question do they have access to. The fact that, as their apparent leader -- the one inside Leatherhead's body -- didn't address the Realm Walker by name, as Leatherhead knew his chosen name, that they didn't have access to much, if any of their memories.

"Why'd you tie us up?" he asked, still pretending to be a six-year-old. "Were we bad?"

"Drop the facade," Cloak said, interrupting him. The Elements Master deliberately kept his voice cold, distant, and emotionless with a tinge of aggression. He didn't want to risk giving too much away, or allowing this tinhorn dictatorial demon to see all of his cards, before he was ready to lay them on the table. "I can see you true demonic forms."

The glaring amber eyes of this nearly three-hundred-year-old being was quite intimidating. Even for Christopher, though he would never admit to it. And the fact that every movement of Cloak's was measured in some way, almost pedantically precise and purposeful.

Christopher almost let the mask slip, despite Cloak being able to literally see through it. But he wasn't about to give up the facade. He always felt that he knew better than anyone else around him. The other four (Crump was back in Hell, unconscious) knew that the facade was pointless, and the owner of these dangerous, amber, feline eyes could literally see them, even ensconced in these bodies. Prolonging the facade was a sign of desperation and futility, rather than the cunning and stunning play that Christopher though it was -- he thought he was so clever by doing this, and he felt that convincing Cloak would be easy.

But his acting was far from being on-point, and the other four seemed to recognize that easily  but they kept their stolen mouths shut, because they didn't want Christopher to revoke their powers, and they didn't want the ignominy that came with their failure in this regard. Or worse, the ridicule of the other demons in Hell.

"But I wasn't bad!" he screeched, still attempting to play the part, despite already being made. "I'm not a demon! I wanna go home!"

"In due time," Cloak said, smoothly, not buying into his little act, "but, first, I think some questions are in order. And I think you should have some real interesting stuff -- in a rather deprived and perverted way -- to say about your activities . . . and Shenecron."

Despite himself, Christopher widened Leatherhead's eyes.

"Oh, yes, I know of Shenecron," Cloak said, "just like I know that, before me in this dimly lit room, sits the so-called Insidious Six in bodies that do not belong to them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 28, 2018, 05:38:52 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLX (1,260): "A Different Kind of Ghost Rider" -- A phaetophorant "rides" bodies without taking them over, but merely as a means to get around. But then it becomes more and more parasitic.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Drop the Facade

Despite his surprise, the demon inside Leatherhead's body apparently decided to keep up the facade. He shot a furtive glare to the other four (GH's head was still bowed, and his eyes were closed, as if he was just . . . empty), to ensure their silence. Despite the fact that Gansly, Johnson, Leichter, and Nezbitt could easily tell thang the jig was up. The four looked at each other, each wondering the same thing.

Was being able to astral displace really worth it? Was it really worth putting up with a spoiled, childish cambion who kept threatening to take it away. Yes, he was technically a rich, spoiled, childish cambion, but he wouldn't have amassed his moderate collection of souls without them. He just took them before any of the five realized the value or realized that they were currency in Hell.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he said, trying to sound like a hysterical six-year-old. He even managed a few tears, but the facade was already broken, and the leader demon within Leatherhead's body was steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the fact that they were made. He had severe overconfidence in his acting ability -- though Cloak could see how it might be convincing to people who couldn't see the demon's true form superimposed over the boy's body, nor hear the demon's true voice overlayed the boy's own voice. "I just wanna go home!!"

"Your facade has already broken," Cloak said, maintaining the cold, distant, emotionless demeanor. He was used to compartmentalizing his emotions, used to hiding his feelings, that this was almost easy for him to do. "I can see you."

"I wanna go home!" he wailed, but it was obviously an insincere wail. The other four looked at each other again, once more wondering if being able to astral displace was worth dealing with this. The facade was clearly over, and yet, here he was, clearly trying to keep up a broken facade. "Lemme go! I wanna go home!"

"ENOUGH," Cloak said, firmly, and showing the first bit of emotion, a bit of temper, for the first time in this encounter. "You fool no one, demon. I can see you. I can hear you. I can hear and see you as you truly are. I know that you're a demon inhabiting the boy, and I can tell that you're lying. Now, kindly, drop the facade."

"I wanna go --"

"Christopher Noah Rannells, ENOUGH!" Cloak roared.

This actually stunned Christopher into silence, as well as causing the other four to drop their jaws. Yes, Cloak knew the identities of all six when they were alive, though that took some quick digging and experimental facial recognition programs that the science boys were tinkering with.

 "Yes, I know about your life as the human Christopher Noah Rannells, a cambion with a demon father and a human mother. And I know about Curtis Robert Crump, Scott Wayne Andrew Johnson, Lawrence David Nezbitt, Lector Nicholas Thomas Leichter, and Antoine Eric Marc Gansley. I also know what a deplorable lot you are."

"I . . . I don't know what you're talking about, Mister!" Christophesaid, desperately trying to recover, and doing so poorly. "I just want to go home! Lemme go!"

Cloak was annoyed, but he did have one card left to play. And you could call it a . . . trap card, so to speak. The digging may have proven to be fruitful.

"P-please, Mister," he blubbered, but it was clearly an act, "lemme go home!"

"You know," Cloak said, deciding to play the card, "I always thought humans were made of sterner stuff. I never thought one could die by being . . . thrown down a flight of stairs. Were you just one of the weaker specimens, Chris?"

It didn't help that Christopher hated to be called "Chris" or "Topher" or any derivative.

"I did not!" he snapped. He didn't realize that, in his anger, he abandoned the facade. "Those accursed little monsters at the orphanage rose up against me and pushed me down the stairs when I wasn't looking and was off-guard! Had been a fair encounter, the result would have been far different!! Those little brats owed me what I took, and they lost any right to them! I got them back in the end, though. I took all their --"

It was at this point that he realized that he broke character, and thus broke the facade to pieces. He made a halfhearted attempt to return to the facade.

"I mean, I wanna . . . I wanna . . ." he said , before he hardened Leatherhead's face and spoke plainly, "okay, fine. I'm not . . . this boy."

So, they didn't retain any memory of the bodies they steal. They clearly don't even know there names. Interesting information.

"But you can't keep us here," he said, "I can still get us out of here."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2018, 01:42:19 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXI (1,261): "Speak No Evil" -- The RAFians encounter a vocemimus, who, ironically, has no voice of their own.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Is Cloak Channelling the Winchesters?

Christopher bowed Leatherhead's head and begun muttering in Latin. It was a fast and furious Latin, but Cloak was well aware of what he was planning. He foresaw it immediately. Which was precisely why he made this trap as he did. As Christopher muttered his little spell, Cloak raised his fingers, prepared to immediately undo what he had done.

A fissure had appeared in the seal above Leatherhead's body. Christopher smiled a smile of malice that Leatherhead would have never made. But then Cloak's fingers snapped and the fissure vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"I do hope that that wasn't your grand plan to free yourself," Cloak said, dryly. "Because it is something I can remedy easily, with far less effort on my part. I would heavily advise against doing it again, as it will be fundamentally effortless for me, but you will drain yourself of your energy."

Christopher made Leatherhead glare at Cloak. Cloak was secretly dismayed to see such arrogant hatred etched upon the boy's suited face. But he had a role to perform as Demos and Helen had theirs.

 "Ah, you've finally decided to be reasonable," Cloak sakd, with a note of grim optimism . "That should make things go smoother."

"What do you want?" he sajd, and it was clearly from his intonation and how he delivered the statement that clearly said that he was tired of fighting the Realm Walker, and decided to give in into him. The other four looked at each other, still conveying the incredulity at having placed Christopher on a pedestal above them, expressing the disbelief that the fact that they put up with this pipsqueak for so long, each had forgotten how they fell in with this brat.

"Well, I would say information," Cloak said, "but you've already given me a wealth of that without even being aware of it."

Then he saw something that apparently he was waiting for, and there was a subtle change of tact when he spoke again. "But I think I've gotten all the pertinent information I can use. So, I give you five an ultimatum. Leave those bodies you stole, and give them back to their rightful owners."

"And if we don't?" Christopher said, mulishly stubborn.

"Then I will have to use force," Cloak said, being deliberately vague.

"Oh, careful now," Christopher said, more confident now, "don't want to bruise this adorable packaging."

"It won't hurt him," Cloak replied smoothly. "Have you not considered what liquid is in this cistern behind me?"

Cloak raised his hand and a trickle of a geyster shot up, and then Cloak used the water whip technique to splash Leatherhead with it. It steamed and Christopher cried out in pain, though Leatherhead's human suit was undamaged, only slightly wet.

"Holy water," Cloak said. "I'm told it Bursting hurts demons, while leaving their stolen goods undamaged. It would seem that this bears out."

Christopher made Leatherhead's body gasp and grunt from the pain that he alone felt.

"Feel like capitulating now?" Cloak said, sternly.

"This boy is still my meatsack puppet," he grunted. "I'll make him bite off his tongue."

"Then you will force me to do something (http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Bloodbending) drastic. Something that I really don't want to resort to." Cloak said, almost somberly. "Even without a full moon."

The last bit meant nothing to Christopher. But Cloak knew all the pieces were now in place. "Now. Chris. The ultimatium is issued. What is your decision? Will you leave willing, and give back what you've taken? Or do I have to force you to?"

Meanwhile, Ant in the body of Broken, Scott in the body of Shenmue, Lawrence in the body of Parker (without his helmet), and Lector in the body of Melissa looked at one another, then at GH's body. It hung over eyes closed, as if he was just deeply unconscious. But they knew that he was somehow empty, but his body still functioned. It was like an idling car. Curt Crump had abandoned them, they concluded, as they held no knowledge of Armadillo Anderson or Mummudrai, as a species of psionic parasites. Then they looked at Christopher with accusatory eyes. It was as if they were on the cusp of making a decision without uttering a single word.

"What are fools looking at?" Christopher in Leatherhead's body snapped. He seemed unaware of was going to happen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2018, 04:56:59 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXII (1,262): "Hear No Evil" -- A deaf man can hear, but remotely, through someone else's ears. The RAFians call this "remote listening".

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Mutiny

"That's it," said Scott in Shenmue's body. "I've had enough."

"I told you to be silent," Christopher said, in a forceful, petulant hiss with a glower meant to intimidate, but just came off as a pouting, childish expression. "I will do the talking."

"And you've done nothing but royally bungle it up!" Ant in Broken's body said, defiantly.

"How dare you speak to me in such a manner!" Christopher said, sounding quite affronted. He didn't like that he was losing control over his minions. Cloak, however, was allowing this to play out. This mutiny could work to his advantage. "You know what that means, don't you?!"

"Being able to astral displace souls from their meatsacks is a fun ability, and good way to garner souls, but this isn't worth it anymore." Lawrence in Parker's body said, with  monotone infliction. "Being constantly verbally abused by some runt with egomanical tendencies? It's not worth it anymore."

"I will take the power away from you!" Christopher said, no longer sounding like demonic threat, but a schoolyard bully whose lackeys had decided to drop him as their boss. And he was desperate to keep them, as they were basically the only true social interaction he got regularly, despite viewing them as lackeys. Which was pretty much what was going down. "Don't push me on this! I will back up my threat."

The four of them looked at each other again, with very ambivalent expressions upon their stolen faces. This just seemed to make Christopher irate.

"Stop looking at each other like that!" he snapped. "Don't forget who calls the shots around here!!"

All four -- Crump was already back in Hell -- exchanged disgusted, disgruntled looks and aimed glowering, dismissive looks at Christopher. The cambion dis not like nor enjoy this new dissonance from his minions. They were supposed to do as he said, and follow his commands without question. They weren't supposed to mutiny like this!

"I'm done with this," Ant said, closing Broken's eyes. He didn't care if he was giving up this meatsack, he was really fed up with this nesting doll twerp. "And I'm done with you."

There was only the most minute of tremors, the almost imperceptible slight convulsion, to indicate that Ant Gansley had decided to completely vacate Broken's body. It hung over, still bound, like puppet with cut strings. Not unlike GH.

"Gansley! You freaky fish guy!" Christopher roared. "Get back here! I didn't dismiss you! Gansley!!"

"Ugh," Lawrence said with disgust. "I'll find another way out of Hell, without being on your leash."

Lawrence closed Parker's eyes, as there was only the smallest tremors across the SPARTAN's body to indicate that Lawrence had ditched it. It lurched forward, like a lifeless shell, not unlike Broken and GH.

"Nezbitt! Get back here!" Christopher in Leatherhead's body screeched. "You robo-fascist! You do as I say!!"

Apparently, Christopher did not have the emotional maturity to know that name-calling very rarely, exceedingly so, makes it so that people will capitulate to your whims, unless they're really pathetic. And clearly the demon fellows that he thought of as minions and beneath him, the fellow demons sho he expected to curry his every whim, had had enough of it. There was no telling how long this went on, but, judging from what Demos had said, it had been a good, long stretch of this bratty individual throwing his weight around.

Scott said nothing, he just ditched Shenmue's body, which was only demonstrated the easily-unnoticed tremor, the slightest convulsion. Shenmue's eyes slammed shut as her body fell foward, supported by the bindings.

Christopher was getting more and more apoplectic. If he wasn't careful, he might have caused Leatherhead a heart attack or something. "Johnson! You bloodthirsty maggot! Get back here! We're not done here!"

"Yes," Lector, in Melissa's body said, closing her eyes, "we are."

The slight tremor, the single convulsion, signaled Lector's ditching of Melissa's body. All five RAFians bodies were now empty. (Except GH, but Armadillo Anderson didn't want to make his presence known, and he was intimidated by the creature in the cloak in the dark.)

"Leichter! You miserable toady! Get back here!" Christopher roared, a crocodilian roar intermingling with his words, surprising him. He swiftly tried to hide it, despite the fact that Cloak already knew Leatherhead's true nature.

 "They're gone, Chris," Cloak said, in a staid manner. "So, I'll issue you the ultimatum again."

"I am not abandoning this boy's body," he said. "You'll have to force me out."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 30, 2018, 09:57:57 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a tad early.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXIII (1,263): "See No Evil" -- A clinically blind man is able to see through the eyes of others, and he seeks help from the RAFians.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Are We Gonna Have a Problem, Christopher?

"I'll ask again," Cloak said. "Leave the boy."

"No."

Cloak hydrokinetically pulled the water from the cistern and splashed leatherhead's body with it. The boy's body was unharmed, but it steamed, indicating the pain inflicted to Christopher. And Cloak still had more, hydrokinetically hovering behind him.

"Leave," he said, his voice firm and parental. However, this just caused Christopher to become more mulish and obstinate.

"No!" he spat. "I won't leave this body!"

He was splashed again. Cloak didn't like torturing him, but he had to try to get him out -- he wasn't sure that "Expellicorpus" would even work. As such, he didn't want to bank on it. And, then again, there were other, more invasive ways to pull Christopher out.

"Leave."

"No!" Christopher said, resolutely obstinate in this manner. "I will not abandon this boy's body!"

He refused to acknowledge the futility of the situation he found himself in. All he knew was that he had to keep his reputation intact. But he refused to acknowledge the fact that it was already too late. There was no way that he would have been able to take down the forum, much less even if he had the other five. Alone? It wasn't even in the realm of possibility.

Cloak splashed him again. He knew of another way to get him out, but he would rather Christopher left of his own accord. The other way had no guarantee of leaving Leatherhead's body unharmed, due to the more invasive, intrusive manner it employed. Cloak really did not want to use that way . . . but he was nearly out of holy water. He may have to employ this methodology.

"Leave the boy, Chris," Cloak said. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Demos and Helen, hidden from Christopher by the darkness, gathering the unconscious bodies of GH, Shenmue, Parker, Melissa, and Broken. They would be putting their souls back into their proper places. But Christopher was too busy writhing in pain, which was not reflected on Leatherhead's body, and groaning and grunting coming from it.

"I'll make him bite off his tongue!" he threatened, only to be responded with more holy water to the face. And it was the last of the water. The pain Christopher felt was excruciating. But he didn't care. His will was stronger than any pain. He had to show that he was still in control, despite it being obvious that he wasn't in control of the situation.

"You won't be in him long enough," Cloak said, resigned to what he may have to do. But first he would try the spell. Maybe it would work, maybe it would cast him out. Maybe the holy water made him weak enough to succumb to it when he might have been strong enough to resist, ordinarily. "Expellicorpus."

To Cloak's relief, the spell worked. Christopher was cast out of Leatherhead's body and sent back to Hell. Cloak wouldn't have to resort to that more invasive method. And there was no guarantee that that would have even worked.

Cloak looked to his right and saw Helen and Demos deftly "reinstalling" the RAFians' rightful souls into their proper bodies. Everything, at least, on the surface, seemed fine.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 31, 2018, 06:12:58 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXIV (1,264): "The Ultimate Prankster" -- A spirit uses the Internet to play a game of cat and mouse with authorities.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Straight to Hell in a Hand Basket

Christopher looked around confused. One moment, he was, as he saw it, bravely standing up against that cloaked figure with the glowing eyes. He saw it as courageous, when, in reality, it was bratty and mulishly stubborn. But when the cloaked twit uttered that word, he found himself immediately sinking . . . down, down, down . . . in an infinitesimal amount of time, he found himself back in Hell.

Now, part of him was mad, because he actually enjoyed being in Leatherhead's body. He loved it on a rather visceral level, though he would never openly acknowledge it. But the thing that really got him was how he failed to really accomplish anything, while inside Leatherhead's body. Again, he was far too proud and too arrogant to openly acknowledge it. He never admitted fault, and he wasn't about to start now.

He could always wait for another auspicious moment to retake Leatherhead's body, if possible. If not, he could always astral displace another. Ensconcing himself within flesh, to enjoy the pleasures that came from inhabiting flesh. Not to mention to adding another soul to his impressive coffers, even considering how volatile a currency souls are. Granted, most of his coffers grew rapidly because he had the other five helping him out, and he would take all the souls for himself. He would never acknowledge that they helped him at all, preferring to disparage them as idiots and fools and deem them his minions and lackeys.

"So," said a voice to his right, roughly at five o'clock. He recognized the voice. It belonged to someone who was basically the last person that Christopher wanted to see at this particular moment, to witness his utter failure in this regard. It was embarrassing. "You failed to take down Demos's pets."

Christopher didn't turn around. The embarrassment was all-consuming at this point. "This is just a momentary setback, that's all."

"I would have to disagree," Shenecron said, leaning against a wall of his palace.

"Fine. I don't care," Christopher said, testily. He still didn't turn around, as he was furiously looking for and waiting for an auspicious moment to show itself, but he wasn't coming up with anything. He would salvage this, yet.

"You see," Shenecron said, as if addressing a sticky point. "That's a problem. You should care."

"Well, I don't," he snapped. He was really hoping for an auspicious moment to present itself, to get him out of this awkward situation. He'd deal with those five backstabbing traitors later. "Deal with it."

"Well," Shenecron said, almost lazily, "that's the thing. You should care. Have you ever heard what an oral contract is?"

This granted Shenecron Christopher's undivided attention.

"I never agreed to anything," he said, at once, knowing Shenecron's proclivity to contracts, his proclivity of using manipulative rhetoric to fool targets. Christopher would not be such a victim. He would not allow it.

Shenecron smiled at this, causing a modicum of dread to bubble within Christopher.

"But . . . you did," Shenecron said, his smile deepening. "Don't you remember? When you were so presumptuous to accept my offer, just to prove me wrong when I implied that you were incapable of doing it?"

 Christopher looked down, trying furiously to think back. He couldn't find a flaw in this. But that wasn't an oral contract. It wasn't . . . was it?

"I've already added your friends to my . . . collection," Shenecron putting his hand on the cambion boy's shoulder, steering him into a back room. It was dark, but like a closet.

"B-but I gave you six souls!" Christopher said, trying desperately to escape Shenecron's grip. He knew what was in this dark closet, and what Shenecron intended to do to him. He wasn't about to allow it -- all he needed was a conveniently-timed auspicious moment to get him out of this sticky situation.

Sure, the other five were now deformed polyps (http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Ursula%27s_Garden) in Shenecron's closeted garden. But, if only a convenient auspicious moment could happen, then he could put a hapless soul in his place, to take his fate for him, and allow him freedom. He knew it was ludicrous to hope such a thing would save him from a fate that could be seen as worse than death. If only an auspicious moment would make itself known!

"You did not," Shenecron said, his pseudo-friendly demeanor evaporating, revealing the cold, monstrous demeanor that laid beneath it. "All six vanished. You clearly decided to shortchange me, Christopher. And that . . . is not what we agreed on. You backed out of your end."

"I did not!" He hoped futilely for an auspicious moment to come and save him, still. But none did. Christopher's fate was sealed. And, though he didn't want to admit or acknowledge it, he knew it. "Those backstabbers might have, but I did not!"

But, even now, it was too late. There was no way that he could talk his way out of this. Shenecron would never believe him. Shenecron didn't realize that Helen had pickpocketed him with her ring, had stolen his Soul Jar capsule right from under his scaly nose while he was singing at Demos.

Shenecron pushed Christopher into the inky cesspool, despite the cambion's meek resistance. After falling into the inky, water-like substance, all he saw was blackness and vague shapes as he shrunk. His arms degenerated and withered away. His legs fused together and stuck him fast to the stony floor. His eyes enlarged to cartoonish porportions, and his mouth became a gaping, gnashing thing. Tendrils spouted from his face.

He was a polyp now, just like the other silhouetted forms around him. He couldn't yell, he could speak at all. He could barely move. It was torture -- especially after becoming accustomed with being able to essentially become anyone in the material world, by astral displacing their souls into Hell. Now he was in a hell within Hell.

He could rant and rave and roar all the vulgarities and obscenities that hd knew, but not on, not even himself, could hear them. But there something even more horrible at work. This inky water had not only transformed him, but it seemed to be ebbing away, dissolving his very sense of identity and individuality. Corroding and eroding jt away.

It wasn't long before he was unable to remember his life or afterlife. Difficult to remember anything before coming into this well of ignominy, this well of the forgotten. Soon, very soon, he couldn't remember his own name.

Within hours, he could no long form complex thoughts. Then he further degenerated into being unable to form even a coherent thought. Then he degenerated to the point he couldn't form a single thought, and he couldn't really be called alive anymore.

Christopher was truly gone, as were his five cohorts.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2018, 06:23:45 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXV (1,265): "Lame Magic" -- The backstory of Faerie comes to light.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Son of Mine, Proud of Me

After this ordeal, Leatherhead became distant and withdrawn. GH saw this and knew what to do at once. He drew Leatherhead in close, and the boy was still wearing his human suit, which was more of a play suit that the anthropomorphized crocodilian was fond of. And GH kindly and softly sang for his adopted son:

"Son of mine, don't you cry.
Son of mine, dry your eyes.
Rest your head close to my heart,
Never to part.
Son of mine."

Leatherhead did rest his head against GH's chest. He could hear his adopted father's heartbeat. This was strangely soothing.

"Little one,
Let those eyes sparkle and shine.
Never a tear,
Son of mine."

Little Leatherhead continued to cuddle against GH, feeling comforted by both his presence and song.

"From your head to your toes,
You're so sweet, goodness knows.
You are so precious to me.
Cute as can be.
Son of mine."

GH found comfort himself in this, and Leatherhead felt better with each verse.

"Son of mine,
Son of mine."

GH and Leatherhead sat there, in their thread, just holding each other in such a comforting way.

***

Cloak sat before his effigy of his aunt, Wheeza. He was missing her . . . it wasn't too long ago, in Realm Walker terms, that he had lost her. It hadn't even been a year yet. He found himself tearing up, and he sang quietly to himself.

"Proud of me,
I'll make you proud of me.
Believe me, bad as I've been, Wheeza,
You're in for a pleasant surprise.
I've wasted time.
I've wasted me.
So say I'm slow for my age,
A late bloomer -- okay, I agree!
That I've been one rotten kid.
Some nephew, some pride, and some joy.
But I'll get over these lousin' up,
Messin' up, screwin' up times!
You'll see, Wheeza, now comes the better part.
Someone's gonna make good,
Cross his stupid heart.
Make good and finally make you
Proud of me.
Tell me that I've been a louse and loafer,
You won't get a fight here, 'no ma'am'.
Say I'm a goldbrick, a good-off, no good,
But that couldn't be all that I am!
Water flows under the bridge,
Let it pass, let it go!
There's no good reason that you should believe me,
Not yet, I know, but --
Someday and soon.
I'll make you proud of me,
Though I can't make myself taller,
Or smarter, or handsome, or wise!
I'll do my best, what else can I do?
Since I wasn't born perfect like you
Wheeza, I will try to
Try hard to make you
Proud of me!"

He cried again, wishing that his aunt was still alive. She was more of a mother to him than his biological mother, who just saw Cloak's father in him and little more.

"She was proud of you," said a voice behind him. He turned to see Mercy, and knew that she came up to check up on him. There they sat, and it was strangely comforting, knowing that he wasn't the only one mourning Wheeza's loss. He lost an aunt. Mercy lost an elder sister.

Cloak wasn't alone in his mourning.

---

SONG SOURCES: https://youtube.com/watch?v=calHOKucYMw and https://youtube.com/watch?v=kV3D1ASN7Xc&t=1s

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 01, 2018, 09:18:10 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXVI (1,266): "Good Luck, Bad Luck" -- Bootleg Felix Felicitus runs rampant on the black market.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Flooding Forest

Blaze was dispatched to investigate a flooded forest. Why they selected him instead of Cloak or Horse or any other hydrokinetic, he didn't know. Why choose the pyrokinetic angel/djinn hybrid? He was also supposed to see if there were any survivors, as apparently it was a flash flood that was the culprit for this.

Blaze arrived at the rough approximation of the last sighting of the fiend, but he also saw no survivors -- perhaps they all managed to get out  the way in time. But he was wise enough know that his was being grossly optimistic.

He was on the cursory edge of the flooding, and he didn't see anything, really, from this vantage point. But that didn't mean that it wasn't there, of course. But, as he moved closer to the flooded area, he noticed large puddles that were barely ankle-deep. He found this to be a bad omen.

He eventually a small hill that was rather steep on one side, he saw a chasm below him, filled with water. It gave him a rather unpleasant image of a disembodied heart pumping water instead of blood. Before him there was a cave, but he decided to fly over it -- he didn't really want to be in an enclosed are like that, where he might not be able to fly out. Call it claustrophobia, he didn't care.

Of course, atop the cave, he saw a dismembered, human torso -- no head, no legs, and no arms. Not distinguishing markings of any sort. Blaze just wished that he didn't bear witness to it, as he flew to the anterior opening of the cave and continued forward.

He easily avoided a deep pit -- it helps being able to fly -- saw no one in it, and flew on. He wondered why the fiend would enjoy such an environment, as he flew over another sinkhole. It appeared most everyone -- the torso still in his mind -- had escaped the flood. Thank god.

Then he crested another hill into a marshy area that looked untouched by the flood, whose murky waters looked as if it would suck the very shoe off an unsuspecting traveller. Fortunately, Blaze could fly, and so he did. Straight into the fiend's nest.

The fiends nest was a rather narrow room with spiked, iron bars crisscrossing in "X" patterns, and the place was overgrown with moss and vines. The fiend appeared in the room by dropping its camouflage and appearing right before Blaze.

The fiend appeared to be an anthropomorphic chameleon with a haunched over posture, pod-like feet, a spike-tipped tail, two digit hands, and spinal spikes. Its human-like eyes (red sclera and black pupils) could move independently of each other, like a normal chameleon. It stood about 5'8" tall.

The fiend began its attack pattern, and Blaze prepared himself. Unsurprisingly, it could blend into its surroundings, to the point of nearly complete invisibility. But it was still easy enough to spot by the distortion it causes when it moves.

Blaze observed that, while cloaked like this, it had the proclivity to do one of two things. Either sneak up on him and lash him with its extendable tongue, occasionally in a rapid fire three-hit combo, or it will move to the top side corners of the room and reappear just fire three green, laser javelins from its spiked-tipped tail, which it swings in the direction it launches them.

It also charges a faster version of these javelins, only colored yellow, from its mouth. This one was more tricky to dodge. It always comes to the ground to use this though, giving Blaze two clues -- grounding itself and charging -- that it was going to employ this technique.

However, its most lethal attack was simply hanging from the ceiling by its tongue and causing spikes to rain on Blaze. There was no safe spot during this attack, so Blaze had to form a fiery shield with his wings and wait for the fiend to halt the attack before taking care of it.

Blaze's boomerang made it easy, actually. The boomerang lacerated the fiend to bits. It was rather graphic. But in the end, it was done.

***

Demos called it a "sutingu chamaeleo". He didn't say anything more.

***

And Malice was snoring loudly in her comfortable easy chair. She was old -- she couldn't be scheming twenty-four hours a day.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2018, 08:23:03 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXVII (1,267): "The Ultimate Hybrid" -- The RAFians must stop a man who can alter half of his DNA.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXI:
SCHISM
CHAPTER ONE:
Air Base Alarm

Parker was dispatched to investigate the landing of a suspicious aircraft at an airbase. Its firepower forced the personnel to abandon the base for the time. Parker was not afraid, nor deterred by this.

He arrived, in a rather overly dramatic way, and took in his environment, trying to anticipate any angles of attacks. He couldn't see the airship, but he saw an outdoor elevator/conveyor belt system that was absolutely sure would have failed an OSHA inspection.

Parker looked over his shoulder after he rode up this clearly unsafe elevator platform, and he saw what appeared to be a fresh human heart on one of the towers. No real reason that he could conclude, it was just inexplicably, inexorably there. He wished he hadn't seen it.

Then he came to what appeared to be an air traffic control tower. Annd he saw some miscellaneous viscera in there. It didn't look at all pleasant, though the conspicuous absence of blood made it rather odd. Eerily so. Parker put it out his mind as he made his way to another building that had scaffolding all over it. He quickly navigated his way through it, ignoring the severed head below him. He tried not to think that that was the work of the fiend, when he didn't know and couldn't be sure. He looked instead to the massive airship in front of him.

Then he dashed his way to the airship along a collapsing bridge to it, landing safely. Which was good, as if he fell to his death he knew Helen would kill him. But he proceeded onward, and onboard the massive thing as it took off. Thhen the top was sheared off, leaving Parker exposed. Still in his armor, but exposed just the same.

Then the fiend decended. The fiend looked like an anthropomorphic eagle that was predominantly yellow. It had light pink sclera and dark pink pupils. It had human-like arms -- but a portable wind turbine for a right arm -- and human-like legs with aquiline feet with short, gold talons. It stood roughly two feet taller than Parker, and its wingspan was about twelve feet long.

The fiend began its attack pattern, firing a powerful, vertical tornado of wind. Thhis didn't damage Parker, just pushed him. But he just activated his magnetic fuctions of his boots. He would not be pushed off this airship, which was clearly the fiend's intention.

Then it flew out of sight, and began to dive at Parker, who managed to dodge it. He wasn't thinking consciously when he did it, he just reacted. It wasn't long before the aquiline fiend stopped this diving attack flew back into Parker's eyeline.

It rose into the air once more, but not to dive. It just flapped its wings, producing a powerful rush of air that Parker swore he could feel through his armor. He couldn't really, but it was psychosomatic type of thing. But, due to the magnetic grip of his boots, this wasn't gonna be possible.

While it was hovering in midair, which should have been physically impossible, it vomited up and egg that smashed on the ground producing a four ovoid, oviform birds that flew into Parker. He sliced them all down with his energy blade.

Then he took his energy javelin gun, the one that bore a superficial resemblance to a chain gun. He fired the tri-directional energy javelins at the fiend. The fiend wasn't even stunned. But he kept it up, even when the fiend started it's diving attack. It wasn't long before the fiend was done for.

Although Parker needed. little help to escape the top of the airship as it began to plummet toward a deserted structure, that looked as if it could have been a planned power plant at one time until, possibly, funding fell through. Yarin picked him up in his ship.

***

Demos called it a "sutomu aquila". He wouldn't say more on the subject.

***

Malice was still snoozing. She was old -- she needed her rest. At least, that's the excuse that she used.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2018, 05:14:25 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXVIII (1,268): "Settling" -- A RAFian foe settles for what he considers lesser technology.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity, and remember that this book is gonna be noncanon.

CHAPTER TWO:
Wary Recognition

The RAFians had just won the day after a resurgence of the Sentinels or Guardians or Seekers or whatever Bursting name the xenophobic zealots chose to fanatically call them. They managed to destroy their "master mold", which had basically gone AWOL against this fringe governmental group. It rebelled and had the stereotypical mindset that it and its creations were inherently better than any living organism. Basically the ideology the Highbreed (https://ben10.fandom.com/wiki/Highbreed), but just in mechanical form.

It had not been easy battle, even with Cloak present. They had to evacuate the city, and Cloak refrained from going into his Apex Tier, and that would have likely have caused extraneous collateral damage that would have caused weeks, maybe even months or years, of repairs. Cloak knew no one would be grateful for that. But their foes had no such compunction.

Cloak still don't know how they brought them down with only the most minimal amount of cosmetic damage to the buildings. But the fact of the matter was they did, somehow. And these giant mas were no deactivated, destroyed, and no longer posed a threat to anyone.

It was determined that one, Sebastian "Bastion" Duncan Apparachik (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apparatchik), was behind this entire situation. He was arrested, pending further inquiry. Though his guilt was not certain, as it appeared that the master mold of these gigantic robots had gained a sentience of its own and had turned on him. But that didn't change the fact that he had built and programmed the master mold himself, and based its simple mind on his own.

But it was done, and clean-up was already underway. The RAFians were not one to sit back and let other people clean up their mess. Every one (even Kane) was down there, helping clean this up. Because of this, clean-up was finished relatively quickly.

Taking their past feats and triumphs into account, in addition to current circumstances, the RAFians were mostly hailed as heroes. Sure there were those who refused to believe that they were heroes. Of course, these tended to be same people who refused to believe that the Earth was round and that mankind walked on the moon, so their credibility was sorely lacking.

The President decided to award them the Presidential Metal of Freedom, as acknowledgement of their service and heroism. Cloak was hesitant about this. He came from a society shose governance was full of ulterior motives, hidden from the people. He was suspicious and overly cautious about such things. The others may have been elated about the recognition, but Cloak was not. He was wary. Someone had to be.

Cloak, reluctantly, agreed to go to the capitol with Parker and Broken to accept the metal. Cloak felt as if he was doing this against his better judgement, but he didn't say such. The country was dismantling the Seeker program, and that was good, right? At least, they were saying that they were . . . didn't mean that they had any intention on truly following through with it.

But Cloak was jaded with the overtly corrupted governance that he grew up with, and, so, learned not to put too much faith in such governance, lest feeling the inevitable disappointment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 03, 2018, 09:48:45 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXIX (1,269): "Mix and Match" -- A RAFian foe can mix and match his DNA.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Parker's Pledge

Parker remove his helmet as he approached the podium. He didn't know why he would give the speech. He wasn't exactly the best orator from RAF, and he didn't even really consider himself one of the leaders -- he would always say that of the mods or maybe Cloak, but him?

When he first spoke, it was with a note of hesitation and dash of fear. There was a very good reason why fear of public speaking was one of the most prevalent fears in the world. And that was because basically everyone had it, until they became comfortable with it. Sure, there are rare cases of people who enjoy it without any fear at all, but Parker wasn't one of them. He didn't do public speaking very often.

But as he got into the groove of his speech, he relaxed more and more. The speech was written by him, Dino, Xeno, Cloak, and even GH. They felt that it would be more powerful if delivered by Parker, and Parker, personally, disagreed. Cloak told him that if the Elements Master did it, it would more than likely come off as hostile and pedantic.

Parker told the assembled Senators, Representatives, press, and other bigwigs that, essentially, the RAFians were good guys, not villains. That they were here to be friends, not adversaries. That they weren't here dominate, but serve.

Of course, naturally, this entire speech, this entire pledge Parker was giving couldn't go off without a hitch. Cloak noticed the person approaching long before he made it to the to the doors of the building, through his Earthsight. But there was nothing he could do about it, without causing an unnecessary scene. Beside, it was just the one person. Human. Cloak could tell that this interloper seemed to be unarmed. His mind should have been at ease.

But it wasn't. Something was tugging at his conscience like a determined willful child trying to get their parent's attention. But as to what, Cloak couldn't say. But this something it would not be ignored. Perhaps if he read Destiny's diary he wouldn't have to wonder why he felt unease.

Cloak cast a covert, side-long glance at Broken, and saw that he seemed to sense something as well, but couldn't put his finger on it. While Parker continued the speech, seemingly oblivious to what his fellows were sensing. He was too focused on the speech and keeping his modicum of stage fright at bay. This was very different than engaging in battle with his face hidden behind his helmet.

Cloak couldn't lay this strange anxiety he felt at bay. He went over possible solutions to handle this in a demure and confidential sort of manner, without causing a scene. There weren't many, if there was any at all. No to mention they were in a room filled to the brim with spin doctors and insincere political actors (athough a few, about one percent of those assembled, were actually the opposite, they were a minority). Any misstep here, the smallest misunderstanding, could prove disastrous.

They had to be measured, fearless, calm, and collected should anything happen. This was one way that RAF and the RAFians didn't have to deal with negative PR again. Or, well, for a long time, anyway.

And, yet, the two RAFians felt their misgivings take more and more presence. Cloak saw the person, one that he knew that he didn't recognize, approach and enter the building with a confident, swaggering gait. Cloak immediately know what he must be planning on doing.

He must be planning on making a grand entrance, interrupting Parker's speech. But, to what ends, neither Cloak nor Broken could fathom. However, while Cloak didn't recognize him, Broken would.

But neither could understand why this would just rouse a single rabblerouser. Perhaps a group of devoted bigots protesting, but just a single one? What was he planning? Were they being bamboozled in some way?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 04, 2018, 09:47:58 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXX (1,270): "Web of Fear" -- Cloak must save a child from fear itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Interruption? So Rude!

As expected, the doors swung open as their interloper appeared. It was a flashy entrance, to be sure. Parker stopped speaking, surprised at this interruption. He wore a white shirt with a red omega symbol painted on it, with a leather jacket with a blue alpha symbol painted on the back. He clearly was trying to send a message with that -- that he thought that he was the alpha and the omega, or some nonsense rhetoric like that.

"Zak," Broken said immediately. Then he eyed the swagger and ****iness of his former friend. Broken deduced, "You've taken Felix Felicis."

Zak ignored him, and Broken recognized the effects of over-reliance on the liquid luck. Zak was giddily reckless and dangerously overconfident. Felix Felicis could prove to be toxic in large amounts, and Zak clearly was nearing that threshold.

 "Zak, go," Broken said, knowing that Felix Felicis was not foolproof or infallible. "Go, before you make everything worse for yourself. Over-reliance on Felix Felicis is dangerous --"

 Zak ignored him, as if he was just being a buzzkill. His mind . . . the liquid luck had distorted enough so that he thought he could do anything, that nothing was obstacle,  that he didn't need to struggle for anything and could just simply luck into things, when true rationality would deem that ludicrous. Zak was far more busy making a nonsensical speech, sounding more like he was a drunk without slurred speech.

"-- No more will your superiors, superiors in every conceivable way, allow you or your pathetic politicians to wallow like pigs in their own excrement!" he said, sounding like that politically backward uncle at Thanksgiving who thinks he has all the answers to politcs when in reality he doesn't know what he's talking about. "This time around, the revolution will be televised, and, as such, as much as I know it will pain you all -- you will tell the truth. And the truth is always painful."

"Zak, what are you playing at?" Broken demanded at once. The RAFian was tempted to use Legilimency, but he knew Zak was a proficient enough Occumens to be able to block such a move.

Zak snapped his fingers, and pointed to ceiling. The sprinklers came on, spraying down water onto all assembled. "You are hardly perfect beings, despite what you think. And yet you sit here, and in your gilded, ivory towers, passing judgement on people like me."

"Wait -- that's not water," Cloak observed, which he couldn't really manipulate it. But he didn't have to do it to protect the other RAFians. It was clear that they weren't the targets.

"It's . . . it's Veritiserum!" Broken said, recognizing the potion as everyone else gathered seemed to be compelled to look upwards and swallow several drops of the stuff.He

"TELL US ALL YOUR SECRETS!" Zak demanded. "SHOW US HOW SANCTIMONIOUSLY HYPOCRITICAL ALL OF YOU ARE!!"

"In the wake of these shocking events . . ." said one of the Senators, one of those politicians who ran under that disingenuous "family values" schlock, ". . . I just . . . I feel compelled to say . . . to everyone watching . . ."

He seemed to try and fail to struggle against the effects of the Truth Potion. He was compelled to tell the truth -- almost as if the Veritiserum was tainted with something to make telling the truth even more compulsory, in case any of these politicians and media types showed aptitude for Occlumency.

 "I . . . I beat my children . . ." he confessed forcibly, filling compelled to speak the truth of his deepest secrets. "I . . . I do it quite often, in fact . . .because . . . because I enjoy it . . ."

"I am . . . currently cheating  on . . . my wife of . . . of thirty-four years . . ." said another politician, an older man. He was another one of these politicians who campaigned under the " family values" schlock. "As . . . as she died slowly . . . of . . . leukaemia."

"I would . . . like to take this moment . . . to list the various . . . various ethnic minorities that I . . . that I despise," said yet another. A blonde woman.

"I am personally . . . personally responsible for the deaths of . . . of many people," another said, a renown spin artist.

"I am currently as high as a kite, right now," said another, a man this time.

And more spewed forth. Several were compelled to admit that they committed voter fraud by suppressing people likely not to vote for them, by preventing from being "eligible" to vote. Others were forced to admit to taking bribes from big moneyed interests, and knowingly screwing over their constituency. Others confessed with election tampering, via convenient blackouts and voter machine "glitches". Others confessed with deliberately not covering news items that they considered . . . inconvenient. Extoetion, money laundering, bribes, wage slavery -- it was all there.

Parker and Broken seemed taken aback, but Cloak was unsurprised. This kind of thing happened all the time at the council, even to good leaders which the position inevitably corrupted. Which was precisely why he refused their offer to become a Councilor.

These were the very same people who sometimes advocated shunning RAFians. Who liked to pretend that they were the good guys despite these horrendous things that they do, and continue to do.

But it seemed almost as if they expected something like this, as Zak, believing his point was made clearly, Apparated away. The effects of the Veritiserum would eventually go away, but the secrets were out and in the open now. No one stopped televising it.

They decided to be prepared for something like this, however. The corrupted elite, that is. They knew the RAFians were coming, so they had a very secret stockpile if things got out of hand.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 05, 2018, 09:00:50 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXI (1,271): "Cheating?" -- A man has discovered "hacks" when it comes to acting. Potentially one of the more lighthearted Memoirs books.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Secret Seeker Stockpile

They had secreted a pile of Seekers nearby the speech center, in case of something popping off. This went to show just how much trust that the RAFians really had to the fearmongering elites. They didn't care if it was the lives of the "peasants" in jeopardy, but they were not willing to risk their own so easily.

It was a cacophonious mess in this auditorium like setting. Everyone sitting so stiffly in the audience was now compelled to confess all their sins, to show all the skeletons in their closet, and there were many, many, many sins and skeletons to parse through. Itt made Earthsight somewhat difficult, and Cloak did not appreciate it, b he knew that these humans could not help it. This strain of Veritiserum had some sort of compulsion clause in it, and it gotten to the point that cacophony overrule comprehensive speech, and the words intermingled with each other just to become one loud, obnoxious sound.

It was obvious when the tainted Veritiserum was starting to wear off, as the cacophony was starting to die down, finally. It was then that Cloak was able to hear them. He heard them far before he Earthsighted them.

"Seekers," he told the others at once. "At least five of them."

"So much for decommissioning their Seeker programs," Parker muttered, almost bitterly. After all, who brings war machines to a peace conference? "I shoulda known. They always keep at least one. 'Just in case'."

"Those Seekers never bother to account for bystanders or civilian wellbeing," Broken noted, "we have to stop them!"

 "And so we shall," Cloak said, charging and surging forward, with the other two at his heels. They were . . . less than polite and civil when one of these corrupted, establishment politician people got in their way, as the sentinels ripped open the doors.

Cloak could tell right away that their skin was not metallic in the least, but some sort of enameled plastic polymers. That was fine, as the problem with machines is that they always had metal in them somewhere. Even in trace amounts on their very circuitboards, because nothing manufactured conducts electricity as well metal for their purposes.

Meanwhile, Parker was cursing. Sure, he had his armor, but, in accordance with the peace conference rules and to show good faith, he had disarmed himself of everything but his suit and fists. He cursed at his naivety, as he should have realized that they would have reneged on their end of the agreement.

Broken, much the same way, disarmed himself of his wand and magical artifacts in a show of good faith. Granted, this did not disarm him of all his magic, as  could perform wandless magicks, but it did miff him to see, to know that these pompous fat cats could have such blatant temerity to do this, but pivot to how they, somehow, were the victims.

Cloak wasn't surprised. He had gotten rather jaded as he aged. He was starting to wonder if all societies that start out as democratic eventually devolve and corrupt into oligarchies and totalitarian regimes, ambivalent and disinterested in the plight of the electorate and their own constituency. Cloak had seen it happen with Nexus politics.

And all three knew that the political fallout of this decision wasn't even about to be over. It was a catch-22 for the RAFians. If they hadn't come to this conference, or whatever shticky name they've given it, then they would have spun it as the RAFians being unreasonable while they were trying to recognize them for their service to the country and the world at large. If they refused to disarm themselves, they'd give the impression of militancy and distrust of those smear merchant politicians who would most definitely use this to their partisan, political advantage.

And there would always be those that were too gullible, too naive, and too stupid to know otherwise. But smugly act as if they know everything and that they are better informed than those who actually are well-informed to the matter at hand, claiming that they put facts over feelings. Although that was more the fault of a rather poor education system and the media's malpractice of not holding those in power accountable for their actions, instead spinning news and facts to make excuses for the politicians on "their side". It was the kind of thing that sickened Cloak about Nexus politics -- and, apparently, such things were universal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2018, 03:16:53 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXII (1,272): "Curse or Gift?" -- Several actors become fused with their work.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Political Props

As it would turn out, this was just a stunt, an excuse, that the powers-that-be could actually double down on their Seeker program. The elites affected by tainted Veritiserum just claimed that they were forced to say those "blatantly false" declarations. And one who dared to suggest otherwise was silenced and talked over and removed from town halls. Cloak wanted to say that he was surprised by these resultant actions.

But he wasn't.

This same type of political schlock -- desperate backpedaling, hopeless narrative reversals, gaslighting that was none too subtle -- it runs rampant in the Nexus political environment. And it was actually a bit more cutthroat than what was seen herd. But that's N unfair comparison, as the Nexus and the Realm Walker species are far older than humans, and so was their system of governance. There was far more time for corruption to wriggle its way in and wrap its sinewy tentacles around what was supposed to be a democracy, sapping any life from it, just like a Black Mercy plant.

Still,Cloak couldn't help but be a bit broody about it. Especially because there was nothing he could have done to stop it. There was no way that they could have expected Zac to show up, or to have anticipated that the more adversarial press outlets, like those that employ the likes of Bern Bridges, to connect Zac to the RAFians, despite Zak having never even been a RAFian. But they didn't care about the newsworthy content or context, they just cared about the sensationalism and ratings. "If it bleeds, it leads", as they say.

But thing that, perhaps, ticked Cloak off most was how he, Broken, and Parker, in particular, were being used as political props, for politicians to either try to align or distance themselves from. Very few tried to align with them, as the powers-that-be decided to craft a clearly biased narratives that the trio were somehow at fault, using rather shaky "evidence" to base their claims.

Cloak and Broken (using wandless magic) managed to take care of the five Seekers, but even this was twisted and used against them. But that didn't matter to these so-called "news" pundits. All that mattered to them was the sensationalism that came from it, so they could grab viewership.

And when these Seekers that they made started to attack everyone, the RAFians were still the scapegoats. Again, this was unsurprising as this governance always needed someone or something to blame other than the things that were truly at fault. And the mainstream media absolutely refused to hold those politicians on "their side" accountable for any wrongdoing on their part, instead preferring to deify them, make them above reproach.

But Cloak tried not to allow that bother him so much, though difficult, as he looked toward the future of the forum. They had five new members that came from all over the world. They were all metahumans, believed to have Omega-level potential. They were training to control their abilities, and the more senior RAFians were training them in thin like superpowered combat and metahuman ethics. They called the the Five Lights, a name they themselves coined after a drought of metahuman births preceded theirs.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2018, 05:03:16 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXIII (1,273): "Cult of Personality" -- A foe believed to be dead and gone returns, with a new trick.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Five Lights

The Five Lights were LeVar Clay, Joey Collins, Kathie Waynes, Janice Waters, and Scott Hart. When they were found by the RAFians, they were unable to control their metahuman powers, which had only manifested recently. And it was due to the nature of their powers that they were either orphaned or abandoned by those they would call their loved ones.

LeVar was the de facto leader of the five. He was about fourteen, and when his powers manifested he was having a dispute with one of his siblings and his parents were siding with him, when he was clearly lying. He didn't mean to, but his geokinesis manifested causing a massive earthquake which cause their home to crumble. LeVar was the only survivor. And he still couldn't control his powers until Cloak showed up. Cloak demonstrated some ways to help him control his abilities and keep them in check. He excelled in the tactics class taught by Parker, and he took elemental training from Cloak.

Joey was the loud, arrogant, brash, and careless one of the five. He was the fourteen-year-old only child of a layabout man (he never knew his mother), and was living in some . . . less than desirous accommodations. His pyrokinesis manifested during a heated argument with his father. Their dinky little apartment, if you could even call it an apartment when it was lesser than a tenement, caught fire. Joey knew he started it, but he didn't mean to, and he couldn't stop it. Especially with his belligerent father yelling at him, drunkenly oblivious to the fire. Joey used his loud, brash personality to cover from the immense guilt he felt for this, even though his father was nowhere near a stellar parent. Cloak was able to teach him how to control his power, and he understood completely Joey's sense of pyrophobia. Meanwhile, as far as classes went, he was a poor academic, being more of a tactile, "on-the-job" sort of learner.

Kathie was the voice of reason for the five. She was fourteen and grew up, well-adjusted, in a household with a rather large family. She was often looked to by them for stable rationality and nearly flawless common sense. Then there was that awful man who tried to . . . do things to one of her sisters. And Kathie was in a position to stop him -- and her powers manifested in her rage, in her desperation to protect her sister. Her aerokinesis tore her home apart with hurricane grade winds. Unfortunately, this killed her family in addition to the man. She couldn't control it, until Cloak calmly stepped up and helped her control it, citing that the power stems from her emotions, and he saw just how turbulent hers were. She was a studious person, learning all that she could, but this was mostly her mind wouldn't dwell on what happened to her beloved family.

Janice was the quiet, thoughtful one of the five, the dreamer. She was fourteen, and lived with her grandmother, having lost her parents in a car crash, through no fault their own. They were victims of one of Donald Couch's drunken driving bouts that he had always managed to wiggled his way out of any real consequence or punishment. Janice's grandmother never told her this, trying to shield her from this pain. Her intentions were good, but, one could argue, ultimately harmful and hurtful. It came to a point that she couldn't keep it from Janice anymore, and the impact of this news is was enough to cause her powers to manifest, which swallowed the tiny island that they lived on, and Janice was in shock for a long while, before she was collected by the RAFians and given some therapy. She sometimes finds it difficult to concentrate during classes, and has a tendency to daydream.

Scott was the youngest and the moral center of the five. He was ten, and completely empathic. This empathy wasn't limited to humans or other sentient life -- it extended to all animals. Naturally, he was vegan because of this. He was naive and bit gullible, but he was quite affectionate and nurturing for a boy his age. He was orphaned at a young age, and he's never known any family other than the homeless community around the town. When the RAFians came to collect him, he was reluctant -- feeling that the others needed him. They insisted that he go -- go and live and be happy, he went. He immediately hit it off with Leatherhead and Dek's kids.

They were trained in a rather structured schedules, much like an actual school, with the RAFians teaching real subjects. This aspect of the forum was overseen by Terenia and Jess, who had full teaching credentials. And there was a litany of subjects for them to take, outside Math, History, Science, and English.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 06, 2018, 09:30:13 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXIV (1,274): "The Hebephaetos" -- A spirit can rejuvenate and make their host bodies younger, depending on the length of their occupation.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
You Must Be Kidding -- These Are Your Antagonists?

Meanwhile, deep within an secreted underground bunker, the heads of Cadmus were meeting. But they did so in dim light, without any minions or lackeys to serve them. There appeared to be seven of them around a small, round table. The chairs were hard-backed and wooden, while only one was high-backed and winged, and each had an ornate diamond, in the classic diamond cut, embedded into their chairs. One of each color of the rainbow. That one clearly sat the leader of this little . . . conference.

There were seven of them, and they didn't refer to themselves by name, but by the name of a color of the rainbow and the word "Noble", as in "nobility". They all had smaller frames from what one would expect from someone of their stature, influence, and wealth.

"Well, that stooge was well picked," said the Orange Noble with a piggy snort.

Orange Noble was rather greedily hoggish and had a rather porcine appearance, including pink skin and an upturned nose, though in mostly silhouette. He clearly had the habit of overindulging to ludicrous excess. he wore greenish military fatigues and combat boots. He headed the resource management of Cadmus.

"Indeed, Orange," said Yellow Noble said, eschewing the "Noble" as they were all "Nobles" here. "He played his part well."

Yellow Noble was rather scummy and hedonistic and had a rather murine appearance, though he was silhouette by the hellfire that burned behind them ominously. He wore tattered and dirty clothing -- mainly, a pale orange jumpsuit that is torn and dishevelled, and a green scarf wound around his head and face. He headed the chemical and subject location department at Cadmus.

"I just wish that there was more bloodshed," Red Noble said, "that would have expedited this even more."

Red Noble was a rather violent individual and had a rather artificially handsome appearance, though he was in a vague silhouette, due to the hellfire quietly crackling behind them. He wore an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, and sandals, despite the weather being far too cold for such a getup. He headed the energy supply department of Cadmus.

"You always want bloodshed, Red," Violet Noble said, almost huffily, "it's not always conducive to the plan at hand."

Violet Noble was a rather egomaniacal and appeared to be the only female of the group. She seemed to be only one actually bored with the meeting, and found more interest at the hellfire crackling safely behind them. She wore a pink form-fitting suit, as if she were a superhero (or supervillain, as e case may be), black gloves, and black knee-cut boots. Her har was blond, cur short though it covers the left side of her face and it has a broad white streak in it. She was the head of the research and development department at Cadmus.

"Not to mention," Blue Noble said, before Red Noble could blow a gasket, "the RAFians played their part well. But its not like we gave them much choice."

Blue Noble was prim and proper and appeared to take excruciating pride in his appearance, yet was unconcerned about the hellfire behind them. He had shoulder-length brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and wore a gaudy green suit with tiger-print lapels. He headed the finace department, Peasant-Worthy Excuse Committee (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Muggle-Worthy_Excuse_Committee) and the Department of Peasant Gaslighting (http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Office_of_Misinformation) of Cadmus, purposed to help maintain whatever cover they had to conceal their illict activities.

"Yeah," said Indigo Noble, picking his teeth, "not to mention that they haven't a clue that it was us that did it."

Indigo Noble was a slovenly sort of mess, and he clearly too no pride in his appearance, and it was even apparent in his silhouette against the hellfire's brackish dim light. He tended to be apathetic and he also tended to think in the short-term, never long-term. He was short and rotund, with long, greasy, black hair that is past his shoulders, and he has shaggy, black eyebrows. His clothes were khaki cover-alls, and he wore black boots with yellow rubber gloves. He was in charge of the waste management, housekeeping, maintenance, and other such related things of Cadmus.

"But," said Green Noble, "that's not all."

Green Noble was a person with a proclivity towards wearing capes and looking like a rejected Rob Liefeld creation. He tended to be very much a war hawk (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/war_hawk) and enjoyed conflicts of a militaristic nature. He had short, black hair, oddly muscular, and he wore armor over his torso, a green cape, metal boots, and metal gloves. He was the head of Cadmus itself.

"The plan may be going swimmingly so far," Green said, snapping his fingers (or tried to in those metal gloves he was wearing). A light appeared on the table before them, revealing all of their faces and revealing that not a single one of them could be older than twelve. Or, at least, they didn't appear to be any older than twelve. "But there is still much to be done. That RAFian museum is opening soon, and that would be another perfect opportunity to strike."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2018, 05:05:53 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXV (1,275): "An Epic Joke" -- The Joke Meister somehow gains reality-bending powers.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Things Are Not What They Seem

"But," Green Noble said, handcuffing himself to the chair, "before we go into that, I think a small recess is in order. This kid keeps waking up, and I'm getting tired of putting him back to sleep. I need a break."

With that, the kid shuttered as a green form pulled himself from his body, wearing on of those full-body lycra suits. The kid slumped over, barely conscious. Green Noble deftly gagged him, despite this secret room being sound proof.

"Very well, boss," Red Noble said, "I'll get some work done here, in the meantime. Let me know when the meeting's back on."

Then a slight tremor and a slight convulsion raced through the boy's body, and he sat still, with his eyes opened, unblinking. He looked more like a doll or mannequin. The boy wasn't a boy at all but Surrogate -- a sort of real-world robotic avatar.

"I'm fine as is," Indigo said. "Granted, the view of this boy's brain isn't really anything to look at."

"So the neuro-skiff is to your liking, Indigo?" Violet Noble asked, deactivating the hologram of the child, revealing a woman wearing a gray, form-fitting suit with a face mask that appeared to be similar to a bicycle helmet.He

"Yeah," he said, waving the boy that he control's hand dismissive. The real Indigo was shrunken down, inside a miniscule ship, and controlling the boy directly from his brain, speaking through like a ventriloquist dummy. The boy's mind seemed suspended.

"I too will have to take care of somethings on my end," Yelloe Noble said. "Alert me when we're back in session."

"Remember to feed your puppet," Violet called out to him, "those Zirkonian mind-plugs weren't easy to come by."

The boy that Yellow was speaking through, convulsed, and then put on a weird, goofy expression. He sat, stiff as a board, unmoving, all voluntary systems seized up momentarily. Yellow had put him on "pause".

Meanwhile, Orange tugged at his mouth, a new head blossoming from his mouth, revealing a large, adult head and the boy was actually a suit. Orange then began to noisily gobble down a dish. He was feeling famished, but he was always feeling famished. He didn't say anything, he just preferred to eat with his head unencumbered by the bodysuit in anyway.

Blue Noble's skin bubbled and he twitched a little, which caused him to take a long drink from his personal flask. He shuttered and his skin stopped bubbling and he didn't convulse, even a little. "This potion could be highly useful to our cause. Pity that its so difficult and time-consuming to make."

"But it works just fine," Violet Noble said, "no one would guess what you really look like, Blue."

"A balding middle-aged man with a bad back?" he said, with a smile. He stretched, and felt his back, "My GOD, my back hasn't felt this great in YEARS."

"Technically, it's not your back," Orange Noble said, between mouthfuls.

"Semantics," he said, waving the little detail away.

All seven had used unique methods of disguising themselves as children to basically test the new devices and tech they had developed to undermine the governance and the very people's wills. This is also why Cadmus managed to remain so covert for so long. That,and murdering any witnesses. Or worse -- converting them and any loved one they happened to be around that might talk. Like the skin of the boy that Orange Noble was currently wearing.

It was at this time that Green's boy body began to blink and groggily lifted his head, but was unprepared when Green sidled back into his body, with nary a sound to announce and took control over the body immediately.

"Well, that was refreshing, as well as this body having a nap," Green said. "Go tell Red and Yellow that were about to re-commence the meeting.

It took a few minutes, but they knew that Yellow and Red had returned when their "mouthpieces" or "real-world avatars" reactivated and began to act of their own accord. Violet, really for no reason re-established her hologram, and Orange wiped his face, and slid the suit's head around his own, giving what sounded like a bit of flatulence due to the gas exchange.

"I call this meeting back to order," Green said, as the other six settled themselves in their chairs once more. "Now the moment we can strike is during the opening of that RAFian History Museum."

"They finished it?" Red said, with surprise. "I didn't think they would get done so soon. Apparatchik has been working against us on it."

"He did try to defund it, true," Blue Noble said. " But after another subsidiary of ours gave him enough money to fund his next five campaigns, he backed off."

"Politicians are easy enough to get around," Indigo said. " Just flash enough cash to fuel their future prospects and they go away meekly into the night."

"So," Orange Noble said, "what's the plan?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2018, 05:03:22 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXVI (1,276): "Tama-Gotcha-Ye (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi)" -- A fad of digital pets sweeps through the city. But things aren't what they appear to be.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Conspiring to Cause Mayhem

"The plan is to send in a number of our people when the RAFians visit," Green Noble said.

"With Surrogates?" Red Noble asked.

"Too expensive to make," Green said. "Can't risk them getting damaged. We don't have a backlog."

"Holographic suits?" Violet asked.

"Not foolproof," Green said. "And that'd be a big security risk. There's no telling if one of them didn't become a turncoat, and keep the suit. Its basically any identity they want at any given time, and the power source is surprisingly easy to come by."

"Neuro skiffs?" Indigo suggested .

"Same accountability problem," Green said. "Same with the possession suit -- as you know, there shall only ever be one. We can't figure out how this one does what it can or how it fused to my body."

"Zirkonian mind plugs, then," Yellow Noble said.

"No," Green Noble said, "there is still much research and improvements to be made there. And we don't want it made public that we have gotten ahold of alien tech. The Knights have been useful diversions, with their innate stupidity and idiocy. They've been useful pawns, easily manipulated. However, we don't need them turning on us. That would make it more difficult for us to do what we do."

Yellow nodded in understanding, "Yes, and I suppose finding vic-- I mean, subjects that no one would miss would be a difficult undertaking at this time. Especially because the Museum opens in three days' time."

"Then . . . what?" Orange Noble said. "Send them in undisguised? That sounds as if it would be a big liability."

"True," Green Noble said, "which is why I suggest outfitting the most expendable members of staff in bodysuits, complete with the compression or expansion tech."

"But I thought that those bodysuits were expensive as well," Blue Noble said.

"Maybe to the peasants," Green Noble said, dismissively referring to the working class, "but, to the likes of us, they're chump change. And what's more is if they get caught, they'll just assume that they've gotten them from the black market. So convenient that the shadiest sort set that up, and now we can use it as cover."

"What if they . . ." Red Noble began, before falling silent. After a few moments, he spoke again, "Sorry. There's lag on my end. My question was, what if they talk? They might spill the beans if they think it can save their sorry butts."

"I've devised a way around that," Green Noble said, "which amounts more than vicious obloquies or an upbraiding vituperation. Now. Let's go address our little . . . suicide squad, so to speak."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 12, 2018, 05:42:32 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXVII (1,277): "The Kunoichi" -- Blue meets a very attractive kunoichi. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Friction

Cloak had come to the forum, tired from the day's events. They were just now dealing with the fallout from the peace conference thing, and it had made him feel quite jaded and weary of everything. Therefore, he was surprised when he saw his five students, who called themselves the Five Lights, for whatever reason, sitting in front of the thread that they had been using as a classroom.

Only there wasn't class today. Cloak had the impression that he had made that perfectly clear. But apparently he had not. He suggested that they go and check out the museum, or do whatever it was the younger generation does nowadays. They all just shrugged and moved on.

Cloak wasn't in what you could call a fabulous mood, but, then again, he was rarely, if ever, not dour and serious. Especially in these rough times that the RAFians now found themselves in. Sure, there was a RAFian History Museum, made to commemorate all the services that the RAFians provided to the nation and the world. Many of which Cloak would later chronicle in his deathbed memoirs.

And when he came to Kane, he had to endure a few minutes of his whining and complaining, before Cloak seized him by the throat and lifted him two or three feet up into the air, until they were eye level with rach other.

"I'm in a bad mood," he growled, deeply annoyed by this petulant manchild. "Understand?"

"Uh huh," he choked out, and Cloak released him, sending him tumbling to the ground, landing on his face. He was in no mood for Kane's chicanery or shenanigans today. It had already proven to be very testing already.

That wasn't about to get any better when went by Archives, and saw Parker directing Broken and another RAFian that he wasn't familiar with -- possibly a newer recruit -- to put something bound in chains in the same room as . . . their backup generator.

"Put him with the -- no, no, where we put the -- the rabid, giant Pikachu! Put him --"

"What the Veil is this?" Cloak walking, with a somewhat limping gait.

"Just putting a prisoner down below," Parker said, back to Cloak. He had his helmet on, but Cloak wasn't fooled. He was hiding his face. Cloak was astounded that Parker didn't seem understand the very repercussions of this.

"Why didn't you turn Zak over to the authorities?" Cloak questioned seriously.

"Oh, don't be dense, Cloak," Parker said, rounding on him. "They can't hold him."

"I'm not the one being dense here, Parker," Cloak said, mastering his anger. "Have even told them that you have Zak?"

"Of course not," Parker said. He did not offer an explanation as why not, as he turned his back once more to the Realm Walker.

"Parker!" Cloak barked. "Have you bothered to consider the ramifications of acting so unilaterally?!"

Broken shot an accusatory glance at Parker, "You told me that mods approved this, that everything was on the up and up."

"It is," Parker said, repressively, "and stop trying to use Legilimency on me, Broken. I do not appreciate it."

"Then stop lying to him," Cloak said, who didn't need to employ Legilimency to detect lies. And Parker encased himself in metal -- it made it easier to detect. "Parker, if the government catches wind of this, do have any idea the kind of position that you'd put the forum, and us, in?"

"Then we will not tell them, Cloak," Parker said, still not deigning to look at him.

"Serious!y?" Cloak said, waiting a beat for him to explain himself. When he didn't Cloak continued, "Seriously, Parker? You think a cover-up will make all the negative ramifications just go away? Did you even think this through? Cover-ups never last, Parker. Something always, inevitably goes wrong and something slips out to the public. Maybe not now, maybe not until you're all dead and gone, but the truth has a nasty habit of refusing to be stifled and obscured."

Parker said nothing. Cloak assumed that he was holding to his convictions, despite Cloak's belief in what he was doing was wrong.

"And when the public finds out, who do you think they're going to side with? The government and media with their anti-RAF hoopla? You know they are looking for any way to sensationalize everything we do -- for bigger ratings, presumably." Cloak cotinued his lecture, which was rankling the SPARTAN. "You know at these were the same people who opted to film the empty podium of the president than report on the peace conference thing. That they wasted no time in spinning it to be our fault."

"Cloak, they cannot hold him. They don't have they capability, nor the resources, to do so. We do. You know this." Parker said.

"The people won't see it that way."

"They won't know," Parker repeated this point.

"They will," Cloak countered. "Maybe not right this minute. Maybe not today. Maybe not this year. Maybe not even until we're all dead and gone -- but cover-ups never last. The truth will always come out."

"That's not exactly true, Cloak, and you know it," Parker parried the point, "we still don't know, other than conjecture and speculastion, the political goings-on of the people of Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt or the Vikings. Time causes people to forget things that don't apply to them or directly impact them. You forget to take human complacency into account."

"And you forget that you're acting with a sovereignty that you don't have!" Cloak stressed. "In my experience, governments don't take too kindly when you supersede their authority and sovereignty. In making such a brash decision, you are not only decimating out PR with the people, but also handing a gift to our detractors."

 And so it went, with neither giving an inch. Neither believing that they were wrong in their points and assertions.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 13, 2018, 04:59:16 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXVIII (1,278): "Brotherly Fusion" -- Three brothers fuse together into an eldritch monstrosity.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
The Museum of RAFian History

"I'd thought we'd get to do something cool today," Joey whined. "Not just go and see some RAFian propaganda."

"Don't be that way, Joey," Kathie said, bracingly. "Try to make the best of the situation."

"Yeah, this could be a learning experience," Janice said, with subdued enthusiasm.

"This could be fun," little Scottie said, "Just give it a try."

"This could be a valuable way to combat ignorance and nescience," LeVar said. "Best keep an open mind, Joey."

 And, with that, all five entered the modestly-sized building, with multiple levels. There were exhibits demonstrating all of the RAFians accomplishments, while acknowledging their failures.

One exhibit had the rise and fall of the Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination. Even his cloak was on display -- though it was a replica, as Cloak was appalled to remove the cloak from where i currently rested. His reaction was very much akin to as if someone suggested digging up a person's corpse and putting it on display for all to see. (Which, in some ways, is precisely what the humans have done with mummies.)

As the moved on they saw an exhibit about the RAFians dealing with that Smooze or Schmooze, whatever that gunk was called. Then there was an exhibit on the event when Phoenix went Dark Phoenix.

Then there was an entire exhibit devoted to Malice, which made sense as she was pretty much their primary antagonist, and one Cloak himself inherited from his maternal grandfather. In fact, Master Sage was the entire reason she was in the Oblivion Gate Prison in the first place. But that's a story for a later time.

Then there was an exhibit about the Marks (which was deliberately vague, as the RAFians wanted to hold those cards closer to their chests) and their defeat of the Technarchy Phalanx. Then there was an exhibit on the Madre de Vampyra, a period of time that does not look back fondly upon. There was a small exhibit about those strange stones of Malice's, but they didn't really garner any attention.

There wasn't any exhibit of when Horse became a gigantic, radioactive seal -- the RAFians kinda wanted to downplay that, and they didn't want to drag Louis Cannon into this museum, as he and his life were . . . controversial, to say the least. Then there was an exhibit about the RAFians' rather scant dealings with the several Lantern Corps out there.

There was even a small exhibit on the Knights of Humanity. This was a contentious exhibit because the RAFians were adamant about legitimizing the hate group, while at the same time, you couldn't rightly ignore the conflicts that they had dragged the RAFians into.

There was even an exhibit on the Xenomorphic Brood (this one didn't have a lot of people looking at it -- it was a little . . . much). There wasn't an exhibit for Bibliophaetos or the secret Skrull invasion, though (probably just due to the lack of floor space not because the RAFians wanted to hide anything). There was an exhibit on Collector (which a lot of RAFians seemed to have forgotten about at this point). There wasn't an exhibit about those cloned RAFians, as that event was largely forgotten at this point. Thhere was a small exhibit of the Darwin gun, but absolutely no specs or the like -- the RAFians didn't want that information out there (for good reason).

There wasn't an exhibit for the time that the RAFians had their genders swapped, then removed -- the less said about that, the better. There was an exhibit of that Pennywise wannabe creature in the Pits of Despair.

And there was more to explore, but Joey seemed disinterested in it all, despite the words of his fellows.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 15, 2018, 07:09:12 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXIX (1,279): "The Empty Shell Programs" -- The RAFians discover several Necrozma-like shells.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity -- I've been distracted with shiny hunting and playing the Mega Man X games for the Switch.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Outnumbered

"Are we done yet?" Joey whined. He and the other had gone to the top level of the museum, and he was the type of person to not like museums in the first place. Much less ones that he felt were propaganda. He never dallied much at any exhibit, finding it all boring.

"Now, now, Joey," LeVar said, in his grounded way, "this is a wealth of information."

"Information that had more than likely been skewed to show the RAFians in a favorable light, or information came up with from a sad dishwasher in a small studio apartment."

"Look, Joey, there is no reason to be so dour," Kathie said.

"We could be learning cool techniques," Joey said, "like that fiery dragon construct Cloak demonstrated."

"Don't you even dare," Janice said, noticing at once that Joey was flexing his fingers in a rather anxious sort of way. Small plumes of smoke issued, but were quickly extinguished at Janice's admonition. The other four didn't really care for this underlying provocateur nature of Joey, but they accepted it just to get along. "There are innocent people here that you could hurt."

Joey bit back his retort of "So what?" and opted for silence. You only push Janice so far, and she could have a powerful comeback -- verbal or hydrokinetic -- at the ready without Joey's knowledge. But then it happened. The incident which put all of this out of all five's minds.

It was strange. People who looked very awkward wielding the rather over-the-top high ordinance they had were causing absolute mayhem. There were screams of fear, terror-striken faces of disbelief, and inquiries of the reality of this. These gun-wielding maniacs -- of which was surprising plentiful and diverse, as their were men, women, and even children of every stripe wielding these weapons with the practiced ease and militaristic proficiency of a soldier. Even the kids who looked far too young to know how to do such.

"LeVar?" Scottie said, holding his head -- emotions were running high (fear and terror, mostly) and Scottie was finding himself involuntarily feeling it all. He didn't want to feel it, but he did. He could not stand it, as he fell to his knees. "LeVar, please . . . make if stop!"

"What do we do, LeVar?" Kathie asked.

LeVar knew he was considered to be the de facto leader of the five. But he also felt that he was quite out of his breadth here. He was no military commander. He hadn't any combat experience, as none of his team had. They had barely mastered the basics of their respective elements, and they hadn't been anywhere learning the more advanced sets. He didn't know how to make the hard calls, the otherfour just deferred to him as the leader of their little group pretty much from the moment they met. It wasn't even like he was the most powerful or the smartest or the most strategic, at least in his view.

"We must call the others in RAF," he said, deciding with finality. Joey's face set into a mulish expression as he had his back to the lot of him. He had an idea of what to do, but the others would not have it. And it was the easiest option, by far and away, to do. "And ask what our plan of attack, or plan of escape, should be."

True, you could say that that was a wishy-washy, namby-pamby answer, but give the kid a break. He was fourteen, and unaccustomed to lower military-grade combat. Not to mention it was the best decision he could have made with his current training (which was not too terribly much) and the resources available to him.

He had made the call, so he would . . . make the call. He put his communicator -- his smartphone -- to his ear and hoped someone would answer, as Joey rolled his eyes, unseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 19, 2018, 05:54:15 AM

Sorry for the chapter drought. I've been busy lately.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXX (1,280): "Deforestation" -- Plant.EXE desires to assimilate all plant life into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
A Disagreement

"Stop hounding me, Cloak." Parker said, still hiding his face behind his helmet. "It's already done. It's over. Move on."

Considering Cloak had held on to his hurt feelings about his mother for so long, until relatively recently, this was very much a futile suggestion from Parker.

"No, Parker, it is not over," Cloak said, feeling as if Parker was being rather dense, while knowing Parker was thinking that Cloak needed to let it go. "You are continually refusing to take any ramifications and consequences for your actions into account!"

"You know, Cloak," Parker said, rounding on him, "this a little hypocritical of you, considering that you, yourself, acted unilaterally to kill that Siren. Did you consider the consequences or ramifications then?"

"No," Cloak admitted, "but that was a while ago. I've learned from that mistake since then. Can you say the same?"

Parker did not deign to answer. And, yet, this was all the answer that Cloak needed. They had taken their argument to the communications room, where it's was Parker's turn in rotation.

"Parker, you can't run away from this," Cloak pressed. "You do realize what will happen when they find out?"

"They're not going to find out," Parker said. Cloak didn't not appreciate the tone. "Unless, of course, you betray our trust and tell them."

Cloak, if he was honest with himself, had considered the possibility, but he had refused to act in that way. Refused to act on the impulse. He wasn't that kind of person, and he felt insulted at the insinuation of otherwise.

"Watch your tone -- and implications -- SPARTAN," Cloak said, icily, "don't make me remind you what you've decided to clad yourself inside."

The two met gazes and stared at each other for a moment. You could cut the tension with a knife. This is when the first cracks truly appeared. A fracture seemed imminent. And one that was not so easily repaired.

It was then that the call came in.

"Forum," Parker said, taking the call, but not breaking eye contact with Cloak. Ordinarily , you weren't supposed to answer a communication call like that, but that was semantics.

It was LeVar, who quickly and succinctly summed up their situation at the museum. He followed up with asking, in a somewhat plaintive manner, "What should we do?"

"Get out of there," Cloak said at once . They five were severely undertrained for such an undertaking. They were not ready. They were too green. "Find a way to escape with your lives."

But Parker disagreed.

"Do what you can," he said, "we'll send reinforcements when we can."

Cloak looked at Parker as if he hadn't ever seen him properly before. He saw this act as reckless and pigheaded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 20, 2018, 09:52:16 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXI (1,281): "Purification" -- Virulence.EXE desires to absorb all toxins and poisons into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Unnecessary Force

Despite being quite able to hear Cloak's protestations to the contrary, hearing Parker's tacit approval to do whatever they could was all that Joey needed to hear. He wore was looked like a maniacal smirk that sent shivers down Scottie's spine. As Joey flexed his fingers, his psychotic little smirk becoming more pronounced, everything seemed to be travelling in half the speed that it ought.

Joey flexed his fingers in a rather agitated way, and each joint where the bones touched emitted a slight ember. The Cadmus grunts and stooges did not realize their very lives were in jeopardy. And that they were forfeit, as the higher-ups at Cadmus considered these people expendable and would outlive their usefulness after this battle. They would have been silenced either way. Their fates were collectively sealed, their lives already forfeit. And not a single one was the wiser.

The embers around his interphalangeal joints continued to slowly dance around his hands, as if time itself seemed almost to dread what would happen next. It was long before these embers launched into a full conflagration around the fourteen-year-old pyrokinetic's hands. None of the other "Lights" could react in time, nor to shout a warning to the soon-to-be victims or demand that Joey stop what he fully intended on doing.

With his hands fully engulfed, but unharmed, by the fire, he ****ed his arms back as the Cadmus stooges in a variety of bodysuits -- man, woman, and child -- started to have the merest inkling that something was happening in Joey's direction. They had no time to ponder, to consider, to realize that their end was closer than they thought when they woke up that morning.

They would never wake up again. Ever again.

Joey had lost control of the fire, this much was known to be true. But he had lost himself. He had allowed himself to revel in the destruction, to celebrate the morbid state of these people, many of which assumed that this job was a simple 9-to-5 job. But there was, even in the midst of gray areas, a line that can be crossed, but couldn't be crossed in the opposite way. Some cross it unknowingly and foolishly, others with full knowledge and intent. Some knew what this mission would entail, some just wanted to wear bodysuits and adopt new personas and identities, and others were forced into this by financial circumstance beyond their control.

This was not intended to be a spur-of-the-moment massacre, this was intended to send a message. The fact that the Lights were there was inconsequential. They were not intended to be part of the message. The message that the CADMUS Nobles wanted to send was obvious.

"RAFians you are no longer welcomed in our city nor our country. Get out."

The grunts that they had sent to send this message, for the most part, didn't know how expendable the CADMUS Nobles considered them. If they were to die, for whatever reason, it wasn't a big deal to CADMUS, as they deliberately selected people that no one would miss. Whether because they had no family or friends, or because they were estranged from them, it didn't matter. They were disposable. Societal throwaways. Inconsiderable and sacrificable.

And now they all were little more than cinders. However, not all caught in Joey's powerful fire blast (which blasted the far wall off the building) were members of of this disposable contingent of CADMUS grunts. There was a little boy and girl, Phrixus and Helle Nephelesen were caught in the blast. Only Phrixus survived, but not without distinct marring to his left eye.

Joey was unaware of this, and it was fortunate that he would never be able to reach Cloak's elemental might. He would never be able to go supernova and ignite the atmosphere of the planet. He might have just done that so recklessly here. He didn't think this through, as it took several concerted efforts for him to "turn off" his pyrokinetic blast.

"There!" Joey said, brightly, as if he just bested the world's speedrunning record at a game. "No more bad guys!"

"Are . . . are you serious?" Kathie said, aghast and appalled by what Joey just did. "You're celebrating what you just did?"

"You're actually proud of yourself?" Scottie said, amazing at the emotional disconnect that Joey seemed to be experiencing. "You just . . . just killed so . . . so many people. Their anguish . . . I can -- I can still feel it. . . ."

"C'mon, people!" Joey said, annoyed now. "They were the bad guys! The enemy! And now we've won!"

"'We'?" LeVar said, lowering his smartphone, apparently unaware that Parker had hung up already. His tone indicated a restrained anger. "There was no 'we' in this scenario, Joseph. It was all you."

"I know!" Joey replied, sounding like a child who just made an awesome move in some first-person shooter game. "Isn't great?"

"'Isn't it great?' Joseph, REALLY?!" Janice said, her anger only barely contained. "You're acting like this is all some sort of game! That those people that you just murdered were just meaningless NPC combatants or something. But, Joseph, they are . . . were REAL people. People with hearts and minds and feelings all their own. And you killed them. Killed them without a second thought. Killed them because of the childish notion that they were the 'bad guys' and so they deserved death for it."

"Not to mention you never took into account that not all of them might have been 'bad guys'," Kathie said. "It's like Cloak keeps telling you. This. Is. Not. A. Video game!"

But this didn't seem to get through to Joey. He was perplexed at this reaction. His simplistic, black-and-white view of things was that he took care of the bad guys and they should be celebrating him as a hero for it. He didn't comprehend where this hostility was coming from.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 21, 2018, 05:39:46 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXII (1,282): "Draconian Genocide" -- Scale.EXE desires to absorb all dragons into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
A Legendary Dispute

"You don't have a clue what you've just done, do you?" Cloak said, with a restrained tone of anger and accusation.

"They'll be fine," Parker said. "Until we give them some backup."

"You've signed their death warrants," Cloak said, his right hand messaging his brow in a very agitated way.

"They'll be fine. You worry too much," Parker said, almost dismissively.

Cloak wasn't referring to the Lights. He was referring to the CADMUS agents and grunts. He was well aware of Joey's immaturity, which is why he refused to teach Joey any of the higher tier techniques. He had tried to impress upon him how fire is a dangerous element to handle. Without the person there controlling stone or water, they would remain inert . . . but fire . . . it grows. It feeds. It consumes. Even when the pyrokinetic isn't actively using their ability. Joey's constant failure to understand this . . . it left Cloak to assume that he would never be a Master of the Fire Element.  He always treated as a toy, the way a toddler would wield an assault rifle.

Joey was too immature and irresponsible with the power he was given. Cloak knew this, and he even considered to going to talk with AniDragon about binding his powers, if he became a serious threat to others . . . and himself.

Parker knew none of this, and give him the go ahead to "do what he can". Cloak didn't need to read Destiny's diary to see where this was going and how it would end up.

"And you don't worry enough," Cloak said, almost mournful. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You've just killed all those people . . ."

"What?" Parker said sharply.

"Parker, there is a reason we haven't sent them on missions," Cloak said, adopting a scolding tone. Parker didn't much care for this.

"Just because they're kids doesn't mean that they aren't capable," Parker said, incorrectly anticipating Cloak's argument. "Considering how many times you put your own neice in potential harm's way, I thought you would have known that."

And there it was. The invisible line was crossed, and the two were now at the point of no return. Their friendship was forever marred and may be irreconcilable. Cloak's expression turned colder, far colder than anything Parker had experienced before. His eyes sparked with red and gold sparks.

"First of all," Cloak said, speaking very deliberately, clueing Parker in on how he crossed a line as far as the Realm Walker was concerned, "tagging along had always been Shadow's choice, and I never forced her into it. Second of all, Shadow had mastered all six Elements before she came along on a single mission -- the Lights have only been trained for three Earth weeks, and have yet to get beyond the basics of their respective elements. They can barely control their elements, but can only manage them enough to not explode with elemental power at the slightest bit of temper. Joey especially doesn't have the maturity or responsibility for the element he wields. Thirdly, I wasn't talking about their lives being in jeopardy, but those of the people around them."

 Parker said nothing, but Cloak wouldn't give him a chance to. Parker really riled him up.

"And, yet, you, knowing NONE of this, thinking you know better than me, the one training and teaching them. You tell them that they should 'do what they can'. You just gave them leeway to cause untold damage, Parker. They don't know how to deactivate their powers once they activate them. Not without several concerted efforts to do so. But, no, you tell them to 'do what they can'."

"You should have told me then," Parker said. He was clearly trying to ameliorate himself and his position

"You didn't give me an opportunity to!" Cloak countered, in immediate protest. "LeVar, Scottie, Kathie, and Janice, I believe, might have the good sense to not use their abilities in such a brazen, boneheaded fashion, but Joseph does not! The boy thinks that this whole thing is like some sort of game. He has become detached from the reality of the sheer dangerousness of his powers. He sees the world in black-and-white, and seemingly cannot see the grays of it. This is why he always trailed behind his fellows in training."

But Cloak's anger ebbed when he realized. When he realized that he was also culpable in this. He had been the one to suggest they visit the museum. He should have known that would have been a target for those with an anti-RAFian agenda and terroristic zealotry, authoritarian delusions of grandeur, or fascist tendencies. He was as much at fault for this as Parker. But he didn't want to admit it to himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 22, 2018, 08:30:27 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXIII (1,283): "Losing Ground" -- Soil.EXE desires to absorb all manner of soil into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Noble Response

It didn't take long for the news outlets to cover this story and immediately implicate the RAFians. Indeed, the likes of Bern Bridges were having a field day with this news. Although, if it was the side they were affiliated with, political commenters like Bern Bridges would immediately blame outlandish things and disregard witness testimony as them being "crisis actors".

"Well," said Indigo Noble, dispassionately, as they gathered together in their stolen or simulated pedo (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pedo-)morphic (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-morphic) identities or bodies, inside their secret sanctum. "That went didn't go exactly as planned."

"But, perhaps, even better," Red Noble said. "Though the loss of the bodysuits was to be expected. I halfway expected those peasant grunts to runaway with half of them."

This was actually the intention of about a half dozen of them, before fear of CADMUS finding and killing them drove it from their minds. CADMUS would have ways of tracking down their bodysuits, they felt. The Nobles would see it as a game.

"It was a nominal loss," Orange said, unconcernedly, "we'll be able to recoup it easioy enough. We have plenty of politicians in our pocket."

"Not to mention that Bern Burns, and other deplorables like him, serve us and our aims well," Yellow Noble said.

None of them were mentioning the lost of life that occurred. None of them were going to. The people they sent were, in their view, unimportant and expendable societal castaways. No one would miss them, as far as the Nobles were concerned.

"Yeah, funny how scruples and integrity go out the window if you pay someone well enough," Red Noble said, with a laugh.

Green Noble began to speak, and the other six immediately clammed up. "While the loss of the peons and the bodysuits was expected, the brutality of the RAFian was not. Going forward, we must strive to not be so cavalier and overconfident. The message was sent, but another was sent to us."

Still no one spoke, as Green Noble marshalled his thoughts and mulled over the best way to phrase it. His fellow Nobles were not idiots, he opined, but they weren't exactly geniuses either. And they could always mutiny and overpower this boy's body he inhabited. He had his reasons about choosing this particular boy, as well. He didn't want this adorable "packaging", as he thought of the boy, damaged in the slightest, unless, of course by his own metaphorical hand. Green Noble knew he had to be charismatic and intimidating at the same time, and it was a rough balance to maintain. Fortunately, none of his fellows was a Legilimens or a telepath.

"I must admit, we underestimated the power and restraint -- or the lack of restraint, rather -- that the RAFians could possess. We need to be more careful, less overt in our scheming, lest it be revealed to those peasants. If what we are doing becomes known, to the RAFians themselves, much less the peasants, all our goals - - financial and personal -- become all that much harder." he said. He lapsed into a momentary, thoughtful silence. It was a few moments before he spoke again, his fellow Nobles listening raptly, not daring to interrupt their dear leader. "Naturally, this doesn't leave this room. We have to be careful that our long-term aims are not jeopardized. This new wrinkle is one that we should have foresaw and accounted for."

"What if," Red Noble said, in a spurt of bravery, "what if we could get that powerful RAFian to defect? Join us and our aims?"

 Silence met this words, and anxiety and tension were rife in the air. How would Green Noble react to this interruption of his musings. The boy's face that he wore was inscrutable, as he mulled over what Red Noble said. Green Noble seriously considered it. And considered having that powerful RAFian as his . . . and keeping this boy's body for . . . other acquisitions and . . . other reasons.

"Intriguing concept," Green Noble said, slowly, not mentioning his depraved plans to the others, preferring to keep them personal.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 24, 2018, 11:06:24 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXIV (1,284): "Will and Won't" -- Pugilist.EXE desires to absorb all fighting spirit and willpower into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A Needed Rebuke

"Why is everyone getting so bent out of shape about this?" Joey was saying. They were back at the forum now , and the five were reporting to Cloak for a lesson. But Cloak wasn't having it. He refused to teach Joey a thing more. "I just got rid of the bad guys! We won! Why is everyone refusing to see that?"

After Cloak allowed himself a frustrated sigh, he said, "This isn't a game, Joseph. I am really getting tired of trying to impress that upon you, and you still not comprehending it. Those people may have been aggressors, but did they truly deserve to be incinerated for it? This isn't some sort of game where there's no consequence for such a thing. Those people were just that, people. With lives and, presumably, loved ones. With feelings, hopes, and dreams of their own. You do not know the circumstances to why they were there, nor do you even seem to be aware if there were any truly innocent beings caught in your blast. You seem to assume everyone of them were evil. That is black-and-white thinking, Joseph."

"They were the bad guys!" Joey said, upset that no one seemed to get this point. "They had guns and no one told them to shoot up the place."

"They didn't fire a single shot," Janice said.

"But they were going to!" Joey said, passionately. "Honestly! You're giving me grief for winning the day!"

"How can you be so disconnected with reality? Why is it so difficult for you to understand that they were real people, and not just 'enemy NPCs'?" Cloak lamented quietly. "I admit, I had thought that you'd grow out of this irresponsible, immature disposition you have. Clearly, you haven't, and I fear you won't. And you have one of the most destructive, potentially calamitous, elements under your control. Somewhat. And you wield it as if it were a toy!"

"I . . . I don't," Joey protested, with a whine.

"But you do!" Cloak said. "I had hoped that by training you in the element, that you would attain the necessary level of responsibility and maturity needed to wield it right. I was sorely mistaken. You wield it like a toddler with a semi-automatic weapon."

Joey said nothing, feeling like a child who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But his mind was fishing around for rationalizations, refusing to believe or admit that he was at fault for the slaughter of actual people. He steadfastly refused to acknowledge it.

"As such," Cloak said, turning his back on him and started to walk away, "our lessons are done. You clearly don't care about control and restraint. Life's nothing but a game for you. One that you think you're winning, when you aren't."

It was at this point that Joey came to the only unassailable and unopposable thought that he could muster. At least, he believed it was unassailable and unopposable.

"You're just jealous of my power!" he roared. "I'm clearly more powerful than you will ever be!"

Cloak stopped. It took him all his willpower not to burst out laughing with the absurdity of this assertion. If this was the only play that Joey could make, it was pretty pathetic. Cloak said nothing, at allowed Joey to dig himself deeper.

"That's it, isn't it?" Joey said, sounding rather like a desperate man clinging at straws. "That's the real reason you won't train me anymore, isn't? You're afraid that I'm more powerful than you."

"No, Joseph," Cloak said, quite calmly. "I've already given you my reason."

"You're jealous of my power!" he insisted. He clearly didn't want to admit any wrongdoing. And Cloak correctly anticipated what he was going to do before he did it.

"Don't do it," Cloak warned, simply.

He still had his back to the fourteen-year-old boy. But the Elements Master's warning fell on deaf ears once more, as Joey's fingers exuded the embers again. Always a warning sign. Then he blasted Cloak, like he did with the CADMUS grunts at the museum. What he thought that this would prove, no one was precisely sure. But emotions like those the boy was feeling are rarely ever sensible or logical.

When he managed to turn off his fire blasts, through four times of concentrated effort, he was shocked to see that his blast and become a cylindrical funnel which extinguished immediately from a gesture from Cloak's right hand. He had turned to face e boy, looking quite intimidating in doing so.

"You disappoint me, Joseph," Cloak said. "I only ever showed you a fragment of my power, of what I was capable of. I've incinerated eidolans. Kept the very Earth spinning for a continuous ten Earth hours. I've ripped in half a star ship. And, yet, in your childish bravado, you claimed to be more powerful than me. You assumed since I didn't show you the full breadth of my capability, that I hadn't any other capability. Joseph -- you are not mature enough to use your power responsibly. Teaching you more advance techniques would be paramount to allowing a ticking time bomb go unsupervised."

 Joey didn't say anything, though he did feel a twinge of fear from Cloak now.

 "It's over, Joey," Cloak said. "And if it were up to me, or if I could energybend, I would strip you of your power, so you couldn't hurt anyone else with it. But, it is not up to me, and the mods believe in second chances, despite the inclination of everyone else, apparently."

Cloak turned and continued to walk away from the humiliated boy, he also Walked, and as he did, the Mark shattered.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 26, 2018, 11:52:10 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXV (1,285): "Breathless" -- Wind.EXE desires to absorb all air and atmosphere into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Disillusionment

It wasn't long after that that Joey left the forum himself. He plainly refused to see his responsibility in the slaughter. He preferred his rather more childish, black-and-white outlook to the whole scene. The guys with guns were the bad guys. He took them out of the equation. End of story. Why was everyone still harping on him about it?

He turned his back on the other four Lights, tired of their accusatory glares and little hints about how much they despised him, about how they blamed him for Cloak's departure from the forum and the Realm. Seemingly never to return.

This wasn't his fault, he steadfastly asserted. None of this was his fault. He would not allow himself to be scapegoated and unfairly blamed for this. So he left. He was embittered about the whole thing. And there would be no cure for this acerbation he felt. In Joey's mind, he was the good guy by definition, the measuring stick that all other morality should be measured against. Was it self-aggrandizing. Yes. Quite so.

He spent the past few days living as a vagabond, without so much a bindle. He hadn't any real possessions to speak of, making it easier to "move house" as it were. All he had were the clothes on his back. He survived by dumpster diving (which took him some time, as his pride wouldn't allow for it, initially) and he slept in alleyways that only had one point of entry, as he was leery towards anyone else.

After a few days, he certainly looked scruffy enough that anyone wouldn't recognize him. That and he hadn't used his powers since he eliminated those that he still viewed as "the bad guys". He didn't even pause, even after all this time passed, to consider if any innocent people had gotten caught in his blast. Hee just felt unfairly judged by what considered to be righteous, virtuous actions. He never really did question his motives or the ramifications of his actions.

He wanted to be able to trust someone, but he feared a betrayal like those other four . . . he felt that they should have had his back. That they should have stood up for him. They instead, in his view, betrayed him and threw him under several buses. He felt that they betrayed him, and not the other way around.

He was in a desperate, vulnerable position.

***

Cloak had returned to the Nexus. He hadn't really wanted to, but the whole thing with Parker had disillusioned him, and the thing with Joey just compounded it. Perhaps Cloak was just jumping to conclusions, and making a mountain out  a molehill, but he felt disheartened. He feared that even his beloved RAF and its RAFians had been tainted with corruption. He felt that the forum was not as impregnable as he initially believed it was to it.

Was the cancer of corruption just inevitable to every and any positions of power? Did it just infect the holder of such offices quicker in some and slower in others? Was that just the eventual fate of anyone who claws their way into power? To wield the power in such a way that justice is forgotten?

He was a Realm Walker, and their stagnating government just kept proving this true, repeatedly. It was, quite literally, the oldest form  governance in existence, and its corruption was an overtly gangrenous wound upon their society, as it was upon all societies and civilizations. It was a marvel that the governance didn't collapse in upon itself.

But this wasn't truly the thing that was bothering him. What was bothering him was that on two accounts within a small span of time, he was ignored. Blatantly and wantonly ignored. Despite never admitting it aloud, he had conflated this with being back at his mother's falling-apart, dilapidated shack that he was forced to call home for nearly twenty Nexus years. It was a fact that his mother had a nasty bit of ignoring whatever he had to say if it was not something that she wanted to hear, immediately dismissing it as unimportant. The  getting mad at him for ignoring what he said, if it was really important.

Sure, he had thought that he had gotten over this, but, sometimes, wounds go so deep that they don't ever truly heal. Emotional wounds are among the most difficult, if not outright impossible in some cases, to heal. Trust that is lost or broken is exceptionally difficult to overcome, and re-attain that lost or forgotten trust once more.

And, once again, rather than face the problem, he had ran away from it, allowing himself to wallow in self-pity and victimhood like a pig with mud. Only this time, he wasn't consciously aware of it. His sullen mood threatened to overtake him, as he tried, with some valiant, if futile, to not fall into a deep depression. He remembered all too well what it felt like . . . the feeling that your entire existence was pointless and without merit, that no one would miss you if you were suddenly . . .not exist. The horrid, torpid stupor. The icy lethargy thst encompasses you and your thoughts. . . .

Cloak felt alone for the first time in a long time. And it was not a pleasant feeling.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 27, 2018, 06:41:30 AM

I think I can reveal now that this book was based, somewhat loosely on this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men:_Schism).

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXVI (1,286): "Soul Siphoning" -- Specter.EXE desires to siphon all souls, ghosts, and the entirety of Everlost and the Ghost Zone.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Friend Joey Needs?

So, it wasn't long before he ran into a kid that couldn't be any older than sixteen, who wore a delicate fedora with an emerald green plume that looked sun-dried as if it were forgotten outside for a while. He also wore a knee-length, shabby, brown coat which was threadbare at the elbows, fairly nondescript tattered undershirt, and old blue jeans that appeared to be torn almost artistically. He had bushy, curly hair that was untidy and unkempt -- understandable for a vagabond waif -- that recalled to Joey a stray cat he tried to adopt once. This bothersome pest, Joey had to admit, had some charisma, and was fairly dexterous in his movements. His constitution and health seemed nowhere as bad as some of the more forgotten masses have had.

He was talking, but it took Joey a bit before he recognized that this charismatic teen was addressing him. It took him a moment longer to realize that this teen was . . . singing. And his singing voice was not all that good.

"This town is not a nice place
For little friends all alone.
There are lots of twists and corners
That could lead to the unknown.
Let me guide your way,
And I'll be sure to help you through.
You could really use a friend out here
And luckily for you . . ."

He put his arm around Joey, and Joey was surprised by the stranger's iron grip. It was hard to break, and the song was, surprisingly, slowly convincing him. He wasn't fighting the grip as much, and he was starting to be persuaded.

"I'm the friend that you need!
When you're lost and don't know what to do,
I'm your pal, your amigo!
Useful and resourceful, too.
And my help, you'll concede,
Is a plus, guaranteed!
You can call and I'll come running.
Just follow my lead,
'Cause I'm the friend you need!

The song was, quite surprisingly, persuasive, despite being sung by someone with amateurish skill and an only mediocre voice.

"You need a bud to spot the danger.
A pal to stop the creep.
A chum, and not a stranger, to assist.
You need a bro who is cunning,
That can help you take the leap.
A friend who knows what's lying in the mist.
Don't fear these darkened alleys.
They're scary, yes, I know.
Why, you could use a friend
To protect you wherever you go!
And such a dazzling beauty,
Covered in dirt and muck.
But now your fate is changing.
Now you are in luck!
'Cause I'm the friend that you need,
When you're lost and don't know what to do.
I'm your pal, your amigo!
Lookin' out for friends like you!
And my help, you'll concede,
Is a plus, guaranteed!
Just call and I'll come running!
We'll say it's agreed . . ."

It happened so suddenly. There was no way that Joey could have prepared for it. Which is precisely what the stranger wanted. This stranger pulled Joey into a tight bear hug, and a form quickly left the stranger and entered Joey's body within seconds. As the stranger fell to the concrete, unconscious.

Joey smiled, and concluded the song, sound very much not like himself.

"'Cause he's the body I need."

It was Green Noble. He decided to "wear" someone more . . . powerful than his childish precious host. He had other plans for that host, while using Joey as a means of authority enforcement. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=c8bcWZuME-k

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 28, 2018, 06:06:47 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXVII (1,287): "Heating Up . . ." -- Thermal.EXE desires to absorb all fire and heat into itself.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXII:
CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE
CHAPTER ONE:
A Blockhead

Parker had gone to an area that looked like a theme park's replication of pyramids of vague Mayan or Incan design. He couldn't say much about the design aesthetic, as he felt rather indifferent to it. The entire place was made of pitfalls and a conveyor belts. Parker had to basically "Mario" his way through the entire place. But it wasn't long before he came to the fiend, in the very heart of one of these tacky pyramid reconstructions.

The fiend was rotund and reddish-orange with silver and black accents and dull, brown bricks covering its body. The lower half of its body jutted out a bit, as if it was a jutting jaw. It was roughly the same size as an average ten-year-old human child, and it had round eyes (reddish-orange sclera, brown irises) with no visible nose or mouth. Its upper arms and thighs were white while its hands and pod-like feet were black.

When it saw Parker, it decided to start of this battle by running across the room. This was easily dodged by sidestepping the fiend. However, just by moving, the fiend stopped in place for a second and then jumped to Parker's position, which he easily avoided by sliding beneath the fiend, and immeidately jumping to his feet. Then the fiend manifested four or five reddish-orange stone blocks above Parker, which fell to the ground. Parker simply fired upward to destroy the block above him.He

Parker took potshots at this fiend, saving the new experimental chain bombs in case of an emergency -- he had a finite amount of them. They were bombs that could chain together with gears to increase their payload.

Then the fiend activated what seemed to be some sort of power gear. He shot up through the ceiling, transformed into a golem head, with chunks of stones in the area following in its wake, transforming him into a giant stone golem as he crashes back down to the room. The fiend apparently was, in a way, a Headmaster (https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Headmaster) or Titan Master (https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Titan_Master).

In this giant form, this fiend began to slowly advance towards Parker, who was not intimidated. It attacked by slamming the ground with its hands, throwing powerful punches and scraping the ground with his fingers to send large stone chunks flying toward Parker, which were difficult to dodge, admittingly. In order to defeat it in this state, Parker took aim at the large red core in the middle of its golem chest. He used a couple of the chain bombs, which made short work of it.

With its golem body destroyed, it returned to normal and promptly falls flat on its face to the ground. However, it became enraged afterwards, jumping to its feet and rushing to the opposite side of the room from Parker to throw an endless barrage of stone blocks his way. parker's shots could easily pierce through the stones to hit the fiend, though it jumps as it manifests its stones which allows for it to avoid the ill-timed shots. The barrage itself could be avoided by either sliding or jumping depending on the trajectory of the stones. Although, Parker felt comfortable enough to unload the remaining chain bombs into the fiend to finish the job. All of them.

Yarin would later complain when Parker told him about it, "Parker, I needed those! (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EWVwiLyJ5k0)"

***

Demos called it a "burokkusapien". He claimed it was for construction purposes.

***

Malice was still harping on her last defeat, while watching this last fiend battle. She was rather embittered by it. And by losing her presence as the main antagonist of Cloak and his little Dweller pets.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 29, 2018, 09:03:11 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXVIII (1,288): "Absolutely Mental" -- Thought.EXE desires to absorb all minds, thoughts, and the entirety of the astral plane.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Dream Fixer-Upper

"Cloaky's home!"

The RAFians clambered around Cloak, excited to see their friend and colleague after brief departure of a few weeks. They didn't notice his guest at first, a lithe cheetah-form Realm Walker, all of his fellow RAFians clamoring around him.

"Dwellers. They're Dwellers!" Cloak' guest said, with a smile, having never seen Dwellers before. The RAFians turn in silence, to face her. Dino declared, "He's brought a girl!"

 And Cloak found this entirely embarrassing, as the RAFians cheered.

"What's going on?" she asked, standing next to Cloak.

"I've learned to just roll with it," Cloak said.

The RAFians seemed to be under the misunderstanding thaf the two were an item. They weren't. They weren't anything deeper than friends, really, and the two tried to correct this misunderstanding.

"What's the issue, dear?" Helen asked Cloak's guest. "Why are you holding back from such a man?"

Cloak couldn't stop the song from coming. Helen sang:

"Is it the clumpy way he Walks?"

Parker chimed in:

"Or the grumpy way he talks?"

Sorunome sang:

"Or the pear-shaped, square-shaped
Weirdness of his feet?"

Estelore sang:

"But you’ll never meet a fellow who’s as --"

Melissa and Broken sang:

"Sensitive and sweet!"

Cloak's guest interrupted, "That's nice, but--"

Faerie and Abby sang:

"So he’s a bit of a fixer-upper,
So he’s got a few flaws."

Teach sang:

"Like his peculiar brain, dear."

Aquilai sang:

"His thing with the Earth, dear."

Teach and Aquilai sang:

"That he holds in his claws!"

Then the RAFians as a whole sang:

"So he’s a bit of a fixer-upper,
But this we’re certain of!
You can fix this fixer-upper
Up with a little bit of love!"

"Can we please just stop talking about this?" Cloak almost pleaded. He was swiftly ignored.

Bladeh sang:

"Is it the way that he's always prepared?"

Gaz sang:

"Or that he’s emotionally-impaired?"

Leatherhead chimed:

"Or that he only likes to meditate in the woods!"

"I did not need to know that." Cloak's guest said, thinking that it was an euphemism, rather than being literal.

Then all the RAFians sang in unison.

"Or the way he covers
Up that he’s the honest goods?
He’s just a bit of a fixer-upper,
He’s got a couple of bugs.
His isolation is confirmation
Of his desperation for healing hugs!
So he’s a bit of a fixer-upper,
But we know what to do!
The way to fix up this fixer-upper
Is to fix him up with you!"

"Stop it, stop it, stop it! ENOUGH! She is engaged to someone else, okay?!" Cloak shouted, allowing a beat of silence as the RAFians blinked at him. Then they circled into a huddle, and Phoenix sang:

"So she’s a bit of a fixer-upper."

Duff sang:

"That’s a minor thing."

Horse sang:

"Her quote 'engagement' is a flex arrangement."

Leatherhead added:

"And, by the way, I don’t see no ring!"

Realm Walkers don't exchange rings for marriage ceremonies. There was a stark cultural difference in that.

The RAFians then sang:

"So she’s a bit of a fixer-upper,
Her brain’s a bit betwixt.
Get the fiancé out of the way and
The whole thing will be fixed!"

Helen took Cloak's guest's hand in her own and sang:

"We’re not sayin' you can change him,
‘Cause people don’t really change.
We’re only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices if they’re mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way!"

Then all of the RAFians sang:

" Throw a little love their way!
And you’ll bring out their best.
True love brings out their best!
Everyone’s a bit of a fixer-upper,
That’s what it’s all about!
We need each other
to raise us up and round us out.
Everyone’s a bit of a fixer-upper,
But when push comes to shove --"

GH chimed in:

"The only fixer-upper fixer
That can fix up a fixer-upper is --"

The rest of the RAFians, except Cloak, sang:

"True! true!
True, true, true!
Love (True love)
Love, love, love, love, love
Love! (True love!)
True . . ."

"Do you, Miss, take Cloaky to be your RAF-fully wedded?" Estelore said, holding a thick, opened book.

"Wait, what?" Cloak's guest asked at once.

"You’re getting married." Estelore said, as if this was obvious. Then the song concluded.

"Love!"

It was at this point that Cloak awoke. He couldn't help but smiling a bit, as he could easily imagine his friends in the forum going a tad overboard like that, but that marshalled into his mind far more sober and somber thoughts.

Having a wife and family is what he would see if he looked into the Mirror of Erised, assuming it worked properly for Realm Walkers. It was his deepest desire -- to be a family man. . . .

But, deep down, he knew it would never happen. He was too afraid to engage with a woman in that manner . . . terrified in being another abusive relationship, akin to the dysfunctional, abusive relationship he had with his mother. He also feared potentially perpetuating the cycle of abuse. He knew he had a temper -- he inherited it from his mother.

He never told his friends this . . . it was far too personal.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zrL6fbgAO74

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 30, 2018, 08:17:11 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCLXXXIX (1,289): "Draining Darkness" -- Evil.EXE desires to absorb all evil, darkness, and even the Void Space into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Unwanted Visitation

Shenecron was less than pleased when he left his beautiful soul garden -- where the souls would be forever preserved. The loss of all independent and autonomous thought and self-awareness wouldn't lessen their value any. But what he found displeasing was the interruption of his "soul gardening" if you will.

They called themselves the Octessence. And Shenecron saw them as little more than former frat brothers who hadn't moved on from the fraternity life and grown up. Their obliging on his hospitality rankled the Prince of Hell. Of all the people who would come to call -- it had to be them.

They were clearly here once again to ask him to take part in their Wager. Once long ago, there was a disagreement about who was stronger amongst them. Shenecron, personally, didn't care one way or another who was or wasn't stronger. He found that such pride was often a detriment rather than a benefit. So the Wager came about to see who, amongst their new Exemplars -- expendable avatars, each bearing the equivalent amount of power from each one of the Octessence, through a very special, very unique item.

It was actually Shenecron who suggested this, and he only did so to get them to stop bothering him. he had thought that that would have pacified them for a couple of centuries. He had thought that that would have settle things, but had failed to account for their egos. Then there was that time that they tried and failed to make an engine of sorts that was intended to strip the mortals of their free will and autonomy and self-awareness. (They didn't like talking about that failure.) He had other concerns at the moment, and he didn't have time to deal with this Wager of the Octessence.

"I think you know why we've come," one said, addressing Shenecron.

"Indeed, Cyttorak," Shenecron said, biting back his displeasure. This had to be handled delicately, or his abode might become a mess that he didn't want to clean up.

Cyttorak, and his indestructible crimson bands. He held a completely armored form, reminiscent of his Expemplar, known as the Juggernaut. He used the Crimson Ruby of Cyttorak to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron saw him as the typical jock stereotype -- incredible physicality and a powerful presence, but very little in the terms of academic intelligence.

"The time of the Wager is upon us," another said.

"I'm aware, Balthakk," Shenecron said, politely , but his mind was racing how to get these people off his back and out of his abode, which they just had decided to invite themselves into.

Balthakk, and his baleful bolts. He held a form of a cloud of energy or charged particles floating freely. He used the Brazier of Balthakk to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron saw him as the stereotypical ditzy and wishywashy airhead -- scatterbrained, silly, and insipid -- though powerful in his own right.

"Then you know that we, once again, have need of you and your services," another one said.

"I surmised as much, Watoomb," Shenecron said, exasperation threatening to creep into his voice. They were after him to serve as the judge for their Wager. He had already been a judge at least two other Wagers, and those were e ones that he cared to even remember.

Watoomb, with his winds, scrolls, and wand. He presented himself as an armored humanoid with insectoid and feline characteristics. He uses the Waterfall of Watoomb to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron found him to be an incurable, egotistical blowhard and an academic elitist.

"We've managed to get our Exemplars," said another.

"As I suspected, Farrallah," Shenecron said. He really wasn't up for this Wager. He was tired of being their judge. No one was ever happy with his final verdict, and would always, inevitably, dispute his decisions.

Farrallah, with his teleportation. He presented himself as a powerful humanoid with ruminant characteristics and a cameline hump. His hands ended in very sharp nails or claws -- it was difficult to call them on or the other. He uses the Fearsome Fist of Farrallah to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron saw him as wild, savage, feral, and uncouth.

"So, we've come to collect you," another said.

"So I've surmised, Valtorr," Shenecron said, flashing a smile. He had an idea to get around this. But he had to approach it delicately, and with cunning. He didn't want any one of them to perceive a deception on his part. This would be just like convincing a mortal to sign a contract -- but he had to crank his deviousness, sneakiness, underhandedness and craftiness. He had to rely on his cautelous nature for this. "But, if I may make a suggestion?"

Valtorr, with his various vapors. He presented himself with a grayish serpentine from with a crest of raised scales. He used the Verdant Vial of Valtorr to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron saw him as one of those out-of-touch elitist sorts, who got offended by stupid, inane crap that no one really cared about.

"What do you suggest?" said yet another of the Octoessence.

"Nothing much, Ikonn," Shenecron said, smoothly. He had to play it cool and differential. He had to act as if his suggestion was no big thing, had to deceive them without being obvious about it. It all rode on his appearance of calmness and respect. "Just a slightly different Wager, so to speak."

Ikonn, with his illusions and images. He presented himself with a humanoid insectoid form adorned with dark green spikes and grey-green eyes that lacked pupils of any kind. Each limb he had ended in four radially arranged claws. he had a proboscis where a human mouth would normally be. He used the Ivory Idol of Ikonn to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron saw him as disingenuous and deceptive, but less so then Shenecron himself.

"Different?" said the seventh of the Octessence. "Different in what way?"

"Well, Raggador," Shenecron said, continuing to speak smoothly and not oily. He wanted to give off the impression of genuineness and not that he was a used car dealer hawking a rundown jalopy as a brand new car. He had to choose his words with the utmost care. "I wish to . . . participate . . . this time."

Raggador, with his rings, rains, and ribbons. He appeared as a creature with a four-armed but otherwise humanoid torso and a blue-colored serpentine lower body. His face remained concealed behind a heavy blue helm from which projected bluish horns similar to those of a ram. He used the Ringed Ruby of Raggador to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron saw him as a bit of a dandy and much too concerned about appearances, and powerful presences.

"Participate? In the Wager? " the only one of the Octessence to not have spoken yet said.

"Yes, Krakken," Shenecron said. He would have to use a great amount of charisma and wisdom in order to succeed with his plan, and his plan to rid himself of the Octoessence forever. "One of my eight champions each against one of your Exemplars."

Krakken, the last one, and his chains. It appeared as a figure in grayish armor which possessed a number of long, sharp blades. He used the Kestrel Key of Krakken to turn an unsuspecting mortal into his Exemplar for the Wager. Shenecron found him prickly and standoffish.

"But that's not the way the Wager is done," Ikonn said.

"Oh," Shenecron said, expertly feigning disappointment. He knew that there would be resistance at first. "If you feel that your Exemplars aren't powerful enough to best my eight champions bearing the Azure Sigil of Shenecron, I suppose that I can understand that."

"That's not what I meant!" Ikonn protested.

Shenecron expertly stifled his smile. This was playing out exactly as he planned it would. The Octessence concerned themselves too much with brute power, and the appearance of being powerful. They would never stand the implication of being weaker than anyone, even if it's by implication of having a weak Exemplar.

"My Exemplar is not weak!" Cyttorak roared.

"So, you're willing to consider my amendment to the Wager?" Shenecron said, expertly feigning sincerity. "I know it's novel, after the previous Wagers. But isn't that what makes it interesting?"

There was some rumblings, which eventually became grunts of consent.

"Would you like me to put it down in writing?" Shenecron said, with faux earnestness.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 01, 2018, 09:47:39 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXC (1,290): "Worldwide Drought" -- Spout.EXE desires to absorb all water into itself. . . .

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity, and don't expect a chapter tomorrow -- have to work a double shift at work.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Skeleton Crew

Meanwhile, back at the forum, it was fairly abandoned, as there was evidently some sort of holiday that the humans celebrate. Something about giving thanks, with regard to what you have. Realm Walkers don't really have a holiday like that. To be fair, they don't have very many holidays, if any. They just usually just go through the day-to-day minutiae, with the normal breaks and whatnot.

It was rather ominously quiet, and some of the verve in forum was gone. Only Cloak, Spectre, Underseen, Wild, Yarin, Cerulean, Aquilai, and Estelore were the only ones remaining in the forum. They had their own reasons for staying and not going home. Cloak didn't pry into why, but he knew why he stayed. RAF was his home. Thhere was no other "home" for him to return to.

There were a few RAFians that he did know, or otherwise surmise, what they were doing. Dino was with . . . well, it probably didn't matter much, as she wasn't in harm's way. GH and Leatherhead were on some father-son camping trip (he knew that GH was secretly thinking what had possessed him to make him think that this was a good idea), and Saffa, Abby, and Helen were definitely with family.

"Family". A term that could be interpreted broadly as all-encompassing or narrowly as exclusivity. There were arguments to be made that family was regulated as people who share bloodlines (or ichorlines, in the case of Realm Walkers), or that it truly consisted of people who genuinely cared about you and your wellbeing. And those were just the two extremes, with plenty of gray inbetween. For him, "family" consisted of his late grandather, his late aunt, Mercy, her husband, Mercy's four boys and their families, Faith, Shadow, and Shadow's father (Faith's husband). Possibly his father . . . assuming the man is even still alive . . .

The remaining RAFians milled around, enjoying the crisp chill in the air. They were well into autumn now, the leaves had turned and deserted their branches a while ago, while the one or two clung on desperately. Winter would be here soon, and Cloak, for one, hated winter. He wasn't a fan of snow or ice. It made it more difficult for him to use his Earthsight, which he felt was half-blinding.

That's when it happened. Cloak was standing right outside the General Fan Fiction & Art Board building, when it happened. The sky darkened and reality itself seemed to bubble and deform. It appeared as if a cloud of purplish-black smoke was surrounding him, obscuring the environment behind it. It was almost as if he were being sent to the "Shadow Realm (http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_Realm)" except the Shadow Realm didn't exist -- Void Space was the closest analogue. And it certainly wasn't Hell -- Heaven and Hell were places that Realm Walkers couldn't penetrate because of the metaphysical nature of them. It was an odd idiosyncrasy to be sure, but it existed.

There was no telling of what this was about, but his RAFian training allowed him to not panic and survey what was going on with almost practiced ease. There seemed to be a ring of sorts with flat, even ground. Then it hit him. It was rather obvious at this point. He was meant to battle someone.

He wondered idly if a guy with a shotgun leg (http://deathbattle.wikia.com/wiki/Boomstick) and a guy with a robotic arm (http://deathbattle.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard) were behind this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 04, 2018, 05:23:03 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCI (1,291): "Metallic Hoarding" -- Metal.EXE desires to absorb all metal into itself. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Juggernaut

Randall Meeks was just a rail-thin, almost emaciated-looking fellow with very little strength to him. He was always pushed around, and, though he never said anything about it, he hated it. He absolutely despised being so marginalized and frequently antagonized. He loathed being so while being unable to do anything about it. But there wasn't a thing he could do about his situation, he felt.

Sure, he could go to the gym. Actually use that gym membership that he was strong-armed and muscled into obtaining. Yet, he never used it. He felt far too intimidated by all the regulars there . . . looking at his tall, yet scrawny, appearance . . . and judging him for it. There was a reason why he wasn't a public speaker.

And it wasn't strangers that were pushing him around. His mother, father, and younger brother and sister pushed him around as well. And, he knew, if he was marries, he'd probably be pushed around by his wife, and any children they might have together. He was tired of it. But instead of conceiving of actually standing up for himself, he was considering just running away. running away from it all. As far as he was concerned, living as a vagabond would be preferable to this kind of slow torture.

But he had an inner maliciousness that he chose not to show. He would often fantasize about making all those who marginalized and minimized him pay. And a fair few of these vivid, esoteric fantasies incorporated a rather high level of violence and gore. But these were fantasies as far as he was concerned, as he never had an inclination to actually act upon them. As much as he may have wanted to, at times.

He was fleeing some bullies that seemed to think that brutalizing him for sport was a leisure activity. He didn't agree. It was then that he tumbled down into and odd place, behind a sewer grate.

This didn't eliminate his sense of foreboding. He's seen "It". He knew about Pennywise. So he was terrified to see that he wasn't in some sewer, but some sort of crimson temple. He was terrified, but . . . curious. He felt himself drawn towards . . . something. Something he felt more than he saw, though he did see a crimson glow.

He walked forward, entrance by the glow and the sensation he felt. He followed it until he saw a crimson ruby, hovering in front of him. Without so much as pausing to think, to consider the ramifications or consequences of the act, he reached out for the gem, and grasped into his hands, and saw some words before his eyes, and read the words aloud.

***

"Whosoever touches this Ruby shall possess the power of the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . a human juggernaut!"

Underseen was surprised to hear the voice, but not see anyone. Then he saw the Juggernaut emerge from the purplish-black clouds. He knew full well who the Juggernaut was -- the Exemplar identity not the verecund man beneath the Ruby's power.

Randall did not seem to be aware of being translocated to this spot so he could do battle with "one who bore the Azure Sigil of Shenecron". Cyttorak didn't so much as speak to him, expecting him to know what to do, and what the demonic deity of the Octessence wanted of him.

All Randall knew now was he had power and all inhibitions seemed to have been wiped away from him, and the young man found that extremely freeing and exhilarating. The feeling of absolute assurance that he had no responsibilities to burden him, he didn't have worry about keeping up appearances, and he felt no one could tell him what to do anymore (which was technically not true, as Cyttorak was calling the shots, but Randall did not know that).

All Cyttorak told him, in the infinitesimal time it took him to be transported all the way to RAF, was that he had to kill the chosen Exemplar of Shenecron. Cyttorak felt that he would truly settle who was the most powerful, assured that his Exemplar was truly unstoppable. He had removed any psychological barriers or reservations this human had against violence or killing.

"Juggernaut," Underseen said, "I thought that you were finished."

All Randall said to him was, "Die".

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 05, 2018, 07:55:25 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCII (1,292): "A Major Blackout" -- Thunder.EXE desires to absorb all electricity into itself. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Brawn and Brain

"I'd much rather not," Underseen said, well aware of what the Juggernaut was capable of.

"Yeah," the Juggernaut said rudely, "I don't care."

"Clearly," Underseen said, standing his ground. Sure, the Juggernaut was more powerful than him in terms of raw brute power and momentum, but Underseen clearly was more clever and intelligent. He just needed a plan, a course of action. He knew already that he would have to improvise one on the fly.

The Juggernaut began to charge at him -- Underseen knew and understood no matter what form he took that he would not be able to stop his momentum. Prior experience would quite clearly play a pivotal role in this battle.

Underseen sidestepped him, discovering that this Juggernaut could not turn on a dime. But, then again, the visibility in that helmet couldn't be the best. Underseen shapeshifted into a robin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_robin) and flew over his next go round. And he floated, unseen, above the Juggernaut until he came up with a plan . . . a dangerous plan. The way to defeat the Juggernaut. He could not be overpowered, but he could easily be out-thought and outfoxed. And Underseen thought his plan could legitimately work . . .

But he would have to be careful, but fast. If all goes well, he wouldn't even have to kill him per se. Underseen, still in the form of a robin, landed daintily on one of the armored bits, close to his helmet, as the Juggernaut was getting irritated at the seeming disappearance of his foe.

"Does this mean I win already?" he complained loudly belligerent and rudely bellicose. "My opponent has left the arena!!"

But Underseen hadn't left the arena at all. He shapeshifted into a small, generic bug and he crawled toward the mouth opening of the Juggernaut's helmet. But he wasn't done changing form, as he shifted into the form of a flea -- the smallest thing that he can shapeshift into. With that done, he managed to wriggle his way into the helmet without the Juggernaut even noticing. Good. The RAFian's plan, insofar, was working. The Juggernaut still seemed oblivious to it.

Soon, Underseen was within the safe confines of the helmet -- the Juggernaut couldn't really harm him in here. And, to be fair, neither could he . . . well, there was one thing he could do, but he wasn't nearly so heartless and without humanity to even conceive acting on that, even as a last resort. He knew that the Juggernaut was just a person endowed with a fraction of Cyttorak's power.

Underseen deftly went from flea to mosquito, and he was completely unnoticed by the Juggernaut. Good. Underseen may not have been able to attack the Juggernaut directly, like some of the other RAFians could possibly -- but that didn't mean that there weren't other ways to win such a battle. And win without blood being drawn.

All Underseen had to do now was be as obnoxious, as irritating, as annoying as possible. And there was nothing that the Juggernaut could do about it. He couldn't swat Underseen away, not with his helmet still in place. Underseen was as protected in here as was Randall. Underseen stopped himself fro. growing too complacent -- that would have ruined this plan in an instant. Possibly.

Underseen buzzed Randall's ears, but only for fleeting moments, allowing him the briefest moments of peace before buzzing his other ear. He had to be precise about this, to make him paranoid. Hopefully, he was one of those entomophobic sorts.

Apparently, this person was one that got frustrated and annoyed easily. This was an unexpected boon for Underseen.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 07, 2018, 06:32:23 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCIII (1,293): "Cold Shouldering" -- Cold.EXE desires to absorb all cold and ice.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Underseen Victorious . . . ?

Underseen would deny it should anyone have accused him of it, but he was enjoying tormenting the Juggernaut in this way. He knew that insects didn't really have the intellectual capacity for maliciousness, but he couldn't help but wonder if this is this was why they constantly seem to buzz people's faces or ears. It gave him a trollish satisfaction to do this, and he knew he really shouldn't be enjoying tormenting someone like this, even if that person wanted him dead. For some reason.

But Underseen knew better to kid himself. Everyone had a threshold for annoyance and frustration. And, for some, this threshold is more visible than others. Underseen knew that it was just a matter of time before that threshold was not only reached, but surpassed. Then the hard part will commence.

If he were a Saturday morning cartoon protagonist, he would be spouting out some sarcastic, sardonic banter with the Juggernaut, but that was stupid and counterproductive to the plan he had formulated. He had to be cautious with what he did. This part was the simple and straightforward part. The dangerous part would come when he took off his helmet and he could swat at Underseen.

Of course there was a potentially easier and more permanent way to stop the Juggernaut . . . but Underseen had qualms about murdering the Juggernaut. He knew that the Juggernaut was just a mystically-endowed person who may very well not be aware of their actions. How would that justify killing him? Besides, there were less lethal ways to defeat someone. He just had to be fast and clever about it.

Underseen knew when the threshold had been reached when he heard the sheer volume of profanities and vulgar language the Juggernaut spewed. This was good sign. Now he had to push the Juggernaut a bit further . . .

And there it was. He was taking off his own helmet. Here's where it got truly dangerous.
The Juggernaut, apparently quite enraged, threw the helmet on the far side of the little makeshift arena. He saw more clearly the bloodshot nature of the Juggernaut's eyes, and the bags. Underseen was positive that those didn't come from him.

"You think you're so tough, little bug?!" Randall snarled, looking around for Underseen, who had temporarily relocated to the small of the Juggernaut's back. There the shapeshifter rested as the Juggernaut seemed to become even more irritated, to the point of hysterical paranoia. Underseen couldn't tell if the Juggernaut even realized that Underseen had shapeshifted into a flying insect. Maybe he was legitimately scolding a bug, if which was a real, legitimate bug it wouldn't have the intellectual faculties to understand anything that the Juggernaut said as speech, as actually meaning anything. "I will smash you to bits!"

After mentally preparing himself for it, Underseen went back to buzzing the Juggernaut's head and facd. He was fully aware that he could get swat now, and possibly crushed. But that was the risk that came with his plan. He had to immediately shapeshift into a flea when the Juggernaut almost succeeded in smashing him, which allowed him to survive the blow.

"Stop it and die!" Juggernaut whined.

Underseen once again wondered if he knew that Underseen was sentient or if he was just making demands of a creature without the intellectual capacity to obey demands.It didn't really matter in the long run, as long as Underseen continued to make the Juggernaut look foolish.

It seemed like forever, but apparently Cyttorak got tired of his Exemplar making a fool of himelf, and Cyttorak himself, by extension. Cyttorak reclaimed his fraction of poser and the Ruby from Randall, and Underseen revealed himself to have been the pesky bug.

Randall was sent back to his cruddy life, apparently with no knowledge of ever being Juggernaut, except for the remnants of a fevered fantasy, and the arena disappeared. This left Underseen wondering what was going on.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2018, 08:08:35 PM

Sorry for the delay. We got slammed with a winter storm here -- and just getting to work is a trial in and of itself.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCIV (1,294): "Stone Cold" -- Stone.EXE desires to absorb all stone, gems, and crystals into itself. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
The Stonecutter

Perry Frasis (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/periphrasis#English) was, what many considered to be a bit of a maverick, with some ideological positions many could see as being quite . . . indefensible. He tended to use a lot of long-winded rhetoric to describe a very simple concept. As such, it should be no surprise that he was a politician once upon a time. But he wasn't a very good one, as he was incapable of getting anyone to vote him, much less remember his name.

After his political failures (which was the only thing he was remembered for, and marginally, at that), he decided to try his hand at building, at being an architect. But he failed spectacularly in that venture as well as he didn't bother to make his buildings up to federal code, cutting corners to maximize his wallet, and the structures always turned into dilapidated messes very quickly. He had to file for bankruptcy for this, and so he could avoid potential lawsuits from both angry clients and tenants. This was the second major failure that he tried to ignore, to protect his rather fragile ego.

Then he tried his hand at sculpture, and it was here that he found some modicum of success. Even though he wasn't very good, and his scultures were very niche and kitchy. And when his sculptures became slightly profitable, he became ****y and egotistical. Insufferably so. This alone turned off many people to him. Others lost interest because his artistic style stagnated and remained the same, and that became stale and boring to the prospective buyers of his sculptures.

This caused him to become embittered, especially when he discovered how quickly he was forgotten and how finicky the art world was. He soon lost everything (as he never learn prudent budgeting of his money), and was thrown out of the home that he had known for several years. It tough not to be resentful of the art community (and the politicking community, and the architecting firm, amongst others). He always blamed others for his failings and shortcomings, refusing to take any responsibilities for his own decisions and their repercussions and consequences.

It was at this lowest point of his life that he found the Temple of Raggador. He immediately noticed that their was some sort of ring motif going on here, but he felt apull, a draw towards something in the center of this temple. . . .

***

"Whosoever touches this Ringed Ruby shall possess the power of the Rain of Raggador and Ribbons of Raggador! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . a human stonecutter!"

Aquilai heard it, but didn't have a clue what it meant. Other than it sounded like that Juggernaut fiasco that happened a while ago. Aquilai certainly hopped not. True that he had another eleven Regenerations in him, but he rather not have to Regenerate again. It seemed like not so long ago when he Regenerated into his firebending incarnation. He knew that his Earthbending incarnation would be next, but he rather not have to be that incarnation just yet.

It wasn't too long until the Time Lord RAFian saw him. In silhouette, he looked rather similar to Darkseid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkseid), and when thrown in better relief and better lighting, this newcomer had the same build and skin tone, but only his mouth was visible, and, where his eyes would be, there were stylized yellow markings on his helmet, which, along with most of his armor, a deep reddish-orange. Upon his chest there was a sigil of some sort, in gold. There were moderately-sized gold studs on his armor going up his shoulders, and two where his ribcage met his gut. He had a tool belt of various strange looking gold tools with an ornate buckle. And his pants and boots were the same color as his armor.

"Who are you?"

"I am the Stonecutter," he said, his voice a lower pitch than Aquilai was expecting. "And my patron, Raggador, had determined that it's time for you to die."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 12, 2018, 05:12:35 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCV (1,295): "Magical Siphon" -- Magic.EXE desires to absorb all magic into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Power of an Exemplar, Inadequacies of a Man

"Oh, me? Die?" Aquilai said, casting his mind around for a nonviolent way out of this situation. He didn't know much about the Stonecutter, but he knew just from looking at him that he hadn't the raw brute strength to take him on in a head-on confrontation.

And it was clear, whoever this Stonecutter was, he assumed Aquilai was human. It was a common mistake people have, just looking at Time Lords. There was a strong resemblance, outwardly, between their species. Perhaps Aquilai could somehow use that to his advantage.

"You know, to be frank, I'd honestly rather not," Aquilai said, deliberately omitting telling him about his Regenerations.

"Your consent doesn't matter," the Stonecutter said.

"How come I have the sneaking suspicion that you've worked in either politics or Hollywood?" Aquilai quipped easily, his mind still casting around for a simple, nonviolent solution. Perhaps antagonizing the Stonecutter wasn't a brilliant maneuver, though.

"You shall die, Sigil-Bearer," the Stonecutter said, beginning to tinker with what Aquilai assumed was just some miscellaneous debris. He was making obvious armaments. At least, that would be what logic dictated. "And Raggador will be proven the strongest of the eight."

Aquilai had no idea how to parse that, but he pretended that this wasn't so, as he didn't want the Stonecutter to get too much information from loud protests and panicked denials. And such reactions would be clear and obvious indicators that Aquilai was hiding something.

"So this is a contest of sheer power and not one of ingenuity?" Aquilai asked, seemingly to stall. But he was, in fact, trying, in a cunning way with subtly manipulative rhetoric. It may not have been the stereotypical " heroic" thing to do, but Saturday morning cartoon heroics rarely ever work the way the subject in question desires.

The Stonecutter stopped tinkering with his device of unknown design or recognition to Aquilai. The slow, deliberate way the Stonecutter did it, it was clear that he considered something that Aquilai said, something that he had the merest gall to question, quite offensive. "Are you suggesting that I am devoid of ingenuity?"

"Oh, no! Perish the thought, Stonecutter!" Aquilai said with an air of insincerity that the Stonecutter missed. And Aquilai had to supress the smile he was feeling. He may have just found a suitable weakness to exploit. Clearly, this Stonecutter person harbors some deep-set feelings of inadequacy, but covers them -- or tries to anyeay -- with bluster and intimidation. "I was just requesting clarification on the circumstances on how you shall try to kill me. Will it be a straightforward manner of fisticuffs or something more . . . indirect?"

But this was an assumption on Aquilai's part. The assumption was a monumental gamble on the Time Lord's part, and he knew it perfectly well. The Stonecutter only stopped a few minutes to consider how to answer the questions, but, in the end, chose to ignore them. He just continued to work on his machine, which would be finished in a few minutes, but, judging from the Stonecutter's attitude and behavior, he could have finished it within seconds. He was just enjoying building it. He was actually savoring it.

"You're attaching that flange all wrong," Aquilai gambled. He hoped he wasn't being to brazen with this plan. He hoped that he had not lost any subtlety in his rhetoric. He had to be careful. "It's going to fall off at the slightest pressure exceeding --"

"No, it will not!" Stonecutter said sharply. Again, Aquilai had to suppress a smile, knowing that he was hitting pay dirt. "The flange is just fine bolted right there. I know what I'm doing!"

"Are you sure about that?" Aquilai asked innocently. The Stonecutter didn't snap or seem to find this demeanor or question offensive, but said nothing. "Because it blocks that kinetic assembly there."

"There is sufficient clearance for the kinetic assembly to move and perform its desirous action," the Stonecutter said, dismissively. He clearly didn't see anything wrong with this scenario -- the person his patron told him, in not so many words, to kill was now helping him, seemingly build the device of the RAFian's own destruction. He didn't find anything weird from that. "Again, I know what I'm doing."

But his tone suggested otherwise. Aquilai said, "Well, if you're sure . . . just don't blame me when it blows up in your face."

 The Stonecutter said nothing, but Aquilai knew that this hit home.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 15, 2018, 05:34:03 AM

Sorry about the delay, shiny hunting, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and work have been distracting me.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCVI (1,296): "Swarm Siphon" -- Bug.EXE desires to absorb all swarms and insects into itself.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
What a Farce!

Aquilai could see that the Stonecutter, despite himself, was second-guessing his decisions now. This was good. This could mean that the Time Lord could potentially defuse this entire situation nonviolently. And he was starting to feel that he and the other RAFians were solving all their problems with force and violence -- and that's hardly the example that he thought they ought to be setting.

The Stonecutter looked at the flange, and the kinetic assembly to this "god machine" he was building and he wondered -- what if this guy was right? What if he had been mistaken? His patron had supposed enhanced his building and sculptural capabilities to far above they were before, but he had the little worm of doubt in his mind now.

His pride, however, would not allow him to admit this aloud. His pride remained unchanged since before he became the Stonecutter. But he had no way of knowing that Aquilai was completely insincere about what he was pointing out, that the Time Lord would not be suggesting ways to make a machine designed to kill him more efficient. But this completely went over the head of Perry, who was seemingly oblivious to this little factoid.

The Stonecutter actually hesitated before stubbornly working on the rest of his machine. But Aquilai knew that his words had made the desired impact. Self-confidence was not always a common thing, and bravado and pride often covers up a lack of self-confidence.

"Is this your cooling system and power supply?" Aquilai asked. There wasn't any really wrong with it, but Aquilai had to keep up the facade. The Stonecutter's self-doubt was his biggest ally here, and he needed to extrapolate it. Make it grow. He was well aware of h manipulative this was, but it was a nonviolent means to reduce the Stonecutter's threat level. At least, this was what the Time Lord had hoped. "Don't you think such a design makes short circuits inevitable?"

The Stonecutter said nothing but a grunt. Aquilai was savvy enough to know that the Stonecutter thought that the Time Lord had a point, and immediately began to rework this part of this grand doomsday machine he was making. Instead of making it better, he was actually making it worse for his grand machine, a problem that always tended to come about when your over-design something. Simplicity is sometimes needed over complexity.

Yet, the most egregious fact of this was that Perry never questioned Aquilai's intent or motives for pointing these things out. He never paused to consider that he was being misled, or being manipulated in any way. It is one reason he never really found any real success as a politician, as he was always the patsy, the one that smarter political schemers with little to no scruples would always use against him.

Aquilai continued to point out little things in an nonobtrusive, passive manner, and Perry begrudgingly and naively went to fix every little problem, whether it was truly a problem or not. Raggador was greatly displeased more and more that Perry did this. Perry's gullibility and obliviousness was starting to grate on the entity.

It only took a moment more before Raggador grew fed up enough with Perry and rescinded his power from Perry, who didn't remember his time as the Stonecutter, and reclaimed his ringed ruby from him. Perry was immediately returned to where he was before he stumbled into the Temple of Raggador.

Aquilai was left wondering why he had to deal with the Stonecutter in the first place.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 16, 2018, 07:42:11 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCVII (1,297): "Rex Clash" -- All the .EXEes clash with each other, forcing the RAFians to limit collateral damage.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Decay

Dee Myse (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/demise) was a man who had an unnatural fixation on death, and decomposition, and rot. It fascinated him, and entranced him. But, of course, no one knew this about him, as he skillfully hid this spellbinding fascination to this rather dark interest. However, he was not murderous, but not for the reasons that most other people don't murder everyone they come across.

He found murder distasteful, seeing it as "manufactured death", as he puts it. He believed that murder ruined the beauty of what he referred to "true death". Granted, he only used these terms in private, behind closed doors, when he was alone. From the outside, he looked like a normal guy, if a tad emaciated and thin.

You could say that this fixation began when death took his mother and younger sister away from him. They both got sick, but, as far as he was concerned, neither lost their inherent beauty, and he still adored them. Even after their funeral, and his fascination with death and macabre reached a zenith.

He worked as a mortician, which he secretly adored. He treated each of his clients with so much lovingly reverence, that his coworkers and the families of the deceased thought he was just being respectful, without any contempt or disdain. He made a concerted effort not to appear creepy or offputting . . . in public. In private, he was rather creepy and had many taboo inclinations toward the dead and dying. There were questions of inclinations of . . . of necrophilia. Naturally, he took great offense at wuch accusations.

Granted, comparing the corpses to great artistic works, and claiming that death was the greatest artist -- this led into investigations into him. His home and mortuary offices were searched (with search warrants, of course) and several rather . . . disconcerting and even repulsive notes and macabre poetry were found. Dee was a guy clearly with a lot of problems and issues, but from that day people kept their distance from him, as the police found nothing in which to indict him over. He never committed necrophilia (he considered that to ruin and soil the beauty of death), but he was now permanently seen as the creepy mortician.

Even his coworkers, those that he would have counted as friends, kept him at arm's length. He felt ostracized and outcast for his simple interests. Interests where he didn't hurt anyone, despite glorifying death, decomposition, and rot. He grew frustrated at his peers, perceiving their standoffishness and unease around his presence as prejudice and bigotry. He could help but blame them for taking the luster out of his work.

He was considering joining his sister and mother, but he couldn't bring himself to ruin and soil his own death, whatever and whenever it might be. He just held his head in his hands as he sat down upon the curb.

But when he looked into the sewer grate, he found, not Pennywise or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but what appeared to be a temple, hewn expertly from some sort of resilient stone. Without knowing precisely how, he found himself wondering the halls of this temple, all his dreary thoughts beforehand completely forgotten at the sheer magnificence and monumentally exquisite craftsmanship of this sizeable temple. Here, he did not feel ostracized and shunned. Here, he was afforded some modicum of comfort.

Then he saw the vial of some sort of green roiling liquid, and he reached out to take it, reading the words that came when he did aloud.

***

"Whosoever touches this Verdant Vial shall possess the power of the vipers of Valtorr and Vapors of Valtorr! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . human decay!"

Spectre heard this and was distantly interested, noticing how he was separated from the others. He was curious at this, but was wise and knowledgeable enough to know some power and entity wanted to take him on. Part of him was full of contemptuous and contentious confidence at such challenges, while the more rational part of him knew that he was not invincible and had his weaknesses, and thus knew it would be foolish to underestimate his foe, whoever and whatever they may be.

"Gaze upon the ultimate beauty that I have become," said a voice behind him, "gaze and bear witness to . . . Decay!"

Spectre turned to see what amounted to a rotting corpse in loose mummification bandages, a breast plate with a nonsensical symbol upon it, and black compression shorts. It looked as if he -- assuming it was a he, the degradation was so severe that it was difficult to tell. His voice sounded masculine, but there could have been another explanation for it. Where its ears would be there were three protrusions that looked as if they should have been webbed. His eyes were sunken in and there was a large black dot on his forehead.

"What an . . . apt nomme de plume," Spectre said, dryly.

"My patron demands that I destroy you," Decay said, almost apologetically. "I am sorry that I must soil your death, but it needs to be done, I'm afraid."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 18, 2018, 06:14:41 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCVIII (1,298): "What?! Can't You Stay Dead?!" -- The .EXEs fuse together . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
I Am Not A Freaky Corpse Guy! (https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Gnmh8oRlfE)

"'Soil my death'?" Spectre said, with a raised eyebrow.

"It is a beautiful thing when someone dies naturally," Decay said, " and their body begins the intricate process of deterioration and decomposition. A slow process, yes, but absolutely marvelous."

Spectre was finding it incredibly hard to not just write this guy -- assuming he was a guy, due to his rotting corpse appearance making that difficult to determine -- off as a loon. He seemed to revere death, as if he were a Black Lantern of some sort. But not only death -- he seemed to get a . . . a thrill over watching a body rot away. Most people -- of any race or species -- would find watching such a process disconcerting and even apalling.

"I see," Decay said, noting Spectre's look and silence and correctly interpreting it. "You are one of those who fail to see the beauty of the slow effervescence of decomposition, who fail to comprehend the ebullient changes to the deceased's mortal form, who fail to notice the zestful return to the earth that once made them up."

"Are you serious?" Spectre said, wondering if the Decay's . . . attraction to death and decomposition and decay was a bit more . . . unconventional.

"Yes, quite," he said, " and I pity you for not seeing the intricate beauty and marvellous wonder I see. But, then again, you've probably seen so much of it soiled by murder and embalming preservatives."

Spectre waited a beat, casting a disbelieving look at Decay, who seemed to have expected it, and he waited another beat before saying something. When Spectre was sure that Decay was actually being sincere, he blurted, "You're serious?"

Spectre couldn't help but be rather gobsmacked by this rhetoric. Perhaps Death was beautiful, in his own way, but he would never speak of him or what he must do to maintain the balance of thin with such worshipful reverence or such devout zealotry.

"Quite," he said, "and clearly you are another one of those stupefying philistines and those stupendously stupid dullards. Foolish, shortsighted consistency is the hobgoblin to little minds, such as yours and your Absurdistan (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Absurdistan#English) brethren."

Spectre said nothing, but noted that he clearly had touched a nerve. One that seemed especially sore and flayed. His flenched and flensed body seemed even more pronounced now. Spectre was hardly intimidated -- he was the fourth most powerful RAFian. He had little to fear, and certainly this freaky corpse man wasn't going to concern him much.

Decay had, despite himself, launched into a tirade, "But, no, instead of seeing the truest form of beauty, as the very planet herself reclaims what she had given, save for a lingering reminder of the persons' existence, you fools who lack vision and appreciation for the process only see those of us who actually are appreciative of this mighty process with its intricate beauty and almost divine purpose in the great scheme of things as shamefully different. We become the victims of your shunning. We become victims of your ostracism and ostracization. We become castaways from society, because of people with your lack of vision cannot see -- or choose to ignore what we see! Outcasts, marooned from society at large. Marginalized, discarded, and, eventually, forgotten. The offscouring of society. Exiled by those we once counted as friends and allies. Untouchable pariahs from the petty elitists of society. Turning us into contemptible folk devils (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/folk_devil), abject misfits, ignoble plebeians! Being labelled as 'creepy' or 'freaky' or -- or -- or 'dedecorous'! You have no idea what its like, being forced to conform, hiding your truer self, in order to not lose those who you thought you could count as friends, only have them swiftly abandon you when they see your vision, your admiration for the natural processes after a body loses its spark of life. You have no idea!!"

"You have issues," Spectre blurted, before he could stop himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 19, 2018, 04:54:12 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCXCIX (1,299): "Never Keep A Good [spoiler censor] Down" -- He's baaaaack . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
You Really Didn't Think This Through, Did You?

"Excuse me?" Decay said. He sounded more pompous now, more full of himself.

It was said. It could not be unsaid now. So, Spectre decided to roll with it, and be honest. Brutally so.

"You have issues." he repeated. "Yes, you had some hardships, pal, but you ain't the only one. I won't go into mine, as I prefer to keep them private, but here's the thing. Having some hardships don't give you the right to kill people."

"I don't kill people," Decay said, very much offended at this suggestion. "I wouldn't want ruin their death -- I wouldn't want to defile it with the death being artificial."

"Yet," Spectre said, pointing to rather large holes in the Decay's logic, "you wish to kill me."

Spectre didn't see fit to mention how killing him would be impossible, as he was already technically dead. It just didn't seem like information that needed to be shared at this point. Perhaps it would come up later, and be addressed then.

"That only because my patron, Valtorr, commands it," Decay argued. " If circumstances were different, I --"

"You wouldn't?" Spectre said, seizing upon this sudden weakness in the Decay's ideology. "What do you think this Valtorr will order you to do, should you succeed? Do you think ordering you to kill me would be last murder that he or she or it has you perform?"

Decay said nothing, and looked away.

"I see," the RAFian said, with almost presumptuous inflection, "you didn't consider anything beyond that. You were willing to sacrifice your morals, or lack thereof, for this Valtorr. You were will to sacrifice your entire ideology for Valtorr. I just have one question for you, Decay."

Decay said nothing, remaining silent, but met Spectre's glowing eyes. The question was a simple one. "Why?"

"What?"

"Why did you forego everything you believed in for Valtorr?" Spectre elaborated. "Why did you compromise everything you say you stand for, just to become Decay?"

Decay said dnothing, because he had no answer for the questions. He . . . he couldn't even remember agreeing to the terms of Valtorr's patronage. How had that gone? He couldn't even conjure up an image of Valtorr's appearance. This actually began to scare him -- he was starting to believe that he had been connived and hoodwinked io the servitude of a --

Then, suddenly, nothing. He remembered nothing still, not even being Decay. As he was no longer Decay, just Dee Myse again. And he was greatly perplexed and confused. But Spectre was understanding the circumstance a bit better, he thought.

Clearly, whoever or whatever this Valtorr was, he knew that he was losing his grip over this poor soul's sensibilities, and he evidently couldn't have that. So he rescinded what ever fractional power that the Decay was endowed with. As to why Valtorr felt such a compunction to even have an Exemplar in the first place was a mystery to Spectre.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 21, 2018, 07:46:04 AM

All titles subject to change. (And starts the Year Dino probably won't read. ;) )

Book MCCC (1,300): "Ambushed Again" -- A trick is played on the RAFians.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Tempest

Theresa Kettle (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/storm_in_a_tea-kettle), referred to her close friends as simply "T", was an academic overachiever. Getting anything less than an "A+" was cause for her to get a panic attack. Though this kind of pressure was not the kind she placed on herself -- she would have accepted a less than perfect grade if it was up to her.

The problem was her father. Russell Benjamin Kettle (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fussbutton#English), otherwise known as "Big Russ" (and, often derogatorily, "Big Fuss"). He demanded perfect excellence in her schoolwork, which sapped even the most minute enjoyment one might have gotten from them. He was often cold and distant with her, and  made his disapproval known solely through body language, mostly disapprobative glares that made Theresa feel small, stupid, and insignificant.He

And to make matters worse, Big Russ was her only family -- her only known family. She desperately craved his approval, and his parental love. Whereas the love and affection of a good parent is unconditional, Big Russ didn't dole it out like that. He didn't even give it to her when she followed his demand of absolute and abject academic excellence. She so desired to be loved by her father, it tended to blind her to the cavalier way he wore his hypocrisy.

"Big Russ" was a lousy academic in his younger days. His grades were abysmal, but it wasn't because he was stupid. It was because he was, primarily, a lazy student. If it was not something he could do with immediate ease and ultimate success, he had no interest for it. When he reached his teenaged years, he was something of a womanizer and a "player", as the vernacular has it. When he "knocked up" Theresa's mother, they held a quick marriage, but this didn't last as, shortly after her birth, Theresa's mother and "Big Russ" got a quickie divorce, and "Big Russ" got custody of the child, which he quickly poisoned against her mother -- making her believe at her mother didn't want her, and that's why he was so gungho about academic excellence, to prove his ex-wife wrong.

In reality, this was just something he did to hurt her mother, whom he would never refer to by name, but by any vulgarity conveniently nearby. He made Theresa hate her mother with a fiery power, and carefully crafted a dependence on him in his daughter. He did some of this knowingly, and some unwittingly. But it was not a good situation -- he was crafting his daughter into an emotional weapon against his ex-wife, and was unable to see her beyond that.

But Theresa was blind to all this, and, after all, how could she know what went on between her parents before her birth? She never questioned her father (lest stir up his temper -- which could be explosive at times, especially when he was stressed out from work or bills). It was an environment of fear and hatred that she grew up in, it was all she knew.

Currently, she was avoiding going home -- despite knowing this would upset her father a great deal, as he was emphatic about punctuality, hypocritically so -- and, also because she got an "A-" on an assignment she had turned in earlier the day before. She was marked off for forgetting a comma and period in the report.

She was terrified of what would happen if her father found out . . . but then she heard a voice calling to her . . . it drew her near . . . to a temple of some sort that she was sure wasn't here in the days before. But her curiosity was getting the best of her. He had to check this out . . .

She was feeling an odd attraction to a waterfall situated inside the temple. She splashed into the water pooled at its feet, and she reached out to touch the waterfall itself . . .

***

"Whosoever touches this Wondrous Waterfall shall possess the power of the Winds of Watoomb! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . a human tempest!"

Cloak heard these words being spoken, but he didn't see fit to concern himself with them. He stood, almost expecting someone to come and attack him, as he felt that it was obvious that this would happen.

He saw his supposed adversary floating across from him. She was seemingly aeromorphic -- being composed of corporealized air -- as such Cloak surmised that she could fly, have a degree of intangibility, and possess aerokinesis. But Cloak was far from intimidated. There was only one person in existence that ever truly frightened him. And this person wasn't her.

"I am the Tempest," she said, a bit more grandiose than Cloak thought was strictly necessary. "My patron has informed me that your death is required."

Cloak said nothing, but just planted his feet to the ground, and folded his arms in obvious defiance.

"There are two ways that this can go down," she said, clearly overestimating her capabilities. "If you don't fight it, this can be quick and painless. If you do . . . well, you won't like the result."

 Cloak said nothing, giving her a deep glower. A disapproving glare. That alone seemed to stymie her, and make her hesitate.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 23, 2018, 06:57:25 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCI (1,301): "Cobbled Together" -- The RAFians must face a different kind of Combiner. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Roll Intimidation

"So it's going to be that way is it?" she said, almost as if she wanted to end the silence, that she found uncomfortable, that was starting to form. "Don't say that you weren't warned."

Cloak continued his silence and glare, and, despite refusing to admit it, she was starting to feel a smidgen intimidated. She couldn't help but find that cold, icy stare of disapproval anything but unsettling. But she covered this up with excessive bravado.

She fired a gust of wind, as strong as a hurricane, condensed into a narrow blast at Cloak, who didn't move an inch and who didn't flinch in the slightest at this oncoming attack. But the attack seemed to lose heart and dissipated within inches away from the man. And still Cloak didn't move or flinch in the least. He was basically a statue, seemingly frozen in place with that disapproving glare.

Tempest was feeling miffed by this. She was the Exemplar of Watoomb! She was the Tempest! She had power to do what she wanted, as long as her patron permitted it. She was free, free from the consternation and opinions of others. She had the power to make them bend to her will -- to make them leave her alone when she didn't want to be bothered.

She blasted another blast of air at her seemingly immobile and immovable opponent, sure that it would work this time. She put most of her strength into the attack, holding back some. She was so sure that this would do the job this time, that she had figured out that she had simply not hit him from the right angle. She was sure that she had it right this time.

But the blast seemingly bounced off Cloak, who was in his Apex Tier the entire time, to his right, roughly at a vertical ten o'clock. This was effectively immediate, much to Tempest's chagrin. She continued her silence, as did Cloak. She felt a modicum of trepidation, but she refused to acknowledge it.

She would try again. She just hadn't found the right angle, the weak spot -- as if this was just some video game. She believed that she was taking this seriously, but that was the disconnect she had -- all this was unreal to her, and her mind wasn't her own at the moment, as Watoomb manipulated it to get her accept his patronage, just like all the other Octessence.

She blew another powerful gust, condensed into an essential "beam" of wind. She was sure that it would work now, and not just the definition of insanity. Only this time she pulled her punch very little now. And it was deflected to the right.

Her intimidation was now wearing away into frustration, it was like using Focus Blast, knowing full well it's accuracy, and getting upset that it wasn't working. This was the very definition of insanity -- doing things over and over again, but expecting a different result, a different outcome, each time.

"Stop that!" Tempest demanded. " Stop . . . not dying!"

Cloak didn't move, and he didn't speak.

"You think you're better than me?! You're nothing but a glorified statue!" she said, trying (and failing) to get a rise out of Cloak.

Cloak remained motionless and still glaring with that look of disapproval. The Tempest was now finding this galling.

"What? No words to fail? No quips? Cat got your tongue?!" she demanded, asCloak remained immovable and silent as a Celestialsapien with conflicting personalities. "You think you're better than me?! The Tempest?!"

Still Cloak said and did nothing.

"Well, you're not!" she practically screamed. "I pwn you! I pwn this planet!! In fact -- frig you!"

Then she poured forth all her power towards Cloak, kicking up massive amounts of dust. It was certainly powerful, there was no denying it. Cloak still said nothing, and didn't flinch even an inch.

The Tempest gasped heavily twice before, smiling, "So, who's laughing now?!"

Then she looked up, and her heart fell, as Cloak wasn't affected at all. He didn't move even a smidgen. His glare never faltered. His arms remained folded across his chest. The Tempest was speechless -- in her mind, this was impossible. She had given it her all, all the power she was loaned by Watoomb. It would take her time to recuperate -- and reclaim her power. But even that did nothing!

Cloak unfolded his arms, but maintained his glare. He spoke, but only two words.

"My turn."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 24, 2018, 10:23:23 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCII (1,302): "Site A" -- The RAFians raid Site A . . . and must contend with site enforcer called Agent Symbiote.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
You Started This, Cloak Ends It

Cloak said nothing more and raised his right index finger skyward, leaving the Tempest perplexed. His stance was probably more stiff and rigid than what was proper, but that wasn't the important part.

"That's it?" she said, knowing full well that he wasn't done - - that he had barely started, but her bravado was covering up her intimidation and reluctance to fight this creature. Anger made that easy. Made it easy to erode away the tangibke, seen parts of the incredible intimidation and hesitation she felt.

Cloak could have made a cutting quip or a sardonic reply, but he chose, instead, to say nothing. He just continued to point skyward, his amber eyes locked upon the Tempest's own. He never broke that glare. That almost-paralyzing glare she found more disarming and piercing than any attack, as if he could see right through her and her bravado and bluster.

She didn't realize what Cloak was doing because he did it very slowly at first, as to be nearly imperceptible. And it was misunderstood immediately by the Tempest, as Cloak had suspected that it might have been. But all things came in time -- he had to be sure the boundaries were set and that he didn't go . . . overboard.

It took Theresa far too long to get what was going on. Cloak, as Realm Walker, didn't really need to breathe -- not as much as humans, even enhanced humans, did. He was slowly siphoning all the air from this arena, not only to deprive the Tempest of a weapon, but disable her through benign hypoxia. Just enough to get her to lose consciousness, then he would immediately return the air to the arena. That was his intent. And he had hoped that he could do this without permanently harming the human, hence why he kept eye contact with the human female. Unfortunately, he couldn't use Earthsight to keep a tab on her vitals, to "see" if her heart is still pumping, as she was floating midair.

But soon she felt the early effects of hypoxia, and Cloak relented, allowing some air to seethe back into the arena, and allowed it all to seethe back into the arena when it became clear that Watoomb revoked his power and Waterfall from the girl. She hadn't a clue what happened during, fiinding herself spat out before where the Temple of Watoomb had once stood.

Cloak was left pondering on what the entire point of this was, and came off feeling as if he had been used in some capacity.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 26, 2018, 05:10:06 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCIII (1,303): "He's Learned to Crawl" -- The RAFians must find and guide a boy who discovers an ability that could be easily abused.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Carnivore

Thurston Blud (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bloodthirsty) worked as a dentist. There he was moderately successful, though his clientele was a bit more on the stuffy, snot-nosed, affluent kind and he was a vulture of sorts, charging people of poorer backgrounds more for his services while offering discounts to his more . . . elite clientele. He excused this glaring disparity by saying that they were gold card-holding members, and offering it to people at ridiculously exorbitant prices.

This was, in part, used as a deterrent from poorer people "poisoning" his eclectic clientele list. He looked down on the working class schmucks, as he thought of them, and thought that his services were above them. As he came from a moderately affluent family, it's not too surprising. He deliberately set up his dentistry practice in an upscale part of the town, far enough away from the people he considered lower class.

But that wasn't all of it. He prided himself on his trophies, making outlandish claims about how he got each and every one. He thought his bravado and swagger was plenty of a facade to disguise how he really got these "trophies". His vainglorious tales of how he hunted these creatures, ostentatiously flaunting their mounted heads -- a tiger, a lion, two leopards, two jaguars, a cheetah, a puma, a twelve-point white-tailed deer, a grizzly bear, an American bison, a great white shark (which was fake), an African elephant, a red fox, a bighorn sheep, a black rhinoceros, and even a stuffed turtle -- insufferably proud of all of them.

But the stories were all lies. Grandiose fabrications of the highest order. He got all his trophies by, essentially, shooting animals in cages -- in order to ensure that they wouldn't get away. And these animals? They were raised from infancy for this fate. They had to fear of humans that they would have if they were born and bred wild. It was no challenge at all to kill them as brutally as Thurston preferred, despite what he would tell people who come into his home, which was decorated in gaudy opulence, whether or not they even inquired about it in the first place.

And the thing was that he was ridiculously proud of these trophies, and the falsified stories he had tied to them. Even though many of the species he had proudly displayed were endangered and protected, making him essentially a poacher. He didn't care what the schmucks beneath him labelled, he felt. He felt that their opinions were worthless and without any meaning.

It wasn't long before his secret was out, and all his breathtaking tales of going one-on-one with these beasts in tests of skill and strength were about as true as a two-dollar bill. He was less than pleased about this, and abruptly stopped inviting people to his home to view his beloved trophies. However, this basically just confirmed the stories about his illicit "hunting" (if you could even call it hunting) practices. Especially because the lion was actually wildly beloved (something he would vigorously and vehemently deny whenever brought up in causal conversation).

This led for the authorities -- the ones who refused to accept his attempts to pay them off (sadly, not an impressive number of individuals) -- to investigate his "hunting" activities. Naturally, he panicked (which actually further proved his ineptitude at hunting, as he didn't know panicking was always the worst thing for you to do when you're being hunted), and this just basically telegraphed his guilt.

He tried to run, but you can only run so far from your problems before they come back to haunt you once more. He stumbled into a strange ruin, one that seemed to call to him, to lure him like a moth to a flame. Hee navigated the hallways of this ruin until he came to a strange gauntlet, a fist pointing skyward. He reached out to touch it . . .

***

"Whosoever touches this Fearsome Fist shall possess the power of the Farallah! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . the ultimate carnivore!"

Wild heard these words, and his misgivings grew the more that he thought about it. He was very astute, and knew what the implications of what that phrase might mean. He was no expert in such matters per se, but he was knowledgeable enough to know it wasn't good news. For him personally.

He saw his would-be opponent. He wore skin-tight, black leather with bare arms except for the black leather rings and the fingerless skin-tight gloves. He had a wild mane of black hair, pronounced claws and fangs, the latter of which forced his mouth open, though never hindered his speech.

"Greetings, prey," he said. Wild thought it sounded rather pompous. "My name is Carnivore."

"'Carnivire'?" Wild repeated. This nomme de plume was enough to surmise and deduce this Exemplar's total powerset -- heightened strength, heightened speed, heightened agility, heightened endurance, heightened reflexes, heightened dexterity, enhanced senses, enhanced strength, and, likely, a healing factor. Granted, he didn't have proof to back this up, but his mind disregarded that and was concocting plan to deal with him, as he was sure that, even in his wereferret form, that he couldn't simply outmuscle this guy. He had to be smart. He had to be clever. All he had to do was outthink him.

 "And my patron commands that you -- hey!! Where do you think you're going?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 28, 2018, 06:41:58 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCIV (1,304): "Collocorpus Liability" -- An old foe seeks help to escape his rotting corpse of a body. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Burrow

Wild had not listened to anything pass his name confirmation. When he got confirmation, he immediately turned around and began to burrow. The soil was fortunately soft and easy to dig through, due to a recent rain. If Wild had gotten a measure of this guy correctly, then he knew what he would do next.

But he felt something . . . visceral in his wereferrt form, burrowing through the ground. Despite knowing what he must do, he enjoyed himself with the burrowing. He deliberately made sharp turns in every direction and angle possible so as to make the tunnels more labyrinthine. If he could make it as confusing and unnavigable as possible, then his quickly-concocted plan might succeed.

In his wereferret form, he was much larger than Carnivore, and, as such, the tunnels were easy for him to transverse, but not navigate easily, if at all. Wild hoped that making so many crisscrossing tunnels that his scent would be everywhere, making it very difficult, if not impossible to track. At least that was his plan, anyway.

And were it to fail, he had managed to concoct a contingency plan. He hadn't managed to devise a contingency plan for the contingency plan, but he was really basically thinking on his feet at the moment.

Left. Left. Right. Left. All sharp turns.

He hadn't heard or otherwise sense Carnivore closing in on him yet, so he cautiously assumed that he was still navigating the tunnels. Wild had to make the tunnels an intricate labyrinthine lattice, making it difficult to tell which route would take you where. He had to make it easy to get lost in here.

Up at a fifty-three degree angle. Down at a eight degree angle. Upper left at an eighty-two degree angle. Lower right at a twenty-eight degree angle. Straight path. Straight path that curved upward at a fifty-five degree angle. Straight path that curved down at a fifty-eight degree angle before curling right back up again in a manner similar to a ram's horn.

He hoped that his plan had gained traction. He couldn't smell or sense Carnivore nearby, so maybe he had given him the slip. He knew that he was in the tunnel labyrinth that he was creating, as he broke into the tunnel he was travelling mere feet behind Carnivore, and then again when Carnivore turned his back. The Exemplar was getting frustrated with this maze, and this made Wild smile inwardly.

He was beginning to tire, the flurry of adrenaline and purpose failing him now, and he knew he had to surface. But he also knew he had to try to disguise it. Disguise the exit, so that Carnivore may be down there until whatever this contest was over. He did so, and reverted to his human form when he did.

Meanwhile, in the tunnels, Carnivore was seething. Everywhere smelled of his prey. He smelled its fatigue, heard its distant burrowing. He couldn't even found the exit that he entered this blasted maze through. It wasn't long before e sound of burrowing ended. His prey either surfaced or found a comfortable place to rest.

But that didn't matter if he couldn't find the blasted thing! His eyes were useless in this darkness, whatever light was down her was frustratingly dim. His sense of smell was worthless here as his prey's scent was everywhere, and he couldn't tell where it was the strongest or the weakest. His ears were of no help either as he couldn't echolocate.

All he could do, as he saw it, was just follow the singular path of this tunnel -- untangle the scent and find out where it was the strongest. It was a seemingly impossible task to undertake, but he didn't see another solution. He knew that he couldn't waste time -- that would displease his patron, and he didn't want that.

But perhaps, just perhaps, there was another solution to this conundrum.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 31, 2018, 07:14:12 AM

Sorry for the delay. It was a . . . shall we say, frustrating weekend at work.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCV (1,305): "Binder" -- The Site A Director sends out an assassin to reclaim, or destroy, Site A's . . . "property".

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The War Dance

Wild waited. He had hoped he wouldn't have to use the contingency plan as it was . . . kind of . . . silly. But perhaps the nonsensical nature of it could prove to be an excellent boon in his favor. But . . . still . . . it was rather risky . . .

He spent the time alert, but resting. If his labyrinthine tunnel plan failed, he would have to use his sillier contingency plan, and he never really used it before. At least, not in this capacity. Not in recent memory. He would be making a lot of assumptions if he were to go through with it. But every plan, every scheme, every course of action carried the potential to backfire either minorly or grievously. There was no telling which side this silly backup plan of Wild's would fall on.

He had to remain alert as he recouped the energy he expended. He had to recoup as much as he could. He would need if or when the time came. The wait itself was agonizing in its own way. The uncertainty. The apprehension and anxiety. The tension as he stayed guarded, despite resting.

It happened a moment later than he had been anticipating. Instead of exiting from the same entrance that Wild had, Carnivore had clawed his way to the surface, even though his claws weren't made nor designed for digging. This action dulled them, and made them less dangerous weapons. But Carnivore didn't seem to recognize this little factoid. He was too miffed about Wild's duplicitous labyrinth.

"You think you're clever, don't you?" he fumed.

"I've entertained the notion," Wild said, coyly. He was shifting back into his wereferret form, having rested up sufficiently enough for his contingency plan, though stupid and silly as it may have seemed.

"Well, enough of these games! I tire of them!" he raged. "Now it's time for you to -- what the hell are you doing?"

Wild was making a frenzied series of hops, sideways and backwards, often accompanied by an arched back and a frizzed-out tail. He was using the "weasel war dance" that domestic ferrets sometimes do when they capture a toy or some stolen object. He was notoriously clumsy in his surroundings during this dance and will often collide with or fall over objects. And since he was technically the size of a bear in this form, that could cost a lot of dough, hence why he doesn't do it often, even when the urge strikes him. It made him look either frightened or angry, depending on your disposition towards mustelid lycanthropes.

"What are you playing at? What purpose --" he began, but stopped abruptly midsentence. He was seemingly memorized by it, as if he were a rabbit and Wild's prey.
Perhaps aided by the clucking vocalization that Wild was making unconsciously.

He just stared at Wild's clumsy acrobatics, much like one would watch a lava lamp for hours on end. Wild was hoping that the true reasoning behind doing this would happen soon. He would tire soon, and he lacked a contingency plan beyond this. He knew full well that that was problematic, but his scope to take this guy on directly? Not very good in his favor.

But, as Wild had hoped, Carnivore's patron grew angry (remarkably fast, too) about how he was embarrassing him. He quickly revoked the powers he bestowed and Thurston found himself spat out from where the Temple of Farallah once was.

Meanwhile, Wild was left to ponder who was the Exemplar's patron, only to find that he couldn't with the information he currently possessed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 02, 2019, 06:51:09 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCVI (1,306): "Site B" -- The RAFians raid Site B, and have to deal with the site enforcer, Agent Absorption.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
The Bedlam

Ralph (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Ralph_Wiggum) Grillen (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grillen#Middle_English) wasn't very smart, and he didn't know when to shut up or keep his opinions to himself. He never could conceive of his actions having negative ramifications on him. It was one of the most frustrating aspects about him. While he thought things he was saying were profound and thought-provoking, in reality, they were just some of the most stupid, inane, and asinine talking points that any one could conceive of.

He worked as a dishwasher at a hospital, but just on the weekends, by his own choice and volition. While he would tell his coworkers that if they needed him, to call him in at any time, but, conveniently enough, he was always doing something and couldn't come to the phone when the call came in. And he had a smartphone

And his annoying quirks didn't stop there. He would always turn off the dish machine when he felt that it wasn't in use, leading to confusion with the dishwasher that was their earlier as to whether or not there were dishes on the other side of the machine that needed to be removed from the machine's belt. Not to mention that he always tended to remove the near-completely dissolved soap block from the machine and put a new one in, instead of allowing the soap block to dissolve away on its natural course. Then there was the time he unwittingly harassed his coworker every weekend for months to adopt his disorganized way of doing things, apparently unaware of his coworkers' increasing frustration and hostility toward this. This and his constant, chronic tardiness worn on his coworkers' nerves, especially when one of hiscoworkers walked upwards of four miles to work every day, and Ralph struggled -- and he has and drives a car!

But his coworkers turned against him when he, in a pinnacle of selfishness and inconsideration, called out of work when they needed him to be there. He was using the massive amount of snow as an excuse to have the day off. He was essential personnel and he knew it. The hospital had accommodations for staff due to the inclement weather, but he opted out of that. It was because of this that everyone who worked that day, especially the coworker who walked eighty minutes in the snow and still got to work on time, began to shun him. Shun him and shoot dirty looks at him.

And, yet, he had the nerve to feel like a victim. This was the inevitable result, the inescapable consequence, the unavoidable ramification of the decision that he made. But he had yet to grasp this, thinking that just saying a noncommittal, insincere "I'm sorry" would be some miraculous cure-all, the perfected panacea, the ultimate catholicon to all social transgressions.

It wasn't. But he remained frustratingly oblivious to this fact.

Anyway, he was hiking in a forest (fortunately it was a very prudent distance from Cloak's meditation spot -- his hiking path was at least six hundred or so miles away), and he was planning on using that as an excuse for why he didn't come in that day, ignoring his job calling him. It was on this trail where he found something calling to him, and he soon found the Temple of Ikonn, where the Ivory Idol laid within . . .

***

"Whosoever touches this Ivory Idol shall possess the power of the Images of Ikonn! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . human bedlam!"

Yarin heard these words, and found himself curious. It sounded like something similar to that Juggernaut business a year or so ago. He knew full well if he had to go up against the Juggernaut directly, he would never win. At least, not outright, as the Juggernaut's helmet would protect him from his telepathic probes or attacks.

Then he turned and saw what was clearly supposed to be his opponent in this strange, Shadow Game-like arena. The person had an head that was larger in proportion to the rest of his thin, emaciated body to an exaggerated degree. It looked almost cartoonish, as if this person was way overcompensating for something that he was insecure about.
This feature was so prominent, that Yarin didn't take in any other details of his appearance.

"I am the unstoppable Bedlam," he said, trying to sound profoundly ethereal, and not quite succeeding. "And my patron, Ikonn, has requested your elimination."

He was sounding like a Pearl (http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Caste_System#Pearls) -- a servant to a higher power. A higher power that wanted, clearly, Yarin's death. But then why rely on a proxy, an Exemplar? Probably because of some asinine concept of being to above doing his or her own dirty work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2019, 05:11:39 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCVII (1,307): "Power Education" -- RAF files for accreditation.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
An Impromptu Infinite Regression

"Your . . . patron, huh?" Yarin said.

"Do not try to play for time," he said. "My patron wishes your demise, and I must grant it. My reward for this is far greater than you could ever know."

"Reward, you say?" Yarin said, distracted by the feeling of this Bedlam character trying to telepathically claw his way into Yarin's mind. Fortunately, the telepathic barrier he had in place were holding. But this Bedlam person was tenaciously stubborn.

"Do not fight me," he said, with total confidence and certainty, "I shall get in and destroy you from within. I am more powerful."

Yarin didn't doubt the truth of that. He and his kind were powerful telepaths, but everyone had a limit that someone more powerful could surmount and surpass. He would have to distract him. The only thought that he could somehow get him into some sort of infinite regression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_regress). He may have powerful telepathy, but that didn't mean he was superintelligent.

"Are you?" Yarin said, trying not to sound as if he was grasping at straws.

Bedlam raised an eyebrow, and briefly stopped telepathically clawing into Yarin's mind. ". . . Yes. . . ."

"If power were a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead." Yarin said, hoping that what he said made sense.

"What?" Bedlam said, his obligation seemingly forgotten.

"If the faster runner allows the slower one a head start of a hundred meters, and supposing that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, the faster runner will have run a hundred meters, bringing him to the slower's starting point. During this time, the slowee one has run a much shorter distance -- say, ten meters. It will then take the faster runner some further time to run that distance, by which time the slower runner will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the slower runner moves ahead. Thus, whenever faster runner arrives somewhere the slower runner has been, he still has some distance to go before he can even reach the slower runner." Yarin said, sure that what he was saying sounded like pure nonsense. But he didn't have an exit strategy or a strategy to put down Bedlam.

"That doesn't make any sense," he said, but Yarin saw his eyes become unfocused and glaze over a bit during his explanation.

"Well, a philosopher once said, 'That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal'." Yarin said, hoping that Bedlam wasn't aware that the Nyac was improvising. "Would you agree that things that are equal to the same are equal to each other and the two sides of this triangle are things that are equal to the same, therefore, the two sides of this triangle are equal to each other?"

"I . . . um . . . yes," he said, clearly having no idea what was proposed to him. Yarin allowed himself to relax a little, but not visibly.

"Do you grant that thie might be a person who sees this as logically valid, as a sequence, while denying the former two arguments?" Yarin asked, the back of his mind trying to devise a more permanent solution, as he was just basically stalling right now. "That this person would accept that if the premises were true that the conclusion must be true, while rejecting and denying the premises as true?"

"Uh . . . sure." Bedlam said.

This might just work. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2019, 05:35:41 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCVIII (1,308): "Buggy Phantoms" -- The RAFians must deal with ghost bugs, which can phase-burrow into host bodies.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Perplexing Confusion

"So, if we represent the premises as 'A' and 'B', and the conclusion as 'Z'," Yarin said, still trying to distract Bedlam. "So, if 'A' and 'B' are true, 'Z' must be true, right?"

"Yes," Bedlam said, still not understanding any of this. He was writing this down in the sand, using his telekinesis. It seemed as if he was doing this unconsciously.

"Then this would be 'C'," Yarin said, "assume this hypothetical person accepts 'C', but refuses to accept the expanded argument, citing that that's another hypothetical proposition -- 'D' -- if 'A' and 'B' and 'C' are true, then 'Z' must be true."

Bedlam said nothing. This was rapidly going over his head.

"And, just suppose, this hypothetical person accepts that 'A' and 'B' and 'C' and 'D' might be true, but rejects 'Z'," Yarin said, "this would be 'E'. Would it be still plausible?"

"I guess . . ." he said.


"And, again, just suppose, this hypothetical person accepts that 'A' and 'B' and 'C' and 'D' and 'E' might be true, but rejects 'Z'," Yarin extrapolated again, "then this would be 'F'. Would this still be possible? "

"Um . . . I think so," Bedlam said.

"And so, if this hypothetical person accepts that 'A' and 'B' and 'C' and 'D' and 'E' and 'F' might be true, but rejects 'Z'," Yarin said, playing for time, "then this would be 'G'. Would this still be possible?"

"Uh . . ." Bedlam said.

"So, continuing with this line of thought, if this hypothetical person accepts 'A' through 'G', but rejects 'Z'," Yarin said, relieved that all attempts to claw into his mind had ceased. "Then this would be 'H'. Would this still be even plausible?"

Bedlam said nothing, unwilling to say that he stopped following while ago.

"So, let's continue with this line of reasoning, if this --"

But, suddenly, Bedlam vanished. Ralph was spat out where the Temple of Ikonn once was, with no memory of being Bedlam.

Yarin surmised that whoever Bedlam's patron was, they got tired of him being distracted and not being clever enough to realize that Yarin was stalling him. It wasn't the solution that Yarin was expecting, but he'd take it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2019, 05:56:36 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCIX (1,309): "The Terminator's Rage" -- A old acquaintance becomes an hired gun and assassin, with a new body.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
The Conquest

Connie Quest was a very combative, competitive, aggressive person. Whenever she was challenged, it was never enough to just beat them at their game -- she had to destroy them. She had to annihilate them. She had to humiliate them by beating them so badly in whatever game they wanted to play. As such, she didn't have many friends, close or otherwise, and those she considered her friends tended to avoid her, because they found being around her draining.

She always concerned herself with being the best. If someone bested her in anything, she had a rather frustrating tendency to obsess over it until she could triumph over them. She seemed perfectly oblivious that most of the time, her temporary "rival" just threw the game just to get her to leave them alone. Or, if she did, she would just see this as another victory.

Victory . . . in her heart, that's all she truly cared about. Victory and winning. Nothing else mattered to her. Not finding a loving person to spend the rest of her life together with. Not starting a family. Not keeping her job, which she has gone through several of (and which she refuses to acknowledge, seeing the failures of which as "losing" that she couldn't do a thing about). Nothing mattered to her other than winning and triumphing over people, friend or foe.

When she started to lose someone, she always loses her cool, and allows her her frustration to get the better of her. This always made things worse for her, and she never understood that this is the precise reason why. Whenever she lost her temper, it was nearly always to her detriment.

When her "friends" -- and that was using the term in its loosest possible context -- challenged her to go into the Temple of Krakkan (but believed by the group to simply be a sppok, old ruin) to go inside, otherwise be considered a chicken, she felt the insatiable urge to prove them wrong and, in her view, validate herself.

She strode very confidently into the Temple, and found herself being pulled toward a certain direction. She didn't fight it, ironically enough, as she didn't recognize the attraction for what it was. She reached out for the Kestral Key of Krakkan . . .

***

"Whosoever touches this Kestral Key shall possess the power of the Chains of Krakkan! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . conquest incarnate!"

Cerulean was reminded of that Juggernaut hullabaloo a year or so ago. It was not a very good feeling -- he didn't want to deal with the Juggernaut. He wouldn't be able to do anything against him. Superhuman speed could only do so much to a juggernaut.

Then he saw his opponent. She wore scarlet armor with horns on the helmet, with strange tassels at the tips. She was also covered in various weapons, including swords, staves, batons, whips, shuriken, and daggers. She also still had the Kestral Key on her at all times.

"My name is Conquest," she said, "my patron has commanded me to provide you with a brutal death."

Then she cracked a malevolent smile. "And I intend to enjoy it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 08, 2019, 07:58:59 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCX (1,310): "Site C" -- The RAFians raid Site C, whilst dealing with the site enforcer Agent Beauty.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Shut Up and Die!!

"'Enjoy it'?" Cerulean asked .

"Immensely," she said, still with that malicious smile. Then she pulled a dagger out from the arsenal she carried with her, and threw it. From where she aimed it, it would have hit Cerulean's heart. She didn't want him to die immediately -- apparently she wanted to savor this, in an almost masochistic manner. The dagger would have hit hit his heart --

Would have.

Naturally, Cerulean wasn't about stand around allow it to hit him there. He used his superhuman speed to dodge the dagger which vanished into the shadowy walls of this Shadow Game-esque arena. Swallowed up by it.

"Yeah," Cerulean said, "forgive me, but I don't see that happening."

Her face contorted in to one of rage, but she had kept her composure. Due to the make up of this arena, she thought that he had teleported instead of using superhuman speed.

She snarled as she unsheathed a sword with a thin blade and a rather generic hilt, "Then allow me to open your eyes! Painfully!"

Then she swung, with more strength, precision, and skill than a layman sword wielder. But this wasn't enough of a match for Cerulean's superhuman speed. He easily maneuvered his way out of harm's slashing crescent. Compared to him, she moved like a snail in molasses in January.

This was child's play for Cerulean, and he knew it. He also knew better than to get complacent and overconfident-- he had learned that lesson the hard way during that Great Race business. He would never forget the humbling that he took on that day.

"Where are you?!" she demanded, upset and angry that her blade had tasted nothing but air, and had not bitten harshly into flesh. "Where are you?!"

 "You get frustrated easily," Cerulean said, roughly three-o'clock from her. "You know that, right?"

"Stand still!" she demanded.

"Nah," Cerulean said, sounding very flippant. In reality, he was analyzing this girl, this Conquest, for any tangible weaknesses. And, he believed that he had stumbled upon one, though not a physical weakness.

They continued this song-and-dance for a while, with Cerulean always keeping his cool while Connie was continually losing more and more of her composure and patience. Cerulean knew that keeping your mind well-organized and not giving into frustrations was probably his best way of taking care of this Exemplar.

If she was anything like the Juggernaut, he wouldn't be able to take her on directly. Her strength likely well eclipsed his own. Direct combat would likely prove to be fruitless, and detrimental to his prolonged wellbeing. True, dodging and evading wouldn't defeat her, but that wouldn't matter if she defeated herself.

"Stand still!" she demanded again.

"I'll pass," Cerulean said, irreverently.

"Stand still and die!" she roared. Her frustration was causing her to lose focus and causing her to start to lose some dexterity due to her shaking hands. While Cerulean had lost none of his composure and his mind remained clear.

"Tempting," Cerulean said, with overt faux contemplation, "but no."

She roared in frustration, proving Cerulean's assumptions and guesses bore some truth. As her body was shaking from infuriated frustration, her next chosen weapon actually vibrated in her hand, unnoticed by Conquest herself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 08, 2019, 08:45:23 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXI (1,311): "The Zeta Surrogate" -- The RAFians must deal with an old foe who turned into an assassin.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Sloppy, Very Sloppy

She jabbed with another sword, this one with a wider blade and a pinkish tint. But the thrust was sloppily executed and missed without even necessitating Cerulean to move. Cerulean could see that Conquest's frustration and anger was her biggest enemies, though she embraced her anger as if it were a close friend. Cerulean knew that that was never a good idea.

"Stand still!"

"No."

"Stand still and die!!"

"No."

"Die!!!"

"No."

"Fight me!!!!"

"I am," Cerulean said, calmly keeping his composure. He saw now that she evidently had no self-control, as she had lost any and all pretense of it.

"Stand and fight me!!!!! I am Conquest! Exemplar of Krakkan! I conquer all!"

Cerulean got an idea. He goaded, "Oh, are we fighting? I thought you were just getting warmed up."

 She said, with clenched teeth, " I was . . . "

Cerulean easily dodged and evaded each of her thrown weaponry. "Is that all you got? Man, Krakkan will make anyone his Exemplar nowadays!"

Cerulean didn't know how true that last statement actually was. He expertly dodged a few more of her thrown weapons, which sunk through the shadowy walls of this shadow Game-esque arena.

"'Conquest'? More like 'Thoughtless'," Cerulean said, knowing full well the weakness of this insult.

But it was enough to stoke Conquest's anger. Cerulean dodged more of her thrown weapons, which would have been more prudent to hold onto. But frustration and anger is a toxic ****tail that tends to distort rational thoughts.

"Sloppy," Cerulean said, as she threw her last weapon -- other than the Kestral Key -- through the shadowy wall. "Very sloppy."

She thought that she had finally cornered Cerulean, and snarled, "Nowhere to run now, you little smartmouth!"

"You've already lost this battle," Cerulean said.

"Are you insane?!" she roared. "you haven't thrown a single blow!"

Cerulean gestured to her depleted arsenal, "No, but you have. Now you see the folly of having no self-control."

"Why you little piece of sh--" she began, but she vanished. Evidentally, Krakkan found this whole thing as too much of an embarrassment and rescinded his power, and Connie was spat out from the Temple of Krakkan, seeing that her "friends" had ditched her. She had no memory of her brief time as Conquest.

Meanwhile, Cerulean let out a long sigh, and took a moment to catch his breath.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 10, 2019, 07:06:41 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXII (1,312): "Portal Ring" -- A former antagonist finds a very special ring.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
The Inferno

Pyrra Fawkes held an unnatural fascination with fire and heat. As a child, she would light matches and marvel at the colors of the flame, the way it danced down the matchstick, and come to enjoy the smell of it. But,  as this was seen a taboo in society, she squirrelled away this fascination and would not tell anyone of her fascination. Not even through the anonymity of the internet.

She had often wondered if there was something wrong with her, because of this fascination, because of her pyromania. But she couldn't help but get entranced by the subtle undulations and mesmerizing flickers of a glowing flame. . . . She reasoned people enjoyed it when it was inside fire places, grills, or campfires, so why couldn't she be allowed to appreciate them without criticism and scrutiny. Without people assuming that she's some kind of arsonist.

But that's precisely what she became during the substantial drought of full on battles within the city brought on upon the RAFians fighting whatever alien danger of the day. She had originally consented to just "camping" to excess. But soon campfires were not enough to satiate her growing fascination . . . and other interests, regarding fire.

Fortunately, she wasn't interested in immolation, but not for the moral reasons that most people would be. She found those flames to be muddied and tainted, preferring to watch, with pyromaniacal glee flames gobble down wood and other such materials. It wasn't long before she graduated to full-on arson.

She was emboldened after she managed to get away with the first one, a small dilapidated house that was vacated decades, maybe even centuries, beforehand. She watched the place burn with maniacal reverence and exuberance. She didn't get caught for this first act of arson, so she inevitably did it again. Two acts of arson, in which she was never caught, soon became four.

in her fifth act of arson, she became more complacent and apathetic to the consequences of her actions, that she videotaped it. She careless spoke on it, and she had a rather distinct, recognizable voice. She didn't think anything of it, didn't think anything of speaking, of praising the fire, the arson.

So, naturally, she lost this tape and it was found by the police. They immediately came for her, and she fled. She managed to elude them, but just barely. She dodged them by ducking into the Temple of Balthakk. But when the doors shut, she found herself drawn to . . . something . . .

***

"Whosoever touches this Blinding Brazier shall possess the power of the Baleful Bolts of Balthakk! Henceforth, you who read these words, shall become . . . forevermore . . . a human inferno!"

Estelore heard this and she was reminded of the story she was told back when the RAFians had to fight the Juggernaut. If she recalled correctly, the Juggernaut was really a child. She wasn't intimidated by it, but scarcely anything could intimidate her. That solar energy sucker, and Galactron . . . they scared her, even though they were gone now. She blithely looked round and saw the owner of the voice.

It was a woman wearing gold armor, which the joints that it didn't cover was glowing with energy resembling Kirby Dots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_Krackle), except her mouth, which was the only part of her uncovered and still flesh. On her helmet, she had a decorative ornament that loosely resembled a television antenna. She also had spikes on her shoulders that issued this same energy. She had two scarlet "^" markers, where her eyes would be, were parallel to each other.

"I'm Inferno," she said, "and my patron had commanded me to kill you."

Estelore raised her eyebrow of her avatar.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 11, 2019, 07:25:38 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXIII (1,313): "Air of Authority" -- A fragrant spray can give a target an "air of authority".

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Estelore Has Flash Fire (https://serebii.net/abilitydex/flashfire.shtml)

Estelore's eyebrow remained raised, but she said nothing. She had her hands folded in front of her sundress, with her big floppy sunny-colored hat undulating with each movement of her head.

"Stand still," Inferno said, "and this will be over quick."

"You have no clue what I am, do you?" she asked, calmly and in an almost careless manner.

"Do not resist," she said. Her infliction was rather monotone. "You will not like the results. Resistance is futile."

"You stole that from the Borg," Estelore said, with a mirthless chuckle.

Pyrra did not know what the Borg was, and, so, she ignored that comment. She raised her right hand, palm out, which began to glow and pulse with light and heat. "Prepare to meet your final conclusion."

"So, you choose to continue on with this folly," Estelore said, shutting her eyes, with a heavy sigh, "then so be it. Let us commit to this foolishness."

Inferno blasted Estelore with a bolt of heat and light. Estelore didn't only tank the shot, she absorbed and metabolized the shot. She did so without even so much as a flinch from the the impact. She didn't even move or lose any of her poise. It didn't even push her backwards any.

Inferno was not daunted by this, choosing to believe that she ever so slightly missed Estelore. She was a stubborn sort, but whether that was the Inferno persona or Pyrra herself remained unclear.

"Oh, dear," Estelore said, with sad disappointment in her voice, despite her language still being polite. "You still want to exercise this imprudent act despite the evidence you've seen."

"My patron has decreed your death," Inferno said, still in keeping with her emotionless, monotone voice. "I am obliged to acquiesce."

She fired two bolts now, one from either hand, and it met with the same result. Estelore wasn't pushed backwards at all and she had absorbed both bolts without any difficulty, and not so much as a flinch.

"Are we done with this farce, miss?" Estelore said. "To be frank, I do have other things that I rather be doing at the moment."

"My patron . . . my patron's will must be done," was her reply.

"Must it?" Estelore sighed, with a bite of impatience in her voice. She was finding this whole thing tiresome and monotonous. And she was getting bored. "Could you please explain to me as to why his will dictates my murder?"

And, of course, she couldn't. All she could do was say, "My patron --"

"Has ordered my death," Estelore finished, with an impatient snap to her voice now. "Yes, yes, we've already established that. Well established it."

Inferno said nothing, and kept what little of her face that was visible inscrutable, so it was hard to tell, outwardly, what she waz feeling. But her body language was different, despite being ever so slight. She was intimidated by Estelore, who hadn't any interest in murdering her -- but Inferno didn't know that.

 "M-my . . . my p-patron . . ." Inferno choked out.

"Yes, dear," Estelore said, her impatience tinged with exasperation now. "We've established that already. What we haven't established is the why."

Inferno's lips quivered, as she felt the fear. This was not what the RAFian intended.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 13, 2019, 06:42:08 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXIV (1,314): "One Extreme" -- The RAFians must face a telepath that can trigger catatonic episodes in others.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
What Are You?!

Inferno seemed to work up nerve again and launched a more power balls of light and heat at Estelore, who was completely unaffected by them. She, again, wasn't even pushed backward from the attack.

"I was under the impression that you understood that that wouldn't work," Estelore said, voice tinged with disappointment.

"My patron has demanded your expiration !" she said. "Balthakk's will must be done!"

Estelore took note  the name before commenting, "You still have yet to explain why this must be so."

Inferno fired missiles of heat and light at Estelore, which met, again, with the same result. Estelore remained unmoved form the inertia of the attack. Only now, Estelore was getting truly annoyed.

"Can we move beyond this futile exercise?" Estelore said, her tone becoming rather waspish. "We've already proven just how pointless power fisticuffs is. That was already established --"

Then Inferno raised her hands up, summoning a huge ball of light and heat, as if she was simultaneously using Terra Destroyer and the Spirit Bomb. Estelore wasn't intimidated, not at all. In fact, she just looked annoyed and inconvenienced. And, as expected, it didn't do anything to Estelore.

"What ARE you?!" Inferno demanded.

"I'm a self-aware stellar entity within a human avatar," Estelore said, deciding that Inferno might outright reject the idea of a sentient star.

"What?"

"A star -- a luminous celestial body composed of plasma (particularly hydrogen and helium), with a roughly spherical shape -- that attained sentience and self-awareness."

" . . . What?"

"Oh, never mind," Estelore said, with a frustrated sigh. She swore she could have more scintillating conversations with a brick wall. "Let's just go back to the question at hand."

But they never did. Why? Because Krakkan decided to pull the plug on this precisely at this moment. This surprised Estelore by opening a new avenue of annoyance that she had been unaware of previously.

"Well, a question for later, I guess," she said, patiently, as she saw this Shadow Game-like environment lift, and she sedately walked towards the others.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 14, 2019, 06:29:02 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXV (1,315): "Site D" -- The RAFians raid Site D and must deal with the site enforcer, Agent Lightning.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Octessence REACT

"You're doing it all wrong!!" Watoomb snarled , as he watched the Tempest being defeated by Cloak by using all the bestowed power she had from his basketball-sized orb. "You're not using the fullest extent of the powers I gave to you!"

"Do something! He is right over there! No, there, you nitwit!" Farralalah roared, through his own basketball-sized viewing orb, as he watched Wild connive and trick the Carnivore. "Why are you watching dancing? He's right there, you idiot! Kill him!"

"What are you doing?!" Cyttorak raged, watching the Juggernaut being defeated by Underseen in a basketball-sized orb. "He's there! No, you idiot! RIGHT! THERE!"

"You're not trying hard enough!!" Balthakk roared, as he watched the Inferno not being able to do anything against Estelore via his "viewing globe" device. "It's so easy, you incompetent lump!! Why are you struggling!?!"

"What are you . . ." Krakkan said, watching Conquest's battle against Cerulean via his "viewing globe" device. "Those are your weapons, you idiot!! Why are you throwing them away like that!! Get ahold of yourself, you moron!!"

"Stop listening to his nonsense, you moron!" Ikonn seethed, as he watched Aquilai distract the Bedlam from his own "viewing globe". "Who cares what arguments he uses?! He's clearly trying to distract you!!"

"What are you doing?! Why are you listening to him?" Raggador said, watching the Stonecutter listening to Aquilai's critques in a serious way through his own basketball-sized orb. "He's lying to you, dolt! Why would he help you kill himself? Come on! Be serious!"

"Why are you letting him psychoanalyze you?" Valtorr said, watching the Decay listen to the Spectre's psychoanalytic diatribe though his own "viewing globe". "Destroy him, you idiot! He's just a touch away!"

They all stood in a circle, facing outward, with Shenecron in the center. He wasn't watching it through some "viewing globe" thing. That wasn't necessary. He was more than confident that Demos's stooge friends would take care of the Exemplars for him. He knew that each one that he set up against an Exemplar (without their knowledge or consent) was specifically picked be cause they could counter their abilities in some way, or that they could just straight up overpower the Exemplars, as in the case of Estelore and Cloak.

He smiled inwardly (while keeping his expression placid externally) when he saw all eight, in the span of a moment's breath, rescind the fraction of their power that they doled out to the Exemplars, putting them all back to where they were before they entered their respective temples, wiping their memories in the process.

"The Wager is forfeit," Cyttorak said, bitterly. "That Exemplar was more unworthy than I thought."

"They all were," Ikonn spat, matching his fellow's embittered feelings. "Now the Wager must wait once more for more suitable vessels of our power."

"Which might take a while," Krakkan said, showing some temper. "Accursed rule of passivity and noninterference of free will. . . ."

"In order to enact the Wager, we need Exemplars," Raggador said, "we cannot settle our dispute any other way."

Fools, Shenecron thought scathingly, doddering old fools. All that power, and they waste it on childish quibbling on who's stronger and who's more powerful. There are bigger schemes and plans at play, and they don't even realize it.

"So, my fellows, we should depart until the time that we can complete the Wager is upon us again," Balthakk said.

"Just a moment," Shenecron said, "there is still a little something hasn't yet been addressed."

He took out a paper signed by all eight of them. A paper that all eight of them forgot and didn't think anything of. A paper that they all signed without scrutinizing.

Big mistake.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 15, 2019, 05:35:56 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXVI (1,316): "Swords of Power" -- Eighteen swords are found by souls with powerful convictions.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
This Is Why You Always Read The Fine Print

"No," Ikonn said, "no, I think our business here has been concluded. Total waste of time for everyone involved."

"I'm afraid there's one more issue to resolve first," Shenecron said, showing the contract that all eight signed, floating in from of him, as if this was a video game with limited graphical assets. " Namely, the stipulations of the contract you signed. You first must honor that."

"Contract? I didn't sign any stinking --" Valtorr said, abrasively.

"But you did," Shenecron said, not losing his cool and oozing confidence. He gestured to the parchment that curled forward at the top and curled backward at the bottom. "Remember when I asked if you wanted to put your wager down in paper? I did, and I made it official, with several stipulations if you failed to slay my chosen champions."

"But your champions didn't kill our unworthy former Exemplars!" Farallah protested hotly. "The agreement is null and void until the next Wager!"

Shenecron allowed himself a small smile, "Perhaps, next time, you should read any document you sign. That was not a stipulation of the contract. It didn't matter that my chosen champions didn't kill your former Exemplars, the contract didn't stipulate that as an obligation."

"What are you on about?" Cyttorak sniped.

"The contract stipulated that your Exemplars must have killed my chosen champions," Shenecron said, calmly. He was clearly savoring this. "That was, indeed, an obligation of the contract. One that was failed to be honored, failed to be followed through on."

Balthakk attempts to destroy the contract, as if that would absolve them of any contractual mandates, but it failed.

Shenecron smiled slightly a bit broader, "You see? It's iron-clad and completely unbreakable."

All eight looked as if they all had misgivings about this. But how bad could it be?I

"Failure to live up to your end of the bargain . . ." Shenecron said, clearly enjoying this and drawing this out, ". . . results in some punitive measures to be undertaken at my digression."

"What are you getting at, Hell Prince?" Ikonn asked, suspicious now of his motives.

"Oh, its nothing, really," Shenecron said, deciding on the spot to make a whole production of this. He loved the theatricality to it. "Just failure on your part means you have to bequeath just some little bobbles that you'll never even miss."

 He waited a beat, before continuing on in this monologue. "The Fist. The Vial. The Idol. The Ruby. The Kestral Key. The Waterfall. The Brazier. The Ringed Ruby. They're now mine. My property."

"You can't do that!" Watoomb complained.

"I did, and I claim dominion over them," Shenecron said, enjoying seeing them squirm. He tapped the contract, and said, "Ironclad, binding, and perfectly legal. It's your OWN fault for not scrutinizing the parchment before signing."

Shenecron only waited for another beat.

"But not only that, this contract also affords me something else from you, something that you owe to me," Shenecron said, getting to the most important bit. "By forfeiting the Wager, you forfeit your power."

"WHAT?!" all eight roared.

"This is why you always read the fine print," Shenecron said, smiling broadly now.

"What if we refuse?" Krakkan demanded.

"This isn't the kind of contract that you can breach," Shenecron said. He was really enjoying this too much. "Besides . . ."

Shenecron held up a clenched fist, and immediately power was being siphoned from the eight. Forcing them to adopt more humanoid forms. They were very shaky after this, as Shenecron put the powers in a small jewelry box, that bore a very minor resemblance to Pandora's box. Now wasn't the time to use it. Maybe when he consolidated . . . things to consider later.

"Now," he said, "I'd like to show you my little garden . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2019, 06:55:29 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXVII (1,317): "Shields of Power" -- Eighteen shields are found by souls with powerful protective instincts.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
An Acid Test

Cloak was dispatched to some sort of disused chemical plant that had fallen into some disrepair. He wasn't remotely thrilled about it. All he knew was they manufactured chemicals here, though he didn't know the precise products or for what purposes.

The plant was relatively easy to navigate, despite there being chemicals of a variety of colors pooling here and ere upon the floor. He made sure to give them a good breadth of space. He didn't know what could happen upon their mixing -- whether they become corrosive, acidic, or even explosive -- so he thought that he should just not step in any of them.

This became harder as he moved deeper into the plant, where the fiend was reported to have been. He soon came to a chamber with a huge pool of a fluorescent green substance beneath the floor, which seemed to be acidic in nature. The roof, which led to the exterior the building structure, was bricked with some sort of "acid brick", that is to say, bricks resistant to acid. It wasn't too long before the fiend showed itself.

The fiend was a stout creature with a disproportionately thin lower body and outfitted with red and yellow body armor. Its right arm was a blaster and its head was encased in what appeared to be a green gel, resembling an acid drop. The fiend apparently wears a breathing mask constantly to protect itself from the noxious fumes of the acid it uses in combat. In addition, transparent tubes are featured on the fiend's body, armor, and legs. Its feet are split into two digits, one in front and one in back, and look like propellers. It had human-like eyes with red sclera and pale green irises, and stood roughly as tall as an average human male.

When they locked eyes with each other, the battle had begun. It formed an acid barrier around itself, like a force field shield. Cloak quickly found out when he used his weakest shots of energy, that the shield needed to be worn down to get to the fiendish center. Cloak pulled down several bricks on top of the fiend and its barrier.

The barrier broke immediately and stunned it momentarily. Cloak wasted the limited time window by looking up to see if there were still enough bricks to use, and the fiend quickly gathered its wits and formed the acidic barrier again. When it had done this, it fired three gloppy shots of acid into the air that arced towards the ground. They were easy enough to dodge.

Without this acid barrier, the fiend leaped across the platform at him, and only paused when it landed (having misjudged the jump) to fire three acid shots at Cloak which tracked him lightly. They were easy enough to avoid, as Cloak caused more bricks to fall on the fiend.

Then it got tricky. It activated some sort of superspeed gear and it moved incredibly fast. Cloak's heart sank a little -- he always had difficulty facing off against speedsters.

The fiend plunged into the acid pool beneath the platform, and quickly moved left to right and back again. Its position was easily marked by the wake it was leaving which caused massive waves of acid that Cloak had a difficult time dodging due to the swiftness of this attack.

Once it passed underneath Cloak, it jumped out of the acid and it fired a volley of acid shots downward. These were more difficult to evade, but Cloak managed it. He would later claim it was skill, but, in all honesty, it was just dumb luck.

Once it seemed to have slowed down, Cloak caused the entirety of the bricked ceiling to collapse upon it. It was over and done. And so was he, as he was extracted from the place.

***

Demos called it an "ashiddosapien". Demos claimed that he created the fiend for chemical reasons, but dehydrated it when it turned on him.

***

Malice was bustling around, with this fight on as background noise, trying to concoct a scheme. A scheme to punish Cloak, to make him writhe and suffer like his grandfather.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2019, 10:49:44 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXVIII (1,318): "Staves of Power" -- Eighteen staves are found by souls with powerful magical potential.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXIII:
A FRACTURED MIND
CHAPTER ONE:
Giga Impact!

Duff went to an abandoned construction zone in some sort of mine. He was armed with a new weapon, based of the last fiend's serqekinetic power capabilities. Of course, it was just a prototype, and one that wasn't fully tested. This was an "acid test" so to speak.

Getting into the mine-like construction zone was easy enough, but that was the easy part. Going into the mine shaft itself was dangerous. There were large pitfalls, with only conveyor platforms preventing him from an immediate death. He couldn't fly or bounce -- he was just a flatscan human who knew how to use a firearm decently.

Notto mention how labyrinthine these tunnels were. It was not difficult at all to get lost. He even lost a cell signal. Didn't help that he was really out in the boonies in the first place.

But he eventually made it to the heart of the place where the fiend resided. A wide earthen chamber that appeared to be dug out by the fiend itself.

The fiend was large and heavy, whose face only consisted of two round, human-like eyes with white sclera, a blue right iris, and a purple left iris. It had three spikes on its body, one atop its head and two more at the ends of its arms, one for each arm. It also has tailpipes on its shoulders. Its upper body is colored blue on one side and purple on the other side, and his lower body is colored white.

Once it locked its eyes onto Duff, it tried to dash across the room and ram into (or possibly gore) Duff with its spikes. Aside from this tactic, it would often try to jump onto Duff -- which would flatten him into nothing due the fiend's immense weight. As such, this weight also made so the impact from the landing of such a jump immobilized Duff for a second, before he could react. After this, the fiend jumped across the chamber in an attempt to crush Duff to smithereens, then transformed into a three-pronged jackhammer arranged in a cyclical manner, leaving a spike wherever it landed.

Duff just activated the prototype enveloping himself in an acid barrier -- but he had to be careful not to touch it -- it might have proven harmful to himself. As said earlier, it wasn't fully tested yet. From here he fired three or so acid shots at the fiend, which seemed to easiky eat through whatever armor it possessed and harmed it.

Not too soon after, it seemed to trigger a power boost, as it changed form into a gigantic jackhammer. Giant as it was five times as wide as Duff and at least three or four times as tall.

In this form, the fiend jumped all around the chamber, generating massive explosions by slamming its enlarged spikes into the earthen ground. Duff didn't know who he managed to avoid getting killed, but the acid barrier probably had something to do with it.

After doing this three times consecutively, the fiend broke apart into nine drill-like structures, which flew off in all directions, before returning and reconstituting in to its normal form. From there, it repeated its attack pattern.

By using the acid barrier, Duff managed to destroy the fiend. But he didn't come out smelling like a daisy. His clothes were ripped, bore some acid damage, and he himslef was cut and bleeding, sported some acid burns, and was generally exhausted.

We wondered again why he volunteered for this mission.

***

Demos called it a "pairusapien". He claimed that he intended for it to be used in piling (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_foundation). He immediately regretted saying this, as it became fertile ground for jokes at his expense.

***

Malice found the battle disappointing when the fiend lost, and she was more concerned with coming up with another scheme. She felt as if she was starting to lose relevance again.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 17, 2019, 10:47:01 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXIX (1,319): "Together Again" -- Sword, shield, and stave become unified to block the resurrection of a great evil.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Daydreams and Disbelief

It was one of those retro big band, dinner theater places, where Kane sat surrounding by minions and adoring hangers-on. It was a motley collection of some of the most deplorable crooks and villains the city had to offer.

And Kane was sitting in their midst in a white silk suit wearing dark shades and an opulent hat with a feather plume in it. He sat there as if he were their leader, their kingpin.

On the stage was Helen, Sakki, and Ash -- in horrible caricatures of who they truly were. Then the music started up, and this caricature of Ash sang:

"Good evening all you gentlemen, mobsters, creeps and crooks."

Then the caricature of Helen sang:

"Men with Marks come after you, and still, you’re off the hook."

Then the caricature of Sakki sang:

"For those who scare and terrorize, it’s the dawn of a brand new day!"

Then all three sang:

"You scum can simply call us, the one and only RAFians of Yay!"

Then the caricature of Ash sang:

"GH has his special guitar sing!"

Then the other two chimed in:

"Pretty strong, that little thing!"

The Helen caricature sang:

"Dylan’s deeds are really swell!"

The Sakki caricature sang:

"But who will bring him out of his shell?"

The Ash caricature sang:

"Cerulean's foes, they finish last!"

The Sakki caricature sang:

"Too bad sometimes he’s just too fast!"

All three sang:

"While all the boys can always save the day,
No one does it better than the RAFians of Yay!
The one and only RAFians of Yay!
While all the boys can always save the day,
No one does it better, no one does it better than the RAFians of Yay!"

The caricature of Ash sang:

"Parker has heroic traits! That is, when he’s shooting straight!"

"Hey!" the caricature of Helen protested.

"I’m just saying . . ." the Ash caricature said, with a shrug and closed eyes.

The Helen caricature sang:

"Cloak's always, always courageous!"

The Sakki caricature sang:

"His little element, less outrageous."

The Helen caricature sang:

"Underseen can't expand!"

Then all three sang:

"Becomes putty in our hands!
While all the boys can keep you punks at bay,
No one does it better than the RAFians of Yay!"

The two unknown mobsters behind Kane sang:

"The one and only RAFians of Yay."

Yay

Then all three sang:

"While all the boys can always save the day,
No one does it better, no one does it better than the RAFians of Yay!"

The Ash caricature sang:

"Kane throws his boomerang,
What a weapon, what a bang . . ."

The Helen caricature sang:

"Check out that utility belt!
Sure can make a girl’s heart melt . . ."

The Sakki caricature sang:

"He’s always right there for the save!
I’d like to see his secret cave . . ."

Then all three sang:

"While Kane does things in his special way,
He'd do it better with the RAFians of Yay!
The one and only RAFians of Yay!
While Kane always seems to save the day,
No one does it better, no one does it better than the RAFians of Yay!"

"KANE!" came a sharp voice, shaking Kane out of his daydream. It was Yarin, with a stern tone of voice that he hadn't really ever exercised before. "Would you PLEASE stop daydreaming so LOUDLY?! I'm trying to monitor communications, THANK YOU VERY MUCH."

***

"I just don't get the attraction," Cloak said, earnestly.

He was wearing his ID mask, which projected a human form over him, making him appear smaller and a bit more frumpy than he usually appears. Phoenix, Hunter (alwo wearing an ID mask to appear human), Parker, Helen, Saffa, GH, Gaz and he had gone to a show. Dino declined to go, given her appearance and species would make it difficult to accommodate, so she decided to babysit Leatherhead, who didn't want to go.

"What's there to get?" Gaz asked.

"Perhaps it is because my upbringing was . . . different, or because of my culture, but I don't understand the intended deception."

"A part of all shows necessitate some suspension of disbelief, Cloak," Phoenix said, rationally.

"Am I supposed to suspend my disbelief that a hunk of wood is speaking?" Cloak said. "when didn't even attempt to disguise that he was moving that puppet's arm with his own? Am I really supposed to put aside all credulity for this?"

"That's what you're supposed to do," Helen said, with a small smile.

"But it was obvious the sound was not coming from the puppet," Cloak said. He wasn't exactly clear on why this was entertainment. "You could see the vibrations emanating from the man on stage. You can even tell when he purses his lips in such a way, the way his throat moves ever so slightly, and the fact that his mouth is always open when the puppet 'speaks'."

"Well, you're not supposed to be looking at those things," Hunter said, with a shrug.

"Your Earthsight must have been ruining the magic," Helen suggested.

 Cloak did not have a reply at the ready for this. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was the sheer amount of missions that there seemed to be lately. Maybe it was the Tempest thing was still on his mind. Maybe it was because had lingering regrets about his decision with Destiny's diary. Who could say for sure?I

However, his thoughts were interrupted when he thought he sensed something. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fAFP0IoMfsA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 20, 2019, 06:37:58 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXX (1,320): "Site E" -- The RAFians raid Site E and deal with the site enforcer, Agent Blaster.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
More Than a Pair-A-Norman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParaNorman)

There was a young man who had found himself in a psychic battle with a Mummudrai. He didn't know what this creature was, but he managed to kill the Mummudrai, but there was a severe repercussion from this battle.

The final blow from the Mummudrai, before it died, was enough to fracture this young man's mind into seventeen other personalities. When a personality becomes dominent, they actually change his physical appearance and even his clothing, while having a power of their own. He could not control when the personalities become dominant, and each personality is aware of each other. He was the most dominant personality, with Danny and Cassandra.

Norman was a twenty-three-year-old young man and the man who waged the battle with the Mummudrai. The only power he had came after his mind fractured, and it granted him immunity to ectoplasmic attacks, and that's it. He was aware of the other personalities but hated the Felix personality the most out of them and refused to speak to the Danny personality. He was athletic and all around balanced in his fighting style. He had brown hair and blue eyes and usually wore preppy clothing.

The Frieda personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old woman and was amongst the first personalities to emerge when Norman's mind fractured. She had fiery red hair and gray eyes, and wore reds and oranges. Her power was pyrokinesis and an immunity to burns. She hated the Walter, Rocky, and Grover personalities. She tended to be a ranged fighter, and a fiery offensive fighter, though a bit overly concerned with how beautiful her attacks are.

The Walter personality appeared to be twenty-three-year-old man and was amongst the first personalities to emerge during the fracturing of Norman's mind. He had blue hair and blue eyes, and wore blues. His power was hydrokinesis. He hated the Grassley and Elliot personalities. He tended to be a ranged fighter, but with a more or less balanced fighting style,  but concerned himself with how beautiful some of his attacks were.

The Grassley personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man and was amongst the first personalities to emerge during the fracturing of Norman's mind. He had green hair, green eyes, and wore greens. His power was florakinesis, an immunity to powder- and spore-based attacks. He hates the Bugsy, Frieda, Adrianna, Candice, and Poe personalities. He preferred to be a ranged fighter, but wasn't above melee combat, and took pride in how clever his attacks were.

The Elliot personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man who was amongst the first personalities to emerge during the fracturing of Norman's mind. He had blonde hair, yellow eyes, and wore yellows. His power was electrokinesis, and an immunity to paralysis. He hates the Grover personality. He is primarily a ranged fighter, and preoccupied with how cool his attacks look.

The Grover personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man with brown hair, brown eyes, and wore browns. His power is terrakinesis, electrical immunity, and sandstorm immunity. He hates the Grassley, Candice, and Walter personalities. He was a melee combatant, and concerned himself with how tough some of his attacks look.

The Poe personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man who was amongst the first personalities to emerge during the fracturing of Norman's mind. He had purple hair, purple eyes, and wore purples. His power was toxikinesis, and an immunity to poison. He hates the Grover and Cassandra personalities. He had a balanced fighting style, preferring melee combat, and a preoccupation with how clever his attacks are and a derision toward cuteness.

The Felix personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man with orange hair, orange eyes, and wears oranges. His power was superhuman strength and superhuman durability. He hates the Marie, Adrianna, and Cassandra personalities. He was a primarily melee fighter, and had a preoccupation with how cool or tough his attacks were while being derisive toward cuteness.

The Bugsy personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man with olive green hair, olive green eyes, and wears greens. His power is surface adhesion and oral silk. He hates the Frieda, Adrianna, and Rocky personalities. He was a balanced fighter, with no predilection for ranged or close combat, though often opts for melee combat, and no preoccupation with how cool, cute, beautiful, clever, or tough his attacks looked.

The Danny personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man with indigo hair, indigo hair, and wears purples. His powers included intangibility, spectral possession, phantom vision, spectral displacement, ectoplasmic constructs, and other spectral abilities, and an immunity to all restraints. He hates the Darlene personality and himself, and will not speak to Norman or the Felix personality. He usually opts for physical combat, though he has a fairly balanced fighting style, and a preoccupation of how clever his attacks appear. Other than Norman and Cassandra, he was one of the more dominant personality.

The Candice personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old woman with platinum blond hair, white eyes, and wears whites. Her powers include cryokinesis, a cold immunity, a freezing immunity, and hail immunity. She hates the Felix, Frieda, Rocky, and Steele personalities. While usually opting for ranged combat, her fighting style was balanced, and she preoccupied herself with her attacks being beautiful, annoying her if they come off as "cool".

The Drake personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man with khaki-colored hair, khaki-colored eyes, and wore khaki clothing (opting to go shirtless most times). His power includes a draconic form. He hates the Candice and Marie personalities, and himself. He opted for ranged combat, opting for offensive tactics, preoccupied whit how cool, tough, and beautiful his attacks are, derisive of cuteness and cleverness.

The Adrianna personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old woman with golden hair, golden eyes, and wears golds. Her power includes aerokinesis and flight. She hates the Elliot, Candice, and Rocky personalities, and refuses to speak to the Grover personality. She opted to melee combat, preferring agile combat, and preoccupied with how cool her attacks look.

The Rocky personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old man with gray hair, gray eyes, and wore grays. His power included lithokinesis, and sandstorm immunity. He hates the Felix, Grassley, Grover, Steele, and Walter personalities. He opted for a defensive fighting style, and preoccupied with how tough they look.

The Cassandra personality appeared to be a twenty-three-year-old woman with violet hair, violet eyes, and wears purples. Her power includes telepathy, telekinesis, psychokinesis,  mind control, psionic constructs, astral projection, astral possession, astral displacement, and other psychic abilities. She hates the Bugsy, Darlene, and Danny personalities. She went with a more ranged attack preference, with a more offensive predilection, her attacks always coming off as clever mostly, though some were beautiful, cool, or cute.

The Steele personality appeared to be a twenty-year-old man with silver hair, silver eyes, and wears silvers. His powers include ferrokinesis and poison immunity. He hates Frieda, Felix, and Grover personalities, while not talking to the Poe personaity. He prefers a more defensive fighting style, utilizing typically "cool" moves.

The Darlene personality appeared to be a twenty-year-old woman with black hair, black eyes, and wears blacks. Her powers include umbrakinesis, telepathy immunity, mind control immunity, astral possession immunity, and astral displacement immunity. She hates the Bugsy and Felix personalities, and refuses to speak to the Cassandra personality. She usually opts for physical, melee attacks, though will use ranged combat, and prefers to use techniques she thinks are clever.

The Marie personality appeared to be a six-year-old girl with curly pink ringlets, pink eyes, and pink, frilly dresses and accessories. Her powers included powerful magicks to rival Broken. She hates Poe and Steele, and refuses to speak to Drake. She priorities to ranged defense, and she likes to use beautiful or cute techniques, disparaging "cool" or "tough" techniques.

And all of the personalities could hear, see, and communicate with each other, but they cannot be seen by anyone except Norman, and they all vie for control of the body. Signaling how they all came from him, all of the seventeen personalities share his facial structure, despite the very large discrepancies with their height, weight, and frames. they all vied to be the wole proprietor of Norman's body, which shapeshifts to match their appearance in this fractured mindscape. They all could only agree on one thing.

They wanted out.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 21, 2019, 08:20:43 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXI (1,321): "The Composite RAFian" -- The RAFians must face the the Composite RAFian, who purportedly has all their powers.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Escape

"Kane -- GET OUT," Yarin snarled. The layabout pseudo-RAFian wouldn't stop daydreaming so loud. It was akin to someone coming right next to your ear and shouting all the things you didn't want to hear because you knew them to be untrue, and obviously so, at that. At the very top of their voice. And the Nyac dealt with that for just about two to three hours.

Everyone had a breaking point. Not to mention most people, even to telepaths, have some degree of shielding their thoughts. Kane clearly had none. Kane clearly thought that he was incredibly special in this regard.

"What?" he said. Yarin didn't need telepathy to see that Kane thought that he was being the victim in this exchange . He always did put himself foremost in his thoughts, with everything and everyone else being secondary.

"You HEARD me, Kane!" Yarin snapped uncharacteristicall y. He was just fed up with Kane for a long time now. He was supposed to be helping Yarin. But his idea of helping was sitting on his butt and increasingly annoying and frustrating the telepathic alien with his daydreams as loud as a constant car backfire -- right in his ears. "GET OUT! I'll finish this shift without you!"

"But --" Kane began to protest. He didn't understand is outburst, despite Yarin having very distinctly told him why he had to leave. Yarin was really finding Kane's daydreams where he was some sort of Gary Stu that people unjustifiably adored and venerate for no good reason, and in a rather sloppy, slovenly manner -- it was the exact type of bilge that would sink a movie that depicted it as such.

"GO!!!" Yarin roared, as Kane scrambled to obey. He was sorely tempted to wipe Kane's memory until he was blank slate with mentality of neonatal child, but he would never do that. He didn't know if he could - - but the fact that he found himself considering it . . . Yarin found this concerning. Kane was rapidly bringing out the worst in all of them . . . this was also quite concerning.

But his mind was quickly taken off the subject when he received a report. It would seem that a local mental health facility had a patient escape. He wondered idly how that seemed to be a case worthy of RAFian attention, as they usually took cases that local law enforcement was unequipped to handle, or otherwise stretched too thin to handle properly.

But this was just what the surface preface of the report said, as he got into the details he was intrigued and immediately saw why they were contacted. The subject -- a male in his early to mid-twenties, suffering from a form of dissociative identity disorder, who was entered into the facility under the name of Norman Xavier Haller by his harried single mother, left unnamed in the report  -- had escaped using a litany of superhuman abilities. The facility was aware of this and documented the abilities of the "alters" as the called them. The "alters" that they were able to deduce were the florakinetic Grassley, the pyrokinetic Frieda, the hydrokinetic Walter, the electrokinetic Elliot, the superhumanly strong brute Felix, the psychic Cassandra, the dragon shapeshifter Drake, the umbrakinetic Darlene, the ferrokinetic Steele, and the magical Marie. There was speculation that there could be even more that the camera didn't catch.

This last part was the thing that caught his attention. The insinuation that his "alters" were different enough to be detected as such on cameras. It was at this point he watched the videos that came with the report. The resolution on the videos were exactly great, but they showed everything that Yarin had surmised. This metahuman's physical body actually changes when the personalities shift control. This is why the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder wasn't as controversial as it could have been, as it was clear that these changes were reluctant at best. Though, Yarin acknowledged silently, there could still be arguments against the determination.

Still, this would have to be brought to the attention of the others. This metahuman could be one of the most powerful entities they have ever faced. He -- or would "they" be more appropriate? -- could be even more powerful than Cloak. Or Estelore. Or even Richard.

This was serious stuff.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 22, 2019, 06:03:08 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXII (1,322): "A New Kind of Predator" -- The RAFians must deal with a depraved individual of the likes they haven't before.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Debate and Theft

"Hey, get back here!" someone protested, as Norman burst out of a jewelry shop with some dingy, off-white pearl necklace. It was just a costume piece, and the so-called pearls were more plastic than genuine. There were anywhere from twenty to twenty-five of these faux pearls on this chain, and the reason that this necklace was stolen was unknown by most, if not all the "alters".

But the fact of the matter was that they did. None fought for control, and Norman was in the driver's seat currently. He wanted to drop the pearl necklace, but found that he couldn't. Literally couldn't.

But that didn't matter now. The shopkeeper was abandoning all pretense and chasing him in a full running gait. Norman found himself actually believing that he might remain in control for -- then one of his "alters" began to fight him for control, but he couldn't tell which one of the seventeen other personalities it was. Naturally, he fought back, but he was tired. Frankily, for as long as he managed to support these personalities, the strain was wearing him down, and his body was showing signs of the strain . . .

He felt his mine grow unconscious, and he blacked out, which was a definite sign of another "alter" was taking control of his body. He felt his body change form, but in a distant and detached manner, as he fell into unconsciousness. . . .

***

"And that's probably not even the scope of his possible potential," Cloak acknowledged, as Yarin briefed everyone. (Well, except Kane, who elected not to show up.) Cloak tried not let his pride get the better of him. He wasn't Vegeta, after all. "I wonder if his fragmented mind was actually a boon for him . . ."

"What do you mean?" Saffa inquired.

"Having too much power, too soon, could be disastrous to one who is not ready for its burden," the Realm Walker said. "Too much power for someone not ready, not disciplined enough to wield it? It just might rip their very bodies apart if they are unable to cope, or change them into mindless beasts . . . remember Syphoon."

A brief beat of silence met these words. They did remember his fate, and how he eventually "came back" as a Black Lantern. He had amassed too much power, and he did not have the displine, the training, or the wherewithal to cope with and control such power. His fate was tangent reminder of this.

"Are you suggesting that his fracturing mind may have helped his body cope with the immense power potential?" Aquilai queried.

"Is that not what I said?" Cloak replied.

"The fact of the matter is he, or one of his potentially more volatile personalities, could pose a great danger to himself and others," Parker said.

"What do you suggest?" Gaz inquired.

"Take him down," the SPARTAN said. It was, in his view, a pertinent and necessary ruthlessness. "Permanently, if need be."

"You say that as if we knew how to do that," Cloak said, "given this boy's potential, and the fact that there may very well be more personalities that we're not yet privy to, that would be a tall order, despite the simplicity you give the tactic. Anything we might try, might prove either ineffective or marginally effective at best."

"There are too many variables in this," Helen said, before Parker could rebuke the Realm Walker. "The boy himself, just by being is a dangerous variable in and of himself."

"The fact remains that we have to find him first," Ash pointed out, pragmatically. "And he managed to escape from a high-security mental health facility -- with supposedly state-of-the-art security systems in place. Just finding him is going to be difficult enough."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 23, 2019, 05:43:05 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXIII (1,323): "Site F" -- The RAFians raid Site F, and must face site enforcer, Agent Blade.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Struggle

But it didn't take long for Norman to realize what happened, and he was finding this increasingly grating. This was his body. It wasn't -- it didn't belong to these extraneous personalities. He had long since stopped caring where they manifested from. He fought to assert himself, though he didn't know which personality had done it, or where he would be when he became conscious in the material world once again.

He didn't care. This was his body. His life that these alters were ruining. They belonged to him, as so did the personalities, technically. But he didn't want these personalities. He was tired of blacking out and finding himself in precarious situations without any abilities to get him out of them. This really wasn't fair, he felt. Other people of his age group didn't have to put up with multiple warring personalities. It just wasn't fair!

His struggling seemed moot, but he recognized that it was currently Adrianna in charge, but he fought her for control over his own body, which seemed to be coping with the stress and duress that this disorder was giving it. He paid no mind to how the strain would escalate, perhaps to the point where his body cannot hold or handle these stresses.

Adrianna had control for three minutes before forcefully yielding it to Norman, who oscillated control between himself and Darlene for the following two minutes. Then both forcefully yielded to Adrianna for the next to minutes, before surrendering control to Marie for the following two minutes. Norman managed to reassert himself for the following two minutes before being subsumed by Adrianna again, whose control only lasted for a sparse three minutes, before surrendering control back to Norman for a record thirteen minutes.

"Help . . . me . . ." Norman managed to choke out, only noting that he was still clutching to the pearl necklace. His hand refused to be parted with it. Why? Well, he never really got a chance to dwell on the subject.

But Adrianna wrested control from Norman for only about four minutes, only to be wrested from her by Marie for two minutes. Then Norman reasserts himself for only two minutes, because Cassandra wrests it from him for two minutes. Norman manages to reassert himself for sixteen minutes.

 "Go . . . away . . ." he said, to the personalities spun off from his fractured mind. "This is . . ."

He only managed this for a further six minutes before Adrianna came and wrested control from him. She only was allowed six minutes herself, before Norman reclaimed control. For about eighteen minutes. From which point, Marie claimed control for three minutes, where Norman reclaimed control for nine minutes. From which point, Adrianna took control for three minutes. From there, Norman regains control for nine minutes.

"This is my life," Norman lamented, "you can't be . . . "

But Adrianna wrested control from him, only possessing it for nine minutes, before Norman retakes it for four minutes. It was Walter who took control for four minutes, before Norman reasserts himself for eight minutes before oscillating control with Felix, winning out in the end. This only lasted twelve minutes before Adrianna forced her way into control. This only lasted about four minutes, before Norman retook control for twenty minutes.

"There . . . there has to . . . to be --" Norman said, his body sweating from the strain.

But this only lasted an additional twenty-five minutes, before Adrianna took control for herself, for fifteen minutes. Then Norman and Marie oscillated in control for five minutes, before Norman eventually won out. This only lasted for about ten minutes before Grassley took control for ten minutes. Norman took control then, for five minutes. Then Adrianna took control for ten minutes, succeeded by Cassandra and Felix, which control oscillated between. Norman managed to regain control momentarily.

"To be . . . to be . . ." he managed to choke out the six minutes he had control.

After these six minutes, Grover takes control for six minutes, having it usurped by Adrianna for six minutes. Then being usurped of it herself by Frieda for twelve minutes. Then Norman asserts himself once again for six minutes. But Elliot takes control, for twelve minutes. Then Adrianna takes control for about twenty-one minutes. Then Norman reasserts himself for fourteen minutes. Then Felix takes control for fourteen minutes. Then Cassandra takes control for seven minutes. Then Norman reasserts himself for twenty-one minutes before Drake takes control. He only has it for seven minutes before the body collapses from exhaustion and sleeps, disallowing any of the eighteen personalities to control it for upwards of eight hours.

This is how Norman and his alters survived, and why his body hadn't been ripped apart yet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2019, 06:49:28 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXIV (1,324): "Celedon City" -- Two RAFians must deal with a rogue Apollonian Celedon.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Olive Orb

When Norman woke up, he wasn't in control over his own body, Bugsy was, and he found himself deep in the heart of a forest. They were in a rundown, abandoned apartment complex before. How'd they get here? Norman himself didn't remember or recollect.

The costume pearl necklace had broken and he had the pearls in his pocket, but one which he held in his right hand. Clenched in his fist after two minutes when Adrianna took control away from Bugsy for a minute, before losing it to Poe for four minutes. Grassley took it from him for two minutes, and having Poe retake it from him in two minutes. Bugsy retook control from him for a minute, before losing it to Adrianna, who oscillated the control with him.

"Let me . . . let me have this," Bugsy said. His appearance consisted of olive green hair and eyes, sleeveless shirt, hemmed shorts, sandals, and a pith helmet.

But he couldn't finish, as Adrianna immediately usurped control for four minutes. Poe then took control for four minutes. Adrianna usurped control for two minutes, before control was usurped for Adrianna, for a full two minutes. Bugsy took it from her, but it lasted only two minutes before Steele takes it for four minutes. Then Rocky takes the control for two minutes, before Felix wrests control for two minutes.

Bugsy managed to assert himself, complaining, "C'mon, guys, it's my turn!"

But he could only manage this for six minutes, before Adrianna managed to take control from him for a scarce three minutes. Afterward, Bugsy retakes control for three minutes, whereas Poe takes control for three minutes. Then Walter takes control for three minutes, before being forced to surrender control to Adrianna for three minutes. Then the control went to Grover for three minutes, then to Adrianna again for three minutes, and then to Danny for three minutes. Bugsy reasserts himself for six minutes before it was ripped away by Rocky for six minutes.

Bugsy managed to assert himself again, whining, "Just let me have this!"

But twelve minutes later, control was taken and oscillated between Grassley, Grover, and Steele for four minutes. This was broken by Adrianna taking the control for twelve minutes. Then Poe took control for four minutes, before being usurped by Adrianna for four minutes. Then control went to Bugsy for four minutes.

"This is my turn!" Bugsy whined, still clutching the pearl unknowingly.

But Grassley immediately took control for fifteen minutes, before forcibly yielding control to Poe for fifteen minutes. The control went to Rocky for ten minutes, before Bugsy reasserted himself. But this only lasted five minutes, before Steele wrested control from him, for five minutes. Then the control was usurped from him by Elliot for ten minutes, and likewise was usurped from him by Bugsy again, but for ten minutes. Then the control was taken by Steele for five minutes, and then taken from him by Frieda for ten minutes. Then Steele retakes control for five minutes.

Bugsy reasserted himself, and whined, "I deserve this body, I deserve to be --"

But this only lasted twelve minutes before Adrianna retook control for six minutes, before Bugsy retook control.

"I deserve to be free!!" he roared.

He only possessed control for seven minutes, before Elliot usurped control for fourteen minutes. Marie usurped control for fourteen minutes, before it was forcibly taken away by Walter for twenty-eight minutes. Then Bugsy was in control for seven minutes before Felix took it for fourteen minutes.

Then Bugsy took control, but before he could complain and whine, his vision changed. It changed while having a sensation -- a really odd and out-of-place sensation -- that he was being pushed. He went from seeing the material world to seeing nothing but olive green. Granted, it was his favorite color, but he could not see anything else, as if  was blindfolded with a cloth that color. He couldn't feel anything, couldn't smell anything, much less touch or hear. It was total sensory deprivation, and he found that he didn't care for it.

But, perhaps the thing that potentially scared him the most, was that he was alone. He was sure of it. The other seventeen personalities were not in this place wherever it was. He knew he wanted to alone and in full control of the body, but this wasn't like that at all. He was alone in this place . . . where there was not so much as bee fly fluff around. Bugsy was not happy.

It was hell.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2019, 05:45:52 PM

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a little early.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXV (1,325): "The Gargantian-Nilian War" -- The RAFians are drawn into a war.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Green Orb

When Norman awoke, as his body did the eight-hour coma thing again, again he wasn't in control. Poe was, and only for seven minutes, before it was wrested away from him by . . . no one. His body was "blank" for two minutes -- something that has never happened before. Poe retook control, surprised, and a little embarrassed to lose control to nothing. This only lasted three minutes before Cassandra wrested it away from him, for two minutes. Drake ripped control away for seven minutes, only to have it ripped it ripped away from him by Grassley.

"Dudes, knock it off!" he said, dressed like a hippie -- a loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt, green bellbottoms, green loafers, with a sparse green goatee. Unbeknownst to him and the other personalities, Cloak had heard him from a fair distance away, and only just barely. "Let me have this . . ."

He managed to remain in control for a further eight minutes, before it was wrested away by Adrianna for six minutes. Grassley wrested control from her for four minutes. The control was usurped by Cassandra, before Grassley managed to retake control.

"Dudes! Seriously!" he said, in momentary control, unaware that Cloak was now approaching his location, covering a modest amount of distance. "Seriously! Back off!"

He managed to retain control for six minutes and oscillated with Drake for three minutes. Walter usurped control for nine minutes. Grassley ripped control away for three minutes before it was taken away Darlene, who only had it for six minutes. Then Grassley takes back control for three minutes, and Darlene takes control from him for three minutes. Felix takes control from her for three minutes. Poe takes control from him for three minutes. Grassley took control for three minutes, before having it wrested away by Darlene for three minutes. Rocky takes control from her six minutes, before having it taken from him by Adrianna for three minutes. Grassley managed to wrest control from her once more.

"Seriously, my dudes!" Grassley said. His voice was reminiscent of Norman's, but with a stoner tint to it. Cloak was still a fair distance away, and was still carefully trying to track the sounds. "My dudes, just let me have this!"

He managed to continue to maintain control eight minutes, before being forcibly yielding Grover for four minutes. Poe wrests the control away fro him four eight minutes, before having it ripped away from him by . . . no one. The body just "blanks", as no one notices the absence of Bugsy, for four minutes. Grassley seizes control for the next twelve minutes, before Candice rips it away for eight minutes. Grassley retakes control for eight minutes, before fumbling it over to Elliot for four minutes. Grassley retakes, oscillating with Adrianna, for four minutes. Grassley manages to reclaim control for an additional four minutes

"My dudes," he said, gasping, as Cloak slowly was closing the distance, as he was being extremely cautious. "My dudes, just let me have this for a while."

Grassley managed to maintain control for twenty-five minutes, before the body "blanks" for fifteen minutes. Marie takes control from her for ten minutes, before losing it to Grassley for fifteen minutes. This was wrested from him by Norman himself, who the body takes the form of when it "blanks", for ten minutes. This was, in turn, taken from him by Poe for ten minutes. Then Steele took control from him for ten minutes. Then Felix wrested control from him for five minutes. Grassley managed to regain control momentarily.

"Please, my dudes," he said, "just let me have this a little while."

 He managed to retain control for twelve minutes before Felix took it for six minutes. Grassley retook control for twelve minutes, until Danny wrested control for twenty-four minutes. Grassley managed to assert himself enough to briefly take control back again.

"My dudes! Just let me have this, just for a little --" he said, before struggling to maintain control for fourteen minutes.

It was eventually wrested from him by Danny, who only remained in control for seven minutes. Then Grassley wrest back control, and maintained it for fourteen minutes, before it was taken by Marie, who only had it for fourteen minutes herself. It was taken from her by Grassley, who held on to it for twenty-eight minutes. Then Poe took it for himself for seven minutes. Then Marie took it back for seven minutes, before losing the control to Steele for seven minutes.

When Grassley retook control, he felt as if someone was pushing him, but he couldn't tell where. Where the pushing was coming from or from who. All he knew was that, within sends, he was just seeing forest green everywhere. He couldn't hear, smell, touch, or taste anything either. And, perhaps what he found freakiest of all, was that he was alone. Completely and totally. He had no idea what had happened, and found his florakinesis felt . . . well, suppressed. He found that he couldn't use it, or summon any sort of plants in this prison.

What had he done to deserve this?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 24, 2019, 08:53:06 PM

I guess I can post Saturday's chapter as well. . . .

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXVI (1,326): "Forbidden Information" -- A down-and-out loser breaks into a secure bunker, and comes upon several devices whose use is forbidden in his society.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER NINE:
Purple Orb

When Norman woke up, it was Poe that was in the driver's seat, but he was quickly booted by . . . no one. The body was "blanked" for six minutes straight. Embarrassed, Poe retakes control of the body for four minutes, until Grover took it away from him. But only for a minute, as Poe retook control for another two minutes. But Grover took it back for a single minute. Then Adrianna took control for two minutes, before being usurped by . . . nothing. The body was "blanked" for eight minutes straight, without a personality piloting it. Walter stepped up to pilot it, but was forced out two minutes later by Poe, who involuntarily oscillated control with Darlene for two minutes. Danny stopped this by taking control from both of them for three minutes. But Poe managed to wrest the driver's seat from every one.

"This body is mine, you mother--" Poe said, aloud, with an expletive and vulgar vernacular that would make a sailor blush. His attire was that of a grunge singer, with deep purples.

Then the body "blanked" for four minutes. Adrianna stepped up, and took the driver's seat, but just for two minutes. Walter muscled his way into the proverbial driver's seat, but was only there for two minutes before Poe took the driver's seat for himself.

Poe was reduced to name-calling, with some rather vulgar terms towards the other personalities. He trudged through forest while he was in control, towards a marshy area, where Earthsight was pretty useless. He didn't know this, however.

Then the body "blanked" for six minutes. Poe retook the driver's seat for nine minutes. The muck took on off his shoes, which made Poe just even more unpleasant.

Then the body "blanked", falling face down into the muck, for eight minutes. Darlene quickly took the driver's seat and prevented them all from dying. But the body "blanked" again for four minutes. Darlene retook the body for four minutes, only for Felix to take it from her for eight minutes. Poe retook the driver's seat for four minutes.

Poe launched in a tirade so virulently vulgar, there would be no way that it would ever be aired on television without several hundred censor beeps. He was not a very pleasant personality to be around.

Then the body "blanked" for fifteen minutes into the noxious muck, and Poe retook the driver's seat, embarrassed, for ten minutes. Then it "blanked" once more, for ten minutes, directly back into the muck again. Poe retook the body.

He shifted into the swampy muck again until he was shin-deep, all the while muttering rather venomous things under breath. His language . . . well, it still wasn't family-friendly.

Then Walter took the driver's seat for six minutes, only to be usurped by Drake, who only maintained control for six minutes. Poe retook control momentarily, cursing in some rather . . . inventive ways.

Then Walter took the driver's seat for fourteen minutes. Then Frieda took it from him for fourteen minutes. Poe retook control for seven minutes, before Rocky took it for seven minutes. Poe retook it for seven minutes, before losing it to Drake for seven minutes. Poe reasserted himself and took control over the body, forcing his attire and appearance to reflect his astral self.

But then he felt the pushing sensation. He didn't have much time to think about it ream the person or thing doing it, because soon all he saw was purple, a noxious sort of purple. He couldn't hear, smell, taste, touch, or sense anything around him. He didn't like this one bit.

And he was angry. And he was scared.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 27, 2019, 11:11:08 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXVII (1,327): "Site G" -- The RAFians raid Site G and must deal with the site enforcer, Agent Blaster.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Violet Orb

When Norman awoke after the eight-hour rest period for the body, inside a closed library of some sort, it was Cassandra in the driver's seat, only to be immediately taken by Elliot, for seven minutes. Cassandra took it back and maintained her control for ten minutes before Walter had the audacity to take it from her, only being in control for three minutes. Cassandra takes it back for two minutes, before having it taken away from her by . . . no one. The body just "blanked", was "driverless" so to speak, for two minutes. Cassandra found this dreadfully embarrassing, but Walter beat her to the punch and took the driver's seat for a minute before losing it to Marie for a minute. To which control passed to Candice for a minute. Cassandra wrested control from her.

"Peons!" she spat. She had voluminous violet hair, violently violet fingernails which came to claw-like points, and she wore a long translucent violet dress that reaches the floor and was slit up both sides to her thighs, shoulder pads, and a pair of intricately detailed dress sandals with high heels. She also wore a violently violet cape that is lined with glimmering diamond and star designs. "This body is my rightful property!"

This control only lasted fourteen minutes before Adrianna took it from her, but for four minutes. Cassandra retook control for two minutes before losing it to Walter for four minutes. Then Norman manages to take the driver's seat for himself for two minutes. Then Candice takes the driver's seat for herself for two minutes. Then Adrianna takes control for two minutes, and then the body "blanked" and was "driverless" for two minutes. Cassandra stepped in and retook control.

"I will not surrender this control to my intellectual inferiors!" Cassandra declared. She tried resisting all attempts to wrest control from her, and briefly managed a modicum of success.

But Marie managed to wrest control from her and remained in control for thirty minutes. Then Felix takes the driver's seat for twenty-one minutes. Cassandra retook control for six minutes, losing it to Rocky for six minutes. He, in turn, lost it to Grover for six minutes. Then Cassandra wrested the driver's seat for herself, for six minutes. But then Steele took it for thirty minutes. Then Drake wrested the driver's seat, and maintained control for twenty minutes. Then Steele forcibly takes the driver's seat for three minutes, until Cassandra proverbial dumps him out and take it for herself for three minutes.

"I'm surrounded by idiots," she said, rubbing her temple. "It is not a difficult concept to grasp. This body is mine. End of story."

She could only maintain control for another four minutes, before Steele retook it, for eight minutes. Marie took up the driver's seat next, for four minutes. Then Felix wrested her from it and took it for himself for eleven minutes. Then Cassandra threw him from the driver's seat and took it for herself for the next twenty minutes.

"Morons! Idiots! Incompetents!" she snarled at the other alters. " Why must I contend with you not comprehending the obvious?!"

Then Frieda took control for five minutes. Then Cassandra wrested control from her, and maintained it for ten minutes. Then Adrianna took control for herself for ten minutes. Then Frieda took back the driver's seat for five minutes, before Adrianna took it back for five minutes. Then Cassandra wrest control for forty minutes, before Norman took control for a scant five minutes. Cassandra managed to retake control of the body.

"You worthless little nothings!" she spat. "It's not a difficult concept!"

Frieda immediately took control for six minutes, before Cassandra took it back for twelve minutes. Darlene ripped it away from her for twelve minutes. Then it oscillated between Danny and Darlene for six minutes, before Cassandra took control from them.

"Know your place!" she screamed. "You are all extraneous and expendable! To be done away with at my discretion, and my discretion alone!!"

Then Adrianna immediately took control away from her for seven minutes, before forcibly yielding it to Norman. He only held the control for seven minutes himself, before having to relinquish it to Cassandra, who only held it for seven minutes. It was Walter who took the driver's chair from her, and only for seven minutes. Then Marie took over, but, again, just for a scant seven minutes. Then Cassandra reasserted herself, and took control for fourteen minutes, before Steele took it away from her for seven minutes, and Danny took it away from him, for seven minutes. Then control oscillated between Cassandra, Steele, Danny, and Drake for the next seven minutes.

Despite her apoplectic rage, Cassandra sense the push. But she was too distracted to give it much mind. It was only when her vision became nothing b a violent shade of violet, she knew something was up and she thought she knew the culprit. Norman! Norman was the one sentencing her to this sensory-deprived hell. She tried to rage, tried to break out of this surface enclosed all around her. Seamlessly so.

She would escape this, she knew. And when she did . . . oh, there was going to be hell to pay.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 28, 2019, 07:35:02 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXVIII (1,328): "The Forbidden Boxes" -- Seven forbidden devices are discovered.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Indigo Orb

No one noticed just how much . . . roomier it was in this mindscape with two-ninths of their number now shunted into external pearls -- a olive green, forest green, purple, and violet pearl each -- they continued to quibble about the usual arguments and fights. Focusing mostly on who gets to control the body and for how long. When Norman awoke in what appeared to be the spookiest corner of this disheveled, abandoned library. Danny was briefly in control before he was kicked out of the driver's seat by . . . no one. The body was "blanking" and "driverless" for about nine minutes. Frieda took the control for a brief seven minutes, before Danny swiftly retook the driver's chair for himself.

"Don't fight me," he said. He wore a spandex suit that gave him a superficial resemblance to his namesake, Danny Phantom. "You couldn't possibly win that fight."

He maintained control for a further two minutes before speaking again.

"Yes," he said, apparently savoring what he thought was corporeal permanence. "That's the ticket."

But then the body decided to "blank" and he lost control for three minutes. Darlene stepped in and took control for nine minutes, until Danny usurped control from her, for eighteen minutes.

"You can't take this from me again," he said, stubbornly, "this body is MINE!"

 Adrianna proved him wrong immediately by usurping control for eight minutes. Danny retook the driver's chair for four minutes, before Darlene took it back, but for only four minutes herself. Danny reclaimed the control from her, before it was taken from him four minutes later, by Candice. She only was in the driver's seat for four minutes before Elliot snatched away from her. He only had it for four minutes himself before Drake took it for eight minutes. Then Danny retook control, holding it for four minutes.

"Guys, look," he said, "this body is mine. You're just going to have to --"

 He had to fight to remain in control for the next ten minutes. He unintentionally surrendered control to Walter for ten minutes, who lost it to Frieda for fifteen minutes.
Then it was usurped by Grover, but just for ten minutes, before Danny asserted himself once more.

"You're all going to have to go away! Okay?!" Danny said, his frustration getting the best of him.

Steele took the driver's seat from him for eighteen minutes, before being usurped by . . . no one. The body just "blanked" for thirty minutes, with no one in the driver's seat. Danny eventually retook control.

"Nobody realized how weird that was? Seriously?" he said, noticing how long the body was "blanked".

Then it "blanked" once more, for seven minutes, and apparently Danny was the only one who realized. Adrianna took control from there, but for only seven minutes until Grover booted her. He only had it for fourteen minutes. From there Danny reclaimed it, but was really concerned with the "body blanking", but was unable to call the attention of the other personalities to it. He only was in this driver's seat for seven minutes before Marie claimed it for herself. But seven minutes later, the body "blanked" for twenty-one minutes. Felix, apparently unaware of this, took the driver's seat for seven minutes, before Frieda took it from him for just seven minutes.

Danny momentarily took back the body, and he was feeling completely unnerved. It was far too late when he realized that he was being pushed, and soon he saw nothing but indigo. He couldn't hear. He couldn't speak. He couldn't feel anything. He couldn't taste. He couldn't smell. It very quickly became hell for him, and he didn't even know who or what did this to him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 29, 2019, 05:55:55 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXIX (1,329): "The Device of Assimilation" -- An orange box is discovered.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Red Orb

When Norman woke up after his body shut down for a mandatory eight-hour rest, Frieda was in control and they were in the very reason why this library was abandoned. This part of the building was scorched with very prominent fire damage. She maintained this control for only two minutes, though.

Adrianna took control for a minute, taken from her by Drake for six minutes, and reclaimed by Adrianna for six minutes. Frieda took control for six minutes, until the body "blanked" for seven minutes. Then she retook the driver's seat for two minutes. Then Adrianna stole the driver's seat from her by a minute. Frieda swiftly retook it from her.

"Back the eff off!" she snarled. She wore crimson and scarlet armor, and wore her hair in a tight bun. Her armor had pointed shoulder pads and pointed toes. "This body is mine now. No one's gonna take it from me!"

And she managed to hold it for a further eight minutes, before Rocky took it from her, but could only maintain his control for two minutes. Then Darlene takes control from him and maintains it for ten minutes. It was at that point that Frieda retook control for four minutes. Adrianna takes it from there, but only for two minutes before Frieda was back in the driver's seat.

"I'm in control," Frieda said, "and I'm staying here!"

And she was right -- for about three minutes. Then Felix took control for twelve minutes. Then Grover was in power, for all of twelve minutes. Then Frieda took control for six minutes. Then Grover took back control for six minutes, before Frieda wrested control away from him.

"Get out of my way," she growled. She often oscillated between mild amiability to raging inferno of unpleasantness, and was very unpredictable when her mood was about to swing so violently. "This body is mine, you maggots."

But she only managed to retain control for another four minutes before Felix muscled his way in and took it from her, but just for eight minutes. Frieda wrested control back, but only for four minutes. It was Elliot who took control from her, but only for a scant four minutes. It was Steele who took control from him, but only for four minutes. Frieda took back control for four minutes.

"This is MY body, you maggots" she spat vehemently.

Then the body "blanked" for five minutes, and no one gave it much thought. Frieda retook the driver's chair for five minutes, before Felix took it for ten minutes. Frieda retook the control for twenty minutes, before the body tried to "blank" but Frieda fought it. It was this that brought the "body blanking" to her attention, and she found it disconcerting. Then the body "blanked" for fifteen minutes. Frieda took control for five minutes. Then the body "blanked" again, for ten minutes. Drake took control for five minutes, before Frieda took it back.

"What was that?" she asked. "Why was there no in control? That has never happened before --"

She only maintained control for another twelve minutes, before the body "blanked" again. Then Adrianna took control for twelve minutes, before losing it to Norman, for twelve minutes. Then Walter took control for five minutes. Frieda took the driver's seat from there.

"Can we just talk about the 'body blanking' thing?" she said.

She maintained control for fourteen minutes, before losing it to Darlene for seven minutes. Adrianna took it from her for seven minutes. Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes. Frieda took control for seven minutes, before losing it to Drake for seven minutes. Then the body "blanked" for seven minutes, before Frieda took control.

Then, before she could react, before she could burn whoever was responsible, she felt herself being pushed until all she saw was red. She couldn't hear. She couldn't smell. She couldn't taste. She couldn't touch. All sensory information was gone.

And she was angry.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2019, 06:01:40 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXX (1,330): "The Device of Nightmares" -- A yellow box is discovered.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Blue Orb

When Norman awoke from the requisite eight-hour rest, it was Walter awoke. He was in the area of the library that had sustained considerable water damage. Apparently, the fire somehow caused this basement to flood. Somehow.

Walter maintained control for thirteen minutes, before Felix took control from him for scant minute, before the body "blanked" for ten minutes. Walter took control for a minute, before it was taken by Candice for a minute. Then Walter took control back for a minute, before it was taken back by Candice for another minute. Then Walter took control for seven minutes. The body "blanked" for a scant minute, before Walter retook control for a minute. Then control oscillated between Adrianna and Darlene for a minute. Candice took control for a minute, followed by Walter retaking control for a minute, and ending up with Rocky for four minutes. Walter took control again.

"This my body," he said, brightly. He wore one of those old-timey, full-body swimsuit with cerulean and sapphire blue horizontal stripes, goggles with a blue tang theme, and a bushy, blue, walrus mustache. "Swim away."

He managed to maintain control for the next six minutes, before Elliot usurped him, gaining control for twelve minutes. Marie took control for twelve minutes. Walter took control for two minutes. Grover took control for four minutes. Then the body "blanked" for four minutes. Then Rocky took control for two minutes. Walter took control for four minutes. Adrianna took control for two minutes. Drake took control for two minutes. Walter took control for two minutes.

"This mine," he said. "Go cry somewhere. I'm not givin' this up."

 He managed to maintain control for an additional three minutes, before Grover took it from him, for twelve minutes. Then the body "blanked" for nine minutes, after which Adrianna took control for six minutes. Then the body "blanked" for three minutes. Then Darlene took control for twelve minutes. Then Walter took back control for six minutes, before Grover took control for six minutes himself. Then Walter took control for three minutes, before Darlene took control for three minutes. Then Walter took control for nine minutes, before Candice took control for nine minutes. Then Walter retook control for nine minutes, before Rocky took control for three minutes. Then Walter took control for twelve minutes.

"Stop fighting me," he growled. "You can't take this from me, you haven't any right."

He maintained control for eight minutes, but Steele took control for four minutes. Then Norman usurped control for four minutes, and Walter took it away from him for twelve minutes. Grover took control for four minutes. Then Walter took control for eight minutes, before Adrianna took it away from him, for four minutes. Then Elliot took the driver's seat for himself, for just four minutes. Drake took it from him, for only four minutes himself. Then Walter took control for twelve minutes.

"Just let me have this," he said. "Just let me have this and go --"

He grunted as he forced himself to remain in control for the next thirty minutes. Then Grover roughly takes control away from him for ten minutes. Then Walter reclaims the driver's seat for five minutes. Then Rocky took it away from him for ten minutes straight. Then Adrianna took it from him, likewise, for ten minutes. Then the body "blanked" for ten minutes. The Walter managed to reclaim it for five minutes before Felix took it from him, lasting only five minutes before Walter took it back.

"See here now!" he scolded. "Knock it off!"

But, after twelve minutes, he lost control to Darlene, who only held it for thirteen minutes. Then Rocky took control for twelve minutes. Then the body "blanked" for six minutes, before Walter took control once more, for twelve minutes. Then the body "blanked" once more, for six minutes, before Walter retook the driver's seat.

"Hey! I said knock it off!" he said, scornfully.

Then he managed to maintain this control for fourteen minutes. Then Marie took control for seven minutes. Then Walter took control for seven minutes. Then the body "blanked" for a solid forty-two minutes. This disturbed Walter as he took control for fourteen minutes. Then the body "blanked" once more, for seven minutes. Then Marie took control for seven minutes. Walter reclaimed control from her, but something happened.

He felt a brief pushing sensation, and, very soon, he couldn't see anything but blue. He couldn't hear, smell, taste, or touch anything. He was trapped. Forever swirling in this hell. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 30, 2019, 07:21:06 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXI (1,331): "Site H" -- The RAFians raid Site H, and must face the site enforcer, Agent Glutton.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity, it couldn't be helped.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
White Orb

After the mandatory eight-hour rest, Norman woke up on a chilly morning, and Candice was in control. They were in the burned out area of the library, which clearly used to be a really nice one, if out in the boonies.

Then Steele immediately took control for fourteen minutes. Then Candice took the driver's seat for seven minutes. Then Marie took control for seven minutes. Then the body "blanked" for four minutes. Then Adrianna took control for a minute, before Candice retook control.

"You won't leave me in the cold," she said. She wore a white, puffy parka with white fur around the hood and wrists, a pair of white snow pants, and cartoonish snowshoes, with what appeared to be tennis rackets on them (which was horribly impractical for this environment). "This body is truly mine, and all of you have no claim to it!"

Then Darlene took control from her, for two minutes. Only to be supplanted by Grover for four minutes. Then Adrianna took control for two minutes, before the body "blanked" for two minutes. Candice retook the driver's seat.

 "C'mon, guys," she complained. "You must do the right thing, and let me have what is mine. You know it. I know it. C'mon, now."

She maintained control for fifteen minutes. Then the body "blanked" for nine minutes, until Candice made her way to the driver's seat again, for three minutes.

"Um," Candice said, finally noticing and recognizing the "body blanking". "Anyone notice that? When the body becomes, uh, 'driverless'?"

Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes, before Darlene retook the body for four minutes. Then Candice took control back for four minutes. Then Grover took control for four minutes. Then the body "blanked" again for four minutes, until Elliot took control for four minutes. Then Candice retook control for four minutes.

"Seriously, guys," she said. "Can we just address when the body goes all 'driverless' and all?"

 She struggled to maintain control for thirty minutes. Then Drake took control for five minutes, before Candice retook control for herself.

"No? Seriously?" Candice said. "No one is questioning it?"

Then Rocky took control for twelve minutes. Then Candice took control for twelve minutes.

"Guys, listen to me," Candice said, with a sense of urgency in her voice. "Something's not right. Something's going on. I can't be the only one who noticed!"

Then Felix took control for seven minutes, and Candice took back control for seven minutes. After the seventh minute, she felt an odd pushing sensation. And, before she could react, she found herself seeing nothing but bright white. She couldn't hear anything. She couldn't touch anything. She couldn't smell or taste anything.

What was this fresh hell?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 31, 2019, 06:26:04 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXII (1,332): "The Device of Zenith" -- A verdant box is found.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Yellow Orb

After the requisite eight-hour respite, Norman awoke, but it was Elliot in charge. He found themselves at what possibly caused the fire. It appeared to be some sort of fried circuit in the library's electrical system. It was an amateurish mistake, one that no skilled electrician would make. It disgusted Elliot, despite not being a trained or competent electrician himself.

He managed to hold onto the control over the body for a minute before he oscillated control with . . . no one, for eight minutes. Yet, he thought nothing of it. Then Rocky took control for twenty-one minutes. With Steele taking it from him, but only keeping it for two minutes, as Elliot took control back, but only for four minutes. Adrianna took control from him for a minute before he took it back.

"You fail to understand your mistakes," he said, with a slight buzz to his voice, as if he was using a low-budget voice changer. He wore a yellow jumpsuit with a yellow hardhat with a red band and "+" symbol on the forehead, reminiscent of a Met (https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Met). "This body has always been mine, and the rest of you are freeloaders."

Then the body "blanked" for four minutes, unnoticed by Norman and the alters. Then Elliot took control for six minutes, and oscillated with Drake for two minutes. Elliot maintained control for four minutes..

"You continue to fail to comprehend you mistakes!" Elliot exclaimed. "This is might rightful place. Yours is to dissipate like the figments of imagination that you are."

He managed to maintain control for the next eighteen minutes.

"I'm so glad that you have accepted the truth in this matter," Elliot said, with a smug smile. "This is how should be."

He maintains control sixteen minutes, until Steele took it for four minutes. Then control oscillated between Adrianna and the body "blanking". Then Elliot took it back for four minutes.

"You dare? You dare to usurp what is right?" Elliot said, with scandalized tones.

He maintained it for only ten minutes more before losing control to Adrianna for five minutes. Then the body "blanked" for ten minutes. Then Elliot retook the control for fifteen minutes. Then Grover took the driver's seat for five minutes. Then Adrianna took control for five minutes. Then Drake took control for five minutes, before Elliot reclaimed control.

"You still dare?!" Elliot said, his scandalized tones turned to anger. "This body is my property."

Then Norman took his body back for twelve minutes. Then Marie took control for six minutes. Then Elliot took back control.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" he said, nettled. "This body is MINE!!!"

Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes. Then Adrianna took control for seven minutes. Then Elliot took back control for seven minutes. Then Steele took control for seven minutes. Then Marie took control for seven minutes. Then Elliot took control for fourteen minutes, until he felt an odd shoving sensation.

Soon, all Elliot saw was yellow. He heard nothing. He smelled nothing. He touched nothing. He tasted nothing. There was nothing to hear, touch, taste, or smell. It was total sensory deprivation. And it was hell. And he had no idea who did this to him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 03, 2019, 06:15:01 AM

Sorry for the delay.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXIII (1,333): "The Device of Deitification" -- An azure box is found.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Orange Orb

After Norman woke up, it was Felix that was in control. He was in a place in this abandoned library that smelled of sweat and toil, much like a male locker room. While the other alters despised it, Felix loved it. He imagined the many scenarios that may have taken place here.

He maintained control for two minutes, before the body "blanked" for a brief minute. But then Felix took back control for five minutes before the body "blanked" for six minutes. Felix took back control.

"Wassamatter?" he said, aggressively. He was wearing an orange gi, with a black belt and an orange headband. He didn't wear shoes and he possessed bushy eyebrows. "Nose mugs wants to fight mes?"

Then the body "blanked" for eight minutes before Felix regained control, for four minutes.

"Wassamatter? Youse scared?" he taunted, with heavy belligerence.

Then the body "blanked" for fifteen minutes straight. Then Felix took control for six minutes. Then the body "blanked" for another twelve minutes.

"Seriously? No one?" he said, itching for a fight. "Wassamatter with you?"

Then body "blanked" for eight minutes. Then Norman took control for six minutes. Then Felix took back control, with gusto, for four minutes. Then Steele took control from him for ten minutes. Then the body "blanked" for sixteen minutes.  Then Felix reclaimed the body's control.

"Yes!" he crowed. "Fight me! Fight me again! C'mon, Normie! C'mon, Steely!" What

The body "blanked" for ten minutes before Felix reasserted his ownership of the body, but for only twenty-five minutes. Then Darlene took control for ten minutes, which Felix immediately took back, for ten minutes. Then Steele took control for five minutes, after which Rocky took control for five minutes. Then the body "blanked" for ten minutes. Then Norman took control for five minutes, before Felix took it back.

"Finally! Youse puts up a fight again!" Felix said, with almost cherishing tones. "Dontcha stop now! Fight me!"

Then the body "blanked" for six minutes. The Felix took over for six minutes, before Darlene took it from him for six minutes. Then Adrianna took it from her for six minutes. The Felix resumed control.

"Fight me! Fight me! Fight me!" Felix chanted.

He maintained control for an additional seven minutes, before the body "blanked" for seven minutes. Then Norman took control for fourteen minutes, before losing it to Felix, who maintained control for fourteen minutes. Then Drake assumed control for fourteen minutes, and then the body "blanked" for twenty-one minutes.

Felix took back control, feeling triumphant, but that was soon replaced by an incomprehensible sense of shoving, of pushing. Soon, all he saw was orange. He heard nothing, not even the sound of his own voice. Smelled nothing else, not even his own sweat. Touched nothing else. Tasted nothing else.

And he was actually frightened.

***

"The trail is dead," Hunter said, heavily. "He was here, but the scent trail ends here."

"I suspected as much," Cloak replied, with a weary sigh. Hee had asked for Hunter to come along just to make absolutely sure that his findings were not erroneous in any manner. "The boy could be anywhere now."

"How could he not leave a scent trail away from her, unless he's still here. The scent isn't stale, either. Not by much." Hunter said, hand to his lupine chin. "It's like he just up and vanished."

"Wait," Cloak said, thinking hard, "that popping sound we heard."

"What about it? It could have been a car backfiring or something," Hunter said, dismissively.

"I don't think so," Cloak said. "I think it may have been --"

 And inconvenient gust of wind drowned out Cloak's words to anyone but Hunter.

 "I mean, I do not consider myself an expert on such things, but it fits." he concluded.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 04, 2019, 07:19:33 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXIV (1,334): "The Device of Chibi" -- An indigo box is found.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Brown Orb

After the mandatory corporeal respite, Norman woke up, but Grover was in control. They were on the filthiest part of the library floor, and Grover didn't care. It was probably against health code regulations just even to be in this place to begin with. But Norman and his alters were too busy infighting to care much.

Grover managed to maintain control for a sparse two minutes before the body "blanked" for two minutes. Then it oscillated control from Grover to Steele and back again for sixteen minutes. Then Rocky took control for four minutes. Then Grover took back control for two minutes. Then Rocky took back control for two minutes. Then Grover retook control.

"Everyone, listen to reason," he said. He wore a miner's helmet, horn-rimmed glasses, a white cotton shirt, blue jean overalls, and dirty work boots. "Let me explain how you're all mistaken and this body really belongs to me."

Then the body "blanked" for four minutes. Then Adrianna took control for two minutes. Then Steele took control eight minutes. Then the body "blanked" for four minutes. Then Grover took control for four minutes. Then Rocky took control for four minutes. Then Grover retook control.

"Come on, guys," Grover said, "be reasonable."

Then the body "blanked" for thirty minutes. Then Grover took control for three minutes. The Drake took control for six minutes. Then the body "blanked" for twelve minutes. The Grover oscillated between control and the body "blanking" for nine minutes. Then Grover retook control, and he was disturbed by the body "blanking".

"Fellows, let us call attention to a problem I've just noticed," he said, attempting to be reasonable and rational. "Haven't you noticed the occasions where the body was . . . well, driverless?"

Then the body "blanked" for twelve minutes, almost just to prove Grover's point. Then Drake took control for eighteen minutes. Then Grover took control for eight minutes. Then Rocky took over for four minutes. Then Adrianna took over for four minutes. Then the body "blanked" for four minutes. Then Grover took control for four minutes.

"No one concerned with that? Just me?" he managed to say, before he felt the tugging of the other alters to be in control. "It can't just be me."

He managed to maintain control for just five more minutes before Steele took over. Then the body "blanked" for ten minutes. Then Darlene took control for fifteen minutes. Then body "blanked" for fifteen minutes. Then Adrianna took control for five minutes. Then Grover retook control.

"Guys, seriously." Grover said. "We need to address --"

 Then Norman took control for six minutes, only to be usurped by Drake, who only remained in control for twenty minutes before Grover reclaimed control of the body.

"We need to address the moments where the body --" Grover managed to choke out.

But he struggled to remain in control for the next fourteen minutes before the body "blanked" for another fourteen minutes. Grover managed to reclaim control once more, but felt a powerful pushing. Hee couldn't resist it.

Soon, all he saw was brown. His other senses were completely useless to him. And this terrified him, but there was nothing he could do about it.

***

"If that's the case," Hunter said, "there's no telling where he could be. He could miles to a friggin' continent away. He could be on the opposite side of the planet by now!"

"Despite how powerful his potential is," Cloak said, costing him some of his pride to not add how he wanted to believe that Norman wasn't as powerful, or possibly more powerful, than he, himself, was. "I don't think he, or any of his psychic fragments, would go that far. I surmise that they'd want to go to some place with some . . . familiarity to them."

"But then someone would have reported seeing him," Hunter said.

"You assume that such a place isn't remote and isolated," Cloak countered, conversationally. "And that particular place could have changed over the years."

Hunter conceded the point. But then he pointed out, "That doesn't change the fact that we don't know where he went."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 06, 2019, 07:54:55 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXV (1,335): "Site I" -- The RAFians raid Site I, and must deal with site enforcer, Agent Adhesive.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Gray Orb

After the requisite eight-hour recuperation, Norman awoke upon the cold, tone floor of this forggotten, dilapidated library. But Rocky was in charge, and the body's stomach growled for sustenance. Which Rocky managed to satisfy with some fruit that Grassley grew before he was pushed into his green-colored hell.

Then the body "blanked" for thirty-one minutes. Then Adrianna took control for eight minutes. Then Rocky resumed control.

"That was odd," he said, taking immediate notice of the body "blanking". He was attired in a gray flannel shirt with matching old, worn, gray jeans, and a gray, poofy vest. He also wore what looked like a gray pith helmet and possessed a larger frame than Norman and had a gray beard and a balding head. "Anyone notice --"

Then he had to struggle to maintain control for the next two minutes. Then the body "blanked" for the next six minutes. Then Darlene took control for the next eight minutes. Then Rocky resumed control once again.

"Fellows, we must stop the infighting," he said, "and address the elephant in the room."

He struggled to maintain control for three additional minutes, before losing out to Steele, who maintained control for the next nine minutes. Then the body "blanked" for the next twenty-one minutes. Then Rocky resumed control once more, for three minutes.

"We need to address this!" he said. "It cannot be ignored any longer!"

He managed to maintain control for eight minutes, before Steele took it from him for the next eight minutes. Rocky reclaimed it for four minutes, only for the body to "blank" for the next four minutes, where Steele reclaimed it for four minutes. Rocky then retook the body for four minutes.

"Enough!" he shouted. "Stop this infighting. We need to address --"

But he had to fight to maintain this control for fifteen minutes before the body "blanked" for twenty minutes. Adrianna took control from there, and only for ten minutes. Then the body "blanked" for five minutes. Rocky took back control.

 "ENOUGH!" he shouted. He was starting to lose his temper. "We need to address the --"

The body suddenly "blanked" for twelve minutes, almost as if someone or something was trying to since him. Drake took control for twelve minutes, before the body "blanked" just as long. Marie took control for eighteen minutes. Rocky retook control from Marie.

"We need to address this problem!" he insisted.

He managed to maintain control for thirty-five minutes, before Adrianna took control from him, for fourteen minutes. Then the body "blanked" for seven minutes. Then Steele took the driver's seat for seven mines, before Rocky reclaimed it.

Then he felt a pushing sensation. Shoving, really. And soon, all he saw gray. He heard nothing. Smelled nothing. Touched nothing. Tasted nothing. He was in hell, assuredly.

***

Now it was Cloak's turn to concede the point. "True enough. But that doesn't mean that there won be traces."

"And how would we go about even finding these traces?" Hunter pointed out.

"By the simplest solution," Cloak said, with a note of decisive finality in his voice. " While I may not be the most versed in this particular avenue, we are quite fortunate to know someone who is. Maybe even two or three, possibly. "

"What do you -- oh," he replied. It took a moment for it to click in. But this generated another worry in him. "But what if the traces, whatever they could be, do not linger? The trail is already cold enough as is. Even now the scent trail that led us here in the first place has grown more and more stale we speak. What if it the same holds true for whatever traces there are to be found?"

Cloak was silent as he considered this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2019, 06:13:50 AM

Sorry for the delay.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXVI (1,336): "The Device of Fusion" -- A violet box is found.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Gold Orb

After the eight-hour requisite recuperation, which supplied this body with nutrition and sustenance through an almost magical method. Norman woke up to a chilly breeze on his left cheek. Adrianna was the one in control when he did.

The body immediately "blanked" for nine minutes afterward. Norman took control for six minutes. Then the body "blanked" for two minutes, before Norman retook control for three minutes. Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes, before Drake retook control for a minute. Then Adrianna retook control.

"Fight all you want," Adrianna said, loftily. She wore a golden leather bomber jacket, gold-colored jeans with matching shoes and socks, and a golden leather aviator cap. She didn't tend to notice a lot and had a rather irritating habit of looking dkwn on the other alters. "You won't get me."

Then Norman took back control for four minutes. Then body promptly "blanked" for six minutes. Then Marie took control for two minutes before the body "blanked" for twelve minutes. Darlene took over for two minutes before the body "blanked" for another six minutes. Steele took the driver's seat for two minutes, before the body "blanked" for four minutes. Adrianna retook control.

"Oh, dear," she said, with faux concern, "you lesser personalities cannot hold onto control for very long, can you? Guess this is further proof of the real owner of this body, isn't it?"

Then body promptly "blanked" for three minutes. Then Norman took control for six minutes, before the body "blanked" for twelve minutes. Then Norman took control for three minutes before Drake stole it from him for three minutes before the body "blanked" for three minutes. It was at this point that Drake retook control and held it for eighteen minutes. Then Adrianna retook control.

"Oh, you lowly peons do love to quibble about things that aren't yours, don't you?" she said, in a irritating, holier-than-thou attitude. "You've all yet to realize how inconsequential to all things you are."

Then Norman took control from her for twelve minutes, before the body "blanked" for twenty minutes. Darlene took control for four minutes, before Norman resumed control for four minutes. Then the body "blanked" for four minutes, before Marie took control for four minutes. Then the body "blanked" for sixteen minutes. Then Adrianna took control for four minutes.

"You can't even maintain control for proper lengths of time," she said, deliberately ignoring that she had also lost control of the body as frequently as the others. She refused to admit any fault in herself, doing severe mental gymnastics to justify everything she did or said. "Pity that you do not understand how extraneous that you are."

Then Norman took control for fifteen minutes, before the body "blanked" for forty minutes. Then Norman took control for ten minutes, before losing control to Darlene, for ten minutes. Then Adrianna took control for ten minutes, before losing it due to the body "blanking" for twenty minutes. Then she retook control.

"You lot are so pathetic and sad," she said, with a haughty sniff, thoroughly ignoring that the body "blanked" right after her. "You lot are so insignificant and beneath my notice."

Then Norman took control for six minutes. Then the body "blanked" for twenty-four minutes, before Drake took control twelve minutes. Then Darlene took control for six minutes, before Adrianna retook control.

"Alright, then," she said, "Now I'm annoyed."

Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes, before Norman took control for twenty-one minutes. Then the body "blanked" for twenty-eight minutes. Then Adrianna took control once more, for seven minutes, until the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes. Then Steele took control for seven minutes, until Adrianna retook control.

Then Adrianna fell a powerful push. A shove, really. Soon, all she saw was gold. She couldn't hear. She couldn't touch anything. She couldn't taste or smell anything. It was total sensory deprivation. Which made it hell after just a few minutes.

***

"Regardless," Cloak said, finally, "we need an expert in this field here. Neither one of us can detect any traces, or, if we can, we don't have the requisite competency to discern its relevance."

"What if the traces, if there even are any, vanish when we go get them?"

"We don't have to leave this spot," Cloak said. "We can use the communicators to call the forum."

"Fair enough," the lupine RAFian said, "but who? Who do we call?"

"All three, if we can," Cloak said, already ringing up the first on the communicator. "Let's hope that they're not on other active missions."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 08, 2019, 08:16:22 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXVII (1,337): "Property Dispute" -- The RAFians come into conflict with the Andalite High Command.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Tan Orb

After the requisite eight-hour recuperation period for the body, where it was again fueled by almost-magically-made sustenance. When Norman woke up, it was Drake that was in control. He didn't speak, but just gave a snarling sneer.

Then the body "blanked" for thirteen minutes. Then Drake took control for two minutes, before the body "blanked" for a minute. Then Drake retook control.

He wore a permanent sneer, as if he was disgusted with everything. He wore tan slacks, thick tan work boots, a tan captain's jacket with a bare chest, and a captain's hat. He also had tan stubble and mustache.

Then the body "blanked" for eight minutes, before Drake retook control.

Drake, again, said nothing, just looking hostile and aggressive. He put his hands on his hips as he glowered at that around him. It was almost as if everything around him displeased him greatly.

Then body "blanked" for fifteen minutes. Marie took control for six minutes, before Drake retook control for six minutes. Then the body "blanked" for thirty-six minutes. Then Drake retook control.

He folded his arms, as he curled his lip in disgust. He still said nothing, scoffing derisively, as if to telegraph how he felt about the others and all this infighting.

Then body "blanked" for eighteen minutes, until Steele took the driver's seat for four minutes. Then the body "blanked" again for sixteen minutes. Then Drake took control for four minutes.

Drake said nothing, but he seemed to be getting progressively more annoyed and frustrated. It was wonder why he still didn't speak.

He maintained control for another twenty minutes. Then Darlene took the driver's chair for fifteen minutes. Then the body "blanked" for twenty-five minutes. Then Drake retook control.

Drake continued to glower, almost as if he knew what was going to happen and he was just resigned to it. Almost as if he knew that he was powerless to stop it. And he had already accepted his fate, despite not being especially fond of it.

Then the body "blanked" for eighteen minutes, until Drake retook control for eighteen minutes. Then the body "blanked" once more for thirty-two minutes. Drake retook control.

He had his eyes shut, wishing that it would hurry up. That she --

He only maintained control for a further seven minutes, until the body "blanked" for seven minutes. Then Norman took control for seven minutes. Then Drake retook control for seven minutes. Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes. Then Darlene took the control for seven minutes. Then the body "blanked" for fourteen minutes, before Drake retook control.

It happened as Drake had expected. He was shoved into a place where all he saw was the color tan. He couldn't hear, smell, touch, or taste anything. Nothing at all. It was complete sensory deprivation.

This didn't help his disposition.

***

"So, what do you think?" Hunter asked.

The expert they brought remained silent, as he continued to examine the area. Running his hand over the air, as if trying to determine something. Cloak and Hunter waited for his determination, and hopefully to get to where the boy was. His mother was actually worried sick -- despite all appearances of indifference that she tried to affect, believing that she was projecting strength instead of appearing to be just hiding her feelings.

"Yes," he said, eventually, "there are traces here. Most of the time --"

An inconvenient gust of wind drowned out his voice for a moment.

 "-- would not leave any trace, other than the popping sound."

"And we did hear a popping sound," Cloak said, "but faintly."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 09, 2019, 06:21:16 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXVIII (1,338): "Deminuative Demons" -- The RAFians must deal with child vampires.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
Silver Orb

After the requisite recuperation, Norman awoke to find himself on a rusty desk that seemed able to support his weight surprisingly well enough. But Norman wasn't in the driver's seat. It was Steele.

But then the body promptly "blanked" for thirty minutes before Steele could retake control.

"Well, that was embarrassing," he said. He wore a full set of knight armor, sans the the helmet. His silver hair was shaved close, and his voice was akin to that of an Arthurian knight. "But I have corrected that wrong now."

Then the body blanked for twenty minutes and Steele noticed that something was up, as he retook control.

"This body 'blanking' thing seems to be happening more frequently . . ." he said, drawing out the last word, thoughtfully.

Then Marie took control for nine minutes, before the body "blanked" for nine minutes. Then Steele retakes control for six minutes, then the body "blanked" for seventeen minutes. Then Steele for three minutes, before the body"blanked for three minutes. Steele then retook the control.

"Has anyone noticed that it isn't so . . . crowded in here anymore?" Steele asked, noticing that it was just he, Norman, Darlene, and Marie present. "Where did everyone go?"

Then the body "blanked" for fifty minutes. Then Steele retook control for four minutes.

"Where did everyone else go?" he asked again. He didn't get an answer. This displeased him.

Then the body "blanked" for twenty minutes. Then Steele retook control for fifteen minutes. Then Darlene took control for ten minutes. Then the body "blanked" for fifteen minutes. Then Steele took control.

"Why doesn't this alarm you? " he said, rounding on the other alters. "Norman? Darlene? Marie? Why aren't you more concerned with this?"

Then, almost to silence him, the body "blanked" for twenty-four minutes. Then Marie took control for six minutes. Then Steele retook control.

"It was one of you, wasn't it?" he realized. "One of you got rid of them!"

He managed to remain in control for seven minutes, before the body "blanked" for thirty-five minutes. Then Marie took control for seven minutes, before the body "blanked" for seven minutes. Then Steele took control for fourteen minutes.

Then he was pushed. Shoved. And, soon, all he saw was silver. He couldn't hear, taste, touch, or smell anything. Not a single thing. And he was feeling a mix of emotions -- fear and anger chief amongst them.

***

"Do you think that it's enough to find the boy?" Cloak asked, in a rather clinical sort of manner.

"Perhaps," their expert said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "But I'll need more . . . more specialized instruments and artifacts to get a more accurate location."

"What? A map, a quartz crystal, and a length of string?" Hunter inquired, with some doubtful dismissal.

"Perhaps," he said. "But we must act quickly. Traces do not linger forever in most cases."

"What'll we do if or when we get him? Especially if he doesn't feel like coming in quietly?" Hunter said, having a thought.

"We'll cross that bridge if or when we come to it," was Cloak's reply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 10, 2019, 06:51:31 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXXXIX (1,339): "Site J" -- The RAFians raid site J and have to deal with the site enforcer, Agent Burst.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Black Orb

After the requisite recuperation period, Norman awoke in darkness. A storm was approaching. And it was Darlene in control.

But Norman immediately retook control for fourteen minutes. Then Darlene took it back for fourteen minutes. Then the body "blanked" for twenty minutes. Darlene retook control.

"Whatever," she said, apathy oozing from her. She had long , lank, black hair, black lipstick, and wore disheveled black clothing with pale skin giving her an almost vampiric appearance. She came off very emo, yet very emotionless, indifferent, and dismissive of everything.

She managed to maintain to two minutes, before the body "blanked" for twenty minutes. She retook control once more.

"Whatever," she said again.

She managed to maintain control for six minutes, before the body "blanked" for thirty-three minutes. Then Darlene retook control for nine minutes.

"Whatever," she said once again.

Then the body "blanked" for twenty-four minutes. Then Darlene retook control for eight minutes.

"Whatever," she said, looking like a disaffected youth or just a moody teenager.

She maintained control for another ten minutes, before the body "blanked" for twenty-five minutes. Then Darlene took control again for ten minutes, before the body "blanked" for thirty-five minutes. Then Darlene retook control.

"Whatever," she said, again.

Then the body "blanked" for forty-three minutes before Darlene regained control for seven minutes. Then the body promptly "blanked" for seven minutes, before Darlene retook control.

Then she felt the shoving, and didn't fight it or give it any resistance whatsoever. She just let it happen, due to her complete and total apathy towards everything. Soon, all she could see was blackness, and her other senses were rendered moot and useless.

And she just couldn't care less.

***

"How is it going?" Cloak prompted, perhaps a tad impatiently.

"Patience is a virtue . . ." said the expert, swinging the quartz crystal over a map. "You, of all people, should know that."

"I still don't understand how this is going to work," Hunter said. "I mean, I've seen it work on television, but in real life?"

"Trust me, it works," the expert said, "although, it is, admittingly, not the most reliable method, but it is the only one available to us at the moment."

"So there's a possibility that this method will fail?" Cloak said, skeptically.

"Every method has a margin of error," he countered conversationally. "Nothing is ever free of error."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 11, 2019, 10:39:53 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXL (1,340): "Promise of Paradise Island" -- The RAFians investigate missing homeless people, criminals, and transients.

New chapter. Sorry for the delay.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Two Personalities Left, One Guilty

After the requisite recuperation, which wasn't taking as much time anymore, Norman woke up, but Marie was in control. She had curly pink hair, a frilly sort of uncomfortable dress that you'd see a doll dressed in, with ballot-like slip-on shoes. She possessed the chucky body of a child due for a growth spurt and large, round, anime eyes.

"Normie, I'm scwared," she said, affecting a little kid lisp. "I don't wanna go into a pearl, too."

"Don't. Even." Norman said, threateningly. He had his arms folded, as the body "blanked" for the final time. This interaction would only be known between these two.

"Please, Normie." Marie said, appearing scared. "I don't wanna go! I'll be good, I promise!"

"Marie," Norman said, his voice harder than diamond and sharper than obsidian. "You're not fooling anyone."

"Mr. Norman," she said, but Norman cut across her.

"'Mr. Norman, is it now?" he said, in a caustic sort of way. "You might as well drop the act, Marie Nova."

"I don't know what you're talking about, you big meanie!" she bawled. It was almost convincing. "Leave me alone."

"Faux petulance won't work either, Marie Nova," he said. "I know who got rid everyone else now. To be honest, it was fairly obvious. I should have seen it from the onset. But I failed to account for what you really are. Failed to see how well you disguised the sheer level of your magical power. I know who literally pushed everyone out."

"It was you!" she accused, pointing a tiny index finger at him.

"No," Norman said. "It was you, Marie Nova."

***

Broken continued to scry for Norman's location, but Cloak was, personally, finding it a slow and boring method. Not to mention he didn't understand the methodology to it, and imagined that there was a lot of "false positives" with this method of location-tracking. But he understood that they had no other way, unless someone just happened to stumble upon him.

And that would be dangerous, as it was clear that this boy was not only mentally unstable but mentally fragile. His psyche had already fractured into so many personalities, all of which demonstrated some really differentiated powersets. And Norman clearly could not control his other personalities, otherwise it wouldn't have been so chaotic in the mental health facility that he was in. Some of the reports that the orderlies gave them when they were charged to find the young man . . .

Still, Cloak felt as if they were squandering their time here. He was trying to hide, to mask his anxiety, but it just came off as impatience. Then, as if it were a piece of metal coming into contact with a powerful magnet, the crystal dropped.

"I know that place," Hunter said, examining the map. "It used to be a library before it had a fire and no funding to repair it."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 12, 2019, 08:55:55 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLI (1,341): "The Forced Tradition" -- The RAFians come to a town terrorized by an annual tradition that no one seems to like.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Dropping the Facade

"Me?!" she said.

"Drop the act, Nova," Norman said. "I know what you are now. Or, at least, what you used to be."

"What are you talking about?" she said, her facade faltering.

"Grassley. Poe. Frieda. Walter. Bugsy. Adrianna. Darlene. Elliot. Grover. Felix. Cassandra. Rocky. Steele. Candice. Danny. Drake." Norman rattled off. "They all owe their very existence -- assuming that they still even exist within those pearls you put them into -- to you."

"You're not making any sense, Normie," she said, with a more adversarial tone to her voice now. "You don't understand what you're saying."

"Our battle had fractured my mind," he said, "and all this time, I thought you were just another shard. Another alter. Another personality. But now I understand what you really are."

"You don't understand anything, Norman." she said, coldly.

"You're the mummudrai who I fought with so long ago," Norman accused. "I had thought I had killed you. That you were gone. I never considered that you were still here."

Marie gave a mirthless laugh, and when she spoke, it was with a full-grown woman's voice. "You don't know what you're talking about Norman. But you did managed to figure out one of the major points."

She gave another cold chuckle before continuing, "I was indeed part of that mummudrai, but just a fragment. A bit that merged with one of your mental fragments to become something . . . new."

"What?"

"That's not important," she said, dismissively. "What is important is that I have just as a legitimate claim to this body as you do. It's all perfectly legal. No contract could undo my claim."

"What is this about legality? What does this have to do with anything?" Norman asked. That whole part sounded like a non-sequitur to him.

"It means, idiot boy," she said, trying to sound as cruel as possible, "that I cannot be exorcised, expelled, or forcibly removed from this body by spells designed to get rid of possessing spirits or influences because I'm a rightful owner of it, as well. This isn't possession, as would have technically been if I was a full mummudrai."

Norman wanted to protest this vehemently, but could not find grounds to support his protest.

"But I am also a part of you, as well." she said.

"But that doesn't explain how you got rid of everyone else," Norman said, sensing that the final struggle was coming up soon.

"When you live in an house and own property, you are not bound to it. You can make a claim and have ownership over it, but you are not forbidden to lose. But the longer that they are away," she said, smiling a disconcerting and, frankly, creepy smile, "the more their claim to their body deteriorates. it's like making a Horcrux. Although . . . they may be 'recompleted' into whole people on their own, but I frankly don't really care."

"You're not going to succeed," Norman said, knowing what she had planned.

"You're in no position to fight me," she said. Somehow, her smile became more offputting. "I won't even need to change the body to reflect who I really am. As you can tell, I'm really good at playing the long game. . . ."

***

"There!" Hunter said, pointing.

"He's catatonic," Broken said. Then he immediately conjured up a stretcher, and put him upon it with Cloak's help. However, the Realm Walker noticed what appeared to be a pink pearl fall from his left palm. But he dismissed it as unimportant, as he helped the others taking him out of here, notifying the authorities about it.

None of them knew about the battle that went on beyond Norman's fleshy matter. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2019, 05:35:08 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLII (1,342): "A Culture War" -- The RAFians are called on to mediate a "culture war".

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Bounce Back

Cloak was dispatched to some sort of outdoor amusement park. One with so many OSHA violations that there wasn't enough paper to hold all the citations. There were areas where it was clear that bouncing on questionable rubber balls were the only ways to move forward.

Cloak did not and would not indulge. He used his energy and the elements to bypass this crappy way of getting around. It made getting to the heart of this underfunded, abandoned amusement park rather easy. The fiend didn't really hide, either.

The fiend was tall, twice the size of a ten-year-old child, with two, large eyes with russet brown sclera and dark purple irises. It was a round, russet brown fiend with two pink buttons and two reddish orange tubes on its chest. It had two stubby legs with large, black, ball-shaped feet. Its white arms are long and rubbery, and its russet brown hands are also large balls with black fingers. It had an antenna on its head, which has a small black ball at the end of it. It's arms are retractable, and his limbs and head can be separated from its body, though this usually only happens when it's hit with a very powerful attack.

The fiend spent most of the battle bouncing around the room in a diagonal pattern. It'd sometimes stop moving to throw a punch at Cloak with one of its stretchy arms. Later in the fight, it'd use that to get closer to Cloak by grabbing the ground at a spot near Cloak and then pulling itself to that spot. Sometimes it'd also try to squash Cloak by slamming itself on the ground. These attacks were fairly easy to avoid, as long as the Realm Walker kept moving, but it was somewhat difficult to land a good hit on the fiend since it was almost always moving, and it repeated this attack pattern.

Cloak decided that it was time to attack, and not just evade. He formed his energy blades, after firing a powerful blast of energy to knock it back. Then he struck repeatedly, even after it disassembled. He targeted the head when it did disassemble, and he attacked relentlessly, using his feline agility to dodge the bouncing bits. It wasn't long before the fiend was savagely put down.

***

Demos called it a "rabasapien". He intended it for crash-test purposes.

***

Malice watched this from a comfortable easy chair, and was finding herself anxious. She was once again losing relevance, she felt, and she wasn't too happy about it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2019, 07:48:17 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLIII (1,343): "The Children of Death" -- The RAFians must deal with some genocidal cultists.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXIV:
THE A.R.A.
CHAPTER ONE:
De-Fusing the Situation

Broken was dispatched to a decommissioned power plant, which had suddenly come back online. Fiend activity was suspected. so, he Apparated here immediately. He had to dodge some lasers in order to get to the fiend, who didn't exactly hide itself.

The fiend was tall, slender humanoid with white skin that is protected by purple and orange armor. Its hands were black, and his eyes had purple sclera and white irises. Its head is also purple with two electric fuses that stick out from its sides, somewhat resembling horns. A lightning bolt symbol is also engraved on each of the fiend's black, bootlike feet. In addition, a red circle is engraved on the fiend's left chest plate, and purple spikes protrude from the sides of fiend's lower torso.

The fiend's attack patterns were pretty simple, but the battle proved to be very difficult due to its incredible speed. It began by casting two balls of electricity, one on the ground and the other on the ceiling. As it was doing this, the fiend created an electrical barrier around him. This makes it invulnerable for a short time which prompted Broken to wait for it to proceed with its set-up before he could damage him. Afterwards, the fiend teleported above the fiend and cast its electrical orbs towards him at very high speeds as the electric spheres will begin to move around the room on a metal rail in a clockwise motion, forming a rectangular shape. Broken avoided this by sliding out of the way, but had to Apparate with a crack and a pop to avoid one of the electric spheres that he didn't see. Then the fiend waited a second or so after he teleports before firing his weapon to set a trap, making it so that Broken had to evade both the electric spheres at the same time.

Then the fiend teleported to the middle of the room in midair to activated its superhuman speed ability. When activated, its speed is increased immensely and its attack pattern changed. Its new method of attack was to teleport to the top of the room and slam back down to damage broken with a powerful electric strike, imitating the movements of an actual lightning bolt. These attacks were extremely fast and difficult to dodge. Fortunately, the fiend would only do this several times until he stops and goes into his third phase.

In his third and final attack pattern, the fiend reverted back to its original attack pattern albeit with some small changes. Instead of casting one shot of the electrical orbs, it will fire two at different trajectories to increase the likelihood of Broken getting damaged. Additionally, the electric spheres moved in a somewhat triangular shapes where they now move in the same direction as each other and intersect at the middle of the room.

Broken had decided to act, pulling out what appeared to be a rubber ball. With prudent use of the Summoning, Banishment, and Doubling Charms, he had an armada of rubber balls bouncing all over the room. The fiend had no chance.

Honestly, clean up  took more time than the fiend's untimely end.

***

Demos called it a "hyuzusapien". Demos claimed it was designed to help manage electrical equipment that was too dangerous for ordinary humans.

***

Malice was getting even more anxious, as she felt that her relevance was only as good as releasing these fiends. Sure, she had plenty more, but she wanted more relevance. But no scheme ideas came to her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 13, 2019, 08:31:57 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLIV (1,344): "The Return of Night and Death" -- The RAFians must face old foes once more.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
He Campaigns This Way

The campaign video opened with music similar to that of Lady Gaga. Then the politician appeared on the screen, and he wasn't anything to look at. He certainly wasn't much to look at -- like someone had put a generic business suit onto a baboon who had gone through a large bag of Cheeto puffs in one go, and made it run for office.

He sang, and it was heavily auto-tuned:

"My mama told me when I was little,
Act like a superstar.
Save your allowance, come up with a petty dismiss,
And someday you will go far!
Now behind podiums, well, I'm hard to miss.
The press follows everywhere I go!
I'll poke your eye out with a point like this,
Back off and enjoy the show!
I'm sure my critics will say it's a grotesque display,
Well, they can bite me, baby -- I campaign this way!
I might be just flirty tease or swearing as I please.
It doesn't mean I'm crazy -- I campaign this way!
Ooo, my little donors pay . . . lots 'cause I campaign this way!
Baby, I campaign this way!
Ooo, don't worry, I'm okay . . . hey, I just campaign this way!
I'm not crazy, I campaign this way!
I'll be the biggest troll you've ever seen,
I'll just make all my supporters scream,
'Cause every day is my birthday, see,
For me . . .
I'm so completely original!
My new platform is all the rage!
I'll wrap my corporate interests 'round my neck
And set fire to the flag on stage
I'll wear a wig on my head
On a W-H-I-M.
And, for no reason, now I'll sing in French
Excusez-moi, Qui a pété?
Got my gun today,
It's made of gold lamé.
No, not because I'm crazy,
I campaign this way!"

All the RAFians present looked at Helen, who had he head bowed with just how awful this ad was.

"Don't be offended when you see
My latest repeal monstrosity.
It's strange, weird, shocking, odd, bizarre!
I'm Einstein, I'm not subar!
There's nothing too embarrassing,
I'll honestly do anything,
But endorse Representative Day.
'Cause baby, I campaign this way!
Hope you won't think it's cliché, if I go prude today.
Don't call the cops now, baby,
I campaign this way!
No reason I should regret all the attention I get.
I'm not completely crazy,
I perform this way, yeah
I perform this way-hey,
I perform this way-hey!
I'm always deviating from the norm this way-hey!
I perform this way-hey,
I perform this way-hey
I'm really not insane,
I just campaign this way-hey!"

"That's how this guy got elected?" Dylan asked. "This Representative Shane Les (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shameless)? This obscure ad?

"Unfortunately," Helen said, "and just wait until you hear his brainchild policy proposal, and what it means. . . ."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ss_BmTGv43M

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 14, 2019, 05:26:22 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLV (1,345): "An Essence's Weakness" -- Cloak discovers an essence's weakness.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
The Alien Registration Act

"Which is?" Cloak prompted.

"The Alien Registration Act," Helen said, heavily. "Pretty much they one any alien species in the country to register with the government."

"I fail to see the downside of that," Kane said, but he was mostly ignored.

"This also applies to species that are Terran-borne, but aren't human," Helen continued. "Basically any creature with sufficient sentient self-awareness would be obligated to register."

"To what punishment?" Cloak asked. "The current level of human technology doesn't have spacecraft that would be able to satisfactorily 'deport' these aliens. Wait --"

"They plan to use the act to confiscate all space-capable craft, don't they?" Yarin asked. He didn't need telepathy for the answer.

"Yes," Helen said, "similar to civil asset forfeiture, they take the ships from the 'unregistered alien' under the pretense of them being suspected of a crime, calling it 'alien asset forfeiture'. Touted as an invasion precaution. Most aliens come to this planet by mistake or accident. Very few come here to actually invade."

Cloak snorted with disgust, "This would just put the personnel involved with the seizure in danger, when you consider the invasions we, as RAFians, ended. The Heinlins? They would have taken over the personnel and impersonate them. The Chapeausapiens? Same deal. The Phalanx and the Borg? Same deal there, too. The Skrulls? They'd just replace and impersonate. 'Alien asset forfeiture' will just work on nonhostile species."

Cloak thought about it some more, then added, "And it expects blatant compliance, that the targeted alien would either be weaker than the personnel or be able to be overpowered by force, if need be. That is rarely the case in such scenarios. Not to mention that they do not know how to operate the aforementioned ships. Unless they force the aliens in question to show them -- and you can pretty much guess how that that would go."

"If they go through with this," Aquilai noted, "then there will be a database. Much like our own species database. . . ."

"Meaning that it could be hacked," Shenmue supplied. "And what if it got hacked by a Knight? It would essentially provide them with a hit list, and we all know how unstable and violence-prone some of these Knights are."

"This legislation causes far more problems then it solves," Phoenix said, "assuming it actually solves anything."

They fell to silence, as they watched a news outlet spouting out support for this. And the nonhuman RAFians wondered where this would put them. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 15, 2019, 08:14:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLVI (1,346): "Procure and Refine" -- A man creates a "Beastmaker Watch".

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
The Man Behind the Act

Shane Les was never a popular guy, and even less so when he took office amidst scandal and accusations of cheating and election interference. But his allies in Representative Christopher Lubber, Senator Nathan Smith, and Representative Michael Ellis helped him overcome this, as he termed it, minor setback.

Shane grew up in an affluent household where he never had to work hard to get what he wanted. He was a selfish, spoiled little brat that his parents made excuses for his delinquent behavior, often using the word "precocious" in place of "delinquent". Every time he acted out, they would immediately capitulate to what he wanted. They thought that their permissiveness was trusting their child, and they never lived to see his rather dubious rise in politics.

Despite railing against them in his rather off-the-wall campaign, which was like it was being ran by a clown, he had never truly met an extraterrestrial being. He just found them as useful scapegoats for his horribly authoritarian plans. He just exploited an xenophobic fear of some of his constituents, even if it meant he had to blatantly lie and gaslight them. It was heavily unclear as to whether or not he legitimately believed the hatred he spewed out.

He rode this xenophobic fears to get to his office, and, if it wasn't enough, he had a ex-felon collecting votes from voters to mail them for them -- which was illegal -- and not-so-secretly changing them for Les, or throwing the votes for his opponent (one Frederick Washington) away, or just voting for them. Not to mention that there were accusations that they had dead people voting. But instead of the judiciary branch doing their job, they certified his win and allowed him to take office.

And the first thing he did when he got into office was to begin legislation for his "exo-immigration bill". He continued to fearmonger against "undocumented extraterrestrials", even though there was not nearly any many aliens on Earth as he insinuated in such a blasé way, and highest concentration of aliens even on Earth was in the forum.

But fear, when stretched to the hysterical and xenophobic extremes, is a funny thing. It wipes away all logic and tends to close one's mind to simple truths and incontrovertible facts that don't justify their personal views. This sort of fear is the sort of thing that feeds upon itself, and, more often than not, leads to nothing but destruction, suffering, and devastation.

And Shane Les shamelessly profited from this sort of fear. He and his cohorts all profited from this fear in the country. Did they share in the fear that they peddled? It was difficult to say, but it was most likely no. It was just something to rile up his base, with their Knights of Humanity philosophy (and smaller groups of like-minded individuals by the names of the Humanity Right and the Church of Humanity, which took hold in more rural parts of the country while the Knights were far more urban).

He seemingly wasn't aware of all the problems with this bill, as the RAFians spotted immediately. But, then again, there was ulterior motive for this bill. One that nothing to do with registering extraterrestrials (including sentient nonhumans and supernatural creatures, despite being Terran-borne and not technically "extraterrestrials"). One that there was a concerted effort not to tell or inform the constituency about in one of the more underhanded ways possible.

They wanted to drastically cut taxes for the rich, cutting programs that the people needed to survive. They were just hoping to the xenophobia as a vehicle to sneak this in, as they already tried the tricky language to trick people, but were called out on it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, they failed to take note of how popular the RAFians were, and there were a lot of aliens on their active duty roster. Aliens, supernatural beings, nonhuman Terran-borne creatures, superpowered and flatscan humans, and a interdimensional being (namely, Cloak). They were sitting around sixty-one to sixty-five percent likability.

The Alien Registration Act was really bad and convoluted way to do that, really.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 16, 2019, 05:41:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLVII (1,347): "The Polymeritrix" -- The man furthers his "Beastmaker Watch" into a Polymeritrix.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Introducing the Bill and the Ponderings of the Tiger

"Every day, and everywhere, there are more and more of these monsters invading our airspace, our lands, and our waters," Representative Les said, upon the floor of Congress. "They violate and pervert and dirty our environment with their very presence here. And we don't know how many of the millions of aliens out there are here, undocumented and unregistered. Stealing your jobs. Stealing your healthcare! The reason that you don't have them, is because of them. The Alien Registration Act seeks to end all of that and force them to have some accountability for their incursions, and make their invasions felonies worthy of the death penalty. Remember, that these are monsters who we have dominion over and --"

"Representative, your time is up," said a cool voice off-screen. "Representative Pax, you have the floor."

Cloak turned away from the television screen. Even though he knew that Representative Upton Pax was vehemently against the A.R.A., citing all the problems that the RAFians pointed out in the time he had. But Cloak was leaving the room -- he needed some space to think. He was sure that Shenmue or even Dino would give him the cliff notes of the entire thing, the important takeaways.

Cloak walked out into the night sky, looking up at the stars, where Estelore was somewhere out there. The Nexus didn't have stars. He only first saw them when he came here. When he made this Realm, this planet, his new home. But he found himself in conflict.

He was not a native of this planet, of this very Realm. Did he have any right to give his opinion on any political issues on their governance? He was already technically interfering with their affairs. Meddling. Just by his mere presence here.

And his presence here, as the grandson of Master Sage, attracted Malice here. And just look at all she did to get his goat. . . . Look how many lives that she was more than willing to sacrifice, that she was more than willing to ruin. Just look at how much suffering she had caused so callously.

He bore responsibility in that. Each life she had taken was a life that he had failed to save. Each person she caused suffering to was suffering that could have been prevented. Every life ruined could have been salvaged, but the ruination could have been prevented. Every life taken, every life ruined, every tidbit of suffering . . . they were all due to his mistakes with Malice. He knew what he had to do with her, the very same thing he had to do with Cataclysm. But he always failed where Malice was concerned, though not through a lack of trying.

So what right did he have to pass judgement on Dweller legislation? Sure, it applied to him, so he should have had a stake in it. But did that justify him to pass judgement on the governance of this country? Or did he have a responsibility to do so? To prevent it from making the same mistakes that Realm Walker Councils continually makes, even to this day, with their constantly rotating members as the previous members continually get caught in corruption scandals and whatnot.

All these internal conflicts continued to plague him, and he continued to pondered this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 17, 2019, 06:14:51 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLVIII (1,348): "The Spider Pendant" -- A vagrant finds a peculiar spider pedant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Barriers and Opposition

Representative Pax inquired about how Representatives Les, Lubber, Ellis, and Smith intend to legislate this, in the terms of how they intend to go about and enforcing this bill were it to become law. The minutia and logistics of how they intend to capture and detain hostile extraterrestrials, while pointing out how this encapsulates any species, natural or supernatural, with sufficient sentience that isn't 100% human, ignoring whether they were Terran-borne or not. Their defense was vague and milquetoast, at best.

Representative Chastity Cast criticize the "alien asset forfeiture" part of the bill, asking how they intended to enforce that. The answers they gave were completely unsatisfactory and a tad delusional. It was clear that they hadn't bothered to even consider the "how" of this aspect, and she called them out on this. In response, they protested in a most petulant manner, deliberately misconstruing it as a personal attack.

Representative Temperance Tem, building off Representative Cast's questioning, asked how they intended to even be able to use the assets stolen -- and she phrased it just that way, too -- and asked if they meant to use the ship made for different physiologies for their own purposes. She asked for the rationale behind it, and pressed them for answers when they tried to deflect the subject rather inexpertly. They were clearly unprepared for this kind of questioning.

Representative Charity Carey asked how they intended to deal with hostile aliens who did not acknowledge their authority, who did not recognize their sovereignty over their country. It was a bit of a retread of Representative Pax's questioning, but she was asking for clarification on a similar issue. They could not answer this without resorting to untrue and unsubstantiated statements and assertions. It was clear that they really didn't think this through, in any regard.

Representative Dillon Indu said that in order to register all and every alien resident, that it would require a database. He inquired how they would secure that database, in the midst of security hacks recently. When they answered, Representative Indu interrupted saying that kind of security was less secure than that of Gmail. This stymied the four, who hadn't anticipated such an attack. Representative Indu made the same point that Shenmue made, that this database would be nothing more or less than a hit list for hate groups of the like of the Knights of Humanity, the Church of Numanity, and the Humanity Right. They seemed to take offense at this, but could not adequately articulate a salient argument for it.

Representative Patience Pat concerned herself with the division that this would cause. She predicted that this would cause outbursts of violence against people suspected of being aliens or supernatural creatures or just not 100% human. People who are suspected of this, with no proof and the assumptions could be very wrong. The four countered this saying that that kind of thing was beyond their control, to which Representative Pat replied not if they didn't embolden such aggressors in the first place. Not if they didn't normalize such xenophobia, and that they shouldn't because xenophobia isn't normal, and shouldn't be acceptable.

Representative Kenneth Huma questioned how necessary this was with the presence of the RAFians -- citing that they have been working on all extraterrestrial cases in a semi-official capacity, deeming that this whole legislation as unnecessary and redundant. This allowed the four to spout some virulent anti-RAF sentiment, which were the arguments with the strongest passion, though entirely false. And Representative Huma was quick to point out these falsehoods.

Representative Muru Hum took a different tack, and pointed out the buried legislation within the bill which would cut the taxes on the rich, and make those tax cuts permanent. The four were completely taken by surprise, thinking that they were incredibly clever in hiding their true legislation. Representative Hum chastised them harshly for this and all this political theater to distract from this part of the legislation.

And, yet, there was still more opposition. More than the four were anticipating. They were woefully unprepared for all this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 18, 2019, 07:32:40 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXLIX (1,349): "The Giant Pendant" -- A musician finds a pendant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
First Blood is Shed

There was a group of friends who were wearing impressive cosplay, which they made themselves, on an especially low budget and low access to resources. They were currently doing a "live-action role play", or "LARPing", in a public park meadow.

Ryan Hamada was a twelve-year old boy who wore a cosplay made of primarily yellow with green accents and white "armor", with white clothing underneath that covers most of his body up to his knees, and steel-toe white sneakers. His visor was transparent blue. He was nearly five feet tall, and had a very slender build. He had fair skin, brown, rounded almond-shaped eyes, and messy black hair. He has a gap in his teeth and a slight overbite. Ryan was quiet intelligent, which could make him brazen and ****y, but never to the point of being insufferable and irritating. He was the one who designed all the cosplay, though his friends helped him put it all together. He could be a little socially awkward, and shy, but was generally a warm individual.

Jamie Tomago was a thirteen-year-old girl who wore a white-and-purple suit of "armor" with purple discs on her wrists and boots, a matching helmet, and white underclothing with a hint of green linings with white bare-knuckle gloves. Jamie is tough and extreme, making up for her usual speechlessness with bluntness, sarcasm, and occasional brutality. She was not the most approachable person in the world, and is rather unwilling to accept limits, and tends to be highly opinionated on certain subjects whilst completely indifferent to others. She was responsible for the logistics of the movement and visibility in the cosplays.

Honey Rodriguez was a thriteen-year-old girl who wore brown dress with black linings, light green sleeves and leggings, yellow platform heels, and brown "armor" with a belt to match. She wears eyeglasses, and she wears a yellow helmet with blue highlights over her head. Slung over her shoulder is a purse prop. Honey was outgoing, perky, photogenic, and generally cheerful. She has a lust for life and an eye for detail -- she was the one who got the detailing of their assorted cosplays just right.

Damon Wasabi was a thirteen-year-old boy who wore mostly red "armor" and what appears to be Japanese cropped pants, with particular patterns layered over it. Despite his burly physique, Damon was neurotic and compulsive, who was normally very grounded, cautious, and "by-the-book". He may seem to have a cowardly exterior, but he is, in actuality very brave. He was the one who basically managed the collective finances and resources of the group.

Freddy Miller was a thirteen-year-old boy who wore a mascot costume that mostly consisted of the colors blue and orange, in addition to having white, spiky, claw-like nails, a tail with similar features, and three eyes (with the top notably acting as Freddy's access to vision). Its four-fanged "mouth" is the only opening the suit has. The soles on the suit's feet enable Fred to perform higher jumps. freddy is a tall, shaggy, scrawny boy. Freddy is incredibly eccentric, zany, loud, childish, and rather boisterous. Nevertheless, he holds an ultimately very sweet disposition, and is extremely laid-back. He is also a consummate optimist, though it can get annoying at times to his friends.

As they were "LARPing", as they were calling it, Freddy was playing the role of an antagonist. But it was all in good fun, and all were pulling their "attacks". Unfortunately, this was a subtlety that was lost on some, like the balding, gray-haired newcomer.

This man was thick-bodied with a bushy beard and beady eyes that almost resembled ornery beetles nestled in a mass of hair. He wore a plaid, long-sleeved shirt and blue jean overalls with only one strap fastened. He also wore a blood-red ball cap that threatened to pop off the mass of hair on his head. He was also barefoot, and carried a shotgun. He was a belligerent sort of man who smelled powerfully of cheap liquor. Belligerence and alcohol were always a volatile combination.

Then this drunken, bellicose man by the name of Phil O. Polemik (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/philopolemic) lifted his shotgun and aimed directly at Freddy, who took the longest to notice due to his more lacking vision. The others were confused as to what this man wanted, and tried to protest and talk him into putting down the gun. Then they noticed the blue lettering on his hat, and knew that he would not be reasoned with.

"Support the A.R.A."

While belligerence and alcohol were a dangerous combination, alcohol and firearms were even more so. And it nearly always ended in tragedy and tears. Especially when the would-be hero has a hero complex . . .

BAM!

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2019, 06:19:36 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCL (1,350): "The Monkey Pendant" -- A cultist finds a pendant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
More Incidents

The deaths of Ryan Hamada and Freddy Miller weren't the only incidents that happened when ardent, virulent supporters of the A.R.A. felt emboldened by what they had thought there was movement forward on the bill (there wasn't, but it didn't stop Representative Les to lie blatantly for it). Many of these "red hats", as what the colloquial term came to be, found this reasonable justification for their acts.

A rambunctious, precocious child had his parents killed when one of these backwards, brainwashed cultists slayed without a second thought. His reason was that he claimed the noisy, babbling child was "demonically possessed" by an "alien", and he ended his tirade that, in his view, he was making this country "great again". He thought this would justify the two murders, but the courts would not see it this way.

A old man abducted a young child from a single-mother who he believed to have contact with undocumented aliens -- literal undocumented aliens, as in undocumented extraterrestrials. This was a completely unfounded assumption, but one this geriatric, bellicose man believed with unwavering devotion and unshakable faith. He never considered the remote possibility that he was mistaken, choosing, instead, to believe he could do no wrong. The courts, however, didn't agree with that assessment.

A young genius was bullied harshly for his intellect, and it even attracted the attention of one of these "red hats". Instead of defending the boy, she decided that his intellect was an abnormality and should be shunned. Until she came to believe that his intellect was given to him instead of being inherently his. Given to him by an undocumented extraterrestrial. And she refused to accept the possibility that she could be quite wrong. Fortunately, she was stopped before the boy could suffer her delusions.

Two boys were waxing on about time travel, despite their only exposure to chronal transportation was regulated only to the entertainment media that the two consumed on a weekly basis together. That didn't stop some crazy woman -- not wearing a red hat, but strong with their xenophobic beliefs -- from attacking them, assuming that their talk was far too advanced for them to be "normal" kids. The courts didn't agree with her defense.

An unusually hairy, svelte woman was brutally attacked and killed by one of these narrow-minded extremists who assumed that she was an alien instead of suffering from a genetic disorder which caused her whole body to become hairier than what this man deemed societal normal. The courts sided with the victim.

A deranged man -- although it wasn't really clear if he was a "red hat" or just a belligerent drunk, or both -- attacked a boy who was defended, ironically enough, by the boy's pet donkey. The stubborn animal managed to drive the man off, who evidently believed the boy to be a puppet controlled by the donkey. This wasn't remotely true, and the man was still at large.

As a little girl was exploring her backyard, talking to an imaginary friend -- a periwinkle monkey wearing galoshes -- and stranger in a red hat pulled up to her and accused her of either being an alien or talking to one. He had decided this with very little evidence. But as he reached out for her, her parents intercepted him, labelled him as an aggressive drunk, and chased him away. He was still at large.

A man actually wearing the red ball cap attacked a man -- or tried to, anyway -- who possessed uncommonly high strength in his view. This "red hat" believed that was proof enough that he was either an alien in disguise or a "mised breed". Apparently, he prided himself on genetic "purity" -- despite that being a rather stupid thing to concern oneself with. And the courts saw it that way, as well.

A man accused a boy of witchcraft, and killed his cat (which this "red hat" called his "familiar") because of this. He openly admitted to the crime (which he didn't believe was a crime, and that he was in the right on this issue), and openly threatened, not only the boy and his family. He would not hesitate to confess that he did, almost as if he was assured that he was immune from any consequence. The courts were actually mixed on this issue.

Then there was a mass shooting at a convention hall where e convention-goers had dressed up as anthropomorphized animals -- felines and canines seemed to be the most prominent. The deluded shooter thought that these costumed people were real creatures and decided that they were aliens, which -- in his mind -- gave him the right to exterminate them. The courts most heartily disagreed on this.

And those incidents were just the tip of the iceberg. All these incidents were instigated by these "red hats" or sympathetic proxies, all of which were wildly supportive of the A.R.A., oblivious to the underlying reason for it. Exploiting xenophobia to steal more money from the working class.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 19, 2019, 07:45:16 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLI (1,351): "The Lizard Pendant" -- A vengeful woman finds a pendant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Bridges, You're Not Helping!

"These alien monsters are parasites, sucking the rich blood from a host planet," Bern Bridges said, with quivering jowls. "They poison our collective culture with not just their mere presence, but with their own backwards cultures. They're dirty -- filthy! -- and full of disease."

He took a moment slurp his coffee loudly. It was rather rude and uncouth the manner in which he did this, but he did not care about decorum and things like that. Which is why a lot of people listened to and watched him, being tired of the obvious veneer  artificiality that most, if not all, of the mainstream pundits and politicians had. His audience was those who were easily triggered by disgust and fear, and he played to those people.

Whether or not he actually believed the virulent sludge he spewed or if he was just spouting such hateful rhetoric to get more ratings or whatever, that was quite hard to determine. But the general consensus was that he actually believed his own schlock, as he didn't read from papers or teleprompters. He spoke off the cuff, and he sounded earnest enough.

"These alien monsters are like rats," he said, beginning his spiel once again, "they flood our planet and take our precious resources. They devour them faster than a starving man with a four-course meal! They need to be purged from our society, from our culture! Do not hesitate!! Do not wait for 'permission'!"

He slurped his mud-like coffee once again, burped without the customary "Excuse me" and continued on with his venomous diatribe.

"You wouldn't believe how bad these things are," he said, his voice sounding a little thick from his coffee, " they're not people. They're not even animals. We should be purging them from our planet at a level and a rate that has never been done before. That's where the Alien Registry comes in."

Then he turned toward the Representatives that were opposing and blocking this legistlation. He said, "They're the real problem here. They don't care about crime. They want aliens, no matter how bad they are, to flood and infest our planet. They can't win on their terrible policies, so they probably see them as potential voters!"

This, of course, was not remotely true. The legislation was lazily slapped together and not-so-cleverly hiding the real purpose of stealing more money for the rich using the vehicle of xenophobia. And any time there was an alien invasion it was always thwarted by the efforts of the RAFians. And, very curiously, he was very careful not to mention this little fact, instead of resorting to smearing them.

"Which brings us to the the cartel that calls itself RAF," he said, after a long draw from his coffee cup. "Perhaps you've already heard of them? These are the morons with hero complexes who interfere with police operations, bumbling and fumbling those operations best left to those who have been trained for them. How situations could have been resolved quickly and cleanly had they not interfered?"

Again, this wasn't remotely true. The RAFians only took on cases that the local law enforcement were completely unprepared and unequipped to deal with. There were also cases where the RAFians worked together with law enforcement to arrest very dangerous parties. But Bern Bridges never cared about truths or facts. He was a consummate "feelings over facts" guy.

And he was just fanning the flames, making matters worse. He was not helping things. At all.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 21, 2019, 09:58:15 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLII (1,352): "The Hummingbird Pendant" -- An aspiring reporter finds a pendant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Lot of Unexpected Heat

"I repeat," Representative Les said, once again, "these incidents of violence have no correlation with the A.R.A."

"I disagree," Representative Ira Mercer, the unpopular yet reliable House Leader, said, "the very language, rhetoric, and intent of the legislation has emboldened these fringe extremists, these stochastic terrorists to 'come out of the closet' and commit such atrocious acts, erroneously believing to be able to get away with it, with impunity."

 "I will repeat it once more --" Representative Les said, looking worn and old. Things were not going well for his sloppily-crafted bill and its chances of truly passing were deminishing. Mostly due some Representatives feeling that it didn't go far enough, wanting an out-and-out ban of nonhuman sentient creatures, and others criticized its vague premise and overly broad tenants, all of which were worded and framed rather  chaotically and with little finesse.

"That shan't be necessary," Representative Invi Staples, the self-proclaimed "virtuous" Representative. Like the more corporatist part of the government, she was rather two-faced and hypocritical. "But, Representative Les, witnesses stated they saw the transgressers all wearing a red hat, one indicative supporters of this legislation."

"No, they weren't," Representive Les said, with the foolish, childlike expectation that they'd take him at his word, and not challenge him at all. That they wouldn't push back against the fraudulent claims he made with so much bravado. It was a stupid expectation.

"But they were," Representative Gula Quinn, a so-called coolheaded Representative, said. And the way these Representatives were handling this was fairly odd in and of itself, as if this was a confirmation hearing, which it was not. "This bill clearly incites stochastic terrorism in the less . . . grounded members of our national community."

"There's no proof of that," Representative Les said, as if by saying it aloud would make  true. But real life does work that way unless you have the power of reality warping, which he did not.

"The numbers do not lie, Representative Les," Representative Aced Willingham said, coolly. He was considered to be "fearless" and the "number two" in the House. "There have been at least thirteen confirmed cases where the perpetrators involved have flat out said that the bill was the reason they committed such crimes."

"Those perpetrators were fuelled by alcohol and belligerence and because not coincidental support of the A.R.A.," Representative Les protested. But he knew he was on the losing side of this battle now, as Representative Lubber and Representative Ellis had already abandoned him for the other side. Like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

"It is hardly a coincidence," Representative Ava Moner, the self-proclaimed prudent Representative, said. "The bill is full of xenophobic rhetoric. It describes extraterrestrial beings as 'dirty' and 'filthy ' -- designed aesthetically to appeal to such people. And why? As a vehicle to gain tax cuts for the people least deserving of them. Yes, Shane, I know that's the primary reason why you're pushing this bill, and not because you want an alien registry."

Representative Les opened his mouth to protest, but Representative Moner wasn't yet willing to yield the floor.

"Besides, all the aliens that are on-world are members of RAF," she continued, "and we have information that they keep a detailed file on all their members, including their true species, and they are all Marked at this point. It's their personnel files, I'm told, and it is far more secured than your Alien Registry -- which wouldn't just register aliens, mind you, it would register anyone who happens to be nonhuman, despite where they were born. Can't you see the racist overtones in that?"

She didn't wait for an answer.

"Of course, you can," she continued, as he was prepared to answer. "You were banking on that to get the bill passed into law, thinking that we would all capitulate to the xenophobic masses. Well, Representative Les, the masses aren't xenophobic as you believe -- they're a small, but vocal, minority -- and neither are we, their elected representatives."

Representative opened his mouth to rebut her points, but hesitated, looking weak in doing so, as he desperately fished around his head for a talking point to bat away what she had said.

"While I do acknowledge that some aliens are hostile -- the Heilins and such -- and just want to invade the Earth, the RAFians have dealt with all of those with aplomb." she continued.

"They conspire with these filthy monsters to decrease our national purity!" Representative Les spat without thought to what he was saying. "We can't survive with other people's babies!"

The entire floor grew silent at that outburst.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2019, 06:58:41 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLIII (1,353): "The Orca Pendant" -- A protester finds a pendant.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Outted and Blowback

Things didn't really go too well for Representative Shane Les for that outburst, which he immediately tried to walk back, instead of doubling down on it (which was what he wanted to do but didn't because of his fearing for his political career and Representative seat). Even still there was significant blowback, and the A.R.A. was already heavily associated with him, even though the xenophobic legislation (which was written in such a way that happened to violate the constitution several times) alone had lost popularity with everyone but those who wallow in the mud of extremist hatred and the irrationality of the fear of the "other".

That fear may have evolved out of biological necessity for the humans most ancient and primitive ancestors, who had to worry about defending their territory from other, rival protohuman tribes. But that kind of xenophobia had no need in present day. It did not belong there.

Representative Les was coming to know this. The A.R.A.'s chance of passing seemed to be as likely as passing a camel through the eye of a needle. He walked down the street, ignoring the catcalls of people he considered worthless, lazy peasants. Their jeers were not important to him. He still considered them only necessary when it was an election year. Until then, they might as well be mice to him.

He refused to see the rhetoric of his precious Alien Registration Act as anything less than masterful, and that it's true intentions being unseen and cleverly hidden. None of that was true, though the rhetoric was on the wordy side, but in a manner that demonstrated incompetence rather than coherence or consistency of any stripe.

Just reading it through once would send Shenecron, who was keenly skillful at contracts and deceptive wording when he wanted to be -- a complete master in the subject, in fitful convulsions of hysterical laughter. He could have rewritten it in a thrice and have it arouse far less red flags.

Representative pulled up the long collar of his black trench coat and pulled his hat lower to shield himself from the icy wind. It was a rainy day, which he found to be a perfect metaphor to his mood and disposition at this point of his life. He was feeling so nettled and moody, he was libel to snap at anyone who asked him questions --

"Representative Les? I'm --" said a news reporter wearing what appeared to be a yellow catsuit with white boots.

"No comment," he said, brusquely walking past her. He didn't need the media to harass him right now. He was going through enough at the moment without having another possible scandal, for he knew that he would have eventually had a meltdown at any push or criticism of the A.R.A., which he still refused to believe was sloppily written and hastily presented to the floor of the House.

He was souring on the whole pseudo-democratic system in this country. He was expecting easy passage for this bill in what was fundamentally an oligarchy. He glowered as he entered his office, locking the door behind him. Then he took off his hat and coat, throwing them haphazardly into a chair in the corner of the room. Then he sat behind his desk, and propped up his face with his fingers. He looked almost as if he wanted to cry.

This was supposed to be easy, he kept telling himself.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 22, 2019, 08:18:39 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLIV (1,354): "The Condor Pendant" -- An iconoclast businessman finds a pendant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
A Political Pariah

It was supposed be easy. Sorry about the brevity.

He assumed that everyone believed what he believed when it came to sentient, nonhuman beings. That everyone believed that they were dirty, filthy mongrels that taint the purity of the planet, where he believed human beings were the only sentient life born on it. That humans had rightful dominion over everything. He ran on this and was elected to his seat because of it.

Also because Rob N. Pyllage took many ballots and "corrected" them to vote for him. But no one else knew that, he was sure. He was certified, after all. He had his seat, and he would contend that he earned it legitimately. When he didn't. Not really. But he convinced himself with all his delusions of grandeur that he had upswelling of support from his supporters and that he was the greatest politician in the country. He convinced himself that the A.R.A. was immensely popular amongst the people (it wasn't -- it was struggling to reach forty percent, with about eighteen percent indifferent either way).

It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a slam dunk.

He didn't acknowledge how easily people saw through the xenophobic exterior as if it were glass and saw the underlying legislation beneath to cut taxes for those making ten million or more, paid for by cutting entitlements, which the people have paid into. Shane Les didn't see why this was such a big deal -- who cared what the peasants thought? They were only useful during election years. Other than that, Shane thought they should just shut up, generate the wealth, and take whatever the upper crust deems to do them. That was the only real use of these peasants.

And now they had started to harass him just as some of these annoying media. Especially these so-called "new media" reporters. They asked questions that Shane found untoward and improper to even dare to have the audacity to ask. He should have the impunity to act as he saw fit, and not be held accountable for such actions, he felt. These know-nothing, unruly and troublesome meddlers should be dealt with swiftly and clean, he felt. He thought that these kibitzing, interfering thugs should just shut up and bow their heads to their obvious superiors.

This was supposed to be simple. It wasn't supposed to be so complicated.

And now Representatives Nathan Smith, Christopher Lubber, and Michael Ellis had abandoned him to save their own necks. True, Shane Les could turn on his own legislation, but, due to his refusal to see anything wrong with it, he didn't. He was going to go down with the ship, despite it very quickly becoming political suicide. But Shane was unable to see this aspect of it like the other three, who saw the writing on the wall. It was this obstinate stubbornness that was his fatal flaw. Well, that, and his sheer incompetence.

But he was struggling with these feelings of betrayal, failure, difficulties, and frustration. Soon enough, he would be pressured to step down. He knew it. He wouldn't acknowledge that it was because of the puritanical xenophobic and racist rhetoric he blurted out so conspicuously, as he refused to believe that. He chose instead to believe it was a witch hunt against him by miscreants and ne'er-do-wells. That makebake instigators, good-for-nothing propagandists, and rogue Congressmen have made him a political pariah.

It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. He was a master legislator -- he could fundraise more money from the party's donors than any other (not necessarily true). He should have been on top. It just wasn't fair.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2019, 06:10:01 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLV (1,355): "The Screenslayer" -- The RAFians must deal with a hypnotic villain.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
How It Began . . .

Representative Shane Les found himself reminiscing about just before he ran for his seat, and the little song that he sang to himself to jazz himself up for it, and find some sort of magical tone to use while both campaigning and while on the floor.

"I've never needed anyone.
I'll go my way alone.
I'll use my own intelligence.
To find that magical tone."

He didn't have any real platform to run on, but he managed to cover up this with bluster and smearing his opponent. And also stealing the election helped quite a bit as well.

"Yes! I'm a very important feature.
Tremendously brave and strong.
I find that am frequently right.
When others are often wrong.
Instead of arguing blindly.
They should open their eyes and see!
That the one who will bring them paradise.
Is the very important me."

He thought an awful lot about himself, and he sang this to himself, despite thinking the voters were little more than stupid peasants. He was more thinking of the people in government, who he believed himself to be smarter than by definition.

"I'm a fabulous fearsome try-er.
I handle life with finesse!
When others say no,
It can't be so!
My answer is always yes!
I was born to be their saviour!
That is my destiny!
Why do they despise?
Not recognize
The truly fantastic me!"

His ego hasn't changed much. If anything, it grew and ballooned to ridiculous proportions. But that changed when he introduced the A.R.A. bill with Representatives Ellis, Smith, and Lubber, and he came up with a stonewall of opposition. He had never been truly challenged in such a way in his entire life, and he was shocked by it. He didn't know how to react to it, other than petulance.

"Some of us are born to lead.
While the rest of them must follow.
They would have a long search
Just to come up shallow!
Looks at this right wing!
Look at this beak!
I guess you could say I'm quite unique!
It's a very important mission.
Truly impressive quest.
They think I mean to do them harm.
When I only want what's best.
And when I finally find the tone.
Then at last they'll see!
How lucky they are to know!
As they watch as from down below!
What a reverence they will show!
The very important!
Very important!
Very important!
Me!
The very important me!"

He finished reminiscing about the song, feeling very embittered and cynical about everything. This was supposed to be easy -- the others were supposed to marvel at his greatness, to genuflect at his feet, to abase themselves before him. It wasn't supposed to be like this, in Representative Shane Les's view. He didn't realize that he wouldn't be treated like a pampered prince, which is how he was treated for the majority of his life. He didn't like being challenged, he found. He didn't like it one bit.

Especially challenges that he could not overcome.

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2wTeRZh6mAw

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 23, 2019, 09:52:38 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLVI (1,356): "Silly RAFians, Strixes Are For Kills" -- The RAFians deal with strixes.

Releasing tomorrow's chapter a wee bit early. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
RAF Reacts

"At least they're putting up a fight this time," Shenmue said. "They usually just roll over and capitulate to this kind of pressure."

"Perhaps the legislation would have gone over better if it wasn't just a transparent vehicle to cut taxes for the wealthy and mega-rich." Helen noted.

"He clearly overestimated his political prowess," Parker said. "I still question that election that gave him the seat -- there was a lot of fishy business there that was never really readily addressed. At least, not satisfactorily."

 Meanwhile, Cloak kept his silence. His worries seemed more and more confirmed with every news that reaches them.

"What's wrong, Cloaky?" Sakki asked, noticing Cloak's body language. "You don't support this A.R.A. garbage."

"It is because I fear, Sakki," Cloak said, quietly and earnestly, "I fear that your government might be falling down the same slippery slope that the Realm Walker Council did, long before I was born."

"How so?" the VOLCAROID inquired.

"The Realm Walker Council started out noble and for the Walker people -- at first." Cloak said in a solemn sort of way. "Then the first cracks of corruption forced their way through the seemingly impenetrable exterior of the supposed democratic republic that was supposed to be governed fairly and objectively. These cracks grew bigger and bigger, until they were fractures in the apparently seamless facade of the democracy. The fractures soon escalated into becoming fissures. Deep, irreparable fissures."

Cloak sighed deeply before continuing.

"This corruption was a blight. It was a gangrenous bile that rotted away the democracy. Robbed the people of their rights and liberty." Cloak said. "This corruption devolved the democracy into an oligarchy. The powerful reigned as nobility, and this is when the high turnover of Council members started. Within a single year - - a decade of your years -- several Realm Walkers may take one of the five seats than be disposed from the seat very quickly. No matter how good and well-intentioned the Realm Walker in question, the corruption is infective and corrosive of one's moral character and judgement. In just about no time at all, the corruption takes hold and twists their minds and souls to darkness."

"Is that why you turned it down?" GH asked, after a prudent pause. He was serious in his questioning. "This corruption?"

"There is an universal idiom," Cloak said, not really answering the guitarist's question, "'absolute power corrupts absolutely '."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 25, 2019, 05:33:08 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLVII (1,357): "The Fool" -- The RAFians fight the Fool.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Fate of the A.R.A.

The bill was up for vote, delayed by other bills that took more priority, and Representative Les found the wait torturous. But the general consensus was that the A.R.A. was not going to fair well. The constituency knew what the true end goal of the bill was and the actual Registry was little more than fluff to get the tax cuts passed.

The Alien Registration Act had no wisdom to it. It had no charismatic rhetoric. It was not written intelligently. It was like a beast with teeth made of the cheapest sort of glass, it would have a powerful bite once, but then lose all effectiveness thereafter. It was a clumsy bill, and even Representative Les would have to, begrudgingly, admit it now. But there was no time to rewrite it now -- and he was given time to, but he obstinately refused to believe that there was anything wrong with it in the first place.

He foolishly believed that the A.R.A. was popular and voting down would be political suicide -- he vastly underestimated the constituency. They were tired of working harder than the richest of the rich, and being slandered as lazy because they didn't have a lot of money. They were tired of having entitlement programs they paid into ransacked and slashed to fund some loafer with a wealthy mommy and daddy ludicrous ambitions.

Outwardly, Representative Les showed a contemptuous grimace and exhibited a face etched with sanctimonious expression that read very smug to most people, but deep down? He knew that this legislation wouldn't pass. It was doomed when anyone gave it the mildest of scrutiny. It was sloppily put together, akin to a project that a D- student would create at the last minute.

He knew this full well, but went on lying to everyone (and himself) about how great this legislation was. He had convinced himself that other people, even those that he considered to be peasants, loved this legislation. He convinced himself that no one could just see it as a vehicle more transparent than Wonder Woman's invisible jet. He convinced himself that he was outwitting everyone. He was elated when Representative Lubber, Ellis, and Smith decided to coauthor the bill (and were now trying fervently denying involvement and desperately trying to distance themselves from it).

Then he was challenged by other, far less friendly Representatives. He was insulted, unaccustomed to pushback so powerful. He was unaccustomed to be held accountable for his actions done or words said. He was only accustomed to having his way, and he never knew when to keep his bigoted opinion to himself. He never had very much social acumen, so that it wasn't too surprising that he resorted to cheating and underhanded tactics in order to get his seat. He got away with that, so he got complacent.

Naturally, when the vote came up, he felt a bite of apprehension tinged with hope that his transparent attempt at rich tax cuts with a xenophobic veneer would pass in the House. What he failed to take into account was that several of their donors were against this legislation as it was written, and a bulk of these politicians took money from this particular donor. It was pretty much a death knell for the legislation.

As such, it was voted down and Shane Les was summarily embarrassed. He even considered actually stepping down to escape the embarrassment. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 26, 2019, 06:45:59 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLVIII (1,358): "The Magician" -- The RAFians must battle the Magician.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
The Donor

In a darkened room, a figure sat in complete shadow. He held what appeared to be some sort of blood red wine with the viscosity and consistency of milk. The only light in the room came from an old television on the far end of the room. It was tuned into a channel that was airing the vote.

This figure, loosely silhouetted by the television's light, swirled his drink held in a wineglass whose stand dangled loosely from this man's fingers. He was watching Representative Shane Les politically sweal and immolate. He had to admit, it was entertaining.

He sat on a high-backed chair that was encrusted with gold, with velvet cushioning. The top of the chair had a white diamond at the very top, a pink diamond directly below it, a yellow diamond to the left of the two, and a blue diamond to the right of the two. Decorating the back of this chair were gemstones that a faint glow to them -- rose quartzes, pearls, garnets, amethysts, peridots, lapis lazuli, rubies, sapphires, smokey quartzes, rainbow quartzes, sunstones, opals, sugilites, sardonyxes, alexandrites, obsidian, emeralds, jaspers, malachite, agates, zircons, topazes, aquamarines, hessonites, nephrites, carnelians, morganites, citrines, rutile, rhodonites, fluorites, larimar, tiger's eyes, tourmaline, serpentine, and lepidolite. It was clear, whoever this was, they wanted to show just how affluent they were with this gaudy chair.

His attire mad him look like Organization XIII (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_XIII) member set in a film noir setting. He wore a black trench coat over a black suit with a black undershirt and tie and some sort of silver pin on the lapel, and he wore a hat that shrouded his face in darkness. He even wore black leather gloves to hide his hands. It was crystal clear that he wanted to keep his identity a secret.

He was the donor to many of these politicians' various campaigns. He was the quintessential provider of so-called "dark money". Every cent he had spent had returned to him with many, many friends. Every political investment he had made -- had ever made -- had granted him even greater returns. And, of course, it did. He would not have wasted the capital otherwise.

While he liked the tax cut part of the A.R.A, the xenophobic stuff would highly conflict with the subjects that he need for . . . educational purposes. And it would greatly hinder what it was that he did, and he did not like that. What had to be done on his part was obvious. He paid off -- "donated", rather, to pretty much every big politician's campaign. All except Representative Pax's, who refused his money on pretty much every moral ground imaginable.

This donor was very dismissive of that Representative as an unimportant pawn whose presence might actually lend more legitimacy to the Congress that he paid for sixty-one percent of, personally. It was because of him, and not any childish morality, that the A.R.A. failed. It failed because he wanted it to fail, and he abandoned Shane Les. He allowed the dumbfounded dunce to take the fall, to take the blame, despite nonchalantly planting the idea in his head in the first place, despite selecting him to run in the first place. And now he was part of the massive pressure to get Shane Les to step down.

This was because this mysterious donor had other plans for him, now that his usefulness was ended. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 27, 2019, 05:18:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLIX (1,359): "The Lovers" -- The RAFians must deal with the Lovers.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Stepping Down and Stepping Out

He must have realized how it would come off to anyone who was still foolish enough to support him. people who wantonly refused to see what was so obvious to everyone else around them. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye to how so many of his fellow Congressmen and Congresswomen, his donor, and so many others were demanding he step down as a Representative. They would see it as petulance, turning on him immediately like the hateful beasts that they were. They would chastise him for stepping down after his first piece of legislation failed.

But the pressure from all sides -- his constituency, his fellow Congressmen and Congreswomen, and his doors -- easily got to him. He would defy anyone to deny that they would not buckle under such pressures. He would wager that even Atlas, himself, would collapse from the weight of this kind of pressure.

So, with the vote against the A.R.A. not being much more than a day old, he announced that he would be stepping down from his role as a Representative. Intially, he gave no reason, until he realized he could use his age as a viable excuse. He could claim that it was because of his age and health, despite being at perfect health and having only held office for a paltry few weeks to a single month, before this entire fiasco happened. Shane Les may have been oblivious and obstinate, but he wasn't a fool, not entirely. He knew his political career was over when the A.R.A. floundered and flopped. He had put too much stake in that legislation, pinned his entire career and credibility onto it. But it had sank and drifted in the ocean.

Of course, the newfound investigation into his election -- as some election fraud was detected in his campaign, and substantial corruption was discovered. He knew it was just a matter of time before he would get nailed for it. So, stepping down served an ulterior motive to help him get out of the country and into the relative safety of international waters. His money was already in an offshore account -- to avoid taxes on it, of course -- and was readily accessible to him.

He had to do this, but he had to do it in a way that wouldn't arouse too much suspicion. He wasn't bright enough to realize it would have been prudent to wear a disguise of some sort, or not to do this kind of thing in the middle of the day. When questioned, he claimed he was making his yacht his primary residence, thinking that would be plenty explanation to satisfy the inane questions of these nosy paparazzi types.

He had to hurry. He had to hurry before his former co-Congressmen and Congresswomen caught up with him, especially that irritating investigator that he never bothered to learn the name of. He wasn't planning on sticking around, let alone long enough to learn the guy's name.  He needed to do this before anyone got wise to him, before they could stop him. Before that accursed investigator could get to him, before they realize that he was a severe flight risk.

He would have to abandon his manor. And it was very nice manor. But he decided that it was worth it to save his own neck. The investigation was just starting, so he had to act now. He never considered that by fleeing, he was basically admitting guilt.

"Going somewhere, former Representative?" said a deep, male voice behind him.

"I'm changing residences," Shane Les lied blatantly. He hadn't turned around, and wasn't really in the mood to be interrogated. He didn't care if it was the investigator inquiring behind him. He was still quite arrogant, despite his humiliation, with the emollient thought of being inherently superior than the working class and genuinely thought that this alone made him above the law.

"Not without a word from me," said the owner of this voice.

Shane Les turned around, and immediately felt fear. It was not the person he thought it was. "You?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2019, 05:32:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLX (1,360): "The Heirophant" -- The RAFians must deal with the Heirophant.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
A New Purpose

"You can't d-do this," Shane Les said, with a hoarse, quivering voice. He was strapped to a flat steel table, with his extremities outstretched in a most uncomfortable manner. He was shirtless, and he was still wearing his suit pants. He had lost track of just how long he was here, strapped to this cold, uncaring, unsympathetic table. "I h-have rights!"

"You lost any right to be when you've become of no use to me," the shadowed man said, with the pin on his lapel showing clearly in the bright, clinical light of this overly pristine laboratory. "You're just fortunate that I managed to salvage a use for you."

"You c-can't! I have basic innumerable r-rights, and you are violating every one th-them!" he said, his voice sounding like the snap from an old bit of chalk. Even his voice sounded dry - - he was being regularly denied water and sustenance. This shadowed man didn't care about Shane Les's needs. He was already believed to have absconded to a different country, escaping justice. But he wasn't -- he was here, trapped like some particularly stupid guinea pig. "There are plenty of . . . plenty of . . . of . . ."

"Oh, stop your inane bleating," he said, in an almost clinically differential sort of way. There sounded as if there should have been a bite of impatience to his voice, but it was not there. "It serves no purpose to complain. You're here, and you're going to be of some use to me. Now, stop struggling -- it won't make the procedure any shorter for anyone involved."

"Then use one of the p-peasants!" he protested, his voice sounding like sandpaper. " There are th-thousands of them! They're exp-pendable!"

"That reminds me," said this shadowed man, with a mirthless sort of chuckle that woul send chills down anyones spine, "I'd like to thank you for your generous donation to our cause. All of your assets and accounts, your entire fortune? How very giving of you."

"I authorized n-no s-such thing!!!" he protested immediately. As if he thought he'd get out of this situation. Which was why this shadowed man laughed a cruel laugh.

"You no longer have any need of little things like money," he said, with that chilling chuckle once more. He seemed to be enjoying this too much, in a very much sadistic manner. He was standing in another room, where Shane couldn't see him. Shane was in a room that eerily looked like a gas chamber, except of a chair, there was the steel table Shane was strapped to, in an involuntarily manner. "As I've said, I've found a pertinent use for you. And it will be your final use."

Suddenly, a yellowish-green gas flooded the room. It was a type of nerve gas, that broke down cells on a molecular level. It turned them to ash in a manner of minutes.

"Oh, look at that," the shadowed man said, with faux concern, and dripping with insincerity, "there's been an 'accident'. Such a pity that you were handling chemicals that you ought not have been handling, former Representative Les! Why did you mix them so recklessly? Don't you know just how dangerous that is? Did you think you were more clever than chemists with Ph.Ds?"

Then the same chilling laugh as the silver pin on his lapel came into light -- a strand of DNA within a beaker within an eye within a triangle. The sigil of CADMUS. He just watched as Shane Les died due to this gas. this shadowed man felt nothing about the death, and was, in fact, disappointed. He didn't get data from this that he found satisfactory. Not even remotely.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on February 28, 2019, 09:57:58 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXI (1,361): "The Priestess" -- The RAFians deal with the Priestess.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A Monster Meditation

After the A.R.A. was voted down, Cloak returned to his isolated spot and meditated. It seemed almost easier than normal, as if the very elements he mastered were eager to assist him in this endeavor.

It was then he was hit by a powerful vision, which, of course, had a song in it. He was in his thread, which was quadruple its normal size. And he sensed the oncoming threat, never question where the others were or how these invaders got into the protected forum.

He sang to himself.

"It's finally come.
Come to knock down the door.
I can't hide this time,
Like I hid before."

He felt a tremendous amount of anxiety and trepidation, and was dimly aware of the elements being out of balance and wreaking havoc to all those around. He sang to himself again.

"The tempest is awake.
The danger is real.
My time's running out.
Don't feel, don't feel!"

He was feeling the kind of fear he hadn't truly experienced since his sessions with Aniyu. The fear of losing control over himself and his emotions. He remembered not being too fond of the sensation.

"'Fear will be your enemy
And death, the consequence.'
That's what the Dreams once said to me,
And it's starting to make sense."

Sometimes Truth Dreams were a burden he wished that he could do without. It never alleviated the fear, but generally just escalated those negative feelings. Perhaps Destiny thought she was being helpful, sending those Dreams -- most times, she was not.

"All this pain, all this fear . . .
Began because of me. . . .
Is the thing she would see
The thing I have to be?"

He grasped the side of his wrought iron, four-poster bed frame, lined with the same fabric that his cloak was made from, and was not easy to obtain.

"A monster, are they right?
Has the dark in me finally come to light?
Am I a monster, full of rage?
Nowhere to go, but on a rampage?
Or am I just a monster, in a cage?"

He heard an ensemble sing, and he somehow knew they were Realm Walkers. An unicorn, a bear, a leopard, a vixen, a snake, and a goat. All in Councilor regalia -- the first Council regalia. They sang:

"End this havoc.
Bring back the status quo.
Keep your guard up!"

Then he heard his own mother, Ursa the Critic:

"No harm comes to him!"

He highly doubted that she said that because of motherly love. He wasn't sure if she could ever truly feel such an emotion. Then the six ancient Councilors sang:

"End this havoc.
Bring back the status quo.
Keep your guard up!"

He was feeling rather like a trapped animal. Alone, scared, . . . and dangerous. He sang to himself:

"What do I do?
No time for crying now.
I started a tempest.
Gotta stop it somehow."

Fear and his sense of responsibility were now at war within him, as he sang to himself:

"Do I keep running?
How far do I have to go?
And would that take the tempest away?
Or only make it grow?"

Then guilt decided to have a word in this war of emotions within the RAFian Realm Walker

"I'm making my world harsher.
How long can it survive?
Is everyone in danger
As long as I'm alive?"

It was quickly becoming a toxic sort of ****tail, these emotions. He continued to sing to himself:

"Was I a monster from the start?
How did I end up with this stone heart?
Bringing devastation to the stage.
Caught in a conflict that I never meant to wage.
Do I kill the monster?"

He was engaging in self-pity, and he knew it perfectly well, but he didn't know what to do. He appealed to the memory of his aunt, Wheeza, and sang, pleadingly and imploringly:

"Wheeza, you know what's best for me . . .
If I die, will they be free?
Wheeza, what if after I'm gone,
The tempest gets harsher, and it rages on?"

In his ears, he could hear his departed aunt's words -- "AND THEN WHAT?! You never think these things through!! It's time for you to look inward and ask yourself the big questions. Who are YOU? And what do YOU want?"

 He smiled a small smile at the thought, and decided, as he sang to himself:

"I have to stay alive.
To undo what has been done.
Save the world from myself,
And bring back the fun.
If I'm a monster, and it's true --
(End this havoc, bring back the status quo!)
Then there's only one thing that's left for me to do.
(Keep your guard up!)
But, before I fade to white,
(End this havoc, bring back the status quo!)
I'll do all that I can to make things right.
(Keep your guard up . . . !)"

Then he left his thread to confront his mother and these ancient Councilors. He sang to himself:

"I can't be a monster.
I won't be a monster.
Not tonight!"

The ancient Councilors declared their disagreement:

"Monster!"

This is when the vision decided to end, and Cloak awoke as if coming out of a reverie. Was it a vision or just a dream? Or was it a Truth Dream sent to him from Destiny? . . . He sincerely hoped that it wasn't the latter. Despite her genial, affable demeanor when he met his oldest ancestor -- on either side of his family -- she still terrified him. He could sometimes feel her power . . . and it terrified him.

He never thought he would meet anyone more frightening to him than his own mother. But then he met Destiny, and burned her Diary into ashes.

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=X-L40JAuaGU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 01, 2019, 06:54:17 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXII (1,362): "The Chariot" -- The RAFians deal with the Chariot.

New chapter. Sorry for the brevity.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Tundra Turnaround

Shenmue was dispatched to deal with a fiend in an Antarctic facility that was abandoned when the temperatures got too cold to sustain human life and the facility's heating system went kablooey. It wasn't too hard to find the source of the problems -- which was good, as Shenmue really didn't like this place. It was much too cold.

The fiend was a tall, slender humanoid. Most of its body was covered in yellowish-orange armor, parts of which have ice crystals embedded in them, including as lapels and sleeve cuffs. it also had silver ice skate blades on its feet and a long ponytail made of ice crystals that came down to its calves. It had a face plate instead of a mouth, and human-like eyes with yellowish-orange sclera and black irises. It also had ice blades on its shins and a ice crest that swept to the left on its head. Its hands were five-fingered and leathery black.

It saw Shenmue, and she saw that the fiend was taller than her, but not really all that intimidating.

The fiend would ice skate along the floor, starting with a straightforward dash the first time, before adding more jumps as it skates back and forth along the room. The second time it skates across the room, he would perform a jump after it covers half of the floor, three high jumps during the third, a small hop followed by one that covers more distance during the fourth, and another straight-forward dash during the fifth. Shenmue dodged all of these -- and it was not easy. The fiend was faster than she thought.

Shenmue fired balls of electricity which travelled along the floor. Three or four managed to hit the fiend. This was the only realistic way she could actually hit the fiend, the speed and agility was difficult to hit any other straightforward, direct manner.

Then it got even faster. It would rapidly skate across the room three times, before jumping and performing a column of cold and wind in the middle of the area. Shenmue avoided this by jumping over it, and sliding away before it performs column of cold and wind. After this, it would return back to his standard pattern, slowing down a bit. But it could clearly speed up again.

Shenmue returned to her plan and fired more electrical orbs that travelled around the ground and walls. They hit the fiend two or three times, and it was done. It was over.

Shenmue didn't dally or hesitate. She immediately headed for the extraction point. She wanted out of this cold, miserable place.

***

Demos called it a "tundrasapien". Demos claimed that he had designed with a surveillance purpose in mind, to monitor the planet's coldest climates.

***

Meanwhile, Malice was pacing around, fretfully thinking. Scheme-block was one of the worst things to happen to a schemer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 02, 2019, 05:22:37 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXIII (1,363): "The Empress" -- The RAFians deal with the Empress.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXV:
THE ORPHANAGE OF THE DAMNED
CHAPTER ONE:
Torched

Cloak had been dispatched to a campsite, that was in the off-season. Apparently, a fiend had decided to make its nest here. He moved easily through the forest, without making a sound. It was dark, but darkness was no problem to his feline eyes. Then he had come upon the fiend.

The fiend was a tall humanoid, outfitted with green armor covering most of its brown body. Its shoulder pads resemble torches and were constantly emitting flames, and its pod-like feet had vents. It had a mouthplate in place of a mouth, and brown five-fingered hands. It had angry, human-like eyes with green sclera and light gray irises.

The fiend caught sight of Cloak, who made no effort to hide.

The fiend spent most of this battle shooting fireballs from its fists, occasionally stopping to jump around the room and try to hit Cloak with a well-placed kick. It ran up to Cloak, and perform a sweeping kick. Then he jumped up and then came down with a blazing kick.

None of the flames touched Cloak, as if afraid to warrant his ire. Cloak used powerful vertical blast of air to continually push the fiend back.

When the fiend suffered enough damage, it set its body ablaze, and jumped around the room while sending giant fireballs rolling on the ground, then jumped into the air and came crashing down in the middle of the room, creating a massive flame pillar in its wake. It returns to his normal attack pattern after this.

Cloak continued using the aerokinetic A.O.E. attack, which kept damaging the fiend. Until it ended the fiend. And Cloak left, without looking back.

***

Demos called it a "tochisapien". He claimed to have designed it as an outdoor advisor to teach campers about fire safety. A Smokey the Bear replacement, essentially.

***

Malice still was fretful in, what she felt, her declining relevance. She hated this scheme-block she was having. And her schemes had to be grander than simply slaughtering Dwellers, despite the fact that she found such acts definitely enjoyable.

Then she realized that she had the nugget of a plan going all along, one that she had forgotten about. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 03, 2019, 05:14:07 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXIV (1,364): "Death" -- The RAFians deal with Death.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Snuff Out His Light

Cloak was in an inky black void, which caused him to lucidly recognize this as a Truth Dream of some kind. What was it that Destiny wanted him to know? He looked around but saw nothing but the circle of white upon which he stood, illuminated.

Then he heard a woman speak. The voice definitely not Destiny's. It sounded as if someone decided to fused the voices of Ed Asner and Phyllis Diller together, with a tinge of granny tones.

"When a woman acquires a certain age,
And the men who adored you no longer swoon.
It pays to avoid the Realm-lit days,
And live by the light of the kindly loon.
But the loon grows old just like us all,
And her beautiful years are done.
So now she prays through endless days
To take her revenge on the Son."

Cloak was still unable to locate the source of the voice, though he saw a vague outline -- a rough silhouette -- of a thick-bodied, geriatric human woman with an overabundance of white and graying hair. Her outfit the Realm Walker couldn't make heads or tails of. then the voice started to sing:

"When I was a girl at my granddaddy's side
Gamps,, the royal mortician
Revealed to me in secret signs,
The mark of the magician,
And Granddaddy was no dummy.
Did outrageous things with a mummy.
And often the stiffs that he would shrive
Would look better dead than they did alive.
I studied well; I learnt the trade,
I thought my looks would never fade.
If I could find that recipe
To give forever youth to me.
It was always my ambition,
To use my intuition,
And gain some small remission
From the vagaries of time!
Every little failed scheme robs me of my youth.
Who to blame? Who the one? Who to curse?
You know the only one to blame would be my enemy, the Son!"

Cloak was sure the voice was coming from this silhouette, but even his feline eyes couldn't penetrate this darkness. He had to admit -- it was frustrating. He felt as if this figure was going to be important.

"Snuff out his light.
Claim my right
To a world of darkness.
Snuff out his light!
Neophytes!
Of a world of darkness!"

Cloak tried to approach this silhouette, who had her back to him, if he was judging the silhouette right. But, with every step he took, he got no closer to the silhouette.

"Malice, baby, turn me on.
Every wrinkle soon be gone.
I could squeeze myself with glee.
The promises you made to me.
I've really stopped at nothing.
Murder, treachery, and lying.
Whatever it takes to keep my looks.
You really can't blame a girl for trying!"

Wait -- Malice?

"Snuff out his light.
Claim my right.
To a world of darkness.
Snuff out his light,
Neophytes,
Of a world of darkness!"

Whose light, though?

"Snuff out his light.
Claim your right.
To a world of darkness.
Snuff out his light here tonight!"

Cloak didn't like the answer he came up with. He looked down at his hands and saw his golden-scarlet corona. His light.

"Apparitions of eternal darkness!
Spiraling in circles through the night!
Creatures of beguiling blackness!
No more squinting in his light!
Bats and owls and coiled sea dragons!
Crocodile and carrion beasts!
Swirling in the growing darkness!
Join us in the coming feast!
Spectre wraith and apparition!
Spirit demon, phantom shade!
Salamander serpents, dog-faced devils!
Dance and watch the dying sunlight fade!"

Then he was standing in the void alone as the song ended. It was at this point he woke up, and he thought that it meant that someone -- Malice, more than likely, or one of her stooges or pawns -- will try . . .

Would try to kill him. But it was impossible -- a Realm Walker can only die by the hand of another Realm Walker (or natural causes such as age lr Nexusian disease).

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=374xW4zZbZA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 04, 2019, 09:03:02 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXV (1,365): "Justice" -- The RAFians deal with Justice.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Fatal Females

The Goodness Orphanage looked like your ordinary orphanage, a little drab, a little depressing. But not overly so. It was still within the regulations that the governance mandated for such facilities, though not particularly strictly.

But this orphanage was just a cover. While the male orphans were often ignored and made to do menial tasks, such as janitorial and menial tasks, and they were overseen by hard and harsh taskmasters.

But it was the female orphans that they were truly interested in. Especially those with the "spark", as they put it. This led to the mandatory induction into the Femme Fatales, a group of warrior women who serve the whims of "Granny".

This higher-ups in the group consisted of several members, faces obscured by black cloaks akin to those worn to Organization XIII of Kingdom Hearts, and each specialized in a weapon. Ethereal blades, purple electrical whips, a sniper rifle and arrowguns, a pearlescent spear, lances, dark red knuckledusters , a spiked shield, an opalescent bow and energy arrows, a battleaxe, a pinkish purple flail, a lexicon, sunny-colored cymbals, a claymore, a sanguine warhammer, chakrams, brownish-black yo-yos, a sitar (oddly enough), a parasol (you read that right), playing cards (yes, playing cards), an obsidian sword, a scythe, knives, dual broadswords, and a circular shield. A woman in yellow and another in blue handled the whole of the administrative responsibilities of the facade, while the matron "Granny" was rarely even seen.

The wielders of the circular shield, electrical whips, spear, knuckledusters, bow, flail, cymbals, warhammer, yo-yos, parasol, and obsidian sword were charged with just finding the potential candidates from the orphanage. They held no individual names (any they had before they were made to have forgotten), competed with each other on this search, and they often bickered, but the final decision fell to the others wielders -- the one with names, as they would do the actual training of the "grunts", as they called them, would fall to them.

The Named Ones, as they were known collectively, all were the combatant members, the ones that were sent in fighting. Whenever two Named Ones had a dispute on which candidate to train, they each elected a grunt of theirs to become a Proxy, and then battle to the death to decide. If all the Proxies die, then the candidate is killed and they move on.

The dual broadswords-wielding Femme Fatale was called "the Samurai" and would train others in the use of the broadswords and samurai-style combat, and was not to be questioned. She would immediately slay any who hesitated or disobeyed, only to lament while doing such how they wasted their potential -- and, worse, her time. Her grunts were called the RN-Samurai.

The knife-wielding Femme Fatale was called "the Ninja" and would train others in the use of knives and ninjitsu, and she preferred to play with those that dared to cross her, making their ends far more humiliating for them. She tormented them slowly, before electrocuting them, slowly amping up the power with each shock. She was quite savage when doing so, making sure they knew what transgression that they made before they died. Her grunts were called the LN-Ninjas.

The scythe-wielding Femme Fatale was called "the Reaper" and would train her chosen in scythe proficiency, and would angrily decapitate any uppity and defiant grunts around her with her scythe, and turned their remains into flower petals. Easier cleanup, she reasoned. She was extremely graceful in her actions and manner of speaking, though her actions were calculated ad brutal. Her grunts were called MN-Reapers.

The playing card-wielding Femme Fatale was called "the Gambler" and would train others in the use of playing cards as weapons, explaining that people never expect such a thing to be weaponized. Anyone who crossed her she would either age to dust, regress to infanthood, or trap inside a card or a die -- all depending on her mood in that particular instance. She was known for a predilection for playing the long con, and even her own grunts had to fear whether they had unknowingly crossed her or were going to be made examples of. But as her grunts were known as LN-Gamblers, this wasn't too surprising.

The sitar-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Dancer", which was a ignominious name that seemed to be in stark contrast of this whole orphanage of the damned and their efforts. But she focused solely on the combat effectiveness of dance and the weaponization of music, as she trained her grunts in. She would slowly drown all those who crossed her in water, that she causes to spout up. Her grunts were known as the DM-Dancers, and there weren't particularly a lot of them. She had never won a Proxy fight.

The chakram-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Assassin", who trained grunts in use of chakrams and assassinations. She does seem a bit more tolerant of defiance, but not by much. If one of her grunts annoys her too much, she'd immolate them without a second thought. Her grunts are known as AN-Assassins.

The claymore-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Berserker", who trained grunts in claymore proficiency, and berserker combat. She would not allow anyone to cross her, and if some one did . . . well, she would do worse than an Inferius (https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Inferius) would even be capable of. Her grunts were called SN-Berserkers.

The lexicon-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Mime", who trained grunts in mimicry, deception, misdirection, disguise mastery, and mirror combat. She was an intellectual academic who had little patience for what she perceived as incompetence. It wasn't known how she disposed of those that annoyed her, and she liked to keep it that way. Her grunts were known as ZN-Mimes.

The battleaxe-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Dusk", who trained grunts in battleaxe proficiency and short-ranged, melee combat. She was a taciturn taskmaster,
and hada very low toleration for insubordination. To those insubordinate to her usually found themselves buried alive and either suffocated or crushed. Her grunts were known as the LN-Dusks.

The spiked shield-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Creeper", who trained grunts in shield proficiency and defensive combat. She was a quintessential mad scientist, rather obsessed with her research. Anyone who dared to interrupt her, that isn't the yellow one or the blue one, or Granny herself, will find themselves frozen in ice. Then summarily shattered. Her grunts were known as the VN-Creepers.

The lance-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Dragoon", who trained grunts in lance proficiency and throwing proficiency. She was disdainful of anyone who wore their hearts on their sleeve -- calling them "bleeding hearts" in a most derisive manner. She tended to literally blow them off -- usually off a cliff. Her grunts were known as the XN-Dragoons.

The sniper rifle-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Sniper", who trained grunts in sniper proficiency and long-range combat. She was a very flippant, dismissive personality prone to taunts. But, despite this lax demeanor, she won't hesitate to shoot any disobedient grunt or foolish grunt with her rifle and cause them to implode on themselves. Her grunts were known as the XN-Snipers.

And, finally, the ethereal blade-wielding Femme Fatale was known as "the Sorcerer", who trained grunts in blade proficiency and sorcery. She had a cold and callous personality, with little patience for failure or insubordination. Should someone be so foolish to be one of those things, she would put them into a state of nothingness. This was arguably a fate worse than death. Her grunts were called XN-Sorcerers.

And they set their sights on a target that may be difficult to obtain. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 05, 2019, 05:54:31 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXVI (1,366): "The Hermit" -- The RAFians deal with the Hermit.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
A Difficult Target

A clash of blades rang out from the form, but sounding more like the sound lightsabers make when they clash rather than the clang of metal. There was something very choreographed about the sound, something practiced about it.

Cloak landed daintily, his energy blades (affixed to his wrists) held out at a lower forty-five degree angle, with his head bowed. His energy blades were as wide as the width of his wrists, always had been, and scarlet red with gold at the edges. He then popped his head up as he dashed toward his opponent.

She blocked his strike with her own energy blades affixed to her wrists, mauve on one side and lavender on the other. Her blades were slightly narrower than her wrists, and slightly shorter than Cloak's. She deflected another blow, and followed up with a strike of her own. Cloak parried the strike and jabbed the blade forward.

His opponent twisted out of the way, using her superior aerial agility and smaller size to her advantage. It was her way of compensating for Cloak's superior strength and force. She dove down, blades first, at Cloak. Cloak used both blades to block the blow.

Cloak then made a hoarse call in his throat. Both stopped and abandoned their fighting stnaces, crossing their blades in a more benign way. After all, this was just a training fight, and Shadow performed admirably. Cloak could not help but feel proud of his neice, and he told her such, praising her incredible progress in such a short time. It was the pride that an uncle takes in a favorite nephew or neice, the pride that a teacher takes in the successes of their pupil.

But they were not alone. This training session had an audience. A few of his RAFian friends and allies.But also Faith and her husband, Shadow's father and a delphine Realm Walker, Merriment, were in attendance watching just how powerful and skilled their daughter had become. Faith wore a deep purple cloak, with clothing underneath of a matching color scheme, while Merriment wore a white cloak with an aqua and orange color scheme beneath.

Both of them congratulated her for this, and, in the back of his mind, he noted how lucky Shadow was. Her parents loved her deeply, as a parent should love their child, and it was the type of love Cloak had look for elsewhere for. He was fortunate that he found it though -- in Faith herself, and in Wheeza. His father . . .

His mother chased him away by the time he was seventeen. Cloak, once he got away from his mother's propaganda, started to understand. His father saw how brainwashed that he was, his only son and firstborn, and, Cloak believed, that he didn't see any way around it, any way to get Cloak to understand. He had lost his son to his wife's propaganda. So he left. Cloak really thought he understood.

Before he was mistreated and maligned by his mother -- it was his father, Brute, who endured it. And he had endured it for seventeen-plus years -- and that was Nexusian years. It was ten times that amount if you converted them into Dweller Earth years. And Cloak couldn't do it for nearly half as long. He really believed he had misjudged his father, but was too scared of what he might if he sought him out.

Perhaps if he wasn't too wrapped up in his thoughts, he'd had been more prepared for what happened next.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 07, 2019, 06:19:47 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXVII (1,367): "The Emperor" -- The RAFians deal with the Emperor.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Chains

Cloak continued to muse how he had never known the kind of life that Shadow did. When he was her age and younger, he would compete with Dagger for all things. She was a serpentine Realm Walker, which would make one think that she was underhanded and venomous -- and she was, but she had to grow into that. As a child, she was a loud, opinionated little brat who was obsessed with always being right. She had, at one point, become the dominant sibling, until Cloak's patience ran out.

When she got older, she got obsessed with -- in her own words -- "being somebody". She always had a high opinion of herself, contrasting Cloak's habit of self-deprecation. She never wondered about her worthiness in the eyes of others, as he did, but just assumed that people should respect her regardless of how she treated them. And she, like their mother, always loved playing the victim. Cloak, however, was aware of this trap, and strove not to fall into it. He tried to stay matter-of-fact of what happened, and did not want sympathy, as he knew how easy it was to wallow in it, how that could be used to manipulate people, as he saw it firsthand.

And Cloak was perfectly aware that he wasn't flawless. Like any other being, he had his shortcomings. His tendency to assume that he had the final answer on all matters, to make snap judgements on or about others, to take choices out of the hands of their rightful owners. he held grudges for a long length of time, and found forgiving others for slights and transgressions very difficult on most, if not all, occassions. He was flawed. He knew this. Everyone had their flaws, and the saddest people in existence are the ones who refuse to acknowledge any flaw within themselves and declare themselves as flawless -- when no person in existence is flawless.

His father was the same. Cloak knew that he favored his younger sister because they had a common interest -- athletics -- and his interests didn't exactly mesh with his father's. (Although, it wasn't like his father didn't try to find some common ground, Cloak just never realized it until he was much older.) His mother would later exploit this to manipulate Cloak into hating his father for no legitimate reason (something that he felt aggrieved for ever since he permanently parted company of his mother). He didn't deserve the hatred. He was a flawed Walker, this is true. But he tried to do his best for his family, and Cloak deeply regretted it taking him this long to realize it.

He didn't even know if Brute was still alive. Part of him was too afraid to find the answer to that simple question. All Cloak knew of that side of his family was that he (and, by extention, Dagger) were descended from Destiny through him, and that his father had two brothers that he never met nor had any idea what form of Realm Walker they were. He hadn't a clue if these paternal uncles were alive, nor if his paternal grandfather was alive. His paternal grandmother, he was told, had passed on before he hatched from his Light-Life Egg.

But he should have been paying attention instead of ruminating. Suddenly, a tylee chain -- and not the one he has since accumulated -- shot out and wrapped around Shadow, binding and pinning her arms to her sides. Then it shot backwards, taking Shadow with it, with equal speed and force.

"SHADOW!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 08, 2019, 06:29:37 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXVIII (1,368): "The Hanged Man" -- The RAFians deal with the Hanged Man.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Desperate Desire

Cloak's body seemed to act of its own accord, before his rational mind caught up with what was happening. He ran after the place where she was stolen. And in the back  his mind, he couldn't help but hear that woman from the Truth Dream -- the woman who wanted to snuff out his light.

He had assumed that she meant his corona, the dangerously destructive aura around every Realm Walker which necessitates the use of the cloaks. But, clearly, that's not what the Truth Dream was trying to convey to him at all. It meant another light, one that he always referenced as his light.

Shadow.

Cloak always noted how ironic was that her name was Shadow -- a name he himself gave her her after the young Realm Walker becoming like his shadow when she was younger ,proudly exclaiming that she wanted to help him with every endeavor he did, even if it was very mundane, like laundry or the dishes. He even trained her in the elements, and she mastered them far quicker than he ever had -- something that did not cause jealously in him, but pride.

And, in this infinitesimal moment that he wasn't alert, that his guard wasn't up, she was snatched away by parties unknown and reasons equally unknown. Cloak just knew one thing, and knew it instinctively. He had to find her. Find her and make the person with audacity to kidnap her know the immense folly of that decision.

He was only dimly aware of the obstacles placed in front of him as he hurried to where Shadow was being taken, following her trail with an almost religious fervor. He burst through a wall of ice, looking as if he were performing the Flare Blitz technique. Then he saw some daggers streak his way, leaving trails of electricity behind them. He simply blocked them with his right arm, having them clatter to the ground. He never broke stride, and continued doggedly to where the abductors went.

Then he felt the earth shutter beneath his feet, but found that he really didn't care, as he proceed further, his way principally unimpeded. He thought he saw the flash of a scythe and flower petals, but he didn't much care about that. He was still so single-minded about the task that laid before him. He would find her, and he would make her captors pay for their careless hubris. Then he thought he saw some illusions before him, but Dweller illusions never had the capability of fooling his species, as they could see through the images cast by such illusions, and see the truth beneath. And it was not nearly enough to dissuade him at this point.

It was at this point that he was dimly aware of his sister and brother-in-law following behind him, somehow managing to keep instep with him. Shadow was their daughter, after all. There was no way that they would be sitting on the sideline for this. But Cloak didn't shift his focus from the matter at hand. He bashed a foe in the stomach and backhanded him or her across the back of the head before obstinately moving onward. He couldn't tell what gender that human was, but he found that he did not care much.

Then there was a watery barrier, that immediately parted, as if not willing to defy the whim of an Elements Master.  Then Cloak felt powerful gusts of wind that did not deter him from his goal. Then a fire wall blocked his path, only for part of it to extinguish when Cloak's eyes flashed. Then he saw a flurry of energy arrows, which Cloak used all his agility to dodge them and pushed forward. Then he was attacked by a flurry of cards, but he deflected them and pressed ever onward. Then his progress was impeded by a claymore, which was easily ignored by the Realm Walker trio as they pressed onward to reclaim their lost family member. Then they were surrounded by what appeared to be a thousand lightsabers without their hilts -- the trio just pressed on, ignoring this, as the lightsabers suddenly struck at nothing, as the trio had alreaey passed it on by.

They were on the precipice already.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 09, 2019, 09:42:14 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXIX (1,369): "Temperance" -- The RAFians deal with the Temperance.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Creeper

"Go on," Horse said, gesturing to the others, "I got this."

"Do you, now, you little water rat?" said a voice in the black cloak, surrounded by six in silver ones. All carried shields with spikes on them.

"I won't be intimidated so easily," Horse said, not really hiding her bravado. "You have no clue the things that I managed to take down."

"Oh, this shall be an interesting experiment!" the Creeper declared. "Let's see how quickly you freeze!"

She fired ice from her hand, which Horse easily slapped away with a flipper, as if to say "****, please". Despite herself, the Creeper smiled deeply. She knew how to play, this talking seal thing. She would take undue pleasure in shattering this seal to bits. "You may know how to play, little talking seal, but let's see for how long."

Contemptuous excitement filled the Creeper. This puny little pinniped would be her prey, and no one else's. And she made that very clear to the six VN-Creepers she had with her. She warned them of very dire consequences if one of them stole this kill from her.

"Hey, pal," Horse said, offended by how easy the Creeper acted like her murder would be.

Horse formed four ice snowflakes and sent them at the Creeper, who blocked it with her shield. Then she formed ice spikes around the Creeper's feet, as well as her grunts. She wasn't aiming to hit her, but make it more difficult for her and her grunts to maneuver around. Then she fired an ice shard at the Crepper who blocked it with her shield, but the shard shattered into six projectiles and took out her grunts.

She scoffed at them, "Useless . . . pathetic . . ."

Before Horse could stop her, she froze each one solid, and snapped her fingers. Each one, encased completely in ice, shattered into ice shards so small that any hope that the VN-Creepers survived was ludicrous.

"What is wrong with you?" Horse asked rhetorically.

"Any failure is intolerable," she replied easily. "They all knew it when they became the grunts of a Named One."

She made it seem as if they had a choice in the manner. Then she called forth large chunks of ice from the ground, intending to freeze Horse solid. Freezing a cryokinetic solid is pretty much impossible. And Horse demonstrated this in rather spectacular fashion.

Horse said nothing, knowing that she was underestimating her because of her species and size. This was good, she felt, as whenever you underestimate someone, you will usually be unpleasantly surprised.

She formed a blade of ice and fired it -- and the Creeper didn't manage to block it in time. It was a direct hit, and the Creeper wasn't happy about it. She was hurt, and she took it personally. Then Horse created a wall of ice, and smacked with her tail. There was no way to avoid this, even though the Creeper tried to block it. She still took the hit. And she was not happy about it.

She sent out a cryokinetic wave as the Creeper made slippery, ice patches on the ground. This did not work like how the Creeper would have liked. This just improved Horse's overall mobility and speed, making her a much more difficult target. Then Horse slid behind her and hit her with a blizzardy A.O.E. sort of attack. It did significant damage, forcing her hood down.

She had flaccid, listless hair and a long face, with wild eyes. Her eyes demonstrated quite well that she was wasn't being controlled by any mystical, arcane, or supernatural way, perhaps she was a Controller or something similiar, but Horse had a hunch that her actions were her own. She may have been brainwashed.

This caused Horse a bit of an impasse -- she was reluctant to kill anyone, but the Creeper would not allow her to do anything else. She was so fanatically devoted to whoever her superior was. Clearly shown when she continued her attack -- summoning icicles that rose from the ground and tracked Horse for several seconds before flying in the direction they tracked, always missing Horse due to her enhanced mobility due to the terrain.

"Why are you doing this?" Horse said, not indulging in any slapstick and being quite serious. "What happened to you?"

The Creeper didn't answer, but created an unavoidable blizzard using her shield. That was the source of her cryokinesis. And Horse realized it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 10, 2019, 07:25:21 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXX (1,370): "The Tower" -- The RAFians deal with the Tower.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Shattered Shield

Her name used to be DenIse Stephanie Evans, the daughter of two researchers that wound up dead for their research. She would have gotten to foster care until one of the nameless Searchers, the one who wielded a round shield, using the pseudonym of Stephanie Price, intercepted this. While in Goodness Orphanage, she had any humanity and compassion drummed out of her. And, despite this harsh and cruel treatment, she persevered.

But she lost whatever goodness and light that she ever possessed as a child. She was deeply indoctrinated to be fanatically loyal to the orphanage and "Granny". She managed to obtain the shield that granted her control over ice, and allowed her to generate it. This allowed her to rise up and get the name of "the Creeper", due to her creepy demeanor and her twitchy mannerisms.

She still strove to approach problems like an intellectual, though she wasn't above brutality if it either served her or served "Granny". She could be very impatient, incompetent, and had a preference for not sullying her hands when she could get away with it. Though, at her core, she is actually very cowardly and easily intimidated, especially by "Granny", making her rather easy to be bullied by the other Named Ones.

Had she grown up outside the Goodness Orphanage, she would pretty much the same, only friendlier and with a gentler, far less brutal and sociopathic demeanor. She might have even been a mother.

"How are you doing this?! " she demanded, still generating her unavoidable blizzard, which did not seem to bother Horse in the least.

"I see now that there's no hope for you to atone for what you've done," Horse said, barely raising her voice over the violent blizzard. The Creeper's well of strength seemed to be tapping out. And Horse wasn't even really breathing hard. "You've had your chance for remorse. But you've made it crystal clear that you want neither."

This sense of finality in Horse's voice perplexed the Creeper. "What do you mean?"

 But Horse knew what she had to do. She froze the shield solid, forcing the Creeper to drop it. Without that shield, she was just a baseline human, with no powers. Then Horse shut her eyes and slammed her flipper down, shattering the shield to diamond dust.

It took some time for the Creeper's mind to parse through what she just saw. She had that shield since before she could remember. And now it was gone! Just gone!

"Do . . . do you have any idea what you've done?!" she demanded.

Then she grasped a shard of ice, aiming to bludgeon the little seal, but then got to thinking. How would she explain the destruction of the shield? It was a gift from "Granny". She doesn't just readily hand out gifts like that. And the Creeper was one of the lucky few that received such a gift. She was lucky enough to receive a name. And she just lost all of that within a matter of minutes.

The punishment would be severe, not to mention she no longer had any grunts under her command anymore. The punishment would be so severe that . . . that . . . she wouldn't be able to live with the disgrace. She would be condemned, her name taken away. She would be a grunt again, assuming, of course, she survived the punishment. The punishment . . . she should suffer their punishment. In her indoctrinated mind, it was the right thing to do . . .

"What's the matter?" Horse asked, though she thought she knew where is was going.

The Creeper gripped the shard of ice, shutting her eyes and gritting her teeth. She should face punishment for her failure, she thought. But she was scared. Scared of the pain that they would inflict upon her. They knew how to make pain last for . . . for a long time. She should have done, what she believed, the right thing and gone through the punishment. But fear overrode that, and she took the shard of ice.

"What are you doing?" Horse said, alarmed by this, despite suspecting it might go this way.

Before Horse could stop her, the Creeper stabbed herself in the heart with the ice shard. She would rather take her own life than endure the punishment of "Granny" or the other Named Ones. She bled out and there wasn't anything the talking seal could do to stop it.

The Creeper . . . was dead.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 12, 2019, 04:26:32 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXI (1,371): "The Devil" -- The RAFians deal with a devil facsimile.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
The Ninja

Shenmue stayed behind, sending the others after Cloak, Faith, and Merriment. She would deal with the Ninja, despite her personality nor her attire evoking anything remotely ninja-like. She had a slim, petite hourglass body with piercing green eyes. She had six LN-Ninjas in silver cloaks, with similar appearances.

"Oh, isn't that cute?" the Ninja said, almost playfully flirtatious. Shenmue did not find it amusing in the least. "The law-monkey wants to play-ay."

And Shenmue knew right then and there that she was not going to like this woman or enjoy her company for any duration. The only problem was Shenmue's attire wasn't exactly the best for fisticuffs. But she was confident that it wouldn't be too terribly needed for this battle. They were both electrokinetics, any way, and Shenmue had RAFian training under her belt. It was an advantage to being a RAFian, of course, as the training was second to none.

"But I have better things to do than waste my considerable talents on a slipskin solicitor," she said, with an inappropriate, girlish giggle as Shenmue wondered if any court or jury in the world would convict her of murdering this bit--

The ninja snapped her fingers and the six LN-Ninjas came forward, as the Ninja receded to the shadows, watching. The six women pull out eight knives each, all with the same design, giving them a mass-produced vibe. Each held them between their fingers on both hands, as if they were claws.

"Lovely," Shenmue grumbled beneath her breath. Her attire wasn't exactly cheap, but she knew that it was about to be torn up. Oh, well. She should have expected as such, being a RAFian. She made a mental note to ask for some time off the active duty registry. If she wasn't an experienced RAFian, she would have been sliced to shreds, and she knew it perfectly well.

It happened so fast, she couldn't remember the precise movements or attacks she used. All she knew was she had disarmed and defeated all six. And her attire had only suffered minor damage that a quick patch up here, a sewed up hole there wouldn't fix. But she wasn't a fool -- if not for RAFian training and her electrokinesis, she'd be dead.

Shenmue had fought to disable, not kill. She heard a disappointed click of a tongue and suddenly the LN-Ninjas had a knife pulsating with electricity at only what she could assume was a high voltage, wattage, amperage -- whatever. One was sprouted from the crown of one silver cloaked girl's head, another from her forehead, another from her throat, another from her heart, another from her stomach, and the last one from the small of her back. They were quickly electrocuted to death. Their lifeless bodies strewn about on the ground as the Ninja recalled her knives to her hand, nonchalantly cleaning the blood off them.

"What a pathetic performance," she said, completely apathetic to murdering her own underlings. " Clearly, they weren't as worthy as I thought."

"Worthy?" Shenmue said, appalled with how these girls' deaths were being taken with such flippant disregard and callous indifference. It was almost unfathomable how someone could be so disconnected from others around them.

"Worthy to serve me, silly," she said, with the most inappropriate of giggles. "To be worthy to be one of my grunts!"

Shenmue could not stop herself, "You self-centered, entitled little brat! They were human beings. Are lives of people other than yourself so meaningless to you?"

The Ninja was unperturbed by this, she even had the audacity to be annoyed by Shenmue's criticisms. But she giggled -- again, a rather inappropriate time to do so and Shenmue was finding her giggles grating. She immediately moved to attack her, with her knives between her fingers to act like claws, and proceed to slash at Shenmue, who managed to dodge it -- watching her feet, to see where she put her weight. But she also had to watch her arms. Damn, this psychotic **** was fast.

Then the Ninja infused them with electricity and threw them at Shenmue. Shenmue used her own electrokinesis to deflect them. This was not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. And that giggle was really irritating at this point.

When it came to hand-to-hand combat, she was incredibly agile and fast, and wasn't afraid to use quick kicks and jabs, infused with electricity, to produce extra pain to her RAFian opponent.

Shenmue decided that her knives need to be done away with.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 13, 2019, 04:42:18 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXII (1,372): "The Star" -- The RAFian deal with the Star.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Broken Daggers

Her name used to be Shanelle Savage. Her psychopathic demeanor was already readily apparent, even in her young age. Her parents saw it, and it scared them. Terrified them to be in the same room as her, causing them to fear for their lives. She was apathetic to the pain she caused others (whereas there also times when she enjoyed it, in a rather sadistic manner) and she was self-centered and entitled, even more so than a normal child of that age. Her giggles were like a terrifying cackle to the people who severely regretted bringing this hellspawn into this world.

She was summarily abandoned, when her parents found that they could not get her any help she needed -- they were not the most affluent people in the world. And they were at their wit's end with how to deal with their psychotic daughter. They abandoned her, not caring if they went to jail for it -- she just unnerved, discomforted, and generally terrified them. Perhaps it was not the most moral or prudent or rational course of action, but they were desperate to get rid of their problem, the source of so much fear and anxiety.

But she wasn't there for very long, as she was discovered by a Nameless One, the one with the gauntlets. From there, she easily rose through the ranks to get a name, having shed her birth one a long time ago. She embraced everything that "Granny" stood for. She embraced it so hard, that she became fanatically devoted to her. She easily became a Named One, given her knives. Thereby giving her her electrokinesis.

"You're a sadistic --" Shenmue said, ending her statement with a vulgarity. "You know that?"

"You say that like its a bad thing," she drawled, punctuating it with a girlish laugh. She was clearly not taken Shenmue seriously. She gave a short sniff, and said, "I just know when people are useful and when they are useless. And when people are useless, their lives become worthless. It's simple. Black-and-white."

"What is wrong with you?" Shenmue said, with a mixture of disgust and perplexity.

"Oh, you don't like widdle me telling it like it is?" the Ninja said, adopting an irritatingly condescending, baby talk voice.

"You're psychotic," Shenmue said. She was finding this person before more and more revolting with each word she uttered. This pronouncement just led to more insane giggles, which were unnerving and irritating at the same time.

"But enough about me," she said, as she moved to attack the RAFian once more. "Let's kill you!"

But the gloves were now distinctly off.

"Not today," Shenmue said, seizing her left wrist. She fought and struggled and wiggled her way free of Shenmue's grasp. She broke Shenmue's grip, and she lost her flippancy, her chutzpah ebbed.

She smiled in a demented manner, as she raised her hand, as if to summon her knives. But they were gone. She took a few minutes to realize this. Shenmue showed her that she had her knives, and she was infusing them with electricity. Too much electricity. There was only a certain amount of voltage, wattage, and amperage that these knives could handle before being damaged. Shenmue had suspected as much, and deliberately overloaded the knives. She damaged them beyond all repair, removing the Ninja's electrokinesis.

With an outraged scream, the Ninja goes to attack Shenmue, but the RAFian blasted her away. It was a low-power attack. She wanted to incapacitate, not kill. And so she was -- incapacitated, but not dead. But she wasn't remotely grateful for it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 15, 2019, 05:21:06 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXIII (1,373): "The Moon" -- The RAFians deal with the Moon.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
The Dusk

"Go on ahead," Dino said, " I got this."

"You think you intimidate me," said the Dusk, with a thick, husky, masculine voice, "you oversized shelled lizard?"

"To be frank," she said, "I really don't really care one bit if you fear me or not."

"Aren't you stoic, now?" she said dryly, and dismissively. She was fingering the axe on her belt, as if she was eager to use it. "You might as well give it up."

"You know nothing of RAFians, do you, pal?" Dino said, with her breath coming out in puffs, like a bull whose seen red.

The Dusk smirked at this, as she snapped her fingers and the six LN-Dusk with her moved in to attack. Dino got rid of them with a single tail swipe. The Dusk looked irritated at them, said nothing, allowing a taciturn silence span for a few minutes, before snapping her fingers. The very earth seemed to suddenly become water, but only for the LN-Dusks. Naturally, they panicked (which irritated the Dusk, who clearly thought they needed to handle their premature burials with more dignity and tact). Within moments the ground was smooth again, without any indication that there were six people buried alive there.

Dino was shocked by this callousness. Sure, she seen the type of thing done by the likes of Malice or Shenecron someone like that, but this was . . . callous in a more unnerving way, and a less comic-book-supervillain way. Dino didn't have any way to get them out of there, to save them. True, they attacked her -- but they shouldn't have to die for their attack failing. Sure, she wouldn't be chuffed with them, but they wouldn't asphyxiate to death.

If only Cloak hadn't gone on ahead! This would have been no problem for him! But . . . Dino couldn't pretend that she didn't understand why he did. He was worried about Shadow, as were his sister and brother-in-law. She knew perfectly well that if she were in the same circumstance that she would have done the exact same thing.

"Pathetic," she said, in that husky masculine voice of hers. Then she snapped her fingers once more, and Dino felt a tremor in the ground. This wasn't an attack. She . . . she just crushed her own underlings to death.

"Why?" Dino said.

"Incompetence and failure are not acceptable for any grunts of mine," she said, succinctly, as if this was the obvious answer and Dino was a little slow. Naturally, the anklyotyrannus did not appreciate this tone at all. "They knew the costs."

She made it seem like they even had a choice. Granted, they were all indoctrinated in mich the same way the Named Ones had been themselves, but they didn't meet the necessary criteria to become Named Ones themselves, or even the Talent Searchers. And, besides, any decision made by "Granny" was, to them, final and indisputable.

Dino looked at her, as if she wanted to say something, but decided against it, seeing the futility of persuasion in this circumstance. When some was indoctrinated this deeply, their minds won't change and they'll reject everything that doesn't coincides with the beliefs implanted into them, whether through medical means or behavioral means. So, Dino decided against wasting her energy on that.

Then the Dusk pulled her axe from her belt loop, and she began her assault. Dino had to admit, she struggled. She struggled when she manipulated the Earth beneath her feet, so she had to go to her compact form. Somehow, she managed not to topple over. How, she would never know.

But she did notice one thing -- the Dusk's power came from the axe. When she snapped her fingers, her hand was always on the handle of her axe. That goes, and so does that power.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 18, 2019, 08:00:38 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXIV (1,374): "The Sun" -- The RAFians deal with the Sun.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Crushed Axe

Her name was Danielle Cruise. She was a big kid for her age, often mistaken for a child much older, and, oftentimes, a male. She didn't really care for mistakes like this, but she was really young at this point, and the Femme Fatales found her of sufficient promise. But her parents were doting and loving. They would never willingly hand over their daughter to the likes of this cultish organization.

And so the solution to this became obvious to the Anonymous Ones -- get her mother and father out of the picture. She was much too young at the time to remember any of this, and she didn't even know that it was the Anonymous Ones that offed her loving parents when she was scarcely a toddler. They took advantage of her, twisting her mind into hating her parents and becoming totally apathetic and callous. They stole her name from her, until she ascertain sufficient notoriety to garner a new name. The Dusk.

The way she was now was the end result of circumstances entirely out of her control, but she made the choices to be this way, as well. Did this make her sympathetic, despite all the cruelty and brutality she inflicted upon others? Does the hardships and struggles of a miserable person make their actions more acceptable? No, it doesn't. Having a traumatic, tragic past is no excuse for present-day savagery, taciturn or not.

Dino eyed the Dusk as the Dusk gave a sinister sneer. Her hood had toppled off her head as she charged forward. She had short, spiked, brown hair and a face that looked as if it was chiseled from granite from an artist of mediocre ability. It was easy to confuse her for a man.

She attempted to strike Dino, blocked by her club tail. The Dusk's axe bounced off, and Dino was unharmed. The Dusk tried again, but Dino blocked it again. Again and again Dino continued to block it, and the Dusk didn't seem to realize that she should have used her control over earth to destabilize Dino's footing. Dino, meanwhile, was looking for an opportunity. Waiting for a moment to strike out, to break her axe, which would, Dino believed, end the Dusk's dominion over the earth.

She raised her axe to strike again -- only to be taken unawares by Dino suddenly shifting to her compact form, and lashing out wither teeth. Seizing the axe, blade and all, in her mighty jaws, immediately returning back to her natural size. Surprisingly, her teeth cleaved through the wooden handle with astonishing ease, and the metal bent and twisted from the sheer pressure of her bite strength. But she immediately regretted doing this. It was like biting tinfoil with braces. Not a pleasant experience to say the least.

It took her three attempts to even spit the thing out. The entire thing was mangled -- you couldn't even use it as a sufficient bludgeoning object. It was completely ruined. And the Dusk stared at it, aghast. She knew what it would mean if she went to "Granny" with this mess of a weapon. She wouldn't kill the Dusk, at least not for a slow, agonizing while. She tended to opt for that when someone really displeases her.

The Dusk fled, and Dino was fighting a predatory instinct to give chase. She knew that she probably should, but the Dusk was now a baseline human. Thus only as dangerous as one. She looked off into the direction that Cloak, his sister, and brother-in-law went. She had their scent, and followed them. She would be there if she were needed.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 21, 2019, 05:19:44 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXV (1,375): "The World" -- The RAFians must deal with the World.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Reaper

Helen sent the others onward whilst she dealt with the Reaper, who was holding her scythe behind her back. She looked very ****y and dismissive, and she had six smaller individuals around her, in silver cloaks. She felt very confident in her abilities, even though it did hinge on her ring. But it was fully charged . . . well, it was at seventy-seven percent power. It should be fine, though.

"You think you're . . .sufficient?" the Reaper said, in a drawn out, semi-masculine sort of voice.

In response, Helen charged up her ring to full. And she did so without taking her eyes off the burly woman, who seemed to always have pink flower petals -- cherry blossom petals -- swirling around her and her black cloak. They were only really noticeable when she was standing and idle.

"Clearly," she said, her voice almost sounding contemptuous and bored, "you do."

She snapped her fingers and her six grunts in silver removed their scythes that were slung over their backs. They would try to strike her, but Helen smiled. She knew she was at a clear and present advantage.

"Don't fail me," the Reaper said, giving her grunts the go-ahead to attack. But Helen created violet constructs of a six-and-a-half-foot tall common toad, five-and-a-half-foot tall European-style dragon, and a five-foot-tall turtle. She sent them after the six grunts, with each one taking on two of the grunts.

When these constructs busted, Helen just created three more. A six-foot-tall sauropod, five-and-a-half-foot tall honey badger, and seven-and-a-half-foot tall crocodile. She sent them after the grunts, and they managed to "pop" the constructs after a few labor-intensive moments. The Reaper's frown began to deepen.

Then Helen created violet constructs of a five-and-a-half-foot tall Dilophosaurus, a
six-foot-tall chicken, and five-foot-tall mudskipper. Then she sent them after the grunts once more, and they fought again. They eventually "pop" the construct again, and the Reaper's frown lessens a bit.

Then Helen, completely undaunted, creates constructs of a seven-foot-tall snapping turtle, a four-foot-tall monkey, and a five-and-a-half-tall emperor penguin, and sics them on the grunts. The grunts manage to "pop" these as well, which caused Helen to actually smile.

Then she created violet constructs of an eleven-foot-long royal python, a five-foot-tall wild boar, and a five-foot-tall sea lion. Then she sent these constructs after the grunts, who, after a great effort, defeated them. Helen smiled again. They were tiring. Good. And the Reaper's frown returned.

Then she created violet constructs of a five-foot-tall Glyptodon, a five-foot-tall fennec fox, and a five-foot-tall splendid treefrog. She send them once again to the tiring grunts. It took them longer to break these constructs, but the six managed it. But the Reaper was not pleased.

Then she created violet constructs of a five-foot-tall stilt owl, a six-foot-tall tiger, and a six-foot-tall sea lion. She sent them after the grunts, who were showing overt signs of exhaustion. They managed to "pop" all the constructs, but they were pushing themselves too much, but this just further displeased the Reaper.

Helen created a violet construct of a spider monkey, a bunny, and a chameleon -- but it was unnecessary, as all six collapsed from exhaustion. The Reaper was the furthest thing from pleased as you could be. He snapped his fingers and all six turned into petals -- one red, one blue, one yellow, one white, one orange, and one pink.

Helen was horrified, as the petals blew away on the wind.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 22, 2019, 08:33:38 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXVI (1,376): "The Judgement" -- The RAFians must deal with the Judgement.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Extirpated Scythe

Her name was Sakura Sykes. Her father was a mortician and her mother was a herbalist. She had a younger sister, which she was very fond of. But, despite her young age, that sister grew very ill. She never survived the illness, and Sakura took this very hard -- blaming herself for it, believing herself to be a monster.

She was still quite young when she fled her house. She saw it as her sparing her mother and father from a monster. Despite her parents being quite loving and did n blame her at all for her sister's death -- it was the result of a rare blood disease for which no cure was ever synthesized. Sakura ran onward and away from that life, the life she had no memory of anymore.

The Orphanage had robbed her of that, and, at the time, she was willing for it. Willing to forget. Willing to move on from this deep cut that wounded her heart. She had no idea that the brainwashing and mind conditioning would rob her of so much. Her memories of everything before, her emotions of compassion and sympathy, her history. And she went through all of this willingly.

"Why?" Helen asked, all flippancy she had before had evaporated away immediately when she saw what the Reaper did. There was no reason for it -- they were tired, not dead. After a prudent rest, they would have been fine. Not now, however. Now they're resting forever wherever the wind saw fit to take them.

"Why?" the Reaper repeated. "But the organization in which we run has very little patience for failures like them. We are supposed to be the creme del a creme of every aspect. Physical and mental perfection. Precise and, yet, elegant. Tireless in our goal."

"Goal?" Helen inquired shrewdly.

"To serve 'Granny' in whatever way we can," she replied, "to assist her in any manner to achieve her grandest goals. Failure is not an option, and is unwelcome. They all knew the consequences of failure."

Helen quickly picked up on something, "Did they even have a choice in the matter?"

"What difference does that make?" the Reaper said, in a dismissively flippant way.

"These girls didn't come to you, willingly, did they?" Helen said, shrewdly. Her violet Star Sapphire aura rippled with these words. "You took them, didn't you? Didn't you?!"

"If a child show promise to serve 'Granny', she is obligated to serve her, in whatever way she can," the Reaper pontificated, as if this settled the matter and in the most irritatingly pompous way possible. "This is the only purpose that anyone worthy of becoming a Femme Fatale, Named or not. The lives of the unworthy are worthless and, therefore, forfeit if they are foolish enough to get in 'Granny's' way, if they are fool enough to impede 'Granny's' grand vision for the ultimate utopia."

Helen allowed a moment of silence, and allowed it to stretch for a beat before speaking again, "This 'Granny' person really worked you over good, didn't she? You don't have a single thought in your head that's your own anymore, do you?"

The Reaper scoffed aggressively. Helen could plainly see that this woman before her was so thoroughly indoctrinated, she could only assume that this rhetoric was drilled into her head from a relatively young age, and thus been internalized. She was fairly certain that this constituted as abuse somewhere down the line. But that didn't excuse her from her actions.

"If you continue to impede our glorious path, you will have to be dealt with," she said, almost as if she was disgusted with the idea of sullying her scythe with Helen's unworthy blood. " Dealt with . . . permanently."

"If you're talking about spilling my blood," Helen said, thoroughly unconcerned, "well, I just don't see that happening."

"Then allow me to open your eyes!" she said, spinning her scythe with a necessary flourish and skill. Helen narrowed her eyes, and she knew that the Reaper was showing off, almost in an effort to impress her. Helen waited -- waited for the Reaper to take the initiative.

When she did, Helen acted and blasted a concussive blast with her ring, snapping the scythe in two, then she fired a barrage of energy spheres which pummeled the weapon until it was beyond all repair, magical or otherwise. The Reaper, shocked and aggrieved, fled to parts unknown.

Helen wondered if she ran to save her life, or to receive punishment from this 'Granny'. She frowned deeply. She already knew the answer.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 25, 2019, 07:22:27 PM

Sorry for the delay, and all titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXVII (1,377): "Thirteen Ghosts" -- An old foe has rounded up the Thirteen Ghosts, and his plan does not go as he thinks it would.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
The Mime

"I got this, guys, go on ahead," Melissa said, wielding her wand. Red, blue, yellow, and green sparks emitting from the wand. The woman opposite of her said nothing, but gave a **** to her head that recalled a childish curiosity. Almost as if Melissa mildly amused her with her reluctant bravado.

Melissa, despite her brave words, didn't feel too amazingly confident in her abilities. She tended to be a timid, bookish girl by nature. She'd hardly consider herself a warrior of any stripe. Sure, she had imagined herself as a stalwart heroine who had earned the adoration and adulation of the masses -- but these were just idle daydreams of an overactive imagination. She knew such things were not the truth of the world (though it was fun to imagine "what if"), and she had accepted it.

Not to mention she had only apprenticed herself to Broken for just several months at this point. Her magical knowledge wasn't exactly the most extensive, though she was a powerful user of it. Deep down, she knew that she was more of a scholar than a fighter. But this was necessary. Not only to hold back this hooded figure, but as a personal test, to prove herself.

The cloaked figure was still silent, but snapped her fingers and her six grunts -- all in silver cloaks stepped forward, towards Melissa. The neophyte RAFian had to fight an urge to step backward an equidistant amount of paces. Their forms shimmered and they were seemingly replaced with that of xylodermic golem, a ferrodermic dragon, an aerodermic dragon, a pyrodermic phoenix, a geodermic turtle, and an aquadermic tiger. It was very intimidating.

She brandished her wand and shouted, "Riddikulus!"

But she immediately knew this was wrong, when nothing happened. She cursed at her self briefly, as she realized that was the spell for dispelling and banishing boggarts. What was that spell?

She had to Apparate away from the six monsters closing in on her. She was still struggling to think of the spell. Zettaflare? No, Broken flatout said that that takes a significant amount of magical power and skill to perform, and completely depletes the user's magic reservoir for quite some time. And inexperienced use of it could lead to the user's untimely death or backfire in other horrendous ways.

She had to Apparate again, though it seemed that the six monsters had no intention on truly harming her, or otherwise could not. She frantically wracked her brain for the spell. How could Broken remember so many? Much less with all the necessary wand movements and incantations? There were so many of them!!

"Revelio!" she said, moving her wand in an "R"-shaped motion. This didn't work at all, as she knew that she always had trouble with this spell. It wasn't exactly the easiest to master in the first place. She dodged what appeared to be many strikes, but she strangely felt no fear of the beasts. She didn't stop to consider why.

"Specialis . . . Revelio? No, that's not right." she said, rapping with her wand smartly before realizing that this was not the right spell either. It didn't work anyway. She wracked her brains for the right spell while keeping a safe distance away from the six.

"Homenum Revelio!" she said, pointing her wand. It was a moment later when she realized that this wasn't the right spell either. But it showed human silhouettes within the beasts, standing on the ground . . . which led her to realize that they didn't transform at all, but were just casting some really convincing illusions. But the right spell continued to elude her mind -- and she found it rather frustrating.

 "Uh . . . Veratrix Revelio!" she said, pointing her wand at the six illusioned beasts closing in on her. All six of the illusions lopped like cheap party balloons from the magical light emitted by her wand. This surprised the six grunts, and the Mime's frown deepened with deep disappointment.

Emboldened, Melissa used a variety of Stunning Spells and the like to incapacitate all of the six. Incapacitate, not kill. She was very adamant about this, as she did not want to kill anyone -- especially when she did not have to, especially when other avenues other than murder existed.

The Mime, however, had other intentions. She took out a small metal box with a red button, and she pressed it. And what happened next -- Melissa wished she could forget. It was so horrible . . . their heads . . . exploded. There was no way to repair this . . . no way to erase this, not even with a self-inflicted Memory Charm.

She looked up and demanded, "WHY?!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 26, 2019, 05:07:05 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXVIII (1,378): "The Orator" -- An irritating shock jock becomes a thorn in the RAFians' side.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Torn Lexicon

She didn't answer Melissa, and it was not because she did not want to deign to answer her (although that was very much a factor), but because she quite literally could not. The Mime was mute.

Her name was Alexa Connor. She came from a family who legitimately thought that poverty was a moral failing, and treated poorer people as morally inferior. As a result, not many people truly like either one of them, and their unrealistic and unbelievable entitlement issues. They expected perfection, and when they had a daughter that was born mute, they considered that potentially scandalous.

So, they abandoned her, paying off the authorities enough for them to look the other way, to not dare to charge them. Any officer with enough integrity were dealt with -- severely. It would have probably been better (but not by much) just to give her to an orphanage. But Mr. and Mrs. Connor didn't want anyone to notice them leaving something at an orphanage, and went out of their way to deny that they ever had a kid, claiming -- when pushed -- that their child was stillborn. They didn't want anyone to believe any child of theirs could possibly be flawed in any way, and they considered being born mute a considerable flaw.

Perhaps if they had more foresight, they could have been aware that they could use their daughter to garner sympathy, and become rich, entitled parents -- but the amount of abuse and neglect that she would have endured. . . . Then again, it wasn't all that different from the cold, distant upbringing the Orphanage gave her, making her even more devoid of love and compassion and selflessness than her good-for-nothing, "affluenza" parents.

"What happened to you to make you this way?" Melissa scolded. "How can you be so cavalier about taking the life of another? Does anyone's life just not hold any meaning to you?"

 As she was mute, and Melissa was not a Legimens, silence ensued after her questioning. Melissa had no way of knowing that the Mime was mute and literally unable to speak -- at least, when she wasn't using her lexicon weapon. It was really odd that a book was someone's weapon, but it allowed e Mime to alter her appearance, and give her a voice.

She assumed the form of Spellbinder, and could affect his voice flawlessly, which took Melissa offguard. But she knew that it came from the book -- and thus that was her weakness.

"She's mute, you --" she said, in Spellbinder's voice, uttering a vulgarity directed towards Melissa's intelligence. "She cannot speak."

"You don't fool me," Melissa countered. "I know that you're not -- not him."

"Are you sure?" he said, with a slight singaongy tone. The Mime was really enjoying toying with Melissa like this. Melissa, however, was not enjoying this. Not at all. She decided that they prolonged this long enough.

"Veratrix Revelio," Melissa barked. The Mime's illusion popped like a cheap party balloon. Melissa's expression just became more resolute, as she saw the Mime holding the Lexicon covetously, not unlike Gollum. She didn't care.

Then she waved her wand, saying, "Accio Lexicon!" and the Lexicon flew from her protective grasp with relative ease (which she found extremely embarrassing). She desperately grasped at it as it zoomed to Melissa, who caught it. Then she threw it back into the air. While the Lexicon was in the air, Melissa slashed her wand in a ">" movement, shouting "Reducto!" which reduced the Lexicon into dust.

This devastated the Mime, as she knew that the 'Granny' doesn't hand out specialized weapons and give her loyal servants Names willy-nilly. And she allowed that to be reduced to dust. She knew what that meant for her, and she was terrified. She took something from her pocket, and Melissa didn't notice the movement. But it didn't matter -- Melissa couldn't stop her, the decision had already been made.

The Mime popped the item she had took from her pocket into her mouth and swallowed it. It was a pill. A cyanide pill. All this unnoticed by Melissa, who was just now looking up from the dust that was once the Lexicon.

The Mime fell down, having a seizure, alarming Melissa, who rushed over. But, within her first footsteps, the Mime suffered cardiac arrest and lost consciousness. Melissa was at a loss as to what to do about it. She had nothing to stop this poison -- she didn't carry bezoars on her (no, not the parasite bezoar, the wrinkled stone with magical properties). She didn't know any spells to cure this -- she didn't master any of the Cure spells, and even if she did, that might only have bought her some time, but not enough. There was nothing that she could do . . .

And the Mime then died.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 27, 2019, 05:33:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXIX (1,379): "Talos Generator" -- A man markets monsters as biological weapons.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Dancer

"I got this, guys," GH said, "go. Make sure that Cloak doesn't need help."

"Oh, big man, aren't cha? " said the Dancer. "A big man beating up on a poor, defenseless woman?"

"And now," GH said, turning toward her and her six grunts, "you've just made this awkward."

She just giggled in an almost flirtatious way, which just made the guitarist feel even more uncomfortable. It was Amber all over again. GH's discomfort seemed to greatly amuse the Dancer, who was dancing mildly in place.

"How about a bit of an orchestral opening?" the Dancer said, playfully.

"How are seven sitars an orchestra?" he said. Then, after a beat of utter silence, he wore a protesting look that said, quite plainly, I KNOW what a sitar is! Granted, he believed his guitar was superior, as it was the only thing, second to only Leatherhead, that he cared about most.

The seven ignored this comment and began to play their weapons. GH deftly unshouldered his guitar and pulled out his guitar pick (he never really told anyone where he stored it and he would always deflect with him saying that he'd rather not say). Every note, every measure of music they played GH found that he had a counterpoint and reply to. He was finding this a rather simple battle to engage in. Music is the area he felt that he excelled the most in -- knowing more genres than Cloak knew extraterrestrial or extradimensional beasts. And that was saying something.

It may have been a simple and easy battle, but GH, despite himself, found that he was enjoying it more and more. It seems like it has been so long before he just battled someone musically. It was the purest kind of battle, he thought, nothing but the music playing from their souls, battling out to see which one was superior.

Then the ride was ruined when a couple of discordant notes rang out over the area. GH frowned and scowled a bit at this. He decided that was fine -- it was probably time to stop drawing this out, anyway. GH raised his playing hand, the one holding his guitar pick, up high, with an overdramatic flourish. Then he played a single chord, which caused a massive acoustic blast that pushed all seven back, but it pushed the Dancer's grunts back further than the Dancer herself.

But GH was not done. He raised his hand up again, and all seven were far less flippant about GH's acoustic power. GH himself was more serious about this, without any goofiness that he prided himself in. He played another powerful chord, sending out another powerful acoustic blast which caused the strings on the grunts' sitars to break, making the instruments unplayable.

But GH was still not done. He raised his hand yet again, and played not a chord, but a riff of epic proportions that eliminated the grunts' sitars entirely and forced them to collapse to the ground. The Dancer's sitar was the only one that weathered this concussive, acoustic onslaught.

GH smirked impishly, as he said, "I call that my Epic Riff. How'd you like it?"

To his surprised, the Dancer addressed her underlings, "Failures! This is unacceptable!! UNACCEPTABLE!!!"

Her screeching was eerily similar to Lemongrab (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Oqa9tKarkNA), and GH was confused a tad at this reaction. And he found her screeching hard on his ears. He had a strange foreboding feeling that he couldn't decipher just yet, and he doubted that he would have the the time to psychoanalyze it, until much later.

Looking quite deranged, the Dancer (who didn't really dance so much anymore) tightened her grip upon her sitar, and held out her hand towards her grunts as if she were Master Xenanort. All six writhed in a very unnerving and a clearly very excruciating manner. GH knew exactly what this was -- and his flippancy was immediately lost, replaced by a horrified look with astonishing rapidity.

"You all know the price of UNACCEPTABLE FAILURE!!" she said, gripping the neck of her sitar tighter, and slowly balling her hand into a tight fist.

This was what Cloak called bloodbending, a hydrokinetic ability which allowed the practitioner to manipulate the water within any given body -- although some actually manipulate the blood directly. The Dancer was clearly one of the former.

"What are y-- STOP!!!" GH said, watching the six writhe in excruciating pain. But his scope of doing anything was effectively nil - - especially because he wasn't immune from bloodbending himself.

Then she snapped her fingers, and all six had watery spike launch out of their bodies, killing them immediately and painfully. And the Dancer's eyes were unsympathetic and callous, and GH felt possibly more appalled than he had been in quite a long time.

". . . Why?" the guitarist asked, voice aghast.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on March 31, 2019, 08:54:22 PM

Sorry for the delay. Gmail's being weird, in addition to work getting to me.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXX (1,380): "Lost Loves" -- A racket comes to life.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Unplayable Sitar

Her name was Aoide Diskordia. She was named for the muse of voice and song of Greek myth, as her parents (both competent musicians in their own right) wished for her to be musically inclined as well. But none could see what would befall this family. her father fell deathly ill, and expired while Aoide was still just a toddler. Her mother couldn't pull enough money for her musician career to support her and her child (she wasn't rich nor famous), so resulted to marrying her brother-in-law, just to support her and Aoide.

Thing was, her brother-in-law hated music. At least, music of the kind that his sister-in-law (now wife) and little Aoide (who showed considerable talent and promise in her own right) played. He was always secretly jealous of his brother in this regard, and he wanted to stomp that out of his niece. But when it became clear that that wasn't going to happen, he became . . . irate.

Things deteriorated rapidly, and Aoide lost her mother and her uncle/stepfather threw her out, wanting nothing to do with the toddler. How he managed to get away with this was rather legally troublesome. But he managed it somehow, probably by swearing ignorance of her existence, and she found her way to the Orphanage. There she was pretty much exorcised of her humanity and her identity was stripped away from her.

 ". . . Why?" GH had asked.

"Why?" she said, with a churlish expression and an ungracious tone of voice. "I would thought the answer was simple. Perhaps such a simplistic mind such as yours," GH glowered at this slight, "can not comprehend the scope of perfection that we're striving to achieve. Failure, in any way, is not acceptable. It is unacceptable regardless to any emotional ties or relationships. Those are all immaterial to our services of 'Granny', and all the unequivocal goodness she will provide, not only us, but everyone. Everyone wise enough to serve her."

"Did you actually hear a word of what you said?" GH said. He trying to determine just how far gone she was, and he knew it was by a considerable margin. "You'll forgive me if I don't buy into your dogmatic bullcrap. What you did was horrible and wrong."

"I'll not be lectured on morality by the lesser gender!!" she snarled.

GH ****ed an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Everyone knows that men are worthless as warriors! Worthless at everything worthwhile! They're incapable of doing anything useful!" she roared, as if there were a breach in an emotional wall. Clearly, she had repressed memories of her stepfather, making her thoroughly a deep-seated misandrist. "Their only use is in making more women, more warriors! You men cannot even do your menial jobs right, and that's the only think that your asinine gender is even good for!! "

"You're not making this any less awkward, you know." GH commented.

"I DON'T CARE!!" she roared, seemingly more and more incensed by GH's placid comments and cool-headed reason (being Leatherhead's adoptive father had caused some changes in the musician that he might have otherwise lacked). "I'm going to end this. I'm going to end YOU!!"

"Yes, I think this . . . exchange . . . has gone on far enough," GH said. All levity had left him. He thought this person was certifiably crazy, and needed to be dealt with. He noticed that her sitar seemed to be the source of her power.

She hefted her sitar up, clearly intending to use it as a bludgeoning weapon. GH got a glint in his eyes as if he got a Smash Ball. Then he moved as if he was initiating a Final Smash, or some QTE cutscene. He deftly grasped the neck of his guitar in both hands, with the strap vanishing from his shoulder and becoming a wrist loop on his axe. He charged forward, giving her an overhead, vertical strike.

She blocked it with her sitar, which had the strings sliced through immediately. GH kept pushing, forcing his axe to bite through to the main body of the bluish-purple sitar. It was like a lightsaber cutting through a metallic door. The Dancer was so deranged that she didn't even seem to notice. Eventually, GH's axe cleaved the sitar in two, breaking the Dancer's hydrokinesis. She was effectively powerless, and GH was done with her.

He turned his axe back into his guitar and shouldered it. He began walking away, hearing the Dancer's rant become incoherent with her angry frustration, and GH said, without even looking back, "It's over."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 03, 2019, 04:11:48 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXI (1,381): "Weapon Collector" -- The RAFians must deal with a weapons collector who is after the Eternity Blades . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
The Dragoon

Dino said nothing but gave nod of her large, saurian head for the others to move on, to help Cloak and his family, if need be. She was more than enough to take care of this broad-shouldered figure. Dino reared up to her full, and considerable height, while looking down at this figure and the six other, slighter, smaller figures in silver cloaks. All had female scents, that much Dino could determine -- and she smelled fear from the six silver-clad figures. All held bladed lances, though only the larger figure in the black cloak seemed to have one of any real quality.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" said the figure in the black cloak. Her voice was rather husky and masculine. "Go rid us of that smelly beast!"

"Smelly?" Dino bellowed indignantly. All six flinched at this powerful roar at this direct, unconcealed insult. This seemed to irritate the larger figure, the one in the black cloak who spoke.

"Don't be intimidated, you fools," she snarled with her masculine voice. There was a bite of impatience to her tone of voice, as if she thought her grunts were being unbelievably stupid. "It's just an ugly beast --"

"Ugly?!" Dino roared in incensed anger. The six winced again at the Ankylotyrannus's rightful anger, which further annoyed their leader, who continued as if she had not been interrupted by Dino's protesting interjection.

"-- of subpar intelligence to that of a human being. So -- so help me -- show some backbone."

"Subpar intelligence?!" Dino said, now truly ticked off. Her restraint was still holding her back from just simply rampaging like a wild, uncontrollable beast. She knew if she did, she would just be reinforcing this person's bigoted position. She didn't want that.

Still the grunts hesitated, necessitating the Dragoon to say, "Act now, or I shall take your breath away."

Dino thought that this was an odd threat, and stymied her for a minute as the six surrounded her, poking her with their lances. They might as well have been pointy sticks, as they couldn't really bypass her scales -- and her scales weren't made of adamantium or n^th metal or anything. All they were doing was harshly poking her, like an angry entitled parent. It didn't hurt, but it was irritating all the same.

"Seriously?" Dino said, dryly, with narrowed eyes. "Just . . . seriously?"

"You're beginning to disappoint me," the Dragoon said, lance stripped to her back, and her arms folded in disapproval. "You don't want me disappointed, remember."

Now jets of wind issued from six directions in addition to the jabbing. Dino wasn't particularly pleased with this either. It wasn't harmful, just annoying. She was still looking at the Dragoon with a look that just plainly said, Really?

"You six know full well that I cannot tolerate laziness," she said. Her voice held the edge of finality. "Do away with that interfering beast so we can get out of here!"

And they were now poking her with not only renewed vigor, but a deplorable excess of vigor. There were no words to express Dino's utter annoyance and frustration at this. They were going to pop one of her scales or something if they persisted with their half-hearted jabs.

Dino simply stamped her foot as hard as she could. This was enough to send enough reverberations through the ground to knock the six off their feet, and scatter their lances. They looked daze and confuse as they tried to right themselves.

"I see," she said, and her voice rang with an icy coldness and a heartless callousness that made Dino's blood run glacially cold. Dino had a hunch of what would happen, just not the venue that the Dragoon would take. "You all are lazy procrastinators. You know the punishment for such a crime."

Dino couldn't see what happened when the Dragoon gripped her lance tightly and snapped her fingers. It was horrible to watch. To see these six gasping for air, but unable to breathe. But Dino knew what this was. Cloak had called it "breathbending", and he always spoke of it with great distaste. She now knew precisely why he despised it so much.

It didn't take long for all six to be asphyxiated, and Dino couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. But that wasn't entirely true, was it? She could have attacked the Dragoon and distracted her from doing this. But she wouldn't have had time to take three steps before the six asphyxiated -- but it didn't make her feel any better.

She looked at the Dragoon, and said, quite plainly, "What is wrong with you?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 04, 2019, 04:52:12 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXII (1,382): "Next Evolution" -- (spoiler)

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Chomped Lance

Her name was Delilah Kramer, and she came from two parents who actually thought the earth was a disc instead of a sphere. Her mother was more fanatic and frenetic in this belief than her father, and they were intent that everyone not teach their children the "lie" of a round Earth -- as such the entire family was pretty isolated and typically avoided whenever possible. But they never had the opportunity to try and foist their wrong interpretations upon the school system, they had Delilah taken away from them.

Not by the legal system, as they didn't have any real course to take their child from them, as Delilah wasn't technically neglected (one could argue that she was being neglected an actual education from her bat**** crazy parents, but she wasn't of school age yet), nor was she malnourished or abused in any other way. No, Delilah was taken by an Anonymous One who saw promise in the toddler and her parents were swift to blame the neighbors that gave them a wide birth, and avoided them whenever possible.

She was raised in th cultish life, and, being raised in this way, she was stripped of any compassion, empathy, and sympathy like many of the Named Ones, when they were bequeathed their weapons that granted them their powers.

"They knew the consequences of failure, and, above all, laziness," she said, looking thoroughly unconcerned about her murder. Her hands was technically and literally bloodless, but their blood was still on her hands (metaphorically, of course). "Neither will be tolerated."

Dino looked at her, and said, "They weren't given a choice to be in whatever organization you're working for, were they?"

"Servitude to 'Granny' is mandatory to all able-bodied people," she said. "Choices are a deceptive illusion. Freedom is a contemptible misnomer. There is only 'Granny''s will, and we all have the obligation to follow it."

"That is some heavy-duty indoctrination, right there," Dino said, with narrowed eyes. " So your 'organization' is basically a cult. Good to know."

"I cannot let you disparage the greatness and the goodness of 'Granny'," she said, severely. She stood, lance in hand, as she glared daggers at Dino. She was well-indoctrinated, Dino could see. "Her will will be done! Your weakness and sin will be exterminated from this world -- I will purify this world from you!"

"You are really far gone, aren't you?" Dino said, with a sigh. "Fully drank the Kool-Aid and everything, huh?"

When Dino saw the Dragoon grip her lance tightly, she knew what she was intending to do and, timing it just right, she shank to her compact form. This surprised the Dragoon, who immediately forgot about breathbending, at the sight a charging, man-sized Ankylotyrannus. She readied her lance like a spear, ready to jam it into the sensitive tissues in Dino's mouth.

Dino smiled inwardly. This was precisely Dino wanted her to do. When the Dragoon jabbed her lance forward, Dino turned her head in such a way where her teeth caught the lance and wrenched it from the Dragoon's hand. This surprised the woman, but Dino had it in her mouth, like a dog with a femur bone.

"Don't," the Dragoon demanded, but Dino ignored her. And the Dragoon didn't like that. Not one bit. She wasn't accustomed to having her demands ignored in such a flagrant, obvious way.

Dino used all of her bite strength, expecting to have to worry the lance, like a dog with a bone, but was not what happened at all. She bit down with the full biting strength she had (which was considerable, even in her compact form). The lance went from a straight line to a "W"-shape. And she spat it out, as the lance was starting to poke the inner lining of her mouth.

"'Granny' . . ." the Dragoon said, aghast, voice barely a whisper and her eyes wide. "Why have you forsaken me?"

Then she scurried away, and Dino was at an impasse. The Dragoon was powerless, but she could still be dangerous. Conversely, she was having a crisis of faith -- an ideological crisis, and there was no telling how she would react from it. But she also knew that nothing she said would dissuade her or comfort her.

What to do?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 06, 2019, 05:49:24 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXIII (1,383): "Wind Power" -- The birth of Aerotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
The Assassin

"Go," Faerie said, with a small smile, "let me have my fun."

"You think dying is fun?" said the Assassin, who was quite tall and slender. She immediately removed the hood of her cloak, revealing her face. She had small eyebrows, a widow's peak of thick, shoulder-length, red hair. "Well, then allow my grunts to facilitate."

"Why hide behind your lackeys?" Faerie taunted. "Not brave enough or strong enough to face me on your own?"

The Assassin smirked, in a very condescending fashion, "You always fight the sub-bosses before you get to the big bad. It's just how these things are done."

"Excuses, excuses." Faerie said, flippantly, gripping her battle axe tightly, eager to use it. But she wouldn't kill. Maiming wouldn't be necessary. She had a lot of confidence in her abilities, and was confident that she could attack in a nonlethal manner. She was a trained RAFian, after all.

"It's the way things are done," the Assassin said, holding her chakram in her right hand, over her right shoulder. She did this in a flippant manner to match Faerie's own. "I must not sully my hands until you can best my underlings."

Then she addressed her six grunts, in a darker, serious, and dangerous tone, "And you know the price of failure. Don't make me iron out this plot point again."

Faerie was perplexed by the comment about plot points -- but clearly pretending as if she was a story character who could break the fourth wall seemed to go along with her schtick. She couldn't really see nor break the fourth wall, but she liked to pretend as if she could. She wasn't like a Realm Walker (Cloak, in fact, started to ignore the fourth wall, because, as he puts it, there was nothing interesting out there, anyway), and it was all theater of the mind.

Then she snapped her fingers, and her six grunt moved forward with chakrams of their own. One threw the chakram like a frisbee, and Faerie, still with a rather smug smile, blocked it easily with her axe. The chakram fell to the ground, and Faerie vanished it with noverbal, wandless magic. A perk of being a faerie.

"Next?" she said, with great bravado.

The second one threw it so it spun much like a yo-yo. Faerie preempted this attack, with one of her own, severing the chakram cleaning in two. She landed, almost daintily,  twirling her axe in her right hand, as she nonverbally, wandlessly vanished the two halves of the chakrams. She never lost that confident smile, which seemed to irritate the Assassin.

"Nice try," she said, bravado at maximum. "Next?"

The third one threw her chakram at a forty-five-degree angle. Faerie managed to redirect it right back at the grunt in the silver cloak of the same size and style of her fellows. She failed to catch it, and it landed, as if it were a frisbee, a few feet away. The Assassin's scowl of displeasure deepened as the grunt scrambled to collect her chakram and return to formation.

"Needs work," Faerie said, still with the air of smugness. "Next?"

The fourth one threw her chakram with a curve. Faerie's confident smirk deepened as she dodged the throw easily. It was really clear that she wasn't taking the battle with these grunts seriously, and she was defeating them with practiced ease and vanishing their weapons without a sound or a wand. And her flippancy did not seem to have an end. She vanished the chakram midair, as the Assassin glared daggers. Not at Faerie, but her own grunts.

"Not very good at this, are you?" Faerie taunted, with a sly smile. "Next?"

The fifth one threw her chakram with an overhead throw, clearly intending it to be boomeranged back. Only for Faerie to pull a Great Aether Final Smash on it, and vanishing the pieces. She smirked, which broadened when she saw the broad smile.

"Try again later," the faerie said. "Next?"

The last one didn't chuck her chakram, deciding to use it as a melee weapon instead. Faerie was really gung-ho for this, and this took the longest to battle. And Faerie unabashedly savored the battle. It really has been too long since she had done this. She wasn't even rusty at it! But, in the end, she bested this one, too. RAFian training and all that. She vanished the chakram.

"You disappoint me," the Assassin said. Faerie initially thought she was addressing the RAFian, but she wasn't. She was addressing her grunts. "Worse of all, you failed. You failed not only me, but you failed 'Granny'."

Then the entire area seemed to grow colder and darker, as the Assassin's expression matched this. Faerie's flippancy evaporated as she started to realize what the Assassin was saying. But she couldn't react in enough time to stop what happened next.

"You know the consequences of failure of any kind," she said, in a cold callous tone. This was greeted with numerous protests -- unseen in any other grunts -- and begging for forgiveness. The Assassin was unmoved by these frantic pleas of mercy. She said, "Good-bye."

She snapped her fingers, grasping her own chakram tighter, and all six of her grunts were immolated and incinerated in intense flames until nothing but ash remained. Faerie was horrified.

"That wasn't necessary!" she growled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 09, 2019, 04:57:33 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXIV (1,384): "Creepy Power" -- The birth of Entomotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Twice-Bifurcated Chakram

Her name was Leigh Axel. She was born to parents who really didn't have any business being parents. Shortly after she was born, both parents (whose identities other than their collective surname was unknown) got into the drug scene. And they got there very hard. They would push child care upon strangers and neighbors, as they spent their money -- all of it -- on these dangerous drugs with very potent psychoactive chemicals. They had several conspicuous missing teeth and their hair grew wispy and dead-looking. At the end of it all, they looked more like Inferi than living people.

Naturally, Child Protective Services came around and saw, very clearly, that this situation and circumstance were completely unbefitting a parent of any stripe, and they took Leigh away with the last thing that her parents ever gave her, the last thing they gave her before their drugs subsumed and dominated their lives -- her name. It was the only thing that she was given, and she had no memory of them, being so young when she was taken away. She wasn't even old enough to walk.

Then she was stripped away of that, when the Anonymous Ones adopted her, if you could call it adoption and not straight up kidnapping, as they saw potential in this baby. And when they saw potential, they took action to possess that potential for their own ends.

"That wasn't necessary!" Faerie had scolded.

"But it was," the Assassin said, all levity vanishing from her tone and body language. "Failure is not an option for a Femme Fatale or her grunts. Failure is not an option for anyone who serves 'Granny'. It's a strict code."

"It's a cult," Faerie declared as harshly as she could.

The Assassin scoffed contemptuously. "Proving how little you kn about us and our grand mission."

"Grand mission, huh?" Faerie said, with a dismissive tone. "Care to enlighten me on what this so-called 'great mission is?"

"Serving the whims and will of 'Granny'," she said, with an almost rapturous smile. "There is nothing better or fulfilling than that."

"Uh . . . huh . . ." Faerie said slowly, then added, quite audibly, "Yeah, nothing cultish about that, is there?"

"You don't understand," she said, as flames began to bar any exit. Faerie was unconcerned and unintimidated. She's seen Garrotik -- this idiot nor her precious 'Granny' was nothing to that tier. Heck, Malice could probably destroy this 'Granny' with a simple **** slap. The Assassin spoke again, "nonbelievers will be purged and expunged from this world, and 'Granny' will be the savior to those whose faith never faltered. When you lie, dying, you will want to repent and maybe, just maybe, 'Granny' will show you mercy."

"Are you listening to yourself?" Faerie asked. It was a legitimate question. "Do you even hear the dogmatic bull you're spewing?"

"I will purge you myself, nonbeliever!" the Assassin decreed.

"Well, I don't see that happening," Faerie said, dismissively.

"Then allow me to open your eyes!!" she roared, as the flame wall around them continued to arc further up. Faerie was still unconcerned about it, though very aware.

The battle began, and Faerie was playing it defensively. She was using one of Cloak's old tactics -- defense until you either spot a weakness or determine your foe's full capabilities. She's seen him use this tactic successfully enough times to try it herself. Every strike blocked and tanked, or dodged and evaded. It was a simple manuever, in all honesty.

But soon became clear what her weakness was -- other than water. She had to stop from time to time to pontificate, relying on the flame-cracked ground to slow Faerie down. But here was thing -- as a Faerie of her court, she was not tethered to ground as most beings were.

First thing the RAFian noticed was that the Assassin had a fairly aggressive fighting style. That could work against her, and Faerie was currently formulating a plan to use it against her. Faerie barely noticed her proselytizing and scolding her for being a nonbeliever -- those words were meaningless and worthless to her. Faerie smiled as she concocted her winning strategy.

The Assassin threw her chakram, ignited, at Faerie. The RAFian used a wandless, nonverbal Banishment Charm to deflect the chakram at a nearly forty-five-degree angle from her. The flames snuffed out, and then Faerie used a wandless, nonverbal Summoning Charm to bring it back to her. She readied her axe.

When it was within range, she quickly bifurcated it once, then twice. Then she used a wandless, nonverbal Reductor Curse and reduced the pieces to dust. The flames around them and underground were immediately extinguished.

"Do . . ." the Assassin said, breathlessly, "do you have any idea what you've done?!"

"Enlighten me," Faerie said, with a sly smirk.

"I . . . I f. . . I f-f-failed," she said, breaking down. Faerie didn't feel at all sorry for her. She was a callous murderer. She killed her six grunts without a tiny smidgen of remorse, but without hesitation or pause. Why should the RAFian feel sorry for her if the same befell her?

Faerie landed upon the flame-cracked ground, turned on her heel and walked away, without saying a word while the Assassin bawled.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 13, 2019, 03:54:28 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXV (1,385): "Spectral Power" -- The birth of Phaetotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
The Sniper

"Don't worry." Ash told the others. "I'll handle this. Go on. Cloak and his family might need your help."

"And you think that you and your merry little band of freaks and outcasts can accomplish anything to stop us?" the Sniper said, ****y and irreverent, holding her sniper rifle loosely at her side, her grip relaxed. "As if!"

"Oh, allow us to try," Ash said, unconcerned, "we just might surprise you, you know."

She shrugged in a very flippant, insincere manner. The woman just reeked of insincerity. "You can try, but you will fail. No one can beat the Femme Fatales. 'Granny' handpicked us to accomplish her purposes, gave us enough importance to give us names."

"And, yet, you don't seem to realize ultimately how sad and cruel it is to be denied a name, an identity, unless you're deemed 'worthy' of one." Ash said, true compassion punctuating every word. She felt sorrow and pity that the woman before her thought this was normal, to be denied a name of all their own. It was a cruel injustice in her mind, as having a name is a fundamental part of having someone learn about themselves and become their own person.

The Sniper snorted, and said, condescendingly, "As if!"

This seemed to be her favorite rebuttal, Ash quickly deduced. This clearly allows her to readily dismiss anything that contradicts her worldview, no matter how substantial the facts against this worldview were. Ash was perceptive enough to understand that trying to dissuade her and convince her was an exercise in futility. Any point the RAFian made or would make would just be waved away with a pronounced "As if!", dismissed as worthless propaganda.

"Poor brainwashed fool," Ash said, shaking her head sadly. "You're in too deep. You've not only drank the Kool-Aid you've chugged it with a fanatical gusto. . . ."

"As if!" was her only reply. "But the doctrine is very clear about what to do with nonbelievers like you. Grunts! Assume the position!"

Ash was no intimidated. As a RAFian, she has dealt with worse, dealt with far more frightening things. When she saw that the six grunts had knelt and were aiming their sniper rifles at them, with the Sniper aiming hers at Ash but while standing. Of course, this was not how snipers were supposed to work, but clearly the Sniper didn't care.

"Why am I not surprised?" Ash said, folding her arms with a heavy sigh. "I don't suppose that I can talk you out of this?"

"As if!" she said. Those two, single -syllable words were starting to grate on Ash's nerves. "FIRE!"

Dust kicked up as the sniper rifles fired energy bullets, which hit the dust cloud. It appeared that they all hit Ash dead on. The Sniper even wore a sneering smile, believing that she had just murdered the RAFian.

That smile quickly vanished when she realized that there was no body left behind. And, in her mind, no body meant that she wasn't dead. (She clearly had never knowingly met a Realm Walker before.) She wasn't very pleased with this, especially when she was proven right when she heard Ash's voice at roughly two o'clock from her.

"It's not that easy to kill a RAFian," she said. She had shapeshifted into a flea and back again. She watched as the Sniper's face contorted in apoplectic rage. Ash had thought that it was direct towards her, but she was quite mistaken.

The sniper shot and the energy bullet appeared to go through some sort of wormhole in space not more than six feet in front of her. The single shot fatally ripped through all six bodies of her grunts before any of them could realize what was happening to them. There was no way for Ash to have foresee this turn of events, much less have taken the necessary steps in order to prevent their deaths. She was aghast and appaled, while the Sniper showed absolutely no remorse or qualms about her use of lethal force.

"Failures," the Sniper grumbled in a way that managed to jar Ash from her shocked stupor. "Intolerable."

"That wasn't necessary," Ash said. She found herself to be utterly disgusted by this, finding the callous, heartless way the Sniper did this utterly revolting and disgusting. "You didn't need to kill them."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 16, 2019, 04:19:11 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXVI (1,386): "Brawn Power" -- The birth of Herculetyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Crushed Sniper Rifle

Her name was Nichole Barr (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/no_holds_barred#English), born to Nolan Holden Barr and his wife Karen. Both were what you could call "gun enthusiasts" , but they had very little common sense and practicality. Not a very good combo to have.

Nolan also hoarded guns -- even high capacity ones, along with the ammunition that went with them. Not to mention, despite having a baby in the house (granted, one not old enough to walk), he kept all of them fully loaded. If anyone pointed out how dangerous that was, he'd always wave away their concerns. And Karen was no different. They were inordinately proud of the collect that they amassed, that their house was little more than a firearm armory at this point. With all the firearms fully loaded.

Then they made a foolish decision that broke the camel's back. They had social media, as many other people do, and tended to post some of the most nonsensical things. They decided that it was a good idea to post a picture of Nicole holding a loaded assault-type firearm. At first, it just got a few likes and shares from like-minded friends. But eventually went viral, when it was revealed the gun was fully loaded.

Child Protective Services (CPS) immediately took action, but local law enforcement took action first. They had their arsenal raid and confiscated before the two parents were arrested for child negligence, and child endangerment. The courts found them a present danger to their community, and detained them for an undisclosed amount of time, while their daughter was put into foster care with no memory of this, as she was far too young. Where she came to be in the Goodness Orphanage, where they made her into what she was today.

"You didn't have to kill them," Ash repeated, more forcefully this time.

"As if," she said, all flippancy lost. "They missed. They failed me. Worse, they failed 'Granny'. They knew the consequences ."

Ash caught the gist of something in way the Sniper said that. She narrowed her eyes, as she asked, "Did they even have a choice in the matter?"

"What's that matter?" she said. Ash couldn't been wrong, but it seemed as if the question legitimately puzzled the Sniper. "We are all obligated to do 'Granny''s will, and failures must be dealt with swiftly, and without mercy. Even nonbelievers are obligated to bow to her whims."

"Yeeeah . . . about that? No one has the right to foist beliefs upon others, and expect them to be instilled without resistance."  Ash said, feeling like she was stating what should be quite obvious.

"As if!" the Sniper said. It was funny just how much those two one-syllable words were grinding the RAFian's last nerve. "'Granny' knows all, and sees all. She knows everything that is in our best interests."

Ash cast her glance down at the forgotten corpses of the grunts, and said, "I'm inclined to disagree."

"As if!" There were those two words again. Ash was starting to get a facial tick upon hearing them. "There is no disagreement where 'Granny' is concerned. Choice is all matters is an illusion. 'Granny''s will always comes true, her plan is infallible."

"And yet you claim failure isn't an option," Ash said, pointing out the incongruity of this statement with one of her last, "while, in the same breath, claiming that this 'Granny' person's plan inevitably comes true. You don't see the conflicting messages of those statements?"

"Enough talking," she said, her face taking on a serious edge now. She aimed her sniper rifle at Ash, pretty much point-blank range at this point, and was just about to fire when Ash vanished - - unbeknowst to the Sniper, Ash had shapeshifted something very small and worked her way quickly around her. The Sniper, in her frustration, roared, "Enough of these magic tricks!"

It was then that she noticed the snake coils around her, all the way up to her midsection. Before she could react to defend herself, the constrictor-type snake had made it to her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides. Only her right hand was free and it was gripping her sniper rifle as tightly as she could as it allowed her manipulate space -- but it was very difficult to hold on to a heavy rifle with one hand while in the coils of a large snake. The Sniper couldn't think of a way out of this, and wanted to cry out for 'Granny' to save her -- but she knew if she did that, that would only ensure that 'Granny' would not come. She never came to those who showed weakness. If the Sniper showed weakness, she'd have her very Name stripped from her. Mercy was weakness in her view, after all.

the snake spoke, and its voice wasn't at all what the Sniper was expecting. It was Ash. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. What say you?"

The Sniper's grip upon her firearm tightened, and this was not lost on Ash, who sighed heavily. She asked, rhetorically, "Why do they always choose the hard way?"

The Sniper spat, and uttered a very offensive vulgarity, to which Ash responded, "You force me to do something that I really don't want to do."

While maintaining her grip, her flesh began to melt into another shape, a fist with thin fingers. From that fist came a wrist, then an arm with a fin on the elbow. All of this was slow and apparently hard, as Ash seemed to  struggle with shapeshifting into a To'kustar, or any species likewise as large. It seemed almost painful her, almost as if she were, quite literally in some regard, overstretching herself and her powers. This is why she didn't like shapeshifting something this size.

When she finished, she easily plucked the sniper rifle from the Sniper's hand. She had the strength of To'kustar in this form. Ignoring the Sniper's protestations, she crushed the firearm to the point of being irreparable.

"NOOOOOO!!!" the Sniper screamed. She knew that the 'Granny' would not be forgiving for this. She was well aware of how she felt about failure . . . she was screwed. She was totally screwed, and she knew it.

Ash set her down, as the the Sniper was having a fit, and she managed to shapeshift back to her base form. This was easier for her, like an elastic band snapping back to its more stable form.

And then she watched the Sniper breaking down.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 20, 2019, 05:23:32 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXVII (1,387): "Metal Power" -- The birth of Ferrotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
The Gambler

"Go on," Yunyun said, urging Estelore and Terenia onward. "I've got this."

"You're certainly making a gamble," said the Femme Fatale across from her, playing with a deck of cards. Yunyun had the bizarre image of her challenging the RAFian to a seven-on-one duel with a children's card game. "You really have such bravado, girl?"

Yunyun said nothing, but got her magical cards ready. Granted, she had her own brand of magic if she ran out of cards. She only had about sixty of them, and there was always a chance that she could "deck out". This was not one of those Yu-Gi-Oh duels. If she "decked out" -- as each card required a cool down period after use -- she would still be in battle, and she would still have a means to defend herself.

"Ah, you have to play the brooding protagonist?" the Gambler said, with a condescending laugh that reeked of insincerity. She clearly was going for some sort of Seto Kaiba-type inflection, but came off as more as Eddie Deezen. "You won't have plot armor in this confrontation, I'm afraid!"

Yunyun said nothing, readying her deck, as the Gambler's silver cloaked grunt flanked around her in a semi-circle, armed with decks of a similar magical nature. Yunyun had a very good idea what was about to happen, and she was less than amused by it.

 "What," the Gambler said, addreswing her clearly-intimidated grunts, with her voice as cold and unyielding as an admantium blade, "are you waiting for?"

The six simultaneously threw six cards, which stopped within two to three feet in front of them, rotating fast and enlarging. From each, a magical, but fictitious (assumingly) monsters. Man-sized worms whose design looked vaguely like Mister Mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mind), but in a more feral, visceral way. One looked as if it were merged with a sapling, another with fur that gave it the look of being a living torch, another with rippling membrane instead of legs, one with stone, shabti-like head, another with a tail like the wind-catching structure on the end of of dandelion seed, and the last one was just a metallic, almost-robotic worm. Yunyun scowled, but she found herself more perplexed than creeped out.

If they could some any monster, why go for bugs? Much less the clear larval stages of bugs? Even if they plan for the fictitious monsters to mature -- which she wasn't sure how long that would take -- it seemed like a rather odd choice. Yunyun looked at each of these monster worms in turn before formulating her means of counterattack. each had surprisingly large, expressive eyes, unusual for grubby worms. The fiery one looked hateful, the finned one looked sad, the sprout-like one looked miserable, the one with the shabti-like head looked passive, grounded, and unimpressive, the one with the dandelion seed filament looked ambitious, and the robotic one looked apathetic. Yunyun wondered if this meant anything.

"Good," she said, and the grunts looked pleased and relieved. It did not take a genius to realize that she did not hand out praise -- or anything even remotely resembling praise -- very often. Then the Gambler addressed Yunyun, "I think we should just skip the formalities, don't you?"

She snapped her fingers, and Yunyun had an initial reaction as if the Gambler had done a Thanos snap. Then she realized all six of the bugs were immediately put into cocoons that were appropriately themed to their element. One cocoon was made of wood pulp, like the nest of a wasp. One cocoon was akin to a flaming soccer ball. One cocoon was a semi-opaque bubble. One cocoon was like a stone. One cocoon was like the head of a dandelion, and the final cocoon was cooled-down slag vaguely in the shape of Skeets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeets_(DC_Comics)). The RAFian, while concerned, wasn't too afraid.

Yunyun drew the shield card and the sword card, which granted her a shield and a sword, which she could load a card it each, to empower each magical construct in certain ways. She didn't know all the ways, as she didn't try all the combinations. But she only had access to fifty-eight other cards, and some previously used cards may not be in her deck this time. She didn't control what cards were in her deck -- it was always sixty random cards that always had an application in some way. She just had to figure out that application.

"Time's up," the Gambler said, snapping her fingers once again.

The wood pulp cocoon broke open revealing a stick insect with sickle-like mandibles. The flaming soccer ball broke open revealing an atlas moth with fiery wings and a bullwhip-like proboscis. The semi-opaque bubble burst to reveal an arachnid covered in foam bubbles. The stone crumbled away revealing what appeared to be an overlarge dung beetle with prominent mandibles. The dandelion burst open revealing a damselfly with what appeared to be too many wings. The metal Skeets cracked open revealing a generic, robotic bug.

Yunyun was not intimidated, but wondered why specifically these monsters. What significance did they have? Perhaps there was truly no significance and they just summoned these fictitious creatures at random -- with just a coincidental commonality between them. But no matter. She had a plan to deal with them.

She attacked the stick bug with her sword, using her shield to deflect the mandibles, and slicing through it completely shattering it as if were made of crystal. Then she drew a card, and empowered her sword and shield with fire -- then sliced through the robotic bug. The bug shattered, as if it was made of glass. Then the fire vanished from her sword and shield.

Then she drew another card, and empowered her shield and sword with water. She then immediately attacked the fiery moth. The water vanished from her sword and she drew again. Then she empowered her sword and shield with earth and dirt, and attacked the arachnid, shattering it to pieces.

She drew again, and empowered her shield and sword with wind. Then she struck the dung beetle, which shattered to bits. Then she drew again and empowered her blade and shield with energy, and shattered the damselfly. All of the monster bugs were now gone.

"Failure," the Gambler said, and Yunyun initially thought that she was addressing the RAFian. She was quite unpleasantly surprised when the Gambler clutched her deck and pointed at her grunts. She watched as they aged into dust, effectively killing them.

Yunyun stood there, in a horrified silence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 25, 2019, 05:49:39 AM

Sorry for the delay -- it was an . . . eventful . . . four days in my life.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXVIII (1,388): "Frost Power" -- The birth of Cryotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Cutting the Deck

Her name was Jaclyn Spade.

Her father was named Lucian Spade, and he had a severe gambling problem. He never knew when to call it quits when playing these games of chance, always assuming that the next ticket, or the next $100 would give him the next jackpot. And, on the very rare occasion that he did win, it was never enough to satisfy his greed. He never recovered from this, and it warped his thinking to the point that he hid his chronic gambling from his wife, Karen. They would eventually divorce over this very issue, and Karen would get custody over Jaclyn.

But Karen was not without her own, considerable faults. In a way, she was just a big of a gambler as her ex-husband (which was saying something). She was an anti-vaxxer, and refused to vaccinate Jaclyn. She subscribed to the ridiculous notion that prayer and essential oils could pretty much heal anything, and did not trust doctors, believing them to be a part of some grand, clandestine conspiracy with the pharmaceutical companies. It wasn't true, but you couldn't convince her otherwise, no matter the abundance of verifiable evidence presented to her.

As it would happen, Jaclyn got really sick one day. As expected, the prayer did nothing and the essential oils actually did more damage (as she proved to be allergic to this particular one). But Karen refused to believe that she might be harming her child. She actually believed at taking her to a doctor would be doing more harm, a dangerous inclination based off of pseudo-science and unsubstantiated, dubiously researched, and outright false claims made on the internet from disreputable sources. Eventually, CPS heard about this and took Jackyn away, charging the mother with child negligence -- which she protested hotly, claiming that she was being discriminated against, and blah blah blah.

Jaclyn eventually came into the care of the Goodness Orphanage (Lucian didn't even try to get custody of her back and never paid child support), where she, like the others, had her name stripped from them Nd eventually gained the "name" of the Gambler, and got to the point, the status, that she enjoyed today.

The Gambler seemed to be enjoying Yunyun's horrified silence, in a very masochistic manner. She almost seemed to savor it, as if they we playing some harmless video game or something. Her horror at just how meaningless the lives of her grunts were to the Gambler seemed to feed some part of her clear apathetic villainy.

". . . Why?" Yunyun said, at last.

"They knew the hand they were dealt," the Gambler said, nonchalantly, as if this was obvious.

"You didn't give them a choice! Did you?!" Yunyun accused.

The Gambler gave a noncommittal shrug that reeked of indifference. "The only choices that matter are those made by 'Granny'."

"You're in a cult," Yunyun said, at once.

"If you think embracing 'Granny' is a cult, then you clearly haven't a clue what a cult is," was her reply. Yunyun found this a weak rebuttal, and she pointed it out, which caused the Gambler to lose all her sass. "Nonbelievers like you are a blight on this world. 'Granny' has been kind enough to bestow her wisdom on us, and you -- all you nonbelievers -- spurn her great knowledge. To grant us more suitable names. now -- die."

The Gambler threw a kinetically-charged card, ala Gambit, at Yunyun. She simply blocked it with her shield. Yunyun felt nothing from the impact. She decided to continue this conversation -- it might make the Gambler make a misstep.

"You kidnap these poor girls, don't you?!" Yunyun accused, deflecting another explosive card with her shield. "You manipulate, brainwash, and indoctrinate them into your way of thinking, don't you? It's how you're able to control them so much. You use fear and threat to intimidate them into your line of thinking."

Yunyun blocked another volley of explosive cards, as the Gambler started to lose her temper. She roared, "Do not preach at me, nonbeliever! Do not besmirch the reputation of the great 'Granny'! She is our savior - - our only savior! And you stand for the stupid, corrupted masses! 'Granny' has bestowed her most loyal servants with true names, names that suit us!"

"After stripping away the names that your parents had given you," Yunyun guessed. "After debasing you so much, breaking you down into believing that you have nothing worthwhile, wiping away any modicum of self-worth you possessed -- until she deigns to give you another name. Am I close?"

Yunyun used her shield to block another volley of explosive cards. It seemed to have lasted at least twenty minutes as the Gambler, instead of having a thoughtful counterpoint to this, just screamed, "SHUT UP!"

The Gambler was clearly unaccustomed to people challenging her beliefs, and was unaccustomed to formulating counterarguments to skepticisms and criticisms of those beliefs. She clearly just assumed everyone was to assume, de facto, the validity of such beliefs, and to do so without question. So, when challenged and unable to dispute the accusations of Yunyun, she reacted as all those with indefensible ideals and beliefs tend to -- with anger and violence.

But this was, ironically enough, playing into Yunyun's hand. She suspected that the Gambler had a finite amount of cards in her deck, as the RAFian did (until they recharged, anyway), and Yunyun was just running out the clock, so to speak. And it very nearly worked.

When the Gambler reached her last card, she stopped herself and regained a little composure, but not entirely. She knew that the 'Granny' would not forgive her if she lost her weapon in its entirety. With one card, more will come back. She then realized that she should have been using her chronokinesis instead of the cards and she smiled, almost sheepishly at the thought. And she almost threw away that option had she not saved this last --

Then it was sliced through, with one strike. Yunyun had taken her sword and struck the card, leaving the Gambler unharmed. Then Yunyun used the pommel of the sword to strike the Gambler with enough force to knock her out before she could react.

And, as the shield and sword vanished, their magic having expired, she wondered if she should join the others or take care of the Gambler. If there was, indeed, anything she could do to help her.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 29, 2019, 04:59:54 PM

Sorry about the wait, life's a bit busy recently.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCLXXXIX (1,389): "Draconic Power" -- The birth of Dracotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
The Berserker

"Go on, Terenia," Estelore said, with the subtle calm of a warm, summer day. "I got this."

"You think highly of yourself," the Berserker said. "You have no idea of the power I possess."

"Not to sound immodest," Estelore said, wearing her sundress and wide-brimmed, floppy hat, "but you haven't an idea of the power you're trifling with."

"Please," she said, dismissively. She held her claymore on her shoulder, griping the handle tightly. Estelore was perceptive.

"Ah, I see," the sentient star's human avatar said, "through that sword, you draw power from the moon. Forgive me for not being intimidated, for, you see, I'm a star."

"You'll excuse me if I don't pay attention, nor give credence to some sort of pseudo-celebrity," she said, speaking slowly.

"Not that kind of star," Esty said, with a heavily dignified tone.

"Like it matters," the Berserker said. "I shan't sully my hands with this execution. My six chosen here will simply fight you in my stead. They should make quick work of you, Hollywood starlet."

Estelore started to scowl. "Lady, you do not want me to start taking this personally."

"Whatever," the Berserker said, rather flippantly. Then she addressed her six grunts, who were standing stock-still and feckless. "Kill it."

Estelore's scowl deepened. She was trying very hard to not take this personally, but the Berserker was making doing so unnecessarily difficult. Estelore was trying to take a higher road and not sink to her level. But then she saw the grunts, without a moment's hesitation wield their claymores, and charge forward.

Estelore floated a few inches off the ground, and cast out a mild stellar barrier, which none of the six grunts could penetrate through. Estelore didn't have to struggle to keep up the barrier, but she looked almost annoyed by this.

"Stop wasting my time," the Berserker said. Estelore initially thought she was addressing her, and was about to give her a piece of her mind when she realized that the Berserker was just addressing her own grunts. "Finish off this lesser thing and let us be on our way!"

Estelore was less than pleased at this pronouncement. She didn't like being regulated to such a miniscule problem, a minute problem, in such a condescending yet authoritative manner. Almost as if she thought that Estelore wasn't worth talking to anymore. And Estelore did have pride, as any sentient entity did. Despite herself, she found herself taking it personally.

The Berserker clearly didn't understand the magnitude of her power. She was the most powerful RAFian! Second only to Richard himself! She had the power to incinerate every last molecule from this haughty, condescending, entitled piece of . . . she had to calm down. She had to remain poised and collected. If she lost her cool, and lost control, she ran a risk of igniting the atmosphere. And Earth happened to be her favorite planet.

But pride could be a very dangerous, very fickle thing. She knew this, so she wouldn't have an excuse for letting it get the better of her. She watched with a blithe disinterest as the six grunts tried futilely to break through her stellar barrier. Nothing they did would breach the barrier.

When the attempts just became sad and pathetic, she gave them a small stellar blast. It was mild, not inte ded to harm them, but knock them off their feet. And this it did, causing their claymores to skitter and clatter away from them. This alone effectively disarmed them and removed any threat whatsoever -- though they weren't really threats to the sentient star anyway.

"Are we done with this farce?" Estelore said, hoping that this demonstration of this fraction her power. "Are you going to stand down?"

But her eyes glowed, as her grip tightened on her claymore. Her eyes took on an evil, opalescent glow, and Estelore's blood suddenly ran cold -- and she, technically speaking, didn't even have blood. She saw what was going to happen before it did, but time itself seemed to disobligingly slow to a crawl before her. Her reaction times, in this infinitesimal moment seemed to be sluggish and slow, infuriatingly so.

She watched, almost helplessly, as the Berserker, who seemed to be moving slightly less slow than her in this forsaken moment of time, cut down all six of her own grunts! Estelore was no stranger to bearing witness to acts she considered downright abominable, but this clearly ranked up there.

And the sheer callousness this woman had afterward! All she did, once the opalescent glow left her eyes, was scoff and mutter, with the utmost disdain, "Failures. Unacceptable."

Estelore had just about enough of this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 01, 2019, 05:58:53 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXC (1,390): "Dark Power" -- The birth of Umbratyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Cleaved Claymore

Her name was Moonbeam Wallace.

Her parents were Shaggy and Thelma Wallace, and they were, quite evidently, into the hippie movement. And they fully looked the part, as well. But they were harmless, law-abiding citizens, if only some questionable habits. They were complete pacifists and always chose to resolve conflict in the most nonviolent ways they could, avoiding any modicum of violence when they could.

They were also vegetarian, preferring to grow their own food, whilst having no grievances against those that did not have the same inclination. They often encouraged forgiveness in others and themselves, but they were the furthest thing from obnoxious about it. They would make their positions and stances on issues know (but only when asked or prompted to volunteer such information).

This laidback, agrarian nature and the peaceful, conflict-neutral lifestyle of the two did not spur any malice or spite in any of their neighbors. Until their daughter, Moonbeam, was born and their neighbor moved out. The man who moved in was an ornery cuss who lived for disagreement and confrontation. He was the sort of man who demanded other conform with his beliefs, no matter how contradictory they may be, and he wasn't afraid to get in their face and harass them until he got his way.

And he hated hippies woth a passion, despite not being able to give on coherent argument, backed up by actual facts (not mistruths or lies or logical fallacies), as to why hippies were so horrible. Shaggy and Thelma became his absolute favorite victims, and they just tried to forgive him for his transgressions, their pacifist beliefs were so strong. Once this wily old piece of crap discovered that the couple had recently had a child, he decided that Shaggy and Thelma were unfit parents, and he made no secret of this.

So, he made many fraudulent reports on the two, accusing them of pretty much any crime one could do to a child, ten fold. Eventually, a like-minded officer was sent out with a person from CPS who was friendly with the demented old codger. Moonbeam was taken away in a serious miscarriage of justice, as the law apparently took the old coot's word as gospel and denigrated their reputations, dismissing them as brain-dead hippies. Moonbeam would grow up, never knowing them or her real name, as it was stripped from her when she grew up in the Goodness Orphanage.

"That's the excuse you're going with?" Esty said, tempering her temper. "They failed to do a task that was impossible for them to achieve with what they had?"

"Failure is unacceptable," the Berserker said, turning to face Estelore. They could see each other, both eye level of the other, "They held the honor of wearing cloaks and robes with emblem of 'Granny' emblazoned upon it. Then they had the audacity to fail in their mission, failed to carry out a direct order given. This is inexcusable. Failure is shameful. Failure besmirches 'Granny''s good name. This cannot be allowed to stand. Corrections have to be made."

Estelore said nothing for a moment, as she allowed herself a moment to unpack this, as she wasn't sure that the Berserker was being serious. "You are really deeply indoctrinated with this schlock, aren't you?"

"Schlock?" the Berserker said, sounding vaguely offended, as her eyes took on the opalescent glow again. Estelore wasn't intimidated. She, along with her RAFian fellows, had faced the likes of Malice and Garrotik and such. The Berserker just didn't measure up. "The doctrine of 'Granny' is not schlock. It is the truth, the only truth. The only truth that matters. We all exist to serve the whims of 'Granny'. One cannot claim to know the motivations behind her whims, as she is beyond all of us. We can only hope to earn her respect, and she will grant us names. She would grant us weapons of immense power."

"Classic cult rhetoric," Estelore said, with folded arms. Her form flickered, and she was wearing her sunshine yellow kevlar suit with her avatar's hair tied up into a tight bun. She had bore witness of this rhetoric on dozens of worlds, and it never led to anything good. Cult indoctrination always proved to be very destructive, and often deadly. It often led to tyranny if it managed to get into governance, and tyrannies never hold any true permanence. "I see the futility of trying to convince you otherwise is pointless. You will twist any fact given to you, to fit into this warped narrative. This distorted worldview will not do you any favors. I've seen civilizations break down and break up due cultish fanaticism. Cultist fanaticism always seems to lead to fascism. And fascism leads to deterioration of any given society."

"Nonbelievers are --"

"Save it," Estelore snapped. She was tired of this circular conversation of her trying to reason with her, and the Berserker summarily dismissing everything that didn't mesh well with her narrative. "I can see this conversation is going nowhere."

From there, the fight commenced. The Berserker, in an apt berserker rage, began to hammer on Estelore's stellar shield with a fury and fervor that Estelore had only seen in wild animals. Yet, her stellar shield of sunlight did not falter, did not weaken. It took a moment before Estelore realized that the Berserker was chanting something.

"Wither and decay.
End this destiny.
Break these earthly chains,
And set the spirit free.
The spirit free." (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nobLlMG1sks)

Estelore found herself chanting something that she hadn't even realized that she was chanting in the first place. It was as if some primordial part of herself that she didn't recognize.

"Power, gleam and glow.
Let your power shine.
Make the clock reverse.
Bring back what once was thine.
Heal what has been hurt.
Change the fates' design.
Save what has been lost.
Bring back what once was thine . . .
What once was thine." (https://youtube.com/watch?v=8dVz0o5qdpI)

The power struggle soon became apparent. The chant the Berserker was using to try hurt Estelore was sucking the life away from the environment around her, swallowing her in icy cold darkness, while Estelore's instinctual rebuttal to this chant was quite the opposite -- warm and healing, like a nice summer day. The two struggled a bit before Estelore broke ground and her starlight was starting to overtake the Berserker's darkness and weakening her chant's ability to inflict hurt.

Soon, the Berserker was bathe in Estelore's healing light, where she saw images of her parents -- her real parents -- and what had happened to them, and herself. It forced her to question the real motives of 'Granny'. This caused a major conflict within Moonbeam -- she knew her real name now. She remembered, despite herself, due to Estelore's light, which dissipated leaving a tired and slightly confused Estelore. She had no idea how to activate that power again, and it was actually far more draining than she cared to admit.

Moonbeam ran away, needing severely to unpack this. All of this. Including what she's become, thanks to 'Granny'. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 05, 2019, 05:32:31 AM

Sorry, been busy.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCI (1,391): "Stone Power" -- The birth of Lithotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
The Sorcerer

"Do we really need to go through this song and dance?" Terenia sighed, as the Sorcerer blocked her way, with six grunts in silver cloaks. "Just stand down, and let me by."

"No," said the Sorcerer, with deep, sepulchral, masculine tone. She did not say any more, and Terenia knew that those with looser lips tended to give away information that one would, at the time, consider trivial. She also knew that she had to get the Sorcerer to be the one divulging secrets. None of the seven of them would allow her to proceed without dealing with them. In a hands-on, combat-y sort of way.

"So, that's how you want to play this, I see," Terenia said, with a sigh. She reached behind her and brought out her "Ruler of Death", which was basically a ruler-shaped staff at this point. She held half of it flush to her forearm as she prepared to fight.

"Is that supposed to be a weapon?" the Sorcerer jeered, clearly unimpressed. "Or is it some sort of . . . joke?"

At which point, Terenia just smirked, twirling the ruler-staff around as if it was a martial arts staff, before stopping and holding it behind her back. The smile never vanished from her face. "It's enough of a weapon to take you out."

"Is that so?" she said, in that deep, slow voice. "I shan't sully my own hands with this. I have my six XN-Sorcerers to deign to that unsavory task."

Terenia knew that this was intended to be a deliberate insult, but found the delivery of the insult far more offensive than the intended insult itself. The way the Sorcerer delivered it was in a rather clunky, wordy manner. It was as if she was trying (way too hard, in Terenia's opinion) to sound smart with a robust vernacular and an indifferent drawl.

The battle went almost as if was choreographed for Terenia to be the victor. It played out almost exactly like when Rafiki fought those hyenas (https://youtube.com/watch?v=MYus9NApRU4). Except she did not make a single utterance during the fight, much less the shrieking Rafiki did. But she handled herself well and had knocked out six of the Sorcerer's grunts. While it wasn't exactly easy, she defeated them in record time.

"Pathetic performance, " the Sorcerer grunted her displeasure.

"You think you can do better?" Terenia clapped back.

"I wasn't addressing you," she said. Then she snapped her fingers as she gripped her ethereal blade. All six of her grunts were Vanished (https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Vanishing_Spell). Not a trace remained. "Failure, in any form, is unacceptable. Incompetence is even more so."

Terenia was shocked by this callousness. Granted, with all her experience as a RAFian, she should be accustomed to seeing such cruelty and callousness. They pretty much fight this kind of thing every day. But there was something a out just how quickly the Sorcerer was willing to escalate this whole thing . . . it was a bit unnerving.

"That," Terenia said, adopting a stern schoolteacher tone of voice, "was not necessary."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 07, 2019, 04:38:04 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCII (1,392): "Water Power" -- The birth of Aquatyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
Broken Blade

Her name was Tara Eterna Nolan.

She was born to nihilist parents, Cyrus (or "Cy") and Minerva (or "Minnie"). They were young and unequipped for such a responsibility. Her father got sent off to jail on some accusation from some person he had gotten on the wrong side of, and it escalated, though the specifics weren't known to his wife or the public.

Minnie was not yet twenty when she had Tara. She was stressed being a single mother -- she never heard back from Cy after he went to prison, and he wouldn't visit with her or Tara. She then loses Tara, who was too young to remember any of this, at some sort of carnival event. When she saw that the police had her kid, she thought about it, in a more selfish frame of mind. She convinced herself that it would be completely okay to abandon this young child and leave her with the police, telling herself that they would be able to find her a better home. She never allowed herself to admit what she was really doing -- abandoning her daughter.

And she didn't get a better home. She was sent to the Goodness Orphanage, which was just a front for this cult. She became as indoctrinated and brainwashed as any other child there. And, as she was a girl, she wasn't forced to do menial and janitorial duties. She excelled in this type of environment, and she quickly rose through the ranks, to become the callous piece of work today.

"That wasn't necessary," Terenia had scolded.

"But it was," she said in that overly masculine voice. "Failure is unforgivable, tarnishing the plan and whim of the great 'Granny'. We all have a duty to serve her, and we are all obligated to follow that service."

"And if they choose otherwise?" Terenia said, knowing full well what the context of the Sorcer's rebuttal (if you could call it that) would entail.

"Choice is an illusion," the Sorcerer answered, as the two stood not more than ten to fifteen feet away from each other, but well within earshot of one another. "And, therefore, choice is irrelevant."

"And thought the xenophobic zealotry of the Knights was bad," was Terenia's reply. "This is a whole new ball of wax."

"Nonbelievers may delude themselves in thinking that the grand vision of 'Granny' isn't all-encompassing, that all her pronouncements are without flaws, all her whims are for the best interests of everyone, true believers and nonbelievers alike." the Sorcerer said, grandly, as if she were sharing the secrets of the universe with Terenia, who was -- unsurprisingly -- less than impressed.

"Uh huh," Terenia said with almost condescending disinterest. "And you . . . just never questioned any of that schlock?"

"No one questions 'Granny'," the Sorcerer said, severely.

"Really?" Terenia said. "And if she's wrong?"

"'Granny' is never wrong," the Sorcerer said, as if this was obvious. Perhaps it was, just not in the manner she thought it was.

"Of course she isn't," Terenia said, before the Sorcerer could finish. She rolled her eyes and facepalmed, still holding her Ruler of Death ready. "Let me guess, you don't have a single thought that this 'granny' doesn't give you, do you?"

"It's my honor and duty to --" the Sorcerer began.

"Okay, enough," Terenia said, like a teacher who had enough of a student who clearly had slapped together a project overnight and wasn't very subtle about it. She was rubbing her head, clearly suffering from a headache of such a magnitude that Rita Repulsa could commiserate. "I have heard of this propaganda to make me sick. And you actually believe that it's true?"

"It is true."

"Sorry (not sorry) to burst your bubble," Terenia said, with a snap in her voice that exuded authority. "But this 'Granny' is clearly using you to obtain that which she desires. She clearly cares nothing for you, or the people that you hurt!"

Instead of a response, the Sorcerer resorted to violence. Terenia was suddenly in a dark dome, with what appeared to be the beams of lightsabers (without the hilts). Thousands of them. And Terenia wasn't daunted. When the beams fired at her, she managed to dissipate it with her Ruler of Death. The beams did not return where they were in this domed area of darkness and nothingness. It seemed forever until all of these laser blades were dealt with and the void dome thing vanished.

The Sorcerer seemed furious that she survived. She seemed to completely forget to use magic or sorcery of any sort. She was too busy grappling with the very thought that she had failed. She had only attacked once . . . but then she grabbed her Ethereal Blade, and charged Terenia.

Terenia saw it coming. She saw the Sorcerer's attack as being obviously telegraphed. Her time and training as a RAFian, and she easily dodged, blocked, and disarmed the Sorcerer. The blade embedded itself into the ground, and, as the Sorcerer hastily and frantically went to retrieve her blade, she snapped the blade cleanly in two due to her hurried, rushed state. She was horrified by this, and was now powerless.

Terenia left her with this crisis, knowing that there was nothing that she could do to help her. You can't force someone to get help -- they have to want to get help, if it is to have any effect.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2019, 05:25:33 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCIII (1,393): "Thunder Power" -- The birth of Electrotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
Running the Gauntlet

The three Realm Walker ran forward, Shadow's scent not getting old or stale -- they were on the right track. All three had an unspoken goal -- they would reclaim Shadow, and make the person behind her kidnapping pay for this audacity. They would make this perpetrator regret the gall, their presumption.

The first person in this gauntlet was a heavy-set girl about fourteen who was holding a pink shield. Cloak roared his tiger roar, which terrified this girl (she had her name stripped from her, so she was an Anonymous One). She was paralyzed with fear, and the trio ignored her when she fell into the fetal position. She didn't exactly have the heart of a lion, but she was still a kid. The bypassed her and moved onward.

Then three Anonymous Ones came from unseen doorways. One with a whip who was short and stout with long, wild hair. One with a spear who was tall and thin. One with gauntlet fists who was unusually curvy. Cloak smashed the gauntlets and nearly broke the womans hands. Merriment hit the one with a whip in the chest, causing her to drop the whip. Faith delivered a swift kick to the forehead of the one with a spear. This incapacitated all three and the trio of Realm Walkers pushed onward.

Then a tall woman with an opalescent bow appeared, cloaked as her brethren, and takes aim at the Realm Walker family. Merriment strikes her in the chest as Faith strikes her in the forehead, rendering her fundamentally incapacitated. Then the trio moved onward, prepared to do anything to get Shadow back.

Then a large, muscular woman with a massive flail appeared before them. Cloak crushed her hands -- no lasting damage, just to incapacitate her -- while Merriment struck her chest, taking her out of the equation. The trio continued onward, roughly towards nine o'clock.

Then a large, svelte woman with a large warhammer appeared before the three. Cloak disabled her hands while Faith struck her head, knocking her out. They were getting close. All three felt this to be true. They navigated the interior of this building as if they lived there.

Then they were accosted by a short, stout woman with a cat-o'-nine-tails, a tall, thin woman with a trident, and a curvy woman with knuckle dusters. They didn't last long against the trio, who tossed them aside as they continued to storm the stronghold, virtually unopposed.

They sidelined a girl who one might have considered chunky, who attacked them with a yo-yo. Yes, a yo-yo. The trio didn't really take her all that seriously, as they moved onward. They knew that they must not be deterred -- they were closing in on Shadow, and her kidnappers.

Then they dealt with a short woman with a chisel-like dagger, and they basically brushed her aside, as they dealt with a rigid, pompous woman with an electrically-charged whip. Cloak snaps the whip and pushes this woman aside. They would not be stopped.

Then they came upon a large, beefy woman with some weapon that looked like a q-tip. Cloak, his sister, and her husband pushed her away with simultaneous energy blasts, snapping her weapon in two. The trio just pressed onward, their singular goal dominating every aspect of their mind.

Then they were up against a youthful woman with a parasol as a weapon, a large woman with cymbals as a weapon, and a giant woman with a large, double-edged sword. The trio knocked all three around, rendering all three unconscious before Cloak gave a roar as they approached a large ornate door that had to have Shadow and her captor behind it.

They were close.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 08, 2019, 08:45:58 PM

Posting this now because I won't be able to tomorrow. It will be a very busy day for me.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCIV (1,394): "Plant Power" -- The birth of Floratyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
Open Up Your Eyes!

Shadow was thrown unceremoniously into a cage, whose bars looked like a haphazard mess of silver and gold. The cage was essentially a birdcage in design, with a big cartoonish lock on the side facing the center of this rather bare, sparsely decorated room. The lighting was dim and dreary, almost for aesthetic, atmospheric purposes.

Shadow took this in -- her uncle had always told her when she was little to use her head and think, and the strongest asset anyone had is their mind. She looked around at the lock and the metal bars. Metal.

She tried to manipulate the metal, but it didn't work all that well. She deduced that these bars must be some sort of alloy between tylee metal and some me common metal. She could manipulate that part just fine, but there also seemed to be some sort power suppressing resin applied to the cage. Someone did their homework.

She decided to try a few energy blast to discover the bars were electrified as well. Yep, someone wanted to be sure that she didn't leave. She supposed that she could always just Walked away, but the cage was a bit cramped -- if she held out her hands the bars would have been about a couple of inches away, and the ceiling was low, she would have bumped her head if she stood fully erect.

There appeared to be no way out of this cage, other than Walking, and she didn't want to try that -- as she was sure that her parents and uncle were after her. She knew that they would never abandon her.

Then she heard a heavy door open somewhere (she was suspended in the air, metalsight or Earthsight wasn't really an option), and shut. She saw a brief glimpse of bright light. Then she heard heavy footsteps walking down the steps. The footsteps were slowly paced, as if the person whom they belonged was taking their sweet time getting here.

Shadow wasn't like her uncle -- her eyes couldn't cut through the gloom with superior night vision. She was simian and not feline. She couldn't echolocate like her father. So, without access to Earthsight or Metalsight, she couldn't make out this person until they stopped right in front of her, allowing themselves to be illuminated under what appeared to be a studio spotlight.

She appeared to have the head and face of Phyllis Diller but the body of a female Ed Asner. She wore a cloak over tarnished gold armor that looked very worn, as if she had been through battle after battle, and won them all.

She chuckled maliciously, as she paced around the cage, eyeing her prize. This prompted Shadiw into speech, "Why are you doing this?"

To which, this person, this granny, ****ed her head to the side with a jerk and laughed. When she spoke, it sounded as if someone bled Phyllis Diller's voice with that of Ed Asner's. "Why? Because I can. And I'm more than you'll ever be."

"It's gonna be a song, isn't it?" Shadow asked. Then the music began and began to build up. "Yep, it's a song."

This person sang as she circled Shadow's cage, and Shadow was thinking of a means to unlock this cage unnoticed.

"It's time you learned a lesson.
It's time that you understand.
Don't ever count on anybody else
In this or any other land.
I once hoped for friendship,
To find a place among my kind.
But those were the foolish wishes
Of someone who was blind."

At this point, while she was sining the last five lines, she turned her back to Shadow. The young Realm Walker was not at all impressed or moved by these mindless theatrics. Someone might have found it effective, but not for her.

Then this person stamped her foot and turned to face Shadow, declaring through her song:

"Open up your eyes!
See the world from where I stand!
Me, the absolute, the mighty.
You, caged at my command!
Open up your eyes!
Give up your sweet fantasyland!
It's time to grow up and get wise.
Come now, little one.
Open up your eyes."

Then she turned away melodramatically, and continued to sing, while Shadow found a discarded hair clip and proceeded to try and pick the lock, despite not knowing how to do so. She never learned such a skill. Her captor never appeared to notice this, or, if she did, she ignored it to continue her song.

"We all start out the same,
With simple naive trust.
Shielded from the many ways
That life's not fair or just.
But then there comes a moment.
A simple truth that you must face.
If you depend on others . . .
You'll never find your place.
And as you take that first step,
Upon a path that's all your own,
You see it all so clearly.
The best way to survive is all alone!"

Shadow continued to pick the lock as this person continued to sing her little song. Shadow had long since stopped paying attention to it, and was more focused on getting out of the cage. She refused to give up -- stubbornness tended to run through her family, as proven many, many times by her uncle.

"Open up your eyes!
And see the world from where I stand!
Me, the absolute, the mighty!
You, caged at my command!
Open up your eyes,
And behold the fading light!
It's time to grow up and get wise.
Come now, little one,
Open up your eyes!
Open up your eyes!!"

Shadow continued to ignore her, until she heard the roar. She heard it, and smiled deeply. She looked at her captor dead in the eye, and said, "Oh, now you're in for it."

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8x4P_PnX9kQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 10, 2019, 08:50:08 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCV (1,395): "Psychic Power" -- The birth of Psychotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
The Confrontation

The heavy-set, thick, ornate metal doors were pushed in with enough force to pull them from their heavy-duty hinges. This only proved that the person behind such force was not a person to trifle with. Three figures were silhouetted in the bright light.

"You're so screwed," Shadow said, smugly.

"Don't be so sure, dearie," this person snapped, in her own smug manner.

Cloak, Faith, and Merriment strolled into the room, with a commanding presence. When Faith and Merriment saw their daughter, they abandoned the impressive, intimidating pretense and rushed to her cage, struggling to remove the lock.

"Stand aside," Cloak said, golden scarlet blades made from his energy on the back of his clenched fists. When they did, Cloak dashed forward and sliced through the padlock with one strike. He was trying to control his emotions -- his rage at Shadow's captor, his relief that she appeared to be unharmed, his concern about losing control --and he found it as difficult as he did before his training (for want of a better term) with Aniyu. He would reconcile it. He would have to.

He turned away from his older sister, her husband, and Shadow, and faced the woman. He narrowed his eyes at her, and his suspicions confirmed in his eyes. Shadow's eyes widened as she realized who her captor was and she felt a bit ashamed of it. Cloak's glared holes into this person before him.

"You?" Cloak growled. Golden scarlet energy crackled around his fists.

"You were expecting Voldemort?" she said, puffing out her chest, looking rather ridiculous and, yet, strangely imposing at the same time. "I am everywhere."

"Spare me the religious, cultic rhetoric," Cloak said, his eyes becoming golden scarlet suns. "I know who you are. I know that you're not this 'Granny' person that you're pretending to be."

"Oh, very astute, dearie," she said with a laugh.

"You stole children," Cloak said, inexplicably knowing all this. His anger became more manageable now that he was venting some of it. "Robbed them of their identities, their very names. Those that you deigned to give new names were not real names at all, as all of them had a requisite 'the' before them. And for what? So they could worship you as a deity? So they can be so indoctrinated into this ludicrous idea that you are without flaw, that your will is absolute, and your word is unbreakable law?"

"Because it is," she said, with a smile like venomous honey. "'Granny' sees all, 'Granny' knows all. This is the underlying truth to the world. If I say that it round, then it is round. If I deem it flat, then so it is."

Cloak said nothing, as she did not wait for him to utter something to interrupt her ludicrous spiel.

"When I desire something, it is up to others to secure that which I desire for me," she said, sound very disingenuous and dishonest. Not a person to look up to. "It is a great source of honor to follow my every order, obey my every discretion, and --"

"Enough," Cloak's voice was quiet, but it nevertheless rung in the silenced room. "I know that not even you believe this ludicrous rhetoric. It's just a means to get people -- those that you've stripped everything from at a young age, those that you so meticulously indoctrinate and brainwash from an age as young as you can get --to do what you want, to have undying loyalty and fealty to you and whatever cause you prop up. You founded this whole messianic cult based off nothing but abject servitude by fear of death for perceived failure at any point. You silence people who would dare question or challenge these beliefs, all the while feigning omnipotence."

"I'm the most important, influential, powerful person in the world, and you can't do anything to stop me," she snarled.

"It really should come as no surprise to me that you think so highly of yourself," Cloak growled, "Malice."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 13, 2019, 08:21:42 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCVI (1,396): "Toxic Power" -- The birth of Toxityrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
Facade Thrown

"What are you talking about?" she said, feigning ignorance. Not very convincingly, either. "I am the benevolent god. The god loves her flock. I look out for them, know what's in the best interests, provided that they don't ever fail me. i know everything, my will is absolute. I love --"

"Power," Cloak supplied, his tone stabbing her like a dull knife. "Give up this broken facade. You do not fool me."

"Why, I don't know what you mean, dearie." she replied.

At this Cloak allowed himself a small smile, "And, yet, you proclaim to know everything."

This actually took her off guard. She didn't anticipate how quick this response came, nor its context. She spluttered an incoherent, disjointed response. This was hardly an effective rebuttal.

"Your pretended omniscience is a farce," Cloak said. "All cons are eventually come unravelled. Maybe not in the conman's generation, or lifetime, but eventually all cons' threads fray and the truth comes into light. You facade doesn't fool me or anyone else in this room."

"Very well, then," she said, her entire demeanor changing. She reached up, and pulled off an unseen domino mask. An ID mask. The appearance of a human with the head of Phyllis Diller and the body of Ed Asner vanished, replaced with the smaller, and moee familiar form of an octogenarian, anthropomorphized Tasmanian devil in a dark cloak. "You won't allow an old woman her fun."

"Fun?" Cloak said, tone suddenly caustic again. "You use the people, you poison their minds to obtain that which youd desire! You care nothing nfor them, or the people they hurt!"

"Well, duh," Malice said, flippantly, "that's kind of my whole shtick for this scheme. I admit, I had forgotten about this orphanage cult scam until recently. But Dwellers are so incredibly stupid. You just spin them some story about some messiah, and they don't even bother questioning it, believing it wholecloth."

"You don't give them a choice," Cloak said.

"So what?" Malice said, airily dismissing the criticism. " What does it matter to me if they do not want to follow my edicts? The foolishly, blindly loyal ones will put them in their place for me, so I needn't soil my hands with any disciplinary measures -- unless it's going to be really enjoyable. It's so easy -- all you need to do is sprinkle some empty platitudes, some misleading hocus pocus, some insincere rhetoric that they 'feel' is genuine despite the vagueness. They interpret what they want to interpret, and they either fear me, as I will harm them -- slowly -- if they get out of line, or they revere me as a goddess, which means they will be unflinchingly loyal -- which is why I give them horrible facsimiles of names, as I force them to cast aside all that I don't give them myself."

"You're a monster," Cloak said.

"True. What's your point?" Malice said, with that condescending, dismissive tone. Then she mocked him further with an overacting, theatrical gasp, "Oh, no -- you're not gonna kill me, are you?"

 She assumed that Cloak wouldn't, and that he wouldn't have a reason not to. She was wrong.

"That would be too easy," Cloak replied, considering his next words.

"That's it?" Malice said, with a malicious cackle. "If it was so easy, then why haven't you done it yet? Because of some sanctimonious morality, perhaps? Or maybe it's righteous ineptitude?"

"It would be too easy on you," Cloak clarified. "You would no longer be able to be held responsible and accountable for heinous acts against the people of this Realm, of this world. In death, you'd get off scott-free. No. You're going to be held accountable."

"You sound like those Council stooges," Malice sneered. "We all know how that turned out. They sentenced me to the Gate, and I eventually escaped, like many others. And you just want to repeat that?"

"They believe you to be dead, remember," Cloak interjected. "Showing up with you in chains will prove that they were wrong, and they will be forced to admit that their assessment was wrong."

Malice laughed, "You think that would be enough to convince them? You are such a naive child. They have already assumed that they know what happened, and nothing -- you hear me, child? -- NOTHING will dissuade them from that conclusion."

"Perhaps not those Councillors," Cloak countered, as Faith, Merriment, and Shadow were getting to their feet, unnoticed by the two. "But they switch Councillors more often than this planet rotates on its axis. The new batch might be more receptive, since those other ones have probably been put out to pasture by now."

"But you assume that I won't resist," Malice said, reapplying the ID mask, projecting the form of ' Granny' over her, once more. "You forget that I have amassed an army of blindly loyal Dwellers who would die for me."

"Are they still blindly loyal to you?" Cloak said, his hand at his side, as if to check to see if a cellphone was vibrating in his pocket.

"Of course!" Malice snarled, with the voice of 'Granny'. "What the Veil makes you think otherwise?"

"Two words," Cloak said, with a toothy grin, before roaring them loudly enough for everyone two miles away to be able to hear, "RAFians, ASSEMBLE!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2019, 05:31:36 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCVII (1,397): "Fire Power" -- The birth of Pyrotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
Assembled

Cloak did not have to turn around to know that they were all there, filling up the wide, dimly lit room. The only person who did not come in was Dino -- as the doorway was too small and narrow to accommodate her, even in her compact form. So consented to stand guard outside -- after all, whoever would mess with a full-grown ankylotyrannus unless they had a very pervasive deathwish?

Cloak also heard Saffa smack GH, and say, "GH, stop dabbing!"

"You revel in being alone, in not trusting others in anyway," Cloak said. "I must confess -- I was much the same way, believing that the only path I could walk would be one that must be travelled alone. But that path is a lonely, unwieldy path to tread so unwisely. Friend and allies make the burden of traversing through life, even one as long as our kind can live, much easier and much less stressful."

"You're not only a child, but a fool," Malice said, with scorn, seemingly unaware of the chains that were slowly and soundlessly starting to coil towards her. " Lesser beings are not useful at anything but being tools to higher beings, such as myself. Dwellers aren't meant for you to get attached to and bond with. They're nothing but insects to crush under your heel if they get out of line. Might makes right."

 "'Might makes . . . ', ugh," Cloak said, disgusted by this poor excuse, by this insufficient justification, for such crimes. "No, Malice, you have it wrong. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. To bear such powers, such as my own, you must remember to exercise them responsibly and without harm to others. But you don't care about anything but you own neck."

"Duh." Malice said, with indifference. "Your little pets may have gotten through my army somehow, but they are still loyal to me. They will even die at my merest suggestion!"

"Will they now?" Cloak said. "Even now that they know how you lied to them, how mistreated and mislead them? Even when they know what you really said about them, and just how little you care about their wellbeing?"

"They don't know any of that," Malice said, smugly, with a scoff, "and they will not believe anything you tell them. Dwellers are so easy to manipulate. The indoctrination was all-encompassing. They don't know any of that."

"Don't they?" Cloak said, suppressing a smile.

"No, they don't!" Malice exclaimed, actually annoyed.

"Boys?" Cloak prompted, finding it harder to suppress a smile.

"We managed to break through their security," Aquilai said, then addressing Malice directly, "a reverse Fibonacci number sequence interlaced with a Fibonacci word sequence? Please."

"We live streamed every word she said," Xeno piped up, "and sent it into every communication device and replaced every indoctrination video with what she just said."

Malice was clearly taken aback by this, and Cloak took this opportunity to try to chain her, but she managed to wiggle her way away and immediately Walked away. Cloak cursed a Realm Walker vulgarity that didn't translate into English, as he considered how he mishandled the whole situation.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 15, 2019, 09:40:59 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCVIII (1,398): "Earth Power" -- The birth of Geotyrannus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
Training Day

Cloak was still mulling over his obvious mishandling and misreading of the situation of the Orphanage -- some of its members were too entrenched to fully reassimilate with the populace again, though some did try (with varying levels of success), and others -- the ones who stuck around out of fear or against their will -- immediately abandoned the cult and did their absolute best to pretend as if it had never happened.

But Malice still got away. And it was Cloak's fault once again. All the deaths she would cause -- and has caused already -- were on him. His hands were not clean, and he knew it. Perhaps it was not fair for him to inherit Sage's main antagonist, but he hadn't a choice in this matter.

Meanwhile, while Cloak was grousing, he stood on a hill overlooking the training grounds of some prospective RAFians-to-be. Just by the look of them, Cloak highly doubted their chances as Esplin decided to crack down on the qualifiers to be a RAFian. (Three guess why he did that, and they're all Kane.)

The prospective candidates were Kerry "Dice" Cornelius Bennet, Bartemus "Barty" Marshall Donaldson, Otis Timothy Carey, Tatiana "Tiana" Venus DeMilo, Thomas "Tom" Daniel Coyne, Opal Deborah Plowman, Olaf Joshua Jones, Franklin "Frankie" Lee Rosenbaum, Theresa Andrea Jackson, Filbert Yancey Adynata, and Iggy Elenchus.

Iggy Elenchus (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elenchus#English) was, to be frank, an oblivious idiot. He always tended to miss the points offered to him, and he behaved in a rather obnoxious manner. He never shut up, he always had to have the last word, and he was ALWAYS late for everything. He never could tell when he was annoying someone or if his rhetoric was, frankly, offensive. No one was sure why he wanted to be a RAFian -- not even Iggy himself.

Teresa Jackson was meek, weak-willed, and easily manipulated. She blew on the wind ever since leaving high school (which was basically the last thing she ever really finished), showing poor judgement in -- unknowingly -- getting involved with pyramid scheme after pyramid scheme. She had these great aspirations, but never wanted to put in the work to get them. She just happened into wanting to be a RAFian, thinking it would be easy, no-risk, no-effort work. (Naturally, she was quite mistaken.)

Olaf Jones was power-hungry and sycophantic, willing to align himself with whichever side seems like the winner. He wouldn't hesitate to switch sides if circumstances were such that the other side got a considerable upperhand. He had no concept of loyalty. The only reason he wanted to be a RAFian was because they were the "biggest guy on the playground" and their PR was still relatively good at this time, but he would have no qualms about selling them out to their enemies if the opportunity arose.

Tom Coyne was exceptionally greedy. He was always out to make a buck, or profit off of something. As such, when he was younger, he hatched a number of get-rich schemes that could have filled various seasons on a Nickelodeon sitcom. He never did anything that he didn't see anything in it for him, or a way he could turn a profit from it. That's the reason he wanted to be a RAFian, to find a way to profit from it.

Otis Carey was very "by-the-book". He had an exceedingly hard time deviating from a set and established procedure, even when the situation at hand demands it. He was a very rigid and rule-oriented person, with no room for flexibility and improvisation. He wanted to be a RAFian purely for the structure he believed them to have.

Dice Bennet was incurably cowardly. He looked out to save his own skin, no matter who he had to sacrifice to do so. The reason that he wanted to be a RAFian was so he could have the "biggest men on campus", so to speak, protect him, despite him being willing to sell them out at moment's notice to save his skin.

Barty Donaldson was completely bloodthirsty and prone to outbursts of violence. He was easily drawn to the most combative and aggressive ways to do things. He had a severe tendency to escalate conflict unnecessarily, treat anyone (allies and foes alike) in an exceedingly hostile manner, and laugh at the misfortune of others. He just wanted to be a RAFian to satiate his bloodlust.

Tiana DeMilo was incredibly vain and self-focused. She had high standards, and she was very entitled in both her behavior and mannerisms. She didn't take rejection well, usually twisting it around to show her in either a better light or making her look like the victim -- no matter the absolute ludicrousness of her assertions were. She wanted to be a RAFian simply because she thought she was owed a Mark.

Opal Plowman was an intimidating bully. She loved to get into positions where she could throw her weight around. She loved to belittle people who she thought below her, and she loved to stir up drama where ever she could. She planned to do this as a RAFian, and was excited at the prospect of using this status in this objectionable manner.

Frankie Rosenbaum was a quiet, subtle manipulator. He was a conman, through and through. He was a small-scale conman, though, at the moment. He wanted more higher-scale marks, so he wanted to be a RAFian to get access to such marks, or so he believed.

Filbert Adynata was a complete defeatist and obligate pessimist. He never looked on the bright side, and always saw the bad side of every good thing. He had led a fairly privileged life to this point, until he met with momentary snag after momentary snag. Instead of perservering and overcoming these obstacles, he just gave up. He always looked for the easiest ways out of things, and was unwilling to do things that challenged him in even the remotest ways. He clearly didn't know what being a RAFian was like, and nor knew what he was in for, trying to join.

Esplin sang his usual introductory song:

<Let's get down to business, to defeat the Banned.
Did they send me lurkers, when we asked for RAFians?
You're the saddest bunch I ever met.>

Esplin got into Opal's face, after she screwed up a training exercise. He made his threat clear through the song.

<But you can bet before we're through.
Missy, I'll make a RAFian out of you.>

Then Esplin turned to the next set of exercises as he sang:

<Tranquil as a forest, but on fire within.
Once you find your center, you are sure to win!>

Disappointed with the lack of any positive progression in the group, he sang:

<You're a spineless, pale, pathetic lot,
And you haven't got a clue.
Somehow, I'll make a RAFian out of you.>

"I'm never gonna catch my breath!" Tiana huffed.

"Say goodbye to those who knew me!" Dice whined.

"Boy, was I a fool in school for cutting gym!" Olaf complained.

"Esplin's got 'em scared to death," Cloak noticed, almost amused.

"Now I really wish that I knew how to swim!" Otis lamented.

Then Esplin continued the training song:

<You must be swift as the coursing river.
With all the force of a great typhoon.
With all the strength of a raging fire.
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
Time is racing toward us till the Banned arrive.
Heed my every order and you might survive!>

But, in the end, Esplin had enough of them all. He sang, as he dismissed the entire lot of them:

<You're unsuited for the rage of war
So, pack up, go home, you're through.
How could I make a RAFian out of you?>

The whole lot of them were dumped outside RAF's gate -- dismissed, rejected, and turned away.

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TVcLIfSC4OE

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 20, 2019, 04:56:14 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCCCXCIX (1,399): "Contemelia's Suggestion" -- A willing sacrifice is made.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:
Blast You!

Cloak, deciding to get his mind off his mistake (and other shortcomings) decided to deal with a fiend running amok. It was in a combo of a condemned amusement park and disused movie studio. Cloak thought there were a lot of these sorts abandoned sites in this Realm. Was the economy bad or something? Or did some economic bubble burst that he didn't know about?

No matter. That wasn't any of his concern at the moment.

The main building structure was basically cavernous rooms and tight hallways. And the average-sized offices, which looked eeriely bare, but as if they were reluctant to remove any personal affects from these offices. Clear indication that the studio area went under, rather than abandoned and forgotten. Cloak couldn't tell if the very fetid air reeked of sadness or desperation. But everything had the natural deterioration of age on it.

But thing was that the fiend left a clear path of where it went. The footprints were fresh and the scent was fresh, as well. Cloak could easily track it, using all his feline abilities. He walked without a sound, listening and using his Earthsight. It wasn't long before he found where the fiend was -- and it was in an open-air area of the forgotten facility. One it appeared to have made open air itself. There was a blast and the fiend leaped into its nest.

The fiend was a slightly short, slender humanoid robot with white skin beneath orange and green armor. There was a green belt-like marking on its waist. The fiend also had a green hair-like structure consisting of six spikes that stuck out from the back of its head, giving it the appearance of a bomb explosion. In addition, this fiend had reddish brown knobs covering parts of its body armor. Two larger knobs are on its head and "attached" by a pseudo-metallic strip, which resemble headphones. The fiend wore a sinister smile, and had human-like eyes with light orange sclera and green irises. It was clearly volatile and short-tempered.

When it saw Cloak, it hopped around the room while slinging explosives everywhere in its attempt to destroy him. It alternated between lobbing several bombs in an arc while standing still and jumping high up to chuck bombs downward. Sometimes, it'd also jump around Cloak and hurl a bomb right at him. Occasionally, the fiend will use its power to spawn four floating bombs which gravitated towards Cloak, only to explode after a few seconds.

Cloak sent a stream of flame upwards, which then arced downward at a sharp forty-five degree angle. It hit the fiend, igniting whatever bomb it was holding, detonating it.

After a few times of this, the fiend began increasing the size of its bombs and giving them greater explosive force and payout, while its attack patterns become more erratic. And, yet, Cloak was unworried. Cloak was basically indulging with a feline habit of playing with their prey, without even realizing that he was.

He decided that there were enough games being played. And he finished the fiend with fire. He didn't want to go into detail about it. Then he left, as if this were the end of a Death Battle.

***

Demos called it a "burasutosapien". He claimed that he created it for entertainment purposes. GH was the first to call that screwed up.

***

Malice was stewing over her defeat, having this on in the background. She had lost her army, and nearly was captured. Fortunately, she managed to wiggle her way out of that situation, thanks to Sage's failure of a pupil's laughable idealistic nobility and misunderstanding of ethics. Granted, she had forgotten that she had even raised that army -- she was old, and that was her excuse.

She needed a new scheme, or her relevance would take an unnecessary hit.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 21, 2019, 03:31:02 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCD (1,400): "Get Off My Back" -- The RAFians must deal with an Eight Legs.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXVI:
REMNANT A.E.
CHAPTER ONE:
The Wire Sponge

Sakki was dispatched to the weather control center -- where they were, evidentally, researching the weather -- but not just how to predict it, but how to control and harness it. Sakki thought that that was an awful lot like mad science. But their endeavors clearly came up fruitless and futile, as the facility had been abandoned for some time -- whether because they lost funding, or because the project had gone bust, or some combinstion of the two, Sakki didn't know. Her briefing skimped over that part.

But the real reason why Sakki took this mission, was because she discovered recently that she could form the sound produced from her sonics into some sort of sonic constructs. She had hoped that the fiend would help her hone this newfound application to her sonics. She wasn't exactly sure if she could do it again, though.

Finding the fiend wasn't particularly difficult either. She just had to make her way through this mouldering, dilapidated facility. There was bound to be tetanus on just about every surface. All the steel surfaces bore some degree of rust damage. Surely it would cost more to let things get in this condition rather than renovating this facility into something knew? Bah, no matter. That wasn't any of her concern right now, as she came to a rather square room with metallic vines on the ceiling, which the fiend lowered itself down out of.

The fiend was slightly taller than the average man, and had a red, cucumber-like torso with two inset, human-like eyes with brown sclera and gray irises. It had crimson spiral, vine-like upper arms, blue elbows and wrists, purple lower arms, and black human-like hands. It had a golden flower atop its head. It had white thighs, blue rings around its knees, purple lower legs and pod-like feet. Two scarlet wires extended from its upper back ending in blood red, five-point, leaf-shaped blade with the part connecting it to the wires being green, which were the parts the fiend held. It was the left one of these with which it lowered itself into the room.

The fiend would utilize these blade-tipped tendrils like a whip and grappling hook. One of its attacks was to latch its chain-like tendril on to the ceiling and spit vine growing seeds in sakki's general direction while gradually pulling itseld up. These vines could be destroyed by two normal sonic whistles.

It will also spin his tendril in front of it as a form of defense (which Sakki would soon discover that her sonic constructs penetrated easily) and throw it horizontally (if it caught a far wall, it will pull itself in that direction). When its took enough of a beating, it would become enraged and electrified, causing lightning bolts to fall at random in the room for a brief moment. It was also seemingly invulnerable in this state. Sakki knew to wait and bide her time.

She used her sonic constructs to pummel the fiend, getting more adept at using them with each successful strike. The fiend wasn't too long for this world, and the final blow sliced it in two. It was done -- and Sakki just left.

***

Demos called it "waiya hetimarl". He wouldn't elaborate further.

**

Malice was worrying as she seemed to be out of ideas.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 22, 2019, 05:14:01 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDI (1,401): "A Yokai Grimoire" -- A powerful Grimoire is found by a foolish magician.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Baffling Exodus

Cloak had a sense of dread hovering over him for months. He couldn't tell anyone why, as he didn't know. The Truth Dreams were less helpful than usual. The words "Alahenena" and "Stinger" floated around as if a Digimon were Digivolving, against a black background. And an image . . .

It was a very aggressive looking thing. It had a small central fuselage with a pair of sharp fins on the back and another pair on the sides, and a pair of long arms coming up at an angle from the sides, then leveling off, and coming back down at a slight angle inward toward each other. For some reason, it reminded him of a Bug fighter, and he could not think as to why.

Then there was another image that a recent Truth Dream had shown to him. It was a massive structure of some kind, seemingly powered by a white dwarf star. But everything else about it was vague.

He knew it meant something, but he couldn't say what exactly. But "I had a bad dream" is hardly a reason to raise an alarm. Yet, his anxiety just would not abate. It wouldn't leave him alone, refusing to abate. He would later get verification of the validity of his anxiety. He didn't want to be right about this. He really didn't.

The validation came from what appeared to be a mass exodus from the planet from those with vehicles capable of space travel. Leaving humans (most, if not all, of which lacked vehicles that supported space travel -- and some human actually believed that space itself was a fictitious construct) on the planet. To which, the Knights were quick to try to take credit for this, claiming that their rhetoric was right and other such nonsense that intelligent people tend to ignore.

"Why are they leaving?" Parker asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Cloak said, disliking the sinking sensation he felt in his abdomen. "They're evacuating. Like rats from a sinking ship."

"But why?" Ash inquired.

Then something clicked. Cloak remembered an obscure species that he had forgotten. They were like Realm Walkers and Anodites, but Realm-bound. They were energy-based beings with some sort of corporeal tangibility. They were -- if Cloak's memory served -- bluish-black and existed in an insectoid caste system.

"The Drej (https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Drej)," Cloak said. "We need to evacuate people, if they had set their sights on Earth."

"We can handle them," Dino said, bracingly.

"They are planet destroyers," Cloak said, very serious.

"But we have you, Cloak. Anything they can do --" Helen began, but Cloak knew where it was going.

"I'm still one person," Cloak said, cutting her off. "And I have my limits. It's one thing to keep the planet rotating, this . . . this would be much harder."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 23, 2019, 04:53:35 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDII (1,402): "Know-It-All" -- The Know-It-All Compulsion was cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Entitled Evacuation

Cloak tried to organize an evacuation, not knowing how much time they would have until the Drej showed up. Cloak was panicking internally, as he did not know as much about the Drej as he would have liked. He didn't know their homeworld, or the specs of their spacecraft -- just that their technology was energy-based, just like the Drej themselves.

He had Broken cast an Undetectable Expansion Charm on the interior of Yarin's ship. But Broken said that that would not even be enough to evacuate the entire populace of upwards of six billion. They would not be able to save everyone, especially on such short notice. The charm could only expand the interior of his ship so much, especially with how tricky the charm is to begin with.

It wasn't lon before Yarin's ship was full up, and he had gone to the working class families first, believing that they had just as much right to be evacuated as anyone else. However, this sentiment was not true of everyone.

"I am sorry," Yarin said, holding out both his left hands, palm out placatingly, to stop a a formally-dressed man with close-clipped hair and a beard like Jafar, and a woman with bad makeup, hair so teased it looked as if she were trying to torture herself, a dress so saccharinely frilly it looked as if good taste itself had thrown up the dress, and an impatient, expectant demeanor. It was Brett S. Intitulare (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/entitle#English) and Karen Privilegia (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/privilegia#Latin). They were skeptics of this whole thing, until the first Drej ships came. Before then, they would write article after article smearing the RAFians for their "fearmongering" and, ironically, their "greed",when they were both part  the elite class who had advocated moving money from the working class into their own pockets. All the while, pretending that they were impartial, neutral, and objective while doing so. "We're full up."

"Surely," Karen said, with venomously honeyed tones. "you can make room for us?"

"Ma'am," Yarin said, trying to be polite, "I said that we're full."

"I don't believe you," she said, her sickly sweet smile vanishing from her face. "Let us onboard."

"Ma'am, we're full." Yarin said, firmly. He was annoyed because she was also shouting at him with her thoughts -- and her thoughts were full of some of the most unsavory and vulgar things imaginable.

"I don't believe you," she repeated, as if this emptied out Yarin's ship, "let us on. Now."

"Ma'am. Whether you believe me or not, the fact remains that we haven't any room for you or your companion." Yarin said, still trying to be polite.

"I don't believe you," Karen repeated once more, as Brett began to puffing up. "Let us board!"

"You heard her!" Brett roared, in a clear attempt to intimidate the Nyac. It didn't work. "Let us board!!"

"No." Yarin said, cooly. "As I've said before, there. Isn't. Room. Regardless of whether or not you believe me, we haven't room for any more passengers. That's not going to change."

"Then kick off one of those -- er, two of those peasants we saw boarding," he snarled. Yarin was again bombarded with the angry, hostile thoughts of the two. This was really starting to annoy Yarin, and he didn't have time for this entitlement.

"No." Yarin said, his tone cold and icy.

"Do you have any idea who we are? We could break you!" Karen screeched like a temperamental child.

Yarin narrowed all six of his eyes, and folded both sets of arms, as he spoke, "Yes, I know who you are."

All semblance of politeness was gone now, and the sky seemed to crackle with electricity, in convenient timing. Yarin was just about done with these two, and he was about to lay down the smackdown.

"I know that you were in denial about this incoming threat, and would gaslight whoever was foolish enough to pay you heed," Yarin began, and he didn't care if he sounded testy. "That is, until it became obvious to everyone that you two were both full of it. And now . . . now, when it comes to saving your lives, you're demanding that I kick two individuals off my ship -- two individuals who took the rightful steps to prepare -- to make room for two self-entitled, disingenuous individuals who think that they can just come here and bully me into compliance. That's not going to work. and you know it."

"Let us board!!!" both screamed.

"No." Yarin said, turning his back to them, boarding his ship. "Perhaps, if you survive, you will learn this lesson. But, given your record, I don't think that's likely. Anyway, we're done here."

And, with that, Yarin closed off and sealed his ship. Then he took off with his human cargo. He never had illusions about being able to save every human, and none of the elitist "upper crust" had been in that refugee cargo. Why? They were incredibly comfortable, and didn't want to leave if that didn't carry over (and it didn't, and wouldn't). They chose to ignore it, until they couldn't ignore it any longer. Only then it was far too late.

Even despite Cloak's efforts to stop the Drej mothership from destroying the planet.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 25, 2019, 04:21:28 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDIII (1,403): "Crossing Inbetween the Green" -- The Compulsion to Ignore Road Safety is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Clash of Wills

Cloak stood in the middle of the forum, eyes closed, breathing slow. He was waiting. He was waiting for . . . something. He didn't know what precisely, but he aligned himself against the direction the planet was rotating. He was waiting for the time to come, hoping Yarin could get as many people off-planet as he could. He knew that Yarin couldn't rescue everyone.

Not that everyone wanted to be saved. There were those that the elite gaslit to believing the Drej were a hoax, and couldn't be swayed from that. Others were convinced that it was a RAFian conspiracy to take their land, or something of that nature. Then there were those that just ignored the dangers, willingly and willfully. Then there were those miserable, dimwitted fools who thought space didn't even exist*. Those people were pretty much a lost cause at this point -- and you can't save people who don't want to be saved.

And there Cloak continued to wait. His anxiety was biting at him like a rabid chihuahua, and it irritated him. He was no stranger to waiting, and he could be patient, but, in this instance and in this circumstance, he was rather impatient.

He sensed it immediately when it happened. He could see it in his mind's eye. The Drej ship zooming up to the North Pole. Then firing their laser down upon it. But the laser wasn't designed to destroy Earth via pure brute power. It was like that rotational energy harnessing machine the ailurosapiens had . . . only they had no intention on harnessing anything.

Cloak felt the planetary rotation speed up ever so slightly. He opened his eyes and went into his Apex Tier immediately. He pushed back. It was easy at first, but it got harder when he had to take into account that he didn't want to slow the Earth's rotation too much. As with all things, there was a delicate balance that needed to maintained in order for life to function. Cloak understood this, and it made his task all the more difficult. As this wouldn't be about brute strength and raw power but precision and endurance.

At first, it was easy. Like trying to impede the path of a petulant toddler. But it didn't stay that way. It soon graduated into trying to stop an obstinate young brat from going somewhere, then an even more stubborn teenager. Then it further graduated into being like trying to push back a fit, strong adult. Doable, but requiring effort to accomplish. But, in addition to this, making sure the planetary rotation was stable, and that was a difficult task in and of itself.

Soon, the force was like a jalopy chugging forward. Then it was like a regular car. Then it quickly ramped up to being like stopping a friggin' bullet train. Yet, he still did his best to negate this effect on the planet. He lost track of time -- it had been hours, and he had to focus. Maybe the Drej would give up and go away.

No. No, that would be a foolish hope. They clearly saw the planet as a threat. a significant threat. And what do to percieved significant threats, militarily? There was no way they would give up, and their mothership wouldn't tire. Cloak, after many hours, would. He was not immune from exhaustion. Very few beings are immune to exhaustion, no matter how powerful they are.

"Parker," Cloak said, when the strain was finally getting to him, "Parker . . ."

"Yes, Cloak?"

"Activate Code Elysium," Cloak said. He was just at his limit of resisting this rotation-increasing beam. He was in Apex Tier, and he was at this for hours. Days? He didn't know.

Only when Parker affirmed that Code Elysium was activated, did Cloak permit himself to stop and collapse in exhaustion.

---

* Apparently, there are people who don't believe in the existence of space. Smh.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 28, 2019, 03:48:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDIV (1,404): "Nike, Part Deux" -- Competition Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Are You Kidding Me?

"It's time for a --"

"No." Cloak said, leaping over a window which was clearly intended to keep him separate from his gladiatorial battle to death -- that he had no say in, whatsoever. Cloak knew that it was due to the fourth wall awareness that Realm Walker have (just never often addressed, as he considered things beyond the fourth wall boring and unworthy to note), and he knew that there were other people and figures that did not have this awareness he did (and he knew of two who did, one who was too optimistic to see anything bad about what they're doing and another who just didn't care).

"Wait, what?" said the fat guy with the shotgun leg.

"How -- ?" said the guy with white hair, glasses, and a robotic left arm.

 "I said, no," Cloak said, firmly. "I'm not indulging either one of you in this battle."

"That's not how this --" the cybernetic arm guy said.

"I don't really care how you think that this is supposed to work," Cloak said. " I really don't."

"It's not really hurting anyone," said the hick with the beer gut. "They --"

"Not hurting anyone? You call this show --" Cloak said, before ending it with a sharp, frustrated sigh. "Why would expect anything less from people who think a hard light construct from an Oan ring is sufficient to stop an attack from a decisive Celestialsapien?"

The two tried to defend their position, but it just came across as babbling to Cloak, and he really had enough of these two. Them and their entire "research" team. He just Walked away in disgust, destroying the machine they used to pull people and figures from realities in the process. Yes, it was a petty thing for him to do, but he didn't care. He really didn't, and he was glad to wash his hands of them.

But, of course, none of this was real. It was just a dream as Cloak had had collapsed in exhaustion after Code Elysium was fully activated and in place. He had been sleeping ever since.

***

Earth was destroyed, and that happened fifteen years ago. And Cloak was asleep this entire time -- but it was just a year and a half to him, considering the significant differences in a Nexusian year and an Earth year. But still, this was a long time to be in a comatose, near-vegetative state.

The RAFians did what they could do to make him comfortable as they went about the day-to-day minutia of keeping up Code Avalon, making sure there was enough food to go around to the RAFians and the people Yarin managed to save -- it wasn't everyone, and, yes, there were those that died on the planet. But RAFian resources had their limits -- and some of the humans on-planet were grossly naive in believing space to be nonexistent, believing the Drej threat to be nonexistent, didn't want to disrupt their lives in any way, or just had a death wish. these were e ones that they could not save, even if they had more time and space available on Yarin's ship.

Code Elysium wasn't able to save the nearby city, either. But it wasn't designed too -- the paperwork had stalled in city hall for the "more pressing" issue of saving a statue meant to intimidate racial minorities from protesters. And, to be fair, most of these politicians dismissed the Drej threat as a hoax from a foreign, but Terran, nation. Merely talking to these people proved to be a frustrating task, and the RAFians' collective hands were tied by this red tape. And it came around to bite them when the world was destroyed, when they could have possibly been saved. But that was then.

Now the humans in the forum were the ones that had to wear disguises if they went outside -- as the Drej were evidently not satisfied with just destroying Earth. They wanted human beings to be completely wiped out. They weren't sure why they were seen as such a threat, especially as just a harmless fragment of a planetary crust only fit for a modest population. It was like a combination of the titular dome of an Andalite Dome ship and a ship from a Triceraton fleet. It had no engines, it was towed along by Estelore. It had essentially became her sole satellite, and she allowed it. She wished it didn't need to come to this, but she provided them with sunlight and warmth, as the star Sol had done once.

All seemed well. For the moment.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on May 31, 2019, 03:52:30 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDV (1,405): "How Rude!" -- The Rudeness Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Deepest Desire and Human Extinction

In the star-lit sky, Cloak was flying upon an energy disc with a female Realm Walker on a violet and indigo energy disc. Her form was obscured, but Cloak knew she was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes on. He sought to impress her, and so he sang, as he notice her sparkling eyes.

"I can show you the Realm.
Shining, shimmering splendid!
Tell me, my princess, now when did
You last let your heart decide?
I can open your eyes.
Take you wonder by wonder,
Over sideways and under,
On a energy disc ride.
A whole new Realm!
A new fantastic point of view.
No one to tell us no,
Or where to go,
Or say we're only dreaming."

She sang with full voice and passion:

"A whole new Realm!
A dazzling place I never knew.
But when I'm way up here,
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new Realm with you."

Cloak put in:

"Now I'm in a whole new Realm with you!"

His lady friend continued:

"Unbelievable sights.
Indescribable feeling!
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
Through an endless diamond sky!
A whole new Realm!"

Cloak removed her hands from her eyes gently, as he sang:

"Don't you dare close your eyes!"

She added:

"A hundred thousand things to see!"

Cloak advised:

"Hold your breath, it gets better."

She exclaimed:

"I'm like a shooting star!
I've come so far!
I can't go back to where I used to be!"

"A whole new Realm!"

"Every turn a surprise."

"With new horizons to pursue."

"Every moment, red-letter!"

Then they sang together:

"I'll chase them anywhere!
There's time to spare!
Let me share this whole new Realm with you.
A whole new Realm.
That's where we'll be.
A thrilling chase.
A wondrous place.
For you and me. . . ."

They communed with each other in the traditional Realm Walker way, which humans would have probably found cold and detached. Realm Walkers tended not to be a touchy-feely species, in that physical contact wasn't made as frequently as it was in matter-based species.

But, again, none of this was real. He was still in his fifteen-year(Dweller years) coma. And he was only semi-aware of it at this point.

***

Humans were seen as either delicacies or just otherwise ridiculed by other species. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) none of the Knights survived Earth's destruction.

Humans were forced to disguise themselves or risk being eaten or ridiculed. Survival often trumped pride, so the refugees always complied with this. This happened so much so over the years, that most species seemed to believe that humans had gone extinct. Not many species did -- some, like the Yeerks and Chapeausapiens, seemed to care, usually for their own selfish reasons. Some Galvans actually blamed themselves for Earth's destruction, many feeling as if they did not help them enough, despite the rampant xenophobia demonstrated in a few of the humans. Cerebrocrustaceans were quick to claim that they could have saved the planet, and they -- what it amounts to -- didn't want to help nor hurt the human beings. Transylians, like all species from the Anur system, saw all humans as hideous and monstrous-looking -- but the majority of them would agree that they didn't deserve this. And Galvans, Cerebrocrustaceans, and Transylians were pretty much the most intelligent species known.

The truth of RAF was a closely guarded secret. All the human RAFians were given ID masks which projected the images of different species over them. Even some non-human RAFians, who happened to look like a human, like Aquilai and Aila, opted for an ID mask -- citing that they didn't believe the Drej would split hairs on this issue.

No one, however, knew or understood why the Drej saw humans as a threat. No one knew why they believed that humans had to be exterminated, wiped from existance. But the fact was that they did. And this is what the human RAFians had to do to survive.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1Rb9hC4JY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 03, 2019, 04:54:20 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDV (1,405): "Hide Away" -- The Agoraphobia Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Mr. Cloaky and Tau 15

The semi-lucid dream turned towards the RAFians parading a thoroughly-embarrassed Cloak toward one of the higher-end areas of the Nexus. Or at least what appeared to be the Nexus. They sang.

"Make way for Mr. Cloaky!
Say hey! It's Mr. Cloaky!"

Then what appeared to be a fusion between GH and the Celestialsapien known as Anomaly appeared, flamboyantly singing:

"Hey! Clear the way in the old bazaar!
Hey you! Let us through!
It's a bright new star!
Oh, come on!
Be the first on your block to meet his eye!
Make way! Here he comes!
Ring bells! Bang the drums!
Are you gonna love this guy!"

It was the grand reveal of Cloaky, who looked rather uncomfortable at all the attention. He never did like being in the spotlight in this way. The GH/Anomaly fusion sang:

"Mr. Cloaky! Fabulous he!
Mr. Cloaky abroad!
Genuflect, show some respect!
Down on one knee!
Now, try your best to stay calm.
Brush up your Friday salaam.
The come and meet his spectacular menagerie!
Mr. Cloaky! Mighty is he!
Cloaky abroad!
Strong as ten regular men, definitely!
He faced the galloping hordes!
A hundred bad guys with swords!
Who sent those goons to their lords?
Why, Mr. Cloaky!
He's got seventy-five golden 'mons.
Purple Pokemon,
He's got fifty-three!
When it comes to exotic-type Pokemon.
Has he got a zoo?
I'm telling you, it's a world-class menagerie!
Mr. Cloaky! Handsome is he, Cloaky abroad!"

Then the ensemble of RAFians sang, sans the GH Anomaly:

"He's got ninety-five white shiny Pokemon.
And to view them he charges no fee!
We're just lousy with loyalty to Cloaky! Mr. Cloaky!"

Then the GH Anomaly sang with the ensemble:

"Mr. Cloaky!
Amorous he! Cloaky abroad!"

The the GH Anomaly sang solo:

"Heard your maiden was a sight lovely to see,
And that, good people, is why he got dolled up and dropped by."

Then the RAFian ensemble took over the singing:

"With sixty shinies, shinies galore,
With his shinies and more shinies,
A brass band and more!
His Pokemon that warble on key!
Make way for Mr. Cloaky!"

And it was at this point that Cloak had gained enough lucidity to know that he was dreaming. He remembered why he had been slumbering for so long, and wasn't surprised that it took so much out of him.

***

The remnant of humanity that the forum had become had managed to exist as a self-sustaining ecosystem for these fifteen years. They had enough food to survive -- but all plant-based food material. There wasn't the kind of space that having livestock would demand. But there was no denying that just eating pretty much an obligate vegetarian diet just wasn't suitable to some of the dwellers of this planet shard orbiting around a sentient star.

Estelore bore this responsibility with the grace and poise that one would expect from such a being. But she would be lying if she said that she didn't miss the exploration of the vast universe. But she bore this responsibility, and, heaven help her, she was not going to fail that responsibility.

But, as such, they would send small teams out at resupply relays and stations. Any humans on such missions were required to wear a disguise, making them not appear human in any real discernable manner. This is what they did when they cam to Tau 15, which was, principally a salvage yard and a scrap yard. The RAFians quickly organized a bartering team to see what the locals had. They could only afford to send two RAFians in, as Tau 15 itself was a small place and sending in a bartering team any larger might have arisen unwanted attention, especially because the Drej were still out there and their heavy hitters were incapacitated in some way.

It was just supposed to be a simple stop.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aEryAoLfnAA

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 06, 2019, 04:58:04 AM

Remember this book is noncanon. And sorry for the briefness of this chapter.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDVI (1,406): "Forty or So Thieves" -- The Thieving Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Tenuous Tensions

Leatherhead and GH were the ones selected to go. Leatherhead was approximately twenty-one-years-old at this point, and knew very well that GH was not his biological father, but his adoptive one (and one that he chose as a relatively young child). There was still the father-son dynamic there, though Leatherhead called GH "Dad" instead of "Daddy", naturally. Meanwhile, GH was in his mid-forties -- a subject that he was rather sensitive about (or a subject he pretended to be so sensitive about "just for the lolz"). But, as GH was human, he was required to wear an ID mask to disguise himself, and this fact.

He wanted it to project a cool image over him, like a bat or an owl or some crazy imaginative creation of his. What he actually got did not thrill him at all. It irritated him greatly, as it felt like someone was having a laugh at his expense. It gave him the appearance of a gerbil-like species (https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Hämsterviel) with a tortoiseshell fur pattern and green eyes. It made him appear much smaller than he actually was, and he was incredibly annoyed by Leatherhead's stifled snickers. And there wasn't time to change it to something more impressive.

On Tau 15, they saw scary Gaoul, amphibian-like Grepoans, fruit bat-like Akrennians, kangaroo-like Sogowans, a female Chimera Sui Generis, a Tetramand, a Lepidopterran,
a Pisccis Volann, a couple of Galvanic Mechamorphs, an unknown blue lizard-like species, an unknown slug-like species that can, evidently discharge electricity through its eyes, and a large, nightmarish species. No one even noticed the two, nor their Marks. The Marks had become the thing only espoused by conspiracy theorists at this point, and this was a misunderstanding that the RAFians allowed to propagate and flourish. If they dismissed their existence at large, it would severely reduce the people that may come looking for them.

They were here for the odd ends and things, but mostly for information. And these alien species seemed to be very tight-lipped about everything, and GH knew that if they pushed them too far they would become suspicious, and their threshold for "too far" was actually very shallow. Both new they had to be cautious and choose their words carefully. Some of these ornery sorts wouldn't hesitate to sell them out to the Drej if they found out who and what they were. It was a fine line to straddle.

It was missions like this that made GH miss Earth. Where he didn't have to don a disguise that altered his appearance. Where a simple pseudonym was a sufficient disguise. He never said this aloud, because he knew that this was precisely what Leatherhead had to do. Granted, he was young, and considered his human disguise nothing but a playsuit, and he didn't realize the implications until he was much older. It was fair to him, and it wasn't fair to Leatherhead. But survival often trumps fairness.

The aliens working on Tau 15 weren't particularly friendly towards them, attributing this to their proclivity to disliking off-site people poking around. GH and Leatherhead knew this wasn't going to be easy, but they weren't prepared for just how ornery these aliens could be towards those they considered tourists and other, more colorful terminology. Wheedling information out of them would prove a monumental task, and one that GH wasn't too sure that they were up to.

GH and Leatherhead could play their instruments and use their music to cause these aliens to loosen up and be more open with their intel. But GH doubted that it would make it any better, as they may take it in a very hostile manner. These individuals didn't really seem like they would truly appreciate music of any sort.

The inhabitants here already seemed leery and wary of them. Almost as if they knew who and what they really were.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 08, 2019, 05:06:17 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDVII (1,407): "Smothering" -- The Overprotective Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Outted

The two moved along cautiously, trying to give that humongous, nightmarish alien a wide berth. This creature was a stocky alien with tentacles for arms, four legs, and a large mouth. It had six pink eyes arranged haphazardly on its head. Its body was colored a pale purple and dark blue. It had three grey toes on each leg. GH hadn't any idea what this creature's species was called (he doubted that it was called "nightmarish creature") or if it was suffering from some form of gigantism, all he knew was that it was large, usually hungry, and very ornery.

"Mind your step, LH," GH muttered to his adoptive son. "We don't want the big lummox over there to think we're tasty snacks."

But, of course, this advice came a little too late and Leatherhead was just a little too complacent and ****y. The creature lashed out with its large tongue, ensnaring Leatherhead in it. It was torturously slow to withdraw its tongue into its gaping maw with its uneven, irregularly shaped and variable sized teeth. Some were square shaped and flat while others were rhombus-like. I looked like it would seriously hurt to be crushed or impaled by them. Leatherhead's crocodilian skin wouldn't be tough enough to stand up to that kind of punishement.

"Dad!" Leatherhead managed to choke out.

"NOT MY SON, YOU ****!!" GH roared, his paternal instinct pretty much shutting off his fear and caution. GH launched himself at the beast, his guitar in its axe form, only to be knocked away. This strike caused him to lose grip on his guitar axe, and the two were seperated, and Leatherhead was unable to transform his keytar into its halbried form, and, even if he could, it wouldn't be any use, pinioned to his side. And his bite strength was useless, as he couldn't angle his jaws in a way to do any damage, real or otherwise.

GH's anger, his love for his adoptive son, his unwillingness to allow him to be eaten, to allow him to die, his fear of failing Leatherhead, of him dying, and his hope that he will save his son -- it triggered something deep inside him. As GH stood up again, he was surrounded by a fiery aura. Musical notes, musical bars, and other musical iconography began to float around him, and powerful music began to play and intensified, perfectly harmonizing with his emotions. They were a mixture or reds, yellows, greens, blues, and violets.

However, this broke his disguise, and his ID mask fell from his face, deactivated by the power, but not broken. He picked it up, and attached it to his belt. The nightmarish alien was distracted by this, forgetting its hunger.

"Do you know who I am, monster?" GH said, apoplectic with rage. He was clearly human now, but his voice harmonized with the blaring epic music. Then he snapped his head up, and glared with angry eyes. "Do you?!"

The beast said nothing, and GH wasn't sure that it could even speak. But he didn't really care, and the RAFian (whose Mark became more prominent with this form) stood tall, his body coursing with his symphokinetic power. The music blaring, attracting unwanted attention that GH seemingly was oblivious to, was perfectly emblematic of the RAFian guitarist's mood.

"I'm the Musician Supreme, ****," GH said, as the music swelled up after these words, as if this was an epic scene in some blockbuster, three-hour-long movie. He held his right hand out calling out and summoning his guitar axe back to hand, as if it were a keyblade.

Then he charged the beast, striking with a fury and fervor of any other warrior. Leatherhead was freed and helped out his adoptive father.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 13, 2019, 04:34:14 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDVIII (1,408): "Lumbering Slumber" -- The Sleep Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Drej Locks On

Neither one realized the implications of this until the consequences of their actions were already triggered into action. They didn't register at once that GH's disguise was broken, and he was standing there, undoubtingly and unmistakably, human. A species most others had assumed had expired in the Drej's attack (and subsequent destruction of said planet). GH presence here was glaring proof that some humans had survived this -- which was a bit of a leap when some species, like Time Lords, looked indistinguishable externally from humans and some Arquillians still used their human exosuits to get around.

But, still, this was a problem. the Drej were still looking for humans -- they wanted to be thorough with their genocide. They clearly saw them as a threat still -- and no one was sure why. Nor were they sure why the Drej thought humanity survived as a species. It was a closely guarded (usually) RAFian secret of the small pocket of humanity that managed to survive (all dwelling within the forum, enough to form a small breeding population to continue to propagate the species in a healthy manner).

GH's Musician Supreme form dissipated with his fatherly anger as he and Leatherhead drove the nightmarish alien away. Then his reason and common sense caught up with him, and he quickly put his ID mask back on (which cast a different appearance over him, clearly having cycled through the options when reactivated again -- he looked like a skinless Utrom exosuit with the piloting Utrom in the stomach). He decided that he would pretend to be an Utrom -- despite not knowing too terribly much about them. It was a hasty move, to be sure, and one that wouldn't be very convincing to anyone watching.

And, quite unfortunately for the two, someone was watching. An insectoid species with four insect-like flat legs and two arms whose hands had three clawed fingers. They have four pedunculated eyes that had pupils. These eyes are linked directly to the sides of his head. His wings were very fragile with lines on them. It was a Lepidopterran, from the swamp planet of Lepidopterra. It was this creature that spied them, and immediately reported them to the Drej, hoping for a bountiful reward for such an assistance. A material bounty. A beneficial bounty.

This Lepidopterran were quick to point them out when the Drej drones arrived. They saw through GH's disguise and he realized this with trepidation, and summoned his guitar back to him, as if it was a Keyblade, and in guitar form. He was hinging his hopes on his music moving the drones into apathetic states, allowing them to escape.

"Hey!" the Lepidopterran demanded. "What about my reward?!"

The drones fired what appeared to be a narrow-beam laser, which struck the insectoid alien down. Struck him dead. The Drej were not sympathetic, empathetic, or remorseful of their actions. It was as if they did not know or understand the concept of sympathy, empathy, and remorse. These were drones in service of their queen, and knew nothing else and didn't retain enough intelligence, apart from what their mission necessitated.

To his credit, GH tried. He tried to play every genre of music he knew, musically appealing to every possible positive emotion he knew of. But the Drej were unaffected. They hadn't any emotion to appeal to, and the music meant nothing to them. Just sounds. Just distractions. Just noise. Even GH's Epic Riffs would not daunt the Drej drones, despite cracking the stone ground beth them.

"Leatherhead," GH said, now back in his Musician Supreme form holding his guitar in its axe form. But he held no illusions about it helping. The music iconography contained more yellows and blues, far less reds, now.

"I know, Dad," he replied. He held his keytar in its halbried.

The Drej approached the two, no swagger, no confidence. Just pure, mechanical strides. They were going to be the two's destruction, and the two knew it. And they couldn't do anything about it . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 14, 2019, 08:44:30 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDIX (1,409): "Malingering Hypochondriacs" -- The Malingering Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
He Had a Dream

GH and Leatherhead braced themselves. GH would later deny that he winced, but he did. The two heard the Drej firing their lasers and both were expecting to feel them knife through their bodies. They expected a painful death.

They never realized that someone wouldn't allow that if he could help it. That they had friends and they were being monitored, despite a sort of radio silence implemented. The RAFian veterans were aware of what was going on, and knew that the two were in trouble, and they were able to detect their Marks, to be able to follow their progression.

They were scrambling to send someone to help, but weren't very confident in getting there on time. Some of the more selfish and self-serving were advocating to just abandoning them and saving their own skin. This was met with an immediate downturn in popularity for those individuals, as Leatherhead and GH were greatly liked.

GH eked his eye open, having not feeling any of a lasers ripping through his body and was finding the wait of infinitesimal second after infinitesimal second to be torturous. What he saw surprised him, as he hadn't seen something like it in at least fifteen years.

"Dad, is that --?" Leatherhead said, some deep awe in his voice, as he looked at the golden-scarlet barrier.

"I take a quick nap, then you go and get yourselves in a sticky situation, eh, GH?" came a sardonic voice he hadn't heard for years.

"Cloak?" he asked.

"You expecting Ben 10?" Cloak said, with smirk.

The Drej lasers were still unable to bypass Cloak's barrier, but the drones continued to approach and engage. They had their mission, and were only allowed enough intelligence to complete it. However, this wasn't sufficient enough to get pass Cloak's barrier. So, they did the only thing their limited intelligence would allow.

They kept shooting the barrier. Cloak had anticipated this, though his knowledge of the Drej species was fuzzy in some aspects. He just knew as long as they had a functioning queen -- they were dangerous. And he deduced a huge weakness for them. He had a plan to ensure the Drej weren't a threat anymore -- although it was morally questionable and may require some persuasion and cunning that he simply may not have possessed.

"Leatherhead, your Mark," Cloak said, his levity abandoning him with astonishing swiftness. The young adult crocodilian humanoid did as the Realm Walker requested, and Cloak just touched it with just his index claw, and a star map appeared on his scaly hand. "As long as you have your Mark, you'll be able to access this starchart. Show it to Estelore -- she'll know the place."

"Starchart?" GH said, his humor failing him at this moment, too. "Cloak, how did you get a starchart?"

"From a Dream," Cloak said, looking at his barrier and the drones. His window to enact this little scheme of his was closing. Turning back to address the two, he said, "Look, I can't go into detail about it now. I have a plan. But you two need to return to the forum. Take the tunnel I used to get here. Yarin will be waiting to take to back -- he's fortunate that e Drej could never detect his ship."

"But --"

"No time, GH," Cloak pressed. "Should everything go according to plan, all will be made clear later. Now, please go. Go to those coordinates, enact Code New Haven. Go!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2019, 06:02:07 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDX (1,410): "Don't Wanna . . ." -- The Unmotivated Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
What Code New Haven

"Cloak said to activate Code Haven," Leatherhead when they got back to the forum. "He gave me a starchart to it."

"Let me have a look at it," said Estelore's avatar said. After a few minutes, she said, "Yeah, I know this place."

"What's wrong?" Leatherhead asked, immediately noticing her hesitant tone of voice.

"Those coordinates lead to an area of space that's fundamentally empty, except for monumental crystals of water."

"The Galvin, Galvanic Mechamorpohs, and Anodites have been working on something over there," Helen said, looking down at her Star Sapphire ring. "I've seen them building something, but they seemed to have been increasingly disheartened and seemed to have abandoned it."

All the Lantern Corps, except the Reds, Larfleeze, and the Sinestro Corps (due to the emotion they draw their power from) felt a responsibility for the Earth's destruction, and could only fight the Drej to a standstill. They had numbers, and tenacity. The Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet Lanterns had versatility and flexibility. And yet, neither could conquer the other. Just like the Drej could not attack Galvan Prime, Galvan B, Anodyne, Encephalonus IV, and Anur Transyl, as they could not oppose those four planets due to the intellectual prowess of the Galvan, Cerebrocrustraceans, and Transyvlians, the very nature of Galvanic Mechamorphs, and the power of the Anodites.

"How did Cloak know about this? He's been asleep for fifteen years." Dino asked.

"He said that he had a dream," GH said.

"He was asleep," Saffa said, "of course, he was dreaming."

"That's what he said," GH said.

Cloak had always pretty much held his Truth Dreams close to his chest, because most times they have never been as candid as this one was. Truth Dreams, by their very nature, tended towards being vague and enigmatic, frustratingly so.

"He also told us to go," Leatherhead said. "He made it sound as if we should go without him."

"He told us that we should leave once you guys were back," Abby said. "Made it sound as if he wasn't coming back. Said something about Code New Haven."

"He told us to enact that," GH said, "presumably with the starchart he locked within Leatherhead's Mark. Whatever this Code New Haven is -- you notice that's like the third Code we have?"

This was met with a couple minutes silence.

"Estelore?" Phoenix said.

"We're on our way there now," she announced.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: guitarhero01234 on June 15, 2019, 10:40:16 AM

If I'm not playing this on our entire space journey we're not friends anymore

https://youtu.be/hHOrpFeXUao

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 15, 2019, 07:01:32 PM

You asked for it. Literally.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXI (1,411): "Tattle Tales" -- The Tattletale Compulsion is cast.

New chapter. Sorry about the brevity.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
Inside the Hornets' Nest

Following the drones back to their ship unnoticed? That was the easy part.

Once he had snuck aboard their mothership, he noticed that his golden-scarlet corona clashed noticeably with their whole blue and black aesthetic. But his Cloak blocked it, so he could hide inside the shadows, unseen and unnoticed. But, still, this was the easy part.

He had kept his ears perked, in case he caught snatches of conversation. But the drones clearly weren't much into idle chatter. Each one knew their specific role in this greater whole, and knew nothing else more. They hadn't any autonomy from their queen, not unlike Terran ants or termites (both functionally extinct at this point). the very concept of self was foreign to them, and these drones never had a thought in their heads at wasn't either given to them directly by the queen or allowed by the queen. Her control over her drones were undeniably strong, to the point the drones would (if ever allowed to garner sentience) ignore those that had no bearing on their current message.

But Cloak's plan wasn't scuppered. If there were idle conversations, that might have provided interesting intel or motivations, but the drones were just not conversationalists or free-thinkers. Cloak could understand why the Drej queen would deny them the ability to think freely. If they were to think freely, they would invariably start to think for themselves. And once they started thinking for themselves, they would inevitably start questioning things, including the Drej queen's commands and demands. This would lead to rebellion and challenging the queen and her authority. Hence why she (assuming the Drej even have anything like genders) would not allow her drones anymore intelligence or sentience than immediately necessary, and immediately revoking it when it is no longer necessitated.

Cloak continued to sneak around the mothership as if he were Batman, unnoticed and ignored. He couldn't really neglect just how the blues and blacks contrasted his corona of gold and scarlet. Had he not his cloak (other than his corona basically eating away at reality itself), he would stick out like a sore thumb. So far, it seemed as if the Elements Master hadn't any plan of any sort.

You never think these things through! Wheeza had once told him.

But he had thought this through. It may not have appeared on the outside, but he did. Only . . . he found the layout of this mothership discordant and nonsensical. He knew that the Drej had a massive weakness, and all he had to do is take that weakness out. But his Earthsight and Metalsight were of no use here. There was no real way to find this weakness . . .

Unless . . .

"Whoops," Cloak said aloud, when a couple drones spied him and moved to accost him, and assault his person.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 18, 2019, 08:24:51 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXII (1,412): "Hubris" -- The Hubris Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Audience With the Queen

They didn't attack him, as Cloak had hoped. Though granted, he would admit, he took a big gamble by allowing himself to get caught.

There was still no guarantee that he would be taken to where he wanted to go, instead of being left to rot in a brig of some sort. (He wouldn't, he would just have to adapt his plan to accommodate this snafu, if it happened.) He was bound in the blue and black energy, but he wasn't too concerned by it, but was pretending as if the binding were painful and tight. He had to play the part well. The queen had to believe that she (assuming genders were a thing amongst the Drej) held all the cards, and had power over Cloak. He had to make her overconfident, as overconfidence often breeds costly mistakes, and complacent, as complacency often breeds one to be ill-prepared for any upset, that when things doesn't go according to plan.

He had to play this carefully, as any misstep on his part could cause suspicion on the part of their queen. And suspicion could ruin everything before its time. Cloak realized the possible consequences of this plan, and he had accepted the possible ramifications. He had already committed to this plan and to eliminate the threat of the Drej. It was a rather ruthless and callous plan, he knew and recognized that about it. He acknowledged it.

But, in his mind, it had to be done. And the plan was no more callous and ruthless than the Drej themselves. Did that justify the plan morally? Perhaps not. Perhaps nothing could justify what he was about to do.

"Are you the one?" Cloak kept his head down, knowing that it was the Drej Queen who spoke. Their language would be incomprehensible and unpronounceable to humans, not unlike a few words in the the Realm Walker language. He kept his silence, trying to imply that he was roughed up a bit as the drones dragged him here. "Are you the humans' weapon?"

This took Cloak off guard. He hadn't expected this. Was he the reason that the Drej destroyed the Earth? Was it his mere presence that endangered the Earth? Was this . . . was all of this . . . his fault? Was he . . . was he indirectly responsible for so many deaths? An emotional weight was now on his back, but it erased any ethical questions that he had for what he was about to do. He would avenge those he killed indirectly and indirectly endangered.

But he still had to play this carefully, or the opportunity to take out the Drej weakness would never come. He had to be patient.

"Are you the weapon?" she asked again, more aggressively. "Are the energy weapon?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cloak said, affecting a physically hurt, weakened tone. He deftly showed his Mark ever so slightly, then hid it again.

"That's their mark," the queen said, as if she caught Cloak in the act. "You must be their weapon. A weapon powerful enough to threaten the Drej!"

Cloak said nothing, playing the part of someone cowed into submission, despite no bruises or injuries of the like to show for it.

"Pathetic," she said, completely buying into Cloak's facade hook, line, and sinker. This was notable, as Cloak was, admittingly, not the best actor in the world. "This was the thing that was supposed to threaten my great empire? This must be a prank by those brats (https://ben10.fandom.com/wiki/Anodite)."

"Still," she said, and Cloak struggled internally to still his tongue about asking her if she monlogued often. Those humans are a wily bunch - - there has to have been a reason why so many of these lower species held an interest in them and the rock that originated them. They somehow made you -- someone so much like us --"

Those last five words were very much the wrong thing to say. And she would come to regret uttering them.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 20, 2019, 05:23:59 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXIII (1,413): "Abject Refusal" -- The Request Refusal is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Uh . . . Now What?

"We're here?" GH said, inquisitive, looking a massive ball of steel with what appeared to be four large craters arranged somewhat like a molecule of methane. He absent-mindedly was strumming from a song he called "Space Truckin'", and Saffa stared daggers at him for it, but did not comment on it. All around were huge crystals of what many assumed to be water Estelore had trouble navigating around them, so several RAFians had approached inside Yarin's ship, which was a little beat-up at this point. "I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't . . . this?"

"Is this Code Safe Haven?" Saffa inquired. "It doesn't look like much."

"The craftsmanship is simply sublimes, though," Yarin said, being a secret connoisseur of such things.

"Is it a weapon of some sort?" Parker asked. "Like some sort of Death Star?"

"Should we board it?" Abby queried. "See what it can do?"

"It won't do anything, as of yet," said a new voice behind the five. All five whipped around to see a Realm Walker. It wasn't Cloak or Malice, not Shadow or Faith, not Mercy or Ursa. It was not Malice.

The Realm Walker stood, somewhat stooped with some sort of cane, at four-and-a-half feet tall, with a flat, naked tail that was roughly over a foot, foot-and-a-half long. He wore a green cloak, and his feet were webbed but his hands were not. He was a beaver-form Realm Walker, specifically reminiscent of a North American beaver. He even looked cute, despite clearly being an older Realm Walker, so the RAFians were too intimidated.

"Who are you?" Abby said, extremely cautious.

"How did you get on my ship?" Yarin demanded shrewdly.

"You're cautious," the new Realm Walker noted. "That's good. And understandable, considering what had happened to Earth. Turns out Cloak's fears were true, I suppose."

"You know Cloak?" Parker said at once.

"Of course, I know Cloak," he said, as if it was a silly notion that he didn't, "who do you think forged the tech in your armor?"

Then he examined Parker, or more specifically his armor.

"Huh. So you had it ripped out. One of those anti-Dweller fascists, perhaps?" he diagnosed. "Such a pity. I could give you it back, but I'd need time and resources to do so."

"You're Itemsmith?" Abby asked, astutely.

"Aye," he said.

"You built Code New Haven?" Saffa asked.

"I thought that Anodites and Galvins built it," GH pointed out.

"They helped," Itemsmith said, holding his cane in a way reminiscent of Scrooge McDuck. "And their help made all the difference, as it would have taken me years to make this by myself. I was just principally the architect and foreman of its construction. And it's nearly complete."

"Nearly done?" Yarin noticed.

"Yes," Itemsmith said, "it lacks sufficient fuel. I have yet to find a proper fuel source for it, sadly enough. When Cloak confided his fears in me a couple of years ago, I told him about this. We agreed to Code New Haven -- the Galvin and Anodite help was never contracted, but greatly appreciated."

He was speaking years in the Realm Walker context.

"Fuel for what?" Saffa asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 22, 2019, 03:59:51 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXIV (1,414): "Sweat and Blood" -- The Sweating Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Wrathful

"-- someone like us --" the Drej queen had said.

At this pronouncement, Cloak got angry. Really angry. Being compared to these genocidal, planet-destroying, homewrecking, holier-than-thou . . . he dropped his facade. The bindings they had on him evaporated away before the presence of his fiery corona, still contained by his eponymous cloak.

"Like you?" Cloak said, his voice quavered with his anger. "Like YOU?!"

Cloak stood, while the Drej queen stopped talking, looking on with actual trepidation. Her arrogance, complacency, and entitlement were still there, but stifled. She hadn't expected this, having believed Cloak's deception fully. She had underestimated him, as e Elements Master had wanted.

Cloak took great umbrage to the proclamation of being like the Drej. Probably because there was some truth in it -- he hadn't been genocidal, but his hands weren't clean of blood and ichor. And he was about kill all the Drej. He didn't destroy a planet, but he did decimate that ship overrun with the Xenomorphic Brood. And wasn't he guilty of being holier-than-thou on occasion? But like most people, he didn't like particularly like those qualities, even in himself.

Cloak snapped his head up, and his eyes were glowing golden-scarlet suns with identically-colored energy ribbons flowing out the side of the eye furthest from his nose, and they intertwined into a double helix pattern. He was in his Apex Tier of power. He was at his most powerful, and his most dangerous.

"I am NOTHING like you," Cloak growled, and there seemed to be some weird ethereal echo on his voice that he never noticed. Golden-scarlet energy began to pulsate around him, reflecting his emotions. Mostly his apoplectic anger. "You seem to believe that you're all powerful, Drej. Yet you have no idea the power I have."

Yeah, modesty wasn't one of Cloak's most prominent characteristics.

"And you seem to overestimate yourself," Cloak said, still in full-on Avatar State mode. "But I know your weakness."

"The Drej haven't any weaknesses," she said, with an almost admirable amount of utter contempt and a wethering, condescending attitude considering the sheer, palpable power the Realm Walker RAFian was displaying. And, yet, Cloak was restraining himself, trying not to give himself or to his anger. "We are not like the brats or the inferior matter creatures."

"And you sound like an Atasian (https://ben10.fandom.com/wiki/Highbreed)," Cloak said, not only matching her contempt, but exceeding it. He was still managing his fury, his apoplectic anger. His corona pulsed and throbbed as he tried to do so. "No species is without weakness. Such a thing is truly impossible."

"The Drej are the impossible," she said, equally furious, seeing cloak as nothing more than a brightly-glowing insect, despite his power being very palpable to all but the stubbornly arrogant. "We accomplish the impossible, and we enact the impossible. We are always in the right, and our actions beyond reproach by lesser minds."

"You have a weakness," Cloak said again, facial expression now set. He knew what he must do, and he was willing to do what needed to be done. And wasn't about to be pretty, but he was committed to it.

"Oh, really?" she said, voice dripping with condescending sarcasm, as Cloak extended his right arm forward. She was not intimidated by this, obstinate in her complacency, as she continued to talk down to a being who so obviously eclipsed her in terms of raw power. "Then, what, pray tell, is our weakness."

Cloak's answer was quick, succinct, and consisted of a single, three-letter word that made the Queen Drej's blood -- or whatever they had that was analogous to blood -- run cold. She didn't have time to react or bark an order to her drones. She didn't even have time to defend herself before she received the full payload of Cloak's attack. This left nothing of her, the energy composing her evaporating into nothingness.

Cloak's response to her condescending inquiry?

"You."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 24, 2019, 06:33:36 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXV (1,415): "Opulent Extravagance" -- The Extravagance Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
A Difficult Task

With the Queen gone, Cloak closed his eyes and he took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down. He managed to allow himself to ease out of his Apex Tier, and managed to allow his rage to cool. It was not something he would been able to do if he hadn't gone through that training with Aniyu. He would have had to wait for his anger to burn out, leaving him apathetic and feeling hollow afterwards.

He looked around, trying not to stoke his anger further, and he saw the drones slumped onto the floor. Alive but without purpose anymore. Cloak had assumed that one of the drones would have eventually become the new queen, but the thought occurred to him.

Perhaps there has only ever been one queen. The Drej were energy-based lifeforms. Despite what Cloak would claim to the contrary, they could have been like Realm Walkers, in that they evolved in a similar way, or they basically came into existence basically fully formed. That the queen was the only queen to ever exist.

And he killed her.

Something that seems to have been quite unprecedented, as the drones dropped to the floor, like a marionette whose strings have been cut. They didn't move, they didn't breathe, and Cloak was sure that they didn't even think anymore. They were essentially living vegetables. Cloak had fundamentally made all the drones brain dead, despite their bodies being functionally alive, by taking out the queen. They were all just useless dead weight now . . . Cloak couldn't really fathom how the Drej would come back from this.

He knew the queen was the main weakness of the entire Drej species, but he never guessed to what extent. Cloak wasn't particularly aggrieved with his actions, despite being well aware of the potential hypocrisy in them. He did what he had to -- and now, he wondered, as he attempted to pilot this ship (you never think these things through! -- Wheeza's voice echoed through his mind and heart) toward the coordinates of Code New Haven.

He knew that Itemsmith had already began construction on it before e Drej made their attack upon the Earth. He remembered that horribly vivid Truth Dream . . . he would always remember it . . . and e most jarring thing was just how matter-of-fact and succinct it was, with no vague subtlety or enigmatic riddles to solve. It just showed him everything that was to happen. He was just fortunate that Itemsmith is always up for some challenge presented to him, confident that he'd always find a solution of some sort from it.

If time had elapsed as he suspected, then Code New Haven should be near completion. It all hinged on whether Itemsmith could have contracted some help or not. the Truth Dream said that he would have, but there was really no way to truly verify that without going there. The two have been out of communication for a year and a half (in Realm Walker terms), and Cloak couldn't reach him during the urgency to get to GH and Leatherhead.

The dream also told him that Itemsmith would more than likely have difficulty finding an appropriate fuel source. Cloak took a look around, seeing the nonmoving, near-lifeless Drej drones who didn't even have a single thought to call their own anymore. The Drej were energy-based beings, and without their evil queen, they hadn't any will or desire of their own. They were barely functional, and in a permanent vegetative state. Cloak knew what to do, and knew if anyone else knew what he had wrought that he would be seen as ruthless and callous.

But he saw it as doing what needed to be done. But he wasn't so arrogant about that he didn't understand the implications or ramifications of what he had done. He doubted the others would have cared much, as the Drej destroyed their world as well. But his conscious was one that could not be silenced forever, and it would haunt him forevermore for what he he was about to do. Was it fair? Perhaps not, but it was it fair what he did to the whole of this ancient, and dangerous species?

He looked at his communator, an old beat-up thing. He was within range of communications with the RAFians, and, if the Truth Dream was believed, Itemsmith. He felt the Blessing of Destiny filling him up, but he wasn't sure that he wanted it or liked it anymore, despite how useful it was in the past.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 27, 2019, 06:50:20 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXVI (1,416): "Run, Run As Fast As You Can . . ." -- The Running Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
What Cloak Can and Can't Do

"Fuel for Code New Haven," Itemsmith said. "Was I vague in my explanation?"

"I meant what is the fuel meant to do for Code New Haven?" Saffa said, with a note of annoyance (which Itemsmith found amusing).

"Sumthin' spectacular," Itemsmith said, vaguely. It was almost as if he was deliberately not answering her question, and Saffa picked up on this at once. But she wasn't about to let this go, she wanted answers -- all this ambiguity left a lot to be desired.

"That's not answer," she said, to which Itemsmith smiled. She found this rather frustrating, and even more so that her frustration amused him.

"Oh, come now," he said, in a gentle chiding tone, like someone too eager to get into the Christmas presents. "You don't want to ruin the surprise now, do you?"

"Surprise?" Abby interjected, over Saffa's annoyed growl. "You don't even know where to get its fuel."

"Oh, Cloak just contacted me a few moments ago," he said, "that's how I knew you lot would be here. He said that he'll be bringing the fuel."

"And if he doesn't?" Parker asked.

Itemsmith shrugged, "I've learned that when Cloak says he'll do something, Veil or not, he'll do it, or die trying."

"That doesn't really fill me with too much confidence," Yarin said.

"Really?" Itemsmith said, sounding genuinely surprised. "Truth Dreamers are usually very good at such predictions."

"What's a Truth Dreamer?" Leatherhead asked.

***

There was a reason why Cloak never piloted any of the ships that he's been on. He was basically flailing about, trying to direct the Drej mothership to the appropriate coordinates. He found himself having a new respect for Yarin, as this was clearly one of the things he could not do. At least, not do well.

Remember me . . .

He found that the mothership moved like a drunken cow with a very bad stumble, and he wasn't too pleased nor enthused about it. He didn't know too much about what all these controls did, and there was no guidebook or anything.

Though I have to say goodbye . . .

And the fact that nothing was labelled clearly, if they were even labelled at all. Then again, he didn't know if the Drej could see as he and Realm Walkers did. But Cloak did make the ship move forward . . . like a shrunken geriatric driving a car. It wasn't exactly pleasing progress.

Remember me . . .

Cloak rushed to make the ship go faster -- at this rate the RAFians and Itemsmith would like be dead by the time he got there. He cursed aloud about it, wondering if Yarin would have had an easier time with this. The controls were different from his ship, from what Cloak remembered -- starkly different.

Don't let it make you cry . . .

But Yarin always seemed to have a proficiency for piloting ships -- although he couldn't remember him ever piloting any other except his own. At least, not without a scathing critique of the other ship. Cloak felt as if he was just flailing about with no real progress to speak off. It really shouldn't be this difficult, he felt.

For even if I'm far away, I hold you in my heart . . .

Cloak was starting to wonder if this was just a forgone conclusion. A challenge that was beyond him. He really hadn't thought this through, he acknowledged. But how was he to know that the Drej queen was metaphorically the entire brain of the entire species? He should have took that into consideration, though.

I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart . . .

The ship shuttered suddenly, and Cloak felt it immediately. He didn't know what happened -- did he hit some sort of space debris? Was someone attack this newly-derelict ship? He would be so screwed, as GH would put it, if he was under attack inside th ship. He could barely make the ship go forward, to a certain set of coordinates, much less activating the weapons. For all he knew, the weapons were tied to the Drej queen's life like just about everything on this Veiled ship is.

Remember me . . .

The ship shuttered once more, and, if it had any inerta dampeners onboard, they died with the Drej queen. But this was progress. Cloak could feel the speed picking up. But not by much -- but it was certainly better then the slowest crawl that he was at before. Now they were at a slow cruising speed -- but it still wasn't fast enough.

Though I have to travel far . . .

Unfortunately, Cloak couldn't remember what he did to speed up the ship. It was instrumental for his plan as well. Code New Haven needed fuel. And he had it right here.

Remember me . . .

And not only the ship, if it proved insufficient, he had an idea for one that should prove suitable and sufficient. And he knew that his friends would try to stop him if he went through with it -- another reason why he had to do this bit alone. Not to mention . . .

Each time you hear a sad guitar . . .

Not to mention that Truth Dream . . . it was rather uncharacteristicall y explicit, almost as if Destiny (he fought a chill going up his spine from the tip of his tail) was trying to communicate with him directly. This aspect alone was incredibly terrifying, and what he was meant to do was incredibly daunting. He wasn't afraid of what he had to do, but it was a lot.

Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be . . .

There -- that combination of switchs and buttons! That was how he would speed up this jalopy! He managed to make the ship go at a decent clip, ignoring minor hull damages. The ship needn't be pristine when he arrived at Code New Haven.

Until you're in my arms again . . .

He managed to imput the coordinates into the ship, and the ship, listing uncomfortably to the right, took the coordinates and planned out a path and automatically took the path. With Cloak urgingit along between sixteen and twenty times.

Remember me . . .

He contacted Itemsmith to get Code New Haven ready . . . to accept its fuel.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVU5Or4mS6c

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 28, 2019, 07:27:52 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXVII (1,417): "So Hungry . . ." -- The Hunger Compulsion was cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
What a Spectacle

"Well, boy, it . . ." Itemsmith began, before he noticed a ding. He pulled out a device that sort of resembled a smartphone, but with almost deliberate differences. "Hold onto that thought, boy. Cloak's bringing the fuel here. Alls I have to do is activate the Code New Haven. I shouldn't be too long, and it can be done remotely."

Then he seemed thoroughly engrossed in his smartphone-like device, it making odd clicking and clacking noses that a smartphone ought not make. Itemsmith was making various noises himself, speaking to himself in a low, murmuring way. He was so focused on what he was doing, it was almost as if he had forgotten completely about the RAFians, who were still standing there, nonplussed.

The RAFians were, admittingly, a little taken aback by this eccentric Realm Walker, who was apparently a friend of Cloak's. Just randomly showing up, out of the blue, and laying down a lot of information to parse through. And apparently because Cloak somehow was clairvoyant enough to see all this from the past.

"And that should be that," Itemsmith said, with a note of finality. "Code New Haven is primed to accept its new fuel source."

"Which is?" Saffa asked at once. She did not mean to sound so antagonistic, but she was feeling worn and stressed. GH wasn't really helping in that regard.

"Let's not ruin the surprise," Itemsmith said, with a smile. "It is promising to be quite the spectacle."

It was at this point the Drej mothership showed up, like a drunken barfly, unconcernedly bumping and crashing into the field of many ice crystals of gigantic size. It loomed towards them, and the first natural reaction of the RAFians was one of tension and fear. A discordant chord of voices were sounded, talking over each other so much that it was difficult to discern the owners.

"The Drej!"

"How'd they find us?!"

"What do we do?!"

"They're gonna kill us!!"

"We need to get away!"

"But they'll destroy the Code New Haven!"

"Relax," Itemsmith said, sharply. "The Drej are dead."

A beat of silence met these words.

"The ship is right there!" Parker insisted.

"But it isn't being piloted by the Drej," Itemsmith said, double checking his communications with Cloak, to be sure he didn't misinterpret something. "It's being piloted by Cloak."

Yarin, noticing the rather haphazardly way the ship is being driven, blinked all six of his eyes, and then said, "I'd believe it. The flight trajectory isn't as smooth as it would have been if the Drej were piloting it."

"Wait, where is the fuel?" GH asked. Then it clicked. "Oh . . ."

"Initiated," Itemsmith said, as a beam fired from Code New Haven. It met the hull of the Drej ship and began to deteriorate and eviscerate the ship. But it hit the ship at an angle. The ship would eventually yaw out of the way of the beam.

"Isn't Cloak on there?!" Abby shouted, concerned.

"No, he's behind it," Yarin said, showing the image of Cloak floating out in space. His cloak and color scheme white. "He has . . ."

Itemsmith and Saffa spoke at the same time.

"The Blessing."

"The Great Power."

But Itemsmith spoke softly, so none of the RAFians heard him, especially as what happened next. Cloak went through the movements as if he was going to fire a hadoken (https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Hadoken) or a kamehameha (https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Kamehameha), and he fired it, but it was pure white and not his usual golden-scarlet, but there was a double helix concussive blast wrapped around it where one side was gold and the other scarlet much in the same style of the Mario Finale (https://www.ssbwiki.com/Mario_Finale).

This pushed the ship fully into the path of the laser, destroying it (as it was consumed), and every Drej onboard. But it was sufficient to begin the process. Cloak floated down and was brought into Yarin's ship as the Great Power vanished from him, and he felt an exhaustion he would rather do without.

"What happens now?" Leather asked, quietly.

"Earth," Cloak said, sounding extremely weary, "gets remade."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on June 30, 2019, 04:38:13 AM

Reminder, is book was uncanon, but the next one will be.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXVIII (1,418): "Depressed and Oppressed" -- The Depression Compulsion was cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A New Home, a New Haven

"Wait, what?" GH said.

"Did you not guess what the 'new haven' part of Code New Haven was for?" Cloak said, wearily. He tended to get very blunt (moreso than usual) when he was tired. Though Cloak didn't say anything more, he expected GH to reference that New Haven was some band that Cloak had never heard of or wasn't of any real relevance to Cloak. But he didn't, and Cloak just gestured him to look at the exterior of the ship through one of the porthole windows.

After all, it wasn't just every day someone could see a planet being made. Even though this planet would still technically be artificial and manmade. It will still have earth, water, and atmosphere. There would be no moon (which meant the tide mechanics and such would be drastically different), and it would orbit a yellow star, one Estelore called "Sol (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sol#Latin) Novus (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/novus#Latin)". The planet would be habitable, and it would be so in a few hours to a few days. The planet, Novus Portus, New Haven, would be their new home, which, ironically, was built by the Drej in a way.

Naturally, the other RAFians watched this, mesmerized by it. And who could blame them? Who wouldn't be fascinated about the formation and coalescence of a planet? At least all the flat-earthers had perished in the destruction of Earth, and no one with a right mind could dispute that Novus Portus was round.

Due to some time paradox or something or other, what should have taken eons just took a short seven days. For Novus Portus to become habitable for human and animal life (Itemsmith and Galvans had used the RAFian database for this, although they were only able to get around 822 different species.

It was only a matter of time before all assembled on Yarin's ship came out and stood on the new planet, their new home. Earth remade. Only the air was crisper and more pleasurable. The sea spray was cleaner and untouched by pollution. Cloak could tell that all the elements, all six of them, were pure and untainted.

"Welp," GH said, unshouldering his guitar, "I guess this is a prime time as any other for another rendition of --"

"Oh-ho-ho-ho, no," Saffa said, staring daggers at the Musician Supreme.

"What?" GH said, trying to sound innocent, but his mischievous , impish smile gave away the game. Even Leatherhead looked a little annoyed.

"You've been playing that stupid song for fifteen years!" she snarled, still daggers into GH. "On loop!"

GH never lost that puckish grin as Saffa chased him down, berating him for playing that song so constantly and insistently. Leatherhead watched this while shaking his head. The other RAFians weren't paying any attention, as Estelore was lowering the forum into Novus Portus's new waters and Cloak was making the new land reach up to greet the old.

"Nice to see that somethings never change," Parker noted

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 03, 2019, 07:15:34 AM

Sorry for the delay, I got busy.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXIX (1,419): "Simplicity for Simplicity's Sake" -- The Simplicity compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXVII:
DRYIN' UP
CHAPTER ONE:
The Wheel Alligator

Cloak was dispatched to a dinosaur-themed tank, which was rolling down the city block, crushing cars (on both sides of the roads) beneath its treads. But Cloak could see that it was intended to be some covert military vehicle . . . that had a dinosaur theme. Yeah. Real subtle.

And you'd think for being some sort of militaristic tank, that the internal security would be top-notch. However, cloak found it rather lacking, being able to steal into the main body of the tank without any real effort or interference or resistance of any kind. Cloak could have allowed that to make him ****y, but he was always a weary, paranoid sort.

From the first time he stepped foot on the metallic shell of the tank, his Metalsight immediately showed him the room that the fiend was in, sloshing some liquid of some kind. He could have been really polite and gone through the doors and corridors without any fuss.

But Cloak didn't find that he felt so accommodating. He used his mastery over metal to pretty much make a beeline for the room, only noticing some disembodied arms that looked like they belonged to some D-list, dinosaur-themed supervillain. Huh. Guess this wasn't a military vehicle at all.

The room that contained the fiend was boxy and about waist or so deep in some rust-colored chemical with the consistency and viscosity of oil. And yet, in some spots, it was deceptively deeper. Cloak contented himself to, via his Metal !astery to clint to the side of the wall, and n touch the stuff -- for all he knew it could have stained his clothing. It wasn't long before the fiend surfaced in it.

The fiend looked like an alligator that was a biped with a haunched over posture and what appeared to be buzzsaws at its shoulders, where it possessed human like arms which ended in five fingers, including an opposable thumb. It possessed one red eye and one black eye. It was about a foot shorter, giver or take an inch, than Cloak.

The minute it and Cloak locked eyes, the fiend vanished beneath the rust-colored goop, which sloshed and splashed with the movements of the tank. Then, from under this goop, the fiend launched a sawblade at Cloak, appearing from where it submerged. It travelled through the surface of the goop and up the wall and ceiling. As there was only one, it was easy enough to avoid. The second time was more randomized, but the ease of avoiding it did not change. This appeared to be its standard attack.

Then it emerged again, standing still. Then it sent four bouncing buzzsaws at Cloak, and his managed to dodge them using his feline agility. They were not metal, more like hard light constructs, so he could not manipulate them in that manner.

Then the fiend just opened his crocodilian mouth and just waited, as if Cloak would start firing things at it. It was crystal clear what it was trying to do -- eat whatever projectile Cloak threw. Possibly gaining temporary invincibility or shooting four projectiles at him or something. Cloak did not fall for this ploy, and the fiend submerged once more. Cloak did not like it when it did that -- as his Metalsight could not detect it when it did, simply because he wasn't touching the ground.

Cloak leaped to the wall opposite, landing with feline grace, adhering to the wall with his Metal Mastery. This caused the fiend leaped up from this liquid and grab him with its jaws. It missed, and slunk back down into the liquid.

It resurfaced soon after. Then it jumped briefly into the air, then spun itself toward the wall Cloak was on. It ripped into the metal, leaving a jagged spike there. And it was at th point that Cloak was getting annoyed.

Cloak began to relentlessly lash at it with golden-scarlet energy whips. He wouldn't allow it to submerge again. It was long before it was gone. And then Cloak went to deal with the tank itself -- intending to crush it into a metal cube the size of a PokeBlock. . . .

***

Demos called it a "hoiru arigeitsu", or something to that effect.

***

Malice was near panicking, due to her perceived loss of relevance. She was desperately trying to come up with a scheme -- but she had spent most of her plans already, and she was having "writer's block" so to speak.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 05, 2019, 08:12:55 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXX (1,420): "Everything Must Go!" -- The Giving Compulsion is cast.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Escapism and Divide

Cloak was back in his room, the one he grew up in ever since he was nine-years-old. Only it seemed more cavernous, and prison-like, almost as if it was within the Oblivion Gate. The room was wide and spacious, yet confining and oppressive. It was almost as if he was at the bottom of a deep well.

He was actually a few years younger, feeling horribly about himself. Feeling as if he was trapped, without anyway out. That he'd be trapped there forevermore, with his mother serving as his jailor and not his mother. She never had a kind word from him ever since he stopped being a cute kid -- and even then they were few and far between. He was said upon his bed, legs pressed close to his chest, with his arms wrapped around them. His head was laid upon his knees, as he sang in a quiet murmur.

"I guess I have to face,
That in this awful place,
I shouldn't show a trace . . .
Of doubt."

He lifted his head, and his feline fur was stained with tears. This wasn't a home. Especially after Sage had passed on, his mother had become more . . . harsh. She no longer had to fear reprisals from her father, who Cloak was absolutely sure would not have approved of her abusive actions.

But he still felt trapped, with only one possible, socially unacceptable exit. And it was an exit he didn't want to take, but it was the only way he saw out of this prison. The only way to escape this pain, this deep emotional pain he felt deep within his heart and soul. He felt so trapped and helpless . . .

"But, pulled against the grain,
I feel a lot of pain,
That I would rather do . . .
Without."

This room seemed to grow darker and colder. The frigid darkness seemed to be reaching within and touching every part, every facet of his being. Chilling him to his core, but this cold caused a certain lethargy in all parts of him that he touched. It was becoming more and more difficult to see a point in it all. It was making it seem like living was nothing but pain . . .

"I'd rather be free-ee-ee, free-ee-ee, free . . .
I'd rather be free-ee-ee, free-ee-ee, free . . .
Free-ee-ee, free-ee-ee, free . . ."

Suddenly, the room became a dark void, with the spot where Cloak sat was silhoetted. as Cloak covered his face in his knees again, as he uttered the last two words.

"From there."

At this point, he awoke, and kicked his feet over the side of his wrought iron bed with its navy blue sheets and comforter. He ironed his face with his hands, disappointed and upset with himself. He was supposed to be over this. He was supposed to have put this stuff behind him. He was supposed to have moved on from this.

Why couldn't his dreams let it go?

***

"The games are god awful," said a boy, about thirteen or fourteen. He was extremely salty at some bombshell news revealed about a favorite gaming franchise of his. To say he was a bit hysterical about it, even about three weeks or so after this news came out.

"The games aren't done yet," said hiss friend, who looked slightly older but not by much. He also looked a bit irritated, as this was clearly a circular conversation that they have been through several times before within the last week. "They don't even hit shelves f another four months."

"That's no excuse, Michael," the other boy replied back, waspishly. He had whipped around to face his boy with a hostility that was wholly unnecessary. Michael just looked at him with a weariness that clearly said that this friendship was on the rocks. "They cut half of the monsters in the game!"

"You don't know it's half, Dexter," Michael said, with a patience that far exceeded most people. "The game is still being worked on."

"And you don't know that it isn't half. Or more!" Dexter spat, sounding slightly hysterical. Michael said nothing, but his patience was starting to wane.

"It's a game, Dexter, it's not the end of --" Michael said, sounding older than he was. This very circular conversation was aging him, he thought. Dexter hadn't listened to his friend (a very tenuous use of the word at the given moment), and plowed straight on with his angry tirade against the game developer.

"Who knows what they're going to take away next? Breeding your monsters? Their special abilities? The alternate colorings?" Dexter ranted, sounding rather hysterical.

"You're not going to even use any of your old ones in the story of the game, they're just going to sit on their farms and --" Michael pointed out, but, again, was ignored. He was starting to get tired of this.

"And the graphics are atrocious!" he continued. And Michael rolled his eyes, but Dexter didn't see. "Absolutely unacceptable!"

"The games don't come out for another four months," Michael repeated. He was tired of having to poke holes through Dexter's hysterical theatrics. It was the kind of thing that really old, really fast. But, of course, th point was ignored and cast aside, unaddressed and summarily dismissed. "Dude, calm down."

"Not to mention that this game isn't as groundbreaking as they promised it to be!" he said, garnering some harsh shushes from the other library patrons, but Dexter was not at all embarrassed by this.

"Dude. They may have moved to a new console, but they never promised for it to be groundbreaking -- you just chose to interpret it that way." Michael said, in an angry hiss. He had finally had enough. His patience had been tried too much, had been stretched too taut, to the breaking point. And it broke. "The graphics haven't been finalized yet, so they're a little lacking. So what? They'll look different upon release. And, yes, you won't have access to all the monsters. SO WHAT?! You don't even use all of them. And, besides, there's nearly a thousand of them in any case."

"They can just delay --" Dexter said, but this time Michael interrupted him.

"No! They can't just delay the games." Michael said, not caring  he was raising his voice. "The games' release coincides with the anime and TCG. And probably other time constraints and other obstacles that you're just not privy to. But, despite your hysterics, your theatrics, and your incessant whining, I am still going to enjoy these games. I will not allow you saltiness to ruin that."

"You can't get these games!" Dexter said, forcefully. But he was pretty much a twig and his scope of threatening others was rather narrow. "That will just validate them to make more bad games!"

Michael made a muffled scream of frustration, and stormed out after informing Dexter that they were no longer friends, leaving Dexter to stand there huffing and stewing in his anger, until he disappeared into the shelves.

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mFwR1kLlgpk

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 07, 2019, 04:57:10 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXI (1,421): "Grimoire No More" -- The Grimoire is destroyed.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Fuming and Infected

Dexter was idly looking at the spines of books, all with titles and no authors. "Macchiatos, Planets, and Other Alternatives to Necromancy", Popularity, My Butt, and Other Round Things, and "Cake, the End of the World, and Other Signs of the End of the World" were the only titles he read, but didn't take in the meaning of. He was just fuming so much, idly reading the names of the books around him in this dark corner of the library.

A thick book with a red spine and green lettering, "Boy Bands, Hate, and Other Skullduggeries".

He thought that Michael understood. He thought Michael was smarter than this. What they were doing with these games was completely unacceptable, and far too many people would buy the games. Which would do nothing big prove to them that they didn't need to make, in his view, quality games. His anger was now simmering, but still potent to flare up.

A thin blue volume with orange lettering, "Boys, Boyfriends, and Other Reasons No One Will Talk To Me".

He had been with the game franchise from the very beginning (or as early as he could have been, as the franchise was over twenty years old at this point) and they repay his franchise loyalty like this. They should have put all the monsters in the game. It was inexcusable not to. He would not have complained if it was just a little laggy (this was a lie -- he would have), and it should have taken advance of the full amount of allotted space. But they didn't, and they didn't because they were, in his view, lazy.

A moderate-sized yellow book with purple lettering, "Honor Roll, the Sun, and Other Loose Ends".

He was so busy fuming over this, he had never noticed the the squishy, wet thing that was descending toward his right ear on a single drip of slime. The creature was somewhere between a slug (like a Yeerk) and a nudibranch. Its body was a translucent blue, and completely slimy. And it was about the third of the size of a Yeerk. It was descending slowly, cautiously, and almost lovingly, towards his ear, and Dexter, still pouting, never moved. His mind solely on the, in his view, horrible decision of this game developer.

A tattered green book with red lettering, "Boy Bands, the End of the World, and Other Big Spheres".

He would never let it go (and never notice the soft squishing noises of the creature to  his immediate right, ever so stealthily approaching his ear). He never bothered to complete the monster index of the games, never giving more than five minutes towards the goal, but he considered cutting even one of them from the game completely unforgivable, and targeted the game's unfinished graphics as a way to justify his hatred  the games. He even took what they said out of context, parading around, acting as if he knew the inner workings of this developer's studio better than anyone else.

An old orange book with blue lettering, "Summertime, Tarot Cards, and Other Things That Are Better In Space".

He didn't realize just how entitled he sounded when talking about these things, how much he sounded as if he had a victim complex when he spoke to others about this subject. And he didn't really like how he felt that he was pretty much the only one who wouldn't condone this from the game developer. He felt that he had to stop (and harass) anyone from getting these games, resorting to childish name calling and berating obscenities when his impassioned arguing led lackadaisical, indifferent responses. This tactic was not a good one for dissuading people from purchasing the games, but Dexter did not seem that his growing hysteria and near-obsession with these games oftentimes wore on and annoyed those around him.

An ancient purple book with yellow lettering, "Cake and Other Signs of Vampirism".

A couple things then happened in quick succession, without giving Dexter the proper time to react. The creature quickly landed on his shoulder, and was inside his ear before he even realized that it was on his shoulder. It was now inside of him. But, unlike a Yeerk, it did not seize control of his body from the boy.

Dexter was confused and frightened, completely forgetting about the games that he was fuming about. He didn't even realize that he was now carrying a parasite of some sort. All he knew was that his mouth was incredibly dry and that he was getting progressively thirstier and thirstier. . . .

---

Book Titles (inadvertently thanks to Gazzy) --https://www.facebook.com/ForReadingAddicts/photos/a.153715111423931/2186932778102144/?type=3&theater

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 09, 2019, 05:31:47 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXII (1,422): "Dino's Crystals" -- Dino must protect some very special crystals.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Thirst . . . He Thirsts . . .

Dexter was perfectly unaware that he was carrying some sort of parasite. His thoughts were no longer about whining about a game, where he believed that he had more power than he did (spouting some hashtag and disliking trailer videos) to change the game to be more his liking. His attention was, instead, turned to how dry his mouth was. He coughed.

He needed something to drink. The library did not have anything remotely like a vending machine -- for obvious reasons -- and he was just so thirsty. He didn't know why this came so suddenly, he just knew that he was incredibly thirsty . . . he quickly left the dry, dusty library. He took long strides towards the convenience store across the street. He overtly fished out his pocket money as he finished crossing the street (which was easier said than done as the drivers apparently all needed a refresher course on driving, ASAP).

He saw the price was higher than he thought, and he mumbled about the ridiculousness of this perceived price hike -- he would have expected this in a hospital or an airport, but this was absurd. But he counted his pocket money as he coughed again -- his throat felt so dry now -- and found that he had just enough. Wonderful.

He looked at the selection as he put in the bill and coins in their appropriate slots and slits. He was subconsciously surprised when found that he didn't really care which brand or flavor of beverage it was. He found that he didn't even care if it was warm -- as long as it was wet. As long as it quenched this thirst, that seemed to be getting exponentially worse as he left the library and walked in the sun, which felt unnaturally warm November Saturday. He only sought to relieve this thirst.

He thought it would be easy. Just drink this fizzy drink, and have this thirst gone. How very wrong he was.

He downed the entire bottle in a single sitting, and tossed the empty container aside. He felt what he thought was relief from the thirst, as he went on his merry little way. But then, only mere seconds later, it was back in full force. It was at this point he felt some fear that graduated into general physical discomfort. His head began to ache and he began to feel rather fatigued.

Something was wrong . . . he needed something more to drink . . . but he hadn't any spare pocket money . . . but he was still thirsty, so very thirsty . . . he needed something to drink . . . but he hadn't any money. . . .

He was becoming desperate has he heaved a dry cough. He wasn't sweating, despite it being a fairly warm day, and it was November. It wasn't supposed to be this warm, was it? So thirsty . . . something was wrong . . . he needed something to drink . . . but he had no money . . . no water fountain . . .

He would have to do something that he normally wouldn't do, in his desperation to slake this incredible thirst he felt. He would have to resort to actions many would consider improper and illegal. But his mental stability and morality was steadily deteriorating, as was his physical health, due this thirst, which, in the span of a few hours, had become severe.

He had stolen drinks, unattended and unnoticed by their owners. It did nothing to satisfy this gnawing thirst. The thirst had replaced any appetite for food, and he tried to drink anything with a sufficient amount of water in it to satisfy this thirst. He was so desperate to be rid of it . . . so desperate to free from it . . . to be free . . .

He must have drank gallons of water-based liquids . . . and still the thirst would not cease. He didn't sweat, and there was no reason why he should be losing so much water. He didn't know any of this, he just knew at he so thirsty . . . so, so incredibly thirsty . . .

He didn't realize that he was slowly dehydrating . . . to death. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 10, 2019, 05:46:29 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXIII (1,423): "Throwing Shade Stars" -- Shinobi protects some special throwing stars.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Saffa's Day-Off

Saffa was sitting at a quaint little cafe in the city that she had recently become quite fond of. She appreciated both the decor and atmosphere, although some of the clientele were of questionable taste in Saffa's honest opinion. She was pretty sure she saw several Knight who were "undercover", in plain clothes -- yet did not hide the completely obnoxious swagger that they had that was not unlike Team Skull. She did nothing and said nothing, but took note of their appearance, in case they had an incident with Knights again.

Fortunately, no pseudo-covert Knights came in today. She could enjoy her fruit juice in peace. (The fruit juice was the best beverage the cafe offered, as far as she was concerned.) She was off-duty, and was intending to enjoy this Saturday. Sure, there was the odd obnoxious, whiny brat here and there, but they didn't bother her as she was on her phone, reading some memoirs.* It was very nice.

But she knew it couldn't last.

She was sat reasonably close to the counter, and could hear everything going on. She almost wished she hadn't sat here and had to hear what the large woman coming up to count, looking rather apoplectic and a plus-sized Phoebe Buffay. She carried the air of someone who angrily argue that the world is flat, pompously tout the benefits of essential oils, and aggressively assert that vaccines are poison. Saffa was not a fan of those people.

"You need to stop selling your fruit juices," she said, with an undeserved air of authority. She had no right to make such demands, but something in her head clearly made her think she was entitled to make such demands.

"Excuse me?" said the sixteen-year-old kid behind the counter. The joys of retail, right?

"You need to stop selling your fruit juices," she repeated, apparently unaware she hadn't any right to make such demands. "They all contain dangerous amounts of dihydrogen monoxide. You need to stop selling this poison!"

Saffa laughed aloud at this, but this essential oil purveyor ignored her, assuming she even noticed her.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry but --" the kid behind the counter started, trying his best to maintain his "retail smile". He was probably screaming inside at the stupidity of this woman, and her teased hair.

"No!" she shrieked, startling the boy. He clearly didn't think he wouldn't be putting up with something of this nature today. "No! You're going to stop selling this poison! Right now! Dihydrogen monoxide kills!"

"That's water, you idiot," Saffa said, before she could stop herself.

The woman turned toward Saffa, her rage finding a new target. All because Saffa had the audacity to talk back to her in something less then groveling subservience and abject compliance. Saffa wasn't remotely intimidated. She was a RAFian -- she had dealt with more intimidating things than this woman before breakfast.

"What. Did you. Say. To me?!" she demanded with an almost ursine roar.

"You heard me," Saffa said, almost placidly, pretending to go back to her phone. She knew this woman wouldn't allow her to truly do that, though. And Saffa was right, as this large, burly woman made a beeline for her and glared at her in a way that recalled those old cartoon renditions of jilted wives of men with wondering eyes. Saffa could tell that her clothes were tacky, by her tastes. A muumu-like, sunflower yellow dress with much too much frills, white wrist-length gloves, and a short-brimmed t in pink.

"How dare you take that tone with me, you ungrateful kid." she snarled.

Saffa didn't take the bait -- she knew the "ungrateful kid" was intended to get her mad. It failed miserably, because Saffa maintained her aloof, indifferent attitude. This seemed to infuriate this woman even more, that she didn't get a rise out of Saffa. It seemed to anger her more that Saffa was, in her view, disrespecting her.

"You disrespectful brat!" she snarled.

Saffa ignored her. This woman wasn't about to ruin her day off from her RAFian duties. That was a stressful enough job as it was already, and this woman couldn't intimidate her. So, she made to grab Saffa's phone, but didn't expect Saffa's prodigious reaction time.

Saffa quickly spun her phone on her palm and pocketed it before this entitled woman could reach further for it, and grabbed her drink, as she somersaulted over the woman. She finished the drink and and threw the plastic cup away. Then she calmly, almost languidly, left the cafe.

She was perfectly aware that this wasn't over. She was perfectly aware that the woman would follow her. The anti-vaxx, flat-earther woman was the type of person who could never admit fault or wrongdoing for their inordinate entitlement. She wasn't about to let this go, unless police got involved.

It wouldn't come to that, however.

---

* ;)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 11, 2019, 05:33:42 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXIV (1,424): "The Unholy Fusion" -- Four extremely dangerous species fuse together become a dangerous plague. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Bearing Witness

"GET BACK HERE!! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!!" she roared.

Saffa broken her momentary silence to her, and said, "Yes. Yes, you are."

She never broke her stride, as she spoke. And yet she could still hear the plus-sized barracuda coming after her, huffing with anger. Saffa had to hand it to her -- she was persistent. But persistence did not mean she was any less annoying.

"YOU GET BACK HERE!!!"

"No."

"GET BACK HERE!! GET BACK HERE, YOU --"

The woman uttered a racial slur, a horrendous and ugly slur that disparaged Indian women, and Saffa stopped at this. Her cool was now lost. She turned around slowly, and dangerously. Her anger had easily eclipsed this woman's fury fueled by entitlement.

"What," Saffa said, her fury palpable, "did you just call me?"

The woman, apparently oblivious to the power Saffa held, doubled down and said the slur again. She wore a smug look on her face, and when she saw Saffa's hands ball into fists. The woman clearly was unaware of how deeply offensive the term was, nor did she seem to care about anything but her need to take Saffa down a peg.

But, as Saffa thought about it, as she looked this pathetic woman in front of her, a woman who clearly believed anything she read online so readily. Someone who never looks at sources, or digs any deeper than the superficial surface depth. Looking at her with her flyaway hair, her lank and limp dress, her size-too-small gloves . . . Saffa recognized the woman for the pathetic mess that she was. In comparison to everything that Saffa's done and accomplished in her life . . . getting angry at this ignorant bigot wasn't worth losing her temper. Wasn't worth losing her cool over.

She was about to turn on her heel, and walk away, when something happened.

A moderately-sized humanoid tumbled between the two, looking like a desiccated corpse in a red, short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and white sneaker with black accents. It had wispy hair, and appeared to male. It was like the Cryptkeeper as a kid, and Saffa involuntarily recoiled at the sight of this creature, corpse, whatever the hell it was.

The woman showed disgust, but in the most obnoxious way possible. But Saffa stopped having any concern of her, when this vaguely human thing came along. It was little more than a moving, desiccated corpse. Saffa had a professional curiosity about it -- what caused this thing to happen? Was this a prank of some sort? Were they in the middle of a movie set? And other similiar questions floated around her head as she and the woman watched this shambling corpse keel over between them.

 "Thurrrrrr . . . steeeeeeeee . . ." came out the raspy voice from it, before it stopped moving at all. It was as if were an animatronic movie prop that was just turned off. Whatever this corpse was, whoever this corpse was, they were dead now. And if there was one positive thing about this, it made the anti-vaxxer woman leave her alone.

But, due to her tenor as a RAFian, ahe knew that this was not a prank -- this was something well within RAF's jurisdiction. And she immediately called the others (hoping Kane wasn't on communications monitoring duty), and gave them all the pertinent details. She seemed to not notice the creature abandoning the desiccated boy's right ear, and speeding off elsewhere, to parts unknown. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 12, 2019, 06:23:45 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXV (1,425): "Two Fall" -- Ysmalt and Aplexia falls to this Plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Discovering the Blight

"This . . . I think that this is outside our sphere of expertise," said a flummoxed police officer on the scene. He addressed Saffa in a civil manner -- which relieved her, as his partner spoke to her in a manner she percieved as being unnecessarily aggressive and hostile. "I think that this is a case for the RAFians."

"Don't worry," Saffa showed her Mark, that she had hidden, as if it were a police badge. The flummoxxed officer's partner sneered at this, and Saffa noticed this, but did not comment on this. No need to unnecessarily make a bigger deal out of something, and unnecessarily antagonize some loose cannon cop. Although she did wonder how he managed to keep his badge and gun, considering how . . . hostile he seemed to everyone around him. "My back-up should be here soon."

"I'm already here," Cloak said, his cloak swishing with his strides. The hostile officer immediately made himself scarce, under the pretense of collecting crime scene evidence. Cloak noticed, but, like Saffa, chose not to comment on it. Bigotry oftentimes crawls into any vocation, infesting it like ****roaches. "What's going on?"

Saffa gave him the lowdown.

"And you saw something leave the boy's body?" Cloak said, with professional interest. He turned away from the boy's devastated family, howling from the pain. It made Cloak feel not only bad, but a twinge of guilt for not finding whatever did this and ending this before it happened. Realistic? No, it wasn't , and he knew it perfectly well -- but hearing their howls of pain reminded him of his own when he heard Wheeza had gone . . . though she was lucky, it was in her sleep.

"Yes, it looked like a small Yeerk, but it was evidently quite mobile outside an aqueous environment." Saffa said, with a clinical tone.

"Sounds like a Khan worm (https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Khan_worm), or possibly a variant." Cloak said, matching her clinical tone. Cloak shot a look at where the remains of the desiccated boy was -- the fact that Dwellers leave more than their clothing behind when they pass on was still disturbing, and very much alien, to him. "And the victim was desiccated?"

"I believe so," Saffa said, "but we'll have to wait until the coroner's report to be certain."

"So we have an aquaphageous, endoparasitic, worm-like creature on the loose," Cloak said, in summation. "A creature that infests another, larger host creature and siphons all water, and water-based fluids from the host, presumably causing extreme and insatiable thirst. Clearly, it only leaves when every ounce of moisture has been extracted from its host."

"Any ideas as to what it was?"

 "One," Cloak said, "but it is a species without a name."

"What do we call it then?" Saffa queried, in a clipped, professional tone.

"I think calling it a 'Thirst Blight' would be sufficient."

***

The anti-vaxxer woman, Agnes  Athanor (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/athanor#English), had left that situation with that, in her view, rude upstart. She still believed that dihydrogen monoxide was a very dangerous chemical. She deeply believed that it was carcinogenic and was most certainly not water -- as well as not being accustomed
to having her beliefs challenged in any meaningful way. She, like many people, preferred to be in her own echo chamber, with her beliefs reinforced and, in her view, backed up.

Her apartment wasn't too much too look at, and she hadn't any children (which was fortunate, given her anti-vaxx beliefs), as her forceful and domineering personality wasn't seen as very attractive by the men she tried to court. But she would always tell herself excuses as to why they weren't interested. Believing them to be secretly gay was a chief one, regardless of whether it was true or not. And she would refuse to believe anything else that conflicted with this manufactured notion, as she refused to listen to logic and facts when the conflicted with her (factually wrong, and grossly misinformed) beliefs.

She believed the world was flat like a disc, all due to the pseudoscience behind it which, whether deliberately or innocently misunderstanding the fundamentals of a spherical Earth and gravity and other such forces, were all still incorrect. She believed whole cloth, and quite erroneously, that there is an Antarctic ice wall that government agencies conspire to keep hush-hush. She would claim that no one's provided adequate and substantial proof of a round Earth (just ignoring all the inconvenient data outright disproves this ridiculously archaic belief). Due to her forceful and domineering disposition, she would destroy any globe she saw. This tended to lend her into quite a bit of legal trouble, hence why she was living in a rundown apartment with no shortage of ****roaches and mice.

She believed vaccines were evil and wrong due to a post she saw online with a huge list of chemicals with long, difficult-to-pronounce names, and she just assumed that they were dangerous chemicals, believing that they were poison, without pausing to look up the individual components. This also how she came to find out that the cafe had drinks with high levels of dihydrogen monoxide (which was just water, but the post she read didn't say that, whether due to deliberate disinformation or because the author of the post didn't know themselves, it was up for debate). She believed the often-debunked notion that vaccines lead to autism, believed the erroneous theory of "vaccine overload", believed thimerosal hysterics, believed aluminum compounds cause autism (and Alzheimer's -- both were factually incorrect), and believed that a vaccine-derived measles virus was a real thing.

She thought by going to the cafe and demanding they take thise fruit juices off the menu, she was doing a noble thing that would give her, what she believed, deserved praise. Imagine her wrath when she found that she actually met resistance to her demands -- something she could never abide. She was very quick to anger, and quick to escalate situations until they're worse than before. But, in her mind, she's never wrong, her actions are never erroneous, her decisions are never mistaken.

And all she knew right now was that she was thirsty. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 15, 2019, 05:33:16 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXVI (1,426): "Sphere of Influence Grows" -- Okaara and an unknown planet (whose dominant species is a porcupine-like, humanoid species) fall to the Plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Questions of Quarantine

"The Thirst Blight is still on the loose," Saffa said.

"Right," Cloak said, looking around. He even tried to Earthsight -- but, even then, it would be negligible as the creature was so fast and lightweight. It was more than likely long gone from here. "I don't think the creature breeds easily or quickly, so that prevent a mass infestation."

"Chances are, though," Saffa pointed out, "that it found a new host."

"And then they should be easy to spot," Cloak said, "as they will likely experience extreme thirst."

"But that may not be evident for awhile," Saffa said, "if they don't refuse to indulge outright."

"Biological needs such as hunger and thirst tend to override will at most times," Cloak observed. "When pushed to extremes, desperation arises. When desperation arises, morality and subtlety tend to erode away. We will find out who is hosting the parasite, if it managed to find a host."

"But," Safra asked, asking the stickiest question of them all, "what if we can't save the person or persons infected by the Thirst Blight?"

Cloak didn't have an answer for this. And he only said, simply, if not a bit callous, "We'll just do what we can."

***

Ms. Athanor had began to feel quite thirsty. Her mouth was dry, unbearable so. She must have screamed herself hoarse at who she thought of as a stupid, insolent brat. Where was the respect for one's elders? True, she had done absolutely NOTHING to even earn a modicum of Saffa's respect, but Agnes was an entitled sort of person who expected it anyway.

Man, she was thirsty.

She kept thinking back to her interaction with Saffa and grousing about it. And, of course, in her mind, she was the victim in the whole matter. She was just trying to do, in her view, a service to her fellow man. She was completely oblivious to how rude and arrogant and uninformed she came off as. All because she was completely unable to admit when she was wrong or in the wrong. It was actually very childish of her, and she didn't recognize it as so.

She poured herself a glass of a beverage whose alcoholic content far outweighed its water content. It was like a rectified spirit, but more potent, with a higher alcohol content. And it didn't slake her thirst. But it immediately made her feel euphoric, and better, despite still being thirsty. She felt more confident and she had no more anxiety (not that she exhibited much to begin with). She was already flush and red in the face after a single glass. Her fine muscle coordination was clearly impaired already -- all after on drink.

All her thoughts of her interaction with Saffa were vanishing now as she poured another glass. Now, this was stupid on her part, considering the ridiculously high alcohol content. But she found herself either not knowing this (it wouldn't be a shock -- considering how many backwards, scientifically incorrect things believed already) or not really caring about the negative consequences or both.

After she downed this second glass of this unnamed beverage, she was still thirsty. And now she was feeling lethargic and less irritable. But, clearly to either her impaired judgement or complete lack of it to begin with, she poured out another glass. She clearly did not understand the risk she was undertaking by doing this. All she knew was that she was thirsty.

She emptied the bottle into the glass, and had another one at the ready. She would quench this thirst -- but the third glass did not do it. She felt a profound confusion at why she was still thirsty. Her speech was audibly slurred and she felt a dizziness. She probably would have vomited if she had something other than liquor in her stomach. It was odd that she didn't even vomit up the liquor.

She struggled to open the second bottle, but somehow managed it. She sloppily poured out another glass. She was so parched, so very parched. She downed the fourth glass and it was a wonder that she was still alive. She went into a stupor, phasing in and out of consciousness. She began to suffer from anterograde amnesia and she began to suffer from nonlethal hypoventilation, or nonlethal respiratory depression.

And, yet, her thirst persisted. So, she -- somehow -- managed to pour out another glass, even slopplier than before. She also somehow managed to swallow this last drink. She then passed out, causing the glass to smash upon the dirty hardwood floors. The bottle was knocked over as she went into severe, life-threatening hypoventilation. She was suffering from alcohol poisoning. Severe alochol poisoning.

And she was still thirsty.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 16, 2019, 04:54:25 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXVII (1,427): "More Fall" -- Qward and an unnamed planet (whose dominant species had terrifying faces) fall to the plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
What IS It?

It wasn't long before Agnes died of alcohol poisoning. The woman never had much good sense, and her judgement always tended toward the poorer end of the spectrum. But still, given all that, she did not deserve a fate like this.

The Thirst Blight, however, did not care. It had no capacity to care. It had no sapience or sentience of its own. Its mind was incredibly simple and functioned on simple instincts -- seek out hosts, drain them of all moisture (specifically water-based liquids), and then move on to the next one when that host runs dry. It cannot absorb moisture directly from the air or surrounding enivronment -- unless that environment is a host body. It cannot take control or speak through them, just suck them dry. This causes the host to experience extreme thirst, and even if they manage to find enough water or beverage that would satiate the Blight, it wouldn't be enough.

It was never enough. It would never be enough.

It was never troubled by the morality of what it did, as the concepts of right and wrong meant nothing to it. It did not need to burden itself with thinking of what-if or if-then, it did not have the mental capacity to even comprehend such concepts. It felt the thirst that it inflicted on its hosts, and it was the whole of its motivations -- if such a thing could have anything that could be considered a "motivation".

It would not abandon a host until every last bit of moisture was gone. It would not leave until its host was completely desiccated. It was very thorough, despite not having the cognitive capability to chose to procrastinate. Agnes was basically a mummified skeleton with raisin-like skin clinging to the bones.

It would not morn its victims. It would not dwell upon their little lives. It didn't have the brain-space for such matters as these. It hadn't any need of emotions or even thoughts beyond the simple "Moisture. Consume. Nourish. Begin search for moisture once more." This could mean that it was quite evil and callous in its actions, but it had not capacity to imagine such concepts as good or evil, and the perceptions of which. There wasn't any need, desire, or capacity for it to contemplate these lofty ideals.

I knew what it had to do, and it did it.

It had not concept of past, present, or future. If it was sat down in front of its own reflection, it would see it as nothing more than another Thirst Blight and its resounding indifference and obligate apathy would remain still. Yet there was some sort of rudimentary problem-solving capability it possessed. But this only extended to allowing it to bypass obstacles in its way of seeking its watery sustenance.

It took several more hours to suck out every last bit of moisture from Agnes's body, and, when it was done, it wiggled out of her ear without any sort of struggle and went off to find a new host -- only Agnes's apartment was locked and there was no other creature in the apartment large enough to host the Thirst Blight. But the simple creature did not know worry, did not know fear, did not know panic. All it knew was the basic impulses to survive.

And Agnes would be discovered sooner or later.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 17, 2019, 06:20:08 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXVIII (1,428): "An Epidemic" -- Oa, Galvan Prime, and Galvan B fall to the Plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Helplessness and Guilt

Cloak, with the help of his fellow RAFians, scoured the city and grounds nearby. Cloak felt a reluctance to allow any RAFian who was organic, as he wasn't entirely sure that the Mark would protect them from the Thirst Blight. Parker was fine due to his self-contained armor that he was constantly improving upon, and Cloak was moderately sure that Aquilai and Aila's Regeneration ability would protect them from the Thirst Blight.

But this was new territory -- Cloak didn't know too much about this Thirst Blight. He did not know the full list of its strengths, and thereby hadn't any real concept of its weaknesses. It was small enough to be parasitic to a human, described to be smallerthan a Yeerk, so squishing was a possible weakness, however unlikely, given its extremely rapid terrestrial mobility. Probability manipulation would have to play an effect in that happening. It was a weakness that they couldn't really bank on.

And there was no physical way to tell it had taken a host until the host was nearly sucked dry of moisture. Then they would have a very slim window to get it before it selected a new victim. And they only knew one victim.

Though it was possible that the woman that Saffa was having words with . . . but no one had a name, and she was clearly a hostile, unhinged personality. They could ask to view the cctv of the cafe . . . but that wouldn't provide them with a name or address. They had resources, but they didn't have the information in order to use those resources in the proper way.

Cloak hated how they couldn't be more proactive in this. Perhaps if there were more Thirst . . . no, he scolded himself, don't think that.

The last thing they needed was more of these little monsters infecting people. The last thing they would need is a Veiled plague of Thirst Blights. It would be an epidemic, a pandemic! And there would be little to nothing the RAFians could do to stop it. So he should be wishing that -- fortunately, Gene wasn't able to grant wishes anymore, and was happy with his life.

Cloak also felt personally responsible for this, as he didn't know as much about this creature as he felt that he should. Every death would be on his hands, he felt. And his hands were not clean already. If he knew as much as he should they would have been able to prevent anyone from dying unnecessarily. Anyone who died from this thing, whatever it truly was, would be squarely his fault. His failure.

His conscience was already weighed down -- perhaps he was being far too harsh on himself, perhaps he wasn't being harsh enough. He didn't know.

***

Agnes was fortunate in that her withered body was found relatively quickly. Or unfortunate, depending on how you looked at it. The Thirst Blight was unable to find a way out of the apartment, and was slowly starving as it couldn't absorb moisture directly and needed a host to obtain it for it. And Agnes lived alone, without any pets or relatives. And the rats and ****roaches were much too small for it to infest, too small for it to gain any moisture from.

But then the withered husk of Agnes was discovered by Officer Reilly D. Morris, the flummoxed cop that Cloak and Saffa briefly a few days. He was flanked by another tenant, who had called him, and the landlord (though he was more like a slumlord, due to the abundance of vermin like mice and roaches). It was a noise complaint, initially -- as a way to get the cops in the building and see the poor condition of the unit, but it quickly became a crime scene investigation.

This was a blessing for the Thirst Blight, as it would have probably expired it. It was fortunate that it was in a place where the slumlord was prone to landlord harassment, and was deliberate in his efforts to keep his tenants in the dark about their tenant rights. This is why this other tenant invented a noise complaint -- just to get the police into the building and see its poor condition. It was making a false report, which was a chargeable offense, but this discovery had wiped that from everyone's recollection.

And one of three suddenly felt quite thirsty. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 20, 2019, 04:55:43 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXIX (1,429): "A Pandemic" -- Odym and Kleptororr are overtaken by the Plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
It's Not Fair

Reilly was a rookie cop, still a little green, which seemed to really annoy his parter, Dirk Harrison. But most things seemed to annoy Dirk, and he wasn't above using his badge to throw his weight around, readily abusing his authority as a police officer. Reilly noticed this easily, and deeply disapproved of such behavior. Dirk always dismissed it as him being just a rookie, and that he'd know better once he had more years under his belt.

Reilly was always an idealistic sort of person, with a clear sense of right and wrong. While Dirk always disparaged the RAFians (he claimed that local law enforcement was very well equipped enough to deal with whatever the RAFians had deal with -- because he didn't know the sheer scale of the things that they dealt with or how their arsenal was ineffective against most of it), while Reilly, on the other hand, looked up to them. He saw them the same way a child looks to superheroes, with the same juvenile admiration. Dirk would sneer at this childish adulation, and admonish him for it.

Suffice it to say, Reilly didn't care for Dirk's company much. The guy was just too willing to use violence and intimidation to get his way. He liked to wield his authority as an officer of the law as a weapon, and would come up with bogus charges against anyone who he perceived as wronging him in the slightest manner. Reilly did not like this at all, but he hadn't any sort of authority over Dirk, and the elder police officer knew it.

Reilly had secret aspirations to become a RAFian, but when he considered it carefully, he came to the conclusion that he wasn't fit to be a RAFian, to do all the great good they could do. He hadn't any specialized skills or technology or magic. He wasn't really proficient in any sort of martial art or close combat (of course, police training would change this, but not to the degree he felt was necessary and sufficient to being a RAFian, and bearing their mark). He had no powers -- he was just a flatscan human. So, still wanting to do some good in the world, he opted for law enforcement. Not mention, his father lobbied him towards this path -- with no malicious intent, just wanting his son to have a well-paying job to be able to support himself.

And he just felt thirsty. Incredible thirsty.

He just couldn't manage to quench this thirst. He initially found this extremely odd, as his mouth was running drier and drier. But her had enough awareness and agency to recognize that this was not normal. He had drank what felt like a gallon of milk already, and, yet, his mouth was still dry and his thirst became worse, if that was even possible. He knew that this was not right, that something was quite wrong with him.

He remember that woman in that vermin-infested tenement . . . withered. Flesh dried like beef jerky. Skeletally thin. Glassy eyes, impossible to close. Hair wispy and dry. It was a haunting visage, one that he would never forget, one that was involuntarily burned into his memory. Then he immediately imagined that happened to him . . .

He had to get help. And he knew only one organization could help him . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 23, 2019, 06:03:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXX (1,430): "More Fall" -- Nok and Nemunimos IV fall to the Plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Desperation

Through feeling this extreme thirst, Reilly remained practical and level-headed. Which was not something most people, even some police officers, can manage to do in a similar situation. But he knew what he had to do. His colleagues wouldn't help him, despite him knowing something was deeply wrong. He was just "the idealistic rookie", after all. His parents would be concerned, but neither worked in the medical profession, not even tangentially. They wouldn't be able to help him.

There was only one place where he might be able to get some help. Just one place.

The problem was that he didn't know how to reach them. He didn't know where they were headquartered. He always assumed that it was a closely guarded secret, and that he wouldn't need to know where they were located anyway. He wasn't cut out to be a RAFian, in his view, so why would he need to know where they are headquartered? He wasn't that much of an obsessive fanboy.

So thirsty . . . he had to resist . . .

She stumbled towards where he last saw the RAFians. He was out of uniform, and currently off-duty, but if people saw the way he was walking, they might not understand what was happening to him. They would just dismiss him as being drunk or high as a kite. It was not a good look for an officer, but he knew something was wrong with him. He didn't know what, but he knew it was something serious.

So thirsty . . . just a sip for now . . . he mustn't give into the thirst, or whatever was causing this thirst. . . . But it was hard . . . he was desperate to find a RAFian help . . . they were the only ones who could . . . the only ones who would take this with the seriousness it deserved. . . .

He was stumbled. He collapsed on the street, and he started to realize that he may never find help, as he abandoned all pretense and downed his entire water bottle. Yet, he was still thirsty. It wasn't enough . . . it wasn't enough . . .

He came to the sobering conclusion that if he didn't find a RAFian, and procured their help, that he . . . that he was going to die. He didn't want to die, of course, but his police training -- from competent instructors who didn't teach or subscribe to the "protect yourself above all others" and "don't take any perceived disrespect" curriculum (if you could call it that) -- he was prepared to die. Such an ignominious death it would be, as well . . .

He began to pass out, unaware that he was found moments before, and was being carried away . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 24, 2019, 06:10:33 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXI (1,431): "Unstoppable Force" -- Zamaron and Anodyne fall to the Plague.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
First Discomfort

The Thirst Blight sat inside Reilly, but it didn't know that nor cared. It didn't have the capacity to care or acknowledge the name or identity of whatever host that it was in. It was unnecessary information to the Thirst Blight. All it knew was that it was doing the purpose it knew, the only reason for being it had. But it didn't have the sentience nor the sapience to communicate or even understand this.

It was neither a "he" or a "she", as it hadn't any gender or any means of reproduction. It was the only Thirst Blight, and it would always be the only Thirst Blight. So, it had no urges for reproduction, just to feed (by using hosts to obtain me water and suck them dry), and nothing else. I felt no emotions, knew no emotions. It had no concept of comfort or discomfort.

That being said, it never felt a host with such resistance before, such a powerful will before. It nonplussed the thirst Blight -- as much as such a simple-minded creature could be nonplussed. It found it unusual, but proceeded to do what had done with its previous two hosts. It would suck him dry like the others before him, then leave him via a convenient orifice, then it would find a new host in which to feed in and off of. This is what it has always done since it came into being, and it was what it shall always do. It knew nothing else.

Then it happened. It did not know where it came from, as its sensory abilities were roughly equivalent to that of a Yeerk, even inside a host. It was able to, at most, detect light and dark, and detect dampness levels. This is what it used to detect hosts of suitable size for it to drain. It could detect tightness with astonishing sensitivity, allowing it to detect whether it succeeded or not in entering a host body.

For the first time in the time it had came into existence, it felt discomfort. So much so that it stopped draining Reilly, allowing him to survive a few moments longer than he would have (not that it realized this or the implications of such, nor did it care nor comprehend it). It had only felt anything remotely similar after leaving its first human host's ear. Naturally, it veered away from that mild discomfort.

But this was not mild. This was extreme discomfort. Having never truly experienced discomfort before, the Thirst Blight was addled. It was confused, its simplistic mind unable to comprehend this sensation. The discomfort was indescribable, not that the Thirst Blight would have had the intellectual acuity to describe it if it was describable. It caused it to squirm -- leading Reilly to know precisely where inside of him the Thirst Blight was (and this was information that he would rather not know).

The Thirst Blight was reluctant to leave Reilly, as it hadn't sucked him dry -- completely dry, drained of all water -- and its every instinct was not to leave hosts until every drop of moisture, of water, was siphoned out. Until he was completely drained, as if Reilly was a juice box.

But the discomfort was too much . . . too much . . . it should leave through a convenient orifice. . . . But it wasn't done. . . . The host wasn't sucked dry of its moisture. . . It should leave. . . . But it wasn't done. . . . It should . . . but it . . 

It was never this conflicted before, and this stymied it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 25, 2019, 06:14:47 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXII (1,432): "Plague Aftermath" -- The Plague is defeated and the RAFians commence with the galaxy-wide clean-up.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Secured and Diagnosed

"He's been secured in that room," Kelly reported, "and I've done all I can do. I want to say he's stable, but if that Thirst Blight decides to siphon moisture from him again? Well, I can't say my powers would be able to pull him from the brink of death again . . ."

Parker had found him by using some new X-ray imaging tech of his own design, and having already incorporated into his armor. He had never lost the hobby of constantly updating and revamping his armor with any compatible tech they found and that he could replicate. It was fortunate that he did -- had he not, Reilly would be dead right now.

He used the software to immediately determine that the Thirst Blight was in Reilly, in his abdominal region -- about where his stomach would be. Parker described the Blight as Yeerk slapped with an ugly stick. He brought Reilly in (the Blight couldn't take him, as his armor is self-contained), and Reilly, semi-lucid, allowed it. He knew this armor belonged to a RAFian. He found the help that he so desperately sought.

"We need to get that parasite out of him if he's to survive," Kelly said, urgency in her tone. "And we don't have a lot of time if the Blight starts to siphon off his moisture again."

"But there is a risk of the Thirst Blight escaping if we don't," Cloak said, aware of how heartless it sounded. But it needed to be said. Ruthless but pragmatic. It gave Cloak no joy pointing this out. "He is secured, and, thereby, so is the Blight. We can prevent it from getting out."

"What about the poor soul in there?" Saffa said, speaking harshly to Cloak. "You would sacrifice him?"

"No," Cloak said, not taking Saffa's tone personally. "But it needed to be said."

"Oh." she said.

"It wouldn't satisfy me to see this poor individual die, but I cannot see a way to remove the parasite without risking it getting loose in the forum, or worse. Having it infect one of you."

Cloak was not worried about his own personage, as his physiology was an obvious and overt hostile environment for the Blight, like all Dweller parasites.

"I'm not saying there is an easy answer here," Cloak continued, thoughtfully , as he watched Reilly resting in the secure room.

"We've incorporated Gleet Biofilter technology in the doorway to that room," Xeno said, matter-of-fact.

"Untested tech," Cloak said, unable to tone down his skepticism. His cynicism seemed to escalated into a moodiness, but the RAFians were accustomed this, and thought nothing of it. He hadn't been getting much sleep lately.

"But we will need to somehow sedate the parasite," Saffa said, "that damn thing is fast."

"Probably how it could take hosts without them noticing," Cloak postulated. He assumed the hosts were unaware of the infection, as there was no evidence that there was large reactions, nor doctor trips.

"What's our next step?" Kelly asked.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 28, 2019, 04:10:43 AM

Sorry about the brevity.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXIII (1,433): "Sirens Again" -- Several sirens look for who dared to slay their "sister".

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Only One Option

The Thirst Blight was twisting and undulating within Reilly's abdomen, causing the young man much discomfort himself, if not outright pain. But the Blight didn't care about the pain of another. It had never felt pain itself, so it was a concept that was completely foreign to it, and beyond its comprehension. The only thing that the Blight cared about was stopping the immense discomfort it was feeling.

Leave? No! This host wasn't drained. But it should leave. But it couldn't as its task within this creature was not complete. But it should leave. But it couldn't. Should. Couldn't.

It did not know the source of this discomfort, nor possessed the mental acuity to understand it. All it knew was that it was interfering with what it was supposed to be doing. From fulfilling its one and only instinctual purpose. This discomfort was preventing it from doing what it had always done. This had to be corrected.

It was slow, even for its simplistic, primitive, and minimalistic mind, to come to the conclusion that there was only one option and one course of action to take from here. And it followed it without even pausing to consider any possible ramifications or consequences of such a decision, didn't take a moment to think this course of action through all the way. It had no such capacity to do so.

Everything it instinctually knew it fought against the decision it made, although that made it sound as if it possessed more sentience then it actually did. It had no choice if it wanted to escape this irritating discomfort. It just wanted to do what it always done, to complete its only purpose of being.

It would leave Reilly's body, despite not draining him dry of moisture. It felt (in the loosest sense of the word) hesitant about leaving its only purpose unfulfilled, but it was necessary. It found a convenient orifice and left his body without anyone knowing. No that it was even aware of anyone's notice, nor did it care much (as it lacked the capacity). All it wanted to do was escape the discomfort.

But the discomfort did not go away outside Reilly's body. And the Thirst Blight lingered in the room, hiding from the bright light, which added a different kind of discomfort. It didn't know what the best option to take from here. It wanted to take another host and drain them again -- but the discomfort didn't disperse or end as it thought it would.

Wait -- there!

It travelled out, when the bright light had vanished. And hoped for a host beyond the discomforting . . . whatever . . . so it could drain it in peace.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on July 30, 2019, 06:30:13 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXIV (1,434): "Cute" -- A pink siren goes after Cloak.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
BREACH!!

It was slow, taking days. Reilly's parents were briefly brought down to view their in such a lamentable condition. His mother was in tears at the sight of him. He looked pale and dry, but his condition had more or less stabilized due to the careful and meticulous ministrations of both Goom and Kelly.

Precautions were taken so the two could visit their beloved only son, and be by his side. Both were made aware that their son had contracted a very dangerous parasite, and they were doing what they could do for him here. They had to explain multiple times why he couldn't just go to a hospital room -- spanning from the risk of contaminating any room with this parasite to the fact that your ordinary hospital was just not equipped, trained, or had sufficient resources to deal with this. RAFian tech was far better for the likelihood of their son's survival.

The Gleet Biofilter seemed to be working perfectly, and the room was completely sealed apart from that entrance way. Reilly spent most of his time sleeping, and hadn't any need for any electronics. He was sleeping so much, he might as well have been comatose. It was necessary for his recovery, as the parasite seemed to stop draining the moisture from him. Everyone in and out were checked when this became known, despite the functioning Gleet Biofilter.

Until it wasn't.

"There's a glitch!" Goom called. "A malfunction in the Gleet Biofilter in the quarantine area!"

"Seal the room!" Cloak said, running towards the area. He had no fear of the parasite, as his natural physiology was a natural hostile environment for the parasite. "Immediately, before the Thirst Blight takes this opportunity to escape!"

But this warning came too late, and Cloak cursed their over-reliance on technology.  Including himself. It was harsh, but he knew nothing was infallible. Infallibility itself was a fallacy. Beings make mistakes and over look things, machines have malfunctions and glitches. No plan is truly foolproof -- there are always a variable or two that can cause any plan to unravel. No matter of contingency can cover all possible scenarios . . . though Cloak did try to cover as much as he foresaw.

But he wasn't Destiny. He couldn't foresee all of them. He shuttered, despite himself. He tried not to think about her. She terrified him by her sheer power, even more than his own mother. She wasn't particularly malicious, and she was Beyond the Veil, but still . . . she was frightening. It was as if she wasn't just seeing destinies and the future . . . it was as if she was destiny itself.

Anyway, it was confirmed that the thirst Blight parasite had, indeed, escaped. Fortunately, via their examinations of Reilly and the parasite itself, they discovered that it hadn't any means of reproduction. This was good as they wouldn't have a pandemic on their hands, but bad that it was on the loose and difficult to identify without Parker's x-ray imaging software. Cloak wasn't able to do it, unless it was outside the body of a victim. Even then, Earthsighting or Metalsighting it would be difficult.

This was not a good happenstance.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 01, 2019, 06:28:55 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXV (1,435): "Cool" -- A red siren comes after Cloak.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Dino's Footsteps

The Blight made it outside, sensing sunlight. Sunlight was antithetical to everything it liked. Spots baked in sunshine tended to be bright and dry while the Thirst Blight preferred the dark and the damp. Not to mention it could sense a bevy of prey large enough for it to feed off the moisture of -- but all of them seemed to have that discomforting energy coming off them. So it wouldn't take any of them, even its simple mind knew better than that.

Its mind was not complex enough to comprehend nor its senses sophisticated enough to determine what these bubbles of discomfort were. It just knew to avoid them when it could. But it was also desperate for a host-prey. A host body that it could siphon all the moisture out of, a body that it can drain dry. That was its purpose, its only reason for being. It knew nothing else, nor did it care to know anything else. I didn't have the capacity to know anything else.

A thirst, not unlike that which it inflicted on others, began to burgeon in the Blight itself. It needed a host to drain the moisture, the water out of. It couldn't do it directly from the lake behind it. It needed a host and flesh to filter it for it. Its why it was a parasite. It hadn't drained a host for a couple of hours, if not days. It needed to do so. It did not know what would happen if it did it soon, because it had no concept of death.

Suddenly it got darker, and it felt the discomfort stronger, but could not tell which direction it came from. Then it felt a pressure on its flimsy body, from which it couldn't escape, as the pressure increased exponentially within seconds. It swiftly went from mild unpleasantness to quite painful. Then it graduated to be excruciating. Then --

Nothing.

***

Dino had heard the calls of a breach. And she had come to see what she could do to help. She had quite forgotten to size-shift to her compact form and found that she had to be careful that she didn't crush any RAFians underfoot. It was a fear of hers, besides . . . that number. She had also been working on getting over that, but it was a gradual thing. She had missteps and progression, as all people do when trying to better themselves or overcome fears.

Her mind was full -- worry over this parasite getting loose, fear of being infected by it (despite the Mark being the very thing causing it discomfort), amongst her other responsibilities and the stresses that stem from them. Then there was the more basic needs -- hunger, thirst, shelter, and so on.

That's when it happened.

She didn't really notice at firest, until the bottom of her left foot felt incredibly wet. Her mind immediately went to the worst possible scenario as she remembered that she was at her full size and not her compacted form. The ground was soaked through, in a rough circle connecting the massive claws on her coelurosaurian theropod foot. Her stomach plummeted as the worse scenario she could conceive of played through her mind.

She thought as she immediately size shifted into her compacted form -- she didn't really like staying in her compacted form for too long, but it had its necessary uses. She nearly gave herself a panic attack, thinking that she had accidentally crushed someone. In her full and considerable size, she weighed a few tons. A reckless footstep at that size would be easy to kill a smaller RAFian. She cursed her absentmindedness, as that could have lead to the death of . . .

But she was sure, looking at the remains, that it wasn't a RAFian that she had crushed. She couldn't tell what it was, but it looked like a deflated party balloon, withered into a black . . . thing. Was that the . . .

"Wait," Cloak said, having noticed through his Earthsight. Then he came over to investigate the remains. Then he made a determination. "It was the Thirst Blight."

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Dino said.

"Yes . . . anticlimactic . . ." Cloak said, slowly. He had a chill go down his spine to the tip of his tail, as a twinge of fear infected him . . . he wondered if she . . . he hoped he was wrong. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 03, 2019, 04:34:30 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXVI (1,436): "Tough" -- A yellow siren goes after Cloak.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Blight Origin

Malice had watched this all go down via her secret cameras -- it was principally Walker tech, which made it all the more shameful that Realm Walkers never invented or possess television. Then again, if you you could just literally step into one of a myriad of universes, each with a different rules of how that particular universe functioned, would you really have any need for television? Would you even have any desire for one? The demand was simply not there for it.

Despite this, even Realm Walking had lost its appeal, its luster, its novelty in some Walkers that they eschewed the activity altogether. Although far too many still maintained that bigoted, speciesist streak -- but there were always going to be people, regardless of species or class, that will be like that. To some people -- narcissists, bigots, and elitists, in particular -- they always need to have someone that they perceive to be lesser than them, inferior in some way, so they don't have to acknowledge their own inadequacies and insecurities in themselves. And all species have these kinds of people -- none are immune from this blight.

Speaking of blights, Malice had been the one to create the Blight. She knew that these creatures of matter used deoxyribonucleic acid to carry their genetic information. She found it laughably primitive, as Realm Walker genetics tends to be infinitely more complex and difficult to comprehend -- which was to be expected as they all are essentially nothing more than corporealized energy with physical mass not too unlike Gems (https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Gems). Malice found it funny just how easy it was for her to manipulate the cytosine-guanine base pairs and the adenine-thymine base pairs of a sequence, making it simple child's play for her splice new DNA into an already existing strand of the stuff, creating new biological information. She saw it as simple as a child playing with blocks, and understood it with ruthless ease.

This helped fuel her conviction that Dwellers of any stripe were worthless and expendable. Although, she would treat Walkers -- even if they weren't related to Sage -- the same way, unless they were of use to her. She knew no love, and only was willing to do anything if it either entertained her or served to benefit her in some way.

Back to the Thirst Blight, she had used the basic genome of a Yeerk with some Namekian (https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Namekian) DNA combined with it, with some specific alterations made. Then she cancelled this scheme in favor of another, growing bored of this scheme. So, she made Thousand, instead.

She had actually forgotten entirely about the Thirst Blight's existence. It escaped its holding container when she was shuffling her purloined resources around. She didn't realize that it had escaped, until the RAFians had mobilized. She wondered if she had more abandoned schemes that she had long forgotten about. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 06, 2019, 05:33:03 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXVII (1,437): "Beauty" -- A blue siren comes after Cloak.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Wrapping It Up

The Thirst Blight's remains were given to Aquilai, Goom, Xeno, and Yarin -- the science boys. They were tasked with ensuring that another Thirst Blight never comes into being. It may not have been able to reproduce, but that doesn't mean that whoever created it couldn't recreate it once more. This was a proactive approach to prevent this whole ordeal from happening again. It was a contingency plan, though Cloak was aware that having a contingency plan for every eventuality is pretty much an impossibility, no matter how meticulous you are about it as there is always unforeseen circumstances.

Reilly's condition easily stabilized after the Blight left him. He was suffering from a degree of dehydration, of course, but he was still fortunate that Parker found him when he did. A moment later, and it could have been beyond the repairable threshold. His hearty constitution and peak physical health were also positive factors. It wasn't long before he was released into the generous care of his parents. He would make a full recovery -- the Blight's other two victims, however, were not so fortunate.

Cloak had to remind himself that two casualties were still better than twelve. Better than twenty. But still . . . it weighed on him. He knew that he, himself, was not perfect, and as prone to error as any other living being, and that seeking out absolute and abject perfection was a fool's quest. But still, his conscience had done him the disservice of being heavy and burdensome.

The boy's family were still grieving and trying to come to terms with what happened to the son, their nephew, their cousin. But any attempt by the RAFians to explain what happened were coldly rebuffed and met with hostile disbelief when they were allowed to speak. They would come to blame the RAFians for the boy's fate. Senseless deaths tend to always lead to irrationality, sometimes hysterically so, when the shock sets in. But they had time to digest this and the shock had time to wear off, and that irrationality had not dissipated but instead congealed and hardened into a deep hatred. It didn't help that the listened to Bern Bridges on an almost religious basis.

Agnes, however, had no family nor friends to fret over her fate. She had far too good a job at alienating everyone that she would count as family or friends. With her headstrong personality, and that obstinate sense of always being absolutely right, and that stubborn insistence that she was never in the wrong, being even tangentially friendly towards her was a chore. So, naturally news of her passing was met with indifference and the same lack of respect she showed others during her time alive.

It didn't end as well as Cloak would have liked -- two people died. True, the fact that they left remains behind unnerved him as his kind only leave their cloaks behind. (Which makes murder investigations more difficult to investigate in the Nexus, and faking deaths ridiculously easier than in the Realms.) Cloak wonder if they could have been prevented. Fortunately, Reilly didn't become the third to die, but he easily could have been.

***

Cloak was standing in a black void with what appeared to be an indigo event horizon to his right. He was confused, as he felt as if he were lucid and knew that he was dreaming. He hadn't a clue if this was a Truth Dream or just a simple lucid dream. Then something happened.

A series of numbers -- like serial numbers -- appeared, in blue-green text, between him and th event horizon. He couldn't read the numbers, but could make out that they all started as "S-A-A-dash" followed by a string  numbers. He couldn't count how many serial numbers were in this before they devolved into something that appeared to be sand.

Then, from his left, still between him and the event horizon, came another string of serial numbers, still with the "S-A-A-dash" prefix. The text was dark, dull gray. Cloak tried to read the numbers but it solidified into stone and shattered before he could. He couldn't even seen how many there were before this happened.

Then, more appeared to his right, all with the same prefix. This time in sky blue text. Cloak tried to read the numbers, but they became scrambled when they were washed away by an invisible current.

Then, more appeared to his left, all with the same prefix. This time in vivid red or slightly orange, Cloak couldn't decide which. He tried to read the numbers but they appeared to be struck by lightning and dissipated. He was starting to get a pattern, as he narrowed his eyes.

Once again, more serial numbers appeared to his right, all with the same prefix. This time in pale green with a gray tint. Cloak didn't try to read these numbers this time, when they shifted into a bouquet, before vanishing into the event horizon.

Once more, yet more serial numbers appears to his left, all with the same "SAA-" prefix. In orange-yellow, this time. Cloak was tempted to try to read the numbers, but apparently those were supposed to be secret for whatever reason. Then the numbers faded away.

To his right, more serial numbers came into being, this time in purplish-red. Cloak didn't even try to read the numbers, though he wanted to. Apparently, he was not allowed. Then the numbers corroded into nothingness.

To his left, fewer serial numbers came into being, this time in bright red tinted with orange. Cloak watched as the numbers burst int flame, before being swallowed up by the event horizon.

To his right, one or two serial numbers came into being, this time in indigo. And at this point, Cloak woke up, wondering what the Veil that was about.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2019, 04:29:43 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXVIII (1,438): "Clever" -- A green siren comes after Cloak.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
Crabby

Parker was dispatched in another fiend mission, which volunteered for. He had a new toy he wanted to try out. It was like a war fan, but opened in a full three-sixty, becoming a saw blade. It could be used as a throwing weapon, primarily. He supposed it could have uses as a shield or melee weapon, but he didn't think so, personally. the intricate matrix lattice was far too fragile to be an effective shield, and it left one's hand too easily to be a melee weapon. He wasn't sure how durable it would truly be, as it was intended to be a cutting and slicing throwing weapon. It would probably be more effective if he had gotten his hands on vibranium or a material similar.

Parker had walked to the edge of a deep pool of water. It looked like black glass to the naked eye, and Parker had the advantage of having more resources than his naked eye. He was glad that he modified his armor to move quicker underwater. Otherwise, this might have proved incredibly tedious and potentially slow.

It didn't take him long to find this abandoned underwater facility -- another Cadmus one. Or the fiend's nest. It was a square room where the water level fluctuated, seemingly at the will of the fiend, with a spiked ceiling. It dived into the room, and Parker finally got a good look at it.

The fiend stood nearly six feet tall. It had no real head, but its face (which just consisted human-like eyes -- with purple sclera and pale brown irises -- a vent-like mouth) was on its abdomen. It had cancrine stalk eyes, which basically channeled its power, with rudimentary vision ability. it had silver shoulders with protruding spikes that recalled crab claws. It had human-like arms ending in black humanoid hands with spiked elbows. It had squat stature and human-like legs with black, pod-like feet.

When it saw Parker, it flashed energy claws that resembled crab claws from its shoulders, as if to intimidate him. But Parker was a RAFian. He had seen six more intimidating things before breakfast (Helen had a rather noticeable problem with severe bedhead). His helmet allowed his facial expressions to remain hidden, so the fiend wouldn't know if the SPARTAN RAFian was indeed intimidated -- especially considering none of these fiends appeared to be too intelligent.

The fiend encased itself in a giant bubble. Parker surmised (with help of Tyr) that it'd take a good amount of damage to be destroyed. He allowed the fiend to go about its attack pattern, as to learn and exploit it. The fiend was not smart enough to realize what the SPARTAN was doing.

Then the fiend launched hydrokinetic, mini-crab drones and bubble rings at the RAFian. They all floated at an upward angle. Not too terribly difficult to avoid. But Parker tried not to get complacent -- one tended to make stupid mistakes when they got complacent.

The tide level of the room rose and sunk at seemingly random intervals. That was the most unpredictable part of this environment. But Tyr had apparently come up with an algorithm to predict, and quite accurately so, this tide situation.

Now Parker decided to act, feeling as if the fiend had showed him its full capabilities. It would fall quite easily to Parker's new little toy. It was instantly able to pop any of its bubble shields. Not to mention that the fiend was quite easy to manipulate -- whenever Parker was above it, it will jump upwards with his claws. when the tide was high enough, it was possible to lock it into this pattern by jumping over it and back, thg Parker's little toy as it hits the ground, then repeating the process. The fiend never used a different attack afterward.

It wasn't long before Parker had succeeded and the fiend was dead. He waited for h extraction.

***

Demos called it "kuraburosu baburi", and wouldn't state its intended purpose.

***

Malice only had this on as background noise. The whole Thirst Blight thing made her go through every single one of her schemes to see if she had abandoned some that might prove . . . entertaining . . . for her to watch.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 08, 2019, 06:44:18 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXXXIX (1,439): "The Alpha Siren" -- The first siren seeks vengeance upon Cloak.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXVIII:
HAMMER TIME!
CHAPTER ONE:
Flame Antlers

Cloak was dispatched to deal with a fiend in an active volcano. Cloak wasn't afraid as he would have been were he not a Realm Walker. He went to the coordinates and saw that the place was completely undeveloped. Understandably so. He could feel the magma churning beneath his feet, and he wondered if he could . . .

No. No, he was powerful enough already. He didn't need anymore powers. Despite it could just be considered an application of a power he already had currently, Cloak didn't see it in that way. He felt as if  didn't need to be more powerful -- power has an awful habit of breeding corruption and complacency.

Cloak burst into the volcano, seemingly dormant. Then he maneuvered into the main part of the volcano,only to discover that it was on the cusp of erupting. Oh, Veil. He barreled upward, and dodged to the right. It wasn't a big eruption, no where near a pyroclastic flow. Cloak was sure that he would survive -- due to his physiology -- though he knew it would provide discomfort that he would find unacceptable.

Soon enough, he found the fiend's nest. It was a narrow room, that had more verticality than horizontal room. And the fiend descended into the room by kicking off the walls. The fiend looked to be a cervine humanoid, with human-like eyes that possessed green sclera and black irises. It stood just shy of eight feet, making it slightly shorter than Cloak. Its face feet, and human-like hands were black, and its antlers were just tongues  flames. The rest of its body were greens and oranges with silver accents.

When it landed on the other side of this narrow room, and saw Cloak. It flared its fire antlers, and made two quick jabs with its right arm, followed by a small uppercut with its left. These weren't attacks, but posturing. Cloak wasn't intimidated or impressed.

Then the fiend tried to run into Cloak by jumping diagonally between walls, which Cloak dodged, as he waited for a moment to strike. released two small fireballs, the first going downward and the second upward. The second flame crawled up the earthen walls. Interesting, but Cloak was a Master of the Fire Element (though, truthfully, a reluctant Master). The fire wouldn't harm him.

Then it performed a dash attack that leaves a trail of flames. Then it ended this attack with an uppercut. Cloak easily dodged this, as he saw as easily telegraphed. And he saw that this presented him with the opportunity to use his mastery of water to repeatedly douse the fiend. Until the fiend was no more.

The Cloak left this room, and waited for his extraction.

***

Demos called it a "pyrocervine", but wouldn't say why he made it.

***

Malice continued to try to find any abandoned schemes, when she was made aware of something strange . . . something unusual . . . something . . . unheard of. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 09, 2019, 08:44:34 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXL (1,440): "A New Power Broker" -- The RAFians must deal with a new kind of power broker.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
Reconstituted

Back here . . .

Back here when they were so pleasantly ignoring her existence, and pretending her death was real. . . . She was risking being seen, risking being recognized . . . She pulled the hood of her cloak further down, as far as it would go. Her existence was being dismissed -- and only a narcissistic fool would let that bother them. But she didn't care if she was dismissed by other Realm Walkers (Cloak was a special case -- he had inherited her as an adversary from Sage). It allowed her more mobility and less scrutiny.

And other Realm Walkers might have enough ability to overpower her, with enough numbers. And she didn't really want to be interred back at Oblivion Gate Prison. It was dreadfully boring when she was there. Though she escaped easily enough -- and they just assumed she died in her cell because of her cloak and a bit of her ichor left behind. Simple and easy -- and the guards weren't always the sharpest tools in the shed. Still . . . she didn't want to go back. Especially with Veil view . . . that was the singular worse, and yet magnificant, view in the entire Gate Prison. It was simultaneously wondrous, beautiful, and mesmerizing and, yet, intimidating, terrifying, and horrifying.

She was secretly looking for what drew her attention. Her curiosity had overrode her strong desire to ignore it, to focus on herself and her schemes. Something was happening in these forgotten alleyways of this ghetto district. The Walkers here far more concerned with their own problems than a mysterious figure skulking around in dark alleyways and hiding it their long shadows. Which was precisely how Malice wanted it.

She peered around corners, desperate to keep up the pretense of her expiration. Other Walkers thinking her dead prevented them from poking their noses into her business and interfering with her whims and schemes. She liked it this way. She preferred it this way.

What she saw around one corner in this dark, dank, forgotten alleyway took her a moment to process. There was what appeared to be a Klepto Stone of some sort, that glowed red and hovered about five or six feet in the air. It had twelve bichromatic spheres of energy orbiting around it . . . looking rather like a Manaphy (https://serebii.net/pokedex-sm/490.shtml) egg without the blue, translucent egg shape. Malice had no idea how this came to be here, nor why this was happening.

All she knew was that she was here to bear witness of this. Whatever this was.

She slowly, cautiously, tentatively approached the stone with its orbiting spheres, which seemed to orbit it quicker and quicker. Something was happening. Something big. Something that she could have dominion over. Something that she could possibly use to her advantage . . .

But what exactly she could not say. She could not determine the exact nature or characteristics of what kind of creature would be made when these orbs merged with the stone. She just knew that it would be hers to do with as she pleased.

The time was growing close as the orbs slowed and began to burn with bichromatic fire. Within each a bla silhouette could be seen, and Malice could make out all but four. from what she saw, there was a dragon . . . a rat . . . a chicken . . . a monkey . . . a pig . . . a dog . . . a tiger . . . and a rabbit. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 10, 2019, 04:48:11 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLI (1,441): "Sight-Shifter" -- The RAFians must save a boy who can shapeshift into anyone he sees.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Singularity

Malice watched, with a mixture of eager apprehension and tempered excitement, as these twelve orbs merged with the stone. The light given off was akin to that when Gems (https://steven-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Gems), but purplish-black. It was more darkness that light, really. Despite her octogenarian age, Malice was secretly fangirling at this development, though not in an obsequious way.

The form was humanoid, with thin limbs, stubby human-like toes, and long hands and fingers to match. The shape this being took had a large, upside-down teardrop-shaped head, not unlike Megamind or a Grey. It had no discernible ears, pointed chin, small (possibly toothless) mouth, no discernible nose other than two nostril slits, large almond eyes (black sclera and red eyes), and a large head. The being's skin was a supple, palatinate purple. He stood taller than Malice, towering over her, wearing the usual outfit Walkers wore for Realm Walking, in the usual dull earth colors, and a cloak of pansy purple.

"Welcome to the Nexus," Malice said, smoothly. She had to be carefully charismatic, and not come off as a simpering lackey. She was intending to manipulate this being, whoever he was. He looked at her, and, despite trying to hide it, she felt something that she never did before. Something that she couldn't quite identify. Something that she didn't recognize, and, thus, tried to ignore. "What, may I ask, is your name?"

His gaze lingered on her a moment before. She thought she should have felt discomforted by this, possibly unnerved by it. But that unknown feeling would not allow it. What was this odd sensation, this atrophied emotion? It didn't matter. It wasn't important. After a while, he turned and looked away, so Malice saw him in profile. She felt a pang of -- what? Disappointment? Dismay? Sadness? No, that couldn't be right.

When he spoke, his voice surprised Malice, but not in a way that Malice disliked. She had expected the stereotypical gestalt voice of all twelve Walkers that made him up, but that wasn't it at all. His voice was soft, melodic, and powerful. Malice gave herself a mental slap -- why was she focusing so much on his voice rather than what was being said. What was wrong with her? She had to be careful not to lose her aloof poise, because that may not make her able to have her way with him.

No! Not like that!

"The Twelve became one," he said, simply. "We became me."

"Sweetie," she said, pouring it on, telling herself that she was just manipulating him. When that wasn't the full truth, and she knew it, but denied it to herself. "Sweetie, that's not a name."

She didn't want to give him a name, but wanted him to choose his own. She didn't know why this was so important to her, but she knew that this was important. Inwardly, she was surprised that this seemed to matter so much to her, as this new fused Walker seemed utterly indifferent to everything.

"Yes," he said, almost bored contemplating this, "none of my old names would suit me in the state that I am now. I shall be henceforth known as . . . Singularity."

Malice tried to hide her reaction at that name. She thought five syllables was a bit long for a Realm Walker nomme de plume, but she didn't say anything. She cajoled Singularity to follow her from this place, and back to the Prime Universe. Singularity seemed mildly amused and complied, curious as to what these Realms were.

But Malice didn't notice how the power dynamic was changing, and still thought that she was the one in charge. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 12, 2019, 04:21:19 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLII (1,442): "Sound-Shifter" -- The RAFians must help a person who can shapeshift into anyone they hear.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOUR:
Forging Ahead

Back in the Prime Universe, Singularity was being brought to speed all the things about the Realm that Malice thought pertinent. Of course, she didn't spill the beans about everything. That long-dormant feeling may be warping her judgement and reason, but she fought it. Fought to ignore it. It hadn't any use for her, so she was better off without it. It was like an annoying door-to-door salesman who never gets the point that you're not interested.

She thought she was getting away with withholding information from Singularity, still believing that she held dominion over him. She never suspected that she was being allowed to think that, and Singularity knew full well that she was holding back information from him, but he didn't really seem to care that she was. He had a lot of indifference in his by language.

Besides, he was busy creating several items that he thought might prove useful to him, and he was curious about the limits of these Dwellers, these humans. He was creating eight hammers of distinct, individual designs and purposes. With unique powers that he likewise chose not to disclose to Malice. She was none the wiser. He was well aware that she was enthralled with him, and he was milking it to his advantage. Had she had her wits about her, she might have caught on by now.

Singularity, ignoring Malice for the most part, went to scrutinize the hammer production. He would instill each hammer with its own sentience and spirit, which was not an easy task. He was essentially making them like Horcruxes, but none of them housed a true soul, just a possessive spirit, which would take over once their chosen host took hold of the hammer.

There was the Hammer of Skadi, the Herald. It had a white, yellow, blue, and pink pearl on the pommel and looked as if it were forged from obsidian, despite being exponentially stronger than that. It had a short shaft, a crescent moon-like guard, and a bell-shaped head. The one who the hammer chose to wield it would be Singularity's Herald (Malice misunderstood and believed that it would be her herald), with unwavering loyalty to their "Gestalt Lord".

To its right was the Hammer of Kurrth, Breaker of Stone. It appeared to be forged from orange jasper, with a jasper pommel. it had a moderate sized shaft and a cylindrical head, almost like that of a pill. Like it's brethren, it would force its wielder undying loyalty to the "Fused Authority". It also afforded its wielder the ability to cleave, smash, and break any sort of stone placed before it without fail.

To its right was the Hammer of Nul, Breaker of Worlds. It had a peridot pommel, with a metallic ring below it, and looked as if it was forged from some sort of sulfuric stone. It had a moderately-sized shaft and a head that had pyramidal shape on one side and a trapezoidal shape on the other. Like it's brethren, it would twist its wielder's mind into abject loyalty to the "Divine Collective One". The Hammer allowed its wielders immense power to devastate planets with a single blow.

To its right was the Hammer of Skirn, Breaker of Men. It had a hessonite pommel, and appeared to be crafted from amethysts. It had a shaft of moderate length with a head of a sledgehammer with a pyramid on one side and a trapezoid on the other. Like it's brethren, it twists its wielder to have unshakable loyalty to "Holy Unity". The Hammer allowed its wielder power to break men with little effort.

To its right was the Hammer of Mokk, Breaker of Faith. It had a rose quartz pommel and appeared to be crafted from high-quality, super-dense blue quartz. It had a long shaft with a head akin to that of a sledgehammer. Like its fellows, it forces loyalty towards the "Merged King". The Hammer allowed its wielder power to cleave a man from his religious faith, and other circumstances.

To its right was the Hammer of Angrir, Breaker of Souls. It had a blue diamond with its shaft dotted with pink diamond shards, and the shaft and head appeared to be forged from amethysts. It had a short shaft, with a heavy head with nine spikes on both sides. Like its fellows, it coerced loyalty in the "Unified Leader". The Hammer allows the wielder to crush, cleave, and mash souls.

To its right was the Hammer of Greithoth, Breaker of Wills. It has a white diamond pommel and a chain leading off this pommel, and appeared to be forged from a green stone. It had a short shaft, a long chain, and a head that appeared similiar to the letter "A". As with the others, it influences its wielded to unwavering loyalty towards the "Zodiac Leader". The Hammer allows the user to weaken and destroy the wills of others.

The final hammer was the Hammer of Nerkkod, Breaker of Oceans. It has a lapis lazuli pommel and appeared to be forged from a red stone. It looked like an overlarge claw hammer. As with all its predecessors, it twists its wielder's mind into blind loyalty to the "Flawless One". The Hammer allows the wield to destroy oceans.

Once the pseudo-spirits had been installed fully and the forging process was complete, he said, "Begone now! Do not return until you find worthy hosts."

Then Singularity sent them out into the world, to seek out unsuspecting wielders to twist the minds, souls, and loyalties of. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 13, 2019, 04:36:59 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLIII (1,443): "Smell-Shifter" -- The RAFians must help a person who can shapeshift based on scent.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
Look Out! Thou Shall Not Move!

Cloak was standing in a void of blackness, but the flooring beneath his feet felt solid and sturdy enough. He didn't try to Earthsight as he was aware that this was a dream. He had his normal lucidity within this dreamplane. Probably because she wanted him to . . .

Cloak suppressed a shiver, and chose not to think about her. She already gave him the, as the humans say, the "heebie-jeebies". Then he heard a disembodied voice cry out:

"Run for cover!
Look out!"

Cloak felt no fear or urgency. He had to admit to himself, being one of the most powerful RAFians, third to only Estelore and Richard, had given a bit of complacency. He knew and acknowledged it, and the dangers that came with complacent arrogance. He had his flaws, and this was one of them.

Cloak thought he saw silhouettes of a dragon, a rat, and a rooster at three o'clock. But he looked, frankily, unimpressed and unintimidated. What was the point of this dream?

"Don't stop to look around!
Nothing to do but hide some place
Where we cannot be found!
Look out! He's after you!
You ought to take care, but take care where you go!
It's a nightmare coming true!
The evil that's spreading is stating to grow!
Your friends are doing all they can do!
But what about you?"

Then he saw the silhouette of a monkey, a pig, and a dog at nine o'clock. But he felt no sense of urgency whatsoever. He was failing to understand the meaning of these dream. He highly doubted that he would be lucid if this dream was just . . . well . . . a dream.

"How can we help these unfortunate souls?
How can we stop him? He's out of control!
(Look out!) Running and hiding to stay out of sight!
(Look out!) Running and running, it doesn't seem right!
(Look out!) Running and hiding and running again.
(Look out!) Running and running?
Oh, please make it end?
Isn't there someway to make him our friend?"

The he saw the silhouettes of a tiger, a rabbit, and an ox at six o'clock. And yet, he felt no urgency, and he didn't feel threatened at all. He had confidence in power and ability, and he hadn't seen or sensed anyone coming after him. Though he found these silhouettes odd -- and they clearly meant something.

"Twelve have become one, and --
(Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!)
He's forgot about feelings and friends!
(Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!)
(Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!)
Look out! He's after you!
(Just one thing.)
It's a nightmare coming true!
(Look out! Look out!)
When will this really end?
(Look out!)
He's not himself!
He's turned mean!
He's been on a path of terrible wrath
No kid's ever seen.
Friends are there to help you out
Because they care and there's no doubt
And if you're scared, they'll lend a hand,
Till you're prepared to make a stand."

As he saw silhouettes of a sheep, a snake, and a horse and heard the line "twelve become one", something clicked. And he had hoped he was wrong. He hoped he was horribly wrong. Because he knew how powerful such a union could be.

"This power's wrong.
But incredibly strong
If only we can make him understand
Look out! Look out! (Look out! Watch out!)
Look out! Look out! (Look out! Watch out!)
What can you do if there's only one of you?
What can you do if there's only one of you?
What can you do if there's only one of you?"

He awoke, and he felt shaky and clammy. They couldn't be back. They could not merged. They were dead. They were Beyond the Veil. There was no coming back. There wasn't. . . 

But the Realm Walker formerly known as Abomination had somehow procured their powers and abilities and combined them with his own nearly two Dweller years ago . . . so he must have found some . . . remnant . . . of them . . .

But the rings should have taken them through the Veil! There was no way that they could have returned! None. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. If it was . . . then the singularity's power could very well . . . eclipse his own.

***

The Hammers plummeted down into their "chosen" locations, where a worthy wielders would be. They stuck fast to the earth the landed on, and could not be moved by any means, save for the only ones they considered worthy enough to wield them.

And many have tried. Whether for their own envious desire of the power each Hammer represented, or for their covetous vengeance for those that they felt wronged them, or to intimidate and cow those around them into submission. But none of them were deemed worthy to heft Hammers, much less wield them.

So, there they sat. Motionless and forgotten, and shafts in the air. Waiting for the Worthy . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J6TYxD5Kkv8

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 15, 2019, 05:23:53 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLIV (1,444): "Taste For Shapes" -- The RAFians must help someone who can shapeshift into anything he tastes.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIX:
Hammer Hoisting and Hosting

The Hammers stayed where they landed, not moving even the smallest fraction of an inch, glowing in their respective colors. The glow seemed alluring to some, but those quickly noped out of it. They didn't want to have anything to do with the hammers, apparently able to also sense the evil interspersed with the hypnotizing allure.

They had their colored auras pulsate in a strangely enticing towards those that had some modicum of the vague quality of "worthiness". While most had the good sense to reject the beguiling aura's many attempts to enrapture them, others were ensnared by the fascination and captivated of the pulsating power of the Hammers and their auras. These people were apparently deemed unworthy, as no a single one was able to lift any of the Hammers.

No Jerome. No Monty. No Cindy. No Lillie or Billy. No Bugsy. No Missy Applegate. No Ozzy. No Madison. No Carla. No Penny. No Felix or Ted. None of you were worthy enough to wield one of Singularity's Hammers. Not a one.

And there they sat, unable to be hefted, unable to be so much as lifted from the ground upon which they rested until one wielder that each Hammer felt was worthy enough to do so grabbed hold of the hammer shaft and lifted the head into the air. There would be a moment of lucidity before the Hammer's directives and orders would overtake the worthy wielder's mind and personality, twisting it. Erasing their previous identity, and any memories that would cause lucidity to resurface. Becoming, effectively, slaves to Singularity, as long as the Hammer was held.

And, in this state, it would be a monumental task to separate the two. The two, hammer and wielder, have their souls, identities, and personalities intertwined and intermingled, until nothing of the wielder's previous life as an Unworthy was recollected easily. And this effect was nothing to trifle with. Nor was the devastating power of the Hammers, once held by a Worthy wielder.

The wielders, known as the Worthy, would not be stopped. They would be like a force of nature, and they would only know destruction and pain. Especially to the wielder themselves, as some small part of themselves, of who they were before, a smidgen of morality, would remain alive. Alive but helpless. Helpless but being bystanders in their own bodies, unable to stop themselves from doing things that they knew were abhorrent. It was like being a Controller, but worse. The Hammer would not be able to heard or comprehend pleas to stop, remain unaware of any mental resistance, nor care about the opinions of some lesser mind, or an aspect of the previous one.

Eventually, each Hammer felt a grip upon their handles. All strong and firm. All Worthy. They were all lifted up, and their new Worthy hosts maintained their lucidity and control for a moment's time. They had no idea what they had done, but the allure had stoked their curiosity and enticed them to pick the Hammers up. And the Hammers judged them as Worthy.

Within moment's after beingnlifted, the Hammers changed their Worthy hosts. Altered them in their power, minds, and personalities. Their souls, however, remained unchanged, but trapped within their bodies, unable to influence the actions of those bodies, or words spoken with their voices, thought distorted. They were helpless.

The Worthy of Destruction were chosen and decided. And many things would be broken. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 17, 2019, 04:47:45 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLV (1,445): "Touch-Shifter" -- The RAFians must help a person who can shapeshift anyone that they touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
Broken Will

Dom Convertir was a broken man.

His will was broken. He just laid around his small, cold, dank prison cell. His orange jumpsuit a constant reminder of the incident that broke him completely -- financially and emotionally. His health hadn't deteriorated so much, but he found himself half-heartedly wishing that it had. Death would be preferable to this, in his mind.

It wasn't just because the food was of poor quality, or because the service of said food was less than ideal. Or that the mattress upon which he slept was lumpy and sagged in the middle, on the left side. Or the fact that his pillow was lumpier than the bed, and got hot and discomfortable far too easily. Or that his thin blanket didn't offer too much warmth on these increasingly cooler nights. Those discomforts were only secondary to the major aspect that left him with tears in his eyes.

It was the humiliation that truly broke him. The ostracism within the prison itself was intolerable and unbearable. Yes, he had several RAFians under lock and key, powerless to escape him. And what did he do? Tried to convince them to their, in his view, patriotic duty. He still believed in this laughable rhetoric, too. It was public knowledge of this fact (much to the RAFians' chagrin) that caused him very much ridicule.

He spent his days wishing for death to deliver him from this torment. He had even lost the will to live. This had congealed into a sort of apathetic, loner, guarded attitude that he projected to those around him. He was tired of the jeers and sneers and consternation. He was just . . . just done with everything. Done with being Dominic Convertir. Done being human. Done being alive.

And, yet, he was never put on suicide watch, despite being clearly suicidal. This neglect just further fueled this downward spiral of his. He fell into a deep, all-consuming depression following this, deepening his suicidal thoughts. He would have done it, too -- he just didn't have any resources in which to do it. His creativity was limited, even when depression wasn't muddying his thoughts.

Then something happened that purged these thoughts from his mind. Replacing it with a singular desire. Something had landed in the prison yard while the prisoners were there with some guards. These guards were the type who were prone to power trips, and enjoyed lording it over their prisoners, demeaning and dehumanizing them when their bosses weren't looking. Almost all of them were around the fallen Hammer -- the Hammer of Greithoth. Many of them tried to lift it and claim it for themselves.

All failed. And they wouldn't allow others to have a turn. It wasn't long before they turned on themselves and fought amongst themselves. And they weren't pulling punches -- so enamored they all were with the hammer.

He looked at it, with its white diamond pommel and a long chain leading off this pommel, forged from a green stone, its short shaft, and a head that appeared similiar to the letter "A". It called out to him . . . he felt a warmth from it . . . an attraction, a bond . . . he wasn't aware of moving towards it.

He wasn't really aware of closing the distance towards it . . . he wasn't aware of reaching out for the shaft . . . his eyes never left the Hammer . . . he was only dimly aware of grasping the Hammer's shaft, clinking the chain, alerting the fighting guards to his presence.

"You! Get away from there!" one of them ordered. He was ignored, and he didn't like it.

Dom lifted the Hammer up, barely aware of doing such, something which none of the guards were able to do. He maintained lucidity and his sense of identity as Dom Convertir for scarce moment before that was wiped away.

His body became oily black with green markings like that of the Phalanx or Galvanic Mechamorph. He roared, in a distorted voice, "I . . . AM . . . GREITHOTH!!! BREAKER OF WILL!!!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 20, 2019, 04:55:56 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLVI (1,446): "Loss of Power" -- The RAFians take on the power broker.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Contest of Wills

The guards immediately backed off, as they looked up at Dom, whose physique became far more intimidating and ripped, as he increased in size and strength. He looked like a comic book character, with ridiculously hulking masculine physique. He was far more intimidating than he was as Dom Convertir.

Dom fully embraced this Griethoth identity, and he was perfectly willing to allow his former identity and knowledge of it flow away into the aether. Even the part  him that remained lucid embraced this identity fully. He felt so powerful, so in control of his destiny, so . . . everything he could ever want. He felt like, despite not truly being in control of his actions anymore, freed. Free to break the wills of others.

"You . . . can't have that," a guard said, hesitantly. He was intimidated, and it was a wonder that he managed to choke out those words as it were. Greithoth looked at him, all humanity leeched from him. His grip on the chain, which was wrapped around his forearm, actually loosened, but Greithoth would not lose its hold or Dom's physical being as long as the chain was still attached.

"Really? Then take it," Greithoth said, with his distorted voice, "straight to the gut!"

And so the hammer flew from Greithoth's hand, which securely held the length of chain connected to the shaft and pommel. It happened far too quick for this guard to react. He doubled over and collapsed into a heap, roughly eleven o'clock from the Breaker of Wills.

But it wasn't just the physical blow the guard felt. He suddenly felt an immediate apathy and lethargy that was completely inexplicable to him. He could not muster up the willpower to even move from where he lay, feeling completely unmotivated to do so. He offered no resistance, peaceful or otherwise, when roughly moved aside. The blow had shattered his willpower into bits. Shattered like a pane of glass, with just as much effort exerted on Greithoth's part.

And each guard fell to this, all of the guards who desired the Hammer for themselves, for their own agendas and desires. All the ones foolish enough not to see the draw, the attraction for the danger that it was. All of them had their willpowers shattered as Greithoth was a bull in a china factory, and both the Dom and Greithoth side of this being were enthralled by this, thoroughly enjoying this stature, this power . . . and of being feared. This was as it should be he thought, and he had lost all track of time.

"Leave them alone," said a voice behind him. "I know that theyre prisoners, but they don't deserve this kind of punitive measure."

Greithoth turned around to see who had the audacity to confront him, the Breaker of Wills. Who had the gall? Who had the balls? He saw a chalk-white person in green shorts, pointed shoes, wrist-length gloves, and a cloak. He had burning emerald eyes and his cloak's hood was up.

"And who are you to speak to Greithoth, the Breaker of Wills, like that?"

"Speaking to yourself in the third-person," Spectre said. "So, you're one of those villains."

"Shut up."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 21, 2019, 04:51:37 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLVII (1,447): "This Will Not Stand" -- Noncanon. The RAFians must stop "the Snap".

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINE:
Clash of Wills

Greithoth threw the Hammer again, bound to his arm by the chain, expecting for Spectre to fall like the guards and prisoners. Will broken. Shattered completely. Defeat uncontested. Greithoth believed nothing and no one could stand up to his power. He allowed himself to believe that this Hammer made him all-powerful. It all went straight to his head.

Imagine his dismayed surprise when none of this happened. Imagine his disappointed irritation when Spectre caught it in his right hand. Spectre looked unintimidated and undaunted. And unimpressed.

"Was that supposed to be an attack," Spectre said, and it was unclear if it was the spirit or Sam speaking, "or some sort of . . . joke?"

Naturally, due the inherent egotism of Dom, Greithoth took great offense at this insult. And he tugged the chain, recalling the Hammer. It only did when Spectre released it. He was the fourth strongest RAFian, after all.

"I will break you," Greithoth seethed, "I don't care how strong your willpower supposedly is. I will break it, and I will break you."

"Break my willpower?" Spectre said, his arms crossed over his chest, looking at Greithoth with disapproval. "Dude, I used to be a Green Lantern. And you think you can break my willpower?"

He shot the hammer again in reply. It missed. He recalled it and tried once more. Only to miss again. Both aspects, Dom and Greithoth, were getting frustrated and angry. They were the Breaker of Wills!!! They broke the willpower of any being, no matter how strong. The Hammer granted this power to them, bestowed this bounty upon them . . . how could it have encountered one with an indomitable, unbreakable will so soon after finding and adhering to its Worthy?

"Are we done with this exercise in futility?" Spectre asked, again unclear which one was really speaking, Spectre or Sam. "You cannot hope to win this . . . battle."

"I'll show you!" Greithoth roared. This reaction stemming from Dom's own insecurities, his fear of being subpar. "I'LL SHOW YOU!!!"

He decided he wanted to eschew mid-range combat, and desired to get close. He wanted to pummel this smug, chalk white bastard. He wanted to hit him until his Hammer and fists run red with his blood. He wanted this so much.

But you can't always get what you want.

Spectre never lost his composture, and thus was thinking clearly, with a level head. Greithoth (and the Dom remnant) was not. The difference was palpable. Greithoth began to swing his Hammer wildly, in a berserk sort of way. Spectre dodged all them without much, if any, exertion.

"Stop that!" Greithoth raged. "STOP IT!!!"

"No."

"Die!!!"

"I've already done that," Spectre said, obviously Sam speaking, "I'd rather not repeat it."

"Be quiet!!!"

"Not until that Hammer is dealt with," Spectre said, quite seriously, "it an artifact of immense power, much too dangerous to be wielded."

"I'm Worthy!!" he raged. "I am the only one Worthy to be the Breaker of Wills!!!"

"But you cannot break mine."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 22, 2019, 05:21:05 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLVIII (1,448): "A Silent Place" -- The world is ravaged by the Audiopugno.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TEN:
Unbroken Will

"I am the BREAKER OF WILLS!!" he screamed, sounding more petulant than intimidating. More hysterical than threatening. "No one will can resist my Hammer!!!"

"I did," Spectre observed stoically.

"Shut up!" Greithoth spat back. He was clearly getting quite frustrated, and that frustration was clouding his mind. "Just shut up!!!"

He launched another attack -- but Spectre can fly effortlessly, and Greithoth could not. This just amplified his angry frustrations even more. Escalating his recklessness. This is the problem when relying on anger and strength alone in battle. They often conspire to work against you. Clouding your mind. Especially when your opponent has a clear head.

"This entire exercise is futile, and has grown stale," Spectre said, catching the Hammer with his Marked hand. The Hammer seemed to crack and fracture as the Mark glowed unusually white. Prolonged exposure seemed to amplify the damage to the Hammer that even Greithoth could not ignore. "It is time to end it."

Spectre transformed the Hammer into green paper airplanes, which crumpled to the floor. Greithoth was no more, and he was just Dom Convertir once more, and the Hammer's effect of shattering the wills of others was slowly undone -- but not with remnants of the effects. Each prisoner and guard remembered having their wills broken.

"No!!!!!" Dom cried. He was powerless again, no longer possessing the might that enthralled him, that fuelled his confidence. "Nooooooooo!!!!!!"

"We're done here," Spectre said, flying away, leaving Dom to the guards . . . the ones who didn't have their wills shattered, who were still very shaky, but alive.

***

"'Worthy', my tail!" Malice stewed. "Some unbreakable hammer, Singularity."

Singularity said nothing as he ignored Malice. He was far more interested in the white glow he saw from Spectre. It reminded him of an old folk tale once told to one of his constituent parts -- which one, it didn't matter.

Singularity didn't care that the Hammer was destroyed. He hadn't intended them to be unbreakable, after all. He may have led Malice to believe this, but it wasn't true. Wasn't true in the least.

But Singularity took great interest in the few seconds when Spectre's Mark became white. Bright white. It just reminded him of that folk tale, and that there just may be a kernel of truth to it.

He had to know more . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 24, 2019, 03:48:39 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDXLIX (1,449): "When Diplomacy Works" -- The RAFians foster a treaty with the Gargantians.

New chapter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Broken Soul

Rudy Hutz was a broken soul.

He had lost everything he had, and he was completely disbarred. He was no longer able to practice law -- despite not being very good at it. The failures and ineptitudes he showcased during the trial of Dom Convertir seemed to be the tipping point of his life. And not for the better.

As when he lost that case, he got termination papers from his law firm, who as deeply disappointed and tired of his constant losses due to his incompetance, lack of preparation, and overall messy, unfocused attire. He tended to look as if he just rolled out of bed and just came into work looking so disheveled. It was not professional, and Hutz wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

To top matters off, his girlfriend decided to leave him for some burly, bald guy in a sleeveless black leather jacket with a flaming skull depicted on it. She went with him, because she liked his motorcycle, which clearly was his baby, and she cheated on Rudy with him several times without Rudy's notice. His girlfriend left him when it became clear thahe could no longer support the life she had become accustomed to, financially. She clearly ws playing him for a fool, and he only realized it when he lost his job and she had moved out on the spot.

His problems didn't end there, unfortunately. He quickly found that she had drained his bank account before leaving him, rendering him unable to pay for his rent at his comfortable home, leaving him being peppered with eviction notices after the late notices stopped. He took up drinking during this period, as he looked for anher place and a job -- both were incredibly difficult, and nigh impossible in the position that he found himself in.

He was now homeless, alone, and promptly forgotten and quickly abandoned by those that, once upon a time, he counted as friends and allies. He had nothing to his name, a name no one cared about any longer. He had gone from a modicum of notoriety to the cold vacuum of anonymity. He was forced to take his home on the streets and inside dark alleyways. Forced to sleep inside cardboard boxes, and endure cold nights relying on his thick jacket and neophyte beard.

He found it humiliating and disgraceful to be homeless, and to live in this squalor. He hated having to dumpster-dive for food, the perceived abasement of poverty, and just how real survival became for him. Things he had always taken for granted, things that he never really thought about -- warm beds, showers every day, meals at a significant higher frequency than now, possessing a vehicle of his own, having a job to report to daily . . . all gone. Gone. Gone forever. He found this to be a mortifying shame to have nothing, knowing that he deserved more!

Even amongst the other homeless people, he was an outcast. He tried to keep his distance from them, almost as if he didn't see that he was just as dirty, scruffy, and scraggly in appearance, and his clothes were just as threadbare, worn, and torn as theirs. As such, this was reciprocated by them not allowing them to share their fires in steel drums, and they treated him with the hostility he showed them.

It wasn't fair. He hated his disheveled, unkempt appearance. He hated his situation, and the circumstances that had led him to it. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to be forgotten like this. It wasn't fair to be thrown aside like this. He was still a person, with the full range of emotions and rights that came with it. He still mattered . . .

He still mattered . . .

This is where it happened, near a seldom-used bridge over a trickle of water and an abandoned industrial park. The Hammer of Angrir came slamming down, obliterated the steel drum fire that several vagrants were clustered around, to get warm on this cold day. This impact slayed one of them, one of the poor souls forgotten by society, who was flung to upper part of concrete bank.

This was enough to send those homeless persons with enough good sense to recognize a bad thing when they see it. But one or two stuck around, enticed and enthralled by the Hammers aura, which reached out, searching for that who was Worthy of wielding about it. Neither of the vagrants that stuck around could lift it, despite trying very hard, before tiring themselves out. Though they were inclined to keep trying, they retreated when they realized that it might bring them more trouble an its worth, leaving the area abandoned.

Except for Rudy.

Rudy was thoroughly enthralled, and he acted upon it. He was never had good judgement to begin with, so there was nothing to stop him from approaching something that was clearly dangerous and one should keep their distance from. Rudy walked slowly, with a mild limp, as his health had been less than immaculate since his heavy fall from grace.

He reached out and slowly grasped the short shaft. With a mild jerk, he found that he could lifted with ease. Only he transformed into something with the skin of a Phalanx or a Galvanic Mechamorph. His personality was slowly subsumed, baring a small bit, a fragment, that remained lucid, until he became Angrir, Breaker of Souls.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 27, 2019, 04:48:33 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDL (1,450): "Arquillian Alliance" -- The RAFians forge an alliance with the Arquillians

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Conflicting Views

Angrir's grip tightened upon his Hammer as he roared, in a distorted version of Rudy's voice, "I AM ANGRIR!!! BREAKER OF SOULS!!!"

He glared around, almost hoping for someone to dismiss or refute this claim. But there was no one, not a living soul. Which was fortunate, as any blow from his hammer might have caused several unintentional Horcruxes to form, due to the very nature of the Hammer breaking, mashing, and shattering souls. But this dissatisfied Angrir's fearsome braggadoscious demeanor.

He needed souls to crush, to destroy. It was what he was meant to do after all. There was just this forgotten industrial park, with a poorly-maintained, but still fundamentally-functional bridge. He had his Hammer. All he needed now, and he felt the need desperately (despite the confused lucid part of Rudy's personality that had no control over his actions anymore), was a nail to hit.

But this area was devoid  such desirable targets. So, his course forward was obvious. He would have to go where there were suitable targets. Where none would be able to challenge his might, where all could marvel at his maiming of souls. It would be a spectacle and deeply enjoyable, for, as Angrir reasoned, why do anything if you're not going to enjoy it to its fullest.

"You're going the wrong way," said a voice from the bridge above him. Angrir elated while Rudy felt a sensation of dread.

"You dare challenge the mighty Angrir?" he said, with smiling scoff. He was secretly thrilled by this, even when he saw the owner of the voice was a woman -- Angrir was not a progressive, enlightened man. She was sitting on the side of the bridge a few feet up, and it was a wonder why her clothing wasn't being ripped and torn due to the rough edges of the bridge. "You dare challenge the BREAKER OF SOULS?!"

"Oh, I wouldn't DREAM of challenging you, o' great dunderhead Angrir," Abby said, with a tone of cleverly nuanced sarcasm that Angrir wasn't bright enough to catch on to. Hiwever, her next statement was what left no doubt that she was ridiculing him. "Mocking you, however . . ."

Angrir was not one to take scornful derision lightly. In fact, he tended to take disdainful derision very personally, while Rudy, lucid part of his personality, the "remainder" if you will, was frankly nonplussed and confused to it all.

"No one mocks Angrir!!" he roared as the remainder of Rudy wondered why he couldn't see that she was baiting him. But Angrir could not hear this lucid part of the Worthy -- this wasn't like a Yeerk-host relationship. "No one!!"

He ****ed the Hammer back, preoaring for a blow with all his strength, enhanced by the Hammer, through it. He was going to bring the bridge on top of this woman.

"I thought that I just did," Abby said, sounding completely unconcerned and unintimidated by Angrir's threats. It did occur to her that it was, perhaps, not the most advisable course of action to antagonize a ripped guy who is hefting a heavy Hammer that will likely do considerable physical harm to her. But what is physical harm to one who can simply morph away the harm done?

But, still, she was taking a rather large risk by taunting and mocking this musclebound brute. She would have to take him down somehow -- she knew that that Hammer cannot ever reach a populated area. She was already fortunate that he hadn't caused any destruction yet. It was clear that quick wits and cleverness wouldn't stop this Angrir.

She had a vague idea, the merest skeleton of a plan, as it left a lot to chance, and depended on sheer luck with the massive lack of information she had on the particulars of Angrir.

But it had to work.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on August 29, 2019, 05:55:33 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLI (1,451): "The Shorty Squad" -- Several RAFian allies become the "Shorty Squad" and get captured.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Perfect Morph

To Angrir, it seemed like Abby inexplicably vanished and he was none too happy with this resultant outcome. He demanded, "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Abby did not oblige an answer as her skin grew purplish and her body began to bloat out a little as her limbs began to shrivel. She was morphing. She was morphing into the only morph that could be of any real use. But only for less than two hours.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" he demanded.

It was at this point Abby's face was beginning to distort into one decidedly more inhuman. Her teeth fused together to become two inhumanly long fangs protruding from her mouth, giving her an almost vampiric appearance. Two more, smaller fangs grew from her lower jaw, replacing all her human teeth. While this was happening her eyes became beady and red.

Abby heard the Hammer swish through the air in a threatening manner, almost fearful that her hiding spot was made. But his refrain remained consistent -- "WHERE ARE YOU, GNAT?!" -- so Abby's anxiety was short lived. She had to complete her morph.

Mostly in morph now, as her four limbs became insectoid and the tip of her abdomen became barbed. She also grew two feathery antennae where her eyebrows used to be, which swept out, perpendicular to her body. Her tongue also became long, conical, and barbed.

"STOP HIDING FROM ME!!" he continued to rage, and Abby somehow shut out his tantrum and ignored it.

The morph was nearly complete, and she was not an estreen, so she couldn't control it like one. Almost comically large spiracles grew at her side -- this would extrude her morph's main weapon. Then the final completion to the morph, the four large, gossamer wings that would enable her bee-like body to fly.

"FACE ME!!" Angrir raged even more. "COWARD!! COME AND FACE ME!!"

Abby was now fully in her Psycholeopterran morph. Since it was far from her first time in it, she was able to master its instincts. It helped that it didn't have any Necrofriggian prey -- a sentient species, by the way.

<Careful what you wish for,> Abby warned cryptically.

"SHOW YOURSELF!!" he roared, with a definite sound of concrete yielding to his Hammer. "COWARD!!"

<Allow me to comply, then,> Abby said, with still that creepily cryptic tone.

---

*(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/ben10/images/f/f1/Predador_do_Friagem.png/revision/latest?cb=20140424171325)*

Psycholeopterran.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 02, 2019, 03:17:36 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLII (1,452): "Clumsy Infiltration" -- Another attempt to infiltrate RAF goes awry.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The Resistant Fragment

When Abby showed herself, Angrir immediately threw his hammer, and she, being a Psycholeopterran, easily phased through it. It was actually counterintuitive doing so, as she halfway expected the "Breaker of Souls" to be able to hit intangible things. Perhaps the title wasn't meant to be taken so literally.

She remained intangible when he tried to summon the Hammer back to his hand behind her. That was an old tactic that she was more than prepared for. But she hadn't time to be messing about. She only had two hours too this, and she had no way of telling time here. She would have to guess, and she knew how incredibly risky that doing such was. But it was necessary risk -- morphing was the onoy weapon she had against Angrir.

When she went tangible again, she floated up right in Angrir's line of sight, as he ****ed his arm back to throw the hammer one more time, But before he could, Abby exuded the red mist and flapped her wings very hard. The mist became concentric, interlocking circles with hypnotic properties.

Angrir readied to attack again, but stopped. He saw the hypnotic circles and he was clearly affected by it. He saw what he wanted to see in the circles. He saw wondrous destruction of those who would stand against him and his master, the rapturous decimation of those who would be obstacles and obstructions in his master's grand design, the musical screams of those falling to his hammer, his master thanking him wholeheartedly for his endeavors and praising him for a job well dond . . .

His arms dropped. His shoulders sagged. His Hammer slipping through his fingers d landing with a thud upon the ground, though it retained its hold over Rudy. Angrir was just so . . . so entralled by these visions. It was the same as if he were staring into the Mirror of Erised. Just as people wasted away before the aforementioned mirror, so have people before a Psycholeopterran's hypnosis.

However, the part of Rudy that remained lucid struggled against Angrir, not finding the images conjured from Angrir's mind remotely enticing. He did not find destruction desirable. He did not think slaying hordes of people by the thousands -- millions, or even billions -- was a worthwhile ambition.

Abby didn't realize it at the time, as she felt no discomfort or pain from it, but her Mark (which had translocated itself to her forehead when she morphed into a Psycholeopterran) was burning with a white light. While Angrir was still entranced by the hypnotic visions, exposure to Abby's Mark in this state caused the Hammer to flake away into dust, as if Thanos had done the snap to get rid of Hammers.

And, with the Hammer gone, its effects over Rudy was gone as well, with the Angrir identity flaking off him as if it were some low-budget CGI effect. Once this happened, Abby immediately stopped and demorphed. She was lucky, as she was dangerously close to the time limit. Her Mark translocated back to her right hand the minute she demorphed enough to have one.

It was done.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 03, 2019, 05:07:17 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLIV (1,454): "Touch of Fear" -- A boy manifests the power to see someone's deepest fears, by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Broken Faith

Persephone Perfidy had lost her faith.

Not in any religious institution, though that was part of it, but with humanity at large. She sat in the pew that her rather conservative mother forced into. Her mother was religious to the point of blind zealotry, and Persephone found this extremely grating and overbearing. then hearing what this particular preacher had to say about some extremely controversial subjects, trying to use their holy book to justify his brutally uncharitable views. And, although she didn't say it outright, she knew her mother believed this garbage.

Both of their views were also quite factually incorrect, grossly so -- especially considering the shape of the Earth, the contents of vaccines, and the possibility of anthropogenic climate change. They were of the believe that all they needed to do was pray and everything would turn out alright. Persephone, named by her deceased father (or at least, her mother claimed that he was dead), found it very difficult to swallow all this propaganda she had shoveled down her throat for nearly twenty years at this point.

She never told her mother that she had been vaccinated without her mother's consent, by her own choice. She refused to believe that nonsense her mother constantly vomits up and spews forth like skunk stink. She also refused to believe (or entertain) the notion that the Earth was flat. She had educated herself on the matter in secret, but with each day, her mother's pompous, smug attitude wore on her. Eroding what little love and respect she had for her mother until it was virtually nonexistent. The preacher had already done that when he opened his mouth, and spewed th very same bile, using their religious book to justify it, despite the passage he was citing being contradicted a few pages further into the book.

Persephone had learned that neither one much cared for their bigoted and factually incorrect propaganda to be challenged, or dismissed outright, and it was an experience she found rather traumatic. She learned to hide her unhappiness and discontent from both of them, as, despite the domineering bullishness they constantly displayed, they would turn into offended little snowflakes faster than a blink of the eye when someone had the audacity to challenge them. Persephone was aware of this, and s felt her faith in humanity continually ebb away until it was so shallow that you could stand in it and not get your feet wet.

But the only real thing that she had that she really cared deeply about is a little spinel gem, colored a dark pink. It was a gift from her father -- the only gift of his she remembered having. She cherished this little trinket, which probably wasn't the most expensive thing, but she cherished it just the same.

Then her mother found out what she did.

Her mother was not a woman of words, but one who would not hesitate to resort to violence at any sign of challenge to her, whether it was her rhetoric or she anything that she perceived disrespectful. Especially when it was from someone that she considered lesser than her. Someone she considered lower class or of a lower position than her. She was not someone to be trifled with lightly -- someone who would ask for a manager in the most hostioe way, over the most benign things, and expect free items in return for being "inconvenienced".

Persephone had no love her, as her mother alone had eroded all faith in humanity she had. How could society have produced such a vile woman? A woman so absolutely convinced that everything she said, everything she did, was always in the right? That she herself was incapable of making mistakes? (And incapable being polite for that matter.) And Persephone had come to believe that this sort of blight had infected humanity as a whole.

So, as she sat in this pew, or whatever you called it, trying to ignore this bigoted pastor, if that's what he was called -- Persephone didn't know and didn't care. All she knew was that she hated being forced to stay here. She hated her life -- and she hated it. And she hated her mother, after she took her spinel from her, and Persephone didn't kn what she did with it, but deeply suspected that she had destroyed it (her mother hated her father, Persephone knew).

The most galling thing was when her mother had decided to act as if nothing had happened. She had no idea how much she was held in her daughter's contempt. She had no idea how much her daughter despised her, and she tended to be oblivious towards the feelings of others. Because she thought that she wasn't nearly as bad as her sister Agnes, when, in many ways, that wasn't true. She was just as entitled and overbearing. She was unaware that her domineering attitude had her daughter entertaining some permanent repercussions that she couldn't take back.

But then the Hammer of Mokk, Breaker of Faith, crashed through the stained glass window behind the pastor, or whatever his title was, and onto the very spot that he was standing. He was killed instantly, which sent waves of panic through his parishioners, or whatever they were called. Many were streaming to the doors, none hearing the Hammer, but Persephone and her mother. Her mother tried to force her to leave with her.

But Persephone had had enough. She ripped her arm out of her mother's iron grip, and immediately went to the Hammer, ignoring her mother's tirade and demands. Her mother was red in the face -- she was unaccustomed to defiance, used to Persephone doing everything to placate her. She never noticed her unhappiness, her morose depression.

Persephone took a grip upon the Hammer. And the transformation was instantaneous. Possibly because Persephone was tired of being Persephone Perfidy. Possibly because it was naive escapism. Possibly it was just because of all-encompassing parental resentment and blind defiance.

She looked up, appearing as if she had merged with a Galvanic Mechamorph. She spoke, in a distorted version of her voice, "I am Mokk, Breaker of FAITH!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 05, 2019, 04:57:44 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLV (1,455): "Touch of Death" -- A boy manifests the ability to see someone's death by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Bad Faith Actor and Good Faith Actor

"Put that thing down, Seph," her mom (who disregarded how much Persephone hated that abbreviation of her name, with her preferring her full name of "Persephone") ordered. Her mother seemed woefully unaware and miserably oblivious to the sheer danger that she had put herself into. But she was never a woman of much common sense. "That thing is unbecoming."

"I am Mokk," she said, displaying a restraint the others had not exhibited. But her grip tightened on her Hammer. Yet, her mother remained so painfully, excruciatingly oblivious to the danger she was in, how dangerous her daughter had become. "Persephone is gone."

"Seph!" her mother said sharply, and her fear reflex clearly was faulty. Her scornful scolding was not going to end well for her, and it didn't even occur to her. "I am your mother!! You're supposed to honor and respect me! You do as I say!!"

There was no way anyone could have reacted in time, though those smarter than her mother would have seen all the danger signs and took them for what they were. they would have survived to see the next day. When Mokk swung the Hammer, it wasn't only Persephone's mother's faith that broke. Even a person a fraction of her age and took care of themselves better would have fallen to such a blow.

It killed her upon impact. And, even the lucid part of Persephone still residing in the headspace that the Mokk personality currently took the lion's share of felt no remorse for this. She had felt that her mother had gotten what she deserved for her bigotry and cruelty. While she never said it aloud, for fear of vicious and vindictive reprisals, she loathed her mother as much as anyone can do so to any person. She had no bond with this woman. That ended when the umbilical cord was cut.

Her body laid where it landed, broken and lifeless. In a way, Persephone had just committed matricide, but did she really? She wasn't in control  her actions, she was just following what the Hammer, and thereby the Mokk personality, wanted without any imput or instructions from the part of her that was still lucid. She felt no remorse -- she knew that her mother was an awful person and the world was probably better off without her.

But that did not mean that she hadn't a modicum of regret. It didn't have to turn out this way. Had she have been a kind soul, a supportive mother, and an all around decent human being . . . but no. No, she chose instead to be conceited, arrogant, and entitled. Instead of allowing people, especially Persephone, form their own opinions, their own separate identities from her, she would browbeat everyone she could to see her way of thinking. People would just agree just for the expediency of getting her to leave them alone, as she got aggressive and prone to violence when challenged. She didn't have to be that way. She chose to be that way. And she chose poorly.

Meanwhile, while the lucid part of Persephone was quietly regretting her mother's decisions (which she clearly never did, baffling her daughter), Mokk was systematically destroying the place. Every peg and board, every pew, everything was coming down. And she was going slow. She was warming up.

Then a voice came up behind her, and asked, very seriously, if not a little tartly, "What do you think you're doing?"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 07, 2019, 04:44:23 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLVI (1,456): "Touch of Rage" -- A boy manifests the ability to see someone's rage by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Blaze and Mokk

Mokk turned around to face Blaze. He was fluttering to the ground with his reddish-orange wings -- although, that color could be a result of the sunlight filtering through the feathers on his wings. He landed daintily, without a sound and but a puff of dust announcing his presence.

"I repeat," Blaze said, folding his wings close to his back. Blaze looked around, seeing if there were casualties. He couldn't see Persephone's mother, buried under the rubble. After this brief pause, he continued, "What are you doing? Did you demolish this --"

"I am the Breaker of Faith," Mokk said, and Persephone thought it sounded profoundly childish. "And I broke their faith, and the vile institution that promulgated it."

"I know of this place, and the less-than-charitable views it preached," Blaze said, coolly. "But that is no reason to completely destroy it. Resorting to such violence completely undermines your . . . point . . ."

He said the last word with a hint of disgust.

"I don't care about ideologies," Mokk said, with a snarl. Mokk spoke with a distorted variation of Persephone's voice . She hefted the hammer to her newly muscular shoulder, and her eyes narrowed as her tone took on a smugness that Blaze felt was unwarranted. "I don't care what they believed in, or if they believed in anything at all. They had faith in something. I broke them and the inspiration for it. It's what I do. I have no other purpose. I need no other purpose."

"Your only purpose is to destroy anything someone can believe in? And anyone who can believe in that person or institution?" Blaze said, eyes narrowed as he folded his arms, prepared to reach for his bow. He needed a substitute after his special metamorphing sword was destroyed, so he opted for this bow. It had celestial bronze, Imperial gold, and mundane iron in its composition that complimented each other rather nicely. He opted against one with an opal in it, as he didn't like the design. "You realize how broad and vague that is?"

"Your judgement means nothing to me," Mokk countered, brandishing her Hammer in a threatening, hostile manner. And, by doing so, she completely undermined her argument. "You're just a little man playing a game that you do not know how to play properly!"

"I think I touched a nerve," Blaze observed. He wasn't a fool as he took his bow in hand and extended his wings to their full wingspan. This was just the banter before the battle, a statement of the clash of their ideals before the escalation. Blaze was aware of this, while Mokk did not seem to. If she did, she did not acknowledge it.

"I will not only break your faith," Mokk said, with a bloodthirsty sort of tone, "I will break you!!"

"Definitely touched a nerve," Blaze said, to himself, readying his bow.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2019, 06:29:22 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLVII (1,457): "Oblivion Gate: Supplemental" -- An in-depth look at the Oblivion Gate Prison in the Universal Nexus.

New chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Unshakable Faith

Mokk made the first move, taking the offensive, throwing the Hammer at Blaze, who launched himself into the air. Stretching his wings he took flight, and he took aim. He nearly forgot about the Hammer, which Mokk recalled to her hand immediately. He did an aileron roll (despite not possessing any ailerons) and managed to dodge it with all the aerial skill he possessed.

He never lost his aim while doing this, either. He pulled back his bowstring and an arrow of fire -- a stiff tongue of flame -- manifested in place of an arrow. When he released the bowstring, the fiery projectile flew as an arrow would, embedding itself at Mokk's feet with several of its brothers sprouting from the ground now like Pyrosunnurite flowers. Which were summarily smashed to embers with one mighty swing of the Hammer.

"The fight is on, I guess," Blaze said, landing and firmly grabbing his bow around its middle. With a simple, almost effortless yank, he managed to separate the bow in two and use the bow halves as a bludgeoning weapon. This was very likely foolhardy on his part.

"I will break you." Mokk growled. "I will break your faith, then your body."

"Dude," Blaze interjected, showing his dexterity with the bow halves, which had basically transfigured into blunt daggers. "Don't count your chickens."

And, with that, no further words were spoken and the battle was engaged anew. Blaze used his bow half-daggers to block and perry each strike. The terrain showed the strength of each blow, and Blaze was on the defensive. He wasn't really willing to end her life, as he was seeing the Hammer for what it was -- the one in control of Persephone's actions.

Not to mention that it took him the whole of his strength to block and perry the blows. He could handle this, but not forever. He was not immune to fatigue, and this "Worthy" seemed to be more resistant to it than he himself was. This was not a good thing, especially if she could outlast him long enough to deliver the killing blow.

But Blaze would not be broken, body or faith. He was resolute. He was determined. He would not relent. And yet, he couldn't finish him off. He thought about getting in close range like this and came to the conclusion that this was stupid. Combat in these close quarters was benefiting Mokk, not him. He was allowing her to control the battle. He couldn't possibly have won the day that way.

So, he did the only logical thing he could think of. He backed away, withdrew from the combat, as he joined the two halves of his bow back together and held it in on hand.

"Coward!!" Mokk roared. Blaze ignored her.

Then he drew bowstring from the bow, and the fire arrow -- head, shaft, fetching, all the same, made from fire -- had appeared and rested as if were patiently waiting to be used.  He fired, and the fire sprouted from the ground in front of Mokk. She didn't flinch, not even a little. Blaze fired six more, which all but one missed by a very narrow margin. The last one embedded into her Hammer, before fizzling out within seconds.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, unaware that his Mark had changed to glowing white. Nor did he notice that the next fire arrow had turned into white-colored flame arrow. He took aim, as Mokk reeled her Hammer back, prepared to either swing or throw the Hammer. Blaze released the taut bowstring as Mokk threw the Hammer.

Both were disintegrated. The Hammer was gone, as was the arrow made of white flames. Mokk was immediately reverted back to Persephone, who found herself confused by her own emotions. . . .

***

"Interesting," Singularity said, watching the battle. "Could it be that they all have the . . . no. No, they're lesser beings beneath the notice of . . . yes, that must be it. A coincidence."

Malice had no idea what he was talking about, but was just upset at the destruction of another Hammer. But the indifference about it Singularity displayed confused and puzzled her, and yet, she didn't treat him as she did her other minions. She was still oblivious to how she was no longer the one in charge.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 10, 2019, 03:38:13 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLVIII (1,458): "Touch of Desire" -- A boy manifests the ability to see someone's deepest desire by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Other Friends

GH was playing, by the lake, with Leatherhead, Estelore, and Cloak. The sunlight was wonderful. It was a happily ever after, if there ever was one. There were nothing pressing, nothing but time to enjoy with people you enjoy being around.

Was there no better feeling?

Suddenly, the sky went dark, as a sinister shadow appeared.

"HEY!" the shadow called towards the four. Its voice was masculine. "Are you Logan --"

"It's GH now," GH corrected, suspiciously.

"Perfect," the shadow said. Then he leaped to them, only revealing a humanoid silhouette, as if GH was not allowed to see this person's visage just yet. But he knew already who it was. He knew in the deepest recesses of his soul and the very bottom of his heart who it was. And he didn't want to believe it.

"It can't be," he said, as all four got to their feet.

"Oh, but it can be!" he said. "And it is!"

He allowed himself a chuckle, before continuing.

"I've got a new look, a few new -- toys -- that are gonna put an end to your happily-ever-after. ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

"Tad extreme," Estelore noted.

"Perhaps you didn't hear --" Cloak began, but this shadowed figure brazenly interrupted him. Cloak narrowed his eyes dangerously.

"Yeah. Yeah. I heard." he said. "I've had your little message -- ON LOOP!"

Then an electro-swing beat began, and this shadowed figure slinked over to the four, beginning to sing.

"That's right, I heard the story,
Over and over again.
Gee, it's swell to finally meet his other friends!
That's right, I heard the story,
Don't really like how it ends!
Gee, it's swell to finally meet his other friends!"

He proceeded to harass all four, evading all Cloak's clawed swipes, undoing Estelore's hair, and flicking Leatherhead's nose. It was like he was playing with them. Literally. He continued to sing.

"What did he say about me?
What did he say?
What did he do without me?
What did he do?
Did he play games without me?
What did he play?"

Then he turned his attention to GH himself, as he sang:

"Did you think all this time that I wouldn't find out about you?"

Then he continued, singing:

"Oh, that's right, I heard the story,
Over and over again,
Gee, it's swell to finally meet his other friends!"

"I really is him," GH said, in disbelief. "This can't be serious . . ."

"You know him, Daddy? Can you tell us who he is?" Leatherhead asked.

Then the shadowed man looked to be rather . . . triggered . . . at this exchanged. He became aware that GH never told them at all about him, it would seem. And he took this rather . . . personally.

He sang angrily:
?

"Who am I?!
Who am I?!
What are you even saying?!
I'm the loser of the game
You didn't know you were playing!!"

Then he pulled out what appeared to be a comically large sledgehammer with a cartoonish flourish.

"Let's play another game.
This time I get to win!!
Lives on the line,
Winner takes all --
Ready or not, let's begin!"

Then he attacked in earnest. He managed to get the better of all four of them, as he concluded his song:

"Oh, that's right, I heard the story,
Over and over again,
Gee, it's swell to finally beat his other friends!
Oh, that's right, I heard the story,
Don't really like how it ends.
Gee, it's swell to finally beat his other,
Other,
Other friends!"

Leatherhead, Cloak, and Estelore poofed, and GH woke up. He discovered that he was on a bench in the local mall. He had dozed off without intending to. He had come to do some shopping, and Leatherhead was back at the forum. He didn't have his guitar, but he wasn't worried. He could summon it to his side as easily as if it were a Keyblade.

GH sat up straight, and ironed his temples. He tried to grapple with the dream. He remembered it, and he knew who that shadowed man was. And it scared him, so he tried to rationalize it away.

"He's fine. He's safe." he said. Then, after a moment, after pushing a bit of emotion down, he added, "he's . . . he's happy. . . ."

---

SOURCE SONG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v_KfioWSf4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v_KfioWSf4)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 11, 2019, 05:00:10 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLIX (1,459): "Touch of Famine" -- A girl manifests the ability to see what someone's devoid of by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY:
A Broken Man

Andy was broken, as he walked through the mall in his hometown. He had broken up with his boyfriend, Jacob Eagun. But, thing was, Jacob never told him that he was breaking up with Andy. Never told him that he didn't see the relationship as seriously as Andy did.

As Andy reflected, he saw Jacob in his mind's eye, singing:

"Here in the Gardens,
Let's play a game.
I'll show you how it's done.
Here in the Gardens,
Stand very still."

And he saw himself, singing, as he felt ashamed of himself as he sung:

"This'll be so much fun!"

Then he sang in voiceover, as he recalled the abandonment.

And then he smiled, that's what I'm after,
The smile in his eyes, the sound of his laughter . . .
Content to listen, content to play,
Contently watching him drift away . . .

He recalled the painful waiting for him to return. Never realizing that . . . that was never his intention.
?

Contently waiting,
All on my own,
Under the endless sky.
Counting the seconds, standing alone,
As eons seem to go by.
Contently wondering, night after night,
Is this how it works?
Am I doing it right?
Content to listen, content to stay,
Contently watching him drift away . . .

He kept returning to the Gardens, day after day, after work. All waiting for him. But it was starting to become clearer and clearer to him, though he didn't want to believe it.
?

You keep on turning pages,
For people who don't care,
People who don't care,
About you . . .
And still it takes you ages,
To see that no one's there,
See that no one's there,
See that no one's there,
Everyone's gone on, without you . . .

It was a month or two of no contact with Andy, when Andy found out what was up. And the real reason for h abandonment.
?

Finally something!
Finally news!
About how the story ends.
He's really gone now,
Survived by his wife and son,
And all of his brand-new friends . . .

Andy ran away, to his hometown, to the mall, hating himself for his foolishness. He was the other man. The toy that Jacob used to cheat on his wife. He was the homewrecker, without knowing or wanting to be. But then something caught his eye as he was crying unabashedly.

All the while, his mind sang:
?

Isn't that lovely?
Isn't that cool?
And isn't that cruel?
And aren't I a fool to have,
Contently listened,
Content to stay,
Contently watching him drift . . .

Andy touched the handle of the Hammer of Skirn. Then he grasped the handle, and hefted it aloft and transformed as he sang in voice over . . .

Drift . . .
Drift . . .
Away . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rmBB_-2hFqY

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 12, 2019, 03:51:30 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLX (1,460): "Touch of Shame" -- A boy manifests the ability to see someone's deepest shame by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
A Personal Conflict

The Skirn identity had taken control over Andy, and he was actually fine with this. He just wanted to disconnect with the world. From the pain he felt, felt from being used as Jacob's plaything with no deeper connection than that. He had to believe that he wasn't the first one either. He just didn't want to feel, and even the lucid part of him (which could see, hear, and feel everything, though the Skirn identity had control of his movements and speech. But he managed to tune everything out, tried to forget everything painful that has ever happened to him.

But Andy couldn't bring himself to even hate Jacob. He just didn't have it in him to be that hateful. It just wasn't in his kind, gentle, if somewhat naive nature. Its also what made it so easy for him to get along with kids, even those determined to be little pricks and absolute little monsters. Even when he wasn't in the character suit that he performed in every now and then -- something he used to enjoy. It's actually how he met Jacob . . .

He felt his body moving, his arm holding the hammer in a swinging motion, but he continued to tune it out. He no longer wanted that world. He rejected it. It was a world of pain. It was a world of trauma. He thought he felt the Hammer impact on something several times, but he continued to ignore it. He so desperately did not want to care.

He first met Jacob while both were in costume, and in character. When they were behind-the-scenes, away from the public's eyes, they removed the heads and Andy was immediately enamored with Jacob, and Jacob knew it . . .

Andy could feel his body twisting, and his distorted voice speaking, but tried to pull away even further from that world. It was nothing but pain. Unspeakable, excruciating pain. It was best to ignore it. Yes, let this Skirn identity deal with that pain. Leave Andy in this safe place. Leave him detached and free. Free from in and turmoil. Free . . .

Andy had fallen head over heels for Jacob, and he posted it onto his social media. He would have added Jacob, but he said he didn't have one (he lied, as he didn't want his wife to find out that he had an . . . "extracurricular activity"). The signs were there. The red flags were all present, glaringly obvious. But he was foolishly oblivious to all of it . . . he had never been in love before . . . never attracted to anyone . . . well, there was one other -- Louis -- but he seemed like he was hiding something. Always hiding something. Never revealing anything. Not to anyone.

He felt impacts against his body, but in a distant, muted way. He tried to close his mind to it. Refused to acknowledge it. Refused to further acknowledge anything from that world of trauma. He was happier like this, he told himself. No longer responsible for his actions. No longer feeling further pain . . .

If this was the only way other than death to be free from it, to stop being . . .  being that stupid, naive, sad, gullible nitwit named Andy . . . then so be it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2019, 03:50:21 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXI (1,461): "Captain RAF" -- Cloak crafts six rings . . . uninentionally. Noncanon.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Shock and Dismay

GH noticed a strange light, and, due his RAFian training and natural curiosity, he followed it. Was it foolish to do so? Perhaps. But he was a RAFian and he was prepared. Even though he didn't have his guitar with him, he knew he could summon it, like a Keyblade. (Something that took him a little time to master.)

So, he went to investigate. And he immediately wished that he hadn't. He thought that his feelings were resolved on this man. He had thought that he had moved on past this crush. He really did.

But the moment he saw Andy standing there, looking ripped . . . his attraction was recalled and GH's face immediately went red. True, it looked like a Galvanic Mechamorph or some Phalanx had partially assimilated him, as he held a sledgehammer with a long shaft and a single spike at both of the small sides of the rectangular head, and he had glowing eyes.

But it was still Andy to GH. Despite all the time that had gone by, despite trying to forget Andy and move on with his life, all those pushed-aside feelings came roaring back. Even as he watched -- and winced -- as Andy smashed the hammer down on a male victim where no man should be bludgeoned. This broke the man who was Andy's victim. GH found this uncharactieristical ly sadistic and vicious for Andy. Something was wrong.

Sure, people can change in even the most broad, yet infinitesimal amount of time. And not always for the better. Something was clearly wrong with Andy. GH may not have known him as well as he would have preferred, but he knew that Andy was a good, decent guy.

When he went for another victim, GH knew that he would have to stop him. Whatever happened, GH chose to believe that he could get through to him. He had to. He refused to believe at there wasn't some lucid part of Andy still inside, ready to be appealed to, ready to hearing to his pleas.

When he pulled back the two-handed hammer to swing again, GH charged forward his hand thrown back behind him. His hands quickly greeted the touch of his guitar, in its battle-axe form. And he managed to block the strike . . . but it felt like trying to stop a garbage truck on a steep incline without it's brakes locking it into place. He had become inhumanly strong . . .

 "Andy -- you can't keep doing this," GH said, through clenched teeth. He was still blocking the blow. The would-be victim had already vanished as soon as he was able. GH couldn't really blame him for that decision. He wouldn't want his manhood treated like . . . like that. It was really bad enough what that Inspector guy did (oh, man, did that hurt).

"There is no Andy," he said. His voice was distorted in a manner that GH found disconcerting. "I am Skirn! Breaker of Men!!"

"More like breaker of hearts," GH grumbled to himself. He managed to repel the strike and jumped backwards. Then he transformed his guitar back into its guitar form, with his eyes closed. Then he began to play. He poured his emotions through the music, hoping to reach the part of Andy that remained lucid.

He did this while dodging his strikes. It didn't seem to penetrate the Skirn persona. But GH continued to play on. The music conveying his fear of failing to save Andy, his hopes, his compassion, his will, and his . . . affection. Conveying his disgust, anxiety, angst, anguish, desire, and a further mixture of emotions.

It was at this point the power of his music pushed him into his Musician Supreme form -- with floating musical iconography around him in yellows, blues, indigo, and violets. When Skirn took another strike GH made no move to defend himself, he just kept playing, kept hoping to reach Andy deep within Skirn. The blues started to become more prominent. GH could sense great pain within Andy . . .

He sensed the lucid part of Andy, as this floating musical iconography functioned as a shield blocking the blows, as GH closed his eyes once more. He felt the lucid part of Andy was still there, but now he just had to bring him out. He had to . . .

He had to save him. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 16, 2019, 08:51:23 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXII (1,462): "Touch of Pestilence" -- A girl is able to see what annoys someone the most by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:
Change

And he was right.

The music was penetrating and fracturing the Skirn personality. It was unnoticeable and imperceptible at first, but the cracks gradually grew and became more and more pronounced as GH kept playing. The musical iconography around began to glow white, unnoticed by the Musician Supreme, as GH had his eyes closed as he played.

"We can make a promise,
We can make a plan.
We can make a difference,
We can take a stand.
We can make an effort,
If you only understand,
That you . . .
You can make a change!"

GH blocked the furious flurry of Hammer strikes with his symphokinetic constructs, and he seemingly refused to take an offensive. He understood that andy was in pain -- but the precise nature and details he was oblivious to. Andy -- yes, Andy, as the fissures in the Skirn persona were running deeper and deeper with every note and chord.

GH opened his eyes when he spoke, plainly and plaintively. "Listen to me, Andy! I understand! After everything you must have been through, you must be in a lot of pain."

"No . . . no!" he said, grasping his head with one hand, the other on his Hammer. "I'm Skirn!"

He was clearly holding on to this persona the way a young child holds tightly to a beloved teddy bear. It was a way to run away from his problems, his responsibility, his accountability for his actions.

"And you don't know the way I feel!" he declared angrily, apparently not even recognizing GH as "Louis", GH's workplace pseudonym. "you don't understand anything! You can't change the way I feel!"

GH never stopped playing. Even played on when andy's furious flurry of blows came again, fuelled by his anger. He didn't even know where this burning Nd gnawing anger came from, and, in the moment, he didn't really care.

"You're right -- I can't change the way you feel," GH said, which was not entirely true, but he didn't think it appropriate to quibble on the specifics. "But you can! If you really want to."

This just seemed to fuel his rage more as he attempted to sweep his Hammer and strike again and again. All blocked with GH's symphokinetic barriers. GH began to sing again:

"You can make it different,
You can make it right.
You can make it better,
We don't have to fight!
You can make an effort,
Starting with tonight!
'Cuz you,
You can make a . . ."

Andy geared up the Hammer with an over-the-head strike and GH stopped playing, causing his Musician Supreme form to dissipate as well as his symphokinetic barriers. He just sang the final word, concluding the song.

"Change."

"CAN IT, WON'T CHA?!" Andy spoke, all Skirn influence broken now. He seemed very distraught, angry, and, yes, very much hurt emotionally. "You can't just make everything better by SINGING SOME STUPID SONG!!"

GH chose not to take this personally.

As Andy made to swing his Hammer down, never noticing the white glowing fractures and fissures within it. It dissolved into nothingness before he could swing it down. Skirn was truly gone. And Andy burst into tears, unable to run away from his pain in his heart anymore . . . he felt to the ground in an emotional heap.

GH hesitated before moving toward Andy, but andy was on his feet and running away, before GH took a step. GH hesitated again, wondering if he should go after him or leave him alone. . . .

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xGkiOGe7FdU

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 22, 2019, 03:29:04 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXIII (1,463): "Touch of Pestilence" -- A girl is able to see what annoys someone the most by touch.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
Shattered World

Irma Essex had become Irma Perkins. She had decided to marry Leroy, after he proposed (and his choice of engagement ring was by no means lacking either). She was actually happy.

Content with her home life, content with her more modest job, content with everything. She was far more mellow than she was before the moodulator incident, and she just remembered being unhappy all the time back then. Desperate to be the absolute best, while hating anything even mildly inhuman. She saw just how unhealthy and toxic that line of thinking was, and it was because of the moodulators, though she was actually unaware of this little fact.

She even loved how derpy her new husband could be, and she hoped to that they could have a child sometime in the near future, but it was a little too early in their marriage for that. But she still had to marvel how she had obtained her perfect happily-ever-after. Her world was perfect and idyllic in her view. She had a calm job at a flower shop while Leroy was working as a burgeoning video game developer. They were pulling in just enough money to support themselves, but they didn't need the rich opulence. Yes, their home wasn't the biggest, but there was no shame in living modestly.

But then . . . her entire world came crashing down.

Leroy was in a car accident, and under suspicious circumstances on the part of the other party. Leroy was severely injured. And the investigation that was underway seemed very shady and screwy. The investigators seemed to have not treated the case very seriously, not taking the necessary precautions at the crime scene, allowing people to freely tamper with evidence. And all of this was overt to Irma, and the audacious nature of this flagrant disregard for the accident and Leroy, and seemingly already biased towards the guy who break-checked her beloved.

Leroy . . . didn't make it. Irma had lost her man, her love, her world.

She was furious, apoplectic in her rage. And it was perfectly understandable, especially when she found out that the guy who was break-checking Leroy had the audacity to survive the crash and expect her to pay for damages when he KILLED her love! She never thought she could not feel so angry, and she was more furious when she found out that the guy was a wealthy kid who recently was cut off.

Naturally, she fought back, but the legal system was excruciatingly slow and very costly. And she was a florist. She couldn't really afford a lengthy court battle, even if her lawyer went pro bono.

Her entire world was crashing down all around her, and she wished the world would just burn. Burn and save her from this torment in her heart, this torture in her soul, and this hate in her mind. She wanted the world to burn as hers was burning. Both her and Leroy's families had washed their hands of them a long time ago, mostly when they left the Knights.

That's when she heard it. The call, the entrancing call.

She followed it, not bothering to shut the door to her house. She had to sell all the valuables within to pay the medical and legal bills. There was nothing to take. No one could take anything more from her than what they've already took. She was being called to the park. It was in the park. She had to go to the park.

When she arrived to where the Hammer of Nul laid, she saw entitled parents fighting their children for it, entitled children fighting their parents for it, entitled people fighting each other for it. All oblivious to her presence.

She didn't care about them. She didn't care about anything anymore. She was numb and dead inside. She couldn't feel anymore. She just . . . she was done.

She took hold of the Hammer's shaft with one hand, then the other. Then she hoisted it up, revealing herself Worthy. Her eyes glowed as a different persona took hold of her. She announced, almost proudly, "I am Nul! Breaker of Worlds!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 26, 2019, 05:21:08 AM

Sorry about the brevity. And sorry about the lack of new chapters. Working on another series idea (nudged on by Dino ;) )and, as such, I probably won't be able to post until weekends instead of every other day.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXIV (1,464): "Touch of Guilt" -- A boy can see someone's deepest guilt by skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
Lucid Indifference

Like Andy, the lucid part of Irma receded to a corner of her mind, with the rest of it occupied by the Nul persona. She had hoped to stop this numb feeling inside. She had wanted to feel, to care about something, anything. But, now, it did not seem possible.

After everything that was torn from her, she reached an apathy so profound, so all-encompassing, so thorough that she wondered if she would ever feel again. She had, once again, met with the absolute worst that mankind had to offer anyone. and this time, we was burned and scarred irreparably by it.

She was only aware of her body's actions, its movements in a dull and detached sort of way. And she found herself utterly, utterly indifferent to it. She felt her mouth and voice being used by this persona, but she tuned out the words uttered as she couldn't be bothered to hear or understand them.

As far as she was concerned, it didn't matter. It didn't matter what Nul did. I didn't matter if it was successful in destroying the world -- let it burn to ashes, for all she cared. Let Nul cleave it in two. Who cares? It wasn't like it mattered anymore. It wasn't like anyone cared about it anymore. Everyone only cared about themselves, and screwing those around them over as long as they selfishly came out on top.

The world didn't need saving, she thought bitterly. She dimly acknowledged that she was able to feel, despite in a numb and distant manner. She felt resentment and bitterness. She felt nothing positive. It contorted her worldview back into something like it once was, only more extreme. Her apathy and indifference made a dangerous ****tail with her resentful and embittered demeanor. A very self-destructive sort of ****tail.

She could feel her body being used, her voice being utilized (albeit distorted), and through it all . . . she didn't care. She had been through too much, in far too short a span of time . . . it was, at the same time, too much and not enough. Let this Nul persona use her, as if it had possessed her body. Let it keep her body. Let her be free from it. Be free from that life in shambles. Allow her to discard it like a sweater shrunk in the wash. Let her cut-and-run from her life . . .

Was this a cowardly way of seeing things, of wishing things to be? Perhaps. But she had long since stopped caring about the judgemental people of the world. Their pompous opinions were beneath her and beneath any reprisal she could muster. She didn't care. She just simply didn't care . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 28, 2019, 04:48:24 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXV (1,465): "Touch of Envy" -- A girl can see someone's deepest envies by skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Fixing What's Broken

"I AM NUL!!!" she roared, with a distorted version of Irma's voice. "BREAKER OF WORLDS!!!"

Then she slammed her Hammer upon the ground. This mighty impact caused several DEEP fissures to spider web from the site of the initial impact. It seemed to span several feet. Made sense as she held back the full brunt of her power. She wanted to savor this, evidently. This was her sole reason for being. She broke worlds. That's all she knew to do, and that all she wanted to do. She had no existential qualms or superfluous misgivings about that. This is what she was, and she was perfectly okay with this, as she pulled her Hammer back to swing again with just a tad more force behind it.

She slammed the Hammer upon the ground. This caused the ground to spider web further out and the already-deep fissures to plunge even further. She was taking this slower than she could have -- this may have been her sole purpose, but that did not mean she couldn't savior the act of accomplishing this task, did it? She could draw it out a little . . . artificially lengthen the process. Sure, it wasn't efficient . . . but that didn't mean anything if the results were the same. That was all that truly mattered. Results.

All the while while she did this, she wore a manic smile on her face that made her look not just a little psychotic. She was so enthralled with her own actions that it never crossed her mind that this would attract unwanted attention. She labored with the false notion, the asinine assumption of being untouchable and being invincible.

She never conceived of the possibility that someone could possibly be powerful enough to . . .

Suddenly, these fissures sealed up as if they were cuts or zippers. It was as if she never struck the planet. She was stunned by shock and embarrassment. All of her precious strikes were erased somehow. It was as if she had done nothing. Clearly, she had allowed herself to get complacent. Her face contorted in churlish rage as she raised her Hammer to strike once more, with everything she had in her.

Only to find her Hammer suspended in air, unable and seemingly unwilling to be moved.

"What the devil -- ?" she spat angrily.

"I cannot allow you to shatter the Earth," came a soft, but clearly disapproving voice, that nonetheless carried on the brief distance between the two. Thhen he referenced her Hammer's composition. "And uru? That's a rare metal -- just about second to tylee metal, I believe. I thought it was only found in Nidavellir, but clearly I was mistaken."

Nul struggled to move her Hammer, but it would not budge from it's stationary, aloft position. She was sputtering all sorts of incomprehensible curses beneath her breath that the newcomer paid no mind to. He seemed woefully oblivious to Nul's desperate endeavors.

"Uru," he had said, "a highly durable metal with a property of retaining enchantments easily. Enchanted uru also increases its durability. Unknown ductility. A non-sparking and highly immalleable material, notoriously difficult to forge, usually require the power of a star to accomplish."

Nul continued to struggle with her Hammer, cursing so profusely and ardently that sailor would blush in sheer embarrassment. Her muttering seemed to continue to be seemingly unnoticed by Cloak.

"Such properties have no bearing on Realm Walkers, as magic of any sort doesn't 'stick' to us," Cloak mused, apparently still oblivious to Nul's struggle. "And metal is metal. I am a master of the element."

"As such," he continued, giving this uru lecture, "this clearly cannot be true uru. True, it mimics some of the basic properties, but not exactly. This was clearly not forged inside a star. This seemed almost hastily crafted -- as if the forger was clearly not wanting to put in too much effort. . . . Almost as if they --"

"LET GO OF MY HAMMER!!" she roared, blaming Cloak for holding her Hammer aloft and stationary like this. She was right, of course, but Cloak only gave her only the most cursory of glances.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on September 29, 2019, 04:50:13 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXVI (1,466): "[redacted]'s Friends" -- A lonely character gets some genuine friends.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
Unnerved Victory

"Yeah, that's not happening," Cloak said, truly addressing Nul directly.

"Let go of my HAMMER!!!" she demanded furiously, still unable to move it from its hovering status.

"I cannot do that," Cloak said. Then, thinking what he said needed further clarification, said, "Well, I can, in the context of possessing the capability to do as you've demanded, but I know full well what you intend to do with it. And this? This I cannot allow. I'm more than a little fond of this planet, of this world."

 It was at this point that he locked eyes with Nul. She saw those amber, feline eyes seemingly radiate a power that seemed almost inconceivable to imagine. Meanwhile, Cloak saw her glowing eyes hiding the vacancy in them. Whoever Nul was before had clearly . . . "checked out", as GH would say.

"You can't do this!" she snarled like a wild beast. "What makes you think you have the right?!"

In stead of reacting with anger and pretentious posuring, Cloak countered easily, "And what makes you think that you have the right to destroy the Earth? What makes you think that you have the right to make such a decision unilaterally without any input from anyone else that lives on this planet?"

"Shut up!" she roared loudly. Cloak looked unimpressed. "Give me my Hammer back!!!"

Cloak hesitated as his mind concocted a plan. He quickly assessed and considered every permutation he could conceive of, so he could concoct an appropriate contingency for it. Cloak loved his contingencies.

"LEGGO MY HAMMER!!!" she screamed, sounding quite deranged and almost psychotic. But she wasn't anything like Galactron or Malice or Garrotik. She was dangerous, yes, but she was not within the same realm of dangerous foes the Elements Master has confronted. She started to repeat herself sounding like overgrown toddler who is really frustration.

"You want me to release you Hammer?" Cloak said, hiding a smile. He had an idea of how to resolve this, and it involved getting rid of the Hammer. Without the Hammer, Cloak reasoned, if it was like that other Realm, then Nul would cease to be.

She agreed, but not before hurling a whole wealth of verbal abuse his way. Honestly, after dealing with his mother, it was like someone throwing rocks after enduring cannon blasts. So, naturally, Cloak wasn't intimidated.

Cloak released the Hammer and she stumbled backward. Then she, as expected, wound up the Hammer to strike the ground again. Cloak, of course, wasn't going to allow it. When she began to swing down, Cloak caught it with his right hand. The impact didn't seem to bother him.

He had expected to use his Mastery over Metal to destroy the Hammer, but then something that he hadn't expected happened. He had caught the Hammer with his Marked hand, and the moment it made contact with it, it began to blister and fracture and fissure with bright white light.

"What's this?" he said aloud.

Then the Hammer vanished, destroyed, by this white light. Nul then immediately reverted back to Irma, who immediately broke down. She was melancholic, broken, and sadly pathetic. It rend Cloak's heart to see her like this, it was honestly heartbreaking. She stumbled away, muttering about wishing for death.

Cloak allowed her to go, wondering if it was within his power to help her. Then he turned his attention to his Mark and wondered if she was interfering again . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 05, 2019, 07:48:44 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXVII (1,467): "Touch of Grief" -- A girl can see someone's deepest grief by skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Let Us Adore You

Isaak Prince was sixteen, and he was being smothered.

Not physically, of course. His mother's two older sisters and his grandmother have been overly affectionate with him, when they lost his mother, Eudora, some time ago due to messy medical complications. His family had a net worth of $483 million, so he could live rather easily, and would want for nothing.

This could have easily made him into a brat, a spoiled, little rich kid who would throw childish tantrums when his entitled demands are met with refusal to comply or acquiesce. But that wasn't who he was -- it was what his mother, Eudora, was. His mother, like his aunts and grandmother tended to be rather . . . irredeemable. He didn't know much about their hamfisted tactics or iron grip on their respective markets, and he had decided that he was better off ignorant to it.

His grandmother, Christine Ross, usually wore a long translucent black dress that reaches the floor and has a slit up both sides to her thighs, had pointed shoulder pads. She also wore a cape with white and brown stripes that is lined with glimmering diamond and star designs, as well as a pair of intricately detailed dress sandals with high heels. She had long, acrylic nails painted white. She was about a head taller than his aunts, and towered over Isaak.

His younger aunt had long, straight, black hair which curled inward at the ends. Two noticeable and symmetrical locks of her hair curl and point inwards towards her face, just below her cheekbones. She had a long, ovoid face, a full upper lip, and a straight nose. She also possessed large, sad, downward-slanting eyes with bold mascara on the lower lashes, giving the appearance of a woman in deep mourning. She also had thin, arching eyebrows. She stood considerably taller than Isaak.

His elder aunt short, helmet-like hair and wore pale purple and pale purplish-red bodysuit, a purple coat with enormous shoulder pads, purple gloves, and pale purplish-red, high-heeled boots.

They sang to Isaak:

"Come live with us in the estate!
There's a room waiting for you!
Come on, come on, come on!
Just let us adore you!"

"Guys, you're smothering me," he said, "and you need to remember that I'm not my mother."

"Yes, we know that you're not her, but you were hers.
You know what it meant to love her, and you remind us so much of her . . ."

"Uh, thanks?" he said, obviously feeling uncomfortable. "But I really gotta go."

"But, Isaak!" the three women said, in rhythmic unison.

"I've disbanded my lobbyists! Liberated my employees!" said his elder aunt.

"I never fire. I never make anyone cry." said his younger aunt.

"I've said 'please' and 'thank you', even to peasants!" his grandmother insisted.

Isaak put on a disapproving glare, with folded arms, and said, "What did we discuss?"

"Ugh, equal people," she said, not really hiding her disgust at the idea. "Isaak, we've done everything you've asked!"

"That's great!" Isaak said, clearly trying to sound more reassuring and positive than he felt. "Good job! Keep it up!"

Then he opened the door and crossed the threshold, just saying, "Later!" over his shoulder before they could react.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_pA-OPaC72k (contains Steven Universe spoilers)

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 12, 2019, 04:19:21 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXVIII (1,468): "Touch of War" -- A boy can see someone's deepest war-making desires by skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
Of Its Own Volition

Isaak was meeting with his father, which his aunts and grandmother didn't really care for. Not that they cared one one or the other about Isaak's father, Reggie Prince, but more the fact that he was going there, that he lived there, that he had life their outside their sphere. The only reason Isaak put up with them, really, was because he was trying to help out their employees, which they cruelly abused -- but legally abused (thanks to the three of them being key "donors" -- i.e. bribers and/or blackmailers -- to several high-profile politicians).

Hell, Isaak was sure they had illegal activities going on that he was neither privy to or had any concrete evidence of, as they were friends with several media outlet owners (which was not a lot of people, surprisingly enough). He, himself, found them irredeemable, but he was putting up with them long enough to exact real change and real reform for their employees and general underlings.

They were very draining to be around, especially as they tried to smother him with affection as they were very fond of his deceased mother -- and she wasn't a good person either. She was very self-important, pompous, and had a tendency to keep secrets and lie to those she would call friends. She was never entirely truthful. And she had a nasty habit of throwing people away, even if they adored her. Not to mention she always tried to escape responsibility . . .

It was at this point that he realized that he was not on the path to his dad's place. It was as if his feet had took him some place of their own accord. Once he regained his lucidity, he tried to turn away from the path and continue to the one to his dad's modest apartment. But he found he could not. Something was calling him, summoning him. And he felt some trepidation of fear, but he kept going towards it, despite wanting to turn away. He found that he could not.

And, yet, part of him was curious about what was calling to him, what was trying to entice him. But he felt more fear and apprehension than curiosity. He would be perfectly fine not finding out what it was, despite being curious. It was powerful, though. The draw was overpowering his willpower, which seemed to be ebbing at a remarkable rate.

Soon, he came to the abandoned quarry, where there was a hammer. It had a cylindrical head, and was glowing slightly. His fear and apprehension started to ebb away now. Any doubt he had was summarily buried by this attraction, this draw. He seemed unaware of everyone else around him as his right hand closed upon the handle. He was dimly aware that his body was still seemingly acting of its own accord, only to get worse when the Hammer was in hand.

The transformation was instantaneous. The lucid, independent part of Isaac was pushed into a corner of his own mind, losing all control over his body, voice, and autonomy. He raised the Hammer high, and declared, of the Hammer's volition, "I. AM. KUURTH!! BREAKER OF STONE!!!"

The lucid part of Isaac did not like this significant loss of autonomy. But his scope of doing anything about it was effectively reduced to nothing. Nothing. He was helpless. And helpless by his own hand. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 13, 2019, 04:07:48 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXIX (1,469): "The Force of Speed" -- A nonsentient force of speed looks for a new host.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY:
Unreasonable

Kuurth began to break all the stones in the quarry, until they're broken to dust. Fortunately, the quarry was abandoned, and no casualties were risked. No real property damage was incurred. It was fortunate, but Kuurth wasn't satisfied. He was the Breaker of Stone, but stone doesn't resist, and breaks without a struggle. There was no resistance, usually.

Normally, Kuurth wouldn't mind this mundane sort of labor, but he had tasted Isaak's sense of something better, and wanted more. Wanted to be feared. Wanted to terrified. By Isaak hosting it, it had tasted ambition, tasted a desire for more. A desire for notoriety and prestige . . . aspects of Isaak himself he often tried to ignore about himself. Things Isaak didn't particularly like about himself.

But, because of Kuurth, the lucid part of Isaak had to face it in a most in-your-face that he rather not have had it. He could be very selfish, as his mother was, obsessed with a "happily ever after". Kuurth kind of threw it in his face, but in a horribly indirect manner.

"I want to break greater stone," Kuurth said, with a distorted version of his own voice. "I want screams. I want fear. I want . . ."

Isaak felt horribly used, and found that he really didn't like it. He almost wished that he wasn't lucid. He thought he would have been happier not knowing, not having these negative traits thrown in his face like this.

"Stop right there," said a voice, coming behind Kuurth and Isaak. "I cannot let you go any further . . . with that Hammer."

"You can't have it," Kuurth said, with a distorted version of Isaak's voice  "It's mine."

"I don't want to wield it," AniDragon said, succinctly and matter-of-fact. "I want to limit its damage output. It's an exceedingly dangerous artifact, like all the other ones. Too dangerous to wielded by anyone."

"This is MY hammer," Kuurth grunted, turning to face AniDragon. The grip on his Hammer tightened as did so. It would have been intimidating, had Isaak not been a sixteen-year-old kid and had AniDragon not been a RAFian. Meanwhile , the lucid part of Isaak wanted so much to relinquish the Hammer, regretting ever hoisting it up. He was just thankful that he didn't hurt anyone.

"It's dangerous," AniDragon insisted. She also insisted on trying to be reasonable, as the Kuurth influence insisted on being unreasonable. "You haven't hurt anyone . . . yet. You're fortunate in that regard, but if you keep going down this path, if you keep letting the Hammer influence you like this . . ."

"The Hammer has no influence over me," he said, which infuriated the lucid part of Isaak. As the lucid part of Isaak had no control nor could communicate nor could fight this Hammer influence called Kuurth.

"Clearly," AniDragon said, with a heavy sigh -- as she acknowledged things just got all that much harder, "the influence has a hold already. So, this is how it's gonna be. . . ."

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 18, 2019, 04:42:02 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXX (1,470): "Touch of Compassion" -- A boy is able to someone's deepest compassionate act via skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
Attempted Binding

"You can't stop me," said Kuurth, as Issak was silently raging within his own head. He wasn't liking this one bit, and regretting even touching the accursed Hammer. He just wanted to be free again, and his hopes of ever being so were realistically starting to dwindle and die. "I am the Breaker of Stone."

"I wouldn't count me out just yet, Mr. Stone-Breaker, " AniDragon said, rather uncharacteristicall y caustic. This was a compensation on her part, to counteract her fear. Kuurth didn't look as small and nonthreatening as Isaak did normally, despite being essentially made from Isaak's body and most of his mind. "I do have a way to stop you."

But she, secretly, was at a lost as to how to do it. She needed contact his chest and forehead in order to bind his powers. And she had no idea if that would even work, as her powers were not infallible. They were just lucky that every time she used them within the last two years had held -- this wasn't enough to make her complacent, though. After all, complacency often leads to arrogance, and arrogance often leads overconfidence or entitlement. She was intelligent enough to know this.

Kuurth gripped his Hammer tightly with both hands, in a threatening and dangerous manner. Making what AniDragon had to do all the more harder. She wasn't the strongest RAFian in terms of brute strength or wisest RAFian in terms of sheer intelligence, nor the most athletic, most acrobatic, or most cunning RAFian. But she has the indomitable spirit and will that all RAFians (well, except Kane) have.

"Don't dare oppose me," Kuurth said, looming over her -- or trying to. "You won't like the results."

"I cannot allow you to harm others," AniDragon said, correctly predicting his intent.

"What you can or cannot allow is of no concern of mine," Kuurth countered.

"I will not allow this," AniDragon repeated, doubling down on her conviction. "I cannot allow you to do this."

"That is of no concern of mine," Kuurth said, dismissively, doubling down as well.

Then, evidently tired of the mindless talking, he took the initiative and began his attack. AniDragon dodged his attacks, and it wasn't easy. This Hammer can break any stone, and she was far more fragile than stone. There was no way that she could get close enough for the amount of time she needed to bind his powers.

Kuurth swung his Hammer, and it would have connected with AniDragon. There was no way for her to dodge away, she was cornered. She instinctively held out her hand -- her Marked hand -- out as if to catch the Hammer. She never noticed that her Mark was glowing a blazing white, as she was in the process of wincing.

When the Hammer was moments away from impact, when it was but a few micrometers away from her Mark, it started to blister from the light of this Great Power. Blister and fissure. Then fragment and dissolve away, into nothingness. The Hammer was gone and Isaak gasped audibly, causing AniDragon to look round.

Isaak cried unabashedly, in pure elation and ecstasy that he had control over his body and mind once more. That he had autonomy and accountability of his actions once more. He was free of the curse of that Hammer, and looked at AniDragon, who's Mark's white glow had faded away as if it was never there.

Isaak promptly ran over AniDragon and gave her the biggest hug that he could muster. He felt immense gratitude towards her for this.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 20, 2019, 03:48:06 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXI (1,471): "Touch of Lies" -- A boy can see the deepest lies that someone tells themselves by skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO:
Ocean Vendetta

Maxwell Aleurites was the son of a fisherman and sailor, who he thought the absolute world of. He always greatly admired his father and learned as much as he could from him, and the two were e definition of inseparable, something that actually affectionately amused Mrs. Aleurites, in that she thought this was downright adorable, seeing her two men together, almost attached at the hip.

She subscribed to the belief that sons always have a special bond with their fathers, just as daughters have that bond with their mothers. Whenever she saw them together, she didn't hide the smile she had. It made her happy to see the two happy, and she knew she had chosen a good man for a husband and father. Everything was idyllic and ideal for the three.

She was an experimental cook, always willing to try out new recipes, which her son and husband always enjoyed, if only for the sheer novelty of it. She also knew the precise ways to comfort her men, and they her. It was the perfect happily-ever-after anyone could ask for.

Unfortunately, destiny decided not to continue this kindness.

It just so happens that both Maxwell and his father were on a simple fishing and sailing trip, and everything was going splendidly and according to plan (as much as fishing can go according to plan). Then they were blindsided by a sudden storm that violently churned the sea, tossing their little boat around like bullies stealing a toy from a smaller, weaker child. A lot happened in this flurry of action and terror.

Then blackness. All he remembered after that point was blackness.

He awoke some time later, washed up on a beach. His clothes were tattered and soaked through, so he must have washed up fairly recently. He was immediately taken to their small seaside home by his mother. But his father was nowhere to be seen, and he was assumed to be lost at sea. He was questioned mercilessly about it by those pseudo-journalists only interested in the story as "feel-good" story, despite it being nothing at all like a "feel-good" story. And their interest quickly faded when the next such incident happened, the two forgotten by society as a whole.

But Maxwell was angry. Not at these ambulance-chasing pseudo-journalists devoid of any moral or true compassion. Not at his mother, who tried her best to help her son come to terms with this while trying to reconcile this incident with herself. Not at his father, who's disappearance spelt significant financial woes to his wife and son. None of them were what his ire was directed at.

It was the ocean.

Yes, the ocean, as silly and nonsensical as it may sound. He irrationally felt like it was a sort of betrayal of trust, and this perceived betrayal by the ocean made the young man hate it. Hate it with a fiery passion for stealing his father away from him. Secreting away his body so that they couldn't give him a proper funeral. It was just not fair. The ocean betrayed him, in his view, so, in return, he wanted nothing to do with it anymore. He would not become a sailor. He would not become a fisherman. The ocean could not be trusted in any regard, in his distorted view.

But he did need a job. His mother has been doing everything to support the two of them, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't like they were tremendously wealthy to begin with. So he went to the nearby pier to see if their were any job listings. He needed to stop grieving and moping, and pull his weight with the bills.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 26, 2019, 04:30:31 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXII (1,472): "Touch of Hope" -- A girl is able to see someone's deepest hopes by skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:
Hammer of Vengeance

The pier was encrusted with tourists -- an obnoxiously loud sort with an undue, uninhibited sense of entitlement, concerned only with themselves and their fellow tourists. Getting a job shouldn't be too hard, though he could already tell that, if he got a merchant job on this pier, that these overly-boisterous bands of clowns would be unbearable and intolerable to deal with, as all entitled people and choosy beggars tend to be. Put themselves and their families first and foremost, no matter how rude and unpleasant they make that job.

Maxwell felt about tourists just about how he felt about the ocean -- as he met far too many people of this ridiculous trope before. He believed at they had no respect for anything around them as they didn't live here and wouldn't have to pick up after themselves. The worst ones were the ones who clearly had a lot of money, that clearly had never worked an honest day in their lives, and looked down on the locals as if they were either garbage or "the help". He knew he would not enjoy dealing with these people, but he needed to support himself and his mother, as his father was no longer there to do it all for them, especially as Maxwell refused to sail or fish ever since that horrid day. . . .

But something happened that caused him to forget all about what he came to the pier to do. Something that actually caused the cowardly tourists to flee for their lives, which they clearly valued above others, given how much that they pushed and shoved to get out of the throng. They felt terror at the seeming meteor that was heading just outside the pier's radius, onto the beach. Roughly ten o'clock from Maxwell. It landed with an impact hard enough to knock Maxwell off his feet, but he easily returned to his upright position and went to see what landed . . . entranced and dazed by it, unaware that it was drawing him to it. That it was summoning him to it.

It was a hammer, looking similar to Mjolnir. Short staff, with a square head and two protrusions out the back as if someone was trying to craft Mjolnir into a claw hammer of a ridiculous size and power. And Maxwell found himself drawn to it, but he couldn't definitively say as to why he was. This set off alarm bells in his mind at only a small part of him acknowledged and wanted to look deeper into. No one else seemed to notice its call, but there some that seemed to be drawn to its power and nothing else.

Some who had managed to get there before him -- the disrespectful tourist types that Maxwell despised so thoroughly due to their intolerable entitlement and overblown sense of self-importance -- were attracted by the power the Hammer radiated, wanting it for their own, fully believing that they alone were worthy of the power and perceived prestige the item would give them.

The Hammer clearly disagreed, as none of them could heft it up. None of these flabby, pompous hexagenerians and quinquagenarians could lift the powerful artifact, no matter how they tried. There were some that tried to claim legal ownership of it, but these claims were shaky at best. The madness this small perceived promise of power had driven these horrid tourists to believe they had any justifiability or legal right of ownership. The Hammer wanted none of these tourists, and only Maxwell saw this, as it had been calling for him. He found himself already embracing the call. . . .

Maxwell grabbed the Hammer's handle. This caused one of the feuding pretentious quinquagenerians to disengage with the others of his lot and come over to scold Maxwell.

"Boy! BOY!" he shouted. It wasn't a genial sort of shout. It was the type of shout that would be followed up with an ugly, ethnic slur. " Get your greedy mitts off my hammer!"

"It's not your hammer," Maxwell said. His voice was colder and more distant than it had been to anyone. It was rather chilling.

"It is mine by divine right!" he called out, only to be ignored by the young vicenarian. This did not go over well with this uppity quinquagenarian. "Get your dirty mitts off it. I don't need you getting fingerprints all over it lowering the value, you --"

And there it was. The ethnic and racial slurs had been said. And, yet, Maxwell found himself not caring what one bigoted quinquagenarian thought of him, even when this piece of work decided to tell him how he thought someone like him could lift it when "better men" tried and failed. This time Maxwell deigned to answer the racist.

"The Hammer is mine," he said, his back to the racist quinquagenarian. "Because it has been calling for me. I am its Worthy."

"Don't lie to me, you filthy --" he began, moving like he was about to assault the young man . . . who hefted the Hammer up with no effort whatsoever.

"And," he said, his back still toward the tubby, balding man. "That is not my name. Neither is 'Boy'."

He turned to face the man, now clad in the gray armor the Hammer bestowed upon him. "I am Nerkkod."

The man quickly quailed at this sudden intimidating sight (the dark sky opening up with a torrent of rain and lightning, almost just for effect). He hurried to scramble away, as Maxwell announced to all present, "I am Nerkkod! Breaker of Oceans!!"

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on October 29, 2019, 06:37:49 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXIII (1,473): "The Force of Strength" -- The RAFians must deal with the Strength Force.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR:
Why So Serious?

"I'm afraid that I don't understand your motivation," said a pleasant voice, directly behind him. He turned, and saw a seal upon a slab of ice that wasn't there before. The lucid part of Maxwell and Nerkkod were unified to the point that there didn't seem to be a distinction between them. "You declared yourself to be the breaker of oceans. I confess that I don't know why you would want to do such a thing."

Nerkkod looked around for the source of the voice, refusing to believe that it came from a seal. Everyone knew seals don't talk after all. He could not find a source, but it could not possibly be the seal. That would be ludicrous -- then again, the slab of ice wasn't there before. But . . . the fact of the matter was that seals don't . . . seals can't . . .

"What?" Horse said, in her flippant, irreverent manner, as Nerkkod's eyes rested upon her, witnessing her speak. "You've never seen a pinniped capable of speech before? Now, you never answered the question that I posed to you."

"You're a seal," Nerkkod said, with a distorted version of Maxwell's voice.

"Quick on the uptake, aren't you?" Horse said, glibly. "Yes, I'm a seal. And I'm speaking plainly to you -- and I'll ask again. Why do you want to break the oceans? It's kind of personal to me, as I swim in the ocean."

Nerkkod said nothing, clearly not willing to believe a seal was talking, and, frankly, it was none of its business why Maxwell despised the ocean so much. He just moved in front of Horse with a slow, menacing stride, but Horse was a RAFian. Confrontations with guys holding magical hammers of destruction? About your average Tuesday, for a RAFian. It takes a significant amount to intimidate a veteran RAFian, such as Horse.

Just before the hammer would have made contact, the ice slab melted instantly. It shunted to one side and solidified once more. Horse made a tsk-tsk-tsk sound -- which was astonishing, as seal don't usually made such vocalizations. "So, you're not above -- what amounts to -- clubbing poor, innocent seals? For shame!"

"Don't you ever shut up?" Nerkkod said, testily. The novelty of a talking animal had long sense worn off for him, and had become annoying to him.

"Rude," was Horse's rebuttal. But her being so talkative had an ulterior motive. If he was fixated on her, then he wouldn't be "breaking" the ocean -- however you're supposed to do that. "And unnecessarily harsh."

But then she had another idea, and she hoped she had enough power in her to make it work - - she knew that she probably wasn't the most powerful cryokinetic there was, but she wasn't by any means the weakest. She pulled the nearby ocean water and formed a minor ice labyrinth between the two, with the walls being more like a mirror than translucent. It was a massive undertaking, and took a fair bit of power on her part, but she managed it just the same.

Nerkkod just grunted in annoyance as his reply.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 02, 2019, 03:59:35 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXIV (1,474): "Touch of Delusion" -- A boy can see a person's deepest delusions via skin-to-skin contact.
New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE:
Talking It Out

"I'm afraid that I don't understand your motivation," said a pleasant voice, directly behind him. He turned, and saw a seal upon a slab of ice that wasn't there before. The lucid part of Maxwell and Nerkkod were unified to the point that there didn't seem to be a distinction between them. "You declared yourself to be the breaker of oceans. I confess that I don't know why you would want to do such a thing."

Nerkkod looked around for the source of the voice, refusing to believe that it came from a seal. Everyone knew seals don't talk after all. He could not find a source, but it could not possibly be the seal. That would be ludicrous -- then again, the slab of ice wasn't there before. But . . . the fact of the matter was that seals don't . . . seals can't . . .

"What?" Horse said, in her flippant, irreverent manner, as Nerkkod's eyes rested upon her, witnessing her speak. "You've never seen a pinniped capable of speech before? Now, you never answered the question that I posed to you."

"You're a seal," Nerkkod said, with a distorted version of Maxwell's voice.

"Quick on the uptake, aren't you?" Horse said, glibly. "Yes, I'm a seal. And I'm speaking plainly to you -- and I'll ask again. Why do you want to break the oceans? It's kind of personal to me, as I swim in the ocean."

Nerkkod said nothing, clearly not willing to believe a seal was talking, and, frankly, it was none of its business why Maxwell despised the ocean so much. He just moved in front of Horse with a slow, menacing stride, but Horse was a RAFian. Confrontations with guys holding magical hammers of destruction? About your average Tuesday, for a RAFian. It takes a significant amount to intimidate a veteran RAFian, such as Horse.

Just before the hammer would have made contact, the ice slab melted instantly. It shunted to one side and solidified once more. Horse made a tsk-tsk-tsk sound -- which was astonishing, as seal don't usually made such vocalizations. "So, you're not above -- what amounts to -- clubbing poor, innocent seals? For shame!"

"Don't you ever shut up?" Nerkkod said, testily. The novelty of a talking animal had long sense worn off for him, and had become annoying to him.

"Rude," was Horse's rebuttal. But her being so talkative had an ulterior motive. If he was fixated on her, then he wouldn't be "breaking" the ocean -- however you're supposed to do that. "And unnecessarily harsh."

But then she had another idea, and she hoped she had enough power in her to make it work - - she knew that she probably wasn't the most powerful cryokinetic there was, but she wasn't by any means the weakest. She pulled the nearby ocean water and formed a minor ice labyrinth between the two, with the walls being more like a mirror than translucent. It was a massive undertaking, and took a fair bit of power on her part, but she managed it just the same.

Nerkkod just grunted in annoyance as his reply. Maxwell was never too fond of mazes of any sort, and couldn't fathom how anyone would find such distractions enjoyable. So the same translated to Nerkkod. Looking around, he saw the walls just reflecting his image back at him, and the area around him. There was no way to see past the reflections.

"So," said the talking seal conversationally, "care to explain why you hate the ocean so much?"

And now Maxwell and Nerkkod were truly miffed. Here they were stuck in a three-dimensional ice labyrinth -- with a stupid talking seal trying to inexpertly psychoanalyze them. The indignity of it. The unmitigated gall, the sheer arrogance, and the unbearable complacency the tiny pinniped had! Did she not know who he was? Did she not realize that he had other matters to attend to other than being cajoled by silly seal into "talking things out"?

"Perhaps I can just take a guess?" she said, still sight unseen.

Maxwell did not want to talk things out, especially with a seal stranger. Nor did he ever have any intention to. He was fine. Why did everyone insist he need some sort of psychological evaluation? Even his mother had betrayed him on this stance. He was FINE. He didn't need therapy. He didn't need a grief councillor. HE. WAS. FINE!

"Surfing accident?" Horse suggested, before dismissing the idea. "Perhaps a shark bite? But you look fine and unmarred, so that can't be it."

Maxwell/Nerkkod, thinking as one, acting as one, tightened their grip upon their Hammer, anger beginning to permeate their whole being. It was a toxic sort of anger that would leave you hollow and apathetic after it burned out. It was the type of anger that always invariably led to violence.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 08, 2019, 09:26:26 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXV (1,475): "Touch of Potential" -- A girl is able to see someone's truest, fullest potential via skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
Raging Refusal

He allowed this anger to continue to fester within him. Allowed it to decay him and burn him from the inside. This type of coping mechanism is highly inadvisable to remain a healthy, well-adjusted individual.

"Perhaps you lost a love one in the ocean?" the stupid seal prattled on, as Maxwell's rage was finally built to its zenith at the last word she spoke. His grip on his Hammer tightened, which reminded Maxwell/Nerkkod what hammers typically are meant to do.

He ****ed his hands over his head and poured all his power, all his rage into the blow, and stuck the ice wall. It didn't destroy the labrinyth, but took out a significant chunk of it. And, yet, his anger had not and would not abate. It was a wonder why he hadn't attracted the attention of a Red Lantern ring.

"Okay," Horse said, oddly calm. "So we narrowed it down to that."

"DO YOU EVER SHUT UP?!" Maxwell/ Nerkkod roared as one.

"That's still rude," Horse chided, but continued to psychoanalyze Maxwell. The more she talked, the more she distracted Nerkkod from causing irreparable damage to the oceans.

"I DON'T REALLY CARE!!" he shouted. Although he used more expletives, peppered here and there, that was the general message. He was really angry -- and when one is that angry, they tend to not notice all the important little nuances. Their minds tend to close off to all but the object of their ire, even if their wrath is misdirected.

He was breathing angrily, becoming single-minded in his endeavor to hurt this seal who dared to psychoanalyze him. She had become the object of his rage, rather than the ocean. This had been Horse's plan, but she had misjudged the young man's rage. It wouldn't burn out into apathy for a while.

He began to thrash about, lashing out with his hammer like a petulant toddler throwing a tantrum. He didn't care how it looked, he wanted that seal. He wanted her dead. Because how dare she! How dare she try to psychoanalyze him like this! She didn't even know him! She didn't even know what he's been through! She had no right! SHE! HAD! NO! RIGHT!!

He kept destroying the labyrinth until he saw her, until he found her. Hiding away from him. Like the coward she was! She should come out and fight like a man! He continued this line of thinking before his rage just made it incomprehensible and indecipherable.

Then he saw her. That pretentious, pernicious pinniped! He found that he hated her with every fiber of his being, almost as if he blamed her for his father's disappearance, and apparent death, despite the obvious fact that she had nothing nothing to do with it. He had lost all rationality in his anger.

With a roar, he charged forward, intending on clubbing the seal to death. And he decided right then and there that he was going to enjoy it. He was going to take malicious enjoyment out of it, and savor the memory.

Only to receive a shock when his feet refused to move under his own power. Then his ankles stopped responding. Then his calves and shins wouldn't move. Then his knees and thighs remained infuriatingly immobile. Then everything beneath his neck was immobile. It was then that he realized that he was frozen in ice, unable to so much as wiggle his fingers.

Horse was there, by the head of the Hammer, and he couldn't move to swing it, to bring it down upon her. Didn't mean he didn't try, though.

"Kid," Horse said, unaware of his Mark glowing white, as she put her left flipper on the head of the Hammer. "Kid, this needs to stop."

Horse ignored the string of of vulgarities and obscenities that he threw liberally her way. They were just from a very angry young man with no constructive outlet for it, a young man angry at the unfair hand life dealt to him. She was being far more understanding than she probably should be, seemingly impervious to his verbal abuse.

It took her a moment before she realized the Hammer was fracturing with deep fissures. The blessing of the Great Power destroyed the Hammer as it had destroyed the Hammer's brethren. The Hammer of Nerkkod was forever gone and Maxwell was none too pleased about it, and didn't hesitate to inform Horse just what he thought of her, fitting an astonishing amount of expletives within a single statement.

Horse said nothing, but left in the ocean. The ice was gone by the time she was out of sight. Maxwell was still quite incensed and livid. But he was also powerless.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 09, 2019, 05:23:17 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXVI (1,476): "Force of Sage-ness and Stillness" -- The RAFians must deal with the Sage Force and Still Force.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:
Won't Let It Go

Rotiart was still fuming. After all these weeks, he was still fuming in his anger at the RAFians. His ire at them had not wavered or diminished in the least. All he had to do was look at his horrid, scarred visage in any mirror (hoping none would outright crack at his hideousness) to see what they did to him. He would habe died if not . . . if not . . .

He pushed that particular thought away. It was uncomfortable to dwell on that thought for any extended period of time. He didn't enjoy thinking about it, and why should he dwell upon it? Thoughts of revenge were enough to fill his mind and satiate his desires, apparently unaware how paths toward revenge never end all that well. The results, one way or the other, always have an inexplicable consequence of making the seeker feel hollow and unfulfilled in some small, but significant, manner.

If he was aware of this, he never showed it or ever seem to even consider it. He lusted for vengeance, even in the most vague definitions of the word. It consumed his thoughts, to make him hard-done-by and offended and wronged. He refused to let these hard feelings go. He would not let them go.

They left him for dead. They left him for dead. There is no forgiveness for that. None.

This anger, this hurt, this pain in his heart . . . he honestly thought he could trust these people. He legitimately believed this, whole cloth and wholeheartedly. He rejected any evidence to the contrary as lies and gaslighting. He wouldn't allow them to deceive him with their lies. He would not be fooled so easily.

He just needed to collect more DNA samples to complete his little pet project, one of which he managed to keep low-key, beneath their notice. The little device he was constructing would be perfect for taking them all down. The Realm Walker and star would be difficult, but there may be ways to get them to bend a knee to him . . .

He just had to continue to fly under their radar -- he had a bodysuit in his old likeness that he could wear to hide his scars, to help with this. His scars would make him stand out too much in public. Granted, he made sure the suit removed some blemishes that he was unhappy with.

He wore this to collect some more DNA samples when he saw something land with a powerful impact, roughly five o'clock from him. He felt the power emanating from that direction. It flowed through him . . . made him find it attractive . . . drew him to whatever made the impact . . . it was calling him . . . calling to him . . .

He seemed to cross the land with astonishing rapidity. He felt a powerful desire to possess whatever this item was. He had no idea what it was until he was within view of it. It looked like a hammer with a head like a hand bell (the sort of bell that bellringers at the Salvation Army and such ring during the holidays), attached by the bell "handle" to a short shaft with a hand guard directly beneath the head. It was an odd design for a Hammer, to be sure.

But Rotiart knew one thing. It would be his. And his alone.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on November 10, 2019, 05:44:15 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXVII (1,477): "Touch of Love" -- A girl can see someone's deepest, truest love via skin-to-skin contact.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:
Crossed the Line

As he was approaching the Hammer, he heard someone call out his name.

"Rotiart! Rotiart, wait!"

He ignored it and continued to go for the Hammer. His Hammer. Then the voice called out again, ringing across the forest they were in, across from a mouldering old tower.

"Rotiart!"

Rotiart stopped to see the voice belonged to Sakki. Sakki was truly aggrieved about how she treated Rotiart. Was it harsh? Yes. Was it really necessary to be so rough to him when he was so lazy? Perhaps less so. But she never meant any true malice behind it. She was frustrated with him, true enough, but she didn't wish what happened to him to happen to him.

Rotiart, in return, gave her an extremely soured expression, which deepened when Sakki started to sing to him:

"This has to stop now.
Whatever it is that you're going through,
We'll fix it together - us and you,
Just like we've always done."

Rotiart was angered at what was, in his view, an attempt to gaslight him. He deftly countered with equal, if not more, passion:

"No! This has to stop now!
This thing where you think that you've been my friend,
And don't even hear how you condescend!
The way you've always done!"

Sakki tried again:

"Rotiart, listen --"

Rotiart lost none of his hostility:

"I'm listening."

Sakki tried again:

"I know it isn't true."

Rotiart was still aggressive.

"Isn't it?!"

Sakki tried to coax empathy from Rotiart:

"Just look into my eyes now."

Rotiart was still unreceptive.

"Well?!"

Sakki tried to be persuasive.

"I know you feel it, too."

Rotiart was growing angrier.

"You knew! You knew!"

"Rotiart, listen . . ."

"I'm listening."

"I swear it's not too late.
So, before another line gets crossed,
And everything we've had is lost,
Just wait . . ."

Rotiart's anger spiked. "Wait?!"

Rotiart was filled with a toxic mixture of rage and disgust. It was to the brim, nearing overflow.

"No, I won't wait."

Then he made a mad dash for the Hammer, throwing dirt in Sakki's face, while singing aloud:

"There's a line between the winners and the losers.
There's a line between the chosen and the rest.
And I've done the best I could,
But I've always known just where we stood.
Me, here with the luck-less.
Them, there with the blessed."

He was nearing the Hammer with Sakki finally overcoming her shock at Rotiart's attack. Sakki began to follow Rotiart -- but there were more obstacles in her path than his.

Rotiart sang:

"And that line between the beggars and the choosers
Is a line they never let me quite ignore.
How I've tried to jump that great divide!
But I've never got the chances they were given.
They don't know how much I've been denied!
Well, I'm done being patient anymore."

Rotiart was within reach of the Hammer's shaft, singing:

"I've crossed that line!
And I'm done holding back
So look out, clear the track, it's my turn!
I'm taking what's mine
Every drop, every smidge,
If I've burned a bridge,
Let it burn!
But I've crossed that line . . ."

His hand was about to close over the Hammer's shaft.

"As for you lot, we're over, and that's fine!
I've crossed that line."

With that, Rotiart grasped the Hammer and became Skadi, Herald of Singularity.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iaHBg8E1o00

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 06, 2019, 10:45:36 AM

Sorry about the delay. Been distracted by Pokemon Shield, work, and general life things.

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXVIII (1,478): "Too Late" -- The RAFians are too late. . . .

New chapter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE:
Holding Back

"Rotiart, I'm sorry what happened," Sakki said. She was being genuine about her apology, but Rotiart/Skadi wasn't having it. Still, she tried. "I didn't know about . . . I didn't know. That doesn't excuse my actions, I know. Perhaps I was unduly harsh and cruel to you . . . what I mistook as laziness could have been something . . . else. Rotiart, when I thought you died --"

"Rotiart is gone," he said, cold and stoic. "I am now the Herald of the Twelve-Into-One, the Singularity. I am now the Herald of the Singularity. I. AM. SKADI!!!"

With the last three words, he charged forward and begun his attack, Rotiart's rage, hatred, and feelings of betrayal fueling Skadi's power and furious flurry of strikes. Rotiart and Skadi did not seem divested from each other as most of their other Hammer wielders were. They seemed to have merged into one coherent being, with the identical goals and methods.

"Rotiart, listen," Sakki said, holding back, just dodging his attacks. Had she not possessed her RAFian training, she would not have been able to dodge so efficiently. The Hammer clearly had enough force to cause significant damage. "You have to let go of your anger, it's clouding --"

Skadi's next blow missed her by a fraction of an inch. She felt the slipstream of the Hammer by her left ear. This was his response to what she said. He would not let this slight, this insult, this BETRAYAL be forgotten. He would not let it be ignored. He found the fact that Sakki was coaxing to allow this betrayal to stand, unpunished, and be forgotten -- that was another offense, as for as he was concerned.

He swung, and, he did so, he said, "I am Skadi! Herald of the Singularity!"

"Singularity?"

"The Twelve-in-One, the Gestalt Lord, the Great Master of All Things," Skadi said, and Sakki knew that Rotiart's mind must be being warped and manipulated by the hammer to talk about someone he's clearly never met with such immediate reverence and undying devotion. "The Singularity's will shall be done!"

It was the Hammer. It had to be. It had a hold over Rotiart, that not even he seemed to realize it had. But Sakki continued to play defense because she didn't want to harm Rotiart. He's been hurt too much already . . . and Sakki, despite trying to assuage her burdening guilt, felt responsible for it.

"Rotiart, listen," she said again, trying to reason with him once more, despite knowing the chance of it working being effectively nil at this point. "That Hammer has twisted your perspective, twisted your mind --"

"Be silent," he said, with an almost casual swing of the Hammer, which Sakki easily sidestepped. Rotiart, in combat, always telegraphed his attacks and intentions way too much. He had obvious tells, and it's one reason he was so abysmal in combat.

She decided that she would have to be more proactive in her approach, and stop playing on the defensive and trying to cajole Rotiart to see reason. She will have to go on the attack, but she would pull her punches. She still didn't want to hurt him, despite him really wanting to hurt her and the rest of the RAFians.

In her mind, all she had to was separate him from the Hammer, and his wits would return to him. He was this way because he was hurt, because he felt betrayed . . . and her harshness towards him before . . . before the Wesen thing -- well, it couldn't have help matters any.

She dodged another strike, and gave a sharp, shrill whistle toward the Hammer. Fortunately, Rotiart/Skadi couldn't react in time to defend against the tight-focused acoustic attack. It hit his hand -- the one wielding the Hammer -- forcing his grip to loosen upon the Hammer, and causing it to plummet to the ground.

Sakki was dismayed with what happened next, or the lack of what she had expected.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 10, 2019, 07:34:40 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXIX (1,479): "Lifestyle Choices" -- The RAFians discover a group of humans and Yeerks who have a roulette system between them, to which all parties are consenting.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FORTY:
Misunderstanding and Understanding

Simply being separated from the Hammer was not sufficient to reverse the effects, the hold it had over Rotiart. He simply summoned the evil thing back to his hand with but the most minute of gestures. The solution became clear to Sakki in this one moment.

"Waste of an attack," Skadi sneered, clutching his Hammer with that death grip again.

The Hammer had to go. Completely go. It had be destroyed as if it were a Horcrux, so definitely that it couldn't be magically repaired. As she dodged blow after blow, thankful for the agility to do so, she made the uneasy realization that she couldn't hold back. She had to use her sonics to their full potential.

But part of her still resisted this. Rotiart already blamed them for leaving him for dead (and, to be fair, they had thought he was already dead and thought there was nothing more we could do for him). Going full force might just add more fuel to that fire. Vendettas often don't take reason and objectivity into account. Reason and objectivity often don't soothe the vicious wounds that feelings of being wronged and being betrayed often leave in their wake.

She decided to try reason one final time. "Rotiart, it doesn't have to be this way."

"I. AM. SKADI!" he roared, as he charged forward, taking a leaping overhead strike. Sakki managed to sidestep this attack, but she still felt the slipstream and impact of the blow in a indirect manner. It was enough to knock her off her feet, landing hard on the concrete. She wasn't injured, unless you count her ego. "I shall pave the way for the Singularity, by killing all those who will stand in his way."

"Rotiart --" Sakki said, unable to hide her disappointment and reluctance. "Rotiart, I'm sorry."

"I don't want your apologies!" he roared. "You can't apologize for what you and the RAFians have done!!"

"I wasn't apologizing for what I've done," Sakki said, with a heaviness that she'd rather do without. "But for what I'm about to do."

This actually stymied him. He held his Hammer between himself and Sakki, who knew what she had to do. She wouldn't kill Rotiart, but the Hammer. The Hammer was the catalyst of this battle, though not for the hard feelings Rotiart had towards her and the other RAFians. Though she still thought it was a bit of an unfair judgement, she could see how he came to his determination. And she could could see he came to his conclusion based out of emotion, not rationality. There was nothing she could do about that -- only Rotiart could, and he's already made up his mind to hate her and the other RAFians. No amount of dissuading would change that.

"What do you --"

Sakki unfolded her mouth, to maximize her sonics, and screamed. She remained unaware as she screamed, that her color palette became bleached and white scale. Her eyes were closed, aiming for the Hammer, well aware how Rotiart will take it. But she had to stop him. From both killing her and becoming a danger to innocent civilians. She had no other choice.

She kept her eyes closed, so she did not see how her sonic scream fracture the Hammer. She did not bear witness as these fractures deepened into fissures, casting off shrapnel shards. It wasn't long thereafter that the Hammer was obliterated and the Great Power left her, with her still unaware that it empowered her in the first place.

Rotiart was reverted back to normal, into his red and black, scarred form. He retained all knowledge of his actions as Skadi. But he was now apoplectic again, furious with Sakki. She was aware of this consequence, and had already accepted it, as it had to be done. It was the lesser of the two evils. But she wasn't happy about it.

"You tried to kill me!" he accused angrily, jabbing a finger at Sakki. "You nearly succeeded! You tried to kill me! Leaving me for dead wasn't enough, was it?!"

Sakki stood, with three-quarters of her back to him. She didn't look at him. She didn't defend herself. She saw how futile it was trying to reason with him, especially as he was determined to be furious with them all. Nothing she would or could say would change his mind. He had made his mind up that she and the other RAFians were evil incarnate. It would be a pointless exchange, a waste of energy and emotion at this point.

Rotiart took Sakki's apathetic silence as tacit confirmation of his accusations and said as much, before he stormed away. Sakki felt sorrow for how far Rotiart had fallen, and knowing that she had played a part, however tangential, in it.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 14, 2019, 05:36:10 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXX (1,480): "He's the Box Ghost!" -- A "box ghost" steals several boxes from Pandora's domain.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE:
Follow-Up

With the last of the Hammers taken care of, now it fell to the RAFians to clean up the mess that each one had wrought. It was not as simple as one may of assumed it would be. No lives were lost, but some were severely injured or would just simply never be the same again. There was nothing they could do about that -- Kelly could only heal physical damage. Psychological and mental damages were beyond the scope of her healing ability. Everyone had their limits, and the RAFians were no exception.

Soon, the RAFians were gathered around being debriefed upon the whole situation. No one knew what these Hammers were or where they came from. This little fact caused Cloak a great deal of unease. He was accustomed to having some answers, if not all of them, due to his knowledge of other realms. In fact, that's precisely how he knew breathbending, bloodbending, and Earthsight (Metalsight just basically being Earthsight applied to metallic surfaces) were a thing, and applications of his powers -- he discovered what he calls "mechbending" all on his own. Cloak had no idea how to lessen is nauseating feeling of anxious unease.

The more he tried to think of other things, the less thought he tried to give the issue, the more it disobligingly popped up, like an uninvited and unwelcomed guest who remains oblivious that their hasty departure was heavily desirous. It weighed upon him, and he didn't know why.

Then he heard Sakki talking about what Rotiart, as Skadi, was saying. Something about someone named "Singularity", but she hadn't a clue who that could be. Cloak nearly dropped the box he was carrying (he was helping Kelly and Goom move some of their infirmary stock around so it wasn't sitting in the middle of the floor). Cloak had an inkling of who Singularity was as his mind flashed back to the dream he had from what seemed to be an eternity ago. The one where he interacted with the Twelve. . . .

No. No, they were long dead. There was no way that they could have survived until -- the inconvenient thought of Cataclysm popped into his head. He was an ancient Realm Walker that survived millennia (and that was in Realm Walker years) somehow. Until Cloak was left with no option but to . . . to kill him. But the Twelve couldn't possibility have survived and become this "Singularity", right? It was a farce, a . . . figment of his imagination.

After he dropped off this last box, he bid farewell to Goom and Kelly, and it was only then that he realized that he was trembling slightly. He clenched his fist and stopped, wondering why he felt scared. Yes, scared. There was no denying it. It would be blatant foolishness to deny it.

But he couldn't fathom why. The name 'Singularity' doesn't necessitate a Realm Walker name. It could be a nomme de plume assumed by a Dweller of some sort. And, even if it was the name (chosen or given) of a Realm Walker, that didn't mean that they were necessary related in any way to the Twelve. He was being ridiculous. The name of Singularity meant nothing. Nothing.

He released he was breathing shallowly. He was feeling true fear. He entered his thread, desiring to be alone. Deep down, he knew why he was feeling so terrified. When Ab had the abilities of the Twelve . . . he very nearly killed Cloak. He was at the precipice of death . . . had he not gone down the Epiphany Road, he would have very likely been carried off into oblivion. He didn't tell anyone this, preferring to keep it to himself. This was probably foolish, and Cloak was dimly aware of it.

He just wanted to avoid awkward conversations. He just wanted to avoid perceptions that . . . that he was overreacting to something that's probably nothing. He was probably just making a big deal about nothing . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 24, 2019, 05:16:54 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXXI (1,481): "Specter of Fear" -- The Specter of Fear is released.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO:
Maul's Siblings

"What. The. Veil. Are. You. Doing?" Singularity said, when he caught Malice, who was about three-quarters of his height, holding the oblong container that contained the remainder of the fiends, the remainder of the late Maul's younger siblings. She looked as if she was going to shuffle off and plant another one of the dead Maul's siblings at a specific location for a RAFian to come out and fight. And this was what Malice told Singularity in a very cavalier manner, seemingly unaware of Singularity's distaste for such an endeavor and attempting, unconsciously, to garner his approval.

"So," Singularity said, with a snap like a fallen tree branch to his voice, and he apoke to her as he would a particularly slow-witted child, "you've wasted time and energy doing this inane little exercise in futility. You know these creatures don't represent any actual threat to them?"

Malice opened her mouth to begin her retort, but Singularity wasn't done reeming her just yet.

"So, after each of your schemes fail, this is what you do?" he said, his voice full of disapproving dismissal. "Scheme after scheme, failure after failure, you do this to knowingly accrue more and more failure?"

Then he gave her such a piercing glare that plantlife would have withered away before it, but he wasn't using his laser beam eye power. And Malice was lucky that the Omega Sanction was not a power of Singularity. Even Malice quelled at that glare, which she felt quite odd. She was the one that gave the glares, not received them. Yet, she did not know why she felt the need to comply to this being, this gestalt entity, before her.

"It's almost, as if you don't have any intention on winning," he said, voice like an Artic evening. "That you come up with these ridiculous schemes and overly-elaborate plans only for them to be deliberately solved or unravelled in the end."

"Your Hammer scheme failed, too." she said, trying to, in an uncharacteristicall y meek manner, reassert her dominance over Singularity. Only it didn't work -- as she never had any dominance over Singularity to begin with, and she knew it, but refused to acknowledge it.

"I never intended for it to succeed," Singularity said, his tone somehow colder. Yet, oddly charming in the same way. "It was but a mere test to confirm or debunk some of my theories, as well as gathering some valuable intelligence for me. I didn't do it simply because boredom or a need for childish entertainment drove me to act, like you."

Malice, with no swift comeback for once, just rummaged from within the oblong container for another one of Maul's younger, less sentient siblings to sacrifice to the RAFians. There was not as many now, and she was just picking them at random at this point. But Singularity was not having it. He was not having this insubordination.

Malice was surprised when the container was roughly wrested from Malice before she chose a dehydrated orb capsule to use, and she was about to protest, but Singularity silenced her with merest look.

He used his energy laser vision, and flame-breath to annihilate the container and its contents. Maul and his siblings were all gone now. Obliterated to oblivion.

Malice gave Singularity a death glare, only to quell at the glare he gave her. He said, in a cruelly measured tone, "You do not act without my consent again. You do not speak without my consent again. You work for me now."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked away. His footsteps echoing behind him.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on December 29, 2019, 05:03:57 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXXII (1,481): "Specter of Power" -- The Specter of Power is released.

New chapter.

BOOK CLXXXIX:
SHENECRON'S PETS
CHAPTER ONE:
The Masters Song

Cloak slept, and he knew he was sleeping. He knew he was dreaming. And this dream brought him to Masters Avatar, Guardian, and Sage. His paternal ancestors -- well, three of them, anyway.

Without any preamble, Master Avatar sang, with more energy than Cloak thought he had. It was almost as if this was squash-and-stretch cartoon.

"Heigh ho, do you know
The names of the Nexus diasters
That ushered in the new Masters?"

Master Sage sang, albeit a bit more stiffly:

"Master Avatar was the first, you see.
He and Benign started off our family tree."

Master Guardian sang:

"Master number two would be
Master Progeny, and then number three --"

Master Avatar:

"Master Scholar stayed up to write
A reproach late at night.
So she and her husband had a great big fight,
And she made him sleep on the couch all night."

Master Sage:

"Master Headstrong never had a son
When he fought the War of [untranslated]."

Master Guardian:

"Master Watcher's colossal nose
Was bigger than Pinocchio's."

Master Avatar:

"master Bravado was number six
And it's his uncle's butt he kicks,
And learns to play politics.
Then Master Valor's the one that the elements pick."

Master Guardian:

"Master Batty, number eight,
Had a one-term shot as chief of state."

Master Avatar:

"Master Slider, how do ya praise?
That guy was dead in thirty days!"

Cloak raised an eyebrow, but was ignored as the song continued.

Master Sage:

"Old Master Playful, he gave people pause."

Master Guardian:

"And after him came Master Jaws."

Master Avatar:

"Master Ambition liked to smoke,
His breath killed friends whenever he spoke."

Master Sage:

"Right now, really nifty,
Master Horn's in."

Master Avatar:

"Young and fierce was Master Swift,
The man without a chin."

Master Guardian:

"Followin' next a period spannin'
Four long years with Master Chilvery.
Then the south starts shootin' cannons
And we got a Civil War."

Then all three sang to the tune of "I Wish I Was in Dixie":

"A war!
A war down south!"

Master Avatar:

"Up to bat comes old Master Unnamed."

Master Guardian:

"There's a gal who's really thinkin'!"

Master Sage:

"Kept the Nexus from shrinkin',
Saved the ship of state from sinkin'!"

Master Guardian:

"Master Lotsa's next,
She had some slight defects."

Master Sage:

"The Council each would impeach --"

Master Guardian:

"And so the elements now elects --"

Master Avatar:

"Master Gila, we will grant,
Would scream and rave and rant --"

Master Guardian:

"While drinkin' whiskey, although risky,
'Cause he'd spill it on his pants."

Master Avatar:

"It's [untranslated] and the Council would gloat.
But they're all amazed when Master Crimson, dazed,
Wins by just one vote."

Master Guardian:

"Master Cozy someone really hated
'Cause he was assassinated."

Master Sage:

"Master Guardian gets instated.
Many years later, she faded."

Master Guardian:

"For Master Nibble, really fat,
Elected twice as a diplomat.
Then Master Bright, and, after that,
It's Master Loyal up to bat."

Master Avatar:

"Master Foresight charged up Overlooking Hill."

Master Sage:

"And Master Wool, she gets the bill."

Master Avatar began:

"In [untranslated], Master . . ."

The three sang in unison:

"Mooooonochrome, son,
Takes us into Nexus War I!"

Then there was a brief military cadence, which Cloak found that he didn't care for.

Master Avatar:

"Master Razorback, he does fine."

Master Guardian:

"It's Master Silverback next in line."

Master Sage:

"And then in [untranslated],
The market crashes and we find --"

Master Avatar:

"It's Master Support's big debut.
He gets the blame and loses to --"

Master Guardian:

"Master Speedy, Master who
Helped us win in Nexus War II."

Master Sage:

"Master Seeker, weird little speaker,
Has a long life, and when he's done --"

Master Avatar:

"It's Master Howl, who's got the power
From [untranslated] to [untranslated]."

Master Guardian:

"Master Glider, he got shot,
So Master Web takes his spot."

Master Avatar:

"Master Worker, he gets caught
And Master Strike fell down a lot."

Master Sage:

"Master Tailstrike liked camping trips."

Master Avatar:

"And Master Pinch's speeches' scripts
All came from famous history quips,
And Master Copper said, 'Read my lips.'"

"What is this all about?" Cloak asked, before they could continue onto Master Whirlwind.

---

SOURCE SONG: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oc3xTj3g9QQ

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 03, 2020, 08:34:30 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXXIII (1,483): "Specter of Shame" -- The Specter of Shame is released.

New chapter.

CHAPTER TWO:
A Pet Project

Shenecron paced around his "little" palace in Hell. Unlike lower demons, he could leave and return at will. It wasn't really a prison for him as it was to them. He never really pondered on this, as he'd much rather devote his time and energy into other, far more rewardiing pursuits. There was nothing to be gained from delving into his own past, his own history.

He thought this, despite doing that precise thing in order to manipulate his potential "clients" into signing his contracts. (Funny how they never seem to read the fine print, and almost always take him at his word.) It's amazing how just a little misdirection, a little reframing, and a little manipulation usually succeeds in getting clients to sign, when e wording and rhetoric of each contract is immensely against their farvor, with several loopholes that Shenecron can exploit with gratuitous abandon. None of his clients have ever been able to fight back against his contracts -- they were always ironclad.

But the fun in it was watching them try. Try and hope, try and hope, try and hope -- only to inevitably fail and forfeit their souls, usually, to him. Each mark -- er, "client" -- required a bit of methodical study and intimate interrogation to find the best way to craft the contract to sucker them and benefit him. But that's the fun of it. Waiting them to try and fail, to watch the hope slowly drains away, or when they think they have one over him, when he was playing twelfth-dimensional chess, and was already three or four steps ahead of them.

He couldn't really put his finger on which parts of this he liked best, but he was exceeding good at it. So much so, he actually had a surplus of souls. He only kept the real prizes in his little hidden garden, and the other souls were kept in bauble-sized soul jars, which he could wear as jewelry if he had an inclination. He reveled in this unexpected wealth, but he found himself . . .

Dissatisfied. He had all a demon could ask for. Easy entrance and exit to Hell, at his very whim. Abundance of wealth. No one to order him to do anything. A feared name in mortal realm. And yet . . .

He paced around the room, with an irritated, anxious stride, takin it in, as if he hadn't seen his room before. The floors and walls made of hellfire-cured and decoratively placed obsidian and acanthite, polished to a pristine sheen. The fixtures were made of Stygian ironwork, though, which still complimented the "edgy demon lord" aesthetic he was going for nicely. The room alone pretty much screamed opulence, and was somewhere between a sitting room and a bedroom. But, since demons had no need for sleep, there was no bed upon which to sleep. There was comfortable chair upon which to sit (acanthite and ghostly white velvet), and a couch (obsidian and blood red velvet) upon which to recline. And the room wasn't particularly small -- it was about the size of a moderately-sized hotel room, if not a tad larger. But this was one of the smaller rooms in his over-elaborate Hell-home.

He continued to pace along the floors black as darkness and shadows, wondering why he was in such a foul mood at the moment. He was being waspish and testy, and he couldn't put his finger on why he was feeling such a way, until he realized he was miffed at Demos. It was an old sore point, his little half-brother.

His scowled deepened the more he thought of him, Demos. That little twerp never had any proper demonic pride, Shenecron thought angrily. Rubbing shoulders with mortals and half-angelic slime -- behavior unbecoming a demon, let alone a Prince of Hell. It was irritatingly embarrassing. The stupid little brat was under the impression that he was "bettering" himself by doing these ings that Shenecron thought were utterly, utterly shameful. Mortals were nothing more than tools, means to an end, or mere playthings to inhabit and enjoy hedonistic pleasures in. And tricking them with contracts that they mistakenly believe that they are in favor of was just nothing but a favored pasttime. That was as much worth as he saw in them, despite coveting their souls as a form of Hellish currency.

There was hypocrisy in this worldview, of course, but, as with all hypocrites, Shenecron failed to see any hypocrisy in these assertions.The concept of him being wrong was as foreign to him as Earth was to Mars. Shenecron stopped pacing around, his humanoid draconic form dressed in a strangely stylish silk Armani suit (something that Demos also had a taste for) as he planted his hands upon his dresser, wear he kept the other suits of a similar caliber, neatly folded and extremely well-cared for.

"I must teach him how to have proper pride," he decided, standing up straight, brushing some debris that seemed to have sought out his suit's right lapel. He spoke in a very Seussian, Grinch-like manner. It was almost as if he was animated by Tex Avery. " But how? "

Then he thought back to his garden, then his spare souls. Then he got a very nasty idea, a pet project, if you would. . . .

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 04, 2020, 05:52:10 AM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXXIV (1,484): "Specter of Guilt" -- The Specter of Guilt is released.

New chapter.

CHAPTER THREE:
Truly Scary Face

Shenecron went through his excess, disposable souls to find a particular one. He tapped into but a fraction of the Octoessence's collective powers, the ones they forfeited to him when they hadn't bothered to read the fine print on the iron-clad, verbal contract. He used it to generate an empty shell, a body made for a very special occupant.

The shell was bore some resemblance to a red-skinned, ogre, with an acanthite-lined, Stygian iron cage-like helmet on its head. This metal helmet had two horns protruding from the sides of it, like the helmet of a viking. The cage's door had six bars, four of which are in the center of the door. It opens upward, as a single piece, and the lock in the very center and bottom of the cage door staying on the bottom. Connected to this cage is its armor, which wraps around its shoulders and goes halfway down the chest. The armor is connected to their back underpants by chains, with a metal waistline matching the color of its armor. Its arms were long and misshapen, with weed-like spikes coming out of them and its fingertips were pointed. It also had a visible belly button. The glow from its red eyes can be seen through its helmet's bars.

The helmet was as much of a precaution for Shenecron as for the soul he intended to install into the demonic shell. The soul belonged to the same species, which was decidedly not human, but a species that Shenecron did not know the name of or the name of their homeworld. But that was superfluous. Unneeded information for what he needed. But he remembered how he managed acquire this soul, and he smiled at the very memory of it, as he installed the soul back into a shell that was a near carbon copy of its old body, which was long since disposed of.

***

His name was Hydus (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hydus#Old_French) Nebb (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nebb#Old_English). And he was alone. He had never met another of his kind, and he had thick, vine-like hair covering his green body. His eyes glowed green between these locks. He was alone . . . he was always alone.

But it was never by choice. He never wanted to be alone. He wanted to hold a significant other close, to feel the love and affection from that person. He yearned for such companionship, and was greatly dismayed every time he did . . . every attempt he made . . . every single one . . . was met with, not only failure, but each prospective partner ran away, terrified, when they saw his face. It was a facet of his species of his kind, but it also worked on other members of his kind. He had the misfortune of being uglier, with a scarier face, than others of his kind.

It wasn't fair, he bemoaned to himself. What had he done to deserve this? Why was he condemned to be so lonely? What had he done? He did his species equivalent to crying, and did so unabashedly. Why feel bad about doing it in such a public, albeit abandoned, space? He lamented as to why he was doomed to be alone forever. He was wallowing self-pity, which had become a common past time for him, sitting on this log, in front of this swampy forest.

"You don't have to be alone," a voice said, at roughly five o'clock to him.

Hydus jumped, and looked around. He had thought he was alone. He felt excitement at the presence of another person, but he also the anxiety of the inevitable fleeing of this newcomer once whoever it is glance its hideous face.

But what he saw was a member of his kind, but with what looked like a horned, spiked tea kettle upon his head. It did not look as if he could see out of it, but that might make it so that Hydus could communicate and possibly have a relationship, he dared to dream. He didn't really care that the person before him had skin that was bleached white, with black underwear-like garment and armor.

"I can make it so that you're not lonely," he spoke again. The voice was subtly intoxicating. Hydus never had a conversation last so long. He was savoring contact with another person. He had been so alone for so long . . .

"I can make it so that no one will fear you, or your face," he said. Hydus scarcely dared to believe him. His breathing became a tad staggered as the implication of this reached him. He didn't want to believe it, for fear of being let down. He . . . he could have contact with others, he could . . . could have friends. Perhaps something more. . . .

"For six days," Shenecron said, his disguise only slipping for the merest of seconds. "Got that? Three days."

Hydus looked crestfallen.

"Six days to find true love, and true love's kiss," Shenecron said, with an enticing tone, "succeed and your new face would be perfect -- permanent. Fail . . . well, just don't fail."

Hydus could see the problems with this, but the offer was far too illecebrous to pass up. Even if he failed, he would know companionship. He would know kinship. He would never be lonely again.

"What must I do?" Hydus said, speaking for the first time.

Within his helmet, Shenecron smiled deeply, as he presented Hydus with a quill and a parchment. "Just sign, and it'll be done."

Suddenly, Hydus's face reversed and it became the most beautiful face by the standards of many species. Hydus was immediately pleased -- newly signed contractees always were pleased initially. Before they realize how Sisyphian their tasks were actually.

Hydus's face wasn't deterring other members of his species, but literally attracting them. But their faces affected him. He found himself be beset by females of his species, but he found their faces terrifying. So much so, he forgot the terms of the contract he signed. Soon, the six days were up, and Shenecron came, ditching his disguise and claimed Hydus's soul as his property.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on January 07, 2020, 09:32:50 PM

All titles subject to change.

Book MCDLXXXV (1,485): "Specter of Illusion" -- The Specter of Illusion is released.

New chapter.

CHAPTER FIVE:
First Attempt

Shenecron loved reminisces of these conquests. He reveled in this memory, and all the other memories of innocent people that he manipulated ever so easily with godlike cunning . . .

But he had a task before him that required the use of a minion. A task that he didn't want to sully his hands with retrieval. He intended to teach his half-brother proper demonic pride, whether he liked it or not.

He installed the soul within the husk, which took no time at all. The eyes flared to life, the soul providing a spark of life, of intelligence, of self-awareness, of consciousness. Hydus was now fully inhabiting this husk of a body, with full memory of what went on until the point his soul was extracted from his body (which was now decomposing on his home planet).

"You!" he accused. "You tricked me!"

"Don't speak to me like that!" Shenecron snapped, waspishly. "I still own you!"

Hydus said nothing more, but was clearly fuming about it eyes burning into Shenecron. No one likes being tricked and manipulated that is common place with Shenecron. He knew he couldn't trust Shenecron, but he was still naive. It was a consequence of being alone for so long.

"That being said," Shenecron said, regaining his composure and suave demeanor. This alone was subtly manipulative. "I can give you your freedom back."

Hydus said nothing. He was not so naive to not know that there would be a catch. Otherwise, it would be being optimistic beyond all reason.

"But," Shenecron said, slowly, as Hydus thought that here it comes. "You must finish a little task for me, without hesitation, without reproach."

Hydus waited silently, arms folded. He knew the task would come and he wouldn't have any choice whatsoever. His hands would be tied, any choice presented to him would be a Hobson's choice. Or Morton's fork. Or something like that.

Shenecron was secretly savoring this, making Hydus wonder, making him anxious and depressed simultaneously. This was part of the fun of doing this in the first place.

"You are to find my half-brother, Demos, and bring him back here," he said. Shenecron could have encountered his half-brother at any time, and fried to force proper demonic decorum into him, but where would the fun be in doing that? That would be work. And this way he could show his baby half-brother just how much he was capable of.

"That's it?" Hydus said, unimpressed by the task. Of course, he was expecting Demos to be a child, despite Shenecron not mentioning an age.

"Just a small, simple task in exchange for your freedom," Shenecron said, playing into this obvious misconception. Sure, he could have told him the truth, but where would the fun in that be? Shenecron honestly didn't even expect Hydus to succeed. If he failed to live up to his end of the deal, he would get Hydus's soul back in compensation. So, he had nothing to lose, and Hydus had everything to gain. Then he spoke with a tone like a parent sending their child off to kindergarten, "Off you go, then."

With that, Hydus lumbered out to find his way back to the living realm, out of Hell. Shenecron allowed it, and he was able to see what happened through the husk's eyes, as if he himself was the one seeing it firsthand. It was rather unimpressive and uneventful Hydus getting out of Hell through a small Hellmouth.

But now he had to find a person that he never met, who he didn't know what he looked like, who he didn't know where to find. Hydus was starting to think maybe he he was hasty in his decision to void his contract.

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: YeerkSalad on March 17, 2020, 09:33:56 PM

I always forget, is 1,657 an arbitrary number or do you have 1,657 book ideas already in mind?

Title: Re: Memoirs of a RAFian
Post by: Cloak on April 27, 2020, 03:36:38 PM

It wasn't an arbitrary. I used to intend to write all those books -- but then life got in the way, and then I started working on a new series (completely unrelated to Memoirs) that I do intend to publish some day. (Thanks to Dino for giving me the necessary encouragement for this.)

I might add a chapter every now and then, but between Beyond the Veil (the series title, though it might change down the line) and taking on even more hours at work, it's less likely I'll get a chapter up in any recent date. Sorry for vanishing without a word, Memoirs is still very near and dear to me.